darkjediqueen

The biggest obstacle was just hitting the button that would make the call. He looked at where Shane was shivering in the bed. He needed to go to the hospital, but this wasn't anything close to what they would be doing. Ilya looked at the name again, and he swallowed. He hit it and put it on speaker so that he could keep his eyes on Shane. After calling Yuna, he was going to call 9-1-1.

There was going to be no hiding that Shane Hollander was going to be taken out of Ilya Rosznov's house in Boston after Montreal had beaten Boston with not just a single goal but a whole hat trick.

"Hello," Yuna said as she answered the phone.

Ilya tried to speak, but he couldn't. He swallowed again and opened his mouth, but no words came out.

"Hello? Is someone there?"

"Mrs. Hollander," Ilya finally got out.

"Who is this?"

"Ilya Rozanov."

"And how did you get my number, Mister Rozanov?"

"From your son's phone."

There was nothing on the other end.

"Is this some sick joke?"

"No. I promise you that you are not being tricked. I...you are his manager, yes?"

"Yes."

"He...he woke up in pain this morning, and I have to call 9-1-1 because he thinks that his appendix has ruptured. He is at my house, and there is no chance that this isn't getting out."

There was just silence again on the other end, and Ilya hoped that she hadn't hung up on him. He knew that they were in Boston. Shane had mentioned that his parents had followed the team down so that they could take advantage of a short visit here to spend some time together. Ilya was on the road for the next week, and Montreal had a small break of a few days.

"It's four in the morning. What is my son doing at your place?"

"Ilya," Shane begged.

Ilya got up, walked over to the bed, and sat down. Shane was covered in sweat. "I'm here. Your mom is here too."

"You called her? I told you no."

"I couldn't not tell them. Not just the whole thing of you going into surgery, but also you need them to get ahead of this."

"Shane, we are getting ready to meet you at whatever hospital they take you to."

"I'll make sure they take you there, best. I like the best," Ilya said. He swallowed and looked down at Shane. "Is always the best for Shane."

"Call 9-1-1 now. I'll talk to you in person." Yuna hung up.

It was a blur after that, with Ilya calling 9-1-1 and then packing up a bag with things for himself as well as for Shane. He knew that Shaen had planned to head back to the hotel and pack up to move to the hotel that his parents had rented. He propped the door open so that the paramedics could enter the house. He got Shane dressed enough that there would be no naked pictures of him, in loose clothes that would allow them to work on him if things went really wrong, but also, when they were cut off, it wouldn't matter. He packed the good clothes for later as well. It was going to be interesting to see what happened with this. Ilya wasn't going back home; he loved his father, but nothing would get him home now. Whatever plans he had been working on to get himself somewhere safe before he ever came out for Shane were dashed. Which was fine. Iyla would land on his feet. All Russians did. The Raiders were going to be blindsided by this, but he would worry about that after. He would message whoever needed to get ahead of this once they were at the hospital.

Then Shane was loaded up, and Ilya debated going with them or driving, but the way that Shane was strapped into the bed thing and looking at him had Ilya climbing in the back with the bag in his hands.

"This is Hollander, isn't it?" one of the paramedics asked.

"Da," Ilya said.

"We will not say shit, and we know that HIPAA doesn't do nearly as much as it should to protect things like this. We have a secluded access point that we can use that will take him through the back halls and not the main ER area, where everyone will see him."

"Delay what is going on?"

"No, it will not. We will get them to surgery and get this taken care of."

Ilya knew that this was just the start. This was not the best way to come out, but it was better than being outed by accident and being blindsided. Shane would be safe here, and Yuna would handle it. Ilya got on his phone, and he texted Marleau to get him the numbers for the people who handle big announcements for the team. His agent was going to drop him. He was Russian and had big connections to the motherland.

This was going to blow up, and Iyla wasn't sure how to get ahead of it yet.

---

The waiting room sucked. Ilya was tucked into a corner, and he looked up every time the door opened, but it was just random people. They left when he glared at them. This place wasn't that big, and he had it first. Then it opened, and he knew the woman there. It was hard not to know her, not even from that time when she tried to get on the elevator with him when he had been going up to have sex with her son, but she was attached to him.

