Rating:

General Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid, Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander & Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov

Additional Tags:

Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, Moving In Together, Opposites Attract, you're doing it wrong, Ilya Rozanov is a Menace, Shane Hollander is So Done, POV Ilya Rozanov, POV Shane Hollander, Married Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-28 Updated: 2026-04-20 Words: 8,967 Chapters: 6/?

Domestic Bliss

Summary

They came out. They got married. Shane was traded to the Centaurs, and now he's moving in. Wait...you mean the has to *live* with Ilya's household habits? Who even knew someone could load the dishwasher wrong??

Notes

Just a bit of fluff in which I speculate about how merging Shane's household life and habits with Ilya's would result in...chaos and arguments. With love, of course. This will have multiple chapters, but probably won't end up *too* long.

Spoilers for TLG.

Chapter 1: Move-in day

August 12, 2021 – Day 1 living together

Ilya

“The truck might -” Shane began, looking over his shoulder at the road behind them, where a moving truck lumbered along.

“Truck has GPS,” Ilya said stolidly, not letting up on the gas pedal as he steered them onto the highway that would lead them from Shane’s home – ex-home – in Montreal to Ilya’s sprawling house in the suburbs of Ottawa. “They do not need to follow us directly.” 

“But it couldn’t hurt to -” 

Ilya increased their speed noticeably and Shane whipped around in his seat to face the speedometer. “You’re going too fast, we’re going to get pulled over.” 

“Shane.” Ilya sighed and rested a heavy hand on his lover’s knee, which was bouncing anxiously up and down. “I’m only doing 100 kph. We will not get pulled over. And the moving truck will not get lost. And even if they do, we are not on a deadline; if your furniture arrives a day late, it will make no difference.” He offered Shane his most reassuring smile. “We are not in a crisis, sweetheart.” 

Shane sighed and slumped back in his seat, wiping a hand down his face. “I know. I do. I’m just so used to being in crisis mode at this point…and moving in together is a big deal...and, I don’t know. There’s a lot going on in my head.”

“We have lived together each summer for the past four years,” Ilya reminded him. “Is old news.” 

“Ilya.” Shane regarded him dubiously. “This is different. That was, like, vacationing together while sharing space. This is gonna be actual full-time living together.”

Ilya still didn’t see the difference. When they were at the cottage in the summers, they lived there full-time, other than the occasional night they spent at Shane’s parents’ cottage if they drank too much to drive back across the bridge. The only difference between the cottage in the summers and Ottawa during the season would probably be that they spent a lot less time actually in the space where they were nominally living. 

But Ilya had known and loved his Shane long enough to know that what struck Ilya as a big deal was not always the same as what struck Shane as a big deal, so perhaps he was missing something, or just looking at it from the wrong perspective. So he didn’t argue. “We will figure it out,” he said instead. 

Shane cast him a glance, chewed his bottom lip for a second, and then nodded. “Yeah,” he finally agreed. “We’ll figure it out.” 

Shane

The truck did not get lost, and within three hours, Shane was supervising the unloading of his life’s belongings onto the staging area of Ilya’s backyard. “Careful with that, please!” he called to the two movers carrying his hand-hewn driftwood coffee table toward Ilya’s house. It had been one of his first post-Rose purchases, when he’d been trying to figure out if he had a style and aesthetic of his own, and it brought back fond memories. He was having horrified visions of the movers dropping it and cracking it in half. 

“Where d’ya want it?” the mover on the right asked.

Shane took a second to run through his mental map of the house. “First floor. Second room on the right, in front of the black leather couch.” 

“My music room?” Ilya interjected, looking puzzled. “I do not need table in there.” 

Shane blinked at him. “You don’t have any tables in there, though.” 

“Yes,” Ilya agreed readily.

They stared at each other, confused, for a few seconds, and then Shane tried again. “So...it’s probably good to put a table in there? You know, to put stuff on?” 

“My feet, when I relax?” Ilya asked, suddenly looking enthusiastic. “I do like to slouch when I play with my guitar…”

Shane shut that down quickly. “No feet on this table. I was thinking more, like…papers. Maybe mugs of coffee, if there’s coasters.”

Ilya blinked. “Coasters? Table is already made of wood, why would we need coasters?”

“To keep the finish from…” He shook his head. “You know what, never mind.” Turning back to the movers, he signaled for them to continue. “First floor, second room on the right, like I said.” The movers looked at him, looked at each other, shrugged, and carried the table into the house.

Shane consulted his printed-out list to see what else he needed to address. “You made room in the bedroom closet, right?” he asked Ilya, glancing at him where he was hovering beside Shane. “Because last time I was here, you had clothes tossed everywhere. But we talked about this, so I’m sure you…” He trailed off at the sight of Ilya’s wince. “You didn’t make room?”

“I go do that now!” Ilya said hastily, turning and trotting off toward the house. “Plenty of space for your button-down shirts,” he promised over his shoulder. “Just give me five minutes.”

Shane sighed. They’d had this move planned for literally months. Of course Ilya hadn’t taken the time to clean out the closet, because why would he do that ahead of time?

Maybe Shane could just take over one of the guest room closets and leave Ilya to his disaster area. Yeah, he could live with that.

Stifling a grimace, he looked back down at his list.

Ilya

Ilya collapsed down onto the couch in his – their – living room with a huff of exhaustion. It had been years since he’d moved into this house, and even when he’d done that, it had been more of a “a couple of suitcases, some boxes, and a scheduled furniture delivery” event than a days-long marathon of loading and unloading a moving truck and then supervising the exact placement of a never-ending series of belongings and pieces of furniture and art.

Shane and he were…not the same. But that was part of the charm of their relationship, he reminded himself: he kept Shane more relaxed and casual than he’d be on his own, and Shane kept him on something resembling a life plan.

Shane wandered into the room, still looking down at that damned list. “I think I have the kitchen done, so we can cook something for dinner.”

