Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Troy Barrett/Harris Drover

Additional Tags:

Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha Ilya Rozanov, Omega Shane Hollander, The Kind of Sequel That Makes No Sense If You Don't Read The First One, Racist Language, Homophobic Language, mysogynistic language, That wasn't a pre-exisiting tag! Let's get it together here people!, sorry about all the vile language, but if the last one was about being kept out of the locker room, this one is about what it's like in the locker room, also how even the loving and most healthy marriage requires an exhausting amount of work, and how depression can look like getting lost in the maze of your memories unable to navigate your regret, Wait come back!, Troy Barrett is in it being pathetic and we all enjoy that!

Language:

English

Series:

Part 2 of Pencil in the Rest

Stats:

Published: 2026-08-25 Words: 9,036 Chapters: 1/?

Wake Up Great Or Wake Up Fine

Summary

From the time he presented, Ilya had been warned to look out for omegas who wanted to take advantage of him. Secure his wealth, or status, or green card, or superior breeding stock for themselves. Bind themselves to him by any means necessary.

It wasn't as if Ilya had never met the type. But still, the irony wasn't lost on him.

Notes

Chapter 1

Chapter Summary

I'll be honest - the number of people who requested a transcript of the beta Jon Oliver Last Week Tonight episode about Shane Hollander vastly dwarfed the number of people who requested a direct sequel to Pencil in the Rest, but I must follow the whims of my dumb heart. This one will be a lot shorter than its predecessor, but I promise it will be just as poorly researched. And if anyone else is ever interested in writing that Jon Oliver piece, I'd love to see it!

Wiebe called all three alternates into his office for a meeting after practice, inciting a flurry of uneasy gossip in the alpha locker room. There was going to be a trade. Ilya knew Rustin was on the block, and Rustin must have guessed that too because he took Bood into the corner for a frantic, hushed conversation that Bood punctuated with frequent head shakes. Rust knew better than to approach Ilya, since after last Thursday's away game, when he fumbled a play and they lost to Phoenix, it wasn't exactly a secret that he wasn't Shane Hollander's favorite person. Shane had been unfailingly polite to him since then. It was the kiss of death.

Wiebe was a small talker, which worked out well because Shane was uncharacteristically late to the meeting. He walked in already apologizing. "Sorry, Luca just wanted some pointers on his slapshot, and we-"

"Oh, of course," said Wiebe, gesturing for Shane to sit. Ilya had chosen the seat across from Wiebe, so Shane settled on the couch next to Bood. He gave all three of them the same nod of greeting, but Ilya felt a familiar twinge at the back of his skull. Just a little tug, a little hey, you.

Ilya tugged back, hey, you.

"Gentlemen," said Wiebe. "I hope not to take up too much of your afternoon. I know we all have places to be.

That was mostly for Bood's benefit, since the baby was coming any day now. Bood shrugged, arms lightly folded. "If we're sending Rusty packing tonight, we should try to get it done fast. Give him as much time as possible."

Wiebe nodded, as did Ilya. Rustin wasn't a bad guy, and he had a family.

"This might be a quick one," Wiebe said. Wiebe's tells were subtle, but Ilya recognized the studied ease of his tone, the careful way his shoulders were relaxed. Wiebe was less certain than he was trying to convey. Ilya glanced briefly at Shane, who was watching Wiebe with a mild, attentive scowl. His hair was still damp. He had been growing it out, and a tendril curled from the middle of his neck to touch the deepest dip in the curve of his scar, white and raised.

It took Ilya a beat to return to the conversation. Wiebe was saying, "The GM got a call from Toronto yesterday. Honestly, I got the impression they might be trying to dump him."

"Who is it?" asked Shane.

"Troy Barrett," said Wiebe.

Ilya let out a hoarse bark of a laugh. Rusty would still be their problem for a few more weeks. They could keep him on Ilya's line until then. "Yeah, this will be a quick one. What the fuck?"

"Barrett?" Bood said, echoing Ilya's tone. "Troy Barrett? They’re trading Barrett?"

They would have been suspicious of anyone from Toronto, but Barrett and Kent had a reputation as the chucklefuck brothers, or at least it made Shane laugh when Ilya called them that. Either way, the two of them were peas in a pod. Ilya glanced at Shane, who still had that furrowed brow of confused contemplation. He never looked more like Yuna than when he was weighing over his options. He certainly wasn't laughing.

Shane said, "We could get Barrett?"

"Toronto's GM will trade him for Rustin tonight," Wiebe said. "They just need our go-ahead."

"Why are they dumping him?" Shane asked, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. He was excited but didn't want to show it yet. They didn't usually get trade prospects as good as Barrett. Ilya tugged again through the bond, more insistently. Shane tugged back, but didn't turn to look at him.

"They weren't exactly forthcoming," Wiebe said. "I got the feeling there might have been friction in the locker room, though."

"Oh, so Barrett's such an asshole now he is fighting with his own team," Ilya said. "Toronto's insulting us with this."

Bood also looked skeptical. Ilya appreciated Bood; he had from the start when Bood made a point of shaking Shane's hand when they were introduced. Bood continued to demonstrate he was a real one by adding, "The guys aren't exactly fans of anyone from Toronto, but especially Barrett. He's not going to be a good fit for the room."

Shane, though, was still frowning, and his opinion was the one that really mattered. Early in their first year, Centaurs leadership worked out a system in which Shane could nix a trade. He had full, unassailable veto power. It was an unprecedented level of influence over management decisions for a player; the press corps would shit itself if they ever found out. But Shane's leadership wouldn't work if the players - as Bood put it at the time - couldn't hang. Bood, Ilya, and Wiebe were included as vital parts of the leadership team, but for this part they were fundamentally a sounding board. They never found a better phrase for the qualifier, but they knew from the start Shane was the only one who could reliably make the determination. Who could hang.

