Archive of Our Own

December 2016

When Hayden celebrates his 26th birthday at the beginning of November, surrounded by family and close friends, he realizes he has nothing more to wish for. The candles that are artfully placed on his birthday cake are still lit, everyone around the table for him to blow them, but he can’t think of anything to wish for.

His eyes take in everything and everyone surrounding him: His parents, happy and healthy, are looking at him with such pride in their eyes. Jackie’s mom and siblings are also there. His perfect kids are crowding him, excited for the slice of cake they’re about to have. There are so many pictures of happy memories on the walls, the birth of his kids, his wedding day, his team with Stanley Cups. He looks at his right, where he knows his best friend is, then something clicks.

Hayden has a perfect life at the age of 26. A beautiful wife, wonderful three kids and one on the way, the perfect job, an amazing house, and the best friend he could ever ask for. The only thing that could ever make life better would be for his best friend to have someone beside him. Someone who loves him and someone he loves. He wants Lily to be here too, holding Shane’s hand as she takes her place around the table among family and friends.

Closing his eyes, Hayden wishes if Shane could finally talk about his feelings with Lily. He wishes they would stop lying to each other and people in their lives about what they mean to each other. Six years is a long time to be causally seeing someone. Then he blows his candles.

“Heading out?” Hayden asks as Shane is pulling on his jacket.

“Yeah, just for a bit. Meeting with a friend.” If Hayden realizes Shane’s voice cracking on the word friend, he doesn’t let it show. Rozanov is a friend, he has become a friend, and something more in the past six years. They are not boyfriends, and even if they were he couldn’t tell Hayden that. Friends is as honest as he can get.

“Is she that?” Hayden asks. “A friend, I mean. Is Lily a friend?”

Shane’s first instinct is to say no. His second is to say yes. His third is to completely deny the existence of Lily. What comes out of his mouth is a completely different story, though. “I don’t know. I might be falling in love.” What. The. Fuck.

The shock of his admission almost makes Shane miss the moment when Hayden fists the air before schooling himself into something neutral and not completely-ecstatic. “I’m happy for you, bud. Now go get laid,”—he shoos Shane with his hand—“we’ll talk when you come back. Hopefully tomorrow morning. Don’t come back before you have three orgasms.”

I will not be getting laid is what Shane wants to say, instead he confesses, “Three is amateur numbers for us. Three is for when we only have two hours. If I’m staying over, we’re breaking records.”

“Shane Hollander! You fucking dog.” Before Hayden can even finish speaking, Shane rushes out the door, afraid of what he might blurt out the next time he opens his mouth.

Shane knows he’s losing his composure. Even confessing his feelings for Rozanov to Hayden is proof enough. He is gonna go to Rozanov’s apartment, demand that they talk, and end things. Even going to his apartment for the past few hook-ups has been a big change for Shane—breaking the unspoken rules of impersonal fucking only makes things harder to compartmentalize for him. This needs to stop. They need to stop.

At the steps of Rozanov’s apartment, Shane quickly shoots him a text, announcing his arrival, and immediately heads toward the elevators when the door opens with a click. Rozanov greets him wearing a pair of sweatpants, hanging low on his hips, and in nothing else, clearly testing Shane’s restraint. He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t speak, doesn’t even look at Shane before turning around and walking toward the bedroom.

“What the fuck is this?” Shane spits. “You’re not even speaking to me anymore? Just expect me to follow you like a dog? What the fuck is wrong with you?” While his anger is genuine, his words drenched in his too-complex feelings, he doesn’t expect an actual answer.

They’ve done this dance a million times before. Rozanov will act like the asshole he is, Shane will get mad and voice it, Rozanov will not care, possibly tell Shane to get on his knees, Shane will obey, they will fuck, neither will be strong enough to walk away, not completely.

But words tumbling out of Rozanov’s mouth takes him by surprise. “My head is a mess. My father is sick, and I have to deal with my awful brother. English is too hard right now, but I still need you. When we fuck, I will feel better. Maybe more human.” Judging by the expression on his face, it is a complete and utter shock to Rozanov too.

Shane doesn’t give him a moment to regret or overthink, though. He takes one look at Rozanov who is standing by the edge of the bed, motionless, and pulls his sweatpants down before guiding him to the foot of the bed. He lowers himself to his knees and takes Rozanov into his mouth, just softly keeping him there.