Ilya couldn’t hold himself back from facepalming at the thought of having to cook after the long day they’d had. Unfortunately, Shane looked up at just the wrong moment and caught him doing it.

“What?” Shane asked cautiously. “You’re making that face.”

“I don’t make a face.”

“You absolutely make a face, and you’re making it. It’s the ‘I can’t believe I signed up for this’ face.” Shane’s expression turned sad. “Are you regretting this? Me? I know I’m a lot…”

Ilya dropped his hand and jumped to his feet, crossing the room to his husband. “No, lyubimyy. No, never would I regret you.” He wrapped his arms around Shane. “I was simply thinking that we should take the night off from cooking. Perhaps pizza, hm? I know it is not on the diet, but we have burned many calories today with all we’ve done.”

Shane offered him a weak smile, then rested his head on Ilya’s shoulder. “We really shouldn’t. The season opens in less than two months and people are going to expect me to be at the top of my game…” Despite his words, his tone said convince me.

So Ilya did. “We will get you the cauliflower crust one.” The stuff was disgusting, and Ilya certainly wouldn’t be eating it, but Ilya would order it for his man. “And grilled chicken on top, yes?”

Shane heaved a sigh and nodded. “Yeah, ok. I’m actually really tired and the idea of not cooking is unreasonably attractive. You’d think we weren’t professional athletes, getting our asses kicked by some moving boxes.”

“Meh.” Ilya wrinkled his nose. “I think it is the stress more than the physical moving. You have been very worried about this move.”

Shane snorted lightly. “About everything, you mean.”

“That, too.” But he hadn’t been about to say it out loud.

Sighing again, Shane pried himself out of Ilya’s arms and walked to the sofa, flopping down with an oof and starting to pet Anya, who had been remarkably unperturbed by the day’s chaos and who had been napping at the center of the sectional for the past hour. “Ok, order the pizza. I’m just gonna relax here for a while.”

By the time Ilya had placed the order through his phone app, Shane’s eyes were closed and his breaths were even. Ilya smiled to himself. He’d let his beloved sleep until the pizza arrived.

Ilya

Ilya picked up his pizza slice, dripping in cheese and with a piece of pepperoni precariously balanced on one edge, and opened his mouth wide enough to stuff half of it in. Ahhh, that was the good stuff. Chewing contentedly, he put down the slice on the opened top of the box and looked over at his husband.

His husband, who was regarding him in something like horror.

“Whut?” Ilya said through his mouthful.

Shane shook his head and looked down at where he’d been delicately cutting his slice into pieces with a knife and fork on a ceramic plate he’d dug out of the cabinet. “I always forget how eating is something you take as a challenge: how much of this pizza can I fit in my mouth at once?”

Ilya swallowed, grinned, and shrugged. “I am competitive, what can I say?”

“With yourself?” Shane asked, raising a skeptical brow.

“Of course!” Ilya watched as Shane forked up a bite of pizza. “And with you. I will eat my pizza faster than you will eat yours.”

Shane just rolled his eyes as he chewed and swallowed. “Is this the stuff I missed out on by never being able to go out to eat with you when we were a secret? You taking on every stupid food challenge you could find?”

Ilya thumped his chest proudly. “I once ate thirty buffalo wings in ten minutes. Got them for free because of my speed.”

“Oh my god, I got indigestion just thinking about that.”

“Well,” Ilya acknowledged a bit sheepishly, “there was some indigestion after that.” He pinched up a bite of pepperoni off the next slice and ate it. “But was worth it. Free food!”

“Ilya, you’re a multi-millionaire,” Shane pointed out with a long-suffering sigh. “You can afford as many wings as you want.”

“Is the principle of the thing.”

Shane snorted. “If you say so.” He carefully forked up another bite of pizza, making sure to get the cheese that rightfully belonged on that piece all gathered on his fork. “But I swear, if you take me on a date and tell me we’re competing to see how much we can eat, how fast, I’m getting up and walking out.”

“You would leave me?” Ilya gasped, affecting a look of horrible offense.

“I’d leave the restaurant,” Shane stressed. “You’d have to slink home on your own with your face covered in hot sauce or whatever.”

Ilya couldn’t hold back his laugh at that mental image, because…yeah. “I promise to not take you to an eating competition.” At least, not immediately. They’d work up to that. He popped the last bite of his pizza crust into his mouth, sad to see that he’d already finished the entire ten-inch “personal” pie. Meanwhile, Shane was on his second slice out of four and showing no signs of speeding up.

Ilya gave a moment’s consideration to stealing some of his husband’s pizza – clearly, if he was eating it that slowly, it was up for grabs, right? – but then he remembered it was cauliflower pizza, and…no. Instead, he got up and grabbed a can of Coke out of the fridge. “You want another ginger ale?” he asked over his shoulder.

Shane shook his head. “One per day.”

“You are so boring, Hollander,” Ilya said with a scoff as he sat back down. “Who gives themselves a rule for soda? Only you!” He popped open his soda and took a sip. “What should we do tonight?” he asked after swallowing, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Shane, not looking up from surgically cutting up another bite of pizza, said, “I suggest we unpack my sheets and make the bed, first. Then, the towels. We’ll want them in the morning.” Shane had insisted that Ilya’s linens weren’t up to snuff and that they replace them with his own. Ilya had managed to not snark something about how Shane had never complained about his sheets before.

“So boooooring,” Ilya moaned theatrically. “You were supposed to say ‘we should have sex, Ilya.’”

Shane looked up at him then. “After today? I’d fall asleep halfway through.”

Ilya clutched his chest. “You wound me!”

“I mean, no shade on you,” Shane tried to clarify. “I’m just exhausted.”

Ilya was not appeased. “No, I see how it is. Now that I have married you, I no longer interest you.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “You’re such a drama llama.” He ate the last of his second slice and pushed his plate away. “Where do you keep the aluminum foil? I want to put the rest of this away for tomorrow.”

Ilya looked around the kitchen, which was filled with boxes, thanks entirely to Shane’s insistence that his kitchenware was also better. “You’ve been here before; you know as well as I do.”

