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Boston is at home winning 3-1 against Ottawa when Ilya Rozanov takes a hit to the temple during a game in the third period. Unconscious, he’s pulled off the ice and taken to hospital and the game reluctantly continues.
—
It’s not a coma. The admitting doctor in emergency thought so, but several neurologists and a sleep specialist later confirm that Ilya is exhibiting brain waves consistent with light sleep. He’s on the precipice of waking up, except no amount of stimulus will do it.
“Then it’s a coma,” says one neurologist, frustrated.
”No,” says the sleep specialist. “It’s not a coma. We know what comas are and this isn’t it. He’s just asleep.”
The medical staff argue for days on end. His medical proxy is getting increasingly anxious. Ilya’s body rejects the feeding tube they try to insert, nor does it take the IV they try to stick him with multiple times, nor does it need a catheter. His vitals are healthy, his brain waves are normal, and his chest rises and falls, day after day.
When the first of the thorny vines appear, with just a hint of a rosebud, the sleep specialist clicks their tongue, and sends Ilya Rozanov home.
—
Svetlana takes time off work to look after Ilya, but there’s nothing to look after. She trims back rose bushes, but they only grow thicker the next day. She doesn’t need to feed him or quench his thirst or take care of him physically in any way, but she doesn’t want him to be alone.
The call had been a surprise, but injuries in hockey weren’t unheard of. She was more than happy to take care of her Ilyusha, and to keep him company. But this was different.
She loves Ilya, she does — they’ve been attached at the hip for the bulk of their lives and she’s kept him as safe as she could under her wing. She’s been happy to do it. He’d been happy to follow her around.
She looks at the rose bushes, the thorny vines. They extend from Ilya’s bedroom into the hallway now. It’s nighttime and outside is bright with the moonlight reflected on the snow packed on the ground. She knows this story, she thinks, and crawls through the vines.
Svetlana kisses Ilya once on the forehead, and then waits. He breathes as steadily as ever, unresponsive. She presses a firm kiss to his mouth, closed, and pulls back slowly. She’s not surprised when Ilya doesn’t wake up.
—
Boston is playing like, I’m sorry, but they’re playing like hot garbage tonight. It’s been an entire month, you’d think they’d get used to their captain being on IR and figure it out already.
Ilya Rozanov is a superstar player and their captain, Jakey, you can’t just assume they can replace him like that, ‘specially not with a call-up from the AHL. Besides, it’s been one month and what, no news?
Besides that leak that Roz is in a coma?
You say that like it’s nothing.
It’s not nothing, it’s just… What's the difference between that and like, a torn ACL?
A guy with a torn ACL can talk!
Sure, whatever. I just think they need to pull it together, if not for Boston’s sake, then his.
…
What.
What do you mean, what?
You’ve got a look on your face.
I do not.
Yes you do, it’s that prissy look you get when you get all emotional.
I’m not emotional.
Just spit it out already, I can’t look at you.
Ugh. It’s just that—I hope he wakes up, okay? Hockey aside, that’s a twenty-five year old who just got high-sticked during a game and, boom. Coma. No clear recovery. It freaks me out.
You’re such a goddamn baby, Mitch.
—
These last months, he’s been miserable. Obviously so, staring at his phone when he thought no one was watching him and just scrolling, scrolling. She thinks Jane has broken things off with him. It hurts her heart to think of Ilyusha, heartbroken.
Ilya is not perfect. She doesn’t know Jane from Adam but she doesn’t know what those last few days were like, months maybe, and why she would leave him. But she has to try.
She finds his phone and it’s dead. Of course. It’s been sitting with his things unplugged for a month. Plugging it in, she waits, and then it boots up and she sees dozens of notifications pile in, but preview is turned off.
She tries his passcode, and realizes the little fucker changed it. She tries every four-number combination she can think of that would have any significance to Ilya, and gets nothing.
“Shit,” Svetlana mutters, when the lockscreen freezes, letting her know the phone is locked down for the next minute for too many attempts.
