Chapter Text
The air in the TD Garden always tasted like a mixture of expensive popcorn, frozen water, and the desperate hope of twenty thousand people. Ilya Rozanov loved that taste. He loved the way the Vegas Golden Knights - a team that had no business being this good this early in their existence - skated with a frantic, wide-eyed energy. It was cute. It was also deeply annoying.
"You run around a lot, little knight," Ilya chirped at the Vegas rookie lining up across from him. He didn't know the kid's name. He didn't need to. He just needed to know that the kid was breathing too hard and his grip on his stick was a fraction too tight. "Maybe sit down? Take a rest? I will take puck for you. Save you some shame"
The rookie didn't answer, but his eyes darted to the scoreboard. Ilya smirked. In the 2nd period, they were already up 3-0.
Ilya felt phenomenal. His summer had been spent in a high-altitude haze of training and Shane Hollander, of fucking the man that he loved and playing the game that he loved, a combination that had left him leaner, faster, and more arrogant than ever before. He had even let Shane force feed him a kale smoothie concoction or two, which he had offset with an illicit smoke breaks down by the lake while Shane - boring - called Pike - also boring.
So tonight, tonight he was on fire. He had scored a goal in the first two minutes, a backhand beauty that he knew would be playing on every highlight reel in Canada by morning. He could already imagine Shane’s face—the slight, begrudging twitch of his lips that meant he was impressed but refused to say it.
The draw was won by Vegas, a fluke of a bounce, and Ilya pivoted instantly. He loved the hunt. He chased the play into the corner, his skates carving deep, confident lines into the ice. Cliff Marlow was yelling something from the point, but the crowd was too loud, a pulsating wall of sound that Ilya usually used as fuel.
He saw the puck squirt loose near the boards. He saw the rut in the ice—a jagged little scar near the face-off circle—but he was moving too fast to care. He stepped over it, or thought he did.
As he turned his body to shield the puck from the oncoming Vegas defenseman, his left skate didn't glide. It stayed. The blade caught in that frozen jagged rut, locking his ankle into the ice while the rest of his two-hundred-pound frame continued to rotate with the momentum of a freight train.
The hit came a heartbeat later. It was a clean shoulder-to-shoulder check, the kind Ilya had absorbed ten thousand times. But he wasn't balanced. He was a pillar of salt being shoved over.
Snap.
It was the loudest thing Ilya had ever heard. It wasn't a crack like a stick breaking; it was a wet, heavy sound, like a tree limb giving way under the weight of a blizzard.
Ilya didn't feel pain, not at first. He felt wrongness. He felt the structural integrity of his world vanish. He hit the ice hard, sliding toward the boards, and when he tried to move his left leg to stabilize himself, his brain sent a signal that simply disappeared into a void.
Then the pain arrived.
It was a white-hot, screaming surge that started at his ankle and tore through his nervous system like a lightning strike. Ilya didn't just scream; he made a sound that haunted Cliff Marlow for the rest of the season. He rolled onto his side, his hands clawing at the ice, his vision blurring into a frantic smear of black and yellow.
"Roz! Don't move! Stay still, kid!" Marlow was over him in seconds, his massive shadow blocking out the arena lights.
"Marlow," Ilya gasped, the word tasting like copper. He couldn't breathe. Every shallow inhalation felt like it was fueling the fire in his leg. "Marlow, my leg... it is... она находится не на своем месте...." (It's not in the right place.)
"Don't look at it," Marlow commanded, his voice shaking in a way Ilya had never heard. He felt Marlow’s heavy gloves pressing into his shoulders, pinning him to the ice. "The trainers are here. Just look at me. Look at my ugly face, Rozanov."
Ilya tried. He really did. His face was very ugly. But his eyes drifted down for a fraction of a second. He saw the way his sock was bunched, the way his shin bent in the middle where there shouldn't be a joint. He saw the unnatural angle of his skate.
