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Shane should not have been able to walk again.
Sometimes he reviewed the details that led up to the moment that derailed his career, his life, the very bones and ligaments of his body. A slippery, poorly tended sheet of ice, a semi-new pair of skates that were broken in the wrong way on one foot, a bruiser of a player from Detroit who had five inches and a solid fifty pounds on him.
Other times he reviewed the details that followed. A shattered right fibula. Parts of his knee so pulverized there were probably still loose pieces of bone rattling around in his leg with nowhere to go. A skate – unclear if it was his own or someone else’s – had sliced an artery in his leg; he’d almost bled to death right there on the ice. Two cracked vertebrae in his neck. Apparently if they had splintered a little to the left, he would’ve been unable to move any of his limbs for the rest of his life.
The fact he was alive was nothing short of a medical miracle.
Unfortunately a miracle was not enough.
Shane tapped his fingers over his good knee, glancing around the tiny waiting area. Like the exterior of the building, it was small and unassuming, a little outdated. The rest of the waiting room was empty, as was the front desk. In lieu of a receptionist, there was a laminated sign tapped to the desk informing anyone who entered that the doctor would be with them shortly.
Just as Shane was lifting his wrist, ready to glance at his watch, a man rounded the corner, dressed in black scrubs and carrying a clipboard.
“Ah,” the man smiled. “Mr. Hollander?”
“That’s me.”
“I am Dr. Rozanov. Very nice to meet you,” the doctor hooked a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing to the back of the office. “Would you like to come back for me?”
Shane grabbed the cane that was propped up next to his chair, pushing his palm into the handle as he stood and leaned his weight into it. Most days he didn’t even need it, but when he’d woken up his knee had been so stiff it could hardly bend. The thought of falling flat on his face sounded more embarrassing than taking the cane with him.
“I am sorry I could not come out right away,” Dr. Rozanov said as they walked down a sterile-looking hallway. “My receptionist just had a baby, she will be out for a few months. So, right now I am a one-man show. I think keeping the books is almost harder than treating patients.”
Dr. Rozanov stopped, waving his clipboard in front of a door.
“We’ll be in here today,” he said, and then held open the door for Shane to come inside the exam room. “Sit in the big chair in the corner, if you can.”
Shane hobbled over to the exam chair in the corner, leaning his cane against the side before he heaved himself up.
“You have been to many doctors,” Dr. Rozanov, flipping through the papers on his clipboard. “Forty-five surgeries in one year, sixteen the next. Are you going for a world record?”
“I’ve had a lot of problems.”
“With your leg?”
“Mostly, yeah,” Shane said. “My neck and back hurt a lot, too. And I get migraines, double vision, that kind of thing.”
“I am not surprised. You took a very nasty hit,” Dr. Rozanov flicked his gaze up and lifted his brows. “Macarthur is a very hard player to get past.”
“You – right,” Shane sighed. Despite being two years off the ice, he was still Shane Hollander, and this was still Montreal.
“I know who you are, of course,” Dr. Rozanov smiled. “But I’m sorry. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“You’re not, it’s fine.”
“Would you like to know a secret?” Dr. Rozanov said as he rolled an office chair towards the other side of the room. “I used to be a Boston fan.”
“Seriously?” Shane said, a laugh slipping out before he could help himself. “You’re a Boston fan and you live in Montreal?”
“Yes, yes, I know. But I went to school in Boston, I am biased,” the doctor chuckled, holding up both hands in surrender as he sat down. “But then I saw you play, and I decided why would I root for any other team?”
In spite of himself, Shane felt heat creep over his face. It was probably just because it had been awhile since somebody had said something genuinely nice about his playing that wasn’t laced with pity. He didn’t allow himself to dwell on how the new flush on his skin might be because the doctor who was intently staring at him was young, clearly well-built until his scrubs, and had a face that could only be described as really pretty.
“Well, you made a good choice,” Shane said eventually.
“Mm,” Dr. Rozanov nodded and cast his gaze back down his clipboard, running his finger over one of the pages. “Tell me why you are here.”
“Well, I want help with my knee, mostly, and – “
“No, tell me why you are here with me,” Dr. Rozanov said. “You have seen nearly every other doctor in the city. What do you want from me that you cannot get from them?”
Shane scratched at the back of his neck, heat still under the surface of his skin. He thought of his late night rabbit holes, forum threads, key word lists a mile long, all to scrounge up a clinic address on the other side of the city.
