Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories:

F/M, M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander & Hayden Pike, Troy Barrett & Ilya Rozanov, Boston Bears | Boston Raiders Team Ensemble & Shane Hollander & Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander & Ottawa Centaurs Team Ensemble & Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Boston Bears | Boston Raiders Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Ottaw Centaurs Team Ensemble, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Hayden Pike, Jackie Pike, Rose Landry, Svetlana Vetrova, Yuna Hollander, Victor St. Simon, Luca Haas, OC rookies, Troy Barrett, Harris Drover

Additional Tags:

Established Relationship, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Shane Hollander Leaves the Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros, Spoilers for Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers), Supportive Boston Bears | Boston Raiders (Game Changers), Supportive Ottawa Centaurs (Game Changers), Hockey, Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Drama, Codependency, Discussions of and references to racism misogyny and homophobia in the NHL, Shane Hollander Has an Eating Disorder, Outing (trauma related to past outing), The Soft Launch, POV Shane Hollander, Boston Bears | Boston Raiders Player Shane Hollander, Social Media, Twitter, Therapy, discussion of both negative and positive experiences with therapy, Unreliable Narrator, Spoilers for Book 5: Role Model (Game Changers), the epic highs and lows of professional ice hockey, Autistic Shane Hollander

Language:

English

Series:

Part 4 of something you can fix

Stats:

Published: 2026-04-26 Completed: 2026-07-11 Words: 134,905 Chapters: 17/17

something you can grow

Summary

(summary and tags contain SPOILERS for earlier works in the series!)

Shane and Ilya are champions. They are partners, and they’re in it for life. And people are starting to notice.

After being traumatically outed two years ago, Shane and Ilya's relationship and their lives have been fundamentally changed, and most days, Shane thinks that's a good thing. But sometimes, the pressure of being out, and the endless online speculation about #hollanov, and rumors running rampant through the NHL, and a new generation of rookies looking up to them, and the knowledge that everyone is relying on Shane Hollander to be perfect at all times—sometimes it's a lot.

But Shane's dealing with it. Ilya seems happier than he's ever been, and Shane just needs to get his act together to support his husband. He can do that. He needs to, and he will, if he doesn't crack under the pressure first.

They've got a second Stanley Cup to win, after all.

Notes

Chapter 1

Chapter Summary

NHL ☑️ @NHL

It's Game Seven tonight between the @NHLFlappers and the @BostonBears. It's must-win for both teams to advance to the Stanley Cup Final. All eyes are on Captain Shane Hollander following Ilya Rozanov's pre-playoff injury. Who will win? Find out TODAY at 8pm ET on @NHL_on_TNT (TBS), @Sportsnet, and @TVASports! ⚫️🟡 or ⚪️🟠?

5:30 PM · May 21, 2019

Shane felt destroyed.

He could feel it in his toes, numb from the pressure of his skates and more than forty minutes of ice time.

He could feel it in his fingertips, which rarely ever felt the chill of the arena anymore, but now were freezing, nestled in the depths of his sweat-soaked gloves.

He could feel it in his pulse, beating against the thin gold chain draped around his neck, tucked beneath a jersey and shoulder pads and a compression shirt. Hidden.

The left strap of his shoulder pad felt loose. Shane hadn’t had time to fix it and he didn’t now, even though he had just hopped back onto the bench, feeling more like a beached whale than anything else. Give him one good poke, and he might explode.

It was ten minutes until the next intermission. They had to outlast.

Shane blinked. His eyelashes deposited a drop of sweat on his cheek. He blinked again, feeling it fall down his chin.

His lungs burned from exertion and the chill that had settled deep inside him. He was gassed, exhausted, ready to pass out, and they were in the second overtime period of the Eastern Conference Finals.

Game Seven, of course.

Some of the fans had trickled out over the past hour, but the stadium was still packed, the stands colored in an overwhelming wash of bright yellow and black, intermittently spotted with garish orange. As expected, TD Garden had sold out. Whichever team won tonight would proceed to fight for the Stanley Cup. The losing team would end their season deep into the playoffs, and they would pack up and go home for the summer with victory escaping them at their fingertips.

It was the Boston Bears versus the Philadelphia Flappers, and the scoreboard had been locked at 2-2 for more than two hours.

Shane blinked again, feeling the sting of sweat in his tear ducts. He accepted the towel that an anonymous hand passed to him and wiped some of the perspiration off his face. He finally had the wherewithal to scan his bench, trying to take stock of his players. His teammates. His family and his brothers.

Tonight, in addition to everything else, Shane was also their captain. He had been for the past nineteen games.

“We’ve got this one, boys,” he shouted, knocking his stick against the interior of the walls, watching as exhausted eyes and sweaty faces barely glanced at him. Shane swallowed. He forced himself to shout, “We’re winning this one, this period!”

Some throaty cheers. A few nods. Victor St. Simone clapped him on the shoulder.

It was 2019, and Shane Hollander wanted to win another Cup. He needed to. He had won back-to-back championships with the Montreal Voyageurs, and he was ready to rewrite that legacy here, tonight, in Boston. To win again with a different team, a better team, in a stadium flying colors that Shane was proud to skate beneath.

He wanted it more than almost anything.

Shane looked away from the ice and bent forward, feeling the destruction spreading deep into his chest. Desperation and stress. Fuck. Fuck. He wanted to win.

They were deep into overtime. The score was tied. Shane had carried his weight in the regulation game, scoring one of their goals and falling back to play more defense than he should have needed to whenever Varkov, one of their defensemen, lagged. But at the critical moment, Shane had failed. In the last two minutes of the third, Shane had made it into the offensive zone with the puck and a single defenseman on his ass. Vicky had been in the perfect position behind the goal. The puck had slid between their sticks, tape-to-tape and back again, a beautiful tic-tac-toe rhythm that Shane had perfected with very few players in his career. The Flappers’ goalie was good, but Shane had scored on him before. He had been in the perfect position, and so had Vicky, and that puck had been his, and Shane had seen the perfect slot to shoot it through, and he had taken the chance with two minutes left in the fight for the Eastern Conference trophy.

And Shane had missed.

He would never forget it. The sight of it. The ring of the puck knocking off a pad and into a pole and out, useless, onto open ice.

It happened to the best of them (and Shane was supposed to be the very best.) The period had ended, and they had gone, exhausted after seven complete games, into overtime. The locker room had felt tense during that first intermission, and Shane knew that he, as their acting captain, was supposed to find the words to call them to the task, to raise their spirits and hype them up. He had done it before, hadn’t he?

But the words caught in his throat. Shane hadn’t been able to get anything out, mind racing over possibilities and statistics and that fucking missed shot, and then intermission had been over, and in a disorienting blink, his stick was re-taped and waxed, and his mother’s name was written in neat letters down the handle.

He was back on the ice. Without Ilya.

Ilya would have known what to say in the locker room if he had been there.

Ilya should have been there.

Still heaving for breath, Shane’s memories flickered back to the last time he had been in this position, on the very same bench. It was last summer, during the Conference Finals against the New York Admirals for the 2018 Stanley Cup. They had played all seven games then, too. The Admirals were a more established team in recent years than Philadelphia, but after some early-season trades, the Flappers had embarked on their best playoff run in decades. They had only made it into the playoffs as a wildcard team, but, to the surprise of everyone, they had knocked the Pittsburgh Emperors out of the bracket in the first round in just six games. Since then, they’d been playing like they had a fire under their asses. They had something to prove, and that was clearly more than enough motivation.

Shane didn’t know any of the Flappers very well, though Ilya knew several of the Russian players. Shane was, however, fairly familiar (and fittingly wary) of Philadelphia’s fans. Shane always liked to hear noise in an arena though, truthfully, on the ice, boos and cheers sounded similar to him, just a distant wash of noise like an ocean, and as a fan of the sport himself, Shane could appreciate an engaged audience, even one that was turned against him. Ilya always relished the boos—he liked disappointing other teams’ audiences almost as much as he loved winning for their own fans.

(They both agreed that Philadelphia’s mascot was a little… intimidating, however. Shane mostly tried to avoid eye contact when it got too close, but that was difficult when the googly eyes were always pointed in two directions.)

Tonight, he was critically aware that he was playing for Boston's fans, though. Their fans were cheering them on, cheering him on. Their fans wanted to see them win. It was Shane's job, the purpose of his life, his calling on this earth, to give it to them.

Shane glanced up, a little disoriented. He had to check the clock to see how much time had passed, looking up across the heads of the yellow and black-clad Bears fans. Thirty seconds. His breath left him quickly, not quite stabilized. Vicky put a hand on his shoulder and shook him, a gesture of comfort that, after two seasons with the Bears, Shane had finally grown accustomed to. But Vicky was equally gassed, also panting for breath, and had no words of support to offer.

Benji, their goaltender, must have been exhausted. Their second goalie, Davies, had played poorly all season before nearly costing them the first round of the playoffs when his save percentage had abruptly tanked during Games 2 and 3. Since then, Benji had spent nearly every single game of the playoffs in the net, playing through sprains and minor injuries. Bourque, their GM, had not felt confident enough to pull up the Bears’ AHL goaltender directly into the playoffs, so Benji had simply muscled through every injury and ache with gritted teeth and through this incredibly long overtime period. Shane knew management was aware of the problem, but it had become increasingly obvious that the Bears were severely lacking in much-needed goaltending depth. If Benji wasn’t playing, they were pretty much screwed. Shane tried to remind himself that he should be lucky he got any break at all, and clapped his stick on the barrier when Benji easily deflected a weak backhand from the Flappers’ left winger. His face was pale and he looked more exhausted than he had after the birth of his second daughter, but determination was etched clearly into his expression; Benji wanted this just as much as they all did.

Shane had to blink hard when his eyes glazed over, losing track of the puck for a moment. Soon, there would be another commercial break, if anyone was even still broadcasting the game as they edged past midnight, and then he would get another intermission and some time to center himself in the locker room.

It also meant he would be expected to give another captain’s speech, which he dreaded.

Shane’s eyes drifted from the banners hanging in the rafters (black and gold for the Bears, green and white for Boston's Major League Basketball team, the Gaels) to the Jumbotron, replaying a clip of the most recent shot on goal, and then up to the press box. He couldn’t see Ilya across the stadium and through the glass, but he knew he was somewhere in there. Out of reach, off the ice. Injured.

It had been a wild year.

Last June, they won the Stanley Cup.

In July, Shane and Ilya were legally married in a private, confidential ceremony. They honeymooned in Napa Valley, one week of sun-drenched bliss, smelling like grapes growing on vines cooking in the hot weather. They informed their Coach, LeClaire, and the GM of the Boston Bears, Brandon Bourque, and the director of communication, Willow Black. In their personal lives, they told Yuna and David, Svetlana, Cliff and Vicky, and Hayden and Jackie. No one else. They didn’t exchange rings that they couldn’t have worn anyway, but they wore matching chains around their necks every day. Shane never took his off anymore. It had become a second skin.

In August, when they returned to Ottawa, Ilya and Shane filed to begin the process of sponsoring Ilya for permanent residency in Canada, and they both began attending therapy sessions. Ilya had originally proclaimed he was only going in solidarity with Shane, who was determined to finally deal with his traumatic outing, even if it meant wrestling his subconscious into submission with the help of a trained professional. But almost immediately, Ilya formed a deep connection with his therapist, a Russian-speaking Ottawan woman named Galina, and started benefiting from therapy more than Shane did, to his embarrassment. Ilya came home from sessions tired but calm, a steadiness in his face and eyes even when they were also brimming with tears. In contrast, Shane often came home nearly mute with exhaustion and taxed nerves, ill-content to do anything but fall into bed and lie beneath the covers, preferably with Ilya plastered to his side. They didn’t speak about their therapy very often, but still, they both persisted. They spent a week with Yuna and David and then went their separate ways to fulfill sponsorship obligations before they started intensive training for the upcoming season in Boston. In their house. Their home. He didn’t know anymore how they had survived so many years separated. Shane had completely overhauled the landscaping, scheduling most of the work for when they would be gone, and in between summer training schedules, they lounged in the backyard, shaded by hedges and trees, and let their skin warm under the sun. “Freckles,” Ilya said, half-drunk on exhaustion and sunlight. “You must store up on freckles before the cruel, cruel winter.” Shane, of course, still wore sunblock. But his freckles appeared anyway, so Ilya was happy.

In September, preseason training camp started again, and Shane loved how much returning to the ice felt like coming home. He was surprised by how different it was from his first practice with the Bears, when he had been so scared and overwhelmed, nearly sick with dread. This year, it had almost been a party. Shane had jostled the star-struck rookies and stopped Cliff and Ilya from hazing them too badly. They had tried new lines and played well. Ilya teleconferenced with Galina every two weeks, and Shane lowered his own sessions to every other month to make his schedule more manageable. It still helped, he thought. Sometimes.

In October, they started the season off strong with an eight-game win streak, broken only by the Admirals. Given that Shane and Scott Hunter were tentative friends by then, as the only out gay players in the NHL, he hadn’t taken it too hard. Shane would have preferred to get another win over them, of course, but he could stomach the loss. Ilya, however, was pissed, and Shane had tackled him into bed after ten minutes of a rant about requiring the elderly to retire before they broke their backs and not allowing dinosaurs to play in the NHL. Shane had managed to shut him up. Eventually.

In November, Shane settled fully into the routine of the season. A game every day or two, roadies to New York, Philadelphia, and New Jersey, and flights to California and Colorado, where Shane had sat down to lunch with Avery Wilson, the captain who had won the MVP award over Shane the previous season, and got to know him a little better. Ilya, the possessive, jealous, bitter bastard, had tagged along and made snide comments to Wilson about the Mudslides’ Cup loss all night until Shane had jabbed his elbow between Ilya’s ribs hard enough to get him wheezing for breath. He’d been a little nicer after that. Just a little.

In December, he and Ilya used their precious few days off to travel to Ottawa for Christmas, where they convened with Shane’s parents at the Pikes' new house fifteen minutes away from the Centaurs’ practice rink. Shane had been relieved to see how much happier Hayden was in Ottawa, settled with the kids and on a team that he no longer hated. The Centaurs had a rough season, but with a new goalie and a new forward, they weren’t quite as pathetic as they had been in previous years. Shane was optimistic now that their god-awful former center and captain had officially announced his retirement. They seemed like good guys. From what Shane heard, Hayden had a better rapport with Hayes, Bood, and Dykstra after three months than he’d had with most of the Voyageurs after five years. That was sad, but it was also hopeful.

In January, Shane had the opportunity to model for a new Rolex campaign with Miles Canton, Rose’s close friend and a fellow X-Squad actor, who also happened to be openly gay. Shane had a surprisingly fun time at the shoot, and the end product was tasteful, attractive, and even somewhat personally fulfilling—it was Rolex’s first ever photoshoot or commercial featuring an all-queer group of talent. Shane was gay, and everyone knew he was gay, and Rolex still wanted to work with him and highlight him in their advertising, and for such an old and typically apolitical brand, Shane knew how much that meant. Shane’s therapist told him that he couldn’t hide himself forever, or abandon opportunities that he would have leapt at in a previous life, and Shane supposed that he agreed, even though he had never thought of himself as being eager for brand opportunities. At least it was nice to reunite with Miles. (Ilya did not think so. “I saw the fucking insane way he was grinding on you in that club, Shane. He wants you. He still wants you. He would be stupid not to want you.” He was spitting mad with jealousy, and Shane probably should self-reflect about how much it turned him on. The sex afterward, though, was definitely worth it.)

In February, he and Ilya once again found themselves on the same All-Star team. Wyatt Hayes had been their goalie. It was a fucking bloodbath against the other teams, and Shane had left the ice feeling high, even though they were just exhibition games. Ilya and Wyatt had dragged him out to a club to celebrate. There had been body shots involved, Shane thought hazily, only able to remember the night in pieces. Ilya won a spontaneous arm wrestling competition against what felt like half the club’s occupants. Shane and Ilya danced together, not as close as Shane would have liked, but in public, happily, drunkenly, with cameras on them. On Twitter, #RIPtherivalry had trended under Sports. Not quite as popular, #hollanov and #soulmatesinskates had also seen an uptick on trending lists. Ilya had been smug as hell. Shane had not experienced a worse hangover since Las Vegas in 2014.

In March, only a few weeks before the end of the season, the center forward of Detroit, Vincent Lemaire, illegally checked Ilya hard enough to badly break his ribs.

Shane had been on the ice when it happened, had been less than fifteen feet away when Lemaire had rammed his shoulder into Ilya’s back, knocking him up and forward, and he had been close enough to hear the sickening rattle of Ilya’s helmet clattering first against the barrier as his torso had collided hard with the edge of the wall, and then slammed onto the ice. The pain knocked Ilya unconscious, and recovery took him off the ice for the rest of the season and the majority of the playoffs, although by then, the Bears had already been mathematically guaranteed a spot. (In March, Shane also got into the bloodiest fight of his career. In March, he knocked Vincent Lemaire’s front incisor out of his mouth when Shane punched his helmet hard enough that his visor impacted his mouth. The hard edge of the plastic against his teeth had cut open his top lip, and Shane still hoped it would scar. In March, two weeks into recovery and more miserable and restless than Shane had ever seen him, Ilya doubled his sessions with Galina and emerged from a call in the guest bedroom, expression blank and hollow, and confessed in a throaty, broken voice, “I am depressed. My mother was depressed. Galina says that she cannot fix me and I will probably be broken forever, and I didn't know, or I would have told you, Shane, I promise I would have told you if I knew.” Shane held him until Ilya was finally warm enough to cry, and then he held him until Ilya was out of tears. He never wanted to let go.)

In April, Shane was given the C and carried their team through the first two rounds of the playoffs in Ilya’s absence, desperately hoping that Ilya would be recovered enough to return to the ice by the Stanley Cup Finals, playing every game on an unpracticed line with an additional weight on his shoulders, knowing that Ilya was watching or listening to recaps and stressed that he couldn’t be there for his boyfriend during his recovery. It was a rough month. Shane sprained his ankle, and he played on. Ilya was despondent about missing out on playoff hockey, and Shane didn’t have the time or the energy to help him. They never would have made it through without the support of Svetlana and Shane’s parents, who had flown down to spend some time with Ilya right after the injury. Ilya was depressed about missing the playoffs and worried about his injury, and Shane was so anxious that sometimes he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, could barely talk. He hated seeing Ilya injured. It made him almost physically sick. Ilya similarly hated seeing Shane injured and hated that he couldn’t even tell Shane off for playing through his sprain. But, with their friends and family, they were making it through. Despite all of it, Shane managed to pull their rattled team through the first two rounds of the playoffs, inching them closer to the Cup.

And now it was May, and Aliue was trying to hold the puck as the lines changed, and Shane watched (despairing, desperate, exhausted, crushed, already seeing the opposing unfolding play like a cursed prescient vision) as one of the Flappers’ defenseman caught the puck that Aliue had desperately tried to ice down the rink and took off, heading straight for an opening between the bodies.

Benji was hemmed in by defensemen as Shane flung himself over the barriers, trying to race in to help as the lines changed at the worst possible moment, possession of the puck switching before anyone had been able to realize and halt, and their goalie was overwhelmed. Shane raced. The right winger passed to the left winger, and his stick hit the ice with a cracking slap shot that Shane heard even over the sudden cacophonous screaming of the crowd.

Benji threw up his glove a second too late.

If I had just fucking made that shot before we went into overtime, Shane thought, knowing that his expression of utter devastation was being caught on at least a dozen cameras, we would have won it all.

His shot should have gone in. He was capable of making a shot like that. He had done it a million times before.

Tonight, he just hadn’t made it, and now, thirty minutes of overtime later, a stadium covered in black and yellow lifted to its feet in outrage as the Flappers flooded the ice and the Bears quietly made their way to the sides. Before climbing over, Shane bent, suddenly floored, and put his forehead on the barrier, eyes closed, trying and struggling to breathe.

His ankle hurt.

No one else was really in a position to comfort him, but Cliff Marlow, one of Ilya and Shane’s best friends on the team and a veteran defenseman, put a heavy hand on his shoulder and let it rest there without trying to pull Shane upright.

Once, that kind of casual touch from Cliff would have sent Shane’s hackles rising immediately.

But Shane had known Cliff for years.

He relaxed. Just for a moment.

He followed when Cliff nudged him, nearly stumbling to his knees as they stepped through the gate and exited the ice.

Then they were moving, celebration over, back to the locker rooms. Back to cameras and disappointed family members, and avoiding eye contact with his teammates.

(He had disappointed them. He had disappointed himself. Somewhere in the audience, Yuna Hollander was wearing a Boston Bears jersey even though she had been a Montreal fan her entire life, and he had disappointed her, too. Shane was assailed by the memory of winning the Cup last year, probably close to exactly fifty weeks prior, and the locker room in Colorado where someone had showered him and Ilya in champagne as they had kissed in front of all their teammates without fear, without discretion, without needing to decide to do it. Somewhere in this building, Ilya was wearing a suit, itching, desperate to get back on the ice in just a few days, and Shane had let him down.)

He didn’t have time for thoughts like that now, though, not when cameras and lights were suddenly appearing in his face before he had even made it back to the locker room. Shane was drenched in sweat, his gear was disgusting, and he felt disgusted with himself. It felt as though the perspiration and the grime could seep beneath his skin at any moment, and he blinked hard, shook his head tightly, and tried to steel himself against a sensation like ants crawling across his skin, trapped tight to his body by uneven shoulder straps and his compression shirt. He tried not to visibly cringe away from the crowd of reporters.

Game face. More so than for the actual game.

“Mr. Hollander! Can you tell us a little about how it feels to lose this round during overtime in game seven?”

Bad. It feels bad. I can’t breathe, and I just hope you think it’s because I gave it my all—I promise I tried. “It’s always disappointing to lose a game as close as this one, but hopefully we’ll be able to learn something from it.” I will. I’ll study those tapes til my eyes bleed until I figure out why I missed that fucking shot.

“The Bears have become well known for their high performance during overtime periods, particularly since your last playoff run against the Admirals. What happened tonight?”

He should still be able to do this. He had been doing this for more than a decade. These were barely his own words, just appeasing noise, senseless consonants and syllables dripping off his lips until he could get out of here. He answered, voice steady, “Sudden death is always a gamble. We have a lot of stamina, and we play a good long game, but sometimes it’s just about luck and opportunity. We all know that.”

“Ilya Rozanov still holds the record for most overtime playoff goals for a player of his age!” one reporter declared.

“Uh, yes,” Shane said, stuttering in response to the lack of a question. “True.”

The waves kept coming. “Is it true that Rozanov would have been cleared from injury protocol in time to make it to the Finals if you had progressed?”

Shane swallowed down the vipers of guilt squirming in his throat. His vision was a little blurry, but it did help that he didn’t have to look at their faces. “Rozanov’s health is excellent, we were waiting for the all-clear any day now. Hopefully, this means that he’ll have plenty of time off to come into next season stronger than ever. I’m not disclosing any further details about my teammate’s injury recovery, thanks.”

“Shane, either you or Ilya has been present for the Eastern Conference Finals in every playoff season since Twenty-Fourteen. That’s a shared five-year streak. How does it feel to play with such an elite player on your level?”

“I mean, what can I say?” Shane said, rotely dragging up a little of the Boston swagger and confidence their social media manager was always encouraging him to show. “Feels pretty great. Even on nights like tonight, when I know we played as hard as we could, I think we all know it would have been different if Rozanov had been on the ice tonight.”

Ilya was almost cleared. Just a few days left.

If Shane had brought them to the Stanley Cup Finals, Ilya would have been back on the ice. They could have played together.

But the season was over because Shane had missed his shot.

“Speaking of, Shane—how does it feel to step back into the role of captain with Ilya injured? You were captain of the Montreal Voyageurs before your trade to the Bears, of course.”

“It feels very natural. Ilya and I work together excellently on and off the ice, and since his injury, we have still been in frequent consultation. Every practice since he was cleared for it, Roz has been present, even when he couldn’t get on the ice with us. This is our team. We share responsibilities with each other and with all of the guys. That hasn’t changed at all.”

“Shane, you won back-to-back Cups with the Voyageurs in 2015 and 2016, and captained them to the Conference Finals in 2017. Since you left, they have not made it back to the playoffs. How does that feel?”

He nodded. He swallowed. “The Voyageurs have some great players. They’ve also had a lot of changes to their first line in the past few seasons. Sometimes those kinds of changes take time to settle.” The microphone moved closer to his mouth, eager for more. Shane wanted to shove it away. His teeth ground. “That’s all I’ve got.”

Another journalist jumped in. “Some Montreal fans online are still upset about your trade. What do you have to say to them?”

Be clear, be concise, be consistent. Willow had told Shane about the resurgence of anger in Voyageur’s fans when their team, once again, got knocked out of the playoffs, and she had told him what to say. “I loved Montreal, I loved playing with Montreal, but my time there was over. This is a business at the end of the day, and trades happen. Now, I love Boston. I couldn’t be happier with where I am. I thank all the Voyageurs fans who are still supporting me to this day and just want to remind them to look ahead to the future of their team, and not to the past.” Willow gave him a signal over the reporters’ heads, and Shane nodded. “Okay, thanks, guys. Good night.”

Cliff caught his arm as soon as Shane stumbled away from the scrum. “Come on, buddy,” he said. “LeClaire’s taking care of the vultures. You’re with me.”

“Okay,” Shane said, leaning into the tight grip Cliff had on his shoulder. He must have tied his skates too tightly. His feet still felt numb. Maybe that was why he’d missed the fucking shot.

Even though they were in their own arena, Shane was so dazed that it took him a minute before he realized that Cliff was not leading him back to their dressing room.

“I need a shower,” Shane said immediately, pulling slightly against Cliff’s grip.

Cliff flexed his fingers. “In a minute. Here, just take off your skates. Come on, I know where we’re going.”

They stripped off their skates briskly, handing them off to one of the equipment managers before they left the rubber-padded hallways of the arena. Shane also stripped off his jersey aggressively, not wanting to wear the Bears’ colors anymore, not now that they had lost, and he practically tore his offending shoulder pads off. He barely felt the relief of doffing that fucking loose strap. The equipment manager, a young guy, Jeremy, Shane thought, gave them a sympathetic smile before rushing away.

“Where are we going?” Shane asked, scrubbing a hand through his hair and feeling the faint splatter of sweat flicking off the ends. Without his skates, his balance was easier, but his ankle was less supported. He tried not to wince with every step.

“Just come on,” Cliff said, not touching Shane again as they set off.

He barely noticed as Cliff guided Shane through the windowless hallways of offices and closets, shooing away camera teams and interviewers who tried to jump on them. Shane felt stupified, lost in a current and drifting, the throb in his foot the only thing grounding him as he listlessly followed Cliff, and stopped when he stopped.

Cliff shoved open a door, and there was Ilya, looking handsome and sad in his suit, and he wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were soft when they landed on Shane.

“Moy lyubimyy,” Ilya said quietly.

Shane’s husband. They were coming up on their first year anniversary. Last year, they had won a Cup together, and they were the first married couple to ever do it, and no one even knew.

Shane felt his expression crumpling as Cliff gave him a solid pat on the shoulder, and he strode quickly into the empty press room, feeling ungainly on solid ground after hours in skates, wanting desperately to grab onto Ilya and hold him, and then he stopped, abruptly, a foot away.

The only thing Shane could think about was how hard he wanted to hold Ilya, and how careful he had to be because Ilya's ribs were still healing. He hadn’t been cleared in time for the Eastern Conference Finals because he was still injured. It had been Shane’s job to hold down the fort until they could get their real captain back on the ice. He couldn’t just grab him now, not while Ilya’s ribs were still injured.

Ilya solved that problem for him.

He grabbed Shane by his wrists and reeled him in, pulling up, until Shane’s hands settled on the back of Ilya’s shoulder and neck, as if he knew that Shane had been worried about how to hold him. Then Ilya’s arms released his wrists and slid lower, down Shane’s shoulder blades to rest around his lower back. His elbows seemed to fold into the concave space of Shane’s waist like they were meant to fit there, meant to fold him inward and bracket him, and Shane could never have resisted that. He put his head on Ilya’s shoulder, resting his cheek on the soft, expensive weave of his suit jacket, and inhaled his cologne, eyes closing.

They weren’t exactly in private. Cliff was blocking most of the doorway, awkwardly turned toward the wall as he scrolled through his phone, but there was still an open hallway behind him, bustling with reporters and people with cameras and press badges. They had probably already been seen. But… Shane didn’t exactly care.

He just wanted to hold Ilya.

“I’m going to ruin your suit,” Shane whispered into his collar, aware of the sweat on his face and neck transferring to the pristine white fabric.

Ilya pulled him even closer. “Good,” he said. “This suit is officially cursed. It is bad luck. I should have known not to wear it—my fault we lost, I think.”

“No,” Shane said, vehemently, although Ilya’s tone had been teasing. He pushed his fingers through the hair on the back of Ilya’s head where it was the longest and the curls naturally entwined around his knuckles, circling them. “No. It wasn’t your fault. None of this was your fault.”

“Not your fault either,” Ilya said.

“I was the one on the ice. I was the one who missed that fucking shot-”

“Ah, I knew you would be caught up in that,” Ilya interrupted, dismissively enough that Shane gritted his teeth in annoyance. “Batalov knocked into you as you shot. The puck went low, the puck was blocked. That is the game.”

Shane shook his head tightly. “He shouldn’t have been able to knock into me. I should have known—I should have dodged-”

“You did dodge,” Ilya said calmly. “Still, he clipped your elbow. Bruised it, yes?”

Shane couldn’t really tell. Did his elbow hurt? Not more than the rest of him. “I should have been faster, moved farther away-”

“No,” Ilya interrupted again, and Shane tried to pull away, properly annoyed, but Ilya’s arms were locked around his waist. And Shane didn’t want to let go of his hair. “No. You didn’t need to move faster. You didn’t need to be—ah—seeing the future. Or have eyes in the back of your head, or make impossible predictions, or move the fucking puck with your mind so that it could fly right over the pad, or kill Batalov with the force of your laser eyes death glare.”

“Ilya–”

“You are human,” Ilya said. “You don’t have superpowers. This is a team game. Sometimes, the team loses, because we are all human. You are only human—but you are also the best fucking hockey player in the world.”

“I’m not the best,” Shane said immediately, stomach twisting. “I’m not. We wouldn’t have—if you had been there, we would have won.”

He felt Ilya nod against his temple. “So you agree that it is my fault that we lost.”

Shane blanched. “No, Ilya, no, that isn’t what I meant at all-”

“Because I think if I had been on the ice, alone, without you, we would have lost two days ago,” Ilya said. “And I think if I had been on the ice with you, we would have won in game five. Because we are better together.”

“Of course,” Shane murmured. “Of course we are.”

“But,” Ilya said, “that doesn’t change the facts. Shane Hollander missed a goal tonight, but Shane Hollander is still the best player in the world.”

“No, I’m not, Ilya, stop saying that-”

Ilya finally pulled back but just barely, just enough that he could move one hand up and grip Shane’s jaw. He held him in place, half-ducked, their noses nearly touching. Shane focused on the high plane of his sharp cheekbones, unable to meet his eyes, and Ilya didn’t force him. He just said, “Listen. You are the best player in the world.” Shane scoffed, but Ilya shook his head, completely serious. “No, it’s you. You are the best fucking player in the world. You amaze me. I watch you and I’m stunned.”

“You’re better,” Shane admitted, choking on a cough and then grimacing because he and Ilya were standing too close and he had definitely just coughed in his husband’s face.

Ilya didn’t seem to notice or care. “No. I am an awesome player to watch,” he said, the serious tilt to his mouth briefly twitching into a smile as he quoted some of the first words Shane had ever said to him, “but you—how amazing you are. You blow everyone else out of the water.”

Shane grabbed his wrist a little harder and Ilya gripped him in return, hard, almost crushing. “It’s you,” he insisted.

“It’s us,” Ilya said, abruptly breaking into a wide grin. “It’s us.”

And suddenly Shane could smile again. His ankle still hurt, and his elbow hurt too, but Ilya was holding him, and he found a smile. “Okay. It’s us.”

+++

NHL ☑️ @NHL

And that's a wrap! @NHLFlappers take Philadelphia to the Eastern Conference finals for the fifth time in club history and @BostonBears finish their post-season with a 3-2 loss on home ice, ending their chances for a Cup Repeat!

GO BEARS GO BEARS @bostonianblackbear
Replying to @NHL

→ im fucking devastated

Greg's Fantasy League @GregsLeagueBoston
Replying to @bostonianblackbear

→→ your devasted hollander just lost me 5000 fucking dollars ffs

NA Association of Sports Photojournalism ☑️ @NAASPJ

[Image Description: Shane Hollander, #24, wearing compression top and hockey gear, without skates or jersey, locked in a tight embrace with Ilya Rozanov, #81, dressed in Armani suit and tie.]

In a backroom, away from the celebrations, two athletes and brothers share an intense embrace. This bond doesn’t stop at the ice, and it isn’t contingent on wins. Photo by Clarrisa Samba.

2481 sandwich @cameronw
Replying to @NAASPJ

→ and they were roommates

hockey bae @sashaisintoronto
Replying to @NAASPJ

→ “brothers” wth i know you see those fingers carding through his curls

hockey bae @sashaisintoronto
Replying to @sashaisintoronto

→→ “pictured: rozanov holds hollander so tightly he’s about to rip his shirt off” which could mean nothing

Barrett owes me $50 @allthegoodthings123
Replying to @NAASPJ

→ Sportsmanship at its finest. Hope Hollander is doing okay. He looked pretty out of it during the interviews.

2481 sandwich @cameronw
Replying to @allthegoodthings123

→→ it’s okay, Ilya will take care of him #soulmatesonskates 🥹🥹🥹

Barrett owes me $50 @allthegoodthings123
Replying to @cameronw

→→→ Jesus fucking christ

lima beans @alimabeanforall
Replying to @NAASPJ

→ this is like when those pictures were published of saint vicky’s wedding with ilya and shane dancing and everybody tried to make it a convo abt ‘toxic masculinity being dead’ and it was like come onnnnnnn just let them be gayyyyy (or bi, hi ilya i see you 👀👀)

Hock-Eye @hockeyekoch
Replying to @NAASPJ

→ 🚨🚨 the shippers have already broken containment. everyone stay calm STAY FUCKING CALM

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed
Replying to @NAASPJ

→ Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are together and have been since before their rookie season. Not only that, but they have been secretly married since at least July of last year when they were both spotted in Napa County together. I shall present my evidence forthwith: in this essay, I—

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

Hiiii, thank you all for your comments on the first chapter! I was really excited to post this fic because I’ve been thinking about it for literally months. When I was writing “something you can build” I had so many notes/headcanons/things in my outline that I wanted to address in this ‘verse that just didn’t end up fitting within the single-season format I wanted for that fic, and ultimately there was enough left that I knew I might revisit this universe, and here we are—I’ve been working on this in bits and pieces for months but it is a work in progress, so no guaranteed update schedule.

Anyway, if you wondered why it took me a while to start posting in this series again, honestly blame this chapter lol! Tbh I had most of Chapter 1 written by late February and then I hit a wall with my outline and then got inspired in a slightly different direction and then did a bunch of rewriting, but it’s better this way I promise!

ALSO: There are elements of social media fic in this story! The plan is for every chapter to have a coda of internet interactions across various platforms, reacting to what is happening in the story. Socmed fics have become so ubiquitous in this fandom and i have become quite fond of them, and also it’s the easiest, funniest way to convey how the “soft launch” is being perceived/received. However, if you don’t like reading socmed fics, feel free to skip those sections! No plot happening in them, just freaks on the internet reacting to hollanov :) sometimes art imitates life lol

They went home.

Ilya wanted to go to their apartment in downtown Boston, close to the arena, kept for nights just like this one, so that Shane could immediately pass out after weeks of stress and strain and persistent struggle instead of sitting silently in a chauffeured car for the thirty-minute drive out to the suburb where their house was, but Shane refused. He loved the apartment, but he didn’t want to sleep there that night. He wanted to sleep in their bedroom. He wanted to brush his teeth in their bathroom, and take another shower with all his favorite products, and sloppily redress in pajamas from their shared dresser, and collapse in their bed on fresh, cool sheets, knowing exactly what angle the sun would rise the next morning through their windows. He wanted it.

Ilya couldn’t deny Shane that.

So, they went home.

Shane slept for twelve hours straight and woke up to the sound of Ilya’s voice drifting in from the bathroom, soft and quiet in semi-comprehensible Russian. The shades were drawn and the light was gray and dim. His stomach rumbled. Shane blinked and a sleepy tear rolled down the side of his face.

Ilya hung up the phone and returned, greeting him with a kiss.

They ate breakfast together. Answered calls and emails, texts from their depressed teammates because, despite it all, they were still the captains, and made plans to meet up with Shane’s parents for dinner that night. It was a sunny day, and somewhere in the city, the Flappers were celebrating their monumentally unexpected win, while Boston fans mourned, fumed, or rage-posted. Commentators were writing think pieces about the Bears’ performance without Ilya and which of the two of them had a bigger impact on the team as a whole, and journalists were probably reporting on some kind of sports mob, either here or in Philadelphia, and Shane and Ilya’s publicity teams were soothing disappointed brands.

The house was quiet. Ilya cupped Shane’s chin as they sat at the counter and drew him into a kiss that tasted like sweet cereal and milk.

The Western Conference Finals had already wrapped up so he and Ilya spent the afternoon catching up on the games they missed. Round three came down to the Calgary Coals and Los Angeles Aces and had gone to six games.

“Who will win, do you think?” Ilya asked as they watched the replay, trailing fingers up and down Shane’s spine, Shane’s cheek resting at an awkward angle on his chest that was somehow more comfortable than being separate from him. It was nice to watch a game on the TV several days after the fact and to be so distant from the action and the consequences of each pass, shot, and block. It felt normal.

Shane hummed and snuggled closer. “Mom says LA. Sveta refused to comment out of loyalty to Boston. But I think… I think it’s Philadelphia. I think they go all the way.”

Ilya laughed. Shane pressed his ear flat to his lungs to hear it a little better, like listening into a conch shell. “Oh, really? Mama’s boy is disagreeing with the great Yuna Hollander?” he teased. Ilya’s hand drifted up to play with the hair at the nape of Shane’s neck, which he had grown out over the second half of the season—not, as Ilya claimed, as a substitute for the playoff beard he could not grow. Shane had just decided he liked the way it looked.

He had been thinking about cutting his hair after they lost, but Ilya loved it. “She thinks if she says that Philly will beat LA, then it would be like saying that if we had beaten Philly instead, then we would have won the Cup. I don’t know. She’s trying to be nice, I think.”

Ilya was quiet for a moment. “Crazy,” he said, but his tone was gentle. “You Hollanders are all crazy.”

“Well, you married us.”

Ilya bent to kiss the back of Shane’s head. “I’m the craziest, obviously. Wouldn’t want it any other way. Being crazy has made me very, very happy.”

Shane touched his face. “You’re not crazy,” he murmured, and Ilya kissed him before he could say anything else.

Shane knew Ilya was devastated to have been eliminated from the playoffs before he had recovered. Throughout the third round, he had been having extremely ill-advised shouting matches with their coaches and team doctors about returning and playing through it, claiming that it was what all athletes did during the playoffs.

Shane had shut that down. “You’re already on an accelerated course,” he said tersely. “Our personal doctor has advised another full month of rest, Ilya. If even the team doc says you need another week, then you need another week, or you’re going to puncture a lung. Stop arguing.”

Ilya hadn’t stopped arguing, but he had stopped shouting.

Ilya and Shane had their own superstitions, some personal and some shared, but neither of them strongly believed in jinxes. Months ago, under their bedsheets, Ilya had whispered, “Repeat. Reigning champs. Two in a row—like the two of us, huh? Two. Shane. I want two.”

“Yeah,” Shane had breathed. “Let’s get it.”

But they hadn’t. Shane hadn’t. And Ilya hadn’t had a choice in the matter.

Shane’s thoughts drifted away from the kiss so Ilya tugged on his hair again, pulling Shane back to the present moment. The Aces dominated the final game of the Western Finals, so the third period was a boring, slow skate to victory, not enough to grab Shane’s attention. He tuned back in to watch the seconds count down. The gloves came off the victors’ hands almost preemptively, helmets and sticks tossed into the air in celebration.

“Should I invite team over to watch the Cup Finals games?” Ilya asked. “A lot of people will still be in Boston. And it will maybe be the last time this roster of guys gets to hang out. Maybe it would be a nice goodbye.”

He was such a good captain. Shane didn’t like the idea of people in their house, even his own teammates, the brothers who had stood beside him and Ilya after learning about their relationship. But the Boston house was not the same as the cottage, and he had promised himself a long time ago that he couldn’t isolate Ilya, no matter how much Shane wanted Ilya all to himself. It might be good to see his teammates again before the summer, so he couldn’t stew in his self-flagellation for months. It definitely sounded like a plan both their therapists would approve of, though Shane would rather curl up in hibernation for a few weeks. “Okay,” he said. “Sounds like a good idea.”

Ilya kissed his head again. They watched the Los Angeles Aces celebrate in silence, the television muted.

+++

Yuna and David let themselves in with the door code when they arrived that night, but Shane was waiting for them in the foyer.

His mom immediately swept him into a hug. “You played very well, sweetie,” Yuna said in a calm, factual tone, stroking his hair. David’s hand glided over Shane’s shoulder reassuringly before he turned the corner into the kitchen, and Shane listened to the low words he exchanged with Ilya as he buried his face into the crook of his mother’s neck.

After a minute, Yuna cleared her throat. “Obviously, you don’t have to worry about this right now, but I just wanted to mention that you have nothing to worry about from any of the major sponsorships. Speedo and Gatorade have confirmed that they are still on for your ad campaigns this summer, and Rolex is more than happy with your work ethic. Your final interviews were very impressive, Shane. You held yourself with so much aplomb, and you were so eloquent, really, it’s all anyone is talking about.”

Shane hid a smile. Some things never changed. In a way, that was comforting, and Yuna chuckled when he snuggled in closer.

She was still wearing his jersey. Black, and gold.

+++

There were ten days between losing the Eastern Conference Finals and Game Six of the final series. Shane spent the entire week with his foot elevated on a pillow as Ilya played nurse. He seemed to revel in the role reversal after a month of being laid up himself and, to be honest, Shane didn’t mind it either.

Philadelphia was up by one game. They just needed one more win to take home the Cup. Ilya invited their team back to the house to watch, and Shane braced himself to see the faces of his teammates for the first time since he let them down.

Not everyone had lingered in Boston after the loss. Cliff was the only team member originally from Massachusetts, although a few of the players had married women from the state, including Vicky and Benji, who both arrived looking stiff and beat-up, greeting Shane with commiserating smiles.

“Ah, Capitaine,” Vicky said, gripping Shane’s shoulder and lightly jostling him, a gesture that usually felt comfortable and familiar, but now made Shane tense.

“It’s nice to see you, Shane,” Vicky’s wife, Amanda, said, overly earnest. “How are you holding up?”

Shane shrugged.

“Why are we already fucking acting like this is a goddamn funeral?” Ilya shouted from the kitchen, waving his arms through the air as though he was showing off that he finally had a full range of motion again. “This is a fucking party, vy idioty!” That finally drew a few laughs, and eventually everyone who had shown up settled in the living room, content to half-heartedly boo both teams and exchange bets about the upcoming season.

Shane had not allowed himself to think about the next year during the playoffs, but he knew that their roster would experience some significant turnover. Ilya had probably had more time to consider all the minutiae while he rested, but Shane hadn’t wanted to think about future lines and defenseman pairings and which players they were losing. He had been focused on the moment, but as a dozen Bears filed into their house a week after their loss, Shane was confronted with the reality of their approaching season.

As Ilya had said, this would be the last time that all of these guys shared a roster with them.

Varkov, who had played for the Bears since he was drafted, was retiring. He was massive, more the size of a football linebacker than the average NHL player. “I’m so fucking ready for retirement,” Varkov groaned, sitting down heavily on the sofa as they gathered in the large entertainment room at the back of the house, the pre-game show playing muted on the television as they piled around on chairs and sofas. “I’m a million years old, dudes. I want my cold ass prairie desert back—I’m fucking sick of Massachusetts.”

“I will kill you,” his wife, another lifelong Bostonian, told him calmly.

Carmichael laughed along with the rest of the team, but he was quieter than usual. Shane kept an eye on him. Ryan Carmichael had billeted with Varkov when he was a rookie a decade ago. They had played on the same team, and usually the same line, ever since, playing through Boston’s fall to being the worst-ranked in the league and then its meteoric rise to two Stanley Cups with Ilya at the helm. Carmichael had never played on a team without Varkov. Sports pundits across the continent were making predictions about whether he would crack and fumble without the guidance of his best friend and former mentor, and what the Bears would look like without their most veteran player.

It was the way their lives worked, though. Rosters changed every year. People retired, they got traded, and they asked to move.

“It’s not going to be the same, you guys,” declared Aliue, who had played center for the Bears and their affiliated AHL team since he had been drafted five years ago. “I know you’ll fucking miss us.”

“And I’m sure you will miss winning games,” Ilya sang back.

Shane elbowed him. “Be nice.”

It wasn’t official yet, but everyone knew that Aliue had already played his last season with the Bears. Months ago, he told the team that he was requesting a trade to a Canadian team, wanting to return to Canada to be closer to his and his wife’s families in Ontario. Aliue, who only had a year of his bridge contract left, had done what was generally considered the team-friendly thing and informed management early on about his desire to re-sign with another team in free agency. They might have traded him immediately, but given the strength of their roster and the approaching playoffs, management had decided not to trade their second-line center until after the postseason.

That had all occurred before Ilya was injured. Everything might have been different, otherwise.

Shane shook his head.

They were moving forward into another season, and things would change. It was time to let go.

There was more movement further back in their lines, but Aliue and Varkov were their biggest losses. Boston had already traded a few prospects, but Shane expected a flurry of movement in July once free agency opened up, and he expected several rookies and prospects would be called up. Shane and Ilya had already jointly voiced their concerns about their dependence on Benji for halfway decent goaltending to their GM, regrettably agreeing that Davies was not NHL-ready. Shane always felt uncomfortable when guys dropped back down to the minor leagues. Shane expected that the Bears would either acquire a new goalie from another team or, more likely, pull one of their other prospects from the AHL. Davies might still play or suit up for the occasional game if there were minor injuries, but that was probably it for the upcoming season if the Bears didn’t replace him outright.

Shane knew that Ilya and Benji had both already spoken with Davies. He had overheard Davies, despondent after a humiliating loss at the end of the regular season, say something about how the minors had been less stressful and more fun. Shane hadn’t known how to respond, so he’d left it to Ilya, who took the young goalie into one of the empty tape review rooms and spoke with him for almost forty minutes. Shane had showered, dressed, packed his gear, organized his cubby, then organized Ilya’s cubby, and then sat alone in the dressing room, waiting and staring mindlessly at his phone, forgetting to even scroll. When Ilya and Davies finally reappeared, Davies still looked sad, but his shoulders were no longer slumped. Shane stood up and kissed Ilya’s cheek. The three of them had walked out of the building together and parted ways.

It never felt good, but it was the way their industry worked.

The Bears weren’t high enough in the draft order to be competing for any of the most remarkable young players. With many older players on the team, Shane assumed that LeClaire and Bourque would focus on prospects in the AHL and the European leagues, or ELC-contracted player trades.

It would all be different.

The Philadelphia Flappers won Game Six, as Shane had predicted. The Aces didn’t put up much of a fight, suffering from some catastrophic injuries themselves.

If I had made it into the net, we would have won, Shane thought, and it was true.

Ilya took his hand. “Bad luck,” he said loudly to the room of discontented Bears, who were probably also thinking about how close they had come. Some of them had won the Cup twice, having been around for Ilya’s first run in 2014, but Shane was the only player who had three, and he knew how badly they had all wanted that piece of glory. Every player in the league wanted it every year. They wanted it with a desperation that almost had a taste, like something sour on the back of his tongue.

“Everything’s going to be different,” Aliue murmured. He and Varkov had wanted to win the Cup so badly, Shane knew—to win one last Cup with this team before they left for good. The stakes were different for them.

Shane pulled his fingers away, letting his hand flop into his lap as Ilya’s gaze swept the room. “Next year will not look like this year for many reasons,” Ilya said to the team. “It is up to us to make those differences work, yes?”

“Yes,” Shane agreed. There were bandages around his ankle and elbow, wrapped tight enough that he could feel them no matter how he sat. The room murmured a similar agreement, someone already whooping about a championship, only to be booed into silence with curses about jinxes and superstitions.

Shane twisted his fingers together.

“Okay?” Ilya asked quietly. His hand rose to cup the back of Shane’s neck. His pinky finger stroked through the strands on his nape, but his thumb slunk lower, just beneath the collar of his shirt. It toyed with the necklace that was always draped around Shane’s neck, over his heart. The chain matched Ilya’s, and Ilya had given it to Shane when they had agreed to get married.

It was almost their anniversary.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. He shifted a little until his elbow pressed into Ilya’s side. “I’m okay.” And then he leaned in and pecked Ilya on the lips, like plenty of their teammate’s wives had been doing all day.

Their kiss got a much bigger reaction, and Shane blushed.

“Get a room!” Pummel, one of their younger players, immediately shouted.

“Get it, Roz!” Sidney, his linemate, yelled at the same time.

Vicky made obnoxiously loud kissing noises. Amanda swatted him across the crown of his head.

Cliff sighed dramatically, flopping over his armchair. “Love is real,” he moaned, “but not for me!”

Ilya grinned, happy and proud, and let them continue dogpiling for another few seconds before shouting, “Okay, okay, enough!” By then, Shane was as red and freckled as a strawberry. “Look away! Is not for you!” Ilya shouted, lowering his arm to wrap around Shane’s waist and tugging him a little closer. Shane, aware of the eyes on them and aware that it had been a year since they revealed their relationship to the team, snuggled closer. Ilya beamed.

“You make me nauseous, Roz,” Cliff said.

“Homophobia!” Pummel crowed.

“You make me jealous,” one of the wives grumbled.

“And you are all making me miss the show!” Ilya said, flapping his free hand at the screen. “Gah, look what you have done! I want to know whether the Flappers’ captain will thank God or his mother first when he accepts the Conn Smythe!”

The team laughed. The conversation moved on. Some of the guys drifted away, bored by the celebratory press interviews now that the game was over, and freed up the couch Ilya and Shane were crammed on. Shane tilted his head a little and pushed closer to Ilya until his lips almost brushed the hinge of his jaw.

Ilya’s arm tightened around him.

+++

Every year, returning to the cottage felt like exhaling. It felt like surgically transplanting an entirely new pair of lungs into his chest.

Maybe it was the lake air—fresh, rural, and unpolluted. The scent of pine needles, cedarwood, and freshwater, a scent that, for Shane, always called to mind glaciers.

They did not attend the NHL Awards that year. Despite another year finishing near the top of the league, Shane and Ilya had been edged out of the Art Ross and Rocket Richard trophies, and they weren’t nominated for MVP.

They didn’t talk about it. If they did, they would just fight. Ilya was testier about the NHL’s lukewarm reaction to Shane since he was outed… two years ago? Had it really been two full years, more than that, even? It felt like Shane had been in Boston for a lifetime.

But the cottage was quiet, and though they insisted on honesty when they were here, they both tried earnestly, carefully, not to pick fights. Not to argue or push. Their lives were stressful enough. At the cottage, they were both committed to maintaining the peace.

Their lives were complicated and impermanent. The cottage was not.

They gave themselves two weeks, completely alone. Shane told his parents not to stop by. He closed and locked the gate at the end of his driveway. They needed privacy. They needed time to themselves.

“Ilya.”

“Shane.”

Shane felt as though he had spent his entire life listening to people talk about how relationships were different after you got married, especially sex. Maybe it was because he had lived with Ilya for a year before they actually got married, or maybe it was because they had never had a formal wedding and skipped straight to the honeymoon, but he couldn’t relate. Especially not when it came to sex.

It was the easiest part of their relationship. Maybe because of how they had started, and the years of practice they had in being nothing but physical with each other, long before anything else had seemed possible or worth the risk.

It was easy to be alone with Ilya. It was easy to kiss him, and pull the covers over their heads, and ride him into wakefulness in the morning, and let Ilya put him through the mattress at night. By the time Shane’s bandages came off, and his ankle no longer twinged when he put weight on it, they were spending the majority of their days wrapped around each other, bouncing from their bed, to the couch, to the deck and the dock, and the kitchen counters. Shane wanted to drown himself in Ilya. It would have been easy.

Dealing with the rest of the world was the difficult part.

+++

The first Saturday after they arrived at the cottage, Shane had a scheduled call with Mike, his therapist, and Ilya left the house to give him privacy.

“I will be running chores all day so won’t be back until later tonight,” he said, “so let me know if you need anything from store, yes? But also call if you want me to come home. I will. I will be home very fast.” He smirked. “Even quicker than you, okay?”

Shane flushed, glaring at him. Despite the teasing, he wanted to grab onto Ilya like a koala. His fingers drummed anxiously on the table next to his laptop. He already had everything set up: a glass of water, a ginger ale, his headphones, a box of tissues that Shane really hoped he wouldn’t have to use, and his phone, Ilya’s contact already pulled up.

“I’ll be okay,” Shane said, kissing Ilya’s arm when he bent over him. “Are you going to the farmer’s market?” he asked, perhaps stalling a little. Ilya often went with Yuna and David to a local fair, but they planned to have their charity fully up and running by the end of the summer, with the intention of starting their camps the next year, so Yuna had been immensely busy organizing the bureaucratic side of things.

“Ah, no,” Ilya said, returning the kiss on the crown of Shane’s head. “Not today. I am driving to the international grocery store in town. We are low on everything here.”

“Really?” Shane asked, surprised. “That’s kind of far.”

“Yes,” Ilya agreed, “but I will break every traffic law to get back if you need me.”

“Okay,” Shane said, and Ilya kissed him once more on the mouth. Shane had to grab his own thighs to stop himself from catching his wrist and holding him in place. He dug his fingers into his flesh and took several deep breaths.

 Ilya would come if Shane needed him. He would.

Shane had found Mike because he had experience working with athletes and other high-profile figures, and his focus was on sports performance therapy and psychology. Mike knew a lot about athletic culture because he had played basketball in college. His bio mentioned that he had worked with queer people before. Shane thought it was a good fit.

Mike pushed him. He reminded Shane what his goals were for therapy and what he needed to do to achieve them. He was straightforward and blunt, which Shane both needed and appreciated. Sometimes at the beginning of their sessions, they would spend a few minutes discussing recent hockey or basketball games. The normalcy of it would almost set Shane at ease.

(Even though he wasn’t supposed to, Shane hated therapy. He was trying so hard to do everything he was supposed to, and follow all of Mike’s advice, and not shut down his suggestions even when they made Shane squirm, because the point was to get Shane accustomed to being uncomfortable. Therapy was hard. Everyone knew that. Shane just needed to buckle down and eventually, eventually, things would improve.)

He opened his laptop and started the call.

+++

Ilya was gone all day.

Longer than Shane had expected.

Mike had wanted to talk about Game Seven, unsurprisingly, so they talked about it. Mike told him the missed shot wasn’t his fault, and Shane agreed. For an hour, they went round and round in circles, Mike repeating that no one could be perfect all the time, and Shane confirming that was true, and then again and again.

It had exhausted him, and Shane didn’t even really understand why when it was just a pointless, circuitous conversation. Mike had seemed frustrated, and Shane couldn't understand why when all he did was agree with him, but maybe Shane was projecting. He wasn’t very good at reading other people’s emotions, except for Ilya’s.

When Shane closed his laptop, his immediate urge was to take a thorough shower and then crawl into bed. He had resisted and gone to their home gym instead. He spent two hours working out before finally allowing himself that shower, then checked for Ilya’s car in the driveway, then forced himself not to take a nap and went to the kitchen instead. He spent another hour cooking and meal-prepping. He drank a smoothie standing over the sink, looking out across the pool, the sloping backyard, and the lake.

When Ilya hadn’t returned by 6:00 p.m., Shane finally gave himself permission to get into bed.

Ilya found him an hour later, gently tugging the sheet down so he could see Shane’s face.

Shane hadn’t managed to fall asleep but if Ilya knew that, he would worry, so he blinked muzzily and yawned, pretending to wake up. He’d heard the front door open and had time to prepare. “Hmm, hi.”

Ilya’s fingers brushed through his hair. “Hello,” Ilya said. “Naptime?”

Shane yawned again, more naturally this time. His shoulders loosened, pressing into the mattress. “I think naptime’s over,” he admitted, pressing into Ilya’s fingers as if he were a cat. He wished he could purr for Ilya.

“Thank you for cooking,” Ilya said. “Should we have dinner? Did you eat?”

“Yup,” Shane said, but he didn’t really want to leave the bed.

“Hmm.” Ilya was sitting on the mattress, feet still on the floor. He was wearing a loose white T-shirt, his body turned away from Shane so the angle was awkward when he leaned down and kissed Shane’s forehead. “You look cozy.”

“Could be cozier,” Shane suggested, tugging on his wrist. Unbidden, he was sleepy enough to add, “You were gone for a while.” He tensed, eyes focused on Ilya’s stomach instead of his face. He hoped it didn’t sound like an accusation.

“Sorry-”

“No, I didn’t mean-”

Ilya laughed. “I have a surprise for you,” he interrupted, shifting and drawing his feet onto the bed so that he was sitting cross-legged on top of the duvet. “Is why I was gone. I think you will think it was worth it.”

“What?” Shane asked, a little startled because Ilya knew Shane didn’t like surprises. “Is it some new food? Did they finally have that brand you like in stock, or-”

Ilya swiftly pulled his shirt over his head, exposing rippling abdominals and tight biceps. His muscles, on the way to recovery after his long injury, flexed, and it was nice to see his skin completely free of bandages and bruises.

“Well, that’s not exactly a surprise,” Shane said, his mouth already dry.

“No?” Ilya smiled. Then he turned a little more, and Shane blinked when he saw that there actually was something on the side of Ilya’s biceps, white tape holding a sheet of plastic film in place. “Not surprising at all?” Ilya pouted. “I thought I was being very sneaky.”

It was a tattoo, freshly inked.

“Oh,” Shane said. He sat up.

He wanted to press his hand over the red skin on Ilya’s arm, to feel the heat of the gentle wound, but he didn’t know if he was allowed. His eyes flicked up, questioning.

Ilya smiled, understanding without words. Gently, he took Shane’s hand by the wrist and guided it to lie on his arm, just beneath and beside the tattoo so that his fingers touched plastic wrap instead of skin while still outlining the design.

It was a loon.

Realistically designed in black and white, the loon rose halfway from a disturbed pool of water, wings just beginning to extend as it pushed itself upward. It was medium-sized, five inches from top to bottom. The skin was irritated and red now, but would fade to Ilya’s pale golden tan. The feathers on the wings were etched individually. The water drifted in concentric rings around the bird, and Shane wanted to touch it directly.

This was not Ilya’s first tattoo, but it was definitely his best. Shane loved it immediately.

“Wow,” he breathed.

“No swimming for me,” Ilya said happily. “And probably I should wear long-sleeves in the sun, which is very sad, mostly for you, because you won’t be able to see how hot I look shirtless. But still. Worth it, I think, no?”

“Yes,” Shane said. “It’s beautiful.”

Ilya kissed him. “Wanted you on my skin,” he said, shuffling further onto the bed until he could press Shane into the mattress, and Shane’s hands fluttered, wanting to touch him all over but worried about disturbing the fresh art. “You were already there, but I wanted everybody else to see, too.”

“Ilya,” Shane whined.

“Moy lyubimyy,” Ilya breathed, kissing his neck hard, “you like it?”

“I love it,” Shane said. “I love you.”

“Now I will always know that you will defend me from Canadian wolfbirds, okay?”

“Okay.”

Ilya’s body was warm. Shane felt like he had woken up for the first time all day.

+++

Shane immediately started reading semi-concerning blogs about tattoo aftercare. He put his foot down: no swimming, not in the pool and definitely not in the lake, and no baths or sunbathing. He started timing the length of Ilya’s showers, just to be safe, and ordered loose, breezy long-sleeved shirts since all of Ilya’s summer clothes were either sleeveless or skintight. Ilya whined petulantly but smiled throughout. Shane knew that his husband liked being taken care of.

It was peaceful, and they found other ways to keep themselves entertained and distracted. Some of Shane’s methods were more innocent than others.

Outside of therapy and Ilya’s tattoo artist, the only people they saw were two young women they met on a hiking trail. It was the only time they left the cottage after Ilya’s tattoo other than to restock groceries. At dawn, they had woken up to the first alarm Shane had set during their vacation, letting their hands wander without intent before getting out of bed. They drove two hours from the cottage to Shane’s favorite provincial park and set off. Ilya was wearing sunglasses that made him look like a movie star, and Shane had on an old, beaten-up baseball cap from his Mites hockey league, but they were still recognized an hour into a hike by two women they passed on the forested hiking trail.

The first of the two women, walking single file, met Shane’s eyes briefly, lips tightening in an awkward smile, halfway through a nod, before she froze so abruptly on the path that her walking partner collided into her backpack.

“Oh my god!” she exclaimed. “Shane Hollander! You’re Shane Hollander!” Then Ilya started to laugh, and her eyes flew to him, and she gasped again. “Ilya Rozanov! Holy fucking shit!”

“Hi,” Shane said, reluctantly coming to a stop.

“Who?” the girl behind her whispered. “Um, Emma….”

“Oh my god!” Emma gasped again. “Oh, this is, like, so totally rude, but, like—holy fucking shit!”

“Nice to meet you,” Shane said, offering his hand. “Are you a fan?”

“Oh!” said the other girl. “Are you hockey players? She’s, like, totally obsessed.”

Ilya was laughing hard enough by then that a few birds overhead took flight, scared off.

“Yup,” Shane said. “We play for the Boston Bears.”

“You are the Bears,” Emma said, star-struck, and then shook herself. “Whoa, this is super rude! I’m so sorry to interrupt your day off! Whoa, I can’t believe you’re both here! I feel like I’m hallucinating.”

“No worries,” Shane said.

“Yes, we are always happy to meet fans,” Ilya said, leaning around Shane. “Especially him,” he continued, poking Shane’s shoulder. “He needs to have his ego stroked.” He winked, the fucker.

“I can take your picture if you want,” the second girl offered.

Shane paused. Usually, he agreed to requests for pictures and autographs without much thought. It was part of the job, especially given the way Yuna had managed his career from the start. Shane was a lot more famous than most hockey players even before he had been outed, and his notoriety had skyrocketed afterward. The story of the outed hockey player, gay ex-boyfriend of Rose Landry, had monumentally broken the containment of their often isolated sphere of influence. His minority status had always made him recognizable within the league as one of the few Asian players, but now he was recognizable outside of it, even to people who weren’t fans of the sport.

In the past two years, as their close ‘friendship’ had become publicly known, Ilya had become more recognizable as well.

“Ah,” Ilya said, after less than half a second of Shane’s pause. “We are very sorry, but you understand, this is our vacation-”

“No, it’s fine,” Shane said, cutting Ilya off. “Er, I mean—I don’t have a problem with it,” he clarified quickly, meeting Ilya’s eyes. Or trying to. With his sunglasses on, Shane only saw a reflection of himself, slightly flushed with exertion and pleasantly suntanned. He tried to look confident, squaring his shoulders. “It’s been a minute since we’ve run into any fans. I’d be happy to take a picture.”

“Me too!” Ilya hastened.

“Uh,” Shane continued, turning to Emma. “If you post it, though, could I ask for a favor?” Ilya looked at him curiously.

Emma nodded, her impressively neat ponytail flopping over her shoulders. “Yes! Yes, of course! Oh my god, I’d be so grateful!”

“Ilya and I are starting a charity together,” Shane said. “The Irina Foundation. We’re doing some work this summer to get it going. Would you mind giving a shout-out to the foundation when you post? The ‘at’ is just ‘The Irina Foundation,’ no spaces.”

She nodded again, just as eagerly, ponytail flying all over. “Of course! Of course! Absolutely!”

“She’s gonna be insufferable after this,” her friend said, pulling out her phone. “She, like, loves you guys.”

They took the picture, arms slung over the girl’s shoulders, and Shane apologized for not having a pen on him to sign her backpack. “No, no!” she reassured. “Thank you so, so much! Enjoy the rest of your hike!”

“Ah,” Ilya said a moment before she stepped away. “Also, please don’t post until tonight. We will be here all day and do want some time-”

“Of course!” she interrupted, eyes big and earnest, and Shane finally broke into a real smile at her sincerity. “Of course, and I won’t even geo-tag it or anything! Thank you so much!”

They parted ways, heading in opposite directions. Ilya stepped up once they were alone on the trail, walking shoulder to shoulder with Shane, his eyes on the side of his face.

They walked in silence for a while as Shane enjoyed the natural white noise of nature—trees rustling, crickets chirping and, of course, loons calling. It didn’t startle Ilya anymore (not in the daytime, at least). Ilya broke the silence. “I didn’t think you would say yes,” he said bluntly. Shane took his hand. He liked that Ilya had learned how to be blunt with him. “With the photo. I thought you would think it was too suspicious that we are spending the summer together away from training and things. Even if she does say that we are working on the Foundation, and she might not even though she said she would, we are clearly not working now. People might talk. Ask why we are hiking together on rare day off.”

He was trying to voice Shane’s anxieties about their privacy because in the past few years, Ilya had learned to think with Shane’s insecurities in mind. Ilya, left to his own devices, wouldn’t have worried or cared about whether the girl would have kept her word about mentioning their charity in her post or given a fuck what strangers on the internet had to say about them. But he was trying to think like Shane, and understand him.

Shane took a deep breath. The air was so crisp and clean. Their house in Boston wasn’t downtown, but the air certainly didn’t smell this fresh. “When I proposed-”

“Eh, that wasn’t really a proposal,” Ilya interrupted immediately, grinning again. He swung their hands jauntily, still clasped between them. “Your mom proposed for you. So embarrassing. You didn’t even have ring or jewelry-”

“I had literally just bought you two Rolexes-”

“Bah, those were birthday presents! You can’t say it’s birthday present and engagement ring in one unless you are a shitty boyfriend! No, I had to take over and do it properly while you fussed with paperwork and visas-”

“The paperwork was important! You know that!” With his free hand, he swatted Ilya’s chest. Ilya grabbed it and dragged it to his mouth, pulling them to a stop for a moment so he could kiss Shane’s knuckles. “Let me say this,” Shane said, shaking his hand free and reaching up to push Ilya’s sunglasses up, nesting them in his curls. He wanted to see Ilya’s eyes. “When we mutually proposed-”

“So cute of us,” Ilya murmured.

“Okay, never mind, fuck you. Stop interrupting!” Ilya mimed zipping his mouth shut, then tossed a key into the nearby shrubbery. Shane ignored him. “When I proposed, I told you that I was going to work on being okay with being more public. And it’s been a year, and I’ve been working on it, really, I have.” Ilya knew that. Needing to be more comfortable in public, outside of his persona and job, was a big reason why Shane had started therapy in the first place, and it was the only reason he had continued with it, even as it became more overwhelmingly stressful to juggle another commitment on his calendar. Shane didn’t enjoy therapy (he didn’t think anyone was supposed to enjoy it), but, for the first time, he had actually addressed the trauma of his outing and the night of the leak specifically. He had actually talked, in detail, about what things had been like in the Voyageur’s locker room in the aftermath. Shane didn’t always think that Mike understood him perfectly, or that he did a good job explaining himself to Mike, but it was still an important step just to be able to talk about it. It had still been hard, and for a while, he had felt worse than ever, felt like he was regressing after a year of settling in and moving on in Boston, but things had gotten better, at least until Ilya’s injury.

Ilya thought Shane needed to go to therapy more often, but he didn’t push the issue. Teleconferencing with his therapist every two months was the only compromise that worked for Shane, especially during the season. His schedule was sacred to him. He couldn’t sacrifice it to speed up his progress. He was still trying, and of course things were getting more stressful, but he didn’t think he was backsliding anymore.

Shane thought that Ilya had originally only started speaking to a therapist as a misguided attempt to make Shane feel better about his own journey, but it had been immediately clear that Ilya benefited more from talk therapy than Shane. They both had lifetimes of trauma, but Shane had his coping mechanisms down to an art form. In contrast, when Ilya started dating Shane officially, Ilya had given up most of his outlets. He had given up casual sex, excessive drinking, went clubbing less often, and was trying to quit smoking, and those were good things, but it was a lot of sacrifices to ask someone to make.

Depression was genetic, and Irina Rozanova had never gotten help, and she had killed herself.

Shane and Ilya weren’t going to let it get to that point.

An unintended consequence of starting their foundation over the course of the last year had been how much Shane had learned about mental health himself. Of course, he knew people said that mental health was stigmatized in hockey and professional sports in general, but he hadn’t actually known what that looked like in practice until he and Ilya had worked with professionals to identify ways they could improve their career and passion for everyone. It was systemic, Shane had learned, but it didn’t have to be. Mike was especially helpful with stuff like that.

They were learning. They were growing. Shane thought they were stronger than they had ever been, even though things were still hard sometimes.

Sometimes, it frustrated Shane how much Ilya seemed to benefit from therapy. He could tell that it made Ilya feel better and he had watched Ilya work on himself and grow over the past year, even during the dark months of his recovery and the missed playoff games. Ilya was kinder, in some ways, than the twenty-year-old Shane used to hook up with. He was more intentional, and he was happier.

Ilya never stressed about cramming therapy calls in between morning skates and games, or scheduling them around practices and team dinners. It didn’t throw him off his rhythm like it did to Shane, so he went more often, and Shane knew Ilya was improving from his own past traumas faster than Shane.

As his husband, Shane wanted to give just as much in return. Mike was always telling him that he needed to push himself, and Shane was more than willing to try.

“I told you,” Shane said slowly, grateful that no one else was on the path to interrupt this moment, “that I was going to try and get to a place where we could just live without thinking about every single word we say or action we take when we’re in public. That we could just go about our lives, and do whatever we want, and that I wanted to stop feeling like that would be the end of the world. Obviously, you know, I care about our privacy—there are things about us that shouldn’t belong to everyone else—but….” He glanced off. “You want to be out,” Shane said. If Ilya was brave enough to be blunt, then Shane needed to return that courtesy. “I know you’ve always been aware that if you came out, everyone would just assume that we were together, no matter what we said about it.”

“Is true,” Ilya said. “I have thought that.”

“So… I think it’s time for us to start thinking about being out. For you, obviously, but also for us.”

“Shane.”

“We aren’t going to hide forever.” Shane had to be brave for Ilya, and for himself. “Or even until we retire. There’s just no point, and it’s always going to be unfair that I’m out when you aren’t. So, even if we just start with things like—letting fans take pictures without explaining why we’re together, that’s okay, right? We can start small and work bigger. And maybe by the end of the year, you know,” he shrugged, “we can go all the way. Just… completely live our lives like it doesn’t matter who’s watching.” Not that half the internet hadn’t already guessed, Shane thought, given the state of Twitter these days, but he generally tried to ignore everything that happened over there.

Ilya squeezed his hand and tapped the tip of his nose. Shane’s heart was racing, but the gesture made him smile, big and goofy, at his husband.

His husband.

“You don’t have to say this is the year,” Ilya said slowly. “We don't need to go so fast, although I know you are Mr. Quick Shot.”

A startled laugh left Shane’s chest. A bird in the canopy squawked in response. “Oh my god, fuck off, you asshole!”

Ilya gasped. “You are so rude to your husband! I thought you were being sweet to me today!”

“I was being sweet,” Shane sniffed. “You ruined it. That's not my fault.”

“Yes, yes, everything is my fault, you always tell me this, ruin my self-esteem-”

“I’m pretty sure that your ego would be the only thing to survive nuclear war.”

“Yes, my ego is made of Twinkies and full of cockroaches.”

Shane laughed again. The bird, annoyed, took flight. “You are weird and gross,” he said, knocking their shoulders together. Despite all the stress, and the anxiety, being with Ilya really was so easy, all the time.

Ilya smacked a kiss to the side of his sweaty face. “And still, you love me. That makes you weird and dumb, I think.”

Shane swayed into him more gently, their shoulders rubbing. “Yeah. Probably something like that.”

Ilya laughed as he finally pulled Shane to a stop.

“So we have a new plan,” Ilya murmured, reaching up to brush a thumb over Shane’s cheekbone, probably over a smattering of dark freckles brought out by the sun. “But don’t give it a time limit, okay? Say, today is when we will start working on this, together. We can start now and see where we are in six months, twelve months, twelve years. Remember what you said during your terrible paperwork proposal? Our lives are not fast. We can move at our pace.”

“Wow,” Shane murmured. “Galina’s really whipped you into shape.”

“I know. I am like Mozart now—I am Mr. Philosopher.”

“Mozart was a musician, not a philosopher-”

“Ugh, fine,” Ilya groaned, throwing his head back and nearly losing his sunglasses in the underbrush. “I am like, fucking, I don’t know, Galileo? Was he a philosopher?”

Shane thought about it. “I don’t actually know,” he admitted, and Ilya kissed him. Somehow, even his lips tasted like the scent of pine trees.

“I love you,” Ilya said.

“Then let’s start working on this now, okay?” Shane agreed. “You deserve to be out. I can’t be the person keeping that from you.”

“You keep nothing from me,” Ilya said. “My important people know, all of them. The people in my daily life know. That’s what matters to me. Do I want to make out with you on Mass Ave? Yes, but that is only because I want to make out with you everywhere. I don’t need to go fast on this, Shane. Maybe it seems different to you, but I have not felt like I was, ah, ‘in the closet’ I guess—I have not felt that way since we came out to the team. Shane.” He kissed him again. “I am good to move at a pace that makes sense to us. I am super good. I am better than good. Actually-”

And he literally swept Shane off his feet, hauling him up with an arm around his thighs, acting oblivious to the added weight of both their backpacks and entirely ignoring Shane’s objections as he waddled them to the side of the path and pressed him hard against a tree.

After that, Shane forgot his objections soon enough.

Ilya’s sunglasses hit the dirt a few minutes later. He pulled back with a grin. “Actually, I am perfect.”

+++

After two and a half weeks of bliss, Shane walked down the driveway and unlocked the gates. He and Ilya drove over to his parents’ house and they ate dinner, then stayed for cards and board games. They managed to keep both the hockey and sponsorship discussions to a minimum, and it was lovely.

Ilya’s birthday had technically come and gone in the two weeks they spent blissfully reconnecting with each other, and like always, Shane’s had passed by during the blind rush of playoffs when he unilaterally refused to break any of his routines for something as superficial as a party.

Their time at the cottage wasn’t quite over, but they had agreed that they couldn’t isolate themselves all summer. They had done that last year before they had started their summer training regimens and turned their focus to brand and sponsor obligations, but Ilya had talked it over with his therapist, Galina, who had suggested moderation; spend a few weeks alone, entirely to themselves, and then invite their friends and family back into their lives. Ilya had confessed that Galina had called their relationship codependent more than once, but Shane earnestly wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing, and Ilya agreed with him. Of course they were dependent on each other. For so long, they had no one else.

Still, Shane was aware that they couldn’t stay isolated forever, or even until summer training or preseason started again, so, in addition to regular dinners with Shane’s parents, they scheduled an upcoming visit to the Pikes, since Shane missed Hayden and Ilya loved playing with the kids and talking trash with Jackie. They tried to invite Rose and Svetlana to the cottage, but both of their schedules were full. Shane pretended like he wasn’t relieved that they could still have the cottage to themselves. He was particularly reluctant about opening up the cottage to so many people.

Shane just preferred hosting at the Boston house, that was all. The cottage had been Shane’s sanctuary for a long time and had carried him through the darkest parts of his life. It had always, he thought, been private. That documentary segment they ran on him a few years ago had called it his “Fortress of Solitude.”

Shane was a private person. Ilya wasn’t, not naturally. They were working on compromising.

Shane unlocked the gates, gathered their mail, and diverted onto a path through the forest he owned instead of walking down the driveway. He took a slow, meandering path back to the house and smiled when he was greeted with the sight of Ilya napping on the couch, dappled sunlight cast across his face.

Shane settled at the kitchen counter and pulled out his phone. Even while isolated, Shane was too nervous to actually set his phone on Do Not Disturb and ignore it for more than six hours at a time, but he had tried to stay away from it for a while. Ilya had been more than happy to distract him. A few more emails and texts had piled up than usual as a result, but nothing urgent. Shane scrolled through them anyway, double-checking their schedules for the next month, an onslaught of training, travel, and brand responsibilities.

Shane was about to close his phone when he saw he had a notification from one of the hockey news blogs that he followed. Already, a deal had been struck between the Boston Bears and the Ottawa Centaurs; Aliue’s trade was officially announced. In return for their second-line center, the Bears acquired an upcoming draft pick and a left-wing prospect from the Centaurs who had gone second overall in the 2018 draft and had just finished a year in the German Hockey League:

Luca Haas.

Shane hummed thoughtfully.

+++

emmaleecamden Look who I ran into while hiking!!! thank you so much, it was so awesome meeting @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer and @Ilyarozanov81! So delightful to meet you (though very unexpected) but thank you for letting me take this picture with you guys in between your hard work at the @GameChangersHockeyCamp and with @TheIrinaFoundation. Celebrity moment!!!

Post 6d ago

roseblanchettevixen the woman was too stunned to speak 👀

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amelieamelie 🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️ merci beaucoup Shane Hollander

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katieledbeck never before in my life have i felt a sudden desire to go hiking in ontario more girlllllll theyre so sweaty and rugged omlllll

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janellewinswinnipeg in front of my salad??? ovaries exploding as we speak

ariunbat.enkhbayar the visible sweat dripping down ilya’s neck haha why is this photo three hours long haha

almamateroffact i’m so jealous i’m actually shaking when does jealousy become homicidal rage girl omg! @Ilyarozanov81 dm me 😫😫

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marylouiseoh @Ilyarozanov81 please carry me through the forest on your back like edward cullen please please please i fear i’ll die otherwise my condition is critical

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bonniegoodtime hawt

fridah.rodrigues i have nothing appropriate to say about this

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miss_cathysanchez i know shane’s gay but these are too of the finest men to ever exist and i would still happily sit on his face 😍

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aria19podcast Madre de Dios 🔥🔥🔥

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hollanov.obsessed Wow, okay, so the straight girls really found this post, huh lol?

delcydelco @hollanov.obsessed I KNOW, i was thinking the same thing!!! i never get to see this side of the internet fangirls it’s lowkey fascinating i feel like an anthrolpolist in here🕵

24babealltheway @hollanov.obsessed omg i had the same thought looking at these comments lmao

farahferrari05 @hollanov.obsessed it's nice to know the straight girls are as weird as we are lol

jamiecontora21 @hollanov.obsessed @farahferrari05 okay but have you considered im a big fat lesbian and i feel just as feral about these men??? like 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 but also 🥵

drewsmitheswonderland @hollanov.obsessed oh good i finally found my people can we fucking talk about why shane and ilya are hiking alone together in ontario in the off season??? are they living together or is this for training or?????

emmaleecamden @hollanov.obsessed I don’t know what i was expected tbh lol

Chapter End Notes

Time to confirm that I am a Flyers fan, and yes i did give them a cup, sue me, it's my own damn fic 🙂‍↕️

(I think Luca Haas played right wing in cannon but shhhhh in this he and hayden both play left wing. Because the Centaurs signed Hayden, they ended up trading Luca for Aliue, an established center from the Bears, to replace the old center that Ilya presumably replaced in cannon. I think it makes sense, and please do not tell me if you think otherwise, I just wanted Luca on the Bears!)

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

CW: This fic is tagged for “Shane Hollander’s Eating Disorder,” which the other fics in the series aren’t tagged for. I don’t want to spoil anything, but it will be mentioned throughout, and is depicted from Shane’s POV, which is unreliable. I expect it will be canon-compliant with the depiction of his disordered eating (specifically a kind of unspecified orthorexia) but more directly dealt with. It will not be the main focus of this fic but it will be consistently mentioned. Take care of yourself!

Eventually, their bubble of peace at the cottage had to break, and a phone call with Hayden was usually a gentle way of doing that.

“And it’s just like, fuck! You know, Hollzy? It’s like—I’m so glad that guy is retiring before his brain straight up liquifies, but honestly, it’s like, okay, then, who the fuck is left?

Gentle was admittedly the wrong word. Familiar was more accurate. The drone of Hayden complaining over the phone was almost peaceful after so many years of listening to it.

“Swear jar,” Shane hummed absently. “Two times.”

“Fuck off, the kids aren’t home. Anyway, it’s just, I have no idea what my own team is going to look like next year. And, sure, we’ve got Aliue now, but that’s just one guy, and is he ready to start games? What if our chemistry on the first line sucks? They could drop my ice time if he’s better than me! I’m glad Callahan is out, but it’s a lot of fucking pressure on me now, and I’ve only been with the team for one year!”

“That is tough,” Shane agreed, frowning at the recipe on his tablet. Did it really need two tablespoons of butter? That seemed excessive to him, but Ilya would definitely insist that, in fact, two was not nearly enough.

They had resumed summer training, and Shane had consulted with his dietician and coach about implementing a strict nutrition regimen for the upcoming season. After the failure of the last playoffs, Shane was more aware than ever that they were getting older. He needed to keep himself in perfect shape, and food was an easy way to do that. Shane had paid meticulous attention to his diet since he was thirteen. He was used to it. It was… familiar. It was something he could control, even when he missed his shots.

“Yeah, right? I mean, he couldn’t have just waited one more year so I could actually find my footing with the guys?”

Should Shane try to split up their portions and cook them separately? He could probably substitute half a tablespoon of olive oil for his own portion. He and Ilya had different macro ratios regardless, even though Ilya didn’t diet like Shane. Extra butter wouldn’t hurt Ilya, but it might make him happy. “Callahan needed to go. He was dragging you down—literally. His turns were so sloppy, he was wiping players out like bowling pins. It would have been insane to offer him a contract extension.”

Hayden laughed, his voice neatly transferred from Shane’s phone to the wireless earbuds he was wearing. Shane liked wireless earbuds. He still preferred his noise-cancelling headphones to almost anything else, but these were extremely convenient, and they were certainly better than the scratchy, tinny quality of a speakerphone. 

Hayden’s laughter trickled out. He coughed. “Yeah, that’s true. I’m just not sure if I’m ready for the C, you know?”

“You’re ready, Hayd.” Shane abandoned the butter for a moment and moved on to chopping eggplant. Ilya was definitely going to whine about eating eggplant parmesan instead of chicken, which probably meant that Shane should just double the portion of butter on his serving to balance the scales, but the thought made him itch. His knife hit the cutting board with a satisfying whack. “You were great in the Voyageur’s locker room, and I’m sure you are great in the Cens’. Hell, you had one of the worst lines in the league last season and you were still scoring. You’re ready.”

“Gee, thanks,” Hayden snarked, but they both knew it was true.

“Hayden,” Shane said, pushing down a sigh because he didn’t want it to be misinterpreted as frustration or boredom. He was frustrated, but not with Hayden. He was frustrated with the Montreal Voyageurs, which had created a franchise so toxic that Hayden had been forced to move to one of the worst teams in their league, uprooting his entire family in the process. Of course Shane felt frustrated. (And he felt guilty. He didn’t want to feel guilty, but he did. Things hadn’t fallen apart in Montreal until after he was outed, and even if none of it had been his fault, it still wouldn’t have happened without him). “You’re a great player. Don’t let anyone get in your head.” All year, pundits and journalists had been criticizing Hayden, claiming that Hayden had only ever seemed good because Shane made him look good, as if the way they had always shared goals and assists had never been mutual. “Transferring teams requires an adjustment period—hell, I switched to a team with the literal love of my life, and it still took some time to get comfortable. If you walk into that locker room next season with your head up, everything else will fall into place. I can guarantee it.”

“Thanks, Cap,” Hayden said sincerely.

Hayden had never stopped calling Shane his captain. He probably addressed him as such more in recent years than he had when Shane was actually wearing the C in Montreal. Shane figured it was out of nostalgic sentimentality, or even an attempt at showing his respect. He didn’t know how to explain the squirmy feeling it created in his stomach to Hayden, so he didn’t try. “Of course, bro.”

Maybe his portion didn’t need olive oil either. The eggplant was already wet. Surely that would be enough to make the breadcrumbs stick? And even if they didn’t stick well, Shane wasn’t worried about some of the empty carbs falling off before they reached his mouth.

