Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov

Additional Tags:

Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Jealous Ilya Rozanov, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Sex, Possessive Ilya Rozanov, Autistic Shane Hollander, Bottom Shane Hollander, Sub Shane Hollander, Hurt Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Needs a Hug, POV Shane Hollander, Fix-It of Sorts, Smut, Romance, Overwhelmed Shane Hollander, Hockey, Texting, Jealousy, Dirty Talk, Depression, Self-Worth Issues, Happy Ending, Hopeful Ending, Insecurity, Feminization, POV Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov Needs A Hug, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, POV Alternating, Good Friend Svetlana Vetrova, Somnophilia, Sweat, Shane Hollander's Stretch Marks, Barebacking, Sweet Ilya Rozanov, Good Parents David Hollander/Yuna Hollander

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-02-26 Completed: 2026-03-30 Words: 28,267 Chapters: 7/7

You’ll go to heaven and I’ll go to hell in the meantime

Summary

After Vegas, Shane begins to give up on Ilya and looks for a new way to feel wanted.

Ilya, of course, finds out about this and locks in.

A small dose of jealousy and a bigger dose of communication add up to change the trajectory of their affair from 2014 onward.

Notes

The title is a lyric from the song ‘Sue Me’ by Audrey Hobert, which I count as a source of inspiration for this work. Highly recommend you listen to it, but in case you don’t, the main through line of the song is “sue me, I want to be wanted.” So, there you have it.

Chapter 1: Wanted

Chapter Summary

As summer bled into hockey season, it became a habit. Not often, not more than once every few weeks, but at the times he felt a little adrift, or wanted to text Rozanov something unnecessarily needy, he'd post a new picture. The most recent one, of his bulge through athletic shorts rucked up to show sweaty thighs, had been a particular hit, which he felt grateful for today as he prepared to face Rozanov on the ice.

spread those a little wider so I can kneel between them

those thighs look made to ride me

take the shorts off

And:

Lily: 1218

Shane turned his screen off abruptly. Of course. Of course not inviting him to his apartment in Montreal meant he’d just offer his hotel room instead. Avoidance never worked with Rozanov, he admonished himself, even while strictly avoiding considering why four numbers in a text message did more to his libido than a dozen explicit DMs.

Even days after Vegas, that cold feeling still hadn't left his stomach.

Shane was never much good with emotions. He'd spent the hours following their penthouse rendezvous staring at the ceiling crying before sleep heroically took him. He woke up the next morning short a few hours of rest, and determined he would paper over any unpleasantness with the comfort of routine. A protein smoothie, cardio, and weights with the white noise of the Man in the Crease were typically enough to prevent thinking and overthinking, and though he gave the hotel gym's exercise bike an unnecessarily wide berth, it seemed to be working.

Lunch with his parents showed him it maybe wasn't, particularly when he had to escape briefly before food arrived to spend a few minutes thumbing away tears in the bathroom.

A day later after flying home, followed by another night of tossing and misery, he decided the awful feeling wasn't going away fast enough and instead opted to do what he had been taught by his sport psychologist as an adolescent: hold the feeling, name the feeling, decide what to do about it.

He rarely did this; most of his unhelpful feelings weren't this bad and resolved with time, particularly time away from other people with yoga or meditation, and handling his feelings in this deliberate way like they were dangerous animals he could tame felt like a needlessly dramatic distraction. Desperate times, however.

He placed a small, blank notepad on his desk, picked up a pen, and waited. Clicked it. Went to write, paused, put his head down. He could hear the calm, clinical voice telling him "there's no wrong answer," but regardless, naming took several attempts:

I feel like I'm going to die if I keep feeling this
Loneliness
Emptiness
Worthlessness

He swallowed as he felt the word slot into place, seemingly ... accurate. It stared back at him, accusatory, and he felt worse for feeling it at all. Self-worth is a big deal in sports; the only healthy approach to games where losing sometimes was inevitable was in the knowledge that worth is intrinsic and unrelated to performance. Fuck, even if it was related to performance, Shane’s own was spectacular, and it was something he honed and refined but rarely doubted.

No, the missing context here, in a life composed almost entirely of hockey, sponsorships, and Rozanov, was that he felt worthless to him.

His throat tightened at the thought, and for the third time in as many days, he blinked back frustrated tears, groaning and exasperated at his own weakness.

Okay. Focus. Step three: decide what to do about it.

The first thought that came to mind was to talk to Rozanov about it, which was dismissed and sent flying faster than a puck from a slapshot. Talk?? To Ilya? He could see in his mind's eye his perfect face, the cut of his jaw as he would chuff in laughter. You are so boring, Hollander. Kisses? You need me to tuck you into bed now, too? Fuuuck. He didn't bother writing it down.

Instead, he wrote:

Stop seeing him entirely

He sighed. Well, that wouldn't work. Even limiting their interactions to face-offs had been aspirational for years, really, but given how he'd folded like a lawn chair in that Vegas bathroom a few nights ago after six months of ghosting, it was unlikely to suddenly become doable now that he was at his lowest.

Stop seeing him entirely
Find a new way to feel wanted

There. A unique idea. It didn't fit his preferred SMART goal formula yet, nebulous and slightly silly, but the more he considered it, the more he thought this feeling might be helped with a little romantic attention. After all, it seemed to be his teammates' solution to everything. Good game? Get laid. Bad game? Get laid. Shitty hotel water pressure? Get laid, stay over at her place, and shower there in the morning.

Well, that last one had been only J.J. that one time, but the guys had seemed impressed by it. Shane hoped that hadn't been the only reason he'd done it.

When he considered attempting to hook up with someone, a frisson of disgust ran through him, more for himself than for his partner. Putting aside that it would have been easier during the season than now, he thought about all the gorgeous women he'd seen the brief times he'd gone to clubs, their tight clothes and the smear of lip gloss that had been left on the angle of his jaw that one time, much to Hayden's amusement. The thought was unappealing, using some nice girl. Drapeau would do it, and then say disgusting things about her in the locker room the next day until he or Hayden or J.J. told him to knock it the fuck off. There was no part of this scenario that Shane thought would end up making him feel better.

In his mind, his imagined hook-up shifted; a back room with a stubbled face against his neck and a broad, firm body pressing him down. The disgust ebbed slightly, now joined by arousal and fear. He couldn't imagine trusting any possible stranger with this part of himself, concern for his career overpowering sexual interest.

It didn't help that, even when masturbating, when trying to conjure an image of an attractive stranger, Ilya fucking Rozanov would storm the gates of his mind and throw them off of him like a jealous lover, and he'd end up getting off to imaginings of his personal Greek god with a Russian accent, thoughts of his calloused hands and murmurs of da, like that Hollander.

All of this added up to: hookup = unlikely to fix this.

That said, he didn't really need a hookup, because he didn't need sexual release. He'd had enough of that to carry through the summer in their one, explosive night; that was not the unmet need. No, he needed to feel wanted, and as he considered his phone he realized there were anonymous ways to do that, without ever touching anyone else at all.

-

He was careful with the pictures, jaw to just below his navel only. His face was on too many billboards, and his cock and his stretchmarks felt too personal.

He glanced at the hockey memoir on his nightstand about Minkoff, and stole his first name, 'Ryan,' for his profile. After that, his caption was brief but direct: 'Just looking. Not willing to meet.'

As soon as it went live, his phone began buzzing.

Omg you don't look real. Bend your rules for a bear?

Yum. I want.

fuuuuuuuck ur hawt show me ur hole

just looking?? fucking tease

He silenced his notifications, face flaming in mortification, but the results were satisfying nevertheless. He didn't want the pictures the men sent, per se, or the more vulgar comments, but he loved that each volleyed message felt like an eager, grabbing hand reaching for him, petting him, wanting him. Like someone kissing him at the door and telling him not to leave.

Well, maybe not like that, entirely, but eager, definitely. Wanted.

The cold feeling didn't go away, disappointingly, but it did lessen. That would have to be enough.

-

As summer bled into hockey season, it became a habit. Not often, not more than once every few weeks, but at the times he felt a little adrift, or wanted to text Rozanov something unnecessarily needy, he'd post a new picture. The most recent one, of his bulge through athletic shorts rucked up to show sweaty thighs, had been a particular hit, which he felt grateful for today as he prepared to face Rozanov on the ice.

spread those a little wider so I can kneel between them

those thighs look made to ride me

take the shorts off

And:

Lily: 1218

Shane turned his screen off abruptly. Of course. Of course not inviting him to his apartment in Montreal meant he’d just offer his hotel room instead. Avoidance never worked with Rozanov, he admonished himself, even while strictly avoiding considering why four numbers in a text message did more to his libido than a dozen explicit DMs.

-

The cold feeling returned as he laced his skates up, worsening and deepening with each face-off. Rozanov was chatty, despite the ref hovering over them, and Shane took it all in silence. He never had clever, pithy comebacks in the moment, sometimes only thinking of them in the shower after the game, but his silence was often enough to rattle opponents when followed by his skill. Today, it only seemed to egg Rozanov on.

1:1, Boston:Montreal

“Have a good summer? Miss me? Aw, you did! I’ll score next one for you.” He fucking winked.

2:1

“That goal was for you. Very pretty goal. You like, I’m sure. Next one will be for me.”

3:1

“Having good night? That’s nice. Think there's still time for a hat trick. Should I do now or wait till last second? Cause I dunno, last second is more fun, but …”

4:1

Mercifully, the game ended.

-

The rest was mechanical. Commiserate, ‘we’ll get ‘em next time’, shower, head home, organize and read and distract. Head to hotel. Knock.

Rozanov answered in one of his stupid, tight tank tops, leaning on his doorframe with a smug, crooked grin that Shane had no patience for. It made his heart beat so fast he felt nauseated.

“Are you going to let me in?” Shane huffed impatiently, glancing down the hall behind him.

“Knew you would come,” Rozanov replied, stepping back, which struck Shane as strange, because the subtext seemed to be that he worried he wouldn’t. That thought was knocked cleanly out of his head when his words were followed by “Get on your knees,” the moment the door closed behind him.

Oh, so we’re not going to kiss tonight either, he thought, and tears sprang to his eyes. He blinked and looked away, thankful for dim lighting. This routine wasn’t unfamiliar, he tried to remind himself, reaching for Rozanov’s pants, moving to kneel as though through molasses.

Without warning, a strong hand gripped his elbow, keeping him upright. “I change my mind. Bed first.” Rozanov followed this comment by grabbing his face with his other hand and kissing him with abandon, hungry and desperate and wet and magical. For Shane, it felt like coming up for air, like breaking through layers of ice in the arctic, like floating.

He grabbed the back of Rozanov’s neck and hung on as one would a life raft, careless of his nails biting into skin and making his rival chuckle. “Eager,” he teased, breaking away briefly, before Shane hauled him right back in.

They stumbled their way to the bed until Rozanov tugged on his shirt impatiently. “Too many clothes, Hollander. Fix this.” Rozanov stripped with sloppy speed, while Shane’s own efficiency was hampered by his dutiful folding. He placed his phone on the bedside table and took the moment to gather himself, centered and grounded by his rival’s predatory gaze, warm attention he basked in whenever he could receive it.

After, empowered by the kiss and the salacious looks his nakedness gained him, he crawled onto the bed and put his mouth to work. Once the cold feeling of dread had been broken by Rozanov’s lips, there was red-hot lust underneath it, and an ache for the taste he had missed all summer.

“Oh G-d, Hollander. Fuck. Your mouth … ideal'nyy (perfect) ...” Shane did nothing to muffle the sloppy noises as he took him deeper. “Stop, fuck, stop. I want to fuck you.”

Shane flopped back on the bed, mouth wet and smiling, as Rozanov rolled over to the bedside drawer, presumably in search of a condom.

The noise of rustling abruptly stopped, and Shane turned to see his rival’s face, scary in its blankness, staring at Shane’s phone.

"Wow. 'Stop teasing and come over and fuck me, Ryan'." he read off from his screen. “You are Ryan, now?”

Shane flushed bright red. “Fuck off. That’s none of your business.”

Rozanov shrugged with affected coolness. “Just wondering who is calling you Ryan. Maybe you just want cock any way you can get it.”

Anger flared, overwhelming his panic and embarrassment and misery as he sat fully upright to glare at him. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Rozanov wouldn’t return his gaze, lazily passing his phone back. “Anonymous messages and site like this, maybe you are slut now.” The Russian had turned to look at the window, the darkness of night turning it into a mirror. “Hot boy summer? Lots of men? Months apart left you cock hungry?”

There was so much wrong with that that Shane didn’t even know where to start. Rozanov had called him a slut before, but it had always been hot, said in the context of making each other feel good. This didn't feel good at all. “Maybe! Maybe I am now! What do you care? I thought you were here to fuck me!”

Something shuttered and closed in his face. “You are right. We are here to fuck.” He sniffed, looking away. “So get on your knees, Hollander. I will fuck you.”

That order when he arrived made him feel cold. Had it happened a few minutes ago, he would have eagerly complied. Now, once again, the bad feeling was back, and he felt itchy and repulsed. “Nevermind. Fuck. I’ve got to … I’m just going to go.”

“Yes,” Rozanov sniped, “I’m sure your next hook up is waiting. How lucky they are.”

He should have just flipped him off and left; there was no actual requirement to be honest, but the (jealous?) cruelty, pouring from Ilya fucking Rozanov made his tongue loose as the tears, never far from the surface, sprung to his eyes again. “I don't actually meet them, asshole!” He mumbled the rest of the thought in rushed humiliation. “I just like reading the messages.”

“Don’t meet?” For the first time since the message, Rozanov looked at him, eyes searching, but face still rigid. Maybe he didn’t believe him. Why would he? “Pretending to be a slut, then.”

“Shut up, just shut up.” he interrupted, scrunching his eyes shut and bringing his hands to his face, completely overwhelmed by a discussion he hadn't been ready to have and wishing fervently he wasn’t naked. “Look, you didn't kiss me, okay? In Vegas. The first time was …” He shook his head, trying to shake his words into an order that was sensible and not pathetic, but only half succeeding. “It was amazing, our first time, and I felt good for days after, and then you threw me away. We didn’t talk for months. And then I felt disgusting after we last hooked up, used and shitty and,” he swallowed heavily. “Unwanted.” Somehow that was easier to say than worthless. “This makes me feel wanted.”

Rozanov's face lit up like a Christmas tree, though Shane failed to see how any part of what he'd just said was positive. "You do this because I do not kiss you enough?"

Shane’s face returned to his hand with a groan. “That’s what you got from that?”

“Also that you do not meet up. You give all these men blue balls, like you did to me for years.” He scowled. “Only they get more pictures.”

“The pictures are stupid, Rozanov. They’re nothing.”

“Show me.”

In for a penny, Shane thought, unlocking the app and passing his phone back to him.

Shane schooled his breathing as his rival took the moment to flip through. Rozanov’s eyebrows rose. “These are hot.”

Shane snorted. “That’s sort of the point.”

“Why didn’t you send these to me, Hollander?” He asked indignantly, waving the phone at him.

“They aren’t for you! Besides, it’s stupid.”

“You see my thirst traps on Instagram!” Rozanov argued. “I want these! These men do not deserve them!”

“It’s none of your business what I share with other men.”

Rozanov looked pinched and upset at the reminder. “Maybe. But this is all you have shared?”

Shane sighed, suddenly just sad and tired. “Yes.”

“Good. This is all you will share. I am deleting this now,” he stated, sending the pictures to ‘Lily’ before going to Shane’s settings and deleting the profile.

“What?! What the fuck, Rozanov, no!”

Rozanov continued as though he had not spoken. “Besides, this is stupid, getting thirsty texts from gay app on lock screen.” Despite Shane’s protests, he did not take the phone from him as Rozanov continued to uninstalling the app before handing his device back, going easily as Rozanov grabbed his leg and pulled him onto his lap. After the avoidance and shame of the last few minutes, Rozanov’s direct eye contact was intoxicating. Shane worried he knew that, and was using it to its full effect. “Much better to just let me. Send me thirsty pictures. I will tell you I want your ass, and that will be enough.” Strong hands grabbed Shane’s waist with a little shake for emphasis. “I will tell you every day.”

Shane didn’t want to examine why this made him feel warm and soft and still want to cry. A hand was stroking his back, next, another gripping and massaging his leg. He buried his face in Rozanov’s neck and inhaled him, heart cracking open. “Why do you care? You sleep with so many other people, there are so many pictures of you with girls.”

The Russian hummed, conciliatory. “Maybe, but that's different. You are not like me. You are .... tsennyy. (Valuable.) Special. You are my Jane. My Hollander.” Shane hummed, maybe in agreement but unsure what to do with that. Rozanov continued, “Maybe I do this less, hm? And maybe I kiss you more.” With that, he pressed a kiss to Shane’s temple.

They spent a few minutes in easy silence, just breathing together, but when Shane adjusted his leg the press of his hard-on to Rozanov’s abs made them both groan.

Blue eyes met his. “You still want?”

“G-d yes,” Shane answered in a hiss, hips rolling.

Rozanov insisted on peppering him with kisses as he prepped him, one finger, then two, then three, excessive with both lubricant and praise. Shane almost snapped at him that he wasn’t delicate, that he didn’t need to be careful, but the attention felt good, and after the harsh inquiries earlier in the evening, the gentleness felt like an apology.

“You will ride me so I can look at you,” he told Shane, bringing them back into their earlier pose and lining himself up. Shane moaned loudly at the impossibly deep sensation, and felt Rozanov’s smile against his neck at the sound.

Then, a warm whisper. “Tell me you love it.”

“I love it,” Shane obeyed with complete honesty, rolling his hips.

His rival hummed with pleasure, kissing the side of his face, his hands helping Shane raise and lower his hips. Then: “Tell me this is only for me.”

Part of Shane, a distant, sober, unfucked part, knew he should tell him to knock it off, but he was dizzy with wanton emotion and nodding enthusiastically before he could stop himself. “Yes, this is only for – oh! Only for you.”

Rozanov groaned loudly at that, rolling them over as his thrusts sped up. “So good for me, Hollander, yes?”

