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Ilya went into a toilet stall to read all the messages when he saw the first one from Pike. He was still in full gear, even skates, and it was a tight fit. He banged his elbow pads on the metal divider every time he flicked through another string of texts, through the replay videos on Insta, the league's socials.

"You okay, man?" asked someone outside the stall — Bood, maybe. "They're lookin' for you. I guess they want you to comment on how we fuckin' suck."

"Yeah, yeah," said Ilya, swiping at his cheeks. It probably wasn't clear, what was sweat and what might be tears. He could probably be weeping from how much the Centaurs sucked.

"I'll them them you're coming out in a minute?"

Ilya took a couple steadying breaths, but it was no use. He felt like he was dying. "Actually," he called, "Bood?"

"Yeah, Roz?"

"Get Carter to talk to the media," he said. "I think I am — sick."

"You need to see the doc?" Boodram asked, audibly hesitating. Ilya was never sick, and rarely injured to the point of admitting it.

"No," said Ilya, hoping he sounded less wrecked than he felt. "No, I ate bad poutine. I have the shits. Is all."

"Been there," said Boodram, relieved. "Okay, man, I'll get Carter to take the questions."

Ilya waited for his steps to recede, then dropped his head to his knees and let himself quietly dissolve.

The hit looked bad, all right, and it was dirty as hell. Even the CBC announcer said so, though the too-colourful shocked commentary was bleeped in the replays circulating online.

"He's resting," Yuna said when Ilya called, the minute he got out of the arena and safely into his car. He'd had to wait until the locker room cleared a bit because his face was puffy, his eyes red. Random Centaurs staff would probably believe that Ilya Rozanov was just taking the loss harder than usual, but his teammates knew him better than that.

"Is okay, though?" Ilya said, resting his forehead on his steering wheel. "Right?"

"Yes, sweetie, he's fine. And it's been over a year since the last hit, so that's good news in terms of his concussion recovery."

Ilya sniffed hard, but the tears kept welling up anyway. "I will drive there tonight," he said. "I'm in the car already."

"You can't," said Yuna, gently. "Ilya, you know you can't." They hadn't announced the charity yet; they weren't even friends, officially. Not yet.

"Can you send me a photo," Ilya said, after taking another few breaths, trying to settle himself. His heart felt like it was lodged in his throat, like it was halfway to Montreal by now.

"Yeah, of course I can," said Yuna.

Ilya got to talk to Shane on the phone the next morning.

"Hey," said Shane, raspy, tired.

Ilya was nearly smashing the phone into his ear, he was so relieved to hear Shane's voice. "Next time I see Kent, I am taking his windpipe out through his neck."

"Ooh," said Shane, a little loopy, "very alpha male, very butch. Nice."

"He is dead man," said Ilya, fiercely.

"Ilya, it's not even eight in the morning," said Shane, his consonants plush with dilaudid. "Let's save the murder talk for after lunch, m'kay?"

"You also need to look where you're going," said Ilya. "And why was Pike not open for your pass? I know he is shitty at his job but that is bad, even for him."

"Are you done bitching yet," Shane asked, fond and soft.

"No," said Ilya, jamming his fingers into his unshowered hair. "Shane. That was bad hit."

"Looked worse than it felt," said Shane. "Honestly, I would have kept playing but they were being careful because of what happened with Marlow two seasons ago. No, um, loss of consciousness. No disorientation. No blank looks."

"It was not quite two seasons ago," Ilya said, because he'd done the math, and also because that hit in May 2017 was burned into his brain forever. "Nineteen months ago."

"Yeah," said Shane, and cracked a huge, audible yawn.

"You sleep," said Ilya, guilty. "I have practice anyway. And game tomorrow."

"Then two days off," said Shane. "And you're coming here?"

"Yes," said Ilya. "New Year's Eve, I will be there. I will skip practice New Year's Day, then it's home game in Ottawa that night so I will have to go home."

"Mm," said Shane. "Okay. Love you."

"Love you," said Ilya.

Ilya had the lights low and the blinds down when Yuna arrived with Shane later that day.