“Uh, and listen, before the season starts,” Hayden said, voice going squirrelly in a way that attracted Shane’s attention, “I was wondering if you wanted to come up for a barbecue at my place this weekend? A couple of my teammates are coming over, just a few guys, and they’re cool dudes, I think you’d get along. Jackie said we could treat it like a birthday party. You don’t fly out to LA until Monday, right? You could stay with us until then; we’re a hell of a lot closer to the airport, anyway. And,” Hayden sighed, “of course you can bring Ilya. The more the merrier,” he grumbled.

Shane’s immediate impulse was to turn down the invitation. The cottage was his sanctuary, a place that belonged solely to himself and Ilya for such a small percentage of the year, and he was loath to leave it early. Shane was never at his easiest around strangers, either, so the idea of meeting Hayden’s teammates made him feel antsy. He opened his mouth to shoot down the request.

But he hesitated.

The Centaurs had suffered through a predictably horrible season, although their last-minute acquisition of Wyatt Hayes, a backup goalie for the Toronto Guardians who had seen very little ice time in the previous season despite an astounding save percentage, was a bright spot on their upcoming roster. Hayden and Zane Boodram had also had decent seasons although Hayden’s stats had severely diminished after he stopped playing on a line with Shane—partly because he was no longer assisting and getting assists from one of the league's highest scorers, but also because his playing style had never meshed well with Abbot, the Voyageur captain Theriault had attempted to replace Shane with, or Callahan, the aging Ottawa captain who would have been forced into retirement three seasons ago if he played for any other team. Hayden’s stats had tanked since the leak, and playing on a mediocre team, captained by one of the worst starting center forwards in the entire league, had been difficult for him.

Shane closed his eyes.

There had been so much press about his contribution to the Voyageurs ever since he was traded to the Bears. When he was drafted, the Voyageurs were fresh off a run as the second-worst team in the entire league. In his first year playing for them, Shane brought them to the playoffs. Within five, he won them a Stanley Cup. Then another. Three years running, he carried them to the Conference Finals.

One of the hosts of the Man in the Crease podcast had summed it up: “Hockey is a team sport. We all know that. More than some of the other major leagues, hockey requires an entire roster of people who can pull their own weight, play defense and offense, and keep momentum. That’s why completely standout stars are rarer in this league. We just don’t see situations like Shane Hollander and the Voyageurs all that often. We don’t often see these cases where an entire team was completely dependent on a single player, and maybe that’s why Montreal’s GM felt confident enough that he’d crafted a Stanley Cup-winning team to trade away their superstar. We all know how that worked out! GM Cooper Reynolds was fired last season after two consecutive years of failing to get the Voyageurs back in playoff contention—they just couldn’t do it without Hollander. That's what career dominance looks like.”

It was flattering, but it was also, honestly, mildly depressing to Shane because hockey was a team sport. It had never felt good to carry the weight of an entire team off his talent and dedication alone.

That didn’t change Hayden’s situation, though. And Hayden had to hear all the same news coverage that Shane did, all the shitty opinions about how the Voyageurs were trash without Shane, how Hayden had coasted into a decent career by virtue of standing near Shane—and it wasn’t true, Shane wanted to say. Shane knew better than anyone how well Hayden could read a play, how quickly he could move, how he had some of the best defensive capabilities of any forward Shane had ever played with.

But, indisputably, Hayden had just had the worst season of his life.

He seemed to like his teammates, at least. And they both knew, now, how much that mattered.

“Please, dude?” Hayden asked. “Just a weekend. And you’ll love them, I know it!”

Shane didn’t let himself overthink it. “Okay,” he said, and Hayden whooped. “I need to ask Ilya, but he’ll probably be down. You know how he is about-”

“About my kids, who he’s trying to fucking adopt?” Hayden huffed. “Yeah, I do know how he is. God, he always buys them the loudest fucking toys—do you realize you married the most annoying asshole on the East Coast, Shane?”

Shane looked over his shoulder. There was a side table next to the front door, there to collect keys and phones and wallets, littered with picture frames: Yuna, David, Shane, and Ilya posing in front of a Christmas tree, a selfie of Ilya and Shane in Napa Valley, lounging side by side, rosy and sunburned, baby Shane covered in bubble bath with spikey dark hair.

And the photo Ilya had given Shane last Christmas, the two of them breaking into laughter during the CCM shoot where everything—everything—had started.

There was one more picture that Svetlana had helped Shane find. After he asked, she had requested the help of her father, a goaltender who had played for both the Soviet Olympic team and, later, the Boston Bears. Ilya didn’t have many photos of his childhood, but this picture had been in Sergei Vetrov’s own photo album. Irina Rozanova, blonde curls spilling down her back, held a laughing Ilya in her arms. Ilya, only two or three, had his back to the camera, but it was still obvious how wide his grin was, even turned mostly away. Irina’s hands were in focus in the foreground of the picture, and it was obvious how tightly she was holding Ilya. Her fingers bunched into the fabric of his shirt where she gripped him, trying desperately not to let go and not to let him fall.

Shane stared at the picture.

He imagined being at Hayden’s house with Ilya and a group of near-strangers. Hayden would never have told his teammates, Shane knew, but he wondered how they could play this. Would they have to hide again? Or could they just act how they normally did around their own team and let rumors continue to spread naturally? 

Because Shane wasn’t oblivious. He knew that the rumors were already out there. Especially within the league.

“They’re… chill, right?” he asked. “Because Ilya is, you know, he doesn’t like being… subtle. And I don’t want to ask him to be. So, your teammates need to be good about it. About us.”

“Of course,” Hayden had said immediately. “Of course, bro. I wouldn’t have ever suggested it otherwise.”

“Okay. I’ll ask Ilya to double-check, but I’m saying okay.”

Ilya would agree. Shane knew it. After Hayden’s struggles that year, and Shane’s culpability in his situation, Shane wanted to be there for his friend, but he primarily agreed because he knew that Ilya would be excited about bringing more players into their lives, trustworthy players they could be themselves around. Shane had no idea how they would announce it to the team, but Ilya wouldn’t let a weekend pass without making it very clear that he and Shane were attached at the hip. “I guess we’ll probably tell them when we get there. Just… don’t say anything until then.”

“No problem!”

Sometimes it seemed like Ilya’s end goal was letting everyone in the world into their private life. Shane couldn’t relate to that urge at all, but he knew how much this would mean to Ilya. 

“Thanks, bro,” Hayden said, sounding shyly pleased.

Ilya walked through the front door as they were wrapping up their phone call, dripping with sweat from a mid-afternoon run. He nodded to Shane and paused by the little side table with all their photos, like he always did, before he disappeared into their bedroom to shower off.

“Bye, Hayds,” Shane said. “See you in a few days. Give Jackie and the kids my love. And Ilya’s, of course.”

“Alright, alright. Bye, see you soon!”

Ten minutes later, Ilya’s arms wrapped around Shane’s waist from behind, studying the assembled dinner ingredients laid across the countertop. “I thought you said chicken parmesan,” Ilya said, a pout audible in his tone. “That does not look like chicken. Or is something very, very wrong with it?” He tried to poke at it and Shane swatted his hand with the spatula.

“I said I was making eggplant parm and you know it. And I know you know it because you already complained earlier.” When Shane cooked, which wasn’t very often during the season, Shane was a firm believer in mise en place, and so the counter was covered in little bowls of ingredients, all neatly ordered, and separate platters of egg, flour, and butter in a row for dredging.

Ilya groaned, nestling closer, damp curls tickling Shane’s temple. “Ugh, you will ruin a great thing this way,” he grumbled. “Chicken parm—is perfect food! And then you insist on putting gross, slimy vegetables in instead of delicious chicken.”

Shane’s nose twitched. His voice was a little irritated when he griped, “It’s healthy.”

“We are not supposed to be eating healthy,” Ilya insisted. “Summer is for McDonald’s and too much steak and drinking a lot of beer for the calories! We need calories to live, Shane!”

“We need healthy calories,” Shane said mildly. “If you want to go get McDonald’s, you can, but I’m going to eat this.”

He hoped that Ilya hadn’t noticed the different bowls. The sheer number of bowls would hopefully somewhat disguise that Shane had switched around the proportions for each of their portions.

Ilya was quiet for a moment. He kissed the side of Shane’s neck and Shane tilted his head to the side, giving him more room. “I will eat your fake plant meat,” Ilya said, “because it has cheese and tomatoes on it, and because I am a good lover and always grateful when you make me dinner.”

“Oh, yeah, you sound so grateful.”

“Exactly.” Ilya hummed, beginning to sway. He was holding Shane tight enough around the waist that he was pulled with him, and they stood, embracing and rocking together for a moment. “And tonight, you will build me a fire, and I will make you eat hot dogs and marshmallows.”

Shane wrinkled his nose. “There is no way I’m eating either of those things. The processed chemicals and preservatives alone, yuck. And marshmallows are an unnatural texture.” He felt very strongly about that.

“What, you want to grill tofu over the fire, then?”

“Maybe,” Shane said. “Do you think it would make it taste smoky? That might be good.”

“Oh my god, you are so boring.” Ilya tucked his face into the crook of Shane’s neck, his curls tickling a sensitive patch of skin, causing Shane to giggle. Ilya sighed. “Probably my doctor would say that being married to such a boring man will make me healthier, and then I will play hockey longer, and also live longer too, which is good because I want to be married to him for a very, very long time.”

Shane felt a twang. “I want you to live forever,” he admitted.

Ilya kissed his throat. “I will try my best.”

+++

Ilya was ecstatic about their trip to Hayden’s house. “Babies!” he shouted, dancing around the room as he packed his suitcase with exuberant abandon. Shane winced. He would have to start over from scratch as soon as Ilya was done. “We will get to see the babies, and Jackie will make her wonderful pie, and I can bully Ottawa’s fifth-best player!”

“Don’t make fun of the Centaurs,” Shane said. “Hayden’s having a rough time right now.”

He tried not to feel hurt that Ilya didn’t seem at all bothered about cutting their last few days at the cottage short. Ilya was just more social than Shane was. He couldn’t sustain isolation for as long. If Shane’s healthy diet was good for Ilya, then it was probably equally true that Ilya pushing him to be more social was also good. For both of them.

Shane’s therapist had said something to that effect at their last Zoom session. “You were traumatized by a public scandal, which has made you want to avoid all public appearances,” he had told Shane, staring seriously down the lens of the camera (it unnerved Shane how he always stared right into the camera, instead of looking down at the screen). “But that isn’t sustainable, Shane, not for your career or your relationship. You have to put yourself out there, or something else is going to give.”

Shane agreed. Sort of. And he loved seeing Jackie, Hayden, and the kids, and it was definitely worth it given how happy Ilya was when Shane proposed the trip.

The drive from the cottage to Hayden’s new house in Ottawa took about ninety minutes. Ilya chattered happily about the upcoming season and played loud, fast-paced music on the radio, and Shane held his hand over the gearshift and savored every minute alone.

Last summer, when Hayden had been traded to the Centaurs, Jackie and Hayden had asked for Shane’s help navigating Ottawa’s real estate market because Shane owned a few buildings in the city for his portfolio and had an excellent agent on retainer. Although Hayden hadn’t wanted to relocate his entire family, they had ultimately decided that because Jade and Ruby had only finished one year of grade school, and Arthur and Amber hadn’t even begun kindergarten, it made more sense to get them situated in a new city as early as possible, where they wouldn’t have to be separated from their dad. Their new house looked a lot like their old one—not nearly as fancy as either of Shane and Ilya’s properties in Boston, but a large, comfortable family home, close to the arena and the children’s school. It was clean, new construction with a double-wide driveway, and a backyard and patio well-suited to hosting.

By the time Shane and Ilya turned onto their street, the driveway was full of cars and there was no street parking available. Ilya kissed his cheek. “Go,” he said. “Say hi to Hayden. I will find parking and bring in your bags, treat you like a prince, okay?”

“My ankle is fine,” Shane said immediately, because Ilya hadn’t let him carry anything even remotely heavy in months. “And the bags have wheels, anyway. Let me help.”

But Ilya shooed him out. “No, you are procrastinating, moya kofevarka,” Ilya cooed. “You will want to say hi first. Go.”

Shane was helpless to deny him, even when Ilya was calling him a coffee pot. He went, sticking his hands into his front pockets, and watched Ilya drive his boring car down the street before he turned to the porch.

Hayden swung the front door open before Shane could knock, a large grin plastered on his sunburned cheeks, and two of his teammates bracketing him on either side. “Shane!” he yelled, reeling him in for a hug. “God, man, it’s so good to see you! Arthur’s gonna freak when he realizes you’re here.”

Shane returned the embrace, trying to ignore the other two players as he clapped Hayden on the back. “Nice to see you, too, Hayds.”

Hayden laughed. Despite his sunburn, he seemed happy and refreshed, and he quickly gestured to his teammates, who weren’t even trying to hide their curiosity. “Shane, you know Dykstra and Boodram, right?”

Evan Dykstra was a redneck, and he was from Manitoba (Shane was trying not to hold it against him). He listened to a lot of country music and had the kind of prairie accent that got made fun of on television whenever people remembered that Canadians existed. They had been frequent competitors in the junior Ontario Hockey League.

Zane Boodram was a Trinidadian-Canadian right-winger and the only member of the Centaurs that Shane had ever spent any time with, as he had regularly been their pick for All-Stars for the past several seasons. Like Hayden, he was a strong player on a bad team with a terrible center. But he seemed to accept it with ease and good humor. They had played on the same All-Star teams a few times, but the only conversation Shane had ever shared with him off the ice had been at a solidarity meeting organized by Carter Vaughn for the non-white All-Stars one season.

Out of nearly fifty players in attendance, there were four of them.

“Nice to see you again,” Shane said, accepting a handshake from Boodram.

Boodram had responded with an affable laugh. “Likewise,” he said. “And this is Evan Dykstra.”

“Shane Hollander,” he introduced himself, accepting another enthusiastic handshake. He always felt awkward when meeting hockey players, well-aware that they knew exactly who he was even if it had been years since they had last spoken, but it felt interminably rude not to at least offer his name.

“Oh, man, I know,” Dykstra said predictably, swinging Shane’s hand up and down hard enough to cause a twinge in his wrist. “So glad you could make it! Man, this is fucking awesome! Shane fucking Hollander!”

“Thanks,” Shane said. “I’m excited to be here. Hayden’s my best friend, and I needed to pay my godkids a visit, so it seemed like a good time to get to know each other’s teammates.”

Boodram laughed. “We know, dude. Piker told us—Rozanov is here too, right?”

“Yes, Ilya’s getting our bags from the car.” Immediately, he couldn’t help but think, Did that sound super gay? Shane felt his lip twitch. After a beat, Shane added, “Rozanov. We drove up together.” He glanced away. “We train together over the summer.”

Boodram laughed again. Shane thought he heard something a little strained in the tone.

Hayden clapped him on the shoulder, using the grip to turn him around. “I gotta check on the grill,” he said, steering them through the house. “Roz knows his way to the guest rooms.” Shane could feel himself flushing. He was glad that his back was to Boodram and Dykstra as Hayden led them quickly through his house and onto the back patio. He swung open the door and guided them out. “Hey, everyone,” Hayden called, and Shane tried to control his expression as he realized that there were a lot more people in Hayden’s backyard than he had been expecting. “Hollzy’s here!”

Suddenly, Shane was swarmed.

Including Boodram and Dykstra, Hayden had invited five Centaurs and their families to the gathering.

Boodram and Dykstra had both brought their wives, who were eager to talk shop with each other. Shane was offered three different kinds of wine, and he turned them all down with a tight smile.

Nick Chouinard (first-pairing defenseman, great in the defensive zone but not good at finding or making passes, quick but only ten total points last season) was there with his wife, kids, and new baby, who looked so young she couldn’t have been out of the hospital for more than a few months. Tanner Dillon (first-line right wing forward, consistently underperforming, a good shot when he had the opportunity but a notoriously slow skater) attended alone. Despite his consistently lackluster performance on the ice, Shane was surprised to notice how well he seemed to get along with all his teammates.

Lastly, Shane met Wyatt Hayes and his wife, Dr. Lisa Hayes. Wyatt had been traded just before the deadline last season, and the Centaurs had obviously not made playoffs, so he had only played a handful of games with the team but had clearly already made an impact, both on and off the ice. Shane was pleased to shake his hand.

“Toronto didn’t know what they were doing with you,” Shane said bluntly. “They overplayed Nilsson enough to wear down whatever talent he might have had when they easily could have rotated between the two of you. Their GM massively prioritizes recognizability, marketability, and franchising opportunities over better, smarter roster choices. He’s stupid. I imagine that with the Centaurs, you will actually be given the opportunity to showcase your skills. Your agility in the net is truly admirable.”

“Um,” Hayes said.

A heavy arm draped over Shane’s shoulder. “Don’t mind him, he is giant hockey nerd, does not know how to be normal about it,” Ilya said, smiling brightly at the side of Shane’s face. He had evidently walked around the side of the house and hopped over the locked fence gate to emerge, unannounced, onto the patio. Shane rolled his eyes as Ilya laughed. “Hello, Centaurs! And… Pike.” He glowered across the yard at Hayden, then burst into a grin as soon as he saw, “Jackie!”

“Ilya,” Jackie laughed, leaving the grill she had been tending behind and approaching them. She pulled Ilya and Shane into a hug together. “Hi, Shane. How are you?”

“We’re good,” Shane said. He glanced at Wyatt. “Uh. Sorry.”

Hayes’ eyes widened. “No, no! I mean, super fucking flattering to hear all that from Shane fucking Hollander, I mean, geez! You’re literally the sleep paralysis demon of every goalie in the league,” he chuckled.

Shane frowned. “Sleep paralysis—what? What does that mean?”

Ilya jostled him hard. “You are a nightmare,” he told Shane, and somehow managed to make it sound fond. “In fact,” he said, turning to grin at Hayes, “I think actually we are the nightmares—or so I have heard from many, many goaltenders.”

Hayes barked out a laugh, slapping Ilya’s shoulder. “You got that right!”

At that moment, the kids, who had been sprinting around the wide backyard, fenced in and surrounded by trees and tall shrubbery, apparently noticed their appearance. Shane saw the moment when Jade and Ruby, caught up in an absolutely feral game of tag with the Chouinard children, practically skidded on their heels like a cartoon as they whipped around.

“Uncle Shane!” Ruby shrieked.

“Uncle Ilya!” Jade screamed, apparently trying to outdo the volume of her sister.

They also, evidently, tried to race each other back, sprinting like little demons, and Shane and Ilya had to separate rapidly and crouch to brace for the seventy-pound meteorites that came hurtling at them. At least Jade and Ruby had learned how to divide and conquer by this point, and each launched themself at a different target, so the twins didn’t bowl Shane or Ilya over onto the brick patio as they leapt into their arms.

“Uncle Shane!” Jade said, hands braced on Shane’s shoulders so she could raise herself over his head, legs kicking wildly in the air as he picked her up with a grin. Soft-soled sneakers smacked against Shane’s side, and he grunted. “You’re here! You’re here! You’re here!”

“Ilya, did you bring us presents?” Ruby demanded, her arms locked around Ilya’s neck. “Did you? You promised you would!”

“Whoa,” Hayes laughed, backing away quickly from the sudden riot.

Cassie, Boodram’s wife, was also laughing, but she looked shocked. “Oh, wow!” she said, and Shane saw the way she was staring at Ilya as Ruby aggressively tried to climb around his shoulders, her hands yanking relentlessly on his curls. “Oh my goodness! I didn’t realize, um.” She looked between Ilya and Shane, and then at Jackie. “You two are close. I forgot,” she finished lamely.

“Babe,” Boodram murmured.

Despite the warm, incessant pressure of Jade’s body pressed to his chest, Shane felt something cold in his stomach.

Jackie swooped in to save him, as always. “That’s everyone we were expecting!” she said decisively. “Let’s all go sit, okay? Hayden, food all done?”

“Yeah, babe.”

They settled at the large outdoor dining table. Jade and Ruby scrambled down to help Hayden carry food from the kitchen and the grill to the table as Jackie dipped inside to wake up Amber and Arthur from their naps. The children all settled at a separate, shorter table, except for the babies in Jackie and Chouinard’s laps, and platters of food began to circulate.

“Here, Shane,” Hayden said, pushing a bowl of salad with the dressing on the side toward him, and then nudging a small plate of unseasoned chicken to his elbow. “Just for you!” He winked.

Ilya made a tight noise, quiet enough that probably only Shane heard as he leaned in, murmuring, “You can eat whatever-”

“Thank you,” Shane said loudly to Hayden. “This looks wonderful.”

Hayden laughed. “No, it does not, dude, but I know how psycho your diet is. Everyone else, dig in!”

“Usually I’m the grillmaster,” Boodram said as he and Cassie settled across from Shane and Ilya, “but Hayden wanted to host, and we sure as shit weren’t going to turn him down if it meant we got to meet the two of you!”

“Oh, shit, yeah,” Chouinard said, mouth already full. “When I heard Roz was coming, I knew we had to drop everything.”

“Fucking nuts how you two went from the league’s biggest rivals to besties,” Dykstra laughed.

“Swear jar!” two or three voices piped up, and Dykstra groaned as the team laughed, tucking into their food.

“Not that crazy,” Ilya said. “Rivalry was always for TV, for journalists to have something even a little bit interesting to write about, and to sell extra jerseys and whatever.” He waved a large, dismissive hand through the air, nose wrinkled in distaste. “We came up together from the WJC,” he explained. “Very similar experiences, similar trajectory. And he is Shane Hollander—look at this face!” he said, suddenly trying to grasp Shane’s chin as Shane swatted him away, quickly swallowing a bite of unseasoned salad. “Baby face!” Ilya declared. “Who could hate this face? Not me!”

“Ilya,” Shane said warningly. He turned to the team, then remembered their plan to come out that afternoon. He almost blanched and barely managed to wrestle himself under control. Ilya was allowed to be obvious, he reminded himself, because they had nothing to hide. “Honestly, once we were on the same team, there was never a chance for the rivalry narrative to continue. We’ve always gotten along in our personal lives.”

“Really?” Cassie asked, prying interest suffusing her polite tone. “That’s so interesting. I mean, that must have been a really unique experience.”

“They’re megafamous,” Boodram pointed out. “More famous than ninety-nine percent of hockey players. Especially Hollander. Gotta be crazy.” He smiled. “It must have been nice to have had each other through that, right?”

“Yes,” Shane said, voice soft.

“And you’re starting a charity together?” Caitlyn gushed. “I work for a charity that helps victims of abuse, and I cannot imagine the work starting an organization like that takes! Volunteering is hard enough.”

“That’s amazing,” Shane said warmly. “We’ve managed to assemble a really good team who have honestly been able to handle so much of the work. We never could have done it alone.”

“Or without his mom,” Ilya said, elbowing Shane. “You think this guy is a machine on the ice? You should meet Yuna when she has her work phone and a clipboard—very, very impressive lady. With a clipboard, or with a Yahtzee scoresheet.” He spread his hands, shrugging. “Don’t know which is scarier, actually.”

“Whoa,” Bood laughed, taking a sip of his beer. “You know Hollander’s parents? Like, personally? You’re playing Yahtzee with Yuna?”

Shane took a quick sip of his drink.

“Yes,” Ilya repeated casually. “We are very close, him and me, obviously, but it’s been that way for longer than people think.” Shane envied how at ease he looked.

“So, is that what all the rumors are about then?” Dillon asked. “It’s just people taking your friendship too seriously, or whatever?"

“Rumors?” Shane asked quietly.

Boodram set a heavy hand on Dillon’s shoulder, but it didn’t stop him from saying, “Like, you know, because you're gay? Sorry, is that cool to bring up?”

Shane saw Ilya’s hand twitch around his beer bottle. He imagined what it would have felt like if that hand was on his knee instead, squeezing down.

“Sorry, what?” Shane asked at a delay.

“Shane,” Jackie started, but Dillon was on a roll.

“So, it’s not true?” Dillon asked, affecting a too-casual air even as he leaned forward, eager for the answer. “The rumors about you?”

Shane didn’t know what to say, but he also couldn’t make himself look away.

Ilya, thankfully, took over with a scoff. “Are you seriously fucking asking if he’s gay?” he asked Dillon acidically, forcefully trying to shift the focus of the conversation. Shane’s stomach twisted. The few bites of food he’d eaten already felt like lead weights in his stomach. “Were you born two days ago? Or maybe two years? You somehow fucking missed it?”

Dillon’s hands were already raised, and the tension in Hayden’s backyard had increased by several degrees in an alarmingly short time. “No, no, I only meant—I didn’t mean to imply anything-”

“Then why are you speaking?” Ilya asked, sharp and to the quick, and Shane was almost surprised to realize that Ilya was genuinely angry. His brain felt like it was operating on a broadcast delay, even more so than usual. And where was Hayden in all this? Where was Jackie?

Shane didn’t know these people. They could have been just like the Voyageurs, for all he knew. Hayden had vouched for them, but how could Hayden know? Hayden had a wife and three kids. Hayden was safe. Maybe this—their plan—had been a mistake.

Boodram stepped in quickly. “Hey now, we’re all friends here,” he said, confident and calm, but Shane interrupted him.

He squared his shoulders, taking a deep breath. “What rumors?” he asked Dillon directly.

Dillon looked at him, blanched, then looked at Ilya. And then, almost pointedly, he looked at the space between their bodies.

Not much space, to be fair.

Shane’s immediate instinct was to rock back, to turn away and scrape his chair far from Ilya’s. He had to lock his muscles. He gritted his teeth. He didn’t move, and he saw the way Ilya turned, just slightly to look at the side of his face.

Shane looked down at his plate, completely unappetizing chicken sitting there, untouched.

“Maybe we should-” Jackie started.

“Oh, yes, definitely!” Cassie agreed, too quickly. “Let’s-”

Shane set his hand on top of Ilya’s, on the table between their plates. “I know there are a lot of rumors about us online,” he said, as Ilya immediately flipped his hand over so that their palms were pressed together. “And Hayden’s vouched for you guys, so we don’t have a problem letting you know. Obviously,” he said, trying to effect a dryly sarcastic tone, “you know that I’m gay. Ilya is bisexual. We are together. We’ve been together for a long time.”

Ilya was grinning so hard that Shane knew he had made the right decision. This was really all Ilya wanted, he knew. He wanted them to be able to go places, to team events and parties and barbecues and show off their relationship just as casually as any of the straight guys did with their partners.

And Shane wanted that too. He wanted it to be casual. He wished they lived in a universe where it could ever actually be casual, and he seemed so much more aware than Ilya that it would always be a pipe dream.

It was still what Ilya wanted. And Shane wanted to give him everything.

“Holy shit, wow,” Boodram said after a moment, squeezing out a laugh. “I mean, I assumed the rumors were true when Hayden mentioned that Rozanov was coming today, but I wasn’t going to say anything-”

Cassie slapped his shoulder lightly. “Congratulations,” she said, speaking over her husband. “You two seem really happy.”

“I can’t imagine how difficult it’s been,” Dr. Hayes commiserated gently, “but you are clearly such a wonderful couple.”

“Yeah, thanks for telling us,” Hayes piped up.

“It must be hard,” Chouinard said.

“Not hard at all, really,” Ilya said, beaming. “I fucking love him, you know? That makes it easy.” He kissed Shane's cheek. Shane didn’t pull away. Hayden was giving him a wide-eyed, apologetic look.

“We’ve had a long time to get used to the scrutiny,” Shane said simply, knowing that his media-trained affectation was still in place. “It’s always nice to have places where we can be our true selves.” The words tasted like ash and fit strangely in his mouth. “Our team knows, and of course so do the Pikes.”

There was a sudden fluster of noise from the children’s table as Ruby turned bodily around in her chair and happily exclaimed, “When they have a real wedding, Jade and I get to be flower girls!” apparently bursting at the seams with her eagerness to share this fact. “And maybe we’ll let Amber come too, I don’t know.”

“I’ll be the flower boy,” Arthur called, turning in his seat as well, because apparently the entire children’s table had been eavesdropping. He frowned. “No—Mommy, what’s it called?”

“Ring bearer,” Jackie corrected sweetly. “But you can be a flower boy if you want.”

Ilya laughed and plucked up their joined hands, kissing Shane’s knuckles before he stood, clomping over to the kids’ table. “Seems the real party is over here!” he declared, plopping himself down in a comically small chair as the kids howled in delight.

Shane dredged up a smile.

“A… real wedding?” he heard Dillon whisper, and Hayes elbowed him in the stomach with a strained laugh.

Shane ignored the comment, cutting off a bite of his chicken. He put it, tasteless, into his mouth and chewed for a full minute before he forced himself to swallow.

+++

The sun had long since set by the time they settled in Hayden and Jackie’s guest bedroom. After lingering for an amiable few hours, the Centaurs had departed with promises to hang out again during the season. The kids were in bed. The house was quiet. The bedsheets felt uncomfortably smooth, almost sticky, against Shane’s freshly washed skin. He and Ilya had showered together without discussing it beforehand, and the shower had run long as they made a game of silently bringing each other to orgasm—a difficult task for both of them despite years of practice in thin-walled hotel rooms.

Shane had enjoyed the quiet, broken only by the pounding of the water, but now, the space between them felt too silent.

“Shane,” Ilya murmured. “It’s okay.”

“I know,” Shane said quickly. “I know.”

It wasn’t surprising, certainly. Internet fans would always be a little crazy about one thing or another, and before there had been fans romanticizing about Shane and Ilya, there had been fans fantasizing about Shane and Hayden (which was worse in some ways, because even the idea of it was repulsive, but better in others, because at least then it hadn’t been true). Sometimes, Shane was able to keep the internet, Twitter, and all other social media so far away from his life that it didn’t even feel real—it was all just noise in a void that couldn’t touch or hurt him. Other times, it seemed to get very loud.

The night of the leak, it had been loud. Louder than it ever was before.

And the noise had been growing again ever since he and Ilya had started to relax their restrictions about how they behaved in public.

Shane had always been aware that this was an inevitable consequence of living their lives. Shane and Ilya were the faces of the National Hockey League, undeniably the most famous active players. They were extremely recognizable, for several reasons, and they were relentlessly popular among the large contingent of casual hockey fans that dominated online spaces. They had fan clubs. Mailing lists. Shane had seen printed zines about them both, solo and together, and Yuna had to explain to him what exactly a fucking zine even was.

There were pictures. Compilations. Accounts on Twitter and TikTok with handles like shilyalover and hollanovobssessed, and Shane knew exactly what those nonsense words meant.

There was fan art. Shane had to try very hard not to think too much about the fan art.

Journalists were very aware of this online subset of fans. The Bears’ media team was definitely aware and sometimes played into it when their metrics needed a boost as a game approached with low ticket sales. LeClaire, their coach, knew, and so did Bourque, their GM, and presumably so did Roger Crowell, the commissioner of the league.

Everyone knew, including their own teammates. Including random other players on other teams.

Shane closed his eyes, although it was completely dark already in the room. He took a deep breath, expanding his lungs on purpose to dissuade the sensation that the walls were closing in on him.

Ilya pressed a broad palm over his ribs, feeling the expansion of Shane’s lungs. “Shane,” he murmured. “It’s okay. We’re okay. We are safe. You know that, right? Yes? Whatever happens, we are safe. These are good guys here. We are okay.”

They were good guys. Shane knew that.

There were much worse guys in the NHL, but if the Centaurs in fucking Ottawa had heard the news—had heard rumors, heard whispers, slipping out through the gaps beneath doors or mocked in secret group chats across the league—then everyone had heard about it.

Maybe the rumors had started from baseless online speculation.

Maybe they had come straight from the source. From the people Shane and Ilya had told about their relationship directly. From their own teammates.

Good guys.

Shane didn’t know.

“We said we were going to tell them today,” Ilya said, a little frown between his eyes. “They already knew, or guessed, but it is the same outcome, yes? What changed?”

We said we were going to tell them, but we didn’t tell them. I never got the opportunity to tell anyone.

He released his breath and brought his hand up to lace his fingers through Ilya’s. “Nothing,” he agreed, turning over on his side so he could kiss his husband. “I’m just a little stressed, but it’s okay.” In the darkness, his other hand found Ilya’s face, and he traced his jaw, the line of his nose, features that he had mapped a million times with his eyes and fingertips, and knew by heart. “We’re better than okay.”

Shane could tell by the scrunch of his nose under his fingertip that Ilya was grinning. “Good,” he said, wrapping his arms around Shane and dragging him to his chest. “I love you.”

“So much,” Shane agreed. He meant it, of course.

Loving Ilya was worth everything.

+++

Shane Hollander Updates ↗️@unofficialshanehollander

Summer break is officially over and we are on the move! Shane Hollander spotted leaving Ottawa International 🛫

9:20 AM · Aug 9, 2019

Ilya Rozanov Fancam 🏒@ilyarozanov_

Get ready Milan 😈 Ilya Rozanov seen landing in Milan Malpensa Airport, speculation believes this to be linked to his rumored Ducati sponsorship 🏎️ 🏁

2:43 PM · Aug 9, 2019

Robin @rbernet94

@ilyarozanov_ and @unofficialshanehollander once again doing god's work disproving the hollanov theory like lol sorry nope, once again, they aren't spending the summer together.

Korogyippy-Ki-Yay @korogyippykiyay
Replying to @rbernet94

→ okay but I think @ilyarozanov_ and @unofficialshanehollander should kiss too ❤️

Pucky Barnes @puckmatized
Replying to @korogyippykiyay

→→ i aint never seen two pretty best friends

2481 sandwich @cameronw
Replying to @puckmatized

→→→ right right because shane and ilya aren't best friends they're lovers 🙂‍↕️

hockey bae @sashaisintoronto
Replying to @rbernet94

→ lmao didnt disprove shit girl!!! their summer vacations just coincidentally happened to end on the same exact day after they both havent been seen for a month??? AND ilyas got ANOTHER fucking s-tier sponsorship in the works, which absolutely has momager mrs yuna hollander written all over it?? be for real lol

Robin @rbernet94
Replying to @sashaisintoronto

→→ sincerely, touch grass. it will change your life.

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed
Replying to @rbernet94

→→→ In Shane’s Vogue interview, and their joint PRJ Sports issue, and in several post-game media scrums Shane and Ilya talk about training together over the summer since Shane was traded. Shane used to train with a bunch of Montreal players, including Hayden Pike, but he immediately found a new coach after the 2016-2017 season. This isn’t speculation at all! They do spend a lot of time together during the summer, both training and because of the foundation they are starting together (which you can check out here: https://theirinafoundation.org/about/missionstatement)

hockey bae @sashaisintoronto
Replying to @hollanovobsessed

→→→→ GET EM BESTIE

Robin @rbernet94
Replying to @hollanovobsessed

→→→→ my point stands. touch grass.

Chapter End Notes

Omg I promise the next few chapters will be more light-hearted, sorry to wade in with all this fucking angst, but next up: Back in Boston! Back on the ice!

Timeline so confusing: using the wiki for all kinds of things, so i think wyatt got traded during the 2017-2018 season. Everybody in the comments was theorizing about Wyatt in Boston and in retrospect tbh i did totally accidentally set that up whoops, but I actually don’t want to nerf the Centaurs lmao they get to keep their goalie—for now at least >:)

Extra thoughts: I’m fascinated by the fact that in Role Model/The Long Game, it’s sort of taken for granted that the entire league (up to Cromwell) knows that Shane is gay because the Voyageurs have spread rumors about his sexuality after he came out to them. I felt like that was treated as almost nothing in canon (fr, it never comes up), but legit, the Voyageurs outed him to the entire league lowkey??? It’s so weird to me how the characters never really react to that, but I think it’s extremely realistic about how information could spread. Still, if anyone has any fic recs that deal with that scenario I would LOVE to read it because I’ve been searching and I can’t find any lol

Chapter 4

Chapter Notes

I felt bad about how angsty the last chapter was so I’m posting this early :D

This chapter, and this fic going forward, will contain spoilers for Role Model! Sorry, I forgot to tag earlier

By a happenstance of scheduling, Shane arrived in Boston a week before Ilya.

It was the first week of September. Preseason training camp had already started but veterans were exempt for the first week, as the coaching staff had their hands full with all the AHLers, rookies, and other prospects they were surveying to replace Davies, Varkov, and Aliue. It was a lot of work, of course.

Ilya and Shane had begun their summer training with their new coach before leaving the cottage, running through an intensive off-ice training regimen for the entire month of July and the beginning of August. They had also focused on bulking up ahead of the season, which mostly meant consuming a disgusting amount of carbohydrates and protein every day. Ilya was a bottomless pit, putting away six thousand calories or more in a single day without slowing down, but by only the second week, Shane had started to feel nauseous even glancing at their lunches.

He didn’t really have the luxury of skipping out, though. He ate because he had to eat, like he had been doing for his entire life.

Shane and Ilya parted ways in August, taking separate cars from Hayden’s house to the airport. Shane had dozens of commitments jam-packed into a schedule that took him from Toronto to LA, filming commercials for Montbray, Gatorade, and Speedo. None of his major brands had dropped him after the outing, but Reebok had notably not booked Shane for any filmed ads even after his third Stanley Cup win.

Speedo, of course, loved him. So did Calvin Klein, who Shane had another photoshoot coming up with next week in New York. Shane resented Reebok, but he also felt uncomfortable with the overly enthusiastic representation from other brands: Speedo had wanted to put him in rainbow flag swim trunks.

Ilya was in Italy. His sponsored work had been much more intermittent before Yuna quietly joined his management team, but he was a brand ambassador to a few big-name brands, most notably Adidas and Dunkin’. To Shane, modeling work was a necessary evil, but it was easy: listen to the cameraperson, obey whatever they said, and smolder. Ilya, though he enjoyed attention, opulence, and the opportunity to meet F1 drivers during commercials for luxury car brands, hated the ad shoots himself and complained bitterly about makeup, boiling hot set lighting, and being forced to hold the same position for hours on end. He couldn’t just check out like Shane did, although he was pretty stoked when Yuna had landed the shoot with Ducati.

Shane wondered, when they formally came out, how Ilya’s brands would feel about his sexuality, if he would be dropped, or his contracts renegotiated. Shane thought that Ilya wouldn’t care as much as Shane did. He’d probably tell their company lawyers to fuck off without blinking and then just—move on.

But that work was wrapping up for the summer, and they would be back on the ice soon.

So, Shane went home.

Home, for three quarters of the year (when they weren’t traveling together for games) was a modern three-bedroom in a high end suburb of Boston, twenty minutes away from the practice facilities, with glass windows that wrapped around the entire front floor, automatic curtains that they never closed, a privacy hedge that let them sunbathe in the yard year round and also let the Pike kids run wild when they visited during games.

Strange. Once, not too long ago, home had always and definitively been Ottawa, even when he lived in Montreal for most of the year. Montreal had been the city where he worked, where he was beloved by every other stranger on the sidewalk, where he hid out in his home gym between games. It was bright, concrete and steel. It had never felt like home.

Back in their house, Shane walked through every room, double-checking their security systems and assessing the cleanliness. A cleaning crew had come by twice over the summer and once more just before Shane’s arrival, but Shane located a couple of corners he wanted to go over. It would be satisfying to do it himself anyway.

When all that was done, he took stock of their kitchen and began assembling a bulk order of groceries. He checked every dry-goods container for signs of insect infestations and then carefully checked their spice cabinet to assess whether anything had gone stale. The fridge was empty, and the freezers in the kitchen and the garage needed to be deep-cleaned before they were restocked.

Shane carefully added notes to the yellow-legal pad he was carrying, humming tunelessly under his breath.

These things were all part of the minutiae of maintaining his daily life in Boston. Shane loved doing it—Ilya was not as slovenly as some people assumed, but he didn’t revel in routine like Shane did. Chores did not satisfy him in the same way.

Shane took pleasure from setting each bottle of dried herbs and spices back in the cabinet where they belonged. He stood at the kitchen counter, glasses balanced on his nose, and ordered new cases of Coke for Ilya and ginger ale for himself (the majority would go in the garage refrigerator, and Shane would periodically move them into the main fridge when they ran low). He researched the best methods for thoroughly cleaning central AC ductwork. He organized a list for weekly and monthly deliveries of their staple groceries and paper goods.

By the time Ilya arrived, everything would be in order.

Shane closed his eyes, rocking on his heels, stretching his hamstrings and the arch of his slippered feet.

Ilya would cup his face, hold his chin. Shane knew he would coo, “Did you clean for me?” or something similar. “Order all the groceries and cook me dinner? Make it nice? Make it perfect? Just for us?”

“Yes,” Shane would say, trying not to be too obvious as he pouted his lips, hoping for a kiss.

“Househusband,” Ilya might mock.

“Maybe, if it’s for you,” Shane might say, if it wasn’t a daydream or if he was feeling brave, “sure.”

Shane smiled to himself and added chocolate chips to their grocery order. He would make Ilya pancakes when he got home.

+++

“Welcome back, boys,” Coach LeClaire said, leaning back in his office chair a few days later. “Grab a seat, grab a coffee, grab a donut.”

Shane politely declined. “I’m planning on excising caffeine this season,” he explained, ignoring the way Ilya rolled his eyes. The donut, he felt, he could avoid without giving a reason.

LeClaire shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said.

Vicky and Ilya were already fighting over their prime choices from the open Dunkin’ box on LeClaire’s desk. Quietly, to escape their kerfuffle, Shane stood and moved to LeClaire’s coffeepot in the corner of the room, filling up two paper cups for his teammates and fellow captains. The aroma of coffee was intoxicating. It was the kind of beverage Shane typically enjoyed (low calorie, dry, and unsweetened), but Shane had been researching circadian rhythm and caffeine dependence. After talking to his dietician, he added it to his list of unsafe foods. For this season, at least. Or until they won another Cup.

Quietly, Shane dumped creamer into Vicky’s coffee and stirred in milk and three packets of sugar into Ilya’s before he made his way back to the desk. They were in LeClaire’s office in the Boston Bears’ practice facilities, getting ready for the first full-team practice of the preseason. Already, a few of the prospective players had been weeded out from the herd, but with the return of the Bears’ core team to Boston, the real work was about to begin.

LeClaire silently watched his two veteran captains wrestle each other out of their chairs over who would get the only Boston cream donut in the box. Vicky won. Ilya was glaring bloody murder at a cruller and a chocolate sprinkle, but he looked up with a soft expression when Shane set the coffees in front of them.

They hadn’t gotten to spend much time together since Ilya’s late-night arrival back in the city and this early morning captains’ meeting, and they had a long, long day of training ahead of them.

Shane kept his eyes forward, trained on their coach, and tried not to think ahead about what the evening would bring for him and Ilya. “What did you want to discuss?”

“Line changes this upcoming season,” LeClaire answered immediately, picking up a pink-frosted donut from the box, “and what we’re looking for to pad out our roster. There’s a lot of work to be done.”

“Of course,” Shane said. “Any focus for the first week? Are you looking for Aliue’s replacement, or will I replace him on the second line?”

Ilya inhaled a sprinkle. Vicky coughed on his hard-won Boston cream.

LeClaire raised an eyebrow but smiled, looking satisfied. “Damn, maybe we should just try you in net. Nothing gets past you, Hollander.”

Shane was frowning at Ilya, who was violently and theatrically hitting his own chest and flailing as he tried to spit the sprinkle out of his lung. “Yuck,” Shane said simply.

Ilya hacked up the little pink morsel. Shane wrinkled his nose, reaching for a napkin. “You are moving him off my line?” Ilya said immediately as Shane grabbed his hand and quickly wiped off the sprinkle, then reached for a bottle of hand sanitizer and applied it liberally to both their palms. Ilya let him drag his wrist without reacting, still staring at LeClaire. “Why? It’s the best line in the fucking league!”

Vicky was still coughing. “If this had been powdered sugar,” he rasped, “I would be dead.”

LeClaire nodded agreeably. He seemed amused by their antics. “Sure, sure. And we’ve played it for two seasons. Other teams are starting to change their line-ups to combat you guys—they send out their best guys like they’re on the power play, trying to match you line-for-line. Obviously, the three of you still do great, but if we have you center separate lines, most other teams won’t be able to compensate. They don’t have the manpower to spare, unlike us.”

Ilya looked furious.

“And,” LeClaire continued, uncowed, “Shane just played the best championship hockey of his entire career. He is one hell of a center,” he said, smiling approvingly at Shane. Obviously, he’s amazing on wing, but his goals have been down for two seasons-”

“His assists have been up,” Ilya argued.

“This isn’t an argument, Rozanov,” LeClaire said calmly, eyeing his captain carefully. Shane put a hand on Ilya’s knee. Ilya slumped back in his chair, throwing his hands up petulantly. “We’re going to try it out for camp, maybe one or two exhibition games, to see if we can fit him on the second line with Pummel and Sidney. If it doesn’t work, we’ll go back to the status quo and focus on training Connor to move up to the second.”

“I understand,” Shane said smoothly. He touched Ilya’s knee beneath the desk. LeClaire might not have been able to see, but Vicky definitely did. He smirked and took a large bite of his donut. “I don’t have a problem moving to the second line,” he told LeClaire. “Especially if it means returning to center.”

“Shane!” Ilya objected. Vicky was just grinning widely as he munched away at his donut. Apparently, as the third alternate captain of the Boston Bears, he had no input on what was happening in front of him. “How could you! It is betrayal! You don’t like playing on my wing?”

“I’m good on wing,” Shane said, shrugging. “But it’s not my position.” He kept his attention focused on LeClaire. “I liked playing center at the end of last season and during the playoffs, and that is definitely a position I am interested in keeping.”

“Great to hear it,” LeClaire said simply. “We’ll focus on rebuilding our first and second lines during preseason, in that case. With Aliue gone, I think it’s a natural adjustment. Rozanov.” He tapped the end of his pen on the desk. “How would you feel about trying out a fresh prospect on your left wing? I know we had Sidney on Shane’s left last season while you were out, but I’d rather keep him on a line with Pummel if possible—they have great chemistry.”

Ilya’s face twisted. He looked like he wanted to keep objecting on principle. Shane squeezed his knee a little tighter. Ilya relented. “Are you thinking about this new prospect from Ottawa? Haas?” LeClaire nodded. “I watched some tape of his games in the German League,” Ilya said, scratching his chin. “He is good. Very good. Centaurus should have put him in last season, I don’t know why they did not. Not as good as Shane, but I agree, Pummel and Sid are good together. I would rather train a new rookie than keep-” he gestured vaguely, searching for the word “-keep shuffling every line around. And he has good stamina for being young—will be able to keep up with me and Saint Vick for the longer shifts and more ice time.” Then he grumbled, “If you are letting me keep my right winger, that is.”

“Not with that attitude,” LeClaire said, tone mild.

Shane shot Ilya his first truly annoyed glance and Ilya physically leaned back in his chair.

Vicky had chocolate frosting smeared on his top lip. His donut was gone. He snickered.

Shane handed him a napkin as well.

“Luca Haas,” Shane said, mind spinning. “I’ve seen some of his games. Good player. Great shot. Doesn’t hog the puck, but is bad at sticking to a lane—but then, he’s very versatile on the penalty kill.” He thought it over, then nodded. “Okay.”

LeClaire nodded. “There’s already going to be a lot of movement and adjustments this season, so unless the chemistry really doesn’t click, we don’t need to be adding more.”

Shane quickly said, “We’ll see if it works, Coach. We’re happy to make any necessary adjustments and help train the younger players.” Ilya grumbled.

LeClaire tapped at his tablet. “There are a few prospects who are looking good as a replacement for Varkov. I’ll point them out to you. And for Davies-” He made a frustrated noise. “I was sad to see that kid crash and burn.”

“It was the pressure,” Ilya said, tone gentling. “He is still good, very good. But with the cameras, and the crowds—that got to him.”

“Maybe he’ll have a decent career in the AHL, then, or be a decent coach one day,” LeClaire said, not unfeelingly. “But I don’t trust him as our primary backup anymore.” He sighed. “Do you remember the AHL goalie we called up last season? In December?”

Shane immediately said, “Jean-Paul Cadyn.”

LeClaire raised an eyebrow. “Correct as always, Hollander. Benji likes the kid. What do you think of him?”

“His stats say he’s ready for the NHL,” Shane answered. He had expected this. “Two appearances at the WJC, and an appearance at the Frozen Four. AHL All-Star and two-time contender for the Calder Cup. When he played with us, he finished with an eight–seven–zero record and a save percentage comparable to his AHL stats. That is an excellent performance for someone brand new to NHL ice. I enjoyed playing with him.”

Vicky was snickering. Ilya had his head tilted back, his eyes shut as he took deep breaths. LeClaire smiled. “Do you pay attention to the stats of all AHL players, or just the goalies?”

“He was drafted first round, seventeenth overall. I pay attention to that.”

LeClaire hummed, giving Shane an appraising look. “And have you been following his games? You’re not exactly a goalie coach, but if you have any thoughts, I’d like to hear ‘em.”

“No, but I remember watching his WJC medal games,” Shane said. “He had a lot of promise for being so young. I could review the footage—he was an exceptional goaltender even at that age, but I don’t remember anything specific about his strengths or weaknesses.” He paused, thinking back to the previous season: Davies had been injured in late November, so Cadyn was called up to play backup for just under six weeks, recording eight games during Davies’ recovery. It was, technically, Cadyn’s second time suiting up for a game, as he had been called to sit on the bench once in spring of 2018 when Benji was out for a game. Davies was in the net, so Cadyn had sat on the bench all night, face blank beneath stadium lights. When he was called up again in the following season, he had been just as taciturn and unfriendly in the rowdy Bears’ locker room, but no one was surprised—AHL players called up due to injuries had to strike a delicate balance. They were on the verge of achieving their dreams and yet very aware that their positions came with a time limit. Shane, who had never been in that position, couldn’t quite imagine the stress of playing an NHL game knowing it could be his last unless he played the best hockey of his life.

Still, he continued. “Cadyn over-corrected on a few dekes, but he was a remarkably quick skater outside of the net, even in all his gear. He also took a slap shot to the helmet without flinching.”

“Your husband is insane,” Vicky stage-whispered to Ilya.

“He gets it from his mother,” Ilya whispered back. “She is delightful.”

“He’s been good in the AHL,” LeClaire said, still ignoring the other captains. “He got two shutouts in their last playoff run. Almost won the Calder. I thought he was a little too young to pull up last season, but given how Davies was moving, I’m willing to try him out before we go searching for any more trades.”

“Right,” Shane said. He glanced at Ilya, who was staring at the flat front of LeClaire’s desk. “Let’s try him out.”

“We’ll make it fair today,” LeClaire said with finality. “Alright. Unified front, boys. Go get dressed—you’re scrimmaging with the rooks today.”

+++

“I don’t like it,” Ilya said the second they were in the hallway, the door barely closed behind them.

Vicky immediately began loudly whistling as he turned on his heel and speed walked down the hall.

“I could tell,” Shane said sharply. “Ilya. That was completely inappropriate.”

“You are my husband,” Ilya said.

“Not on the ice-”

“Always,” Ilya interrupted, grabbing Shane’s hand. “I am always your husband.”

Shane faltered. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, of course. Obviously. Sorry.” He took a breath. “But we work together, Ilya. I need you to be more professional than that. It’s extremely important. These are our careers—they matter. Professionalism matters. I know you know that.”

“I love playing on a line with you,” Ilya said fiercely, but quietly. “It’s my—it is the most fun hockey has ever, ever been. I did not know it could be so fun.”

That almost brought Shane up short. When comparing their careers, he had honestly always thought that Ilya was much better than him at having fun on the ice. But Ilya wasn’t wrong. Playing with Ilya was the most fun he’d had since he was eight, and playing without him at the end of last year had been a stark reminder of how dour hockey had felt for Shane at the end of his final season with the Voyageurs.

He didn’t want hockey to feel like that ever again.

Shane sighed. He raised his hand and cupped Ilya’s cheek. “We’ll save it for the power play,” he said softly. “And it’ll be amazing. And special.”

Ilya breathed in sharply through his nose. “You miss playing center?” he asked.

“Any hockey I can play is good hockey,” Shane said, “but yes. I miss it.”

“You are just mad I keep beating you in goals,” Ilya responded immediately. He turned his face so he could kiss Shane’s palm.

Shane raised an eyebrow. “Ilya.”

“I am sorry for temper tantrum,” Ilya sighed. “And I will apologize to LeClaire also—happy?”

“I’m always happy,” Shane said easily, and Ilya grinned.

Things could change. They would adjust. Sometimes, it really was that simple.

At the end of the day, no matter the chaos of their lives, hockey would always make sense to Shane. It would always be a refuge. It felt good to walk back through these familiar halls, the air chilly, and Ilya’s warm body pressing against his shoulder.

+++

“Welcome back, all!”

LeClaire’s voice in the office had been even-toned, straightforward. On the ice, it boomed. Desjardins, the assistant coach who had been with the Bears for the longest, stood by his right elbow, clutching a clipboard as always and with a tight expression. His eyes were eerily pale blue. On LeClaire’s other side stood Margot Jennings, a former CWHL player and the Bears’ first-ever woman coach, new to the team that year. Shane had met her once after attending one of her games in Montreal. She was their new goaltender development coach, and she would have her work cut out for her in her inaugural year. But there was a proud, confident tilt to her jaw, and a sharp, guarded look in her eyes—one that Shane recognized.

It was the second week of preseason training. The first week had weeded out the hopeless cases, but twenty prospects were still gathered on the ice, packed shoulder to shoulder like sardines. Very anxious sardines, considering that in another few weeks, more than half of them would be gone. Shane always felt bad about the whittling process that happened during preseason, but it was necessary and inevitable. Some people made the cut and some had their hopes dashed.

(Shane recognized all the returning players, of course. He knew them all well. He tried not to think about rumors, and who might have been spreading them, and whether he could even blame them for it. On the ice, those things felt easier to ignore.)

“Our veteran players are joining us today, and our captains,” LeClaire continued, his deep voice echoing through the rafters. “I’m sure you know them, but here in Boston, we’re a civilized folk,” he huffed, “so introduce yourselves. Roz.”

“Ilya Rozanov,” he drawled. Ilya was standing with his legs slightly spread, feet planted solidly on the ice. His forearms were folded on top of his stick, his chin perched on the back of them, his eyes roaming continuously and listlessly over the faces of the hopefuls. “You all know me, of course. I was drafted first overall by Boston in ‘09, inaugural season in 2010, made captain three years later and won my first Stanley Cup.” He straightened, lifting his chin off his arms. “In Boston, as captains, we are here to guide you. Especially, especially rookies, but everyone; we are here to help this team on and off the ice. You should listen to us, you should respect us, and you should ask for help if you need it and accept it when we offer it. If I give you a note in practice, you should listen unless it contradicts something the coaches have said—in which case, do not just ignore! Ask questions. Be curious. Pay attention.” He shrugged. Shane loved watching him. “Boston is a family,” he said. “We will welcome you.” He straightened fully and tapped his stick twice on the ice. “If you earn it.”

“I am Victor St. Simone,” Vicky said happily, purposefully cutting off the gravity of Ilya’s welcome speech with a bouncy tone and a broad, goofy grin. It drew a few nervous chuckles and relaxed a few shoulders. Shane breathed out through his nose. (In Montreal, Shane had been captain and Hayden and an older defenseman had been his alternates, but the captaincy in Montreal had been much different—they conferred with the refs and offered pointers in practice, but Shane had never been expected to give speeches. Not good ones, anyway). “I am from Paris, France—you may have heard of it, they have a Disneyland there.” More chuckles, a rakish grin. “I was also drafted by the Bears—that is something that most of you have in common with us. Never forget, children! All of us, all of us here, were chosen for this team for a reason!” Short and sweet and done, he nodded to Shane, last in their line-up.

“Shane Hollander.” His voice sounded dull, monotonous in comparison to Ilya, Vicky, and even Coach LeClaire. At least he sounded steady and sure. “Born and raised in Ontario, Canada. Some of you are native Russian speakers; Rozanov can be your go-to for any clarification or translation you need. I know we have some Quebec players, and if any of you are more comfortable in French, Desjardins, Vicky, and I can be your points during practice. Roz meant what he said. Right now, no one in this building is trying to haze you or humiliate you. We are just trying to see how you play. Ask questions. Ask for clarifications. Prove to us that you are dedicated to this team. Prove to us that you want to be here. We want you to be the best players you can be. Listen to us. And, I advise,” he said carefully, looking up and down the line, "listen to each other. Return the favor. Do not build grudges before you even have a spot on this roster. It will not make you friends, not in this building, not on this team.”

“Well said, captains,” LeClaire said. “Rozanov and Hollander. Name your line-ups.”

“We’re scrimmaging today,” Ilya said. “Establishing a baseline. Expect long shifts, do not attempt to injure your fellow players, and treat it seriously.” He smirked. “This is not All-Stars, but might as well be—Rozanov versus Hollander makes a long-awaited return. As first overall in the draft, I select Luca Haas!”

From the huddle of players on the ice, Shane was pretty sure he heard a muffled gasp before a rookie broke through the ranks.

Luca Haas was blonde, much blonder than Ilya, and with paler eyes and round cheeks that were already glowing a bright pink. His mouth dropped open when Ilya smiled at him. Shane was so charmed by the display that he had to turn his face away from the poor, star-struck rookie to hide his smile.

“I—I had your poster,” Luca Haas stuttered, then sucked in a sharp breath of air like he hadn’t meant to admit that as he skated up to Ilya.

Ilya didn’t laugh. Shane loved that he didn’t laugh at him. “Yes, I had highest-selling poster in the league for two years,” he boasted loudly, flexing for everyone watching. Shane couldn’t have looked at him without bursting into laughter, so he kept scanning the players in front of them. Most of them were still teenagers or in their very early twenties, and Shane, who had turned twenty-eight in May, thought they looked particularly young that year. “It was a good shoot. And you have good taste.”

“Th-thanks,” Haas attempted, sounding mortified.

Shane moved things along. “Second overall in the draft,” he said, finding the dark pair of eyes and the blank face in his audience, caged behind white bars, “for Team Hollander, I select Jean-Paul Cadyn.”

There was more mumbling, and then Cadyn, dressed in his bulky goalie pads, skated from the side of the group. Most of his features were obscured beneath the helmet, but Shane could see his dark eyes, olive skin, and East Asian features. He was probably 6’5” without his skates, and even through his padding, Shane could tell at a glance that his wingspan was probably even longer. Shane nodded at him as he approached and Benji patted his back firmly, giving Caydn an encouraging shove even as he whooped, “Get ready to lose, Hollzy!”

Shane focused on the young players. “Nice to meet you,” he said to Haas, holding out his gloved hand for a fist bump. “And nice to see you again, Cadyn.” The goalie just nodded. The few weeks that they had played together the previous season hadn’t made much of an impact on Shane, so deep in the grind and focused on getting them to the playoffs. He remembered thinking that Benji was doing a good job mentoring and sheltering the quiet, awkward goaltender, and he had left it to him, but if Cadyn was going to be moving up that season, it was past time for Shane to get to know him better. “I’m Shane, this is Ilya. We’re both excited to have you on our teams today and see what you can do.”

“Sure,” Cadyn said shortly.

Haas nodded very rapidly. “Yes, of course!” His helmet was tucked under his arm, allowing his curls to bounce against his forehead. By the end of practice, Shane knew they would be drenched in sweat.

“Welcome to Boston,” Shane said.

“Welcome to the Bears,” Ilya nodded as they drifted to stand behind them, the first two members of their scrimmaging teams. “Cliff,” Ilya called.

“Carmichael,” Shane said.

“Hammersmith.”

Shane hummed. He glanced at LeClaire for suggestions, who supplied, “Johansson, you're on a line with Carmichael today. We’ll see how that works.” Another prospect from the European leagues skated forward, a cocky grin on his face beneath a shockingly golden buzz cut.

Ilya called, “Vicky.” Over his shoulder, he smirked at Luca. “Welcome to the first line, rook. Make it count today, or it will probably take you many, many years to get back to it.”

Ignoring Ilya’s teasing, Shane called, “Sid, you’re with me.” Sidney grinned. They had played on a line together for three rounds of the playoffs last year, when Shane moved to center to replace Ilya. He was used to playing with Sidney on his left and was hoping they could refine their dynamic in the upcoming weeks.

They had enough players for two full rosters. Within a few minutes, their fantasy draft was complete.

“Okay,” Ilya said, clapping his hands loud enough that it echoed up into the rafters. “We have two teams, so—let’s begin.”

It wasn’t a real game. They stopped often, changed line-ups, switched defensemen pairings and shifts at the nonsensical whims of the coaches. They paused to explain plays and signals, then resumed and skated for five seconds before the whistle blew, and they stopped again. Jennings, the goaltender coach, hung close to Cadyn on the ice, a plain white goalie mask pulled over her face as she barked orders and took notes. Their line changes were unbelievably sloppy and deteriorated to the point that, instead of hopping the boards, Cliff just pointedly leaned back against the barrier with his elbows hooked over the edge, skates on the ice.

“Sloppy,” Shane tsked, neatly vaulting the side next to him.

“Shut up, Hollander,” Cliff snarked. “Maybe you should focus on the rooks instead of me.”

“I don’t think I’m qualified to train a goalie.”

“Oh, fuck off. You could play any position you wanted and still dominate, dude.”

Shane hummed. “In the AHL, maybe,” he allowed, and Cliff laughed.

(Rumors, Shane thought. But it couldn’t be Cliff. Cliff would never. And, he reminded himself, it isn’t supposed to matter, anyway.)

It was easier to focus on the rookies. Shane turned his attention to Cadyn. He was strong in the net. That much was obvious. Goalies tended to percolate longer in the AHL and on collegiate teams before making it into the NHL. Cadyn was still relatively young in his early twenties.

Shane had been honest with LeClaire about remembering when Jean-Paul Cadyn was drafted in 2015. Goaltenders rarely went in the first round, and it was always notable when they did, but Cadyn had won a gold medal for Team Canada at the WJC and had been responsible for three consecutive shutouts during the tournament. He had been drafted, then won another silver medal for Canada the next year. He circulated first to Boston University for two years and then to the AHL, where he had played ever since. Cadyn, who at least had some experience in the NHL from his brief stint the previous season, was a natural pick to replace Davies as the backup. The Bears wouldn’t need to trade resources for an established goalie when they already had a superstar on an entry-level contract.

But that was only if Cadyn could hold up under the pressure of a real NHL season. Davies was a good goalie, too, after all.

So far today, Shane was impressed.

By silent agreement, Shane and Ilya both hung back, not charging forward or dominating the field as they worked with their newly established lines. But sometimes their competitiveness got the better of them.

Shane felt the kick of adrenaline that competing with Ilya always gave him as they both careened across the red line, right at the corner of the crease. Jennings had to launch herself out of the way to avoid getting caught in a pile-up along the boards. The puck, which Vicky had managed to get over Shane’s team’s defensemen by flipping it straight into the air, came down like a rock, but Shane had seen its angle of descent and met it. Unfortunately, Ilya was just as good at tracking pucks as Shane, and their shoulders clipped hard as they collided in the same space, both already braced for the impact as their sticks met in a clatter on the ice.

Ilya, bigger and approaching at a faster speed than Shane, fully committed and let himself slam into the barriers. Luca Haas was suddenly there, blocking Shane’s path, and he watched from behind the net as Ilya grabbed the puck and pushed out, feet braced wide as he swerved around the goal post.

Even though all the action had been happening behind him, Cadyn was in exactly the right place. His pad came down at just the right moment to perfectly deflect the puck and Ilya’s stick. Off the rebound, the puck flew wide into open ice. Johansson, one of Shane’s defensemen, was in position to race back and caught it in the neutral zone.

“Good!” Shane barked, already chasing the puck but glancing back at Cadyn with approval. “Very good, rook!”

Across the ice, he saw Ilya clap Haas on the back with a gloved hand. “Sometimes, these goalies, they get lucky,” he heard him say, hardly out of breath despite the pace he was skating. “You did good job.”

“Thanks,” Haas squeaked.

They kept playing, and a few line changes later, the puck was back in Shane’s defensive zone when Ilya wasn’t on the ice. The rookies’ formation had fallen apart, allowing Johansson to swoop through with a deflecting interception that sent the puck rolling down center ice toward Cadyn. It was a slow-moving puck, but instead of covering it, Cadyn bent down and pushed out with the side of his paddle, passing it confidently.

Shane caught it, his feet already angled away having read the correct angle off the set of Cadyn’s shoulders.

Shane soared down the ice until he was between the two face-off circles in front of Ilya’s goal. Cliff tried to check him but Shane dodged backward, handling the puck with his stick as he searched for a way through the defensemen. He skated back, pulling hard around Cliff, and took a preemptive shot at the goal, easily catching his own rebound off Benji’s pads, still in front of the goal as Cliff whipped around, momentarily losing sight of the puck.

Shane’s ears heard the sound of skates approaching. He swerved suddenly to the left, drawing Cliff and Hammersmith with him, flicking his wrists as rapidly as he could—and leaving the puck behind on the ice for Sidney to swoop in and shoot.

He scored. It took Benji a moment to realize the puck had gone in over his right shoulder as he had attempted to track the puck between Shane’s stick.

In fact, it took most of the players a moment to understand what had occurred as Shane abruptly abandoned his chase with Cliff and Hammersmith to swoop back towards Sidney, who was already bright red, his mouth hanging open slightly. “Absolutely well done,” Shane praised him, skating to a stop before him. He took his glove off with his teeth and held out his hand. “That was excellent, Sid.”

“Man, fuck you, Hollzy!” Cliff whined. “I couldn’t even tell you didn’t have the fucking puck anymore.” He flapped a hand in the air.

LeClaire and the coaches approached. “That was risky, Hollander,” LeClaire said, one eyebrow raised.

Shane shrugged. “I heard him approaching. Didn’t have anyone to pass to. It worked out.” He turned and looked down the ice, where Jennings was already talking to Cadyn. “He’s very good in net,” he told LeClaire.

“He wasn’t performing this well at last year’s training camp,” his coach agreed as Ilya swooped in from the bench to join the huddle. “He’s improved a lot in a short time.”

Benji also skated out of the crease. “Good instincts,” he said. “A good handle on the puck. Not just when he got a stick on it, but I think that deflection toward Johansson earlier was on purpose. He’s got a very good sense of the entire defensive zone and where his players are.”

“Yes, yes, but what about my rookie?” Ilya whined. “You see him before? Kept Shane Hollander off the puck!”

Shane rolled his eyes. Haas was already back on the bench so he quietly said, “Hasn’t scored yet, though. Are you not passing properly, Roz?”

“Whatever,” Ilya drawled, then he grinned. He reached out, wrapping gloved knuckles on Shane’s helmet. “I think he has great potential. Think maybe we can get Rocket Richard, Art Ross, and Calder this year? Fucking podium sweep for the Bears?”

“There’s no podium, Rozanov,” Shane said, skating backward and away. “And don’t get cocky!”

Instead of hopping the boards, for the next few shifts, he and Ilya stood side by side in front of the benches, watching the newer players scrimmage and conferring their own notes in murmurs. Quick, but sloppy, and Promising, might need more experience, and You see that? He froze right before taking the shot.

Desjardins blew the whistle and signaled for them. Ilya and Shane pushed off toward Shane’s defensive zone face-off, their linemates following.

Shane smiled into the face-off. “I hope they put us on opposite teams for All-Stars,” he told Ilya with a happy, wide grin. “I’ve missed playing against you.”

Ilya mock gasped. “You are terrible!” he exclaimed. “Rooting for our team’s downfall! Praying against your own captain! Shane Hollander, I bench you!”

LeClaire, playing referee, rolled his eyes. “Stop flirting,” he ordered and threw down the puck.

Ilya won the draw with a laugh, slapping it directly to Vicky, and they took off.

They scrimmaged for another hour, endlessly running and fine-tuning the shifts. Luca Haas scored two goals, one a brutally fast wrist shot that he fired off the second Ilya rounded the goal and passed to him. Cadyn’s blocker whipped up, clipping the side of the puck as it wobbled through the air, but not deflecting it entirely out of the net.

Shane glanced at Ilya, celebrating with an arm around Luca’s shoulders. He saw Ilya give a slow, pleased nod, then looked back to Cadyn. “That was incredibly fast,” he said. “I’ve seen Benji miss shots like that many, many times.”

“Yes,” Cadyn said flatly. “Super fast.”

“Is that something you would be interested in practicing specifically?” Shane asked. “We can line up some drills to work on quick wrist shots like that.”

“Oh. Sure,” Cadyn said. “I’d like that. Thank you. I, uh-” He cut himself off. He turned his face up and fidgeted with his stick, sliding his glove back and forth over the handle. “I hope I get to play some more games with you.”

“I hope so, too,” Shane said. “Let’s show LeClaire why that’s a good idea.” Shane nodded as he skated toward the huddle of coaches and gave them his feedback for the day. Ilya was hanging out near the benches, chatting animatedly with an awe-struck Luca, who was staring at him with an expression of such infatuation that Shane had to smile. When Ilya met his eye across the ice, Shane winked.

It had been a few years since either of them had trained up a rookie, and Cadyn wasn’t exactly Shane’s responsibility, but there was always something rewarding about seeing the next generation of star players come up.

It had happened to Shane and Ilya, and they had been run as ragged as show ponies by the NHL in their inaugural season. Luca Haas had the kind of talent that got everyone interested, especially if he actually made the first line, and Cadyn was a rare figure himself as a first-round goaltender draft pick. There would be eyes on them this season, as young as they were. 

And Shane and Ilya would be there, too. Teaching them, guarding them, guiding them.

Shane looked forward to it.

+++

The equipment managers always set up extra storage spaces outside of the dressing room during preseason training camp, but the showers and the lockers were still unbearably crowded. The Bears had some kind of superstition about using the guest facilities, so early in camp, there were about twenty or thirty extra guys jammed into the room.

Shane gritted his teeth and bore it, but he didn’t like it.

“Do you think they will bring this kid on?” Vicky asked him in French. Shane was about to respond in the affirmative, assuming he was talking about Luca Haas, before Vicky elaborated, “To replace Davies?”

Shane glanced instinctively at Cadyn, huddled in a corner near Benji, slowly and methodically stripping out of his massive gear. He looked miserable in the press of bodies and wasn’t hiding it very well. Shane could relate. “As a backup goalie,” Shane said, responding in French, “yes, I definitely do. If Benji gets a serious injury that would take him out for more than a couple of weeks, I could see management trying to trade for someone more established, older. But as a backup, based on what we saw today and what I know of his career in Providence, I think he is a strong choice.”

Vicky hummed, nodding. “If he becomes the backup,” he said, “I think that will make the Boston Bears the most diverse team in the league, going by who actually suits up for games.” He snorted. “You, me, and the rook. Three people. And he won’t even play most games.”

Shane clenched his jaw. He glanced around the room pointedly. Everyone knew that the NHL had a massive diversity problem. Shane had gotten used to being one of the few Asian hockey players, not only on his own team but across entire leagues while he was still eight. He’d spent his entire childhood hearing awful shit spat at him from opposing team players around refs who pretended that they hadn’t heard anything. He imagined that Vicky, who had grown up playing in French and European leagues, had heard exactly the same kind of trite, endless, racist comments.

And probably Cadyn had as well.

Shane watched the draft every year, even when he couldn’t catch it live. He liked to take notes during the first few rounds and to hear the stats of the upcoming prospects, since he no longer had any time to actually watch most of the youth league games. As he told LeClaire, Jean-Paul Cadyn had drawn his attention in 2015 because of his already illustrious accolades, but Shane also remembered what the announcers had chatted about when his name was called seventeenth overall and Cadyn had stood to his impressive height and bent his head to accept a kiss on the cheek from his white mother. Shane had watched him closely.

“Jean-Paul Cadyn set a record-breaking save percentage in the CHL last season and, of course, had three absolutely legendary shutouts at the last WJC.”

“That’s right. Adopted from South Korea, he was raised in Montreal by father Brandon Cadyn, a former player for the Laval Torpedo, and talent scout mother—this is a real hockey dynasty right here. He started his career playing left-wing in the minors, but when they moved him to net at age ten, he really started building his reputation as something special. Believe it or not, his save percentage also set a twenty-five-year record in the QMJHL.”

“If my notes are correct, I believe he is the only first-round draft pick to be adopted from South Korea or any Asian country. Interesting!”

“Also interesting, despite being a goaltender, he would have been the highest draft pick of Asian descent of any player ever if it weren’t for—can you guess it?”

“Oh, like this is a tough one? Shane Hollander, of course!”

They laughed. “I think we’re going to be seeing a lot of comparisons between Jean-Paul Cadyn and Shane Hollander in the next couple of years.”

“Couldn’t agree more. And speaking of hockey dynasties, Cadyn has just been drafted to the Bears following their first Cup run in decades! That’s got to feel good.”

Shane had tapped his pencil against his notepad and watched the young man make his way to the stage and shake hands with the grinning commissioner, then trade his suit jacket for a jersey.

“This is almost surreal. It's like watching an alternate timeline where Hollander was drafted to the Bears,” one of the announcers had joked. The other stayed silent. For a couple weeks, there was some minor Twitter drama about the inappropriate comment, and then it faded. The story never got big enough for Shane to put a statement out about it.

He glanced at Vicky. “At least he won’t be alone,” he said simply, and Vicky nodded, expression determined. Shane tried to smile, feeling the awkward way it settled on his face. “And he’s from Montreal, so he probably speaks French.”

Vicky made a delighted sound. There was an atrocious lack of French speakers in the Boston locker room. “Very true!” he said loudly in English. “My dear ‘Ollander, you have such a way of looking on the bright side of things!”

No one had ever said that to Shane before. He frowned.

Ilya took that moment to muscle through the crowded room and plop himself next to Shane, draping a heavy arm over his shoulders. Ilya had already showered (“Captain’s privilege!” he had hollered, shoving Hammersmith out of his way and nearly breaking his skull open on a cubby hook), so Shane didn’t object and just leaned in, pressing their sides flush. “What are you gossiping about?” he asked, pointedly speaking Russian to give them some privacy.

Shane wasn’t completely fluent, but he could understand what Ilya said to him, even in the noisy atmosphere of the locker room, though his own grammar wasn’t perfect and he had yet to master his accent except for specific phrases that he had practiced phonetically. Still, he could respond in Ilya’s first language. “We were talking about having another Asian player,” he answered, shrugging vaguely toward Cadyn. “And wondering if he spoke French.”

Ilya’s expression twitched thoughtfully. “Well, then,” Ilya said. “Maybe that explains it. I was just thinking that you have a new devotee,” he said, nodding his head in a similar, nondescript manner. “He has been staring at you all day.”

“No, he hasn’t,” Shane said immediately. “He was staring at the puck, Ilya, because he’s a goalie. And I usually had the puck because I was beating you.”

“No, no, it’s not that,” Ilya said confidently, ignoring Shane’s chirp. “He was watching you. Can I blame him? No, not really. When I was his age, I was also obsessed with you.”

“Don’t make fun of him,” Shane said immediately. “He’s just a kid.”

“A kid who worships you,” Ilya said. “Should I be jealous, Hollander?” he purred.

Shane thought about pulling away or telling Ilya to be more subtle until preseason was over. They hadn’t discussed how they would handle telling any new additions to the team about their relationship. Cliff and Vicky were the only players who knew they were married, but every other Bear knew that Ilya was bisexual and that they had been together since before Shane was traded. This season, they would be acquiring at least two new players on the roster and probably several new AHL players for their injury reserves. 

But, in the locker room, surrounded by people who already knew, Shane decided he didn’t care. It didn’t matter. It was easier to accept here, in the familiar training facilities, with Vicky at his side and Cliff just across the room. He knew they would always have his back.

Shane smiled at Ilya, not pulling away but turning his face even closer. “I like when you’re jealous,” he admitted, enjoying the sharp look that entered Ilya’s eyes.

“Even in Russian, I can tell you are being gross,” Vicky grumbled in French.

Ilya opened his mouth wide enough to show off his molars, but whatever he was about to say was interrupted by a sudden burst of noise from a bunch of their younger players. Sidney was gawping at his phone and Pummel had jumped to his feet, gaining the attention of the room as he exclaimed, “Holy shit!”

“What?” Ilya asked loudly.

“Have you seen this shit?” Pummel said, waving his phone through the air.

“Seen what?” Shane repeated. Ever since the leak that had outed him to the world, he had been extremely wary of media of all kinds. Shane had hoped that therapy would help him with that, but so far it hadn’t changed much. He wanted to sigh. Maybe he wasn’t going enough, but Shane just couldn’t comprehend finding more time during the season for an activity that always completely drained him.

And he really didn’t want to talk about Hayden’s barbecue with his therapist.

Ilya set a hand on the back of his neck. He stroked once over the chain links resting just below a ridge of his vertebrae.

“It’s a leaked video from the Guardians’ practice!” Pummel said. Ilya held out a hand and Pummel obligingly tossed the phone over. Around the locker room, other players were pulling their phones from their bags and Shane heard several Twitter notifications begin to ping from their devices. Despite the warmth of Ilya’s palm, tension was seeping into Shane’s shoulder-bones, deep enough to ache. “This shit is everywhere. Troy fucking Barrett just called Dallas Kent out for all those fucked up allegations.”

“Not just that, man,” Sidney explained. “He actually called him a fucking rapist.”

A wave of surprised murmurs crested over the room. Ilya angled Pummel’s phone down so Shane could see the screen—Barrett and Kent, two of the biggest assholes in the league, on the ice and grappling with each other.

Shane raised his eyebrows but turned away from the phone. “Good for him,” he said, keeping his voice mild. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself.

Shane heard the video playing over the phone's speakers as Ilya watched, Cliff and Vicky gathering around to watch over his shoulders. “Well, he is a rapist, so it is good someone is saying it to his face,” Ilya said loudly, handing Pummel his phone back. “Barrett is still an asshole, though. Interesting to learn that even scum on the bottom of a shoe can have better morals than Dallas Kent—interesting, but not surprising.”

Shane didn’t bother bringing up that Barrett had called him a fairy before he was outed. And since the leak, and since the outing, Barrett had avoided him on the ice like a plague, probably because he thought Shane’s queerness was catching. Shane certainly didn’t mind. He strongly disliked Troy Barrett, but Dallas Kent was in the same league as Comeau and Lemaire in Shane’s opinion, and he hadn’t done Shane the same favor of just avoiding him.

Shane bent down and began methodically unlacing his skates. He didn’t want to think about Lemaire, Comeau, Barrett, or Kent. All the assholes they played with, the assholes that their industry paid millions of dollars. Shane could not physically spend too long thinking about the disgusting state of the NHL without giving himself a head-splitting migraine when he tried to justify the cognitive dissonance at the center of his life.

They were surrounded by so many reprehensible people. And someone in their locker room might have been spreading rumors about Ilya and Shane.

Ilya returned his hand to the back of Shane’s neck. It did make his breath come a little easier.

They had a month left of training camp before their preseason games. Cadyn and Luca would probably play all seven games.

There were young players entering the league every year. Generations were short in hockey because their careers were short, lasting less than two decades.

Shane hoped that meant that change could happen quickly.

+++

A week later, the news broke that Troy Barrett had been traded to the Ottawa Centaurs.

“Poor Hayden,” Shane said to Ilya, worrying at his bottom lip.

“Eh,” Ilya said, shrugging. The channel in front of them was showing a side-by-side of Barrett’s professional headshot and a muted version of the footage of him yelling at Kent. “I think it will be alright. Maybe Ottawa is what Barrett needs—a little ego killer. I think they will be good for him, and maybe he will score them a few goals. What, now they have Pike, Aliue, and Barrett, who will probably go to the first line? That is hell of an improvement from two seasons ago.”

“Oh, he’ll be a benefit to the team, absolutely,” Shane said easily. “It’s going to be a nightmare in the locker room, though.”

Ilya shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not.”

“What?” Shane asked, baffled. “You said it yourself—Barrett is still an asshole.”

“Yes,” Ilya said, something knowing and amused in his eyes, “but so am I. And you still love me, yes?”

Shane found his hand and interlaced their fingers. “You’re the exception to the rule,” he said softly. He kissed Ilya, chuckling under his breath when Ilya pursed his lips into a protruding pout. “The best exception,” he confessed.

“Well,” Ilya drawled, “I think Barrett might also be an exception. We will have to see.”

+++

Bears Watch! @BostonBearsUpdates

Varkov retired, Aliue traded, Davies crumpled: What are we thinking about the upcoming roster? Discuss ⬇️⬇️

12:07 PM · Sep 5, 2019

regularly scheduled programming @bostonianblackbear
Replying to @BostonBearsUpdates

→ gotta be jp cadyn in net. they shoulve replaced davies with him last season. and they wouldnt have aquired that centaurs prospect if they didnt want to play him. for d-men, ive got no fucking clue, varkov was a wall, gonna be hard to replace that

Greg's Fantasy League @GregsLeagueBoston
Replying to @BostonBearsUpdates

→ Anyone wanna put money on this? I've got one hundred on Davies getting traded before November

VictoryVictoire @theexvoyageursfangirl

[Video attached]

don’t call me a freak but I was curious and I went and dug up some footage from the first open practice of the Bears post Shane joining (circa September 2017) and just… look at the way ilya looks at him.

8:18 PM · Sep 7, 2019

puck me up daddy @jennassecretburner
Replying to @theexvoyageursfangirl

→ look at the way ilya touches him! love is real but not for me fml

Hollanov’s third @wishfulthinkerer
Replying to @theexvoyageursfangirl

→ whoa, ilya was like loverboy gone for him day one, huh?

jamie’s hockey fan club @jaimieshockeyclub
Replying to @wishfulthinkerer

→→ not as one sided as yall are acting. Look at 1:52, marly and saint vic are trying to talk to shane and he keeps looking over their shoulders, trying to track ilya -- he needs to know where his man is!!!

Fowlie @fowliemouth
Replying to @theexvoyageursfangirl

→ (me, pepe silvia with my board and red string, trying to figure out the fucking timeline of this relationship)

she gooned on my deke til i crease @bowserfloozy
Replying to @theexvoyageursfangirl

→ This fandom is a prison. Yall are talking about the longing looks and the fleeting touches. Meanwhile, look at the motherfucking PASSES (sobbing) that’s romance. That’s love. That’s literally the point of hockey rpf. This was probably the third time they ever played together and they are already in perfect synch just wow. SOULMATES IN SKATES

Korogyippy-Ki-Yay @korogyippykiyay
Replying to @theexvoyageursfangirl

→ Not my circus not my monkeys but am I the only one who feels weird about how much traction hollanov is gaining? Like… this isn’t scott hunter and his canon boyfriend. Shane was really terribly outed. I don’t know if it’s chill to be speculating about his romantic life, or if i’m the only one who feels uncomfy with it

puck me up daddy @jennassecretburner
Replying to @korogyippykiyay

→→ Referring to real people as canon I’m afraid youve already lost the plot (but a korogyi stan? We already knew that)

Robin @rbernet94
Replying to @korogyippykiyay

→→ Dwai sweetie!!! Actually all RPF is inherently unethical, so this debate doesn’t matter at all!!!

VictoryVictoire @theexvoyageursfangirl
Replying to @rbernet94

→→→ oh god here we go again ENOUGH DISCOURSE GET OUT OF HERE DLDR

Chapter End Notes

Troy in Ottawa! Moving up the cannon timeline to fit, gotta get that full Centaurs cast in

Everything I think I know about goalies I learned from zero_bytes “Rule 69.3 - Contact Inside the Goal Crease” which is an absolutely incredible fic that you should check out right now. Cadyn’s ]career path is heavily influenced by Connor Hellyebuck (who I don’t like but who is a very good goalie). Hope it makes enough sense, but I have never been an expert and I just want it to work like this! If anything is weird about line changes/careers/trades, just suspend your disbelief! I’m just trying to make it as fun as possible. Also, I’m in love with Aerin Frankel and this is my first time really writing about goalies so I finally got to use her Olympics highlights as inspo! (can you tell I’ve been working on this fic for a while lol?)

Chapter 5

Chapter Notes

This chapter is shorter because I had to put my foot down with myself and split it up. I’m tired of editing ~10k chapters

Shane blinked his eyes open slowly, briefly blinded by the sunlight bathing their room.

His vision cleared. Ilya smiled at him.

Shane yawned, and Ilya laughed, and they moved together, toward the center of the bed and each other. Shane tucked his face into Ilya’s chest, the space between his pecs, and breathed in the natural scent of his skin—no products or sweat, just Ilya. Warm.

