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Shane knows that his injury statistics are extraordinarily good. The first time he was benched out of a season was when Marleau knocked into him in Boston. Part of the reason he’s been hit so little is probably that he’s not very prone to getting into fights. Less opportunity that way, which means Shane gets to play more.
He’s very glad they’re in the finals, because Montréal seem to have made it their personal mission to drive his statistics up. Every player bar Hayden is checking him at what feels like every single given opportunity. He’s constantly bouncing off the boards or being knocked off-course or scrambling to regain his balance. Montréal are playing dirty, and Shane is going to have the bruises to show for it.
Part of Shane gets it — he wouldn’t want to lose the Stanley Cup to his former captain on home ice, either. The other party of him is dizzyingly angry and upset. Somewhere inside him is a slowly healing wound, and the Metros are picking at the scab.
It’s a nailbiter, so far — play has been even all game, and they’re two to two heading into the third period. He firmly tells a fuming Ilya to leave it during the break. They can’t afford to have Ilya off the ice for a second longer than absolutely necessary, and definitely not because of a major for defending Shane’s honor. So instead of dropping gloves, Ilya stands up to address the team right before they’re due to hit the ice again.
“Let’s fucking embarrass these motherfuckers,” he says simply. The bench erupts into cheers and whistles, and Ilya hopping the boards is accompanied by the furious tapping of sticks against them.
Shane follows him onto the ice and skates up to bump their helmets together. “That was hot,” he says. Ilya grins at him.
“You have seen nothing. Just wait until we win the Cup.”
He skates smoothly away to the face-off.
Third period is, for lack of a better word, Hell. Comeau trips him not even five minutes in and gets sent to the penalty box. That leaves Ottawa with a power play and Shane and Ilya on the ice at the same time. Shane’s shot pings off the inside of the goalpost and back out into play. The close call, and likely Shane being the one attempting a goal, relights the fire under Montréal’s ass.
Dykstra nearly fights the ref ten minutes in when Roy checks Shane so hard he falls to his knees and gets only a warning. Bruises tomorrow, nothing to worry about now. Ilya checks in with Shane with a glance and is apparently satisfied with what he finds, because he goes to still Dykstra. The Centaurs will not rise to the bait.
Five minutes to final whistle, Shane gives an assist to Haas, who scores. The stands erupt, and Haas glides smoothly past the tussle starting up by the crease to accept a row of fist bumps from the bench. The refs scatter the mass of people gathered by the net.
Two minutes to final whistle, Shane intercepts what would’ve probably been a scoring shot on goal.
One minute and thirty seconds to final whistle, Shane is checked so hard into the boards that something in his shoulder pops and his vision goes black. He hears the din of the crowd, the voices of several players yelling. The ref’s whistle is sharp and high, and he winces at the sound. He whines at the sound of skates approaching, the sound of the blades on ice suddenly overwhelming.
“Shane.” The familiar voice is a balm. “Shane, my love.”
Oh, cute. He’s translating in case Shane is concussed and won’t understand the Russian. Shane blinks his eyes open to see his husband’s concerned face. His helmet is still on. That’s good, he needs to finish the game so they can win. “даda,” Shane mutters. There’s a medic hovering right behind Ilya.
Ilya smiles tightly at him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” Shane says. Getting over the disorientation of the hit and the fall, he can tell that the only real issue is his shoulder. “Shoulder’s definitely fucked, but I don’t think I’m concussed.”
Ilya nods and moves to help him. The medic and him glide Shane slowly to the bench, where Weibe has already opened the boards to help shepherd him in. The crowd applauds as Shane sits down, and he waves quickly to the camera he knows is definitely being fed to every single screen right now. The medic informs him his shoulder isn’t dislocated, probably just badly sprained.
“Look at me,” the medic says, pointing a little light in his eyes. Concussion protocol, fantastic. Ilya leans over the boards to whispers something to Weibe, who nods tightly. Ilya’s focus moves to Shane.
“I will win for us, yes?”
Shane flicks his gaze quickly to his husband, letting a crooked smile stretch his lips. “Give ‘em hell.”
And that’s exactly what he does. If Shane didn’t know any better, he’d say Ilya’s on performance-enhancing drugs based on how he’s playing. For the remaining ninety seconds of the game, he’s faster and stronger than Shane’s ever seen him. Likely, he’s pushing himself because he knows it’s the very end of both the game and the season as a whole. But damn if it isn’t a little hot. The final whistle blows, and Ottawa Centaurs have won the Stanley Cup. The team floods out onto the ice, and with a well-placed pitiful look at his coach and the medic, so does Shane.