“I was looking online, and I found your name,” he said. “People saying you fix things other doctors can’t.”
“That’s not untrue. Some of my methods are not exactly traditional, so not many doctors use them.”
“What, like…holisitc healing or something?”
“No, no, none of that…pardon me, bullshit,” Dr. Rozanov shook his head. “It is called cell regeneration therapy. I have been testing it for a very long time.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that.”
“Not many doctors use it, but it is a very simple idea. Your body is good at healing itself and throwing out the things that do not work anymore. Cells are always growing, replacing the old ones. You get new stomach every two days, new skin every month, new skeleton every decade. All the therapy does is spend up that process. Make sense?”
“Sure,” Shane said. It sounded simple, and the concepts were ones he was at least familiar with from his high school science classes. “But..how does this help me, exactly?”
“Imagine all the cells in your body are replaced, all at once. In theory, you would have a brand new body, one that was never hurt.”
“It doesn’t actually work like that, though,” Shane frowned. “I mean, that’s impossible.”
“Maybe. But it is good to be optimistic,” Dr. Rozanov smiled. “I want you to understand that this is real treatment, real medicine. It has helped many people, but it is still in the trial phase. If you are okay with that, I can treat you.”
“I mean, I can try it,” Shane shrugged. “I’ve tried pretty much everything else.”
“Good,” Dr. Rozanov crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Shane, if I give you this medicine, what do you want to happen?”
“What do you mean?”
“I will not treat you for no reason. So, tell me what you want. Do you want the pain in your leg to go away?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Mm. And what else?” Dr. Rozanov lifted his brows. “Over sixty surgeries in two years, and all you want is to not hurt anymore?”
“The surgeries were to help with my mobility, not the pain.”
“So mobility, then,” Dr. Rozanov jutted his chin to the cane that was leaned against the exam chair. “You want to stop using that?”
“I don’t use it much, really.”
“But you want to not use it at all.”
“I mean, ideally, sure.”
Dr. Rozanov set his clipboard in his lap and leaned forward on his elbows, looking at Shane closely.
“Shane,” he said. “Do you want to play again?”
A thick, bristly weight suddenly formed in the center of Shane’s throat, threatening to restrict his airway.
“I can never play again.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Shane swallowed, trying to clear his throat.
“Of course I want to play again.”
The corner of Dr. Rozanov’s mouth twitched up.
“Very nice. You want to play for charity match or something?”
“No. I mean, yeah, sure, but – “ Shane shook his head. “I don’t know why I’m saying all this. I’m sorry.”
“Shane,” Dr. Rozanov said. “It is important you are honest with me, so I can help you. You do not have to be embarrassed here. Tell me what you want.”
Shane squirmed, flicking his eyes over to the faded anatomy posters on the wall next to him.
“What I want will never happen.”
“That is okay. Tell me.”
Shane looked back to Dr. Rozanov as he worked his tongue in his mouth, trying to free the words that were always tucked deep into his brain. There was a reason he still lived in Montreal despite his parents begging him to come back to Ottawa. There was always something that kept him here, waiting.
When he met the doctor’s eyes, it felt like he already knew the contents of Shane’s thoughts.
“I want to play for the Metros again.”
“Just for one season?”
“I think that’s all they’d give me, even if I could play again.”
“This would make you happy?”
“Of course. Hockey makes me happier than anything in the world.”
“So you will play again,” Dr. Rozanov nodded. “Good season? First line? Playoff run? Big trophy at the end?”
“Well,” Shane swallowed. “I should…be realistic.”
“Realistic.”
“If they let me back, I probably won’t get much time on the ice. My coach would probably avoid putting me on with any really strong players, since I’d be…”
A liability. The word sat on the back of his tongue, heavy and arid. That’s what his agent and coach had both called him, when Shane had asked two years ago if there was any chance he could play again. He was a risk that likely wouldn’t pay off, an extra line to the team insurance policy.
“And this would be enough for you?” Dr. Rozanov asked. His eyes, which had looked sea blue in the lobby, were icy under the exam room lights. “Little victory lap season? Out by March, maybe sooner?”
Of course it wasn’t enough.
“No,”Shane said. “But I have to – “
“Be realistic. I remember,” Dr. Rozanov nodded. “If you did not have to be realistic, what would you want?”
