Archive of Our Own

Shane Hollander dies on the ice, midway through a middling game against a team he doesn’t even remember anymore. He dies, right there with his blades cutting the ice and the puck nestled in the curve of his stick, and no one notices.

Especially not him.

The first inkling he gets that his life has come to an uneventful close is the look on the reporters’ faces after the game. It wasn’t a great game per se, but they did eke out a win, so he’s not sure how to interpret the strange mix of tense sorrow and rabid bloodthirst in the air.

They don’t even ease him into it. He dies again in that cramped, stuffy room, lips wrapping around the word crash.

His vision fractures apart, senses a mess of flashing cameras and buzzing microphones and cool concrete walls and breathe Shane breathe and footsteps rushing and and and pain pain so much pain in his chest and call the fucking ambulance.

Another flash. It’s his phone screen this time. Calls are trying to get through but all he can see is the cluster of Instagram messages waiting for him. Sent during the game.

You are the best thing in my life.

It’s not real. He’s hyperventilating in JJ’s arms and Hayden is looking down at him with that sad, grim, fatherly stare like he has to break bad news about the family pet. But it’s not real.

Safe in your heart.

JJ’s eyebrows draw impossibly close. There’s that sad wrinkle in his forehead that forms whenever he’s beating himself up about a bad play. But they won. JJ sunk a beautiful shot in the third period.

I believe it.

Hayden’s lips are moving soundlessly, hands biting into Shane’s shoulders as he pins him to the locker room wall. It’s not healthy for him to be so stressed. He should call Jackie – Shane knows that whenever he’s upset, talking to Ilya–

Ilya–

Crash.

All of Shane’s senses come back online. They’re screaming. He might be screaming.

Ilya, no no no Ilya, it can’t, he can’t–

“You’re hurting yourself!” JJ grunts. His friends are trying to help, but they don’t realize that restraining him is what’s killing him.

He can’t waste any more fucking time being apart from Ilya. He needs to get in the car right now. He needs to be on his hands and knees at the crash site, turning over every rock and stone for traces of his beloved.

He needs to be wherever Ilya is – on the ground or in the sky or in the heavens. If he digs and digs and digs and all he finds is blood and broken bone, he’ll lay himself to rest next to Ilya’s remains so they can never be separated again.

For the first time, Shane understands why married couples buy adjacent graves.

(Even that isn’t close enough. His corpse will creep inside Ilya’s coffin, mixing bones until they can never separate again.)

Sharp pain lances through Shane’s chest. His lungs are shriveled prunes rotting in his chest cavity, all the air crushed out of him by the black hole that opened up in that press room and followed him ever since. His vision is blinking in and out, longer intervals than it probably should be, and he still can’t hear anything.

He swallows against a ragged and raw throat. He’s definitely still screaming.

Body suddenly weighing a million kilos, Shane goes slack in JJ’s hold. The lack of thrashing only makes JJ worry more as Shane starts to tip out of his arms.

He can’t help it. His heart hurts. Everything fucking hurts. His cheeks are slick and there’s salt in his mouth. There’s blood in his mouth and none spared for his veins. His heart is pumping dead air to his starving muscles and it fucking hurts.

JJ’s mouth is forming words. Multiple. All Shane sees is crash crash crash.

He reaches a hand out to shut JJ up, but it doesn’t respond to the command. Oh. His arms are numb. Tingling. His breaths are coming faster now. Maybe they aren’t coming at all.

There’s no oxygen in the room. Does the venue keep up with the efficacy of their carbon monoxide detectors? Shane always has to nag Ilya about changing the batteries on the ones at his house. Ilya teases him, complains that he’s overprotective, but Shane just wants Ilya to be safe. He couldn’t bear to think of something happening to Ilya.

Ilya. Shane scrabbles at his closing throat. Ilya always knows how to help him breathe again. Where is Ilya?

“We’re gonna get you help, buddy,” Hayden says through the tears streaming down his face. His features are soon painted in a nauseating flash of red and blue. Maybe there are sirens. Maybe it’s just the screaming in his head. It’s all so muffled.

Wildly, Shane tosses his head around as a flurry of uniformed people hoist him into an ambulance. Oh. He took a bad hit. No. A puck to the face. No. Concussion from crashing into the boards. No. Maybe?

Crash?

He’s fine. His heart is coming apart in small fragments and he’s spitting them out like broken teeth. They won the game. His organs are melted into one and no longer wish to be imprisoned under his flesh. Nothing happened. Someone stuck a crowbar into his sternum and is slowly cracking open the safe of his chest, inch by inch, snapping ribs and sinewy tissue on their path to the empty space where his душа (soul) used to be.

He’s okay.

He’s having a fucking heart attack.

The first emotion that occurs to Shane after this epiphany, quite clinically, is not fear. It’s irritation. Why are there paramedics strapping a mask to his face when every resource on the planet should be allocated to Ilya? How could he waste his time having an emergency while Ilya is out there somewhere, missing him, calling for him?

How fucking dare Ilya leave him first?

He’s so angry he almost forgets that he’s sobbing his guts out in a hospital room. There can’t possibly be any moisture left in his body, skin cracked like dry mud and scream-torn throat arid as a desert. And somehow he keeps crying.

Shane Hollander died the second Ilya Rozanov’s plane went down. His body is just trying to even the score.

It doesn’t succeed on the first try, but it’s only a matter of time. He’s a man without a heart. It’s going to catch up to him soon enough.

Three weeks without food. Three days without water. Three minutes without air.

How long without Ilya?

His parents clutch his hands in that bright hospital room, turning wide sad pitying eyes on him as the doctors talk about broken hearts and stress management and god no one fucking knows he’s already dead. That he’s in love with Ilya.

Was. Is.

His mom presses her cheek to his forehead like how she used to check his temperature when he was young. Vaguely, he wonders if he’s really burning up, or if that’s just the anguish rippling through his body like tsunamis of fire.

“Temporary emotional triggers can cause cardiac events. There’s no physical blockage and no lasting consequences. You’re going to be okay,” she whispers like she really believes it.

Shane doesn’t have the heart to tell her nothing about Ilya has ever been temporary for him.

He doesn’t have a heart at all.

His parents take him home. Shane can’t scrounge up the energy to even cry properly anymore, tears leaking passively down his face. He opens his mouth to respond when his dad asks if he’d rather be on the couch or on his bed, but the words don’t come when summoned.

He’s an empty shell, guts scooped out with a single sound.

Crash.

His physical form deteriorates a lot slower than his spirit. His poor parents try their best to spoonfeed him – he can’t taste it – and facilitate visit with friends – they look so disturbed when they see his face – and scheme in hushed tones get him professional help – but no therapist can work with a corpse.

Shane spends the first stretch of death curled up on his side in bed, blank gaze fixed on his phone screen, waiting for a call that never comes. His phone flashes with irrelevant notification after notification, and the battery drains in this slow, methodical, painstaking way. It dies in bed next to a dead owner.

Time ebbs and flows around him like a river around an eroding rock. The passage of his parents in and out of his room all blurs together in one big haze of sad eyes. Mom tries to hug him, sobs that he’s just a pile of bones, but no one can truly touch a ghost.

He sees Ilya, sometimes.

When he rests his unblinking eyes on the ceiling long enough, the plaster swirls transform into golden curls. He thrashes in the middle of the night, hoping desperately to stay asleep for the meager comfort of the nightmares in his mind not being real, but he wakes to a calloused hand in his hair and the scent of Ilya’s body wash.

By the time Shane reaches out, the touch is gone.

Mom keeps stacking stuff in his room. Cards that say get well soon instead of sorry for your loss. Packages from brands that don’t know they’re wasting stock on an empty grave. Messages from people who are counting on him, which toed the line between motivating and soul-crushing even in life. Now, as nothing more tangible than a flickering spirit, Shane can’t do anything but disappoint them.

His body has gotten the memo about his death and is shutting down in this slow, methodical, painstaking way. Sometimes, in the deepest throes of his misery, he wants to help. He wishes he could move things along: suffocate himself with his pillow, figure out whatever Ilya sought at the bottom of a vodka bottle, cram those painkillers from his collarbone injury down his throat, find another use for the letter opener Mom adds to the pile of cards.

He fantasizes about seeing Ilya’s face on the other side of it. The real Ilya, not the one who follows him to the bathroom and rips the pillow from his face and knocks the letter opener under the dresser.

Ilya waiting for him with open arms and a loving smile. The happiness plummeting from his face as soon as he learns what Shane has done to get back to his side. He’ll be disappointed. Betrayed. He left Shane first, but unless he crashed that plane himself, at least he didn’t follow in his mother’s footsteps.

Shane always wanted to meet Irina. He could never face her if he committed Ilya’s one unforgivable sin.

Ilya won’t be any more pleased by Shane letting his body die organically, but at least he can’t blame Shane for actively killing himself.

Love is all about compromises.

Shane can’t kill himself. For Ilya’s sake. But he knows what Ilya meant now when he talked about not being able to help it.

Shane can only help it because his body is on its way to match his brain in decay.

If Ilya felt even a crumb of this when he was alive, Shane needs to give him the longest kiss and the sloppiest blowjob in the afterlife for hanging on as long as he did.

“You must have really loved me,” he mumbles to the Ilya in the ceiling.

Mom gasps at the sound of his voice, even though the words are probably nothing more than garbled grunts of heartbreak.

“We love you Shane, we love you so much.”

That’s nice. Really. Shane has always been so lucky to have a warm home waiting for him, supportive parents who go to every game they can, affection poured into him from all sides.

He was so excited to share it with Ilya. To build a cozy life together one day.

But he waited too fucking long. He spent so many years being scared of coming out, of loving Ilya in the daylight as if it was the worst thing that could ever happen to them. Well fucking look at him now.

He has to mourn Ilya in the darkness because he was too much of a coward to, what, endure some extra slurs from both sides of the ice? Get booted to a shit team? Lose all his brand deals and the respect of the young Asian hockey hopefuls whose career prospects hang over his head every day?

If Shane’s synapses weren’t muddled by grief and regret thick enough to suffocate, maybe he’d be able to hold more grace for his former self. The fear had felt real back then. It had been real. Shane already got enough shit in locker rooms and across face-off circles for his…him.

His facial features. His goody-two-shoes reputation. His strict diet. His refusal to join in on locker room talk and his inability to exert enough off-ice authority over his teammates to stop it altogether.

Adding gay and fucking the enemy — no, being fucked by the enemy, because for some reason being the receiver is it’s own dollop of shame — felt like adding more ammunition to the gun forever locked and loaded against his temple.

Shane thought coming out would pull the trigger. He had never been so wrong.

Loving Ilya was his salvation. Losing Ilya was his destruction. The harder he fell in love, the gorier the impact when he finally hit the ground. He knew this, accepted this, prepared for this. It still wasn’t enough.

His worst nightmares always involved losing Ilya — to a woman, to Russia, to the closet, to fear, to the cloud of sadness curling around his neck like a noose. A noose or a gunshot or a bottle of pills.

Never to the treetops of Montreal. There was no contingency plan for a fucking plane crash.

Back then, electrified by that first week of cottage-drunk honesty, the love confessions exchanged under soft moonlight, the thrill of being together without ears on the other side of thin hotel walls or flight check-in reminders popping up on their phones, Shane felt like a genius.

They could have hockey and each other.

But he phrased it – built their whole plan around it, really – with hockey as the priority.

Hockey.

…And each other.

Sure, they’d make some risky personal moves like associating with each other in public to shift the narrative, but the main focus was on how to keep their careers intact despite their love.

Fuck, Shane treated loving each other like it was a dirty secret to beg forgiveness for, and not the best thing that’s ever fucking happened to him.

