Chapter Text
Shane stared at his phone and the text from an unknown number. Twenty minutes had passed since it was sent. He’d been in an early morning practice and grabbed his phone for a quick glance as he removed his gear. His heart thudded. Thoughts raced through his mind without fully forming. Was Ilya hurt? Did Cliff know about them? Ilya had been sick, and his texts had been a little weird for a few days. But they were in preseason. The workouts were brutal and never-ending. They’d barely had a moment to think. His fingers moved to the call button and pressed. He needed to know if Ilya was okay.
Shane suddenly remembered he was in his locker room surrounded by teammates. He shuffled out into the empty hallway, barefoot and with half of his gear still on. He went into a dark conference room and shut the door behind him as he spoke.
“This is Shane Hollander. Is Il- is Rozanov okay? What’s going on?
“He’s okay. He’s sick. We thought it was the flu at first, but it’s been a week. He wouldn’t tell us much, but I showed up at his house, and he’s in really bad shape.”
“What? I mean,” Shane’s voice wavered. How openly could he speak with Cliff? He obviously knew something since he had called Shane.
Hesitantly, Shane continued. “He said he wasn’t feeling well, but he thought it was just a cold or something.”
Cliff paused and sighed.
“Look, I know you two are… close.”
Shane swallowed. He was frozen in place. What did Cliff know? Had they been outed somehow? How had he known to contact Shane?
“He’s been getting worse every day. It did start like the flu. But now… he’s in bad shape. He says his head is pounding and he won’t open his eyes. He’s coughing, and his breathing sounds like he’s struggling. He’s burning up with a fever but shivering like he’s freezing. I can’t get him to eat or drink anything.” Cliff went on. “I think he might have rejection sickness.”
Shane’s heart sank. Alpha rejection sickness was rare but not impossible.
Shane gasped quietly. “Oh,” was all he managed to get out.
“Yeah. And, look, I know you two are very private, and I get why. But I’m his best friend, and I’m dumb, but I’m not a complete idiot. I kind of figured for a while that you might be Jane, and I’ve never said anything to him. But I’m worried about him. He’s in really bad shape. It was either call you or take him to the ER, where they’ll do dick for him. I think he needs you. Urgently.”
Shane was frozen. Processing what Cliff had said. Shane didn’t know much about alpha rejection sickness, but he knew it could be treated by getting the alpha’s imprinted mate to them. Had Ilya really imprinted on him? He had to admit, it made sense. Ilya needed him in a life-or-death way.
Cliff broke the silence. “I… hope I didn’t overstep…”
“No!” Shane snapped into focus. “No, of course not. Ilya trusts you.” Shane winced at himself for accidentally using Ilya’s first name, but then realized it didn’t matter.
“I’ll get there. You know how it is with preseason stuff, but I’ll figure it out. I’m on my way.”
“I’ll stay with him until you’re here. We can keep in touch by text. Hollander, listen, man, I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t really bad.”
Shane imagined Ilya, sick and hurting. “Thank you,” Shane said quietly. “Please tell him…” Shane pulled the phone away from his ear for a second and took a breath. He brought the phone back up. “I love him, and I’m coming to him.”
“I will,” Cliff said.
Ilya knew exactly what was wrong the moment he started to feel symptoms. He’d arrived home from the cottage to his dark, empty apartment. He’d been so exhausted and bummed after having to leave Shane that he’d dropped his suitcase without touching it and gone straight to his bed. The next morning, he’d woken feeling unrested and with a sore throat. He’d taken a shower and started his laundry, but his body ached. He got himself to the first preseason team meeting, but by the time his day was done, he couldn’t ignore that he was sick. His head hurt, his chest ached, and all he wanted to do was go to bed for the rest of the season.
But he could push through. Alpha rejection sickness would peak after about ten to twelve days and then wane - as long as the alpha didn’t die from the severity of it. But that wasn’t happening.
