Archive of Our Own

Shane realized two things when his soulmark appeared on his chest.

First, his soulmate was Russian, or at least spoke the language enough for it to be the last thing he’d ever say to Shane. It took ages for him to figure out what language the unfamiliar lettering was from, and really only figured it out on accident while watching a hockey game between the Canadian and Russian international teams and seeing similar writing on the front of their jerseys.

Second, once Shane had carefully decoded the Cyrillic etched into the skin over his heart, was that he was going to die before his soulmate.

You can rest, Shane. Ya tebya lyublyu.

Those were not words spoken before a peaceful death. They were the words giving permission to a man in pain to let go. He figured he would be young, and that his death would be unexpected giving the soothing nature of the words. These were not words said to an old man who lived a life long enough that death was not something to be fought against. These were the words said to a man who was fighting against his fate tooth and nail, someone who would not get enough time.

So Shane knew by the time he was sixteen years old that he would die young and he would leave his soulmate behind to deal with the aftermath.

At least he knew his soulmate would be there, helping Shane to take the final step into oblivion. At least the last words he would ever know were to remind him that he was loved.

It didn’t ease the panic, not completely. From his sixteenth birthday on, it felt like there was someone constantly watching Shane’s back, like there was an ever-present timer ticking down, down, down to the sudden end he knew was inevitable. It made everything seem far more important than it ever did before. When Shane first imagined his hockey career, he imagined having decades worth of seasons to create a legacy. Now, he had no idea how much time he had, only that it was far less than he originally thought. Suddenly, Shane had to contend with the idea that he may have to build a legacy with mere scraps of time.

So he pushed.

Harder and harder, farther than Shane ever thought he could go. He stepped onto the ice for practice before anyone else did and stayed far later than them too. He used his body to win games—taking hits and pucks he might’ve tried to dodge before he knew that his physical person might be collateral damage anyway. He gave everything to the sport and asked for nothing back, because there was nothing else that he could want except for a legacy to hold onto when he died in his soulmate’s arms.

His coaches praised Shane for his extra effort, as if his body was not being run off of adrenaline and the overwhelming fear that came from knowing his life had a countdown. Shane couldn’t tell them, though, not when he already got enough sympathetic looks from those who had seen his chest long enough to read the words and come to the same conclusions that he had.

Teammates who saw the words did not know the Russian, but the first part was enough to clap him on the back and give him that look, like they didn’t really know what to say but felt obligated to try anyway.

Because it was seen as a tragic thing, to be the one with distinctive enough words to figure out the future. There were entire movies based all around the topic, of young women whose words made them realize their soulmates would die tragically before them. They’d go on these wild, far-fetched trips to find them, to try to beat fate and spend time with their soulmate before he inevitably passed. The movies were always romantic, but were also laced with grief as it always happened—the love interest would be the least expected character in the movie, and they’d only realize it when he died.

Shane didn’t want his life to be akin to a fucking movie.

So he tried to ignore the sad eyes and awkward apologies he got from anyone who had the chance to see his words.

The worst had been his parents.

Yuna Hollander did not cry, but the day she asked if his soulmark came in and Shane tried to lie and tell her it hadn’t, she made an exception to that rule. She told him it was okay, no matter what it said, and then gasped as she read the words first on his skin and then on the translation he’d copied into one of his school notebooks. The words looked far less eloquent in his scratchy writing, compared to the pretty looping handwriting of his soulmate on his chest, but the words were still the same.

You can rest, Shane. I love you.

“Oh, honey,” Yuna said and she ran her fingers over the words in the notebook, her voice wavering in the way it did when she tried not to clue him into the fact that she was upset. Except Shane was sixteen, not six, and she wasn’t hiding her sadness as well as she thought she was. The grief was written clear on his mother’s face, and though he never told her that he understood it, Shane knew that she figured it out anyway.

They never said the words, not the ones that would make his fate even more concrete than what his soulmark had already done. Yuna never mentioned the fact that Shane was going to die before his soulmate, and Shane never tried to talk about it either. It was simply something known between them that drove so many of their decisions from then on but never discussed—it was easier that way.

David Hollander was not a religious man. Their family did not regularly go to a place of worship, nor did it take up a place in their life around their home. Shane knew that David had grown up in a much different home, but that he hadn’t wanted to bring those traditions to Yuna and Shane because of some unspoken experiences he’d had as a kid. Still, one night three months after showing him the words, Shane found David in the living room on his knees, chin tipped up to the sky. Shane had been sneaking down in the middle of the night for a midnight snack, and instead he’d found his father in supplication to a God he said he’d stopped believing in decades ago.

“Please, be kind to him,” David pleaded, eyes closed and hands clasped tightly near his chest. “Please, don’t let this be what we think it is. Let him have a good life, don’t hurt him.”

Shane never got his snack, but he did return to his bedroom with the clear understanding that even his parents thought he was going to die young, and that it would hurt. He’d tried to pray for the first time that night, too, bending down in his bedroom to match his father’s pose. The words never came to him though, his body feeling awkward and his mind embarrassed as he tried to find something worthwhile to say.

So he got back up and crawled into bed, the last thought on his mind that he didn’t care if he got hurt or not, he only didn’t want his soulmate to have to suffer seeing it.

Shane did not tell Ilya Rozanov his hotel room number simply because he was Russian.

He didn’t even put the pieces together until he was stood in the middle of the room, the clothes he’d brought with him on the trip scattered around him as he tried to find an outfit suitable enough for a hookup. The suit had been too much, Shane knew, but the athletic pants and soft t-shirt weren’t enough. None of it seemed right, not for this cataclysmic event that was big enough to shake up his entire life.

