Chapter Text
Sitting at a long table in a private conference room in some vague corner of the hospital wasn’t where Shane thought he’d be today, but the past 2 days have been a whirlwind, and this just feels like the cherry on top of his shit sundae.
He’s flanked by his parents. David is relaxed in his seat on Shane’s right, but Yuna is tense on his left. Back straight, shoulders squared, eyes laser focused ahead of her. Shane’s used to this level of intensity when she’s helping him go over contracts and brand deals, and he’s thankful she’s lending some of this energy to this particular meeting.
On the other side of the table is Alexei, the social worker, Nick, and a hospital-affiliated interpreter. This is Shane’s first time meeting Alexei in person. Ilya doesn’t talk much about the man, just that he followed in their father’s footsteps choosing to be police in Moscow, and he was a leech, for lack of a better word.
Shane never put much thought into what it would be like to meet his brother-in-law because Ilya put Russia behind him for the most part. But sitting across from the man feels…jarring. He and Ilya don’t share many physical attributes but they are both tall. Alexei’s hair is darker, face is rounder, slightly puffy, eyes bloodshot, and Shane can’t tell if it’s from stress and jet lag, or alcohol.
At the head of the table is the neurosurgeon, Dr. Thomas. She clears her throat once before launching into Ilya’s diagnosis and prognosis, as well as her proposed treatment. The interpreter relays it all to Alexei and Shane watches him closely, eyes peeled for any sort of reaction to the news. The man has a good poker face, Shane will give him that. He doesn’t so much as blink upon hearing the news of his brother’s TBI and coma.
“What are you doing here?” Shane asks.
“I am here because my brother is in hospital,” Alexei replies, slowly. His English isn’t bad but Shane notices that he’s careful in how he speaks, the fluidity of the language not in him. “I saw on news that he is in coma, and nobody called me.” He turns to the interpreter then, giving the woman the rest of his spiel as he can’t find the words.
After a minute, the interpreter, Sasha, turns to Shane. “Alexei wants to know how we move forward if Ilya does not recover.”
“Ilya is going to recover,” Shane insists. He can’t comprehend a reality where his husband doesn’t, nor does he want to. “There’s no need to discuss the alternative because his doctor has already given us a game plan.”
“What if I say no?”
Shane’s head snaps up so quickly, it’s a wonder how he doesn’t get whiplash. “What do you mean? Why would you say no?” His eyes flicker towards Sasha. “What does he mean?”
His body goes rigid as Sasha and Alexei converse back and forth in their native tongue. And Shane wishes he had been taking the Russian practice a bit more seriously because he’s only able to grasp a few words out of the bunch, “brother” and “hospital” being the only ones that stick with him.
“He says that since his brother is in the hospital, he would be the one taking care of his affairs,” Sasha explains. “He is his legal caretaker in the situation, right? And he wants to know what his options are.”
And that makes sense to Shane, at least a bit. Their marriage was a complete secret up until this, there’s no way Alexei would know about the change in circumstance.
He sighs. “Alexei, Ilya and I are married. You aren’t his next of kin anymore, I am.”
Alexei’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline at that, and it’s clear he understood every word, no interpreter needed. He shakes his head. “No. No way, I knew my brother liked to…sleep with whoever but he would not marry a—”
“You and my son are having a pleasant conversation and I would hate for it to stop, so I suggest you stop that thought right in its tracks,” Yuna says, speaking up for the first time since they all sat down.
Shane is grateful for the support, but he doesn’t need Yuna to go full mama bear, at least not right now. He puts a hand on top of hers, stopping her in her tracks before clearing his throat to continue. “We’ve been together for years now. We got married 6 months ago, we just kept it a secret until now.”
“Do you have proof of this? For hospital purposes?”
“My marriage license is filed with the Orange County recorder’s office in California,” Shane says. “It’s confidential, so you or anyone else can’t just request it at your leisure.”
“Does hospital have record too?” Alexei probes. “Or are they all the way in America?”
The wheels in Shane’s head start turning. This line of questioning doesn’t feel like that of a concerned older brother, but one of someone who’s fishing for something, an opening to stage a coup.