Sex is familiar. Sex is their safe zone. The weight of Rozanov on his tongue is soothing, cutting through the panic of what the fuck is happening today? As Rozanov grows bigger and heavier in his mouth, Shane feels his body settle, the anxiety subsiding. The same must be true for Rozanov as well, because his rigid body starts to melt, his fingers finding Shane’s hair and running through the strands.

Once Rozanov fully hardens, Shane starts blowing him in earnest, pulling at all stops. He sucks and bobs his head, slobbering at every inch of his length to make the glide smooth. One of Rozanov’s hands lower to rest on his neck, his thumb caressing the freckles dotted on Shane’s cheeks. “Stunning,” Rozanov exhales. “Your freckles… they take my breath away.”

The unexpected compliment sends a shiver down Shane’s spine, making him moan around Rozanov’s dick who pulls Shane away and hauls him for a deep kiss.

“I love the way you kiss me. No one else I kiss will ever measure.” Shane slaps both of his hands to his mouth. “Fuck. I didn’t mean to say that. Why did I say that?”

“Do you want to talk or do you want to fuck, Hollander? That’s why you’re here, no?” Rozanov asks, but there is an undercurrent of fear lacing his voice. Shane can see that the anxiety running through his veins is mirrored in Rozanov’s crystal blue eyes.

“Yes. But I wanted to come here and break it off.” The honest, forced revelation of his intentions stun Shane momentarily, but not enough to miss the hurt in Rozanov’s face. “And I can’t seem to lie.”

“I realized,” is all Rozanov lets out. That must be why he didn’t respond to Shane’s questions. “If you want to go, go Hollander. We both knew this had to end sometime.”

“Will you try to stop me if I try to run?” Because Shane has to know. It is cheap and unfair to use their inability to lie like this, but never an answer from Rozanov has been clear in the past. This might be his only chance.

“Of course I fucking will. What the fuck do you think? Have I not always chased you?” Rozanov groans, running a hand across his face. His pants are still pooled around his ankles, his boxers sitting nestled inside them. He looks comically pathetic but nearly not as much as the situation calls for.

Although Shane knows Rozanov’s words don’t carry even an ounce of lies, it still shakes him to his core with anger, the intensity of his feelings making his fingers tremble on his sides. “Then what the fuck has the whole silence been? For fucking years? You ran away from me the second I opened my mouth for something other than to suck your cock. What the fuck do you want from me?”

And if he is asked in the future, Shane will be able to say that he has seen the exact second Rozanov snapped. “Maybe I am afraid because I have feelings for you. Do you think it’s easy? I am carrying things heavier than I can lift. Do you think I’m not scared? And I am not the only one running, Hollander. Do not pretend to want more when you also run. You are here, standing in my house, not a building I bought to fuck you in shame.”

“Fuck you,” Shane spits, because he can’t be more honest than that. “Fuck you. Fuck you for wanting me and for pushing me away. Fuck you for only fucking me and not even bothering with pleasantries most of the time. God, I hate this.” The urge to run away and put a distance between them becomes palpable. With clear certainty, Shane knows he has to get away, or else they can never come back from this conversation. They are standing on the edge of a precipice right now. “I need to go. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t- Not right now.”

“Hollander,” Rozanov holds out his hand for Shane. Like a lifeline, unclear who it is for. His extended arm stays between them, shaking. “Hollander.”

Shane can only look and shake his head no. This is too much. Too much honesty. Too much change. Too many feelings. Rozanov wants him for more than a quick fuck, and fuck, Shane wants him all the same back. But how can they do this? How can they look down on the canyon and decide if what they have is worth jumping over. “We can’t,” he says more to himself than Rozanov. “I don’t think I can be brave enough to stay. Can you?”

“I don’t know. Fuck. I don’t know anything. But I don’t think I can ever be okay if you go, Hollander.” Rozanov makes a move to get up, and if he does, if he redresses himself and tells Shane to go, they’ll never have this again won’t they?

Fuck it, he reasons. Shane slams his body against Rozanov’s, kissing him with everything he’s got. “Fuck it.”

