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Shane’s smile at the face off is so sweet that it makes Ilya’s teeth ache. He’s terrified of the conversation they’re going to have tonight, because he thinks that he and Shane have very different ideas about what they need to talk about.
Thankfully, there is one thing that they both agree on; hockey comes first.
Shane may win the faceoff, but Ilya’s after him in a heartbeat. Impossibly, Shane looks back, gives Ilya a wicked grin that makes Ilya’s heart soar-
Marleau comes in too hard, too fast; if Shane hadn’t been looking back, if he hadn’t been looking at Ilya-
Shane hasn’t even hit the ground yet before the screaming starts. A tormented, blood curdling sound, as something small and dark rockets from the rafters of the arena and dives right towards Shane’s unmoving body.
Rani mantles her wings over Shane’s back, the kestrel's small size making her no less a threat to the medics that are flooding the ice to get to Shane. Her beak is razor sharp and her talons curl into Shane’s jersey hard enough to leave holes in the fabric, but Ilya can’t control her right now. His daemon can touch Shane, can check on him; Ilya’s own demands for answers just get him shoved back against the boards by referees trying to clear the scene.
They get Shane loaded onto a backboard, carrying him towards the gurney waiting in the hall leading outside. Ilya can feel the pull on his heart as his daemon is taken further and further away from him, the connection between them going taut. He can barely see her now, the steel gray and pale orange of her feathers lost to his sight as she burrows into the curve of Shane’s neck.
The whistle blows, and he’s supposed to get back to the game, but Ilya’s stomach is roiling with guilt and fear and-
An arm slings around his shoulders, forcing him back across the ice, and Ilya’s nose is assaulted by Marleau’s cologne.
“Off the ice, Roz. You can’t fuckin’ play like this.” he grunts, dragging Ilya towards the boards. “I’m real fuckin’ sorry man, you have no idea. He wasn’t even looking at the puck-”
Ilya fucking knows this. Shane was not looking at the puck, did not see Marly coming, because he was looking at Ilya.
The rest of the game passes in a blur, and he doesn’t even know who won. Doesn’t care. He can feel the string in his heart, the one that’s led him to Rani for as long as he can remember, pulling insistently away from the rink. Pulling him towards her, and towards Shane.
He dresses down sluggish, despite the growing need in his chest. He’s never been without his daemon this long before, and he knows, he knows what it means that she’s even able to leave him like this.
Only soulmates could trade daemons. Too great a distance between a bonded set caused immeasurable pain; Ilya’d felt that as a child when his father wanted to punish him. But the pain in his heart isn’t from being so far from Rani; his heart hurts because he’d been about to break things off with Shane completely.
To walk away.
He’d suspected that there was too strong a connection between him and Hollander; something that would be difficult, if not impossible to break when the time came. And now he knew; there was no breaking this.
Pulling his jersey over his head and reaching for his shoulder pads to remove them, Ilya frowns when he hears his jersey drop to the bench behind him with an audible thump. If his stupid neckguard has gotten caught up in his jersey again…
But the lump on the bench is far too small to be a neckguard, and Ilya’s heart starts to race as he hurriedly shoves his hand inside the rumpled material. Ignoring the exuberant players and their daemons around him, Ilya’s fingertips have barely grazed soft feathers before he’s carefully scooping the tiny body of a sparrow out of his jersey.
“Evie, malysh.” he whispers, horrified.
Shane’s daemon, a tiny sparrow with a mottled mix of brown feathers, lies limp in his hand. She looks so tiny, so fragile like this, that Ilya can’t help but cup his hands protectively around her little body. Running the pad of his thumb gently along her head and back, he tries to coax her awake; though she shivers and pulls her wings back close to her body, she doesn’t wake up.
Tucking Evie into one hand is too easy, the tiny body completely malleable and defenseless; Ilya plucks an old workout tank top from his locker, stuffs it into his helmet and flips the whole thing upside down, carefully balancing it in his locker so that it won’t rock. Setting Evie down as gently as possible into the makeshift nest, Ilya hurriedly strips out of the rest of his gear and gets changed.
The press and the team can wait; he needs to get to Shane, now.
🪶
May’s pacing would be driving Yuna insane if it were anyone other than David’s familiar doing it. The gray bobcat doesn’t have much space to pace in, even given the private hospital room that Shane had been moved to once he’d been evaluated by the care team. But she was too big to sit on the bed, especially with the fearsome kestrel roosted on Shane’s chest that was chasing off anyone that got too close.
“How long do you think it’ll take for her human to show up?” Tux asked, the marten perched on the rod of the open privacy curtain over Shane's bed. The kestrel gave Yuna’s daemon a dour look as he drew attention to himself, her feathers puffing up in an effort to look more intimidating. She couldn’t be more than a few ounces in weight, but the kestrel's beak and talons were sharp.
“You mean, Shane’s soulmate?” Yuna snorts, dropping back down into her chosen chair by the window. It wasn’t a great view, just the parking lot and some landscaping, but it was better than looking at Shane’s unconscious body. Beside her, David looses a long snore, and she can’t help but smile a little.
