Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Team Ensemble (Game Changers)

Additional Tags:

Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers), Missing Scene, POV Shane Hollander, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Being Assholes (Game Changers), Protective Shane Hollander, Possessive Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Homophobic Language, Threats, Fluff and Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Flirting, Protective Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov is Shane Hollander’s Baby

Language:

English

Collections:

my fav gay hockey players, Heated Rivalry, No thoughts just gay hockey, The best pairings to bask in, pepperroxd’s library, HollaNov fanfics I Love

Stats:

Published: 2026-02-17 Words: 5,883 Chapters: 1/1

don’t blame me, love made me crazy

Summary

“If you ever talk about my fiancé like that again, then I will end your career.”

The words are pure vitriol, dripping from Shane’s mouth like venom from the fangs of a snake. He doesn’t raise his voice, he doesn’t even sound angry, he just sounds lethal. Like a man you don’t want to cross. Like a man who fully intends to honour his promise…or threat.

He’s met with stunned silence.

Notes

Title from Don’t Blame Me by Taylor Swift.

 

CW: brief use of homophobic slur.

They hardly talk the whole ride there.

Shane drives, his hand tapping nervously on the gear shift until Ilya takes it between his own. He kisses Shane’s knuckles one by one, then tangles their fingers together and rests them on his lap.

He’s antsy too; Shane can tell with the way he keeps shifting in his seat, changing the radio station, tapping his foot. But Ilya doesn’t say anything because he knows Shane needs the silence right now, and Shane appreciates that more than he can say.

He loves Ilya more than he can say. More than the words exist for, in English, or French, or even Russian.

He briefly glances at their entwined hands, at the rings they’re both wearing openly and proudly. He has to look away before tears start to well in his eyes.

He can’t believe this is his life, now. Can’t believe he gets to love Ilya out loud, and call him his fiancé, and plan a future with him that they’ve spent a decade only dreaming of.

For so long it had felt impossible, despite how much they wanted it - how much they were willing to do to make it work - but it’s real now. It’s happening. Shane is going to love Ilya for the rest of his life, and he won’t ever hide that again. He won’t ever have to pretend that the man who holds his heart in his hands is nothing more than an acquaintance at best.

He brings their joined hands up to his face to kiss Ilya’s, and he smiles when Ilya gently brushes his finger against Shane’s cheek.

“Are you okay?” Ilya asks quietly.

Shane nods his head. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m…”

“Is okay,” Ilya says, “if you are not.”

Shane sighs and squeezes his fiancé’s hand, offering him a grateful smile. Because Ilya knows him - knows him better than anyone else in the world. He can see past Shane’s almost impenetrable facade, to the truth that is hiding beneath the surface.

“Just nervous,” Shane admits. “But I don’t know why. I doubt anyone will even be there.”

“You’re so brave, my love.”

Shane laughs. “I don’t feel it.”

He feels nauseous. Like his stomach is twisting into knots, and his brain has gone into overdrive. And it’s fucking stupid, he knows it is, but he just can’t help it. He feels like a child all over again - like the only Asian kid in a locker room full of white people, all looking at him like he doesn’t belong.

He’d become the best so no one could ever dare to make him feel like he didn’t belong again, and it had worked.

For a decade, Shane’s talent had made him all but untouchable. They could overlook the fact that he wasn’t white while he was winning them cup after cup, but being gay as well? That was pushing it.

And loving Ilya? Well. Loving Ilya was the final straw.

They’re only going to clear out the last of Shane’s gear from his locker at the Bell Centre. It should be a non-issue. But he signed with Ottawa two days ago, so now not only is he a traitor for loving Ilya…he’s also a traitor for leaving Montreal. They don’t want him there, of course - even though the Voyageurs were his fucking team - but they don’t want him anywhere else, either. Especially not Ilya’s team.

It’s like twisting the knife, according to the very angry messages he’s been receiving since the news broke.

He knows they’ll think there was tampering involved - that he’d been in talks with Ottawa before the start of free agency - but Shane doesn’t give a fuck anymore. He’d given his life to those fuckers, carried the entire franchise on his back, and won them three goddamn cups. If they want to turn on him, then fuck them all.

While their team collapses without him, Shane plans to lift the cup with his new team. With his husband.