Rozanov reaches for him, pulling Shane to his lap, and everything is easier when they’re only speaking through their bodies. It’s a dance they’ve danced a thousand times: Clothes are haphazardly thrown to unconcerned places; Rozanov’s fingers are dipping in between Shane’s legs, opening him up with painstaking precision; their lips are peppering kisses, charting skin they’ve already memorized a million times over.

When Shane straddles Rozanov’s legs, his hands clutching onto his shoulders like a lifeline as he fully lowers himself on Rozanov’s dick, he thinks for a brief second I love fucking him. “I fucking love you.”

“Holy shit,” Rozanov pants. For a second his entire face stays frozen, making Shane wanna get up and run away as far as he can, but in the next second, his face is buried in the crook of Shane’s neck, murmuring the same sentence in Russian over and over again until he pulls back, looks Shane directly in the eye and translates. “I love you too, Shane.”

Minutes, hours, maybe days later, when his entire body is wrecked by the sheer force of his orgasm, Shane lets himself say Ilya’s name like a sacred word. Over and over, the way Ilya has confessed his love. “Ilya.”

Shane comes to it while Ilya gently wipes him clean with a wash cloth, and lets sleep take over as Ilya gets back in bed, his strong arms wrapping themselves around his broad shoulders.

The tickling on Shane’s neck pulls him away from his catnap, forcing him into reality. The gentle stream of air on his neck turns into multiple kisses being peppered onto his skin before Ilya’s voice finds his ears. “I’m hungry.”

Shane’s hands cover Ilya’s fingers splayed on his pecks and make him squeeze them. He pushes his ass back to grind on to Ilya’s crotch, feeling his dick starting to fill up, then cranes his neck to finally look his fill. “Oh, me too.”

“You are such a pervert, Hollander,” Ilya chuckles, and it might be Shane’s favorite sound, ever. Sadly, the accompanying growl of his stomach strengthens his pleas for food. Disentangling himself from Shane, Ilya leaves the bed, making his way toward the dresser.

Turning to his side, Shane watches him pull on a fresh pair of sweatpants and a clean t-shirt. Then he rummages in his drawers and pulls out a few articles of clothing, tossing them to Shane. “Couldn’t you have given me anything? Why did you go on a mission to find clothes for me? Are you giving me your rejects Rozanov?” he pretends to be annoyed, a teasing smile on his lips.

“I know you do not like tags. I wanted to find something without it.” Then he shrugs as if he hasn’t rewritten Shane’s entire world.

“Fuck,” Shane breathes.

“What?” It’s clear to him that Rozanov is trying to feign non-chalance, despite both of their current inability to lie, trying to downplay the gravity of his gesture.

Shane decides that he won’t let him. Not being able to lie is one thing, avoiding it purposefully to not reveal the truth is another, and Shane is determined to get his feelings heard. “What do you mean ‘what’? You fucking know me so well. Maybe better than anyone. Am I not allowed to…”

Ilya turns around, leaving the room, but he gestures to Shane to follow him. “I don’t know how you drink your coffee. I don’t know your favorite movie. I don’t know if you snore. I don’t know you, Hollander.”

To Shane, everything in life comes as a series of problems with various degrees of solvability. This, he thinks, is easy. He will stay here and answer every single question Ilya has if it’ll convince him. “I love cold brew, but black is always fine. Whenever people ask about my favorite movie, I lie and say ‘Rocky,’ but my actual favorite movie is ‘Stuart Little.’ Before you get ahead of yourself, you are not allowed to make fun of me for it, because it’s a fucking good movie. And I do not snore. Your turn.”

Ilya’s spirits seem to lift a little, clearly amused by Shane’s responses. He opens the fridge door and turns to look back at him. “Another question first. Do you like tuna melts?”

The question takes Shane by surprise. “Yes. Why?” Then he takes a brief look at the ingredients laid out in front of him on the kitchen island: two cans of tuna, a jar of pickles, a bag of sliced cheese, two baguettes. “Will you make us tuna melts?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I am hungry. You are hungry. I have stuff for tuna melts.” Ilya shrugs again. To anyone who might not know him, this whole ordeal might seem normal, ordinary, but to Shane, the aloof exterior only tells him to dig deeper.

The ginger ale that is conveniently placed in front of him only further confirms his suspicions. “But why tuna melts?”

“I wanted to fucking feed you, okay?” Ilya finally relents, throwing his hands in the air. “Tuna melts are easy. I wanted to cook you something easy so you wouldn’t think I am doing something special and freak out.”