Ilya nuzzled his nose into Shane’s hair as he aggressively squirmed an arm beneath his body and the mattress, making Shane grumble as he was jostled, until Ilya could wrap both arms around Shane’s ribcage. One of Ilya’s hands settled in the space between Shane’s shoulder blades, pressing them even closer together.

“Good morning, moy lyubimyy,” Ilya said. “Still sleepy?”

Shane hummed. “Did I sleep through my alarm?” he mumbled, confused. It was unlike him to wake up late, and he could tell from the sunlight that it was probably past 10:00 a.m., long after his alarm was set to go off.

Ilya’s expression turned sheepish. “I turned it off. Sorry.”

Shane was too sleepy to react dramatically to this confession. “You don’t sound sorry.”

“I’m not.” Ilya smacked a kiss on top of his head. “Are you mad at me?”

Shane blinked again. His vision was obscured by Ilya. He couldn’t see anything else. “Not yet,” he admitted, because their bed was comfortable, and their expensive sheets were so worth the exorbitant price. “Maybe later. Why’d you turn it off?”

“I was tired too, and if you got out of bed, I would wake up. And then I would hear you make smoothie, and hear you on treadmill, and hear you lifting weights, and I would be up all morning like the crazy person I married.”

“Oh. Sorry. Have I been too loud-?”

“No,” Ilya cut him off, nudging awkwardly down the bed until both their heads were off the pillows and he could kiss Shane on the mouth, lips closed. “You don’t keep me up. I was just joking.” His hands slid down and he pressed his thumbs into the dimples on Shane’s lower back. “I turned it off because I wanted you to sleep in. You seem… tired.”

“Do I? I haven’t been sleeping any less than usual.” Shane had kept his routine strict throughout the rest of training camp. Yesterday was the last practice before the first preseason game. They had trained hard and long, the roster getting closer and closer to being finalized for their opening game. Cadyn and Haas were shoe-ins. Johansson, the young Swedish defenseman, had shown promising chemistry with Carmichael. Shane, despite being a veteran, had not allowed himself to slack off with all the rookies looking up to them for guidance.

He enjoyed watching Ilya with the rookies, though. Shane had gotten a taste of Ilya’s captaincy at his first training sessions with the Bears, the jovial yet sincere way Ilya gave advice, his sharp eye and affable wit, which made his perceptive criticisms easy to stomach. The rookies, Luca in particular, clearly worshipped Ilya. They wanted to impress him, and Shane loved watching the way Ilya handled them gently in return.

He smiled just thinking about it.

Ilya’s face was very close to his. Shane ignored their morning breath to kiss him again. “I feel pretty well rested right now,” he said, trying to add something sultry to his voice.

Ilya rolled his eyes. “Are you trying to flirt?” he asked, pretending to be outraged. “Who are you? What have you done with my so shy lover?”

Shane jabbed a finger into his stomach. Ilya flopped onto his back dramatically, flapping the arm still trapped beneath Shane’s waist. “Shut up,” Shane said, rolling on top of him and straddling his hips. They were both half-hard in their sleep pants, and Shane rocked languidly, his body feeling tremendously relaxed.

He was relaxed, more than he had been all summer.

Mike thought that Shane was too invested in hockey, which annoyed Shane, because he had picked Mike because he specialized in sports psychology. He had thought Mike would understand. Shane didn’t know how to explain how good hockey made him feel. He knew there would come a time when he could no longer play, and that was a reality Shane could accept and was actively preparing himself for, but for now, hockey always restored him. It brought Shane to an equilibrium. Ilya was just as good at making Shane feel balanced, though in a very different way.

Being in Boston with Ilya, and playing hockey with him again, was wonderful. It reminded Shane that his life had turned out better than he could have ever predicted, in spite of every bad thing that happened along the way.

Ilya ran his hands over Shane’s thighs without urgency, just watching him. “Do you feel good?”

Shane rocked. “I feel very good,” he agreed, tilting his head back. Maybe he was right, and later he would be annoyed that Ilya had disrupted his sacred routine by turning off the alarm, but for now, he felt relaxed and warm.

“Good.”

The sheer relief in Ilya’s voice made Shane immediately freeze.

He stopped, blinking down at Ilya, who already had a chagrined look on his face, mouth twisted and eyes averted. “Hey,” Shane said softly. “I’m not mad about the alarm. I promise.” He braced a hand on Ilya’s chest, fingers brushing his cross. “I missed waking up with you, too. And we don’t have practice today, and we’re not playing in the game tomorrow, so—good day to take a break. I get it.” He leaned in a little, bending over Ilya until his husband finally met his eyes again. “Thank you.”

Ilya cupped his cheek. “You looked tired,” he said again quietly.

Shane tilted his head into his palm. “Did I?”

Ilya put his hands back on Shane’s thighs, then slid them up, touching his stomach. “Yes. Are you? Tired?”

Shane thought about it. He took stock. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I’ve been… pretty stressed.”

“About coming out?” Ilya asked at once. “Us, coming out?”

“I don’t know,” Shane said, and he was surprised enough by the turn in conversation that he confessed, “A little.” He bit his lip. “I don’t want to be stressed. I don’t want to be stressed about anything, but-” Shane made a small, frustrated noise at himself, settling back to sit on his haunches over Ilya’s thighs. They weren’t aroused anymore.

“Is okay,” Ilya murmured. “Take your time. I will be here.”

“I know,” Shane said immediately. “I know that. That’s really never, ever in doubt for me, Ilya. I just-” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I have… I have been feeling stressed lately.” Ilya nodded and suddenly, as if he had been waiting for permission, the floodgates opened. “I’m stressed about a lot of things, I guess. I’m still upset about playoffs, and now I’m dropping back a line, and I want to play center, I do, but I know that everyone is going to be shitty about me being on the second line, like they were about me being your wing, and I’m trying to set a good example for the rookies. I’m—I’m tired of bulking. I’m sick of being asked about this awful Kent scandal. I just want to play hockey with you, and I don’t know why random people get to have so many opinions about it!”

It was Ilya’s turn to blink. “Whoo. Okay….”

Shane winced, shrinking back. “Sorry.”

Ilya shrugged. “No sorries, it’s good. I wish you had told me earlier, so it didn’t all come out like a mudslide on this lovely warm morning off, after you didn’t get mad at me for fucking with your alarm, but I wanted to hear it. I’ve been waiting to hear about this, actually.”

Shane grimaced. “Was I that obvious?”

“To me,” Ilya said. “You are very obvious to me. Ever since you shook my hand twice outside of the arena, and then got hard after five seconds in the showers—you were always pretty obvious.”

“Shut up,” Shane grumbled, but he braced his hands on Ilya’s chest more firmly, feeling the beating of his heart.

Ilya whispered, “Have you talked to Mike about all this?”

Shane winced again and shook his head.

Ilya hummed. “Maybe you could schedule another session? Sometimes I do this with Galina, you know, even outside of the usual time. When things are… harder, I schedule extra.”

Shane was immediately concerned, worried that he had missed something in the stress of the past few months. “Have you been-?”

“No, not right now.” Ilya shook his head. His curls were mussed and squished from sleep, outlining his face in an uneven blob around his skull. “I have mostly been worrying about you. Everything else is good for me right now, which makes me feel sad for you.”

And that made Shane feel awful. “You do not need to worry about me, Ilya-”

“Of course I do!” Ilya said, affronted. “You are my husband. It’s my job to worry a little always. I fucking love my job.”

It made Shane laugh, even in the middle of this heavy discussion. Ilya grinned, triumphant.

“I’m having a hard time balancing some stuff,” Shane admitted. He tried to find the words, but knew that Ilya would understand him even if he didn’t get them perfectly right. “I know I’ll feel better once the season is in swing. I’m… I think I didn’t realize how stressed I was all summer, maybe. I might not have gotten as much relaxation as I needed, but… I feel better now. I know Hayden’s barbecue—it didn’t go how we wanted.” He touched the loon tattoo, fully healed, on Ilya’s biceps. Ilya flexed, just for him. “How I wanted, I guess.”

“Hmm. But I want what you want, so you were right, it didn’t go how we wanted. You wanted to tell them, and I know how much that matters to you.” Shane nodded. He squirmed a little on Ilya’s lap, feeling a distant urge to hide himself beneath the sheets they had pushed down to the foot of the bed. Ilya started stroking his skin gently, tracing patterns between Shane’s outlined abdominal muscles. This rhythmic motion of his fingers, a habit Ilya had picked up years ago, always soothed Shane. When Shane had stilled again, Ilya asked, “You don’t like the rumors about us, do you?”

Shane took a deep breath. “I don’t like not knowing where the rumors came from.” Ilya’s eyebrows twitched down in confusion, so Shane elaborated, “I don’t know if Dillon knew—if it was just the, you know, online stuff, or if… if someone that we told has been gossiping about us to other people in the league.” He swallowed. “Maybe someone on our team.”

After a moment, Ilya said, “Our locker room is good. I don’t think they would do that.”

“I don’t want to think so either,” Shane said.

“I can ask around,” Ilya said. “Talk with Vicky and Marly—they would never say anything, so it is not them, but I will see if they’ve heard anything. I don’t think so, but I can ask. And you should ask Hayden,” Ilya said, and Shane felt guilty because that was the obvious solution, but he hadn’t wanted to bother Hayden over yet another problem. “And maybe,” Ilya continued, “maybe until we understand, because it is stressing you, maybe we can slow down, change plans-”

Shane felt frustration growing as he searched for words that never came naturally to him in moments of stress. “No, that’s not—that’s not what I want. I don’t want to stop, exactly. I’m—actually, you know, I’m pretty fucking tired of hiding any of it,” Shane said in a rush. It’s stressful to be in the closet.” He laughed just a little hysterically. “Oh my god, is that ridiculous? I feel like I’ve been stressed about being out of the closet this whole time, and now I’m stressed for the opposite reason.”

“It’s not stupid,” Ilya said. He hesitantly added, in a way that meant he had been thinking about it for a long time, “And I think you are not stressed. I think you are anxious, you know?”

Shane swallowed. “Yeah. Mike’s… brought that up. I guess I’m working on accepting what that means, too.”

Ilya lifted a hand to the back of Shane’s neck. The angle was awkward, but it still felt nice. “I get it. I know what you mean—I know exactly what you mean.”

“I know.” Shane took a deep breath. “Okay. We should work on that, then, I guess. I just… need a little more time. I can’t handle thinking about—about the league, and the fucking internet, right now, at the start of the season.” He smiled, feeling his eyes heat with tears that he used to try very hard to hide, but which felt a little easier to show around Ilya. “But I’m working on it,” he promised.

“We should work on it together,” Ilya said, and Shane leaned in to kiss him, Ilya’s palm guiding him down.

+++

Shane won his first preseason home game against Toronto and felt vindictively pleased about slaughtering them, although the joy was somewhat lessened because Ilya was not playing with him, and because Dallas Kent had not travelled with the team. Shane would have liked to meet that asshole on the ice, face-to-face.

The sexual assault allegations against Kent continued to rage online, dividing a younger generation of fans from the old guard, although neither the Toronto Guardians nor the NHL had responded to or punished Kent yet for the sexual misconduct allegations several women had made against him. Depressingly, Shane thought it was unlikely that Kent had stayed home because of the scandal. More likely, Kent’s status as a franchise player allowed him to skip the inconvenient pre-season travel schedule.

Though veterans were often exempt from travel, Ilya joined their younger teammates for an away game in Montreal. Shane was more than happy to stay home, but he watched the game at Cliff’s house with a bunch of the other older players. Shane had an armchair to himself, safely separated from the equally boisterous booing and cheering of his teammates. Cliff, Vicky, and Benji were crowded together on a leather sofa, undeniably too large to all fit there together, and Pummel, Carmichael, and Hammersmith were scattered around the room on beanbags that Shane thought had to be bad for their backs. Everyone was yelling, and they had powered through several six packs of beer, and Shane was so familiar with this routine that it somehow felt comfortable to him.

Like Boston, Montreal played mostly rookies and prospects in the preseason game, and it was eminently clear that Ilya had a deadly advantage over them. Drapeau, a former Montreal goalie, had retired after the previous season at thirty-five (and Shane was glad that at least one of the most vocal toxic forces in that locker room was gone for good), and they had an AHL prospect in the net. It was currently a 3-0 shutout for Boston.

Luca played on Ilya’s left, taking Shane’s former place, and already had a goal and an assist. Cadyn was in their net and had not let a single puck pass him. Even facing off against other rookies, they were clearly standouts.

At the end of the game, Ilya skated a victory lap, laughing loudly in the face of the Montreal fans booing his unsportsmanlike victory. Shane smiled a little when the broadcast cut to show Luca Haas following his progress around the ice with awestruck wonder.

“You don’t get to watch Roz play much anymore, do you?” Cliff asked. He was shoveling popcorn into his mouth—his third bowl of the night, as it happened, because Cliff claimed that popcorn was a superfood (not even remotely true, especially when he doused it in butter and powdered cheese). “Must be different. He always wanted to watch Montreal games when we were on the road, you know. I always thought he was trying to get info on the enemy,” he laughed.

Shane had been picking at a package of dried seaweed all night. He’d brought it from home, knowing there would be nothing that suited his diet at Cliff’s house. Cliff, like many players, relied exclusively on the team nutritionists and his own personal chef to prepare all his food. He didn’t even keep fruit in his house. It was either cooked chicken breast reheated in the microwave, or Orville Redenbacher’s. “It’s been a while,” Shane said. Shane hadn’t missed a single game last season, and he was hoping to keep that record going, so it had been a long time since he had watched Ilya play a game without him. “All-Stars two years ago might have been the last time. Even longer since I saw him play anything that wasn’t an exhibition game.”

“What’s it like?” Vicky asked, tilting his head.

“Something about the chemistry between Sid and Ilya is off,” Shane said at once. “It’s not a good match—they can’t seem to read each other. Obviously, Montreal is still terrible, so it doesn't matter, but still, I’m a little surprised. Sid and I have similar playing styles, and Ilya’s always played exceptionally with me.”

Cliff and Vicky were both laughing. “No, idiot,” Vicky said. “What’s it like to watch your partner play hockey?”

Shane paused. “I don’t know how to answer that,” he said. “Maybe you should date someone in the PWHL and figure it out for yourself.”

“Eh!” Vicky said loudly, aggressively waving his hand in Shane’s face. “I am a married man! And Amanda is many things, but a hockey player is not one of them! That role is my burden to bear, all alone, mon ami.”

“The PWHL players are all lesbians, anyway,” Carmichael snorted. “Fuck, man, I hate these rookie games. It’s like watching AHL hockey. What’s the point?”

Shane glanced at the carpet beneath his socks. He had taken his shoes off because he hated wearing them indoors, but no one else had. He wondered how dirty the floors were and felt an uneasy, almost ticklish sensation creep across the soles of his feet.

“Hey,” Cliff said loudly, knocking his shoulder into Carmichael’s. “Not all women hockey players are gay, dude. That’s a weird fucking thing to say. Some of them just play hockey.”

Carmichael frowned. “Isn’t your niece-”

“Don’t fucking say anything about my niece,” Cliff snapped.

Shane turned his head slowly, studying Carmichael in his periphery.

“Alright, alright,” Vicky said soothingly. “No fighting. Capitaine will be disappointed if he comes back and finds that we have all murdered each other.”

Shane looked back at the TV. It was five minutes from the end of the third and no one on the ice was even pretending to care anymore. Ilya coasted behind the goal and flung the puck straight over the top, attempting to catch it on the other side and fully whiffing. He laughed, head flung back, the sound not caught on the broadcast as Montreal’s third line of rookies scrambled to gain control of the puck, almost bowling over their own goalie.

“I love watching Ilya play,” Shane said, surprising himself. “Hockey is my favorite thing in the world. It’s the thing I know the most about. Watching the person I love the most play it—play it so well, too—it’s… hard to describe. It’s like… well.” He struggled, fighting the urge to shrink under the room’s attention. He rarely, if ever, spoke so candidly to a group this large.

Sometimes, Shane felt like he was constantly proving to everyone—to himself, to his parents, to his fucking therapist—that he loved Ilya as much as Ilya loved him.

Ilya showed his love easily and loudly just as much as he showed it in quiet moments. They could be in a locker room full of screaming teammates, drenched in champagne and surrounded by cameras, and Ilya had no problem grabbing Shane’s chin and pulling him into a kiss. Or they could be lying in the sunlight at the cottage, completely alone, and Ilya wouldn’t even whisper the words—all he had to do was let out a soft, warm breath against Shane’s skin, and Shane would feel how much he was loved.

Ilya was so good at dramatic gestures. When the leak had first happened, Ilya had hopped on an overnight flight back to Montreal and faced down a formidably protective Yuna Hollander just to get to Shane. He had pressed Shane against the wall and grounded him within seconds, returning Shane to the earth that had ruptured beneath his feet, and Shane had passively let himself be held. Ilya had asked him to move into his house, had sold Shane his apartment, and had basically begged him to change everything about their houses just so Shane would feel more comfortable. 

Ilya had found an antique necklace that matched the only surviving relic he had that belonged to his mother to propose to Shane, and Shane had given him paperwork.

Now, Ilya was being interviewed, and he was shirtless. Shane saw the intentional way he angled his body toward the camera, blatantly displaying his new ink. The loon, rising from the water. His love for Shane was literally stamped on his skin.

Ilya was better at showing his love to the world. The team probably knew that as well. And Shane was working on it. He was trying to be better. To be less scared.

He didn’t want to walk through life hiding.

These guys were his friends, too.

“I love him, with or without hockey,” Shane said, “but we never would have found each other without hockey. You know? Hockey gave us to each other when we were still teenagers. Everything else, we had to build for ourselves, but there was always this game, our careers, at the heart of it—at the beginning. And it really is the thing I love doing the most. We understand this game so well, and getting to love someone who….” It was hard to find the words. Shane was trying, despite the weight of the eyes on him. “I guess it’s pretty basic stuff when you get down to it. Shared interests. Shared passions, hobbies. There’s nothing that I understand in the world better than hockey, and the fact that Ilya understands it in the same way is like another way of loving him. It lets us see the world in the same way. No one could understand us better than we understand each other because of it.”

He did mean it, even if he didn’t have all the right words. To Ilya, hockey was an escape from a life he had never wanted, and it was a game he loved to play, that gave him friends and a family and money that provided the security he needed to feel safe. Hockey meant all the same things to Shane. And to Shane, hockey was the one area where he could prove himself. Where he was so good that no one could ever question if he deserved his place, if he belonged. Even after he had been outed, that was still true. Even when he was ousted from the Voyageurs, it had still been true. Shane never had to doubt that he belonged on the ice, in the same way that he doubted himself in almost every other area of his life. It felt good to be good at something, and Shane didn’t think that was shallow. And that was true for Ilya as well, who had been told for so long that he was nothing, that he was lazy, that he wasn’t worth it—hockey was the way he could prove them wrong.

It was reciprocity. Through each other, they had learned to love the sport they played even more, and in new ways, than they already had.

It was, in fact, too honest to say any of it, no matter how hard Shane tried to force the words out. He was already cringing from the attention of the room, and the silence dragged on long enough to be painful.

Cliff, ever in Shane’s corner, however unintentionally, broke it.

“Dude,” he said, nodding sedately, his eyes slightly unfocused.

Vicky shoved his shoulder. “You suck,” he said, succinctly enough that the room, gone quiet and introspective, seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

“No, I mean it!” Cliff said immediately. “Fuck, man, maybe I should get season passes to the Squadron games. Maybe one of those chicks would dig me.”

“No fucking way,” Carmichael scoffed. He took a swig of his beer and stayed facing forward, eyes on the screen even though it had changed from the game’s coverage to an insurance ad.

Benji nudged Shane in the side, drawing his attention back from Carmichael. “That’s sweet as hell, dude,” he said sincerely, smiling. “You two are sickeningly cute.”

“You would know,” Pummel snickered. “What was it you said when they told us? Something about the way Roz eats cannolis around Hollander-?”

“Enough!” Shane shouted quickly, as more hooting and hollering broke out from his teammates. His cheeks were probably flushed. Cliff stood up and lumbered over to Shane’s chair just to sling a heavy arm around his shoulders, and Shane immediately shoved him off. Cliff backed away with a guffawing laugh, dodging Vicky, who tried to put him in a headlock.

“I need more fucking alcohol for this,” Hammersmith groaned, heaving himself off the couch.

“Get me one,” Carmichael said, reaching for the remote. “What’s on next? Aces versus Coals is probably starting soon, right?” he asked, jamming at the buttons.

Shane watched him.

It was interesting. With Ilya at his side, Shane almost always felt like he was more a part of this team after two seasons than he had been after seven with the Voyageurs.

When he was by himself, though, everything felt a little harder.

+++

Shane welcomed Ilya home the next morning. He felt like a dog, waiting pathetically at the door of their house for their beloved owner, or a soldier’s wife writing despondent letters and wringing a dish towel while gazing out the front window.

But Ilya threw open the door with exuberance and swept Shane into a deep kiss the second he saw him, and Shane didn’t feel so silly after that.

“Game went okay, but is a lot of changes to the teams,” Ilya said in bed an hour or so later, adopting a specific brand of quiet conversation they almost always had after sex, when they didn’t immediately pass out. They were freshly showered, skin pleasantly cool even where they pressed against each other, and Ilya smelled like Shane’s hair products instead of his cologne. Shane breathed it in deeply. “Lots of newbies. Is okay. We still did a good job, and we did what we were supposed to do—figured out and finalized the lines. We know what happens going forward. That is what matters.”

Shane nodded. Their room was dark, the back of the house shielded from the streetlights. The house was in the suburbs, but even outside the city limits, their neighborhood wasn’t completely silent. Shane could hear passing cars, dogs barking, and, he thought, fireworks going off somewhere far away.

For some reason, it made Shane think of Vegas.

The noise of the city had been similarly muted in Ilya’s penthouse after the 2014 NHL Awards, but that was because they were raised dozens of stories into the sky. It had been much brighter in that room, even with all the lights turned off, the multi-colored illumination of the Strip reflecting purple and blue off of Ilya’s body as he gloated over Shane, and dazzling off the crystal glasses he had poured vodka into.

He remembered the dry, sharp taste of alcohol. The gross, lingering scent of cigarettes. The cool air between them, as Shane tried to reach across their boundaries and Ilya swatted him away.

It was almost impossible to comprehend how much his life had changed since then. How much Shane had changed, and Ilya, and their relationship. Even the fucking hockey was different now.

Shane had played three preseason games. He was back playing center forward, the position that had been assigned to him by some faceless, misremembered peewee coach almost twenty-five years ago. A quarter of a century, and the center of the ice still felt like the place where Shane belonged. Even if, sometimes, Shane remembered that he would also be playing on the second line.

Shane had wanted this return to center, and he had honestly told LeClaire that he was fine with the demotion, but in the darkness with Ilya, he remembered what it had felt like, once, to wear the ‘C’ and be the only face of an organization. To live in Montreal, and see himself and his colors on every street corner. He didn’t miss that kind of fame, not at all. But Shane realized, to his own numb horror, feeling alone even though his head was pillowed on his husband’s chest, that part of him did miss the stability of his old life.

Ilya’s hand stroked through his hair. “Everything is still okay?” he asked when Shane didn’t respond for over a minute.

Shane tilted his head enough to kiss Ilya’s chest. “Yes. Absolutely. Just… finding my footing.” He was still thinking about Vegas, and how truly, deeply alone he had felt that night, when he blurted out, “We should tell the rest of the team.”

“Tell?” Ilya asked, brow furrowing for a second before it cleared. “Ah, about us?”

“Yes,” Shane said. “That we’re together. We should tell the rookies before they—before they hear about it from… someone.”

Ilya shifted beneath the sheets, a pleasant rustling sound that made Shane want to shiver. “Aren’t we waiting until we know the official roster?” he asked quietly. “So we only tell actual members of the team? Some of the rookies might still get sent down to the AHL for good after the first few games. You are worried about the rumors, so…”

Shane blinked, then nodded. “Oh, yeah. That’s probably for the best. I wasn’t really thinking about it. But yeah, I guess that makes sense—the fewer people know, the less likely that someone will leak the story.” There were probably already rumors within the league, in locker rooms or on team planes. Last year at All-Stars and a few international events, some players had looked askance at both of them. It wasn’t just Shane taking the brunt of the homophobic chirps on the ice anymore. Plenty of guys didn’t like how open Ilya was about his friendship with Shane, even if they didn’t think it was more than that.

Shane was openly gay, so any close friendship he had with another man had become publicly scrutinized, especially by the type of hockey player who didn’t want to come within ten feet of queerness. There was also the constant stream of online discourse, mostly from faceless fan accounts but sometimes leaking into real journalism, that were constantly speculating about them. And, lastly, there were their teammates.

The rumors had to come from somewhere. Maybe they came from everywhere.

Maybe, Shane thought, it was time to try getting ahead of them.

“I talked to Vicky and Marly,” Ilya said after a long pause. “They agreed. They don’t think anyone is talking—not much, at least. No one has heard any of the guys being shitty behind our backs.” In his periphery, Shane could see Ilya watching him. His cheek was pressed flat to Shane’s chest, scrunching up his face a little. Ilya hummed. “Do we care, though?”

Shane glanced at him. “About people gossiping?" he asked carefully.

Ilya shrugged, squirming up the bed so he could get a better look at Shane. “I was thinking while I was gone that I am just not sure if it is such a big deal anymore,” he said. “You are already out. We are married. I have good work visa, which the Bears won’t revoke since they already know about us, and have permanent residency in Canada. So, I’m safe. We are safe. And still.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, mouth pursed. “Sometimes, I don’t know what to tell strangers—no, not strangers, I don’t give a fuck what strangers think of me, but just people I meet, people like the rookies. I want to tell everyone how lucky I am, but officially, I am still saying in interviews that I’m single, and now people are asking why I am not seeing any new women, and—I don’t know what to tell them anymore,” he said, finishing weakly with an aggrieved grumble.

Shane reached down and set one hand on Ilya’s thigh. Immediately, Ilya grasped it, tangling their fingers together almost tight enough to hurt. “Tell them whatever you want,” Shane said, meaning it. In a way, it took some of the burden off him, he realized—even lying down, he felt like a weight had been taken off his shoulders. He would rather Ilya handle it all. “Like I said, I wasn’t even thinking about the final roster. Ilya. I’m not going to ask you to go back in the closet, not with your own team.”

Ilya raised their joined hands, dragging them out from beneath the sheets, and kissed Shane’s knuckles. “I am okay to wait,” he said. “Don’t want the AHL boys talking shit in the minors. They are vicious down there, I hear.”

“Let’s wait then,” Shane agreed calmly. Once, just a few years ago, the idea of revealing his relationship with Ilya had seemed completely impossible. Unthinkable, even. And then, later, coming out to the people in their lives had been so wonderful that the thought of hiding their love ever again had been totally and completely abhorrent.

But maybe now that they were married, now that they had lived together for two years, now that everything felt settled, felt strong and steady and unshakeable—maybe the concept of ‘the closet’ just didn’t matter as much to Shane anymore.

Shane remembered when he had hidden, had lied, had cried in bathrooms and into his hands and hated himself, honestly hated himself. None of that would ever go away. But it would also never happen to him again.

It was just the rumors that he hated.

“I don’t want to change how we act,” Shane decided. “Still no PDA, barring exceptional circumstances,” which was their general rule, though exclusively enforced by Shane alone, “but you’re always allowed to touch me, I guess. Take my hand. Touch my hair. I mean, you know.” He could feel the blush building on his cheeks. He kept his eyes on the road but knew Ilya was grinning at him triumphantly.

“The back of your neck?” he asked, placing another series of wet, smacking kisses on Shane’s knuckles.

“Sure,” Shane said quietly, a smile tugging at his own lips. “Ya tebya lyublyu. That never changes.”

“Moy zontik,” Ilya cooed, laughing, his mouth warm against Shane’s fingers.

+++

r/hockey • 1y ago

u/TheUnofficalShilyaHollanov

2018 Stanley Cup celly - what is Shane doing???

Hi! I’m new to this subreddit but I am not new to hockey (also not sure how to use this website, sorry for any mistakes!). I’m here for a purpose however: I was watching edits on TikTok and I kept seeing this moment in the 2018 Stanley Cup celebration that I can’t make sense of and no one I’ve talked to on tumblr/twitter seems to know either - it happens right after Rozanov howls, i’m sure you all know the famous gif. In some of the wider angles, after Roz howls you can see Hollzy doing something, this weird gesture where he cups his hands around his mouth, and then Roz starts laughing? It looks like he’s blowing on his hands to warm up his hands or something? Most people say he’s hiding his mouth from lipreaders but it seems so specific? I really don’t understand but Roz clearly does. I couldn’t find an isolated clip but in this link at 0:17 it’s very clear that he responds. Any ideas? Reddit, do your thing!

Replies Sort by: Best

u/askmebouthockey • 1y ago

Hi OP! Welcome to Reddit! I’ve never noticed this gesture before, but I’m glad you brought it up because I’m fascinated now. Agreeing with lots of the other comments here, it is definitely some kind of birdcall. Hard to see, but specifically the way his thumbs are aligned makes it pretty clear... Sadly, without clear audio, we will never be able to tell what kind of bird he was mimicking or why. (And this is just opinion, but it really does seem to be some kind of secret message between him and Roz. Wonder if we’ll ever get an answer!)

u/TheUnofficalShilyaHollanov OP • 2h ago

It’s been fifteen months but GUYS! Roz just revealed his new tattoo in the post exhibition game interview and it’s, drumroll please, a fucking loon??? Provincial bird of Ontario??? Shane Hollander’s home province???? UMMMMM? Maybe I’m reaching but IDK guys! So checking back in: is it possible to mimic the call of a loon using this hand technique? Because it really seems like this might actually be the answer.

| u/derKab • 1h ago

Holy shit. Definitely possible. Video of someone demonstrating - looks a lot like what Hollander did if you ask me!

| u/MacEnin23 • 40m ago

Popping in to add that someone that the interview where Ilya talks about the tattoo is already on tiktok: tiktok.com/user28164673n3. Quoting: “Since we are starting the Irina Foundation, I have spent the past few summers in Canada working and training. Loons are everywhere up there! I would swear they are in the trees but apparently it is not possible. Webbed feet, you know? I am not all big on tattoos must have a deep meaning, but this one, I think, it maybe partially stands for my pride for the work we have done with the Foundation. And I love the birds. They are like fucked up ducks but with scary wolf howl sounding mating call. Ridiculous.” 

There’s a lot to unpack here, IMO. First of all, loons are common in Ontario but they are aquatic birds and Ilya’s work is mostly in the city. Not super weird but interesting. Second of all, he specifically addresses loving the sound of a loon call…. And lastly, probably most importantly (did you guys catch it?), he says they sound like wolves! During the celebrations, he howled and Shane responded with a loon call! Lock it down, moderators! We’ve got our answer! Some kind of inside joke????

| | u/mudslidesmudslidehome • 30m  ago

Okay I don’t go hear but that’s cute if true

| | | u/tinfoilhathollanover • 27m ago

This is actually, straight-up, the best evidence Hollanov truthers have or ever will have, and I have been religiously and academically studying them since 2012. WHO’S DELUSIONAL NOW, MOM???

| u/sghoop23_bm • 17m Ago

Ugh, you guys ruined all of hockey twitter and now you’re invading Reddit too? Can’t you go back to tumbler and leave the rest of us alone?

| | u/tinfoilhathollanover • 13m ago

No ❤️ and I’m in your walls now too ❤️❤️

Chapter End Notes

Ilya calls shane an umbrella <3 And yes, Boston’s PWHL team is the Boston Squadron

This chapter was really hard to write ngl—shane in this state of mind is just super difficult, because he is trying to communicate genuinely with Ilya while also not actually being super clear on what he himself wants (see tag: unreliable narrator). I hope that came across… next chapter we’ll finally be starting the season, and shane will be back in his comfort place of getting to play hockey! (any guesses about the first game?)

Also, I just want to acknowledge that this fic does make light of rpf shipping of celebrities, but everyone here is a fictional character, and one of the major themes of this fic series is the lack of privacy that comes from being a celebrity, so… be respectful online please <3

Chapter 6

Chapter Notes

Lol it took me six chapters to get to the first game.

ED-related CW and summary of one scene in end notes if you want to skip/skim that section!

Sometimes, even before the routine and the grind truly set in, the repetitiveness of their career made time move incredibly quickly. Between one blink and the next, preseason was over, the roster for the opening game was finalized, and the real season was about to begin.

The entire team took the rookies out for dinner and drinks at Fiorella’s, with Ilya and Shane footing the bill. Fiorella’s was one of the Bears’ local haunts and the walls in the backrooms were decorated with photos of the team over the decades. Shane was already in a few pictures and, in one, Ilya was kissing his cheek. It always made Shane blush when he saw it, but his eyes snapped to its spot on the gallery wall every time he walked past.

One of the rookies, Johansson, almost immediately ditched the team. Shane saw him dancing with no less than three different girls over the course of the night. “Makes you feel old, doesn’t it?” Cliff asked Ilya, leaning back against the bar. “Seeing the new guard come in?”

“No,” Ilya said immediately. “No, nothing makes me feel old, because I am not old. I am super fucking young, actually, Marly.” He sniffed. “And do not compare that Swedish socialist to me. He has nothing on me.

Shane snorted.

In contrast, Cadyn and Luca clung to their heels all evening, watching the rowdy crowd of Bears with wide eyes as their older teammates got drunker and drunker, celebrating the end of training camp.

“Okay?” Shane asked them, feeling his own social battery winding down as they approached midnight. “You guys don’t have to hang out if you don’t want to.”

Cadyn and Luca exchanged a glance. “I am alright,” Luca said.

Cadyn was white-knuckling a beer bottle with half the label peeled off, but he nodded. “I’m good.”

Shane didn’t push, but he lingered with the rookies in a quieter corner of the bar, making conversation until Fiorella’s closed.

The coaches had officially finalized their roster. Luca Haas would step out onto NHL ice as a first-line Boston Bear in just a few more days. Jean-Paul Cadyn would suit up as he took his place as Benji Oregan’s backup goalie, though he wouldn’t play in the opener. Lars Johansson, formerly a player in Sweden’s professional hockey league, would be filling the hole left by Varkov in their defense. Ilya would remain on the first line, and Shane would play center on the second. Those were the lines LeClaire and the coaching staff intended to play for the entire season.

During practice, the team fell into a rhythm, the new lines settling into a familiar order. Johansson and Carmichael didn’t have outstanding chemistry, but the rookie was a better replacement for Varkov than Shane had expected, strong and fast. Cadyn had performed incredibly in the net during scrimmages and exhibition games, but they wouldn’t know his true potential until they played him in the actual season. Playing hockey at their level meant withstanding the pressure and maintaining stamina.

Raw talent, actually, had very little to do with success.

Luca immediately seemed like he would live up to the hype of being the second overall draft pick. He was a star in the making, quick and decisive, and Shane wasn’t surprised when LeClaire declared that he would be starting his NHL career on the first line with Vicky and Ilya, both seasoned enough to make up for Luca’s inexperience, but also benefiting from his youth, speed, and energy.

Regrettably, their opening game would not be on home ice, so Ilya and Shane filed onto the team plane heading north. None of their rookies were brand new to playing professionally, but Ilya still assigned Cadyn, Luca, and Johansson each traveling buddies from among the other younger players on the roster, and Shane kept a close eye on them in the airport.

The plane took off just before noon on a two-hour flight, delivering them to Shane’s hometown in time for the season opener:

The Boston Bears vs. the Ottawa Centaurs.

This would be the first game that Shane and Ilya played together in the six months since Ilya’s injury, and everyone was excited. Ticket sales were high, despite the home team’s mediocrity. Although it was their opening game, and despite the general rabidness of Boston hockey fans, Shane didn’t expect many Bostonians to travel across the border to watch the game. The Centaurs were so notoriously bad (and therefore their rivalries with other teams so nonexistent) that some fans wouldn’t bother tuning in for the easy win. Others, of course, were more than happy to watch their favorite players put another team in the dust, even if it was a statistical inevitability.

Shane gave the crowd a chagrined wave as he ran out onto the ice for warm-ups, aware of the disproportionate number of Hollander jerseys in the stands, both new and old, blue and red and black and gold. Shane was always embarrassed about playing in Ottawa, even when he was with the Voyageurs and it made slightly more sense to see his fans in the crowd, only two hours from Montreal. Voyageurs fans often traveled for games, and there were plenty of fair-weather Ottawa fans who had switched teams after decades of losses. Seeing a spattering of black and gold jerseys from fans still dead-set on celebrating their hometown hero was even more embarrassing. It felt like rubbing salt in the wounds of the Centaurs, who struggled to fill their stadiums and often dealt with a large influx of Montreal fans. Now, some fans had converted to Boston black and gold just for Shane.

“Fuck you, bro,” Hayden called out good-naturedly when they skated past each other near the centerline, pointing to the fans. “Attention hog!”

“Not my fault,” Shane chirped, knowing that Hayden definitely understood how sheepish Shane really felt about the jerseys. “Just that good—can’t help it, man.” Hayden laughed. The banter was so familiar it made Shane feel light.

“They still fucking hate me here,” Ilya announced cheerfully, nearly crashing into Shane’s back.

Benji laughed at that from the crease where he was roughing up the ice. “You shouldn’t sound so proud of that, Roz!”

“Of course I should!” Ilya shouted, raising his hands toward a section of Boston-clad fans in the audience, who still booed him despite their matching jerseys.

Shane rolled his eyes but he felt a happy, nervous thrum of energy beneath his skin.

Even if it was only Ottawa, he was excited to be back on the ice.

Shane turned to the audience, searching for the family section.

Yuna and David, wearing Bears’ colors, were seated next to Jackie and the Pike brood, Arthur and Amber already settled on their laps. Shane skated closer and waved, as always appreciative of the exuberant screaming that Jade and Ruby broke out in. Ilya followed Shane closely, also waving to the stands, an obnoxiously pleased grin stamped on his face.

It was nice to be back in the Canadian Tire Centre, the arena where he had first fallen in love with elite hockey, and it would be especially nice to open the season with an easy win.

That confidence was probably why Ilya attempted a slapshot only five minutes into the game and straight up laughed on the ice when Hayes easily blocked the poorly aimed, though meteorically fast puck against his chest. Shane laughed when the Jumbotron cut straight to a split screen showing Yuna Hollander’s disapproving face.

Two shifts later, when they were on the bench together, Ilya leaned into Shane and murmured, “I think I lost some son-in-law points just then.”

“You definitely did. A slap shot five minutes into the season, really, Ilya? You could have easily gotten a wrist shot past Hayes.”

Ilya blew a raspberry at him. “You sound like boring coaches,” he said, as if LeClaire and Desjardins were not standing right behind them. “It’s a game, Hollander! Is supposed to be fun!”

“It’ll be more fun if we don’t lose to Ottawa,” Shane laughed.

A few minutes later, the Cens got called for icing, and Shane jumped the boards for the face-off, this time against Aliue. “Nice to see you again,” Shane said happily.

“You should be embarrassed.” Aliue whistled. “Tied with Ottawa?”

“I heard they recently got a pretty good center,” Shane said, feeling light. He wasn’t worried about the score, not this soon into the game.

“You’re supposed to be chirping!” Hayden called. “Not complimenting him! For fuck’s sake, Hollzy!”

Troy Barrett stood on the other side of the circle, solemn and silent. Shane ignored him.

The puck dropped. The rhythm of Shane’s line felt like music. Pummel and Sidney were great players, and throughout the preseason, Shane had found a special chemistry with them, perhaps not as magical as the Hollander-Rozanov-St. Simone line, but with the Bears now having incredibly strong first and second lines, the rest of the league was screwed.

The puck bounced out wildly to the right of the circle. Barrett immediately snagged it only to get checked hard by Cliff. Shane skated back, giving himself space on the ice, and within a few seconds, Sidney sent the puck around Hayden’s skates to him.

Shane caught it. He tossed the puck into the air, whipping it between players, dodged hard, and took off after it. Before anyone else could touch it, the puck was back on his stick, and the other team was behind him.

Shane approached from the center of the ice. Hayes pulled up to the edge of the crease, body bent in a crouched position, making himself wide.

Shane lined up, reared back, faked left, and shot right.

Hayes caught the puck in his glove.

Play stopped. They reset. The puck dropped again, and Shane returned to the bench.

“Huh,” Ilya drawled. “Seems like your boring wrist shot did not work either. Weird.”

“Shut up.”

They ended the first with no points on the board for either team, a lackluster beginning to the season. During intermission, Ilya shouted at the team to pick up the pace for the next two periods. Shane watched Cadyn fully untie and re-lace his skates even though he had not stepped out onto the ice.

The Centaurs incurred a two-minute hooking penalty late in the second period when their third-line center sent Pummel to the ice when he tried to reach for the puck between his legs.

Immediately, everyone on the Bears’ bench turned to LeClaire, waiting for the call.

“Haas, Hollander, Rozanov,” he said. “Then Sidney, Pummel, Saint Vic.”

“We can play for two minutes,” Ilya declared, raising his arms as if he were flexing even though it was impossible to see through the uniform.

“No, you fucking can’t,” LeClaire chirped back. “Try to score in the first minute of the penalty, and the second won’t matter.”

Everyone laughed at Ilya as the first power-play line hopped the barriers. Ilya shouted, “Ouch! You wound me, Coach!” as they skated toward the circle. LeClaire looked like he was fighting down a grin. Shane could commiserate.

“Been a long time since I centered you,” Shane said.

Ilya leered, licking his lips around his mouth guard.

“We need to score,” Luca commented, frowning at the Jumbotron.

Ilya made another licentious face.

“Yup,” Shane agreed, ignoring his husband. “So let’s get it done.”

It was interesting to face-off against Aliue. Shane could imagine that the talking heads were all commenting on the Bears’ dynamic against their former teammate. He smiled, waiting for the ref.

Aliue smiled back. “I think we’re going to surprise you tonight, Hollzy,” he bragged.

“You are both so boring!” Ilya shouted. “God, fuck, am I the only one who knows how the fuck to chirp anymore?”

“Rozanov,” the ref warned.

Half the players on the ice were laughing when the puck dropped, but Shane still won the face-off, sending it to his right as he popped it into the air. Ilya slapped it back onto the ice and caught it with an impressive flick of his wrist, and they were off, dashing toward Hayes. 

Five seconds later, four of the forwards were pinned against the wall, the puck flat against barriers behind Ilya’s stick, everyone jostling and shoving for control. Over his shoulder, beneath the brim of his visor, Ilya met Shane’s eyes. He winked.

Ilya smacked the puck so hard that it went spinning out between his legs. Haas scooped it up before anyone against the boards could react, passing it beautifully to Shane, unguarded at the corner of the net, who immediately turned, executing a neat twist, and-

Blocked. Again.

Shane tilted his head, circling the ice and peering up, searching for the replay on the Jumbotron.

“Nice,” he murmured quietly to Haze, who had the puck in his glove again. “Very nice.”

“Oh my god,” Hayes stammered.

Ilya and Shane had the best power play success rate in the league. It wasn't even close. When Shane had dropped back to the second line, they had exchanged their incredible chemistry while sharing a line for more stamina, longer and harder shifts that other teams couldn’t stack their players against as efficiently, so their ability to play hard and strong together, to become an unstoppable machine, only came out on the power play or the penalty kill, where they shone even brighter.

But that day, they did not score.

Instead, the first shift after the power play ended, Hayden scrounged up the puck during a mad scrum just outside of the left face-off circle and whipped it wildly into the net, cutting through the intervening bodies of five skaters and just barely missing the glove Benji shot up to block it.

1-0, Centaurs.

And then, at the start of the third, Shane’s stick broke in half when he passed the puck to Sidney and, as Shane raced back to the bench, Aliue raised it to 2-0, scoring against his former goalie with a shot from the blue line.

The Bears focused up, locked in, played hard, and played well. Shane knew they played well, and yet they did not score.

The Bears had almost doubled the Centaurs' shots on goal, their defensive lines were much stronger than the Centaurs’, and yet none of them got through Hayes, and Hayden and Aliue got through them.

Shane stared at the scoreboard, bewildered. Bewildered, mostly because when he had played for the Guardians, Wyatt Hayes had played less than a dozen games a season, and yet had just shut out the highest-scoring team in the Eastern Conference two years running.

“Geez,” he said to Ilya as his captain skated up, still staring wonderingly at the board. “Toronto is stupider than I thought.”

“Geez,” Ilya mocked. “You sound one million years old. Hunter will be jealous of your cool, hip slang.” Shane laughed, open-mouthed, and shoved his shoulder, knowing without having to look that the Jumbotron was on them. He turned, found the camera zooming in on them like a giant insect’s eye.

“Don’t call me old,” Shane said to Ilya, aware that there were plenty of channels online dedicated to lip reading athletes and celebrities in moments like this. “I’m four weeks older than you. We’ve celebrated our birthdays together for, like, three years in a row.” He angled his skates closer to Ilya.

Ilya hummed. “You are not mad about losing?”

“I mean, I’m not overjoyed about it.” Shane shrugged. Usually, he would have taken a shutout more personally, especially since it meant that neither he nor Ilya had scored, but he was mostly just impressed by Hayes. “But I’m happy for Hayden,” he said simply. “A great goalie will make a hell of a difference in Ottawa. An early win might also make a big difference in morale.” This wasn’t the playoffs. It was just one game, and Shane hadn’t gotten this far into his career by being devastated by every loss. Hockey was a random sport; one loss did not determine how good they were.

It felt good to remember that.

“When people say ‘hockey is a team sport,’” Ilya drawled, “they mean within the team. You are not supposed to root for your competitors.”

Shane rolled his eyes and skated an inch closer, then paused. He realized, half a second belatedly, that he had been about to kiss Ilya. Instinctually. Just a peck, the way he had very occasionally done at closed practices last season, but apparently it was occasional enough to become a habit.

Shane stared.

Ilya slowly raised his eyebrows, apparently aware of what had just (almost) transpired.

Shane laughed at himself suddenly. “Whoa,” he said, grinning, wondering if the cameras were still trained on them. “Jesus.”

“All I have to do to tempt you is not score, Hollander?” Ilya drawled. “This is very bad motivation for me.”

Shane tilted his head. Ilya looked different under stadium lights—some of the warmth of his skin tone was washed away by the glare of spotlights and the white reflections of the ice. The uneven lighting made some of his features look sharper, quintessentially different from how he looked in bed, exhausted or fucked out, when everything about him seemed to go soft. Sometimes, it still astonished Shane how different Ilya could look in private.

“We really need to tell the rookies about us,” Shane said. He smiled, almost shy. “I don’t want to hesitate like that during practice. I guess I’m used to kissing you in public now.”

“You are willing to lift your military rules for me?” Ilya’s eyes were soft. “Okay,” he said, planting his gloves on the butt of his stick to casually block his mouth, even though lip readers never got Ilya’s accent right anyway. “Fuck. Ya tebya lyublyu. Tak sil'no. Maybe I will just kiss you the next time we practice the power play, and we can announce it like that.”

“Maybe,” Shane said. He stared at Ilya’s gloves.

“Are you two fucking done?” Cliff hollered from the bench, most of the team long since departed down the tunnel. “We fucking lost—to Ottawa—stop smiling at each other!”

Shane rolled his eyes. They turned, skating side-by-side. Shane touched the back of his glove to Ilya’s, as close to holding his hand as he could get in gear, and they turned and skated off the ice, following a grumbling Cliff.

+++

In the locker room, after Ilya’s consolation speech had raised the Bears’ spirits back to their usual jovial levels, Shane’s phone buzzed.

“Your mistress?” Ilya asked, pesteringly trying to peer over Shane’s shoulder at his screen.

“Sort of,” Shane laughed. “According to you, at least.”

Ilya frowned. “Pike?” he guessed correctly.

“He’s inviting us out,” Shane said, raising his voice a little so that the others could hear. “Local bar where the staff and patrons are used to hockey players. ‘Anyone is welcome,’” he read, “‘as long as they aren’t fucking assholes.’”

“Definitely not me then,” Ilya purred, darting in close enough to whisper next to Shane’s ear, “in two ways.” Shane immediately shoved him away. 

“Is it normal to drink with other teams?” Cadyn asked, focused on the precise way he was untying his laces. “Or is it strange?” He seemed to be genuinely asking, and Shane could relate—he remembered his early days in the NHL, when he had felt like a spy, constantly eavesdropping and watching his teammates to figure out what the appropriate code of conduct was. It had become easier, more natural over the years to adapt, and Shane didn’t often have to consciously think about whether what he was doing was normal enough anymore, but he thought he recognized the same urge to blend in through Cadyn.

“It is more normal to invite someone out when they’re the ones who won,” Vicky answered. “Now, they get to play the good hosts and the bigger men while also gloating! Fuck, a loss to Ottawa. We should all be ashamed!”

“It’s very normal to have friends on other teams,” Shane told Cadyn. “Hayden and I came up together—that doesn’t change because of a few trades. It shouldn’t.”

“Is Barrett going to be there?” Cliff asked. “I can’t fucking stand that motherfucker.”

“Oh,” Shane said. He hadn’t thought of that. He glanced at his phone. “It does say that the whole team is going out.”

Ilya hummed. “Barrett is not so bad,” he said declaratively. “He will be fine. I am going.”

“You think so?” Shane asked quietly, even as their teammates, including Vicky, Cliff, and many of the younger players, agreed to accompany their captain. Shane didn’t want to back out, not when it was rare now for him to spend an evening with Hayden, and because they were leaving early the next morning, but he also did not want to spend an evening in the company of Troy Barrett.

Ilya hummed, head tilted. “I think so,” he affirmed. “Call it a hunch.” He leaned in a little closer. “But if I am wrong, if he says anything to you, I will punch him so hard my fist goes down his throat and comes out the back of his neck.” He winked.

Shane thought that, probably, he hadn’t always been the type of person who would get turned on by that kind of comment. He flushed. Things changed, he supposed. Shane quickly shuffled back to his stall, avoiding the knowing smirk on Ilya’s mouth.

Luca set his skates on the floor and looked up. “Am I allowed to drink?” he asked Shane seriously. “I know we’re in Canada, but we play for an American team, and I am not sure what the rules are.”

Johansson and Cadyn both looked up curiously, even though Cadyn was the legal drinking age in both countries. Shane hid a smile and tried to adopt a captainly persona. “We follow the laws of the country that we are currently in. You can drink if you want to,” he specified. “You should avoid getting drunk, though—we have another game in two days, and it would be a bad look to show up hungover.” He cast his eyes over them. “Especially this early in the season.”

“No, of course not!” Luca said at once, aghast. “Never.”

“I don’t like getting drunk,” Cadyn said seriously. “But I like beer.”

“Okay,” Shane said easily. “You should have a beer, then.”

Cadyn nodded, reminding Shane of an uptight cadet in military school. “Alright. Thanks.”

“Good,” Luca said, appearing relieved. “I am glad we are not mad at the Centaurs for beating us. That’s nice.” Cadyn eyed him dubiously and Shane swallowed a laugh.

“Oh, we’re furious,” Cliff chimed in unhelpfully. “But we’re also gentlemen! It’s the start of the season, two points isn’t that big of a deal yet, and they’re good guys. We’re adults.” He snorted. “Most of us, anyway. We can get along.”

Cadyn nodded again. “Good,” he said quietly. “Good.”

Shane watched his fingers tighten on his knees, then relax.

+++

“Hollzy!”

It had been two years since they played on the same team or even lived in the same city, but Hayden’s hug still felt familiar—still felt safe—to Shane.

He gripped him back, perhaps a little harder than necessary.

Shane and Hayden’s friendship had always been simple on the surface but complicated in unexpected ways. Shane was certainly closer with Hayden’s wife than most of the other guys were, but he had known Jackie almost as long as he had known Hayden, and he had been there the night they met each other. She was also one of his closest friends, and Shane’s ties to both of them meant that he was intrinsically bound to their family. He had been there for the wedding, for the births, for the first birthdays, even some of the first words. Hayden was a few years older than Shane, but they had shared a rookie season; they had come up together in Montreal, on a team that was tough on rookies and tougher on hotshots. They had been through a lot together in the decade they had been friends, and Hayden was the first person since elementary school that Shane had felt actually close with.

He had never been good at making friends. He was just too awkward, too obsessed with hockey, and too bad at reading social cues. Shane didn’t seek out social attachments because they stressed him out. Hayden and Jackie had been the ones to instigate a friendship with him, slowly and without pressuring him, and Shane was incredibly grateful to them.

It was sad not to live near them anymore for most of the year, but Shane was determined that he wouldn’t lose them because of the Voyageurs. That would have been the worst possible outcome.

So when Hayden launched himself at Shane when he and Ilya walked into the bar, a gaggle of Bears behind them, Shane didn’t back away from his aggressive touch or tight hold. He squeezed back.

“Doing okay?” Hayden asked quietly.

Shane smiled. “Okay,” he allowed, and Hayden gave him a sympathetic look.

“So glad you could make it, bud,” Hayden said.

“Me, too.”

“Or should I say—glad you could make it, loser,” Hayden said, pulling back and grinning hard in Shane’s face. “We fucking beat you, man! What the fuck?”

“You can thank your goalie for that,” Shane said, turning around until he found Hayes, standing a step behind Hayden. “Hayes, that was incredible.”

“Nice to meet you,” Benji interjected, stepping forward and sticking his hand out. “Even I gotta admit it—great fucking game, man.”

“Jesus,” Hayes murmured, “Thanks! Thank you! Nice to meet you!”

“Oh, yeah!” Hayden perked up. “Introductions!”

They went quickly around the large groups, listing off names and numbers that Shane already had memorized. Shane’s attention drifted in the most predictable direction.

Ilya was wearing a black muscle tank that clung to his abs but hung loose around his shoulders. It exposed the loon tattoo on his arm, and the dark colors of his outfit highlighted it. He had restyled and gelled his hair back, and Shane smiled even though he knew he would hate the texture later, when he gripped Ilya’s hair or tried to run his fingers through his curls and got the tacky gel all over his palms. For now, he chose to appreciate how good Ilya looked. With his curls pushed back, Ilya looked austere, older in a good way—serious, confident, sexy.

Ilya caught his eye and winked.

Shane only flushed a little. Forcibly, he turned his eyes away from his husband, sweeping over the bar to find something suitably distracting.

The Centaurs had brought along a few members of their team’s faculty which surprised Shane in a way that was unflattering; Shane had always thought that the Bears had a good relationship with their faculty and staff, from the coaching team to the equipment managers and the merch office, but they did not regularly interact outside of work. But the Centaurs had brought their photographer, a young woman Shane recognized from her position rink side during most Ottawa home games, and a bearded blonde man who was covered in pride pins.

“Harris,” the man introduced himself, rushing forward when Shane met his eyes. Shane startled but quickly accepted the hand he thrust out and shook it. “I’m the Centaurs social media guy—started just in time for us to get good, lucky me!” He laughed very loudly. “Um, I’m a big, big fan, Mr. Hollander.”

“Shane,” he immediately corrected, eyes flicking down to the rainbow embroidery on the cuffs of his jean jacket. “Uh, yeah, I mean, nice to meet you.”

Harris nodded rapidly. “Sorry, I’m a little star-struck right now!”

“That’s an understatement,” Hayden called, leaning around Vicky briefly to fist bump Harris’ shoulder, increasing the blush building beneath his impressive beard.

This was still new to Shane, in a way. Queer hockey fans almost always had a specific reaction to him. He had talked about it with Scott Hunter the last time they got drinks together. As the only two out men in a sport that had a decently large queer and female audience (and specifically regarding hockey, where so many players were openly bigoted or conservative), they tended to attract a subset of fans in droves: queer people who wanted to be represented in a sport that they loved, women who craved favorites who wouldn’t objectify or mock or disappoint them at the first opportunity, and progressive fans who already felt conflicted over supporting an industry as problematic as the NHL.

In short, people who just wanted to be treated as equals.

It was a heavy burden, sometimes.

But Shane had been shouldering it, in one way or another, ever since his name started picking up traction in the junior leagues, ever since the first time some sports journalist called him “the best Asian hockey player in history.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to admit that you’re a fan of other teams,” Shane told Harris, settling his face into a familiar, media-friendly mask.

Harris laughed again. “Oh, they know!” he exclaimed. “The fact that I’m half in love with Bear is definitely my biggest sin, but the Cens love me enough to put up with me anyway! Besides, I think they get it,” he said, tapping the pins on his shirt. “I get a free pass if you and Scott Hunter are my favorite players.”

Shane felt a prickle on the back of his neck, real or imagined. He glanced over his shoulder. Troy Barrett, standing near a chatting Ilya, was watching them. Shane immediately turned his back on them, feeling his pulse thud hard in his chest.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said, foolishly offering his hand for a second time, but Harris was just as eager to shake it. “Nice to know we’re making a change in this league for everyone,” he said, repeating some of the vague words he had given dozens of reporters in the last few years.

It was true, after all. Sort of.

Harris gave Shane a gentle smile. “You are,” he said, and then drifted off. Shane was happy to be alone again and immediately turned and found Ilya in the crowd, relieved to see he had left Barrett and was now standing at the bar with Luca and Cadyn.

“Well, official welcome to the big leagues, children,” Shane heard Ilya say as he approached, knocking his shoulder against Luca’s and smiling at him. “You should know that you did very well.”

“Thank you,” Luca said, ducking his head.

Cadyn sighed. “I’d love that beer now.”

Shane hid a smile, turning to the bartender. “What kind of vodka do you stock?” he asked her, frowning as she listed the options. “Okay, in that case, just a bourbon—whatever is most expensive—and a ginger ale.”

She snorted, bottles clinking as she pulled down a top-shelf bourbon. “Ginger ale? You sure I can’t get you something a little more exciting, Shane Hollander?”

Ilya’s arm draped warm and heavy over Shane’s shoulders. “He said ginger ale, but thank you,” he repeated curtly on Shane’s behalf, accepting the glass she passed his way. “No good vodka?” he asked Shane.

He shook his head. “You don’t even want to know. I think you’d be offended.”

Ilya tutted but took a sip of his bourbon. “This will do,” he said. The bartender sheepishly passed Shane a chilled Canada Dry, and Ilya pulled them away from the counter. “Come on.”

Luca and Cadyn both ordered beers. “You’re sure it’s allowed?” Luca asked nervously, fiddling with the bottle.

“It’s legal,” Cadyn said. “We’re in Ontario. The drinking age in Ontario is nineteen. There’s no rule prohibiting the consumption of alcohol in the NHL, or by the Bears franchise specifically. I really don’t think it’s a problem.” He frowned at the bartender, who had moved on to pour shots for Hayden and the other Cens’ captains. “‘Cept she didn’t card you. She probably should’ve.”

Ilya laughed.

“It’s allowed,” Shane reassured Luca. “You can drink during the season, just not to excess.”

“Or to excess, but only in a fun way,” Ilya countered. Shane tried to elbow him but he dodged, a familiar dance between them these days. “Go have fun, rookies!” Ilya ordered, brandishing his drink with a gesture that nearly sent alcohol sloshing over his fingers. Shane edged slightly away from him. “Have fun, forget your woes, take a night off—get drunk, it is legal! I am captain, I order this of you.”

“Ilya,” Shane said warningly. He smiled at the rookies. “Have fun,” he said. “Don’t worry about the game.”

They nodded and wandered off, leaving Ilya and Shane alone in a bubble in the crowded bar.

Before Shane could speak, Ilya flagged down the waitress. “Can we have food menus and a bowl of snacks?” he asked, flashing her a bright smile. “Hockey players, you know. We are here to drink, but we will have to refuel. You should warn your kitchen if you can!”

Ilya put a hand on the small of Shane’s back. In another context, if everyone in the world did not know that Shane was gay and he wasn’t publicly out, maybe the gesture could have been innocent—a light touch between friends. However, Shane knew from experience that if any pictures of Ilya touching him so familiarly spread, they would end up sprawled across Twitter and shitty hockey blogs and become the subject of discussion for days. Shane glanced around but didn’t see any cameras or phones pointed at them. He relaxed.

Ilya’s hand dropped a moment later anyway as he accepted two short laminated menus and a bowl of pretzels from the bartender. He met Shane’s eyes and nodded toward some of the booths lining the walls. “Come on,” he said, voice and eyes warm. “Let’s sit down.”

Shane felt grateful for the excuse to escape the dense cluster around the bar. He wished, more than anything, that when Ilya touched him, Shane could just appreciate it and not worry about anything else.

Maybe someday. Someday soon, hopefully.

Shane trailed after Ilya to the booth and slid in across from him, exchanging shy smiles. Ilya incessantly nudged the bowl of pretzels toward Shane. “Eat,” he repeated. “We just had a game, you skated twenty-one fucking minutes! Eat, Hollander—no, it cannot wait till later.”

Shane looked at the menu and remembered the puck sinking into Hayes’ glove.

Shane stared at the pretzels. He wanted to ask the bartender what brand they stocked so that he could look up the calories per serving and plug them into his carefully collected data about macros and carbohydrates. He also wanted to refuse on principle because no doubt the sodium content of the snackfood would vastly exceed his optimal sodium levels, especially on a day where every drink he had was infused with electrolytes.

But Ilya was right, and everyone else was eating and drinking beer besides, so Shane pulled the bowl closer to him. He picked up a pretzel and put it in his mouth as though he didn’t even have to think about it. Even before he bit down, he could tell they were slightly stale. He also knew from experience that there wouldn’t be anything better on the menu.

He needed to eat. He was even hungry, despite the enormous breakfast, lunch, and dinner he and Ilya had consumed together. Sometimes he wondered at the fact that hockey players didn’t explode with the amount of food they had to eat.

A waitress, expertly weaving through the crowd, appeared at the end of the table, looking between them with a wide, awed smile that implied she definitely recognized them. Shane ate another pretzel. Ilya grinned as he ordered himself a burger and asked Shane, “You want anything more?”

“This will tide me over until we get back to the hotel room,” Shane reassured him. “I’d rather eat whatever the nutritionist packed us. I’m okay.”

“Okay.” Ilya looked satisfied. If he leaned across the table and kissed Shane, he would taste like bourbon, and Shane would taste like salt. But they didn't kiss.

Shane ate another pretzel and let the dough dry out his mouth.

Vicky careened into their booth as the waitress left, draping himself over Ilya and exclaiming about their lost game. Ilya indulged him, shifting Vicky until the enormous Frenchman was practically sitting in his lap, and Shane looked around the room.

Cadyn and Luca were in a booth, ordering full post-game meals, and three other fresh-faced Centaurs players had joined them, all of them looking like awkward middle schoolers huddled to the side of a dance. Shane smiled. Most of the teams had dispersed throughout the room, splitting up into familiar factions, but Benji and Wyatt Hayes were deep in conversation at the bar, and Aliue had brought one of the Centaurs’s forwards, a left-winger named Boyle, to a table with Sidney and Pummel and was catching up with his former linemates. Hayden, Boodram, and Dykstra, the captains and alternates of the Centaurs, were holding court with Connors and Cliff, two of the loudest members of the Bears, and they seemed to be in a shouting match over, of all things, country music. Johansson was already dancing with the Cens’ photographer.

And Troy Barrett was sitting at the bar locked deep in conversation with the gay social media manager Shane had spoken to.

Shane took a sip of his drink.

Barrett had very dark hair and very blue eyes. He never seemed to smile, at least not when he wasn’t peering over Dallas Kent’s shoulder, and Shane wondered if he should go and save poor Harris, who might not have heard about Barrett’s infamous reputation in the league and only know about his recent commendable condemnation of Kent.

Shane watched as Barrett said something that made Harris throw his head back and laugh, a great loud honking sound that made half the bar’s occupants look up. Harris flushed and Shane watched the close way Barrett followed the shake of his head as he turned his loud laugh into a self-deprecating chuckle.

Barrett seemed weirdly fixated on the social media guy. Shane frowned. He hoped Barrett wouldn’t start harassing the guy over his Pride pins. Maybe he should warn Hayden about that, too.

Ilya and Vicky were still locked deep in their conversation (arguing about the benefits of French and Russian as a second language) so Shane looked around for Hayden.

Hayden’s final season with the Voyageurs had been awful, and his inaugural season with the Centaurs had been nearly as bad, both teams suffering from poor captaincies and dissonance on the ice. But Hayden was captain now, and the Centaurs had already managed to find success this season. Tonight, Hayden was laughing. He looked lighter than he had in years, surrounded by teammates he got along with, who respected him and treated him well, and high off the success of a victory. It would be bad to sow discord onto his team now, Shane realized.

(The pretzels crunched between Shane’s teeth like rocks. He could feel the secondary crunch of the large salt flakes—too much salt, way over his sodium levels for the day, he would have to adjust in the upcoming week, but again, electrolytes would make it difficult. Shane would figure it out.)

It wasn’t hard to find a part of himself that was happy for Hayden’s success that night and aware that the Centaurs’ roster had vastly improved over the last two seasons, but Shane never forgot that he hadn’t gotten any points that night, not even on the power play. Next time would have to be better.

His team was depending on him.

Shane still had something to prove.

So, he ate.

+++

The team’s flight back was scheduled extremely early the next morning. Shane wasn’t sure why, but maybe LeClaire and Bourque had predicted this and preemptively punished them.

Shane woke up refreshed and well-hydrated. Ilya barely woke up at all. Shane had to practically drag Ilya onto the plane for the short flight home, and bodily carried him into their house and up to bed, where he deposited his husband on top of the sheets with a shove.

He was ridiculous. Shane loved him.

Shane left Ilya with a glass of water and a fruit smoothie to start his day. He reviewed tape of the previous game, spotting a few cases where there was marked room for improvement, then did his usual post-game day workout. After, he idled around the first floor of their home, attempting to clean their spotless living space and quietly wishing that Ilya would wake up just so they could hang out, even if it was just on the couch.

Svetlana called him with some inane questions about the season, and Shane spent an hour on the phone with her while he deep-cleaned their refrigerator, splitting their time between practicing Russian, complaining (affectionately) about Ilya, and discussing the results of the exhibition games. Svetlana was so similar to Ilya in so many ways that Shane felt like his friendship with her had snapped into place instantly, easily. He wasn’t used to that. It was nice.

When she hung up, heading into work after a long rant about shitty, entitled clients, Shane finished cleaning the fridge, checked on Ilya, refilled his water, rinsed his smoothie glass, and still felt restless. It was the adrenaline of being back in the season, of having just played a game and knowing another was coming up. He was antsy, so he headed outside to get a breath of fresh air.

Shane had hired landscapers to redo the lawn over the summer, having disliked the flat expanse of grass it was before. They had added a new concrete patio outside the door, replacing gravel with something more permanent, planted new trees and shrubs around the yard, and added some gentle slopes and valleys with paving stone walking paths weaving between them. It still felt a little impersonal, Shane thought, but it was nicer than before, and now the grass intermingled with clover and moss, which gave it a prettier, livelier color and made the ground look soft and gentle.

They had also installed several large, low-lying wooden garden beds in front of the windows and near the fence-line, but Shane hadn’t decided on what they should plant yet, so the rich, dark soil had been left untouched.

Shane frowned. They had a gardener scheduled to come by every month but it had been three weeks and there were already a few thorny weeds poking through the soil.

Shane knelt.

The dirt was rich and moist between his fingers as he began plucking the ugly, thorny plants out one by one, reaching beneath the soil to pull up the roots and carefully setting them in a pile so he could gather all the remains. He would have to wash his hands immediately after, but the dirt didn’t bother him, not as he rotated down the three planters by the windows, carefully picking them clean. A fresh start.

He was working on the final bed, the one closest to the patio, when the glass door slid open. Ilya stumbled out, wearing a hoodie, sweatpants, and enormous sunglasses, and collapsed on a lounge chair with a groan.

“Are you still hungover?” Shane asked critically.

“I never should have stopped drinking,” Ilya whined, dramatically clutching his stomach. “Next time we lose, we shouldn’t go out with team, okay? You should bring me back to the hotel room and we can cuddle and fuck all night instead. No other people needed.”

“Yes, that’s definitely the appropriate solution,” Shane said. “But that sounds nice.” Shane patted the dirt off his hands on his pants, deciding he could reserve these for gardening in the future, and gingerly pulled out his phone. He searched for Massachusetts gardening blogs.

“Gardening?” Ilya asked. “You need a hobby other than hockey? Hollander, I am shocked!”

“I’m tending to my roots,” Shane quipped, and Ilya’s smile, even with his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, was brighter than the sun.

+++

regularly scheduled programming @bostonianblackbear

did… sorry, did the bears just lose to the ottawa -- sorry, i think i need to be hospitalized real quick but did the bears just lose to the fucking ottawa centaurs????

11:58 PM · Oct 9, 2019

Greg's Fantasy League @GregsLeagueBoston
Replying to @bostonianblackbear

WASHED YOUR FUCKING WASHED FUCKING RETIRE @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer

12:18 AM · Oct 10, 2019

Fowlie @fowliemouth
Replying to @GregsLeagueBoston

→ sheesh sounds like someone just lost another $5000… boo hoo ig? the number for the national gambling addiction hotline is 1-800-522-4700 btw 🫶

hockey bae @sashaisintornto

omg poor shane and ilya that is soooo rough and everyone is being so mean about it, it’s just one game and it’s not even the home opener! they’ll win the next one, i just know it!

12:23 AM · Oct 10, 2019

Hock-Eye @hockeyekoch
Replying to @sashaisintornto

→ aren’t you literally from toronto?? you don’t even go here

hockey bae @sashaisintornto
Replying to @hockeyekoch

→→ HAHAHAHA as if i would EVER root for the fucking guardians 🤮🤮 i was on the gaurdian hate train before some of you were even BORN

Shane Hollander Updates ↗️@unofficialshanehollander

Spotted! Shane Hollander and the Boston Bears seen out on the town after a 2-0 shutout to the Ottawa Centaurs! No hard feelings apparently because both these teams are partying together tonight! Shane Hollander and Hayden Pike reunite in new pictures!

7:45 AM · Oct 10, 2019

Ilya Rozanov Fancam 🏒@ilyarozanov_

New pics dropped 😈 Ilya Rozanov seen visiting local bar and frequent Centaurs haunt with members of BOTH teams following shut out!

7:52 AM · Oct 10, 2019

lima beans @alimabeanforall
Replying to @ilyarozanov_

→ would it be uncouth of me to make a joke about how ilya rozanov plays for both teams too or…?

VictoryVictoire @theexvoyageursfangirl
Replying to @ilyarozanov_

→ awwwwe all the rookies are bonding

Pucky Barnes @puckmatized 
Replying to @ilyarozanov_

→ oh i KNOW Rozy doesn’t play about taking care of those rookies

jamie’s hockey fan club @jaimieshockeyclub
Replying to @ilyarozanov_

→ Shane and jeep cadillac are so cute together and luca haas… i’ve grown quite fond of you

smolander @shanehollanderdefensesquad
Replying to @jaimieshockeyclub

→→ omg i know!! and i bet jp is autistic too and maybe also luca 🧸!! they did this rookie interview on the bears socials and they were so awk and adorable i just want to put them in a warm box but it’s so nice that they have shane to guide them!! i bet shane wishes he had a nd role model like that when he was a rookie esp since theyre both asian 🥰🥰

Spirk Mpreg 🫡 @battlestationspls
Replying to @shanehollanderdefensesquad

→→→ oh thats not…

jamie’s hockey fan club @jaimieshockeyclub
Replying to @shanehollanderdefensesquad

→→→ Yall get problematic with it so fucking fast in this fandom, lowkey it’s impressive

Chapter End Notes

One scene in particular deals explicitly with Shane's disordered eating. If you want to skip, go from “Maybe someday. Someday soon, hopefully.” until the next break (+++).

CW and Summary: The social pressure and focus on food stress Shane out after the game. Shane thinks in detail about the nutritional value of food, continues to feel pressure in the need to perform well at hockey, and observes the interactions of the Centaurs and the Bears, notably clocking Troy and Harris sharing a private conversation. Ilya also pressures Shane to eat (reasonably, to restore calories burned during the game).

Chapter 7

Chapter Notes

In this chapter there is a sex scene (if you want to skip, go from “Shane laughed in his face.” to “A few minutes later”). Ilya and Shane have sex during which Ilya is mildly drunk and Shane is sober—they don’t really have a conversation about the consent of it all, though it was planned beforehand, but go forth with the knowledge that they have already established consent for this scenario ahead of time. It is definitely Explicit (as a treat, since I had a busy ass week and couldn’t post earlier lol)

Two days later, they were back in TD Garden for the home opener. Their own fans booed them as they skated out for warm-ups.

“Well, we did lose to Ottawa,” Ilya said, ducking his head with a grin. He didn’t look very torn up over the loss or the boos. “Is okay. We will make it up to the fans on home ice tonight.”

Shane was just happy that when their rookies, clustered at the back of the line, stepped out to a booming introduction from the arena announcer, the crowd stopped booing to applaud the newest members of the Bears. Cadyn suited up again, but Benji was still starting, so he was expected to sit on the bench for the game. Regardless, the crowd cheered as loudly for him as they did for Johannson and Luca. Johannson, again showing his similarities to Ilya, was showboating, holding a hand to his ear as he whipped around the barriers. Luca Haas blushed hard enough that he turned fully pink as he waved shyly to the stands of chanting fans. Cadyn’s face went blank beneath all the attention, and Shane kept an eye on him.

The Thunderstorms were warming up on the other side of the ice, and at least the Boston fans were booing them just as fervently.

“A reminder,” Ilya called loudly when they were back in the locker room, clapping his hands together. He was standing on top of a bench, perched on a throne like a king surveying his land. “Last year, we set a of all time franchise record with our twelve-game winning streak." He paused to soak in their cheers. His blue eyes, sharp and assessing, swept the room. “Tonight, we start the journey to thirteen.”

More cheering. The boys whooped and hollered, drumming on the hollow walls of the cubbies, throwing gear around, and stomping. Shane smiled and didn’t join in, focused on waxing the blade of his stick in rhythmic circles. He felt Cadyn jolt at the sudden burst of noise and sent him a reassuring look. “Loud, aren’t they?” Shane murmured.

Cadyn nodded tightly. “Yeah, very,” he murmured. “Way louder than Providence.”

Shane fished a pair of noise-cancelling headphones out of his bag. The ear pads were peeling slightly, showing how well-loved they were, but Cadyn took them anyway when Shane passed them to him. “I know,” Shane said. “Trust me, I get it.”

Cadyn blinked at him, then smiled. He slipped the headphones over his ears. “Thanks.”

“Wyatt Hayes surprised us,” Ilya continued, hands raised like a gladiator in a movie. He was loud enough that no one was paying attention to Cadyn or Shane. “He cannot surprise us again. And we will not be surprised tonight.”

“No, we fucking won’t!” Cliff whooped.

Ilya nodded. “Let’s go win another,” he said, hopping off the bench. “We have to get our win-streak back, eh?”

Sticks thudded on the ground and the wooden cubbies. It was cacophonous. Shane winced a little at the noise and saw Cadyn press the pads closer to his ears.

“You okay?” he asked, when the noise had died down, enunciating so his lips would be easier to read. Cadyn nodded sharply.

Ilya slouched over to them. He didn’t react at all to the transferred headphones, and Shane was pretty sure Cadyn relaxed another degree. “What did you think?” he drawled, propping his elbow above Shane’s head so that he could lean over him. “Good speech?”

“Eh.” Shane shrugged. “Not your best. Even Cadyn was trying to drown you out.”

Cadyn looked up, eyes wide.

Ilya laughed at them. “Okay then, Mr. Nice Guy,” he said to Shane. “You want to give it a go? Hype up your boys?”

“No,” Shane said, standing up and getting into Ilya’s face. “I just want to play some hockey.”

Ilya’s grin was slow and sexy. Shane swallowed. “Okay,” he breathed. Shane felt the exhalation on his lips. “Let’s do that, then.”

“Get a room!” Cliff booed.

+++

Ilya scored the first goal of the game and the season. It was almost lazy, the way he calmly skated toward Luca, standing behind the net with the puck, and sank it into the net off a perfectly executed pass. Then Shane, Sidney, and Pummel executed a glorious double feint around the net after Shane whispered to them on the bench that the fresh-faced Thunderstorm goalie always over-corrected on dekes. In the second period, off an assist from Cliff, Vicky whipped the puck into the net between eight moving bodies, miraculously finding a seam through the traffic.

The Thunderstorms scored twice in the final ten minutes of the game, temporarily overwhelming the Bears’ defensive zone, but they were still one point behind. Ilya calmly regained the lost ground with an empty-net goal in the final forty seconds of the game, and they left the ice with a satisfying 4-2 final score.

Not a bad home opener. Not at all.

The audience had finally forgiven them, and they skated off to raucous cheering, flooding into the locker room. Shane let the energy sweep through him for a few minutes before he reached his limit and pulled away. He smiled when he saw Luca’s overwhelmed grin, trapped beneath Ilya’s arm as their captain shouted about the Bears’ newest superstar.

Shane turned back to his cubby, pulling off his sweaty jersey. Cadyn still had all his pads on, despite sitting back from the entire celebration. “Nice job,” Shane told him, quietly so that no one else could hear him.

“I didn’t play,” Cadyn said. His face and voice were calm. His fingers tapped rapidly up and down the worn tape at the top of his stick. “What are you talking about?”

Shane shrugged. “No, but you were doing what you were supposed to do. You were paying attention. You were watching your opponents and learning. That sets you up for the next game you do play.”

“Sure,” Cadyn said, “but Robbie Delespine played tonight, and he didn’t go until the third round of the draft.”

Shane paused, vaguely recalling the name of another goaltender who had been drafted the same year as Cadyn to the Brooklyn Scouts. Shane frowned.

He sat down on the bench next to the rookie. “I’m really the last person who should give you this advice,” he said, hoping that no one—especially not his husband—was listening in on this conversation, “but… the whole ‘rivalry’ thing? It’s really not a great idea to take it too seriously. We won, that’s what matters.”

“Obviously,” Cadyn said, fingers abruptly stilling. “But the Scouts also won, and Robbie actually helped them do it.”

Shane gave him a long look. “Hockey is a team sport,” he said carefully. “It really is. There’s no doing what we do without a team behind you. You don’t play alone, and you don’t win alone. You-”

“You did,” Cadyn interrupted, hunching forward slightly, avoiding Shane’s eyes. “You won alone.”

Shane blinked. He frowned. “What?”

“Playoffs, 2017.” Cadyn's voice was dull. “The Voyageurs’ on-ice collaboration had notoriously eroded. You scored a record percentage of playoff game-winning goals for your team. You won, not them.”

Shane looked at the rubber mat beneath their feet. He flexed his fists.

“That playoff series,” Shane said slowly, “has often been… exaggerated. The Voyageurs still had excellent goalies and excellent defense, and Hayden-”

“It was you,” Cadyn insisted. His fingers wrapped around his stick handle and slowly tightened, white-knuckled. “You won two series for them. It was practically just you on the ice.” He looked up. “You were always my favorite skater, and you are my second favorite player of all time behind Roderik Arenfel, and he only beats you ‘cause he’s a goalie, but I have never seen anything like that. No one else has ever come close.”

Shane swallowed.

Ilya suddenly appeared, sitting down heavily on Cadyn’s other side. He waved his hands through the air but did not, Shane noticed, touch Cadyn, even as he slumped into the empty stall next to him. “Don’t compare yourself to Shane Hollander, kid,” Ilya said. “That will only lead to tears.”

“Ilya,” Shane began, but his husband cut him off.

“No, I am serious. This is serious advice.” Ilya kept his eyes on Shane even as he spoke to Cadyn. “Having a rival, I think, can actually be a good thing—if it doesn’t distract you. Envy distracts. Hatred distracts. Rivalry? Rivalry can be motivation if you can handle it,” he said. He reached over and poked Shane’s knee. “We could handle it. It made us better because it never once made us hate the game. Do you think you can handle a rivalry like that with this Scout rookie?” he asked.

Cadyn was staring into the space ahead of them. Slowly, he nodded. “Yes,” he said quietly.

Ilya accepted his answer. “Good,” he said. “So let it motivate you. Let it drive you. Don’t think ‘He played and I didn’t,’ because you are at a disadvantage. Benji is a great goalie, and Brooklyn has not had a good goalie since 2013. Just think, ‘By the end of the season, I want to have done better than him, and by the end of the decade, I want to have played more.’ Okay? Let it push you. Do not let it distract you. And if instead you are thinking, ‘If I cannot beat this one guy, then nothing matters,’ then you need to immediately give it up. Fuck that guy. Don’t look at his stats. Look at your stats. Look at our stats. Play your best game. I mean, do that either way, but yes.” He grinned. “I speak from experience. Rivalries are kind of fun. Right, Hollander?”

“No,” Shane scoffed automatically.

“Liar,” Ilya said fondly.

Shane paused. He thought about it. “It made it more fun to beat you,” he admitted. “But worse to lose. Either way, I played better.”

“And we still play better,” Ilya said happily, bouncing back to his feet. “Me and him,” he said, grabbing Shane’s hand and pulling him up, “we are so good at competition.”

He kissed Shane’s cheek, demonstrative and sloppy. Someone threw a roll of tape at them. It bounced off Shane’s shoulder pads. Shane shoved Ilya off. “Enough,” he said. “Enough.” He turned to Cadyn. “Are you alright?”

Cadyn’s face had settled into its usual even placidness, but he was watching them closely, his eyes bouncing between Shane and Ilya with a furrow between his brows. Then, after a moment, he blinked and seemed to register the question. The look of confusion on his face turned into determination, but his grip on the stick handle loosened. “Yeah. Sure, I am. Thank you.”

“Always, rook,” Shane said, and his voice was warm.

+++

“Yo, Roz, Hollzy! We’re gonna go hit the clubs! You coming out with us, Cap?” Cliff called as they stepped outside into the warm fall air. Shane saw a few heads perk up around the parking lot, peering toward them as they waited for an answer. “Or are you as married as Saint Vic now?” His laughter echoed off concrete and asphalt.

“Eh, fuck you!” Vicky shouted back. “I am coming out tonight, no? Unlike our very dull capitaine!”

Shane saw Cadyn and Luca quickly climb into Cadyn’s sensible Land Rover. Their car doors slammed shut. On the opposite side of the lot, Johannson whooped as he hopped over the door of his convertible and took off with a rev of his engine, shouting, “I will be there, losers!” through his window as he swerved out of the lot.

With his slicked-back blonde hair, European accent, white tank top, and showy sports car, Johannson could have been a perfect mirror of Ilya at that age. Shane smiled at the audacious display, feeling strangely fond.

Beside him, the real Ilya hesitated.

They had two days off before their next game, but they were traveling on the second day, flying out to Nevada. Shane had no interest in going out that night, especially to a nightclub—he almost never did, when they were about to travel—and Ilya knew that.

“Can we go?” Ilya asked hopefully. “Just for an hour or two? I will bring you home if whatever club Cliff picks is terrible.” He sighed, faking despondency. “Sadly, I am out of practice, and I cannot recommend best places anymore, so we do have to rely on Cliff, and he has awful taste.”

Shane quickly made a decision. He was tired, and the thought of another team outing made him cringe, but he could almost feel the electric energy buzzing under Ilya’s skin. “You should go,” he said. He reached out, wrapping his fingers around the strap of Ilya’s duffel bag and pulling it off his shoulder. “Go out with Cliff—have fun. I’ll see you at home.”

Ilya looked down at him. “You don’t want to come?”

“No,” Shane said, shuffling his own bag so he could hold both. “I’m exhausted. I think I’ll curl up in bed with my book. I don’t know if you knew this about me, but I’m actually extremely boring.”

“Oh, I know this,” Ilya said. “One sec!” he called to Cliff, who grumbled and slid into his car. “Maybe I could join you in bed,” Ilya whispered in his ear, “and the book can stay on the nightstand, okay?”

Shane smiled at him. He shifted his weight and then pressed his palm flat against Ilya’s chest. “I think,” he whispered back, “that you should go out with your friends, and have fun, and dance, and wish that I was dancing with you, and then when you want it most, you should come home.” He pulled back enough to meet Ilya’s eyes. “To me.”

“Fuck,” Ilya said, biting his lip.

Shane laughed at him and pushed him away. Ilya swayed back easily. “Go have fun,” he said. “You haven’t been out in a while.”

“Went out two days ago!” he said, offended. “You were there!”

“I meant to a club,” Shane said, rolling his eyes. “Ilya, it’s alright. I don’t want to go tonight, but you obviously do. You always liked clubs! You like dancing, and music so loud it is definitely bad for your inner ear, and celebrating with your friends. I get it,” Shane insisted. “You don’t have to stop liking clubs just because you’re married to someone boring.”