"We've gotten new blood in line before," Shane was saying. "Barrett's a solid winger. I don't know how much room we have to be precious about this."

"Precious?" said Ilya, incredulous. "He's best buddies with a fucking criminal!"

"Yeah, but he’s not a criminal," said Shane, which was true as far as anyone knew. "He’s just an asshole. And I've played with assholes. We all know how to play with assholes."

"An asshole might kill the vibe," Bood said, a little pointed. They had spent years touting a no-assholes agenda. Harris, the social media guy, centered most of their early campaigns around what nice guys most of the Centaurs were because god knew it didn’t pay to focus on their skills. And they were nice guys, mostly, after three years of adjustment.

"Barrett's had eighty-seven points last season," Shane said. "That does a lot for the vibe. And I'm not sure he's as bad as he seems."

"Are you serious?" said Ilya, since Shane was flat-out ignoring him through the bond now. Barrett had been on the ice with Kent, that game. He had paired off with fucking Pike to keep the Metros from pulling Kent off of Shane.

"He called me once," Shane said, mostly to Ilya. "I don't know if you remember. After my injury. I don't know if he's actually all that bad. I think it's worth a shot."

"That’s a big fucking gamble," Ilya said. “You hope that he’ll - what? Be chill? With Luca in the locker room next door?” Barrett was friends with a predator, and the whole team took responsibility for Luca’s wellbeing, particularly Shane. Shane's expression of concentration turned into something more actively pissed; Ilya felt that buzz a little through the bond. Which was fair. It had been a dirty hit on Ilya’s part.

Ilya and Shane had to prove they couldn't speak telepathically when Crowell tried to block the trade to the Centaurs, citing the possibility along with other potential unfair advantages. The bond was more subtle than that; communication through it was more of a felt sense. 'I can tell how the wind is blowing with Ilya,' Shane had put it once in an interview. Wind was a good metaphor - gentle or destructive depending on the day.

"What does Hazy say about him?" Shane said, turning to Bood. Wyatt had played with Toronto for years before coming to the Centaurs.

"I don't know if he's come up," Bood said. "We could ask him."

You could run over Wyatt Hayes' dog, and he would find a way to call you the salt of the earth. "You're not actually considering this," Ilya said to the room at large.

"We got Bood, and then we got a bunch of flyers and grinders playing wing," said Shane, unfortunately accurate. Rust was both. "Barrett's got his shit squared away on the ice."

Ilya felt the beginnings of the helpless, seething anger he often felt when Shane was being unflappably pragmatic. When the media was fair to Shane, they would talk about his genius, his steadfastness, how he exuded an inherent decency, reflected in nearly everything he did. But Shane was also kind of a ruthless bitch, which Ilya usually enjoyed tremendously, and a fucking maniac. There was no part of himself he wouldn't cut out or bleed dry if it got him a step closer to a win.

"I don't care if he's fucking hockey Jesus," Ilya said. "He fucking-"

"We need some fucking talent," Shane said, talking over him. "We're in the middle of a rebuild. We can't just sit around clutching our pearls when the depth we need gets dropped in our lap."

"We can find other wingers," said Ilya. Despite his reputation, Ilya wasn't that physical a player. He was, to his own mind, more of a scamp; an inveterate shit talker who could draw out penalties from the opposing line with artisanal precision. But beating Kent until he needed surgery was still one of Ilya’s proudest accomplishments. He would personally toss every Guardian who had been on the ice during the game where Kent tried to cuff Shane into the Atlantic without an ounce of regret. "If you think I'd let Barrett anywhere near you-"

"I think Ilya and I need to discuss this in private," Shane said, turning to Wiebe. His face didn’t betray much, ground smooth. In the back of Ilya’s head, though, he felt Shane withdraw as much as possible, not unlike how he would take his feet off Ilya’s lap if Ilya said something that annoyed him while they watched TV. Shane didn’t want to bring up Kent in front of company or maybe ever. He didn’t appreciate Ilya challenging him like this; technically, they split the A, but in practice Shane was captain in everything but name. They were going official with it, public with it, next year.

Shane was definitely pissed. Ilya's perfect, beautiful mate, who had never, not once, wanted to be rescued no matter the danger into which he threw himself. Ilya was pissed too, but he coaxed him back in through the bond, not exactly an apology but close. Shane crept back in, not exactly out of forgiveness either, but they both felt the relief.

Bood was clearly on the verge of bringing up Rusty's family again. Shane added. "We won't need that long. We just need to talk it out over dinner. Right, Ilya?"

Tensions leading to their arguments could build for days or weeks, but to Shane's point, the fights themselves were usually dispensed of with flash-flood quickness, although sometimes they left wreckage in their wake. Ilya said, "Fine."

"Sure thing," said Wiebe. "Take some time."

They all exchanged more pleasantries. Wiebe asked Bood about Cassie before they said their goodbyes. Shane joked around with Bood about being covered in shit and piss more than usual in a few weeks while Ilya stood there, annoyed. Shane did this sometimes - went calm in direct proportion to Ilya's agitation. It happened in reverse too, which Shane clearly found as irritating as Ilya was finding Shane's attitude now. But in the hallway, Shane reached for Ilya's hand, and there was no amount of anger in the world that would make Ilya refuse to squeeze it back.

***

Ilya presented at nine, which was early, and during practice, which was cliché. Alphas often presented when playing sports, induced by increased blood flow and the influx of adrenaline. It was a good memory for Ilya. Skating was the closest thing he had yet found to flying, and suddenly he felt twelve feet tall and indestructible. He often compared it to turning into Godzilla. The rush was a well-known high; there was always a thriving grey market for alpha pheromones for beta men, even some alpha men, although you'd be laughed out of society if you admitted it. Ilya had grown up on bad VHS copies of cheesy American comedies where a pheromoned-up beta, usually a divorced dad trying to get his mojo back, ripped a phonebook in half. They always made Ilya laugh.