Shane was overwhelmed; Rozanov was over him, on top of him, inside him, and still barely close enough. “Just for you,” he panted up into his mouth.

Rozanov grinned down at him as he took his cock in hand. “Just for me.”

-

Later, after they’d showered and Ilya had used his mouth to worship Shane’s cock thoroughly, after Shane had toweled off and firmly told himself not to panic about the contents of their conversation, after Shane had dressed while asking himself if he was ashamed of what he had said during sex and came up blank, emotions wrung out of him, after he had begun to say goodbye to his rival, Rozanov pushed him against the door and kissed him.

The kiss was soft. Indulgent. Endless. Two strong hands held the sides of his face, even after their mouths had separated. “I do not want you to go.”

“… What?” Shane asked dumbly.

“I want you, and I do not want you to go.” Rozanov abruptly removed his hands, looking embarrassed at the repeated admission. “I know you must, but I do not want you to.” Upon close observation, Shane could see the moment his discomfort tipped into humor, his rival offering him a salacious grin. “I will miss this ass.” He punctuated the comment with a firm squeeze.

The action startled a small laugh out of Shane as he opened the door to leave. “I’ll miss you, too, Rozanov. Destroy Buffalo for me, okay?”

His lips twisted in a smirk, standing behind to watch him leave as Shane did his quick, cursory visual sweep of the hallway. “You know I always do.”

-

The next morning, Shane woke up and rolled over to find texts from Lily already on his phone.

I miss your ass.

I should have put my tongue in it again.

Oh well. Next time.

He laughed, quickly texting back.

Chapter 2: Ilya Rozanov's Girl

Chapter Summary

Shane had thought for certain that Rozanov’s vow to text him every day had been an exaggeration. Apparently not.

Chapter Notes

Of note, I took inspiration from another fic where Ilya wants Shane to tell him he has to come home after a game: all the things he did by blankjournals! Truly excellent fic, infinitely rereadable, highly recommend.

Additionally, both dreamed and dreamt are technically correct. Dreamt is more British colonies English, dreamed is more typically American.

That’s all. Enjoy!

Shane had thought for certain that Rozanov’s vow to text him every day had been an exaggeration. Apparently not.

If he’d had to guess, he would have supposed daily texts, if they occurred, would be bland and crude and redundant, almost a reminder of his own pathetic need for validation, but that was his own feelings of contempt speaking more than any real patterned expectation of Rozanov’s behavior. Whatever it was, it would be a manner in which Rozanov would hold a spot for himself, filling a need he apparently couldn’t fathom anyone else filling for him. As with all things sex, he should have known that Ilya would blow past any expectation.

Sometimes it would start romantic, and then take a sharp turn into horny:

I miss your freckles.
They are not in your stupid gym ad. Bad choice.
I want to kiss them and count them and come on them.

Or:

Guess who I dreamed about last night.

Dreamt. And who? The Tampa team you're playing tomorrow? Their center, Johnson?

Uh, no. You. I dream of you.
My morning boner is gone, Hollander. You killed him.

Sometimes they weren’t romantic at all:

Do your thighs have bruises from where I gripped them still?
I don’t care. Tell me they do. I want them to.

(He hadn’t gripped hard enough to bruise, truthfully, but Shane indulged him.)

They do. Small ones. 

Oh, fuck. Send pic. 

No.

😢

-

Most of the time Rozanov’s texts were in the morning. The hopeful part of Shane thought maybe it meant he was his rival’s first thought when he woke up, or that he wanted Shane to think of him all day (which he did), or that he made sure to do it early so that he wouldn’t forget. The less optimistic part of himself considered that maybe it was because he had other company in the evenings.

As though hearing those thoughts, a week into their new exchanges, he began to get texts throughout the day.

He hadn’t woken up to anything from late last night, or received anything that morning somewhat disappointingly, but it was a game day, so it was maybe for the best that his focus had been elsewhere. They had absolutely murdered Toronto, the game ending 5:1, and it wasn’t until he’d just left the ice that ‘Lily’ texted him.

Do me a favor.

Maybe. What?

Do your post game interview shirtless.

What? No! I'm not doing that.

Hollander, I need to see your sweaty nipples. I need.

He grinned at his phone, at this ridiculous message, stupidly thrilled that Rozanov had watched his game and was planning to watch his interview. Shane always watched when Boston played, but hockey was everything to him; he was ‘boring’. He always assumed Rozanov had something better to do.

With that in mind, he stripped his gear to the waist and took a picture, sending it off and ignoring the look J.J. gave him that said he clearly noticed.

Not for the interview. Just for you.

Yes. Fuck. Perfect.

No 'thank you'? Or ‘congrats on the game’?

No congrats for beating Toronto. They are shit team.
Thank you for the sweaty nipples. I am very grateful.

-

A few days later, he got a different kind of text:

You are my girl now.

What?

I tell Marly I am going to pick up less often for you.
He says this means you are my girl. Yes?

Okay, sure, I guess. 

Yes??

Rozanov seemed strangely insistent on this point, and the mere idea of it was flamingly embarrassing to Shane. The words ‘Ilya Rozanov’s girl’ would have previously dragged up a generic mental image met with bilious anger, a thought to be shoved firmly in a drawer a month ago. Now, it floated across his mind as though on a lazy river, and Shane was stunned by the cool wetness of it, the fluttering in his chest when he associated himself with it. He wasn’t sure he liked it, but he was sure he didn’t NOT like it.

Besides, he really wasn’t encouraging the ‘girl’ part, here, right? He was just glad that Rozanov was intending to pick up ‘less’, whatever that meant.

… Yes.

He should have known Rozanov wouldn’t let it go. It was like he could smell blood in the water, and texted later in the evening, at peak time for horniness and bad decisions.

Now that you are my girl, I will teach you so many things. All the girls' tricks.

Shane saw the message come through and instantly felt his heart thundering in his chest, fingers clenching around his phone. He had just slid into bed, and was aware of every place his body made contact with the cool sheets. He waited, holding his breath; if he texted back, that would be too encouraging, give too much away. If he said nothing, Rozanov might keep going.

You already suck perfectly. And ride. And beg.
Next time you will warm my cock with your mouth I think, until I go crazy and fuck your throat.

Shane choked at that image, body tensing, wanting it with immediacy. He reached down and gripped himself, taking a deep breath as the next buzzing text came in.

When I come, you will hold it on your tongue and show it to me before you swallow.

He had never once considered doing that. It sounded filthy, he thought, as he realized he was dizzyingly, achingly hard.

Of course, Rozanov wasn’t done.

Then I will spit in your mouth and you will swallow that as well.

That was … frankly disgusting. Who would want that? The shiver he felt and the wetness at the tip of his cock said there was some disconnect between that thought and the rest of him.

Shane closed his eyes and dropped his phone on the bedside table, giving himself fully to the task of getting himself off. He could imagine it, swallowing and swallowing and swallowing for Ilya, crawling back up his body for a generous, probing kiss. If Ilya grabbed him right now, he’d say “So wet, Hollander. Like a girl,” before stroking roughly, and Shane, all alone in his room, bit back a whimper at that thought. If he got off thinking about Ilya telling him how good he was, it was nobody’s business but his own.

Cleaning his hand off, he checked his phone again, which had buzzed one more time, only to find a final message from Rozanov sitting there:

Then I will kiss you and pet you and tell you what a good job you did. You will like.

G-d, it was like he could read his mind. Now that his lust had ebbed, it wasn’t present enough to eclipse the ballooning affection that last text caused, and he found himself smiling despite his better judgment.

He figured it would be rude to get off on a text and then leave it on read, and also rude to answer the litany of filth with ‘what the fuck’ or ‘that’s gross’ or anything his daytime mind would conjure. He considered trying to text how excited he was to see Rozanov next, but that sounded too silly? Unsexy? Too sentimental? And though it was no secret between them, putting into words that he was eager to suck his cock again felt too thoroughly embarrassing. Finally, he settled on:

I'll do my best.

The reply was immediate:

So earnest. Makes me want to fuck you harder.

-

Shane didn’t hear from Rozanov again until late the following night, a series of quick notifications interrupting his reading.

Help it is loud and there are many beuatiful women here
I am maybe drnuk
A brunette with beautiful breasts is smiling at me. I think she wnats to dance.

The disappointment was crushing. He could see the scene in his mind’s eye: shots, hands on hips, and his rival’s tongue in some girl’s mouth.

So much for being Ilya Rozanov’s fucking girl, he considered angrily.

Maybe he had liked it. He shook his head quickly to clear it, reminding himself that what they had was tenuous and temporary anyway. He saw him a dozen or so times a year, in secret. There was no basis for loyalty in that, even if that seem to be what Rozanov wanted from him. Rozanov had probably already been doing this anyway.

Even if faithfulness, at least on a physical level, was something Shane so easily and instinctually provided. That thought was unhelpful at the moment.

I don’t need a play-by-play of you hooking up tonight, Rozanov.

No, no, tell me to come hoome.

sjane tell me

tell me I need to come home right this instant.

Disappointment morphed into complete confusion.

What??

Come home? We’re not even in the same city.

Don’t care. It will help.

It was a strange request, but a simple one. Like with all things Rozanov, he gave in easily. 

Get the fuck home, Rozanov. Right now.

No, no, you would call me Ilyusha. Like angry wife.

He smiled, knowing Ilya was certainly very drunk right now. The likelihood Ilya would be equally embarrassed by this conversation in the morning gave him the bearings to continue.

Come home, Ilyusha, right now.

You shouldn’t be dancing with girls, I don’t care that you won.

Get home, and call a car because you’re wasted.

Yesssss

I will do this.

Thank you wifey 😘

Only after this did Shane consider that maybe Rozanov had been truly serious about fewer extracurricular activities.

-

From there, things continued as normal, with horny morning texts about his mouth and ass resuming the next day. Shane was only a little disappointed when the morning texts continued to call him Hollander.

-

Then, the following week, another change:

You have three days, yes?
Come to Boston.
Come here and I will fuck you.

You want me to fly to Boston on my days off so that we can hook up?

He considered adding ‘what if I have other plans?’ but then would be embarrassed to admit he didn’t. Truth be told, his major plan had been a closet and pantry reorganization.

Yes. Stay at my place. You can make me breakfast.

Fuck off, I’m not making you breakfast.

Aw, but I have breakfast ready for you!

… It’s your dick, isn’t it.

Yes.

You’re playing NY tomorrow, right?

Yes. I will be tomb raiding.  

?? 

Playing the Admirals. Ancient Scott Hunter. 🧟

Wow. Careful with that, he’s been on a tear lately.

Only home games. Away games he is still shit.
And I will have good luck charm waiting for me at home!

The idea that one of the players Rozanov most consistently lost to was his good luck charm was frankly hilarious, but Shane decided not to address that.

I’m not flying down to Boston, Rozanov.

Hollander, it’s been three weeks!! I’m dying. I’m dead.
This dick is yours. Come down here and take care of it.

Grinning at that felt foolish, but he did anyway, making him seriously consider flying down and equally seriously consider putting his head inside his oven. He felt so stupid, but it was like the words ‘Ilya Rozanov’s girl’ were engraved on his eyelids, or into his heart, and he thought: if I was his girlfriend, I’d do this. Then: is he my boyfriend because he’s asking?

This was followed by a sick feeling, wondering if he didn’t come, was Rozanov going to just turn around and fuck someone else? Probably. He probably should. Shane was blowing this game of theirs out of proportion; they weren’t committed to anything, really, all sex games aside. They still used each other’s last names, for fuck’s sake.

Three weeks without sex didn’t seem too bad to Shane, but he knew Ilya was used to a lot more action during the season than he was. As he was nothing if not a glutton for punishment, Shane replied:

If you need to find someone else and bring them home, I get it.

His stomach roiled at the thought, and he regretted the text as soon as he sent it, but resisted the urge to add anything else. He didn’t know what he expected. An ‘okay’? A ‘fine’? Something characteristically fuckboy and disgusting, like ‘I will, but I’ll be thinking of you’?

Fuck, Shane thought, I really need to get this crying thing under control.

Then:

No, my wifey hates that.
I am trying to be good.

He didn’t need an oven, Shane decided. He was going to die of emotional whiplash. He didn’t bother texting back; before the thought even crossed his mind, he had his laptop in hand and was looking up tickets to Boston. It was a midweek break, still early in the day, so he considered that he could probably make it to the airport by 11am with plenty of time for the 1pm take-off.

He had a first class ticket in his inbox and was placing his travel toothbrush and two pairs of socks in his duffel bag thirty minutes later when the next texts came through.

Send me pictures then. Good ones.

I want to see your tiger stripes, and think about biting them.

He grinned, certain now that he was making the right choice. Panic had set in a few minutes ago when he’d considered that they’d never spent a full night together, much less two, but he wanted it. G-d did he want it.

I’ll send you a picture later tonight.

A picture? One picture??

Yes.

You’re killing me, Hollander. I will die. 💀

-

At 3pm, Ilya’s phone buzzed with a text from Jane. It was a picture of a door. More specifically, a picture of the door to Ilya’s own place in Boston, 2886 Beacon.

Hollander, what is this?
Why are you showing me my home?

That’s your picture for the day. Open the door.

Chapter 3: Ilya's POV

Chapter Summary

No, Shane had said. Don’t hold back. That thing you hate about yourself? That you drag into a back alley and strangle but just won’t die? I need it, actually. Give it to me.

Gladly.

Chapter Notes

Ilya, despite deliberately remaining aloof, would be lying if he said he hadn’t been a little bit worried about Hollander all summer. Though responses to his texts had always been sparse and direct, they were notably reduced after Vegas. But he wasn’t supposed to worry, so he didn’t push. He had enough to carry back in Moscow.

Then on the ice, the worry re-emerged. Shane had been his excellent self all start of season, but was a beat slower against him; invisible to most, still faster than the rest, but concerning to Ilya, who under duress or the influence of substances would be forced to admit to an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Shane Hollander.

Irritating him (Ilya’s most beloved and effective strategy) hadn’t worked. Google told him it wasn’t his parents (Yuna and David seemed fine on camera a few weeks ago) though who knew what other happy, loving, extended family he had. His stats so far in the season indicated good physical health at minimum. Was he depressed? That shook Ilya the most, but Hollander would undoubtably freak out if Ilya did something like hug him and ask if he was okay.

Which made sense, because that would be stupid. Hollander had real friends for that, anyway. They weren’t friends. They weren’t anything.

Finally, coming to Ilya’s hotel room, he seemed miserable. What hurt like a gut punch was he seemed more so after stepping inside.

So: unresponsive to messages, slow on the ice, looked ready to cry moments after coming to his hotel room. He had no idea what to do with this sum of concerning findings.

Then he kissed him and it felt like he had breathed life into him.

Ilya loved kissing. He loved kissing girls with their chins up and breasts pressed to him. He loved using his mouth all over his partners’ chests and backs. Most of all, he loved kissing Hollander. It gave him feelings so warm and vibrant he didn’t know how to express them in English, like stepping into the sun. And that kiss seemed to wake him from his stupor, Hollander the vivacious, mouthy kitten who loved to fuck returning to him in one fell swoop.

I must kiss Shane, thoroughly and often and well, he considered, so that he has the energy to fight me.

A few minutes later, he added to that and so he doesn’t find and kiss anyone else.

The unbridled rage he felt seeing those messages was something he rarely experienced outside his family home in Moscow. Ilya hadn’t been sure he believed in jealousy or monogamy before (who cared about what happened before or after good sex?), but seeing the line around the block waiting for him to fumble Shane shook something in him.

So there was jealousy, yes, buckets of it, but also the fear of letting a young friend walk at night in a bad neighborhood; strangers could be so dangerous for Shane. He was such a sweet thing. He moaned too loudly and followed orders without question, gave forehead kisses after sex and needed his hand held when he was entered. They wouldn’t be nice to him out there. They’d turn him bitter and ruin him.

Ilya’s first sexual experience with Sasha had been a disaster. Sasha had been high, and ended the night laughing at him before begging him to go again. Shane deserved better than that.

“You didn’t kiss me.”

Hard to argue, when that had been a deliberate choice. Healthy distance, he’d told himself. Go back to Moscow with Shane out of your system. That night had been one of the hottest things to ever happen to him, but even he could admit it ended sour. It was at that moment, with dawning horror, that all his concerns coalesced, and he realized the dampening of everything Shane might have something to do with him. The theoretical stranger online, who would take advantage of Shane’s sweet, pliable kindness, his perfect submission, and ruin it with cruelty, had almost been him.

No. No no no. He would make a study of kissing Shane. A hobby. A lifestyle.

The absurdity of Shane feeling unwanted almost made him laugh. Want was the singular feeling he had about Shane that emerged with perfect clarity, uncomplicated and without tangles or nuance. When they fucked, it was the whistling valve release on the pressure cooker of want that sat within Ilya, boiling and liquifying his insides. He wanted him, kissed him, petted him so much he worried that their first time had been more making love than fucking, panicking that he would be called out and abandoned for it. Imagine his delight when the opposite turned out to be the case.

No, Shane had said. Don’t hold back. That thing you hate about yourself? That you drag into a back alley and strangle but just won’t die? I need it, actually. Give it to me.

Gladly.

-

Texting with Shane was like reading a redacted file, maybe one sentence legible per page; it was an exercise in jaw clenching frustration. He approached this as he did any other impossible task: he was Ilya fucking Rozanov. He made impossible goals, drove impossibly fast cars, fucked impossible men.

It was the opposite in person; he could read Shane like a book, watch how he opened subtly at every gesture. He'd draw a hand gently along Shane's flank and he'd turn, like a well-trained horse. He could tell you the meanings of his dozen different 'fuck off's and knew more than one of them meant 'keep going'.

However, now there were amendments written to the rules of Shane; where he previously thought he would lose Hollander if he knew how much he wanted him, now he was sure he'd lose him if he didn’t. He liked the pictures he’d stolen objectively, was happy to have them. They were hot. They didn’t get him off, though. They were impersonal, and knowing they weren't taken for him dampened the appeal. The thought that they could be saved on countless random men's phones was also off-putting. Regardless, they were evidence that Shane needed filthy messages, might respond with dirty pictures, and Ilya was happy to provide and consequently receive. It was freeing. The floodgates were open.

