Shane won’t bet any money that Ilya is doing this for purely selfless reasons. Sure, it’s definitely not without good cause, but looking at Ilya surrounded by a litter of puppies isn’t really doing him any favors. Ilya looks fucking ecstatic as he lets the tiny dogs bite at his shoes and his sweater and his pants. Mom had insisted that it would look good for socials, and Ilya had basically begged him for it.

And, well. It isn’t like Shane has much else to do, these days. He let himself be talked into taking a few years off after officially retiring at the end of the season, but he’s only weeks in to what would usually be his time off anyway, and he feels restless. Something about the knowledge that he won’t be going back to the rink this fall chafes at him — come September there will be no training camp and there will be no pre-season or season after that. When the Centaurs head to the playoffs (which they will, Shane knows what he left) it will be without Shane Hollander.

Shane watches one of the puppies claw its way up Ilya’s shirt to lick him over his chin, and Shane makes a mental note to hand his husband a wet wipe before any kissing occurs. He’d been anticipating this, anyway, when they signed up to volunteer at the closest dog shelter for the day. It’s a mutually beneficial agreement: publicity for the shelter and the dogs, social media content for the Irina Foundation ahead of the camps, and doggy kisses for Ilya. Shane will be lucky if they walk out of here and Ilya doesn’t have three puppies stuffed inside his coat. It’s not like they don’t have the space or the time, with both Ilya and Shane retired in their huge, empty house.

He turns to the volunteer who walks quietly up next to him and nods at her in acknowledgement. They tilt their head toward Ilya. “You wanna get in on that?”

Shane looks at the squirming pile of dogs again and squints a little. “I think I’m good.”

The volunteer nods, then cocks her head toward the other end of the shelter. “Could use a hand back there, if you don’t mind.”

Ilya is still completely oblivious to Shane’s existence, and it appears someone is bringing slightly older dogs over, too. Shane won’t be getting him back for at least another hour. He nods, and follows the volunteer (Dottie, as she introduces herself) back toward the enclosures for the dogs. They walked past them briefly for the tour, but bypassed any actual introductions to individual dogs outside playing in the yard and photo shoots. It’s louder back in the kennel, but not as rowdy as Shane would’ve guessed. When he looks through the doors to the pens, most of the dogs are laying on their beds and sleeping, or pacing around quietly. Some of them come up to the grate and bark at him, some seem friendly, others not so much. Shane kind of gets it. He doesn’t think he’d be very friendly if someone put him in a room and told him to wait for someone to love him enough to get him out.

Dottie stops suddenly in front of one of the doors. “Do you mind going for a walk?”

Shane stops behind them. She’s knocking a knuckle against the grate, and the dog inside looks up. It’s one of the stranger-looking dogs Shane has ever seen, long and spindly and still curled into a little ball. The dog has a long, thin head, and when Shane looks over its body he can see the vertebrae and ribs through its skin. “Sure,” he says, blinking as the dog makes eye contact with him.

“Thank you so much, oh my god. I’d forgotten that Apollo hasn’t been walked yet — that’s her, inside — and that means Roscoe hasn’t, either, and they kind of need one person each but everyone is tied up…” She takes a deep breath. “Sorry. Anyway. Great that you’re here.”

He’d known walking might be part of the package and prepared accordingly when they set this day up, but he feels uncertain faced with the apparently special-needs dogs. “Is there anything I need to… do?”

“Oh, no! She’s easy,” Dottie assures, “she’s super friendly. She just needs to be walked separately because she needs to go a bit slower. She’s got bad knees and hips, so we try to avoid walking her in groups where she might get bumped around, y’know?”

Shane nods. He isn’t a veterinarian by any means, but, well. “I get it.”

“Okay,” Dottie says, “you just stay here for a bit, and I’ll go get some treats and bags and stuff. Oh, and Roscoe. Then it’s just a walk around the little wooded area behind the shelter!”

And then she disappears around the corner. Shane looks at the dog in her enclosure again. She’s still looking at him, blinking in what Shane almost thinks is scepticism. She huffs through her nose, snout scrunching, and starts to rise from her bed. It’s not like Shane is unfamiliar with dogs, but the shape of this dog in particular makes him apprehensive. Anya was a small, compact dog, furry and squirmy and ready to swim or run at any time. Apollo looks… sick, almost. She’s, for lack of a better word, streamlined. When she walks up to the door to her enclosure, Shane can see the movement of muscle in her flanks and shoulders under the skin. It reminds him of his own body at the end of a brutal stretch of games when he hasn’t had enough time to refuel for all of the time spent on the ice.

Apollo comes all the way up to press her skinny nose between the bars of the door. Shane reaches a hand down and lets her sniff at it. Her wet nose brushes against his fingertips, a familiar sensation from when Anya used to do the same. It’s been a while since they lost her, but the feeling makes Shane unexpectedly emotional. He didn’t realize how much he missed her, maybe, or it’s easier to think about it when he doesn’t have hockey to distract him any more.

“She likes you!” Dottie returns with a grin on her face. She hands Shane a leash from her free hand — her other is occupied with a small chihuahua who’s missing one of his front legs, Roscoe, Shane guesses. “Here’s a leash, her collar is on the hook by the door.”

Dottie points to the hook, and then goes to unlatch the door. Apollo stays where she is, doesn’t run anywhere or start barking or anything. She sits down politely, and Shane overcorrects by muscle memory as he goes to put the collar on her. She’s taller than Anya was, and the thought gives him pause for a bit before he returns to the clasp on her wide leather collar.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I forgot to formally introduce you guys. Shane, this is Apollo. Apollo, this is Shane.”

Apollo looks up at him as he drops his hands from the collar, and blinks. Shane gets the feeling she’s greeting him, and he smiles a little at her. He clips the leash to the loop on her collar. He follows Dottie through the corridors all the way past where Ilya has somehow been introduced to a second litter of puppies and two more adult dogs. He catches Shane’s eye, raising a brow in question. Shane laughs at him, shaking his head. Stay where you are.

He doesn’t object to this, and Shane walks the rest of the way out of the shelter. Once they’re onto the path through the wooded area, Dottie lets Roscoe down. He’s surprisingly fast for such a little animal on only three legs. Apollo trots alongside them at a measured pace, occasionally stopping to sniff at something on the side of the road. The frailty that Shane was worried about seeing her in the pen has vanished. She’s walking just fine, keeping pace with him without issue.

“Why did you say she needs to go slow?” Shane asks Dottie.

Dottie looks up at him, and then down at Apollo walking by his side. “She’s got some joint problems,” she says, “hips and knees, mostly. She used to be a racing dog, so she competed for a pretty long time. That’s where her name comes from — she used to be Madam Rocket when she was racing.”

Oh. Shane stops, and Apollo looks up at him, tongue lolling out as she pants slightly in the summer heat. He reaches a hand down to scratch at her head, just lightly over the short fur there. She closes her eyes, and with her mouth open it looks like she’s smiling. She pulls away after a bit and noses at his knees, the touch tickling him ever so slightly. He nudges her away. “Racing?” he asks.

They keep walking over the path. Dottie sighs. “Greyhounds are the fastest dog breed,” she says warily, “so they’re often bred as racing dogs. It’s… pretty harsh on them. We work with a few dedicated greyhound rescue organizations.”

Shane looks at Apollo, who’s sniffing at the leg of a park bench. He pictures her in the place of a race horse, lined up with ten or twelve nearly-identical dogs. The thought makes him a little sick, actually.

“Apollo here did one-hundred and twenty-four races before she was retired from injury.”

He can’t help it, he laughs. “Sorry, sorry,” he apologizes immediately. He looks up at Dottie, who’s brow is furrowed in confusion. He rushes to explain himself. “I’m… I was a hockey player, you know?” She nods, with the distinct expression of someone who knows that Shane is a hockey player but hasn’t bothered to look into it much more than knowing that exact fact. “My number is— used to be twenty-four.”

Dottie looks relieved that Shane wasn’t actively getting enjoyment out of the suffering of a dog. “There’s a dog park here,” she says, “if you wanna pause for a bit. Apollo usually likes to roam free for a bit.”

“Sure,” Shane agrees easily. He wonders absurdly if this shelter volunteer he’s known for all of forty-five minutes could tell his hip was starting to bother him. He doesn’t think so, but he still worries. Dottie is carrying all of their stuff, so Shane lets Apollo’s leash hang in the crook of his elbow as he opens the gate to let them all in to the little dog park. It’s equipped with a rudimentary agility course, which neither Apollo nor Roscoe pay any heed to. Roscoe trots around on his three legs, and Apollo leaps ahead of him.

He and Dottie sit down on a bench. She hands him a rope toy, the green and blue streaks of it nearly grey with use. He twists it in a hands as Dottie whistles and calls for Apollo. The big greyhound (Shane thinks that’s what she is, if she was in greyhound racing) comes running. She’s fast, and Shane is starting to understand why they put these dogs in races. She’s elegant as she runs despite her long, gangly limbs.

She noses at his knee again, huffing at the fabric of his pants. Shane takes the rope toy from Dottie and throws it across the dirt of the dog park.

He wonders if she’s in pain at all, if running after the toy when he throws it makes her skinny knees shake with pain. He wonders if Apollo likes running, or if she just wants the toy and running is a necessary evil to get it back. Maybe he’s cruel for tossing it, or maybe she thinks the pain is worth it. She comes back with the toy, bounding with it swinging from her mouth. She drops it easily when Shane grabs the loose end of it, wagging her tail and waiting for him to throw it again. He tosses it, slightly shorter this time. Maybe she’s getting tired.

