Chapter Text
Shane hovers somewhere between awake and asleep.
It reminds him of being thirteen, sprawled in a dentist’s chair with a paper bib clipped to his collar, waiting to have his wisdom teeth taken out. He’d never been afraid of dentists. After all, when you played hockey, dental trauma was just another occupational hazard. Broken teeth were expected. Surgery a little less so.
He’d asked if they could do it without putting him under. The dentist had smiled in that stupidly condescending way and explained it would be easier to take all four at once. It would be safer and faster. General anesthesia was the best option.
Shane had drummed his fingers nervously against the arm of the chair as the needle slid into his arm, as the thin oxygen tube was looped beneath his nostrils. The dentist,who Shane wasn’t entirely convinced was qualified to knock people unconscious, had told him to start counting backward from one hundred.
He remembers relaxing. Or thinks he does. His limbs had gone loose and distant, like they belonged to someone else. He could feel pressure, vaguely, and a sense movement in his mouth, but it was all smoothed over by a soft lavender haze. Nothing hurt and nothing mattered.
Later, swollen and numb with ice packs pressed to his cheeks, he’d tried to explain it to his mom.
“They call it twilight anesthesia,” she’d said, nodding. “Not quite awake. Not quite asleep.”
That’s exactly what this feels like now.
Shane drifts in and out of awareness, untethered. He vaguely registers a door opening. Soft footsteps. The low murmur of voices he can’t quite make out. He knows, distantly, that this isn’t his bed- but he’s on the road so often that unfamiliar walls and strange beds blur together. It could be Hayden or another teammate. Anyone.
There are whispers again, closer this time and the faint clink of plates. It’s the well practiced hush of someone trying very hard not to make noise. It feels intrusive to listen, like eavesdropping on something he shouldn’t be privy to. A door opens. Closes. The apartment settles back into silence.
Time passes strangely. Too fast. Too slow.
When Shane finally surfaces for real, it’s because his bladder is screaming and his body is curled in too tight on itself. He’s tangled in a thick, knit blanket which is heavy, warm. Too warm.
He kicks it off with a groan.
Cool air rushes over his sweat-damp skin, and he shivers violently as the heat evaporates. For a moment, he debates dragging the blanket back over himself and suffocating through it, just to avoid the chill. Instead, he lies there, waiting for the sweat to dry, his teeth chattering faintly.
He stretches out onto his back. His nose throbs, tender to the slightest movement, and there’s a sharp, pulsing ache just above his right eye. The ceiling above him is unfamiliar. It’s too high, too smooth and wrong in a way he can’t articulate.
Then it hits him all at once, a cold wave washing through his chest.
The game.
Eva.
The sound of glass shattering as it sailed toward him. Blood on his hands. Bleeding in the streets of New York-
“Hi.”
Shane almost launches himself off the couch. He jerks upright, heart slamming, twisting around so fast he nearly tips over the edge.
It’s Kip.
The man from last night stands by the kitchen counter, brown hair mussed from sleep, glasses slightly crooked. He looks apologetic before Shane can even form a thought.
“Sorry,” Kip says quickly. “I didn’t mean to scare you. You missed Scott-he was here for a few hours, but he left around seven for the airport.”
Airport.
The word detonates in Shane’s chest. He needs to be on a flight to Chicago at one and according to his phone it was nearly noon already. He’s got a Canadian passport which makes travel in the USA dicey at best. He’d need to get there three hours early, minimum-
He lunges for his phone. It’s still plugged in on the coffee table, screen lighting up as soon as he grabs it. Notifications flood in, but Shane focuses on the one from his travel roomate.
He spots three texts from Hayden, starting at six in the morning.
Hayden: dude, late night??
Hayden: Where are you??
Hayden: Nvrmind. Coach said you’d be flying separately. Feel better!
Shane frowns, pulse roaring in his ears. He opens his clock app.
His 8 a.m. alarm is off.
“Oh,” Kip says behind him. The word comes out small and guilty.
Shane turns slowly.
“Why didn’t my alarm go off?” he asks.
Kip winces. “Uh-,”
“And why,” Shane continues, voice tightening, “is my teammate texting me saying I’m sick and flying separately?”
“I told him this was a bad idea,” Kip mutters, mostly to himself.
Shane stares at him in disbelief. Kip’s lips go into a thin line and he can’t meet Shane’s eyes.
“You turned off my alarm,” he accuses, suddenly on his feet. The movement makes his head swim, but he ignores it. Kip doesn’t deny it. “Do you have any idea what that means for me? For my career?”
“I…Scott and I talked. You were out cold. You needed rest.”
“That wasn’t your call,” Shane says. His hands are shaking now, and he curls them into fists so Kip won’t see. “I had a flight.”
“You still have one,” Kip says quickly. “Just later. Tomorrow."
Shane laughs, short and hollow. “You don’t get to decide that for me. And that doesn’t give you the right,” Shane says. His voice cracks with the effort of holding it together. “You don’t get to make decisions for me. You don’t know what happens if I miss a team flight. You don’t know what kind of player I have to be to make up for that!”
“I know I don’t,” Kip says quickly, words tumbling over each other now. “I know we crossed a line. But you were bleeding. You were shaking. I panicked. We both did.”