“We’ll be in and out. Super fast,” Ilya says. “Then we can go back to your house and I will fuck you there one last time, before you leave it behind for good.”

Ilya grins wide as he wiggles his eyebrows up and down. Shane shakes his head, but he’s unable to stop the quiet laughter from slipping out between his lips.

“Only once?” He pouts jokingly.

“Yes. Once in every room,” Ilya clarifies, leaning over to kiss the hinge of Shane’s jaw.

Shane drops his hand to swat at him. “Ilya, I’m driving!”

He hums, nosing along Shane’s neck and following the path with teasing little kisses. “Yes, you are very good driver, Hollander. Good at multitasking.”

Shane laughs again, impossibly endeared by his fiancé even when he’s being a menace. Which shouldn’t be a surprise, actually, because Ilya has always been a menace and - unfortunately - Shane has always been obsessed with him. It would perhaps be embarrassing if Ilya wasn’t wearing Shane’s ring on his finger…if he wasn’t equally as obsessed with Shane.

Ilya pulls away before he works Shane up enough to get him hard, but not before smacking one final kiss onto his cheek.

“In and out,” Ilya repeats.

Somehow, Shane doubts they’ll get that lucky.

“I have never been in here before,” Ilya remarks, slowly spinning around to take in the Voyageurs locker room. “It’s fancy.”

It’s all top of the line stuff. It was remodelled only a couple of years ago in garish red, blue, and white, with a hint of chrome, too, because apparently it wasn’t already overstimulating enough. The place is pristine. The logo in the middle of the floor is huge, and the stalls are spacious and comfortable, and it’s been a home to Shane for over decade.

It’s better than Ottawa’s locker room by a mile, but in materials alone.

The heart of a locker room is the people who reside in it, and Shane has never met a better group than the Ottawa Centaurs. He’s also never met a worse group than the Voyageurs. Shane can’t wait to never have to see this place again, apart from the other side of the ice.

“Yeah, well. Fancy doesn’t mean shit,” Shane says. “This place is fucking poison.”

He hurries towards his stall, eager to grab the things he had left behind at the end of their season. He just wants to get the hell out of here, go back to his house for one final night before it goes on the market, and let his fiancé take him apart so thoroughly that the only thing he remembers is Ilya’s name.

Because once all of this is over - once his locker is cleared out, and the house is sold - he never has to look back.

He can leave behind the team he gave everything to, the team he thought he’d retire with, the team that turned its back on him. Shane can walk away with his head held high, knowing the Voyageurs are going to spend the next decade regretting throwing him away. And Shane gets to start the rest of his life with the man he loves, on a team that supports them, in his hometown.

So, for all the things he has lost in the past few months, he has gained infinitely more.

He’s honestly surprised to find that the things he left behind are still here. He’d half expected to arrive and find that they’d all been thrown away, or burned like some kind of symbolic effigy. But there are three rolls of his stick tape, his favourite pair of skates, the elbow and shoulder pads he’s been using since his third year in the league, and his favourite brand of stick wax.

He shoves everything into the duffel he’d brought with him, careful with his pads and skates but tossing everything else in on top. He doesn’t care to be meticulous right now, he just wants to leave.

He glances over his shoulder to find Ilya scrutinising the plays that are still scrawled across the board, left there from their final game against Ottawa. Shane snorts.

“You trying to get some intel?” He asks.

Ilya flashes him a devious grin that makes Shane’s heart race. God, he’s beautiful. How lucky is Shane, that even after a decade of loving this man he can still affect him like this? He can still make his heart quicken, and his breath catch, and his stomach erupt in butterflies.

“Is good to know your enemy,” Ilya answers with a shrug.

Shane shakes his head, rolling his eyes fondly at his overly dramatic fiancé. He leaves Ilya to his studying and turns back to his stall to collect the last things waiting for him: the photographs.

Every player has photographs stuck up inside their stalls: pictures of loved ones, their kids, teammates, and wins. It’s nice to keep the things that motivate you - the things that matter - close. It can be helpful sometimes, when you’re having a shitty game, to look at the people who got you where you are. It’s steadying.

Shane has a handful of pictures, and while they’ve been changed and rotated out over the years, they’re always of the people who matter the most to him.