Shane smirked. “I was hoping you’d take the hint and get it for me.” He stood with a sigh. “I’m starting to re-think this marriage thing.”

Ilya crossed his arms and sulked. How dare Shane threaten him like that? “No, you are not.”

“No, I’m not. But I’d still like if you brought me the foil.” Despite his words, he wrapped up his remaining pizza himself and stuck the packet into the cold oven.

Ilya made a mental note to move it somewhere else once Shane had gone to bed. Because few things gave him as much joy as Shane’s frustrated-kitten face. “You are the worst, Hollander.”

Shane kissed the top of his head. “I know. Now, wanna help me make the bed?”

Huffing, Ilya stood and tossed his pizza box into the recycling bin Shane insisted they have. “I suppose I must, if I want to sleep tonight.”

“You suppose right,” Shane informed him. “Maybe this time, you’ll get the corners right.”

His husband was obsessed with tucking the ends of the bedding just right, which as best Ilya could tell, meant so tightly that his feet felt like they were in prison. Ilya made a silent note-to-self to untuck his side after Shane left the room. His feet needed to breathe! “I always get the corners right,” he grumbled as he followed watched Shane load his plate and cutlery into the dishwasher. “It is you who does them wrong.”

Shane just raised an eyebrow at him and mmhmm’d skeptically.

“It is!” Ilya protested.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You…looked at me.”

That got him a smile. “I like looking at you.”

How could he stay annoyed at the other man when he said things like that, damn it? Ilya huffed a little and followed Shane into the bedroom. He’d let his husband have this. But it wouldn’t be his fault if, by morning, the sheets had come mysteriously loose. He couldn’t control how he slept!

Shane reached into a box in the corner of their bedroom – how had he even remembered where the box of sheets had been put down? - and unfurled a bottom sheet, giving it a snap. “C’mon. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can pass out.”

Reluctantly, Ilya picked up the opposite corner of the sheet and started stretching it around the mattress. “Boring,” he muttered.

Shane just smiled. “The boring-est.”

Chapter 2: The bathroom wars

Chapter Notes

August 22, 2021 – Day 10 of living together

Shane

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Shane muttered to himself as his foot came down on a soggy piece of cloth. He bent and picked up the dirty towel Ilya had left on the bathroom floor after his shower and, with it pinched between two fingers, carried it to the hamper. The hamper that was literally only two feet away, against the bathroom wall.

Was it so hard to just walk that two feet and put the towel in the laundry? Apparently, because they’d been living together in this house for only ten days and this was at least the third time Ilya had done this.

All he’d wanted was to wash his face and brush his teeth, not perform maid service. Ilya had been up for an hour or two – Shane dimly remembered him getting out of bed and pressing a kiss to Shane’s forehead – but Shane had, uncharacteristically, slept late, taking advantage of the fact that they had the day off from training at the rink.

He supposed sleeping late had been his first mistake, because it meant Ilya had already showered and proceeded to dump his towel on the floor. Usually Shane was up, showered, and dressed well before his husband.

With a sigh, Shane closed the hamper’s lid and walked over to the sink to pick up his toothbrush.

There was toothpaste splattered inside the sink. Shane gritted his teeth and turned on the faucet, rinsing the mess down the drain. This, he’d known to expect – after all, they shared a bathroom at the cottage every summer – but for some reason he’d…he didn’t know. Thought that it would be different now that they were Officially Living Together? That Ilya would somehow go I must be an adult about my bathroom habits now?

Yeah, right. Ilya and adulthood were not well-acquainted.

At least, he mused as he prepared his toothbrush, they’d long since started keeping separate tubes of toothpaste, both because Ilya was a squeeze-from-the-middle person and because he insisted on only using childish toothpaste flavors like bubble gum because the mint, it burns my mouth, Shane, while Shane was a normal human who liked being minty-fresh. His husband was a big baby.

Grumbling quietly through a mouthful of toothpaste foam, he finished brushing his teeth and then rinsed his toothbrush – and the sink. Like a civilized human being. He put his toothbrush back into its caddy and walked out of the bathroom, idly wondering what Ilya had gotten up to in the time Shane was asleep. Probably trouble.

He found his husband slumped on the couch with Anya in his lap. Ilya’s head was tipped back against the back of the couch, his eyes were closed, and he was snoring quietly. He didn’t stir when Shane came into the room, but the dog raised her head and let out a quiet yip.

At least someone cared that he was up.

Shane walked over to the sofa and gently kicked Ilya’s foot. “Hey, sleepyhead.”

Ilya snorted awake, blinking. “Eh?” He took a moment to focus his eyes, and then he smiled at Shane. “Oh. Good morning, lyubimyy. Anya and I were just…uh.”

Shane flopped down beside him. “You could’ve come back to bed if you were still tired.”

Ilya shook his head and took Shane’s hand, toying with his fingers. “I wasn’t sleeping. I was just resting my eyes. And besides, you were sleeping so contentedly, I did not want to accidentally wake you up.”

“I’d rather have woken up for five seconds than stepped right onto your wet towel when I went into the bathroom,” Shane couldn’t stop himself from grumping. “We’ve talked about this.”

Ilya blinked. “I left it on the floor?”

“Uh, yes? Were you not even aware of what you did with it?”

“I suppose I was not paying attention.” He leaned over to press a kiss to Shane’s cheek. “I’m sorry. I will be more careful in the future.”

“Hmph.” But Shane couldn’t stay mad at him when he made those sad, apologetic eyes at him. He knew Ilya didn’t mean any harm; he just…didn’t pay attention to the things Shane paid attention to. “Also,” he couldn’t help throwing in while Ilya seemed to be in a receptive mood, “the toothpaste in the sink? Gross.”

Ilya sighed. “I was going to wipe it up.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Anya barked! I needed to check on her!” he protested.

“Once it dries on, it’s, like, twenty times harder to get rid of,” Shane pointed out, quite reasonably he thought.

