Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais

Additional Tags:

Gender Non-Conforming Ilya Rozanov, Ilya plays with gender while Shane has a crisis and yearns, Slow Burn, Shane Hollander is Loud During Sex as a Plot Device, Call him Hollerder the way I make that boy yell, Angst with a Happy Ending, Yearning

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of flower language

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-19 Words: 5,524 Chapters: 1/1

a lily by any other name

Summary

The rest of the world had Rozanov, but only Shane had Lily. He didn’t know what that meant.

 

AKA Ilya flirts with gender then he makes out with it sloppy style

Notes

I personally do not think of Ilya as nonbinary or trans in this. I think he thinks of himself as a man throughout but he is playing with gender and having a lot of fun doing so. However, if you want to read him differently, I encourage you to trans that man and have fun.

This was originally much more focused on just Ilya playing with gender but then Shane had to yearn for 5k words.

❀༉

“Hollander, Hollander.” A light slap against his cheek brings Shane up from the quiet, fuzzy place his mind goes to when Rozanov and him are together.

“Wh-what? Rozanov, what is it?” Shane tries to get his thoughts together, but the way Rozanov has not stopped thrusting is making it somewhat hard.

“That is problem.”

“Problem? Ah- there’s a problem? What?” Shane is getting more alert with the second as his anxiety rises, but the tidal wave he normally experiences is derailed slightly by a particularly well-placed thrust, forcing out a loud moan and, “Shit, fuck Rozanov!” instead.

“That is problem. You say my name too loud. Anyone walking by will know I am fucking you very good.” Ilya punctuates this by doing something with his hips that makes the problem in question happen again. This fucking asshole.

“Sorry- ah- but you are kind of making it- ah! Hard!” Shane could hear Ilya begin to smirk even though he was currently facedown and clinging to the bedsheets with Ilya behind him. “Shut up.”

“Whaaat? I say nothing.” The hands on Shane’s hips tighten and pull him up more. Oh, that’s a new angle.

Ilya chuckled. “You are doing it again!”

Shane lied to himself for the hundredth time and told himself this was absolutely the last time he was letting Rozanov anywhere near him.

“I can’t really stop it! You stop it!”

Rozanov came to a stop so suddenly that the air left Shane’s lungs. Oh no.

“Rozanov…”

“What? I stopped!” Rozanov started to pull out, and Shane panicked. His mind went blank, just trying to keep Rozanov from leaving when he was so, so close, and the horny animal part of his brain that kept him coming back took over. He shoved himself back onto Rozanov’s dick.

That got a noise from both of them. A loud one. It also got Rozanov moving again, a slow grind into Shane as a groan slipped out of him. Shane on the other hand, moaned out Rozanov’s name again. Fuck. He could see the problem.

Ilya leaned over and gave a surprisingly gentle kiss to the back of Shane’s neck, maintaining the slow, dirty grinding motion the whole time. “Fine, fine. I have fix.”

“A, ah, fix?” Shane’s brain was starting to melt again, Ilya had found the right angle again and now he was torturing Shane by not leaving it alone.

“Yes, yes. Call me Lily, then anyone who hears thinks you have very talented girlfriend.”

Distantly, Shane felt like there were some problems with this, some reason this didn’t make sense. In the moment, he felt like his brain had been reduced down to just the sensations of Ilya moving inside him, his hands on his hips and his breath on his neck. He wanted him to keep going, anything he could do to keep him going.

“Ah- ah, Lily…”

There was the slightest pause from Rozanov, just for a moment, then Shane whined and Rozanov gave a sound that Shane was tempted to call a growl, before he really started to move.

Rozanov was right. Anyone walking by their room that night would indeed have thought that Lily was very talented.

❀༉

In the cold, sober light of day, Shane can admit that got a little strange. Thinking it over, he just couldn’t understand why Rozanov had done that. Yes, Rozanov had chosen the names, but using a woman’s name as an alias to text made sense. But asking to be called that? While fucking Shane into a mattress? That was the part that didn’t make sense.