“I want another Cup,” Shane said immediately, the words pouring out easily now. “I want my C back. I want to score the most goals in a season, more than anyone else, more than my last record. I want to be MVP. I want to be the best again.”
Dr. Rozanov’s mouth twitched.
“And what would you do to get all of that?”
“Anything,” Shane said. “Literally anything.”
Dr. Rozanov stood, then, shoving his hands into the deep pockets of his scrubs.
“You are a very determined man, Shane Hollander. You will be a good patient.”
He nodded towards the door, beckoning Shane back into the hallway.
“Come. I will run your labs.”
***
Shane returned to Dr. Rozanov’s office two weeks later.
Once again, the lobby was empty, as was the reception desk. But today, Shane didn’t even have to sit down before the doctor was rounding the corner to greet him.
“Shane. Right on time,” he smiled. “Your labs were perfect, you are picture of health.”
“Doesn’t feel that way.”
Shane had woken up feeling decent enough to leave his apartment without his cane. He was regretting that now; his knee had stiffened up on the drive over, and there was a steady stream of sweat snaking between his shoulderblades as he forced himself to put pressure on his bad leg.
“Well, that is what we are here to fix,” Dr. Rozanov said. He led Shane all the way to the end of the hallway, then held open the door to let him into the exam room.
Shane sat down in the cushioned chair in the middle of the room and watched Dr. Rozanov move around him: pulling on a pair of gloves, opening drawers, wheeling over bags of IV fluid.
“First round should be very easy,” Dr. Rozanov said. He came over to Shane’s side, gesturing for him to move his arm. He wiped an alcohol wipe over the inside of Shane’s elbow and then pushed on the skin a bit, making his veins pop out. “You will feel a little pinch here.”
Shane felt a sharp prick along the inside of his elbow, a flush of cold liquid creeping into his veins. His eyelids became heavy, along with the rest of his body. His muscles twitched in a shiver as the cold seeped further into his blood.
“Are you cold? Here.”
He felt a soft weight being settled on top of him, the tickle of fabric under his chin. He blinked, his vision blending together. Something touched the top of his head, heavy and gentle.
“Good night, Shane.”
***
Shane blinked.
Or at least he thought he blinked. He could feel the twitch of his eye muscles and the itch of his dry eyes, but his vision did not darken even for a moment.
He was cold, even under the blanket. He could hear the beep of some kind of machine, smell the antiseptic, feel the pull and pinch of something in his arm.
Dr. Rozanov’s face leaned over him, his blue eyes blinking over the top of a white mask. Shane opened his mouth, ready to speak and ask if he was done. But his lips did not part.
The doctor moved closer to Shane, pulling his mask down as he did. He spoke, but Shane’s sluggish brain could not process the words before Dr. Rozanov’s lips were making contact with his forehead.
He moved his mouth over Shane’s brows, his cheeks, his chin, down his neck. His fingers pushed against Shane’s mouth, shoving his lips open. Shane could taste the latex as the fingers probed his teeth, his tongue, tugged his bottom lip.
The doctor nipped at Shane’s neck, over a fat vein that pulsed in time with Shane’s heartbeat. He drew himself back up, looming over Shane with dark eyes and a wet, red mouth. He smiled, tilting his head.
“Prosnut'sya.”
***
When Shane’s eyes opened, the first thing he saw was Dr. Rozanov at his side, holding a plastic cup of water and ice chips.
“Good morning,” Dr. Rozanov smiled. “How are you feeling?”
“Um,” Shane mumbled. His throat was bone dry, and he could feel every crack in his lips. Before he could even open his mouth again, Dr. Rozanov was pressing the cup of water against his mouth. Shane drank greedily, water splashing down his chin.
“What time is it?” he asked, wiping at his mouth once he was done.
“2:30,” Dr. Rozanov said, crossing the room to throw the cup into the trash. “I hope I am not keeping you from anything.”
“No, no,” Shane shook his head. “I was only out for thirty minutes?”
“Yes, I just gave you a small dose today to see how you would handle it,” Dr. Rozanov said.
Shane lifted his arm to rub his eyes. The inside of his elbow, now packed with gauze and tape, stung as he bent his arm.
“Was I, um,” Shane hesitated, then swallowed and finished his question. “Was I asleep the whole time?”
“Yes, you just had a regular anesthetic," Dr. Rozanov said. “You were fully unconscious. Why?”