Ilya pushed to his feet. “I will go clean it up.”

Shane waved him back down. “I already did it.”

“Oh.” Ilya frowned, not sitting down again. “Do you want breakfast? I will make you a smoothie.” It was a conciliatory gesture, but those always worked on Shane. Shane was a pushover.

Shane sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, thanks. Remember to double the protein powder. And put the blender in the dishwasher when you’re done.” The last time Ilya had prepared his shake, he’d left the milk-coated blender sitting on the counter for the rest of the day. Shane knew, because he’d spotted it right away but decided to leave it as an experiment to see how long it would take Ilya to clean it up. The answer had been longer than Shane could stand to leave it, as it turned out.

Why had he married a slob?

Oh, right, because for some reason he loved him, wet towels, dirty sink, and icky blender and all.

Ilya was lucky he had other redeeming qualities, or Shane would have throttled him on Day 1.

Actually, that was still on the table. He’d have to see how this living-together thing shaped up.

Chapter End Notes

You all knew Ilya was going to be the slob, right? I mean, c'mon.

Also, if you have any "adjusting to living together" scenarios for them to fight over encounter in this story, I'd love to hear your ideas. Because there's *always* one person who doesn't know there are rules about things like the dishwasher.

Chapter 3: Pillows and chairs, oh my!

September 1, 2021 – approximately three weeks of living together

Ilya

Ilya pulled yet another pillow off the bed and tossed it aside, muttering to himself in Russian about how unnecessary they were. All he wanted was a damn nap, not to have to excavate a space to sleep in.

“Oh, c’mon,” Shane whined as he entered the room and saw Ilya chucking the pillow toward the corner of the room. “Can’t you at least put them in the basket?” He toed a beribboned wicker basket that sat in the corner, already full of pillows, pointedly.

“You have a basket,” Ilya said flatly. “For your pillows. Pillows that we do not even sleep on.”

“You can’t sleep on these!” Shane protested. “They’re decorative.”

Ilya threw another pillow, and if it was in the general direction of his husband, well, could he be blamed? “They’re unnecessary.”

“They’re decoration. Decorations are, by definition, unnecessary – but they make things nicer. That’s why people decorate.”

“I already let you hang all those arts on the walls,” Ilya grumbled, waving vaguely to where a detailed painting of some sort of tree hung above the bed. There were more paintings, prints, and mixed-media pieces scattered on the walls around the house. In the living room, a sculpture Ilya couldn’t make heads or tails of stood on a pillar – a damned pillar! Ilya wasn’t sure why Shane had felt all of this was so necessary, especially because Ilya had already had his own preferred abstracts hung throughout the house, but he hadn’t complained, because he was a nice husband. “Why do we also need fifty pillows?”

Shane went preternaturally still, his head cranking around slowly so he could eye Ilya. “You ‘let’ me hang them? I thought this was my house, too.”

Oh, danger. Ilya swallowed. “Well, I mean, it is, of course. You have right to use your own stuff. But there’s…so much?”

“I’m sorry, did you or did you not beg me to move my life into your house when we got married?” Shane asked. “And it’s not like you don’t have your own stuff scattered all the hell over the house. Do I complain about how you own fifty pairs of shoes and can never seem to put any of them away? No, I do not.”

“You just did,” Ilya pointed out under his breath.

Shane’s eyes snapped to his. “I’m feeling pretty unwelcomed right now,” he said, very deliberately.

“Uh.” He had a feeling he was just digging a hole deeper and deeper now. Looking down at the pillow in his hands, Ilya sighed and put it back down on Shane’s side of the bed. “I just don’t understand your obsession with the pillows,” he said. “The arts, it is…whatever. But the pillows are in the way of our sleep!”

Shane raised an eyebrow and gestured broadly at the corner of the bedroom, where an overstuffed armchair was buried under a mound of Ilya’s not-quite-dirty-enough-to-wash clothes. “And your pile of shit is in the way of me sitting down in my own bedroom. Your point?”

Ilya had a strong feeling he was not going to be winning this argument, but he still felt compelled to justify himself. “You want I should put them on the floor instead? I thought the chair was very reasonable.”

“Ilya, you have an entire walk-in closet to put your clothes in. Why do they need to be anywhere but in there?”

He blinked, genuinely unsure what part of this his husband wasn’t understanding. “The closet is for the clean clothes.”

“So if they’re dirty, put them in the laundry, not on the chair!”

“Well,” Ilya said slowly, “they’re not dirty, either.”

“Clothes are either clean or dirty, Ilya. They can’t be neither, or both.” Shane looked baffled as well as frustrated now.

“They are…semi-dirty,” he attempted again to explain.

“Semi?”

Ilya nodded vigorously. “Yes. They have been worn, so they are not completely clean, but they are not soiled, so they are not dirty. They are re-wearable, so I do not put them in laundry but I also do not put them in the closet. Which is for clean.” What part of that didn’t make sense? Ilya had been in tons of his friends’ homes that had The Chair or an equivalent.

“What even the fuck,” Shane muttered, looking like the comment was directed at himself rather than Ilya. “Why don’t you just wash them, though?” he asked, directing it at Ilya this time. “It’s not like we need to conserve water.”

“Is not about conserving water,” Ilya said. “Is about conserving effort.”

Shane sighed. “Do you want me to do your laundry? Is that what this is about?”

Ilya was genuinely aghast at that suggestion. He in no way expected or wanted his husband to do his chores for him! “No!” he blurted quickly. “Of course not, lyubimyy. But I do not understand why this bothers you.”

“Why do my pillows bother you?” Shane shot back.

And they were back to the pillow thing. Ilya gritted his teeth. “They don’t,” he managed to say. “Let’s pretend this whole conversation didn’t happen. Pillows are fine. I will simply put them on your side when I take my nap.”

Shane looked taken aback at the sudden capitulation. “Oh. Um, that’s fine.” He looked at the bed and its five hundred pillows. “Maybe we can move some of them to the couch to live,” he mused. “Though I don’t know if the colors will coordinate with the living room…hm.” His focus drifted off Ilya and toward the rest of the house as he fell into thought.