Never once did Shane think he would actually sleep with another man. He understood what being a professional hockey player in the MLH meant for his private life (that wouldn’t actually be all that private). If he had to choose between a career in hockey and finding out if he really did like men the way so many others liked women, then he would choose hockey every time. After all, he didn’t have the luxury of time that so many others did. If he wanted to make his name something worth remembering to the world, then he had to make sacrifices. It would be easier if he never found out, if Shane chose to live in ignorance of whether or not relationships and sex were supposed to feel any better than the ones he’d drifted through in previous years. Shane could find a nice enough woman and marry her young to fit in with everyone else. He could have two kids and a white picket fence and never wonder what life would have been like if he had the courage to take the risk.

Except then Rozanov looked at him like that and told him that he would maybe knock on his hotel room door that night, and Shane was helpless to do anything but nod.

All to say, Shane didn’t realize what he’d done until he stood in front of the full-length mirror in nothing but the pants from his suit, near breathless and staring at the words over his heart.

You can rest, Shane. Ya tebya lyublyu.

“Fuck,” Shane hissed, his heart slamming roughly against his ribcage as he realized all at once the connection. Would Rozanov assume he’d chosen him as his first because of the words? Would he think Shane thought this was more than the hookup he knew it was?

The thought had crossed his mind, because of course it had. The first time he’d met Rozanov—in that parking lot in Saskatchewan when it had been just two young draft prospects talking—Shane had been painfully aware of his words on his chest. It didn’t happen every time he spoke to someone who spoke the language, but that time the words burned against his skin, making him shift and rock where he stood to try to ignore the feeling. Shane had considered that night, when he watched yet another romcom about two unexpected soulmates finding each other without ever knowing it for sure, that the feeling could have been because Rozanov was it.

He was quick to wave-off the idea, though, because what was that? It was wrong to assume the man was someone important just because he was one of millions of people who spoke the language on Shane’s chest. It didn’t matter that the sight of the man made Shane’s heart race and his mind go startlingly blank as he was overcome with the desire in him. This was something Shane had to keep to himself. He couldn’t let Rozanov see his words and connect any of the pieces together.

No, he couldn’t let that happen.

Which was how Shane ended up sticking a plaster over the words, thankful his mom had found the ones that matched his skin tone well enough that it didn’t stand out too harshly. Plenty of people hid their soulmarks, especially for one night stands that didn’t need a reminder of the perfect connection that existed somewhere out in the world. It wouldn’t look strange for Shane to cover his now, he reminded himself over and over again. Rozanov wouldn’t even bat an eye at it, and Shane would be left feeling silly for stressing out over it in the first place.

This was just a hookup, a one-time experiment to prove that being with a guy was great but he didn’t need to in order to be happy, and Ilya Rozanov just happened to be Russian.

It was a coincidence.

The words under the plaster still burned the whole night anyway.

The whole soulmates thing was brought up for the first time in a hotel room, with Scott Hunter in the room next door.

Ilya was a comforting, safe weight laying across Shane’s back, his chin hooked over Shane’s shoulder as he brought up an equally important topic.

“Have you ever? Do you want to?”

It was impossible for Shane to misunderstand what Rozanov meant. It felt like the other man was everywhere, his right hand with a firm grip on Shane’s pec, left hand running from his ribcage to the curve where Shane’s hip met his thigh, achingly close to the spot Shane truly wanted to be touched. Every inch of Shane’s back was taken up by Ilya, the weight of him keeping Shane grounded to reality as the moment sunk in.

This was it.

He knew it was coming eventually. They were having fun sucking each other’s dicks, but eventually Rozanov would want more. Shane wanted more, he just…

He didn’t know.

Something in the question startled Shane, sent him flying high above where their bodies currently lay together. It wasn’t like he’d never tried touching himself there, wasn’t like he’d never experimented with toys he’d confirmed dozens of times over were shipped discreetly in fear of his secret coming out over a mail delivery. Each time he pictured it finally happening, it was always Shane laying under another man instead of the other way around.

The problem was not the idea of him being fucked.

No, it was the idea of him being fucked by Ilya Rozanov, in particular.

Because this thing was new and there were clearly defined boundaries. Rozanov wanted sex from him, and that was fine because Shane could handle that as long as he knew that’s what was expected from him. It was beginning to become harder to ignore the way he seemed tethered to Ilya, though. Shane missed him the moment he was gone, and felt a flutter in his chest where his heart was each and every time he got a text message from the man. It felt a little like a schoolgirl crush, the way he couldn’t help but smile every time he heard from Rozanov.

Except he was pretty sure what was happening here ran much deeper than a crush.

There were a lot of men in the world who spoke Russian. There were even plenty of men in the MLH alone who spoke the language. The fact that Rozanov could conceivably say the words etched into Shane’s heart was not why he felt wary now.

It was because, when Shane was alone after one of their meetings together, he could almost hear the words said in Ilya’s voice.

You can rest, Shane. Ya tebya lyublyu.

Once, when Shane was feeling particularly bad for himself, he thought that dying wouldn’t be so bad if he had Ilya Rozanov’s strong arms around him. The thought scared him so badly that he hadn’t answered any of the other man’s texts for a week.

“You are scared.”

“I’m not scared,” Shane denied quickly, wincing as he realized how defensive the words sounded. He couldn’t let Rozanov too close to the truth, couldn’t let him analyze what was happening here because already he could read Shane too well. Rozanov would figure this out if Shane let him, and there was no way that they could keep doing what they were doing if he did.

If they didn’t go this far, Shane could still pretend they were just a hookup. That this was just an experimentation phase. That Rozanov was just a hot guy who had as much to lose as Shane did if the secret ever got out.

But then Rozanov kissed the shell of Shane’s ear, and the touch burned through Shane’s entire body because it was so loving, so outside the norm for what they were supposed to be in that moment.

His voice was too gentle as he said, “No, is okay.” Even as Rozanov moved on to teasing Shane about their meet-ups for sure making him gay, and over the dildo Shane still wasn’t sure why he admitted to having, that gentleness persisted.

Maybe that was why Shane wasn’t altogether surprised when it came up.

Shane had rolled to lay on his back, the majority of Ilya’s body weight still laid over him like a weighted blanket. He held onto Ilya’s upper arms like a lifeline as the other man looked him over, taking his time like he had all of it in the world.

