Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories:

Gen, M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationships:

Shane Hollander & Original Character(s), Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Original Characters, Ottawa Centaurs Team Ensemble (Game Changers)

Additional Tags:

Landlord Shane Hollander, Post-Episode: s01e06 The Cottage (Heated Rivalry), POV Shane Hollander, Russian characters, author knows shockingly little about real estate, shane hollander deserves nice things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Soft Shane Hollander, Sweet Shane Hollander, shane hollander is a care taker, Light-Hearted, Established Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Found Family, Fluff and Humor, Sexual References, Crack Treated Seriously, just in the premise not the execution, Shane Hollander Calls Ilya Rozanov "Baby", ilya is shane's baby, Spoilers for Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, but in a soft way, disordered eating but not as bad as canon

Language:

English

Series:

Part 9 of all dwk heated rivalry fics

Collections:

I need sunshine ☀️🏒 ~ Heated Rivalry (Game Changers) fics

Stats:

Published: 2026-02-20 Updated: 2026-10-14 Words: 34,243 Chapters: 9/11

Mr. Real Estate

Summary

It’s Ilya who brings it up. He’s in his kitchen, making himself some kind of soup that Shane is already searching for recipes of—it’s called rassolnik. Leaning with one hip against the counter, he asks, “What about your sex dungeon?”

“I don’t have a sex dungeon,” Shane says, both grossed out and intrigued by the idea.

“The apartment, moya lyubov,” Ilya replies, fondness sheathed in annoyance. He slurps loudly, laughing when Shane makes a face at him over their video call. “What will you do with the apartment?”

“Sell it, maybe.”

--

Or, Shane doesn't sell the secret-sex-apartment building. He starts renting it out, and somehow ends up with a gaggle of Russian tenants-turned-friends, several stray cats, and one very spoiled hamster.

Notes

in canon the apartment building has commercial space on the bottom, but not here!!

inspired by this tumblr post by bluegrasshole

this was going to be a one shot and then suddenly it was 7k and I was nowhere near done so. here you go. thank you to all of my friends in the HSB hr thread, ily!!! thank you for all of your wonderful ideas 💕💕

please lmk if I've missed any tags or misspelled anything in russian/japanese, thank you!

--

also want to add because of the Russia of it all - while this fic doesn't really touch on any politics, I just want to clarify that I am against Russia especially wrt the war going on. we are a "slava ukraini" household. someday That Man will be dead and Ukrainians will live in peace as they deserve. as for this fic, these characters are either first or second gen Russian immigrants and for various reasons did not want to be in Russia anymore. this isn't a pro-russia fic. if you're able to support Ukraine via donations or even just sharing the word I highly encourage you to do so. thank you 🙏

Chapter 1

Chapter Notes

When Shane bought his secret sex building, he intended to rent the apartments out. Really, he did. 

Then several years went by with only the one apartment—his—being finished.

He’s busy, okay? It’s not like he feels good about hoarding empty places when there’s a homelessness problem, but he only has two weeks off in a year. He likes to spend them doing other things that aren’t just more work. 

Like other things in his life, he could ask his Mom to help him get things set up. Being half-retired, she’s got the time and energy to do it… but she doesn’t know anything about the place, and he wants to keep it that way for as long as possible. 

It’s on Shane, then. Every once in a while, he thinks about it, calling up one of his real estate contacts and asking what needs to be done. He just never has the time—he’s either on a plane, or working out, or hanging out with the Pikes, or taking every chance he can find to be with Rozanov. So nothing ever happens…

…until the summer of 2017.

Having Ilya with him in the cottage is a revelation. Shane feels different, once Ilya has gone. Simultaneously looser, happier, and more morose than he’s ever been. He got a taste of domesticity and he doesn’t want to lose it.

They call all the time after Ilya goes. Neither of them can bear to be without the other for long, glued together by all of the clinginess and emotions leftover from their confessions and time spent in each other’s presence. 

It’s Ilya who brings it up. He’s in his kitchen, making himself some kind of soup that Shane is already searching for recipes of—it’s called rassolnik. Leaning with one hip against the counter, he asks, “What about your sex dungeon?”

“I don’t have a sex dungeon,” Shane says, both grossed out and intrigued by the idea. He’s also distracted by the website he’s looking at, which has about 15 ads for hot single Russians in your area. The only hot, no-longer-single Russian he wants is currently a flight away, so it’s not very amusing.

“The apartment, moya lyubov,” Ilya replies, fondness sheathed in annoyance. He slurps loudly, laughing when Shane makes a face at him over their video call. “What will you do with the apartment?”

“Sell it, maybe.” 

He doesn’t love the idea, not when there are so many memories of that place. They can’t keep the hotel rooms, can’t keep a hold on anything that happened there. 

But he can keep the apartment. The first place they had sex. The first place they could relax together for real. It means something to him.

Looking at his boyfriend on the phone screen, a content look on his face, Shane isn't sure he wants to say all of that out loud yet. It's a little intense, and he hasn't learned yet where that line is.

“Ilya,” he says, loving the taste on his tongue no matter how many times he's said it now. He’ll never get tired of saying Ilya’s name. “Is there really kidneys in that?”

“Yes. Is good.” And when Shane looks incredulous, he says, “It is! I will make you some next time. You’ll see.”

Their conversation moves on from there, but Shane doesn’t forget about it so easily. He still hasn’t decided if he’s going to sell it, because it’s kind of weird to have three properties, two in the same city, right? Sentimentality is nice, but it embarrasses him too, thinking maybe Ilya wouldn’t care as much as he does about it. 

He does a lot of research. About Montreal and the prices of apartments, how there’s housing crises all over the world, and how landlords are the scum of the earth. He reads the horror stories, reads what other landlords have to say and finds them all slimy and useless.

If Shane had renters, he thinks, he would never be like that. He would be a good one. 

Ilya listens to all of this with a proud look in his eyes that makes Shane feel oddly shy. 

“You take Mr. Landlord to heart,” he teases. Already in bed, he looks so soft and sweet and too far away. 

“Yeah, I-I guess. I’ve just been hoarding these apartments for years and I guess I feel like I need to make up for it, or something.”

Ilya tells him he doesn’t and he’s thinking too much. But Ilya also blinks at him, sleepy, and says, “You would be good landlord. Olympic medal winner landlord. Very sexy landlord.”

It makes Shane’s cheeks go hot. How does this guy still make him blush after seven years?

“Shut up,” he grumbles, hiding his pleased smile in the neckline of Ilya’s hoodie.

Talking with his boyfriend helps him decide much quicker than he would have on his own. He’s on a reduced schedule right now, since no one knew for sure when he’d be healed enough to get back to training. He has another week and a half before he’s got to go back to Montreal.

It’s not a lot of time before he has to get back into it, but—it’s enough to call an agent he knows and get the ball rolling.

Months later, Shane’s little building is all ready to welcome renters. 

Downstairs, there’s two bigger apartments, both with two bedrooms. Upstairs, he’s worked it so there’s four, smaller and only one bedroom. 

He debates furnishing them, but ultimately decides against it. It’s extra work, and would raise the prices, which he doesn’t want.

The rent is reasonable, he thinks. He doesn’t really need to make money, he’s got plenty, but once Mom finds out—which is its own ordeal—she insists on it. She says it like this: he’s got years left of hockey, but after his injury, it’s important to have money coming from several directions. Just in case. 

Basically: he doesn't need the money now, but when his body inevitably gives out on him, he'll be glad to have this stream of revenue.

So the rent is exactly what the bills are, plus a little extra, just enough to make Mom happy. 

The real estate agent he’s been working with says he’ll attract ‘the wrong sort of people’ that way, and then has no answer when Shane asks what exactly that’s supposed to mean. 

He finds someone else to work with, and lets them handle everything. Shane knows a lot about real estate, but he’s only got experience as the buyer, not the seller, and anyway he’s got a lot going on with the season starting. 

He tells the agent to keep him updated, and then finishes getting undressed for practice.

(And if, during renovations, he has the builders add a bit of extra soundproofing around his and Ilya’s apartment… well, it’s just in case. They probably won’t stay there again, not with any regularity, but… yeah. Just in case.)

The first tenant to officially move in is a little old lady named Lyudmila Kuznetsova.

Shane meets her over the phone, standing in his hotel room somewhere in North Carolina. He’s not sure what to say, exactly—she’s gone over the contracts and everything with his agent. She’s paid the down payment, she’s going to move in in a few days, when he’s in New York. 

They make a little bit of small talk, but he’s so awkward and he also kind of wants to get it over with. There’s only so much time in a day to call Ilya, and this is cutting into that. 

It doesn’t help that Lyudmila is a quiet woman. Throughout the call, she mostly hums and doesn’t say much, which makes him nervous and ramble even more.

“If you need anything, you can always contact me,” he says at last, because he refuses to be a landlord who is unavailable. “My work hours are weird, so I might not get back to you right away, but seriously. Contact me whenever.”

She says, “Thank you, Mr. Hollander,” and that’s that. 

When they finally meet in person, he’s coming off a roadie and is longing for his bed. But he needs to be present, he reminds himself. So he drops his things off at his actual apartment, and drives over. The afternoon sun makes him feel warmed and reminds him of Ilya, who’s in California right now kicking San Jose’s ass. 

Smiling, he calls ahead, not wanting to surprise her. 

“Mrs. Kuznetsova?” He taps on the steering wheel, watching traffic inch along. “I just got back into the city, I thought I’d stop by so we could meet. Are you home?”

She hums at him. “Yes, Mr. Hollander.”

“Okay, well… I’ll be there pretty soon. Just for a quick visit,” he clarifies. He just wants to make sure she’s settling in okay, that everything is in working order. Then he’ll go back home and watch the highlights of Ilya’s game. Maybe jerk off to it before he falls asleep. But that's not something he needs to think about while on the phone with his elderly new tenant.

“Yes, see you soon,” she tells him in her accented voice, garbled with age.

That makes him think of Ilya too. His boyfriend’s accent has slipped the longer he’s been in Boston, but sometimes it thickens like Lyudmila’s is, when he’s upset or they’re lost in the haze of sex. Will he sound like this when he’s old? Shane can't wait to find out.

So, yeah, Shane’s in a good mood when he pulls up.

He feels weird walking into the building knowing there’s someone else here. It’s always just been him and Ilya, silence surrounding them, cocooning them. 

It was safety, but now that’s impossible. The building isn't just theirs anymore.

Preoccupied with these thoughts, he stops short when he climbs the stairs and finds that a lot of her stuff is in the hallway. Like, a lot. 

There are several stacks of boxes and scattered furniture, though he’s a lot more concerned about the bedframe and mattress leaning up against the wall than anything else. 

When he knocks on her door, she takes a little too long to open up. 

Lyudmila Kuznetsova is a short woman with a shock of bright red hair all right on top of her head, and wrinkled, spotted skin. She’s dressed no differently from any other old lady, though part of him maybe expected her to be rocking an old babushka get up. In one hand, she has a cane which is covered in images of flames. 

She meets his eyes right away, before he’s ready, then glances around at her stuff with a look on her face that he feels rather than knows is resignation. 

“Mr. Hollander?” she says, her voice even more garbled in person. 

He tries to smile at her, though he’s confused and a little annoyed by the mess around them. “Uh, yeah, that’s me. You’re Mrs. Kuznetsova?”

The look she gives him clearly says he’s asking a silly question. Instead of answering, she sighs, “I am sorry for all this,” and gestures to everything. “I cannot get it inside on my own.”

“On your own?” Shane echoes. “What happened to the moving service?”

Because he got one, as soon as he found out that his first tenant was a little old lady whose husband has just recently passed. Shane doesn’t know her story, exactly, but he knows her family thought she was getting overwhelmed taking care of a big house by herself. A little apartment in a nice neighborhood for not too high of rent was like a steal, or at least, that’s what the agent said Lyudmila’s son said.

Shane also looked into getting the ancient elevator redone, which he realizes he definitely needs to expedite. 

But this clearly needs to be dealt with first.

He found a moving company close enough to the building, with good ratings and prices. Speaking to the manager, he’d made sure that they would help her get her stuff upstairs.

Into her apartment is what he meant. He didn't think he'd had to clarify that.

Lyudmila shrugs ruefully. “It is upstairs, no?”

Shane looks at her bed again, standing upright and getting dusty out here in the hallway.

“Where are you sleeping?” His words are a little choked. 

“They put couch in,” she says, and steps back shakily to show him that yes, they were kind enough to put her loveseat into her otherwise extremely bare living room.

“Hmm. Okay. Um. Give me a second,” he says, and walks away, already pissed off before he’s even dialed the company’s number. 

Shane chews them out so badly that later, once he’s complained to his parents, Mom literally has to wipe a tear away and tell him how proud she is of him. Ridiculous. 

Not to mention Ilya, who laughs at him and says, “Protective. I like this side of you,” giving him a sexy look that derails their whole conversation.

In the moment, though, he demands the men come back. Yes, right now. They left a poor woman to have to sleep on her fucking couch for days, and for what, because they were too fucking stupid to realize they needed to put her bed into her actual apartment? 

Shane is trembling with rage when he hangs up. Lyudmila has pulled a chair out into the hallway to watch him pace and cuss them out, which he feels bad about once he turns around and realizes she heard all of that. 

He tries to say, “Sorry—”

But she shakes her head. “Do you want pelmeni?”

“What?” It’s not the scolding he expected, or even a condemnation of how badly he’s doing already at being her landlord. 

“Food. Russian food. You want?”

Shane blinks at her. He’s not sure what to do with little old ladies, since both of his grandmothers died when he was young. But he feels so guilty about all of this, that he can’t possibly turn her down. “Um. Sure.”

She stands and starts to drag the chair back inside, but this is at least something Shane can offer. 

“No, let me.”

“I won’t say no to handsome young man carrying things for me,” she says casually, and leads him into the apartment. 

Flushed, he spends the next several hours there. 

Lyudmila opens up some, standing in her kitchen. She tells him that her pelmeni is the best, that he will agree just like everyone in her family does. It’s only leftovers, but she says she’ll make him some fresh once things have settled down.

He’s never had it before, but after the first bite, he finds he does agree—it’s delicious.

Then she asks if the apartment upstairs is his. 

“Yes,” he says, keeping his eyes averted.

She stirs her own bowl and gives him an assessing look. 

Going in for the kill, she asks if anyone else lives here, because it’s been quiet and no one cared that her things were left around. 

“It’s just you, right now,” he says.

She hums. “Get more people soon,” she tells him. “I do not like being alone all night,” and winks, and laughs when he splutters.

Still, her words put an idea into his head. She doesn’t need protection, and they’ve only just met, but he feels weird leaving her here by herself. Chewing on a dumpling, he considers his options, but doesn’t come to a conclusion before they’re interrupted.

When the movers arrive, at first irritated and then starstruck to see Shane, she doesn’t offer them any of her pelmeni. Waving her cane imperiously, she tells them where she wants her things put down, and makes them move her bed several times before it’s right. They grumble, but they fucking do it. 

Shane tries to help a few times, just to speed things up, but she glares at him until he stops. 

“Sit down,” she orders, and waves a gnarled hand toward the few rickety chairs she has. “Have more pelmeni.”

There’s no room for argument. Shane sits and has more pelmeni. 

After the movers have gone and Shane has already started mentally writing a review recommending no one use this particular company ever again, he stands awkwardly in her living room. It all looks much better, much more put together. He doesn’t feel so bad leaving her here now, knowing she’ll actually be able to sleep in her bed.

“I’d better go,” he says. 

She’s in the kitchen, doing the dishes she absolutely refused to let him even touch, and turns around at his words. 

“It was great to meet you, Mrs. Kuznetsova. I’m so sorry about all of this mess, I promise it won’t happen again.”

A smirk steals over her face. “You told them off well,” she praises, though it makes him flush again. 

That night, he goes upstairs and stays in the sex apartment. It just feels wrong to leave her by herself after all the excitement of the day. He has some clothes and toiletries, and a phone charger so he can make the review and calls and a list of things he needs to work on in the morning. It's no trouble really.

After that, Lyudmila sometimes calls him. 

The first time, Shane thinks something is wrong, and actually fully walks away from his and J.J.’s conversation so he can focus on her. But there’s nothing wrong at all—she just has leftovers, “Too much for me,” she says, and wants to know if he wants any.

Shane’s still in Montreal, so he accepts, because he still feels fucking guilty and can’t say no to her. 

When he’s there, she tells him her TV won’t turn on and she can’t figure out why. He’s got no skills with technology beyond the average millennial, but he offers to take a look after they’re done eating. 

Though he fears it'll be a complicated issue, and is already mentally hiring a techier person than him to come figure it out, he quickly finds that it's not. It's actually really simple.

“It’s not plugged in, Mrs. Kuznetsova,” he says, suppressing a laugh. 

She sees his face, and for some reason, smacks him. “Shut up and fix,” she orders him. And then, once it’s up and running, tells him, “Turn on hockey.”

“You want to watch hockey?”

“Yes. Are you surprised? Why?”

“A little,” he says, navigating to the right channel. “You don’t seem like a hockey fan.”

She hits him again, just a smack to the shoulder that hardly hurts. It reminds him of Grandma Hollander, who exists in his memories as a laughing woman who couldn't help but slap the arms or legs of whoever was around her when she really got going. Shane had chalked it up to that side of his family being hockey people, since his Obaa-chan wasn't like that at all.

“I knew many hockey players when I was young,” she says, and regales him with a whole story about the kinds of insane things young soviet men got up to in the rink. She doesn’t say what she was doing there, but there’s a gleam in her eye that tells him not to ask.

Later, upstairs again, Shane calls Ilya and tells him about all of it. He rubs his shoulder, hoping Ilya will notice and say something.

“I like this neighbor,” he says, already tucked up into bed. “She has crush on you, I think.”

“She’s, like, eighty.”

“Okay? And you are beautiful. Of course she sees this and likes you.”

“Ilya,” he complains, grinning.

His crazy boyfriend blows a kiss, which Shane pretends to catch with his mouth in an exaggerated bite. For a moment, they just stare at each other, eyes warm and longing. Every day, Shane wishes Ilya was with him, and every day, he counts down to the next time they’ll see each other. 

He rubs his shoulder again, not because it hurts but because touching himself like this, rubbing his palm over his body, reminds him of the way Ilya touches him. Like he owns him. Like no one else has ever touched him.

Ilya notices. “Your shoulder is hurting?”

“Oh, yeah. She hit me a few times.” 

He explains then, hoping to soothe Ilya’s concerned look, only to have to stop because Ilya is laughing too much.

“What? Why is that funny?”

Ilya yawns, jaw cracking. He looks beautiful in the low light, a smug look on his face. “She likes you, kotenok. See? I am always right.”

Chapter End Notes

my friend Lore made art of the 'Shane cusses out the moving guys and Yuna is proud' scene 😭💖 You can find it here!

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

sorry it's been a while! I had a little bit of a writing hangover but I'm trying to come out of it one chapter at a time. I hope you enjoy, any mistakes are my own!!

and thank you all for your comments, you guys are the best 💕💕💕

Shane’s on the road again when the next person comes. 

Yekaterina Mikhaylova is only a few years older than Shane, and, unlike Lyudmila, is able to get on a video call with him so they can meet. 

Shane sits at the desk in the hotel room, hoping Hayden stays out of view, and tries to put himself in the mindset of a good landlord. 

It’s easy with Lyudmila, who makes him come over to her house now and then to eat. He doesn't feel so bad about leaving her, either, since she often invites her grandkids over now that Shane’s said that’s okay. (He still can’t believe she felt like she had to ask—he’d had to figure out a more polite way of saying I’d be a pretty shitty person if I said no.)

Yekaterina is a different story. She’s not awkward like him, moving through the conversation with ease. She says, “Call me Katia, please,” and “The elevator is a little gross, but it works,” and “Yes, Mrs. Kuznetsova came to meet me too.”

Shane doesn't really know what he's supposed to be looking for. All he wants is to give people somewhere to stay, and have his apartments stay in okay condition. Katia doesn't seem like someone who'd throw a rager and tear up the carpets, but what does he know?

She's got a better idea of how this should go, and tells him in bare details about her renting history. After she's done, to Shane it seems like everything is perfect.

The only hiccup is that she has a pet.

“I read the contract,” she says, pulling out papers. Her accent is barely noticeable, kind of like Svetlana’s. “It wasn’t clear. Do I need your approval or are they not allowed at all?”

The thing is, Shane didn’t really want pets in the building. He’s never had one, and in his mind they’re all stinky or messy or way too much work. Even fish, like what if the tank fell? He would have to deal with flooding and the fish would die. Awful. It seemed easier to say no pets, but his agent said it’s best to make renters pay a fee. It discourages pet owners from applying, but if they do, then they’re on the hook for any big damage like that.

Shane still doesn’t care about the money. He just wants to avoid scratched walls and peed-on carpets and freak-accident fish tank droppings. 

Katia has a hamster named Cheddar. She explains that she has a large cage for him, and she cleans it every day as necessary, so it doesn’t stink. 

Cheddar squeaks at Shane when she holds him up to the camera.

“Uh, yeah, sure, that’s fine,” he says, because how can he say no to that little ball of fur? “The fee—”

A complicated look crosses her face. “Ah, yes. I will get it paid as soon as I can, Mr. Hollander.”

He pauses. “Will it be a problem?” 

“No, no,” she says, but her expression is pinched now. “I will have enough for the down payment and first month’s rent. I can cover it all.”

Shane’s not great at reading between the lines, but he’s trying. He’s trying to be good to these people. The fee isn’t big to him, but what does he know about having a normal job and normal bills?

He tells her, “Don’t worry about it until next month, okay?” 

Katia doesn’t outright say thank you or anything like that. She only says, “Okay, Mr. Hollander. I will get it to you as soon as possible.”

It’s weird, having a woman his age call him that so formally. Not even reporters call him that, at least not the ones he's known for years.

“Call me Shane. And really, it’s okay. You have my number, right? Call me if anything’s wrong or if you have any questions.”

She nods, and they hang up, satisfied that this will work out too.

Katia doesn’t call, but Lyudmila does.