Of course he ended up texting him all day, pushing this newfound power as far as he could take it with the excuse to be as effusive as possible.

Messages, however, were the easy part. Quitting his hook ups was harder. Each city he played in, one girl or another popped into his phone with pictures or texts with dirty suggestion. In Boston, the number he rebuffed felt countless. How had this number gotten so out of control, he wondered. When did I become such a whore?

Sorry, I have a girl now.

Sorry, I have a girl now.

Sorry, I have a girl now.

To be fair, he knew how this had happened. Hooking up was a poor antidote for loneliness, but now the loneliness existed in stark relief.

‘Less’ had been shorthand for ‘no one but Svetlana’ when he said it. He felt he was nobody’s son and nobody’s brother, but in addition to teammate and captain, he was her friend, and couldn’t bear the thought that he would lose her.

The sex was amazing, sure, he’d never regretted it before, but mostly it felt like one of the only things he had to offer her. She was smart and beautiful and well-connected, had other Russian friends which he for the most part lacked. He wanted to speak his mother tongue with someone who wouldn’t respond with insults or demands. He wanted, on long and miserable nights, someone to hold, and adults didn’t do that unless they were fucking, in his experience. He wanted someone who knew him, as deep down to the bone as she did, and loved him regardless.

So when he next saw her, he told himself this was fine. They would watch a game, cuddle, fuck, sleep. It had been ten days since he’d spoken to anyone who wasn’t a teammate, customer service worker, or Shane, and he wanted someone to look at him.

“Aw, he’s fucking worse this season,” Svetlana complained in Russian, eyes not leaving the screen as she idly reached over to stroke Ilya’s hair. He could’ve purred at the contact. “Roberts is destroying this shitty team.”

“Mm,” Ilya hummed in agreement.

“Seattle deserves the win anyway. San Jose will destroy them next week.”

“Probably.”

The game rolled into commercials, and Sveta turned to face him. “Ilyusha, what’s wrong? You’re very quiet. Why are you not shitting on the west coast with me?”

“They are very bad,” he agreed, deflecting. “They shit on themselves without my help.”

Her beautiful laugh only gained him a moment’s reprieve, before she pinned him with an expectant look.

It spilled from his mouth as truth always did around her. “Jane might want to be … committed.” He sniffed. “Monogamous, at least.”

She hummed. “And you do not want this.”

He let the silence speak for itself, and was surprised to find her grinning.

“You do want this! Incredible.” She bounced a little in her seat, always delighted to find a target for teasing. “The beast has been tamed. Gelded.”

“No!” He objected with playfully dark intensity. “I am just trying something different, maybe.”

“Trying being whipped, maybe.” She giggled. “This is fantastic. I must meet her.”

“Mm, no. You will make Jane jealous.” He eyed her meaningfully. “Besides, I did not agree. I offered to pick up less.”

“Oh no, Ilyushenka, I will not be a homewrecker. I do not need a pity fuck.” She waved her hand dismissively, conclusion forgone, and he hated that the feeling that grew from that was relief. “No, we will spend the evening with you telling me everything about this Jane and how she has conquered you. I am so curious.”

“He.” He confessed.

“Pardon?”

“Jane is a man.”

Her mouth was a comical little ‘o’ of surprise, before she let herself slide back down against him, as though pressed by the weight of the admission. The pause lingered as they watched Shane run across the screen, camera zeroing in on his signature Reeboks.“Dangerous,” she finally said. “He must really be something.”

“He is,” Ilya agreed, without hesitation.

Sveta accepted this easily, pausing her interrogations for the moment to watch the third period start, before asking “Does he play?”

“Yes.”

“Do I-“

“No more questions,” he insisted, and she shrugged equivocally. Then, embarrassed enough already, he insisted “Stay the night anyway. Just to sleep.”

Her smile this time was smaller. Fonder. “Of course, Ilyusha. You will take me to breakfast.”

-

The night before Shane’s break he spent preparing. Optimism was how he scored against goalies who had second jobs as brick walls, and he felt fully convinced that if he invited Hollander he would come.

He had cleaned what little needed to be organized, given he had cleaners come every Thursday, and ordered food. Not his usual grocery delivery, but something much worse, with frozen fruit and kale and chicken and salmon and brown rice. Whatever remained after Shane left would certainly be awful (or more likely go to waste, losing to the siren song of takeout) but while he was here, Ilya would be ready. He even moved the box of Canada Dry from the back of his pantry into the fridge.

He did all of this, of course, before ever inviting him.

Being offered a pass to fuck someone else had been, to put it mildly, not the desired outcome. Shane didn’t even text back when he said he wouldn’t.

This was turning out to be a worse day than expected.

He paced. He laid down on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. He heard his father’s voice in his head calling him pathetic. He considered calling Svetlana, who would laugh at him but then come over and probably let him eat her pussy, which always improved his mood, but then cursed darkly when he realized he didn’t even want to do that.

He settled on a run to clear his head, and a request for more pictures. That seemed safe.

Dismally, he considered canceling the grocery delivery, but it was likely too late as it was scheduled for 2pm. He decided instead that he would make a smoothie and send Shane that picture tomorrow, pettily. “This could've been yours but you decide to stay in shitty Canada instead.” That thought carried him through putting the groceries away, glaring mistrustfully at the kale as he did so. No vegetable needed to be that bitter.

-

He was about 40 minutes into a stupid comedy Marleau had recommended when his phone buzzed. Open the door.

Joy rose within him like a submerged balloon, rocketing and almost exiting his body. He certainly didn’t run to the door; he was just athletic, so his walk was slightly faster than most. And he didn’t yank the door open, per se, but just opened it quickly, efficiently. Normally.

On the other side was his prize, Shane fucking Hollander. His hair was ruffled and skin dewy, an image made entirely of freckles and heartache. “Hi.” To Ilya’s delight, he sounded equally breathless as he stepped over the threshold.

“You came.”

“I did,” he said, kicking his shoes off and neatly toeing them into place, irrefutably Shane-like in all his qualities.

"Stop," Ilya said, stepping back as the door closed behind him, stunning his guest. His eyes were rivetted, mapping Shane face, the slope of his shoulders, the shift in his weight. "Don't move. I want to remember this."

As with all orders, Shane ducked his head and blushed while following it perfectly. Ilya took that moment to place the tips of his fingers on Shane's chest, warm through his t-shirt, and gently press him back into the door. Then, gripping his chin, he made Shane look at him, brushing his thumb over his cheek, almost as if he could smear his perfect freckles. "Pretty," he told him, and grinned as Shane fidgeted and turned a shade redder.

"Rozanov, just let me put my bag down."

"No," Ilya told him, sliding his bag off his shoulder and letting it thud to the entryway floor. "Not Rozanov here. You are in my home. You call me Ilya."

"Okay," Shane agreed, wetting his lips with a small smile. "Ilyusha."

Ilya threw his head back and groaned, the hand on Shane's side tensing in delight; it would have had less of an effect if Shane had reached into his ribcage and squeezed. "I teach you too many tricks, Hollander."

"Shane."

Oh. Right. "Shane."

Shane sucked in a surprised breath, before throwing his arms around Ilya in a kiss.

Ilya cupped a hand to the back of his head and held him there. For months into hooking up, he would've denied thinking too deeply about kissing Shane, about his bold moments that would ebb into shyness, the way everything was tentative and new and fresh with him each time, the way pressure applied just so would make him gasp into a kiss. At those moments, like now, Ilya could gain full advantage, turn it sloppy and wet, getting soft, stuttering little noises from him.

Fuck, everything about Shane made him want to eat him.

Kissing was supposed to be a prelude, a means to an end, but now, by Shane's own words, it had become a main course. He would not worry now about maybe kissing him too much. In the relative safety of his own mind, Ilya didn't need to pretend to be less than ecstatic about that.

Ilya allowed the slick slide of lips to end, grinning, before pressing in for one, two briefer kisses, protecting Shane's head from the door as he did and using his distraction in the moments between to pluck his bag off the floor.

"Hey! I can do that."

"You are in my home. I will take care of you," he argued, walking backwards to guide Shane into the main room.

The day, it seemed, was turning out much better than expected.

Chapter End Notes

Of note, Sveta made clear she thought Jane was a man in 2017. That’s three years more time to make that guess, three years she has not had in this chapter.

Chapter 4: You Have to Win

Chapter Summary

“I should blend your passport into one of your shitty smoothies so you will have to stay with me,” Ilya teased. “Be my prisoner. Customs agent will be like 'Shane Hollander'? Who is that? Oh yes, second best hockey player. I will need your paperwork please. No? You are American now.”

Shane couldn’t have told you if Ilya said anything when he opened the door; his own heart had been thudding in his ears too loudly.

Panic had risen in him again on the plane as he considered that this would be the first time seeing each other hadn’t been a matter of convenience. Sure, they would cross town for each other sometimes, but every time they met up it was because they had a game, or an award, or a commercial. He had no good reason to be in Boston other than seeing Rozanov, who could open the door, laugh at him, and tell him to leave.

Probably wouldn’t, but could.

Those worries evaporated when Ilya’s eyes landed on him on the doorstep, hungry and searching, followed by his hands, followed by his mouth.

Rozanov’s tour of his home was cursory at best. “Main room there, bathroom there, kitchen you will see later,” he listed, gesturing obliquely with one hand on Shane continuously, as eager as the Pike family’s new puppy and just as likely to paw at him. “Gym is downstairs. We will work out together in the morning.” Shane let the moment wash over him, tempted to ask about the history of his house, when he bought it, who built it.  "This is guest room.” He batted a hand at the door. "We won't need this."

"Oh, is this where your parents stay when they visit? Or brother?"

Shane would hardly say any noise Ilya made was ugly, but his laugh at that moment was. "No. My parents do not visit, Shane. At least, if my mother does, she does not use a bed."

"Oh. Okay." That made no sense.

Ilya elaborated, though the words sounded stilted, as the scraped from the bottom of a bowl. "My mother is dead. My brother is asshole. My father is ... Nedolyublivayet menya i bolen." (Not fond of me, and is sick.) He seemed to run out of English for a beat before adding. "None of us are who we want the other to be."

Shane stopped in his tracks. Shit. Not five minutes here and he’d already stepped in it. "I'm sorry."

"Is fine." Ilya squeezed his arm. "You did not know.” He seemed ready to push past the topic, despite running out of house to tour. Slightly subdued, he added: “Here is the bedroom, bathroom attached.”

“Oh, um, great.” Shane shifted his weight. “Mind if I freshen up? You know, planes and everything.”

Ilya leaned against his bedframe with a smile and raised eyebrows. “Cannot have Shane Hollander be anything less than fresh.”

He took that as permission and darted in the bathroom, closing the door.

As he washed his face, leaning over the sink, two thoughts circled each other in his head, a dog chasing its tail, or a snake eating it:

1) This was too much. He shouldn’t be here. He didn’t know Ilya’s life, his family, anything about him, really, except for his exceptional talents both on the ice and on the mattress. Or on a couch or against a wall, Shane really wasn’t picky.

2) No family? This brilliant, gorgeous, talented asshole has the whole city of Boston falling all over themselves for him, but no family who cared? No one to visit? Shane couldn’t imagine a life where he couldn’t pick up the phone and call his parents on good days or bad days or lonely ones. Ilya never seemed lonely, likely due to his prior parade of women, but he had to be. Someone should be here, loving him, all the time.

The first thought got weaker by the moment, with the second defeating it in a landslide victory.

He recalled by the tunnel after a game last year hearing Ilya tell each of his teammates he loved them. He had caught himself feeling fond over it at the same time as he crackled with jealousy; he wanted that so much, not just from Ilya, but the dynamic of a team that loved each other. Hayden had even seen his glance over and shook his head, commenting “Ridiculous, right?” The Montreal boys did not love each other. They mostly just loved to win.

It came down like a sledgehammer; of course Ilya loved his team. Where else would he put his love? Mehecouldlovemehecouldloveme

When he emerged, he found Ilya on the couch in his living room, watching what looked like the end of a movie with a man making a fool out of himself over a woman in a sundress. “Thought maybe you needed a minute.” Ilya admitted, looking too dismal to be someone enjoying this film. “Family stuff was, how you say? Overshare?”

“No, Ilyusha. No.” Shane found himself not moving to sit beside him as intended but on top of his lap instead, knees straddling as he hugged him, face in his neck. “I want to know more about you.” He didn’t know if he could say I was just feeling sad for you without the thought unintentionally acquiring the sickly taste of pity, and instead just held on tighter. In the languages he used to connect to Ilya, physical contact had never failed him.

“You say that well,” Ilya offered, pulling back to look at him. “Ilyusha.”

Shane could feel his face get hot as he admitted “I practiced.”

A smile bloomed across his face. “Mm. Perfect Canadian good boy, practicing Russian endearments, just for me.”

“Shut up. I just wanted to get it right.”

Ilya kissed him in lieu of response, and Shane sighed happily into it. Talking was hard, endless, full of traps, but nothing seemed to go wrong when he and Ilya did this instead. His shirt was the first to go, then Ilya’s, before his host stood from the couch carrying him (wow, okay, hot), opting to continue this in the bedroom instead.

-

Ilya woke before Shane, following their post-coital nap, and took the opportunity to make the most boring meal on the planet for their dinner: salmon with sweet potato and kale. Yuck.

Is this what they mean, when they say your partner changes you? Ilya wondered, pushing kale around the frying pan with all the enthusiasm of a high school janitor with a mop. You end up with bird food in your house? The changes couldn’t be all bad; when Carmichael got a serious girlfriend, he finally started washing his hair.

He was still lightly kicking himself for sharing about his family, though mostly he was pleased he had been able to turn it around; ‘pathetic’ and ‘sexy’ were opposing qualities, and he definitely wanted to be one and not the other while Shane was here.

Shane, still sleep-rumpled, wandered in from the hall. “Are you making dinner?”

“Yes. Your favorite: boring.”

Shane laughed, poking around the kitchen to find out for himself what was being made while Ilya considered that he wanted to bottle the sound, distill it to its essence, make candles of it to put in every room in his home. ‘Shane Hollander’s Laugh. Please keep out of reach of children.’

As expected, Shane was delighted that they were having salmon, bleh, and said thank you a Canadian number of times as Ilya plated and served them, before predictably returning to his favorite topic: hockey.

“So, New York tomorrow.”

Ilya was, for once, not excited for a game despite his self-certainty of the coming victory. “Yes. And practice in late morning, regrettably.”

“That’s fine, I brought my laptop. I can catch up with some brands and stuff.”

Ilya smiled. “Is Rolex emailing you? ‘Please, Mr. Hollander, wear another down payment on your wrist for us.’”

“Fuck off. Each of your cars is like a whole house.”

“Is different. I do not get them for free.” He leaned back and sighed theatrically. “If only I played better hockey, you know?”

“Now you get it,” Shane agreed cheekily. “Seriously, though, tomorrow is not going to be easy. They demolished Pittsburgh a week ago.”

“Yes, I know, I know, and you are very worried about your favorite hockey player losing. But I will not lose!” Puffing out his chest, Ilya added “Even if Hunter is at his best, I am better.”

“Sure, that’s true,” Shane admitted with an ease that both flattered and thrilled Ilya. “I guess I’m just nervous about playing them next week. One of our goalies- wait, never mind, I’m not telling you that.”

It was cute, watching Shane forget, for a moment, that he was at dinner with the enemy. “Mm, maybe instead you will tell me what I will get when I win.”

Shane took a sip of his ginger ale and Ilya watched him steel himself to say something suggestive. Such a good boy. “If you win, I’ll let you fuck me.”

Ilya shrugged, eyes never leaving Shane’s as he, too, took another drink. “You will let me fuck you either way, I think. You could not resist.”

Shane’s mouth opened to argue that, but his eyes gave the game away, tracking Ilya’s lips, then his throat, before snapping back up again, blush high on his cheeks. “If you win, you can fuck me without a condom.”

Ilya felt the train of conversation in his head leave the track, then roll over, then fall off a cliff, tips of his fingers numb as his brain fell offline into a puddle of white noise and need.

“I-“ he croaked, before clearing his throat to start again. “I will kill Scott Hunter.”

“What?”

“I will put out a hit tonight. He will die. Admirals will flail without their captain.”

“What the fuck?!”

“I must win, Shane,” he intoned with conviction usually reserved for the locker room. “I must.”

Shane turned impossibly redder. “You can try. You have to win honestly, though. No pre-game murder.”

“I will kill him at center ice then,” Ilya agreed with a tone of finality, deal made, setting down his utensils. He couldn’t eat a bite more of anything but Shane. “You will watch? Sit at home in my jersey?”

Shane shook his head, adamant. “I’m not wearing a Boston jersey, Ilya.”

“Maybe,” Ilya diplomatically allowed, getting up to clear their plates before continuing. “And yet today you said you were not flying to Boston.”  

Ilya saved him from needing to reply by retreating to do the dishes, steering Shane to the couch and shoving him down by his shoulders with a firm “Relax” when he tried to help. In truth, he needed the moment to gather himself. This was how lottery winners went crazy, he was convinced. Getting things you wanted all at once was overwhelming. Too much too good.

When he joined Shane, tucking him against his side, Shane gently, softly brushed the side of his hand against Ilya’s thigh with the tentative nature of someone not sure they were allowed. This was silly, given how easily Ilya manhandled him, and would not do.

Ilya grabbed Shane’s hand and placed it firmly on his own thigh. “Touch me.”

“Oh, I- um. Sorry.” Shane answered, absurdly.

“There is not a single place or time or way you could touch me, while we are in this house together, that I would not want, Shane. You must know this.”

“Oh,” Shane answered, but the tone was a happy one. When this evolved into sloppy couch handjobs before bed, Ilya wasn’t the least bit upset about it.

-

Shane woke up feeling soft and loose and a little bit sticky. The sheets were dark and he was warm, too warm; blinking and disoriented, he found that the enormous hot water bottle next to him in bed was actually Ilya. Shane realized, suddenly and with a soft ache, that he had never, prior to this, seen him sleeping.