"I have practice, last one until New Year," Ilya said, because Yuna had hit traffic on the highway and he was already late. He handed her a piece of paper. "Here is the door code, same for alarm, wifi password here, and Instacart is coming with disgusting health food order between three and four."

"Hi Shane, nice to see you Shane, I missed you Shane," said Shane, pale under his sunglasses, coming in behind his mother.

"Yes, yes, love you, big baby," said Ilya, and kissed his cheek, already shouldering his bag. "Go lie down on the couch, Yuna is busy talking to her favourite son."

"I'm perfectly fine," said Shane, pushing his sunglasses up on his forehead. This undermined his case considerably, as it revealed the dark circles under his eyes. "It was barely a tap."

"Hm," said Ilya, studying his face. He waited until Yuna was on her way into the house, then took Shane by the jaw and tipped his head this way and that. "More than a tap, I think."

"You had worse in 2016," said Shane. "I remember that hit you took in the game against Vancouver."

"You remember?" Ilya asked, disarmed and not a little pleased.

Shane's face shifted from tense annoyance to something a lot softer, and his hand came up to stroke Ilya's curls gently. "Of course I remember. Everyone wanted to talk about it because they thought I must be so fuckin' happy you got smoked. And the whole time I was so worried. Even if I didn't want to admit it to myself."

"Fuck," said Ilya, because he remembered that feeling all too well from nineteen months ago. He hadn't been any good at it, either.

"You're late for practice," said Shane, as if remembering the fact, but Ilya was already leaning in to kiss him.

Shane's lips were chapped, dry from the hospital air, but his mouth still felt plush and welcoming under Ilya's. Ilya's careful walls of logistics and pragmatism crumbled instantly, and he let his bag fall off his shoulder and heavy onto the floor so he could take Shane by the waist, pull him close, reassure himself that Shane was really here, and safe, and his. No terrifying hospital visit this time, no worry about a nurse seeing or hearing them, nothing but Shane in Ilya's foyer, warm mouth and little relieved sounds and fingers tugging at Ilya's curls.

"Ilya, it keeps saying wrong password, is this case-sens— oh!"

Ilya pulled away almost as quickly as Shane, and they both swiped guiltily at their mouths like they could hide what they'd been up to.

Yuna looked between them, still holding her work laptop balanced on her forearm, and rolled her eyes while trying not to smile.

"Is case-sensitive, yes," Ilya said. "I need to go." He leveled another look at Shane, frowning. "Go lie down, moy zaichonok."

"I'm gonna lie down," Shane agreed, less mulish than he'd been before Ilya kissed him. "Go to work."

Ilya went.

"Head okay?" Ilya wasn't exactly holding the TV remote hostage, but he wasn't handing it over into Shane's outstretched hand either.

Shane levelled a look at him, impatient.

"Use your words," said Ilya. He'd learned the phrase watching Jackie Pike with her kids, and it never failed to irritate Shane.

"My head is fine," grumbled Shane. "I haven't had a headache for days." It was a lie, of course; Ilya could see for himself how the pain slowly gathered in Shane's brow, his neck, as every evening wore on. His speech slowed and his breathing became more audible.

Still, Yuna said it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been the summer before last, in that series of days between will you come to my cottage this summer and the Stanley Cup final that changed everything. Yuna said back then Shane would be slurring his words by dinnertime. He would be uncharacteristically forgetful, leaving dirty plates lying on tables rather than carrying them to the dishwasher, having trouble finding his headphones, his phone charger. He slept odd hours, nodded off halfway through conversations.

This is nothing compared to 2017, Yuna had said, half-whispering, when Ilya asked if Shane seemed irritable. It was like he was fourteen years old again, he was so grouchy.

Grouchier than this, apparently. It was hard to imagine, with Shane glowering up at him, all stormy eyebrows and jutting lower jaw.

"We keep volume low," said Ilya, finally, and let Shane have the remote.

"I don't know if there's much point to that," Shane said, "when I'm going to be in an arena with twenty thousand people screaming at me, the day after tomorrow."