There’s one with his parents on draft day, where Shane looks miserable after coming in second to Rozanov, but his parents are so proud there are tears in their eyes. There’s one of him when he was around five years old, sitting on his maternal grandpa’s knee; he’d died when Shane was only twelve, but he’d believed in Shane more than anyone in the world, except for maybe Ilya. There are three with the Voyageurs - one for every Cup win - and one with just him, Hayden, and J.J. all holding the Cup.

And then there’s the last photograph.

He leaves the three team ones behind and stuffs the others into the side pocket of his duffel, but he holds onto the last one so he can take a closer look at it. It’s the most recent photo that was added to his collection, but it might just be his favourite. The corners of it are curling upwards with how often he’s taken it down just to hold it for a moment.

It’s a picture of all the Game Changers Camp coaches on their very first day of their very first camp.

Shane and Ilya are at the centre of it, standing side by side.

They’re both smiling so wide that Shane’s cheeks ache at the memory of it. Then spread out on either side of them are Ryan Price, Wyatt Hayes, Hayden and J.J., Leah Campbell, and her husband Max Riley. They’re in the matching coach jackets, with their hockey sticks in hand, looking proud, and excited, and maybe a little terrified, too.

Shane traces his finger over the picture of Ilya’s face, smiling softly as he remembers that first day of camp; the day where it felt like maybe he really could have it all. Hockey and Ilya. The sport he loves and the man that he loves all in one life, instead of splitting himself in two to try and keep them both.

He looks up and finds that Ilya is already watching him. He’s leaning back against Hayden’s locker with his legs crossed at his ankles, looking at Shane like he’s his favourite view in the whole world.

Shane beckons Ilya closer with a nod of his head. “C’mere.”

Ilya doesn’t hesitate to follow his instruction, sauntering over without ever taking his attention off Shane. When he’s close enough, Shane hands the photo over to Ilya so he can take a look at it. So he can remember, too.

He watches Ilya’s face - watches the way his eyes widen and his expression softens as he realises what he’s looking at.

“Everyone else had photos of their partners in their stalls. I wanted one, too,” Shane confesses.

It’s not the wedding photographs that the married guys have, or a romantic selfie with their arms around each other, or anything even remotely suggesting just how much Ilya matters to him. But it was the best Shane could do at the time: a group picture with Ilya by his side, and - hidden from view - his hand on the small of Shane’s back.

A secret that he could hold onto when he missed Ilya so desperately that his body ached with the longing.

“Sweetheart,” Ilya sighs softly.

And then he’s closing the distance between them and kissing Shane.

Ilya drops the photo, and it floats to the ground as his hands come up to cradle Shane’s face. The kiss is slow, sweet, filled with so much love and gratitude and, above all else, relief. Relief that Ilya is no longer confined to a secret hidden in a group photograph, relief that they’re allowed to do this now, out in the open, where it doesn’t matter if someone sees them.

Hiding had been such beautiful agony.

It was beautiful that they had something to hide, that they loved each other so much that they were willing to make it work despite everything that was stacked against them. But the secrecy and the separation was almost unbearable at times. So painful that that Shane felt Ilya slipping away from him sometimes, into a place that he couldn’t reach. Those days had scared Shane the most.

But they’re both here now, together and in love, and getting married in just a few short weeks.

And all of it - all the pain, and the loneliness, and fear - was worth it in the end. Shane would suffer through it all a million times over if the outcome was the same: Ilya standing across the aisle from Shane, swearing to love him for the rest of their lives.

“I can’t believe you kept that picture in here,” Ilya murmurs against his lips.

“It was the only way I could have a photo of you without anyone questioning it.”

“My angel,” Ilya says, softly brushing his thumbs over the freckles on Shane’s cheeks. “I love you so much.”

Shane hums contentedly, steals another kiss, and says, “I love you, too.”

When they separate, Shane bends down to pick the photo up off the floor. He doesn’t need it for his locker in Ottawa, not when he’ll have the real thing sitting beside him, but it’s still a memory he cherishes. A reminder of all the good that has come from them loving each other.

He’s zipping his duffel up with one hand, the other grasped firmly in Ilya’s - who refuses to let him go - when the door to the locker room swings open.

There’s laughter and voices; the low, familiar rumble of locker room chatter, red-eye flights across the country, team gatherings to celebrate or commiserate or just let go for a while. They’re voices Shane has spent years getting to know, so familiar to him that he could pick out each one individually without even having to look at them.