And yet there he was: soft, golden curls splayed out haphazardly, his head turned and ridiculous cupid’s bow mouth half shoved into his pillow, long lashes resting on alabaster skin, all attached to a body of hard planes more suited to a demigod than a hockey player. Ilya when awake was all wit, speed, and tactile prowess, a personality so sharp you might cut yourself. Here, there was something incredibly compelling about his vulnerability. It might have been the first time Shane had seen the legendary athlete and the object of all his desires as just a man, heroic in all his imperfections.

I don’t want this with anyone else. The thought gripped him, startling in its clarity and intensity. Waking up here in Boston with this wonderful man and his fridge full of food Shane could eat made it harder to convince himself his prolonged dalliance with Ilya was just a stopgap before he found the appropriate woman.

He shoved that thought away with prejudice. He could examine that idea tomorrow. Or also never. Not when Ilya was here, looking so sumptuous in his repose.

Gently, carefully, Shane ran a hand down Ilya's chest, rending a breathy sigh from the subject of his careful study and displacing the sheet, displaying his one grand difference between him and beautiful men carved in marble: a thick, marvelous nine inches, almost the full length of a hockey stick blade, half hard and appearing as velvety and delicious as ever.

He shook his head, abhorred at how strong his own feelings of temptation were. Ilya was asleep, and he was a guest, and …

Next time you will warm my cock with your mouth I think, until I go crazy and fuck your throat.

There is not a single place or time or way you could touch me, while we are in this house together, that I would not want.

Shane felt his mouth water and breath quicken. Maybe. Maybe this was allowed?

He considered the scenario in reverse, blinking furiously at the onslaught of lust that garnered. Okay, so he himself would be okay with it. That settled it, probably. At least, it was argument enough that he could no longer deny himself.

With the slowness of a savannah cat in the grass, he repositioned himself, lowering his head with hands on either side of Ilya’s hips, until he was a whisper of a breath from his target. Curious, he breathed, hot and wet and deliberate on the tip, and was utterly delighted to see Ilya’s cock get harder.

Next, one soft lick to the head, slow and steady and gentle. Shane was sure if he approached this with his usual speed and gusto, Ilya would rocket awake, and now that he was doing this, he wanted to see how far he could take it. He held back his own groan at the salty taste, pressing his tongue to the roof of his mouth to savor it like a rare treat, before risking engulfing the head with gentle lips, feeling Ilya achieve full hardness and in doing so push further into his mouth.

Shane’s stomach clenched with the effort of holding back his own reactions. He placed a hand on Ilya’s hip and slid his mouth down slowly, silently, as he felt his own cock leaking against the bed. He hadn’t anticipated how torturously good this tantric speed would be, and simultaneously how difficult it was to restrain himself.

Ilya let out a thready moan, uninhibited and incomplete, still fast asleep but, Shane predicted, not for long.

After a few more languorous bobs of his head, eliciting similar moans paired with little twitches, Shane could no longer resist. He took Ilya to the hilt and swallowed.

Blue eyes flew open on a breath, and in a thick, Russian, sleep-laden voice he gasped “Shane.”

If not for how securely he held his prize, Shane would have smiled. As it was, he looked up at him, pulled off to the tip and swirled his tongue to caress the sensitive ridge on the head before diving down again.

The next five minutes yielded a number of thrilling discoveries, including that Ilya was just the slightest bit rougher with him when barely awake, uninhibited and grasping tightly in his desperation. Shane did nothing to discourage this, eyes watering and lungs protesting as he pursued his singular focus of Ilya’s pleasure, before pulling back just in time to catch most of Ilya’s release on his tongue.

With shamelessness previously unknown to himself, Shane opened his mouth carefully and stuck his tongue out to show Ilya his cum before swallowing.  

The blue of Ilya’s eyes bloomed black with hunger. “Fucking hell, Shane,” he rasped, pulling him in for a kiss, and reaching down to tug once, twice, three times before Shane was spilling over his abdomen.

Ilya held tight and tried to keep kissing him, but the stickiness and morning breath and embarrassment were all becoming too much for Shane. With one last quick peck to Ilya’s cheek, he smiled at him mischievously and said “Thank you for breakfast!” before wriggling away to flee to the bathroom.

-

When Ilya had finally stopped laying there and wondering when he had become G-d’s favorite, Shane was exiting the bathroom and quietly rustling through his bag in search of his gym clothes. The domesticity of the scene unspooled Ilya just as thoroughly as Shane’s mouth on his sleeping cock had.

It wasn’t unusual for Shane to get shy after sex, it seemed, so Ilya deliberately didn’t make a big deal of it, allowing him a head start to make his smoothie before trundling through his bathroom routine and to the kitchen to microwave a breakfast burrito, considering his options.

Categorically, he didn’t need a workout this morning. In under an hour, he would go to the stadium and chase idiots around in full gear, shouting and sweating and burning through the burrito he just demolished, so he rarely worked out on days with both games and practice.

But Shane was in the gym, so there was no other option at all, really. A little cardio wouldn’t hurt.

Ten minutes later found him using his gym mirror to his advantage to watch Shane run from both in front and behind, before achieving a loping pace on the stair climber beside him. He left it on the lowest setting, with no plan to match Shane’s impressive tempo, just using it as an excuse to watch as beads of sweat that pooled in the hollow of his collar bone and stuck his shirt tight to his chest. Dark eyes darted toward him and narrowed, catching him in the act, but Ilya kept watching, unconcerned with being found out.

Eventually, minutes into his admittedly excessive study of Shane’s technique, the man in question slammed the stop button and turned to him. “Are you actually going to work out or are you just here to stare at me?”

“To stare at you,” he answered honestly, stopping his own machine to step over to the now unmoving belt of the treadmill, boxing Shane between himself and the handles. “You look … Lickable.”

“I’m trying to exercise,” he argued, stern and frowning, the flicker of frustration only egging Ilya on.

“Mm, and what a good job you did, getting so sweaty,” Ilya praised, cupping Shane’s face before dragging a flat tongue up the opposite side of Shane’s neck.

“Ilya! That’s gross!” he whined, but the whine had no teeth.

“Now you must stretch,” Ilya reasoned, ignoring the protest and gently guiding him to the yoga mat in the corner of the room. “Lay down on your back.” As always, Shane went easily at even the suggestion of a command, the drape of his shorts at this new angle revealing that Shane’ cock had gained interest in the proceedings. Excellent. “Reach your hands up above your head. Yes. Let me help you.”

Ilya laid on top of him, gripping Shane’s wrists in one hand to fix them tightly to the floor while sloppily licking into his mouth. His other hand reached down to slide up Shane’s shirt, rubbing and pinching his nipple. When he surfaced for air, Shane’s mouth was wet and red, and Ilya could see his freckles closely and sharply enough to count. “This isn’t stretching,” Shane told him weakly.

Ilya shushed him, abandoning his hold on Shane’s hands to slide the exercise shirt off of him. Shane, evermore perfect in all things, kept his hands exactly as Ilya had placed them. “Good girl,” he told him, only briefly pausing to watch Shane’s face alight with embarrassment before leaning down to mouth at his sweaty pecs, then abs, then lower.

His charming victim squirmed as Ilya kissed the hair beginning to show and slid his shorts off of him. “No! Ilya! Let me shower first.”

“No. You are so wet for me.” Ilya let his mouth take a detour, skating his hip bones before licking stripes up the side of Shane’s ass. Tiny rivulets of sweat pooled in his stretchmarks, one of Ilya’s many fixations, and he groaned at the taste. “I love it.” He returned to Shane’s groin, licking the crease at the top of his thigh. “Don’t make me stop.”

“Okay,” Shane gave in, head to the side, overwhelmed. “Okay.”

“Let me help you stretch,” Ilya pushed, lifting Shane’s legs to go over his shoulders before using his hands to clear his way.

“Wait, wait, Ilya, I’m-” His protests devolved into a string of oh my G-d, oh my G-d as Ilya’s tongue lapped at his rim.

“So wet for me,” he praised, Shane’s whole body glistening. “Like pussy.” A jolt went through Shane’s body at the word; he felt it on his tongue as Shane’s body lightly jerked. Ilya kept going, licks going from surface to probing, hands tightening on Shane with bruising intensity.

He devoted himself wholly to the task, sucking on the ring of muscle in little staccato pulses before plunging his tongue inside again, encouraged by the litany of little curses Shane was continually moaning.

Finally, he spared a hand to sneak inside his pocket for the packet of lube he’d brought with him, smearing it on his fingers before sliding two easily inside. As though by homing device, the pads of his fingers easily found their target, both a source of pleasure and a volume dial for Shane. Pumping in and out of him, he considered taking Shane’s cock in his mouth, but decided against it, enjoying instead the angry redness, the wet pink head, and the way it would surely gloriously fire soon without any touch at all. He was satisfied to be proven correct mere minutes later, warm spurts hitting Shane’s chest which Ilya quickly removed with his tongue.

“Please,” Shane gasped the moment he recovered his breath. “Please fuck me. Please.”

“No,” Ilya declined regretfully and with great will power. “I am saving you for tonight.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, looking down at this disheveled, wanton person he craved so desperately. “You are my treat.”

Shane looked furious, but didn’t argue, instead hauling him down into a kiss, gripping the back of his neck before meeting his eyes wildly. “You better win tonight, Ilya. You have to fucking win.”

-

Ilya must have a go-bag ready, or even possibly have been running late with the speed at which he kissed Shane and departed for practice following their … moment in the gym. Shane had cleaned up and, with herculean effort, returned to his workout, even if his focus for the day was effectively shot. Being alone in Ilya’s home was its own strange experience, as he found himself reading descriptions on curly hair products in his post-workout shower and perusing cans and boxes of food with Cyrillic text in his kitchen cupboards. He stopped short of looking through Ilya’s clothes, worried that would stray into snooping and not wanting to do something embarrassing like take a shirt out and sniff it.

Ilya returned briefly between practice and the game to consume enough food to feed a small army and solicitously check in on Shane – was he comfortable? Did he have everything he needed? Here’s the office if you have a meeting – before kissing him for good luck and then thrice more for good measure, skedaddling like a beefy Russian roadrunner.

As the door closed again, the idle curiosity of is this what being married to another hockey player would be like? What being married to Ilya would be like?  traipsed across his mind with the flourish and disruption of an unwelcome guest. He decided, rather than ruminate on that, he would retreat to said office and actually parse through his emails.

Then, that evening, when Shane approached the couch to watch the Boston-NY game there it was: black and gold, perfectly folded, with a sticky note with a heart drawn on it on top.

He openly scoffed and moved the Boston jersey to the side, with a muttered “What the fuck, Ilya.”

-

Ilya was buzzing when he got to the game, even more so than during practice. He had run his team through tireless drills in preparation for the night, much to their frustration and groaning, none of which meant anything to him.

“Okay, who gave cap the energy drink?” Zadonsky joked.

Ilya barely heard him. He was busy telling their rookie that if he didn’t control his edges tonight he would kill him.

Cliff Marleau, ever an expert at choosing his moment, waited until the rookie had wandered away before saying quietly to him: “You know this game doesn’t matter that much, right? We’ve been doing fine …”

“Oh it fucking matters,” Ilya disagreed vehemently, staring him down.

“Jesus Christ, Roz, do you have a bet riding on this? One of your fancy cars?” Michaelson joked.

“Oh wait, I know what it is,” Marleau chimed in with sudden realization: his last-minute entrance to practice, his need to run home between, his two days of radio silence on the team group chat. “Is your Montreal girl in town?”

Roz grinned and slapped his chest. “See, Marly, this is why you have the A. You can fucking think. Sports betting? Fucking cars? What is this, Mikey. Shit. Means nothing to me.”

“That’s not how you were talking about your Porsche last month,” St-Simon argued. “Of course, maybe this girl is a better ride. Must have a pussy made of gol-”

“Shut your idiot mouth if you want to keep your teeth, Victor,” Ilya spat, before adding: “But yes, is gold.”

“You’re insane, Roz. Good for you. She must be goddamn Helen of Troy,” Marleau added, finishing the strap on his shoulder pads.

“Mm, no. More beautiful,” Roz argued, before addressing the room.

“Listen the fuck up! You have heard! Helen of fucking Troy is watching!" This gained scattered laughs, but they needed to know he wasn't joking. "Do not embarrass me tonight with shit playing. I need this win. I need it. Pretend this is fucking play-off game if you have to." Cliff openly gaped at that, but fuck him. "We have the best scorer in the league. Admiral defense is shit; we know this. Do we have the best goalies? The best rookies? The best line, every line? Fucking show me then!" The room was stirring then, eager, rising to match their captain's intensity. "We will go out there and fucking kill tonight; New York will not walk home, they will crawl. Do you hear our fans screaming? I can taste our victory, and I am fucking hungry for it. Now we go out there and drink Admiral blood!”

-

Shane watched with no small measure of admiration as, minutes into the game, Ilya was cutting through New York’s defense like a hot knife through butter, scoring one of two Boston goals in the first period, with Hunter not scoring at all until the second. In the third period, Ilya had lost none of his intensity, scoring following a beautiful fake-out maneuver and blowing a kiss to the camera before his teammates tackled him in congratulatory jostling.

Incredible. Ilya was going to win by a landslide.

With two minutes left in the game and after Ilya had scored a third time (his second hat trick of the season, the first unfortunately being against Montreal), Shane gave up pretense that he was watching hockey so much as sitting and staring in a state of horny anticipation.

Feeling equal parts foolish and thrilled, he grabbed the jersey and headed to the shower to begin his very thorough prep.

-

“Good job, I love you. Good job, I love you. Marly, I will name my firstborn after you.”

Marleau laughed, bringing him in for a hug. “It’s not a hat trick, Roz, but it’ll do.”

“Second point of game! Very impressive. Very good.” He gestured to their goalie. “Johannsen! Second born will be named after you!”

“Second?” He asked, indignant.

“Yes. You let Hunter score once; otherwise, would’ve been first. Do better.”

“Roz!” The assistant coach popped his head in the room. “Media in fifteen!”

“Agh, have Marly do it. I will be in my car in fifteen!”

“No, you will be captain of this team and talk to the press.”

“Fine, fine. Fuck. I hate you.”

“Of course you do. I’ll tell them you’re ready in ten.”

-

When Shane eventually would look up the post-game interview on his flight home, he would end up laughing over how much of it Roz spent defiantly pretending he barely understood English. That evening, media shenanigans were far from his mind. He spent the last few minutes before Ilya returned home in his bedroom, pacing, wanting, hating himself for wanting, and wishing for Ilya, whose touch had the blissful effect of wiping his mind clean.

And then Ilya arrived, silence breaking under the heavy noise of the door and loud bounding down the hall. Shane froze, feeling somehow caught out. Was he supposed to pose? To be on the bed? To act normal or casual or show off? The last time he’d celebrated a victory with Ilya he’d ended up cold and crying in an elevator, so maybe this was a mistake.

This was suddenly humiliating. He was revealing too much by waiting for him like this, but it was too late to do otherwise.

And then Rozanov looked at him, and immediately it was worth it. The stupid lovesick waiting was nothing compared to the electric feeling of Ilya’s presence, desire rolling off him in sticky waves.

The image of Ilya standing there, proud, victorious, panting like an animal in the bedroom doorway, would be burned into Shane’s brain for time immemorial. Ilya’s crooked, easy, infuriating smile made something smolder deep within him, at the boundary of anger and lust. His eyes roved over Shane, as proprietary as a touch, taking in his freshly showered appearance and his attire, which consisted of a loose-fitting Boston jersey and nothing else.

Ilya licked his teeth, fingers caressing the hem where it grazed Shane’s thigh, eyes feasting before returning to Shane’s, full of heat and promise. “I won.”

Shane nodded, placing his hands tentatively on Ilya’s chest, looking down between them. “You were … amazing.” It grated to say, but it was true.

“I was, yes,” he agreed easily.

“So humble, too,” Shane snarked.

“I do not know this word. What is humble?”

Shane laughed, not fooled. “You’re so full of shit.”

Ilya grinned. “With such a prize at home, how could I be humble?” Ilya gripped and turned Shane’s face. “You are a vision. So perfect for me. My team knows I scored hat trick for my lovely Jane.”

Shane swallowed, pushing down the onslaught of feelings that brought up. “A bit flashy and unnecessary, but sure.”

“I think you liked it.”

Shane shrugged, his grip on the ruse of nonchalance slipping as Ilya pulled Shane’s hips flush with his own. “I didn’t hate it.”

“Oh, didn’t hate it, hm? I will ask you again in few minutes. You will say different things then.” Ilya crashed their mouths together in a searing kiss, done wasting time with conversation, and Shane felt his mind spill and empty.

-

He wore it. He fucking wore it. The roar of blood in his ears was deafening.

Seeing Shane there, nervously tugging at the hem of his jersey, in his bedroom, ready to take his cock, Ilya felt as though this could possibly be the only thing he’d ever want again. Sell his car collection. Burn his fancy clothes. He had a soft spot for beautiful things, but he had never had or held anything more beautiful than Shane Hollander.

One hand moved from his prize’s face to the side of his neck, the other pushing fabric up to grab Shane’s bare hip instead. He groaned at the discovery that, under the jersey, just as Ilya suspected, Shane wasn't wearing anything at all.

Walking Shane back toward the bed, he flung him down the moment he felt them reach it, and sure enough Shane’s gaze grew hungrier at the touch of rough handling. Ilya shed his own clothes at record speed, climbing over him and kissing him like the world was ending.

It might’ve been. Ilya wouldn’t have cared. There was only one thing that could stop him at this point.

Ilya slowly drew back with sweet kisses. “You still want? Raw?”

“What?” Shane asked hazily, before he shook his head and frowned. “Yes. Obviously.”

Ilya grinned and moved down Shane’s body, spreading and elevating his legs with careful palms which spasmed into bruising force at what he found; Shane’s inner thighs were glistening with lube, his perfect rosebud soft and wet-looking. A punched-out noise of pleasure left Ilya’s throat as he ran the pads of two fingers softly over it. “You are ready for me.”