"If you are cleared," said Ilya, under his breath.

"I'm going to be cleared," Shane said, not under his breath. He jabbed the plus sign for the volume a few times, ignoring Ilya's little huff of frustration. "Jesus."

They watched the game in tense silence for the first few minutes — Montreal versus North Carolina, not a walk in the park, but not quite a season-changing match-up either — and then Pike got tripped by a Carolina defenceman fresh up from the minors. Shane forgot to be pissy with Ilya in his flood of indignation that the refs didn't call it.

After that, the mood lightened considerably. Ilya went to the kitchen for snacks and came back with one of the tubs of roasted chickpeas Yuna had left for Shane before she went home for the day.

"Thanks," said Shane, tone softening a bit.

It might not be the concussion making him cranky, not entirely. Shane hadn't eaten much at dinner. He'd clearly been impatient for Yuna to leave, even as he thanked her for cooking, for coming over to check on him.

On TV, Hayden scored a goal. Shane cheered through a mouthful of chickpeas; Ilya huffed a reluctant acknowledgement before commenting on the fact that the goalie must have fallen asleep trying to watch Pike play.

"It's always weird, not being there," Shane said, not bothering to respond to Ilya's observation. "Isn't it?"

"They are missing you," said Ilya, because it was obvious.

"Hm," said Shane, pleased anyway.

Ilya lifted up his arm, waiting, offering reconciliation.

Shane budged over and slouched down into the couch cushions until he was securely inside the drape of Ilya's arm, heavy and warm.

It was clear from the deepening little line between Shane's brows that the headache was gathering more as the game went on. Ilya ducked down and brushed a kiss over that spot, and Shane closed his eyes on a soft sigh. "Need a rest from the screen," he said. "Don't turn it off, I'm still listening."

Ilya could feel Shane getting heavier and heavier, though he blinked his eyes open again when the goal horn sounded, watched the replay of North Carolina getting one past Drapeau. Ilya scratched Shane's scalp slowly and pretended not to notice when Shane didn't open his eyes for the next goal horn. It wasn't long before Shane's mouth dropped open a bit. His breathing got louder, not quite a snore but next door to one.

Ilya tapped the volume lower on the game, going slowly so it wouldn't rouse Shane, and then just watched his slack face in the flickering TV light for a while.

Fuck, he was so gone for this idiot. Watching him sleep — feeling him sleep, his warm trusting weight up against Ilya's body — it made something in Ilya's belly hurt. He didn't understand how he could long for Shane while he was holding him. He couldn't grasp how that worked: why it hurt, why it never stopped, why his breath came short and his throat ached and his heart thudded hard.

He made himself look away, leaned over just far enough to drag a throw blanket over Shane, and forced his attention back to the game.

The Metros won, barely, and mostly because the Carolina goalie was having a terrible night. It didn't stop Pike from doing a victory lap around the rink with his stick in the air, grinning like a moron. He probably thought he was a candidate for the Conn Smythe, carrying his top-ranked team through an embarrassingly narrow victory without Shane Hollander doing most of the work.

Ilya looked down at Shane, who was still thoroughly unconscious.

Ilya had been scrupulously avoiding all of Shane's attempts at initiating sex for the last two days; even when Yuna wasn't around, Ilya felt weird about it. Like he'd be risking Shane's recovery.

But right now, Shane looked so peaceful, so beautiful, and so fucking hot. Ilya let himself entertain four to five seconds of unhinged fantasy: working his own jeans open, seeing if he could jerk himself off to the sight of Shane sleeping without disturbing him, then smearing his come onto Shane's slack lips. Would he wake up suckling, like a slutty reflex?

God, Ilya was such a pervert.

He sighed and turned off the TV, then carded his fingers through Shane's hair. "Three, two, one," Ilya said, punctuating the count with gentle scritches, "happy new year!"

Shane laughed blearily, then seemed to realize he'd been asleep. He shifted his hands, pushing at the blanket over him, and blinked his dark eyes open. He sat up, wiping self-consciously at the corner of his mouth. "It's not really midnight?" he said, bleary.