Staying away from each other never worked for long and was agonizing to even try. He didn’t want to pretend like Ilya was nothing to him, but it was — it felt worth it at the time. In the long run it would be worth it.

Maybe it really would’ve been. If they had lasted that long.

Ottawa is closer than Boston, but the distance still ate at them. They were following their plan like stubborn workhorses — never noticing, or unwilling to notice, or noticing but unwilling to voice it — despite them withering every time they drove away.

And for what?

It’s not like Shane could’ve predicted that Ilya would have the nerve to die midway through their grand plan. But the light at the end of their years-long tunnel has just flickered out. Shane is left stranded and alone, wondering if he should turn around or keep moving into the darkness or just lay down and die.

No one knows why Shane Hollander has fallen apart. His parents are still hopeful that the right combination of pills and shrinks and time will put their perfect son back together again. The Centaurs are grieving a captain they never really knew because Ilya locked so much of himself away to protect their secret.

There’s no fucking point in coming out now. Being Shane-and-Ilya, not Hollander-versus-Rozanov, is unbelievable even if both of them could face the world hand in hand as living proof. All they have now is a ghost and half a man. Shane insisted they delete all their photos and incriminating text messages, for god’s sake.

There’s nothing left.

Pulling that trigger is useless now. It’s not like anyone will let secret maybe-boyfriend definitely-enemy Shane Hollander join the funeral processions. It just feels like rubbing salt in the wounds of Ilya, who never got to make the leap despite staying crouched in position, muscles burning, waiting for the cue to spring.

Shane always dreamed of giving a speech about Ilya at their wedding. He had drafts and everything. Can vows be repurposed for a eulogy?

Maybe it’s for the best that Shane skips the funeral. It’s improper for a murderer to mourn their victim, after all.

Because Ilya would still be alive if they had never started their relationship. Shane is the reason he got on that fucking plane. It’s all his fault for opening that hotel door.

Shane killed Ilya with his own two hands and beating heart, and he hadn’t even known it.

He sweats time, hours and days sliding down the planes of his neck where Ilya always nibbled, the swells of his chest that his considerate lover never left unattended. So much time evaporates in that cramped room, marked only by metal spoons against his teeth and faces swirling in the ceiling and the sound of crying on both sides of his bedroom door.

After weeks of marinating in misery, a thought occurs. Maybe he got it all wrong. Maybe everyone is wrong.

Ilya, his Ilya, wouldn’t leave him like this. He promised, once, in that first hotel room. In a much different context.

But still. There must be some sort of misunderstanding. Ilya had to go back to Russia and lost cell service. He’s been at the cottage this whole time, just waiting for Shane to come home to him. He’s under the bed, or just outside the door, or watching from the window, or hiding somewhere in the clump of packages, because he would never abandon Shane without a word.

So Shane waits.

Sleep has never been less restful, yet felt so good. Ilya only curls up next to him when he’s asleep. Shane spends each night watching Ilya’s chest move up and down, soft breaths disturbing the hair in his face. He waits desperately for Ilya to open his eyes, to kiss him slow and sleepy. He wants it so bad he wouldn’t even nag about brushing their teeth first.

Ilya is gone again when Shane wakes. It’s maddening. If only he could sleep and sleep and sleep and never have to wake up. Wouldn’t that be nice? If it all went quiet?

(God, Ilya must have truly loved him.)

Every creak of the doorknob could be Ilya. (But it never is.) Every call to the house could be Ilya. (But it never is.) There’s a small envelope in the mix of cards and packages today, neat Cyrillic on the front. It could be Ilya.

(It could be Ilya.)

Very little light leaks into Shane’s room even at the height of noon, but he assumes it’s nighttime when he reaches for the envelope. His muscles spasm and revolt against his command. He’s mildly startled when he looks down and finds the protruding knobs of his bones.

Where’s the rest of me?

It’s like someone stretched flesh-colored fabric around a classroom skeleton. The muscles he spent years carving have deteriorated into dust, tendons no longer strong enough to knit his bones together. He should probably be more disturbed by this. Instead it’s almost a comfort, having his body reflect the wreckage of his heart.

He manages to get ahold of the envelope even though his arms have been replaced with tissue paper. The Cyrillic is blurry and keeps dodging his line of sight. He should get his glasses. Ilya loves his glasses.

Shane’s Russian is still pretty bad. He speaks better than he writes, because Ilya prefers to conduct their lessons while he’s halfway into his guts, and Shane thought he had an entire lifetime left to pick up the damn alphabet.

The envelope bulges slightly in one corner. It takes him several tries to wrench it open and he earns multiple papercuts for his efforts. The beads of blood welling up on his fingertips briefly fascinate him. He didn’t think he had any of that left.

There’s a note inside. Unsigned, but even in this state Shane can put together who sent it.

For Jane,

He would want you to have it. I’m so sorry.

His eyes glaze over the phone number attached at the bottom. Shane never got to meet Svetlana in person. Like with all good things in Ilya’s life, he was too scared to risk the exposure. From what Ilya told him, though, she always sounded smarter than all of them put together.

Nestled inside the paper prison is a flash of gold. Shane dumps it over the bedspread with shaking hands. No. No no no–

It could have been Ilya. It’s not Ilya.

It will never be Ilya again.

Shane cradles Ilya’s crucifix to his heart and splits apart anew.

The necklace Ilya never, ever took off. The last piece of his mother. The memento she left on his nightstand just before she killed herself, so she would always be with him, resting against his heart.

Safe in your heart. I believe it.

The love and grief inherited by Ilya now tangles around Shane’s fingertips in golden gleams. This can’t be real. He can’t have this. It’s the type of object that only changes hands when the owner dedicates it in a will. When they want to be remembered by the person they loved the most.

When they die.

Ilya is dead and the closest thing to a body recoverable from the wreckage is now glimmering in Shane’s hands.

Burning hot coals rake against the walls of his chest. His arms are going numb again and this time there’s no one to stop him from scratching all his flesh off. He can’t even feel it. The half-melted crucifix bumps against his skin as if pleading for him to come back to earth, but he’s been deaf to the world for a long time now.

Everything hurts. His ribcage crumbles away like rotted wood. He’d wail but his vocal cords have long scarred over. Somehow he’s still able to cry. There’s a noose around his heart and it’s squeezing squeezing squeezing. Maybe his vision is growing spotty and dark, or maybe that’s just the witching hour dawning. It’s impossible to know.

Despite the best efforts of his cracked glass lungs, no breath reaches his brain. It feels nice. Everything feels soft again. Muffled, far away. The pain is there, worse than ever, but somehow it’s dim by the time it reaches wherever Shane has floated.

You were the best thing in my life too, Ilya.

White-hot pain knocks insistently at Shane’s sensory pathways. Every cell is screaming at him, begging for him to take the mounting agony as a sign to call for help. As if anything could hurt worse than losing the love of his life before he ever really had him.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Ilya wasn’t supposed to die alone, self-isolated from everyone who loves him except Shane, because of Shane. Burning to death amid a sea of unfamiliar faces.

Shane cups both hands around Ilya’s necklace. He probably isn’t supposed to follow so soon, but he can’t help it. He understands Ilya now. Sometimes you just can’t help it.

Hand in hand with Ilya’s ghost, Shane dies again.

It sticks this time. Finally.

_____________________

Death is dark. And…kind of humid?

He’s surprised by how acutely he feels the transition. Every muscle fiber slackens, soul drifting free of his flesh and dissolving into the open air. It feels like moving through sticky soup. It feels like nothing at all.

There are no senses. No walls. No beginning or end. It’s a slightly elevated return to that place consciousnesses shelter before birth. A thick, comfortable nothingness, with only a trace of awareness spared.

Absolute nonexistence.

He reaches out in this plane of nothing and searches for something.

For someone.

The name hovers just out of reach. He had died with it on his lips, begging and screaming, the most important sound he’d ever learned, but it escapes him in this place. That’s okay. He doesn’t need to struggle anymore.

Here, they can just be.

And indeed, he feels a presence twine around him. They cannot see without eyes, cannot touch without bodies, but the lost halves know it the moment they meet again.

It’s his Person.

Missed you missed you missed you, he tries to convey with no mouth and no voice and all his heart.

Missed you more missed you more missed you more streams back to him, because of course his Person is a competitive motherfucker even in death.

It’s not exactly a hug, but he senses a distinct pressure, and for the first time since his death (and the death before it and the death before that) he wishes he could cry. For once it would be happy tears.

He presses back, and they press and press and press back and forth like there’s a way to win this game. Their presences overlap, interspersing like mixed paint until there is no dividing line.

Perfect.

They’re seamlessly aligned, closer than they ever could get with blood and flesh and bone in the way. It feels right. This is what their souls always craved.

At the same time, it’s a bit of a shame that they don’t have bodies. He vaguely remembers promising his Person a reward in the afterlife. His Person vibrates eagerly against him, equally disappointed by their lack of corporeality.

Still, this is all he wanted. To be reunited with his Person. To curl around each other like kittens napping in the sun, pleased and sated and loved.

Happy happy happy, he pulses. No one is to blame. He’s exactly where he wants to be. Nothing hurts when he can’t feel a thing. He misses what they were, of course, because with sadness comes joy and with anguish comes ecstasy and maybe it was nice to be alive, even if it hurt sometimes.

But it’s okay. He’d much rather be here, where he doesn’t have to leave his Person ever again.

There’s something distinctly sad about his Person. He wasn’t expecting him so soon, caught between the relief of being together again and the sorrow of an existence too easily forfeited. But his Person isn’t lonely anymore now that he’s here.

Well. Still alone, except for him. Exactly how they were in life.

Maybe he should feel horrible about that. But there’s nothing to feel in this void aside from the presence he desperately sought out on the earthly plane, even before they were separated by pesky obstacles like burning metal and unbeating hearts.

They settle into each other, over and under and all around. Spirits buzzing in perfect harmony. They’ve always operated at the same frequency, a connection so exclusive and sacred to them, and now it’s all they are. Stardust interwoven.

And then, a tug.

It starts as an innocent prod. An exploratory touch from an uninvited presence, futilely feeling around for edges to define an existence already dispersed. He has no tolerance for its attempts to separate him from his Person.

It wants him to speak with no voice. It’s trying to re-crystallize salt from the ocean they’ve become. He fights it, clings to his Person and feels him press protectively right back. Nothing can uncouple them now, after all they’ve been through to reach each other again.

But then the touch expands.

Oh. They’re pulling his Person too. That’s much better. He’ll go willingly, anywhere, as long as they go together.

Stay stay stay, begs his Person. Scared scared scared.

Stay stay stay, he agrees, bodiless arms cradling him close. They can’t quite hug without physical forms, every speck of their beings already fused together, but his Person is always most soothed when enveloped in his arms, and he’s not sure how else to communicate that they won’t ever be ripped apart again. He simply won’t allow it.

Two great hands cup the outline of Them. The tug intensifies to a yank, drawing them down down down. Their form grows heavy like a sponge soaking up water. The nothing around them thickens and threatens to turn into a something.

Finally, at the precipice of obsolescence, the forgotten sound returns. He’s reborn the way he died; the name of his Person nestled safe against his tongue.

“Ilya,” Shane gasps, and his heart beats again.

_____________________

Most peoples’ first word of the year is happy.

Happy New Year. Feliz Año Nuevo. 明けましておめでとう. С Новым Счастьем. 新年快乐.

It’s a stock phrase. The words are conditioned into everyone once the clock strikes midnight on a new beginning, chasers to champagne swigs and lovers’ kisses. Intentional or not, that first breath sets the tone for the year to come.