A large part of the confusion Shane felt was just the disconnect. Rozanov was a big man, broad, muscular. Personality-wise, he was cocky, aggressive, and he used that muscle in the rink to dominate over others. Even just his name felt harsh with its Russian pronunciation and bit off syllables. Lily on the other hand… It was a woman’s name obviously, and a very feminine one at that. It felt delicate, soft. Things that Rozanov most definitely wasn’t.

And yet. It hadn’t felt wrong to shout it out while Rozanov fucked him. Shane told himself it was probably just because he already associated Lily with Rozanov’s texts. He had gotten horrendously horny texts from Lily for two years, with accompanying dick pics. The association he had with that name was most certainly not chaste, so it made sense for the name to make him feel something deep in his core. Still, Shane couldn’t stop thinking about it and trying to make it make sense. Trying to make his feelings about it make sense.

His phone lit up with a text. Speak of the Russian devil and he shall appear.

Lily
Game in two days. Thinking about how I will feel in you?

Shane wondered for a moment if Rozanov had a sixth sense for when someone was thinking horny thoughts about him. It would certainly make the shower situation make more sense. Or all the other times over the years he has texted him just as Shane was thinking about the last time he had seen him. It could be that, or Shane was just perpetually thinking horny thoughts about Rozanov so the man in question could text him any time for the same result. With the sigh of a man who gave up the battle a long time back, he grabbed his phone to reply.

Jane
I’m thinking about how I will feel beating you.

A pause, then.

Lily
So cruel to your Lily after I am so generous to you. :(
But is ok. It will not happen. And then I will be very generous. >:)

Shane stopped. What. What the fuck.

He stared at his phone. Stared at it more. Hovered his fingers over the keyboard, but had no idea at all what to say to that. He felt a slight flare of betrayal at the heat in his gut thinking about Rozanov’s “generosity”, but that was a feeling he was already well acquainted with. Finally, feeling a bit like he had gotten a concussion at some point without noticing, he typed.

Jane
You really want me to call you that?

Lily
Yes. Is practice.
For when I make you scream it in two days ;)

Shane stared. Ok.

❀༉

“Doesn’t it feel weird?”

“What?” Rozanov looks up at Shane from where he was roughly scrubbing his head with a hotel towel. The sight of Rozanov blinking up at him from a fluffy white towel, curls sticking up in every direction, struck Shane as being cute the same way youtube videos about puppies and kittens were, a thought he quickly repressed.

“I mean, isn’t it emasculating for me to call you a girl’s name?”

“Emasc- what? What is this word?”

Okay, yeah, that’s fair that he wouldn’t know that one. “It’s like when something makes a man a girl? Or at least it makes him feel like a girl?” Maybe Shane didn’t fully know this one either, at least not enough to explain it to the confused, mostly naked Russian in front of him.

Rozanov scoffed. “Make me a girl? How can a word make me a girl? Did my dick disappear mid-way through fucking you because you call me Lily?”

“Well, no, but-”

Rozanov got up from the bed and strode over to where Shane was fidgeting with the hotel stationary on the nightstand. With Shane sitting, Rozanov loomed over Shane, wrapped in only a towel and with beads of water running down his neck from his still wet hair. His eyes were dark and Shane couldn’t help but feel like they saw more than anyone else did when they looked at him. Certainly more than he wanted Rozanov to see.

“I think my dick is still there, so is probably still safe to call me Lily when you need to shout something, yes?” They maintained eye contact for a moment that fizzed like electricity down Shane’s spine, then Rozanov abruptly smirked in the exact way he did before he got someone to drop gloves on the ice. “But if my dick does disappear, then I guess you will need to learn how to eat pussy as good as you suck cock, yes?”

Shane flushed, and thankfully he had a familiar response he could use here, “Fuck off, Rozanov.”