For almost a whole year, becoming an alpha was the best thing that had ever happened to Ilya. In one fell swoop, it seemed as if he had fixed his family. No one had thought a Rozanov would be anything but a beta, and Grigori was shocked and pleased at this unexpected victory. Ilya had taken great pleasure in being crowned his father's favorite, lording it over his brother. He was too young to understand this was the nail in the coffin of his relationship with Alexei. They had been allies as children, if not exactly friends, but Ilya's presentation sent Alexei adrift from the family, forced to chart his own path, where he perpetually floundered. Not unfairly, he blamed Ilya for all of it, and Ilya's childhood glee in his older brother's downfall ensured the resentment never healed.

Ilya shot up four inches in three months. He had also enjoyed being over a head taller than all the other boys in the schoolyard, lapping up the intrigued deference of all his unpresented classmates. Hockey, for the first time, became a real proposition. Ilya had always shown promise, but Russian leagues weren't sentimental. They didn't waste time pretending betas could be competitive on the rink. His coach's focus had always been elsewhere. Now he was getting extra practice, extra attention, and he enjoyed that, too. The opportunity to be exceptional and admired had presented itself, and Ilya meant to grab it with both hands. He was, even back then, voraciously hungry.

Irina had been as surprised and excited as anyone, if occasionally preemptively nostalgic. "My little bunny's almost too big for this now, aren't you?" she would say when Ilya, at nine, would ask her to make a nest for them in his bed. He was indeed right at the edge of outgrowing this behavior, and sometimes only wanted to nest because it was one of the few requests Irina was never too tired to fulfill. On a good day she would even tease him. "Soon you'll outgrow the bed. You'll have to sleep in the courtyard. Wake up to a real little bunny nibbling your ears."

"I'll feed it lettuce," Ilya said. "Tame him and train him to do my chores for me."

"Oh please. You're not getting away that easy. I'll just assign you double chores. Half for you and half for the rabbit," Irina said. "Maybe a rabbit can share your vegetables too." It was a joke. Since understanding he could go pro, Ilya had been holding his nose and eating a healthier diet. He had also hoped being less picky would prolong his father's good mood or inspire better ones in Irina.

"He'll come into the nest with us," Ilya said. "We'll make a little spot for him to sleep at the foot of the bed. So you'll always have company." On good days, Irina would laugh or say something like, 'Of course! Our little bunny burrow!' On bad days, an idle comment could make her sadder. That time, he remembered, she had laughed.

Irina was also more skeptical of Grigori's sudden good humor, which proved wise. After decades of striving, the means to a significant life had fallen into Grigori Rozanov's hands. It was only a matter of months until Grigori became paranoid about what it took to keep it. He became more possessive of Irina, harsher. Grigori was much older than his omega, whom he acquired after wiping out her father's debts. According to Irina's stories, he had doted on her for a time. After Ilya presented, he began to require her to leave the house only when accompanied by a chaperone, although the children counted. Sometimes he would make her kneel by his feet as he read the paper, the stuffiest and most outdated of aristocratic traditions. Grigori never seemed to grasp how embarrassing this was; by insisting that his omega treat him like an alpha, he only drew more attention to his deficiencies. Or maybe he was keenly aware of the dissonance and took his anger about it out on Irina.

As for his sons, Grigori forgot Alexei almost completely, and only had the stamina to cosset Ilya like a prized show dog for a little while before becoming critical of him again. Ilya was another precarious asset Grigori feared losing, so he tightened his grip on the leash. In the long term, presenting as an alpha only ever made Grigori harder on Ilya.

Grigori did, however, like to give lengthy advice on proper alpha behavior, a student of the art in the way only a beta could be. Alphas did not back down. Alphas never let themselves be defied. Alphas never accepted a loss. A smart alpha was always careful around opportunistic omegas. One must be careful of omegas in general, even those who pretended to be demure. They would do everything they could to trap him. They would lure Ilya in, get him knot-drunk on their scent, seduce him into biting them. Then he would be stuck with them forever, after just one mistake. From the time he presented, Ilya had been warned by his father and his brother and his teammates and his coaches and his manager and his agent and his publicist to look out for omegas who wanted to take advantage of him. Secure his wealth, or status, or green card, or superior breeding stock for themselves. Bind themselves to him by any means necessary.

It wasn't as if Ilya had never met the type. But still, the irony wasn't lost on him.

***

Shane and Ilya were both quiet as they drove back from the rink, since any comment either of them made right now would only ignite a bigger blow-up. Shane drove - Shane always drove, since when Ilya was behind the wheel, Shane would cling to the door handle for dear life and suck air through his teeth if Ilya so much as made a sharp turn. After their third trip together, Ilya had asked passive-aggressively if Shane wanted to drive instead, and Shane had primly replied that yes, he would, thank you. Shane drove as if haunted by the ghosts of dead driving instructors, but then again, Shane did most things as if he were going to be evaluated on them.

"Luca's slap shot is improving," Ilya said at a light, a peace offering. "Definitely getting more whip into the shot."

Shane had taken an immediate, ferocious interest in Luca, making lemonade out of the lemon of the Centaurs' flimsy display the previous season to campaign for using their third-round pick to draft Haas. Luca was entering his second season on the team, and the two omegas still spent a lot of time together in their locker room, in the gym, on the phone; as much as Shane could get away with without accusations of favoritism. As far as Ilya could tell, Shane's mentorship strategy was a combination of lecturing Luca about everything he had ever learned about the art, game, and business of hockey and mercilessly bullying him in the rink until he either threw up or cried. Luca was spellbound by the former, which helped him endure the latter.