They used to be his team. They used to be his friends.

They freeze when they see Shane and Ilya standing there. Their faces fade from laughter, to shock, to hatred, so quickly that Shane can barely follow the shift. It almost makes him flinch.

And Ilya, his sweet, perfect fiancé, drops Shane’s hand.

Shane knows why, of course. He understands that Ilya is just trying to protect him, just trying to minimise whatever damage is about occur in this room. But. They’re supposed to be past this, now. They’re not supposed to flinch away from physical contact anymore, because they’re no longer a secret. They’re no longer something to hide.

And yet, here - in the place that used to feel like home to Shane - they are still viewed as something shameful.

It instantly makes Shane angry, that they have to brace for impact against people he used to call friends. People who asked Shane to be in their wedding parties, and who he visited while they were recovering in hospitals, and people whose kids he’d babysat for.

It’s not fair.

Comeau scoffs at the sight of them. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Hey, Gil,” Shane sighs, trying to hold back his anger, but Ilya bristles. It’s subtle, probably not even noticeable to anyone else, but Shane feels the way his body goes tense.

“You’re not wanted here anymore,” Drapeau adds, sneering at him like he’s dirt on the bottom of his shoe.

“This is my locker room now,” Comeau insists.

My locker room, as if he’s taking Shane’s place. As if he’s going to be wearing the C on his chest this season. He’s not. Shane already knows that J.J. is the new captain, even if it hasn’t been announced yet. So he’s not sure who the fuck Gil thinks he is, acting like he’s something special when he’s nothing more than a fourth-liner who couldn’t buy himself a goal last season.

“We’re just getting Shane’s things and then leaving,” Ilya explains, his voice measured and steady in a way that Shane hadn’t expected.

Comeau, Drapeau, and Taylor - the fifth man in the room - all fix their eyes on Ilya with mutual expressions of disgust on their faces.

Comeau looks him up and down like he’s sizing Ilya up, then says, “And who the fuck asked you?”

“You’re not welcome here, Rozanov. Get the fuck out,” Taylor spits.

Shane isn’t exactly sure how he expects Ilya to respond, but it’s not the way he subtly shifts in front of Shane, placing himself as a barrier between him and the guys who look like they’d hurt him if they got the chance to. And it’s certainly not the polite, pacifying way he holds up a hand, like he’s trying to negotiate with a wounded animal.

“We are just packing his things then we will leave,” Ilya insists. “We did not come here for trouble.”

“Well you fucking found it. Shane is a-“

“No,” Ilya interrupts Comeau, stopping what Shane assumes would have been a colourful slur. “No, you do not say anything about him.”

His voice is still steady, still calm, but Shane touches the small of Ilya’s back and can feel the effort it is taking him to hold back. Shane slips out from behind Ilya, grateful for the way his fiancé is willing to protect him, but refusing to allow Ilya to become the verbal punching bag in Shane’s place.

“There is no need for your childish insults. We are leaving. Right, Shane?”

“Yeah, Ilya. We’re leaving.”

Shane thinks maybe that will be it. Maybe they can walk away from this now, without anything escalating beyond a heated exchange of words. He slings his duffle over his shoulder, takes Ilya’s hand, and makes to leave.

But Drapeau’s eyes drop to their joined hands and he scoffs.

“You’re fucking sick.”

“Can’t believe they’re letting fags like you stay in this league,” Taylor adds, grinning viciously like he hopes the word hurts them.

It doesn’t. Not really. They’re both hockey players, both grew in locker rooms and on teams where that word was passed around as easily as a puck. Ilya heard it in his own home. It’s nothing new to either of them, nothing unfamiliar. It’s worse, of course, when it’s aimed at you with knowledge - with intention - rather than just a casual insult, as if being gay is the worst thing you could possibly be.

But, still. Their taunts can’t touch Shane and Ilya. Not in any way that really matters.

Shane roll his eyes, sighing like this is nothing more than a mild inconvenience. Which, honestly, it is. He has absolutely no love left for these people, he hadn’t been expecting to work anything out with any of them. Their opinions mean less than nothing to Shane, so their attempts at insults don’t even sting.