Happy. Let’s be happy in this fresh start.

In his second life, Shane’s first word is Ilya.

It’s his own sacred oath. The vow he never got to take. This time he will make his priorities clear to Ilya. And to the world – which doesn’t seem nearly as paralyzing as it once did – but more importantly to Ilya. Never again will their love be confined to the shadows.

I love you. I choose you. I can’t live without you.

Please don’t make me live without you again.

Strong arms tighten around Shane as he slowly comes back into himself. His crumpled lungs inflate, pulsing in time with the ribcage pressed against his side. There’s warmth against his skin.

There’s another body in his deathbed.

Around them, everything remains syrupy and slow. Unimportant. A strange woman speaks in soft tones. A dialect of Japanese, maybe, but Shane’s mom never taught him the language. The voice stirs a protective instinct in his core. Fading memories of celestial hands prompt him to clutch harder onto the warmth. Even propped by such fragile bones, he won’t be pulled away.

Foggy from a recalibrating soul, Shane can only crack his eyes open for a second. It’s just long enough to glimpse Ilya’s mop of curls resting on his chest. It’s just salient enough to catch the soft breaths ghosting against his skin.

Happy happy happy, he hums drowsily. Stay stay stay.

Exhaustion sinks over him like a weighted blanket. Every cell fixates on Ilya’s signs of life, centering Shane like a spot to a spinning ballerina.

Missed you most missed you most missed you most.

_____________________

Shane wakes to the reminder that non-Ilyas also inhabit this world. Faces swim into his vision. One belongs to his mom, he’s pretty sure, although it’s twisted into an expression that was completely alien before that horrible January day, and hauntingly constant afterward.

Sorrow, mostly. Secondhand pain. A healthy heaping of pity.

His dad is there too, possibly, and his face similarly swirls in whirlpools of sadness. Shane opens his mouth to say something, probably one of the endless apologies he owes them for the last few months, and for everything before that. The lump of gold against his chest draws his bleary eyes.

“Ill”, he rasps on dry-cracked lips.

His mom is talking. Panicking, more like, but it all fades to a gentle hum in the background. The golden glimmer nestled on top of him twitches and groans and it’s the loveliest sound in the world.

Shane’s fingers wind into the beautiful curls of Ilya’s hair. The other gold is still there, a delicate chain looped over his knuckles, but there’s a little thrill in his beating heart as he looks at it. A good flutter this time.

Ilya is alive to welcome his мама's (mama's) crucifix home. Shane doesn’t have to bear this symbol of generational grief. Not yet.

“Илюша (Ilyusha),” he sobs out as he leans down to cradle Ilya’s sleeping face. His skin is warm and soft to the touch. Shane brushes reverently against familiar mole after mole. Grazes Ilya’s eyelashes, which he likes to flutter against Shane’s cheek when he kisses him. Presses harder and harder to convince himself it’s real.

The notch above Ilya’s eyebrow where he ran into a tree as a child. The stubble prickling along the line of his jaw. The thin curve of his lips. All of it is Ilya. All of it is Shane’s.

I’m home, he promises, and seals it with a kiss.

His lips are chapped beyond belief. Ilya will torment him about it forever; it’s only a matter of time until Shane starts finding tubes of lip balm slipped into every nook and cranny. His locker room stall. His gear bag. His designated cup holder in their cars. The pocket of every jacket he’s ever owned.

God. He can’t fucking wait.

Like a fairytale, Shane presses kiss after true love’s kiss to Ilya’s lips until his sleeping beauty finally opens his eyes.

Of course, his princess is Ilya Rozanov. So. It plays out more like a bad porno intro than a Disney movie ending.

“Kitty has his claws out this morning, hm?” Ilya mumbles into the pad of Shane’s thumb. He casually stretches his legs, grumbling like he’s waking up after a rowdy night partying and not from the fucking afterlife.

Shane tries to convey that he’s not in the mood for jokes yet, but all that comes out is a tortured whimper. He hasn’t cried like this since Ilya died. Before that – well, there was nothing equivalent before that.

Losing Ilya hurt so bad it killed him, after all.

Startled from the sleepy soup of resurrection, Ilya surges towards him. He gathers Shane up in those strong arms. It’s even easier now that Shane has wasted away into a waif, a fact that doesn’t escape Ilya. Nothing about Shane can escape Ilya.

“Bad dream, солнышко (sunshine)?”

Ilya’s mouth is moving, offering up an easy explanation. He’s terrified. Shane can see it in his eyes, but he’s trying to give Shane an out. Or maybe it’s for himself.

Shane latches onto the word солнышко (sunshine) and cries and cries because he thought he’d never be called that again.

He’s been so cold all these months. The furthest thing from sunshine.

But now, with Ilya’s warmth draped over him, he can finally peek above the horizon line and paint a new day with light.

A bad dream. Shane wishes that’s all it was. He wants so desperately to agree, to smooth Ilya’s hair back and reassure him through his tears that nothing happened, nothing bad can reach them when they’re nestled in each others’ arms, but he can’t lie to Ilya. He can lie to the world, and his team and his parents, and to himself, but not to Ilya. Not anymore.

“You left me.” The words spill from Shane’s lips unbidden. Aftershocks of grief and fear and relief sting his body and now the babbling won’t stop. “You burned to a crisp, you died, Ilya, there was nothing left, you died and you left me behind. Fuck you. Fuck.”

“Shh, shh,” Ilya tries to soothe him with trembling hands. It’s not an unfamiliar situation – Ilya tamping down his own panic in service of Shane. “I don’t…the plane…?”

“Safe in your heart. I believe it.” Momentarily, anger swells to close the bullet holes torn in his heart. “You texted me your last words and I was – fuck, I was playing a stupid fucking hockey game! I didn’t get to say goodbye! Ilya, fuck, I didn’t get to tell you that my heart – without you I can’t–”

Ilya stares at himself like he can’t believe he’s alive. The disbelief deepens the doubt creeping along Shane’s stomach lining. He runs bone-worn fingers across the planes of Ilya’s chest, down his arms, back up his sides. Real. He’s really here.

“Is ok, just rest. Relax.” Ilya burrows them back into the blankets, lips pressing lazily over Shane’s tear-streaked skin. “We are ok, we are safe here. You need to breathe, my Шаня (Shanya). You are like frail baby bird right now. All this sadness will break you.”

It already did, Shane swallows back.

He rests his head on Ilya’s chest, ear nudging towards his heart. He counts the thumps and tries to guess his heart rate. It’s fast. Alive.

Ilya’s thumb traces down Shane’s gaunt cheekbones and across the sharp angles of his shoulders. This is going to be a conversation. Shane knows. He’s going to have to admit to Ilya how badly he fell apart without him. How Ilya was wrong to seek shelter in the same heart that failed Shane twice.

Ilya came back to life to find nothing but scraps of Shane blowing in the wind.

Ilya is a master at breaking Shane and putting him back together. Usually it’s in a much sexier way. Ilya grinds his guardrails down to nothing, frees the tears that gum up behind his determined eyes, reduces him to bits so that he can wipe all the pieces clean and kiss him gently and make it all fit back into place better than before.

Maybe Ilya can fix him this time, too.

“Мой клей (My glue),” Shane mumbles. Ilya smiles softly, sleepily, down at him.

“You mean смазка (lube)?”

“No I don’t mean – fuck you, Ilya.”

“Mmm. Would love to.” Ilya squeezes him tighter into his chest. Shane sinks gratefully into the pressure. His next words are muffled into Shane’s hair, still gentle, but edged with a promise. “But we will talk about this first. You are always sexy to me, but I am worried. There is nothing left of you.”

“You took all of me with you,” Shane says before he can stop himself.

Ilya’s eyes slip closed, but his heart still beats strong and steady against Shane’s cheek. It’s just normal exhaustion. “Then I will make you right.”

There are still eyes on them but Shane doesn’t care. Fuck. It doesn’t matter if there are fucking news crews outside his window and reporters bugging his room. He will never hide Ilya or their love from the world again.

Life is just too damn short. Clearly.

He watches over Ilya as he drifts into a peaceful sleep. The worried eyes and frowns will need to be addressed eventually. His parents are probably out of their minds with stress and sadness. It’s not a feeling Shane would wish to impart on anyone.

But sometimes you just can’t help it.

They – or at least his mom – are going to interrogate him about the man in his bed. He can already feel the questioning looks. He’s so tired. He’s so loved. He’s so so so sorry.

Both of his parents are crying. He has no explanation for them. Searches for the desire to put words to the secrets that have been haunting him for years and comes up empty. He apologizes and hugs his parents before they finally, reluctantly, file out of the room to let them rest.

Shane lets the thrumming of Ilya’s pulse lull him into a fitful sleep. He surfaces periodically to check on the body beside him, just in case Ilya’s rebirth was an even crueler nightmare than his death. Every time without fail Ilya is there. No longer just a face in the ridges of the ceiling or an apparition behind him in the mirror or a formless bodiless presence.

“Good morning, мой будильник. (my alarm clock.)” Ilya nuzzles his cheek against Shane’s head. “Or good night? Seems very dark out there still.”

Ilya is real flesh and blood and bone and body and now that they’re both awake, blinking sleepily at each other, the need to touch trace taste eclipses every other thought in Shane’s brain.

Their legs have long since tangled together, but Shane shifts closer, slotting his knee between Ilya’s thighs. It’s not enough. He needs to be even closer, needs to slip underneath Ilya’s skin and monitor his vital signs from the inside out. Fuck.

“Sweetheart, you are crying again.”

“Ilya, I need you.” Shane whimpers, fingertips starting to scrabble at Ilya’s skin. He’s scared, so fucking terrified that the only thing tying Ilya to the earthly plane is Shane, paralyzed at the thought of Ilya flickering out of existence as soon as Shane’s grounding touch is gone.

Warm, rough hands rub down his back. Shane can feel every bump and ridge and callus and imperfection and he’s drunk on it, every indication that Ilya is real and alive and human.

He wriggles out of his clothes and throws more blankets over them in lieu of getting up to lock the door. He can’t bear to separate even an atom from Ilya. In fact, just cuddling isn’t cutting it.

“Closer, closer,” Shane cries, pawing desperately at Ilya’s torso. “Please. I need – fuck, I need you, I can’t live without you, baby, I need–”

“Shhh, sweetheart.” Ilya gives his grown-out hair a gentle tug. It helps to rattle Shane’s brain back into place, and also angles his face up for a kiss. Shane drinks him in hungrily and Ilya responds tenfold.

Ilya kisses him like he’s trying to use his tongue to nudge his heart back down his chest cavity. Every lick and suck and nibble settles Shane’s soul deeper into his body. It’s still not enough.

“Can you please–” Shane cuts himself off with a breathy moan, “–please you don’t even have to move, just need you closer, need you in me, fuck.”

They like to take their time with sex nowadays. It’s a nice contrast to their early years, where they operated under both external time crunches and self-imposed deadlines. The objective was to get down to business and do as much of it as they could.

Later, once they were more established and able to carve out slightly bigger chunks of time, they started to savor it. Shane would bite and mark his way in methodical paths across Ilya’s skin, knowing how much he relishes in wearing the evidence of their love even when no one can match the teeth to the indents. Ilya adores taking Shane apart with his tongue, mouthing against him and swirling until Shane has to force him to pull away so he can come on his cock instead.

They still have those moments of reliving the thrilling spontaneity of their younger years. Their sex hasn’t gotten any tamer – the opposite, really – but they’ve allotted more space to breathe.

Tonight, there’s no time for that.