❀༉

Shane’s phone buzzed, and there was only enough time for him to see the name Lily pop up on the screen before Hayden snatched his phone up. “Hayden!” Shane’s heart jumped up into his throat, and he lunged across the bed separating them while Hayden darted away from him.

Hayden held the phone up over his head as he tried to read the text while running away from Shane. “No! I want to see what this girl is like! You’ve been texting her forever!”

“Hayden, give that back!” Shane hoped he didn’t look the way he felt, like a deer that had just looked up to realize a truck was about to run it over. God, if it was another dick pic…

Hayden paused, looking at the screen. “Oh, that’s actually pretty sweet.”

Shane’s oncoming panic attack took a break to be deeply confused. Sweet? Rosanov? Had someone else named Lily texted? One he didn’t realize was saved to his phone? Hayden stopping led him to slam into Hayden’s back, and he used the collision to snatch back his phone.

Hayden laughed, holding his hands up guiltily. “She watches your games! That’s pretty committed for an occasional bang.”

Shane looked up at Hayden and then down at the phone trying to figure out what the fuck was going on.

Lily
Saw you lost to Drillers. So sad.

A second more passed, then another text came through.

Lily
Very sad for Metros that Pike forgot how to play hockey :(((
Too many concussions, make his brain not see puck anymore?

Despite himself, Shane’s lips curved up into a smile.

Hayden cooed, “Awwwww, someone has a crush!”

Shane flushed. “What? No, I don’t. Also don’t touch my phone! This stuff is private.”

Hayden waggled his eyebrows. “Oooh private texts, huh?”

Shane went even redder, but it was hard to deny anything when about 90% of what Rozanov sent was a sext, dick pic, or sexual innuendo of some kind.

Hayden grinned at Shane like this wasn’t going to drive Shane to an early grave from heart palpitations. “Come on, give me some details on this girl! What does she look like? I’m starting to wonder if she’s even real.”

Shane barely kept himself from instinctively shouting that she wasn’t real by realizing that he did not want Hayden to think too hard about why Shane would be texting a fake girl.

Shane bit his lip, then reluctantly said, “Lily has blue eyes. And curly hair.”

Hayden’s face lit up. “She sounds like a cutie!”

Shane choked. That was probably the first time anyone had ever referred to Rozanov as a “cutie.” The fact that Hayden had no idea he was referring to the Russian Menace who had personally dislocated his shoulder a few seasons ago and was voted Most Punchable in the last MLH polls was deeply ironic, and a small, slightly hysterical chuckle escaped him. Oblivious, Hayden punched his shoulder and said, “See? Doesn’t it feel good to chat with your best bud Hayden about your girl Lily?”

Strangely, it did feel good to tell Hayden something about Rozanov. Like Rozanov really was a person that mattered to him, and he was sharing him with his best friend. Hearing “your girl Lily” hit him in the exact spot in his chest where seeing “your Lily” had struck him. Shane decided he was not going to think about what that meant.

For now, Shane chose to set aside the surreal feeling of thinking of Rozanov as “his girl Lily” and instead just smile back at Hayden and enjoy pretending for a moment that anything about his situation with Rozanov was normal.

❀༉

“Lily, god, Lily!” One of these days, Shane was going to figure out how not to scream Rozanov’s name, albeit his fake name, when he was close to cumming. Today was apparently not that day.

Even worse, they were in Shane’s condo, so if he had to shout a name then it should be Rozanov, not Lily. However, he had so much experience shouting Lily when Rozanov had him on the edge that it was proving impossible to not slip back into old habits. For lack of a better idea, he brought one hand up from where it had been holding on for dear life to Rozanov’s curls, and bit it to try and muffle the noises. Almost immediately after he let out a stifled moan, and the wet warmth that had been making his mind go blank stopped abruptly.

“No, no, Hollander.” Rozanov’s hand was suddenly wrapped around his own, and a second later his fingers were intertwined with Shane’s and his hand was pinned up over his head. Rozanov had moved up from where he had been swallowing down Shane’s dick, and was now caging him in from above. “Do not cover. I want to hear.”