“I have a copy of my marriage license in a safe at my home in Ottawa, as well as my condo in Montreal. If for whatever reason the doctors decide they need to have physical proof rather than taking my word for it, I can provide it for them,” Shane says, his voice flat and calm. “I have the photos on my phone from our ceremony where a lovely judge officiated for us. I can give them a copy of the advance directive that he’s had for the past 3 years outlining my role as his medical proxy, which would hold up regardless of our marital status.”
Shane reaches into his shirt, pulls out a chain that was being hidden by his t-shirt. There’s a simple gold band hanging off of it. “Here’s the ring he put on my finger, July 20th if you need that as well.”
He doesn’t even wait for the interpreter to give all of that information to Alexei, barreling on with his speech. And maybe when he looks back on this conversation he’ll cringe at the brief moment of rudeness, but right now he can’t bring himself to care. “Now, as I was saying, the doctors already have a treatment plan in place. Ilya’s brain is swollen, so the doctors are going to go in and drain off the excess fluid around it. The alternative is to continue with medication—”
“Why do you want to push him into brain surgery?” Alexei asks, cutting Shane’s explanation off and Shane reels back as if he’s been struck. “You want to just cut him open like he’s a pig and poke at him.”
“I don’t want to be doing any of this,” Shane argues. “I would much rather be at home right now, cooking dinner or watching a dumb movie, but I’m here because my husband is down the hall in a fucking coma and I want to do anything to keep him alive. The better question is why do you seem so against it?”
Alexei doesn’t respond immediately. He turns to Sasha and they talk to each other, Sasha running through everything Shane said, and now Shane feels bad for dominating the conversation for so long and making her work so hard. A pressure blooms behind his eyes and sinuses, and fuck, he needs an ibuprofen and some Sudafed.
Sasha speaking English again is what grabs Shane’s attention once more. “Alexei says he just thinks you are moving too fast and that surgery makes him nervous. Maybe you should give Ilya more time to wake up on his own.”
That gives Shane reason to stop talking and the realization takes the wind out of his sails. He gets that, he does. Alexei and Ilya do have a strained relationship, but at the end of the day, they’re still brothers and neurosurgery isn’t comparable to some innocuous outpatient procedure. Besides, he was just as nervous and overwhelmed when Dr. Thomas relayed all of this information to him less than an hour ago, he can only imagine how this must feel for Alexei, to be getting all of this new information in a new country as well.
“That’s fair.” Shane turns to Dr. Thomas. “As long as Ilya is stable, I don’t have to make an immediate decision, right?”
“We can reconvene in the morning,” Dr. Thomas compromises. “I think sleeping on it will do you guys some good.”
“Thank you.”
The staff clears out of the conference room leaving Alexei, Shane, Yuna and David alone. All of the nervous and defensive energy Shane had stored up bleeds out of him, and he slumps down in his seat as the silence settles in. For a long time, he and Alexei just stare at each other from across the table.
And Shane decides to extend an olive branch. “Would you like to see Ilya?”
“You will let me?”
“Of course, you’re his brother.”
Alexei nods. “I would like that.”
Svetlana arrives in Ottawa that night. Yuna and David are already gone for the evening, Alexei as well, off at some hotel.
It’s late, normal visiting hours over, but Shane is allowed spousal privileges. That doesn’t matter either because it’s not like he was leaving anyway. The room is quiet, nothing but the soft whir of Ilya’s monitors, and the occasional footstep outside in the hall to keep Shane up. His eyes remain on Ilya, carefully cataloging the rise and fall of his chest, and his gaze occasionally glances down to where their hands are joined on the bed. Ilya’s hands are a bit rougher than usual, more dry, skin cracking around his nails. He makes a mental note to tell his mom and maybe she can bring some ointment in the morning.
There’s a tiny knock on Ilya’s door and Shane looks up just in time to see Svetlana enter. Even fresh off a flight from Moscow and makeup free, she’s still as beautiful and captivating as she always is. “Shane,” she sighs, rushing over to him. And he’s torn, wanting to greet her properly but also wanting to remain connected to his husband. In the end, Svetlana makes the choice for him, opting to bend down and initiate the hug herself.
“Hi, Svetlana,” Shane greets.