She doesn’t have to wait long. The phone actually rings.
Cautiously, she picks it up, to see the caller ID: Jane.
Accepting the call, she presses the phone to her ear.
”Ilya?” a rough, male voice says. She doesn’t recognize it. “Ilya, I saw my messages delivered. Are you awake?”
”Who is this?” she asks. There’s silence on the other end, and then the line is cut.
She stares at the phone for a long time.
—
While the phone is plugged in she watches Alexei call and call and call. She’s Ilya’s proxy for everything. She hadn’t known he had done that and doesn’t have the wherewithal to be mad at him for it. Alexei is demanding Ilya come home. Svetlana never answers. He has no power over Ilya, but Ilya’s predicament means his visa is increasingly in danger. She doesn’t want to figure out who to lobby to renew Ilya’s work visa if he couldn’t work. She can’t marry a man who’s unconscious. If she doesn’t figure this out, one way or another, Ilya would be brought back to Russia.
—
All-Stars come and go. Ilya’s father dies while his house fills with thorns and roses. Svetlana does not go to the funeral, even when her father yells and yells and yells. She cuts through the hedges to tell him, and he doesn’t react.
—
Svetlana goes to a Boston-Montreal game, because as much as taking-but-not-taking care of Ilya takes up her time (mostly by trimming hedges down), she’d like to do things that she enjoys, like watching the Raiders crush the Metros on home ice.
(The hedges are unmanageable now anyway. They’ve overgrown across the entirety of Ilya’s house, destroyed his living room, and the kitchen was definitely unsalvageable. It was a shame; she’d liked the kitchen. You could barely press your way into the house, now, without being covered in little cuts. Soon, she thought, by the end of the season, the whole property would be overrun.)
She doesn’t expect how painful it would be to watch the Raiders play without Ilya. She’s seen them play when he’s on IR before but it’s different because he had been there next to her, chirping his own team’s shitty performance without him playfully. Now, the team plays dead.
She watches Shane Hollander.
Ilya’s rival plays alright. Nothing special. Which is strange because it’s Shane Hollander. She’d caught some of his recent games and it had been business as usual but here, in Boston, he seemed dull and distracted, missing passes and shots that Shane Hollander would never miss. It’s a brutal 1-0 win for Montreal, and the crowd is unsatisfied.
—
(Svetlana thinks, just a little, that the whole thing is bullshit. Ilya is loved enough by her, and he loves her back, even if it’s not the right kind of love, that she should have been able to at least stir him. Maybe that would have been worse. Maybe it would have been worse.)
—
Svetlana uses whatever sway she has to catch Shane Hollander on his way to the team bus.
”Shane Hollander,” she says breathlessly, because she’s been running. If she’s right, then—
He flinches and turns around. Hollander’s eyes are puffy with a lack of sleep, his lips downturned.
”Yes?” he says, unrecognizing. Noting her casual, Boston-themed attire, he takes a weary step back. “I’m sorry, you’re not supposed to—“
”I am Svetlana Vetrova,” she says quickly, and catches just the briefest spark of recognition. “I am a friend of Ilya’s,” she says lowly, so his teammates don’t hear.
His teammates are stupid Metros players, so they see their captain talking to a pretty girl and wolf whistle here, clap his shoulder there. They don’t see their captain’s panicked face.
”Okay,” he says, voice hoarse. “I don’t—“
”Can you come to his house with me? Please,” she asks, and she doesn’t care that she sounds on the edge of desperate. It’s been four months and Ilya is still asleep.
”His house?” Shane asks, blinking. “I thought—at the hospital, they said—“ and then his mouth clamps shut.
Svetlana has never been up close and personal with Shane Hollander. He’s setting his mouth in a firm line, clearly emotional and clearly not wanting to show it. His brows are furrowed and his eyes are searching her like he still doesn’t know what to do with the fact that she’s talking to him.
”You went to visit him?” she asks, surprised.
