Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander & Hayden Pike, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais & Shane Hollander, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais & Shane Hollander & Hayden Pike, Troy Barrett & Ilya Rozanov, Troy Barrett/Harris Drover

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Hayden Pike, Hayden Pike's Children, Jackie Pike, Troy Barrett, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Harris Drover, Ottawa Centaurs Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Luca Haas

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers), Shane Tells J.J. the Truth, Fix-It, Friendship, Humor, Competitive Shane Hollander, Competitive Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Jealous Shane Hollander, Good Friend Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Good Friend Hayden Pike, Homophobia, Misogyny, Jean-Jacques Boiziau's Gay Wingman Dreams, Montreal Voyageurs Are Less Terrible Than Canon, The Goalie Personality-ification of Patrice Drapeau

Language:

English

Series:

Part 2 of you've got a friend in me

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-18 Completed: 2026-05-18 Words: 13,417 Chapters: 5/5

we stick together we can see it through

Summary

"Hey." J.J. held out his hand for a handshake, as if he were meeting Ilya for the first time, and Shane supposed that in a way he was. "Zane says you don't suck."

Shane had not made Ilya promise to be on his best behavior, and he regretted that immediately as he watched Ilya shake J.J.'s hand with an expression of exaggerated confusion.

"Bood is slandering me? Why would he do this?" Ilya turned to Shane. "And you! You are letting your friends believe I don't give excellent—"

or:

Shane told J.J. the truth after the almost-plane-crash. Now Shane has the aggressive support of his most sociable and meddlesome friend.

Notes

Thank you very much to starfireone3 for sensitivity reading, Brainiac19 for beta reading, and as always the Game Changers Library Server for cheerleading. This is a sequel to and you're miles and miles from your nice warm bed so you should probably read that first, but if you don't feel like it all you really need to know is that Shane told J.J. the truth when J.J. went to comfort him after the almost-crash, J.J. and Hayden helped Shane plan his proposal, and Troy got Ilya's ring size for Shane. Title still from "You've Got a Friend in Me" because it's fun to me. Enjoy!

Chapter 1

"Hey." J.J. held out his hand for a handshake, as if he were meeting Ilya for the first time, and Shane supposed that in a way he was. "Zane says you don't suck."

Shane had not made Ilya promise to be on his best behavior, and he regretted that immediately as he watched Ilya shake J.J.'s hand with an expression of exaggerated confusion.

"Bood is slandering me? Why would he do this?" Ilya turned to Shane. "And you! You are letting your friends believe I don't give excellent—"

Shane put his hand over Ilya's mouth. "You know that's not what he meant."

Ilya nodded, and when Shane removed his hand, he blinked innocently. "English is so hard," he said. "Like you when I—"

"NOPE!"

The front door opened and Hayden poked his head out. "Are you guys gonna come in any time today, or what? Not that I mind if Rozanov stays outside. That is one hundred percent fine with me."

"Ilya was just getting everything inappropriate out of his system before we spend time with the kids," Shane said.

"Oh, is that what we're doing?" J.J. asked, sounding way too amused. "In that case I wanted to know if you guys are aware Rozanov has performance-enhancing jizz?"

Hayden made a strangled noise and closed the door, disappearing back inside his house and leaving Shane alone to deal with this.

Ilya looked gleeful.

Shane needed a shovel. He needed to dig a hole in the ground and climb into it. "Is there any way to escape this conversation?"

J.J. grinned. "No chance, buddy. You know how people love to analyze your stats? You used to play like fifteen percent better in games against Boston and games right after. And what do you know, that stat bump happens around Ottawa games now."

Half of Shane still wanted to ruin Hayden's lawn but the other half wanted to cross-reference his stats with days Ilya had off that Montreal played at home. He had a horrifying suspicion that J.J.'s theory would hold true there as well. He'd played the best hockey of his life last year, with Ilya only two hours away. Ilya was smirking, and seemed only seconds from declaring that his dick was responsible for Montreal's most recent Stanley Cup.

Shane wished he could say with certainty that it didn't have anything to do with Ilya's come at all, or at least that he was able to say they'd had safe sex before they were exclusive, but while they'd used condoms with fucking, when it came to other things… Shane had swallowed. Basically every time.

"Okay, we're going inside now," Shane said, and dragged Ilya in behind him.

As he watched Ilya crouch down to listen to the twins talking over each other about something to do with sharks, maybe, Shane realized he'd divided up his feelings incorrectly, because there was a third part, bigger than the other two. That part was just proud and happy and wanted to point at those stats and yell about them to the world. Look, he wanted to say, see? Loving Ilya has only ever made me better, in every way possible.

J.J. stood just inside the entryway, hands in his pockets, a soft smile on his face, and Shane thought that maybe he got it too.

What followed was an afternoon of family-friendly activities. Shane sat with Jackie and happily listened to her talk while Ilya joined the kids' game of princess tea party slash backyard mini ninja warrior. As far as Shane could tell, it consisted of navigating improvised obstacles on the lawn while covered in children's costume jewelry. The kids raced over and past Ilya as he pretended to be bested by an overturned bucket, all of them laughing in the sunlight. Shane watched as Arthur pulled Amber in a wagon over the finish line while Ruby and Jade tackled Ilya to the ground. Ilya flopped backwards dramatically, and the miniature tiara which had been clinging desperately to his curls finally gave up and fell off. His hair was a tangled mess. There were grass stains on his knees. He was beautiful. Hayden and J.J. were there too, probably.

Afterwards Shane teamed up with Arthur and Ilya teamed up with Amber for extremely fraught rounds of Monopoly Junior and Candyland and a stacking game that involved small balls of fuzz that seemed specifically designed to disadvantage large hockey player hands. Ruby and Jade spent a lot of time laughing at them, but at least they were all occupied while Jackie and Hayden and J.J. worked to put together a dinner that was both kid-friendly and fit everyone's nutrition plans.

Then it was dinner and bathtime and bedtime routines and finally, the adults all ended up in the living room with wine.

Well. Shane wasn't having any, but nobody had commented on it either, and he was sitting on a couch pressed next to Ilya surrounded by some of his favorite people, which was basically as relaxing as things ever got for Shane during the hockey season.

He took a sip of his seltzer, and turned to J.J. "About what you said earlier—"

"Man, I wasn't serious about the jizz. I just meant that getting laid regularly is clearly working for you. I am absolutely not suggesting you bottle the stuff and take it on road trips—"

"No!" Shane would flee the house before opening that conversation up again. "Really no. I meant what you said to Ilya. I thought you were friends with Wyatt? Why did you ask Boodram about Ilya and not him?"

J.J. laughed. "Wyatt is way too nice, dude. Anyway his wasn't the kind of opinion I needed. Which you would know if you didn't mute the groupchat, Shane."

Ilya, the meddling gossip-hound, practically had stars in his eyes as he leaned in. "There is groupchat?"

"You don't get to know about the groupchat, Rozanov," J.J. said. "No offense, but you're like the whitest man alive."

Ilya gasped. "How dare you say this to me when Hayden Pike is right here!"

He gestured at Hayden, who rolled his eyes and sipped his wine and gave Ilya the finger. Jackie patted him on the thigh for his restraint. Shane approved.

"Poor baby," Shane cooed tauntingly at his currently more annoying partner. "You're equal to Hayden, is that better?"

"Equal. Me. Equal to Hayden Pike? How could you betray me like this?" Ilya was clearly refraining from yelling only due to being in a house with four small sleeping chidren. "Most of Russia is geographically in Asia!"

J.J. raised his eyebrows at Shane, clearly conveying: Has your man ever met a hill he didn't want to die on?

Shane shook his head back, meaning: Unfortunately I really enjoy murdering him on every single one, and said, "Oooh, geographically. Big word. Doesn't change the fact that you're from Moscow."

Ilya pouted, and started hitting Shane with one of Jackie's very nice throw pillows, which was basically admitting defeat. Shane closed his eyes and basked in his glorious victory.

"You can ask, you know," Shane said. It was just Shane, J.J. and Hayden sitting in Shane's apartment watching Ilya's team win on the television. The Centaurs had been winning ever since Shane had asked Ilya to marry him, and Shane's superstitious hockey player brain couldn't help but turn correlation into causation. He'd handed an opposing team a good luck charm; did his friends think he'd helped Ilya win in other ways too?

J.J. glanced away from the screen, which was currently showing Ilya celebrating his goal off of Troy Barrett's assist by gleefully smashing the guy into the boards. "Ask about what? Your plans to murder Barrett?"

"What? No. I'm not going to murder Troy Barrett."

"Okay," Hayden said. "Glad to know I won't be going to jail as an accomplice. What is it you're expecting us to ask about, then? Your sex life? I don't want to know about your sex life."

Shane wrinkled his nose. "Gross. No. Feel free to pretend I don't have one. I do the same for you."