Ilya very deliberately didn’t ask why they couldn’t just get rid of the excess. He’d only just managed to extricate himself from the doghouse; he didn’t want to go back in. “Whatever makes you happy, husband,” he said in what he thought was an impressively neutral voice, shrugging out of his shirt and then his track pants. “I am tired. We can discuss the living room pillows after my nap, yes?”

Shane visibly softened as Ilya’s clothes came off, his eyes drifting toward Ilya’s waistline. He swallowed. “Want some company for that nap?”

Ilya lifted an eyebrow. “Always. I will never say ‘no’ to that.”

Shane smiled and stripped off his shirt, carefully dropping it into the bedroom hamper. Then he bent over and started removing pillows from the bed and tossing them into the pillow basket. “There really are kind of a lot of these, huh,” he said thoughtfully.

Ilya did not comment, because he was a smart man.

Chapter 4: The Kitchen Clash

September 10, 2021 – approximately one month of living together

Shane

Shane reached for the egg carton that sat on the top shelf of the refrigerator, pulled on it, and nearly dropped it when the weight was distributed wrong. Bobbling the container, he managed to half-drop it onto the kitchen counter and popped it open, both to check if he’d broken any and to figure out why it was unbalanced.

The remaining eggs were clustered on the far side of the carton, leaving eight empty spaces on the right and four filled ones on the left. No wonder it had felt unbalanced; it was literally unbalanced! “Ilya!” he growled. He was damn sure he hadn’t been the one to leave the eggs in this state.

His husband popped his head through the kitchen doorway at the sound of his name, still toweling water out of his light brown curls from his shower. “Yes?”

Shane gestured at the egg carton. “What the fuck?”

Ilya blinked. “Eh? The eggs? Have they gone off?”

“No,” Shane snapped, “they’re in the wrong place.”

“I did not put them back in the fridge?” Ilya guessed again.

Shane sighed heavily. How could the man be so oblivious? “You put them back in the fridge, but you took them all from one end of the carton.”

Ilya blinked again and said, “…Yes?” He stepped the rest of the way into the room and moved his towel away from his hair to wipe up a few drops of water running down his chest.

Shane didn’t follow the path of those water drops, no sir, he did not. He was too busy being frustrated. He picked up the eggs and pointed to the empty slots. “You took all the eggs from one end of the carton, leaving it completely unbalanced. I almost dropped it when I picked it up.”

Ilya’s eyebrows went up and he examined the eggs Shane was holding. “They look ok.”

“They’re fine. That’s not the point.”

“What, exactly, is point?” Ilya asked cautiously, laying his damp towel over the back of a chair.

Shane huffed and put down the eggs, reaching for a frying pan he could scramble a few in. He already knew he’d be picking up that towel after they finished breakfast, when Ilya forgot about it. “I told you, you took them all from one end. Everyone knows you need to stagger the order you take them out of the carton, so it stays balanced.”

Ilya, without being asked, retrieved a spatula from the crock on the counter and handed it to him. “This keeps them fresher?” he asked.

“Well, no. But it keeps them balanced.”

“Balanced,” Ilya echoed with impressive neutrality.

“Yes!”

“Hmm.” Ilya turned away without further comment and opened the dishwasher, which had finished its cycle overnight. “What the fuck?” he said suddenly.

Shane paused in pouring eggs into the pan. “What?”

“Who loaded dishwasher last night?”

Shane didn’t have a specific memory of it, but he figured if Ilya was asking, it probably hadn’t been Ilya. “Probably me,” he guessed. “Why?”

“You…” Ilya bent down and pulled the silverware caddy out of the bottom rack, starting to unload it with a clatter. “Knives are facing up,” he added, as if that explained anything.

“Yeah, so their blades can really get hit by the water when it sprays,” Shane explained, wondering why this was surprising.

Ilya looked at him incredulously. “Is dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

Ilya gestured at the basket. “I am putting away silverware, I reach for next item, I grasp blade of knife.” He acted out his words, but picked up the knife delicately, with the tip pinched between two fingers. “Cut hand. I end up on the bench for two weeks with stitches, and you must explain to Coach what happened to me.”

Shane frowned. “Wait, why would I have to explain? Can you not talk in this scenario?” He turned back to the stove and scraped up the first layer of cooked eggs with his spatula.

“Because it would be your fault, of course. You put the knives in dishwasher wrong.” Silverware basket empty despite the danger, Ilya put it back into the dishwasher and started putting away plates. “Duh.”

“Uh, wrong? No, I put them in the right way,” Shane protested. “Like I said, it’s so the blades get clean. You just need to look at what you’re doing when you put them away, and if you’re doing that without looking, you’re probably putting stuff away in the wrong places, anyway.”

Ilya let the plate cabinet’s door bang shut behind him. “I put things away in the right places. You have not complained.”

Well, he couldn’t argue with that. He indeed had not noticed anything being put away wrong. “Just…” He shrugged. “Pay attention when you pick up a knife and you’ll be fine.” His eggs were almost done, and he reached past Ilya to pluck a clean plate out of the dishwasher rack. “Why are we even fighting about this?”

“We are not fighting,” Ilya countered. “I was simply correcting you.”

“Correcting me?” Shane echoed incredulously. “About how to load the dishwasher? After you don’t even know how to use eggs?”

Ilya threw up his hands, a few drops of water flinging off the still-damp plastic glass he was holding and spattering on his face. “There is nothing wrong with how I use eggs!”

“Well, there clearly is,” Shane retorted as he plated his eggs with what might have been a little bit of a frustrated flip of his hand. “Because I almost dropped them.”

“Well, I didn’t realize eggs had numbers on them,” Ilya said. “Maybe next time, use markers on the shells to write instructions.”

