Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, past ilya rozanov/svetlana vetrova - Relationship, Shane Hollander & Yuna Hollander

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Original Child, Svetlana Vetrova, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Hayden Pike, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Sasha | Ilya Rozanov's Coach's Son, Rose Landry, Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Ryan Price (Game Changers)

Additional Tags:

Old man yaoi, they are pushing fifty here, Control Freak Shane Hollander, Coming Out, Alzheimer's Disease, in a parent, Single Parent Ilya Rozanov, Parenthood, Sex, Humor, Angst, Second Chances, shane vs therapy, shane vs parenting, shane vs, The Mortifying Ordeal of Knowing Yourself, shane vs sasha, Racism, sloppy sequels, meditation on marriage, typos prove no ai was used, Landlord Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander-centric, Character Study, Tenderness, Depression, Depressed Ilya Rozanov, Internalized Homophobia, Anxiety, Kinky, Barebacking, financial kink?, mild degradation kink, bear fucker shane hollander, Ilya rozanov is a bear, Fire, smoke inhalation, Self-Indulgent, I think I've earned the, Freak4Freak Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Tag, Slurs, Panic Attacks, one time, Good Parent Ilya Rozanov, Good Parent Shane Hollander, Biphobia, Implied/Referenced Eating Disorders, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, implied referenced insomia, Depressed Shane Hollander, Spitting, Imperfect People, Made for Each Other, Empathy, at length, BAMF Shane Hollander, Locked to prevent AI scraping

Language:

English

Series:

Part 2 of old man hollanov yaoi

Collections:

🍽️ munching on these . . . (complete), Hollanov Novels, anonymous

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-29 Completed: 2026-09-28 Words: 237,562 Chapters: 28/28

on winning and losing (and ilya rozanov)

Summary

Twenty years after everything fell apart, Shane Hollander is on the cusp of becoming MLH Commissioner when Ilya Rozanov walks into his office and back into his life.

"I don't know, I’m pretty late to the game," Shane says.

“Everything good happens in third period,” Ilya counters.

Chapter 1: prologue

Chapter Notes

dont't let me tell you how to read a fic, but you REALLY should read the og fic first... <3

Edit: oct 3 did a pass on ilya's dialogue to smooth it out

this fic is tagged correctly and mindfully

Deputy Commissioner Shane Hollander sits down at the commissioner’s desk and considers the view.

The room is a nice size, but the walls are cluttered with mismatched memorabilia. The fixtures around the window are flimsy plastic— cheap. The wrong choice considering the breadth of the windows; thin industrial shutters would be better. The room reflects a man uninterested in maximizing light but interested instead in maximizing himself (if the multiple pictures of Commissioner Langstrom shaking hands with winning teams and hall of famer’s means anything).

Shane thinks about a few contractors he knows that he would trust with a delicate job inside an office building. He’ll probably have to get them vetted by the MLH building manager, but it will be worth seeing the square footage used to its full potential.

Sitting at this desk and subbing in for the sick commissioner, Shane is… pleased with himself. Pleased with how close he’s gotten to where he wants to be. Not content, never content, but certainly it’s satisfactory progress.

Danelle, the current commissioner’s assistant, scurries over with a tablet.

“Here, your calendar should be synced with Commissioner Langstrom’s now, Mr. Hollander” she says.

“Thanks, Danelle,” Shane says, eyes crinkling as he takes a look at the workload. As a deputy, the amount of meetings and paperwork he handles looks quite close to Langstrom’s workload. It’s reassuring—if he can handle what he does now (and he does) he will definitely be able to take on the commissionership in a few years.

Not that it’s a sure thing, of course. But as his mother says, they would be fools not to take Shane.

Shane blinks at a familiar name on the schedule. At 1pm, Rozanov meeting.

It’s like an delayed echo from the past, something he might have predicted and yet still…

“Is this, uh, Nikolaj Rozanov?” Shane says, stumbling a little over the name.

Danelle places a coffee at his elbow. Shane doesn’t remember asking for one, but he takes a sip out of politeness. She’s clearly determined to be good at her job and Shane can appreciate that; he’s the same way.

“Yes, just a formal apology, because of what he said the other day. I think he’s coming with a parent too.”

Coming with a parent…

Shane’s heart thuds in his chest, his mouth go dry.

“Did you… I can pull up the video if you need more context,” Danelle says after his silence. Shane shakes his head— as if he could possibly have missed Ilya Rozanov’s son using the f-slur on international TV and the ensuing chaos from every level of the MLH.

“I’m good, thank you Danelle.”

She nods, leaving him to sort through the paperwork and prepare for his first meeting with the league advertising sponsors.

Shane should be skimming the notes, but he stares at the name. Rozanov.

He wasn’t watching the game, but he did see the clip. He winced, seeing the word leave Nikolaj’s mouth after he spit on the ice, downright vitriolic. He wondered instantly if Nikolaj knew about his father—

Not that there was anything to be done about that, either way.

Shane isn’t out so he kept his opinions to himself and used the event to leverage the importance of getting more locker room mandates considered for the new year. He felt uneasy, even if he reminded himself that this was the real change, the important thing to do. One reason he stayed in the closet—to more easily table issues and create change. He's very effective at it.

1PM comes quickly and Shane gets a little anticipatory despite himself. A chance to see Rozanov’s son up close. He clicks around on the MLH page and scopes out his stats for his rookie year. Shane is impressed with what he sees. Good shots on goal, decent scoring for the season so far. Lagging in assists but considering his age and that it’s his first year in them MLH, Shane isn’t surprised he’s still selfish in his playing.

Shane thinks he has prepared for the meeting, has seen all that he needs to.

Danelle knocks on the door, and Shane stands, rubbing his hands on his slacks.

Nikolaj Rozanov comes in, dark curls, the hint of his father’s insouciance curled around his cupid bow’s mouth.

And behind him—

“Rozanov…”

Svetlana Rozanov glides into the room. Beautiful and startling, a cloud of whorled hair and the stark flatness on her face.

Right. Who else could be here? Who else could he have expected?

Ilya Rozanov is three years dead now.

She’s wearing black. It’s almost certainly a fashion choice, but it feels right for the somberness of this meeting, like a belated funeral.

Shane never went to the real one.

Her wrist flashes gold bracelets as she extends her hand.

“Mr. Hollander.”

“Mrs. Rozanov.”

Shane scrambles to catch her grip, to regain his professionalism. He feels on the backfoot seeing the two of them.

“Thank you for seeing us. This is my son, Nikolaj.”

Nikolaj is muted by her side as he mumbles through his apology. His mom puts a hand on his shoulder and Nikolaj leans in there, then tenses, catches himself. Eye casting out mutinous at Shane who tries to offer a smile.

He feels like he’s looking at a strange mirror of himself and his manager-mother. Was he so dependent upon her? So quick to curl inside? Was Rozanov ever like that with his own mother? Shane doesn’t know if it’s genetic.

When Nikolaj finishes his quiet apology, Svetlana presents a file folder with a plastic cover. A PR plan to rehabilitate Nikolaj’s image with the MLH’s help.

Shane skims it with shaking hands. The words don’t land. He didn’t expect to be so unsettled by seeing Nikolaj, this slice of Rozanov floating out in the world.

He forces a smile when he reaches the end, says “This looks good. I appreciate you taking the impact of your words so seriously. Obviously, the word matters a lot, does a lot of harm. We expect better of our players.”

Shane knows he’s leaning in a little more than he needs to. Sees each word landing hard on Nikolaj who grits his teeth, withdrawing and biting his tongue. Can’t say anything to the Deputy Commissioner can he? Certainly not mouth that sloppy slur at any rate.

“Is there anything else you need from us?” Svetlana Rozanov asks, sharp.

Shane stops, draws back. Isn’t sure when he started leaning forward.

“No. Thank you for coming in today.”

“We appreciate you making time for us, Deputy Commissioner Hollander.”

Svetlana Rozanov nods, stands, and pats her son to do the same.

And then the Rozanovs are out of the office.

Shane sits still as a statue afterwards, feeling the plushness of the chair like a strange, foreign element.

He did the meeting perfectly. He is pleased at his progress so far in climbing the MLH hierarchy, and this is just another little step in the rung. Everything is so according to plan.

So why does he feel gaping?

Danielle comes in with coffee.

Yes, coffee.

Shane startles, jumps out of his chair.

“I’m actually going on my lunch, now. Thank you.”

“Oh, have a good break.”

Shane breezes past her. Shane powerwalks out of his officer to the hallway of his building.

They’re still here, waiting outside the elevators. Svetlana Rozanov is talking quietly to her son who nods, listening to her every word. Nodding, and nodding, and nodding. Shane has done a lot of that in his life to his mother.

She squeezes his arm and then Nikolaj turns, yanking out of her grip. Needing and rejecting at the same stroke. So young and untried. Nikolaj leaves down the stairs, shoulder hiked high and defensive. Svetlana Rozanov stands alone for a moment, a beautiful willow tree with her hair falling in dark, longing tendrils around her head.

She turns decisively, as if expecting to see Shane standing there watching, stuck in space. Shane shivers.

His mouth feels numb as he moves it. “I wanted to know if… I thought maybe we could get coffee.”

He’s no one to ask, really, as far as the world is concerned. Not an old friend, never a teammate. Just a publicity rival… But Svetlana is not the world. She was Rozanov’s wife. Did he ever tell her anything of that precious moment of time? Ten years of something so ephemeral that even now it resists words yet was composed only of body, body, body.  His and Ilya’s. More solid than any ice.

Her green eyes skate over him.

“We probably should talk,” she says, and the words know it all. Shane fidgets at being so seen. He nods, ashamed and relieved.

In no time at all, they are seated across from each other at the business café, drinks untouched and cooling before them. Shane studies Svetlana Rozanov.

She looks tired. A painful dryness on her face that Shane has glimpsed at his own in the mirror. Grief, he if had to call it anything.

Silly to compare his feelings to a real widow. Insane, even.

He should offer his condolences. He can’t make his dry mouth unstick. Takes a sip of tea instead.

“You made deputy commissioner.” she says in her soft American accent. Perfect grammar and ease of use with the English language her husband never had. “Well done. Commissioner will be yours in a couple years.”

“Halstead or Kung are in the running too” Shane says.

She waves the polite words away. “Halstead is too old and he never played, let alone won multiple championships like you. And Kung is a woman. The MLH won’t even let a woman coach, they aren’t ready for one to be on top of the hierarchy.”

She speaks with so much certainty. Every word a prophecy. (Was it the confidence that drew Rozanov to her so much?)

Shane supposes she likes to keep an eye on the system that her son is operating in, much like his own mother had.

“If things go on this way, it’s yours,” she says, like it’s simple.

Go on this way… yes, without saying anything, she has said it. The commissionership is Shane’s to lose by coming out as gay. He’s known this for a long time. He has no plans to ever…

“Nikolaj doesn’t know about his father?” Shane asks quietly.

Svetlana leans back in her chair, and Shane fights the instinct to apologize. He’s being rude, he knows.

“No. Ilya wanted to make sure you were always safe—”

“I didn’t mean… Not about me and him.” Shane feels flustered. “I mean about Ilya being…” Because Ilya was that, bisexual, even without Shane.

Svetlana Rozanov smiles at him, like she sees something he doesn’t about Rozanov and Shane.

“No. Our Nika never knew any of it.”

“I thought it was Niko—”

“It’s a name for parents to use, Nika. Our Nika.”

Shane swallows.

“I guess I’m glad he didn’t know and said what he said,” Shane says, feeling numb. It’s not fair, but the man Shane pursued is buried and he is unknown, Shane’s secret and their relationship buried with him. Not to be passed on. No one will ever know the truth about Shane and Rozanov.

And Rozanov will never be any more known by Nikolaj, by Shane, by anyone. A mystery wrapped deep underground, rotting so secretly.

But maybe that’s why he chased after Svetlana Rozanov, as strange as he feels about her, she is one of the only people on the planet who knew Rozanov. Who knew him, the way Shane always wanted to think he did.

Stupid to compare himself after her seventeen years of marriage. How can Shane’s ten years of on again off again hookups compare? How can the immateriality of their non relationship in hotel rooms stack up to a gold ring on her finger? A house and child…

“I wanted to tell Nikolaj his papa was bi,” Svetlana Rozanov says. “Ilya, he wasn’t sure. Got very cagy. I think he felt shy.”

“Rozanov, shy?” Shane deflects.

“You would be surprised.” Svetlana smiles. “He was always very shy about his Jane too.”

Shane feels abruptly out of his body. Sunk with a wave of grief and longing that makes his eyes burn and his lungs hurt.

She is so cruel and kind to give those words to him. The only way he could probably stomach hearing them.

“I’m sure that…” He has to breathe hard, in and out. “Jane misses him a lot too.”

Jane who said no and turned away when Ilya called him drunk so many times, begging with room numbers on the rink in 2017, in 2018, in 2019—

Jane, bereft without the calls in 2020.

Ice settling over Jane’s body when he saw the baby announcement over Instagram.

Jane who was cold but confirmed about every doubt and suspicion. Jane was right about Ilya— Rozanov. Right about him being happy with Svetlana Rozanov.

Being right had never been less a comfort to Jane.

Jane who tried to move on but could never find that instinctual fit.

Jane who still thought overmuch and long about that time in their twenties, the what if of it all—

And Jane who missed the funeral because he wasn’t sure he could make it through the ceremony without saying Ilya in such a way that ten years of history wouldn’t just unravel hideously from his mouth.

Jane isn’t Shane though. Thank fuck for that. Jane is someone else, lost in the past.

Shane fidgets with his drink, feels Svetlana Rozanov’s eyes on him. She isn’t as victorious as he imagined her in his cruelest moments. She’s just a woman. Tired, dehydrated. A single mother of a hockey son with all the spite and vinegar of his father and fearing perhaps none of the compassion.

“Thank you for coming to talk with me,” Shane says. He doesn’t ask for her number to keep in contact. She doesn’t ask for his.

“Of course.” She stands.

The words just fall from his mouth.

“You know. I was somehow expecting to see him, when I saw Nikolaj’s name on my schedule. It was like, I didn’t even think to remember he isn’t here. Isn’t that strange?”

Svetlana Rozanov looks at him so sadly that it makes his heart twist. He waits for the admonishment that’s not your right. Who are you to miss him so intimately like he’s just in another room?

She doesn’t say any of that.

She reaches into her designer bag and holds out a business card.

“His gravestone is here. Go see him.”

Svetlana Rozanov leaves, dissolving into the outside brightness in a flash of black fabric and curls.

Shane stares at the napkin. His wristwatch alarm blinks, reminding him to get back to work.

Shane stands and goes outside. He hails a taxi.

He’s in New York, but it takes no time at all to reach Montreal. The sun is still not low in the sky. Burning even brighter, actually, orange and consuming. The field of stones is huge, massive, impossible to navigate, but his leather shoes walk and stop in front of the right plot immediately.

Ilya Rozanov’s name winks back at him, carved into stone.

Mine to lose, Shane thinks about the commissionership, about Ilya Rozanov.

The ground doesn’t have grass, is instead full of soil and Shane fists his hands in it. Starts digging— the soil shifts easily, moves under his hand until he brushes against some warm, grasping flesh

Shane bolts awake. His chest heaves and sweat coats his chest.

He’s disoriented, feels choked around the throat and pats his skin to get all the cloth and vestigial dirt away from it. Where the fuck is he—

“Shhh, shhh,” the voice comes from the dark. “Shh. Is okay.”

Hands grip Shane and his shivers at the touch of warm flesh, leans in. Doesn’t care if there is dirt— he recognizes distantly there isn’t, just the sheerness of sheets.

Sheets. Oh.

Ilya.

He turns in bed in his Montreal apartment and sees his fiancé rubbing at his face. Shane’s heart thuds, watching him in the dark. Alive and tired and sleep-creased. Shane creeps his arms around Ilya, nudging him up just to slip beneath his torso and squeeze. He’s hot and heavy, will make Shane’s arm go numb.

Ilya hums, rocking back and forth a little.

“You dream about coming out again?” Ilya asks, petting down Shane’s spine.

Shane laughs, breathless and a little manic. Coming out has been a reoccurring nightmare. Of Langstrom’s frowning face as he takes back Shane’s Stanley cup rings well, these aren't for you, then, are they?

Shane breathes hard, trying to settle his heart.

“No.”

“Good.”

“I dreamt I never came out.”

Ilya frowns at that. Shane stops gripping Ilya’s side so he can cup his face, trace a thumb over the deep scraping lines at the corner of his mouth from a lifetime of smiling and smirking. Worry drawing lines in his brow even now.

“Was not a good dream?” Ilya muses.

“No. You weren’t alive in it.”

Ilya kisses Shane’s palm and hand, takes a finger lightly into his mouth and nips it. I’m alive and biting, he seems to say. “Just a silly dream.”

Shane nods. He can’t quite bring himself to mention Svetlana, their conversation. Strange to dream about his fiancé’s dead wife, isn’t it? Ominous…

Ilya’s body is slackening again, slowly, sleep dragging him back down.

Shane wiggles slowly from under him. He won’t be able to go back to sleep.

“Where you go?” Ilya grumbles, sleep tired, mout soft.

“I just want to look at my whiteboards again. Go back to sleep.”

Ilya sighs, presses a hand to his eyes. Sits up.

“Stay here,” Shane protests.

Ilya shakes his head, moving slowly to the side of the bed and pulling on oversized sweats. He doesn’t wear a shirt and the warm breadth of his torso presses warmly against Shane as shuffles close and kisses his cheek. Shane feels the chill of the dream drifting away with the warm scratch of Ilya against him. He breathes deeply for a moment.

“Come. Let’s look at the big game play boards.”

Shane grumbles as he finds a shirt and trouser, because they aren’t hockey plays, certainly coming out is not a game. Just that playing hockey has made Shane a very visual, whiteboard kind of guy.

Shane grabs a couple of blankets off the foot of their bed and goes to the living room where Ilya is wheeling out the two white boards from against the wall to sit in front of the couch. Then he goes to make coffee.

“Come on, don’t do that,” Shane says, guilty. It’s only four AM.

“Might as well get head start on day. I'm used to this. Many days I do this as new parent. It's not hard, really.”

“That makes me your new baby?” Shane says, dubious.

Ilya only twinkles at his expression. “Mmm, yes. My baby. My baby with big coming out wedding plan project. Very advanced baby.”

Shane twitches a smile. “Gross. Make some for me too?”

Ilya waggles the second mug already in his hands.

Shane watches him putter in the kitchen for a second. The muscles in his bare back working, the welcoming pudge at his lower back leading to his strong ass. He’s so soft, domestic, utterly appealing in these moments.

It makes Shane more than ever want to come out right.

He looks at his whiteboards, searching for gaps, areas of improvement. He doesn’t have that much that he actively is thinking about changing. He just wanted to look at them. To see the plan laid out and real before him. So far away from that dark nightmare…

To marry Ilya in the way he deserves, Shane will have to come out.

No two ways about it— he’s not going to have some private, hush-hush ceremony where his beautiful man has to glance over his shoulder with paranoia.

No, it’s going to be a big, glorious wedding affair at Shane’s cottage. Overflowing with affection for the man he loves. Shane finally gets to show it, and he’s been building up quite a reserve over the years.

Loving Ilya, he is sure he can do. He’s the only person he really trusts for the job, if he’s honest, and he’s definitely the most qualified.

Coming out and marriage… those are newer concepts for Shane.

If he’s being honest, Shane never planned to come out— Or no, maybe there was one time after retirement but that was a fluke, the thrill of leaving the sport and trying to figure out what life could then be.

He won his final Stanley cup in his final year, and woke up from a nightmare of someone handing him a champion ring studded in rainbow flag colours. Maybe it should have been funny or elicited that pride people talked about, but dream-Shane could only think of how different from his teammates he felt, how diminished his win was.

He woke up, looked at his coming out plans (not dissimilar to the ones here) and deleted the file on his computer. The plan winked out of existence like it never was, and Shane shelved the whole idea of coming out.

His soberest realization was that quitting hockey changed little; life and its pressures stayed so much the same after retiring, with people still looking up to him, expectations for success in a career field still informed by a publicly pleasing persona, and a personal miasma of anxiety around the subject that refused to budge. It was as if the mass and weight of the pressure stayed the same size, just changed shape.

And Shane was okay with that. With his cowardice and the twisted, bitterness that he would just have to love in a limited way. Life is like that sometimes, unfair.

Then Shane met Ilya, again, and wanted more than he ought, also again. Then Shane saw Nikolaj be braver than them both, and Shane found himself reaching for a bag of courage he turned away for a long time.

Doesn’t mean he’s about to be careless—no single bisexual flag emoji for Shane. He means to win at this, to slash a path for himself to succeed.

Shane’s plan is to come out in phases to the important people in his life first. It’s a matter of generating momentum, of coming out to the right people first so that he can amass confidence and support.

Even with the backing (he hopes, dares think he’ll have it) coming out publicly is not going to be an easy process, which is why Shane has the wedding plan boards to bolster him. As a little reward. For each terrible, awful, awkward conversation about Shane’s godforsaken sexuality, Shane can look at embossed stationery, see his name entwined glossily with Ilya’s on high grade card stock and let it feel a little more real.

They’re getting married. Ilya Rozanov will be his husband.

Only took him about fifty years, Shane thinks to himself wryly.

Shane startles when a mug of coffee floats in front of his face.

“You are sexy when plotting,” Ilya says, not for the first time.

Shane shakes his head, takes the coffee mug and sips. Ilya’s torso is a perfect place to settle and Shane pulls the blankets over them, hopeful of luring Ilya back to sleep for a couple hours even with the coffee.

Ilya’s muscles are big and squishy, he gives in all the places that Shane’s body doesn’t. He worries sometimes there’s something in that, a metaphor maybe for the way Ilya bends where Shane snaps. Even in the way Ilya has let him take over every part of this wedding and coming out as a couple.

Am I being too much? Shane wonders it to himself looking at the detailed boards, but Ilya doesn’t look bothered as his blue eyes lazily trace over Shane’s plan and all the phases.

“So we tell the Hollander parents first.”

“Yes,” Shane says. “I figure they’ll be the easiest.”

Ilya doesn’t say are they? but some of it shows in his pause, in the long silence.

“Well, at least they won’t be mad.” Well, his dad won’t be. No telling what his mother will think about his union to a former Boston Bear. If she even remembers…

“She will love me as a son in law,” Ilya says, half teasing. Shane thinks she would have, in another life. For now, he lets the joke sit.

“After that we focus on collecting former players who are willing to speak. We tell everyone who can possible sympathize with our cause.”

"Hmm, I see," Ilya drawls. "You find an army to fight social media for you."

Not just social media. Shane looks at the board, the names of dozens of former and current colleagues. They'll fight the MHL if they have to.

"Langstrom would be great to have too," Shane says.

"You think he will? He believes in this?" Ilya asks.

"Langstrom is a politician. It's not about what he believes."

Ilya makes a distasteful expression and it makes Shane smile faintly. Someone who feels and believes with his whole heart cannot possibly relate to Langstrom's cold-bloodedness. 

"It's about what looks good for him and the organization. I make him look good by being progressive already," Shane says. "One more drop in the bucket shouldn't change too much."

Ilya's expression shutters a little, but he shrugs easily, doesn't point out all the ways it could go wrong. (Shane is well aware.)

"So, we tell everyone important and then go public."

“Yeah. That’s what Scott Hunter did wrong. He did it all backwards."

Ilya blinks, huffs a laugh. “What? You do not approve of Scott Hunter method of kissing boyfriend with one hand while holding cup with other hand?”

Shane winces.

“You and I won’t be doing that even if McGill does win the cup,” Shane says. The thought of coming out that publicly is horrifying.

Ilya laughs, warm and easy against Shane’s spine.

“Maybe ‘wrong’ is too strong a word, but it wasn’t… Hunter didn’t give anyone the heads up beforehand to organize their support. He was so sudden with it that everyone was surprised, on both sides. That made the counter response to the homophobes weaker than it could have been.”

Shane and Ilya can have a veritable tidal wave if they do this right, rallied and organized. Loud enough to silence the confused and angry dissenters. It will be a bit of a bloodbath against their naysayers if Shane manages it well; but Ilya and Shane will be on top.

“Hunter’s point was very, um, sudden, I think,” Ilya says, teasing the word out.

“Spontaneous,” Shane supplies. “Yeah, maybe for romance that’s great; not for coming out.”

“You did not mind my proposal,” Ilya says. “Very spontaneous.”

Shane rubs his forehead. “We need to come up with a better story than you asking me with my hand in the blender.”

“But it is such a good hand.” Ilya picks Shane’s left hand and kisses it. “And blender is very you. Everyone knows you like a shake.”

Shane snorts.

“What if we tell former players and they don’t support? What if they want to go tweet everyone on social media, Shane Hollander is gay and obsessed with Ilya Rozanov?”

“Who’s obsessed with who, exactly?” Shane asks, but Ilya’s question is a good one.

Ilya is pragmatic at his core, not so wrapped up in their engagement joy so as not to know people. His understanding of homophobia is why Shane has always related to him in a way he never did with someone bright and blindly optimistic like Kip.

“Then that’s why we get the ones we can rely on first— Hayden, probably Cliff Marleau. JJ for sure. Some of the guys on my old line in Ottawa. Then we tell people who know they’re going to be socially ostracized by outing us. They won’t want to risk that, especially from active coaches with pull in the game still. They know who vote in hall of fame players.” Hayden, Marleau and JJ all have microphones and international cameras shoved in their faces every few weeks for coaching pro. They’re Shane’s walking threats against that type of coming out. He knows Hayden will go to war for him anyways, and if Marleau is on Ilya’s side… Well, it could be a very bad career move for those spewing hate.

Not to mention with Shane ingrained in the MLH he can fix any backlash for getting personal and political over hockey that might come for speaking out in his favor.

“I have a few strings of my own to pull,” Shane murmurs. He’s on first name basis with just about every sports reporting organization. “If they’re smart, they’ll know they won’t like what might happen if they try and leak it.”

Ilya looks wide-eyed at Shane. “Holy fuck. Is this what you do at work?”

“What?” Shane asks, perplexed.

“Fucking…” he waves his hand, looking for the word. “Blackmail.”

“It’s not blackmail, it’s strategy,” Shane says a touch annoyed, but Ilya’s warm hand on his neck is a balm against his irritation.

“No. Definitely not the word I was looking for, but it is hot,” Ilya says, easily.

“Everything is hot to you today.”

“How can it not be? I’m marrying you. So fucking hot.”

Shane fidgets, feeling hot against his will, and a drop of coffee makes an escape from his coffee mug, drips over the rim. Ilya brushes his thumb to catch it before it falls onto Shane’s couch. Ilya’s finger dips into his mouth to taste. 

Shane does not want to stare, he’s really not aroused after two rounds yesterday, honest. But there is something about the way Ilya’s mole works when he’s sucking, that punctuation mark flashing on his face as he works his mouth over his own fingers… it’s hard to look away from.

Ilya pulls the thumb out. “Drink your coffee,” he says, as if his other hand is not rucking up Shane’s shirt, winding around his waist. Hot hands, Ilya has always had hot hands. Shane grips his mug tightly, tracking Ilya’s wet fingers as they dip under his shirt, fumbling in the cloth for a moment before his thumb lands, wet and fiddly on Shane’s nipple.

Shane bites back a sound and looks down at his coffee which blurs in his sight a little.

Ilya isn’t rubbing hard, isn’t particularly insistent. It’s the impotent idleness of the gesture that really makes Shane’s face feel hot.

Proprietary, maybe, is the word. Like Shane is his to touch. And if he’s Ilya’s, that means that Ilya is…

Shane suddenly can’t wait for the wedding plan, specific as the ceremony is. Shane will bear every terrible awkward conversation. Just for the pleasure of touching Ilya where other people can see. Of making him feel in any way as owned and cared for as he makes Shane feel.

“Will you come with me to tell my parents tomorrow?” Shane asks, feeling breathless in his rush.

“…You mean today?” Ilya asks. Shane nods, chagrined. “So fast.”

Shane doesn’t want to wait. Not even for another weekend to do this.

Ilya sighs, exasperated and warm.

“My crazy competitive husband. You run out of opponents so can only race yourself," Ilya muses. Shane shifts his torso, rubbing into Ilya's hand. Ilya kisses his face, "we make a deal that I get to fuck the winner, okay?"

It’s so silly, makes Shane laugh and he feels Ilya’s hand drop to his stomach to feel the kick of amusement gusting air. Shane fidgets at his hand on his little belly, but it doesn’t feel as bad as it might.

“You know, I never thought I’d get married,” Shane admits.

Ilya makes a curious sound, keeps holding Shane’s stomach, and the physical vulnerability makes the words easier.

“I didn’t want to come out so… How could I get married?”

Shane’s loose, squirming ideas of marriage as a teenager always included a pretty, girlish bride his parents might like. Someone who’d make life easier to bear by being next to him in pictures, the way that Jessica made his life easier in college by virtue of being around and saying they were together. His teammates were never so nice to him as they were while he and Jessica were together. It made Shane legible to them, somehow, one of them. Not the hockey machine.

Knowing he was gay… no, not even that, because plenty of gay people got married… knowing that Shane never wanted to come out about it, Shane forgot the idea of marriage all together. The desire for privacy more valuable than the bride-laden concept of matrimony he’d tangoed with awkwardly his whole life. His parents suggested marriage obliquely, in asking if he wanted to talk to the family about getting his grandfather’s ring when he died, but Shane shook his head, elided the topic. They respected him not to push it, even if he thought it made them unfairly sad on his behalf. Shane didn't want their sadness.

Shane never felt bereft nor salty for his choice. Plenty of people, plenty of gay men especially, never tied the knot and it didn’t make any of their relationships any less meaningful.

The only time he’d felt badly about it was when he thought about Svetlana Rozanov, the stupid tweet from TMZ announcing her and Ilya’s marriage, and thought inanely, I should have been his bride. It should have been me.

That thought was so strange, so unspeakably weird (Shane has never wanted to be a girl, really), that Shane has never voiced it to anyone.

But having Ilya stand across from him yesterday, say Marry me. I will marry this hand. Let me embarrass you every tax season—

Well, Shane has had to change his gameplan. Adjust his image of the future. Renegotiate this very particular, tradition-laden wedding concept.

“You save it for me, then?” Ilya says, his voice a low grumble. He’s such a greedy bastard, he sounds pleased and a little hearthurt all at once.

I'll show you how good it is,” Ilya murmurs again, kissing Shane’s face. Shane supposes Ilya would know…

That’s why it’s especially important that he does this right— coming out and the wedding, he means. To give Ilya this; a second chance at a beautiful married life.

Shane fidgets at the thought, the squirmy insufficiency that curls in his stomach.

“When is the wedding? I didn't ask. And I should know, yes? Important that I show up.”

“June. After the end of the season for you.”

Ilya laughs. “You plan for us to make play offs.”

“You will,” Shane says.

“I will,” Ilya says. “I already tell them my boyfriend will leave me if we don’t win. Now that it will be husband they will have to do their best.”

Shane splutters a laugh even as he remembers oddly that Ilya is so much further along than Shane is on letting people into their private happiness. He feels behind, like starting the race a lap late; it’s a feeling he hates.

Tomorrow— no, today, he starts catching up, and in six months, he’ll have everything in the world and even more than he wanted— a whole marriage.

Chapter End Notes

i toyed with the idea of a shane's version, but to me, the tension was gone because we knew how it all went.

a commenter last fic EDIT: (THANK YOU traceofbodypaint!!) gave me the idea for the opening section! please know this chapter is for you buddy!

CAVEAT:
This fic is NOT in form, length, or grace of telling, death, taxes and shane hollander. this story is something very different, as i suppose a different pov would logically demand. It's about hollanov but also definitely about Shane and unwrapping a version of him that has not addressed a lot of issues in middle age. To me, if you like a character enough it's worth unfolding every layer.

I do promise you get something completely different but no less lovingly (arduously) made <3

Chapter 2: shane is a son

Chapter Notes

ngl, i am sweating because I almost selected the main character death tag but based on literally every review i think i dodged a bullet for real. thanks for surviving the first chapter. here is the second lmao.

why is shane so much like clarissa dalloway? hard to know.

Despite Shane's efforts to lull him, Ilya does not fall back asleep. 

They get dressed together once the sun properly rises. Shane tries not to overthink what he is wearing— if he starts thinking about his clothes as the shirt I wore telling my parents, or the underwear I chose to come out to my coworkers he’s going to have to throw out his entire closet.

“Is Yuna doing better?” Ilya asks. He’s facing away, pulling on a worn black shirt.

Shane remembers briskly and coldly that he’d been keeping Ilya away from his parents for almost a month. He feels a slither of guilt. He told himself it was just paranoia about the loose lips of the desk clerks, of nurses… even though he had vetted Hawkesbury House thoroughly before sending his parents there, even though there were NDAs sitting signed on Shane’s laptop promising the highest level of privacy for the parents of Canada’s former hockey star.

Maybe he admits now that some part of it had to do with controlling his hopes. Of his fear that things were too real when Shane’s precious people were all in the room together. It made Shane think about Ilya and his parents being the kind of family he constantly reminded himself they could never be—

So, yeah, Shane probably isn’t as evolved as he thought from that moment when Ilya made a badly timed tunamelt. I never want you to run away again, Ilya said in the hotel bed, honest and simple. Yet given the first glimpse of things going out of Shane’s control, that’s just what he did…

Shane will have to do better. Because that fear of nearness? Those were the worries of a Shane from yesterday. The Shane of today can have that closeness. That and more.