"Buddy, he has four entire children!" J.J. pointed out.

Shane shrugged. "All immaculately conceived, as far as I'm concerned. No, I meant, you can ask if I ever let him win."

Both Hayden and J.J. burst out laughing.

"Why are you laughing? My mom asked me if I ever let him win. My mom."

"I would bet a thousand dollars it was before she saw how you are together," J.J. said. "I was there when you brought him to Hayden's house, remember? You fought about Candy Land. Candy. Land. For ages three and up."

"He was counting cards!"

Hayden reached out and grabbed Shane by the shoulders. "Shane. Buddy. You are my best friend. I am always on your side. If you decide you want to throw Ilya Rozanov into a fire I'm right there with you. But you sound fucking deranged right now."

"It's normal to not want to lose," Shane said.

"Seriously, though," J.J. said, "remember what I said about your stats the other day? Like, objectively, you were clearly never letting him win."

Shane realized something. "You looked it up. You thought about it and you went looking for the data. Is that what made you sure?"

"No," J.J. said, "it was when you practically got hard telling me all about how you and your boyfriend were better at hockey than Scott Hunter."

"Fiancé," Shane corrected, at the same time as Hayden said, "Ew."

J.J. laughed. "Chill, dude. It isn't enough to be the best hockey player in the league, you've gotta be the most possessive man alive, too? It was boyfriend at the time."

Shane crossed his arms. "You know I was already planning to ask and anyway nobody else is good enough for him."

He was maybe glaring at the TV when he said it, at Ilya welcoming Luca Haas back to the bench with a boisterous hug. Haas was just a baby, sure, but extrapolating from things Ilya had said about him, he was a baby who had regularly jacked off to a poster of Shane's fiancé.

It wasn't as if Shane could blame him, though. And it didn’t matter if Haas had a crush, because Ilya was wearing Shane's ring. He'd be telling his team soon, including little Luca Haas, who wasn't actually very little and also wore glasses and was more than fine at hockey. Still, he was no Shane Hollander, and Shane Hollander was going to marry Ilya Rozanov.

"Are you going to murder Luca Haas?" Hayden asked. "Because, again, I support you one hundred percent in everything you do, but I'm not really down with murdering children."

"I'm not murdering anyone," Shane said, "except maybe you two for being so annoying."

They all watched as the game ended in another Centaurs win.

"They're probably going to make the playoffs," J.J. said.

"Yeah," Shane said. "It's starting to look that way." The way Ilya talked about it was like it was a sure thing, like the Centaurs had just collectively decided one day that they were done losing and so they had begun to win, and that decision would carry them through.

"We're probably going to have to play them in the first round," J.J. said.

Hayden nudged Shane. "Is it bad if I'm really looking forward to kicking your fiancé out of the playoffs?"

"Yes," Shane said, even though beating Ilya was one of his favorite things in the world. Beating Ilya at the top of his game was even better. Still: "You can't take a series for granted. The Centaurs have been coming together really well lately."

"Whatever you say, Captain."

"You're marrying Rozanov this summer," J.J. said, which was a weird change of subject.

"Yeah. Is this about the bachelor party? I already told you—"

"You're coming out together this summer," J.J. said. He sounded serious, even if he was sticking with English, which Shane recognized was probably for Hayden's sake. "After we probably face the team your fiancé is the captain of. The guys…I think we need to start preparing them."

Honestly, Shane had been hoping to Scott Hunter his way through it. Win another Cup and then come out with Ilya and have that to point to as proof that who Shane loved didn't negatively affect his hockey at all. But J.J. was probably right. The team wasn't ostracizing Shane after he'd come out to them, but it wasn't as if everything was still the same either, and he'd done that after multiple championships together. "This is why you looked up the stats," Shane realized.

"Just laying the groundwork," J.J. said with a shrug, as if thinking about that was nothing, as if it wasn't everything to know J.J. was worrying about him and doing something about it.

"Wait," Shane said. "Is that why you guys told that whole story in the locker room about me flipping a table playing Monopoly Junior with him?"

Hayden smiled. "Yeah, buddy. We've got your back."

Chapter 2: Ilya Interlude

Chapter Summary

In which Ilya teases his bestie, sows some chaos, and spends time with Shane.

Chapter Notes

A huge thank you this chapter to starfireone3 for sensitivity reading again, to Smile22 for beta reading, and as always the Game Changers Library Server for cheerleading.

Content warnings for this chapter: A joking reference to vore, casual homophobia, locker room misogyny

Friendship ring fans, this one's for you.

ILYA

Ilya walked out into the parking garage humming. Shane was going to marry him, the Centaurs had just beaten the Voyageurs, and Ilya was going to spend a whole weekend with Shane at the All-Stars and the rest of the break alone with him after. Everything was wonderful. And look: there was Ilya's new BFF walking to his car!

After Shane's beautiful (though definitely stolen) proposal, Shane confessed to asking for Troy's assistance in getting Ilya's ring size. Ilya was touched and grateful and a whole load of other emotions he would need Galina's help sorting through. He dealt with it by teasing Troy about his friendship ring idea until Troy got fed up enough to buy him a cheap monstrosity from a tween accessory store. It was part of a set that joined together to make a pink heart that read BFFs 4eva. Ilya's half looked like it read BI 4e, and even with the adjustable band, it only barely fit on his pinky. It was hideous. Ilya loved it and wore it as much as he could. Shane delighted Ilya by scowling every time he saw it and saying he hoped it turned Ilya's finger green.

"I'm guessing Pike knows," Troy said when Ilya caught up to him.

Ilya laughed. "What makes you think that?"

"You checked Hollander and whispered something to him and Pike said, 'I want the ice to come to life and eat me.'"

"That means nothing," Ilya said, obviously lying. "Maybe Pike has a weird kink."

Troy rolled his eyes. "That's not a kink."

"It is," Ilya insisted. "You should learn more. You can figure out what you and Harris both like, yes?"

Troy went wide-eyed, a hilarious change from his usual murder stare. "What. That's not. We're. Um."

"Okay," Ilya said, smirking. "If you say so, I believe you."

Troy sighed, looked around, and said, "I'm going out with him tomorrow night."

Ilya was delighted for him, especially once it came out that Harris was taking him to see a Fabian Salah concert. "That is a very sexy date." He remembered watching Fabian perform, remembered Shane's hand on the small of Ilya's back all concert long, remembered how amazing it felt that Shane was willing to touch him in public. And soon they were getting married and coming out and Ilya would have that feeling all the time. "You and Harris will enjoy it very much, I think."

"Thanks," Troy said. "You're not going to the thing at Monk's tonight, are you?"

J.J. had arranged a bar hangout between the Voyageurs and the Centaurs. It was part of some strategy of his to keep the Voyageurs from reacting too badly to the eventual reveal of Shane and Ilya's relationship. Probably it would work better if Shane and Ilya were actually there, but they both had early flights to Anaheim to catch.

"Can't, with the All-Stars tomorrow. Are you? I think Harris said he was going," Ilya teased.

Troy made an adorable attempt at acting like he hadn't already known that, though of course Ilya saw right through him. "I'll probably stop by for a bit."

"Good." His phone buzzed in his pocket, a reminder that he wanted to beat Shane home. "I have to go now. Torment Pike for me!"

"I can torment him for myself, you know. Did you forget I'm an asshole too?"

"Of course not! That's why we're besties!" Ilya winked, and unlocked his car door.

After he said goodbye to Troy, Ilya looked it up, and ha! He was right. The kink had a name and everything. He immediately texted Shane.

Ilya: Tell Pike I am kinkshaming him for wanting to be vored by ice.

He expected Shane to tell him he was gross and that he absolutely would not, but Shane surprised him.

Shane: Hayden says fuck you but JJ says he's disappointed in you for being such a prude. He's worried about my sex life now, so thanks for that.

Shane: The guys heard JJ call you a prude and now they're all talking to me like I'm one of them again. "My girl won't blow me enough either" Am I supposed to pretend you're depriving me? I guess sometimes we see each other and you are not immediately on your knees as is my apparent due. Like when we're in public.

Ilya: If I could have my mouth on you and play hockey at the same time you know I would.

Shane: They have realized JJ has met my "boytoy" and are asking if you're hot enough for me. "Well he's not Rose Landry" How mad are you right now?

Ilya: I take back my fantasy on-ice blowjob offer.

Shane: No you don't.

Ilya: No I don't.

Shane: See you soon.

Ilya: See you soon. ❤️

Ilya sent the last text, dropped his phone into the cup holder, and drove.

Ilya was plating up their post-game meal, having reheated it from the stack of containers dropped off by his nutritionist when he heard, in quick succession: Anya barking, a car driving up, and Shane's key in the door. He let Anya greet Shane first while he finished up in the kitchen, mostly so he could take his time when it was his turn, which he did.