Shane’s laying in Ilya’s bed, in his arms actually, and was—keyword, was, past tense—feeling very content before she called and started scolding him.

“What is this, Katusha can call you Shane but you have not offered this to me?”

He’s extremely glad that Lyudmila doesn’t do video calls, because she'd catch them out right away. Even then, he still has to nearly smother Ilya with a pillow to make sure she doesn’t hear him laughing. Not that Shane can be too mad. The sight of Ilya's grin is not something he takes for granted, ever. 

“I’m-I’m sorry, Mrs. Kuznetsova—okay, Lyudmila, I’m sorry, of course you can call me Shane, too. I didn’t think about it.”

“No you didn’t,” she repeats, offended. He thinks if he was there, she would hit him again. He's long since accepted it as part of having her as a tenant. “You use all your thoughts on hockey.”

He’s also found it’s easiest to just agree with whatever she says. So he obediently replies, “I do.”

She hums. “I am angry with you.”

“Is something wrong?” He means with the apartment, because she can’t really be upset that he didn’t let her call him Shane, right? But she must take it a different way, because her answer surprises the hell out of him.

“Yes,” she says seriously. “You embarrassed Russia tonight.”

Shane blinks. “Huh?”

Ilya almost bursts a blood vessel laughing, though Shane doesn’t know if it’s because he heard her—she’s very loud on the phone—or at whatever face he made in response. 

“But Mrs—Lyudmila, I’m not Russian,” he tries, because what the hell else is he supposed to say to that. 

“Pah, of course no! I mean Rozanov! How can sweet Canadian man beat him? I am ashamed, ashamed! On behalf of Russia.”

Shane has to get up out of the bed before Ilya gives them away, escaping to the hallway and grinning at the sound of his boyfriend’s giggles. Then he asks, surprised, “You were watching?”

She sounds even more offended at this. “You think I don’t watch? I invited Katusha as well, but she says she is busy. Well, I am not too busy.”

For some reason, Shane’s chest feels warm. He leans against the wall and says, knowing it'll rile her up even worse, “Bet you wished you missed it when I crushed Rozanov, though.”

She hisses like a cat at him for that. 

He’s stuck listening to her scold him for the next thirty minutes before Ilya gets too impatient, and he has to make excuses to get off the phone before Ilya actually steals it from him and hangs up on her.

Shane doesn't intend to hide that Katia moved in. He tells Ilya he's got a new tenant, a younger woman, and Ilya teases him about how he's going to be the best landlord to ever landlord. All of the ladies will flock to his sex dungeon building, and flirt with Shane to get out of paying rent, which is stupid—Shane would never—”And you’re too gay,” Ilya helpfully adds to which Shane has to say, “Fuck off, you’re so annoying.”

“You speak so sweet to me, Hollander,” Ilya says, leaning in for a kiss.

They get distracted. Shane doesn't think to tell Ilya her name, even though he does think it's funny and a little weird that he now has two Russian tenants. He does remember to tell him about Cheddar, though.

Ilya looks at the picture Katia's sent of the spoiled hamster—seriously, Katia told him the toy he's got in the picture was worth $50 USD—with some fondness. Handing the phone back over, he says, “Dogs are better.”

“Dogs are not better,” Shane says without thinking. He just likes to disagree—he doesn't have a strong opinion really.

Ilya raises an eyebrow judgmentally. “You want little hamster then?”

“No.” He makes a face thinking about the kind of maintenance that cage would need. Yeah, he hires cleaning people, so hypothetically they would do it and not him. 

But still. So much effort, when he has so little time.

It devolves from there. Ilya says he's met a hamster before, and it was spoiled too and tried to bite him, so he's sworn them off forever even if they are cute.

“Cheddar is cute,” Shane defends. 

It's less about the actual animal at this point, and more about riling Ilya up. It’s so fun to see him get annoyed, shifting in bed with his jaw jumping and relaxing as he tries to be normal. 

“You haven't even met Cheddar,” his boyfriend grumbles. “We could be fucking now, but you want to talk about a stupid hamster.”

Shane can't help but laugh. Climbing into Ilya's lap, he leans in, rubbing his nose along the tendon in Ilya's neck. Bodies sinking together, Ilya relaxes, probably thinking Shane’s given up.

He'd like that, wouldn't he.

“I'm gonna meet Cheddar and prove you wrong,” Shane whispers into his ear before nipping it playfully.

For a second, Ilya doesn't react. Shane has just enough time to wonder if he's acting weird, if this is what’ll finally put Ilya off after all their years together, before his boyfriend is wrapping his arms tightly around him and rolling them around, loudly complaining about how Shane is an asshole.

And okay, maybe he is, but he's also really happy. Their conversation fades into the haze of kissing, and maybe Ilya forgets about it by morning.

Shane doesn't. 

Back in Montreal, he goes by the building to meet Katia in person. She's all settled in, having had no problems with the new movers.

They're of a height, is the first thing he notices. She's conventionally attractive, with long blonde hair and classically Slavic features. At first, her expression is cold, but it thaws when Shane asks how things have gone.

“I'm doing well but it's a bit overwhelming,” she says directly, which he appreciates, and they stand around talking for a while. 

Apparently she's got a thousand boxes and triple the amount of stuff, and it was all kind of packed haphazardly because she was moving across the border in a bit of a rush, so she can't find anything. When he asks, she explains: she's got dual citizenship with Canada and Russia, and was on a work visa in the States until she was suddenly fired. It's a whole mess, she says she doesn't want to get into it, and it's all taken care of anyway. She looks tired even just thinking about it, so Shane doesn't push.

The whole time, he listens, though part of his brain focuses less on her and more on the implications for Ilya's own citizenship. Actually, the topic of whether Ilya will be safe from being deported, especially now that he's in Canada, never leaves Shane's mind.

Thinking of Ilya reminds him of Cheddar.

Shane waits until he's sure she’s done talking before he asks, “Can I meet Cheddar?”

Some of the stress melts away from Katia’s shoulders. Pride gleams in her eyes as she says, “Yes, come with me.”

He steps into her apartment lightly, not wanting to touch any of her stuff. It’s different with Lyudmila, who complains when he “sits wrong” on her couch and won’t put his feet up.

He and Katia only just met. Plus, he feels really aware that he’s her landlord right now—there are so many horror stories of creepy guys abusing their power over female tenants that it made Shane sick when he read them. 

Katia doesn’t say anything about it either way, and he can’t see her face to even try to read what she’s feeling. (Not that he's any good at it, but he tries.) 

She just takes him to the far corner of the living room, where the largest cage Shane’s ever seen sits. Not that he has a lot to go off of, but it fills the space, tall enough to reach the window and leaving almost no walking path.

Smiling, Katia kneels down beside it, searching for a second before she finds Cheddar by an upside down water bottle, standing on his back paws to suck water down. He looks bigger in real life than in the picture she sent.

“This is my boy,” Katia says proudly, reaching a finger or two in to pet him. He obviously likes it, letting go to squeak at her in a way Shane—who has no idea, really—thinks is probably adoring.

“He’s so cute,” Shane says, crouching beside her. His lips are curled up. Maybe hamsters aren't so bad. “Can I pet him too?”

“Oh no,” Katia says right away, looking up at him with slightly wide eyes. “He bites.”

(Later, when Shane relays all of this to Ilya, Ilya says, “Fucking told you so,” and then, because one of his teammates overheard, gleefully explains that he just won a bet against Shane Hollander. Since they're friends now, and people can know they speak to each other at all.

He should be annoyed, and maybe he is. But it's also really nice to not have to completely hide.)

Shane's at a game when Katia calls.

He doesn't see it until they're back in the locker room, high on the adrenaline rush of a won game. He manages to wait to check his phone until he gets his gross gear off, hoping there will be a text from Ilya.

There is, of course, but there's also a missed call.

He doesn't usually get calls during games, because everyone in his life knows he'll be unavailable and there's no point. So he's both surprised and not to see that it's from Katia.

One missed call from almost forty minutes ago, followed up by a few texts.

Katia (Tenant, 203)

Hello Shane, sorry to bother you so late. Can you call me back?

Ah. Mrs. Kuznetsova told me you are at a game. 

I have a leak in my kitchen sink. I looked at it but I can't figure out what's causing the leak. Do you mind coming to fix it? Whenever you have time. Thank you.

A tingle of—not anxiety, really, but something similar—goes through Shane. He feels wired, knowing there's a problem and someone is relying on him to fix it. His tenant, no less.

Quickly, he texts back, Just got off the ice. I'll stop by as soon as I can.

Ilya has texted, too. Shane guiltily decides to wait to reply until he's cleaned up, dressed, and in his car. Traffic is terrible, so a normally twenty minute drive turns into an hour and a half. They talk the whole time.

“You should come here after,” Ilya suggests once he’s close to the apartment building. “Has been too long.”

They only saw each other a week ago, but Shane doesn’t tease him about it. It has been too long. 

“You know I can’t, baby. I wish I could, but we fly to Texas tomorrow.”

Ilya blows a raspberry, but there’s really nothing else to say. For a few minutes, neither of them speak, just listening to the other breathe.

Finally, when Shane pulls up and parks his car, he says, “I’ve got to go.”

They promise to call again later, once Shane is done here, and hang up. Shane knocks his head into the steering wheel a few times, wishing for a teleporter or a different life or some fucking bravery. Then he forces himself to sit straight and get out of the car.

Upstairs, both of his tenants have added a few decorations to the hall. Lyudmila has set out a light, comfortable-looking chair, while Katia has a new doormat that says in fancy lettering, Home of the Crazy Hamster Lady.

Sure, why not.

He knocks, already pulling his phone out to find some kind of plumber that’s still working at—he winces—almost ten at night. Maybe he can fix it himself? Shane’s not really handy, but there’s been a few times that his dad showed him how to fix things, to ‘get his mind off of hockey for once’. It didn’t really stick, but he has to fix this for her.

Katia, when she opens the door, is already dressed for bed. She’s wearing loose shorts and a big t-shirt with no bra on underneath. Shane keeps his eyes pointed over her shoulder, unable to meet her eyes and trying very hard to avoid making her uncomfortable.

“Hey, I’m so sorry I got here so late, the traffic was awful,” he rushes out. “Do you still want me to check it tonight? I can wait until morning—or, not really, I have a flight at six AM, but I can get a plumber out here as soon as possible if you’d prefer that.”

Katia blinks at him, then—he notices out of the corner of his eye—gives him a confused once over.

“You’re dressed very fancy,” she half-asks, half-says.

Oh, right. Shane’s in his post game suit. “Um, yeah. It’s, I have to, it’s a thing… I can go upstairs and get changed?”

“Yes, why don’t you do that. That’s a very nice suit, I don’t want the sink to ruin it.”

Shane nods and says, “Good point. Okay, I’ll be right back,” and goes to take the stairs two at a time.

He comes back a few minutes later, dressed in more comfortable clothing and with an extra layer of deodorant put on. Katia nods approvingly and lets him in, showing him what happened and what she tried to do to fix it already.

Shane tries his best. He knows you tighten up the joints, or whatever. But that doesn’t work, and when he has Katia try trickling the water, it does in fact get all over Shane’s shirt. 

Sighing, he pulls himself out from under the sink and tries to think. His dad might still be awake, but…

“Katia? Is it okay if I call my dad?”

From where she’s leaning against the counter, sipping a tea she made and offered to share with him, she says, “Yes, why would that not be okay?”

“Well, it might be easier if I do a video call, so he can see… I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he tells her. 

“Is fine, I don’t care.”

Still, Shane resolves not to let his dad see too much of her place. All that matters is the sink.

Thankfully, Dad is still awake and willing to offer his expertise. (Okay so, he’s only fixed their sinks a few times, really. He doesn’t know what he’s doing either, but he has dad energies that always seem to make things work right. Shane is not ashamed to capitalize on that for Katia’s sake.)

So that’s how Shane and his father end up fixing a leaky pipe at 10:45 PM the night before Shane has an early flight. 

“Is it leaking?” Katia asks from above him, the water rushing and muffling her slightly.

Shane watches carefully, but no, everything’s staying dry. It feels like just as much of a win as the game earlier.

“Thank you so much,” she says once he’s standing again. She looks tired, but her smile is genuine. “I got worried I broke it forever and you would evict me.”

“What? No, my dad said it was because one of the pieces was made wrong. and I wouldn’t do that.”

He shakes his head at even the idea. Evicting her because of something like this? She didn’t even flood the place. They only had to put one towel down.

“Look, I have a flight in the morning, but I’m going to get a plumber out here to replace that. What day is good for you? How soon do you need it done?”

They iron out the details, or some of them at least. 

Eventually Katia says, “When is your flight?” and when Shane tells her, she says, “Why are you still here? Go home! Sleep! We can figure this out later. Go, go!” and shoos him out and up the stairs. 

All of Shane’s things are at his actual apartment, so he doesn’t stay the night there. His schedule’s already fucked, but he cannot go without his regular suitcase.

By the time the Voyageurs get on the flight, he’s dead on his feet, but it’s okay. He’s getting a good grade in landlord.

A few weeks later, he’s got a couple days in town before they’re back on the road, and he intends to spend them at his actual place. There are rooms that need tidying before the cleaning lady comes, and books to read, and boyfriends to have phone sex with. 

Lyudmila Kuznetsova, however, has other plans.

Shane has never told her his schedule, but somehow she knows it anyway and uses this knowledge with deadly precision. 

He’s at the building double checking one of the big downstairs apartments for a family who’s going to be viewing it soon. The second he steps out into the hall, she’s there at the top of the stairs, her flaming cane waving in his direction.

“I made lunch, come eat,” she says, brooking no argument. Without waiting for him to answer, she goes and knocks on Katia’s door, calling through the wood in Russian he actually sort of understands, “Katusha! Come and eat now!”

He’s been a little worried how Lyudmila and Katia will get along, like what is he supposed to do if his renters hate each other? Reddit doesn’t have a lot of advice about that, which means he’ll have to navigate it blind. Ilya or Rose probably wouldn’t mind helping him figure it out if it came to that.

But thankfully, it seems she’s fallen victim to Lyudmila’s whims too. Crisis averted. 

They meet at the top of the stairs, both rolling their eyes. It’s kind of nice to have someone else around who understands that as nice as Lyudmila is, she’s also got an iron fist and expects all ‘young people’ like them to follow along. Not that Shane minds, most of the time. But at least he and Katia can be lightly annoyed about it together.

“She’s on a roll today,” Katia warns him.

“Great. Just what we need,” he says, though it comes out more fond than anything else.

Before she can reply, Lyudmila calls, “Shane! Katusha!”

Jeez, what happened to the quiet little old lady he first met?

Shane lets Katia go ahead, checking his phone—there’s a text from Ilya, confirming he won’t be able to call until late tonight.

Unlike Shane, he doesn’t have a few days off, though tomorrow is a rare day they’re both free. Shane wasn’t going to, but maybe he should drive over there after lunch. Two hours on the road isn’t so bad, even if they’ll only get one day together. It will have to be enough.

“Shane?” Katia asks, appearing in Lyudmila’s doorway. He’s still standing there in the hallway, staring at his phone like an idiot. 

“Uh, sorry. I just—I had to check that.” He slides his phone into his pocket, hoping to distract both of them. “What’d she make?”

“Rassolnik.”

Sometimes, Shane thinks as he makes himself move forward, he wishes Ilya could be here. All the time, really, but especially moments like this. He would love homemade rassolnik. 

Maybe Shane can bring him some leftovers.

Shane’s in Ottawa again—this time for a game—when his next tenants sign the contract. 

It's the little family who viewed the downstairs apartment. They prefer to text, which is fine, because Shane’s head is aching from a rough hit against the glass and he’s really not up to video calling anyone, not even his own parents. 

Ilya lays on top of him, too exhausted to tease him about getting a good grade in landlording after a game and a round of mindblowing reunion sex. 

Under different circumstances, he wouldn’t text them right now. He would—and he will, in a minute—just enjoy the peace of finally being back in Ilya’s arms. 

But this is important to him. He wants them to know they can rely on him.

Their names are Mikhail Orlov and Yuliana Orlova, and they have two kids—Andrei, who’s three, and Inessa, who’s three months. 

Yes. More Russians. He wonders if his agent is doing it on purpose or if somehow it's just working out that way. Is that even possible? How many Russians are looking to rent in Montreal right now?

Whatever. He doesn’t have the energy to think about it, just managing to spell all of his texts correctly. I’m not in town right now but I hope we can meet soon. I won’t hover or anything, don’t worry. If you need help with anything at all, you can contact me. Things like that. He’s gotten slightly better about it now that he’s gone through it twice. 

He’s talking to Mikhail, who replies shortly with thanks and a reassurance he will call if anything comes up.

Shane lingers on the chat, feeling like he should say something else. But what? They probably don’t want to be bothered with him right now, trying to unpack and also deal with two little kids. 

Ilya sighs, his warm breath gusting over Shane’s bare shoulder and sending goosebumps all over his upper body. 

Reaching back, he somehow manages to pull Shane’s phone out of his hands, and sets it on the bedside table. Then he grabs Shane’s wrist and pins it above their heads, pressing it into a pillow that smells like Ilya’s shampoo and aftershave and sex. 

“No more overthinking, kotenok,” he murmurs, pressing his mouth to the spot on Shane’s neck that makes him melt. “Text tomorrow.”

But—“My phone’s going to die if we don’t plug it in.”

“Is fine, Shane.”

“But Ilya….”

Groaning like he’s being actively killed, Ilya lifts onto his elbows to grab a phone charger and plug the phone in. Shane watches him do it, loving this man more and more every minute. The stretch of his muscles is also really hot, and Shane watches it closely, thinking dreamily about how he wants to spend the rest of his life with him.

He swallows hard when Ilya comes back face-to-face with him. Then Ilya touches his cheek, his freckles, and he leans fully into the small caress.

“Okay?” It sounds more like okei. It’s so cute the way Ilya says it.

“Okay,” Shane repeats, echoing his accent. 

Ilya leans down to drop kisses over Shane’s chin, cheek, and eyebrow in quick succession. “Now can we fucking sleep?”

Shane knows they should. Today has been so long, and his head hurts and Ilya was icing his back a while ago, but they see each other so rarely. 

It’s nice to actually sleep together, but… it’s just that he misses Ilya all the fucking time. He doesn’t want to waste this.

Staring at Ilya’s mouth, he rubs one of his palms over his boyfriend’s arm, the way Ilya does to him. Touching him just to touch. “We can fuck or we can sleep, but I don’t think I can do both yet. Jeez, Ilya, give me time to practice first—”

“You are horrible,” Ilya complains, rolling them onto their sides so he can kiss Shane within an inch of his life.

“Not all of us are naturals like Ilya fuckin’ Rozanov—” Shane gasps out, grinning.

“I didn’t fuck you well enough,” Ilya decides, pinning him again. In the low light, he’s glowing, shining golden with sweat and joy. “You are still being smart-ass. I need to fix this.”

“Well hurry up then—ah!”

Chapter End Notes

to no one's shock, this will probably be more than 3 chapters lmao 🤡 I'm probably going to speed up adding the tenants bc we've got a few more coming! and then I have to figure out how I'm going to finish it lmao

anywayyyy see you on the flip side!

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

oops writer's block got me

thank you for all the lovely comments you guys have left, I appreciate it very very much!! I love going back to reread them, which helped a lot when I was finishing up this chapter <3

slight warning to harm to animals, but it's one line at the end and not graphic

дорогой / dorogoy = darling
маленькая рыбка / маленькая рыбка = little fish
(pls lmk if this is wrong thank you!)

The Orlovs are nice people who chit-chat with him in the hallway when Shane makes it back to Montreal nearly a week later. (Thank god the season is almost over. Just a few more weeks, and then Shane can be with Ilya almost non-stop for as long as they can get away with.)

He’s surprised, when he meets them, to find that they kind of look like him. As in, they're Asian too. 

Shane is so used to being one of, if not the only non-white guy in a room that he’s kind of numb to it by now, but… it’s nice to see similar features on their faces to the ones he recognizes from his own. 

They look a little surprised to see him, too, though he imagines that’s more because he’s a celebrity. Katia told him that seeing his name on the paperwork, and actually meeting him were two very different things.

Once they’ve all introduced themselves—formal handshakes with them both, and a little bit of awkward silence that he tries to push past—he asks how things are coming along.

Mikhail has a lot of questions about what they can do with the walls. Shane really doesn’t care if they want to hang up posters for the kids, or whatever, or even paint the second room something other than bland white. 

He figures that if he lets his tenants have more wiggle room, but in a way he can control, then he can make them happy and keep any potential damage to a minimum. 

“If that’s something you’re interested in, I can get some painters in here,” Shane says, already pulling up some local contacts he knows. “It won’t be a problem.”

Mikhail and Yuliana share a look that he doesn’t catch, both wondering where this guy even came from. 

“Ah, no. That’s fine. We can do it,” Yuliana says stiltedly. 

Shane frowns at them. “No, it’s okay. You guys have little kids, it’d be less stress if they’re not around the paint. Not that I think they’d make a mess, but that way you know neither of them will accidentally ingest anything bad… plus these guys I know, they can do it really quickly. It’s no trouble.”

Unbeknownst to Shane, both Lyudmila and Katia have already come by to welcome to Orlovs, and warn them that yes, this Canadian guy is painfully earnest and means every offer of help he gives.

“Okay,” Mikhail says eventually, his accent not quite like Ilya’s. Shane can’t put a finger on how, not in the moment. (Later, Sveltana will say he probably sounds more country, while Ilya is a city boy through and through.)

“Alright, awesome. We can get it set up whenever you’d like. What color are you thinking?”

This is how Shane Hollander ends up standing in a nursery a week later, no longer checking that the painting was done well and that the Orlovs are satisfied. Instead, he's listening to Andrei tell him about every single toy that he has. Andrei speaks in a babble of Russian and English, which is great, because it’s all words Shane knows. He can’t wait to tell Ilya that he recognizes everything the kid says, like how his dolls fight a lot and his sister smells bad.

When he gets bored of that, Andrei sits next to Shane and starts banging two of his toy cars together. Yuliana, across from them with Inessa in her arms, just smiles indulgently at him.