“Oh,” Shane said. His face was suddenly hot, and he looked away from the doctor. “I think I just…had a weird dream.”
“Very common,” Dr. Rozanov nodded. “Nothing to worry about. Hopefully nothing too upsetting?”
“No, no, it’s – I’m fine,” Shane shook his head.
“Good, I would not want you to be having any nightmares when you are trying to get better.”
Dr. Rozanov crossed back over to Shane’s chair, peeling back the blanket that was still covering him.
“I will plan to see you in a week,” Dr. Rozanov said. “You might feel a little sick over the next week, and you may bleed more than usual. That is all normal. But if you are ever worried, just call me.”
He pressed a paper card into Shane’s hand; underneath the printed clinic number, a second set of digits was written in blue ink.
Shane tucked the card into the pocket of his jeans, turning away before the color could rise fully to his face.
***
For the next week, Shane woke up every day with a nose bleed.
He panicked the first day he woke up and smelled nothing but copper, his breath wheezing through something blocking his nose. He reached up, feeling slick, hot blood mixed with what had already dried. He cleaned himself up in the bathroom and tipped his head forward, coaxing the last of the bleed into the sink.
The second day, the same. And then the third. The fourth morning, he’d had the foresight to put a dark towel over his pillow the night before, so at least he didn’t have to wash another set of sheets. He cleaned his face and then brushed his teeth, but every small bump of his toothbrush caused blood to erupt from his gums.
The next three mornings, he held a towel of his mouth and spit bloody salvia into the sink for ten minutes straight.
***
“How was your week?” Dr. Rozanov asked. He was already swiping down Shane’s elbow with disinfectant – his right arm this time, as his left elbow was still tender and bruised.
“It was fine,” Shane said. He rubbed his tongue over the swollen line of his gums, searching for anything hot and metallic. “I’ve been bleeding a lot.”
“Bleeding where?”
“My nose and mouth, mostly. Yesterday I woke up and one of my eyes was bleeding, but that’s been the only weird thing.”
“Mm,” Dr. Rozanov hummed. He grabbed Shane’s chin, pulling a bit until Shane looked at him directly. “Your right eye, yes?”
“Yeah,” Shane nodded, his chin still caught in the doctor’s fingers.
“Probably a burst vessel. All very normal while your red and white cells turn over.”
He released Shane’s chin, then went back to prepping his IV.
“I will give you higher dose today, okay? Are you comfortable?”
“I am,” Shane said, digging his fingers into the blanket that covered his lap. Dr. Rozanov had put it on him, wordlessly, as soon as Shane sat down.
“Good, good.”
There was a pinch in Shane’s vein, the burst of cold. The shape of fingers tracing his shoulder.
“Sweet dreams.”
***
He was bleeding.
He could not feel the warmth of blood on his skin, but he felt the draining of his veins and heard a steady drip onto a hard surface. He could not move his neck enough to see where it was coming from. look down to see where it was coming from.
The dripping stopped, and a moment later Dr. Rozanov loomed over him, mask tucked under his chin. He held up a small glass vial, its contents scarlet and viscous. His eyes flicked to Shane’s, steady and pale under the unforgiving light.
“Ideal'nyy,” he said. “Moye chudo.”
***
Shane was getting used to the blood.
He got into the habit of stripping his bed first thing in the morning. He rubbed his teeth carefully with a thick cotton pad before he brushed his teeth. He barely flinched when the whites of his eyes were overtaken with burst vessels.
The night before his third appointment, he stood in the shower, scrubbing at his scalp with shampoo. He felt something thick ooze from his gums and he spit the blood straight into the shower drain without thinking twice. He pulled his hands away from his head, ready to wash out the suds.
Instead, he stood still under the beating water and stared at the clumps of black hair cradled in his palm.
Shane felt his stomach twist as he reached back to press his finger tips into the back of his head and was met only with a circle of smooth skin.
***
“Are you sure this is normal?” Shane asked. He twisted his fingers into the toque on his lap, which he had worn to the clinic despite the summer heat.
“Yes, very,” Dr. Rozanov said. He was standing behind Shane, running his fingers over the clustered bald spots on the back of his head. “Hair cells turn over very quickly. It is why hair falls out during chemotherapy.”
Dr. Rozanov dropped his hand and circled back around to Shane, offering him a smile.