Ilya cupped his cheek. A car swerved behind them, high beams flashing, and Shane remembered again that they were in public. But sheltered between two cars, he decided not to pull away. “You are not boring,” Ilya murmured, and Shane rolled his eyes. “No, you are not! I shouldn’t call you boring all the time. I am mean. I’m too mean to you. So I should come home and make it up to you-”

And Shane suddenly laughed. “Oh my god, Ilya!” he said, smiling and shaking his head in exasperation, his shoulders loose. “If we have an argument about this, it will actually be the stupidest argument in the history of our already extremely stupid and volatile relationship!”

“Volatile?” Ilya asked, cocking his head in the way that made him look like a puppy.

Shane huffed a laugh through his nose. “Crazy,” he offered, and it came out breathy. “Unpredictable. Hot, fiery. Like a volcano.”

“Ah,” Ilya breathed, “yes. Say it again?”

“Volatile.”

“Volatile,” he said, and the way his mouth formed the word, and his accent turned over each vowel, made Shane want to melt through the asphalt.

“You should go out,” Shane said, his mouth dry, “and get a little drunk, and dance until you're sweaty,” his breath hitched, “and then come home and crawl into bed. Where I’ll be waiting for you. And I promise it won’t be boring at all after that.”

“You-” Ilya said, and cut himself off. “God, you are fucking amazing.”

Someone laid hard on their car horn. They both jumped, Ilya swearing loudly and violently in Russian. “Are! You! Fucking! Coming!?” Cliff hollered, sticking his head out the window of his truck and laying on the horn with each word. “Jesus fucking Christ! You’re like teenagers!”

Vicky, who was in the car next to Cliff, stuck his head out as well. “You need a chaperone, Hollander?” he called. “Are you leaving space for Jesus?”

“Jesus,” Shane said, probably bright red as Ilya’s swearing turned into loud laughter. He shoved Ilya. “Go, if you want to,” he insisted, embarrassed as he opened the car door just to hide behind it. “Or come home. Your choice.”

Ilya still hesitated. Then he grinned. “I love you,” he said, already backing up, half-jogging toward Cliff’s car. “I will see you soon, lyubimyy. Be ready for me!”

“Okay,” Shane murmured as he waved goodbye. “I will be.”

+++

Shane woke up when his phone chimed. Clumsily, he grappled for it, seeing the security notification for movement outside the door. He clicked on it and smiled as he watched Ilya, weaving down the front path, drop his keys on the ground and throw his hands into the air in exasperation.

Shane closed his eyes, deposited the phone back on the nightstand, and nestled into his pillow.

He fell back into a light, pleasant doze and woke again when Ilya collapsed hard onto the mattress, rocking Shane awake as he scrambled to work his way under the duvet.

“Where are you?” Ilya whined, hands getting tangled between the duvet cover and the top sheet, landing on the firm muscles of Shane’s abdomen through the obstructing fabric. His husband, born in the Soviet Union, one of the most notorious pests in the NHL, and nearly thirty years old, pouted as he pawed helplessly at the sheets. “Why?” he groaned when he failed to find a way through the sheets to Shane’s skin.

Shane laughed in his face.

Ilya made a sound as though he had been stabbed and flopped face forward onto the pillow—onto Shane’s pillow, specifically, his large, extremely heavy body falling on top of Shane’s as he buried his face into the cushion beneath his head. Shane grunted at the sudden loss of oxygen, Ilya’s prominent shoulder pressing up against the underside of his jaw. “I have the worst husband in the world,” Ilya said petulantly, slightly slurred from alcohol and muffled by the pillow. “I come home, horny, wanting to fuck, and he laughs at me! He laughs at me right in my face when all I want to do is fuck him so hard he comes hands-free and forgets to change the bedsheets. My struggles, they are crushing me.”

Ilya’s jacket was missing, possibly lost, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up tightly around his upper arms. His cock was at least half-hard through the tailored suit pants he had worn to the club. He pressed his hips forward insistently, making his point clear, and Shane sucked in a quick breath, difficult to do with over two hundred pounds of pure muscle pressing him down. Even half hard, Ilya's cock was large enough that Shane could feel it through his slacks, the duvet, and Shane’s own sleep pants; the outline of his dick pressed to the side of Shane’s crotch, right on top of the sensitive skin beneath his obliques. Shane gasped a little and squirmed, immediately feeling the whiplash of his body going from slumber to arousal in a few seconds.

Ilya always had that effect on Shane.

He could feel Ilya grinning proudly against his cheek, and he could certainly feel it when Ilya rolled his hips, humping Shane’s thigh with a few solid presses until his cock hardened fully.

Ilya finally pushed back up, balanced over Shane’s prone body with his elbows on either side of Shane’s head, grinning down at him. “Want me to fuck you, Hollander?” he asked, and Shane nodded, a little too out of it for words. “Yes?” Ilya asked, rolling his hips again, now able to feel the way Shane’s cock was taking notice as well. “Maybe next time I come in quieter, make sure you don’t wake up. And then I slip inside your body while you are still sleeping—best wake-up for you, I think. Would you like that?” He purred, leaning down so he could press his warm, wet mouth to Shane’s ear.

Shane gasped again. “Yes, please.”

“Would you be ready for me?” Ilya asked.

“I’m always ready for you,” Shane said. “Didn’t I tell you?”

Ilya paused. He tilted his head. “Are you?”

Shane nodded, breath hitching. Unsubtly, he spread his legs beneath the sheets.

Ilya’s eyes widened and darkened at the same time, reflecting the glossy orange lamplight. “Get this shit off you,” he growled, yanking hard on the blankets, but made the task much harder for Shane when he lunged down and kissed him.

Shane could taste vodka and beer and chewing gum—not an appetizing combination, but it was worth it for the tongue that pushed insistently toward the back of his mouth, licking across his own molars and completely uncaring of the sleep-stale taste. Shane wiggled beneath him, now equally impatient, and finally successfully managed to push all the frustrating sheets to the base of the bed, where they wrapped around his squirming, socked feet. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, so Ilya slid his hands down the front of his abdominal muscles to the hem of his sleep pants, then slowly pushed them lower, kisses deepening as he slowed the frantic movements of his tongue. He was more uncoordinated than usual, a little slower in general, but also rougher. His hands, when they landed on Shane’s waist, squeezed a little too tightly, just enough to hurt, and Shane gasped and writhed and pushed into his grip.

Ilya raised one hand to his jaw, and Shane eagerly sucked his thumb into his mouth. Ilya’s mouth was hanging open, sloppy spit clinging to his lips and chin. “Fuck, Shane,” he breathed. “You always look so fucking good, sucking on my fingers like that. You want it so bad, don’t you? Want me inside of you?” he asked, switching to Russian.

“Please,” Shane begged, slurring around his finger, whining when Ilya pressed down on the firm muscle of his tongue. “Fuck me. I’m ready for you, Ilya.”

Those words, also spoken in Russian, lit a fire in Ilya, who ripped his thumb out of Shane’s mouth so that he had both hands free to shove his pajamas off, one immediately darting back to feel Shane’s ass, dipping between, then pushing in once they felt the tacky wetness of silicone lube.

“Fuck,” Ilya groaned again, immediately pressing two fingers all the way to the knuckle. “Fuck, you did this right when you got home?”

“Knew-” Shane gasped, jolting as if he had been electrocuted when Ilya’s fingers unerringly found his prostate, the motion so ingrained in him that not even the loss of dexterity from his mild inebriation made him falter. “I knew you’d come back horny. Wanted—wanted to be ready for you.”

“Fuck,” Ilya groaned, roughly sinking in a third finger. Shane panted. It had been a few hours since he had prepped himself, and although he had used their longest-lasting lube, which usually wasn’t Shane’s preferred option but was nice in situations like this, the glide wasn't as slick as Ilya usually made it. His body had tightened slightly in his sleep but Ilya didn’t seem aware of that, and Shane certainly wasn’t going to inform him.

They didn’t have practice or a game tomorrow. Ilya could spend the morning hungover, and Shane could spend the day limping if he needed to. Nothing was holding them back.

Ilya nearly knocked the nightstand over as he wrestled the top drawer open, grabbing the lube. He swore furiously in Russian as he tried to navigate his own clothes, one-handed and clumsy, until Shane desperately helped him undo the straining buttons on his pants and shove them down around his thighs, limiting his movement but freeing his erection. Ilya’s face twisted up in pleasured pain as he gripped himself tightly, roughly, as he slicked his cock, and then he was shoving, shoving Shane up the bed, wrestling his knees back around his ears and slamming into him.

It was uncoordinated and rough. Shane grunted, eyes rolling back, mouth dropping open. Ilya started thrusting immediately.

Shane’s hard cock bounced between them, drooling precum, and Shane whined, “Ilya.”

“Just for me,” Ilya panted. “Always for me. So fucking good, Hollander.”

He used him like a toy. He smelled like sweat and vodka. Shane thought he might go cross-eyed.

It didn’t last long, and certainly not long enough for Shane to come untouched. Ilya was always quicker to go when he was drunk, and he knew that, so when his hips started speeding up—the clap of their bodies loud enough to be obscene in their quiet bedroom—Ilya immediately wound an arm beneath Shane’s thigh, craning to get a good grip on his cock, and started stroking Shane off in time with each thrust.

“So fucking beautiful,” Ilya panted. “So fucking sweet. You stay home for me, yes? A good little house husband, waiting for me to come home, wishing I was home already so I could fuck you like you fucking deserve.”

“I missed you,” Shane said.

“Fuck,” Ilya groaned.

They came together. 

They kissed through the afterglow, as Ilya gently pulled out and lowered Shane’s legs back to rest on the mattress, skin sticking together and hands sliding and gripping at every inch of skin they could reach.

A few minutes later, Shane had propped his head on a pillow. Ilya was using Shane’s chest as his own pillow, murmuring quiet Russian endearments against his nipple. Shane had one hand on the back of his neck and his thumb stroked up and down. “Did you have a fun night?” he asked. Ilya chuckled and Shane swatted him gently. “Before you came back, I mean. At the club.”

“Yes,” Ilya said, eyes closed, grinning. “Good music tonight, good drinks. Not too many college kids, and no one recognized us in an annoying way. Well, some fucking TMZ people outside the club after, but it was fine. I love dancing—I know is not your favorite, but I am glad I can still go out, you know? I think it is fun. Thank you for telling me to go.”

“Of course,” Shane murmured. “I’m glad you still have that, too.” Shane had almost never enjoyed going clubbing or bar hopping with his teammates in Montreal. Frankly, he still didn’t really enjoy it in Boston. He didn’t mind a night out at Fiorella’s or another local place, but he was glad that Ilya had other people to go clubbing with, and only begged Shane to accompany him on occasion. Shane liked dancing with Ilya sometimes, and sometimes the elation of an important win was enough to make nightclubs worth the overwhelming stimulation, but it was rare for him to be in the mood. After the past few months, particularly the stress of Hayden’s barbecue and the miserable time Shane had at the bar with the Centaurs, Shane had been craving a quiet night off in his own home. He had eaten the nutritionist-planned meal, confident that he knew exactly what was going into his body, and spent a few hours catching up on reading that had been put off during the crazy schedule of the preseason. The quiet, eager anticipation of waiting for Ilya's arrival had made everything even better. He scratched his nails on the sensitive skin on the back of Ilya’s neck. “How are Marly and Vic?”

Ilya hummed and smacked his lips together. “I think Marly is having a midlife crisis,” he said, and Shane laughed. “He wants a girlfriend, I think, but he is so fucking clueless. And also, I think he is not sure if he actually wants a girlfriend, or if he just knows that all his friends are married, and so he is feeling left out.”

“That’s how I felt in my twenties,” Shane said. “Almost everyone on the Voyageurs was married by twenty-five. I always felt weird about being single.”

“Nyet,” Ilya grumbled. “You were not really single. And do not mention the V-word in this bed. Very rude, husband.”

“Sorry,” Shane said. Ilya’s curls smelled like sweat and other bodies. He had probably been dancing hard for hours—Shane knew how rowdy he and Cliff could get in the clubs. His nose wrinkled, suddenly aware of the sweat between both of them and the unhygienic outside clothes Ilya was wearing, but he forced himself to take a breath. They could have another few minutes to relax. And then, no matter what Ilya said, they would change the bedsheets. 

Ilya snuffled a little closer, running the tip of his nose down Shane’s jaw. “You were married at twenty-seven. Some people would say that is young.”

“Not hockey players,” Shane huffed. He found a curl, a little tacky but especially defined, and wound it around and around his pointed finger, tangling himself up in Ilya. “Huh. I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it like that before.”

“Like what?” Ilya yawned, weighed down by orgasms, exertion, and booze.

Shane smiled. “I got married in my twenties,” he said, just slightly louder than a whisper. “I never expected that, you know? I always thought… I never thought I would have anyone until I retired. For a long time, I guess I was trying to convince myself that I couldn’t focus on girls while I was still playing, and then… even when I started being more honest with myself, I thought I couldn’t ever marry a guy and keep my career. And that wasn’t true.”

“No,” Ilya murmured, his hold tightening on him. “No. Instead, you marry your high school sweetheart like all the other hockey boys.”

“I don’t think you qualify-”

“We just have to get you pregnant,” Ilya said, smacking a kiss against Shane’s chest. “I am trying very hard, I promise.”

Shane laughed. Then he shoved Ilya’s shoulder. “Don’t think you can distract me from making you take a shower.”

Ilya groaned louder than he had when he came and rolled off of Shane entirely, burying his face in a pillow before screaming.

+++

“Turn the fucking sun off,” Ilya groaned the next morning.

Shane (who had already woken up, made his breakfast smoothie, went on an abbreviated jog, took a quick shower, and then returned to bed before Ilya had stirred) was sitting up in bed reading a book about the history of North American horticulture. He laughed as Ilya fruitlessly pressed his face into Shane's stomach, trying to hide from the beam of light that had gradually drifted across the room and onto his face. Shane reached for the nightstand and clicked the remote control that would lower their mechanized blinds.

The furrow in Ilya’s brow eased. “Better,” he sighed.

Shane preened. “Bet you’re glad I had those curtains installed now.”

“So glad,” Ilya agreed. “My husband. My forward-thinker. He is a genius, on and off the ice. Proof of how lucky I am, and how secretly actually he is stupid because he settled for me.”

“I did not settle,” Shane said calmly, turning a page in his book. “I married my high school sweetheart. That’s not settling.”

Ilya kissed his sleep-warm skin. “I married my wallflower. He won’t come to the club with me, but he keeps my bed warm anyway,” he said, worming his arms between Shane’s thighs and the mattress so that he could press even closer, voice slurring back to sleep as the room dimmed. “Too much?” he asked in a sleepy murmur.
He could have been referring to the endearment, “wallflower,” which had become a relentless joke in the Bears locker room at Shane’s expense, or the weight of the heat of his body lying full on top of Shane’s stomach, or even his sappiness, because Ilya still sometimes felt the need to apologize for how ridiculously sentimental they had both become a year into their marriage.

But it didn’t really matter what he meant. “Never,” Shane promised. “Too much? Impossible.”

Shane tilted his head back and reveled in how happy he was that morning. Just for a moment. It was nice to have constant reminders of all the things that still made his life wonderful.

+++

TMZ @TMZ

Boston Bears Captain Ilya Rozanov out on the town with teammates at Club SWEAT! We asked him a few questions about his snazzy outfit!

[Video Description: A group of paparazzi with enormous flash cameras approach Rozanov, Marlow, and St. Simone on a bustling sidewalk outside of a club, barking questions while the hockey players look back, disinterested, and begin to walk away.

Paparazzi: “Rozanov! Love your outfit tonight, bud! Is that your Rolex you’re wearing?”

Rozanov turns with a smirk. Marlow attempts to grab his shoulder, but Rozanov raises an arm, flexing while simultaneously showing off his watch and loon tattoo.

Rozanov: “Oh, yes, is nice, right? It was a gift.” Rozanov poses with the watch almost pressed to his cheek. Cameras flash. “Very nice gift from Shane after we won our Cup—combo birthday gift with Conn Smythe trophy, since I won it a week before my birthday. Thoughtful guy.” He winks.

Marlow and St. Simone both grab his shoulders and drag him into a waiting car.]

1:43 AM · Oct 5, 2019

hollander freckle guard @puckybarnes
Replying to @TMZ

→ something about how ilya says “OUR cup” hmmmm i’m watching i’m noticing

stan twitter strikes again @professionalyearner
Replying to @TMZ

→ Shane to Ilya: what do you want for your birthday bby?
    Ilya probably: i just want a rollie rollie rollie with a dab of ranch
    Shane: got you boo

Feigen @feigenaboutit
Replying to @professionalyearner

→→ unfortunately rozy actually definitely would say that. the more unbelievable part is shane hollander calling anyone “bby” or “boo”

Spirk Mpreg 🫡 @battlestationspls
→→→ Replying to @feigenaboutit

If there’s one thing that fanfiction has taught me, it’s that shane hollander is calling ilya rozanov cute russian diminutives on the daily and that’s just true now, sorry, i don’t make the rules

Feigen @feigenaboutit

okay so everyone knows that video of rozy with the watch from last night right… with the wink (that bastard)…well  i found the model of the rolex he said shane gave him… it’s a fifty thousand dollar watch… shane hollander… gave ilya rozanov… a fifty thousand dollar watch…

2:13 PM · Oct 5, 2019

2481 sandwich @cameronw
Replying to @feigenaboutit

→ #soulmatesonskates 🥹❤️❤️

hockey bae @sashaisintoronto
Replying to @feigenaboutit

→ bitch are you new here look at this picture its a different fucking watch and ILYA SAID THE SAME THING LAST YEAR SHANE HOLLANDER GAVE HIM 2 DIFFERENT FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLAR WATCHES

she gooned on my deke til i crease @bowserfloozy
Replying to @sashaisintoronto

→→ I know it seems crazy but yall continue to underestimate how much money these guys have. Gifting Rolexes is a thing in the NHL and plenty of other sports, and Hollander is an ambassador, so it was probably part of a marketing deal with both of them. Its a nice gesture but its not out of the norm.

hockey bae @sashaisintoronto
Replying to @bowserfloozy

→→→ “nice gesture” THAT’S A HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS

randy for rose landry | daphne @rosefanaccount1221
Replying to @sashaisintoronto

→→ i mean whos to say and i never want to be the one disillusioning your illusions girl but we just generally fr dont talk ENOGUH ab how loaded shane is lmao, did u know he’s literally one of the highest paid canadian models of all time? and yeah its canada soooooooo but still!! and thats on top of millions and millions of dollars with the voyageurs and bears and everything else -- my boy STAYS booked and busy (i worry about him sometimes tbh he needs to sleep) if he wanted to buy a watch for everyone on the bears he def could ok ramble over i just always need to bring this up

hockey bae @sashaisintoronto
Replying to @rosefanaccount1221

→→→ missing the point that he didn't buy watches for the entire bears team, he bought TWO FOR ILYA #SugarDaddyShaneHollander

Chapter End Notes

Happy chap :D we needed it tbf

I know that if you’ve made it this far into the series, you probably don’t mind reading the hockey scenes, but i’ve been extremely indecisive about the pacing of this fic so second confession—i had two thousand more words of the game fully written and I whacked it at the last second. All of a sudden it seemed like too much hockey to me! It’ll probably get reincorporated later lol. this chapter is really my ode to the freak4freak but also introvert4extrovert dynamic of their relationship :)

Chapter 8

Chapter Notes

I’ve dug myself into a pit by giving ilya and Shane an inside joke about getting shane pregnant and now i cant stop Ilya from talking about it

(Edit: I fully changed the socmed portion at the end of this chapter bc I didn't like the old one anymore, so if you read this while it was uploading, no you aren't hallucinating, it's new now lol, but also don't tell me if you preferred the old one lol)

The Bears entered the season in full swing despite their lackluster start. They won eight out of the first ten games and, for the first time since the Eastern Conference Finals, Shane felt that tight grip around his heart slip away. Winning was good. Losing was normal. He could do both with grace.

He watched as shot after shot went into the net. On the second line, back at center and no longer shooting on the side of the goalie’s blocker, his goals began to tick up again. Once more, his face-off percentages were listed next to his name, and Shane had one of the best records in the league.

Second line or not, Shane was playing some of the best hockey of his life, and Ilya was right at his heels with a smirk and a laugh. Now that they were approaching thirty, it felt good to prove they could maintain that kind of momentum.

They raced into November, and before he knew it, they were getting dressed for their first game against Montreal.

The Boston-Montreal rivalry was as old as the NHL itself, and with Shane in the mix, things had only intensified. Cliff and the rest of the d-men would be out for blood that night.

But Shane calmed himself. He worked through his routines. Montreal was any other team to him now, he decided. He didn’t want it to be personal, or dread four games a season for the rest of his career. He wanted to move past what had happened for good.

Shane was in the middle of his pregame breathing exercises when Ilya poked him hard in the middle of his forehead. Shane immediately glared at him, because this was far from the first time Ilya had done exactly that. “What do you want, Rozanov?”

“Your rookie,” Ilya murmured, “looks annoyed.”

Shane glanced at Cadyn first, but then made himself look at Luca and Johansson as if he didn’t know exactly who Ilya meant. “He’s not my rookie,” Shane insisted. “If anything, he’s Benji’s rookie.”

“You have joint-custody,” Ilya said, nodding along like it was obvious, “and I am the fun stepdad who tries too hard to make him like me and buys him McDonald’s.”

“Are Benji and I divorced in this scenario?” Shane asked dryly.

“Ah, no. I think it was a one-night stand.” Ilya held up a hand, ticking off points on his fingers as he went. “You got pregnant, and it was your last year before the NHL draft, so you decided to keep it since you knew you wouldn’t be pregnant for a long time after.”

Shane couldn’t help but laugh, shaking his head. “I hate you. I hope you know that makes no sense.”

“Meanwhile,” Ilya continued unheeded, “because you are a slut, I also got you pregnant with Luca, and you had half-sibling twins with different fathers. It can happen, you know,” he finished seriously. “I told you that one would be a goalie. Haven’t you been on Twitter lately? Everyone is talking about this.”

Shane put a hand over his mouth, trying to stifle his laughter before it drew too much attention to their murmured conversation. “You’re fucking ridiculous. Why are you so obsessed with getting me pregnant?”

“You know why,” Ilya grumbled, then dramatically whined, “I try so hard! Benji does it in one time? Unfair!”

“I thought you got me pregnant with Luca?” Shane countered.

“Okay, well, that was obviously forever ago, so it actually doesn’t count."

“Actually, you’re crazy,” Shane said, reaching out and pinching Ilya’s arm lightly, beneath the loon tattoo. “Never mind.”

“No, not never mind!” Ilya hissed, attempting to jab Shane with his elbow. Shane dodged neatly, spinning out of reach, hands up to defend himself. Ilya groaned. “You are not listening, Hollander,” he whined. “You have a rookie in distress! I thought you were one of the captains?” He tapped on the C of his own jersey. “Go help!”

Shane glanced at Cadyn, who was frowning fiercely at the floor. “Why don’t you talk to him?” Shane asked, wondering why Ilya was interrupting Shane’s pregame rituals when his own were much less sacred to him. Managing the locker room was certainly the thing Shane missed the least about being a captain, and Ilya knew that.

But Ilya only raised an eyebrow, and Shane folded.

He knew that Cadyn, even more taciturn than Shane, had latched on to his fellow rookies, Benji, who functioned as his true mentor, and Shane. That was it. He barely exchanged a word with anyone else on the team if he could help it—normal enough behavior for a goalie, Shane figured. Cadyn usually lingered near Shane when the locker room got a little too rowdy during Ilya’s pre- or post- game speeches, which wasn’t surprising; thanks to Cliff and Vicky, the rest of the Bears had learned during his inaugural season with them that Shane didn’t like being jostled or touched overmuch, so now, when they bounced around, celebrating victories or hyping themselves up for a game, they tried to leave a little bubble of space around Shane.

It was natural that Cadyn, who seemed similarly reticent, drifted toward Shane in those moments, and Shane was just happy that the rest of the guys had caught on and started giving him his own space. They showed their consideration by giving him headbutts and knuckle taps on the ice instead of hugs, and by allowing him space to do his stretches before and after games, and by not bothering him about going bar-hopping after victories. Little things like that, Shane knew, could make a big difference in team dynamics.

Cadyn and Luca often lingered near Shane on nights when they did go out, and they always ended up chatting. Usually, they kept it casual or talked about hockey, but they had still grown closer throughout training camp and the first few weeks of the season. Shane began to feel affection for the young players and, to a certain extent, protective of them. He remembered being that young, and it had been a lot harder for him. It was bittersweet to know he had the power to make things better for the next generation.

Ignoring Ilya’s snickering, Shane sidled up to Cadyn. “Are you alright?” he asked, up front, because Cadyn was never bothered by Shane’s predilection for bluntness. Other people in Shane’s life had called him rude or curt, but he and Cadyn seemed to understand that being straightforward was the easiest way to approach any conversation.

Cadyn looked up, then down. “I always meditate in the afternoons before games,” he said, and Shane deeply appreciated that he didn’t obfuscate or dance around whatever was bothering him, “but I have to do it in silence or I just can’t focus, and I keep getting interrupted at the apartment. I’m just annoyed. It won’t affect me tonight, though,” he rushed to say, “I’m still good to play, I’m just… annoyed, yeah.”

“Of course not,” Shane said, wincing in sympathy. Quietly and without interjecting, Ilya sidled up to stand beside Shane, fiddling with his phone. Cadyn didn’t seem bothered by their captain’s appearance, so Shane continued. “I’m sorry to hear that. I get it. When my pregame routines get disrupted, it fucking sucks. What happened?”

“Johansson always works out in the afternoons before games,” Cadyn said darkly, “but it’s not always at the same time, so I can’t plan around it. And he plays music in the gym. It isn’t, like, crazy loud, but I can still hear it, and that’s enough to bother me.”

“Ah.” Shane nodded. The three rookies had decided to live together instead of rooming with any of the veterans. Shane had visited their apartment once, and it was nice, if a little impersonal. He assumed that none of them intended to live there very long. “That’s annoying. It’s good of you to recognize that the music isn’t actually that loud, but I think you still have a right to at least discuss that you might have different standards for that sort of thing, especially on game days.”

“Okay, I guess,” Cadyn said. “I’m not used to having roommates. Or, I had roommates when I was in college, but I hated it. At least Luca is super quiet and neat, but sometimes Johansson—I don’t know.”

Shane could commiserate. Johansson was similar to Ilya in personality and lifestyle, and Shane wasn’t sure that even he would have wanted to share an apartment with twenty-year-old Ilya. “Did you live alone before this?”

“Yeah, I had a house in Providence,” Cadyn told him. “It wasn’t big or super nice or anything, and I was only renting it, but I lived alone. It was cheaper than anything I could find in Boston. I don’t like living in an apartment, and to be honest, I don’t like living with Johansson. He can be super loud. He says it’s part of his routine, but part of my routine is meditating in silence. I could wear headphones, I guess, but I don’t like to when I’m meditating. I just don’t really know what to do, since it’s both our routines.”

Ilya had abandoned the pretense of looking at his phone and was glancing very quickly between Cadyn and Shane, and Shane was worried that he was about to make fun of the rookie for being particular, though Shane thought Cadyn's frustration sounded very reasonable. He spoke quickly before Ilya could interject with a joke. “Have you spoken with Johansson about this?”

“Yeah,” Cadyn said. “But I don’t think I can just tell him that he has to break his routines because I don’t want to break mine.”

“You don’t like wearing headphones,” Shane said, “but does Johansson mind?”

Cadyn frowned. “I didn’t ask.”

“Maybe you should,” Shane said. “You should also ask Luca if he has an opinion. It might be easier to come to an agreement with three people instead of two. If you need Ilya or me to mediate, we’d be glad to help.”

“I cannot help with meditation,” Ilya said immediately, looking alarmed.

“Mediation,” Cadyn and Shane corrected at the same time. Cadyn blanched, but Shane offered the rookie a smile. “It means to help someone work out an argument,” Shane explained to Ilya. “And as captains, we are happy to help. If you want to talk to someone not on the team, you should also reach out to Jessica. She’s the director of the Player Support office.”

“I know Jessica,” Cadyn said, nodding. “She helped us find our apartment. She’s very nice.”

“She is,” Shane agreed.

Ilya was still looking rapidly between them.

“I think you should schedule a house meeting with Luca and Johansson and talk about it as a group. Suggest headphones and ask how Luca feels about playing music out loud. In the meantime, I also meditate before games, and I prefer working out without music,” Shane said. “If you don’t have time to work things out before tomorrow’s game, you’re welcome to join me, Jean-Paul,” he offered sincerely.

“Oh,” Cadyn said. “Yes. Thank you. Also, I don’t like being called by my first names. I’m good with nicknames, but I prefer being addressed as JP or by my last name. Just so you know.”

“Okay. Thanks for telling me.”

“Is Caddie good?” Ilya interjected. “Caddyshack? Cadillac? Jeepers?”

“I guess I probably won’t respond to all of those, since they aren’t my name, so they’re not super efficient, but I don’t have a problem with it,” Cadyn said. Then, with a deep breath and all in a rush, “Also, I just want to say that I really enjoy being on this team, just so you know, even though I have to sit on the bench a lot more now. Benji’s super good, so I get it. You guys are super nice, and I like how straightforward Cliff is.”

“Oh,” Shane said. “Good.”

“It’s ‘cause Cliff is an idiot,” Ilya said, slinging an arm around Shane’s shoulders. “He cannot tell a lie because he isn’t smart enough to come up with one.”

Shane elbowed him in the side, hard, and Cadyn laughed. “Thanks for the invite,” he said to Shane, leaning down to pick up his gear. “I’ll totally come.”

“Great, I’ll text you the address,” Shane said as they turned to leave. “Two P.M. sound okay?”

“Sure,” Cadyn said, and walked over to his cubby, plopping down on the bench beside Luca.

Shane added a reminder to his calendar.

“Huh,” Ilya said.

Shane hummed, still looking at his phone. “What?”

Ilya’s thumb began to rub a circle over the ball of Shane’s shoulder. “You like him? The rook?”

“Of course I like him.” Shane glanced at Ilya. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“No reason,” Ilya said. “Opposite, actually. He reminds me of you.”

Shane shoved his phone into his pocket and gave Ilya an unimpressed look. “Because we’re both Asian?”

Ilya looked at him like he was insane. “Ah, no?” he said, leaning in and furrowing his brows, a disbelieving little smile on his mouth. “Shane! Come on!”

“What?”

Ilya outright laughed. “Okay, okay, never mind,” he said, still grinning in the fondly bemused way that he often looked at Shane. “It makes sense that you two get along, that is all. And not because you are both Asian guys with white dads, but who knows? Maybe it will mean something to him to play on a team with an older Asian player. Not as a role model,” Ilya added quickly, because he had been at enough family dinners with Yuna to know that this was a sensitive subject for Shane, “not as an idol. But as someone who just shows that he is not alone. That is enough, probably. You do enough. Look how much you do already.” He kissed Shane’s cheek again, the feeling behind the gesture much sweeter this time. It pushed the boundaries of Shane’s established rules for locker room PDA, but Shane felt so warm that he allowed it.

“Gay!” Cliff whooped.

Ilya, faster than he usually moved on the ice, ducked behind Shane, snatched up a tin of wax, and hurled it at Cliff’s head. Cliff ducked with a yelp. The tin clattered into the cubby behind him with an impressive noise, the lid popping off and flying in one direction while the wax inside went flying in the other, landed on the floor, and rolled across the locker room like a puck. “I am bisexual!” Ilya shouted, jabbing a finger in Cliff’s direction. “Put some respect in your tone!”

“Aye, aye, Captain!” Cliff shouted, hiding behind his jersey like a flimsy shield.

“No physical abuse," Shane reminded them.

“I have twenty on Cap for this round!” Vicky said, pulling a fresh bill from the pocket of his duffel bag (which Shane could only assume was a twenty-dollar bill, given that he was on the other side of the locker room and Americans weren’t smart enough to color-code their money).

“Fifty on Cliff!” Benji shouted. “Gotta give the man some encouragement! Put ‘em up, you coward!”

Laughing, Cliff dropped the jersey and put his fists in the air as Ilya matched him, both of them stepping toward the middle of the locker room, treating the enormous logo of a roaring bear like a boxing ring. Shane was laughing too, feeling light as he caught sight of Ilya’s loon tattoo. If they hadn't been in the locker room, Shane might have swooped in and kissed it, like he had done in their own home gym a dozen times before.

Ilya caught his eye with a look that suggested he knew what Shane was thinking, and then the moment was interrupted.

“He’s bisexual?” Luca asked, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Cadyn and Johansson were also staring, looking quickly between Shane and Ilya. At Luca’s shocked tone, the rest of the team started paying attention to them again, in time for his high-pitched pronouncement of, “You’re—you’re bisexual?”

Shane opened his mouth. He closed it. “Oh,” he managed.

“We forgot to tell the rookies,” Ilya said, glancing at Shane. He shrugged. “Whoops. This is probably better than JP showing up at our house tomorrow and finding out like that, I guess?”

“You live together?” Cadyn blurted out.

“Oh,” Shane said again, “yes. Ilya and I live together. We are together.”

“Yup.” Ilya slung an arm over Shane’s shoulders. He stuck his tongue out at Cadyn, who reared back. “We are also very much in love. Sorry. You can’t have him.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “Ilya. Stop it.”

“Sorry, dear,” Ilya cooed. Cliff mimicked the noise of a whip snapping.

The rookie trio stared at them.

“This is a prank, right?” Johansson asked. “Because of all the jokes on Twitter?”

“Hey!” Ilya said, pointing at him aggressively. “Do not bring Twitter into this! Homophobia!”

Johansson immediately raised his hands, looking terrified. “I am not homophobic!” he objected. “I’m Swedish!”

Vicky cackled.

“But is it a prank?” Cadyn asked, looking quickly around the room, where more and more Bears were dissolving into hysterical giggles, and all were watching their interaction like it was the juiciest moment on a thirty-episode season of reality TV. “I seriously can’t tell.”

Shane smiled hesitantly. He pulled out his necklace, readjusting it so it lay neatly over his collarbones, the gold standing out in contrast against his dark compression shirt. Ilya smiled as he pulled out his own cross. Shane wasn’t sure how apparent it was that the chains were identical, but the gesture was enough, as all three rookies’ eyes immediately snapped onto the jewelry.

“We’re together,” Shane confirmed. “We’ve been together for years. We’re not pranking you, although we understand why you assumed that. And we’re sorry for springing this on you before a game.” He pursed his lips. “That was not our intention.”

“We forgot,” Ilya repeated drolly. “Sorry, not sorry. Everybody else knew. Is not a big deal, unless you are weirdos.”

“Not a weirdo!” Johansson declared, hands still in the air. “Love is love!”

“No,” Luca added quickly. “No, of course not, I mean!” A frighteningly deep blush was spreading over his face and down his neck guard, and his pale eyes darted frantically around the room, always snapping back to land somewhere on Shane or Ilya’s bodies and then ripping away again. Even Shane could tell that he looked terribly embarrassed. “I mean, I’m not a—not a weirdo either!”

Cadyn was frowning at the other rookies now, and everyone else had given in to the absurdity, filling the room with laughter. “This is unexpected,” he said.

“I can imagine,” Shane agreed, ignoring the catcalls and whistles. “We can talk more after the game, if you want. Again, we didn’t mean to spring this on you so suddenly.”

Then, Shane paused.

He glanced at Ilya, who tilted his head curiously.

“Also,” Shane said, raising his voice so the rest of their teammates could hear this further pronouncement, “we’re married. We have been. Since summer before last.”

Ilya smiled. Shane saw his lips repeat the words, “Summer before,” but could not actually hear the words as the rest of their teammates exploded into a cacophony, all but Cliff and Vicky shocked by the revelation of their marriage.

Shane caught Ilya’s hand and squeezed it.

It took a few minutes for the locker room to quiet down again, and for Ilya to brusquely refuse to answer all but the most basic questions. At some point, LeClaire poked his head into the room and barked at all of them to keep getting ready, and though there was still plenty of grumbling, the guys moved on a lot quicker than Shane had expected. They knew that Shane and Ilya had been together for years, after all, since before Shane’s trade. Maybe the rest of the details didn’t matter.

Eventually, Cliff clomped up to stand in front of the rookies, for some reason already wearing his skates even though his pants weren’t on yet. He clapped a heavy hand on Cadyn’s shoulder. “Sure, we could’ve brought you into the know in a less literally psycho way than this,” he said, “but still, you boys understand that this doesn’t leave our locker room, right? It’s pretty fucking important that you understand that.”

Vicky approached from the other side, mimicking the gesture on Johansson’s left. “Because then we would all have a problem, you see? And that would be,” he tutted, “not good at all.”

“No threatening the rookies,” Shane said. He felt oddly calm.

Maybe coming out to his teammates was just something he had gotten used to over time, given that he had gotten a lot of practice over the years. Maybe Shane knew that he had already endured the worst, with the Montreal visiting team currently sequestered somewhere else in TD Garden, and it wouldn’t happen again. Maybe Shane knew that it didn’t really matter how these rookies reacted when they had the rest of the team behind them.

Or, maybe, Shane had faith that these rookies, this new generation, had potential to be better than the last.

Cadyn was staring at his hands. Johansson was rambling something about the history of gay rights in Sweden. Luca was still looking at every corner of the room, and that might have worried Shane once upon a time, but now Shane noticed that his eyes seemed brighter, more reflective than usual, and he caught the moment when Luca quietly tried to dash his wrist beneath his eyes.

Shane softened.

“It’s fucking nuts, isn’t it?” Cliff said, clearly doing his part to bully the rookies back into a sense of normalcy. “We’ve got both of the best fucking players in the league on our fucking team, and they’re fucking each other!”

“Hey,” Shane objected mildly.

“It’s like a soap opera in here,” Benji agreed.

“Nah,” Carmichael commented, “this isn’t fucking TV. It’s not believable enough to write down.”

Ilya clapped his hands together. “Okay, enough talking about how fucking unbelievably hot Shane and I are and how you all wish you were us! I have scored five more goals than any of you, and it is only fucking November! Fucking think about that instead!”

Vicky groaned. “Fuck, Roz, that is unfair! You were born in Russia—they practically breed hockey players over there!”

“You’re thinking of Canada,” Shane quipped, straightening his shoulders proudly. He was one point ahead of Ilya in goals, and he wasn’t going to let any of them forget it.

Ilya rolled his eyes. “Well, if you want to be technical, then no, I was not born in Russia because I was born in the Soviet Union.”

Cadyn’s mouth dropped open, this new revelation shocking him out of his stupor over the last. “You were born in the Soviet Union? Wait, how old are you?”

Cadyn flushed as the team burst into laughter. Ilya glowered. Shane thought about intervening, but really, this seemed like a good learning opportunity for the young players, so he just smiled to himself and focused on wrapping his stick. “North American education system is hard at work, I see,” Ilya drawled. “When do you think the Soviet Union dissolved, hmm?”

“Um.” Cadyn, like Shane, blushed easily, and he was as red as an Admiral’s jersey at the moment. “Um, well—after the Miracle on Ice?” he squeaked, and even Shane joined in with the raucous laughter that followed. “So… in the eighties, I guess?”

Ilya harrumphed, but he was trying to fight down a smile now. “Miracle on Ice,” he sighed, then swept his gaze over his teammates. “I hate you all.”

“Do you believe in miracles!?” Cliff, with his distinctly American accent, called out to a near-unanimous “Yes!” from everyone else in the locker room.

“Bringing up Roz’s age and the miracle in the same conversation?” Vicky said, nudging Cadyn with his elbow. “That is very risky, Jeepers.”

“Sorry,” he winced.

“The Soviet Union dissolved the year Ilya and I were born,” Shane said, helping him out. “In December, when Ilya was six months old. For reference,” he smirked, “that was eleven years after the Nineteen-Eighty Olympic Games.”

“I was homeschooled,” Cadyn told Ilya earnestly, “and I dropped out of college.”

Benji pushed up from a full split on the floor in front of their cubbies to offer Cadyn a high-five. “Our parents deprived us of a good education,” he said with a laugh, “but shit, man, aren’t we good at hockey?”

“And isn’t that what really matters?” someone shouted.

Shane rolled his eyes but stood, his tape job finally meeting his standards. “Yes,” he said, and someone whooped. Ilya clapped his hands together. “Tonight, that is what matters. This isn’t the fucking Olympics, but it is Boston versus Montreal—I’d say that’s a pretty fucking Cold War, huh?”

“Canada,” Ilya said, taking over, pointing to Shane, Cadyn, and a handful of other players, “Europe,” he pointed at himself, Luca, and Johansson, “and New fucking England,” he pointed at Cliff and Benji, who both leapt to their feet and roared something indistinguishable about ‘Massholes.’ “Why, yes, I agree, Hollander! It is pretty fucking cold in here! So let’s heat it the fuck up!”

Someone started a rhythmic drumbeat with their stick against the cubbies and others quickly joined in, a loud beat that filled the locker room, gradually escalating into a rolling, thunderous wave of noise.

Shane closed his eyes and reveled in the sound of victory as the rumble finally broke into cheers.

The noise hadn’t bothered him in a long time.

+++

Playing hockey with Ilya was really, really fun.

Everything else was stressful. Training, dieting, tape review, team dynamics, sponsorships, and media appearances—Shane could take it or leave it. Those were things he endured in order to do the thing he loved.

But playing hockey with Ilya was fun.

The first period was fast but fruitless. Benji and Miitka were both formidable goalies, and the Voyageurs still had strong defensive lines, as they proved that night. But so did the Bears, and the defense held steady until the first intermission was called.

Ilya blew a raspberry as they headed back into the locker room, the scoreboard stalled out at 0-0. “Boring,” he complained. “Where is the action? You think the fans paid for this?”

“It’s the first period, Roz, chill,” Carmichael called.

“Yeah, you jinxed us by calling it a fucking Cold War, dude,” Cliff whined.

Ilya sniffed, dropping to his knees (Shane swallowed) to do his mid-game stretching routine. “I did no such thing!” he declared. “Do not accuse me of jinxes and witchcraftery!”

But the jinx must have worked, or maybe someone had laced up their skates in the wrong order and the hockey gods were frowning on them, because no one scored in the first half of the second period either.

Fans were booing and jeering in the stands, begging for some action. Shane caught the edge of a whispered conversation between Vicky and Cliff about starting a scrum to get everyone’s adrenaline pumping. Shane turned back toward the ice, pretending that he hadn’t heard them.

The Bears had more shots on goal than the Voyageurs, but Miitka had been a wall so far, and it was looking like there would be a long, slow trek to a close game.

In the middle of the period, Ilya nearly managed a point. During a line change from their bench, the Voyageurs sent the puck behind Benji’s net when the zone was mostly empty. Benji skated out and claimed the puck, looking around. He found Cliff standing nearby and passed it neatly to him as he plopped himself back in the crease.

Cliff passed the puck halfway down the ice as Ilya raced in front of Comeau and caught the pass only a few feet in front of the blue line, and then he had a breakaway—no one between himself and the net but the goalie.

Shane was on his feet with the rest of his team and most of TD Garden as Ilya, faster than a blur, raced down the ice, massively outpacing Comeau, and made it to the net, handling the puck rapidly as Miitka tried to follow the play.

Ilya went for the backhand, elevating the puck clean off the ice on the back of his stick as he tried to feed it into the seam between Miitka’s glove and his pads, but Miitka tucked his elbow and curled down, blocking the entry point as the blade of Ilya’s stick and the puck both landed squarely in his glove.

Ilya stopped quickly without icing Miitka or outright bowling into him, and he was quick to pull away after the whistle, but Comeau and a few other Voyageurs still raced in, fiercely protective of their goalie. Comeau planted a hand on Ilya’s chest and shoved him back with a sneer, away from the net, and Shane stood up, wondering if he would start a fight about how close Ilya had gotten to Miitka, but Ilya quickly turned and skated straight for the bench, not engaging.

“Comeau is playing like he’s on fucking coke,” Ilya said as he and Shane passed each other over the boards. “And not in a fun way.”

Shane was so surprised by the comment that he laughed.

“Rozanov,” Shane heard LeClaire’s warning tone as he headed for the offensive zone face-off circle with his wingers.

The puck dropped, Shane lost the face-off, and play raced around the boards and back to the neutral zone until Shane switched out.

“Not much movement,” he commented from the bench, frowning at a tablet.

Ilya pointed sardonically at the Jumbotron. “What? No, really, Hollander? What other great insight can you offer us, Hoz the Great and Terrible?”

Shane gave him an unimpressed look. “Have you even seen that movie?”

“What, you think Russia never figured out color film?”

“Focus on the game, boys,” Desjardins snapped.

Ilya was laughing as he hopped the boards, and a minute later, Shane was still chuckling as they tagged out on the fly.

Mid-play, Cliff and Johansson were trying to regain control of the puck from Boiziau. Johansson finally managed it, whipping his stick quickly between Boiziau’s feet, getting the puck to Shane.

“Those hands, kid!” Shane heard Cliff whoop as he took off, reentering their neutral zone, headed for Miitka with Sidney and Pummel finding their lanes on either side of him.

Sometimes, Shane remembered just how much he enjoyed playing center.

Playing on Ilya’s wing had been special, and it had been important to Shane at an unstable period of his life, when his tendency to dissociate had been much worse. In the earlier days of therapy, when his sessions with Mike had been more frequent and more helpful, that had been the most prioritized thing they had worked on: keeping Shane in his own body. The grounding mechanisms and anchoring techniques Mike had taught him had been crucial to Shane’s well-being over the past two years, and he had not had a major episode of dissociation in a long time. Before then, being on the ice with Ilya, who always seemed to sense the second Shane was about to slip away, able to spot it because of his own familiarity with dissociation, had been a boon to Shane.

But Shane could stand on his own now. He didn’t need Ilya to guard him against chirping or to be a barrier between Shane and their enthusiastic teammates. Playing center felt symbolic in that way. And when Ilya was injured, Shane shouldered the burden of his position.

Now that they were both playing again, it felt like proof that Shane could stand on his own.

He loved power plays and penalty kills when they took the ice together, but those moments felt all the more special because they weren’t the standard.

And besides all metaphorical considerations, having Ilya and Shane on different lines made them an unstoppable machine on the ice. Ilya could get the puck in action, bully the play into a beneficial position so that when Shane swooped in to take it, nothing was in his way. They were so in sync despite their different play styles that sometimes it felt like one long, continuous shift, the puck never coming to a complete stop, the action never halting. It was hypnotizing to watch live or on film, and being a part of the action felt (Shane imagined) like getting high.

Who could compete with them?

Certainly not Montreal.

Montreal’s former GM had been fired and replaced after two consecutive seasons out of the playoffs. Shane had been vindictively pleased to hear it. The man had been, ultimately, the person most responsible for his trade, and he had sent Shane to Boston specifically hoping to make him miserable, given the culture of the locker room and his long-time rivalry with the captain. Little did he know, it was the greatest favor Shane had ever been given, but Shane wasn’t going to give him any credit for that.

Montreal’s team had changed significantly in the ensuing years. Drapeau and another defenseman had retired, Hayden had left, and several rookies and prospects circulated back to the farm teams or were traded away. The Voyageurs that they faced in 2019 looked very different from the team that had wholeheartedly rejected Shane in 2017, bar a few key players.

JJ Boiziau, once Shane’s second-best friend on the team, was now their typical All-Star pick. JJ and Shane had never exactly had a formal falling out, but over the years, they had mostly… stopped talking. In retrospect, Shane could admit that they had never been close, but that was just as depressing to think about now that they had grown further apart. After all, JJ had been there for Shane, clumsy but enthusiastic, the night of the leak. He had shown up and tried to help in the locker room afterward, one of the very few who did. For years beforehand, they’d had a solidarity as fellow Olympians and the Voyageurs’ only non-white players. But, for one reason or another, they just weren’t friends anymore.

Miitka was still in the Voyageurs’ net and one of their remaining standout players. Like JJ, he had shown up the night of the leak and supported Shane through the aftermath. Goalies were famously weird, after all. But they had never been close either.

Shane had never played with Joshua Abbot, the center forward who had replaced him as captain. He remembered an interview with Theriault, the coach claiming, “We want to set a new standard for our guys. Set a new tone for our locker room. No distractions. Just good hockey, and brotherhood.” Abbot never smiled, but Hayden said he was an alright guy. He probably got more jokes about being a hockey robot than Shane.

Last and least, Gilbert Comeau was still playing, and he was still a prick. Already that season, he had faced a three-game suspension for violently high-sticking a rookie on the Scouts, knocking out three teeth and breaking the poor kid’s nose. He had also gone through his second divorce over the summer.

Shane had been a groomsman at Gil's first wedding. But Comeau had started hating him the day he learned that Shane was gay, and his fury only seemed to grow as the years passed, and Shane won another Cup without him, and Comeau’s team started losing.

Comeau slammed Shane against the boards as he crossed into the neutral zone, but his momentum was off. Shane bounced forward instead of getting pinned, kicking the puck with the side of his blade as he did so that it was in position for him to catch it as he took off. JJ intercepted him, and Shane was forced to pass to Sidney on the other side of the rink, who caught the puck but lost it immediately to a Voyageur right wing who swooped back down the ice, all of them hot on his tail. Benji, in the net, followed all the action closely, head moving so quickly he looked like a bird, the gold and silver airbrushed designs on his cage flashing, a stylized bear’s open maw closing over his hidden eyebrows.

Shane sprinted across the ice, planting himself in front of the center as Sidney wrestled the puck away behind Benji's net, regaining possession. Shane tracked the puck as his right and left wingers searched for an optimal pass, and then the puck was heading back toward him, hovering near the blue line, and Shane dove to the side as, in the corner of his eye, Shane caught sight of Comeau swooping in for an interception. He braced. They collided as they fought for the puck, and Shane caught a subtle elbow in his side that stunned him long enough for Comeau to nab the puck.

But then they were both moving.

They raced, side-by-side, toward the net, now unobstructed. Comeau pulled back for the shot when they were eight feet out, and the second his stick left the ice, Shane lashed out and knocked the puck away from him, straight out to Hammersmith, who carried it away.

Shane pulled to a hard stop, edges just touching the goal crease, ready to change directions and shifts.

But Comeau did not stop. Shane heard the strangled roar of frustration catch in his throat as he lost the puck, and snapped his head around just in time to watch Comeau plow straight into and then through Benji, shoving him to the ground as they both rammed deep into the net with enough force that it detached from the ice and skidded backward, goalposts wobbling as the entire net threatened to upend on top of the two massive hockey players.

There was a terrible rattle of metal on ice and the sound of a helmet connecting hard with the ground. Benji groaned, loud and pained from within the pile of limbs, sticks, and gear.

Almost immediately, Comeau bounced back up and tried to skate away.

Shane skated toward him, anger making his vision turn red, but Cliff got there first.

“Motherfucker!” Cliff roared, launching himself at Comeau, gloves flying. For a second, Comeau braced like he was going to skate in the opposite direction, fear instinctively driving him away from a 6’4” hunk of muscle, and then he seemed to remember where he was, and how many people were watching, and threw down his gloves in time to meet Cliff hit for hit.

Shane skidded to a stop next to the fight, then circled to get a better look at their goaltender, avoiding the gear now littering the ice. Benji’s tan, affable face was tight beneath the cage, but he lumbered back to his feet on his own volition, waving Shane away from one hand while he locked the other, his stick hand, close to his body. Even at a distance, Shane easily recognized a shoulder injury, and he winced in sympathy.

As Shane watched Benji skate off the ice, leaning heavily to one side, Pummel skated for Comeau, rage etched on his usually soft face, but he was intercepted from joining the fight by Clouitier, who grappled his jersey and shoved him away as they descended into their own wrestling match. Sidney, tall, slim, and not a fighter, quickly latched on to another young Voyageurs player, and Carmichael grabbed Berkes under one arm, both of them sneering and aggressively jostling each other but not quite fighting.

Shane glanced around, looking for a dance partner, and skated toward Boiziau, who was watching the fighting with his lip curled up.

Shane held out an arm, expecting to partner up, but he nearly skated back out of instinct when Boiziau whipped around to face him, anger in his usually jovial eyes. “What?” Shane asked, so surprised by the unusual expression on the defenseman’s face that he reacted like they weren’t in the middle of a game. “JJ, you alright-”

“Oh, fuck off, Hollander,” Boiziau said. He spat on the ice.

Shane blinked in shock.

“Fuck,” Boiziau cursed, then abruptly skated in. Shane thought he was coming in for a hit until he locked his arm, a little roughly, around Shane’s shoulders, jostling him but turning them both to watch the ongoing fight. “Comeau could get suspended for this,” Boiziau said. Boiziau was very tall, and up close, Shane could see how tense his jaw was. “And he’s been suspended enough already—he will be out for who knows how long. And we cannot afford to lose more of our players. Fuck.”

“Oh,” Shane said. The linesmen finally moved in, separating Comeau and Vicky. For a moment, it looked like Comeau was going to turn his rage on the ref, but Abbot skated up, grabbed his shoulder, and physically hauled him back. Even Abbot, renowned across the league for his unbreakable stoicism, looked furious. “What the fuck is up with Comeau?” Shane asked JJ as they reluctantly separated. “Why is he on such a short fuse?”

Of course, Shane knew why Comeau hated him. Comeau was an old-school player, and he still liked to claim the title of enforcer despite his poor track record in fights, but when Shane had played for the Voyageurs, he had never been so foolishly temperamental. For the past few seasons, it seemed like Comeau sometimes stepped out onto the ice with the intention of racking up penalty minutes. He still played a strong game, as far as Montreal’s current players went, but Shane wondered how much longer Theriault and Montreal’s new GM could realistically put up with his behavior.

He saw a muscle in JJ’s jaw jump. “Don’t know,” he said tightly, already skating away. “Maybe he is just fucking sick of being the biggest losers in the league.”

Shane watched him go, then turned his attention to his own bench, skating back and doing his best to push that conversation out of his head.

“Benji?” Shane asked their coach.

LeClaire gave a short shake of his head, lips set grimly. “Already in the locker room, getting looked over, but he’s not playing this game.” He slapped a hand down on Cadyn’s shoulders, expression grim. “It’s you, kid,” he said, gesturing for someone to open the gate for the goalie. The arena staff were already efficiently resetting the ice, affixing the net back in place.

Cadyn looked very pale under the stadium lights. Compared to Benji's, his helmet was simple, mostly black and painted with the logos. It was not the first game he had played that season, but it was the first time he was called onto the ice during the middle of a game. There were eight minutes left in the second period. “You’ve got this,” Shane told him confidently as Cadyn stepped through the gate, TD Garden roaring their support around them. “Do your rituals. Treat it like a normal game.”

“It’s not a normal game,” Cadyn told him seriously.

Shane tilted his head. “It is.” He gestured to the Jumbotron as he followed Cadyn toward the net. “Clean slate,” he said, referring to the 0-0 score. “Functionally, you can play from here on out as if you’re starting from the beginning, only you’re done twice as fast. Don’t let this psych you out.”

“No,” Cadyn said stubbornly, even as they reached the goal and he immediately began running his gloved hand over the top bar, back and forth three times, like he did every time he took the ice. “Skater mentality changes enormously across each period, regardless of the score. The second and third periods are statistically the highest scoring periods of the game, and I’m entering this zone without a proper warm-up. Most skaters consider the second period to be the height of their physical performance on the ice as well, because they are super warmed up without yet being fatigued, but the third period can also be when players push themselves the hardest, for obvious reasons.” Cadyn scoffed. He sounded like he was reciting facts from an article, only psyching himself out more. Shane tilted his head, studying him.

“Sure,” Shane said, because that was indisputable, “but you need to block the shot, not the player. Not the period. Not the mentality. The shot.”

He thought he saw a light of understanding turn on in Cadyn’s eyes, buried deep within his helmet. The rookie nodded once, mutely.

Shane nodded back. “You’ve got this,” he said, and returned to the bench. “Carmichael,” he said as they waited for LeClaire and Desjardins to decide who they were sending out for the four-on-four play, “play it close to Caddie. He’s nervous. Give him this period to center himself and I’ll think he’ll be in perfect form for the third. Johansson,” he said, turning his attention down the line, “that’s your fellow rookie out there. Don’t let him down.”

“Fuck yeah!” Johansson said, jumping to his feet in excitement.

Desjardins finally looked up. “Johansson and Carmichael,” he called, and their defensemen both hopped the boards, Cliff locked away in the penalty box with Comeau opposite him. “Don’t let them rush the kid,” he ordered, nodding at Cadyn. “Roz. Get out there.”

“Oh, fuck yes!” Ilya said, leaping over the boards with exuberance and immediately crashing into Shane. “I call center!”

Shane shoved him off, but couldn’t help laughing as Ilya fought to hold on. “No way in hell.”

“Hollzy, take the face-off,” LeClaire said, deciding for them, and Ilya groaned dramatically despite the immediate grin that sprang across his face. “We’ll start you two out, get a good, strong push, then cycle you out. Keep two defensemen on the ice for the rest of the period at least. Got it? Okay, then fucking go!”

Shane and Ilya skated out, joined by the opposing team’s four skaters. Ilya didn’t drop his hand off Shane’s shoulder until the last possible moment. “Score for me,” he murmured, and it was appalling how seductive Ilya could sound while speaking around a mouth guard.

Shane took a deep breath and bent into the face-off.

He and Ilya were on the ice together.

The puck dropped.

+++

The puck dropped.

The brevity of a forty-second shift was hard to comprehend for fans of other sports. It was, in Shane’s opinion, one of the most distinctive facets of hockey when compared to all other major sports. The idea that players were almost never on the ice for longer than a minute, and that even the biggest, brightest stars of a team would never get near to playing even half of the game, was perhaps hard to envision.

Shane didn’t really know how to explain what forty seconds felt like when they were actually on the ice, though.

Forty seconds.

Shane and Abbot’s sticks collided.

Shane sent the puck straight to Ilya, and Ilya sent it right back. Equal exchange. Perfect compatibility. Fucking fun.

The puck flew with his stick like it was glued to it, a lesson in physics, in friction and momentum, toward open empty ice, and Shane was already turning with it, a stride and a step (“Hollander spin-o-rama!” faintly ringing in his ears from the stadium announcer) that put Abbot completely behind him.

It was an almost perfect recreation of the breakaway that had won him the Cup two years ago. The crowd roared as if they knew it too, and the puck sailed over Miitka’s pads and hit the netting with an almost gentle flutter.

Ilya collided with him before the goal horn even sounded.

Just like that, the Bears were up by one.

Over the next thirty minutes, Cadyn made fifteen saves, half of them while Cliff, their premier defenseman, was serving a five-minute penalty. Cadyn recorded his second shutout on NHL ice.

Benji never returned to the bench during the game, and shortly after, they were informed that he would be on injury reserve for at least a month for a strain in his shoulder.

In a week, they would leave Boston on a road trip to the West Coast. It would likely last for Benji’s entire recovery, which meant Cadyn was going to go from playing once every three or four games to being in the net every night.

+++

[Video Description: A musically timed montage of Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov across several years, featuring clips from their official social media accounts, candids, advertisements, games, interviews, etc. edited to imply a romantic and/or sexual relationship between the two professional athletes]

HD_M_Hollanov

okay so this is only like my third edit ever but my instagram and twitter are consumed by hollanov and im still trying to bring that energy to tiktok! be the change you want to see in the world! imagine the hockey boys kissing! (but pls don’t tag the actual ppl in the comments, thank u!) #hollanov #shanehollander #ilyarozanov #edit

Search: shane hollander ilya rozanov kissing?

102 comments ⎯

Alejandro

wowowoOWWOWOWOWOW

5h Reply

mickeysofine

on god, you should actually be a professional editor omg i can’t believe this is your third edit its amazing!!!! Your transitions are so fire girl!! I hope a team in the NHL hires you or something 

5h Reply

Brad

Men literally can't be friends anymore. It's your fault. Can't believe this. So disrespectful, especially to Rozanov.

5h Reply

—— View 31 replies

KP GMO

i mean, we already knew you sucked, but i'm glad you decided to confirm it lmao "especially rozanov" 😭🤣 hey brad shut the fuck up! thanks!

4h Reply

adie ✨

awwwwwe you should complain to your friends about this... i mean... you have friends right?

3h Reply

tahbah 📖📚

hehehehehe hi brad just so you know, i sent an email to the employer listed in your bio! i went through a lot of your comments before i did it too (don't worry, i took screenshots ☺️) and i found so much interesting stuff 🤭 anyway, i hope everyone has a lovely christmas and a happy holidays, ESPECIALLY brad 🤗🤗🤗

3h Reply

[This account has been deleted.]

puckbunny(in a gay way)

helmet kisses helmet kisses helmet kisses helmet kisses HELMETT KISS

5h Reply

becca.g.t

i am all for more hollanov content on tiktok thank you for feeding us!!

4h Reply

LaAmeliaaaaaa

Omgggggg that cut between them lifting the cup alone in 2014/2015/2016 and then being on the ice together - GOD TIER, you can just SEE how they fell in love when they started playing together 🥲

4h Reply

—— View 3 replies

becca.g.t

@jeweltonsi girl get over here I need some 2014 truthers to back me up

4h Reply

jewel

YES, 2014 TRUTHHHHER NHL AWARDS WAS CAPITAL T THEEEEE NIGHT

4h Reply

LaAmeliaaaaaa

@jeweltonsi @beccagatineu Ugh 🙄

3h Reply

Emme ⛸️🏒

LOL love that you included the clip of ilya straight up stumbling when the bears walk past shane’s calvin klein ad in the airport, that shit always gets me rolling

3h Reply

sr

screaming crying throwing up because how are they two of the hottest people in the world and also so fucking sweet to each other at the same time???

3h Reply

cammie 🙃

whoa whoa wait wait wait brain blast that third clip - 2017, when rose came to the montreal game in shane’s jersey, miles was with her!!! was shane actually in a relationship with miles and rose was just their beard???

3h Reply

—— View 4 replies

💜 Savannah 💜

Omg???

2h Reply

sienna (rozanov’s version)

well definitely not quite if you’ve seen the leaked video because rose definitely didnt know for sure that shane was gay before that convo happened, so … maybe he could have been cheating on her with miles but the ‘beard’ rumors defiantly aren’t true

2h Reply

cammie 🙃

oh okay i actually have never seen the video. i dont want to watch that at all and i never will. fucked up that its still floating around honestly (no hate to you! just explaining why i was wrong!)

37m Reply

sienna (rozanov’s version)

no worries! thats probably a good thing and i totally agree with you

29m Reply

brycebarns

i think the whole rose video is fake tbh, it's too convenient - he wanted to come out but needed an excuse because the league wouldn’t let him so he leaked it

20m Reply

        —— View 3 replies

sienna (rozanov’s version)

@brycebarns Im all for slander against the nhl but this is just categorically not true and not a good rumor to be spreading at all given how fucking terrible it was for shane :/

14m Reply

cammie 🙃

@brycebarns person with wrong, terrible, stupid opinions btw

10m Reply

HD_M_Hollanov ∙ Creator 

@brycebarns person who is about to get blocked btw byeeeeeeeee

Just now Reply

Chapter End Notes

Took some inspiration from Games 2 and 3 of the Pens v Flyers (I can already hear everybody booing in the comments). I’m still so very, very deep in my Heated Rivalry brainrot that I read an article from the Athletic to write this smh. “The game within a game: How Stars players approach each of the three periods of a game” by Saad Yousuf if you want to fact check me (this article is seven years old by the way)

Also, I have a fic rec update—"dancing through the lightning strikes" by kimberegg is an incredibly well-written 5+1 about the voyaguers being assholes, and one of the scenarios deals explicitly with how shane feels about the voyageurs outing him across the league (and specifically to Dallas Kent), since ppl asked me to let you know if I ever found the fic I was looking for!!

Chapter 9

Chapter Notes

They were three days into their West Coast road trip when Ilya woke Shane up in the middle of the night.

“Come on,” Ilya said, jostling his shoulder. “Come on, come on.”

“Ilya,” Shane grumbled, trying to turn his face into the pillow as Ilya stripped the sheets off his body. “The fuck are you doing? It’s midnight.”

“Later than midnight,” Ilya whispered. “Everyone is loser asleep like you—come on, Hollander.”

“Ugh,” Shane groaned, but Ilya started kissing Shane’s shoulder, then down a line beneath his armpit, his chest, to his stomach, and yes, that was actually a very good way to wake him up, even if Ilya pulled back as soon as Shane started getting into it to give him a shit-eating grin.

“Get up, Hollander,” Ilya ordered, and suddenly there were a pair of gym shorts and a soft shirt over Shane’s face where Ilya had chucked them. “Get dressed. We are going out!”

“It’s the middle of the fucking night, Rozanov,” Shane said again, but it was an insufficient argument when he was already sliding the shorts on over his boxers.

They were in Los Angeles, California, and they had arrived at the hotel after an afternoon game against the Anaheim Mice. They had two full days until they were playing the LA Aces, meaning they were stuck in the city with nothing to do.

These days used to be Shane’s least favorite part of the season, when shitty scheduling meant they were dropped off somewhere random with no plans and no obligations. It had always felt like a complete disruption to Shane’s routine and a total waste of everyone’s time.

But that was before he played on a team with Ilya, who treated every day off on the road like a mini-vacation.

“Honeymoon,” he always corrected Shane, no matter his objections about the meaning of the word. (Honestly, Shane wasn’t arguing that hard.)

Days off before had meant extra meditation to calm his nerves and careful inspection of hotel gym equipment to make sure it was properly cleaned, and trying to take shallower breaths as his teammates’ gear grew steadily smellier with every passing week as they all complained about not packing enough socks for the millionth time, because they never learned.

Last year, days off with Ilya meant sneaking away from the team hotel to try root beer floats in backroom bars in Nashville, and ditching nutritionist-approved dinners for Svetlana’s restaurant recommendations in Seattle. They visited Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia to listen to local musicians play on each corner of the park, anything from a single acoustic guitar to impromptu electro-classical mashups. In Seattle, Ilya dragged Shane to the original Starbucks at Pike Place after ditching a bar crawl with their teammates post-victory, and they wandered through the crowded halls of the food markets, picking up specialty jams and candies for Yuna and David’s Christmas stockings before finding an authentic Japanese restaurant tucked into a tiny room behind an alley covered in gum. They took touristy pictures in front of Cloud Gate and beneath the Gateway Arch and, once, Ilya actually got permission from management to bring the entire team to Disney World the day between games in Miami and Tampa Bay. In the dark, on a slow-moving two-seater roller coaster, Ilya cupped the back of Shane’s neck and kissed him, and he tasted like cotton candy, and his lips and tongue were stained blue.

In Los Angeles, in the middle of the night, Ilya dragged him down to the beach.

“It’s winter! We can’t go in the water!" Shane objected in a stage whisper because it was still LA, so even at 2:00 a.m., the beach was not empty. But it was dark, and there weren’t many people, and it was California. Ilya was holding Shane’s hand, pulling him toward the tide, and Shane wasn’t pulling away.

“Bah, December in California is not real winter,” Ilya said immediately, and he yanked on Shane’s wrist hard enough that they both nearly slipped and toppled over in the sand, stifling their giggles as though they were afraid of being overheard. “Even weak Canadians should know this.”

Shane couldn’t object to that. In the dead of night, with the Pacific wind blowing in, the air was warmer than downtown Boston in the afternoon. “There are sharks!” he objected instead. “And jellyfish! And needles, probably.”

“And we are wearing shoes.”

“Another good reason not to go in the water,” Shane harrumphed. But he wasn’t really complaining.

“We missed the sunset,” Ilya whispered against Shane’s ear. The Pacific waves were crashing loudly, larger and more violent than the Atlantic, and Shane shivered as a sharp, chilly gust cut toward them.

Shane murmured, “Maybe we should come back tomorrow.”

Ilya kissed his cheek. “Maybe we should stay until sunrise.”

“Maybe….”

“You’d look pretty. With the sun just coming up, all golden...."

Shane preened. They swayed together, enjoying the soft sounds of the ocean and the faraway rush of the city.

Then, Ilya slapped a hand down hard on Shane’s stomach and captured his mouth in a kiss, swallowing the yelp Shane let out. “Come on,” he insisted. “Take your shoes off. Five minutes. Five minutes only, I promise! Shane, Shane, come on! Please, please, please-”

Shane toed his sneakers off, grumbling the whole time, and watched Ilya’s shadowed silhouette throw a fist into the air in victory.

+++

The next day, Shane slept in late. That was very unusual for him, but so were midnight swims in the freezing water of the Pacific Ocean. Of course, Shane made them both shower off when they got back to the hotel, but when he woke up, Ilya's curls still smelled like salt.

Despite the late start, by noon, Shane was up and dressed and arrived early to a reservation in a private backroom of an extremely fancy restaurant. Ten minutes later, at their agreed-upon meeting time, Rose Landry sat down across from him.

“Hi, handsome,” she said, and Shane smiled.

He and Rose didn’t get much opportunity to hang out anymore, though they still had long phone calls at least a few times a month, and they made an effort to find the miraculous spots in their schedules when they were both free. Many American production companies filmed in Canada to save on budget costs and taxes, but there wasn’t as much of a scene in Boston and it was harder to find opportunities to meet. For the past six months, Rose had been filming in Europe, so they hadn't seen each other at all.

It was always nice to reunite.

They talked about Rose’s recent (failed) dating attempts, and her time in Europe, its terrible hotels, general lack of air conditioning, and dehydrated populace. Shane told her about the summer, Ilya’s newest tattoo, and the rookies, and Rose cooed over the pictures of them that Shane showed her, as if they weren’t three twenty-year-old men. Rose was thinking about getting a cat, but was worried she wouldn’t be able to take care of it, and Shane complained about the fierce debate that had resurfaced about the efficacy of Fenwick versus Corsi for analyzing player strength. He talked about Ilya, Boston, and hockey. Rose talked about her newest assistant, LA, and filming. The rhythm of their conversation was unrestrained but eager after months spent apart.

It was nice to catch up, even when the conversation turned in a more serious direction when Rose calmly interjected an observation about the recent online buzz about Shane and Ilya’s relationship.

“I think rumors about you two were always inevitable,” she said, faux-casually. “It’s sort of like you and me, actually. When people thought you were straight, we didn’t even need to say anything for everyone to assume we were in a relationship, because some people can’t imagine that a woman and a man can be friends. We never had to make a statement until we broke up. Now that you’re gay, people can’t understand how you and Ilya could be ‘just friends.’” She snorted ungraciously and took a sip of her drink.

Shane twisted his fingers into the pristine, silk-smooth napkin draped over his lap. “You think it was inevitable?”

She hummed and smiled. “With the way you two act around each other? Yes. It’s movie-level love, Shane. You can’t take your eyes off each other.”

Shane let the napkin go, smoothing out the wrinkles. “I guess you’re right.” When Ilya walked into a room—any room—Shane’s eyes automatically snapped to him.

Inevitable.

“Are you okay?” Rose asked, reaching across the table to press her fingers briefly to the back of his hand before withdrawing.

Shane swallowed. “I’ve been kind of stressed about all these—rumors,” he admitted candidly. “Really stressed, actually. Things with Ilya are great, they’re wonderful, I’m so fucking in love with him, and I think that’s what makes it so frustrating that I’m so annoyed about all this… talk. Around us, about us, speculating about what we’re doing all the time. I know that our plan was to act normally around each other, even in public, but I guess I didn’t realize that just acting normally would draw this much attention. I feel like the entire league must have heard about us at this point. Every single member of the press definitely has.” He ran a haggard hand down his face.

Rose hummed. She tapped her finger against the side of her glass, then leaned forward in her seat, arms folding across her stomach as her face became more serious. Shane tensed. “It sounds,” she murmured, “like you’re ready to have this all over with.”

“What?” Shane responded immediately, alarmed. “No, absolutely not! The opposite! Why would you think that? I would never break things off with Ilya, I would never-”

She laughed. “No, silly,” she said, swatting his hand. “I mean this in-between thing you’ve been doing! This half-out, half-not! Honestly, when you first told me this was your plan, I was pretty surprised. I didn’t say anything last year because it seemed like it was working for you then, but obviously,” she gestured at him, “things have changed.” Her expression softened. “Plans are allowed to change, Shane. You don’t have to keep doing the same thing forever.”

Shane blinked. “I don’t mind it all the time,” he said after a moment. “The internet stuff bothers me less. I’m used to it, I guess, since it’s been going on for years—more than a decade at this point. But… I guess I’m just sick of all the speculation, maybe. I wish there were fewer eyes on us.”

“Hate to break it to you, Shane, but you’re famous,” Rose said. “Very few hockey players have ever been half as famous as you. Yuna should have put you on fewer billboards if you wanted to get away with this incognito stuff.” Shane winced, knowing she was right. A lot of athletes, even if they were excellent players with multimillion-dollar contracts, could live fairly normal lives outside of the spotlight, but that had never been an option for him. It was better in Boston than in Montreal, but that didn’t change how much attention he got online or his infamy across the league. “Maybe,” Rose said slowly, “you’d feel better if you actually gave them an answer, you know? If you guys confirm, once and for all. At least then it would be under your control.”

“But the attention wouldn’t change if we formally came out, though,” Shane insisted, catastrophizing because, of course, this had occurred to him many times. “It would be an even bigger story. Every interview, every panel, we would be asked about it. Our entire careers would become a footnote beneath some headline talking about us being together.”

Rose hummed. She propped her chin on her fist, giving Shane a sympathetic look. “You’ve already spent your entire career entwined with Ilya. Right? Since day one. No one has ever mentioned one of you without bringing up the other. Would this really be that different?”

Shane sat back in his chair, stunned by the accuracy of that statement.

“No,” he finally said. “No, I guess not.”

+++

“Come get boba with me and the rookies,” Ilya requested the second Shane stepped back into their hotel room.

“Ilya, I just had lunch-”

“But you did not have dessert,” Ilya asserted correctly. “Here.” He shoved his phone into Shane’s hand. It was open to a menu. “You can make your drink whatever you want—just get tea, if that is all, and then you can brag about how hydrated you are. Or you can get tapioca if you want to have fun for once. The website has the nutrition, too, you can look. They sell drinks with beans in them! Protein, yes? You can decide what you want before we get there, okay?”

Shane chewed on his lip, studying the menu. He suspected that the tea at a national chain shop might not be the same quality as what he brewed at home.

“You deserve something sweet,” Ilya said quietly, wrapping his arms around Shane’s waist.

“I have something sweet right here,” Shane said, kissing him chastely before looking at the screen again. “I haven’t ever tried tapioca pearls.”

Ilya’s face lit up. “Please, please, please, Shane, please! Please! Let me film you, please, you will love!”

Shane laughed, finally handing him his phone back. Ilya used the opportunity to tangle their fingers together and nearly dropped it in the process. “Fine,” he said, “I’ll try it.” Their game wasn’t for another day, and though Shane avoided dairy and caffeine, a small drink wouldn’t be hard to fit into his macros for the day.

And Ilya was right. It had been a long time since Shane had something sweet.

+++

Thirty minutes later, after Shane finished choking on the unexpected tapioca bullet that had raced up his straw and nearly asphyxiated him, Ilya and the rookies had finally stopped laughing. They were sitting outside, crammed around a small metal table. Ilya, for some reason, had lost his shirt.

“It is seventy degrees in December! If you think I am not going to enjoy this, you don’t know me as well as you think.”

“I’m literally your husband,” Shane said drolly.

The rookies were slurping their drinks, watching the banter like a tennis match.

“Ah, well,” Ilya said, rolling his shoulders. “In the famous words of Lars Johansson—love is love! I cannot control my heart.”

“You’re going to get sunburned," Shane said, "and then get cancer and die.”

Cadyn was drinking what looked like a cross between a fruit smoothie and a milkshake, but he looked overheated. “It’s too hot,” he said. “That was my favorite thing about getting drafted to Boston. I was worried about ending up in Carolina or fucking Texas. I would’ve died.”

“I like Boston," Luca said happily. “There are lots of museums!”

Ilya snorted. “Should have gone to Ottawa,” he smirked. “Is the land of museums.

“I wanted to get drafted in America!” Johansson declared. “Just happy to be here, patriots!”

“Literally none of us are American,” Shane reminded him.

“And today, us Europeans are outnumbering the North Americans three to two,” Ilya said, holding out his hands to Johansson and Luca for high-fives, which they both obligingly gave.

Shane glanced at Cadyn and rolled his eyes. Cadyn hid a grin.

There had only been one or two rookies in Shane’s previous seasons with the Bears, and none of them had become permanent fixtures on the roster, so he hadn’t actually had much of an opportunity to bond with any rookies since his captaincy in Montreal.

Among the Voyageurs, it had always felt like the stakes were higher. That institution, though it flaunted the values of brotherhood, maintained long-standing hazing traditions. The team and franchise were hard on rookies. When he was captain, Shane had felt like it took constant exertion on his part to keep anyone from going too far.

There were more pranks and practical jokes in Boston than in Montreal, but Shane didn’t feel like he needed to be a shield. Instead, he and Ilya, and many other veterans on the team, acted more like older siblings—willing to joke and jostle, but always looking out. Instead of being the last bulwark, Shane felt like a mentor.

Shane's phone was on silent, but on the table between them, Ilya's phone buzzed. All day, the group chat had been flooded with messages from Connors and Carmichael planning a team excursion to a local popular nightclub that had a reputation for catering to the pseudo-celebrities common in LA, and the rookies were bemoaning their respective ages.

“I cannot go,” Luca said, scrolling through the messages. “Neither can Johansson—but he is more upset than I am.”

“Yes, because American drinking age is stupid!” Johansson fumed, apparently forgetting his earlier display of patriotism. “I could elect the president, but I can’t even go into a building that serves alcohol? Fan också!”

“Are you going?” Ilya asked Cadyn, who was two years older than Luca and Johansson. “We are staying in tonight, I think,” he said, shooting Shane a smile. “Someone else will need to watch you to make sure you get to the arena in one piece.”

Cadyn was still slowly sipping his drink. “Yeah, I guess,” he said. “I looked up the club. It seems chill. Might get a beer or two.”

“Drink responsibly,” Ilya said seriously, “and then buy your fellow rookies a six-pack on your way back to the hotel. As captain, it would be irresponsible for me to do, so I order you in my stead.”

“Ilya,” Shane snapped as Johansson whooped and Luca hid a fit of giggles behind his hand.

“I could do that, no prob, but do I actually have to?” Cadyn asked. “Isn’t that illegal or something?”

“Yes, it is, and no, you don’t,” Shane said as Ilya proclaimed, gesturing with his drink like a king with a scepter, “Of course! I am the captain! My word is law!”

Cadyn narrowed his eyes. It was an expression Shane recognized from the ice, the look Cadyn got whenever he lost sight of the puck in the middle of a play.

Shane sighed. “Do whatever you feel comfortable with,” he said. “Ilya is joking.”

“Oh,” Cadyn said, “right.”

“When I turned twenty-one,” Johansson said, “it is over for all you old ass bitches, that’s all I’m saying! Fuck, there are even strip clubs in this country I would be let into!”

They eventually left the rookies, Shane departing with one last reminder to drink responsibly. Once they were back at the hotel, Shane sent a text to Cliff and Vicky asking them to watch out for Cadyn.

Were not going, Cliff sent back. Got ticks to a basketball game. Carmy and connors will be there, though, ill pass along the message holz!

“They are adults,” Ilya reminded Shane. “Cadyn especially. We don't have a game tomorrow, and they will not be stupid.”

“I know.” Shane sighed.

Ilya gave him a slow once-over. “We are adults too, you know,” he purred, pushing Shane up against the wall, and Shane felt the tension flee his body like it only ever did when he had Ilya pressed against him, holding him down. “Very adult. Maybe I could distract you?”

Later, much later (perhaps too much later, given that excessive cardio between game days was not always advised), the sun had set. They had eaten and showered and were back in a bed with new sheets. Shane was tired. Ilya, despite Shane’s best efforts, looked a little sunburned. It made his skin warmer than ever, and Shane guiltily enjoyed pressing his cheek to the pinkish skin of his stomach.

Ilya ran his fingers through the strands on the back of Shane’s head, phone propped on his chest as Shane’s face was nestled into his stomach, turned away from Ilya’s full-brightness screen. He would fall asleep, and Ilya would keep scrolling for another few hours, but they would wake up together. They would play hockey together, then go home. Soon, it would be Christmas.

It was a perfect honeymoon.

Shane didn’t stir until Ilya's phone started buzzing. Shane glanced up, watching him swipe over to his messages and snort. “Marly says that the Aces showed up at the club the team are at,” Ilya explained to Shane. "Apparently, the guys need permission from the captains to beat up the Aces. They texted Vicky first, but he is deferring.” His phone buzzed again. “Now Carmichael is demanding that you ‘release me from your chains so he will come help.'” Ilya suddenly sprawled backward over the mattress, dislodging Shane's resting place and startling a laugh from him. “Release me?” Ilya objected. “How dare he say that! I am exactly where I want to be.”

They stayed in the next day. They had more hotel sex, and Ilya spent all of thirty seconds pretending to roleplay that they were twenty again, sneaking around and hooking up in secret, before he burst into giggles and nearly ruined the mood entirely.

They ate the prepped meals dropped off by the team caterers, worked out in the hotel gym, and then fucked in front of a large set of windows after Ilya thoroughly interrupted his yoga routine. That night, they settled into bed early—"We are so boring and old, someone is going to mistake us for Scott Hunter"—and watched the end of an LA Aces game. While the Bears had two nights off in LA, the home team would be playing back-to-back games. Ilya and Shane argued about the benefits of rest versus rust as the Aces beat St. Louis and celebrated their victory at center ice.

After the game, Ilya changed the channel to a procedural hospital show in its seventeenth season. Ilya loudly complained about the cheesy dialogue, and Shane ignored the background noise with a grace born of familiarity, reading his new book, a series of nonfiction essays on the benefits and correlations between meditation and gardening. Ilya had segued right back to declaring that Shane was the most impossibly boring person in the world.

Shane smiled. They were all perfect.

+++

“Listen up! Listen the fuck up, fuckers!”

Ilya had such a way with words. That was why Shane was learning Russian, so that he could listen to his husband wax poetic in two languages instead of one.

“These fuckers out there, they are not our friends! They are fucking dirt, and we are going to put the dirt where it belongs—in the fucking ground, yes?”

Shane had bought Cadyn a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. It was kind of nice to sit in a corner with him, Ilya’s muffled shouting just barely audible. Shane had always felt awkward putting on the headphones by himself in the Bears locker room—they had regularly featured in his routine with the Voyageurs, but the Bears were different. Their locker room was louder, yes, but it was also more jovial, friendlier. Some of that was optics and branding; the Voyageurs had always promoted a brand of brotherhood, of clean, respectable hockey. But families weren’t always accepting. The Bears, in contrast, were known for being rough, for being rowdy and loud, for taking and provoking penalties in equal measure while defending each other fiercely. They were real friends. Shane had never wanted to feel separated from that culture.

But they were still so fucking loud sometimes.

So, it was nice to wear his headphones again, and not be alone.

“I want a fucking win tonight! I want a win every night, but tonight, I don’t know, I think something is in the air that makes me want it more!”

Ilya didn’t give big dramatic speeches before every game, though they were always a sight to behold. For some games, it was a simple “Roll out!” or a few cutting insults against their opponents. Once, he had called the entire locker room to attention only to yawn. “This will be boring, I think,” Ilya had said, scratching at his ear like a dog. “I will maybe sleep through the first period. Don’t think you will need me. Okay, I guess let’s go.” They had still won.

In the present, Ilya pointed dramatically toward Shane and Cadyn’s corner. “And I want to win tonight because tonight we will be playing with future fucking superstar, Jeep-Prius Cadillac!” he yelled, stomping his feet on the hollow bench he was standing on. Benji, who was suiting up for the game although he wasn’t starting, hollered even louder, cheering for their young goaltender. Cadyn looked up, wide-eyed, and blinked hard. He was rubbing at a spot on the top of his thighs, back and forth, a rhythmic gesture that Shane had seen him do many times. “This kid is on a three-game win streak, huh? How about that? Let’s fucking hear it!”

They burst into cheers, sticks rattling against cubbies, hands drumming, feet stomping. No one jostled Cadyn, though. Despite the praise, however, Cadyn wasn't smiling, his expression game-day focused and his ears covered by the headphones.