“Is it because of this?” Ilya finally asked, hand coming up to brush fingers over the plaster held firmly in place over Shane’s chest. Even though he hadn’t touched the words themselves, Shane’s body still reacted as though he did. His breath stuttered and his back arched just enough to press the plaster further into Ilya’s touch so the pads of the man’s fingers rested fully on it. “You want to wait for them?”

I want my soulmate to know it’s him before we do it, as impossible as that is. No one knew for sure who their soulmate was until one of them was dying. That was the one rule the universe laid out, and no one had ever been able to break it. Shane wouldn’t know for sure who loved him enough to stay with him while he died until it happened, and because he was first he wouldn’t even get to have any time to process it. He would just be dead, and his soulmate would just be sad.

“Don’t you?” Shane asked instead of letting his mind continue down that line of thought it had been stuck down too many times in the past.

He already knew the answer, knew that Ilya Rozanov wasn’t some blushing virgin waiting for the right person, but still the words ached as they hit his ears. “No, I do not care what they think,” Ilya said simply, “is just a word, it does not mean anything.”

Rationally, Shane knew it was a perfectly regular thought. Many people ignored the whole idea of soulmates, because the idea of it was all so tragic and upsetting. If they didn’t know who their soulmate was until one of them died, then they wouldn’t bother trying to look for them. Ilya was not alone in that thought, and Shane couldn’t be upset with him for thinking it.

The part of him that was tied intrinsically to the words over his chest reeled back in response all the same, horrified by the words I don’t care being applied to the man’s soulmate.

Possibly being applied to h–

No, he couldn’t go down that road.

“Do you think you’ve met them already?” Shane asked, even as his mind wondered why he was torturing himself more.

“What does it matter?” Ilya returned, his voice taking on a slightly sharper tone. “It is just a word from someone I will not know matters until they are gone. I do not want a soulmate, I never asked for one. What is all this talk of soulmates when we could be making plan to fuck next time?”

Shane felt like he couldn’t breathe, like maybe he would never breathe again, but still he nodded and played along. Why talk about soulmates now, when they had so little precious time together?

Shane shoved the entire idea of them potentially being soulmates into the far corner of his mind and promised not to touch it ever again.

Shane knew for a fact that Ilya Rozanov was his soulmate the first night they went to his extra apartment.

Every is this okay felt like the Russian words on his chest, every touch an unspoken display of what had to be true.

Their previous nights spent together were hurried and passionate in a far different way, but this, this was…

Careful. Gentle. Loving.

Shane couldn’t imagine doing this with anyone else. Ilya was his first and he hoped his last, because if he wasn’t he’d already ruined him for anyone who could possibly come after.

The feeling sat heavily in Shane’s chest, tucked safely behind his sternum where his heart beat steady and strong. It stayed long after Ilya left, when Shane decided to stay at this apartment for the night because the sheets still smelled a little like Ilya.

He wondered if Ilya felt the same, too.

Vegas hurt in more ways than one.

It wasn’t a surprise that Ilya won the MVP award after the incredibly last few months of the season he’d had, but it still stung that it was something Shane hadn’t done first. He prided himself on being the best, in part because he knew he could be but mostly because he had to be the best before it was all over. If Shane’s suspicions were correct, then he’d already met his soulmate. It meant that at any moment, his countdown could be over. Time was moving even quicker than teenage him had feared, and he had precious little of it left to make his mark.

If Shane didn’t win MVP now, then he’d have to work doubly hard next season to ensure he did before he never got the chance to.

That was the kind of energy buzzing through him when he made the trip to Ilya’s penthouse hotel room. It made him unsteady from the start, that combined with the slight floating feeling that hadn’t quite left him since the intense moment they’d had together in the bathroom.

That night was different from all others. Ilya hardly touched him at all until Shane begged for him, and even then the touches were harsher than the first time they’d been together. Gone were the soft holds and the is this okay whispered so close he could feel Ilya’s lips move with the words over his own. Instead, a strong hand pressed to the side of Shane’s face to keep him held down to the bed as the other shifted his hips up so his ass was on display for the man behind him. The thrusts were strong and made Shane’s breath fly straight out of his chest, made him moan and beg unintelligibly but did not spark the same buzzing warmth as the first. It was still good, great in every way that mattered, but something sat wrong in his chest that Shane didn’t quite figure out until he was in the elevator on the way back down to his own room.

They hadn’t kissed once that night.

Maybe the wrongness of it was why he’d pushed, why he’d asked about Russia, and if he ever thought about where his soulmate was now, and if he thought he would know when he met them. Shane couldn’t even blame the other man for cutting the night short, after all of the sensitive questions he’d asked of him.

It didn’t make the aching feeling in Shane’s chest feel any better, though.

It was a sharp reminder of what they were supposed to be doing. Shane spent so much time thinking about what he and Ilya could be, but the fact of the matter was that Ilya didn’t want that. He’d made it clear that he didn’t care about soulmates or who might be his own. Ilya wanted Shane’s body, wanted the undeniable chemistry that they had in bed together.

And Shane, well, Shane could be that for him. He could be whatever the other man needed, because Shane wanted any piece of Ilya Rozanov that he was allowed to have.

If all he could have was this, then that would have to be okay.

Staying the night felt like something forbidden. It meant seeing parts of each other that, until then, Shane and Ilya had previously been able to keep separate from one another.

But then Ilya asked. That’s all he did, just one question. It was so simple, and yet even as the words were still being vocalized Shane knew he wouldn’t be able to say no. He tried to reason it out, but there was nothing he could do. He was helpless to this look, this careful joy in Ilya’s eyes as though he was afraid of letting it show too soon lest he get hurt by Shane’s denial of it.

Of course he was going to say yes.

The day was magical, too.

Not because of the sex, though that had felt different too. No, it was everything else that Shane had never allowed himself to even think of wanting before. He got to fall asleep in bed with Ilya and know when he woke up, the man’s body would still be pressed against his. They got to simply exist with each other for hours, without any other expectation or pressure sitting over them.