Shane moves to stand in front of him and kisses him deeply, slow and languid. “Thank you.” He kisses Ilya again, first on the lips, then on his cheeks. After his eyes flutter close, Shane kisses his eyelids too. “Not just for the tuna melts, but for being so perceptive and considerate.”

“Perceptive? What is that?”

“Like, you see everything, realize things other people would miss.” His vision gets blurry, eyes stinging, but Shane holds onto his tears.

“I do see things,” Ilya confirms. “I see you.” Mercifully, he lets Shane to his own devices and goes back to his meal prep, opening the cans of tuna and cutting pickles.

Once he collects his bearings, Shane routes them back to their conversation. “Your turn, Rozanov. Coffee and movie. Go.” Then, because he can’t help but remind Ilya of the video that went viral a few months ago, he adds, “I already know you snore.”

“I do not,” Ilya protests, hands flying to his chest in mock outrage. “The video Marly posted is fake, is lie. What is it? … A fucking deep-fake. I do not snore.” He blows a raspberry to Shane who clearly looks as unconvinced as he is, then continues. “I love Dunkin lattes. Very sweet. I will drink anything with lots of sugar and cream. And extra whipped cream on top. I do not have one favorite movie. But if they ask I will say ‘Fast and Furious.’ Is fun to watch. But the truth is, I love all Ghibli movies. Specially ‘Ponyo.’”

In that moment, Shane finally understands what people mean when they talk about cuteness aggression. He bites Ilya’s shoulder without any warning, eliciting a yelp.

“What the fuck, Hollander?” With a smile, Ilya first looks at the place where Shane bit, then traces the faint marks with his fingers.

This time, it’s Shane’s turn to shrug and pretend everything is normal. “You were too cute. ‘S not my fault,” he mumbles. “Okay. Favorite food, go.”

A sadness touches Ilya’s expression, passing as quickly as it came, before he answers “My mama’s pelmeni.” He immediately moves on, making Shane think he doesn’t want to dwell on it or give Shane the option to question his answer any further. “But I love all good food. Pho is good. It is like a hug in a bowl. McGriddles. Baconator fries. I love chicken parm.”

“My dad makes great chicken parm. He should make it for us sometime.” Shane blurts the words out without realizing the implications of his sentence. Once it settles between them, he sees Ilya wistfully looking at him.

“Maybe,” he mumbles. “Maybe, Hollander. Is that your favorite food?”

“Oh,” the question makes Shane think for a second. Food as something to enjoy and cherish, not as fuel, is a concept he has lost somewhere along the way. But he thinks back on all the fond memories around food, most from his childhood. “No. My mom’s ramen is,” he eventually settles.

They trade questions as they eat their tuna melts, sitting on the uncomfortable bar stools in Ilya’s kitchen. What would they do if they were not playing hockey? What is their dream vacation destination? Do they want pets? Do they sleep with socks on? The stream of questions only gets interrupted when Ilya’s phone starts ringing, his usual indifferent, stoic expression finding its way back to his face, his shoulders winding tight.

He holds Shane’s hand, guiding them toward the living room. Shane moves to the couch, one hand still in Ilya’s, the other holding a can of ginger ale. Ilya accepts the phone call then, coldly greeting the person on the other side of the line, as he reaches for the remote. Once the remote is in Shane’s hands, he disappears into the hallway.

He still must be very close because Ilya’s voice still travels through the house, reaching the living room. His words are already harsh; they are foreign in Shane’s ears but the frustration and impatience seeps through every syllable. At that moment, all Shane wants is to go back in time and start learning Russian when they first met, breaking the barriers between them. No matter how much he wishes he could understand everything being said though, Shane only catches two words: “papa” and Alexei. After a quick silence, the conversation turns flat out hostile, Ilya’s loud voice echoing through the hallway.

When Ilya sits down next to him, Shane’s first instinct is to ask what happened. It’s clear something is wrong with Ilya’s dad, and Shane, being who he is, wants to know everything so he can fix it, so that Ilya won’t ever look so resigned and upset. But he doesn’t want to steal Ilya’s chance to tell the story of his family on his own terms. Their stupid inability to lie will force him to reveal his heart even if he doesn’t feel ready. So Shane bites his lip and just looks at Ilya.