They exited the locker room. Shane felt the beating pulse of a game about to begin as they gained speed down the tunnel before emerging onto the ice to the roar of thousands of fans, the stadium announcers introducing them one-by-one.

+++

"Welcome back to Man in the Crease: Live Coverage. Thanks to everyone tuning in for our pre-game show. I think it's shaping up to be an exciting one!"

“Oh, absolutely. The Boston Bears have been on fire this season—and last—but some people are beginning to wonder when that flame is gonna start flickering. Could it be tonight, as they face down the reigning Western Conference champions, the Los Angeles Aces?”

“I wouldn't bet against it. These have been two powerhouse teams in recent years, of course. The Aces have had a good season so far, but not a great one. But the same thing was true last year in December, when they abruptly kicked off after a slow start and a bunch of losses. Tonight could be the night where they turn it all around.”

“That’s true! Tonight is also notable because, for the first time on NHL ice, we’ve got a top-three draft pick face-off. I know you guys are always making fun of us for our love of random statistics, but this one really is a doozy!”

“Yes, let’s get into it! Tonight, Boston's Rozanov and Hollander, number one and number two overall from the 2009 draft, will face LA Aces Captain Ethan Korogyi, who spent most of last season on long-term injury reserve for a broken jaw. Ouch. He missed both of LA’s games against the Bears.”

“And Korogyi, of course, went third in the 2009 draft. Think it’s gonna be a reunion for these boys?”

“I sure think it’ll be something.”

+++

The thing Shane missed the most about moving to the second shift was definitely that he didn’t start as many games now. There was something about the first puck drop, like a clean slate: none of them really knew where the night would go from there.

Ilya skated out first, blowing kisses to the booing LA fans before he swung into the circle, joined by Ethan Korogyi, who held his stick in both hands in front of him, his characteristic smug smile affixed to his face. Shane didn’t know Korogyi at all. They hadn’t spoken during draft day and had moved on to play on opposite sides of the continent, only meeting once or twice each season. He had a reputation as a pest and a chirper, but off the ice, he kept his nose clean. He was a good player on a strong team; the Aces were the recent winners of the Western Conference, and they would be looking to make another Cup run that year.

But Shane knew that if Ilya hadn’t been injured, or if things had gone just slightly more in their favor during Game Seven, they would have beaten the Flappers. And if they had beaten the Flappers, they would have destroyed the Aces.

Shane smiled as the puck dropped.

+++

“Slow start to the game despite the hustle from both teams.”

“I don’t know if I’d say slow. Thirteen minutes in, five shots on goal from both teams?”

“For the Bears, that’s slow.”

“Well, maybe here’s their chance! Pummel comes away with the puck from the scrum and makes it out of their defensive zone, Aces in pursuit.”

“Sends to Johansson, and that’s a great catch from the rookie. Clean entry.”

“Gives it away to Hollander and the Bears move it back down-”

“Shot—and blocked! Nice recovery from Bevelson, taking it back across the ice. Both teams call for a line change, fresh bodies on the ice.”

“Back in the Bears' defensive zone. Is it just me, or am I seeing some attempts from the Aces to intimidate Cadyn? Lotta screening going on down there, and I'm seeing some guys get close to that crease.” 

“Not just you. Cadyn is young for a goaltender, but he’s done well so far this season, and last year, when he played a handful of games in December. He's been very good so far, and he’s got two WJC medals and an appearance in the Frozen Four to back him up, but we’ve seen good goalies fumble early in their NHL careers before.”

“We’ve seen it with the Bears, even. Davies, last season, only two years older than Cadyn. But so far with Oregan on IR, he’s been able to hold his own this year—oh, Aces’ Poirot shoots! Looked like he was trying to get a pass off the rebound off the pads, but Cadyn covers. Play frozen.”

+++

The game dragged on.

Halfway through the second period, Shane nearly had a breakaway before one of the Aces’ defensemen caught up to him like a bullet, visible in Shane’s periphery.

Shane managed to pass the puck fast, barely sending it behind himself toward the last place he’d seen Sidney, before he was slammed into the wall, stumbling to one knee as he spun to track the action.

They had lost the puck.

Shane picked himself up and skated to the bench.

+++

“Long pass from Carmichael, just outside his box, clear across the ice, but ah, looks like Johansson couldn’t handle it. Picked off by Richardson, who rockets back into the Bears’ zone, nice clean entry, and he’s going to the net.”

“Seen a lot of long passes and quick skating today-”

“That’s Bears hockey for you!”

“Richardson passes to Parker, who gets it behind the net, Cadyn is squaring up—Parker passes to Richardson—Richardson tries to jab it in, but it’s blocked! What a stretch with that left pad! Cadyn is just able to hook his foot around it—the puck goes flying out of the net.”

“Aces still in control, though. Jeters comes back in, shoots, and—Cadyn gets a piece of it with his blocker! Puck goes flying again. Bears in possession along the boards now.”

“That’s two incredible saves from young goalie, JP Cadyn. Looks like the Bears have officially found a backup who can keep up with this level of play.”

“Carmichael holds the puck for a shift change, both teams putting out some fresh players. Carmichael shoots to Rozanov. Rozanov is holding it at the line, but the Aces are in pursuit. Folks, we are ten minutes into the second period and still scoreless!”

+++

Then they were in the third period, and nothing had changed. In the locker room, during intermission, Ilya growled, “If this goes to a fucking shootout, I am suing all of you.”

Everyone was tired and frustrated. In a scoreless or tied game, the stakes got higher the longer the clock ticked on. Moving into overtime meant both teams got points toward their season standings, and it meant more strain on their bodies, which no one needed in the middle of the season. Shane was also worried about sending Cadyn into overtime, given that he was already playing more games than he was used to and wouldn’t benefit from the extra pressure.

All he could do was skate hard, think quickly, and try to score.

The television break was called and all the players on the ice changed shifts. Ilya was still on the bench when Shane turned to skate toward him, but Korogyi, the center on their first line, was already skating out, heading for Shane.

“Hey, Hollzy,” Korogyi said with a nod.

Shane had been running in adjacent circles with Ethan Korogyi since the WJC, when he had competed the first year Shane and Ilya had, representing Team America. But he had not gone to the Olympics or attended many All-Star games, and playing in different conferences, Shane had rarely seen him. Dark-haired and dark-eyed but with very pale skin and a perpetual bowl cut, almost always miraculously unaffected by helmet hair, Korogyi was known for his placid smile and instigating chirps on the ice. For a captain, he got into a lot of fights, but Shane had never been on the sharp end of his infamously cutting wit.

Still, he was wary.

“Yogi,” Shane said, nodding back. They passed each other on the ice, but Korogyi stopped and turned, eyes following Shane back toward the bench.

 “Tell Rozanov I said ‘hi,’” he called.

Shane almost tripped. He had to fight very hard not to whip around and stare.

“What?” Ilya asked as he hopped the boards. “He say something to you?” Ilya was just as aware of Korogyi’s reputation as Shane, evidently.

“No,” Shane said, shaking his head slowly. “At least, I don’t think so.”

+++

“It feels like we’re in overtime, doesn’t it? Cadyn and Petrason have been perfect, stopped twenty-three and twenty-seven apiece six minutes into the third period. Really startling to feel like the next mistake is going to be the game maker."

“Not quite sudden death yet, of course, but in a game like this? I know what you mean. We’ve barely played the neutral zone at all, it’s been an offense/defense game—but that’s just how the Bears play.”

“Ooh! Steal by Rozanov, into the corner with St. Simone, Simone shoots wide and—that’s an icing call against the Bears. Still scoreless.”

“Aces switch lines, Bears have to stay on the ice. Rozanov’s about to hit one minute twenty seconds on this shift.”

“Korogyi takes the ice. We haven’t seen much of the Aces captain in this game, don’t you think?”

“Not as much as I’m sure head coach Burton would like. Rozanov’s racked up eight shots on goal, Hollander six, and Korogyi trails with three.”

“Lining up for the face-off, they both bend down. Of course, in any scoreless game, you’re likely to see a lot more intensity during the—Oh!”

“Damn!”

"Woof, what a hit!"

“Rozanov just cross-checked Korogyi hard across the chest right as the puck dropped, Korogyi goes down! Korogyi’s linemate Jake Reese lunges for Rozanov! We’ve got a fight on our hands, folks! Reese and Rozanov!”

“What the hell happened?”

“Chirp gone wrong? We’ve seen Rozanov snap in the face-off before.”

“From Korogyi? Rumor has it, he’s a likely candidate for a particularly cutting chirp.”

“I couldn’t tell you—and the fight’s already over anyway, looks like! Rozanov takes Reese to the ice and the refs are separating them now. I wonder how the refs are gonna call this one.”

+++

Shane was on his feet before Korogyi hit the ice, prone on his back a millisecond after the puck left the ref's hand. The whistle blew before he even went down, the second Ilya’s stick smacked hard across his upper chest like a solid beam of force pummeling straight through him. Korogyi looked winded, but he was already climbing back to his feet by the time Ilya and the opposing left winger fell to the ice in a grapple and the refs started wrestling them apart.

“What the hell happened?” Cliff demanded, leaning over the boards as if he could retroactively hear whatever had been said to make Ilya snap.

The fight had been little more than a tussle, helmets and gloves staying on, though in disarray. Nevertheless, both players were assigned two-minute penalties for roughing. Ilya received an extra two for the cross-checking in a face-off violation.

“Seriously, what the hell?” Pummel asked, jostling for space at Shane’s side as they watched the refs guide Ilya to the box. They would play four-on-four for two minutes, and then they’d be on the penalty kill. “Did he say something? What?”

From across the ice, Shane tried to catch Ilya’s eye, but he kept his head down, ruffling a hand through his sweaty curls. Vicky swerved to take the face-off as Korogyi reset.

“I don’t know,” Shane murmured, mostly to himself.

+++

“Well, that was exciting. St. Simone comes to take the face-off for the next two minutes of four-on-four.”

“Historically, Rozanov is definitely a player Coach LeClaire would want on the ice when they're a man down. Hollander might end up shouldering the burden, but I wouldn’t be surprised if LeClaire saves him for the penalty kill.”

“We’ll see. Puck drops and-”

“Korogyi wins the face-off, but they don’t make it out of the neutral zone before Haas snipes it. That’s one fast kid!”

“Seeing a lot of turnover here—that’ll change when Hollander takes the ice. Hollander is, of course, the penalty killer of the league—I think it was The Atlantic that dubbed him the ‘penalty serial killer.’ And Rozanov and Hollander have had the most efficient power play in the entire league for two seasons running, and they’re not slowing down. I mean, sheesh, you do not want to go against that duo.”

“And the Bears are known for drawing penalties as much as they are for causing them. Part of their identity as a team, I would say—they get under other players’ skin, and they’re willing to take the consequences of dealing some big hits.”

"But apparently, Korogyi's the one who got under Rozanov's skin tonight, huh?"

“In a big way. And that’s Reese out of the box. Aces now have a two-minute power play.”

“As expected, Hollander takes the ice—with Luca Haas, apparently.”

“Solid line, but we haven't seen them together on the penalty kill before. Let’s see how this goes.”

+++

“What happened?” Shane whispered as he and Luca skated toward the circle.

Luca gave him a frightened look. “I—um-”

“Luca,” Shane repeated urgently, “what did he say? Korogyi?”

Luca was shocked enough to answer. “He asked when your anniversary was,” he said, pale as the ice beneath their skates, “and why he wasn’t invited to the wedding.”

Shane stopped, stock-still. His eyes found Ilya’s, glowering in the penalty box.

“I don’t know how he knows,” Luca continued, distraught. “And I am sorry, I would have said—I should have-”

“Don’t worry about it, Luca,” Shane said quietly, turning away from Ilya and scanning the ice. Cadyn was shuffling in the net, peering at them through his cage, probably completely out of the loop for what had occurred at center ice. Shane gave him a nod, then glanced at the Aces’ bench. Korogyi was sitting amidst his teammates, looking smug as ever. He’d successfully drawn a penalty from one of Boston’s strongest players, after all. When Shane met his eyes, he gave him a jaunty little wave. Shane gritted his teeth. “It doesn’t matter. Luca." He turned to his rookie. "We’re winning this one.”

“Okay,” Luca said miserably.

Shane skated to the face-off, his attention narrowed, nerve endings alight. He focused, and he blinked, and he breathed.

Time slipped through his fingers.

When Shane blinked back into himself, he had been on the ice for more than two minutes. Ilya was stepping out of the penalty box, and Korogyi was back on the ice, no longer smiling his smug fucking smile.

The scoreboard read 1-0, with four minutes left in the final period. The Bears had finally pulled ahead.

Shane could remember scoring in flashing images. Ice. His stick. The goalie, the roar of the stadium, Cliff careening into him in celebration. He could remember it, but it didn’t feel as though it had happened to him.

Shane turned to the bench and hopped the boards, ignoring LeClaire’s sharp reprimand for ignoring his signal to change shifts and the half-hearted cheers of support from his teammates.

Shane turned back to Ilya and jutted his chin out. Ilya’s eyes narrowed. Shane’s grip tightened on his stick, hard enough that he imagined he could hear the fiberglass creak, and felt righteous anger light in his stomach.

They won the game.

+++

Bridgette @Bridgertonao3curse

I know we hate them irl but… would i get absolutely crucified if i started posting my ethan korogyi/victor lemaire fic lmao? I NEVER see these dudes in rpf or frankly in interviews at all so i have no fucking idea what their personalities are like, but tbh ive been mulling it ovr and i find them so compelling rip 😭😭😭

Bridgette @Bridgertonao3curse
Replying to @Bridgertonao3curse

→ Like imagine youre THIRD OVERALL IN THE DRAFT -- but youre behind ilya and shane. Or youre literally up for ROOKIE OF THE YEAR -- but evbody knows it would never be you so youre not even in the conversation. Ilya and Shane win four cups in less than a decade, and the two of you have zero. You both become captains, and rozy is still there beating the shit out of you on national television and youve never once outscored either of them. Any other year, you might have mattered, might have even been the best in a generation

Bridgette @Bridgertonao3curse
Replying to @Bridgertonao3curse

→→ Instead. Ilya and Shane are there. And so you’re nothing.

Korogyippy-Ki-Yay @korogyippykiyay 
Replying to @Bridgertonao3curse

→→→ ^^this is fucking brutal bro 😭😭😭

Hollanov’s third @wishfulthinkerer
Replying to @Bridgertonao3curse

→→→ i see the vision and i would like the ao3 link, give

VictoryVictoire @theexvoyageursfangirl
Replying to @Bridgertonao3curse

→→→ Yuh they will crucify you but you know what? They crucified jesus too

Spirk Mpreg 🫡 @battlestationspls
Replying to @Bridgertonao3curse

→→→ NEW RAREPAIR ALERT 🚨🚨 if anyone would like to write the #LemOgyi crackfic of my dreams, lmk, i would love to read it

peppa piglet @friendofdorothy
Replying to @Bridgertonao3curse

→→→ Whats enemies to lovers but youre both enemies and you stay enemies the whole time and youre not each others enemies but enemies to two other random guys?

smolander @shanehollanderdefensesquad
Replying to @Bridgertonao3curse

→→→ ew wtf??? nooooo absolutely not, this is so toxic and gross!!!

2481 sandwich @cameronw
Replying to @Bridgertonao3curse

→→→ This shit 🔥🔥🔥

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed
Replying to @Bridgertonao3curse

→→→ Write what you want! It’s fiction, and you won’t hurt anyone by sharing it! But to be clear, these two players (like many in the NHL and the institution itself) are not good people. Lemaire in particular, who has been fined multiple times for excessive violence and use of homophobic slurs. Also, two years ago he went through a messy divorce where his ex-wife aired out some pretty awful dirty laundry (you can read the repost of their interactions here, all Tweets have since been deleted.)

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed
Replying to @hollanovobsessed

→→→→ Lemaire also attended a fundraiser for Republican politicians in 2017 and has publicly spoken out against Pride Nights multiple times.

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed
Replying to @hollanovobsessed

→→→→→ Korogyi definitely has a cleaner record but it’s an open secret in the NHL that he is well-known for using extremely targeted and often offensive or just straight up mean chirps (just google “Korogyi chirps” you’ll find a million articles about it) but the Aces keep their players on social media lockdown, presumably because they cater to a slightly more urban/progressive fanbase. Some of this is hearsay, and I know I’m going to get hockey bros in my mentions whining about “it’s just a joke” but that’s his reputation and it’s not nice. But still, do what you want! There are ethical concerns across all men’s hockey RPF and everyone consuming it should be aware of that! Just thought I should weigh in on who these guys are as people outside of Ilya and Shane.

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed
Replying to @hollanovobsessed

→→→→→→ Also, his name is Vincent Lemaire, not Victor 👍

Bridgette @Bridgertonao3curse
Replying to @hollanovobsessed

→→→→→→→ OOP

Chapter End Notes

Edit: You can now read Tied for Third if you want to lmao

Chapter 10

Chapter Notes

I had so much ground to cover that I had to split another chapter up -__- the length of this fic is officially out of my control. I’ll try to get the next one up quickly since it’ll be short

“Are you okay?”

Shane was waiting for Ilya’s voice to pull him out of his brooding, but his husband wasn’t back from his post-game interviews yet.

Instead, JP Cadyn was standing over him in a corner of the Aces’ guest locker room, an awkwardly concerned expression written plainly across his face. He had stripped off his goalie pads but was still wearing Under Armour. He hadn’t showered yet.

Shane was still fully dressed, down to his skates, and he didn’t want to talk to the rookies.

“Jeez, Hollzy, you look fucking gassed,” Cliff said loudly, angling his back to Cadyn as he shoved between him and Shane so he could stand beside Shane’s thigh. His heavy hand landed on Shane’s shoulder, a familiar weight, and his bulky frame blocked most of the locker room from his view.

“Yeah,” Shane said, his voice monotone. “I’m… just tired.”

“You should drink something, mon ami,” Vicky said, appearing from the other side and effectively boxing Shane in. He pressed a water bottle into Shane’s hand. “Game over, another two points for us. No more worries now.”

“Is he okay?” Shane recognized Luca’s familiar and distinct accent even in a whisper, and discomfort crawled under his skin over the attention being aimed at him when all he wanted was a moment of silence. If Vicky and Cliff hadn’t been holding him up, Shane might have slid all the way to the ground and pressed his face to the rubber mats. He imagined the germs crawling across his skin, up his nostrils, and beneath his eyelids.

“He’s gassed from that fucking double shift,” Cliff repeated. “He’s fine. Probably not partying with us tonight though, right, Hoz?”

“Nope,” Shane said, a moment too late.

Cadyn spoke again, asking, “What’s wrong?”

“Leave it, kid,” Cliff said sharply.

Another day, Shane would have told him off for speaking so coarsely to the worried rookies. But Shane didn’t have the energy or the desire now.

He caught Vicky’s eye and jerked his head.

Vicky nodded.

“Go get changed,” the Bears’ third alternate ordered the rookies, authority in his tone. Leave it, was the unspoken message, and Shane breathed a little easier.

He would feel guilty for dismissing them later. Right now, he needed to stew in his quiet anger for a little longer, or he would risk snapping at the wrong person.

Cliff and Vicky knew him well enough after years of being teammates and friends that they didn’t push. They orbited him like two protective moons, talking between themselves to divert the attention of the crowded guest locker room away from Shane’s silent vigil. He sat between them, grateful for their interference, and waited for Ilya to appear.

Two minutes later, he did. As soon as Ilya stomped into the locker room, his eyes met Shane’s.

Shane stood up, finally beginning to strip his gear off. He didn’t want to shower here, not in the Aces’ arena, and not with his teammates. He would do it, because he had to do it, but Shane was going to wait until every other person was out of the showers before he stepped one foot inside.

+++

“You should call Mike.”

“What?”

The hotel door shut behind Shane with a smooth click, and he turned to face Ilya, so surprised by his declaration that the simmering, retributive anger beneath his skin abated for a moment.

“You need to call Mike,” Ilya repeated, pushing deeper into the room. Shane, helplessly, followed.

“No, I don’t. My next session isn’t until January. I’m not scheduling another one. I have a routine I need to follow, and we have more important things going on right now, Ilya-”

“Routine is already broken,” Ilya said, spinning around to look at Shane. Though they were married, the Bears still usually booked two separate rooms for Ilya and Shane as veteran players. Shane wasn’t sure if it was for optics, budget, or to limit the risk of hotel staff talking—Shane had never thought much about it, and whatever the situation was, he and Ilya always found a way to sleep together, even if it meant cramming themselves onto a smaller mattress. They were in Ilya’s hotel room today, and there were two full-sized beds on either side of a nightstand. Shane and Ilya each stood at the foot of different beds, the distance stretching between them.

Shane paused. “I didn’t dissociate.” Did he? “I don’t know,” he said, looking away. “Not for long. I just—I knew I could score, and so I did.”

“Oh, so you are just ignoring LeClaire on purpose, then?” Ilya asked tightly. “Do you think it is better to ignore your coaches? Exhaust yourself with a fucking nearly three-minute-long shift on purpose? You know better, Hollander! You risk getting injured doing that, but you are still telling me you meant to do it? Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“I scored,” Shane said.

“That is not the only thing that matters!” Ilya yelled, and Shane flinched. Ilya didn’t notice.

He looked between his feet. Early on, Mike had helped Shane to better understand his ingrained fear of contamination, and they had discussed why Shane selectively applied it to different areas of his life: he was an athlete, and he traveled for a living, and he could not have actually survived constantly applying the rules of his own home to every space he went to. So, shoes stayed on in hotel rooms.

It still felt wrong.

Ilya sighed gustily. “You need to call Mike, and I will find a time to call Galina also.” Ilya was clearly fighting to keep his voice level. “What just happened was not okay. Even if you say you did not dissociate, that fucking jackass Korogyi,” from the corner of his eye, Shane could see the way Ilya’s jaw worked around the name, as though physically restraining himself from spitting it out on the carpet, “just brought up our secrets on the ice, on television, in front of our teammates.” Shane wanted to gnash his teeth. Ilya was relentless. “I know how that makes you feel. You need to talk about it,” he insisted. “And you won’t talk to me, so-”

That brought Shane up short. “What?” he asked. “Yes, I do! I talk to you!”

Ilya threw his hands out, and Shane witnessed the breaking of a dam of pressure that he hadn’t noticed was growing for months. “You don’t! You won’t tell me when you are hurt, or what about! You won’t tell me why you don’t go to therapy, or why you suddenly fucking hate Mike, or when this-” he flapped his hand, gesturing to the world around them or between them “-is becoming too much. You aren’t letting me help you. You aren’t letting anyone help you.”

Shane wanted to deny that, and he wanted to cry. Did Ilya really think he wasn’t talking to him? Shane had been trying so fucking hard. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I—we can talk, we should talk, obviously, and yes, I’m fucking pissed about Korogyi, but—Ilya, I don’t need to talk to Mike about this.”

“Yes, you do,” Ilya said, and Shane felt the anger surge up again.

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes,” Ilya repeated, almost growling. “You do not need to have a session right now, but you need to schedule one. Soon. You are not waiting until fucking January to talk about this. You need to call.”

Shane’s stomach felt like it was moving beneath his skin. Wooziness was turning into true nausea. He could almost feel the twist and contraction of his intestines, like a squirming ball of worms, pressing and writhing up against his lungs. “No. I’m a fucking adult. You don’t get to make those decisions for me, Ilya.”

“You do it, or I do it for you,” Ilya said unforgivingly. Shane’s breath caught. “You think this is a joke? I am not joking, Hollander! You think I did not see? You go out of your mind on the ice, leave your body in the middle of a fucking game, and you think that is okay? You are fucking dissociating again, so something is clearly not working right!”

“It wasn’t the same-”

“It doesn’t matter! You are so angry that you risk getting injured and think we can brush it off? No! This sport is dangerous enough already!”

“Nothing happened! I fucking scored-”

“And you are never doing it again!” Ilya yelled. Again, Shane flinched. This time, Ilya noticed. “Blyat.” He turned his back on Shane, pushing his fingers through his damp curls. “Fuck. Sorry. Sorry. I do not mean to yell. You know I do not mean to. You know that.”

Shane wanted to touch him and pull him closer. Ilya felt very far away at that moment. “I know… I just don’t even know why Mike is a part of this conversation,” he admitted. “If you want to talk to Galina before we talk, that’s fine, but right now, I don’t want-”

“You never want to talk to Mike,” Ilya said. “No matter how hard it gets. You don’t want to talk to him, ever. But I think you need to.”

Shane couldn’t deny that. Any of it. “I’m trying to talk to you,” Shane said quietly. “I… I know I’m not good with words, and I don’t always know what I want, but I have been trying to talk to you, Ilya.” He turned his head, fighting to make eye contact so that Ilya would understand how earnestly he meant it. “I’ve been trying.”

Ilya let out a loud breath. He closed his eyes. “Okay. And I am listening. Try again, please. I’m listening. I promise.”

They had gotten a lot better at talking to each other. Shane was grateful for how far they had come, from boys who couldn’t even exchange a proper introduction without chirping, to young men who took turns running away from every unreciprocated attempt at intimacy, into adults who loved each other enough to keep trying. To keep listening. For as long as it took.

“I’m jealous,” Shane said, finally sitting on the foot of his bed, “of how much… of how much you seem to like Galina. Even the days when it’s still hard.”

Ilya nodded.

“You’re right. I don’t really like Mike,” Shane admitted, since that seemed like what had actually been weighing on Ilya the most. Korogyi and Shane’s episode on the ice must have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, because clearly, Ilya had been stewing in these emotions for a long time. Shane tried to face them head-on. “I just don’t… get along with him. I don’t like talking with him.” It was true but still felt mean to admit, even in private. Shane had learned over the years how important it was to censor his own inner monologue and curtail his true opinions into something more polite around most people. But he didn’t have to do that with Ilya, and he never had. Ilya liked when Shane was blunt, and he was delighted when he was mean. Ilya loved everything about him, and that made it easy for Shane to continue. “I don’t like our sessions. And I know that’s stupid, because no one is supposed to enjoy therapy, but… I always feel worse about myself after. That wasn’t always true—at least, I don’t think it was, but… it’s not… it’s not helping anymore. And I don’t know how to fix that, but I promise, I’ve been trying.”

He would keep trying. For Ilya. For himself.

It just sucked to try so hard and get nowhere, over and over again.

Silence settled between them. Shane counted to thirty in his head without interrupting it, giving Ilya a moment to organize his thoughts.

“Maybe it’s not something you can fix,” Ilya said eventually. “Not everything is. If this kind of therapy is not working, and if it makes you feel this bad, then we stop doing it. You’ve tried, you’ve tried very hard. I’ve watched you. If you put in effort for a long time and it doesn’t work, then okay, you don’t keep doing the same thing forever—you try something different.”

“I’m not saying that I want to give up,” Shane said, hoping that Ilya hadn’t misunderstood him. “I—I’m really—I want to be better for you, Ilya.”

Ilya moved, drawn by an unspoken request, even in the middle of an argument, responding to some internal cue from Shane that he wanted Ilya close. He stood in front of Shane, their knees nearly touching. “Better?” he murmured. The mattress in this hotel room was unusually soft, and Shane felt so unsteady, he worried he was going to tip off the edge and sprawl at Ilya’s feet. Shane kind of wanted to bury his face in Ilya’s calves and wrap his hands around his joints until his fingers settled in the backs of his knees. He wanted to make himself small. “You know that therapy… therapy is not about fixing.”

“It’s about getting better, though,” Shane said. “Isn’t it? And I’m not doing that anymore. I’m… stalled out.”

“So maybe,” Ilya said, “it is time for a change. Okay?”

“A change?”

“You don’t like Mike,” he said, shrugging. “It’s hard to be vulnerable with someone you don’t like. Maybe it’s time to try something else—someone else.”

“I’m not saying I want to give up,” Shane said immediately, but Ilya held up his hands, stopping him.

“No, no, me neither,” Ilya agreed. “I’m saying maybe Mike isn’t very helpful to you now, but someone else could be. Another therapist. Maybe. You could change, see if things get any better.”

“Oh,” Shane murmured. He bit his lip. “Do you think—do you think that would be okay? It wouldn’t… set me back?”

“Change can be good,” Ilya said simply. “I left Russia for the NHL, and that was better for me. You left Montreal for Boston, and that was better for you. Sometimes things need to be left behind.”

“Yeah,” Shane said, reaching up to run the pad of his thumb down Ilya’s cheek, catching on a mole. “Not you, though. I’m never leaving you behind.”

“Of course not,” Ilya scoffed. “We were made for each other, Hollander.”

Shane kissed him. Ilya cradled his cheek just as gently. “Thanks. For listening.”

“Always,” Ilya promised. “Now. I won’t make you call Mike, okay? I am sorry for trying to force you to. That wasn’t nice, but I think you know why I did, yes?”

Shane swallowed. “Yeah. I guess so.”

Ilya nodded. “I’m sorry I changed the subject. I just… I have been thinking about this for a long time, and then I got scared when I saw you on the ice like that, after….” Ilya peered at him. “Do you want to talk about what happened tonight? Or should we save it for another time? Maybe curl up and watch a movie, or fuck nasty and forget about everything? That usually works okay for us.”

That drew a quiet, huffing laugh from Shane, however reluctantly, but he folded his hands tightly in his lap and shook his head. “Someone told him,” Shane said, glancing up. They still hadn’t talked about what had caused this entire meltdown: “Korogyi. Someone told him we are married. That wasn’t just a guess. I am so fucking sick of not getting to be the one to tell anyone about my fucking life.”

“I know,” Ilya murmured, wincing. “Shanya, I’m so sorry.”

“I’m tired of this,” Shane confessed, realizing it as he said it, and a weight lifted off his chest. “I don’t want to… this thing with our relationship, where we are stuck in this limbo, and people keep taking the choice from us. I want to live authentically while still having my privacy, but right now I don’t think we have either.”

“No,” Ilya agreed quietly. “No, I do not think so either.” He gave Shane a small smile. “Seemed like a fun idea at the time, didn’t it, though? A soft launch. We just be totally in love, do it our way, don’t answer questions—seemed fun. Seemed exciting.” He laughed, raspy. “I think it was maybe never a good plan for us. I want to be loud. You want to have control over the narrative,” he said, over-pronouncing the word. “Coming out slow and subtle, that doesn’t really work for us, not really the move. And,” he shrugged, “in our defense, the internet is a lot crazier than I thought. Whoo, they are psychos out there.”

“I’m glad I’m not online,” Shane admitted.

“Me too,” Ilya said.

“So…” Shane looked up through his eyelashes. “We agree, then, right? 

Ilya hummed, thinking for a minute. “Christmas is soon,” he said. “Then All-Stars. We will have time to talk about what we do next. I do not think we should make big decisions in the middle of a roadie with your parents on the other side of the country. We can wait,” he held up a hand, pinching his fingers together, “a little bit longer, okay?”

Shane laughed quietly. All the anger had left him, replaced with exhaustion. He wanted to curl up on the too-soft bed and sleep for a million years. “I’m just tired,” Shane repeated quietly. “You want to be out. I want you to be out. I want us to be out. I’m… just sick of this in-between.” He looked up. “Whatever happens is going to happen. There’s no taking it back. And I wouldn’t ever want to take it back. Any of it.”

Ilya raised a hand and cupped Shane’s chin. He brushed his thumb over his lower lip. “Me neither.”

Shane tilted himself forward until their foreheads touched. “I’m sorry I made you wait so long.”

“Wait? I have not been waiting.” Ilya started squirming, wiggling enough that Shane had to pull back. Ilya scrambled to pull his phone out of his pants pocket. He pushed it into Shane’s hand, and Shane automatically unlocked it, punching in the code as a reflex. Ilya held onto Shane’s wrist to keep the phone steady as he swiped through his apps with his other hand, opening up Instagram. “You are offline, which is very good for you, moya rybka, but it’s why you don’t know. I have not been waiting, or hiding, or anything.” He opened his profile, showing Shane all his recent posts. “Look. Look at it. Well, ignore that one—that is just a sponsored post because Yuna Hollander, my beautiful, perfect mother-in-law, does not believe in days off, but look at all this!” He pushed his phone toward Shane’s face, encouraging him to scroll.

It didn’t take long to understand what Ilya wanted him to see.

Pictures of Shane.

Pictures of the team and Boston, too, and Svetlana, Cliff, Vicky, Amanda, and even the Centaurs, and dozens of solo shots of Ilya working out, showing off clothes, doing ads, and over and over again, Shane.

He scrolled. He clicked through image carousels—dozens of pictures of Shane, and even more pictures where he was not physically present and yet could still see the impact and mark he left on Ilya’s life. Ilya nudged him so Shane went to his story. There were two pictures and a video. First, Shane glaring at Ilya over their morning breakfast in the hotel lobby. The second was of the beach from a few mornings ago, the tide lapping at the shore. Shane was not visible, but he knew he was standing just off to the side, his head resting on Ilya’s shoulder as he took a picture of the ocean. And the third, a video of the locker room, a slow zoom between a dozen half-dressed moving bodies pointed at Shane quietly lacing up his skates, an intensely focused expression on his face as he tested the tension. The volume on Ilya’s phone was turned down, but he must have said something because Shane in the video suddenly looked up, right at Ilya, smiling automatically.

“You post way more than I thought,” Shane said quietly.

He glanced up.

“You are my life,” Ilya said simply. “I cannot hide that. I don’t think I need to, and I have not been. I have not been acting like I have something to hide, and I don’t feel like I am. This,” he reached out and tapped the screen, “is what my life looks like. I don’t need to share anything more than I already have.”

Shane held the phone tightly, grateful for the enormous clunky phone protector Shane bought Ilya after the third time he broke his screen. He squeezed, trusting that it wouldn’t break. “People are talking.”

Ilya turned and gave Shane a long look. “They have been talking for a while. You knew this.”

Shane inhaled deeply. He let the breath sit in his lungs for ten seconds, counting them slowly and imagining that he could feel the oxygen seeping into his bloodstream. He let everything else out, his chest deflating, feeling the pressure loosen around his ribs. “I know.”

“Do you want them to stop talking?”

“No.” That was the easy part. Shane took another breath. “I think I’m ready to start speaking for myself, though.”

Ilya smiled. It was small and gentle. “I’m happy.” He held his hand out in the space between them, fingers curled loosely toward his palm.

Shane took it. Of course.

Ilya’s palms were dry and raspy—he hadn’t moisturized after his shower post-game, even though Shane had packed his bag and made sure to include the travel bottle of the brand Ilya preferred, the scentless stuff that didn’t interfere with whatever cologne he had chosen for the day.

Shane remembered taking his hand for the first time, ten years ago in Regina. His skin had felt dry then, too, wind-chapped and overworked in the middle of the tournament. His fingers had been colder, though, the frigid Canadian breeze having sapped the heat from his extremities. Seventeen-year-old Ilya Rozanov had smelled like cigarettes and cheap cologne, and a little like sweat. They had all smelled like sweat back then.

Ilya had grown since then, in height and muscle mass, but his hands were the same size.

His fingers still fit neatly between Shane’s own.

+++

Life went on, despite everything.

In the following weeks, no one mentioned Shane’s breakdown in the locker room, even if he was sure none of them were stupid enough to buy Cliff and Vicky’s lie about him just being winded. They didn’t question him, though, or corner him, or treat him differently.

Shane watched Ilya force himself not to hover, and he was grateful for the grace and the space that Ilya gave him to come to terms with what had happened in his own time. Vicky engaged him in private conversations in French in the locker room so that Shane didn’t have to talk to anyone else. In a game against Detroit, Cliff laid Vincent Lemaire out flat on the ice, and when Shane killed the penalty, he saluted Cliff as he exited the penalty box, and Boston roared their approval.

They didn’t stop passing to him, or drop their defense back, as the Voyageurs had. Someone had told Korogyi about him and Ilya, but at least they didn’t carry it with them onto the ice.

Yes. Life went on.

The last game before the brief NHL Christmas break brought Shane, Ilya, and the rest of the Bears back to Ottawa. Cadyn was still starting every game, and Davies was sitting on the bench looking nervous, but Benji would be back after the break. Not that they were really hurting from the loss of their starting goalie:

Cadyn was on fire.

Since LA, he had added two more shutouts to his record and raised his save percentage so that he was officially beating Benji’s season record. He’d played more games in the past month than he had across the rest of his NHL career combined, but showed no signs of fatigue. He was young, and he had enough stamina to carry them through Benji’s recovery, and he was playing like a star in the making.

In the locker room, he was quieter than ever.

Shane saw Ilya trying to push his silence. He was grateful, in a way, because he knew Ilya was trying to divert some of his protective instincts over Shane onto the rookies, but he had to tell Ilya to back down and give Cadyn some space. Whatever was bothering him wouldn’t be solved by busybody captains.

Cadyn still came over to meditate with Shane sometimes. They often stretched together during intermissions. They didn’t speak much, and whatever was bothering Cadyn continued to linger, unspoken, but Shane hoped that providing space for Cadyn to just exist would help him settle whatever nerves were plaguing him.

Cadyn seemed to appreciate it.

Their last game before the break was in Ottawa, and the Bears finally proved themselves by defeating the Centaurs. The opening game of the season had been a good omen for Hayden’s new team; the Centaurs were playing their best season in more than a decade. They were still far from being at the top of the league, but they had beaten Montreal twice already and the reigning Cup-champion Flappers once, and unless their stats dropped precipitously in the spring, they were probably looking at a solid playoff spot.

Maybe that was why the Centaurs still seemed happy and upbeat on the ice after their defeat, skating around with broad smiles and waving to their fans. The stadium was noticeably more packed than Shane had seen it in previous seasons, and filled with fewer Hollander jerseys.

He met Pike at the centerline right after the final buzzer, and Hayden didn’t seem too torn up about the loss. “Boxing Day!” he shouted, clapping their hands together. “We’re hanging out, dude!”

Shane laughed. “Okay, Hayds.”

Ilya swooped past, blowing a raspberry. “Loser!

The last game being in Ottawa meant that Ilya and Shane functionally got an extra two days off for Christmas, since they were already in town. They left the arena that night and drove straight toward Shane’s parents’ house and crashed in their guest bedroom hard, as if their bodies somehow already knew about the upcoming period of rest.

Shane was glad for the break. He needed it.

Shane hadn’t experienced dissociation like that in years, and he dreaded it would become recurring once more. So far, though, it hadn’t happened again.

Ilya had spoken with Galina at his next session, and then he and Shane had another conversation about Mike. Ilya told Shane everything Galina had mentioned to him: that some people took longer than others to find a therapist they meshed well with, and that sometimes a person’s needs changed over time, and so their therapist needed to change as well. It wasn’t a personal failing, or a moral one, for either the patient or the therapist.

Shane hadn’t really known that. Every thought he’d had in the past year about letting Mike go had felt like an all-or-nothing decision, like his only options were to grit his teeth and buckle down or give up entirely. Shane wouldn’t give up, not when he had Ilya trying so hard in return, but he hadn’t really understood that trying again with someone new was an option. It had always seemed like that would mean starting from scratch, but as he read more articles from experts about the process of selecting the right therapist and the many and varied specialties and experiences therapists and psychiatrists could provide, Shane felt like a door had opened up in front of him. There were other options. Other paths.

The thought was freeing.

Shane would need to talk to Mike soon, but it was fairly telling how relieved Shane felt when he postponed his next appointment by a few weeks, giving himself time to gather his thoughts.

In the beginning, Mike had helped Shane a lot, but they had reached a point of stagnation. Something about their sessions just wasn’t working anymore, and Shane was sure that was partially his fault. His reluctance, his stubbornness. Regardless, Mike’s strategies for coping with public attention weren’t working for Shane anymore and were only piling more pressure on him; Shane felt like he was failing every session without the knowledge of how to do better. It was just stressing him out more, and Shane could finally accept, after a long conversation with his mother, that he needed to try something different.

“You do physical therapy all the time,” Yuna pointed out breezily. Shane, making the side salad for their dinner, looked over his shoulder to study his mom’s profile. She had a strong jaw and a long nose, like him. He wondered if Ilya had already spoken to her about this. Maybe they’d been talking about Mike and Shane for months. Shane decided that he didn’t want to know and listened to her analysis, as careful, reasonable, and thought-out as everything she did: “It’s essentially the same thing, isn’t it? Some PTs don’t understand your specific needs, or they are so specialized in one area that they end up harming you in another, so you get a second opinion. You just need a second opinion, sweetie, okay?”

“Okay, Mom,” Shane said. “Thanks.”

She turned, flashing him a kind smile. “I’m proud of you for taking care of yourself. Both of you. Even when it’s hard.”

Shane’s meeting with Mike was scheduled for mid-January, just before the Winter Classic and All-Stars. It might, he thought, be his last. Something finally needed to give, but it was nice to have a few days off first.

They watched Slap Shot, then Miracle, then the first two Mighty Mice movies—all of which Shane had seen a million times in his life but were still incredibly comforting to him, and thus perfect Christmas movies. Ilya teased Shane about his endless obsession with hockey, which Shane couldn’t really deny, and called dibs on the movie selection for the second day of their visit, which was how Shane ended up sitting with his mother, each of them wearing identically bewildered expressions, as they watched But I’m a Cheerleader and To Wong Foo while Ilya cackled.

“What?” Ilya asked, pretending to be offended when Yuna huffed at an off-color joke for the dozenth time. “Shane, you said you couldn’t watch any more sad gay movies! We are educating you! This,” he flapped a hand at the television, “is queer joy! Suck it up!”

Shane just shook his head slowly, slightly mesmerized by Patrick Swayze in drag in a way that he didn’t actually want to analyze too closely. “I don’t understand queer joy at all.”

Yuna huffed for the thirteenth time. “Me neither.”

David was busy shoveling popcorn into his mouth. Shane eventually cracked a grin.

+++

They spent Christmas Day alone with Shane’s parents, exchanging presents just within the family. Yuna, as always, had given Shane clothing for Christmas, since she knew which staples he liked best and always needed replacements for. David had gotten him signed memorabilia from the nineties from a favorite player of Shane’s, who had died of cancer before Shane had joined the league. And Ilya had insisted that his gift to Shane had to come last, leaving two misshapen lumps of hastily taped wrapping paper nudged in a corner behind the tree and sitting on the coffee table.

“What the hell are these?” Shane asked, completely baffled.

One of the lumps was tall, nearly three feet high, and the wrapping paper was shaped as if a cone had been dropped straight on top of whatever it was hiding. The other was horizontal, thin and two feet long, and the wrapping paper had been formed and taped over it like a clumsy circus tent. Shane didn’t know when Ilya sneaked them into the house or where they had come from. They had appeared overnight, the ugly outliers amidst all the neatly wrapped boxes and festively colored gift bags.

“Open it and see!” Ilya, slumped on the couch wearing two new pairs of designer sunglasses stacked on top of each other, grinned. Shane had bought him a complete new set of practice gear, but Ilya’s real gift was currently being installed in their Boston house—a new surround sound system in the gym, complete with state-of-the-art soundproofing (which, admittedly, was mostly a secondary gift from Shane to himself, but Ilya would still appreciate the speakers). “Open it, and everyone will understand why I am the best husband and gift-giver!” he declared, cheesing hard.

Shane rolled his eyes. He knew he was hard to buy gifts for, as a millionaire who detested clutter. Ilya was usually pretty good at it, though, so Shane shuffled around the tree and carefully ripped open the top of the paper on the taller structure.

He saw green. Fresh, verdant.

Shane looked up, and Ilya was grinning.

He tore the paper carefully, revealing a potted plant with a built-in metal frame, on which the vines of a cherry tomato plant had grown almost a meter upwards. The greenish fruits poked out between the leaves, promising to ripen soon.

“Now, you can have a garden that comes with us in the summer,” Ilya said, “instead of abandoning the poor plants for months. You can bring it with you to the cottage, or wherever we go.”

Shane could feel the tears welling in his eyes. Carefully, he plucked the wrapping paper off the second one, revealing a row of attached hydroponic pots with built-in lighting and five different young cuttings of various herbs—thyme, mint, rosemary, cilantro, and sage. Removing the wrapping paper sent up a fresh wash of scent, and it smelled delicious.

“I didn’t know you were so interested in cooking,” Yuna commented lightly.

“Or gardening?” David mused.

Shane walked calmly around the coffee table only to launch himself into Ilya’s lap when his path was clear, nearly breaking his new sunglasses with the force of his kiss, for once ignoring decorum and his parents. “I love it,” he said, pressing his face into the crook of Ilya’s neck. “I love you so much.”

Ilya stroked his broad palms up and down Shane’s back. “I just know my husband so well.”

+++

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆☑️ goodbye LA! that was fun (beating the aces once again 💪) but no more partying for me, i am almost as boring as shane hollander 😚😼 @BostonBears @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer

[Slide show: (1) a group shot of Shane, Ilya, and Rose Landry at a restaurant, toasting the camera, (2) Shane and Ilya drinking boba tea, Ilya looking delighted and Shane visibly choking on a tapioca ball, (3) Ilya leaning against a pool table, gazing fondly at Shane while he lines up a shot with a focused expression, (4) Shane and Ilya dressed in fitted black suits as they walk into the LA arena before a game, (5) taken on the same day as the first boba tea picture, moments later, Ilya blurry and caught mid-laughter as he slaps a hand on Shane’s back, who has his forehead pressed to the table, (6) Shane and Ilya in full Bears gear in the center of a group shot, surrounded by their teammates, (7) the entire Bears team at the beach doing various activities as Ilya slowly buries a sleeping Vicky in sand and Shane reads a book, unbothered, next to them, (8) Shane glaring up at Ilya with flushed cheeks and red, teary eyes, gripping his boba with one hand as he flips him off while Ilya continues to laugh]

97.1K likes

2481 sandwich @cameronw

speaking of rozy’s most recent ig photo dump… ilya rozanov is either also gay or the most comfortable in his sexuality that a Man has ever been with the way he’s always hanging off hollander. hes like an ipad baby and shane is the ipad he cant stop fucking touching him. like okay i see you, thats just your gay best friend, huh, homie? Surrreeee

12:45 AM · December 25, 2020

rebbie onaga @rebbieisuncensored
Replying to @cameronw

→ as a woman who worked in the boston club scene during rozy’s slut era (rip ) can confirm that man is not gay lmao like i fucking gaurentee it, he definitely likes women (and i’m not gonna speculate beyond that)

Katie 💋@katiesburner
Replying to @rebbieisuncensored

→→ (quietly retweeting as a fellow bottle girl roz and marly practically paid for my entire undergrad lol)

stan twitter strikes again @professionalyearner
Replying to @rebbieisuncensored

→→ wait why rip? Is the roz slut era over?

rebbie onaga @rebbieisuncensored
Replying to @professionalyearner

→→→ i try not to get in on celebrity’s business, but roz was never that private lol - so hi! im a floor manager at Club Sweat and i saw roz every week during the season for the better part of a decade and then one day he just randomly dropped off the map for a while (like months) (1/4)

rebbie onaga @rebbieisuncensored
Replying to @rebbieisuncensored

→→→→ and when he came back he was still partying and drinking but not taking girls home - and TRUST ME he was taking girls home before (moi, once or twice) but not anymore (2/4)

rebbie onaga @rebbieisuncensored
Replying to @rebbieisuncensored

→→→→→ he comes in with his boys (cliff marlow is still a legend, ladies, if youre looking for a hockey boy, i can recommend) and he dances and drinks and tips VERY WELL LOVE YOU ROZY but never partners up (3/4)

rebbie onaga @rebbieisuncensored
Replying to @rebbieisuncensored

→→→→→→ again, just a random manager here, but i always figured he’d went and gotten cuffed and good for him!! glad she still lets him out of the house tho (4/4)

stan twitter strikes again @professionalyearner
Replying to @rebbieisuncensored

→→→ Can i ask what year he stopped?? 2016? 2017????

rebbie onaga @rebbieisuncensored
Replying to @professionalyearner

→→→→ um, lol, no you cannot. i’m already in his business but that’s as deep as ill go. this is just what ive seen, i dont know the guy as a close friend! its just fun to imagine the kind of girl who could lock rozy down

2481 sandwich @cameronw 
Replying to @rebbieisuncensored

→→→→→ Oh darling, i’m not imagining a girl at all lol

hockey bae @sashaisintoronto 
Replying to @cameronw

→ Going back to where it all started (insta post) and reading everything with new eyes

i call him shayla @laernedyahs
Replying to @sashaisintoronto

→→ all these girls are factually attesting to the well publicized years rozanov has spent hooking up with women and you’re still dreaming about hollanov? Girl move on

mudsliding home @muddybunny
Replying to @laernedyahs

→→→ From a shayden 😭😭😭

Hollanov’s third @wishfulthinkerer
Replying to @laernedyahs

→ once again you fuckers focus on all the wrong things—homie casually drops an insta tribute to his teammate on a random wednesday and we are STILL talking about the girls he’s been with??? be so fucking for real right now

 

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed

@wishfulthinkerer @sashaisintoronto @cameronw @professionalyearner It’s literally Christmas. Take a day off, guys.

10:11 AM · December 25, 2020

Chapter End Notes

My end notes just keep getting longer too…

I don’t think I’ve ever had comments on a fic so engaged with one topic as with Shane’s therapy. To answer some questions that have been asked that I didn’t want to spoil in the comments: Shane going to therapy once every two months is obviously not enough to truly get support, but I stand by it being extremely in-character for him, particularly during the season and with his love of rituals making it impossible to schedule sessions on regular days, and because his sessions with Mike had become very straining for him. And yes, Shane selected a therapist with a focus on sports psychology because he thought that was the obvious fit, but it was really not ever what he needed. I never intended to make Mike necessarily a bad therapist, but he’s not the right therapist for Shane because he fundamentally misunderstood what Shane needed from him, partially because Shane is so high-masking in therapy (part of his wanting to “win at therapy”) that Mike never diagnosed him as autistic. I want to leave room for interpretation about Mike’s ability as a therapist more broadly (I know it’s been a big debate in the comments!). I do think, especially initially, he was able to help Shane deal with his trauma and push some boundaries in a positive and beneficial way, but certainly he and Shane never found an effective method of communication, and he definitely under-diagnosed Shane. But he was really never meant to be a villain. I’ll try to answer any more questions you have in the comments about their relationship, but obviously this story arc is not fully resolved yet!

I genuinely hope it goes without saying, but this is not a reflection of all people’s experiences with therapy, or all autistic people’s experiences with therapy! Sometimes finding the right therapist is crucial, and Shane honestly didn’t really know that when Ilya was his only point of comparison and got lucky with Galina right away. This subplot turned into a much larger part of this story than I originally intended, but I hope I did it justice! Writing that conversation between Shane and Ilya was absolutely like pulling teeth (it took me literal WEEKS and almost completely stalled out my momentum with this fic tbh) but I’m very happy how it ended up :)

Chapter 11

Chapter Notes

Christmas Part 2 featuring Troy Barrett and the Drover Family Farm!

Hayden invited them to the Centaurs’ Christmas celebration at Harris Drover’s family farm, just outside Ottawa, on Boxing Day. Yuna and David turned down the offer, preferring to rest at home for the evening, and Shane and Ilya packed David’s car with presents for the Pikes from all of them.

“Are you sure?” Ilya asked Shane. “We can spend another night together, relaxing.”

“I don’t get many opportunities to see Hayden or the kids these days,” Shane said, thinking about JJ and how far apart they had grown in just two years. He didn’t want to lose any of his other friendships, not if he could help it. “I’ll take any opportunity I can get.”

The Drover’s farm was picturesque, even in winter, with the grass half-dead and all the trees barren. There was a long series of folding tables in the backyard set up like a banquet with dozens of potluck dishes—enough to feed an entire team of pro athletes and their families—and the entire place smelled like warm cider. There were more people there than had attended Hayden’s barbecue over the summer, but in some ways, that was a good thing. Shane felt much less like the center of attention when two dozen children, almost all younger than the Pike twins, were running around screaming.

With her kids occupied, Shane had a chance to catch up with Jackie. “I love the OttaWAGs,” she proclaimed. “They’re so delightful, and it’s just been so great. I mean, I liked a lot of my girls in Montreal too, but it’s just a different vibe over here. Very supportive, way less competitive. It’s nice.”

“Good,” Shane said, smiling. “Yeah, it seems different in Boston, too.” The Montreal team had never been big on family-friendly events or bringing their partners to celebrations, especially the married men or those with children. Shane had been used to it, but that wasn’t normal everywhere.

Jackie gave him a knowing look. They silently clicked their cans together.

Over dinner, they sat with Aliue and his now-pregnant wife, catching up with their former teammate. After they ate, Shane helped Hayden feed Arthur and Amber, and Ilya moved to the bonfire Harris' dad had built to chat with Barrett, who was actually smiling, which was pretty unusual for him. As the night grew colder, the kids moved indoors. Shane was cleaning up the picnic table that the Pikes’ babies had decimated when Harris appeared at his elbow with a slice of apple pie. “Want some?” he offered cheerfully. He had a hand knit rainbow scarf wrapped around his neck, his beard spilling out over the top. “Drover family special! We’ve been making apple pies for generations!”

“No thanks,” Shane said, but he accepted the can of ginger ale that Harris held out and wiggled at him.

Shane and Harris spent a long time talking about hockey, growing up in Ottawa, and being childhood fans of the perpetually losing Centaurs. Harris, who had been openly gay for a long time, had a completely different perspective on life than Shane, and it was refreshing. He talked about his ex-boyfriends and the gay dating scene in Ontario, and looked appropriately shocked when Shane told him he had never had a boyfriend before Ilya. He reminded Shane a little of his buddy Joe in how out and proud he was, but Joe was a fellow professional athlete working out of Vancouver. Shane had reconnected with him a few times since the leak, but given the distance between them, they weren't close.

It was nice to have a gay friend, Shane thought, laughing with Harris. Someone he could relate to.

He also noticed Ilya sitting with Barrett, sharing a few beers as the hours wound on. They always seemed to drift toward each other at Bears-Centaurs team events. He watched Ilya and Barrett nudging each other like teenagers, setting the ends of sticks on fire and waving them about until the Drover patrons released their herd of dogs, who immediately surrounded Ilya. Ilya dropped to his knees, then lay flat on his back on the freezing ground, laughing in delight. Barrett picked up a Bernese Mountain puppy and pressed a kiss to its forehead. Another dog was standing with its full weight on Ilya’s chest, eagerly licking his face in a way that made Shane’s nose wrinkle in both amused fondness and faint disgust.

Harris nudged him. “They look cute, don’t they?” he teased.

Shane was surprised. “The dog? Or Barrett and Ilya?”

“Oh yeah,” Harris said, nodding eagerly. He giggled a little as he finished his second glass of cider. “Can I confess something? Don't tell anyone, but I think Troy’s dreamy.”

Shane wondered again if it was his responsibility to warn Harris about Troy’s behavior in the past, or if it was a dick move to talk shit about someone who was essentially Harris’ coworker. Shane knew that Barrett had been trying to redeem his image since the trade and Kent’s subsequent arrest, but Shane didn’t know whether it was a PR stunt or a genuine attempt at self-improvement. He decided that he’d consult Ilya before saying anything and hurried the conversation in a different direction. Harris was extremely excited to talk about the upcoming inaugural summer of Shane and Ilya’s charity hockey camp and he offered to help with their social media blast advertising the sessions, so it worked out.

The night wound on. Shane drifted between conversations with the other Centaurs, discussing exercise routines with Boodram and goaltender stats with Hayes. Usually, Shane’s social battery would be completely depleted after spending several days in the company of his parents, the Pikes, and now the Centaurs—not the most relaxing company. But while he was feeling a little tired, Shane wasn’t nearly as exhausted as he had expected, although he still missed Ilya. It felt crazy to miss him after an hour apart at the same party, but that didn’t make it less true.

Shane had just begun looking around for Ilya, wondering where his husband had gotten off to after the dogs had been herded out toward the pasture, when someone called his name.

“Uh, Hollander? Hi.”

Shane turned. Troy Barrett had approached him and was standing an awkward distance away. He was wearing a black coat and pants but had an obnoxiously colored, obviously homemade toque and scarf wrapped around his head and neck.

“Hey, Barrett,” Shane said, immediately glancing around for support. Aliue and his wife had departed early, Jackie and Hayden were herding Jade and Ruby through the kitchen door, and Shane couldn’t see Harris at all, so he assumed the man had ducked inside as well. Shane grimaced.

Barrett took another step closer. “I thought I should properly introduce myself,” he said awkwardly, “since I don’t think I ever have.” He held out his hand. Shane shook it perfunctorily and dropped it. His gloves were cotton. Barrett’s were leather. “Right,” Barrett said. He looked a little flustered. “I just thought—Roz has been really kind to me since everything went down, and I would consider him a friend. I figured I should... talk to you, too, though.” Shane could see him swallow. “I, uh, I know I’ve been a dick, more so to you than other people, so I need to apologize.”

“Okay.”

Barrett shuffled. He looked miserable, but Shane didn’t feel too sympathetic when he had instigated this conversation in the first place. “Roz has really been there for me recently. I’ve been… struggling. With… the trade and everything. And if he hasn’t mentioned that to you, it’s definitely my fault. Trying to respect my privacy. But I know he’s your partner, and obviously that comes first—it’s why I wanted-”

“My partner,” Shane interrupted. Barrett stopped.

“Uh, yeah.” He shuffled again. “I just meant I didn’t want to put you in a difficult position with us… I don't know, becoming friends?”

“Okay,” Shane said. He took a sip of his drink. So Barrett knew about them, too. Shane would just have to trust Ilya’s judgment on that. He hoped Ilya had gotten the chance to tell Barrett himself.

“Well.” Barrett swallowed. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been a shithead. Um. And that I said unforgivable stuff. I understand that it was unforgivable, but I still don’t really know what to do except apologize. I don’t know how else to… hold myself accountable.” He laughed, and it sounded painful. “I don’t even know what accountability is, actually.”

“Okay.”

Barrett nodded. At least he didn’t visibly take offense at Shane’s curtness. Shane expected him to turn away or get angry, but Barrett just kept frowning, forehead furrowed, staring at a point over Shane’s shoulder. “I’m trying to be different. I want to be better.”

Shane sighed. “Good for you, Barrett,” he said, feeling exhausted. “I hope you succeed.”

Barrett gazed across the yard. He looked conflicted, but Shane was bad at reading people’s expressions under the best of circumstances, and his own bitterness was preventing him from trying very hard with Barrett. “This doesn’t mean anything, but when the leak happened, I actually felt fucking sick,” he said quietly. “I know—all the shit I’ve said to you, and all the shit Kent,” a muscle in his jaw ticked, “said… it doesn’t go away. And I’ve been thinking about guilt, and… what’s the word?” He looked at Shane for an answer, but Shane didn’t say anything. “Absolution,” Barrett finally finished.

“Guilt doesn’t absolve you of anything,” Shane told him. For a moment, he was stunned by his own brazenness, but Barrett just nodded. Shane reminded himself that he certainly didn’t owe Barrett politeness.

“Yeah, I know that. It sucks because I’ve felt guilty the entire time, so while I was making other people feel terrible, I was literally doing the same thing to myself for no fucking reason at all.” He winced. “Other than fear, I guess. I was pretty afraid.”

What did Troy Barrett know about fear? “Okay.”

“Right.” Barrett took a step back. Shane watched him, feeling hollowed out. He’d spent so many years dreading confrontations with Barrett and Kent, and now Barrett was just here. On the Centaurs, improving the team, occasionally beating Shane at games, becoming friends with Hayden and Ilya. That was it, and apparently it was over.

Shane didn’t like it, but it seemed pointless to stay angry forever. “Night, Barrett.”

“Goodnight, Shane,” Barrett said, accepting the dismissal eagerly as he turned tail and disappeared into the house.

Almost as soon as he left, Hayden replaced him.

“Hey, hey, man, everything alright?” Hayden asked, eyes flickering between Shane and the kitchen door. “What happened?”

Shane barked a laugh and slumped against a table. “What hasn’t happened, Hayd?” he asked, tilting his head back. The Drove Family farm smelled nice and the stars were out. “Did you tell Troy?” he asked. Hayden blinked. “About me and Ilya?”

“Bud.” Hayden’s expression was sad. He took another step forward until he could lean against the wall next to Shane. “Dude. I don’t think… I don’t think anyone had to tell them. I mean….”

Shane sighed. “Everyone knows, don’t they?”

“The league seems to,” Hayden said. “Honestly, I thought that was intentional. I mean, you’re out, and Ilya is not fucking subtle, even if you hadn’t made an announcement or anything. I figured that your social media people were trimming extra questions from the media, but, like… yeah, dude, I think people know you’re together. I thought you were doing that on purpose?”

Shane ran a hand roughly over his face. “We were, sort of. We just… I just want to live, Hayden. I want to be who I am, and love Ilya, and I wish I didn’t have to constantly ask questions about it or worry that the wrong person was going to have their suspicions confirmed.” He sniffed. “Korogyi heard we were married. That’s what that fight between Ilya and the Aces was about—he brought it up on the ice, so I figure by now the rest of the Aces have probably heard. Does everyone know that, too?”

Hayden looked surprised, then glanced around quickly. They were alone. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t think so. People kind of assume that you got together when you went to Boston, I think. No one’s saying you’re married.”

“Korogyi did.” Shane sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe he just guessed or extrapolated based on the other rumors. Guess it’s possible he was just mocking Ilya about our relationship and didn’t actually know we got married.” His fingers twitched. “Well, with the way he reacted, he definitely knows now.”

“Damn."

“Yup.” Shane stared at the can in his hands. He thought about the slice of apple pie he had turned down earlier and mentally estimated the calories and sugars in a slice, weighing them against the mid-season weight loss he had begun to experience. He sighed.

“Um, can I ask what just happened with Troy?” Hayden asked. “Were you arguing about him knowing or something? I’ll be honest, dude, he mentioned that he wanted to apologize to you for what a shithead he used to be. I told him that wasn’t a bad idea.”

“Yeah, he apologized,” Shane said. “Do you think I have to accept it?”

“No.” Hayden scoffed. “I do think he’s been acting better now, though. He’s actually really gotten close with Harris, who’s totally gay, and he hasn’t even been chirping anyone on other teams, much less being shitty to the guys in our room. I mean, honestly, I like the guy, and after getting to know him, he seems like a pretty fucking tortured dude—actually, Troy sort of reminds me of you. His favorite food is salmon and everything.”

Shane gave him a baleful look. “We're similar because we both like salmon?”

“Yeah,” Hayden said. “He's like you maybe, but if you’d grown up with Dallas Kent instead of me.”

“And if I was white,” Shane said pointedly, “so not me at all, actually. Dallas Kent would never have been my friend.”

Hayden winced. “Sorry, man. I wasn’t thinking. Did Troy…?”

“Troy’s a lackey,” Shane said, shifting uncomfortably. “Kent called me worse shit than him, at least by the league’s standards. Troy usually just laughed.”

Hayden was quiet. “I mean, I am his captain now. I can make him do bag skates until he literally vomits. Sabotage all his equipment. Slice his laces, splinter his stick, replace all his tape with a shitty brand. Say the word, man.”

“Do you think he’s changed?” Shane asked. “Barrett said that he’s trying to change, and you and Ilya seem to like him now, and I really trust you guys. You’re almost always better judges of character than I am.”

Hayden shrugged. “Don’t want to tell you how to feel, bro,” he said. “Kent and Barrett were dicks to me before, too, but it doesn’t really compare. I think… Troy had some real reasons to be shitty to people, and now he doesn’t have those reasons anymore, and so he’s not acting shitty. Like… I for real don’t know where that leaves him. I can say that I don’t believe he’ll ever start saying shit like that again, and that’s honestly good enough for me. But it doesn’t have to be for you.” Hayden clapped him on the shoulder, squeezing. “You know, say the word and I will still excommunicate Barrett."

“You’re a good captain, Hayden,” Shane said. “Don’t excommunicate Barrett. If he’s treating you guys well, and no one on your team has a problem with him, then you don't need to bring up shit he said to me four years ago. Whatever else, I think you’re going to be a good influence on Barrett. And you are right about one thing—he could use a friend like you, just like I did.”

Hayden was immediately flustered. “Oh, well, geez, man, thanks. But you know you’ll always be my captain, right?”

Shane smiled and nodded. “I know,” he said, straightening. He looked around and frowned. “Where is Ilya?” he asked when he located Harris and Barrett near the table of food. Harris’ booming laugh always made him easy to find, and Barrett looked calm and relaxed, the opposite of how he had looked with Shane, but Ilya was not with them.

Hayden looked around. “Don’t know,” he said. “He was hanging out with Barrett all night.”

“I’m going to look for him,” Shane said. “Say goodbye on our behalf if anyone else leaves, okay?”

Hayden saluted him with his glass. “Got it, Cap.”

Shane rolled his eyes and set off. He checked the house first, moving quietly; the living room floor had been turned into a massive pillow fort, complete with what was probably supposed to mimic a moat but made out of child-sized scarves laid out in a messy circle. All the Centaurs’ kids were tucked inside, passed out on sofa cushions, after the excitement of the holidays. Shane checked, just to be sure, but Ilya wasn’t inside the fortress with the other kids. He also wasn’t in the bathroom or the kitchen, and it took Shane a couple of minutes to extract himself from the conversation that Harris’ lovely mother immediately engaged him in.

He wandered back outside and, from the back porch’s vantage point, finally caught a flicker of light and movement through the trees, far outside the reach of the bonfire and the Christmas lights the Drovers had strung up.

Shane walked through the crowd. No one stopped him as he made his way into the section of orchard closest to the farmhouse, weaving his way between organized rows of barren trees in the direction he had seen the small flicker of orange light.

He found Ilya leaning against a tree, facing away from the house, a cigarette held almost defiantly between his lips as he stared at Shane, unsurprised by his appearance.

“Oh,” Shane said. “Hi. I was looking for you.”

“Hello,” Ilya said. He took a drag of the cigarette. “Just needed a quick break, moya yablonya.” Apple tree, Shane translated in his head, glancing up at the fruitless branches. “Almost done. You can go back to the party if you want.”

Shane took a step closer, feeling the cold more acutely after being inside the warm farmhouse. Or maybe it was a psychosomatic effect of the darkness, away from the pretty string lights. “I can wait for you,” he said. “Why are you smoking?” Shane asked, not trying to keep the judgement out of his voice.

Ilya shrugged. “No reason. Just a thing I do sometimes.”

“It’s not good for you-”

“I know,” Ilya cut him off shortly. Shane paused. Ilya dropped the cigarette into the damp earth, stamped it beneath his foot, then picked up the butt and slid it into his pocket. Shane wrinkled his nose at the imagined sensation of sliding his own hand into a pocket and finding ash and spit-wrinkled paper, but it was better than littering, he supposed. “Just one cigarette,” Ilya said. “Leave it alone, okay?”

Shane thought about pressing the issue, but it would have been hypocritical. He let it go. “Okay,” he said. He held out his hand. Ilya took it. His fingers were cold, as he had probably taken off his gloves to light the cigarette. Shane frowned and immediately pulled him closer, rubbing his hands over Ilya’s extremities to generate heat. He tutted. “Your hands are very important, Ilya,” he said. “You need to take care of them.”

“Ah, but I have you to take care of them for me,” Ilya said, and Shane glanced up to find him smiling warmly once again.

+++

They walked back to the hub of the party hand-in-hand. Ilya still smelled like smoke, but the rising scent of apples and cider helped tame the chemical smell, and Shane leaned into him either way. As the rest of the party’s occupants came into sight, Shane allowed himself a moment to marvel at how special it was to be with Ilya so blatantly in front of so many people, including those he wasn’t close with.

The idea to live without either hiding or confirming their relationship to the press had been an optimistic plan, but an incomplete one, especially since they had never really set an expiration date or timeline. It took control away from Shane and Ilya and put it in the hands of fan Twitter accounts and journalists who made a living speculating about their personal lives without proof. Oh, well. At least in the first year, when the speculation had been less rampant, it had given Shane and Ilya some space to live their lives honestly without feeling like they needed to hide. They had been happy together after all. The ending didn’t take away from that softer middle ground.

As they hurtled toward the inevitable conclusion of their scheme, Shane reflected that he had planned to stay in the middle ground state of the “soft launch” for as long as he could manage it. That was probably where it had gone wrong, actually. Hints and a slow reveal could only last for so long: after that, people were eager for something more concrete, and all they had done was tantalize and scandalize a growing story. People were ravenous for a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ salivating for a finite confirmation. Shane didn’t want to give it to them, but the whole charade was becoming exhausting.

Maybe, he thought, taking in the twinkling lights strung up between trees, and Hayden and Jackie chatting happily with Harris’s mom, and all their friends and allies spread out across the lawn, dressed in winter jackets and toques, it was time to think about bringing this saga to a close.

A group of dogs was playing near the treeline as Ilya and Shane walked back into the light, and one of them broke ranks. It was the same dog from earlier, the one who had stood on Ilya’s chest and licked his face, a white, brown, and orange mutt. She beelined across the lawn straight for Shane’s husband with an excited woof.

Ilya immediately dropped to his knees to greet her, his grin almost as wide as her panting mouth as her tail windmilled through the air in excitement. “Ooh, privet, krasivaya devushka,” Ilya cooed, smacking a kiss on her nose.

Shane wrinkled his nose, but he was smiling too.

“She’s adorable,” he told Harris as he shuffled over, a warm cup of cider in his hands, steam rising into the air and curling through his beard.

“So is he,” Harris stage whispered, nodding his head toward Ilya. “Together? I think I might have a heart attack—and I mean that seriously.”

Ilya flopped onto his back even though the ground was frozen, letting the dog climb on top of him again.

“What’s her name?” Shane asked curiously.

“She doesn’t have one,” Harris said. “She’s not really ours. Someone abandoned her in the area a few months ago. When our neighbors find stray dogs, they know they can bring them to the Drover farm, and we’ll look after them. She’s okay!” he quickly added. “Showed up perfectly healthy, not even underfed, and she’s been to the vet. She has all her vaccines and things.”

“Someone left her?” Ilya asked softly, rubbing his wide palms over her floppy ears. The dog looked as though she were in heaven. “Why would they do this to the most beautiful girl in the world?”

“I don’t know,” Harris said. “Lots of reasons. She’s safe now, but unfortunately my parents have enough dogs as it is—we’re trying to find her a home. I would take her, but my apartment isn’t exactly dog-friendly.”

“You are trying to get rid of her?” Ilya squawked, using one palm to cover both her ears as though he wanted to block the words from her. He sat up, his other arm cradling her body, shaking with excitement, in his lap as he glared at Harris. “How could you even think of this? She is perfect!”

Harris let out his booming laugh. “We’ll find her a very good home.” He explained to Shane, “She gets a little nervous around all the other dogs. One on one, she’s fine, but the herd stresses her out.”

“Oh, no!” Ilya exclaimed, looking heartbroken. “She does not like playing with the other dogs? Malyshka, what is wrong? Are you socially anxious, like my beautiful Shane?” he cooed, scratching her chin. She licked his fingers.

“Don’t compare me to the dog, Rozanov.”

“How could I not?” Ilya asked, gritting his teeth as he aggressively pet her sides, her tail thwapping against him in her eagerness. “Look at her eyes! She is just like you!”

Shane rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

“They are cute together,” Harris murmured, stepping in closer to Shane. “You know, like I said, we are looking for her forever home.” Beneath his blonde beard, Harris’ smile was wide and mischievous.

Ilya looked at Shane immediately, his eyes wide. “Shane?” he said, hope creeping up through his voice. “Shanya? Could be birthday present for me. Way better than two Rolexes, by the way.”

“Oh my god! You are so ungrateful, and it’s literally six months until your birthday,” Shane objected, laughing. He put a hand over his face so he didn’t have to look at the vision of Ilya with an adorable dog in his lap. “You’re not serious, are you?”

“How could I be more serious?” Ilya demanded. “Shane. Shane, please?”

Shane bit the inside of his cheek. Harris was watching them like a sitcom. “We’re on the road for half the year-”

“Marly has a dog! She stays at luxury puppy hotel, I know, it is very nice! And you are much more organized than Marly! We could do it!”

“Oh my god,” Shane repeated, but he peeked between his fingers. He could read Ilya’s expression perfectly and knew how much his husband wanted this.

“Whoever adopts her gets to name her,” Harris piped up unhelpfully, as Shane quickly tried to come up with an argument that would be more effective than Ilya’s puppy-dog eyes, and failed. Instead, he started thinking about the logistics of owning a dog with Ilya. They traveled a lot, but Ilya was right that Cliff, who lived alone, still had a dog he adored. It was still so spontaneous, and Shane loved plans and order, and hated hasty decisions—especially when an animal’s well-being was in question. It was probably a bad thing, or at least something they needed to discuss more. There were so many logistical concerns, but….

Shane slowly lowered his hand.

Ilya’s grin, at first subdued and cautiously hopeful, slowly grew to eclipse his entire face as Shane studied him for a long moment before, eventually, nodding.

“Anya,” Ilya said immediately. The dog turned so that Shane was staring down at two matching expressions of puppyish adoration, almost as if she knew what she was doing. “Shane? Don’t you think she looks like an ‘Anya’?”

Shane sighed. “We need to check the requirements for moving a dog from Canada to the US before we make any decisions,” he warned, bending down. He offered his fingers to the dog and smiled when she immediately buried her nose in his palm, snuffling forward. He smiled. “But she is a good girl. Aren’t you, Anya?”

Anya woofed. Ilya beamed. Shane mentally started preparing himself to get used to dog hair on their couch cushions.

+++

They rented a hatchback (Ilya complained bitterly) and drove back to Boston with Anya in the backseat and Shane’s cherry tomato plant and all the herbs carefully packed in the trunk. When it wasn’t his turn to drive, Ilya sat with Anya, letting her climb all over him. Shane couldn’t stop looking in the rearview.

Back at their house, Anya settled in well. Ilya was delighted, and Shane fretted about finding her the best doggy hotel and the healthiest food and how to keep fur off their very expensive furniture and clothing, and Yuna handled the paperwork to bring her into the US as a last Christmas present to them. During their first week back in Boston, Ilya established something of a tradition by FaceTiming Harris every single day to give him updates about the dog, usually in the morning when Harris was just getting into his office.

On many of those occasions, Barrett appeared, delivering coffee and sweets for Harris. Ilya always inevitably dragged him into their conversations, and he usually cajoled Shane to say hello as well.

Shane preferred listening in on their conversation rather than actively participating, so he usually sat nearby with a book in his lap and only chimed in when Ilya asked him something directly. When he was ready for Ilya to wrap things up, he could just pluck his glasses off the side table and slide them onto his nose. The trick hadn’t failed him yet.

He liked having a dog to run with, though.

It felt normal. He was just a guy with a well-trained, beautiful dog, taking her on early morning runs through the neighborhood he had lived in for two years, and returning thirty minutes later to shower and crawl back into bed with his husband.

Before returning to bed, Shane added one more step to his routine. Now, in a corner of their kitchen, he had a garden, or something close to one. It was just one plant and five hydroponic pots full of herbs, but almost every morning Shane dutifully measured and trimmed each one as necessary, writing down any observations in a little notebook he kept in what had formerly been Ilya’s junk drawer.

(“What, exactly, is a ‘junk drawer’?”

“A drawer for junk. Keep up, Hollander.”

“Like… junk as in trash?”

“Sort of. Trash, rubber bands, and batteries.”

“Absolutely not.”)

Now it had several notepads and pencils, neatly organized, and a few stubborn AAA batteries that Shane had never managed to excise from the kitchen.

At least his tomato plant was flourishing. Shane didn’t even mind the harsh LED lamp he had to add to give it additional light in the middle of winter. He was thinking about getting a jalapeno plant as well. Ilya liked peppers.

Though he was a late riser, some mornings Ilya did manage to get out of bed before Shane was ready to rejoin him. Sometime in early January, he slipped his arms around Shane’s waist from behind as Shane was jotting down notes from an article on how to artificially pollinate indoor plants, and pressed a firm kiss to the side of his neck. Shane hummed.

“We have a dog,” Ilya whispered. “And two beautiful houses, and a great team, and many, many friends. We have your wonderful parents, five Stanley Cup rings between us, and we have each other. This is the kind of life I never could have dreamed of. When I was a kid, after my mother died… the happy ending I dreamed of was a penthouse in LA or New York where I lived completely alone. Where no one could ever touch me. Could ever hurt me. Could even, I think, see me. I wanted to be invisible, to drink, to smoke, to party, to play hockey, to fuck, and still be invisible. That was my dream. It was always penthouses because I wanted to be so far above everyone else.”

He took Shane’s hand and turned it over, looking at the dirt beneath his fingernails. Shane hadn’t noticed it was there.

Ilya kissed the tips of his fingers.

“Instead,” Ilya continued, “I have a garden.” He plopped another kiss on Shane’s cheek, smacking. “And a very pretty gardener.”

+++

Ilya Rozanov Fancam 🏒 @ilyarozanov_

Big announcement RozaNation!! 😈 Ilya Rozanov announces on Instagram that he has ADOPTED A DOG?!?!? Everyone get ready to greet MISS ANYA ROZANOVA

9:52 PM · December 30, 2020

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed
Replying to @ilyarozanov_

→ @wishfulthinkerer @sashaisintoronto @cameronw @professionalyearner I would like to formally apologize. I should not have taken the day off.

Shane Hollander Updates ↗️ @unofficialshanehollander

Spotted! Pictures of Shane Hollander running with Ilya Rozanov’s new puppy! Early morning jog with the newest (and most adorable!) member of the Rozanov household! Is Shane the designated babysitter 🤔?

8:45 AM · January 5, 2020

regularly scheduled programming @bostonianblackbear
Replying to @unofficialshanehollander

→ you’re laughing. ilya rozanov and shane hollander are coparenting a puppy, and you’re laughing.

hockey bae @sashaisintoronto

its been 24 hours and i’m still in shock, can someone pls someone confirm???? like im not okay this is psychosis did they actually adopt a dog together?????

12:45 PM · December 31, 2020

Fowlie @fowliemouth
Replying to @sashaisintoronto

→ i need to buy more red yarn smh 😞 i used it all knitting socks for my brothers xmas present and now i don’t have enough left for my hollanov conspiracy board 🥲

stan twitter strikes again @professionalyearner
Replying to @sashaisintoronto

→ straight up: yes, i think theyre coparenting the dog lmao -- hollanovers are EATING this week yum yum

ANYA MY LIFE IS YOURS @puckmatized
Replying to @professionalyearner

→→ “the dog” excuse you that’s printessa anya ilyinichna shanyovna rozanova-hollander duchess of boston the first of her line put some respect on her name

Chapter End Notes

I really enjoyed Role Model and since we never got Shane and Troy interacting in canon (yet?), I’ve also really enjoyed reading multiple interpretations of their relationship—here's mine! Also, to get ahead of the question, I intentionally didn’t have Troy come out as gay to Shane during his apology, because Troy genuinely didn’t want to use that as an excuse for his behavior; he earnestly wanted to give an apology without providing any excuses (which arguably makes Shane’s interpretation of his actions even more confusing, but it came from a well-intentioned place on Troy’s part). This also won’t be Troy’s last appearance in the story tho!

But here’s Anya! Finally! And I can guarantee her arrival means we’re officially on the upswing :)

Chapter 12

Chapter Notes

Holy ao3 curse Batman! i had a fucking terrible week but I finally got some good news so we’re back to distracting ourselves with hollanov as god intended

I'm a big fan of this chapter tho, hope you enjoy it too!

Halfway through January, the Boston Bears reluctantly flew to Montreal for their second regular-season game against the Voyageurs.

Well, Shane did it reluctantly. Ilya cracked his knuckles.

“This will be fun,” he said, turning his neck with a snapping sound that made Shane cringe. Despite the implied threat of violence, Ilya had been near tears only three hours ago when they drove with Cliff to check their dogs into an extremely fancy dog hotel (as Ilya had insisted on calling the kennel). Shane had been worried for a moment that Ilya would refuse to get on the plane.

“It won’t be,” Shane said, eyeing the length of Ilya’s spine to make sure he hadn’t dislocated anything important.

“Come on, Hollzy,” Benji said, turning around and draping himself over the seat in front of them. “It’s always a fun time! I’m excited to watch the kid put Miitka in the dust.”

After Christmas break, Benji had returned from injury reserve and resumed his regular workload, but Cadyn was still playing every three or four games. In his first season as a full-time goalie for the Bears, he was breaking records. Shane was worried that he was going to run himself into the ground, so he’d had two reasons to be glad for Benji’s return, but Cadyn’s performance had been incredible. Luca as well—Shane really did not understand why Ottawa hadn’t played him the year before, but it was their loss. Between them, Boston was almost certainly going to produce the first rookie of the year that the franchise had seen in two decades, and the first nominee since Ilya in 2010.

“Dust,” Shane heard Cadyn murmur across the aisle. He turned, wondering why he had repeated the word, but Cadyn was staring out the window pointedly.

Shane left him alone.

The rookies had solved their roommate dispute without needing help. From what Luca had told Shane, it came down to a simple conversation. Johansson seemed to be absorbing some of the paranoia around rituals from the other Bears and was determined to keep up his good luck streak, so he had agreed to exercise (and play music) at the same time every day. This satisfied Cadyn, who simply required silence while he meditated and a routine time to do it.

Although Cadyn had solved his roommate problems, he and Shane still met up every week or so before a game to meditate together. Cadyn, Shane learned, detested yoga despite his reliance on meditation. Cadyn was also a picky eater, but his diet more closely resembled Ilya’s than Shane’s—Shane had watched him put away thirty McDonald’s chicken nuggets and nine entire sauce packets in one sitting, and if the rookie hadn’t been so fucking enormous, he would have been genuinely astonished. Cadyn was quiet until he would suddenly get loud, and he was taciturn until in a moment all of his words would come spilling out in a flood.

Luca also became a regular fixture in their house. He just sheepishly followed after Cadyn one day and then started showing up on his own. He was actually willing to try yoga with Shane, and he was also careful about what he ate, though not to the same extent as Shane. Both of the rookies were obsessed with Anya, who was always deliriously happy to be surrounded by more people who would shower her with affection. Luca and Cadyn had bonded, and Shane was happy to see it. It was like a funhouse mirror of how Hayden and Shane had been at that age, with Johansson as JJ, the boisterous and ever-present third man who forced them to have fun every now and then.

Ilya adored Luca, and Shane loved seeing them interact and how gentle Ilya was with the nervous rookie. He and Vicky had worked together to ease the culture shock of moving to North America from Europe for both Luca and Johansson, seeking out local Swiss and Swedish dining establishments and introducing them to international grocery stores in the area.

As a whole, the Bears doted on their rookies. There were a few pranks, and a few extra chores leveled on their shoulders, but nothing was malicious, and no one was singled out.

It was delightful. It was different. Montreal hadn’t been nearly so kind to Shane when he was that age, shouldering the burden of a failing franchise.

But that was behind him now.

“Dust,” Cadyn muttered again.

“Ready for the game?” Shane asked him.

Cadyn nodded, slipping on his headphones. “Yup.”

+++

The game started hot. It was always like that between the Voyageurs and the Bears.

The Voyageurs were still a mess, but they were still professional athletes and not wholly incompetent. They played a hard game, and had been playing much more physically since Shane left. In the 2018-2019 season, they had won a December game against the Bears when Davies had been in net and Boiziau had managed two goals in the second period. It was much better than the 4-0 record they had finished with in Shane’s first season with the Bears, but nothing to brag about: winning one game in three seasons was abysmal in a sport like hockey.

The Bears were very interested in keeping that losing streak the status quo. The Voyageurs, of course, were interested in breaking it, perhaps none more so than Theriault, who, rumor had it, was hanging onto his coaching position by a thread.

It was bound to be a rough matchup.

Shane scored the first goal anyway.

He won a face-off in the attacking zone, aware of Miitka squared up in the net twenty feet away. The puck zipped to Sidney’s stick as if it was magnetized. Comeau collided with him in the face-off circle even though Shane didn't have possession, but the check went uncalled. Fucking Montreal refs.

Shane gritted his teeth, knocking Comeau off him, already moving. It didn't matter. Comeau didn't matter. Only the puck did.

Sidney dropped the puck off for Pummel to grab. Pummel sent it back across the ice to Cliff. Shane, regaining the momentum lost from the check, zipped after them, dodging on one foot through a scrum of Voyageurs.

Cliff passed to him when they had crossed the blue line and then immediately bulldozed into the path of another defenseman, halting his dash toward Shane and leaving the ice relatively clear.