“Well, yes. Even before she settled, Evie never looked like that.” Tux pointed out, his long tail flicking back and forth.
It was true. Before Evie settled as a sparrow, if she ever took on an animal shape that was bigger than a small dog, Shane would break down crying, completely hysterical. He wasn’t scared of large daemons, just of having one; anything that would keep him from travelling with a hockey team and living out his dream. Not that the kestrel was particularly large; just intimidating.
The whole family had been relieved when Evie had finally settled into a small sparrow. Fragile as she was, Evie was fast; just like Shane, on the ice.
“I don’t know who’s daemon that is.” Yuna sighed. “But I hope they get here soon. I’m worried about Evie.”
“She’s probably fine.” May assures her, brushing up against Yuna’s legs and headbutting her for some affection.
“Then why isn’t Shane waking up?” Yuna bites back, because that’s her baby and the doctor’s don’t have an answer for that either. A concussion and a fractured collar bone shouldn’t be enough to keep Shane, who was in perfect health, down for the count like this.
There’s a soft knock at the door, and Yuna wipes at her face, brushing away the tears that are gathering there. She’s expecting a nurse, so the man at the door catches her off guard.
It’s Ilya Rozanov.
🪶
With Evie tucked carefully into the breastpocket of his dress shirt, and his dark coat wrapped protectively over the both of them, Ilya steps into Shane’s hospital room. Rani bitches at him from the bed, where she’s roosting on Shane’s chest; she doesn’t get up though, and Ilya doesn’t blame her.
He wishes he could avoid talking too, just curl up next to Shane and be silent and close with him. But there are other people here, and he doesn’t need an introduction to know that these are Shane’s parents that he’s about to meet for the first time.
His soulmate's parents.
“Hi.”
Ilya curses his fucking accent, dipping one hand into his coat to press gently against Evie’s tidy body; he needs the reassurance that she’s okay, that she’s still here.
“Hello, Rozanov.” Shane’s mother says, standing from her chair and striding towards him. There’s a bobcat at her heels that sticks to her like glue as she moves, the two predators in perfect pace with one another. “I’m Yuna, Shane’s mother. It’s good of you to stop by. Very sportsmanlike.”
Ilya’s relieved to feel the barest twitch of movement against his palm from Evie before he’s forced to extend his hand to shake Yuna’s.
“Er. Yes. Marleau feels really bad, he did not mean to hurt him.” Ilya says awkwardly. In truth, he probably would have left it to the coaches to send something along for Hollander if he were any other captain in the league. But it’s Shane, and he’s carrying Shane’s daemon in his pocket, so. Here he is.
“I’m sure he does.” Yuna says tightly. “I’m afraid Shane’s not awake right now, he hasn’t woken up at all yet, actually, and-”
“He has not woken up?” Ilya cuts in sharply. “Why? What is wrong?”
If Yuna is startled by his demanding questions, she hides it well.
“They don’t think it’s from his injuries. He has a concussion, which isn’t great, but the only thing that’s broken is his fractured collar bone. They don’t know… why he’s…”
Yuna’s words trail off as Ilya turns away from her and moves to Shane’s side. He reaches out to trace his thumb against Shane’s precious freckles, prominent in the harsh hospital lighting against his sickly pale skin.
“Shane. Malysh. What are you doing, hm? You are scaring your Mama. Wake up.” Ilya whispers, leaning over Shane’s prone form and carefully extracting Evie from his shirt pocket. He lays her down on Shane’s chest with the utmost care, and Rani immediately scoots over, mantling her wing over the small sparrow and tucking her in close with a worried series of chitters.
“Be careful, that daemon is pretty protective of him.” Yuna warns, her hand tugging on Ilya’s shoulder to pull him away from Rani’s sharp beak.
“Oh, I know this.” Ilya snorts, standing upright and taking a single step back from the bed. “I am sorry. I should not intrude on your family time, I wanted-”
“You’re not intruding! It’s good that you-”
“Evie!”
Ilya startles as something dark cries out above him; he steps away, instinctively tugging Yuna along with him, but it’s just a daemon. Long and dark and… some kind of ferret? hanging from the privacy curtain of Shane’s hospital bed.
“Look! Evie’s back, she’s under the kestrel!” the creature insists, and Ilya curses to himself. He hadn’t thought to look up when carefully placing Evie back where she belongs.
“What?”
Yuna steps back towards the bed, and she’s so caught up in trying to peer under Rani’s wing for a peek at Evie that she misses Shane’s eyes twitching, his cute nose scrunching as he slowly wakes up.
Ilya briefly considers fleeing, before the sleeping man in the corner or the terrifying force that is Shane Hollander’s mother can realize what this means; the implications behind it being him that brought back Evie, but he’s frozen in place a moment later.
Because Shane’s eyes are opening, and he spots Ilya first, and he opens his mouth-
“Ilyaaaaa!”
Blyat.