Chapter Text
Whack. The impact was striking. One moment he’d been barreling down the ice with the puck, Rozanov in the dust behind him; the next, the world blurred and he found himself laid across the ice like spilled ink. Shane could hear the din of the crowd, the medics asking him questions, and yet the sounds seemed to wash over him, blurring together.
“Hollander.”
Everything else faded away behind that singular word. The crowd, the medics, the sound of Hayden screaming obscenities at Marlowe—all of it was put on mute by the sound of his name on Ilya’s lips.
“Ilya,” he said. He wasn’t even sure the sound came out clearly. All he knew was that he needed to let Ilya know he was there.
“Is he all right?” Ilya sounded tense, panicked. It wasn’t like him to ever be rattled on the ice like this. It suddenly dawned on Shane that he must be fairly grievously injured.
“I’m okay,” he said, aiming to assuage Ilya’s concern. He wasn’t even sure it was true, but he knew he didn’t want Ilya to worry.
“We’re going to move you onto the spinal board, Shane. Keep your head still, please,” one of the medics instructed.
Shane held his breath at the words spinal board, but did as they asked, trying to stay as still as possible. The world around him blurred as he was moved, and somewhere in the back of his head he knew that blurring vision and spotty sound were not great signs.
“Ilya, please stand back,” the medics instructed, and Shane desperately wanted to protest. But even through his swimming thoughts, he knew he couldn’t ask for Ilya to be by his side.
We’re not alone, he thought bleakly. Ilya, they can see us.
Black swallowed his vision, and he faded into the tide of sleep.
Images caressed his subconscious. At first it was just flashes of color, but slowly, bits of sharpness defined themselves in the haze. Ink upon parchment, chalk dust on a fingertip, blood staining golden sand. The flashes increased in number. It was impossible to untangle the pieces that swam before his eyes, like a stack of transparencies all jumbled together.
But the images weren’t just pictures. They were all-encompassing—sounds, textures, feelings. Battle cries, soft lips on cool skin, and love. Over and over again the visuals came with that same consuming feeling.
Love.
Devotion.
Worship.
Shane’s eyes flashed open. His head was pounding, and the lights around him were so unbearably bright. His body, on the other hand, felt like he’d been hit by a semi truck. This wasn’t a terribly unfamiliar feeling for him after a lifetime of hockey. Waking up in the hospital put a new spin on it, but again—not unexpected. Eventually everyone in hockey took a bad hit and had their bell rung.
The tingling in his fingers and toes told him he wasn’t paralyzed, and at the moment that was all that mattered. One thing he could not make sense of, however, was his mind. It felt like he’d just been jolted from the most immersive dream of his life. He could still see flashes of it and struggled to untangle what they meant.
“Mr. Hollander.”
Shane was pulled from his thoughts as a young nurse stepped through the doorway.
“Hello,” he said. His voice came out a little raspy, and he vaguely wondered how long he’d been out for.
“The doctor will come in and run you through everything in a few minutes, but I need to grab some vitals real quick first,” she said as she approached the bed, jotting down notes from the monitors around him.
“Yeah, of course,” he said, pushing for a smile. Fuck, it even hurt to smile. “Knock yourself out.” He cringed at his own choice of words.
She held back a slight chuckle and continued checking his vitals.
“How are you feeling?” she asked earnestly.
“Like I got hit by a truck,” Shane answered with a grimace. “Or I guess more aptly, like I got slammed into the boards by a two-hundred-pound Raiders player. The details are a little fuzzy.”
“Yeah, a nasty concussion does tend to make things a little hazy,” she said. “The doctor will be able to assess it more when he comes in, but I can give you a bump in the pain meds. That should help.”
She made one last note on his chart and turned toward the door.
Shane laid his head back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling, his thoughts racing. He tried to think back to the game, but couldn’t quite grasp any more details of the hit that landed him here. What he could focus on was the dream. Was it a dream? It had felt so… real. Like he’d lived a thousand lifetimes since taking that hit.
The doctor came in soon after and ran him through more questions about his head, followed by the full rundown of his injuries. He had a level three concussion, a broken collarbone, and the standard post-board-collision bruising he’d expected. He was out for the rest of the season and cautioned to take time off to rest and recuperate before attempting anything even remotely physical.
The doctor continued, listing possible side effects—dizziness, headaches, nausea, memory loss. Shane lingered on the last one for a moment. Memory loss, yes—but what about memories gained? It felt as if the hit had jostled loose a thousand memories, and none of them felt like his.
So whose were they?
“There is not another like you in the world,” he said.
I glanced down at the man in the street before me. His clothes were stained with the clay that made up the ground around him. He was disheveled in a way that indicated a fight.
I glanced down at my own hands, knuckles dusted with red from hits wrought. I found myself reaching out with one of those hands to the man before me and pulling him to his feet, a smile flickering across my lips.
I didn’t feel in charge of my actions, my words—like I was just a player in a scene, letting it all unfold the way it was destined to be written.
“There is not another like you as well, Enkidu,” I said, pulling the man into my arms. His strength wrapped around me, the embrace warming my muscles.
He pulled back to look into my eyes and a moment passed between us. Then his lips were on mine. My body melted under his touch.