Ilya bought ginger ale for him. He made him food, and though it didn’t fit perfectly within the diet Shane followed it was close enough that it made him wonder if Ilya hadn’t researched it, trying to find a meal that would make him happy. They watched hockey together, and Ilya let him overhear a conversation with his family despite how little the man actually talks about them, and everything felt so overwhelmingly normal that Shane never wanted to leave.

The thought ached as much as it did make his heart warm.

Shane didn’t even realize anything was different until familiar fingers pressed to his chest and the sound of Ilya’s breath audibly hitching sounded.

He’d showered earlier.

The plaster had to come off then, and he hadn’t brought a spare because he hadn’t been expecting to stay the night. It wasn’t something that Shane panicked about, either, because he truly hadn’t thought about it until now.

He showered all the time after he and Ilya had sex. One of them had always left before they had another round.

But that day, that day Shane got to sit on the couch and watch hockey and eat tuna melts. He’d softly admitted that he knew the Russian word for father because he’d been trying to learn the language over the last several years but had stalled out because of how difficult it was to learn for him. He’d gotten to rest comfortably in Ilya’s arms and lay in his lap, and they’d gotten to come together again without the looming threat of separation hanging over them.

Ilya called him Shane, and he’d called him Ilya, and then the man’s fingers touched Shane’s chest without a plaster there to cover the skin up.

You can rest, Shane. Ya tebya lyublyu.

“Shane?”

Shane couldn’t look at him. He could see from the edges of his vision that Ilya’s eyes were trained on his chest, and his fingers hadn’t moved yet and the touch was starting to hurt in the way electricity hurt. Shane was still on Ilya’s lap and could feel the way the other man’s entire body tensed up, like it was trying to figure out whether he should fight this or run away from it entirely. It reminded Shane of the nature documentaries, when a prey animal would go completely still in the face of a dangerous predator, as if not moving could somehow make it disappear in the hunter’s eyes.

Because Shane, in this moment, was the hunter. He was the one who continuously asked Ilya about soulmates and what he thought of them. He was the one who was caught, once, brushing his fingers over the okay on Ilya’s chest and wondering in what circumstances anyone would ever make something so simple their final word to the love of their life. Shane pushed, and pushed, and pushed, and now he sat here with the evidence of why laid so obviously between them.

And Ilya still wasn’t saying anything, and suddenly Shane couldn’t breathe over the weight of it all. Because Ilya had just been talking about girls, and Svetlana, and how one day he could marry her for citizenship of he really needed to, and all Shane could think about was that first conversation they ever had about soulmates.

I do not want a soulmate, I never asked for one.

“I can’t,” Shane breathed, stumbling from Ilya’s lap. Where was his shirt? His hands shook as he pulled his pants back up into place on his hips, eyes searching the room for his shirt and panicking when he couldn’t find it. “I can’t. I have, uh, practice early in the morning, I forgot.”

Distantly, he heard Ilya protest what was happening.

“Hollander. Hollander.”

Where was his fucking shirt? He couldn’t be here another moment, not with the words on his chest on display and he still couldn’t find the one fucking thing that could cover it up.

Shane thought the shirt he grabbed was actually Ilya’s, but he couldn’t bring himself to care because it was something that could cover the words. He even held the bunched up fabric high enough to cover them, hurrying to leave the room and the house before the shirt was even fully on him.

Because he’d allowed himself to become too relaxed. Shane asked, and asked, and asked whatever he wanted without thinking about what would happen if Ilya ever saw the words on his chest. Now he had, after ginger ale and tuna melts and quiet mornings spent laying in bed together, and Shane would never be able to get that moment back.

Everything was changed and it was Shane that had done it. Nothing could go back to how it was before, their nights of sneaking around together ruined under the weight of the words burned into Shane’s heart.

What they once had was over, and Shane didn’t know if he could ever get it back.

“Do you think we could be, soulmates I mean?”

“What does it fucking matter?”

“But would you want to be, if we could?”

“We can’t.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Shane heard the words for the first time while he sat in a hotel stairwell.

The Russian words flowed across thousands of miles and through Shane’s ears. It almost sounded like music, the way Ilya spoke these words that Shane didn’t know but could still feel the intent behind them. He closed his eyes and listened, letting them wash over him and hoping this was helping Ilya as much as he’d hoped.

Ya tebya lyublyu.

It didn’t register at first, simply a part of the music that was lulling Shane into a comforting trance. But then the words bounced around his head, landing in that tucked away thought that Shane refused to pull back out and consider, even after their long talk in a hotel room in Tampa not long ago.

Those were some of the few Russian words that Shane knew. I love you. Ilya loved him. He wondered if Ilya knew that Shane would understand them.

He wanted to say it back, but he didn’t want to ruin the vulnerability that Ilya had chosen to share with him. It was not the right time to make this about him, about what they could be. Ilya’s father had died, and though Shane didn’t know what Ilya said he did know that he sounded devastated. It sounded like his family wasn’t everything that a family should be, and there had been something with Svetlana, his best friend and closest confidante, the woman that Ilya would marry if he wanted someone safe.

So Shane simply asked if Ilya felt better, and smiled when the man said he did.

That night, Shane laid in bed letting the words replay in his mind.

Ilya loved him. He was pretty sure he loved Ilya too.

Shane knew what the last words he would ever hear sounded like.

Everything hurt.

His body wasn’t moving in response to his mind telling it to.

Shane had taken bad hits on the ice before, but he’d always been able to get back up.

The only reason he knew he wasn’t dead was because he could hear Ilya shouting, asking if Shane was okay but never saying those words.

You can rest, Shane. Ya tebya lyublyu.

He did.

When he woke next, Ilya was there looking for all the world like Shane had already died. All Shane could think was that he hoped they weren’t soulmates if only so he would never be the cause of Ilya’s grief like this ever again.

The word soulmate was never spoken in the cottage, at least not when it came to whatever Shane and Ilya might be.