Shane was one of the fastest skaters in the league, and one of the oldest players to be anywhere near his speed. Sometimes, when he was truly focused, truly one-minded, he could move so fast that it startled him.

Miitka pulled forward in the crease. Shane watched him hesitate, ever so slightly, not knowing where Shane would be next.

It was to his advantage, but Shane didn’t need it. He faked a shot while dropping the puck, watched Miitka fall, and snapped up the puck he had kicked forward to himself and then in a blink he was there, at the side of the net, and Miitka was too far forward to block him.

Shane's stick struck the goal post hard, sending a trembling rattle up to his wrists, as he shunted the puck into the net behind the goalie’s extended skate.

God. Shane tilted his face back, feeling the biting wind of the rink on his cheeks as he coasted blindly around the goal, one fist rising in victory. God, it felt good to score directly from the face-off.

It always reminded him of that first NHL game against Ilya.

He found his eyes on the bench a second before Cliff got in his face, hooting and singing, “The Wonderful Wizard of Hoz!” But in that split second, he had seen that Ilya was already smiling.

“Good job," his husband said when Shane coasted back to the bench.

“Thanks,” Shane said, grinning wide. “Remind you of anything?”

Ilya rolled his eyes but laughed, high and delighted.

They were up heading into the second period, but scoring slowed to a halt. It was 3-1, not a good enough lead for the Bears to relax, but enough of a deficit that the Voyageurs put their heads down and focused up.

Shane lined up in their defensive zone with Voyageurs’ Captain, Joshua Abbot, whose light-colored eyes were intense. They nodded to each other. The puck dropped.

Abbot won the face-off, knocking the puck to his right winger, and the game was on.

Pummel chased the opposing right winger down the ice as their defenseman backed up, shielding Cadyn in the crease while trying not to obstruct his sightline, and Shane skated out, setting himself up for a pass as Pummel battled for control.

Sidney failed to intercept a pass from Laine, Abbot’s right winger, and Shane darted into action as Abbot caught the puck and lined himself up with the goal.

Abbot shot hard and low, but Cadyn’s pads were already on the ice, pulled up close to the edge of the crease, even as he rotated his body to follow Abbot’s movement. The puck hit his pads but, because of the angle, bounced straight up into the air over their heads. Shane was skating in as he watched Cadyn lose sight of the puck and try to scramble back, but JJ had whipped into position. He raised his stick, catching the rebound midair and knocking it like a bunted baseball toward the net.

Shane skated into the sliver of space between the net and Cadyn at the edge of the crease. A millisecond later, the puck deflected off Shane's shin guard with a dull thud, spinning toward the boards. No goal. Cliff got to the puck first and held it behind the net.

“Thanks,” Cadyn panted.

“You got it,” Shane said, taking off as LeClaire signaled him back to the bench.

“Fuck you!” JJ shouted as they both gunned for their benches, and Shane whipped his head to the side only to find that JJ was smiling. “That was going to be on my highlight reel, Hollz!”

Shane blinked. He smiled. “It was a nice try,” he said earnestly.

JJ laughed. “Yes it fucking was, Hollander!” he shouted as they both swung over onto the benches.

Ilya grabbed his shoulders and shook him exuberantly. “You are goalie now, eh? You have to prove that you can play every position on the ice, is that it?”

“‘Not every position,’ Hollzy said,” Cliff joined in, panting as he changed shifts too. “You said ‘not every position,’ and then you block that fucking shot, bro, you’re killing me!”

“Oh,” Ilya leered, leaning in, “every position indeed-” and Shane slammed his glove over his mouth.

Shane made it back onto the ice right before the ad break was called. He skated a quick lap, slowing next to the net.

“That was amazing,” Cadyn said as Shane approached.

“Thanks. Don’t forget to hydrate,” he said, nodding to Cadyn’s water bottle on top of the net.

Cadyn pouted, the expression visible even deep within his helmet, and Shane laughed.

Cadyn picked up the bottle, shaking his head. “I need somebody to show me the tape of that block,” he said, tapping his paddle against Shane’s stick. “I don’t understand what happened. I completely lost the puck.”

“That’s what your team is for,” Shane said, and when he motioned, Cadyn bent down low enough that they could actually knock their helmets together. “Nice job.”

The period ended and intermission rushed past in a blur—Shane had always thought that the first intermission lasted interminably longer than the second. He stretched, hydrated, checked his laces and stick tape, and felt like he’d barely had time to catch his breath before they were filing back to the bench.

The third period started. Four minutes in, Shane stood up, ready to tag Ilya out.

The puck was in their defensive zone as the shifts changed. Cadyn had skated out of the goal to gain control of the puck behind the net, and he looked up for a player to pass to just as Shane jumped onto the ice.

Their eyes locked.

Cadyn passed Shane the puck from all the way behind the red line. Shane’s defensemen were ready too, and they all turned, spread across the ice. Shane skated hard for the blue line, faked a pass toward Carmichael that pulled Miitka out to the wrong side of the crease, and shot the puck hard with one foot still in the neutral zone.

The netting swooshed with the satisfying thwack of the puck. Miitka blinked. The goal light lit up.

Shane grinned, turning and skating hard for the Bears’ defensive zone, where he snatched Cadyn up in a hug, laughing loudly. “Let’s go!” he cheered as the rest of their team swarmed in, celebrating.

Cadyn looked shocked. “Did I get an assist? Really?”

“Yes, you fucking did!” Sidney cheered, actually jumping vertically up and down on the ice and nearly toppling himself and Pummel over with his exuberant, celebratory shoving. “Goalie fucking goal!”

Cadyn's smile was bigger than Shane had ever seen it.

The score had climbed to 5-1. Abbot looked stoic as ever, and Shane thought JJ looked mostly resigned. A few of the players looked despondent, and others determined.

Some, including Comeau, looked pissed.

As Ilya skated out to take the post-goal face-off at center ice, Comeau smacked his stick blade hard on the ice in front of Ilya's skates. Again, the refs did nothing, but Ilya barely glanced his way as he dodged. That was Ilya’s style; he chirped players he liked or respected, and completely ignored the ones he didn’t. Shane hadn’t realized that until he had joined the Bears, but it was pretty obvious.

The puck dropped. Play resumed. There was a different energy now that they were in the third period and had a massive lead. In another game, the Bears might have taken it easy from there on out, even giving up a few unnecessary goals to avoid risking garnering injuries this late in the game.

Against the Voyageurs, though? Shane knew his teammates would want to humiliate them tonight.

“You got a hattie in you, Hollander?” Cliff panted, wiping his face with a towel soaked in ice water.

“Maybe we should start by getting you one goal first, Marly,” Shane shot back, to appreciative whooping up and down the bench.

Before Shane could think about a hat trick, Luca Haas was winding his way around the net, his blades moving so quickly even Shane’s sharp eyes struggled to follow, and he was lined up to perfectly catch the bizarrely angled rebound Ilya hit off of Miitka’s pads, swooping the puck up and over his split legs.

6-1. Shane smiled.

He was up next, Ilya’s hand clapping his shoulder as his line skated out toward center ice. Comeau was still out, looking red in the face and furious. 

Another ten minutes of the period passed. The Voyageurs clawed out another goal thanks to their new rookie center, and Shane watched curiously as the team swarmed in to celebrate the beaming kid, headed by JJ. He wondered what the Voyageurs would look like in ten years, when Theriault and Comeau were long gone, and a new generation of players had replaced them.

He wondered what the Bears would look like in ten years, too.

Shane made himself focus on the game.

He retook the ice a few minutes after the Voyageurs’ second goal, barreling straight for the defensive zone. Abbot’s line was already at work, moving into place as they passed quickly between themselves, trying to look for an opening around Cadyn’s body without losing possession of the puck. Shane nearly intercepted a pass toward Laine, but Comeau jumped in front of him, almost forcing a tripping penalty before Shane whipped his stick out of the way at the last second. Comeau was aggressive, getting in his face and moving Shane across the ice until he was beside the goal but not in a position to defend or help Cadyn.

He watched over Comeau’s shoulder as Abbot shot.

The puck smacked hard off Cadyn’s blocker, rebounding into Comeau’s shoulder and twirling up into the air. Comeau threw his stick up immediately, ready to knock it down and bounce it into the net, but Cadyn rocketed back to his full height and swooped it out of the air, straight into his glove.

The ref blew the whistle, play froze, and Comeau snarled in frustration, attention swinging from Shane to Cadyn.

“Surprised you can even see the puck,” Comeau spat at the goalie, bullying his way into the crease as Cadyn’s eyes narrowed. He wiped spittle from his mouth onto the back of his dark blue gloves, and Shane saw red.

“Back off,” Shane said, shoving Comeau hard in the chest, pushing him back far enough that he could get between the defenseman and Cadyn. It must have looked silly, Shane being 5’10 and putting himself between Comeau’s broad figure and Cadyn, absolutely hulking in all his gear, but it was also expected. There was an A on his chest, and Cadyn was Shane’s goalie and his rookie; there was an expectation that Shane would protect him.

Shane had only recorded a handful of fights in his career, even after joining the Bears, a team that catered to a fanbase that liked to watch fights almost as much as they liked to watch goals. Boston’s management was a lot less likely to take issue with Shane fighting than Montreal had been, but it wasn’t the kind of game Shane played. It wasn’t even something he was very good at, and Shane didn’t like doing things he was bad at.

But he had recorded a fight against Gil Comeau before, and he’d won.

He straightened his shoulders. “Back off.”

Comeau scoffed. “Fucking pansies. You converting them young now, Holly, is that it? Or is it just because you’re a pair of-”

Shane didn’t let him finish, preemptively able to see the shape his mouth was taking.

He wasn’t going to let him get it out, though. Not where Cadyn could hear.

He grappled Comeau, shaking his gloves off over his shoulders so he could tangle his fingers into Comeau’s jersey, their heads down as they shoved futilely at each other. Shane’s main goal, though, was getting him out of Cadyn’s crease and far away from his rookie, which he managed a moment later when he twisted enough to plant his shoulder in the center of Comeau’s chest and shoved him hard, sending them both down to the ice.

Shane on top.

The refs pulled him away and Shane straightened without protest, leaving Comeau spitting invectives at him from the ice. Shane had knocked his helmet off with that move and Comeau looked disheveled and pathetic, sprawled out, as none of his teammates came to his aid.

“I’m good, I’m good,” Shane shouted at the refs, holding his hands up. He bent down, snatching his gear back off the ice, then turned back to Cadyn as they waited for the refs to deliberate.

“You okay, kid?” Shane asked quietly, just in case, as his eyes turned and found Ilya on the bench. He put a hand on Cadyn’s shoulder as Comeau began swatting at the refs attempting to get him back to his feet.

Cadyn cleared his throat. “What an asshole.”

“Yup,” Shane agreed.

The head referee skated to center ice. “Two penalties, both teams! Boston penalty: number Twenty-Four.” Shane rolled his eyes as he and Comeau were each given a minor for roughing. He started to turn, ready to skate for the penalty box, when Cadyn’s voice stopped him.

“Shane?”

He turned, risking a delay-of-game penalty and ignoring the linesman who had a firm hand on his shoulder.

“Can we talk after the game?” Cadyn asked. He looked pale. His eyes were large and dark. Beneath his cage, they seemed very far away.

Shane nodded. “Of course, JP.”

Unable to delay longer, Shane went to the penalty box, ignoring Comeau opposite him. He cracked his neck and took a few centering breaths.

When he was released, he was going to score that hat trick, and he was going to make sure that no one else got anywhere near his rookie.

+++

“What did Comeau say?” Ilya asked in a low murmur the second the post-game presser ended as they headed back to the guest locker room. They were walking alone in an otherwise empty, dim hallway.

“Nothing worth repeating,” Shane said, curt and finite.

Ilya clearly understood that Shane didn’t want to talk about it and simply nodded.

“Can I have the hotel room for an hour?” Shane asked Ilya quietly.

Ilya shot him a look over his shoulder. “Why? Are you going to sext your mistress, Hayden Pike?”

“JP said he wanted to talk. I just want to make sure he’s good,” Shane said, and Ilya nodded, looking unsurprised despite his joke. His eyes were serious.

“Okay,” he said. “I will take Jojo and Luca out for drinks since they are legal here. Jojo will be thrilled to go out but depressed because I am chaperoning. Text me when you are done or if you need backup, yes?”

Shane kissed his cheek. It was quick, but he kissed Ilya in the Bell Centre and didn’t think twice about it, or the championship banners in the ceiling, or where he would retire his jersey. “Of course.”

+++

Shane and Cadyn walked up to his hotel room from the bus together as Ilya shepherded the other members of the rookie trio away.

The door clicked shut. Shane turned the deadbolt so Ilya wouldn’t accidentally burst in on the middle of what already felt like a weighty conversation, and turned back to face Cadyn, who had stormed across the room and was standing next to the window.

“So,” Shane began hesitantly. “Do you want to talk about what Comeau said, or-”

“I told Korogyi,” Cadyn blurted. “In LA. At the club, the night you and Ilya didn’t come out with us. I told him you were married. Luca told me that’s why Ilya got in that fight. It was my fault. The Aces showed up after their game, and Carmichael said it was chill for both teams to be there. I was pretty drunk, or at least drunker than I usually get, and Luca and Jojo weren’t there so I was feeling weird and lonely, and then I started talking to the backup goalie on the Aces, and then I was talking to a bunch of the rookies, and then I was sort of talking to all of them, and then they started talking about you. Like, you and Ilya, I mean. How you were together and stuff.”

Shane sat down on an armchair catty-corner to the bed, then stood up.

Cadyn did not react.

“I really thought they were joking, but now I think they were actually just making fun of you and Roz, and I’m sorry I didn’t realize sooner. I’m super, duper sorry. I told Korogyi, and Ilya got a penalty because of it. I mean—they were already talking about how you guys were together, and since you two were so casual about it in the locker room, I sort of figured that meant you were out to everyone in the league since everyone seemed to know about it anyway, and then they noticed me listening in and they started asking me questions and I really, honestly did not realize you guys were hiding anything, so I mentioned that you were married but I didn’t know any of the details and then I got pretty skeeved out when they started pushing and I was pretty freaked.” He let out a whooshing breath. “And then Carmichael dragged me out of the bar and told me not to say anything because Ilya would beat my ass.”

“Ilya would never,” Shane said immediately.

“Oh,” Cadyn said. “That’s good to know.”

“Yeah." Shane held up a hand. “Sorry, can you—start over?”

Cadyn nodded. He repeated his story slowly, more concisely, listing off the events like bullet points. “I went out with the rest of the Bears. When the Aces showed up, I was already drunk. I started talking with them, and then they started talking about you and Ilya. Everyone is so casual about it that I guess I just assumed that you guys had told the entire league yourselves—that everyone already knew. Korogyi and some of the other guys started asking me questions, and I thought it was weird, and I didn’t answer most of them, but at some point I let slip that you were married. I don’t have a super clear memory of the entire conversation, but I know I said that and there was a big reaction, and I got nervous. Then Carmichael came and dragged me back to the hotel, and he said Roz would be pissed if he knew and I shouldn’t tell anyone what happened.”

“That’s…” Shane said slowly. “Okay. Well. Um, honestly, I think your assumption that they already knew was… reasonable. There are a lot of rumors about Ilya and me in the league, and a lot of them are true. Most of the players already know or assume that we are together. Ilya reacted so strongly to Korogyi’s chirp because there hadn’t been rumors that we are married before that. That’s all.”

“Oh,” Cadyn said. “I feel a little better then.”

Shane frowned.

Cadyn explained, “I kind of thought that I completely outed Ilya. But I swear, they were all already talking about you—I didn’t bring you up or anything.”

That didn’t really make Shane feel better, but he also couldn’t look at Cadyn’s usually unemotive face, now warped by anxiety and apology, and believe that he was being disingenuous. It sounded, to Shane, like a drunk twenty-two-year-old got dragged out of his depth by a group of older players. Everyone knew Korogyi was a pest and the worst kind of chirper; it made sense that he would see Cadyn as an easy target for cutthroat gossip.

“Ilya and I aren’t upset with you about this, JP,” Shane said. “You were put in an unenviable position, and maybe we didn’t make our boundaries or expectations clear—that’s partially on us, since we dropped it on you so unexpectedly. But mostly it’s on Korogyi.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, trying to sort out his emotions. There was no anger, though, which Shane had been expecting since Luca told him about Korogyi’s chirp. “A lot of people already know we’re together, but Korogyi was being a jackass by bringing it up on the ice when the public doesn’t know about our relationship. But we aren’t mad at you, okay?”

“Thanks,” Cadyn said earnestly.

“Of course. Is… this what you’ve been upset about recently?”

Cadyn winced. “You noticed?”

“Yes.” Tentatively, Shane asked, “Is there a reason you thought Ilya or I would be angry with you? It sounds like you were taken advantage of. Obviously, that is personal information, but… I genuinely hope you didn’t think Carmichael was actually being serious. Ilya would never do that, and he’s going to be pissed when he hears that Carmichael said that. Pissed at Carmichael, to be clear.”

Cadyn stared at him. “I have a hard time understanding when people are lying to me.”

Shane blinked. “I didn’t mean that he was lying, exactly—just exaggerating. Honestly, Carmichael was probably trying to protect you, and he certainly didn’t know the Korogyi was going to bring it up on the ice like that.”

“But you said it was serious, in the locker room,” Cadyn said, “when you told us. And Cliff and Vicky were squaring up and stuff, but you said not to threaten the rookies, but they kind of already had, and I just—I should’ve taken that super seriously, but I wasn’t sure if it was a joke.”

Counterintuitively, Cadyn’s panic settled Shane. He was one of Cadyn’s captains and was well aware that the rookie was attached to him. In the face of his anxiety and fear, it was easier for Shane to push down his own initial emotional response and focus on the facts.

Shane shook his head. “Jesus, JP, I’m sorry if we scared you. Listen—Ilya and I have been together for a long time, and a lot of people know about us already. Part of the reason we got married in the first place was to ensure we had options for keeping Ilya in America or Canada if word ever  got out, because it wouldn’t be safe for him to return to Russia. We have a lot of plans and a lot of contingencies. And,” he stressed, “the Bears as an organization have been really accepting of us. They know we’re married. Our jobs are not in danger, and neither is Ilya’s visa. You made a mistake, but I understand why it happened, and Ilya will as well.”

He saw the tension drain from Cadyn’s shoulders physically, slumping them down. “Oh, good. Thank you. Shane, I really like this team,” he said abruptly.

Shane smiled, a little off-balance by the change in conversation, but Cadyn’s sincerity was endlessly endearing to him. “Me, too.”

“I’m on the spectrum,” Cadyn blurted out. Then he looked mortified. “Oh god,” he said, turning his body fully away from Shane, so all he could see were his tense shoulders and back muscles and his hands, clenching and unclenching into fists at his sides. “Forget I said that. Oh, god, I’m so—that’s super embarrassing.”

“Oh—um.” Shane’s brain stalled and refused to turn back on. “Sorry?”

“The autism spectrum,” Cadyn said to the wall, as if answering a question. “I’m autistic, I mean. My therapist says that I deal really well with all the travel and the disruption in routines, and especially with having to move from Providence to Boston, which was really hard at first but is a lot better now, because I like this team a lot more, actually.” At his sides, his hands flexed and trembled.

Shane stared at his back. “Okay. Don’t be sorry.” He cleared his throat. “Ilya and I also go to therapy.”

Cadyn’s hands spasmed. He folded them back into fists and, this time, held them tightly. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Shane said. “Everyone needs help sometimes. I know it’s stigmatized in sports, but that’s something we want to help change. Ilya and I are starting a charity focused on raising money and awareness for organizations which provide support for people impacted by mental illness.” He felt like he was reading off a cue card and winced at himself.

“Okay,” Cadyn said. “But autism isn’t a mental illness.”

“Right,” Shane said. “Of course. I’m sorry, I don’t know much about it, but I just meant that there are a lot of things that are stigmatized in our profession, and it’s something Ilya and I actively want to help change.”

Cadyn gave him a pointed look. "And... are you...?" He trailed off.

It took Shane a long, awkward moment to grasp what Caydn wasn't asking. "Oh. Oh, no, I mean, I'm not—I know that people have been speculating that I’m autistic for my entire life,” Shane admitted, because he had eyes and ears, and he could not avoid every clickbait article or viral Twitter post about him that was posted online. It had been worse in the Mites in the 90s, when people had been less sensitive and less informed, and rhetoric had been openly hateful. The noise had not stopped when fans started throwing around politically appropriate phrases on Twitter as if they were doing Shane a favor by pointing out how socially awkward he was. “Obviously, people have said a lot of stuff about me online. It’s sort of become some kind of in-joke for some hockey fans, I think?”

“Yeah,” Cadyn said, shrugging. “Honestly, I think that’s because a shit ton of hockey players and athletes are totally on the spectrum, but I don’t know, I don’t think anyone’s ready for that conversation. But, like, I was a weird ass kid, and my mom is pretty woke, so I got diagnosed early, and I know a lot about it, so sometimes I walk into a room, and I’m like, ‘Everyone in here is fucking autistic but I’m not allowed to say anything about it,’ and that’s so fucking annoying, you know?”

“Wow,” Shane said, blinking. “I guess not, actually.”

“Goalies are weird,” Cadyn said, kicking at the hotel carpet. “Everyone knows that. And trust me, the jokes used to be a lot more pointed, but everyone’s still basically saying the same thing. I don’t know. It’s like people can’t imagine that the stereotype of a jock might be able to overlap with autistic people, even though we’re all fucking obsessed with exactly one thing and one thing only, and we’re all super fucking controlling, and hockey specifically is superstitious as hell, so if I don’t touch every piece of equipment in exactly the right order, then I know for a fact that we will lose the game—and that’s not even weird to you guys, but it is super weird to everyone else! And I promise the reason I'm so weird isn't because I’m a fucking goalie!”

Shane nodded.

“It’s just this weird feeling, because I don’t feel alone, you know?” Cadyn said. “I don’t feel isolated or singled out or weird most of the time, not like I always did in school. I actually feel like I super, super fit in really well with other hockey people, and that actually hockey players have a crazy easy time accepting me, which most neurotypicals totally don’t, and a lot of the time I am thinking, ‘okay, a quarter of the people here are also on the spectrum, and the rest are best friends with people on the spectrum,’ so of course I don’t feel lonely, but it’s still weird because it’s like I’m the only person who knows that. You know?”

Shane nodded reflexively, then quickly shook his head. “I’ve never had that exact experience.”

“You haven’t?” Cadyn asked skeptically.

Shane kind of felt like he was standing in the headlights of a truck. “I… have always felt like I belonged more with other hockey players than with anyone else,” he said, still trying to process Cadyn’s impromptu rant. “I understand that. And I’m aware that people make jokes about hockey players, and me specifically, being autistic. It’s just, I’ve never thought….”

“That it could be true?” Cadyn asked, shrugging his broad, wobbly shoulders. “Why not?”

This was definitely not how Shane had expected this conversation to go. “Usually people were also blatantly insulting me when they said anything about it,” Shane said, “so I never took it too seriously.”

“That’s fair,” Cadyn said. “But, you know….” And he looked at Shane, hard.

Shane shrugged, a little helplessly. “I really don’t know enough about this to say one way or another. But what I do know is that you are not alone.”

(Ironically, Scott Hunter had once told him the same thing, two years ago, before Hunter was even out. “You are not alone out here.” Shane supposed that they were all destined to become mentors one day, if they played long enough. And he could tell that Cadyn needed a mentor.)

Shane took another deep breath and squared his shoulders, looking off into a corner of the hotel room. He was facing down a battle he couldn’t quite look at directly, but he figured Cadyn wouldn’t mind. “And,” Shane said instead, “I know better than anyone that it does not impact your ability to play this game.”

Another nod. Abbreviated. Quick. He heard Cadyn inhale sharply.

Shane nodded, mirroring him. “Okay. Just one more thing: Ilya has spoken with Dr. King, the team doctor, about issues like this and he has absolute faith in her,” Shane told him. “She has helped him find local resources many times and just been an ear when he needed her. I just want you to know, we can vouch for her. She’s good about this kind of stuff, if you or any of the other younger players ever wanted to… reach out.” Shane felt like he was on the back foot again. “I don’t know much about it, I guess,” he repeated.

“I got diagnosed when I was eight,” Cadyn said. “I was already obsessed with hockey by then. My parents—” He bit his lip. “You know I’m adopted, right?” Shane nodded. He remembered the draft, Cadyn going first round as a goaltender, and the announcers who still talked about his adoption like it was the most interesting thing about him. Shane could relate intimately. “Right. Well, my parents love hockey too, but even they thought I took it too far. They brought me to, like, a child psychologist and she, like, right away diagnosed me. I have,” Cadyn tilted his head, “a hard time with my parents sometimes. It can just be… weird. They’re not autistic, and they’re white, and sometimes it’s just like—they just really, really can’t relate to a lot of the stuff I’ve gone through.” He took a breath. “But they’ve always been good about stuff. I still really love them. But it’s also nice to have—well, I really like being on this team,” he said firmly. “I think you are a great captain. All the comparisons between us are objectively stupid because we look nothing alike and play completely different positions, but I am still super happy to have an Asian captain, if I’m being honest. It's like... both things can be true at once.”

“Thanks, JP,” Shane said quietly. “I’m always here to talk about anything if you need it. I agree, the comparisons are stupid, but… I get it, too.”

He thought about what Ilya had said a few months ago. “You do enough. Look how much you do already.”

He had always hoped that was true. Maybe it was.

+++

“How did it go?” Ilya asked when he arrived back from drinks with the other rookies, clicking the hotel door shut behind him.

Shane was already lying on the bed, his shoes off. “Weird,” he admitted. “It was really, really weird.” He turned his head, flopping it slightly to peer at Ilya, who was peeling his clothes off. Shane always preferred to change into fresh clothes before getting into bed, especially in hotel rooms. Ilya had not always been in the habit of doing that, but he had adapted after living with Shane for nearly three years. “JP was the one who told Korogyi we were married. He let it slip when he got drunk at that club in LA. Carmichael told him not to tell us—he scared JP pretty bad, I think.”

Through the fabric of his shirt as he pulled it over his head, Ilya asked, “What the fuck?”

Shane briefly explained Cadyn’s story. Ilya swore as he shucked off his pants. “Fuck Carmichael, what an idiot. Jeepers is okay now, though?”

“Yeah, I think we cleared the air. Um. That wasn’t the only thing we talked about, though.”

“Really?”

Shane took a deep breath. “It’s… kind of hard to explain.”

“Try,” Ilya said, clambering onto the bed and sitting up against the headboard. He slapped his thighs with a grin, and Shane glared at him before he obligingly sat up and shuffled onto Ilya’s lap. He put his hands on Ilya’s bare shoulders and Ilya’s hands settled around his waist, rucking up his shirt. Almost like they were slow dancing.

“Do you think I’m weird?” Shane asked, looking through his eyelashes.

He was thinking less about what Cadyn had said and more about the insults Shane had constantly received in the youth leagues and at school. Cadyn was right that Shane had always fit in much better with other hockey players than anyone else. But that had always made sense. When he was little, the same traits that eventually made him one of the greatest hockey players of all time made him the victim of relentless bullying.

Ilya tilted his head. “I think you’re fascinating.”

Shane frowned. “What does that mean?”

“You are like no one else I’ve ever met. So if ‘weird’ just means ‘different,’ then yes, if I am honest, I think you are different from most people—but it is not a bad thing. Shane. You fascinate me. I always want to be watching you, just to see what you do next.”

“I think I’m pretty predictable,” Shane pointed out, but a memory was rising in his chest and threatening to choke him up. He was thinking about the first time he and Ilya had hooked up, and Shane had folded his clothes, and Ilya had looked at him with an expression of pure delight—fascination.

Most of the time, his other hook-ups had laughed, or asked him to get a move on, or kindly told him to take his time in a way that still meant ‘hurry up.’

Every time he folded his clothes in front of Ilya, even in the earliest days of their relationship and on their worst nights, Ilya had just watched. Closely. Not always smiling, but always paying attention. If Ilya thought it was weird, it hadn't shown on his face.

“You do things in a way no one else does,” Ilya whispered. “And you are different with me than how you are with everyone else." Shane could hear the growl of his accent as he fought to find the right words in English. Maybe he didn’t have them in Russian, either. Shane certainly didn’t know how to express himself right now in French or English. “I see it. I see you. You put on,” he tilted his head, “like a mask? You are very good at it. Seems hard, though. How hard you try to… act like how people expect you to act. Makes me sad.” Ilya smiled. “I love how you act. But I like the mask, too. Hard not to love any part of Shane Hollander, for me.”

“JP told me that he is autistic.”

“Ah.”

“Do you know anything about it? Autism, I mean?” Shane should probably learn how to say the word at least, for Cadyn’s sake if nothing else.

Ilya shrugged, easily moving Shane’s body weight. “No. Not really.”

“And… I think he didn’t want to say it outright, but he sort of implied he thought I might be—and people have been calling me… you know… my entire life, so. What do you think?”

“I don’t really know about it,” Ilya said, lips pursed. Then, slowly, “I know I have thought that a lot of the things that are so interesting about you, I also see in JP.”

“Right.”

“But I don’t know enough about this, I think. Maybe we could look it up together?” Ilya offered hopefully, squeezing Shane’s waist, and Shane fell into him.

“Yeah,” he breathed, wrapping his arms around Ilya and burrowing into him, where it was safe. “Maybe.”

+++

From Montreal, they flew to New York.

Every year, the NHL organized several outdoor games in the winter. They played on portable rinks in baseball stadiums or on football fields, which could usually hold vastly more seats than typical indoor arenas (but also, in Shane’s opinion, generally provided much worse views of the action to almost all fans). Still, they were popular. Shane had played in a few over the years, including the Winter Classic in Quebec City his rookie year.

For the first time since then, Shane’s team was selected to play the Winter Classic again, this time in Queens at Citi Field. The New York Admirals would be their opponent. The Ottawa Centaurs were in town, gearing up for a game against the Brooklyn Scouts, and in some upper-management stroke of genius, all the members of both teams had been given tickets to the Winter Classic, turning it into a great conglomeration of four of the NHL’s teams in one arena, for one night only.

The forecast called for snow.

They skated onto the ice, which felt bizarrely similar to an indoor arena's despite how different their surroundings were. The noise was completely unfamiliar, with ten thousand extra fans in attendance but no roof to contain their noise. Privately, Shane thought massive stadiums were ill-suited to hockey—there was just no way that the majority of fans would even glimpse the puck when it was in motion—but people seemed excited, regardless.

It was fucking cold, which felt stupid to complain about given that he had played ice hockey since he was four, but it was true nonetheless.

Cadyn skated out with them, ready to start the game (Benji had petitioned to give this special opportunity to the younger goalie even though it meant he would play two games in a row), and Shane joined all three of the rookies as they went through their regular stretches. Or rather, Luca, Cadyn, and Shane bent down to stretch, and Johansson started performing his rather impressive puck juggling tricks for the audience.

“It’s just another game,” Shane told the rookies once Johansson was up to three pucks balanced upright on the blade of his stick, projected on the giant screen as he delicately tried to add a fourth. “Don’t stress. Don’t let it distract you.”

“It is not an exhibition game,” Luca pointed out, worrying his lip.

Johansson wobbled and lost all the pucks. Cadyn whipped out, managing to catch three of the four pucks in his glove in one swoop, and Shane heard the distant roar of approval from the crowd.

Shane smiled. “I think you’ll be alright.”

Scott and Ilya were chatting at center ice, an image that would have been borderline inconceivable three years ago, and they chose that moment to skate up to them. “You look like a mother hen, Hollander,” Hunter said. “Roosting with all your rooks.”

Shane grinned. “We grow up so fast, don’t we?”

“Yes,” Ilya declared. “Hunter, you are a deadbeat grandfather now—look at all your spawn! And you have never sent one single birthday present.”

Scott rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever, Rozanov. It’s not like you’re sending get-well-soon cards to my rookies.”

“Your team is so old, your rookies are in their thirties,” Ilya snarked back, and they skated off again.

“Funny how they bicker like children,” Johansson said, now bent backwards with a puck balanced on his forehead and chin, “when they are literal walking hockey legends.”

“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but ice hockey is a silly sport,” Shane said.

“A lot of people here,” Cadyn murmured as they stood up. His eyes scanned the crowd. They were all used to playing with a few rows of fans literally pressed up against the barriers, but now even the first rows were far away from the action.

It was very different. Shane could tell that Cadyn felt a little unsettled by the change—hell, he didn’t love it himself. He thought about what Cadyn had confessed to him, and he thought about what Cadyn had implied about himself.

Shane put his arm around Cadyn carefully, keeping his grip loose. Cadyn, who was a good deal taller than Shane, accepted the embrace with an awkward smile and a ducked head. Across from them, Ilya was laughing as he tried to make a similar gesture with Luca but much more flamboyantly, and Luca was trying to stifle his own laughter as he dodged his captain’s attempts to reel him in. Cliff and Vicky were trying to hoist Johansson onto their shoulders, despite the fact that all of them were still wearing skates and standing on ice.

“Yeah. But I think we’ll be okay,” Shane said. Cadyn smiled.

Snow began to fall.

+++

scott’s ibiza era @admiralyyours

I dont go here but i like the chaos of it, so here’s some pics i just took of ilya rozanov in new york wearing the iconic team canada olympics fleece from 2014. What are we thinking, hollanovers? 🤪🤪🤪

2481 sandwich @cameronw
Replying to @admiralyyours

I’m literally oN FIRE *insert this is fine dog meme* #soulmatesonskates #hollanovconfirmed ???? wtf is ilya wearing shanes fcking fleece???? hes so FREAKING ADORABLE

Yessica NY @yessicalovesmatti
Replying to @admiralyyours

Omg girl not YOU OF ALL PEOPLE, SKIP LOVER TO END ALL OTPS confirming hollanov lmao, also yooo everyone peep Shane in the background of the third pic, are those cyrillic letters I see on his hoodie?? 👀👀 Hollanovers, do your freak thing! 🤪

2481 sandwich @cameronw
Replying to @yessicalovesmatti

HOLY SHIT

hockey bae @sashaisintoronto

soooooooo did we confirm the shane sweatshirt thing??? is it ilyas???? what does it sssayayyyyyyyy

stan twitter strikes again @professionalyearner
Replying to @sashaisintoronto

We can’t guarantee it. Ilya owns and wears that brand a lot (it’s Russian, the company doesn’t ship to the US but you could maybe get it couriered? the Cyrillic is just the brand name) and Shane did own and wear that fleece in 2014, but thousands of them were sold for the Olympics so… it’s a fucking wild coincidence, and definitely seems intentional? But not 100% confirmed that they were wearing each other’s stuff. Could just be matching???

MontrealFan123 @user953037911f
Replying to @sashaisintoronto

I’m getting deja vu, hasn’t this same thing happened before with the hoodies and tshirts??

she gooned on my deke til i crease @bowserfloozy
Replying to @user953037911f

@hollanovobsessed we need you now more than ever

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed

Never fear, all, I have arrived with receipts: the Masterlist of Every Time Hollanov Have Been Photographed (Maybe) Wearing Each Other's Clothes: (1/12)

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed
Replying to @hollanovobsessed

2014 Ilya and Shane are both photographed in post-game press interviews wearing white t-shirts. Suspicious? Not inherently, but Shane is wearing an Adidas branded t-shirt (you can see the tag in the full clip of the interview, not in the picture) and Reebok’s logo is briefly visible on the nape of Ilya’s collar. Wearing each other’s sponsors? More likely than you’d think. (2/12)

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed
Replying to @hollanovobsessed

2015 Post the Boston v Montreal Heritage Classic game, shane is seen wearing a black hoodie that resembled a similar one worn by Ilya before an open skate earlier that week (impossible to say if they are the same, it’s just a black hoodie, but old school hollanovers will never forget #agletgate) (3/12)

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed
Replying to @hollanovobsessed

2016 Shane papped exiting an Uber in downtown Boston wearing oversized all-black athleisure. Again, no pictures of Ilya wearing the same outfit, but the shirt and pants both clearly don’t fit and all-black is not Shane’s aesthetic. The WAVES these pap photos made on tumblr were insane. (4/12)

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed
Replying to @hollanovobsessed

(we’re heating up) 2017: photos six months apart, Ilya and Shane wear identifiably the same tie to All-Stars (Shane) and a playoffs presser (Ilya). It’s Hermès, and theoretically they could both separately own it, but it IS the same tie. (5/12)

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed
Replying to @hollanovobsessed

2017 (post-trade) Shane gets into Ilya’s car outside of the Bears practice facility, fully wearing Ilya’s jacket. Just 100%, no doubt about it. An interviewer asked about it, Shane confirmed Ilya loaned it to him because he was cold. Adorable, I know. (6/12)

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed
Replying to @hollanovobsessed

2018 the official Bears insta made a promotional post for the upcoming season, a silly skit where Ilya and Shane accidentally put on each other’s jerseys in the locker room and wrestled about it. This one’s obviously scripted and a joke, but it is also very dear to me, so I include it. (7/12)

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed
Replying to @hollanovobsessed

2018 Shane, who had never worn unsponsored jewelry before, begins to wear a gold chain around his neck. There was briefly a hubbub from fans thinking that he was literally wearing Ilya’s chain, but they’ve both been seen clearly wearing them at the same time, and Shane’s doesn’t have a cross. Nevertheless, I include it because they seem to match. (8/12)

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed
Replying to @hollanovobsessed

Need I go on? I shall.

2019—

Chapter End Notes

Game stuff: Sabres' Tage Thompson scored a center ice goal during their playoff series, and Shane's behind-the-goalie moment is inspired by a David Kampf save from march (this one real old but you should watch it here since it's sick and hard to describe (I did my best))

I want to give an obligatory shout out to Jacob Tierney: I have such a massive soft spot for the interview where he said that Ilya is always lying when he calls Shane boring, and that he’s actually endlessly fascinated by Shane’s idiosyncrasies and just can’t admit it 🥲 he’s FASCINATED by him, i just love that so much so I wanted to share my interpretation of it

Chapter 13

Chapter Notes

“Anyone who is not a loser is coming to the Kingfisher tonight!” Ilya yelled as soon as they all piled back into the temporary locker rooms. They had lost the Winter Classic 2-3 to the Admirals in overtime, but no one was disheartened. Losing in overtime still gave them a point toward playoff standings, and the Admirals were a highly competitive team, so it wasn't a disaster.

Gear was everywhere, even less organized than usual in the non-standard locker room. Personal space was at a minimum. Half of the guys were sitting on their asses on the floor, feet sprawled out in front of them like toddlers. Shane and Cadyn hung back, chatting as they waited for the chaos to die down before they attempted to wade in.

“What?” Cliff yelled, popping up over the heads of the other guys. “What the fuck is that?”

“Kingfisher!” Ilya yelled back, raising his voice even louder to be heard. “Gay bar owned by Scott Hunter and Eric Bennett! We are rolling out—be there or I will tell that Athletic journalist that you are a homophobe!”

“No, he will not,” Shane called back as laughter rippled across the room. “But it’s an open invitation. The Centaurs and the Scouts are also invited—they booked out the bar for tonight. WAGs, staff, and players only, please!”

Ilya jumped onto a stool and pointed dramatically at Shane. “You are the homophobe, Hollander!” When Vicky nailed him with a pair of balled-up socks, Shane clapped in approval. “The term is SAPs now! Spouses and partners, like dinosaurs Scott Hunter and Eric Bennett’s scandalously young boyfriends!”

“I always knew you were a sap, Roz,” Cliff quipped immediately. Ilya bowed so deeply at the ensuing jeers that he nearly fell off the chair.

“Ah, but Hunter is a married man now, I hear!” Vicky called. “You were not invited to the wedding, Rozanov? What a surprise! I thought for sure you would be his best man!”

Shane laughed, feeling light.

“Do you want to come?” he asked Cadyn and Luca.

“Is it really a gay bar?” Luca asked, his eyes wide. “Scott Hunter will be there?”

Shane tilted his head. “Yes and yes. He’s one of the owners.”

“Yes,” Luca blurted. “I will be there! Yes!”

“Okay,” Shane said, and turned to Cadyn. “Ilya was joking about the homophobia thing, to be clear. You don’t have to come.”

“Yes, I understood that joke,” Cadyn said. “Is the beer good?” Shane shrugged. Cadyn sighed. “Would it actually be okay if I didn’t go? I’m tired, and I don’t want to.”

“Absolutely. Take the night off. Rest up.”

“Thanks,” Cadyn murmured.

Shane stood up and crossed the room toward Ilya, eyes on his phone as he sent a quick text to Scott and Kip confirming that the majority of the Bears would be present. “Ready?”

Ilya smacked his lips and clapped his hands together. “Going to a gay bar with all my teammates? Hollander! I have been waiting my entire life!”

+++

Shane had gone to the Kingfisher a few times over the years. Ilya had visited as well whenever they were in town, often more eager than Shane to meet up with the other queer players in the league. Neither of them had ever seen it so crowded.

There were players in the bar Shane had never met, enormous defensemen and goalies even bigger than Cadyn, hockey players who kept their impressive beards unshaved year-round, never got their teeth fixed, and didn’t wear flippers to hide the holes in their smiles. A Scouts right-winger was grinning maniacally as his black eye was actively swelling shut.

There were also rainbow flags on the walls. One waiter was wearing a crop top decorated with multicolored rhinestones that read, inscrutably, PROUD OTTER. Scott Hunter was holding court, a proud smile on his face as he surveyed the crowded space. Kyle Swift, the bartender, was leaning across his table and making out with Eric Bennett, a retired New York goalie who had also come out, and people were heckling them, whistling, and catcalling.

But no one was angry. No one cared. Or if they did, then at least the standard had changed, and the status quo was to accept and move on.

Good enough, Shane thought. His eyes felt hot.

“It is very crowded,” Luca said.

“Let’s find a table,” Shane said, putting a hand on Luca’s shoulders and pushing them through the crowd.

“Hollzy!” He turned his head, following the call, and found Carter Vaughn enthusiastically waving him down from the table near the back where he was sitting with Scott and Bennett. “Come join!”

Ilya’s arm settled heavily over Shane’s shoulder. “Gay brigade!" he cheered, steering them forward.

Shane rolled his eyes and glanced at Luca. “Want to meet Scott?” he asked, and Luca looked so star-struck that he just nodded mutely.

“Damn, I didn’t say to bring Roz,” Vaughn said, rising from his seat to greet them.

“Fuck off,” Ilya said, pulling out two chairs. Shane sat in one and Luca awkwardly shuffled around to sit on his other side, leaning in close.

“This is Luca Haas." They did a quick round of introductions, though Luca definitely knew who everyone was.

“It’s an honor to meet you, sir,” Luca said, staring at Scott with so much intensity he actually looked scared as they shook hands. Kyle exchanged a friendly hello with Ilya before slipping back to the bar.

Scott’s husband, Kip Grady, replaced him with a tray and set a glass of vodka and cool ginger ale in front of Ilya and Shane. “Hi, Shane, hi Ilya,” he said, flashing them a bright smile.

Ilya picked up his glass and sipped it. “Excellent as always, Kip. You have much better taste in vodka than in husbands.”

Kip laughed. Scott ignored Ilya. “Want to join us, babe?” Scott asked his husband hopefully, even though the circular bar-height table was already overcrowded.

Kip laughed. “We’re slammed right now, and someone has to help bartend, given that both our illustrious owners are planning to drink the night away.” He dropped a kiss on Scott’s lips casually. No one reacted to that either. “Nice to see you, boys! Hopefully, we can catch up later!” he called, disappearing back to the bar.

“You are not helping, Hunter?” Ilya tutted disapprovingly. “Work your poor husband to the bone?”

Scott rolled his eyes while Vaughn snickered. Shane elbowed him. “Play nice.”

“I always play nice!” Ilya shouted. “Luca, tell them! I am very nice!”

“He is,” Luca said at once, earnestly, and everyone laughed again.

“We all know Shane’s the nice one,” Vaughn laughed.

Ilya immediately got a wicked look on his face. “That’s because you have not heard what he thinks about your hockey!”

“Ilya!”

“Oh, god, you’re right, I don’t wanna know." Vaughn covered his ears. “My ego would never recover!”

“No bravery,” Ilya clucked. “Okay, instead, Shane can just rank all the gay players in the league now that we have assembled!”

“Out queer players,” Scott corrected imperiously. Ilya rolled his eyes.

“I kind of want to know that, actually,” Bennett said, chuckling. “Come on, Hollzy, rank us.”

“No, that’s okay,” Shane said, sipping his drink.

“Vaughn is a coward, but he is a correct coward,” Ilya said. “You might never recover if you hear what he really thinks of all of you.”

“That is not true,” Shane said, even though it sort of was.

“It’s just his opinion!” Bennett laughed. “We can take it!”

“Ah, no, you can’t,” Ilya said. “He is ruthless. You have been warned.”

Hunter raised an eyebrow. “We all know I’m first, right, Hollzy?”

They were all egging him on, and Shane so rarely had any opportunity to voice his honest opinions to anyone except for Ilya and Svetlana, so he went for it, clearing his throat. “Sorry, Scott, but you drop in the ranking for inconsistency,” he said bluntly, to an immediate ‘oh shit!’ from Vaughn. Luca looked aghast. “It puts your teammates at a disadvantage because they are incapable of predicting you, and honestly, home ice advantage should not affect you this much.”

“Hey!” Scott objected. “I broke the home ice curse when I won the fucking Stanley Cup!”

Shane raised an eyebrow and took a sip of his drink.

Carter Vaughn burst out laughing. “You’re fucking brutal, dude,” he said, slapping Shane on the shoulder. “I definitely don’t want to know what you think about me.”

Politely, Shane stayed silent.

Ilya laughed even louder, craning up to drop a kiss on the top of Shane’s head. Shane briefly glanced at the Admirals and Scouts in the room, then sighed at himself. He needed to overcome his instinct to continuously scan rooms for trouble. Tonight would be a good practice run. “My Shane could list every player contracted in the league from worst to best without stopping.”

“Not true!” Shane objected. “Some players can’t be compared, and the vast majority are relatively even to one another, and there are far too many variables across nearly seven hundred people.”

“Okay, but you can rank all the gay ones?” Ilya teased, leaning into him.

“Including retired ones?” Vaughn leaned in. “Where do Price, Lundin, and Baldwin fall, huh, Shane?”

“Just the NHL?” Bennett asked. “There’s some more out dudes in the European leagues now. All told, we could probably get up to a dozen at this point.” He smiled slowly, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe it.

Honestly, neither could Shane. A dozen out gay players in the world. Probably more who were out to their teammates but not on social media, and even more who were out to their friends and family, and that mattered too, even if the people sitting at the crowded bar table didn’t know about it.

A dozen didn’t seem like that many, and yet it hadn’t even been three years since Shane was the only one.

One to a dozen. It was a start. Shane wouldn’t take it for granted.

“I’m gay, too!” Luca exclaimed. He looked surprised, as if he hadn't meant to say anything. “I mean,” he said, stuttering as everyone at the table turned to look at him, “I am gay. I came out to my team in Zurich after you won the Stanley Cup,” he said, looking shyly at Scott Hunter, whose face immediately melted. “If two of the best players in the NHL could both be gay, then I could be, too. It went very well. Zurich is very queer-friendly, but even there, hockey is hockey.” He looked between Scott and Shane, a flush staining his cheeks. “You made a difference, though. I would not have told my teammates otherwise.”

Damn. Shane also looked at Scott, who was staring right back at him.

As wonderful as it was to hear, it was heavy. It reminded them that they had never had role models like that.

Scott stood up and pulled Luca into a hug. “Thank you for telling me that, rook.”

On top of the table, Ilya laid his hand over Shane’s. “Luca, do you know that from 2014 until 2018, every single team who won the Cup was captained by a queer player?” he said, distracting the rest of the table from the tears Luca was pressing into Scott’s shoulder. Ilya thumped his free hand on the table. “Another reason to hate the fucking Flappers!”

He shouted it loud enough to draw a cheer from the rest of the bar. A dozen hands rose to toast the sentiment.

“Ruin the moment, why don’t you, Roz?” Scott grumbled, letting Luca go.

Shane stood and embraced Luca as well. The rookie latched onto him just as tightly.

It was nice to sit around talking with other queer players (and Carter Vaughn, who was so vocally outspoken about LGBT rights that he had honorary status), but when Cliff and Vicky migrated over to the table to catch up with the New York players, Shane excused himself from the crowded table, heading to the bar.

Ilya followed him.

“We should get back to your list,” Ilya murmured once they were relatively sequestered. “I want to know the order. I know that you have thoughts,” he purred, stretching out the last word.

He wasn’t wrong. “It would be rude,” Shane demurred.

“You love being rude to me,” Ilya said, leaning in closer. “I love it when you are rude.”

“Okay,” Shane said, his mouth dry despite his ginger ale. “Well, obviously I’m first, and you’re second to last.”

Ilya burst out laughing. “Oh, I am only second to last? So gracious of you!”

“Well, obviously Scott Hunter is last because dinosaurs aren’t allowed to play in the NHL,” Shane said, flushed and pleased. “They can’t wear regulation skates.”

Ilya laughed harder.

“Seriously, though," Shane said, tone softening, "it’s kind of amazing how good we all are, you know? We have to be, I guess. If we were average, it would be easy to push us out, so we have to be exceptional. Twice as good,” he murmured, repeating something Yuna had told him more than once.

“Don’t make it sad,” Ilya chided gently. “Come on. What about Luca? Where does he rank?”

“Oh, it’s hard to say with a rookie. In a couple of years, I think he could be better than Scott, easily. He just doesn’t have the experience yet.”

Ilya rolled his eyes. “You are still being polite. Okay, fine then, what about Barrett?”

Shane blinked, confused. “What about Barrett?”

Ilya gestured vaguely. “Where would he go on your list? Purely hockey skills, not as a person.”

“Why would he be on the gay list?”

Ilya sucked on his teeth and raised one eyebrow. “Why indeed?” he drawled.

Shane stared at him. “Barrett?” Shane hadn’t had any alcohol, but just then, he felt a little drunk. “He’s… gay?”

Ilya’s face morphed into a wide, disbelieving grin, absolutely delighted. Shane read the obvious joke off his face.

Shane huffed. “Shut the fuck up, asshole. How the hell was I supposed to know?”

Ilya shrugged, his elbows loose and floppy. “I did not say anything. Apparently you need me too, since you are so oblivious you cannot notice anything by yourself.” He tutted. “Another example of how you are very, very bad at being gay.”

“Shut up,” Shane hissed. Then, just to double-check, because he couldn’t trust Ilya on something like this, “Really? Barrett?”

“Yes,” Ilya said with a peal of laughter. “Shane! Come on, he is the most obvious in the world! He has a big crush on Harris. You really didn’t notice?”

Mutely, Shane shook his head. “On Harris? Really?”

“Yes,” Ilya said again. “In October, after the first game, he was staring at you all night, and I thought it was because he wanted to fuck you-”

“Wait, you already knew he was gay?” Shane demanded. Maybe squealed a little, but he wouldn’t admit it. “What? When the hell did he tell you?”

Ilya rolled his eyes. He was leaning over the counter on his elbow, chin propped on the heel of his hand. His fingers were so long that they completely framed his face, reaching almost all the way to his hairline, and he smirked. “He did not need to tell me. He is like you—very obvious.”

“Barrett?” Shane repeated, so stunned that he ignored the jab. “Wait—Troy Barrett?” He was pretty sure that there was another Barrett somewhere in the AHL.

Ilya laughed. “Yes, yes, Troy Barrett. He is gay. I thought he wanted to fuck you, and yes, probably he did, but really he wanted to fuck Harris. You and Harris were chatting, and Harris has hero worship for you, so Barrett was just staring and staring. I confronted him when you went to the bathroom, and he crumpled very easily under my impressive Russian threats. Asked me if you had a crush on Harris.” Ilya laughed, like that was the most unbelievable part of the situation he was describing. “I said no. I think he figured the rest out pretty easily.”

Shane’s head was spinning. “Troy Barrett does not want to fuck me,” he said, because for some reason that seemed like the most important detail at the moment.

“Not as much as he wants to fuck Harris.” Ilya straightened, pretending to dust lint off his shoulder. “Troy Barrett has been an asshole for years, but he tells me it was mostly from fear, you know? Why he was friends with Kent, why he went along with his jokes. He was scared. We understand that, maybe.” Shane nodded, still stunned. But even when he was captain, there had been jokes he let slide in the Montreal locker room because he was too scared to shoot them down. He understood that fear. “I think Troy is less scared now,” Ilya murmured. “Ottawa is better for him.”

“Well,” Shane said, “good for him. That’s good.”

“Yes,” Ilya agreed. “I have always thought probably he was a sad, destructive gay man, pathetically snapping from Kent’s heels, and I knew for sure after we went to the bar with Pike and the Centaurs. He has had a big, fat, sloppy crush on Harris since he moved teams.”

Shane mentally revised every interaction he’d had with Barrett that year, and still came up with a blank. “Okay. Uh, so you guys are really friends now?” Shane asked, just to check.

Ilya looked across the bar where Barrett and Harris were, in fact, standing near each other. Shane glanced over and yeah, okay, in retrospect, Barrett's crush was a little obvious. Ilya looked back at Shane and nodded. “Yes. I know he was terrible, and you do not have to be friends with him or ever speak to him, but I think we are friends now. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” Shane said. “I mean, it’s only fair, right? You hate Hayden.”

Ilya cocked his head. “This is not the same, Shane. I hate Hayden because he is bad at hockey and annoying and his wife and best friend are way out of his league, and I stand up to injustices like that. You hate Troy-”

“I don’t hate him.”

“Fine, you don’t like Troy because he has said terrible things to you and let his friends say even worse things. Those are not the same, and I’m not trying to tell you they are.”

Shane frowned. “But you’re okay with it? His… past, I guess?”

Ilya shrugged. “I am not okay with it, but I am also not….” Shane watched patiently as he sought the right words. “I won’t hold it against him forever. I have said some of the same things, especially in Russia. I’ve been an asshole. I’ve done bad things, treated people bad—treated you bad sometimes.”

“Ilya-”

“I want to believe in—what’s the word? Redeeming?”

“Redemption.”

“I like the idea of redemption,” Ilya said, nodding. “I want to be better than I was. I want Troy to be better. I want the world to be better. But if you were uncomfortable with me being friends, that would be the most important thing. You know that, yes?”

“I know. And I know how important having queer friends is to you. I wouldn’t do anything to take away from that, I promise.” He curled his fingers tighter around Ilya’s wrist. “I like the idea of redemption, too. I want things to get better.”

Ilya looked like he wanted to kiss Shane. If he had, Shane would have let him. Ilya hummed, looking up and out across the sea of hockey players again, something melancholy in his eyes. “Maybe they will,” he said. “I hope things will.”

They broke apart for a while after that, mingling through the crowd. Shane found himself back at the table with Luca, Bennett, and Scott for a while, then got up to wander. He made the rounds dutifully, checking in on his own teammates and greeting the Scouts’ captain politely. He accepted handshakes from a few players he had never really spoken with, and eventually made his way to the back of the bar where he found a miraculously empty booth. He scanned the bar, looking for his husband as he sat down, taking a moment for himself.

He eventually found Ilya and Barrett at the bar, locked in an intense-looking conversation. Barrett was anxiously peeling the label off a beer bottle and seemed to be doing most of the talking. Ilya’s brow was furrowed and his lips were pursed. Ilya’s relationship with Barrett was a lot less surprising now that Shane knew Barrett was gay. He understood that Ilya had always wanted more friends and more queer community—he wanted it more than Shane ever had. Even in the jovial atmosphere of the bar, their conversation looked focused enough that Shane assumed it was about something more serious than Barrett’s crush on Harris. He saw Ilya sling his arm over Barrett’s shoulder and squeeze.

“Excited for All-Stars?” Hayden asked, sliding into the booth next to Shane and interrupting his musings. “I actually got fucking picked this year, dude! And in Miami, score!”

Shane looked away from his husband to his best friend and laughed, nudging Hayden. “All you had to do to be the best player on the team was move to Ottawa.”

“And I’m still sharing the spot with Wyatt,” Hayden agreed wryly. “Damn. Well, a win is a win! Me and Jackie are talking about bringing the kids down, turning it into a Disney trip once the games are over, you know? Arthur’s finally old enough to actually remember it.”

It was nice to talk with Hayden about normal things for a while. Shane’s social battery was definitely running down quickly, but the Pike family would always be a safe topic for him.

“You should do it,” he said. “Luca and Cadyn were picked for the rookie talent showcase, so it feels like half of the Bears are going.”

“Yeah, it’s gonna be great!” Hayden said enthusiastically. “But there’s no way I can convince you and Ilya to come to the parks for free babysitting, right?”

“Absolutely not.” Disney had been overwhelming enough in the company of grown adults. Shane was not going to be roped into chaperoning four children as well.

Well, four children and Ilya.

They chatted for a while, discussing Hayden’s first All-Stars, and lost half an hour in conversation before Hayden checked the time on his phone and whistled. “It’s officially past my bedtime,” he said. “How the fuck are you still up, bro?”

Shane rolled his eyes but stood, because he was more than ready to retire to his hotel room too. He scanned the room. “Do you see Ilya?” he asked Hayden, who shrugged and shook his head.

“Um.”

Shane turned. Barrett was standing beside the booth, holding a beer. “Oh. Hi.”

“I overheard,” Barrett said awkwardly. “Roz ducked outside for a smoke break. He said he’d be just around the corner.” He winced.

“Oh,” Shane said again, a little surprised. “Thanks, Barrett.”

“Troy,” Barrett corrected awkwardly. “If you want. If that’s alright. You can call me Troy.”

Shane considered him, then glanced at Hayden, who shrugged. “Okay,” he said, turning forward again. “Thanks, Troy.”

He turned and left the bar.

Scouts and Admirals players had spilled onto the sidewalk outside the Kingfisher. Shane nodded at them as he wandered down the sidewalk, looking for his husband.

Even in the crowded and muddy atmosphere of New York (which at least didn’t smell as bad in the winter as in the summer), Shane caught the scent of Ilya’s favored brand of cigarettes immediately. He followed it down the street, two buildings away, where Ilya was tucked into the mouth of an alley, his back pressed against a brick wall that must have been freezing. Shane came to a stop a few feet away, watching the smoke curl up around Ilya’s head, intermingling with the steam of his breath in the cool air. On the streets of New York, the few centimeters of snow had already melted into brown slush.

Ilya shot him a bitter look as soon as Shane turned into his line of sight, probably having heard his approach. “I don’t want a lecture about lung cancer tonight, Hollander,” he said, flicking ash off the tip.

Shane watched it float down. “I won’t lecture you.”

Ilya said nothing. He took a long drag, then dropped the cigarette and crushed it on the sidewalk, then pulled a second one from a pack and lit it.

Shane stepped forward into the dirty alley. He reached down and took Ilya's hand—not the one holding the cigarette but the empty one. Ilya wasn’t wearing gloves again. When Ilya belligerently raised the cigarette back to his mouth, Shane didn’t let go. “What’s wrong?” Shane asked. Ilya's tension was obvious compared to an hour ago. Shane wondered what the hell he and Barrett had discussed.

Ilya shook him off. “Nothing,” he said, flexing his fingers. “Sorry. Now you won’t let me kiss you, right? Is my own fault. I am always disappointing you, hah.” He laughed, sharp, unfair.

“What the fuck—no,” Shane said, cutting himself off and blinking. “No, you don’t.” Ilya grimaced like he didn’t believe Shane, still staring at his cigarette. “Hey,” Shane said gently, cupping his cheek and turning his face a little more toward him. He didn’t force the issue when Ilya kept his eyes averted. “I think we’ve both been stressed recently,” he said slowly, “and… I know you’ve been carrying a lot, for both of us, but—you don’t. You could never disappoint me.”

“Okay,” Ilya said unconvincingly.

Shane paused. “I’m a little confused where this is coming from,” he admitted after a moment.

Ilya nodded. Still not looking at Shane, he brought the cigarette to his lips and took another slow, pointed drag. But he also dislodged Shane’s hand enough to turn his face away and blow the smoke in the opposite direction. He gave Shane time to formulate his response and didn’t interrupt.

“The first time we met,” Shane said, “you were smoking a cigarette.”

Ilya glanced back.

“And the first time you fucked me, you tasted like smoke. There is a part of me that could never actually hate the smell of cigarettes because sometimes it makes me think of those moments with you. I wouldn’t trade them for anything.”

Ilya’s blue eyes turned watery, already red.

“And also it’s literally an addiction,” Shane tacked on, “which I would never blame you for, because you started smoking as a child and it’s not at all your fault that you got addicted before your prefrontal cortex was fully developed, and in general I would just never blame or judge a person over an addiction that they are actively trying to recover from. So… you shouldn’t think badly of yourself because of that, either. It’s not… a personal failing. Or an intellectual one, or whatever.” He didn't think Ilya was actually upset about Shane's lectures on lung cancer, but it felt easier to start by addressing that than whatever was really bothering him.

Ilya chuckled, low and throaty, rolling his eyes fondly. “You are so woke, no wonder the hockey podcast bros hate you,” he teased. “And none of that is true. I am not addicted to anything but you. I smoke because I look so cool and sexy while I do it.”

“Okay,” Shane said, just glad Ilya was laughing again. “Um….” Shane had read literature about how to support a partner trying to break a nicotine habit. Most of it focused on support, presence, and reassurance. “I just love you so much,” he tried. “Of course, I don’t love it when you smoke a cancer stick and inhale seven thousand chemicals or whatever-” He winced at himself. “But that’s because I want you to be healthy. I just need you around forever, you know? I need to know you’re not ever going to disappear on me.” This edged dangerously close to another conversation, but Ilya had always struggled to give up smoking. He always felt so bad about himself after he indulged. Shane wondered if that was part of the reason he smoked: to give him a reason to be mad at himself. “I love everything about you. You can have a cigarette if you need one. That’s… it’s not the end of the world, even if I lecture you about it sometimes.”

Shane remembered one of the first sun-drenched days at the cottage, after the video leaked. He remembered waking up and finding the bed empty, and looking out over the lawn in a moment of total terror, total panic, and the way it had whooshed out of him the second he saw Ilya’s silhouette perched on a boulder, the sunrise in front of him over the rippling water of the lake. He could tell that Ilya was smoking even from a distance, but it hadn’t occurred to Shane to tell him off for it. He had grabbed a stack of blankets and two mugs of coffee and joined him, and the smell of cigarettes would never appeal to him, but even then it had reminded him of Ilya. And, at the cottage, surrounded by nature, open air, and freshwater, it had dispersed into almost nothing.

He hadn’t told Ilya off or run away from him then. He certainly wouldn’t do it now.

“Did something happen with Troy?” 

Ilya winced and shook his head quickly. “No, nothing like that. Troy is fine. It’s just….” Ilya groaned and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Sorry, sorry, this is nothing. This is pointless. I don’t-” He cut himself off with a groan and tilted his head back, flattening his curls against the brick wall. “I don’t know,” he said, voice cracking. “It was a good night. I don’t know what went wrong.”

“Okay.” Shane worried at his lip. “Do you want to go back to the hotel?”

Ilya nodded. He stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette. Shane watched him slip the ruined butt into his coat pocket. From a different pocket, he fished out the rest of the pack and his lighter, and pressed them into Shane’s hand. “Don’t throw them out,” Ilya said, voice rough from smoke. “Hold on to them for me, okay? And when I think I need one, I will try to ask you instead of buying more. They are more expensive in Canada, anyway.”

The ugly box felt oddly light in Shane’s palm. He curled his fingers around it and raised it to his chest. “I won’t make you smoke alone,” he promised.

“Then I will have a reason not to smoke.” Ilya moved closer to Shane, bending his head so he could touch his nose to his cheek. “Imagine if I killed Shane Hollander from second-hand smoke. All of Canada would band together and murder me, I think.”

“Even if I died of lung cancer, I’d still come back from the dead to protect you from the angry mob,” Shane said. He slipped the pack into his jacket pocket, the shape and weight unfamiliar.

“You are very sweet to me,” Ilya murmured. “Promise to haunt me forever?”

“Of course,” Shane said. “What else would I do?”

+++

Ilya and Shane spent the night cuddling in bed, having slow sex and never letting go of each other. Ilya was just as clingy on the flight back home, and far quieter than usual. He had an appointment scheduled with Galina in three days, so Shane didn’t nag him about it, but he worried.

The Boston Bears’ next home game against the Mudslides was cancelled when a snowstorm grounded all planes in Colorado. Shane and Ilya had the night off, and it was snowing in Boston too. They turned up the heat in the kitchen and drank black tea (Ilya had convinced Shane that the caffeine was minimal enough to fit his diet) and spent the evening cooking Ilya’s favorite comfort meals together. Shane forced himself not to think about carbohydrates and fats, and it was worth the weird feeling it gave him when Ilya finally smiled again. He let Ilya press cherry tomatoes picked fresh off the vine between his lips, and he crunched down on the tart sweetness.

The morning after their cancelled game, Shane and Ilya were standing in the kitchen, and Anya was kneeling next to Ilya with the usual look of eager anticipation on her face, hoping to get a treat soon. Shane smiled at her as he tended to his miniature herb garden. He had moved all the plants into individual pots and added a parsley and oregano bush. He was excited for springtime when he could move some of them onto the patio. It was far too late in the year to start planting anything outside, and Shane hadn’t quite decided what he wanted to do with the garden beds over the long summer months. He had a few diagrams of ideas. He liked the idea of a vegetable garden. He wanted to plant a tree—maybe pears. Shane liked pears.

The house was warm, and it was still snowing. The wind had pushed little snowdrifts onto the windowpanes. It was early morning, but the sun was hidden behind white clouds.

“Barrett is going to come out,” Ilya told Shane, apropos of nothing with the air of a confession, not looking at him as he patted Anya firmly on her head, then pointed into the living room. Anya whined but obediently turned and followed the command, depositing herself in one of her many enormous plush dog beds.

“Come out?” Shane asked absently, still dreaming of his garden. “Come out where?” Ilya didn’t respond, and it took a few moments of silence before Shane paused. He carefully set down his scissors and turned slowly to face his husband. “Really? Officially?

“Troy told me he was thinking about coming out. He asked if he should reach out to you for advice. I told him no, idiot, gave him Scott Hunter’s number instead. Hunter wants to be gay messiah, guiding all the little gay ducks in a row. Let him do it.”

“Oh,” Shane said. “Thanks.” He didn’t want to imagine how he would have reacted if Troy Barrett had called him for advice on coming out. He probably would have broken his phone. “This is what you and Troy talked about at the Kingfisher?” he hedged.

“Yes. He wants to be dramatic like Hunter though,” Ilya said, still not looking at Shane. “He will come out during the Centaurs Pride Night game tonight.”

Shane quickly rolodexed through his mental schedule. “Wait, don’t the Centaurs play the Guardians tonight? That seems like a fraught environment.”

Ilya shrugged. “It’s Pride Night. S’what Troy wanted to do. Big gesture.”

“Oh.”

“I would like to watch. He’s my friend, so.” Ilya shrugged.

“Yeah, of course,” Shane agreed. “Of course.”

Ilya’s abrupt sadness at the Kingfisher suddenly made a lot more sense. Shane rounded the counter and kissed his temple. Ilya hummed, pressing into him, and Shane acknowledged the guilt that sat heavily in his stomach.

+++

When the snow had piled a few inches deeper, they sat in the living room with Anya to watch the game, tension thick in the air between them. Ilya and Shane watched hockey together all the time, and they went to PWHL and AHL games when their schedules permitted. Hockey was the bedrock and fabric of their lives, and Shane would never get tired of it. He knew that Ilya was not as obsessed with the sport as Shane was (even in the NHL, few people were), but it was inextricable from who they were and their life stories.

Troy Barrett probably felt the same. Coming out on Pride Night probably felt special because of that.

“Wow,” Shane murmured, watching the Canadian Tire Centre unfurl enormous multi-colored flags. A Lady Gaga song was playing over the stadium speakers. Shane wanted to think it was cliché, but his eyes were already tearing up.

Troy Barrett skated onto the ice with a rainbow flag. Ilya had already shown him the post he made on Instagram. The Centaurs—Hayden, Bood, and Hayes at the lead—were cheering loud enough that the microphones easily picked them up, and the Guardians were watching Barrett with suspicion, but Barrett hardly seemed to notice as he draped the flag over his shoulders. It reminded Shane of the intense pit in his stomach he had felt when Scott had come out, but even that was a less calculated decision. Scott had, in the moment, realized that he couldn’t keep living the way he had been. Maybe he had even been thinking of Shane, in some small part, and decided that it was worth it. It had been a snap decision, though.

Troy Barrett had chosen this. He’d planned it. He had probably received permission from his team, who must have helped him organize this moment.

The camera cut in closer as Barrett raised a hand to his face, hiding tears, and his teammates swooped in to pat his back and prop him up.

“How is he not terrified?” Shane asked quietly. Maybe it was the trauma Shane had experienced, but he didn’t think he would ever really understand the desire that the Barretts and Hunters of the world who wanted to come out in such spectacular, loud ways. He just didn’t understand.

“Maybe he is. But he was also terrified in the closet, and now at least he can be terrified and honest,” Ilya said. “He was ready to come out. It’s that simple, I think. He was ready to stop hiding himself, so it was worth the risk.”

“I don’t think I ever got the chance to want that,” Shane admitted. “I like how things are now, but I never got there on my own. I didn’t have the chance.”

“I’m sorry,” Ilya said. “I wish you had.”

They let the silence settle. Shane kept his eyes on the television. The Bears’ own Pride Night was coming up as well. “Are you sure you’re ready?” he asked quietly, picturing Ilya exchanging his usual generic rainbow tape for the colors of the bisexual flag, projected on a Jumbotron for the stadium to see. Would Boston cheer for them?

Shane thought, Yes. I think they would.

Ilya took some time before answering. “Yes,” he said. “I am. Would make me the fourth open queer player in the league now—actually fifth? Sixth?” He pretended to count his fingers, then threw his hands in the air. “I have no idea what’s going on in the Western Conference, but I am already so far behind. I think I need to catch up.”

“Silly,” Shane murmured, turning his head to kiss Ilya’s chest. “Okay. How do you want to do it?”

“Really?” Ilya asked softly. “It’s not too much? It can wait for summer. You know I don’t give a fuck what strangers think of me, and if we are both out then there will be even more talk.”

“We’re moving the schedule up, remember?” Shane said, even though they still hadn’t discussed the specifics of how they wanted to officially reveal their relationship. He curled his fingers into the waistband of Ilya’s sweatpants, feeling warm skin and soft cotton. “You deserve to tell them yourself.”

Ilya kissed the top of Shane’s head. “Let me think about it,” he whispered.

“Okay.” Shane closed his eyes.

+++

“Alright, Shane,” Mike said, clicking his pen. The noise was sharp and tinny through the speakers. “Let’s have a conversation. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

Shane let himself look down. He didn’t force eye contact. “Yeah, it has.”

“Have you given some thought to my proposal that we schedule a few more meetings? I know it’s difficult with your career, but the work we do is something you need to prioritize.”

“Right,” Shane said. “I agree. Sort of.”

Mike gave Shane a long moment to elaborate and then gently prompted, “What do you mean by ‘sort of’?”

He had practiced this with Ilya, but Shane didn’t necessarily think it had helped. At least he had a script for the start of this conversation. “I don’t think,” Shane said slowly, “that this is working anymore.”

Mike hummed. He drummed his pen in an uneven beat on the pad of paper he always scribbled on even though their sessions were online. “Tell me what you mean by that.”

Shane didn’t like Mike’s open-ended statements. For his entire life, Shane had been practicing how to read other people’s emotions and have normal conversations, but Mike was always professionally shielding his natural feelings and responses. It set Shane on edge because he had a hard enough time reading other people under normal circumstances. Shane usually got along with people who were very blunt and straightforward (people like Svetlana, Ilya, and Rose, who said what they meant without jumping through hoops to get there, or Hayden, Vicky, and Cliff, who never tried to hide anything from Shane), and Mike was the opposite.

It was only the very beginning of their session, but Shane was already feeling frustrated. That was part of the reason he needed a change, though. He let the frustration show on his face when usually he would have tried very hard to hide it, to not offend or be dismissive of Mike’s professionalism, and he let his annoyance drive him to blurt out his first real question. “Do you think I might be autistic?” he asked, finally looking at the screen.

The drumming of the pen stopped. “You know, Shane,” Mike said after a moment of consideration, “I don’t have much experience with autistic patients. I’m not trained in diagnosing autism. If you’re looking for a diagnosis, that’s not something I can do for you.”

“I don’t want a diagnosis,” Shane said. He didn’t think he did, at least.

Mike hummed. “Do you know what you want?”

“I think...” Shane said, picking at his nails. “I think I might want to find a new therapist.”

Mike paused. Mike had a nice microphone attached to his setup, so the line didn’t crackle with static as the silence set in. “You know, Shane,” he said after a moment, “I’m not surprised to hear you say that. Can you tell me why you think you need to make this change?”

Shane took a deep breath. He had read a few articles about how to 'break up' with a therapist, but it wasn’t really the kind of thing he could practice for. At least Mike didn’t seem angry. “I can try.”

“That’s all therapy is, sometimes,” Mike said. “Trying. And trying again.”

“I don’t want to start from zero,” Shane confessed. “That’s not—that’s not what I want.”

“Our needs change all the time,” Mike said slowly. “Who we are, and what we need from others. Shane, I’ve never once thought that you weren’t trying, and, for that reason alone, I don’t think you're going to be starting from zero.” Shane pressed his lips together and nodded. Mike smiled. “Okay. Let’s talk. Let’s figure out what you need and how you can get it. That’s something we can definitely do, Shane.”

+++

Shane closed his laptop when the meeting concluded. It shut with a gentle magnetic click that felt final.

He stood up and went to find Ilya and Anya, leaving behind a yellow legal pad on his desk filled with advice, references, names, and different kinds of therapy. All the new information would be there, waiting for him, when he was ready.

Ilya was in the living room, lying on the couch. Anya was lying on Ilya, and she would have looked deep asleep if her tail hadn’t been thwacking happily away.

Shane crammed himself sideways between Ilya and the couch cushions, grateful for the depth of the couch, and tucked his face against Ilya’s neck, one arm angling up awkwardly so that he could rest his hand on Anya’s head and stroke his fingers between her soft ears. “It went really well,” Shane said, even though Ilya hadn’t asked. “Mike gave me some references and some stuff to look into before I have to make any decisions. I’ll probably send it to my mom. And you can look at it too if you want.”

“Okay, malysh.”

“He wasn’t mad at me,” Shane said, turning his face a little.

“Who could be mad at you?” Ilya cooed. “You are perfect. You have never done anything wrong.”

It had been a hard year. Not the worst of his life, though.

Shane took another breath. “Okay. Going forward. Step one: break up with Mike, complete. Step two: find a new therapist, in progress. Step three… we make a plan on how to come out.”

Ilya paused, then nodded. “Okay. Step three.”

+++

Shane bought a jalapeño plant. He added a humidifier to his corner of growing things. Ilya offered to buy him a Monstera, but they already had a few houseplants around that had never caught his attention the way his little vegetable garden did.

Shane liked the idea of growing his own food. He liked measuring the length of the peppers each day, recording them in his notebook, and religiously checking for aphid infestations. He didn’t grow much, and the herbs were generally more useful than his low yield of vegetables, but he liked plucking ripe cherry tomatoes off the vine, rinsing them carefully under cool water, and placing them between his teeth to feel the pop.

“It's like tapioca pearls,” he told Ilya as he chewed, one hand in front of his mouth.

Ilya made a face. “Veggies are not like boba, you take that back!”

"Tomatoes are a fruit," Shane insisted, and they fell into a well-worn, comfortable arguement.

Maybe it was psychosomatic, but Shane thought their whole house smelled better, fresher than it had last winter. Maybe it was just the humidifier.

Shane started searching for a new therapist. He made a list of qualities he wanted, and it was long. “At least I’m not geographically limited,” he fretted, tapping his pen against the notebook (a different one from his garden log, of course). “I prefer online meetings, but it kind of makes the search too broad in a way, you know? I just need someone certified in the US and Canada.”

“We will look until we find the right person for you,” Ilya said, “and everything will be fine.”

Shane’s primary requirement was flexibility. “I need to find a way to make sessions part of my routine more regularly.” Working in professional sports, Ilya and Shane were not bound by calendar dates or weekdays. Shane had very strict routines, but they did not run according to those things either. Instead, Shane had routines for game-days, for afternoon game days, and variations of both depending on if they were on home ice, and which time zone they were in, and how many days off they’d had before and after. “I think,” he suggested to Ilya, “that I should work my therapy sessions in like that. Find someone with enough flexibility that it would be feasible for me to schedule my sessions whenever we have two days off in a row, maybe? I could go to practice in the morning if necessary, and do therapy in the afternoon, and have a day off after. Maybe sometimes that would mean I’d go to a session every other week, and sometimes it would be more or less than that, but at least I could build a daily routine around it, which matters more to me anyway than having a regular weekly or monthly schedule. Does that make sense?”

Ilya kissed his cheek hard. “It makes the most sense in the world.”

In the last week of January before All-Stars, Shane thought a lot about what he and Cadyn had spoken about. One of his bullet points was Experience with patients on the autism spectrum? He didn’t feel ready to have that conversation with his parents, but he thought maybe he could manage talking to a professional.

The season progressed around them, everyone waiting for the All-Star break. Ilya and Shane would both be attending, Shane as the player department pick and Ilya as a shoo-in fan vote, but to the team’s surprise and delight, Cadyn and Luca were also selected to attend for a showcase of rookie talent across the league. The team took the rookies to celebrate their selections at Fiorella’s one night, about a week before the league-wide break, both shy young men practically glowing with pride while trying to pretend otherwise.

“Hell, if it’s in fucking Miami, maybe I’ll come this year,” Cliff said, knocking back a drink. “I could use a fucking vacation. God, I’m so fucking old, my bones are fucking killing me this winter.”

“Not a bad idea,” Vicky said, tilting his glass toward Cliff. “Amanda and I have been talking about a vacation. Might be fun. Easy enough to plan.”

“Fuck yes!” Ilya said, latching onto the idea immediately. “You have to! Will be so much fucking better with some actually fun people around instead of all boring Centaurs!”

Hayden was selected as the Centaurs’ player and Wyatt Hayes was voted in as well. JJ was picked to represent Montreal, and Shane hoped that they would have a moment to talk and catch up. He felt bad about how far apart he and JJ had drifted, especially since Shane had put in so much effort to remain close with Hayden. He wanted to make sure that JJ was doing okay now that he had lost most of his friends on the Voyageurs.

“Scott Hunter will also be there,” Ilya said. “Is like another reunion!”

“Yeah,” Shane murmured. “Everyone will be there.”

Slowly, Shane started to turn an idea over in his head. He went quiet for the rest of the night, but no one bothered him or tried to drag him into a conversation. Shane liked that about Fiorella’s. No one expected him to act like he wanted to drink beers, or dance with strangers, or sweat through his shirt. His eyes, like usual, kept drifting over to the gallery wall of photos of the Bears.

Shane and Ilya went home before ten. Shane was still quiet, and Ilya still didn’t push him, clearly aware that Shane was processing something.

They spent the rest of the evening curled together in the living room, as if it would have hurt them to be more than a few feet apart. It had been a harsh, freezing winter, even for a Canadian and a Russian, but Ilya kept his house swelteringly warm, and Shane thoroughly approved of how well-insulated the living room was despite the large surrounding windows. They went shirtless for the evening, letting their skin touch.

When they were finally getting ready for bed, later than Shane would usually be awake, Ilya interrupted his skincare routine. He entered the bathroom, kissed Shane’s cheek, and turned him around so he could hook his hands beneath Shane’s thighs and lift him onto the counter without a word. “Tell me what you are thinking,” he said, peppering kisses over Shane’s freshly washed skin. “Tell me what your brain is turning over so hard that you can’t even speak. Tell me.”

Shane hummed. He wrapped his legs around Ilya, ankles settling against the small of his back. He looked at the cross Ilya always wore, even when he was completely naked. With their bodies pressed together, Shane could see both their chests and chains. A matching set.

“All-Stars,” Shane said, flicking his eyes up.

Ilya slowly raised an eyebrow. “All-Stars, yes. What about All-Stars?”

Shane took a quick breath. “Let’s do it. At All-Stars.”

+++

r/hockey • 2 hr. ago

u/krosdybretskyrozanov

Has Shane Hollander ever been in a relationship?

Got into a discussion with my friends about this watching the last Montreal v. Bears game (it was brutal, and i love to see it). Normally we don’t give a shit about players personal lives but since Hollander came out as gay years ago, we were talking about if he had ever been with anyone, and then Rose Landry came up. I had forgotten all about her, what was the story behind that? Did Hollander ever confirm? And he’s been out for a few years now but we weren’t sure that he has ever been seen with another dude. Not really a point to this question but I’m curious and out of the loop.

Replies Sort by: Old

u/beDile97 • 1 hr. ago

The puck bunnies do a lot of speculating about that stuff, but I’m with you, it really doesn't matter. Happy he’s in Boston now (go Bears, just get us another fucking cup) but personally v glad he’s kept it on the downlow.

  |  u/LeagueRich173 • 1 hr. ago

Yeah honestly, respect to Hollander for not trying to get in anyone’s face with it. I don’t care if he wants to fuck other dudes, but we never talk about the WAGs this much, you know? And we definitely don’t need another Scott Hunter making the moment all about him when it should've been for the team. Hockey should be about hockey.

 |  | u/mudslidesmudslideshome • 30 min.  ago

Okay, whatever, “puck bunnies” is such a fucked up term and that’s the tip of the iceberg looking at these fuck ass replies. Just say you don’t believe women belong in “men’s” spaces, we obviously know what you mean.

u/krusty_krab_spatula • 1 hr. ago

Hi OP, just want to clarify something: Shane Hollander did not come out. He was outed. Someone illegally recorded him, posted the video of him privately confessing his sexuality to a friend, and then several news outlets ran the video in full on public television. That is not coming out.

  |  u/LeagueRich17 • 1 hr. ago

Okay, just calm down. OP def didn’t mean anything by it. 

u/sgAces23_bm • 52 min. ago

I wouldn’t want to share a locker room with the guy, that’s all i’m saying

u/2monthsandimgone • 34 min. ago

DEI hire. Not that good.

u/tinfoilhathollanover • 27 min. ago

I’ll tell OP because your question actually seemed genuine even though these responses suck: Shane Hollander sincerely dated Rose Landry when he was still questioning his sexuality and their break-up was mutual (both have confirmed this). He casually dated one or two girls before her, mentioned vaguely in interviews early in his career, but never Instagram official. Since coming out, he has not confirmed or denied being in a relationship with anyone, but he and Ilya Rozanov are extremely close and there is a lot of speculation about them, which is probably what you will find if you google this question. There are also rumors about him and a few other celebrities, most notably X-Squad actor Miles Cantone, but again, nothing substantiated.

But the honest answer: we don't know because Shane has never said one way or another.

  |  u/krosdybretskyrozanov OP • 2 min. ago

Thanks for the actual response. It got gross in here and I didn’t want that to happen. I looked it up and wow, Rozanov and Hollander? Man, after everything I saw, I might start shipping them just to spite these assholes. They, like, own a dog together? What the hell?

Chapter End Notes

This fic is officially longer now than “something you can build,” but that was inevitable lol. This series started off as a one-shot and it’s almost 250k now... what happened

Chapter 14

Chapter Notes

There are a few references to the Ilya POV companion fic in this series, “it felt like we were something,” but nothing I think you have to know to understand… anyway… All-Stars, anyone?

“Are you sure?” Ilya whispered, his lips against Shane’s in the darkness.

Every inch of their bodies were pressed together, glued by spit, sweat, and other things. Shane breathed in the carbon dioxide Ilya exhaled. “Yes. I’m sure.”

Between them, their matching necklaces tangled together.

+++

They only had a week to plan everything, which felt like an insurmountable task. They nearly gave up until Shane remembered they had a secret weapon:

He called his mom.

“I’ll handle it,” Yuna Hollander said confidently, voice clear and face assured as she stared at them through FaceTime, Shane’s phone propped up against his basil plant. 

Ilya squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Yuna.”

“Don’t thank me,” she said, already on her laptop, but she glanced at them with soft eyes. “I’m honored.”

She and David were on a flight to Miami two days later.

