Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

November 2016

A news story breaks when the Voyageurs land in Boston the day before their game against the Raiders. Shane is sitting on the bus when it starts to circulate, and one snippet of conversation catches his attention and stops his blood cold.

“—and it says it was another player who made the complaint—” someone is saying, and Shane tunes in immediately, heart in his throat.

Shane swallows, takes a breath, and forces himself to relax. He leans towards Hayden who’s sitting on his right. “What are they talking about?” Shane asks, keeping his voice as neutral as possible.

Hayden shakes his head, brows furrowed as he stares down at his phone. Shane follows his gaze and oh.

Detroit Novas player Dustin Gardner named as aggressor in leaked internal team memo regarding an alleged sexual assault.

A shaky breath rattles its way out of Shane’s lungs. Then, he feels guilty. He’s thankful that someone may have been sexually assaulted by their own teammate, and it makes him sick to his stomach, but he doesn’t know how else to feel. Is it wrong to be glad that this article, while it has the potential to expose someone else’s pain, wasn’t about his own?

“Jesus christ,” he finally forces out, feigning mild distaste rather than the forest fire of disgust and hate that’s currently ripping through him.

“I know,” Hayden says, shaking his head grimly. “Says it was that rookie player Carlson? The one they traded to Buffalo at the deadline last year.”

“Wow, so, what, they swept it under the rug and traded him?” Shane says, the anger bleeding through just a tad.

Hayden turns, finally meets his eyes. They flicker over Shane’s face for a moment, like he’s studying him, and Shane tries not to squirm under the scrutiny.

“If what’s in that memo is true, then yeah, it looks like it,” Hayden agrees.

“Yo, Pike, you read this, too?” Comeau calls from across the aisle.

“Yeah, bro, it’s sick,” Hayden replies.

“I don’t know, man. Remember how bad he played? Was a total bust,” Drapeau pipes up a few seats up. “Probably just knew he was gonna get traded and wanted to cause trouble.”

Shane’s mouth goes impossibly dry. He says nothing, eyes flicking teammate to teammate as the conversation devolves into exactly what he was afraid of: a dogpile on a guy who isn’t even here to defend himself. He sits with it, lets it wash over him and serve as just another reminder of why he kept his mouth shut all those years ago and why he’s going to continue to do so.

Shane makes a beeline for the bathroom the second he and Hayden get to their room at the hotel. He sits on the edge of the bathtub and frantically types the name ‘Dallas Kent’ into the Google search bar. The only news it returns is about the player’s latest fight in Colorado and the OT goal he scored in Brooklyn a few weeks ago. He lets himself breath fully, then, and swipes the tab closed. Good. Everything’s fine. He can forget about it again.

Except he doesn’t forget about it, because all that’s running through his head when Ilya says his first name at his place later on that day is “and I know you’ll keep your mouth shut, because it’d be a shame if it hit the news over the summer that Ilya Rozanov is a fucking fag just like you, right?”

So he leaves. He practically runs out of there, flees and pretends like ripping himself away isn’t like losing a limb. Because he can’t drag Ilya into a mess like the one Shane’s been in since Kent followed him back to his room in Sochi. Because he can’t be the reason Ilya ends up in a Russian prison or, worse, dead.

Chapter Text

October 2021

It’s a month into Shane’s first season with the Centaurs when another article does its rounds.

Toronto Guardians center Dallas Kent’s phone seized by police in sexual assault investigation, reveals photos pointing to possibility of several additional victims.

Now, that. That is what Shane has been waiting for all this time, a background bated breath that he took in all those years ago and never let out. He does, now, because he knows that this is probably the beginning of the end.

He breathes, and tries to remind himself that things are at least a little different now. Ilya plays in Ottawa and they’re married so it’s not like Ilya will be deported to Russia and prosecuted for his gayness. The immediate physical danger is no longer a factor, and that should make Shane breathe a little easier, but the social implications of something like this getting out are heavy enough to suffocate him.

His teammates, his family, Ilya, the NHL, the fans, the world. Everyone would know. Everyone would have an opinion. There will be some people who believe him, he’s sure, but even then Shane doesn’t know if he’ll be able to stomach the pity and the looks.

“Fuck, Barett, I’m so sorry,” Bood is saying, a steady hand on the other player’s shoulder. Troy is sitting in his stall and staring at the article that he has pulled up on his phone.

“I told the team what he was,” Barett says with a jerky shake of his head, locking his phone and placing it a little too aggressively down on the bench beside him. “Wonder if that will finally be enough to convince the ancient fucking management in Toronto.”

“It says there looks like there were male victims, too,” Harris says, seated at his side. His eyes go wide, head swinging to look at his boyfriend who is already waving him off.

“Nothing happened to me, he wouldn’t’ve dared,” Barett says darkly.

“Oh thank god,” Harris says, visibly relaxing.

Shane leans forwards a little too suddenly and starts untying his skates. He doesn’t want to hear any more of this. His hands shake slightly, just enough to feel but luckily not enough to easily see, and he wants to die.

Ilya drops down into the stall next to Shane, who has to physically force himself not to recoil. The Russian watches as Shane fumbles with his skate laces for a moment.

“Okay?” he says finally. Neutral.

“’Course,” Shane says, pulling his left skate off and starting in the on the right. “Just tired, think I pushed a little too hard today.”

The slowly forming concern on his husband’s face dissipates. He smiles, knocks their knees together, and gets to his feet.

“We get sandwiches on the way home,” he proclaims.

Normally Shane would protest. The season is in full swing, the team nutritionist is on all of them like hawks, and Ilya knows Shane hardly ever indulges during the season. He’s gotten a lot better at being lenient and more realistic with his diet, but not that lenient.

“Ilya—“ Shane begins, but that’s all the fight he’s got in him.

“No arguing, Hollander,” Ilya calls over his shoulder, strutting his way back to his stall.

***

Shane gets a call a week later. His phone rings at eight a.m. on an off day and Ilya is still asleep in bed when Shane slips out of the room to answer it.

“Is this Shane Hollander?” comes the voice on the other end of the line as Shane pads down the stairs to the first floor of their Ottawa home.

“Uh, yes. Who is this?” he says, making his way over to the sliding glass doors leading to the backyard deck. He steps outside and the cold bites slightly, but it’s not nearly as cold as he knows October in Ottawa can get.

“This is Shaun Morris from the Toronto Police Service. I’m a detective on the sex crimes unit.” Shane’s heart stutters, but he forces himself to keep breathing.

“Oh. Uh. Okay,” Shane stays stupidly. “Uh. How can I help you?”

“Are you aware of the ongoing investigation being conducted in regards to several sexual assault allegations made against Dallas Kent?” Shane’s blood runs cold. Then his body goes strangely hot.

“Isn’t everyone?” Shane says, deciding maybe playing stupid will get him out of this sickening situation.

“Well, yes, I suppose so,” Detective Morris says with an awkward clear of the throat. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hollander, but I’m calling about his connection to you specifically.”

“I’m sorry? I don’t, uh, know what connection you’re talking about.”

“As part of the investigation we gained access to Kent’s cell phone. This includes any texts and photos,” Morris says, and Shane can tell he’s building up to something, has a sinking feeling he knows what it is, wishes with everything in him that he’s wrong. “Photos of several victims were found, and I’m sorry to inform you that one of these photos appears to be you, Mr. Hollander.”

Shane stands there in the cold, on his and Ilya’s deck, and doesn’t speak. Breathes, slightly raggedly, into the phone for a few moments. “Oh?” he says finally.

“I’m sure this can’t be easy to hear,” Morris continues, almost gently. “But I’m contacting you to see if you’d be willing to make a formal statement or testify in the upcoming trial.”

“Testify,” Shane says flatly. He doesn’t recognize his own voice.

“I’m aware you’re a very public figure, Mr. Hollander, so I would understand if that’s not something you want to do. This is just part of the evidence collecting process and building a case. Nobody wants to pressure you to do anything you don’t want to. If you’re interested, there are victim services resources I can send you.”

“No, no,” Shane says lowly. “No way. Absolutely not.”

“I completely understand—”

“I don’t think you do,” Shane bites out. “I—there’s no way. If this got out…” he presses the heel of his free hand’s palm to one of his eyes and digs in until he see stars.

“Of course,” Morris says quietly. “This is simply due diligence. It’s extremely unlikely the prosecution would decide to subpoena you.”

“To what?” Shane hisses. “Listen to me very carefully: There is nothing to subpoena me about. They can compel me to the stand all they want, but I will not go quietly. You know who I am, right? I’d make sure it’s front page news for weeks that the court is dragging me into court against my will for something I have nothing to do with, and I will deny anything you ask. I haven’t confirmed it’s me and I’m not going to. I’m not going to be bullied into—into—” He’s getting a little hysterical, free hand moving to his hair where he begins to tug hard enough that he’s definitely going to feel the ache even hours from now.

“Understood, Mr. Hollander.”

Shane is shaking so hard he can barely keep himself upright when they hang up. He contemplates chucking his cell phone across the backyard and thinks better of it, tries to convince himself that he can still keep this a secret. Morris said he probably won’t be compelled to testify, right? Maybe this will just end here.

Chapter Text

November 2021

Elite NHL player’s photo reportedly found among others recovered during investigation into Dallas Kent.

“An anonymous source revealed today that a notable fellow player still active in the NHL was one of the male victims of alleged sexual assault by Toronto Guardians player Dallas Kent. Details are sparse, but it appears likely that the unknown player is Canadian. The source revealed that the player was contacted in regards to the trial but denied any involvement and declined to testify.”

Shane can’t sleep. Shane hasn’t been able to sleep, really, in weeks. He lays awake beside Ilya and stews. Waits for the other shoe to drop. And this…this is too close for comfort. The shoe hasn’t hit the floor yet, but Shane can tell it’s started to make its descent.

It’s one in the morning. They have practice tomorrow morning, or well, today, in about six hours. He leans over and shakes Ilya’s shoulder anyway. This can’t wait. Ilya can’t find out about this from, fuck, a Toronto Sun article, god forbid.

The Russian grumbles and shifts in his sleep after the first shake, but wakes fully when Shane persists. He cracks an eye open, stares for a moment, still half asleep, before he turns on his side towards Shane.

“Shane?” he says, voice thick with sleep. “V chem delo?” What’s wrong?

“Ilya, I…” Shane begins, swallowing thickly. “Ilya, I need to tell you something.”

Ilya hums, eyes slipping shut for a moment as he repositions himself a bit under the covers. His eyelids slide back open, though, and they seem to take in the state of Shane finally, because the Russian is suddenly sitting up fully with his back against the headboard.

“Shane? What it is?” he says, voice taking on a worried edge. “Is one in the morning, you not plotting out ten year plan again for something like that first time at the cottage, no?”

Shane shakes his head. He wishes he were. He sits up, turns away from Ilya and swings his legs over the side of the bed. He rests his elbows on his knees, his shoulders hiked up towards his ears, and clasps his hands together in front of him.

“A few…” he has to pause to clear his throat, his voice suddenly thick and crackly. “A few weeks ago an article came out about that investigation into Dallas Kent.”

There’s a pause. Shane can’t seen Ilya with his back turned like this, but he can imagine the expression on the Russian’s face. Confusion, because why the hell is this what Shane woke him up in the middle of the night to talk about? Patience, maybe, because it wouldn’t be entirely out of the realm of possibility that this is just something Shane got stuck on for no specific reason.

“Yes, I remember,” Ilya says softly.

“Another one was published tonight, about the photos. That one of the photos they found was of a player in the NHL.”

“Oh,” Ilya says. Then, “Do you know them?”

And Shane…Shane can’t be held responsible for how reacts to hearing that, okay? He’s an emotional mess and he think’s he deserves some grace.

Shane laughs. Catches himself, stops. Then ducks his head and laughs again, once, like it’s been punched out of him, a sound more painful than humorous.

The sheets and blankets slide around on the bed behind him. The bed dips slightly, and then there’s a hand on the small of his back.

“Shane?” Ilya says cautiously.

Shane squeezes his eyes shut and doesn’t turn around.

“It…it might come out, and I wanted you to hear it from me, okay?” Shane says, shoulders shuddering slightly.

“Hear what, Shane?” Ilya says, and now he sounds alarmed. He maneuvers himself so that he’s sitting beside Shane on the edge of the bed, close enough that their thighs are touching. Shane doesn’t move.

“Kent followed me back to my hotel room in Sochi one night, and when I told him to fuck off, he forced his way into my room,” Shane says evenly, measured, devoid of emotion. “And—well. That NHL player in the photo is me.” He doesn’t say what that means, tries to let Ilya connect the dots himself, because even after all this time Shane can barely bring himself to even think about what they call what happened to him, let alone say it out loud to someone else.

“You—what? Kent had photo of you in his phone?” Ilya says, confused. “Why?” Shane wants to strangle him, he thinks furiously, irrationally, wants to launch himself from their bedroom’s second story window, because he’s going to have to say it. He takes a shuddering breath and steels himself. He’s brought it up, now, and he doesn’t have the luxury of taking his time to explain this to Ilya anymore.

“Fuck sake, Ilya. Kent fucking raped me, okay?” Shane snaps, bringing his head forward to rest on his clasped hands, folding in on himself.

Ilya jerks like he’s been struck. Shane nods to himself over and over, minutely, like he can’t quite believe it himself, either.

“And I’m sorry I never fucking told you, but I just wanted it to go away, and it did. But now all of this—” his voice breaks. “I just wanted it to go away, and now everyone is going to know.”

Ilya doesn’t say anything for a few long, devastating moments. Shane’s heart is thundering in his ears as he readies himself to beg for forgiveness for lying for so long, but Ilya derails that by pulling him into his chest without any chance for protest. Shane goes, allows himself to be pulled in, and presses his face into his husband’s shoulder.

“Not need to be sorry, never sorry,” Ilya says hoarsely, cupping a hand behind Shane’s head. “None of this your fault, Shane, you get this, right?”

Shane says nothing. Forces himself to breathe.

“Shane,” Ilya says, pulling back enough so he can look his husband in the face. Shane’s looks wrecked, restrained tears brimming and eyes rimmed red, skin blotchy in spots. Ilya looks about the same, Shane realizes, and it knocks his racing heartrate down a bit. Ilya’s not mad, he’s upset. Of course he’s upset. Shane kicks himself mentally and feels even more miserable, because how could he think that Ilya would react badly to something like this?

“He saw me when I went to talk to you in the stands, heard what we said. If I had just left you alone, none of this would’ve happened, Ilya.”

“Shane Hollander, you listen to me very closely,” Ilya says, tone offering no room for argument. Shane stares and waits, eyes flitting all over the Russian’s face. “I do not care if we had sex right in front of him, nothing would make what he did your fault.”

Shane closes his eyes, feels a tear spill over, and nods softly.

“Shane,” Ilya says more insistently. He frames his husband’s face with both hands and waits until the Canadian opens his eyes once more. The Russian’s eyes are dark are serious. “None of this is your fault. I need you to know this.”

“I know,” Shane rasps.

Ilya stares.

“Say it.”

Shane’s mouth drops open slightly. Their eyes bore into each other for a moment, Shane’s mouth hanging open, and then his face crumples.

“I can’t,” he chokes out, miserable.

***

Ilya makes a lot of missteps after finding out what Kent did to his husband. He makes assumptions that people make about rape victims sometimes. He assumes that Shane won’t be as comfortable with sex, that he should be careful with how he touches Shane, doesn’t chirp or bicker back and forth with him as much. It takes four days of this treatment for Shane to snap, or more accurately, break.

Ilya wakes up hard against his ass in bed and when Ilya’s awake enough to realize Shane is grinding back against him, the Russian practically jumps out of the bed like it’s on fire. He excuses himself to the bathroom, muttering about needing to take a piss. When he comes back into the bedroom, Shane is rolled away from him on his side under the covers.

“I get it,” Shane says, emotionless.

Ilya comes to a stop a foot from the bed. “Get what?”

“That you don’t want to have sex with me anymore now,” Shane says, but it’s like the voice is coming from someone else. “I get it.”

Their alarm goes off, then, the alarm that mean they have twenty minutes to be out the door to catch their flight. Shane sits up in bed like he’s a puppet whose strings are being pulled.

“Shane—” Ilya begins finally, recovering from the shock.

“It’s fine,” Shane says, smiles a bit, even. He walks away before Ilya is able to say anything more.

Ilya tries to cut in several times while they fumble around the house getting ready and then clamber into the car, but Shane brushes him off every time. He smiles each time, as well, a tiny thing that looks wrong on his face, his eyes too bright and distant. It’s then that Ilya also realizes that he may have been naïve to worry about Shane knowing he’d likely inherited his mother’s depression; something is wrong with Shane and probably has been for a very, very long time.

Shane plays like he’s possessed that night. He scores two goals and assists on one of Ilya’s. He also, notably, gets into a fist fight with one of New Jersey’s defensemen, holds his own, and spits blood on the ice with an almost manic grin once two refs finally manage to drag him off the Seagulls player. When the Centaurs trainer cleanses a gash on his chin with alcohol, he barely even blinks. It’s terrifying.

Ilya sits next to Shane on the bus ride to the hotel after the game. Shane stares out the window with unseeing eyes the whole drive there and doesn’t say a word. Ilya has the unsettling feeling that while Shane’s body is seated beside him, his mind isn’t.

The way each team assigns rooms is different, but Shane has a roommate this season since it’s his first year with the team. Ilya has a feeling that Shane will avoid him for the night unless Ilya makes sure they see each other, so he tracks his roommate down after he’s checked in. He tells Hayes that he’s won a single room all to himself for the night and the other player luckily doesn’t ask any questions as he hands his keycard over.

Shane is sitting on the edge of one of the two beds when Ilya swipes himself into the room. He looks up when the Russian comes in, expression flickering from confusion to anxiety and then landing on a cool neutral that makes Ilya’s heart skip.

“Shane, you not let me explain at home,” Ilya begins in a rush.

“It’s oka—” Shane starts, a parrot at this point.

“Is not. Okay,” Ilya cuts him off, louder than he meant to. The change in volume stops Shane mid-sentence, though, eyes finally fixed on Ilya and actually showing something more than indifference. “Shane, of course I want to have sex with you. Love having sex with you, you are love of my life, sexiest man alive.”

A corner of Shane’s lips twitches upwards.

“Okay.”

Ilya damn near growls in frustration. He strides forward, crouches in front of husband, takes his hands in his.

“Not okay, Shane. Not okay for this to be miss, uh, miscommunication. I always want to have sex with you, all the time, it is truly embarrassing, they should lock me up,” Ilya insists, shaking his hands slightly as if trying to work some life back into Shane’s body, “I…I think, all day, why you would say something like this, and I realize that I am idiot.”

That shocks an amused snort out of Shane. Ilya allows himself to chuckle slightly, also, nodding.

“I am idiot, because you tell me this scary thing that happen to you, and I not ask how you want me to treat you after. I decide, without ask, because I am stupid, da?” Shane exhales through his nose, a barely audible puff of breath escaping. Then he makes a quiet, hurt noise, and he starts crying.

Ilya curses softly in Russian, his hands come up to hover near his husband’s face, not yet touching, unsure what to do.

“That,” Shane says between hitched intakes of breath. “That. You don’t touch me anymore, joke with me anymore, you run or redirect whenever either of us gets turned on. What am I…what was I supposed to think?”

Ilya nods vigorously, in full agreement. “I know, I know, moy kotenok, I tell you, I am idiot. Think maybe you need space, but I did not ask.” My kitten.

“If you…this would’ve all been for nothing!” Shane says, hysterical. “I would’ve—if you didn’t want me anymore because of what he did, it would’ve been for nothing!”

Ilya, thinking they’re finally on the same page, is once again hopelessly confused.

“What, Shane? What would’ve been for nothing?”

“He saw us in Sochi! He said he’d wait ‘til the summer when you were in Russia and out you if I didn’t just—if I didn’t just let him—you would’ve died, Ilya, they would’ve killed you.”

The pieces fall into place with a sickening clarity. Ilya’s stomach drops to his feet.

“And so if I went through all this and you couldn’t stand to even touch me anymore?” Shane continues, rambling, pulling at his hair, “I—I’d have nothing. I’d have nothing.”

Ilya feels nauseous. He swallows. Opens his mouth. Closes his mouth with a click. Swallows again. Then he reaches up and, with shaking, gentle hands, picks Shane up and pulls him down towards the floor so he’s seated on Ilya’s lap.

“Shane,” he says quietly, his voice quivering. “Shane, sweetheart.” He’s at a loss for words.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to tell you that,” Shane says between hitched breaths and choked off sobs. He’s rigid in Ilya’s lap, hands grasping tightly onto Ilya shoulders and head ducked down. “I didn’t want you to carry that. That was my choice. You shouldn’t feel like you have to be with me just because…just because I got raped, okay?”

Ilya makes a hurt noise in the back of his throat. He lets out a long, heavy breath, and then reaches down and wraps both of his hands around Shane’s wrists. Shane’s eyes dart up to meet Ilya’s finally, and Ilya doesn’t let him look away.

“Shane. There is nothing that could make me stop loving you, do you understand? Do not care if we never had sex again, okay? Would not give a fuck. I love you, not just your ass or your mouth or your dick.” he says it slowly, almost forcefully. He needs the words to get through to Shane, to actually resonate. “Of course I am still attracted to you, of course I still want to touch you and chirp you about your weak backhand. I was worried that I scare you, Shane. Lots of scary things come up, would not be surprised if you were afraid of things you were not before. I should have asked, this is my fault. Nothing about any of this has ever been or will ever be your fault, and I really need you to hear that.”

Shane’s eye dart all over Ilya’s face as if he’s a human lie detector test, painfully uncertain, and it breaks Ilya’s heart. He wants Kent dead now more than ever, and that’s saying a lot considering how many nights he’s laid awake seriously considering driving to Toronto to murder Dallas Kent in his bed while he slept. Ilya waits, and hopes, because he doesn’t know how else he can convince Shane that he isn’t disgusted with him.

Then, Shane slumps. His nose finds the juncture where Ilya’s shoulder and neck meet, arms wrapping loosely around Ilya’s neck, body boneless deadweight in Ilya’s lap. And he wails, a sound that cuts straight through Ilya, chokes out these horribly grief-filled heavy sobs that shake his entire body and Ilya’s along with it. Ilya holds on tight, murmuring soothingly in alternating English and Russian, and while he feels horrible, he’s also relieved. Shane hasn’t cried at all since the night he told Ilya what had happened.

Chapter Text

December 2021

Bood approaches Ilya after a morning skate the next month.

“Yo, Rozy,” Bood says as he walks up to Ilya’s stall in the locker room.

Ilya looks up and nods. “Bood.”

“Can I borrow you for a sec?” the alternate captain says. “Wanted to ask something.”

Ilya looks up again, assessing. Bood’s face is open and friendly, but the slight tension in his body definitely doesn’t escape his notice.

Ilya’s always been very good at reading Shane’s body language and subtle reactions to things, never had to try, even, like they were attuned to one another since the very beginning. If he was good at it before, he’d say he’s an expert in it now; it’s been two weeks since Shane woke him up in the middle of the night and he’s quickly become hyperaware of the way Shane’s body reacts to things even when his words says he’s okay. Compared to that, the stress Bood is carrying in his shoulders is easy to zero in on.

“Da,” Ilya says, getting to his feet. “Have to tape some sticks before game tonight anyway.”

They leave the locker room and end up by the stick rack in the hallway leading to the practice rink. Ilya grabs one of his sticks from the rack and starts in on the handle of it, spinning a thin strip of white stick tape around the very end of it to start forming the knob.

“What you want to ask?” he says, feigning casual.

Bood shifts from foot to foot.

“I just…Well, I just wanted to ask if everything’s, you know, alright with you and Hollander,” he says slowly. Ilya’s eyes snap up to meet his alternate captain’s, but he forces them back down to the stick he’s taping.

“Me and Hollander?”

“Yeah, or, uh, maybe just Hollzy?” Bood hedges. Ilya almost sighs, but he catches himself. He’s surprised no one has said anything until now.

Ilya still hasn’t been able to get Shane to say that being sexually assaulted by a serial rapist wasn’t his fault. His husband barely sleeps. He flinches like he’s been struck when their teammates’ phones chirp with a notification, goes rigid when he sees them huddled around one of their phones after practice or on the plane. It’s only a matter of time, Ilya, he’d said a few nights ago, voice hollow and resigned, like his death warrant’s already been signed.

“Hollander is fine,” Ilya says shortly, tearing the tape with his teeth and beginning to work on the shaft with regular width tape.

“Ilya, cut the crap,” Bood says, losing his cautious attitude. Ilya’s eyes snap up to meet his again, surprised, almost impressed, even. “He’s a mess, barely says a word, walks around like a ghost. I’m not saying this to complain, I’m saying this because I’m worried.”

Ilya holds his gaze for a few tense moments before dropping his eyes back to the stick in his hand.

“I know,” he grits out.

“So you know what’s going on?” Bood presses. “Rozanov, come on, I’m not the media. You guys are my friends, and I’m worried. So’s Barett. And Harris.”

Ilya finishes taping the shaft, tears the end with his hands. He grinds his teeth slightly, the muscle in his jaw jumping under the strain.

“It is…not something I can talk about,” Ilya says quietly. “Something only Shane can tell you.”

“Rozanov, what the fuck?”

“I am serious, Boodram,” Ilya says, leveling the alternate captain with a look that’s more dangerous than the weariness it’s been so far. “Is not a nice, easy thing. Is really, really bad thing, and I not betray his trust just because Zane Boodram ask me.”

Bood looks visibly startled at that. Perhaps he’d thought it was some innocent lovers quarrel, Ilya muses. He wishes. That they could solve together. What it is, though, this ugly, ugly thing, it’s something out of their control. The only thing they can do is weather it and try to heal.

“Fuck, Rozanov,” Bood says, running a hand through his hair. “That bad?”

“Yes,” Ilya says flatly. He reaches for the black cloth tape and flips the stick in his hands so it’s blade up.

Bood doesn’t say anything for a while. He watches Ilya stripe black tape around and around the blade of his stick until he reaches the heel and then tears the tape. Ilya doesn’t glance up once, focused on the familiar motions, jaw set.

“Harris…Harris pulled me aside to tell me this, because he didn’t want Troy to hear,” Bood begins, voice very quiet. “But he mentioned that...he mentioned that Shane started acting, uh, odd, right after the team started talking about the Dallas Kent trial.”

Ilya stills.

“And that it, um, got worse after it came out that a player’s picture was on his phone,” Bood continues.

“Stop right there. Stop talking,” Ilya says. He plants the butt of the stick on the ground and leans on it slightly. “You…whatever you think you know, you keep it to yourself, do you understand?” The look he pins Boodram with is rageful enough that the alternate captain takes a step back, hands raised in a non-threatening manner.

“Hey man, I’m not gonna say anything, I swear. I’m just worried, okay? We care about you guys.”

Ilya looks away. The muscle in his jaw jumps again. He puts the freshly taped stick down next to the others in his designated slot on the rack.

“I know you do. He knows you do,” Ilya says softly. He’s not going to pretend that this whole thing hasn’t caused Shane to put a lot of distance between himself and his teammates and, in turn, Ilya has as well. He understands why, aches for Shane, but he misses them too, knows it’s not fair. None of this fair, though.

“Shit, Ilya,” Bood says, slightly panicked. “Shit.”

Ilya’s Adam’s apple rises and falls as he swallows thickly. He nods once, sharply, and can’t keep the pain out of his voice when he clips out, “Da. Shit.”

***

The Centaurs fly out to Montreal from their New York games swing for their first match up against the Voyageurs of the season. It’s the second week of December and brutally cold. The pinking of Shane’s cheeks from the temperature outside makes his freckles stand out more and Ilya can’t help but find himself staring at certain intervals during the travel. Shane notices because, of course, he’s also intermittently staring at Ilya. They’re both so drawn to each other all the time it’s almost embarrassing.

“Move it, Roz,” Barrett says, nudging Ilya forward towards his bag which is coming around on the luggage carousel in the Montreal airport. “You can make heart eyes at Hollander later.”

That snaps Ilya out of the dopey look on his face. “Russians do not make heart eyes, I already tell you this.”

“Nobody’s buying it, Rozy,” Bood says as he skirts around Ilya to grab his own bag.

Shane steps forward and grabs Ilya’s bag for him because it seems the Russian is buffering for a moment. He holds it out and Ilya takes it hastily, grumbling under his breath. Shane clocks the slight glow to his cheeks but says nothing.

They flew in the night before the game so they all file onto the bus and go straight to the hotel for the evening. Pre-game skate at the practice rink is set for 7 a.m. tomorrow.

Ilya takes his room key from the employee at the front desk and turns to Shane, eyebrows raised. They’d talked about it in the week leading up to tonight and eventually settled on them sharing a room for this particular away game hotel stay. He nods once and Ilya smiles softly before stepping off to the side. Shane takes the key for the room he shares with Hayes but slides it into the front pocket of his jeans knowing fully well that he’s not going to be needing it.

The pair tuck themselves into a back corner of the elevator along with seven more of their teammates. It’s a tight squeeze simply because of the fact that it’s nine professional hockey players rather than your average sized people. Shane’s back is pressed against Ilya’s front and he can see the contained amusement on their teammates’ faces in front of him simply from the humorous situation they’re all in. He smiles to himself and reaches back to grab a few of Ilya’s fingers with his hand, clinging playfully like a child.

The elevator stops on the fourth floor and a few of their teammates gets off. The elevator car loosens up significantly but Shane doesn’t move. Ilya repositions their hands until their fingers are properly laced together.

“You guys are disgustingly adorable,” Hayes says under his breath.

Shane blushes but doesn’t respond as the elevator doors slide open on the floor Ilya’s room is located. Ilya steps around him so that he’s leading the way instead, gentle but firm. Shane reddens even more, unbearably shy, but doesn’t let go of Ilya’s hand as they step off the elevator and make their way down the hallway.

Ilya waits until after they’ve both placed their bags down on the floor in his room to crowd Shane against the wall by the door. There’s no intention behind it, no urgency or desire, just Ilya feeling soft and wanting to be close to his husband.

“Someone is feeling sweet today,” Ilya murmurs, leaning forward to peck Shane on his freckle-sprinkled cheek. “Any reason? Or just because?”

“Mm, kind of just because,” Shane says quietly. “Also because it feels nice that I get to have you and be in Montreal. Feels like I’ve won already.”

Ilya’s eyes go all gooey and Shane looks up just in time to witness it. He goes bright red all the way up to his ears. “Sorry, that was corny.”

“No, no, not corny,” Ilya says, smiling softly. “Sweet, I like when you are sweet like this.” He cups Shane’s jaw with a careful hand and leans forward to kiss his lips when the Canadian leans into the touch.

“Okay,” he says in agreement, calm and resolute.

The sweet boy that falls asleep wrapped tightly in Ilya’s arms is a startling contrast to the sharp, determined man that shows up to the arena for the game. That’s not to say it’s a bad thing, Ilya thinks, this is the ruthless badass vibe that, while great for hockey, is also hot as fuck, even if it’s slightly terrifying. Someone better be praying for Montreal right now, Ilya thinks, because he has a feeling there’s about to be a massacre on their own home ice.

Shane gears up for the game with a calm precision. That’s pretty typical for him, but there’s an increased level of dialed-in that is easy to see once you take a second look. There’s also an airy nonchalance to him, again not underheard of, but certainly not super common. He participates in the pre-game banter being tossed around in the locker room, something he usually forgoes whenever he’s already feeling wound tight. He chips in some jokes of his own, too, says them with a smirk that’s much more pronounced than the slight, tentative ones that occasionally grace his face.

“Bro, I didn’t even know he could look like that,” Barrett says, nudging Ilya and gesturing across the room at where Shane’s calmly striping white cloth tape around the blade of a stick. He nods along with whatever Dykstra is saying before interjecting with something that even makes Hayes, who’s sitting a few stalls away, bark out a laugh.

“Mm, hot as hell, right?” Ilya says, trying desperately to sound smug when in reality he’s scrambling to gather himself because oh my god he wants to put his hands on him right now. Or have Shane’s hands on him, Ilya thinks stupidly, either is good.

Shane catches Ilya’s eye for a moment and his lips form that same smirk, holds his gaze for a few beats too long, winks, and then turns his attention back to Dykstra.

“Jesus,” someone says lowly under their breath. It takes Ilya a moment to realize it was Haas.

“You know, Rozy, I get it now,” Barrett says, eyes having followed Ilya’s gaze and likely witnessed the whole exchange, as well. Ilya’s eyes flick to his, unable to speak. “I’d be whipped too if Hollander ever looked at me like that.”

Ilya’s still too thrown to scold Troy for calling him whipped.

“Da,” Ilya says, mouth dry.

Shane has no idea what’s taken over him, but a fire lit in his gut the second he stepped into his former home arena tonight. He’d expected to be a ball of anxiety the entire game but right now he’s using that fire to fuel him rather than allowing it to burn him alive, a rare occurrence.

He just eye-fucked Ilya knowing damn well that the clump of teammates standing around the Russian were witnessing the whole thing. He doesn’t care even though he normally would, instead is only enjoying the faint pink hue that has formed on Ilya’s cheeks, smug at the knowledge that this is the most disheveled his husband’s ever looked when staring at him from across a locker room.

There’s a dangerous gleam in Shane Hollander’s eyes when he steps back onto Montreal ice for the first time since signing with Ottawa. Hayden notices it the moment they meet up at center ice and immediately begins mentally preparing himself for whatever kind of disaster is about to unfold tonight.

“Hey, Hayds,” Shane greets, cool and calm, smiling easily. “How’re Jackie and the kids?”

They catch up for a few beats, talking spouses and kids and pets and friends. Wilson swings wide around Montreal’s side of the neutral zone with Young at his side, skirting towards the center redline. They cast conspicuous dirty looks at Shane as they get closer.

“And they say Rozanov doesn’t like to share,” Wilson says, low but just loud enough for Shane and Hayden to hear it when they glide within earshot. The way his eye briefly catches Shane’s as he goes conveys just how intentional it was, the expression confirming it’s homophobic insinuation.

The dangerous look in Shane’s eyes sharpens. He laughs, nods his head once, and then taps the blade of his stick against one of Hayden’s shin guards.

“Have a good game, Hayd,” he says with a vicious smile. He turns and starts for the boards where Hayes is gathering pucks in a corner of their zone for a warm-up drill. Ilya passes Shane as he’s skating towards the opposite end of the zone and catches the look on the Canadian’s face as he goes.

Don’t pray for a Montreal win, Ilya thinks, smug and adoring, pray for a respectable loss rather than a humiliating one.

Hayden meets Ilya’s eyes as he skates by, looks concerned not for Shane but for himself.

“Mercy?” Pike says quietly as he glides past when Ilya skirts towards the centerline.

“Nothing any of us can do now,” Ilya quips, smile smug. “Can only wait and see if he is out for blood or tears.” Blood if he chirps and hits hard, tears if he makes scoring against the Voyageurs look so easy that Montreal will have to release a statement about their commitment to avoiding a repeat of such an embarrassing game. Ilya enjoys the vaguely ill look that flashes across Hayden’s face.

His eyes find Shane who’s standing against the boards inside their zone, eyes dark and focused as he waits for his turn on a simple passing drill the team does a bit of during warm-ups sometimes. Ilya wouldn’t want to be a player on the opposing team of a player who looked like that, either.

The ref blows the whistle at the start of the first period. Shane and Aaron Taylor, a rookie last season and a sophomore star Centerman now, skate up to the face-off dot at center ice, hunched over the spot as they wait for the puck to drop.

“Nice to see ya, Hollzy,” Taylor says, looking across the face-off circle at him, expression pleasant and friendly. Shane snorts just loud enough for Ilya and Hayden to hear from where they’re crouched over at the hash marks.

Ilya laughs, delighted.

“Oh, Christ,” Pike swears under his breath.

The puck leaves the ref’s hand.

“Thought the sight of me makes you sick, Tay-Tay,” Shane says, his voice as sharp and deliberate as the way he snaps the puck back towards his teammate, an impressively effortless face-off win.

His words have the effect Shane had hoped they would, makes Taylor hesitate for a second or two out of pure shock. Taylor is good but he’s still got a lot to learn, morally and as a player alike. Those few moments are enough to get a slight advantage as the Centaurs race their way into their offensive zone.

The puck finds Barrett’s stick and he carries it past the blue line, ripping up the right side with J.J. hot on his heels. He puts the breaks on abruptly and sends the puck across the ice to Ilya’s waiting stick on the left. The sudden stop forces J.J. to swerve to avoid a huge collision and he doesn’t recover in time to cover Shane, who’s closing in quickly on the net. Hayden pokes a frantic stick forward, trying to catch the puck before Ilya can let it fly, but Ilya is quicker, snaps the puck between a momentary opening between Comeau’s skates, threading the needle beautifully. It finds Shane’s stick and he drops to one knee as he fires it off. It sails straight over Drapeau’s shoulder who doesn’t realize what happened for a moment. When he does, his eyes are blazing. Ottawa has scored within the first thirty seconds of the game.

“That’s fucking right!” Shane says when Ilya collides with him in celebration. Barrett comes in from the other side and it sends the group of them gliding backwards towards the boards.

“Fuck, Hollzy, you fuckin’ beauty,” Barrett shouts, rubbing the top of his helmet.

“Smertel'nyy,” Ilya says. Lethal.

Shane’s grin is vicious and bright. “Effektivnyy,” he corrects, but there’s a smugness to it that conveys his agreement. Efficient.

Shane is sitting on the boards on the bench during a commercial break halfway through the first when Montreal tries to start something again. The score is already 2-0 for Ottawa. The Centaurs are leading in shots on goal by a wide margin.

The ice crew skates by with their shovels of snow and Shane doesn’t miss the approaching threat in the form of Comeau. He drifts just close enough that the refs won’t immediately get involved but also, notably, within earshot. Ilya watches from his seat on the bench as Shane practically perks up at the sight, sends off a silent prayer to his mother. Playing with Shane so far tonight has been like playing with a ball of carefully controlled fury, amazing but also insane and kind of stressful.

“So I guess all you needed to actually show up and play was to have your pet Russian on standby, huh?” he calls out.

It’s just shy of the line of unsportsmanlike trash talk, but everyone reads between the lines immediately. The benches are a prime spot for camera filming and audio recording so of course even Comeau is smart enough to not say anything too severe right there. The subtext rings through Ilya and his surrounding teammates. You must only be playing well because your boyfriend is bending you over and giving it to you on the regular.

Something mischievous flashes through Shane’s eyes. He speaks just as Bood is opening his mouth to curse Comeau out.

“You must want him to suck your dick really bad if you’re complimenting him like that for the whole bench to hear,” Shane replies, cool and easy. Ilya almost can’t believe his ears. Barrett makes a choking noise to his left.

Comeau’s eyes go dark. He starts forward and curls a fist into the front of Shane’s jersey. The refs are blowing their whistles immediately and his teammates are on their feet in outrage. Pike is approaching quickly, hands outstretched to grab his own teammate and drag him away. Shane has a smug, amused smile on his face during the entire encounter, not making a single move to fight back, and he maintains eye contact with Comeau even as Hayden and one of the refs finally pull him off.

‘Powerplay,’ Shane mouths to Comeau as he’s dragged backwards towards the penalty box. Comeau tries to stop, practically yells in the ref’s face, but the ref points firmly at the box and shakes his head. Warning him to get in the box or risk a misconduct, Shane is sure. Comeau goes, casting a murderous look over his shoulder at the Centaurs bench across the ice as he does. Shane grins and waves.

“Ilya, please,” Hayden says weakly.

“Nothing I can do for you, Pike,” Ilya says cheerfully.

The ref blows the whistle again. The Centaurs start a two minute powerplay. Ilya gets in on the scoring fun when he nets a goal in the last few moments of the man advantage off a pass from Haas. He turns and points to the penalty box where Comeau is sitting. Comeau is damn near visibly steaming when he’s let out of the box and makes the skate of shame back to the Montreal bench. Theriault gestures furiously towards the tunnel without a word to his defenseman and Comeau goes with a word, as well.

It's uncommon these days for one team to completely annihilate another in terms of scoring, but not rare. There’s always at least a handful of such games per season, and tonight is one of those nights. The final score at the end of the game is a humiliating 10-1 in Ottawa’s favor.

“Let’s do drinks another night,” Hayden says as both teams begin leaving the ice. “I need to go lick my wounds in private.”

“I understand, Pike,” Ilya says faux-sympathetically. “I would also be humiliated if my team forgot to show up.”

Hayden’s eyes flash with anger but he reigns it in, settling on rolling his eyes. Ilya grins. Hayden leans in slightly and lowers his voice before he speaks, “He usually crashes after games like this, so, uh, please take care of him.”

“I know this,” Ilya says snottily. He softens a bit after, though. “I know. He will be okay.”

Hayden claps him once on the shoulder. Ilya hesitates, but then does the same. Shane watches the interaction from his post at the door to the bench as he taps his teammate’s gloved fists when they file by, a warm feeling settling in his stomach at the sight of his two favorite people in the world finally sharing a friendly moment for once.

Shane sends Ilya a heated look when he takes his seat next to him on the bus. Ilya quirks an eyebrow but says nothing; clearly that post-game crash hasn’t hit yet. Shane scrolls through Instagram the whole ride, seemingly unbothered by the events of the game they just played.

Ilya has to hold himself back from slamming Shane into the wall of their hotel room the second they’re tucked inside. He crowds up against Shane instead, reminiscent of yesterday night, but this time it’s fueled by desire and his proud possessive streak.

“You want reward?” Ilya says, warm breath fanning against Shane’s face with how close their bodies are pressed.

Shane’s eyes darken. They haven’t had this kind of “reward after a win” sex since Shane told Ilya about what happened with Kent. He didn’t realize how much he’s missed it until this very moment.

“Da,” he says.

Ilya curses and hauls his husband off to the shower. He sucks Shane off, takes his time until Shane is squirming from it, swallows when Shane inevitably comes down his throat. They makes out again after, teeth clacking together a few times with the intensity of it. Shane drops to his knees next, waves off Ilya’s hand when the Russian says he doesn’t need him to. The Canadian swallows him to the root in one go and Ilya swears far too loudly for someone in a hotel filled with his teammates, narrowly avoids cracking the back of his head against the tiled shower wall when his head snaps back. His hands find Shane’s hair, tangle in them. He pulls sharply once and the little noise Shane makes goes straight to his dick. Ilya pulls him off suddenly, slightly panicked, and comes before he’s able to warn him. Some of the come catches Shane on the face and Ilya groans, low and unable to believe his eyes.

They actually shower after, of course. Ilya holds Shane close to his body as he lovingly washes Shane’s face and then the rest of him. They wrap around each other in bed and Ilya is out like a light once they’re settled.

Shane is exhausted. His body and eyelids are heavy, he keeps yawning, and yet sleep doesn’t take over. He wants to sleep, he has to sleep, but he can’t.

He lays beside Ilya for a while, not moving. Then he starts to shift around, restless and frustrated. He feels exposed in this hotel bed despite his protective Russian bear of a husband sleeping soundly right beside him. This started happening after everything with Kent and while it’s gotten better since he joined the Centaurs, Shane knows there’s still a lot of room for improvement.

He falls asleep eventually but it feels like a single blink; one moment the red numbers of the alarm clock on the nightstand are blinking 4:10 at him almost mockingly and the next Ilya is shaking his shoulder because it’s six a.m. and it’s time to get ready to catch their bus ride back to Ottawa. Shane feels worse than he would have if he hadn’t slept at all, he thinks. His head is pounding and everything feels too bright and loud.

“You okay?” Ilya asks as they’re packing their bags, suddenly noticing the circles under Shane’s eyes and the tight way he’s holding his body.

“I’m fine,” Shane says automatically, an irritated edge to his voice. Then he sighs and pauses in his packing to run a hand down his face. “Sorry. I just didn’t sleep well.” He starts packing again, jams the t-shirt he’d worn yesterday into the makeshift laundry bag he keeps in his suitcase.

“No?” Ilya says. He seems surprised. “Thought you were already asleep when I fell asleep.”

Shane shakes his head.

“I was trying, I just couldn’t settle,” Shane says quietly. He’s been working really hard at being more honest about his feelings and struggles such since he’d told Ilya about Kent.

“Could not settle?” Ilya repeats.

“Yeah, I don’t know, I think I was just wired from the game,” Shane says flippantly, zipping his suitcase and placing it on the floor. That’s a lie, that’s not honesty. Shane really doesn’t have the energy to explain to Ilya that any hotel room they stay in on the road has the potential to set him on edge, that sometimes he was so freaked out when he was still playing in Montreal that he wouldn’t sleep for days at a time when they were on the road. That hasn’t happened in a while, though, it’s been a couple of years, even. Shane sees no point in bringing it up right now.

“Should have woken me up,” Ilya says, zipping up his own suitcase.

“So both of us could be cranky and miserable in the morning?” Shane says, laughing lightly.

Ilya levels him with a look.

“Ilya, I’m serious! There’s not a lot anyone can do when I can’t sleep, I would’ve just felt bad for keeping you up,” Shane insists.

Ilya stares, then sets his jaw. “You will sleep on the drive home,” he says firmly.

“Ilya—” Shane starts, the beginning of protest.

“We will sit in back of bus, you will put your head on my shoulder and those earplugs in, and you will try to sleep,” Ilya says, cutting him off.

They stare at each other for a moment. Shane visibly deflates, and then gives in, nodding in agreement. It doesn’t feel like a victory to Ilya at all.

***

The locker room is rife with gossip at the end of their last practice before the NHL’s league wide Christmas break. It’s a grim kind of gossip, though, about a topic Ilya wishes his team would just drop already. He pulls his gear off a little more aggressively than necessary as they speak, eyes cast down towards the floor. He’s glad Shane decided to stay out on the ice for a bit to help Haas with his one-timers.

“There were seven victims that testified, man, there’s no way he didn’t do it,” Chouinard says, shaking his head in disgust as he places his helmet on the top shelf of his stall.

Shane comes to a sudden stop in the hallway right outside the locker room, the words floating from the room wrapping around his throat and pulling tight like a noose. He listens with bated breath, unsure of what to do. He knows he can’t go inside that room right now, that’s for sure; he has no idea what his face is doing but the expression can’t be good.

“Well, you remember there’s nine, right?” Hayes replies. “The unknown John Doe #2 and also the eighth, the NHL player. The player apparently said he had no idea what they were talking about and refused to testify.”

“So?”

“So,” Hayes says, rolling his eyes. “If one of them said the police were making stuff up, how do we know it’s not the same for the other eight?” Shane sucks in a breath. It feels like being stabbed in the soft space between his ribs.

“You think all seven of them would lie?” Chouinard says, incredulous.

“Kent’s got a lot of money, man,” Hayes says with a shrug. “I wouldn’t be too surprised, is all I’m saying.”

Shane turns then and lumbers, in full gear, to the bathroom down the hall. There’s a two stall bathroom attached to the locker room but there’s no way he’s stepping foot in there right now. His feet carry him to the general use bathroom at the end of the hall, the one with tiled floor uncovered by rubber mats, the one not meant to be used by hockey players who still have their skates on.

The metallic clink of his bare skate blades against the bathroom tile barely penetrates Shane’s fog of panic and nausea. He stalks in, locks himself into the stall at the end of the row and furthest from the door, and braces himself against the locked stall door, trying desperately to catch his breath. His mouth starts to water and his stomach flips. He’s almost glad he’s still in his gear because he’s sure he would’ve seriously bruised his knees with the force that they hit the floor with. He throws up, throat burning with the acidity, into the toilet. His entire frame shakes as he struggles to hold himself up, hovering, waiting. He throat works, body still unsure if he’s going to puke again, but the nausea abates enough that he collapses to a seated position with momentary relief. He rests the side of his face against the wall of the stall and focuses on breathing, does his best to ignore the way his throat aches and burns.

The bathroom door opens. Shane wants to scream.

Careful, quiet footsteps approach the stall Shane is in. Shane’s not an idiot, he knows his entire lower body is visible from the gap under the stall, knows the blades of the skates still attached to his feet are sticking out slightly into the next stall over. There’s no talking his way out of this.

“Hollzy?” a tentative voice says. Bood.

Shane allows himself to feel the tiniest bit of relief at it being Bood of all people to find him like this. It doesn’t make him feel any better, but it’s good to appreciate the little things these days.

“Y—” Shane begins, but he has to clear his throat when his voice cracks severely. “Yeah, Bood.”

There’s a pause. Shane realizes, suddenly, that Bood is probably nervous. He feels bad, but also a little more relieved. Awkwardness is always a tad more tolerable when it’s mutual.

“You okay?” Bood says.

“Yeah, Bood, yeah,” Shane says. The words practically scrape his throat on their way out, and there’s a flash then in Shane’s mind, however brief, of a time before when his throat was screaming and his arms were flailing but Kent just kept going anyway, kept going and going and then Shane made a noise and he couldn’t stop it, he heaved, a burning crept up the back of his throat and he was going to die, he realized, was going to choke to death on Dallas Kent’s dick, asphyxiate on his own vomit—

Shane jumps back up to his knees and throws up again, his abdominal muscles screaming. He doesn’t feel even a fraction better after this time, just miserable.

“Shane?” Bood sounds panicked now. Shane can see his shoes standing close to the stall door.

“I’m okay,” Shane rasps. “I’m okay.” It doesn’t sound reassuring even to his own ears.

“You don’t sound alright, Shane, let me grab a trainer or something, yeah?” Bood insists, taking a step closer to the stall.

“No,” Shane barks. “No. Thanks, Bood. Just. Can you grab Ilya?” Shane leans his head back against the stall wall and shuts his eyes. The tears that gathered in his eyes during all the vomiting finally spill free and slip down his cheeks. He’s so tired, he’s so fucking tired of all of this.

“Shane, man, I think you should let a trainer check you out at least, it sounds like you’re coming down with something maybe,” Bood says, unconvinced.

Shane bites out a laugh. He definitely came down with something, Shane thinks darkly, he’s been sick for years.

“Maybe, Bood, okay? If Ilya…just grab Ilya?” Shane says, swallowing thickly. “Please, Bood. I don’t need medical crowding me right now.”

Bood doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then he takes a step away from the stall.

“Okay, Holly, I’ll go grab him,” he says quietly. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

Shane hums in affirmation and lets his eyes slide shut as he waits. The bathroom door opens and closes again when he leaves. Shane doesn’t have the energy to do anything except sit there and hope Bood keeps his word.

That same door practically bangs open barely a minute later, followed by quick, determined footsteps. A pair of feet in Nike slides appears right in front of the stall door.

“Shane,” Ilya says urgently. “Shane, let me in.”

“I threw up,” Shane says quietly. “I’m gross.”

“I do not care, Hollander. Unlock the door.”

Shane opens his eyes, takes a breath, and reaches up to his left to undo the latch holding the stall door closed.

“Moy lyubimyy,” Ilya mutters, dropping to his knees immediately at the crumpled sight of his husband. My beloved. He smooths Shane’s sweaty bangs off his forehead. “What happened?”

“They were talking about Kent,” Shane says dully. “About the John Doe’s.”

Ilya hand pauses. Then he sighs and nods, brushing a hand against Shane’s cheek. “Yes, I heard,” he says quietly. “thought you were still on the ice.”

“I was on my way in and I heard it, so I stopped.”

“You are upset,” Ilya says, an observation rather than a question.

Shane doesn’t say anything for a moment. He closes his eyes because he can’t look Ilya in the eye when he says this. “Do you…do you think if he wins, if he’s acquitted, that it would be my fault?”

Ilya makes a hurt noise.

“Shane.”

“Hayes—Hayes said—” Shane stammers, eyes screwing up.

“Hayes is an idiot,” Ilya says, harsh but sure. “You do not owe anyone anything.”

Shane doesn’t say anything. Ilya cups Shane’s jaw with one hand, gentle but with enough strength to resonate. “Look at me, moya lyubov'. Open your eyes.” My love.

It takes a moment, but Shane does. His eyes are wet and red-rimmed. He looks miserable.

“You do not owe anyone anything, Shane,” Ilya says again, holding his gaze as he speaks. “Seven, seven witnesses. If that is not enough, your testimony as the eighth would not have done anything, either.”

Shane stares and Ilya knows he’s processing the information, trying his best to internalize it. He waits patiently but is caught off guard when his husband’s face crumbles, his eyes squeeze shut, and more tears spill over.

“Ilya, my throat hurts,” he whines, scared and wounded, “my throat hurts s’ bad, it won’t stop, it hurts like it did then.” He’s babbling like a lost child and knows he is but he can’t help it, he feels lost, like he’s stuck between two different periods of time, 2014 and the present. His throat hurts and he’s tired and Ilya doesn’t know the significance of what Shane’s saying right now and Shane doesn’t have the strength to explain it.

“I know, solnyshko, I know,” Ilya says softly. Sunshine. “You threw up, yes? Makes sense.”

“It’s worse, it’s bad,” Shane rambles, his breath hitching. “I was gonna die, I was gonna die, I thought I was gonna choke and die.”

Two hands frame either sides of his face and Shane can’t control the flinch his body does at the sudden contact, eyes snapping open. The fight drains out of him when his gaze meets Ilya’s, sees the confusion and panic creeping into his husband’s gorgeous blue eyes.

“You need to breathe, baby,” Ilya says, calm but with a slight shake that lets Shane know he’s freaking Ilya out. “Take a breath with me, yes?”

So Shane sits on the bathroom floor with his husband crouched next to him and simply reminds his lungs of how to breathe for the next couple minutes or so. Ilya rests his forehead against Shane’s for a moment once the Canadian’s breathing has finally evened out.

“Let’s get your gear off and then get you home, okay?” Ilya suggests. “We will spend day napping, I will feed you ginger ale.”

Shane smiles weakly and, after a short pause, nods his head in agreement.

Ilya takes his skates off first, setting them and the massacred blades attached to them to the side. There’s a soft knock on the bathroom door as Ilya is working on his shoulder pads. They both turn to see Bood tentatively stick his head into the room.

“Hey, guys. Just wanted to say that most of the guys have already headed home, the locker room’s almost empty,” he says quietly, his eyes flicking quickly between the couple before he adds, as if an afterthought, “Hayes, Barett, Chouinard, Dykstra, all the loud guys cleared out a while ago.”

Ilya nods once, sharply. Shane’s faculties have returned enough that he’s helping Ilya now, undoing the straps on one of his elbow pads as Ilya works on the other. “Thank you, Bood,” Ilya says tightly.

“We’ve got your backs, you know that, right?” Bood says after a moment. Shane glances up at the man, surprised. He’s shifting foot to foot, restless in a way Zane Boodram normally isn’t.

“We know, Bood,” Shane says, forcing a small but hopefully reassuring smile onto his face, “thanks for the help.”

Bood nods once. He looks like he’s going to say more but then must think better of it because he turns and leaves.

Ilya helps Shane carefully to his feet and watches to make sure he’s steady on his feet before they grab all the gear Shane’s already shed and head to the locker room. Bood hadn’t been lying; the only players remaining inside are Haas, who’s finishing up packing his bag, and LaPointe, who’s technically in the trainer’s office getting his knee looked at.

Haas looks up when they come in and must read the guarded looks on both of their faces because he turns his gaze right back down to his task at hand. He leaves as Shane finishes taking off the rest of his gear and then its just Shane, Ilya, and the soft voices of the trainer and LaPointe a room away.

“Okay?” Ilya asks, walking over as Shane’s tying his shoelaces.

“I’m good,” Shane replies with a stiff nod.

Shane spends a good half of the drive home staring silently out the window. He’s so quiet and motionless that Ilya jumps slightly when he finally speaks about ten minutes away from home.

“I think I should maybe tell you what happened,” Shane says quietly, not looking away from the window. He sounds like it physically pains him to say what he does next. “With Kent.”

“You want?” Ilya says. It sounds like it hurts him to say that.

Shane laughs once humorlessly. “No, not really,” he says, shaking his head. He turns his head to look at Ilya, sees the way the Russian’s eyes are fixed on the road straight ahead. “But I think I should. For both of our sakes. Today, I was…I was babbling about my throat, and you didn’t even know why. Not really, at least.” Ilya’s eyes dart to his face for a moment before locking back on the road, the sound of a panicked Shane rambling the words ‘I thought I was gonna choke and die’ ringing through his head and taking on a new meaning. His grip on the steering wheel tightens.

“May be good for us, yes,” Ilya says, finally switching from painfully neutral to in agreement with Shane.

“After Christmas,” Shane says quietly. “I want us to enjoy the holiday.”

“Okay, moy lyubimyy,” Ilya agrees. My beloved. He reaches his free hand towards Shane, an offering, and Shane latches on. They lace their fingers together and keep them that way until they’re parked in their driveway and getting out of the car.

Ilya gets a text from Bood a little later on in the afternoon. Shane is asleep with his head in Ilya’s lap and has been for the last three hours. He’d tucked himself there shortly after they’d gotten home and Ilya had gently bullied him through a shower and lunch. Ilya smooths a hand down the hair at the back of Shane’s head and smiles softly when the smaller man shifts closer but doesn’t wake.

Bood: I told Hayes and Chouinard and everyone else that was in the locker room that the Dallas Kent trial was on the fine list going forward

Bood: and that I didn’t want that kinda talk in the room

Ilya is shocked for a moment, and then overtaken by a fondness for his teammate. His teammate who had, clearly and without being asked, read between the lines and formed a pretty accurate understanding of what was haunting Shane Hollander so severely.

Ilya: you are a good man, Boodram, thank you

Bood: of course, no problem, Roz

Bood: is Hollzy okay?

Ilya: he is okay. Sleeping

Ilya: I cannot tell you anything, Shane has not told me I can tell anyone, you are not supposed to know

Ilya: but I am not idiot, I know you know

Ilya: thank you for all you do, Bood. he and I are holding on

Bood: course, Roz. Lmk if you ever need anything

Ilya smiles to himself a bit, thinks to himself, I’ve already got one, Shane, I’ve got one who believes you. He leans down and presses a soft kiss to Shane’s temple. He doesn’t stir.

Ilya stays on the couch. Shane sleeps. Ilya thinks.

***

Christmas at the Hollander family home is noticeably more subdued than it had been the previous couple of years, Ilya thinks. There’s a noticeable wall Shane has put up between himself and his parents. Ilya knows why, but the worried looks they keep shooting Shane when the smaller man isn’t looking are killing him.

Shane knows that he’s practically haunting around the house like a ghost, but he can’t help it. This conversation he knows he needs to have with Ilya after the holiday, the one where he bears his soul and tells him just how bad Kent fucked him up, has been hanging over his head since he brought it up in the car yesterday. It’s kind of hard to get into the holly jolly spirit when all he can think about is what Ilya’s face is going to look like when it all comes out. It’s going to crush him, Shane knows.

Ilya’s sitting in the cushy armchair parked next to the Christmas tree towards the end of Christmas eve. The rest of the lights are turned way low so that the soft incandescent string lights are the room’s main source of lighting. The fireplace is roaring with a fire and quiet retro holiday music is floating through the room rather than the TV. He turns his head when he hears Shane’s padding feet approach, smiles with that smile that’s reserved only for Shane.

Shane smiles back even though he knows it must look a bit brittle. He crawls into Ilya’s lap without any warning, sitting sideways and leaning the side of his head on Ilya’s shoulder. Ilya accommodates him easily, coaxes Shane to tuck his legs slightly and to wind an arm around the back of Ilya’s neck. Shane is wearing an outfit comprised of only Ilya’s clothing, his team hoodie with the number 81 on the left shoulder and a pair of his sweatpants that, from the looks of it, are fighting for their lives to stay securely up and around the Canadian’s waist. It’s endearing and Ilya presses a kiss to his lips out of pure adoration.

“Moy nezhnyy mal'chik,” Ilya says softly, eyes shining with fondness. My soft boy. Shane blushes and tucks his face further into Ilya’s shoulder so that only half his face is showing. There’s a small smile playing on his lips, though.

“Da,” he says breezily, “YA tvoya.” I’m yours.

Shane falls asleep like that and Ilya just enjoys the sight. He actually looks relaxed and peaceful in his sleep for once, like the shadows that normally follow him into unconsciousness couldn’t reach him in the comfort of his childhood home. Ilya feels like his heart is going to explode.

He looks up when notices Yuna and the phone in her hand. She’d taken a picture, he knows, but he’s kind of glad. Him and Shane don’t have enough pictures together because they’d had to delete everything in the early years. Yuna smiles when their eyes meet.

“I’m sorry, I just had to,” she says sheepishly. Ilya smiles tiredly and waves a hand.

“Don’t be,” he says, accent thick from fatigue. “Must…make up for lost time?” Yuna nods to confirm he’d gotten the English expression right.

“Are you guys…okay?” she says quietly.

Ilya smiles a little tightly and pulls Shane closer to him.

“We are okay,” he murmurs. “Montreal just…takes it out of him.” It’s not technically a lie, Ilya reasons, but it’s definitely not the truth, either. It’s each other over everyone else, though, and that includes Yuna and David. Shane needs to be ready to tell his parents about this beast of a secret, not forced.