“Yes, yes, I- oh fuck,” Ilya rudely interrupted him, two fingers diving past his rim and stretching, delighted to hear his voice jump an octave at the intrusion.

“So good for me, dorogoy. So open.” A third finger slipped in easily, gaining him squirming moans as he caressed his prostate. “So ready to take my cock.” Removing his hand, he kissed Shane again, more softly, more sweetly, grabbing his hand and threading their fingers before lining himself up and slowly sinking in.

The heat was all-consuming, tight and wet around the head. Oh fuck. Ilya wasn’t dumb; he’d had many, many sexual partners in his life, but had never fucked anyone raw before. Now he was uncertain how he would ever go back. The feeling was magnified and intense, leaving him so overwhelmed he felt almost virginal. His hips wanted to stutter and jerk but he held perfect stillness with full intention to allow Shane to adjust.

Hollander apparently had other plans, locking his ankles behind Ilya’s back and pulling them together in a move so sweet and effective that Ilya’s eyes rolled back. Placing his head against Shane’s collarbone, he felt as much as heard Shane’s responding groan at the satisfying depth. “Fuck, Shane.”

He began his careful movements, steady and slow; Shane’s responding moans sounded like encouragement. Brushing a hand over Shane’s cock, he found it leaking profusely; Ilya began to fuck into him faster and harder, noting that the wetness increased with each drag and thrust. “I think you will come hands-free for me, all over the inside of this jersey,” he murmured into Shane’s ear, and like a self-fulfilling prophecy, Shane whined, high and long, and came.

Ilya stilled graciously, allowing him a moment to catch his breath, but not a long moment.  

“I will make you come three times,” he told him with a swift kiss, cheekiness belying the effort he was exerting to not spill immediately in Shane’s glorious heat and clenching aftershock, pulling out and coaxing him onto all fours. “One for each goal.”

“Oh fuck," Shane exhaled shakily. "I’ll die.”

“Maybe,” Ilya agreed, re-entering him and finding his rhythm again quickly.  He missed his freckles, but he wanted to appreciate this view fully. “You look good with my name on your back, Hollander.”

“Shut up,” Shane answered weakly.

“Mm, no,” he declined, reaching to tug on Shane’s spent cock and earning a wounded noise for his troubles. Talking would help keep him from finishing before he’d worked Shane over thoroughly from both sides. “Did you like my trick shot? Did it for you. Kiss was for you also.”

“Yeah,” Shane panted, body rocking forward as their hips collided before he used his considerable smooth lean muscle to push himself back onto Ilya’s cock every time. It was riveting to experience, the slick slide of sweaty muscles under his hands and the solid contact with his own hips as every inch of him disappeared inside Shane. “Yeah, I liked it. Fuck. It was so clean.”

Ilya gritted his teeth against the feeling building up inside of him. Not yet. “Big surprise: MLH golden boy gets off to good hockey trick,” Ilya joked, but the delivery suffered due to his breathless exertion.

“No, just you,” Shane admitted almost urgently, and Ilya could tell from the tightness of his brow and the slackness of his mouth that he was already close to coming again. “I just like you.”

It would be embarrassing, for something like that to be what pulled him over the edge. It did anyway, his thrusts becoming erratic and sloppy as he made a mess of Shane, inside and out.

He frantically tightened his fist, leading to Shane joining him in ecstasy a beat later.

Still red in the face and delirious with pleasure, Ilya only allowed himself a momentary collapse before rolling Shane over to inspect his work, hand between his legs smearing the evidence of Ilya’s own leaking release back toward Shane’s hole and pushing it in with the unsteady force of his thumb, relishing Shane's hiccup-y overwhelmed gasps. With a delighted hum, he sunk his fingers back inside him, aiming straight for his prostate. “Ideal'no. Ty idealen. (Perfect, you are perfect.) One more.”

Shane sobbed at the stimulation, chest heaving, tears springing to his eyes. “I can’t, Ilya, I-”

“You can. I will show you,” he insisted, fingers relentless in their pursuit. “You will do this for me, yes?”

“Yes, okay, yes,” Shane agreed, folding easily.

Ilya watched him squirm for long moments, stretching him and touching him and enjoying Shane’s endless frustration. “Tell me you want.”

“I want.” He gasped, head thrown to the side. “I want to be good for you.”

“Mm, yes, so good,” Ilya agreed, kissing his thigh, before having mercy on him and sucking the head of Shane’s cock into his mouth. Shane came for a final time with a scream, the pleasure ricocheting within Ilya at the sound as he swallowed.

“So good for me,” Ilya repeated, taking the split second before Shane would start worrying about the sheets and sweat and fluids to grab him and pull him to his chest with a fond little shake. “My best prize. My favorite hat trick.”

Shane hummed happily and nuzzled in, and then, as regular as clockwork: “Oh my G-d, Ilya, we’re so gross. I need a shower.”

Ilya reluctantly released his hold with a small laugh. This might have been the best night of his whole fucking life.

-

Shane leaned back against the cold tile and let the water sluice over him, eyes closed and unable to stop smiling. Ilya bare inside him had been a revelation; in the infinite lists and charts and excel spreadsheets of his mind, feeling the hot, wet reality of Ilya finishing inside him had long been on the list of ‘impossible, but nice to fantasize about’ alongside freakier ideas about being tied up or held down and banal dreams about waking up together and being on the same hockey team.

The reality had been somehow more, both incredibly hot and obtrusively romantic, his anxiety pushing against the squishy walls of his post-orgasmic bliss in reminder that none of these feelings were grounded in anything real. Fuck that, he considered, mind replaying Ilya’s appraising look from the doorway, Ilya’s quiet whine when he’d bottomed out, the way Ilya gasped and trembled, forehead pressed to Shane’s spine as he came. The way he’d kissed him right there and then kept going …

Shane shook himself, flipping the water briefly to cold. He couldn’t step back into that bedroom with a hard-on and give Ilya anymore ideas. It was time to be wrapped in his arms and fall asleep. Those muscled arms and broad shoulders, and strong hands … fuck.

-

The next morning did not begin as pleasurably as the prior.

In his preternatural ability to detect anything Shane, on the ice or off of it, Ilya woke to quiet gasping, stuttering breaths and cracked open one eye to see if, maybe, Shane was touching himself.

He was not. He was standing, hands braced behind himself on the bedside table, in just his boxers, having a panic attack.

Ilya sat up immediately, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, hand reaching out to grip his side. “Shane. Shane, what happened?”

Shane didn’t look up at him, eyes glued to the floor. “I think I’m gay.”

… Was he joking? He didn’t look like he was joking. “Yes, okay,” Ilya agreed, tamping down on a million unhelpful responses.

“Like, completely.”

“Mm.” He would not laugh; Shane clearly had big feelings about this. “What … what started this?”

“I woke up and I was thinking I couldn’t even imagine this with a girl. I mean, I never could before either, but I just thought I didn’t like people, you know? But I like you so much.” Ilya’s heart clenched at that. “I think … I think I just woke up happy. And then, that made me …” He waved his hands around his head, wordless.

“Terrified, yes?” Ilya offered.

Shane laughed humorlessly. “Yeah. That.” Then, self-deprecating and sarcastic: “How could you tell?”

“You often make me feel this way,” he admitted, looking instead at the fingers he was drawing up and down Shane’s side rather than his face. He hoped he disguised how much admitting this cost him.

“Wait, really?”

“Yes. I think I feel too much around you sometimes. Is not good.” You scare me more than anyone alive. You could kill me and not even know it. “But tell no one. Boston captains cannot be afraid of tiny, slow Canadians.”

“Tiny? We’re the same height, Ilya,” he huffed with a frown.

Ilya grinned, satisfied his ploy had worked in diverting the conversation as Shane’s breathing steadied. “So you admit you are slow, then.”

“Fuck off.” Shane shoved him lightly. “I’m faster than you.”

Ilya shrugged generously, rolling to his feet and stretching before offering “Breakfast? Green sludge for you, eggs and toast for me?”

“Sure, yeah.” Shane agreed, taking another deep breath. Crisis averted, Ilya now allowed himself to enjoy the heaving rise and fall of his beautifully sculpted chest, the tension held in his hard quads and perfect thighs. “Sounds good.”

The egg sizzling, the blender growling, all the comfortable sounds of them moving around the kitchen in sync, wordless, made Ilya’s heart ache with the knowledge that it was ending today. “When is your flight?”

“It boards a little before noon,” he admitted, sitting across from Ilya to drink his dainty beverage as Ilya tore into his four eggs like an animal. “I need to pack.”

Ilya, upon Shane’s arrival, had added two of his own black shirts to Shane’s bag, one for working out, one cotton. He wondered if Shane would notice before he got back home. Probably. The bigger question was if Shane would say or do anything about it.

Thirty minutes later found Ilya laying on his bed, pretending to be engrossed in his phone and just conveniently in the same room Shane was packing in, trying to resist distracting him and failing after the third time or so that he reeled him in for a kiss and received only token resistance.

The domesticity was scaring him and making him bold. That indomitable optimism was getting larger, a rootbound plant outgrowing its pot.

“I should blend your passport into one of your shitty smoothies so you will have to stay with me,” Ilya teased, getting up to peek in Shane’s bag. Yep, there were his shirts, rolled Shane-style next to the rest of his clothing. “Be my prisoner. Customs agent will be like 'Shane Hollander'? Who is that? Oh yes, second best hockey player. I will need your paperwork please. No? You are American now.”

Laughing lightly, Shane finished zipping his bag and hit the button to request his airport Uber. “That's not how any of this works, Ilya.”

Ilya folded his arms and leaned heavily on the wall between Shane and the door. "True. If you were my prisoner, I would not let you leave. My boyfriend, however," he pursed his lips in pseudo-thoughtfulness, head moving side to side to indicate two options, "that would change things."

Shane's eyes widened, mouth opening just slightly, and Ilya could see the frantic hamster between his ears gain speed on its wheel.

Ilya grinned salaciously and doubled down. "Girlfriend, if you prefer."

"Shut up," Shane rejoined weakly, but he could tell it was not a no. Then, more earnestly. "Boyfriend?"

"I think so, yes." Maybe going directly from a morning sexuality crisis to this talk was a bit intense, but Ilya didn’t want to wait. There was fear with the label; a defined relationship could be definitively ended. However, at this point, there was more fear of what (or who) might happen without one.

"I don't know. I ..."

Hm, wrong answer. It felt like a blocked shot on goal, but as in any game, Ilya would come back and find another angle. "If I had a boyfriend, I might visit him on my break in January. January is the best time to visit Montreal, no?"

Shane snorted a quick laugh at that. "Objectively, it's like the worst time to be there. It'll be freezing-"

"That's settled then," Ilya interrupted, letting his eyes track up and down Shane. "When I visit, we will just have to stay indoors the whole time."

As expected, Shane reddened at the implication, and then rubbed his neck nervously, looking down. "What- What would change if we were boyfriends? We still can't, like, tell anyone or anything."

"True. But maybe ... we would know. We would know it was just us." Ilya sniffed and looked away, surprised at how hard this was, at how much this felt like begging. "And we would do this. Visit each other."

"Oh. Okay. Just us. Yes."

"And maybe I would admit that I like you, a little bit," Ilya needled. "As person, even."

"A boring person, sure," Shane shrugged.

"My boring person."

The hamster tripped. "Your ...?" he choked out, then coughed. G-d, what a fucking nerd, Ilya thought fondly. "Your boyfriend, yes. I mean ... Okay. Let's be boyfriends."

"Great idea, Shane."

"Fuck off!" He laughed.

 
"Sadly, no,” Ilya told him in mock apology. “This is my house, and you have flight, so you must 'fuck off' this time."

The reminder brought Shane back to reality, checking the time. "Oh shit, you're right. I've got to-"

"Kiss your boyfriend goodbye?" He was just pushing his luck, now, but he couldn't stop, flush on his victory, grabbing Shane and pulling their mouths together and earning a satisfying squeak for his troubles. “Ah, there. Now you can go.”

“Um, yes. I’m going to go.”

What an ugly, terrible idea, that Shane was going to go. Ilya stuffed that thought down, certain it was much too early to be needy. He wanted to drive him, to at least carry his bags to the car, but of course, he couldn’t. Instead, he slid a hand over his cheek, thumb pausing before carding it through his hair. “Don’t win too much, Shane. I’m enjoying my lead in the scoring race.”

“No promises,” Shane replied breathlessly, looking at him lingeringly one more time.

That’s my boyfriend, Ilya thought, the word soothing the ache of the door closing behind him.

Chapter 5: Make It Last Forever

Chapter Summary

J.J. burst into the locker room, fatigue unable to hamper his usual garrulous nature. “Rozanov is in love with you now, Capitaine?”

The water he’d been drinking came out through his nose, painfully. “What?”

“His post-game interview tonight. Twitter is going crazy about it.” He didn’t get a chance to respond to that, nose dripping, before J. J. barreled on. “Guess you only have to be the best player in the fucking league for four fucking years for Rozanov to show you some damn respect.”

Chapter Notes

The chapter title is a lyric from Spice Girls Wannabe: If you wanna be my lover/ You gotta get with my friends/ Make it last forever/Friendship never ends.

“My boyfriend, however …”

“If I had a boyfriend …”

“Kiss your boyfriend goodbye?”

Boyfriend

Boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend

Shane’s mind felt full of cotton candy as he headed home to Montreal. Ilya had been so nice. An asshole still, sure, cocky and presumptuous, but thoughtful and romantic and real. Shane felt like he had received the trial period of Boyfriend Ilya and then been asked if he wanted the full membership, and he really fucking did.

Maybe Ilya knew there was a tipping point between euphoria and hysteria, and felt he could single-handedly keep him from it with the power of distraction, as there had been yet another change in their texting; it was no longer primarily sexual.

In the day he returned to Montreal alone, Ilya had complained about the quality of coffee near his home (his favorite place had closed), informed him that the chicken breast they hadn’t eaten together would be breaded and fried as Shane was not around to talk about macros, and sent a picture of an outdoor cat in his neighborhood  who had prevented him from taking out his trash by falling asleep on top of his dumpster.

Shane replied to each in turn with a picture of his home espresso machine, a recipe for air-fried chicken with panko breading, and a picture of a pair of socks with cats on them that he had been gifted after a team event at an animal shelter.

It might have been annoying or too much if it hadn’t been so grounding and sweet. This was real. They were people who did this. Regardless of topic, they could talk.

It made Shane want more.

-

I want to tell my parents.

Ilya did not trip, in line to board the flight with his team, but it was a near thing. Shane had left a day ago, and though Ilya had continued to barrage him with nonsense, the only texts Shane had initiated since returning had been ‘home safe’ and ‘good morning.’ Three rapid buzzes followed:

Shit nevermind

No, not nevermind, just

Call me?

“I will catch up,” he told his team, waving them off as he turned into an empty terminal hallway.

His call only rang once before Shane answered. “Ilya. Hi."

“Hello. You are okay?”

Shane sounded a little breathless. “Yeah, just, I don’t know. A little freaked out. The thing is, they don’t know I’m gay. My parents. I wasn’t sure for a long time, and anyway, I was waiting to tell them until I had something, you know, serious to share. And now that you’re my boyfriend …” He trailed off helplessly.

Ilya leaned the back of his head against the wall and wished he’d gone outside to have a cigarette before this, instead of being stuck inside this ugly airport feeling the seat-gripping nausea of watching a NASCAR wipeout. He knew he was not good enough for Shane, but Shane didn’t seem to know that, so he had gotten away with this so far, spending it like he stole it. He would have no such luck now. Even if Shane was naively unaware that he could do better, Yuna Hollander wouldn’t be, and she, unlike her son, didn’t have the blistering sexual attraction to him that allowed Shane to overlook his many, many faults.

Succinctly, he was fucked. This was over and it had barely begun.

He said none of this. Instead, he said “Okay.”

He heard Shane release a breath, relieved maybe, but still nervous. “You’re allowed to have an opinion on this, Ilya. I mean, I’m going to come out to them, but if you want me not to tell them you’re the boyfriend in question, I won’t.”

Ilya frowned. “In question? What question?”

“I can mention a boyfriend without naming you, I mean.”

“No. You will do no such thing.” The whole idea of that was irritating. Cowardly, maybe, and also like he was being erased. “I am the boyfriend.”

Shane laughed shakily, and Ilya wondered if that had come out a little too adamant. Oh well. “Oh good. I … I want to tell them it’s you. I see them tomorrow so I’ll, um, let you know how it goes?”

“Da. And Shane?”

“Yes?”

He closed his eyes as though that could shield him from his own embarrassment. “Tell them ... you are very important to me. Tell them I want this to work.”

“Oh Ilyusha ...” Shane replied softly, heartbreakingly sweet. “Me too.”

Oh no. This was getting out of hand. “I must go. Flight to Columbus,” Ilya said curtly.  

“Okay. Good luck.”

He didn’t want to hang up, but he also found he had no desire to talk anymore. If he could have, he would’ve asked Shane to give the most detailed, boring description of everything that had occurred since he left Ilya’s house in Boston, just to let the sound of Shane’s voice clear his head. As it stood, he could not do that right now, so he just replied with a rote “Thank you,” and ended the call.

When he returned, his team was already on the plane, and his alternate could sense the turn in his mood immediately. As his friend, and designated handler of his moods it seemed, Marleau asked “What was that about?”

Chagrined, Ilya plunked down next to him and replied. “Jane is telling her parents about us. I worry it will not end well.”

“Oh, tough break man,” he offered sympathetically, but Ilya could watch the severity of the concern shrink in Cliff’s mind significantly. “But how mad can they be? You're successful and you're crazy about her. It'll go better than you think. Chin up.”

Ilya clenched his fists and breathed a few deep breaths, fortunately now ignored by his seatmate in favor of a movie on his tablet. He had the acute urge to tell Cliff everything; after all, he'd attended his sister's wedding last year and had only good things to say about her new wife. He wasn’t one of the bad ones. It's Shane, he wanted to say. I fucked my way into a court date with Yuna Hollander, and I am so, so guilty. And Cliff would say Oh. Oh man, I'm so sorry. I'll speak well of you. And then at least someone would fucking understand.