Ilya was upset they couldn’t bring Anya with them, though Shane had reasonably pointed out that she wouldn’t enjoy spending her time in a hotel room even if it was allowed. Shane was relieved when Cliff told them that during longer road trips Margot Jennings, the Bears’ goaltender coach, often watched his dog and had offered to look after Anya as well. Ilya was much happier to know that she wouldn’t be in the dog hotel for a week, and Shane was glad he didn’t have to listen to Ilya’s complaints.

They dropped Anya off with a million kisses and Shane and Ilya drove to the airport, bags packed and ready for All-Stars.

+++

“Surprise!”

“Svetlana!” Ilya gasped, arms opening on instinct to accept the running hug that Svetlana threw at him as soon as they walked into the hotel. “What are you doing here?”

She smacked his arm. “What kind of question is that? You are not happy to see me?”

“Of course I am, stupid. But-”

“Your boy invited me and paid for my very nice first-class tickets.” She sniffed. “I detest Florida, but I haven’t had enough time with you this year. You should thank him.”

“What are they saying?” Rose asked Shane, because they were speaking Russian. She sedately walked through the lobby to hug Shane.

“They’re just bickering like siblings,” Shane said, rolling his eyes, pulling back to kiss Rose’s cheek.

Rose laughed. “What would you know about siblings?”

“Mr. Only Child!” Ilya called, joining in on the ribbing immediately.

“Oh, leave him alone,” said Yuna, approaching from the elevator bay. David was grinning broadly as he followed at her heels. “Shane comes from a long lineage of only children—we couldn’t break the tradition just for him.”

“I think we did an okay job socializing him, despite that,” David offered politely. A few eyebrows shot up. Shane sighed. David laughed. “Well, we did our best.”

Svetlana hooked her arm through Shane’s and raised her perfectly styled eyebrows at Ilya. “You have something against only children, Ilyusha?”

He immediately held up his hands in surrender, laughing. “Of course not! Mama Hollander is always right—they could not break tradition!”

“Come on,” Rose said, grabbing the handle of Shane’s suitcase. “Let’s get you guys checked in! We’re on a tight schedule here, boys. I’ve booked us an appointment at the hotel spa in two hours, and we’re all going.”

“And I booked us reservations at a very delightful sushi place for dinner,” Svetlana said, grabbing Ilya’s suitcase and the garment bags draped on top of it, “where I will not be picking up the tab.” She sniffed.

The Miami hotel was extremely expensive and, accordingly, ostentatious, full of chandeliers and bellboys who immediately swooped in to rescue their luggage. Shane and Ilya had turned down the comped hotel provided by the NHL, upgrading to a penthouse suite where they would stay with his parents and their best friends for the week. Rose and Svetlana had agreed to Shane’s plan to surprise Ilya with their presence, and Ilya turned to Shane as they headed toward the check-in desk.

“You invited Svetlana,” Ilya whispered, his eyes soft.

“Of course I did. I thought it would be nice to have everyone here.”

“Yes, very nice,” Ilya said, wrapping an arm around Shane’s waist.

The lobby wasn’t crowded, but it wasn’t empty. Rose drew enough attention on her own, even without the entire Hollander clan present. There was no guarantee that no one had noticed them, or even that someone was surreptitiously filming them.

But that didn’t really matter anymore.

Shane put his cheek on Ilya’s shoulder and hugged him back.

+++

The first day of All-Stars was the skills tournament, followed by the rookie talent showcase. Shane and Ilya both participated in multiple events, but for once, they signed up for different competitions so they wouldn’t be directly competing. (They still placed at the top of their respective categories. They always did.)

Hayden was so nervous that he performed abysmally in the hardest shot competition, but no one cared. Wyatt adjusted to the spirit of All-Stars the quickest, immediately playing into the exhibition games with great, dramatic saves, throwing himself to the ice ridiculously to draw laughter from the audience.

David and Yuna attended wearing Shane’s jersey. A few other players tried to chirp Shane about his parents being in attendance as if it were a school recital, but it was easy to brush off the comments when the Jumbotron operator continuously cut to Rose Landry in her Boston Hollander jersey, cheering with Svetlana from the VIP lounge. For the rookie showcase, Ilya and Shane cheered just as hard for Cadyn and Luca from the bench.

Cliff, Vicky, and Vicky’s wife Amanda arrived that night and joined the rest of their party at an upscale restaurant. In a reserved room with half a dozen All-Stars, their friends, and their partners crowded around a table, Ilya stood up and informed them of their plan to come out.

Specifically, how they were going to announce that Ilya was bisexual, and that he and Shane were married.

“Fucking hell,” Scott muttered. “You were serious about that?”

“Serious as a stroke,” Ilya said, smiling.

“Heart attack,” Shane corrected.

“I’m gonna have a heart attack,” Scott said.

Ilya leapt at the opportunity. “Because you are so old!”

Scott nodded, not offended. “Fair. I walked right into that one.” Kip reassuringly patted his shoulder.

Cliff jumped up and wrestled Ilya into a hug, and on the other side of the table, Hayden and Vicky fought for the same privilege to do so to Shane.

“I was here first, dick!”

“We are fellow alternates! ‘Ollander and I are bonded for life!”

Cadyn and Luca received the next round of hugs, and Shane smiled when he saw Kip pulling Ilya in after. Shane outright laughed at the sour expression on Scott’s face when Kip kissed Ilya’s cheek. There was an outpouring of love and support until everyone eventually returned to their seats. Their friends filled the rest of the meal with chatter and laughter, toasting and roasting Shane and Ilya in equal measure.

Shane was almost too nervous to eat but powered through, Ilya’s hand on his thigh beneath the table.

After dinner, Shane agreed to accompany most of the group to a club that had been rented out for the All-Stars and their guests. Cadyn and Luca stayed at the hotel. Shane thought their rookies were probably better off enjoying room service and the hotel amenities than swaying in the crush of bodies. There were multicolored lights, women dancing on tables in tiny clothes, and so much sweat that he could see it suspended in the air like mist.

It was disgusting.

Dancing with Ilya made up for it, though.

In the dark, with Ilya’s hands on his hips, Shane could ignore the rest of it.

Shane wasn’t a good dancer, but with Ilya, movement was instinctual. It was a sway of hips that he knew so well, a coming apart and pushing together that was more familiar to him than anything but breathing and hockey. It was natural. Ilya never let go of Shane, possessive and clutching, and they kept their eyes open, watching each other as they danced for hours, occasionally taking breaks or dancing with their friends, but always coming back to each other.

It was extremely dehydrating, though, so at a point Shane broke off from their group to go to the bar. “I need a moment,” he said, almost panting into his husband’s ear, and Ilya nodded, turning to join the huddle of Rose, Svetlana, Cliff, Vicky, and Amanda as they danced in pairs and as a group. Shane smiled, watching Ilya wrap an arm behind Rose’s shoulder and plant a kiss on Vicky’s cheek, then more bodies moved between them, and Shane lost sight of them.

He struggled through the crowd, eventually reaching the bar, where he saw JJ nursing a drink alone. JJ was usually the life of the party at events like this, exuberant and loud and pleased, but he didn’t seem to have anyone with him tonight.

Shane took a deep breath and slid onto the stool next to him.

“Hi, man.”

JJ looked like he wasn’t surprised to see Shane. “Mon Capitaine,” he said, raising his glass in a morose cheer.

Shane switched over to French. JJ came from a part of Quebec that almost exclusively spoke French; he hadn’t started learning English until high school, and when they had been younger, he had followed Shane around the locker room, desperate to speak his native language.

There were other things that had united them in the Voyageurs locker room. Shane had loved being on a team with JJ—he was truly affable, genuinely kind, and always stood up for himself. His incredible wingspan made him a hell of a boxer, too, and he didn’t let people get away with talking shit. JJ never had a problem calling out the racist bullshit they heard in NHL locker rooms in the early 2010s, when Shane had still shied away from confrontation.

Yeah. Shane had loved playing with JJ.

“How are you doing, JJ?”

He sighed and finished his drink, signaling for another. “Bit shit,” he admitted. “Sorry for snapping at you before.”

“Don’t think of it.”

“No, no. I’m sorry.”

“Well, thanks. Forgiven.” Shane stared at him, remembering the conversation he’d had in the hospital with Hayden two years ago, before Hayden decided to re-sign with Ottawa, when Hayden had said, ‘I’m having a hard time. With the Voyageurs.’ “Are you good, JJ?”

“I feel like I am waiting out a storm that I know is going to end,” JJ answered immediately, staring into his empty glass, as if he had planned out these words in advance, “and it’s nice to know it won’t be forever, but in the meantime, I’m still stuck standing in the fucking rain.”

“Why don’t you leave?” Shane asked quietly. “I’ve heard Vancouver-”

JJ shook his head. “No, I don’t want to leave. I was drafted by this team. I want to retire with this team. I want to teach my rookies to be better players and better people, instead of abandoning them to the likes of Comeau. And Comeau will be done soon anyway, and I expect Theriault will be out the door at the end of the season when we inevitably don’t make it back to the fucking playoffs. I do not believe that there is something inherently rotten at the core of the Voyageurs that does not exist across this entire league.” He gestured broadly, his arms so long that he accidentally brushed Shane’s shoulder. He pulled back instinctively, then paused, then set his hand down, heavy and warm, gripping Shane tightly. “No. I don’t want to leave.”

Shane felt deeply sympathetic. “I didn’t want to leave either.” He swallowed. “Not even at the end.”

JJ looked at him, sad under strobe lights, and nodded.

They were very different people, but JJ had always made space for Shane in his life. He had wanted Shane around even when everyone else in the locker room called him a buzzkill, or a loser, or a virgin. JJ had come around the night the video got out, and he’d been nosy and rude, but mostly because JJ genuinely didn’t think it was a big deal that Shane was gay, so he hadn’t brought a lot of gravity to the situation. JJ was sticking out an unpleasant situation because he wanted to be in Montreal when things got better. He wanted to make things better. That was admirable.

They had grown apart, but they didn’t have to stay that way.

“Hey,” Shane said impulsively. “When’s your flight back to Montreal? Do you think you could stay an extra day?”

+++

The next morning, it was Shane’s turn to drag Ilya to the beach at dawn. They were in Miami, not Tampa Bay, so it wasn’t the same spot where Ilya found Shane during All-Stars in 2017, but it looked the same. It was close enough.

Shane spread sunscreen over Ilya’s shoulders, paying careful attention to the loon tattoo. There were other people around, but no one recognized or approached them, and it felt like they were in a bubble, all to themselves.

Shane pushed Ilya back into bed. They fucked slow and hot over the sheets, spent twenty minutes making out in the shower, and then Shane stood, one shoulder braced against the wall, and watched with a gentle smile as Ilya changed the covers, humming under his breath.

They went to the arena, got dressed in the same locker room, and skated out to fanfare. The 2017 All-Stars Game was the very first time they had played together. It was 2020 now, and Shane had lost count.

There were four teams that year, organized by Division, so Shane was on a team with his husband, Hayden, Wyatt, and JJ. Part of Shane had been happy the previous year when there was a player draft, and he and Ilya had, expectedly, gone first and second (Shane first, to be clear), because it was still fun to compete with his husband, and he had fewer opportunities to do that now.

But playing with Ilya and so many of their friends (and destroying Scott Hunter in the first round of the tournament) was absolutely worth it.

All their friends, including Cadyn and Luca, the Pike children, and the many people who had flown out just for that weekend, were somewhere in the audience, cheering them on.

All-Stars was silly and fun, full of trick shots and showboating, but Shane took it more seriously than most and rarely showed off. But that day felt different. Energy coursed through him, manic, demanding release.

So, in the middle of a game, in loosely tied hockey skates, Shane leapt forward and up, toe dragging across the ice for a split second, his stick tucked to his chest, and spun midair, weightlessly. He landed the axel as the audience roared.

When his skates touched back down, one leg slightly raised behind him, he caught the pass that Ilya had perfectly timed and shot the puck into the net.

When Ilya skated in, nearly knocking Shane to the ice with the force of his embrace, he lifted Shane back into the air and pressed a kiss to his helmet, and then to his cheek, and Shane laughed, and it didn’t feel like they were hiding anything at all.

(They won the tournament. Scott was only a little bitter.)

+++

Shane and Ilya begged off the bar trip that night, offering the unsubtle excuse that they wanted to rest up before the season, and received many dubious looks in return.

None of their friends stopped them, and no one was surprised.

They had another meeting with Yuna that night, the final one, and Shane and Ilya were both surprised when they walked into their large hotel suite to see Farah sitting at the dining table, her laptop open and an iPad stylus tucked behind her ear like a pencil.

She gave them an unimpressed look. “I thought it would be appropriate to go over your final statements in person.”

“Farah!” Ilya greeted, delighted. “Liar! You did not want to miss this, huh? Will be the party of the century!”

“Sit down, Ilya,” she said. Ilya sat.

David dropped off a pitcher of ice water and a few bowls of snacks on the table and then scurried away into his and Yuna’s bedroom, wisely staying out of the warpath as Yuna arrived.

“Alright,” his mother announced, clapping her hands. “Tonight is the final night for any alterations you want to make to your statements. Our contacts at The Athletic, The Round Table, and Net Talk are also finalized unless anyone has any pressing last-minute concerns? No? Good. All preparations for tomorrow are set in stone, unless you have any more addendums to the guest list?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at Shane, who had just informed her that JJ was coming, and then at Ilya, who had announced that Ryan and Fabian had heard through the grapevine and wanted to come. They both meekly shook their heads. “Excellent. Then let’s do one last run-through of what the timeline is going to look like for the next forty-eight hours.”

The meeting didn’t take long, but it helped settle the nerves running through Shane. He and his mother were similar in that way. Over-preparing, and even catastrophizing about minor details, could be helpful sometimes, especially with Ilya there to reel him back before things went too far.

After an hour of discussion, during which none of their plans were changed and amended but everything was gone over with a fine-tooth comb, Farah closed her laptop. “In my professional opinion, we are as prepared as we are ever going to be. There is, of course, a leap of faith involved here, but the Bears know what you are planning and are supportive, and that’s the big thing. Fan reaction might be mixed, but you have a vocal subsection who are going to love you even more after this,” she drawled, and they all made various expressions (Shane wincing, Ilya smirking, and Yuna sniffing). “But I think the optics are good. I think your stories are strong and consistent, and I think you should have every reasonable expectation of career security.”

“Oh, Farah, I knew you loved us!” Ilya cooed, propping his chin on his hand and grinning. “I think this is the sweetest thing I have ever heard you say!”

“'Love' is a strong word, Mr. Rozanov.” Then, in a rare show of emotion from their staunch agent, Farah smiled. “Congratulations, by the way. In my unprofessional opinion, this is long overdue.”

+++

Ilya and Shane woke up early the morning of their third full day in Miami. All-Stars was over.

“Holy shit,” Ilya breathed, nuzzling his face into Shane’s. “Really? Today? Really?”

Shane caught his fingers in the bedsheets and squeezed. “Today. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

They were separating for the morning, Shane going to the spa again with Rose and his mother. Ilya was going out with Svetlana and David, refusing to tell Shane what their exact plans were, but promised to meet him back in the room in a few hours.

“You’re arriving together?” Yuna asked dubiously, arms folded as Svetlana, Rose, and Rose’s assistant bustled back and forth across the suite, organizing garment bags and laying out accessory boxes. “You’ll see each other before the ceremony. Isn’t that bad luck?”

“Shane only believes in luck when it comes to the hockey gods,” Ilya said, breaking off an argument with Svetlana, both speaking too quickly and quietly for Shane to understand given his frazzled nerves.

“No, I don’t,” Shane grumbled. To his mom he said, “I’ve used up my lifetime quota on bad luck already. I’m not worried about it.”

“It might not be bad luck,” Rose declared, grabbing Shane’s wrist, “but a reveal is always appreciated. Come on, Mrs. Hollander. By, Ilya, see you later, sweetie!” Shane rolled his eyes. Before the door shut behind them, Ilya blew him a kiss over Svetlana’s shoulder.

The massage was nice, and the facial was incredible. The spa was pleasant and Shane was deeply relaxed until it was time to return to the hotel. His nerves lit up again as Rose shepherded him into the bedroom and he saw the suit and accessories laid out for him.

Shane’s hands were trembling a little, but he also couldn’t stop smiling. It wasn’t a sensation he had ever experienced before. It felt like pure adrenaline was rushing through his veins, and he smiled gratefully when Rose silently took over the job of fastening his cufflinks.

They were new, bought for today, golden and with tiny lilies engraved on the flat surface. “Thanks,” he murmured.

Rose smiled. Her eyes were wet. “Of course.”

“Okay, the florist just sent me the final pictures,” Yuna reported, tucked into a corner of the room with her face buried in her phone. “It looks wonderful, but Shane, I really wish you had given me more time to prepare! They barely had time to set everything up.”

“It’ll be fine,” Shane said calmly. “And it doesn’t matter if anything goes wrong, Mom—at the end of the day, we’re just here for the pictures.”

“Oh, that reminds me, the photographer is already there,” Yuna said immediately. “She wanted to get photos of the guests arriving. Are you sure you trust Hayden and Cliff to greet everyone?”

“To greet other hockey players they already know? Yeah, I think even they can handle it.”

Yuna finally looked up from her phone, giving Shane a narrow-eyed glare, and then her expression melted.

“Oh, darling,” she said, and quickly held a finger beneath her eye, probably to protect her makeup from the large, wobbly tears welling along her lash line. Rose quickly passed her a handkerchief. “Baby,” Yuna said. “You look so handsome.”

Shane wondered what she had thought all those years when he had been single, to their knowledge. She and David had suspected he was gay for a while but had never pushed him on it, but even then, they hadn’t believed he had a partner. Shane wondered if she had ever expected to see him reach this point. Maybe someday he would ask her. “Thanks, Mom.”

She took a shuddery breath, dabbing at her eyes carefully. “Oh, I promised myself I wasn’t going to cry so early,” she fretted.

“I think you’re allowed to cry, today of all days,” Rose laughed, placing her hands on Shane and Yuna’s shoulders. “And he does look handsome.”

Shane’s suit was a deep black. It swallowed all the light that touched it. Instead of a standard tuxedo, Shane wore a black silk shirt underneath the jacket, which, from certain angles, made him look shirtless. Rose and Svetlana had picked out their outfits after Shane and Ilya had explained they wanted to look dressed up but not overly formal. It was more experimental than what Shane usually wore, certainly different from his extremely standard game-day suits, and he felt a little nervous at how much of his neck and clavicle were exposed beneath the jacket.

But when he looked in the mirror, even he could tell that he looked handsome.

“Ilya will like it,” he murmured, trying out a few poses. Rose slid up next to him, resting her cheek on his shoulder, and pulled out her phone to take a few mirror selfies of them both. Shane smiled. “Thank you.”

“Any time,” Rose said, and it was her turn to sound choked up. “Oh, Shane.”

Shane turned and pressed their foreheads together, both squeezing their eyes shut.

It was almost impossible to comprehend that their conversation three years ago, almost to the day, had led Shane to this moment. His conversation with Rose had fundamentally altered the course of Shane’s life in so many ways. Of course, it had led to the leak, to his being outed to the press and ousted from the Voyageurs, but even before that. That conversation had changed the way Shane viewed himself, intrinsically, and his relationship with Ilya.

It had changed everything for him.

He once told Rose, “You probably saved my life that night.”

It was still true.

That conversation was the turning point in his life, Shane thought. Even more so than the leak. The leak did not change what had happened at All-Stars 2017, when he and Ilya had finally had their first real conversation—the first and only time Shane ever got to come out to someone, on his own terms. It also didn’t change the conversation they had when Ilya had been in Moscow, the first time either of them had been brave enough to confess their love, even if Shane hadn’t been aware of it. Before the leak, he and Ilya had already been on this path, and Shane was planning to invite Ilya to his cottage that summer. He believed they would have made it work. He believed that.

By being the first person to acknowledge Shane, to tell him who he was and that it was okay, Rose had set Shane on a trajectory that would always lead straight back to Ilya.

After that, they were inevitable.

One way or another, Shane thought. With or without the leak. They were always going to end up here.

“Thanks,” Shane murmured. “Thank you. I love you, Rose.”

Rose kissed his cheek. “I love you, too, Shane.”

He was dressed. His hair was done. Rose’s assistant fluttered about, taking one million photographs. They were documenting the day, and Shane and Ilya would print out their favorites and have them framed, and they would hang up a dozen pictures in Boston, at the cottage, and in their parents' house, and put a hundred more in a photo album that they would take out every year for the rest of their lives.

“Oh my god,” Shane breathed, overwhelmed for a moment.

Rose took his hand and squeezed. “You’ve got this."

Shane took a deep breath. “I know.”

They returned to the living room a little while later, after David stuck his head into the bedroom to announce that Ilya and Svetlana had returned and were ready for them. Shane had to take a few deep breaths before he could move his feet to the door.

When he opened it, Ilya was grinning on the other side.

His suit matched Shane’s, extremely well-fitted and solid black, only his had faint pinstripes. It made his curls look brighter, practically glowing alongside the gold watch and cufflinks he was wearing. The golden eyeshadow artfully smeared across his eyelids sparkled.

He looked perfect.

Shane trembled as he walked forward. He felt like a baby deer. The photographer hovered, camera shutter snapping continuously, and Yuna and Rose had their phones up to record. Shane was pretty sure David was already crying, but he only had eyes for Ilya.

He stopped in front of him, eyes fixed on the white pocket square that broke up Ilya’s dark ensemble. “Did you wear Bears colors on purpose?” he asked, voice shaking. “That’s tacky, Ilya.”

Ilya gasped. “You can’t call me tacky on my wedding day! Besides, these are my colors. See how good I look?” He preened, and he looked so incandescently happy that Shane had to blink away tears.

“You’re so beautiful.” Shane poked him gently, his heart thrumming beneath his breastbone, but his hands were finally steady.

Ilya smiled. He took his hand. “Ready?”

“So ready,” Shane said, nodding immediately. “Beyond ready. God, how did we manage to wait so long?”

Ilya slid his other arm around Shane's waist. “Eh, I think we did okay. There was a lot against us, yes?”

“A lot,” Shane agreed, clearing his throat. “We made it through anyway, though.”

“Could make it through anything, easy,” Ilya swore, “as long as I am with you.”

“Or if you were on the other side, and I needed to get to you. That would be easy too.”

“Or that, yes.”

“Alright, that is enough, let’s save something for your vows,” Svetlana said, clapping her hands together. “Into the elevator! Everyone is already there, and it would be very rude to keep them waiting.”

With exceptionally rapid speed, and a cringingly high deposit, Yuna had reserved a banquet hall in the hotel they were staying at, so it was just a ten-floor elevator ride until they were stepping into the grand hallway outside of the room their guests were gathered in. Caterers and photographers bustled down the corridor; Shane knew that Yuna had sent out at least a hundred different NDAs, but it was amazing to realize how little that mattered.

This was it. Through a set of ornate double doors and into the rest of their lives.

Ilya pushed the doors open. Shane held onto his hand like a lifeline.

The room burst into applause as soon as they entered, and Ilya lifted their joined hands into the air as they stepped through, as though he were hoisting a trophy.

This felt nothing like winning a Stanley Cup, though.

“They’re getting married!” Cliff hollered. Cliff had a muscular build that never looked quite natural stuffed into a suit, but he had clearly gotten a haircut for the day. Shane knew how to appreciate effort over impact.

Vicky and Amanda already looked close to tears. She was pregnant in her second trimester, and they both had their hands on her stomach as they waved at Shane and Ilya. “Félicitations, mes amis!” Vicky said, sniffling. “Wow, ‘Ollander! To think we thought this was unrequited!”

“Ugh, don’t remind me of that fucking conversation,” Cliff laughed, slapping his forehead.

“You always were very stupid,” Ilya said, but he hugged both of them, squeezing tight.

“You are a vision, my friend,” JJ said, sitting with Hayden and the rest of the squealing Pikes. Jade and Ruby both had baskets, but apparently they hadn’t been able to resist, because flower petals were already scattered across the room and dotted the laps of their guests.

“Sorry,” Jackie said, pulling Shane into a hug and kissing his cheek. “They were just too excited! We all were!”

“Thank you for coming,” Shane said sincerely.

He turned and froze in shock when he saw that Hayden and Ilya were pulling out of a brief bro-hug. “Never mention this,” Ilya said seriously, as though there weren’t two photographers and a dozen phones trained on them.

“Deal,” Hayden said before turning to Shane. He was already freely crying as he reeled Shane in for a hug. “Oh, man. Sorry, sorry, I just—I just remember the night, you know, the night.” Shane knew. “And all you wanted was him, you know? You could barely fucking react to me and Jacks, but he just got through to you in a second, even over the phone. Even before I knew who he was, I knew what that meant, you know? That kind of connection.” He grasped Shane’s hand. “It’s rare. You’re so fucking lucky.”

“Swear jar, two times,” Shane said, trying not to cry himself.

Shane and Ilya, less worried about leaks and rumors than ever before, had reached out to half of the people on their contact lists, sending out abrupt text invites to a wedding/vow renewal/announcement party. The number of people who had actually shown up on such short notice shocked Shane, and moved him.

Farah shook their hands. “You’ve sure kept my life interesting, boys.”

“And made you very rich,” Ilya said.

“That, too.”

Fabian, who Shane had only met once before when they had met with Ryan Price to discuss being a coach at the upcoming Irina Foundation hockey camps, pulled Shane into a hug. He was attracting almost as many stares as Rose was. “This is so beautiful.” He squeezed Shane as he pulled away. “Congratulations.”

Ryan looked awkward as he hugged Ilya, his once teammate, and said, “I’m glad we both got this figured out. For a while, I thought it was impossible to be gay in the NHL. I guess we're proving that wrong now.”

Ilya smiled. “Nothing is impossible with the right people, I think.”

Fabian winked. “I’m writing that down. Don’t worry, I’ll give you songwriting credits.”

In addition to Fabian and Ryan, Scott and Kip had, of course, come. “Thank you,” Shane said simply when he shook Scott’s hand. “You made a difference for me, just so you know.”

“Oh, fuck, rook,” Scott groaned. “Fuck. I’m so glad.”

Carter Vaughn was there with his long-time girlfriend, Gloria Grey. In the blur of greetings, Shane heard him say, “Cats and dogs, fuck! Who would’ve fucking thought!”

Joe, Shane’s old figure skating buddy, had flown all the way down from Vancouver with his husband and was beaming, bright and proud. “I wish I had told you I was gay when we were kids,” Shane told him. “I wish I’d understood myself back then. Imagine how different things might have been.”

“They worked out okay, I think,” Joe said. “Kind of embarrassing that your husband doesn’t have any Olympic medals, though. Just saying.”

Shane groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

Leah Campbell and Max Riley had also flown in, having grown closer with Shane and Ilya over the previous year through their discussions about charity work. They sat at a table with Wyatt, chatting about the upcoming summer camps, until Shane approached. "You know," Leah said, "queer people in women's professional sports have been getting married to their teammates for years. You need to catch up, buddy."

"We're working on it," Shane promised.

Though Lisa Hayes had been busy during the actual All-Stars tournament, she flew down just for their wedding, and she and Wyatt were some of the loudest voices in the room as they congratulated them. Shane flushed. Honestly, he barely knew some of these people, yet he was still absolutely blown away by their support.

Rounding out the Centaurs’ contingent were Harris and Troy.

(Shane had invited them personally after Ilya mentioned offhandedly that he hadn’t texted Troy. Shane had given his husband a long look. “They’re our friends,” he said simply. “Harris is my friend, and Troy is yours. I thought we wanted all our friends at our wedding. At least, that’s what I want.”

“Invite them,” Ilya said without shying away. He had kissed Shane’s cheek. “I leave it to you. I love you.”

Shane hummed. “We’re sort of stealing Troy’s thunder. He came out less than two weeks ago. The least we can do is give him a wedding invite.”)

Harris was adding to the flood of tears in the room, which probably had something to do with the empty champagne flute he gestured furiously with as he leaned into Shane. “I just don’t think you could ever understand how much this means. How much this will change. Oh, Shane, this is just so—it’s just so incredible.”

Troy kept a tight grip on Harris’ hand the entire time.

Ilya looked between them. “Did you finally figure this out?” he asked imperiously. “I thought I was going to have to lock you two in a closet, and that sort of seemed like maybe a hate crime, but it was my last option.”

Troy and Harris glanced at each other, shy grins on their faces. “We figured it out,” Harris said, “eventually.”

Troy nodded. “But we wouldn’t have without you, Roz. I just… thank you. For being there for me this year, even though you didn’t have to be. I mean… it meant a lot.”

That was the point of community, Shane knew. They could all lift each other up. They could all make a difference in one another’s lives. “You’re welcome,” Ilya said warmly.

Troy nodded again. “Congratulations. Really, guys, just—congratulations.”

Cadyn and Luca were among the last guests they greeted, and the youngest people in the room other than the literal children. They both looked a little overwhelmed. Shane couldn’t blame them—their wedding party was full to the brim with visiting hockey legends, Olympic medalists, and famous SAPs: enough to unsettle any rookie, let alone two as shy or socially awkward as these two. “You guys doing okay?” Shane asked when they made it to their table.

Luca nodded first. Shane noticed he had brought a sketchbook with him and it was open on the table, showing two pages full of pencil sketches: the left showed a variety of small, quickly sketched portraits of the many guests, and the other, clearly started well before Shane and Ilya arrived, was a detailed sketch of the stage and wedding arch set up at the front of the banquet hall, with two vague masculine outlines standing in front of it, a few details that denoted them as Shane and Ilya coming into shape on the page. “Yes,” Luca said, smiling awkwardly and glancing at his sketches. “I, um, I hope you don’t mind. It’s something I like to do at important events.”

Ilya put a hand on his shoulder, sniffling. “Is wonderful, Luca. Thank you.”

Cadyn stood up and embraced Shane. His enormous arms stretched easily around Shane’s broad figure. “I usually hate weddings, but this is fun,” he said perfunctorily, and immediately sat back down.

Shane just laughed.

All in all, they had nearly thirty guests. More than a full roster. Shane couldn’t have ever imagined this.

“Everything is beautiful, Mom,” Shane said, hugging his teary-eyed mother. “Thank you.”

Yuna sniffed. “Well, you wouldn’t let me attend the first one, so I knew I had to make this one special. Oh, my baby.” Her face crumpled. She accepted the handkerchief Rose passed her, trying to blot away tears without smudging her eyeliner. At least Yuna never wore much foundation because David loved her freckles so much. She put a hand on Shane’s cheek, stroking a thumb over the matching marks she had given him. “Look how far you’ve come. My baby.”

Probably, Shane thought, they were both thinking about the night the video had leaked, outing him to the world and to his parents. Yuna and David had driven two hours at midnight to reach him because Shane hadn’t picked up their calls. They’d held him, showered him, fed him, and mourned with him.

Ilya had flown around the world just to get back to him.

Now, their friends had flown in from across the continent to be with them.

To watch Shane marry the absolute love of his life.

“Everyone, please take your seats,” Rose said. There were no rows of chairs in the banquet hall like a traditional wedding would have, just large round tables for the guests, and everyone quietly filed into their places, watching.

“I can’t believe you got all of this done so fast,” Shane murmured.

“January isn’t a popular month for weddings,” Yuna wept. “We got a discount.” Ilya and Shane both hugged her. She muffled a sob as they laid their cheeks on the top of her head. “Oh, no, boys, stop it, stop it! I’m going to look terrible in the photos!”

“Impossible,” Ilya declared.

Rose helpfully approached with a compact, and Ilya turned back to Shane, wonderstruck. “I have never deserved all this luck. Shane. Malysh. This is all I ever wanted. You made it come true. This is a dream.”

“My mom did most of the work,” Shane immediately said. He smiled sheepishly. “But I promised you, didn’t I? That one day, we could be as dramatic as possible and announce this to the world with our wedding photos.” He swallowed. “We just needed to actually have the wedding first.”

Ilya grasped his face, turning him away from their audience to kiss him. Everyone in the room burst into applause yet again, and the noise was loud, like the crashing of waves or the roar of an arena. So many voices overlapping, and none of them were strangers.

“Ya tebya lyublyu,” Ilya croaked, face already a little damp. “Shane.”

Svetlana eventually broke through the crowd, shouldering her way forward to clear a path for David. She grabbed Ilya’s wrist. She was dressed to the nines in a deep burgundy dress, her hair done with fresh highlights and golden jewelry dripping from her ears, neck, and wrists. “Come on, Ilyusha,” she said. “David and I will walk you down the aisle.”

There wasn’t a real aisle, but everyone turned to face the front of the room as Ilya crossed to the little platform, supported by David and Svetlana. The small stage was decorated in an improbable amount of flowers, given the time of year and the short notice.

Lots of flowers. All lilies, at Shane’s request.

Ilya sent him another teary-eyed smile. The flowers had been another surprise, just for him. For them.

Ilya reached the little stage, David walking at his side, and stepped up, already turning around for Shane. Yuna hooked her elbow through his, and they walked toward Ilya together.

Shane had always imagined that he would get married in the summer.

When he was a kid, those daydreams were faint and distant, never something he was chasing after: himself in a suit, his mom and dad dressed up, and some blurry woman in a white dress who, even in his imagination, Shane could never look at directly. When he was a little older, and most of his teammates were getting married (many more than once), summer weddings became an inevitable source of anxiety: a break in his routine, a responsibility to travel somewhere, a tux he needed to get re-tailored to fit his body in the post-playoff season. He had still imagined his own wedding vaguely, because it was the type of thing hockey players were supposed to do, but he had postponed his fantasies and started assuming that it wouldn’t happen until he retired. He was just too focused on hockey, as everyone told him.

Then Ilya called him, “Shane,” the very first day he ever spent in their now shared home, and a vision of the future had burst in front of Shane’s eyes like vibrant, explosive fireworks—like seeing color for the first time.

A future with Ilya. A wedding with Ilya. Two tuxes, two sets of cufflinks, two watches, and an incomprehensible sea of people watching them as they called each other by their first names and said, “I love you.”

And then, as was inevitable with explosions, it had all burned down.

Shane had not been able to withstand the force of that imagined future, believing that it could never be real.

So, he left. He met Rose. They broke up. All-Stars. Ilya finding him on the beach. Shane sitting on his lap as Ilya cried in front of him for the first time. The wet, salty tears they had exchanged after Shane admitted that he wanted to learn how to hope. There was something between them, and Shane had apologized for running out on Ilya because he was finally ready to fight for it, to fix what had gone so wrong.

Then the video, the leak, and suddenly it wasn’t just his imagination anymore, but his actual life, on fire and burning straight down to the foundations. His actual worst nightmare had come true, and through it all, he had been relieved that Ilya wasn’t involved. Shane hadn’t ruined both their lives.

On the other side, there was the trade to Boston, the slow settling process of uprooting his established routines and comforts, the joy of finding a new home, new friends, and a better, softer place to land. Shane could imagine a million different directions that their lives could have taken, and some were certainly gentler, but some were far worse. In some, he didn’t have Ilya. That would never be worth it.

In this life, ultimately, nothing had been ruined. Not forever, and not for good. He rebuilt. He made a home, in a place and with a person.

He and Ilya did get married in the summer, technically. They signed the paperwork for their license in July, flying all the way across the country to guarantee as much privacy and secrecy as possible. But that wasn’t necessary now, and their lives couldn’t be contained to paper any longer.

Their lives had grown like a sprawling garden, unrestrained, until it was larger than Shane could have ever imagined. Shane looked around the banquet hall at all the people here who knew them, who accepted them, who wanted them in their lives, too, and he was ready for something more. He just didn’t want to hide.

Ilya held out his hand, and Shane took it. (From somewhere behind him, he heard a sob. Probably Jackie, if he had to guess. Or Hayden.)

Their fingers interlaced.

Shane had always imagined that he would get married in the summer.

From Svetlana, Shane accepted two ring boxes.

“Ilya Rozanov,” he said.

“Shane Hollander,” Ilya returned, and then leaned in quickly and kissed him, startling a laugh from Shane.

He immediately objected, “You’re supposed to wait!”

“We are already married! This is just for fun! It’s my wedding day, and you’re telling me I’m not allowed to kiss my husband?”

“Okay, boys, wrap it up,” Yuna said before it could devolve any further. She took the officiant’s spot, although they didn’t need any legal certifications since they were already married.

This was, technically, just for show. A celebration for their friends and family and everyone who had come here, just for them.

They kept the ceremony brief.

“Do you take this man?”

He always would. In any form, in any way.

He already had.

Later, they danced together in a bright room full of people who knew them, people who loved them, under no pretenses.

They weren’t hiding anymore.

+++

(The wedding night was just for them.)

+++

The next day, All-Stars weekend was officially over, their wedding celebrations were completed, and everyone they loved dispersed back to their little corners of the world. Shane and Ilya got on a plane in the late afternoon after saying their final farewells to Svetlana, Rose, and their parents.

They had already had their statements prepared, and the photographer had sent over her favorite photos to accompany them, but Shane and Ilya waited until they were back in Boston to post. It felt right.

On the flight home, in first class but not on a private jet, and surrounded by strangers, Shane lifted the armrest separating their seats. He smiled when Ilya immediately wiggled closer, clearly giddy at the implicit permission, and nestled his cheek onto Shane’s shoulder. Shane tilted his head so that it was resting in a bed of Ilya’s soft, sweet-smelling curls. Vanilla. Something woody. Something spicy.

The night after their wedding, they sat together in their kitchen in Boston. The freshly watered herbs cast off lovely mingled scents. His tomato plant had grown a few new shoots and was reaching toward its sunlamp.

Ilya and Shane simultaneously posted matching carousels on Instagram with separate captions, then replied to each other. At the same time, coordinated, their management team and the Bears PR department sent out pre-approved memos to three vetted journalists and hockey commentators: a respected writer at The Athletic, who was known for her advocacy of Scott Hunter, an independent blogger with a love for hockey but a critical stance against the NHL, and a pair of popular sport podcasters who focused on both analytical and personal stories. Their brand partners were also formally notified with carefully added references to gender, sexuality, and marriage discrimination.

They sent out their messages and turned off their phones for everything but emergency calls from Yuna. Around the country, journalists would be waking up at 2:00 a.m. to write their stories before the rest of the continent woke up, and fans across the world would receive the news any second now. It was done. It was over.

It was very organized. It was neat. It was controlled.

Shane’s heartbeat felt slow. His fingers were still on the counter, relaxed.

Ilya set down two cannolis on the counter, bought fresh on the drive home from the airport. “I think we should celebrate. Do you want one?” he asked Shane.

At the heart of the announcement, in the photos they included and the captions they wrote, there was still a core of love embedded within the succinct, structured announcement of their wedding. Love and support, from their friends, some of whom had stayed up late to respond to the announcement, already posting support on their own social media. From their families, Svetlana ready to come over first thing in the morning with breakfast to watch the fallout together from the sanctity of their home, and Shane’s parents in Ottawa, just a phone call away. From each other, first and foremost, always.

Shane loved Ilya. He had loved Ilya for so long he didn’t even know when it started. The lack of clarity on that point made it feel, genuinely, like he had loved Ilya from the very first moment.

Shane took a deep breath. “I'm ready to try,” he said, reaching. Their fingers brushed as Ilya passed one of the desserts to Shane. Matching rings glittered on their fingers, mirrored: Shane’s on the left, Ilya’s on the right.

They bit down at the same time.

The shells crunched. The inside was soft.

It was all sweetness.

+++

[Slide show: (1) A close up black and white photo of two hands with matching rings, interlaced, (2) a close up of Shane and Ilya’s faces, noses brushing, smiling ecstatically, (3) Shane and Ilya holding their hands up together at the front of a banquet hall, standing in front of a crying Yuna Hollander, taken over the shoulders of an applauding crowd, (4) Shane and Ilya lying side-by-side on the dock at Shane’s summer cottage, (5) Shane and Ilya wearing their home game uniforms on the ice at TD Garden, arms wrapped around each other, (6) a selfie of Shane and Ilya sitting practically on top of each other in the living room of their home in Boston, Ilya shirtless and flexing to show off his loon tattoo, (7) Shane and Ilya at Christmas, wearing matching Santa hats and surrounded by wrapping paper while Yuna hugs them both, struggling to get her arms around their broad frames, and (8) another professionally staged wedding photo of Shane and Ilya surrounded by their families and loved ones, all toasting the couple]

Shane Hollander ✅ Ilya Rozanov is the love of my life, and I’m beyond lucky to call him my husband. This past weekend, we were so privileged to formally exchange vows in front of our friends and family, who we are endlessly grateful to have in our lives. Without this community, we would have nothing.

Our relationship is built on mutual understanding of each other’s lives, mutual respect, and mutual adoration. This is information that we choose to share with the public, and the public is entitled to no more information than this. ‘The closet’ is a construct that has harmed me personally in the past; the idea that a person is “in” or “out” of the closet is reductive and can never capture the scope of a person’s entire life. As public figures, ‘coming out’ of the closet is an irreversible moment. By making our marriage public, Ilya and I can never again be assured that we will not be subjected to homophobia and hatred just because we dare to love each other. We will never be able to guarantee that protection again. Nevertheless, we choose to share this information out of the desire to live openly, to live authentically, and to live without the fear that, as has happened in the past, this decision might be taken out of our hands. So, we share our love with the world, despite the risk it presents, because our love is as worthy of being shared as anyone else’s. But our decision to share this does not entitle anyone to any other information about us, our love, our families, or our lives at all. Thank you sincerely for all the support you have shown me over the years. Thank you, more than anything, for your understanding.

2 hrs ago

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ✅ @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer i choose to share that Shane is a sweetheart and moya solnyshko and loves me better than any other person in the world ever could. i also choose to share that because i am a bisexual man who has fallen in love with another man, i cannot return to the country i was born in. unless the world becomes a kinder place, i might never be able to visit to my mother's grave again. privacy, secrecy, safety—these are things that perhaps other LGBTQ+ people will understand.

but my family is here, with Shane. i owe the world nothing else. @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer i love you even though your @ is terrible

—— View replies (15.9K replies)

Shane Hollander ✅ @Ilyarozanov81 The last part was unnecessary. What’s wrong with my handle? It’s accurate, standardized across all platforms, and has good SEO.

—— View replies (8.2K replies)

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ✅ @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer do you see everyone? how could i not fall in love with him 😫😫

—— View replies (18.4K replies)

[Slide show: Matching slide show with three additional photos, (9) Shane asleep on the couch in their living room, Anya lying on him with her nose pressed to the bottom of Shane’s chin, (10) Shane, on the same day but now awake, one arm wrapped around Anya as he flips off the camera with the other, and (11) Ilya grinning fiercely, both hands held next to his face: five Stanley Cup championship rings decorate each knuckle on his left hand, and a wedding ring is on his right ring finger: it is captioned “whats his is mine - think we can get to all ten?”]

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ✅ steps 1-6, complete. i love you <3 // the greatest story ever told <3<3<3

2 hrs ago

Shane Hollander ✅ @Ilyarozanov81 Bet we can make it even better. See you at playoffs? 😉

—— View replies (16.3K replies)

@hollanov.obsessed @Ilyarozanov81 OH MY GOD??????

Chapter End Notes

Your Honor, they’re married. (Well, they’ve been married, but like, actually, now.) Usually I get at least a couple comments guessing any twists I’m trying to set up, but I don't think anyone suggested All-Stars wedding lol so I hope you were surprised! I would honestly love to know when you guys figured out what they were planning!

Tbh, I actually love hollanov’s disaster wedding in cannon (except for "Diamonds" which is just… so completely unacceptable to me lmao) but I think getting Yuna to rent out a complete banquet hall (one that already had chairs!) saved them a lot in this verse lol. Shane and Ilya nominally agreed to get married “just for the paperwork,” and then immediately threw that out the window because they were already basically fucking married and they literally can’t act otherwise. But they finally get their proper wedding/vow renewal, and get to share it on their own terms, with support, exactly how they planned. How it should’ve been :)

Some people commented asking this, and in my original outline, at this point I did have Ilya coming out as bisexual without confirming their relationship—actually an All-Stars Wedding was not in my outline at alllll. As I was writing the first half of the fic, I really felt like I needed to advance the timeline. They were ready! And it felt really nice to divorce the wedding completely from Shane’s stress over the playoffs and the Cup. There’s a lot of highs and lows in this series, but I just love it when they’re happy.

Fic update: The next update will take longer than usual as I finish writing the last few chapters—i want to get them all written together. Unless I split another chapter up or add an epilogue (??) I think this work will be 16 or 17 chapters (????) but i’m bad at estimating. Hopefully I’m leaving y'all on the best note! Thanks for reading!

Chapter 15

Chapter Summary

Interlude, Or: Twitter Reacts

Chapter Notes

I still haven’t finished writing the last few chapters but I was thinking about a socmed interlude and someone suggested it, so have this offering to tide you over! I had a lot of fun reading back through all the socmed portions and working in little extra references, so if you have the time/interest, it might also be fun to read those sections before this chapter! However, I do not promise consistent characterization of the 1000 fan accounts I apparently made

hollanov tinfoil hat @hollanovobsessed

I’ve taken some time to reflect and have decided that I am actually Not Okay™

Thank you for all your concern. Accepting thoughts, rejecting prayers, closing my DMs, muting my feed, and learning to meditate by following Shane’s Men’s Health tutorial, god bless you, soldiers, I’ll see you on the other side.

hockey bae @sashaisintoronto
Replying to @hollanovobsessed

→ shane has a meditation tutorial??? wtf??? my moots have let me down by not letting me know about this!!!!!

Hollanov’s third @wishfulthinkerer
Replying to @sashaisintoronto

→→ he’s got two actually. he and honda civic filmed a vid for the bears’ insta too! it’s shorter but it’s super cute!

Hollanov Mpreg 🫡 @battlestationspls
Replying to @wishfulthinkerer

→→→ tf is honda civic

Hollanov’s third @wishfulthinkerer
Replying to @battlestationspls

→→→→ wow fake fan alert lol

stan twitter strikes again @professionalyearner
Replying to @battlestationspls

→→→→ Forgive oomf, she’s too hyped up on candy and soda to be polite. She’s talking about JP Cadyn. The team nicknamed him Jeepers and Cadillac, then morphed them together into Jeep Cadillac, and then it spiraled. People just call him by car brand names now, like literally anything. Saint Vic referred to him as Kia Soul in a presser recently, he made a joke about him “parking it” in the net lol

Hollanov Mpreg 🫡 @battlestationspls
Replying to @professionalyearner

→→→→→ hockey fans be normal, challenge rating: impossible

stan twitter strikes again @professionalyearner
Replying to @battlestationspls

→→→→→→ Yah okay Mrs. Mpreg

2481 sandwich @cameronw
Replying to @professionalyearner

→→→→→ NOT WHAT’S IMPORTANT RN  HOW TF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE AT A TIME LIKE THIS???? HOLLANOV ARE LITERALLY MARRIEDDDDDDDDD

Congrats Ilya & Shane! @bostonianblackbear

hey, @GregsLeagueBoston, did you bet on this outcome, bud? bet you could’ve made a lot of your cash back if you did, just saying!

Greg's Fantasy League @GregsLeagueBoston
Replying to @bostonianblackbear

→ Stfu

Blanche @roseblanchette 

THE WOMAN WAS TOO STUNNED TO SPEAK 👀👀👀👀

Emma Lee! @emmaleecamden
Replying to @roseblanchette

→ I’m having some Big Emotions today 🫠

Rose Landry ☑️ @RoseLandry

@ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer Think this will finally stop the gossip mags from saying we’re getting back together? I love you so much, babe! Getting to be a part of your special day was a delight, and an honor! @svetasveta I hope you know we are now #bestwomen for life, darling!

Svetlana @svetasveta
Replying to @RoseLandry

→  😘💋

Shane Hollander ☑️ @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer
Replying to @RoseLandry

→ At this point, I don’t think anything is going to stop the gossip, Rose, but we can hope! I love you, too!

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @RoseLandry

→ @RoseLandry back off

Shane Hollander ☑️ @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→→ Ilya oh my god!

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer

→→→ what???? she is flirting with my husband! calling you babe! this is our two-day anniversary, it is unacceptable!

Rose Landry ☑️ @RoseLandry
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→→→→ It’s okay, Ilya! I have it on good authority that Shane likes it when you get jealous!

Shane Hollander ☑️ @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer
Replying to @RoseLandry

→→→→→ ROSE

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @RoseLandry

→→→→→ haha okay fine, i will let it slide… this time…

rebbie onaga @rebbieisuncensored

a million bottle girls in boston just burst into tears and have no idea why! No but seriously congratulations @Ilyarozanov81!!! and thanks shane for still letting your man out of the house 😉 can’t say i’d do the same if i had that locked down!

Katie 💋 @katiesburner
Replying to @rebbieisuncensored

→ if i had ilya rozanov? he'd never see sunlight again lmao

Cliff Marlow ☑️ @cliffmarlowBoston

Yoooooo congratulations to my best friends on their sick as fuck wedding!! Thanks for inviting me!!! It was an honor (and a lot of fucking fun)! Viva las miami!

Benji Oregan | Boston Bears NHL ☑️ @ben.oregan
Replying to @cliffmarlowBoston

→ Yeah, speaking of, where was my invite, guys? Lost in the mail, huh?

Cliff Marlow ☑️ @cliffmarlowBoston
Replying to @ben.oregan

→→ Bitter haha

Saint Vic ☑️ @victorstsimone
Replying to @ben.oregan

→→  I got a plus one too 😛

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @ben.oregan

→→ cry abt it lol

Benji Oregan | Boston Bears NHL ☑️ @ben.oregan
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→→→ I’m telling Hollzy on you, Cap 😕

Svetlana @svetasveta

Она бы гордилась. Я знаю, что горжусь. Я люблю тебя — моего друга, моего брата, самого близкого мне человека. Поздравляю.

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @svetasveta

→ сегодня я знаю, что я самый счастливый человек во вселенной.

Rozy’s Translations @RusskiMasshole
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→→ Svetlana: “She would be proud. I know I am. I love you—my friend, my brother, my person. Congratulations.”

Roz: “today, i know i am the luckiest person in the universe”

Bridgette @Bridgertonao3curse
Replying to @RusskiMasshole

→→→ When ilya gets earnest in russian i cry, thats the rule, i cry so hard 😪😪😪

stream pond scum @wetlegleg

My timeline is in shambles and i don’t even follow hockey. The NHL has BEEN gay, do you all have to react like this every time? This isn’t news. Can you all shut the fuck up?

Boston Bears ☑️ @BostonBears

On behalf of the entire Boston Bears organization, we give our warmest congratulations to our Captain @Ilyarozanov81 and our alternate captain @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer for their marriage! Leaders on and off the ice, we would follow our captains anywhere (especially to playoffs)! To read more about the inclusion initiatives of the Boston Bears and how you can help make hockey more accessible, please check out our charity resource page! #YouCanPlay #CongratsShane&Ilya #GoBears!

Saint Vic ☑️ @victorstsimone
Replying to @BostonBears

→ Is a Stanley Cup a good enough wedding present, mes collègues capitaines?

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @victorstsimone

→→ no, because me and shane would be giving it to ourselves

Cliff Marlow ☑️ @cliffmarlowBoston
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→→→ Ffs don’t fucking jinx us dudes!!!

Rich @LeagueRich173
Replying to @BostonBears

→ Can we draw a line in the sand here? Okay, whatever, they got married and I guess we have to accept that, but it’s crazy to be posting about it on the official accounts??? Smh, I always respected Hollander for keeping his private business private, but I guess rainbow capitalism wins again

VictoryVictoire @theexvoyageursfangirl
Replying to @LeagueRich173

→→ Fellas, is it problematic for your boss to congratulate you for getting married? Has woke gone too far this time???

2481 sandwich @cameronw
Replying to @LeagueRich173

→→ I’m just gonna point out that the Bears have literally posted a congratulatory statement for every single player who has gotten married in the past decade, including Ryan Carmichael’s THIRD WEDDING in FIVE YEARS.

Rich @LeagueRich173
Replying to @cameronw

→→→ Well, they shouldn’t do that either obviously, but I’m talking about what they’re doing right now, dumbass.

2481 sandwich @cameronw
Replying to @LeagueRich173

→→→→ And did you comment under all the other posts as well? Or just this one? Why is that, I wonder 🤔

2481 sandwich @cameronw
Replying to @cameronw

→→→→→ No response. Fingers crossed, I hope he choked to death 🤞😁

scott’s ibiza era @admiralyyours
Replying to @BostonBears

→ I’m feeling EXTREMELY parasocial today actually 😭😭😭 why am I LITERALLY in tears over the fucking official boston bears twitter account OF ALL TEAMS recognizing and celebrating their gay as fuck captains??? Why is this corporate speak making me sob???

Yessica NY @yessicalovesmatti
Replying to @admiralyyours

→→ because the future is brighter than the past ❤️❤️

Boston Bears ☑️ @BostonBears
Replying to @yessicalovesmatti

→→→ Agreed! 🖤💛🖤💛

Yuna Hollander @YunaHollander

My boys ♥️

David Hollander @ShanesDadDavid
Replying to @YunaHollander

→ We love you both so much!

Shane Hollander ☑️ @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer
Replying to @YunaHollander

→ Mom, you absolutely saved the day. Everyone should thank @YunaHollander for our beautiful wedding photos; without her, this day would have looked very different, and the pictures wouldn’t have been half as nice!

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer

→→ yes, shane wanted to have wedding IN the hotel suite. thirty guests. two sofas. he probably would have worn bears’ tshirt too so also thank you @svetasveta for making us look even hotter than usual, which is a hard job

Shane Hollander ☑️ @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→→→ And?

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer

→→→→ and @RoseLandry 😒 thanks i guess…

Rose Landry ☑️ @RoseLandry
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→→→→→ Awe 🤗 always happy to help out, Ilya!

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @RoseLandry

→→→→→→ 😒😒😒😒😒

lima beans @alimabeanforall

When did hockey become so gay lol /pos

2481 sandwich @cameronw
Replying to @alimabeanforall

→ Theres like seven hundred guys in the league and… four active players are openly gay? Those are rookie numbers (and I’m talking regular rookie numbers not freak of nature shane and ilya rookie numbers). Come on boys, we can do better than that! Kiss each other on the mouth! NYEOW!!1

Hayden Pike ☑️ @TheRealHaydenPike

It’s been a wild ride, brother. I cannot express how happy I am for you and Ilya. Congratulations 🎉🎉🎉

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @TheRealHaydenPike

→ pike you are so boring

Hayden Pike ☑️ @TheRealHaydenPike
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→→ Shane, you should just go ahead and get those divorce papers ready.

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @TheRealHaydenPike

→→→ blocking you on both our accounts, brb

Jackie Pike @JackiePike35

My fifth child is married 🥲 Shane and Ilya, I love you both so much and I am wishing you all the best for your wonderful, wonderful lives together!! Congratulations!! (P.S., thank you for letting Jade and Ruby be your flower girls. I can’t say they did a very good job, but they definitely enjoyed it more than our trip to Disney!)

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81

→ jackie!!! we love you too!! would not have had wedding any other way, even if some petals that are not good for human consumption ended up in the champagne! all is forgiven!

Hayden Pike ☑️ @TheRealHaydenPike
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→→ So you do know how to be nice?

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @TheRealHaydenPike

→→→ yes, just not to you

Clarissa Samba @csambaphotographry

[Image: From the night the Bears were eliminated from the Eastern Conference Finals, Shane Hollander, wearing compression top and hockey gear, without skates or jersey, locked in a tight embrace with Ilya Rozanov, dressed in Armani suit and tie.]

The power of photography. It can capture and convey the emotions we don’t quite have the words for yet. In light of recent news, this picture I took of Hollander and Rozanov at the end of their previous season seems to take on a whole new meaning - what do you think, guys? I’m so glad to have been a part of this story ❣️

cens pls let me drive @zamzamboner
Replying to @csambaphotographry

→ boo you whore

lima beans @alimabeanforall
Replying to @csambaphotographry

→ i think you should sit down thanks

Bridgette @Bridgertonao3curse
Replying to @csambaphotographry

→ part of this story lmaooooooo girl thinks shes even a side character!

LandryLovrrr 🌹@landryfandrylondon

Even as an OG hollandry fan (literally DONT come for me omg it was years ago), I’m actually fucking living for Ilya on his literal honeymoon just being a menace in everyone’s comment sections, what a fucking asshole lmao, literally HOW is hollanov real?

MontrealFan123 @user953037911f
Replying to @landryfandrylondon

→ idk but i still feel like i’m being pranked

Feigen @feigenaboutit
Replying to @landryfandrylondon

→ evil bisexuals everywhere suddenly have a new icon

randy for rose landry | daphne @rosefanaccount1221
Replying to @landryfandrylondon

→ rip to them though, they literally have three days until the season starts back up and its back to back games for them!! i bet they even have practice tomorrow thats so sad if i had to go back to work right after i got married i would be very unhappy and they are probably making playoffs so it’s going to be months before they have time off too (and it’s sad that they coulndt invite all their teammates because of the season and everyone probably having plans already instead of allstars like i dont blame them but i do think its sad) and of course today is very happy and good for them but also sad

LandryLovrrr 🌹@landryfandrylondon
Replying to @rosefanaccount1221

→→ Baby they're madly in love millionaires I think they'll make it through these trying times

Fowlie @fowliemouth

I’m all out of red yarn. I think I accidentally ate some of it in a fugue state. My tummy hurts now. I’m trembling too badly to drive myself to JoAnn’s for more yarn and I can't find any of my thumbtacks. My conspiracy board is in shambles. There's glitter on the floor. #CongratsShane&Ilya

smolander @shanehollanderdefensesquad

I am DYING to know what "steps 1-6" are!! What does that mean?? Does anyone have any ideas??

Hollanov Mpreg 🫡 @battlestationspls
Replying to @shanehollanderdefensesquad

→ definitely an inside joke. we’ll probably never know unless they tell us, but it’s cute either way!

smolander @shanehollanderdefepnsesquad
Replying to @battlestationspls

→→ i NEEEDD TO KNOW @Ilyarozanov81 please tell us??????

Hollanov Mpreg 🫡 @battlestationspls
Replying to @shanehollanderdefensesquad

→→→ ew don’t tag him wtf

Hollanov Mpreg 🫡 @battlestationspls
Replying to @shanehollanderdefensesquad

→→→ you really read Shane’s statement with your eyes closed, huh?

stan twitter strikes again @professionalyearner
Replying to @shanehollanderdefensesquad

→→→ Obviously it was part of their plan to come out, right? Like they’ve been soooo obvious for soooo long just barely coasting by on roz’s reputation as a manwhore and bierasure. Lmao, they’ve literally been baiting us with the soft launch for like two years AT LEAST, i think this was just the finale!

Scott Hunter ☑️ @ScottHunterNY

Congratulations to Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, two fantastic players who I have had the genuine honor to play against and beside for years. On the ice, you have always challenged every player in this league to be the absolute best version of themselves, and off the ice, you have become some of my closest friends and exemplary leaders and role models in our community. I am beyond happy for you.

A step forward for any of us is a step forward for all of us. Today, we can all take a leap of faith and trust that our systems, teams, and communities will make sure that we land safely. #YouCanPlay #HockeyIsForEveryone

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @ScottHunterNY

→ too bad you can not take a single step forward without your walker, grandpa :/ probably have not jumped since pangea 🙁

Scott Hunter ☑️ @ScottHunterNY
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→→ You’re exhausting, Rozanov. @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer, come get your man.

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @ScottHunterNY

→→→ my man 🤤 you are right, i am exhausted 😜 #honeymoon yes shane come get me

Shane Hollander ☑️ @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→→→→ Delete this, Ilya. Thank you, Scott.

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer

→→→→→ yes moya lyubov ♥️ whatever you say moya lyubov ♥️😘

Scott Hunter ☑️ @ScottHunterNY
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→→→→→→ Whatever this is, please take it out of my replies.

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @ScottHunterNY

→→→→→→→ dont worry, we will take it to the bedroom instead

Shane Hollander ☑️ @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→→→→→→→→ Ilya.

[Two replies have been deleted.]

Kip Grady @chrisgrady

I can now proudly say that I have been a part of gay hockey history without any advance notice twice, and I couldn’t be happier about it! @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer and @Ilyarozanov81 you two are so wonderful, and your love is a blessing to witness, I am so happy that you get to share it out loud now! We all deserve sunshine ☀️🌈

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→ kip!!! hello!!! thank you for coming it was so nice to have you! 👍👍👍

Scott Hunter ☑️ @ScottHunterNY
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→→ Seriously, dude?

Kip Grady @chrisgrady
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→→ Thanks Ilya lol, we had a lovely time!!

Troy Barrett | Centaurs ☑️ @TroyBarrettNHL

I know personally how isolating the closet can be. I am so grateful to the queer players who came before me, both those who were open about their identities and those who could not be but forged ahead regardless, and for the knowledge that I am not alone. I never was. None of us are. Thanks for the wedding invite, Shane and Ilya. I’ll never forget it.

Harris Drover! 🍎🍏 @harrisdroverontario
Replying to @TroyBarrettNHL

→  It can’t be understated how meaningful this will be! We are so lucky to have you, and you are so lucky to have each other!

Barrett owes me $50 @allthegoodthings123
Replying to @TroyBarrettNHL

→ @TroyBarrettNHL I’m calling in my bet now. I can’t take another day of this. Venmo me, king.

Leah Campbell ☑️ @lcampbell

Y’all are slow over in the NHL 🤣🤣 but better late than never! Congrats guys, thanks for the invite! @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer @Ilyarozanov81 🏳️‍🌈

Shane Hollander ☑️ @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer
Replying to @lcampbell

→ Can’t wait to see you and @MaxRileyPlays this summer at the @GameChangers camp! It’s going to be a blast, and Ilya, I, and the kids are all so lucky to have such incredible examples to follow!

she gooned on my deke til i crease @bowserfloozy
Replying to @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer

→→ Ilya being a menace in the replies and meanwhile Shane plugging their charities at every opportunity: fork found in kitchen

jamie’s hockey fan club @jaimieshockeyclub
Replying to @bowserfloozy

→→→ Tbh this is the most fun Hollzy has had on the timeline literally ever, im gonna be so sad when he inevitably puts himself back in social media jail tomorrow. Gotta enjoy it while it lasts!

puck me up daddy @jennassecretburner

Can I be so for real? I took a bunch of magic mushrooms with my friends after all-stars and I literally got the news of the hollanov wedding while tripping off my ass in the woods. I genuinely still dont know if it's real or not. I dont think I'll ever know for sure.

Korogyippy-Ki-Yay @korogyippykiyay
Replying to @jennassecretburner

→ what wedding? What is ‘hollanov’? Are you okay??

puck me up daddy @jennassecretburner
Replying to @korogyippykiyay

→→ Bitch dont play in my face like this

mudsliding home @muddybunny

So the loon tattoo actually was for Hollander. Can’t believe Reddit got that right.

Ilya Rozanov 🏆🏆 ☑️ @Ilyarozanov81
Replying to @muddybunny

→ yes, the loon is for shane. that reddit post was scary accurate. actually, lots of you are scary, and have too much time on your hands. you should all find new hobbies, but some of you are very good at this one admittedly.

mudsliding home @muddybunny
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→→ ROZANOV?

Hollanov’s third @wishfulthinkerer
Replying to @Ilyarozanov81

→→ BROOOOO SHES A MUDS FAN HOW TF DOES SHE GET A ROZ NOTICE BEFORE MEEEEEEEE IM GONNA KMS 😭😭

mudsliding home @muddybunny
Replying to @wishfulthinkerer

→→→ Not Twitter user “Hollanov’s Third” wondering why roz is dni lmao

Hollanov’s third @wishfulthinkerer
Replying to @muddybunny

→→→→ HEY! it says “wishful thinker” too okay???

Robin @rbernet94

i just need to say this -- it is actually so unfair that i’ve spent literally years telling yall to touch grass only to be proven wrong. i am literally the only sane person in this fucking house. this is so unfair, and also yall are STILL crazy. congratulations to them though. i hate my life.

ANYA MY LIFE IS YOURS @puckmatized
Replying to @rbernet94

→ I just have eyes and whimsy 🙏🏽

hockey bae @sashaisintoronto
Replying to @rbernet94

→ i’ve never liked you lol but you are actually objectively right about this lmao sorry about it 🤷‍♀️

Shane Hollander ☑️ @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer

I’m confiscating my husband’s phone. He’s getting too giddy looking at all your congratulations. I think he’s about to vibrate through our couch. Thank you for all the love and support, we appreciate it all, but we are going to log off for now! See you in TD Garden on Monday, Bears vs. Clones!

hockey bae @sashaisintoronto
Replying to @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer

→ the first “my husband” on main im gonna cryyyyyyy 😭😭

jamie’s hockey fan club @jaimieshockeyclub
Replying to @ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer

→ That was quick. Bye, Shane!

Hock-Eye @hockeyekoch
Replying to @sashaisintoronto

→ weird… it just occurred to me that they, like, live together probably… they probably cook breakfast together before driving to the rink together… this is so bizarre guys

hockey bae @sashaisintoronto
Replying to @hockeyekoch

→→ you a little slow on the uptake huh?

Hock-Eye @hockeyekoch
Replying to @sashaisintoronto

→→→ apparently.

Ilya Rozanov Fancam 🏒@ilyarozanov_

This is fucking wild and I know I haven’t made an official post about it yet (I mean… do I have to? Feels like an announcement is a bit unnecessary at this point) BUT guess who also got engaged this weekend? 😈😈😈 IT’S YA BOYYYY thanks @ ilya for making sure we’ll never forget the date!!!

Shane Hollander Updates ↗️ @unofficialshanehollander
Replying to @ilyarozanov_

→ Congratulations! 😉💍

Shane Hollander Updates ↗️ @unofficialshanehollander

In the past, I have made an effort to report only reputable facts about Shane Hollander, which has meant avoiding the explicit spreading of rumors or theories about his love life. As a queer person myself, giving fans spaces to celebrate their favorite celebrity/athlete without crossing ethical boundaries was something I always strove for. (1/3)

Shane Hollander Updates ↗️ @unofficialshanehollander
Replying to @unofficialshanehollander

→ I have not always been perfect, but despite the confirmation of the #HollanderRozanovWedding, I’m glad I didn’t speculate, and I am grateful that Shane and Ilya wanted to share this with us, and still saddened that there were always going to be outside forces pressuring them into that decision. (2/3)

Shane Hollander Updates ↗️ @unofficialshanehollander
Replying to @unofficialshanehollander

→→ Nevertheless, I am so happy to wish them both the biggest, warmest congratulations on their wedding! In coincidental and exciting news, I also got engaged to my long-time rival this weekend, so this update is incredibly dear to me!! (3/3)

lima beans @alimabeanforall
Replying to @unofficialshanehollander

→ lol girl youre a fan account whats with the press statement

Korogyippy-Ki-Yay @korogyippykiyay
Replying to @unofficialshanehollander

→ wait a damn minute… @ilyarozanov_… @unofficialshanehollander… what the hell…

Ilya Rozanov Fancam 🏒@ilyarozanov_
Replying to @korogyippykiyay

→→ Bahahahaha, guess how we met???

Korogyippy-Ki-Yay @korogyippykiyay
Replying to @ilyarozanov_

→→→YOU’RE FUCKING LYING

Shane Hollander Updates ↗️ @unofficialshanehollander
Replying to @korogyippykiyay

→→→→ [Image: (1) A couple sits with their cheeks pressed together smiling brightly, both holding up hands to show matching engagement bands, (2) The same two people sitting next to each other in TD Garden game wearing Bears jerseys, one with a C and the #81, and the other with an A and the #24]

We met at a game, actually! The rest was just a coincidence if you can believe it :) We have a lot of reasons to be grateful to Shane and Ilya, haha!

Ilya Rozanov Fancam 🏒@ilyarozanov_
Replying to @unofficialshanehollander

→→→→→ Best coincidence in the world <3 love you baby!! Can't fucking wait to make you my wiffffeeeee

Korogyippy-Ki-Yay @korogyippykiyay
Replying to @ilyarozanov_

→→→→→→ This is the weirdest day literally ever.

hollanov regular hat @hollanovobsessed

I’m back. This one goes out to all the haters. Yes, I was crazy, and yes, I am mentally ill, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

I can finally retire my tinfoil. Dreams do come true, Mom 🥲

hockey bae @sashaisintoronto
Replying to @hollanovobsessed

→ it’s been three hours bestie lol

hollanov regular hat @hollanovobsessed
Replying to @sashaisintoronto

→→ Irrelevant. There is still work to be done.

hollanov regular hat @hollanovobsessed

Also yes, I do still think they got together in 2010 and got married two years ago lol. Today of all days, just let me be delusional, okay?

Chapter End Notes

If you’ve ever wondered why there are so many socmed aus in the HR fandom, it’s because they are fun to write, lol. This fic WILL be finished next month, just going a little slower than I expected :)

Chapter 16

Chapter Notes

Catch me speedrunning the rest of the regular season :D I did this in both of these fics lol I guess March and April are just boring months to write about hockey in. Someone did let me know that there are a lot of complicated rules for telehealth therapy about state certifications and needing to be in the same state as the patient, but I’m just gonna duck my head and pretend I didn’t hear that sorry lol! We’ll just assume that they live in a gentler alternate reality where telehealth is slightly less complicated so Shane and Ilya can easily access their therapists wherever they are

CW for further and more direct discussion of Shane’s disordered eating in this chapter (it'll be the final CW for the fic). If you want to skip, just pass over the entire section that starts, “One more emotional revelation” until the next break.

“Okay,” Ilya said, clapping his hands. “Lay it on us. Bad news first, please.”

Shane winced.

Beneath the table, Ilya’s hand landed on his thigh.

Shane took a deep breath. He nodded.

They were in a conference room at the Boston Bears’ training facilities. Bourque, the GM who had secured Shane’s trade from Montreal, LeClaire and Desjardins, their coaches, and Willow Black, the head of communications, were sitting across from them. To either side of Shane and Ilya were Farah and Yuna, who both looked ready to go to war.

Actually, everyone looked ready for that.

“I think we’ll start with congratulations, if that's okay with you,” Bourque said, laughing, and Shane wondered, for a split second, if this was a dream.

“Thank you,” Ilya said, grinning broadly. He abruptly moved his hand to grab Shane’s so that he could lace their fingers together on the arm of the chair between them, in full sight of the man who was, effectively, their boss. “We are very, very happy.”

Shane knew logically that everyone in the Bears’ upper management already knew about their relationship. He and Ilya had disclosed it to them shortly before they told the rest of the team, before the 2018 playoffs, starting with Coach LeClaire because they were confident he would support them. Management knew that they had been legally married with a confidential license for nearly two years at that point. Shane and Ilya had filed actual paperwork with the HR department about it. Shane even sat down with an HR counselor to discuss their relationship and how he and Ilya would handle it if anything ever went wrong. That had been an absolutely miserable experience for Shane, but it was probably the responsible thing to do, given that they were coworkers in a high-intensity and dangerous field. When Ilya and Shane decided to announce their marriage, Farah directly reached out to the Bears’ management to prepare them for the inevitable PR fallout.

So, of course, everyone in this room knew. Hell, LeClaire, even before he knew Shane was dating Ilya, had once offered to attend his eventual gay wedding. It was just… weird to feel so much support in such an official setting.

They were wearing their wedding rings and the matching chains they’d had for years.

Ilya lifted their hands and kissed Shane’s knuckles. Shane let him.

Farah immediately launched into her analysis of the online response to their coming out, “Largely positive, and extraordinarily outweighed by voices coming from outside the insular bubble of the hockey world, in a way that might generate interesting opportunities for expansion once we’re ready to discuss that,” and dutifully sprinkled in a few reminders about potential discrimination lawsuits, gay rights, and Shane and Ilya’s “illustrious careers and very, very devoted fanbase.”

Shane almost winced a few times at how blatant her threats were, but the Bears team took it in stride, nodding seriously or occasionally making approving noises.

“Yes, we’re seeing a corresponding spike in engagement metrics and a noticeable jump in ticket sales,” Willow reported. “The merch numbers speak for themselves. Time will tell if there will be any longevity to the spike, but it’s certainly nice to see in the run-up to the playoffs. We’ll work with you boys to find a way we can adequately utilize your star power without crossing your boundaries.”

Shane shrugged. That was as good as it got, really.

Yuna narrowed her eyes. “I’m sure you will,” she said lightly. “Shane and Ilya have made it abundantly clear how much they value their privacy, and I’m sure you understand why.”

“Yes, of course, absolutely,” Bourque jumped in, unctuously eager to please. Shane still liked him a good deal more than the Voyageurs’ former GM, who had been so hard-headed and hateful that he had willingly traded Shane to a divisional rival after back-to-back Cups. Bourque, conversely, operated under the belief that the best thing for his team was keeping his players happy. He listened to trade requests, granted time off for family emergencies, remembered kids’ names, and, apparently, supported his top players in becoming the first openly married couple in men’s professional sports. With slicked-back hair and a suit that was identical to every other one Shane had ever seen him wear, Bourque beamed at them with flat, white veneers, pleased as punch.

Willow hummed. “You should know that Crowell’s head office has contacted us with a request to stop releasing information about your nuptials,” she said primly. “However, we are not beholden to him and have so far ignored this request as baseless and unsupported by any League directives.”

Shane twitched. Ilya frowned.

LeClaire scoffed. “Of course. That man always has something to say, doesn’t he?”

“We’ve gotten similar messages,” Yuna said, reaching around Ilya to pat Shane on the shoulder. She could probably sense how tense he was even from two chairs down. “We’ve ignored them as well.”

“Good, good.” Bourque leaned back in his chair. “That’s exactly the advice we would have given you. Boys, if he calls you, don’t answer,” he said seriously. “That’s club policy now, standard for all our players. If Crowell’s got a problem, it’s with the owners and me, and it’s got nothing to do with you. Don’t answer the phone. Or hang up on him, I don’t care! You’re here to play hockey, and for Christ’s sake, we all know you are more than capable of doing that!”

“Thanks,” Shane murmured.

Ilya squeezed his hand again. “We appreciate it.”

Willow nodded. “The only other concern from our end is on the topic of public perception.” She drummed her pencil on the table, looking between them closely. “You did not mention a timeline of your relationship in your wedding announcement.”

They glanced at each other. “We did not,” Ilya confirmed blandly after a second.

“There have been some concerns about the possibility that two players in a relationship on opposite teams would have an increased motive to cheat or throw games for one another, either intentionally or otherwise,” Willow said bluntly. Shane ground his teeth. Ilya squeezed harder. “However, we've run some analytics, and it appears that the vast majority of people are assuming that your romantic entanglement only began after Shane publicly confirmed that he was gay and became a Boston Bear.” She looked between them again. “Do you intend to release any statements that might contradict that assumption?”

“No,” Ilya said. “We do not.”

It made Shane’s blood boil to think that anyone was accusing them of cheating. It barely even made sense, in an 82-game season when they matched up three or four times, in a game as random and close-scoring as hockey, to assume that cheating would have had any effect on their careers. Hell, they had never even played a playoff series against each other. And that was the logical side of things. On a personal level, Shane’s pride detested any accusation that he would ever let Ilya Rozanov beat him at anything.

As if.

“No,” he said, agreeing with Ilya. “The details of our lives are private. We intend to keep it that way.”

“Okay,” Willow said, as unmoved as ever. “That makes things relatively simple.”

Their circumstances were surprisingly lucky. While certain chronically online voices speculated about the length of their affair, the vast majority of people assumed that Shane and Ilya started dating in 2017 after Shane’s trade, when their rivalry died with a whimper as their on-ice supremacy was born. None of their official statements outright confirmed or denied this assumption, and that was on purpose. Dating for three years and getting married made a lot more sense than hooking up for seven, immediately moving in together, and then getting married twice in two years.

If they implied they had gotten together after Shane left the Voyageurs, no one would question their integrity in the game because they had not been romantically involved while still playing on opposing teams.

It was a sour lie, but one that would make their lives so much easier.

Shane was tired of secrecy, but he liked how simple this explanation was. He was relieved that no one was accusing him of cheating on Rose, or Ilya of cheating on Shane, or any of the million complications that would come if people knew the true, complicated scope of their relationship.

Instead, they simplified the timeline, implying their relationship started as a genuine rivalry (perhaps with dramatic sexual tension, as some fans gleefully pointed out), then developed into dating once they lived in the same city and found a chemistry that worked on and off the ice. Then, a few years in, once there were more out players than in any other major male sports league, they got married.

It was simple, and that gave Shane some significant peace of mind.

Shane didn’t want to be accused of cheating. He didn’t want people analyzing every game he and Ilya had ever played. Strangers shouldn’t relentlessly question their integrity.

This detail was such a bizarre outcome of everything they had been through, but it was good.

Of course, a part of him wanted the world to know that Shane had possessed some part of Ilya since they were nineteen, that they had held onto each other for that long, through everything.

But whether the world knew didn’t really matter. It would always be true, regardless.

“There are other questions about workplace ethics and dynamics,” Willow continued, “but we can deal with those. Ultimately, we can draw a lot from the example set by women’s leagues, and our office can handle those questions for you. We are going to be very careful about who we let into the press room in the next few months, but I’m telling you in advance that it will probably be some time before we want either of you doing press, and longer until you can do press together again. Is that alright with you?”

“Perfectly,” Ilya said, “though the press will miss me very much.”

“I’m not gonna miss you,” Willow said mildly.

“Willow! You wound me!”

“That’s fine,” Shane interrupted. “We’re happy to take a break from press.”

“Shane and Ilya will run their cover story in Sports Illustrated at the end of the month,” Yuna interjected smoothly, “and then there are no more interviews or statements until their post-season is over. They will keep posting on their socials as they want, and in accordance with a few active sponsorship deals. We want to give this news some time to settle, answer the necessary questions only, and move on as quickly as possible.”

Shane gave his mother a grateful smile.

“That works for us,” Willow said. “Simple, to the point: they’re married, they’re teammates, love is love, everyone is happy, come on, boys, let’s win another Cup.”

Ilya whooped. Shane smiled. Bourque still had his eyebrows raised, a slightly disbelieving look on his face. LeClaire smiled and stood up. “That’s right,” he said. “So let’s get these boys to practice.”

+++

Streamers, confetti, and champagne covered the ice shortly after Shane and Ilya joined their teammates. None of them got much practice in.

“Fuck you, guys!” Benji groaned. “Can’t fucking believe you invited Saint Vic and Marly and not me! I was your number one fan, assholes! I was rooting for you from day one!”

Ilya slung an arm over his shoulder, spilling more champagne beneath their skates and nearly toppling them both over. “Should have been invited to All-Stars if you wanted to go. You will just have to be more popular than Hollander in the fan vote next year.”

Benji snorted. “Yeah, like that would ever happen.”

“The rookies got invited and not your own linies?” Sidney whined to Shane. A bright yellow piece of confetti was stuck to his cheek, and he was pouting.

“It was a last-minute thing,” Shane said, “and we didn’t want news getting out beforehand. It was dramatic enough as it was, but I’m sorry.” He did feel bad. The Bears had truly supported him through what could have been the worst period of his life. It felt wrong not to include them in the best part of it.

“Stop whining,” Ilya declared, clapping his hands together loud enough that it echoed into the rafters, probably sensing that the good-natured chirping was making Shane feel guilty. “How about this? After playoffs are over, we will have a second wedding party in Boston, yes?”

Shane nodded. He had always figured they could renew their vows again that summer and invite the rest of the Bears and the Centaurs. Hell, Shane would marry Ilya a million times over, until everyone in the world had watched, if that was what Ilya wanted.

“Hell yes!” Benji cheered.

Ilya nodded decisively. “Good. Then I think we should get to fucking work, huh? We’ve got another Cup to win and I’m feeling lucky!”

+++

Ilya and Shane tumbled through the door of their house after the unsuccessful practice. They had showered but still smelled faintly of effervescent champagne. Anya immediately jumped up, running to greet them, and Ilya laughed so loudly that it bounced off all the windows and floors and echoed up through their house.

Ilya swept Shane off his feet and clomped into the kitchen singing, “My husband, my husband, my husband! Hello world, this is my husband!”

Shane kissed his neck. “Husband,” he agreed, feeling so giddy that it really was as if they had only gotten married yesterday, not eighteen months ago. That was originally supposed to be a paper wedding, a detail to protect Ilya and smooth his path toward Canadian citizenship, but from the first day of their honeymoon in Napa Valley, they had never been able to treat it that way.

They were married. Shane was put on this earth to do two things: play hockey and love Ilya Rozanov. He never stood a chance.

Ilya stepped on one of Anya’s toys. It squeaked out a furious, wheezing objection. His foot flew out from under him.

They both fell.

Anya yelped as she scrambled out of the way of their four hundred pounds of combined weight colliding with the floor, and Ilya made a noise like a tire popping as Shane landed on his stomach.

“Fuck!” Shane banged his funny bone hard on the floor as he scrambled to lift his weight off Ilya, clutching his elbow. “Ouch, ah—fuck, Ilya, are you okay? Oh my god!”

Ilya hadn’t regained his breath, but he was laughing, wheezing little soundless breaths as he clutched his stomach. Shane smiled too, his knees on either side of him, and gently cradled his skull. “I think I am falling in love,” Ilya said, smiling wide and dopey.

“Did you hit your head?” Shane asked through giggles, 

“No,” Ilya said, shaking his head in the confines of Shane’s palms, safely nestled there. “Feels like I did, maybe, but it doesn’t hurt. I think I must have died, though. This must be heaven. Are you an angel?”

“You’re stupid,” Shane said, “and that was all your fault, and you’re lucky we aren’t injured.”

Ilya threw his arms around Shane’s neck, swooning dramatically. “You say such sweet things to me! Lyubov, I love you so!”

“I love you, too.” Shane kissed him. Anya poked her head between their stomachs, sniffing curiously, and they laughed into each other’s mouths, sharing breath for as long as possible.

+++

Shane and Ilya had their wedding in early February, in the middle of the season like absolute maniacs. There was no time for a honeymoon, but it wasn’t like they were lacking in that department.

The NHL’s break lasted for ten days. They were married the day after All-Stars concluded, then returned to Boston and spent two days off sequestered in their house, avoiding media and their phones entirely, then returned for their meeting with the leaders of the Boston Bears’ franchise and a return practice to get back in the groove of the season.

The day after that, Shane and Ilya played their first game as an openly married couple in front of a packed arena.

TD Garden roared for them.

The Garden.

His Garden. Shane’s.

It belonged to him now. It was home, for however long he wanted it. He'd chosen it, tended to it, and watched as it flourished around him.

Black and gold jerseys and signs crested like waves from every corner of the stadium, filled to the brim, every last seat sold in what had unintentionally been the greatest publicity stunt the NHL had ever experienced.

There were still protesters outside, but Boston was one of the gayest cities on the East Coast, and the counter-protests swallowed them up within minutes. Security was doubled, which made Shane’s heart pound. There were the inevitable signs that had scattered every audience Shane had played before in recent years—HOCKEY IS FOR HOCKEY, and NOT MY CAPTAIN, and all the familiar bullshit.

But there were flags, too. Rainbows, blue and green color spectrums, and the bi pride colors, towels whirling above the heads of fans, painted on the faces of teenagers, decorating homemade jerseys that read, in extremely cramped letters, Hollander-Rozanov and Rozanov-Hollander and 2481.

There was chanting.

“Here we go, Bears! Here we go!”

“Holl-an-der! Ro-za-nov!”

During intermission, the media team ran a retrospective on their careers. Shane teared up, watching shoulder to shoulder with his husband, watching a montage of them both over the years—clips from WJC, from their first game, from the Olympics, a decade of dominance that culminated when they came together and were suddenly, miraculously, better than ever. Surrounded by their teammates, hooting and jostling Ilya and cheering even louder than the fans, it felt like they had just won the Cup all over again.

They won the game. It was against the Flappers, the reigning Cup champions, and the Bears sent them home like it was easy.

The next day, they drove to Washington and did it again. And two days later, in New Jersey, they won again. And again in Brooklyn, and again in Buffalo, Toronto, and Detroit. In Colorado, Avery Wilson, the captain who had beaten Shane and Ilya for the MVP award the season after he was outed, shook both their hands over the centerline and congratulated them. In Winnipeg, the captain who had been the first person from another team to make a positive overture to Shane after the video leaked, hauled him in for a hug before they could leave the ice, even though Shane had scored twice against them. In Nashville, when Johansson and Cliff were both benched for minor injuries, Luca Haas scored the first hat trick of his career, and JP Cadyn played his first 40-save game and came off the ice with his hair plastered to his skull and his eyes vacant from exhaustion but happy.