She runs just as fast the second go around, looking a bit disappointed that she didn’t get to run as far this time. When she comes back, Apollo drops the toy at Shane’s feet, and thunks her head against his knee. She sniffs at it again. Dottie laughs. “You hidin’ some dog treats under there? She’s sniffing you like she wants to eat you.”

Shane feels a wave of shame crash over him. He knows the likely culprit for him smelling like not-human, but there’s a reason he wore full-length pants even in the summer heat. “Ah, no. No treats,” he says sheepishly. “I think I know what it is though. I, um… my knees are taped? Like, KT-tape.”

Dottie’s eyes widen, and then she smiles crookedly. “Guess you’re matching, then.”

“Guess we are,” Shane says. He bends down to grab the toy again, and offers it to Apollo. She takes it in her mouth and tugs lightly at it. Shane tugs back. “Does she like swimming?”

“You could probably guess just by looking at them, but greyhounds aren’t exactly naturally buoyant. They can swim just fine, though, so it’s not a problem.”

“But she doesn’t like it.”

Dottie shrugs. “We haven’t had time to take her. If nothing else, I’m sure she’d love walking in the shallows.”

Apollo growls and tugs at the toy, tail still wagging. He grabs the toy back, and then launches it as far as he can across the park. Apollo takes off like a rocket, and Dottie laughs at her. Shane smiles and thinks one one-hundred and twenty-four races. He wonders if she won many of them. She has to have, if she did so many. They probably don’t keep dogs around just to lose — that wouldn’t make for very exciting racing, he imagines.

She comes back, skidding to a stop right in front of him. She drops the toy, but this time she doesn’t look up at him expectantly like she did the other times. She’s done. She’s had enough. Instead, she lays her head on his lap, apparently content with the mystery about his smelly knees as soon as he confessed. He runs a hand over her head, scratching behind her ear. “Narc,” he mutters to her.

She blows a breath out of her nose, just a little huff. She really is so skinny, he thinks. His hand is big enough to cover her entire head, which is in itself barely wider than her neck. It’s like when he sees Ilya at the end of the season — lean enough to be concerning, his normally trim waist so small Shane feels as if he could circle his hands around it and meet in the middle. He’s never asked Ilya if he thinks the same of Shane, if he expects it and likes it or if he finds it horrifying and disgusting and just puts up with it because he’s a good person.

Shane rubs his hands over the strong muscles of her shoulders, lifting and sinking slightly under his touch as she pants. He remembers this feeling, of holding a smaller animal in your hands. The sudden awareness that you’re an apex predator, and that a prey animal has chosen to trust you.

“I’ve never seen her do that before,” Dottie says quietly. “Put her head in someone’s lap like that.”

He appreciates that she doesn’t say she likes you or something equally redundant. It’s as if Apollo hears her, because she lifts her head and lets out a loud bark. Louder than he’d have expected from such a slight creature. He can’t help it.

He laughs.

By the time Shane comes back from the walk with the volunteer, the puppies have tired themselves out and Ilya is helping dish up food.

Shane comes through the door still holding the leash for the greyhound, but now it’s loose in his hand while the dog walks by his side. Ilya watches as his husband stops to talk to one of the other volunteers and absently brushes a hand over the dog’s head, and he knows.

It is not loud or flashy, but Ilya has had the privilege of being loved by Shane Hollander for a great many years now. He knows how to recognize that love when he sees it.

Ilya comes up behind him when he’s handing Apollo’s leash off to Dottie. He puts a hand on Shane’s waist and pulls him lightly into his side, laying his head on Shane’s shoulder. Shane doesn’t look away from his conversation with Dottie, but if he did he’s sure he’d see Ilya making big, round eyes at him.

“Thanks for helping me walk them,” Dottie says, Apollo’s leach in one hand and Roscoe under her other arm.

“No trouble,” Shane says honestly. Apollo nudges at his knee again, as if to say sit down, old man. I know what you’re doing. He feels the absurd urge to start arguing with a dog, but in his defense she is an oddly communicative dog.

“Alright, I’m gonna bring these goofballs back. If I don’t see you more today, it was great having you here!” She turns to Ilya and winks. “Both of you.”

Once Dottie has disappeared around the corner, Shane finally looks down at Ilya. He doesn’t get the round puppy-eyes (ha-ha) that he was expecting, but instead Ilya regarding him with a thoughtful expression. “What?” Shane laughs. He brushes a hand over Ilya’s cheek. “Are you trying to figure out how to tell me we’re getting a puppy? Because if it’s that, I knew before we left, Ilya.”

“Mmh,” Ilya hums, “is very big puppy. I don’t think you were ready for this.”

“It’s a puppy, how big could it possibly be?”

Ilya stands up and grabs Shane by the shoulders. “Shane,” he says, in the way he does when there’s something he thinks is obvious that Shane hasn’t figured out yet. He raises his eyebrows.

“What. Ilya, just tell me, seriously.”

He tilts his head to the hallway Dottie disappeared down. Shane looks over and finds it as empty as it was a moment ago. He’s just about to turn back to Ilya and ask what the hell he’s talking about when he realizes. There’s a lump in his throat, and he tries to swallow around it but he just ends up taking a little gasped breath. Apollo in her kennel, nose pressed to the grate of the door, pacing between it and the worn bed in the corner. He doesn’t know if she gets to walk by herself every day, or if they have to take her out in a big group some days — maybe she gets bumped around and it makes her joints hurt.

“Shane,” Ilya says quietly. Shane looks back at him, and he’s smiling. “Sweetheart. That is your dog.”

You’re matching. I’ve never seen her do that before. One-hundred and twenty-four races.

“She’s not,” Shane says, because she isn’t. She’s the shelter’s. He pinches the collar of Ilya’s shirt and rubs it between his thumb and forefinger. He looks at the bow of Ilya’s lips. “She used to race, before. She retired because she got hurt, I guess.” Ilya hums quietly, not saying anything but brushing his hand over Shane’s side. Shane swallows. “One-hundred and twenty-four races. She’s got bad knees.”

“Okay,” Ilya says. He squeezes Shane’s hip. “We have space for weird horse with bad joints.”

“I— but…” Ilya’s eyes are warm when he meets them. “You wanted a new dog.”

Ilya frowns. “This would be new dog, no?”

“Yeah, but…”

They were supposed to get a puppy. Ilya wanted to train agility with it, maybe, and teach it lots of cute tricks. Shane knows they have a big house and lots of space, but he knows Ilya was looking for a slightly smaller dog, that would slot neatly in next to them since they’re home so often, or that’s easier to find a hotel spot for when they’re away. The plan wasn’t for Shane to get attached to a really big dog with medical problems.

Ilya leans in to kiss him. “Shane, do you like the big dog?”

Does he like the big dog? Or does he just feel bad for her, because she’s hurting? There are probably other dogs in this place. There’s Roscoe, who doesn’t even have all of his legs. There are probably ex-racing greyhounds with amputated legs, too. If he should rescue one, wouldn’t it be better to take one of those?

“Her name is Apollo,” he tells Ilya instead.

Ilya nods, so close still that Shane can feel their lips brush with the movement. “Okay.”

Neither of them say anything else for a bit.

They don’t expect Apollo to settle in as quickly as she does, but a bit of Googling tells them that ex-racing greyhounds are usually sociable and good at adapting to new environments.

They let her walk around the house, and she sniffs as she goes. Shane wonders, as Apollo pokes her head around the kitchen island, if she can tell that there used to live another dog here. He doesn’t know if a dog’s sense of smell is good enough to tell that long after, or how much of Anya is even left in the house. Maybe it’s only the toys upstairs which still carry her scent, and the rest of her has been taken away with cleaning and time.

Apollo moves on to stand by the door to the garden. She barks softly to call their attention. Ilya gestures out to the lawn and the deck. “Yes, this is the yard.” He opens the sliding door for her, and Apollo trots outside. “Please try and piss at edge of the garden! And not in flower beds! Good girl!”

Shane walks up behind him and wraps his arms around Ilya’s waist. “What if Willa or Andrew were outside? You’re gonna be a bad influence on the kids.”

Apollo takes a slow lap of the garden, getting a feel for the space. Whenever Shane played an away game, he used to skate big figure-eights across the ice to get a feel for it and to adjust his stride.

Ilya’s lips press to Shane’s forehead, lopsided. “Ah, but ship has sailed, Hollander.” Ilya’s voice rumbles through his back and vibrates against Shane’s chest. “Am already gay married, you see? Big agenda. Is conspiracy — I will make all children gay.

Shane snorts. “Fuck off.”

For as long as they’ve known each other, Ilya has called Shane ‘Hollander’. At first, that was all he was. But then he became Shane, and later ‘sweetheart’ and ‘lyuubimy’ and ‘dorogoy’. He never stopped being ‘Hollander’, though. Today is the first time the nickname chafes at him.

He’s been ‘Hollander’ and ‘Cap’ and ‘Hollzy’ and ‘Holly’ to his teammates. Whatever people have called him, it’s always felt different when Ilya said it. Apollo is running in the yard now, and Ilya’s mumbled wow reminds Shane that this is the first time he’s seen her at full speed. He’s glad she can go as fast as she likes in the yard, in case he can’t take her out for a walk to another area big enough for her. He just hopes she doesn’t get bored here, if he ends up not being able to walk with her.