Powering through adversity was Ilya Rozanov’s specialty. He’d once played two playoff final games with a broken finger. He’d bled and lost games and dealt with injuries and come back stronger and better. He’d waited years to have a chance to be with the person he loved. He’d survived growing up in his father’s house with his brother and without his mother. He wasn’t going to let the flu take him out.
He knew it wasn’t really the flu, but he was calling it that in his head. Calling it what he knew it was gave it a power in his mind that he couldn’t handle.
Their time at the cottage had been beautiful. He and Shane had spent the most surreal two weeks of Ilya’s life there. Ilya loved Shane. Shane loved Ilya. Shane’s parents knew. And they were lovely and okay with it. They had a plan. Ilya getting sick wasn’t part of it.
He knew that sometimes alphas imprinted on their mates so strongly that leaving them could cause this. And when he’d begun to feel symptoms, he’d googled and read even more.
Imprinting was a psychological phenomenon. His brain was telling his body that Shane was his mate and that to be parted was unsafe. Once the imprinting had taken place, anytime they were apart for an extended period of time, he may experience alpha rejection sickness. His body’s immune system would go into overdrive. He would be more vulnerable to other viruses and illnesses. Medical treatment involved treating the symptoms as much as possible. Rest, fluids, etc. Ideally, getting the imprinted mate to rejoin the sick alpha should calm the alpha’s nervous system enough to end the symptoms.
But getting anywhere near Shane was impossible. They were both in preseason. There was no situation where they could be together. Leaving Shane at the Ottawa airport had been unbearable. If there had been any way to avoid it, he would have found it.
By day two, when he’d struggled through more meetings and conditioning work, he’d called his doctor, who had reiterated much of the same. Was there any way he could be with the person he’d imprinted on? No. Then rest, wait, treat the symptoms, call 911 if he’s having shortness of breath or his fever gets too high. She also strongly encouraged him to check in with someone local who could keep an eye on him.
He’d told his coaches and teammates he had the flu. The team’s medical staff cleared him to stay home for a few days and rest.
He’d kept up appearances with Shane. They texted each other often now, chatting about their days and how preseason was going. He didn’t want to lie to Shane. He was truthful about everything except his suspicions about the true nature of his illness. He admitted that he was staying home from practices. He told Shane that he wasn’t really that sick, but the medical staff were worried he was contagious and didn’t want to risk the whole team. Shane didn’t seem to question it.
By day three, he was making up excuses for why they couldn’t talk or FaceTime. He knew he looked like shit, and his voice was raw. He didn’t want Shane to worry.
On the night of day four, the nightmares started. He was in his hotel room at the All-Star Game with Shane. Shane was holding him, and Ilya was crying. Shane was ending things between them. He held Ilya and murmured “it’s safer this way” and “I just want us both to be free” while Ilya cried.
On day five, he was on his couch making his way through the Fast and the Furious franchise when Cliff showed up. He let himself into the house and began opening the curtains, flooding the living room with light. Ilya pulled his blanket over his head, moaning.
“Come on, man, we gotta get you better. The team needs you.”
“Fuck the team,” Ilya groaned from under his covering. Cliff came over and yanked the blanket down. His face fell when he got a good look at Ilya’s face.
“Jesus Christ, Roz. Do we need to go to the hospital?”
“No!” Ilya shouted, although his voice sounded rough and weak. “No, I am fine. Just the flu. I am already doing better.”
Ilya sat up and immediately had to shut his eyes and put his head between his legs when a wave of nausea flooded through him.
“Fuck, man,” Cliff said. “Have you talked to the doctor?”
“Yes,” Ilya said, lifting his head and leaning back against the couch, wincing against the bright light spilling in from the windows.
Cliff looked around and then walked to the kitchen to grab a trash bag. He started filling it with some of the empty takeout containers strewn around the counter. “Have you eaten anything recently?”
“No, and I don’t want to,” Ilya said.