As Ilya had promised at the start of the season, by the end of February, they had beaten the franchise’s all-time record for longest win streak. They beat the very record they had set the previous season because things were only getting better.

They eventually lost to the Minnesota Nomads the day after they beat the franchise record, which felt somewhat inevitable. It was easy to laugh off, and Shane was honestly relieved. Heading into March, it felt like instead of trying to play perfect hockey, they could focus on just playing good hockey, and that would be more than enough.

There was barely any time to breathe. It made Shane feel high. On solid ground or on ice, he felt as if he were flying.

Ilya acted like he was somersaulting and cartwheeling through life, even through the most mundane parts. He never stopped smiling. He officially quit smoking again, which Shane was relieved about, and was such a menace in the locker room that Shane actually had to put his foot down and reaffirm their workplace boundaries about PDA. Ilya grumbled, but the rookies seemed relieved, to say the least.

Ilya was loud on the ice, too. Shane had never seen him so happy. Nothing could touch him.

They were married.

The hockey was so good, it was almost as good as the sex. Or, well… honestly, Shane didn’t want to pick favorites.

+++

“Hi, Shane. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Hi,” Shane said, shifting in his office chair. “Nice to meet you too, Melissa.”

She was the third therapist Shane had met with since January. Mike had given Shane a list of references, and Shane and Yuna had also found their own supplementary options, juggling the many requirements Shane needed. He was taking time working his way through the list. He didn’t want to rush this again, as he had with Mike. Ilya had confessed that he was a little antsy about Shane being out of therapy while they were revealing their relationship to the world, but Shane had reassured him.

Shane always performed best under pressure. It was in the aftermath, once the adrenaline stopped pumping, that he sometimes needed help.

“So, Shane, what brings you to therapy?” Melissa asked over the video call. She was an older woman, in her fifties or sixties, and took on very few clients in order to increase her availability. She had straight, completely silver hair that was pulled back behind her ears and dark brown eyes etched with crow’s feet and wrinkles. Her eyelashes and eyebrows were also silver, giving her a slightly odd, almost fae appearance.

Shane raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know already? I’ve, uh, sort of been through some stuff in the past couple of years. Pretty publicly.”

She smiled a little. She was in an armchair. If she had a notepad or a tablet for her notes, it was out of frame. “I know some of what Shane-Hollander-Hockey-Player has been up to recently,” she said, “but I’m asking why you, Shane, decided to schedule this meeting.”

“What’s the difference?” Shane asked, curious. He wasn’t sure if it was a rude question or if the answer was obvious, but he’d had a long, quiet conversation with Ilya about how his husband had learned to be honest in his conversations with Galina. Showing vulnerability was difficult for both of them, but Ilya had given him some helpful advice that Shane was determined to apply. “Between Shane-Hollander-Hockey-Player and me?”

She answered completely and without obfuscation. “I think everyone has a version of themselves that exists only in private, whether that means when we are completely alone or with our dearest people, and a version of ourselves that we carry with us into the public. I know I do. I’ve worked with both celebrities and private individuals before, and I have noticed that some celebrities can feel that those two sectors of their lives and personalities are very separate. Do you not feel that way?”

“Do I think that I’m a different person in private than I am in public?”

“Yes, let’s start there.”

“No.” Shane thought about it. “Or... how I think doesn’t change, but how I act does, I guess.”

“Does that bother you?”

“No.”

“Good. So, can you tell me what you do want to get out of therapy?”

Shane thought about it. The silence stretched between them for a long time, and Melissa didn’t fidget or cough or rephrase her question. “I’ve been trying hard to find a balance between maintaining my privacy and being open that works for me—and for my husband,” Shane said. “We’ve been trying together. I don’t know if I’m there yet, but I’ve been trying.”

“I’m happy to hear that, Shane,” Melissa said. “Is that something you might want my advice on managing?”

“It depends on what your advice is.”

She smiled. “Fair.”

Shane winced. “Sorry, that was rude.”

“It was not disrespectful,” Melissa said. “You don’t need to be sorry.”

Shane glanced at his fingers. Ilya was in the living room downstairs. Shane could hear the Chel theme starting up on the TV. It was comforting to hear the sounds of life continuing on around him. “I have a hard time reading social cues sometimes, I guess. I had a really hard time with my last therapist because of it. I think I spent a lot of time trying to find the right answers and now, in retrospect, I don’t really think it did me any good.”

“That’s an experience that a lot of people have with therapy. You are definitely not alone, and something we can work on is establishing a line of communication that is effective at keeping you both honest and comfortable.”

“That sounds… good,” Shane said. “And necessary, I guess. Uh.” He had a bulleted list of notes on a legal pad at his elbow that he glanced at. “Your website mentioned that you have experience with autistic patients?” He tried not to wince. After talking with Ilya about it some more, and even with Cadyn a few times, he was getting better at saying the words.

Mellissa nodded. “Yes, I do. I am also certified to diagnose autism in the US and Canada. Are you on the spectrum, Shane?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Someone suggested—a friend of mine who is on the spectrum recently suggested that I might be, and I’ve been looking into it, and… I don’t know. I’m also almost thirty, so I’m not sure that it matters, or whatever, but… I’ve been thinking about it.”

“Sometimes finding coping mechanisms that work for us is more important than specific diagnoses. There are plenty of things we can do and discuss to see what works for you, and as we talk, you might slowly gain a better understanding of how you want to proceed. Does that sound alright, or would you like to go over more specifics of what I can offer you right now?”

“No, it sounds great,” Shane said. His shoulders relaxed. He heard Ilya’s groan filter up the staircase, and Shane smiled. “It sounds awesome.”

+++

Shane plodded down the stairs. Ilya was still swearing at the TV, but his eyes flicked up to Shane. He must have gauged Shane’s expression correctly because he didn’t pause his game or put down his remote. He shifted just enough that Shane could flop onto the couch, laying his head in Ilya’s lap and watching as his boyfriend tried to beat Scott Hunter’s avatar on the screen.

“I liked her,” Shane said after a while. Even the sounds of simulated hockey were soothing to him. It was like white noise, and it calmed something in him.

“Good,” Ilya said. He let Scott Hunter score against him just so he could put a hand in Shane’s hair, stroking with the grain. Shane felt so loved. “That is a good start.”

+++

The hockey never stopped being good. For everything in their lives that had been upended time and time again, that was a universal truth.

Sometimes, with so much of his time occupied by routine and a game he played 82 times a year, the years could sort of blur together, but Shane thought he would always remember every single game he and Ilya had played against each other before Shane was traded to Boston.

Four matches across two WJC tournaments: a few pre-season exhibition games, especially when they were younger: three or four games over six regular seasons, and six All-Stars games: one game at the Olympics. Boston and Montreal had never played a playoff series against each other, so that was it. In total, it amounted to forty or so games over nine years, from 2008 to 2017.

All told, it didn’t seem like much, especially not now, when they laced up together almost every day.

On their last road trip through a swath of Northwestern teams, a third-line Vancouver Citizen incurred a penalty after blatantly high-sticking Connors in the face. The arena held its breath as Shane and Ilya looked at each other. 

Power play.

Shane loved playing center, and it was the right move for the team, but a part of him would always love playing on a line with Ilya more.

They took the ice and, of course, they scored.

+++

One more emotional revelation occurred a few weeks after Shane started his sessions with Melissa. They were going very well, and though Shane had also interviewed with one additional therapist since his first meeting with her, he had already privately decided that he wanted to stick with her—at least for a while. He wouldn’t feel as beholden as he had with Mike, but he liked Melissa, and he liked the way she spoke with him. She didn’t talk in circles, and she always seemed to understand what Shane meant even when his explanations were clumsy. He got along with her, which was a good thing considering the year he’d had and all the things that kept piling up.

It happened during a scheduled check-up with the team’s nutritionist. All hockey players went through frequent physicals, especially in the lead-up to the post-season, so Shane hadn’t been expecting anything dramatic from the meeting and went through the motions of the check-in with his mind elsewhere, already rethinking a new penalty kill strategy.

“Okay, Shane,” said the Bears’ team nutritionist, noting something down on her tablet. “You can step off the scale now. Get dressed and take a seat, please.”

Shane did so, sliding on his shoes as she sat down across from him.

“I’m sure you know this already, but you’ve lost some weight since the holiday break,” she said bluntly. “More than what we want to see at this point in the season.”

Shane scratched his wrist. “Yeah, I know. I’ve been trying to be consistent with my diet and intake—consistency is important to me—but I’ve been burning more calories than I expected, I guess.”

She nodded, her face neutral. “I’ve seen your logs, and it seems like you’re doing a great job with consistency.”

“Thanks.”

But she shook her head a little. “I think it’s unnecessary. We don’t want to see any significant loss in muscle mass or weight before you even get to the playoffs, especially since it’s looking like you guys are going for a pretty long run.”

Shane felt a squirming sensation travel from his stomach to his throat. “What do you recommend?” The thought of having to stomach even one more chicken breast or choke down one more smoothie or protein bar on top of his already absurd diet was deeply unpleasant. Upsetting, even, when he thought about it.

She nodded as though she were agreeing with him. “We’ve talked about this before, but I’m going to lay down the law: you need to relax your diet, Shane. Calories are what you need right now—fats and carbohydrates especially.” She gave him a steady look. “Can you do that?”

Shane tried to keep his expression neutral, but he left her office ten minutes later fuming, a printed-out stack of papers detailing her new recommendations for him clutched in his hand, the paper already wrinkled.

Ilya was waiting for him in the hallway, one foot propped against the wall, scrolling on his phone and snickering at TikToks. His expression sobered as Shane stalked up to him. Ilya scrambled to put the phone away, picking up both their bags. “What’s wrong?”

“Let’s go,” Shane said.

Ilya didn’t argue. “Okay. I’m driving.”

Shane didn’t object.

They were five minutes into the drive home before Ilya asked, “Didn’t go well?”

All of Shane’s breath rushed out of him, eager to be expelled. “Apparently not. God, I just feel like I’m doing everything right and somehow, somehow I’m still losing too much weight. Can you believe that? We eat like six meals a day, and somehow I still need to gain weight before playoffs. Can you believe that?”

Ilya hummed, facing forward. “You eat less than me.”

“Your body is a machine,” Shane said. “It turns McDonald’s into scoring chances.”

Ilya just shook his head. “Neither of us is a machine. Our bodies are just bodies. They turn food—either McDonald’s or farmers’ market eggplant, whichever—into fuel, and then we put pucks in net with that fuel because we are very good at hockey. But not because we are machines.” He glanced to the side. “Remember? I don’t want to play with a hockey robot. Just you.”

Shane sighed. “No, you’re right. I’m just—annoyed. I can’t believe it’s not enough.”

Ilya’s voice dropped another register. “I think it’s the opposite. The diet is enough, but it is also too much.”

Shane chewed on his lip, biting back his initial snappy response. People had been making fun of his various diets since he was a child, and he hated hearing about it. But Ilya was his husband. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

Ilya shrugged. “Don't get mad at me,” he said, which wasn’t a promising start. Shane took a deep breath anyway and nodded. “I know—I think the diet…it is at least a little about you wanting… control.” Ilya’s fingers flexed minutely on the steering wheel. Shane knew because he was staring at his hands, unable to look at his husband’s face. Ilya’s wedding ring caught the high beam of a car passing by them and reflected it into Shane’s retinas. “I did not want to say anything at the start of the season because you were dealing with so much stress and it seemed unfair to challenge you on something else, but I have not loved watching you refuse so many little things. Good things.” Ilya rushed forward before Shane could interject. “And I know that we need to care about what we eat and eat healthily, and that it is part of the game for you, and the routine helps make the game good, but the game cannot be played twenty-four-seven. There must be breaks.”

Shane wanted to scoff. He swallowed down the noise but said what he was thinking. “It isn’t a diet if you give in every time you want something.”

Ilya sighed. “Eating food you enjoy isn’t giving in.”

“It sort of is.”

“No, it is not. It is just eating.”

The rumble of the wheels and the purr of the engine took over for almost a minute.

“I eat,” Shane said quietly, “so much, all the fucking time. All of us do because we’re athletes and we burn thousands of calories every game and every practice, and—it’s just—it’s fucking endless. I hate that I’m still losing weight even though all I ever do is eat. It makes me want to eat nothing. It feels better when there are rules I have to follow, goals I have to meet. It makes it… easier.”

Once the words were out of his mouth, Shane realized it was one of the most honest things he had ever said. He also realized that it sounded worse out loud than it ever had in his head, which brought him up short.

Ilya took one hand off the wheel, moving it instinctively, and caught Shane’s hand just as Shane reached for him, needing something solid to hold. “That is hard. I don’t think I ever feel that way about food, except a little about vegetables and other gross things I have to eat so you don’t yell at me.” Shane chuckled quietly. Even to his own ears, it sounded tired. “But I eat a lot of food that makes me happy,” Ilya continued lightly, settling their joined hands on the center console, “and I think that helps me feel less like it is a chore.”

“I don’t like grease,” Shane said. “I don’t enjoy alcohol. I know all the jokes about me—trust me, I know—but I enjoy a lot of the parts of my diet, even if it’s ‘bird food’ or whatever.”

“Bird food is unfair,” Ilya said gently. “You are not a bird. I’m sorry, Shanya. I believe you, but I know there are things you like that you won’t eat, like Harris’ apple pie and Jackie’s lemonade and David’s world famous chicken parmesan and lasagna that isn’t made out of goo and the tears of sad orphans-”

“Oh my god,” Shane laughed. “Stop making fun of me!”

“Okay, okay,” Ilya said, drumming his fingers on the wheel. “Maybe—maybe this is something Melissa could help with?”

Shane looked confused. “Melissa? She’s not a dietician. I used to have one in Montreal, so I guess I could hire another-”

“No, I don’t think that is a good idea,” Ilya said quickly. “I think you need to think less about food, not more.” Shane couldn’t argue with that. He spent so much time with numbers floating through his head, tracking calories consumed and burned, mile times in relation to weight, fats and nutrients, sodium and fiber. So many fucking numbers.

“Maybe.”

“Ask Melissa,” Ilya said. “See what she thinks. Get another voice in the conversation. Maybe talk to team nutritionist about these feelings too if you want professional advice. Okay?”

Shane nodded and squeezed his hand. “Okay.”

The air felt tense, but they held onto each other. They so rarely fought, even when the topic was as heavy as this one. Shane’s parents were like that, too.

When they got home, Shane sat on one of their kitchen stools as Ilya placed his palms flat on the counter. “If you could have any food in the world, right now,” he said, and Shane could hear how he was injecting levity into his voice, “what would it be? Only one rule: you cannot say salmon.”

“But I like salmon,” Shane said with a grin, propping his chin in his hand.

Ilya wagged a finger at him. “You are going to get mercury poisoning, do not think I have forgotten, Hollander. Come on. One thing. One dish. What do you want?”

What did he want? Shane usually didn’t think of food in terms of what he wanted, not the way Ilya did. His first instinct was to say that he wanted one of the nutritionally crafted prepped meals in their fridge, probably quinoa and asparagus or something, but he pushed past it.

One day, when Shane was fourteen and desperately trying to keep up with training and his growth spurts, and his muscles hurt from working out and his bones hurt from the three inches he gained in a single summer, he had arrived home from practice starving, and there had been nothing cooked in the fridge, and the pantry was mostly empty. After stuffing the last heel of a loaf of bread into his mouth, Shane had found a bag of large apples from their local farmer’s market; he had eaten eight of them in a single hour, slathering some with peanut butter but mostly eating them plain, continuously wiping the juice from his chin. Later, his parents had felt terrible about accidentally leaving him without dinner, and his mom had fretted about the amount of sugar he had consumed, but Shane had been so hungry that he relished every bite.

What did he want for dinner?

Shane thought about the noodles his grandmother used to make, some kind of soba noodle soup that had been delicious. He loved it when she made it with duck the most, usually on special occasions. He hadn’t eaten it in years, but he could get the recipe from his mom. It would be nice to cook something like that with Ilya, and suddenly, Shane wanted to try. But they would have to go to the grocery first, and Shane was tired.

Shane glanced at the cabinets, thinking about what they already had.

“I haven’t had pelmeni in two years,” he realized. The last time he’d eaten them had been at the cottage, the summer after they won the cup. Ilya had sent him a list, and Shane had stocked the cottage with Russian and Eastern European foods for them to try during their vacation. Shane hadn’t loved everything he’d eaten (he wasn’t a big enough fan of sweet foods to love the blini Ilya had made, and he honestly wasn’t a huge fan of pickled foods either, which Ilya put on anything), but Shane had loved the kasha Ilya served him for breakfast one morning, and he loved the mushroom and lamb pelmeni they cooked from a frozen bag and the meat pie pirog they made from scratch.

He’d loved cooking with Ilya back then, but it wasn’t something they did together very often anymore.

They kept pelmeni stocked in the freezer, Shane knew, although he hadn’t eaten them in a long time.

“I want pelmeni,” he told Ilya anyway, whose face lit up genuinely for the first time.

Ilya clapped his hands together. “Your wish is my command.”

Shane smiled. He would talk to Melissa, he decided, and that didn’t seem like such a scary prospect anymore.

+++

The season continued despite the minor dramas playing out in their everyday lives. Twitter continued to implode. The Bears’ management continued to shield Shane and Ilya from media scrums and pressers, though that didn’t save their teammates from being asked about them.

As the third alternate captain, Vicky had shouldered the brunt of the press, but he assured them he was happy to do so. When asked whether the mid-season wedding had been irresponsible of Shane and Ilya, he said, “Ah, no, I don’t think so. Everyone was on vacation already. It was actually very relaxing.”

LeClaire gave a similar response when the press asked him if Ilya and Shane were causing any distractions in the locker room. Shane watched the clip several times, starting from the moment LeClaire threw his hands into the air in frustration. “God, I’m tired of that word. ‘Distracting.’ We’re here to play hockey. You are all relentless about things that are categorically not hockey. We give the honeymooners some space so that maybe you guys can stay focused on the game, and you’re still acting like this! If anyone’s distracted, I’m pretty sure it’s you.”

“I fucking love that guy,” Ilya said emotionally. “He should’ve been at the wedding.”

Shane kissed his temple. “We’ll invite him to the next vow renewal. Might as well make it a biannual tradition at this point.”

They raced through another month in an intoxicating blur, a montage of hockey and interviews and shitty think pieces and thousands of blocked Twitter accounts. The shockwaves of their abrupt marriage announcement eclipsed everything else, and yet they never stopped playing.

Bourque, Yuna, and Farah all reached out to them individually about Crowell’s continued attempts to schedule a meeting with them, but all three held firm that Shane and Ilya were not obligated to do so. Shane never even had to be in direct communication with Crowell, and after Bourque threatened to involve the Players' Association, apparently Crowell gave in entirely.

That felt good. Shane hoped the old man was moping somewhere in an office, fuming over rainbow emojis in the comment sections of every post on the official NHL Twitter and stewing as Ilya and Shane’s jersey sales kept climbing higher and higher.

Their brand deals reached a similar fever pitch, with new proposals and sponsors reaching out every day. Shane believed that Rolex was less than pleased, and they would probably get away with dropping him in a few years, but for the most part, Yuna had thoroughly vetted all of Shane’s sponsors on his behalf; while none of the corporations were without flaws, at least their public-facing fronts were by and large progressive and liberal. Yuna seemed happy about the state of his contract negotiations as they caught up over FaceTime, so Shane left her to it.

Instead of worrying about Crowell, Instagram, or his sponsorships, Shane kept all his focus on Ilya, his mental health, and hockey.

They had already clinched a spot in the playoffs, but they spent the last few weeks of the season gunning to secure their spot at the top. Because of the way divisional seeding worked, the top-ranked team had an advantage over the second- and third-ranked teams, who would face each other in the first round of the bracket in a statistically much harder battle than the top-ranked team, facing the lesser of the wildcard teams. Of course, there were no guarantees in hockey, but easier games early in the bracket meant more time for rest between seven-game series and, hopefully, fewer injuries.

It was good, regardless, Shane thought. It still gave the guys something to fight for.

They had a few days off before the final games of their season, and yet Shane and Ilya were both so exhausted and overworked that instead of doing anything interesting, they mutually decided to spend at least 52 hours rotting inside their house. Shane went grocery shopping immediately after their final practice while Ilya took Anya on a very long walk to make up for a few days of shorter ones, and then they locked the front gates, turned off their phones, and settled in on their living room sofa, which they didn’t plan on leaving for days.

Shane loved being alone with Ilya. This kind of wasted time had been completely missing from the early and middle stages of their relationship, when every moment was equally rushed and precious. The first time they had ever experienced it was the disastrous day Ilya had made the tuna melts, and they hadn’t gotten another opportunity to try until they were alone at the cottage together.

But living together was something different entirely.

They had sex more often now, of course, but they also started cooking together again. Ilya did the dishes, and he put them in the dishwasher the way Shane liked. They reminded each other to charge their phones, laptops, and tablets. They played video games and got too aggressive, and they took too many naps because they had nothing but time. They chased Anya around the yard and kicked a soccer ball back and forth, bare feet on soft clover, and they sunbathed. Ilya ran a thumb over Shane’s cheek and said, “I can't wait for your summer freckles.”

Shane reached up and tugged on his curls. Both of them were growing their hair out, just a little for now, but he liked the ringlets that formed around Ilya’s head. He liked knowing every step of Ilya’s haircare routine and that Ilya knew the purpose and order of each of his skincare products. “I like how golden your curls get in the summer,” he confessed in return.

“You like me,” Ilya said, singing the words teasingly. “Shane Hollander has a crush! Everybody, call your local news stations! The weather people must know this!”

Shane shoved him. “I’m pretty sure everyone knows already.”

Ilya nodded, content. “Yes. They do. Good.”

They also watched hockey together. Maybe it said something that Shane truly never got sick of hockey, in any capacity. Shane had been carefully broaching the subject of autism with Melissa on and off—not every session, but just slowly learning more about what it might mean for him, in addition to the articles and videos he and Ilya were studying together. He’d heard the phrase “special interest” a few times, and Shane was trying to teach himself not to cringe at the mere thought of a descriptor like that being applied to his life’s passion. Hockey was a part of him, and Shane didn’t really care why, ultimately. It just was.

He liked having another hobby as well, though.

On their second day off, their gardener arrived in their driveway with two young pear trees they had purchased from a local nursery in his truck bed. It was a late-blooming variety, so they should be ready to harvest by the time Shane and Ilya were back for summer training. They had hired a crew to plant them, so Shane and Ilya watched from the kitchen as the gardeners dug holes in the carefully allotted areas of the yard (just close enough that the two trees would cross-pollinate, which Shane had read would increase yield).

Ilya kissed his cheek. “They are beautiful, moya sladkaya grusha.”

Shane nodded thoughtfully.

There were two seasons left on their contracts with the Bears. They were only halfway through their careers, but Shane couldn’t imagine retiring anywhere other than Ontario. These pear trees would outlast them, but that was okay.

For at least two years, they would grow and eat fresh fruit from their garden.

The trees made Shane think of the future, which also made him think of the past.

Shane hadn’t hated living in Montreal. The ending had been so sour, but it hadn’t erased every good memory he had from before. All the hours spent with the Voyageurs, learning how to skate professionally, learning how to play in the NHL, all the players who made him better. Getting the C. Winning the Stanley Cup. Playing darts with his teammates and holding babies at bridal showers. Sitting at hospital bedsides. Shane could still name every single player and WAG who had ever stocked their homes with ginger ale before a team gathering.

He had been at Comeau’s wedding. He’d given a speech.

Shane wasn’t unique in having been traumatized by the sport he loved. A lot of players left the game worse off than when they started. Most professional athletes did, mentally and physically. They chose, often as children, to define their lives around one thing, one central linchpin, and at the professional level, only the very luckiest could ring two decades out of it. Two decades out of a lifetime.

They left with bad backs. With scars. With knees that never felt the same again on cold or rainy days. With chronic pain. They accepted that as standard. If things went worse, they could leave the ice for the last time with a limp that would never go away even after a dozen surgeries, or shoulders too weak to pick up their grandchildren. Brain injuries were, of course, the worst. It was probably Shane’s biggest fear, a looming dread that he couldn’t think about or acknowledge, less tangible than his other fears because the only thing he could do to defend against it was to give up hockey. And he couldn’t do that.

At the end of the day, if they knew better than to think that they were the exception or otherwise invincible, they had to ask themselves whether this was worth the risk and why.

Ilya had chosen hockey to get out of Russia, and he continued to play it because he enjoyed it, he was good at it, and it provided a lifestyle that he loved. Shane chose hockey because even at three years old, he knew it was the thing he was meant to do. He continued to choose hockey because he loved it, even when it didn’t love him back.

Shane turned and kissed Ilya on the mouth. There were strangers in the yard, people unknown to them just outside the glass windows, and that didn’t matter anymore, and it never would again.

The trees were in the ground. The gardeners shoveled fertilizer over their roots.

Shane knew he was meant to play hockey. Loving Ilya was equally inevitable for him, and he would love Ilya long after his knees gave out. He had spent the first twenty years of his life loving hockey above all else, and he would continue spending the next two loving Ilya and hockey together, eternally grateful that he got to have both. After that? The rest of his life would be only Ilya (and their family, whatever shape it took), and Shane would make every second worth it.

Chapter End Notes

CW for extra discussion of Shane's food issues

I know this doesn’t bring Shane's ED plotline to a full conclusion, but this is a wrap on direct discussion of Shane’s disordered eating in this fic: he has people (Ilya, the team nutritionist, and Melissa) who are all going to frankly address the subject with him. His journey with his negative relationship to food would and will take a lot longer to resolve than this story will tackle, but the important part is that Shane is now addressing it and starting to accept that it is a problem he wants to change. It’s a journey, but he’s on it! BUT I’m not a therapist or a nutritionist, don’t take my advice on ANYTHING, and I’m sorry for any inaccuracies!

No socmed, I didn’t just forget! Felt right to leave that arc (mostly) wrapped up with the chapter interlude ;)

It’s astonishing how much I cut from the end of my outline and from this chapter specifically. There were four entire scenes (two of which were some of the motivations for continuing the series in the first place!!) that I decided to completely cut. I made a lot of major changes at the beginning of this fic that just completely dominoed the pacing of the story, so I feel like I would have needed to add an entire extra arc for it not to feel rushed. That’s how it goes I guess! Some of them I couldn’t write how I wanted and this fic is already jam packed so it didn’t exactly need more plot points lol, and others were ideas that felt too big to fit. A little sad because I liked how some of them turned out, but I definitely liked where it ended up! Anyway, maybe there’s some stuff I can reuse in the future, so we’ll see!

Next chapter will be the finale! We’re ending with the playoffs this time, so get your brackets ready! (That being said, if you have very strong feelings about one very, very long chapter versus two medium length chapters, let me know, I'm curious!)

Chapter 17

Chapter Notes

99% of comments were in favor of a longer chapter, so that makes things easy for me, here’s 13k (sorry to the shorter chapter folks but there are very obvious breaks between rounds in the playoffs, hopefully that makes it easy for you to navigate and take breaks!). These playoff chapters are so much fun to write, holy shit. Lowkey, chapter 11 of “something you can build” is probably my magnum opus, but I’m hella proud of this one too. Enjoy!

As you can probably imagine, this was a beast to edit, so if there are any mistakes feel free to let me know (but politely lol I tried really hard)!

(Also, the day before I posted the final chapter, semperfiona posted a WONDERFUL podfic of "something you can fix," and I'm feeling maybe admittedly kind of emotional about the perfect timing of this. Please go check it out!!)

NHL ☑️ @NHL

It’s officially playoff season and we’re kicking things off in @TDGarden, so make sure to get your tickets! @TheOttawaCentaurs make their triumphant return to playoff hockey, facing divisional rival @BostonBears, captained by Hayden Pike and Ilya Rozanov! It’s gonna be a hot one, folks, so make sure to tune in TOMORROW at 8pm ET on @NHL_on_TNT (TBS), @Sportsnet, and @TVASports! Who’s got what it takes to be a champion? #StanleyCup

7:00 PM · April 20, 2020

+++

Shane felt exhilarated.

He could feel it in his toes, in his fingertips, in his pulse, beating against the gold chain draped around his neck. It was a feeling beyond description.

The end of the regular season came in a blink.

The Boston Bears lost the very last game of the regular season in Calgary, but it didn't matter. By that point, everyone on the ice had been playing carefully, loath to risk injuries at the very precipice of something that mattered much more than two superfluous team points. Ilya scored twice during the game, but Benji had been playing with an abundance of caution and let a third puck past him late in the third. No one, not even their coaches, begrudged him for the lackluster performance, and Shane knew that Benji wouldn’t let the loss shake him for the playoffs.

They were going to the playoffs. That wasn't surprising, of course, but it never stopped feeling good.

They had a short break before practices resumed and the games began. Ilya and Shane spent it luxuriating in quiet meditation in Boston, two days of what amounted to a silent meditation. They ate well and heartily, worked out lightly and rested frequently, and had so much sex that Shane worried his dick was going to chafe inside his cup. Ilya said they were storing up orgasms in advance, and Shane didn’t necessarily disagree.

Yuna arrived in Boston the morning before the first game of the playoffs. She had booked a hotel room for two weeks in advance but would be staying in Boston for as long as they were in the running (she might have booked it for longer, but Yuna was more superstitious than most of the athletes Shane knew, and worried the confidence would jinx them). Yuna wouldn’t travel with them for most of their away games, staying back to watch Anya, but that mattered little because the majority of the Bears’ playoff games would be in Boston.

No matter what happened in the brackets, for every single series they played, the Bears would have home-ice advantage.

They were ranked first in the league.

The best.

So, in April, they stepped out onto Garden ice for the very first game scheduled in the post-season, fanning out with long strides as the crowd cheered for them.

Shane remembered being eighteen—seventeen?—god, it was so long ago, and he had been so young. They had both been. Shane had thought that he and Ilya were so good, so much better than anyone else in their generation, that it was just an unlucky coincidence that they would always be sharing the top, jostling for a space that should have been reserved for them based on talent and determination alone.

They were still sharing that space, but it wasn’t a battle anymore. They shared it, now, elbows linked or fingers entwined. Laces tied together.

They played the Centaurs in the first round of the bracket.

Shane had never played a playoff game against Hayden.

The Atlantic Division had grown pretty weak in the past few years, with Montreal absolutely shitting the bed, Detroit losing all semblance of cohesion, and Toronto’s star center getting arrested after they traded away their two best players. The Miami and Tampa Bay teams had still placed second and third in the Division over Ottawa, but at the last minute, the Centaurs had been able to scrape out the second wild card slot, barely placing above Washington in the regular season standings. No one expected them to make it very far, of course, but in just a few seasons, they had gone from being at the bottom of the barrel to being in the middle of the pack—a vast improvement in a short period of time. With Wyatt, Hayden, Boodram, Barrett, and Aliue, they had a solid core of good, consistent players who would be around for many more seasons. If they could nail a few advantageous trades or get some good rookie talents, Shane thought they had a bright future.

His inner child, a boy who had fallen asleep on Centaurs bedsheets every night and dreamed about being a hometown hero, was happy.

But his present self, the one that was always quietly dominated by the ever-present and sharp need to win, was also pretty happy to have an easy first-round matchup.

Though Ottawa had improved massively this season, their power play was still one of the worst in the entire league. They rarely scored even with the one-man advantage, and that was life or death in the playoffs.

Against Boston, with Shane and Ilya, it was murder.

They had dominated when they played together, but LeClaire had been right to move Shane to the second line. Ilya and Shane were the kind of players who made others better just by proximity. It wasn’t arrogance on Shane’s part to think that—he knew it for a fact. Pummel and Sidney, his second-line wingers, were good but average players, but both of their assists and goals were up significantly that season with Shane to play off. The same was likely true for Luca Haas in his first season in the NHL; he responded so well to Ilya’s teaching and sought his approval with such a healthy but deep-rooted admiration that his name was one of the top picks for the Rookie of the Year award. When they had played together, they had been unstoppable, but spread across the first two lines, their chemistry didn’t fade; Ilya could set up plays that left Shane in the absolutely perfect position the second he hopped the boards, and Shane was one of the best two-way forwards in the entire league and every shift he played left the team in a defensively stronger position that lasted until Ilya was back on the ice. They communicated silently during line changes and were in sync with their coaches about decisions regarding face-offs and mid-game adjustments.

They were fantastic, and Shane never felt deprived of Ilya even when one of them was on the bench and the other was on the ice.

Moving to the second line had been the right call; Shane had always known that, even if he had initially felt a slight sting at a demotion from the position he’d held since his second year. Winning assuaged that subtle bitterness. Sitting pressed against Ilya whenever the third or fourth lines were out soothed any remaining longing for the years they had played together.

So did the penalty kill and the power play.

God, Shane loved the power play. It was special, sharp and electric. It felt fated when the Bears’ first goal of the playoffs happened twenty seconds after Boodram swung his stick wide at an inopportune moment and sent Cliff to the ice, an automatic two-minute minor for tripping, putting the face-off in the Centaurs’ defensive zone just a few precious meters away from Hayes in the net.

They both saw it coming.

“Fuck yes,” Ilya murmured on the bench, hand landing briefly on Shane’s shoulder as they both stood, eyes tracking Boodram’s chagrined progression to the penalty box. “Fuck yes. Hollander.”

“I know,” Shane said, voice even.

The air crackled. Shane’s breathing was steady and his pulse beat at a typical rate for the middle of a game: fast but consistent, like a metronome ticking, setting the pace.

“Hollander, you center,” LeClaire said. That season, Shane’s face-off success percentage had edged past Ilya’s. “Let’s get it done, boys.”

They would.

Sometimes, especially during exhausting conditioning drills, the air around hockey players would turn misty. The cold air of the refrigerated rinks would meet the sweat evaporating from their overheating skin and cool it nearly instantly into tiny ice crystals that floated around them.

Shane saw the ensuing play like a mirage through mist. Aliue, a former Boston Bear who no doubt recognized the look of focus on Shane's face from personal experience, bent to take the face-off with a grimace. “Go easy on me for old times’ sake, hey, Hollzy?” he joked weakly.

Shane didn’t respond, his mind a million miles away.

Even for the best centers in the league—in the world—face-offs were almost always random chance, a coin flip between who got control of the puck and who lost. Even Shane’s win percentage was below a 60% success rate, though they had a better chance of getting the puck with the man-advantage.

Still, not a guarantee at all, and even if he lost the draw, the Bears far surpassed the Centaurs in their ability to regain and keep possession.

And yet, Shane saw it coming.

Puck drop. Sticks on the ice. That satisfying, iconic snap of the blades and the immediate movement of every player on the ice.

There was a millisecond of struggle, then Shane slid his stick between Aliue and the puck. Shane knocked the puck backward and to the right, already looking over his shoulder, his body turned instinctively to watch what happened next.

Ilya was on the far right of the face-off circle, close to the center of the ice. Shane’s draw sent the puck straight to him. Ilya caught it and, with two players between him and the net, he whipped the puck like a bullet straight down the ice before anyone had a second to breathe, or even blink.

There was nothing for the goalie to do. Ilya threaded the puck between three bodies and the goal light lit up, the announcers screaming.

Less than a second. A perfect goal. A perfect way to start the playoffs, too.

Ilya’s fist went into the air. The Garden roared for him.

“Fuck,” Aliue muttered.

They won the game, of course.

They won the second as well, then they were off to Ottawa, and Shane had the bizarre experience of spending an evening at the Pikes’ house beforehand, playing with the children and Ilya on the floor of the living room as all three prepared to play against each other the next day.

They won the third game, nearly guaranteeing them the series. David had taken Yuna’s spot in the crowd, and he surprised them both with a custom jersey that had their names hyphenated on the back and 24/81 on the sleeves. David proudly showed it off when the Jumbotron’s camera focused on him. Ottawa didn’t even boo him (too badly, at least).

Game four, still in the Canadian Tire Centre, the coaches put Cadyn in the net to give Benji a break.

In the brief period between the end of the season and the playoffs, Cadyn had his helmet redesigned.

Changed from the generic gold and black helmet with a bear logo, which could have suited either the Bears or their AHL affiliate, Caydn’s new cage was now themed around Boston itself. Most of the helmet was an airbrushed, panoramic view of Boston’s skyline over the Charles River and Longfellow Bridge. The rest, crowning over his head, was a simple interlocking series of bricks to represent the Freedom Trail, neatly cascading down the front of his mask until the Bears’ logo was placed front and center. It was more personal than his previous mask and also sent a clear message: he was here to stay.

When a reporter asked him about it, Cadyn blinked and said, “I just like Boston.”

Before the game, Shane stood in front of him in the locker room and met his eyes before they had bars and visors between them. “This is gonna feel different,” he warned Cadyn bluntly. “Playoff hockey is different. This is your first time experiencing it; you are allowed to take time to adjust and learn what it means for yourself and the players you are facing. We are all going to be out there with you, supporting you. Got it?”

Cadyn simply nodded. His eyes were far away, his skin slightly pale. “Yup.”

He played a perfect game until the second period, when he, as inevitably happened, made a mistake.

It happened during a line change. Barrett sent the puck into the Bears’ end and raced for the bench. Cadyn ducked out, swerving behind the net to gain possession of the puck, as goalies often did when their defensive zones were mostly clear. Shane was on the bench, Ilya heading for him at a breakneck pace so they could change shifts, so Shane was the only one watching as Hayden abruptly changed directions.

Hayden wasn’t the fastest skater in the league, but he was fast enough for this.

As Cadyn got the puck on his paddle, ready to send it out to the next wave of Bears, Hayden swept in and knocked his stick hard against Cadyn’s. Shane was back on the ice again by that point, racing to interfere or put himself in the net in Cadyn’s absence, but the rest of the maneuver played out before he made it. They fought for the puck, but Hayden had the advantage; his stick was lighter, more flexible and designed for this kind of one-on-one, and he pushed it forward. Cadyn leapt onto his stomach, his stick desperately swinging out wide and just crossing the goalpost, trying anything to block the shot, but Hayden kept close to the puck and, with the net unguarded, swung the puck inside without much trouble.

It was a very good play by Hayden, but Shane knew immediately that it had rattled his rookie. He saw the dejected way Cadyn picked himself off the ice and shook his head, turning his back on the rink to face the goal.

Shane skated up to Cadyn as the Centaurs celebrated Hayden. “It was a mistake,” he said succinctly. “They happen to everyone.”

Cadyn nodded and said nothing. Ilya and Benji both tried to talk him up during the next intermission, but he stayed rattled during the third period, letting in several shots that he should have been able to block.

The Centaurs took home their first win of the series.

+++

Shane found Cadyn in the hotel gym at 5:00 in the morning the next day, slogging away on a treadmill and probably inadvisably exhausting himself. “Did Jennings or your other coaches recommend this?” Shane asked him in his captain voice. There was sweat on Cadyn’s forehead already. His long stride looked a little awkward on the short conveyor belt. After a moment, Cadyn shook his head. Shane reached out, making sure Cadyn was watching as he slowed the pace on the treadmill to a jog, then to a walk. “Don’t go against the advice of the trainers during the playoffs. That’s how injuries happen. We need you, JP.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

Cadyn huffed. He shook his head, knocking sweat out of his hair. “My parents were there last night, just to watch me lose.”

“And they’ve been at other games, watching you win.”

“Yeah, but last night-”

“It’s hard, but you need to forget last night.” Shane stopped the treadmill completely. Cadyn stepped off. Without consulting each other, they both moved over to an open area of the gym floor and sat, silently beginning some cooldown stretches together. “We play seven-game series,” Shane said eventually, “and it is literally impossible to win all seven. You can only ever win four. It’s like life. You don’t have to win them all to win it all.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

Shane shrugged. “It’s how everything works. Mistakes-” mistakes, bad luck, unfortunate circumstances, malicious actions, nightmares, internalized hatred, societal pressure, volatile locker rooms, leaked videos, fear, loneliness, depression, anxiety, a need for control, a lack of control, desperation, dissociation, the hard work it takes to make yourself better even on days it takes everything you have to get out of bed “-don’t have to ruin everything. They can just be… hurdles. Bumps in the road. One or two losses out of seven, and then you’re still onto the next round, as strong as ever.”

Cadyn glanced at him.

“Winning a game five-two is the same in the standings as winning a game three-two,” Shane said simply. “You know that.”

“But a five-nothing win is a shutout, and a five-four win isn’t,” Cadyn insisted.

Shane couldn’t help but laugh. “No, really?” he teased. Cadyn flushed. “Okay, sure. Yes, obviously you’re correct.” He nudged him. “But that’s why we’re a team. A shutout is incredible, and you’ve had more than your fair share of them because you are an incredible goaltender, but for the team, for the standings, even for a seven-game series, is there a difference between a shutout and any other type of win?”

Cadyn looked unhappy about it but admitted, “No, I guess not.”

“Instead of thinking like a player,” Shane said, “think like a team.”

Shane saw a light go on in Cadyn’s eyes, the same as when Benji was injured mid-game earlier in the season and Shane had given Cadyn a pep talk before he went into the net. Understanding. It made Shane happy to know that he could reach Cadyn. With so many people, Shane could never find the right words. With Cadyn, it felt easy.

“Think like a team,” Cadyn repeated. “I guess I can do that.”

+++

The coaches kept Cadyn in the net at TD Garden for the next game. Shane highly approved of this decision; last season, when Davies, their previous backup goaltender, had a poor introduction to playoff ice, they had immediately pulled him, completely shaking his confidence for later games. Keeping Cadyn in the net when they had the breathing room of a three-game lead was the smarter decision, one that Shane knew Margot Jennings, the new goaltender coach, had a big say in by advocating for Cadyn.

That night, back in the Garden, with Cadyn’s parents having flown down from Quebec to watch what everyone was hoping would be the final matchup of the first round, Cadyn proved them right.

He got the shutout he wanted, and the Centaurs left the ice with their heads held high after five hard-fought games against the highest-ranked team in the league following a decades-long playoff drought. They were so young, incredibly inexperienced in the post-season, but, as shocking as it would have been to say at the beginning of the year, Shane knew that in a few seasons, the Centaurs would be a force to be reckoned with.

Not yet, though. Five games felt pretty good. The Centaurs would just keep getting better, but that night, Shane was happy it ended with them back on home ice, playing for their fans, who would absolutely murder them in cold blood if they placed first in the league in the regular season only to fumble in the playoffs against the Ottawa Centaurs.

Shane swarmed toward their net with the rest of their teammates, hooting and hollering their victory as the stadium chanted for them, “Here we go, Bears! Here we go!”

“Okay,” Shane laughed, reaching out to clap Cadyn’s shoulder through his bulky pads as the rest of their teammates kept a respectable distance, forming a massive huddle to the side of the net instead of crowding Shane and Cadyn. “Tonight, you have my permission; think like a team, but celebrate like a player. Good fucking job, kid.”

Cadyn’s unusually inexpressive face split into a smile that shone beneath the shade of his mask, decorated with the skyline of the city that was roaring his name.

+++

NHL ☑️ @NHL

Aaaand that’s a wrap on Round One in the East, with @BostonBears and @Clones, and @AdmiralsNYC and @BrooklynScoutsNHL advancing to the second round! The Bears advance past the first series for the fourth year in a row, with the Clones making their first appearance in Round 2 in six years! Admirals and Scouts will face off in a long-awaited Battle of New York! We’ll see you there! #StanleyCup

12:10 AM · May 1, 2020

+++

Shane and Ilya fucked for the first time in a week after the win, still smelling like vodka, ginger ale, and sweat. Ilya had eyeshadow smeared across his temples, and at some point in the night, Cliff had convinced Shane to put on a Rozanov jersey, and he wore it as he rode Ilya through the mattress and panted, near tears, “I missed this, I missed this,” and Ilya’s eyes rolled in his head.

God. Victory really made Shane so fucking horny.

There was a frenetic, manic energy around every member of the Boston Bears before the first game of the next series. No one said a word, but they could all feel it.

It was like static electricity at the tips of their fingers. Shane dreamt of reaching out, touching the cup, and feeling lightning race through his veins.

They swept the Carolina Cyclones in four games.

Luca scored two goals.

In the only game he started, Cadyn, back in his groove, got his first playoff shutout. At the end of the game, when Shane careened toward him, it was Cadyn who spread his massive arms to invite the fierce, celebratory embrace that Shane wrapped him up in.

A sweep. A fucking sweep.

They were going to the Conference Finals with an easy nine games and no serious injuries to any of their players. It was about as good a start as anyone could hope for.

Elsewhere in the Eastern Conference, the Flappers fell to the Admirals, and the Admirals eventually fell to the Scouts in an absolutely brutal Battle of New York, still struggling to find their footing as a post-Bennett club.

The second round in the Western Conference was still wrapping up, so they had a week off, full of casual practices meant to keep them in shape while minimizing injuries. In the evenings, Shane and Ilya started hosting watch parties for the entire team, and they booed every time anyone scored, and Anya nearly vibrated out of her fur in excitement at all the guests. Shane’s plants were safely sequestered outside, and Ilya had even gone so far as to rope them off.

“How else will my husband feed me?” Ilya said in response to the teasing he received for it, slapping away Vicky’s hand playfully when he reached out, pretending to grab a jalapeño. “Nyet! Do not dare! Mine!”

It was nice to have time off, and nicer still to spend it with their teammates.

“I’m sick of hockey,” Ilya groaned against Shane's neck, collapsed together on their sofa and watching the final few minutes of the LA Aces’ fourth win in the second round, their teammates spread around them and spilling out into Shane’s garden.

Shane slapped the back of his hand against Ilya’s chest. “Watch it.”

“I think Hollzy’ll actually murder you for that, Roz,” Cliff said. “Careful there, bud.”

“How could anyone get sick of hockey?” Cadyn asked Shane seriously, nursing a beer. His shutout had settled the nerves from his round one mistake, and Shane thought, in the aftermath, that there was something a little easier about him these days. A little more confident. Luca, at Cadyn's side, hummed in agreement. He looked similarly settled and a lot less nervous around Shane and Ilya than he had been at the start of the season. They leaned into each other on their own couch, unselfconscious about their friendship and the affection they had for each other. It was so different from the locker rooms that Shane had been in at their age. His chest hurt, but in a good way, he thought.

It was always nice to watch the rookies grow up.

Shane shook his head. “I’m not the person to ask, kids.”

+++

NHL ☑️ @NHL

Eastern Conference Finals commence TONIGHT in TD Garden! Tune in to watch the highly anticipated matchup of the @BrooklynScoutsNHL and @BostonBears as they fight for the Prince of Wales trophy and a chance for the Cup! The Scouts are aiming to bounce back after going a brutal seven games against the @AdmiralsNYC, and the Bears retake the ice after a full seven days off and five consecutive playoff wins! Rest or Rust? Find out at 8:00 p.m. ET! #StanleyCup

3:00 PM · May 22, 2020

+++

On home ice, they lost Game One of the Conference Finals.

While blocking a shot on the goal, a puck struck Vicky’s left forearm, and he went down hard. Though fighting during the playoffs was ill-advised, Cliff immediately responded by shoving the offending shooter against the boards, incurring a two-minute penalty against the Bears as Vicky disappeared down the tunnel.

The Scouts scored despite Ilya and Shane doing their best to kill the penalty and, with the last-minute shuffling of the lines leaving them disorganized, they lost the match.

In their home locker room twenty minutes before the start of Game Two, Ilya dragged a bench into the center of the room and stood on it, pressing one fist flat against the palm of his other hand.

“Are you angry?” he asked, speaking quietly before a room full of twenty jocular men who were already filled with adrenaline. He was heard, loud and clear, nonetheless. “Are you angry about how last night went? I can tell you—I am fucking angry.” Some agreements sprang up, but Shane stayed silent. He was transfixed. “I’m angry. Yes, I’ll tell you what—I’m fucking furious. Feeling maybe a little murderous, too. I don’t like how last night went for us, for Vicky. I don’t like it at all. But you know what? Tonight is not last night. Not at all. That ice out there is fresh. It is clear. It is a blank slate and we decide, right here, right now, what we will write on it. Will it be our blood out there tonight, or the blood of the fucking Scouts?”

“Blood! Blood!” Cliff started a brief chant. He was wearing an A tonight, taking Vicky’s place. It suited him.

Ilya silenced the ominous chant with a quick slash of his hand before his throat. Everyone fell silent like they were an orchestra being conducted. “Then you and I are in agreement,” he said, still quiet. “Tonight is tonight. Tonight, we win. Tonight, if blood is spilled, it is not our blood. I am angry, and you are angry, and tonight, we turn that into the thing that wins us this series. Okay?”

“Yes, Captain!”

“I said, Okay!?”

“Yes, Captain!”

They won the game.

In New York, they beat the Scouts twice in a row in their home arena. After Game Four, Ilya took his helmet off on the ice and shook out his curls, sweat falling in droplets, and he grinned at the booing New York fans. He looked like a wolf. Shane whistled for good luck.

They lost Game Five, but they won Game Six. No one dared to touch the Prince of Wales trophy when it was carried out onto the ice. Shane met Ilya’s eyes over the brim of the Eastern Conference trophy, eyes stinging with sweat and heart beating harder. Ilya winked. Shane couldn’t fight his smile, and soon enough, the picture of him and Ilya smiling at each other, besotted, from either side of the trophy would be printed and framed, sitting proudly on Yuna and David’s mantle and in the cottage, waiting for them every summer.

+++

NHL ☑️ @NHL

The @BostonBears get it done in 6! @BrooklynScoutsNHL are eliminated from Cup contention after an incredible run. See you next year, boys! Tomorrow, we’ll be turning our attention to the West - will the @acesla be able to finish the job, or can @SanFranMission drag this out to Game Seven? With several key players out on both teams, it’s gonna be a wild one, so make sure to tune in LIVE! #StanleyCup

11:23 PM · June 1, 2020

+++

“Come in, come in. Shoes-”

“Shoes off!” five members of the Boston Bears chorused, crowding the entryway of their home as they wrestled their shoes off. Shane rolled his eyes, but he was smiling.

“Dirty Americans,” Ilya jeered, leaning over from the kitchen. “Tracking dirt and germs into other people’s homes. This is a sanctuary!”

“Marly is the only American here,” Victor complained, gesturing to himself and Johannson, and then to Sidney and Pummel, who were Canadian. Johansson waved happily.

Ilya sniffed. “Canadians and Americans are the same thing-”

“We are not!” The gathered Canadians objected, Shane louder than the rest.

“-and Sweden is the North Pole where Santa Claus lives—is a fictional country.”

Johansson shrugged. “Still better than America.”

“I’m feeling ganged up on,” Cliff said, but he sounded proud about it.

“Whatever, come on, come on,” Shane said, ushering them further into the house. “Go claim your seats before they all get taken.”

There was a mad rush. Shane was nearly trampled.

Ilya wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him to safety, landing a kiss on his cheek right as Pummel let out a loud, Oomph! as Sidney tackled him over the sectional. “We are like team dads,” Ilya said happily. “Or soccer moms. I bring the extra soda, and you drive a minivan.”

Shane laughed and shoved Ilya’s chest. “I do not-”

Another knock on the door. Ilya kissed his cheek again. “House will be full to the rafters,” he said, definitely proud now.

“We’ve got a lot of people,” Shane agreed.

The rest of their watch party trickled in over the next twenty minutes—Svetlana first, carrying a bottle of vodka that she handed to Ilya, who accepted it with a reverent look, then Benji, his wife and daughters, along with a few more Bears and their families, and finally Vicky and Amanda, who was extremely pregnant now. It was a tight squeeze to fit everyone in the living room, but it was a warm night, and the glass doors were thrown open to the patio, making the space feel wider and giving the kids space to run around. Benji’s daughters were too little to play with the rest of the Bears’ kids, but the rest of the team’s children took off like bullets, happily playing with Anya as they raced around the grass, their squeals a happy soundtrack to the pre-show announcers.

Shane opened a bottle of wine.

“You are having one glass?” Ilya asked him quietly, helping straighten the various potluck dishes their guests had brought.

Shane surveyed the table. There were a lot of foods that fit his diet, and a lot of foods that didn’t. He looked at the wine bottle. “I don’t like the taste,” he told Ilya honestly. “I’ll stick to ginger ale. And….” He looked at the end of the table. Someone had brought a pie. It was saran-wrapped but despite that, he could still smell the fresh scent of apples and cinnamon. “I’ll—I guess I’ll have some pie later. The team nutritionist agreed, and we’re all starting to look reedy even with the time off, so….”

Melissa was helping Shane find a balance with the team nutritionist on how to handle how he felt and thought about eating. She had also gently broached the subject of some autistic people’s relationships with food, the very common concept of safe foods, but also the need for control and structured routines that could sometimes be overwhelming. Shane wasn’t sure he was ready for either conversation yet, but he kept them in the back of his mind. He was getting there. For now, he could take slow steps in the right direction and use the distraction of the playoffs to keep himself fed and healthy. That was what mattered most. The rest could come later.

Ilya smiled and kissed his cheek. “You take very good care of us,” he said. “Everyone knows this. I’m sure pie will taste delicious.”

Shane nodded. He couldn’t overthink it. He was glad they had some time off between the games because he wouldn’t need to cancel his next meeting with Melissa, and Ilya had scheduled an additional meeting with Galina. He wrapped his free hand around Ilya’s bicep and pulled him in for a kiss. “We can look out for each other.”

“On the ice, off it.” Ilya shrugged. “Everywhere.”

“Absolutely.”

They settled in the living room, passing out plates, coasters, napkins, and drinks. Shane cracked his ginger ale and savored the first, most carbonated sip. It tasted delicious, and Melissa kept reminding him that was a good thing.

He caught Ilya’s gentle smile.

The game started.

“It’s game seven of the Western Conference Championship series tonight at the Chase Center Arena.”

“It’s win or lose for these guys, there is no other option.”

“That’s right, one team is walking out of here with the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl and a chance for the Lord Stanley, and the other team is not.”

“It’s been a tough post-season for both teams, though, hasn’t it?”

“Oh, definitely. We’ve seen a lot of fighting, literal and figurative, over the past few months.”

“The Western Conference had a very tight race in the divisional rankings-”

“Much tighter than the Eastern Conference this year-”

“And that energy has continued through the playoffs. Tonight is San Francisco's twenty-first game of the playoffs, can you believe that? They’ve taken it to Game Seven in each round of the bracket. Los Angeles is not far behind, with tonight being their nineteenth game.”

“Yeah, and you can tell these guys are feeling it. They are exhausted, and both teams are missing some critical players. But there is no give in the playoff grind—they just have to keep pushing.”

“Comparatively, the Boston Bears have been sailing through the last few weeks.”

“They might not thank you for jinxing them, but it’s true. Under the guidance of Captain Ilya Rozanov and three-time Cup winner Shane Hollander, the Bears have only played fifteen games so far across each round of the bracket—that’s a whopping six fewer than San Francisco at the same point in the championship!”

“So what does that look like, knowing that one of the teams tonight will be facing off against that powerhouse in just a week?”

“Well, I’ll tell you, it doesn’t look great for anyone still rooting for the West.”

Vicky threw a handful of popcorn at the TV. It flew slightly off center, given that his arm was still in a sling. “They are cursing us!” He shouted, following it with a series of French swears. “This is fixing! Collusion! I know it when I see it, shut up, shut up!”

Ilya smacked the back of his head. “Throwing food in my house,” he said derisively. “You are worse than the Americans, Saintly.”

“Fine, then, I am American!” Vicky shrieked, dodging another hit. “Green card! Beautiful American wife and soon-to-be beautiful American baby girl!”

“Americans, as a rule,” Amanda chimed in, patting her stomach pointedly, “also do not throw food inside someone else’s house.” Shane was staring anxiously at the popcorn on the floor and felt relieved when she sternly ordered, “I don’t care that you broke your arm. Clean it up, babe.”

Vicky grumbled but stood.

Ilya cooed, “You know where the dustpan is, yes, Daddy?”

Everyone booed him but it made Shane laugh. Ilya looked pretty self-satisfied on both fronts.

The game started, some watching more closely than others. Usually, Shane would be bothered by the level of chatter and distraction during an important game, but he knew they would be tape-reviewing the important parts of the series as a team before the playoffs, so he let the annoyance wash past him and fade.

Halfway through the first, Ilya casually draped his strong arm over Shane’s shoulder, drawing him in. “Shane,” Ilya said calmly, “who’s winning tonight?”

Shane narrowed his eyes, watching the San Francisco players step onto the ice with a running start.

“Delespine,” he said, naming the SF captain, “has bruised ribs. Reese got him with that check in the third period last game. They can’t pull him because they’re out of players, but he can’t lift his left arm all the way.” He demonstrated, still watching the TV closely. “And Brens, he’s the only good defenseman they have left—they’re going to push him on the ice,” he hummed, “close to twenty-five minutes. And he just doesn’t have the stamina or experience for that. SF loses, but they’re going to lose because they’re hurting, not because LA will play well.”

“Final score?” Ilya prompted slowly.

“You know I can’t guess that,” Shane huffed.

“Try,” Ilya said. “Channel Yuna. She could do it.”

Shane glared at him. Ilya raised a challenging eyebrow. “Two-one, LA,” Shane said. “No goals in the third period unless it’s an empty-netter. They’re all gassed.”

“You’re a wizard, Hoz,” Cliff commented. The rest of the team nodded in agreement.

Shane shrugged. “We’ll see.”

An hour later, he was proven completely right. “This is why sports betting needs to stay illegal,” Benji said, soothing his daughter, overstimulated from hours of cheering, as a beleaguered but smiling Los Angeles team swarmed the ice, throwing gloves, sticks, and helmets into the air. “Shane has enough money as it is.”

“So it’s us against the Aces in the Finals,” Carmichael mused. He glanced at Shane, then away. “I think we can take them.”

“My hockey super genius,” Ilya cooed, wrapping his arms around his shoulders. His wedding ring, worn on his finger whenever they weren’t on the ice, glinted.

+++

Benji and his wife left as soon as the game was over, taking their tired children with them. Cadyn and Luca departed next, and Johansson bounced with a few other younger players to hit up a bar with strict instructions about not overindulging or losing sleep in the middle of their playoff break. The rest of their teammates and friends trickled out slowly until only a few remained. Sidney and Pummel were passed out on the couch, so Shane figured they could probably just spend the night there. Svetlana had already commandeered the guest room. Amanda, Vicky, and Cliff meandered outside to sit on the patio with Ilya and Shane, all of them drinking water or soda instead of alcohol as they enjoyed the quiet, warm summer night. The sounds of the city were distant, and though they lived in the suburbs, Shane always knew exactly what direction the Boston city center was in. The lights of downtown cast a warm glow over the horizon that stretched above the tree line, lightening the dark night sky in a permanent sunset.

“I like what you did with the place, Hollz,” Cliff said, nodding around the garden. “It’s pretty.”

“Thanks,” Shane said, smiling fondly at Cliff. “It’s a new hobby, but it’s… peaceful.”

“I think it’s wonderful,” Amanda said. Usually, she would have been sitting in Vicky’s lap, but deep in her third trimester, she seemed more comfortable in her own chair. That didn’t stop her and Vicky from keeping possessive hands on each other all night. They had been aiming for a summer baby but had conceived more quickly than expected, so she was due any day; privately in the kitchen, Amanda had confessed to Shane that she was glad Vicky was out of the playoffs for the mild fracture in his arm, even though she dreaded having a newborn when her husband was still healing. “My mother and grandmother were avid gardeners, but I never much enjoyed all the kneeling and the dirt. Still, it was lovely to live in a house that had flowers growing outside all the windows.”

Shane wasn’t growing any flowers, but he appreciated the sentiment.

They still had a few days before the start of finals, so they chatted for longer than might have been wise. Usually, Shane would have felt more pressure to maintain his strict schedules and routines during the playoffs, but he felt settled in a way that he never had before. Maybe that was the effect Ilya had on him, compounding and accruing over time, increasing every year they were together. Maybe it was how well the Bears had been playing all year and the settled knowledge that they were going to keep playing well. Maybe it was because Shane had Melissa now, and he had spoken with her only the day before, and let himself honestly complain about carb loading and muscle soreness and his unreasonable irritation when his teammates flagged before he did. Probably, it was all of those things combined.

The night was peaceful. Shane felt settled. Ilya’s head was tilted back, his throat exposed to moonlight, pale skin dappled with moles.

“Sweet Caroline!” Ilya sang suddenly, loud and off-key. Cliff and Vicky objected immediately with loud groans, and Amanda slapped her palms over her ears, giggling. Ilya held out a fake microphone for them, though no one joined in as he hollered, “Bah-bah-bah!”

Anya barked, excited. Ilya turned the invisible microphone to her excitedly, and Amanda burst into a peal of laughter.

Shane slapped a hand over his mouth, glancing through the windows to check that Ilya hadn’t woken anyone up. “Our neighbors are going to complain,” he said dryly.

“Our neighbors are also Bostonians, just like us!” Ilya objected behind Shane’s ineffectual palm. “Bostonians love ‘Sweet Caroline’! I learned this when I was eighteen, Hollander—you need to catch up.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “I can guarantee that they won’t love it as much at two a.m..”

Ilya shook his head, curls flopping. “Cliff, you are our token Bostoner—weigh in!”

Cliff held his hands up in surrender. “Don’t look at me, bro!”

“You have lived in Boston always! Surely you know better than anyone, since you are also planning on dying here,” Ilya snarked back.

“Oh, don’t fucking talk about how I’m dying,” Cliff groaned. “I feel old enough already.” He took a long sip of his drink. He sounded like he was cautiously testing the waters when he said, “Any day now I’m expecting you to start chirping me about being as old as Scott Hunter, you know, Roz?”

“What?” Ilya scoffed. “No way. Hunter is decrepit mummy in a tomb. You are still young and hot, Marly. Shane agrees.”

“Leave me out of this.”

“I’m not young,” Cliff said, shaking his head. “I’m pretty near retirement, after all.”

“What?” Ilya squawked, jostling Shane as he sat up abruptly. “Marly, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Don’t shoot the messenger, dude!” Cliff said. “You should know this already, Roz—your contracts,” he said, gesturing between Ilya and Shane, “end in 2022, but mine ends after next season. Bros, I don’t know what happened, but at some point I got old! I’m gonna be thirty-five, you know? Fuck, like, that’s not old-old, but it’s old for hockey.” He laughed, but his expression was too sincere, too melancholy despite his smile.

Ilya and Shane would turn thirty next year as well. Shane considered it the halfway point of his career, but he knew that would only be true if they were lucky, and only then because they were lucky and very, very good. Ilya frowned at Cliff and, for once, didn’t jump at the opportunity to make fun of someone’s age. “You are still an incredible player,” he said staunchly. “You have many good years left. And the fans love you—your contract will be extended.”

“I’ve got some decent years left,” Cliff said casually, unbothered, “but I’ve never been slower in my life. And man, I feel old, because my bones fucking hurt, dude.”

“Wait,” Vicky said, shaking his head. He was younger than Shane and Ilya by two years and looked genuinely shocked. “You are actually talking about retiring?” Amanda set a comforting hand on his arm.

Cliff shrugged. “I’ve got a year to decide,” he said. “I think the Bears will give me a contract extension if I ask for it, but who knows? Who knows how I’ll feel by then? But yeah, I’m definitely considering it. None of us get to do this forever, and I don’t want to drag it out. I want to go out on a high note before I risk everything for a broken knee and never walk straight again.” There were worse endings, too, they all knew. Cliff had endured more concussions than any of them. “I’m going to start considering it now, you know, so I’m more used to the idea when the time comes. That’s it. Just wanted to float it by you.”

Ilya looked stricken. Shane took his hand. Ilya had never played on a team without Cliff Marlow, Shane knew. “Obviously, we’ll support you whatever happens,” Shane said. “And you would still be in Boston, right? It isn’t like we would stop seeing each other.” Cliff smiled at him gratefully.

“Definitely still Boston,” he said. “My family’s here, and so is….” He paused and glanced away. “I’ve always been here, I mean. Boston forever, you know?” He put his fist over his heart. “And maybe I’ll finally be here long enough to find myself a good Boston woman who will let me spend all my retirement savings on her.”

They smiled, except for Vicky. “My contract ends the year after yours,” he said, nodding to Shane and Ilya. Amanda turned to him immediately, face adopting a charged expression, but she didn’t interject. “I will be honest with you—I have not wanted to think of it, but I don’t know where I will go after. Once we have Genevieve,” he said, and Amanda naturally placed her hand on the swell of her stomach and their unborn daughter, “Amanda will be focusing on her career.” He laughed, pulling on his hair. “And her career will last much longer than mine, you know?” He gave her a lovesick grin and she returned it with a quietly sad counterpart. “We love Boston too, but there is no guarantee she will find a job in one of the good colleges here, or tenure. Probably, I think, if she moves, I will move for her.”

“Oh, Vic,” she sighed. “We don’t have to think about this now.”

They had clearly discussed this before. Vicky squeezed her hand. “It is true, still.”

“Leave Boston?” Ilya said. “You will both leave Boston? But—it is Boston!”

Shane squeezed his hand. “Not for a few years, Ilya,” he reminded him gently. “All our contracts are ending around the same time.”

Their lives were ephemeral. Hockey placed more emphasis on team loyalty than some other sports, which sometimes kept players stationary, but no one really had complete say over where they lived or for how long. Their careers were short, and few players ever played more than ten seasons with one team. When things changed, they had to be adaptable.

Ilya looked unhappy. “Yes, but it is Boston,” he repeated, as if that was the end-all and be-all. It was more loyalty to the city than Shane had heard from him in the first six or seven years of their career. He remembered the first conversation they’d had about roots in Shane’s first season as a Bear, when Ilya told Shane that he liked Boston but that his connection to the city wasn't deep.

That had changed in the last three years. It had changed for both of them.

“You would have left Boston for me,” Shane murmured, knowing it was true.

Ilya was stricken. Then, quickly, he nodded. “Of course I would have.”

Shane bent to kiss his wedding ring. “But I’m glad you didn’t have to.”

The evening was warm. Crickets buzzed in the grass. Maybe it was in his head, but Shane thought he could already smell the sweetness of the pear trees.

“I asked Margot on a date,” Cliff blurted, apropos of nothing.

“Margot?” Ilya asked slowly. "Who is Margot?"

Shane blinked. It clicked. “Margot Jennings? The goaltender coach?”

Cliff smiled bashfully. “Yeah. You know she’s been babysitting my puppy, right? Well, I guess we ended up talking a lot this season. She’s… she’s great.” He shifted, then leaned a little closer. “It’s like what you said at the beginning of the season, you know, Hollz? About Roz? How you love him more because you both love hockey, or you can love each other through hockey? She gets it in the same way.” He laughed, shaking his head. “Actually, weirdly, it’s even more similar to you guys than that because she hasn’t said yes to, uh, going on a date yet. She’s concerned about the… optics, you know? Which I totally get! And, uh, I guess you guys would, too, right? Like, she’s one of the only women coaches in the league, so… I guess it’s a specific look if she starts dating a player. She’s still thinking about it, but….” He let out a long breath. “I really like her, dudes. I want it to work out.”

Ilya was gawking. “Marly!” he exclaimed. Anya perked up at the shout. “You are in love! Incredible!”

“Oh, shut up, man!” Cliff groaned. “You’re one to talk!”

Shane noticed that Vicky and Amanda didn’t look surprised. He supposed that he and Ilya had been slightly insular that year, and focused on the rookies, and quietly vowed to change that next season.

“Is that part of why you were talking about retirement?” Shane asked gently. Ilya looked even more flabbergasted.

Cliff shrugged. “It would be nice,” he mused, “to live in Boston year-round, and, like, I don’t know—be waiting at home when Margot gets back from work. Oh, fuck, dudes,” he groaned suddenly, pitching forward in his chair and burying his face in his hands, “I’m so fucked up about her and we haven’t even been on an actual date!”

Amanda laughed, bright and happy. “Cliff, don’t ever let anyone say you aren’t a sweetheart!”

Ilya smirked, slapping a friendly hand between Cliff’s shoulder blades. “‘Actual’ date?” he teased. “So you have been on, what, ‘sort of’ dates? Hmm?”

Cliff was bright red. They all laughed at him.

Shane sat back in his chair, picturing Cliff as a retired old man with a long-term partner or wife, still involved in hockey but no longer playing. He pictured Vicky, dedicated as he followed wherever Amanda led him. He pictured himself and Ilya, and in everything he imagined, and wherever, he saw them happy, and successful, and together.

He took a sip of his ginger ale. Sharp, sweet, effervescent.

+++

NHL ☑️ @NHL

Finals. Game One. It's Aces or Bears. It all comes down to this...

7:00 PM · June 8, 2020

+++

The Bears scored first.

Or, Shane scored first, to be specific.

All the players on the ice were in the Aces’ defensive zone. Shane was far away from the action, in position to receive the puck that Pummel sent him from the red line. From there, it was neat, efficient, and very fast.

As an Ace approached Shane head-on, he carefully sent the puck across the ice to Cliff, also standing on the blue line, who quickly passed it back to Pummel.

Pummel caught it and he, Shane, and Sidney all swung around each other, bodies moving in a practiced choreography that obscured their movement and hid the moment when Pummel passed it neatly back to Shane. Most of the Aces lost track of the progression, falling for the ploy and following Sidney away from the net.

Shane wasn’t skating particularly fast as he moved down the ice, rounded the goal, and neatly slotted the puck through the goalie’s five-hole with a quick, decisive backhand.

Simple, clean hockey.

He smirked at Ilya. “Backhand,” Shane mouthed across the ice, and he was pretty sure he saw Ilya rolling his eyes behind his visor.

The Bears also scored second.

Ilya’s turn.

Still in the first period, but this time Ilya was on the ice, and it wasn’t neat or controlled. He and Korogyi, Captain of the Aces, were playing a rough game, knocking each other into the boards and fighting for possession. The fight brought them around and behind the net and they bounced off the walls again, a hard collision that set the puck loose.

Ilya recovered first.

His stick hit the ice in front of the puck, gaining control less than a second after he lost it.

Behind Ilya, Korogyi lashed out, hooking the blade of his stick around Ilya’s upper thigh.

Ilya powered through like it was nothing, peeling out and around the goal, taking advantage of the goaltender’s limited sightline to mimic Shane’s pass exactly—a backhand straight through the five-hole.

He looked proud while he did it, skating triumphantly away from the net with one foot in the air, his free fist raised to the sky as he grinned at Shane, who just shook his head.

Aggressive and chaotic. Yet they worked so well together.

Shane saw Korogyi grimace. His delayed penalty for hooking was waived because Ilya had scored, but he didn’t look particularly chuffed about that anyway.

Shane didn’t take a face-off against Korogyi until halfway through the second. They were still up 2-0. Despite that, Shane felt his shoulders tense as he skated in. He couldn’t help but think about that game in LA and the complete meltdown it had caused, and the fight he’d had with Ilya after, all because Korogyi was an asshole willing to pressure rookies for inside information to make his chirps hit home. Shane had sternly told all the younger Bears to keep far away from the Aces if they ran into them in public during the series, not willing to risk what Cadyn had been through happening again, but there was no way to avoid him on the ice. Not forever.

“Yogi,” he said, tone mild as he approached the dot.

“Hey, Holly,” Korogyi murmured. He’d managed to affix his shit-eating smirk back on his face despite being down by two. “I heard you got married. Funny. I thought we already established that. Guess I heard wrong.”

Shane didn’t respond. He wasn’t concerned about people learning that he and Ilya had gotten married in 2018; it was on their license and might come out one day, regardless. They were prepared to say that they had been in a relationship for a year at that point, or to lean into internet speculation that they got together a little earlier at All-Stars 2017. Korogyi had no leverage over Shane. Not anymore.

At Shane’s impassiveness, Korogyi sighed. “Don’t be so serious, Holly. It’s just a game.” He was still smiling. “Nothing personal.”

Shane did not respond. He didn’t have to. He didn’t believe that Korogyi was an idiot or ignorant of what he had done when his entire team surrounded an isolated young member of Shane’s team or when he’d brought up private, revealing information about Ilya’s sexuality on the ice. Korogyi knew exactly what he had done, and he didn’t care. There was nothing Shane could do to change his mind.

There was nothing to do at all, except what Shane did best.

He bent to take the face-off, and he made sure they won the first game. (Not that it was hard.)

+++

Their second game in Boston was a blur of bodies, the sound of ice and skates, the smell of sweat and cold.

Still recovering from Vicky’s absence, they had a shaky start, giving up two goals in the first. They regained ground in the second, with Shane scoring once and their third line getting a lucky shot ten minutes into a dominant section of play that had kept the puck almost exclusively in the Aces’ defensive zone, completely exhausting their defense and goalie. In the third, Cliff and Hammersmith duoed a double-defenceman goal but were subsequently met by a return goal two minutes later. The third period ended. They went into overtime, but it didn’t last long.

Shane cheered from the bench, watching as Ilya and Luca raced in tandem down the ice, the puck sliding between them as Johansson ran perfect interference. Ilya banked hard left, heading for the corner, then swung his stick, making the goalie drop hard to the ice, pads extended.

Luca, in his wake, picked up the puck Ilya had masterfully dropped for him during the fake shot. Johansson was between Luca and the Aces’ defenders, and Ilya had drawn all of their forwards into the corner. The goalie was in the wrong position and didn’t recover fast enough.

Luca scored the overtime winner for them. No one cheered louder for him than Cadyn, but Ilya sure tried, hollering like a real bear as he lifted Luca off his feet.

Just like that, they won Game Two.

+++

Ilya and Shane’s reprieve from the media had ended when the playoffs started. Early on, they had given a very bland, professional conference addressing a series of set, pre-planned questions about the marriage and how it did (and, importantly, did not) affect their performance on the ice or in the locker room. Hockey media was notoriously bland, and as much of a shit stirrer as Ilya was, they were all media-trained. Shane knew how to keep a straight face, how to turn down questions without causing a fuss, and when to redirect to their PR managers instead of engaging himself.

He settled himself at the conference table before Game Three, Ilya walking practically on his heels and nearly tripping him. From his grin, Shane knew he was doing it on purpose.

“You’re so annoying,” Shane muttered at him, casually covering his mouth so that no one could read his lips.

“You love it,” Ilya cooed, openly and loud enough for the microphones to pick up.

Shane huffed as they sat. Pointedly, Ilya scooted his chair two inches closer. Shane rolled his eyes again, but then, deliberately, he set his left hand on the table between them, ring visible. Ilya immediately did the same, except he wore his ring on his right hand in the Russian custom, so when they sat side by side, their rings were mirrored.

Beneath the table, Ilya tapped his shoe against Shane’s. On top of it, Shane nudged Ilya’s pinky finger with his own.

“Question for Ilya, first: you are now up by two games in this series. How does that change your team’s strategy in tonight’s game, which will be the first in the Finals you aren’t playing on home ice?”

Most of the questions were like that—boring, dull, relatively pointless, but overall harmless. These journalists were heavily vetted, and they knew what they were and weren’t allowed to ask if they wanted to be let into the Bears’ media room in the future.

Shane smiled a little, just to himself, as Ilya rambled out a half-sarcastic answer. In Montreal, he had often felt at sea during media appearances, lost and unprotected. He never felt that way in Boston.

Another journalist stood. “You two are officially making history by competing as the first openly queer couple in any men’s professional sports league. How does it feel knowing you are competing for the Cup in June, LGBTQ Pride Month?”

“Every month is Pride Month for Shane,” Ilya quipped immediately. “Feels no different.”

Shane stepped on his foot. Ilya yelped. “It’s exactly how we would want to celebrate,” Shane said into the microphone, ignoring his husband. “Hockey is very important to us, and it’s nice that it overlaps with other celebrations and recognitions of queer culture.”

The reporter jumped on the follow-up: “Do you consider yourselves contributors to queer culture even in a traditionally hetero- and gender-normative field?”

Shane actually considered this. “I would be the last person to say that I have always felt involved with or enveloped by the LGBT community. For a long time, it was something I consciously had to distance myself from for my own safety. That goes for both of us. I hope that the outcome of our visibility will help redefine what we think of as queer spaces.” The words still felt clumsy in his mouth, but Shane persevered. “Everyone deserves to know that they can do whatever they want, at any level of success, regardless of their sexuality, and still be celebrated. That’s what I hope we are contributing to the community.”

“And also five Stanley Cups,” Ilya interjected. “Remember: all of Shane’s Stanley Cups are gay, and mine are bisexual. They are for the gays—you are welcome, gays! Happy Pride!”

Shane closed his eyes as the press corps broke into unexpected laughter. “Rozanov.”

“Hollander,” he mocked, and Shane had to laugh. He couldn’t keep it in.

He was not thinking about cameras, or leaks, or shitty people who believed they had a right to know the details of their lives.

Shane was thinking about weddings and how he had once believed he would never have his own.

Shane was thinking about his wedding to Ilya, so much better than a dim hallway in Napa County with flickering LED lighting.

He was thinking of their friends, their family, the support network and safety net that had grown around them, stretching out across two continents and half a dozen states and provinces. All the people in their lives who showed up for them, who smiled at them, who cheered when they kissed and got teary-eyed when they danced together, alone and without an excuse, in the middle of a crowd that had gathered just for them.

There was nothing better, really.

Shane wasn’t going to miss a single moment.

That night, they won Game Three against the Aces, too.

+++

In a seven-game series, if one team swept the first three rounds, it was fairly common for the losing team to rally in Game Four. There was almost no chance for them to win the series, but Game Four was when the losing team wanted a win, perhaps the most. One last chance to go out with something, to avoid humiliation on an international stage. It made them want it more.

And, as much as the Bears wanted another sweep (a sweep to win the Cup, something none of them had ever done, a truly legendary achievement), Shane could feel the nerves in the dressing room as soon as he stepped inside, pushing past eager camera operators and focused coaches and buzzing owners to get to his cubby. It was a particular kind of nerves, like static electricity sparking because the thing they wanted most in the world was just there, at their fingertips. The knowledge that they should have it, that it was almost a statistical guarantee, was heavy. How long would it go? How far did they have to fall?

Shane cleared his throat. It didn’t take much to get everyone’s attention.

They had barely started getting ready for the game, most of the players still in their pre-game rituals before they even put on their underlayers. Shane was still wearing his walk-in suit. He was still wearing his wedding ring, and his golden chain was draped over his tie, no longer hidden beneath layers.

“We don’t need tonight,” Shane said loudly. “We don’t. We want it, sure, and it would be great to have. But we don’t need it. This series is ours, and everyone out there knows it. That’s not a jinx,” he said quickly, looking around and meeting as many eyes as he could. Cadyn was sitting on the floor, legs extended in a near split but looking as comfortable as if he were lounging in an armchair. Luca was biting his thumbnail but quickly ripped the appendage out of his mouth when Shane looked at him. Cliff, who had draped his jersey over his suit and was still wearing the A, leaned with one arm propped on the top of his cubby. Benji, who was starting the game, was only wearing his boxers, and he held his phone loosely in his hand; Shane could see the screen and the picture of his wife and kids shining on it. Sidney and Pummel, Shane’s linemates, were pressed shoulder to shoulder, and Johansson was bouncing on his toes, shaking out his trembling fingers every ten seconds. Even Carmichael, who had gotten so quiet since his closest teammate Varkov’s retirement, and quieter still since Ilya had dressed him down about what he told Cadyn in LA, was watching Shane with a quiet, respectful focus.

Shane had their eyes. He had their ears. They had never, not once, shut him out.

These were his boys, and Shane knew them, and he wasn’t going to let them down.

“We don’t need tonight,” Shane repeated. “We get tonight. We get to have this opportunity. This is our chance to do something that no one else has done in decades. That’s special, but it’s not what we’re here for. It doesn’t matter how tonight goes, because in a week, it’s going to be our names on the Cup. Okay? It’s ours, and tonight we fight for it, but it doesn’t have to end tonight. Don’t be nervous. Don’t be devastated. Just be ready. And remember that you’re fighting for something that you’ve already earned.”

“Okay, well, I want it tonight,” Ilya said, practically tripping over himself in a rush to speak before the locker room had a chance to cheer at the culmination of Shane’s speech. Shane immediately rolled his eyes, and half the guys broke into nervous laughter, the tension broken if not completely eradicated. Ilya lurched forward to drape his arm over Shane’s shoulders, jostling him. “Don’t listen to this! Hollander is trying to be a good sport and be ‘reasonable,’” and he made air quotes around the word, making Shane scoff, “but you know what? Rookies, listen up, because I have some good advice! Relationships are all about balance, so if he wants to be reasonable, then I will have to pick up the slack! Fuck reason! Fuck logic! I want to win tonight, I want to sweep these fuckers, and I know you want it too! What do you say, Hollander? Should we try to win anyway?”

“I never fucking said we shouldn’t try to win,” Shane snapped, playfully shoving Ilya off him. “Of course I fucking want to win tonight! We would be legends! I’m just saying-”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Ilya cut him off. “We know what you are saying, but it is boring. This is any other game, sort of, but you know what?” He grinned, bright and broad, at the team who had drafted him and given him a home when he was eighteen and hadn’t had a place that loved him since he was twelve, the team who had welcomed Shane when he needed it most, and who had always welcomed both of them, together, without question. God, they were so fucking lucky. “If there’s one thing we know how to do, it is to win a fucking game.”

Shane heaved a sigh as the last of the tension burst into loud, erratic cheering. He bore the noise, smiling fondly as he watched Cadyn slip on his noise-cancelling headphones. “Okay, okay!” he shouted, which only made his teammates clamor louder. “I fucking take it back! Let’s fucking win this one!”

They raced onto the ice to the booing of the despondent LA crowd, who knew as well as they did that they had this in the bag.

Everyone knew it. There was a thrill to that, too.

During warmups, as they stretched side by side, Ilya leaned in close to Shane and tilted his head like Anya did when she wanted a treat. “We should kiss now. Get it out of the way so no one can accuse us of copying Scott Hunter.”

“Not yet,” Shane said.

“What?” Ilya asked, pretending to be offended. “You are saying I am not allowed to fantasize about kissing my husband when we lift the Cu-”

Shane quickly picked up his stick and smacked Ilya across his shin guards with it. “Don’t you fucking dare jinx us,” he repeated. He paused, thinking back to the joint speech they had just made. “Not on the ice, at least,” he amended.

Ilya grinned lazily. “Did not know you made it so far by being superstitious,” he drawled. “Sorry, I have no wood for you to knock on. Well, except for my di-”

Shane huffed, climbing to his feet. “I cannot believe I married you.”

Ilya laughed. “Neither can I, Hollander. It will always be a great mystery of life, I think.”

Shane immediately shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not mysterious. I love you.”

He kind of hoped, actually, that someone would see the video and lip-read it. It gave him a thrill to say it on the ice before the most-watched game of the season.

He wanted to win.

Ilya's smile made him want it more, somehow.

“I love you,” Ilya said, and, “Can I kiss you?”

Shane skated backward a pace. Ilya followed, maintaining the same distance. “Win me a championship first.”

Ilya nodded, determined. “Done.”

Just like that.

It was the highest-scoring game of the series so far. By the end of the second, the Bears were up 4-3. Benji, who had played all the games against the Aces so far, was looking a little tired at intermission, but Shane had no doubt that he would finish out tonight’s game. If they went to Game Five, it would be Cadyn. Either way, everyone in the locker room knew to show their immense gratitude to both goaltenders for their incredible playoff performance.

Being up by one was obviously not a lamentable position, but it wasn’t secure either. Just one more goal from the Aces, and twenty minutes to do it, would drag them into overtime. From there, it could all come down to luck.

The Bears had the advantage. They had every advantage. They had played fewer games than the Aces and suffered fewer wounds and stress injuries as a result. They weren’t as tired. The Bears were the better team in overtime, and if they tied it up, Shane believed they could still leave the LA Aces' home arena as victors. Even if they didn’t, they could win the next game on home ice and celebrate with their city, with their fans.

But…

Shane had many accolades to his name. As a couple, he and Ilya together had even more. Cups, Conn Smythes, MVPs, the Calder, Lady Byngs, an Olympic medal, and endless, endless others.

Neither of them had ever swept the Finals. No one had since the 90s.

Shane’s fingers tightened on his stick.

He just wanted to win.

Wouldn’t it feel so good to do it together?

He got his chance early in the third, after a penalty against their third-line center put them on the power play for four minutes. The LA audience wailed. Shane didn't think of himself as malicious, but just then, their despair sounded like music.