When she breaks the hug, Svetlana rounds the bed until Ilya is flanked by them on both sides. She crouches down and runs a hair through Ilya’s hair. “O, moya dorogaya.”
“I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight.”
“I dropped my luggage off in my hotel room and came here. I was expecting to be turned away, but I am his alternate medical proxy, so I was allowed to be up here.” Her eyes meet Shane’s. “It’s okay, right? I know I probably should have called but…I just needed to put eyes on him.”
And Shane understands that, that pull to be next to Ilya no matter what the cost. “It’s fine of course,” he tells her honestly. “If anything, sitting here in complete silence was getting tiring.”
There’s another seat on the opposite side of Ilya’s bed so Svetlana plops down, exhaling deeply as she does.
“You look as tired as I feel,” Svetlana says gently. “And I’ve been flying for hours.”
“I’m exhausted,” Shane confirms. He doesn’t remember the last time he got proper sleep, the morning of the Montreal-Ottawa game. Since then, it’s been five minutes here, fifteen minutes between the nurses doing rounds there. But he can’t rest properly until Ilya wakes up, until he sees his pretty blue eyes again. “But I can’t sleep.”
“Any updates?”
“No. His vitals are stable. His blood pressure did spike a bit earlier, but the doctor ordered some more medication and it’s been stable ever since. We’re still just waiting for the swelling to go down and for him to wake up.”
Svetlana nods. “Is there nothing else they can do or is it just a waiting game?”
Shane ponders telling Svetlana about the potential surgery. She’s Ilya’s best friend, maybe she can provide some insight regarding the situation.
“His doctors did say if the swelling doesn’t start going down. on its own, they suggested doing a ventriculostomy, and that’s where they put a catheter into his skull to drain out the excess fluid that’s building up and help relieve the swelling.”
“Okay. When is that surgery scheduled for?”
“I didn’t schedule it,” Shane confesses. “I nearly had a panic attack when the surgeon suggested it, and we could barely finish talking about it before Alexei showed up.”
“Alexei? Ilya’s asshole of a brother?”
“Yeah,” Shane laughs, humorless, and scrubs a hand down his face. “He arrived this morning, tried to puff out his chest and pull rank, so I had to tell him that Ilya and I are married. We did a little back and forth before he stood down and told me he was just nervous about Ilya getting surgery. He’s not a fan.”
Svetlana laughs, the sound leaving her body of its own volition. “Alexei isn’t afraid of surgery and they don’t make him nervous.”
“What?”
“This is the same idiot who wanted Ilya to knock out his teeth because he wanted the same meds Ilya got when he lost his first during a hockey match. The man would get surgery right now if it meant there was a bottle of painkillers waiting for him on the other side of it.”
This news does shock Shane because man, Alexei was earnest and convincing as hell this morning. Or at least he appeared to be.
He doesn’t really have the capacity to analyze why Alexei wouldn’t want Ilya to get the surgery. Shane knows the brothers aren’t close by a long stretch of the imagination, but surely there are easier ways to say you want him to fuck off and die as opposed to delaying an operation.
“That is odd,” Shane admits, but he doesn’t speak any further. He doesn’t really know what to say. He simply files it away, tucked next to Alexei’s odd reaction to the two of them being married, specifically the validity of it.
“It’s nice that Alexei is here but just be cautious,” Svetlana says. “Make sure he is not bringing his negative energy around Ilyusha, okay?”
“Okay.”
A soft silence settles between the two of them. Svetlana stares at Shane and he shifts uncomfortably. Her gaze isn’t scrutinizing or harsh, but she is so thoughtful and has the uncanny ability to see through him, through everyone. Ilya always says she’s smarter than she looks. Shane is sure the more apt word would be perceptive, but smart works too.
“I’m glad to see Ilya is stable,” Svetlana starts, “but what about you? How are you holding up?”
“I’ve been asked that question a few times today.”
“Oh yeah?” Shane hums in confirmation.
“First my best friend, Hayden called. He and his wife wanted to come up, but I told him not to. And then my friend, Rose, wanted to check in.”
“Rose Landry, the pretty actress?”