“C’mon Hollander.” Ilya’s expression is indecipherable, stuck somewhere between tired and resigned.

Unsure of what he’s being prompted to do, Shane just stares at Ilya as if it’d help.

“Questions, Hollander. I know you have so many of them. Ask.” He gestures with his hand for Shane to go on.

“No,” Shane adamantly shakes his head, because no, he will not violate Ilya like that. “You physically cannot lie to me right now. I will not subject you to a bunch of intimate, invasive questions. You can tell me what’s going on with your dad when you want to.”

“Dad? You know it’s about my father. You know Russian now?” The relief radiating off of Ilya is palpable. His grateful smile is brighter than anything Shane has ever seen.

“I know the word for father.” If Shane wasn’t 100% set on learning Russian before, he is now. The spark in Ilya’s eyes is nothing like he had ever seen before.

Strong arms reach for him, pulling him onto Ilya’s bare chest. “Is hard to talk about my family,” Ilya whispers. “There is too much. None of it is good. I will tell you. If we ever have more time than a few hours.”

“Would you want that?” Shane asks breathlessly. Does Ilya want that? Does Shane want that? More time with Ilya. Uninterrupted time with Ilya. A chance to figure their feelings out without any constraints or distractions. To talk about everything they've never did. The urgency of his need knocks the air out of his lungs, a visceral, uncrollable urge finally waking up from its dormant sleep.

“Yes,” Ilya quietly confesses, cutting through Shane’s internal turmoil. “I want, but Hollander, you know we can’t.” Despite his words slashing Shane’s skin in million places, his hand still cards through his hair.

“Why?” he refutes. “Give me one reason why we can’t do that.”

“Because Russia. I can’t go home to Russia. Don’t you understand?” He throws his hands up in frustration.

And Shane understands that, he really does. But if they won’t go public, at least not for the foreseeable future, he can’t see why they have to avoid figuring out what they mean to each other and spending time. “You have been fucking me for the past six years, Ilya; it has never stopped you from going back to Russia. We’ll be careful the way we always are. I’m not saying fucking marry me tomorrow, I’m just saying let’s have a little more time. Time to decide what we are, time to decide what we want.

“I’m so, so fucking tired of pretending I don’t like you, pretending like I don’t want more. We can have more, Ilya. We can have more of this; we can have more time. Maybe in time, we can have it all. I want to give you more.

“Just visit me this summer. Come to my cottage and we’ll relax there for a few days, maybe a few weeks. No one will know; it’s so private there. We can be alone, together, not bound by games or plane schedules or the league. We won’t be confined to generic stuffy hotel rooms or… or to investment properties no one knows about.”

“Hollander… Shane…”

“Ilya… All I’m asking you is to think about it. If you decide to come, just for a little while before you go to Russia this summer, we can talk about your family there and what this means and how to move forward.”

“And is that what you want? More forward with this”—he gestures between them, one of his hands still carding through Shane’s hair while Shane is laying on his chest—“with me?”

“Yes. I want a future with you. It is terrifying, but fuck I do.” It sometimes takes Shane a while to be aware of his feelings or what he wants, but once he realizes, he will determinedly and restlessly work for it. Now what he wants is Ilya and a future with him. And he will not stop fighting for it.

Ilya looks at his face for a while, mumbling Russian curses under his breath. “Okay. Okay, Hollander. I will come to your cottage this summer, for a week, before I go to Russia. We can talk there. Happy?”

“Yes!” Shane lets out, elongating his s’s. “Wait- does- does this mean we’ll go on as we are?”

“What do you mean Hollander? Is good what we have, yes?”

“Yes. I mean- I like parts of what we have.” Not for the first time this whole inability to lie thing has started, Shane curses whatever brought this thing on them. He would love to say yes and move on, but the second he opens his mouth, he knows words are gonna tumble out.

“What parts you don’t like?” With one hand in his pocket, Ilya is watching him with the corner of his eye, keeping his face away from Shane.

With no choice, Shane blurts, “girls.”

An uncontrollable laughter erupts from Ilya’s chest, his previously furrowed brows shooting up in joy. “Sorry,” he wheezes. “Sorry. You don’t like girls. Okay, Shane.”