Shane drags a hand down his face, careful around his eye and nose. Everything aches. His head feels stuffed with cotton and his thoughts are slipping around each other instead of lining up neatly like they usually do.
“You told my coach,” he accuses, thinking Hayden’s texts. “You told my team.”
“Scott did,” Kip corrects softly. “But he talked to the coach. He said you were unwell. That you needed a day.”
“A day can cost me my spot,” Shane snaps. “You know that, right?”
Kip flinches. “Scott said you have pull.”
“I have some pull,” Shane says. “Not unlimited! Not for lies!”
“We didn’t lie,” Kip insists. “You are unwell. You’re hurt. You’re concussed, probably. You should have been in a hospital.”
“Stop,” Shane bites, sharp as a whistle. “Don’t you dare tell me what I should have done.”
Kip’s mouth opens, then closes again. His eyes are bright and desperate.
“This isn’t… this wasn’t malicious,” he says, softer now, almost pleading. “We- I- are trying to keep you from doing something you’d regret. You were going to get on a plane with a busted face and pretend everything was fine. You were going to smile for cameras and let them call it a bad hit.”
“That’s my job,” Shane says. “That’s what I do.”
“And it’s killing you,” Kip blurts, then immediately looks like he wants to take it back.
Shane freezes.
Kip rushes on, voice shaking. “I’ve seen this before. People who think they can just push through. And it doesn’t end with one missed flight, okay? It ends with ambulances and hospital beds and everyone saying they wish they’d stopped sooner.”
Shane’s chest heaves. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you folded your bloody clothes before I washed them,” Kip says, suddenly fierce. “You apologized for bleeding in the apartment. Do you even remember doing that? And you seemed like you were terrified someone would find you. That’s not normal, Shane.”
The words hang in the air, heavy and accusing.
Shane looks away, jaw tight, blinking hard. His anger is still there, but now it has nowhere clean to go.
Kip swallows. “I’m sorry,” he says weakly. “I wasn’t trying to trap you,” God, Kip looks young. Just how old is he? He must be around Shane’s age. Maybe younger? “Or control you. I swear. I just-” He swallows. “I’ve seen what happens when people don’t stop. When they push through because they think they have to.”
Shane’s jaw tightens. He looks away.
“You don’t know me,” he repeats and he hates how pathetic he sounds.
“No,” Kip agrees. “I don’t. But I know what I saw. And what I saw was someone who got hurt and was terrified of anyone finding out.”
That lands. Shane hates that it does. For a long moment, he doesn’t speak. Rose’s words ring in his head, rattling around like nickels in a tin can.
Then, very quietly, he says, “You had no right.”
“I know,” Kip whispers. His voice cracks. “And I’m- God, I’m so sorry. I really am. Look, if you want to leave, I won’t stop you. I swear.” He gestures vaguely down the hall. “Your clothes are clean. I can call you an Uber to the airport myself. Just - take a little time first, okay? There are clean towels in the bathroom if you want to shower. I’ve got toiletries you can use. I can make you something to eat, or get you some over-the-counter painkillers. Or both.”
Right.
Shane’s face.
“Excuse me,” he says tightly.
He turns and walks to the bathroom, taking a grim, vindictive sort of pleasure in the sound of the door slamming shut behind him.
This is insane. He’s known Kip for less than twenty-four hours. Their only real connection -aside from Kip cleaning blood off his face- was Scott Hunter, and Scott isn’t even fucking here.
Shane grips the edge of the sink and looks up at his reflection.
He winces.
His face looks worse than it did yesterday. He’d known it was tender, but not like this. Not this swollen. The ridge of his brow is puffed so badly he can barely open his right eye. The cut on the bridge of his nose has scabbed over thick and dark, the skin around it blooming purple and blue. His nose aches dully. It’s not broken, he knows that much, but it’s damn near close enough to make every breath feel wrong.
His knees go weak at his reflection. He sits down hard on the toilet lid, elbows braced on his thighs.
Fuck.
Kip is right. And Shane hates that more than anything.
He can’t go anywhere looking like this. He’s a terrible liar on the best of days. He didn’t take a significant hit last night. Certainly nothing that would justify this. If anyone from the team saw him like this, if the press got one look, they’d ask questions Shane couldn’t answer. Hell, if he’d made it back to the hotel last night, Hayden would’ve dragged him straight to the emergency room without asking permission.
Shane scrubs a hand through his sweaty hair and exhales, shaky and uneven. Maybe staying here is the best option, at least for now. He can ice his face, let the swelling go down, and buy himself a little time.
He doesn’t know anyone in this city. He doesn’t have anywhere else that’s safe. He can’t see Eva right now.
If he checked into a hotel and word got out that he wasn’t traveling with the team-if even one reporter caught wind of it-
“Damn it,” Shane mutters under his breath.
The word echoes too loudly in the small bathroom.
There’s a soft tap at the door. It makes Shane jump, his heart skipping a beat.
“Shane?” Kip calls through the door. “I’m going to run down to the bodega really quick. Will you be okay for a few minutes?”
Shane doesn’t drag his eyes away from his bruised, swollen face in the mirror.
“Yeah,” he says dully. “I’ll be okay.”