“What about liquids? Are you hydrating?” Cliff yelled.
“Probably not enough,” Ilya said begrudgingly.
Cliff filled a glass of ice water and brought it to him.
“Drink it all,” Cliff said as he brought the back of his hand to Ilya’s forehead. Ilya rolled his eyes at him.
“You’re like a furnace man,” Cliff said. “You’re white as a sheet and covered in sweat. Are you sure I can’t take you to get looked at?”
“I’m fine. It is just a stupid virus. The doctor already said there is nothing they can do. I have another call with the team doctor tomorrow morning, first thing. And you should leave before you catch anything from me. Coach will kill us if I get you sick.”
“Fuck that, Roz. I’m not leaving you like this. I’ll sleep in your guest room tonight,” Cliff said. He started to pick up some of the dishes and cups on Ilya’s coffee table.
“You don’t need to stay. I am just going to sleep all day and night anyway,” Ilya said.
“I don’t care. Drink that glass. I’ll get you some more,” Cliff said as he took the pile of dishes into the kitchen. Ilya heard his sink come on and the sound of scrubbing. He actually did feel a little better knowing he wasn’t alone.
Ilya texted him a heart emoji back. He wasn’t feeling better. He was feeling worse. If the symptoms he was feeling really weren’t going to peak for another five to seven days - he was scared.
Cliff made him shower and put on clean clothes. He heated some canned soup, which Ilya barely ate. Ilya lay awake in his bed that night, propped up on some pillows to help with the coughing, shivering, and staring at his phone. He knew communicating with Shane right now was risky. He didn’t want to lie to him, but he also didn’t want to worry him. He desperately wanted to talk to him.
The reply came quickly.
Ilya held his phone to his chest. In any other situation, Ilya would ask Shane to send him a picture. But if he did, Shane might ask to see him too. And he couldn’t let Shane see him like this. He’d caught a glimpse of himself when he went to shower, and Cliff was right - he looked awful. His face was pale, and there were deep, dark circles under his eyes. His cheeks were sunken in. There wasn’t a filter in the world that could make Ilya look anything other than very sick right now.
Instead, Ilya sent:
Shane came to Ilya in his dreams again that night.
Ilya was lying in his bed, and Shane came and wrapped his arms around him.
“Shane, Shane, is that you?” Ilya pulled away to look and saw Shane’s face, but everything was wrong. He had bruises over his nose and cheeks, and his eyes looked glazed. He looked the way he had when he’d been in the hospital with a concussion. Shane’s eyes bounced around, unable to focus.
“I can’t stay, Ilya. I can’t be here. We’re not alone. They’ll see us.”
“Shane, no, no, please don’t leave.”
“I have to, you have to hang on, okay?”
“Shane, I can’t do this. I think - I think I might be really sick.”
“Maybe, maybe.”
Shane was leaving. Ilya reached for him, but then he woke up in his dark bedroom, panting and coughing.
“Ilya? Are you okay, man? I think you screamed,” Cliff said from the doorway.
“I’m fine,” Ilya said. “Just bad dream.” He coughed and coughed.
“Do you need anything?” Cliff asked, reaching for the water by Ilya’s bed and holding it out to him. Ilya shook his head and gently pushed it away.
Ilya’s head was pounding. He was wet all over as if he’d been sweating.
“Maybe just some Tylenol,” Ilya said. “My head hurts really bad. There’s some in the bathroom cabinet.”
Cliff went to the bathroom and turned on the light. He dug in the cabinet for the pills. When he came back, he gasped as he saw Ilya’s face, now lit from the bathroom.
“Jesus Christ, Rozzy, you’re covered in blood,” Cliff said.
“I am?”
“Yeah. What the fuck happened? Is it a nosebleed?”
“I don’t know,” Ilya said. He stood up. He felt dizzy, and a black fuzziness closed in on him from both sides. The last thing he felt was Cliff’s arms catching him as he fell.