Most players' managers (and moms for that matter) were appropriately unknown within the industry, but there were only so many times a guy's face could pop up between game periods selling watches and shoes and sodas and underwear before everyone else took notice. However well Hollander played, he was equally good at securing brand deals, and unabashed at sharing who was behind that success. Shane’s ‘momager’ was the source of many, many jokes during their rookie year, from what Ilya could tell at the time, up until the very moment she wasn't.

Outside of the locker room, all he really knew was that Shane's relationship with her involved a fierce and enviable loyalty, and that her knowledge of hockey was in league with Svetlana's, none of which served to soften the impression.

They won the game in Columbus 1-0, Ilya making a solitary, listless goal with none of the panache he’d had against New York. As it stood, he was feeling haunted and distracted by what he should've considered to be true for years: Yuna was (or would be) watching.

This thought followed him to his post-game interview, which he opted to take with his shirt on today. How did he feel the game went? Fine. Was he nervous about Pittsburgh in two days? Not really, no. Was he disappointed it was a single point game? He of course would’ve preferred to score more, but since the single point was his own, and his team had won, he wouldn’t say disappointed, no. And then, as always:

“Thoughts on your continued lead in the scoring race with Hollander? You’re currently seven ahead.”

“Montreal just had three-day break, no?” He wondered if Yuna was on a couch somewhere, having a glass of wine. Did she drink wine? He didn’t know. Montreal had been playing, so she probably wouldn’t even see this live if at all, just some clip on some highlight reel somewhere.

The reporter paused, seemingly confused at the banality of the reply. “True, but they’ve only had one fewer game total than Boston so far this season.”

“Hm, okay,” He agreed easily.

“Do you think you’ll maintain this early lead through December?” She asked, hungry for her soundbite.  

His eyes flicked to the Boston media manager standing in the far corner with a clipboard, having his own conversation; Ilya’s usual brand of asshole-ry had been deemed acceptable and gone without intervention for years, so he wasn’t being babysat.

Great. He could speak freely then. “Rivalry bullshit is just that: bullshit. I have nothing but respect for Hollander. The comparison can be fun, is flattering, so blah blah blah, yes, I intend to keep winning. I will fight him for every point. But I like the guy.” He shrugged with affected nonchalance, while members of the press looked on, gob smacked. They now had the media managers attention, who was waving from the back of the room and gesturing to cut the mic. “Off ice, we are good. We have always been good. You should know this.”

A firm hand landed on his back. “Okay! We’re done with questions today. Thank you for coming! Very proud to tie up another victory for Boston!”

-

Shane was delighted to be back on the ice; his days away had been so nice they’d been confusing, his emotions riding high and unsettled, and hockey was simple. The smell of it, the feel of his gear, the chatter of his team all soothed him, and he was loving the normalcy. He even loved nights like tonight, grueling, where a regular game at 2-2 oozed into overtime, until Montreal finally bagged the victory via shootout.

J.J. burst into the locker room, fatigue unable to hamper his usual garrulous nature, and broke that feeling promptly. “Rozanov is in love with you now, Capitaine?”

The water he’d been drinking came out through his nose, painfully. “What?”

“His post-game interview tonight. Twitter is going crazy about it.” He didn’t get a chance to respond to that, nose dripping, before J. J. barreled on. “Guess you only have to be the best player in the fucking league for four fucking years for Rozanov to show you some damn respect.”

“I …” Shane started haplessly. “What did Rozanov say?”

Moments later, Mitty was thrusting a phone in front of his face with the video. “He's gushing about you, man.”

The tinny phone microphone projected the curl of Ilya’s accent in the Montreal locker room: “I have nothing but respect for Hollander. The comparison can be fun, is flattering … I like the guy. Off ice, we are good. We have always been good.”

Shane’s head was spinning.

“'Flattering comparison'; damn right!” J.J. crowed.

Hayden, who had also watched over his shoulder, was now narrowing his eyes at Shane. “Wait, so are you ‘good off the ice’? Are you friends or something?”

“I mean, I guess,” Shane offered, completely wrongfooted. “We’ve chatted at the All Stars and such.”

“So you don’t hate him,” Hayden verified slowly.

“Not really?” He began checking gear that didn’t really need checking to keep his hands busy. “He’s not wrong; the rivalry has always been kind of overhyped.”

“You are too nice, Captain,” J.J. argued. “He is probably playing mind games and will be back to shit talk next week.”

“Maybe,” Shane said with manufactured calm, deciding to engross himself in unlacing his skate.

“Yeah, I dunno,” Hayden agreed. “It seems like a mind game or something to me.”

“Well, good thing we don’t play Boston for a while then,” he offered, frustrated that he’d had no warning from Ilya about this, and pissed off that his teammates couldn’t be gracious at all, but mostly just ready for the conversation to end.

He showered perfunctorily, laughing along with comments about Ilya being his ‘new bestie’ mostly to get out of talking about it, and took a breath in the sanctified silence of his car before checking his phone.

From his mom:

Good game, sweetie! I knew you’d end it at the shootout. I have a few notes for your goalie, if interested, but we can chat about that over dinner tomorrow. We’re having chicken curry with brown rice. Also, did you see Rozanov’s interview? Unbelievable.

From Ilya:

Sexy shootout goal. Very nice. Still six behind though.

Of course. Of course Ilya thought they could just talk about goals and not whatever the fuck that interview was.

What the fuck, Ilya?!

Yes dear?

Your interview??

Is all true.

I am tired.

I do not want to pretend to hate you.

The fist in his chest that had felt like anger at first, but maybe had more in common with anxiety, slackened and softened within him, Ilya’s words tapping into a well of deep understanding that he hadn’t realized they shared. He had resented their pretend hatred for ages, that resentment tangling with thrill and arousal and a little bit of spite between them for so long that it had just been wallpaper he’d learned to live in, ugly and confining but known.

For once, he was not alone in this push and pull. In the not-too-distant past, he had thought, regardless of the sex, that Ilya did hate him.

I get that, but you can’t just change media strategies about us without telling me.

Was not strategy thing. But I am sorry.

No, fuck, don’t be. I liked it. It just surprised me.

I was also thinking.

I want to tell Svetlana.

She is a dear friend of mine. I would like her to meet you as my boyfriend.

No, Shane wanted to say. His immediate impulse was to say we’re telling family, not friends, but that felt pointed and mean, given Ilya’s dearth of family. He also wanted to ask if there is or had been something more between them than friendship, but that seemed ungenerous, and maybe he didn’t want to know. He reconsidered.  

And you trust her?

She is Russian.

What does that mean?

She knows to tell this risks my life. So yes, I trust her.

Something inside Shane flipped, going ugly and cold. Fuck. He’d been thinking media strategies and maintaining sponsors and not pissing off the league, and Ilya had been holding a Russian passport for years and still deciding to risk maiming and death to get Shane under him. It felt powerful and heady in a sick way, but more than that it felt terrible beyond belief, like walking into dark woods in your nightmares.

Oh shit. I'm so sorry. We don't have to tell anyone.

I doubt Yuna and David are close with Russian police, Shane.

Shane reread the text, trying to parse if Ilya was making light of this to make Shane feel better, or if he was actually clinically insane. The only thought that fell out from that with any clarity was: he knows my parents’ names?  None of that seemed like something to dive into at the moment.

Okay, fine. You can tell her.

Just don’t say anything else to the media about me without filling me in, okay?

Preferably beforehand.

When he got home and turned on the TV, it was there again: Ilya, in full living color, saying he likes Shane and respects him while talking heads dissect it.

“Has Rozanov ever talked about a member of an opposing team that way?”

“No, Bob, I don’t believe so. Very professional of him! Maybe he’s turning over a new leaf? Not very Boston, though.”

“If it's Rozanov, it's Boston. The two are synonymous.”

“Well, it appears Hollander is your favorite hockey player's favorite hockey player! You heard it here first!”

Shane shut it off with a sigh, missing the moment his fingertips brushed ‘normal’ at the game today. He felt so tired he could fall right into bed.

-

Sveta, come over.

I must tell you something.

Is your father okay?

Yes. It is not that.

I must tell you something wonderful.

-

The next evening found Shane’s right cheek resting on the cool wooden surface of his parents' dining table as he stared down the undrunk glass of vodka in his hand.

Dad had thought it would be funny, and ten minutes ago it kind of had been.

"So, just to get things str-, well, to make sure I understand," his mom began again, the hundredth time maybe, with her perfectly artificial calm.

"I think we get the picture, honey. Give him a minute," his dad said warmly, and Shane's gratitude, though unexpressed, was crushing.

As expected, Shane had been the one to have the most feelings when sharing he was gay, and their sweet, sad, unwavering support had carried him through that fragile moment safely. It had been Rozanov's name that had felt like a bomb going off.

Did he pressure you? Does he ask you to throw games? If he's with you, why does he have such a reputation as a ladies' man? Really, him?

"I just don't think he's worth all this, sweetheart. Someone who clearly doesn't share your values isn't worth risking your career over."

"You don't know what he values," Shane argued, sitting up, but it sounded petulant even to his own ears. He tried again. "He's Russian, Mom; he's risking everything for this. Way more than me. You know what he said when I told him I was telling you about us?"

"What?"

"He said to tell you that I'm important to him, and that he really wants this to work."

Her mouth twisted, unsatisfied, and he again wondered if he'd made the wrong choice in telling his parents everything at once. Maybe he should have eased them into it.

"So this is why he was acting so strange in that interview yesterday."

Shane sighed. "Yes."

"And you like him. You really like him. Not just ..."

"Oh my G-d, yes, Mom. I really like him. More than just ... physically."

"Okay. Okay." She downed the last of the vodka in her glass and stood. "That settles it, then. When do we get to meet him?"

The staticky buzz of panic returned to him. How had he not realized that would be the next obvious question? His forehead returned to the table with a long groan. "Fuck."

-

They want to meet you.

Ilya, laying on his stomach on his bed, half engrossed in a cooking show, grabbed his phone.

It is done? You told them? Should I call?

I don’t really feel up for a call. Sorry.

Ilya blew out the breath he’d been holding.

That bad?

Kind of. They’re okay with the gay thing at least.

Ilya snorted a laugh. What a kind, circular, Shane way to say ‘My parents fucking hate you.’ He thought of the giggling mess he and Svetlana had become yesterday as they drank and waxed poetic about Shane’s hands, his freckles, his stick handling, and considered that, at certain moments, having involved parents was maybe overrated.

January? He offered, though he felt sick at the idea of waiting.

I don’t want to wait that long.

What about American Thanksgiving? Do you do anything for that?

 I spend with Sveta, usually. She will understand.

Bring her. That way we all can meet.

A lump in this throat formed at that extraordinary kindness; inviting him to bring a guest read as an assurance that this will happen, that this will work, that this will go well. That Ilya will have someone indisputably in his corner, as Shane is tightened and stretched like a rope between two distant poles.

My mom also doesn’t think we should change media tactics right now.

Bad for your brand, no?

Ilya … , Shane replied, which wasn’t a no. Then added: I don’t care. I want to do it anyway.

-

Two days later, Montreal lost to North Carolina, of all places. Shane was too busy fielding half a dozen questions that boiled down to ‘how could you let this happen, you incompetent fucks?’ to steady himself for what he should’ve known would come next.

“What did you think about what Roz said this week about your rivalry?”

After talking about failure for ten minutes, it was a welcome reprieve. “It's true; the rivalry is fun for the fans and pushes us both to be better, and I can't deny he gets under my skin sometimes, but yeah, there's no bad blood.”

“Some online sources have implied that Rozanov’s statement means you two are personal friends. Any comment on that?”

Hollander blinked in startled confusion, a moment that what would lead to the creation of a briefly popular gif. “Um, yes, I guess you could say that. Yeah, we’re friends.” Horrifyingly, the room got much louder, hands going up, personnel shouting.

J.J. stepped in, turning the mic. “What Hollander means is that while he would gut Roz on the ice if it meant Montreal winning, there is some professional respect there.”

The media seemed to take that as an answer in that they had to; management stepped in and the interview ended.

-

Thanksgiving arrived with more dread than fanfare; Ilya had spent the lead up leaning entirely on Sveta’s cheeriness, which probably resulted from her having absolutely no skin in this game, just a happy, supportive spectator. They drove north together in his orange Ferrari California with good Russian vodka with a bow on it in the back and a homemade Russian honeycake, Medovik, perched on her lap in the passenger seat, which he had been sure had been too try-hard of him, but he had made anyway.

He found himself treading a strange line of attempting respectability but still being irrefutably himself. He would be on time, but in this ‘fucking car’ (thank you, Shane.) He would be wearing a blazer, but have a Boston hockey shirt under it. He would arrive with cake and flowers but the cake would be Russian. He was Shane’s boyfriend but also he was Ilya fucking Rozanov, and he would not let these truths exist in space with any separation.

And since Montreal was on the way, he’d arrive bringing Shane, too.

“Wow,” Shane said with a tinge of disapproval when, four and a half hours since leaving Boston, Ilya pulled up behind his remote apartment building. “Subtle.”

He didn’t get the chance for anymore color commentary as Ilya grinned at him, smacked a kiss on his cheek, took his bag, and opened Sveta’s door.

“Jane!” She cried out, like she was reuniting with an old friend, setting the cake down on her seat to leap out and throw her arms around Shane in an embrace which he, stunned and a moment late, reciprocated.

“Um, hi? It’s really good to meet you.”

“Isn’t it?” She grabbed his face. “Oh my goodness, Ilya! He’s even more gorgeous in person!”

“He is,” Ilya agreed. “Stop scaring him. Shane, this is Sveta. Sveta, Shane Hollander.”

“You make Canadian hockey worth watching,” Sveta stated, “And make my Ilyusha very happy. We will be very good friends, I think.”

Eyes wide, he nodded at her. “Yeah, okay. I would like that.”

Ilya used one hand to smother a grin so wide it was goofy. In Shane’s words, he didn’t tend to like people, and Sveta, being a gorgeous woman who kept company with Ilya, had sufficient characteristics in that alone to be someone Shane really wouldn’t like. This had shone clearly through in the brief conversations they had had planning this trip, where Shane had forced himself to ask about how she was in a tone one might use to remind someone to pick up the dry cleaning. This was something he understood about Shane, that he had planned to deal with her, the same way he dealt with a noisy room or a biting wind: unpleasant but inevitable.

All expectations aside, Ilya had bet on Sveta anyway. There wasn’t a nut she couldn’t crack, and Shane frankly wasn’t ready for her.

“Perfect! Come sit in the back with me and I will teach you things to say in Russian. Ilya can brood and drive.”

Ilya wanted to resent that characterization, but returning to the driver’s seat brought him back to exactly what he had been brooding about earlier; in two hours, he would be meeting The Hollanders.

Chapter 6: I Discover Myself on the Verge of a Usual Mistake

Chapter Summary

“It has been Jane, Jane, Jane for months. Jane this, Jane that. He never shared much, mind you. Little tidbits. ‘Jane has perfect freckles.’ ‘Jane does yoga pose like this,’ he said once, and then fell over!” She laughed. “‘Jane folds shirts perfectly, like there is a test.’ He would ration it, almost, like he didn’t want to say too much. Like a squirrel, burying nuts for winter.”

Chapter Notes

The chapter title is from Walt Whitman's epic poem, Song of Myself, which is also where the phrase 'I contain multitudes' comes from.

Also Dallas Kent is catching all the strays this chapter and I have no regrets.

I made Medovik and it was difficult but awesome. Highly recommend if you have the time.

Two days after coming out to his parents, when Shane called to plan Ilya’s visit, it felt like his mom’s distaste for his boyfriend had calcified.

“Of course, Ilya Rozanov needs an entourage.”

Shane pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, mustering calm. He had dreamt about Ilya meeting his parents, and six months ago, Ilya had been the rub in that. He had clearly underestimated the other variables. “She’s his good friend, Mom, basically family. And I told him to bring her.”

“And what about his actual family? They won’t mind him being gone over the holiday? Do they already know about you?”

“No. I just mean, no. No, they don’t. I don’t think they know much about him, actually. They don’t seem to … like each other very much, from what he’s said.” His mom hummed indecipherably at that, and Shane hated that he had to wonder if that meant Ilya’s shitty family was going down as another tally against him. “His mom is dead, so maybe don’t ask him about her.”

“Oh.” And there it was, the first softening. “Oh no, that’s awful. I’m sorry, honey. That must be hard for him.”

“Yeah, I think it is,” Shane replied, suddenly ashamed he hadn’t asked Ilya more about her.

“Sorry honey, one moment … your father is asking: what does he eat?”

Shane snorted, considering how un-picky, Ilya was. “He'll eat anything. Just how ever much you think I’d eat, make double for him.”

“That much more than you?” She sounded surprised.

What he didn’t say was that, from what he knew of Ilya's workouts (when not barely working with the plan to seduce Shane) the man trained like he was punishing himself, calling himself lazy all the while. Though Shane balanced his routine with yoga, core work, mind work, flexibility, Ilya lifted like Atlas, and ran like one speed lower would result in being dragged down by the hounds of Hell. He simplified this, just saying "Yeah, he trains really hard during the season."

"Well, so do you."

“This isn’t a competition, Mom. Anyway, I think he trains a little too hard, honestly.”

He heard her careful breathing, the moment both of them took before saying something the other might not want to hear. “I hear you, honey, but just because you don’t see it as a competition doesn’t mean he doesn’t.”

Shane felt cold and hot all at once. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You are his biggest rival, and that’s not an accident. You said he initiated all this. It just begs some questions.” Shane’s breath quickened, horrified at the funhouse mirror through which his mom was viewing his relationship. If they had been face to face, she would’ve paused, touched him maybe, or sat them down. Over the phone, she kept going. “To be honest, I’m surprised he accepted our invitation. I was sure that would scare him off.”

“You really think he’s just some asshole,” he said faintly. “You think he’s exactly who you see on the ice and I’m, what? Just being taken advantage of and risking my whole fucking career for someone who doesn’t give a shit about me?” He didn’t incriminate himself by admitting that maybe he had thought that, too, this summer.