“She’s fast,” Ilya says.

“One-hundred and twenty-four races,” Shane reminds him.

He’s had #24 as his number since juniors. He didn’t ask for it, it was just assigned to him. But his first game in his new jersey, with the shiny 24 and HOLLANDER on the back, his team won 6-1. Since then, he’s always been #24. The Centaurs retired both his and Ilya’s numbers — there won’t ever be another #24 or an #81 sewn on a Centaurs jersey. They hang next to each other in the rafters.

That’s where ‘Hollander’ lives in his mind, now.

His passport and ID and Driver’s License all say Hollander-Rozanov since a few weeks back. He’s Hollander-Rozanov in every official document and he’ll be Hollander-Rozanov when they apply to adoption agencies and their kids will be _Hollander-Rozanov_s when they come home.

He left a part of himself in that arena, but he always knew he would when he started hockey. It demands things of you, body, mind and spirit. There are parts of him left in Montreal, too, that spilled out of him at the end of his last season with them where he left in such a hurry that he didn’t have the time to pick them up. Some things he left behind on purpose.

Apollo stops in the middle of the lawn and looks up at them through the open door. She barks, just once, tail wagging so hard her entire hind-body is wagging with it. Shane huffs a laugh against Ilya’s neck.

“That is a lot of races.” Ilya squeezes Shane’s hand. “Is good that she gets to rest now. You can spoil her.”

“You and I both know who’s going to spoil her, and it’s not me.”

Apollo comes back inside, and Ilya shuffles them to the side so she can get past them. He slides the door shut but doesn’t move them. He just lets Shane hold him, and nose at his neck, and kiss at the exposed skin of his shoulder. Sometimes this is them: touching just because they can. They’ve been married for six years now, but some days Shane still can’t believe he gets it forever. He squeezes Ilya tighter.

“If you want something, sweetheart, ask for it,” Ilya says easily.

Shane swallows around sudden thickness in his throat. “Just this.” He takes a deep breath. “You.”

“You have me,” Ilya answers, turning his head to look back at Shane. “Always, you have me.”

He probably won’t ever get tired of hearing it. Not that he’s ever doubted it, either — Ilya is his port in every storm, for years the person who knows Shane better than anyone else. When Shane thinks of Ilya he thinks of home and of firm hands holding him together. Shane tilts his head for a kiss and smiles into it when Ilya obliges immediately. Ilya’s lips are plush on his, steady and grounding. Shane lets his chin go slack, lets the rhythm of Ilya’s bottom lip brushing against his chin empty his mind.

He lets his mouth fall open and whimpers when Ilya’s tongue brushes against his own. It’s a familiar rhythm, his favourite feeling in the world, probably. Kissing Ilya. Ever since the very first time, it’s made the world narrow down to only the two of them. Ilya’s arms are the safest place he knows, and he melts into them now.

“How does it feel to be horse owner?” Ilya murmurs.

“You have got to stop calling her that.”

He thinks of Apollo’s careful tread into the house. The way she sniffed at their shoes in the rack suspiciously and curled her long neck around the corners before entering a new room, like she was checking for danger. She looked back at them, too, as if for reassurance. Shane thinks of carefully walking into a new home-team dressing room and seeing his 24 hung in a new cubby for the first time. He thinks of looking over his shoulder and seeing Ilya leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed.

Apollo barks from the other room. Shane laughs and knocks his forehead into Ilya’s shoulder. “Feels good. I like her.”

Ilya’s nails scratch at his neck. “I like her, too. And you. I like you.”

Shane kisses him. “I like you too.” Another kiss. Apollo barks again. “Let’s go get the horse.”

The Kingfisher is crowded tonight, probably pushing capacity. The atmosphere is celebratory without getting rowdy, though, the general level of inebriation just tipping over from tipsy into drunk. Shane is sitting at the bar for a change, partially because people have kept coming up to him for conversation and partially because Kyle — the bartender and Eric Bennett’s boyfriend — has been plying him with drinks.

“Wait, so was he your first boyfriend?”

Conversation has turned, as it often does, to romantic endeavors. Shane looks at Kyle slicing limes behind the bar and nods. He doesn’t say that Ilya was his first for pretty much everything. Kyle’s eyebrows go up in perfect arches.

“Wow,” he says, dropping four lime wedges into a glass, “marrying your first boyfriend. If only all of us were so lucky.”

“Not like I had a lot of opportunity to date around,” Shane says wryly. He loves Ilya more than anything and wouldn’t trade their story for the world, but he’s aware that it’s not exactly typical.

Kyle tosses a handful of mint and some sugar into the glass and smashes a muddler into it. “Do you wish you could’ve?” he asks.

Shane considers for a moment the impossible far-away reality where he was openly gay for long enough to date around. In that reality, he probably isn’t a hockey player. Maybe he’s a firefighter, or something — he knows he has the physicality for a lot of the cardio stuff, and he’s attempted a fireman’s carry a few times. He doesn’t know if he’s altruistic enough for it, though. Hockey involves putting your life at risk, technically, but Shane doesn’t think he can love anything else enough to stake his life on it.

With one notable exception.

He doesn’t know how to explain any of that to Kyle — basically a stranger — though, so he just shrugs. Kyle finishes up the drink with mixer (no alcohol) and slides it over the counter for Shane. “Try this,” he says. He leans forward on the counter and watches as Shane takes a sip from the skinny straw. Shane nods in approval, because he thinks the casual reviewing is probably part of their unspoken agreement. Kyle’s lips twist sideways. “I mean… I’ve had some great times with guys I met on apps.”

Shane raises an eyebrow in question at that. “Don’t you meet people at the bar?”

Kyle huffs a laugh. “Well, yeah. But it’s not like I could really leave. I mean, if you count a storeroom blowjob or two, those were fun, too. Less fun when it’s just that someone wants a drink, but. Anyway, I like this setup better.”

He looks at something over Shane’s shoulder, presumably Eric. He resists the urge to look for his own person, probably entertaining a crowd somewhere else in the room. It’s a good thing there isn’t any booze in the drink Kyle just handed him, because Shane is rapidly approaching the level of drunkenness where not touching Ilya in some way feels excruciating.

He turns Kyle’s question over in his head, and scans the room for Ilya. It doesn’t take long to find him, leaning against a pillar and predictably surrounded by a smaller crowd as he gestures wildly as he tells a story. He pauses, someone else cutting in with a story of their own, and his eyes meet Shane’s. Immediately, a smile stretches across his lips. He’s too far away and it’s too dark to see them properly, but Shane knows there are crow’s feet crinkling at the corner of his eyes. His heart aches, like being across the room from Ilya and looking but not touching is an old injury he’s aggravating.

Ilya pushes off the wall and starts making his way over to the bar. He deposits his empty bottle on a table as he passes, which earns him a groan from Kyle, but all Shane sees is he has two empty hands. He stretches his own hand out and Ilya grabs it as soon as it’s in reach. Shane feels himself start to grin stupidly, the expression cheeks flushing with it. Maybe the drinks got to him a little bit.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Ilya says. His free hand comes up to tilt Shane’s chin up for an easy kiss. He squints, and then turns his gaze to Kyle as he licks his lips. “What are you making him?”

Kyle looks both incredulous and amused. “An assortment.” He winks. “He’s my test panel, now.”

“Getting my husband drunk?” Ilya asks, brows rising toward his hairline. He looks down at Shane and brushes a thumb over the freckles on his warm cheeks. Shane fights the urge to close his eyes and lean into it like a cat.

“Just enough to get him to spill his secrets.” Kyle shrugs.

Ilya’s hand runs a little path up and down the base of Shane’s neck. He wants to pull him down into his lap and kiss him senseless, wants to make Ilya lick the taste of gingery mocktail out of his mouth until all he can taste is Ilya’s spit. Ilya moves to squeeze gently at his shoulder, and Shane takes another sip of his drink.

Yes, probably for the best that there’s no alcohol in it.

Because Kyle is a good bartender, he asks Ilya if he wants anything. Shane resists whining when Ilya orders “what he’s having”, because while Ilya knows that Shane would greedily kiss the vodka off his breath, that’s not something he needs broadcast at this moment.

“What secrets have you revealed, Shane?” Ilya takes his drink with a nod of thanks.

Shane shrugs. “Just that I didn’t have much opportunity to date before we got together, but I don’t exactly think that was a secret.”

“Mmh, is true. Maybe there’s an alternate universe where Shane Hollander is a slut who sleeps around and shows up in lots of magazines.” Shane desperately tries to ignore the thrill that rushes down his spine at that, purges the mental images of Ilya forcing his mouth open and pressing his fingers in until Shane is drooling around them.

Kyle’s eyebrows raise at Ilya’s statement. Ilya winks and pats Shane’s cheek lightly. “But no,” Ilya corrects, “can only be one slut in this relationship. TMZ have made enough money on us already.”

“Well now I’m imagining a ‘hockey player discovered on Grindr-scandal,” Kyle says.

Ilya snorts. “Please. They could not handle two men kissing in a driveway in the suburbs. Grindr would kill them, probably.” He holds his drink up at Kyle. “This is good. Impressive to make good drinks without alcohol.”