They got three perfect weeks together and Shane would not ruin it by talking about whether or not they were destined for a tragic end. They both already knew what would happen if it was true, it was better not to linger on it for too long.

Ilya had asked to see the mark again in Tampa after the All-Star Game. He’d ran his fingers over the words and mouthed them soundlessly with his lips, as if testing out the weight of saying them. Ilya did not cry—that was earlier, when he’d broken down and admitted that he would have to choose between love and his country, his family—but his expression did crack into something terrifyingly sad.

“If we are what you say, I would say this to you.”

“Yeah.”

“You would go then. I would say this then you would go.”

Shane hadn’t fully understood the complete devastation that thought seemed to bring Ilya. He knew it would be sad, and Shane admittedly had never once tried to imagine what it would feel like to lose a soulmate because he knew he wouldn’t have to, but the idea seemed to wreck Ilya more than most others.

He came to understood on a quiet, peaceful morning at the cottage. They’d been awake for a long time, watching the sun make its way up through the sky and casting a glowing golden light through the large windows onto the bed. The light lit up Ilya’s golden hair like a halo, making him look radiant and otherworldly. Shane wanted a way to capture this moment forever, but he also couldn’t bring himself to move from the hold they had each other in, their bodies perfectly wrapped around one another until Shane wasn’t sure where they were meant to split.

His parents would be there at some point in the day for a cookout. They wouldn’t be able to stay in bed forever, no matter how much Shane longed to. He’d never been fond of lazy days, always feeling that itch in his body to get up and move, to be productive, but with Ilya he could easily imagine laying curled up in bed all day until the sun set, then getting up the next day to do it all over again.

“My mama had a soulmate,” Ilya spoke softly, in that same careful voice he always used when his mother was brought up. Shane had only heard about her a couple of times, all of them here in the safety of the cottage, but he knew from the way he talked about her that Ilya loved her deeply—that all of the soft, tender, kind parts of him were passed down from her.

“It wasn’t your father?” Shane asked, not sure which answer would be more tragic.

His heart gave a little jump as the conversation continued. It was a careful thing, talking about Ilya’s family. Shane wasn’t sure he’d ever get the entire story, but there were enough scraps and pieces handed off that he could get a good idea of it. Ilya’s father had been a cruel man with high expectations for his sons. His mother had been kind but was beaten down by the world, her husband, and her own mind. Ilya’s brother had once been kind, but somewhere along the way became more like their father until he was unbearable to be around. He knew there was a niece, too, who had also received Irina Rozanova’s blond curls and blue-green eyes.

There was more to it, though. Because Ilya still defended some of what his father had done, particularly when it came to how he pushed Ilya. Sometimes, on particularly bad nights, he admitted he was angry with his mother even when he understood that she’d done the best with what little she’d been given.

It was a minefield for someone like Shane, who wanted to know everything about a situation all at once so he knew how to navigate it perfectly.

Instead, he had to hold onto these moments, these pieces of the past that Ilya handed him when he was ready to.

“No, it was another man,” Ilya admitted, hand tightening briefly on Shane’s hip. “We used to go swimming on my birthday, only her and I. I asked her about her words once, and she was so sad I never asked about them again. All I know is that he died before her.”

“I’m sorry, Ilya, that’s awful,” Shane said, reaching up to hold onto the side of Ilya’s face so he knew he was there. He didn’t always know the right words to say, but he could hold onto Ilya. He could say everything he wanted to say with his touch, and Ilya blessedly usually could figure it out. “What…what were they?”

It was intimate, to discuss soulmarks. It took trust and love to discuss them, especially when it came to someone else’s. But Ilya had brought up the topic, and Shane would never fault him if he chose to set the topic right back down if it became too much.

“I will love you forever, Milaya.”

The words were Russian, as Shane should have expected. He didn’t understand them, but they were close enough to the words on his own chest that he understood enough.

He understood that Irina Rozanova knew what it was like to be loved in the final moments with her soulmate.

He understood that Irina Rozanova understood what it was like to be left behind by her soulmate, too.

“Oh,” Shame murmured, wishing he had better words, anything he could possibly say, as the connections and parallels made themselves known to him. When he looked up at Ilya’s face, he could see that same devastation laid plainly there, too. This was why he brought up his mother, why he talked about how she had been left behind. He saw the parallels too. How long had he known they were there, how long has this haunted Shane’s love?

“I wish I would have asked her more questions,” Ilya admitted then, bringing one hand up to run over Shane’s hair. Shane leaned into the touch, closing his eyes for only a moment before looking back at Ilya. He tended to focus on the spot on the bridge of his nose between the man’s eyes instead of at them directly, but that never seemed to bother Ilya at all. “I wish she could have told me how she did it.”

“Did what?” Shane asked, his chest constricting and his heart racing already as if his body knew he wouldn’t like the answer.

“Keep living for as long as she did, after he died and left her with it all alone.”

Shane felt like he might’ve died already, and somehow along the way he’d missed it.

That night, he prayed to Irina Rozanova, pleading with her to look over her son and make sure he didn’t go chasing after Shane before it was his time.

“I don’t want to look at you right now. I don’t want to talk to you. Go home.”

“Would you choose me?”

“I already chose you, Hollander. Go home. Please.”

“Okay.”

I already chose you, Hollander.

Shane couldn’t breathe.

It wasn’t an ideal fact while he was driving, but one that persisted anyway. He knew he probably should have pulled over, if only to try to make his fingers stop trembling around the white-knuckled grip he had on the steering wheel, but all he could think about was putting as much distance between him and that argument.

He’d broken Ilya’s heart. He’d done that, all on his own.

What was supposed to be a wondrous, perfect few days spent together while on holiday break turned into the worst fight they ever had, simply because Shane couldn’t agree to one party. A party with the guys that Ilya thought of as brothers. He knew the Centaurs were different from any other team in the league, he could hear it in the way that Ilya talked about them on the phone. If there was a team that would respond well to him and Ilya being together, it would be them.