Yuna stares for a moment, assessing, and Ilya’s struck by how much she looks like Shane whenever he does the same. Then she nods, smiles, and wishes them goodnight.

Ilya scoops Shane up and carries him to the guest room on the first floor. Shane rouses when Ilya is arranging him under the covers, smiling dopily as he takes Ilya’s face in his hands.

“Heyy,” Shane coos.

“Hi, baby,” Ilya murmurs back.

“I fell asleep,” Shane says around a sigh, “sorry.”

Ilya leans forward and kisses him on the lips. “Don’t be, you are cute when you sleep.”

“So are you,” Shane murmurs, openly staring as Ilya kicks off his jeans and removes his shirt. He slides into bed beside Shane, but clearly not close enough based on the way Shane quickly wiggles his way closer.

“You watch me while I sleep, Hollander?” Ilya teases. Shane laughs lightly.

“So do you, apparently!” he says, shoving playfully at Ilya’s shoulder.

Ilya laughs genuinely and grins at Shane as he pulls him in closer so Shane is laying practically on top of him. Shane repositions instinctively, tangles one leg with Ilya’s and sprawls one of his arms across Ilya’s chest.

“Mm, yes, is true, I watch, you watch,” Ilya says, tucking Shane more securely against his side, “we both freaks, is okay, we be freaks together.”

Shane huffs out a laugh that turns into a yawn. Ilya pokes his nose and his lips quirk when Shane’s face scrunches up adorably.

“Go to sleep,” Ilya whispers, carding his fingers through Shane’s hair, “Santa will not come if you do not sleep.”

“Santa’s not real,” Shane mumbles, eyes slipping closed.

“I am expert in Christmas, Hollander, do not question me,” Ilya murmurs back. Shane hums and then goes limp against Ilya, face smoothing out with sleep. Ilya falls asleep shortly after, content for the first time in a while.

Chapter Text

January 2022

Ilya and Shane hold the team holiday party on New Year’s eve at their house in Ottawa and the team is absolutely thrilled to be there. Bood had held the Christmas party and it’d been the friendly family version of the team holiday party. Tonight is only for adults and will be, Shane is pretty sure, absolutely unhinged. A younger version of himself would probably be stressing, but here and now he’s simply watching Ilya fiddle with their smart TV and the Spotify app, fond and relaxed.

The official start for the party is nine but people start trickling in around 8:45. Bood and his wife Cassie, Troy and Harris. By 9:30, the music is loud, drinks are already flowing, and there’s minimum thirty people milling around their living room and back deck. Shane breathes, doesn’t allow himself to freak out, and stays close within Ilya’s orbit. He nurses a single solo cup of an honestly pretty good drink that Ilya had made for him once the house had filled up for longe than necessary, but nobody bothers him to drink more, here in Ottawa, there’s no pressure.

“Hollzy!” Bood shouts. “Come play Mario Kart!”

Shane turns to Ilya where he’s standing against his side in the kitchen, doesn’t say anything, but it’s like Ilya reads his mind, anyway.

“I will be around,” Ilya says, quiet enough so only Shane can hear, “won’t lose sight of you longer than a minute.”

Shane smiles softly and nods before turning and heading into their living room, much to Bood and their surrounding teammates’ joy. Shane plays a few games, wins one, and then volunteers his controller up for someone else to play. His eyes find Ilya immediately. He’s leaning against the kitchen island with one hand, the other waving around his glass of vodka as he speaks animatedly to an amused Troy Barrett. Ilya glances in his direction and immediately meets his eyes, a soft smile spreading across his face. Barrett follows Ilya’s gaze, turns and sees Shane, and rolls his eyes.

“You guys are so sappy,” he whines, peeling off for the back deck.

“Jealously is ugly on you!” Ilya crows back, but his eyes remain locked on Shane.

Ilya makes his way over and hands Shane another drink as he sips at his own. “Klubnika.” Strawberry.

Shane takes a drink and smiles. He’s never really liked beer and has finally stopped pretending like he does. It’s not like he drinks super often, anyway, but whenever he does it’s either some kind of seltzer or whatever fun mixed drink Ilya thinks he’ll like.

“Spasibo, malysh,” Shane replies. Thanks, baby.

Ilya sits at the end of the couch and Shane doesn’t hesitate to follow. Hayes is currently occupying the spot directly to his right, and Shane hesitates for approximately five seconds before he plants himself on Ilya’s lap. Ilya makes a soft, surprised noise, but places a steadying hand on Shane’s waist nonetheless.

“No space,” Shane says, and it sounds a little smug.

“I am definitely not complaining,” Ilya drawls, sipping his drink and winking when Shane doesn’t drop his gaze.

“I can’t believe my eyes!” someone shouts. “Never thought I’d see the day, at this rate!”

Shane finally turns his attention away from Ilya. It was Dykstra who’d said it, and he’s looking at, oh, he’s looking at Shane and Ilya. Shane flushes.

“See what?” he bites.

“See you do something that makes it obvious that you’re married!” he replies.

Bood, to his right, snickers. Ilya snorts, also.

Ilya leans closer so he can speak just to Shane. “Is a good thing, solnyshko,” he says quietly. “They are happy you are comfortable to show that.”

Shane relaxes but now he just looks embarrassed. No, not embarrassed. Shy. It’s adorable, Ilya thinks.

“This is barely anything,” he huffs. A competitive glint has appeared in his eye.

“No, no, look what you do now, Dykstra,” Ilya says, the look in Shane’s eyes not missing his notice. “He is gonna take this as challenge.”

Shane shrugs and takes a sip of his drink. “Lyudyam ne sleduyet govorit' chto-libo, yesli oni ne khotyat stolknut'sya s posledstviyami svoikh slov.” People should not say things if they do not want the consequences.

“You know, I think Rozy’s right,” Barrett says, looking between the couple and Dykstra. “Shane broke out the Russian, that’s not a good sign.”

Shane quirks an eyebrow.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says. Then, deadpan, “I’m Shane Hollander, Canadian golden boy. I have never done anything bad at all ever in my life, remember?”

“Oh, so he sits in his man’s lap and suddenly he has jokes?” Bood heckles.

“I am…legally intoxicated,” Shane replies, lifting the cup in his hand slightly before taking another drink from it. The joke sends a round of laughter through their teammates who are paying attention.

Ilya watches Shane carefully, looking for any signs that this topic of joking has landed wrong. Shane catches him staring and gives him a soft, easy smile. Ilya smiles back, relieved. Shane really is just letting loose a little bit right now, and he’s glad.

Shane stays right there, tucked away on Ilya’s lap, for the rest of the night. Bood puts the news on so they have a countdown to the new year. Shane makes zero effort to move anywhere as they reach sixty seconds to midnight. Hayes has vacated his spot on the couch to find his girlfriend, so Shane turns so he’s sitting sideways across Ilya’s lap. He smiles at Ilya and Ilya smiles right back.

“Was good year,” Ilya says quietly.

Shane nods, knows they’re not talking about all the drama with Montreal and then Kent. It was a good year for them. They’re married, they play together now, they live together now all the time, they don’t have to hide their relationship anymore. It feels like a dream.

“I love you so fucking much,” Shane says.

Ilya’s eyes sparkle. “I love you, too, malysh.” Baby.

The kiss Shane places on Ilya’s lips when the clocks strike midnight is sweet to start, but something in him feels emboldened, so he deepens it a bit, leans closer and places a hand on Ilya’s neck. Ilya makes a quiet noise of surprise but follows suit, places a hand on the back of Shane’s head and the other on Shane’s thigh.

Shane doesn’t pull away until Ilya makes to push his tongue into his mouth. They stare at each other, slightly breathless. Then Shane laughs, and it’s a giddy in a way Ilya’s never heard before. He laughs, too. Shane tips sideways so his head’s resting on Ilya’s shoulder. Ilya adjusts, pets through Shane’s hair with careful fingers, and enjoys the moment.

***

Shane addresses the slight elephant in the room the day after New Year’s day. He’d meant to tell Ilya about what happened with Kent after Christmas but he’d gotten distracted and hadn’t exactly minded. He’s avoided it long enough, though.

He sits him and Ilya down on the couch in their living room, side by side and close enough that their knees knock.

“So, um. I don’t want what happened last time to happen again, when you assumed I didn’t wanna do things because of the bad stuff I tell you about,” Shane begins, a preface. “I…most of the sex you and I have had has been after what happened with Kent, not before. I’d shoved all that stuff down years before the cottage, so by the time we were together I wasn’t in a rush to tell you because it didn’t really affect my life anymore. But, I also…some of the stuff Kent did, some of the stuff he called me, it’s stuff that I like being called by you. I don’t want our sex life to change, I like it the way it is, and telling you all this shit is going to have an effect on that whether we want it to or not, but I’m hoping to avoid any big changes.”

“What do you mean, he called you the same things?” Ilya says, eyebrows furrowed.

“Um, okay, I’ll give you an example. You…call me a slut sometimes, and I love it, you know I do, but the context is different. I’m your slut, only for you, because we love each other so much, you say it with love or desire. But when Kent called me an ugly slut, that was malicious and hateful and from someone who was violating my consent.”

Ilya nods slowly in understanding.

“So that’s an example of a word, but something we do…Kent put me on my knees with my face shoved into the bed. You fuck me like that, and it’s one of my favorite positions because the angle is…anyway, yeah. We do it because it feels good and it’s hot as fuck, but…” Shane pauses and swallows thickly. His voice is gravelly when he continues, “But Kent fucked me like that because he wanted to dehumanize me and make me bleed as much as possible.”

Ilya jerks slightly, suddenly getting his first peak into the true severity of the assault. Bleed, Kent had made Shane bleed.

“I know that’s…scary to hear. There are more scary parts, um, like that, but I just wanted to explain that I really want this to change things as little as possible.”

Ilya flinches slightly but it’s visible enough that Shane notices. He turns his head and stares, eyes flickering too fast all over Ilya’s face.

“Shane…” Ilya begins, licking his lips nervously. “I do not know if…Maybe we should keep avoiding all the kink stuff for longer than we planned?”

“No,” Shane says, tears suddenly gleaming in his eyes. “No, I’m…I’m supposed to be your good boy, and—and sometimes you’re ser. You—Ilya—” Shane’s breath hitches and Ilya panics.

“Hey, hey, breathe, baby,” Ilya says, brushing Shane’s hair back from his face.

“I get it if it scares you or all the Kent stuff makes you not wanna play like that anymore, so if that’s why you don’t wanna, that’s obviously okay,” Shane rambles, but the way he says it sounds like he’s putting on a brave face after being told he’s going to lose a limb. “But please don’t let him take that away from me if it’s not because of that, please Ilya.”

Ilya finally sees, truly, why Shane chose to preface the conversation about what Kent did to him like this. He’d been following along at the beginning, was able to understand that many people would never want to say the words that’ve been used so violently against their partner ever again and why Shane had wanted to warn him, but it runs deeper than that.

The power exchange they do with the aforementioned honorifics has always been something they like a lot, has always felt different than the other kinds of non-vanilla things that they indulge in. It feels like something special, and Ilya realizes then that that’s a mutual feeling, that Ilya’s noncommittal reaction to Shane begging for things to stay the same just shook something loose in Shane, something fragile.

Ilya doesn’t have this realization fast enough. When he focuses back in, Shane looks absolutely devastated but is desperately trying to hide it. He’d done the same thing when he’d thought Ilya didn’t want to have sex with him anymore, but this is somehow worse because this time he’s so overwhelmed he can’t cover it up.

“…I…I’m sorry, it’s o-okay, I get it, it’s’okay,” Shane is saying, quiet voice shaking and wrecked, bottom lip trembling. His shoulders are hunched and he looks so small. “Ilya?” He says Ilya’s name like he’d gotten lost somewhere, a brittle sound that shakes past his lips. Ilya had definitely taken too long to respond, he thinks.

Ilya gathers himself in an instant, unable to let this go on any longer.

“Shane, my love, Shane, sweetheart, you will always be my good boy, baby,” Ilya says, coaxing Shane to turn towards him.

The words hit and suddenly Shame is flinging himself into his lap. His hands twist tightly into Ilya’s shirt, one over his heart and the other near his waist. He tips his head forward until his forehead is resting on Ilya’s shoulder. He’s trembling slightly and his breath is coming out in quick puffs against Ilya’s shoulder.

Ilya’s body reacts automatically, one hand settling on Shane’s waist and the other curling around the nape of his neck. He pulls Shane in even closer until they’re pressed as close as possible, chest to chest, hanging on like something is trying to pull them apart.

“Da, yes, my sweet boy, you will always be moy khoroshiy mal'chik, always.” My good boy.

“Ilya,” Shane breathes. He sounds clearer, now, but still just as wrecked as before. “Don’t lie to me about this.”

Ilya’s grip tightens around Shane’s body.

“I am not lying,” Ilya says seriously. “I mean it, I promise. I do not say it anymore, but that is because we agreed to that. I’m sorry, solnyshko, I keep, um…freezing up? Brain needs a minute to catch up, lately is very slow, you know, when I hear about what Kent did, the hurt he cause.”

Shane leans back far enough that they can see each other’s faces. “I know it can’t be easy for you, either. I’m sorry. I think I’m doing the opposite, I jump to conclusions so fast now.”

“Is okay,” Ilya says softly, swiping both his thumbs beneath Shane’s eyes to wipe away the tears that’d slipped free during his spiral. “Is why conversation like this so important. We cannot guess how the other thinks or feels, makes both of us upset when we guess or assume.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Shane nods. “But, um, this? It’s…do you promise? I…I believe you, I do, but…”

But this is something fragile and wobbly inside you, Ilya wants to finish, but doesn’t. It’s trusting that Ilya isn’t going to go back on his word which isn’t easy to do considering their self-imposed “kink break” doesn’t have a planned end date.

“I promise, Shane. You…me as ser or just Ilya, and you as my good boy…is special.”

The light that had dimmed in Shane’s eyes starts to creep back in.

“You think it’s special?” he says quietly, leaning his cheek into Ilya’s hand. “You think it’s special, too?”

Too. Too. Ilya’s heart is exploding, a mix of fond tenderness and love and heartbreak. This is not how he expected this daunting conversation to go. His stomach drops slightly when he remembers that they haven’t actually even had that conversation yet. It’s probably going to happen on another day at this rate, he reasons. He pushes it aside, at least for now, and smiles softly.

“Has always felt special,” he says, accent thick and voice slightly hoarse.

Shane smiles, small but sweet, nostalgic, maybe, like he’s remembering the first time they’d said those things to each other. They’d been years younger, fumbling and awkward at first, but it was immediately something that felt right and good. They’d known even back than that it was more significant than just the horny thrill of calling your partner “sir” in bed.

Shane looks down and sighs. “Fuck. Sorry for the spiral. I still gotta, fuck, I still gotta tell you what happened.”

“Mm, no, not today,” Ilya says, resolute and matter-of-fact.

“Ilya, come on, I’m fine—” Shane begins, but Ilya shushes him and shakes his head.

“No, Hollander, can wait for tomorrow. Tonight we have dinner and go to bed early. I hold you close and we sleep. Tomorrow is a new day,” Ilya says. His lips quirks, eyes sparkling before he continues. “Ser’s orders, okay?”

Shane snorts and rolls his eyes but he nods in agreement nevertheless.

***

Shane makes sure that conversation happens the next day. He wants it done and over with before the All-Star break, wants to fully enjoy the event for the first time in his life. He can’t have this conversation hanging over his head any longer.

He makes him and Ilya hot chocolate and they settle onto the couch. Shane had put a little bit of thought into how they should sit for the conversation last night. Sitting side by side on the couch yesterday hadn’t been a good choice, it’d felt too impersonal. Shane usually wants to sit in Ilya’s lap for hard conversations like this, but he prefers nobody look at him when discussing all things Kent, and that even includes Ilya in most cases. Shane had decided on a happy medium: Shane laid, back to Ilya’s chest, in between Ilya’s legs on the couch.

Ilya pulls the fluffy down blanket they keep on the couch over them. There’s an episode of some medical drama playing on the TV, the volume set low so it’s only serving as background noise. It’s as comfortable of a setting as it’s going to get.

“So I’ll just talk and you can ask whatever you want but I don’t want to dwell too much on one thing or I’ll never finish it. All of it is awful, and I’ve never said all of it out loud before, but I just need to do it, okay?” Shane says, another preamble.

“Don’t have to rush,” Ilya says quietly, kissing his hair.

“I want to get it over with,” Shane replies, reaching down to lace their fingers together. “I think it’ll be easier to just tell you like it’s…like it’s a story? So I don’t have to decide what’s important and what isn’t as I go. So, I’ll just start now, I guess. Umm. It was that same night we talked in the stands at the figure skating event, I was walking back to my room in the dorm and there were people coming and going all over, even my floor, so I wasn’t really paying attention. When I swiped into my room, though, someone followed in right behind me and shoved me forward. I tripped and he locked the door and the deadbolt.”

He’s playing with Ilya’s fingers and the Russian is more than content to let him because this already sounds bad.

“I was like, uh, what the fuck? And then I saw who it was and, you know, I wasn’t immediately thinking he was gonna do what he did, but he didn’t exactly have a great reputation even back then. I was pissed, asked him what the fuck he thought he was doing. He grabbed my arm as I was trying to get up but I shoved him off and we ended up, like, wrestling on the floor.” Shane laughs lightly at the way he chooses to phrase it, but it’s flat and emotionless.

“I punched him in the ribs pretty hard and he was pissed, managed to grab me by the shoulders and shove me back so fast that I hit my head on the floor. When I turned on my side, he kicked me in the face and my nose cracked, there was blood everywhere. I stayed on the floor, and he got down right by my face to talk to me. I don’t remember exactly what he said, not like some of the other things he said, but it was basically that I, uh, wasn’t gonna move and I was stay quiet and let him do what he wanted or else he’d out you to the Russian media.”

Ilya makes a pained noise. Shane swallows thickly.

“I’d hit my head at that point, things were kind of moving in slow motion, and my nose was bleeding all over the place, so it wasn’t like I could do much at that point, anyways. But I, uh, I shut the fuck up and did what he said. He grabbed me by my hair and yanked me up to my knees, dug his fingers into my jaw and made me look at him. He was smirking and his eyes looked all weird.

He said. Um. He said ‘I wanna hear it, Hollander. Say you understand, like a good boy’ and, I don’t know, maybe I made a face or something because his eyes practically lit up.” Shane sniffles then. Ilya can feel the effect that re-experiencing this part is having on him, can feel the way his hand shakes slightly against his own. “He said, ‘Christ, I always figured Rozanov was a fag, but you two are just sick’ and he laughed, and started to undo his belt. He said ‘okay, good boy, I’m gonna fuck your mouth with my dick now, and you’re gonna take it like a good little slut’ and then he just…did. And I took it.”

Shane’s body starts to shake now, fine tremors that aren’t a full shutdown but definitely aren’t good, either. He pulls Ilya’s hand towards his him, hugs Ilya’s arm to his chest when the Russian allows him to reposition a bit. The words come faster now, panic slowly but surely creeping in.

“It was…it was big, and I couldn’t breathe through my nose, so the whole time I was just hoping he’d notice when I was about to pass out and stop. My head started to hurt and my ears started to ring because, you know, no air. But then I gagged, I don’t…I don’ know why. I was gonna throw up, I felt it starting, I was so scared, I would’ve choked on it if I did, it would’ve killed me, probably. But he pulled out, so I guess he saw, I don’t know.” Shane’s shoulders jerk up and down in a stiff shrug.

The next burst of words are quieter and unsure.

“And he picked me up by the arm, threw me towards my bed, bent me over, pulled my pants and underwear off. Said, ‘No noise or I’ll gag you with your own underwear, got me, Hollander?’ And I knew I wouldn’t be able to breathe if he did, so I said okay. And, well, he shoved a finger in my ass, like, once, and spit in his hand a couple times but t-that was, um, it. Grabbed my, um, hips, really hard, and just forced his dick into me.” He pauses, almost like he can’t quite believe it himself.

“I, um, bit down on my tongue so ha-ard it bled because I knew I couldn’t yell. I wanted to scream. He didn’t wait, it was really fast and hard, it burned really bad. I started pulling away from him and he shoved my face down onto the bed by the back of my neck and pressed harder when I kept moving, told me to stay still.”

Shane stops, staring off into space for a moment.

“I, uh, it hurt really bad,” he says again, quiet, small. It’s a sound similar to something Ilya had heard from him yesterday. Lost. “I didn’t want to, I wanted him to stop. But.”

“I know, solnyshko,” Ilya murmurs, brushes the thumb of his free hand back and forth across Shane’s hip.

“And at one point I thought he was done, because something was on my leg, I thought he came,” Shane continues, his voice steadier, closer to like it was at the beginning, a bit detached. “But he kept going, and I was like, oh, no, I’m bleeding, that’s what that is, it’s blood.

And I just…let go, I guess. It wasn’t even, like, a choice. My brain just received that information and shut everything off. He finished and apparently took that picture that he had on his phone, I don’t remember it. Didn’t come back to myself until he pulled out and everything rushed back, the pain, all of it. He grabbed my hair, yanked way too hard, forced me to look at him and told me not to say anything or else he’d out you.”

“I’m sorry, Shane,” Ilya murmurs.

“I was terrified. That he’d do it anyways. That he’d tell someone I was gay or that you were gay. So I nodded. And he shook his head, said, ‘no, say it, in a complete sentence’ and I was in shock at that point I think and didn’t answer fast enough, I guess, because he stuck, um, three, I think, three fingers into me and spread them out and it hurt so fucking bad, but he just said, ‘say it.’ I said ‘yes, I understand’ and he said, ‘no, say it correctly, like a good boy. You wanna be a good boy, right, Hollander?’ and he laughed at me when I shook my head and shoved his fingers in deeper and, I just said it, I said it. Called him sir. And he took his fingers out and slapped me on the ass and then pulled his pants back up. Told me he’d see me around, like we…like we were friends or something, and he finally left.”

Shane doesn’t say anything for a few moments.

“So, that’s what happened,” he says eventually.

“Are you okay?” Ilya replies, soft and gentle.

Shane shakes his head no and turns so that he’s lying on his side within the V of Ilya’s legs. Ilya’s arms encircle him automatically, pulling him close to his chest.

“Anything I can do?” Ilya croaks.

“Just this,” Shane replies. “And…and don’t shut down on me. Please.”

Ilya soothes a hand up and down Shane’s arm, watches as the smaller man’s eyes slip closed slightly from the contact. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Shane’s shaky breathing has evened out and his shaking has completely ceased by the time he speaks again. His eyes stay closed but a bitter smile is playing on his lips.

“So, to answer some possible questions: I didn’t go to the hospital, we were in Russia and I couldn’t let anyone know. I took a shower, I cleaned myself up, re-set my nose, changed the sheets and cleaned up the blood. I was in bed by the time Hayden got back to the room for the night. I told him I tripped over my bag and smacked my face on the nightstand when he saw my face in the morning. But, yeah. That’s it. And, um…” he trails off, biting his lip slightly. His voice wavers the whole way through the rest of it, “you’re the only one I’ve ever told, so. Yeah.”

Shane sounds shy and unsure when he says it, and it’s enough to pull Ilya out of that cold rage that’d slowly eaten through his body as his husband told him the story. He doesn’t want Shane to think that he’s mad at him; Ilya’s nuclear-level enraged at Kent, and also angry at himself.

“I’m glad you told me, baby,” he says hoarsely, petting a hand down the hair at the back of Shane’s head. “I’m proud of you.”

“I’m…I’m sorry you’re stuck dealing with this,” Shane says, painfully quiet, purposely keeping his head tucked and not looking at Ilya’s face.

“Shane, net, there is no ‘stuck,’ there is no ‘dealing with,’” Ilya says immediately. No. “Shane, look at me.”

Shane doesn’t, at first. After a few moments it becomes clear that Ilya will wait him out. He leans his head back finally and makes hesitant eye contact.

“I am here because I want to be here, Shane. I love you. Just like you would do anything—” Ilya’s voice breaks, “—anything for me, I would do anything for you. Because we love each other and sometimes bad things happen in life but that does not mean people should run. If this were opposite, this happened to me, would you feel like dealing with it with me is you stuck?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Shane says immediately, voice soft.

“Right. So we deal with together, even if it is hard,” Ilya murmurs, voice hoarse. “I am very sorry this happened to you, but I am not sorry for myself to be here with you. Is privilege.”

“S’not a privilege,” Shane huffs, rolling his eyes. There’s a slight smile quirking his lips.

Ilya’s lips quirk, too. “Is very special privilege to be trusted with secrets of Shane Hollander,” Ilya says, playfully now, “Shane Hollander is very private man, he buy whole building just to have sex with man he secretly love.”

“Fuck off!” Shane says, laughing. Ilya is making jokes during a serious moment just like he usually does, and Shane loves him for it. It breaks the serious, somber atmosphere that talking about Kent had created.

“’They hate him because he spoke the truth,’” Ilya says, eyes filled with mirth.

“I cannot believe you’re quoting memes at me right now, this was a very serious matter!” Shane says, turning around fully and straddling a thoroughly amused Ilya.

“Is a sickness, I know,” Ilya replies, smug.

Shane stares for a moment longer, their eyes never leaving each other’s. He leans forward and presses a kiss to Ilya’s lips, sweet but lingering, and places a hand on his neck when he pulls away. “I love you.”

Ilya smiles. “I love you, too, moya lyubimaya.” My beloved.

Chapter Text

January 2022, Pt. 2

Ilya and Shane fly out to New Jersey together Friday morning of All-Star weekend. They take a nap in their hotel, tired from the week’s games and then the additional travel. They get dressed for the night around five. Shane must seem a little nervous because Ilya pulls him in by his hips, takes the tie Shane had picked out of his hands, and loops his own tie around Shane’s neck. Shane stares, enraptured, as Ilya ties his own tie around Shane’s neck and then, once he’s done, straighten it out neatly.

He looks up and meets Shane’s eyes, a corner of his lip quirking. “So you have a piece of me always,” Ilya says softly.

Shane leans up and presses a lingering kiss to Ilya’s lips. Ilya makes a happy noise and kisses him back before pulling back after a moment. Shane grins when they pull apart, grabbing his own tie out of Ilya’s hand and doing the same thing his husband just had.

“You look nice,” Shane says quietly, smoothing his hands down the shoulders of Ilya’s suit jacket.

“Mm, you look pretty yourself, moy blin,” Ilya replies.

“Your…pancake?” Shane says, laughing lightly when he translates it correctly.

“Da, malysh,” Ilya says, smiling back. Yes, baby.

They catch the bus leaving for the arena with plenty of time to spare. Frantic camera clicks follow them as they make their way into the arena, but they don’t pause to pay them any mind. Shane is secretly excited to see the pictures later; there is only one form of media he likes, had gained an appreciation for once the dust settled after they were outed, and it’s pictures of him and Ilya as a couple. There’s a picture of Shane kissing Ilya’s helmet after Ilya scored an OT game winner against Boston that he particularly loves.

Ilya was elected as the Centaurs representative for the All-Star game this season and Shane, to nobody’s surprise, was one of the fans’ vote-in picks. Montreal elected Comeau, which Shane thinks is just absolutely hysterical, but Hayden is there after getting voted in, as well.

Dallas Kent, for once, is noticeably absent. Being suspended from the League and midway through a sexual assault trial tends to have that effect, it would seem.

Shane had fun at all the previous All-Star games, sure, especially the ones when he and Ilya were on good terms. He was never able to fully enjoy it, though, because it was hard not to be hyperaware of Kent’s presence and the potential for the guy to be lurking around somewhere the entire weekend. That’s obviously not a concern this year and it has Shane breathing a lot easier.

The team rosters this year are to be determined by an all-star mock player draft, a callback to past games in the early 2010’s. There are two teams with a captain and alternate captain each that were predetermined by the league: Team Hunter with Scott Hunter and his teammate Carter Vaughn and Team Green with Alex Green and his teammate Chris Merello from Detroit. The choice of players for these roles in past All-Star games was always some kind of dynamic duos so while the fan favorite All-Star draft will be well received, Shane thinks that the decision to not make him and Ilya captains will be viewed as a glaringly obvious slight against them by fans. He doesn’t let it bother him, though; he knows damn well that the anxiety from all the public speaking required would’ve just ruined the weekend for him.

Scott bullies Shane and company into tequila shots before the draft is set to start. Ilya looks at him knowingly as they make their way to the open bar.

“Vam ne obyazatel'no pit', yesli vy etogo ne khotite,” Ilya says quietly as they walk. You don’t have to drink if you don’t want.

“Je sais,” Shane replies. I know.

Ilya’s brow furrows for a moment. “Ty znayesh'?” Ilya says in translation. You know?

Shane smiles as they come to a stop at the bar where Hunter is placing their order. “Da,” Shane says. There are a few events he lets loose at and the All-Star game is often one of them, this year even more so: Ilya’s here and Kent isn’t hiding around every corner for once.

The shots burn the whole way down his throat, but Shane finds that he doesn’t really mind too much. They do three back to back and Shane suggests they stop there. Everyone agrees. Shane would never deny that he’s a lightweight, so he’s feeling pretty tipsy and loose as they all make their way to the tables set aside for the players to sit at as they wait to be drafted to a team.

Scott’s face is smug when he leans forward towards the mic to announce their first draft pick after the main host, Mark Wright, a retired Phoenix Firebirds player, does the introduction to the night.

“Team Hunter is proud to select Shane Hollander from the Ottawa Centaurs.” There’s applause, because of course there is, as Shane plasters an easygoing smile onto his face and makes his way up onto the stage. He shrugs off his suit jacket and hands it to the waiting stage assistant as he goes.

There’s a lot of corny and borderline awkward showboating that goes on at these games that give it a playful fun atmosphere that is, considering the league that they play in, honestly a breath of fresh air. Shane doesn’t mind it but also can’t help the blush spreading down his neck as Scott very clearly emulates what players look like when they’re first drafted into the league. He comes around the podium toward Shane to hand him his jersey and overenthusiastically shake his hand. Shane pulls the jersey down over his head as gracefully as possible. He plays along when Scott turns his head to look directly into the camera focused on them with a grin on his face, putting an exaggerated awkward smile on his face until they get the shot and he releases Scott’s hand.

Mark Wright swoops in on the pair of them before Shane has the chance to sit down, standing between him and Scott where he’s returned to his spot behind his team’s podium.

“So, Scott, tell me, was it a tough choice between Hollander and Rozanov?” the host says.

“Well, Mark, I’d never pass up the opportunity to draft the best player in the league,” Scott replies, eyes flicking to where Ilya is still sitting at the table that Shane had quickly been forced to vacate.

“You wound me, Hunter,” Ilya calls, loud enough to be heard without a mic, hand held to his chest.

There’s a round of laughter from the players and crowd alike. It’s…nice, Shane thinks. They’re all laughing with him and Ilya, not at. His shoulder relax slightly.

Shane feels something calm settle over him. Playing in Montreal after it was revealed that he and Ilya are together was like existing in a vacuum, it seems, an echo chamber of negativity that skewed his world view in a way he’s still coming to realize. The looks on their fellow players’ faces right now, at least 80% of them, he reasons, is humor and amusement. Even thinly veiled disgust is hard to find unless his eyes stray to players like his ex-teammate Comeau or that homophobic asshole Declan McDavis from the Minnesota Nomads. From what Shane can see, the majority of the room is viewing Ilya and Shane less like they’re radioactive and more like they’re what they are: a regular couple. He’s known, logically, that this is the case, but seeing and experiencing it so plainly is different.

He decides then to lean into it and try to enjoy it. This is likely the calm before the storm that will come when the identity of John Doe #1 is inevitably leaked. There’s no Kent looming over his shoulder this year and everyone knows he and Ilya love each other and hardly anyone seems to care. He wants to have fun before things change, even if that change will be temporary.

“And you, Shane?” Mark asks, turning to him. “What are we hoping for next? Should Team Green spring for Rozanov and reignite the rivalry?”

Shane…smirks. The reaction surprises even himself.

“If they’re in the market for second best hockey players, then sure,” Shane replies, mouth moving of its own accord.

He meets Ilya’s eyes briefly, watches the words land and sees his husband’s mouth drop open slightly in affronted shock. Hayden’s frame starts shaking with poorly contained laughter beside him. Their fellow teammates join in, and again, it’s not mocking, it’s genuine humor and slight disbelief at what they’re currently witnessing.

“Oh, alright, maybe there’s no need to reignite?” Mark says, face bright like he’s just won the lottery. Shane supposes he kind of has as a host, anyway; Shane Hollander is typically a media-trained machine in the face of most media or public appearances and yet he just channeled his inner Ilya Rozanov right here on live television.

Shane smiles knowingly and shakes his head, leaning forward slightly to talk directly into the microphone. “That rivalry has always been alive and well.”

“Right, well,” Mark begins. He continues, smoothly transitioning back to the task at hand which is Team Green’s first pick.

Shane takes his seat in the designated area of chairs where players are to sit after they’ve been “drafted.” Hayden’s face is slightly red from laughter when he meets his gaze from back at their table and Shane rolls his eyes in mild amusement. They all watch as Green and Merello huddle up at their podium and pretend to talk strategy. Green turns to the mic dramatically once they’re done.

“Team Green is thrilled to select Ilya Rozanov from the Ottawa Centaurs,” he announces, shooting a playfully dirty look over at Hunter who laughs openly.

Shane watches as Ilya gets to his feet and makes his way onto the stage. He accepts the jersey Green hands him and pulls it over his head, body language nonchalant in a very Ilya-like way as Mark approaches with his microphone.

“Alright, Rozanov, how are we feeling?”

“Could be better, Mark, could be better,” Ilya says, “First old man call me second best, then my own husband, is truly hurtful.” He pouts slightly. The audience laughs.

“I’m only three years older than you!” Scott says, exasperated, from off to the side. More laughter.

“And I won Cup before him, but I guess we’re all just saying things, yes?” Ilya says, pointing a finger at Shane but swinging his gaze around Mark to look at Scott.

It’s Shane’s turn to look affronted.

“I have 2 more Cups than you!” he says without thinking. This exact topic is something he and Ilya still to this day playfully bicker about on a semi-regular basis, often to the annoyance or, on rare occasions, fear of their teammates.

Ilya turns fully to Shane, a glint in his eyes.

“I win the Hart.”

Shane matches his energy, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes as he leans back in his seat slightly. He goes for the jugular, “Rookie of the Year.”

“Look what you’ve done, Scott!” Mark exclaims, but Shane is only focused on the way Ilya’s eyes flash with something…too hot for where they currently are. Their gazes are mutually heated for a moment, a blink and you miss it kind of thing because they both know they’re already toeing the line as it is, but it makes an impression.

“Well, Mark,” Ilya says, dropping Shane’s gaze so he can clap the host on the shoulder as he makes his way towards his team’s section of seats. “Hollander did say ‘alive and well.’”

Ilya takes the seat directly across the small aisle between the two sections of seats, their eyes meeting once again as he does. Shane forces himself to look away after a moment too long. The bickering wasn’t just a joke, it really is them wanting to compete with each other. They don’t get to do it as much now that they play together, and Shane thinks it’s fair for two players pitted against each other their entire careers to miss competing at least a little bit once they suddenly play for the same team full time.

Team Hunter selects Cliff Marleau. He’s grinning as he comes over and takes a seat beside Shane.

“You guys are fuckin’ hysterical,” he says immediately, patting Shane’s knee once in greeting like teammates often do.

“Watch where you put those hands, Marleau,” Ilya says, loud enough to be heard from across the aisle.

Shane shares an unimpressed look with Cliff before turning to Ilya.

“I’m pretty sure it’s painfully clear that I’m unavailable, Rozanov,” Shane says.

“And I’m straight, Rozy,” Cliff adds.

“Semantics,” Ilya replies, shaking his head as he waves a hand around slightly.

Hayden gets drafted to Team Green.

Shane turns back to Cliff. “I want to stop them into the ground on Sunday, ouias?” Shane says. Yeah?

Cliff snorts, amused. “Christ, you two, it’s just the All-Star game.”

Hayden comes over and takes the seat next to Ilya. Mick Lawrence from Pittsburgh is drafted to Team Hunter.

“We play together all the time now,” Ilya says from across the aisle, his voice playfully mournful. “Is amazing, da, but making bets on our drills at practice is only so rewarding.”

“You guys place bets on the drills you do in practice?” Cliff says incredulously.

“Well, yes, but team is making us take a break on that right now because it got a little…heated,” Ilya says, smirking slightly.

“Yeah, because he fuckin’ cheats,” Shane bites out.

“Oh my God?” Hayden says distantly. “I can’t believe this conversation is happening right now?”

Nobody pays Hayden any mind. Mick Lawrence takes his seat beside Cliff. Ilya leans slightly into the aisle towards Shane.

“What? What you say, Hollander? You say I cheat?” Ilya says, affronted. “You call me cheat when you trip me?”

Shane’s eyes snap to Ilya’s and he leans slightly into the aisle, as well.

“You know damn well you caught a divet in the ice, you Russian menace,” Shane hisses. “There are witnesses.”

“Oh, wow,” Cliff says. “I didn’t know I was gonna get a front row seat to the Rivalry™ tonight, this weekend just gets better and better.”

This breaks Shane and Ilya out of the moment of mutually genuine irritation they’d been experiencing. They both lean back out of the aisle and sit normally in their seats. Shane thinks they’re done for the time being until Ilya speaks as they reposition, “Oh, yes, you would be surprised to know just how real that rivalry is.”

“Etogo dostatochno,” Shane says sharply. That’s enough.

Ilya stares, narrows his eyes, and then rolls them, grumbling dramatically about nothing.

Brooklyn’s Erick Mendel, just drafted to Team Hunter, takes a seat next to Mick Lawrence. “Hollander knows fuckin’ Russian?”

Ilya grins and Shane blushes. Hayden and Cliff shake their heads in amusement.

Once every player has been drafted, each team patiently sits through the ordeal of getting group pictures taken before they’re dismissed for the night. Shane and Ilya head for the bar with Hayden, Cliff, Carter Vaughn, Scott Hunter, and Kip.

The bar they go to is one that the players from Jersey recommended and Shane can see why. It’s less of a bar and more of a club, Shane knows, but there’s very low lighting in most areas and set up in a way that the booths are the ideal amount of secluded a pro hockey player needs.

Hayden shoves his phone in Shane’s face about an hour into the outing to show him a picture that had gone viral on Twitter, cackling and body loose with alcohol. Shane groans slightly and shakes his head. It’s a photo of the exact moment Shane and Ilya’s eyes had locked when they were looking at each other across the aisle. Their poorly disguised stubborn competitiveness was clocked immediately and Twitter is aglow with the confirmation that, yes, Shane and Ilya hadn’t faked their rivalry at all because, as the general consensus seemed to be, they looked like they wanted to kill each other and fuck each other at the same time.

“I have no idea what came over me,” he says.

Shane’s not really upset, just feeling kind of shy. It’d been so much fun, actually, interacting with Ilya in public so easily like that. Their fellow players were overall very amused by it, apparently. The reception from the fans is startlingly positive, as well, from the looks of the Tweets under #hollanov on Twitter.

“Maybe the three tequila shots we all had before the draft?” Hayden deadpans.

“That’ll do it,” Cliff says grimly.

“Look on the bright side,” Hayden says, laughing lightly, “I don’t think there’s gonna be a lot more questions about whether the rivalry was ever real or not.”

“Would only need to interview Centaurs to prove that,” Ilya replies, poking at Shane’s side. Shane is seated directly on Ilya’s lap in the booth they’re all currently occupying, Ilya’s arms looped securely around his waist. “We compete to see who collects pucks faster after practice, bet on breakaway drills.”

“And argued so severely about who won a race on the ice a few months ago that the team genuinely thought we were angry at each other for the rest of the day,” Shane adds, bopping Ilya lightly on the nose just to see the way the Russian’s face scrunches up in reaction.

“Oh, so you two are just…like this?” Kip pipes up, then scrambles to rephrase, “I mean, like, you go back and forth like that all the time?”

“Yes,” everyone else at the table says in near unison.

“Listen, man, it’s just their freaky form of foreplay,” Hayden says, patting Kip on the shoulder.

“Hayden!” Shane exclaims.

Hayden fixes him with a look. “Shane.”

“It’s not just foreplay!” Shane says, exasperated.

Hayden’s face lights up. “Just? Just? So you admit it!”

Ilya locks his arms around his husband’s waist when he feels the Shane try to lunge across the table at his best friend. “Is okay, Shane, we are freaks together, is fine,” he coos jokingly. His eyes flick up and down Hayden before he continues. “Pike has, what, a million children? He will never beat the freak allegations, either.”

Hayden squawks, offended.

“I have no idea how I never even realized,” Scott says, shaking his head. “You look like you want to eat each other when you’re on the ice.”

“Neither do I,” Shane replies, sipping at some fruity cocktail slushy that he’d decided he’d earned after what a mortifying ordeal of being known the draft had been. He remembers something, suddenly, and laughs. “Ilya literally told me his hotel room number right in front of you one year.”

Scott’s face drops in shock. “What?”

Ilya laughs, his chest shaking slightly against Shane’s back. “Da, skate right by your bench and tell him.”

“No shit? What year?”

“2011, in Nashville,” Shane replies. Then, in a poor imitation of Ilya’s Russian accent, “1221.”

Scott freezes, then leans forward and rests his forehead on the table in front of him. “No,” he says.

“What?” Kip says, looking between the couple and Scott.

“You fucker!” Scott exclaims, head snapping back up and pointing at Shane with a disbelieving laugh. “You knew I had the room next to Roz and you still fucked that loudly?”

Shane blushes scarlet. A laugh is shocked out of Ilya.

“Hollzy, you dog!” Cliff crows.

“No, no, was my fault,” Ilya says, smugness masked poorly with nonchalance, “Shane had worry about Scott being next door, but I am just so good at sex, you see—”

Scott, Hayden, and Cliff drown out the rest of what Ilya was going to say by booing loudly and throwing crumpled up napkins at him. Shane turns and swats him on the shoulder, but everyone is laughing including him.

***

Shane and Ilya are both chosen by their respective team captains to compete in the accuracy shooting competition. Scott informs him with a smug look and Shane can’t help but comment this time.

“You’re doing this on purpose, now,” Shane says.

“Just giving the people what they want, Hollander,” Scott replies, walking away to inform other players of their assigned competitions.

“And what is it that the people want?” Shane grumbles, sitting down heavily in his locker stall.

“After that picture from last night?” Vaughn says, striding by in his gigantic goalie pants. “You two at each other’s throats, I think.”

“Crisse,” Shane curses under his breath. Christ.

They all head to the ice for warm-ups together. The league is saving the formal player introductions for tomorrow night before the game, so today’s thankfully pretty low pressure. Shane will compete in his assigned skill competition and only assist in others like passing pucks for the passing competition and obstacle course. Other than that, he’ll float around on either the ice or the bench within the flock of his fellow NHL players and some of their toddling kids.

Shane sits with Ilya on one of the literal benches that the ice crew must’ve dragged onto the ice before the event began. Hayden sits to Shane’s right and Cliff to Ilya’s left. They all intermittently spend some time chatting with distant friends they have within the league and it’s a relaxed atmosphere.

Asher Rivera from Toronto wins the fastest skater competition by a good three seconds. His lukewarm reaction to the win reminds Ilya of a shy rookie Shane, and he supposes it’s fair. Rivera may not be a rookie anymore but he’s spent more time playing in the AHL than the NHL, a fact that still mystifies the league as a whole.

Rivera was drafted to Toronto and played an entire season with them his rookie year. He’d been leading the team in scoring when he was sent down to the AHL halfway through his second season. He spent at least a season in the AHL and, no matter how much the media asked Toronto’s leadership, there was no legitimate explanation given for demoting a player who had been performing so well. He’d been called back up to the NHL last February and has remained up in the major league ever since. Even Troy Barrett, someone with intimate knowledge of Toronto’s inner workings, can’t explain the poor coaching choice.

Shane and Ilya get tapped by an on-ice coordinator to get ready for their event. They stand in a clump right inside the neutral zone along with about 5 other players. Shane tries to stress out as they wait for their turn. He’s done this event a few times over the years, distinctly remembers the year Ilya beat Scott’s record and then had gone ahead and immediately beaten Ilya’s new record.

“Make a bet?” Ilya says quietly as they watch Joseph Anderson from St. Louis take his turn.

Shane turns to him. “What kinda bet?”

“I win, you wear my jersey for the day,” Ilya replies, turning to him, as well, and flashing him a cocky grin. “Brought my away jersey.”

“And if I win?” Shane replies.

Something mischievous flashes in Ilya’s eyes. “What you want, Hollander?”

The look Ilya is giving him makes Shane want to be a little bold for once.

“You wear my jersey for the rest of the night,” Shane replies, turning away to watch the next player have his turn at shooting. “I have my away game jersey in the locker room, too.”

“Fucking hell, Hollander,” Ilya curses. Shane can see the Russian shaking his head slightly, but the look on his face is, if not mostly exasperated, slightly heated. A corner of Shane’s mouth twitches. “Da, is a bet.”

They each take a glove off and tuck it under their arms. Ilya extends his hand with a cocky grin and Shane stares him down, a similar smile on his face, as he takes his hand and they shake on it. The bet is official.

“Oh, shit,” Hunter says from a few paces away.

“That was a bet, wasn’t it?” Cliff says.

“They really weren’t kidding,” Hayden says in disbelief.

Shane keeps his back to his friends even though he and Ilya hear the entire exchange. If only they knew the kind of chaos Shane and Ilya are about to invite onto the ice for the remainder of the evening, no matter who wins.

Shane’s turn is up next.

“Gonna get you in my jersey, Hollander!” Ilya calls as Shane skates up to the designated spot on the ice they’re shooting from.

“In your dreams, Rozanov,” Shane drawls back, grinding to a stop at the line draw on the ice a few paces inside the blueline.

There’s a pile of pucks to the side to pull from and shoot rather than a player high in the zone passing each puck between shots like the past few years, and Shane is grateful for the change. It was always such a mess and it affected the final times randomly.

The on-ice commentator must’ve handed the torch off because it’s Marleau who skates over to Ilya with a microphone in his hands.

“Alright, Rozanov, was that a bet you just made with Hollander?” Cliff says in greeting. “The fans wanna know.”

“The fans?” Ilya repeats, eyebrows raised.

“Yes, yes, very curious minds would like to know,” Cliff insists, holding the microphone out dramatically to his friend.

“Well, we make bets all the time, but team at home make us take break because apparently we fight too much over them, everyone very sensitive,” Ilya says, “But, we figure, it is All-Star weekend, a little bet not hurt anyone.”

“What’d you bet on?”

“Who gets the better time,” Ilya replies, gesturing to where Shane is getting the get-ready signal from the ref. "I win, he wears my extra away jersey for the night.”

They stop talking once the ref blows the whistle as they do for every player so they can concentrate. Performing poorly during the skills competition as an All-Star player is a special kind of hell most players wouldn’t wish on anyone, especially not veteran players.

Shane gets all four targets in four precise shots. Ilya watches, mesmerized by the focused look on his husband’s face. It’s his no-nonsense hockey face, the one that comes out when Shane is dialing in and channeling every bit of skill he’s acquired over the many years. The ref blows the whistle the second the fourth Styrofoam target explodes into multiple pieces, and the time is impressive.

Another player goes after Shane and Ilya goes last. In the end, neither of them break the record, but Shane does beat Ilya by 0.2 seconds. Ilya beat third place by 1.3 seconds. All in all, it’s an impressive display of skill by everyone involved.

Leo Kohler, the captain for Winnipeg, skates over once the times and scoring is announced. Sticks tap against the ice as their fellow NHL players celebrate Shane’s win. He’s holding a microphone, so he must’ve been tapped to act as on-ice commentator now.

“So, Shane,” Kohler says, an amused smile playing on his lips, “how’s it feel to win this one? I hear there were some stakes involved.”

“Always feels good to win against him, Kohlsy, I won’t lie,” Shane says. He sounds confident enough, he thinks. He’d played on a team with Kohler during last year’s All-Star game and he’s a good guy, so it could definitely be someone worse interviewing him right now.

“And you, Rozanov?” Kohler says, holding his mic out to where Ilya is standing a respectable distance away. “You gonna make nice and congratulate your man?”

“Yes, yes, good job, Hollander,” says with a slight pout. The eyes he turns on Shane are signature Ilya puppy-dog ones.

There’s a smattering of laughter from those watching the exchange. Shane rolls his eyes, exasperated, half at Ilya’s behavior and half at how the puppy-dog eyes are having their desired effect; he feels bad. Shane is, contrary to popular belief, fully aware of how much Ilya would enjoy letting everyone around them know, at any time, that Shane is Ilya’s. Shane still gets nervous about being so public, but he thinks he’s getting better at it, as slow as that progress may be.

“Looks like he wanted to win that bet pretty bad, Hollander,” Kohler comments, turning back to Shane. “Care to clue us in on what you won?”

Ilya must’ve noticed the way Shane had paused when he’d seen the playfully sad look on his face, because he dials it up. Shane caves and makes a split second decision, heaving a sigh as he gestures at Ilya with a “gimme” hand.

“Otday eto mne,” Shane says. Give it to me. Ilya waggles his eyebrows, playing dumb. “The jersey, you idiot. Ne ispytyvay sud'bu.” Don’t push your luck.

Ilya looks slightly surprised, but he obeys, grabbing his jersey by the collar and tugging it over his head. Shane follows suit. They exchange jerseys and there’s a smirk on Ilya’s face as they do. It’s a cocky smile, sure, but there’s also a bit of fondness in it.

They both put them on and Shane snorts at the sight of the way his own jersey fits Ilya’s body. Ilya’s a size bigger in jerseys so it pulls tighter in some spots, the opposite being true for the way Ilya’s fits Shane’s body. It’s not too much of a difference, though, rather adorably endearing.

“We bet on the same thing,” Shane says into the mic just to make it clear, trying not to be embarrassed, “but 0.2 seconds is basically a tie and he’ll complain about losing all night, so I figured I can meet him halfway.”

“Whipped, Hollander!” Cliff calls from a distance.

Shane’s cheeks color slightly. He can’t help it, be it his shyness or his inability to look into Ilya’s sad eyes, pretend or not, and not always give in. It’s nothing new, he’s been gone on Ilya Rozanov since…2008, sometimes it feels like.

Ilya can’t keep the gleeful smile off his face and Shane finds that he doesn’t mind, his own lips pulled into a soft smile of his own. Every day with Ilya feels like a gift.

“I can’t lie, I didn’t expect you to compromise on it,” Kohler says.

“Well, Kohlsy, I’m hoping it’ll soften the blow when my team wins the game tomorrow,” Shane says, lowering his voice to pretend he’s trying to hide it from Ilya.

“Net, no, Hollander, this will just make my team’s win more sweet,” Ilya says immediately.

“Oh?” Shane says, rounding on the Russian a beat before he remembers that there’s a camera pointed right at them. “Je te fais quelque chose de gentil et tu me jase?” I do something nice for you and you chirp me?

“Well, I think this settles it,” Kohler says as he directs his own attention directly to the camera. “The rivalry is truly still alive and well, folks.”

Kohler immediately ends the interviews and skates off towards where players are lining up to get ready for the hardest shot competition. He laughs but ignores the exasperated, “Kohler!” that Shane calls after him.

The rest of the night is even more low pressure than the beginning. Ilya and Shane do their small parts in the remaining skills events and sit back on the bench otherwise. Shane has a feeling the TV commentators are thankful their major parts are done for the day because of the confusion the two of them wearing each other’s last names would cause.

“Still think we should have swapped last names when we got married,” Ilya comments as they watch the ice crew prep for the goalie save streak competition.

“My mom would murder me and then you,” Shane replies.

“I could have just taken yours,” Ilya insists.

Shane gaze snaps to Ilya’s. “Net,” he says vehemently. He leans a little closer so what he says is for Ilya’s ears only. “You don’t get to have my last name if I can’t have yours.”

Ilya looks momentarily stunned. Then his expression turns smug, but it softens just as fast. “Okay, dorogoy,” he says. Sweetheart. “In hypothetical future, you get my name first.”

***

They decide to go to a bar that also serves dinner that a good chunk of other players had been talking about as they departed the ice to get their gear off at the end of the night.

Shane is in a really good mood for the first time in a while. He’d gotten dressed in street clothes but held off on pulling his own All-Star hoodie on, instead slinging it over an arm and heading out to meet with Ilya and company.

“You said the rest of the night, Rozanov,” Shane says when he approaches. “Hand the hoodie over.”

“Jesus, Shane,” Cliff says from Shane’s right.

“He’s never like this, bro,” Hayden says in agreement. This obvious, Shane presumes. He doesn’t care.

Ilya, once again, is slightly surprised even as he does as he’s told and they trade sweaters. This is the most “openly together” that Shane has acted at an NHL event. He’s certainly not complaining, if anything he’s a little in awe. This horrible cloud is hanging over Shane right now, something infinitely worse than anything he’s dealt with before, and yet here is his brave husband, making adorably possessive demands. He wouldn’t resist even he wanted to, which he certainly doesn’t, because the content look on Shane’s face when he’s pulled Ilya’s hoodie over his own head is more than worth it.

It also gives Ilya a heated kind of thrill. Shane Hollander, walking out of an NHL arena and then into a bar & grill full of All-Star NHL players with Ilya Rozanov’s jersey number stitched proudly onto the left shoulder of his hoodie and Ilya’s last name on his back.

There’s a strawberry flavored mixed drink with gummy bears in it on the menu. Shane’s eyes linger on it but he’s still deciding when the waitress comes by for the table’s drink orders. Ilya orders a vodka for himself and then orders the drink Shane had been looking at for Shane. Shane huffs, but nods in agreement when the waitress’s eyes turn to him.

Hayden opens his mouth to say something in response, but the absolute death glare Ilya directs at him makes him decide against it. He keeps his mouth shut when he receives the same look, maybe even deadlier, after Shane orders something decidedly un-Shane-like to eat.

There’s been plenty of times in the past when Ilya’s had something to say about Shane’s diet, but it’d come up shortly after they got married that Shane’s dietary decisions were less along the lines of “athletic perfectionism” and more so “disordered eating.” Shane had been getting a lot better at it before news about Kent’s trial threw a wrench into his entire life. Lately there are some days where Ilya’s lucky if he can get Shane to eat at all.

So, if Shane wants a full beef cheeseburger with fries on the side, Ilya thinks he’s more than entitled to it and grateful he’s simply eating at all. He probably won’t finish all of it, he rarely does when he eats something so normal, will probably stop with about a quarter of it left, but that’s more than enough and means Ilya can steal some of his fries. It’s a win for everyone, really.

Ilya was right about the food. Shane finishes most of it but not all. He does take some fries and Shane is more than happy to let him.

Shane’s three of those strawberry drinks deep when Noah Lemaire stops by to say hi to Shane. Ilya isn’t far behind him, tipsy and loose, but it’d taken quite a few more drinks to catch up with Shane on his end. Shane is, as always, his adorable little lightweight.

“Hollzy! It’s nice to see you man!” Lemaire crows, slinging an arm around Shane’s shoulder. Shane smiles good-naturedly, accepting the physical contact with an unusual ease towards someone he’s not close with.

“Yeah, it’s been a while,” Shane agrees with a loose, genuine smile. “How’s Sara and the kiddo?”

“The kiddo’s turning ten, man!” Lemaire replies, giving a slightly disbelieving laugh. He slides into the singular chair beside the corner booth Shane and his group are currently occupying.

“Double digits? Damn, she was just barely getting into skates the last time I saw her,” Shane says, genuinely surprised. It’s easy to forget how fast time moves in the league sometimes. Sometimes you blink and it’s like right now and another player’s kid isn’t the baby that you remember them being.

Lemaire shows Shane a bunch of pictures of his daughter Lacey on his phone and then says a quick but heartfelt goodbye when he catches sight of the goalie he used to play with before his trade a few seasons ago. He departs to hang out with him, presumably, after making Shane promise to text and bring Ilya to dinner with him and his wife the next time the Centaurs play in Pittsburgh. Shane doesn’t realize that the interaction was odd in any way until Shane tunes his attention back fully into his friends and teammates who are sitting around him at the table.

“What?” he says, noticing the eyes on him.

“You’re friends with a Penguins player?” Hayden says, incredulous.

“Uh, yeah?” he says, confused. “We’ve been in the league, like, thirteen years, man, we all have a lot of distant friends.”

“You have never mentioned him,” Ilya says. He doesn’t sound shocked like Hayden, just thoughtful.

“Oh, well, I don’t know,” Shane replies. He takes a sip of his drink and shrugs. “He helped me out a while back when I was asking around about a specialty coach for the off-season, put me in touch with Dylan Forster.”

“A checking coach?” Hunter says. Shane wants to throttle him. Of course Hunter knows what exact kind of specialty coach Forster is. “What in the world would Shane Hollander need a checking coach for?”

“I had a nagging injury and wanted to make sure I’d be good for the next season,” Shane said quietly, not meeting anybody’s eyes. “Forster is his off-season trainer and has the coaching experience, so we all spent a month or two seeing other, like, 4 times a week minimum at the rink.”

Hayden is openly staring. “A nagging injury? Bro, what the fuck? How come you never told me?” he says.

The way Shane’s shoulders hunch up a bit doesn’t escape Ilya’s notice.

“I was being paranoid, it ended up being nothing,” Shane replied, shrugging again. The movement is jerky and defensive. “It was like when I trained with Alex Severson this past summer? To learn how to fight, remember? Just some extra side work, just in case.”

This explanation seems to convince and calm everyone at the table except for Ilya. Shane’s hand is shaking when it finds Ilya’s under the table, and Ilya starts to put some of the pieces together. He does some math in his head, knows that Lemaire’s kid is almost ten, and Shane had mentioned while talking to Lemaire that she’d been two the year he’d trained with Forster. That’d make it…eight years ago. The summer of 2014. Shane had sought out a checking coach as a professional NHL player to address a “nagging” injury the same year as the Sochi Olympics, and, Ilya realizes suddenly, the same year Kent had hurt him.

It makes sense, then, why Shane not only knew Lemaire but also seemed to be his friend. Most of that checking practice was probably more mental than physical, had probably involved a lot more of getting Shane used to taking a check on the ice rather than dish one out. If Ilya was right and Shane had gotten a coach like that because of what Kent had done, then he has a feeling Shane must’ve been a wreck for some of it. Lemaire had slung an arm around Shane’s shoulders just now, sure, but he’d come in from the side and seemed to make sure Shane saw him before touching him. The list of people Shane is okay with being touched by in such a friendly manner is pretty short, Ilya knows, so it’s a big thing to be on that list, you had to earn it.

Lemaire being a Penguins player had not been an accident, he realizes also. Pittsburgh was notorious for its squeaky clean, accepting locker room as their captain ran a tight ship and didn’t take anyone’s shit. It was also the team with the largest population of French-Canadian players, an oddly tight knit demographic among the league that were known for their chaotic mischief but also their compassion. It wasn’t a stereotype, not quite; it just so happened that most of the French-Canadians in the NHL in 2014 were, for the most part, really good guys. A stamp of approval from Penguins Captain Augustine (Gus) Sinclair was like being “marked safe.”

This is all nicer to think of, at least, than the fact that Shane reverts to French when he panics sometimes, better to think of than him choosing a coach based on who he believes would be able to understand him and get through to him during a panic attack.

Ilya thinks all of this and holds Shane's hand tightly, acts like the lifeline he knows he’s being for his husband right now. His beautiful brave boy who faced all that alone and is still sitting here next to him, upright and breathing and amazing.

He turns his head and leans forward to plant a kiss on Shane’s cheek. Shane makes a noise of surprise and his cheeks go rosy.

“What’s that for?” he says. The tension in his voice is gone, replaced by shy adoration.

“Za to, chto ty takoy, kakoy ty yest',” Ilya says quietly, giving Shane a soft, private smile. For being you.

“Za to, chto ya takoy, kakoy yest'?” Shane parrots, eyes locked on Ilya’s, something playful dancing in them. For being me?

“Da,” Ilya replies, smoothing a hand down the hair at the back of his head and then letting it linger momentarily at the nape when he says, “Moy khrabryy, sil'nyy, krasivyy mal'chik.” My brave, strong, beautiful boy.

Shane doesn’t say anything about the way Ilya’s eyes have gone a bit misty. He smiles back, looks so full of love in a way Ilya never gets tired of. It used to shine in Shane’s eyes back before they were officially together, shine because his eyes would be wet, because the love hurt at the time. Ilya will never get tired of seeing it the way it is now, so open and free and like it belongs there.

This exchange is also heavily scrutinized by their friends, but not for the sappy displays of affection.

“We fuckin’ told you, Hunter,” Pike is saying when Shane’s focus shifts back to the table at large, the bubble around him and Ilya popping.

“I expected him to know some, not to fire back in Russian like that,” Hunter says, exasperated.

“What about ‘the summer before their rookie season’ do you not understand, Hunter?” Hayden fires back.