The guilt is thick in his chest, but Ilya catches his chin, angles Shane’s jaw to look at him. His hand is warm and his expression light. There’s no accusation in his eyes, only worry— Worry for Yuna. He really likes Shane’s parents, genuinely.

Shane lets his pulse settle a little, rides out the bad feeling until his blood settles.

“She’s had some rough days, but she’s still there most of the time.”

Ilya nods, smiles faintly.

Shane grabs his wrist, keeping his hand on his face. “They’ll be happy to see you again— happier to hear we’re marrying. My dad asked after you a lot.”

“I missed them too,” is all Ilya says. And Shane loves him a little more for letting him have control. For letting Shane control his parents though he has no right to.

Ilya is quiet for a moment, then he strokes Shane’s bristly face.

“Come.”

Ilya drums his wedding ring against the steering wheel as they enter Hawkesbury. Shane doesn’t know if he’s aware of the habit, of his little tick, if the blunt sound of metal even registers to Ilya after all these years. Shane notices it, makes his eyes glance away anyways.

It’s strange how his awareness of Ilya’s first wedding ring comes and goes. He almost never notices the ring when Ilya’s hands are on him. The heat and strength of his grip is so overwhelming— coupled with the feeling of being held and felt, often hefted up— that the protrusion of warm metal is secondary. But now, in this quiet moment when Ilya struggles with his nerves and pulls on his ring from Svetlana… Shane notices.

He wonders if Ilya will drum Shane’s wedding ring like this. If Ilya will keep wearing both.

Shane is not sure how he feels about the idea. Reminds himself to reread the section covering rings and mementos in his book on dating later in life.

Two days after Shane started “seeing” Ilya, when they agreed to fly and visit on weekends, Shane went to the bookstore and got lost in the self-help section.

Shane knows self-help books are a little passe, that therapy is much more the thing to do. Hayden has been preaching about it since it saved his marriage to Jackie fifteen years ago and has never let anyone forget about it. Hell, even Ilya attends his own bimonthly tele-therapy meeting religiously.

Shane has never been interested in spilling his innermost thoughts for a stranger even if they have a degree. Sports psychologists unnerved Shane enough, his posture was always so upright that he almost always left the meeting with a migraine. Even away from the pressure of someone deciding whether Shane got to play hockey (absurd), a private therapist isn’t any easier.

Shane understands that it’s a safe space to let loose his twisty inside feelings, but he’d feel obliged to because he would be paying for it and what if he’s unable to make himself be that honest and vulnerable? What if he’s so godforsaken controlling that he can’t even let a therapist help him?

The whole clusterfuck idea gives Shane so much anxiety that he thinks he’s probably saving himself trouble and a Xanax prescription by never trying therapy.

And maybe it also has to do with a faint memory of being seven and his mother taking him to a psychologist. He doesn’t remember the content of the meeting nor what the doctor said. Just that he’d been playing with a Gameboy in the waiting room when his mom stormed in from the doctor’s office and grabbed him by the hand, saying,

“Thank you very much” to the doctor, with so much vitriol that Shane was surprised she didn’t spit at the man’s feet like some of the older hockey players did.

In the car, she gripped the steering wheel tight, smiled at him in a way that kind of hurt to look at, said, “Some people are idiots, you know?”

Which, Shane learned through repetition, was her way of saying people were fucking racist.

Back then it made him feel twisty, wrong in that way he often felt at that age. He wondered what terrible thing he said to make the doctor tell his mom something that upset her so much.

But it was often like that, social situations, talking, making eye contact. Difficult, just that beat off. Shane has trained himself over the years through pressure and a willful ambition to hit the notes better. It’s easier when he’s at work, when there is a structure to adhere too. Easier to relax and navigate when there are guidelines to follow, a common goal to chase. 

He has no desire to relive whatever happened in that doctor's room, thanks, and has never dabbled in therapy despite Hayden’s vociferous attempt to proselytize him. But Shane still has issues, still has feelings that are bigger than his own ability to handle.

Which is why he loves the self-improvement section. What is Shane Hollander but a man seeing to improve himself?

He’s indulged skeptically in pseudo psychology but generally found the drier, more research backed sociology texts helpful in detangling his feelings and emotions. And if there are a batch of blank pages at the end to write down his worst thoughts privately, something he can cathartically burn in his backyard firepit at the cottage once or twice a year, then mores the better. No one need know.

That day after seeing Ilya off on a plane, Shane trawled through the self-help dating section.

He pored over the different tomes, looking for ones that covered the relevant topics in his life. Dating with adult children, dating long distance, and most of all, dating a widow.

The last one is the one Shane mulls over the most.

He knows Ilya has baggage about Svetlana. Sudden, terrible death by aneurysm is a rough thing for anyone to cope with. A long time ago, Ilya said, when Shane worked up the courage to offer his sympathies that first day they re-met. Four years is not a long time ago, not in the grand scheme of things, not in a marriage that stretched sixteen long and successful years.

Ilya has done his work in therapy, tells Shane to be more rude about his dead wife, of all things. Shane isn’t quite there yet.

Unfair or not, Shane has his fair share of baggage about her too. Svetlana. Her name doesn’t draw up an image of that intelligent, beautiful woman she was in his mind, instead it summons a cocktail of hurt and betrayal that has lurked in his heart since the day Shane went into his team group chat and found out from a meme that Ilya had married someone behind his back.

That day, Svetlana stopped being a person to him, Ilya’s beloved friend, and became the locus of Shane’s pain.

It’s not fair, he knows. It’s not Svetlana he blames, it’s Ilya.

“She told me to tell you,” Ilya said, after they had round two of “yes-I-will-marry-you-freak sex,” because it seemed he needed to return Shane’s favor of asking about Alzheimer’s contingencies for them by bringing up his dead wife in their loving bed.

“She was always so much smarter than I was,” Ilya said, grinning without humor. Shane felt the wave of grief rise up, all the time they had lost because Ilya didn’t tell him, didn’t let Shane take control of the situation and say No, Ilya. No. Don’t marry her. Shane could have fixed all of this, could have strategized, could have bargained, could have salvaged every missing day of the ensuing twenty years—

But Ilya was in his arms, in his bed, not with her. Never with her again, and so Shane swallowed the feeling, said “Most people are,” and relished the genuine laughter he elicited from Ilya without trying.

Ilya is generous like that. Laughing without Shane trying to make him, giving those chuckles so freely.

Twenty years are gone, but Shane wants to make him laugh every day they do have. Watch the way a smile takes over his face, curling his lips, warming his eyes, softening his mouth.

He wants to prevent the pain he glimpsed that day in his Ilya’s house when Shane asked if it was lonely that Nikolaj would not speak Russian to him.

And Ilya had minced a smile, looked so beaten down and said softly, “my wife is dead, is a lot that is lonely” And Shane had hurt like the loss was impossibly his own. He did not know before then that it was possible to feel another person’s pain so completely. And then Ilya had said, “It’s not so bad with you,” and Shane felt some part of him, that part that was desperate to make the other person’s life better, spring to life with aching need.

He wanted to do that. Wanted to be that relief. Not even out of jealousy, but to blot Ilya’s pain with the force of his affection, if it was even possible. Like an eclipse; warm and total.

So Shane bought books about dating a widower. The first thing it said was, Don’t compare yourself to their dead spouse.

So much easier said than done when Svetlana Rozanov was a beautiful woman who gave Ilya a beautiful child and beautiful home (even if the ceilings were a little low). And Shane gives him…

Laughter, he tried to remind himself. Incredible sex.

He knows he’s underselling himself, but it’s so hard to think about it concretely aside from how much he wants Ilya and feels wanted back. Perhaps that is all that matters, and not that they give tit for tat.

He hopes that’s the case, anyways.

So Shane does not mention Ilya’s wedding ring from his first marriage, another piece of advice from the book, encouraging the reader to give the widow time to take it off themselves.

Most of the marriage accoutrements have little appeal to Shane, but seeing Ilya wear his ring…

Shane wants his ring on Ilya more than he wants Svetlana’s ring off him, and he hopes that’s something like character growth. He may have to read the next chapter to be sure though.

Shane tries to let go either way, because this morning, Ilya held his head, hovered a breath away and pulled gently, so gently at Shane’s face. His wrinkles. It made Shane want to make a face, but such was hard to do with Ilya cradling his jaw so carefully with one hand, razor carefully held in the other. He was tender, meticulous, and slow. It was hard to breathe, almost, this nearness, the warmth of Ilya’s hands, and Shane felt himself getting the start of hardness from getting shaved. He’s sure Ilya didn’t notice, he was so absorbed with Shane’s skin, let him rinse off and pet every smooth edge with a grin that spoke of catharsis.

“My perfect man,” he said, and Shane almost felt it too.

How could Shane ever justify his aching jealousy with all that?

Shane texted his parents before they arrived so they knew Ilya would be coming, but the surprised, cheerful smile his dad gives Ilya makes Shane feel guilt all over again.

“So glad you’re back around here!”

“Me too,” Ilya says simply. He always seems bewildered by the careful way Dad hugs him, almost a slow motion version of the way he clasps Shane, but Shane doesn’t know why his dad does it either.

Mom comes around the corner, her smile falling into a scowl at the sight of Ilya, before Shane takes Ilya’s hand and her expression eases. He can see her figuring things out behind her eyes. Even if it doesn’t make sense immediately, she still likes to act as if she knows everything going on. Shane thanks god for his dad’s obsessive love of her, because if it was anyone else, Shane’s mom would have probably steamrolled them into thinking they were the one with Alzheimer’s.

“Hi, Mom,” he says, hugging her. Her arms, more fragile and less wiry strength, come around his shoulders. She smells a little strong, hair a touch greasy. Shane knows she’s been struggling with showering. No matter how often his dad tells her she needs to bathe, she snaps, tells him she’s just taken one, even if it’s been a couple days.

Shane doesn’t mind the smell of her, not after professional sports and the sweaty hugs they exchanged after running marathons together.

Still, when she awkwardly positions herself to hug Ilya, Shane feels a pang of embarrassed anxiety on her behalf. The old her wouldn’t want this. It’s hard enough that there is a mental degradation, but the physical hits it home even harder.

Ilya doesn’t react to her smell, takes her mostly-shoulder hug with a warm pat to her back and a smile.

“Yuna. Your favorite person is here!”

“I know you’re talking about Shane,” she says, scowling just enough that it’s playful.

“Funny, that’s my favorite person too.”

That earns a real smile from her. Shane lets Dad take his mom’s arm, guiding her back to the living room. He hears Dad whispering, “I think they’re back together.”

“Were they broken up?” Mom asks, not quietly at all.

“We weren’t,” Shane protests, not willing to pretend he can’t hear them, because they weren’t, but he can admit that they might have been heading that direction just a little…

Maybe Shane was in damage control, trying to pull as much of himself in as he could bare, bracing for the break he thought was coming. Ilya would have to be the one to do it this time though, because Shane had done the hard part last time and it almost destroyed him. Ilya didn’t break them though. Ilya took the moment of crisis and was honest, truly honest. And for all it fucking sucked, it also transformed the break into a startling, bright new way forward.

Thank god for impulsive Russians proposing when Shane was wrist deep in a blender.

Ilya gives him an uncomfortable look, as if asking were we breaking up? Your parents think so. Yeah, Shane isn’t answering that right now.

“We have good news,” Shane says as he sits on the couch. Ilya sits beside him, his plastic name card poking into Shane’s shoulder, but Shane doesn’t draw away. He thinks their contact helps his mom stay more oriented. And maybe it helps Shane stay steady too. Two birds, one hug.

“You made commissioner?” his dad asks.

“No,” Shane says.

“Not yet,” Ilya corrects.

His mother glances between them, a furrow to her brow that suggests she isn’t following this at all. Shane has mostly stopped trying to tell her about his work, so he tries to move past it quickly.

“I don’t get it,” she mutters. She looks irritated.

“Mom, we’re getting married,” he says.

She looks at him, blinks. His dad’s face brightens like a sunrise.

“Would you look at that! They’re getting married,” he says to Mom.

“I knew that,” she lies, casually, and Ilya splutters.

“No, you didn’t,” Shane says flatly. “You couldn’t; we just told you.”

Mom recalibrates, so fast, so quick. Too cunning for her own good. She convinced at least one doctor that she was completely fine before she couldn’t find her keys and snapped at him for hiding them from her.

Shane sometimes thinks this would be easier if she wasn’t always so totally herself, but the thought feels unkind. He swallows it.

“Well, it’s totally obvious, isn’t it?” she blusters. “Though you could have done it with someone who isn’t an affront to the face of hockey.”

Ilya’s grin spreads bigger at her every word. Typical for a man who kept a running tally of the number of his burned effigies when he came into town. (The final tally is almost more impressive than his assists.)

“He’s a legendary player,” Dad says, mostly for Ilya’s benefit.

“He’s a goddamn Bear!” Which Shane knew was coming. “Think of what the fans will say.”

“He doesn’t play hockey anymore and neither do I.”

Mom frowns at Shane, that same look of how? What? Why ever not? Bordering on the edges of who are you and why have you so poorly replaced my son? It’s ironic. She turns her doubtful look on Ilya and gestures with condemnation— not at him, but his shirt, which sure enough is one of Ilya’s worn, Boston Bear tees.

Shane glares daggers at Ilya.

Ilya glances down and holds his hands up, blustering and chagrinned. “Sorry, I didn’t… Is very comfortable shirt— it is a very comfortable shirt,” he corrects. Clearly wanting to sound better for Shane’s parents, and it makes the ire melt away annoyingly quick. He doesn’t need to put anything on for them.

Ilya sheepishly zips up his coaching jacket, hiding the Bears worn logo in favor for the McGill Marlet.

“Are you… is this going to be a private ceremony?” Dad asks, the most tactful way of saying my son is a closet case Shane has ever seen.

“No,” Shane says, swallowing. “No, we’re coming out first.”

Ilya squeezes his hand.

“I am already out at work so will not be as much shock.”

“And they have been… receptive?” Shane’s dad asks delicately. Not been homophobic assholes is the subtext, but Shane’s dad loves circumnavigating a hard topic if he can.

“No. Academia is not MLH. It's a lot more protections. My university wants to show me off even, LGBTQ staff member. They wanted me to do some interview in a newsletter.” He says the last word with blatant disgust and Shane has to laugh. “Should get Shane on there, show those pretty teeth, Mr. Sponsorship.”

“That’s good. I’m glad for you, Ilya,” Dad says.

“MLH will get there soon, when Shane is in charge.”

Shane nods, not trusting himself with speaking about the commissionership. He feels certain there will be a way to do it, if he can get enough support… it just feels like the game for commissioner changed drastically. Like halfway through a nail-biting hockey game Shane suddenly has to break in new skates. He’s still figuring out how to go about winning, circling the idea like a stubborn player on the ice.

Still, he’s not about to back down in front of Ilya and his parents. “It will for sure.”

“They will put you on all the newsletters for that,” Ilya grins. “Gay commissioner. Married commissioner.” Ilya looks so pleased like he always does when he mentions Shane marrying him. His hands squeeze against Shane’s sides as if he can’t keep his energy to just himself.

“Have you even thought about what you’re going to tell your coaches?” his mom asks, and she’s lagging in the conversation, ignoring all the pieces she doesn’t understand. She sits forward. Shane can picture her just reaching for her phone to draft something. His heart aches a little, that sticky feeling of love and pity. “And what about the sponsors?”

Shane swallows. Dad winces, starts to talk, but Shane shakes his head. He doesn’t want to have this conversation again tonight. He already told her he doesn’t play hockey once. He doesn’t like to see her disappointment, her accusations, more than he has to in one night.

“We’re telling you first. You’re the first people to know.”

Mom smiles at that. “Obviously. And we support you completely. But do you have plans for everyone else?”

Ilya coughs. “Shane’s plans have plans.”

Shane nudges his leg into Ilya’s, rolling his eyes at his dramatic grunt. Ilya holds up two fingers.

“Two whiteboards,” Ilya faux-whispers, “Big ones.” Dad laughs.

“How is your son doing?” his dad asks. “Have you told him the good news, yet?”

Ilya shakes his head. “No, he has a game today. Don’t want to distract so I— we will tell him after he wins, tomorrow.”

Shane tries not to wonder overmuch about what Niko might think of Shane marrying his dad. Is there resentment? That awkward, knee-jerk homophobia that Shane has been privy to the aftermath of? He has no doubt of Niko’s love for his father, but Ilya seeing a man privately versus marrying a man publicly has to be a big change. They get along fine over text, but it's still such a big shift.

He can only hope that Niko never accuses Shane of trying to replace Svetlana because he deals with enough of those thoughts on his own, thanks.

“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled,” Dad says. “You know that speech he gave was really something.”

“Yes, he is never going to win best chirp award like me at this rate,” Ilya sighs, “But maybe the Scott Hunter prize. Sportsmanship is not so valuable, but still good.”

“Says the man with none,” Shane chirps.

“Says the man with eight. It's too many. They just throw them at you every time you say 'sorry' for beating someone.”

Shane remembers his parents are watching and forces himself to look away, rubs at his warm cheeks. It's that private bubble that swells when they start making each other laugh. He'll have to be careful in public; it's all too easy to get wrapped up in Ilya.

Ilya clears his throat. “We will bring Nikolaj by sometime to meet you before the wedding,” Ilya says, as if that doesn’t mean everything. Shane’s dad goes all wet-eyed.

“Oh, that’ll be something. He’s a real firecracker, huh?”

Shane feels a thready sort of excitement in his chest. Nervous about Niko and his mother being in the same room because of all the personality, but… His parents have no grandchildren. Really, never will. Shane never prioritized kids as much as he did his career and his own life. Selfish, he knows, but his parents had never pressed him for it and Shane enjoys being selfish. He likes being the center of his own life. He might have had kids with the right person, but on his own… well, Shane doesn’t think he’d have the self-sacrifice necessary with all that he wanted and still wants to accomplish professionally.

Having Niko visit is…

Shane feels foolish for his meandering thoughts.

Because Niko won’t be their grandchild, of course. The way Shane is in no way Niko’s parent (thank goodness, because Shane wouldn’t know where to start). Niko is an adult and Shane is just the man marrying his father. Simple as that. Even still, the idea of his parents meeting Ilya’s son makes his heart twist a little.

Just a happy feeling of letting his parents be around some young and gutsy hockey player again, probably. His mom will be thrilled, even if he does play for Buffalo.

“Who’s Nikolaj?” his mother whispers to his dad. “Is he the nurse?”

Shane feels his hands clench, can’t even handle looking at Ilya. Ilya looks calm, more unbothered than Shane does.

“You’ll meet him later,” Ilya patiently reiterates. “We’ll bring him by when his schedule is free. I think you will like him. He has, uh, chutzpah is the word. Like you, Yuna.”

She humphs, sizing Ilya up. Her eyes drift to Shane. "I didn't know you wanted marriage." So terribly blunt. 

"I didn't." Shane shifts in his seat. "Things change."

Shane helps his father bring the drink glasses back to the kitchen, not at all feeling bad for leaving Ilya to with his mom who has returned to glaring. Just desserts for wearing that damn shirt. Shane rinses and scrubs the glasses methodically, handing each one to his father who briskly dries them.

“I’d say this happened a little fast, but I guess I can’t say that,” Dad says quietly.

Shane can imagine it from his point of view—one week Shane won’t even talk about Ilya, and the next they’re getting married. It’s been over a year since they got back in contact. More than that though…

“It’s been a long time in the making,” he says. Understatement of the decade(s).

“As long as you aren’t rushing into anything,” his dad says, and he has a way of making an observation that isn’t judgmental in the least, unlike his mother whose every word holds a hint of really?? in her voice.

Shane swallows. Tries not to get his back up. His dad looks at him, sees it all.

“I just mean you don’t have to rush on account of your mother.”

Shane chokes. Because he hadn’t even thought of that. Yes, her time as the woman he remembers is limited. The window to have his mom at the wedding with even an inkling of understanding of what it means for Shane is vanishingly small because of how swift and merciless the disease is.

“Shane, breathe.”

“I wasn’t rushing before, but now I kind of feel like I should!” Shane says, feeling hysterical.

“Oh, darn. I’m sorry for saying it. You don’t have to worry about her though, a long engagement is a good thing too.”

“It’s fine, we’re doing it the way I want anyway,” Shane says, but he already feels the pressure on his back mounting. Is it possible to move everything up?

No, he’s already created the shortest path he could handle to Ilya. The one with the maximum chance for them to come out in a bright, clean right way. He can’t rush it any more—

He takes a deep breath, tries to settle his anxiety. His dad hovers, and it’s never as helpful as he thinks it is.

“We’re fine,” Shane reassures his dad and himself. “It’ll be nice to get married before fifty anyways.”

They leave with three containers of Tupperware, despite all their efforts. Ilya balances the pile while leaning in for a hug with Shane’s mom so strong that he lifts her up a little.

Shane hugs Mom too, feeling her stale scent wash over him. He grips her back, always a little torn these days between pulling her closer and pushing her away. He can’t explain the impulse and reminds himself that he needs to look into books for children of parents with Alzheimer’s— he’s read all the nonfiction literature on the subject, the medical action of the disease and struggles his mom and dad might face, but not for himself. He’s probably put it off for too long, if the ache in his chest means anything.

In the car, Shane rubs softly at his eyes. He hates how choked up he feels seeing her. Wishes it was just pleasant and not this mess of feelings. He wants to see her, wants to feel happy to see her, not this thick miasma of good and bad. Despite girding himself, he's always let down by her lack of interest in his current affairs, hurt by her lingering hockey expectations even when he's done it all, won every prize for her.

“Sorry… she isn’t showering much,” Shane says, the words a little hoarse.

“You should have smelled my dad. I think he spent a whole summer claiming he was allergic to water.” Ilya says it lightly, and Shane feels that bubble of anxiety popping. Right, he doesn’t have to explain. Ilya knows. Ilya hugged his mom and meant it.

He takes Ilya’s hand, just to hold it.

“You took care of him, right? In the summer?”

“Yes.”

Shane tries to think about all the fights about showering and driving and taking pills he and his dad have had with Mom. Ilya was so young then, doing that at Nikolaj’s age. But Shane remembers how much more mature Ilya felt than Shane when they first met and reflects that maybe Ilya had not been young for a long time.

He makes up for it now. It’s like Ilya could not be a child when he was young, so he is an adult with so much giddiness and glee. Silliness is a default to him, sweet and easy.

“I’m always surprised she doesn’t get angry or yell,” Ilya says quietly.

“She does,” Shane says. “Usually at my dad. Not at me yet. When she can’t find her phone, she gets… she gets upset. Yells at him for playing games.”

“Oh.”

“It’s just what this does to people.”

Ilya is quiet. Shane wants to ask more about his dad, if he changed that much after getting the disease or if he was always a miserable asshole. Realizes he doesn’t have the bandwidth even if he wishes he did. Shane swallows, offers a weak smile.

“Went well, overall, right?”

“Yeah,” Ilya murmurs. “Two down.” Ilya looks back to the road. He’s shifty in Shane’s hand, uneasy. 

“What?” Shane asks.

“Tomorrow, I think maybe I should tell Nikolaj alone.”

Shane freezes, an initial pang of hurt and anxiety pressing against his ribcage before he pauses, tries to think back to what the books said. Don’t overstep, don’t try to parent, listen to your partner, was the general advice. This is boundaries. Boundaries are good, right? Shane already reminded himself he's not a parent to Niko, just... Just a guy. Or something.

“It’s not because I don’t want you there,” Ilya says, a plain pleading in his voice. “I think he will be happy to hear. Tells me I am moving like slow old man about you, just—”

“It’s fine,” Shane says, and it sounds flat to his own ears. He tries again, “I know things are complicated because of his mom.”

Ilya squeezes his hand back, bald appreciation on his face. “He really likes you.”

Shane raises an amused brow at this deflection.

“Not as much as I do,” Ilya qualifies.

“I should hope not.”

“Is impossible, you know?” and Shane feels a little lift at how Ilya does not correct his words with Shane— trusts Shane to get him.

They drive back. Shane is never in the mood for sex after seeing his parents. Ilya does not push him, and maybe he isn’t in the mood either. For how fairly he weathers the highs and pitfalls of Shane’s mom’s condition, the parallels and pain still have to play on his mind. How could it not?

Shane tries to imagine taking care of a parent who did not love you. The obligation of it all feels smothering, so foreign to Shane’s idea of family relations. But Ilya has a whole brother and niece out in the world he never speaks too. Ilya cut them off like a lizard might lose a tail, and ran back to America.

For good reason, of course. Russia released a statement condemning Ilya’s coming out post a month ago. It was brisk, vaguely phrased disappointment. Ilya got a letter in the mail. Shane saw him glance over the Cyrillic letters and fold it between the pages of his defunct red Russian passport and shove it in a drawer.

Shane is glad that Ilya does not go on his social media. He doesn’t need to see the speculation, the interviews of family members and old friends smearing him for being “odd” and versions of “promiscuously degenerative” in translated subtitles in a way that felt so dismissive of the bright, wonderful person Ilya is.

Spitefully, Shane logged into Ilya’s social media and posted twice about him that day, showing Ilya happy at the park and another picture of him grinning over breakfast. He felt fierce showing Ilya’s joy, even if Shane could only hold the camera, unable to take part in the frame. Shane felt glad to show that Ilya was living so much better over here with Shane than he ever would over there.

The online engagement to his coming out post was not all negative, and Shane would have kept Ilya abreast of the metrics if Ilya had any interest. He only turned his head away when Shane broached the topic. Shane still ached to show him the positive reaction to one emoji of affirmation and self-acceptance.

The shock, the glee, (and yes, the innumerable omg that’s who Niko was talking about!!!, including all memes adjacent to Nikolaj’s gaff.)

In another life Ilya would have laughed, trolled them back. In this life, he gets dressed the following morning and moans about eating Shane’s healthy omelet, none the wiser of how he’s trending on most major social media sites.

That’ll be Shane trending soon, he thinks with a dizzy thump. And he’ll be coping with the one-two punch, being gay and being with his former “rival” Ilya. He’s almost sure they might break the internet, even if they haven’t been relevant players in almost twelve years.

Ilya is the only person who has ever made Shane wish he was no one. Could be an unnoticed man in Montreal, in New York, just walking down the street. He could be out because no one would care… but then Shane thinks that maybe he knows himself better than that. Even if he was no one, he would probably still struggle with the vulnerability; he’s just not built to be publicly perceived so nakedly wanting. He holds onto each secret of himself with both hands… but he does think learning to let go of this lifetime habit would be easier if there weren’t several hundred thousand followers watching his coming out, he’ll give himself that.

“Stop thinking,” Ilya murmurs, his arm groping for Shane’s wrist, rubbing up and down his forearm.

“Sorry,” Shane says, habitually polite, and sees a sleepy smile quirk over Ilya’s face. So fond of Shane, and on the cusp of sleep plainly unable to hide it.

Ilya leaves his left hand there, and Shane focuses on it, the warmth, the weight, the soft pressure, cataloguing all of it, imagining it beringed by Shane, until he falls asleep.

Chapter 3: shane is an employee

Chapter Notes

Scott Hunter once called Shane a shark. Sorry, a fucking shark with more teeth than brains. He never was great at chirping, Hunter. Much preferred spitting or the odd rough play to carve out space on ice. Hell, Hunter’s best and only memorable chirp was a shot in the dark, an oblique comparison to Ilya that Shane is now positive he was only groping at (and badly, too).

Still, Scott said what he said about sharks and teeth and brains, spat at Shane’s feet, and wiped the blood oozing from his nose— the blood was easier to remove than the persistent shame at a 5-0 closeout in Montreal’s favour.

Shane, who, at the time, watched animal videos as a way of unwinding before bed, frowned at the comparison and found it Hunter's worst chirp yet. Not only was it kinda stupid (saying sharks had a lot of teeth was like calling water wet or Shane a great center) but the implication that Shane was bloodthirsty was insane. He was driven, not a cutthroat. Hardly cruel compared to some players who brought every chip on their shoulders into the rink like it was free therapy.

Still, that night as Shane clicked through a few shark videos, checking his texts now and then to see if Rozanov had a reply to his chirp (Boston lost 3-4 against Toronto), he could admit that he hoped he moved like a shark.

Quick and effortless in the water, turning on a dime, sensing movement and following it instinctually, smooth and unnoticed until the moment came…

He preferred that comparison than Hunter’s accusations of cutthroat behaviour, or worse, comparisons with dead eyes. Shane heard that a lot from other players about him, sometimes even teammates. What was he supposed to do with that? How did one make eyes lively?

Rozanov never said that, lips curled, said you have ‘fuck me’ eyes. Want it so bad, don’t you?

But Rozanov had always been such an illogical force in Shane’s tidy, predictable world and he didn’t really count.

At 7:30AM, Shane exits the stairway to his floor at the MLH office at a brisk pace. He greets both receptionists by name, making small talk about their weekend while he passes, flashing his badge.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER SHANE HOLLANDER it reads. A little passport into the inner workings of Canada’s greatest sport that, for someone godforsaken reason that Shane hopes to change, is currently headquartered in New York, America.

Shane is early; he’s always early and always leaves late, just the same as hockey. Coaches, worried for his burnout, used to tell him that he didn’t always need to set such a good example. Shane stared blankly at them, not sure what they meant, because he was just doing his work for exactly as long as he wanted to. (And maybe that gap of communication and experience, among many, is why people said he had dead eyes.)

After an hour of answering emails, Shane finds himself sitting upright in his office chair, desperately wishing he could take meetings on his treadmill instead, and certain he must have dead eyes now. It's not his fault when he's stuck watching Leo Connors incessantly torpedoing himself.

Leo is all smiles, chuckling and rubbing the back of his neck. His "dress" clothes of black jeans and a button-up are creased. He was five minutes late to his reprimand and there’s a familiar staleness to his face that suggests he’s bouncing back from an irresistible night out in New York, a look Shane has seen on many of his teammates. He wasn’t impressed back then and he’s hardly impressed now.

“Walk me through it; how are you going to make amends for reckless endangerment?” Shane asks.

“She wasn’t in danger, exactly,” Leo says. “I called an Uber for her.”

“People are saying you abandoned a professional pole dancer on the shoulder of a freeway,” Shane says bluntly. "The Uber is not so material here." Leo’s smile falters.

Shane sighs inwardly, watching him scrabble. Leo is in his sophomore year, which means he is much less afraid of being sent down to the ALH than he should be. Shane means to fix that.

Still, Shane has manners so he listens to Leo’s ensuing babbling, and considers how his mother would have poked Leo until he was sitting up, she’d have typed up a comprehensive list of things to improve on that would have taught even Leo a thing or two about himself, and listed charities Leo would donate to. Leo Connors needs a less famous and thus less overtaxed manager badly, but that isn’t Shane’s business.

Even Niko Rozanov, fresh off saying a slur on national TV, had not mangled the ensuing meeting as badly as Leo is. Of course, Shane does not remember as much the meat of the meeting, it felt like all he could do to focus when his eyes were drawn to Ilya-- was his hair longer? It spiraled lower, kissing against his collar in a coiling curtain. His eyes were bluer than Shane remembered and his presence more enveloping for all he looked embarrassed. Not a familiar expression, but appealing somehow. Vulnerable like moss. Maybe that embarrassment, that totally beat down affect Shane saw in the hallway, is what let him suggest coffee. Ilya had hurt Shane long ago, and Shane never forgot for all he tried… but now Ilya was hurting. And it made space for the tender shoots of curiosity and concern to bud in his chest again. Curiosity is always what got him with Ilya. A searching look on the ice or in the showers that never stayed contained once indulged. He always needed more.

Feeling like something of a priest, Shane takes the sheet of paper that had Leo’s fine printed on it and carefully writes out a few more tasks for him to do, including donating to a charity for pole dancers against domestic violence. Who knows, could be character building.

He slides the sheet across. Leo’s face is pale, unsmiling as he looks at the fees levied against him for making the MLH look sleazy by association.

“Thanks for taking the time to meet with me,” Shane says, offering a hand which a much more solemn Leo shakes.

The rest of Shane’s player reprimands go similarly. If Shane never hears the words “I swear, I didn’t know what was in the vape pen,” again, he can die a happier man.

He meets Commissioner Langstrom afterwards to discuss the reprimands and Shane’s opinions.

Langstrom’s office is the same cluttered, poorly lit space that strangled its square footage. Shane hopes his face doesn’t show a I’m going to change all of this one day when it’s mine look, but Ilya tells him constantly that he bleeds a fierce, competitive energy when he sees something he wants. Sex or hockey, usually, Ilya said, mulled it over, sometimes a nice lighting fixture. Besides, maybe that is why Langstrom respects him in the first place. An ambitious man only respects another ambitious man, or so his mother said. When Shane first started working here, he called her every night, overwhelmed by the baffling office politics and the withholding cruelty of each and every printer (was he an idiot or could it be possible all of them were malfunctioning at once?). Settling into office work on the second lowest rung after captaining a champion team was a steep learning curve. All the more frustrating because this was all supposed to be hockey still but definitely wasn’t. His social cachet as a star wouldn’t be enough alone to get him climbing the ladder.

Thankfully, Langstrom, who was just treasurer then, took Shane under his wing, pulling him back from attacking so much in meetings (a hard lesson for any former center to learn), and teaching him the rules of play in the office space. Like, how to communicate and achieve his point of view without ever having to suggest he even had one.