“I know this is strange. But this is a good sign. It means you are taking the treatment well.”
Shane brushed his fingers over his bangs, cringing when he felt more hair tumble down the front of his shirt.
“And,” Dr. Rozanov lifted his brows. “Some of it is already growing back. You will have nice hair again soon, I am sure.”
“It’s weird,” Shane said. “And I’m still bleeding.”
Dr. Rozano’s lips twitched, dipping into the ghost of a frown before pulling up again.
“Do you want to stop the treatment?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Good,” he nodded. “We will do same dose today.”
***
Shane’s body couldn’t move again. But there were fingers in his hair, lips on his hairline, hot breath over his forehead. There was a sharp tug on his scalp, someone pulling on his hair. He felt the moment the strands lifted from his skin and scattered over his shoulders and the back of his head.
When he woke up, his head pounded with pain. Dr. Rozanov handed him two white tablets and a glass of water before he walked Shane back to the lobby.
***
Shane bought an electric razor.
It was nicer than the one he used to shave his face, although lately even his facial hair was growing patchy and falling out on its own. There were little bald spots in his eyebrows and gaps in his eyelashes.
He laid a towel over his shoulders and ran the razor over his head in careful strokes, watching his hair fall away. He ran his fingers over his head when he was done, feeling his hair prickle under his palm. He hadn’t had a buzzcut since he was 15.
Afterwards, he spit into the sink when he was done brushing his teeth, the familiar taste of blood passing over his tongue as he did. He felt something loosen in his jaw the second before he heard something hard clink against the basin below.
A sick feeling pooled in his belly as he stared at the tooth in the sink, tiny and coated in blood. He looked back up at the mirror, opened his mouth to examine the oozing hole. It was one of his fake teeth, he realized, remnants of an injury from juniors. He pushed his tongue into the hole, then gagged at the unpleasant burst of nerves that ran down the entire right side of his face.
He wiped his mouth, shut the lights off. That tooth was overdue to fall out. He’d call his dentist in the morning.
***
In the morning, three more teeth fell into the sink, leaving four holes in his mouth. All of them were fake; thousands of dollars worth of MLH-sponsored dentistry that Shane gathered up in a tissue and threw away.
He meant to run some errands, but he stayed inside and sucked on bags of frozen peas like he was a teething child.
***
“Show me.”
Shane opened his mouth, letting Dr. Rozanov look inside. He was in the clinic a day early. Shane had finally fished out the doctor’s card and given him a call the night before to ask if he should go to the dentist. Instead, Dr. Rozanov had told him to come to the office in the morning. So here he was.
“How many have you lost?” Dr. Rozanov asked, sweeping a tiny light over the mangled interior of Shane’s mouth.
“Eleven,” Shane said. “I’ve been eating a lot of soup.”
Dr. Rozanov smiled, then gestured for Shane to open his mouth again.
“You do not need to see a dentist,” he said. “Do you feel this?”
He prodded at Shane’s gums. Shane hissed and flinched, but Dr. Rozanov caught his chin with one hand, keeping his jaw open with the other.
“Feel,” the doctor said, his voice firm. “You feel this little lump?”
He pressed his fingertip into Shane’s gum. He whimpered at the tender feeling, but still felt the tiny, hard bulge under the tissue.
“That is a new tooth,” Dr. Rozanov said. “They will grow in if you just let them.”
He removed his fingers from Shane’s mouth, and Shane just blinked up at him, his vision blurry.
“I’m growing teeth?”
“Yes,” Dr. Rozanov nodded. “It is a little strange for humans, I understand. But very common in other species. Did you know cats can grow adult teeth at random?’
Shane moved his tongue over the gaps in his mouth, pressing into the teeth he still had. At least half of them wiggled if he pushed on them.
“But look how fast your hair is growing, eh?” Dr. Rozanov said. “Your teeth will be back in soon, better than before. I promise.”
Shane lifted his fingers to push into the hair at the back of his head, short and bristly but much longer than it was just a week ago. His hair had never grown that fast.
“Next week, I will bring you some svyokolnik,” the doctor said as he put the needle into Shane’s bruised arm. “My mother used to make it for me. It is easy to eat, and cold, so it will not burn your mouth.”
Shane opened his mouth to say thank you, but his tongue went lax before he could speak.
***
Shane was cold, and everything hurt.