Still, Shane heard going to a party together and all he could see was news headlines the next morning. Gossip articles and social media posts dissecting everything that he and Ilya had ever done. He could picture walking into his own locker room next week and being met with nothing but horror and disgust, because not only was Shane the thing that was thrown around as an insult in the league, but he also was dating his rival. Someone from Boston. It didn’t even matter that Ilya didn’t play for Boston anymore, only that he had for so many years.

His team would never accept him again if it got out. If he went to that party, there was a huge risk of the truth being let out, intentionally or not.

So no, there was no way Shane could have gone to that party.

But that wasn’t what the fight ended up being about, was it?

Ilya had been miserable this entire time and never told him. He’d suffered, for months, and never once thought to let Shane try to help. Ilya didn’t trust him. Would Ilya have ever told him, if they hadn’t had this fight? How long would Ilya have continued to suffer in silence before he cracked?

How long would Shane have let him before he noticed?

Shane fumbled to press the button on his steering wheel, letting out a choked, “Call Hayden,” as he blinked back his tears rapidly enough to still see the road ahead of him.

“Hey, man, what’s up? I thought you were with Rozanov tonight,” Hayden’s chipper voice sounded through the car speakers.

I thought you were with Rozanov tonight.

He should have been. Right now, Shane should have been laid up in bed with Ilya, both sweaty and exhausted and completely, terribly in love with one another. He should have been laid half-on Ilya’s chest, watching the way the man’s lips pulled up into a smile, a pure, unadulterated sign of his joy.

All Shane could picture now was the heartbreak on Ilya’s face as he told Shane that he’d already chosen him over hockey, as he accused Shane of not being able to do the same.

“What’s wrong, buddy?” Hayden asked as no words came, only more panicked noises.

“I fucked up,” Shane gasped out, focusing his vision on the highway ahead, hands gripping tighter to the wheel just in case. “I really fucked up, Hayd. I ruined everything.”

“I don’t think so,” Hayden said over the phone after a moment’s pause, as if he had to process the unexpected phone call. “You know I don’t like Rozanov, but that guy loves you. You couldn’t ruin anything for him.”

“I did, I did, Hayden!” Shane said, voice shaking with his tears and the way his chest couldn’t quite fill out. “He asked me to go to this team party, and, and he said it’d be as friends but I told him no. All he wanted was one stupid fucking party and I couldn’t even give him that, after he moved to Ottawa for me.”

“Hey, c’mon, you’re being too hard on yourself,” Hayden said. “He agreed to move to Ottawa, right? You didn’t make him do that.”

“I basically did. He knew I never would’ve left Montreal. I wouldn’t have moved to Boston for him, I wouldn’t have and he knew that.”

The thought sunk heavy in Shane’s chest. He knew, had it been the other way around, that it would have taken a lot more convincing on his end to leave the franchise he’d always dreamed of joining, the one he’d helped to rebuild, the one he’d won three Cups with.

Ilya had done it after one conversation at the cottage.

“He’s given up so much for me,” Shane said. Normally he’d hate crying in front of Hayden, only because he was still his friend’s captain, but now he couldn’t bring himself to care about his obvious sniffles and wobbly voice. “I couldn’t even give him a party.”

“Shane, dude, Rozanov knows you’re as head over heels for him as he is for you.”

You wouldn’t even choose me, would you? If it was between me and hockey.

“He kicked me out. I think…I think he’s gonna end things, dude.”

“No way,” Hayden said, a nervous laugh sounding right after that. “Rozanov would never end things with you, you’re too obsessed with each other. Seriously, man, this is just, like, part of being in a serious relationship? I can’t tell you how many times Jackie or I ask each other for space. He needs some time to think about it and then you two’ll be back to making heart eyes at your phones in no time.”

“You think so?” Shane asked.

“Dude, I’d put so much money on it. Like, all our Cup winnings.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Shane laughed, thankful for his friend for making him feel even a little bit better.

“I would! A world where you and Rozanov aren’t together just isn’t right.”

Not long ago, Shane had been terrified to tell his best friend that he was gay. He was even more terrified to tell him that he was in love with Ilya Rozanov, a man they’d talked about hating for pretty much their entire friendship. It wasn’t perfect, when Hayden found out. There had been a lot of tough conversations and questions asked, but the one thing that had always been clear was that Hayden never stopped seeing Shane as his best friend.

Hayden hated Ilya still, in the same way that Ilya claimed to not like Hayden too. Shane wasn’t sure that relationship would ever be much better than it was now, but Hayden never once doubted the fact that Shane and Ilya loved each other.

It meant more than Hayden would ever know. Shane would never tell him, not when they were never that good at deep conversations like that, but he hoped that sentences like the one Hayden just gave him were collected in a little space in Shane’s heart to cherish forever. Sentences like those made everything else seem worth it, like maybe, maybe everything really would be okay.

“Where are you right now?” Hayden asked, likely able to hear that Shane was in a car.

“On my way back to Montreal,” Shane sighed, glancing at the next road sign he saw. “I’m maybe an hour out. I didn’t want to go to my parents’, they’d ask too many questions and try to fix it.”

“I get that. Look, man, if you don’t want to be alone you can come here. Jackie and I would be happy to see you, and you know the kids would lose their shit over a surprise Uncle Shane visit.”

“Swear jar,” Shane laughed, even as much happier tears began to build up in his eyes. He loved being Uncle Shane more than he ever thought he would. He’d never been super comfortable around kids, but the Pikes were different. He’d held each of them when they were born, had gone over as soon as visitors were allowed to help Hayden and Jackie around the house while Jackie recovered. He’d watched each of them grow up and form their own personalities and interests and skills. Shane truly was a part of their extended family, truly like the brother Hayden never had but had wished for as a kid. “I will, I’ll be there in an hour.”