He kissed Shane up against the door and lost minutes to the heat of his mouth. Then he attached himself to Shane's back while Shane took off his shoes. Shane smelled like clean soap and the remnants of his game-day cologne clinging to his suit, and Ilya needed to pull him onto the couch to kiss him some more. By the time they were done with their hellos the food needed to be reheated again.

They ate quickly, both out of hunger and because Shane needed to leave at dawn to make the Voyageurs' charter flight to the All-Stars out of Montreal. Shane put his phone on the table between them, showing him the updates Hayden was sending from the Centaurs-Voyageurs bar hangout.

Hayden: Rookies are getting along that's cute

Hayden: Oh they're saying that maybe you need a gay captain to win a cup

Hayden: Drapeau shut it down. Drapeau of all people! Maybe Hayes told him to telepathically? Can goalies do that? Oh no he's just saying Coach said don't air that shit out in public sorry dude

Hayden: Rookies now discussing your partner with female pronouns "I bet she's a twink librarian"

Hayden: JJ is making best friends with the cens social media guy do you think he forgot he's not trying to set you up anymore oh my god he's opening up his folder of pics of his gay friends oh my god Troy Barrett is glaring at them I thought you said he was cool am I going to have to get in the way of a hate

Hayden: Oh social media guy is smiling at Barrett okay then

Hayden: Barrett can smile???

Hayden: Ugh Comeau asked if I was reporting to the mrs and I said no I was just texting you and he said exactly

Hayden: Oh good Mitty is saying when would I have time to cheat on Jackie when I'm always inside h

Hayden: brb gotta punch him

Hayden: Like it's true but he shouldn't say it

Hayden: Now the rookies are asking if any of the Ottawa guys know about Roz's Canadian sex freak

Hayden: Haas looks like he might pass out

Hayden: Comeau just brought up your "guy oops I mean girl" who won't put out god he's a dick

Hayden: Barrett is LAUGHING

Hayden: again seems homophobic but social media guy looks smitten so what do I know

Shane: Troy is laughing because he knows it's Ilya, remember? Ilya. Not putting out. The idea is objectively hilarious.

Hayden: I'm going to drink five beers.

Shane: seems homophobic

"Tell him I want more updates on Troy and Harris," Ilya said, standing up and carrying their empty plates to the dishwasher.

"Or," Shane said, following him into the kitchen with their cups, "I put my phone on Do Not Disturb and we go to bed."

Ilya waited very patiently for Shane to put the cups in the dishwasher, and then pulled Shane in so they were touching everywhere. He pressed a kiss to Shane's neck and said, "I am so lucky, to have a fiancé with such good ideas."

He was lucky to have Shane in general, he thought, as they made their way blindly to the bedroom, kissing the whole time. Ilya pushed Shane onto the bed and settled in to really enjoy showing Shane exactly how grateful he was.

Chapter 3

Chapter Summary

Shane Hollander and the mortifying ordeal of team bonding.

Chapter Notes

A huge thank you this chapter to starfireone3 for sensitivity reading again, Smile22 for beta reading again, JetTheRooster and Ruska for their help with the Russian, and as always the Game Changers Library Server for cheerleading.

A note on canon: I haven't tagged this for the show because this primarily follows the book canon, but I have stolen Yuna managing Shane's brand deals from the show. I will also be stealing names for various Montreal players.

Content warnings for this chapter: Some more casual homophobia and locker room misogyny, and an assumption of a possessive/controlling relationship that is not true in regards to Shane/Ilya but does remind Ilya of his father's possessive/controlling behavior towards his mother.

Shane entered the locker room to cheers.

"There he is!" Hayden yelled. "The NHL's Fastest Skater! Can I have your autograph?"

"Fuck off," Shane said, laughing.

J.J. bounded over and shook Shane's shoulders gleefully. "Your friendship definitely hasn't gotten in the way of kicking Rozanov's ass, Capitaine!"

"Was he a sore loser about it?" Comeau snickered. "I bet he was a sore loser about it."

Shane rolled his eyes. "He won't stop saying it was basically a tie. Like, fuck off, dickhead, you lost."

"Uh, are you actually friends?" one of the rookies asked.

"Yeah," Shane said. It would probably not go over well for Shane to say in a room full of his teammates that Ilya was the only one who understood what it was like to stand at the top of the sport, but he could maybe say something close. "We have a lot of experiences in common. I still want to fucking kill him every time we're on the ice, though."

Everyone laughed, and from there the conversation turned to what all the guys had done over the break, which was generally "hang out on beaches with women in very small bikinis." The mood was jovial enough that someone even asked if Shane had taken his boyfriend anywhere nice.

"Fiancé, actually," Shane said, instead of telling the team that they'd spent the entire time they weren't at All-Stars having sex in every room of Ilya's house.

The room erupted at that, though it seemed to Shane that the congratulations were a little less enthusiastic than they had been for the other married guys. The congratulations were still there, though, which was something. And the rookies seemed excited enough.

"Do we finally get to meet the sexy librarian?" one yelled, and J.J. started choking on air. Hayden ran over and thumped him on the back.

"Capitaine's guy is nothing like a librarian," J.J. said, once he'd recovered.

"What? Next you're going to tell me he's not sexy either," the rookie said, sounding devastated.

J.J. laughed. "Don't worry, he's definitely sexy. Don't glare at me, Hollander, I'm not trying to steal your man, it's just a fact!"

"He's right," Hayden said. "What's it called when like, some scientist figures something out and then other scientists are all, that scientist is so right?"

Shane blinked. "What the fuck, Hayden. Are you trying to say my fiancé's sexiness is peer-reviewed?"

J.J. started laughing again. "I am not judging him for being a manwhore, because that would be very hypocritical of me—"

"Quit bragging, Boiziau!" Comeau yelled.

"Because that would be very hypocritical of me," J.J. repeated, "but he's had enough peer reviewers that I bet some of them were even actual scientists."

"Wait," said the rookie who was far too invested in Shane's love life, "are you saying Cap's fiancé is like the Ilya Rozanov of boy-WAGs?"

That set Hayden and J.J. both off.

"Please," Hayden gasped, shaking with laughter, "please let me be the one to tell him about this."

Shane sighed. "I'm going to go do the thing I'm getting paid to do. If anybody here would like to join me, I'll be on the ice."

After practice, Shane found out how the bar outing went. The consensus seemed to be that the Ottawa guys were great to party with, and that maybe a perk of being on a team that lost all the time was that you could have fun. Never mind that said team of fun-having supposed losers was on a winning streak that included beating Montreal.

The Centaurs were now aware of the gossip regarding Ilya's reason for moving to Ottawa. Thanks for that, team, Shane thought sarcastically to himself. He wondered what would happen if Marlow told people what he thought he'd heard at All-Star weekend. Maybe they'd all just figure that Rozanov’s Canadian sex freak was into orgies.

Somehow, the fact that Ilya was often missing from Centaurs gatherings to spend his rare free time with Shane combined with the Canadian hottie rumors to create a theory that Ilya's significant other was just too sexually seductive for Ilya to allow them out in public. Shane texted Ilya about it from the parking lot at the practice facility, sitting in his car as his teammates drove off.

Shane: Our teams think you're keeping me in your basement.

Ilya: They think I have Shane Hollander chained in my basement?

Shane: No, the Canadian sex demon who caught Ilya Rozanov and seduced him to Canada.

Ilya: This is Shane Hollander.

Ilya: Why are you in my basement?

Shane: Apparently I'm too sexy for you to let me out in public.

Ilya: lol my childhood trauma

Fuck.

At least Ilya was saying something instead of hiding it from Shane. It was progress, even if he was pretending to be joking about it, and Shane was proud of him, and grateful that Ilya was letting him in. Shane should probably tell him so—communication was something he was working on also—or would it be insensitive? Should Shane call him? A supportive partner would probably call. He went to do so, but before he could, another text from Ilya popped up.

Ilya: If I promise to actually talk about it when we see each other in person, can we leave it for now? I don't want to do it over the phone.

Sometimes it seemed like their whole relationship was waiting to talk about something in person. Part of Shane wanted to push Ilya on it, the part that remembered letting him put off talking about the way he was struggling and the way Ilya had gone on to suffer for months after that without Shane knowing how bad things really were. But Ilya wasn't snapping at Shane like he had back then, and he was promising to talk about it later, and honestly Shane didn't want to do this over the phone either, not when the alternative was talking about it when Shane could see Ilya's face and climb into his lap and hold him. When he thought about it like that, in terms of later and together instead of never, it was easy to agree.

Shane: Of course.

Ilya: In that case first of all I am much more likely to fuck you in front of all of them than to hide you. Second of all being sexy in public is how you make your money.

Shane: What the fuck is up with that order? And fuck you! Playing hockey is how I make my money.

Ilya: I'm telling Yuna you don't appreciate her hard work!

Shane: Actually on that note can you please stop texting my mom 'thank you for whoring Shane out' every time you're in Montreal?