Shane raises an eyebrow at that, not entirely sure what Rose being pretty has to do with anything but that’s something he and Svetlana can circle back to at a later time. “Yes, her. She’s in New York filming a tv show and she offered to come out here, but I told her to keep working. But knowing her, she’ll probably come out here anyway. She wanted to know how I was doing and I didn’t have an answer for her. I just…I need him to wake up. I keep hoping that it’ll happen soon, and as long as I can hold onto that hope, I am alright.”
He sighs and his eyes go back to Ilya. Features still peaceful as if they’re at home or the cottage, and he’s simply napping on the couch. He wonders if Ilya can feel any of this, can sense it. If his consciousness is some sort of omnipresent being. Does he know he’s in a coma? Does he think he’s just sleeping? Will he have any recollection of this at all?
If so, he hopes Ilya feels him. He hopes Ilya can hear him when he talks. He hopes that this peaceful look on his face is an indication that he’s not feeling any sort of pain or discomfort.
Shane leans forward, angling his body in a way that allows his forehead to touch Ilya’s. “I’m here, baby. I’m here, Svetlana is here, my parents are here. We’re just waiting on you, okay? Whenever you’re ready.”
Svetlana is quiet as she watches Ilya get doted on by his husband. Her best friend has a husband. It’s still crazy to wrap her head around.
“You’re gentle with him,” she says softly.
The sentence pulls Shane away from his task of stroking Ilya’s hair and talking to him. He turns around. “Hmm?”
“You’re gentle with him,” Svetlana repeats. “Ilya hasn’t had that in a really long time.”
“He deserves it,” Shane says.
“I’m glad he has you,” Svetlana continues. “He needs someone like you in his corner. Steady, solid. And while I will have to ignore the fact that I didn’t get an invite to the wedding and had to find out after buying shitty plane wi-fi—”
“We didn’t tell—”
“Gosh, Ilya was right when he said you aren’t good at detecting teasing,” Svetlana snorts. “Relax, I am not upset and you don’t have to explain yourself to me.”
He didn’t realize how tense he had become at that moment, but Shane makes the conscious effort to drop his shoulders and relax upon hearing Svetlana speak. “Sorry.”
“No apologies.” Svetlana looks down at her wrist, checking the time on her watch. “How about you and I trade off? I can watch Ilya through the night and you can try to get some sleep, yes?”
“Oh no, I—”
“Ilya will be so mad when he wakes up and sees you haven’t been sleeping,” she tells him. “He will scold you for not taking care of yourself, and he will scold me for not taking care of you. So how about you just save us the headache and listen to me, okay?”
At that moment, Shane understands why Svetlana has been best friends with his husband since they were children. But he relents. “I’m just going to rest my eyes for a bit.”
“Of course.”
Shane wakes with a start, a gasp leaving his throat as he shoots up. Pain blooms starting in the crux of where his neck and shoulder meet, radiating all the way down to his arm. Fuck, he slept wrong.
But he can’t focus on that right now. Ilya. He slept so long, he doesn’t know what’s happening with Ilya. He turns, ignoring the way his body protests the sudden movement. Ilya is still there in bed, unmoved since Shane saw him last.
“Mr. Hollander.” The second voice in the room catches Shane’s attention. It’s a chore to do so, but he turns around again and sees a nurse entering the room. She’s carrying a new bag of fluids for Ilya’s IV. “Good morning.”
“It’s morning?” Shane asks.
The nurse, Sonya, according to her badge, nods. “It is 7:30. We just did rounds and visiting hours are officially open.”
Wait, what? There’s no way Shane slept for nearly 8 hours straight. Why didn’t Svetlana wake him? He turns, prepared to ask her that, but the chair she previously occupied is empty.
“The other woman who was in here with me, where did she go?”
“She stepped out to take a phone call when we started rounds,” Sonya tells him. “That was about an hour ago, so maybe she went to the cafeteria. You were out like a light and she told us not to wake up for rounds because you haven’t been sleeping.”
Shane’s face flushes, embarrassed. “I’m sorry you had to see me like that.”
“Trust me, Mr. Hollander, a sleeping spouse is a welcome change from some of the things I’ve witnessed in my 10 years here.” Sonya moves around Shane with practiced ease and he watches as she hangs a new IV on his pole. “Ilya’s vitals remained stable throughout the night, which is good, and Dr. Thomas will be here shortly to discuss things further.”