”Of course,” he says, voice cracking. “I—I tried, but they told me he wasn’t accepting visitors. No one would listen to me. I—“
”Hollander!” someone calls from the bus. “We’re going to celebrate, Capitaine, so get the fuck on the bus!”
Svetlana blinks herself out of surprise. “Tell them you’re busy and will see them tomorrow.”
”I—“
”Tell them!” she hisses, because they don’t have time for this.
Hesitantly, he turns to the bus. To JJ, he says, “I’ll catch up with you guys tomorrow, okay?”
His stupid team doesn’t catch how off his voice is. They howl and wolf whistle and she rolls her eyes, turning so he can follow her.
—
“You were the one on the phone?” Hollander asks.
”Yes,” she confirms. “His phone was out of battery. When I charged it, a month of notifications came through. I’ve never been able to unlock the thing.”
He’s quiet for a minute. “I thought his number got transferred,” he says eventually.
She hums.
”Why are we going to his house?” he asks.
”Because that’s where he is,” she tells him.
”But I thought—“
”You’ll understand why it’s only me and his medical file that knows what’s wrong in just a little bit,” she interrupts, because she’s too tired to play twenty questions, even if it’s her favourite hockey player.
—
When they pull up to Ilya’s house, the roses are in full bloom.
The roses had never bloomed, not in the last several months of growth. It made sense, in a way. It was late May, and Ilya had been asleep for several months now.
”What the fuck?” Shane says, looking at the hedges.
”He’s in his bedroom,” she tells him. “I haven’t been able to get to him in weeks.”
He’s looking at the rose bushes, pouring out of the front door and the cracks in the glass and from pushed-open windows, like the house is throwing up. The brambles are tightly packed, impeccably so.
”What… what am I supposed to do?” he asks. “Is he okay?”
”He’s okay,” she says. “He’s just asleep.”
”Asleep,” he parrots hollowly.
”Just asleep,” she confirms.
“I…” he starts, taking a startled step back. “I need to—“
She senses his panic and grabs his hand to try and ground him. “Shane Hollander,” she says firmly. “Ilya is inside. He needs you.”
”I left,” he chokes out. “In November, I left.”
She hadn’t been totally sure. Sure, him joining her to Ilya’s home, his plain heartbreak hearing about Ilya, his shit playing, and Ilya’s blatant, big fat crush on him had all been clues. She thinks back to Ilya, in November. One week, cheerfully teasing her on the phone. The next, snappy and irritable. She thinks about his pitiful face when she brought up Shane Hollander and his new famous girlfriend. So this really is her Ilya’s Jane.
”It’s okay,” she lies, because she’s not sure. “You’re here now. Please don’t leave without trying. I can’t do anything else.”
Shane’s breathing is uneven, and he needs several moments to come back down to earth. Her hand hurts from how hard he’s squeezing it.
”What do I need to do?” he asks, looking at the entrance.
”You’ve never read a fairy tale?” she asks, baffled. Isn’t it obvious?
”Well, sure,” he says, pulled out of his reverie to give her a puzzled look. “But what does that have to do with me?”
—
Svetlana had ushered him towards the entrance, rolling her eyes, and giving him a kiss on the cheek for good luck. He’d mumbled an embarrassed thanks, and started to push through the brambles.
It’s worse than every badly textured shirt, every microfibre cloth, every grainy food, every bit of sand that had ever gotten in his shoes. The slow scrape of thorns tearing at his clothes, his still-damp back from where his wet hair had dripped, and the growing wetness from his own blood have made this a sensory nightmare, pain notwithstanding.
The house is pitch black, nearly, as filled as it is with brambles and thorns and rose upon rose. Briefly, he wishes Rose was here to help him through this, too.
He knows he passes the kitchen, where Ilya had cooked for him. He knows he passes the living room, the last place he saw Ilya in person.
The brambles start to clear around the entrance to Ilya’s bedroom, making room around Ilya’s blue bed. There’s just enough space, Shane can see, for him to sit by Ilya’s hip.
”Rozanov,” he chokes, and plants himself there. Shivering, he wipes his hands down his arms, and then on his thighs. He’s a mess.