He tried to open his mouth to scream, to cry out, to ask where his blanket had gone, but nothing came out. The walls around him were spaceship silver, a constant beeping thumped through his skull. His leg was a mess of pain, mangled nerves and drained arteries.
Figures loomed over him, all clad in blue surgery scrubs. Shane’s gaze slid to one face and let all his focus pool into the blue eyes that loomed over the paper mask.
Everything hurt a little less.
***
Shane did not go outside much anymore. He ignored requests from his mother to visit and switched all his groceries to home delivery. When he went on his weekly visits to the clinic, he returned home with plastic containers of cold soup, large enough to last him all week.
His teeth feel out one by one, his canines and molars and all the nameless ones in between. In their place, he felt the pressure of new ones growing, pressing into the mangled nerves of his gums. He stood in his bathroom and opened his jaw wide enough to click, examined the final remnants of his old teeth and the sharp, bone-white bumps that poked through the bloody tissue.
One night, he felt one of his last remaining teeth loosen, and stuck his phone flashlight nearly inside his mouth as he pushed at the tooth. He winced as he saw it wriggle, felt the nerves separate and the suction of air leave the socket. After this one was gone, he would only have two full teeth and the thirty tiny spurs of bone that dripped from his gums half-formed.
The tooth loosened with one push of his finger, clattering into the sink in a surge of blood. Shane reached for the washcloth by the vanity, ready to mop up his face, and paused at the tickle of nerves that shot down his pointer finger.
He lifted his hand to his face to examine it. His fingernail, surrounded in sore, red skin, was bent at an angle and hung halfway out of his nail bed. He pushed on it and the nail wobbled before clattering into the sink, clean and whole.
His stomach rolled, and he spat bile into the countertop.
***
He went to bed with a bandage wrapped around the raw, exposed skin where his fingernail had once been. By the week’s end, he had ten bandages bundled around his fingertips, each of his fingers throbbing with its own tiny heartbeat.
***
“How are you doing today?” Dr. Rozanov asked. “Are your teeth still hurting?”
“Everything hurts,” Shane mumbled, his voice slurring around the half-formed teeth in his mouth. It was nearly August, but he had bundled himself in a hoodie, a scarf big enough to cover half his face, winter mittens and a toque to drive to the clinic. When he peeled off his jacket, he winced as the fabric brushed over the insides of his arms, the skin tender and dark like rotting fruit.
“Ah, I am sorry,” Dr. Rozanov nodded. His scrubs today were royal blue. Metros blue. Shane closed his eyes, waiting for a wave of nausea to pass through his body before he spoke.
“I don’t think this is working,” he said, keeping his eyes closed. “I’m too sick.”
He had rolled the thought around in his brain so many times in the last few weeks, as he pulled out his own fingernails and teeth and rubbed his scalp with his open palms, trying to soothe the itching as his hair grew back in. A long shot chance at healing his leg couldn’t possibly be worth all this.
Footsteps approached him, and Shane peeled open his eyes and lifted his gaze up towards the doctor that stood over him. His expression was unreadable, equal parts curious and disappointed.
“You want to stop?” he asked.
“Um, maybe?” Shane said. “I mean, my leg still hurts, and – “
“You can stop,” Dr. Rozanov said. “You can walk out right now, and you will still have no teeth and a leg that does not work.”
Shane swallowed, tasting blood as he pushed saliva down his throat.
“This is just a lot,” Shane said. “I’m sorry. It’s been a hard summer.”
Dr. Rozanov nodded, settled a hand on the back of Shane’s chair.
“I have given you a lot of medicine. You are doing the hard parts now,” he said, his eyes flicking over Shane in lightning-quick movements. “Only way out is through, yes?”
Shane looked down at his bandaged hands and bruised skin. He thought of his face in the mirror, red-rimmed eyes and prickly short hair and bloody slash of a mouth.
“We will try new dose today.”
Shane winced as he felt the sharpness in his arm. He hadn’t even felt the antiseptic.
“You will feel better soon.”
***
He was cold again, but his blood was warm, his heartbeat thumping. His body felt light despite the heavy padding that encased it.
He looked up to the stands, the jam-packed rows of people. When he blinked, they all fell away, leaving just one pair of eyes watching him, one mouth smiling in his direction.
“Shane,” the voice carried easily across the ice, “Chto ty khochesh?”
***
Something was on Shane’s cheek.