“To be fair,” Shane says, cutting in, “I didn’t start learning until we got together officially, that was only a few years ago.”

“Yeah, Pike, see?” Hunter says with a huff.

It devolves from there. Shane and Ilya head back to their room earlier than their friends, rolling their eyes at the cat-calling that accompanies their exit. Shane leans his head against Ilya’s shoulder once they step into the elevator.

“You figured it out quick,” he says quietly.

“Did the math,” Ilya replies, mouth suddenly dry. “Eight years, was 2014. Not many other reasons you would need a checking coach that year.”

They get off the elevator on their floor and move towards their room. Shane speaks quietly as they go.

“I was okay during the rest of the season, for the most part. But the shock started to wear off and I started…reacting badly to checks on the ice. Knew if I didn’t work on it over the summer, get it out of my system, that the next season would not go well.”

“So you pick the Penguins,” Ilya says, lips quirking slightly as he swipes his keycard against the reader on their door.

Shane sighs softly but smiles a bit, as well. They move inside together and Ilya locks the door behind them. Shane leans against Ilya again, tipping his head forward against Ilya’s shoulder. Ilya takes one of his hands in his.

“I had Lemaire’s number from juniors. He was a good guy back then, too, and I figured the nicest team in the NHL was a good place to start looking for a coach who could do what I’d be…what I’d be asking them to do,” Shane continues, quieter than before. “I was straight up with Lemaire when I called him, told him I got ‘beat up’ off the ice and needed to learn how to take a check without freaking out again. And that it wasn’t going to be fun for anyone involved. That it had to be someone who wouldn’t tell people about it.”

Ilya nods, processing the information.

“He told me about his trainer, an ex-juniors player who’d been a few years older than us and on another team when we’d all been in the league, Dylan Forster. We all met up the first time, played a bit of keep away because Forster wanted to see what ‘mental block’ I’d been talking about.” Shane sighs, lifts his head from Ilya’s shoulder and shakes it once. He focuses his gaze down on Ilya’s hand in his. “I don’t think he’d been convinced, until then, that Shane Hollander needed to re-learn how to take a check or battle against the boards, but when he pressed me into the boards, not even hard, just, like, firm, insistent, I froze up and forgot where I was.”

Ilya makes a soft, hurt noise in the back of his throat.

“It was only, like, a minute, but when I calmed down I was on the ice and Forster was next to me, not touching, but telling me to breathe,” he pauses, the corners of his mouth quirk, “in French. Lemaire looked terrified, but Forster looked angry, and not at me. He never said anything, but I…I think he knew that I hadn’t just been, you know, beaten up.”

“They were good to you,” Ilya murmurs, not a question, an observation.

Ilya can tell by the way Shane talks about those two players, how he looks when he does, that they’d treated Shane well. Shane talks about the training almost fondly, like he’s reminiscing on a good time in his life rather than a difficult and dark one. He knows Shane, so he knows the only way he’d be almost nostalgic talking about it was if Lemaire and Forster were gentle in the right moments but tough in the others. He has the sudden urge to get in contact with them just to thank them; they’d been there when Shane had had nobody else.

“Yeah, they were. Lemaire was initially just there for that day, but he asked if he could help out, and I said yes. Forster worked out a rough game plan, asked me about what kind of stuff specifically freaked me out. He could tell when I was lying and when I didn’t tell the full truth. So that’s how him and Lemaire ended up rambling in French while we did checking drills, and they were really soft checks that first week. I wanted to tell him they were being too soft on me, but truth was I was struggling with even that at the time. So the three of us worked together, slowly, for about a month and a half. We took a buncha video so I could look back, see what went wrong and what didn’t. It was actually pretty helpful, even if it sucked to watch.”

“And it worked, yes?”

“Yeah, it did,” Shane agrees. “But it was miserable. The first couple weeks I barely slept, I couldn’t eat. It got better as time went on, slowly. Forster didn’t let me rush myself. When I said I wanted to give up a few times on some of the worst days, Lemaire reminded me of what I’d said to him at the very beginning, that I couldn’t let an asshole ruin my career. And he’d say what he had said then, that if I held on and did the work, I’d come out the other side.”

“You say Forster probably knew?”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t have a lot of full blown panic attacks from the checking, but I did have a few. A lot of the checking practice involved me pressed against the boards, trying not to puke and not forget where I was while I fought Lemaire for the puck,” Shane replies, blowing out a slow breath as he remembers. “I’m sure I said things when I was out of it that I don’t remember, stuff that would suggest something different had happened than just, you know, a bad fist fight.”

Shane had sounded like a broken record, some days. ‘Oh, god, oh god, oh my god,’ and ‘oh fuck, oh shit, fuck, come on, oh my god,’ would flow out of his mouth on loops, redundant combinations of the same words over and over, his voice hysterical and shaky and terrified. It became his go-to for slowing the panic and staying grounded while he frantically smacked his stick around on the ice in search of the puck.

A couple of clips from the season directly following that summer gained some attention because it’d looked like he was speaking in them. They’d been battles along the boards during which he’d felt himself start to get a little hazy with panic and disorientation, had reached to the only thing he knew could help. He hadn’t actually been speaking, had just been mouthing that same repeating stream of words to himself, but of course everyone had come to the consensus that he’d been trash-talking. Shane let everyone believe what they wanted; it’s not like he wanted people to know the truth.

“That first session after it became clear I was mess, Forster pulled Lemaire aside at one point and when we started the next drill, Noah was literally saying things like, “you’re playing a hockey game,” and, “you’re trying to get the puck away from me,” and then, if that didn’t work, “nobody’s gonna hurt you, Hollander,” and, ‘you’re playing the Penguins, Shane.’ I would…I would get that confused.” Shane stares at his hands in his lap while he speaks. He hadn’t let himself acknowledge at the time just how serious it was that he’d been having flashbacks so bad he’d forget where he was, but saying it out loud now and the look on Ilya’s face just reinforces that it definitely was. “Eventually I stopped instantly disconnecting from reality when I got hit and started being able to deal with it. That’s where we started out, though, with Noah Lemaire having to constantly remind me that I’m standing on the ice and playing hockey. Those guys could’ve, you know, been assholes about it.”

“But they gave you what you needed at the time,” Ilya surmises.

“Yeah,” Shane says softly. “Forster held onto the videos, he told me. Just in case, he’d said. Like he knew it might be something I’d wanna look back on later.”

“Have you seen them?”

Shane shakes his head.

“No, not since we were training that summer. But he said he’d hold onto them for me, if I ever wanted them.” Ilya smiles softly, kisses the back of Shane’s hand.

Ilya silently files the names away as Shane grabs clothes from his suitcase and goes to get in the shower, adds “Noah Lamaire” and “Dylan Forster” to the list of people who believe Shane about what happened with Kent. Even if neither of them have ever said it outright, Ilya’s confident that they’d take Shane’s side if it were to come out what happened. They’d been there in the aftermath, knee deep in its wreckage, had probably suspected something worse had happened to Shane but didn’t say anything, and they’d seen Shane through it.

That’s three, he thinks as he sits down on the bed, two from a different team, even!

There’s more names he could add, ones he’s not certain of but is pretty sure would believe Shane, obvious ones. Shane’s parents. Hayden Pike, his wife Jackie. Scott Hunter, his boyfriend Kip. Wyatt Hayes. Troy Barrett and Harris Drover. Luca Haas. He doesn’t know, but it’s a bet he would take.

Shane comes back from his shower and promptly parks himself on Ilya’s lap, shirtless and wearing a pair of Ilya’s boxers. Ilya’s hands automatically come up and settle on his hips, tucks a thumb into the waistband of the underwear. “Malen'kiy vor,” he says, narrowing his eyes playfully. Little thief.

His husband smirks down at him.

“What are you gonna do about it?” he quips, ducking down and pecking a quick kiss to Ilya’s lips.

“Mm, we both drink tonight, so nothing,” Ilya says, sighing fondly. Shane smiles down at him, too, loopily as it is.

“Yeah, ‘sa good idea, Ilya,” he agrees, blinking sluggishly.

“How about we do not drink tomorrow night, and we go to bed early, and then we come back here and I lay you on this bed and I take you apart whatever way you want.” Shane stares down, transfixed, as Ilya speaks. His eyes darken a bit and he nods quickly.

“Yeah, let’s do that,” Shane says.

Ilya smiles, charmed, and pulls Shane down towards him with a hand on the back of neck. He turns them so they’re on their sides, knows both of them will get too worked up with Shane squirming around in his lap if he stays up there.

“Can kiss, though,” Ilya says quietly. “Give you some pretty marks on your pretty shoulder.”

“Mmm, yes, please,” Shane says, eyes slipping closed as Ilya’s lips finds his.

Ilya places a hand on Shane’s waist but doesn’t allow it to stray. Shane makes a soft noise into his mouth, breathing sharply through his nose. They don’t deepen the kiss too much, keep their tongues out of each other’s mouths for once. Ilya keeps his word, works his mouth down Shane’s neck until they’re at his shoulder, a spot that a t-shirt will hide easily but an NHL locker room certainly won’t.

“Ilya,” Shane breaths when his husband nips at the skin there.

“Just a little,” Ilya murmurs, sealing his lips on the spot, sucking and worrying the skin with his teeth slightly.

Shane pulls him closer with a hand behind his neck. “Fuck, Ilya,” he curses.

Ilya hums, sucks a little harder, keeps going until Shane grabs him by the hair and tugs lightly. Ilya pulls back, kisses the quickly darkening spot once, and meets Shane’s eyes.

“We should sleep,” Shane says, cheeks flushed in the low lighting. “Keep doing that and I’ll come in my pants soon like a kid.”

Ilya lets out a startled laugh and agrees. He gets out of bed and goes to take his own shower. Shane is curled up and out cold when he returns to the room. Ilya smiles softly as he slides under the covers, pecks a quick kiss to Shane’s forehead as he settles himself against Shane’s back.

Chapter Text

The All-Star game on Sunday is set to be regulation length with three full periods twenty minutes a piece but with shortened intermissions. All-Star games are low pressure and meant to just be fun, so everyone plays down and keeps the vibe close to that of a pickup game on the pond. The NHL gave up the pretense of players taking All-Star games seriously a long time ago and it’s one good choice they’ve made on a mile-long list of bad ones.

Shane is vibrating slightly on the bench in his stall before the game starts. He hasn’t played against Ilya in a long time, and he’s missed it.

It also reminds him of all of the bets he and Ilya used to make when Shane still played for Montreal, the ones about sex. They still do that sometimes, about goals and points and the like, but not as often as back then and, more recently, not at all. It was always small things they bet for: a blowjob, a rimjob, how many times Ilya would make him come, and, most often, “whatever the winner wants that night, within reason.”

He considers, very briefly, sending Ilya a text with the makings of a bet, but then he thinks about what he’d want for a reward and decides against it. Ilya had already told him last night that he could have whatever he wanted tonight, and Shane is already struggling enough to figure that out; he doesn’t want to gamify it. He also isn’t blind to the careful hesitation that Ilya regards him with now that he’s gotten the full Kent story. It’s nothing like when Ilya had initially found out and pulled back completely, but it’s there. Ilya’s not treating Shane like he’s fragile, but rather like he’s afraid of hurting him by accident, and it’d be wrong of Shane to fault him for that. Ilya’s gotten better as time has gone on, more confident, but Shane can still see it in him sometimes, so he figures making a bet on the kind of sex they have right now, one with a winner and loser, isn’t the best idea right now. Later, sure, but not for a while.

Scott has Vaughn read the starting lineup before they’re set to finally hit the ice. He stands in the center of the room, legs swimming in his goalie pants and suspenders clinging to his shoulders for dear life, and holds the scrap of paper in his hands with the list as he waits for absolute quiet. His eyes flick up and meet Shane’s, briefly, before he speaks, and that’s how Shane already knows he’s really in for it tonight. Hunter wants to make this rivalry thing even more dramatic, so he’s going to have Ilya and Shane take the first face-off of the game at center ice, Shane is willing to bet. He’d be willing to bet Hunter spoke to Green to make sure they put Ilya out first, as well, judging by the smug look on Hunter’s face.

“At center, we’ve got Hollzy,” he begins. The team whoops and claps in unison and Shane does as well even though he’s glaring daggers at Scott. “On wings we’ve got Scotty, Marly, on D we have Micky and Andy, and in goal, me!” The whoops and claps continue through the list after each name, a typical hype up for a team about to hit the ice.

Scott gives as rousing a speech as is required for a laid back All-Star game, which is not very rousing and more along the lines of, “don’t break your body and try to have fun. And also don’t let Rozanov win.” The last part has Shane rolling his eyes as the guys laugh.

“You know exactly what you’re doing,” Shane tells Hunter when they’re loitering in the tunnel leading to the rink, waiting to be called individually onto the ice for their official introductions.

“Whatever do you mean, Hollander?” Scott replies, the bastard.

“You play center and you’re supposed to push the younger guy to the wing, so you know damn well what I’m talking about, Hunter,” Shane replies, unimpressed. He turns to Vaughn, already holding up a hand to silence him before the man can open his mouth, “Don’t say ‘it’s what the people want’ again, I swear to god, Carts.”

“Well, how’s this: you said you wanted to ‘stomp them into the ground,’ right, Hollz? That’s what you told Marly?” Hunter says with a shit-eating grin. “I figured to do that we gotta start off right, at least. We’ll share center for the rest.”

Shane whirls around.

“You betrayed me, Marleau!” he calls to Cliff. “I said that in a moment of weakness!”

“If that’s what weakness looks like on you, I’d hate to see you look truly competitive, Hollander,” Cliff chirps back. A bunch of the guys laugh. Again.

Shane is exasperated, but not too much so. It’s fun. Everyone’s in on the joke, like in Ottawa.

Shane raises his stick slightly, blade in the air, as a neutral greeting to the watching crowd when he’s introduced just like every other player does. New Jersey doesn’t viscerally hate Shane like they do Ilya, so there’s a respectable amount of applause for him as he glides out to his waiting spot next to Cliff on the blue line. He laughs as does Cliff when the crowd, unsurprisingly, boos Ilya once he’s called out.

Each team’s full roster stands along their respective blue line once every player has been introduced, helmets popped off and dangling from their hands as the American and Canadian national anthems are sang. The bright overhead lights come back on immediately after and everyone except the starting lines and the refs vacate the ice.

Shane takes a shallow loop around his offensive zone before sliding, slowly, towards the face-off dot at center ice. The expression he fixes Ilya with as the Russian joins him at the dot is amused resignation.

“Your team think it would be funny, too, then, yes?” Ilya says as the refs disperse for the puck drop.

A ref skates up holding the puck and they both bend low over the blue dot on the ice and wait for the whistle.

“Mm, no, they just wanted the best player in the world on the ice first,” Shane says, nonchalant. He can’t keep a straight face, though, because a slight smile is playing on his lips as he chews on his mouthguard.

“How they do that when I play for the other team?” Ilya chirps back, picking up on the playful trash-talking Shane is doing and giving it right back with a grin on his face.

Shane snorts. “Delusion looks hot on you, Rozanov,” he drawls.

“So you think I’m hot?” Ilya says, waggling his eyebrows.

The ref blows the whistle and moves closer to the pair of them, knees bent and puck poised in his hand.  Shane and Ilya lean even closer, eyes now fixed on the ref’s hand in anticipation.

“S tekh por, kak ya tebya vpervyye uvidel, da,” Shane replies, quick, as the ref drops the puck. Since first time I saw you, yes.

Shane wins the face-off cleanly.

Scott Hunter opens up the scoring two minutes into the game off of a beautiful assist from Shane. Their lines cellies in the corner by the goal. Shane and Cliff each rub their gloved hands over the top of Scott’s helmet as if they’re ruffling his hair. Scott shakes them off, exasperated, and they all head back to the bench for a line change.

“One to zero for team Hollander,” Hunter jokes as they go.

“Hunter, I swear to god,” Shane says.

Ilya himself scores thirty seconds later. The smug grin on his face during his bench roll of fist bumps in celebration definitely doesn’t escape Shane’s notice.

Shane barrels through Team Green’s defense to set Mick Lawrence up for a goal at the halfway mark of the period.

“Two to one for team Hollander!” Hunter crows, hugging Shane and shaking him slightly.

“Hunter!” Shane exclaims, but he’s laughing.

“Do you have buyer’s remorse yet, Hunter?” Ilya calls from his bench as Shane and his line head back to their own. “Do not see many goals from the great Shane Hollander yet!”

“So that’s how it’s gonna be?” Shane says.

“It’s how it’s always been, Hollander, you know this,” Ilya replies. He squirts some water into his mouth and winks.

Shane’s clenches his jaw slightly.

Shane steals the puck from Comeau the second he’s back on the ice and, seemingly out of sheer spite, shovels it into the net over Graham’s shoulder.

“Hell yeah, Hollzy,” Scott says when their line clumps together at the boards in celebration, “That’s what I’m talking about.”

Shane grins under the praise, He catches Ilya’s eye as he glides past for the bench roll of celebratory fist bumps that he’s earned. Ilya simply quirks a single eyebrow. ‘Tied’ he mouths.

There are only three minutes left in the period when Marleau overturns the puck and Hayden Pike takes advantage, snatching it up and batting it to Ilya when Shane attempts to get a stick on the puck to intercept. Ilya snaps it to Lemaire just before the winger is about to cross the blue line into their offensive zone. Lemaire passes it to Hayden who rounds the back of the net with it, sends it gliding back to Lemaire’s stick who’s managed to find some space. Lemaire shoots on goal and it hits Vaughn in the pads but he gets the rebound, batting the puck out of the air and just barely clearing the top of the goalie’s glove hand.

Ilya, Hayden, and Lemaire crash into each other in a celebratory pile of head pats. They’re all grinning like idiots and Shane is slightly taken aback. Hayden and Ilya can still barely stand to be in the same room together most days, and here they both are, smiling stupidly after a goal. Hockey is truly a language that transcends any other.

Team Hunter is leading 3-2 when they all head down the tunnel for intermission once the buzzer sounds at the end of the period.

Shane is sweaty and overheated so he takes his jersey and helmet off once he sits down on the bench in his stall. He wipes his face with a towel and drags a hand through his damp hair.

“That wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be,” Marleau says when his sits down in his stall next to Shane with a thud.

“What do you mean?”

“I kind of thought you guys would, like, take each other’s heads off,” Cliff replies.

“Well, it’s still the All-Star game, Marleau,” Shane says patiently, rolling his eyes, “That real on-ice rivalry will probably never happen again.”

“Damn, you’re right,” Cliff says. “That…sucks?”

Shane laughs lightly.

“Yes and no,” he says. “It’s better that we play together now, so we’re not apart, but we do miss playing apart sometimes.”

Shane stands and grabs his phone from the shelf in his stall. There’s a text from Ilya waiting for him when he unlocks it.

Ilya: “since first time you see me”??

Shane: well…duh?

Ilya: true

Ilya: I am very irresistible

Shane: fuck off

Ilya: you speak this way to man who will make you come handsfree later??? RUDE

Shane: you’re pretty confident

Ilya: do not question my skills to make my baby happy, Hollander

“What did he just say to you?” Marleau says, pulling Shane’s attention back to the locker room and out of his Ilya bubble.

Shane scoffs and rolls his eyes, shaking his head. “He didn’t say anything, crisse, Marly.”

“No, no, he definitely did, you just smiled all gooey and we can’t have that,” Cliff insists. He drops his voice so that it’s dramatically serious when he continues, “Don’t let him get in your head, Hollander, we’re supposed to stomp them, remember?”

“Oh my fucking god, Marleau,” Shane groans. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, no, this is the most entertaining All-Star game I’ve been to. I wanna beat them now, too,” Vaughn pipes up from off to the side.

Shane sighs a long, suffering sigh, but nods and sets his jaw. “Okay, I’ll stop being gooey.”

Cliff crows with victory and shakes Shane slightly by the shoulder who, amused, looks back at his phone to type out one last text to Ilya for now.

Shane: maybe after we beat you ;)

He puts his phone back on the shelf in his stall. The countdown clock says they have a minute and a half before they’re due back to the ice for the second period. He drags his jersey back over his head, puts on his helmet and fastens the strap, and joins the quickly growing group of his teammates who are already waiting in the tunnel leading to the ice.

Shane catches sight of the greenest rookie player they have on the team this year, Keandre Thomas from the Colorado Eagles, when he ambles into the hallway. He signed a rookie deal directly after being drafted this year, the 8th overall pick of his draft class, and he’s lived up to the hype around his playing abilities so far. He hasn’t scored yet tonight, and Shane thinks that needs to change.

They start the second period with Hunter at center and Shane on his left wing. Shane stays out on the ice when half of his line gets the chance to chang and Thomas steps out to fill Cliff’s role. He whistles to Asher Rivera who’s taken the center position and nods his head to Thomas. Rivera seems to get the idea because a small smile spreads across his face, the most emotion Shane’s seen the kid display all weekend.

Shane manages to intercept a pass between Lemaire and Comeau and everyone turns on a dime as they play heads the opposite way up the ice towards Team Green’s net. He passes it to Rivera, who’s lined up perfectly for a shot on net that would likely go in, but so is Thomas, so Rivera passes the puck to the rookie player last second. The puck hits the back of the nut over Graham’s blocker side off a one-timer from Thomas, and the bench goes wild.

Shane and Rivera basically attack Thomas in celebration, who’s grinning wide as they do. Shane pushes the kid towards the bench, where he’s treated to more praise and fist bumps.

“Nice one,” Shane tells Rivera once they sit down on the bench after a line change.

Rivera shakes his head, but he’s also smiling a bit. “He was wide open.”

“Four to two for team Hollander!” Scott says from a bit further down the bench.

“I’m gonna tell Kip you’re bullying me!” Shane calls back.

Comeau scores a minute later, quickly making it 4-3. The sight of the player’s smug face has Shane grinding his jaw slightly. Montreal deciding to send him of all people to the All-Star game feels like a personal slap in the face. Comeau is barely able to keep his claws on his second-line spot in Montreal and, as far as Shane’s concerned, that doesn’t merit an NHL All-Star nomination. Shane is slightly surprised the guy is even alive still at this point considering he’s been sharing a locker room with Ilya all weekend.

Both teams are scrambling at the front of Graham’s neck a few minutes later, skates scraping and stick blades chopping in search of the loose puck. Shane is right in Ilya’s space, his elbow brushing Ilya’s front as he himself smacks the blade of his stick around. Ilya pushes at him slightly, trying to make space so his goalie can secure the puck, but Shane is stubborn and pushes him back. Graham finally manages to locate the puck and slap his glove over it. The ref blows the whistle and kills the play.

Ilya shoves Shane after the whistle and Shane eye’s snap to his. The shove had been playful, yes, but more forceful than the previous one. Something warm flashes through Shane.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” Rozanov,” he says, shoving Ilya back just as hard.

Shane is, as always, excruciatingly aware of all the eyes and cameras on them, on the mics by the glass that are probably picking this exchange up with crystal clear audio. And yet he doesn’t care. The All-Star weekend is all about having fun and letting the fans see more of the players’ personalities, after all.

Ilya’s eyebrows shoot upwards. He points a gloved finger at himself in playful disbelief. “Me?” he says, laughing lightly. The next look he fixes Shane with is mischievous arrogance. “I think you of all people know I always follow through, Hollander.”

The looks on both of their faces is very reminiscent of how they used to look at each other during games after Ilya had gone to Ottawa but Shane was still in Montreal. It’s a smug, cocky, ‘I’m better at hockey than you and I love rocking your shit, be it on the ice or in the bedroom’ kind of vibe. Yeah, Shane definitely missed it. It’s kind of intoxicating.

Shane shake his gloves off and darts a hand forward to grab a fistful of the front of Ilya’s jersey. Ilya’s surprised at first, so Shane has the upper-hand as he begins jabbing fake “punches” towards his husband’s face and sides. Ilya loses his own gloves and grabs Shane’s jersey, as well, a delighted smile on his face, before he throws a couple of his own fake punches. It’s visibly clear than neither of their fists actually come in contact with their bodies, so the other players standing around are openly laughing.

The refs approach after a few brief moments of this, playing along as one grabs Shane and another Ilya and dramatically “hauls” them apart.

“Alright, alright, that was a good tilt, boys, but get back to your benches,” one says, laughing as him and the other ref guide Shane and Ilya to their respective benches.

“A Gordie Howe at the All-Star game! What a legend!” Cliff crows when Shane takes a seat beside him.

“He started it,” Shane replies, squirting some water into his mouth.

Play continues. Scott scores from a pass through traffic from Shane late in the period. 5-3 for Team Hunter.

Hayden assists on the last goal of the period, a no-look drop pass to Ilya, who’s momentarily shocked at the sheer caliber of a move like that. He manages to follow through on it, though, swatting it into the net, top-shelf, with a mean backhand shot. Ilya attacks Hayden with a hug in celebration. It seems to take a moment for them to remember that they hate each other, Shane notices, they’re a little too giddy. He knows it was just the excitement of the moment, but it gives him hope of a future where the pair can maybe have a genuine, if overly civil, conversation with one another.

They all head back to their locker rooms for the second intermission a few moments later. Team Hunter is leading 5-4.

“Jesus, Hollzy, you guys need marriage counseling or something?” Hunter jokes the second they’re in the locker room.

“We’ve been pitted against each other since we were kids,” Shane says, rolling his eyes. “What kind of relationship did you guys expect?”

“That was years ago,” Cliff says with a scoff.

“Yes, I’m aware,” Shane replies, pulling off his helmet and jersey. “We’ve been fooling around for years.”

“Wait a minute,” Cliff says suddenly, but he’s speaking quietly enough that it’s lost to everyone else in the general chatter. “You’re Montreal Jane then, aren’t you?”

Shane lets out a startled laugh.

“Yeah, man,” he says. “Yeah, I am.”

“I bet that was Rozanov’s idea,” Cliff says with a knowing smile.

“Yeah, he’s an idiot,” Shane says, laughing again.

“Who was he?”

“Lily. He picked both names, though, just to be clear,” Shane replies. “Hayden called him Boston Lily for years before he found out it was Ilya.”

“And I bet that was the shock of the century for Pike, huh?” Cliff remarks.

That sobers Shane a little. He nods and looks away slightly.

“Yeah, that…he wasn’t thrilled, to say the least,” he says, and the smile he has now is more bitter than amused. “He didn’t care about the guy part, obviously, but the two of them still don’t really get along.”

“For real?” Cliff says, surprised. “Is he blind? It was obvious the two of you were at least some kind of friends by, like, 2014 at least. On my end, at least, as the other best friend. I was surprised you guys were dating, but it wasn’t some huge shock that the ‘rivalry’ or whatever was just a media thing.”

Shane stares, really tries his best to read Cliff’s face correctly, and comes to the conclusion that the other man is telling the truth.

“Oh. Well. I don’t know, I used to trash talk Ilya to him and the team all the time, so,” Shane says finally, shrugging.

“So did Rozy, but I guess I’m just not a huge, blind idiot like Pike is,” Cliff replies, shaking his head.

“Hey, come on, he…” Shane begins, but he trails off. “It’s whatever.”

Cliff is staring at him now, though. He’s clearly detected that this is a sore spot for Shane.

“Is that why you looked so surprised when they cellied like that after the goal?”

“Hayden avoids him as much as possible,” Shane admits, looking away again. “Still calls him ‘Rozanov,’ still can’t even, like, finish a sentence if it ends with ‘husband.’”

“That’s fucked up, bro,” Cliff says, matter-of-fact.

“It’s—” Shane begins, but he stops and heaves a sigh. “Yeah, it sucks.”

They head back out for the third period.

Team Green scores early to tie them at five, a pass from Ilya to Merello and then Green who bats it into the net.

Rivera gets one a few minutes later to give them the lead again. Merello answers with a breakaway goal and they’re tied again at 6-6 with ten minutes to go in the game.

“Hollander!” Hunter calls from a ways down the bench.

Shane looks up and over. Scott is seated on the bench with their All-Star coach, the coach from Tampa Bay, stooped down behind him.

“What’s up?” he calls back.

“Time to stomp,” Hunter says with a smirk. “Within reason.”

Shane immediately rolls his eyes, but then nods in agreement when the meaning of Hunter’s words catch up with him. The All-Star game is not the “Shane and Ilya” show, there are lots of other players here this weekend that deserve the chance to have fun and play, so both of them have dialed down tonight to accommodate that without needing to be asked.

The game is almost over, though, only ten minutes left, and the score, while a respectable 6-6, can definitely be a lot higher for an All-Star game. Scott Hunter is letting Shane off-leash.

Team Green ices the puck and the ref blows the whistle. They pause for a commercial break and Shane gets the tap on the shoulder from their coach. Both teams change lines, sending out their first string who are fresh after a bit of rest on the bench. Shane meets Ilya at the face-off dot in Team Green’s zone. They both bend down over the dot and wait for the ref to get ready to drop the puck.

“Thought you said you wanted to ‘stomp’ me,’ Ilya quips.

Shane’s neutral expression dissipates immediately. His eyes narrow slightly and his jaw sets. There’s still something playful shining in his eyes, but it’s accompanied by the competitive edge they haven’t truly experienced, full-throttle, during a game against each other in ages. Shane loves a challenge.

“Aw,” Shane says sweetly. “Did Green tell you to go ‘sicko mode’ for the last ten of the game, Rozy?”

Ilya hums and tilts his head.

“Mm, yes, but I see Hunter tell you same thing just now, so,” Ilya replies, sending Shane a pointed look.

Shane had been right. Hunter and Green both want to see the couple playing when they’re dialed to 100.

“So this is what they were talking about,” Cliff says from Shane’s right.

“It’s freaky, right?” Hayden calls back.

Shane grins at Ilya, nodding his head sharply.

“Da, Rozanov, ty prav,” Shane says, a vicious glint in his eyes. You’re right. “Mais il m’a dit de te faire miséricorde.” But he told me to give you mercy.

Noah Lemaire, from a distance, barks out a laugh, and Cliff follows, both being the only other French speakers on the ice. Ilya is confused and clearly doesn’t understand; he’s been picking up bits and pieces here and there, but he’s nowhere near the proficiency Shane has with Russian already. The momentary confusion is enough to give Shane an edge when the puck drops moments later and he wins it cleanly.

The puck immediately finds its way back to Shane’s stick and he snaps it into the net damn near right off the face-off. It flies right past Graham’s glove side, who’d reacted but not quickly enough. Shane swings around the back of the net and accepts the pats from his waiting teammates. He blows Ilya a kiss in celebration. Ilya shakes his head and smacks the blade of his stick down onto the ice a little harder than necessary.

“Seven to six for Team Hollander,” Shane snarks to Hunter the moment he’s back on the bench.

Ilya forces a turnover shortly after Shane’s goal. Ilya streaks away and is only a couple of feet into his offensive zone when he sends the puck hurling towards the net off of a vintage looking slapshot. It’s not using all of his strength because it is an All-Star game after all, but it’s still super fucking impressive as far as Shane’s concerned. Ilya winks at Shane when notices he’s staring. Shane whole body goes hot.

The ref blows the whistle for another TV timeout.

“Micky! Anderson!” Shane calls down to the D-men on the bench. They look over. “Get over here.”

They amble over and stoop down over Shane, Cliff, and Hunter. They’re all incredibly amused as Shane outlines a strategy for the next time their line is on the ice. Shane isn’t taking himself too seriously, either, but he does really want this to work.

Both his and Ilya’s team seems to be purposely feeding them both the puck just to add fuel to the rivalry fire and see what happens. Scott hadn’t said anything outright, but he’d quietly ceded the first line center position to Shane a few shifts ago after spending the previous fifty or so minutes of the game sharing it. If they’re already going to feed into this, Shane thinks, then he might as well, too.

The plan Shane outlines and accepts input on is for the sole purpose of getting Shane a wide open lane in front of the net so he can pull off Ilya’s signature move. Ilya had reacted rather strongly the first time Shane had done it back when Shane was still playing for Montreal. It’s the only response to a vintage slapshot that Shane can think of.

“He’s gonna be pissed,” Shane says with a slight smirk, his lips quirked, “and then he’ll get sloppy after because he won’t know how to one-up me.”

“Christ, you sure you guys are married?” Marleau says, but he’s very clearly joking.

“He told me Green’s let him off-leash, too” Shane says with a shrug. “What else am I supposed to do?”

They disperse from their mini huddle when the ref blows the whistle at the end of the commercial break. The coach has them change lines and Team Green’s coach, seeing this, sends their first line out, as well.

Shane slides up to the center ice face-off dot with a smile.

“Krasivyy gol, Rozanov,” Shane practically purrs. Pretty goal, Rozanov. He’s willing to do anything to get an advantage so he can get a shot at the goal that he wants, even shamelessly flirt.

Shane wins the face-off and the play goes pretty close to the way he’d wanted it to. Shane gets an open look at the net and fakes out the goalie the same way he’s seen Ilya do dozens of times. He keeps the celly simple, a simple turn towards Ilya and a wink. Ilya mouth pops open slightly in disbelief. 8-7 for Team Hunter.

More line changes go by, the time ticking down on the clock slowly but surely.

“You know what else is pretty, Hollander?” Ilya says, voice low, across a face-off circle.

“Ilya,” Shane warns.

“Ton visage,” Ilya continues. Your face. Shane’s eyes snap to meet his gaze head-on at the sound of the albeit clumsy French coming out of his husband’s mouth, “Quand, enfin, tu sais.” When, well, you know. His lips curl into a smirk.

Shane loses the face-off.

Green scores unassisted to tie it once again at 8-8 a minute or so later.

Ilya and Shane both hop onto the ice mid-play with only a minute left in the game. They end up pressed against each other on the boards, Shane closest to the glass as Ilya shoves at him with his body from behind. They’re fighting to free the puck and gain possession, their skates scraping around with their attempts to gain purchase.

“You steal my move again, Hollander,” Ilya bitches, working his foot to try to get an angle of sight on where the puck is as Shane does the same.

“You scored a pretty goal, Rozy, I wanted one, too,” Shane replies, his lips quirking. Shane shoves back against Ilya in attempt to make some space. His lips curl into a more pronounced smirk. “YA dumala, tebe nravitsya, kogda ya krasivaya.” I thought you liked it when I’m pretty.

Shane finally manages to work the puck past his skate and nudges it to Hunter, who takes off with it immediately, leaving Ilya and his teammates scrambling to catch up. Shane sprints right along with them, even more smug when he catches snippets of Russian curse words falling from Ilya’s mouth as they go.

Hunter, under pressure, sends Shane the puck the moment he enters the zone. Shane sends the puck soaring five-hole past Graham with fifteen seconds left in the game.

Team Hunter wins 9-8.

There’s a handshake line after the final buzzer. Shane and Ilya both hang towards the back of their lines, right in front of their respective captains.

Ilya takes Shane’s bare hand when they finally reach each other

“Bon match, Hollander,” he says, again in his endearingly clumsy French. Good game, Hollander.

Shane smiles, slightly charmed, as he nods and shakes Ilya’s hand.

“Khoroshaya igra, Rozanov,” Shane replies. Good game, Rozanov.

Ilya raises Shane’s hand to his mouth and kisses the back of it briefly before letting it go. Shane’s cheeks go bright red as they continue down the line. He stutters once when tells Merello, ‘good game.’

***

Shane, Ilya, and company all head to a steak house for dinner after the game. Shane and Ilya each only have one drink at the restaurant and decline the offer to go out to a bar with the rest of their friends once dinner is over.

“Jesus, Shane, it’s All-Star weekend, live a little,” Hayden complains.

“Nah, Pike, I think they have plenty of plans for the evening,” Cliff replies.

“What do you—oh, shit, right, oh god,” Hayden stammers, face red.

Cliff shakes his head. He meets Shane’s eye over Hayden’s shoulder and Shane quickly looks away, reminded of their earlier conversation during the second intermission. Shane had been more honest than he’d meant to be.

Ilya and Shane get back to the hotel and immediately catch the elevator. They stand side by side, shoulders brushing, and are completely silent for a moment after the elevator doors slide shut with them inside.

“I wanted to hold you down and fuck you on the ice when you score that goal using my move, moya lyubov’,” Ilya says finally after a few floors have gone by.

“I wanted to get on my knees for you after you scored with that vintage slapshot from the blue line,” Shane replies. They’re still not looking at each other.

There’s a heavy pause. Then Ilya is turning and backing Shane up against a wall of the elevator. Shane allows himself to be walked, an amused smirk on his face as he goes and his back hits the wall. Ilya’s mouth is on his immediately, and suddenly they’re filthy making out, tongues in each other’s mouths, everything. Ilya slots a knee between Shane’s legs and Shane leans his full weight against the wall. Shane’s hand finds its way into Ilya’s hair. Ilya curls a possessive hand around Shane’s neck and, after sliding a hand under Shane’s shirt a bit, around Shane’s bare waist.

The elevator dings and the doors slide open onto their floor. The hallway is luckily empty, so they step off and head straight to their room. Ilya presses kisses to Shane’s neck as Shane fumbles with the key card and reader on the door.

They practically tumble into their hotel room once Shane manages to get it open. Ilya immediately throws the deadbolt closed and locks the handle. He’s back in Shane’s space without a pause, his hands falling to Shane’s waist as their faces come so close they’re practically breathing into each other’s mouths.

“This is getting close to not vanilla,” Ilya says quietly, using a hand to gesture between them. “Do you want to stop that or do you want keep going like that.”

Shane realizes he’s right all at once. He assesses himself and finds he isn’t stressed or afraid or upset about this. He’s feeling good and, god, he wants it, it’s been so long.

“Keep going like that,” Shane replies, meeting Ilya’s eyes so that there isn’t any questions about his sincerity. “Don’t actively try to get us spacey on purpose, but I’m good whether it happens or not.”

Ilya nods once, sharply, after a short moment. His composure snaps and he crowds Shane back against the wall of their room.

“Da, is true,” Ilya murmurs against Shane’s jaw, “you are always good for me.”

Their lips connect again and they spend a while simply making out. It’s really hot making out, sure, but they spend longer doing just this than they normally do. Shane has a feeling it’s Ilya’s way of softening him around the edges just in case Shane does actually hit ‘space, and he loves Ilya so fucking much for it. If that’s the goal, it’s kind of working, because yeah, Shane is softening. Not too fast, but noticeably within himself.

Ilya’s mouth leaves his and relocates to Shane’s neck. He nips at a spot way too high up on his neck but Shane can’t find it in himself to care. All-Star weekend is over and his teammate back in Ottawa are fully aware of the fact that he and Ilya fuck. Ilya’s hands move to Shane’s front and undo the button and zipper of Shane’s jeans. He pushes his hand into the front of Shane’s boxers.

Shane’s hips jerk when Ilya’s hand finds his dick, cursing softly in French, “Merde.” Shit.

“I get you this hard just by kissing your pretty mouth, malysh?” Ilya says, voice low, right into Shane’s ear. His hand strokes Shane once and only once, a tease.

“Yeah, yes, you do,” Shane stammers, eyes slipping closed as Ilya’s teeth sink lightly into the side of his neck. “Always, always.”

Ilya bites a bit harder, hard enough that there will be some kind of mark there tomorrow. Shane’s knees go a little weak at the feeling, eyes loose in his head.

“Take this off,” Ilya instructs, pulling away and tugging lightly at Shane’s shirt.

Ilya starts working his hand steadily over Shane’s dick, still in his jeans. Shane complies, movements jerky as he tosses his shirt to the side and then tugs at the hem of Ilya’s own. Ilya hand pulls out of his pants so he can help Shane pull off his shirt.

Shane leans forward and mouths his way along Ilya’s jaw towards Ilya’s mouth. They’re kissing again, heatedly enough it’s a little uncoordinated. Ilya picks Shane up with an ease that still makes Shane want to drop to knees for the man. He walks them to the bed and kneels up onto it so he can deposit Shane far enough back that no major adjustments will need to be made later.

Ilya presses a thumb into the bruise that’s forming on Shane’s neck, the mark that’d been left there by his own teeth. His body goes hot when he hears the sudden hitched inhale of breath Shane makes against his lips. He digs his thumb into the hickey on Shane’s shoulder that he’d left the night before, the pressure just a little deeper, hard enough to ache but not seriously hurt. Shane’s body goes loose beneath Ilya as he makes another small noise in the back of his throat.

Ilya surveys the reaction, eyes dark, and pulls his thumb away.

“My good boy,” Ilya murmurs, sliding a hand back into Shane’s boxers as his teeth set into a spot near Shane’s collarbone this time.

He sucks more seriously and bites a bit meaner this time. Shane squirms beneath him, letting loose outright moans, albeit quiet ones, when Ilya sucks particularly harshly. He tips his head back, mouth open slightly, as Ilya sucks a quickly darkening bruise into a spot right above his right pec.

Ilya pulls back and helps Shane pull both of their jeans and boxers off. He pauses once they’re both fully naked, hovering closely over Shane’s body so he can press a quick kiss to his lips. He grabs Shane’s jaw with gentle but firm fingers and pulls his lips away so he can meet Shane’s eyes directly. Both of their pupils are blown slightly, Shane’s irises barely visible in the low lightning being cast from a singular lamp at the far side of the room.

“What you want, Shane?” Ilya asks, words thickly accented.

“Fuck me, Ilya, please fuck me,” Shane practically gasps.

Shane’s eyes are slightly glassy, Ilya sees. He’d been right to assume that they’d been skidding towards their respective headspaces since they’d gotten onto that elevator.

Shane can feel that he’s slipped but he can see from the look on his husband’s face that Ilya has, as well. He’s glad that they’re both on the same page, mentally preens at the knowledge that he’s having just as much of an effect on Ilya as vice versa.

Ilya smiles, a little vicious, and nods. He wastes no more time, grabbing lube and quickly slicking up a finger. He presses his finger into Shane without any preamble and stares at Shane’s face, slightly mesmerized, as Shane hisses and his face screws up. His mouth drops open when Ilya finds the spot that makes Shane’s body turn into liquid fast enough that he’s sure the Russian is smug about it. Shane’s eyes shoot down to meet Ilya’s eyes and sees that his assumption was right judging by the corner of Ilya’s mouth that’s curled upwards.

Ilya works his finger against the same spot for longer than necessary before he adds a second one. Shane squirms slightly against the bed, hitched noises and breaths falling from his lips every few moments. Ilya crooks his fingers meanly once he’s determined Shane’s thoroughly prepped and does it over and over as Shane jerks and then chokes on a moan, the constant prodding against his prostate driving him insane.

“Ilya, Ilya, I’m gonna—stop you gotta stop—” Ilya pulls his fingers out just as Shane thinks it’s going to be too late. Shane groans, his dick jerking, but he doesn’t come.

“Condom?” Ilya says gruffly.

Shane shakes his head vehemently. “No, no, just fuck me, please Ilya, please, fuck,” he says frantically. He lets his head fall back against the pillow and takes a breath to clear his head a bit so he can get the next bit out and finally fully relax into subspace. “Ilya, fuck me like you were saying you wanted to in the elevator, I want you to, YA zelonyy, ‘m so fucking green.” I’m green. The traffic light system is natural for them at this point in their relationship.

Ilya nods, gaze intense. “You say if you need me to relax,” he says.

“Yes, Ilya, I promise, now fuck me, please, come on, I’ve been s’good, Ilya, I want it so bad,” Shane agrees immediately. He feels the haze around him thicken and finally lets himself sink into it fully.

Ilya’s lips quirk slightly and he shushes Shane’s rambling, sliding a hand down Shane’s body with one hand while he holds his dick and feeds it into Shane with the other. Shane’s head falls back, mouth open wide as Ilya slowly but surely pushes inside.

“You are right, baby, you have been good, my good boy,” he says quietly as he continues pressing inside. “And look, you take me so good, too. Everything about you is so good, baby, my perfect Shane.”

Shane cuts off a whine that escapes momentarily from his throat when Ilya’s hips finally comes to rest fully at Shane’s pelvis. He’s breathing raggedly and staring down the lengths of their bodies to where Ilya has disappeared inside of him. Ilya sits up a bit and pulls Shane with him as he leans up and, with deliberately slowed movements so Shane has time to protest, wraps a big hand around both of Shane’s wrists. He presses them firmly down into the pillow beneath them.

Shane lets him. He knows that Ilya’s watching him for his reaction but he’s not worried because, with Ilya’s hold on his wrists and his body over his, he’s feeling nothing but good.

Ilya must like what he sees on Shane’s face because he starts moving his hips, slow at first. Shane moans loudly when Ilya gives him one vicious snap of his hips.

“Yeah?” Ilya says, his face close enough to Shane’s that his warm breath fans against his face. “Is that how my good boy wants it? You want me to fuck you like I am staking a claim?” He snaps his hips again just to punctuate what he’s saying.

“Yes, yes, ser, that,” Shane gasps.

Ilya’s grip on Shane’s wrists goes a touch tighter and he huffs, fucking into Shane faster and meaner. He’s hitting his husband deeper than before and Shane is making little hurt noises as he does, but Ilya can tell from the look on the sub’s face that they’re not from pain but rather from him feeling so good that he doesn’t know how to deal with it.

Ilya adjusts his hips and resumes the punishing pace he’s been fucking Shane with, but this time he’s directly targeting his prostate with ever thrust. The noises Shane starts to let out are louder than before, bitten off moans spilling from his mouth that are loud enough to be heard from outside their room at certain moments. Ilya tightens his hold on Shane’s wrists even more and stoops down so he can slide his tongue into his mouth. They kiss for a few moments until Shane is too overwhelmed to keep up, panting from the intensity that Ilya is fucking him with.

“Always take me so well, like a good boy, my good boy,” Ilya says, slightly out of breath. He leans down and sucks another hickey into Shane’s collarbone.

Shane’s eyes are shiny with unshed tears when Ilya pulls back.

“Please, please, can I come, Ilya, please?” he begs.

“Yes, baby, yes you can, come on my cock,” Ilya hisses back, snapping his hips even harder as he chases his own orgasm. “My good boy, show off in front of entire league just how much he loves me all night, bends for me so easily when I finally get him under me.”

Shane comes with a cut off shout, makes a mess of his stomach and chest untouched just as Ilya had teased him about over text earlier in the night. Ilya curses harshly in Russian and comes a few thrusts later. He’s still for a moment, trembling slightly, before he releases Shane’s wrists.

Shane immediately puts both of his hands on either sides of Ilya’s face, pulling him in so they’re kissing again and then making out, languid and unrushed this time, until Ilya goes soft and he pulls out of Shane.

Ilya’s body moves as if to get out of bed, likely to grab a washcloth from the bathroom, but Shane’s hand shoots out and grabs hold of his arm before he can. He shakes his head quickly at Ilya’s questioning look.

“No, not yet.”

“You not like mess,” Ilya says softly, but he doesn’t pull away.

“I don’ care,” Shane replies, slurring slightly. “Don’t want you t’leave yet, please.”

A soft smile spreads across Ilya’s face. He nods and lays back down, curling onto his side toward Shane and draping a steadying hand over Shane’s bare waist. “I not go anywhere unless you say is okay,” he murmurs.

Ilya moves the hand he has on Shane’s waist up to his face after a few moments, brushing his thumb over the freckles on Shane’s cheeks. Shane’s eyes slip closed and he smiles slightly, his body relaxing back to that post-sex float he gets after he goes down into ‘space.

“How about we take a shower together?” Ilya suggests. “I take care of you?”

He says it almost hopefully, and the tone breaks through Shane’s hazy mind. It reminds him of the conversation they’d had a long time ago, the one where Ilya had explained that aftercare and caretaking feels as good when he gives it as it feels when Shane receives it.

“Yeah, that sounds nice,” Shane agrees, eyes sliding back open.

Ilya guides him carefully to the bathroom in their hotel room. He washes Shane thoroughly and then himself, only allows Shane to wash his back because he wants to absolutely baby the man under his hands. He towel dries them both quickly and strips the flat sheet from the bed to reveal the clean fitted sheet underneath. He directs Shane under the covers and spoons up right behind him closely. Shane eyes are sliding shut almost immediately but he’s still awake enough to place a hand over the one Ilya curls over his waist. Ilya smiles into Shane’s neck, charmed as always by his adorable husband.

Shane’s hand goes slack and slides off of Ilya’s when the man falls asleep shortly after. Ilya’s asleep between one blink and the next.

Chapter Text

February 2022

Shane comes back down to earth a bit in the weeks after they return from the All-Star game in New Jersey. The topic of John Doe #1 has been a steady conversation online, if slightly quieter than it’d initially been. He figures it’s still only a matter of time.

So, he also figures that it’s about time he loops Farah in on this, even if he doesn’t want to fully own up to it.

He calls her one afternoon on an off day.

“Hey, Farah, I wanted to run something by you,” he says in greeting when she picks up the phone.

“Hey, Shane, it’s been a while,” Farah replies. “What’s up?”

“I need to talk you about something hypothetical and I, um, need you to not freak out about it,” he says quietly.

“Shane, you can’t just start off a conversation like that, my goodness,” Farah says, slightly exasperated.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes, Shane, it’s a yes. What’s going on?” she says, quickly adding, “Or, god, what’s hypothetically going on?”

“So, say I hypothetically know a player who may be John Doe #1 from the Dallas Kent trial,” Shane begins.

“Shane,” Farah says, voice suddenly low and very serious.

“Hypothetically, would they be able to force him to testify in the trial? Even if he already denied everything and refused to testify when they contacted him a couple of months ago?” Shane continues on, afraid he’ll lose steam if he doesn’t.

“Shane,” Farah repeats.

“Just hypothetically,” Shane says again, clinging to the façade.

“Okay. Okay,” Farah says, gathering herself. “Hypothetically, I don’t think they’d add anyone as a witness this far into the trial, especially not someone they’d be calling under duress. I’ll have to check with the lawyer I consult with to be sure, but, hypothetically, I think it’s unlikely.”

“I’d appreciate it if you would check, yeah,” Shane says quietly.

“Shane, does anyone else know?”

“Hypothetically?” he insists, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Yeah, Shane, hypothetically,” Farah says. Her voice is the gentlest that Shane has ever heard it.

“Just his spouse,” Shane says softly. “Maybe a couple of teammates. Nobody else, not his parents.”

“Okay, alright,” Farah says calmly. “Thank you for trusting me with this, Shane. I’ll call you when I hear back from that lawyer.”

“Thanks, Farah,” Shane murmurs.

“Of course, Shane.”

Ilya comes into the living room just as she and Shane are hanging up the phone.

“Was that Farah?” he says, gesturing to the phone.

“Yeah,” Shane replies.

“Anything wrong?”

“No, everything is fine, I called her,” Shane replies, shrugging his shoulders. “I thought, you know, I should tell her about Kent. Hypothetically, I didn’t, you know, actually say it was me. But she was able to tell, I think.”

“Was good idea, sweetheart,” Ilya says, dropping a kiss down onto his forehead. He doesn’t dwell on it, doesn’t stress about it because that will only freak Shane out about the media even more.

“Yeah?” Shane murmurs, staring at Ilya’s knees rather than his face.

“Da, malysh.”

***

Farah calls him a few days later during the drive home from practice.

“Hi, Shane,” she says in greeting, “I talked to my lawyer, and he agreed with me. It’s extremely unlikely that they’d subpoena that player to testify at this point in the trial.”

“Okay,” Shane says distantly. “Okay, that’s good.”

“Shane….hypothetically…is this something I should be concerned about?”

“Hypothetically, I’d recommend you be prepared for anything. There’s been…lots of talk, Farah.”

Ilya tunes in immediately, clocks the sudden tightness in Shane’s shoulders.

“Okay. Okay, well, I hate to ask this, Shane, but what exactly would be the nature of that photograph they found of the player?”

Shane’s entire body goes rigid in Ilya’s peripheral vision.

A hundred of possible scenarios for such a picture race through Shane’s head. All of them make him feel vaguely ill.

“Nothing—uh—nothing that can—um, nothing that can be construed as consensual, I’m pretty sure,” he finally forces out of his mouth, devoid of emotion. Then, with an amused lilt to his voice that’s too nonchalant for the topic at hand, so much so that it unnerves Ilya slightly, “Hypothetically, of course.”

There’s a brief moment of tense silence.

“Right. Well. I’m sorry to hear that about your…friend, Shane. Hypothetically. But know that a good agent stands by their client, and I happen to be a very good agent. Just thought I’d mention that, in case it was ever a question.”

Shane, mouth drops open slightly in surprise and then a surge gratitude. He takes a moment to respond.

“I appreciate it, Farah,” he says finally.

“Take care of yourself, Shane.”

Unfortunately, talking about the photograph and what exactly it may show with Farah had cracked something open in Shane, it seems. It’d overloaded his brain and he’d retreated into his mind a bit, gone quieter and less engaged. It isn’t a full blown dissociative episode or anything, and he’s grateful, but he definitely still feels a bit like he’s…experiencing life at an arm’s length right now.

Was it when Kent had been fucking his face? The thoughts strikes him when he’s waiting in line for his turn at a drill during morning practice. He misses the pass when he gets his turn.

A picture of him sprawled out on the floor? He thinks on the treadmill in his and Ilya’s home gym. He stumbles a step and then another.

Did Kent take a picture of his dick inside Shane? That one strikes him when Ilya pushes inside of him one night.

Shane gasps, stares up at the man hovering above him and sees Ilya, and then is struck with the sheer contrast between this and what Kent had done. He gets emotional, overwhelmed with a feeling that isn’t bad, even if he can’t quite name it. Ilya checks in with him, a soft smile on his face, only a touch of concern in his expression. Shane nods quickly, confirms that he’s okay and that the dual tears racing down the sides of his face are good tears. Ilya smiles, wipes them away with his thumbs, and leans even closer just so he can press a brief kiss to a spot where freckles are speckled across Shane’s cheek.

The one thing that keeps Shane anchored to life in general is that he hadn’t been lying when he’d told Farah that, no matter what the photograph that Kent had taken actually shows, no one will be able to look at it and say Shane asked for it. There’d been blood everywhere, not just on his face and chest but also between his legs. He doesn’t remember a picture being taken, so any picture that shows his face will likely show how completely out of it he’d been at the time. These facts, disturbingly, reassure him, even if only slightly.

Shane also starts looking at the phones that his teammates wave around in the locker room like they’re loaded guns again. That habit had calmed down for a while, but talking with Farah had set him back on edge. He’s walking around once again fully aware of the face that, any day now, a horrifyingly compromising picture of himself can be leaked to the internet for the world to see.

Ilya notices this immediately the day it crops back up. He gestures Shane towards him from across the locker room and Shane, to Ilya’s slight surprise, actually comes over. Ilya pulls him onto his lap and Shane goes easily.

“Hey,” Ilya says softly.

“Hey,” Shane repeats.

“Vy nervnichayete, da? Vokrug stol'ko telefonov?” Ilya says quietly. You are nervous, yes? All of the phones around?

“Ouais,” Shane mumbles back, embarrassed, in French. Yeah.

“C’est bon,” Ilya says quietly, rubbing a hand up and down one of Shane’s arm. It’s okay. “There is nothing you can do to prevent it, if it happens. We will just deal with it if it does.”

“Yeah?” Shane says quietly, “We’ll deal with it?”

“Da, Hollander,” Ilya says, nodding earnestly. “YA zabochus' o bezopasnosti svoyego khoroshego mal'chika ochen' ser'yezno.” I take keeping my good boy safe very seriously.

The use of the pet name makes Shane’s cheeks pink slightly. He smiles, a real smile this time, and rolls his eyes.

“Okay,” he says softly. “Thanks.”

“No need for thanks,” Ilya says easily. He pecks Shane on the lips, both cheeks, his nose, his jaw, and his lips again when Shane starts to protest.

Bood texts him after practice.

Bood: is Hollzy okay?

Ilya: wdym

Bood: he was staring at my phone in my hand today like it was a bomb about to go off

Ilya: ah

Ilya: he talk to his agent yesterday, about things, hypothetically of course

Ilya: if they would force him to testify, even this late

Ilya: they would not, she said

Ilya: but it remind him that someone could leak it any day

Ilya: scare him, I think

Bood: do you think he’s right? that it’s gonna get leak one day no matter what?

Ilya: you see how not-normal Canadians are for Shane Hollander, yes? obsessed. it is sad, but I think he is right

Bood: at least he has his agent’s support, yeah?

Ilya: yes, Farah is very good. Puts up with me, even, and this is asking a lot

Ilya: asking her to deal with mess of first gay NHL couple, this also was asking a lot, she do good job

***

They’re slated to play against the Chicago Stingrays on Valentine’s day this year, so Shane and Ilya don’t get to do anything too exciting for the holiday. They’ve improved in the last few years, went from being in completely different cities on the day of love to now where they’re, at the very least, going to share a hotel room on the night of. It may not be the romantic dinner at a nice restaurant and crazy romantic sex they’d both quietly joked about over the years when discussing the holiday, but it’s better than nothing.

“Ty davno menya ne dominiroval, tu sais,” Shane says casually as they take their gear off in the locker room after a 4-2 win against the Stingrays. You haven’t dommed me in a while, you know.

Ilya turns, slowly, eyebrows raising and looking slightly like Shane had hit him in the head with a frying pan.

“Ty ne mozhesh' govorit' mne takoye v razdevalke, Hollander, bozhe moy!” Ilya replies, speaking just slowly enough for Shane to follow. You can't say that to me in the locker room, Hollander, jesus christ.

A slight smile is tugging at a single corner of Shane’s mouth.

“So I was right,” Shane says, smug. He rips the Velcro strap off of his elbow pad. “It has been a while.”

“You…” Ilya says slowly, pointing a finger at Shane. “You are evil.”

“YA predlagayu tebe vladet' mnoy na noch', Rozanov,” Shane says, not backing down. I’m offering you ownership of me for the night, Rozanov. “How does that make me evil?”

Ilya stares for a moment. Shane drops his gaze momentarily to remove his other elbow pad.

“You are serious,” Ilya says finally.

A smirk tugs at Shane’s lips. “Da,” he says, voice low.

“We talk more later,” Ilya says, eyes flicking all over the locker room at where their teammates most certainly are still present.

“Mm, sounds like a good idea, Rozy,” Shane says with a soft hum. “I’ll text you on the bus. Vesti peregovory.” Negotiate.

Ilya swallows thickly.

“Ouais,” he says in agreement. Yeah. He heads to his own stall across the room to take off his gear, as well.

Shane is texting Ilya the moment they take their seats for the twenty or so minute drive to their hotel for the night.

Shane: you could mark me, if you want

Shane: wherever you want

Shane: within reason, you menace

Shane: but you could really go for it, I want it to ache

Ilya: fuck, Shane

Shane: didn’t think of anything else

Shane: want you to fuck me like you own me

Shane: because you do

Shane: only thing I don’t want is anyone to overhear us, so nothing too loud

Ilya: you think about this already

Shane: well, I figured it’d be nice, since we can’t have a full valentine’s day

Shane: and I also just really want your dick

Ilya: Shane Hollander

Ilya: oh my god

Ilya: okay baby, I show you I own you

Ilya: traffic lights?

Shane: traffic lights

Ilya: now I cannot wait ((((:

Shane: you’re insufferable

Ilya: you the one who started this, maylsh

Ilya: you are also hard, I can tell

Ilya: hard on the bus with all of our teammates because you want to take my dick so bad

Shane: fuck off

Ilya: gonna regret that later, sweetheart (:

They sink into their respective headspaces nearly the second they cross the threshold into their hotel room. Ilya shoves him, hard, against the entryway wall, immediately dropping to his knees and going to work at unbuckling Shane’s belt. He thumbs the button of Shane’s jeans open, drags the zipper down, and immediately grabs the waistband of the jeans and his boxers and pulls them down his legs. Shane’s dick, already hard as Ilya had suspected, springs free into the open air.

Ilya gazes up at Shane, their eyes locking as Ilya flashes a smug grin at Shane. Ilya holds his gaze right up until the moment before he swallows Shane’s dick down in one go. Shane’s head slams back against the wall and a strangled groan rips from his throat. A hand immediately falls into Ilya’s hair and pulls slightly as Ilya goes to work on his dick.

Ilya uses his mouth to pull Shane right to the edge.

“Ilya, stop! Ilya, I’m gonna—” Shane hisses, trying to pull his hips away from his husband even though there’s no room for his hips to move.

Ilya pulls off at the last possible second. Shane gasps, his dick jerking, the tip reddened slightly from the strain.

“So good for me,” Ilya says quietly, running his hands up and down Shane’s thighs.

“Holy shit,” Shane breathes.

“Keep being good, da?” Ilya says next. Shane doesn’t understand what he means until Ilya is taking his dick into his mouth again.

Shane fully moans, hips jerking when Ilya’s tongue pays special attention to the already oversensitive head of his dick.

“Ilya, please, ‘m gonna come, please, can I come?” Shane pants out. It’d taken less time for Ilya to drive him right to the edge this time.

Ilya pulls off suddenly. “No,” he drawls, enraptured by the way Shane’s dick kicks against his stomach several times but still, amazingly, doesn’t come.

“No?” Shane gasps out, already a little out of his mind.