It wasn't chance that Langstrom picked him. Associating with Shane makes him look good. Shane knows he appeals to both the rightwing old guard who respect Shane’s longstanding captaincy and four Stanley cup wins, and to leftists who want to see a progressive leaning (fiscally minded) man of colour do something different with the organization.

At 48, Shane barely registers the commodification— it’s been happening his entire life, from sponsorships to the MLH. His body has always been the material from which he spun gold from. His own capability maneuvering him forward into greater and greater opportunities. Maybe that does make him a bit of a shark, but Shane would rather be moving up, up, up any day than dead in the water and irrelevant.

Langstrom gets that. Langstrom sees that in Shane and understands it. That, more than anything, is why Shane thinks he has moved in front of people like Kung and Halstead for the deputy position.

Shane tells Langstrom about all their shitty players and he winces in all the right places.

“I think we should pull Connors’ CCM advertisement spot,” Shane says, shaking his head. Connors looked boyish. Like he hit a puck into a car window, not stranded a human being at a high traffic area. “There’s no charges, but we need to nip this behavior in the bud, before he really ends up in legal trouble next time.”

Langstorm leans back. He doesn’t agree, or disagree, instead says,

“This is why I trust you as a deputy. You have a very good sense for people, Shane.”

Shane looks at his mentor, the ultimate politician. 

He thinks about how after Shane won in renaming the Scott Hunter trophy, his coworkers argued hammer and chisel that pride tape needed to be banned outside pride nights for the nth time. He thinks about how hard and quietly he fought to repeal that call, a distraught feeling swelling in his stomach, and how Langstrom raised an eyebrow, said you didn’t think there’d be no backlash, did you? There's always a step backwards, Shane.

The pride tape ban was turned over a few months later when a player beat the wrong man at a club and the age-old cries of homophobic hockey were rallying.

He imagines coming out, about Langstrom tsking as he moves Shane’s desk into a sunless spot, no windows, you didn’t think about the backlash…

“Fine, fine,” Langstrom says. “You don’t need to give me a staring contest.”

Shane blinks. He hadn’t noticed he was boring into him. He feels his cheeks heating and Langstrom laughs. God, he’s riding a tidal wave of rampant (unproven!) paranoia all while in front of his boss. What a great look.

“You could persuade a nun to enjoy a good sports bet, Shane, you don’t have to be so intense."

"I wouldn’t—” Shane catches himself, the social situation registering. He pivots. “I’d tell her to bet on Montreal, eh?”

Langstrom laughs. “With their season? I wouldn’t take that bet. Why don’t you give me a list of alternate players for the CCM spot and I’ll make my choice on whether to pull Connors.”

“The player’s association won’t give us an easy time.”

“Let me deal with it. You can have your turn persuading them later, if you ever take a spin in my chair. Don't borrow worry, Shane.”

Langstrom smiles, and it’s easy, like all of Shane’s best coaches and he feels a grin cracking. Like Langstrom is almost inviting him to the desk…

And maybe he is cruel to assume so much homophobia about a man who has never said one thing or the other about anything.

Shane passes by Jamison, the office manager, desk stubbornly decked out in rainbow everything, pens and buttons and not one flag, but two taped to his monitor. Shane cannot relate to the loudness, thinks of his nightmare of being given a rainbow championship ring— he tries not to reflect on not relating. It's all very unhelpful.

Shane enters his office and finally gets on his treadmill, settling into a steady, even pace. His buzzing mind settles at the physical movement, clarifies into purpose. He eats up miles as he answers emails, suggests players to replace Connors, and updates player reprimand files. He refreshes his email regularly, waiting for Halstead to finally drop the updated budget proposal.

His phone buzzes, and the text pops up on his laptop messaging app— Shane glances away from his Excel and chokes on his coffee.

Niko Rozanov: My condolences.

Niko Rozanov: I meant * congratulations

Niko Rozanov: sry typo

Shane can only stare baffled, wonders not for the first time who the hell is raising these gutsy, mannerless kids— but he certainly knows the answers for this one.

Niko Rozanov: guess you know what ur getting into tho.

Me: Hope so. I’ll do my best.

Shane sends it and immediately feels lame. It worsens when Niko laugh-with-tears reacts to his message. He’s never known what that means. Is it good? Bad? Funny? All of the above? Shane waits to see if Niko will send anything else, but he doesn’t. Is there something else Shane should be saying?

Shane doesn’t quite know how he and Niko fit together yet. They had real tension their first two meetings (one for a formal slur reprimand, the next meeting Shane as Ilya’s boyfriend). Niko’s awkward guilt informed much of their texts and meetings preparing for the award ceremony presentation. Then, Shane helped with his cautious, circuitous question about the Metro’s locker room (and Shane was glad for the first time in his life that he was traded to Ottawa to answer that no, it was not normal to have so much policing within a team culture). Shane enjoyed being useful, providing answers and food for thought when Niko was figuring things out. Shane thought he understood why people became teachers or parents, just because he could see the connections happening, the stubborn growth starting from a seed just cracking open.

Niko would probably despise being described in such a precious way, but he was precious. Precious to Ilya and thus, through Ilya’s eyes, incalculably precious to Shane.

Fortunately for Niko, he seems to be settling in well with the Buffalo Blades. Unfortunately for Shane, Niko does not need anything from Shane, and there is a lacking structure to their relationship. Shane finds himself floundering.

He wonders if he should send him a gift. Something simple to open the way again, only his last gift of a hockey puck did not go over as well as it usually did when he met with high school players. What else he might like is a mystery to Shane.

He just… doesn’t remember what being that age was like. He didn’t have a normal 17/18. All he remembers, among the blur of joining his first team and first wash of his long-lasting celebrity wave, was the crippling yet elating hyperfixation on one Ilya Rozanov and all the things Shane didn’t let that mean about himself.

And since Niko has hardly confessed to being either repressed queer nor harboring psychosexual fixations on his hockey rivals, Shane finds himself at a bit of a loss in terms of comprehension for this phase of life outside of his hockey career, which Shane has hashed and rehashed to death.

It’s not like Shane ever said a slur in any one of his years as a hockey player.

Or, not true. He said the f-slur once, fourteen and daring, an age where he parroted anything just to blend in. The boy he played against was home schooled and didn’t know what it meant. Shane felt so afraid of explaining and twisted in the stomach that he never tried again.

Niko would hardly be interested in that, though.

Shane’s book Dating Late in Life advised that Shane let Niko guide the extent of their relationship initially, which Shane has tried to do, but his texts have tapered off with Niko knee deep in his season.

As someone marrying Niko’s only and beloved parent, shouldn’t Shane at least try more?

Shane starts to type. Do you feel okay about it— Backspace. I’m sure you must be surprised— Backspace. Are you mad?

Which, where is that coming from?

Shane frowns. Goes to text Ilya.

Me: How did it go with Niko?

I ♡: Good he was only a little annoying.

Before Shane can ask, he adds.

I ♡: Says I am slower than scott hunter in locking you down.

Me: He did not say shit about Scott Hunter.

I ♡: No am pretty sure he did. His eyes said it.

Shane laughs, fingers teasing out a few chirps. He backspaces, mind flipping through different options like plays. Ilya is patient through all his typing.

Me: Careful. That’s his best friend you’re talking about.

Shane picks up his phone, takes a moment to go to Nikolaj’s social media. He swipes through the timeline to find a picture of backstage at the MLH awards. Niko, dark curls tousled, grinning, arm slung around an austere-looking Scott Hunter. Shane hits send, interrupting Ilya’s texted string of expletives.

I ♡: Fuck off.

I ♡: You are such a lying ass hole.

Me: img.39u5

I ♡: What the hell is this picture?

I ♡: Tell me is not on his social media.

Me: He wants everyone to know, I guess. Best friends forever.

Shane grins, watching Ilya’s dots dance, sure he has a whole block paragraph of chirping to drop.

A knock at his open office door startles Shane so badly he almost loses his pace and falls off his treadmill.

“Woah, steady there.” Shane’s coworker, Kimmi, stands in the doorway.

Shane smacks the off button, feeling his face flush; he’s stupidly glad Ilya isn’t here to laugh Shane out more. He can still remember the sound of Ilya gasping, bent over at the bench laughing when Shane tripped not once, but twice in the same two second play in his cartoonish scrabble after the puck their second season.

“I’ve never seen you fall off before,” Kimmi says, amused. “You’re that bothered by the budget proposal for next season, huh?”

“The budget dropped?” Shane gets right back on his motionless treadmill, clicking to his inbox. Sure enough, there are a whopping two unopened emails. He clicks the one with the massive excel file attached.

“Yeah, like ten minutes ago. I thought you’d already have twenty counter points drafted,” Kimmi says. “The Teams has been going off like crazy. Move like this, he's begging for me to rake him over the coals."

“I didn’t see, I was texting someone,” he mutters, skimming the top. His stomach sinks as he sees the way Halstead is trying to limit the budget for psychological resources. Shane may not use them in his personal life, but he knows they are valuable, especially post-concussion or on-ice injury.

“You were smiling. Something much better than this mess, I bet,” Kimmi drawls. The prodding is easy, casual, and Shane wishes it didn’t send his back crawling up. He looks at her like a deer in the headlights.

He thinks about how Ilya told him he came out to his team, midway through a conversation, easily, just sharing about his life like someone might talk about a trip to the store. Shane for the life of him cannot imagine, because this moment feels like those tools doctor’s use to pull skin back, to expose the gore and the flesh to the outside air and Shane feels grossly seen.

“Family stuff,” he says, sympathy crawls over Kimmi’s faces because she knows about his mom from last season when he’d taken significant time off following Mom’s first (but certainly not her last) vanishing act from the family home sans phone.

Strikes Shane as crazy that he’d rather discuss his mother’s degenerative condition than the good news of his marriage. Really? This is the world he lives in? But he can’t think about that for too long, he has the budget to consider.

That's when he gets the first email of many and learns that Halstead is taking a half day today to schmooze the ESPN people over lunch and a team building exercise (mini golf) and has dropped the controversial budget proposal right before leaving. Best of all, his out-of-office email lists Shane as the next person to reach out to if something is urgent.

"What a fucking asshole," Shane says through grit teeth, as outraged emails come piling into Shane's inbox. How dare he attach Shane in anyway to this unpopular bullshit. 

"Clever, but a real lazy cock," Kimmi agrees.

Shane isn’t on his treadmill anymore, but even with his feet dreadfully still, he feels his mind cutting through the water, flicking through possibilities until he finds one that makes him smile.

He quickly drafts a template and a form to autopopulate. He'll be fucked if he is sat here for the rest of the day answering for mistakes that are not his own.

"You have a scary look in your eyes, you know that?" Kimmi blinks at her smart watch that flashes with Shane's cc'd email. "What is this?"

"I'm streamlining," Shane says, one of his favorite work words that means nothing. "Complaints can be submitted to this excel for Halstead to look over."

Kimmi drags the email down, reads aloud, "Thank you for your assistance collating your valuable concerns for our treasurer, John Halstead, to respond to at his earliest convenience. With your help we can get all our players the support they need. Overdoing it with that last part, don't you think?"

Shane is only half looking at her, typing a Teams message to his assistant, Merrium, to work with Halstead’s secretary to clear his morning tomorrow. He’s going to need it.

Kimmi clucks. “Halstead is going to be pissed that this isn’t getting answered today.”

“Maybe.” Langstrom won’t though, Shane just knows it. Game respects game. “The volume is too high for it to be done today either way, and I would hate to provide answers that don’t reflect Halstead’s vision.”

Kimmi eyes Shane with that quiet irritation that she didn’t think of the idea first to sabotage their rival, but it breaks into a warm smile. 

"Get his ass."

Kimmi Kung is closer to 60, a career woman with the MLH, working her way up from the mail room with a single-minded dedication to hockey second only to Yuna Hollander. During her time with the MLH, she multitasked earning three professional degrees in sports management, analytics, and business.

She, more than good old boy Halstead, is who Shane considers his competition for the commissionership; made more difficult by the fact that Kimmi is leftist minded like Shane. The only reason either of them will lose is if they split the governing body’s left-leaning vote, leaving bumbling but dumbly likable Halstead to clean up.

If Shane is honest in his heart of hearts, even though he is exciting as a commissioner prospect (four-time Stanley cup winner heads MLH organization is a heading that writes itself), Kimmi, with her three degrees and time with the organization, would be a logical choice before Shane— if she wasn’t a woman.

Or... fuck.

Shane bites his cheek, guilt making him look away. He’s had the thought before, quick and glancing, careless and unclocked by him. Today it registers, sits hard in his stomach like bile.

The fuck is he thinking? Just because the organization is woefully masculine does not rule her out. Fierce, sudden anxiety takes him. Is that how people are going to think about him, immediately dismissive? As if the whole thing is out of his control, could never be. A casualty of fate.

Too bad Hollander’s a gay man or he’d be a shoo in…

Fuck.

He swallows hard, looks down at his laptop. How fickle people are, how quickly tides turn for the mere allusion of something off. Doesn’t have to be wrong even, just off. Different.

Shane won’t give any hint of something afoot. He’s going to come out in a clean, respectable way. Nothing shady, nothing scandalous, but even so… how much can he really trust others to see him right? To see his undeniable worth? To not count him out?

It's mine to lose, Shane thinks, remembering an echo from that dream.

He glances down to his phone, blinking with a block of text from a nondescript 'I♡'

Shane turns his screen over— he needs to streamline.

Shane’s reward for coming out to his parents is a date with the florist. He reached out to Rose for recommendations for companies that respected privacy. She sent several ‘???’ and he answered with a don’t ask that she respected because she has always been the coolest person Shane has known. 

He plans to tell Rose soon, but he'd rather do it in person and not when she's knee deep in a complicated shoot in Malta of all places. 

Shane arrives at a back entrance and a private room with a bottle of still and sparkling already waiting for him.

Patrice is an elegant Quebecois woman in a sleek pantsuit. She runs a floral empire that stretches between America and Canada, taking only the elitest of clients.

Shane’s mind reaches for little details Patrice mentioned on their long call initiating the contract. She’d been WFH that day, mentioned a dog, apologized for the barking.

He asks after Patrice’s pet and is rewarded by her smile flipping from business to a warm pleasure.

Knowing people, remembering details has been key for Shane working upwards through an office, but Shane loves most how it makes each person feel seen. He likes doing that. Wants in a simple way to be someone who makes others feel good.  

I have your arrangements. You asked for something cheerful, but no gold, yellow, black, red or blue, right? she says in Quebecois French.

Right, Shane echoes. It sounds silly to have a massive amount of forbidden colors instead of preferred colors when she says it aloud, but Shane really could not handle anyone’s critique (let alone his mom’s accusations) about former team favoritism.

He asked for Ilya’s input on the flowers, thinking it could not impact Shane’s need to make a larger, coherent picture of themselves on their wedding day.

(He was wrong, for the record.)

Ilya turned on the bed, grinned and said, “Lilies.”

Shane groaned. “You can’t make our wedding flowers a joke.”

“Is not a joke. Will tell all guests who ask that my husband calls me by a girl’s name for years. It is a sex thing, maybe.”

Shane threw a pillow at his face, grinning when Ilya tried to wrestle him down— succeeded pinning him with his weight. Shane countered by leveraging his knee into Ilya’s crotch, rubbing just a bit. Ilya spluttered a long moan.

“Jane, Jane, please. Just like that!”

Shane ultimately put the kibosh when he mentioned it was a funeral flower in North America and Ilya waved the idea off, occupying himself with frottage and Shane’s leg and letting Shane have full reign.

Well, letting Shane hire a competent someone to have full reign. He likes hiring professionals to help him figure these things out.

Patrice leads with a few white arrangements, tasteful camellias. They are nice, but also a little… bland for Ilya. They might work for Shane, because he likes white walls, likes how tall and clean they look. But Ilya’s too bright, bursting for that. Art, chaotic and mismatched, covers his home in Montreal. Bright orange pieces and black paint splatters, borderless shapes.

Do you have anything more colorful? he asks (only after complimenting her designs thoroughly).

Patrice offers a few purple arrangements, are dreadfully feminine. He feels his face flush unhappily at the idea of the pictures. Gay marriage with lilac bouquets, which is probably reductive of him, jockish, but some instincts are hard to break. He doesn’t want something soft like this. It’s not them. Not who they are. Still, with the restrictions he gave her, she could hardly do better. What else is there? Brown?

He tries to take the bouquet, just to hold for a moment while he thinks, but she whips it away, out of reach.

Wait here, Patrice says. Give me ten minutes. Ten minutes.

I’m just looking at it— Shane tries to say, but she is out the door with the flowers, her heels clicking away at a speed almost concerning for a florist. Maybe she got an important text?

Shane fidgets, pulls out his phone to answer a couple of work emails.

Langstrom replied to a chain email of the excel Shane sent a few days ago, results of his submission form. A few questions and follow ups had been added, finally Langstrom wrote: Shane, appreciate you streamlining this process for treasury.

Oh yes, game respects game.

Shane thumbs-up’d the email and cleans his inbox again to zero, which is always a nice feeling.

He looks up when he hears Patrice’s footsteps approaching and she holds a large bouquet of green— vibrant, loving green.

Shane’s mouth pops open. Struck dumb and feeling it— he didn’t know flowers came in that color. The arrangement feels wet and alive, like the cottage in summer. Large bulbous clusters and drooping long flowers. Rich and verdant as spring, as this thing with Ilya. New and comforting all at once.

A grin steals across Patrice’s face. Yes, yes, that is the reaction we are going for, not the squinting look before.

Shane shuts his mouth, frowning, He’s not that transparent, is he?

Still, he takes the bouquet in his hand.

It’s more of a concept, I just wanted to show you a few things we can do. Looser with the bells of Ireland, or we can do something more traditional with the lisianthus—

What are these ones? Shane asks, poking at the large, furling plant, tinged purple in places but wonderfully green in the rest.

Queen’s Lime blush Zinnias. Patrice takes a couple of the bulbous side flowers. We can pair with the green hydrangeas—yes, that’s a nice shape right?

Shane doesn’t really know anything shapewise, but he does feel good looking at it. Feels great imagining seeing Ilya in striking black among all this beautiful green, playful and not too lacy. The green hydrangeas burst in whorling poms and it makes Shane think inanely of Ilya’s tangled curls.

This feels right for them, for the clean masculine way he feels with Ilya; so different than the hollow performativity of masculinity at bars, fisticuffs on ice. Just hands on Shane, steadying and strong, making him stronger.

Just like that, the wedding comes just that little bit more into focus.

Shane clears his throat, it burns with a kind of happy feeling. Makes it hard to talk.

You can get it done in Ottawa?

Yes, we have shops all over in Canada, she reassures him, as if he had not already asked twice on the phone.

Yes, something like this then, if you think it’s a good idea.

I think it will be perfect. Very unique for your partner.

She turns to the door before the word ‘partner’ can register. Shane’s startled mouth opens to deny it or to say something to cover himself before he realizes that she works in the same kind of high-level, professional world he does. That partner is the safe way to speak, to not assume, and it doesn’t mean anything.

Briefly he wishes he was stupid but brave like Scott Hunter, wants to call after her, to say it’s my husband. He’s going to look so incredible against green zinnias and hydrangeas. But he can’t quite find his voice by the time she leaves the room. So he stays quiet, tries not to notice how easy and practiced the silence is.

He leaves the shop, heart in his throat, and thinks longingly that the weekend cannot come soon enough.

Since Shane cannot make the weekend come any sooner, he does the next best thing and calls Ilya on the phone that night. Shane forgoes the tripod in favor for curling up on his good side, pulling the phone close to his face. His bad shoulder still twinges, but Shane ignores it in favor of looking at Ilya closely. Too closely, Ilya constantly tells him, but it doesn’t feel like such a thing exists.

Ilya looks good over the phone. Has a knack for catching the odd angles that Shane doesn’t usually see because they are the same height. But Ilya likes to take Shane with him on the phone when he cooks or when he goes outside and so Shane looks up at his neck, the secret places of his jaw and ear as he talks about his day and wraps up his business, eyes flicking down to look at Shane now and then. Shane's mind is so busy during the day. At night with Ilya, it slows into something quiet like a murmur of waves. It's easy to fall quiet, to enjoy the stretch between words and glances as he inches towards sleep.

When Ilya settles on his own bed, propped on the pillows. Shane toys with the strings of his sweatpants.

“You’re going to sleep soon, you could take off your shirt?” Shane suggests.

Ilya grins at him. They don’t have time to have sex, because Shane spent so long at the florist and then even longer catching up on work emails at home. He has to go to sleep soon, but… he just wants to see Ilya bare. Like a romantic couple does. Nakedness without intention. Casual intimacy. Ilya gives it to him so easily, without a twitch of his expression, letting Shane pull the screen ever closer to his face.

“You too.” Ilya idly massages his heavier chest, still so muscular, but something extra too. He is so fucking confident it makes Shane crazy sometimes. Emboldens him, certainly. Shane hurries to obey even as his eyes take in Ilya’s calm, huge presence on the screen.

Ilya is solid— always has been. It was one of the things that struck Shane first when he saw him on the ice, cutting harsh and quick lines around players, and again in the shower after the CCM shoot. His body was strong, capable, and sturdy. Shane was huge back then too, but Ilya owned his size, made it Shane’s and everyone’s problem.

Some thirty years down the line, that solidity has softened with weight into an addictive steadiness. A total bear, his chest is hairy, nipples peaked and licked with hair that trails down his chest and his stomach. He’s been true to himself, undenying of pleasure, a hedonism so foreign yet appealing to Shane. Ilya leans into his love for carbs, and it shows in the breadth of his chest. Fat, powerful biceps, strong shoulders. His tummy has a little sag, but Shane likes the way it presses against his crown when he blows Ilya. Feels intimate, feels warm. Like every part of Ilya’s body is reaching out for him. Generous and enveloping him, so nice to hold and be held by.

“You see better with your glasses,” Ilya murmurs, and Shane grins, shakes his head. No way he’s missing anything with how close the screen is, but he reaches to his nightstand puts them on for Ilya anyways. His body is a shrunken thing, no real definition like it used to have but he’s always got his face going for him it seems.

Ilya looks at him, eyes scanning the screen, and Shane is sure he doesn’t notice that silly grin on his face, how it makes his expression glow. The deep laugh lines by his eyes crinkle.

“Mmm, eyes look even better like this. Like picture frame.”

So overblown. “You’re calling my eyes art?”

“No. Your eyes more like… Like rocks by the ocean, the little ones. Wet and smooth and so pretty you have to bring home and keep.”

Shane feels his cheeks warming up, expression unfolding for Ilya.

“Hayden used to say they were brown because I was so full of shit.”

Ilya bursts out laughing, and his whole big body moves mirthful with it.

Shane wants to touch Ilya’s smiling face, to roll over to the other side of Shane’s bed and bump into Ilya sitting up against his headboard, feel with his hand the chuckles still moving through his body.

Ilya’s smile slips softer, a little lower.

“Do you still wish I would move to New York?” Ilya asks, and Shane almost shivers— how the hell could Ilya know what Shane was thinking about? He can’t, but it’s still spooky. Makes Shane realize warmly that maybe Ilya is feeling the same longing for nearness gazing at a sleepy Shane through the screen.

Yes, they both constantly want; the constant wanting is mutual, isn’t it? A wondrous little idea that Shane enjoys like a covetous magpie.

Still, Shane hasn’t forgotten the last time he asked Ilya to move in, the embarrassment of Ilya pointing out that he had a life in Montreal, something he built over years. Not simple to leave, and not meaningless either.

Even if Niko has left, Ilya still has a house, a job, a meaning in Montreal.

It makes Shane more careful in his answer.

“Do you feel ready about leaving? Are things at a good place with your team?”

Ilya’s lip purses. “They’re playing well now. Threats work, you know.”

“Your coaching works.” Shane waits, sees Ilya’s cheek work for a moment, his mole wavering as he sets his phone on the tripod by his bed. It gives Shane a better view of his torso, the nice cozy swell of his stomach, the bulge of his arms as they cross on top.

He reminds his dick that they don’t have time to get off. Really. Even if he follows the hair to the bottom of his sweatpants and the limp but visible bulge just poking against the fabric. If Shane was there he’d put it into his mouth, just to feel every bit of it hardening up slowly—

“I don’t want to be married and live in a different place,” Ilya says.

Shane blinks, looks back to Ilya’s eyes. Hopes that by being this close to the screen Ilya can’t parse where exactly he was looking.

“We still have a lot of time for that. There’s no rush.” Six months at least.

Ilya makes a face.

“I could get a different coach in,” Ilya says. “Substitute.” He looks like he’s chewed each word before saying it. Shane is bewildered.

“Ilya, you can finish the season. You should finish the season. Don’t you… You love your team.”

Ilya wilts a little.

Shane gentles his tone. “I know you want to leave right."

Shane knows a few things about leaving wrong. Remembers his final game he didn’t know was his last. Midseason push with the ache of a shoulder with too many surgeries and the final bang against the boards that made it unrecoverable. He doesn’t want that for Ilya, who’s already done it once with his trick leg.

They really had to be rolled off the ice, both of them. Stubborn to the last. The idea of Ilya walking out, leaving a team because he was ready to move on, is just so appealing. Shane vicariously wants that for him.

“You aren’t ready to leave yet,” Shane says. He knows this is true. Ilya’s expression collapses. “You haven’t done everything you need to with your team.”

“No.”

“So, stay. It’s okay, Ilya.… What is it?”

Ilya is quiet. So much goes on in his head. He accuses Shane of overthinking, but Ilya’s is a deep, considered mind, turning things over slowly and thoroughly, deep currents running swift under flat water.

“I am tired of being alone in my house.”

Shane blinks. Oh.

Ilya adds, “Is not the same without my Nika. Feels very big. Very empty.”

Shane’s heart pick up. Of course he’s thought about Ilya alone in the house, but hearing it, hearing the ache in his voice. Is a lot that is lonely, it sounds like. Only this shades a different blue than grief. Shane’s heart picks up.

Ilya takes anti-depressants. Ilya sees a therapist. Without saying it, Ilya has told Shane that he is depressed— and Shane thinks he sees the edges of it clearly for the first time. A difficulty in his expressions, a frailty to his smiles, like he isn’t sure they will last. A reminder that this is another change to the brain of the man Shane loves, like parenthood and loss.

Shane can’t help the soft sound he makes.

“You are a glass heart,” Ilya murmurs, he sounds quietly appreciative. “Always take on other’s feelings. So clear to see.”

Just for Ilya, really. Some of that must show because Ilya makes a sound.

“I guess I could try to billet a rookie,” Ilya says, now that he’s been talked down from leaving his team. “But if I billet then we can also not…” he makes an unhappy gesture encapsulating them and their weekend affairs.

And that is too bad, because Shane thinks Ilya does so well with the kids on his team, could really provide a great space for a young player… but is it selfish of Shane not to want to give up any of his time with Ilya? Maybe not. Shane has rarely been above selfishness, is an only child in myriad ways.

Still, what can be done? Shane wracks his mind. He’s not an empathizer, really. He’s a good listener, but inwardly all he can think to offer is solutions.

"Maybe you could get a pet?"

Right after Shane says it, he hears how pathetic it sounds. Like a hamster would really perk up Ilya’s mood—

Only Ilya’s eyes pop open, big and wide.

“I could get a dog,” he says, wondering.

“Yes,” Shane says, unsure. “You could.”

“I love dogs.”

“I know that.”

“Just— Svetlana developed allergies, and Niko has some too. The hair. But now… You don’t have allergies?”

Shane quickly shakes his head. “No.”

Ilya looks down, and then up. Squints at Shane.

“Can we get a dog?”

Shane feels his heart thudding in his chest. Yes, it is we. Because in six months, they are joining their lives, will be together in every sense. It will be their dog. And all of Shane’s budding reservations about the mess and the unfairness of their schedule for a pet go out the window. He wants this with Ilya. He wants their dog.

“Yes, of course mon coeur.”

The word slips out, and Ilya wrinkles his nose curiously, but Shane blusters on before he has to translate.

“Do you want to look at the shelter websites now?”

Ilya does in fact. He quickly shares his screen and navigates to one. Babbling promises all the while about keeping clean and doing the walking and so much more. Shane would put up with piles of dog mess if it meant Ilya kept giving him these joyous, wondering looks.

Ilya starts paging through pictures with a boyish grin. He looks all of seventeen again, the boy Shane fell in love with against brickwork and smoke.

After getting off the call, Shane goes to the back of Dating Late in Life where there is a section of blank pages. He considers the blanks space for a moment, then writes a list.

What he gives Ilya vs what Svetlana gave Ilya.

Svetlana’s list is long, goes down to the bottom of the page, includes the mean things that Shane can never say to anyone else, like someone to take in public without any fuss. A parent to your child. A perfect suburban life—

Shane write his own list equitably, not giving himself too much credit. One day it will eclipse Svetlana’s, but for the moment…

Laughter

Good sex

A wedding

and written below it, he adds

A Dog.

It’s not everything, but it’s somewhere to start as he works upward, always upward.

Chapter End Notes

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shane is super okay why do you ask?

Chapter 4: shane is a friend

Chapter Notes

also i do believe that shane has, like, 2 moves for getting guys....

Shane’s alarm goes off entirely too early. He winces, reaching to hit the button on his phone.

Ilya kept him up until 3AM with discussions of their puppy, Anya’s, progress. She can sit, come when called, and roll on her back, paws paddling the air. Shane should know; he’s seen seven separate videos.

Shane likes Anya well enough. She has Ilya’s energy, Ilya’s playful impishness, and Ilya’s enjoyment of licking Shane’s face— he can’t quite help recoiling and it makes Ilya laugh. More than laugh, Anya makes Ilya smile, coo, and downright glow. He brags about all her accomplishments, critiques his neighbors for how they “raise” their dogs, and Shane has a dry view of how insufferably competitive Ilya must have been with other parents about Niko.

Shane would like Anya more if she didn’t tackle him whenever Shane visits, dragging her hair all over his work clothes (Shane has bought a twelve pack of lint removers and it’s still not enough). Anya has also developed Ilya’s expensive tastes and enjoys chewing Shane’s smart watch bands of all things. God forbid she gets a taste for Rolex.

On the rare moments when Anya is calm and lying on her bed, Shane creeps closer, crouches to pet her, mindful of his shirt cuff and her quick tongue, and Anya curls so sweetly for him.

Shane never had a dog growing up with his parents. They had a cat, a temperamental, hissing creature so independent that Shane never knew whether she cared if he was around or not. When she died Shane was seven, and he cried anyways, for days, unable to quite explain why when she’d never really been affectionate. They’d learned to be around each other, he supposed.

It’s very different than this pseudo parenthood that Ilya has dragged him into with this wily, hairy creature.

Ilya makes Shane speak to Anya before bed so she remembers his voice in the gaps between seeing her. It’s patently silly, and Shane has to remind Ilya every time he sees her on the bed not to let her sleep there, because he has to have some barriers and sex with all that dog hair is seriously off-putting.

Ilya says, “Yes Sweetheart,” so seriously, with adoring lies in his eyes. Shane tells him in French that he is lucky he is so attractive with that liar’s mouth, and refuses to translate, despite Ilya’s wheedling. Ilya still speaks Russian sometimes, and not translating for each other, not forcing something that fits in one language to make sense in another, is an unspoken consideration. And maybe Shane does enjoy stymying Ilya sometimes, just a little.

Shane knows he has a lot to teach Anya when he’s there next as the strict parent. Remembers Ilya saying something along those lines about Niko, about Svetlana being the firm one… Shane glances away from the thought, a dog is a dog, not a person afterall. He rolls out of bed.

Already thinking about how wonderful going to bed tonight will feel, Shane slips on some shorts and an exercise shirt. He stumbles to the kitchen for a pre-workout drink. The mix tastes a little sour in his mouth after all these years. Still, Shane is practiced at forcing it down. He drinks half and goes to his newly set up home gym. While he always kept weights around at this apartment, he never invested in the same set up he had in Montreal when he was a professional athlete, far preferring his peloton or a simple run outside.

A month ago, he hired a gigger to set up the weight machines and the guy asked if he was into sculpting. Shane flushed, uncertain if that was a jab about Shane looking like he could use some.

His pride had riled, and he wanted to mention he was a retired pro hockey player, but the words were awkward and rude in his mouth so he said nothing, tipped entirely too well and stewed overlong afterwards.

Shane would not struggle with building muscle, he did it for his whole life.

Then he restarted weights and that was humbling. Shane was devastated by how weak he was. He still remembered his deadlift weight at his retirement age. Even lowering the weight by 15 kilos, it was still too heavy for the him of now.

There is not much that makes Shane feel his age— he’s not like Ilya who uses every excuse to whine about being “old.” Shane is comfortably middle aged, just cresting on his ultimate career goals with a long path left to tread, plenty of productive years left in him. Ilya, a month younger than him, sometimes acts like a stiff breeze will send him to decrepitude. To be fair, Shane has never raised a child, nor supported a cigarette/drug habit in his youth, but it always makes him quirk his head and laugh, baffled, to hear Ilya groan to bend over and call himself an old man.

Maybe it has something to do with how Shane feels like his life is just beginning—career opening for him, romance finally settling into place. All of it smacks of spring, of newness, nothing old about it.

Still, lowering the weight limit again and again until Shane was working with a weight a teenager could press is a humbling experience. Clearly too much cardio coupled with endless desk work could be dangerous for his muscles.

It’s been about a month since Shane started and he’s been fortunate to see some slight progress. More definition in his arms, bigger in the thighs for sure. His stomach is still aggravatingly the same, but Shane still has time to make it flat…

After warming up on the rower, Shane grips the pulldown bar and starts on his reps, breathes hard out his mouth as he squeezes his lats. His bad shoulder twinges now and then and he has to adjust his grip a few times before it stops giving him the warning signal and he can set in to the burn.