Kyle shrugs. “Most people don’t care enough. Not the people mixing and not the people drinking, the goal is usually get drunk, get people drunk, charge them exorbitantly. It’s how you end up with shit like a Long Island Iced Tea.”

“Is effective.” Ilya shrugs.

“Sure. But it’s boring,” Kyle groans. “Like, if so much of the culture is going to be clubbing and partying, why can’t the drinks at least be good?”

Shane doesn’t really know anything about the culture. He never has. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to be sad about that, or disappointed, or angry. He thinks he’s a little angry about it, maybe. But mostly he feels fucking insane because Ilya’s hand is slipping under the collar of his shirt, hot and dry against his skin. Shane can’t get off this fucking bar stool, probably, because he’s getting hard in his slacks and it won’t go away unless Ilya stops touching him (very unlikely).

“So Kingfisher is what, gay bar revolution?” Ilya says. Shane tries to shrug him off and gets only a little drunken headrush for it.

“I guess,” Kyle agrees, “previous management here was just shit.”

Shane takes a sip of his drink and visualizes it purging the alcohol out of his system. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Shane kind of wishes he was on the dance floor right now, with Ilya’s ass in his hands and Ilya’s tongue down his throat — actually, maybe he wishes they were at home. Ilya, uncaring of Shane’s misery, continues his conversation with Kyle across the bar. Shane lists into Ilya’s side and lets the soothing melody of his voice wash over him.

“Shanya,” Ilya murmurs after who knows how long. Shane just hums, pleasantly buzzed and warmed by his husbands touch. He’s settled back into the baseline longing he always feels for Ilya instead of the frantic need he felt before. “Do you want to go home?”

He smiles at the use of home. Shorthand for anywhere they go back to together. Countless hotel rooms over the years, the cottage. Ilya’s Boston apartment and Shane’s Montreal one, and the house in Ottawa. “Mmh,” Shane hums. A thought strikes him. “I miss Apollo.”

Ilya laughs. “A new one,” he says.

“Also I want to suck your dick really bad.”

“Yes, more familiar.” He gives Shane’s hair a gentle pat. “Maybe Kyle would let us use storeroom. Would be homophobic not to.”

“Heard that! Not in my pub!”

Shane feels like he’s had his head dunked in a bucket of water at the sound of Kyle’s voice, yelling from behind the bar, only a few feet away. He’d taken it for granted that Ilya wouldn’t start anything with him around, but he should know better. He would’ve known better, if he hadn’t had a couple drinks. A blush spreads over his cheeks.

“I feel sorry for Bennett if this is what scandalizes you!” Ilya shouts back.

Kyle rolls his eyes over his shoulder, shacking a cocktail as he does. “Oh, babe, you have no idea.”

Shane has never been huge on gossip, really. He’ll indulge with Rose, because he likes Rose and Rose likes gossip, and also when Shane is, quote, a bit of a bitch. This sort of casual chatting about one’s sex life he’s never really understood, though. He loves Ilya and he loves sex with Ilya, but it isn’t like he wants to air all that out to just anyone.

“Ah, did you fuck him in storeroom? Or is that too much for his old knees?” Kyle actually laughs at that. Shane neglects to att that kneeling on the storeroom concrete would probably be too much for his knees now, and that Ilya’s back has been flaring up so much he probably couldn’t lift Shane up against the wall. There’s no need to give the enemy a tactical advantage, after all. Ilya’s goading is likely at least in part to ease Shane’s embarrassment about his own admission, a way to distract from the very obvious desperation he just displayed. He did, however, also mention his dog not two sentences earlier, so perhaps he’s more embarrassed than what is actually called for.

“That’s for me to know and you to wonder!” Kyle shouts. “Can I get you a refill?”

Shane blinks and looks down at their, apparently empty, cups. He glances up to Ilya and finds him already looking back. Years into their marriage, they’ve developed their own version of the nonverbal communications that his parents always used to confuse him with. He gets it now — it’s less a language in the form of words, and more shared knowledge of them together, and how they act together as a unit. Right now, he just knows that they’re leaving. He doesn’t know why he knows it, but he knows they are, together.

“We’re, um…”

“We’re going,” Ilya fills in. “Thank you for drinks, and for getting my husband drunk!”

Shane thinks, as he’s hustling out the door and hailing a cab back to their hotel, that maybe he missed out on some queer experiences, sure. But he’s got the one queer experience that really matters right next to him.

They have a maid come around to clean the house every week on Tuesdays, but Shane still insists on cleaning the house on Mondays so she doesn’t have an unreasonable amount of work. It isn’t like they don’t pay her properly, but he likes knowing that he doesn’t seem terribly messy.

He’s vacuuming the couch — both an effort to remove excess crumbs and a safety measure ever since he and Ilya came home to condoms, lube, and a plug lined up neatly on the coffee table once — when Ilya comes up behind him.

Already, he can feel Ilya’s erection against his ass through the thin fabric of his shorts. “I swear,” Ilya growls, “is like you wear these to mess with my head. You tell me to clean and then wear this, Shane. Is unfair.”

Shane keeps vacuuming the couch but doesn’t move away. He’s fresh off a workout and their home gym is lined with mirrors, it’s not like he doesn’t know these shorts make his ass and thighs look obscene. Since retiring, he’s put on some weight, and not all of it’s lean muscle. The consequence is that his legs are big. It’s not entirely unintentional that he happened to wear the shorts when he knew he and Ilya would both be in the same space. Plausible deniability, though, it’s a hot day and he likes these shorts.

“Need to eat you out,” Ilya growls into his ear. “Will bend you over right here and fuck you with my tongue. You will come all over the couch and then I make you clean it up, hm? Punishment, for being so rude and dressing like a slut when we have chores.”

Ilya cups Shane through the fabric of the shorts, biting into Shane’s neck when he realizes that Shane is in fact not wearing any underwear underneath them. Shane groans, and Ilya stomps on the off-button for the vacuum and pushes it away. Shane gasps as Ilya tugs him back, grinding his hard cock against Shane’s ass. “All talk, or what?” Shane forces out.

Ilya folds him nearly in half, pressing Shane’s face to the couch cushions. “Ah, so this is on purpose?”

“I— ah, didn’t say that.” Ilya starts tugging at the legs of Shane’s shorts, fingers drifting to skirt lightly over the tent of his crotch. “Did you— mmh, fuck, did you get all the laundry? Ah!”

“You mean the million hoodies you leave all over the house? Yes, Shane, I got the laundry.” He cups his hand over Shane’s dick properly, and Shane can’t resist grinding forward into it with a whine. “Should be your task, actually. You make the mess, you fix it. I can follow and watch you bend down in your little shorts when you pick things up.” He grinds his cock forward again. “Fuck.”

“I do other stuff,” Shane protests. He does. Like the vacuuming, which Ilya hates.

“Maybe I punish you,” Ilya muses. “Show you what happens when you’re unfair.”

His hand skates over Shane’s flank, like he’s feeling out the territory before deciding what to do. A predator, stalking it’s prey. A single finger runs up and down Shane’s thigh and catches on the hem of his shorts. “Or you could let me clean, if all you’re gonna do is talk.”

Ilya’s hand comes down hard on the meat of his ass. Shane breathes a punched-out gasp, feels wetness in his shorts. “Fuck me,” he manages. “Fuck, Ilya. Oh, my God.”

“Mmh, no. I don’t think you deserve my cock.” Ilya is clearly getting impatient, though, because he pulls on Shane’s shorts and taps his dick against Shane’s hole teasingly. He lets it drag slowly down, and then spreads Shane’s cheeks when his hands are both free again. “Pretty hole, though. Shame it is on you when you cannot behave.”

Shane resists the urge to kick back at him like a horse as Ilya sinks to his knees and huffs a hot breath against his hole. The wet heat of his tongue is so much that Shane has to grip the couch cushions not to come on the spot. “Fuck, Ilya, fuck!”

The vibration of Ilya moaning against his skin has precome dripping off Shane’s cock. Ilya’s tongue presses against his hole, the tip of it working relentlessly against the tight ring of muscle. Shane twitches, and Ilya’s hands come up to grasp his hips, fingers digging in hard enough that there will definitely be bruises tomorrow. The thought makes Shane drop his head with a whimper. Ilya’s fingers grip tighter, thumbs spreading Shane’s cheeks in a way that makes him feel filthy and exposed, even in his own home.

Ilya pulls back for just a second, and Shane whines about the cool air against his hole. Ilya’s left hand lets go of his ass, and Shane is about to ask if he doesn’t want to keep going until a sharp slap echoes through the room. Shane drips more precome onto the floor. “Ilya!” Shane screams.

A sharp press of Ilya’s broad thumb to his hole, and then Ilya is on his feet again, pressing his cock teasingly against the top of Shane’s crack. “Whiny,” he tuts. “Definitely do not deserve my cock.”

Shane is panting now, so hard it hurts and practically gushing. He doesn’t beg.

“Lube,” Ilya commands. Shane scrambles to get his bearings enough to grab for the bottle he stashed between the cushions (he was ready to put it away if this didn’t go to plan) and fumble it back to Ilya.

The snap of the lid opening, and then the smooth glide of lube down his crack. Ilya doesn’t work his fingers into Shane’s hole, though, just keeps pouring lube and lets it drip down, down, down. He grips Shane’s ass cheek again, alternating kneading and patting it. Eventually, he slides his hand down to between Shane’s legs and smears the dripping lube up and down Shane’s inner thighs. Shane tenses in anticipation.