“Honey, I’m not trying to say anything bad about you. Sometimes you can’t tell people’s intentions at all. You know that.”

Fuck. That was fucking true but that didn’t mean it applied right now. “My break. When I didn’t visit you guys. I went down to see him in Boston.”

“Oh? And how was that?”

Amazing. Overwhelming. Life-altering. “He had all my performance diet stuff in his fridge, Mom. The man eats like garbage, and everyone in the league makes fun of my ‘stupid bird food,’ but he baked salmon and ate it with me.”

“That was nice of him,” she offered mildly.

He sighed, butting up against a brick wall, realizing they had both dug their heels in and had nowhere to go. “He made me feel really welcome, is all. I want him to feel welcome with us.”

“We’ll try, sweetie. Though welcoming a Boston Raider is a tall order.”

At least he could be relieved they’d returned to hockey rivalries rather than personal attacks. “Just give him the benefit of the doubt, that’s all. He’s … a lot more than he seems. He’s not what you think at all. Well, maybe a little. But not in any of the ways that count.”

-

Ilya had changed his mind on the second leg of their road trip; introducing Shane and Sveta had been a terrible idea.

She had started with Russian pleasantries and small talk, adding the Cyrillic keyboard to his phone, encouraging him to make the foreign sounds move forward in his mouth with gentle coaching and praise so effective that Ilya could see him blushing in his rearview.

And as if the little stuttered syllables alone hadn’t been enough to undo him completely, Sveta moved on to pet names. Solnyshko, kotyonok, lyubimiy. (Sunshine, kitten, beloved.) The last one made Ilya swerve the car violently. “Do not teach him that one,” he had said, and when she switched to dorogoy, he pulled over. “Lesson is over, Hollander. You sit up here with me now.”

What Shane didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Ilya had spent more than one of their early nights together calling him moy dorogoy repeatedly, to the extent that, as he dressed to leave, Shane had looked away uncertainly and asked what it meant.

Ilya had paused, cigarette forgotten in his hand, mentally scrambling for an explanation. Shane had taken that silence as a kind of answer, flushing bright pink and guessing “Are you calling me a slut or something?”

All Ilya did was grin in response to that, earning a harsh “fuck you” and a door slam, but when Hollander came back next he still ended up moaning low and deep every time Ilya said it, so much so that ‘slut’ in English became a regular part of their dirty talk.

All this to say, Shane didn’t need to know that for the last four years Ilya had been calling him his darling.

Shane of today, mildly bemused but still decadently obedient, moved to the passenger seat as Ilya stared down Sveta’s smug smile. The Canadian good boy cut short their silent exchange, saying “Uh, thank you for the lesson, Svetlana.”

“Sveta,” She corrected, smiling at him, hand running up his arm with a squeeze Ilya thought was frankly unnecessary. “And any time, dorogoy.”

“What does th-”

“Tell me about your parents,” Ilya interrupted, returning to the road and keen to capitalize on the last hour before his execution. “We are about to meet them, and I know nothing.”

“What do you want to know?”

‘Nothing’ was not quite true. Ilya would never be called the brains of the hockey world, but he took the concept of being armed with knowledge seriously, researching his opponents to learn both about their play style as well as any gossip floating around about them. This strategy had led him to being known for chirps like asking Johnson in Tampa “Is this why your wife left you or is your other stick handling equally bad?” two months after his messy public divorce.

Or telling Reed in Pittsburgh “If you keep playing like shit they won’t renew your contract. Would be a problem with your gambling habit, no?” (Gloves had dropped over this later, which Ilya was very proud of.)

Or famously, the time he had tapped on the penalty box with Kent inside and asked, “Do you think this is how Dylan feels?” a week after his brother had been arrested for assault and battery.

Basically, knowing about people was a specialty of his. Now he needed to learn for the sake of charming them, which sounded much harder, but in his internal pep talk he convinced himself it was basically the other side of the same coin.

He knew Yuna was Japanese and a first-generation immigrant like himself, probably shrewd, used to being underestimated, and not raised with the fawning politeness of Shane’s home country. She had interviews he had watched talking about her love for hockey and the Metros, Shane’s childhood and how early and clear his gift was, how dedicated they both had been in getting him to where he was meant to be, but she always knew to guide the light directly back onto her son, resulting in him learning very little about her in the process.

Shane’s father David was easier; it turned out he had a whole page online about him on the website for the Treasury Board of Canada. He liked fishing and played hockey in university.

Ilya knew these things, which basically added up to fuck all. There was no equation to plug this knowledge into which would spit out how to make them like him. These things were also basically exactly what Shane told him, all of it useless.

Ilya sighed after Shane finished explaining to him why he should care about ‘McGill’. “You are pretty, but you are not helpful.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say! They’re my parents; they’re great.” He shrugged. “My mom is a little protective, intense. My dad is super chill.”

“‘Super chill’?”

“Shut up. I just mean you two will probably get along.” Shane fidgeted. “I’ve never actually brought anyone home before, so I don’t really know how it’ll go. They know not to ask a ton of questions about your family, though, so don’t worry about that.”

Whatever Ilya had been about to say disappeared, washed away by a wave of simultaneous shame and gratitude. Ilya, feeling Sveta’s hand on his shoulder, reached up and squeezed.

“Well, I have done this before, and it will be easy,” Sveta said with warm confidence that neither of the other occupants of the car felt. “You will all talk about how wonderful Shane is, and that will be enough.”

A lighter, easier discussion of hockey followed, leading to Svetlana’s predictions that Shane would win the cup this year, despite being shouted down as a traitor by their driver.

-

Minutes to reaching their destination, Shane was spiraling. He had thought a great deal over the last week about whether or not his parents could like Ilya Rozanov, the irreverent center from Boston, and whether they could see through that veneer.

Now his worries turned in reverse. He didn’t truly think, as he might’ve that summer, that Ilya would strut into his life, look around, and say ‘Yes, exactly as I thought, Shane Hollander’s boring family,’ finding the expectedness of it contemptable. He was more concerned about how Ilya would be treated. Would they use big New Yorker words and shut him out with inside jokes? Would dinner be an interrogation? Mostly, he worried Ilya would look for kindness under a polite welcome and not find any.

A text popped up from Sveta.

Don’t throw up in this car. Ilyusha will kill you.

He made eye-contact with her in the mirror as he choked back a laugh.

Don’t worry, I won’t.

What does that word mean? Sounds like door-a-goy?

When you can ask me in Russian, I’ll tell you.

Google might be easier, though ;)

Google was easier. Darling, dear, expensive. Wow.

Impulsively, he grabbed Ilya’s hand where it rested in his lap. Ilya turned to fully look at Shane at the stoplight, worried maybe but also with a face akin to someone simply enjoying looking. His eyes suddenly paused in their appraisal, eyebrows raising in surprise, eyes darkening, before his hand moved to Shane’s chest.

“This is my shirt.” He rubbed the material between two fingers. “You are wearing my shirt.”

It was true; under his classic brown jacket, he was wearing a plain black shirt a size too big for him. “You did give it to me.”

The car behind them honked its displeasure, and Ilya turned back to drive. “Oh, so you wear it now, yes?”

“I mean, I kind of wear it a lot lately, but yeah.” Sveta snorted, scrolling her phone in the back and pretending to not be listening. “It’s nice.”

“Of course it’s nice. Not your usual athletic shit. Good quality. Good fabric,” Ilya agreed.

“Hey, I like my clothes!” He didn’t think much of them, not really. He just didn’t know where Ilya was going with this, and felt the instinct to argue with him.

“Yes, but you like my shirt today. You think, ‘hm, I will see my boyfriend first time in weeks, and we will meet my parents. This is good time to drive him mad with lust,’ no?”

“Oh my G-d, Ilya, it’s just a shirt!”

“And what happened last time you wore my clothes, Shane?”

Shane’s jaw snapped shut and he looked out the window pointedly, unwilling to give Ilya the satisfaction, allowing the energy to simmer down before replying. “I just thought it would be comforting today, you know?”

“Mm,” Ilya hummed with a smile. “Maybe you can comfort my dick later,” he offered.

“Ilya!” Sveta gasped, probably given the timing, as of course, at that moment, they were turning into the Hollander’s driveway.

-

The house was clean. David was in the kitchen, finishing up the last of the simple maple-soy stir-fry and roasted squash. In some ways, Yuna wished there was more to do, but David had made her a cup of green tea and pushed her toward the living room. This was likely where she would’ve ended up anyway, though, perched on the sofa, staring out the front window, waiting.

There was a discomfort to the acknowledgement that there were large parts of Shane’s life she didn’t know. She knew his stats, his games, his preferences in foods and routines. She knew the course of the few friendships he had and the short list of people who merited enough attention to be actively disliked, which included more Metros than was preferable and, she had thought, Rozanov. She could’ve listed his injuries by date, or severity, or top down on his person if asked, so it felt tangible, like a lump in her mattress or a sunburn in the shower, when she considered Rozanov; a part of Shane had gone unaccounted for.

This thought was interrupted as she watched a garish and startlingly orange car pull into their driveway. Rozanov was early.

It was strange to see him standing there, gold curls styled back and not damp with sweat, looking every bit the 23-year-old and not a larger-than-life hockey captain. He, Shane, and a gorgeous woman their age poured out of the car laughing, chatting, and she wished acutely she could hear what they were saying.

More than that, a dozen memories overcame her, of hockey camps mostly, but some after school pick-ups and birthday parties, where she would see gaggles of his peers talking and joking together, and how much of the time Shane would be standing apart. At times, it was like he didn’t see them, which might have been deliberate. Sometimes he would notice and watch, appearing to be the soul of passive observation, but she knew beneath that was a deep well of intense loneliness. How could there not be? He was smaller, faster, stranger. Quieter. Gentler. Worst of all, better, while having one foot on either side of a racial divide. When Hayden befriended him, she had hummed and sang quietly around the house for a month, secretly as happy about that as she had been on his draft day.

And now, with these two peculiar Russians he was smiling, gently pushing, among not apart, and maybe finding a balm to his loneliness.

The moment shifted. Shane turned toward the door and she watched as he took one of his deep, centering breaths, the kind she saw when the Metros were down going into third period and he braced himself heading into the face-off. That hurt a little, but before she could dwell on that, he was interrupted. Hands came from behind him, running up and down his arms. Rozanov pulled him to his chest, murmured something to him, kissed his cheek, and incrementally, the tension slipped.

It was an exchange she and David might have had a thousand times, and there it was, in her driveway, mirrored back. This isn’t new, she knew suddenly, viscerally. This is the work of years.

-

Shane allowed himself to feel a little relief when the niceties went well, bouquet in water, cake in the kitchen. Ilya had introduced himself, insisted on his first name, thanked his parents for the invitation, praised the food immediately by smell alone, every inch innocuously charming.

Dinner, however, was stilted, consisting mostly of hockey talk between his mother and Sveta, Ilya watching and interjecting with harmless observations. Shane worried briefly that he had poisoned Ilya with a bout of his own non-verbal anxiety, but when he looked at him, he saw the captain, analytic and calm. He considered how, when facing a new center, one might find themself sacrificing the first period to learn how they play just to come back roaring in the second.

Of course, the conversation turned. “He is very different, off ice. Price is quiet, reserved even,” Ilya offered.

“Oh? Are a lot of your teammates different in real life?” His mother asked with false calm. Shane’s hand spasmed on Ilya’s leg. He hoped this somehow conveyed that this was a trap.

Ilya did not back down, making direct eye contact with her and simply answering “Yes.”

“And why is that, exactly?”

Ilya did not respond like a man antagonized, taking a pause before answering. “I think celebrity and the game makes us small, no? Shane the Hockey Robot-” Shane flinched “-does not exist, but is easy marketing.”

“Robot?” She asked. Shane thought it was unkind for her to pretend she hadn’t heard the same. “I think he’s known as a nice boy. A gentleman.”

“That, too,” Ilya agreed. Rather than allow her to work her way around to it, Shane felt Ilya tense before he added “I am not known as a nice boy.”

-

“No, you’re not.” Ilya conceded the point with a head tilt, but Yuna’s agreement with him didn’t hurt any less for the expectation of it. “Do you realize he’s had meetings with general management over affiliating himself with you?”

“Mom …” Shane said quietly, and it was Ilya’s turn to grab his hand and squeeze.  ‘Affiliating’ Ilya guessed by context, easily able to catch her implication by tone alone.

No, he hadn’t realized, and Shane hadn’t said. The most Ilya had gotten for the pivot in their post-game interviews was a stern talking to from LeClaire, the throughline of which was ‘if you start to seem less scary on the ice, because of your skill, guys are going to come out of the woodwork and try to kill you.’ He knew his general demeanor was some kind of nebulous asset to Boston, but he’d never had it laid out so plainly.

His coach had been right; there had been a notable uptick in random D-men trying to start shit with him in the games following his denial of a Hollander rivalry. When two games later he’d pulled no fewer than three penalties out of Dallas Kent, never punching first but always punching hardest, his coach had soaked up the power plays and grinned at him like all was right with the world, and he’d gotten no grief about it since.

“I did not.” He looked down at his almost empty plate, ashamed. “I am sorry. I do not want that for him.”

Yuna sighed, wind out of her sails when Ilya didn’t lean in and fight back. “Me neither.”

Ilya chose his next words carefully. “Boston can be … rougher. I know I am part of that, but it was true many years before I was drafted.”

“Hockey has always been a rough sport,” David added, diffusing some tension. “From what I’ve heard about that Kent boy, you could’ve punched him a few more times.”

“Yes,” Ilya agreed with a smile he hoped wasn’t too smug. “He is, unfortunately, exactly as you have heard.”

They lapsed into a brief silence, the scraping of forks on plates amplified as he wondered what to say next.

You didn’t tell mothers that you were targeting all the hunger and intensity that won you the Stanley cup into pursuing their son. You didn’t tell them of the singularity of their son’s beauty and quiet appeal, or that you had searched for it in a hundred other beds and not found it. You didn’t grab them and say ‘let’s both acknowledge he could find a nice normal young man and then let it go, because lucky for me he’s decided he doesn’t want to.’ You didn’t say ‘my favorite moments with Shane don’t involve him being a gentleman at all,’ because they would assume it was about sex and not the riveting thrill of being chastised by him.

He instead settled on “It is very impressive that Shane can accomplish so much for his team while fighting so little.”

This must have been a reasonable choice. Yuna smiled. “That, we can agree on.”

In the magnetic whiteboard of his mind, each little piece shuffling, he had realized quickly that the only play against Yuna Hollander was honesty. No bullshit charm would do. The question now was what truths to share.

-

Dinner was finished, and Yuna stood to begin to collect dishes.

Ilya immediately joined. “Allow me. Please.”

“You can help,” she offered after a beat. They bussed plates in silence.

And then she was alone in her kitchen with Ilya Rozanov.

She had expected dinner to be insufferable, a hockey god gracing them with his presence. That hadn’t happened at all. He had barely defended himself. He had held onto Shane the entire time. He … wanted approval, maybe?

All she knew for sure was that he looked so soft, so uncertain. The world was dark outside; the windows and the kitchen lights illuminated the right half of his face more than the left. He had shrugged off his blazer onto his chair, now with just his infuriating Boston Raiders hoodie, sleeves rolled up. He was searching her face with his restless, ever-moving blue eyes.

She tried to stitch together everything she knew about him, but all the media labels (beast, terror, arrogant, vicious) as well as the little details Shane had shared (motherless, thoughtful, clever, sweet) stuck only briefly, rolling off of him, leaving a stranger in front of her.

“I wash, you dry?”

She hummed her assent, and he began wordlessly, without hesitation.

She allowed the silence for long moments, before she spoke without thinking. “You’re not what I expected.” ‘I thought you were taking advantage of him, because he’s nice,’ she didn’t say. ‘If anything, though, it seems like you want this more than him,’ she didn’t say.

He smiled. “Thank you, I think. I am … grateful you invited me. I wanted to meet.”

Yuna thought that might be an exaggeration, but she let it slide, drying the frying pan he passed her. “Frankly, it’s a surprise we haven’t met before.”

“We almost did,” He offered. At her look, he added. “CCM. 2010. The elevator.”

“Oh!” She laughed. “I had forgotten about that. Yes, you’re right.” He hummed, focused on his task, and she braved her own curiosity. “Were you two … then?”

Amazingly, color rose to his cheeks. “We maybe flirted a little bit, during the shoot,” he confessed, and she had the feeling he was hedging. “He was very cute. Very pretty. Is still very pretty.” He passed another dish, studiously avoiding looking at her. “It was very, how you say? Touch and go. Back and forth. Nothing serious, for several years.”

Which was the perfect opening for the question she had wanted to ask all night. The only question, really, though she already knew the answer. “But it’s serious now. For you.”

“Yes.” Again, no hesitation. Stranger and stranger. She pressed her advantage.

“And it’s been serious for you for while.” She looked at him directly, but he kept his eyes in the sink. She took a guess. “Longer than for Shane.”

“Yes,” he admitted. She let him sit in that pause, digesting the information as slowly and surely as their dinner. He continued. “I love him. He maybe does not love me, yet.”

Floored, the dish slipped a little within her hands. “Have you told him that?”

“Not yet, no. I do not want ... pressure on him. But we are direct people, you and I. Not sweet and polite like …” He inclined his head obliquely in the direction of the dining room. “If we were, our sky would be a boot heel, no?”

She nodded at that, conceding. There was beauty in the sensitivity of her son, but that would be an impractical trait for any first-generation immigrant. “How long have you …?” She started, cutting herself off halfway. He answered anyway.

“I was not always sure, but I think last December.” He does not say ‘love felt like terror then.’ He does not say 'he kissed me on my forehead, and I fled for my life.'

“And that means you knew each other pretty well before that,” she intoned, breathless. “Wow. Wow.”

Ilya shrugged in half-agreement. “I know him pretty well, before. I am maybe difficult to know.”

With the quiet, earnest admission of his affection, all the many pieces of him knitted together with his appearance in her home.