He knows Ilya says that he doesn’t mind how shrunken Shane has become, but Shane wants to look at their wedding pictures and see himself as someone strong again. See a bigger, more equal man across from Ilya again. Vain, definitely. Foolish, probably. But he can’t help himself but try.

Shane finishes his pre drink until his reps are over and then moves into his post workout shake. That accomplished, he goes to his closet and remembers, right.

He has to pick a shirt to wear while telling Hayden. Shane was so tired he forgot to stress out for a whole hour. Hayden’s team, the Calgary Firestorm is in town to play the Admirals. Work doesn’t let them keep in contact as much as they’d like to be, but a couple of times a season, when the Western conference comes over to play the Eastern, Shane enjoys the practiced company of one of his oldest friends.

This is not going to be a quiet hangout. This is going to be serious work. Shane has been rehearsing. He settled on something preemptory but clear, I know this is going to sound strange, but I am in love with Ilya Rozanov. He’s halfway into an old Metro’s t-shirt (an appeal to the past can’t hurt, right?) before he realizes he’s an idiot because he still has to go to work first. He changes into slacks and a button up, flying out the door before he misses his train.

Hayden’s goofiness only exacerbated with age and having three grandkids to tease (he’s a whole year younger than Shane, it’s baffling). His endless energy has settled into a bright steadiness that Shane appreciates. He’s the kind of person who wants to be pleased and impressed with all that he sees. Apparently, the Calgary locker room culture is one of the best in the league— from leading by example, Shane is sure. Maybe they don’t win the most, but Shane thinks it’s only a matter of time until the cards are in Hayden’s favor. A cup is a marathon, not a sprint.

Really, Shane shouldn’t feel stressed out in his New York apartment after work, sitting across from Hayden with a light calorie beer in his hand, and searching for the words to tell him that he’s marrying one Ilya Grigoryevich Rozanov.

Even so, he mentally gropes, and gropes and gropes and comes up with a lot of nothing. His practiced speech is, under reflection, absolute shit.

I know this sounds strange— What a terrible opening. Strange is going to make it sound like Shane isn’t sure. And shouldn’t he warm, up to in love? Mention Ilya as a soft topic and then pivot into the deep and consuming pit of adoration and need that has been eating at Shane like the best kind of disease since he was a teenager? Or maybe not. That feels like a lot in Shane’s head, can only be a heck of a lot more in the open, his words unprotected and stranded in the air unable to be reeled back.

Is discussing his life supposed to be this hard? Is this something medical?

He doesn’t even have to come out to Hayden because Hayden knows Shane is gay, but what is Shane going to do when he has to claim his love for Ilya and come out?

He realizes he should have read more books about coming out, he just hadn’t wanted to be seen buying a book on coming out at his local store, ironically. He could have purchased one online, but he likes to shop local after reading about the carbon footprint and his local shop has self-checkout so no one has to know what he buys and the too myriad ways he needs help in helping himself but what if someone saw him with an I’m Gay! book?

“…Something on your mind?” Hayden asks, a sympathetic glint in his eyes.

Shane startles. Is he really a glass heart like Ilya says? Please don’t let him be that transparent all the time or Shane will have to never leave the house.

“No, why?” he says on impulse.

“Well, you didn’t turn on the movie. The TV isn’t even on.”

Shane drops his hand to the remote, fumbles with turning it on. How long were they sitting in silence for? Jesus.

“Sorry.”

He stares at the TV which glows a purple and orange cadburry cream ad over their faces. Hayden has always been nice, patient about Shane’s long silences. He should turn on Rose’s recent movie, let this difficult conversation swell in the pauses of dialogue, like the actor’s talking might cover his own.

Why didn’t Shane say yes when Hayden asked if anything was on his mind? That was the perfect opening. Now Shane has to broach the topic.

He should just say it. Get it out of the way. Remember Ilya Rozanov? Yeah, the player that accidentally high sticked you and took your eye-tooth out? Him, right. He’s the one I’m marrying.

Oh god.

“So work’s good?” Hayden asks.

“Yeah,” Shane says, instead of any of the productive if insane thoughts in his head. “How’s yours?”

“Good, good. Almost had that last game.”

Shane tries not to think of Ilya’s scoffing voice over the call as they watched the game through facetime the night before. Pike’s players are so nice and generous they even share puck with enemies!

“Yeah, you were close.” Really, winning is a war of attrition. Shane is sure the cup will be Hayden’s eventually. Not this season, of course. But maybe in a few years. Like five, maybe.

Shane rubs his hands on his pant legs. They feel hot and sticky. Jesus. If he can’t even tell his closest friend that he’s in love with Ilya Rozanov, how will he tell the world?

Remember the guy whose skate you once hooked because he said he’d sent consolation flowers to your wife after your sixth kid? And then he hooked you right back and you were scrambling on all fours on the ice, chasing after each other like Tom and Jerry until the ref binned you both? Yeah, that guy is the love of my life. Crazy right?

“Is this about Mark?”

Shane’s head snaps to Hayden who glances at him with plain concern.

Mark? “What? Is what about Mark?”

Hayden shrugs, an awkward rolling of his neck. “Nothing, just… I heard he’s getting a kid.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Yeah. It’s been all over social.” Hayden looks sympathetic, like he doesn’t believe that Shane hasn’t seen his ex’s post. Shane really hasn’t though. Between work and wedding/coming out plans and the all-consuming presence of Ilya Rozanov, Shane hasn’t had the kind of idle time to stay up on social media.

What’s the right response here? Shane doesn’t know. Another question maybe?

"Is he out now?" Shane asks.

Hayden shakes his head. “Nah, single parenting. Kid of a family member, I don’t know how it worked. Think his sister had twins and wanted to share? Maybe?”

“Right.”

Shane blinks. He thinks in another reality this information might be heavier on his mind, but he hasn’t thought about his ex Mark in… well, in over a year. Not since Ilya came back into his life.

The humiliation of their breakup lingered longer than his love for Mark. Shane suspects that he would normally feel stronger about the revelation that Mark has a child now, that his life was trundling well on the tracks after hurting Shane so much.

Mostly he is thinking about Ilya. About their dog.

And suddenly it’s not hard to find the words.

“Hayden, I’m in love.”

“Oh shit. That’s awesome, buddy. Who’s the lucky guy?”

Shane fumbles with his phone, looking for his photo album. He ignores Hayden’s words.

“We have a dog.”

“Okay, that’s cool—”

“He’s the most caring— he makes me feel cared about all the time. And he loves my parents and my job and he’s never told me to stop working or slow down— actually he tells me I need to speed up, wants me to become commissioner almost more than I do which actually just makes me feel better about working hard—”

“He met your parents, that’s huge!”

Shane finally finds the picture on his phone.

“This is our dog,” Shane says, shoving his phone into Hayden’s face.

Hayden laughs, squints bewildered at the picture.

“And he’s the man I’m going to marry, and I don’t care about what anyone else says—”

“Shane, Shane, calm down.”

Shane takes a deep breath. He didn’t realize how worked up he was getting himself.

“Marriage. That’s a huge step,” Hayden says. “Are you speedrunning a relationship? How long have you even known this guy?”

Shane’s eyes are burning, but Hayden holds his hand up apologetically.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. I’m sure he’s incredible and I’m happy for you. I really mean that I can’t wait to meet this guy who managed to lock you down.”

That’s kind of the issue. “You know him already.”

“I do?” Hayden blinks like an owl.

“I’ve known him for thirty years,” Shane says, voice hoarse. No. “Thirty-one, now.”

Hayden’s eyes freeze, go wide. “Is this like… A friend from school?”

“No. No. From hockey.”

“From hockey?” Hayden’s mouth is popping open, wider than his eyes. “Someone from—our team?”

“Fuck no.” Shane cannot even imagine. “It’s Rozanov. It’s Ilya Rozanov.”

Shane flicks the photo on his phone to a selfie Ilya sent of him, Shane and Anya on the couch. Shane’s arm is curled around Ilya whose cold feet were pressed against his shins. Anya’s head craned up trying to lick Shane’s well-shaven chin.

Ilya doesn’t post on social media, the picture only exists to be lingered on fondly by Ilya, clicked over when he is missing Shane. Even now it makes his throat feel thick and useless.

“What the fuck.”

Hayden turns to the TV screen, as if looking to find himself in a dream, but only finds the sitcom playing. He looks back at Shane whose eyes are unrelentingly boring into him.

Hayden says, “You have a dog with Ilya Rozanov?”

“Yeah. We adopted her. Her name is Anya. And we’re getting married in the spring.”

Hayden’s face looks fit for apoplexy. Veins bulging and his eyes getting wider and wider.

“Ilya Rozanov? The asshole who took two of my teeth?”

“Was it two?”

“Yes, it was two!”

“I thought— I remembered the eyetooth.”

“Yeah, well, he got a molar too! 2024 season!”

“Oh, yeah. Well, I’m sorry about that. I’m sure he’s…” Hm, sorry is not quite right is it? Shane should probably not get in the habit of apologizing for his fiancé because he may never stop. “He didn’t mean to anyway,” Shane says instead.

“Oh, he meant to,” Hayden says. And okay, now he’s just being petty.

“Didn’t you break his ribs once?”

“Only one,” Hayden grumbled. “One rib. It wasn’t enough.”

“Well, you gave as good as you got,” Shane says, trying to smooth it over. “Can you let bygones be bygones?”

“Why should I?”

“Because he loves me the way I want to be loved,” Shane says, and when he sees Hayden’s eyes, skeptical on him, digs deeper, more vulnerable. “He loves me better than I deserve.”

“That’s a fucking lie,” Hayden says, but he’s got a knee on the couch and he’s pulled himself over to Shane. His arms go around his shoulder. “But if you feel that way then I’m gonna get with the fucking program, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, you fucking are,” Shane agrees, squeezing Hayden back.

“Okay. Okay, tell me all of this. Thirty-one years?”

Shane nods, pulling back and turning off the TV.

He tells Hayden more or less the truth—

The more is the years of casual hookups and developing feelings, reconnecting by chance almost a year and half ago now.

The less is how they fell apart. Part of Shane is sure Hayden would have nothing but sympathy for him he married her without telling you? I’ll fucking beat his ass, he won’t have any ribs left by the time I’m done. But another part is worried about him saying But he still loved you, right? The marriage was just for show? Why did you throw away the best relationship of your life without seeing if you could make it work? He still loved you.

Shane doesn’t think either of them deserve the judgement of others. This pain, this private specific wound they gave each other belongs only to them. Shane is as protective over it as he is over Ilya’s happiness.

So he elides the how, chooses, It didn’t work. Now it does.

“This is it for me,” Shane says at the end, when he sees Hayden’s eyes flicker between a protective and conflicted mien. “Ilya is it.”

He hadn’t known when they reconnected, when he persuaded his parents to go to that McGill game for “nostalgia’s sake.” He hadn’t known even when the sex turned out to be better than he remembered, putting his doubt to shame when he asked himself over these long years, it can’t have been as good as I thought, right? two people can’t be as good as that felt. I was young, I was unexperienced, I was naive, I was wrong—

Shane has known the world through his body since he was five and picked up a hockey stick. He never doubted what his body told him before. And when Ilya pulled him apart in the hotel bed, after Shane begged borrorwed and manipulated for a few nights alone, his body showed him what a fool he was to doubt himself and his memory.

It was better than he remembered. So much better. That revelation was hard enough, shattering enough in all that they missed— there wasn’t space for Shane to risk acknowledging that Ilya was it for him, all there ever could be.

Shane only realized that cold morning when he told Ilya you never even asked me—

And Ilya revealed all his fears of rejection, his surety that Shane would say no.

And then swallowed all that fear into his bold throat and asked Shane to marry him.

Shane was so verklempt. So shut up by his call being answered that he was wordless. Ilya nodded calmly, like that was an answer, even if his hands were shaking like frightened leaves as he left the room.

Shane ran away, even though Ilya asked him never to run away again. Shane went for a run out in the freezing Montreal air, quietly so that Ilya would not hear him leave.

He made it to the St. Lawrence river, churning dark water, before he wondered what the hell he was running away from.

Did he want Ilya or not?

Shane had long had a rule of not dating out men— terrible but true. He went for men from religious backgrounds, with trauma, unforgiving hometowns, or difficult, front facing jobs. All the worst situations to generate the kind of fear that would keep Shane mutually safe.

He once dated an American man who had a breakthrough in therapy, was thinking of coming out to his family. Instead of elation, all Shane felt was the anxiety, the stress of how the creep of coming out would eventually spread from his boyfriend to Shane. There would be a demand from his boyfriend, the old onus of coming out would be put on Shane who would never do it. Could never do it.

Because people would change how they looked at him in a way he had no control over, no matter what he wore or said, how practiced his speeches, it would always be changed. Because he wasn’t ready and doubted he ever would be.

Shane ended that relationship quietly, remorselessly, because he was a tiger being asked to change his stripes.

When Ilya said he was coming out… wrapped up with Shane on the bed, cross kissing Shane’s chest, all Shane felt was a bright burning urge to tear each stripe off him, to stand there with Ilya. It will be me this time, I will be your wife.

And then Ilya said I will not bring you down with me.

Shane should have been happy. Shane should have felt safe. Shane was miserable, because he’d found the one person he wanted to come out with, but Ilya did not invite Shane into that. Did not think Shane could change his stripes, which only made them feel deeper and more cutting.

He had to watch Ilya go somewhere Shane could not follow, somewhere happy. A freeness on his face, easing the harsh lines from pain into a sighing brightness.

He could have asked, he could have come out on his own, but Shane felt stymied, cornered by his own need for control. That need Ilya always twisted around, turned into something beautiful by pushing, prodding, egging Shane on. And he wanted to ask Ilya to ask me! Help me do this! But Shane has never been good at being seen wanting. He stayed quiet, grew bitter.

And then, Ilya asked him.

Career and life bedamned. Even if commissioner never happens, marry me anyway.

Shane looked into the river wondering. For the first time, Shane felt old. It was so late, so belated to be deciding this. Coming out is something his generation did when they were younger. Not pushing fifty, not on the edge of a good career, setting himself up for last burst of burning achievement before reluctant retirement.

What could that retirement look like though? How long could Shane mentor and volunteer and create programs alone in his cottage before alzheimers and dementia relegated him to a sad comment exchanged between hockey history buffs.

But Shane couldn’t choose Ilya just because he was afraid of being alone and old. Because he has a long life now, a life he has worked bone achingly hard for.

It wouldn’t have been any easier if Ilya asked when they were younger, right? Ilya's bitterness about what never could be, tears spilled on a Tampa hotel room bed, were always a balm to Shane. Ilya knew they couldn’t, just like Shane. But if he had asked back then.

If he had asked Shane I could marry Svetlana?

Shane rubbed at his eyes, little dots from the water’s glare dancing behind his eyes. He was so tired of thinking about back then. Hated that Ilya brought it back, the ghost of all that went wrong when things were finally going right for them, aside from all the things that weren’t.

But he called Shane’s bluff. He called shane’s bluff. The way they did on the ice. Oh really, implied with each chirp, each boast, each trick shot. Ilya always called Shane’s bluff, pulled him out of control.

And now Shane had to answer about the present, not about the past, a wound that still throbbed. Because even if it was late, Ilya would let Shane have him, not without difficulty or cost, but would let Shane possess him solely and fully. Would do the same in exchange.

So why was Shane the one running?

He ran back to the apartment, almost breathless and still undecided. He showered in the guest room and crept into their bedroom.

Ilya was laying on his back, hands folded over his chest like a corpse. He looked sad, large and lovely.

Shane thought, I don’t know what I’ll do if this doesn’t work out.

And Shane was frightened because he’d never felt that way about anyone before. Which probably meant Ilya was important enough to hear out.

Hayden walks the line between being thrilled that Shane is so happy and dour that Ilya is the cause of it. His beard-covered mouth twists.

“You’re sure this isn’t some midlife crisis thing?” Hayden tries. “Trying to recapture that, you know, that feeling of playing?”

“No, I’m not trying to feel like a rookie again,” Shane says. Frankly he sees enough of them, sloppy and foolish, on the other side of his table to feel happy at being older. Besides, this thing with Ilya. It is old, but it’s also different, so much better than what they had as ungrateful, foolish kids. “We’re both adults, Hayd. Almost fifty, here.”

“I know, I know. I just… I don’t know. I’m trying to make sense of the whole thing.”

Shane can empathize even if his back goes up a little. How can he explain that maybe it is going back, but not to the giddiness of early adulthood, but to a wrong turn they took, and in twenty years they just now have found that fork in the road they mishandled. It’s too silly to say aloud.

“Sorry, I’m sorry if I’m not being supportive. I’ll work on it,” Hayden says, when Shane has been quiet for too long. “And you know I’ll say anything you need buddy to support you when you come out with this. We can shop some things together if you want.”

Shae does want. He loves how well his friend knows him. He hugs Hayden, tight.

“Woah, you bulking up for the big day? You can’t do anything by halves,” Hayden says, grinning crookedly.

Shane shrugs, feeling a smile well up on his own face.

Hayden seems to finally catch onto Shane’s giddiness. Beams at him. “So, what about after?”

“After…?”

“After the wedding, man! Are you finally going to adopt?”

Shane felt his brain blast white from sheer shock.

“We’re… both pretty old,”

“48 isn’t old, dude.”

“He already has a kid, wouldn’t that— Niko might get jealous.”

Hayden laughs. “Isn’t baby Rozanov an adult? Pretty sure he’s got bigger fish to fry in the MLH. New words to say, anyways.”

“Niko’s a good kid,” Shane defends.

“I know, I saw the awards,” Hayden says. “Just saying, a kid you raised would never. Probably be playing hockey in diapers, and with you and Rozanov, God, get out of here! I’d have to quit coaching before that terror made it to professional.” His voice is so warm, so encouraging, picturing a new world for Shane with a new baby Hollander-Rozanov.

Shane looks at his friend, feeling the same way he did when Hayden suggests therapy, like it would be pure bliss, the best thing someone could do for themselves. The undercurrent of your ex, Mark, has a kid now. So could you!

To Hayden, there is nothing more meaningful than having kids, more life affirming but… Shane just cannot get on board, though he wonders;

Would Ilya want another kid?

God, but selfishly Shane hopes not.

“Let me get through the wedding and coming our first Hayden before you start sending in adoption applications for us.”

Hayden chortles, and Shane butchers a smile.

-

Mark was Hayden’s other closeted gay friend, a physical therapist with strict, religious parents. Shane (face burning at the time) allowed Hayden to set them up. It was five years since the fallout with Ilya, and while Shane awkwardly and anxiously navigated the one-night-stand lifestyle, he really preferred the security of a relationship and the schedule of seeing a person as regularly as hockey provided.

Mark was a lot like Hayden— sweet, super polite and energetic. Shane thought polite was the key, someone sensitive, someone who would listen to Shane’s needs instead of ploughing all over his barriers and walls and leaving him an abandoned wreck afterwards.

They dated steadily for two and a half years. A good, solid relationship. A how to dating guide for Shane who had only ever had straight pretend, hookups, and gay longing. He’ll always appreciate Mark for that, even if he sort of hopes he ends up in a ditch somewhere.

To be fair to Mark, Shane was not faultless in their breakup.

Mark’s constant complaint in his life was his shitty landlord who was demanding about how rent was paid (cash, large bills only), the noise level in the apartment (none, not even a whisper) and what was cooked (no fish, nothing remotely garlicky). In short, guy was a total curmudgeon.

Innumerable nights, Mark ended up at Shane’s apartment, wearily complaining about the landlord banging on his door, demanding he turn off his AC in summer because the whispering rattle was keeping him awake. It was just insane.

Shane, meaning well, looked into the building. Had it appraised. Found it wanting in many ways, but bought it out from the private landlord anyway. He had his agent handle the paperwork under Shane’s property company, putting out a release that there was a new owner. Rent would not change, but previous rules would be reexamined.

Mark was thrilled when he got the paper announcing the old landlord was out. Shane felt a quiet, light feeling in his chest as Mark espoused his relief.

Shane kissed him, leaning up to his face. Mark kissed him back, sweet, so kindly. Shane had been working on being too passive in bed after several of his hookups pointed it out. He tried harder, fought for control he didn’t really want over the kiss and Mark responded positively with a growl.

They fucked hard.

“We can do this as much as we want now,” Mark said afterwards, slapping his walls. Shane turned over, head on Mark’s chest. He felt giddy, too giddy, it turns out.

“I bought the apartment,” Shane whispered against Mark’s lips.

“What?”

“I…”

Shane trailed off. Saw a look of discomfort on Mark’s face as he pulled away. Shane’s skin felt cold and tacky suddenly.

“You what? …You’re joking, right?”

Shane fidgeted, felt impossible to look Mark in the eyes because they were suddenly the eyes of a stranger.

His mind scrambled back, looking for an exit route. He did something wrong, he realized, even if he couldn’t figure out what. It was the same social issue he always had. Stepping wrong, missing a beat. Out of step with the conversational mood.

“Yeah, it was a joke,” Shane said to the wall.

“Because that would be weird. If you were my landlord. If I was paying you rent.”

“No, totally. That would be weird.” Was it weird if it was technically Shane’s parent company? He didn’t have time to run all his buildings. Was that the kind of technicality that made this better or worse?

He didn’t think Mark believed him, even as he stood and got dressed, back facing Shane.

They make an awkward dinner. Chicken has never tasted so stale.

The next day, Shane dropped by Mark’s apartment with a new muscle roller he saw online, not an apology gift (because that would acknowledge Shane bought a building to help Mark, which was not quite the right thing to do, apparently), but a gesture to smooth things over, so they could get back to the sex and the mostly decent relationship they built.

He rang the bell and heard Mark as he was approaching the door, talking to someone on the phone. The words grew louder as he approached;

“No, I don’t freaking think he was kidding! I don’t know if it’s like a power thing or what. Hang on—”

Shane felt his stomach drop to his feet as Mark opened the door, phone dropping to the side. Mark belatedly hung up, looking guilty as fuck. Mark was a polite boy… to Shane’s face. Right.

Mostly Shane felt terrible for how uncomfortable he made him. He tried to smile.

“Mark.”

“Shane. You don’t usually come by without texting.”

“Yeah.” It was true. The spontaneity felt ill-fitting now and the gift in his hands terrible, badly shaped. Shane gripped it tighter as he came inside Mark’s apartment and away from any prying eyes.

“Is this for me?”

Shane nodded, held it out. Mark took it, turned it over. Shane felt eyes on the side of his face.

“Why didn’t you tell me before you bought it?” Mark asked.

“I thought you’d say no.”

“I would have. It’s really fucking weird, Shane.”

Shane felt his heart squeezing, like there wasn’t enough space. Not enough space on the bench, his teenage teammates used to joke, not when you’re being so weird about everything.

“I can sell the building to someone else,” Shane murmured. The foundation was shit anyway. Would need major rennos in less than a decade to keep it earthquake safe. “I was just trying to help…”

Mark huffed a sigh, put his hands on his hips. Shane got the feeling of being pitied, but maybe he was pitiful. He felt it.

Mark leaned in and kissed Shane’s cheek, and Shane was relieved. He hadn’t ruined it. They were okay.

“Look, you don’t have to try so hard to overcompensate,” Mark murmured against his ear. He kissed down Shane’s neck, but Shane’s mind caught like a burr on his words.

“Overcompensate? …What am I compensating for?”

Mark sighed, and there it was again. That pity. It was making Shane’s back go up now— against his will because he wanted things to be okay between them, he badly wanted to have sex, to hide away from conversation by living in his body, but what the hell was he compensating for?

Mark didn’t seem to notice.

“I don’t know,” Mark said, sighing. “Just, when I’ve dated other guys like you before, sometimes they try too hard. You don’t need to do that. You’re enough.”

“What the fuck?” Shane asked, pushing Mark away. “Guys like me?”

And Shane suspected, no, knew, deep in his gut, that Mark meant Asian.

He said so and Mark flipped his fucking lid.

“You’re calling me racist?”

“What does guys like you mean?”

“It means anxious fucking overcompensating bottoms!”

And Shane doubted his instincts, hated doing that, but Mark looked so upset at what Shane said—

Mark ploughed on, “Is this because I mentioned my ex’s that you’re being so fucking messy? This is the shit that I mean. Overcompensating bullshit!”

Shane’s ego reeled up. He was Shane fucking Hollander. Star center of the Metros. What the hell did he have to compensate for? But maybe he had been made to feel he should. The muscle roller make-up gift felt like an albatross around his neck now. God damn it.

Shane has always been a polite Canadian boy, but he also had the chirps in him to make anyone want to drop gloves. It took three sentences for Shane to shred Mark and the relationship, and get himself kicked out into the shitty hallway of the shitty apartment that Shane now owned (not for long).

Shane went home, red-eyed, and looked up Mark’s social media, flicking back through the years to old boyfriends and finding them, Thai and Korean and Indian— guys like you indeed. Shane felt worse about doubting himself. Should have chirped even harder.

The breakup was messy, and Hayden danced awkwardly between the two of them, asking delicately what the fuck happened. Shane wanted to say Your fucking friend is a piece of shit who implicitly thinks I should be lucky to date him.

As much as he loved Hayden, Shane just didn’t have the words in him, because what if Hayden didn’t see it that way. You don’t have to overcompensate isn’t racist out of context. All of it so vague that he knew he’d look insane pointing to old boyfriends like a conspiracy board.

He shook his head at Hayden and told all to JJ who commiserated by buying Shane a drink, saying fucking white people, think they are god’s gift.

Shane could only clink beers with that.

JJ added, But maybe next time, don’t buy the guys’ apartment, just invite him to move in.

Shane bristled because his space was his own, and didn’t this prove he had to keep it free from privileged interlopers, no matter how kind he wanted to be?

And even if it felt a bit reductive, Shane kinda agreed with JJ’s first statement; he swore off dating white men that night.

-

Shane trundles into Ilya’s snow-dusted backyard, putting in the code, a box of cake samples in hand. He prefers the privacy of this entrance, covered by trees and not so clear which house he’s entering. Shane braces himself when the back door opens and Anya comes racing out, leaping onto his legs over and over again with wet paws.

Ilya watches in the doorway, a warm smirk on his face as he watches Shane try to reason with Anya.

“Yes, hello. I see you. I’m happy to see you too, but please. Down, down Anya. Your hair gets everywhere, doesn’t it? It’s only been thirty seconds and my pants are ruined. That’s… impressive, for a small dog.”

Ilya calls for Anya in Russian, and she darts over to his side, nosing his closed hand for a treat, which he opens to reveal nothing, much to her pouting. She even pouts like Ilya.

Shane barely enters and shuts the back door before Ilya is kissing into his mouth. No hello for Shane, no how are you, can I take your jacket. Just that wonderfully rude force of character imposing himself all over Shane who is all too willing.

“Careful,” Shane says, when Ilya reaches around his waist. “I don’t want to drop the wedding cake samples.

Ilya’s eyes go to the tiered box in Shane’s hand, and back to Shane’s face.

“Carbs or Shane Hollander. It's tricky, I admit.”

Shane rolls his eyes, toes off his shoes into slippers, and shimmies past Ilya into the kitchen. He sets the box in the center of the counter.

Hands now free, Shane pets Anya properly so she doesn’t feel unappreciated. She doesn’t see Shane as much and he wants to build a good relationship with her. When he stands up, Ilya captures his face, kisses his cheeks.

“Missed me, huh?”

“No. Just your freckles.”

Shane wraps his arms around Ilya’s waist. Hm, is it just him or is Ilya a little different here?

Shane hears the sound of the box opening behind him and he blinks up at Ilya who has wrapped his arms around Shane, pressing him against the counter to reach the cake box.

“Are you kidding?”

“This way I don’t have to choose between cake and you,” Ilya says dragging frosting coated finger to his lips.

“You’re such a greedy fucker. Those are for sampling.”

“Mmm.” Ilya murmurs in agreement. He drags his fingers through his mouth with a soft ‘pop.’ He rocks his hips into Shane’s slow and easy. More addictive than sugar.

Luckily none of the cakes need refrigeration, because Ilya spends a good thirty minutes on his knees in the living room, sucking long hard draws over Shane’s cock. Languid, loose, sloppy with drool. Like there is nowhere else he’d rather be.

Shane is usually so good about his posture, works on it constantly so he doesn’t become a bent over old man like his dad when he reaches old age.

Ilya tears all of that discipline down with a look. Shane finds himself bending, craning weakly over. Unable to help the curl of desire, the helpless pistoning of his hips that Ilya holds and releases in turn. Shane is useless, doing nothing but taking. Even on his knees, Ilya owns so much of Shane. Takes him through desire like leading a horse to water. And Shane drinks, and drinks.

Ilya lifts off his hard cock, bites at the flesh of Shane’s stomach. Shane fidgets. His belly is in Ilya’s sight. That stubborn bit of fat his doctor assured him was normal for ‘a man of his age.’ Whatever that means.

Ilya has a knack for finding it, unerringly. Makes Shane wonder if he likes getting under Shane’s skin that much and can’t condemn him if that is why. He doesn’t feel terrible with Ilya mouthing it so gently, like it is somehow as appealing as his ass or his chest. Worth the worship of his tongue, suckable. Turning that vulnerable soft part of Shane into something glinting and gold without consent or request.

“Ilya, please. Please.”

Ilya loves that word. His favorite in English, Shane is sure. For how it makes a grin split boyish across his lips as if he’s been given something.

Shane loves the word too, how it makes him feel like Ilya would give him anything in the world if he only said, please, Ilya.

Ilya bends and licks the top of Shane’s cockhead, sucks lightly. It’s cruel, the teasing. Crueler still how it makes Shane spill in spurts and dribbles in an overwrought orgasm over his lap and into his bush. Ilya follows trails of release down, lapping Shane’s sensitive cock until he is moaning for Ilya to stop.

Ilya staggers back onto his ass on the stack of pillows beneath him. His knees are red, worn despite the cushion, and his cock a hard jut under his sweats.

Shane extends a hand, helps Ilya up and onto the couch missing sans some cushions. Ilya staggers, falls more than settles on Shane’s legs. He doesn’t care about his gracelessness. More preoccupied with kissing into Shane’s mouth. Rubbing himself against Shane’s wet, spent cock.

Shane wastes no time pulling Ilya out from his sweatpants, rubbing the precum down his shaft. Reaching for lotion that has conveniently popped up on the coffee table since Niko moved out. Shane loves the glide of it, the soft, medicinal smell and how it makes Ilya writhe with the slick move of Shane’s strong hand.

“Fuck, fuck. Like that, Hollander.”

“Yeah, is it like that, Rozanov?”

“Fucking harder, harder.”

Shane obliges, his wrist cramping, but the heavy, wonderful weight of the man in his lap making his brain sing even if his dick stays woefully limp.

Ilya comes in long steady strips on Shane’s shirt, a mixture of cum and lotion. Yeah, Shane is not going to be wearing this shirt again— he’s sure he can get the stains out, but the memory… He won’t be able to go to work remembering that this is the shirt Ilya came all over.

Ilya collapses against Shane afterwards, bearing him into the back of the couch and crushing him a pleasant amount into the warm, sweaty heat of his chest and armpit.

“Fuck, fuck.” Ilya sounds truly overwhelmed.

Huh. May have been a tough week for him? Shane grapples, trying to read the air. Fails, as usual. Well.

“Shower then cake?” Shane suggests, tentatively.

“Seriously?” Ilya pulls back, squinting. Shane starts to panic—  

“How are you even real?” Ilya wonders. “Like a fucking wet dream.”

Shane feels a smile splitting his face, easiness spreading like a glow through his body.

“You got very lucky,” Shane says, and Ilya kisses the cockiness of his mouth.

Ilya hobbles around his house, into the shower and back down the stairs in his comfortable pajamas.

“I told you we should have done this on the bed,” Shane says as he lays out the cake samples. “You’re gonna blow your knee out like this and have to explain how to a physio.”

“It's a little magic trick you do. I see you and my body thinks we are twenty again,” Ilya says, winking. “Besides, I like watching you above me. Like in control, but not.”

Giving all his control to Ilya, Shane understands.

He shivers having Ilya pull these things out of him. Say them so rudely. He really thought he wanted polite in a partner, maybe that was the values Shane’s parents raised him with talking. After years of living, Shane begins to suspect polite means ingenuine sometimes, because Ilya is so open, so demanding. So rude and upfront about it all. It makes Shane feel insane that anyone could be so wanting in full view, and yet also Shane becomes more honest by virtue of proximity.

It cannot be possible for Ilya to want him as much as Shane wants him. To the point of dizziness. But Ilya looks at him, smiles slow and easily, watching. Proprietary again, and Shane can only suspect it is true.

Wow.

Shane knows most people his age are beginning to have changes in their sexual appetite, a lessening to their hunger.

Shane has never had that experience— almost as if his body knew he had denied it the food he needed for so long, so many long periods of celibacy in his twenties, or straight sex, that he hasn’t hit his quota, hasn’t filled the well of need within him.

He’s struggled in his last couple relationships before Ilya— being the one wanting so much was humiliating. Made him seem desperate in a way Shane hated. Because he is desperate. Wants so much from his partner’s bodies that he cannot even vocalize. It’s such a bad feeling sometimes and alienated partners who felt put upon to satisfy, or worse, looked at Shane as if he was perverted. Even now he still wants so much, but in this at least, Ilya has a matched appetite.