Ilya shifts so he’s propped up over Shane. Yanking open the bedside table, Ilya rummages until he finds a small travel bottle of lube and squeezes some onto his hand. Impatient, Shane loops his legs around Ilya’s hips and ruts up.

Ilya rubs his fingers together to warm up the lube. It’s sweet, because the temperature shock normally icks Shane out, but right now Shane can’t reach a scrap of rationality outside the pounding need under his skin to be fused with Ilya, to make sure he can never again vanish where Shane can’t touch him, love him, protect him.

Ilya’s fingers circle reverently around Shane’s entrance, applying mild pressure in small bursts. His other hand smooths along the thin thin thin plane of Shane’s thigh. He pauses at the hip bone jutting out of his skin.

“My pretty Shane,” Ilya frowns. “It hurts me to see you sick. You will get help, yes?”

“I know, I know. I just…” Shane’s eyes well up with fresh tears. He sinks his teeth into Ilya’s shoulder just to taste him. Ilya’s finger finally finally slips inside, prodding hesitantly as if Shane might shred around him like wet paper. “Couldn’t keep anything down. It hurt. I’m sorry. I know it wasn’t healthy. Missed you so bad, needed you. Need you.”

A second finger nudges at Shane’s entrance. Ilya groans. “So tight for me, my Shane.”

“Obviously,” Shane bites out. “You fucking died, Ilya. It’s been a while.”

“Me too,” Ilya says unnecessarily. “No sexy ghosts in afterlife.”

What about me? I was there too, Shane almost chirps back indignantly, but he really doesn’t want to bring that up before he can get Ilya’s cock in him. Ilya is already distressed enough by the state of Shane’s health. Confessing that he lost the ability to take care of himself to the point that he died would probably have Ilya’s dick flagging, and Shane is going to die a second fucking time if he has to wait any longer.

Heels bumping insistently against Ilya’s back, Shane snaps, “Will you just fuck me already?”

“Дорогой (Sweetheart) you must relax. I will not rush this. I will not hurt you.” Ilya tilts his head then, considering. “Not unless I know you’ll like it.

At long fucking last, after Ilya manages to flex three fingers inside him, he slicks himself up and pushes in.

Tears pour down Shane’s face again. Ilya’s hips stutter, nervous, but Shane just beckons him closer closer closer. It feels so good. The sensation is beyond any physical pleasure provided by stimulation to a stupid bundle of nerves.

This sense of fullness, the constant reminder of Ilya seated deep inside him, Ilya Ilya Ilya, is what sends Shane to heaven. This is as connected as they can get on this realm of existence. It’s not as close as their souls intermixing, but it’s way fucking better because he can clench around Ilya’s dick and watch his eyes roll back in response. Nothing beats that.

True to his word, Ilya doesn’t move and Shane doesn’t ask him to. Ilya just rolls into a comfortable position, still nestled up in Shane’s guts, and strokes his hand up and down Shane’s stomach like he’s rubbing the belly of a very distressed puppy.

Normally when they have sex, Shane floats somewhere in an altered state of consciousness. But when Ilya is motionless inside of him like this, he becomes hyperaware of every miniscule twitch and jitter that sends shockwaves of pleasure up his spine. It keeps him sensitive, grounded, present, which is exactly where he wants to be. Right here.

Cockwarming Ilya in his deathbed.

Jesus.

Ilya kisses across every inch of skin he can reach, worshipping even the ugliest corners of Shane’s emaciated body. Even though Ilya seems equally content to remain sheathed inside Shane for the foreseeable future, maybe forever, there’s still a frothy wave of shame that crashes over him.

“I’m sorry, this is so not sexy,” Shane tries to laugh it off. Ilya just clicks his tongue as if Shane should know better.

“You are my Shane. You are always sexy. I get hard watching you do laundry. And driving. Meditating. Flossing. Updating our budgeting spreadsheet. Oh, do not get me started on tax season with those slutty little glasses.”

That earns a real laugh, albeit a wet one. “My prescription is like +5.75. Those are definitely not ‘little’ glasses.”

“Stop, stop. You will make me come.”

“Perv. You better not. I’m not letting you go even if you get soft.”

Ilya nips a mark underneath Shane’s jaw and he doesn’t even bitch about it. He just angles his head back in a bid for more. He will gladly don a necklace of Ilya’s hickeys every time he leaves the house. He doesn’t care who sees. He hopes it’s everyone. Maybe he’ll nibble a ring around Ilya’s finger in return.

A placeholder.

“You said there was nothing left of me,” Ilya comments after a while. “But I am here.”

Shane goes rigid. Bringing up his boyfriend’s corpse is not polite pillow talk. There’s a hint of levity in his words, though, so Shane trusts him and nods along.

“Sooo,” Ilya draws out. “This must be like new body, hm? I am still me, of course, but with different cells. Like that ship dilemma.”

“...Where are you going with this?”

Ilya’s grin widens. He smooches the tip of Shane’s nose. “Is kind of like losing my virginity again. In this life, with this body, you are my first everything. I am very excited. I have a long list of firsts to redo. You can have them all. Aren’t I generous?”

Shane stares. “You’re fucking ridiculous.”

“I love you too.” Ilya angles his dick just right, sending gentle waves of pleasure lapping up Shane’s nerve endings, sating him without pushing him over the edge. “Mmm. Virginity is silly concept, but secretly I always wished I gave my firsts to you.”

Fuck. Shane should never have clued Ilya in to his possessive streak. He squeezes his eyes shut and desperately tries not to come at the thought of owning Ilya’s every blink and breath.

“You were always mine,” Shane growls.

He bites down again on the meaty expanse of Ilya’s shoulder and leaves his teeth sunken deep. He’s swallowing Ilya’s dick down to the base, digging his fingernails into Ilya’s forearms, fitting himself into every nook and cranny and clinging like a fallen man to the last hold on the side of a cliff.

Ilya smirks. “Of course I was your first. My terrified little зайчик (bunny), you were just waiting for me to come along and open up your world to pleasure. But is ok, I still had other firsts left to give. You were my first relationship, first boyfriend, first love. My only.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Shane kisses him like he’s trying to devour him whole, leaving his mark so no one can look at Ilya without knowing to whom he belongs. “You’re mine. In this life and the one before and whatever came before that. You always were. Even before we met. Even when you were fucking a different woman every night. Even when you tried to run away. I don’t give a shit. You were mine from the start.”

Ilya comes with a sob.

_____________________

Shane’s parents are freaked out.

He can’t really blame them. Before the crash, he kept a neat wall up between all the different parts of his life. They were only allowed to interact on his terms, to the degree that he could control. His parents have always been involved in his hockey career, but there’s a line between them watching him on the ice and them knowing what happens in the locker room. Ilya is known to his parents, but as his sworn enemy, not his loving boyfriend.

Shane no longer has the bandwidth to care about the careful compartmentalization of his life. Fuck it. Let all the food on his plate touch, even if the textures get weird. At least he has an appetite again.

He should probably sit his parents down at some point and lay it all out on the table. But then he thinks about the words he’ll have to dig up from the graves he shoved them into years ago. How he’ll have to confess to all his lies, admit that he was never the perfect son they thought he was. How he’ll have to fight tooth and nail to prove Ilya’s sweet, loving character, because no one ever cares to look beyond what he presents to the world.

He’s so tired of the eyes and opinions of outsiders to their love. The only benefit to dying was that there were no other amorphous presences around casting doubt on their relationship.

It’s a low bar.

After all they’ve been through he just wants to cherish Ilya in peace. So he decides it’s easier to show rather than tell. It’s not like he’s trying to play it up or put on a performance, either. He just loosens his grip on his inhibitions and loves Ilya like he would if they were alone.

Well. Almost.

It physically hurts to be separated from Ilya. Shane knows this is something he ought to overcome eventually, but now is not the time. Every point of contact with Ilya is proof that he won’t disappear. Ilya’s touch is the barrier that keeps Shane’s soul settled in his body, and without it he feels like kindergarten crayon scribbles, spilling outside his edges.

Under the secrecy of blankets and moonlight, Shane fills himself with Ilya in every way he can. Ilya’s cock stays nestled in his hole or his mouth. When they aren’t cockwarming – and sometimes even when they are – Shane will spend hours suckling away at Ilya’s fingers until they prune.

Of course, Ilya reciprocates each touch with gusto. He had obviously not been around to suffer Shane’s own death, but hearing about it secondhand from Yuna clearly rattles him. However, Shane suspects that’s not the full reason he matches Shane’s cravings so eagerly. Ilya has always wanted him this badly. He was just too scared to let himself indulge.

They both have a lot to let go.

Shane’s parents look mildly distressed when Shane plops himself into Ilya’s lap at mealtimes. He just can’t stand any further separation. To him, the layers of fabric between Ilya’s dick and Shane’s hole is already a compromise.

Not that they can ever know that.

He’s sure there are subtler behavioral changes they’re picking up. The performance diet that was once life or death, victory or defeat based on his adherence to its parameters no longer haunts his every plate. Yuna offhandedly mentions how Montreal is coping with his hiatus and his response is too stilted and distant, already fantasizing about swapping his jersey.

It’s a little difficult to discern what earns a conversation and what is minor enough to fly under the radar, because it all feels insignificant to him. The only conscious change is the shedding of his masks. Layer by layer.

All that’s left after the molt is the Shane that was there all along, trapped under expectations and overthinking and anxiety so thick it pressed his desires down down down. The Shane underneath it all, the smallest Matryoshka doll, is the Shane who loves Ilya and has a bitchy streak and loves Ilya and secretly always hated that hockey is a team sport and loves Ilya and hates how the Voyageurs treat him like an alien and loves Ilya and loves Ilya and loves Ilya so much he’d die without him.

Maybe this Shane is not the superstar athlete that the world is championing to get back on his skates. Or the perfect son his parents ached to welcome home. Or the low-maintenance best friend who listens to everyone’s problems without asking for reciprocation. Or even the loving boyfriend who has a solution to every problem.

He’s just Shane.

Dying did change him, but it didn’t transplant his personality like sometimes his mother implies. His priorities have just shifted.

The armor sloughs off in weird chunks. Some patches flake down to the bone and he thinks he may never step onto a filming soundstage again. Other areas stay tough and true and he knows he hasn’t yielded an ounce of competitiveness.

Not everything was a lie. There were kernels of truth in each of the sides Shane angled to the world. He simply no longer feels the need to twist and bend and contort his body to satisfy each individual audience.

“I’m sore,” he admits to Ilya late one night. The words are barely audible around the fingers in his mouth. Ilya lets him chew idly on his knuckles for a few minutes before he eases his fingers back out.

Ah. This is one of those conversations, probably.

Those beautiful brows draw together in worry. Shane is tired of worrying people. His mother looks at him like that all day long.

Ilya smoothes his hands over Shane’s body as if searching for injury. “Sore where? Good or bad? Did I go too far?”

“Not physically,” Shane corrects. Ilya’s nervously assessing touch slows into gentle circles rubbed against his hip bone. It protrudes less than before. He’s filling out again, slowly. “I’m sore from fitting myself into all these places that don’t fucking want me. I don’t have the energy to pretend anymore, but I’m…worried, I think, that no one will like who I really am.”

Ilya stares at him for a long moment. Then, “You are stupid. Like медуза. (jellyfish.)”

One thing about Ilya is that he will irritate Shane right out of a downward spiral. “The fuck did you just call me? A jellyfish?”

“Yes. You are pretty and bright. When you are scared your sting can be deadly enough to kill. You are graceful when you move and people love watching you, they pay money to see you in your element. But you have no eyes or brains.”

Ilya kisses him and Shane chomps down on his bottom lip. The bite is harder than he intends, metal bursting between them. Ilya grins with a mouthful of blood and Shane tries not to come again.