Shane watches him too, feeling awkward again. 

He’s started talking more with Katia, who’s lived all over the east coast in the states and has great food recommendations for whatever city he’s in. And of course Lyudmila never leaves him be, sometimes even calling him right after games to tell him he needs to come by again, so they can watch her old tapes and he can learn how to play even better. 

But he doesn’t know Mikhail or Yuliana at all, and they’re a bit more closed off to him than the other two were at first. 

Maybe it’s a Russian thing. Ilya was like that too, a bit. Sure, he was always ready to tease, but it only took Shane, what, seven years to get Ilya to open up to him emotionally?

He figures all he can do is his best. That’s not too hard, right? Glancing at the cute little clock they’ve put up, he tries not to think again about all those posts he read. Is it okay that he’s here alone with his female tenant and her children? Will Mikhail be upset, even though he’s the one who agreed for Shane to come by now when he’s still at the store? Should he just leave?

Before the silence can go on too long or Shane can make a decision, Yuliana delicately clears her throat. Shane turns his head towards her quickly.

“So, Misha says you are hockey player?”

“Yeah, I play for the Voyageurs,” he replies. 

Yuliana blinks at him, then says, “Honestly, I don’t know hockey. Misha is obsessed, but I am not. Are Voyageurs… good?”

Shane decides not to say that he’s won three cups, because that’s a little too much like bragging, and he’d rather not annoy his new tenants when they’ve just moved in. 

“Yeah, I think so.” Grinning a little, he adds, “Hey, don’t tell Lyudmila you don’t know hockey, or she’ll force you to come and watch it every night.”

She asks what time games are on, then considers out loud, “I could send Andriusha and Misha there. They will enjoy, and I will too. Inusha and I will have peace and quiet.”

The little baby Inessa reacts, maybe to the sound of her mother’s voice or to her name. Yuliana reaches down to caress her face, whispering in Russian to her, and Shane watches, a curious ache twinging in his chest. 

Inessa is so little, like a doll. She has a shock of dark hair and a few moles on her small face. Like Hayden’s son Arthur, she doesn’t make a lot of noise except when she cries, and sometimes she blinks around like she’s really seeing things. 

Looking at her, he can’t help but think that she looks like… well, like what his and Ilya’s baby would look like, if they could have one. 

They’ve never talked about kids. Shane’s never really let himself think about it, except in strictly heterosexual terms, which is well behind him by now. Does Ilya want kids? Would he want to have them with Shane?

Forcing himself back to the moment, Shane thinks about what she’s said, and guesses, “They watch hockey, you two have nap time?” 

“Yes,” she sighs, full of relief at even just the thought. “Nap time.”

Thinking about babies with Ilya is a lot. Way too much to deal with, considering how little time they have together right now. Maybe they can discuss it when there’s more than a single night between roadies to do it in. So, needing a distraction, Shane throws himself in the opposite direction.

Ilya squints suspiciously at the bottle of moisturizer, trying to read all of the ingredients. He does this every time, because he says it smells weird. But he likes it on Shane, to the point he’s joked about licking it off, and sometimes agrees to putting some on. What a weirdo, Shane thinks affectionately.

“Did you ever meet Oleg Li?” Shane asks from the bed, scrolling his phone.

“Who?”

“He's in the KHL? He's our age, actually. And he's Korean-Russian.”

Ilya hums as he begins to rub the moisturizer cautiously over his face. “Oh, him. Yes, I remember now. We played against each other when we were kids.”

“Cool. He seems pretty good,” Shane says, watching a game play video closely. “Do you think he's really popular there?”

He doesn't notice Ilya moving until he's suddenly in front of him, peering at Shane's phone screen too. “Shane, dorogoy, why are you asking? Do you have a crush? Should I be jealous?”

“What? No, I don’t have a crush, what the hell. I—I just realized I don't know enough about the KHL, I guess. I didn't even know they had an Asian player. Is cool.”

Ilya sighs and flops onto Shane, his body heavy and grounding. He smells fresh like the moisturizer, and Shane loves it, putting his phone down to wrap himself around his boyfriend.

“It is cool,” Ilya starts, petting his hair, “but I think there's something else, yes?”

He says it like it’s a thing. Like it’s something Shane maybe needs to talk about. It’s really not, though—can’t Shane just be interested?

Ducking his head into Ilya’s neck, he says, “Not really. I just got curious, because of my new tenants.”

Ilya hums encouragingly, moulding their bodies together and pressing kisses everywhere. Shane closes his eyes blissfully and keeps talking. 

“They’re Korean-Russian too. Mikhail, he’s the father, he really likes hockey and he was telling me about this Oleg Li guy. I didn’t know there was so much history of East Asian people in Russia, like obviously I know there were wars, but I didn’t pay much attention in World History class. I’ve been doing a lot of research. There’s a few books I wanna read.”

Ilya lets him talk for a while, curled up together in bed, “like two kitties” as he would say. Shane worries about boring Ilya, but he doesn’t look that way at all, following along and asking questions that get him off on a tangent.

Shane doesn’t know (or care) where one of them ends and the other begins. What matters is the warm, solid feeling of Ilya against him, breathing in sync, just listening as Shane relays everything he learned recently. His eyes are so soft, Shane stumbles over his words a few times, needing to kiss him.

Finally, he runs out of things to say. The air is quiet and still for a while, like when they’re on the edge of sleep. They’re on their sides now, and Ilya cups Shane’s neck with reverent hands.

“You are so fucking sexy,” Ilya says, no trace of teasing in his voice. “Such a big brain.”

Heat tingles under Shane’s skin, his heart beating faster. “Stop it.”

“I am serious. I love that you’re a nerd.”

Shane wants to push him, but he also wants to be as close as possible forever. He settles on saying, “I love you too.”

Ilya kisses him, a little more intensely than before. With Shane’s lip caught between his teeth, he asks, “Even more than Lyudmila?”

“What the fuck,” Shane laughs, startled out of the more sensual mood that kiss was putting him into. “What about her?”

“She is new girlfriend, I think. Calls every day, wants to cook for you, take care of you. She doesn’t know you are spoken for already.”

Shane meets Ilya’s eyes. There’s an edge to his words, a crease in between his eyebrows, like he’s not entirely teasing. Like maybe he’s jealous, and trying to hide it.

Where is this coming from? As Ilya’s gaze slides down to where he’s still cupping Shane’s neck, he tries to figure it out.

Yeah, sometimes Lyudmila interrupts them. She gets lonely, he thinks, and probably doesn’t want to call Katia and the Orlovs every time. Most of the time, Shane will wait and call her back later, unless it seems like an emergency. 

But maybe that’s not all of the problem? Ilya doesn’t really care when Shane’s parents interrupt, or Svetlana or their friends. So maybe… Shane thinks back on what he said, and the pout on his face as the silence stretches just a little too long. 

Is it because she can ‘take care’ of him openly? He has to know that as much as Shane likes Lyudmila, of course it’s not like a girlfriend. More like a grandmother, maybe.

Over the past few months, Shane has made it a point to himself to not put anything ahead of Ilya, except for work. His tenants are important and he tries his best to be there and available for them, but Ilya is… everything. Not just his boyfriend, but his best friend, his soulmate even. He comes first. 

Even if that means reassuring him that Shane definitely isn’t interested in an elderly lady who thinks he needs to be taken care of all the time like a child.

Pressing their mouths together, he rubs Ilya’s back and murmurs, “I don’t want a fucking girlfriend, Ilya. I only want you.”

Then he proves it to him.

Later, when they’re truly exhausted and should’ve been asleep hours ago, both on their backs looking up at the dark ceiling, Ilya speaks. “So that is, what, a Russian family with hockey obsessed husband, Russian babushka who feeds you, and the single lady with the hamster? What is her name again?”

“Haven't I told you? It's Katia,” Shane yawns.

Ilya doesn’t reply right away, and when he does, his words are slow. “Katia with a hamster named Cheddar. Huh. Sounds familiar, maybe.”

“It’s possible you've met, I guess? She used to live in Boston. She’s tall, blonde. Really Slavic looking.” 

For a second, Ilya doesn’t say anything. Shane notices when he breathes in a little too sharply and his body tenses, though, disrupting the peaceful and sated mood. Pushing himself to look at Ilya’s face, he almost misses the conflicted expression that gets quickly wiped away.

“Ilya,” Shane starts, half questioningly. Why is he acting weird? 

Ilya shakes his head. “You know, is probably nothing. There are so many Katias in Boston.”

“Yeah, but how many have a spoiled pet hamster named after cheese?” 

Didn’t Ilya say something about that once? What was it… oh, yeah. A girl he’d slept with had one that bit him. 

Avoiding his eyes, Ilya bullshits, “Maybe all of them, we don’t know.”

“Ilya,” Shane says again, because without fail, hearing his own name in Shane’s voice helps soothe his boyfriend. “What’s going on, baby? Talk to me.”

“Nothing is going on, is fine, Shane,” he says, but they both know it’s not true. 

“What, do you think you slept with her or something?”

Ilya briefly gives him a faintly panicked look. Shane doesn’t know why—they’ve talked about it before. Well, maybe not one of his former ‘partners’ potentially living in Shane’s building, but… look, Shane isn’t jealous of all those people. He always knew that Ilya was sleeping with others, so the fact that Shane has met one of them isn’t something he’s going to freak out about. If he can manage to be friends with Svetlana, surely he can deal with whatever his history is with Katia.

Still looking away from him, Ilya says, “Maybe, I don’t know,” like it doesn’t matter. Like he’s brushing it off. His fingers twitch where they’re laying on the sheets.

But Shane knows Ilya by now, or he likes to think so anyway, and he can recognize this for what it is. Taking his jaw in a soft hand, Shane pulls Ilya to look at him, the way he’s done plenty of times. 

“Hey. It’s okay. It doesn’t bother me, and you wanna know why?”

Ilya’s eyes nearly glow from the moonlight coming in through the window. Shane is reminded over and over again how beautiful his boyfriend is, and knows he has to make sure Ilya never questions Shane’s love for him.

He whispers, “Why?”

“Because,” Shane moves his hand to cup Ilya’s neck, proprietary and pressing in just enough to really get his point across, “you’re mine, and I’m yours. Whatever happened in the past, it doesn’t matter anymore. We got our heads out of our asses and we’re together now. You’re not in that apartment with her, you’re here with me. Right where you belong.”

For a moment, Ilya only stares at him, his breathing a little heavy. Then, like a dam has burst, he moves so all of his weight is pressing Shane down into the mattress. “я тебя люблю,” he says, and kisses Shane before he can say it back.

A few days before Shane is able to leave for the cottage—the season is over, and Shane has been feeling a mix of frustration and disappointment that his team didn’t make it farther in the playoffs—he goes back to the apartment building.

First, he makes sure that the spots in Lyudmila’s bathroom are not mold (unfortunately it is; he works with her to bring in a cleaner right away). He also listens, while eating guryev porridge, about her theory that her grandchildren are ‘too Canadian’. The porridge tastes okay, and she says it’s traditional, therefore okay for “big, strong athletes” to eat but he’s sure it’s not within his diet.

Once he escapes, he checks in with Katia, who has Cheddar in her hand when she opens the door. The little hamster stares at Shane, and he doesn’t look evil, but Shane still decides to keep his hands to himself.

“Hello,” she says, sounding pleasantly surprised. Looking at her now, Shane doesn’t really feel jealous. He can compartmentalize: she’s his tenant first, and Ilya’s ex-one night stand second. “What are you doing here?”

“Hey Katia,” he replies, his hands in his pockets awkwardly. He wonders briefly if she would react differently, if she knew they’d likely both slept with Ilya, then pushes that thought down. “I was just checking that the wasp nest you told me about got taken care of.”

“Oh yes, it’s gone. I bought wasp spray just in case, but I have not seen one in days.”

“Awesome, that’s great. Let me know if there’s anything else, okay? I’m going to be out of town for a while but you can still contact me if something comes up.”

She agrees, and before he goes, she takes Cheddar’s little paw and waves it. “Say bye, Cheddy.”

Cheddar squeaks obediently, so Shane—who is very much not an animal person—waves back and says, “Bye, Cheddar. Bye Katia.”

Needing a break from people before he talks to the Orlovs, he double checks that the other apartments are still looking okay. His agent says there’s other possible tenants lined up, so he wants to make sure everything is perfect before he heads out to the cottage.

While he’s upstairs, Ilya texts him, Are you on your way? I miss you

Shane: I miss you too baby. I’ve just got to check on one last tenant and then I’ll head out

Lily: *your cock

Lily: Sorry autocorrect (

Shane smirks and rolls his eyes. Right. Autocorrect. Then, to be an asshole, He misses you too.

Putting his phone away, he heads downstairs and knocks on the Orlovs’ door.

As it happens, only Mikhail is in. At first, he seems a little closed off and says everything is fine, but then admits that the dryer is making a weird noise. He lets Shane come in to listen, and after a few minutes, they agree that they need to bring in someone who knows anything about fixing large machines like this.

They also talk about replacing the batteries in one of the smoke detectors, and the filter in the AC unit. Mikhail says he can do all of these little things, and his stubbornness reminds Shane sharply of Ilya, especially when he was younger. 

“You are busy, I can do this. Don’t want to waste your time.” Mikhail shakes his head in annoyance. 

“I really don’t mind,” he says, but honestly, he doesn’t want to have to drive back to Montreal and interrupt his time with Ilya just to screw in a new lightbulb. Not again, anyway. (Lyudmila even admitted to using that as an excuse to feed him.)

“No, no. You are famous hockey player. I can do this,” he repeats. Then, when Shane is standing in the doorway, Mikhail hesitates and says, “I am fan of you, of course, but favorite is Rozanov. You understand, yes?”

Shane couldn’t suppress his smile even if he wanted to. “He’s great. Definitely the second best in the League right now.”

Pure offense crosses Mikhail’s face. “No, no. First best,” he insists, and for some reason it’s that—the pinched expression—that makes Shane realize…

He could introduce Ilya to these people. 

There’s been a few times where he brought back some of Lyudmila’s leftovers, and of course Ilya has heard all about his tenants and the weird things Shane has accidentally said to them. He’s laughed and analyzed and helped calm him down that none of them hate Shane. But he’s never asked to come back here, and Shane has never offered, even though they’re now publicly friends. 

Swallowing roughly, Shane tells Mikhail, “Maybe I can convince him to visit sometime.”

Mikhail inhales sharply, then nods. “Yes,” he says simply, and not like this is something he wants very badly. “Maybe.”

Shane makes his goodbyes not long after, and steps out of the building, his thoughts racing. 

He could bring Ilya here. Not as his boyfriend, or secret hookup, but as his friend. Would Ilya like his tenants? Is that, like, xenophobic to assume all the Russians in his life (minus Svetlana) would get along? Ilya’s a little jealous of Lyudmila and he probably slept with Katia, but still. Somehow, Shane has ended up with a building full of Russians—which he still doesn’t understand how that happened—and yet he hasn’t introduced his Russian to any of them.

Something like guilt creeps up his throat. He decides then and there that he’ll bring it up at the cottage. He’s not sure how, yet, but he has the drive to Ottawa to figure it out.

Just as he’s about to head back to his car, movement out of the corner of his eye catches his attention. He turns, and meets the gaze of a little cat hiding in the alley between his building and the next. 

It looks like it has dark fur, but also like it’s pretty dirty. When it sees him, it doesn’t move from its spot, but after a moment where they stare at each other, it meows. A croaky little thing that Shane can’t ignore, no matter how much—again—he’s not an animal person. 

With a sigh, Shane cautiously approaches and crouches down an arm’s length away. The cat meows again, and inches forward. Taking that as a sign, he reaches out, palm up.

This is how he ends up petting a gross stray cat. After a few scritches where the cat throws its whole body into Shane’s hand, he uses his other to pull out his phone.

Shane: [photo]

Shane: We have a visitor

Lily: Please bring him to the cottage we will be such good cat parents

Shane: Haha

Lily: And we will name him маленькая рыбка

Shane: Little fish? But it’s a cat

Lily: Yes is perfect

In the end, Shane doesn’t take him home. He doesn’t want a cat, and he also doesn’t really want one hanging around his apartment building. Briefly, he wonders what would happen if Cheddar ever escaped, but surely that hamster likes his expensive cage too much to want to leave, right? 

Despite all that, Shane can feel how skinny the poor cat is, and he wouldn’t feel right not helping it at all, especially when it’s so nice. There’s a corner store not far away, so he gets a cheap can of wet food and turns back around.

He tries to feed the cat away from his building, so he won’t think that it’s a place to hang around. But it’s a lost cause, and that night—after Shane has arrived in Ottawa and lovingly reunited with his boyfriend—Yuliana texts him a photo of Little Fish and says, What is policy on pets?

Chapter End Notes

I imagine this will be about 4 or 5 chapters because there's still one more tenant (or really, a two for one special) I want to introduce, but. we'll see!

also, Oleg Li is a real person. apologies to Mr. Li for featuring you in this fic but when I saw he's the same age as hollanov I had to name drop him

Chapter 4

Chapter Notes

head's up, there's a little angst in this one 👀 it's all canon typical tho! -taps "Light Hearted" tag- we are safe here, friends

A few days later, the Orlovs are the official owners of—and this is truly ridiculous—a Russian Blue named Little Fish. 

(Shane told Yuliana he liked that name after explaining the pet fee, and she agreed it was appropriate. Shane still doesn’t get it, but whatever. Maybe Ilya and Yuliana have some second sense for what animals are supposed to be named.)

Along with Little Fish come several other stray cats, drawn to the condo by the promise of food, attention, and some measure of safety.

Yuliana texts him all the updates. While they don’t adopt any of the other cats, Andrei is obsessed with them and meows at them through the window. He also finds the name Little Fish so silly that he names the other cats in a similar fashion. The black one is Little Dog, and the white one is Little Bear. 

Ilya inspects the pictures she sends with the single-handed focus of a Stanley Cup winner, laying back on Shane’s chest while the phone is two inches from his face. 

“Yes, yes, I like Little Dog. That is definitely malen'kaya sobachka.”

Shane hums, running his hand back and forth over Ilya’s pec soothingly. He likes the feeling of his chest hair tickling his palm, and the way Ilya twitches when Shane brushes over his nipple. 

“How can you tell?” He asks, pressing his cheek to Ilya’s head.

Ilya is in that good mood he always gets when they retreat to the cottage. Pointing to the screen, he says, “Look at this ear, is cut. Looks like puppy ears.”

Shane doesn’t really get it, so he just says, “Okay,” which makes Ilya laugh a little. Then, “What about Little Bear?”

“Little Bear is pregnant,” Ilya declares. 

“What?” That brief itch of baby fever he felt over Inessa strikes again at even just the word. (Not that he wants to be pregnant, of course.) But imagining a bunch of kittens living on the street behind his condo is a much worse thought, and he asks, “How can you tell that?”

“Her stomach. What, you do not want to be cat grandpa?”

“I wouldn’t be a cat grandpa, that’s not my cat. Also no, I don’t really want it to have babies out on the street. Should we tell Yuliana? I’ll pay a shelter to take her.”

“But Andrei will be sad,” Ilya pouts, rolling around to face Shane. “We should adopt medvezhonok. And her babies.”

Shane runs his hand through Ilya’s hair, messing up the curls even further. “We are way too busy to have a cat and her babies as pets.”

“Is not a no.”

But Ilya doesn't say anything else, probably agreeing deep down, and just presses kisses all over Shane's chest. 

Shane's eyes close in bliss. When it's just the two of them like this, he can't help but feel relaxed and loved and just, happy. He loves Ilya so much. 

“Hey,” he starts softly, thumb drawing circles on his boyfriend’s scalp.

“Hmm?” Ilya blinks up at him briefly, more concerned with sucking small hickeys around Shane's pecs.

“Can I ask you something?”

“You are Mr. Questions always, even if I say no you will ask.”

“Okay, I'll just shut up then,” Shane dares, trying to sound sad and failing because he’s smiling too much.

“Nooo, now I'm curious,” Ilya whines. He nips at Shane’s nipple like a puppy.

It doesn't make Shane annoyed or horny like it normally would. He just sighs, his lips curling up, and asks, “Do you ever wish I called you Ilyusha?”

It's been on his mind for a while. His tenants use diminutives all the time, even Katia who grew up here. The Orlovs call each other exclusively Misha and Yulia, to the point Shane sometimes forgets that those aren't their real names. And Ilya always calls Svetlana “Sveta” or “Svetik”—the one time he didn't, they'd been arguing in rapid-fire Russian that Shane couldn't understand. Still, he’d caught that, and Svetlana had looked pissed. 

So he just wonders… is he not doing something that he should be, like, as a boyfriend? Would Ilya like to be called that? Is he used to not having it, that connection, that custom, now that he's been in the West for so long?

He doesn't ask it to upset Ilya. But that's what happens anyway. Ilya blinks up at him for a second, then Shane sees a glassy sheen come over his eyes. His jaw works, and he drops his head so Shane can't see his face anymore, his warm breath blowing over Shane's bare skin.

“Hey,” Shane says again. He moves his hand to cup the back of his head, not holding him down, just showing that he's there. “I-I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't have asked.”

“You are going to be the death of me,” Ilya says thickly. “Fuck.”

He pushes himself up onto his palms and hovers over him, eyes wet. Ilya is always precious to Shane, even when he's being annoying or slamming him into the boards, but in moments like this—when he doesn't hide his feelings, lets Shane really see him—it's impossible to ignore.

“Where did you hear this? Where did you see ‘Ilyusha’?”

“Um…” Does Shane want to admit to the ridiculous amount of research he’s done about this?

Ilya takes his hesitation the wrong way. “Did Sveta tell you?”

Okay, he’s gonna have to. “No, she didn’t. I, um. I guess I realized my tenants all called each other by nicknames, and I know you and Svetlana do too, and I started googling….”

Shane drags his eyes up to meet Ilya’s. He just wants to know if his boyfriend is annoyed or upset or maybe about to tease him. But Ilya’s face is blank. Shane has made it his business to learn his expressions, and he thinks this isn’t a bad one—just overwhelmed, maybe. He shouldn’t have sprung this on him.