"I have people on the releases for the Metros." Yuna shut the door, and the man who had slipped in behind her looked at Ilya before he came over to sit down right beside him.

"How are you doing, son?"

Ilya knew his name was David. He had researched Shane and everything to do with his family back when he had just been starting to want to do something with him. He needed to know about threats.

"I'm worried," Ilya said, wanting to be open because this was so much more than he was used to.

"Shane's in good health, and that's going to help. He's strong. That helps a lot," David said. He didn't touch, but he looked like he wanted to.

Ilya wasn't used to a father who was soft and kind like this. Ilya wondered what kind of hockey player he would be if he had a father who was like David Hollander. He would probably be better than he was, which was kind of a shock because his father had pushed him to be better at everything, but gave him nothing to help support that. He was the best in the league but was still called lazy.

"Do you think we can spin that you are friends?" Yuna asked as she stood over in the corner, looking at her phone. She was upset, but it seemed like she needed to do something. Shane was the same way.

It was strange for Ilya to see the two parts of Shane meshing from these two.

"We could," Ilya said. He wasn't sure if that was going to actually happen if the paramedics said anything, but the hospital staff had barely seen him beyond when they had been handed off. Ilya hoped that they could spin that because being outed like this was the second-worst way. The worst was being blindsided by it.

"Then we will go with that. I need you to make sure that you are both on the same page when it comes to what is said about it. I'll get it going." Yuna pressed the phone to her ear, and she spoke low like she was trying not to wake someone.

"Ilya, do you need anything?"

"Him to be here beside me," Ilya said. He knew that he was being weird, but he was freaked out. He knew that these kinds of things happened all the time, but he knew what it was like in Russia for surgery. If the doctors didn't like that, it was even rumored that he and Shane were together.

The hand landed on his shoulder, and Ilya felt himself starting to break. Shane had slowly chipped at the wall that Ilya had built around him over the years. Enough that being laid low by a hand on his shoulder had Ilya feeling a little bit of shame. He didn't like it. He didn't want to be like this.

The door opened, and a nurse came inside the room, looked at the three of them, Yuna on the phone, who had her back to them, and then focused on David. "Family of Hollander?"

"That's us."

The nurse looked at Ilya and then focused on David. "He's doing well in the surgery. It wasn't fully ruptured, but the pain was from where it was leaking a little bit. It was caught in close enough time that they were able to do a simple surgery to get it out. The doctor will give a better timeline for him being back to skating and playing, but for now, he's going to be very tender in his midsection. Surgery shouldn't take much longer, and then they will get him into a recovery room. We have rooms that are more private, and we've already prepped it for him. Security will be tighter, so with you and your wife as his emergency contacts, it will be up to you to let people know where to go and how to get inside, but also have them on the list." The nurse looked at Ilya. "Even if the names are fake."

Ilya snorted at that, but he knew that this kind of thing happened. He remembered when one of the older guys had a moment as it happened. The team was all given names that they could use to get inside, which made it so that if there was a leak of the records of who was to visit, there was no way to figure out who had actually come to visit. That had been names from a show that Ilya still had no desire to watch, even if he had been given the name of Luke Danes. It had made him turn up his nose, but he had gone like he was supposed to as part of the team, a short visit, and he never went back again.

"See, he's good," David said before he got up and headed over to Yuna, who hadn't realized the nurse had been in there because she was still on the phone.

Shane's phone was in the bag, and Ilya should look at it and respond to things, or have David do it. The text thread with him and Shane would be mostly hidden behind fake names. Ilya knew that Shane was going to freak out once he knew what had happened, and how it had outed them to at least some people, but the friends' angle could be easily figured out. It was going to make it hard to meet up after this, but they could figure it out.

They could if they wanted it.