“Fuck you. You’re trying to distract me.”

“I am trying to say that you don’t understand how incredible you are in everything that you do. You are Shane fucking Hollander. I will be your eyes so you can see how gorgeous you are. I will be your brain so you can process how much people love you and how lucky they are to get any part of you. I will be the ocean where you can let it all go and just float.” Ilya’s nose crinkles in thought. “Am losing the metaphor a little bit, I think, but you get what I mean. To the world you are Shane Hollander, and to me you are my Шаня. (IShanya.) No need to worry so much when I am here.”

Shane thinks about the cottage again. The secret selves that felt safe inside even though the floor-to-ceiling glass walls provided no privacy from the outside world. Love-drunk honesty, stripping each other of clothes and masks and fear.

“So you’re telling me – fuck the rest of the world, just be myself?”

“Noooo,” Ilya whines. “You cannot fuck the rest of the world. Me only.”

Shane rolls his eyes. “I don’t know how to do it. I’m trying to figure out which Shane is even the real one. I’m…I dunno, scared it won’t be the one you fell in love with.”

“This is not possible,” Ilya decides. He nibbles a trail of marks down the side of Shane’s neck, dipping down to worship his nipples. He presses a kiss between every word as if he can tattoo them into Shane’s skin.

“You say that I have always belonged to you, even before we met. I agree. But you are my Shane. Mine. I am yours but you are also mine, every version of you. Even if I have not met them all yet. I will always love my Shane.”

“Fuck. I love you too.” Shane swallows down a throaty moan as Ilya reaches his navel. There are tears of relief and pleasure and release prickling at his eyes and he stops fighting them back.

He stops fighting everything.

“I need to suck your dick right now,” Shane declares as he yanks Ilya up by a fistful of curls. Ilya surfaces with a smile, some blood from earlier still smeared on his front teeth. It’s probably all over Shane now, too.

“See? You have not really changed. You are still hungry little slut for me.”

“Fuck you,” Shane whimpers. “Fuck me.”

Ilya obliges, because at the end of the day – and the beginning and the middle and every second in between – this is how Shane and Ilya communicate best.

Every version of them in every timeline. Skin to skin, heart to heart.

Soul to soul.

_____________________

They escape to Shane’s cottage.

Shane’s mother has been getting twitchy every time she has to leave the house. They have to keep the blinds drawn once Ilya and Shane start utilizing the rest of the house, since they can’t risk someone catching sight through the window of a dead man walking. Every day that passes without incident feels like a lucky break.

The cottage is the obvious solution, set deep in the forest with plenty of space and sunshine and privacy. It’s the same oasis Shane retreats to with Ilya every summer, and they certainly need a place to recuperate.

The addition of his parents is a bit harder to get used to, especially when his dad awkwardly tries to loop Ilya into conversations while his mom can’t shake that suspicious stare.

Yuna dispenses information like a leaking faucet. Drip by drip. Shane understands that he really did die, and not just a brief flatline that resuscitated after thirty seconds. He was dead for three fucking days before they did something that brought his soul back to his body.

Yuna doesn’t elaborate and for once Shane doesn’t itch to know. He refuses to look too closely at a miracle. Nose to the canvas, focusing on the brushstrokes and dots instead of the picture they paint. He’s spent far too much of his life caught up in details like that.

Ilya was clearly not part of the plan. The objective was to revive Shane, but their souls were so deeply entangled that they refused to separate.

Yuna describes it as if Ilya is a stubborn barnacle on a precious gem. A parasite exploiting the desperate plea of a family praying their loved one back to earth.

Shane thinks about stardust mixing and celestial hands tugging and stay stay stay.

If anything, Shane is the swindler who squeezed a two-for-one deal out of them. He had no rescue line to throw Ilya from the other side of death’s door, so he forwent his own safety rope and threw himself headfirst into the churning waters. He dove down expecting to never break the surface again, and he certainly wasn’t going to let go of Ilya’s hand to do it.

“We’re a package deal,” Shane grins. It probably shouldn’t make him so giddy, but it does.

Fate has confirmed that they’re a perfect match. A part of Shane knew that all along, and a bigger part of him never cared. Even if they weren’t written in the stars, he’d find a way to be with Ilya. He loves him enough to rewrite destiny. He’s just glad he doesn’t have to.

Their souls have chosen each other, fate be damned.

On the other side of the couch, Ilya looks up from his phone. They’re having parallel play time in the living room while they slowly work on their codependency issues.

(Neither of them really consider it an issue, but his parents keep gently reminding him that normal couples don’t need to interlock their arms while they brush their teeth. So they’re making an effort.)

Sitting on opposite sides of furniture is already quite the improvement, although they’re facing each other and the soles of their feet are flush against each other, toes linked.

“Yes we are, мой купон. (my coupon.) We are ultimate limited time offer. We would blow minds on Extreme Couponers. Revive Shane zombie, get bonus Ilya zombie while supplies last.”

“Oh my god, stop calling us zombies. Would it kill you to be romantic for one moment?”

Ilya waggles a brow, probably weighing if his next quip is a step too far for their healing process. It’s a look Shane has grown intimately familiar with, as he has with each of Ilya’s tells.

“Maybe. I think we should stop testing what would kill me.”

Indeed, Shane scowls. He curls his toes so that Ilya’s bend back brutally as punishment. The little whimper of pain that escapes Ilya is sexier than it should be.

Hm. Shane files that away for later.

“Oww!” Ilya complains. “Fine, no zombies. We are like…Taco Tuesdays.”

“What?”

“Fuck, you are so cute when you are confused. Please never figure anything out ever.” Ilya gives up on the separation exercise. He crawls on top of Shane and flops down.

Contradicting himself, he explains, “Is meal deal, lots of places do it. You order taco and get second taco half off or something. Marly loves them even though we are very rich hockey players who can afford full-price tacos.”

“Yeah, we definitely have different tastes in dining,” Shane snorts. “There’s a cute shop not too far from my parents’ place in Ottawa that makes incredible homemade pasta. I’ll take you there as soon as we sort out all this shit about the world thinking you’re dead. Oh, but we might want to call ahead so that they don’t run out of supplies, since it’s a small place and we eat a lot. Do you prefer tables or booths?”

Chin resting on Shane’s chest, Ilya looks at him strangely. “How would that work? We sit at different tables or something? Text from opposite sides of the restaurant?”

“When did I say that?” Shane frowns. “Of course you’d sit with me. I know we’re both hockey players, but the tables aren’t that small. We can go for a booth if it’s such a big deal. I don’t mind.”

Ilya’s fingers inch up towards his cheeks. He’s tracing patterns through Shane’s freckles, mapping out constellations. It’s a sensation he’s grown long acquainted to and it soothes them both.

“Sweetheart,” Ilya says so gently, so sadly, “We are not out, remember? You do not want to be out yet. I am not expecting you to change your mind on that just because I…because we went through something hard. You know I cannot blame you for being scared.”

Shane blinks. Honestly, he had forgotten about his once strict adherence to their long-term plan. The Shane who feared losing hockey more than loving Ilya feels like an alien now.

There’s a small glimmer of comfort in the knowledge that even if they hide in life, there’s nothing that can keep them apart in death. But Shane doesn’t want to hide anymore. They’ve gotten a second chance, and he’s not going to spend it charging down the same doomed path he forged the first time.

For fuck’s sake, he wasn’t even included in Ilya’s funeral proceedings. No way is he going to repeat that.

“I’m not scared of coming out anymore,” he says. “Or, I guess that’s not completely fair. It will always be inherently scary to be vulnerable with the world. But it doesn’t feel like the worst-case scenario anymore if people find out about us. I thought it would be. I really did. But that was before I lost you and found myself living my actual worst nightmare. I didn’t even – fuck, your funeral, your estate, your grave site…I wasn’t involved in anything.”

“Oh, любимый. (darling.) I’m so sorry.”

Shane shakes his head. His fingers circle Ilya’s wrists, keeping his warm hand cupped against his face and nuzzling into it. “Having people think we meant nothing to each other beyond a rivalry was much more terrifying than them knowing the truth. Sucks that it took firsthand experience to realize that.”

Ilya gazes at him for a long time, bright blue eyes watery as they roam his face. Eventually he tucks his face into the crook of Shane’s neck. Shane giggles when his curls tickle his chin.

“I would have waited,” Ilya confesses to Shane’s collarbones. “I am glad we aren’t, because it has been so so so hard to not brag to the world about you. But is important to me that you know I would have waited as long as you needed. I would do anything for you. So please, make sure this is what you want. I do not want you to – to regret it.”

Regret me goes unspoken, but Shane hears it all the same. He kisses the top of his head and says, “I could never. You are the best thing in my life.”

“You are reusing my line! Not fair.”

“It’s a good line.”

“Last words have to be good.” Ilya shrugs as best he can from his position. “I could not sign off with Shane, you gave me best head of my life, wish you could crush my skull between your big strong thighs one last time, please do not go hetero for Rose Landry in my absence. Although all true, obviously, I think is not how you would have wanted to remember me.”

It’s a testament to Shane’s valiant healing journey that he doesn’t immediately break down at the phrase last words. He thwacks Ilya’s forehead with two fingers. “If you had sent that, I would’ve stopped the plane from crashing just so I could kill you myself.”

Ilya hums, kissing idly at any swatches of skin he can reach. “Much sexier way to go. I think this is the only way I will accept dying now, at the hands of prettiest boy in the world Shane Hollander. I have high standards for second death.”

“Deal. I own you now, Rozanov,” Shane says with a flicker of possessiveness licking low in his belly. Ilya is his, body and soul, just as Shane is Ilya’s. “And I want to get some fucking homemade pasta with you. So. Table or booth?”

Ilya pounces on him with a grin. Gathering Shane’s wrists up in one hand, he pins them against the arm of the sofa and uses his other hand to roam Shane’s torso underneath him. Like a man starved, he savors every inch of the angel at his mercy. His Shane just beams up at him, almost smiling too hard to kiss. Almost.

“Anything, дорогой. (sweetheart.) Anything you want, forever.”

_____________________

It takes a while for the Hollanders to formulate a cover story for Ilya’s miraculous survival. They settle on some bullshit about Ilya swapping seats to be in the back of the plane instead of the front, which was completely obliterated. No one from the back survived either, but it’s marginally more believable.

They decide to give post-crash Ilya amnesia as an explanation for why he let the world believe he was dead for months. It’s pretty dodgy. What’s worse is their explanation for how he ended up with the Hollanders – concussed and confused, he coincidentally stumbled across them on a wilderness retreat. Right.

It’s a shit story, but they’re sticking to it. Hopefully the perfect storm of Ilya’s surprise resurrection, Shane and Ilya’s respective coming outs, and the relationship reveal will be enough of a shock to obfuscate any discrepancies in the nitty-gritty details.

The airline investigators will only give a fuck about one of the three juicy headlines. Questions are inevitable. Shane is putting all his faith into his mother and her intimidating team of lawyers on payroll to squash the scrutiny. She can work miracles when she wants to – clearly – and he’s hoping Ilya is included under her fierce protection.

His proximity to Shane should be reason enough to care about keeping him away from the government’s paws, but Shane selfishly wants Ilya to experience the unconditional love of supportive parents for himself.

From his place next to Shane, Ilya soaks in residual warmth seeping from the bond between the Hollanders. Shane wants to push him into the direct path of the sunlight and watch him light up in loving arms. Ilya deserves to bask in the glow of a family that is in his corner – and not to shake him down for his fucking money.

It doesn’t seem as far fetched as he once feared.