Shane's feelings about the younger omega seemed to careen around wildly by the day. Almost everything about Luca seemed to surprise him. "Kid doesn't know shit about shit," he had said in a tone of bewildered disbelief after taking Luca out for an introductory lunch when he first moved to Ottawa. Shane had spent the rest of the day researching the Swiss league and then Switzerland's cultural attitudes towards secondary gender in general. Getting to know the rookie, Ilya saw what Shane meant. Luca was a talent they were lucky to get to develop, but he had a galumphing innocence to him, a puppyish lack of situational awareness. Shane's inherent sweetness shone through him no matter how tightly he tried to pack it down, but he had been profoundly alert to threat from the day Ilya had met him. Especially on the day they met, really.

Shane tapped his fingers against the gearshift. "Luca's been putting the work in."

There was no higher praise from Shane Hollander. Shane had an unflinching eye for these things. Barrett, as a player, sweated every move, but Shane was right about him too. The sweating got results. Barrett had been an equal to Kent in their partnership, not just an accessory to greatness like Pike had been on Shane's wing.

The Centaurs had signed Luca knowing how the media would digest it. The inevitable jokes. Twitter called the team Rozanov's harem, wondered if Shane was being put out to pasture, or if Rozanov was setting himself up to grab the brass ring of an alpha/two male omega threesome. It was a break from the years of discourse about how Ilya was a pussywhipped faggot obliterating his career to be the ultimate simp for his frigid, power-hungry cunt of an omega, who probably wouldn't let him get his knot wet otherwise.

When they got to the house, they took off their shoes and peeled off their scent patches. Before bonding, both Shane and Ilya had needed prescription-strength blockers - Shane's the strongest on the market - but now their personal shopper could just pick up their preferred brand from the store. Anya pranced at their feet in greeting. Ilya bent down to make much of her, crooning in Russian. He grabbed his collar from the catch-all bowl on the end table by the door as he moved to let Anya out into the yard. Shane interrupted him as Ilya was buckling his collar on his way back. Shane wrapped Ilya in a hug and tucked his nose against Ilya's neck, inhaling greedily. Ilya knew it was dirty pool, even as his nervous system melted with joy. His omega, safe and content, coming to him at the end of a long day.

When Kent cuffed Shane, Ilya and Shane hadn't been talking. The previous year, Ilya had made a plan. He was not, by nature, a planner, and the plan reflected that. Shane had given him a 'maybe' about allowing Ilya to share his heat, the most encouragement he had ever received from the man at that point. Ilya's father had been mostly lucid; he only had the vague suspicion something was wrong with Grigori, toeing at the soft parts of a floor that was about to give way. Ilya's plan was this: he was going to win gold at the Olympics, then ride the wave of prestige from that accomplishment back to his father's house to tell him that Ilya would mate whom he pleased. Then he would fly back to North America and throw the medal at Hollander's feet and say, "I am the best. You won't find one stronger than me. Fucking let this happen already."

At the time, Ilya told himself he was personally indifferent to whether it happened, but he assumed they both knew it to be the most sensible option. He didn't blame Hollander for having reservations, and it wasn't like Ilya was in any particular rush. During his first few years in the MHL, Ilya had a lot of life to grab by the throat. He had many absences to fill.

He was still often preoccupied by the thought of Hollander's heat partner, though. A professional, surely, buried in a stack of NDAs. Or maybe someone he trusted to be sturdy and uncomplicated, like a family friend or an old assistant coach. Choices as boring as Hollander was himself. Or that fucking bodyguard, who was seven feet tall for some reason. Ilya couldn't imagine Hollander would get himself tangled up with anyone on his team, but you heard whispers about the GMs, that that's why Hollander was drafted in the first place. Ilya never believed any rumor that degraded Hollander's talent, but the mind did wander to worry.

He had seen Hollander before he ever met him. News of the omega vying for a spot in the MHL caused a stir even in Russia. Especially in Russia, actually, where such a thing was outlandish - crude and barbaric, really, to let an omega do this to themselves. Ilya and his teammates thought it was pretty funny. Still, they, and their coaches, and even Sergei Vetrov, at a dinner party Ilya was once forced to attend, watched the omega's tape.

Ilya, when he saw it, felt a current of electricity travel down his spine, because fuck being an omega; that was a fucking hockey player. In his career to that point, Ilya had been having fun on the ice, sure. It was a game and a particularly brutal one, and Ilya excelled at unfair games. But he had also been fighting a listlessness for years - in all things but especially hockey. The MHL had to draft this beautiful motherfucker so Ilya could enter the draft too, a childhood desire he had previously dutifully cast aside. The equation had changed now, though, if the MHL offered him real competition.

Then there was the other thing. The omega was gorgeous. Omegas were generally more attractive than the rest of the population, and this one was in particular. A lot of males deliberately shaded towards the androgynous; like female omegas, they didn't like to get bulky. This one wasn't a lumberjack or anything, but he was big enough to play the sport seriously. It worked for him, though, strangely, combined with that face.

Ilya's teammates noticed this as well, of course. Everyone did. At seventeen, Ilya experienced for the first time something he would go on to experience frequently over the next ten years: alphas and betas talking about Shane Hollander. They all agreed that he would be a terrible fuck. In the MHL, players would say it was because he was too stiff, too robotic. In Russia, before Hollander the personality was a known entity, Ilya's teammates drew dicks and balls all over the pictures from Hollander’s magazine interviews. They said he was so butch maybe he would try to fuck you. Except he was probably so desperate from never getting laid that he would pant for your knot and you could really shove it in his cunt, down his throat. He'd probably take the whole team at once. One of them should get the uppity bitch pregnant. Ilya wasn’t immune to this kind of talk. He would join in, back then.