“I can just keep calling you baby,” Shane tells him, rubbing his side, wrapping their legs together so he's trapped. “Whatever you want, it’s okay.”

Ilya shakes his head, curls bouncing. “No. No, you can call me Ilyusha. I… I would like that.”

He sounds so shy. A grin stretches on Shane's face. “Yeah?”

“Shut up,” he says, leaning down to press their mouths and bodies together.

Between heated kisses, Shane can't stop talking. “Ilyusha—my Ilyusha—ah, you like that? Oh, fuck. Ilya, baby… god, right there… I love you, ya tebya lyublyu, Ilyusha—”

Shane brings up the apartment building later. After they've fucked again, and Ilya made them a snack his mother used to make him.

Laying on opposite ends of the couch now, Shane fiddles with his tablet and rubs his eyes and bounces Ilya's feet with his own where they're laying toe-to-toe.

Finally, Ilya sighs gustily and drops his phone. “Solnyshko, what is it? Are we about to be murdered?”

Surprised, Shane asks, “What? What are you talking about?”

“That is why you are nervous, yes? There's scary killer in the woods watching us now. He wants ransom or some shit.”

Shane traps Ilya's ankle between his own, scowling. He’s confused, but still says, “We shouldn't have watched that movie.”

Ilya scowls back, jostling his foot to be annoying. “I liked it,” he insists even though they both know he’s still a little freaked out by the woods at night. 

“Then why are you saying that?”

Ilya drops his head back, groaning. “You are thinking very loudly. What is it? Are you okay?”

Oh. A little embarrassed, Shane goes back to looking at his tablet. On the screen, his google search about how to invite your partner to meet your friends (the closest he could find to ‘tenants’) lingers, giving him no good answers. 

“I’m fine,” he says.

“Bullshit.”

“Ilyusha,” Shane doesn’t whine. 

(He's not quite used to the taste of the name on his tongue, but he likes it anyway. And so does Ilya, if they way his eyes soften means anything.)

With a sigh, Ilya gets up and rearranges them so he’s laying on top of Shane, the tablet turned off and forgotten on the coffee table. Like this, Shane can’t ignore him, doesn’t want to.

“Tell me, or else,” Ilya threatens, his hands going to Shane’s sides.

“Fine.” Shutting his eyes, Shane forces himself to say it. The worst Ilya can say is ‘no’, right? “Would you ever want to come back to the apartment building? Uh, and meet some of my tenants?”

Surprise flickers across Ilya’s face. He asks, “Is that what you are worried about?”

“Yes? I mean, yes. I just thought… I don't know.”

Ilya pulls away, sitting on his haunches so he’s no longer hovering over him. 

Shane sits up too, and realizes all at once that his heart is pounding. He’s not sure why he cares so much about this, about Ilya’s answer. It was much more nerve-wracking for Ilya to meet the Pikes and his parents. These are just his tenants, people Shane is friendly with, yes, but not life-changingly so. 

But they’re also a connection Ilya might be missing. A taste of home, especially when Svetlana lives so far away. An opportunity, maybe, for him to feel less like he’s lost everything he knew to be with Shane.

Shane inhales slowly and holds himself very still. 

“You thought what?” Ilya asks.

Shane doesn’t want to say all of that. He doesn’t know where he’d even begin.

“I thought… some of them really like you, you know? Like, Ilya Rozanov the hockey player. And the cats are there.” It doesn’t feel like enough. Ilya’s just staring at him, and it’s making him nervous. He blurts out, “I’ve been eating Russian food without you. I just want you there. I want to eat with you. Does that make sense?”

Ilya doesn't say yes or no right away, the silence oppressive in their living room. Shane scans his face, looking for a sign of what he’s feeling—but all he sees is this look in his eyes that Shane has been noticing more and more over their video calls. Like he’s not all there, like he’s sad. 

But then Ilya blinks hard, glancing away for a second. When he meets Shane’s eyes again, it’s like he’s smothered it. He quirks an eyebrow and jokes, “Ah, I see. You want to show Lyudmila who you belong to, hmm?” 

Shane shakes his head. “No, I'm being serious right now, baby.”

“I am being serious too.”

A pang of annoyance has Shane frowning. “Hey. Really. Are… are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Ilya says at once. But the look is back, and then he’s turning his head down, his hair falling into his face. He moves so he’s sitting flat on his butt, his knees turned away from Shane. 

“Bullshit,” Shane echoes from earlier. He moves closer, clasping their hands together. “What's going on? If you don't want to then you don't have to. I know you have Svetlana already. It's okay, it was just an idea.”

“No, no, is good. It’s a good idea.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Ilya inhales through his nose, squeezing Shane’s fingers. And then he doesn’t say anything.

Anxiety is swimming in Shane’s body, but he ignores it. Clearly something is going on right now, and he doesn’t have the time to freak out. Softening his voice, he says, “Should we do cottage rules?”

Meaning, do we want to be honest with each other?

The answer is always yes. But sometimes it’s hard to remember that.

It takes a moment for Ilya to nod, but when he does, he turns to face Shane again. Now nerves line his face, in a way Shane rarely sees. 

“Am not saying no,” he says carefully. “But there is problem.”

“Okay,” Shane braces. “We can deal with problems. Whatever it is. We can get through anything.”

“You mean that?”

“Of course I do.”

“Okay. Remember you said that, please.” Ilya scratches his nose with his free hand, then meets Shane’s eyes and says, “I want you to meet my team.”

“Oh,” Shane mumbles.

“I know you don’t want to. It’s okay. But I… I am feeling like I want to be honest with them. I want them to know you. As my friend, as my boyfriend, I don’t care. I want you there,” he echoes, almost melancholy. “Do you understand?”

The problem is that Shane's first instinct is to say no. No, he doesn’t want to meet them, and not because he doesn’t understand. Of course he does. It’s why he’s tried so hard to make Hayden and Rose like Ilya. It’s why seeing Ilya with his parents always makes him so happy he doesn’t know what to do with the feeling.

He doesn’t want Ilya to be his secret. He wants to share a life with him, as much as they can anyway. 

“I think it would be good for you,” Ilya continues, voice sympathetic like he knows what’s going on in Shane’s head. “They are nice, and funny. You will like them, and they already like you.”

Shane’s team used to like him, too. 

They don’t know about Ilya beyond their ‘friendship’. But things are different between Shane and his teammates now anyway. Only Hayden and JJ ever bother to remember he’s gay, or that they shouldn’t say shitty things anymore. Some of the others try to be nice, but when most of the room doesn’t care, everyone else follows along eventually. 

Shane’s been ignoring it, mostly. Things are fine. He’s happy with Ilya. He’s got so much on his plate, there’s no space to worry about his teammates like that. 

But what if that happens to Ilya? He can’t move again, can’t uproot his life a third time. Where would he go? And would it mess up the process of getting him Canadian citizenship? Sure, he’s better at controlling the room than Shane is, but what if Ottawa is like Montreal, and the higher ups won’t intervene? What if—

“Is fine, Shane,” Ilya says, breaking him out of his thoughts. He’s suddenly holding Shane’s face in his free hand, thumb caressing over the plumpest part of his cheek. “If you are not ready, is fine. I will meet your tenants.”

He says it like nothing’s wrong. But Shane knows this man inside and out. He knows when he’s sad.

A few years ago Shane was so ready to be publicly friends with Ilya. He wanted everyone to know that the version the world knew wasn’t the truth. But now he can barely even admit to Lyudmila or the other coaches at camp how close they are. It was scary telling Svetlana, Rose, and Hayden and Jackie. But they got through it, didn’t they? 

He swallows. Licks his bottom lip. Asks, “You really want me to meet them?”

Ilya hesitates, long enough that Shane thinks he won’t answer. Closing his eyes, he whispers, “Sometimes I think I need it, Shane.”

“Okay,” Shane says, trying to make himself sound absolutely sure. “Okay. I'll meet them.”

“Thank you,” Ilya says with so much emotion that it’s alarming. He gently pinches Shane’s cheek, pulling him into a kiss that leaves them both breathless.

When they pull away, Ilya presses their foreheads together, only moving to lay kisses all over Shane’s neck before returning.

“Will you lay on me again?” Shane asks after a few minutes of quiet. His head is spinning. Something is going on, and it doesn’t feel like it ended with Shane agreeing to meet the Centaurs. He just—he needs a second to think, and it’s always easier when Ilya is squishing him.

“Of course, moya lyubov,” Ilya murmurs, pushing him back down into the cushions. They stay there for a long while.

Their time in the cottage is perfect, but it’s not enough. It never is.

Leaving feels like torture even if they plan on seeing each other again soon to do their camps. A few weeks is nothing when they used to go much longer between meeting. If he could get away with it, Shane would just never leave—but he has to return to Montreal for some work Mom set up for him, and Ilya promised to visit Svetlana in Boston since he’s not going back to Russia. 

It won't be too long, Shane tells himself as he drives away, sniffling now that Ilya can’t see him do it. This is nothing.

He spends the two hours thinking about Ilya, which is nothing new, but specifically about what happened that night. His mind shies away from the meeting with the Centaurs, so instead he wonders how he can bring up the idea of a therapist without upsetting his boyfriend.

Once he’s back in the city, Shane works nonstop for days, going from photo shoots to meetings to the gym. It’s hard for him to focus on anything other than the conversation he and Ilya had, but he forces himself to lock in. They’ll have time to talk about it again. 

Mom asks him what’s wrong several times, but eventually Shane is able to push through the weird funk enough that she accepts his “I’m fine, Mom” answers.

He only takes a break to call Ilya at night, and to welcome his newest tenants. 

They’re two older women, not quite as old as Lyudmila though he doesn’t dare ask for their actual ages. One is named Kristina, a taller white woman with dark hair, while the other is Gabrielle, a shorter mixed woman with light brown skin and the same dark hair. 

He meets them in person at a little cafe not too far from the apartment building. Kristina shakes his hand, and when she introduces herself, Shane swears he hears a Slavic accent lingering in her vowels. 

Or maybe he’s just going crazy. Even the cat is Russian, now. He’s probably being pranked, or hearing things. Right?

At least Gabrielle, after she’s introduced herself as well, asks, “Parlez-vous Français?” 

“Oui,” Shane smiles, taking his seat across from them.

They chitchat in Québécois for a few minutes before getting down to business. Shane likes them right away—the way they talk, it’s clear they’re close and have been for a long time, but they don’t forget to include him. He finds out that they’re moving from a little town outside Alberta, since Gabrielle got a job at one of the high schools here in Montreal. 

“We saw your building and the reviews and applied right away,” Kristina says, playing with her coffee cup. “We’re looking at one of the single rooms upstairs.”

“Oh, alright,” Shane says, a little surprised. He’d expected they’d want the other, larger downstairs apartment. “No problem—”

“We’re cousins,” Gabrielle adds, a little rushed. “We grew up close, you know?”

“Uh, yeah, sure. It’s no problem,” he repeats, because as long as they aren’t trashing the place or committing crimes or whatever, he really doesn’t care about personal details. They seem nice, and they have a good renting history. That’s all that matters to him.

She and Kristina share a look he can’t read. Confusion rises in him, but then they look away and both smile at him like normal.

“Anyway. Let’s go over the contract,” Shane replies, deciding to just move on. He thinks it’s a little weird that they want to share a room (or have one person sleep in the living room? Maybe they have a pull out mattress?), sure, but he’s not close with any of his cousins so what does he know?

He’s there when they move in, though he can’t stay long. Meetings with the owners of Voyageurs aren’t something he says no to.

While he’s there, Shane makes sure that the issue with the Orlovs’ dryer has been fixed. Andrei excitedly shows off Little Fish, who meows happily at Shane, looking much cleaner and happier than he did last time they saw each other. 

“Very cute,” Shane tells him in Russian, which makes Andrei beam up at him with a toothy smile. 

Upstairs, he means to check that the mold is out of Lyudmila’s apartment, but instead he finds her chatting with Kristina, who’s wearing a shirt for something called the Capital Subaru Huffin’ Puffin Marathon. There’s already a steamy tupperware of something in Kristina’s hands. 

“Shane!” Lyudmila crows when she sees him. “Come, come. I have ovojnoe ragu for you. Come.”

“I can’t stay, Lyudmila,” he tries.

But she shakes her head, and her flame-covered cane, at him. “Pah, of course you can!”

“I really can’t,” he stresses. “I just wanted to check on the mold, and make sure Kristina and Gabrielle were getting in okay.”

“We’re fine!” Kristina says happily, the lid to her tupperware open and her nose halfway inside. “You didn’t say you had Russian tenants, Mr. Hollander. I used to have this all the time as a child.”

Gabrielle pokes her head out of the door, smiling at Kristina and Shane. There’s a streak of paint on her cheek. “Krissy, he said to call him Shane. But I hope you know you’ve made her real happy, Mr. Hollander.”

Kristina scoffs at that, grinning. She has what Ilya would call a sharky smile, but Shane likes it. 

“Oh, handsome young man like this, he is too casual,” Lyudmila scolds, her eyes bright. “And now he is saying he will not eat with me.”

“How awful!” Gabrielle agrees, stepping out. She goes to reach for Kristina before pulling her hand away, glancing between Lyudmila and Shane. “Mr. Hollander, how can you say no to a face like that?”

“Yes, exactly! Gabriella, you come too. You like beef?” 

Shane is being attacked on all sides, but it’s okay. All he can think is that Ilya will fit right in here. (Maybe he’ll feel the same when he meets the Centaurs. Maybe.)

Chapter End Notes

as I was writing this chapter, I've also been brainstorming a ww2 au which. I have done so much research for. going from that fic to this one where I said to myself "it's just gonna be a one shot who cares if it's accurate" is a pain 🥲 but it's too late to make this realistic lmao. so I have continued to do no research. I know it's terrible of me but after almost 20k we're just stuck with this kdjshfkdjsah 🤡

ALSO I know I talk about how many chapters there are going to be at the end of every chapter. the truth is I don't know :wheeze: these were going to be the last of my OCs but my lovely HSB friends had great ideas so. I'm just going to fill the last two apartments and be done with it. also there's a centaurs plotline now. idk -throws up my hands-

Chapter 5

Chapter Notes

life has once again been crazy. just had surgery, let me encourage everyone to brush their teeth whenever you can 🙏

anyway! as always thank you thank you thank you for your kind comments, you guys are absolutely wonderful. I have continued to do no research. I hope you enjoy anyway <3

mishka = mишка = little bear

Mr. Hollander,

I'm just reaching out to let you know we have more applications to go through for the remaining two apartments. Let me know when you're available.

Shane types a response back quickly, letting his agent know it will have to be after camps at least. But he trusts his judgement, so if any applicant stands out, ask about scheduling an appointment.

“Shaaaane,” Ilya complains next to him. “You are working. We agreed no work today.”

“Sorry Ilyusha, I just need to send this off….” Once he's sure it's gone through, he shuts his phone off and puts it in his pocket. For a second, he goes to reach for Ilya's hand before remembering where they are—standing outside the apartment building. By the front door together, for the first time. In public. He curls his hand into a loose fist and doesn't touch his boyfriend.

Ilya raises an eyebrow at him, though Shane isn't sure if it's because of what he just did—of course he noticed—or the texting.

“It was my agent, he was saying there's people for the last two apartments—actually, it doesn't matter. It's done, I'm done. Are you ready?”

Wearing expensive Ray-Bans, nice pants, and a slutty tank under a Hawaiian shirt, Ilya looks kind of silly and extremely sexy at the same time. His arms look fucking huge. A large part of Shane wants to drag him upstairs to their ‘love nest’ (Ilya's words; it's better than ‘sex dungeon’, he guesses) and forget everything else. 

“Of course I'm ready. Are you ready?”

No. “Yes. Come on.” 

Without reaching for him, though he still really wants to, Shane pushes forward into the building.

Shane broached the idea with Lyudmila first. Over the phone, while he was hiding in a dressing room, he'd asked her, “Hey, so you know Ilya R—?”

“Ilya Rozanov? Yes yes I know him.” Of course she does, and he knew that, considering they'd spoken about him before. But then she had to add, “Of course I know best hockey player.”

He couldn't help but correct, “Second best—”

“Aht, I won't hear this.” Her tone was one of pure chastisement, like he should know better. Then she took a breath like she was going to go off on a rant about it, so Shane quickly intervened.

“Okay, well, anyway… I was thinking I'd invite him over sometime? To hang out?” Does that sound too suspicious? He wondered. Too gay? “And I thought maybe, if you're willing, you could—”

“Yes, I will feed best hockey player,” Lyudmila said, somehow reading his mind. There was a clatter on the other side like she was already heading to her kitchen. “When is he coming? How long can I prepare? What does he like?”

So, yeah, Lyudmila was easy. And telling the Orlovs was too—Shane stopped by and they chatted in the hallway for a few minutes before he brought it up. At even just the idea of Ilya visiting, Mikhail nodded fast and said something to Yuliana in quick Russian that Shane didn't catch. He shook Shane's hand several times without speaking, and Shane couldn't help but smile. 

When it was clear Mikhail was speechless with joy, Yuliana told Shane, “Yes, is fine, completely fine,” and Andrei said, “Kapitan? Kapitan coming?” and Inessa cooed happily, arms waving. 

“Inushka agrees,” Mikhail finally said, taking the baby into his arms and kissing her fingers. “Good girl. She is Rozanov fan already.”

Katia was a little more difficult. Shane wasn't going to make any of his tenants meet Ilya if they weren't interested, so if she was busy or felt it would be awkward, he was already planning to back off. Would it be weird for her to meet a guy she'd slept with once? He knows he's glad not to see any of the women—or the two other guys—he'd had one night stands with.

But Katia only shrugged when he told her about Ilya's visit. “Okay,” she said. “No problem. He is nice.”

“Oh, you've met?” Shane asked awkwardly. He didn’t know if it was better to lie like this, pretend he had no idea they’d maybe probably slept together, or bring it up. Well, no. It was definitely better to lie. It just felt weird.

She didn't seem to notice, speaking casually, “Yes, years ago now. He probably doesn't remember me.”

He does, Shane thought. “Alright, cool. Lyudmila said she was going to cook for him, and you know what she's like… I'm sure she wouldn't mind if you wanted to come eat, too. The Orlovs will be there.”

“I'll have to check my schedule,” she said, and that was that. 

Shane wasn't sure if he should be glad there was a chance she would say no—he didn't know how he felt, really—but a few days later, she texted him that she would come. 

Lastly was the new tenants. Shane still felt a little uncomfortable going into the apartments where only women lived, recalling all of the creepy stories he read. And though he'd only just met Kristina and Gabrielle, and he struggled to read them, sometimes he was pretty sure they were uncomfortable around him themselves.

(“You can't all be uncomfortable,” Rose said when he told her about his theory over a video call. She was wearing a face mask and sipping wine, her hair pushed back with a fluffy hairband thing. 

“I know,” Shane drew out in complaint, slumping on his couch until his ass was almost hanging off. He was thinking: but what am I supposed to do? I can’t not talk to them. He’s not good at making people feel comfortable around him—especially normal people, as opposed to hockey players, who he could at least find some common ground with.

“No, really,” she leaned forward and her face got big on his phone screen. Like this, he could see up her nose. “If you're all twitchy and nervous, and so are they, then who's going to fly the plane?”

“Rose.”

As she laughed at him, he couldn’t help but think that sometimes, she reminded him far too much of Ilya.)

So Shane knocked, and told himself he'd stay out in the hallway. But once Gabrielle opened the door, she offered for him to come inside, and he didn't want to be rude by saying no.

Kristina was in the kitchen and waved when she saw him, quickly putting down the dish she was washing. He wasn't sure if he was imagining the concern in her voice when she asked, “What's up?” 

“Hey, it's nothing serious,” he said directly. “I won't bother you guys for too long. Just wanted to let you know one of my friends from work is going to be visiting in a few days. If you want to meet him, Lyudmila is making this big dinner… but it's totally fine if you don't. It just might get a little loud, so I wanted to warn you about that too.”

“A friend from work,” Gabrielle repeated, sounding a little amused. “A hockey player?”

“Uh, yeah. You know Ilya Rozanov?”

“The Russian Menace,” Kristina said in answer. She crossed her arms.

“He's a really nice guy, actually,” Shane defended, though he tried not to let it show in his voice. He wasn't sure how successful he was. 

“We'll think about it,” Gabrielle said, meeting Kristina's eyes. To him, it sounded like, We're not interested but what did he know? “While you're here, Mr. Hollander, can you check the shower? It's leaking.”

He agreed, and followed her to the bathroom. On the way, he saw lots of pictures of the two women, but they didn't pause to look at them. Once Shane saw the leak, he tried to tighten the gears, but that did nothing. 

He ended up calling for someone with more knowledge on, like, anything plumbing-wise to come and fix it. He left some time later, and they never did answer him—so he figured they definitely weren't interested. No problem. Probably not hockey people.

Shane shows Ilya around even though he's been here plenty of times before. It's kind of depressing how much this place means to them, but Ilya has never really seen the front of the building. Only the back stairwell. 

“Here's the lobby. Um, obviously. On this side, the apartment is empty, but the Orlovs live in that one. Do you remember I told you about Mikhail? He's really excited to meet you. He's the one who gave me the idea to have you come by… anyway, before we go upstairs, what do you think about this little meeting area? I had these arches specially built in, they're meant to bring a ‘friendly and inviting vibe’. That's what the builder guys said. I just think they look good, I don't know about the vibe. Plus the plants. I don't know anything about plants but Mom knows this florist, and she suggested this. I kind of thought maybe I should get fake plants, like what if one of the tenants is allergic or something? But I'm happy with these, they’re kind of nice, right? What do you think?”

Ilya looks terribly amused and fond as he listens to Shane ramble on. 

“Hmm, the arches are okay. Yes, pretty. But the plants are ugly. You should replace them.”

By the tone of his voice, Shane knows he's just being annoying. Part of him wants to smack Ilya's shoulder, but he's halfway convinced that if he touches Ilya at all right now then everyone will know and give him a wide berth the way Comeau and Drapeau do when they decide to acknowledge Shane is gay. Or rather, when Shane does something to remind them.