Shane scoffed, but nevertheless put the other half of the eggs on another plate and put it down on the kitchen table in front of Ilya’s usual chair, then went to get forks out of the drawer for them. “You’re lucky you’re getting eggs for breakfast that got scrambled in the pan instead of on the floor.”

Ilya snorted as he put away the last of the plasticware and closed the cabinet. “I can feed myself.”

Offended, Shane sat, put down the forks, and pulled Ilya’s plate of eggs closer to himself. “Oh, so you don’t want these?”

“I did not say that.” Ilya plopped down in his chair and pulled his plate back from Shane. “I am very hungry.”

Shane refused to release the plate, pulling it back toward him. “Then apologize and say you’ll take them out of the carton right next time.”

“I will not apologize,” Ilya said, once again taking his plate back, “because I did not do anything wrong. But because I love you, I will take eggs out of the carton differently if you write down how you want me to take them.” Satisfied with this, he picked up the bottle of hot sauce that lived on the table and sprinkled some over his eggs, then forked up a bite.

“Oh my god,” Shane sighed. “Just don’t take them all from one end! Alternate!”

“And if,” Ilya went on after swallowing, ignoring his outburst, “you put knives in the dishwasher properly.”

“I didn’t -!”

“Ah, ah,” Ilya interrupted Shane’s protest, “do we have a deal, lyubimyy? A, what is the word, ‘truce’?”

Shane scowled and stirred his eggs restlessly with his fork. “I maintain that the knives get cleaner if we do it my way.”

Ilya rolled his eyes. “Dishwasher spends three hours blasting them with hot water and soap. They will get clean either way.”

“I’m gonna check you so hard at practice today,” Shane muttered darkly when he failed to come up with a counterargument, eating a bite of his own eggs. “Right the fuck into the boards.”

Ilya snickered through another bite. “You can try, sweetheart. But you are slow.”

“We’ll see how slow I am.” 

Glaring at each other over their plates, they ate in silence for a few minutes.

Finally, Ilya broke the silence with a grin. “Solution: I have Harris run a survey on Twitter. We will learn how knives should be washed. Maybe egg carton use, too.”

Suddenly, Shane wasn’t as confident in his methods for those things. He gulped and tried to look like he was sure, though. “Sure. A survey. And we’ll abide by whatever the results are.”

Ilya chortled and rubbed his hands together mischievously. “Press team will love this. Also fans.”

Shane took a sip of his coffee and scowled. “You know you’re giving Harris gray hair, right?”

“Eh.” Ilya waved that off. “He needs someone to keep him on his toes.”

“Does it have to be you, though?”

“Could be you,” Ilya offered. “Want to be a bad boy, Hollander?” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Shane snorted. “I fit a lifetime’s worth of being bad into keeping our relationship secret before we got married. Now I just want to be boring.”

Ilya smirked. “You will always be that, lyubimyy.”

Chapter 5: Hydro hijinks

Chapter Notes

November 16, 2021 – three months living together – late autumn

Ilya

Ilya wiped sweat off the back of his neck and, sighing, pulled off his shirt. He was sitting in the living room playing a game on his phone; why in the world was he sweating?

Gently lifting Anya’s head off his knee, he stood up and crossed the room to the thermostat. Perhaps it was malfunctioning?

The thermostat’s blinking display read “Current: 24. Minimum: 22. Maximum: 25”. It was twenty-four degrees in here? No wonder he was sweating! And who had set the range to such ridiculous numbers?

Well, there was only one person besides him who could have set it. Grumbling, Ilya set about re-programming the thermostat’s range to 18-20, which was plenty of heat for an autumn day. Sure, they could pay a high hydro bill, but why should they? If Shane was cold, he could just put on a sweatshirt.

Satisfied with his work, he returned to the couch and the dog, picking up his phone again to resume crushing bubbles. After half an hour, he was able to shrug back into his shirt and the sweat on his neck had dried.

Ilya let out a contented little sigh. Life was good.

“Why is it so cold in here?” Shane demanded as he walked into the living room an hour later. He’d been on a video chat with Rose, and apparently his ex-girlfriend had kept him so fascinated that he hadn’t even noticed his environment.

Not that Ilya had opinions about how close Shane was to Rose. He didn’t care, not at all.

He scowled.

Shane threw himself onto the couch beside Ilya. “No, seriously, I’m freezing. Don’t frown at me!” he added, shaking a finger at Ilya. “Why is it so cold? Did you open a window or something?”

“I would not open a window when heat is on,” Ilya scoffed. “That is a good way to waste money.”

Shane made a show of shivering. “Well, something changed.”

“I changed thermostat,” Ilya informed him flatly. “Was set much too high. Summer temperature in November!”

“What?” Shane squinted at him. “I had it set to room temperature. Maybe it got bumped accidentally?”

This time, Ilya couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “You had it set to twenty-five.”

Shane frowned thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think so. I think I had twenty-five as the max. 22-25 is what I remember setting.”

“Exactly!” Ilya exclaimed with a flourish of a hand.

“Exactly what?”

“You had it set to summer temperatures. It is November. Why burn electricity like that? Put on extra socks and save money!”

Shane went dangerously still, his only movement his eyes blinking. “You’re worried about our hydro bill?”

“Well,” Ilya said, “and the fact that I was sweating like pig.”

“You’re worried about our hydro bill,” Shane said again, this time stressing you’re.

“It is very expensive!” Ilya pointed out, wondering why Shane wasn’t getting this.

“You,” Shane said again, pointing at him. “Are worried about our hydro bill. You, the guy who has never turned off a light switch in his whole life.”

Caught by surprise, Ilya drew back from the pointing finger. “What?”

Shane sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re supposed to turn off the lights when you leave a room, Ilya. If you’re worried about the hydro bill, try doing that instead of freezing me out of the house.”

“But then it is dark when I walk into room,” Ilya protested, confused by what part of that Shane wasn’t getting.

“Are you afraid of the dark?”

In truth, Ilya was, a little. His father had often punished him by locking him in a dark closet for a twisted version of time-out. The trauma lingered.