“Lil- sorry, Rozanov, I’m trying to stop with the girl name but it just keeps slipping out.”

“So?”

Shane scrunched up his face, wondering what Rozanov wasn’t getting. “It’s not a hotel, no one will hear. I don’t need to say Lily.”

“Hollander.” He stared down at Shane, brow furrowed slightly with a twist to his lips that Shane couldn’t read. Then, taking Shane’s other hand to pin it over his head with the other, he said in a low voice. “I want to hear. Say it.”

Shane swallowed, feeling unsure if this crossed one of their many invisible lines they had drawn over the years. Hesitantly, and with the guilty feeling that he was getting away with doing something he shouldn't do somehow more than what was normal with Rozanov, he said, “Touch me, Lily?”

Rozanov’s eyes darkened and he released Shane’s hands from where they now laid over his head. “Keep your hands up there.” Then he moved back down Shane’s body. Shane lost track of what name he said after that but it felt short and sweet in his mouth.

❀༉

“-it’s got notes of lily and vanilla, whatever that means.”

Shane’s head jerked up a bit too fast for even him to pretend it was normal. Across the locker room, he could see Miity talking to J.J., with both thankfully not noticing Shane snapping to attention like a dog who had heard a whistle after years of training. Unfortunately, Hayden, who was putting his gear on next to him, did notice the whiplash Shane had just given himself.

“Whoa, buddy, where’s the fire?” Hayden looked in the direction Shane was staring before he could redirect.

Miity waved a hand around dismissively while he kept talking, “this perfume is way more expensive then you would think though. It’s such a small bottle! And Lucille already has other perfumes that smell like flowers, but she wants to smell like lilies and vanilla now I guess? It smells like a bakery had a baby with a flower shop.”

Shane stilled like Hayden would not be able to see him if he just stopped breathing, but unfortunately it did not stop the delighted smile that slowly spread across Hayden’s face as he realized what exactly was going on.

“Lily, huh?”

Shane dropped his head to stare down at his skates. “Hayden, please.”

“No, no, I think it’s sweet! You walk by the flower section and think of your Lily?”

“Hayden, please just drop it.”

It was too late, the teasing had caught the ears of the J.J. and Miity now.

“Ohhh are we talking about capitaine’s Boston love now?”

Shane’s head shot up, “We are not- it’s not-”

Miity clapped his hand on Shane’s shoulder, “Maybe not yet! But if you are wanting to lock that down, let this married man give you some advice. Girls love nice gifts, like perfume! I bet something special like that would make her know you are thinking about her even up here in Montreal!”

The problem, a detached part of Shane noted, was that he kept thinking of Rozanov. So much that Rozanov could not know. And he most certainly couldn’t give him gifts, especially something like perfume.

Would he wear it though? A much less detached part of Shane whispered. Just a little bit, enough to remind him of all the times I’ve said Lily over the years. Everyone will think it’s just a girl he is hooking up with. But he would know.

Shane took all these thoughts, bottled them up, and stuck them where every other Rozanov thought was hidden away in the back of his brain. But he knew that no matter how hard he tried, the next time he saw a lily in the store or in a bouquet, he would end up breathing in its smell briefly, just enough to imagine.

❀༉

At this point, Rozanov felt strange on his tongue. When they were in hotels, and he was gasping into the sheets, he said Lily. But because Shane was determined to maintain control over the situation, and because he had woken up multiple times in the middle of the night from stress dreams in which he said Lily during a press interview, he still tried to call him Rozanov as much as he could. Except he slipped up often. When his mind went fuzzy as Rozanov carved out a space in him like he was going to live there, or when his mouth was on Shane, making him see stars. Then, he gripped at Rozanov’s hair, and gasped out the name he only said when they were behind closed doors.