At seventeen, though, Ilya also met Shane Hollander. He smelled him before he saw him, or really, he smelled a scent so artificial it signaled an intentional blankness. A cloying, chemical lack of an odor. Lighting up in a parking lot, he turned to see Shane Hollander, staring at him, terrified.

It would be almost two years until Ilya fully understood why. In the moment, he thought the omega was even more beautiful in person, but maybe he wasn't a potential rival after all, if he looked this nervous at the sight of a competitor. Then, the omega visibly steeled himself, pasted on a smile, and came over to Ilya, hand extended, clearly unaware that in Russia, shaking a strange alpha's hand would have been forward enough to eliminate him from the mating pool altogether.

Ilya was confused, compelled, and fascinated. It was a fitting introduction to Shane Hollander.

By Sochi, he had long since settled into his intention to get Hollander to accept the bond. It wouldn't be immediate, he knew. Hollander required some patience. But if Ilya proved he could be what Hollander needed, that he was strong enough to protect him from all the repercussions of mating with Ilya, Hollander would have to see reason. Ilya never dwelt on anything lurking in the subterranean depths of himself that inspired that goal. Finding a way to mate was just the logical course of action, considering.

Now, at thirty, Ilya could see what a limp wisp of a plan his attempt at the Olympics had been from the start. He had still been a creature of instinct, thrashing and desperate, leaning into arrogance to cloud it from himself.

He experienced the most devastating loss of his professional career on Russian soil. He had known the team was shaky, but Boston had been shaky too when he was first drafted. He hadn't understood until he was in training camp that the Russian team was not nearly as amenable to supplicating themselves as the Raiders had been. Boston had been eager for a pack leader when he arrived; the Russian Olympic Team eyed him as the encroaching new guard, and a pup had to prove himself. Between that and a goalie with an abductor injury, collapse had been swift.

His father's anger at Ilya's humiliation didn't shake him nearly as much as the undeniable evidence of Grigori's decline. Then, Ilya saw Sasha again that night at the minister's party, for the first time since he had moved to the States. Sasha was draped over the shoulder of his alpha, bite scar long-healed and deliberately accentuated by a thick velvet collar centered with a big fuck-off garnet. He was dripping in Balenciaga and such a slithery coquette Ilya understood Sasha to have perfected another facet of his personality, let himself harden into another brand of performance.

"You played well," said Sasha, still a smartass when they had a minute in relative confidence together. They had stood against the back wall of the room after Sasha had whisked Ilya away from his father and the minister under the guise of meeting Sasha's alpha. Instead, Sasha led him to an unobtrusive corner where they had a socially appropriate simulation of privacy. Several years mated, Sasha's scent had faded, like a dimmer switch slid down, and Ilya could barely get a whiff of it. Likewise, Sasha's inherent calculating wildness had nearly vanished if this was what passed as defiance for him now, a stolen moment of conversation together.

Ilya had always appreciated that his own appeal to Sasha was mostly in the rebellion. "You're the best on the team," he had said to Ilya when they were teenagers, catching him at practice on his way out of the tunnel. Ilya had understood that Sasha was offering himself as a prize, trying to glory in being a trophy embraced by a worthy champion before he was bonded to some gray bureaucrat.

"I'm the best in the fucking world," Ilya had said back.

At the party in Sochi, Ilya said, "I'd say thanks, but I know you didn't watch a fucking second of the game."

"That's not true," Sasha said. He spoke with a certain amount of disdain, but he was not being entirely sarcastic. "Dima is a fan. We've watched every Olympic hockey game so far."

"Shit, really?" Ilya asked.

Sasha nodded, eyes tracking the room. "And we follow the Dynamos."

Sasha had always made a tedious show of how little he cared for hockey, at every opportunity expounding on how he had never sat through a full game, how he had never even learned the rules. Ilya looked at him and thought about the absolutely ridiculous places they had found to have sex - the equipment closets and club coatrooms. Sasha had sometimes barely pulled down his pants before they got Ilya inside him. Ilya had fucked two male omegas in his life, and they were both incorrigible sluts. Maybe it wasn't a good look. Hollander wasn't beating the stereotype either.

God, Hollander loved sex. It floored Ilya how much Hollander loved sex. He liked to be cajoled or teased or bullied into it, but Hollander loved fucking so intensely there was a purity to it. Hollander would get so horny he would end up snarling, a creature of instinct too, if only for a precious moment in time.

Hollander, with his profile halfway between an American superhero and an Egyptian hieroglyphic. Hollander, the lines of his back emerging golden from crisp hotel sheets. Hollander, on his knees in front of Ilya, mouth open, rooting for Ilya's cock almost by smell alone. Hollander, with his wry smile in pre-game interviews and his heart-clenchingly lovely, open, boyish grin on Hayden Pike's Instagram, or on a highlight reel after scoring a goal, or, rarely, in bed with Ilya, when Hollander was too blissed out from Ilya's knot to temper it.

Hollander, who had texted Ilya hey u okay?? after Ilya's complete wipeout. Ilya didn't decide to ignore him so much as he knew himself incapable of responding, like he had already read ahead in the script.

At the party in Sochi, Svetlana would come over shortly, hug and kiss Sasha on the cheek three times, and chat for a few minutes before regretfully saying goodbye. She dragged Ilya into the bathroom with a bottle of vodka and gave him the pep talk of his life before setting him up with a female omega acquaintance Ilya turned down. But before they left the crowd, Ilya looked at Sasha, his old friend, and remembered his mother on her knees, and couldn't see any conceivable way Hollander would fit into this world.