“You will really eat cake?” Ilya asks. He has a fork teasing between his lips as Shane sets up all the slices and labels.

“I won’t have one of those insanely sweet buttercream cakes. It’s just too much sugar for me.”

“Denying yourself so long, you have ruined your taste buds,” Ilya complains.

“Increased sugar sensitivity is normal for people who aren’t children,” Shane says. “We can have your cake on the bottom, the big one to share with others, and a smaller cake for me on top.”

Ten cake samples lay out before them from three of Ottawa’s premier cake shops. Five slices of decadent, sweet cake for Ilya, and five gluten free and reduced sugar for Shane.

This is the most logical choice, really. It’s not that Shane won’t indulge in the calories on his wedding night, it really is that he thinks if he had one of the buttercream slices he’d go into a diabetic coma and that would wreck his extensive honeymoon sex plans for sure.

Shane tastes a sliver of the healthy carrot cake with reduced sugar frosting and frowns. A touch dry, isn’t it? The next is a flourless chocolate, but they made up for the flour with too much sugar and he chews unhappily. It’s not awful… He tries the third, a date cake and the texture zaps unpleasantly through his mouth and resists the urge to spit his food out. Is there monkfruit in this? Jesus.

Ilya is halfway through his third slice, not tasting as much as eating. He frowns.

“You don’t like cake,” Ilya says.

Shane flinches. “No. I like cake fine. Just none of these yet.”

“No, you don’t like cake,” Ilya presses, rude, rude, rude again.

“Oh, fuck off.”

“We don’t have cake at our wedding then,” Ilya decides.

Shane goggles at him, stares pointedly at his three eaten slices. “Um, you like cake a lot. And it’s a wedding.”

“So?”

“So we have wedding cake.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s… what people do at a wedding.”

Ilya has the gall to be disappointed at being called ‘people.’

“People are boring,” Ilya says, and it doesn’t sound like a compliment here.

“Well, what would you want instead?” Shane asks, hand on his hip.

Ilya frowns, and Shane is glad to have stumped him. To have shown him the logic of tradition and what ‘people’ do—

“Wagashi.” Ilya butchers the emphasis, but he says it clearly. “Those little… The wagashi.”

“Those aren’t… Not really common for weddings here, you know.”

“Yes, but is the only thing I ever see you eat and enjoy.”

“Go fuck yourself.” That’s just so patently untrue. Everyone thinks Shane must hate his diet, must hate the chicken and the health food. It’s all the perfect texture and the perfect cooking and it’s satiating and doesn’t rub against his mouth the wrong way. Fuck Shane for sticking to one thing for such a long time.

“Not only thing,” Ilya corrects. “Just… You looked so happy eating it,” Ilya tries instead, pleading. “Really happy. Not like this cake.”

Shane can admit that is maybe more true.

“There isn’t, like, wagashi cake. They’re tiny, personal deserts—”

“And together we are richer than god. I mean, I have not checked my account lately—”

“Your assets are doing fine,” Shane assures him. He has Ilya’s stocks invested in copper right now. They’re doing very well with the technological need for microchips for more self-driving cars. Between meetings at work, Shane tracks Ilya’s portfolio growth with a swell of pleasure, because he likes doing a good job. Seeing Ilya’s total ignorance, his total and complete faith in Shane to take care of him sends a different, darker jolt of pleasure through him. Shane is so worthy of that trust. He bites his lip, tries to focus his hazing mind on what they are discussing.

“If we are rich, then we buy enough for the whole wedding. No cake slice, everyone gets little wagashi!”

“Wagashi,” Shane corrects, subtly emphasizing the second syllable. Ilya parrots him, and Shane feels at a bit of a loss.

He doesn’t know how to explain… It would be odd to have at his wedding. He was Shane Hollander, not Shane Fujibayashi. The Fujibayashis left rural Oma, Japan a long time ago because of the politics. As a child, Shane’s grandma always said she and his grandfather rode the gigantic tuna from Japan to Canada. The truth was his grandfather caught a record-breaking sized tuna and the money from the restaurant bidding war allowed them to flee the country as the war was kicking off.

Our family has always been blessed with skill, his grandmother told him when he made Canada’s junior team, she was the most unsurprised of anyone that he succeeded. Now, Shane rides the family success and legacy into a career he could never have if he stayed in Japan. Maybe that isn’t fair, maybe he would be playing in the JIHL if he stayed, maybe he’d be a different person with a different father and different fiancé and different name. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

He isn’t that person, that Fujibayashi, and has elided that hard, rural life, and a lot of the burden of a nonwhite name even, as he still struggles to make himself legible in a white sport.

And so to have wagashi at his wedding… it would be surprising to people.

Shane likes meeting or surpassing expectations, the clarity of a job well done. He hates undermining or failing them. Hates the idea of the surprise on people’s faces at the wedding at this foreign element. Oh, I see. Right, I guess cause he’s Japanese, huh? Forgot for a moment.

Shane doesn’t want their eyes, their judgement. This wedding is supposed to launch him and Ilya for the public into bright clean acceptance and part of that is a white bright cake—

"It would just be weird,” Shane says. Ilya's lips twist down.

Shane’s heart pounds and he grapples for a moment. He could just say no. Wants to shut the topic down hard, and Ilya would be hurt, but he’s an adult, can handle it. Would shrug it off as Shane being too much, too controlling about their wedding what else is new. But Shane can’t keep all of it to himself for however many years they are lucky enough to be married. He wants the man he marries to listen and understand, even if he can’t empathize.

He fights a swell of anxiety and tries to explain the weird tangle in his chest. Ilya has a mixed race son, this can’t all be news to him, right?

Ilya looks flummoxed at the end and Shane feels his hackles rising. He rocks a little on his feet against his will, looks away and forces his face to be calm. If he can make himself look calm, then maybe he will feel calm. He knows Russians have a different understanding about race, more xenophoic than specifically racist. Despite the nearness of the two countries, no Japanese diaspora to Russia ever happened and Ilya even admitted he hadn't met many Japanese people before Shane. Shane liked that blank slate, the easiness of a missing history that informed fully white Canadians without them ever knowing it. The difference is a blessing to feel and a curse to explain.

“That is very complicated,” Ilya says at the end. “Not a good feeling to have.”

Shane doesn’t nod or shake his head. Feels tight like a wound up stick, waiting to pull the trigger.

“Maybe I don’t understand all of it,” Ilya says slowly, and Shane expected that. Ilya is Russian, Russian is Ilya. There is no separating, no crossed lines for him. Food he served at his wedding would just be what he wanted. His accent told people I am not from here with every word, and they expected and allowed anything from him, Russian or Canadian. Shane was Canadian to his bones, never took the language classes; he has to reach for his culture. 

Other people, even other people half Japanese, don’t have these kinds of hangups. It’s just Shane again. Just Shane wishing he could be invisible and unaware of expectations; only, how could he hope to meet them if he didn’t know each and every of them?

“Sweetheart.” Ilya puts his fork down, pulls him closer. Shane resists, stays cool as stone, but Ilya pets his face. “If you don’t like my idea, we won’t do it. I just want you to have something you want. You deserve wagashi.”

“I want cake,” Shane says, feeling stubborn like a child.

“Then we’ll get cake,” Ilya reassures. He rubs Shane’s back and then releases Shane, turning back to his uneaten slices with a casualness that lets Shane’s back go down.

Without eyes on him, Shane gets his breathing under control and rubs at his eyes. Later, after Ilya cleans up the boxes, Shane lets Ilya drag him to bed and wrap his big body around Shane until the edges of the meltdown are softened and the world is silenced by weight and warmth and Ilya.

Shane wakes up alone in Ilya’s large bed. It wasn’t always just Ilya’s…

Shane’s eyes glance over to the wall across from the bed, but he knows that Ilya took down his wedding picture with Svetlana the same week they agreed to get married. Stored it somewhere, Shane is sure. Shane still sees every line of it, every blissful giddy edge of young love. Whatever Ilya says about why he married Svetlana, there was always love there between them. Shane tries not to feel to badly about himself in this moment, but he can’t even give to-be husband cake on his wedding without having a breakdown. Jesus fucking Christ.

Where is Ilya anyway?

There is a steady thumping, thumping, thumping from somewhere below. Anya isn’t with Shane right now either (despite all his attempts, she whined and whined outside the door until he let her into the room and onto the bed with them, but it was only for one night, Shane promised himself, Ilya, and Anya, sternly.)

Shane slips down the hall, sees the dark lines of empty space and feels his mouth tense unhappily at the idea of Ilya rocking around this big house all on his lonesome. It’s too big for one man, even with a dog. Too many ghosts.

Shane goes downstairs but finds nothing in the kitchen, only the louder sound of thudding which is becoming more familiar and clear to him. He goes down one final floor to the basement.

There is Ilya, thudding away on a treadmill. Sweat drips around his face and his strong body jostles with each step, stomach juddering. Curls slicked against his crown in sodden spikes. Shane watches him, relishing his body in movement. Anya supervises by the side, sniffing at the treadmill now and then and barking for attention.

Ilya always talks to her in Russian. Shane thinks if it was a child they were raising together, the dual language immersion would be awesome. As it’s a dog, Shane won’t be surprised if Anya never listens to Shane when he commands her (to be fair, she already doesn’t). He supposes Ilya needs someone to speak Russian to now that his son is away…

Shane should really pick up a course or two. He can squeeze in a few minutes between all his wedding planning and work, surely.

“Ilya?” Shane says, when he’s taken his fill.

Ilya curses in Russian and smacks the off switch on the treadmill.

“Sweetheart.” He’s panting hard. Lungs working. “Why you awake?”

“Was wondering where you were.”

Ilya shrugs, looks chagrined. “Running.”

“I thought you hated cardio.”

Ilya shakes his head, lips twisting before he finally gestures to himself. “For wedding I wanted some kilos down. But god, cake so good.”

Post exercise, early in the morning, he hardly makes grammatical sense, but Shane follows his words instinctively to meaning. He looks at Ilya’s workout top, remembers how he felt to touch earlier. He has lost a little width in his tummy, maybe.

Ilya grins, self-deprecating and amused.

“I still be your bear, don’t worry.”

Shane can’t help but smile.

“What? It's funny? Mr marathon?”

“No, I’m off marathons for a while. I’m actually trying to bulk up for the wedding.”

Ilya laughs, looks at the ceiling with his hands on his hips. “We are idiots.

“Yes,” Shane agrees. Grinning like a fool. Funny of them, trying to be the same size, meeting in the middle, as if going back to who they were when they met. Like, looking at the wedding picture, it would be those past versions of them marrying. Shane doesn’t ache for what they lost most days, but that silly thought makes him twinge.

“I like you how you look,” Ilya says. “My big strong man.”

And Shane has a silly image of Ilya saying that when they’re actually old, when Shane is not bent over but short like his grandfather became. So silly…

“You too. You know I don’t mind that you…” Gosh, how to say?

“That I’m a fat old man?”

“You’re not old.”

“Fat, then?”

“Warm. Big,” Shane offers. Maybe a little fat, but he can’t make himself say it; it’s not an insult. Ilya only laughs, comes closer.

“No, you’re disgusting.”

“Come here.”

Shane is helpless against this man. Ilya pulls him into his side, rocks Shane sweaty against his body.

“We are both too hot. Going to marry each other and blow out brains across Canada.”

Shane scoffs. Such an idiot. “Pretty sure we’re the only ones that think that.”

“Mmm, no, you could be Mr. Model if you wanted. But it's better you think not. More for me.”

He cups Shane’s ass easily, warmly and it sends a thrill through him.

“Shower?” Shane suggests. Ilya grins and follows him up the stairs into the large glass enclosure. Shane guiltily shuts the door on Anya who whines. He doesn’t want her nosing at the glass right now.

Shane soaps up his hands, rubbing all over Ilya’s sturdy chest, strong, fatty nipples. Behind his neck, shoulders.

“Behind ears?” Ilya suggests and Shane laughs, and washes there too. He traces the trail of suds down to Ilya’s cock, gently cleans his fiancé there before bending to reach his legs. Shane swirls around the trick knee which flexes beneath his hands. Still strong after all these years, but cardio likely inflames it the same way weights bother Shane’s shoulders. They’re both fighting their past injuries for each other, for themselves.

Ilya is thinner, maybe down a kilo, but his stomach is still warm butting against Shane’s head as he bends. Shane rubs into it. Don’t lose this, Shane selfishly thinks.

“Your turn,” Ilya says when Shane spends too long between Ilya’s toes. He was remembering that foot job, wondering how to get one again without having to ask for it. That thought will keep though.

“Mmm, you are stronger, aren’t you. Bigger here,” Ilya points out, dragging his hands over Shane’s biceps, kneading the growing muscle there.

“Ilya,” Shane’s mouth feels dry despite the humidity. “You’re wasting water.”

Ilya nods. “Okay. No more waste. I’ll clean.”

He drops his hand down, suds slicking as he cleans gently and thoroughly into Shane’s ass. Fuck. Shane’s head drops against Ilya’s shoulder as he feels those sudsy fingers slipping around his hole, dipping just inside. Twitching. It’s maddening.

“Making it so big. Strong ass. Next time maybe I leave something inside to find.”

Shane shudders. Ilya would never because Shane likes using a condom, but the thought. Fuck. He isn’t surprised at all when they waste even more water, Ilya pressing Shane against the tile and loving him there for a long time in the morning.

Afterwards, Shane stands dazed and fucked out in front of the mirror as Ilya shaves him. Wow. It might be because of the emotional crash of yesterday, but despite it not even noon yet Shane is pretty sure this is the best day of his life.

Ilya pets his smooth skin on the side he’s finished. He’s getting quicker at shaving Shane, more familiar with the peculiarities of his face. Something about it makes Shane think he might be beginning to get his fiancé’s obsession.

Shane glances past Ilya into the mirror. The fog is clearing and he can see the moles on Ilya’s back, the familiar constellation. He also sees when Anya finally figures out how to leverage her small body to open the door.

Ilya curses at the dog as she ploughs in, but even with his dirty mouth, his hand drops warm and welcomingly to her fur. Yes, Shane will definitely have to be the tough dog parent if he wants any boundaries when they eventually live together…

The fog is clearing faster now that the door to the hallway is open and Shane glances into the mirror at Nikolaj’s open room in the hall. Empty walls, a single sad bed. It’s too much, too much for Ilya to deal with every day.

Shane speaks without thinking.

“You should move in with me.”

Ilya pauses in dragging the razor up Shane’s cheek. He’s so careful that even in his surprise he does not cut Shane. He carefully draws the blade away.

“What? But you said—"

“Not to New York, sorry. I realize how that sounded. But to my Montreal apartment. You could move in there. With me.”

Ilya stares at him and Shane looks away to the ceiling, to the side at the shower he remembers being loved against. He hopes Ilya doesn’t ask him something relevant like why as he did last time. Because Shane doesn’t really know. Ilya has a whole house here, filled with memories of his precious family, neighbors he probably gets along with, a community—

But Shane is selfish.

“It’s close to McGill,” Shane tries to justify. “I have plenty of space for your silly cars and it’s private."

“You want that?” Ilya asks, instead.

“You want it?” Shane asks, shying away from the direct inquiry.

“I know the apartment is your private space. You have had it for a long time…”

“Yes, but I… I want you there too. You can bring anything you want with you. Make it your own.” Ah, that might be too much. “I mean, we can discuss some things, because there is a loose design plan for the apartment.”

Ilya is smiling at him. Shane has been so busy looking at the floor and walls he doesn’t know when Ilya started grinning but now that he sees the brimming giddy expression he cannot look away.

“Yes, we can discuss. I want to fight about a laz-ee-boy with you.”

Shane laughs. “You are never getting that monstrosity into my apartment.” Ilya wiggles his eyes brows, picks up his razor again.

“Shhh, I’m shaving you, Sweetheart.”

Shane clamps his mouth shut, leveraging his gaze into Ilya’s face with force that makes him grin through the whole thing. Every part of his skin feels warm, buzzing.

Ilya chuckles as if he feels it beneath his fingers.

“So you’d be my landlord, hm? I can pay you?”

Shane flinches, a half-remembered ache, but Ilya’s thumb smooths out the tenseness of his lips.

“I have never fucked my landlord before,” Ilya says. “Sounds very hot. Maybe he will give me a discount.”

Shane has to clear his throat, waits between scrapes to speak.

“Actually, with the state of your fridge, you’re definitely going to have to pay a cleaning fee.”

“Is that so, Mr. Landlord? You won’t like what I did to the couch last night then.”

Shane has to pull back so he can laugh, shaving cream crinkling on half his face. Ilya’s free hand goes to his waist, a broad beautiful grin cracking his face.

“Stop, stop making me laugh with shaving cream on. You take forever, it’s going to dry.”

“And then no one will take you seriously as landlord. Very hard life you have. I will move in, despite you looking very silly, on one condition,” Ilya says, like it is the greatest favor, like he is god’s greatest gift. He’s not— he’s Shane’s.

"What?" Shane asks, despite himself.

Chapter End Notes

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...and one of those two shane hollander moves is buying apartments lmao.

This dog is not the same as the one in canon, and is a part Pomeranian mutt mix so the word 'fluffy' will come up A LOT.

according to wikipedia (and through them, the Japanese ministry) there are one thousand Japanese people residing in Russia. which fairly blew my mind for how close the countries are. compare that to 100,000+ in Canada. (feel free to message if this is off base or an innacurate metric)

(don't ask me about the word count... just don't.)

Chapter 5: shane is a landlord

Chapter Notes

spoilers for discussions in TLG!

sex scene is a new addition in gratitude to the comments on last chapter which i will finish answering after posting <3 appreciate you all. (and sorry for any typos, but thank god i'm not using ai eh?)

With Ilya’s team playing every week, Shane is the only one traveling for their weekend rendezvous, an effort he does not mind making. His mother has been degrading more quickly, grown more irritable, and for all that Shane keeps up with them via phone, he is grateful for the excuse to fly into town and drop by. They usually watch Ilya’s games and his mother’s ever-sharp chirping soothes the unsteadiness in his chest as she blinks harder and harder with every update he gives his dad on his wedding plans.

Amid this, Ilya moves house. Shane offers his real estate agent, but Ilya waves him off. Probably has his own from when he first bought the Roxboro property. With Ilya’s work, the most convenient time is during the week. He hires professional movers and has friends coming over to help box up his possessions. Apparently his whole team trundles down to load the truck, and, according to Ilya, they help not at all and chirp Ilya to hell for the state of his fridge. Ilya ends up ordering mass amounts of take out and packs all the extras off with his hungry college kids.

Despite all the help, Shane feels a thread of regret that he isn’t the one helping Ilya tidy up his old life.

Shane calls Ilya every night to check in, delegating parts of his workload that he normally would keep just to make it out of the office on time. Ilya looks wrung out after all the moving— which is fair, moving is monstrously hard. But packing up a house he had with someone Ilya loved and lost…

The grief Shane feels for Ilya is greater than any small petty feelings sticking in the back of Shane’s throat and he admits that maybe the physical distance between them might be a blessing because it lets him focus only on comforting Ilya. He can be calm and soothing as Ilya rubs his eyes and breathes hard and slow over the phone.

His eyes are wet when his hands comes away. “I never want to move again,” Ilya groans. “So you can never sell the Montreal apartment.”

Shane’s heart thumps, a blister of pleasure amid all the sadness and twisting of his heart.

“Never?”

“No. We can visit your ten million properties, spend long time in New York, finally I fuck you in Hawaii, but I will not be moving life anywhere again. I'm stuck forever with one property company I think.”

Shane swallows a smile. Isn’t sure he manages it. How does Ilya always find smiles in sadness? What in his nature finds the one silver lining?

“I’ll have to look into your lease to see if the terms allow long stays.”

Ilya grins now, genuine. “I am a very good tenant. I think landlord will let me do whatever I want.”

Shane makes it to Montreal on the weekend, keys into the front door of his apartment— It’s like everything has been moved a few centimeters to left. His space, but also…

Ilya is there, leaning against the counter, face a perfect compliment for Shane’s backsplash and marble. The comfortable, more worn clothes from his home closet. God, god.

“Was thinking, we never talked about how I should pay you.”

“Pay me?” Shane parrots. Lost on the image of Ilya in his apartment. Their apartment. Belonging there…

“Rent. If you like wire transfer, or check, or fat wad of cash. I can slip it into your pants, maybe.”

Shane huffs, it’s funny. It’s not at all funny, for the way Shane feels a squeeze of arousal in his stomach.

“It’s an expensive building. I don’t think that much cash will fit.”

“Can make it fit. With effort. Besides, I am rich, can do very big bills. Not as rich as Mr Landlord, but…”

Ilya shrugs, unbothered by the disparity of wealth between them. Certainly undaunted in how he looks at Shane, scans him in his boring business clothes. Shane feels like boring Mr. Landlord in his slacks, stuffy in a way he never had in his twenties when all he ever wore was workout gear. He has grown into the title of Mr Landlord. He swallows hard.

“What can I give you, hm?” Ilya asks, fingers drumming on Shane’s 15,000 CAD marble countertop, white cracked with black and hints of copper.

Shane licks his lips. Opens his mouth then shuts it.

Ilya slides closer, as easy a movement as if it were on ice. His hand lands heavy on the side of Shane neck beneath his high collar, thumb stroking up to the corner of his mouth. It’s habit more than thought to turn his head and take Ilya’s thumb inside, to curl around and feel the ridges of his thumbprint.

“I can tell I’m going to like living here,” Ilya murmurs. “It’s the windows, very big. Good light.”

Shane groans around his finger, trying to nod, but Ilya’s hand arrests the movement, keeps him still and focused on sucking. The complexities of Shane’s day, the scrapping with Halstead, the fight with the printer, the maneuvering in his office are dropping away, until all he can taste, feel, see, hear, touch, and think of is Ilya. Ilya, Ilya, Ilya.

Ilya’s free hand goes to Shane’s shirt, teasing the buttons. Shane tries to rouse himself to help and not lay around totally passive, but Ilya snatches his hand and nibbles on the finger.

Stop. Chill out. It says, and Shane drops his hands to his sides, his palms feel warm, anticipatory, and pleasantly useless.

Ilya pulls out his thumb and spins Shane around. His arms pull Shane in, and he undoes the buttons as if Shane’s shirt was his own. It’s strange, intimate pressed all up against Ilya, and lets Shane feel the press of his cock against his ass. Ilya’s hard, and Shane wonders how long he was sitting in what is now their home, thinking about Shane walking through the door and what exactly he might do with Shane...

Shane ruts a little on instinct, and Ilya nips at his earlobe. “Careful, careful.”

Shane doesn’t feel careful at all.

Ilya slips Shane’s shirt off his shoulders, pulls at the hem of Shane’s undershirt and that goes flying off Shane’s head.

“Don’t want to get dirty, no?”

As if Shane’s floors were ever dirty. No. Shane takes the shirts off the ground and folds them, grateful for muscle memory when his head is a mushy morass of sticky eagerness.

He sets them on the counter stool.

“Pants now.”

Shane’s fingers fumble the fine leather of his belt, easting the loops and reaching for his zipper. The sound is so loud with Ilya just watching. He’s dressed so casually, so easily. He doesn’t need the tux to make Shane feel that thrum that makes him want to crawl low, nuzzle into his crotch. He just has to watch Shane like he is, with greedy eyes, that open desire that has always pulled Shane in, made him want to flash his belly.

His slacks and briefs are up next. That done and tightly folded, he reaches for his socks. Ilya sidles closer, interrupting. He kisses Shane easily, mouth dropping down to his neck, to his chest. Shane finally risks touching Ilya back, the warm weight of his side, the width of his strong thigh beneath thick sweatpants. The press of his cock.

Ilya groans, expression wavering for a moment as he glances around and then steers Shane towards the nearest, low flat surface. Shane thinks they are in for another bout of couch sex, has his mouth open to protest such a use of his Italian leather, but Ilya turns and Shane finds his thighs pressed against his glass kitchen table. He jerks away.

“Ilya, that’s filthy. We eat here.”

“We eat on couch,” Ilya lobs back. “We sleep in bed. We wash in shower. State the obvious, please.”

Ilya curls his spine, bending forward and forcing Shane with him until his chest and belly press against the glass— Shane shivers, his nipples drawing tight at the cold surface. His hard breathing makes his stomach lift and drop off the glass. Worst of all—

“Oh, it's very clean, not filthy at all. Can even see your reflection little.”

Shane stares back at his own red-faced reflection, doubled with the prismatic glass effect. He looks entirely too flushed, too worked up considering they haven’t even touched cocks yet.

Ilya remedies that, hand cupping against Shane’s hard, exposed dick just off the edge of the hard glass. Ilya kisses against Shane’s neck, and it’s too easy to let Shane’s head drop, cheek pressing into the side as he waits for Ilya to give him his homecoming fuck.

Only Ilya doesn’t. He strokes Shane gently, softly, kisses along his spine, bites his ears, but he doesn’t do a damn thing to Shane’s ass.

Shane wriggles a little, trying to scootch back, to jockey Ilya onto his job of fucking Shane, but Ilya lowers more of his weight and pins Shane. It’s heavy in a fuzzing way. His big chest against Shane’s back, his thick legs bracketing Shane. Shane feels Ilya's shirt covered nipples skating up and down his back as Ilya drops maddening little kisses here and there. His cloth covered erection presses into Shane’s ass but does nothing.

It’s infuriating, certainly unfair.

Shane writhes harder, moans, and Ilya shushes him.

“What is it?” he asks, as if he doesn’t know. “Tell me, Sweetheart.”

“Ilya,” Shane groans.

“Yes?” Ilya takes in some of the flesh of Shane’s bad shoulder, biting the muscle. Shane wonders if Ilya has taken after Anya for all she has taken after him; Shane’s going to be covered in Ilya’s little teeth marks.

“Ilya,” Shane says again, begging, frustrated.

“Did you think of something I can give you?” Ilya asks. “Should not be hard to ask. No? ...You do not know yet? I can give you time. Now you control where I live, you can always find me.”

It’s not even close to being true, Shane doesn’t control where Ilya lives, but Ilya… Ilya does live with him. In Shane’s apartment, under his vaulted ceilings, clothes in his ergonomic drawers, life unboxed side by side with Shane’s. Just like Ilya's finances. His social media. All under Shane’s roof, in his capable, worthy hands.

Shane feels a little dizzy. Doesn’t Ilya see how wildly out of balance things between them have gotten? Isn’t he the least bit concerned? Shane thinks of the feckless way Ilya signed the paperwork to list him on the lease, not even pretending to skim the dense text. Trusting Shane would not give him anything bad to sign. He could have locked Ilya in a year lease, could have made him agree to wash the floors every week, could have taken advantage terribly.

Ilya is so vulnerable for him. Is not blind— has made himself so vulnerable to Shane. Handing over so much control that Shane feels almost glutted, but for the little twingeing ache in his body that demands, needs, asks ever for more from Ilya.

And Ilya provides.

“What is it?”

“Fuck me,” Shane finally manages, numb lips pressing against the glass. “Please.”

Only Ilya can make him feel both deified and humble as a poor worshipper. Drowning in power and utterly strapped for it.

“Old dogs do learn tricks,” Ilya says, and Shane widens his legs, ready to feel the dip of fingers and cock— “But I think I need more specificity. Where can I do this?”

“Here. Now. Please.”

“Where here? The floor?”

Shane whines. That isn’t fair. “On the kitchen table.”

“Please fuck me on the kitchen table where we eat. Will host many friends. Will see pretty reflection of fucking.”

It’s so long and Shane is so insane with need. He tries, breath panting.

“Please fuck me on our kitchen table... where we eat... Host friends... See p-p—"

"Pretty, very pretty," Ilya supplies.

"Pretty reflection,” Shane doesn't have to feel the burn on his face, he can see it. The helpless, wet look in his eyes. "Please. Please."

He is rewarded for his effort by the crinkle of plastic as Ilya finally puts his teeth to good purpose and tears the condom open.

Shane is panting. He is so ready, like a horse left too long in the starting gate and champing at the bit. Ilya drips lube down Shane’s ass and it drips down his hole, which Ilya quickly chases with his fingers, just to get enough in there.

Ilya lines up at his entrance.

“Welcome home, Sweetheart.” Ilya’s cock breeches Shane and he grunts hard and breathless. Shane is so much looser than he was when they started fucking a year ago, and Shane relishes it, relishes the ease which Ilya penetrates him, like his body is making space for Ilya’s cock permanently.

Ilya bottoms out, curses in Russian, Shane mutters French as a fair trade fuck, you’re going to fucking kill me. Thank god. Thank god.

Shane tries to keep his head pressed to the side, but Ilya starts pistoning and Shane has to press his head up or drag his face over the glass. The reflection is terrible, red all over, cloudy-eyed, wanting. Shane has never wanted to see himself like that, so laid bare, but Ilya’s hands are on his hips.

“Fuck, fuck. You see how perfect you are? See how fucking good you look, greedy, beautiful man. My fucking landlord.”

Shane keens. Ilya hasn’t even dropped his pants, just tucked his cock under the band and his pants brush against Shane’s balls in a stinging, tender way. The casual disregard for anything like equality between them makes Shane squirm harder, gets his good arm wrapped around the edge of the table so he can leverage a little push back.

Ilya grunts, thighs working as he fucks Shane harder. A SCREECHing as the table starts moving, juddering with each thrust, and Shane’s feet are moving from under him, he staggers forward. Ilya cranes over, his movements rough and unfocused, all that pent up energy from the hours waiting and stewing getting the best of him.

He splays himself over Shane’s back, mouth finding Shane’s cheek, and Shane can only look at their faint, prismatic reflection. He, kissed by Ilya, doubled, and Shane wants to double it again and again, double this moment forever.

Ilya comes hard and deep. Shane waits in his place as Ilya ties the condom and bends over, shoving his face in Shane’s loosened hole, tongue and teeth finding grooves to tease while his hand gropes loosely for Shane’s cock. He’s so languid after coming, the fire turned to confident satiety. He twists and wrings and bites and licks until Shane’s back arches and he sees his face crumpling, a heap of overwrought. His eager cock comes on the glass.

Shane leverages his good arm to hold himself up, but Ilya is there again, pressing him down with his weight until Shane’s belly smears against the glass, dragging his come over and onto himself. It’s filthy, degrading. A few more sputters of cum leak weakly out and dribble down Shane’s cock and he groans.

Shane lays there for a second, legs figuring out how to work again. Remembering what Ilya said about filthy bathroom sex and wondering if he really knew what he was getting into inviting Ilya Rozanov into his house.

He looks dazedly through the glass, glancing for any damage to the floor because they moved the table a good metre closer to the wall.

“I can’t believe you made me come on the kitchen table.”

Ilya gives Shane a big, smacking kiss on his cheek and pulls off. Shane rolls over fingers itching for a cloth. Ilya eyes him as he tucks his cock back into his sweats, tidy as can be. He goes to the kitchen and searches for a rag.

“Under the sink. Use the blue ones.”

Ilya wets it and returns, hand scraping up Shane’s body, lingering hard on his come smeared front. Shane sucks in his stomach on reflex, but Ilya lingers with such pleasure, such sweet little swipes that Shane sighes, eases into Ilya's hand. Ilya cleans Shane's ass and pats it like a good car. 

“I think I will like living here.”

“You think?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Then you can clean the table.” Shane rubs his face, tingly, post-coital hormones firing like mad. The giddiness of control has yet to fade and he looks at Ilya again, as if checking that he hasn’t gotten morose after all their discussions during sex. Money and power and sex.

But who is having who has always been a twisting mystery for Shane, intrigues him more than any Christie novel ever could. What is Shane’s physical surrender to all that Ilya has handed him? And some part of him still thinks, I will have more of this. I will have him totally.

“Let’s move it back first,” Shane says. “Lifting this time.”

“Ah, the floors.” Ilya grips one side of the table, Shane the other, mindful of his shoulder. Ilya lets out a puff of air.

“Was fucking you very hard. Table is heavy.”

“I think we should establish rules about where we fuck,” Shane says, and he immediately hears what a fun-killer he is, how much he despises a good time in his stuffy voice. Thinks back to how many people he dated were baffled by Shane’s contrariness— totally passive in bed, utterly dominating in life.

Ilya does not say yes, nor does he argue. He folds Shane into a new shape with his compromise.

“Okay. New rule. I fuck you wherever, and I clean up afterwards. Simple, no? Now come, I think you will like how I put the trophies together. Mine on top of yours, like a little tower. After that, we get Anya from groomer, she is so excited to shed on your things.”

Shane hovers with indecision by the mailboxes. A large package waits, but not for him.

The building had mailboxes when Shane moved in and quietly but swiftly bought out the rest of the building. He kept his rennos to his living space, so the mailboxes stayed equipped for some twenty-five residents, even if Shane was the only one living there. He thinks of his confused mailman who never asked questions but also never really met Shane’s eyes when they passed each other. He dreads to think what conspiracy theories the man has come up with for why Shane might need a whole building, but it’s all fairly innocent, really.

Even when Shane leased the building, he didn’t like the idea of it getting too populous, and only let one family, (friends of his mother) lease the floor beneath him. He shooed them out when Ilya came back into his life and he, once again, needed a discreet and precious place to fuck and love Ilya Rozanov.

However, Ilya’s one condition for moving in was that he not be the only person in the building.

“It's too crazy, you make me feel like princess in a castle waiting for you to come back.”

Shane grumbled initially at the accusation that there were any towers or princesses involved, then he started wringing his hands.