The conversation switched to other things. Hayden updated Shane on the kids—how Ruby got her very first detention and Jade made the local girls hockey team. How Arthur was really into cars right now and was asking everyone he met what car they had and if it was red, and how Amber was sleeping through the night finally after a few months of endless wake-ups. Shane didn’t talk much beyond answering Hayden or asking a few questions here and there, but that was alright. He preferred it that way, allowing the comforting words to wash over his shoulders and soothe the endless panic and hurt coarsing through him from the fight.

Shane would get to Montreal, would stay with the Pikes for the night, and then call Ilya in the morning. He’d apologize for his part in their fight, and they would talk. They’d make a plan to see each other in person so they could figure out all of the big, important things that needed talked about but were too much for a phone call. Ilya would tell him he loved him, and everything would be okay.

People sometimes say bad things happen in slow motion.

Shane didn’t have that experience. He didn’t see it coming beforehand, couldn’t watch in horror as the inevitable happened.

No, one moment he was laughing as Hayden told him about Ruby and Jade making a scheme to sell lemonade at double the price it cost them to make it, and the next a car was swerving across the yellow line and crashing into his at highway speeds.

The next several seconds were taken up by the sounds of metal screeching and crunching as it collapsed on itself and slid across pavement. Pain erupted in Shane’s body, too strong and too widespread for him to put together what was hurt and how.

He thought he blacked out for a moment.

When Shane came to, his car was upside down. He knew that because some of his hair was hanging down like gravity was affecting it, and there was a slight pounding in his forehead as blood rushed down to his head, and of course there was the fact that he had to look up slightly to see the pavement outside the front windshield.

Shane groaned, his body coming back online and with it all of the pain it felt. There was blood everywhere, he could tell that much from the wetness soaking into his clothes and the red covering his hand as he brought it up to his face.

Help. I need to call for help.

I can’t move. Why can’t I move?

Right, seatbelt. Thank fuck I was wearing that.

Wait, I’m upside down. I shouldn’t let the seatbelt go.

Is the other driver okay? What happened?

Everything hurts.

I can’t feel my right leg, is that normal?

Shock. I must be in shock.

That’s bad if I’m in shock, isn’t it?

“–ane! Shane! Fuck, please be okay! C’mon, man, say something!”

Why is Hayden talking? He wasn’t in the car with me. I was alone, wasn’t I?

The phone. He was talking on a phone call.

“’M here,” Shane groaned, coughing as the words scratched angrily at his throat and his chest tightened at the exertion.

Blood. I don’t think blood should come up when I cough. That’s bad. Really bad, I think.

“Oh fuck, thank God! Shane, man, you scared the fuck outta me. What happened? Are you okay?”

“Car,” Shane coughed out. “Car hit me. I’m, I think I’m hurt.”

Pain exploded in his chest. He coughed, on and on until his vision had black spots in it from the lack of oxygen. Even after he stopped coughing up his own lifeblood, Shane’s body seemed to refuse to accept any new oxygen. It hurt. It felt like dying.

“I already chose you, Hollander. Go home. Please.”

“Okay.”

“Fuck,” Shane said, his only working hand coming up to clutch his heaving chest, surprised to not feel it torn in two from the sheer pain he was feeling. “’M dying, Hayd. ‘M dyin’.”

“No, no, you’re not! Shane, you’re not fucking dying, do you hear me?” Hayden yelled through the phone.

He shouldn’t yell, he’s going to wake up Amber.

“’M tired,” Shane wheezed, his eyelids drooping heavily like weights were attached to them. “Cold. Cold n’ tired.”

“Fuck that, you can’t be either of those things! Stay awake, Shane! Jackie’s calling for help, okay? You’re gonna be fine, man, just stay awake. Keep talking to me, keep talking Shane.”

Okay.

He said the word. Shane tried so hard to never say it, because each time he did Ilya’s eyes crinkled and his lips frowned with clear hurt. But it was such a common word, and he hadn’t been thinking in all of his anger and fear and hurt.

He said it, and now he was bleeding out on the highway somewhere between Ottawa and Montreal.

Ilya was so far away from him.

How was Ilya going to say his words to him from Ottawa?

“Scared, Hayd. Don’t wanna die,” Shane whimpered as it became much, much harder to stay awake. The pain exhausted his body quickly, seeping out any energy he had left to try and fight this total breakdown of his body. “Tell Ilya. Tell ‘im, tell…”

“Hey, hey! C’mon, Hollander, no. We’re not doing that, you’ll tell him whatever the fuck it is yourself. You’re not fucking dying!”

“I said it,” Shane gasped out, his heart throbbing painfully in his chest. It was slow, uncomfortably slow, but still it tried to lurch forward at the realization. “Said his words, Hayden. ‘Gonna die, I’m gonna die. I don’t wanna die.”

He didn’t. It wasn’t time. He and Ilya only just came up with a plan. They hadn’t even gotten to move in together yet, didn’t get to have any of the happy, romantic moments that Shane had been dreaming of ever since the cottage. It wasn’t fair. This was so much crueler than the movies Shane used to cry over, he thought. 

His time was up. The countdown had reached its end, and the worst part was Shane had the sinking suspicion that he wasn’t even going to get to hear Ilya’s words, not really. He wasn’t going to die with the knowledge that Ilya loved him, that would come later after he slipped into unconsciousness.

No, the end would come here, on the pavement in his warped car, feeling the freezing cold of a Montreal night in December icing up his worn and battered body. He would die in pain, young and scared just like he feared when his words first came in at sixteen. He would die never knowing if Ilya would ever forgive him for the argument.

Whoever his dad prayed to years ago didn't listen, or didn't care, because this was about the most painful way he could go out, and Shane wasn't even going to get to hear those words that would've brought an ounce of comfort to him in the end. 

Shane’s last thought was that it didn’t matter if he was leaving behind a hockey legacy or not, only that Ilya knew how much Shane loved him.

Can’t breathe.

Need to breathe.

Can’t.

His throat is full, it’s pressed open by something.

It hurts.

It doesn’t hurt.

It should hurt, and maybe that’s why it does, but it doesn’t at the same time.

It’s wrong.

There’s a hand in his. That feels nice.