It made it easier to stay away from Hollander, remembering Sasha. Ilya was being noble, not retreating after a life-defining failure. And that worked, or didn't, for months until Ilya's phone literally skittered off the coffee table because he got so many texts and alerts about the Metros-Guardians game where Dallas Kent finally put Shane Hollander in his place.

"I love you," Shane was saying now into Ilya's neck in their sunny Canadian home that Shane had spent eight months remodeling. "And I want us to be partners in this. Okay?"

Shane had been seeing Richard, his therapist, for almost a year and a half, long enough for Ilya to recognize a Richard-ism when he heard one. Still, Shane sounded so damn earnest. Ilya could at least try.

"Help me get it," Ilya said into the crown of Shane's head, arms coming up to embrace him. Scenting him. Ilya would spend his life with his nose in Shane's armpit if he could. "I think it’s a terrible idea. Why do you want this?"

Ilya had asked Shane, once or twice, if Shane ever talked about the cuffing scandal with Richard. Shane had said he did, in a tone that wasn't unfriendly but did not invite further discussion.

"Because Barrett’s a good winger, and I'm a professional," Shane said now. "We're professionals, Ilya. The team is what matters - we’re not going to get where we need to go if individual players hold grudges.”

Ilya considered it a reasonable argument, firm and fair. In many ways, Shane was figuring out the kind of captain he wanted to be. The kind that spun bullshit, apparently, because this wasn't about sportsmanship or professionalism. Shane Hollander was a pathologically ambitious psychopath who was going to win three Stanley Cups as an Ottawa Centaur - two to match what he won for the Metros, one to beat it - or die a failure in his own mind. And Shane Hollander did not fail.

“This isn’t about grudges,” Ilya lied. “He would be a bad fit for the team. He’d crater his line, not make it better. He’s a fucking shithead.”

Shane scoffed. “Oh, come on. He’s just an asshole who attached himself to a bigger asshole to feel important. And anyway, a team’s more than personalities. What matters is if we gel on the ice. It can’t be all about the atmosphere in the locker room. This isn’t fucking summer camp.”

Ilya leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms. He couldn’t make this about Kent or the cuffing. It had happened to Shane, not to him. Ilya wasn’t even in the country at the time. If Shane wasn’t bringing it up, Ilya couldn’t either. “You’re missing the point on purpose. He won’t take you seriously. You know he can’t hang. There will be no gelling.”

“Honestly, I’ll say it again,” said Shane. “There’s a couple reasons I don’t think he’s that bad.”

Anya started scratching at the door, and they paused the conversation to let her in. Shane did his daily fifteen minutes of training with her while Ilya heated her food. Anya’s meal service cost almost as much as Shane and Ilya’s, and she only ate once a day while her humans ordered breakfast and lunch.

Last season had been better. The team was starting to click. They had stopped automatically looking to Ilya for leadership, had figured out what trusting Shane looked like on the ice. The Centaurs hadn’t made the playoffs - just missed a wildcard spot by one point in the game against Pittsburgh. That had almost been worse, in some ways.

Shane and Ilya told themselves, too frequently to be entirely sincere, that they knew rebuilds took time. The path to the cup was a marathon, not a sprint. And it was more important, always, that they got to be together. Completing the bond, living together, playing together, loving each other openly - hadn't that been the dream? Ilya knew it was harder for Shane, though, anchoring a team that was still flailing this badly after nearly four years. Everything was harder for Shane, who took it to mean he had to flay himself alive to achieve what mattered to him. Sometimes Ilya got fucking tired of being the only one who cared what Shane sacrificed in the name of his perennial bid for glory.

Anya settled down for a time on her dog bed, grating her evening rawhide against her back teeth. Shane tugged Ilya through the bond, beckoning him into the kitchen.

Shane opened the refrigerator while Ilya preheated the oven. A while ago, they forwent their dinner meal service, electing to cook together when they could. It was good for them to have a hobby and a routine together, which they realized after many difficult days at the rink. They had gone to a couple's counselor briefly last year, just six sessions, and she had approved greatly when they told her they had done this since moving in together.

"I know you don't agree." Shane brought it back up again finally, coming out of the fridge with the herbs for chimichurri and the chicken. "But I think he can hang. Or that maybe he can learn to hang from you guys."

“Oh, what?” Ilya said. “We are dickhead whisperers now?” Shane chuckled and looked down. He always thought Ilya was adorable when he was rude.

"Seriously, though," said Shane. "I told you about that phone call, right? I wouldn't brush that off so quickly. No other alpha has ever said anything like that to me."

A lot of alphas had apologized to Ilya. "Hey man, you know I never would have- if I knew, you know?" was a pretty standard example. Years ago, Marleau had apologized to him when Ilya briefly left the cottage to center the Raiders for a failed playoff run after Shane was injured and their relationship was exposed. The Raiders were excited about his return, but they weren't quite sure what to do with Ilya when their bid to smooth things over failed. They tried to welcome him back into the fold like a conquering hero - of fucking course Roz was the one who finally bagged Hollander! - maybe laying it on a little thick to demonstrate their forgiveness for Roz abandoning them for weeks.

The day before his flight to Boston, Ilya discovered Shane's shoulders had freckled after hours of lazing by the lake, which made Ilya want to howl like a wolf. Then, he was back in a changing room that smelled like decades' worth of alpha feet. He had been in no mood and made no attempt to hide it, and the atmosphere in the locker room was tense and bewildered.

Marleau approached him after his first practice back. He had been awkward, deferential. "Hey, Roz, I just wanted to say, fuck me, you know? I didn't know I would hit him like that. I feel fucking awful."

Marleau had texted him similar sentiments when Ilya was in Canada. And naturally, Ilya had known that from the moment of impact. Marleau didn't like hurting people. He was a good guy. Marleau had considered himself something of a big brother to Ilya during Ilya's rookie days, happy to show him the ropes about America, the league, the team. He guided Ilya through Boston and its nightlife, the clubs and drugs and fuckable people.