Sometimes, late at night, Shane hears soft voices floating from the kitchen. The click of the electric kettle, Ilya’s thick accent, Yuna’s gentle laughter. When the bedroom door opens again, he always senses two presences lingering in the doorway. Ilya climbs back under the covers, slides two fingers against Shane’s pulse point, and Yuna sighs in relief before closing the door again.

Gradually, the Hollanders-plus-Rozanov just become the Hollanders as they absorb Ilya into their midst.

David teaches Ilya how to cook his favorite meals. “Shane won’t eat half of these, let alone learn to cook them,” he claims, plopping down a thick binder onto the counter. It’s chock full of recipes: scraps of paper, tiny notecards, printed blog posts, all with scribbled notes and tweaks and measurements. When he glances at Ilya, there’s a twinkle in his eyes that betrays the nonchalantly flat line of his lips. “I need a son to pass these down to, so. Grab a cutting board, Ilya.”

Ilya will deny it until the day he dies a permanent death, but he cries as soon as David leaves the kitchen. Before his tears have even dried, he’s googling for hacks and swaps to make all the recipes Shane-friendly.

It should be easier now that his diet isn’t the driving factor in his life, but the consideration turns Shane weepy regardless. They really are a perfect match.

Eventually, all the dominoes are precariously balanced and waiting for the first in line to fall. Yuna’s plan for the rest of the world involve statements she’s poured over, contact information for trustworthy sports publications and podcasts to satisfy the inevitable thirst for contact from Ilya himself, and several strongly-worded email drafts to the league and relevant management.

David has set up donations to the families of the crash victims. The most difficult part about reintroducing Ilya to the world will be facing the loved ones of those who were not so fortunate.

Luck had nothing to do with it, but no one outside of the Hollander-Rozanovs’ trusted circle can know that truth.

The league unfortunately has to be the first point of contact before they turn to traditional news sources and social media. Yuna has color-coded scripts prepared for the phone calls and Zoom meetings that are sure to bombard them as management seeks explanations and proof of life from the undead man.

People often latch on to the first version of events they hear. Thus, they plan to immediately go to the media after notifying the league, taking advantage of that stubbornness to solidify the support of the general public before any executives can chip in.

They’ll open with the survival story and then drip-feed hints towards Ilya and Shane’s relationship, utilizing scandal and speculation to draw focus away from Ilya’s spontaneous resurrection. No one can resist a conspiracy theory, so they’ll simply serve up one more intriguing than the circumstances of the crash. For the finishing act, both boys have Instagram posts queued from their time at the cottage that will confirm it all.

(Shane has to talk Ilya out of filming a sex tape for his carousel post as the ‘ultimate proof’. Changing his mind takes a pair of cat ears, that very sloppy blowjob, and the threat that Shane will never repeat any of it if Ilya hits post.

Ilya caves instantly. It was never a serious suggestion; the man is far too possessive to let anyone see Shane like that. But hey. Shane has been itching for an excuse try out those cat ears.)

“Your mother is scary,” Ilya confesses to Shane one lazy afternoon. Shane is sitting cross-legged on the dock with a pad of paper as Ilya floats lazily in front of him. Tongue peeking out between his lips in concentration, he presses the dull tip of the pencil into the page and tries to trace Ilya’s features.

While most of their logistical obstacles center around Ilya, who very dramatically and publicly perished on the world stage leaving a huge mess to clean up, there are still internal issues that Shane has to work through on his own journey back to the living.

As much as everyone, including himself, tries to pretend it never happened, Shane Hollander did die. His mental state completely fractured, sending him into a sharp yet painfully slow decline wherein he died over and over again, resurrecting under the dawn light each morning and flatlining again by evening, every single lonely night, until the day his heart finally gave out for good.

Shane decides not to tell anyone else about his death – the last one, the real one, the one that stuck for longer than all the others. Frankly, the last thing any of them need is to invite more questions, and he doesn’t see the point in drumming up grief for something that no longer requires it. He just starts responding to messages with apologies and half-truths about feeling better now, yeah, we’ll have to catch up soon.

Rose cries when he calls her for the first time in months, promising to visit as soon as her overseas filming wraps. Apparently, she’s been sending care packages to his parents’ house since the crash. It doesn’t ring a bell.

He also reaches out to JJ and Hayden, who seem similarly relieved to pick up to the sound of his voice, and not to his parents delivering bad news.

If only they knew.

They had visited in the beginning. Yuna has pictures of the Pike kids coloring on the Hollanders’ kitchen table while Jackie cooks in the background and Hayden is off presumably spending time with Shane. Luckily, the children were kept far away from Uncle Shane’s living tomb. Only their drawings ever entered his bubble of grief, stacked up with his other cards to rot on the floor.

He doesn’t really blame them for losing hope. He had been catatonic and self-isolating, showing no signs of recognition or improvement no matter how hard they tried to support him. Combining the exhaustion of loving a stone statue, plus the increasing pressure from the Voyageurs’ front office in the absence of their star center, it’s no wonder why the in-person efforts fizzled out.

None of Shane’s friends will ever know that they’ve been granted a second chance with him.

Ilya is alive again. So is Shane. Unfortunately these truths don’t undo four months of cognitive erosion. It’s easier to piece himself back together with an extra pair of loving hands, but Shane had started decomposing long before his body died. The flesh he’s trying to paste back onto bone is rotten and slimy and none of it sticks. He needs time to grow new skin to knit all his scraps together.

Ilya has spent years practicing how to break Shane and make him whole again, and his presence is a healing balm on Shane’s sore soul. However, he can’t fix Shane all by himself, just as Shane cannot cure Ilya. Once they leave the purgatorial bubble of the cottage, they’ll get into therapy. In the meantime, Shane is trying out different hobbies to spark his sense of personhood.

Baking was okay, but too messy for his liking. Athletic hobbies like hiking and swimming are closer to his style, though it’ll be harder to integrate them with his normal training regimen. Ilya had suggested art, hence the attempt at sketching his boyfriend as he splashes around by himself in the lake, but it seems realism isn’t his calling either.

Ilya kicks up an unnecessary amount of froth as he swims over to Shane. His fingers crawl mischievously up Shane’s shins and thighs, making Shane shiver at the cool lake chill. He stares at the beads of water trickling down Ilya’s clavicle and glistening on his knife-cut abs. Swallowing hard, he bravely lifts his gaze to meet Ilya’s expectant eyes.

Oh. Ilya had made a comment before swimming over. Maybe this is one of those times people state something and then expect a response to it? He’s never quite sure.

“I guess my mom is a bit intense,” Shane concedes. He’d like to say his focus is split between his drawing and his boyfriend, but all he can see is deliciously tanned skin. If he wasn’t paranoid about parasites and contaminants in lake water, he’d be licking droplets off Ilya’s skin. “She’s like this with my career too. It’s how she cares.”

Ilya’s shark-tooth smile from being ogled slowly softens. “Yes. I agree.”

Shane’s pencil stops. The drawing is really horrible. He thinks he gave Ilya two sets of eyebrows by mistake. “I hope it’s not overwhelming. People call her a Tiger Mom, but I don’t know…I never felt forced to become the best. It was always something I wanted, and she just threw her full support behind me. Sure, that came in the form of being my manager and learning how to knock heads together to get what she wants. It rubs a lot of people the wrong way, but she means well.”

Shane expects a lighthearted chirp about Yuna doing all that just for Shane to be second best. Instead, Ilya goes quiet. “Not overwhelming,” he decides. “Is a nice feeling, actually. I am glad to have her on my side. My мама (mama), ah, she tried very hard, but she often struggled to be present. I think she would be relieved to see someone like Yuna involved in my life.”

Shane’s chest squeezes. “Baby…”

“But this term Tiger Mom, I do not know it well. Yuna is fierce and strong and not afraid to play dirty unlike her perfect pacifist son. She would have made great Bear. How about Bear Mom?”

There it is. Shane rolls his eyes even as he drops the pencil in favor of cupping Ilya’s lake-slick cheeks in his hands. He grips a bit tighter than needed. If Ilya was a dog, he’d be wagging his tail, leaning into Shane’s warmth. “My mom would never associate with Boston. You haven’t been a Bear in years anyways.”

Ilya bats away the comment like a pesky fly. He spots the forgotten sketchbook and lifts himself out of the water to get a better glimpse. “Wow!” he deadpans. “I look so…shapely.”

“Shut up. I know it’s bad.”

“No no, is amazing. You are inventing new techniques I think. Drawing with eyes closed will be huge trend in art world soon.”

“Fuck. You.”

“Eh, I would love to, but you always say fucking in the water is health hazard. Very sad. Good thing you are also sexy when you lecture me.”

“Well yeah, it’s dangerous! And not in the hot way like when you choke me. I really don’t want either of us in the hospital for bacterial infections, or – god forbid – drowning, or– what the fuck are you doing?”

While Shane was busy getting fired up, Ilya had snatched the pencil and contributed to the sketchpad. “Creative feedback,” he grins before splashing back into the lake.

Shane twists to avoid the ensuing swell of water, but a corner of the paper is caught in the crossfire, dark speckles dampening the pencil marks. “Hey! You’re going to ruin it!”

“Not possible!”

Shane squints at the paper. Ilya has added a massive dick to the drawing, absolutely dwarfing the sketched figure. “You’re such a fucking child.”

“Am not,” Ilya returns maturely. Secretly, Shane loves seeing him like this – carefree, silly, absolutely free. Ilya knows it too, that Shane’s irritation is just for show. “Now come play mermaids with me.”

Ilya pulls him into the water and kisses him hard enough that Shane forgets all about lake parasites.

As a collective, the Hollanders decide to hold off on the media cascade until Ilya has reconnected with those closest to him. It feels unfair for the Centaurs to find out that their captain is alive from the suits in upper management, plus Svetlana would surely want to spend some time with him before the storm kicks up.

Unfortunately, they also leave it up to Ilya to break the news however he pleases.

Calling Svetlana goes as smoothly as a call from beyond the grave can go, and she does indeed travel to give Ilya a piece of her mind in person. Shane thought he’d have a hard time getting along with any of Ilya’s ex-fuckbuddies, but Svetlana is so much more than that. She’s the closest thing Ilya has to family outside of the Hollanders. She’s beautiful and funny and smart and reliable and nags Ilya and knows a lot about hockey and instead of being jealous, Shane just feels so incredibly sad that keeping their relationship secret deprived himself of a good friend, and Ilya of seeing two people he loves bond.

The only indication Svetlana ever gives that she had figured out about Shane and Ilya comes during their first hug. Svetlana’s thin arms wind around Shane’s slowly-filling frame. The curated Instagram feed he scrolled through many years ago with blazing green eyes and a broken heart featured her with perfectly manicured nails and flawless makeup. She’s still gorgeous, but there are bags under her eyes and her lips are bare as she whispers into his ear, “I’m glad you’re feeling better, Jane. Thank you for loving him.”

He’s grateful she doesn’t dwell on it. Shane feels guilty enough that he made Ilya keep secrets from her, so to think she had known all along and the isolation was for naught just makes the storm in his chest swirl stronger.

For Coach Wiebe, Ilya chooses to pop into the Zoom meeting Yuna orchestrates with him. It softens the shock a little, to have a trustworthy figure like Yuna deliver the news and then supplement it with living proof. Ilya loves and respects his coach, so he deserves a slightly more serious conversation. However, Ilya also shows affection through being a little shit, so he definitely relishes in the bewilderment on Wiebe’s face.

When it comes to the Centaurs, Ilya is hellbent on making the reveal as flashy and theatrical as possible. Those poor guys.