“Fuck you,” he spits. If it were any other day, he’d give out a lame excuse like maybe I haven’t met the right girl yet, but he knows, deep in his heart, he does not like them. Shane is completely, 100% into men, specifically one blond Russian. “Yes but that’s not what I’m talking about you asshole. I don’t like you with girls.”

“Okay, then I won’t see other girls.” Ilya declares as if it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“You won’t?” Shane can’t help but let the incredulous tone seep into his voice.

“Hollander,” Ilya comes closer, cradling Shane’s hands in his own hands. “What part of ‘I love you’ was not clear? You had too many concussions I think.”

“You are such a fucking asshole.” The rest of his retort dies on his tongue when Ilya pulls him in for a heated kiss. Once they manage to separate their tongues enough to talk again, Shane decides to pull the conversation to a lighter place. “So, I was thinking… I want you to stretch me open fuck me when I’m still asleep when we spend the night together. Let me wake up to your thrusts.”

They don’t even make it to the bedroom.

The next morning, when Shane is sneaking back into the hotel with only a mild limp—a fucking blessing considering Ilya has given Shane all of his fantasies—he prays to every god that Hayden is downstairs grabbing breakfast. He doesn’t know when this fucking curse will break or how long will it go on for, but the last thing Shane wants to do is answer Hayden honestly if he asks how his night been or what he’s been up to.

He uses his keycard to unlock the door and slowly pushes the door open. Please let it be empty. He enters the room with his eyes closed, hoping to either open them to an empty room, or delay the inevitable.

“Hi, buddy. How’s your night been? Did you get up to anything fun with Lily?”

Motherfucker!!! “It was extremely kinky,” he answers trying to avoid any details. “Please don’t ask me anything, Hayden. I know it sounds fucking insane but for some reason I can’t lie.”

“Oh,” Hayden’s expression turns guilty for some reason. “This started last night? When you were with Lily?”

Thinking back, Shane hadn’t been able to lie to Hayden when he was leaving either. “I don’t think so. Because I basically told you I was in love yesterday too.”

“Oh, dude. I think this is my fucking fault.” Pulling his knees to his chest, Hayden makes himself as small as possible on the bed, then taps the edge of his bed for Shane to sit. Wincing a little as he does, Shane plops down. But before he can get a word in, Hayden is speaking again. “Dude, what the fuck were you up to last night with Lily. You can’t even sit.”

“Hayden, I really wish I could lie right now so that I could tell you that I hate you. Are you trying to torture me? You know I can’t lie, why the fuck are you asking me about my sex life? I don’t wanna tell you how I got plowed into the mattress real good no more than you want to hear it.”

Hayden’s jaw slowly drops, eyes comically widening. “Lily fucks you?” he asks, clearly not having learned his lesson.

“Lily doesn’t fuck me because there is no Lily.” With a resigning sigh, Shane decides to not hold back. It’s not like he can hide it with all of Hayden’s weird questions. “Hayden, I’m gay. Lily is a man. Well… he sort of is my kind of boyfriend.” Wincing, he braces himself for impact.

“Holy fuck!” Hayden yells. “That’s why this was such a big secret. Oh my fucking god. And I wished you could never fucking lie about this. Am I accidentally outing you through a birthday wish? Is that a thing? Did I ruin your life?” Head in his hands, he starts to hyperventilate.

“Hayden, breathe.” Shane is very unsure about how he’s the one comforting Hayden after coming out to someone for the first time—bar getting hard in front of Ilya and sucking his dick, but that hardly counts as coming out and more like just plain coming—but as his hand lands on Hayden’s back, he finds that the reassurance comes easy to him. “I am really fucking lost about the forced outing through birthday wishes part, but I can assure you that you did not ruin my life. If anything, things are better between me and Ilya because of you.”

“Ilya?” He asks, completely butchering the pronunciation. The name sounds foreign and different in Hayden’s voice, unlike the warm familiarity Shane has come to associate with it.

It hasn’t been even 24 hours since Shane himself has gotten acquainted with calling his somewhat-boyfriend by his first name, but the urge to correct Hayden feels too powerful to ignore. “Il-yuh. Not Eel-ee-ah.”

“Okay,” Hayden gives him a look that conveys is this what we are seriously focusing on right now? but still corrects himself. “Il-yuh? Il-yuh fucking Rozanov is your Lily?”