Years prior to that half-hearted swipe at the playoffs, before Ilya made Captain and could implement his exacting policies about what kind of shittalk was allowed in his barn, Marleau, once, talking to Connors about Hollander, had asked, "What is he anyway, Chinese?"

"Something like that," Connors had said. "Some kind of chink."

"Yeah, wait, no, he's Japanese." Marleau had clearly been a little annoyed Connors hadn't properly set him up for this joke. "Right? He's Japanese?"

"What's the difference?" Connors had asked.

"Man, educate yourself. Japan's where they have all the super freaky porn. Tentacles and shit. They make those fancy sex dolls that feel like they have a real pussy," Marleau had said, jostling Connor's shoulders.

"Oh shit!" another player had laughed.

Marleau had been having fun with it now. "Right? That's probably what Hollander really is - a secret fuck doll they programmed to play hockey."

Connors had laughed, picking up on the thread. "Oh shit, like to infiltrate the league?"

"Yeah," had said Marleau. "It's a fucking conspiracy."

"Makes sense. That's why he loves it so much when you put him on his knees," Connors had said.

"Or if you shoved a tentacle up his cunt," Marleau had said.

Ilya had never - could never - tell Shane something he would occasionally talk about with Galina. Spending his twenties half-bonded to Shane had made his life harder in so many ways, especially during times like when he had to listen to Marleau's sincere apology. Marleau was an alpha who liked and looked up to Ilya, with whom Ilya was theoretically close. Ilya knew he wasn't a bad guy. Marleau was, actually, being pretty decent. And still, Ilya could only think about the sex doll thing.

"He knows it was an accident," Ilya had said. He had promised Shane he would be on good behavior. "He told me to tell you no hard feelings."

Marleau had looked startled, either by the iciness of Ilya's tone or the reminder that Ilya actually spoke to Shane, that they had a relationship where they discussed real things. Maybe Marleau was recontextualizing him in that moment - seeing Ilya as a man who had kept a painful secret out of love, as a sign of devotion, even when the keeping of it had twisted him into a snarled knot. Dim as he was, Ilya saw Marleau understand something that day that colored the rest of their interactions until Marleau and the rest of the Raiders dwindled out of Ilya's life entirely.

Ilya watched as Shane took the blender out of the cupboard and began roughly chopping the herbs. "And from this you trust him? One little apology?"

Shane said, "It makes me think we should consider him an option."

Ilya got out the baking sheets. When they first started cooking together, Shane had researched borscht and pelmini, and asked if Ilya wanted to teach him how to make his preferred Russian dishes. Ilya declined, partially because he didn't know how to make any of his childhood favorites, and partially because he wasn't some Siberian Ivan weeping with homesickness over his plate of sirniki in some decrepit Allston hole-in-the-wall. From the minute Ilya had landed in Boston, he wanted American fast food, American music, American omegas. Canada was, despite Shane's many protests, essentially the same as America; a photo taken at a different time of day.

Ilya didn’t think Barrett would try anything actually dangerous. He was a fucking shitstain, but he wasn’t Kent. You never heard about Barrett in any of the rumors about Kent’s omegas. And besides, Barrett would be outnumbered. But he was exactly the kind of creep who could make Luca’s life a living hell. “You really think there’s a chance in hell he’ll be cool around Luca?”

Shane rolled his eyes. "Luca’s not helpless. He held his own when Young asked him about making a nest in our locker room."

Wiebe had made Young ride the bench the game after that. Thank god the GM was buying into Shane's leadership philosophies. They were, to anyone outside their circle, incredibly bizarre, but Ilya assumed the Centaurs figured they had nothing to lose. "That is very different situation. Young is just an idiot, asked dumb question. Just needed some HR yapping."

"You think Barrett's not an idiot?" Shane asked, a little playful.

"I think he is a bully idiot," said Ilya. "Not a stupid idiot."

"Okay, look," Shane said. "There's another thing, but it's just... a strong suspicion I have."

"Okay," said Ilya, watching Shane chop up a pepper.

"I think Barrett's gay," said Shane.

Ilya was stunned into momentary silence. "What?"

"I don’t have proof," Shane said, finishing the pepper and getting out the cold-pressed avocado oil. "But for the last couple of years, I thought - maybe. Probably."

Ilya prided himself on his ability to read people, and Shane, for all his considerable talents, correctly identified a social cue fifty percent of the time. "Why do you think this?"

Shane shot him an arch look over his shoulder. "It's pretty obvious to me when someone isn't interested in omegas, babe."

God, this fucking smokeshow Ilya had miraculously conned into loving him. Then, other implications of Shane's statement trickled through Ilya's lizard brain, and he felt a little unsettled. Ilya pushed it aside.

"Why the fuck is he close with Kent if he's gay?" asked Ilya.

"Camouflage," Shane said, with an undertone of duh. On reflection, that was a pretty good strategy. You really didn’t hear about Barrett in all the rumors about Kent and those omegas, did you? "And if he's being traded in this much of a hurry, odds are he's not exactly buddies with Kent anymore."

"Huh," said Ilya, taking the chopped vegetables from Shane and arranging them on the baking sheet. "You said you didn't know Scott Hunter was gay."

"That was different," said Shane. "I thought maybe he thought he was too old for me. He's such a stand-up guy."

"He is too old for you," Ilya said, salt-and-peppering the vegetables before they went in the oven with the chicken. "He is one hundred thousand years old. What do you mean, stand-up guy? He can't fucking stand up without a walker."

Shane blended the chimichurri, shaking his head. When he was done, he said. "I still call bullshit that you guessed he was gay."