They were behind closed doors now, in Rozanov’s house where no one could see or hear him, but in a departure from all the unspoken rules they had adhered to over the years, they were not having sex. Instead, Rozanov had made him a tuna melt of all things, given him ginger ale, and talked to him about cities they liked as if this was a thing that the two of them were allowed to do. The mental exercise of keeping himself from saying Lily instead of Rozanov when it wasn’t during sex was making it hard for Shane to focus, so he was trying to avoid using any names as much as he can. When he was finally able to shift things back to the safe territory of sex, it was almost a relief to finally say Lily into the space between their mouths again.

Then Ilya broke one of the biggest rules they had. He said Shane, like it belonged on his lips. He said it in a way that felt different even from the way Shane said Lily. It slipped out between gritted teeth, like the effort of holding it in had hurt Rozanov, and he couldn’t do it any longer.

Looking into his eyes, shaking from the orgasm and the feeling of hearing his name from Rozanov’s lips, Shane said a name that wasn’t Rozanov or Lily. One that he absolutely should not have said.

When he says he can’t do this anymore, he calls him Rozanov.

❀༉

“Did you see Rozanov’s interview?”

It’s been years, and yet Shane still can’t stop himself from acting like a dog at the mention of Rozanov’s name. The one that the whole world got, or the one that only Shane has. Had.

This time it is Hayden leaning over J.J.’s shoulder as he shows him something on his phone. Hayden scoffs, “What, more dumbass comments? Is he really boasting when he’s been playing like shit recently?”

“Of course! I don’t think he can turn it off. Honestly, he seems more pissed off than usual!”

“I’m not sure you can tell the difference, he’s basically got a smug asshole face, and then just his everyday asshole face.”

He has other faces, said the voice in Shane's head he has been desperately trying to ignore recently. There’s the soft one after he kissed you, or the one he would make when he went down on you.That one looked a lot like the face he made seconds before he came. But his face when he said Shane was completely different to that. It looked pained. But not as pained as he looked when he said Hollander and put his hand out on the couch like he was begging you to take it. Not as pained as when you left.

Shane breathed in, then out. He was moving on, not that there had been anything to move on from. He had a beautiful girlfriend, the Metros were doing alright this season, granted he had some bad games in there but really, he was fine. So what if sometimes his mouth moved to say a different name from Rose? That was normal, right?

Rose was wonderful, he was so happy he had found someone as wonderful as her. But sometimes, he had to curse the universe that her name was Rose, something that reminded him of other flowers.

Back in the real world, where he unfortunately was unable to turn off his constant awareness of Rozanov, even if it was just mentions of it, he heard Hayden move on from complaining about Ilya’s latest interview responses to make a comment that had the hair raise along Shane’s arm, like an animal knowing a storm is coming before you even see the sky start to darken.

“Huh, gotta say, I did not think Rozanov was the type to try and make a flower tie work. It’s a bit too girly for him.”

“What?” Shane stood up and walked over. Inwardly, he hoped desperately he seemed normal, but he truly had no idea what his own face was doing at that moment.

“Oh, wanna see? Looks like Rozanov is getting into fashion these days. What type of flower even is that?”

A lily, Shane manages to bite back from saying, if only because he doesn’t feel like he has air in his lungs anymore. Fitted snugly into the collar of his game day suit, Rozanov had a tie Shane had never seen before. It was fairly understated, a light blue background, with a simple floral motif covering it. A pattern made entirely of pale, white lilies.

That bastard. A distant part of Shane thought. God, it matches the color of his eyes.

J.J. somehow unaware of Shane reacting like a bull that had just had a red, lily-covered flag waved in front of it, whistled and said, “That is a man who is very confident in his sexuality!”

Oh, you have no idea, Shane thought hysterically.

❀༉

After Rose, after Tampa where he learned how much sweeter the name Ilya can feel on his lips, and after being gifted a truly astounding concussion by Marleau, Shane finds himself grimacing through a hug from his mom which, while comforting, manages to tug a bit too hard at his sling. One second he had been sleeping the sleep of those on less painkillers than they used to be, but still the amount the hospital uses when they do not want you to be moving, and the next he was getting kisses on his forehead from his mom as she apologized for not getting there sooner.