"Just skipping ahead for you. I don't think you're making it to midnight, Shanushka." Ilya's arm felt cold now that Shane wasn't tucked against it. He regretted waking Shane up.

"I can stay up, it's not that much longer, right?" insisted Shane, then worked his phone out of his pocket to see the time. It was actually just past nine. "Well," he said. "Maybe if I nap a little more, you can wake me up for the real countdown."

"Bed," said Ilya, chucking his finger under Shane's chin.

The battle between common sense and stubbornness was visible on Shane's face. "Who won?" he asked, stalling.

"Montreal," said Ilya. "Pike scored a hat-trick and two assists."

"Did he?" said Shane, startled. Ilya resisted the urge to take a photo and text it to Pike. Your #bestfriend doesn't think you can skate if he's not there to tie your laces!

"No," said Ilya. "He only got the one goal. You saw it. But other team goalie was shit so that was enough to let a couple more through. Comeau and Schneider."

"A win is a win," Shane said, making a face like he wasn't sure if he was disappointed or pleased. He reached up and rubbed his neck absently. "Ugh."

"This help?" Ilya asked, pushing his hand under Shane's, taking over.

"Mm," said Shane, letting his chin drop to his chest. They got massages all the time, it was part of the job, but Ilya knew from experience that it was always different when it was like this: the touch of someone wholly interested in making you feel good, rather than just mechanically manipulating your body to heal itself faster. "S'good," Shane said, sighing.

"You take Tylenol before sleep," said Ilya, digging his fingers harder into the tight muscles on either side of Shane's neck.

Shane was fidgeting the blanket, suddenly, grabbing a fistful of it into his lap with faux casualness. Hiding a boner and thinking he was being subtle about it.

"Hm?" Ilya said, amused.

"Shut up," said Shane. "It's a reflex." He let the blanket fall back down, then shoved it off his legs so they could both see the shape of his half-hard cock through Shane's soft grey joggers. The bulge grew as they watched; Shane liked looking almost as much as Ilya did.

Ilya put out his free hand and cupped Shane's knee, slid it up a little, helpless.

"Don't tease," said Shane, taut. "Ilya."

Ilya supposed he deserved that. He hadn't meant to be a tease, the last couple of days, but he was a tease most of the time. It was too fun to work Shane up and then pull away: the little angry look Shane got, the huffy noises, the eye rolls. And Shane liked being teased, most of the time. He liked to get close to satisfaction and then be denied it. He liked letting Ilya decide when he got to come.

But this wasn't like that. This was — Ilya slid his hand up higher, his heart starting to thud with anticipation. This was different.

Shane lifted his hips in silent pleading, and Ilya didn't make him wait any longer. "Will help with the headache, maybe?" Ilya said, casting about for a reason that he wasn't actually just being a gross horndog.

"Sure," said Shane on an exhale, eyes fluttering closed again. "Ilya, fuck."

"You want my hand?" Ilya asked, squeezing Shane's hard dick. He could feel that Shane hadn't bothered with underwear under the joggers, just one layer of cloth between them, the skin of Shane's cock sliding under Ilya's grip as Shane rocked his hips again. "My mouth?"

It was possible that a couple of days of sharing a house and a bed and a hovering parental figure had made Shane more desperate than Ilya had realized. The words blurted out of his mouth as though he couldn't help it: "Your hand. Inside my pants. Keep 'em on."

Oh. Oh. Ilya looked down, pulling the joggers tight across Shane's crotch so they could see the outline of his hard cock, the head, the drawn-up balls. As Ilya looked, Shane's cock twitched and a wet spot appeared. It was obscene and beautiful, and Ilya wanted to see the outline of his hand there, too.

He quickly yanked at the drawstring of the pants and then slid his hand under the waistband. The fabric was thin; Ilya could see each of his knuckles as he took Shane's hot bare cock in hand. "Like this?" Ilya asked, though it was very clearly what Shane wanted, Shane with hectic red on his cheeks and blown-dark pupils and hanging-open wet mouth, Shane staring avidly at Ilya's hand inside his joggers. "Could be secret, yes?"