How exactly was Shane supposed to find residents while still keeping his sexuality and relationship with Ilya a secret for the next few months? In hockey-mad Montreal of all places? The whole reason he bought out the building was so he’d have a safe space to fuck Ilya in the first place. It still pretty much fulfills that purpose, even thirty odd years out.

Neighbours feel like something of an encroaching threat.

As if reading the panic on his face, Ilya raised a hand, said I handle it, so perfectly decisively that Shane could only trust him. Even if it made him itch.

In the end, Ilya found two families by the end of the week. An elderly Russian family that ran his favorite bodega, the Semenovs, who were not hockey fans and gave absolutely no damns about Ilya and Shane’s supposed fame. They clearly loved Ilya if the way they yelled at him in Russian and fed him incessantly meant anything.

The second family Ilya found was the Kims… Like the Semenovs, they were also old and uninterested in hockey, and forget about social media. Unlike the warm and involved Russian family, the old Korean couple were curmudgeons in Shane’s opinion.

Still, when Shane sees their package in the mail room, awkwardly long and heavy, he loathes the idea of his seventy-year-old tenants grappling with it.

Shane squats down and lifts the bottom, hefting the heavy parcel awkwardly into his arms and into the elevator. Usually, he takes the stairs but he doesn’t want to risk dropping it. Dreads the ensuing conversation if he did and worries intensely that they don’t have someone in their life to do this without Shane and Ilya around.

Shane stands on floor three and raps on the door, feeling a tight smile spread on his face when the door opens on Il-sung Kim.

“Mr. Kim, I saw you had a package and thought I’d bring it by.”

Mr. Kim glares at Shane, suspicious of his every word. Best Shane can figure, Mr Kim blames Shane for the Japanese war crimes against the Koreans in WW2. Which, seems a little silly because a) Shane wasn’t even born yet, and b) Shane’s parents literally fled Japan because of the war, but this felt rather pedantic to explain to the elderly man renting a whole floor from him at a discounted rate. Not that Mr. Kim seems to recognize that Shane is the landlord, but the point still chafes.

“Okay,” Shane says, leaning the box carefully at the wall.

He hears a burst of Korean from behind the door and the words, “Wait. Wait!”

Mrs. Chun-ja Kim appears with a Tupperware container. Wow, how did she get that so fast? She holds it two-handed to Shane who accepts it two-handed.

It contains cookies. Dry, terrible looking cookies.

Shane’s mind whirls, considers how to turn this gift away without being an asshole because he hates sweets, but maybe he should accept it. Maybe they are turning a new leaf.

“Wow, thank you. You didn’t have to—”

“Not for you. For your nice white friend.” Jesus fucking Christ. “He came to help fix my light yesterday. Don’t eat. I’ll know.”

Shane has to leave now.

He nods, grimacing a smile, and turns on his heel.

When Shane arrives at his apartment on the top floor, he sees Ilya in the living room, Anya on his lap. Shane holds up the Tupperware.

“Mrs. Kim?” Ilya asks. “Oh, she likes you.”

“Yeah fucking right.” Shane tells Ilya what Mrs. Kim says and feels very bitter about the grin spreading across his face. Ilya succeeded in finding people to move in who didn’t know anything about hockey and lacked internet literacy, but he might have picked people who didn’t have a vendetta against Shane for being Japanese. To be fair, Shane interviewed the Kims and the Semenovs over the phone under the guise of his property company and signed off. The Kims were very agreeable…when they couldn’t see Shane. Neither Shane nor Ilya could have guessed they needed to ask questions about lingering war crime grudges.

Still, the way they fawned over Ilya, his 'nice white friend,' made Shane hate his fiancé just a little.

“You didn’t have to bring their package. Next time don’t if they act like this,” Ilya says simply.

“I can’t just leave it! What if they hurt themselves trying to lift something too heavy?” It hadn’t even occurred to Shane to leave them to struggle, even if he hemmed and hawed.

Ilya grins, eyes crinkling like Shane is entirely precious for being responsible. Precious is the last thing Shane feels. He scowls. Ilya rouses himself, scooting Anya off onto the floor to stand and smother Shane in his hug. Shane resists for a few moments.

“I’m sorry, Sweetheart. You'll win the Kims over eventually.” He kisses Shane’s cheek. “Cannot resist your nice nature. Persistent personality. Great ass.”

Shane snorts, relaxing almost against his will.

“Pretty sure only you think that.”

“No, I see Nina checking it out yesterday.”

“Ilya, she’s eighty-seven. She’s a grandmother of twelve.”

Ilya looks aghast at his restriction. Does Nina Semenov not deserve a life? Does she not deserve fantasies about your ass? his offended face says.

“It looks bigger every day, no one can blame her.”

Shane glows under the words, under the recognition of his effort paying off. He’s always liked being praised for what his body can do. It scratches an itch, like petting Anya behind her ears.

Speaking of, Anya is wriggling her face between their legs, wanting attention. Shane sighs and drops his hand, already wishing for the lint brush for his work slacks.

“Do you have enough neighbors, mon coeur?” Shane asks, maybe a touch pleading. Ilya’s got to be content with two families. The amount of times Shane has found Ilya one floor down in the Semenovs apartment, the door jammed open, holding court over beers and warm drinks as the Semenovs milled in and out like the hallway was just an extension of the living room is insane.

Ilya tilts his head. “I found one more family. See if you like them.”

“And should I expect them to blame me for WW2?”

“No, they’re not old. They are younger than us.”

“…How young?”

Ilya shrugs, hands him an application. Shane frowns and looks over the papers Ilya used from Shane’s management company. Renee and Pete Boucher. He sees their age and his eyebrows climb.

“Ilya, they’re twenty-four!”

“Yes.”

“I thought the point of your retirement community is having neighbors that wouldn’t care about outing us or have enough social media skills to.”

“They don’t care. I interviewed very carefully—”

“You met them? Ilya, if they post something—”

“Neither of them recognized me. Just young couple that works too much, need somewhere affordable to figure out life.”

Shane shakes his head, pissed and wordless. He logs onto social media and types up their names, finding a match in the Montreal area.

Renee and Pete are young. Pretty recent graduates in finance and engineering respectively. He flips backwards through their school years, looking for some hint of hockey fanning or larger deception. They do seem uninterested in hockey, but even still… Anyone might be tempted with the right kind of gossip. Five minutes of fame is irresistible to people who have no real glimpse of it on their own.

“I told them the same lie. I share rent with friend so he can have part time property to visit his family. No one suspects… Many rooms in the apartment. I promise no one knows. The world has not revolved around us for long time, Shane.”

Shane shakes his head.

“You should have told me they were so young before meeting them. They could have recognized you, and if they see us together… You should have told me—”

Ilya stops, steps away. It smacks of a different argument. The shades are unpleasant.

“I'd never pick something to hurt you on purpose.”

“I know.” Doesn’t mean he hasn’t hurt Shane on accident plenty.

It’s not something Ilya can do anything about, either, just happens in an uncontrollable way that makes Shane’s hands shake.

“Fine. Tell them no,” Ilya says, curt.

Ilya goes to the kitchen. He starts cooking, banging things a little harder than he might normally, and Shane goes to their room and undresses. He feels foolish and frustrated with each layer he peels off.

He showers the day off and when he returns, Ilya is setting chicken breasts on the table. His cooking is the deft quickness of a parent. Not showy, but terribly efficient.

Shane gets lost in Ilya’s process, the quickness of his hands. It strikes Shane again, as it often does, the pleasure of having Ilya in his space. Ilya slotted in easily, as if his loud paintings were always meant to cheerfully clutter up Shane’s walls, as if his body was only waiting to expand and breathe fully, like nice wine, under Shane’s vaulted ceilings. Like the tile in the kitchen was made to match his skin tone—and all of it was, without being so, without Shane actively thinking it. All of this building, from floor to ceiling, is about Ilya.

Ilya clacks a plate in front of Shane and sits across from him at the kitchen table.

Shane’s plate is loaded just how he likes it with greens for fiber and two extra chicken breasts for protein.

Ilya’s is a ramshackle salad that Shane might call a fridge salad for all the odds and ends, nuts, berries, cheeses and yams he’s shoved into it.

He’s dieting for Shane, in his own way, for both their vanity.

When Shane takes a bite, finds it flavorful and adherent to his limits, he feels himself wilting under the care of Ilya’s attention, but too useless to find any words about it.

How many of Shane’s ex’s critiqued Shane’s food choices? How many loaded up his plate with their own foods while ignoring his wishes, reassuring, oh you’ll like it, I promise! To Shane, throwing food away is so rude, so despicable, and Shane forced each unhealthy, terrible textured item into his mouth in a bid to please them, even as it made him want to meltdown and throw the plate at the wall. And he could never finish it for his nausea no matter the ginger ale or Perrier he guzzled, and they would be upset at his lack of commitment or pitying because of his eating issues but Shane has never been able to explain the diet is as much for his body’s performance as it is for his unbearable pickiness about texture. They only understand the first even as the second always felt more pressing.

Ilya doesn’t ask about Shane’s relationship with food. Just cooks, calls out Shane for lying about his preferences (okay, he really does hate cake, why is it so crumbly?). Ilya makes everything to Shane’s taste and that little bit of extra flavor he can’t help but think Shane deserves.

His faintly doubled reflection stares up at him from the glass table. A small, tightly wound man. 

Shane eats his chicken, feels ungrateful.

In bed, Shane tucks himself into his arrangement of pillows to buttress his shoulder, watching Ilya carefully curl with a few pillows between his legs to stop the scraping of his knees against each other. Thinks that Ilya’s gotten so good at being sensitive— no, that isn’t true, he was always sensitive to Shane’s needs, his every unspoken desire. But now, he is open with it, so soft and tender and easy in giving it, whereas before he’d buy ginger ale for Shane and never admit it, only shrug and raise his eyebrow. Now he is brazen, direct with his care.

Shane’s hackles and hangups are a poor return.

Shane sighs, says. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I just… I don’t want to fail when I’m this close to doing coming out right because someone can’t keep it to themselves.”

“I know. I want this for you. Good coming out.”

His understanding makes it all the worse for Shane.

“I know I’m difficult—”

Ilya makes a short, annoyed noise, rolls over.

“Who tells you this? It's a fucking lie.” Ilya’s hand spreads, gropes out and lands on Shane’s chest. He squeezes his muscle loosely, easily. Just to hold.

Ilya says, “You are so easy for me.”

Shane sighs, feels the burning rise to his eyes and gracelessly rides out that aching feeling of being loved so much.

Shane, after weighing the issue, schedules a call with the Bouchers and reluctantly finds them well-spoken, courteous, and satisfactory in terms of lacking hockey knowledge. A bit too violent, is actually the phrase Pete uses, when Shane makes repeated small talk about the sport that they eventually, cannot just politely reflect. That they are so much younger may be a point in their favor, as Ilya and Shane were only passing figures in their childhoods, and even if the Bouchers choose to get into hockey, neither of Ilya nor Shane are especially relevant. Against his paranoia, Shane lets them move in.

He runs into Mrs. Renee Boucher a few weeks later in the mail area.  Renee is a blonde woman with a tall pile of tangled blonde hair in a clip, sweat stains under her smart grey suit. She nods to Shane as she fishes out her letters. Renee doesn’t blink at seeing Shane, doesn’t ask for an autograph, and doesn’t quietly but persistently condemn him for the war atrocities of the Japanese. Something of a home run, all said.

Shane marvels to himself, wonders how Ilya finds these odd hockey-less people in Montreal or whether they are just that old now—

“Um…” a low, feminine voice says.

Shane stops, his key in the door for the stairs, turns. Dread cooks quick in his stomach.

“Yes?”

“I was wondering, if you, uh, maybe…” Renee pauses, blows a piece of hair out of her face. “Know the number for the landlord?”

“The landlord?” Shane blinks. Clearly she doesn’t recognize his voice from the phone, and to be fair she’s not the first. He fidgets on his feet unsure of whether to correct her or not.

“Yeah, my husband and I were thinking of maybe hanging a couple things. Our diplomas. I don’t know, feels stupid to do, but uh, I can’t find our copy of the contract and I don’t remember what it says about nails in the walls.”

Oh, Shane has a few feelings about those.

Renee is still going on. “I know Ilya is his representative, but Pete said he’s not in the apartment—”

The landlord’s representative??? God, Ilya.

“I, uh, have the number for the property company.” Shane tries not to sweat as he pulls up the contact information for his own management company on his phone.

“Thanks.” She peers over and types the number into her own cracked screen. “I honestly don’t know what to make of this whole thing. Empty building. Only like five units being used. Pete kept saying there must be something wrong with the place. It’s a bad sign right?”

Actually, it’s four units, but Shane won’t correct her as to where he lives.

“I think it’s fine, I’ve been here for a while.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it’s just… very specific about who they accept, I guess. The building is really great, good location, nice foundations, the windows per square footage is really…” He bites his tongue to stop talking specs to her. She blinks.

“Well, if you haven’t been murdered yet, that’s good.”

Shane swallows, smiles. Wonders again why all his behaviours get ascribed murderish intent. But whatever he’s not going to take it personally, is he? He should leave, but…

“I have some command strips if you want to borrow some. Those are better for the walls and they have a lot of different hooks and attachments.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that—”

“It’s no trouble. I can bring them by.”

Shane looks at the ceiling tiles, counts them until she huffs to herself.

“Uh, thanks, we’re in unit 12.”

Shane’s glad she told him what her unit was before he showed up at the right place without her telling him. God only knows the serial killer accusations he’d get then.

Shane arrives with a bag of command strips, and in his form of small talk asks if she has a leveler.

She doesn’t, which is how Shane ends up standing in his socks on her couch helping her hang a small photo Pete and Renee and their dog. Timbit is far better behaved than Anya, an old shaggy creature that barely stirs from the bed as it watches Shane pad around the apartment.

Shane would never call Anya a bad dog, but she certainly has room for improvement.

Shane learns that they were evicted from their last apartment with short notice because their baby was too loud (“he raised the rent so high we couldn’t afford it, but only for our apartment because it was a corner. Fucking bullshit”), and they were desperate for somewhere to live. Apparently, they came suggested through the Semenov’s because their baby liked the milk products sold in the store and their situation was pitiable enough to catch Nina Semenov’s attention. Now they have no neighbors which solves the noise complaints, and neither Renee nor Pete is willing to be evicted over some nails in the walls.

Shane privately concedes that Ilya has once again found ideal tenants all too respectful of Shane’s perfect building.

Renee asks if Shane has any kids, which is what most parents seem to think passes as small talk, and Shane discusses Anya instead with so much frustrated affection that Renee laughs.

Pete comes home halfway through the hanging job, their sixteen-month-old strapped to his chest. He wears a postal worker’s uniform.

Pete raises a brow at seeing Shane barefoot on his couch, but introduces himself and baby Beatrice steadily.

Renee follows them to the kitchen to get the baby’s food ready. They lower their voices... but their apartment is still being set up. Without any rugs down yet or curtains hung there isn't much to absorb the sound and Shane can’t help but overhear their conversation in Quebecois.

Who’s this guy?

One of our neighbors, offered to help hang things.

You know another man might be jealous.

Shane’ s face burns. He didn’t even think of the optics of this. Is he really that gay?

Another man might… Renee laughs, playful, but I think he’s that way, you know.

Shane’s whole face fully flushes. He fumbles with the leveler and anxiously gets off the couch. He sets it on the coffee table, rubbing his sweating hands on his trousers.

“Renee? I think I should head out. I have, uh, dinner plans.”

“Okay, thank you for the help!” She comes out, juggling Beatrice in hand. “Please come by for dinner sometime, or a drink. We don’t have a lot of time but we’d love to host you.”

Shane minces a smile and leaves, just in time to hear the quiet but embarrassed question of, Shit. Do you think heard us?

Shane finds Ilya in the shower, and he makes short work of his clothes to join him.

“Bad timing, I’m almost at the end,” Ilya says, even as he makes space for Shane to share the spray. The impishness on his face suggests he wouldn’t mind getting dirty again.

“I met the Bouchers,” Shane says, grumpy as he enters the wash. It steams over his face, into his coarse hair. Ilya rubs his fingers through Shane’s locks, relishing the thick, choppy texture, so different than his tangly curls.

“And? They do not recognize you, right?”

“No. But they… I think they think I’m gay.”

“You are gay,” Ilya says.

“I know that, but how do they know that?”

Ilya gives him an amused look and blows a little water out of his mouth.

“What?”

“I think you are so used to thinking you are only gay person in the room, you forget to look for others.”

“You think that they—”

“No, but I think it means you have very underdeveloped uh, gaydar? That’s the word?”

“You think they just knew?” Shane is terrified by this idea. He’s heard of the concept before but thought it was a joke.

“I knew you were,” Ilya says. “Even before you gave me the big look in the shower.”

Ilya kisses Shane’s cheek, his throat. Wet and warm. Shane is a little stymied.

“Do you think other people know? Do they just… Do they not say anything because I’m Shane Hollander.”

Ilya pulls away, looks at Shane’s face. “What is this? You’re worried you’re not good enough at acting straight? Sweetheart, everyone will know soon.”

“I know that—”

“You don’t want to be good at acting like what you are not anyway.”

“I know… Just. I don’t like the feeling people were indulging me.”

“People see what they want to see. Straight, scared hockey men and egotistical commissioners most of all. None of them would ever guess.”

That is… more reassuring than it ought to be.

Shane submits himself to Ilya for the wash and a quick hand job before the two prepare for bed. Shane has tried to interest Ilya in a little more skin care, especially for how often he hovers behind Shane as he does it, but Ilya just winks, says, I am okay if you’re the pretty one.

So hilariously untrue. Shane looks like an office worker, bland with tight lines on his face. Sure, he used to be the face of sponsorships, but that was when he was young. He knows the way time has made him less and less desirable even before he quit hockey, sponsorships moving on to fresh-faced nineteen-year-olds, regardless of their lackluster scoring. Shane doesn’t mind, but he just doesn’t want to fool himself.

Ilya is still tousled, longer curls, irrepressible, careless beauty. Yes he's careworn, carries his exhaustion more plainly, but his face is still gorgeous to Shane, scruffy and strong. Shane lets Ilya’s lax skin care go, accepts the warm hands on his hips, against his ass. Hopes Ilya can feel the change in his body as he works to make himself stronger.

He and Ilya settle themselves in the bed, sorting their pillows.

“Are you still okay to meet Hayden weekend after next?”

“It will be the highlight of my life,” Ilya swears, dryly.

Shane tries to get comfortable in his bed, can’t.

“Can we talk about a few things…?”

“Always. No need to ask so politely, like we are interviewing in bed.”

Shane huffs. He was just being polite, giving Ilya warning.

“Hayden asked me if we were going to adopt any kids.”

Ilya’s mouth opens. Shuts. He looks at Shane across his silk pillow cover, wondering.

Shane swallows. God, is that hope in his eyes?

Shane instantly knows that, if Ilya wants, Shane will give him a child. Even as it carves out time of his career, precious time with Ilya. Shane wants so badly to give him that. A child was not something he wrote on his list of things he provides for Ilya, but it can be. He can make it be.

“Is it something you want?” Ilya asks.

Shane shrugs. “Is it what you want?”

Ilya scans his face, expression scrunched.

“Is it what you want?”

Shane feels a little dizzy now.

“Should we… ask Niko?”

Ilya blinks, then laughs.

“What?” Shane demands.

“You are worried he'd be jealous as an only child?”

“I would be,” Shane says. It’s not silly.

“Yes, you were a selfish only child, weren’t you?” Ilya should not be so fond saying that, hand reaching out to stroke Shane’s hair, thumb petting the cusp of his hairline.

“Not that selfish.” Shane tries.

“I think maybe you are.” Ilya smiles. “To be honest, you are the only baby for me at the moment. If you want one later, maybe we talk—”

Shane stumbles. “I’m not your… I don’t… I… If you want one later, we can talk.”

“Shane. I thought I would die many times raising Nikolaj. He jumped off our roof once. Was three stories! I know how demanding having kids is. I did it once. I do not want to do again unless you really want to,” Ilya finally says bluntly, and a huge breath of relief explodes from Shane.

Thank fuck.

It must show because Ilya snickers, cranes his neck to kiss into Shane’s hair.

“My selfish baby,” Ilya croons.

“Stop saying that,” Shane complains. Still, he’s fucking glad Ilya said something. He shivers to think about the two of them halfheartedly going along with adoption ideas just because they thought that’s what the other wanted. (It really is only Hayden who wanted, vicariously looking for another kid to add to the collection, probably.)

“There’s a lot we need to discuss,” Shane realizes. “About our marriage. Where we’ll live, work, how to handle holidays—”

Ilya groans. “Whiny baby.”

“Fuck off. This is important. And we have to be honest.”

“Yes, okay. But it can wait til after the wedding, no?”

“There really isn’t anything you want to know now?”

Ilya mulls it over. Shane expects the blow off, maybe with another use of that annoying pet name (whatever happened to ‘Sweetheart?’ Shane is literally 48 years old). Instead, Ilya quietly asks.

“Do you want open marriage?”

It takes the air from Shane’s chest. The very thought— After all he did to get Ilya back—

“You want an open marriage?”

Ilya makes an annoyed sound. “No. No asking me. You. Honesty, okay?”

“No.” Shane cannot be more clear.

“Okay.” Ilya smiles, it’s a little crooked, might just be an effect of being laid sideways. “My baby really is selfish.”

Shane will take that stupid appellation if it means that Ilya stops talking about—

“What if it is only for you?”

“If what is? …The open marriage?” Shane is agog.

“Yes, you can be selfish with me, what I do, and also have…” He does that Slavic thing where he sort of nudges his shoulders and tilts his head. Shane usually finds it charming. Right now it is infuriating.

“So you’re not selfish with me?” Shane demands.

It’s dizzying this idea, so unsettling to even consider. The sickening solidifies.

Ilya hesitates before he shakes his head. “I want you to have.”

“I don’t want to have,” Shane spits. He can’t help himself, he sits up.

“Okay,” Ilya says, still hedging. Still not believing him. “But later if you want—”

“I can’t…” Shane feels his jaw working, blinking hard. His head feels hot, hands sweaty that hot feeling building behind his eyes. He hates it. Doesn’t want to let it win. “I need to… go. I can’t sleep here tonight.”

Ilya blinks, levering himself up. Hurt crashes across his face all at once, twisting his handsome features into anger. He looks dramatic like this, severe like an oil painting.

“Are you joking? You are one who says we need honest discussion! Then get mad when I talk about important marriage question. And now you try to leave our bed?!”

Shane shakes his head, he can’t talk, his throat is tight. Ilya crawls closer on the bed, wincing as his knee creaks. Shane forces himself still as Ilya pets his neck carefully. As always, his soft, knowledgeable touch sets Shane’s climbing temperature lower, fights against the helpless climb of overmuchness that eats at Shane’s bones.

“I am sorry. I don’t know why it upsets you. If you do not want we won’t have.”

Shane feels his tense shoulders beginning to slacken, his breath slowing.

“I only ask because it's normal in a lot of marriages—”

Shane’s shoulders tighten. Oh.

“In yours? Yours and Svetlana’s?”

Ilya looks cornered, helpless to answer with anything other than a nod.

Shane expels himself from their bed like a ghost exorcised. He lies alone in the guest room.

When Ilya knocks at 3am, Shane pretends he is asleep and not wondering how he will ever close the gap between him and Svetlana Rozanov.

Chapter End Notes

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remember that throwaway comment in chapter three of death and taxes about Svetlana and Ilya's open marriage? Yeah, crazy for that to come up.

Chapter 6: shane is responsible

Chapter Notes

the following is based on a true hockey story...

i listened to 2 A.M. by the foals, and the chunky beat kind of captures the vibe of this chapter and Shane's headspace in being torn in some sense. this will be the only music rec in the fic <3

Shane is relieved to have work as an excuse to fly out early the next day. More relieved than he wishes he was. Ilya is plainly hurt as he watches Shane packing from the bed. A betrayed blue eye peaks out under curls against the pillow.

Last night, Ilya came for Shane, knocking, begging, pleading. Shane did not answer. Pretended deafness. This morning the pleading has darkened to a bitter despondence that makes Ilya look abruptly foreign in Shane’s old apartment. He is a strange, wounded creature tangled in bedspread.

Shane wonders if this is the version of him that called drunk in 2018 and 2019 after each room number went ignored, the Ilya who cried so sweetly and drunkenly over the phone, offered the world to Shane. Tell me what I can do. Will do anything. Will divorce her, please, please, Shane, please. I love you.

Maybe it’s weary practice, but Shane doesn’t feel any pity stir. Doesn’t feel much of anything, too tired and too much to do. The numbness is welcome, a cooling balm to Ilya’s heated, emotional touchiness.

Shane has assembled himself too well to allow anything other than a single cool look at Ilya, dedicating himself to packing. He has a meeting later, notes to review. Issues to handle before the playoffs begin in earnest. It’s plenty to think about. He’s already thinking about all of the everything of his work and it’s delightfully much.

“Shane… we must talk about this,” Ilya says, rolling over when Shane grabs his bag to go.

“We can talk later, Ilya.” Shane feels glossy, smooth. Easy like the ice to slip out of his apartment and to the airport. Flying far enough up, the city and Shane’s apartment are small.

They don’t talk about it later. Shane arrives home with enough time to unpack, look at his copy of Dating Late in Life before he forces himself to shelve the book altogether. He shaves, trying not to feel any sort of way about doing it himself. He’s been doing shaving since he was fourteen, for fuckssake.

Shane returns home after a long workday and finds a box at his door. He unpackages it over a dinner of asparagus and chicken, too tired to call tonight, sorry.

It’s the demo invitation cards for their wedding. Shane weighs the different cardstocks and feels estranged from the twining embossed curlicues tying their names together.

He sighs. What are they doing?

Shane should call Ilya. Should apologize for leaving. Should let Ilya crack into Shane’s heart and stir that empathy that rises so easily for him.

Shane leaves the cardstock on the table. He’ll make the choice later. He’s too tired to do it now.

With Ilya’s team in the thick of play, Shane has been the one traveling, but he is grateful that his current workload precludes a Montreal visit at the moment.

The season is tying all the loose ends before the Olympic break, handling promotions, interviews, and general posturing for all the MLH players in the Swiss Olympic village. Shane halfheartedly promises to call Ilya at night when he gets off (unlikely he ever will, at the rate things are moving) but for now, he grapples with overtime. He’s been arguing all day over playoff arrangements with a Florida hotel chain which has suddenly changed their specialty rates after an alligator was found in a player’s bathtub. (Player says he didn’t put it in there, but the hotel points out the alligator would have needed a keycard. Player brashly suggests gator swallowed one— It’s been a whole thing.)

Ilya offered to come visit Shane, saying his team could manage one game without the coach, besides, my Nika is in New York for a game. Perfect excuse. There’s a desperate edge to Ilya’s message which Shane pretends not to sense.

Shane says no— not only because Shane doesn’t have the bandwidth for the conversation, but because even if they do keep it simple and uncomplicated, Ilya has a way of making working from home more about working Shane from home. He doesn’t think his overflowing inbox could tolerate another footjob.

And it feels mean, but he doesn’t want Ilya to use Shane’s body to make this feel better. He doesn’t want to feel better, he just wants to focus on his work until the unwell, bright anger fizzles out into exhaustion. It’s not like he has a right to be mad about what Ilya did in his last marriage anyway and Shane was the one who brought Svetlana up anyway. So it’s all fine. A topic that will keep.

Normally Shane would wonder if he should text something to Niko. It’s the same internal discussion he has every time Niko comes into town— is it odd just to text because they’re in the same area? Wouldn’t Niko reach out if he wanted to talk to Shane? Won’t Shane just come off as desperate and trying too hard to be liked? And while Shane does want to be liked by Niko, he has to go about it carefully. Strategically.

Today, Shane does not go through the rigamarole of second-guessing a text. At this point, what Shane wants— What Shane needs, is a break from all things Rozanov. Space to be in his zone, focus on something productive so he doesn’t have to think about uncomplicated, lovely Svetlana and her perfect ease in knowing Ilya loved her most and would never wander from her side no matter how many other people in their open relationship he fucked or she fucked, or maybe they fucked together because Ilya was so goddamned unselfish and evolved that he certainly didn’t care who Shane fucked—

The takeout menu in Shane’s hand crinkles aggressively and he takes a breath. Tries to settle his nerves. He rubs his eyes and flattens the menu out. He has to pick something and then give it to Kimmi so she can make her choice for the late night office food run. He focuses hard, searching for the one dinner item for the office-comped meal not fried, spine shiveringly crunchy nor mushy on the menu.

His desk phone rings, and Shane picks it up, eyes still glued to the glossy menu options.

“Hollander speaking.”

His assistant, Merrium. “It’s an outside call from Nikolaj Rozanov? He said you had a preexisting meeting you wanted to talk to him about?”

Speak of the devil…

Shane blinks, a clenching in his chest that has everything to do with anxiety. Why isn’t Nikolaj just calling his personal cell?

Merrium goes on. “I told him I have access to your schedule, and there is no meeting scheduled but he insisted—”

“I’ll take the call, Merrium.”

Her silence is as effectively judgmental as anything his mother ever managed.

Shane’s mind works quickly, maneuvering himself out of her gossipy suspicion.

“It’s about the awards, we talked, mentioned maybe presenting again. You are right that he’s confused about a meeting though.” That affirmation seems to mollify her, plays on her vice of always knowing best.

“Hmm. I’ll pass him along.”

Shane bites his tongue, hoping he’s quelled the gossip people hanker for in these boring office halls.

Again, why isn’t Nikolaj calling Shane’s cell and avoiding all this odd publicity of a player reaching out to the deputy commissioner? There’s no way Ilya told him about their argument, right? That would be insane to mention to your teenaged kid, and even more insane of Niko to call Shane about it, but what if he is? What does Shane say?

“Hollander,” Shane says by habit when he hears the line connect. He thinks he’s prepared for anything.

He’s not.

“Hey, so you are in New York. I don’t have my phone so Uber’s out, and my money’s all on my digital wallet—”

“Niko, what—”

“Can you pick me up?”

“…What? Where are you?”

Shane parks his sensible jeep outside the New York police station.

He raced out of the office, citing family emergency in a way that earned him raised eyebrows and a sympathetic look from Kimmi. Shane gave Ilya a call, but Ilya is knee deep in his own warmups for his game at this point. Has his phone turned off, more likely than not.

Shane’s heart thumps in his neck, nervousness building as he scales the steps and finds Nikolaj Rozanov in the lobby of the police station.

Not shackled, thank God, but his knuckles are bruised. He leans insouciantly on an intake desk, talking with two police officers. He turns when he sees Shane, revealing his face has a clean cut along his cheek that has been fixed with butterfly tape.

“Jesus Christ, what happened?” Shane addresses this as much to the cops as Niko.

“Carjacking,” the cop says. “Hey, Shane Hollander!”

“Yeah, car’s gone.” Niko rolls his shoulders. “Can you drive me to my game or…?”

“What? Carjacking?? Like, your car?”

“Yeah, my car. I wasn’t doing the jacking,” Niko says, all dry and amused and it makes Shane feel like he’s bitten a lemon. “Guess everyone was right about renting a Lambo being too flash.”

Shane makes a noise of intense disbelief and irritation. Why the hell would anyone rent a Lamborghini for an away game? No that isn’t the point. The point is the Grand Theft Auto. The point is Niko’s cut face. The point is calling Ilya for a conversation that Shane definitely doesn’t want to be a part of when they’re knee deep in a spat, which isn’t engagement ruining, but is definitely give me some fucking space requiring.

Immune to Shane’s spiraling thoughts, Nikolaj glances at the clock on the wall. “Puck drop is in an hour. They’re already going to be pissed I’m late for warmups.”

“Is there. I’m sorry. What is…” Shane is malfunctioning. “Officer. Is there something we need to… report?”

The officer, a woman who looks as amused at Niko as anyone in orbit of a Rozanov (it’s an annoying trick) shakes her head.

“Well, if we catch the guy, we’ll let you know. He might press charges for assault but since he had a knife—”

“Assault?” Shane finally slotting in the redness on Niko’s knuckles. “You hit him? And he had a knife?”

Niko riles. “It was my fucking Lambo.”

Stop saying Lambo. Shane bites his cheek. “It was a rental.”

Niko gives him a deeply disappointed look, like Shane has missed the entire point.

“Niko, are you okay?” Shane turns to look at his face, but Niko tilts his chin up and away, hiding his wounded cheek.

Shane examines Niko’s green eyes, searching for a hint of that considerate, well-meaning kid he met for dinner all those months ago, but whether it’s adrenaline from the carjacking or the nearness to game time, Niko is fronting hard. Worse, he’s as good at it as Ilya was at that age. Niko is all bared teeth and sharp smiles. Nothing glinting at softness underneath, just an easy dismissiveness and glib words, blustering past every soft edge.

Shane can’t handle this right now. But is handling it. Will handle it.

Long enough that he can dump Niko with his team at least.

“Okay. Fine. Just… Do I sign him out?”

“I’m eighteen—”

“He’s eighteen,” the cop says at the same time. “Hey, can I get a picture Hollander? You’ve always been big for my parents.”

“No,” Shane says, always nice to know he was an icon (for the older generation, specifically). He forces a smile. “Not now. Thanks. I appreciate that your parents are fans—”

“I mean, I am too,” she overcorrects. “Really.”

“Right, but we need to get on our way.”

“Yeah, for sure. Game’ll be on soon. Helping out your rival’s son though, that’s crazy.”

“Thanks. Yeah, I got that.” Shane starts for the door, because he’d rather get out of here than get actual answers about what the fuck happened. He stops though, turns around and trudges back to the desk. “It’s because I work for the MLH. That’s why I’m here, not because he’s my ex-rival’s son.”