Shane had never seen Ilya sleep before. When they’d napped together, Ilya had slotted himself behind his back. Here, he lies flat on his back, and his lashes fan over his cheeks. His lips are parted in an ‘o’ and he breathes steadily. Without thinking, Shane brings his hand to Ilya’s cheek.
”Ilya,” he sighs, resting his head against his sternum, suddenly exhausted. “Ilya, I’m so sorry.”
Ilya keeps breathing steadily. He seems fast asleep, just like Svetlana said.
”Svetlana told me to come see you,” he mumbles. “But I don’t know what to do.”
A breath, nothing.
”I miss you,” he admits, too quiet to be audible. “I miss you so much, Ilya. I’m sorry I ran away, okay?”
He looks up like that will do it. Still, nothing.
He wipes roughly at his eyes. “I’ll stay, if you wake up,” he tries. “Please.”
Ilya continues to breathe, sleeping soundly.
Shane tips forward then, to press their cheeks together.
”Please,” he murmurs into Ilya’s cheek. His own face is wet, and he thinks he’s crying. “Please,” he says, pressing a kiss to his closed eye. “Please,” he says, to the corner of Ilya’s mouth.
Hiccoughing, he waits, and gets nothing.
”C’mon, Ilya,” he says, “wake up.” Without thinking, he presses a chaste kiss, barely a brush of lips, to Ilya’s mouth.
The effect is as immediate as it is broad. At once, every rose in the room wilts and dies, and the brambles twist themselves into stringy, dry remains. They leave the damage behind, but they’re dead.
Ilya’s eyes, blue and very much awake, shoot open. Overcoming a moment of surprise, he croaks, “Hollander?”
”Ilya,” Shane sobs, and tucks his face into Ilya’s neck.
”Shane,” he says, a little wondrously, cupping the back of his head comfortingly. “I am dreaming, yes?”
A bubble of laughter escapes Shane. “No, you’re awake.”
”Then what the fuck happened to my house?”
—
Svetlana watches the roses die, and nearly falls to her knees in relief.
She considers herself a woman of restraint, and gives them five minutes before calling, “Are you decent?”
When she gets embarrassed affirmation, she’s only a little surprised to see Ilya, upright and seemingly fine like nothing has happened, with Shane, practically torn to shreds, tucked under his chin. He’s awake but seems completely worn out, loosely clutching Ilya’s shirt at his back.
”Sveta,” he says, holding out one hand for her to hold. She takes it, and sniffles. In Russian, he says, “Thank you for taking care of me.”
She nods, lips turning down in an effort not to cry. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you earlier.”
He shakes his head. “You did. It’s okay.” Ilya looks down at Shane, and his face seems torn open. “I’m sorry to ask you for another favour, but can we please go to the hospital?”
—
“You have to be sleeping beauty,” she tells him.
Ilya scrunches his nose. “I’m not a girl,” he says.
”I know, stupid, but I’m playing the prince in the ballet, so you need to be sleeping beauty,” she says. Svetlana went to an all-girls school and there were no boys to play the prince, but she needed to practice.
”I’m not doing that,” he says petulantly.
”You’re so annoying, just lie down and pretend to be asleep!” she yells, shoving him.
He flops over easily, playing along. “What, then you’re gonna kiss me?”
She rolls her eyes. “Well, obviously. That’s the whole point.”
He gives her a cheeky smile. “Being a girl is a small price to play for a kiss,” he says, before making exaggerated kissy noises at her.
”Eugh!” she yells, kicking him lightly. “Gross, stop that! You’re supposed to lie still and be quiet!”
He blows a raspberry at her, but closes his eyes, and crosses his arms over his chest. “Fine,” he says. “Let’s get it over with.”
She can’t help but think that when Ilya lies back in the long grass of the park, arms crossed over, cheeks flushed from when they’d been running around, that he did look kind of pretty. Voicing this gets her chased down the block, but it’s worth it for the way he splutters and tries to deny it.