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His favorite part of the game was how hard the ice shook. Fans roared, adorned with face paint and matching jerseys, and the glee reverberated through the solidness beneath his skates. Shane soaked the admiration up, used it as fuel for each goal he scored.
Through the midway point, he had shot the puck between the goalie's legs clean, making their team take the lead. The team he learned to call family after such a short time had praised him for it, pats on his back feeling like hugs, the screams of his teammates widening his grin. Ilya had bumped their helmets together, squeezed his forearm once. Shane couldn't believe how good it felt playing his game with his family.
Everything changed after the secret had come out. Fuck the FanMail, he had realized. It has given him something greater than he could have ever imagined. A chance to start over fresh, still doing something he loved, but now free. With his husband.
He shifted the puck between his stick while he skated towards the goal. Passed it to Ilya after receiving the double-tap sign. Prepared himself for the puck once more -- Ilya loved to taunt the other team with faux goals, while he passed to Shane instead. They had practiced that same move so many times, in so many different ways, he wondered how the teams still fell for it.
Ilya was so focused on the ice. His skates glided so seamlessly. Shane stared, feeling buzzed. Oh God, he loved him. He looked so perfect and aetheral. Dangerous and cunning. Shane couldn't understand how they made a match. How out of everybody in this world, he fell in love with Ilya Rozanov. The greatest players he knew. The man he was pitted against his whole career.
His hu--
His head exploded with pain first. Then his arm bent in an unnatural way as fireworks danced down his back. Shane released a vulnerable sound as he slammed against the wall, releasing his stick. His skate slipped. Then he was on the same solid ice, the perfection slowly fading out of his vision.
Shane was crumpled on the ice, and the opposing team's player that had knocked him over, using the brute force of his body and the most penalizing angle of his stick, was standing beside the referee. He was shouting insults, saying it wasn't his fault.
Ilya's blood boiled. His ears popped as he crouched next to Shane, staring at the small droplets of blood against his lip.
"Shane," He called, voice shaking. He wasn't awake. "Shane, wake up."
"Step back, Rozanov." The paramedic said, pushing down on her knees to assess Shane's state. Ilya turned his gaze to his team, back to Shane. His heart would burst out of his chest.
Why was the crowd roaring? Shane wasn't moving.
"Is he okay?" Ilya's voice was calm and steady, but he felt the weight of his ring. It was tight against his knuckle. They were placing his unconscious body on the spinal plate. What if he could never walk again? "Please tell me he's okay."
"He's breathing, might have a broken arm. Please step away."
This had happened before once. Shane had gotten a concussion and Ilya had almost lost it all. It was the breaking point of holding the secret in. He couldn't look at Shane hurt and still lie to anybody that he was unconditionally in love with him.
They took him away and Ilya started to follow.
"Hey, hey," A hand held him back, making him stumble. "They'll help him. You can't do anything now." His teammate said.
Ilya remained frozen, staring at the backs of the paramedics until they were far gone. He was so happy Yuna and David weren't here -- he hoped they weren't watching from home. He'd have to check his phone immediately. Call his mother-in-law. Reassure her that her son was fine.
Ilya's eyes prickled. He swore in Russian. He needed to get out of here. What the fuck was he supposed to do now? Where was Shane taken? What were they doing to him? Would he be able to come home tonight? Ilya felt his chest constrict and insides churn. Hadn't he promised Shane a fun night if they had won? Fuck.
"Hey, Rozanov." A rough voice, familiar, said from behind him. He felt a tap on his back. With a fucking stick. "Sorry man, I didn't mean to."
Rozanov, as he had called him, turned. The man, shaggy beard and all, didn't look remorseful at all.
"But maybe I knocked the faggot out of him."
Shane would murder Ilya for getting benched the rest of the season. Shane would tell Ilya that he was better than this. His husband would reprimand him the same way he did about cigarettes, relentlessly until he apologized for ever thinking about smoking one.
But his Shane was also going to be stuck in a hospital and wouldn't be able to play. And Ilya Rozanov didn't want hockey without him.
So he swung. And the bastard's beard didn't soothe the pain of the punch, but the crack was the first sound Ilya had properly heard since Shane's pained moan after hitting the sideline.
He cussed him off in so many ways, he had invented new Russian words. Ilya prepared his right hook again as bearded guy held his jaw in place.
"Stop it, Roz! Hey!"
Fuck no.
He swung for as much and as long as he could. He imagined Shane not making it home with all his bones intact -- or worse -- and the pressure in his head would spike so hard, he prepared his fist again.
He might have heard the referee shout. He might have heard his teammates yelling. And he might have heard the cameras shuttering somewhere far behind him.
All he thought about was Shane.
First headline read,
Hockey Player Ilya Rozanov Breaks Arwin Stein's Jaw Because Of Shane Hollander!
The second one reads,
Rozanov Benched, Hollander Hospitalized
The first comment Shane dares read out loud to Ilya, "Roz beat the shit out of that guy. He don't play about his man."
Ilya groans in bed behind him, still caressing his shoulder. "They don't have any smarter to do. It is annoying. So what, I'm benched? They should put him down."
Shane would whip his head to glare if it didn't hurt even a week after the incident. "You are benched. What you did was stupid."
Ilya seemed offended. "No! It was not. You broke your arm and you can't breathe properly. He should be in hospital, dying."
"We agreed we wouldn't let this happen. We said, if it came to this, we'd keep out cool." Shane knew how stupid the agreement was. Like they could ever keep their cool with each other.
He stared into Ilya's eyes, the softness in them inviting. If only he could stare forever. Until there was nothing in the world left but the two of them.
Ilya kissed his temple. Shane melted into it. "You know it was the best I could do."
Shane sighed, "I know."
"The tweet was not my best moment."
A burst of laughter erupted our of Shane's sore lungs. He barely suppressed a cough as he whipped Twitter out and reread Ilya's post.
@ilyarozanov
no apology. touch shane, meet fist. good night.
"Were you drunk when you wrote this?"
Shifting in bed, Ilya propped himself up on his elbow. He placed kisses down Shane's exposed chest, and he dropped the phone down next to him.
"Doesn't matter. Let me help you rest."
Shane willingly forgot about the conversation for that moment only.
Nothing else mattered in the world right then but that what they were doing. What Ilya was doing with his hands, how the ring felt against his exposed skin.
Shane could live with the broken arm, being on leave from hockey, even not watching Ilya play because he got benched.
But as he interlaced his fingers with Ilya's locks, he knew, that was the one thing he could never live without.
"Maybe I'll get hurt more then, huh."
Ilya's bite against his thigh finally made him cough.