But he didn’t want to admit that weakness, so instead he said, “No!” as if the mere concept were ridiculous.

“Then turn off the lights,” Shane said, sounding exasperated. He stood up and crossed the room to the thermostat. “It’s set to 18! No wonder I’m so cold! This is Ottawa, not Siberia, Ilya.”

“I grew up in Moscow. Moscow is nowhere near Siberia,” Ilya protested. “I know you didn't see much of Russia, but…”

“That’s not the point,” Shane interrupted him. “The point is, you can’t keep it that frigid in here.”

“Why not?” Ilya argued. “Is my house too, and your temperature makes me sweat. And it is silly to turn off a light when you will just have to turn it back on again next time you come in room.”

Shane threw up his hands in frustration. “There has to be a compromise for this. We can’t live like this.”

Unable to stop himself, Ilya flinched back, wounded by the comment. “You think you cannot live with me?”

Shane’s face softened at his husband’s visible distress and he walked closer. “No, Ilya. That’s not what I meant. You know I love being with you.” He laid a comforting hand on Ilya’s arm. “This is just…growing pains. Everyone who moves in together has these fights. Someone always wants the house warmer, or to load the dishwasher differently -”

“Knife blades down,” moaned Ilya, who had spent the last few months trying to convince his husband of that with little success.

“Oh, my god,” Shane snapped. “Not this again.” He sat down next to Ilya, on the side Anya wasn’t occupying. The dog raised her head and thumped her tail. “Hey girl.” He reached across Ilya to pet her. “Your daddies are having drama.”

“She is emotional support dog,” Ilya said, scratching her rump and making her back leg kick. “For me.”

“Why not for me?” Shane countered.

“Because you are monster who does knives wrong.” Ilya gave him a smug smile and hugged the dog, pulling her away from Shane and into his lap.

Shane huffed. “What about if we compromise on the thermostat, can we share the dog then?”

“Compromise?” Ilya asked suspiciously.

Shane nodded. “I want it at 22 to 25. You want it at sub-arctic, aka 18 to 20. What if we set it to, like, 20 to 22? Neither of us will be completely satisfied, but maybe you won’t be sweating and I won’t need to wear a parka in the house.”

“And the knives?” Ilya couldn’t resist pressing his advantage.

Shane shoved his shoulder and groaned. “I’m trying, you dick. And what about you not turning lights off?”

“Saves effort.”

“Wastes hydro.”

“I waste your ass.”

Shane blinked, then shook his head. “Ew? Or maybe ow? Either way, no. Now, can I please turn the thermostat to ‘20 to 22’?”

“You will leave yourself a note on the dishwasher about the knives,” Ilya countered.

“I’ll do that,” Shane replied, “if you start remembering to turn off lights. No lights, no knives.”

Ilya pursed his lips, then nodded. “Pa rukam. I try.”

Shane smiled. “That’s all I’m asking. But while we’re at it, your towels -”

“No. No!” Ilya shook his head and held up his hands defensively. “We resolve one argument, not start another. Save towels for another day.”

Shane sighed. “It’s gross, though.”

Ilya snorted. “‘Gross’ is your gear bag after a game. Re-using towel is not like that.”

“For a week at a time!” Shane pointed out.

“We are not arguing about this today.” Ilya gently pushed Anya back onto the couch from his lap and stood up, circling behind the couch toward the thermostat. “I will change thermostat. And then if you are still cold, we will cuddle under your grandmother’s quilt and watch a movie.”

Shane blinked, looking like he hadn’t expected that. “Oh. Well…can we maybe do that either way?”

Ilya leaned over the back of the couch to kiss the top of his head. “Da, lyubimyy. We spend afternoon snuggling. And not arguing about house.”

Shane tipped his head back until he could offer Ilya a kiss. “Deal.”

Chapter End Notes

For those of us who don't speak Canadian, here are some translations:
* 18-20C is about 65-68F
* 22-25C is about 72-77F
* "Hydro" is how many Canadians refer to electricity ("did you pay the hydro bill, honey?")

And for those of us who don't speak Russian, other translations:
* "Pa rukam" = По рукам = literally "on the hands", an idiom that basically means "it's a deal [handshake]"
* "Da, lyubimyy" = Да, любимый = "yes, my love"

Chapter 6: You did WHAT with the garbage?

Chapter Notes

January 12, 2022 – five months of living together

Shane

Shane watched Ilya carry in the groceries, five heavy bags clutched in each hand and the man tottering from side to side with each step. “Have you ever considered more than one trip?” he asked, leaning against the kitchen island without offering to help. He was enjoying watching his husband’s biceps bulge under the load.

Ilya scoffed. “Pah. I conserve effort.” He hefted the bags the last meter into the kitchen and then lowered them to the floor at Shane’s feet. “See, now all the cold stuff can be put away faster.”

“By me, I assume?” Shane filled in dryly.

Ilya gave him shifty eyes. “Welllll…I did do the shopping.”

With a sigh, Shane started unloading a bag full of ice cream and frozen protein waffles. “You did the shopping because it was your week on the chore chart. It’s not like you were doing me a favor.”

Ilya made a derisive noise, but didn’t say anything else.

Shane shot him a look as he started playing Tetris to get the new frozen items into their already-stuffed freezer. “What? What was that noise?”

Avoiding Shane’s eyes, Ilya bent to unbag a few boxes of the sugary cereal he insisted on keeping in the house. “Chore chart,” he said with a meaningful shrug.

“It keeps us organized,” Shane pointed out. It wasn’t like he was a chore Nazi, but after the fifth time they’d gotten in a fight about who was responsible for cleaning the toilets, he’d instituted the household chore chart so they each knew what was expected of them and when they should do it. And yes, he knew Ilya thought it was silly, but he thought him going insane when he didn’t need to was sillier, so…they had a chore chart.

“Very type A husband,” Ilya said with a snort, shoving the cereal boxes into a cabinet without paying attention to how he was cramming other, open boxes into the back of the shelf. “Just because I do not scrub already-clean bathroom fixtures, you put me on a chart.”