---

Shane opened his eyes, and he could see that the sun was bright outside, so he blinked a few times, trying to get his eyes used to it. He wasn't sure what was happening. or where he was. There was the smell of a hospital that Shane knew, even if he was rarely there. He only went to see other people, but the smell was the same, pretty much across most hospitals. There was a weight on his arm when he tried to lift it to his face. He raised his other arm and found that it had an IV stuck in it. He frowned at that and then looked around the room more. He wasn't in pain at the moment, but he could tell that something had happened. He had been feeling a little under the weather lately, with a few signs his body was fighting off something. It seemed that maybe it was a little more than fighting off something.

Then the hair was visible. Shane blinked as he took in the sight of Ilya's hair there on the bed, with Ilya holding his hand. Shane looked around again and found his mother asleep in a chair off to the side, but his father was sitting there looking at him with a smile on his face. Like he was happy to see Ilya sleeping between the beds, it was going to be horrible for Ilya's body to play today. No, Ilya didn't play today; he was leaving town. Ilya should be on a plane.

"Ilya," Shane said, moving his hand with more purpose to hopefully wake up the other man. It took a few seconds, but Ilya shot up, and he looked around before focusing on Shane. The smile on his face made Shane feel butterflies in his stomach.

"Shane," Ilya said, and he leaned over to press his forehead to Shane's, his eyes closing, and Shane could do nothing else but close his eyes as well. Ilya's hand stayed with Shane's, and the other came up to cup the side of his face.

Shane knew his father was watching, but it was okay. He didn't know what to do about it, but he figured that he would have to get used to this. Ilya had to have called his parents. He kind of started to remember waking up in pain the night before, Ilya was there had tried to keep him calm before Ilya had called 9-1-1, after calling his parents in case it went out fast that Shane Hollander had been pulled from Ilya Rozanov's house in the middle of the night.

"What's happening?" Shane asked when Ilya finally pulled back to sit on the bed beside him, their hands still grasped.

"The surgery went fine," Shane's father said.

"There is a press release waiting for now to see what the news goes with, but Yuna made sure that it spoke of friendships," Ilya said.

Shane looked at his father for a few seconds before he looked at Ilya again. "Friendship and I was in your bed in the middle of the night."

"The paramedics assured me that they would say nothing, and we were taken to a side entrance for important people because I am a very important person who doesn't need to be around those in the ER."

Shane laughed, and that was a mistake. He groaned and laid his other arm over his stomach. There was no real pain, but there was pressure, and like there should be pain or something like it. He wasn't sure. There was just so much shit that he needed to know so that he didn't fuck things up.

"You need nurse?" Ilya asked.

"No, not yet. I want to know what is going on."

So Ilya went into a long speech about what had been decided and what Yuna was handling when it came to it. With the help of Hayden. It wasn't going to take long for Hayden to figure out that Boston Lily was Ilya, and they were not just friends. That sent Shane into a little freak out, but Ilya just rested his forehead to Shane's again and got him calm just as the nurse came into the room to see what was going on. Shane tried to drop Ilya's hand, but Ilya didn't let go.

"Mister Hollander, please stop," The nurse said. Her name badge was flipped around, probably from just moving around and doing her job.

"This is Molly, and Molly is married to a lovely lady named Holly, which is weird; their names rhyme, yes? They have been together for longer than it was allowed for them to be together, something about no asking and no telling?"

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell," Shane said at the same time that Molly said that.

"Yes, I'm not going to tell anyone anything at all. Your secret is safe with me. The nurse who will be joining me in a few hours is also not going to tell anything. We take our job seriously, and we will make sure that others do too."

Shane didn't relax much at all, but he let the nurse check him over and make notes before she did something else, and more pain medication hit him.

"The doctor will be rounding soon. He'll make sure that you know what you should be going and what you should not be doing."

Shane felt a little mortified as he realized what she was talking about. He started to blush a little bit, and Ilya kissed his head. Then Molly was gone, and Shane's parents were there at the bedside. His mom looked like she wanted to say something, but she didn't.

"I'm sorry," Shane said.

"No, we are sorry for whatever we did that made you feel like you couldn't tell us," Yuna said.

Shane shook his head, and he felt the medication making him a little more tired. "No, it was nothing you did. It was me. It was all me."