Shane grunted a little desperately, which was gratifying given that Ilya wasn't even jerking him off yet.

"Could be under the table at press conference," Ilya suggested. "They ask question and you try to answer while I squeeze your dick."

"Ilya, gross," said Shane, ragged.

"Or when you do video call with your agent," Ilya said. "Or with Rolex. They get you to agree to all sorts of things because they don't know I'm doing this —" and Ilya swiped his thumb across the pearl of slippery pre-come he knew was waiting for him, even though he couldn't see it through the joggers. "I'm just holding it, I'm not even getting you off."

"That's — fuck," said Shane. "Ilya."

"After we announce the charity, maybe," said Ilya, "we go out with your teammates to celebrate and we sit together at booth, and everyone eats nachos and you eat eggplant, and when they are all busy laughing and talking, I am rubbing your cock where they can't see, and you have to keep up the conversation, you have to act normal, you can't show it when I am rolling your balls in my hand like this. Maybe you spread your knees a bit?"

Shane spread his knees more than a bit, tipping his hips up in a way that would definitely look fucking bizarre if they were hanging out in a booth at a restaurant.

"Yes, good," said Ilya, and put his fingers — dry — where Shane clearly wanted them. The skin behind Shane's balls was sticky with sweat, not the usual pristine and freshly showered body Shane gave him access to. "After a game," Ilya said, inspired, drawing a finger back and forth over the hot clench of Shane's hole, "after a game, you are giving sound bite to a reporter, and I am touching you here, and you have to talk about plays, but all you want is for my finger to go into you, even while you are sweaty and tired and smelly."

"Gr-gross," sighed Shane, the small muscles inside his thighs jittering. "Ilya."

They were out of the realm of even vaguely realistic fantasy now, but Shane didn't seem to care. Ilya looked down and saw the angle of his own wrist, the rhythmic stroking of his hand in the hidden place between Shane's ass cheeks, and the vulgar needy jut of Shane's hard cock as it kept pulsing slick drips against the cloth. Ilya moved on the couch so he was behind Shane, chest to back, and used his free hand to go up Shane's t-shirt. Ilya's cock was hard and pressing awkwardly into Shane's back; neither of them cared. He got Shane's nipple between thumb and finger, rolling it.

"I have a hand inside your shorts and another up your sweater, and you reek, and you're slippery, yes? And your padding is in the way but we can't take it off or everyone would see how bad you want me. How hard you get for me, and how you want me inside all your holes."

"Yeah," said Shane, giving up on pretending he was disgusted. "They'd all see."

"So I have to touch you under your uniform," said Ilya. "Here." He pushed the tip of his middle finger into Shane, only sweat easing the way, and Shane keened and arched his shoulders back into Ilya in answer. "Nobody else knows how bad you need it."

"I need it," Shane murmured, lost now. "Ilya. Please."

Ilya pulled his hand out from under Shane's shirt and hastily pushed it into Shane's joggers so he could hold his cock while he kept fluttering his finger against Shane's hole. It was a terrible angle, and the joggers were not really meant to hold Shane plus two fairly large forearms, but Ilya didn't give a shit. He rubbed Shane's cock from root to tip, left-handed and awkward, and then gave it a squeeze, a stroke. "Shane Hollander," Ilya said, "you are such a needy little pervert."

Shane gasped, his hand covering Ilya's from the outside of the joggers, and then he was coming with long jagged cries, like it hurt, and Ilya's left hand was dripping with come, and his right middle finger was pushed even further into Shane's hole with all the ectastic thrusting, and Shane's body was rigid, strong, in throes, fuck, fuck, Ilya loved making him feel like this. He loved it, he loved him.

And then Shane went slack, and Ilya's finger slipped out, and Ilya could feel the powerful thud-thud-thud of Shane's delighted racing heart through the back of his body, tight against Ilya's own.

"Fuck," said Shane, dreamy.

"Headache better?" Ilya asked.