Ilya: How dare you ask this of me? That billboard of your ass is my second favorite thing about away games in Montreal!

Shane: Can you at least stop using the yum emoji when you do it?

Ilya: No ❤️

The billboard in question was a Calvin Klein ad that had Shane looking over his shoulder with his body turned away from the camera, back muscles on display and a towel around his neck as if he'd just finished working out inexplicably in only a pair of boxer briefs. He remembered being covered in oil and then misted with water to simulate drops of sweat. Shane found it ridiculous at the time but he supposed he couldn't argue with the way his phone lit up with paragraphs of dirty texts every time Ilya saw it.

Shane: If it helps I don't think any of the Centaurs actually believe the basement thing. They probably think I'm shy. Or famous.

Ilya: Why shy or famous when it is both?

Shane: Fuck you, I'm not shy. I was the one who walked up to you first, remember?

Ilya: I remember this very well, мой стойкий оловянный солдатик.

Shane: Stop-something something soldier?

Ilya: My steadfast tin soldier, because you were very brave. And I am grateful every day that you were.

Another Ottawa-Montreal game, another Ottawa-Montreal bar hangout. Shane was beginning to suspect that J.J. had never met a problem he didn't think he could solve with a party. It was on J.J.'s home turf, too, another place he'd invested in, a bar that wasn't technically a gay bar but was located in Le Village and had a rainbow sticker in the window.

"Nice, Boiziau," Ilya said when he walked in, Barrett smirking on one side of him and Boodram smiling on the other, Haas wide-eyed one step behind, and the rest of the Centaurs in a boisterous pile right after. "Much cooler than Hunter's place."

Shane had still never been to the Kingfisher, though from what Ilya had told him the Kingfisher was probably more to Shane's taste than this bar, which was too dimly-lit and overstimulating at once, with retro arcade games flashing noisily all along the walls.

"Hey, Roz," Shane said, after J.J. finished greeting Ilya and moved on to welcoming the rest of Ilya's team.

Ilya smiled at him, quick and bright. "Hey, Shane."

Shane swallowed. Ilya was calling him by his first name, and his top four buttons were undone, so that Shane could see where his ring was resting against Ilya's chest, and—

"Hey, Shane," Barrett echoed like an asshole, and Shane had to be grateful for it, because he might not have been able to stop himself from dragging Ilya in for a kiss otherwise.

"Hi, Mr. Hollander," Luca Haas said, which killed the urge entirely.

Ilya laughed. "You know, Haasy never called me Mr. Rozanov. Probably this is because I am so much younger than you, Hollander."

"It's one month, asshole!"

"Not true," Ilya said. "It's one month and five days."

Shane rolled his eyes. "Fuck off, five days isn't even a whole week!"

"Five days is an entire sixth of a month. You are trying to cheat me of a sixth of a month?"

"Whatever," Shane said, crossing his arms. "We're the same fucking age."

Ilya smirked. "Oh, are you saying is basically a tie? Even though one month and five days is much much much longer than one hundredth of a second?"

Shane took a step forward, and then another, and jabbed his finger at Ilya's chest, right beneath the ring. "Okay, asshole, pick any game in here and I'll kick your ass."

"You're on, Hollander," Ilya said, and held Shane's gaze for long enough that Barrett cracked a joke about their first game being a staring contest. Shane pulled his hand away from Ilya's chest and took a step back.

"I win," Ilya said.

"Fuck you," Shane said, "that one doesn't count," and walked toward the games.

Ilya beat Shane at skeeball by a measly ten points, and crowed about it until Shane kicked his ass at the free-throw game (by two entire baskets, which was definitely more impressive than a single ball going in the 20-point ring instead of the 10).

They made their way through the bar like that, and somewhere between Street Fighter and air hockey, Shane noticed Wyatt Hayes standing a few paces away, watching them with an actual bag of popcorn in his hands. After the third round of air hockey, Shane saw that Drapeau had come to stand next to Wyatt, and was sharing his popcorn. Neither of them was saying anything. Goalies were weird.

After the sixth round of air hockey, Troy Barrett walked over. "Hey, guys. Maybe consider letting the actual children play a bit?" He gestured over his shoulder to the gaggle of rookies clustered behind him.

Shane and Ilya were 7-7 on games in the bar in general and 3-3 on just air hockey, so it would probably be fine if they moved on for the tie breaker. Shane put down the striker and took a step back, and waited for Ilya to follow.

Ilya did not follow. Ilya crossed his arms and leaned against the air hockey table. "The children? You are considering yourself one of them, yes, Troy? Tell me, did you have my poster or Shane's?" Then he smirked. "Wait, no, it was Hunter, wasn't it? How sad and boring for you."

Barrett rolled his eyes. "Okay, grandpa, whatever you say."

"Grandpa? How dare you! Call me Daddy."

"I will absolutely not be doing that." Behind Barrett, Luca Haas had gone bright red.

Looking at his cherubic, dirty-thought-having, glasses-wearing face, Shane had the momentary urge to yell that nobody would be calling Ilya "Daddy" except for the for real actual non-rookie real actual children he would eventually be raising with Shane, but that would have been insane, and so he did not.

Instead he rounded the table and smacked Ilya in the arm. "Stop terrorizing my rookies."

"Only your rookies?" Ilya turned his smirk Shane's way. "You do not care about Ottawa rookies? You would let them be eaten by wolves in the wilderness?"

What Shane actually thought was that at least one of Ilya's rookies seemed to enjoy being terrorized by him, but he took pity on Luca Haas and his absolutely-zero-chance hopeless crush and likely captain/daddy kink and instead said, "What the fuck, why are wolves suddenly involved?"

"You do not deny it! You would let my rookies be eaten!"

Shane rolled his eyes and then glanced over to see what Wyatt and Drapeau thought of this and found that the goalies had multiplied. Ottawa's backup goalie and Montreal's backup goalie had joined them to form a line of men watching in silence while Wyatt held the bag of popcorn—a new one, Shane thought, because it seemed larger—out to each of them in turn.

He looked back at Ilya. "You're the one who brought wolves into this, Rozanov. I was just protecting my innocent rookies from you. You're the one hypothetically feeding yours to wolves!"

Barrett snickered. "That would be some headline. Montreal Captain Shane Hollander Says 'Not My Problem' as Rival Ilya Rozanov Feeds Teammates to Wild Animals."

"Uh, Cap?" One of Ilya's rookie defensemen asked. "You're not really going to feed us to wolves, right?"

"It depends, Bergy," Ilya said. "Who did you have a poster of? Me or Hollander?"

Holmberg frowned. "What if I didn't have either of you?"

"Liars will be fed to geese."

"Fine," Holmberg said. "I had Hollander's Rookie of the Year poster."

Shane grinned. "Poor Roz. If only you'd won that one."

"Wolves are not enough for you, Bergy. I am shipping you to Russia in a crate to fight bears. Luca, I know you had me above your bed, so we can move on—"

"Actually," Haas said, "um. I also had a poster of both of you?"

"Luca!" Ilya gaped. "What is this betrayal?"

"I'm sorry," Haas said, looking like he really did feel bad for disappointing Ilya. "If it helps, I had four other posters of just you?"

"We are not counting Haas four times for you," Shane said, before Ilya could suggest it.

"Of course not," Ilya said, easily enough that Shane was immediately suspicious, and sure enough: "If we are counting the shared poster as one for you, then it is one for me also. One plus four is five."

Shane stepped in closer. "We're counting him as one for each of us unless you want Scott Hunter to win."

"I did not have any posters of Scott Hunter," Haas said. "He is a very good player, of course! Just not. Um."

"Just not Ilya Rozanov?" Shane asked dryly.

Haas nodded and then added, "Or you," so earnestly it made Ilya laugh, gorgeous even in the weird lighting of the bar, so that Shane had to look away, because it was either that or touch him and it wasn't time for that yet.

Shane suddenly remembered that he'd be allowed to do that in public soon enough, and that the whole point of this outing was to make that smoother with the team, so he told the rookies, "Okay, hands up if you had more than one poster of Scott Hunter," and was both annoyed and vindicated when it was every single one of them except Haas, who Shane had to acknowledge had both the best taste and the most talent of any rookie here.

"Yes, yes, all children like dinosaurs, decorate their bedrooms with them, whatever," Ilya said. "Young, you're next. You'd better have had me or you're joining Bergy in the crate."

Luckily for Young and LaPointe, they both had grown up with Ilya on their walls. Because there was some justice in the world, three out of Shane's four rookies had Shane.

The fourth made Shane understand Ilya's sense of betrayal at Holmberg, ridiculous and illogical as it was.

"I grew up in Boston," he said, shrugging, and then glared at Ilya. "But you left so I hate you now."

"Also, you're a Voyageur," Shane reminded him. "Voyageurs hate Ilya Rozanov."

