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Shane thought, all things considered, they’re pretty lucky to have gotten away with it for as long as they have. Years, they’d managed to keep it a secret. He’d always known that they couldn’t have kept it just between them for forever, but fuck. He wished they’d had a little more time.
I wish we had a little more time was the last thought he had before his head hit the ice.
~*~
Centaurs vs. Voyagers. March 24th, 2019.
Play By Play Announcer: Boodram to Rozanov and Rozanov goes flying down the ice. Voyagers defense hot on his heels, and here’s Rozanov with a shot up high and—
Color Commentator: Oh, geez.
PBPA: Rozanov and Boiziau go crashing into the boards and—
CC: Shane Hollander has collapsed at the other end of the ice! What–
PBPA: Did you see a hit on him?
CC: No, there was no one around him.
PBPA: Did he trip?
CC: No, he just collapsed!
PBPA: Folks, we’re going to have to wait for the replay to see what happened here.
CC: I’ve never seen a player collapse like that before for no reason.
PBPA: Trainers are rushing out on the ice from both teams. Boiziau seems to be on his feet and fine.
CC: Both Hollander and Rozanov seem to be out cold.
PBPA: It’s nearly silent in the arena as everyone waits to see if these two star players are alright.
CC: I’ll tell you right now that the way Rozanov went crashing into those boards didn’t look pretty.
PBPA: No, not at all. And here’s the replay now.
CC: Oof, it does not look good.
PBPA: What I don’t understand is why Hollander collapsed.
CC: Like someone just cut his puppet strings.
PBPA: It does appear that Hollander collapsed right after Rozanov crashed into the boards.
CC: Have you ever seen anything like this?
PBPA: The only thing I can think of is in women’s hockey, Marie Howe getting sick on the ice right after a nasty hit on Laura Starling, but those two are a bonded pair.
CC: You don’t think—
PBPA: Well, it’s not up to us to speculate.
CC: Right, of course.
PBPA: We’ll have to wait on official statements from each of the teams, but I’m being told that stretchers are being brought out for both players.
CC: It’s rough to have both team’s captains drop like that, and it looks like Pike is getting heated with his trainers.
PBPA: We’re going to commercial while these two get off the ice, and hopefully we’ll resume play soon.
~*~
When Shane regained consciousness, the first thing he heard was the muffled yells of a familiar voice. Everything around him was too bright, too loud, too… cold? He was like he was suffocating and constricted, his head spinning like crazy. He gasped, trying to get air into his lungs, and suddenly their trainer’s face was in his line of sight.
“Shane, can you hear me?” their trainer said, or might have said. Everything was still too fuzzy.
Something was wrong. Wrong wrong, the kind of wrong that he felt deep in his bones.
Something was wrong with the bond? No, on the other end of the bond.
Ilya.
“Ilya,” Shane tried to get out, but it was nearly inaudible through his garbled gasping. He tried again, repeating Ilya’s name and slowly recognizing the panicked confusion on the trainer’s face.
“Shane, look at me.” Another hand on his shoulder, the voice he knew. His frantic eyes darted around until he landed on— Hayden. Something loosened in Shane’s chest. Hayden was here. Hayden knew about Ilya, knew about the bond with Ilya.
“Ilya?” Shane tried again, and Hayden swallowed.
“Ilya is okay.” Hayden said, but it felt like a lie. Shane wouldn’t feel like his insides had been scooped out if Ilya was okay. “He’s hurt, but he’s okay. They’re getting out stretchers for you both now.”
Stretchers? “Wha–”
Hayden wasn’t looking at him anymore. “I told you, they need to be together. They’re bonded and it’s gonna fuck them both up until they’re together.”
Oh, fucking hell. Hayden wasn’t supposed to– The trainer couldn’t know—
It was supposed to be a secret.
“I think I’d know if one of my players was bonded.” The trainer snapped, and well.
“Do you want him to get worse?” Hayden snapped back.
“Listen, it looks like they’re getting Rozanov on the stretcher now, so we can sort this out after we get them both off the ice–”
Suddenly, violently, Shane’s stomach twisted and turned so bad he swore he had vertigo, like he was being yanked off the ice even though he could still feel the coldness at his back, and he emptied his stomach all over the ice.
“Jesus Christ, now do you get it?” Hayden said as they pulled him back from his own puke.
“Okay, okay, here comes the stretcher, let’s just get him off.”
Shane’s head was spinning too bad to make sense of anything else after that, but within a few moments he was being taken off of the ice and the world got a little darker and a little quieter.
It was supposed to be a secret, no one was supposed to know, but–
“Ilya,” Shane slurred, trying to look around. “Where’s Ilya?” He couldn’t think straight. His head was spinning and they were moving him and he just needed Ilya–
He felt Ilya getting closer like a rubber band being pulled taught. He knew that not every bonded paid could feel each other’s proximity, each other’s emotions, could feel each other’s hearts. It was a once in a lifetime type of soul bond, such a rarity it was nearly miraculous. And they’d kept it protected for so long–
“Alright, here’s Rozanov,” their trainer said, and Shane could turn his head to see honey-golden curls on the stretcher next to him.