“Says the defenseman who ended the season with a plus/minus of -11,” Shane retorts, watching with satisfaction as Taylor’s arrogance begins to crumble.

“Hollander is better player sleeping, than all three of you together,” Ilya says. “You will not be so smug when we beat you to the cup.”

“Do you wanna say that again?” Comeau demands, stepping forwards in an attempt to square up to Ilya.

Shane’s hand tightens on Ilya’s, instantly trying to hold him back. If something happens here - if this turns physical - they all know exactly who will be blamed for it. Crowell wants them out of the league, and if he can’t do it because they’re queer then he sure as hell will find a way to do it if they start fighting.

Ilya, though. He doesn’t move towards Comeau - who’s now being flanked by Taylor and Drapeau - he doesn’t even let go of Shane’s hand. His face remains as impassive as ever, not a single flicker of emotion anywhere to be found. Unless you’re Shane, of course, who can see the line of tension in his jaw.

“I will not fight you,” he says.

All three of them laugh like it’s a victory. Clearly they’ve forgotten what Ilya is capable of.

“Because you’re a fucking pussy, Rozanov,” Taylor wields the words like a weapon.

“No,” Ilya replies. “Because I do not fight small men who think they are big.”

It’s restrained for Ilya. Polite, almost, while still being deceptively cutting.

Shane knows what he’s capable of, has heard plenty of Ilya’s vicious chirps thrown at his teammates during the decade they’ve spent in the league together. He’s vulgar, and taunting, and knows exactly how to get under people’s skin. His insults are some of the most ruthless Shane has ever heard on the ice - even though they were never aimed at him - which is exactly what has always fuelled the narrative surrounding Rozanov.

But that’s just it: it’s only a narrative.

The real Ilya - Shane’s Ilya - is nothing like the competitor he is on the ice.

Shane’s Ilya is…he’s sunshine. He’s sweet, and he’s good, and he’s nothing at all like the person they all believe him to be.

He’s sharp, and quick-witted, and funny. Shane loves him, of course he does, but he likes Ilya, too. He likes everything about him, from his jealous streak and his terrible diet, to the way he loves his hair being played with and his forehead kissed. The way he loves to be spoiled, and treated gently, and adored.

The second Ilya was given a safe place to be soft, all of his walls came tumbling down.

Of course he doesn’t want to fight them. That’s not him. He’d flatten every one of them if he needed to - if they went too far, or they tried to put their hands on Shane - but Ilya is not a violent person. Rarely on the ice, and never off it.

His sharp edges soften around Shane, and there’s no way he is going to leave him vulnerable. They don’t get to hurt what’s his.

“Let’s go, Ilya. We’re done here,” Shane says, lightly nudging his arm as he ushers them both towards the exit.

He thinks they’ve gotten away from it. Thinks they’re in the clear as they reach the door that will get them the hell out of here. But then-

“You should watch your back, Rozanov,” Comeau hisses.

Shane stops dead in his tracks, forcing Ilya to a standstill as well.

He feels the cold fury rushing in his veins, turning his blood into ice. He feels the last of his restraint being ripped away from him at the sound of Comeau’s threat. He feels an anger he has never known before rising inside of him, bubbling white-hot beneath his ribs like a powder keg that’s about to explode.

“Shane, my love. Don’t. Let’s go,” Ilya murmurs in Russian.

And maybe if Comeau had said it to him instead, then Shane might have walked away. He might have been the bigger person and left them to their pathetic taunts. But he didn’t. He said it to Ilya. He threatened Ilya. And that’s not something Shane will ever let slide. Not as long as he is breathing.

He takes a breath, then turns back around to face his former teammates. They’re grinning smugly, like they’ve won something.

Shane feels suddenly, eerily calm, as he stares at the people he once called friends. And when he fixes his gaze on Comeau, it’s satisfying to watch him flinch at the hostility in his eyes.

“If you ever talk about my fiancé like that again, then I will end your career.”

The words are pure vitriol, dripping from Shane’s mouth like venom from the fangs of a snake. He doesn’t raise his voice, he doesn’t even sound angry, he just sounds lethal. Like a man you don’t want to cross. Like a man who fully intends to honour his promise…or threat.

He’s met with stunned silence.