The rookie had the gall to gesture between Shane and Ilya and say, "But you're friends."

"This is true, rookie who had the correct poster," Ilya said with unholy glee. "We are best friends!"

"Uh, fuck you, man," Hayden said, popping up from wherever he'd been the whole time. "He's my best friend."

J.J. also chose this moment to appear out of nowhere. "Shane can have more than one best friend. But you're definitely third best, Rozanov."

"Never in my life have I been third best anything!"

J.J. laughed. "Congratulations, you get to try something new!"

Shane was making an effort to pay better attention to Ilya recently—not more, since more wasn't really possible; better, on the other hand, was—and it seemed like he was actually bothered underneath the loud performative upset. Shane couldn't really comfort him the way he wanted to, not in public, not yet, but:

"Oh my god, you baby," he said. "You're in a separate category, okay?"

It worked. Ilya smiled, soft and real and just for Shane, just for a second, before he ratcheted it up into a bright showoff grin. "Number one in special category just for me? Yes, this is good. Close friend? Intimate friend? Close intimate friend?" He winked at Shane and then said, "Back to what matters, this rookie had a poster of me and not my close intimate friend Shane Hollander."

"Uh, sure, whatever," said the rookie in question. "But Hollander doesn't hate you, so I don't get why I need to. Even though I do, for the record. On principle. Because you left Boston. Not because I play for Montreal."

"No, no, no," Shane said. "You just need to hate him on the ice. I hate him on the ice like it's my job. Because it is my job. Off the ice is different."

"Huh," said Drapeau, which was the first thing Shane had heard from any of the goalies all night.

"Huh," said the other three goalies like a terrifying goalie hive mind, and Drapeau gave a single intense nod before snagging another handful of popcorn from Wyatt.

"Anyway," Shane said, deciding to ignore all of that, "I win, which is what really matters."

Ilya, of course, immediately protested. "I deserve more points for Luca!"

"If you deserve more points for Luca, Scott Hunter gets at least fourteen and beats us both." He turned to check. "Nobody else had multiple of either of us, right?"

Young raised his hand. "I had an All-Stars poster, but, uh, Hunter is in that one too."

"See?" Shane crossed his arms. "We're counting rookies, not posters, or else Hunter wins."

Ilya scowled and gestured widely at the entire room. "Old man is not even here! Could not even come in this bar! Retro arcade games are confusing new technology for him!"

"Come on, Ilya." Shane smirked. "Don't be a sore loser."

Out of the corner of his eye, Shane saw J.J. distributing shots, which…whatever, not his problem.

"Five posters, Shane! Quality of fanboyism should count for something too!"

"Take the L, Rozanov," Shane said, and then walked back towards the wall of games, calling over his shoulder, "Now are you gonna try to tie it up or are you gonna stand there pouting?"

"Fuck you, Hollander!" Ilya called cheerfully, and then ran to catch up.

Groupchat renamed: Shane's REAL BFFs

Shane: Sorry I just hung out with Ilya the whole night. I know you put the whole thing together to help me.

JJ: Do not worry about it, buddy, mission definitely accomplished!

Shane: Really? I only saw the goalies and the rookies.

Shane: And Barrett I guess.

Hayden: Dude the rest of us literally spent the entire time talking about how weird the two of you are.

JJ: By weird he means hilariously competitive. There might have been a drinking game. Traveling tomorrow is going to really suck for some of the Ottawa guys. Maybe I should give them my hangover recipe.

Hayden: Awww can't we just leave them to suffer?

JJ: They play for Ottawa. Surely they've suffered enough?

Shane: For the last time, guys, they're GOOD NOW

Hayden: Maybe JJ means they're suffering because they have to be on a team with Rozanov.

Shane: He's actually a really good linemate. I know I only got to play with him at All-Stars and it was only one time and it was years ago but his communication is excellent and he's so fast (though not as fast as I am) and his passes are so accurate that it's like (1/7)

Chapter 4: Ilya Interlude 2

Chapter Summary

In which Ilya steals (some of) Troy's thunder.

Chapter Notes

A huge thank you once again this chapter to starfireone3 for sensitivity reading and Smile22 for beta reading, thank you to Merlioske and Chasovaya_molniya for their help with the Russian, and as always thanks to the Game Changers Library Server for cheerleading.

ILYA

The months rolled by and Ilya still wasn't sure how he was going to tell the team about himself, much less being engaged to Shane. It wasn't that he thought they'd take it badly—he'd known even on Boxing Day that they would be good about it—but he just didn't know how, short of plopping Shane down in front of them and saying, "Obviously I am in love with him, everyone understands, yes?" Unfortunately, Shane would almost certainly not agree with that choice. Fortunately, Troy Barrett existed.

"So, I'm thinking about coming out," Troy said, fiddling with his beer glass at a table in Monk's. "Like, all the way out. Publicly. Maybe the day of the Pride Night game."

"Holy shit, bestie," Ilya said. It was maybe not the most tactful thing to say, but Troy would not have come to Ilya with this if he wanted tact.

Troy rolled his eyes. "I'm mad at Harris for teaching you that word."

"No you're not," Ilya said. "I do not think you could stay mad at Harris for even five seconds. Anyway, I knew 'bestie' even in Boston. Back then, I had Cliff Marlow—ah, don't pout! It was different with him; he did not know me the way you do—"

Troy banged his head on the table. "Why are you like this?"

"Do you want the serious answer?"

Troy lifted his head, squinting one Siberian-Husky-blue eye at Ilya. Huh. Maybe that was why Ilya liked him so much. "Do you want to give it?"

"Not tonight," Ilya decided. "We are talking about you."

Troy nodded. "Well, if you want to later…" He shrugged. "I'm just tired of hiding. And I don't want to hide Harris—shit, sorry. I know you can't really—"

"Don't worry about me," Ilya said, waving his hand dismissively. "We have a plan."

"Wait, really?" Troy looked shocked and impressed in a way that was frankly offensive.

"Okay, not much of a plan," Ilya admitted. He tapped his fingers against his own glass. "We get married this summer. Come out together then. The details are…maybe not there yet. Stop trying to change the subject!"

Troy moved on to picking at the edges of one of the paper coasters on the table. "Do you think the team will be okay with it?"

"Troy," Ilya said very seriously, "our team is the best. They will be more than okay with it. They will be happy for you. And proud."

Troy was quiet for a long moment. Ilya watched as he looked down and methodically ripped tiny shreds of paper off of his coaster. It would have been easy, probably, to break the silence and say something distracting. Ilya was tempted, especially because he had a suspicion about what Troy was working himself up to say, but being open and vulnerable with his friends had worked out so well for Shane. Ilya wanted the same for himself, and Shane would probably be proud of him, which Ilya was not ashamed to admit was a motivating factor. Shane would be proud; Ilya waited Troy out.

"They'd be happy and proud for you too," Troy finally said.

Ilya nodded. "Yes. I know this. And it would be…fun, I think, to come out with you, and officially become a gayer team than Hunter's dinosaurs, but—"

"No, I get why you can't," Troy said. "It would have been awesome to rub in Toronto's faces that two queer guys were kicking their asses, though."

Ilya made a face. "Ugh, Toronto. Makes me wish even more I could come out with you."

Troy swept the ripped coaster pieces into a mound in the center of the table and then looked up at Ilya. "Just help me embarrass them."

"I will be happy to," Ilya said. He was legitimately proud of Troy for what he was going to do, the bravery involved when he didn't even have a single Cup to protect him. He would have the support of the Centaurs, though. Ilya was sure of that. "And so will the team. One hundred percent. They really will be good about it, Troy. I am maybe a little jealous of you."

Troy laughed. "Offer's still open to come out with me…"

"Actually," Ilya said, thinking it through, "maybe I can come out with you. Not to the world, Shane and I are not ready for that, but to the team."

Troy's eyes widened. "Really? You'd do that with me?"

"I've been trying to figure out how anyway," Ilya said, shrugging. "As long as you don't mind me stealing your spotlight."

Troy shook his head and smiled. "Nah, man. I don't mind. Steal as much of the spotlight as you want."

"I will be holding you to that," Ilya said, and felt his answering smile stretch his face.

Troy's announcement was very efficient. He told the team simply that he was dating Harris and that he was gay, and after Ilya started clapping the whole room joined in.

After the applause died down, after Troy dipped Harris in a very showy kiss, and after the whistling that inspired ended, Troy looked at Ilya with raised eyebrows and a tiny smirk on his face, which Ilya assumed was the Troy Barrett version of an encouraging smile. He nodded back and then stood up on a bench and waited for his team's eyes to settle on him. He was Ilya Rozanov; it didn't take long.

"I am…riding coattails? Of Troy's announcement. I also have a boyfriend. Fiancé now, actually. We are planning to come out together, but not now. Troy, be grateful. You get to keep that spotlight all for yourself!"