The nurse is halfway out the door by the time Shane even thinks to nod absentmindedly, his attention back on Ilya. His chest tightens at the sight of his husband. Selfishly, he hoped that Ilya would be awake by now, cracking dumb jokes, charming the nurses, and making plans to flee the hospital.
He should agree to do the surgery, right? It’s going on the third day of Ilya’s coma and they’re not making any major progress. He would’ve planned to do it had Alexei not shown up like a bat out of Hell and he put everything on pause. So when Dr. Thomas comes back, he should tell her that’s the plan.
The thought process is interrupted by a soft knock on the door. Before he can even respond, David and Yuna are filing in. Yuna’s cell phone is pressed tightly between the crux of her ear and her shoulder, her brow pinched, and a frown adorning her face.
“Tell your boss that this is the last exclusive TMZ will ever receive from or about the Hollander camp, and by the time I am done with you guys, you’ll be lucky to ever report on hockey again. The next time you guys want to talk, call our attorneys first.”
A pit forms in the center of Shane’s stomach. “Mom, what’s going on?”
Yuna doesn’t respond, but David does. He hands his cell phone to Shane, who looks down and sees an article already loaded up for him to read.
TMZ EXCLUSIVE: Ilya Rozanov’s brother speaks out; confirms marriage rumors and provides update on health.
The footage of Ilya Rozanov being forcefully slammed into the boards during a regular season Metros vs Centaurs game should have been par for the course. But when Ilya went down and never got back up, things got serious. And when his industry rival, Captain of the Montreal Metros, Shane Hollander, dramatically declared himself as Rozanov’s husband, it set the entire industry ablaze.
Since then there’s been marked radio silence from Ilya Rozanov’s team, Shane Hollander’s, and the entire Ottawa Centaurs organization, despite multiple attempts at reaching out to their camps.
But in an exclusive phone call with Ilya’s older brother, Alexei Rozanov, our team was able to get some details.
“My brother is in intensive care unit,” Alexei relayed to us. “He has not woken up and I do not know when he will, if he will. It is very scary incident.”
As for those marriage rumors? Alexei did confirm his brother is not only in a relationship with Shane Hollander, but they are indeed married. “Shane says they got married in California last year. I am still not sure if it is something he said to control situation or if it is actually true.” As of now, our team has not yet been able to find a marriage license to corroborate this claim.
“Hollander is very intense, same with his parents. They think they are in charge of my brother,” Alexei continued. “It is intimidating.”
When asked why he was speaking out, Alexei said, “My brother is celebrity, his fans have the right to know what is going on, everyone is being so secretive here.”
We attempted to reach out to Shane’s camp, but no word has been received.
Read more at TMZ.com
“Shane, your mother has been on the phone with your attorney since she woke up to see if we can get the article taken down,” David starts. “We’re already on it.”
Shane doesn’t say anything, his eyes still scanning the article. So this is what Alexei was up to? Gathering intel to sell exclusives to whatever publications were willing to bite?
The sound of his mother hissing through her cellphone speaker and the melodic voice of his dad trying to comfort him is eventually drowned out, and it feels like he is underwater, trying to reach the surface.
And things only intensify when the door to Ilya’s room opens again, this time revealing Svetlana. She’s still in the same clothes she was wearing last night, eyes dark and bloodshot, and Shane assumes she never went to her hotel.
“Shane, we need to talk,” Svetlana says in lieu of a greeting.
“We’re kind of in the middle of—”
“It’s about Ilya,” she adds, cutting Shane off. “I got a call from an attorney earlier today. It was someone in Moscow who helped Ilya set up a trust fund for his niece, Elena.”
That piques Yuna’s interest and she hangs up her phone without another word. The last thing she needs is someone from TMZ overhearing this conversation.
“I had no idea Ilya set up a trust fund for her,” Shane says.
“He did it some years ago, immediately after his father died and he cut Alexei off,” Svetlana explains. “His attorney, Ivan called me because Ilya has me listed as a secondary trustee. I didn’t even know that, Ilya never told me.”
“Okay. So why did he call you?”