Instead, he leans back against the wall. Ilya’s not close enough for him to be really boxed in, but he can pretend. Biting his lip, he asks, “Oh yeah? With what?”

“Lillies,” Ilya sniffs.

Before Shane can make his own smartass reply, the door to the Orlovs’ apartment opens. They both turn at the sound and find little Andrei there, staring up at Ilya with wide eyes.

“Kapitan,” he gasps. With wide eyes and a tiny little Boston 81 jersey on, he looks adorable. “Kapitan is here!”

Shane steps in quickly. “Ilya, this is Andrei. Andrei, mishka, where are your parents?”

“Papa is hiding,” Andrei says in the embarrassingly direct way kids always do. “Mama is coming. Are you really Kapitan?”

Ilya leaves Shane's side in the little meeting area to go to Andrei. Crouching down, he still looks beautiful and big, but in this light he looks like…. Well, he looks like the future. This is how he'll treat their kids, if they have any. They still haven't talked about that. 

“Yes, I’m really Kapitan,” he smiles. Then, in Russian that Shane can actually understand, he continues, “Shanya says you’re my biggest fan.”

Which is not true at all, but Andrei is pleased to hear it nonetheless. A little squeak slips out of his mouth, and he denies, “Nyet, Papa is!”

“But you have my jersey,” Ilya says dramatically, pinching the hem between two fingers and tugging slightly. “I’m honored!”

Andrei giggles shyly, face going red. Shane watches with a warm fondness filling his chest as Ilya interacts with him, praising his loyalty and proclaiming them new friends. Luckily, Yuliana comes to save the day for poor little Andrei after a minute or so. She's dressed in a somewhat plain but obviously well-taken-care-of dress and her hair is up in a stylish braid. When she sees Ilya, she too goes a little pink in the face, but says, “Ah, welcome, Mr. Rozanov. I am Yuliana Orlova.”

Standing, Ilya reaches out a hand to shake hers. “It’s very nice to meet you. Shane has said many nice things.”

Yuliana bows her head slightly. “You’re too kind, Mr. Rozanov.”

Ilya says, “Call me Ilya,” and Yuliana says, “Oh, I cannot—” and Ilya says, “Is okay, I’m fine with it,” and Yuliana looks so confused and unsure that Shane has to step in before they go back and forth all night. 

“You look nice, Yuliana,” he offers her a smile. She’s so nervous she mumbles her thanks in Russian, so he tries to make his tone lighter when he asks, “Is Mikhail freaking out?”

An amused and weary look crosses her face. “He is getting bread ready. Says we cannot be bad host to Ilya Rozanov.”

Ilya is the one to go a little pink now, for all he says that Russians never ever blush. “Ah, really, you don’t need to. I’m fine. We will eat in a minute—”

“I couldn’t stop him,” she says, shaking her head.

“Mama,” Andrei whines then, interrupting the conversation. “I’m hungry.”

There’s still some time before Lyudmila will be ready, plus Shane had suggested to Ilya earlier that maybe he should meet Mikhail before, for the younger man’s sake. So with a shared look, the three adults agree to go inside the Orlovs’ apartment before heading upstairs. Once they’re through the door, it smells delightfully like bread, though Shane tries to ignore that. He’s already going to be breaking his diet tonight, and he wants to limit it as much as possible.

Mikhail is standing in the kitchen with baby Inessa in his arms, fussing over the rolls. When they step inside, he goes tense and practically shuts down, staring at Ilya like he’s seeing an angel in person.

“You’re really here,” he says with a flat tone.

“Let me take Inushka.” Yuliana slips to his side to grab their daughter before he can drop her in his shock.

Taking a breath, Shane says in Russian, “Ilyusha, this is Mikhail Orlov. Mikhail, this is Ilya Rozanov.”

“Hello,” Ilya waves. He gives Shane an encouraging look that tells him he didn’t completely butcher their language… well, probably. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Mikhail inhales, coming closer so they can shake hands. Ilya accepts, seeming very amused, and follows Mikhail into the kitchen where they all sit down for a minute to eat some bread. Shane tries to say no, but everyone—including Inessa—stare at him until he agrees to eat a little bit of Ilya’s. 

Instead of petting him or kissing him like Ilya normally would, he just grins and slaps Shane’s thigh a couple of times. 

“This is perfect,” he hums, taking a bite off the roll. Then he turns to Mikhail, saying, “Shanya and Andruisha told me you are my biggest fan.”

Mikhail seems caught out for a second. Then his jaw sets and he says, “I have been a fan since 2006,” and launches into what Shane can only assume is some really good hockey talk. Unfortunately, Mikhail’s accent and the speed at which he talks are impossible for him to understand. 

Yuliana, knowing little about hockey, and Andrei, being little himself, don’t add much to the conversation, but they can at least follow it along. Shane tries, sort of, but mostly he watches Ilya. His boyfriend is clearly in his element, listing off names and years with enthusiasm, waving his hands around. At one point, he gasps and says, “Yes, that was one of my favorites, you were there?”

Absolutely beside himself, Mikhail talks more—and more animatedly—than Shane has ever seen before. They only pause talking when Inessa lets out a cry, both men turning their attention to the baby. Obviously she isn't that impressed with Ilya, though she does stare at him and clutch his finger in hers when the Orlovs happily allow Ilya to greet her. 

Shane chews on his lip, watching and once again having thoughts that Rose has gleefully described as baby fever.

They stay in the Orlovs’ apartment for a little while before eventually, Lyudmila calls Shane asking where they are. All six of them are going to go upstairs together, but Inessa needs her diaper changed at the last second, so Shane and Ilya go by themselves.

Once they get to the steps, an evil urge fills Shane. He glances at Ilya, who's looking back with the same gleam in his eye. Before either of them can go racing up the steps, Shane tugs lightly on Ilya’s arm.

Under his breath, he asks, “Doing okay? Not too much?”

“Ah, no,” Ilya replies, just as quietly. “Is nice to talk to fans, always.”

Nodding, Shane lets it go. They walk up the stairs like polite, well-trained grown adults, and on the way, Shane points out each door upstairs. There’s Katia, who needs no explanation, and that one belongs to Kristina and Gabrielle. This one is Lyudmila’s, and it opens just as they approach it.

Lyudmila is in fine form today, also dressed very nicely. Her sweet babushka clothes clash horribly with her flaming cane, which Ilya sees at once and snorts at. In turn, Lyudmila looks him up and down with a deeply critical eye. Ilya sets his feet apart and lets her do it.

Shane shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if they don’t get along. Take Ilya upstairs to their place? Just leave? But that would be rude, after he asked her to cook all this food. Just as he’s about to open his mouth, Lyudmila beats him to it.

Slowly, consideringly, she says, “I have watched you play since you were a boy. You are too good for the Centaurs.”

Smirking, he replies, “I was too good for Boston. I think I am just right for the Centaurs.”

She hums. “I tell Shane you are the best anyway. I'm very proud to have such a handsome young man representing Russians.”

Ilya only says, “Oh,” to that, his voice so soft and embarrassed that Shane falls in love with him all over again. How can someone so cocky be so bad at receiving compliments?

Stepping forward, Lyudmila grabs Ilya wherever she can reach him—his forearm—and starts pulling him into her apartment, speaking the whole time, “But you are too skinny. Come, come. Shane says you like rassolnik. I have rassolnik. You will like. Oh, hello Shane.”

“Hah, hi Lyudmila. Can you give us just a second? We’ll be right in.”

Lyudmila hates this and complains at him, but does allow it, very grudgingly. Which is fine—all Shane needs is a moment. 

Catching Ilya’s shellshocked expression, Shane smiles softly at him and whispers, “You still jealous?”

The shock clears a little. “I am still your favorite girlfriend, yes?”

“Yes, Ilyusha. Always. Come on, let's go in before she gets actually angry.”

Once they get inside, Lyudmila commandeers Ilya to the kitchen and refuses to let him go. They talk in Russian too, a comfortable back and forth about food that Shane catches maybe half of. Ilya flirts with her relentlessly, which makes Lyudmila smack him and threaten to starve him. “You should be nice boy like Shane,” she cusses, and Ilya laughs loudly.

Shane’s nerves haven’t let him go, but when he thinks back to how upset Ilya was back at the cottage, how big he’s smiling now, he knows this was a good idea. Especially when the Orlovs make it up, and Ilya has people of all ages to tease.

Dinner is ready soon enough. Katia appears like she’s timed it perfectly, knocking on Lyudmila’s open door and presenting a nice bottle of vodka with her apologies for being late. She greets Shane and the Orlovs normally, pinches Andrei’s cheek, and survives Lyudmila’s scolding. 

With Ilya, Shane expects a weird energy or for one of them to say something, maybe? But they only nod at each other. “Good to see you,” she says, greeting him politely. “Funny we both ended up here.”

“We are Canadians now,” he agrees with a fake shudder that makes her laugh. Once she’s moved on, Ilya discretely bumps his foot into Shane’s, a silent reminder that they’re in this together. Shane bites down on his smile and bumps back.

Kristina and Gabrielle are the last to arrive, past what everyone in his life tells him is fashionably late. He’s not sure that they’ve met everyone, so he offers to make introductions, which they accept gratefully. Kristina has brought some kind of dessert that makes Andrei clap his hands in joy, and Shane wonders if it’s an apology of their own for not wanting to come. 

Still, they’ve made it. 

As the only people who don’t know, or aren’t fans of, Ilya, they speak to him so normally that it’s almost funny after all the others. Gabrielle asks about Ottawa, and Kristina talks about her last marathon. Eventually, separate conversations pop up around the table—Ilya chats mostly with Kristina, Mikhail and Yuliana, while Katia and Shane complain about some local politician together. 

It’s… honestly a really nice dinner. Shane eats what he can, which garners him proud looks from his boyfriend, but everyone else feasts like they haven’t eaten in days. Even Inessa likes the sips of soup they give her, making pleased noises. Lyudmila presides proudly over the table, insisting everyone come back any time they like.

There’s only one hiccup the whole night. 

At some point, Kristina and Gabrielle both stand up to get more food on their plates. They’re far enough away that Ilya takes his chance and leans into Shane’s side, whispering, “They are the cousins?”

Shane whispers back, “Yeah, why?”

He shakes his head. “No. They are fucking.”

Shane can’t hide his reaction. He pulls back, making a face, and asks a little too loud, “What?”

Before Ilya can even begin to explain where the hell he got that idea, Katia on Shane’s other side leans in too. Laughing a little, she whispers, “Shane, they fuck every night, hello? You did not know?”

Shane looks between Katia, extremely amused, and Ilya, the very picture of the cat who got the cream aka new gossip, and feels abruptly cornered. And confused. Okay, yeah, he thought Kristina and Gabrielle sharing a room was a little odd but why would they lie about being cousins?

Then he takes in what else Katia said, and feels a flush of mortification. “I thought I put sound proofing in here,” he mumbles, hoping like hell that no one has heard him and Ilya on the nights Shane’s stayed and video called with him. 

Katia shrugs. “Yes, probably. But I am their neighbor and our rooms share a wall.”

“Oh god,” Shane says while Ilya laughs.

“It’s fine, I like lesbians.”

Shane makes a noise of pure confusion. Ilya makes a noise like a dying whale.

Then Katia side eyes them and says, “And gays too, of course,” so casual like it doesn’t send ice through Shane’s veins.

Stiffly, he says, “Okay. Me too. They’re fine.”

“Great,” says Katia.

“Yep,” says Shane.

Like before with Ilya and Yuliana, now it’s Ilya’s turn to interrupt before they get stuck on this awkward path all night. Patting Shane’s thigh, a little too high up considering they’re surrounded by people, Ilya Rozanov, he agrees, “Yes, yes, gays are cool. Especially super gays.”

“Shut up, Ilya,” he snaps on instinct. 

Katia laughs and downs some vodka, winking at Shane obnoxiously. 

(Across the kitchen, Kristina and Gabrielle—who missed the first part of the conversation, thankfully—give each other discrete glances. Maybe this hockey boy is really as nice as all the other tenants say he is.)

Other than that, the night goes so well that Ilya already agrees to come back and meet everyone again, schedules allowing. It's painful having to pretend to only be Ilya’s friend, to keep his hands to himself when all he wants is to touch Ilya, kiss him, show him off. But it's worth it to see how much these people like him, and how much Ilya likes them back. In fact, everyone seems to love him by the time they finish eating.

After, they go upstairs.

Ilya hasn’t been back to the sex dungeon/love nest in a long time. Shane doesn’t intend to stay, especially now that he has sound issues to worry about, but as soon as they get back to the bed where they had their ‘first time’, Ilya deflates. He sags into the bed face down.

Sitting beside him, Shane rubs his back. He feels drained too, from so much socializing and from translating so much Russian. It’s how Ilya must have felt back when they first met, he knows, and it makes him love him all the more. 

“Are you okay?”

“Mmm.”

“It was too much,” Shane guesses. 

“No. No, I like them all. They are good people. Very nice.”

“Was it… was it weird, getting to talk in Russian like that? With so many people?”

Ilya’s voice is thick when he says, “It was nice.”

“You don’t have to come back if you don’t want to,” Shane says then, because he can’t figure out what’s wrong and at least wants to give Ilya the out. “Thank you for coming today, Ilya. Seriously. It means a lot to me.”

Ilya sighs deeply, rolling onto his side. Opening his arms, he says wetly, “Just come here, Shane.”

Shane goes willingly, even though they’re both in day clothes. Tucking himself against his boyfriend, he tries to soak up every bit of touch they had to avoid all day. “Ya tebya lyublyu,” he says, kissing Ilya’s jaw, cheeks, forehead. Wiping away Ilya’s tears, he murmurs, “Thank you. It’s okay. I love you.”

Chapter End Notes

fun fact! he put sound proofing around *his* apartment, none of the others :)

centaurs are next!! lmk if there's anything specific you'd like to see bc I haven't written a single part of the outline yet hehe

Chapter 6

Chapter Notes

did I say centaurs next chapter? I meant centaurs next chapter oops!

this chapter has a bit of angst in it, namely surrounding shane's team being homophobic and ilya's mental health issues. shane has a panic attack which is not graphically described

The rest of summer passes by quickly after they have dinner with his tenants. 

Their Ottawa and Montreal Irina Foundation camps are a lot of fun. Shane meets so many new people, parents and brand managers and the families of their fellow coaches. The kids are the best part, of course. They’re talented and eager to learn from him, hanging onto every word he says. When he tracks their progress from the first to the last day, it makes a warm swell of pride balloon in his chest. 

Hayden and JJ tease him about it—Hayden asks, “When are you and Lily going to have one of your own?” and JJ, who’s freshly in on the secret, shoots back, “Is that not what this is, mon ami? Lily sure looks like a proud mother to me.”

Across the ice, Ilya, Wyatt Hayes, and Ryan Price are all huddled in a circle, encouraging a few kids who’ve been struggling a bit more than the rest. As they watch and talk, one of the kids suddenly flings herself into Ilya’s arms, screaming ‘Thanks, Captain Ilya!’ so loud they can hear it all the way over here.

Shane should probably at least pretend to fight JJ for that comment, but he doesn’t. Instead he leans on his stick and tries to not look too lovesick. It’s moments like this that help remind him why he loves hockey so much. 

After everything that’s been going on with his team lately, it’s a welcome reminder for sure.

“Look at him, he’s not even going to deny it,” Hayden laughs to JJ, smacking his stick into the toe of Shane’s skates just to be annoying. Shane swings back, whacking him in the calf.

“Our good capitaine is whipped,” JJ laments, bumping their shoulders together. 

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.” Shane rolls his eyes, skating away towards Leah and Max. At least they don’t know anything about ‘Lily’ and can’t make fun of him for his, as his ridiculous friends call it, ‘heart eyes and heart boner’. 

“Hey Shane!” Leah says when he gets close enough. Leaning up against the boards, she cuts her eyes slyly at Max, standing next to her with a slightly annoyed look on his face. “Will you settle a debate for us? I was just telling Max that I think Rozanov will be a great father some day—”

Shane stops his groan just in time. Okay, he thinks, bravely accepting his fate, clearly there’s no escaping Ilya Rozanov.

After camps are done, Shane packs up his stuff and heads to Ilya’s place in Ottawa. 

He leaves his tenants with another reminder to text him anytime, even if he won’t be in town. Most of them wish him a nice summer vacation, but Mikhail insists on Shane accepting a homemade loaf of “healthy bread” as a gift. 

“We made for you. You will like,” he says.

“Thanks, Mikhail, seriously.” Shane shakes his hand and promises to ask Ilya about sharing his number before he leaves.

Being alone with Ilya is not something he’ll ever take for granted. There’s not a lot of time left before their seasons start back up—they’re already into late August—so they spend basically every waking minute together, shuffling from the bedroom to the kitchen to the living room to Shane’s parents’ house. 

It’s so nice to just relax together, doing whatever they like whenever they feel like doing it. They cook and work out and play games. It’s perfect.

Shane tries to get Ilya to talk about his feelings, sometimes. And it even works now and then, deep into the night when they’re both fucked out and curled around each other. Ilya talks a little more about his family, hiding the words in Shane’s chest as he explains the awful lows he’s felt—when he was twelve, when he was seventeen, when he was twenty-three. 

And now.

Ilya swears up and down it’s not that bad. That he’s fine, he just gets lonely sometimes, and there’s nothing they can do about it. He says he’ll get over it, and they should stick to their plan. He says he’s becoming closer friends with Troy Barrett of all people, and that he likes the Centaurs a lot, and everything is fine. 

It’s not that Shane doesn’t believe him, but he knows his boyfriend pretty well, he thinks. And he knows that Ilya is more likely to sugarcoat it, thinking he’s doing it for Shane’s sake, than to be fully honest. 

Late at night, when Ilya is asleep and plastered against his back, he wonders if it would be overstepping to ask his parents to come check on Ilya more often. Even later than that, when the sun is coming up, Shane is still awake, considering their ten-year-plan.

When he tries to push back against his reassurances of how fine everything is, Ilya either shuts down or turns it around on him, asking about the Voyageurs and how things are there. He always does it with this look in his eye like he knows the answer already and is just asking to be a dick, to make Shane talk about it. 

Of course Shane has nothing to say. The Voyageurs are fine. Everything is fine.

So they don’t go into much detail about any of it, really. Why waste their precious time together arguing about things that they can’t change?

One day halfway through their mini-vacation, Ilya gets a text from Zane Boodram.

They have NHL 2021—the one with Shane on the cover—paused while Shane goes to use the bathroom. When he comes back, he finds Ilya leaning forward on the couch, staring intensely at his phone.

“What's up?”

“Ah, Bood texted,” Ilya replies, tapping quickly on the screen. “He is having a, how do you say, bar-barcue?”

Shane glares at him with disgust. Just like every other time they have this conversation, he says, “It's barbecue and I know you know that.”

Ilya gives him an evil smile in return, because at his heart, he's nothing but an asshole. “I don't know this! Shane. Be honest. Are you making fun of my English?” Of course he thickens his accent on that last part to really make Shane feel bad.

But unfortunately for him, Shane is immune in this instance. “I am when you purposefully say it wrong!”

Falling back into the cushions, Ilya makes sure to sound extra disappointed when he whines, “Wowwww, what would your fans think of this? Shane Hollander being an asshole. And you know I almost invited you to Bood's barbecue. Neverm—”

Jumping on top of him, Shane demands, “His what? What was that? What did you say?” 

“His bar-barcue! I said bar-bark-cue!”

“Now you can't even say it wrong the right way,” Shane laughs, sticking his fingers into Ilya's sides wherever he can reach. Grunting, Ilya throws his buzzing phone down, and retaliates.

Ilya fights back viciously, and they wrestle for a few minutes, game and texts all but forgotten in Shane’s need to tickle Ilya’s armpits. If he ends up on his back on the couch, Ilya pressing all the way into him, then oh well, all’s well that ends well. 

Later, sweaty and happy, Ilya brings up the BBQ again. Pulling his phone out, he brings up the Centaurs groupchat where Bood had extended an invite to everyone in town. Shane feels a little weird about reading their private messages, being from a different team (not to mention one that kicks their asses regularly), but he supposes it’s okay just this once. Ilya is right there, he’ll make sure Shane doesn’t see anything he shouldn’t. 

CENZ BOYZ 4 EVER

Bood

Hey everyone! BBQ at my place on September 10th @ 4 PM for one last hurrah before the season starts. RSVP here or via your WAGs, thanks

Luca

I will be there

Troy

Same

Holmberg

SIGN ME TF UPPPP I’ve been missing your meats Bood 😩

Young

I have too but I would’ve said it less gayly…

Boyle

I am proudly gay for Bood’s jerk chicken, me and the fam will be there!

Chouinard

I take it WAGs and kids are welcome then?

Bood

@Chouinard yep, bring whoever you’d like!

Ilya

Can I bring a friend? He’s a bit shy, needs more friends in town

“I grew up here, asshole,” Shane complains. With Ilya against his back, it’s difficult to smack him, so instead he settles for nipping Ilya’s arm where it lays over his chest. “I have tons of friends here.”

“You need better friends,” Ilya complains right back. There’s a truth in his words that Shane doesn’t want to acknowledge, so he just… doesn’t. Instead, he keeps reading.

CENZ BOYZ 4 EVER

Bood

Of course my man! Bring whoever you’d like, we’ll welcome them with open arms

Dykstra

Just make sure you come bro

Wyatt

We can always use more friends

Luca

Yes please come Captain!

Ilya

Aswesdsssddaasdxs2192

LaPointe

uhhh ?

is that supposed to russian for yes 

Dillon

I’ll be there Boody baby

Dykstra

Maybe cap is with ~Jane~ 😏😏😏

Booty texting us now cap?

“As if I would booty text these ugly assholes,” Ilya mumbles, typing out a reply while Shane bluescreens. 

Ilya

Yes yes I am with my Jane. Was not a booty text you freaks. I threw my phone and made a typo

Anyway I will be there. Can we make sure there is grilled chicken?