Ilya rises to his feet, graceful and swift. He rests a hang against Shane’s throat, turns Shane’s head slightly so they’re eye to eye.

“You will come on my cock like a good boy, or not at all,” Ilya says, eyes dark pools of black pupils surrounded by thin rings of blue.

Shane’s mouth drops open slightly as he nods in understanding.

“Okay,” he says. “How d’you want me, ser.”

“This is okay?” Ilya says, eyes searching Shane’s face, checking in.

“Yes, Ilya,” Shane says carefully. “Vert.” Green.

“Take your shirt and pants off, fold them, put them on the chair. Lay down on the bed on your back,” Ilya orders, clear and patient.

Shane immediately moves to follow his directions. He steps towards the head of the bed in the room and sheds first his hoodie, which he folds and places on the armchair by the window. He does the same for his shirt and then his belt and jeans. Ilya prepares a few things and steals frequent glances at Shane as he goes, making sure necessary supplies are in easy reach considering the kind of scene this may turn out to be.

Shane crawls onto the bed in just his underwear and lays, reluctantly, on his back. He watches Ilya place an extra water bottle on the bedside table and then stoop down to brush a bit of Shane’s hair back from his face. The gesture is almost reverent in its gentleness and it makes Shane’s breath catch slightly.

“Mon beau, parfait, gentil garçon,” Ilya murmurs. My beautiful, perfect, good boy.

A soft smile forms on Shane’s face. Carefree, Ilya notices. He’s flying, Ilya thinks, brushing a thumb over Shane’s cheekbone, nothing reaches him here but me.

I’m so insanely his, Shane thinks to himself, maybe I should’ve taken his last name.

Ilya had also removed all of his clothes except for his boxers while Shane had done the same. That’s one thing Shane had made it a point to tell him, that he feels bad when he’s the only one who’s naked when they fuck, and Ilya has never forgotten it. It’s not like it’s much of a hardship for the Russian; he’s practically allergic to wearing clothing.

He creeps over Shane’s body, hanging close over Shane’s chest so he can brush his teeth against the soft skin of Shane’s throat. Shane’s breath hitches slightly and Ilya’s lips quirk. He moves his mouth to the sub’s collarbone and finally allows them to sink in slightly, listening and assessing closely to hear and see Shane’s reaction to the bit of pain.

Shane’s body melts slightly into the bed beneath him, his limbs loosening. He can feel himself going hazy around the edges and gives into it completely.

Ilya smiles again, slight, and then sucks against the skin there, worrying the skin and enjoying the reactions it continues to elicit from Shane beneath him.

Ilya makes good on the only clear suggestion Shane had had: he marks Shane up thoroughly. Bruises in varying shades of dark purple and red are littered across both of his collarbones, over his pecs, and on his shoulder.

“Still good?” Ilya murmurs, pulling his mouth away from the beautifully blooming bruise forming on Shane’s right shoulder.

“Yeah,” Shane sighs back.

“Mm, good,” Ilya hums, kissing his way down Shane’s chest. His teeth pull at the waistband of Shane’s boxers slightly once he reaches them. He smirks when Shane’s hips buck once at the sudden attention.

“How about we get these off of you, hm, maylsh?” Ilya says softly, hooking both thumbs in either side of the waistband.

“Yeah, okay,” Shane agrees immediately. “Sounds good.”

He raises his hips when Ilya directs him to so the dom can shimmy the underwear down his legs and off. Ilya follows suit, eyes locked on Shane as his own dick is finally exposed to the room.

“I fuck you, sound okay?” Ilya says, stroking a hand down his own cock once. Shane’s eyes follow the movement.

“Please, Ilya,” he says. “Oh my god, yeah, I wan’ it, ser.”

“Da, bébé,” Ilya says, leaning up to peck Shane’s lips once just to see the soft smile that spreads across his husband’s face. Yes, baby.

Ilya preps Shane efficiently but thoroughly. He can tell by the way Shane’s already so desperate for it that teasing him too much with fingering may be too much for him.

“Gonna give you my dick now, baby,” Ilya says sweetly, rolling on a condom and slicking up his dick. He presses the head of his dick to Shane’s hole and holds it there, teasing. “You want it?”

“Ouais, da, yes, ser,” Shane babbles. “Please, ser, I want it so bad, ‘lya, please fuck me.”

“Shh,” Ilya shushes him, pressing his dick forward slightly so that it’s finally inside of Shane. “Do not worry, moy khoroshiy mal'chik, I will remind you who you belong to, is okay.” My good boy.

His dick continues the long slide inside until he bottoms out at Shane’s pelvis. Shane make a small noise in the back of his throat when it does, sighing shakily when Ilya starts to grind his hips slightly.

“Feel okay?” Ilya says, pressing his hips forward a little meanly just to hear the way Shane’s breathing stutters.

“Yeah, ‘lya,” Shane slurs slightly.

Shane’s hand drifts towards his own dick as Ilya starts to move his hips back and forth, slow but steady. Ilya smacks his hand away immediately, and leans down to curl a hand around Shane’s wrist and hold it down against the bed.

“Net, baby,” Ilya says sweetly. Then he snaps his hips once, meanly, and says a little harsher, “From my cock or not all, Hollander.”

“Fuck, Rozanov,” Shane swears.

“Da,” Ilya says with a smug grin, thrusting his hips sharply to punctuate it as he bends down to nip at Shane’s bottom lip. “Tell me when you are close.”

He fucks Shane at a moderate pace, nothing too aggressive, and it drives the sub crazy. His breath starts to hitch after enough of it, though, little noises that Shane tries to swallow down escaping his mouth anyway.

“’lya,” he gasps, “Ilya, I think I’m gonna—”

Ilya stops thrusting immediately. Shane moans in frustration as he’s denied his building release. There are tears in his eyes when they meet Ilya’s, anger and desperation shining in them.

“On my lap, baby,” Ilya explains, maneuvering them gracefully once Shane knows what he’s planning to do.

They settle with Ilya on his back, his head propped up by pillows, and Shane on his lap, impaled on Ilya’s dick at a depth in this position that’s punching tearless sobs out of his mouth every time he shifts slightly. Shane looks nervous when Ilya checks his face.

“I’ll fuck you from here, still,” Ilya says, happy to see he’s guessed correctly about the slight stress that had appeared on Shane’s face and glad that it’s gone just as fast once he clarifies. “You tell me when you’re gonna come.”

“Okay,” Shane agrees, nodding frantically as he rolls his hips experimentally.

Shane’s eyelashes flutter and Ilya stares, mouth dropped open slightly as Shane really starts to grind his hips against Ilya’s pelvis. Ilya’s at the end of his rope here so he begins fucking his hips up into Shane, as well. Shane sits back a little on his knees and cries out when Ilya snaps his hips upwards at the same time. Ilya aims for the same spot that had ripped that noise out of Shane’s mouth and nails it a few times back to back much to Shane’s overwhelmed disbelief.

“Ilya!” Shane rasps. “Ilya, please, Ilya, I’m gonna come, please let me, please ser, please,” Shane begs, arms resting on Ilya’s shoulders as Ilya continues to drive into him from below.

“Eyes on me,” Ilya says immediately, “look at me right now, Hollander.”

Shane’s eyes jump up to Ilya’s automatically, too surprised by the order to think it through. There’s barely any blue left in Ilya’s eyes when they meet Shane’s. He realizes with a jolt that Ilya is just barely managing to hold it together himself.

“Good boy,” Ilya says. Shane gets to see his face when he says it, gets to see the affection and lust behind it, and his body goes molten hot. “Come.”

Shane’s head snaps back, body tensing as he trembles and comes hard, splattering up his own stomach with some force. He sits back completely on Ilya’s dick when he starts to come down and it’s just when Ilya begins fucking into him from below with purpose, chasing his own release. He’s stimulating Shane’s prostate the whole time, forcing out a few extra drops of come as Shane wails from the overstimulation. Ilya comes, jabbing his hips inside a few times to ride it out, and then they both finally still with his dick still inside Shane.

“Oh my god,” Shane moans after a moment. Ilya brings up his hands to rub down both of Shane’s arms to soothe him. “Good oh my god. God that was so good, ‘lya.” He tips his face forward so that it’s resting against Ilya’s shoulder, his lips brushing against his neck.

“Da?” Ilya says, relaxing enough to smile slightly.

“Yesss,” Shane says, dragging the word out, loose tongued in a way that’s a little reminiscent of when Ilya had visited him in the hospital after his concussion. “Love you s’much.”

Ilya chuckles lightly. He enjoys these moments of Shane Hollander with sanded down edges. It’s sweet and something he really only shares with Ilya.

“Love you, too, sweetheart,” Ilya says softly, stooping down so he can bully a kiss onto his husband’s lips. “You were such a good boy for me, moy khoroshiy mal'chik, beautiful.” My good boy.

“I was,” Shane agrees, wrapping a hand behind Ilya’s neck to steady himself so he can lean his head back and see Ilya’s face. “I was good?”

“Le meilleur,” Ilya croons back, tucking some of Shane’s sweaty hair behind his ear. The best. Shane smiles, bright.

“Good,” Shane says quietly. Then, even softer, almost shy, “So were you.”

Ilya beams. Ilya loves him so much, they love each other so much.

Shane smiles back, soft. They love each other. It feels like a dream.

***

They’re in Boston a week later for an away game against the Bears. Shane had only slept a handful of hours in the last 24. The insomnia has been hitting him on the road more often the last few weeks, but Shane has luckily gotten pretty proficient at functioning with limited sleep.

Boston tends to play a more physical game than most so Coach Wiebe has them running through some harsher checking drills than usual during the morning skate before the game. Shane has an uneasy feeling in his stomach as he waits for his turn. He goes next, delivers a deliberate yet clean hit on Bood when the puck finds the other man’s stick. They swing around behind the net and nod to each other, satisfied with the outcome that go around.

Shane takes a similar caliber of check from Barrett the next time he goes. Shane absorbs it well and never leaves his feet. Coach Wiebe gives them a nod when they skate up to the end of the line again.

Shane checks Haas. The younger player recovers quickly, much to Shane’s approval.

It’s him and Dykstra up next this time. Shane skates forward, anticipating the pass that hits his stick. Dykstra checks him from the side like they’ve all been doing, but he miscalculates a bit and hits Shane partially on the numbers, as well.

Shane flails and trips on a divet in the ice, collapsing down onto his knees. He gets a flash, then, a flash of that time there hadn’t been any shinguards to prevent him from cracking his knees hard on the floor. He’s already struggling to breath because of his nose, but Kent yanks hard on Shane’s hair, anyway, dragging him closer, and Shane is helpless to it—

Shane shakes off his gloves and places his bare hands on the ice below him, forcing harsh breaths in and out of his lungs even though it hurts him to do it.

“—okay, Shane?” someone is saying, a hand on his shoulder.

Shane jerks away, forces himself to focus enough to register that it’s Dykstra talking to him. He blinks hard a couple of times and nods his head quickly.

“I’m good,” he says. He can barely hear his own voice over the roaring in his ears.

“Are you sure, man? Do you need a trainer?” Dykstra says.

Shane shakes his head once, hoping it will clear his mind a little.

“Just had the, uh, wind knocked out of me,” Shane rasps, getting to one knee with the support of his stick. “I’m good, promise, man.”

Ilya skates up then, concerned eyes immediately going to Shane. He rests a tentative hand on Shane’s shoulder where Dykstra’s had just been and settles it there a little more firmly when Shane doesn’t pull away.

“Okay?” Ilya says quietly.

Shane closes his eyes briefly to the bright lights of the practice rink. He nods his head.

“Just need to catch my breath,” Shane replies, but his eyes are wide with panic when they meet Ilya’s.

Ilya makes quick work of hauling his husband up off of the ice and herding him towards the bench. They clomp down the tunnel towards the locker room and land with Shane sitting on the bench in his stall and Ilya on the bench beside him.

Shane tucks his head between his knees immediately and takes exaggerated gulps of air, desperately trying to regulate himself before he dissolves into the panic completely.

“That’s it, Shane, that’s perfect, keep breathing just like that,” Ilya soothes, a single thumb brushing back and forth across the back of one of Shane’s hands.

Shane hasn’t reacted to a check that badly in a while. The work he, Lemaire, and Forster had done had been very effective but not perfect, of course, so it happened from time to time, but…it’s been a while.

Ilya squats down in front of Shane when he doesn’t respond.

“I’ve got you, solnyshko, you’re safe,” Ilya murmurs. Shane shakes his head ‘no’ when Ilya says the last part. “Yes you are, Shane, I’ve got you.”

Shane ducks his head down again and struggles to breathe.

“Breathe in when I squeeze,” Ilya says, taking both of Shane’s hands in his, “breathe out when I relax my hands. Okay?”

Shane nods quickly and focuses on following the pattern of Ilya’s hands.

Ilya’s head snaps up when he notices a figure standing in the doorway to the locker room. Coach Wiebe. He takes in the sight of the two of them, Shane barely holding it together and Ilya doing his best to make it better, and promptly turns around and walks away. Ilya is grateful. Shane’s head is still between his knees when Ilya turns back, and he’s glad.

“Keeping breathing,” he says quietly. “Good.”

Shane eventually manages to pulls himself out of it with the help of Ilya’s guiding hands. His shoulders go lose when his chest loosens and he’s able to take even, easy breaths. He sits up slightly, propping his elbows against his knees so he can hold up his head.

“Okay?” Ilya says, rubbing a handle in a circle on Shane’s shoulder blade.

“Yeah,” Shane says, still a little breathless. “Thanks. I, uh, I just freaked out. I don’t know why.”

“You not sleep very well last night, yes?” Ilya says, hauling himself up so that he’s once again seated on the bench next to Shane’s. He adjusts his knees so they’re pointing towards him, his right one pressing firmly into Shane’s left leg.

“No, I didn’t,” Shane allows, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Fuck. This hasn’t happened in a while, Ilya. I don’t know why this is happening.”

Ilya clasps a hand around one of Shane’s and rests them on Shane’s knee. “You talk with Farah,” Ilya says quietly. “It scared you.”

“Yeah, but I—I guess I just didn’t think I’d have a flash on the ice like that,” Shane murmurs, not meeting Ilya’s eyes. “When I tripped and fell, for a minute, it was like…before. Only a second.”

“I see you, Shane,” Ilya says quietly. “You never fully gone, just seem confused for a moment, which is okay.”

Shane nods automatically. Ilya reaches out and takes Shane’s jaw in his hand, turning the man’s face to look directly at him.

“I mean it, milyy,” Ilya insists. Darling. “You were there the whole time, I am so proud, baby, I know it can be hard for you.”

“Not much to be proud of,” Shane replies with a snort, rolling his eyes and directing his gaze away from Ilya’s.

Shane’s eyes dart back to meet his husband when Ilya gives his face a little shake.

“You get up, put your legs underneath you, hold yourself upright on the ice, walk in your skates back to the locker room, you do a lot,” Ilya insists. “Sound familiar?”

It does sound familiar, Shane realizes. It’s similar to what Shane has said to him after Ilya’s on the other side of a depressive patch, similar to what he tells him when the shame and guilt starts to leak out. You got out of bed, you took a shower, you ate breakfast, you went to practice Ilya, you’ve done a lot.

“Yeah,” Shane says finally. He swallows thickly. “Thank you, Ilya, for saying that.”

Ilya releases Shane’s jaw and relaxes slightly.

“Okay,” Ilya says after a moment, “take off your gear.”

“What?” Shane says, sitting back in his stall. “No, there’s, like, an hour left of practice.”

“Da, and you almost puke on the ice ten minutes ago, Hollander,” Ilya snips back. “Think you are done for the day after that, Shane.”

“I’m okay, Ilya,” Shane insists. “This was, like, a weekly occurrence for me not too long ago, I’m used to it. It wears off quickly.”

“Cannot believe this man,” Ilya grumbles to himself, crossing his arms and shaking his head.

“I’ll sit on the bench for a bit, first, how’s that? And if I’m not feeling it I’ll stay there,” Shane offers. “And if I don’t feel right, I’ll get off the ice.”

“You better, Hollander,” Ilya says when he turns back to look at him.

Shane rolls his eyes.

“Yes, sir,” he snarks, getting to his feet.

Ilya swats him lightly on the ass of his hockey pants as they make their way out of the locker room. Shane squawks, mildly affronted.

Shane obediently seats himself on the bench by the door leading to the ice. Ilya hops onto the ice and rejoins his teammates where they’re taking turns with breakaways against their two goalies.

Coach Wiebe approaches after a few minutes.

“I’m not gonna ask unless you want me to, but I’ll just say that if you think it’d help, we have resources for you guys as players,” Wiebe says quietly.

“I know, coach,” Shane replies. “Thanks, but I’m alright.”

“If there’s anything I could do, let me know that, also,” Wiebe continues even though Shane, secretly, just wishes that he would go away. “You’re a good player, Shane, and a good guy.”

Shane snorts even though he doesn’t mean to, looking away from Wiebe and back towards the ice. He tracks Ilya as he cuts his way across the ice in the midst of a passing drill with Haas.

Is that what Wiebe really thinks that panic attack had been about? That Shane hadn’t done well during a drill in practice and had fallen apart over it? The idea is laughable.

The idea isn’t just laughable, it’s offensive. “That wasn’t because I messed up a drill in practice,” Shane says, incapable of keeping the slightly amused tone out of his voice over the mere suggestion, “but yeah, there isn’t anything, but I appreciate the offer.”

Shane gets to his feet and starts preparing to get back onto the ice. He feels alright enough now and he wants this conversation to be over.

“Then what was it?” Wiebe says.

Something shudders through Shane, then, something tired and something mean.

“There’s a price to being one of those “generational talents” that everyone obsesses over, you know,” Shane says, voice not exactly unkind but also not quite…right. He grabs his stick and turns towards the bench door. “Nobody ever warned me how expensive it could get.” He mutters the last part as he passes his coach and steps out onto the ice. He doesn’t look back. That’d been a little more cryptic and melodramatic than he’d intended. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true, though.

***

Pittsburgh plays in Ottawa a week later.

Shane had managed to relax a little bit during that week, the hypervigilance less pronounced and the anxiety lessened. He hasn’t had a panic attack since that practice before their game against Boston.

Nikita Tokarev, Gus Sinclair’s right hand man at this point in their careers, is a force to be reckoned with when Gus is out of the lineup. Shane expected to receive some of the man’s attention considering he’s playing like he’s on a mission tonight but the guy’s been all over the puck and, consequently, Shane, all night. It certainly doesn’t help that he’s a toned down version of the Russian menace that Ilya is, either.

They meet at the boards during a puck battle early in the second period. Shane manages to make some space but Tokarev shoves Shane forward hard against the boards in response. Shane’s vision flickers slightly, between the rink where is he now and a bed where he was then. It’s brief enough that he barely falters.

Shane frees the puck and turns quickly, heading back towards the neutral zone. A stick darts out to try to get the puck as he goes and it yanks too far, catching on Shane’s skates. He trips and a whistle blows immediately. He flickers back to a dorm room floor in Sochi, then pushes himself to his feet as the ref calls a two minute minor penalty against Tokarev for tripping.

He uses the break between whistles to take an early change, slightly unsteady on his skates as he makes his way back to the bench. He thinks he’s through the most of it when he sits down initially. Then a wave of nausea crashes over him.

Ilya sees the color drain from Shane’s face from where he’s sitting right beside him on the bench.

“Bucket,” Shane clips out suddenly, loud enough for the coaching staff and the trainers around them to hear. “Gonna puke.” That second part gets him a more urgent response and he’s handed a small trashcan from behind the bench a moment later.

He leans forward so that his face is hidden from the ice by the boards in front of him and pukes his guts up into the trashcan. The trainers are hounding him immediately, flocking closely. Is he sick? Did he eat something weird? Did he hit his head?

Shane doesn’t pick up his head. “I’m not sick. I didn’t hit my head,” he forces himself to say, even and measured. “Sometimes I just get like this.”

All eyes swing to Ilya. He looks just as confused and concerned as everyone else.

“I don’t know,” Ilya says honestly.

“Maybe we should just pull him for protocol,” one of the newer trainers says, unsure.

“It’s an anxiety thing, for christ sake,” Shane snaps, finally picking his head up. The nausea has abated enough that he feels safe to stop hovering over the trashcan. “It’s documented, along with everything else I submitted to medical staff when I signed with the team. Pull my file if you want.”

Nobody says anything for a moment, still skeptical. Shane turns and sets his eyes on Danny, the head trainer.

“I’m not sick. I don’t have a concussion. I can play, Danny, and I want to play,” he says firmly. “I would never fuck around with a head injury.”

The trainer holds his gaze for a moment, assessing, before he nods. He waves off the rest of the trainers and Wiebe who had also drifted closer during the whole ordeal.

“I’ll pull his file,” one of the trainers says. Danny doesn’t stop him. Shane figures that’s fair; it’s their job to make sure the players are healthy and well enough to be on the ice. He knows they’ll find that he was telling the truth, too, so he’s not worried.

“You good now?” Danny says, gesturing to the trashcan in Shane’s hands.

“Yeah,” Shane says, handing it over. “But you should probably keep it nearby, you know, just in case.”

Danny grimaces but obliges, tucking it back where it’d been behind the bench but, wisely, still nearby.

Shane silently sends a damn near prayer to Dylan Forster for basically harassing him into making sure that he’d gotten a formal Generalized Anxiety Disorder as well PTSD diagnosis from a psychologist way back in 2014. After witnessing the way Shane was reacting to drills on the ice during checking coaching that summer, it made sense to ensure that medical staff on the Voyageurs, and then all these years later on the Centaurs, knew that vomiting or panic attacks on the ice were, unless otherwise specified by Shane, likely a symptom of anxiety. Shane had argued about it back then, had not wanted it on paper officially that his head was fucked up, but when it became clear that it could affect his ability to play, even temporarily, he’d given in. He’d been immediately grateful when he’d puked his guts up during his first game in the regular season that year and his trainers had already been prepped.

Shane hadn’t thought to prep the medical staff in Ottawa about this particular quirk of his because, like a lot of things he’s been experiencing lately, it hasn’t really been much of an issue for at least a few years up until last fall.

The trainers are no longer concerned, but that doesn’t mean Ilya is convinced. He watches his husband carefully as Shane squirts some water into his mouth, swirls it around, and spits it back out. He takes an actual drink of water after and notices Ilya’s eyes on him as he does.

“I’ll answer whatever questions you want to ask later, but right now we’re playing a game,” Shane says.

“Are you okay?” Ilya asks, because he can’t help himself.

Shane softens slightly.

“I’m okay, moya lyubov',” Shane says quietly. My love. “It, uh, really is because of anxiety, Rozy.”

Ilya stares for a moment longer before he finally relaxes. He nods his head, accepting this explanation.

“Okay,” he says.

Shane gets back onto the ice along with the rest of the powerplay line, Ilya included, at the beginning of the next TV timeout. The Penguins had taken a delay of game penalty for knocking the puck out of the rink, so they’ve got another two minute powerplay.

He skates a couple wide circles, warming his body back up a bit. He dodges around the ice crew once he’s sufficiently loosened up to hang out near where the upcoming face-off will be.

“Tout va bien, Hollander?” Noah Lemaire calls, gliding up. All good, Hollander? He’s nonchalant about it.

Shane nods, lips quirking slightly. “Tout va bien.” All good.

“Même après avoir vomi toutes tes tripes?” Lemaire deadpans. Even after puking all of your guts up?

Shane can’t help it, he laughs.

“Même après.” Even after.

Lemaire levels him with a knowing look, still casual but more sharp.

“Était-ça le coup sur les bandes?” Lemaire says. Was it the hit on the boards?

“Ouais,” Shane confirms. Yeah. Then, a little quieter and because there aren’t a lot of people he can really share things relating to the Summer of 2014 with, “Ça a empiré ces derniers temps. J'ai la tête… partout.” It’s been worse, lately. My head is…everywhere.

“Ça arrive,” Lemaire says, just sympathetic enough that it’s not insulting. It happens. “L'entraînement ne t'a pas rendu magique, il t'a juste donné des outils.” Training didn’t make you magic, just gave you tools.

“Ouais, je sais,” Shane says. Yes, I know. Then, in English, “Still fuckin’ sucks.”

Lemaire laughs.

“I won’t argue with you on that,” he says.

The ref blows the whistle. They move towards the face-off dot.

“I’m still holding you to dinner with the wives the next time you’re in town, Hollander!” he says as they bend over the dot in Pittsburgh’s defensive zone.

Shane barks out a laugh. “Well, Rozanov is kinda pretty, so I’m sure he could play my wife for the night.”

“I am gorgeous, Hollander,” Ilya calls out in correction from where he’s positioned as Shane’s left-winger. “You are pretty.”

Shane blushes furiously and smiles despite his mild irritation at the comment. The ref drops the puck and Shane wins the face-off.

They’re tied halfway through the third period, which is pretty fair considering they’re close in overall league standings. Lemaire steals the puck from Shane with nine minutes left in the game and laughs loudly at him as he does, much to Shane’s amused annoyance.

If Lemaire was a malicious asshole, Shane thinks, he’d have used the weakness that Shane had revealed to him to his advantage. Shane can think of plenty of players in the league that would’ve immediately turned to his team and told them to target Shane for hits.

Interestingly, though, Lemaire hadn’t overcompensated, either. Someone who didn’t know Shane as a person at all may have told his teammates to back off and treated him like a fragile bird for the rest of the night.

The play on the ice hadn’t changed at all, though, since that brief conversation with Lemaire in the second. The hits are just as tough, and Pittsburgh plays a relatively clean game, so they’re not dirty, either. The chirps are the same, again, nothing overtly bigoted, but plenty of curse words are tossed around. Lemaire himself had collided with Shane at the boards when he stole that puck just now with the same amount of force and aggression as he usually does.

It makes sense, Shane realizes. Most of the time he’s figured that the summer he, Lemaire, and Forster had spent together in 2014, while a significant turning point in his life, was a mere blip in the other two men’s lives. Tonight is the same treatment Shane had been given way back then: like he’s a capable adult who doesn’t need people coddling him and what he mostly needs is for people to not act like assholes. If Shane says he’s good, he’s good. Don’t tell him how he is.

Shane’s glad, but he doesn’t allow himself to relax fully because once he’s frozen up once during a game, it’s more likely that he’ll do it again in the same night. He doesn’t want to backslide and to avoid that he needs to focus.

He makes it through the rest of the game without another flashback or episode of vomiting. The Centaurs win it in overtime, a respectable 4-3. Shane actually does manage to score a goal late in the third, assisted by Ilya because Lemaire took a stupid cross-checking penalty and gave them the Centaurs a powerplay.

“My baby!” Ilya had crowed as he’d skated up to celly, planting a kiss on the side of Shane’s helmet. Shane had smiled and allowed himself to enjoy it. Ilya had melted at the sight of it, and at the bright look in his husband’s eyes.

Shane gets selected as first star for the night, so he’s in for at the very least a brief interview at ice level. He skates a short and quick circle on the ice just outside of the bench, stick raised in recognition of the fans who cheer when his name is announced. He obediently steps back onto the bench and joins the ESPN commentator, Alicia, for an interview.

“That was quite a game, Shane,” she says in greeting. “Are you guys glad you managed to steal that second point?”

“Yeah, Alicia, at this point in the season those points matter, especially against teams like Pittsburgh that are so close to us in the standings,” he says smoothly, using the towel Ilya had slapped over his shoulder right before Shane had been ushered out of the locker room for the stars of the game announcements to wipe his forehead. “The boys are buzzing, we’re excited to work for another two points when we play against Colorado this Wednesday.”

“I can’t help but ask, Shane, but it looked like you had a bit of a problem on the bench during the second period tonight,” Alicia continues, flashing him a sympathetic smile.

Shane is sweaty and to be honest kind of disgusting since he didn’t have time to remove any of his gear, let alone shower, before he was yanked for the stars announcement. He’s glad, for once, though, because his face is still so flushed from a hard fought game that no one will be able to tell how much his cheeks flush at the question.

“Yeah, turns out I was actually pretty dehydrated,” he says with a bland laugh. It’s the rehearsed explanation for this exact scenario that he’s always kept in his back pocket. He’s had to break it out a couple of times back in Montreal and it’d always done the trick. “Seems kind of backwards, but apparently it happens.” He gives a nonchalant and, he’s hoping slightly endearing, shrug.

“Well, you’re certainly a trooper, Shane,” Alicia says, wrapping it up. “Appreciate you taking the time.”

“Of course, Alicia, back at you.”

Shane turns and walks away, heading back to the locker room so he can finally shower. He immediately starts taking off his gear once he reaches his stall.

“Damn, Hollzy, I didn’t know your anxiety was that bad,” Barrett chirps damn near the second his eyes land on Shane.

Shane rolls his eyes and tries to ignore the way his skin crawls slightly when the locker room’s attention turns to him specifically. He gives them a lazy shrug.

“It usually isn’t, but sometimes I just get set off for no reason like that,” he explains weakly, hoping nobody presses too hard.

Bood shares a look with Ilya. He tilts his head and darts his eyes to Shane and then back to Ilya’s in a silent question. Ilya nods once, jaw clenching slightly. Bood gives him a sympathetic look.

Thankfully, nobody pushes Shane any harder for answers. The attention in the locker room almost immediately cycles to something else. Shane is grateful. He grabs his phone from his locker and pulls up the group chat he has with Lemaire and Forster.

The three of them have talked every once in a while and even met up for lunch a couple of times over the years, but there had never really been regular contact with them up until the All-Star game this year. This was a conscious decision on Shane part’s back in 2014 because he’d known that suddenly becoming buddy buddy with a Penguins player and his Juniors friend would’ve made people ask questions. Those questions would’ve led to the ultimate conclusion that Shane had needed a checking coach as a seasoned NHL player, and Shane definitely didn’t want anyone looking too closely into that.

Ilya was right when he’d mentioned it before. The two of them were Shane’s friends back then, but he’d had to cut it off when the season started for the most part. A text to check in here and there, from either Noah or Dylan, would come through and Shane would always reply, but that was as far as Shane would let it go for the most part, even if he didn’t like it.

The group chat title, affectionally chosen by Lemaire, is named “MTL Summer Camp ’14.” It’s laughable but not entirely inaccurate. Those weeks in 2014 had kind of been like a summer camp, if you ignored the whole rape trauma induced near constant anxiety, panic attacks, and vomiting. They would do general training together, as well: conditioning, weight lifting, normal on-ice and dry land drills and exercises. The three would have lunch together between sessions and dinner, as well, a number of times. The whole “summer camp” vibe hadn’t been intentional, but it’d just made the most sense considering they were all already spending so much time together during the part of the summer when most NHL players were already training for the upcoming season anyways.

Shane: hey, do you guys mind if we do dinner another night? I feel like shit

Noah: totally understand, I wouldn’t want a nice dinner after hurling like that, either

Dylan: hurling? wtf happened?

Noah: anxiety puking

Dylan: from what??? jfc

Dylan: Shane?

Shane: I got checked really hard and it freaked me out

Shane: or, not really that hard

Shane: but it freaked me out

Shane: so I puked on the bench a little bit

Noah: a little bit? yeah, ok, hollz

Shane: you’ve seen worse

Noah: true

Dylan: I thought things have been okay lately

Shane: they have

Shane: I was just talking to my agent the other day

Shane: about, you know, things

Shane: and it spooked me maybe idk

Dylan: I’ve got your back no matter what, you know that, Shane

Noah: same here, Hollz, whatever happens

Dylan: I have this weird feeling that Ilya Rozanov of all people would, too, how odd

Noah: yeah, almost like the guy’s married and hopelessly in love with you or something

Shane: shut up

Noah: I bet he’s blushing rn

Shane: fuck off Lemaire

Dylan: you get what we’re saying tho, right?

Shane: yeah I get it

Shane: thanks

Shane: for real

Noah: alright, now go let Ilya Rozanov dote on you

Noah: my god, that man is whipped

Dylan: is he really?

Dylan: I’ve yet to see it in action

Noah: bro, you have no idea

Shane: shut the fuck up Lemaire

Noah: I haven’t seen a denial, have you, Forster?

Dylan: nope, neither have I

Shane: I hate both of you

Noah: yeah, ok

Dylan: sure, buddy

Shane and Ilya head home once they’ve both showered and put on their street clothes. They listen to the radio during the drive and sit together in comfortable silence. A wave of exhaustion had hit Shane the second they’d hit the parking lot and he’d handed Ilya the keys without a word. Normal post-game exhaustion is expected but it’s even more that, probably has something to do with the emotional mindfuck of a flashback on the ice followed by keeping it together through sheer force of will for the rest of the game.

“What do you want to eat?” Ilya asks as he pulls onto their street.

Shane doesn’t want to eat anything.

He has a feeling Ilya knows this. He wishes he could explain his relationship with food to Ilya in a way that makes him understand better. Ilya can empathize a little bit, he knows, he’s seen Ilya go a day without food when he’s deep in a pit of his depression and needs reminders to eat, but otherwise Ilya eats just fine. Shane struggles with food all the time, and that’s not something Ilya’s ever experienced.

Shane knows he has to eat something tonight.

Ilya is slightly bracing himself for Shane to say that he’s not hungry. It used to result in argument back when they’d first gotten married, enough times that he’d done some research and had to, as gently as possible, broach the topic of eating disorders with his husband. It’d gotten a lot better after that, but things regressed significantly this fall and they’ve both acknowledged why that is. Ilya can tell that his husband is still doing his best and has given Shane a lot more leeway in the eating department than he’s become used to, but eating after a game is still a nonnegotiable. He doesn’t want to fight, especially over something like this that Shane can’t control, but he will if he has to.

Shane exhales slowly through his nose and continues staring out the window.

“That protein pasta you bought, cut up grilled chicken,” Shane lists off quietly. “Some of those leftover mashed potatoes. And uh, maybe some of that brown gravy you made.”

Ilya pulls into the driveway and puts the car in park.

“On the pasta or the potatoes?” Ilya says evenly, trying not to give off how relieved and surprised he is that not only is Shane not outright refusing, he’s giving suggestions. He takes his seatbelt off and turns to look at Shane. “Or both?” Ilya adds, a corner of his mouth quirking slightly.

Ilya watches the processing Shane goes through at the question. This part is less the trauma-induced lack of appetite and more the disordered eating part. Shane wouldn’t have suggested gravy if he truly didn’t have any sort of appetite, it’s something he’s found that he likes. The hard part now is him deciding if he deserves gravy on both, and that’s his eating disorder speaking, Ilya knows. He wishes he could fix it.

“Both?” Shane says, voice terribly small. He turns to Ilya but doesn’t meet his eyes. “I think?”

“Do you want it on both?” Ilya says patiently.

Shane’s eyes flick up to briefly meet his and then away just as quickly.

“Yeah,” he admits, like it’s a weakness.

“Then stop stressing,” Ilya says easily, reaching into the back seat and grabbing both of their bags that they take back and forth to the rink. “I think maybe I can decide what you deserve tonight, yes?” He hands Shane his own bag.

Shane blushes slightly, feeling incredibly seen.

“Yeah, yeah, you can,” he says shyly.

So they go inside and Ilya pulls two boxes of the protein pasta he’d bought at the store earlier in the week out of the cabinet. He starts heating a pot of water and cooks chicken breast in a pan as he waits for it to boil. The gravy he’d made warms up at a simmer in a small pot on the stove’s smallest burner. He’ll microwave them some of the leftover mashed potatoes once everything else gets closer to being done.

“That was a nice goal in the third, moya lyubov',” Ilya says as they wait, him standing at the stove poking the chicken around every few moments and Shane sitting on one the chairs at the breakfast bar. My love.

“Thanks, malysh,” Shane replies, smiling softly. Baby. “It was a nice assist.”

“Da,” Ilya says, smug for the first time since the game. “From very hot, amazing husband.”

Shane rolls his eyes, exasperated, and takes a sip from the can of ginger ale that Ilya had practically forced into his hands the moment he’d sat down.

He eats a decent amount of mashed potatoes and all of the pasta and chicken that Ilya had placed in front of him. Ilya had practically read his mind when he’d hesitated about the gravy, and while a year ago that would’ve pissed him off, right now he can’t be anything but thankful. He remembers how miserable he used to be, watching Ilya drink lemonade and hoping he’d kiss him just so he can get a taste of it, and doesn’t miss feeling like that. Ilya had taken the choice away from him tonight and Shane is glad that he let him. The food may be an odd combination, but he can’t find it within himself to care.

They end up curled together on the couch after that. Ilya put on a Fast and Furious movie and Shane has allowed himself to sink into the mindlessness of it. Shane’s laying on his side with his head in Ilya’s lap. Ilya’s playing with his hair.

“You can ask about it, if you want,” Shane says after a while. “I know you want to.” The hand in Shane’s hair pauses for a moment before it resumes.

“You throw up,” Ilya says after a beat. “That…happen before?”

“Not for a long time,” Shane admits, “but yes. That first season back in Montreal after, uh, everything, was not easy. I was a disaster. Forster had convinced me over the summer to make sure I got things documented with a psychologist, the, uh, vomiting and stuff mostly, so once coaching and training staff knew they relaxed about it.”

“I had no idea,” Ilya says, almost to himself.

“We kept it quiet. The team’s star player throwing up during games wasn’t really something Montreal wanted people to know,” Shane says, shrugging like it’s nothing. “I never mentioned it here in Ottawa because it hasn’t really been an issue for a long time. There was a game or two, after we were outed, where it happened, but those were flukes, it hadn’t happened for a couple years before that.”

“Did it happen a lot before then?”

“That first season back, yeah. It took some convincing to make Hayden and J.J. calm down about it, and once the trainers knew it wasn’t so bad. They basically made it one of the newer trainer’s jobs to make sure there was a small trashcan on the bench during every game just in case.”

“Did I ever, uh, make you freak out? During game?” Ilya says quietly, taking a break from playing with Shane’s hair to brush a few fingers across his cheekbone.

Shane’s lips quirk slightly.

“No, actually. Never,” Shane replies. “I was always okay when we played Boston, even if you and I weren’t talking, probably because I knew you’d be there playing.” He says the last part like it’s nothing, but Ilya makes a slightly wounded noise.

Shane twists slightly so that he’s lying on his back and looking up at Ilya. His husband looks down and meets his gaze, blue eyes stormy. “I am glad,” he says quietly, leaning down and pressing a quick kiss onto Shane’s forehead.

“It wasn’t just Noah Lemaire of the Pittsburgh Penguins who made me feel better back then, chéri,” Shane says quietly. Sweetheart. “So did you, even if you didn’t know what had happened at the time.”

Ilya isn’t the only one who can practically read the other’s mind, it seems. The guilty look must’ve been all over his face when Shane had told him about what Lemaire and Forster had done for him, Ilya thinks.

“I am happy to hear,” Ilya says softly, but Shane doesn’t think he looks very happy about it. He doesn’t say anything about it though, because he has a feeling that the only person who’s ever going to convince Ilya that he hadn’t done anything wrong back then as far as what Kent had done is concerned is Ilya himself.

Ilya fields questions from some of their teammates when Shane is dozing in his lap half an hour later. He, Bood, Barrett, and Harris by association, have an inner circle group chat of sorts.

Harris: rozy are you sure hollzy’s okay???

Barrett: yeah man, for real, what was that?

Ilya: he is okay

Ilya: is his anxiety

Ilya: has happened before, it is documented with medical

Ilya: head is fine, he is not sick

Barrett: damn bro that really sucks

Bood: yeah that really sucks man

Bood: you guys need anything?

Ilya: we are alright, thanks guys

Ilya: he just need to sleep

Separately, Ilya makes it a point to update Bood. Bood has been an amazing friend and kept his mouth shut perfectly regarding everything Dallas Kent related, and Ilya couldn’t have asked for anything better.

Ilya: is not just anxiety

Ilya: is his PTSD

Ilya: he panicked from the hit

Bood: shit man

Bood: you sure you guys are okay

Ilya: he is weirdly calm about it

Ilya: says it used to happen a lot

Ilya: but, yes, we are good

Bood: lmk if you need anything Roz

Ilya: Kent’s head on a stick

Bood: me too, buddy

Bood: but alas

Bood: the Canadian justice system

Ilya: yes, is shame

Chapter Text

March 2022, Pt. 1

Ottawa plays in Pittsburgh in early March and loses to the Penguins in overtime. Shane and Ilya go to Noah Lemaire’s house after the game to have dinner with him and his wife as promised.

It’s not the first dinner that they’ve had with another couple, Ilya knows. They’d had dinner with Cliff Marleau and his girlfriend as well as Hayden and Jackie Pike. Maybe the reason this feels a little different, though, is because neither he nor Shane has ever had to beg Noah Lemaire to accept their relationship. It’s just something that the Penguins player has seemingly taken in stride, odd as it is. Or maybe that’s the way things are supposed to be, Ilya muses, maybe you’re not supposed to worry if one of your friends is going to be okay with your partner and be prepared to beg if they aren’t.

What’s even better is the way Shane moves around Lemaire with an ease that’s been lost when Pike is around. Shane doesn’t acknowledge this loss of familiarity, but Ilya sees it in the limited interactions the two best friends have had in the past year or so. Ilya actually very much wishes this wasn’t the case, but Hayden Pike has made his own bed and he needs to fix his own mess.

“Do you remember that time you puked on my skates, and then when we all went out to lunch for the day, I couldn’t eat the soup I got because it looked almost exactly the same?” Noah say as he pops the cork on a bottle of red wine.

Ilya tenses slightly, bracing for Shane to not react well to the reminder. He’d had no reason to, though, because Shane laughs, free and easy, as he hands Lemaire an empty wine glass.

“Yeah, and then you ate all of my fries,” Shane says, nodding his head. “Wasn’t that the day I punched you in the face, too?”

Shane turns to Sarah, Lemaire’s wife, and offers her an apologetic smile, “I wasn’t exactly in the driver’s seat at the moment, sorry about that.”

Sarah laughs, charmed.

“Yeah, this was for the second time, actually,” Noah says, casting Shane a playful glare before refocusing his gaze back on the glass he’s pouring wine into.

“Hey,” Shane says, holding up his hands in mock surrender, “I warned you I was feeling a little squirrely.”

“Yes, and it seems I was still learning that that meant ‘be prepared for a deck to the face when you least expect it,’ but I’m well versed now, so no worries, I guess,” Lemaire replies, easygoing.

Yeah, Ilya had been right, he thinks. That was the most relaxed interaction Ilya has seen Shane have with one of his friends in ages, even his long-time best friend Pike. That says quite a lot, if the fact that Shane and Noah are chirping each other about Shane’s severe PTSD symptoms like they’re some casual inside jokes right now doesn’t already.

They all settle around the Lemaire’s dining room table once the pot roast is out of the oven. Even Lemaire raises his eyebrows when he sees Shane scoop food onto his plate without much hesitation, eyes going to Ilya’s. It’s something that tells him that Lemaire really is the kind of good friend that he’s so far gathered the man is. Pike still has yet to catch on to the fact that Shane’s attitude towards food is more pathological than quirky, but Lemaire has clearly already noticed it. Ilya shrugs back and smiles softly. Shane is so back and forth on whether food is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ these days that Ilya has simply taken to appreciating the times like now when it’s easy for his husband.

“So, how did you two meet?” Ilya ask, politely curious, once they’ve all started eating.

Sarah laughs lightly. “Oh, it’s kinda silly actually. I play rec hockey for fun, and I was at the Pittsburgh practice rink early for a private lesson me and a few friends split the coaching fee for.”

“Oh, wow,” Shane says, charmed.

“Yeah, it was like a dream, honestly,” she agrees. “But I ran into him on the way back to the locker room, and the fucker complimented my skating of all things. He was still a relatively small player for Pittsburgh so I didn’t know who he was, but he me asked for my number, and I gave it to him.”

“And the rest is history,” Lemaire finishes, sending her a soft, affectionate look. In love, Ilya thinks.

Shane’s hand lands on Ilya’s knee under the table and Ilya smiles slightly, knowing Shane was thinking the same thing.

“We had Lacey a few years later, and quickly realized that with one parent always out of the house because of an NHL schedule, one was enough,” Noah continues.

“And how about you two?” Sarah asks, looking back and forth between Shane and Ilya. “How did you two…get together?”

“Ah, this is…long story, actually,” Ilya says, almost apologetically.

“We met for the first time in 2008, I introduced myself during the WJC,” Shane begins.

“And then we start fooling around summer before our rookie season,” Ilya continues, nodding his head.

“We kept hooking up on and off until I freaked out and ran off around…2016. Then I dated Rose Landry because I was having a crisis, and then she told me stop being an idiot about my sexuality, and then I told Ilya I was gay, which yeah, no shit.”

Noah snorts.

“And we talk and is very emotional but still nothing official, but then Marleau concuss him, and he invite me to his cottage, but I never think I will go,” Ilya continues.

“But then!” Shane begins, pausing for effect with a piece of bread in his hand. “Scott Hunter kissed his boyfriend on TV, and Ilya called me and told me he’s coming to the cottage.”

“And I go, and we actually talk, and we decide to get together,” Ilya finishes.

“And it was all sappy and emotional and probably exactly what we needed, I think,” Shane adds, smiling softly at Ilya, who nods in agreement.

“Wow, that’s definitely not the timeline everyone thinks,” Noah comments, not critical, just an observation.

Shane’s cheeks color slightly. “Yeah, well, we don’t exactly make it a habit of sharing that we were fucking for, like, ten years before we ever actually dated.”

“Should have seen Shane’s face when he explained this to his parents for the first time,” Ilya says grimly. “Was very stressful.”

“Definitely doesn’t meet the golden boy standards, does it, Hollzy?” Lemaire chirps, taking a sip of wine.

Shane rolls his eyes and takes a sip from his own glass. “I never said I did, right?”

“He most certainly does not, no,” Ilya says to Lemaire, shaking his head.

Noah laughs, delighted, and turns to Shane. “Oh? Is this true? Shane Hollander is a secret freak?”

“Mairesy, don’t do this to me,” Shane says, unimpressed and red-faced.

“He is,” Ilya confirms anyway.

“Ilya!” Shane exclaims, thwacking Ilya on the shoulder.

Ilya turns and places a hand at the back of Shane’s neck.

“Baby, yedinstvennoye, chto v tebe vanil'nogo, eto tvoy lyubimyy vkus morozhenogo.” Ilya say softly. The only thing vanilla about you is that it is your favorite flavor of ice cream.

Sarah snorts and starts laughing. Shane’s eyes dart to Noah’s in question.

“Sarah knows Russian, she learned from her grandparents,” Noah explains. “What did he say?”

Shane’s face heats even more when Sarah translates Ilya’s words.

“Hollzy, my man, I never knew you had it in you,” Noah crows. “Hell yeah!”

Shane turns back to Ilya, cheeks bright red in embarrassment. Embarrassment, though, Ilya notes, not the shame he’s seen on Shane’s face instead when something like this comes up around Hayden. “Ilya, ty ublyudok, pourquoi t'es comme ça, tabarnak?” Shane says lowly. Ilya, you motherfucker, why the fuck are you like this?

Ilya fixes him with a look. “Now you are just confusing people on purpose, solnyshko.”

“Je te déteste,” Shane says, eyes narrowed. I hate you.

“Ça, je le sais, c'est pas vrai,” Ilya replies in his clunky French, matter-of-fact, poking an affronted Shane on the nose. That, I know, is not true.

Noah laughs. “Wow, Rozanov really does know some French!”

“Yeah, he’s working on it,” Shane says wryly, a slight smug smile on his face as he takes another sip of wine.

“Don’t look so smug, Hollander,” Ilya says, rolling his eyes. “We know, you are Russian savant, blah blah blah.”

“Well, I guess he had a headstart, right?” Lemaire says, shrugging his shoulders.

Ilya’s eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean?”

Shane isn’t sure, either, but, like he’s said before, it wouldn’t surprise him if he’d said things in 2014 in a panicked state that he simply doesn’t remember.

“Sometimes he’d say things in Russian when he’d really panic back in 2014,” Noah explains, a little gentler than before. “You don’t remember?”

“I don’t remember saying it, no,” Shane replies, shaking his head. “But I’m not surprised.”

“You start learning that long ago?” Ilya says, turning bodily towards Shane.

Shane blushes, shrugs his shoulders awkwardly, and doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes.

“Maybe like…a year before that?” Shane admits. “It was just simple stuff, Ilya, it’s not some huge deal.”

“Jesus, Hollander, take the win for once, he thinks it’s cute!” Lemaire says, surprising Shane, who blushes even darker. “And you knew enough to say simple sentences, which in Russian, is saying a lot.”

“Oh, yeah, dostatochno, chtoby zapanikovat' i nachat' umolyat', ya uveren,” Shane says with a snort, an amused smile playing on his lips despite the context of his words. Enough to panic and beg, I’m sure.

Sarah chokes a little on the bite of food in her mouth. Noah shakes his head. Ilya stares, shocked at the dark topic’s nonchalant presentation, and his hand tightens on Shane’s knee slightly.

“Well, yes,” Noah says after a moment, “but, like you said, it was nothing too complex. And half of it was too quiet to fully hear, anyways.”

“I figured as much,” Shane says.

Shane knows that the casual way he and Lemaire are talking about one of the worst times in his life is probably weirding Ilya out a bit, but he can’t help it. This is pretty much how it had been back in 2014, if not a little more relaxed now that Shane is finally out and married to Ilya. After a certain point the constant panic got old for himself, and he started making jokes about it to try and ‘lighten the mood’ and, surprisingly, both Lemaire and Forster had decided to meet him at that level. It really brought the mood up a bit, acknowledging what was happening but also joking about how shitty it all was, the vomiting and the panic attacks and the crash outs and all. Shane knows how lucky he’d gotten scoring two hockey players who saw him at his worst and chose to support him anyway without even getting anything out of it for themselves instead of being assholes about it.

“Rasslablyat'sya,” Shane murmurs, placing a hand over the one Ilya has on his thigh and squeezing lightly. Relax. “YA v poryadke.” I’m okay.

Dessert is where Shane draws the line, so they start cleaning up once they’re all done eating dinner. Shane helps Sarah carry all the dishes into the kitchen and insists on helping her clean up. Ilya takes it as an opportunity to finally talk to Lemaire one on one.

“Lemaire,” Ilya says, helping the man stack up the tablecloths and other such odds and ends. “Noah.” He amends.

“Ilya,” Lemaire says, comfortably neutral.

“I…want to say thank you, and to Forster when I see him, for, um, being there for Shane back then,” Ilya says awkwardly. “We were not really on great terms back then, he never truly tell anybody about what happened until me this year, so it was only you two, even if you don’t really know what it is that happened.”

“Dylan and I have had our theories, but no, we don’t know for sure. But we did figure it was something worse than what he told us,” Noah explains, shrugging nonchalantly. “As for the thanks, it’s not really necessary. He was a kid who asked for help for something, and we may not have known how tough things would be, but, I mean, you’ve met him, right? He’s Shane Hollander, anybody who wouldn’t wanna help him with something like that if he asked is an idiot.”

“Alright, yes, that is fair,” Ilya says with a nod. “Well, at least thank you for being okay with, ah, him and I.”

“What do you mean, Rozanov?” Lemaire says, and there’s an edge to it now. “Of course I’m cool with it. This isn’t, I don’t know, high school hockey, you know? You’re both professional athletes that happened to come from rival teams, fine, but that stuff’s hardly ever real life.”

“Da, well, some people have not been as, uh, chill about it,” Ilya says, quiet.

“Who the hell hasn’t been cool about it?” Lemaire says, genuinely surprised and affronted.

“Pike hasn’t been, well, super happy about it,” Ilya admits, scratching his neck awkwardly. “Shane tells me he does not mind, but I think it makes him sad.”

“Pike? Really?” Lemaire says flatly. “Those two are supposed to be, like, glued at the hip, aren’t they?”

“This is the most relaxed I’ve seen him with a friend in a long time,” Ilya says instead in explanation. Maybe ever, Ilya thinks.

“Wow. What the fuck, man?” Lemaire says, mostly to himself. He shakes his head sharply. “I’m gonna check Pike through the glass the next time we play Montreal.”

Ilya smiles, a little mean but in a commiserative kind of way. It’s nice to finally see someone who shares his negative sentiment for Hayden Pike.

“I cannot do this, Shane has forbid me but, well, he never say anything to you, so…” Ilya says, trailing off and shrugging his shoulders with a deliberate cut of his eyes in Lemaire’s direction.

Lemaire barks out a laugh. “I’ve got you, Rozanov,” he says with an easy smile. “Happy to be of service.”

They all call it a night shortly after and Lemaire drives them back to the hotel the Centaurs are staying at. The couple promises to come back for dinner when the Centaurs play in Pittsburgh again next season before they get out of the car and bid the man goodnight.

Ilya follows close behind all the way up to their hotel room, hand splayed over the small of Shane’s back right up until they get into the shower together. Shane notices, thoroughly amused, and notes the behavior for tomorrow when they’ll be back in Ottawa.

Ilya gets like this sometimes, Shane muses to himself, like he can’t stand to not have his hands on Shane at all times. It’s most often been followed by some really good sex but, ever since what happened with Kent became a factor in their sex life, Shane has had to ask for what he’s reading Ilya wants but more recently won’t ask for. Ilya still doesn’t prompt sex the way he used to, and Shane understands why, but saying he doesn’t miss the increased spontaneity that they’d had before January would be a lie.

They go to bed without any sex, too tired from the short but rough string of away games. Shane sits with Ilya on the flight back, which as a whole is more subdued than usual, the team sharing their exhaustion.

Ilya, once again, is practically on top of Shane as they make their way into the house once they’ve arrived at home the next morning. Shane allows it up until they’re standing by the front door taking their shoes off. He waits for Ilya to be done putting his own on the rack to back the taller man up against the wall. Ilya makes a soft noise, surprised, but goes, allowing Shane to push him, determined yet gentle, into the wall by the front door with a hand on his chest.

Ilya’s back hits the wall and Shane moves his hand from his husband’s chest to his neck so he can hold his face. Shane waits until Ilya’s eyes are locked on his before he speaks. Ilya does that for him when he has something important to say, Shane has noticed, and it usually works, so Shane’s started doing the same sometimes over the past year or so. He mostly saves it for moments like this when he really needs something to resonate with Ilya.

“You’re allowed to want me, moya lyubov',” Shane says softly, gaze never wavering. My love. Ilya stares back, practically entranced. “You’re allowed to start things. As I’m sure you’re more than aware, I have a mouth, and I can say no. Whether you would stop if I told you to has never, ever been a question for me.”

Ilya is struck, not for the first time, by just how well he and Shane are able to read each other these days. It’s like the new habit that they’ve picked up of having full conversations with just their eyes and facial expressions from across the locker room, much to the team’s intrigue and, at times, terror.

He also feels a little called out, because Shane is right, Ilya hasn’t really been initiating or pushing very much. It feels like uncharted territory for some reason even though they’ve done everything a hundred times over at this point. Ilya just can’t help but to be afraid of accidentally triggering something in Shane and, in the absolute worst case scenario, doing further harm.

They do read each other very well now, though, this is still true. The few times he’d thought Shane had seemed iffy about sex, Ilya had noticed and Shane had said so at nearly the exact same time. And, well, it’s not like Ilya had been thinking of doing anything particularly heavy as far as roughness and power exchanges are concerned.

“If you are sure,” Ilya says just as softly as his husband had spoken, eyes nearly leaving his.

Shane gives him a wicked looking grin, one Ilya’s gotten the pleasure of seeing in rare moments beginning shortly after they’d gotten married, and nods. That’s the true Shane, Ilya knows, his beautiful submissive who can actually be an absolute brat sometimes when he allows himself to.

“Da, okay, Hollander, you guessed right,” Ilya says quietly, his own hands coming up and to grab Shane’s hips so he can flip them around. “I cannot help myself, I see you so happy with your Penguin friend and am so proud of you.”

Ilya hands slide under Shane’s shirt so there’s holding tight to his bare skin. Ilya presses his lips to Shane’s without warning and kisses him, hard and deep. He wiggles a few fingers under the waistband of Shane’s jeans at the same time that he slides his tongue into his mouth, smiling against the quiet noise that his husband makes in response. Ilya pulls away before they get too lost in it. Shane tries to follow his mouth, already a bit out of it. Ilya doesn’t pull his face away too far, instead kissing his way across Shane’s jaw towards his neck.

“Am very proud, am so proud, in fact, that last night I could not help but think about how much I want to push you down on their pretty dining room table and fuck you to say good job,” Ilya says, voice thick with his accent. Shane shudders under his hands and Ilya smiles softly.

“We have a dining room table,” Shane says, a bit of the bratty spark from earlier still smoldering inside of him.

Shane watches the way Ilya’s eyes flash at his words and feels a thrill run through him. His eyes darken and the grip he has on Shane’s hips goes tighter.

“Jump,” is all the warning Ilya gives him before he’s hefting Shane into his arms.

Shane makes a noise of surprise and quickly wraps his limbs are his husband, watching him with his mouth hanging slightly open once he knows he’s secure as Ilya walks them to…oh, to their kitchen. Oh, Ilya was serious—

Ilya lays him, gently still, on his back on their dining room table. He pulls back a bit and simply takes a moment to stare. Shane stares back, eyes hooded and simply happy to get a look at his husband, as well.

Ilya finally moves, fingers going to the buttons on Shane’s shirt. Shane watches, admittedly enraptured as he does so, and for some reason his cheeks are slightly pink once Ilya has finally arrived at the last one.

Shane assists Ilya in pulling off his shirt and goes without a fight when Ilya immediately pushes him back down fully on his back once they’re done. Ilya pulls his own shirt up over his head and drops it to the floor without a second thought. He undoes his belt and then the front of his jeans next, pressing forward against Shane’s ass which makes Shane violently aware of just how hard Ilya already is.

“Having you spread out for me like this, so pretty, all it takes and I am already so hard, solnyskhko,” Ilya says, leaning over Shane’s body.

He nips harshly at Shane’s collarbone and sucks slightly at the same spot when the smaller man’s hips grind upwards in response as a barely there noise escapes from his lips.

“Leave a mark, s’il te plait, Ilya,” Shane clips out. Please.

Ilya smiles against his skin and does just that, worrying his teeth against the same spot and sucking hard enough that’s it already a dark purple by the time he finally does pull away. Shane pants beneath him and Ilya looks down his body, smirking to himself at the obvious bulge of Shane’s dick in his jeans.

“Let’s get these off,” Ilya murmurs, unzipping Shane’s jeans and helping him shimmy out of them as carefully as possible. He pulls his boxers along with it, exposing Shane’s dick to open air. Shane huffs, kicking at Ilya until the taller man follows suit and sheds his own bottom half.

“Okay I fuck you?” Ilya asks, jeans still in his hand as he eyes Shane in question.

“Yes, please, fuck, Ilya,” Shane says immediately, looking up only long enough to say it before allowing his head to fall back against the table with a slight thump.

Ilya grabs a packet of lube and a condom out of the wallet that he’d still had tucked into the pocket of his jeans, dropping both to the floor once he has the supplies in hand. He takes his time fingering Shane open, going until Shane is shivering and kicking at him lightly once more. He stops finally, satisfied, and then wraps a hand around his husband’s dick and giving it a few strokes just to see his hips jump in reaction.

“Ilya—“ Shane begins, but Ilya cuts him off with a shush, hand leaving his dick.

“Is okay I fuck you on your front?” Ilya asks, eye flicking up and locking with his once again.

Shane’s whole body goes hot. Ilya had really meant against the dining room table. He’s nodding furiously before his mouth catches up. “Yes, yeah, that’s fine,” he stammers out.

Something devious flashes across Ilya’s face, but Shane can’t bring himself to worry or even care. He helps Ilya maneuver him until he comes to rest with his stomach on the table, ass hanging off the end and head propped up on his arms.

“I meant it, I meant it before,” Shane pants, already horribly turned on by the sheer turn of events. “You’re allowed to start stuff and right now that means decide how you fuck me right now, da, Ilya?”

Ilya stares at Shane’s back, at the side of his face that he can see, and nods to himself. Well, then, if that’s how he wants it, he thinks to himself. He slicks up his dick and taps it against Shane’s hole a couple of times just to see him jolt. If he’s read this right, then…

Shane lets out a god’s honest wail when Ilya slides in to the hilt with a single yet insistent thrust and follows it up with several inpatient, similarly timed snaps of his hips. He’s immediately pressing back against Ilya, moaning without any real hope of stopping it.

He’d read the situation right, Ilya thinks.

“Yes, malysh, this is what I imagined,” Ilya coos, pressing a kiss to Shane’s bare shoulder blade. “You spread out for me, out of your mind because of how good I can fuck you.”

“Fuck, Ilya—” Shane manages to get out before dissolving straight into a fit of bit off moans as Ilya begins directly targeting his prostate.

“Take my cock so good,” Ilya grits out, wrapping an arm around Shane’s front so he can grab the smaller man’s dick. Shane spasms around him and he gets even louder. “Such a good boy, baby. Give me your hand.”