Ilya’s eyes light up when he sees Shane, and he skates up to grab him around the waist and lift him up. “We did it,” he whispers.
Shane wiggles to get him to let him down. Ilya complies and Shane immediately surges up to kiss him. “We did.”
He’s distantly aware that they’re being broadcast live on television, which would probably alarm him more if it weren’t for the fact that Shane has just won the Cup with his husband. So fucking what if the kiss is maybe a little too dirty for daytime?
Shane pushes on Ilya’s chest after what is both way too long and not nearly long enough. “Handshakes,” he mutters, “sportsmanship.” It’s like he’s just saying words.
Ilya scoffs. “Sportsmanship is not why you will be only little spoon for six weeks.”
“Knock it off, captain,” Shane says. Ilya’s eyes flare with heat, and he pulls back to gather the team into some semblance of order for the handshakes. Across the ice, Montréal seem to be similarly rounding up, albeit much less cheerfully. They line up at center ice.
Wilson, who delivered the check that knocked Shane out, doesn’t even look remorseful. He looks pissed.
Ilya squeezes Shane’s good shoulder quickly, and then leans in to whisper, “don’t even try to tattle to Weibe, because he agrees with me.”
Before Shane can so much as ask what the hell that means, Ilya has skated off and is standing in front of Wilson. Shane realizes what’s going on only after Ilya has punched Wilson hard enough to break his nose and spit on the ice in front of him. He mutters something in Russian that Shane can’t make out, and then skates backward to join the nice, ordered lineup for handshakes. The medics are rushing to get gauze for Wilson’s nose and stop blood getting all over the ice, and the referees are just sort of awkwardly hovering, not entirely sure how to handle the situation.
Neither teams move for a moment, until Ilya reaches his hand out to J.J.
“Good game,” he says.
When they get off the ice, Mom and Dad are already waiting outside the dressing room. His Mom is, unbelievably, dressed in an Ottawa jersey in Montréal’s home arena. Shane feels a wave of affection when he sees it’s one of the hyphenated Hollander-Rozanov jerseys that Harris had printed as an anniversary gift. “You,” she points at Ilya, menacing even though she’s a foot and a half shorter than him, “are an idiot.”
She walks up to him and reaches up to press a kiss to his cheek and give it a little pat.
“And you,” she shifts her gaze to Shane, eyes focusing on the strip of gauze acting as a makeshift sling, “are going in an ambulance right now.”
The waiting ambulance takes Shane (and Ilya) swiftly to Montréal General Hospital, where they’re thankfully given a private room to wait in for the MRI after his X-ray. The worst of the fans are probably in the arena, or at least at home to watch the game, but Shane doesn’t want to field any people asking for photos or autographs in his current state. “We might have to kick you out if it gets busy,” the nurse explains matter-of-factly. “But they haven’t ruled out surgery, yet, so count on this being home base for a bit. And don’t have anything to eat or drink.”
“Yeah, ‘course,” Shane says. They ask him to rate his pain and then give him a little cup filled with about seven pills of OTC medication to field the 6/10 discomfort. Ilya sits dutifully next to him while they wait, on his good side so Shane can lean over and rest against him. His hand rhythmically brushes through his hair, and Shane’s eyes fall shut as the painkillers kick in.
“This is better,” Ilya mutters, pressing a kiss to his hair.
“What?”
“Than last time,” he clarifies. “I like that I can be here with you. That I am not standing in a waiting room afraid to be found out. Scared that your parents will see me. That you will know I love you so much.”
Shane gets off his shoulder and looks at Ilya, searches the expression on his face for distress but finding only softness, care. He leans in to kiss him. “I like this better, too.”
Ilya’s gaze flicks to his shoulder. “You still okay?”
“Still okay,” Shane confirms, giving him another kiss. “Hey, you—”
The door to the room opens, and Ilya parts from him and wipes a thumb lightly across Shane’s cheek. The same nurse from before smiles at them. “A mister Shane Hollander for MRI?” He nods. “They’re ready for you, follow me.”
Ilya helps him off the bed — completely unnecessary, considering his legs are fine — and they follow the nurse down what feels like a million hallways. “How do you not get lost in here?” Ilya says.