“Yes.” The stinging in the back of his eyes intensifies with each passing second. Fisting his hands into balls, Shane lets the sharp sting of his nails against his skin ground him. Hayden might have taken the news of Shane being gay stride, but clearly who Shane is being gay with is what breaks the camel’s back.

“Wow,” he lets out with a particularly long exhale, letting Shane’s anxiety spiral even further. “I am so fucking stupid.” Then he starts laughing, honest to god laughing with tears running down his cheeks, doubling down on the bed. “Lily is of course Ilya. How could I expect you to fall in love with someone who wasn’t involved in hockey? Of course you went ahead and fell for the only person who could keep up with you. You overachieving motherfucker. God, I’m so dumb.”

“So, you’re not mad?” Shane asks because he needs to hear it out of his best friend’s mouth. He needs the words and the reassurance.

“Mad? No, Shane. God, no. Surprised? Yes. Feeling stupid for not putting two and two together for years? Also yes. Mad? Fucking no, dude. We are friends; I’m not your fucking mother. Why would I be mad at you for sleeping with someone, even if that someone is the Russian manwhore of the century? Unless you’re not being safe, then I’ll be mad, but because I am concerned. Are you being safe Shane?”

“Yes,” he groans. “But… But I lied to you.”

“You protected yourself and probably Rozanov. Self preservation is not the same as fucking lying dude.” He pulls Shane into a tight hug. “So, now tell me all about it. Maybe not the sex part as much; I don’t need to know how big Rozanov is for fuck’s sake, but everything else. You said you might be fucking in love with him.”

Feeling fucking elated, Shane wants to dive into it. For the first time in his entire life he’ll be able to discuss his love life with his best friend. Any one for that matter. “Nine inches,” he snickers. It’s going to be incredible to not only talk about this, but to be able to get back at Hayden for calling him a prude and vanilla for years. But something Hayden has said gnaws in the back of his mind, cutting through the joy. “Wait. What did you mean about causing all of this, Hayd?”

Looking sheepish, his best friend speaks with his gaze trained on the bed. “You know how it was my birthday like a week ago right?”

“Right.” he nods, prompting him to go on.

“I was just looking around the table, thinking how amazing my life was. Like, I have Jackie and the kids. I have an amazing career. I have the best best friend I could ask for.” He offers a soft smile to Shane before continuing. “And I know you have most of those things too, but I wanted you to have all of it. So… I wished that you and Lily would stop lying about what you meant to each other. Both to the other person and to those around you. Fuck. If I had known it would put you guys in danger, I would never and I mean never would do that, Shane.”

“Fuck!” This is bad. This is worse than Shane had thought. He is cursed with the inability to lie, and so is Ilya. They will get outed before they can even see what the thing between them is. They will have to tell everyone without knowing what is there to tell. People will ask and they won’t be able to lie and Ilya will hate him for it and he will lose everything before getting a chance to properly have it…

“Shane,” Hayden calls for him, voice raised. “Breathe. Breathe with me. It’ll be okay. You guys talked, right?”

Shane can only nod in response at first, words coming back to him slowly. “Yes.”

“And you told me, right?”

“Right.”

“So, if Ilya tells someone he trusts too, my wish will come true, and the curse will lift. I said to each other and people around you. You got the each other part, and half of the people around you part. We need Rozanov to tell someone about it, and the spell will be broken. That’s how it works in all of Ruby and Jade’s books about magic and wishes. Trust me dude, I’ve read like a million of them.”

The logic does make sense in Shane’s mind, but trusting children’s books, even though several with supporting evidence, seems flaky at best. “Okay.” He eventually surrenders. “I’ll tell him.” Just as Shane is reaching for his phone, it vibrates in his pocket.

Lily: marly knows
Lily: i couldn’t lie
Lily: fuck
Lily: im sorry

Shane: Do you trust him?

Lily: with my life

Shane: Then it’s okay.
Shane: I was going to ask you to tell someone anyway
Shane: It’s a long story but it’s Hayden’s fault
Shane: He made a fucking birthday wish about us not lying about our feelings
Shane: I’ll tell you more about it tonight
Shane: But I think we’ll be able to lie again now

“Marlow knows now. Do you think it’s gonna be okay now?” Shane asks, unsure. God he hopes it’s all okay.