"Wow," Troy deadpanned. "So generous of you."

"Oh my god!" Young yelled. "Is he famous? Is it an actor? Is it Neil Patrick Harris? Are you breaking up Neil Patrick Harris's marriage?"

"Dude," Troy said. "Is Neil Patrick Harris the only gay guy you can think of?"

Young shrugged, and Bergy took over for him, saying, "Well, we know it's not our Harris and we know it's not you. Oh, shit. Is it Scott Hunter? Is it Scott Hunter's husband? Are you stealing Scott Hunter's husband?"

"You're all dumbasses. Those dudes aren't even Canadian, and Roz said they're coming out together. You need someone people think is straight," Tanner Dillon said in a brief and near-miraculous shining moment of intelligence. He immediately ruined it by adding, "He's obviously stealing Justin Bieber from his wife."

"What the fuck," Ilya said, offended. "Do all of you think I'm a homewrecker?"

"I don't," Bood said, reaching out to pat Ilya on the shoulder. "I'm just relieved to know you weren't skipping out on my barebecues because you hate meat. Or me."

Ilya laughed. "No, I only wanted to spend what time with him I could. I do not hate you, or the team. And I definitely don't hate meat." He waggled his eyebrows, and happily accepted the thrown socks and rolls of tape in response.

"I don't think you're a homewrecker, either," Wyatt said, once the barrage died down, smiling benevolently up at Ilya from his stall. "And I'm really honored you trusted us with this."

Similar sentiments echoed around the room, but it was too late. "Thank you to Bood and Wyatt and only Bood and Wyatt. The rest of you, how dare you? Neil Patrick Harris is older than Scott Hunter, who is basically hockey poltergeist at this point! And Justin Bieber…no. My famous, beautiful, non-actor, non-singer, non-Scott-Hunter-or-attached-to-Scott Hunter fiancé is the same age as me. And yes, he is Canadian."

"Not a single one of us asked if he was beautiful, Roz," Bood said. "You're just bragging."

"Of course I am," Ilya said. "You will understand why, once you know who he is."

"And you're not going to tell us," Troy said, looking very amused, though of course he already knew.

Ilya laughed. "Of course not. Where would the fun be in that? If you guess, I will bring him to the next team function if his schedule allows. Which it might not, because he is very busy being talented and beautiful, not because I am keeping him in my basement."

Wyatt raised his hand. "First, I want it on the record that I never thought the basement thing either. Second, do we, like, just say it? Text it to you? Whisper it in your ear? Write it down on a piece of paper?"

As Ilya contemplated this, he noticed that Luca had both hands over his mouth and and was making a sound that was like a shriek's polite little brother.

"Ah. I see Luca has figured it out," Ilya said. "I knew my fan wouldn't let me down. Was it the poster?"

The noise went up in pitch. Ilya pulled out his phone and took a picture of Luca and sent it to Shane. lol we broke Luca, he wrote.

Shane: It's going okay then?

Ilya: Tanner Dillon thought you were Justin Bieber.

Shane: Who?

Ilya: lol

Ilya: Bergy asked if I was stealing Kip from Hunter.

Shane: What the fuck? He doesn't even play hockey.

Ilya pressed his phone to his heart and laughed.

Ilya: They don't know me as well as you do, мой дракончик.

Shane: Little dragon?

Ilya: Very good!

Shane: ???

Ilya: ❤️

Shane: I'm happy for you. That it's going well. I wish I knew how to tell my team. And that I knew it would go as well.

Ilya: You will figure it out, мой дракон. You are Shane Hollander.

Shane: First I was a little dragon, and now I'm a dragon? Why?

Ilya: Earlier was дракончик because you hoard all the hockey trophies, very cute. Now is дракон to remind you that you are powerful. That you are the best player in the league. That you are the only reason they have any Cups at all.

Suddenly there was a second wave of balled-up socks being thrown at Ilya's head, because his heart-eyes were obvious even while texting, now that his team knew. He endured the good-natured chirping (which he admittedly deserved for getting distracted in the middle of a team conversation) and then yelled about unfair treatment anyway. When he checked his phone afterwards, there was a single message.

Shane: Thanks. I love you.

Chapter 5

Chapter Summary

An outing, a playoff, a wedding.

Chapter Notes

An enormous thank you one last time to starfireone3 for sensitivity reading and Smile22 for beta reading, thank you to Birds On A Concrete Wall and JetTheRooster for their help with the Russian, and as always thanks to the Game Changers Library Server for cheerleading.

Content warnings for this chapter: The canonical outing and subsequent canonical institutional homophobia.

In the end, Shane didn't need to figure out how to tell the team because Hayden did it for him. Hayden accidentally told the whole world.

After Hayden told them what he'd done, and apologized, and apologized more, and apologized more, and finally left, after the video call with Shane and Ilya's shared agent, and after decisions were made about statements and the timing of statements, Shane checked his phone and found it absolutely swamped with missed calls and voicemails and texts. He opened exactly one.

JJ: Anything you need, buddy. You wanna talk, we can talk, you don't wanna talk, we don't have to talk. I've got your back.

"Wow," Shane found himself saying. "J.J. didn't call."

Ilya frowned. "I did not expect this of—"

"No, you don't understand. He texted me." Shane held out his phone so that Ilya could see. "He loves talking on the phone, but he texted me anyway. I don't even have to listen to a voicemail."

"Ah," Ilya said. "I see now. That is how you know the extrovert really loves you."

Shane nodded and sent J.J. a simple thanks man in reply and then locked his phone again. He'd deal with the rest of the team in person.

First, though, he had to see Ilya off, and store up enough kisses to make it through the day.

Shane only had a moment for a brief glance at his team while hanging his coat in his stall before Coach Theriault called him away. None of them seemed too upset with him. If anything, they were upset with Hayden, if the way he was being bombarded with small objects was anything to go by. Coach, on the other hand, was furious with Shane, and was not made any less so by his refusal to say the kiss was a prank.

He was benched, and went back to the locker room to get his coat. The whole team was staring, but at least he'd been right in his assessment: none of them seemed angry at him. Still, he'd rehearsed a whole speech on his drive to the practice facility about how his relationship had never stopped him from contributing to the team, and so he might as well give it.

When he was done, Taylor laughed. "Dude, you wouldn't even let him win a fucking game of rookie posters! We were all there."

The rookies were looking hilariously dazed, actually. "The sexy librarian is Ilya Rozanov," one said. "Boy-WAG Ilya Rozanov is actual Ilya Rozanov."

Well, every rookie except the one from Boston, who looked near-mutinous upon hearing that Shane was benched. "What the fuck," he said. "We know you'd rather fucking murder the guy than let him win, and he'd rather murder you than let you win, so what the fuck are they benching you guys for?"

"It's bullshit," J.J. said, fast enough that Shane suspected he'd been waiting for a chance to jump in without looking biased as one of Shane's best friends. "I checked the stats, and they play harder against each other, if anything."

"Maybe they're just checking for collusion," Hayden said with wildly misplaced optimism, but he still looked so guilty Shane didn't have the heart to tell him it was probably more about institutional disgust. "We all know Shane would never, and even Rozanov isn't stupid enough for that, so they won't find anything!"

"I wish Rozanov were stupid enough," Drapeau sighed. "I wouldn't mind if they benched him forever. I would love to never see that nightmare skating towards me again."

Comeau piped up then. "Nice job finding the loophole, Cap."

"What do you mean?"

Comeau smirked. "He moved to Ottawa for you, didn't he?"

"Our relationship was one of the reasons, sure," Shane said, not sure where this was going, "but there were others. He wanted to play for a Canadian team, and the culture at the organization—"

Comeau waved that off, as if leaving a team for that reason was ridiculous, and maybe to him it was. "We know you wouldn't throw games for him, and we know he wouldn't throw games for you, but Ottawa was such a shitass team that he didn't need to. So: loophole. Anyway, I've been wanting to thank Rozanov's Canadian hottie for giving us an easier run of it for years, so thanks." He laughed, and the room laughed with him.

"Wait," Mitty said, "Rozanov's Canadian hottie," which set off an entire round of congratulating Shane for his sexual prowess that was significantly more enthusiastic than the congratulations for his engagement had been.

Shane had no idea how to process what was happening. He could address one thing, at least: "That shitass team is about to be in the playoffs. Against us."

Comeau shrugged. "It's Ilya Rozanov. He was going to drag his team there eventually. You kept him down for two whole years. That's not nothing."

"Oooooh, are you a fan, Gil?" Andropov mocked. "Cap could probably get you an autograph if you want!"

"Fuck off," Comeau said. "I can acknowledge he's a fucking monster on the ice without being a fan!"

"He is indeed a monster. So thank you, Hollander." Drapeau said it seriously, the way he did everything, and his intense goalie eyes seemed to be boring their way into Shane's soul. "You are every goalie's worst nightmare, but Rozanov is a very close second worst, and you put him on a team that kept him away from my crease."