“Ilya,” says Shane.

“Hmm,” says Ilya, obviously still engrossed with texting.

“Ilya.”

“One second, Shanya.”

“No, why do they know the name Jane? You told them about me?”

Maybe Ilya can hear the reedy panic in his voice, because he shuts his phone off and bodily turns him around so they’re facing each other. Rubbing the arm not pressed into the couch, he murmurs, “Is fine, moya lyubov. They think I have a girlfriend, that’s all. It’s no big deal.”

“But why do they know that, Ilya?”

He remembers how his team used to act about “Lily”, wanting to know details Shane didn’t have to give, and constantly teasing him about making an honest woman out of her. After he came out to them, thinking maybe they could be chill about him being gay if they knew he was in a relationship, all of the questions stopped. Now Lily’s name is only used sardonically, because—except for Hayden and JJ of course—no one believes he’s real. Just a cover so you can look at our cocks as much as you want, right Shane?

Ilya folds him into his arms steadily, not even letting go when Shane flails and tries to get away. 

“I had to explain why I never hung out with them,” he explains, rubbing Shane’s shaking back. “That is all. They ask why I don’t, where I go, if I have any friends here. I say yes, my beautiful girlfriend Jane lives in Canada, that’s why I’m here, and I would rather see her than your dumb faces even more. They don’t know who you are. They don’t know anything. Everything is okay, solnyshko, shh, shh.”

You never come out anymore, Hollywood.

Of course he doesn’t. Bar’s not really his scene, is it? Not gay enough.

Don’t let his boyfriend hear you, man. Hey look Hollander, if you come out with us, I bet I can help you find some pussy that’ll turn you right.

“Shh, it’s okay… just breathe, breathe with me, okay?”

Shane doesn’t know how long they lay there, dealing with his panic attack. He also doesn’t ask for any more details about what the Centaurs know, and refuses to tell Ilya why he freaked out so badly. 

He’s stiff the rest of the night. Over and over, he reminds himself that his team is just getting used to him being gay, and they’ll come around. These are guys he’s played with for ten years, whose children he’s watched grow up, who’ve had him in their wedding parties. They’re just shocked and need time to get over it, that’s all.

Ilya doesn’t bring it up until they’re sliding into bed. With a grim look on his face, he tells their bedspread, “If you do not want to go, I will tell the team you had plans.”

Shane box breathes a few times before he replies. “No, it’s fine. I’ll go. I promised you I would.”

“Okay. But if you change your mind.”

“I won’t. Come on, will you lay down?”

Ilya turns off the lamp on his side, the room going dark. Shane can’t relax until the bed shifts, his boyfriend sliding in beside him. 

Whispering, he can’t help but ask, “You like your team, right?” 

What he really wants to know is, Do you trust them?

Ilya sighs, kissing up Shane’s jaw. “Yes, Shane. I do. And I think you will too. Maybe they will surprise you, hmm?”

“Okay,” Shane’s voice cracks. He’s grateful for the darkness, so Ilya can’t see his expression or his eyes. “I love you.”

Not that Ilya needs to see him to know when he’s not doing great. Rolling on top of him, Ilya slowly lays all of his weight on Shane, tucking his head down in the crook of his neck. 

“I love you too.”

A few days before the BBQ, Shane has to head back to Montreal to deal with a new tenant moving in. It’s a nice distraction from everything else, so he jumps on the opportunity, leaving Ilya at home with his parents.

His name is Aleks, and he’s a few years younger than both Shane and Ilya. 

“Not Russian,” he explains over the phone when Shane comments lightly on his accent. “I get that all the time. I am from Belarus. I guess is close enough, is former USSR.”

“You’ll fit right in,” Shane replies, wondering again how the hell this is happening. Maybe there’s a sign on the door that only he can’t see, advertising it as a Russians, former USSR states, and Shane only building. 

He doesn’t ask Aleks about it. Just goes through the process of interviewing him normally. A week or so later, and here he is, pulling into the parking lot. He’s only dropping by to take one last look at the apartment, make sure everything is in working order. Aleks won’t be here until after the BBQ, coming in late for the next semester of university, so there’s a bit of time to fix something if need be.

Luckily, everything seems fine. Though, as he’s walking out, he runs into one of the cats, and not the one that is supposed to live in the building. It’s Little Bear, the pregnant one, and she meows at him as he locks up.

“Hello, Little Bear. What are you doing here?”

She meows as if in reply, coming to rub up against his legs. Because of that, he can not only see but feel how fat she is. Shane doesn’t really know anything about cat pregnancy, but she looks ready to pop.

He ends up talking with Kristina and Gabrielle about it, since they find him in the hallway, frantically googling. From his research, she is definitely about to have her kittens, and she’ll need somewhere safe and calm to do it. But where?

“I don’t know what to do, I’m never here so she can’t stay in my apartment, and I really don’t want her to just have her kittens all over this flooring, it’s new.”

“Mr. Hollander, you are so silly,” Gabrielle giggles. She’s crouched down to pet Little Bear, subtly feeling up her stomach. “We could always take her to a shelter, but euh, I’m sure they will not like that…”

“We could take her,” Kristina offers, looking between Shane and Gabrielle. “But isn’t there a pet thing on the lease? An extra charge?”

Honestly, the relief of this cat not getting blood and birthing juices all over his brand new bronze terrazzo floors is more than enough. “Forget about it, you’re doing me a favor.”

He goes out and buys some of the things they’ll need, namely a litter box and scooper, a huge jug of litter, and a high-end cat bed that also seems easy to clean. When he returns, Kristina and Gabrielle laugh kindly at him and invite him inside to help get Little Bear more comfortable in their place. For some reason, she likes him enough to sit in his lap and purr.

The “cousins” offer him some water, and they sit around and talk for a while. Since the dinner everyone had together, apparently Lyudmila has been raving about feeding the best hockey player—ugh—and Mikhail has gone out and bought his whole family Ottawa 81 jerseys—cute. Katia bought a Montreal 24 one, and now there’s a silent, albeit lighthearted, war going on between his tenants.

“And you guys?” Shane asks, scritching Little Bear behind the ears. 

He’s noticed they seem a little less wary of him today. Their words come easier, and Kristina is even sitting next to him, patting Little Bear on the butt every now and then. Gabrielle keeps smiling at him. 

“He wasn’t what we thought he would be like,” Gabrielle answers thoughtfully, nodding her head. 

“Yes, more funny, less of a meathead,” Kristina quips. 

Gabrielle defends, “I didn’t call him that! I said hockey players are usually—euh.” She turns wide eyes on him, the corners of her mouth turning down. “Désolée, Mr. Hollander. I didn’t mean you.” 

He can’t help but laugh. “No problem, I’ve said the same thing plenty of times before.”

They both laugh with him. Shane notices that after a moment, Kristina shoots Gabrielle a look, protective and loving. A lot like how Ilya looks at him, actually. 

Since the dinner, he hasn’t thought much about what Ilya and Katia said about Kristina and Gabrielle. Their business is their business, and they’re good tenants, never causing any problems and always promptly telling him when the elevator goes out again. It’s not that he doubted Ilya’s perceptiveness, or Katia’s claim about overhearing them, but… seeing them like this, relaxed and just hanging out together, he can see it easier. 

He wonders why they’d lie about being related. If they’re a couple, it’s fine. Montreal is a progressive city. Discrimination is illegal. Don’t they want to be out?

If they only knew, they might say the same thing about him and Ilya, he realizes all at once, watching them exchange discrete glances. 

A sense of camaraderie with these ladies fills him, one that he doesn’t get to feel often. The only other queer people he knows, excluding Ilya, are Scott, Kip, Ryan Price, and Rose’s friend Miles. Not exactly people he spends a whole lot of time with. Now, maybe, he can add Gabrielle and Kristina to that list. That would be nice.

How can he let them know he’s safe, that he won’t be weird if they are lesbians like Ilya and Katia think they are?

He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t figure anything out before it’s time for him to leave. Maybe Ilya will have some ideas.

On the morning of the barbecue, Shane is feeling totally fine. No, really.

Okay, no, he’s freaking out. 

Rose, stuck in a makeup chair for several hours, helps him figure out what to wear. Half of the outfit is actually Ilya’s, but their closets have merged in a way that makes Shane feel terribly domestic. Not that he can feel anything as sappy or positive as that on a morning like this. 

She tries to help him calm down by distracting him with the drama on her new movie set, and it works for a little while. But eventually she has to go, and then Shane is stuck with an Ilya who’s halfway shut down. 

He doesn't have to wonder why, when they’re about to go meet Ilya’s team and he should be happy about that. Shane knows that Ilya thinks he’s going to back out at the last second, no matter what Shane says. 

In an effort to make them both feel better, Shane makes a dessert he can actually eat and packages it for travel. He also makes sure the bag of ice he bought is crushed up enough, and has Ilya double check with Boodram and his wife Cassie that it’s okay if Ilya brings a guest. 

Once all of that is done, there’s nothing to do but wait for 4 PM to come around. 

Ilya sits on their couch in his nice clothes, not too fancy considering they’re his friends and teammates, but fancy enough to match Shane. Legs stretched out, he watches Shane pace back and forth, rubbing his hands together in his lap.

“Should I have a drink before we go?” Shane asks, not really expecting an answer. “I think I should. Do we still have that good vodka Dad gave you for your birthday?”

“We do, but I do not think you should drink,” Ilya replies flatly.

Not even hearing him, Shane goes on, “Or… drugs? Do we have any drugs?”

“What???” Ilya chokes out.

“Oh god, Mom was right. She’s so fucking right. I really should get tested for anxiety.”

Ilya sits up some. “Okay….”

“I think anti-anxiety pills would really help me right now. You know Jackie has this friend on Lexapro and she can stay calm through anything.”

Ilya swallows, eyes darting around. “That’s…. Okay. Okay, Shane. We can discuss that later maybe.”

Running a hand through his hair and messing up the careful way he’d styled it, Shane asks, “How quickly can you find coke, baby? Is there coke in Ottawa? What am I saying, there’s coke everywhere….”

At that, Ilya stands and approaches him, stopping him in his tracks. Taking him by the shoulders, Ilya very seriously says, “What the fuck, Hollander. Who are you and what have you done with my Shane? You are asking for coke? Like, cocaine?”

Thickly, Shane laughs. “I’m freaking out right now.”

“Yes, I can tell,” Ilya says gently, pulling him in for a hug. 

“I don’t want to do coke.”

“I know, moya lyubov.”

Pressing his forehead into Ilya’s shoulder like he can fuse them together, Shane follows Ilya’s breathing as best as he can. He’s been trying really fucking hard not to think about his teammates, to remind himself that when he told JJ recently, JJ was totally normal about it. Or well, mostly normal. He did ask if they’d ever thrown games for each other, but once Shane said no, then he admitted he’d thought Shane had a crush on Ilya. 

Ilya’s teammates are nice and trustworthy and Ilya needs this. He’s not going to back down no matter how much anxiety it makes him feel to put himself out there, to reveal any part of their relationship to these people he’s never truly met. 

“We can still back out—”

“Stop it, Ilya. We’re doing this.”

“Okay,” Ilya says, and kisses Shane’s head and neck and shoulder. “You know I won’t let anything happen to you, yes? If I’m wrong and they are homophobic assholes, then I will get you out of there immediately. I will beat their asses. I will make sure they regret being cruel to you.”

Ilya’s reassurances do help, for all they make him tear up. Shane knows he’s telling the truth—he has to work with all of them again in just a week and a half for the pre-season, but that won’t stop him from standing up for Shane. 

“Ya tebya lyublyu, Ilyusha,” he murmurs.

“Ya tozhe tebya lyublyu.”

Ilya doesn’t let go of him until they have to get in the car. They’re taking one of Ilya’s sexy, expensive death traps, and Shane keeps his hand clamped to Ilya’s thigh the whole way there. Ilya wanted to hold hands, but Shane can’t handle him only having one hand on the wheel right now.

When they get into the right neighborhood, Shane swallows hard around his nerves. Trying to lighten the mood some, he weakly jokes, “I better calm down. They won’t like me if I’m just your twitchy gay friend instead of a cool pro hockey player.”

Ilya barks out a laugh. “Shane. Please. You are Shane Mother Fucking Hollander. You may be twitchy and gay, but you are not just anything.”

“Wow, real nice,” he complains fondly, rolling his eyes. He can feel his heartbeat slowing slightly.

Grinning that grin that Shane only sees when they’re alone, Ilya continues, “You want the truth, no, Hollander?”

“Yeah, of course.” A new problem suddenly dawns on him, suppressed so far by his more urgent fear of Ilya’s team being homophobic dicks. “Um. Are you really sure this is okay? Won’t they be mad you’re bringing the enemy to a team hang out?”

“No, they will get on their knees and thank me for introducing them to you. The rookies are in love with you. I don’t know why they’re obsessed with the second best player, but—”

“Hey!”

“And you already know Wyatt, Wyatt is nice, no? All of the old fucks, you have already met. They will love you.”

I hope so, Shane thinks, watching as the Boodrams’ street sign gets closer. Though really, they can hate me, I don’t care. As long as they don’t hate you, I can handle it. I can handle anything.

Maybe if he says it enough times, it’ll become true.

Chapter End Notes

we'll have at least three more chapters, tho it could def be more. honestly if I make one more reference to hollanov having a child I feel like I'll be contractually obligated to give them one lmao, which would def add more chapters. I'm gonna try and focus on finishing this up so I can move on and work on other fics LOL but we'll see what happens!

let me just say now, I am super excited for Aleks >:)

Chapter 7

Chapter Notes

this chapter fought me so bad that I actually started writing chapter 8 first (that is now chapter 9 btw bc I had to split this one LOLLLL ;-;) so.... shouldn't be too long for the next one I hope! I'm still not fully satisfied but -shrug- I think it's still fun, and I hope you enjoy!

many thanks to cabbage for helping me not sound dumb about hockey <3
many thanks also to everyone who has commented on this fic, you guys are so so so nice and I appreciate every single one!!!

Cassie Boodram opens the door already smiling. 

She looks at Shane with a friendly gaze, but he’s so nervous he can’t meet her eyes, and he’s glad when she turns to Ilya instead of him. She throws her arms open for him, her pregnant belly between them as they hug. Other than their shared blonde hair, which are two different shades anyway, they contrast in just about every way—where Ilya is tall, Cassie is short; where Cassie is thin, Ilya is well-muscled. Even Cassie's smile is wide and friendly while Ilya's is smaller, fond. 

Still, their familiarity is obvious to Shane. They don't hug like two people who barely know each other.

“I’m so glad you could make it,” she says, patting Ilya on the shoulder. 

“I am too,” Ilya replies simply, letting her go. “You are glowing! Is Boody taking good care of you and our baby?”

“Our baby?” Shane echoes. He knows Ilya is close with the Boodrams but—what?

“Oh, it's just a silly joke they have.” Cassie waves her hand in the air, unbothered. “They like to say Ilya and I are like Zane's sister wives, or something. Anyway, hello! It's so great to meet you!”

Shane awkwardly greets her back, giving Ilya the bag of ice and the bowl of fruit salad so he can shake her hand. He tells her, in what he hopes is a not-gay-at-all sort of way, that he’s heard a lot about Ilya and Bood’s friendship and he’s curious to see what they’ll be like in person.

Laughing, she says, “They’re a hoot together. I feel like a third wheel sometimes.”

“Yes, same,” Ilya says dryly, looking from one of them to the other. “Cassie, can we come in or will you keep us out here forever?”

“Oops, sorry guys, of course you can come in! I swear, this baby is stealing all of my manners from me….”

She guides them inside, and Shane takes the fruit salad back from Ilya so he can give bro-hugs to all of his teammates that they pass by on the way to the kitchen. Well, all two of them. So far only Zane Boodram and Evan Dykstra, as well as his family, are here. Both men greet Shane politely, not too overzealous but appropriately friendly for people who meet every couple of months and play humiliating games against each other. With Ilya, they’re a lot more effusive.

Once they get to the kitchen, Ilya drops off the ice and—after a shared glance where Ilya seems to determine that Shane is safely comfortable enough in Cassie’s hands—goes to the back porch with Bood and Dykstra to check the grill. They’re still within sight of each other.

Cassie watches the three men outside with a fond look, one of her hands rubbing her belly. 

Not wanting to interrupt her, Shane sets the fruit salad down on the counter near the other food. Carefully, he peels the saran wrap off, then tries and fails to find the trash can. 

Luckily, Cassie notices and shows him where it’s hiding. He asks her about the house, who built it and when, and for a while they talk about the real estate scene in Ottawa while they get the food put together. (It’s a lot of stuff Shane can’t eat, but he notices there’s packages of fish and chicken thawing on the counter.) Talking with her is nice; she’s funny and sweet and doesn’t seem to mind when Shane gets awkward.

At some point, Caitlin Dykstra comes inside, covered in grass stains from where she and her daughter Susie—now clinging to Ilya’s shoulders like a monkey—were playing.

“Shane Fucking Hollander,” she says with gravitas the second the sliding glass door is shut behind her.

Cassie goes pink. “Cait,” she whines. To Shane, she explains, “She’s in love with you.”

“In a totally platonic hockey way, of course,” Caitilin confirms, pushing her hair away from her face. Ticking off on her fingers, she adds, “First of all, your two-way game is legendary. Secondly, you’re the best player out there no matter what Rozanov says, and C, I was born and raised in Ottawa, I gotta have loyalty!”

Shane can’t help but smile, charmed by the heated way she said Ilya’s name. Still, he feels a little awkward, having never gotten used to dealing with fans for conversations that lasted longer than Hi, thanks for coming to the game, sure I’ll sign your shirt/book/card/hand/boobs. Who do I make it out to?

“Oh, uh, thanks.”

Both women laugh. But it’s not the kind of laughter that stings. It’s more like when Jackie or Rose laugh at him. Like they think he’s cute in a little-brother sort of way. 

“Enough of that, Cait, you’ll scare him off and then Ilya will leave too.”

“Uh, no! We’ve finally got him here, he’s not going anywhere yet. Shane—wait, can I call you Shane?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Do you prefer Caitlin or…?”

“Cait or Caitlin," she nods. “Anyway, Shane, I was just going to say that Ilya neverrrrr comes even though he loves Zane’s food. When he said he would make it this time, we were all super excited! I know Luca screamed when he got that text. I know it.”

“Lisa said Wyatt jumped up and danced,” Cassie laughs.

Discomfort leaves Shane feeling a little sick. He’s never discouraged Ilya from coming to these things, in fact he’s tried to get Ilya to bond more with his teammates plenty of times. But he knows that Ilya always chooses to spend time with him over them, and it’s almost a little painful to see the cost of that decision.  

And now here he is, still intruding.

Gripping a can of ginger ale that Ilya made sure would be available, he says, “Sorry, I know you’d probably prefer if he came alone. But I was in town, and—”

“Like we’re gonna complain that we get to meet you!” Caitilin scoffs at the same time Cassie reaches over and pats his hand.

“Hey, any friend of Ilya’s is a friend of ours, seriously. You’re more than welcome. And you know, if you’re the reason he finally came to one of these things, then we all owe you a real debt of gratitude.”

Cassie and Caitlin really aren’t anything like Jackie or Rose, but as he looks from one determined, kind face to the next, he feels like he can take a breath. Like he’s okay here, like they’re just new friends having a bit of fun together. 

“Thanks,” he tells them, feeling oddly calmer. “That means a lot. You have no idea.”

They both smile at him, and then Cassie—like the angel Ilya always says she is—changes the subject back to housing. Caitlin has horror stories that make Shane very glad that his own experiences have been mostly smooth sailing. 

When he tells them that, they ask for all of his best tales, so Shane settles in and begins to explain the hurricane that is Lyudmila Kuznetsova.

As the afternoon passes, more of the Centaurs and their families appear. 

Lisa and Wyatt Hayes are two people Shane has met extensively thanks to the Irina Foundation camps, and they catch up happily. Nick Chouinard and his wife Selena are new faces, but their kids all love Shane and leave no room for awkward moments. Then there’s Jared Boyle and his wife Anissa, and their two kids too. Boyle hasn’t been on the team as long as Bood, but he’s someone Shane has interacted with often on the ice. 

Through all of this, Ilya constantly comes to check up on him. They don’t say as much out loud, but he clearly thinks that Cassie is a safe person to leave Shane with alone. If all of the WAGs are around, or multiple of Ilya’s teammates, then he inserts himself into the conversation, flinging an arm over Shane’s shoulder in a bro-y way and hamming up their mostly-dead rivalry. 

Everyone teases Ilya about making a good impression on Shane Hollander, and jokingly ask if maybe all of the times he said they were friends were a little embellished. Ilya pretends to be offended, while Shane just tries to relax into the friendly atmosphere as much as he can. 

People move about the house comfortably. Of course, they all know each other well—not just the players but the wives, the children. Shane is an outsider here. 

He feels that most keenly when, just before dinner is served, Shane somehow ends up in a group of WAGs. He’s most at ease with Lisa, and slightly more with Cassie and Caitlin, but with Selena, Anissa, and Maang, a pretty young girl dating Corey Young, he feels … definitely out of place.

Even though, if he wanted to think of it this way, he’s technically Ilya’s WAG. 

The problem comes when Selena, a little tipsy from the wine the women are sharing, turns to Shane and clumsily demands, “Donc, have you met his Jane? He is hiding her from us!”

Shane’s smile, slightly uncomfortable already, freezes on his face. What the hell does he say to that?

Stiffly, he manages to grit out, “No, I haven’t.”

And thank god for Ilya, because he materializes behind Shane while the ladies are good-naturedly whining about wanting to meet the woman who could tie their captain down. He makes excuses Shane doesn’t even hear, and pulls him outside to stand by the grill. There’s nowhere private to pause and freak out on the way there, so Shane just accepts his bracing arm-rubs and nods to his unspoken question. I’m fine, he thinks at Ilya, hoping he’ll believe it.

Sorry, Ilya seems to think back, the corners of his mouth turning down. 

“Hey there, hot-shot,” Zane Boodram greets once they’re through the door, flipping over some delicious-smelling meat. “Great to see you here, man!”