The officer blinks at Shane, clearly having started talking shit the moment he headed for the door, and now looks only more bewildered. Ex-rival, she mouths to the desk clerk, mystified.

Shane turns on his heels, deeply humiliated, and walks back to a head-shaking Niko. Can this night get any worse?

Shane directs Niko to the Jeep and waits until both of them are inside to turn on the teenager and demand the whole story.

So what the fuck happened is this. On a street corner in New York City, one Nikolaj Ilyich Rozanov was in his rental Lamborghini blasting music at a light with his windows down when someone charged the driver’s side with a knife, held it up to his face. Told him to get the fuck out of the car.

Niko did, because he has an iota of intelligence (from his mother, Shane suspects).

The asshole car thief got in, and because Niko is a Rozanov at heart, he far-too-quickly got over his fear and booked it to the corner where the Lamborghini’s escape was derailed by a big family crossing the street.

“You caught up to the car?” Shane really wishes there was a chapter in his self-help book for this.

“I’m not a pussy about cardio like my old man.”

“Ilya’s a great runner.”

Niko gives him a pitying look. You’re so sad, it says, for your blindness.

“And you what, had a knife fight through the window?” Shane knows there’s a metaphor about bringing fists or something to a knife fight here, but for the sudden throbbing in his head he can’t remember it. Fucking teenagers is about the cadence of the pounding.

“I got a couple good punches in before he drove around,” Niko says.

“You’re lucky you still have your hand!” Ilya is going to flip his fucking lid when he finds out.

“Yeah, well this lucky hand is going to score a couple goals tonight, so that’s what’s up.”

Shane shakes his head. “Your coach isn’t going to want you to play after this. What did he say when you called?”

“I told you, my phone was in the car, so bye-bye.” Niko says, waving. Shane knows better than to ask if he has the coach’s number memorized. He suddenly gets why Ilya is griping about feeling old all the time.

Shane rubs his head. “Your dad is going to pass out. Did you at least call him?”

“I don’t know his number either.”

Shane glowers. He’s not like his parents, who could rattle phone numbers off the top of their heads like they were nuclear codes, but Shane always memorized at least the handful of important numbers in his life. Niko doesn’t even know his father’s?

“The police looked up the team number online, but the website told me to call the central MLH office, and they never directed me to the coach. They hung up on me twice when I claimed to be Niko Rozanov after a carjacking, so I had to lie about having a meeting with you—”

Shane holds out his phone to Niko. “Leave your father a message.”

“No.”

“What? Do it.”

“We’re not telling him.”

Shane boggles at him. Not telling him?

It’s ludicrous to be avoiding this because Ilya loves his son with a devastating firmness. He will never be angry. Maybe a little disappointed about chasing the car, but is Niko really this much of a coward to face the consequences of his actions? Some of this much show on his face because Niko sighs and capitulates.

“Fine! Whatever. Can you drive me to the game afterwards?”

Shane nods tightly. If only so Niko can prove he’s alive and put his coach and teammates at ease before they file a missing persons about him not showing up.

Niko waves the phone on the contact reading I ♡ and gets out of the car, slamming the door hard. He walks a little away for privacy. Shane breathes through his nose hard as he watches through the windshield as Niko leaves the message.

Is there a self-help book that can tell him if it’s weird to pick up your fiancé’s son from jail after a Lamborghini car jacking when you’re fighting with said fiancé about an open marriage he had with his dead wife?

Shane can’t help but feel woefully out of his depth.

(It’s a feeling he despises.)

Niko gets back into the car with a sullen slump, putting the phone back on the console. His eyes bore out of the glass as Shane starts the engine. Shane feels awkward now, like he stepped over the line in telling Niko what to do. Niko’s an adult. Shane’s not his… Shane’s just the one guy he could call to pick him up. What was he thinking lecturing him?

“It’ll be okay,” Shane tries.

Niko scoffs. Shane feels immediately insufficient.

“I just want this night to be over,” Niko says.

Shane nods. He understands that.

Niko starts, “Is there any… Nevermind.”

“What?”

“Is there anything you can do to stop this from getting out?” Niko asks. Shane glances over, only sees his turned cheek and the butterfly bandage spreading to the edges of a cut. Shane feels himself soften. Niko had a real knack for getting into trouble…

“Are you ever going to chase a car thief again?”

Niko turns now, gives Shane an accusatory look that suggests Shane’s dry tone went way over his head or is at the very least unappreciated.

“I can see what I can do.” Shane already has a full workload, but Niko is Ilya’s. “I can reach out to a few reporter’s I know.”

Niko nods once, tightly. “Thanks.”

“No biggie.”

Niko unclenches a little, glances up at Shane and then away.

Outside the stadium, Shane considers staying in the car for all of thirty seconds before the comprehension of Niko all-too-successfully lying his way onto the ice forces his responsible nature into action.

When they arrive inside the arena, even going through the back, there are a lot of heads jerking their way.  Shane can see the headlines writing themselves. Shane Hollander seen with former rival’s son. Maybe he’s arrogant putting his own name first, but from the looks that are leveled with him, Shane still unfortunately thinks he might be the fascinator in all of this. It makes his skin itch and he can feel himself settling into his work mode.

Shane follows the instructions from the security after showing his ID (Yes, he is deputy commissioner, no it’s not a surprise inspection, just helping a player out). Eventually they are sent to the locker room of the Buffalo Blades.

Shane opens the door without knocking— he just wants to explain the night to the coach and be done with this whole clusterfuck. After tonight, he knows now exactly how much he isn’t cut out for raising kids and the answer is a lot.

The locker room falls quiet when Shane enters.  The players, in various stages of undress, look gobsmacked. The coach, a man named Bustier who Shane only vaguely remembers facing, fumbles his whiteboard and drops it.

Then Niko comes in and a wave of shouts and chirps come.

“Fucking finally!”

“Had to make a big entrance you fucker.”

“Did you trip on your skates on the way in or what?”

Niko claps his hands. “No worries, I’m here to save all your asses.”

“Can we talk?” Shane says quickly to Bustier. “MLH business.”

Shane doesn’t mind how this gets low hisses and oohs from the players. He’d rather everyone know the fake reason he’s here than whatever gossip their hockey addled minds could cook up for why he’s with Niko.

Bustier takes him aside.

“What is it? What did Rozanov say now?” Bustier asks warily, and Shane has to bite his lip. Fair or not, Niko's image isn’t as totally rehabilitated by his MLH awards speech as Shane hoped.

He tries to gentle his face, knows he must be coming across fire and brimstone because that is generally what anxiety makes him do (that or robotics, or a meltdown. He too wishes the options were different).

“It’s nothing Niko did.” Perhaps a little generous reading considering Niko chased down a stolen car, but still. “He was involved in a carjacking with his rental.”

Bustier swears.

“Goddamnit! We told him about the Lambo—”

“Stop saying Lambo.”

Bustier shuts his mouth, and Shane feels terrible.

“Sorry, it’s been a long night,” Shane says, like a fool. Bustier just nods, like he won’t speak until Shane gives him permission and it’s this kind of awe from people who were technically his peers at one point that makes Shane wonder how exactly people see him. It can’t be healthy for him to be on a pedestal this high, right?

“What he’s trying to say it that I’m still good to play,” Niko puts forth, having muscled past all the jostling of his teammates to join their quiet corner conversation.

“No, that is not what I’m saying.” Shane chews on his words mentally until they become MLH ready. “I’m only here to brief you on the situation and let you know that the MLH will handle the legal issues in tandem with the team’s PR should any arise on Monday.”

“Why would any issues arise—”

Shane pretends he didn’t hear because he’s not getting into Niko assaulting his attacker. “And that I, as a representative of the MLH cannot tell you how to manage or direct your players, but I can strongly advise that Niko is in no state to play at the moment.”

Bustier swallows hard. “Got it.”

“Uh, no, don’t got it!” Niko says. “Clarimont and Kandinski are already out for injuries—”

“But we still have Miller on reserve,” Bustier says. “Just sit this one out, Rozanov.”

Niko turns on Shane with a furious look, and Shane lets it glance off his calm face. Sorry, the adults are taking.

Shane really tries to leave after getting all that sorted out, but he sees Niko whispering in hushed tones to the assistant and thinks that his chances of talking his way back onto the ice might be a little too good with that Rozanov charm, so Shane confidently asks if there is anywhere for the two of them to sit and watch the game, since they came all this way.

They are shuffled to the private box and Shane grudgingly trades permission for them to film him in the Buffalo section with the caveat that Nikolaj not be in the shot lest he show player favoritism. The Buffalo PR man nods obsequiously, clearly glad to ignore the innate hypocrisy to get Shane’s team favouritism on camera.

Which is how Shane and a scowling Niko end up sitting three seats apart in the top rung of the Buffalo box.

The game starts and Shane waits for the steady reliability of the jumbotron to find him in his work clothes. His name is announced and he waves, gives a practiced smile and feels a little warmth at the swell of applause and cheers that break out over the arena even all these years later. Ice is always cleared, cleaned, rehardened for play, but it is nice to think he’s left something of a mark on it.

Once the game starts though and the cameras are on the players, Shane pulls out his phone and dives into his inbox. The number of emails is staggering and Shane is already not looking forward to the delicate way he’s going to have to report the second Nikolaj Rozanov incident on Monday, even if he is keeping a lid on it for the public. How many emails and Teams messages will that net? Maybe thirty or more.

He does his best to sort through his inbox, ignoring Niko’s wordless irritation.

Niko is not content to be ignored nor wordless. “I could still play.”

“Niko, you survived being stabbed. Isn’t that enough adrenaline for one night?”

“It wasn’t a stabbing,” Niko groans. “It barely caught my cheek.”

“It’s a knife, that means stabbing.” Shane types while he talks, taking pauses so he can add the right words in his email because he wrote ‘stabbing’ on accident.

“You know the first thing my dad said about you when I asked him to describe you?”

Shane’s fingers pause on his phone and he blinks at Niko.

“He has a big important job. Is workaholic.” Niko says in a rather good, if overdone impression of Ilya.

Shane fights the initial flinch. He jetted away from Ilya under just such an excuse… He’s not exactly happy to have his work be the first thing mentioned about him, but he understands why. Is in the process of giving people something way bigger to talk about, to be fair.

If Shane was still a hockey player, he’d like to say, Only because your Papa is too polite to say I’m a great fuck.

But those I’m fucking you parent chirps seem wildly inappropriate as an adult, even if Niko is a pro hockey player who chirps with the best and chases after knife-wielding car jackers.

How do people even talk to teenagers? Needing careful handling like children, and yet resenting it. Shane doesn't think he was ever this type of creature, and he struggles plainly to relate.

He swallows the chirp, is an adult.

“Your father has no issue with how much I work,” Shane says, because at least he knows that’s the truth, even if it feels terribly boring leaving his mouth.

“Yeah cause he’s a workaholic too,” Niko grumbles.

“Which of the three of us tried to go to work after a carjacking?” Shane points out, and Niko grins, big and pleased at that.

Shane gives him a flat look. It’s not really cute, Niko, he tries to say with his eyes, and Niko only sighs.

“He did also say you were boring, which is pretty freaking true.”

Shane can only grin. Their secret love language makes Niko shake his head, put off. Niko crosses his arms and mulishly watches his team play. They are doing pretty well, from what Shane can glance between sending his messages.

Buffalo and Tampa are tied one-one into the last few minutes of the second period when Buffalo’s center, Miller, slaps a shot at the goaltender who curls his body around the puck. Miller doesn’t stop though, his stick jamming at the goaltender and quicker than lightning, Tampa’s defense drops gloves and Miller goes head first into the goalpost.

The CLANG against metal has Shane fully darkening his phone and watching the ensuing brawl.

Niko is on his feet as the refs pull it apart. Even the audience is muted with concern until Miller holds up a thumbs up from the gurney, blood slipping down his head. He seems mentally with it, considering the bleeder on his head.

Shane frowns, turns to Niko—only to find him stepping over the chair and heading for the door.

“Niko— where the fuck are you going?”

“There are no more alternate centers!” Niko says. “Are you kidding me? I have to play.”

“You didn’t even warm up—”

“We’re in break, I have time.”

Niko pulls the door open just as a teamster from the Buffalo Blades is pulling on the handle.

Instead of looking at Niko, the teamster gives Shane a beseeching, squirrelly look. Please let us play hockey Mr. Deputy Commissioner Sir.

Shane rubs his forehead. Balances the headache Niko will be versus Ilya, but the truth is Shane doesn’t really have the power here. I tried, his epithet will read about this whole thing.

Shane takes the hand off his face and gives a wave. Niko whoops and is out the door. The Teamster half bows and Shane is trying to figure out if that was racist or just disgusting groveling.

Shane stares down at his phone, unable to go back to his messages. Ilya is going to kill him. Of course, Ilya has probably played under stranger circumstances. He told Shane once that he got beat up in Russia for hitting on a teammates mother (she was young!) before going on to score a hat trick. Somehow, Shane suspects that Ilya is more protective of his son than he ever was of himself.

He pulls up his chat with Ilya, thumbs hesitating. There hasn’t been a lot of open communication between them lately. Ilya asking to call, Shane saying he is busy. The half-lie of saying he would call after work before Ilya’s game…

Ilya’s team is on the ice now, and he will hear Niko’s message afterwards. Shane just has to say something to put him at ease when he then discovers his son was playing hockey immediately following this insane situation. The rest of Shane and Ilya’s mess can wait until later.

Me: I promise I tried to stop him.

It’s a little pathetic, but maybe it will at least make Ilya laugh, say no one can stop a Rozanov, or something silly like that.

Shane swallows hard when the game sets up again and Niko spends a good amount of time warming up on the ice while the rest of his team loop on the ice. He wonders if anyone has gotten their hands on the carjacking story or if it will make the morning new cycle.

Shane may have to send emails to some of his acquaintances about it tonight, if so. He starts to do it, but drops his phone to watch the face off.

Niko is slotted into the first line and squares up over the center dot. His hands don’t shake with the adrenaline from earlier. He is steady as a stone, waiting. The puck drops—

Shane has seen Niko play before, but this is his first time watching in person, hearing the scrape of the ice and the intimate nonstop interplay unfiltered from cutting cameras.

Shane keeps looking for Ilya in his style, but the truth is, Niko is totally his own player. His edges are a little rough, he forces the curve with his upper body, chasing the puck with his torso first and feet second. But his stick work is nothing short of graceful. Deft, soft touches, easy passing. Tape to tape almost every time.

When he gets around the goal, he takes every shot offered him and even a few that aren’t.

Shane weirdly wonders if maybe he is seeing Svetlana’s hockey instead of Ilya’s. It’s an odd thought, it’s more likely that Niko is just a collection of his teachers— but he remembers Ilya talking about Svetlana’s hockey sense, years ago when they were first hooking up. She is the best at following the action. Predicting every move.

Shane, more than a touch jealous and in denial about it, asked if she played on the women’s league ever. Yes, Ilya said. Russian league as teenager. Was very good. Great passing. But I think the difference in respect for women and men’s sports grated her pride too much. So she studies to make business empire instead, attack men where they live.

Niko glides the puck between his stick, spinning and passing back to his teammate before the defender can intercept. Landing himself in the perfect position to receive the puck and kick it to his right wing in a frankly beautiful assist.

The goal is crisp, beautiful.

Shane jumps to his feet before he recognizes it, cheering with both hands around his mouth.

Niko swarms his right wing, dogpiling with the rest of his teammates, but Shane swears he sees his head crank up to the box where Shane is giving a standing ovation.

His bright, big grin can be seen even from these great heights.

Shane should not still be here, but he’s feeling reluctantly good. Buffalo deserved the win and maybe Niko deserves a little applause in person. Still, Shane goes to the Tampa room first and tells them they had a great game, some lip service about not winning all of them, and the Tampa coach, a legendary Croatian player, follows Shane out of the room to request his signature in private.

Equality achieved and autograph signed, Shane buzzes over to the Buffalo locker room. He can already hear the cheering and overly loud music and it flushes through Shane’s system like an old friend.

Winning. It wafts. So familiar and addictive.

Is it any wonder Shane chases after it like a dog?

He opens the door and gives the players a big grin. Niko is in the middle of them, eyes glinting and beaming at Shane.

“What did I fucking tell you?” Niko says, raising his still bruised hands and kissing both.

Shane can only laugh. “Good game guys. Good shot.”

“Great assist,” Niko adds, and Shane shrugs, relishing the laughter his nonchalance gets him.

Shane’s phone buzzes a couple times in a text alert, but Bustier is guiding him to the side, thanking Shane for coming by. He’s clearly high on the win too, so his rambling about clearing up this Rozanov business on Monday is mostly nonsense, mostly circles, but Shane nods seriously like they are doing real work here and he appreciates the coach for bringing this to his attention.

Shane finally pulls out his phone and his heart thuds when he sees texts from Ilya. That makes sense though, his game must be over now too.

The last message reads can you explain?

He swallows and opens the messages, already thinking about how to dig himself out of this without saying that he let an eighteen-year-old steam roll him.

I ♡: Why did you try to stop him?

I ♡: Stop who?

Then later—

I ♡: Did not tell me you went to see my Nika’s game. good surprise!

I ♡: Why is he not starting?

I ♡: Do you know?

I ♡: Can you explain?

It doesn’t make sense. Ilya should know why. Niko called him and left a message about the carjacking, Shane saw him with the contact card open—

Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

He looks at his call history, and sure enough, the last call was from when Shane tried to call him on the steps of the police station. This fucking kid faked it. He walked outside of Shane’s sensible car and fucking pretended to leave a message.

Then he asked Shane to use his contacts to bury the fucking story to hide it all from his dad.

Niko pulls a hoodie on, still laughing with his teammates. He turns when he senses Shane’s glare, eyes going to Shane’s phone, and the cheer slides clean off his face.

Shane thought his maneuvering was done for the night, but it turns out he has to pry Niko away from his team.

“Sorry, Shane. We’re going out to celebrate,” Niko tries, edging towards his goaltender like his bulky pads might protect him from Shane. Laughable.

“Yeah, but I think the MLH wants your statement while it’s fresh. Quick meeting,” Shane reassures, glaring holes into Niko who swallows.

“It can wait until tomorrow—”

“It can’t.”

“Give Deputy Commissioner Hollander your time,” Niko’s coach says soberly, and wow. Shane is actually concerned about how easy it is for high-ranking MLH officials to leverage alone time with players, but that’s something he’s going to have to wait to table until later.

Bustier gives Shane a serious handshake before he leaves and Niko frowns as Shane gestures sharply for him to leave, walking in front where Shane can see him.

They make it to the car in the parking lot again, but Niko is fidgeting outside the door, reluctant to leave the public’s eye.

“Look, we don’t really need to tell him,” Niko says.

“Get inside.”

“So you can drive me around until I agree? Hell no.”

“You have to tell your dad.”

“Uh, no, I don’t. I’m eighteen now. That makes me an adult. It’s literally my business.”

“I’m telling your dad,” Shane says, and realizes this should probably have been his move from the start, screw the books’ warnings about overstepping and getting too involved in the parent-child relationship. This is what his mom would do, he is sure.

Niko darts around to Shane’s side of the car and actually makes a grab for Shane’s phone. Shane gives him a sharp, burning look when he pulls away.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“He doesn’t need to fucking worry during the season,” Niko says, and Shane laughs, baffled. Niko tries again. “He’s just going to be useless about it.”

“Yeah, but imagine how non-useless he’ll be if he finds out you hid a carjacking and knife fight from him—”

“Are you really betraying me like this?” Niko demands. “I fucking like you, we’re sorta friends, and you can’t have something that is just between us? It all has to go back to him because you can’t keep your mouth shut?”

Shane flinches. Niko pounces.

“I thought I could trust you.”

“You can—”

“Clearly I can’t! Did you show him all our text messages too?”

“I wouldn’t do that!”

“Then why are you doing this?!”

Shane opens his mouth, shuts it. Takes in the desperate eighteen-year-old in front of him and realizes that he’s almost been tricked by his rampant, cavalier guilt tripping.

Shane really hasn’t spent enough time around teenagers, he’s realizing. He can’t remember the last time he’s been so blatantly emotionally manipulated, had a relationship used so thoroughly against him without any care or consideration.

Yes, he wants Niko to like him.

But not for lying to Ilya.

Shane takes a deep breath and goes back to his phone.

“He’s not going to be mad.”

“Shane, Shane please don’t.” So quickly his tone changes. “Shane please! You fucking can’t!”

Niko finally gets a grab on the phone, and Shane tussles with him, stunned at this physical turn. The fuck is happening here?

“Niko, stop. Niko!”

Niko yanks harder, harder.

“You fucker! He’s already fucking lost her! You asshole! You trying to push him off the deep end? Scare him to fucking death?”

Shane is so shocked that he lets Niko get the phone, and Niko cradles it against his heaving chest protectively.

Shane’s hands belatedly drop in sync with his stomach which lands somewhere in his shoes.

Oh fuck, he thinks.

“Niko—"

“He’ll be so fucking scared! So fucking scared! He already lost her,” he repeats. “You can’t do this to him. You can’t.”

And Shane realizes, it was never his father’s anger or disapproval Niko was afraid of. Somehow it makes his shaking, cruel-eyed youth harder to look at.

Shane opens his mouth, closes it. His stomach fucking hurts, and that’s when Shane remembers he hasn’t had dinner yet.

New York is only just starting to cook at midnight. It’s easy to find a trendy late night fusion restaurant, La Japonisme, in walking distance, although Niko was suspect the whole time Shane suggested it, promising repeatedly that he wouldn’t take the phone back, only, could Niko find them a place to eat?

The restaurant has an outdoor seating area on the balcony, despite the winter chill. Heat lamps blast above and to the side, and only one couple is up there, sitting against the side of the balcony and necking. Shane resolutely looks away and studies the menu, feeling Niko’s eyes on his face.

Niko has one hand curled in his pocket around Shane’s phone. Shane tries to put Niko at ease. It’s hard to do, considering they were physically grappling in a parking lot not too long ago. Niko isn’t wet-eyed now, having rebuilt his defenses. His calm, I could care less façade could give his father a run for his money.

Shane wishes his copy of Dating Later in Life was on hand because he has no idea how to have a heart to heart with his fiancé’s adult son about his dead mother, and unlike everything else that happened tonight, that chapter definitely exists.

Niko takes the initiative. “So, I guess my dad has a type.”

“A type?” Shane asks, perplexed.

Niko ticks off his fingers. “Successful, type A, biracial.”

Shane is mortified.

“And you?” Niko ploughs on. “Do you, like, only date white guys or what?”

Shane chokes on nothing, just humiliated that someone could even think of saying this to his face. Who the hell is raising kids like this, why is their generation so fucking gutsy? Shane was always raised to be polite about his race, to mention with care, if ever, but Niko’s generation just throws it incautiously around like a frisbee, hitting unsuspecting bystanders.

The server comes in, practically shivering, and pours water from a glass bottle for them. It takes a long time to fill both cups and Shane feels himself sweating over his answers before he resolutely decides that he will never answer these questions.

The waiter takes their orders; Shane gets the soba with the tempura pommes de terre sarladaises, and Niko has katsudon with soubise.

When they are alone again, Shane clears his throat.

“Please don’t change the subject,” Shane says— pleads, really.

“I just started talking because you were staring like you were going to melt my face off. Sorry for trying to get to know my new stepfather.”

Knowing if one’s to-be stepfather only dates white guys (not true, for the record) is not exactly quality getting-to-know-you information, but Shane has been in enough boardrooms to spot a deflection when he sees it.

That doesn’t mean Shane knows any better what to say.

“I know your father would be scared,” Shane says slowly. “But he still deserves—”

Niko scoffs, turns away from Shane. He looks at the brickwork of the building like it’s somehow more deserving of his attention.

Okay, fine. Shane grits his teeth. He’ll lay the situation out for him.

“I’m in a relationship with your father first. He’s the most important person in my life next to my family.” He realizes it’s true as he says it. “And you, Niko, to me you’re…” Shane sees Niko swallow. “You’re the most important person in his life.”

Niko turns, surprised at the turn of his sentence. This can’t actually be news to him though.

“I will do whatever I can to keep your father happy and keep our relationship good. Keeping secrets about his son’s health is not something I’m willing to do. No offense, but we’ve had our fair share of misunderstandings.” Shane swallows. He’s not about to throw out Ilya’s trust and their relationship over Niko chasing a carjacked Lamborghini. Not after all the tears and difficulty of coming back together, so new and wonderful.

…He’s not about to throw out their relationship over a spat about an open marriage too. Or at least, he shouldn’t. And he should probably let Ilya know that’s the case instead of leaving him anxious and uncertain, unable to reach Shane just because Shane needs space. He has to find a better way to do this.

“I’m not… I’m not trying to break you up or anything,” Niko hedges.

“I know,” Shane says. Thank god— according to Shane’s book it happens frighteningly often where adult children try to stop their widowed parent from remarrying.

Niko sems encouraged by his words, “I think telling him will be worse for your relationship if anything.”

Shane takes a sip of his water, considers the opponent across from him seriously. Persuade me, his expression says.

Niko unclenches his hand in his pocket. “After my mom died, he was…”

Shane nods to show he’s listening.

“Not okay,” Niko finally settles on.

“He mentioned he pulled away,” Shane says, wondering if that’s okay to say to Niko.

“He pushed away. He stopped fucking touching me. He barely spoke to me. He, he, he was so fucking upset all the time and he acted like he wasn’t. He was such a fucking asshole.”

Shane wants to say but he loves you so much. But that feels pandering, showing his blatant favoritism for Niko’s father over Niko himself. He stays quiet.

“And sad,” Niko finally croaks. He rubs at his face, at his eyes, makes a sound of anger. Does he know how close Ilya got to falling into the pill bottle? Shane doesn’t know, but has a heart wrenching feeling that Niko sensed more than ever was said to him about those dark days.

“My fucking therapist—”

“You have a therapist?”

“My mom fucking died, of course I have a therapist,” Niko spits. “Doesn’t everyone?”

Shane clams up. He only asked because Niko is so… chaotic is one word. Does the therapist really help? Shane can’t help but wonder what she’ll say about tonight.

“My therapist told me that he was pushing me away because he was scared I’d die too.”

Shane feels a cold brush over his body. A shivery certainty that Ilya would be very, very challenged if anything happened to Niko. That another death could break Ilya in half, clean and unrepentantly. Shane feels that heaviness settle in his stomach, a permanent weight to carry with him from now on.

Ilya has known this truth, even if only subconsciously, for so much longer. Maybe that is what it is like to be a parent.

Niko goes on, seeming pleased that Shane has not protested, understands Ilya and his contradictory fragility and power.

“His mom died, you know, and that was shitty. And his dad. And my mom—and it’s like, he couldn’t even stand to touch me because he was so afraid he wouldn’t have me anymore. I don’t need him doing that again. We don’t have to get him so fucking freaked out when it isn’t anything and I’m fine.”

All true, but—

“If you didn’t want him to worry, then why did you chase after that car?”  

Niko glares at Shane, betrayed.

The waiter enters with their food and they fall silent.

The warm broth of the soba wafts up, clean and familiar. Shane picks up his chopsticks, ignoring the potatoes and pulls out a few of the buckwheat noodles. They break softly in his mouth. He doesn’t usually do mushy as a rule, but soba is too familiar and uniquely textured to twinge his picky mouth and he takes in a good half the bowl before Niko speaks again.

“It was my car,” Niko defends.

“It was a rental,” Shane says, gently.

“Doesn’t matter for the headline, does it?” Niko clenches his teeth. “Didn’t want it to say, Nikolaj Rozanov pisses himself in carjacking.”

Woah, what the fuck.

“Niko, no one would think that.”

“They already think I’m…” he trails off, jaw set. Looks down at his dish but doesn’t spear anymore meat into his mouth.

Shane tries again to remember being this age and fails.

He tries instead to remember how it felt to see everything through that lens of weak, that’s weak. He has too easy of a time remembering that, actually. In the locker room. Humiliation was too easy to come by when he was coming up.

He remembers the terrible day at the start of juniors when a still-unknown Shane and his mother were told to show their credentials as physios because security thought they were “acupuncturists” not player and mother. How his teammate in the security line heard and instead of reacting rationally, Wow that’s messed up. Super fucking racist, He and the rest of Shane’s team asked if Shane could open their chakras for the first three weeks until his hockey skills and newly acquired captaincy shut them the fuck up.

A carjacking should be taken seriously, and yet… Shane can imagine the chirps. Did you open the door for him? Was he at least handsome?

And by chasing the car, Niko took back the narrative. The heading will be this crazy fucking Russian instead of anything pitying.

Shane’s mouth twists sympathetically.

He says, “they give you a lot of shit for what you said at the awards, don’t they?”

Niko groans and buries both his hands into his face. “Oh my fucking god. I have to put up with fuck your dead mom jokes and chirps about everyone bending my dad over too.” He scrubs his eyelids hard enough that Shane is sure there is corneal irritation. “Like, most of them don’t know she’s dead, that’s just—”

“Just how people chirp.” Shane is aware. Ilya put up with his fair share of mom chirps with a blank, mean smile. Shane himself had a steep and difficult learning curve in middle school when anyone talked shit about his mother, because they didn’t even know Yuna Hollander, how could they say that?

“I don’t take what I said at the ceremony back,” Niko clarifies, quickly. “I meant it.”

“I know. You’re a good person.”

Shane’s simple statement drains the anxiety and anger from Niko like a popped balloon. He looks young and tired instead, a little lost. Face vulnerable when he glances at Shane, curling towards, not away.

“I’m glad you got out of the Metros stall, too, for what it’s worth.” That was the bulk of their discussions, when they texted before the season started. If Niko was imagining things, if other teams did this overcompensating hazing shit too.

Shane is glad he was traded for Ottawa (for the first time in his life) just so he could knowledgably inform Niko that no, that stuff is not normal, and yes it was always worse for people who weren’t all white.

But Shane knows the pressure to be seen as strong doesn’t vanish just because you left the shitty team. Shane’s Ottawa teammates didn’t see the genuine Shane for almost a year and half of play because his walls were so high and he was deeply skeptical that they were such decent people to his face.

Niko has brought some of those hard edges with him to Buffalo, even if they are leagues and above better than Montreal’s team culture.

“You seem like you have a good team,” Shane says. “You were good on the ice together tonight.”

“Yeah.” Niko says, chewing it over. They probably would have cared more and chirped less about the car theft if Niko let them, but Shane lets Niko work through that himself. He takes a little more broth in.

“I’m sorry if you still get chirped about Ilya,” Shane says eventually. “I know it won’t exactly be any easier when I come out.”

“At least they’ll know they have to go through you if they make I fucked your dad jokes.”

“Surprised they say that. A little gay, right?”

His dry observation has Niko spluttering with a surprised laugh.

“No, you don’t get it, it makes me gay, not them,” Niko explains, going along with the bit.

“Right, right.”

Niko shakes his head, glancing at Shane a little differently. He hesitates, and then pulls out a cigarette from his pocket and a lighter.

Shane crinkles his nose but doesn’t say anything as Niko lights up, even though he’s itching to.

“You know why I decided to do the whole award speech thing?”

Shane thought it was for image rehabilitation or to say something he couldn’t say to his father’s face, but Shane doesn’t like to fill in others’ words. He bites.

“Why?”

“Because I was meeting up with my teammates that summer and I was fucking terrified that they were going to figure out that my dad was bi and torture me.” Niko pauses to inhale. He exhales a long, deep plume. “And I kinda realized that’s how you two felt. Like the whole time you were playing, right? That they’d find out about you.”

…And torture you.

Shane swallows and nods. The old anxiety swells up, familiar, a distinct acidic taste like blood from too many times of biting his cheek in the shower. He lived like that for years.

Is still living like that, Shane realizes soberly and clearly for the first time. But not for too much longer.

“And that made me really fucking sad, I guess. So, I can’t complain about people chirping me for my dad being bi or whatever,” Niko says.

“He’s lucky to have you, Niko,” Shane says. Niko snorts, and looks away. It sounds like a platitude, it isn’t. Niko stretches his arms coolly, and the phone falls from his team jacket, clatters on the floor.

Niko startles, juggling his cigarette to grab it—

Shane picks it up first, straightening up slowly and watching the dread morph into dull acceptance.

Shane slides the phone back to Niko.

“You gotta trust your dad a little more, Niko. He’s going to find out from someone and getting that kind of news from anybody else is going to feel worse than anything you can say tonight.”

Niko sighs.

It’s almost 1am by the time Shane pays. Niko stalks from side to side outside the restaurant, dodging late night New Yorkers as he talks to his father on the phone in loud Russian. He sounds aggravated and annoyed and harassed, but so does Ilya whenever he speaks too quickly—a quirk of the language to Shane’s untried ear.

He’s glad he hasn’t started his Russian classes yet, because he is blissfully apart from this conversation as it should be. He thanks the server and enters the street, hovering beside Niko whose eyes flick up to him and away.

Niko says a string of da, da, da that seems never-ending, before he comes over to Shane and shoves the phone at him with a hand thrown in the air.

“Ilya?” Shane says, taking the phone.

“It's true? Nika is okay?”

“Nika— Niko is fine,” Shane says. “A tiny cut on his face but didn’t even need stitches. Little bruising on the knuckles, but better than he’d get punching a player with their helmet on.”

Ilya breathes hard on the other line. “Why did he play? Was injured. Carjacking. Could have been hurt more. Trauma from the…” Ilya searches for the word frantically.