Shane is scrappy on the ice, and he can chirp with the best of them, but never in his life has he sounded so dangerous. These people who think they know him have only ever seen one version of Shane; they don’t know what he looks like when someone he loves is threatened.

They don’t know what he is capable of when someone tests his love for Ilya.

He was willing to burn the entire league to the ground for Ilya, so this is absolutely nothing in comparison. He will ruin careers - he will ruin lives - if he has to. There are no lengths Shane won’t go to for him. No lines he won’t cross for his future husband. His love for Ilya bleeds into everything that he does.

These guys think they’re still owed Shane’s loyalty? They don’t know the meaning of the word.

He will laugh in their faces as their entire worlds collapse around them, if they ever dare to come for Ilya. They’ve already made Shane the villain; he doesn’t mind playing that role.

”Sweetheart, let’s go. We don’t need to stay here,” Ilya says quietly, in Russian again.

Shane looks at him, at the fire in his eyes that is masked only by his concern for Shane. By his love for him. Shane squeezes his hand, then looks back at his former teammates for the last time.

“I’m not fucking around,” Shane warns. “You come for him and I will ruin you.”

He lets the promise linger in the air as he turns his back on them and walks away.

They don’t say a word until they’re back in the jeep, the doors locked and the radio softly playing some country song about trucks and girls and beer. Ilya is in the driver’s seat this time, having seen the way Shane’s hands were trembling and plucking the car keys right out of them. Shane hadn’t argued even though Ilya is usually his passenger princess, as Jackie always refers to him.

And now they’re sitting quietly in the parking lot, catching their breath and letting their bubbling rage settle into something more like a simmer.

Shane kind of wants to kill them, a little bit.

He’s never felt that kind of fury in his life, not even when they had accused him of tripping on purpose. Not even when they’d sat across from Crowell and he’d threatened their careers. Because with Crowell, it wasn’t really personal. It had felt it, of course, when it was them having to hear his vitriol, but Crowell doesn’t know them as people. He cared less about them, and more about his league - about the way they were making it look.

But Comeau, Taylor, and Drapeau? They know Shane. They’ve been his teammates, his friends, for years. It is fucking personal with them. They made sure of it when they threatened his fiancé.

“Shane, sweetheart, are you okay?” Ilya asks softly.

Shane tilts his head, looking over at his fiancé who is watching him with concern etched into the lines of his face. He turns his whole body sideways to face him, so Ilya does the same. And Shane doesn’t hold back from reaching for him, rubbing his thumb between his brows to ease away the frown. He lets his hand drift down to cup Ilya’s cheek, swiping his thumb over the fading shadows beneath his eyes.

“I’m okay, baby,” Shane promises.

“Are you sure? Because…because I have never seen you like that before.”

Ilya’s voice is a mix of worry and awe, as if he quite enjoyed seeing that side of Shane but he’s sad it ever had to come out in the first place. He loops his fingers around Shane’s wrist, keeping his hand against his face as he leans into the touch.

“I’m sure,” Shane insists. “It just - it made me crazy, hearing them speak to you like that. They had no fucking right.”

It’s one thing on the ice, but off it - when everyone is supposed to leave the rivalries behind - is absolutely unforgivable. They can hate Shane, call him a traitor, say whatever they want about him, but he won’t let them do the same for Ilya. Just like Ilya wouldn’t let them for Shane.

They protect each other, now, just like they’ve spent years protecting their love.

“Is just words, my love. They do not mean anything.”

“That’s not the point, Ilya. They just - they don’t get to talk to you like that. You’re mine. I won’t let them.”

Ilya hums, low and rumbling in his chest. The hand that was circled around Shane’s wrist slowly moves up his arm, over his shoulder, and curls around the back of his neck.

Then, as Ilya pulls him in, Shane leans forward. Their noses brush, and their foreheads lean together, and they take a moment to just breathe each other in. Ilya’s fingers scratch through Shane’s hair, and Shane’s hand grips Ilya’s t-shirt, and they hold each other close.

“Yes, I am yours,” Ilya says softly. “And you are mine.”

“Exactly,” Shane murmurs.

And then he pushes forward to kiss his fiancé. Brief, chaste, just a sweet thing to say I’m here, to say I love you. Ilya tastes like coffee and cinnamon and home.

“You defended me.”

Shane chuckles. “Of course I did.”