Yuna looked like she wanted to combat him on that, but David shook his head. "Shane, we will talk about that later. Right now, you need to get better."

"How long?"

"Since rookie year," Shane said.

"No, before that."

Shane looked at Ilya, and he just frowned at him. He wasn't counting that gym session, was he? Or maybe he was counting the first time. That time had been a blip.

"How long before?" David asked.

"Not too long," Shane said, trying to get Ilya to shut the hell up.

"What? I don't lie to your parents. My father gets lied to, but yours does not get lied to."

Yuna laughed at that, and even to Shane's ears, he knew that his mother was close to crying. He didn't like it. He didn't like it when he made his mother cry.

"He cares for you," Yuna said.

"He does," Shane said. If he had been asked to tell them anything, he would have said they were just having sex, but this. The way that Ilya had freaked out the night before, now that the memories were hitting him. The way that he was now, holding Shane's hand, even though his parents were there. He didn't know what to think about all of this, but they needed to talk. That would have to happen when they were alone. "Tell me what the press release says, exactly. I want to make sure not to mess anything up when I get released because the press is going to be right there when it happens."

"Of course," Yuna said. She got her phone out again and pulled it up before handing it over to Shane.

"He needs his glasses, I will read," Ilya said before taking the phone from him.

David laughed just a little bit, and Yuna was smiling at Ilya.

"I can read that."

"No, you are injured, better rest there. " I will read like you are a child at bedtime," Ilya said.

"Asshole."

"Shush, we are not alone."

Shane was already done with Ilya, but Ilya seemed to be in a better mood, with him being able to chirp a little at Shane about this. He started to read, making sure to get each word right as he read over the release that was going to be released about their friendship. Shane had no clue what his team was going to do, even think about this. He would have to make sure that Hayden was talked to without anyone else around.

---

It took a while for Shane to be left alone with Ilya, and it was only because he was hungry and his mother had gotten approval to get him food that would work for his diet, as long as the nurse approved it when she got back with it. Shane had woken up from a nap with Ilya still there.

"Don't you need to fly out?"

"I got approval to take flight alone. I have to do a small pre-press conference when I get to the arena because I will get there just before the practice skate tomorrow, and things will be weird. Is good. Do not worry."

"Worry is all I do," Shane said. He looked at Ilya and thought about waking up after all of that, to him not being there. He knew that things were a tinderbox at the moment, but they could get through it. The obstacle was making sure that everyone who was in the know stuck to the right thing to say. It was going to be harder to do, but they could do it. They could easily do it. He wanted to make sure that he was good to go.

"I worry, too. About you dying in bed and never knowing it. You were a little off, but I thought it was the game; you won, but you didn't seem like you played your best."

Shane knew Ilya's game just about as well as he knew his own. He shouldn't be shocked that Ilya knew his game as well. He just wanted their lives not to be so complicated.

"I'm good. I was with you, and I would have been with Hayden if I had stayed in the hotel room."

"He would not have known to care for you," Ilya said.

Shane smiled at him, and he held out his hand. Ilya came forward, and he pressed their foreheads together again. This was a massive jump for them. They were not sure how to go forward and needed to have talks that were not with Shane, who was high on pain medications. "We will be fine."

"We will be fine," Ilya repeated.

---

Ilya wasn't shocked to see the number that had texted him. Iliya knew that being open with certain people meant that those certain people would be in his life. He just wished that Pike had waited longer to text him. He braced for what was in there, but in the end, it was a single picture of Shane in bed at the hospital with what looked like a hoodie on his body. It was the second picture that made Ilya smile.

The words came through with that one as well.

Pike: He said it's not the best thing, but the second best, since you can't hold him.

Maybe he won't have to kill Pike. The hoodie has his name and number on the back. Ilya would have to make sure that HSane had enough of his things to hold him when Ilya wasn't going to be able to do so. He would make sure to wear a few things before sending them as well, so that Shane had his scent, the cologne that he wore. It was the little things that would help him get better faster. He might be able to play for the last part of the season, and only if he got well faster, and with Ilya helping, he would be back to prime condition in time for them to battle it out for the cup.

The End