He groaned and tried to lift his hand to swat it away. But his hands felt too heavy, so he just rolled his neck, trying to shake the feeling loose.
“Good morning,” the voice above him said. “You did so well today. Take your time.”
Shane squinted his eyes open. The lights overhead were only partially blocked out by the man standing over him, smiling gently and petting his cheek in soft circles.
A paper cup was pressed to his cracked lips, water washing over his sore mouth and dry tongue. As he swam back to consciousness, the pain started again – along his jaw and in his elbows and straight down his leg. He whimpered, turning his head, and a big, flat palm greeted him, catching his temple.
“You are okay. I know it hurts, I am sorry.”
Shane blinked up at the man who was holding him, his brain clicking together blue eyes and white, crooked teeth.
“Ilya,” he said, and the man smiled.
“I have you. Do you need help getting up?”
“No, no,” Shane shook his head. He wriggled his toes, wincing at the cramps in his legs. “I’m okay.”
He slid out of the chair, steadied himself on pins-and-needles feet. Ilya caught him around the wrist, holding him until Shane was able to stand straight on his own.
“I’ll have to close up,” Ilya said, rubbing his thumb over the inside of Shane’s wrist before letting him go. “Wait for me in the car?”
“Huh?” Shane said.
“Your home care,” Ilya lifted his brows. “We start tomorrow, you remember?”
Shane didn’t remember, but it sounded right when Ilya said it like that.
“Oh. Right, sorry, of course.”
Shane redressed in his hoodie and toque and gloves and then spilled out into the parking lot. The air had gone cold, the sky was inky black above him.
He climbed into his car and sat still, key still in his pocket as he watched the doors of the clinic. Eventually the pale lights of the lobby shut off, and then Ilya appeared through the front door. He waved to Shane, then locked up and moved over to the car’s passenger side.
“Thank you for waiting,” he said as he climbed inside. “Let’s go home. I will make you dinner.”
***
When Shane woke, he opened his eyes to darkness. He blinked, twice, three times, but the darkness didn’t go away. He rubbed his fingers over his eyes, feeling his open lids. He pinched his skin, testing to see if he was in a dream. He touched his eyes again, this time slipping his fingers past his lids and over the flesh of his eyeballs. His fingertips pushed into something thick and dry that flaked onto his cheeks.
“Ilya?” he shouted. “Ilya, there’s something – ”
Before he could finish, he heard footsteps, then there were hands on his wrists pulling his hands back.
“Let me see.”
Shane wanted to close his eyes and cry, he wanted to dig his fingers into his eyesockets and clear out whatever was blinding him. Instead, he let Ilya grip his chin and rotate his head to examine him.
“Give me a minute. I will fix this.”
Shane heard Ilya’s footsteps retreating, then water running in the en suite. He dug his fingertips into the skin around his eyes, trying to touch again.
“Ah, ah, no,” Ilya chided him. He was already back and pulling Shane’s hands away again. “Here.”
He pressed a wet, warm washcloth to Shane’s face, holding his palms over Shane’s eyes.
“Keep your eyes open,” Ilya said. “Blink only if you need to.”
Ilya rubbed his thumbs in careful circles, ordering Shane to blink every few minutes.
“There,” Ilya said, pulling the cloth back. “Better?”
Shane blinked again. In front of him, he could see Ilya, bathed in early morning light and dressed in baggy house shorts and a Harvard t-shirt.
“What was that?” Shane asked, reaching up to touch his face.
“Your old eyes,” Ilya said. He held out the cloth so Shane could see the iridescent little flakes against the dark fabric.
“They’re like…scales,” Shane said. “Like fish scales.”
“Mm,” Ilya hummed. “You should be alright now. You want breakfast before medicine?”
Shane closed his eyes, his eyeballs suddenly burning in the open air.
“Sure.”
Ilya left the room, then returned with a glass of water and a bowl of something thick and salty. Shane ate until his spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl, and then let Ilya clear his plates, clean the inside of his arm, and settle a needle into his vein.
“I will be home when you wake up,” Ilya said, brushing his fingers over Shane’s heavy eyelids. “See you soon.”
***
In the mornings and evenings, Ilya took care of him.
As Shane grew used to the weight of new teeth in his mouth and spiky hair brushing his neck, his skin began to turn white and dry. He itched constantly, clawing at the scaly skin with his nubby, freshly regrown nails. His skin split and bled, and Ilya had to wrap his hands in soft white gloves to get him to stop scratching.