The world tilted. He felt the cold bite of the ice against his cheek, and then the paramedics were there, along with the Bear’s medical team. Their voices a distant, muffled hum. They cut his laces. They talked about "stabilization" and "vacuum splints." Ilya just wanted them to stop. He wanted Shane. He wanted to be in the sex apartment in Montreal, arguing about protein powder, instead of lying on the ice being turned into a tragedy. He wanted to be at their cottage. He wanted to be home.
When they lifted him onto the stretcher, the sheer vibration of the movement sent a fresh wave of agony through him. He reached out, his fingers fumbling blindly, and caught Marlow’s jersey.
"Tell him," Ilya wheezed, his eyes rolling back in his head as the shock finally began to win.
Marlow didn't ask who him was. He just gripped Ilya’s hand, hard. "Don’t worry, okay? I’ve got you. You’re going to be fine"
It was the last thing he heard before he blacked out, the pain roaring up and cascading over him.
Five hundred miles away, the Montreal Voyageurs’ locker room was silent, but it wasn't the peaceful quiet of a job well done. They had just lost a gritty, miserable game to the Rangers, and the air was thick with the sour scent of defeat. It didn’t matter that the Rangers were flying high on a Stanley Cup run, led by a reinvigorated and deeply annoying Scott Hunter; the loss hung low over the room like a fog.
The team showered in a sullen silence, desperate to avoid the media scrum and the looming shame of a clumsy early-season loss.
Shane Hollander sat at his stall, his head in his hands. He felt like he was vibrating. He had played a "captain’s game"—two assists, six blocked shots—and yet he felt entirely hollow.
"Hollander," Hayden Pike’s voice was quiet, barely audible over the sound of J.J. and Comeau arguing about a missed defensive assignment.
Shane looked up, blinking against the harsh fluorescent light. Hayden wasn't sitting down; he was standing by the door of the equipment room, tilting his head in a way that clearly meant come here now.
Shane frowned but stood, his stiff muscles protesting. He followed Hayden into the small, cramped room filled with the smell of wet leather and ozone. Hayden shut the door and leaned his back against it.
"You haven't checked your phone," Hayden said. It wasn't a question.
"No. Why? My mom?" Shane’s heart gave a nervous little hop.
"No," Hayden said, his expression unusually grim. "Rozanov. It was the second period against Vegas."
The room suddenly felt much smaller. Shane reached for his phone, but Hayden put a hand on his wrist, stopping him.
"It’s bad, Shane. I don't want you seeing it out there," Hayden whispered, gesturing toward the main locker room where their teammates were still grumbling. "Drapeau is already looking for a reason to chirp you about him. Watch it in here."
Hayden handed his own phone to Shane, and closed the door to the room. Shane took a deep breath and hit play on the video. It was a replay. Ten seconds long.
Nothing that bad can happen in ten seconds.
Shane watched Ilya’s effortless pivot. He watched the blade catch. He heard the sound—even through the tinny phone speaker—that wet, structural snap. He watched Ilya collapse, not into a slide, but into a heap of uncoordinated limbs. The camera zoomed in just as the trainers reached him, showing the impossible, sickening angle of Ilya’s lower leg.
Shane’s phone slipped from his fingers, but Hayden caught it before it hit the concrete.
Shane didn't make a sound. He didn't cry. He just stopped breathing. He slumped against a stack of hockey bags, the blood draining from his face until his skin felt tight and cold. The image of Ilya’s mangled leg was a hot brand on the back of his eyelids, blurring the cramped room into a dull, grey haze.
"Cap?" Hayden’s voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. He was rubbing Shane’s shoulder, hard. "Shane, breathe. You’re scaring me. Breathe."
Shane sucked in a sharp, hitching gasp. "I... I have to go. I have to go to Boston."
"You can't," Hayden said firmly, holding Shane’s shoulders. "We have a game in Toronto tomorrow. You leave now, you’re fucked. Someone will figure it out. You know the Voyageurs. They’ll eat you alive."