Ilya selects the big day to be the start of the pre-season training camps. It somewhat makes logical sense. Shane’s trade to the Centaurs had gone through without much fuss; Montreal had already deemed him unfit to play based on his extended mental health leave, and they were chomping at the bit to get rid of him in favor of some flashy new recruits.

It fucking hurt, of course it did, but he wouldn’t be able to return there regardless. Aside from JJ and Hayden and some scattered texts from a few others, none of his teammates showed him any concern when he was ill. They bemoaned their weak captain in the group chat and muttered snide comments during interviews about how a real man would suck it up.

(Shane sucks it quite well, actually. He has a feeling this would not help his case.)

Besides, staying by Ilya’s side is more important than retiring his jersey in Montreal. He can’t believe that was ever a point of contention for him.

So Shane will be playing in the upcoming season as a Centaur. If all goes well with the news of Ilya’s survival, he should also be set to play once medical clears him. It checks out that Ilya would want to accelerate the reveal process so he could jump back into the hockey season, but Shane has a sneaking suspicion Ilya’s reasons are twofold.

“They will love you, солнышко. (sunshine.)”

“I didn’t say anything.” Shane puts his socks on, then rolls them back down and tries again. They just don’t feel right.

“I hardly even trash talk you! Boston, ok, maybe I told them the most exciting thing about you is the hockey stick up your ass. But the Cens still think you are best thing since sliced fucking bread. We have a lot of young guys, I bet they grew up jerking off to your magazines.”

Shane glares up at him. “You think you’re helping, huh?”

“I know I am.” Ilya crouches to peels Shane’s socks off for him. He replaces them with Shane’s emergency sensory socks, the plush ones with no seams. Still kneeling at his feet, he gives Shane’s ankles a little squeeze. “You are shaking. Мой молочный коктейль. (My milkshake.)”

The ghost of Montreal recedes as Shane searches his memory for the translation. Ilya gazes fondly at him, one cheek resting on his knee. Finally, Shane guesses, “Milky…cocktail? Are you making a fucking joke about cum right now?”

That earns a belly laugh. It’s a beautiful sound. “My milkshake. You are putting yourself through mental blender right now, I can see it.” Ilya suddenly presses an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of Shane’s thigh. “And I will eat you up.”

“You’re fucking annoying,” Shane says through a goofy smile. He does feel better.

And he feels fucking fantastic after the quickie they squeeze in before leaving for the rink.

Ilya gets to park in his favorite spot, a normally coveted one near the door. It’s a miracle that it’s still free, but then they catch spray painted words between the lines of the parking space: Rozy Only.

It’s new.

“Well this is awkward,” Ilya Rozanov says to the guy hammering away at an Ilya Rozanov memorial plaque in front of the Centaurs’ training facility. The worker jumps back with a gasp, hands clasped around his mouth and shaking like he’s seen a ghost.

Which. Yeah.

“Stop doing that,” Shane smacks him on the back of the head. “You’re going to give people heart attacks. Not a fun time, speaking from experience.”

Ilya frowns. “Please do not joke about that, моя любовь. (my love.)”

“So we agree? Joking about near death experiences – or in our cases, just death – isn’t funny?”

Blowing a raspberry, Ilya sighs. “Yes, dear. You are right. You have actually never been wrong in your life.”

Shane shoves at Ilya’s shoulder and hustles him through the doors. “Good boy. Now lets get inside before you get posted to Twitter ahead of tonight’s announcement. Mom will freak.”

“Mm-hm. Just mom.”

It’s just a quip, but delight sparks in Shane’s chest at Ilya’s casual reference to Yuna as mom. She can never replace Irina and would never try, but Shane is relieved to see her willing to step into a motherly role for Ilya.

They speed down the halls in an attempt to avoid arena staff. Ilya nudges Shane to enter the locker room first so he still gets a warm welcome and his moment of glory. Privately, Shane is relieved to know that his addition to the Centaurs will be the least interesting part of the day. It makes it feel a little less daunting.

Ilya probably knows this. He plants one last kiss on Shane’s lips before pushing him through the doors, promising to follow in no more than three minutes.

Three minutes without Ilya in sight. That’s okay. They’ve trained for this, kind of.

The locker room is a whirlwind, most of the guys having already arrived for practice. It’s nice that they’re on time. The guys in Montreal always laughed at Shane for being punctual. If practice starts at 9:00 am, why wouldn’t he be ready to get on the ice at 9:00 am? He never understood it.

He’s procrastinating. Whatever.

Russian dance music throbs over the speakers, clearly a relic of Ilya’s influence. In fact, the more Shane glances around the room, the more he sees Ilya in every nook and cranny.

On the far wall is a corkboard with photographs of everyone’s pets pinned up. Scrawled on top of the wooden frame is the title Roz’s Rascals. Each player’s locker has an empty can of Coke on the top shelf, from the marketing campaign that prints different names on each label. It must have been impossible to find ones with the name Ilya, so they’ve hoarded the Lily bottles and modified them into Ilya. What really takes Shane’s breath away, however, is Ilya’s own cubby.

They’ve preserved it. The nameplate on top of the stall still boasts Rozanov in bold letters. Bundles of flowers line the shelves, intermingled with electric candles and stuffed bears wearing Russian flag shirts. Little dog figurines are also dotted among the tribute offerings.

Photos are mixed in among sticky notes and folded notebook paper. There are pictures of Ilya posing with various Centaurs on the ice, plus a couple mid-game candids. The other photos are from outside hockey — Ilya flashing two thumbs up next to a passed out Holmberg on the floor of some bar. Ilya gnawing on a chicken wing in someone’s backyard, sauce splattered across his mouth.

Ilya on the ground, being tackled by a dog and looking like the happiest man alive. Ilya and Bood wearing matching shirts and pulling exaggeratedly annoyed expressions, as if it was unplanned. Ilya in his Centaurs jersey with a photoshopped Stanley cup in hand. Ilya asleep at an airport terminal, head pillowed on Chouinard’s lap.

Ilya, Ilya, Ilya.

He was so loved here. He is still so, so loved.

Finally, someone notices the ghost plastered against the door. “Whoa! Is that Shane fucking Hollander?”

Shane nervously wipes his sweaty palms on his shorts. Why does everyone say it like that? Shane fucking Hollander. He used to think it was an indication of awe and respect, but his brain twists it into something mocking now.

Wyatt Hayes is the first to approach. He’s massive and energetic like an overgrown puppy. Posing a considerable challenge on the ice as a formidable goalie, Shane has poured countless hours into memorizing his play style.

He’s studied all of the Centaurs actually, not just for their game but also to get a feeling for the people Ilya spends all his non-Shane time around.

They seem like a good bunch. Ilya’s testimonials paint them as kind-hearted and close-knit, the type of family men one would want watching their drink at a club. Not that any of these men even go clubbing, probably.

Ilya doesn’t tolerate any form of bigotry or discrimination in his locker room, but he wasn’t the one who set that precedent in Ottawa. Apparently, Zane Boodram had pulled him aside on his first day and gave him a firm rundown on team values and expectations.

The power of friendship alone wasn’t enough to net them wins, but team chemistry certainly helps after a couple strategic trades and a captain who knows how to piece it all together. Honestly, Ilya has never seemed happier in a group of people. That slightly takes the edge off, but not quite. He’s not Ilya.

He’s Shane fucking Hollander, and he’s not sure if that’s a good thing yet.

Wyatt angles like he’s going in for a bro-hug, but clocks how Shane cringes away and settles for a hearty handshake. Shane’s breath hitches, expecting weird looks for his reaction, but Wyatt appears unfazed. “I knew Coach was being tight-lipped about roster changes this year, but holy fuck! How did he keep this one quiet? Welcome, Hollzy!”

Shane finds his voice. “Hi everyone. I’m, uh, Shane Hollander. You…probably know that. I mean, I’ve played against most of you, so. Yeah.”

“Dude, are you lost? Visiting?” Chouinard gapes at him from across the room. “Or are we the fuckin’ luckiest team in the league?!”

Shane shifts his weight. Damn, is that a question he’s supposed to answer? He errs on the side of caution. “Not lost, not visiting. I don’t know how lucky the team is…? But I prefer not to rely on luck anyways. Looking forward to playing some good hockey with you all.”

Wyatt whoops and jostles him further into the locker room. He stumbles closer to the ring of bug-eyed men whose jaws are still on the floor, silent under the Russian dubstep. Someone finally cuts the music. Luca sways like he’s about to faint.

“I literally grew up watching you play,” one of the rookies gushes. LaPointe, Shane thinks. He’s a promising left wing.

“I’m honored.” This is a conversation Shane has navigated before. He’s never experienced being traded, but he does know how to interact with fans. He clambors onto the familiar ground.

Troy Barrett also looks a little starstruck. “Wow. Can’t believe Montreal let you go. I mean – I hope you’re doing better, I know last season…last season was tough. If anyone understands that, it’s us.”

Another massive paw lands on Shane’s shoulder. This one traces back to Bood. His face is pinched in the gentle, yet pitying way that a parent looks at a kid who just fell and scraped their knee. “We support each other here, Hollander. Mentally, physically, emotionally, whatever you need. We’re here for you.”

Shane manages a weak smile. The Centaurs seem just as positive and accepting as Ilya hyped them up to be. God, why did he refuse to meet them again? They already love Ilya, and they don’t even know the half of him.

Caught in the sea of enthusiastic handshakes and greetings, Shane realizes he’s drifted close enough to Ilya’s stall to decipher some of the pasted notes. The closest ones read:

Forever our C.

Missing you every day. It doesn’t feel real.

The team all got McGriddles in your honor – how did you eat this shit???

Hope we make you proud up there, Rozy. We all placed bets on if you snuck into doggy heaven or not. I hope you did. Give Janie the Corgi lots of pats from me. Belly rubs were her favorite.

Fuck you, man. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. We fuckin’ love you.

Ah, damn.

Ilya really has no idea how cherished he is. How much these boys ache for him like a missing limb.

Shane had worried about him. He left the team, city, and country that had become his second home to move closer to Shane, and yet Shane and their secret constructed a massive barrier between him and connecting to life in Ottawa. He couldn’t be honest with his teammates about his sexuality or the love of his life, and he spent all of his free time driving to Montreal or holing up at home with Shane.

Shane was terrified that he’d regret it, that he’d hate Ottawa and its team, that he’d be lonely and miserable and he’d hate Shane for ruining his life.

Maybe he was still lonely. Maybe that was still Shane’s fault. But he was clearly never alone.

Thank God Ilya didn’t stay dead. All the traces and tributes to Ilya in this room would have brought Shane to his knees in front of people who wouldn’t understand why, but more importantly, he wouldn’t have been able to right his wrongs and let Ilya’s team finally know all of him.

Bood follows his stricken gaze. All of a sudden the energy in the room cools off.

“I know you guys are rivals,” Bood says tightly. The use of present tense makes Shane’s vision blur with unshed tears. “I won’t tell you not to chirp him. But I don’t care how much you hate him, we will not tolerate any slander on his memory. He’s an asshole, but he’s our asshole, and forever our Captain. If that’s gonna be a problem with you, lets hash it out now.”

“Fuck,” Shane mutters under his breath. He scrubs at his watering eyes. “Not a problem, no, just – fuck. I don’t hate him. I never hated him, I…”

Didn’t Ilya say he’d make his grand entrance in three minutes? Shane is done soaking up the adoration of peers who idolize him. He’s ready for the attention to move off him, and more than that, he just wants his Ilya.

Just then, there’s a knock at the door. It’s like Ilya has a sixth sense for when Shane needs him. After the whole bonded souls thing, Shane wouldn’t be surprised if that’s actually the case.

It’s time. Shane steels himself, anxious gaze darting around the room. “Don’t freak out, okay?”