Shane’s shaking slightly as he obliges, rearranging himself so one arm is reaching back towards Ilya and the other splayed out, the side of his face now pressed against the table. Ilya takes his hand, kisses a couple of the pads of his fingers, and then turns Shane’s arm so he can hold it down against the small of his back.

“Okay?” Ilya says.

Shane nods rapidly a couple of times. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Mm, good,” Ilya mutters, fucking Shane a little harder. He picks up the pace with the hand that has a tight hold on Shane’s dick, as well.

“Ilya, oh, fuck,” Shane gasps. “Ilya, I’m gonna—”

“Net, no Hollander, ask,” Ilya says.

“Oh, fuck you, Rozanov,” Shane snaps, but there’s a breathlessness to his words that makes Ilya smile a little viciously and press Shane’s arm harder into his back.

“Come on, Hollander, ask like a good boy,” Ilya says, grinning. This is just them having fun, something playful albeit rough rather than a scene in their respective headspaces.

“Please can I come, ser,” Shane damn near snaps, and Ilya huffs but picks up the pace of his hips.

“Da, come,” Ilya says, jerking Shane off as quick as he can manage while also chasing his own release.

“Oh—” Shane begins, stopping as he tenses up and comes all over their dining room floor, “—fuck.”

Ilya lets go of his dick and his hand to grab hold of Shane’s hips, only needing a handful of additional thrusts into him before he curses harshly in Russian and comes, as well.

They take a few minutes to catch their breaths before Ilya finally pulls out and grabs some paper towels to wipe up the come on the floor. He tosses the condom and the paper towel into the trash and turns his focus back onto Shane, checking in. Shane is on his feet even if he’s swaying slightly, and he smiles tiredly at Ilya when their eyes meet.

“All good?”

“Yeah, Ilya, you fucking menace,” Shane says, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, you wanteddd it like that,” Ilya chirps, rolling his eyes as well. He grabs Shane’s hips lightly. “Shower?”

“Yes, please,” Shane agrees, and is unprepared for when Ilya basically throws him over his shoulder without warning. “Ilya!”

“I fuck you so good you can barely feel your legs, Hollander,” Ilya says smugly, swatting Shane lightly once on the ass before ascending the stairs to their bedroom. Shane can’t really argue with that.

Chapter Text

March 2022, Pt. 2

The Centaurs hit the road for their California swing of away games a week later, slated to play San Francisco, LA, and Anaheim over the course of the next five days. It’s always a grueling road trip with very limited down time in between and Shane definitely isn’t looking forward to it.

They land in California late and head straight to their hotel in San Francisco. Shane and Ilya had decided to room separately for the roadie for the first time in a while. Shane had figured it’d be fine since they aren’t playing any teams that would automatically stress him out, but he’s deeply unsettled for some reason as he tries to get comfortable in bed.

The uneasiness Shane feels in hotels had abated as time had gone on after Sochi. It really only happens now when the Centaurs play Montreal and Toronto, and sometimes also when they play in Vegas since the away team hotel when teams play the Aces is the same as the one players stay in during the NHL Awards every year.

Vegas isn’t really a good memory for Shane and, as he came to find out years later, Ilya either. But, as Shane’s husband always reminds him, Ilya hadn’t had to trudge back to his own room in a haze of subdrop, young and too naïve to know what the fuck was happening to him at the time. The summer they’d officially gotten together had been amazing, but it’d also gradually exposed how poor their communication skills had been throughout the prior years.

Vegas had burrowed a hole inside of Shane, a fact he hadn’t known until he’d found himself staring an aloof Ilya in the face in bed that summer and had stopped dead. An odd feeling had immediately set in, like when your stomach drops but magnified, and Shane had realized with a start that it was a ghost from the past; he’d felt like that before. He’d forced himself to hold it together, teetering over the edge of a pitch black pit but refusing to tumble, and finally spoken up about it. He hadn’t exactly been super…delicate about it, but he’d been distressed, so sue him.

It’d led into what ended up being a multi-part conversation spanning over several days, including some minor online research by both of them, about the BDSM undertones of their sex life and, as they’d been forced to realize, aspects of their relationship in general. It’s the reason their sex life, at least prior to this year, has been able to flourish as much as it has. Despite all this, Vegas is still a sore spot for both of them.

So. Montreal, Toronto, Vegas. Nowhere in that list is any of the California teams, and yet Shane can’t sleep. He doesn’t sleep a wink the night they fly in.

He plays like shit in practice the next morning, missing passes and walking around like he’s not all there. Ilya spots it because of course he does, but Shane is easily able to redirect him with an explanation about not sleeping well the night before. That’s not exactly a lie, but also not the full truth, and it eats at Shane for the rest of the day. He hates lying to Ilya, but it’s only been a day and he knows the added pressure of sounding the alarm on his lack of sleep would likely accomplish nothing but worsen the situation. It’s like when someone hovers over your shoulder while you do a normally menial task; you’re suddenly fumbling your way through it simply because of the awareness that someone with expectations is observing.

His pregame nap goes about the same as the night before once he gets back to his room after practice and lunch with the guys. He tosses and turns under the covers until his alarm goes off and promises himself he’ll sleep after the game once they land in LA.

Shane still plays great during the game against San Francisco anyways because he’s used to playing this sleep deprived, but it’s exhausting. All the lights are too bright and his teammates are too loud and touchy, but all he can do is slog through it and do his best. He’ll sleep at the hotel, he keeps reminding himself, he’ll be at the hotel in a few hours and he’ll sleep.

He scores a goal late in the second and celebrates with his linemates as usual. They win the game and Shane is glad, of course, but admittedly too tired to be too joyous about it.

The flight to LA is short. He takes the window seat and immediately puts the hood up on his hoodie. He rests his head against the plane wall, eyes shut, and settles in to try and get some sleep. It doesn’t work, and he finds himself stumbling along after Ilya as they deboard the plane.

“You okay?” Ilya says on the bus ride to the hotel, eyes flickering all over Shane’s face in the way they do when he’s assessing someone.

“Yeah,” Shane replies with a soft, sleepy smile. “Just tired.”

“Make sure you go to bed early, then,” Ilya says. “You need your beauty rest.”

Shane snorts and rolls his eyes before saying something in agreement.

He sways slightly in the elevator during the ride up to his floor, body exhausted and mind beyond dead. He knows that he’s coming up on the 48 hour point now, knows that if he doesn’t do something soon things are going to get very bad.

Once in his hotel room, he tries everything that he knows has ever helped him fall asleep before. He sheds his clothes and takes a long, steaming shower. He takes the time while standing under the spray to incrementally relax every part of his body. Once he’s out of the shower and back out in the room, he cranks the AC up on high. He piles his suitcase and the luggage rack in front of his triple-checked locked door to try and put at ease the part of his brain that is afraid someone will hurt him in his sleep. He makes the room as dark as he can manage and then curls up under the covers, doing his best to make his mind blank and silent so maybe, hopefully, he’ll finally sleep.

And none of it works.

He texts Ilya at one in the morning even though he has a feeling that the other man isn’t awake right now. He waits fifteen minutes and then decides, fuck it, he’ll just show up at Ilya’s room with the spare key he always gives him. Maybe he’ll sleep if he’s safe in bed with Ilya.

Shane lets himself into Ilya’s room and slides right into bed with the man without any greeting. Its immediately wakes him up, though, his eyes opening to slits.

“Ty v poryadke?” Ilya murmurs, barely awake. You okay?

“YA prosto skuchala po tebe, so mnoy vse v poryadke, lozhis' spat',” Shane says softly, curling onto his side. I just missed you, I am okay, go back to sleep.

Ilya hums, curling around Shane’s body and slinging an arm over his waist to pull him in close. He promptly falls back asleep and Shane smiles to himself, feeling safe and content. This is his best chance for sleep, right here.

Shane tries, he tries really hard. He’d truly thought being with Ilya might fix things, but they hadn’t. Frustrated tears spring to his eyes when he checks his phone at two in the morning, still wide awake despite all of his best efforts.

He turns onto his other side so that he’s facing Ilya’s sleeping form. He really doesn’t want to, but he knows he has to. The length of his sleep deprivation is verging into dangerous territory at this point, he knows from experience.

“Ilya?” he says, voice quiet but loud in the otherwise silence of the room.

He feels so bad, he really doesn’t want to wake Ilya up, but if he doesn’t do something soon he’s going to start hallucinating. Shane really doesn’t think he’s in the mental headspace to handle the kinds of things his brain may conjure up right now.

It takes him a few more times of saying Ilya’s name and then shaking his shoulder lightly, but Ilya eventually wakes up.

“Shane?” he says, sleepy and half awake, “Shane, chto ne tak?” What is wrong?

“I think…” Shane begins, but then, aware of how Ilya is just barely conscious, continues in Russian, “dumayu, mne nuzhno pogovorit' s komandnym vrachom.” I think I need to talk to the team doctor.

Ilya sits up immediately and fumbles with the light on the nightstand for a moment until it clicks on and the room is suddenly bathed in a soft yellow. “What?” he says, very clearly and in English, suddenly wide awake.

He takes in the sight of Shane for a moment, eyes very obviously assessing him once more. He’d thought that Shane had been acting a bit strange this morning, and it appears that he’s right. There are dark circles under Shane’s eyes, darker than Ilya thinks he’s ever seen on the man. He’d figured it was from the trouble sleeping that Shane has been writing it off as. Shane’s eyes are red-rimmed now, as well, and shiny with tears. His face…he looks absolutely exhausted.

Shane swallows thickly. “Don’t freak out, I’m not dying,” he says drily, “but I haven’t slept in, uh, two days.”

“Yes, you say you have been having trouble sleeping, I figured,” Ilya says in agreement, still not quite getting what Shane is saying.

“No, Ilya. I haven’t slept at all for two days,” Shane says slowly, looking away after a sudden rush of embarrassment. “It happened before a few times back in Montreal, but not in, like, over four years. So, it wasn’t something I thought was a problem anymore, and I don’t feel like arguing with you about not telling you, I’m really sorry I didn’t say anything, but I’m so tired and I really just want to sleep.”

“Two days, Shane?” Ilya says anyways, running a frustrated hand through his hair to get a hold of himself. “Da, okay, I will call Dr. Murphy.”

“’m so fuckin’ sorry,” Shane mumbles, curling further onto his side. “I keep thinking I’ve told you everything and stuff just keeps happening and I realize I forgot something.”

“I am not mad, solnyshko, just worried,” Ilya soothes, but he can’t keep the tight edge out of his voice.

Ilya knows, logically, that trauma makes your brain throw away bits of information sometimes, things that are inconvenient or too heavy to remember until you absolutely have to, Galina has told him this exact thing several times. He’s been up close and personal to just how adept Shane is at compartmentalization, is aware that he had been doing so since 2014 without Ilya realizing it until the other man had told him, so Ilya can’t exactly be surprised that there are other things that Shane hasn’t told him about.

He pulls up the team doctor’s contact in his phone. She doesn’t travel with the team except for the last two rounds of the playoffs, usually, but she’s available for consultations from players around the clock. Usually they’d contact the trainer first and allow them to escalate things to her if need be, but Ilya figures, like Shane must have as well, that the only solution to this particular problem would be medication, which a trainer can’t get them.

“Doctor Murphy,” the team doctor says when she answers the phone.

“Hi, doctor, it is Ilya Rozanov, sorry to call so late,” Ilya says in greeting.

“Everything okay?”

“I am calling about Shane, he has not slept in two days,” Ilya says as neutrally as he can manage.

“Two full days?” she, incredulous. “How many hours exactly?”

“I will put you on speaker,” Ilya says, pressing the button and holding the phone out in front of his face.

Shane turns around and angles himself towards the phone, as well.

“50? Um, it’s two a.m., so, uh, 51? 51 hours,” Shane stammers, cheeks flushing.

“Damn, Hollander,” Murphy says, but not unkindly. She’s actually a pretty cool team doctor, all things considered. Shane likes her, which says a lot. “Alright, I assume you’re looping me in for medication, then?”

“Uh, yeah,” Shane says quietly. “But I don’t want Ambien again. Montreal gave me Ambien, and it sucked. I’d prefer something that isn’t, like, too heavy.”

“This has happened before?”

“A couple of times, yeah, but I only asked for medication once because Ambien was the only thing Dr. Miller would give me.”

“Well Miller’s an idiot,” Murphy says, mostly under her breath, “Okay, Shane. Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna call in a script for a medication called Sonata to a 24 hour pharmacy close to the hotel you guys are at. It’s less aggressive than Ambien, has less side effects, it’s short-acting, and it’s not a benzo. You’ll take it tonight, call me if you’re not asleep within two hours of taking it, but I think you’ll sleep.”

“Okay,” Shane says in agreement.

“Sleep as much as you can there, sleep on the flight, and you are skipping morning skate so you can sleep right through your pregame nap.”

“I will text coach,” Ilya says.

“I will, also,” Murphy says. “And Shane? I’m not an expert, but I think perhaps seeing a sleep specialist may be worth your time if this is an ongoing issue.”

“It hasn’t been an issue for years,” Shane says.

“Even so,” Dr. Murphy replies. “This prescription will have 30 pills, but they’re not really meant to be used every night, so if that becomes the case, again, consider it. Sonata isn’t a benzo but it can become addictive if taken long-term, so I’m not comfortable refilling it without a specialist on board.”

“Okay, I will,” Shane says quietly. “Thank you, Dr. Murphy.”

Ilya hangs up with her and simply stares at his phone for a moment. “This happen this year before?” he says finally. “Not sleep for this long?”

“No, Ilya, I swear,” Shane says, flopping down back onto his side. “Not for four years. Sometimes it’s hard for me to fall asleep, but I always do, eventually. Except right now. It only ever happens on the road, anyways.”

“Only on the road?” Ilya repeats, eyebrows raised. He lays down on his side, as well, eyes on his husband.

“Yeah, I think it’s uh, the hotel rooms. I think, maybe, it’s because they look like the dorms sometimes, the ones at the Olympics. Not the exact same, obviously, but I guess my brain just thinks they’re close enough,” Shane rambles, not meeting Ilya’s eyes.

“Oh, malysh,” Ilya murmurs, running a hand through Shane’s hair. Baby.

“Sorry for keeping you awake with this,” Shane continues, fiddling with his fingers.

“I am glad you came here and told me,” Ilya says softly, taking his husband’s jaw in his hand and turning his face until Shane meets his eyes. “You are allowed to ask for help, Shane. I am happy that you did.”

“Okay, then I’m sorry I kept it from you,” Shane says. “Things just keep popping up that I forgot about. You try to tell me everything, I know you do, and I do too, but I guess I haven’t.”

“Shane,” Ilya says, moving Shane’s jaw back and forth slightly. “You have to sniff out my depression patches like a dog, and I usually get mad at you at first when you bring it up. I do not expect you to be perfect, just like you don’t expect me to be.”

“You’re annoyed,” Shane insists.

“Mm, well, yes, would prefer if this did not happen in the middle of the night, but I am not annoyed at you,” Ilya says, smiling with his playful chirping smile. “Mad at…world, at Dallas Kent, not at you.”

Shane stares for a moment longer and Ilya holds his gaze. Then Shane nods and Ilya lets go of his jaw.

Shane’s phone chimes with a notification and he checks it to see a text informing him that the prescription Dr. Murphy had sent in was ready for pick-up.

“I will go,” Ilya says after Shane tells him. “You will stay here, and think about sheep.”

“Count sheep,” Shane corrects, amused.

“Whatever, same thing,” Ilya replies, waving him off. “I will be back, Google says it is only a four minute walk.”

“Okay,” Shane agrees, curling back onto his side as he watches Ilya pull on sweatpants and a hoodie.

Ilya turns off the light on the nightstand and kisses Shane on the forehead before he goes. Shane lays there in the dark with his eyes closed while Ilya is gone and really does try, but he’s still wide awake when Ilya returns barely ten minutes later.

Ilya turns the light back on. He cracks open a bottle of blue Gatorade and hands it to Shane, who grabs it and takes a sip unprompted. Ilya shakes a pill out of the bottle and hands that over, as well. Shane takes another sip of the Gatorade and swallows the pill immediately.

“Anything else you need? Anything that would help?” Ilya asks, hovering close by.

Shane smiles softly albeit tiredly. “No, just come lay down with me. It’s okay if you fall asleep before me, one of use needs to be functioning in the morning.”

Ilya obeys, stripping his clothes off and sliding back into bed with Shane. He turns the light off again before laying down on his back.

Shane glances at the alarm clock on the nightstand for the time before laying down with his chest against Ilya’s: 3:24. He can work with that.

Ilya ends up being the last one awake. He watches his husband as he settles and closes his own eyes, as well, but he can’t help but be hyperaware of Shane’s every slight shift and small noise. Shane’s body goes completely boneless against him not long after he’d laid down. Ilya eyes the clock on the nightstand: 4:08. It’d taken less than an hour for Shane to fall asleep after the medication, thankfully.

Ilya makes sure that his alarms are set on his phone for the morning. “6:30” stares back at him and a sudden wave of exhaustion hits him because he knows that the morning is going to suck for both of them. He locks his phone and goes to sleep himself.

***

Ilya’s alarm goes off at 6:30 a.m. just as he’d set it to. That doesn’t make it any less jarring, though.

Shane hadn’t so much as shifted in his sleep once he’d completely fallen asleep. He’s still totally out, and Ilya figures that no alarm ever really had a chance against the effects of the sleep medication. Ilya looks at Shane’s face for a moment, which is completely relaxed in sleep, and brushes a thumb over the freckles at the edge of his cheek. He almost wants to say to hell with LA and tell coach that they’ll fly out later in the day, but he knows Shane would freak out if he did that.

“Solnyshko, it is time to wake up,” Ilya says softly, running his fingers lightly through his husband’s hair.

Ilya reaches as far over as he can with Shane still resting on his chest and flicks the nightstand light on. Shane hums, his face scrunching from the light, and his eyes finally flutter open.

“Mm, fuck,” Shane says, slurring slightly.

“I know, I am sorry,” Ilya says, running a hand up and down Shane’s bare back. “I am evil, I know, but you can sleep all snuggled up with me on the plane, how does that sound?”

“Bon,” Shane murmurs back. Good.

Shane doesn’t move an inch. Ilya waits a moment, then another, and then his lips form a small, amused smile.

“Okay, then we need to get up,” Ilya says patiently. Shane groans, but finally does so.

Shane hadn’t brought his stuff over from his own room so he puts on Ilya’s clothes without question when his husband hands them to him. He sits on the edge of the bed, swaying slightly and barely conscious, while Ilya packs up the remainder of his own bag. Ilya turns to him once everything is packed.

“I will go pack up your things and bring them back here, you can sleep while I am gone,” Ilya tells him.

Shane nods and hands him the key card when prompted. Ilya stoops down and kisses his forehead before saying, once again, that he’ll be right back and leaving the room.

Shane immediately flops down onto his back and lets the tiredness sweep over him. It doesn’t take him long to fall asleep but it still feels like it’s only been mere moments when Ilya is shaking him awake once again. He gets to his feet and follows Ilya out of the hotel room door, then to the elevator. The sun thankfully isn’t fully up quite yet so the light isn’t too much when Shane steps outside.

Ilya carries both of their bags to the bus. Shane had compromised back in the hotel room and insisted that he at the very least carry his own backpack on his back.

They’re among the last few of their teammates to board the bus. Everyone seems similarly tired as them, though, so nobody says anything. The lights on the bus are off and Shane sees a few players already asleep in their seats or not far from it. Shane tucks his head onto Ilya’s shoulder nearly the moment they land in their own seats and hazes in and out of not-quite-unconsciousness for the entire ride to the airport.

They board the plane smoothly once the bus arrives at the airport. Ilya sits in the aisle seat of their row so Shane can take the window seat. He tucks the airplane blanket around Shane and asks if he needs anything. Shane is charmed, even if he’s still completely exhausted. He watches as their teammates board around them with hazy eyes that he’s barely able to keep open.

“You can sleep, mon amour,” Ilya says quietly. “Will be here the whole time, will make sure nobody bother you.” My love.

Shane can barely turn the hypervigilance off when he’s this tired. A near constant state of fight or flight usually kicks in for him after about hour 36 of being awake, so he’s not surprised. But he is exhausted, and if there’s one person he trusts to keep him safe, it’s Ilya. He nods and immediately slumps over, his head landing on Ilya’s shoulder and upper body leaning against him. Ilya takes his weight like it’s nothing.

Shane lays with his eyes closed but can’t keep his brain from buzzing for a little while, not quite able to settle.

“Can you grab my Loops from my backpack?” Shane asks, cracking his eyes opened.

They’d been a stocking stuffer gift from Ilya the Christmas before last, who’d shyly admitted that he’d seen them online and had thought that maybe Shane would like them. Shane doesn’t use them very often because he doesn’t like that doing so is kind of like him admitting that there’s something wrong with him, highlights the fact that sometimes he isn’t able to handle loud environments very well. He’s worn them a few times so far, mainly at rowdy bars and a couple of NHL events, but they don’t get a lot of use. Shane feels, for some reason, that using them more often would be like confirmation that his head is more fucked up than he already knows it is.

Ilya doesn’t even comment, simply rising from his seat and pulling them from the zippered pocket of Shane’s backpack. He sits back down and hands the small case over without question. Shane thanks him softly, places an earplug into each of his ears, and resituates himself against Ilya like they’d been before the interruption.

Shane pulls his hood up, hides his face, and shuts his eyes. A few of their teammates comment on his seemingly sleeping form as they settle onto the plane, but it’s muffled by the earbuds and Ilya fields it just fine.

He falls asleep before the rest of their teammates are even done boarding.

“Damn, he is out,” Barrett says as he makes his way down the aisle.

“He’s tired,” Ilya defends him, voice low in warning. “Wake him up and I will kill you, Barrett, it is very simple.”

Troy throws up his hands in a non-threatening manner. “Got it! Got it,” he whispers, making his way past in the aisle as quietly as physically possible.

“He alright?” Bood asks as he makes his way into the row across from Shane and Ilya.

“Did not sleep for…couple days,” Ilya says quietly, his words meant for Bood only.

“I’ll kick whoever’s ass that makes too much noise,” Bood says in understanding, eyes darkening.

That’s the kind of reaction that Ilya figures is normal. Shane has been entirely too nonchalant about the fact that he had been awake for over two days. Shane had been squirrely about exactly how many times he’d had episodes like this back in Montreal, but his relaxed attitude towards the current situation makes Ilya think that it’d been more often than just a few instances. He figures those few times Shane had admitted to are the only times he’d actually asked for help, not the only times they’d ever happened, and it’s frustrating that even with one of the best excuses in the world, Shane still struggles to attach himself to things that can be viewed as a weakness.

Ilya smiles, soft but slightly strained. “Appreciate it, Bood.”

Shane sleeps for the entire hour long flight, so Ilya figures that’s around three and a half hours of sleep he’s gotten in total so far. Hopefully Shane can get something close to a seven or eight hour stretch of sleep once they’re at the hotel. Ilya will go to morning skate from nine to eleven and come back to the room for his pregame nap.

Ilya, once again, feels evil for having to wake Shane up again once they land in LA. Shane doesn’t fight him as much this time but he still seems just as out of it. He pulls the airplane blanket off of himself, opting to leave the Loops in his ears for the time being. He smiles tiredly when Ilya hands him his backpack from the overhead compartment.

“D’accord?” Ilya says as Shane gets to his feet. Okay?

“Da,” Shane says quietly. Yes. “Mne kazhetsya, ya v tumane, ya vse yeshche ustal.” Foggy, I think, still tired.

Murphy had warned Ilya that waking Shane before the medication had run it’s full course would probably be damn near impossible, and yet here he was, standing and walking and smiling. Ilya has a feeling it must have something to do with the man becoming accustomed to functioning on a limited amount of sleep back in Montreal, but he figures there are worse outcomes that could’ve come from it.

Shane still lays his head against Ilya’s shoulder during the drive to the hotel. His eyes are open but drooped slightly. He smiles softly at the story Haas is telling animatedly across the aisle from him, muffled by the earbuds as is.

“YA slishkom ustal, chtoby dumat',” Shane tells Ilya when they get to the breakfast buffet laid out at the hotel. I am too tired to think. “Polozhite na tarelku chto-nibud', chto, po vashemu mneniyu, ya s"yem.” Put something on a plate you think I will eat.

Ilya, despite trying not to make a big deal out of it, can’t help but feel strangely…special. Shane hardly trusts himself to decide what to eat, let alone other people. He doesn’t even allow the opinions of his past narrow-minded “sports nutritionists” in anymore. Shane had told him over this past summer that he’d been toying with the idea of seeing a nutritionist, one with experience in treating eating disorders, but that’d been before the whole Kent thing had cropped back up. It’d already felt like it would be a big step during the summer, so now it does even more so, the increased stress putting it on hold seemingly indefinitely.

So, fine, Ilya will allow himself a momentary second to feel good about Shane trusting him with something so important.

Ilya sticks to simple stuff, mainly things he’s seen Shane eat from these kinds of hotel spreads from past road trips. Scrambled eggs, turkey bacon, whole grain toast without butter, a side of strawberries, and, after thoughtful and perhaps hopeful consideration, a single waffle made with the protein batter they have set out. Ilya rounds it off with a bottle of blue Gatorade and a small cup of orange juice, the juice not only because he knows Shane considers it a treat but also because the bar for whether he believes he “deserves” to have this in particular is pretty low. Ilya’s developing a sneaking suspicion that Shane is harboring a secret sweet tooth, but considering how limited the data on that is at this point, the jury is still out.

Ilya makes a few of those waffles for himself and fills his own plate, as well, before he heads to the table Shane had directed himself to once he’d told Ilya to take over.

“A waffle?” Shane says when Ilya approaches, but he doesn’t seem mad. That’s a good sign.

Ilya smiles. “Protein waffle,” he corrects.

“Oh, really?” Shane says, perking up slightly.

“Da, and sugar-free syrup in tiny bottle,” Ilya replies, handing that over as well. Shane smiles, a tiny thing, but it’s there.

Ilya digs in immediately and Shane follows along, eating in a slight daze. Ilya had done a good job, Shane thinks. Most if not all NHL teams have a culinary staff and the Centaurs are no different. Most away game road trips involve carefully planned spreads for meals like this, so he’d already known whatever Ilya picked would likely be pretty safe, but Ilya even knew to avoid certain things he’d gotten for himself. He’s damn near the only person Shane really trusts giving the power of choosing what he eats over to at this point in his life, and he simply doesn’t have the space in brain these days to stress about it too much.

Everyone splits off for their respective hotel room once they’re done with breakfast. Shane follows Ilya back to his room without any hesitation. Ilya practically tucks him into bed and he feels bad that the other man is having to baby him so much before the rational part of his brain reminds him that caretaking is something that Ilya has identified as something he likes, even in day to day scenarios. Shane knows that Ilya would probably prefer that it wasn’t under these kinds of circumstances, but it does assuage his guilt enough to relax against the mattress as Ilya changes into his athletic clothes.

“I will be back in a few hours after practice,” Ilya says, sitting on the edge of the bed so he can ruffle Shane’s hair a bit. “Will try very hard not to wake you.”

“And I will try very hard to be asleep for the next…” Shane begins, pausing to check the time, “seven or so hours.”

“The team was asking about you, on the plane,” Ilya says softly, meeting his eyes fully. They look a bit troubled.

“You can tell them, if you want to, if you think it’s a good idea,” Shane murmurs, reaching up a hand to run a finger along the sharp angle of Ilya’s jawline. “Say something like, I don’t know, ‘Hollander has clinical insomnia, had been awake for two days, is very tired, but will be ready for game tonight’ if you want.” He watches the way Ilya’s nose crinkles slightly at the sound of Shane’s purposely poor impersonation of his Russian accent.

“You are okay with them knowing this?” Ilya says, making sure to confirm.

“One day, they’re going to know something even worse about me,” Shane says with a sigh, shifting around to settle himself fully under the covers. “Maybe small stuff will humanize me to those few people that might not believe it at first. And honestly, it’s not a huge deal. Dr. Murphy was pretty chill about it because it happens more often in the league than you’d think, apparently. A few of the guys in Montreal had a regular Ambien prescription.”

“Mm, this is true,” Ilya agrees, remembering a few of his own teammates in Boston had had similar issues, as well. “Okay. I will mention it if they ask again. You focus on…well, I was going to say sleeping, but how about you focus on nothing so you can sleep, da?”

Shane snorts, his eyes sliding shut as he nods his head.

Ilya still has some time before he has to catch the team bus to the practice arena, so he stays right where he is, petting a gentle hand through Shane’s hair. The medication is definitely still in his system because Shane is asleep by the time Ilya is slipping out of the hotel room and ensuring it is locked behind him as he goes.

“Where’s your better half?” Hayes asks as he boards the bus with plenty of time to spare.

“Yeah, he was half awake during breakfast, is he good?” Dykstra adds.

Ilya sighs to himself as he slides into an empty row of seats. He places his rink bag in the spot Shane would normally be occupying.

“Hollander has insomnia, had been awake for the last two days,” he admits. “Murphy got him meds and he has orders to skip skate and sleep, but he’ll be at game tonight.”

“Two days?” Haas practically squeaks.

“Damn, I mean, you hear about guys taking a while to fall asleep, but going that long without any…” Tanner Dillon says, trailing off.

“Da, sucks very much, has not been issue for many years for him, but,” Ilya says, shrugging his shoulders rather than continuing.

“Well, I hope he’s okay!” Luca says next, and Ilya sends him a soft smile.

“Thank you, meds work amazing, he has already slept a bunch, should be all good for game,” Ilya replies.

Ilya takes some time to check his messages and scroll through his Instagram discover feed as he waits for the bus to leave for the rink. Bood sends him a text once they’re in motion on their way to the practice arena.

Bood: you guys need anything?

Bood: two days is no joke, I googled it, apparently you can hallucinate??? crazy shit

Ilya: meds Murphy give him work great, no side effects so far

Ilya: he already asleep before I leave for bus, did not wake to alarm this morning, so hopefully he sleep straight through to tonight

Bood: what’d she give him? hopefully not that Ambien shit?

Bood: got that my rookie year when the time changes were killing me, that shit is awful

Ilya: yes, he say that haha, we make sure he NOT get this

Ilya: seem to work good

Bood: I’m surprised he’s cool with u telling me all this

Ilya: was a discussion a few weeks ago

Ilya: he is not an idiot, can tell when people are checking in because they care for specific reason, not just in general

Ilya: he was honestly more surprised you believe him

Ilya: which is probably worse than if he’d been mad, I think

Ilya: but he is okay with it

It was true. The fact that Zane Boodram had seemed to put the puzzle pieces together before somebody like Hayden Pike who claims to be Shane’s best friend frustrates Ilya to no end. Shane had been the one to bring up that Bood must know that something bad had happened to him, had guessed based off the careful offers for assistance when Shane seems to be having a tough time and the looks he’s seen Ilya and the other man exchange sometimes. Shane had been surprised to learn that Bood had guessed correctly about everything, though, right down to the exact person who’d stuck his dick into Shane without consent.

Shane had felt a flash of shame, then embarrassment, and then confusion. Zane Boodram had no personal bias towards Shane, isn’t like Ilya or Hayden or his parents who are people who would be reasonably expected to believe what Shane says happened to him, and yet he does anyway. It was an odd concept for him to wrap his mind around at the time, but he’s come to realize that he’s gotten so caught up in the potential “public perception” of things that he’d forgotten that the men they play hockey with are also just people, people who are inclined to care about them.

Bood: you’re telling guys about it?

Ilya: just the insomnia part

Ilya: like you said, is pretty common in league, not a big deal

Ilya: so he is okay with sharing this

Ilya: if it becomes big issue I will bully him into seeing specific dr, is fine

Bood: yeah, that sleep shit is no joke

Bood: 24 hours was enough for me

Ilya: he hit around 52

Bood: jesus fuck

Bood: well at least he’s sleeping now!

Ilya: da, like baby

Ilya is bit more sluggish in practice than he would normally be, but he figures he can chalk that up to the limited amount of sleep he got last night combined with the absence of his favorite Centaurs player. Shane has a way of lighting up a room, something he allows himself to lean into more often these days, and it brings energy to practices in the same way that Luca Haas’s adorable youth or Harris Drover’s affections for Troy Barrett do.

He slinks back into their hotel room once the bus drops them back off at the hotel for their pregame naps. He showered thoroughly back at the rink so he quickly sheds his clothes and slides into bed beside Shane as quietly as he can manage. Shane, curled onto his side, doesn’t so much as breathe differently, fast asleep in the same position Ilya had left him in a few hours ago.

Shane stays asleep until the alarm Ilya set for them to start getting ready for the game goes off. He blinks, blearily, into the soft darkness of the hotel room. Ilya fumbles around with his phone for a moment too long before he finally manages to silence the alarm.

“You sleep the whole time?” Ilya asks when Shane turns over to face him.

“Yeah, since you left for practice,” Shane replies.

“At least…seven hours,” Ilya says, doing the math in his head. “You feel any better?”

“Yes, definitely,” Shane replies. “Not even too tired after the medication, either, which is good.”

“Would take again if you had to?” Ilya asks, because he has to know, just in case.

“If I had to, yeah,” Shane agrees. “But hopefully I won’t have to. Once I get sleep after an episode like this it usually, I don’t know, like, resets my sleep cycle? Like I don’t have another one for months usually, if at all that season.”

“So it really only happens on the road,” Ilya says in surprise.

“Yeah, my psychologist said it’s likely secondary to, uh, to my PTSD. Hypervigilance, stress, all that. It’s never actually happened at home, in Montreal or Ottawa.”

“So…hotels,” Ilya sums up.

Shane huffs an amused laugh. “Yeah, hotels, not great for me, which sucks because apparently being an NHL player means spending a lot of time in them.”

“Mm, yes, is shame,” Ilya agrees with a hum. “Is shame for your argument that we need to room separately on road to ‘keep up appearances’ with team, whatever that means. Means I win.”

“Oh, you win, that’s what this is?” Shane says, arching an eyebrow.

“Mhm, yes, Hollander, has been long war, but think this means you room with me always, now,” Ilya says, matter-of-fact and still not backing down.

Shane sighs and makes a big show of being frustrated, but he’s secretly glad. It’s true that he’d insisted they do that at the beginning of this first season of theirs together, but it’s started to seem dumber and dumber as time has gone on. The team is well aware that they’re married and, yeah, might fuck while they share a room, but it’s not like they should be suffering just because their teammates can’t have their own spouses with them on the road. Shane knows, logically, that if they were to take a poll or something for some godforsaken reason, their teammates would agree that they truly don’t give a fuck if Shane and Ilya room together on the road or not.

“Fine,” Shane concedes.

Ilya crows like he’s won something exciting and throws himself out of bed. “Come on, time to look pretty in pregame suit,” Ilya instructs, gesturing for Shane to follow.

Shane does. They get dressed and meet the rest of the team for the bus ride to LA’s arena.

“Hollander, you’re alive!” Barrett says in greeting, clapping him on the shoulder in greeting.

Shane rolls his eyes and takes the reaction in stride.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m alive, don’t get too excited,” he says.

Shane makes it through the game against LA just fine, scoring an assist in two of the three periods but staying off the score board in terms of goals. He hadn’t played his best and he knows it, but he’d played pretty well all things considered, he thinks. Ilya scores the game winning goal, the Centaurs beating the mid-standings LA Sharks 4-3 in regulation.

Ilya decides that Shane can stand to have more sleep than he’s already had and Shane agrees, so they get permission from Coach Wiebe to skip team dinner that evening and instead order room service into their hotel room and go to bed early. Shane wants to try without the medication first, and Ilya agrees, setting midnight as a reasonable limit. Shane is out by eleven p.m., much to Ilya’s relief.

They wake up early the next morning and hop on the bus for the 45 minute bus ride to Anaheim. Shane listens to music on the drive there and rests his head against the window, still tired but not exactly sleepy. He attends practice with the rest of the team and settles into bed with Ilya for their pregame nap after lunch. He’s able to fall asleep that time within ten minutes and without medication, which both him and Ilya consider a win.

Shane is much more alert and present during the game that night against the Hammerheads. He scores a goal in the first, assisted by Evan Dykstra, and then another on a powerplay in the third off of a no-look drop pass from Ilya, making the game 5-2.

The Centaurs end up taking the game 6-3. They board a flight back to Ottawa straight from the arena. Shane drifts off against Ilya’s shoulder halfway through the nearly seven hour flight, and the Russian is glad.

Ilya doesn’t need to cajole Shane into bed once they’ve landed in Ottawa and are back home. Shane goes without a word, strips out of his clothes and practically face plants into their bed much to Ilya’s amusement.

Shane sleeps for 14 hours straight and wakes up in the evening the same day. Ilya has been up for a bit but had also indulged in more sleep than he usually would, as well, once they’d gotten home. He finds Ilya in the living room with Anya on the couch watching one of his shows. Ilya suggests dinner and Shane agrees.

“I really am sorry about all of that,” Shane says as they eat the salmon and vegetables that they’d thrown together.

“And I really mean it that you do not need to be sorry about this, solnyshko,” Ilya insists. “Is upsetting that someone put you through something so horrible that you still feel effects of it, and that I know they upset and frustrate you, also. Reminds me how lucky Kent is that he was in prison when I find out because I would’ve killed him myself for it. That fight on the ice with him a while back was not enough.”

Shane stops eating for a moment. “I’m glad that he was in prison when I told you, because I know you probably would’ve killed him or found someone to do it, and you would’ve gone to jail yourself,” he says quietly. “I don’t know how I’d do this without you, Ilya, so I’m glad.”

Ilya stares, taken aback at the intensity.

“I…I am sorry,” he stammers finally, unsure, “I…scare you?”

“Your anger doesn’t scare me,” Shane corrects immediately, picking his fork back up, “the idea of losing you does.”

“Wanting to hurt someone this bad makes me just like my father, no?” Ilya says, voice barely there as he tries for a humorous tone that falls flat, eyes not meeting Shane’s.

“Then I guess I’m just like your father, too, because I’ve had worse thoughts about what I want to do to Dallas Kent than you can even imagine, Ilya. If someone did what he did to me to you, I’d want to do those same things to them, as well.”

“You mean this?” Ilya says, eyes very serious when they finally dart over and meet Shane’s.

“Ilya, your dad’s anger never had any real justification, that what makes it’s different,” Shane says gently. “Anger towards someone as disgusting as Kent? That’s not the same thing, not even a little bit.”

“Okay,” Ilya says in agreement.

“I’ve never been scared of you, not ever,” Shane adds, just to drive the point home.

“Da, yes, Hollander, okay, I believe you,” Ilya says quickly, cheeks flushing slightly.

Shane sighs, not unkind. “Sometimes a reminder is nice, though, right?” he says.

Ilya nods to himself, slightly distracted in thought, Shane assumes. That’s fine. He understands needing time to process things. He knows it will be a long time before Ilya can admit that he, as a child and even as an adult, had never actually provoked or deserved any of the abuse his father had inflicted upon him, but things like that naturally take time. Shane certainly isn’t going to judge him for it considering that, even on a good day, he’s one pressurized question about Kent away from folding and taking damn near responsibility for his own rape.

“Da,” Ilya agrees, dropping his gaze.

They finish eating in a comfortable silence. Shane accompanies him to bed a few hours later despite having recently woken up. Sleep debt is a thing, the Canadian figures, and he’s still tired enough that he figures it’s only fair he finish catching up.

“If that ever happens again, I’ll see the specialist,” Shane tells Ilya as they’re getting ready for bed. “But I don’t want to take long-term medication unless I need to.”

Ilya figures that makes sense and that it’s more than fair, and he tells Shane so. He hopes that it doesn’t come to that, but he’s glad that, at least as of right now, Shane will be accepting of help if need be.

Chapter Text

March 2022, Pt. 3

Shane takes the whole “there must be things I haven’t thought to tell you” thing very seriously, too seriously, Ilya thinks, no matter how endearing it is that he’s come to Ilya with a written list of such things. When he does it’s clear that he’s been stressing over it a bit, and it takes Ilya a minute to realize that it’s because the two of them take open communication pretty seriously. Ever since they realized that a lack of it results in the many bumps they encountered before allowing their relationship to finally become just that, a relationship, it’d become something very important. So, it’s endearing and kind of adorable, yes, even if Shane’s intensity about it worries him at least a little bit.

“I just, you know, thought about it for a little while, of anything I thought would be a surprise for you to find out all of sudden,” Shane says, clutching the single sheet of loose leaf paper in his hand like it’s a lifeline.

Ilya supposes that sheet of paper kind of is right now, at least for Shane, who likes rules and order and organization. His cheeks had gone bright pink when he’d pulled it out of his pocket and unfolded it, though, out of the need for it, Ilya bets. Sometimes he wants to shake the smaller man and say something along the lines of ‘everyone’s brains work differently, it is not a terminal illness to like structure.’

“Okay,” Ilya says, gesturing for him to continue.

It’s a rare off day which Ilya has a feeling was an intentional choice by Shane. They both try to plan potentially heavy conversations for days that are low stress. The both of them are still, after all, the same people who’d, as kids, struggled greatly with clear communication, so of course they still have difficulties now despite the many years that have passed. They’ve done more blunt and open communication since January than they have in their entire relationship combined, Ilya figures, slightly put out by this because it’d taken Shane revealing his darkest secret for it to finally happen. He sees the way Shane stresses sometimes lately, about whether he’s doing enough or being fair in terms of their relationship. It’d taken Ilya a bit to realize why, to understand that what happened to Shane is sometimes enough to end relationships, even if that’s not what either person want. The best way to avoid that, Ilya knows, through experience and Galina, is to talk, and so that’s what Shane has been making it a point to do lately, even if it puts that nervous look on his face like he’s wearing right now.

They’re in the living room, the only light a dim lamp in the opposite corner of the room and the dreary gray coming from the windows. It’s been raining since they woke up this morning and Ilya had figured it was a perfect excuse to curl up on the couch together and do absolutely nothing.

Ilya’s situated in the middle of the couch, feet on the floor, and Shane at the corner, seated sideways with his legs splayed across Ilya’s lap. They’re covered in one of the fluffy down blankets that Yuna had gotten them this past Christmas.

“Alright, um, so when I’m sick and I can’t breathe through my nose or my throat hurts, it, uh, bothers me,” Shane begins, eyes flashing down to the list for a beat before landing back on Ilya’s shoulder. He hasn’t met the other man’s eyes since he started this particular conversation.

Ilya makes a soft noise and places a hand on one of Shane’s ankles, holding on more securely when he doesn’t twitch or pull away.

“I uh, I get all weird, I don’t know,” Shane says, waving a hand vaguely in the air. “Reminds me of, uh—”

“Before,” Ilya says, finishing for him when Shane’s pause lasts a moment too long.

“Yeah,” Shane agrees, relieved. “Same thing, sort of, for when I break my nose, so if that happens on the ice at some point, I figured you should know that one, too.”

“Is good idea, yes,” Ilya agrees, swiping his thumb across Shane’s skin once as a sort of reassurance. Shane gets squirmy and anxious during these kinds of conversations most of the time, and Ilya gets it because he does the same thing, like as if every additional thing you add increases the risk of you ruining everything.

“Right, yeah. I re-broke my nose during a game a few years after Kent broke it the first time, and it was like I went into shock right there on the ice, Hayden and J.J. had to practically drag me off to medical. I was shivering so bad when they sat me down and start poking around at it, and when I looked down at my jersey and saw that it was covered in blood, I went white and couldn’t breathe, so Hayden stayed with me even though there was still, like, five minutes left in the period. Coach was pissed, but, again, I had my anxiety documented. Hayden thinks it was just a panic attack, but it was more than that.”

“You were…lost?” Ilya guesses, drawing the conclusion from the way Shane has described how the past has a way of intermingling with the present for him sometimes.

“Yes, that was probably one of the worst, uh, episodes, that I’ve ever had. I’d broken my nose in a collision, so they obviously also pulled me for protocol, and I failed the assessment. I couldn’t remember what team we’d played last, whether we’d won that last game or not, and the first time, back on the ice, when they’d asked what year it was, apparently I said 2014. Hayden was so freaked out.”

“But no concussion,” Ilya says.

“Nope, no concussion. They re-tested me thirty minutes later, after I’d calmed the fuck down for a bit, and I passed with flying colors. It was just, well, you’ve heard me say it, past and present blending together to form some kind of hellish nightmare. Except the difference with this is that my nose didn’t heal for a while obviously, so I walked around like a…a ‘kicked puppy’ for a while, that’s what Comeau described it as at one point, because I still couldn’t breathe through it properly and it hurt pretty bad for a bit.”

“So broken nose is…very bad for Shane Hollander’s well-being,” Ilya sums up, tone light despite the pit that’s formed in his stomach at the idea of Shane walking around with an ongoing reminder of the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.

“Yeah, it’s, uh, really not,” Shane agrees with a dry laugh. “I only have a couple more, and this one’s kinda silly, but do you think you could, uh, change the message that plays when people get your voicemail?”

“My what?” Ilya says, surprised by the sudden change in topic.

“You know, the message you recorded that plays when someone gets your voicemail when they call?” Shane replies. He drops his voice, would use a fake Russian accent if he was feeling more playful but can’t muster the strength right now so instead it comes out more dead than anything else, “hi, this is Ilya, I will never listen to your voicemail.”

“You not like my voicemail message?” Ilya says, lightly teasing. He doesn’t know what direction this is going, but if Shane’s bringing it up right now of all times, it must, oh fuck, it must remind him of what happened with Kent in some way.

“No,” Shane says lowly, eyes darting to the side of Ilya’s face and back down to his shoulder, “no, I don’t. Sorry. I know it’s random.”

“Okay, okay,” Ilya says, squeezing Shane’s ankle ever so tighter, “okay, I’m sorry I joke. Does not seem random. Tell me why and I will do.”

“It’s stupid,” Shane mutters.

“Nothing you think is stupid,” Ilya replies.

“In Sochi, after—” Shane begins. Ilya’s mouth slams shut, on high alert, because yes, this is definitely not random. “I tried to call you. Or. I wanted to. A lot. I wanted to really, really bad.”

Ilya’s heart breaks at the idea of Shane, terrified and alone, wanting to call the one person he could tell about what had happened to him but not allowing himself to.

“But you didn’t want to talk to me. And I knew if I called, you wouldn’t answer. And I’d get your voicemail, that stupid fucking voicemail—” Shane’s breaths hitches slightly, turning his head and looking away into the living room. “And I considered calling anyway, because I thought even just hearing your voice would’ve, I don’t know…but I didn’t. It would’ve made it worse, I thought, hearing you but only that stupid message and nothing else.”

And Ilya’s heart cracks even more, because now he’s imagining that same already terrified Shane who’s also heartbroken at the same time on top of everything else. “Shane, fuck, I am so sorry—”

Ilya cuts himself off when Shane turns his head back towards Ilya and meets his gaze directly.

“I don’t want any sorry’s, it wasn’t your fault, either, remember?” Shane says seriously. His eyes are slightly wet but he’s not crying, Ilya notes. One thing that is different about Shane lately is the fact that he cries more easily these days. Ilya figures it probably has something to do with Shane finally beginning to fully process what had happened to him, which definitely doesn’t make it any less distressing. “I’m not bringing it up because I wanna make you feel bad, this was a long time ago, remember? We’ve grown since then. I just want you to change your annoying fuckin’ voicemail message, okay?” He smiles slightly and Ilya huffs out a laugh, nodding.

“I change it, I change,” Ilya agrees.

“Okay, thank you,” Shane says, dropping his gaze once again and turning it back to his list. Ilya watches with a soft smile, still charmed at Shane’s quirks even after all these years.

Shane is well aware that, despite the transparency he’s offering right now with this list nonsense, there is still one thing that he’s actively choosing not to tell Ilya. Ilya had opened up a bit more about his mental health a little while after they’d gotten married and had described to him his occasional passive suicidality at length in an attempt to get Shane to understand, it had seemed. Shane hadn’t had it in himself to pipe up about the fact that he probably understands it more than Ilya realizes.

Shane still isn’t able to own up to it, even after his psychologist had looked at him right in the face and said, rather plainly, “that was a suicide attempt,” in response to Shane describing a night when he’d almost completely lost control of himself in a Toronto hotel room many years ago. Shane hadn’t even done anything to himself, but that’s an old argument, knows now, logically, that it counts, but he’s still working on reconciling that with his own brain. Shane has always chosen to forgo bringing it up, has always figured that Ilya has enough on his plate dealing with his own depression that he doesn’t need to add Shane to the list of people he’s afraid will snap at any moment and off themselves. Shane hasn’t felt suicidal in years, almost seven at this point, and had never felt like that before then. It was one night in a sea of thousands after a day and a half without sleep. He hadn’t been hallucinating or anything, but he certainly wasn’t exactly in his right mind.

But.

But.

If Hayden hadn’t come back to their hotel room when he had, Shane genuinely doesn’t know what would’ve happened.

That’s the part that Dr. Wolfe says makes it a suicide attempt, interrupted and aborted or something like that, because while Shane’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have actually done anything, he’s not 100%.

It feels cheap to Shane, even though he knows it shouldn’t. Again, he’s still waiting for his brain to catch up on that one. So, he’s going to keep this to himself for right now. The most important part, he thinks, is that if he ever does feel like that again, he’ll actually say something.

His eyes go to the last item on the list and something amused flickers through him. He’d figured this would be something fun to round off the list of depressing information. It’s not a lie, is the best part, and he’s interested to see how Ilya will react.

“Okay, last one” Shane says, nonchalant as if this is an afterthought, “I started smoking for a bit back then, but I quit a long time ago.” He’s smiling when he says it, amused and slightly giddy at the idea of having this remain a secret despite the fact that he’s just confessed to it right to Ilya’s face.

“Yeah, okay, I think this has been enough confession time for you, Hollander, you’re talking crazy now,” Ilya says, barking out a laugh.

Shane laughs and goes along with it, silently delighted. He’d had a feeling that Ilya would think that bit was a joke and had decided preemptively that there’s really no true harm in Ilya finding out that it’s not later on, however that ends up happening. What can Shane say? He likes pushing Ilya’s buttons sometimes.

***

Shane calls his husband a week later when Ilya runs out to the store for something and he’d realized that they also need more of the soda that Ilya likes to drink. He gets his voicemail, so he’s probably driving. Shane subconsciously braces himself for the click and then the familiar beginning of “hi, this is—”

“Hi, this is Ilya. Unless you are my beautiful, freckled solnyshko, do not bother leaving a message.”

Shane’s cheeks go warm and he can barely believe his ears. Ilya calls back a few minutes later and Shane relays the initial message he’d originally called about as nonchalantly as he can manage. He waits until they’re snuggled up on the couch later that night to bring it up.

“I like your new voicemail message,” Shane says quietly, the side of his head pressed against Ilya’s chest.

“Da?” Ilya says, carding his fingers through Shane’s hair, “I like, too.”

“Thank you,” Shane mumbles, painfully shy.

“No need to thank,” Ilya replies, pressing a soft kiss to the side of Shane’s head, “was stupid recording anyway. Should have changed it years ago.”

Shane knows that Ilya doesn’t often care about little stuff like this. Ilya obviously never hears his own voicemail message recording, so it’s not like it’s something he ever thinks about. Ilya did that for Shane, without any teasing, because Shane asked him to. It makes him feel warm.

***

Ottawa plays in New Jersey and then Brooklyn at the end of the month, rounding out the short road trip with a game against the Admirals in NYC. Ilya had gone to the staff member in charge of hotel rooms before they left for the roadie to inform her that Shane would be rooming with Ilya for the foreseeable future, so they room together for the entire trip. Shane sleeps like a baby every night, much to their relief. Ilya fucking him until he could barely see straight the first night also definitely helped, Shane is sure, much to the Russian’s smug satisfaction.

Hunter had contacted him early in the week leading up to the game to confirm that Shane and Ilya, along with the entirety of the Centaurs, were still down for drinks at a gay club after the game. Ilya had been cajoling the older man into it at least once a year since he’d signed with Ottawa and now it seems that the responsibility has somehow fallen to Shane, which the Canadian thinks is just ridiculous, but whatever. Being obnoxiously queer, and Shane says that affectionately, is one of Ilya’s favorite activities, and far be it from him to stop his husband from doing so.

Scott skates up to him at center ice during pregame warmups. “We still on for drink tonight, Hollander?” he asked.

“If you’re still okay with the entirety of the Ottawa Centaurs coming along, then yeah,” Shane replies, brushing the snow that’s accumulated off of the blade of his stick.

“You were serious? All of them?” Scotts says, slightly incredulous. Shane nods. “Damn, alright. You know what? This will be fun.”

Shane sighs, long-sufferingly. “It’s gonna be ridiculous.”

“You’ll be fine,” Scott says, rolling his eyes. “Live a little, Hollander.”

“Oh, I plan to,” Shane replies, a bit of Ilya’s cockiness momentarily shining through him, “I’m drinking tonight.”

Scott has the wherewithal to look a little nervous about the prospect of a drunk Shane Hollander as he skates away. It satisfies the small part of Shane that still enjoys shocking people with the reality of the fact that he is actually the farthest thing from the good virginal golden boy he’s always been made out to be.

The Centaurs are leading 2-1 halfway through the second period. Ilya and Hunter’s lines are both out on the ice. The action has picked up a bit, players finishing checks and playing aggressively to the whistle. The playoffs are looming and the energy tends to get a little weird around this time of every season, so Shane’s not surprised.

Hunter shoves Ilya after the whistle following a pile-up at the net in front of Vaughn. Ilya shoves him back, equally frustrated, but waves Scott off when he starts towards him.

“No, no, I do not fight the elderly, Hunter, that is abuse,” Ilya chides, gliding backwards away from Scott.

“We are literally only a few years apart, Rozanov!” Hunter says, taking the bait. “We could be brothers.”

“That is horrifying thought, put it back,” Ilya says grimly, shaking his head.

Shane hears it all, albeit just barely, from his spot on the bench. Both teams get a line change before the next puck drop in the Admirals’ defensive zone. Wiebe sends out the Centaurs’ third line and Ilya, along with the rest of the first line, head back to the bench.

“Ilya, you've gotta stop calling Hunter old!” Shane says when Ilya arrives and plops down into the spot next to him.

“What, Shane? Is fun! You should try sometime!” Ilya replies, sending Shane an innocent ‘I can do no wrong’ look.

“Il est la raison que nous sommes ensemble, Ilya,” Shane replies. He is the reason that we are together.

“Yes, fine, he can have, hm, maybe 30% of credit,” Ilya concedes.

“30%” Shane repeats, deadpan and unimpressed.

“Yes, Shane 30%,” Ilya replies, taking a drink of water.

“Ilya, I didn’t even remember inviting you to the cottage,” Shane says, incredulous, “I was so high and concussed, I didn’t even remember. If you’d never called after Hunter came out, I wouldn’t have asked again, probably, or not for a while knowing us.”

“You…you what?” Ilya says, dumbfounded.

“Yeah, Ilya,” Shane says slowly, knocking his shoulder against his husband’s lightly. “That’s why I always say Hunter is the reason we got together. Oh, and Cliff Marleau. If I didn’t get that concussion, you were gonna break it off, right?”

Ilya had confessed this to Shane once, in the months leading up to their wedding when Ilya had started stressing about whether he was “worthy” of the affections of his fiancé and the Hollander family as a whole. Shane had been, understandably, terrified at the idea of it. He remembers bits of his loopy musings about Ilya, remembers thinking that he’d be more than happy to hit his head all over again if it meant he got a quiet moment with Ilya in that damn hospital room, and he’d felt even more justified for feeling that way after hearing what Ilya had told him.

“Da, that’s true,” Ilya agrees, voice suddenly gruffer than usual. Shane empathizes. This isn’t exactly a trip down memory lane to a good time in their lives.

“So no concussion and no Hunter epic come out would’ve probably meant…” Shane says, trailing off.

“No us,” Ilya finishes.

“Or at least no us for an even longer time than it already took, yeah,” Shane agrees.

“Damn it,” Ilya says under his breath. “I have to say thank you to Scott Hunter.”

“Well, look at it this way,” Shane says as he gets the tap from coach to get on the ice for the next line change, “Ilya Rozanov getting sappy with him? He’ll be mortified.”

A small smile spreads across Ilya’s face.

“This is also true,” he says, nodding.

It’s a funny idea, Ilya agrees. Scott will probably feel pretty awkward when Ilya approaches him to thank him of all things. But Shane’s right, he knows now. There would probably be no them without Scott fucking Hunter of all people.

The Centaurs take the game 3-2 in regulation and the entire team, as Shane had said, accompanies him and Ilya to the club after the game is over and everyone is thoroughly showered.

Hunter chose a pretty popular place that’s bumping with music and crowded with people, but the large crowds kind of aid in anonymity when all of them aren’t clumped together in a mass of NHL players. There’s a VIP section that quickly becomes home base, and that’s where the team settles when they first arrive at the club. Shane and Ilya split off almost immediately to order themselves some drinks, slipping through the crowd with relative ease now that they’re separated from the group at large.

Ilya orders a strawberry daiquiri for Shane and a fancy vodka for himself. He leans back against the bar as they wait and Shane is struck by how…relaxed the atmosphere is. There’s a lot of people milling around and the music is pretty loud, but nobody is looking at them. They go out to bars with the rest of the team pretty regularly, but there’s always this feeling like there are eyes on them, and it’s probably because there usually are. It feels different here.

It feels so different that Shane takes it upon himself to crowd into Ilya’s personal space and kiss him while they’re waiting. Ilya makes a surprised noise but is absolutely delighted, kissing back with a shared heat that quickly gets to be almost too much for the public setting.

The bartender tapping Ilya on the arm is what makes them break apart finally. He gives them an amused look and hands them their drinks. Shane is bright red when they return to the booth their friends have taken over in the VIP section.

The club’s booths are high-backed and plush, the lighting back here just like the rest of the club, low and chill. Their table is already littered with empty glasses as well as fresh drinks and a plate of what looks like disco fries.

Ilya sits on the inside next to Barett and Shane scoots close against his side on the outside. Harris is to Troy’s left, the booth shaped in a semi-circle that ends with Kip and then Scott. Bood, Haas, and Dykstra have pulled over some stray chairs and are seated right by the booth.

Hayes returns from the bathroom a few minutes after Shane and Ilya have settled back into the booth.

“Did I see that right, or did I hallucinate Shane practically shove his tongue down your throat, Rozy?” he asks Ilya as he’s taking his seat.

That sends up a cacophony of noise and whistles from their teammates, to which Shane blushes profusely but rolls his eyes.

“Ne nenavid'te menya because you ain’t me,” Shane says, broken half and half between Russian and English. Don’t hate me because you ain’t me.

Hayes’ eyes nearly bug out of his head. Bood guffaws with laughter.

“So Hollander’s in rare spirits, I see,” Barrett says in response. “He’s not even drunk yet and he’s already just saying things.”

“We’re in for it, aren’t we?” Dykstra says quietly to Luca. Luca nods, expression intrigued but also vaguely stressed.

Ilya snorts and sips at his drink. Shane is in rare spirits tonight. The public displays of affection are a huge indicator of that. Shane has tried to explain it to him a few times before, that sometimes all the stress finally slips away for a little while and he can have a really good time somewhere. He’d summed it up by saying he didn’t know why it happened but that he certainly wasn’t complaining and that he just likes to enjoy it and, well, Ilya is more than happy to oblige.

They send the rookies to grab the next few rounds. Shane sticks to the same drink as his first, finishing two in the same time it takes Ilya to have four. Ilya likes keeping pacing with Shane these days, but this is probably as drunk as he’ll allow himself to get tonight.

Barrett gets to his feet once everyone seems sufficiently intoxicated.

“Alright, you losers, it’s time to get your asses on the dance floor,” he says to the group at large.

The majority of their teammates, the non-queer ones, at least, look mildly nervous as they accompany Troy out of the VIP section, but they go without a fight. Haas looks slightly like he’s going to pass out in the process, Shane notes with mild amusement, but he goes, as well.

Shane holds Ilya’s hand to keep track of him as they weave their way through the crowd. They’d quickly lost track of the rest of their friends but he can’t find it in himself to care. The rest of their team had come because they’re always so enthusiastic whenever Ilya or Troy bring up the idea of a night out a gay bar, so he figures they can hold their own just fine and, if they can’t, will learn rather quickly.

Shane, to Ilya’s surprise as well as his own, dances against Ilya a little filthier than he’d initially intended to. Shane knows it’s the alcohol, but he doesn’t care. There’s plenty of things for him to be stressed about in regards to doing things in public. Once that inevitable article linking him to Kent comes out, any public interaction he has with Ilya that’s remotely gay is going to be picked apart by the most vile type of homophobes, he already knows it. He doesn’t want to let that knowledge run his life, though, and it’s not like he drinks often, not to normal standards and definitely not to what’s considered normal in the NHL. He thinks he can have a night where he lets loose a bit.

“Vy segodnya ochen'... otkryty,” Ilya says into his ear, just loud enough for Shane to hear him over the music. You are very…open tonight.*

Shane twists around in his arms so that their fronts are now facing each other, not quite pressed right up against one another but definitely still hovering rather close together.