"Uh, that's really not—"

"Even if indirectly and unintended," Drapeau interrupted. "You have my gratitude, still."

"Oh shit, Cap," Berkes said, before Shane could figure out how to respond. "They're gonna put a hit out on you in Boston."

"What," Shane said.

But the guys were nodding, even Wilson over in his corner who barely ever said anything. "You fucked them over pretty bad, making Rozanov to move to Ottawa. Hey, Boston! What do you think?"

The rookie from Boston sighed. "Half my family wouldn't even talk to me at Thanksgiving, and I was still on the farm team when you guys won the Cup. Not gonna lie, Cap, I do want to kill you for it a little bit."

"For the last time, I didn't make him," Shane started, and then abandoned that line of argument as clearly going nowhere. "Ugh, never mind. Boston is doing fine. They made it pretty far in the playoffs last year!"

"And if they still had Rozanov, they might have won the Cup," Comeau said.

Shane stared. What the fuck was happening? "We won the Cup. We still would have won the Cup!"

"Nothing in this world is certain," Drapeau said, which was the most typical goalie nonsense Shane had ever heard, except most of the room was nodding still.

"We won two of our Cups when he was still with Boston!" Shane said. "We're the better team."

"Sure, Cap," Comeau said. "I'm just saying it's been a lot easier to be the better team since he's been in Ottawa."

"Okay, I need everyone here to understand that I did not deliberately sabotage Ilya's career. We're getting married. He's my fiancé. I wouldn't do that to him, and I don't need to. We're the best team in this league." Shane didn't add that he was the best player, but he was pretty sure it was implied.

"Yeah, dude," J.J. said. "Cool that you want to be besties with Shane's fiancé, though."

"The fuck, Boiziau?" Comeau said. "I fucking do not, you fucking—"

"I don't know," Hayden cut in loudly. "You basically said Rozanov is good enough to win a Cup all on his own. You want his number? I can give you his number."

"You absolutely will not," Shane said.

J.J. nodded and pointed at Hayden. "Not cool, offering to give Shane's guy's number to people who think he's good at hockey." He turned to Shane. "Hey, is that how you got together in the first place? You told him he was an amazing player to watch and then you kissed in the rain?"

Luckily, Coach walked in before Shane had to think up something to say other than, I told him he was an amazing player to watch and then later he jerked off in front of me, actually.

"What the fuck are you all standing around like daisies for?" Coach roared. "Hollander, get the hell out of my practice facility! The rest of you idiots, get out on the ice!"

Shane texted Ilya as soon as he was in his car, in the full parking lot, surrounded by his teammates' empty vehicles.

Shane: That was fucking weird.

Ilya: Good weird? Bad weird?

Shane: Weird weird. The team insisted on thanking me for sending you to Ottawa.

Ilya: Ah. My team groupchat is saying the same. "Shane Hollander is my hero blah blah blah"

Shane: Oh? Even Haas?

Ilya: This is what you are doing with your free time? Stealing my fans and mocking me?

Shane: It's bullshit we're benched. My team thinks so too.

Ilya: Yes, mine also. Wiebe too.

Shane: Not Theriault. He was fucking pissed at me. Wanted me to say it was a prank.

Ilya: Fuck him.

Shane: Gross. Okay, I have to get out of here. FaceTime when I get home?

Ilya: Of course, мой шпион.

Shane: Spy? What the fuck?

Ilya: You want to watch me take my clothes off before I get in the shower, yes?

Shane: Fuck off.

Ilya: No, I don't think you want that.

Shane: You're the worst. I'm going to leave now. FaceTime soon!

Ilya: Soon. ❤️

There was a terrible meeting with Commissioner Crowell. What followed was a very not terrible (public!) date with Ilya and then an extremely not terrible few hours of Ilya showing Shane just how hot he found Shane telling Crowell to fuck off.

Later, they posted their statement. After that, they both got calls to return to practice. After that, it was playoffs, and round one was Montreal vs Ottawa, and game one was in Montreal.

"Hey, Cap, just checking," one of the rookies said, "the wedding's still on, right?"

That was as good a segue into a pre-game speech as anything, Shane supposed. He stood up, clapped his hands once, and said, "Yes, he is still my fiancé, and yes, we are still murdering him on the ice. We're the better team. Let's win this."

They did win it, 2-1. They lost games two and three, barely, won four, and demolished five. They lost game six in Ottawa, 3-4.

The less said about game seven, the better. Thankfully none of his teammates believed he'd tripped on purpose. Unfortunately, the coaching staff was of the exact opposite opinion and so, it turned out, was all of the Montreal media.

They were delighted to get soundbites from Coach Theriault, who cited "off-ice distractions" as the reason for the Voyageurs' loss, with the heavy implication that the distraction was Shane himself and not the invasion of privacy that had happened to him.

They hounded J.J. and Hayden, who both kept giving the same perfectly boring hockey robot answers while making it very clear they believed in Shane's integrity. Most of the team followed suit.

Even Comeau stuck to pucks-in-nets and Hollander-always-gives-110% soundbites until some hockey blogger caught him exiting a bar. "Hollander would stab Rozanov before he let him win anything. Honestly I'm not sure he won't stab the asshole anyway, and fuck it, he deserves it! Beating us and then basically getting swept by the Admirals? What a fucking loser. Fuck. No way Hollander tripped on purpose, but maybe Rozanov should have. Hollander would never have lost to Scott fucking Hunter."

Comeau had a to make a statement after that, apologizing for his language and saying that his words were meant in jest, and that suggesting an opposing player throw a game was not in line with his values.

I didn't even say anything homophobic, Comeau complained in the team groupchat. But it "looks bad" or whatever. I didn't even say our gay captain could kick their gay captain's ass! And I had to donate to Hunter's stupid charity.

Dude, Hayden replied, isn't it for orphans or something? Chill out.

Like gay orphans? Comeau asked. How the fuck do they even know?

Shit like this is why you had to make a statement, dumbass, J.J. said.

One reporter caught Drapeau for a comment before he fucked off to a monastery in France to meditate away the existence of hockey like he did every year. "Obviously Hollander would never trip on purpose," he said. "I am however looking into getting a priest to perform an exorcism on the area around the patch of ice that tripped him."

That, of course, set the rookies off, and there was a video circulating of them talking about it, clearly filmed by one of them in their terrifying shared apartment.

"Oh yeah," said #34. "I heard Drapey said that the ice tripped Cap, like, maliciously."

"But why, though?" said #91, the rookie from Boston. "And how? And again, why?"

"I don't know man," said #44. "Maybe the ice is homophobic."

"Dude," said #54, the last of the Shane-poster-havers, "do you think if we like, played Scott Hunter's speech to it, it would learn better?"

#91 stood up and smacked #54 on the back of the head. "You want to play Scott Hunter to Montreal ice? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

And so it went.

The summer went by in flashes. The cottage. Shane's birthday. Free agency. Announcing their engagement via Instagram video. And Ilya, for all of it, always Ilya.

The one thing that didn't go by in a flash was the wedding planning. Wedding planning was a lot. Even with a wedding planner, Shane sometimes got the feeling that if things had gone worse in the locker room, he might have been too stressed to make any decisions about it at all. As it was, chairs-or-no-chairs was a last minute call, and it was only thanks to several hockey players showing up early that the chairs made it out onto the back lawn at all.

But there were chairs. There was Ilya looking breathtaking in his burgundy suit. There was Shane's family, including his cousins who he rarely got to see, but who he got along with well enough, in spite of the fact that he was the specter of parental comparison hanging over all of their heads.

("They're on my ass about finishing my PhD," his cousin Hanna had complained at the last family wedding. "But they're still all, 'Why can't you be more like your cousin Shane?' No offense, dude, but you barely finished high school!"

"No, that's fair," Shane had replied. "My job also has a risk of concussions, so.")

He had a bit of hope that his big gay scandal would alleviate some of the pressure for them, but he doubted it, since he still had his career and his friends and all of his sponsorships, plus the fact that the other half of said scandal was Ilya fucking Rozanov, famously hot and rich and successful, who Shane was marrying today.

Also there were most of the Centaurs, including their coach, and most of the Voyageurs, not including their coach, and from the main roster missing only Drapeau, who had sent his regrets from France in an uncharacteristic offseason acknowledgement of Shane's existence that was honestly kind of touching. There was Hayden, and there was J.J., and they were standing beside him as he married the love of his life.

Later, Hayden gave a speech. It was short and kind of awkward, but he managed to refrain from insulting Ilya even once, which made Ilya look a hilarious combination of touched and confused. J.J. also gave a speech, and it was not short at all.