“So greedy,” Ilya says, but doesn’t do anything except push Shane’s legs together. Shane squeezes his thighs together as Ilya drapes his weight across his back and whispers in his ear. “You will come from this, yes? Just this. Don’t touch yourself. Don’t beg.”

Shane nods frantically. Anything. Anything.

llya’s heavy cock slides between his thighs, and Shane moans like he’s actually being penetrated. Ilya sets a brutal pace immediately, the sound of his pelvis meeting Shane’s ass echoing off the walls of the living room. “Fuck, so good, even like this. Perfect fucking legs, like a demon from hell. Just keep getting sexier.”

God. Ilya’s cock slides between his legs and bumps against his balls. The contact sends shockwaves through him, over and over again as Ilya’s hips slam forward. Soon enough Shane’s elbows start to wobble as he feels his orgasm coming. Ilya presses on his neck, and his elbows give. His face presses against the couch’s arm rest as Ilya speeds up, impossibly going even harder than before.

Shane’s comes with a cry, splattering come all over the arm of the (thankfully faux leather) couch. It mixes with whatever of Ilya’s doesn’t smear across Shane’s thighs. Ilya collapses on top of him, hot and damp through their shirts. His cock withdraws from between Shane’s thighs, and he finally relaxes his legs. He grabs one of Ilya’s hands as his husband’s arms come around his waist.

“We have to clean more now. Your fault.”

“Ugh. I am like Sisyphus,” Ilya says to Shane’s sweaty back. “Cleaning and making mess, just to clean it again. Except I also pay person to clean. Imagine if Sisyphus paid other person to push stupid rock, and he still push rock himself.”

“We definitely don’t pay our cleaner enough to clean come off our sofa. Regardless it’s easier to clean now.”

Ilya gets up and offers Shane a hand to straighten up, too, when his legs wobble a bit. “You are very lucky to have such nice ass. Makes it worth the mess.”

“If you let her sleep in bed at home, she would not have abandoned us for her grandparents.”

They’re at Yuna and David’s for the night, the new addition to their family notably absent. Ilya lays on his side, glancing up at Shane who’s propped up against the headboard and making a valiant attempt at reading. He turns his head and raises his eyebrows. “If I let Apollo sleep in our bed at home, nobody would be sleeping.”

Ilya blows a raspberry and goes back to tracing meaningless patterns into the bare skin of Shane’s stomach. It’s warm under his touch, the muscle padded with more fat than it used to be when they were still playing. He likes it — he likes Shane softened at the edges and settled into himself.

He also knows that Shane doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. He thinks he’s hiding it well, but their invitation tonight, and the offer to stay over, was enough to convince Ilya that not only he but also Shane’s parents have noticed something is off. Coming for dinner is nothing unusual, but sleeping over instead of going home to their own house is less common. There was something pleading in David’s eyes as he casually suggested they stay, as he pitched having breakfast together. Yuna mentioned that she bought mangoes and greek yogurt, like she could move the strange cloud over Shane simply by altering her grocery list.

Ilya leans closer to Shane and presses a kiss to his armpit, and then his pectoral, and finally his neck, before settling his head on Shane’s shoulder and closing his eyes. Shane shuffles to accommodate him, lifting his arm to make space and scratching his fingers absently over Ilya’s scalp.

Ilya knows, perhaps better than anyone, that sometimes Shane just needs a little time and a little quiet. He takes a deep breath and focuses on the feeling of a big hand playing with his hair, blunt fingers rubbing little circles into his skin. The flutter of pages as Shane puts his book down. Shane’s chest rises and falls in a deep breath beneath Ilya’s cheek.

“You know, when people asked me when I was little what I wanted to be when I grow up, I always said hockey player.” Ilya presses a kiss to his skin to indicate he’s awake, but doesn’t say anything. “And Mom and Dad never said I couldn’t, so I never thought about anything else. There were never any other options. I kind of wish I’d thought of some, now.”

Ilya loves hockey. But Shane lives hockey. It’s in his blood, Ilya thinks sometimes. When he was six years old he loved it so much that he was telling everyone he would be a professional hockey player, and by thirteen he was good enough that everyone believed him. Losing hockey is a still-bleeding, gaping wound for Shane. He retired by choice, but Ilya knows there’s got to be a part of him that wonders if he couldn’t have done one more season.

Shane has given so much to hockey: blood, sweat, and tears. He’s tended to fractures and rehab-ed injuries and flayed himself open for surgeries again and again. Hockey has given everything and nothing back.

Shane’s heart beats hard under Ilya’s palm when he brings it up to rest against his breastbone. Too quick for when the sun is so low in the sky, too fast for when they’re resting in what used to be Shane’s childhood bedroom. Ilya rubs his hand up and down.

“I think five-year-old Shane would’ve maybe not had such great ideas.”

“Fuck you, I was smart,” Shane protests. Ilya pats his chest.

“Yes, yes. Very gifted toddler. But I still like Shane now — I think he has good ideas, too.” Ilya tries to catch Shane’s eye, in vain when he realizes Shane is staring straight ahead at a vintage Winter Olympics poster on the wall. “Could write biography, maybe. Would be great if world knew how boring Shane Hollander is.”

Shane huffs a laugh. Ilya props himself up to kiss him, forcing him to look away from the stupid Olympics poster.

“Rest now,” Ilya says, “and we can write CV tomorrow.”

He laughs again, licking his lips as he looks up at Ilya. “Won’t take long. Two-thousand and nine to twenty twenty-eight: hockey.”

“Tomorrow. We can embellish.” Ilya shrugs.

“Ah, yes, because it’s not like any of those years of hockey were broadcast nationwide, or anything.”

Ilya leans in to kiss Shane quiet, shushing right into the corner of his mouth. “There is real estate and things. But is problem for tomorrow. Now please boring businessman leave so I can kiss my husband and go to sleep,” Ilya says.

Shane brings his arms up to tug Ilya against himself. He presses kisses into Ilya’s hair, deflating under his weight just as Ilya knew he would. “Alright, alright.”

“Goodnight, Shane.” Ilya exhales into the stillness.

“Goodnight, baby.”

Ilya settles his head properly onto Shane’s chest and closes his eyes. Shane’s breath slows down, and Ilya lets himself drift off.

He wakes up to the click of claws on hardwood as Apollo walks into the room. She comes up to the edge of the bed and nudges as Ilya’s back where the blanket has fallen off and left it exposed. He reaches behind him to pat blindly at her head and shushes. Based on the sun through the window, it can’t be any later than 7 AM. He really, really hopes Shane won’t be woken by all of this, because a real lie-in is a rarity in the Hollander-Rozanov home.

Shane hums a little, and Ilya presses kisses into his skin to quiet him. Apollo huffs. Ilya turns just slightly towards her and whispers, “If you think you can fit, try.”

The queen bed in the Shane’s old room fits them fine for a night, especially considering they like sleeping on top of each other, but for longer stretches or indeed for accommodating a dog the size of. small pony, it’s a bit tight. Ilya whines a lot about letting Apollo in the bed, but he likes cuddling with his husband a little too much to actually follow through. The dog would take up a lot of space, and she likes Shane better than she likes Ilya and that means there’d be competition for his affection which Ilya doesn’t really want to deal with.

Apollo takes a lap around the room, and then stops by the bed again, huffing. She’s funny like that. Very communicative. Ilya reaches out a hand and pats it over Apollo’s head, which seems to mollify her enough to settle down on the dog bed they’ve set by the edge of the bed. He hears her take a deep breath, and then there’s the tell-tale shushing of her folding her nose under her paws into the blanket.

Ilya turns his attention back to Shane. He’s still asleep, miraculously, even though the old alarm clock on Shane’s nightstand says 7:09. In exactly twenty minutes, the rest of the house will start waking up — Yuna’s alarm goes off at 7:30 and even though David sleeps like a rock through it, he wakes easily when she shakes him and they take morning coffee together on the porch. If Shane doesn’t wake up by himself at eight, Ilya will follow Yuna’s lead and wake his husband gently and tug him out of bed, groaning but following along because he doesn’t like to waste the morning.

Ilya settles back in bed. He lays his head down on the pillow and turns back to Shane. He adjusts his leg to lay it on top of Shane’s thighs, and Shane inhales deeply and exhales on a purr just as he would were he awake, the extra weight settling him. Ilya studies him — the slope of his nose and the curve of his eyelashes and the beautiful smattering of freckles over the round apples of his cheeks.

Some days, he doesn’t know how he got so lucky. Time has done much to heal Ilya’s wounds but at times he just stares at Shane in awe and wonders how he gets to keep him forever. Gets to hold him at night and wake him in the morning. He gets to watch this new Shane happen — the one that doesn’t play hockey any more but that made it to the hall of fame and had his number retired and still, so clearly, is taking the loss so hard.

Ilya sees it weighing on Shane. Retirement was by all means a clean break, a dignified affair all around without injury and a respectable placement for the Cens and point count for both Hollander and Rozanov. But Ilya knows Shane and he knows he misses the rink and games and even the stupid fucking hotel stays. Their roadie suitcases are more or less permanently stowed away on a shelf in the garage. They have other suitcases for non-work travelling: larger ones with more space for souvenirs and snacks and books, all the things you don’t have time for when going to an away game. Ilya caught Shane staring at them longingly once, when they were getting in the car to go to a farmer’s market.