“My nakhodimsya v gey-klube,” Shane replies, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. We are in a gay club. “Je pense que nous pouvons être gai ici.” I think we can be gay here.

“Mm, da, YA tak dumayu, da,” Ilya says stupidly. Yes, I think so, yes.

“Mozhet, tebe prosto stoit nasladit'sya etim, Ilyusha,” Shane drawls, pulling back just enough to meet Ilya’s eyes in the very low light of the dance floor. Maybe you should just enjoy it, Ilyusha.

Shane is glad that he has a good view of Ilya’s eyes because he gets to see them darken at the use of the Russian diminutive of his name. Shane’s never used it before, had only remembered it was a thing when he’d heard Gus from Pittsburgh call his teammate Tokarev by one, Nikitoshka, to be specific. His eyebrows had gone soaring into his hairline when through his research he’d seen that it was a form most commonly used between romantic partners, figuring that this must be what Ilya feels like when he sniffs out something that seems potentially queer within the league. He’d also, of course, looked up the versions for ‘Ilya’ and has been holding onto the knowledge in his back pocket for a fun moment like this.

Ilya’s hand comes up and rests firmly against the spot where Shane’s shoulder meets his neck, his thumb spread across the front of his throat. It’s not a hand directly around his neck, Ilya wouldn’t somewhere so public, but it tells Shane that his husband is certainly, hm, impressed by the new petname.

“So you have been adding things to your vocabulary, I see,” Ilya says, tone deep and volume almost too quiet for Shane to hear. Shane’s small smile transforms into a full on smirk when he hears it.

“Just a bit,” Shane allows.

“Eto zvuchit tak priyatno iz tvoikh prekrasnykh gub, Shanya,” Ilya says in that same deep voice, his accent thicker than it usually is these days. It sounds so nice coming from your pretty lips, Shanya. “Povtorite yeshcho raz, Shanechka.” Say again, Shanechka.

“Ilyukha,” Shane says instead, the more playful bro version, just to see what happens.

“Mm, no, that is for friends,” Ilya says, the thumb at Shane’s throat brushing up and down once. “Think you know that is not who I am, Hollander.”

Shane begins to feel a familiar pull, one that makes his body want to gravitate towards Ilya and sink into him. He gets there easier when he’s drunk, he knows, and, well, he’d basically invited it this time. What’s that meme? ‘Nobody help him, he’s exactly where he wants to be’? Yeah, that seems right.

He sways closer to Ilya, pressing their fronts together so he can lean up and speak directly into Ilya’s ear.

“Ilyushenka,” Shane says, just loud enough for his husband to hear.

Ilya inhales sharply and the hand he has on Shane’s hip tightens ever so slightly.

Contrary to Hayes’ words when he’d gotten back to the table earlier, neither Ilya nor Shane had had each other’s tongues in the other’s mouth when they’d kissed at the bar. That’s a fair line to draw, Ilya reasons, a fair limit to set on what type of pictures Shane would be okay with potentially ending up on the internet. That VIP section, though…

“You want to dance more?” Ilya asks when Shane pulls back again so they can see each other’s faces fully. “Ili ty khochesh' sest' mne na koleni, takaya krasivaya, za nashim stolikom, i pozvolit' mne na etot raz po-nastoyashchemu zasunut' yazyk tebe v gorlo, hm?” Or you want to sit on my lap all pretty at our table and let me stick my tongue down your throat for real this time, hm?

“Mm, that second option sounds more fun,” Shane replies, unable to keep the small but playful smile off of his face.

Ilya leads the way back to the secluded area. There are a few stray teammates occupying the table they’d been at but there’s plenty of vacant booths around. They move quickly so they’re not immediately spotted and Shane scrambles into Ilya’s lap the moment the Russian is seated.

“My Shanya,” Ilya murmurs, hands sliding down Shane’s waist and landing on his hips. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Mm, hopefully something dirty,” Shane drawls back, catching Ilya’s eye.

“You have been drinking,” Ilya says, matter-of-fact.

“Yes, two drinks, Ilya,” Shane says patiently. “I’m barely even tipsy anymore.”

Ilya squints. He’s assessing him, Shane knows.

“I’m damn near sober, Ilya,” Shane practically whines. “On purpose.”

“Oh, on purpose?” Ilya says, perking up. “So you plan all of that?”

Shane’s cheeks color. “Well, no, not all of that,” he concedes. “Just knew I might wanna do something with you, and well, here we are.”

“Mhm, here we are is correct,” Ilya agrees. He must finally be convinced that Shane’s sober enough to consent because he places a hand behind Shane’s neck to pull him in and capture his lips in a kiss.

Shane makes a soft noise that sends heat spreading through Ilya’s body.

Shane drapes his arms over Ilya’s shoulders and sways towards him, secure knowing that Ilya will keep him upright. He turns his head slightly when their lips parts for a moment, unconsciously giving Ilya better access to his neck, and the Russian takes the opportunity to lean forward once more and graze his teeth along the soft skin there. Shane makes a strangled noise, clearly trying to be quiet in the semi-public space they’re in. Ilya smirks, because he can’t help the smug, possessive reactions he has to Shane’s uncontrollable responses to him like this, especially when they’re a position where someone can potentially witness just how much they belong to each other.

His lips kiss their way down the column of Shane’s neck until they come to rest at the juncture where it meets his shoulder. It’s the sweet spot where Shane is okay with marks being left pretty much year round, easily hidden by t-shirts but also easily exposed when Shane is feeling a little cocky himself.

Shane presses towards him and Ilya takes that for the permission it is, sucking at the spot harder and harder until the man in his lap squirms from the feeling. He sinks his teeth in then and Shane makes a quiet noise, high and immediately bitten off. Ilya worries the skin there, knows what the pain does to his husband and taking great pleasure in making him fall apart slightly above him.

Shane had tried to explain it him recently what it’s like for him when Ilya marks him like this. He’d said that it’s like the pathways for pain and pleasure meet and blend together when he does it, and that’s the big part of why Shane likes it. The smaller part is the fact that it’s such a blatant claim of ownership and Shane loves belonging to Ilya in a way he himself hardly understands. Ilya feels the same way and knows it goes both ways, as well, has seen the deep satisfaction in Shane’s eyes after he places a hickey on Ilya’s skin. Ilya’s sure that that same emotion is shining in his own eyes when finally pulls away from the smaller man’s neck.

Shane grabs his face with gentle hands and immediately pushes their lips back together. He yields beautifully when Ilya presses his tongue into his mouth and then they spend a unknown amount of time making out and grinding their hips together. They’re both hard, but Ilya knows an orgasm in public like this, a spot without any doors that lock and where anyone can see or hear, is far beyond the line of acceptable for both of their privacy preferences.

“I know we shouldn’t,” Shane says as if reading his mind, finally pulling away after what feels like hours. His pupils are blown with arousal and Ilya knows he must not look any better himself. “But, fuck, I want to.”

“When we get back to hotel, da?” Ilya says, voice thick and low. “We will wait, hang out with our idiot teammates, and then I will spread you out in our bed and take you apart like you deserve.”

“Crisse,” Shane curses, arms looping back around Ilya’s neck as he drops his head forward and trembles for a moment. “Da. Pozhaluysta. Eto.” Yes. Please. That.

They have to separate, Shane off his lap and instead seated beside him, and discuss league standings and who they think is going to clinch wild card spots, in order to calm down. They rejoin the rest of the group back at their original table once their dicks have finally softened and they look relatively decent.

Ilya and Shane make conversation as more people filter back into the VIP section, pretending they hadn’t left the dance floor ages ago to make out like lovesick idiots. Unfortunately, the hickey Ilya had left on the same spot he’d had his hand earlier makes it pretty obvious that this isn’t the case.

Even more unfortunately and unbeknownst to Shane and Ilya, most of their interaction on the dance floor had been witnessed by more than a few of their teammates.

“Hollzy, I’m kind of afraid to ask, but what the fuck did you say to Rozy to make him look like that on the dance floor?” Barrett says, one of the few unafraid among the group. Harris and Hayes look vaguely alarmed at the direct line of questioning, but Troy just looks genuinely impressed, like a fellow queer guy recognizing another’s game.

Shane blushes and then snorts before taking a couple sips of the ginger ale Ilya had ordered for him. He’d quickly ended up sitting sideways on Ilya’s lap under the guise of the table being crowded, an action that was so much more benign than the others he’s taken tonight that nobody had even blinked.

Ilya watches his husband carefully and is pleased to see nothing but a sheepish kind of smugness on Shane’s face. He’d had another drink since they’d returned to the table and he’s feeling pleasantly loose, it seems.

“A special Russian nickname,” Shane replies.

“That’s it?” Barrett says, unconvinced.

“What were you expecting, Barrett?” Shane says with a huff, rolling his eyes. “That I asked to get on my knees and suck his dick or something? That’s so basic.”

“This must be why he doesn’t drink often,” Bood says from off to the side, staring in shocked amusement, “he always says stuff like this when he’s sloshed.”

“Hm, maybe I should tell you about the time I asked Ilya to, oh yeah, amenez-moi à la salle de bain du bar où on était et baise-moi contre le mur jusqu'à ce que je crie,” Shane says, overly amused. Take me to the bathroom of the bar we were in and fuck me against the wall until I scream.

Nick Chouinard’s eyes go wide. Teddy LaPointe, a younger player who also happens to be French-Canadian, chokes on his drink and turns bright red.

“What? What did he say?” Barrett exclaims.

“Yup, there it is, sloshed,” Bood says at the same time.

LaPointe shakes his head vehemently, not meeting anybody’s eyes and looking thoroughly scandalized. Shane almost feels bad. Almost.

“Nicky?" Barrett presses.

Chouinard calmly takes a sip of his drink. There’s an amused smile on his face when he pulls the glass away from his mouth. “Which bar was it?” he asks instead, directing the question at Shane.

Shane smirks, looking much more Rozanov than Hollander. “The one the team always goes to in Montreal,” he replies, something like vicious satisfaction in his eyes.

Chouinard’s eyebrows raise slightly and he nods, mildly impressed. Good, Shane thinks.

He’d been too drunk the first time he’d asked in that bar, but the idea of Ilya Rozanov, Montreal public enemy number one, fucking him, Montreal’s one that got away, in a semi-public Montreal space had stuck with him so much that he’d made sure not to drink the next time the team went out in that particular city. Ilya hadn’t believed Shane when he’d asked for it again, convinced he was joking until Shane had explained the concept to him. Ilya had taken to it like a duck to water, his mile-wide possessive streak taking over and guiding them directly to that bar bathroom. The door had been locked the entire time so it’s not like there was really any risk of anyone actually walking in, but the thrill was there as was the knowledge of what city they were in. Sometimes they miss the whole ‘we shouldn’t be doing this’ vibe from their youth and indulging in it, thus far, has always been a thrill.

“Bar?” Barrett squawks, looking to Ilya now for answers.

“Do not look at me, Barrett, do I look French-Canadian to you?” he says. It’s true. Most of what Shane had just said had gone straight over his head because of the French. He’d caught enough to parse it out, though, knows it was something about a bar bathroom and fucking.

“Google it when you get home if you wanna know so bad,” Chouinard says, now to the group at large.

“And listen, what he say is so sexy because I do not get to hear this very often anymore, Barrett,” Ilya says finally in explanation. Then, with fondness and pride taking over his face, “He even knew different versions, for friend and for lover.”

“Lover,” Shane repeats, making a face. Ilya smiles, even more charmed, and squeezes Shane a bit with the arm he has wrapped around his waist.

“So is that why you mauled him?” Dykstra says, pointing right at the admittedly large purple spot blooming on Shane’s lower neck. “Or are we just supposed to ignore the giant hickey on his neck that wasn’t there when we walked in?”

“Ignore it, do not ignore it, I don’t care,” Ilya says, shrugging his shoulders and sipping at a can of Coke. “Just shows that he is mine.” He adds the last part with a cocky smile and a glint in his eyes.

“Christ, since when are you two this freaky?” Hayes groans.

“Circa 2010,” Shane says, matter-of-fact. “’round then.” Ilya snorts.

“Jesus.”

Bood, because he just can’t help himself, is very clearly typing out whatever bits he can remember that Shane had said into Google Translate. Haas and Dykstra, against their better judgements, are leaning over his shoulder to watch. Whatever the three were collectively able to remember and type out seems to paint enough of a picture for them, because their faces all fill with disbelief once the site spits out a translation.

“There’s no way,” Troy says when he sees. “Hollander would never.”

“You hear that?” Ilya murmurs, pressing his face close to Shane’s so his lips drag against his ear when he speaks. “They don’t believe golden boy Hollander would fuck someone in a bar.”

“What?” Hunter says, finally tuning into the conversation, it seems.

“I refuse to believe this!” Haas exclaims, covering his ears.

“You and Hollander did what?” Hunter repeats, disbelieving.

“Hollzy, you dog,” Bood says with a filthy grin. Shane’s cheeks go bright pink.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, whatever,” Shane says in response, rolling his eyes despite the darkening blush spreading down his neck. He’d had a feeling the guys would figure out what he’d said eventually, but being called out so immediately like this has caught him a bit off guard.

“Oni schitayut, chto eto kruto,” Ilya murmurs, right against his ear. They think it’s hot. “Oni schitayut tebya goryachim.” They think you are hot.

And what else is Shane supposed to do except turn his head and take Ilya’s lips in a scorching kiss? It catches Ilya off guard judging by the barely audible noise of surprise he makes, but he kisses back and immediately matches Shane’s enthusiasm.

“And there it is again,” Bood says. “Sloshed.”

But Shane is too caught up in Ilya too care. Ilya, the responsible one for once in this scenario, pulls away when their tongues start sliding against one another.

“Sorry,” Ilya says to the group at large, a little dazed. “Do not know what has gotten into Hollander tonight.”

“Oh, I could hazard a guess,” Barrett says drily, resulting in a round of laughter that makes Shane’s cheeks burn even hotter.

“Ouais, j'aimerais ça en tabarnak,” Shane mutters, mostly under his breath, as he leans forward to grab his glass of ginger ale from the table. Yeah, I fucking wish.

LaPointe makes yet another strangled noise and Chouinard snorts. Eyes swing around between all of them, seeking explanation and once again finding none.

“Hollzy, we’re loving the openness here, but I think if you say anything else like that Teddy here will spontaneously combust,” Chouinard says.

“Fuck off, it’s fine,” LaPointe says immediately with a roll of the eyes, but he doesn’t meet Shane’s gaze.

Everyone laughs again, Shane and Ilya included.

Guys slowly start to filter out as the night begins to come to an end. Everyone wishes each other a goodnight and a few of the younger players are sent on their way with instructions to drink plenty of water. Scott heads to the bar to grab a couple of pitchers of water for the table and Ilya gently deposits Shane into an open spot in the booth to follow. Shane watches him go with a slight knowing smile on his face.

Ilya catches up to Scott at the bar where he’s waiting for the water. Scott looks a bit wary as he approaches, but doesn’t make any move to leave.

“You good, Rozanov?” Hunter says.

“Yes, Hunter, all good,” Ilya replies as the bartender places one of the pitchers onto the bar in front of them. “I wanted to talk to you about something real quick.”

Scott’s brows furrow slightly, but he gestures with a hand for Ilya to continue.

“Shane always used to say that we have you to thank for us getting together,” Ilya begins, not meeting Scott’s eyes. “I always think, yes, maybe a little, but realize recently he more right.”

“What do you mean?”

“He not tell you the story?” Ilya replies, surprised.

“No, just that me coming out had made a big difference for your relationship,” Hunter replies.

“Ah, well,” Ilya says, suddenly feeling a little awkward. “I was planning to uh, sort of break things off, but Shane got concussion. He invited me over for the summer, when he high on painkillers, but apparently he didn’t remember asking, told me tonight he probably would not have asked again. But we see you kiss Kip on TV, and I call him, I tell him I will be there that summer, and that summer we got together.”

“So you’re saying if Cliff Marleau didn’t concuss Shane Hollander and I didn’t come out on live television, you two wouldn’t be together?” Hunter says, incredulous. Ilya stares back, helpless and at a loss for words in the face of such a reaction. This definitely isn’t how he’d expected this conversation to go. “Don’t be stupid, Rozanov. You two are absolutely gone for each other, and now that I know, in retrospect, you two always were. Maybe it would’ve taken you idiots longer, but you were gonna end up together no matter what anyone else had to say.”

“Maybe,” Ilya concedes.

“You decided you’d sign with Ottawa with zero hesitation after, what, a few conversations? And he, even high on painkillers and concussed, made it a point to suggest a further step in your not-relationship,” Hunter lists, still unimpressed.

Ilya can’t help but think about how important the timing had been, though. If that timeline had been pushed back by, say, two or three years, Shane would still be dealing with everything he is right now. Shane had already walked away once over wanting to protect Ilya from the brewing storm that is the Kent issue. So with that considered, Ilya’s pretty sure that even if they were close to getting together at this time in an alternate reality where Hunter had never come out, Shane would’ve ran away again out of fear and some self-sacrificing bullshit.

“One day you will know why I am so thankful we got together at the time we did,” Ilya says carefully, his voice suddenly thick with emotion. “But for now, just take the thank you, Hunter, okay?”

Ilya’s earnestness softens Hunter’s mildly irritated expression significantly.

“One day?” he repeats.

Ilya looks away and grabs one of the two pitchers of water. Hunter does the same but doesn’t give Ilya an out, prompting him again.

“There will be something in the news, one day,” Ilya says quietly, just loud enough for Hunter to hear him as they walk back to the VIP section, “something about Shane that will destroy his life for little while even though he is prepared for it. But through the news and against his will is the only way that information will ever be shared with other people because it is, uh, not exactly something most people, especially Shane, want other people to know about them.”

“Fuck, Rozanov, that sounds…” Hunter curses, trailing off. “It’s bad, whatever it is, huh.”

“Very bad,” Rozanov agrees blandly, nodding jerkily. “And he doesn’t deserve any of it. But. I tell you this so you understand how glad I am you kiss smoothie boy on live TV. I am glad I can be with him, we already wasted so many years, but am also thankful because of this thing.”

Hunter stops walking right before they reach their table. Ilya stops also. Hunter turns towards him and they meet each other’s gaze.

“I’m glad, then, too, Rozanov,” Scott says genuinely. “I didn’t know I’d be helping Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander of all people, and I’m glad even then, but especially now. And whenever whatever it is hits the news, I’ve got your backs.”

Ilya nods, seriously, and accepts the friendly clap to his shoulder that Scott delivers.

Ilya, Shane, Bood, and Dykstra share an Uber back to the hotel once everyone has said their goodbyes to Scott and Kip. Three fully grown hockey players in one back seat, even if in a bigger car, is still a tight squeeze, so Shane basically ends up half on Ilya’s lap, but it’s not like he’s complaining.

“Ty vso yeshcho sobirayesh'sya menya razobrat'?” Shane murmurs, his head resting sideways against his husband. Are you still gonna take me apart? He has one leg thrown over Ilya’s to make more room for Bood’s thighs to his right.

“Yesli ty vso yeshcho khochesh', chtoby ya eto sdelal,” Ilya murmurs back. If you still want me to.

“Holly, it’s still crazy to me that you know Russian,” Dykstra says from up front in the passenger seat.

Shane smiles, open and easy. “I started learning a lot time ago, it’s been years,” he replies, shrugging his shoulders.

“But you guys didn’t get together officially until, like, a few years ago, right?”

“We have been seeing each other since 2010,” Ilya says.

“So I started learning around 2013,” Shane finishes. Then, a little sheepishly, he adds, “Just in case.”

“Just in case what?” Dykstra parrots. Bood is smiling, though, because he’s already made the connection.

“Just in case they worked out, Evs,” Bood says

“Oh,” Dykstra says. Then, “Aww, that’s adorable.”

“Fuck off,” Shane says, rolling his eyes.

“No, it is adorable, solnyshko,” Ilya coos, pecking the side of Shane’s head.

“What is that?” Bood asks, taking advantage of this rare moment where the couple is being candid with them about their relationship. “You call him that a lot, it’s cute.”

Ilya’s smile spreads. “It means ‘sunshine.’”

“Aw!” Bood says, charmed.

Shane is saved by the Uber’s arrival at their hotel. They all split off at the elevator and head to their respective rooms.

It’s clear that both he and Ilya are a bit too tired for the kind of sex they’d been looking forward to by the time they’re tucked safely back in their room. Ilya spreads him out on the bed anyways so he can spend more time than necessary biting additional hickies into the opposite side of Shane’s neck.

“Ilya, if you keep doing that—” Shane begins, cutting himself off with a whine when Ilya’s teeth close together around his skin harshly.

“Mm, what, baby?” Ilya says, pulling back and licking the spot with a smug satisfaction burning in his eyes. “You come just from me giving you pain like this?”

“Yeah, that and maybe the knee you keep grinding against me,” Shane bites back, rolling his eyes.

“Is really too bad we too tired,” Ilya replies, pressing his knee even further in the bulge that’s formed in Shane’s pants. “Taking you apart would probably fuck the attitude out of you.”

“Oh, you like my attitude, Rozanov,” Shane says with a snort, allowing Ilya to rearrange them when the Russian prompts him.

They land with Shane in his lap and Ilya half propped up against the headboard. It’s reminiscent of their positions the day Ilya made them tuna melts in Boston and just so happens to be something they do semi-often because, all things considered, it’s still a good arrangement for them. If there’s one thing Shane knows he’ll always like, it’s being on Ilya’s lap.

“You gonna come for me, Hollander?” Ilya quips with a lazy smile, an echo of the past. It makes them both laugh lightly.

“Fucking make me, Rozanov,” Shane replies, stooping down to press their mouths together.

Ilya wraps a big hand around the both of them and, with the held of the inpatient movement of both of their hips, gets them close to the edge rather quickly. Shane comes first, making a startled sound above him, before Ilya follows right behind him, a punched out noise falling from the Russian lips as he adds to the mess between them.

Ilya quickly ushers the both of them to the shower, knowing Shane doesn’t like the mess and also wanting to wash off the sweat from the club.

“Did you have fun?” Ilya asks, scrubbing shampoo into Shane’s hair.

“I actually did, yeah,” Shane replies, eyes falling shut as Ilya’s finger work against his scalp.

“I would hope so,” Ilya says, stepping away so Shane can wash the soap out of his hair under the spray of the shower head. “You were gay menace all night, it was beautiful.”

“Oh, come on,” Shane says, affronted, “I barely even did anything.”

“Nearly send LaPointe and Haas into cardiac arrest,” Ilya replies, but he’s not chastising Shane, he’s…proud?

“Okay, I had more than a little bit of fun,” Shane concedes. He knows he’d certainly been a lot…looser than he usually is when he’s out in public, especially somewhere like a bar or club, but he’d felt emboldened by, well, he’s not sure what, but he’s not asking questions.

“Da,” Ilya says in agreement. “Moy malen'kiy gey-monstr khaosa.”

“Your…your what?” Shane says in confusion, turning so he can wash Ilya’s back.

“Ah, so there is still more for the great Russian expert to learn, it seems,” Ilya says smugly, turning once the soap has washed off his back so he can do the same for Shane.

“Hey, I never claimed to be an expert,” Shane chirps back. “Tell me what it is.”

“Means ‘my little gay chaos monster,’” Ilya explains, pressing close so he’s speaking right into Shane’s ear.

“Ilya,” Shane says, exasperated and amused.

Chapter Text

April 2022

The playoff cards fall in a way that Ottawa ends up slated to play Montreal in the first round. It’d been a close race to the end of regular season and the Centaurs had watched with bated breath as it came down to the wire. The Voyagers just barely manage to sneak their way into a playoff spot, and the sigh of relief Ottawa had been hoping to let out is instead replaced by a sharp intake of breath and then eyes that’d narrowed with something like determination.

There’s an odd energy in the locker room and on the ice when the playoff bracket is finalized. Shane’s been in the playoffs more than enough times to know that there’s usually some kind of vibe shift as a team switches into post-season mode. This is something different, though, he thinks, something borderline feral. Subtle moves begin to be made.

A few of the veteran players keep a small group of the younger or more rookie players after one practice, and Shane thinks nothing of it at first. It’s pretty typical for teams to dial in and do everything they can to iron out any wrinkles before they’re tipped headfirst into the brutality that is the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

It happens after the next practice, as well. Bood, Dykstra, Chouinard, and Barrett quietly seek out a few of the more seasoned players on the team this time and Shane heads to the locker room, curious but not enough to investigate. The sound from the rink carries down the tunnel towards Shane when he steps into the hallway to grab a few sticks that need taping from the rack.

“Yeah, like that, good, grab there,” Bood is saying. Someone says something Shane can’t make out in response.

“Yes, Dills, like that! Widen your stance, though, they’ll take you for a ride if you don’t dig in,” Barrett says. “Remember when Sinclair absolutely rag-dolled Smith in February? You want to avoid that.”

Shane creeps down the tunnel towards the rink as he realizes what they’re talking about. Sinclair from Pittsburgh isn’t really one to drop the gloves but he’d been the one to swing first when Smith from San Francisco had laid Tokarev out with a late hit. Sinclair doesn’t fight often, but that doesn’t mean he can’t; he and Shane have that in common. The Penguins captain had absolutely humiliated the Mission player, landing a few rattling punches on Smith before he’d jerked the man around this way and that like he weighed nothing.

It’s clear what they’ve been doing now: the veterans have been pulling players aside to give as many people as possible a crash course in how to fight.

Shane knows that, while he might not be the captain, he’s still an alternate-captain, and with that comes the responsibility of intervening when his teammates are doing something…questionable. A group of the best fighters they have on the team making it a point to make sure as many players on the team at least have an idea of how to fight right before the upcoming first game of the series against Montreal certainly meets that criteria. He has a leadership role, even if it’s less so than that of the captain, and that means he’s supposed to discourage fighting and needless penalties, especially in the playoffs.

He comes to a stop just within the tunnel, still hidden from view but now able to see some of what’s happening on the ice. Dillon’s bare hand is clenched tightly in the collar of Dykstra’s jersey as Barrett gestures with his hands and demonstrates a movement with his hips. Boyle and Chouinard are in similar positions but instead both players have a hand on the other’s jersey and Chouinard is moving his arm in a way that mimics a punch.

Yup. That’s exactly what they’re doing. His veteran teammates are teaching the less experienced players on their team how to fight.

“Don’t throw it wide when you punch, keep it tucked,” Chouinard explains.

Shane’s eyes slide to the younger player, considering. Boyle’s face doesn’t hold any stress or fear, he doesn’t look like he’s been dragged to this little impromptu fight club against his will. He nods seriously as Chouinard speaks, eyes tracking the movements of the older player’s arm and mimicking it with his own without being prompted. The look in his eyes definitely isn’t that of someone who’s being involved against his will.

Dillon has a similar look about him when Shane’s eyes move to him. He asks a question and Bood answers. Dillon nods, tightens his hand around Dykstra’s jersey collar, and pulls down with about 30% of the amount of force he’d use in an actual NHL fight.

“Down, not back, right?” he says, eyes flicking up to Dykstra’s. Dykstra says something affirmative and Dillon quips something back immediately. They both laugh, and if Shane didn’t know any better he’d say that the smile on Tanner Dillon’s face is almost…vicious.

They want to learn how to fight and, judging by the careful attention and sharp eyes of the younger players on the ice right now, they want to know how to fight and win.

So, yeah. Shane should probably do something, maybe meet them out on the ice and tell them to break it up, maybe say something to Ilya. Instead he turns around and heads back to the locker room with three of his untaped sticks in his hands. He feels pleased in a odd, choked up sort of way as he sits down in his stall.

They work on powerplay drills the next day. It’s their last practice before their first game of the series against Montreal the following day. Both powerplay lines have had a lot of practice and success throughout the season, so the drills are really about zeroing in and improving the small things that can make the biggest of differences in an environment like the playoffs.

Shane had been second-line center for most of the season with the occasional appearance on the first line as Ilya’s left-winger and also, a few times, with Shane as the starting first line center and Ilya on the second line, instead. It’s a lot more flexibility than most players have and it’s served them well so far. Their first string powerplay unit had always featured Shane and Ilya, but only ever with the both of them rotating between center and left-wing.

Wiebe is trying Shane at center with Ilya playing as his right-wing for the fuck of it, it seems. It’s not uncommon for a player to play on his off-wing, but it’s not something that most wingers prefer. It’d certainly be quite interesting as a ‘secret weapon’ of sorts, though. The couple had been on board immediately when Wiebe had suggested trying it out. Shane is always talking about having cards they can keep tucked up their sleeves for when they want to shake things up.

It produces magic of a sort. It’s still just a drill they’re doing in practice, of course, not the real deal, not against opposing players who want to win just as badly as they do, not against Shane’s ex-teammates who check like they want him dead, but…it certainly hints towards something like magic.

Shane charges into the zone during one of the runs, Ilya zipping up the right side just as fast. A pair of defensemen not on their powerplay unit act as opposing players and begin to close in on him the moment he passes the threshold of the blue line. He zigs and poor Mason Young zags. He snaps the puck through an opening to Bood. Bood has it all of five seconds before it’s back on Shane’s stick, but he’d used the moment to make just enough space—

He’s approaching the net quickly and the D-men think they’ve got him. His head tilts just slightly to the left, eyes locked on the net, and that’s the only warning anyone around them has before the puck is cradled in the curve of his stick one second and then clacking solidly against Ilya’s the next. It’d traveled through Jordan Barnes’ skates, a no-look pass that to the untrained eye had probably appeared to be more of a hail Mary than a calculated choice.

Ilya sends the puck sailing over Hayes’ shoulder and into the back of the net before anyone has time to process what just happened. Then Bood crashes into Shane’s side in celebration.

“That’s what I’m fucking talking about, Hollzy, holy fuck!” he shouts, that same vicious sort of satisfaction that Shane’s been seeing all over the team the last few days written all over his face.

The unhinged sort of energy that’s set into the team sinks into Shane, then, and rather than fight it, he gives in. His eyes are bright as he shouts back nonsensically and shakes Bood back.

Ilya appears then at his other side, barely slowing before he’s launching himself against his husband. He’s got that same look, Shane thinks. It seems that Shane is the last of his teammates to join the ruthless pack mentality that has taken over the Centaurs.

He’d been wrong to worry about it. It’s not dangerous. Nobody has been reckless or over the top, there have been any injuries or fights. It’s rather a hard-fought sort of confidence, a melding of the predatory nature of animals about to go in for the kill and the skillful restraint of a well-oiled NHL team.

The postseason had never felt like this in Montreal. Granted, Shane had been dealing with PTSD for a majority of his career with the Voyagers, but it’s true even with that aside. The vibe in Montreal’s locker room during the playoffs was always heavy in a bad way, fraught with unrealistic expectations and demands and, at the end, threats.

Managing playoff energy is a precarious task: too far one way and you’re Montreal, too rigid and pressurized, but too far the other way and you’re playing loose, cocky, and sloppy in a way that is hardly ever sustainable. A combination of the two, of precision and enough level-headedness to offset the ruthless air of a team of men who are, mostly metaphorically, out for blood, is where you find the equilibrium. Shane had just barely managed the balancing act for those three Cups with the Voyagers, but it’d been a feat that’d nearly driven him to the edge every time. That had felt like weight.

This feels like power. Shane has caught snippets of the feeling within himself throughout the season, sure, but they’d been personal and fleeting. This is like a constant humming beneath the surface of the team as a whole; everyone is affected.

“They’ve all turned into feral animals, you know,” Shane says to Ilya, matter-of-fact, when they’re curled up on the couch after practice.

They’d showered together once they’d gotten home; Shane had gone to his knees with a slightly wild glint of his own shining in his eyes. The mood of the team has finally taken over, he’d mused to himself. Then he’d suck Ilya’s dick like it was the only thing god had put Shane on earth to do. Ilya had been shocked at first, immediately overwhelmed in the best way as his pretty blue eyes rolled around in his head. He’d come rather quickly, much to Shane’s smug satisfaction. And then Shane had folded like prey, pliant and docile but exactly where he wanted to be as Ilya had turned the same animalistic hunger onto him once the Russian had recovered from his own orgasm.

Ilya’s head swings to the side and their eyes meet. There’s something intense about Shane’s eyes when Ilya looks into them. Ilya’s eyes mirror the expression in his husband’s. Something crackles between them, some odd kind of charge in the air.

“’They?’” Ilya rumbles out, voice low, eyes far too knowing.

“I was going to say something to them,” Shane says, holding his gaze with a confidence Ilya rarely sees when it comes to his husband’s comfort level with sustained eye contact. “But I think I may’ve gotten swept up in it, too.”

Heat floods through Ilya’s body. He notices the way Shane’s pupils have dilated significantly more than they should be even in the low lighting of their cozy (and sensory friendly, much to his own pride) living room.

“I have an idea,” Ilya says, low, accent thicker than usual. “I think you would like it, moya lyubov’.”

“Oh?” Shane replies, holding his gaze. His eyes flick down to Ilya’s lips and then back up to his eyes. “What is it?”

“Something an animal would do, maybe,” Ilya replies. “Want to spread you out in our bed and mark you all over, so you have little reminders through the whole game tomorrow that I’m yours and you’re mine, and that I take care of you, and that I protect you.”

“Definitely sounds like something an animal would do, yeah,” Shane murmurs back.

“Limits would be no marks anywhere that isn’t hidden by your gear so it doesn’t show during the game and nothing that will hurt too bad that it affects your skating,” Ilya says a little more conversationally, allowing the haze of lust to lift enough that he can negotiate appropriately.

Shane’s head tilts to the side slightly.

“And I want to give you something,” Shane says after a thoughtful pause. “Wherever you want, even if it’s where someone sees. You’re mine, too.”

“My neck,” Ilya says without a second thought, maybe too enthusiastically, even.

Shane doesn’t often leave marks on Ilya despite the Russian’s insistence that he not only doesn’t mind but also greatly enjoys it. Ilya knows it’s because visible marks on him are scrutinized in the exact same way they are when they’re on Shane, knows it’s a comfort and privacy thing, so he’s accepted this limit without protest. Ilya’s not going to pass up the rare opportunity to show off just how owned he is.

Shane snorts, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. “Of course, I don’t even know why I asked,” Shane says. Then he stills and meets Ilya’s eyes head-on once more. “YA ves' tvoy, ser,” I’m all yours, ser.

Ilya curses in Russian as he gets his feet tangled in the blanket draped over them from getting up so fast. He stoops down and gestures for Shane to grab on. Shane wraps his arms around Ilya’s shoulders and then his legs around Ilya’s waist. Ilya walks them out of the living room towards the stairs. They pause for a moment because Shane can’t seem to keep his lips off of Ilya’s.

Ilya pulls away long enough to make quick work of the stairs and bump their bedroom door open. He turns once they’re inside the room and presses Shane’s back against the wall. Their mouths are back on each other’s in an instance, making out like they’re hungry for it. Shane takes the opportunity to drop his head down so his lips find Ilya’s neck. Ilya curses softly in Russian when Shane starts to suck, grasping him even tighter when Shane truly starts to bite. Shane only pulls away when he’s sure the mark he’s left will be visible for days.

They eventually make it to their bed where Ilya deposits Shane unceremoniously on the mattress. Shane bounces slightly when he lands but Ilya is crawling onto the bed right after him without a pause.

Shane helps Ilya pull his shirt up and over his head and stares openly when Ilya pauses to do the same. They lose their pants next, also, and then their boxers. Shane pulls Ilya down for a searing kiss once they’re both fully naked and Ilya goes easily, making a muffled noise against his lips.

Ilya starts at the space just below Shane’s collarbones. He starts easy, just a kiss. He sucks at the spot, his teeth grazing but not quite digging in. Shane lets out an unrestrained moan, louder than he usually allows himself to be, and his head tips back as Ilya finally applies some actual strength, biting enough that it aches. It sends all the blood racing away from Shane’s brain and straight to his dick.

Ilya repeats that a few times on Shane’s torso before moving lower. Both of their dicks are hard at that point as Ilya carefully sinks his teeth into the flesh at Shane’s hip. Shane lets out a ruined noise which doubles when one of Ilya’s hands creeps up his body and presses against one of the quickly forming bruises at his collarbone. Shane starts to squirm, head going fuzzy.

“You can, malysh,” Ilya murmurs, voice wrecked. He moves to another spot on Shane’s hip and kisses it, eyes flicking up to meet his husband’s eyes. “Float, if you want. I won’t let you fall.”

And Shane knows that that’s a promise that Ilya always keeps, so he does just what the man tells him to do. The tide recedes and pulls him with it. He’s slightly adrift in the best way, world narrowed to nothing but him and Ilya and how good he feels right now.

Ilya bites marks into both hips before finally putting a hand on Shane’s dick. Shane’s hips jump like he’s been electrocuted and he straight up whines. Ilya smirks against his skin and lets go of his dick without any further attention, much to Shane’s disappointment. He presses kisses up and down the insides of Shane’s thighs and then goes over the same spots with his teeth. Shane is a shaky, desperate mess by the time Ilya determines Shane has been thoroughly marked.

“Please, please, ‘lya, I need it s’bad,” Shane is rambling, dick so hard it almost hurts at this point.

“What, baby?” Ilya murmurs, drifting back up Shane’s body so that their faces are close. “Please what? What does my good boy want, hm?”

Shane grabs both sides of his face and pulls him down into a kiss. Ilya responds immediately, sliding his tongue against his husband’s and enjoying all the noises he lets out as they make out. Shane pulls away and speaks against Ilya’s mouth, “Fuck me, please, ser, please. ‘v been so good.”

“Mm, is true, you have been very good,” Ilya agrees.

They have prep down to a damn near science now. Ilya likes to draw it out sometimes, sure, but if they’re doing it in a slight rush like they are right now, excited more about what comes after rather than the process itself, they’ve gotten good at doing it quickly, efficiently, and safely.

Ilya presses into Shane not too longer after, and Shane moans openly. Ilya stares, transfixed, at his unusually vocal husband in their bed.

Shane’s eyes slide open after a few thrusts, clearer than they’ve been since they’d started. “I want it on my knees and for you to fuck me like you’re staking a claim, nothing that affects my play, and I know my safewords, just…please, oh my god.”

Ilya’s mouth drops open in surprise but nods quickly. Shane sits up, maneuvers himself onto his front, and raises his ass in the air. He turns his head to look back at Ilya, eyes heated and sure, and Ilya doesn’t hesitate any further. He presses inside once more, a quicker slide than before now that Shane’s warmed up, and Shane makes a low noise in the back of his throat.

“’Like I am staking a claim?’” Ilya repeats, pulling his hips back until his dick is almost completely out before snapping back in abruptly. It punches a delightfully loud noise out of Shane. He starts up a quick pace, but nothing too hard or particularly rough because they do have a playoff game tomorrow, after all. “When we beat stupid Montreal into the ground in four games, I will take you home and fuck you like I’m staking a claim until you’ve come so many times you can’t anymore, but for now I will give you preview, because you need to be able to walk tomorrow, solnyshko.”

“Wanna come on your dick,” Shane slurs, the side of his face pressed into a pillow. “Jus’ your dick, please, please.”

Ilya’s eyes blaze. He adjusts Shane’s hips, thrusts a few times, then tils them again until the next strike of his deck makes Shane cry out and grab a fistful of the sheets beneath him.

“There it is,” Ilya huffs, panting slightly and tightening his hold on Shane’s hips to an extent that there will surely be bruises in the same spot by tomorrow. He keeps fucking Shane with the same pace, fast but not too aggressive. “There’s the spot that makes moy khoroshiy mal'chik fall apart for me. So beautiful, moya lyubov’, all for me.” My good boy.

Shane is losing his mind. Ilya’s hammering constantly right against his prostate and his dick feels like it’s going to explode. Ilya leans forward, his chest against Shane’s back, and sink his teeth into the back of Shane’s shoulder. Shane eyes roll back, his dick flexes violently, and he comes onto the sheets below him with a strangled cry that makes Ilya go crazy enough that it’s only a few more thrusts before he’s following closely behind.

Shane’s knees collapse and Ilya’s grabs him by the middle to ease the descent towards the mattress below him. He curls into Ilya immediately, grasping weakly at the Russian’s gold chain when they both find themselves on their sides turned towards each other. Ilya lays down on his back and pulls Shane with him across his chest. Shane loops a leg through Ilya’s and tucks himself close with his head on Ilya’s upper chest.

“Was so good, baby,” Ilya murmurs, carding his fingers through Shane’s hair. Shane hums distantly, eyes closed and hand still hooked around Ilya’s necklace. “You were so good, moy odichavshiy zhivotnoye zverok, hm?”

“Wha’s tha’?” Shane mumbles, eyes opening to mere slits. He tilts his head back enough so that he’s looking up at Ilya’s face. He repeats the Russian clumsily, too tired and fucked out to focus enough to make it flow easily, “’Moy odichavshiy zhivotnoye zverok?’ Your…um, little something?”

Ilya hums, stooping down to kiss Shane’s head. “My feral little animal,” Ilya says softly.

Shane snorts and rolls his eyes before shutting them and laying his head back against Ilya’s chest.

“Da, ‘m tvoy…. odichavshiy… zhivotnoye zverok,” Shane agrees, smiling softly to himself and nodding slightly, tripping over the new word. His lips quirk momentarily before he continues, in French, “Ouais, j'ai adoré être revendiquée, je me mets à genoux pour toi rien que sur un regard, sans poser de questions. Tu es mon bâtard possessif, et c'est putain de chaud quand tu deviens possessif.” Yeah, I liked being claimed, I get on my knees for you from just a look, no questions asked. You’re my possessive bastard and it’s hot as fuck when you get possessive.

“I did not catch most of that,” Ilya murmurs, amused.

Shane says things in French sometimes, during sex or in this quiet space after, but it’s rare for Shane to repeat it in English if Ilya isn’t able to translate it himself. It’s usually things that Shane is too shy or afraid to say openly.

The first time was after they hooked up in Vegas after the awards back in 2014, the first sex Shane had had since what happened in Sochi. The ‘after-sex’ period of time was cut extremely short and they’ve both talked that point to death at this point in their relationship, but there of course had still been some sort of come-down after. Shane had mumbled in French while Ilya’d wiped him down with a washcloth from the bathroom, “Je suis tellement soulagée qu'il ne m'a pas pris ça de moi, je mourrais.”

He’d been so worried that what happened with Kent would be what makes Shane lose Ilya, because at that point they only spent time together to have sex, and if Shane couldn’t do that, then that probably would’ve meant no more Ilya. Ilya had been the only bright spot in his life at the time and Shane had already felt so deeply for him at that point, whether he acknowledged it or not.

Ilya has asked a few times over the years what it was that Shane had said. It’s been so many years that the Russian doesn’t remember the words enough to look them up or translate them himself. Shane still hasn’t told him, has always said that he himself doesn’t remember, either, but he thinks if Ilya asked him soon, maybe even right this moment, that he’d finally tell him.

Even if he can already imagine what the look on Ilya’s face will be after hearing that what Shane had said was, “I’m so glad he didn’t take this from me, I would die.”

“I said I…liked being claimed, an’ that all you gotta do is look at me the right way an’ I get on my knees, an’ you’re my possessive bastard and s’ hot as fuck when you get all…possessive and stuff,” Shane says slowly, swallowing thickly as his cheeks color slightly, embarrassed.

“Mm, your French is always so sexy, solnyshko,” Ilya drawls, the arm he has around Shane’s back tightening slightly. “Also pretty.”

“Like me,” Shane mumbles, shy.

Ilya practically glows. “Da, yes, pretty like you, my sweet boy.”

Chapter Text

April 2022, Pt. 2

Shane walks into the arena before the game the next day with an odd calmness that he hadn’t been expecting considering their opponent. Ilya has the same air about him as they enter the locker room side by side.

The energy in the room is similar to what’s it been for the last few practices, and Shane settles into it without issue. He still steels himself before he takes his shirt off to put on the athletic one he wears under his gear, not out of fear or shame but rather mild embarrassment because Ilya definitely did a number on him last night, much to his enjoyment, of course, but still. He’d seen them in the mirror this morning and had felt nothing but a bone deep certainty that he is owned, protected, and well taken care of. Judging by the way Ilya had looked at him when he’d caught Shane staring into the mirror, Ilya definitely knows it, too.

Shane unbuttons his dress shirt and folds it carefully before placing it in the compartment under his stall bench, trying to be as nonchalant as possible about it.

“Jesus fuck, Hollzy,” Barrett says from across the room. “Did you get attacked by an animal or something?”

Shane takes a breath without turning around. He doesn’t feel bad, he feels sheepish. “Da,” he replies, turning back towards the center of the room as he pulls his compression shirt over his head. “A feral Russian wolf with really sharp teeth.”

It brings about a round of laughter.

“Fuck sake, Rozanov, were you trying to eat him?” Dykstra says, shaking his head.

Shane’s eyes dart to Ilya. The Russian is sitting there, unbearably smug at the attention his marks are getting, Shane’s sure. Crisse, Shane thinks to himself, we all really have turned into a bunch of fucking animals, because that shouldn’t be turning me on.

Then something delighted and mischievous appears on Ilya’s face from Dykstra’s words, and Shane barely has time to brace himself before Ilya is nodding and saying—

“There’s no need to try to do that, Barrett, I’ve done that plenty of times already,” he says with a lazy smile.

Heat crashes through Shane and conflicts greatly with the scandalized feeling also burning through him. “Rozanov!” he bites out, exasperated and just loud enough to carry across the locker room. “Zatkni svoy yebanyy rot, poka ya ne podoshel i ne zatknul yego za tebya, ty, blyad', khodyachaya ugroza.” Shut your fucking mouth before I come over there and shut it for you, you fucking menace.

“I don’t get it,” Haas says quietly to his stall neighbor LaPointe. “What does that even mean?”

“Oh, baby Haas, it’s when—” Ilya starts, leaning forward and in the direction of his rookie.

“Tol'ko posmey, blyat', ob"yasnyat' svoyemu novichku, chto takoye «lizat' zhopu», v nashey, blyat', razdevalke, Il'ya,” Shane says sharply. Don’t you fucking dare explain ‘eating ass’ to your rookie in our fucking locker room, Ilya.

“Hollzy’s broken out the Russian, Rozy’s in troublllle,” Hayes singsongs from the floor where he’s strapping his goalie pads onto his legs.

“Don’t worry, Haasy, I’ll explain it later,” Barrett says, patting his shoulder as he walks past the younger player.

“Tu vas voir si je ne ressuscite pas cette superstition du ‘pas de sexe pendant les séries éliminatoires,’ espèce d'imbécile,” Shane grumbles under his breath, pulling his compression leggings on. See if I don't bring back that 'no sex during the playoffs' superstition, fucking idiot.

Chouinard barks a laugh and even LaPointe, used to Shane’s out-of-pocket snippets of French at this point, cracks an amused smile rather than internally bursting into flames.

“Rozy, buddy, I love you, but I’d stop talking now,” Chouinard says, amused but serious. “For your own sake.”

“What did he say?” Ilya says, poking LaPointe for answers.

“Do you really want to find out?” Shane says, low and warning.

Something in his face must convince Ilya to stop running his mouth, because the Russian does so without any further questions. It settles something in Shane. Ilya is the dom in their relationship and Shane loves that, of course, but Shane also enjoys and admittedly seeks out the tiny bits of submission from Ilya like these. The phrase ‘Hollander walks Rozanov like a dog’ is a common theme in those #hollanov threads he and Ilya see on Twitter from time to time.

The room is practically vibrating once everyone is fully geared up and ready to head out for warmups. They’re announced as they come out over the loud speakers, a quick thing because it is only warm-ups after all. Shane hangs back towards the end of the quickly moving line, one place ahead of Ilya who heads up the very end as he always does. It’s a familiar configuration that Shane’s used to and it settles his nerves a decent amount.

The lights are bright and there are fans crowded close to the glass when he finally gets out onto the ice with the rest of the team. The pride flags and the funny posters about him and Ilya started before Shane had even joined the team, back when they’d been outed and Shane was still in Montreal, and it’s never really gone away. Seeing them used to make him nervous, stressed about the perception and the pressure from the league, but now it only makes him quietly happy. The noise from the NHL has always been loud, but the noise from their supportive fanbase has become enough to almost completely drown out the negativity.

Shane meets Hayden at the red line for a quick chat like always.

“Figured I’d be nice and warn you that it’s not gonna be like the last few games this year,” Shane says quietly once they’ve gotten through the usual pleasantries. “They have teeth and they’ve been given permission to use them, so I recommend you try to stay out of it when you can. You’re my friend, sure, but this is the playoffs so that’s gonna be easy for the Cens to forget.”

“Your guys do definitely seem to be in…rare spirits, tonight,” Hayden comments, nodding towards a spot behind Shane where Bood and Barrett are in the midst of their pregame routine of slamming each other into the boards. It’s usually just a weak little check, nothing too hard, but this time it’s with the overt strength that’s on brand for the new feral energy of the team.

Shane chuckles. “Mm, yeah, we all are,” Shane replies, meeting Hayden’s eyes when he turns back.

“You all are?” Hayden says, eyebrows raised.

“I’d recommend staying out of the way,” Shane says with a casual shrug rather than an explanation. “Being my friend gets you certain protections, but if you start something with us, I can’t help you.” And I won’t want to, Shane thinks, the thought coming as a surprise.

Hayden Pike was his first friend in the NHL barring Ilya, but Ilya doesn’t really count considering they were hardly friends back when they first came into the league. They’d been there for each other through it all, the adjustment to the demands of the league, family issues, illnesses, injuries, problems with teammates, scoring droughts. Hayden is his closest friend.

Or. Hayden was his closest friend, maybe? Things changed after he found out that Shane is with Ilya, and while Shane up until recently has given Hayden a lot of grace in that regard, his ‘best friend’s’ attitude towards his boyfriend turned fiancé turned husband has left a lot to be desired. Shane had expected an adjustment period, but it’s been years at this point, and Hayden still hasn’t really budged. He’s aware that Ilya hasn’t exactly been super helpful in this process, but it’d struck Shane on a random day a few months ago that how else should Ilya respond? Ilya has tried to be as neutral and cordial as possible with Hayden, but the Voyageur player always makes it a point to respond as rudely as possible. If Cliff treated Shane the way Hayden treats Ilya, Ilya would’ve murdered him by now.

Hayden treating Ilya poorly is a choice he makes every time he does it, Shane’s brain had supplied, quiet, like it was afraid to acknowledge it. Because Shane didn’t really have friends growing up, as a kid or in Juniors, so Hayden wasn’t just his first friend in the NHL, he’s the closest friend Shane has ever truly had. Something fragile and afraid inside of Shane is scared to lose him.

There’s a list of really shitty things Hayden has done or failed to do that he keeps in the back of his mind and, for the most part, refuses to look at, but Shane thinks he’s going to have to address it sooner rather than later, for his own sake as well as Ilya’s.

So. He’s not going to take his frustrations out on Hayden during this playoff series, no, but he’s also not going to go to bat for him against the Cens if Pike does something that invites a response. Hayden chooses to continue to play for the Voyageurs, the team that was so horrible to Shane and still is, so Shane isn’t going to feel too bad if a Cens player matches Montreal’s energy, even if it’s Hayden.

Even if that Cens player is me, maybe, Shane thinks to himself. The thought would surprise the version of him from six months ago; it settles like an established reality in the current Shane. Now is not the time to worry about this shift in opinion, so Shane mentally tables it for now.

“Jesus Christ, Shane, well damn, alright,” Hayden curses, shaking his head. His narrows his eyes for a moment, eyes flickering all over Shane’s face. “You look like Rozanov.”

“You say that like it’s an insult,” Shane quips back, trying to ignore the pang of hurt that comes with hearing it. It’s nothing new from Hayden, really, tame even.

“Yeah, because it is,” Hayden replies, slowed and incredulous.

A small, vicious smile appears on Shane’s face. Inside, he’s an inferno of anger. “Just remember what I said, Pike,” Shane says. He turns and skates away before Hayden can say anything more.

Shane meets up with Bood at the boards and the pair start tapping a puck back and forth.

“You good, Hollzy?” Bood says after a few moments. Shane glances up, confused.

“Yeah, why?”

“I guess you didn’t realize, but you had this…look on your face when you skated away from Pike,” Bood replies. He doesn’t sound concerned, he actually sounds kind of amused.

“What look?” Shane says, standing up to his full height.

“Like you wanted to murder someone,” Bood replies. “And that you were looking forward to doing it. Isn’t Pike, like, your best friend?”

“Not if he keeps talking about Ilya the way he does,” Shane mutters back.

“You picked quite a moment to grow a spine about Pike, Hollander,” Bood says drily, stickhandling the puck on the blade of his stick.

“Maybe the best moment, though,” Shane replies, smiling with teeth. “He’s the one who chooses to stay in Montreal, right?”

“Ice cold, Hollander, I like it,” Barrett says, skating over to the pair. “Open season on Pike finally?”

“No, not open season,” Shane says quickly, shaking his head firmly. “If he starts something, though, feel free to respond, with equal force only.”

“Better than nothing,” Troy says with a satisfied nod. “Seems reasonable.”

“Reasonable is Hollander’s middle name, didn’t you know?” Ilya quips, skating over and placing an arm around Troy’s shoulders. “What are we talking about?”

“Hollander says we can feel free to fuck with Pike if he’s the one who starts it,” Bood says, sounding a little too excited by the news.

Ilya turns to Shane. “Oh?” he says, blue eyes boring into Shane’s.

Shane rolls his eyes. “It’s not some huge deal, you guys! This is basically the same as it’s always been!”

“Innocent golden boy Shane Hollander has decided that his best friend Hayden Pike isn’t off limits is big deal, Shanya,” Ilya says, letting go of Troy’s shoulders so he can skate over to Shane. “Chto-to sluchilos'?” He says, quiet and only for Shane. Did something happen?

“No, I’ve just been thinking about things lately,” Shane says, looking away and shrugging his shoulders. “Mne nikogda ne nravilos', kak on k tebe otnositsya, i, kazhetsya, ya nachinayu ponimat', chto mne ne nravitsya i to, kak on otnositsya ko mne.” I’ve never liked how he treats you, and I think I’m realizing I don’t like how he treats me, either.

“Oh, solnyshko,” Ilya says with a soft sigh. He taps their helmets together, the least obviously romantic gesture they can manage on the ice.

“Nothing major has changed, I need time to think about it, but right now we’ve got a game, and my focus is on that, so, yes,” Shane continues, pausing to sigh, long-sufferingly, “if Pike starts something, everyone can feel free to respond equally.”

“Then that’s how it’ll be,” Ilya says, final, with a sharp, captain-like nod.

They leave the ice at the end of warm-ups and all take seats in their stalls back in the locker room. Wiebe gives a rousing speech, one that has the team buzzing. Shane looks around the room and he doesn’t feel terror like he would before every playoff game back in Montreal, he feels confident and content. He’s not overly egotistical, Montreal is a good team and sometimes no matter what you do a game doesn’t go your way, but he’s confident in his team’s abilities while also secure in the knowledge that his team supports him.

The locker room erupts into chatter once Wiebe is done speaking. Ilya gets to his feet and crosses the locker room to grab Shane’s hand and pull him with him. They stop at the center of the room, facing the entire team. When everyone starts to quiet down and the attention turns to them, Ilya gestures to Shane, much to the Canadian’s surprise.

Shane isn’t big on pregame speeches, especially considering Ilya’s the captain now and not him, but he supposes the occasion calls for it and, for some reason, he’s happy to oblige. He waits until the room is completely silent, the entire team’s attention locked in on him and only him, before he finally speaks.

“I don’t need to say much, you all know what we’re here to do, and you all know we’re fully capable of doing it. We’ve seen it all season, I know I’ll see it here again tonight. You guys impress me every single game.” Shane’s eyes do a quick sweep of the room, taking in the nods and noises of agreement. “I am proud every day that this is the team I get to play for, and I can’t wait to win the Cup with you guys, because we’re winning that Cup.”

There’s some whoops and foot stomping, on par for pre-game speeches. Shane smiles.

“Play with teeth,” he says, calm and strong, his words too fitting for the way the team has turned into some kind of pack of wild animals. His eyes look around the room again, flitting to each of his teammates, and a corner of his mouth lifts before he continues. “But don’t bite too hard…unless you have permission, of course.”

It’d been a decision he’d talked to Ilya about and then they’d even ran by Wiebe before letting the team know a few days ago: don’t do anything to cause stupid penalties, this is the playoffs, but if the Voyageurs go low, then they can feel free to let the entire city of Montreal know that the Centaurs can and will go lower.

That and that penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct are worth it in the playoffs. If an opposing player says anything homophobic in earshot of a ref, you’re welcome to fight and raise hell to officials about it if the ensuing penalties happen to land the Centaurs on the penalty kill. Shane, Ilya, Bood, Barrett, Dykstra, basically any of the vets, really, will all be more than happy to reiterate the exact reason for their ire during post-game media if asking for penalties to be assigned fairly doesn’t go well. Equal strength penalties can stay that way, they don’t want to complain too much and risk being accused of being handed games by the refs.

Smiles split the faces of his teammates as they respond, suddenly on their feet as well, with an uproar of laughter and cheers. Shane laughs and smiles as they file past out of the locker room to the tunnel to get ready for the impending start of the game, yelling hype up material at him or patting him strongly on the shoulders. It’s more roughness than he’s used to from the team considering he usually emanates strong ‘don’t fucking touch me, please’ vibes, but, like he’d told Ilya the night before, Shane’s just as deep in the barely restrained feral energy as the rest of the Centaurs.

Wiebe starts Ilya on the first line with Shane playing as his left-wing. Ilya is more than happy to take the opening face-off against Comeau. Ilya wins it with a vicious grin on his face and then they’re off. The crowd is roaring, they’re all skating a mile a minute, and it’s the playoff level hockey Shane is familiar with.

“Couldn’t cut it as a star center anymore?” Comeau chirps when they collide at the boards a few minutes into the game. Shane says nothing, poking around for the puck with the blade of his stick. “Oh, no answer? Taking it up the ass must have made you soft, Hollander.”

Shane locates the puck, sends it to Bood, and then takes off without a word. He answers, instead, by scoring the opening goal of the game after Bood gets the puck back to him and Shane snaps it past Drapeau’s glove mere seconds later. He makes it a point to lift his eyes and meet Comeau’s gaze directly, a smug expression on his face, while he cellies with Ilya, Bood, Dykstra, and Chouinard as Ottawa’s goal horn blares through the arena. The Montreal player narrows his eyes, but Shane pays him no mind.

J.J. scores a few minutes later tying it at 1-1, so the Centaurs’ celebratory mood is short lived. Attention that had never truly dulled sharpens nonetheless on the Ottawa bench.

Shane is on the bench when Barrett and Wilson get into a scrap. The refs take a minute to blow the whistle because the puck is moving out of the zone the pair are in when it starts, but they start blaring the moment their gloves finally go flying. Barrett looked like he’d really tried not to engage but Wilson forces him into it anyway. They’d looked like they were chirping each other before Wilson finally dropped his gloves, but it hadn’t seemed like anything too scathing, so Shane’s really not sure what the fight is about.

Barrett wins the fight, because of course he does, he came from the Toronto Guardians, after all. Grant Wilson has always tried to be the type of guy who fights and fights well, but Shane is more than aware that the man actually kind of sucks at it. It’s a short fight, but Troy is the only one of the pair who lands any hits that are actually hard enough to hurt. Wilson slips when, like the veteran players in Ottawa had been teaching the rookie players this week to avoid, he doesn’t plant his feet firmly enough. Troy quickly gains full control of the man as he slides around. Wilson ends up on the ground and Barrett allows the refs to pull him towards the box without any protest.

Troy Barrett, just as in the spirit as the rest of the Centaurs are, throws his hands up and yells as he goes, looking out into the crowd. The resounding slam of hands against glass and the increase in volume of the fan’s cheering is like music to Shane’s ears. Shane has seen social media recently and Ottawa fans have not made their hatred for the Montreal Voyageurs a secret, especially not in the weeks leading up to the playoffs. There’s been talk amongst fans about the rivalry shifting from one between Boston and Montreal to one between Ottawa and Montreal, and Shane figures they’re not that far off.

Montreal did this to themselves, Shane thinks to himself.

Barrett and Wilson get matching five minute major penalties for fighting. The rest of the period goes scoreless, so both teams return to their respective locker rooms tied at one goal apiece.

Ilya scores early in the second period to make it 2-1 for Ottawa. Bood gets the primary assist and Shane gets the secondary. Shane watches the irritation forming on the faces of the Montreal players and begins to brace himself slightly. Things are probably about to get pretty messy.

Ilya finds himself right in front of the Voyageurs net midway through the period. He’s purposely obstructing Drapeau’s view and being his normal pest-like self, in a constant shouldering match with Montreal’s defense as Shane, up high in the zone, is looking for an opening or play that will get the puck towards the net. The goal is more Ilya scoring on a rebound with a perfectly positioned stick rather than Shane slamming the puck home from so far away. It would be a messy kind of goal, but a goal is a goal.