Shane blinked blearily, still trying to shake off the sleepy, medicated fog. “Mom, it’s ok. Really, I know how far of a drive it is, I’m just impressed you drove through the night to get here.”

His dad forced out a smile that managed to make it halfway to reassuring, but was ruined slightly by how he was glancing over the bruises across Shane’s face. “I wish we had been here when you first woke up. Have you had anyone visit at all?”

“Hayden has been here, and uh, some of my teammates.” Shane decided to hold back on mentioning Ilya Rozanov visiting his bedside and holding his hand with a tender, scared look in his eyes. It seemed like that might rile up his mom more.

“Well, at least you had some visitors. These are lovely flowers, was it Jackie who picked them?”

Looking over at his mom, he saw that in typical Yuna Hollander fashion, she had decided to deal with the worry of the past day by gaining control of the situation. In this case, it seemed to be straightening out his bedside table which was covered with get-well-soon cards hand-drawn by Hayden’s kids, a gag gift teddy bear with a band-aid slapped onto its head given to him by the rest of the team, and also, Shane noted as he froze, sitting at the end of the table like it meant nothing more than his other gifts, a white vase filled with lilies.

Shane’s mouth went dry but he responded, “No. Uh, no. I actually don’t know. I must have been asleep when they were delivered. Is there a card?”

Yuna checked around, and let out a triumphant hum when she found a small pink card tucked into the bouquet. “It says, ‘your favorite’. But there’s no signature? Are lilies really your favorite flower? I never realized.”

“Yeah,” Shane whispered, heart in his throat. “Yeah, they are my favorite.”

❀༉

“And the water is really nice here, I actually have my own well. You can see it from here-” Oh god he was babbling. He was just rambling along. It has to be so clear to Ilya that he has no idea what he is doing here.

Thankfully, Ilya saves him from himself when he makes a quiet noise behind him then says, “Flowers?”

Shane turned, and saw that Ilya had found the vase he had placed next to the window, where the sunlight streaming in would make the pale petals of the lilies glow. It was a little early in the season for lilies, so he had needed to put in a special order with a florist, and pay extra for delivery out to his remote cottage. The second he saw Ilya’s face, he knew it was worth it.

Ilya looked… soft as he brushed a finger along the curve of the lilies’ petals, so gently that it seemed like he thought he could bruise the flower with his touch alone. For a moment, he looked as delicate as his namesake, like he was on the edge of cracking. Then, he huffed out a small laugh, and looked up at Shane. For a moment, Shane was treated to the rare sight of Ilya being unsure what to say, before finally his mouth quirked, and he said simply, “For me?”

“Yes,” Shane whispered. “For you.”

❀༉

Years and one life-changing Fanmail later, their wedding has a distinctly floral smell to it. Initially, they had planned for everyone to stand in the backyard, but Yuna had argued and borderline begged them to let her find a company which would set up tables and chairs. Shane would never tell his mom, but the only real reason he agreed was because it gave him a place to put vases bursting with his favorite flower. Lilies adorned every table. Between the smell of the flowers and the wedding cake (another Yuna plea, one which Ilya had agreed to enthusiastically, forcing Shane to follow), Shane thought to himself quietly that this must be the smell of that perfume Miity had talked about years ago.

All those years ago, just hearing the word lily had made his heart skip a beat. Now, staring at Ilya, who was smiling that small, gentle smile that normally only Shane saw on his face, Shane felt like his heart had grown too big for his chest. Based on the wet glimmer in llya’s eyes, and the slightly shaky breath he let out which made the lily pinned to his lapel flutter, Shane thought Ilya felt the same right now.