“It will not hurt if you do not touch,” Ilya chided him, then rubbed his nose into Shane’s flaking forehead.
Ilya moved him constantly between the bathtub and the bed, either surrounding Shane’s body in oatmeal-infused water or soft cotton sheets. His skin sloughed off bit by bit, leaving patches of his body pink and raw.
During the day, when he was deep under the heavy weight of the medication in his veins, Shane dreamed of Ilya.
He took care of him in his dreams, too. Ilya rubbed his flaking shoulders and scalp with washclothes, tapped his fingers over Shane’s swollen gums and aching new teeth, tugged on the short length of his hair.
“So beautiful,” he murmured into Shane’s temple. His hands traveled down, over Shane’s mottled chest and stomach. “Always so beautiful, my Shane.”
Shane shook his head, felt a paper-thin piece of skin fall onto the back of his neck as he did.
“M’not,” he mumbled, tucking his head into Ilya’s shoulder. “Not anymore.”
“You are,” Ilya kissed his smiling mouth to Shane’s nose, then moved down to lick at his chapped lips. One hand squeezed the back of his neck, the other tucked into Shane’s shorts, steady and determined. “Beautiful, all for me.”
***
Shane felt okay.
There was the familiar ache in his jaw, the itch on his scalp, the new tenderness of his skin. But his teeth were grown in, and his gums barely bled when he brushed them. His hair was thick, and long enough that Ilya had offered to cut it for him soon. He had already helped Shane trim his down his fingernails, fully grown and strong.
Shane was rubbing at the last flakes of dead skin on the back of his neck when pain ripped through his abdomen. He gasped, his fingers losing grip on the glass he was carrying back to his room. Water and shattered glass hit the hardwood moments before he did, doubled over and whimpering. He coughed, acid ripping up his throat as something thick shoved through his airway. He spat it out, heaving for air and pressing a hand to his stomach. On the floor in front of him, something fleshy and pink sat on the wood.
The skin under his fingers twitched, and he gagged again, spitting up something bigger, redder. Pain shot up the backs of his legs, making him slip and smack his chin hard enough to make his teeth click.
A burning traveled from his legs and stomach up his entire body, arid heat shoved into his joints and between his ears. His skin felt too small, an enormous pressure building as something tried to push out of it.
Shane didn’t know when Ilya found him, but he whimpered when he felt arms around his waist, a solid weight on top of him.
“Shh, shh, it is alright,” Ilya hissed in his ear. “Try to be still.”
“It hurts,” he tried to cry out, but he could hear that his voice wasn’t shaped into the right words. His body bucked and twisted under Ilya, his ears pounded with the sound of snapping twigs.
“You are okay,” Ilya repeated. “You are rebuilding.”
Shane screamed, a deafening snap sounding in his head. His arm went weak, then his leg, like the muscles had been severed entirely. There were fingers in his hair, holding his head in place so it didn’t smack on the floor.
“Shane. Have I ever let anything happen to you?”
No, of course not. He trusted Ilya down to his bones, to his very cells.
Ilya kept a tight grip on Shane’s hips, kissed the sweat-soaked skin behind his ear.
“This is the worst of it. Soon you will be better.”
***
“What are you reading?”
Shane couldn’t pinpoint where they were. Ottawa, maybe. Blue sky, a little breeze. His body, whole and strong and tucked into Ilya’s side as the other man read from the book spread over his knees.
“Old book from undergrad,” Ilya said. “I had to take philosophy my first year. Very important to find all the answers to life before you can be a doctor.”
“Mm,” Shane hummed. “Did you find all the answers?”
“I do not think so,” Ilya smiled, kissing the top of his head. “But maybe you know more than me, hm? Should I ask you very ancient question?”
Shane laughed, turning his face to the sun.
“Sure.”
“This is easy question, I learned it my first week,” Ilya said, tracing circles into Shane’s hair. “Each board, shingle and beam of a house are replaced, until one hundred years later no part of the house is the same. What do you think, is this still the same house?”
Shane blinked into the glare of the sun, soaked in the feeling of breeze on his skin. His leg was light, his skin unblemished by scar tissue. Nothing was wrong.
“I think,” he said. “That you have to love something a lot to replace all its pieces like that.”