"I don't care!" Shane choked out, the first sob finally breaking through. "He’s.. Did you see? Marlow looked fucking terrified. He was on top of him, Hayden. He looked... Ilya looked like he was dying."
"He isn't dying. It’s a leg, Shane. A bad one, but just a leg." Hayden leaned his forehead against Shane’s. "Listen to me. I have a buddy who’s a scout for the Bears. I’m going to text him. We’re going to find out what’s going on. But you need to stay here. For him. Do you understand?"
Shane nodded, though he felt like he was falling through space. He stayed in the equipment room for twenty minutes until his hands stopped shaking enough to walk back to his stall.
He didn't talk to anyone. He didn't look at the media. He just threw his blazer over his sweatpants and fled to the parking lot. He sat in his car, gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white, and waited for Hayden’s text.
He should call someone. He needed to call someone. But who? He couldn't call Ilya—Ilya was likely in an ambulance or an ER. He didn't have the numbers for the Boston trainers. He was the Montreal captain. He couldn't just call the Boston Bears' front office and ask about their star center without starting a media firestorm that would ruin them both.
"Think," Shane hissed to himself, his breath hitching. "Think, Shane."
He remembered a night in Vegas—a different night, a better one—when he and Ilya had been hiding in a corner of a hotel bar. Cliff Marlow had walked by and given them a look that Shane had spent months trying to decipher.
Finally, his phone buzzed. Hayden. Mass General. He’s in radiology. That’s all they would tell me.
It wasn’t enough. He needed more information. Shane didn't call the hospital. He knew he couldn't. Instead, he scrolled through his contacts until he found a number he’d saved three years ago after a charity event—a number he’d never had the courage to use. Cliff Marlow (BOS).
His heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He pressed 'call.'
It rang once. Twice. Three times.
"Hollander?" Marlow’s voice was a low growl, filtered through the noise of a hospital corridor.
"Cliff," Shane said, forcing his voice to stay in a professional, albeit strained, register. He could do this. He could do this. "I saw the hit. Just wanted to... reach out. Captain to Captain. Professional courtesy. It looked nasty from the replay. How is he?"
There was a long silence on the other end. Shane could hear Marlow sigh, a heavy, tired sound.
"Professional courtesy, huh?" Marlow asked. There was a weird edge to his voice.
"Yeah," Shane said, his grip on the steering wheel tightening. "I mean, we’re rivals, but not really you know? And you know, nobody wants to see a guy go down like that. Just wanted to check on the status for the... for the league standings."
"The standings," Marlow repeated. "Right. Well, 'Captain,' the standings are that he's currently getting his leg straightened by three guys in surgical masks. It's a displaced spiral fracture. It's ugly. They’re talking about trying to set it without surgery first, but... he’s pretty messed up."
“Oh.” Shit. Fuck. Ilya. “That’s…” Shane felt the air leave his lungs. How was he supposed to react? What did a 'professional rival' say when his world was ending? Get well soon? Send a teddy bear? He imagined Ilya’s inevitable, defiant "I lived, bitches" Instagram post—maybe he could like it? Was that what rivals did? Was that all he could do? The thought offered no comfort, only a sharper, more localized pain in his chest.
“Look, Hollander” Marlow continued, a weird edge to his voice, “like I said, he’s pretty messed up right now, so I -”
Shane interrupted him before he could finish his thought, “Is he - was he awake? Is he in a lot of pain? Fuck, I’m sorry Marlow, I know this is weird, I just - you need to tell me if he’s okay. Tell me he's okay."
"Hollander, stop," Marlow said, his voice dropping to a low, steady rumble. "Give it a rest. We know."
Shane froze. A hundred thousand heartbeats hammered in his chest in a second "What?"