She saw then what he was to Shane, to the boy she knew and loved so well it felt like every groove in his ribs was made for her hands to hold him steady on the ice, though he hadn’t needed that once in the last painful decade and a half. Ilya had a sweetness that maybe unfolded only for Shane and Shane’s people. The aggression he was better known for reshaped itself in her head from something repellant to something familiar, and she saw Ilya then as the embodiment of every violent maternal urge she'd ever had, to rip the throats out of those who found her son too sensitive, too thoughtful, too different. They shared an understanding, maybe, that when you have little, you protected it with your life. Maybe Shane could only be loved with the feral intensity of someone who gave up their country and their linguistic dignity to make a home in a place that would always call them alien.

He was the sleep paralysis demon of every captain in the eastern division, collared and leashed, rope in hand. Rope in Shane's hand.

“This is an always thing for me, if that were an option,” he softly added, rinsing the sink as their work concluded.

“Then I think we need to make a plan.”

-

In the living room, Sveta was holding court. “I was so pleased,” she said.  “A good contrast, to his father and idiot brother,” Aside, to David, as though Shane already knew, she added “His brother always wants money for his many bad habits. His father, well, forgets things, and yells. But Jane seemed proud of him. Funny, snarky maybe, but he worked hard to impress.” She snorted at that. “Of course he would, though. It’s you.”

Sveta and David were laughing together as Shane frowned and smothered a smile when Yuna and Ilya left the kitchen.

“It has been Jane, Jane, Jane for months. Jane this, Jane that. He never shared much, mind you. Little tidbits. ‘Jane has perfect freckles.’ ‘Jane does yoga pose like this,’ he said once, and then fell over!” She laughed. “‘Jane folds shirts perfectly, like there is a test.’ He would ration it, almost, like he didn’t want to say too much. Like a squirrel, burying nuts for winter.”

“Jane?” Yuna asked.

Shane opened his mouth to answer, but David beat him to it. “Jane and Lily; Shane and Ilya. They have codenames for each other in their phones.”

The others in the room, Ilya included, seemed to share the amusement at this, but Shane met his mother’s eyes and they both felt the sadness of the secrecy in one brief, private moment. Yuna looked away.

“Okay, Sveta. Let’s cut into the cake you brought and then we can all figure out some next steps.”

“Oh no,” David playfully rejoined. “Strategy meeting?”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“Thank you, Mrs. Hollander, that sounds wonderful,” Sveta said kindly, “But actually, Ilya brought the cake.”

For the first time in the evening, Ilya looked as smug as she’d ever seen him on TV, leaning on the wall, chin tilted, smirking, and Yuna let him have it. Ilya was, at the moment, thinking of the phrase Marly had taught him weeks ago, when he’d brought his trial-run Medovik to tape review. "I contain multitudes."

Yuna smiled. "I'm starting to see that."

-

Later, in the bathroom, in t-shirts and boxers for the facsimile of propriety, Shane blurted out “Did you seduce my mom?”

“What?”

 “In the kitchen.” It was half a joke, but something tangible had changed; she had gone in ready to interrogate and come out with a hand on his arm.

Ilya spat out toothpaste foam and grinned. “That is for Yuna and I to know and you to wonder.”

Shane shook his head, smiling. “It's like a switch flipped, and now we suddenly have a five-year plan. I don’t know how you did it.”

Ilya hummed and took a long moment before replying. “We came to an understanding”

“Understanding of what?”

He shrugged, attempting casual. “That I am not going anywhere.”

Shane didn’t buy the act. “You're not?” He replied, so soft and earnest, as though what Ilya shared wasn't less than half the truth.

“No, Shane,” Ilya answered, circling his arms around him. In Russian, he added “Ne do tekh por, poka ty menya prinimayesh'. (Not for as long as you'll have me.)"

Chapter 7: Epilogue

Chapter Summary

An overly salacious ad was running between hockey periods on TV, cutting between clips of Ilya Rozanov rocketing around on the ice and him in the desert, shirt open, arms braced between gold and black Porsches, asking the viewer “Between speed and style, why choose?”

Chapter Notes

Summer bloomed warm and early, and found their strange little group coming together at the arena, soon to be side-stepping into a row of seats that would fill with the Hollanders, Sveta, Ilya, and Jackie Pike with her twins. It was the hour before Game 5 for Montreal against Chicago at home, and Montreal’s first shot at securing the cup in 16 years, so of course, with Shane on the ice, Ilya wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Reporters had caught him on the way in for comment, undeterred by Ruby squirming on his hip. “I am somehow both hoping Hollander wins and that Montreal loses, no?” he had told them with a little smirk, before Jackie had leaned in to add “No! Go Shane, go Hayden! You got this!”

Thanks to the meticulous intervention of Ilya’s new agent and Yuna Hollander, this scene, which would have been strange a handful of months ago, was now one of the accepted oddities of their celebrity status, step seven or maybe eight in the dozens that paved the winding path they had started down together.

There were infinite excuses for a friendship, really, the moment they started looking for them, which were easy to play into. We compete at the same level, we shared a draft year, we understand the pressure of captaining elite teams. After an idle comment in the Hollander house, Ilya had found himself repeating in a pre-game interview “Like unlikely animal friendship, yes? That is what David says.”

Video clips mashed up portraying them as just that had circulated for a week after. ‘Hollander has capybara energy’ was one of the most liked comments, which Ilya had gleefully shown him. (“I don’t know what the fuck that means, Ilya.” “You get along with everyone, see? And like oranges, maybe. I am scary alligator!”) He knew in this that he is the proverbial snake and Shane is the proverbial baby, probably, which was just fine with him.

Referring to Shane’s father by his first name had maybe been a fumble, but it seemed no one immediately knew who David was, which was for the best.

Quickly enough, questions about each other died down unless one of them did something particularly notable or egregious. Shane still was sometimes being asked about the latest scrap Ilya had been in on the ice and ending up leaning forward, massaging his forehead, admitting that yes, he saw it, and he had told Rozanov to stop being an idiot.

-

The plan wasn’t always smooth; step four had been sticky, as it had started out wildly unfair.

“Wait, you want Shane to tell fucking Hayden Pike, but I don’t get to tell anyone? No teammate for me?” Ilya generally tried to refrain from cursing around Hollander’s mother, but some moments seemed to call for it.

Yuna had looked like she was sucking a lemon when she conceded the point, finally, maybe an hour into negotiations. “Fine. Then who would you tell?”

-

It was smart, as a concept, having someone to have your back in the locker room. It just came with a tremendous amount of risk. They had to be loyal, have their heart in the right place, and most importantly not be an idiot. Privately, Ilya wasn’t sure Pike fit the bill given that last qualification, but that wasn’t his call to make.

Telling Cliff Marleau while playing Call of Duty with him, split screen at his house, was a choice. It felt right. They had talked about all kinds of things mid-campaign, so why not this? “You know how Hollander and I are friends now?” he mentioned off-hand, before blasting the shit out of some hostiles.

“Yeah, what about it?” Marly asked, attention clearly occupied.

“Maybe we are more than friends.”

“What, like brothers?” Marly offered stupidly. Ilya could almost audibly hear the truth click into place, watching Cliff’s character on screen freeze as he turned to face Ilya. “Wait. Fuck. Jane? JANE?” A beat later, that was followed by “Oh fuck,” his attention returning to the game the moment his character was killed, ending their attempt.

Well, probably for the best, Ilya thought. This could take a minute.

“Yes,” Ilya answered simply, setting down his controller and turning to him. “I am ‘Lily’ in his phone.”

Marleau let out a low whistle, pausing, processing. Then: “Those are the stupidest fucking fake names I’ve ever heard.”

Ilya shrugged. “Fooled you, no?”

“I mean, for a minute. Wow.” He ran a hand over his face. “What the fuck. Wow.” Ilya was ready, braced for a laundry list of questions: what about the girls? Are you gay then? Bi? How did this happen? How long has this been going on? Is it serious? A rival player, seriously? But maybe he knew most of that, given how long he’d been hassling him about his ‘Montreal Girl’.

What he wasn’t prepared for was: “You did so fucking good. You weren’t lying about the Helen of Troy thing; Hollander is, like, an aspirational pull.”

“What.” Marly wasn’t wrong, but Ilya was almost certain he must have misheard him.

Marly started listing qualities on his fingers. “Gorgeous, the best player in the league, loaded. G-d, Roz, you really can fuck anyone, huh?”

“I am best player!” Ilya protested.

“Sure,” Marly agreed, but it was lukewarm at best, the fucker. “You must be dying that you can’t tell anyone … Wait a minute, the parents thing. Does this mean you met Yuna Hollander as his boyfriend? Jesus fucking Christ.” He started laughing, glancing meaningfully downward. “Can you still have kids?”

“Fuck you,” Ilya hissed, shoving him. “Yuna loves me.”

“Shane Hollander,” Marly repeated to himself, stunned. “What the fuck.” Following that, he clasped Ilya on the shoulder tightly. “Thanks for trusting me with this man, but also fuck you. This is the best fucking gossip I’ve ever heard, and I can’t say shit.”

“Welcome to my life,” Ilya snarked, quietly grateful he wasn’t being interrogated, and didn’t have to impress on Marly the importance of absolute secrecy. Unlike Shane, his ‘bestie’ wasn’t a fucking moron. “Now try not to fucking die this time.”

-

I can’t believe I have to root for your fucking boy tonight, Marly texted him, as Ilya was in line at the concession stand, gesturing to get all the toppings. Don’t worry, Ilya texted back, we will fuck Montreal next year.

Well, you certainly will at least.

😈

“How does anyone eat this garbage?” Yuna was asking just before Ilya entered their row, arms loaded with fried trash food. “Oh. Hi Ilya,” she said, eyeing the two paper boats full of loaded nachos with judgment.

“Good evening,” he grinned back. “What? My season is over. Want one?” Much to Yuna’s chagrin, David was more than happy to share as Ilya eagerly hunted down the number 24 stretching on the ice. He suppressed the urge to give a little wave, or maybe jump up and down a little when he saw him. As it stood, he hadn’t seen Shane in five weeks.

-

Five weeks prior, lights in Ilya’s driveway and an alert from the motion sensor on his security system let him know an ugly car carrying a beautiful man had pulled up to his house in the middle of the night. Normally, this would have him all but sprinting for the door, but he felt like a bruised zombie, in pain in every way a person could be in pain, slow and sad and exhausted but sleepless. This surprise was wonderful, yes, but Ilya wasn’t sure he wanted Shane to see him like this.

He lumbered to the door regardless, opening it to a sea of mixed thoughts and emotions; Shane was a sight for sore eyes, a comfort, his boyfriend, but also a lucky fucking bastard who still had a shot at the cup.

Ilya didn’t need to say anything, it turned out, as Shane threw his arms around him, allowing him to collapse into his warm and lovely self, strong, skilled hands petting his curly hair as he murmured “Oh, sweetheart …”

Ilya just hummed in response, content to linger like this in his entryway. Pet names were much newer from Shane than they were from him, but this one was a personal favorite; he could still picture Shane blushing a month ago after telling him that J.J. had said Lily was his ‘sweetheart.’ Ilya, possessive as he was, had been so very pleased to hear the roots and tentacles of their relationship extended into the Montreal locker room.

Romantic gestures like this, particularly mid-playoffs, also felt new. Shane, likely similarly bruised and exhausted as himself, had no business driving five hours to Boston.

“I was hoping it would be us, you know,” Shane admitted. “Facing each other for the cup.”

Ilya agreed mournfully, nodding against him. “Would've been hot. Might’ve happened, too, if our goalie could block fucking anything.” He took a deep breath. “Is not fair of me. Johannsen is injured, Nelson is new.” Damnit, even his good sportsmanship is rubbing off on me, he considered. “I just ... I wanted it. I wanted it very much.” The words felt simple and stupid, he knew, but if anyone could understand, Shane could.

“I know, Ilyusha,” he reassured, “I know,” and kissed him.

Later that night, curled together in bed, Ilya had offered, “Let me drive you back tomorrow. I will not forgive myself if Montreal loses because their captain is asleep on the ice.”

Shane snorted. “Don’t lie to me. You’d love it if Montreal lost.” Ilya pointedly did not answer that, the truth lying more in that he didn’t want his boyfriend to lose because of him. That didn’t necessarily need to be said. “I don't... I can spend tonight, but if you come up, you'll stay, and I can't, um, having you there between play-off games will distract me,” Shane continued. “G-d, that sounds awful of me, I don't want you driving ten hours in a day because I'm like this, fuck, I just-”

Ilya interrupted him with a kiss. “I get it. Yuna, she has small second place in Montreal, yes? I will visit her for the night. Then drive back. She will understand, like I understand.” He chuffed a small laugh. “She will likely give me notes for next season. ‘Oh Ilya, your wrist shot precision is worse on the left, fix that this summer.'”

Shane covered his face in embarrassment, but was laughing all the same. “Oh my G-d, you're right.” The laughter ebbed into comfortable silence, and Shane grabbed Ilya's hand where it was petting his chest. "While I’m here, I wanted to tell you: I love you. I know it's early to say that,” Shane admitted as he fidgeted, “and you don't have to say it back, I know we haven't seen a lot of each other lately, but I do. I just ... I love you. And I wanted you to know.”

Ilya's smile was like the sun coming up, as he felt the weight and clouds of the evening lifting. In response, Ilya kissed him, maybe too many times. “Ya tebya lyublyu. I love you.”

Shane looked at him adoringly, and then suspiciously. “Wait, you've …”

“Yes, Shane,” Ilya laughed. “I have said this before.” For some reason, admitting it didn’t scare him anymore. “I have loved you for a long time.”

Hollander looked hilariously indignant at that. “Well, I said it first. In English.”

“No no no,” Ilya corrected. “You said it first in English to me.”

“Wait, who have you said it to?”

“Your mother.” Shane looked truly gob smacked, then. “Yes, moy lyubov, that was how I ‘seduce’ her on Thanksgiving.”

“But that was ... we had only just ...”

“It is alright,” Ilya said airily. “I am first to cup, first to love. I know I am with very slow hockey player.” He smiled at him, and squeezed him a little. “I can wait for you to catch up.”

Shane was grinning at that, not even faking being annoyed effectively. Adorable. “You're such an asshole. I was so nervous!”

“Mm, no,” Ilya countered, kissing him softly. “Do not be nervous. I am not nervous place for you now. I am, how you say? I am sure thing.”

-

As promised, Ilya had driven him home and stayed with Yuna, consequently getting papped when they got coffee together the following morning, snowballing into questions from his team.

This wasn’t a mistake, though. It was step six-ish? Maybe? Of Yuna’s infinite plan.

The point being, when the picture was texted in the Boston group chat, followed by an absurd number of question marks, he easily explained it.

Hollander has too many brand deals. I told him this. I am better. I should have more. Yuna Hollander will help with this.

The pursuit of money and of better representation was easily accepted, a rain of thumbs up emojis as well as money bags following. As with many things pertaining fame, this became real through merely speaking it into existence.

A month later, an overly salacious ad was running between hockey periods on TV, cutting between clips of Ilya Rozanov rocketing around on the ice and him in the desert, shirt open, arms braced between gold and black Porsches, asking the viewer “Between speed and style, why choose?”

The shit he received from his team for this was endless, formulaic, and predictable. Marly was the first: “Hey Roz, should I get this blue suit or this black one? Wait a minute, I know: why choose?” And the format repeated. His reply was pretty consistent: fuck you, I’m getting paid.

That deal had been a brainchild of Yuna’s, and her marketing brain seemed to have infinitely fertile soil, with many similar connections landing in his inbox, agent cc’d. He found his face on towering billboards donning expensive sunglasses, and in men’s magazines with little folded cards containing fragrance samples. All that to say, he was seeing more endorsement money in the last six months than he’d made in the three years preceding it.

If this had the unfortunate result of Cliff Marleau, and consequently other Boston players, reaching out to Yuna for aid just as those in Montreal had, Ilya didn’t really think she minded as much as she claimed to.

-

The game was basically over before it began, Shane hunting down goals like a predator, Chicago’s goalie exhausted and without hope. The game was frustrating to Sveta and Yuna alike, who complained that they ‘expected better hockey at this level,’ but Ilya was simply delighted by the slaughter.

If he cried a little watching Shane lift the cup, bittersweet and proud, no one called him on it. He silently accepted a tissue from Jackie, who was also in tears, and was grateful that, for the moment, no cameras were on him.

He behaved himself with great difficulty and did not rush the ice after Montreal won, leaving that moment to the Hollanders as he was not certain he could mask the love he’d look at Shane with, or stop himself from kissing him. That would have to wait for tonight.

The dichotomy of their public personas felt especially pointed that evening, when Ilya posted pictures side by side of himself with the cup the year prior and Shane with it now. He captioned it “Nice work, pretty boy. Only took you one more year than me!” and then commented on Shane’s post “Enjoy it now. Is mine again next year.”

The teasing belied the truth, where Shane had returned home with him, aching like one giant bruise but blissfully happy, and Ilya had laid him down in the bath, washed his hair, and lovingly praised his champion.

That was fine, though. That was just for the two of them, for now.

Chapter End Notes

Notes: … And so it ends! Did you know this entire work takes place in the first 3 minutes and 30 seconds of Episode 4? Crazy. Thank you for joining me on this wandering tale; it was supposed to be a one-shot, which then became a two-shot, and now we’re here. Apologies again for any disjointedness, as this wasn’t as planned as my stories would usually be.

Speaking of, please consider checking out my other works if you enjoyed this one!

Additionally, I have two more pieces coming down the pipe. So far, I’ve only done AUs diverging directly from the original canon, but that’s about to change! I’m working on a silly little piece called Rybka in which Ilya is a merman (shut up, I know) and a longer piece called Curbside set in the medical field, because that’s my career field and they say write what you know. Rybka will likely go up in the next couple weeks, while I want to plan out Curbside more thoroughly, so that’ll be late April, likely. Keep an eye out for those, if interested.

Lastly, I wanted to thank everyone who liked (Almost 3k in kudos!! Wow!!) and commented on this story; the love it’s received has meant a lot to me. I was going to list every thoughtful commenter, but that got out of hand quickly, so just know that I notice you, love you, and appreciate it immensely. Please keep sharing your thoughts and feelings; it makes my day every time.

See you next time!