Evan Dykstra tilts his head. “No offense, Hollz, you’re definitely a bigshot, but I think we’ve gotten our freakouts over with.”

“Speak for yourself,” Luca mumbles, still looking a little green. Shane wonders if he should go steady him before the Ilya’s entrance, but he doesn’t get the chance to move.

The door slams against its hinges. “Yoohoo! Where are my ponies!”

Jesus fucking Christ.

He should’ve known Ilya would select something utterly ridiculous for an opening line. Everyone in the room freezes, staring at the figure making its way into the locker room.

Ilya Rozanov, back from the dead, greets his team with a toothy smile. “My idiots! I have missed you dearly, but I am back. I hope you gave my husband a warm welcome.”

“You’re what?”

“Your what?!”

“Too much too fast, Ilya,” Shane groans. “We haven’t even signed the paperwork…”

“What the fuck.” Nick Chouinard stumbles back and collapses against a bench, hand clutching his chest. Shane fucking warned Ilya about the heart attacks. “Is this a joke?”

Ilya frowns. “That would be very shitty joke, Nicky. You think I am shit comedian? Ouch.”

“Baby, don’t antagonize them. You’re making it worse,” Shane admonishes him. Luca turns even greener. Shane starts eyeing objects in the locker room that could serve as a makeshift barf bag.

Wyatt inches over as if Ilya is going to bite him. With one trembling index finger extended, he slowly edges close enough to poke Ilya’s broad chest. Amused, Ilya gathers him up into a bear hug. When he deposits Wyatt back on the ground, the poor man is crying.

“He’s not a hologram, he’s real…? And not a vampire or a zombie either because I felt a heartbeat. A goddamn heartbeat! Cap, what the fuck! How?”

Bood shoulders past Shane and grips onto Ilya’s arms, squeezing up and down. “Holy shit,” he breathes. “I’ve never been so glad to see a hot sexy Russian in my life, which is really saying something, but if you don’t start talking I’m going to slug you.”

Shane materializes between the two men, shoving Bood back with a hand to his chest. “Don’t touch him,” he warns darkly. Starting a fight with Ilya’s Assistant Captain isn’t his ideal introduction to his new team, but he’s never letting anyone other than himself lay a finger on Ilya again.

The rookies whisper furiously to each other in the corner. “Didn’t ghost-Roz call Hollander his husband earlier?”

“Right? We kinda glossed over that.”

“He is joking, sweetheart, just a joke,” Ilya coos. He better not get hard here. “Besides, you hit me when we woke up, no? Sveta too. The only one not to hit me so far has been Coach, and only because he was on other side of the computer screen. I have put them through a lot, I can take it.”

Bood’s eyes move rapid fire between Shane and Ilya. Pressing his fingers to his temples as if feeling a headache come on, he beckons pleadingly to a free bench.

Ilya sits. Shane, although the gesture wasn’t directed at him, sits as well. He hooks his foot around Ilya’s ankle, and the carefully concealed tension along the line of Ilya’s shoulders starts to ease.

Gaze roaming the room, Shane spots the exact moment Ilya finds the memorial shrine set up in his stall. His mouth drops open, breathing turning rough. Shane links their hands and strokes his thumb in soothing patterns against Ilya’s skin. A small thrill runs through him at how uninterested the team is at the open affection.

Maybe they can really have this – play on the same team, love each other proudly, live a happy goddamn life.

“I am sorry,” Ilya croaks, eyes still fixed on his stall. Shane probably missed so many easter eggs and little jokes referenced throughout the items left in the final resting spot of the Centaurs’ forever captain. “I did not mean to cause so much sadness.”

“You died. Of course we were fuckin’ sad, Roz.” Evan sniffles. “We wouldn’t have really loved you if we didn’t grieve you. Bro.”

“What happened? Were you ever on the plane?” Troy cuts in. His eyes are rimmed red, but he’s standing stiff as a board as he tries to wrangle his emotions. “Are you hurt?”

Ilya winces. He looks to Shane for support, and Shane squeezes his hand. They can do this. “I do not remember the crash, but I survived. Hit my head very hard, could not remember even my own name.”

“Fuck, Roz.” Boyle covers his mouth with one shaking hand.

“My family found him,” Shane pipes up. This part is going to be the hardest to sell. “Head injuries are really touch-and-go, especially amnesia, so we had to be careful for a while. But he recovered well, and uh, so did I, after my own hiatus.”

“And now you’re married…?” Young finishes off. He’s crouched next to a pale-looking Luca, rubbing his back. Leave it to the rookies to latch onto that detail.

Shane blushes. “Not yet, Ilya is just getting excited. We are together though, that’s…that’s a different story. Maybe for another time?”

Bood flashes a thumbs up. “That is the last thing on my mind right now, Hollzy. We support you guys, and all that, but holy shit. I’m still stuck on the miraculous resurrection thing.”

Troy seems to have lost the battle against his feelings. He’s half turned away from the group, wiping frantically at his cheeks. “I knew we buried an empty casket and there was a chance we might find your body someday, but I never thought you’d just walk right into fucking morning skate!”

“There’s no way we’re having practice after this, right?” Dillon stares at Bood. “If I get on the ice in this state I’m actually going to throw up everywhere.”

“I wanted to skate…” Shane protests softly.

Ilya chuckles and nuzzles a kiss to his cheek. “Sweetheart, see? They do not even care how gay we are, which is so very gay. Not so bad, right?”

“Can you stop saying it like that?” Shane shoves him away, then immediately grabs a fistful of the front of his shirt to haul him back into his arms. He won’t admit it, but he’s incredibly relieved that none of the horrible scenarios his brain cooked up about the Centaurs learning about their relationship are coming true.

Bood finally staggers forward and crushes Ilya into a hug. “Glad to have you back, fucker. Never scare us like that again, you hear me?”

Ilya barely has time to nod before the next Centaur collapses onto him. It’s Evan this time. “Damn! I don’t think any of us stopped crying for weeks after your funeral. Now you need to outlive us all, because I’m not doing that a second time.”

“I agree with Dykstra," Shane says.

Evan’s jaw drops again. “Shane Hollander knows my name…” he says dreamily.

“Shane Hollander knows the entire NHL, and probably the whole roster for every other league too. You aren’t special.”

Shane nods sagely. “That’s right. You aren’t special either, Tanner Dillon.”

“Fuck! Shane Hollander knows my fucking name!”

More Centaurs clamber onto Ilya. He’s swallowed up by a swarm of teary hockey players, the hand clinging to Shane serving as his only connection outside the Centaur puppy pile. Horsey pile?

“This is fucking amazing,” Wyatt bawls. “Who else knows? About any of this?”

Ilya wrestles control of his arm to check his watch. “Yuna Hollander is miracle worker. League statement goes out in about thirty minutes, it will hit the news within the hour, and then the coming out and relationship announcement Instagram posts are queued up for tonight.”

Nick whistles low in his throat. “We’ll be waking up into a whole different world by tomorrow.”

“I can’t believe we’re getting Hollzy and Rozy in one pull. Holy fuck, talk about a bargain!”

“We are package deal now,” Ilya says smugly. Shane suppresses a giggle.

“You have no idea.”

Eventually, Ilya surgically removes himself from the blubbering blob so that he can smooch Shane again. He’s probably reveling in the newfound ability to kiss his man out in the open, and Shane can’t blame him. He can’t wait to be that disgustingly sweet couple who can’t keep their hands to themselves at the next Boodbeque. It will either make the best or worst impression on the WAGs.

Hopefully it’ll be the best of everything from here on out.

“That cup is ours!” someone crows.

A loud thwacking sound echoes in the room. “Don’t jinx it, dumbass!”

“You okay?” Shane asks softly when Ilya hides his teary face in his shoulder. Tangling his fingers through Ilya’s curls, he tilts his head back and connects their lips while the team wolf-whistles weepily around them.

“I love you,” Ilya responds. “I get to have a life with you here. And I love you.”

For once, it’s as simple as that.

_____________________

Shane Hollander is alive. He knows it now.

Every time he opens his eyes to the love of his life’s sleeping figure, he is reborn. He counts each of Ilya’s moles and comes alive at every one. The pulse against his fingertips is a gift, as is the dopey matching smiles on their faces when they realize anew who they get to wake up next to.

Shane finds his life in the sheets when he makes the bed in the mornings and Ilya brushes his teeth noisily in the bathroom. It’s scrawled on the back of the recipes passed down from David that Ilya cooks for them in their spacious kitchen. It hides in the controllers they use to play Chel, and on the edges of his blades when they hit the ice, and in the curve of the Centaurs’ smiles as they welcome him aboard.

He doesn’t die anymore. There’s no need.

There was a period of time where he sought peace in annihilation, reaching for bottles and letter openers and answers that always slipped from his frail grasp. Now, all he searches for at the end of his rope is Ilya’s hand, offering another spool.

Little miracles decorate even the most mundane of days. Ilya’s lips. Daybreak. Peals of laughter. A kiss goodbye. Chore charts. A kiss hello. Wildflowers blooming in concrete cracks. A kiss just because.

It’s a life worth living.

It sounds like an overreaction, but Shane used to think that coming out would kill him. He hated lying but feared the consequences of truth even more. Whether God would smite him, or bitter hockey fans would attack him in the streets, or he’d simply off himself under all the pressure, he assumed that coming out would signal his demise.

Rather, most his deaths had spun out of the closet itself. The first death happened alongside Ilya in that fiery plane crash, on the ice kilometers away. Each subsequent succumbence was from the weight of his grief and the secrets he bore alone. Not being able to mourn Ilya alongside those who loved him. Missing the funeral. Never getting a call from the hospital or the police or anyone who disseminates sensitive information about a loved one.

No one knew. And it killed him.

Coming out is the final revival. Shane and Ilya watch the news broadcast huddled together on the couch. Shane’s parents are over for reinforcements and to help field the phone calls that will soon start pouring in.

Yuna had maintained a vice grip on information about Ilya’s situation, so the news report is blessedly short. NHL superstar Ilya Rozanov found alive after deadly plane crash, having suffered amnesia and other minor injuries. Video proof to follow.

And just like that, Ilya Rozanov is alive. Everyone knows it now.

With souls entangled and hearts beating as one, both of them hover their thumbs above their respective Instagram posts. Yuna counts them down from three. They both go on two, because they’re competitive fuckers at the end of the day. Shane maintains that his posts hits the feed first, but Ilya is a sore loser and whines until he’s shut up via a tongue down his throat.

In the grand scheme of all his deaths, the world finding out he’s gay and has a gorgeous talented soon-to-be-husband is the least devastating. Sure, the reaction from Montreal isn’t great, but he never expected them to be accepting even before he left them. The outpouring of support from the world rolls off his back just as easily as the bigotry.

There are people disappointed in him. There are people proud of him. For once, he doesn’t give a fuck about anyone else, role model be damned. He did this for himself, and for Ilya, and for the life they’re building together.

He is alive. They are so, so alive.

Shane picks up the phone and makes a reservation at that pasta restaurant. He requests the booth by the front window, where they can be seen in all their sappy glory by patrons both in the restaurant and on the street.

When Ilya and Shane arrive for their proposal celebration dinner, the waitress informs them that there’s a special discount on the homemade tagliatelle. It comes with a free side of sausage.

When she walks away from the table, Ilya bumps their shoes together with a grin. Shane kisses him and doesn’t bat an eyelash at the soft gasps and camera flashes coming from surrounding tables.

“You are pasta and I am bonus sausage,” Ilya whispers into his mouth. Shane stomps on his foot in the middle of the bustling restaurant.

And they live, and they live, and they live live live.