He woke up lying in his bed. Cliff was wiping his face with a wet washcloth.
“Fuck, Roz, you’re scaring me, man,” Cliff said. “I’m seriously about to call 911.”
Ilya grabbed Cliff’s arm. “No! Please do not call them. I swear I will be okay.”
Why was he speaking Russian? Where was his English? Cliff was looking at him strangely. Ilya took a slow breath and tried to will English out of his brain and voice.
“It is dangerous. Please, no one can know. It is not only my secret.”
What was he saying? He shouldn’t be telling Cliff all this. He shook his head.
“No. There is no need for an ambulance. I just need rest.” Russian again.
“The thing I need - I cannot have right now. Preseason. I am alone. My body doesn’t like it, but it will get over it.”
There. Ilya closed his eyes, exhausted from the effort of speaking so many English words. Cliff finished cleaning his face and eventually lay down to sleep next to him. Ilya felt the room spinning around them. He drifted in and out of sleep until he noticed the sun was peeking in around his blinds. Cliff was gone, and Ilya could hear him talking somewhere outside the room. He could only hope he wasn’t on the phone with emergency services. He certainly couldn’t get up to make sure.
His body felt like it was on fire, but he was shaking all over. His head was pounding, and his throat was raw. His eyes hurt when he blinked, so he kept them shut. He didn’t want to admit it, but he felt like he wasn’t able to take a full breath.
He desperately didn’t want to worry Shane, but he started to think, maybe, if they FaceTimed? If he could just see Shane, maybe that would take the edge off. He didn’t want to chance alerting Shane to how sick he was if it wasn’t going to help. He wanted to google whether video calls could help with rejection sickness, but at this point he had no idea where his phone was, and he wasn’t sure he could focus his eyes to read it anyway.
He realized that he was moaning out loud from the pain. He was holding his head, squeezing, trying to get any relief. Cliff came back into the room and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Everything’s gonna be okay, man, just try to rest, okay?”
“Please don’t tell anyone, Cliff. I have to protect Shane. No one can know.”
“It’s okay. He says he loves you and he’s coming as fast as he can, okay?”
Ilya nodded. Okay. Sure. That was a nice thought.
Shane’s mind was racing as he stripped his gear and threw on a hoodie and joggers. He needed to get to Ilya as fast as possible. He gave a silent thank you to himself for always keeping his passport in his duffel bag. He grabbed a phone charger from his locker and tossed it in as well. If he got himself a ride to the airport, he could book a private flight from the car. He could call an uber, but he could also probably convince Hayden to take him, which would be faster. He also probably would need Hayden’s help to cover for him taking off like this. Not only did he have afternoon practice, but he had a full day of meetings, practices, and workouts tomorrow and every day for the next couple of weeks until preseason games started. There was no way he could do this alone. He had to trust that Hayden would be there for him.
It wasn’t only Shane’s decision. By telling Hayden what was going on, he’d be outing Ilya. But this was a life-or-death situation. If telling Hayden, his friend that he trusted, would help keep them from being outed to the whole world, then it was a risk he had to take.
Hayden agreed easily when Shane asked him for a ride to the airport and told him he’d explain on the way. In Hayden’s truck, Shane quickly booked a flight through an app that worked similarly to uber but for private flights for people who could afford them, and then he turned to Hayden. He needed to rip this off like a band-aid. Suddenly, a conversation that he’d dreaded for years seemed easy. It was as if all his fear for Ilya’s well-being had pushed out his fear of being outed.
“Hayden, I’m gay.”
Hayden took a breath. “Okay,” he said.
“Okay?” Shane said.
“Yeah, I mean, I guess that actually… makes a lot of sense,” Hayden said.
“Okay, well that’s not really the shocking part,” Shane said.
“Jesus, what’s the shocking part?” Hayden asked.
“I’m with someone. I… love him, actually. And it’s… Ilya Rozanov,” Shane said.