“Let’s try! I’m gonna ask you a question about Rozanov. Try to lie to me, okay?” As Shane nods, Hayden goes ahead with his question.

“Have you two ever sexted when we were rooming together?”

“No.” And as soon as the words leave Shane’s mouth, he lets out a huge exhale. He can fucking lie again. All is fucking well with the world. He has Ilya, he got the dicking down of his life, and he can lie. Halleloujah. Apparently, to him, the holy trinity is Ilya, Ilya’s dick, and being able to lie about Ilya and his dick.

Hayden must read the utter relief in his expression because he scrunches his face in disgust. “Ew, dude. I was right next to you.”

“Don’t tell me you never sexted Jackie when I was right there,” he retorts.

Any comeback Hayden had on the tip of his tongue dies when his attention is stolen by the ding of his phone. Shane watches his expression turn from confused to exasperated to amused. In liu of an answer, he turns his screen around for Shane to read the incoming texts.

Unknown number: kys
Unknown number: you stressed Shane out
Unknown number: this is lily btw

December 2020

It is truly one of the best days of Hayden’s life, his 30th birthday. Everyone is gathered around the large table they’ve carried to the patio, waiting for Hayden to make a wish and blow out his candles.

It’s a smaller affair this year, but just as meaningful. Hayden’s eyes find Jackie first, because they always do; and he takes a second taking in the sight in front of him. His incredible wife is holding their youngest in her arms, Amber’s tiny fingers clutching the front of Jackie’s dress.

Funnily enough, the second person Hayden finds around the table is Ilya Rozanov. He has the twins on his shoulders, Ruby hanging on to his left, Jade to his right, like little monkeys; Jade is giving him a kiss while Ruby is licking his face, and before Hayden’s gaze moves on, he catches Rozanov licking Ruby’s cheek back, all three of bursting into giggles.

Finally, Hayden finds Arthur, safely tucked in his best friend’s arms. He knows, there won’t be taking Arthur away from his favorite uncle for a while. His parents have tried to play with him, show him the toys they’ve gotten him, but when they tried to hug him it all ended with Arthur crying until Shane scooped him up in his arms. Besides his parents, Shane and Ilya are the only people Arthur accepts attention, affection, and physical touch from. Their families are intrinsically intertwined now.

Only slightly begrudgingly, Hayden thinks they’ll make great parents one day, when they can. Both Shane and Ilya are great with kids, far better than he ever was before having his own. Hayden wishes they could live in a world where it wasn’t so hard for them to have kids, that they could have a child whenever they wanted.

Sure, they have options like adoption or surrogacy; they have ,i>the resources for those options, a privilege not all queer couples get to have, but it still feels so unfair. He just wants the world to be better for people like his best friend. And selfishly, he wants his best friend to join him in having a big family. Little baby Hollanders chasing little Pikes around. The fucking dream. Closing his eyes, Hayden settles on his birthday wish. I wish Shane could have kids as easy as I did with Jackie Even if it’s a silly little birthday wish, Hayden likes to think he made the world a better place.

The next day Shane wakes up with a full set of female genitalia, utterly confused, slightly curious, and mildly horny. When he realizes what has happened, he sends a text to Hayden.

Shane: I hate you.
Shane: Fuck you and your birthday wishes.
Shane: How is this going to go away?
Shane: Hayden??????
Shane: Make it go away
Shane: Hayden???

Hayden: Did you get a baby?
Hayden: Dude
Hayden: How many kids did you get?

Shane: What the fuck did you wish for Hayden????

Hayden: I wished you’d have a big family like mine
Hayden: Why?
Hayden: What did you get Shane?
Hayden: Shane?
Hayden: Shane?

Shane: FUCK YOU AND YOUR BIRTHDAY WISHES
Shane: AM I GOING TO HAVE A VAGINA AND A UTERUS UNTIL I HAVE A BILLION KIDS LIKE YOU??????
Shane: HAYDEN FIX THIS
Shane: FIX THIS.
Shane: During my first PMS I am killing you

Next to him, Shane watches his boyfriend shoot a text of his own.

Ilya: Pike
Ilya: I will do my very best to get your best friend pregnant
Ilya: #trust
Ilya: 🙏🏼

Pike: I deserve this…
Pike: Tell Shane I’m sorry…
Pike: He fucking blocked me