Ilya frowns, laying a hand over Shane’s chest. His beautiful husband, who is hurting like he’s had a piece of him ripped away. In a way, he has. Ilya focuses on the slow and steady heartbeat under his palm. Shane will make it through this, but Ilya is bracing for a crash. Ilya wishes he would, but Shane isn’t letting himself feel everything he probably has to about this all. It’s going to catch up to him sooner or later, but when it inevitably does, Ilya will be there.

He rolls his head to the side and presses a kiss to Shane’s sternum. He hopes the love behind it makes its way through the skin and the bone and makes it to Shane’s heart. Its the wrong shape to fill the hockey-shaped wound that will probably always be there, but maybe it is enough to put a bandage over it, for now.

He lies staring at Shane until it’s time to wake up and have breakfast.

Shane comes home from physical therapy to a quiet house. He thinks maybe Ilya and Apollo are still at the park — they were supposed to go for Apollo’s semi-regular unofficial playdate with Cece, another regular of the park, and maybe they got stuck. Cece’s owner is a very friendly 20-something who Ilya could probably talk to for hours.

He takes his shoes off and puts them in the shelf, then hangs his coat on its hanger. Toque goes on the shelf until the snow on it has melted and it’s dry again. “Ilya?” Shane tries as he walks into the house. He doesn’t have to look for long, though, because both Ilya and Apollo have settled in the first-floor lounge room. They’re taking up far more of the huge sectional than one man and one dog should be able to: Apollo is on her side with her legs all the way stretched, and Ilya is perpendicular to her on a separate section. Ilya is on his phone, and apparently didn’t hear Shane in the hall.

“Hey,” Shane tries again. Ilya looks up and smiles, craning his neck and pursing his lips. Shane shakes his head but goes to kiss his husband. Ilya hums happily, putting his phone face-down on his chest.

“How was PT?” he murmurs.

“Fine,” Shane says, because physical therapy is usually mostly boring, sometimes mildly entertaining, and occasionally painful. “Did a new exercise today. How was the park? I didn’t get any videos.”

He’s only half-joking about it. Ilya sends videos of Apollo at the dog park whenever Shane can’t join them with the enthusiasm of a new grandmother posting a baby on Facebook. Shane likes getting them, though. He likes seeing Apollo happy and playing — she does this spinny thing when she’s really excited, like she’s chasing her tail but not really. Just spinning out of pure happiness.

“Ah, we didn’t go,” Ilya says. Shane frowns, and Ilya seems to notice his confusion. “We went outside for walk, but she was much slower than usual. Did not seem excited, you know? So I think maybe is her hips or her knees, and I ask do you want to go home and she looks at me a little guilty. So we go home.”

Shane takes a shaky breath in. “Oh,” he says. Shane swallows around a sudden lump in his throat. It doesn’t go away. “You just… went home?”

There’s a small knit to Ilya’s brow as he nods. Shane looks over at Apollo. She’s lifted her head slightly to look at him now, her big eyes tracking him and nose wiggling like she’s trying to sniff him out at a distance. Shane’s eyes burn, and he blinks. It doesn’t go away. Apollo takes up almost an entire section by herself. Her tail brushes against Ilya’s socked feet. Ilya is still laying on his back, head propped up on a pillow as he looks sideways up at Shane. He nods. “We went home,” he confirms.

“Oh,” Shane breathes. When he inhales, it’s air hitting the bottom of his lungs for the first time in years. He carries a weight with him, a pressure. He always has. Perhaps it’s many small pressures, working together to make him heavy, weighed down, to offer resistance in whatever he does. Ever since they sewed that C onto his jersey, Shane Hollander has been walking across quicksand. Don’t stop, never stop, keep your feet moving and you won’t get pulled under.

He stops. Shane stops and looks around him, at his husband and his dog that didn’t do what they’re supposed to today, and it’s gone away. The weight isn’t there anymore, and the floor is solid under his feet. Before he knows it, his knees have gone weak — weaker than they already are, damn it, damn it, damn it — and he’s sinking to the floor. He’s sore after PT.

“Okay,” Ilya says above him. “Shhh, Shane. Is okay. Floor is no good, come up here, yes?”

Shane presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, smearing tears across his face and biting into his top lip to stop from sobbing out loud. Apollo whines, and then her paws click onto the hardwood. She nudges at him, eye-level now he’s slumped on the floor. She pokes at him with her cold nose, huffing air onto his skin. He shouldn’t be sitting like this, his knees aching beyond what’s normal after a session. Ilya is cradling his jaw, tugging gently to get Shane off the floor.

“Shane,” he pleads, “sweetheart, please.”

Shane takes a deep breath and wills the tears to stop. He fucking despises that weak in the knees has a double meaning these days. Shane used to be in control of his body, used to deploy it at will like a lethal fucking weapon. And now, he can’t even crouch for too long because it’ll aggravate his stupid joints. Apollo barks, and then lets out a whining yawn.

“Okay,” Shane whispers, feeling breathless and pathetic, “okay, just let me—”

He wrestles himself up onto the couch, and finds himself pulled immediately into Ilya’s arms. He tucks his nose into the collar of Ilya’s hoodie, breathing in the familiar scent of his husband. Ilya’s hand cradles the back of his neck, thumb tracing a gentle curve on the soft skin behind Shane’s ear. He says nothing, just sits there and holds Shane in a position where his knees or his hips won’t complain. Apollo lays her head on the sofa next to them, bumping her snout against Shane’s leg.

“Good girl,” he says, turning so his cheek is resting against Ilya’s chest and he can look at Apollo. She looks up at him, eyes huge as he pets her head. Ilya’s fingers scratch at the back of his neck. He lets the feeling of it, and of Apollo’s fur under his hands, ground him. Apollo chuffs, nose twitching.

“Shane,” Ilya whispers.

“I know, I know.” Shane keeps petting. “Just… give me a minute?”

“Of course.”

He’s pretty sure more than a minute passes. Ilya doesn’t kick up a fuss, though, just quietly waits it out and lets Shane settle back into himself. He’s patient with Shane in a way he is with few other things. After however long, Shane cranes his neck up and presses his lips to Ilya’s. Ilya cradles his head, shutting the rest of the world out and narrowing Shane’s focus down to the sliver of air between them.

“Ready to talk now?” Ilya asks, already knowing the answer.

Shane nods and kisses him again. “I don’t think I like being retired,” he breathes into Ilya’s mouth, the safest space he knows to put his terrible confession. “I don’t know what to do.”

He feels empty as soon as he says it. This one, big, awful secret has been all he has left of hockey for a while now. His number is retired and some rookie is using his stall and he will never be a Centaur or Metro or a player at all ever again. Ilya’s eyes are big and bright as he looks up at Shane.

Shane takes a shaky breath, and then he lets out a single wet laugh. “What the fuck do I do now, Ilya?”

Ilya thumbs at his lash line. “You rest, sweetheart. You deserve that, I think.”

He lets his head fall forward again until he’s pressing his nose to Ilya’s collarbone and inhaling the traces of the cologne he put on this morning. He’s used the same one since a brand deal in 2019 put him on to the scent — woody and earthy and absolutely nothing that Shane could name. It’s been a part of the puzzle that makes Ilya Rozanov home for many years. His smell and his laugh and the reassuring heaviness of his touch.

“We could go on a vacation,” Ilya suggests, “to the cottage, or Europe. Maybe ask your dad what to do, he is very good at being retired.”

Shane is probably more like his mom when it comes to retirement — he won’t quit, can’t quit. There’s a part of him that’s scary and obsessive, that won’t let go for anything. Don’t slow down, don’t become stagnant, it says. Normal off-season used to be fine, because there was hockey at the end of it. The rest and the vacation was productive, it served a purpose. He was recharging, building his energy up to come back better and stronger and faster than he was before.

He doesn’t know what this rest is for. Shane isn’t rebuilding for anything, just mindlessly stacking pieces on top of each other and hoping whatever construction he’s made doesn’t collapse in on itself. He squatted a new PR in their home gym last week. Ilya wasn’t even in the house to see it. Shane didn’t tell him about it when he came back from his run, either. It felt like pointless posturing, just a big but insignificant number. It isn’t like he’ll strap on a pair of skates and notice how he’s a tick faster. At the same time, he couldn’t possibly stop.

“Shane,” Ilya says quietly.

“I don’t know how to stop,” Shane says, huffing a laugh. Ilya’s hand on his neck is a a balm on his frayed nerves. He feels a bit like a rope coming undone, the fibres splitting apart and flying every which way. He’s shaking, maybe, probably. “I don’t know who I am now.”

Ilya’s hand tightens on his neck. “You are many things. Parent to beautiful horse puppy. Your mother and father’s second-favorite son—” Shane hiccups— “Rookie godparent who prevents bad real-estate investments. Charity founder and camp counselor. My beautiful husband. Shane Hollander-Rozanov.”

Halfway through the list Shane lifts his head up and lets his eyes drift to Ilya’s. “I love you so much,” he says. He doesn’t know what else to say, so he says: “Can I suck your dick?”

“Mmh,” Ilya hums, “no, I think I want to take care of you, sweetheart.”