"So, I don't know if you know this," J.J. started, champagne glass in one hand, microphone in the other, no print-out to read from in sight, "but I'm the reason Shane met Rose Landry—don't kill me, Rozanov, you got the guy, chill—and after they started dating I started picturing myself giving this speech right here. Except in the one in my head I was taking credit for Shane's marriage, telling him to name his kids after me, one Jean, one Jacques…it was beautiful. You all would have cried. But then they broke up, and so my beautiful dream died. Bye bye little Jean, bye bye little Jacques.

"And then Shane came out to us. And I thought, look, J.J., your dream is not dead after all! You can still be responsible for setting Shane up with the man of his dreams! So I embarked on a mission to find my perfect friend the perfect man—picture me in every gay bar in Montreal, chatting up hot guys, going, 'Hey, do you like hockey players? No, not me; no, I cannot say who, but no, truly, not me.' I made many new friends for myself, but the closest I came to a guy that would work for Shane was a gorgeous personal trainer named David, who Shane turned down for the obvious reason—sorry for not thinking about your name, Mr. Hollander!"

"No worries, J.J.!" Shane's dad called cheerfully.

"Hey, Boiziau, where's my apology?" Ilya yelled, face a mask of performative upset, before he pulled Shane's face dramatically into his chest. Shane didn't mind; Ilya smelled amazing, wearing the cologne Shane loved most on him, clean and woody like the best summer days at the cottage, and it wasn't exactly a hardship to be pressed against the warmth of Ilya's body, Ilya's heartbeat under Shane's cheek, strong, alive, and all for Shane.

J.J. nodded, also dramatically, and as the wedding guests laughed at their shared antics, Shane realized with a sparkling joy that this was the rest of his life. "In my defense, at the time I did not know you were dating, but still, sorry I tried to set your man up, Roz. It's just that Shane's amazing, and I wanted him to be happy. But here, to make it up to you—and sorry, Shane, for exposing you like this—if I had any idea at all that you were into men, I would have tried my best to set Shane up with you. Because, I don't know if you know this? But your husband has a big, big crush on you. I noticed at camp, with the yearning gaze and the yearning sighs—I thought this was unrequited yearning, not 'It's going to be four more hours until I can hold my boyfriend's hand' yearning!—and I know at least one other person here has been subject to multiple-message gushing about how good Ilya Rozanov is at hockey. Have him show you sometime, Roz, you'll probably cry. But don't get a big head over it ("Too late!" someone on the Centaurs yelled) because we all can see you're obsessed with him too."

"Yes," Ilya said, dropping a quick kiss on Shane's cheek, "everyone should be. Though I am the best at it!"

J.J. nodded again, this time with a smile. "But back to poor David, who Shane rejected for both his name and of course the much more important reason that we now all know about." He waved at Ilya, who released Shane briefly to raise both arms victoriously in the air, before drawing Shane back in for a looser and more comfortable back hug. Shane put his hands over Ilya's and laced their fingers together and squeezed.

"Anyway," J.J. continued, "all of this is to say that I cannot take any credit for this marriage after all. Shane found his perfect man all on his own without any help from me or anyone. Well, maybe Hockey Canada and the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia, though I doubt they had this kind of matchmaking in mind when they sent these guys up against each other.

"I asked Shane once, 'Why Rozanov?' and you know what he told me? 'He's good at hockey.' Which is maybe the most Shane Hollander reason in the world, but I think, if you know Shane, it's also shorthand. 'He's good at hockey' means understanding the hours Shane put in, because he did the same thing. It means understanding the sacrifices Shane made to be at the top and the pressure of carrying the legacy of a team, it means knowing what it's like to be one of the two best in the world, it means loving the thing that Shane loves…well, maybe second-most in the world now—and yes, maybe Shane also likes that he's an actual challenge on the ice. When you think about it like that, they make perfect sense.

"Now I'm gonna get all earnest and serious for a second, and you are all going to have to deal: Shane, you're the very best captain anyone could have asked for. Not just because of how amazing at hockey you are, though you are, or the example of hard work that you set, though you do, but because you've been our rock and our anchor and our clear path forward. And for me specifically, you've always given me a sense of belonging. You made it so I never felt alone. And my friend, you know it's been rough sometimes, but you were there with me every step of the way, and that has meant the world. For real, man. You are an amazing hockey player and an amazing captain and an amazing person, and I'm so fucking grateful to be able to call you one of my best friends. But also, I worried for you, because of how much pressure you're under and how hard you're always working to hold things together for the team, for the kids who look up to you, for everyone watching.

"And then one day you told me about Ilya. And I got to meet him for real as your partner and not just Montreal's worst nightmare, and I saw how you are with him. He makes you lighter. You smile more. The happiest I've ever seen you at a Voyageurs party was when you were kicking his ass all over the arcade bar. ("Was a tie!" Ilya yelled.) The happiest I've ever seen you playing hockey is kicking his ass all over the ice. I don't know if he makes you better, because to me you've always been the best, but he makes you happier, and for that, he's my people now."

J.J. raised his glass then. "A toast, to Shane and Ilya: You guys went through a whole fucking lot to get here. You had to fight your way through, but you did it. You made it. You won, guys. You locked each other down, which is a huge accomplishment, and your shared trophy room is going to be insane. You are each other's perfect match in every way, and you deserve all the happiness in the world. To Shane and Ilya!"

The glasses clinked, and everyone drank, and the party went on.

Shane went to find J.J. later, taking a break from the makeshift dance floor.

"You can, you know," Shane said, and elaborated when J.J. looked confused. "Take a little bit of credit, I mean. I'm not sure if half these guys would have been here if it weren't for the work you put in to make sure they'd take the me and Ilya thing okay."

J.J. laughed. "Okay, my friend. I'll take like 5%."

"Really," Shane said. "I'm trying to say thank you. You didn't need to do any of that for me, but you did."

"Shane Hollander, did you not listen to my very touching speech? You're important to me, man."

J.J. was important to Shane, too, but they'd been so focused on Shane's issues—for good reason, sure—that things were feeling a little one-sided, at least to Shane. Maybe it was time to fix that. "So," he said, "uh, are you seeing anybody?"

"Buddy," J.J. said, looking very amused, "you've been married for five seconds and you're already one of those married people?

Shane was confused. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know, the married people who think being married is so great, all their friends need to do it too?"

Shane looked past the clusters of guests dotted along the backyard to see Ilya annoying Scott Hunter, full of mischievous glee and beautiful with it. Shane smiled, and let himself watch the way the setting sun outlined Ilya in gold. "I mean, it is pretty great so far. But no, I was just…trying to ask what's going on with your life? Super awkwardly, apparently. You've just been such a good friend to me and I want to make sure to be a good friend back."

"Hey, you are." J.J. nudged him. "I'd let you know if you weren't, okay?"

"Still, I wanna, like, wingman you back. Not literally. That would probably go badly. But. Something you've been doing for fun, maybe?"

J.J. thought for a second. "Do you know any gay hockey players?"

"Aside from the guys you know about? No, why?"

"Remember how I tried to find you a boyfriend?"

"No, I forgot," Shane said, laughing. "Dude, you literally just told everyone about it."

"Okay, well, I'm friends with all of them, because I wasn't going to hook you up with somebody I didn't think was amazing, and they're all into hockey players, so…"

"Oh, actually," Shane said, realizing something, "Ilya has this weird hobby—"

"Dude, what—"

"Hear me out! His weird hobby is meddling in the love lives of other queer hockey players."

J.J. blinked. "Rozanov, get over here!" he called. "I've got a wedding present for you!"

"Oh, wait," Shane said. "Are any of your friends bi? If they are, there's a chance you can still take credit for Rose's marriage. She told me she wants to date a baker."

J.J.'s eyes widened and then he laughed with delight. "Shane. Shane. My best friend Shane. I know so many boulangerie owners."

Ilya, who had made it over just in time to hear that bit, wrapped himself around Shane like an enormous clingy blanket. "No. He's my best friend."

"I will concede today because it is your literal wedding," J.J. said with a smile. "Any other day, man, hockey sticks at dawn."

Shane laughed, seeing the future unspool before him, love and friendship and hockey, everything bright.

Chapter End Notes

Thank you so so so much to everyone who came on this ride with me. I have really appreciated your comments and kudos and they definitely helped motivate me through writing this little fix-it world.

I deliberately left open whether Shane signs with Ottawa or stays with Montreal because I couldn't really choose. You can believe whatever makes you happiest. Maybe Shane chooses to go to Ottawa because the Centaurs are cool and Ottawa is home and the team he spent his entire childhood rooting for and he doesn't want to live apart from Ilya and he's tired of other people getting Locker Room Ilya when he doesn't. Maybe Montreal fans threaten to burn down the Bell Centre unless management fires Theriault along with all the coaching staff who didn't support Shane and they hire Wiebe's ex to coach and Shane gets his dynasty while he and Ilya compete for Stanley Cups forever.

You can find me hanging out at the GCL discord or on tumblr here, wearing my JJ defender badge with pride.