Shane finally sees some space open up and fires the puck off towards the net. The puck hits Drapeau in the pads and then trickles onto the ice below where both teams begin pushing each other around to get to it first. Ilya is close and damn near manages to bat it into the net when Drapeau is finally covering it with his glove hand. The refs blow the whistle to kill the play, but that doesn’t end the aggressive shoving match a bunch of the players get into after the stoppage.

Andropov and Ilya in particular are pushing each other over and over with an increasing level of strength. The younger Russian player leans in after Ilya shoves him the next time and says something that Shane doesn’t catch as he’s skating over to grab hold of his own Montreal player. Full line scrums have become a staple for every Ottawa vs. Montreal game since he and Ilya were outed and it’s definitely not like Shane is opposed to it.

Aleksander Andropov is an insignificant player in the grand scheme of the Voyageurs, hardly even a footnote in game summaries, and yet he always has the gall to yap to Ilya about how much him and Shane being together is an affront to Russia.

“Stoil li on togo, Rozanov?” the Russian Voyageur player sneers, pushing Ilya again. Was he worth it? “Stoila li yego uprugaya zadnitsa predatel'stva tvoyey strany?” Was his tight ass worth betraying your country?

Shane joins the fray, shoving Andropov away as forcefully as possible and placing himself between him and Ilya.

“Not worth it, Rozanov,” Shane says firmly, meeting the wild eyes of his husband who looks very much like he wants to argue. “It’s the first game of the series.”

“A ya-to dumal, chto v etikh otnosheniyakh on suchka, pokhozhe, ya oshibalsya,” Andropov yells out as Shane pulls Ilya way from the scrum. And I thought he was the bitch of the relationship, guess I was wrong.

“Oh, teper' ya ponimayu, Andy,” Shane calls back, looking over Ilya’s shoulder at the Voyageur. Oh, I get it now, Andy. “Ty by khotela, chtoby eto tebya on trakhal svoim ogromnym chlenom, a ne menya, verno?” You wish it was you he was fucking with his huge dick instead of me, right?”

The first expression in Andropov’s eyes is shock, clearly at the idea of Shane Hollander being fluent enough in Russian to not only understand what he’s been saying but also to respond just as easily. His eyes quickly go murderous as Shane skates him and Ilya away. He starts forward towards them but is quickly intercepted by a ref who refuses to let him past.

“Shanya, svyatoye der'mo,” Ilya curses, the gaze he turns onto Shane now heated for a different reason than anger. Holy shit. “Ne mogu poverit', chto ty tol'ko chto eto skazala, ya tak sil'no khochu tebya vyyebat'.” I can’t believe you just said that, I wanna fuck you so bad.

Shane snorts but meets Ilya’s eyes full on long enough to wink. He enjoys the desperate noise that Ilya makes at the sight as they finally near the penalty box. “Derzhi yego v shtanakh, Rozanov,” Shane says, shoving Ilya into the box. Keep it in your pants, Rozanov. “Nam yeshcho predstoit vyigrat' igru.” We’ve still got a game to win.

Shane waits until he’s convinced Ilya will stay in the box and not insert himself back into the mess on the ice before he skates away to meet with the officials. This scrum is no doubt going to result in a clusterfuck of penalties, and Shane isn’t about to let Montreal come out of it with a powerplay.

“No need to argue, Hollander, everyone’s getting matching penalties for roughing, Andropov’s getting two minutes for instigating on top of it,” the ref, Casey Andrews, says the second Shane gets within earshot of the ref circle.

Shane doesn’t smile, but it’s a near thing. He nods once and turns back around, giving Wiebe on the bench a thumbs up. He nods back and the Centaurs already on the ice switch out if they’re not on the first powerplay line. LaPointe subs in for the left-wing spot so that Shane can play center in Ilya’s absence.

The arena is humming with the noise of the fans and the aggressive edge the players on the ice have taken on. Shane didn’t expect anything different, really. If anything, he’d expected more violence considering how much the Voyageurs hate him for some reason.

Comeau skates up and meets Shane at the faceoff dot. His stupid smug grin is just as present as always even despite the penalty kill he now faces.

“You need to put that rabid dog on a leash, Holly,” Comeau chirps as Shane hunches down for the puck drop.

“Mais il me baise tellement bien après ses combats,” Shane chirps back, his face perfectly schooled into a neutral expression, as the puck begins to fall towards their sticks. But he fucks me so good after he fights.

Comeau’s face goes dumb with shock. Shane wins the faceoff by a wide margin. Montreal never really stood a chance, not with Ilya on his feet in the box shouting his support, not with the dirty smile he gives Shane when his husband goes flying past the penalty box with the puck on his stick. A quick pass to Chouinard, some repositioning, and then a pass back to Shane, and Shane scores to make the game 3-1 for Ottawa halfway through the powerplay.

The Voyageurs and the Centaurs go back and forth with points for a bit. Shane scores early in the third period. Comeau scores off a deflection in front of the net to make the score 4-2 ten minutes in. Haas scores late in the game during a Centaurs powerplay after Gagnon trips Bood.

The game ends with the Centaurs winning 5-2 in regulation.

The team is flying high after the win. Coach tells them that tomorrow’s skate is optional and then sends them home for the night to “rest.” The team goes out to a steakhouse to celebrate instead, still riding the waves of the win. They’re a raucous bunch in the back of the restaurant and Shane finds that that includes himself, as well. He feels loose in a way he didn’t expect to following his first playoff game against Montreal.

“Hollzy, you gotta tell us what it is was that you were chirping tonight,” Barrett crows midway through dinner. “Must’ve been something good to make Andropov turn that shade of purple.”

“Well…” Shane begins, glancing around the table at the obvious attention of nearly the entire team that’s turned onto him. “I told Andropov that he wishes Ilya would fuck him.”

That sends the boys practically howling, and Shane finds himself laughing along with them.

“And Comeau?” Ilya says, nudging Shane slightly with his elbow.

“He told me I needed to put you on a leash,” Shane says slowly. His lips quirk before he continues with a glint of…something in his eyes. “I told him no because you fuck me so good after you fight on the ice.” He adds the second part a little quieter than before, not wanting to make it super obvious but uncaring if any of their teammates overhear.

“You said what?” Ilya says, mouth dropping open slightly as his eyes darken.

“Holy fuck, Hollander, no wonder he lost the faceoff that bad,” Bood laughs loudly at the same time, clapping him on the shoulder. Shane laughs, as well, and allows himself to be shaken slightly as he enjoys the camaraderie.

Ilya, casual as ever, leans over and pulls husband’s head towards his mouth so he can kiss Shane’s temple. “YA vyyebu tebya tak okhuyenno, kogda my vernemsya domoy segodnya vecherom,” he says quietly in a relaxed, nonchalant tone despite the heated content of his words. I am going to fuck you so good when we get home tonight.

Shane squirms slightly in his seat and tries not to look too antsy for the rest of the night.

The team all part ways shortly after and head home. Ilya practically chases Shane up the stairs to their bedroom and Shane is giggling the whole way.

Ilya makes good on his promise to fuck Shane good. Shane comes so hard he sees stars and Ilya follows not long after. They curl around each other in their bed as they come down, still slightly giddy but without the wired feeling that’d been coursing through the pair of them all night.

“What happened with Pike?” Ilya asks after a while of relaxed silence, quiet and casual, a question without any force. He brushes his fingers through Shane’s hair, smiling softly when his husband pushes into his hand slightly like a cat.

“Nothing big,” Shane replied, shrugging slightly against Ilya’s chest. “Maybe just a…a stack of shitty things that have been piling on top of each other and now I’m finally seeing it.”

“He said something? Tonight?”

Shane hums, tracing his finger over Ilya’s bare chest. “He said I looked like you, like it was insult. I clarified to make sure that’s how he meant it, and he said ‘of course’ like it’s something I would obviously agree with. I wanted to punch him in the face.”

“He has said many things like this before, yes,” Ilya agrees.

“Yeah, no matter how many times I tell him I don’t like it, too. It’s always bothered me. It bothered me when he used to try to set me up with other guys even after he found out you and I are officially together. He talks bad about you all the time, like me loving you is a flaw.” Shane pauses then, squeezing his eyes shut as he takes a deep shuddering breath. Ilya’s brow furrows, concerned, but Shane continues before he can ask what’s wrong. “When I…when I thought you had died in that fucking plane crash, he didn’t even check on me, or ask me about you. It’s like he thinks you’re some insignificant thing, like the idea of you dying should hardly affect me. You’re my everything and he treats you like nothing.”

“Solnyshko…” Ilya says softly, mildly surprised but also kind of heartbroken.

“It was always hard for me to make friends when I was a kid, I never really had a lot, or any, sometimes,” Shane continues, even quieter than before. “I’m…you know me, I’m kind of odd, I know I am, but I know it’s okay that I am now, or at least try to remember that as much as I can. Hayden was my first friend in the NHL, my best friend for so long. I’m his kids’ godfather, I was the best man at his wedding, but he doesn’t even…he doesn’t even respect me enough to talk about you like you’re my partner, he talks about you like you’re just something he has to endure temporarily.”

Ilya brushes a hand up and down Shane’s arm now, struck by how open his husband is being about a topic that has for so long been labeled with ‘do not approach.’ Ilya was momentarily surprised at how much Shane has clearly thought about this when he’d started speaking, but then he’d remembered that Shane is his precious little overthinker. Shane’s probably been mulling this over for months at this point to finally be coming to the conclusions he’s saying right now.

“Sometimes I think he only became friends with me for the bragging rights,” Shane adds after a few beats of silence, voice slightly wobbly now. Ilya holds him tighter as the emotion creeps into Shane’s voice. “Like, ‘I’m Shane Hollander’s best friend’ kinda shit. That’s what it felt like sometimes even before he knew about us, about stupid shit like me drinking ginger ale instead of alcohol or the stuff I eat or needing to pick up and get laid. After he found out, it was like he was annoyed that I wasn’t performing correctly as the part he’d cast me as in his life.”

“I…do not like Pike, Shane, not really. He has not given me an opportunity to like him,” Ilya admits, bringing a hand to Shane’s back so he can sweep it up and down the bare skin there. “But I’m not so sure he was your friend just to brag about it. I think he is definitely an idiot, definitely childish, but I do think he is really your friend, even if he’s been doing a bad job of it.”

“Really?” Shane mumbles.

“Da,” Ilya replies, brushing a stray bit of hair from his husband’s forehead. “I think maybe he needs somebody to tell him that, and that the somebody needs to be you yourself. I have tolerated Pike because it has always been clear to me that he cares about you, even if he is an idiot about it sometimes.”

“A lot,” Shane corrects.

Ilya snorts. “Yes, alright, moya lyubov', a lot.”

Ilya is surprised that it’s him of all people defending Hayden Pike right now, but he supposes it makes sense. These past few years have seen two out of the three of them go through major emotional growth, but Pike is without a doubt the one of the three who certainly hasn’t. He sees how important the man is to Shane, feels a little heartbroken by the confession that Shane didn’t have a lot of friends growing up, and figures that Pike at least deserves a chance to fix things.

“I’ll talk to him,” Shane murmurs, resolute despite the slight slurring of his words from exhaustion. He adds, after a moment, “after the playoffs.”

“Oh?” Ilya says back, delighted at the implications of that statement. “Looking for your chance to finally take a run at him?”

Shane ducks his head and clings tightly to Ilya, sheepish. “I think I’ve earned at least a hit against the boards, right?”

Ilya barks out a laugh, nodding quickly. “Yes, solnyshko, you definitely have.”

Chapter Text

April 2022, Pt. 3

Game two of the series is two days later in Ottawa once more. The Centaurs start off with a bang with two goals nearly right out of the gate, one from Tanner Dillon and then another from Ilya in quick succession to make it 2-0 for Ottawa within the first ten minutes of the game. The Centaurs ride the lead until the last minute of the first period when Hayden Pike tucks one in past Hayes to make it 2-1 right before the first intermission. He celebrates with his linemates, Comeau included, and although it does appear slightly stilted and awkward, he’s still right there with a smile on his face. The sight of it turns Shane’s stomach slightly.

“Listen to me,” Shane says towards the end of the first intermission, gazing around the locker room full of players whose attention is locked on him and only him, “we are not going to let Hayden fucking Pike take us for a ride, you hear me? We are going to go back there and shove another goal down their throats.”

Shane ends up being the only one to follow through on this order when he scores the Centaurs’ lone goal for the second period unassisted. He barely celebrates the goal, frustrated with the lack of presence from the rest of his line. Comeau scoring with five minutes left in the period is the cherry on top of the shitshow. Ottawa still leads 3-2, but Montreal is close behind and chomping at their ankles.

Shane finds Ilya’s eyes when they’re all sitting in the locker room as the clock ticks down towards the start of the third period. They’d given the team plenty of time to rest, refuel, and reset, and now it’s time for everyone to get their heads on straight for this last period before they let the game get away from them.

Ilya nods his head once and gestures with a hand for Shane to speak, metaphorically handing over the captain title for the moment. He knows this series is Shane’s, that beating the Montreal Voyageurs in his first series as a Centaur has become a sort of requirement in Shane’s mind. It would worry Ilya if not for the plain confidence he has in his team’s ability to beat the Voyageurs.

“Maybe you misheard me last period, that’s okay,” Shane says quietly. “I can say it again. Gilbert Comeau and Hayden Pike are not going to steal this game from us. That is unacceptable. That is not the team I know the Centaurs are. Don’t make me play like I had to with them last year, like I was alone on the ice. I know you’re better than that.”

His eyes sweep around the room. They look thoroughly chastised for their poor performance during the second period, but not disheartened or beaten down. Shane is glad. That’s not the point of what he’s saying.

“We’re going to use this final period to embarrass them, okay? I won’t accept anything else. You shouldn’t either,” Shane adds after a moment of charged silence. “Make it hurt.”

A roar goes up and it carries on into the hallway, only petering out as they make their way back onto the ice for the start of the third period. The audible noise of the team is gone but it’s still ever present in the odd vibration tying all of them together.

Cernak hammers a pass to Shane early in the period, and Shane puts it in the net to make it 4-2. He’s practically shouting into the defenseman’s face as their line cellies in the corner of the ice beside the goal.

The electric current running through Shane drains right out of him when Comeau, likely frustrated with the turn of the game, crushes Shane into the boards only a few minutes after the Canadian’s goal. Comeau had taken several purposeful strides towards Shane before he’d made contact despite the fact that Shane hadn’t had possession of the puck for a good chunk of time at that point. It’s a blatant charging penalty, and every ref on the ice knows it because they’re immediately blowing their whistles to stop the play when Shane crumbles to his knees from the impact.

Shane’s awareness of the present flickers several times, confused as he’s caught between this playoff game against his former team and the time he’d fallen to his knees in his dorm room in Sochi.

“Christ, you just get on your knees for anyone, don’t you, you fucking slut?” Comeau barks down at him with a sneer.

Shane’s breath stutters in his chest for a moment as he fights to keep his bearings and get his feet back under him.

“Alright, you two, break it up, Comeau, you’re in the box, let’s go,” a ref says as they reach the two players, immediately laying a hand on Comeau’s shoulder and pulling him away from Shane.

“For fucking what, it’s not my fault the bitch can’t take a hit!” Comeau shouts as he’s skated away.

“That’s two for charging, Gil, you wanna make it another two for unsportsmanlike and a hearing with player safety?”

Comeau’s mouth closes with a click immediately, his eyes blazing nonetheless.

“You good, Hollander?” LaPointe is suddenly asking, bent down with his stick propped across his knees so he can speak to Shane. It’s almost like Shane is hearing him from underwater.

Shane nods sluggishly and finally manages to find his balance and haul himself fully to his feet. He wobbles slightly and accepts the guiding hand the younger player offers. They head straight back to the bench for a line change. He feels alright for a few moments as he tries to calm down on the bench, but a familiar feeling begins to creep up the back of his throat.

“Bucket,” he clips out to LaPointe who’s seated beside him. Teddy’s eyes go wide but he nods before frantically gesturing to the trainer standing behind them.

Shane is quickly handed a small trashcan the training staff has taken to keeping behind the bench for him, just in case, ever since that episode he’d had in Pittsburgh. He places the can at his feet and leans forward so he’s hidden by the boards just in time, vomiting his pregame meal and copious amounts of water and Gatorade down into the trashcan.

“Fuck,” he hears someone curse down the bench.

Shane cringes slightly to himself, embarrassed and miserable.

“Hollzy, you good?” someone else calls.

“It’ll pass,” Shane says firmly to no one in particular. He’s gritting his teeth against the panic when he speaks again. “It’ll pass, I’ll be fine.”

He’s hyperventilating, head still ducked down but the nausea having fully passed, by the time Ilya returns to the bench after the first shift of the powerplay. The second unit heads out, and Ilya plops himself right down next to Shane.

Ilya assesses the state of affairs pretty quickly and his heart aches slightly. He leans down so he’s speaking right into Shane’s ear, a gloved hand on the thigh of Shane’s hockey pants.

“Respirer, mon amour,” Ilya says firmly, reaching for his clumsy French because he knows it resonates with Shane best when he’s panicking. Breathe, my love. “Tout va bien. On est, ah, en train de gagner. Pike est encore…un connard.” Everything is okay. We’re winning. Pike is still an asshole.

Shane huffs slightly, something that’s likely almost a laugh. Ilya hears it and keeps going. “Haas est toujours aussi, ah, gentil, yes? Et je pense qu'il va…, hm, marquer un but.” Haas is still adorable, yes? And I think he is about to score a goal.

Ilya’s words earn him a snort, but Shane still doesn’t move from his hunched over position. “Tout le monde est là pour toi, tes gars jouent un hockey incroyable en ce moment, moy solnyshko.” Everyone is here for you, your boys are playing such amazing hockey for you right now, my sunshine.

“Ils le sont vraiment,” Shane mumbles, so quiet that Ilya almost misses it. They really are.

“Je peux prendre de…coller la tête de Gilbert Comeau, ce n'est pas un problème, tu, uh, tu dois juste dis-le-moi,” Ilya adds, his voice soft despite the subject matter. This is the most French that Ilya’s ever said at once and he thinks he’s doing a pretty okay job so far. I can take Gilbert Comeau's head off, it’s not a problem, you just have to tell me. Shane responds with a real laugh this time, quiet as it may be. “Oui, bien, respire. Tout, uh, ira bien, je te le promets.” Yes, good, breathe. Everything will be alright, I promise.

It helps. Shane is surprised it helps. Maybe it’s the humor of some of what Ilya had said, the calmness his husband had met Shane’s anxiety with, the unwavering reassurances. He’s calmed down enough that he manages to catch a glimpse of Luca Haas’s powerplay goal that makes the game 5-2 for Ottawa.

Shane is on his feet for the bench roll of fist bumps Luca receives in celebration after the goal. He’s present, and steady enough, and he’s happy, despite the puking and the terror of a flashback on the ice.

Barrett scores two goals back to back and only three minutes apart midway through the period. The first is through sheer determination as he bullies his way past Montreal’s top defensemen, but the second is with flair and ease as he skates circles around the entire team and winds up going coast to coast for the goal, much to the Centaur bench’s excitement.

Taylor from Montreal scores late in the period, but the clock runs out before they can put up any more goals. Ottawa wins game two of the series 7-3 and Shane is more than thrilled.

“That’s what I was fucking talking about,” Shane tells the locker room after the game. “That’s the Centaurs hockey I wanted to see. I knew you guys could do it and I’m fucking proud.”

“Now we are headed to their home barn, and we need to keep this energy even in terrible Montreal,” Ilya adds from where he’s standing at his husband’s side at the front of the room. “If we let up, they will use it, you know that they will, yes?”

There’s a resounding round of ‘yes cap!’s and cheering. Shane smiles. His team, his boys. His team who he was worried wouldn’t like him back in September, worried that maybe he’d been the “something” that’d gone wrong in Montreal, not his former Voyageur teammates.

It strikes him like a punch to the stomach as he’s glancing around at the smiling albeit slightly feral faces of his teammates. Bood, Barrett, Chouinard, Dykstra, Teddy, Dillon, Hayes, Haas, he trusts these men. He’d thought he trusted Montreal back before he and Ilya were outed, but he hadn’t, not really. Not with the constant analysis of the way his actions and words came off to them, not when he spent so much time adjusting himself to fit Montreal’s pre-determined idea of who their captain should be. Shane was a mess for the majority of the third period, he hadn’t even made it back out onto the ice after he’d puked his guts up right there in front of his guys on the bench, but, looking at these faces, you’d never be able to tell.

He finally allows himself to hope, for once, even if it’s only a tiny amount, that things with them would be okay even if they were to find out about what Kent did. Some of them might be freaked out by it, of course, Shane expects that, but he’s slowly starting to think that most of them would stand beside him, that they wouldn’t turn their backs on him. It’s a dangerous thing, this hope. He doesn’t let it go too far, keeps himself rooted down on earth rather than up in the clouds, because if he’s learned anything from his tenure in the NHL, it’s to avoid getting your hopes up and always be prepared for the worst case scenario.

Shane is quiet as he follows Ilya up to their bedroom once they get home. He stands a few steps into the room once the door is shut with him and Ilya inside and stops, staring at nothing. Overwhelming would be a severe understatement for how rough tonight has been.

“When I get hit and land on my knees like that, when I get a flashback from it, it’s of the way my knees cracked when they hit the floor in Sochi,” Shane says in a voice that isn’t quite right. “They hurt for weeks after.”

Ilya makes a soft, hurt noise and he steps closer, placing a hand on Shane’s waist and staring down at husband’s face.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he murmurs, eyes unbearably sad. He brings his free hand up to cup the side of Shane’s face. Shane’s eyes slide shut and he leans slightly into the touch. “Thank you for telling me, solnyshko.”

“It’s horrible,” Shane says, some life coming back into his voice even if it wobbles. “Every time, it’s horrible.”

Ilya is slightly taken aback but he tries his best not to let it show. Yes, Shane had told him the whole story about what happened with Kent, in sometimes excruciating detail, but it’s extremely rare that he offers information about how it’s affected him after, how it still affects him now, how it feels and how it hurts.

That’s what these bits are, Ilya realizes suddenly, offerings, confessions that Ilya only has the privilege of hearing because he’s Shane’s favorite person. Every once in a while, Shane metaphorically gets down on his knees and, cradled carefully in his palms, presents Ilya with the most fragile pieces of soul for him to examine and analyze.

Ilya knows these offerings of information are likely rare because of how awful everything about what Kent did is, that it probably also has something to do with Shane having to suppress it for so long in order to survive it all. It’s always sickening to hear about what Kent did, but it’s only heartbreaking to hear the feelings part of it when his sweet, stubborn husband offers bits and pieces of it at random intervals.

“You want me to take care of you tonight?” Ilya asks, brushing a thumb over the line of Shane’s jaw. It’s an innocuous phrase that carries more meaning than it seems.

They’d dabbled with the non-sexual aspects of submission and caretaking over the years. Some of them are already a part of their aftercare on occasion, like shared showers or hand-feeding. That ultimately culminated in a few nights back when Shane had still been playing for the Voyageurs that involved Ilya driving to Montreal and showering, feeding, and snuggling Shane until the anxiety and grief lessened enough for him to finally relax. There were other nights like that where Shane had said no, had wanted something entirely different, and that was fine too. The power exchange Shane and Ilya take part in has always been pretty flexible and relaxed.

The nights of caretaking aren’t even about the goal of subspace most of the time. Shane takes on the caretaking role for Ilya sometimes and he enjoys it just as much as the other way around. They’ve had nights where it was Shane washing Ilya’s hair and peppering soft kisses on his skin and cutting up his food.

“You don’t have to,” Shane says quietly, his eyes opening but not yet meeting Ilya’s. These kind of nights are also something Shane has a lot of difficulty accepting, but Ilya’s certainly not judging him for it; Ilya has the most difficulty accepting compassion from others out of the two of them.

“That was not my question, Shane,” Ilya says, patient but firm. Shane’s eyes flick up to meet Ilya’s but then dart away and off to the side, not speaking. “We both say the same thing every time one of us offers, moya lyubov’, but we offer because we want to and enjoy it, yes? Not because we think we have to.”

“I know,” Shane says immediately, because, ugh, he really does, “I…I want you to, yes, please.” His voice is tiny when he voices his desire aloud, but it’s there nonetheless, so Ilya smiles softly and pulls him in close against his chest.

Ilya sways them slightly in their embrace as he speaks. “Okay, moya malen'kaya gazonokosilka, I am going to order us dinner. I will wash us both in nice long shower, feed you dinner in our bed, and then I’m going to pet your soft hair until you fall asleep in my arms. How does that sound, moy solnyshko?” My little lawnmower.

“Soun’s good, ‘lya,” Shane murmurs back, already feeling the way his body is gravitating towards Ilya as his brain goes a little fuzzy around the edges. He’s so tired.

“Was a tough game, you did not feel well at the end, so you tell me if you think this would be too much, da?” Ilya begins, pausing until Shane nods in the affirmative. “Moy solynshko’s tummy was very upset earlier, so I think grilled chicken, buttered pasta, maybe baked potato, hm?”

“That would be, mm, I think tha’d be okay,” Shane mumbles. Ilya’s gotten so good at feeding Shane even with all of the Canadian’s hangups and rules surrounding food. That combination of things isn’t exactly on the BRAT diet often recommended after profuse vomiting, but Shane has enough experience with puking his guts up during games that he knows what he can and can’t tolerate pretty well by now.

“Then I will order, and while we wait, we will shower. Sound okay?” Ilya says in agreement. Shane nods, offering the Russian a timid smile and a brief meeting of his gaze. Ilya smiles back, charmed as always by the soft shyness Shane takes on sometimes like this.

Ilya calls the place they often order from after games when the two of them are too tired or lazy to cook and the meal prep in their fridge doesn’t feel sufficient. He leads Shane to the ensuite bathroom connected to their bedroom and seats him on the toilet seat lid while they wait for the water in the shower to warm up.

Shane lets himself go completely once he’s under the warm spray of the shower and in Ilya’s arms. His husband washes him carefully, doing Shane’s hair first and then soaping up his body. Ilya cleans himself as they go, as well, and then then they spend some time simply standing under the water and running theirs hands over each other’s body.

Ilya leaves Shane sitting upright but tucked under the covers in their bed so he can grab the food that’d been delivered during their shower. Shane sits and waits, content and hazy. He plucks chunks of chicken out of the pasta with his fingers and allows Ilya to feed him bites of plain buttered pasta and baked potato in between.

Ilya flicks the TV on but makes sure the volume is turned down pretty low, the SVU episode simply playing as background noise. Ilya and him have taken to watching old episodes of Law & Order or House during quiet nights at home or even on the road in their hotel room lately.

Shane settles with his head in Ilya’s lap, watching the TV show with tired eyes as his husband runs gentle, continuous fingers through his slowly drying hair. These are the kind of moments when Shane feels a little ridiculous calling the mindset he falls into “subspace” considering the lack of overt physiological responses like adrenaline, but there’s apparently a case to be made that even this soft evening of caretaking elicits similar responses via endorphins and oxytocin. Either way, it definitely usually gives him the mental reset he needs after a game like the one they just played tonight.

He’d reacted rather shyly when Ilya informed him that he also gets that mental reset when he takes care of Shane. Shane hadn’t truly believed him until a night a few months later when he himself had taken on that role for Ilya instead of their usual other way around. It is relaxing, and fulfilling, and settling to take care of someone you love and seeing your actions affect them so sweetly.

“So sweet, Shanechka, my sweet boy,” Ilya murmurs, looking down to meet Shane’s eyes. Shane blinks heavily and smiles back.

“Gonna fall asleep,” Shane mumbles, sighing softly as his eyes slide closed when Ilya cups his face with the hand not in his hair. “Love you.”

“I love you too, Shane,” Ilya whispers back. “Sleep.”

Shane doesn’t stay awake long enough to argue. Ilya allows himself to watch for just a little bit, the easy rise and fall of his husband’s chest, the relaxed expression on his face, the boneless state of his body. He’ll reposition them and go to sleep himself in a little bit. Right now he’s going to enjoy this quiet moment with his baby.

Chapter Text

April 2022, Pt. 4

The Centaurs hit the road the next night so they arrive in Montreal the night before game three. Shane will admit that playing in Montreal has him a lot more on edge than the previous two games that had been played back in Ottawa.

The game is unremarkable for the first two periods. Barrett scores in the first, then Bood. Montreal scores once in the second when J.J. shoves the puck across the goal line in a manner that screams goaltender interference. The refs spend damn near ten minutes on the phone with the situation room in Toronto before ultimately ruling it a good goal. Shane personally thinks that’s bullshit, but it is what it is, so the Centaurs enter the final period of the game leading 2-1.

Shane scores early in the period after snatching up the puck following a brutal turnover by none other than Comeau himself. He can see the way man grits his teeth as Shane cellies after the goal, but Shane only has it in himself to feel smug.

Montreal starts to get frustrated and it shows. Their play is stilted, tense, too rigid. They start making stupid mistakes. The chirps quickly transform from general trash talk to borderline harassment.

They’re halfway through the period when Drapeau opens his dumb, stupid mouth. Shane is standing in front of him, carefully not quite in the crease so as not to attract a goaltender interference accusation, but enough that he’s providing quite a pest-like screen must to the goalie’s clear irritation.

“Gonna go puke on the bench again if I push you a little, Holly?” Patrice chirps, shoving Shane slightly with his blocker hand.

Shane pointedly ignores him, again angling his body this way and that with his eyes fixed towards the blueline where Young is circling with the puck.

“I’d throw up too if I was married to Rozanov,” Drapeau continues anyway, knocking the large blade of his stick against one of Shane’s skates. “Bet his bitch mom killed herself to get away from his faggot ass.”

The puck deflects off the glass and into the stands after Cernak tries for a goal from the blueline. The play is stopped dead by the whistle of the refs.

And, well. Shane’s brain makes several determinations in startlingly quick and clean succession.

The Centaurs are up by two goals. It’s not within the last five minutes of the game, so no misconducts as long as he keeps his rage well enough contained. He can’t fight Drapeau, a player and a goalie fight isn’t cool, but there’s plenty of Voyageurs players standing around that would do perfectly fine as a substitute. It all races through his head in mere moments which also just so happens to be enough time for Troy Barrett to turn back and meet Shane’s eyes, an expression like ‘did I just hear what I fucking think I did?’ on his face. Shane nods once, brief, and then there isn’t a lot more hesitating left to do.

Shane drops his gloves and stick, grabs tightly onto the collar of the nearest Voyageurs player, Karl Olsson, Shane notes, and promptly begins to beat the fuck out of the guy. Barrett does the same with Stedlund. Both Voyageurs players are cursing up a storm, confused and agitated as hell at the seemingly unprovoked attack. The rest of the Centaurs on the ice, a hodgepodge conglomeration of the first and second line, dissolves into shoving matches around them as everyone pairs up, as well, but it seems to only be him and Barrett truly fighting.

The refs need to skate Shane past the Centaurs bench to get him to the penalty box. He catches Ilya’s eyes as he goes, the captain looking confused, proud, and slightly turned on all at once.

“Zasyp'te ikh golami,” Shane calls to his husband. Bury them in goals. The volume of his words was without a doubt loud enough for the ice level mics to pick up. Good, Shane thinks to himself, let them translate and air it. “Zastav' yego pochuvstvovat' styd. YA khochu, chtoby on pozhalel o tom, chto voobshche vzyal v ruki khokkeynuyu klyushku, Rozanov.” Make it embarrassing. I want him to regret ever picking up a hockey stick, Rozanov.

The blue of Ilya’s eyes darken slightly. There’s a question there, as well, a ‘what the fuck just happened?’, but Shane’s husband, his without a doubt ride or die, sets his jaw and nods once, firm and determined, without any questions. He immediately turns to the teammates sitting beside him and presumably begins spreading the message.

Shane gets cozy with Barrett, LaPointe, and Cernak in the Centaurs penalty box. It’s a little cramped and Shane can almost guarantee that an aerial view of all four of them practically sitting on each other’s laps from the lack of space will go viral on Twitter tonight, he just knows it. He’s kind of looking forward to it, if he’s being honest. Maybe he’ll get it printed and framed.

Shane stares up at the jumbotron as he waits to see what penalties the ref assessed each team with. He watches in obvious disbelief he’s unable to school off of his face, conscious of the likely camera coverage of him in the box occurring on TV right now, as the lists pops up.

OTT #24, 5 min. maj. – fighting. Hollander

OTT #17, 5 min. maj – fighting. Barrett

OTT #73, 2 min. minor – roughing. LaPointe

OTT #3, 2 min. minor – roughing. Cernak

MTL #26, 5 min. maj. – fighting. K. Olsson

MTL #14, 5 min. maj. – fighting. Stedlund

MTL #45, 2 min. minor – roughing. Taylor

MTL #20, 2 min. minor – roughing. Wilson

MTL #30, 2 min. minor – unsportsmanlike conduct. Drapeau

Unsportsmanlike conduct. The refs had penalized Drapeau for the homophobic chirp Shane had nearly taken Olsson’s head off over. Shane is almost in shock. He truly never expected a ref to be real enough to call a penalty for something like homophobic trash talk. He’s heard threats of it, sure, but rarely sees any actual follow through.

Play remains halted until Therriault sends a rookie player skating across the ice so he can sit for Drapeau’s penalty as goalies never sit for their own penalties.

The only thing running through Shane’s mind for the first minute of the penalty he spends in the box is Olsson is lucky this is the playoffs, if we weren’t playing for the Cup I would’ve broken my hand on his face. 

“I can’t believe they actually called it,” Barrett says quietly. “The unsportsmanlike.”

“Yeah, hey, so can anyone clue us in on why the fuck we just went feral on them?” LaPointe interjects, much to the two more seasoned players’ amusement.

“Drapeau said something to me about Ilya’s family, and didn’t exactly, uh, mince words when he did,” Shane explains, well aware that there’s likely mics poised to catch any snippet of conversation they can all over the box. “I guess the ref overheard and…actually called it.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” Cernak says, the surprise evident in his tone.

“Right?” Barrett says in agreement.

“Olsson’s lucky this is the playoffs,” Shane says without thinking.

“Oh, great,” Barrett says, gesturing at Shane. “Look at what they did now, he’s homicidal.”

“You heard what he said,” Shane says, refusing to feel bad for his anger. “Would it be chill if someone said that about Harris?”

Barrett’s face darkens. “Absolutely not.”

“Exactly, so leave my justified homicidal urges alone,” Shane says, deadpan, only breaking and laughing when LaPointe makes a choked noise and dissolves into laughter.

All four of them spend the remainder of the younger pair of players’ minor penalties laughing like lunatics. The freaked out looks that the Montreal players in the neighboring penalty box send them only fuels another bout of the giggles. The minor penalties on the two younger players run out and they’re released back out onto the ice shortly after the laughter finally dies down.

“Think there’s gonna be a hearing?” Barrett asks as they continue to sit, two minutes left to go on their major penalties.

“If a mic caught it, yeah, maybe,” Shane reasons, tracking Ilya as he moves around the ice with a lethal precision that is admittedly making him feel a certain type of way. “A mic might be the only reason it was called.”

“And if it wasn’t a mic?”

Shane snorts, he can’t help himself. “Yeah, probably not, no,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t see any ref laying it on the line to Player Safety over something like this.”

Troy sighs. “I wish I didn’t know you were right.”

“Me too, man,” Shane agrees.

Ilya scores shortly after, right over the glove hand, to make the game 4-1. Drapeau’s frustration and rage is clear even from Shane’s long distance view from the penalty box. Ilya blows him a kiss as he skates his way to the bench for fist bumps. Shane pretends to catch it and shares a heated look with Ilya before his brain finally catches up and he remembers where he is. His face burns as he ducks his head down, clacking the blade of his stick against his skates.

Shane and Barrett are released from the box a minute later. He watches from the bench now when one of the team’s younger players, Jaden Black, is waved away from the faceoff circle and Niklas Koskinen takes his place. Koskinen doesn’t just win the faceoff, either, he bats the puck behind him, straight through Drapeau’s five hole, and into the back of the net. It’s a goal right off the faceoff, something that happens, sure, but definitely not very often, not with the caliber and skill of the goalies who play in the NHL.

Drapeau snaps his goalie stick over the crossbar in frustration.

“That’s what I’m talking about, Kosky!” Shane shouts when the young player returns to the bench. “The most embarrassing thing for a goalie, and you did it like it was nothing.”

Shane is on the ice for the next shift. He sends the puck to LaPointe as the sole assist on the final goal of the game with only a minute left in the period. Ottawa wins the game with a satisfying final score of 6-1.

The mood in the locker room after the game is electric. Shane and Ilya carry that feeling back to the hotel with them after a rousing team dinner. Shane knows there’s likely going to be a lot of media questions and online speculation as a result of everything that just occurred on the ice tonight, but for now he’s going to enjoy the win.

“U tebya tot vzglyad v tvoikh glazakh, moya lyubov',” Ilya says mildly during the elevator ride up to their room. Three of their teammates are in the elevator with them. You have that look in your eyes, my love.

“Kakoy vzglyad? Tot, chto govorit menya otdelyayut vsego lish' sekundy ot togo, chtoby umolyat' tebya trakhat' menya, poka ya ne zakrichu?” Shane replies just as plainly. What look? The one that says I’m only seconds away from begging you to fuck me until I scream?

A slightly strangled noise punches its way past Ilya’s lips. Shane carefully schools his face rather than allowing his lips to curl into a smirk at the sound of it.

“You know, just because you two are talking in Russian doesn’t mean we can’t tell what you’re talking about,” Dykstra says, exasperated.

“How could you know this, if you don’t know what is said?” Ilya argues, huffing slightly.

“I’m pretty everyone on the team has gotten a good look at what Shane Hollander’s ‘fuck me’ eyes look like by now,” the other players says flatly, unimpressed by Ilya’s hedging. “Everybody already knew what yours look like, Rozanov, but believe me, we’re far enough into the season that we know what that look on Hollander’s face means.”

“And what does it mean?” Shane snips, crossing his arms. “Tell me.”

Ilya watches, surprised by Shane’s reaction until he sees the way Evan’s face goes red at the demand.

“Walked right into that one, Ev,” Hayes says, shaking his head without looking up from where his eyes are focused on his phone. He’s leaning against the handrail of the elevator car, seemingly unaffected by the conversation taking place right in front of him.

“Fucking christ, where is Barrett when you need him?” Dykstra mutters mostly to himself.

Ilya laughs loudly.

“It’s okay Dykstra, you can say it,” Ilya says faux sympathetically, patting the player lightly on the arm. “Shane has needy bottom eyes, everyone knows this.”

“What the fuck?” Shane cuts in, eyes bugging out slightly for a moment. Weren’t they just on the same side five seconds ago? “Fuck off, Rozanov.”

Ilya turns to him and makes direct eye contact, eyebrows raised. “Ya ne soglasny? U vas sladkiye, prekrasnyye, polnyye tomleniya glaza, tak govorit Twitter,” he says. You disagree? You have sweet, beautiful yearning eyes, Twitter says so.

Shane’s eyes narrow. “Oh, tak eto Tvitter tak govorit? A znayesh', chto yeshcho govorit Tvitter?” he says, incredulous. Oh, Twitter says so, do they? You know what else Twitter says? He turns to Dykstra, Hayes, and LaPointe. Dykstra is watching the couple’s interaction with a shit-eating grin on his face now, Hayes is trying very hard not to look amused, and LaPointe looks like he’s simply praying for this elevator ride to finally be over. “Ilya has ‘stupidly down bad top eyes,’ did you know that?”

“Net!” Ilya exclaims, shaking his head.

“Tak govorit Twitter,” Shane says mockingly. Twitter says so.

“Look at what you did, Ev,” LaPointe mutters under his breath. “Just couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

“Seriously man, they’re gonna fuck like they have a point to prove now, you know that, right?” Hayes says in agreement.

“We’re standing right here, you know?” Shane says, waving a hand at them.

The elevator dings signaling their arrival at the first floor they’d selected. “Oh thank god,” LaPointe says distantly.

The three players were all assigned the floor below them, so their teammates get out of the elevator car when the doors slide open. They wave goodbye, say they’ll see them at the breakfast in the morning, and then it’s just him and Ilya alone in the car as it moves up to the next floor where their room is.

Management tends to put the leadership players on the floor with the rookies and younger players when they have to split the team between two floors, so it’s realistically them, Bood, and the kids on their floor for this road trip. The veterans certainly don’t have any complaints about this; there have been several mortifying instances already during the season when Shane had walked into the locker room the night after some insane sex with Ilya only to find out he hadn’t been exactly quiet about it.

Their phones vibrate in unison as they get off the elevator and head down the hallway to their shared room. It’s the main Centaurs groupchat, the one with every teammate in it.

Hayes: heads up to those unlucky enough to have their room on S&I’s floor, Dykstra started a bickering match in the elevator over, and I quote, “Shane’s fuck me eyes”

Hayes: so I guess prepare your ears if they decide to prove a point

Haas: aw Ev why

Koskinen: yeah what the fuck man

Barnes: seriously bro?

Black: Dykstra you and I are fr gonna have a convo tomorrow bc wtf

Dykstra: I'M SORRY 😭😫 

Hollander: there will be no proving any point!

Hollander: and we’re not that bad!!!

Rozanov: do not lie to them, moya Lyubov

Hollander: not helping

Shane doesn’t even look up from his phone when he begins typing out another text to the group chat as he speaks to Ilya. “Keep it up, Rozanov,” he says, deceptively casual. “See if I allow your dick anywhere near me.”

Rozanov: I humbly rescind my previous statement

Rozanov: we are going to sleep now, good night

LaPointe: holy shit he killed Rozanov

J. Olsson: RIP

Young: F

Dillon: F

Barrett: nah man haven’t you seen those Hollanov pages? hollzy just walked Roz like a dog

Barrett: man is WHIPPED

Rozanov: I will show YOU whipped, Barrett

Barrett: listen Roz I’m all for whips and chains, but idk if Harris will be cool with you doing that :/

Dillon: THAT'S your hangup? only that Roz would be doing it? 

Hayes: damn so is everybody on this team freaky? jfc

Rozanov: is okay hayesy we love you even if u have boring vanilla sex life

“Ilya!” Shane exclaims, exasperated. Ilya doesn’t respond or even look his way.

Hollander: ILYA

Hollander: what did I LITERALLY just say to you???

Young: bro a never have I ever game would go so hard on this team omfg 

Haas: what does he mean by whips and chains?

“Ilya, I swear to god,” Shane says in warning.

Ilya snickers to himself. “What, Hollander?” he says innocently. “Am just building team morale, no?”

Bood: ILYA NO

(Shane Hollander reacted ‼️)

(Troy Barrett reacted ‼️)

(Nick Chouinard reacted ‼️)

(Wyatt Hayes reacted ‼️)

(Victor Boyle reacted ‼️)

(Tanner Dillon reacted ‼️)

Hollander: ILYA DON’T YOU DARE

Chouinard: ILYA FOR THE SAKE OF THE CHILDREN

Haas: why is everyone freaking out

Hayes: don’t worry about it baby centaur

Barrett: yeah we like u just how u are, noncorrupted by an evil Russian’s influence

Rozanov: HURTFUL

Hollander: ACCURATE

Rozanov: MY OWN HUSBAND BETRAY ME LIKE THIS??? :((((

Bood: jesus fucking christ man

Bood: alright that’s it, everyone GO TO BED

Bood: AC’s orders

Dillon: well I’ll sure TRY

Black: yeah dk how successful I’ll be but you know what I guess this is the price we pay

Koskinen: I pack extra earplugs now, if anyone needs lmk I gotchu

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Shane sees Ilya start typing again out of the corner of his eyes and dives forward, snatching the phone out of his husband’s hands and hitting the power button on the side to lock the screen with a chastising glare.

“Stop scandalizing our rookies, Ilya,” Shane says.

“Is educational,” Ilya says seriously, giving Shane his best innocent look.

“Haas is twenty, not sixteen,” Shane says, unimpressed. “Our whole team doesn’t need to know the details of our sex life, Rozanov.”

Something flickers in Ilya’s eyes then, his expression turning less playful and more serious. “Is it upsetting you? Did I make you…uncomfortable?”

Shane softens visibly, much to Ilya’s relief. Shane rests a hand on Ilya’s and shake his head firmly.

“No, I’m not upset or uncomfortable or anything, just my normal level of mildly irritated, I promise, Ilya,” he says seriously, allowing his words to absorb for a moment before offering his husband a lopsided smile. “Can I suck your dick now?”

Ilya’s eyes widen at the sudden change in tone and topic before something heated takes over his gaze.

“How do you want it, dorogoy?” he says quietly, his voice taking on that rich quality it does sometimes when they’re fooling around together. Sweetheart.

Blowjobs were never something Shane had thought he’d be as enthusiastic about as he’s always been when it comes to sucking Ilya’s dick. Shane had been pretty worried after what happened with Kent that he wouldn’t be able to stomach it anymore, but he’s happy to say that that luckily hasn’t been the case. If anything, it’s the opposite. Shane asks to do it for Ilya more often than the Russian asks for it himself, a fact that Ilya teases him about on occasion. Shane would feel embarrassed if having Ilya’s dick in his mouth wasn’t like some magical brain silencer. Only he and Ilya exist in that space, and it’s intoxicating especially after so many years of holding themselves back from being too intimate with each other.

“They’re right, I would be loud tonight if you actually fucked me,” Shane says, huffing. “So how about you sit on the edge of the bed and I get on my knees for you?”

“Da, can definitely do that,” Ilya agrees immediately, already tossing his legs over the side of the bed that’s farthest from the door.

They’ve learned a lot about each other over the last couple of years, their sex life included. Shane’s limits haven’t really changed now that Ilya knows about what Kent did to him, but the context of the why behind some of it has been made a lot clearer to his husband. Most of the adjustments and tweaks they make to accommodate their trauma is automatic now, much to Shane’s relief.

If Shane is on his knees for Ilya when they’re in a hotel room, it has to be with him positioned so his back isn’t facing the door. With Ilya sitting like he is right now, Shane will be tucked in the narrow space between the far wall of their hotel room and the bed, his large Russian husband a protective figure between him and any possible intruders. It should feel claustrophobic, maybe, being so close to Ilya’s front while his back is barely two feet from the wall behind him, but Shane’s found the setup to feel surprisingly safe and secure.

Shane does get loud sometimes, and he prefers not giving their teammate an auditory peak into his and Ilya’s sex life, so they usually avoid any intense sex when he doesn’t think he can stay quiet enough. Shane had made it clear that he doesn’t ever want a gag of any kind in his mouth from the very beginning. They’d experimented once with Ilya’s hand over his mouth, Shane had thought it’d be a hot, intimate alternative, but in the end even that was too much for him. Ball gags, cloth gags, tape, items of clothing, hands over mouths, all of that is marked with a big red ‘X’ on their, jesus christ, kink preference sheets. Shane will sometimes push his own face into a pillow or blanket or the mattress, will sometimes bite down on his fist or his forearm, but those are usually spur of the moment and always completely within his control.

He supposes that it’s a little odd that he dislikes gags so vehemently but would be more than happy to have Ilya’s dick swallowed down the back of his throat every day if he could. It’d bothered him at first, but it seems that a lot of kink preferences can have contradictory overlaps like that.

Ilya had face fucked him once, after they’d gotten together but back before they were outed. Shane had loved it, had been surprised he’d loved it, and it’s been almost two years at this point and he wants it again. He knows tonight, in a hotel room surrounded by their teammates and with practice tomorrow morning during which he’ll need to be able to speak and yell, is not the night to ask for it. Now that the thought has taken root in his mind once again, though, he’s definitely going to make it a point to bring it up sometime soon.

“What else?” Ilya prompts. Whoops. Shane must’ve spent too long thinking about Ilya fucking his mouth.

Shane swallows thickly, heat burning low in his stomach. “Ty otsososh' mne posle? Yesli ya, ne konchu pryamo v shtany ot togo, chto tvoy chlen u menya vo rtu, konechno'.” You suck me off after? If I do not just come in my pants from having your dick in my mouth, of course.

Ilya sucks in a breath, his pupils widening as the blue of his eyes darkens slightly. He reaches forward, gesturing for Shane to get to his feet. He places a hand on each side of Shane’s waist and tugs him in so that his husband is just barely standing between his spread legs.

“Moy khoroshiy mal'chik,” he drawls, eyes sweeping up Shane’s body until they reach his eyes. My good boy. Their gazes lock. Shane stares, already slightly mesmerized. Ilya has always had this strange sort of gravitational pull. “U menya yest' ideya poluchshe, hm? Dumayu, ya budu drochit' tvoy krasivyy chlen, poka ty ne vstanesh' tak krepko, chto uzhe ne smozhesh' svyazno myslit', i vot togda ya nakonets nakormlyu tebya svoim chlenom. Kak tebe takoy plan?” I have better idea, hm? I think I will jerk your pretty dick off until you are so hard you can’t think straight and then I will finally feed you my cock. How does that sound?

Shane feels a little thrown off balance by the sound of it, if he’s being honest, a good off balance. His lips part slightly but no words come out. He swallows thickly and nods. It’s all the confirmation Ilya needs for now, it seems, because the man is on his feet and pushing Shane back against the hotel room wall with a gentle but firm hand against Shane’s chest. Shane goes willingly, eyes never leaving Ilya’s.

Ilya, careful but firm, grabs hold of Shane’s chin, turning it side to side to slightly. “I said, how does that sound, malysh?”

“Vert, ça sonne vert,” Shane breathes back. Green, it sounds green.

“Mm,” Ilya drawls, running the index finger of his free hand down Shane’s side and hooking it in the waistband of Shane’s pants. He leans his head forward until his face is close enough to Shane’s that his breath fans across the Canadian’s face. Shane allows his eyes to drift shut as his husband’s lips brush his, already feeling the current begin to tug him under. “A po-russki?” And in Russian?

“Zelonyy, on zvuchit zelonym,” Shane practically gasps against Ilya’s lips. Green, sounds green. He doesn’t miss the smirk that Ilya’s lips curl into at the response, but it satisfies him rather than pisses him off. He loves being good for Ilya.

“Good boy,” Ilya says quietly, in English, before releasing Shane’s chin so he has both hands to help him work the front of his husband’s pants open. He doesn’t push the pants or the underwear down, instead opting to simply slide his hand inside, his fingers grazing Shane’s abdomen on their descent and sending goosebumps racing down his arms.

Ilya kisses him the same moment he wraps his hand around Shane’s dick, so his mouth swallows the noise of pure relief that immediately tries to erupt out of Shane’s throat. That’s another alternative ‘gag’ of sorts that they also use often: kissing. It also has the added benefit of always being hot as fuck.

They kiss for a while with Shane there, boxed in against the wall by Ilya’s taller frame and held in place by the hand he’s got on Shane’s waist and, yeah, the one steadily stroking his dick where it’s still hidden away beneath layers of fabric.

Ilya works him until Shane’s hips start canting forward into the Russian’s hand, stopping finally when Shane makes a wounded little noise in the back of his throat after a particularly mean twist of his hand against the head of his dick. Shane is visibly dazed when Ilya pulls back slightly, his pupils blown wide as his glazed eyes fix on Ilya and precisely nothing else.

“You still want your mouth on my dick, sweetheart?” Ilya asks, not dropping his gaze.

Shane’s eyes dart down to the obvious bulge that’s formed in the front of Ilya’s own pants. He’d felt it grinding against his thigh as they’d made out while Ilya worked him up. Even in his subspace clouded mind he can recognize that damn near drooling over the idea of your husband’s dick in your mouth may be a bit too much, but he decides to ignore that in exchange for nodding his head vehemently.

Ilya sighs fondly, tapping him lightly on the nose. “Words, Shanya, I know is hard.”

“Yeah, yeah I still want it, please,” Shane gasps. “Green, vert, fucking zelenyy, please Ilya, please.”

“Come here, dorogoy,” Ilya says, leading him backwards a few steps until the bed hits the back of Ilya’s knees. He sits down on the same spot on the edge of the bed as before.

Shane doesn’t hesitate any further, sinking to his knees before his husband and happily allowing the man to adjust them so that Shane is tucked securely between Ilya’s spread legs. The bulge in Ilya’s pants in more obvious now, and Shane raises his hands up to unzip his pants but is intercepted Ilya.

“Mm, no, take your cock out, baby, wanna see how hard you are for me the whole time you have my dick hitting the back of your throat, da?”

Shane’s whole body goes hot as he fumbles to obey, shoving his jeans further down his thighs and pulls his briefs down along with them.

Ilya watches with rapt attention, always monitoring for signs of distress, yes, but also relaxing and admiring the view. His husband really is quite something. Shane’s dick is hard enough it juts upward from his front, pointing up towards his face and bouncing or swaying with every movement. There’s already precum gathered at the tip, much to Ilya’s satisfaction. His heart swells when Shane’s hands automatically come to rest on his thighs, palms up, the picture of submission.

“Good, baby, such a good boy,” Ilya praises, running a hand through Shane’s hair. “Okay, you may have my dick now, sweet boy. You can come whenever you want, just need to be quiet, yes?”

Shane nods vehemently, hands already working to free Ilya’s dick from his pants. He doesn’t hesitate or wait for any further instructions, Ilya already told him what to do, and now he can just do it and lose himself in it in the best way.

Much to Shane’s outward dismay but secret delight, Ilya’s bragging about how big his dick is back when they were younger held true. It’s definitely not nine inches, but he’s certainly above average in every regard. Shane always has to work to fit it all into his mouth at first, but the slight ache in his jaw and throat that sometimes persists for up to a few days after it’s been in his mouth is a bit like a reward in and of itself.

Shane takes Ilya into his mouth, careful but sure and steady, until he’s bottoming out with the tip of Ilya’s dick brushing the back of his throat. Tears immediately begins to form in his eyes, but that’s a staple for this kind of thing.

There’s actually a good few types of scenes they regularly do where Shane crying is a part of it. It’s never been the main goal, never even a “goal” at all, really a byproduct of which happens to turn them on a bit more when combined with something else. Blowing Ilya in any capacity is obviously one of those, joined by Ilya fucking Shane and edging him until he’s crying from it and, of course, fucking Shane within an inch of his life as he whines and squirms through the overstimulation of back to back orgasms. It’s cathartic, in a way. There’s also a marked difference between his sex tears and the tears he sheds from true distress, some kind of look he gets in his eyes, apparently, that Ilya has memorized, so they’ve been able to indulge in this bit of kink without much stress.

“So good, sweetheart,” Ilya groans lowly as Shane swallows around his length. “Such a good boy, my good boy, you take my big dick all the way into your mouth like it’s easy, fuck, Shane.”

Shane whines slightly, muffled significantly by the dick in his mouth, and squirms. He loosens his jaw a bit more, lifting his head and pulling off of his husband’s dick until only the tip remains before taking it all down in one go, quicker than before. Ilya’s eyes cut down and, despite the slightly awkward angle, catch sight of the way Shane’s cock jerks all on its own as the tip of his own dick hits the back of the Canadian’s throat again. Ilya swears at the sight, a hand landing in Shane’s dark hair.

He doesn’t wind his fingers through Shane’s hair, doesn’t tighten his grip on the strands until it aches, doesn’t pull. They’ve done that before, of course, but anything involving hair pulling always involve a heads up well in advance and often a discussion. It’s one of those things that can be a major trigger for Shane for weeks at one point but then something he’s begging for day in and day out until Ilya finally obliges another. It’s a volatile, albeit minor, aspect of their sex life that requires extra care and attention. He’s seen it go badly before and he’d spent a couple of weeks after it thanking his lucky stars that Shane had never had a bad reaction to it when Ilya would partake in hair pulling, even if far milder, back when they were still kids and weren’t officially together yet.

Shane uses a hand to work the base of Ilya’s dick as he begins to bob his head up and down. Ilya is long, so it’s a task. The tip of his husband’s dick becomes a normal feeling in his throat rather quickly, even if the tears that’d formed in his eyes finally spill over and streak hotly down his cheeks. Another moan of sorts slips free, a low rumble in his throat as he pulls almost all the way off and then back down until his nose is poking into Ilya’s pubic hair.

“That’s it, baby, that’s so good, you’re always so good for me, no one sucks cock like you, sweetheart, you’re amazing, Shanyechka,” Ilya says, a steady stream of praise and possessiveness that makes Shane feel slightly light-headed. “Your poor cock is so hard, sweetheart, is all red, bouncing around in your lap like that.”

Shane hums, eyelashes fluttering. Ilya’s eyes track the movement, noticing the tear tracks streaking down his husband’s face, and swears again, harshly this time, careful not to clench the fingers he has resting in Shane’s hair. “You cry for me so beautifully, moy khoroshiy mal'chik, so sweet, so pretty with your lips around my cock like this, Shanya,” Ilya rambles, losing his edge a bit. My good boy. “I’m close, baby, I’m close.”

It seems like Shane doesn’t heed the warning at first, continuing at the same quick but manageable pace for a few moments. Then he speeds up, so much so that Ilya has to clench his free hand in the blanket beneath it to hold off his orgasm. Shane doesn’t let up, though, and Ilya is so sure that he’s going to keep going until Ilya comes straight down his throat.

Ilya chokes out one finally warning and Shane continues for a split second more before he’s pulling off completely and using his hand to jerk him until he’s finishing on, fuck sake, finishing all over Shane’s face with a cry he just barely manages to temper the volume on. Shane grabs his own dick with his free hand and it takes one stroke, two, three—and he’s coming, as well, explosively and all over his own lap and so hard he momentarily sees stars.

He collapses like a puppet whose strings have been cut once his brain starts to come back online, slumping forward so that his temple is resting against the inside of Ilya’s knee. He’s safely cradled when they’re situated like this with the Russian’s legs bracketing him just so.

Ilya also begins to surface around the time Shane does. His hand finds Shane’s hair again, slightly out of breath and a little in awe.

“So good, baby, such a good boy,” Ilya murmurs, stroking his husband’s hair reverently. “Always finding new ways to surprise me, moy milyy mal'chik, tu es magnifique, solnyshko.” My sweet boy, you are magnificent, sunshine. 

They’ll need to get up soon, sooner rather than later, really, considering Shane still has Ilya’s come splattered on his face as well as his own come all over his legs, but for now, they enjoy the moment together as they float all the way back up to the surface. Shane makes soft noises against his leg, his cheek grinding slightly into the fabric of Ilya’s pants, and, well, the stains it’ll leave in them are a small price to pay for the privilege of having his sweet boy, so content and soft he’s practically purring, curled up against him.

Chapter Text

April 2022, Pt. 5                                                                                    

ESPN airs a clip of the Centaurs and Voyageurs in the box during game three’s live broadcast. It’s a seemingly light-hearted video without any audio that they show during a stoppage in play. It begins with a bit of Shane and his teammates speaking before they all erupt into fits of laughter, then cuts to a view of the Voyageurs players in the other penalty box staring and looking bewildered and mildly disturbed.

The commentators laugh about it and wonder what the two teams must’ve been talking about. What the rest of the general public doesn’t realize is that the audio of that fun moment was omitted for a specific reason.

There are all sorts of regulations, agreements, and CBA clauses that control what is and isn’t broadcasted live or even used after the fact. That conversation in the box, the one that highly implied what Drapeau had said was homophobic and that two famously queer NHL players were resigned to the fact that the NHL disciplining players for that type of behavior is a laughable idea. Shane would be more surprised if ESPN had chosen to air the video clip with the audio attached. It’s not a secret that the penalty boxes are always rigged with mics and camera, nor is it a secret that no matter what, it’s the NHL who always gets the last word on what the public can and can’t see in the end.

What the NHL doesn’t have control over, however, is teenage girls with cellphones who are just so excited to be sitting in the first row right behind the Centaurs penalty box! An Ottawa fan tweets a video of the game in play on the ice beyond the box. The video occasionally captures the image of the Centaurs in the box themselves. It’s uploaded with a caption about being unable to believe what she’d managed to record with her phone.

Sierra Quinn @s.quinn.2481

soo uhhh I got the most insane clip at the Centaurs game tonight??? literally what the fuck is wrong with the NHL

[video taken from the first row of seats behind the Centaurs penalty box, angled so it’s recording the play on the ice but also captures a few moments of the Ottawa players speaking and laughing. The audio comes in and out and some of what is said is completely indistinguishable.]

The audio certainly isn’t perfect, if anything it actually helps Shane and the rest of the Centaurs out. The joking bits about Shane being homicidal and that Olsson was spared from his ire only because it’s the playoffs are luckily too muffled by arena and crowd noise to make out. What is said about the NHL, the refs, and the NHL’s Department of Player Safety, though the audio comes in and out as it’s chopped up by background noise, definitely gets the point across about what was said.

It goes semi-viral and then it’s everywhere once someone sits down and edits colored-coded captions of the audible parts onto the video.

So, the internet explodes as the Centaurs teammates’ sentiments about the NHL’s poor response to homophobia comes to light, especially following the light-hearted video clip ESPN had aired during the game.