Shane inhales shakily as Ilya sneaks a hand between them and cups him over his jeans. Little by little, Ilya adds pressure until Shane is fully hard and pressing against his fly. With practiced ease, Ilya unbuttons and unzips Shane’s pants until he can work his hand into his boxer briefs and grip Shane’s cock in his warm, dry hand. Shane huffs short, shallow breaths into Ilya’s mouth. Ilya keeps his grip loose, but the friction is still just on the right side of painful. Shane’s cock dribbles a meagre bit of precome that Ilya rubs across the head with his thumb. “Ilya,” Shane whines.

“That’s right, Shane, come on. You gonna get wet for me?”

“Can’t,” Shane says, feeling tears prick at his eyes. “Ilya, Ilya.”

“Okay, okay.” Ilya’s hand comes off his cock and up to brace against the couch cushions so he can sit up straighter. Shane follows helplessly until he’s straddled over Ilya’s lap. Ilya pulls Shane’s cock back out, tucking the waistband of his underwear under his balls until Shane’s neglected dick is on display between them. Ilya grabs his chin and forces Shane’s mouth open. Shane breathes heavily, ears buzzing at the roughness of the touch. He searches Ilya’s face, blinking away tears.

Ilya’s thumb curls to pull at his cheek and Shane feels another spurt of precome. He’s salivating around Ilya’s fingers, almost drooling. Ilya’s eyes fix on his and he nods. Shane’s stomach swoops.

“Come on, sweetheart. Get it wet for me.”

Shane lets the spit drip off his tongue and fall onto his dick, now almost buzzing with the need to be touched. Shane closes his lips around Ilya’s thumb and sucks, nearly all instinct. Ilya pulls his hand away, and when Shane chases it, mouth open and tongue lolling out, he drools over his own chin and onto his dick again. He moans at the sensation.

Ilya grabs him firmly and starts jerking him off, the slide of his hand eased by the slick of Shane’s spit. He doesn’t draw it out, instead rhythmically making Shane fuck the circle of his fingers until Shane is desperately, pathetically tilting his head up for a kiss as he feels his orgasm cresting. Ilya brushes his tongue against Shane’s and kisses him hard as he finishes Shane off.

Shane groans into his mouth as his release splatters onto Ilya’s shirt.

In the aftermath, he presses his hot face to Ilya’s chest and paws at his shoulders like he’s drowning. He settles back into his body, into the sensations around him. Ilya’s sticky shirt against his and the thudding of his heart in his chest. The slight wetness in his eyes. He places his lips against Ilya’s pulse point, kissing over the rush of blood through his jugular.

Ilya hums as Shane presses kiss after kiss to his neck, idly mouthing at the skin without leaving any marks. Ilya is scheduled for a podcast appearance in three days. “Maybe we build a sex dungeon. Special shelf for all your dildos, can make it nice…”

Shane’s breath hitches and Ilya pulls him back by the hair enough so Shane can see his raised eyebrows. It’s not judgement, Shane knows, but he still feels uncomfortably seen. “Shut up,” he says.

“Do you think there are special contractors for sex rooms?” Ilya muses.

“Oh my god, Ilya.” There are. Shane looked it up once. “We’re not building a sex room.”

“Yes, true. Maybe just refurnish one room in the basement.”

Shane huffs a laugh despite himself. “Thank you,” he murmurs, tucking his face back into Ilya’s neck.

“I won’t make you kept man,” Ilya says, “except maybe sometimes. Is what sex room would be for. Me keeping you, maybe handcuffed.”

“Not thank you for the sex room, idiot. We’re not building one.” Shane’s dick makes a valiant effort to rejoin the conversation. “Maybe I keep you.”

“That is marriage, no? We keep each other.”

He snorts and pinches Ilya in the side. “Stop trying to be profound, asshole.”

“Okay,” Ilya agrees easily. “What should be budget for sex room, then?”

Shane tries to picture a version of himself that builds a dedicated room in the house for sex. He’s certain their friends think they’ve had a sex dungeon for years, because apparently most people can’t fathom an active, interesting sex life continuing for several years without a setup taken straight out of Fifty Shades of Gray. He thinks the bedroom is just fine — or the bathroom or living room, or trophy room — for their purposes. At the same time, there is something undeniably appealing about a space dedicated to displaying all of their debauchery.

Ilya’s chest shakes with laughter under him. “You are thinking about it, aren’t you.”

“Maybe,” Shane admits. “Mostly I’m thinking maybe we revisit the ‘mirror in the ceiling’-thing for the bedroom.”

Ilya surges up to kiss him and laughs through his nose as he does. “Yes, dear.”

“You’re the worst.”

They lapse into silence for a bit, with only the whirring of the dishwasher in the distance and the click of Apollo’s paws on the hardwood as she walks out to the backyard filling the space around them. The spectre of Shane’s confession hangs between them, heavy and embarrassing. Shane squirms from the tension and his increasing awareness of the drying come on his shirt. He sits up and gets off Ilya’s lap, which leaves them sitting awkwardly beside each other on the couch. Shane stares down at his knees, and Ilya’s hand settles on his thigh with a soft squeeze.

“Shower?” he asks. Shane nods, and Ilya gets up without any more questions. Ilya presses a kiss to Shane’s head and then disappears to the master’s ensuite. Only moments after he leaves, the clicking of Apollo’s claws on the hardwood starts to come closer. She pokes her head around the corner, almost hesitant to enter the room. Shane thinks maybe he scared her earlier with his crying.

He reaches a hand out to her. “Hey, girl. Come here.”

She trots up to him and lays her head in his hand the moment she reaches him. He scratches at her neck, right where she likes it best. She blinks slowly at him, then nudges his hand from her chin to lay it in his lap instead. Her spot, when she isn’t fighting Ilya for it.

His pulse settles even more as he strokes her short fur. Apollo has never known a Shane Hollander that was a hockey player. Even if she had, he doesn’t know if she would’ve been able to tell the difference before and after retirement, beyond him being home for longer every day. She’s never needed him to be anything other than there.

He draws a long breath in through his nose, and exhales shakily through his mouth. Apollo being his is probably a cosmic case of happenstance: Shane being in the right place at the right time to fall in love with a dog with bum knees from a career that was probably a bit too long. With his eyes still stinging and the soothing sound of the shower a few rooms over, Shane lets himself say out loud something he’s barely allowed himself to properly think before.

“We’re the same, I think,” he says to Apollo.

It’s easy to admit the similarities between them. Sports injuries and a connection to the number twenty four. But to say they’re the same means that maybe Shane isn’t just someone tired and in pain, but also someone who can stay home when it all gets too much. Someone who is loved and cherished, and who will be held regardless of if he went on that run. Apollo chuffs at him, seemingly in agreement.

It’s not that he doesn’t think Ilya loves him, or that his parents are going to disown him. Logically, he knows that isn’t true. But his life has been hockey for so, so long. Scouts started noticing him in his early teens, and since then the time he spent with his parents was, above anything else, in the car to and from games and practice. And Ilya… well, when he met Ilya he was already on a set course. Ilya married Shane fucking Hollander.

Shane picks a little crusty bit way from Apollo’s eye. Before his parents ever knew a talent scout had been at his hockey practice, though, they let him pick the color of the walls in his bedroom, and took him on hikes in Pinhey forest. Ilya held him close enough to keep him from falling apart when moving to Ottawa nearly broke him into pieces. When he was thirty and firmly on track to becoming a hall of famer and forgetting it all, when the only thing that made him feel like anyone at all was Ilya whispering sweetheart into his hair.

In 1997 Shane was six years old and wanted to be a hockey player when he grew up. In 2007 Shane was sixteen and knew he was headed for the big leagues, getting ready to be drafted and crossing his fingers he’d be number one pick. In 2017 Shane was twenty six and wanted something else for the first time in his life, stood in front of the love of his life and asked for honesty. In 2027, Shane is retired and not really certain of anything for the first time in his life.

Or, well, he’s certain of a few things.

Ilya comes back into the living room, stripped down to only his boxers. There’s a massive cowlick in his hair, probably from taking off his soiled sweatshirt. “Sweetheart?” he says.

Shane gives Apollo a final pat to the head and then stands from the couch. He walks up to Ilya, his husband, his other half, the love of his life, and closes his arms around him. Ilya immediately reciprocates, impossibly warm hands sneaking under Shane’s shirt and brushing over his waist. Shane presses a kiss to the bend between Ilya’s shoulder and neck. “I love you so fucking much,” he murmurs into the skin there.

“I love you very much, too.” Ilya says. He grabs Shane’s face between his hands and pulls him up to make eye contact. His expression is soft, eyes all melty and brows tilted. He looks, for lack of a better word, besotted. For a while, he just gazes at Shane in silence. Then, he says, “I love you, Shane.”

It’s almost formal, the way he says it, completely at odds with the way it makes Shane’s heart soar and his eyes burn. “Yeah?” he breathes stupidly.

“Yes, Shane.” Ilya’s smile is like daybreak. “Would you like to see marriage license, or Canadian passport, or ID with hyphen last name?”

Shane lets out a wet laugh. “We’ve got the same one, asshole.”

“Exactly.”

He leans forward to kiss Shane, still with one hand on each cheek. Shane snakes his arms under Ilya’s to hook his elbows around his neck. There’s a picture of them just like this from their wedding night, slightly blurry and backlit by the fairy lights because it was taken on Rose’s phone around midnight. Nobody was sober at that point, and if Shane remembers correctly he and Ilya had just come back from their first quickie of the night. Rose was drunk when she took it, and it shows. It was Shane’s wallpaper for weeks.