“Yeah, you too,” Shane manages. 

He’s already greeted Bood tonight, and the other man has always been friendly even when Shane has summarily kicked his ass on the ice. But even with Ilya hanging onto his shoulders, he feels twitchy and fucking obvious, like Bood could look over and read all over his face that he’s a jealous mess and super gay for his captain. 

Ilya bumps their feet together, a split second thing before he puts a little more space between them. Then he says scathingly to Bood, “Did you see how shitty Guardians played last night? Fucking embarrassing.”

Bood agrees enthusiastically, and then Shane has to add his own opinion because he can talk hockey even when he’s on the verge of an anxiety attack. Wyatt comes over too, and Dykstra finds them, three guys who Shane has interacted with for years, and it’s fine. He can forget about Jane and being gay and shitty homophobic teams. 

Ilya doesn’t leave his side, and everyone here is just as friendly as his boyfriend said they were, and Shane has something he can talk about with them. Everything is fine.

Harris Drover and Troy Barrett arrived at some point while Shane wasn’t paying attention. 

There’s a lot more people around than there were earlier, and though the Boodrams have a big backyard, it’s full of hockey players and screaming kids. Susie Dykstra, Anika Boyle, and Rémi Chouinard are playing some kind of tag game with Pierre LaPointe, while two little toddlers—Ophélie Chouinard and Jack Boyle, according to Ilya—crawl around in the grass. Shane sees a few others of varying ages clinging to their dads all around the yard.

The adults keep a careful distance so no one gets stepped on, but that just means that every spot with chairs is packed. The whole team is here, it seems like. That makes it hard for Shane to pick out individual people, so he doesn’t bother, just focusing on the few guys in front of him.

Then dinner is served, so they grab plates, standing together in line. Discretely, Ilya presses the front of his shoulder into the back of Shane’s, and Shane lets himself press back. Not enough to look gay, but to remind himself his boyfriend is there. 

Once they’ve got their food, Ilya makes sure to snag the chair on one side of him, acting like it’s a fight to the death. And maybe it is, the way that Caitlin, several rookies, and all three Chouinard children complain about it. 

Someone whose face Shane doesn’t recognize immediately steals the seat on Ilya’s other side. He’s a shorter, pudgy guy who pats Ilya on the head like a puppy before reaching across Ilya to shake Shane’s hand.

“Harris Drover,” he greets sunnily. “I can’t believe you’re really here! I’ve been asking Ilya here to introduce us for months, but noooo.”

He rolls his eyes in amusement. Ilya makes a funny hissing noise. “You already have boyfriend, Harris, you—why do you need to meet Hollander?”

Harris gives Ilya a big-eyed look. “Because he’s Shane Hollander, you dingus.”

“Dingus!” Ilya whines. “Look how your man speaks to me, Barrett!”

Troy Barrett, who’s only just now appeared with two plates in hand, looks at all three of them, blinks a few times at whatever he sees on their faces, and says, “Yeah, I’m not getting involved in this.”

Still, he sits next to Harris and carefully sets one of the plates down in front of him. Harris murmurs a thanks, kissing him on the cheek. No one seems to pay it any mind, not in a deliberate way, but… like it’s normal. Like no one cares.

Taking advantage of the brief pause in conversation, Shane quickly says, “Hi, Harris, it’s nice to meet you. Ilya’s told me a lot about you.”

Which is true, of course. Whenever the topic of the Voyageurs does come up, Ilya makes it a point to remind Shane of Harris Drover’s existence. A gay man who’s treated completely normally by a team full of concussed hockey players. He’s proof that it can happen. 

Plus, Ilya is pretty close friends with Harris. Shane tries hard not to be too jealous of the man in multiple senses of the word. 

“Good things I hope!”

Shane and Ilya both reassure him, and for a few minutes while everyone sits down and starts to eat, the three of them have a nice conversation. Harris is super nice, just like Ilya always tells him, and sure enough he’s not ashamed or scared to be out at all. He talks freely about being gay, both alone and with Troy, and how grateful he is that the Centaurs are an accepting group. He never outright asks Shane about the rumors that go around, but it’s obvious he knows about them, the way he smiles encouragingly at Shane. 

He also admits, “I had your poster up in my bedroom growing up. It’s really kind of surreal to meet you, so I apologize if I’m being weird at all. Just tell me and I’ll shut up.”

“No, no, you’re fine,” Shane replies, touched. 

Ilya slyly glances at him. “You know, Caitlin and Luca also had your poster.”

Across the table, Luca Haas—who’s involved in conversation with LaPointe and Maang—groans and turns pink. One hand comes up to cover his face while the other rooks jostle him playfully.

“Captain, please.”

Caitlin on the other hand raises her wine glass like she’s toasting Shane. “And proudly so! Before Evan got traded here, I was a diehard Montreal fan. Shane, you could move to Boston and I would still root for you. It’s that serious.”

“Boo,” several others call out. Anika Boyle shouts out childishly, “Gross, Boston!”

“Oh, oh, I am wounded,” Ilya exaggerates to everyone’s amusement. 

“It’s okay, we’ll take care of you, honey,” Bood coos, and even Shane has to join in on the laughter when he sees Ilya’s grossed-out expression.

Not long after, Shane gets pulled into a conversation with the rookies. 

Just like Ilya warned him, all four of the young men are obsessed with Shane. They talk fondly of the Montreal/Boston days in a way that makes Shane feel about a thousand years old—these guys weren’t even ten years old when Shane was drafted, oh god. Is this how Scott Hunter feels about him?

Despite that, they’re all nice boys, not like the rookies in his own locker room who rely on Shane for advice but clearly enjoy the company—and attitude—of other players more. 

No, instead these four (Luca Haas, Corey Young, Pierra LaPointe, and Joey Holmberg) hang onto his every word. They ask for advice and seem to take it seriously, sometimes hissing at each other, “I fucking told you your sauce passes are shit.”

It’s like being back at the Irina Foundation camps, just with bigger kids than he’s used to. They’re so enthusiastic that Shane relaxes into the hockey talk easily, forgetting to be anxious while he debates controlled entries with them.

Beside him, Ilya bumps their legs together under the table before he stands. 

“Bol’she?” Ilya murmurs, gesturing to Shane’s empty plate.

“Ah, da, pozhaluysta.”

Ilya nods, grabbing his plate up and walking towards the kitchen. Across from him, the rookies are all looking at him wide-eyed. For some reason, Luca is a little pink. 

“Whoa, Hollzy, you speak Russian?”

“Did you learn for Cap?”

“No romo but that was sexy as hell.”

Shane laughs. “What the hell does ‘no romo’ mean? And I only said ‘yes, please’. Those are baby words.”

Luca coughs on a bite of whatever he’s eating, causing Maang—who’s been tuning them out since they got started; she’s not a hockey fan—to smack him on the back. “I am fine, thank you,” he chokes out.

While Luca is busy dying, Young explains, “It’s like ‘no romance’, like… maybe there’s a little sexual intent but we don’t have to get married over it, you know?”

What. Shane blinks at Young, absolutely confused. Is he, like, coming out to Shane right now? Is he coming onto Shane right now? Or is this some kind of homophobic joke only Gen Z’ers would get?

He looks to his side instinctively, wanting to silently communicate to Ilya how weird his rookies are. But that’s right, Ilya’s in the kitchen, talking to Wyatt now. Shane takes a breath and reminds himself that Ilya trusts these guys, even the kids, and wouldn’t leave him over here if he thought something bad might happen. 

“It’s less shitty than ‘no homo’,” Holmberg adds. Then he nods to Harris and Troy, “We respect the gays here.”

“Thanks,” says Troy dryly.

“You are all so fucking embarrassing,” LaPointe complains, shoving his face into his hands. “This is my first chance to meet Shane Hollander and this is the impression we are making, eugh….”

They devolve into bickering, which Shane just watches with amusement. Ilya is taking his sweet-ass time with Wyatt. Anissa calls over Harris to help her take pictures of baby Jack. 

And then it’s just Shane, two empty chairs, and Troy Barrett.

They share an awkward glance before Troy looks down at his plate and Shane bores his eyes into Ilya’s back. 

Sure, fine. Troy is gay, and he and Ilya are close friends. Shane has put aside his jealousies and other bad feelings to be friends with Svetlana, and he’s even managed to not steal Alexei’s phone number out of Ilya’s phone and cuss him out. He’s capable of putting things aside for Ilya’s sake. 

But… fucking Troy Barrett. 

Shane can believe that Troy has changed. He’s glad for it. He hates the idea of Ilya being on a team with people who wouldn’t accept him. But it’s not easy for him to just forget it all with a snap of his fingers. Troy and Dallas Kent spent years saying shitty things to him. 

Sipping his ginger ale, Shane doesn’t notice when Troy takes a breath and scoots closer, stealing Harris’s seat so there’s only one between them.

“Hey,” he says lowly, trying not to be overheard by anyone around them.

Shane can be civil. “Hey?”

Troy makes a grimacing face that Shane can’t read at all. “Sorry, this is weird. I just wanted to say… I’m sorry. I’ve been pretty rude to you, and I don’t want you to think that I, like, forgot that or that I’m pretending it didn’t happen. Um, we don’t have to get into it here, and you don’t have to forgive me, I don’t expect that. But I wanted to say it while I could. I am so sorry, man. Seriously.”

Shane looks at Ilya again, wondering what is taking so damn long.

Setting down his drink, he dithers, “Ilya’s told me a little bit about, um, how shit Toronto is. And how much you’ve been trying to make up for everything. I don’t… I’m not really ready to have this conversation. But thanks. Thanks for saying that.”

“Yeah, no problem, I understand. Uh, Ilya has my number, so if you ever want to… talk about anything.” He flicks his eyes towards Ilya, like maybe he has some kind of idea already what that anything could be. “Text me whenever.”

He’s gay too, Shane reminds himself, trying not to tense up too obviously. He knows Ilya is bisexual. Everything is fine.

"Sure, I will," he says, hoping Ilya gets back as soon as possible. Look what happens when he leaves Shane alone.

Chapter End Notes

so, 'maang' is a word from the ojibwe language that means 'loon'. one resource I looked at did say it's used as a first name, but it wasn't super verified, so I wanted to apologize here if I've just done the english equivalent of naming a kid, like, fucking 'keyboard'

I also want to apologize to troy barrett, I still have not read role model and I haven't read the long game in uhhhh like 9 months so if he (or any of the others) are super OOC my bad!! also to the timeline. what are you, timeline? I don't know you and yet I have blown you up. so sorry

next chapter: ilya interlude! what ARE he and wyatt talking about? 👀👀👀
following chapter: the twink aleksander moves in 😏😩🥰

Chapter 8

Chapter Notes

Ilya POV! this chapter is a little bit more angsty than most of the others, but it's not too bad! I think the rest of the fic will be slightly less fluffy as we head into the later parts of TLG, but trust I'm holding your hand as we walk thru this together

again, not my favorite chapter but I wanted to get it out so we can get back to the tenants and their drama fkjdhfajh

thank you aelig for helping me figure out what I wanted to do with this scene!!

additional warnings for this chapter: fear of being outed

Wyatt materializes at Ilya’s side the second he gets to the table. 

Ilya greets him distractedly, too busy focusing on picking out foods Shane can eat. There’s some of Bood’s jerk ribs that Shane would love if he could just convince him…. Sighing, he puts them on his own plate, planning on foisting them onto Shane as soon as he can. In the meantime, someone brought some Korean dish that’s way too spicy for Ilya, but Shane has been eating up. He puts half of what’s left on Shane’s plate.

He notices, of course, that Wyatt is being weird beside him. There's no plate in his hand, yet he's lingering here anyway. He's all tense and keeps looking back over the tables of their friends and coworkers like he’s wary of something. Anissa walks by, baby Jack in her arms waving at them both. Wyatt smiles at her tightly until she's out of earshot.

Ilya stands up a little straighter, giving him a capital-L Look. It seems like, whatever reason Wyatt is here, he doesn’t want to be interrupted.

“Well,” he says when Wyatt still hasn’t gotten on with it. “What’s wrong?”

Wyatt sighs, his crossed arms falling to his sides. “I don’t really know how to say this, so I’m just going to blurt it out,” he warns. Ilya waves a hand impatiently, and then immediately wishes he didn’t when Wyatt says, “I noticed that, uh, Jane is kind of similar to Shane.”

His blood goes cold. Turning back to the food with a stone-cold expression, he says, “It’s also similar to Zane, so what.”

“Yeah, but….” Wyatt shrugs. “I don’t know, I just never hear you talk about her.”

“I am shy,” Ilya bullshits. 

“Uh-huh, sure, and Luca is the prince of Sweden.”

“He’s Swiss. From Switzerland. Dumb Canadian,” Ilya clicks his tongue fondly, forcefully pushing down his rising panic. “How many pucks to the head have you taken?”

“Whatever! I’m kind of trying to be serious here, Rozy.”

“Serious about what? That Shane and Bood are name twins with my girlfriend?”

For a brief second, Wyatt looks half-annoyed and half-conflicted. Then he squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. “Ugh, let me start over.”

Ilya starts putting random things on his own plate to avoid looking at Hazy. Dryly, he says, “Please do.”

Leaning in, Wyatt drops his tone. “You know my sister is a lesbian, right?”

“Yes….”

“Okay, cool. I’m gonna tell you a story.”

“Hazy, nooooo.” Ilya tries to make his voice sound normal, not at all like he’s freaking out and being actively cornered, but he’s not sure if he succeeds. 

Wyatt just gives him a look that Marly would’ve called ‘no bullshit’. 

Heaving a sigh, Ilya realizes he’s stuck here. Maybe he can hear the story out and the second it’s done, threaten Wyatt with bodily harm, or tell him that’s nice dear but Shane and I are not gay so don’t tell anyone any-fucking-thing.

Settling in for the long haul, Wyatt widens his stance and begins his lecture.

“Stop me if I’ve told this story before, but there was this time when we were teenagers that she brought her girlfriend over to dinner with our family. Said she was her ‘best friend’. This was before she’d come out, obviously.”

Ilya shoves a green bean in his mouth and starts chewing just for something to do, something to distract him. Because he sees where this is going, and he doesn’t know how to stop it without being rude. 

He knows that Wyatt is safe, that he’s an ally who’s proven himself multiple times over. This isn’t the first time they’ve talked about Katie Hayes, plus Wyatt is a brick wall when it comes to defending Ryan Price, Scott Hunter, and Troy Barrett in the locker room. 

But he will always feel a pinch of fear when it seems like someone has found him out. He will always feel the need to lash out, and he doesn’t want to do that now, not when the night has been going so well. 

There have been hiccups, yes, but overall everything has been great. Shane is getting along with these people that Ilya likes so much, and he’s eating little bits of the food Ilya has given him, and he’s seeing what a hockey team should be like. 

Maybe he’s seeing that they could have support here, if they come out to anyone on the Cens. 

It’s still scary, meeting Wyatt’s eyes and knowing what’s coming. Knowing the question he’s going to ask. 

“So we were all sitting there, wanting to get to know this girl, asking her questions about how she was doing in school and what she wanted to do after graduation and stuff like that. She was a super nice girl, very polite to my parents. And they loved her already, they thought she would be a great influence, ‘cause Katie’s grades were shit.”

“Yes, yes, I get it,” Ilya tells Wyatt. “You are from perfect TV show family, so lucky. Hurry up, my food is getting cold.”

“Hold on, I’m almost to the point.” Wyatt leans against the counter, looking up like he’s remembering what happened that day. “We asked her girlfriend if she was dating anyone, and this poor girl started making up some boy because she knew my sister wasn’t out to any of us. See what I mean? Great kid.”

“Why the fuck are we remin—reminss—talking about this girl,” Ilya interrupts. He knows it’s rude but he doesn’t care. Can Wyatt just get to the point? Can he just ask that question so Ilya can snap at him and go hide back with Shane? Fuck.

“Be patient man, I’m almost to the point,” Wyatt insists again. Ilya rolls his eyes, chewing on another green bean. “Before I was so rudely cut off, I was going to say that as soon as her girlfriend started talking about this fictional boyfriend, Katie just… started crying. Like, so hard she couldn’t even explain why, could hardly even breathe. My parents freaked out and started telling her girlfriend maybe she should go home, thinking my sister would want some privacy, but that just made Katie even more upset, you know?”

Ilya never came out to either of his parents, but he does remember the fear Shane felt when David found them years ago, the anxiety he felt when they first sat down with the Hollanders. He knows how upset he’s felt the past year, increasingly desperate to stop hiding, but not wanting to hurt Shane by pushing the issue. 

Not that he’s going to tell Wyatt any of that at all.

“Mm.”

“She cried for a long time. Well, I don’t know, it probably wasn’t that long but I was sixteen and it felt like forever. I hate seeing her cry. But anyway, finally Katie calmed down a little, and she just looked at my parents for a second. Mom told her that whatever was going on, it would be okay, and she could tell them anything. So Katie looked at her girlfriend, then at me, and she broke. She started venting about how unhappy she was and how she couldn’t take it anymore.” Wyatt sighs, shaking his head. “She told them she was gay and she couldn’t stand to hide it anymore.”

“Okay,” Ilya says blandly. 

“Since then, she’s told me about what it was like for her to be in the closet. I know it’s not a fun place to be, no matter what the circumstances are.” 

Ilya braces subconsciously. Slowly, feeling hunted, he looks back at his teammate’s face.

Wyatt is a lot of things, but a coward isn’t one. He meets Ilya’s eyes without faltering. 

“I’m not asking you anything, okay? That’s not what that story was. But I am telling you that I’ve heard the rumors.”

For a second, Ilya freezes. He forgets what rumor is actually floating around, and icy dread fills him as he thinks that maybe everyone knows about him. They’ve seen him and Shane together, or they’ve put the pieces together as to why he’s always visiting the Kingfisher. 

But—no. Even Scott Hunter looks at Ilya and thinks he’s straight. Wyatt can only be talking about one thing.

The rumors about Shane being gay have made their rounds through the NHL, snowballing from one gossipy asshole to the next. He had hoped that his team was somehow spared, but clearly that’s not what’s happening here. Probably they’re just too nice to throw around such things when Troy is right there, being gay in their own locker room.

Ilya doesn’t look away from Wyatt even to blink, though he doesn’t know what to say. Maybe he should deny there are any rumors at all, or threaten Wyatt if he dares say or do anything that could out Shane for good. 

Warring instincts fight inside him: which one will protect Shane better? Which one won’t implode his friendship with Wyatt? Which one won’t out them?

Ultimately, Ilya takes too long to decide. 

Whispering now, Wyatt continues a little urgently, “I’m friends with JJ, you know. And he hasn’t told me anything I shouldn’t know, but if he’s having this hard of a time in Montreal witnessing it, I don’t know how… other people… could stand it there.”

Ilya’s thoughts flare up uglily, the way they always do when he thinks about the Voyageurs. If he had his way, they would all be permanently groveling for Shane’s forgiveness, or worse. Much, much worse. But he doesn’t want Wyatt to see, to get the idea that he’s on the right track, and smooths his face out quickly. 

It’s difficult to unclench his jaw and make himself sound normal.

“Sure, yes, Montreal sucks. Why are you telling me this?”

Okay, it comes out not normal at all. Even he can tell he sounds like an asshole, but he doesn’t take it back.

“Lisa did say this wouldn’t go well,” Wyatt mumbles to himself, rolling his eyes slightly. Then, to Ilya, he says, “You know why I’m telling you. If it’s just him, or… or, well, either way, I’ve seen this before, okay? Not just the closet, but shitty hockey teams too. So if someone needs some help, or an open ear, or anything, I’m here.”

Those words are what finally make Ilya look away. They’re a punch to the gut, but a good punch, hurtful and kind at the same time. 

Ilya has not come out to many people in his life. How many of them have ever said ‘I’m here for you’ so blatantly, so unconditionally? Very few.

Taking a deep breath, some of Ilya’s fear washes out of him. Not all of it, never all of it. But when he glances at Wyatt, he sees nothing hostile on his face at all, just pure open emotions. It’s clear he means it. He’s saying, Ilya, I know Shane is gay, and I think you might be too, and that’s okay. You’ve still got me.

Looking up at the ornate clock on the Boodrams’ wall, he considers his options. He won’t confirm anything to Wyatt, nothing to do with Shane at least. But maybe….

“Thank you, Hazy.”

If his voice breaks halfway through, then thankfully, Wyatt is kind enough not to say anything. He just claps Ilya on the back like he gets it, what’s being unsaid, and doesn’t mind that either.

“Yeah, of course. I love you, man, and I’m worried about you both.” He seems to realize a second too late how that sounds, because he starts, “Uh, I mean—”

“It’s okay,” Ilya sighs. 

“I’m not asking about, uh, Shane, it’s not my business. Or Jane. Or any of it. I just wanted—”

“It’s fine, Hazy.” Ilya inhales, looking around them quickly. There’s no one around, though he realizes with a jolt that Shane is staring at him from across the yard. Shit fuck. Picking up his plates, he turns to Wyatt and, as the Americans love to say, bites the bullet. “I am bisexual. I do not… spread around, but is not a secret, okay? Troy knows too.”

Wyatt blinks at him once, twice, then a smile spreads on his face. He glances at Shane, nodding.

“Okay. Thanks for trusting me with that, Rozy. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

“I know. You are a good man, Hazy.”

With that, his heart pounding, he hurries back to Shane.

Chapter 9

Chapter Notes

supremely unbeta'd even by myself, and I'm not 100% on it, BUT it's here!!!!!

everyone say thank you to aelig who helped me figure out how to unlock my brain so I could finish this chapter <3 also they straight up wrote a few of the lines of dialogue here. also thanks to lore and rae for their ideas about aleks and ilya interactions hehe

⚠️ this chapter contains homophobia from teammates and coaches ⚠️

Aleks from Belarus moves in on a Friday. 

Shane is back in the city for the upcoming season, so he’s able to go and meet him in person. Luckily, practice ended early that morning, so he had time to go home and clean himself up. The last thing he wants is to give his new tenant a bad first impression.