“The toilets need to be cleaned every week,” Shane bit out through gritted teeth, closing the freezer. “Whether they have visible black mold in them or not.”

Ilya made a very Slavic tsk-ing sound. “We could have cleaners come in and not fight about this.”

Shane waved a dismissive hand. “We don’t fight about it now, because we have a chore chart. And do you really want a cleaning lady going through all our stuff and selling us out to the tabloids?”

Ilya frowned. “Well, no.” He popped open the trash can and started stuffing empty grocery bags into it. “But we could find reputable cleaner who wouldn’t gossip.”

What was Ilya doing with those bags? Shane grabbed his hand, stopping him. “What are you doing?”

His husband blinked blankly at him. “Throwing out trash?” he said cautiously, as if he were aware that he was doing something wrong, but wasn’t quite sure what.

“Those are perfectly good bags!” Shane pulled a handful of them out of the trash, glad that nothing sticky was in the top layer of the can. “We can save them.”

“For what?” Ilya asked, still looking confused.

“I…for stuff!” Fine, Shane wasn’t exactly sure what they could use those bags for, but he firmly believed in saving them. His mother had taught him well on that front. “What if we need a bag to carry something, and we threw them all out?”

“Shane…” Ilya said slowly, looking like he was utterly at sea now. “We own at least a dozen gear bags, gym bags, and team-branded tote bags. Why we need plastic bags to carry stuff?”

Harrumphing, Shane reached under the sink for his bag of bags and started stuffing the new bags into it. “Because.”

“Ooookay.” Clearly knowing when to pick his battles, Ilya backed away from the trash can and, coincidentally, Shane. “We keep bags. Just in case.”

“Thank you.” Bags appropriately stuffed, Shane put the lot back under the sink and turned to walk closer to his husband. “We have practice in two hours. What do you want to do until then?”

Ilya offered him a playful leer. “I don’t know. Can you skate with sore ass?”

Shane snorted. “As if I haven’t done that a hundred times before, and won the games.”

Ilya shook his head and held up his hands. “I say always: bottoms are stronger men.”

Shane grinned. “Fuck yeah, we are. Now, if I could just get you to scoop ice cream the right way, I might really be the king of the world.”

A huff greeted that. “It does not matter which side I scoop ice cream from, sweetheart. It tastes the same either way.”

“But the freezer burn would be more even -”

Ilya scoffed. “If we eat it fast enough, there is no freezer burn.”

“Ilya, we can’t eat that much ice cream that fast.”

“Pfft. Try me.”

“The team nutritionist is gonna kill you.”

Ilya just smiled. “Ah, but what a way to go. Death by ice cream. I will accept that, second only to death on the ice.”

Shane smacked Ilya on the arm. “No dying on the ice, Jesus Christ!”

“At ninety-five!” Ilya protested. “Because I will still be playing – and winning Cups – then, of course. With you beside me.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “I plan to retire well before I’m ninety-five. Though I’ll allow that we’ll probably still be on the ice then; it’ll just be for fun instead of for a team.”

“Beer league?” Ilya suggested, and Shane nodded his acceptance of that.

“Yeah, ok. We’ll play in a beer league in our nineties.”

“We will be the most winning beer league team,” Ilya boasted. “No one will challenge us.”

“Oh my god, you’re ridiculous.” Shane eyed the kitchen trash that he’d just retrieved all the bags from. “And go take out the trash; it’s full.”

Ilya considered the can. “Nah.”

“Nah?”

And Ilya, to Shane’s horror, balanced on one leg and used the other to jam the trash down in the can. “See? Is still plenty of room.”

Shane knew his eyes were wide with horror, but he couldn’t stop it. “What the…do you do that regularly?”

Ilya blinked. “What? Yes.”

“Why not just…you know, take the trash out?”

“To big can?” Ilya said, sounding scandalized. “All the way in the garage? In the middle of winter?”

“Oh my god, you grew up in Russia and lived in Boston for eight years, and you’re still a big baby about winter?”

Ilya harrumphed. “It is cold, Shane. Out there. And it is warm in here, and you are here. And Anya. Blankets. Socks. There is no reason to go out to garage with trash when there is still room in the can.”

“You just stuck your foot into the trash can!” It was Shane’s turn to be scandalized. He silently vowed to never rub his husband’s apparently-filthy feet again. “I think that’s a sign that it needs to go out! And possibly we need to boil your foot,” he added under his breath.

Ilya studied him quizzically. “I have been doing this for…as long as you have known me. Longer. My whole life. You did not notice, ever?”

“No! I would have said something, because it’s gross!” Shane reached down and snatched up the full trash bag and began marching toward the door to the garage. “I’ll just take it out.”

Ilya trotted beside him, still looking confused. “But…it is cold! You can’t go out there!”

“You’re gross,” Shane just repeated. “I mean, I knew hockey players were gross, but this? This is beyond that. I’d rather be cold. Now, go wash your feet.” He yanked the garage door open and stepped out onto the cold concrete, only then realizing his feet were bare. “Fuck!”

Shane was suddenly swept up in a pair of powerful arms. He let out a startled yelp before realizing it was just Ilya. “What the fuck, Rozanov?”

Ilya toted him to the larger trash bins. “You will freeze your feet, lyubimyy.”

“So will you!”

Ilya snorted. “I am Russian. We do not freeze.”

“But you said -”

“Ah-ah!” Ilya interrupted, using two fingers to open the can for Shane to toss in the trash bag. “Never listen to what I say, have you not learned that yet? How long we have been together? I am dramatic asshole.”

Shane dropped the trash into the can and slammed it closed. “I mean, you’re not wrong about that. Take me back inside, Dramatic Asshole.”

“Gladly, Boring Canadian.”

Chapter End Notes

I'm on vacation for the next two weeks and to be completely honest, this chapter has been cobbled together piecemeal on planes and cruise ships. I'm hoping it makes sense despite that!