The nurse laughs. She introduced herself as Emeline, Shane thinks. “I definitely did at the start. But you get used to it pretty quick.”
Ilya shakes his head in disbelief. They arrive at the MRI room after a quick trip in the elevator, and Ilya gives Shane’s waist a reassuring squeeze before they part so Ilya isn’t exposed to heaps of radiation. Shane has gotten MRI scans before, it’s sort of par for the course with hockey, but it still makes him unsettled to crawl onto the backboard.
“Okay,” the technician helps to position his shoulder, and he grimaces at the feeling of her jostling him around, “sorry, honey. Almost done. There you are — lie still here for a second? Press here if you need anything, or if something feels wrong, okay?”
She puts a little remote in his hand and then leaves the room. The machine starts whirring and buzzing in little increments. "Hello Shane,” Ilya’s voice echoes over the speakers in the room. Shane smiles and tries not to laugh, because then he’ll definitely mess up the scan by moving, “they gave me the microphone so you are not so nervous. I love you very much. Your insides look gross. Nice nurse thinks I should put band-aid on my hand.”
God, Ilya’s hand. That needs to be bandaged because he punched Wilson in the face. After they’d already won. It’s sort of a relief to be angry about the Metros hitting him not because they’re homophobic assholes, but because he would be riding the hell out of his husband right now if he weren’t in an MRI machine with an injured shoulder. Well. Maybe riding is still on the table. A sling isn’t the sexiest thing he’s ever worn, but they’ll make do. In sickness and in health, and all that.
“Okay,” the technician says, back in the room. Shane blinks back into reality, taking quick stock of himself and breathing a sigh of relief when he hasn’t popped a boner in the middle of a hospital room. By the way Ilya’s grinning as he goes to help Shane up from the board, he knows exactly what he was doing with the comment about his hands. Shane pinches him in the arm.
They’re led back to the room, and the journey is only slightly less confusing the second time around. The door shuts behind them with a promise of the results coming back soon, and Shane pushes weakly at his husband with his good hand. “You’re a fucking asshole.”
“Mm, no. Those were plans for tonight, but Wilson is stupid, so.” Ilya shrugs.
“Oh, my God. I hate you.” No boners in the hospital room!
“How is your shoulder?” Ilya asks. Shane stops to assess, and then realizes he has to actually stop and assess the pain. It’s definitely still there, although duller from the mild painkillers, but he hasn’t been thinking about it since Ilya’s goof on the intercom during the MRI. Something goes soft and gooey inside of him. “They are giving me husband of the year award, this year,” Ilya chirps.
“They sure are,” Shane says, placing a lingering kiss to his lips. “You didn’t have to do that for me.”
It’s obvious he isn’t talking about the distractions. Ilya lays a hand on his cheek and Shane can’t help but close his eyes and lean into it. He’s starting to feel the game catch up to him, aches everywhere else but the shoulder from being checked and tripped over and over, and the muscle fatigue.
“Sit down, любимыйlyuubimy.” He pushes Shane onto the cot, and then sits down next to him. “I wanted to. I did it for me, also.”
Shane takes his hand. Ilya’s face runs through a series of emotions that Shane just lets happen. It’s how he processes, sometimes.
“I am very angry at them,” Ilya continues, “because they hurt you. But it is also me they are hurting. And Troy and Harris. Luca. Scott, with his Kip. They are idiots and we should not listen to them, but sometimes maybe people need taste of their own medicine, yes?”
“New one for you,” Shane grins.
“David is teaching me idioms, now.”
They shuffle up on the bed to lean against the wall, and Shane leans back against Ilya’s shoulder. He dozes, they both do, until a doctor comes in with a gentle knock on the door. “Mr. Hollander?”
Shane blinks. “Sorry, sorry. Yes?”
“You’re free to go home whenever you’re ready,” the doctor says kindly, “you have a moderate shoulder sprain, but nothing that required surgery or shouldn’t heal on its own.” He’s then given instructions he’s definitely heard of taking medicine to manage the pain, and gently continuing non-strenuous activity as best he can as long as nothing hurts too much. The doctor is just on her way out when she turns around to say, “I saw some highlights of the game. You put up a good fight out there. Both of you.”
Shane gives her a nod, and then she’s gone. He looks over at Ilya. “I’m going to suck your soul out of your dick when we get home.”