He slips in the front door as a stream of movers—from the same company Shane has been using since Katia moved in—flows in and out. He recognizes some of them, and gives them friendly nods as he walks past. 

It’s almost easy to put on the mask of Shane Hollander, who is both Professional and Normal, and leave the rest of the day behind him. Compared to the mask he puts on at the rink nowadays, this one is much more comfortable.

Upstairs, Aleks is talking with a few guys about where a couch should go. Shane waits until they’re done before he steps forward, hand already out to shake. 

“Are you Aleks?” He asks, even though he knows this is definitely his new tenant. “Shane Hollander. It’s nice to officially meet you.”

Aleks shakes his hand back, looking at Shane with slightly wide eyes. They’re a cute hazel, matching his dirty blonde hair. He looks like a younger, twinkier Ilya, albeit with straight hair rather than curls. Shane has to fight down a grin at the thought. 

“Wow, is so good to meet you,” Aleks says, his face going a little pink. “I know you said your name before, but I did not really believe….”

“Hah, yeah, you’re not the first person to tell me that,” Shane replies, remembering Lyudmila’s son and the first time he ever spoke to Mikhail. “But hey, I’m not like… trying to be a celebrity right now. I’m just your landlord. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if something’s wrong with the apartment or if you need something, okay?”

Aleks just blinks at him, nodding silently. Shane wonders if that was too much English at once, but he’s learned to get this out of the way fast. 

Shifting his weight, he tries to make his smile seem more friendly. “That’s part of why I’m here today, I wanted to check in and make sure you were getting in okay.”

That seems to wake the kid up a bit. Standing up to his full height, which is half a head shorter than Shane, he crosses his arms and leans in a little.

“Oh yes, just fine, Mr. Hollander,” he says, nearly a purr. “Everything is fine so far. But maybe you can help me? Am not sure how best to arrange things.”

Shane can’t possibly turn down a chance to get to arrange things. “Oh hey, yeah, I can help with that. I really like interior design stuff, actually. Lead the way.”

Several hours later, Shane’s back at his own apartment, cooking dinner while video calling with Ilya. He’s not sure what Ilya’s eating tonight—it looks like leftover chicken parm, probably from his dad. In contrast, Shane is making baked tonkatsu, needing something familiar. He hates the days that follow cottage visits, days where he wakes up still expecting Ilya to be in bed across from him, when his body aches for a touch that’s no longer in reach. 

His Obaa-chan liked tonkatsu, meaning it was one of the first—and only—meals Mom learned how to make. Shane’s made it for Ilya a few times, and he loves it too. There’s a voice in the back of his head that says it’s not the healthiest, the sauce alone is so salty, but… he’s just really missing Ilya right now. And Mom, and Obaa-chan, even if he hardly had any time with her at all before she passed. 

And maybe it’s been hard being back in Montreal. JJ and Hayden can really only do so much without making it worse for him.

After meeting the Centaurs one-on-one, though things didn’t go the smoothest at times, he’s been… struggling. 

Ilya told him, after they got home, what Wyatt had said. At first, he’d panicked, fearing the goalie would say something, but after a long conversation with Ilya—and a slightly frantic call to JJ, who vouched for Wyatt and swore he'd said nothing revealing about Shane to anyone—he’d been able to calm down. So another one of Ilya’s teammates knew, or seemed to know, and he was trustworthy and everything was fine. Wyatt was totally normal to him the whole night, not to mention how the whole group had treated Harris and Troy the same as everyone else.

But that just put into stark relief how not fine his own team was, how they’d spread his sexuality around despite him clearly asking them not to, and all the little comments they made, and… 

Shane takes a deep breath, inhaling the scent of one of his comfort meals. 

He imagines Ilya’s voice saying everything is okay, Hollander, just be a good boy and breathe, and he feels a little better.

Stirring his noodles around, Ilya watches him through the phone camera. 

They’ve already talked about how fucking hard this is and how much they miss each other. Shane wants the conversation to move on—he can only handle so much before it starts to feel like his heart is going to actually break into pieces—but he doesn’t have the energy to think of anything to say. 

After a few silent moments, Ilya breaks it by asking, almost gentle, “How was new tenant? He moved in today, yes?”

Ah, okay. Something he can talk about without feeling like one big bruise. Thank god for Ilya.

“Yeah, yes. He’s fine. Nice, a little quiet at first but by the end he was talking my ear off. He seems like a good kid.” Shane puts the cutlets, now breaded, into the oven to bake and turns to face the camera. He peers at his boyfriend for a moment, recalling Aleks’ face. “He kind of reminds me of you, actually.”

Ilya smirks like an asshole, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, really? So he is very hot then.”

Shane can’t help but let out a little laugh. “Uh, I guess. I wasn’t really paying attention to that. He’s like twenty years old, he’s just a kid.”

“You’re only thirty, Shane.”

Yeah, and he feels every single bit of it. “In dog years, maybe.”

“No, no, I would not date a dog.” Despite making a joke, Ilya's expression turns a little more serious. He shrugs, looking down at his plate. “But… maybe I would own one.”

Yeah, Shane’s heard that one before. “Baby, I’ve got food in the oven, I don’t have time to play….”

Ilya blows a raspberry at him. “Shanya, no! Get your mind out of trash! I meant maybe I would want one.”

Shane rolls his eyes fondly, refusing to correct Ilya’s idiom when he knows he’s saying it wrong on purpose. He always does that lately, trying to get Shane to scold him, because he’s a freak and that turns him on. 

“Want what, a dog?” He asks, getting them back on topic. 

Ilya nods, his eyes lighting up as he begins to explain all the reasons he has to adopt one. Though Shane isn’t sure it’s a good idea—they’re so rarely home, after all—he listens attentively and tries to stay neutral. He lets the sound of Ilya’s voice wash over him while he eats, and pictures a future where they live together all the time, where Ilya has all the dogs he could want, and Shane never has to miss him. And maybe where he has a good, solid team behind him.

It sounds really, really nice. 

The next time he’s in Ottawa, he’s quite glad to meet Anya. He’s even happier to see Ilya’s wide, pleased smile. He’d been missing it.

Over the next few weeks, as the season begins and Shane turns back into a hockey robot (except when he's with the Pikes, his parents, or Ilya), Aleks begins to text him. 

Sorry, I was at a game, Shane replies one day, sweat dripping down his face. I'll call my regular plumber to come out and look at the pipes. What's a good time for you?

“Is that Lil-ly?” JJ teases, drawing the name out as they get re-dressed. To his credit, he does try to keep his voice down, but the locker room is quieter these days, so everyone around them hears.

“No, fuck off,” Shane mumbles distractedly. His phone immediately buzzes with a response from Aleks, but he doesn’t have time to finish reading the text before things start devolving around him.

Hayden peeks over at his phone. “Huh, who's Aleks?”

“Got a new boyfriend, Hollander?” Miity asks, sitting a few stalls over. Sorren Miitka is one of the only other guys who's occasionally nice about Shane being gay. The only problem is— 

“Ugh, I don't want to hear about that nasty shit,” Gagnon shouts from across the locker room.

—he never defends Shane. He just sits there silently, unbothered by the outburst, watching Shane for some kind of reaction.

“Shut the fuck up,” Hayden snaps back. JJ glares supportively, standing up straighter just in case. 

Gagnon snorts. “Fucking make me—”

There can't be any fighting between teammates. Theriault would definitely blame him for it, especially if it's over him and his “unfortunate distraction”. It’s happened more than once already, actually.

Straightening up and stepping between them, Shane rolls his eyes and pretends he’s not bothered at all. “Both of you, shut up. To answer your question, Gagnon, he's not my boyfriend. He's one of my tenants.”

“Oh, you're still doing that? Renting?” Miity asks, sounding uninterested. 

“Yes—”

“Not your boyfriend but you wish he was, huh, Hollander?” Drapeau cuts in, leaning back against his stall. 

Shane’s eye twitches. He knows better than to engage, but sometimes he just can’t stop himself. “No.”

“Maybe he should get a boyfriend,” Miity starts, turning towards Drapeau. It’s unclear if he’s being serious or not, neither his tone nor his smile revealing anything. “He’s so tense out there, and we did always say he should go out, get laid. I guess Lily isn’t doing it for him.”

Comeau comes then, snapping his fingers like that’s the best thing he ever heard. “Good idea, Miity. What do you say, Cap?” And then he turns to Shane, leering, his expression dark and cruel. “If you can’t find a boytoy, maybe Pike and Boiziau could help you out, loosen you up. Maybe we’d fucking win something then.” 

“Ta yeule!” JJ snaps, pushing forward before Shane can even fully comprehend what was just said. 

Shane can’t stop the fight that follows, not that he particularly wants to defend his asshole teammates. At least the other guys, whether they like him or not, step up to help break up JJ and Comeau. JJ comes out of the fight with a bruise on his eye, but Comeau’s not so lucky. Blood drips from his split lip, getting all over the floor and spraying when he tries to fucking spit at Shane.

It’s a shitshow. The coaches are pissed, the rookies are laughing. The PR guy exhaustedly demands that no one say anything, not that any of these guys want to be seen as another gay team like the Centaurs and Admirals. Comeau refuses to go to medical, storming out the second he’s allowed to go.

After, while the rest of the team goes out to lick their wounds from their latest loss, he, Hayden and JJ end up getting chewed out by Theriault. It’s all Shane’s fault, of course. 

“This is fucked up,” Hayden keeps saying, though Coach clearly doesn’t care. Theriault barely even looks at him except to roll his eyes. “They’re targeting him, you know they are, and they’re making us lose!”

“I am the only one defending Shane on the ice now,” JJ adds furiously. He lists each of the other D-men and has examples aplenty about how they’ve failed to protect Shane from hits, high sticking, tripping, and more.

But it goes in one ear and out the other. Shane doesn’t bother to speak, because he knows how this goes. 

Theriault complains that the next time this happens, he’s benching them all, no exceptions. But Shane is the only one scoring any goals these days, so he’s not really going to bench him—he’s just going to threaten him with it. And of course nothing is going to happen to Comeau. Why should he get in trouble? He was the one who was attacked by a teammate.

“Get the fuck out of my office,” Coach finally snaps, and forces them all out into the night. 

Standing alone in the parking lot, Hayden and JJ lose some of their steam. Shane watches them share a look, one that he’s been seeing a lot more lately. It makes him angry—they’re treating him like a child, like he needs careful handling—but he just doesn’t have the energy to deal with it. And what’s the purpose of getting upset with the only two people here who are on his side?

“I’m fine,” he says tiredly, before either of them can speak. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he thinks longingly of home, of Ilya, of what his life was like before all of this. Nights like these make him regret ever coming out to anyone. “Thanks for trying, but… next time, just leave it alone. Please.”

“You can’t be serious, man.” Hayden turns big eyes on him, fists clenched at his sides. “We’re not going to just stand around and let them treat you like this. You’re our fucking captain.”

“I am serious, Hayd. It’s not worth all this trouble. One of these days, Coach is really going to—”

“Fuck this,” JJ spits, and pulls Shane into his chest. 

He falls into the embrace stiffly, his insides jumping sickeningly at the sudden touch. After everything that happened earlier, his hands come up instinctively to push JJ away, but then Hayden comes up behind him to squish him between their bodies, and Shane has no choice but to submit. It gets uncomfortable after about two seconds, but his friends only make him endure for ten.

Both of them ask him to come home with them that night. They know Ilya isn’t in town, isn’t even in Ottawa, but Shane refuses. He wants to go home, wash the day off, and see if Rose or Ilya are available to call. Preferably Rose, actually. She won’t force him to talk about how shitty his team is or how he shouldn’t be alone. 

It’s only once he’s showered and about to text her that he remembers Aleks. 

Any time is good for me ;)

Shane’s got exactly zero bandwidth to understand the wink, so he just doesn’t bother. 

Okay, he sends back. How about tomorrow at 3 PM?

Once again, Aleks texts back right away. I’ll be waiting~

Shane sends a thumbs up, then navigates to his chat with Rose, hoping she’s still awake. She’ll know just what to say to make him feel better, even if it’s the insane things her ‘method acting’ coworker is doing now.

The locker room is extra tense, after that. 

Shane stops checking his phone if anyone but JJ or Hayden are around him. He feels fucking bad about it, because it leads to missed texts and some of them are important—Katia’s sink had another leak—but he just can’t. The coaches are breathing down his neck to behave, to keep the team in line. He can’t do that if they’re causing scenes over his “girlfriends” or telling him it’s embarrassing to be a mama’s boy in his thirties.

Almost none of this reaches Ilya. Not through Shane, anyway. 

When they call at night, Ilya asks every time. And Shane doesn’t necessarily lie, but it’s not worth the arguments and going to bed sad and pissed off to be fully honest. Their teams are just different. That’s all.

At least he has Hayden and JJ, who flank him like personal bodyguards whenever they can. 

Shane’s phone buzzes just before a game is set to begin. He glances around, seeing only his friends nearby, and decides to risk it. Maybe it’s Ilya with another pep talk.

Nope, just Aleks. He’s sent some silly meme entirely in Cyrllic that Shane barely understands, but is obviously meant to be cheering him on. He texts back a quick thanks, and puts his phone away quickly once he’s made sure there’s nothing from his boyfriend.

Across the locker room, Comeau and Drapeau’s loud conversation suddenly peaks, the rest of the guys going quiet at the perfect time so they can all hear whatever disgusting shit those two are talking about. Shane hears enough to know it’s misogynistic and way too explicit for a work setting, but whatever. He’s given up on trying to get any of these assholes to be decent people.

It hurts to see the rookies laughing it up, despite that. They obviously don’t care. Instead, they hang on to every word Drapeau says.

Turning back to his friends, he’s reminded of Ilya’s rookies. Four boys who are the same age but clearly a lot more mature. The night of the BBQ, they were so careful with the kids, kind to all of the WAGS, and obviously supportive of Harris and Barrett. They snapped to attention whenever Ilya said anything. Plus how they looked up to Shane… he remembers having rookies like that, guys who are still here in this locker room today that refuse to look at him anymore. 

JJ’s scoff pulls him out of his thoughts. He glares at the corner of the room with narrowed eyes. “Maybe we should forget those assholes when it is time to go home.”

“Seriously. Anyone know of a good dumpster nearby? We can throw them in.” Hayden finishes tying off his skate and mimes a slam dunk.

JJ pretends to think about it, as if he’s actually considering if New York has any. “Boston is not so far,” he says eventually, purposefully light.

The corners of Shane’s mouth turn up. Even though everything has been... not great, lately, he knows he can count on his friends to cheer him up or at least commiserate.

“Nah,” he says, standing and stretching out his shoulders. “Just send them back down to mites, maybe they’ll learn something useful.”

"Brutal, Shane," Hayden wheezes proudly while JJ throws his head back and laughs.

Aleks texting him becomes a normal part of his daily routine. 

Hayden suggests that his apartment must be haunted, considering how often Aleks texts him. Whether it’s repair that needs to be done, or questions about the lease, or funny stories about Little Bear’s kittens. Actually, one of his questions is about pets, though the kittens are still too young to be adopted out yet. 

Shane always makes time to reply. A lot of times, he has to do it after practice or a game has ended, but Aleks doesn’t seem to mind. 

When Ilya hears about all the texting, he gives Shane an evil look over their video call.

“Maybe he has a crush on you,” he says innocently, guiding Anya’s head so she’ll give big puppy eyes at the camera. With their heads side by side, two adorably blond creatures that he loves, Shane feels distinctly attacked.

“I don’t think it’s a crush,” Shane laughs, moving into the king pigeon pose.

“Mmm, I think yes. It reminds me of someone….”

“Don’t you dare.”

“A certain dinosaur and his favorite rook…”

“Fuck off,” Shane laughs again. 

“Oh Mister Hunter,” Ilya teases, speaking in a ridiculously high pitch. “I am so gay for you. You are probably the best hockey player ever I think. I have jerked off to your poster every night since the crestayseeus period.”

“First of all, it’s cretaceous, and second of all, are you calling me old?” Beaming, he adds, “And third of all, fuck you.”

“Okay, fine, cretaceous, whatever! I do not know big dinosaur words, I was not there, you know.”

He looks so smug, so proud of himself, that Shane has to roll his eyes. “Oh my god.”

“Of course my Shane is not as old as Hunter. How could he have a cute little rookie crush on him then, hmm?” Ilya flops back onto his bed, totally letting Anya up with him even though Shane doesn’t want her up there. Sending a suspicious look his way, he asks, “No comment on the jerking off?”

Now that his back feels like it’s about to break from holding the pigeon pose so long, Shane slowly eases onto the mat, moving into a supine spinal twist. 

“I didn’t have his poster up,” Shane mutters, even though it’s not true and they both know it. “I had a better one. Some Russian kid.”

All the way in Ottawa, Ilya’s eyes light up. “Oh? Yes, yes, tell me more.”

“Okay. He was first overall in the draft. He’s a top-ten Russian scorer in the league. Oh, he played in Moscow for a while, and played in the WJC. And his name is Ilya…,” Shane lets the moment draw out, watching fondly as his boyfriend waits for the reveal. “Ilya Kovalchuk.”

It takes only a second before Ilya is spluttering out, “Fuck you.”

“What! You know how I feel about sexy Russian hockey players. I couldn’t resist him.”

“I’m going to hang up on you,” Ilya pouts. “You are so evil, Anya, do you know your dad is this cruel? Is okay,” he sighs, “we love him anyway.”

“I love you too, Ilyusha,” Shane grins. He always feels better when they call. Always.

Shane really doesn’t think Aleks has a crush on him, but now whenever they chat, he can’t help but wonder.

He’s careful not to be too personal, though it’s a little difficult. Not just because Aleks is overly friendly, but because Shane’s used to all of the other tenants who are comfortable with him. He’s still not very close with Gabrielle and Kristina, but they’ve been sending him kitten updates—a litter of seven, four girls and three boys, all named after famous bears. 

One day a few weeks after the crush conversation, Aleks even texts him asking for interior design advice again. He sends a picture of his wardrobe, which he says is in the way. There’s a mirror hanging off the door, and Aleks’ reflection glows in golden sunlight. He’s shirtless, wearing only shorts that hang low on his hips.

It just so happens to be a weekend that Ilya has come to visit. Shane’s not blind—he looks at Aleks’ body for a second, noting that he looks nice. Too skinny for Shane’s taste, but still attractive. He wonders why the kid wouldn’t send a different picture where he isn’t half naked, though. Shane’s his landlord, after all. 

He’s sending back a text—I’d need to see more of your room to give better advice, but you could always put it in the corner at an angle—when Ilya comes back to bed. 

Flopping down next to Shane, he snuggles in close, inhales Shane’s skin like a weirdo, and hums happily. Then he opens his eyes and peers at Shane’s phone.

Just as Shane hits send, Ilya makes a scathing noise. “Who is that.”

“Aleks,” Shane supplies, showing him the conversation. 

“He is in love with you,” Ilya declares.

“What the fuck? No he’s not.”

“Okay then he wants to have sex with you. He’s throwing himself at you.”

Shane sighs. “It’s a little inappropriate, but he’s just a kid. He probably doesn’t see how it’s coming off.”

Ilya clearly doesn’t agree, scrolling through the text chat at the speed of light. He stops at every picture, all of them from Aleks and none from Shane, except for ones from Pinterest boards. 

After a minute of this, Ilya stops on a selfie Aleks sent from the lounging area in the apartment building. He looks, like usual, like a funhouse mirror version of Ilya. He’s even wearing a gold chain in the picture.

Shane waits patiently for the reaction, sinking his body as far into Ilya’s as he can get.

Finally, Ilya asks, “You’re trying to downgrade, Hollander?”

Shane’s head snaps around. Ilya says it like a joke, but Shane doesn’t find it funny. “No—”

“How many Stanley Cups does Aleks have, hmm? What is my competition like? If I have to fight for your honor then I need to know, Shanya.”

“There’s no competition, ever. He’s my fucking tenant, and more importantly, he’s not you. I—”

Ilya smacks a kiss on his cheek before continuing on with his drama, putting on a sad voice. “Does not matter, moya lyubov. This Aleks is in love with you. I need to, ah, how do you say, stake my claim on you.”

Shane glares at him for another second, before he finally gives in and rolls his eyes. Later, he’ll tell Ilya how much he loves him, how there’s no one in this world who could possibly get between them. Ilya’s his for life, and that’s final. 

But fine, if he wants to play around, Shane can play. He can win.

“I don’t want to hear it, not when you have Luca.” 

Ilya lets out a little laugh. “Haasy?”

Sitting up, Shane settles into Ilya’s lap, hands on either side of his shoulders so Shane looms over him. Like they’re drawn there, Ilya’s hands come up to rest on his hips, squeezing just a little too tight, the way Shane likes.

“Yes, Haasy. What did you say?” Shane puts on an awkward, vaguely European accent. “‘I am so gay for you. You are probably the best hockey player ever I think. I have jerked off to your poster every night since the jurassic period.’ That was it, right?”

Ilya’s expression is a mix of in love and horny. “Shane,” he groans.

“Not so fun being the dinosaur, huh?”

“I see your argument,” Ilya replies, “but I have secret weapon.”

Shane doesn’t know what he expects, but the immediate tickle attack is not it. He retaliates quickly, even as he giggles and squirms, and soon enough they’ve forgotten Shane’s newest tenant, far more worried about making up for lost time. 

So maybe he didn’t win, exactly. They’ll just call it a draw.

Chapter End Notes

when I was making the joke about shane having another russian poster, I was like 'well I don't wanna do ovechkin (even tho ilya's based off of him) bc he's pro-putin'. I decided to look for another guy. I then found ilya kovalchuk who, yes, has all of those similarities to our ilya. and he's more attractive than ovechkin tbh sorry but it's true. then I scrolled to his politics on the wiki page and yep, pro-putin 😩😩😩 he just works so well otherwise ugh!!! anyway as always this is a fuck putin household so maybe the MREU (Mr Real Estate Universe) version of this guy is a better person idk

also someone def commented and suggested that the kittens be named after famous bears but I CANNOT FIND YOUR COMMENT TO CREDIT YOU IM SORRYYYY thank you for the idea I loved it!!