Work Text:
Ilya wants to hop the boards, take off his skates, and fucking run to the Montreal hospital. If this game lasts one more second he's going to vibrate out of his skin. All he can think about is Shane; Shane on the ice, Shane on the stretcher, Shane in an ambulance, Shane in the hospital. Was he having surgery? Was he awake? Ilya is barely participating in the game, he can't remember the last time he saw the puck. When Shane got hit is what immediately comes to mind. When it ends, he doesn't know the score, he only knows they win because Marlow, fucking Marley, asks which bar they're gonna hit for their victory lap. Ilya punches him in the face, his best friend, victory lap, while Shane's in the hospital. At least they were not on camera. Would've made sticking through the game to avoid suspicion useless. Ilya has never showered and changed faster.
The lady at the front desk is a Montreal fan. Ilya never meets hockey fans unless it's inconvenient. It takes all of his former playboy skills to convince her he's not going to kill Shane in a hospital room. Shane, the man he's in love with, kill him, in the hospital.
Room 104. Ilya opens the door. Shane's awake, wearing a sling, but looking alive. "Ilyaaaaaaaa, you're here!" shane reaches for him.
Shane's parents are here. So is Pike, still in parts of his kit. They look very confused at Shane's response to Ilya entering the room. Fuck. Ilya tries to look normal.
"Hollander. I just wanted to check and make sure you were okay. Cliff feels terrible." even after the 2 black eyes and broken nose, Ilya had yelled at him for as long as he could put off seeing Shane, which wasn't long to be fair, "he did not mean to hurt you."
"I know, doesn't matter, all okay now, you're here" Shane has a dopey smile on his face. Ilya does not know how to play that off as normal.
For a second they all sit in thick silence, Shane's arm has been outstretched for Ilya since Ilya walked through the door.
"Why aren't you holding my hand" Shane whines. Ilya instinctively steps forward at Shane's tone, but the Hollanders are in the way. Fuck. After a second, Shane's parents step away from the bed for Ilya to squeeze past to hold shane's hand at his hospital bedside. Fuck.
"hmmm, bet-ter." Shane sighs and closes his eyes. Ilya absentmindedly fixes a strand of Shane's his hair. Shane smiles bigger.
"What the fuck" is the first thing Pike adds to the conversation. Ilya has been feeling charitable to the man since watching him immediately break Marlow's nose after Shane went down. So Ilya does not insult him.
Shane opens his eyes to look at Pike.
"You two are...." Mr. Hollander begins, but cannot finish.
Ilya does not know what word to use. He curses in Russian. "lovers?" he fills in. He hopes his confusion accurately portrays his incomplete understanding of the language and is not mistaken for confusion about his feelings. He is not confused about his feelings about shane. He wants Shane's parents to know that. He knows he and Shane can't be anything, but he wants his parents to think he's good for Shane anyway. He's fucked.
Shane's face gets all scrunched up after Ilya confirms what's happening here and Ilya looks for a call nurse buttun, he will not let shane be in pain.
"sha-" he starts, ready to call the owner of the hospital to complain about why he can't find the call nurse button easily and why a doctor isn't already stationed in this room.
"lovers? No that's disgusting."
Ah. Ilya doesn't know any other english word to describe them. In his dreams they are partners, boyfriends. But they are not those things, they cannot be those things and he knows that.
"We're boyfriends... well we're gonna be boyfriends." Well fuck. Ilya doesn't know what to do with that. He can feel all the eyes in the room on him. He can't look away from Shane's bruised face, doesn't want to look at anything else. If Shane asks him to be his boyfriend Ilya is not disciplined enough to say no, even when he knows they absolutely cannot be boyfriends. He was counting on the fact that Shane would not ask. He remembers what Shane said in Tampa 'I like you, maybe too much.' If he was going to ask, he would've done it then. Shane was not going to ask Ilya to be his boyfriend.
"I'm gonna ask him at the cottage this summer." Shane says this to his parents with giddy excitement. This man. Ilya was unaware he was even going to Shane's cottage this summer.
"He's going to your cottage! You won't even let any of us go there." Pikes voice is even more grating than usual in this state of shock.
"You're spending the summer together" Mrs. Hollander says at the same time, somehow sounding even more shocked than Pike.
"Yes" Shane nods happily.
Ilya does not know when is the right moment to say that he cannot spend the summer in Ottawa because he has to go home to Russia.
"or maybe." Shane says, saving Ilya, "I was gonna ask him to come to the cottage this summer today.. no yesterday?... after the game." Now he looks directly at Ilya. Shane is asking him to come to the cottage for the summer, where he's going to ask him to be his boyfriend, in front of his parents and best friend who didn't even know Shane was gay before this. Fuck. Ilya opens his mouth to say no.
"Yes, I- I will stay with you at the cottage this summer." He can't feel his face. Good lord. How the fuck is this happening. He had a feeling Shane was going to ask him to stay in Canada instead of going back to Russia this summer after he opened up about his family in Tampa. But he was planning on turning him down with a speech about how they couldn't keep doing this because it was too dangerous. And now he was going to the cottage this summer. Because he couldn't say no to this man he loved, he couldn't say no to something he wanted so much.
Shane beamed, automatically settling some of Ilya's insides.
"Ya tebya lyublyu" Shane said clumsily, still smiling at him. Ilya's heart dropped. Shane was trying to kill him. This was all a huge joke and Shane had made Ilya fall in love with him over the last 8 years just to be able to murder him with an heart attack.
"Was that Russian?" Pike asked, still shocked. Did the man have no other emotions?
"What does it mean?" Mrs. Hollander followed up with. Ilya was not sure if this question was directed at him or at Shane but neither of them answered. Shane just kept smiling at him and he just kept looking at Shane. Shane had said 'I love you too,' which meant he had understood Ilya's own Russian 'I love you' the prior week. Well shit. Shane yawned.
"You need rest" Ilya said, "You should sleep."?
Shane pouted like a toddler. "Only if you promise to stay till I wake up." Ilya had told himself that he wasn't going to do that, that he was going to keep his visit short and not give in to his urge to stay with Shane till he was better, and then after that too, and always. But who was he kidding, he'd canceled his flight and extended his hotel stay during the uber ride here.
"Okay"
"Say it"
"Promise." Shane smiled.
"and give me a good night kiss." More evidence for to the theory that Shane was trying to kill him. Ilya leaned down to give Shane a soft kiss.
"Now sleep."
"Bossy." Shane murmured before falling asleep much faster than Ilya had ever seen him sleep before.
Ilya just watched him. The silence was less suffocating than it had been minutes ago.
"Wait, are you Boston Lily" Pike exclaimed. Huh, he was smarter than Ilya had expected. Ilya had assumed Pike was too dense to ever put two and two together.
"Shhh, you'll wake him." Ilya glanced at Shane's parents, "Yes."
"How long has this been going on!" Pike whisper yelled this time. Proving he could learn.
"The summer before rookie season." That caused gasps around the room. Pike's mouth was hanging open.
"So you two have, what, been lying about hating each other this whole time?" Mrs. Hollander asked.
"Me, yes. Him, I think he did hate me for a little bit. But he never wanted to lie to you. We just... there was no other option."
"Were there no nice men for him in Montreal?" Mr. Hollander asked. Ilya couldn't help but laugh.
"When has Shane ever done the easy thing?"