“The hockey player?” Hayden’s voice got high.
“Yes. For Boston,” Shane said.
“You love Ilya Rozanov,” Hayden said.
“Yes.”
“But you hate Ilya Rozanov…”
“No. I love Ilya Rozanov.”
“Is this a prank?”
“No.”
“Because if it is, it’s not very funny.”
“This is not a prank.”
“Did Mitty put you up to this?”
“It’s not a prank, Hayden. It’s real. And he has rejection sickness. We spent the two weeks before preseason at the cottage together, and Cliff Marleau called me to tell me he thinks he might die if I don’t get to him soon.”
Hayden gripped the wheel.
“Fuck,” Hayden said.
“Yeah. It’s serious. I need to get to him, and I don’t know how long I’ll be. I need to figure out an excuse to tell management that they’ll believe.”
“What the fuck, Shane? What are we going to tell them that will make them not care that the captain of the team isn’t showing up for preseason? You basically have to be dead to get out of that.”
“I know. But if I don’t do this, Ilya might be.”
At Shane’s use of Ilya’s first name, Hayden turned to look at Shane for the first time during the conversation.
“Oh my god, this is real,” Hayden said.
“I know it’s a lot. I need your help. You’re my best friend, and I can’t do this alone,” Shane said.
Shane was gripping his knees, his knuckles white. Hayden pulled up to the departures curb and put his truck in park. He sighed.
“You tell them it’s a girlfriend. Keep the whole story the same - just make it a girl. Tell them Lily has rejection sickness. Tell them she’s a private person, so you’ve been very careful to keep her out of the public eye. They’ll either believe it or they’ll think you’re with a married chick. Either way, they’ll go for it. I’ll vouch for you. I’ll say I’ve met her. It’s only kind of a lie. If management believes it, they’ll help you with the media.”
Shane let out a deep breath. “Thanks, man,” he said.
Hayden grabbed Shane’s hand and pulled him in for a hug. “Do what you gotta do. I guess I don’t even want Rozanov to die.”
Shane pulled away, shaking his head, a terrified look on his face.
“Oh, shit,” Hayden said. “That’s not funny. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s… okay. Hopefully it will be funny soon,” Shane said. “Just… I do love him, you know? And I’m scared.”
Hayden pulled him in for another hug. “He’ls gonna be okay,” Hayden said. “That fucker’s probably immortal.”
Shane pulled away and nodded jerkily.
As Shane grabbed his duffel and stepped out of the truck toward the doors, Hayden yelled, “Text me, okay? I want updates!”
Shane threw a wave over his shoulder as he jogged into the airport.
The 90-minute flight seemed endless. He connected to the wifi and tried to watch something on his phone, but he was too distracted. He messaged his agent - using the story Hayden came up with about a girlfriend. He’d arranged a car to take him straight from the airport to Ilya’s Boston house. It was about a 25-minute drive, depending on traffic. He spent the rest of the time with his head in his hands and bouncing his knee aggressively.
He’d messaged Cliff his ETA before the flight took off. Cliff had responded with “Thanks for the update. Get here safe and fast.”
Shane didn’t like that. He wanted Cliff to say that Ilya was already doing better. Instead, the text seemed ominous. He kept running their conversation over in his mind.
Coughing. Struggling to breathe. Head pounding. Burning up with fever.
Shane thought of Ilya, alone and sick. Struggling because he wasn’t with him. He hated this. He hated thinking of Ilya like this. For Cliff to call him, it must have been pretty bad. Shane ground his teeth and tried to calm himself. Ilya needed him now. He could freak out after Ilya was okay.
Finally, mercifully, the plane landed. He tapped his fingers and fidgeted through the customs line, then jogged to where he knew his driver was waiting. At least he knew his way around the airport - a small comfort.
As the car pulled up to Ilya’s house, Shane’s heart sank to see an ambulance parked outside.