Troy Barrett: “I can’t believe they actually called it, the unsportsmanlike.”

Teddy LaPointe: “Yeah, hey, so can anyone clue……….why the fuck….went feral on them?”

Shane Hollander: “Drapeau said……about Ilya’s family……didn’t…uh, mince words…….guess the ref………actually called it.”

Jakub Cernak: “……I’ll be damned.”

Troy Barrett: [inaudible]

Shane Hollander: “……lucky this…………playoffs.”

Troy Barrett: “…great……………look at what they did now, he’s………”

Shane Hollander: “You heard……said……would it be…………………about Harris?”

Troy Barrett: “Absolutely not.”

Shane Hollander: [inaudible]

[all of them laugh]

Troy Barrett: “…….gonna be a hearing?”

Shane Hollander: “if a mic caught it, yeah, maybe……………….only reason………was called.”

Troy Barrett: “....if it wasn’t a mic?”

Shane Hollander: “Yeah, probably not, no……I don’t see…………………on the line to Player Safety over something like this.”

Troy Barrett: “I wish………know you’re right.”

Shane Hollander: “Me too, man.”

Shane and Ilya wake up to it in their hotel room the morning after the game. The team group chat is awake and thrumming with news when Shane swipes to it. He has three unread texts from Hayden, two from J.J., and a missed call and matching voicemail from both his mother and Farah.

“Jesus christ, you’d think we did something wrong by the way everyone’s freaking out,” Shane says, rolling his eyes even though the sight of all of those notifications is kind of overwhelming. Stress begins to slowly creep in, or more accurately fades in from where it’s been humming along in the background all this time.

“It will be okay, you guys didn’t say anything wrong,” Ilya replies. He’s sitting up in bed, shirtless and with his phone in his hand. Shane mirrors him on his right.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, Ilya,” Shane curses, sighing as he slump back against his pillow.

“No, Shane,” Ilya replies, shaking his head. “Why are you sorry? Is this a ‘oh no, I am Shane Hollander, Canada’s sweetheart, how could I dare to step an inch out of line by telling my teammates about it’ thing or a ‘oh no, Drapeau is a bastard but maybe I shouldn’t have beat the fuck out of Olsson in very hot, very sex defense of my lovely, amazing husband?”

“You’re really not mad?” Shane says, fully turning his head to look at Ilya head on. His voice isn’t the tiny, weak little thing it becomes sometimes when Shane is well and truly distraught, much to Ilya’s relief. So Shane mentioned that Drapeau had said something about his family? That’s hardly a big deal. Ilya has beaten the fuck out of plenty of assholes on Shane’s behalf for less, had been doing so secretly before they were even officially together.

“No, Shanyechka, I’m not mad,” Ilya says patiently. “I am sure commissioner will have an issue with it, will probably be asked by media, but fuck them and fuck the league, you didn’t do anything wrong. Am mostly wondering what Drapeau said to be honest, solnyshko. See you fight like that? So very impressive and hot, yes, but does not happen often.”

Shane grimaces, which he’s sure Ilya catches. He groans slightly and then roll onto his side towards Ilya, pressing his face into his husband’s chest after the Russian man in question raises his arm to accommodate him.

“He chirped about me being married to you, and then something about your mom,” Shane says, hushed.

Ilya pouts, he can’t help it. “You’re not gonna tell me what he actually said?”

“Normally I would, but…” Shane sighs and rolls back slightly so he can look up and meet his husband’s gaze. “It’s not something you need to have in your head, it’s bullshit. We protect each other with our fists, yeah, but you filter the things said about me to you before you tell me a condensed version if it’s bad enough, right? It’s like that, okay?”

Multiple emotions flicker through Ilya’s eyes. Surprise, something soft, pain, something like pride, then a soft kind of resignation, like recognizing that they are one and the same when it comes to spinning their wheels over something if it hits home too hard.

Shane knows that the Voyageurs have said some vile things to Ilya ever since they were outed as a couple. Shane also knows that plenty of players since then have said similarly horrible things to him about Ilya. Some things just don’t need to make a home in someone’s mind. Shane doesn’t think giving the idea that someone would say something as awful as implying Irina Rozanov killed herself to get away from her son because he’s bisexual a chance to take root is worth telling Ilya what exactly Drapeau had said. Shane knows Ilya will do the same for him when things about Kent comes out, and he’s grateful.

Tara Ellison @taracentuars8124

what the fuck did Olsson and Stedlund say???😭 those fights came out of nowhere?!?!??

Jude @PuckFollower23

No seriously because why did Shane and Troy just look at each other nod and immediately start throwing hands???

Sam Diaz @bostonb4ars1

I think Drapeau said something? Look at the clip, Hollander’s looking at Drapeau first before he turns and finds Olsson

Centaurs Laura @censhollan0v8124

Did Shane and Troy beat their assess over something DRAPEAU said??? 😂😂💀

Patty @MTLtoOTT24

honestly living for the idea of them just grabbing the nearest Voyageur and fucking their shit up on Drap’s behalf 😂😂😂

Dennis Wright @dennis.7.1.

yoooo Drap said something about Roz’s mom??? what the fuck???

Dani S. @shanesleftleg

seriously what a fucking asshole

Freddy Lancaster @bostonfreddylolgayyy

never liked him, guy’s a fucking prick and he sucks anyways

Tanya Grace @tanyaGR2481

fr like ur really gonna chirp like that with a deadass .889% SV?? ok bud

Shane Hollander’s 83rd Freckle @theyarelikestarsilyasaid

I think I’ll say what we’re all thinking…we want P*tr*ce D*a*pe*au’s head on a stick, right?

            Deliah @fuckthevoyageurs00244

            how bout a Pike???

                        Centaurs Laura @censhollan0v8124

                        😂😂💀💀💀

Kai W. @ilyarozanovsloontattoo

I’m still stuck on the part about NHL DoPS

I Was Right @hollanovtruther25

Like the fact that they’re all just so resigned about it?? ‘oh I know Drapeau said something fucking HEINOUS but it’s not like the NHL will ever do anything about it 🤷‍♀️’ what????

            Cam @itscamhockey18

            this part

There is, of course, plenty of people who think that the public outrage after all of this is either ridiculously overdramatic or outright wrong. There always is, Shane muses.

Lauren S. @lauryauryaury_0015

Drapeau didn’t do anything wrong, chirping is part of hockey, especially in the playoffs. People are so fucking soft these days 🙄🙄🙄

            Censssssss @idontshutupaboutthecensoops93

            Seriously, like, we don’t even know what he said

            Blair Jacobs @bosilyamtlshane21_84

            I’m pretty sure anyone with a braincell can piece together why it was wrong, but then again u Guardians fans don’t really have many of those to spare           

But most of it, overall, is either shock or appalment. Shane isn’t super surprised, to be honest. There are certain things that are, as part of the unspoken sort of ‘code’ NHL players follow, off limits as far as chirps on the ice are concerned, and players’ families, especially their dead parents, is basically the first thing on the list. The hockey community is still pretty divided on the homophobia issue, sure, but family is something pretty much everyone is on board with.

The discussion that it sparks about the NHL’s Department of Player Safety is a lot more nuanced, however. There’s a great deal of people who think that it’s ridiculous Drapeau go before DoPS over something as trivial as a verbal chirp about Ilya’s mother.

There are still plenty of people smart enough to look a little closer who have noticed a bunch of different puzzle pieces and put them together to form the full picture, however: Drapeau said something about Ilya’s mother, when Troy asked Shane had compared it to the goalie saying something about Harris’s mother, Harris is Troy’s boyfriend, Ilya is Shane’s husband, and Shane thinks that what Drapeau said is not only bad enough to be deemed ‘unsportsmanlike conduct’ but also to potentially face Player Safety over it. Players rarely go before the DoPS over trash-talk that’s considered outside of the ‘player code,’ but the few players stupid enough to get caught saying slurs on microphone certainly do. Considering queerness is the common denominator in all of this, it’s not exactly an unlikely conclusion to draw that Drapeau had said something homophobic.

Ilya’s Curls @voyageursareapovertyfranchise24

Patrice Drapeau is a homophobic dirt bag that belongs in the ECHL, send tweet

Molly W. @heyitsmol.2002

What do Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Troy Barrett, and Harris Drover have in common? Queer™

Brandon Clark Hockey Player @brandclark_hockeyplayer

Seriously, people, let’s all use our brain for a second. Hollander literally gets his ass beat every game against MTL but barely even looks at the refs, he doesn’t exactly beg for penalties

Kendra S. @phillyfalcscawcaw

Legit like why are people on here acting like Hollander whines to refs like crybaby Sinclair?? Comeau literally almost put him through the GLASS and Hollzy waved the refs off. Whatever Drap said must’ve been badddd

For a while, the NHL says nothing. Teams continue posting from their social media pages as usual. The NHL pages are completely silent until around 7 a.m. when the DoPS finally drops a statement.

NHL Player Safety ✔ @NHLPlayerSafety                                 

We are aware of a video circulating of a conversation between four Ottawa Centaurs players while in the penalty box during their last game against the Montreal Voyageurs. We would like to formally reaffirm that NHL Player Safety takes the physical and emotional wellbeing of our players very seriously and that we will be investigating the issue.

          Nick Ott @Nicolette168134

          “investigating the issue” yeah ok 🙄

That’s the tweet that gets Yuna Hollander on the phone with Shane at 7:15 in the morning after a grueling playoff game. They have practice at 11 and instead of getting a few extra hours of sleep in bed with his beautiful husband, Shane is on the phone with his mother trying to talk her off the ledge.

Shane’s mom had gotten a little more overbearing when it came to his career after he and Ilya were outed rather than less. She’d immediately been bothering him about interviews, publicity events, and sponsorships within the first few weeks following them releasing their statement about being together. Shane had pulled back on how many sponsorships that involved photoshoots he wanted to do rather than allow her to sign him onto more. They’d gotten into some fights over it, never anything that actually lasted long or were very serious to begin with, but eventually Yuna had realized that she’d gotten a little crazy about it and relaxed a bit. It’s this and the giant ‘Dallas Kent’ issue hanging over Shane’s head that has also had him pulling back on how often he talks on the phone with them or how often he sees them.

Ilya has brought up the idea of Shane talking to his parents about what had happened with Kent, if not for Shane’s wellbeing then for the sheer purpose of being prepared for the inevitable fallout, but Shane has held firm that he’s not ready yet. Really Shane is hoping he never has to tell his parents, but he knows deep down that his husband is right. The news about what happened should definitely really come from Shane rather than his parents finding out from the news, but he’s just so embarrassed and ashamed and afraid.

“What was it that Drapeau said, Shane?” Yuna asks. The phone is on speaker and positioned on the bed between him and Ilya.

Shane grimaces. “What exactly it was doesn’t matter, mom. But he used the f-slur and talked about Ilya’s mom, okay?”

“Do you think there’s a chance it was caught on a mic somehow?”

“I think if there was that it would be out there by now,” Shane replies honestly.

“No, yeah, you’re right, it would,” Yuna says distractedly. “What kind of statement do you want to release?”

“I don’t.”

Yuna pauses, finally. She’d been going back and forth with Shane rapid fire for a while at this point, much to Shane’s exhaustion. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I don’t think I need to release one, I think everything speaks for itself. I don’t want to outright say ‘this is why I did this’ because I just don’t think Drapeau deserves any more attention than he already has.” Shane looks up as he speaks from where he’s been staring, slightly blank, at the phone where it’s resting on the bed. Ilya is looking at him, mild surprise and also something like pride on his face.

“Oh, honey, I don’t think…” Yuna begins.

“I think is good idea,” Ilya says before she can finish the thought. “Don’t think Shane wants to seem like he’s…pushing for discipline?”

Shane nods. “Yeah, I don’t. Mom, making a big deal about stuff like this always make stuff on the ice worse, you know. If this wasn’t the playoffs, maybe, but we still gotta play them tomorrow.”

“Shane, this is a big deal, I really think you should at least say something, especially with the Player Safety department involved now.”

“Maybe DoPS will finally do their jobs for once,” Shane says instead. “I didn’t even say anything that bad, it’s pretty vague, the bits that really made the NHL look bad were covered by crowd noise.”

“But it implies—” Yuna begins.

“It implies exactly what it was about, just like the fight implies what Drapeau said to cause it.”

Farah finally cuts in. “Yuna, I don’t think they need a statement. It may not be what we usually do, but Shane’s right. Everything that happened speaks for itself. The major public reaction is positive. A statement would draw more attention, and if Shane would prefer to focus on the playoffs, then that’s what we should do.”

Yuna doesn’t realize it, but this is kind of like an audition for how it’s going to go when it comes out what Kent did. Farah knows, at least ‘hypothetically,’ and Shane knows the woman likely has dozens of pre-made statements written and ready to go for every scenario she’s thought of since Shane had told her. Shane is, without really meaning to, gauging just how willing his mom is to support Shane’s decisions as far as PR is concerned. If she can’t even let an issue as minor as this situation with Drapeau go, how will she react to the way Dallas Kent came into Shane’s life and wrecked it so thoroughly?

He doesn’t have a lot of faith, and it frustrates him sometimes and makes him sad others. Shane had never really been super interested in all the brand deals and sponsorships she immediately had him doing the second he was officially in the NHL. He’d gone along with it because he’d figured what was the harm in earning some money and setting it aside in stocks and other things? The NHL isn’t forever, no matter how much many players in the league wish it were. Everyone retires eventually, and there’s no way of knowing when that day will be. Any game could be your very last game, and making sure you’re set financially is never a bad idea.

Shane thinks he is thoroughly set in the finances department at this point in his career. His PR is more about his quality of life these days because that’s also what he’s focusing on now. He’d outlined his reasons for pulling back from all the media stuff when he’d told his mom pretty well: he wants to focus on hockey, Ilya, and his friends, to focus on being happy and nothing else. Shane thinks that’s the main reason Yuna had acquiesced as easily as she had, the happiness factor. It’d taken them finding out Shane was gay and had been involved with Ilya for years in secret for his parents to realize that he’d never truly been super happy, not really. He’d been content at certain points, sure, but the inner turmoil over his sexuality, the anguish over wanting to be with the love of his life but being unable to because of laws and politics and optics, all of that had definitely affected his mood quite a bit. Now, that’s not to mention Kent and the PTSD that had unfortunately translated onto the ice, but still.

Shane has thought of the way he’d prefer to handle the potential media storm that would follow him being revealed as one of Kent’s victims. He hasn’t decided anything because it’s all up in the air, obviously, but a few things have stuck out. He doesn’t want it to be some big thing, just a simple statement confirming whatever had come out, requesting privacy regarding it, re-emphasizing he wants to focus on hockey and his family. Basically, he wants something equivalent to ‘yeah, it happened, yes, it sucks, but I’d prefer if everyone forgot about it so that I don’t die from shame and embarrassment. Let’s get back to the hockey and the cute #Hollanov content, please?’. Maybe somewhere down the line it could be something like, ‘yeah, it happened, yes, it sucked, but look at how badass I was getting through it?’.

When the Kent trial had moved forward, Shane had thought about the videos Lemaire and Forster had taken during that summer in 2014. He’s always thought that evidence like that, evidence that Shane Hollander, Canadian prince and golden boy, the man who would play hockey forever if he could, had been so affected by what Kent had done to him that he almost didn’t come back from it and had had to relearn how to play four years into his professional career, that would be the kind of thing that’d convince a lot of the nonbelievers that Kent had really truly actually done what he did.

“Well, if that’s how you guys wanna do it, then I suppose that works,” Yuna says. Shane lets out a breath of relief, his eyes sliding shut briefly.

“Yeah, it is,” he says, nodding his head even though she can’t see him.

“But don’t go liking things on Twitter all willy nilly!” Farah cuts in.

Shane opens his eyes and fixes a pointed look on Ilya, who gasps in faux shock because, yeah, Farah is more talking to Ilya than Shane with that plea. “Who? Me? I’d never,” Ilya says.

“I’m serious, Rozanov,” Farah says, unimpressed. Shane snorts. He’s always liked Farah.

“Not even one?” Ilya says, frowning dramatically. “Just a little one?”

“…are you serious right now, Ilya?”

Shane laughs.

“How about if I find something I’m okay with, he can like it,” Shane suggests before Ilya gets the chance to argue further.

“Since when do you want to do anything involved with social media, Shane?” Farah says, unable to hide the surprise in her voice.

She’s right to be surprised. Just like those brand deals and sponsorships, Shane has never been particularly interested or comfortable with social media, either. He scrolls through Instagram and Twitter more often now than he ever did when he was younger. Part of that is because of him and Ilya. He likes finding the cute things fans notice about them, enjoys finding and saving photos taken of them together, especially the ones taken before they’d been outed. He and Ilya have so few tangible things from those earlier years, and even though the silly things captured or saved by fans from before it was confirmed they’re together are just of them as rivals, they still make him smile.

This past season he’s been scrolling even more than after they were outed, and that’s because of Kent. He wants to know what he’ll be dealing with once it comes out, what kind of fanbase they’ve built, what their ‘haters’ think, what social commentators have to say. He tries not to seek out news about the trial very often because it only ever stresses him out. Ilya had set up Goggle alerts once he found out what had happened, alerts that only go to his phone so he can be prepared and Shane doesn’t need to worry about it anymore than he already does.

Lately, though, he’s been enjoying those fans accounts about his and Ilya’s relationship. Some of it is a little nuts, but a lot of it is just pretty cute. He’d been surprised at first at the level of observational skills some people have, but none of it has been particularly bad. He thinks it has something to do with having to hide for so long; he likes when people show off that Ilya is Shane’s and vice versa.

“I’m not, really,” Shane says carefully, blushing slightly under Ilya’s own curious gaze. “Just see some of the stuff the guys send us, what people say about me and Ilya, and it’s, I don’t know, kind of fun, I guess. Liking a tweet is a lot less aggressive and official than putting out a statement, that’s for sure.”

“Well, if it’s something you’re okay with, then that should be fine, Shane,” Farah says after a moment. “Just nothing too crazy, okay? Because then we may really have to put out a statement, alright?”

“Okay, Farah, can do,” Shane agrees, eyes meeting Ilya’s as he continues, “and I’ll make sure I keep Rozanov on a short leash.”

Farah laughs. Yuna huffs out of her nose slightly in amusement. Ilya makes an affronted noise.

They hang up with Farah which leaves just Yuna on the line with the couple.

“Game four is tomorrow, me and your father were planning on coming to Montreal for it,” his mom says.

Shane had asked them for some space for at least the first round against Montreal. He’d said he needed to stay focused for it and that he probably wasn’t going to be very good company, anyway, and he hadn’t been lying. He’d honestly thought that his old teammates were going to be a lot worse than they’ve actually been. Regular season games are one thing, but the playoffs are where the animosity between players, especially rivals teams or players with history, shine the most. He knows that saying no to this request, considering it’s game four and whose favor it seems that game is going to go in, would seem pretty odd, so he concedes without a fight.

“Of course, mom. We probably won’t get to see you until after the game, and depending on what happens we might go out with the guys, though.”

“Oh, I figured, honey, your dad and I just wanna be there to cheer you guys on, you know that,” she says.

“I know, I know. Whose jersey are you gonna wear this time, mom?” Shane asks, his lips quirking.

“My favorite son’s of course,” she says matter-of-factly. “Ilya, you better score a lot of goals, honey.”

“Will not disappoint you, mama Hollander,” Ilya says seriously.

Shane laughs. They hang up with his mother shortly after.

They sit in a silence for a few moments simply staring at the phone before Ilya speaks. “So which tweet am I liking?” he asks.

“Jesus christ,” Shane says, rolling his eyes and turning to get out of bed. “You’re such a chaos monster.”

“Deserved chaos this time,” Ilya says in self-defense.

“Please don’t obsess over this,” Shane says, but it’s half-hearted because he already knows damn well that that’s exactly what Ilya is going to do whether Shane wants him to or not. Ilya may not go ahead and like it without his approval, but he’ll certainly look for the perfect tweet.

Harris pulls the pair of them aside the second they step into the locker room an hour later. Shane isn’t surprised. Him and Ilya follow behind the man to an empty spare office the Voyageurs have on the away team side of the arena, sharing playfully chastised look with each other the entire way. Troy, Teddy, and Jakub are already in the room when they arrive.

“Fancy seeing you here!” Troy exclaims, waving excitedly at Shane and Ilya.

“I waited ‘til all of you got here before putting anything out, but the team is going to have to put out some kind of statement about last night.”

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Shane says immediately. There’s standing room only with Barrett and Cernak already occupying the only two chairs in the room. He sees Ilya cross his arms over his chest in response to Harris’s words and mentally braces himself.

“No, I know you didn’t, the issue is about the DoPS thing,” Harris says, shaking his head.

“Issue—” Ilya begins, but Harris is already waving a hand to cut him off.

“I know it’s not an issue, but that’s how the NHL is treating it. The commissioner already called Wiebe to complain about it, so we need to put something out about it.”

“I think it speaks for itself,” Troy says, shrugging his shoulders.

Harris find Shane’s eyes with something pleading in his own. Shane shrugs as well, dashing the head of communications’ hopes of him offering any help with this particular situation. “What did your agent say about this, Shane?” he asks anyway.

“I told her the same thing Troy said, and she agreed that I don’t need to say anything if I don’t want to,” Shane replies.

Harris drops his head into his hands, a low groan rattling out of the man. Barrett and Ilya snort. Shane sighs. LaPointe looks mildly alarmed. Cernak just shakes his head with an amused smile on his face.

“Hollander, you’re supposed to be to level-headed one around here, c’mon man,” Harris practically whines.

Shane huffs out a laugh, rolling his eyes. “Sorry to disappoint, Harris. I don’t think it’s a good idea to give too much attention to it during the playoffs, especially when we still have to play them at least tomorrow. But I also just don’t think we owe anyone anything. Drap said something fucked up and all we did was react in a way that happened to be recorded, it’s not our problem that it made the NHL look bad.”

“My god, how did I become the voice of the reason around here?” Harris says, looking to the ceiling. “Okay, fine. I’ll draft something generic. Maybe this is a good thing, it’s easier if I don’t have to coordinate anything with your agents, after all.”

“Exactly, babe!” Troy chirps, popping to his feet and leaning across the desk to kiss the man’s cheek.

Harris blushes and starts to stammer. Everyone except the couple in question take that as their cue to leave and head back to the locker room to get ready for practice. They all enter to dramatic applause from the rest of their teammates. Shane shakes his head but is fighting a smile anyways as he makes his way to his stall.

“That’s right!” Barrett exclaims, throwing his arms up and nodding his head. “Shane Hollander and yours truly made every NHL exec shit their pants just with our words.”

“Rein it in, Barrett,” Shane calls, shaking his head as he takes his shoes off to start putting his gear on.

“Come on, Hollzy, he’s right!” Hayes says. “This is also the closest those fuckers in Montreal have gotten to finally being exposed for the assholes that they are.”

Ilya addresses Shane from across the room. “They are right, Hollander!” Shane looks over and meets his husband’s eyes. Something mischievous passes through those blue eyes and Shane simply stares. “I eto yeshcho i pizdets kak goryacho, lyubov' moya, obozhayu, kogda ty vedosh' sebya kak plokhoy paren'.” It’s also hot as fuck, my love, I love when you act like a bad boy like this.

Shane scowls but his cheeks heat pink as he does,

“Hey, doesn’t Hollzy’s voice sound kinda hoarse to you guys?” Barrett says, turning his attention onto Shane, as well. Shane’s mouth pops open slightly disbelief.

“Now that you say it, it kind of does,” Chouinard says, catching on to what Troy is really saying.

“Oh don’t you guys fucking start!” Shane says, exasperated. “You guys forget how easy it’d be for me to make your regret it.”

“Yeah, okay, Hollzy, what’re you gonna do, sic your Russian guard dog on us?” Dykstra says, rolling his eyes.

Shane narrows his eyes. Then a tiny smile forms on his face. Ilya stares, clocking the shift in Shane’s demeanor. He should probably cut in before his husband says whatever devious little thing he’s about to, but he’s too entranced by the look on Shane’s face, the way the smile has shifted into something like a smirk.

“Okay, so what you’re saying is you want me to go on and on about how my throat’s a little sore because of just how huge Rozanov’s big di—”

“Alright, Hollander, point made!” Barrett exclaims, looking slightly horrified.

“Yeah, okay, we get it Hollzy, you’re right!” Hayes says quickly in agreement.

“Jesus christ, we’ve created a monster,” Bood says distantly, shaking his head.

“Everyone wants to chirp until you finally say the quiet part out loud,” Shane mutters to himself, finally changed into his base layers. “Comment puis-je oser vouloir me vanter de la taille de la bite de mon mari quand tout le monde parle à quel point ma voix est foutue parce que d'il? C’est évidemment moi qui ai tort ici, sans aucun doute.” How dare I want to brag about how big my husband’s dick is when everyone’s talking shit about how fucked up my voice is because of it, I’m obviously the one in the wrong here, definitely.

Chouinard and LaPointe overhear and nearly fall over laughing.

“Sporyu, oni by dvazhdy podumali, prezhde chem podkalyvat' menya, yesli by ya rasskazala im, kak chasto stoyu pered toboy na kolenyakh i chto delayu eto lish' potomu, chto prosto obozhayu davit'sya tvoim chlenom,” Shane continues, a slight bickering tone to his voice as he bitches specifically to Ilya considering nobody else in their locker room knows Russian. Bet they’d think twice about chirping me if I told them how often I’m on my knees for you and that it’s because of how much I love gagging on your dick.

“Shanya,” Ilya says, exasperated and slightly strangled.

“Quoi?” Shane says, switching to French. What? He makes sure to speak slowly enough that Ilya can follow along. “Tu as le droit de t'amuser à dire des trucs insensés, et pas moi?” You can have fun saying insane stuff and I can’t?

Ilya turns to Barrett who’s located in the stall directly to his left. “Shane is secretly a menace to society,” he says very seriously.

“Why, what did he say?” Troy says immediately, leaning towards him with his demands for answers.

Ilya shakes his head. “He said it in Russian on purpose, you’d have to ask him yourself, Barrett.”

Barrett doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Are you…are you saying that he says unhinged shit in Russian all the time, the rest of us just don’t know it?”

Ilya smiles to himself but says nothing.

Chapter Text

April 2022, Pt. 6

Shane walks into the building for game four against Montreal feeling just as confident as he had when he had walked into Ottawa’s own arena for game one of the series. The feeling doesn’t waver even when Montreal strikes first with a goal from Comeau. He answers that asshole’s goal with one of his own barely thirty seconds later and celebrates as obnoxiously about it as possible.

They start the second period still tied 1-1. It’s still scoreless midway through and it sets Shane on edge. He decides to try something he’s not entirely sure will work, something that comes to him suddenly when he finds himself seated next to his husband on the bench. Shane waits until he knows Wiebe is about to send Ilya’s line out onto the ice to speak.

“Ilya,” he says, quiet enough that it’s almost drowned out by the noise of the game and the crowd. Ilya looks over immediately anyways, cocking his head inquisitively. Shane’s voice drops slightly in pitch of seemingly its own accord when he continues. “Idi i zabey mne gol.” Go get me a goal.

He sees it land, sees the way Ilya’s gaze goes a little molten for a moment. Then his jaw sets and he nods once, firmly. Wiebe calls out for Ilya’s line to take the next change with the exact timing Shane had predicted.

“I will get,” Ilya says before hoisting himself over the boards and onto the ice.

“What the fuck did you just say to him?” LaPointe asks from his left, slightly incredulous but mainly just mystified.

“Hm?” Shane hums in response, but there’s a smug smile playing on his lips because he knows exactly why his winger asked. The look on Ilya’s face when he’d spoken to Shane right before getting onto the ice, the predatory confidence and determination, it only makes sense that it’d been noticeable to more than just him.

“Don’t you ‘hm’ me all innocent,” Teddy says, unimpressed. “We all saw the look on Roz’s face just now, so what did you say?”

Shane full on grins now, his eyes turning back to the ice to focus on the play unfolding before him. Ilya is moving with a lethal precision and quickness that has Montreal practically tripping over themselves to keep up.

“Je lui ai dit d'aller me chercher un but,” Shane says, nonchalant and like it’s no big deal. I told him to go get me a goal.

“That’s it?” LaPointe says in clear disbelief.

“You underestimate Hollzy’s pull, man,” Tanner Dillon says, scooting closer to his linemates on the bench. “Those two are so in love they’re sick with it.”

Shane’s watches the Ilya Rozanov magic unfold on the ice in real time. A pass to Barrett, back to him, to Barrett, and then, so fast Shane almost misses it, Ilya snaps the puck into the back of the net, blocker side. Shane jumps to his feet in celebration alongside the rest of the players on the bench with him.

Ilya’s line does their bench roll of fist bumps. Shane is at the end so he’s not holding anyone up when he grabs a fistful of Ilya’s jersey and yanks him in close enough that their visors clack against each other.

“Eto moy grobanyy muzh,” Shane says, grinning viciously. That is my fucking husband. Ilya’s eyes blaze. Shane releases him a moment later, gesturing him to where players are beginning to drift towards center ice for the next face-off.

“Suck his dick about it, why don’t you?” Wilson mutters as he skates by for a line change.

“Oh, I intend to, Grant!” Shane calls back. “What, do you want to watch or something? Sounds kinda gay!”

Wilson turns on a dime, visibly furious as he makes to skate back towards Shane. A ref intervenes and rather firmly redirects the Voyageurs player back to his own bench. Shane is almost disappointed by it; a powerplay resulting from him just running his mouth at the right player is always a good time.

“You’re a menace, holy shit,” Dillons says distantly. “How does nobody ever realize this?”

Shane shrugs. “Nobody ever looks for it.”

Hayden Pike scores late in the period to tie it up again. He hardly celebrates with his team, but the principle of it is enough to make Shane grind his teeth slightly.

They’re tied 2-2 going into the second intermission.

“I don’t even need to say anything,” Shane says once the Centaurs are all back in the locker room. “I’m not worried. We all know what we came here to do tonight.”

“I agree with my husband,” Ilya says from beside him. “Use intermission to hydrate, rest, get your head on straight.”

They stand there at the front of the room and wait a bit for the team around them to settle into their normal level of locker room chatter.

“Eto bylo tak goryacho, Ilyusha,” Shane says lowly. That was so hot, Ilyusha. “Ty vyglyadel tak goryacho, bozhe moy!” You looked so hot, my god.

“Mm, ty vyglyadel tak goryacho, kogda prikazal mne eto sdelat', solnyshko, — ya by vypolnila vso, o chom by ty menya ni poprosil,” Ilya replies, turning and catching Shane’s burning gaze. You looked so hot when you ordered me to do it, solnyshko, I would’ve done anything you asked of me.

“Chto-libo, huh?” Shane replies. Anything, huh?

“Da,” Ilya says, far too seriously. Shane shamelessly files that information away for later.

Montreal is gracious enough to gift the Centaurs a powerplay early in the third period when Gagnon cross-checks Shane after the whistle out of frustration. Shane hammers a pass to Barrett through traffic and Troy makes sure that the puck ends up in the back of the net.

The Voyageurs start to play more aggressively as the period winds down and the Centaurs stubbornly keep the score at 3-2. They start more fights after whistles and start throwing hits left and right that are just far enough on the side of legal that the refs don’t call them. Shane bears the brunt of a lot of that but he pops up back onto his feet each time. The brutality begins to wear on his body but he refuses to give his ex-teammates the satisfaction of allowing it to keep him down. He’s going to be bruised black and blue, he’s sure, but the win will be more than worth it.

Shane is on the ice when the time on the clock runs out and the Centaurs officially kick the Voyageurs out of the playoffs in a four game sweep. He tips his head back when the final buzzers sounds, relieved and ecstatic and satisfied.

He hangs to the back with the rest of the leadership players, so just Bood and Ilya, really, when everyone comes together for the handshake line. Shane mutters the expected ‘good game’ to every Voyageurs player just like he’s supposed to, and said Montreal players respond with similar levels of enthusiasm. Hayden hugs him and thumps him on the back when Shane reaches him and J.J. offers him an awkward smile. Comeau looks at him like Shane is dirt under his shoe. Wilson barely manages to fight the disgusted look off his face when he and Shane shake hands. Fuck them.

Ottawa goes out to a bar after the game just like Shane had warned his parents they would. Shane suggests the bar he and the Voyageurs always used to go to back when he still played in Montreal with a glimmer in his eyes.

Ilya overhears Shane suggest it as they’re all making their way out of the hotel lobby together. He narrows his eyes at Shane, his eyes darkening slightly. Ilya, unlike the rest of their Ottawa teammates, is very much aware that this is the bar the Voyageurs frequent the most.

Shane knows that Ilya is aware that this bar is at least somewhat significant. What Ilya isn’t aware of, however, is that it also happens to be the one the team always goes to after playoff game losses in particular.  Shane would bet his left arm that the Voyageurs will be there, at least a good bit of them. The idea had sent a thrill through him that had him opening his mouth and making the suggestion in the first place. He’s riding the high of the playoff sweep of his former team, and he’s having some unhinged ideas.

Shane pulls Ilya to the side once they reach the bar.

“Podoydi syuda, mne nuzhno koye-chto s toboy obsudit',” Shane says, pulling his arm. Come here, I need to discuss something with you.

Ilya allows himself to be gently guided away from their teammates, gesturing for Shane to continue speaking with mild amusement on his face.

“YA znayu, chto eto dovol'no spontanno, i znayu, chto my obychno ne trakhayemsya, kogda p'yany, no ya predlagayu razygrat' zaraneye splanirovannuyu stsenu,” Shane forces out, slightly uncomfortable at how blunt he’s being. He has to be, though; being straight forward about this is the way they keep each other safe. I know this is kind of last minute, and I know we do not really fuck if we are drunk now, but this is me proposing a pre-planned scene.

Ilya’s eyebrows soar upwards momentarily. Something heated flickers through his eyes for a moment before he focuses.

“J'écoute,” Ilya says in French, gesturing for Shane to continue with a hand. I am listening.

“YA khochu sdelat' tebe minet v vannoy, pri zapertoy dveri kabinki, ty mozhesh' prizhat' moyu ruku k svoyey grudi, szhat' dvazhdy, yesli komu-to iz nas nuzhno ostanovit'sya,” Shane lists, doing his best to maintain a straight face. I want to blow you in the bathroom, with the stall door locked. You can hold my hand against your chest like we do all the time, squeeze twice if either of us needs to stop. “YA mogu poprosit' tebya trakhnut' menya v rot, eto normal'no, tol'ko ne tyani menya za volosy i ne ispol'zuy ikh, chtoby trakhnut' menya. A potom, hm, mozhet byt', ty smozhesh' menya podrochit’. Ili otsosesh' mne? Vam reshat'.” I may ask you to fuck my mouth, that is okay, just don’t pull my hair or use to fuck me. And then, hm, maybe jerk me off? Or blow me? Up to you.

Ilya eyes him. Shane can already see the man’s inner gears working. “Ty kakoye-to vremya dumayesh' ob etom?” he asks, tilting his head to the side. Have you been thinking about this for a while?

Shane’s cheeks pink. “Da, mozhet byt'. I chto?” Shane grouches, rolling his eyes. Yeah, maybe, so what? “Ty poka so mnoy ili net?” Are you with me so far or not?

“YA s toboy, da,” Ilya agrees. I’m with you, yes. “A chto, yesli kto-nibud' voydot?” What if someone comes in?

“My pol'zuyemsya samoy dal'ney kabinkoy v ​​tualete. Veroyatno, ya ostanovlyus', ya yesli kto-nibud' voydet, vozmozhno, prosto podozhdu, i eto normal'no: pri zhelanii ty mozhesh' proverit', kak ya tam, a mozhet byt', i prodolzhu, i yesli ya eto sdelayu, to lish' potomu, chto sam etogo zakhochu.” We use bathroom stall most far in. I will probably stop if someone comes in, and I might just wait, which is fine, you can check on me if you want, or I might start up again, and if I do is because I want to.

“Khorosho, zvuchit neplokho,” Ilya says, nodding. Okay, that sounds good. “A kak naschot alkogolya?” And how about the alcohol?

“Smysl ved' ne v tom, chtoby byt' p'yanymi, kogda my trakhayemsya; eto dolzhno byt' chem-to vrode togo, kak bylo, kogda my yeshcho byli det'mi, tol'ko v boleye otvetstvennom klyuche? YA by vypil vsego tri portsii i podozhdal polchasa, chtoby k momentu, kogda my pereydom k delu, ya byl uzhe lish' slegka navesele,” Shane explains, being as clear as possible because this a part that really matters. To be drunk when we fuck is not the point, is supposed to be kind of like when we were still kids? But in more responsible way? I would only have three drinks, wait half hour so am barely still drunk by time we do it. “I, nu, ty zhe znayesh' svoyu normu, ya uveren, tebe ponadobitsya... khm, pyat' ili shest'? Da, imenno stol'ko, chtoby byt' uzhe pochti p'yanym, no ne sovsem uzh vdryzg, ved' ya znayu, chto ty mozhesh' nachat' perezhivat'.” And, well, you know your tolerance, am sure it would take you, hm, five or six? Da, that many for you to be almost drunk but not all the way, because I know you worry.

A soft smile forms on Ilya’s lips despite the way this conversation is making him feel warm under the collar of his button-up shirt. Shane really had thought of every factor in this hypothetical scenario. He must really want it, to workshop it so aggressively. But, then again, this is also the same man who did something similar to get Ilya to fuck him in this same bathroom not too long ago.

“Yesli cherez tridtsat' minut ty vso yeshcho budesh' v stel'ku p'yan, ya vso otmenyayu, po krayney mere, do tekh por, poka ty dostatochno ne protrezveyesh',” Ilya says seriously, drawing a line Shane knew he would. If you are still super drunk after thirty minutes I am calling it off, at least until you sober up enough.

“Bien sûr,” Shane says easily. Of course. “Duh.” He adds.

Ilya eyes him for a moment. Shane’s face is relaxed and determined and…there’s a spark of something very Ilya-Rozanov-like dancing in his eyes, mischief, maybe.

“Hm, okay. A kak naschot gipoteticheskogo stsenariya, kogda kakoy-nibud' nekrasivyy igrok iz Voyageurs nablyudayet, kak my vmeste vykhodim iz tualetnoy kabinki, a tvoi krasivyye guby takiye rozovyye i opukhshiye?” How about hypothetical scenario where some ugly Voyageurs player watches us walk out of a stall together, with your pretty lips all pink and swollen?

“YA ulybayus' i govoryu ‘privet,’” Shane says sweetly. Ilya rolls his eyes. I smile and say ‘hi.’ “Ili, mozhet byt', ya lyapnu chto-nibud' nastol'ko bezumnoye, chto tebe pridotsya vyvolakivat' menya ottuda, poka ya ne stal geroyem ocherednoy vetki v Tvittere o ‘how much cunt I serve’ snova.” Or maybe I’ll blurt out something so insane that you’ll have to drag me out of there before I become the subject of yet another Twitter thread about ‘how much cunt I serve’ again.

Ilya barks out a laugh before stepping forward and placing a hand on Shane’s waist.

“Okay,” Ilya says. “We can do.”

Shane eyes glint with that same expression as before. He leans forwards and presses a quick kiss to Ilya’s lips before turning and leading them to the table where Bood and Barrett had saved them both seats.

“Oh, are you two finally done with your super-secret Hollanov meeting now?” Hayes drawls from his seat nearby.

“Mind your business, Hayes,” Ilya says, smiling sharply.

“Christ, what the fuck are the two of them planning?” Hayes mutters to himself, refocusing his attention to the drink menu in front of him.

Shane works through two drinks over the first ninety minutes of the night, laughing along with his teammates and sneaking glances at Ilya as the alcohol settles over him like a blanket. His finishes his third towards the end of the second hour and then switches to water. He’s definitely pretty drunk now, but he can tell he’s not too far gone and that he’ll only be tipsy right on schedule.

Ilya offers him a mozzarella stick and Shane accepts it without question. Eating will definitely help him sober up faster.

He taps Ilya on the thigh under the table once he’s finally feeling barely tipsy. Ilya looks over and meets his eyes, assessing whether Shane presents as sober as the Canadian is claiming he is. He’s satisfied by what he sees because he nods minutely and then begins scooting his way out of the booth. Shane follows close behind and they slip away without a word, the rest of their teammates engrossed in their own conversations.

Shane thinks they’ve gotten away entirely unnoticed until a voice stops them in their tracks out of earshot of the rest of the team. It’s Bood, who’s on his way back from the bathroom.

“And where the hell are you two sneaking off to looking suspicious as hell?” Bood quips, amused.

Ilya looks at Bood very seriously. “Bood, I cannot express this strongly enough,” Ilya begins, leaning towards Bood so his words are for Zane only. “Do not let any of the Centaurs go into the men’s bathroom until we are back.”

“Ilya,” Shane hisses.

“Holy shit,” Bood says in disbelief, barking out a laugh. “Yeah, okay, Rozy, I got you. You know what? Get it Hollander, you deserve it.”

Shane squeaks slightly, bashful and embarrassed, as Ilya steers him away towards their original destination, laughing as he does.

It’s a higher end bar, this place that the Voyageurs always used to go to, so there’s a row of stalls and sinks in the men’s bathroom when he and Ilya gets inside. Ilya kicks open the door to the one all the way at the end and Shane allows himself to be pulled inside right along with him. He throws the latch on the door to lock it and then plants his lips against Ilya’s immediately. They kiss filthily, hands raking up and down each other’s bodies like they want to tear each other’s clothes off.

“Okay,” Ilya says finally, pulling away just enough so he can speak. Get on your knees and let me stick my cock down your throat now, da?

Shane doesn’t need to be told twice. He sinks to his knees and sets to work unbuckling Ilya’s belt and undoing the button and zipper on his jeans, hands shaking slightly in anticipation. Ilya’s dick is already hard and Shane’s mouth practically waters at the sight of it. He pulls the waistband of Ilya’s underwear down until it’s tucked under his balls and then takes his husband’s length into his mouth without any further questions.

Ilya hisses above him. Shane’s hand slides up his front towards his chest and Ilya latches on it just like he said he would. Emboldened, Shane start sucking Ilya’s dick with just as much enthusiasm as he always does. Ilya pointedly doesn’t tighten the hand he has clasped in Shane’s knowing it’s their main safeword pathway right now.

Shane is enthusiastic, sure, but he’s also noticeably taking his time. Ilya stares down at him wide-eyed, mouth slightly open like he can’t quite believe what’s happening right now.

The door to the bathroom squeaks open. Shane freezes, Ilya’s dick fully seated in his throat. His eyes are watering and he’s doing his best not to gag. Footsteps, then someone unzipping their pants and the sound of piss hitting the urinal. Shane relaxes slightly and then swallows around the dick in his mouth, heat flooding through him when Ilya inhales sharply through his nose in response. Shane starts to bob his head again, pulling off his husband’s dick and then back down onto it in a way that definitely isn’t completely silent.

The person in the bathroom doesn’t pause, zipping their pants once they’re done and then washing their hands at the sink. Shane starts sucking Ilya again properly as the footsteps fade back towards the door to the bathroom.

Shane pulls off once the door squeaks back closed and they’re once again alone. Ilya’s head nearly explodes at the sight of the string of spit that connects his husband’s lips and his dick as he leans back.

“Vyyebi menya v litso, pozhaluysta,” Shane says in hoarse, fucked-out Russian, looking up at Ilya through his eyelashes. Fuck my face, please. “Ne slishkom bystro, ne tyani za volosy.” Not too fast, do not pull hair.

Ilya stares for a moment, mouth still slightly open, as he assesses. Shane sounds clearheaded and aware of his decisions. A smirk forms on his face as he thinks; Shane’s Russian when he’d spoken had been stilted and imprecise in a way it rarely ever is these days.

“Da, moyo solnyshko,” Ilya says, using the hand not still held securely in Shane’s to cup the back of his husband’s head, careful not to tighten his fingers, and guide his mouth back onto his dick.

Shane moans around his dick when Ilya hits the back of his throat and his body goes molten. He’s so hard in his jeans it hurts as Ilya thrusts his hips forward and back so his dick fucks in and out of Shane’s mouth. Shane remembers being worried about developing a fear of sucking dick after 2014 and was overly relieved to find that not even Dallas Kent’s attack was enough to override his overwhelming oral fixation.

“Fuck, dorogoy, ty takaya krasivaya v takom vide,” Ilya murmurs, nearing the end of his rope. Fuck, sweetheart, you are so pretty like this. “Ty khochesh' proglotit', solnyshko? Sozhmi moyu ruku odin raz, yesli eto tak.” Do you want to swallow, solnyshko? Squeeze my hand once if you do.

Shane squeezes his hand bruisingly tight, once, in response. Ilya acknowledges the permission by fucking himself into his husband’s mouth just a touch faster and bites down on the groan trying to grate out of his mouth as he finally comes right down Shane’s throat. Shane swallows like the good boy he is.

There’s that same string of spit when Shane pulls back and lets Ilya’s slowly softening dick drop from his mouth. Shane’s eyes are rimmed red and wet as they always get when he sucks Ilya’s dick, his lips red and ever so slightly swollen.

Ilya pulls Shane to his feet, steadying the smaller man when he sways slightly. He pulls him into a messy kiss until Shane is panting into his mouth, finally spinning him around and pressing his front into the wall of the stall they’re in. He palms the front of Shane’s pants and feels the unmistakable bulge there, kissing the back of Shane’s neck as he wraps his arms around his waist so he can undo the button and zipper.

“Ty stal takim tvordym prosto ot togo, chto otsosal moy chlen, detka?” Ilya says, low and right into Shane’s ear. You are this hard just from sucking my dick, baby?

“Da, Ilyusha, da,” Shane pants, quiet and barely there with his face pressed against the wall of the stall.

“Khoroshiy mal'chik,” Ilya says, sliding his hand into Shane’s underwear and wrapping it around his throbbing dick. Good boy. “YA zastavlyu tebya konchit' pryamo seychas, detka.” I’m going to make you come now, baby.

Shane nods frantically in agreement. His head falls back against Ilya’s shoulder when his husband pulls his dick out of his pants fully and then starts stroking him with a pace that immediately makes him screw his eyes shut.

“Ilya…” Shane breathes, eyes sliding shut as his hips jerk forward into his husband’s tight fist.

Ilya wraps his arm tighter around Shane’s waist so he can’t move and speeds up the movements of his hands. Shane is huffing quick breaths out of his nose as he fights to keep himself quiet.

“Otday eto mne,” Ilya orders, deep and commanding. Give it to me. “Prikhodi, prikhodi pryamo seychas.” Come, come right now.

Shane’s mouth drops open completely as he fucks his dick into the circle of Ilya’s hand and comes messily all over the metal wall of the bathroom stall. Ilya strokes him through it, not stopping his hand until Shane starts to squirm away from the overstimulation. Shane slumps backwards into his husband, completely gone momentarily as his brain struggles to come back online.

Ilya rearranges them so Shane is leaning back against the opposite wall. He uses some toilet paper to quickly wipe Shane’s come off the other wall, casting a filthy look back at Shane once he’s done and drops the wad of toilet paper into the toilet. He also takes care of wiping off both of their dicks, which Ilya is sure Shane appreciates.

“Khoroshiy?” Ilya asks once Shane is back with it. Good?

“Da, ochen' khoroshiy,” Shane replies with a lazy, smug smile. Yes, very good. “Ty?” You?

Ilya snorts a little at the sound of just how fucked his husband’s voice sounds. He pulls Shane in with a hand on the back of his neck, pressing a kiss to his temple and his cheek and then a long, lingering one to his lips. “Konechno, ya khoroshiy, ya chut' ne konchil tak sil'no, chto mozgi by vyleteli iz golovy, prosto ot togo, naskol'ko zhe ty byl krasiv tam, vnizu, solnyshko.” Of course I’m good, I nearly came my brains out just from how pretty you looked when you were down there, solnyshko.

“Mm, to zhe samoye, kogda ty trakhayesh' menya v rot,” Shane hums. Same with you fucking my mouth. “Ya tebya lyublyu.”

“Ya tozhe tebya lyublyu, dorogoy,” Ilya says, smiling softly. I love you, too, sweetheart. “Ty gotov vernut'sya tuda?” You ready to head back out there?

“Nastol'ko gotov, naskol'ko voobshche mogu byt' goto,” Shane replies, straightening his clothes one last time before nodding in confirmation. As ready as I will ever be.

Ilya flushes the toilet and then undoes the lock to the stall. He steps out first and Shane follows close behind. They stop at the sink to both wash their hands, grinning like idiots as it seems like they’ve gotten away with their little exhibitionistic stunt.

Their luck runs out the moment they step out of the bathroom and run right into Gilbert Comeau, Grant Wilson, Maxime Gagnon, and J.J. Boiziau. Shane’s stomach falls to his feet but then he steels himself, setting his jaw.

“Wow, when Andy got back to our table I almost didn’t believe it, but he was right!” Comeau says. “Hollzy really did get on his knees for Rozanov in a fucking bathroom stall!”

“Aw, is someone jealous?” Shane coos sarcastically, his eyes glinting with amusement. “How do you know it was me on my knees, anyways?”

“Oh, so it was you who fucked Rozanov’s mouth, then?” Comeau says, undeterred and still wearing that stupid smirk on his ugly little face.

Ilya is watching this whole exchange like he’s witnessing a car crash in slow motion. When his eyes flick to Boiziau’s face he sees a similar expression there but the man makes no move to shut his asshole teammate up. Ilya’s gaze darts back to look at his husband just as an absolutely delighted look appears on Shane’s face.

“Gil, bro, when are you gonna stop talking about Ilya sucking dick?” Shane says with a loose, smug little grin. “Il va pas te sucer la bite, mec, he only gets on his knees for me.” He’s not gonna suck your dick, man.

Ilya’s eyes bug out of his head slightly in pure shock, but he recovers in time when Comeau begins to stomp closer to Shane. “What the fuck did you just say, Hollander?” Comeau hisses.

Boiziau and Wilson each grab one of his shoulders loosely and it’s enough to stop him before he gets any closer. Ilya’s glad; he’d sure hate to be suspended during the playoffs for beating Gilbert Comeau’s slimy ass in this nice Montreal bar.

“Woahhh, Comeau, we’re out in public at a bar, not on the ice,” Shane, holding out a hand with a disbelieving tone and an incredulous yet amused expression. “Tu ne voudrais pas que le monde entier sache à quel point tu détestes les gais, n'est-ce pas, Gil?” You wouldn’t want the whole world to know how much you hate the gays, would you, Gil? Shane will admit that he’s kind of rage-baiting the guy at this point, but he doesn’t really feel bad about it.

Someone makes a strangled noise in reaction to his words, but Shane doesn’t know who.

“Hollander, come on man, just walk away,” J.J. says from Comeau’s right side.

“That’s all I ever do, Boiziau,” Shane says as he side-steps Comeau and the rest of his ex-teammates. “Accepter ça et me taire commence à me tanner, je crois.” Taking it and keeping my mouth shut about it is getting kind of old, I think.

Shane and Ilya make their way back towards their table, not quite in a rush but definitely moving quickly at the beginning so no Voyageurs get any funny ideas and try to start something again. Shane slows Ilya with a hand on his arm once they’re out of eyesight of the aforementioned players.

“Was that too much?” he asks.

Ilya stares at his face without speaking for a moment. Then he laughs once, fondly amused, and wraps an arm around Shane’s waist to pull him in close. He speaks right into the smaller man’s ear when he replies. “Not even close to too much, Hollander,” he rumbles. “Was not enough, maybe. Think you deserve to say what you think more often that you get to.”

“Yeah?” Shane breathes back, transfixed, their faces so so close together.

“Da,” Ilya replies, staring right back. “Was also hot as fuck, Shanya. Dumayu, yesli ty pozzhe budesh' trezvoy, mne, pozhaluy, pridotsya trakhnut' tebya tak, chtoby ty konchila do poteri soznaniya, kogda my vernomsya v otel'.” I think if you are sober later I may have to fuck you until you come so hard you pass out when we get back to the hotel.

Shane’s eyes widen slightly. Then his gaze sharpens and a similar smile to Ilya’s settles on his lips.

“On va voir, Rozanov,” Shane replies. We’ll see, Rozanov.

They return to their seats at the table they’re sharing with the guys with little fanfare, thankfully; it seems the only people aware of what Ilya and Shane had just been up to is Bood and a handful of Voyageurs players.

“You guys missed it!” Barrett exclaims as Shane pours himself a glass of ice water from the pitcher on the table. “The Voyageurs are here, too, Dykstra saw Wilson and Laine!”

Shane snorts and sets the pitcher back down on the table a little too aggressively. He says nothing.

“You don’t say?” Ilya drawls, sipping at his own glass of water.

“You…you guys don’t seem as freaked out as I thought you would be,” Barrett says slowly, looking back and forth between them.

“We may have come across them already at some point,” Shane says mildly, sipping at his water. “I may have, perhaps, said some things in French to Gilbert Comeau that probably has the man on his knees praying to god that nobody around us could translate it, but these things happen.”

There are several shocked noises around them. Ilya laughs loudly, delighted at how bold Shane can be sometimes.

“And how ironic is that, huh, Ilya?” Shane says quietly, nudging Ilya’s shoulder playfully. “Enfin sur ses genoux, après toutes ces discussions.” Finally on his knees, after all that talk.

“This…this answers none of our questions,” Hayes says.

“What are your questions?” Ilya replies.

“Well, what happened? Did he say something?”

“He said some things, I said, hm,” Shane pauses to laugh quietly a bit, “some things, I said more things, and then I told Comeau that Ilya’s not going to suck his dick.”

“How did this interaction get to that point, what the fuck?” Barrett nearly shouts.

“Hm, yes, Shane, please, tell us how,” Ilya says with a shit-eating grin.

“I don’t know,” Shane says, eyeing Ilya with visible irritation at being thrown under the bus by his own husband. Their boys are invested now, though, and Shane kind of lives for the moments he’s able to shock people with how unhinged he is. He sighs, shrugs his shoulders, and puts on his best mildly confused expression. “It would seem the Voyageurs were under the impression that Ilya and I were in the bathroom doing…inappropriate things. That’s crazy, really, super unfortunate that they now have this idea that I fucked Ilya Rozanov in the bar we all used to go out to together after wins. But anyway, Gilbert Comeau decided he had to say something about it and then, like I said, I said some stuff back.”

“You were doing what?” Dykstra exclaims.

“I didn’t say we were doing anything!” Shane replies. “I said they were under the impression we were!”

“Uh huh, and that’s why your voice is all fucky like that,” Chouinard says, entirely unconvinced.

“Is that why Bood told me to wait to go to the bathroom?” Haas says distantly.

“Yes, Haasy, that’s why,” Bood confirms, nodding his head solemnly.

“You told Bood beforehand?” Barrett says, incredulous.

“I didn’t say I did anything!” Shane says back, holding up his hands. The him from a year ago would be panicking at all of this attention on him, especially considering the reason for it, but the version of himself he is now is simply enjoying the frenzy he’s causing. Maybe Ilya’s right when he calls him a ‘chaos monster,’ Shane thinks to himself.

“I’m still stuck on you telling Gilbert Comeau that Ilya wasn’t going to suck his dick,” Hayes says, face red from laughing and probably also the alcohol.

“When he first asked Shane if we were fucking in the bathroom, Shane asked him if he was jealous,” Ilya says.

The team reacts as Shane has come to expect from them: drunkenly crowing their joy from the news. It’s nice, Shane thinks, being able to joke about this kind of stuff without having to worry about whether it’s ‘offending’ one of his teammates.

They all split into a few different Ubers to get back to the hotel as the night begins to wind down about half an hour later. Shane’s phone buzzes the moment the car he’s in pulls away from the curb. It’s the team group chat.

Barrett: no srsly, did hollzy srsly WARN Bood???

Hayes: yes we need to know hollander

Shane snorts, shaking his head. He’s still a little tipsy so he locks in and, feeling a little devious, starts to type out a reply.

“What are you doing?” Ilya says.

“Just texting in the team group chat,” Shane replies, nonchalant. “Somebody has questions.”

Hollzy: no that was Ilya

Barrett: ROZANOV???

LaPointe: so you guys did fuck in the bathroom? jfc 😂

“Shanya,” Ilya says, slightly exasperated. “You get like this so often now, solnyshko.”

“I…think this just might be how I am when my team aren’t a bunch of abusive assholes,” Shane says slowly, turning his head to meet Ilya’s eyes. “Plus I like disproving that stupid ‘golden boy Shane Hollander’ persona.”

Shane had never been super thrilled with this personality mold he’d been primed to fit into as he’d progressed through his hockey career. That ‘Shane Hollander’ is Canada’s sweetheart, the golden-hearted, naïve, down-to-earth good boy who bleeds maple syrup and couldn’t hurt a fly. Shane tried his best to meet these expectations for many years, but being outed as gay, something that violated the unspoken part of this mold that implied he was supposed to be heterosexual, had been the tipping point where he stopped giving a fuck about what was ‘expected’ of him. The onslaught of backlash afterwards had just solidified that the general sentiment is what Shane had always quietly figured it was: ‘Hockey’s second-coming of Gretzky was supposed to be white, and we forgave you for that, Shane, but now you’re gay, too? Of course everyone is angry!’.

So now Shane takes pleasure in proving just how outside that mold he is, because fuck everyone. He tried his hardest to please everyone for so long, stressed himself sick over it, and what does he have to show for it? He got shunned by his teammates, his brothers for nearly ten years. He and the love of his life denied themselves the joy of a real relationship for seven years out of fear of everyone’s reactions. Shane got raped and he knows that a majority of the league will blame him for it once they find out. Dropping reminders here and there about the fact that he has sex and that’s actually freakier than most, that he knows how to fight and enjoys it, that he’s a sarcastic fuck with a sailor’s mouth…Shane thinks that’s a fair trade.

“Hm, I have noticed this, yes,” Ilya says, nodding his head.

“Yeah. It’s just fun anyways, right?”

Ilya hums in agreement, lips quirking as he turns his gaze to his own phone screen.

Roz: yes, Barrett? how can I help you?

Barrett: so u two just fuck in bathrooms now?

Hollzy: and so what if we do

Roz: what my husband said ^^

Roz: do not be homophobic barrett

Young: HOMOPHOBIC??? 😂 😂 😂

Bood: once again, queer on queer crime right in the gc

Hayes: why couldn’t you just wait till the hotel? WHAT was so urgent

Roz: is none of your business what we do in bathroom

Roz: what is your business though because it is hilarious is that after Shane said I will not suck Comeau’s dick, he also say and I quote ‘he only gets on his knees for me’

Roz: stupid rat faced Comeau turned purple and Shane just laughs

Bood: holy SHIT hollander, i'm cackling

Dykstra: srsly what a fuckin quote

Boyle: we’re just gonna pretend that they basically confirmed they fucked in that BR?

Hollzy: do you really want to know, vic?

Bood: hollzy NO

Bood: ILYA TAKE HIS PHONE

Hollzy: EVERYONE WANTS TO CHIRP TIL I OFFER DETAILS THEN SUDDENLY IM THE BAD GUY

Hollzy: SMH

Bood: Rozanov please

Barrett: I can’t believe it’s shane who’s being out of pocket rn

replying to: "Bood: Rozanov please"

Roz: do not say this Bood, only Hollander is allowed to say this to me

Bood: WHOS SHARING THE UBER W THEM

Bood: somebody stop them pls

Hollzy: out of pocket barrett? i haven’t even said anything yet :)

Ilya laughs brightly. “You are a little menace, Shenya,” he says fondly.

“Hollander, you know I love you, but Haasy is in that group chat and I really don’t feel like fielding the kinds of questions I always do from the kid after you say something absolutely insane,” Tanner Dillon says from where he’s seated in the front passenger seat of their shared Uber.

Shane laughs, as well.

“Sorry, Dills,” Shane says sincerely.

“Oh, it’s no big deal, he’s harmless,” Dillon says, shrugging his shoulders. He turns in his seat so he’s looking back at the couple. “But, yeah, painfully earnest questions about rimjobs at seven o’clock in the fucking morning is kind of a lot sometimes.”

“Totally get it,” Shane says, nodding vigorously in agreement.

“Understandable,” Ilya says at the same time.

“I…I do just gotta ask, though,” Dillon continues, and Shane holds his breath, for once entirely unsure of what the question is going to be. “Is that why you recommended the bar we went to tonight? Some kind of territorial thing?”

“Tanner,” Shane says, exasperated and a little embarrassed at being read so easily.

“I was just wondering, it’s fine either way! Because if it was that, like, hell yeah, good for you, Hollander,” Tanner continues, turning his head back to grin at Shane. “Everyone calls Ilya the freak, but look at you!”

Shane’s mouth drops open, a flare of warmth going through his body.

“Was actually second time we do this,” Ilya cuts in, nonchalant. “I knew why he suggested it when he did.”

Tanner barks out another laugh. “Even better!” he exclaims.

The couple meets each other’s eyes and then break out into a fit of giggles.