An artificial drowsiness pulled Shane back under the waves.

“Shane, come on, baby, look at me. You have to look at me now, okay?”

Mom.

“You can do it, buddy. It’s okay, you need to calm down or they’ll put you back under. Please, Shane, please.”

Dad.

“C’mon, Hollzy, you got this. It’s okay, it’s okay, Shane. We’re all here, right?”

Hayden.

“Everything’s okay, Shane. They’re breathing for you, it’s okay, but you have to calm down.”

Jackie.

Where’s Ilya?

There’s still something in his throat. There’s a puff and a whir and every time he tries to breathe some alarm yells out somewhere.

“He’s trying to buck the vent,” an unfamiliar voice said. They sounded like they were in charge, speaking with authority. He could hear the slight twinge of fear in the voice, though, like they didn’t like this outcome.

I don’t like this fucking outcome either, let me fucking breathe!

“If he keeps fighting it, we’ll have to put him back on sedation,” the voice said.

No! No, don’t send me back down! I fought so hard to get back up here!

Mom, Dad, Hayden, Jackie, don’t let them!

Where’s Ilya?

Ilya, don’t let them put me back under! Don’t let them keep this thing in my throat. Let me breathe, please, Ilya, let me breathe.

I need to breathe.

A strong hand was in his. Was it there the whole time? Shane’s grip was crushing it. The person on the other end of it must be in a lot of pain. He couldn’t relax his grip, even if he wanted to.

It hurt. He was scared. He didn’t want to go back under.

He did anyway.

Breathe.

Can’t breathe.

Weird throat tube is still there, that sucks.

“–st. You can rest, Shane. Ya tebya lyublyu.”

Ilya loved him. He can rest.

That’s so nice.

Shane was so tired, he would like to rest.

He went back under, the thought drifting away from him that he didn’t like hearing the sound of Ilya sobbing.

“Is okay, Shane.”

That’s Ilya.

Shane’s entire body was tensed. It hurt, everything still hurt, but it was dulled a bit by whatever medication he was being given. His hands were still tied down to the sides of the bed, and Shane wanted to panic over it but there were hands holding onto each of them. He thought he was squeezing them too tight, but the hands never slipped away from his.

“Your family is all here. Your boyfriend is here. Your Pike is here. Everyone is here, you are okay. Breathe, Shane, I know you can do it.”

Mom and Dad. That was their hands.

Shane’s vision was blurry but he could see their forms on either side of the bed. His mom was brushing away tears with her free hand while the other held onto his. His dad was letting his own tears fall, hitting onto their entwined hands every once in awhile.

Ilya was by his head, leaned over and so close Shane didn’t know how he wasn’t bumping into the tube coming out from his mouth.

That hurt.

Shane hated the fucking tube.

Get it out, already! It hurts, it’s wrong. I need to breathe but I can’t, and this thing is doing it for me! Please, please make it stop. I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this.

“Tube must be very uncomfy, I know, but it has to stay in. You can breathe around it now, yes? You won’t let silly little tube win, will you? What will people say, the great Shane Hollander, second best hockey player in MLH, bested by a tube.”

I can’t let this fucking tube win.

I need to tell Ilya I’m sorry and I love him.

I need to tell him I’ll always pick him over hockey.

I need to tell him I’d move to Ottawa for him, if he asked.

Even if he didn’t ask.

Something in the panic cleared. Some of the alarms stopped sounding, and Shane took that to mean he must be doing a good job so he focused on calming down. His breathing was okay, it was still working. His heart was still pounding in his chest uncomfortably but even that was beginning to slow the longer Shane watched Ilya.

Ilya looked so afraid. His face was twisted up as he watched Shane, eyes shiny with tears and cheeks equally shiny with the thin tracks of them. He had dark circles under his eyes and his hair was a mess, like he hadn’t slept in ages.

You should take care of yourself, my love.

Shane didn’t want Ilya to be scared because of him anymore. He didn’t want him to hurt. So Shane focused, feeling an ounce of victory when the alarms stopped altogether.

“Good, so good, Shane. You are very brave.” Ilya sounded breathless, like he couldn’t really believe that Shane had done it. There was a hand in his hair. It felt nice. It reminded Shane of the cottage.

“–now. You have to fight a little more for us, Shane. Just a little more.”

Shane would always fight for them. He would always fight for Ilya. This could not be the end for them. They’d said their words but still Ilya was talking to him. What did that mean?

It meant Ilya didn’t have to grieve him. It meant that Shane needed to keep fighting, because Ilya loved him and Shane couldn’t leave him alone.

Except, Ilya hadn’t been alone. Hayden was over his shoulder, hand gripped onto Ilya’s shoulder like he was comforting a friend. That was new. Yuna’s other hand was holding onto Ilya, too, rubbing up and down his back in comfort.

At least Ilya had his and Shane’s family around him to help. At least he hadn’t been alone.

“You’re doing so good, Shane,” that authoritative voice said. “Keep trying to relax. You passed this test. Once we get the okay from the doctor we’ll take the tube out. How does that sound?”

Shane did his best to nod, eyes crinkling in his best attempt at a smile as the woman laughed a little at his eagerness. “I know, I know it’s uncomfortable. I’ll get the doctor, I’ll be right back. You just keep breathing, okay?”

So he did.

He said his words and survived. There was so much with that to figure out, but Shane’s body was still exhausted and all he wanted to do was be with his family.

So his hands squeezed his parents’ back. His eyes looked first to Hayden, who was grinning wildly at him, and then to Ilya.

Ilya.

Ilya, whose fingers brushed over the freckles on Shane’s cheek with more gentleness and care than Shane ever thought he would get in life. Whose eyes still shone with tears but relief and joy too. Who still looked a little like he was grieving a man who hadn’t died. Who looked like he loved Shane more than anyone else in the world, like Shane carried some piece of him in his heart for safe keeping.

Okay.

You can rest, Shane. Ya tebya lyublyu.

Shane breathed, and Ilya smiled each time.