“Well, Mr. Hollander-Rozanov. If you’d be so kind to lead me to the shower.” Shane grins at him, and Ilya grins back before pulling Shane to the bathroom.

Once they’re freshly showered and sitting in their matching armchairs looking over the garden, Ilya reaches over to grab Shane’s hand. Just loosely, Shane’s fingers limp in Ilya’s as his thumb draws a soft arc over Shane’s knuckles. “I think it’s time to talk about it, yes?”

Shane takes a deep breath. “Yeah. Maybe.”

A little knit appears in Ilya’s brow. “Please, Shane.”

He doesn’t even think Ilya is doing it on purpose. That’s the worst part. He’s cutting through every single one of Shane’s defenses like a hot knife through butter.

“I don’t know what to say,” Shane confesses. He doesn’t know if there’s a way to say it at all. Ilya brings their joined hands up to his lips to kiss Shane’s knuckles. “Fuck, Ilya. I miss hockey. I miss the guys. I miss my stupid fucking meal plan. I miss waking up and going to practice with you. I miss being Shane Hollander.”

Shane’s not much of a crier, but his eyes start burning again as he lists things.

“I was really fucking good at hockey, Ilya.”

“You were,” Ilya murmurs.

“It’s always been hockey. And I was so good at it that I never bothered with anything else, ever. And now… now it’s just this big hole. And I don’t know what to do.” His breathing pulls roughly in and out of his chest. He’s abruptly angry with past-Shane, who was so single-mindedly focused on his career that he disregarded every other thing. He looks desperately into Ilya’s eyes, looking for an answer but finding just the shine that precedes him being on the verge of tears. “And— I love you so much. I love you more than anything, and I’d give up the whole fucking world for you, but…”

Ilya looks so pained. His grip loosens on Shane’s hand and Shane wants to cling harder. No, don’t go, his nervous system cries. Stay, please, I need you.

“But you didn’t think I would want you still.”

Shane swallows, caught out. “If I don’t know what the fuck is left after hockey, I don’t wanna, like, force you into figuring it out.”

Ilya shakes his head. “Shane, I did not dream about marrying hockey when I was a little boy.” Shane huffs a weak laugh at the dig. “And I didn’t. It was not Montreal Metros star center Shane Hollander who got on one knee and asked me to marry him. And I did not say yes to him. I said yes to my Shane. Shane who holds me when I cannot leave bed, and who packs me extra socks because he knows I will forget the ones I am wearing do not count. Shane who puts my pills in little container and makes breakfast smoothies so we both live forever.”

A shiver runs from Shane’s toes to his head.

“And maybe it’s Shane who plays silly board games with Hazy in retirement. Or who has vegetable garden. Or is volunteer firefighter. Is available in Ottawa.”

Shane laughs. “You looked it up.”

“Of course.”

He focuses on the sweep of Ilya’s thumb over his skin for a bit, lets it ground him. My Shane. Being Ilya’s is the easiest thing he’s ever done. It was never even a conscious decision, not something he ever thought about. It’s like his entire being just knew, from that moment in Saskatchewan, that it was someone else’s now.

“Have you talked to Ethan about this?” Ilya asks gently. Shane shrugs.

He tried. But it’s only just now that he’s even been able to make any sense of it at all. He sat across from Ethan in his spacious office, received the question How’s retirement? and answered boring. Ethan laughed, and asked if Shane was thinking of picking up any hobbies. Shane said he’s been spending more time with family. Ethan said that sounded nice, and Shane agreed. “Like I said,” Shane says now, “I don’t know how. Not like I can sit in front of a psychologist and go it’s shit.”

Ilya grins. “You can, actually. Ask me how I know.”

Shane swats at him, but it makes him smile. Ilya has a way of making things seem easier than Shane previously thought them to be. The things that are a tangled ball of string in Shane’s mind unravel in Ilya’s, like he sees a loose end that he can just tug at until all the knots are gone. Shane imagines himself sitting in the chair in Ethan’s office and telling it like it is. I’ve lost the one thing I was ever good at and it sucks. Ethan would probably laugh at that.

Still, though, Ilya can’t just fix this. Fix that Shane built his life around one thing that’s gone now. It hasn’t even been a year since their last game — the shine hasn’t worn off yet but it will. He can’t shake the fear that eventually the smoothies and the pill organization won’t be enough to distract Ilya from the fact that he’s married to a washed-up athlete who can’t let go of his glory days. What the fuck is even the point of him, any more?

Suddenly, Ilya is on his knees in front of Shane, hands on Shane’s cheeks and eyes so wide and afraid. Shane’s heart plummets into his stomach as he realizes that he’s fucked up. “Shane,” Ilya says, voice shaking. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else, but no sound comes out.

Shane swallows around the lump in his throat, choking on it. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says, “I didn’t— fuck, Ilya, I didn’t mean it like that. I wasn’t gonna—”

I wasn’t going to say that out loud. What the fuck is that supposed to help, really?

Ilya’s grip on his face is almost painful. He’s trembling, and Shane would move to hold him, would sink to the floor and gather him in his arms, if he weren’t frozen in the spot. His chest heaves with breath, heavy and almost panicking. “I’m sorry,” he whispers again, desperate to correct himself, to reassure his husband. “I’m not going anywhere. Never. Never, Ilya, I promise. It’s just—”

“Just what, Shane?”

He manages to get his hand to comply enough to clasp Ilya’s arm in his grip. “I feel like I’m not… doing enough. And I won’t ever be able to, ever again. People are going to realize that all the other shit was only bearable when I was good at something, and then they’ll get tired of me, but they won’t leave because they feel sorry for me. Washed up. Injured. Boring.”

Ilya dislodges Shane’s hand when he gets up from the floor, nearly headbutting Shane as he climbs urgently into his lap. Shane finds himself pressed against the back of the chair. Ilya’s grip returns to his face, but his left hand is pressed to Shane’s chest hard. He kisses Shane fiercely, breathing words into his mouth so quickly that Shane can’t even parse which language he’s speaking. Shane welcomes the onslaught, wraps his hands around Ilya’s waist when he finally regains control of his limbs. He holds on to his one constant.

“Shane,” he says eventually, “I want to be boring with you forever. If you decide you want to enter amateur fishing contests forever I will sit in uncomfortable lawn chair next to you and complain about stupid pikes until we are one hundred years old.”

“Careful,” Shane laughs, burying his fingers in Ilya’s hair, “that’s starting to sound like you wanna marry me, or something.”

“Can I?” Ilya says. He leans back, and his eyes meeting Shane’s is like lightning. The thunder follows a few seconds later. “Shane, let me marry you again, please.”

Shane is breathless. He thinks he’s nodding. “Yeah, yes. Fuck, okay. Yeah, let’s get married again.” Ilya is biting his lips now, holding back that huge, stupid grin that Shane loves. Shane thumbs at his cheek to coax it out. He realizes something. “I wanna write you vows this time.”

Ilya surges forward to kiss him. “Fuck, Hollander. Yes, we will have big fat Greek wedding.”

“We could,” Shane points out. Ilya kisses him again, then buries his face in the bend between Shane’s neck and shoulder. “Fly everybody out. And then send them home and go on a second honeymoon.”

“Apollo can be ring bearer,” Ilya mumbles into Shane’s t-shirt. Shane snorts and pinches him in the side, but he doesn’t say no.

Shane rarely does his morning yoga in the gym these days. Instead he takes his mat up the stairs and unrolls it by the floor-to-ceiling windows in the lounge.

He goes through his flow in the light and warmth of the sunrise, forces his breath to deepen and steady as his muscles wake up. So much of his life is and has been out of his control, but this he can depend on — his breath, his body. He presses his heels into the mat and flexes his fingers, trying to let the earth ground and support him like every instructor and video ever has told him.

Usually he settles in his body after a while, but by the time he lays down in Savasana his heart is still in his throat. He feels off-kilter and strange.

Shane pulls his thighs to his chest and hugs his arms around his bent legs, squeezing and taking a deep breath to try and force his nervous system to chill the fuck out.

“Can I help?” comes a voice from across the room. Shane lets his legs crash to the ground and tilts his head to the side to look at Ilya standing there. Ilya instantly starts moving toward him, crouches on the floor to give Shane a crooked kiss before he lays down flat on top of Shane, face-to-face. “Good?” he asks, inches from Shane’s face.

Ilya’s breath fans over Shane’s lips and he has to lean up and kiss him. The weight of him pressing down and the pressure of his mouth on Shane’s is more grounding than his entire vinyasa combined. Shane hums as they part and Ilya presses his face to the bend between his neck and shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Ilya murmurs into his neck. “And don’t say fine because you were able to get up and do sexy sunrise yoga.”

“Fuck off,” Shane huffs. “I feel… weird, I guess. Nothing’s wrong, but everything isn’t right, either. Yoga didn’t help.”

Ilya kisses his neck. “This is better?”

“This is better,” Shane confirms.

“Okay,” Ilya says gently. He brings up a hand to scratch at Shane’s scalp. “What do you want to do today?”

Shane takes a deep breath. Maybe the deepest breath he’s taken all year.

“I don’t know. Anything, I guess.”