"What headache," asked Shane, slurring his speech for an entirely different reason. Sex drunk. Fuck. "Ilya, you're so dirty."

"I try," said Ilya, all modesty.

"I mean, your hand," said Shane, laughing lazily. "I need to shower, this is so disgusting. I've been, like, rotting on the couch all day. I can't believe you put your finger back there."

"I put my fingers lots of places to make you happy," said Ilya, which sounded like he was being funny, but was also secretly extremely true. "Where else do you want them? I put."

"Put them in the sink with a lot of soap and water," Shane directed, though he was still a heavy limp weight, and Ilya's right hand was very much pinned under him. "Then come back here and I'll suck you off."

"I'm okay," said Ilya, though he had never been harder.

"Ilya," said Shane, and wriggled his lower back against Ilya's hard cock. "Don't be a hero."

"What if you see team doctor and he says, oh no, you could have gone back on ice, but I see on X-ray that now you have jaw injury because you suck huge Russian cock when you should be resting?"

"That doesn't seem too likely," said Shane, noodly, smiling.

Ilya kissed his neck to distract him while he wiggled his hands free, wiping them on Shane's joggers and rucked-up shirt as he went. He really wasn't trying to be a hero, he just felt strangely non-urgent about taking his turn. As hard as he was, he felt satiated and calm. As though he'd come when Shane did. That was so — weird.

Ilya loved making his partners come, and he always made sure they came first; he was a gentleman. But it wasn't until Shane that Ilya stopped caring so much about his own pleasure at all. Or rather, his pleasure became more about giving Shane pleasure.

"Tomorrow," said Ilya, because tomorrow afternoon, David was coming to fetch Shane and take him back to Montreal for his medical check-in with the Metros doctor. That gave them tomorrow morning. Ilya was still skipping the optional Centaurs practice ahead of their game. Tomorrow morning would be time enough to worry about Ilya getting off, and in the morning Shane's headache would be gone, and Ilya would feel like less of a selfish deviant letting Shane blow him.

"Okay," said Shane, even as he wriggled lazily against Ilya's erection. "Or you —" a pause for a jaw-cracking yawn — "you can jerk it next to me while I sleep."

"Mm," said Ilya, and kissed the back of Shane's ear.

Ilya waved at the neighbour kids as he rounded the last corner on the way to his house, slowing his pace. He hadn't met the family yet, but the two little ones always seemed to be out playing in all sorts of weather. It was cold out today, but sunny. The front yard of the kids' house was a sea of lopsided snowmen.

He liked that. It was good to be in a house, to be around families. It felt — cozy.

He yanked his earbuds out and tapped his phone to stop his playlist, grinning as he saw the end of his conversation with Pike. Pike often roomed with Shane on the road even though they were both long past the point of mandatory shared rooms. Ilya could picture Shane rolling his eyes through Pike's stupid rant right now.

Pike probably had no idea that Shane had been jerking off with Ilya on FaceTime when Pike was in the shower of their hotel room last night.

Or maybe he did suspect it; Shane always seemed to like the idea of being caught out, even if the reality would have sent him into a panic attack.

Ilya thumbed his gate code into the keypad and stretched his quads while he waited for the gate to swing open.

Shane had seemed normal, back to his old self. He said he was feeling good, and rolled his eyes when Ilya told him to watch where he was going on the ice tonight.

Pike was a fucking busybody, but even he was thinking about shit Shane didn't seem to consider. Ilya didn't know who would get in touch with Shane if Ilya himself ever got his lights knocked out.

Nobody on the Ottawa team would think to text the Metros captain. And Yuna and David wouldn't be in any better position, even if they were enthusiastically taking over the parental role for Ilya in private.

Ilya felt his shoulders sloping lower as he walked up the drive to his house. It was a depressing fucking thought. He needed to stop thinking about this.

Once inside, he kicked off his sneakers and unzipped his hoodie, then found himself with his phone back in his hand.

The phone buzzed. Ilya stared at the screen. Yuna had a weird knack for this: texting as soon as Ilya thought about her.

Ilya tucked the phone away again. It wasn't enough.

But it was something.