"Beard too neat," Ilya said sagely. "Always too groomed. Straight alpha hockey players never care when they look like shit."

That had been part of it. Hunter would never admit it, the eternal goody-two-shoes, but he was as vain a motherfucker as Ilya. But Ilya had also picked up a similar detail to Shane, although he interpreted it differently. Despite finding him extremely fun to needle, Ilya had always respected Scott Hunter for being carefully neutral about Shane in mixed company, to the point where he scolded people who weren't. Ilya had always been able to command a room, but Hunter taught him the value of high status in the MHL, that he could hold a position like that. There was a line most alphas toed - most guys, if they felt the urge to tone down the conversation about Hollander, would be accused of being a faggot. But alphas like Hunter and Ilya could get away with being pretty firm, if it came to it.

So sure, Hunter could have just been a really swell guy, but Ilya had always wondered if there was another factor at play. If maybe Hunter would rather shut down the incessant gross Hollander noise and get called a boy scout rather than join in because he was worried he wouldn't know how to fake it.

Ilya prepped the chicken for roasting. Shane knew about Ilya's own proclivities. He brought it up sometimes in the spirit of gentle curiosity, which Ilya would just as gently deflect. For him, male alphas and betas had been part of the party scene, and those days were behind him. Ask any sports fan how happily domesticated Ilya Rozanov was now.

"You fucking liar," Shane said fondly. "You didn't guess shit."

"So you want a gay guy on the Centaurs," Ilya said, getting back on topic. "The mascot isn’t gay enough for you?"

"I want a right winger who can fucking keep up with me," Shane said, meaning he wanted Barrett on the second line. "And I think Barrett can."

"And that's really enough for you," Ilya said. "You think he can hang."

"I think it's worth giving him a shot," said Shane. "If he can't, we trade him again. And if he can… we're always talking about the kind of team we're trying to build here. If he can hang and I’m right, Barrett could use a team like that."

Ilya had been hundreds of miles away when Kent cuffed Shane, forced to watch it repeatedly on highlight reels, and SportCenter clips played over the talking heads, and Barroom Sports memes, for months. All of the footage focused on the cuffing, not how Shane had clocked Kent hard to successfully fight him off. Ilya had tuned into the broadcast when Shane was in the penalty box - they had given him a fucking major just after he spooked, when he needed fucking medical attention. Ilya made a point to make that ref's life hell whenever he could. Shane had sat frozen and defiant and brave, clearly in shock, but refusing to betray any sign of weakness to those ghouls. And Shane hadn't been talking to him; wouldn't answer Ilya’s texts for weeks afterwards. It put into perspective how his disappointment over the Olympics was piddling bullshit, how entirely Ilya had failed Shane then.

It wasn't, Ilya knew, that Shane was unhappy in Ottawa. He would know if Shane were unhappy, because he lived in Shane's fucking brain, and Shane lived in his. And for the most part, Shane seemed pretty content. He was certainly much more open and relaxed than he had ever been on the Metros. He was quicker to joke or flirt, looser, more spontaneous. And Shane loved him. Ilya felt the full force of Shane's affection constantly - when Shane put a blanket over him when Ilya fell asleep on the couch, or when Shane quietly reorganized Ilya's entire financial portfolio, meaning Ilya had a financial portfolio at all. When Shane researched how to agility train Anya, or when he absently curled his fingers around Ilya's ankle while watching Survivor, which was maybe the only thing Shane was more obsessed with than proving his worth on the public stage.

Ilya knew Shane loved him. He knew Shane loved their life. But the memory he returned to on nights like this, or after losing a game either the Metros or the Raiders would have handily won, was of the day they met. His first glance at Shane Hollander. Shane had known something vital that Ilya wouldn't figure out until over a year later, and it horrified him. The Shane Ilya had first met was a petrified kid trying to put on a brave face after encountering his worst nightmare. And the Shane he knew now - loved now, was responsible for now - went tight and quiet at the end of every season, would stay up until the small hours of the morning going over tape, making notes for Wiebe, trying to drag greatness out of a barely functional team from the force of his will alone.

"Barrett gets three strikes," Ilya said when the zucchini and red peppers were out of the oven, and the farro had cooked. "I’m dead serious. Then he's fucking out."

Shane perked up in that subtle way of his and went to call Wiebe. Ilya had always known Shane was capable of leading with such clear vision when he had the opportunity. He hadn’t been waiting for Ilya's permission; they just knew from painful experience what the fallout was if one of them made decisions for the team without the other's buy-in.

Shane asked to be collared and cuffed that night before they fucked. He was less confident about Barrett than he was letting on, which Ilya had known from the start. Shane asked for the collar in a soft voice, like he was afraid Ilya would turn him down. Like Ilya wouldn't do everything in his power to give Shane what he wanted. Ilya fucked Shane for a long time that night, rocking into him slowly, looking down at him. Shane didn't always prefer that - Shane couldn't be fucked hard enough or kissed sweetly enough - but sometimes they needed the stillness more than anything. Shane stared up at him with those lighthouse eyes, and Ilya felt crazy for him, like he always had, like he wanted to be Shane's loyal knight, like he wanted to wrap the world up in a bow and present it to Shane as an offering.

People had been jealous of Ilya's strength for most of his life. Shane had been jealous of his power, his freedom. He still was, occasionally. But Ilya had known the limits of what power could get you since he was twelve. Power didn't keep people from leaving. The harder you squeezed, the more likely they were to slip through your fingers.

Shane fell asleep before Ilya did. Ilya watched the gentle rise and fall of his chest as Shane breathed with his mouth open, noisy. Ilya gently nudged the sleeping lump of Anya farther down the bed so he could press closer to Shane, breathe his omega in. Barrett better recognize how lucky he was. An opportunity like the one before him could elude his grasp if he didn't tend to it.