Shane smiled shakily back at Ilya, brushing his fingers up against his own lily boutonniere as he reached into his breast pocket for a small slip of neatly folded paper. It helped to have the paper to hold onto and glance at, but he knew the words by heart at this point. Still, he glanced down at it just to hide his watering eyes for a second from the crowd of loved ones waiting for them to read their vows.

He cleared his throat, and read the first line, “My Lily, my Ilya. I am so glad we are finally here.”

❀༉ Epilogue ❀༉

For once, the red carpet they stepped onto was not connected to hockey at all. This gala was of the fund-raising type, a connection that Scott had made for them to help the Irina Foundation. It had far more non-athlete celebrities then the events they normally attended, and a less strict dress code than the MHL liked to enforce, which meant that Ilya went more all out then usual.

Shane would never love the flash of cameras and yelling of photographers and journalists, despite the fact that he faced it so often in his professional life. Still, it helped that all of their attention was focused on his husband, who very much deserved it. Ilya gave his severe Slavic stare at the camera, but it was contrasted by the outfit he had chosen for the evening. White, sheer lace rose up underneath his open black suit jacket to form a high neck collar where Ilya's gold cross glinted. In the flash of the lights, Shane kept catching sight of Ilya's nipples and the deep contours of his chest through the fabric, and he could personally confirm that their tailor had done an excellent job with the fit of Ilya's trousers. They had just gotten to this event and Shane already wanted to leave so he could peel the skin-tight lace off of his husband.

In the years since their outing, Ilya had chosen to, in his own words, “have fun” with how he presented himself. He still played rough on the ice, and gave his post-game interviews sweaty and shirtless more often than not, but in addition to his athletic wear sponsorships, he had worked with Yuna to get signed with European fashion brands as well. In his personal life, his wardrobe now had more silk and sheer fabrics mixed in with the athleisure and at formal events where he could get away with it, he mixed in jewelry as well as bright colors and patterns that other MHL players wouldn't be caught dead wearing. He got his ears pierced at one point, and now when they were off-ice, small gold hoops glinted in unison with his cross. Ilya seemed to be having the time of his life making the news with each new outfit, and there was a small part of Shane that sometimes wondered if the end goal wasn't to make Crowell drop dead from an aneurysm.

Ilya's hand landed on Shane's lower back and as he leaned over to whisper in his ear, Shane caught a lily-scented waft of the perfume he had given him as an anniversary gift two years back when it became clear that perfume was something Ilya would be interested in. Ilya had been very interested, and then very generous in his thank you afterward.

“Should I give them show now? Or later?”

Shane couldn't help but smile at his attention-seeking husband. He leaned into Ilya's hand on his back and said, “The cameras are all here, that's kind of the point of the red carpet.”

“Ah, yes, thank you for the reminder. I am so lucky to have such a smart husband.” Ilya said with a smirk. He turned to face the photographers and shouted, “Pay attention! Make sure to get my good angles.”

With a wink to the cameras, Ilya stepped back from Shane and shrugged off his suit jacket, revealing that the lace shirt underneath was sleeveless with a halter-style open back. The shirt showed off his broad back, and his muscular biceps. It also emphasized the tattoos adorning each shoulder. On one side, a loon in flight. On the other, a large tattoo of a lily blossoming across his bicep.

The cameras went wild, and Shane suspected that there would be many non-hockey fans who learned Ilya's name after tonight. Ilya swung his suitjacket over one shoulder and looked back over it towards Shane, who was standing a few steps behind looking fondly at his husband and appreciating the sight of Ilya's back framed by lace.

Completely ignoring the photographers he had just provoked, Ilya held out his free hand towards Shane and wiggled his fingers. “Solnyshko, the outfit is not complete without my pretty arm candy.”

Shane huffed but it was ruined by the smile he couldn't keep off his face as he stepped up to Ilya and grabbed his hand. “Sorry, moy tsvetok.”

Ilya’s eyes darkened and he tugged Shane forward, into Ilya, so that he could whisper, low and silkily into his ear, “Tonight, moy lyubimyy, I will have you screaming Lily again.”