“Because he heard about Ilya’s accident, but not through the news. He heard about it because Alexei called to tell him. Alexei was inquiring about how to contest the trust and gain access to it because Ilya is not yet out of his coma.”
“How much is in the trust?” David asks.
“There’s a total of $5 million in American currency. Elena would be able to access some of it for university costs, and she would get half upon graduation, and the remainder at 30. Alexei wants to gain control of it, no doubt to access the money early and for himself.”
And that’s when everything clicks. That’s the reason Alexei came out here, the reason he was so insistent that he was still Ilya’s next of kin and could make medical decisions. It’s the reason he kicked up such a fuss at the suggestion of Ilya getting surgery—his entire plan hinges on Ilya staying incapacitated for as long as possible.
He doesn’t have to voice any of this aloud because Yuna picks up on it immediately. “Oh that son of a bitch! Shane, what hotel is he staying at, I ought to go down there and…”
Her voice fades away as the sound of Shane’s pounding pulse picks up. He sees both her and David’s mouths moving, and he thinks he feels Svetlana’s hand on his arm. Maybe. The touch feels foreign, staticky, like a limb falling asleep. He steps back.
“Get out,” Shane demands.
Yuna takes a step towards him. “Honey, we are going to get your legal team on this—”
He yells it this time, “Get out! Get out, I want you guys out, I need you guys out, I need space. Get out!”
Yuna startles, flinching slightly. Shane isn’t one to raise his voice, especially at her, never at her. She locks eyes with David, communicating in the secret, silent language only spouses know how to speak. “Okay, we’ll give you a minute.”
The three other adults file out of the room leaving Shane alone with Ilya. When the door closes behind them, Shane exhales deeply.
He turns down the lights in the room as well, plunging them into darkness. Now that it’s dark and quiet in the room again, the relief Shane feels is almost instant, the pressure already loosening in his chest. His entire body sags, dropping to the floor in exhaustion.
“I’m sorry,” Shane says. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I should’ve made him leave the hospital the moment I found out he was here. This is all my fault.”
He knows if Ilya was awake right now, he’d be arguing against Shane’s negative self-talk. He knows Ilya would tell him it’s not his fault, that he’s not responsible for Alexei’s actions, that his intentions were good. He’d wrap Shane in a hug and stroke his hair until the uncontrollable shaking stopped. He’d murmur soft phrases to him in Russian and laugh when Shane is only able to guess about 25% of what’s being said.
“I need you,” Shane says, voice cracking. “I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know if what I’m doing is right. I don’t want to be doing this, I don’t know what to say or who to say it to.”
“And I feel like shit because I find myself getting angry at you,” Shane continues. “The longer you’re in this coma, the longer I am without you. Screw you for that, you don’t get to leave me here, Rozanov, you took a vow. And I know you’re not really gone and I probably shouldn’t even be speaking this into existence, but I can’t help it.”
“Yesterday, I hoped you could hear me but now I wish you can’t because that wasn’t productive. Why did I say that, that was so stupid.” He knocks his head backwards into the wall behind him a few times before stopping. The negative self-talk is one thing, but Shane knows without a shadow of a doubt that Ilya would be heartbroken if he saw Shane hurting himself.
He silently counts down from 10 in an to re-orient himself. He presses his hands onto the cool tile below him, allowing his senses to take over and acknowledging how the floor feels beneath him.
It takes a while, but Shane slowly but surely comes back to himself. He can hear his own thoughts, his body doesn’t feel like a foreign entity anymore, and the hospital room doesn’t feel as overstimulating as it did just minutes ago.
Slowly, Shane stands, ignoring the way his body protests it. He really should try to sleep in a bed soon, but that can be a task for later.
Crossing the room, Shane is back to where he started the day, at his husband’s bedside. He crouches down and presses a chaste kiss to Ilya’s forehead before smoothing a hand through his curly hair. “I’m going to fix this. I promise you that by the time you wake up—and you will, because Dr. Thomas is going to do that surgery—I will have all of this background noise handled and it won’t even be a blimp on your radar, baby. So all I need you to do is rest and make your way back to me, okay?”
Shane kisses Ilya’s head one more time before stepping back. He has a lot to get done today. And the first order of business is finding Ilya’s surgeon.