"The Bears. We know. We've known for like, three years," Marlow said, a tiny, grim smile touching his lips despite the circumstances. Shane felt the floor drop out from under him. The secrecy he’d meticulously maintained—the carefully guarded glances and the midnight drives—evaporated in a single breath.
“Know what” he gulped out, wondering if this was penance for crimes he wasn’t sure he had even committed.
"Look," Marlow sighed, the sound heavy with a weary sort of fondness. "You two are about as subtle as a puck to the face. You think we didn't notice our star center disappearing every time we’re in Montreal? Or the way he somehow 'found' a girlfriend who only seems to exist when we play the Voyageurs? Not to mention the way he gets all twitchy and vanishes for forty-eight hours every time we have a gap in the schedule. Don't even get me started on the All-Star games. Jesus, I still owe Scott Hunter a beer and ear plugs."
Shane’s breath hitched, his heart performing a dizzying internal inventory of every secret he thought he’d kept.
Could your world end twice in one evening?
"We just didn't say anything," Marlow continued, a grim smirk audible in his tone. "Frankly, it was more entertaining to watch Ilya try to be sneaky. The man thinks he could have been a Russian spy during the Cold War when in reality he's worse than my teenage sister. Trust me, we’ve known for years. The whole locker room knows."
There was a silence that felt like a bullet to the soul. Shane could feel every heart beat in his throat, could hear his ragged breath whistling past grinded teeth. He couldn't see. He could barely hear. He tried to speak but this was too much, this was it, this is how it all ended.
"Shane," Marlow barked, using his first name like a jump start to his system "You've got to fucking breathe man. We don't care. Obviously. We've kept it a secret this long. No one is going to hurt him - besides fucking Vegas Golden Knights who should still be in the peewees. The Bears are a family. His family. He's safe."
"I... I didn't know that you knew." He gulped out.
"I know, kid. And well at least one of us is good at keeping a secret. And it goes without saying, but you're safe too. We’ve got your back in this. You're basically a Bear-in law"
A laugh escaped Shane, a sound that was half-sob and half-hysterical relief. He slumped back into his seat, the tears finally spilling over.
“Jesus, please never let Ilya hear you say that, I’ll never hear the end of it”
Marlow laughs as well, before sombering up to reply, "Look, I'll keep you posted on what we hear tonight, okay? Soon as the doctors give us anything new."
"No," Shane said, wiping his eyes, "No, I'm coming to Boston, I'm starting the drive now. I’ll be there in four hours."
"Don't do that, Hollander," Marlow said. It wasn't a suggestion; it was the flat, no-nonsense tone of a captain who had seen a thousand bad decisions and wasn't about to let another one happen on his watch. There was no heat in it, though—just a strange, heavy sort of pity. "It’s not smart. Not for you, and definitely not for him. Not in the middle of the season."
"Fuck the schedule. I saw the replay, he's hurting, and I need to be there with him right now."
"Look, Hollander, it’s a tib-fib break. It’s a mess, but he’s alive.” Marlow continued, “Plus, seriously man, if the Montreal captain shows up in a Boston ER at midnight, you might as well call a press conference and tell the whole world you’re dating. You want that for him right now? When he can't even stand up? When they still might have to put rods into his body?"
"I don't care about the press!" Shane's voice broke, a jagged sound in the quiet of the car. "He’s alone, Cliff!"
"He isn't alone," Marlow said firmly. "I'm here. Victor is here. Hammersmith is currently trying to bribe a nurse for better Jell-O. We've got him, Hollander. I've been looking after his dumb ass since his rookie season, on and off the ice. There’s a reason I'm his emergency contact, kid. I've got him."
Shane closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cool leather of the steering wheel. "Thank you, Cliff. Please... just tell him I love him. Don't - you don't have to say it like that, just—"
"I'll tell him, Shane," Marlow said, and for the first time, he sounded like a friend. "Get some sleep. You’re gonna need it for the rehab. He’s gonna be a nightmare."