Frantically, Shane struggled to reach him, and the trainer huffed before pushing their stretchers closer together and there.
Shane clamped a bare hand on Ilya’s wrist, and it was like a shockwave went through him. It felt like that every time they touched, little lightning strikes where skin met skin. But this was different, this was such an intense relief that Shane nearly blacked out. The twisting tension that had been building in his chest released like a barrier had been broken, and he exhaled sharply. He squeezed Ilya’s wrist and tried to push warmth love heal be okay be okay be okay through their bond. Ilya was still unconscious, but Shane could feel the flicker of his pulse underneath his palm.
“We need to get you two to a hospital,” he heard a voice say, and their stretchers were pulled apart. Shane was forced to let go of Ilya, and this time, he did black out.
~*~
Ilya came to consciousness in a hospital. He heard the beeping first, then felt the scratchy hospital sheets, then cracked open his eyes, wincing. His memory was hazy, and everything felt wrong. There had been a game? He’d been skating down the ice, puck on his stick, and then—
He was here, in this hospital, feeling like he’d been hit by a truck.
He tried to take stock of what he could feel and sense. He started with his toes, and worked his way up, pleased that he could feel his body and move everything, even if it hurt. When he got to his chest, it was automatic that he reached out through his bond—
The bond.
Shane.
The heart monitor next to him started beeping like crazy, and he frantically started looking around the room. Fuck, why hadn’t that been his first instinct to look for Shane? What if he was hurt? What the fuck happened to them?
“Ilya, hey, hey,” A familiar, warm voice beside him, and the hands he knew as well as his own touched his arm. And there he was, his soulmate, looking exhausted and pale and sweaty and perfect and right there next to him.
“Shane,” he croaked out, fumbling to clutch his hand. The contact was soothing, like it was seeping the tension out of his muscles. He could feel the warmth heal love you be okay heal please be okay love you coming through the bond, and his eyes fluttered shut as he just let the warmth of their bond flood him. “What happened?” he managed to say.
“You slammed into the boards and went down,” Shane squeezed his hand.
Ilya felt the bond in his chest and gave a little tug on it, and felt the wince at the other end of the invisible string that tied them together. “You got hurt, too?”
Shane grimaced. “When you went down, so did I.”
“Fuck,” Ilya rubbed a shaking hand across his face. “How obvious?”
“Very.”
“Fuck,” he said again. “Are you okay?”
Shane sat on the edge of his hospital bed, and pulled Ilya’s hand up to kiss his palm. “I’m fine, really. Doctor said it’s just soul bond sickness. Because you’re hurting, I’m feeling the echoes of it. It wasn’t great that I passed out on the ice, but the helmet prevented anything serious.”
“I am sorry,” Ilya squeezed his hand. “You are hurt because of me.”
“It’s not your fault,” Shane pressed his cheek into Ilya’s palm. “It’s not like you chose to slam into the boards.”
Every part of his body hurt, so, no.
“Do people…” he swallowed. “Do people know? About us?”
Shane was quiet then, and Ilya felt his soulmate’s anxiety turmoiling through the bond like a storm on the horizon. Ilya pushed through the bond love you here safe love you.
“I mean, I haven’t been on social media,” Shane mumbled. “And because we’re both in the hospital, I haven’t talked to too many people but…”
He rubbed his thumb across those damn freckles he loved so much. “Shane?”
Shane bit his lip, his eyes welling up with tears, and nodded.
Scared love you scared love you
“We will be okay,” Ilya insisted. Even though he was the one laid up in the hospital bed, he wanted nothing more than to pull Shane into his arms and squeeze until all of his fears and anxieties disappeared. “We will figure this out together, yes?”
Shane nodded, and it broke Ilya’s heart to see a few tears running down his cheeks. “It was so fucking scary when you were injured.”
“Now you know how I felt, all those years ago,” Ilya said softly.
A soft sob hiccuped out of Shane. “Well, don’t do it again.”
“Okay, my love,” he said, slipping into Russian. Safe okay I’m okay we’re okay love you.
“My parents are here,” Shane exhaled, wiping away his tears. “I told them that I didn’t want to talk to anyone about the situation until you woke up.”
Ilya squeezed his hand. “Yuna will murder anyone who tries to enter the room.”
That got a laugh out of Shane, and Ilya felt buoyed by it. “Should I call her in, so we can start talking about a game plan?”
Ilya tugged Shane’s hand, and gently pulled him in. Shane went easily, tucking himself into Ilya’s chest and exhaling shakily. “Not yet,” Ilya said. “Just a little more time before we open up to the rest of the world.”
Love you safe scared love you love you love you love you safe.