He says it like it’s obvious, because it is. Because there’s no world where Shane wouldn’t defend Ilya. But Ilya pulls back just enough for Shane to catch the expression on his face, and it’s so…surprised, almost. Grateful. Like he hadn’t expected it, and he certainly never would have asked for it.

And it hits Shane then, that Ilya has never really had anyone to defend him before.

Not his brother or his father, and not his teammates in Boston. Sure, they defended Rozanov - the player, their captain - but never Ilya, never the person behind the jersey. And while it’s different with the guys in Ottawa, Ilya has already taken on the roll of the defender now. He’s the one who protects, not the one who is protected. Until now, at least. Until Shane.

“I love how much you love me,” Ilya whispers almost disbelievingly.

And Shane is overcome with such an intense, overwhelming sense of possessiveness for this man. His Ilya. Who is so fucking gentle, and sweet, and is filled with so much love but had nowhere to put it for so many years. Even now, with engagement rings on their fingers and a wedding that’s all but planned, Ilya is still in awe of how much Shane loves him. How much he wants him, always, all the fucking time.

It’s like, even with Ilya here in front of him, the longing has never gone away.

He always wants to touch him, kiss him, hold him. Always wants to be closer. He wants to bite him, leave marks on his neck and chest so people know that he belongs to someone. That he is owned, just like he owns Shane. He wants to claw beneath his skin and make a home for himself inside of Ilya.

He always, always wants to make sure that Ilya knows just how adored he is - how indescribably precious he is to Shane.

“More than anything, baby,” Shane promises, his voice cracking under the weight of all his love. “I love you more than anything.”

The words are so easy to say because he’s never meant anything more. There’s nothing on this earth that matters more to Shane. He’d give it all up in a heartbeat for him, all while knowing that Ilya would never dream of asking him to. It’s part of the reason that loving him is the easiest thing Shane has ever done.

“I love you,” Ilya murmurs against Shane’s lips. “Thank you.”

Shane kisses the corner of his mouth, the mole on his cheek, the tip of his nose - just a flurry of sweet little kisses until Ilya is laughing, happy and carefree in the way he always should be.

“You don’t have to thank me for loving you, Ilya. It’s as easy as breathing.”

Ilya groans, tipping forward to rest his forehead on Shane’s shoulder. He tilts his head just enough to nip at the sensitive skin of Shane’s neck, and Shane can feel him grinning against his throat as he shivers at the sensation. He tangles his fingers in Ilya’s curls, tugging hard enough to pull Ilya away from him and make him moan.

“Stop turning me on when I have to drive us home,” he whines, making Shane laugh.

“Come on then,” Shane says, shoving his shoulder lightly to get him moving. “I believe you promised to fuck me in the house one last time.”

“Nuh uh,” Ilya taunts with a smirk. “I promised to fuck you once in every room.”

Shane tilts his head back in laughter. “Sure you’ve got the stamina, Rozanov?”

Ilya is in the middle of turning the key and starting the engine, but he freezes as his jaw drops. He turns to Shane slowly, eyebrows raised in disbelief.

He reaches out, grabs Shane’s face in one hand and pulls him close enough that he can feel Ilya’s breath on his lips. Shane melts into the touch, his whole body sagging instantaneously; he turns to putty in Ilya’s hands, completely unable to stop his head from going all fuzzy when Ilya moves him around like this.

“I’ll show you stamina,” Ilya warns.

Then he closes the last bit of space between them and sucks Shane’s bottom lip into his mouth. He bites down, sinking his teeth into Shane’s flesh in a way that draws a punched-out whine from his throat. Ilya soothes the sting with his tongue, then reluctantly lets him go.

“You’re crazy,” Shane laughs breathlessly.

“Mm, yes. For you,” Ilya says with a wolfish grin on his face.

Shane rolls his eyes fondly. “Take me home, Rozanov.”

“As you wish, Hollander.”

“It’ll be Hollander-Rozanov soon,” Shane says, just to tease him.

He knows how much it turns him on. Knows how excited Ilya is to finally share a last name with someone again - someone that he loves. So Shane can’t help the satisfied smirk that stretches across his face when Ilya groans, sinking forward to bump his forehead against the steering wheel.

“Twice,” Ilya says, breathless. “Twice in every room.”