Shane wants to bring up the time Ilya got thrashed before a game, but he can imagine the hysterical response.

“Look, Niko made a weighted decision with the team and his trainers.”

“They don’t care about my son. Just want good sport and, and, and money. You should have stopped him!”

Ow. That one hurts. Shane is beginning to get that pushing people away when afraid thing and it fucking blows. He can’t risk looking at Niko in case he sees anything like smugness. Shane is too fucking tired for this.

“I gave my opinion,” Shane says, tight and clear. “But Niko is and adult and I respect and trust him to make his choices.”

Ilya steams for a moment, humphing to himself. Clearly caught between a rock and saying do not trust or respect my son.

Shane ploughs on. “He was sitting out until they really needed him and he did great. Did you see his assist?”

“Yes,” Ilya says, and he sounds miserable. “I see but—”

“Niko will see his therapist, the physical and the brain one. They’ll make sure there’s no lingering trauma and that he’s good to play. His hands will be fine and his face will heal up well too.”

“…He’ll be rugged,” Ilya finally says.

“Yes, probably just wants to match with you,” Shane says, as if Ilya hasn’t always looked this side of angelic, with his curls and cheekbones. Something he passed on to his son along with his vivacious, thriving personality and knack for trouble.

There’s a long pause.

“He’s really okay?” Ilya asks in a small, desperate voice.

“Ilya…” Shane’s heart fucking hurts. Hurts so much for all of them. “He’s fine.”

“Okay. Can I speak to him again?”

“Okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Ilya says, wounded but sincerely. “I'm sorry for a lot of things. It's not unusual for us, is it? I am always fucking it up a little. But I love you.”

Shane huffs, pained and amused. And he wonders, with the kind of clarity that comes with being really tired, if Ilya is afraid of Shane dying too. If there are ways that Shane is kept at arm’s length, prevented from being held too close because of fear…

“I love you too. We can talk about everything later, okay?”

“Okay. I love you,” Ilya repeats. Shane lets Ilya have the last word.

Shane passes the phone to Niko who looks at it like a snake. Still he takes it, holds it stonily up to his face.

He listens quietly for a few moments, then bursts with something loud and protesting, but it’s not the angry tension, just sounds like an outraged teenager again. Niko groans, tilting his head away and making his tight, dark, corkscrew curls fall sideways as he waits out his exhausting papa. At the end he says the Russian words he and Ilya share, the familial way of saying I Love You. Shane keeps his face smooth so Niko doesn’t feel embarrassed.

Some of his pleasure must show because Niko sighs long and hard at Shane when he hands the dark phone back.

“He told me I’m keeping you up too late. Like I’m not the professional athlete with a redeye in four hours.”

“Niko, you’d still be up right now partying,” Shane points out.

“Fuck’s sake,” Niko groans. “You’re gonna marry my stupid papa. Call me Nika, okay?”

Shane boggles for a moment. Heart thumping.

Niko looks increasingly pitying and uncomfortable too. Only a teenager could pull off that balance.

“Okay, sure, Nika.” Is he blushing? Jesus. “Let me drive you back to your hotel.”

“Uh-uh, after this bullshit the only place you’re taking me is where the team is clubbing.”

Which is how Shane Hollander is photographed outside of a New York club with his rival’s son, a nothing post on social media that blows up after news of the carjacking happens.

Shane’s MLH inbox floods.

Chapter End Notes

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to everyone who asked for niko, this is for you. he will be making several other appearances, rest assured.

the story about shane and yuna being mistaken as physios is borrowed from jeremy lin's experiences. MENTAL stuff folks.

dustin tokarski was carjacked on the way to a game (did not chase the car down cause that is all that niko magic) and was put on reserve... but later had to get on the ice when the goalie was thrown out and won the game! life is stranger than fiction

thank you for readinggggggg! <3

Chapter 7: shane is working

Chapter Notes

no one cares, but i headcanon shane's hair type as 1c, straight, thick and coarse, a little wave when long. Ilya's is 2b-2c and Niiko's is 3b if anyone is curious. I care way too much about this topic, but I'm here to support coarse hair type rights instead of the bullshit downy 1a hair every character in fandom seems to have, oh so soft to the touch blah. love all hair types!

Shane glances bleary at his beeping phone. His sleep tracker announces he got only four hours of sleep which is so helpful. He knows, with deep regret as the headlines blare over his notifications, that he has to skip his workout today. Fuck. Should have sent that email to his journalist contacts…

Shane molts for a few indulgent seconds before his nerves force him from the bed.

He makes breakfast and reviews what the articles are saying. Shane can anticipate the way the takes will develop over the course of the day, like ripening fruit, growing heavier, more laden with implication even without any new information being introduced. Now is nothing but the shock phase, the breaking of news. He has time to shape things.

Ilya has sent a few messages about the articles, but Shane, respectfully, has to move this clusterfuck out of the way first.

I ♡: All okay?

I ♡: Sorry for the photos. Will talk to Niko.

I ♡: Can you call?

Me: I’m so sorry, I have to handle this. We will definitely talk after work. I promise.

The words feel meagre, like the excuses he was making all week to avoid Ilya. Truthfully, Shane wants nothing more than to reach out, to be able to vent some of this climbing stress about the narrative getting too big and lethal if he mishandles it even partially—

Most of all, to tell Ilya that Shane doesn’t mean to lose him, even on accident because of an argument that feels petty in retrospect after a long strange night with Ilya’s son. Maybe he can even work himself up to say that Shane doesn’t know why he pulls away, but that he will work on it…

But Ilya must understand that Shane’s career is teetering right now. Please, let him understand that how Shane desperately spins this will protect both of them in the long term.

A ding from his phone. Langstrom sending a meeting request on his Teams calendar for 9am right after their Monday general meeting and Shane accepts it with a grim press to his lips. That gives him two hours to dig himself out of this rich misunderstanding. He’s rather awed at the sheer chaos of a Rozanov, the same way a mariner might admire a heaving wave. Fear and determination grappling with each other as the crash looms.

Swallowing hard, Shane mutes Ilya’s chat for the next 12 hours and tries to put the mess of feelings between them out of his head. He has to focus.

Shane dresses nicer than usual. A grey blazer that subtly glints, dark red tie slinking down his starched shirt and polished black shoes. His hair is dense with yesterday’s grease, and he uses the texture to style it more sharply. He’s thankful the thickness of his hair hides the wear of a long night.

He cuts into the office at 7:20, smiling tightly at everyone. Eyes follow him, bore into his back. He ignores the pressure, retreats to his office, draws the shades shut, and makes some calls.

At 8:00 he enters the central meeting room and by 8:15, his coworkers and Langstrom have joined him. Shane has already bore more than his fair share of cheeky, miss the spotlight that much? comments from his coworkers, and he’s ready with a smile when Langstrom starts the meeting by saying,

“So, anyone do anything nice this weekend?”

Laughter erupts, and Shane feels like he’s in a locker room suddenly. It’s so comfortable and so frightening. This delicate situation of responding to the chirping but not feeding it, how quickly the tide can turn even against the captain— no, deputy commissioner— for mishandling the tone.

Shane is shit at tone most of the time, but his adrenaline is pumping and his body feels ready for the challenge.

Shane says, “The Marrinot hotels won’t be hosting us this year for All Stars on account of the alligator... Is that what you mean?”

That dry comment earns Shane a few chuckles.

“Well, we definitely need to make other accommodations, that’s for sure. Any leads on that?” Langstrom doesn’t dog the Rozanov topic because this is a place of work and he at least acts like it, taking a few interns’ answers for alternative hotel chains that they reached out to. Then they handle some of the lingering budgetary questions. Shane stares down at his yellow legal pad, waiting. He twists his torso a little, trying to quietly stretch a little tension out— he hates coming to work without exercising, his body still feels asleep.

Jamison is behind him, rainbow pen tapping a light beat on his little rainbow notepad as he fights sleep. Shane doesn’t know why everything has to be rainbow— hates that he even notices, but how could he not, it’s so loud. Provoking just like Niko last night with his cavalier comments on Shane’s racial dating history. Feels different than Pride tape which had a purpose, a specific goal, a time and place for use. This provoking is aimless, poking at anyone anywhere…

“So what happened with this Niko Rozanov business?” Langstrom asks, and Shane turns his head back to the center of the table. Just like answering his coaches demands after a bad game what the hell happened out there, Hollander? Shane has answers, always has answers.

“I know he’s not a rookie… but Nikolaj Rozanov’s still got the energy of one,” Shane says, and the line he prepped gets a round of chuckles and agreements. He swallows, not risking glancing down at his list of talking points—he has it memorized. SWNSYG is written at the top and he traces the lines with his finger like braille.

Shane explains in casual, loose tones about the carjacking, and when he reaches the point about Niko chasing after the car, there are exclamations of disbelief, some playful swearing and a good dose of agreeing that, even in his second year, Niko was still a crazy fucking rook.

Half the table wants to condemn Niko for recklessness considering the potential bodily harm when he’s contracted to play for five years with the Blades. The other half wants to applaud Niko for keeping their sport interesting. There cannot possibly be middle ground between these two disparate, inane points and Shane rues his profession sometimes that this is the line he has to walk.

For his own part, Shane wants to survive this debrief without having a meltdown. He focuses on keeping his face placid, smiling in the right spots to tease out each beat of the story.

“Why were you even there? Shouldn’t this have been handled by his team first?” Kimmi asks, and it’s a clarifying question, but distressingly salient.

Shane explains about Niko’s lost phone and his inability to dial any number by memory.

“God, my daughter is just like that,” a man at the end of the table gripes.

“He called the central office.” Shane hesitates. “He apparently got hung up on a few times as a prank call— his story is pretty hard to believe. Eventually he just said he was calling me for a meeting. You remember I was in charge of presenters for the awards ceremony last year.” There, perfectly reasonable.

“God, he gives you as much trouble as his daddy did,” someone chortles.

“The Rozanov curse, maybe?” Kimmi drawls.

Right, his and Ilya’s decades old rivalry speaks louder than their recent ploy for sportsmanship. There are no comments about being too close, nothing about Shane’s nearness to this particular family and the father especially. Only the old ‘curse’ of Ilya Rozanov.

Some of the old guard shift in their seat at the mention of Ilya, a discomfort that their body betrays even when their mouths are silent. Shane wishes he didn’t see who fidgeted, wishes he didn’t know with certainty that they would have laughed with everyone else before Ilya came out as bisexual last year. Shane puts that aside out of necessity, looks at what he does have.

No one questions deeper— and why would they? There’s so much meat on the bone to distract, so much enjoyment from everything Niko generates. Spectacle in the purest form. Shane tries not to buck against his coworker’s laughter and jokes. He knows the strange ache laying beneath even the lightest of Niko’s shenanigans. He’s clumsy with youth. He fronts rather than reveal the grief for his mother and an anxious care for his careworn papa that stunned even Shane.

Not that Shane can explain any of that.

Defending Niko or Ilya will only make his the league look closer and judge Niko harsher, rather than enjoying his adventures as ‘flavor’ and attention for their professional sport.

Shane reaches the end of the story, omitting dinner, obviously. He has them right where he wants them—

“Does this explain why you were at a club with them at 2am?” Halstead asks, slowly.

It’s not a court, but Shane does feel like he’s being called for testimony. Before he can, Kimmi speaks.

“I wouldn’t blame it if you needed a drink. That kid owes you a keg,” Kimmi says, providing faint cover for Shane preemptively. Defending their shared leftist line from Halstead, even if he’s sure she’s pissed as hell at him for the photos. OLD GENERATION MEETS NEW: DEPUTY COMISSIONER HOLLANDER AND ROZANOV HANDLING THE CAR-JACKING WITH A NIGHT OUT was not the headline he wanted moving forward to the commissionership.

“No, unfortunately Rozanov made off with my phone. I lent it to him so he could call his family. When he got called down to play, he took it with him. It’s lucky Coach Bustier mentioned where the boys were going.”

Shane trawled through the pictures, and while there are shots of Shane outside with Niko, there isn’t anything to suggest they arrived together— and better still, there was one shot of Niko (very belatedly) handing Shane his phone and that was Shane’s ticket out of this hell hole.

Logical, perfectly understandable. Clear enough that even Halstead could put the picture together—

“Still, bit of a bad look for us.” Halstead says. “Maybe wait and reach out next day if it happens again.”

Shane resists the urge to say anything back. It’s such a stupid, pointless condescension that looks stupider without a response, hanging in the free air.

Kimmi’s eyebrows are pleasantly high. Judging without having to say a word, if it happens again? Really? and Halstead raises his hands to say I’m just concerned about our image.

Langstrom cuts through the nonverbal sparring, “Well, what an adventure. We’re going to have to do a little damage control with the media. We don’t want to look like we don’t care about our young players by getting him on the ice too quickly after something physical. We should also dissuade players going to the club and public places after events like this in the future, even if that is on their personal time… We also need to make plans if the car jacker presses charges for assault.”

That earns snorts from a lot of people. Shane can relate to the incredulity.

“But that’s why we have a legal team, God bless ‘em,” Langstrom says, leaning hard into his warm Americanism in a way that always earns smiles, even from the Canadians and scattered internationals. Shane smiles too, his dread trickling away as the meeting ends. They bought it.

People pack up their things, Jamison bustles his rainbow parade out the door and no one glances back at Shane. He collects his legal pad and black pen and follows Langstrom out of the room.

Shane feels cramped in the cluttered commissioner’s office, as usual. Langstrom exhales in relief when he collapses into his cushy chair which is old and beveled red leather, nothing ergonomic about it.

“So what are we doing about this, Shane? I don’t mean to police where you have a drink after work, but Halstead’s right— it’s not a good look.”

Shane handled the first meeting, which makes this second one infinitely easier. Langstrom sounds serious but not dire. Still friendly and mentorlike. Shane can work with all of this.

Shane hands over a printed sheet with a few comments he typed out this morning which, in not so many words, implied that the deputy commissioner was happy to be on hand during a crisis due to overtime and is certainly not above handling even the most minor player issue (not that Shane would ever classify this as minor; this incident has already made his Hall of Fame). As for the club…

“N— Rozanov said he can release a statement too on our main social page. We can get on the same page publicly about my role in last night’s events and at the club.”

He swallows around the name, not blinking in case Langstrom notices anything.

“He hasn’t posted anything yet?”

“Not yet.” Because Shane called his hotel room and told him in no uncertain terms not to or so help him. “He doesn’t have a phone yet.”

Langstrom’s eyes flick up the paper to Shane, blue eyes bloodless and cutting.

Shane realizes he’s overreached by mentioning he reached out to Niko— Fuck. That didn’t look innocent and uninvolved exactly. Could just be Shane covering his bases, but could also…

His hands are tight on his legal pad with the letters SWNSYG written at the top. Stop Worrying: Nobody Suspects You’re Gay. He tries to make himself believe it.

Earlier, Shane had a meltdown between the time of 7:25 and 7:40. The swarming, excruciating awareness that everyone must know, must suspect he was fucking Ilya Rozanov because of his extended casual contact with Niko. Last night, Shane dropped everything and ran out the building, he was with Niko all night. Did someone see them having dinner? And then at the club—

But then he remembered Ilya’s words about gaydar. About people seeing what they wanted to see.

Shane, labouriously helping his rival’s screwball son will always be a more interesting story than anything else. Maybe later there will be questions, as reporters try to milk more from the topic (after the outrage was done, they’d reach deeper for scraps) but Shane has plans to use Niko to construct a rock solid cover.

So Shane scratched the letters on top of his pad, soothed himself with ten minutes on the treadmill at a steep incline, and then got to work making calls, including to a bleary-eyed Niko’s hotel room to not post ANYTHING until Shane talked him through it.

SWNSYG. He glances at the words now, a click of his eyes.

Unfortunately Langstrom isn’t like everyone, didn’t get to the top by enjoying the bread and circus of a wild player story:

“You know, Merrium told me you said you left office for family reasons,” Langstrom says. “After you got this call from Rozanov.”

In an instant, Shane is in a corner and his stomach drops from the sudden movement. Damn his nosy secretary.

He tries to work out if there’s a way to spin it, but the blurring of lines last night has him neatly boxed in by his own words. Shane didn’t know it was MLH business until he got to the station. He’d been there in a private capacity, his mind blank with panic for Ilya's son, until the need to cover his tracks and Niko’s team required him to rapidly shift from the man marrying Niko’s papa to the deputy commissioner inches away from running the whole organization. 

He'd overreached and now he’d been caught out.

Shane breathes a shuddery breath, focuses on a calmness he does not feel.

Langstrom shrugs, easy.

“I don’t mind. I know you and Ilya Rozanov are friends after all the video stuff. Just try to keep it more professional. We don’t need accusations of nepotism— got enough with baby Rozanov and his daddy, don’t we?” Langstrom smiles.

Shane nods, and he knows it’s stiff, too late. Out of beat. Langstrom smiles wider, glad to have cracked Shane’s veneer, maybe, and made his point. He has. Langstrom dismisses him.

Shane returns to his office. He draws the blinds and cups his head between his arms, fingers lacing behind his neck and squeezes hard. Fuck. Fuck that was close.

If Langstrom made that comment publicly— During the meeting— Halstead would have fucking—

Shane exhales hard, pulls his hands down.

Langstrom didn’t. Shane’s fine. Ilya is fine. All of them are safe.

Even if Langstrom suspects— he can’t know anything. Not yet. Not until Shane says something. He will, eventually, but not on the heels of a borderline scandal.

He wants to call Ilya, to hear him joke about poisoning Langstrom, something to take to bite out of his nerves, to make Langstrom cartoonish and less real— But no. Nothing to do yet on that front yet. Seven hours left, and then he will call Ilya, even if he has no idea what to say.

Shane’s day consists of “gatorgate” as his coworkers have inanely called the hotel situation and mopping up his own mess. It’s a grueling day, one of the hardest he’s had, not helped by his coworker’s constant jokes about Shane reliving the old days (hilarious. He was hardly a club rat) or the fact that Jamison forgot to restock his favorite unflavored coffee pods. He releases his statements to the select journalists he trusts and at 2pm he calls Niko’s hotel room and learns he has acquired a new phone. Shane calls him back on his new cell number.

Niko is halfway through saying “shut up,” to someone off camera, probably his roommate, when he finally picks up Shane’s video call.

Niko looks grumpy with the lack of sleep from the red eye, not helped by the Boston hotel’s stark walls and ugly comforter wrapped around him. Shane imagines he must look similar if less caffeinated and decides not to stare intently (or at all) at his own picture in the corner of his screen.

“What? What is it?” Niko rubs his face. “They’re not letting me on the ice today until I get assessed mentally and physically, so if you’re trying to control my playing again, I’m not—”

“Are you alone? The MLH wants you to record a statement to post on the main page.”

Niko makes a groan low from a place deep in his core. “Now? Are you for real?”

“Yes, now.”

“You and Papa are fucking incredible. If you can stop fucking hovering, I feel like I’m going to explode—”

“No. Nika, we can’t. This is what we do,” Shane snaps. “He fixes you emotionally, and I fix your career. Okay?”

Niko does, somehow, shut up. His eyes dart over the phone and Shane groans.

“Is your roommate here?”

Did he fucking hear that? Shane… Just cannot handle any more of this.

“He’s leaving, don’t worry,” Niko mutters, rubbing his face. His usually tight, sleek curls are a mess right now. Frazzled and hazy over his head. “We have to do it now?”

“Pretty much,” Shane says. “I wrote it out for you. If you can just read it more convincingly than that last official apology you gave me.”

Niko huffs a laugh. Shane wasn’t joking.

“Oh my god, you haven’t slept at all, have you? You’re gonna be a scary commissioner.”

Shane doesn’t say anything, but his expression must speak volumes.

“Okay, okay, here I go. I need to fix my hair first… No, I can do it myself, fuck,” he says to someone else. Shane rubs his forehead. He knows Niko’s teammates likely know a lot, but still. Can they extrapolate based on this? What Shane said about Niko’s papa?

Fuck. Fucking fuck. Whatever. Shane just needs to do one thing at a time.

When Niko comes back to the phone he abandoned on the bed, his curls are sleeker, shinier, collated, and he did something to make the puffiness of his eyes go down.

“Headphones maybe? You know,” Shane mutters, feeling really annoyed, and unable to help himself.

“You don’t think that looks fake? Earbuds-in apology video?”

“Is your room empty?”

Niko glances up with his eyes and then down. “Yeah.”

Shane frowns. Feels like Niko is lying but there’s no graceful way of calling him out besides you are full of shit. He doesn’t have time for this.

Shane sends the text of the apology, and they do three dry runs, six recordings until Shane gets a video that he thinks can salvage both Niko’s career from reckless endangerment and also temper his image as an unapologetic rager.

It’s not an easy balance to strike.

Shane chooses not to mention his own name, instead having Niko say ‘the MLH coordinated…’ to really collapse Shane’s role into his job position and away from his legacy as a player and person. Then, at the end, he lets Niko freestyle, and he does a good job cheekily mentioning that he did almost steal Shane Hollander’s phone by accident (“way better than a signed puck but he didn’t let me keep it”), and that will be enough for people to connect dots in their mind, and give them yet another bone to chew over in this whole thing, a taste of what they want but none of the rich scandal.

When they’re done, Shane rewatches the clip a couple times and nods. “Hopefully the league won’t go after you, but I wouldn’t be surprised if your insurance company in America calls you to go over some of their policies for endangerment.”

Niko grins, they ain’t seen nothing yet written on his face that Shane really isn’t sure how to fix. He thinks about Ilya mentioning that Niko jumped out of three stories as a child and feels a pang of exhaustion go through him.

“Thank you, Nika,” Shane says at the end. He feels a little silly now, how easy the name comes to him. Probably the effect of too many nights of Ilya murmuring updates, my Nika, he does well without me. A pleased smile, a little sadness.

The diminutive feels more natural to use than Shane ever expected. Or maybe he’s just that tired.

“Hey, Shane, there’s someone here who’d like to see you—”

Shane hangs up before any fucking hockey fan roommate can jump on the call.

Jesus Christ. Shane doesn’t know what is going through Niko’s head at any time. Last night at the bar was a good example of that. Shane getting stared down excitedly by the whole of the Buffalo Blades while sipping moody and exhausted on his glass of zinfandel.

Instead of dancing, Niko hovered nearby, introducing his teammates, saying carelessly. “Shane’s a family friend, it’s whatever,” no matter how many times Shane corrected that he was at the game on MLH business. There was something sweet about Niko’s plain affection and excitement about knowing Shane, even though his father is Ilya Rozanov. He even called Shane boring when he called off after one glass, and that made Shane, tired as he was, feel happier than he should.

For a while he didn’t know if Niko saw Shane on that same too-high pedestal. He caught glimpses of hero-worship in between fumbling of accepting his father and Shane’s relationship, but last night… Shane doesn’t know. Something about asking Shane the cringiest questions in the world made Niko feel almost like, well, family. Niko isn’t quite as sacred either— not after the trouble of last night. Yes, he’s Ilya’s beloved and precious son, but also he’s a moody menace, and it’s comfortable being able to just talk to him without worrying if Niko was impressed or not.

Shane considers Niko’s teammates and reluctantly thinks Niko soft launching Shane as a family friend is a net-positive to his coming out scheme, but it has to be done carefully and in doses. Not pell-mell, and not suddenly to some random roommate.

Shane does not bother texting Niko to apologize for hanging up, because he should understand perfectly well why that was a shitty thing, and Shane plans to buy a pair of earbuds as a plain reminder to use them when taking calls, thanks.

Hopefully this is the last work-related call between them for a long time…

Shane would rather call him to talk about Ilya, to share pictures, to get ideas for gifts.

Ilya. Ilya.

God, Shane wants to get through this day so they can talk.

Funny, because for a week, Shane has wanted nothing less than to avoid all thoughts and reminders of Ilya. Now that feeling has inverted into a black hole of longing. His heart aches, his mind pounds a steady pulse, Ilya, Ilya, Ilya.

He wants to reach Ilya. Clear this up so they can get back to the business of being together. The business of working together, and not the aggravation of thinking about Svetlana, about the past, about the ways he and Ilya may not work together…

Shane doesn’t care if they don’t work— he wants Ilya anyway. Doesn’t know how he did this job, this life thing without him anymore. It’s like this overwhelming love is a weight Shane carries with him now, everywhere he goes. The only place he can set it down is inside of Ilya.

Despite the flood of additional work, Shane makes it out of the office on time.

“Leaving early?” Kimmi notes as he passes her room, even though they both know it’s perfectly on the dot 5pm.

“I don’t want to be on hand for anything else that might happen afterhours. It’s your turn next,” he says, just as dry. Her cackles follow him out the door.

Shane jogs up the stairs to his seventh floor, New York apartment. He relishes the brief exertion as he thinks about how he can best to talk to Ilya. He likes working out hard conversations before, even if his mom used to tell him it makes his words really stiff. When he told Ilya that, Ilya only shrugged, said, I think it is more sweet that you care so much to prepare.

Shane pulls out his phone, undoing the mute on the chat, seeing a long string of messages as he keys into his apartment.

“Shane.”

Shane jumps, almost drops his phone.

Ilya is there, sitting at the table. He stands awkwardly when Shane hovers, wordless.

“…You are surprised? I texted. Took the day off. Flew in.”

“What about Anya?” Shane asks stupidly.

“Pete Boucher watches her with Timbit... You didn’t see the texts?”

Shane tightens his hand on his phone, guilt swelling.

“I was working.”

Ilya’s expression flickers.

“You muted me?” Ilya guesses.

Shane’s throat feels dry, and instead of all the warm writhing loving things he’s been plagued with all day, an unsettled lash of defensiveness rises.

“I needed to focus. We talked before, you said you understood that my work was important, you said it was fine with you,” Shane says, not even sure why he’s saying this now. He doesn’t want to. Doesn’t feel like his voice shaping the cold words. “The photographs— I had to handle it, I had to make sure that nobody— I’m sorry, but you can’t expect me to make space all the time.”

Shane isn’t someone who can step away, who can take days off. He can’t give up his life’s work ever. He isn’t built that way. Has a right to his own life. But the righteous greediness of his words, of how much space he’s taking makes him feel so cold, exacting and difficult. The terrible truth makes him shake.

And maybe it is also about his right to leave, his right to get space. Ilya can’t be upset when Shane needs distance to work through something, and maybe he was feeling guilty about it before, but some deep-rooted competitive streak has set it’s teeth into him and he’d rather die than admit any fault when this is who Shane is and always has been.

Ilya looks at him, and the look on his face is so strange, so odd that Shane feels like he might explode.

“What? What, Ilya? What is it?”

“I want to kiss you.”

A sound comes from Shane’s throat, low and confused.

Ilya approaches him slowly, hands coming gently to cup a frozen Shane’s elbow and face. He leans close and waits. Bewildered, Shane nods, chin up as if daring him to actually do it.

Ilya kisses him. Once, twice. Hard, warm kisses, pulls Shane in close to his neck.

“Thank you for taking care of my Nika.”

Oh. Oh hell.

The towers of his justification fall with Ilya easily pulling out each defensive pillar keeping him safe and above this feeling.

All of Shane’s hardness, the wall of calmness he’s set in his face, crumples and falls. Breath heaves from his chest and his expression is a mess. Ilya squeezes Shane hard, hand digging through his thick hair to pull him closer.

“My big beautiful man. Looking after my troubled son when I am not in town. Picking him up from police. God, I am so sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, please, Ilya.”

Shane can’t handle it. It’s too much. He thought Ilya would be angry… He thought… He thought…

Ilya is still kissing Shane like he’s somehow valuable— precious and it feels so unfair.

“I hardly did anything."

"I think you are so responsible you don't see clearly all the things you do for others."

Shane shakes his head, babbles, "I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t even take the morning off to make sure you were okay.”

Ilya pulls back only to cup Shane’s face, frowning.

“I know it was important today.”

It was, but… but maybe beneath the defensiveness, the pathetic truth is that Shane wishes he could be that person who took time off, who put his relationship with Ilya first.

Ilya shakes his head. “You left work yesterday for Nikolaj, yes? During big important day.”

“Well, yeah. He was at the police station, Ilya,”

“When it matters, you are there. That is more important than answering my messages. And you help him with video.”

“They posted it already?”

Ilya looks guilty. “I stopped by Boston to check on my Nika first, I brought a new phone and he hates the color. Wants this ugly orange one. All day he was like a mad cat. You did good coaching him for the video. He was almost like a respectable guy.”

Shane groans. God, Ilya was the one in the hotel room. Seeing Shane, clearly not answering any of his messages as he facetimed his kid. Ilya, who didn’t mention he was there…

“You were mad I ghosted you,” Shane intuits.

“Maybe a little. But I understand you were busy saving Nikolaj’s career. You fixed him again.” Oh geez, Ilya heard that line too? “It’s too many times for that troublesome kid.” Ilya looks aggrieved.

Shane will worry about the (valid) nepotistic concern of Ilya and Shane helping Niko so often later. Shane feels worse now. The warm weave of Ilya’s empathy is hard to stomach when Shane has hardly done anything to deserve it.

Ilya sighs, kisses Shane’s cheek once more and then guides Shane to the couch. He peels of Shane’s blazer, hanging it on the kitchen chair, undoes the tie and even unbuttons Shane’s shirt for him.

Shane rubs at his bare arms, down to his slacks and white undershirt.

Before he can complain of cold, Ilya is digging through his backpack by the coffeetable and wriggling out a McGill sweatshirt, handing it over to Shane.

The black fabric is thick, smells of Ilya and detergent from their Montreal home. The worn felt feeling is soothing after the rough day. Ilya sits, pulls his own black tee-shirt down over the soft swell of his stomach and Shane finds himself laying his head on Ilya thigh. Ilya’s hand dips into Shane’s awful, greasy hair, and pet through.

What a shitty day… Even with all Shane accomplished, it just never feels close to enough. There’s always something. Langstrom’s sharp, nearly knowing eyes even as he protected Shane with his silence…

Does Ilya know that Shane was thinking about him through every part of it. Wanting to tell him every piece, every triumph and pitfall threatening his career and each minor quibble about not getting to work out or the fact the coffee pods he likes were out in the break room. Shane grapples with how deep in this relationship he feels, thousands of feet underwater and uncaring of that fact, and maybe this is the real Ilya curse. That he is locked in even when he tries to leave, that there is no space, because one way or another Shane will ache for him, needs him. But Ilya’s hand is steady in his hair and he breathes through it.

“You miss the party nightlife, hm? Have to get it in with my teenage son.”

Shane groans. “I had one glass of wine. I deserved a drink.”

“You see why I am not ready for another baby. My Nika still needs raising.” Ilya sighs. “He owes you very nice bottle of wine.”

“Would probably give me a sixer of Molsons, it’s the official beer of the MLH this year, you know,” Shane says, feeling Ilya’s laugh, dense by his ear.

“You are seeing sponsorship opportunities for him? Maybe you two can do an ad together. I miss seeing you in wet tee-shirts and topless.”

Shane huffs. “You really think Niko needs that kind of attention?”

“No, he wears fur coat. Big, heavy. Too young for shirtless multinational ads, I think.”

The irony of Ilya, unofficial king of shirtless gym pics on 2012 Twitter trying to police his son is too rich to even mention.

Shane quietly admits that Niko said Shane could call him Nika too. He doesn’t know what he expects. Hurt maybe, a twist to Ilya’s face. That’s only for parents, for me and Sveta. Instead Ilya sounds pleased.

“Good,” he hums. “It's important to have people in life to call you, um, pet name.”

“Diminutive,” Shane says, because he is not calling Ilya’s son by a pet name.

“Yes, like mon coeur.”

Shane turns and blinks up at Ilya, feeling a splash of embarrassment heat his face. “You looked it up.”

Yes, I learn a little, Ilya says, in fragmented, heavily accented Quebecois.

Shane is agog. You’re learning Quebecois?

Ilya takes a moment to parse before saying, yes.

Shane feels wordless.

“But… It’s not my first language—”

“I know, but is language you speak.”

“You didn’t learn it for— how many years have you been in Montreal?”

“Too long,” Ilya gripes. “But you like for pet names. Sometimes in sex. I want to understand every sexy word,” he says, like it is simple.

Shane is so verklempt, so in love. “It’s easier to say some things in French.” Like calling Ilya My Heart. It’s romantic, more fitting in a language that sits cozy in the back of his throat. Less mawkish and humiliating than English.

Shane can’t move past being stunned. Because Ilya has clung to Russian like a lifeline to his long-lost home, demanding and inhospitable as his country proved to be. Ilya still speaks it at every opportunity, even to the dog. He made a haven for Russian in his family triad, likely stunting his own English development in the process and not cared a whit. To Ilya, English is a frustrating function, a necessity of his world, not a pleasure. Ilya does not learn languages because he wants to… but Quebecois French he does just to hear Shane say My Heart.

“I haven’t started Russian yet,” Shane says, guilty as hell. “I kept meaning to, but there isn’t time. I—”

Ilya laughs. “Sweetheart, please. It’s not competition.” Shane huffs and Ilya grins down at him, all amusement. “Okay, maybe it is competition. I am winning, as usual. Nothing new.  But it’s no rush. We will be married for a long time my casserole.

Shane splutters a laugh. Has to rub at his eyes. Ilya is so stupid, so dumb, so sweet.

All of this love lives in the air, even as underneath it that hurt from before still aches. Shane doesn’t know how the heart can multitask so much. It makes him want even more to make this okay between them. Makes it easy to believe he can be the kind of person who changes.

“I’m sorry for being bad about calling after leaving.”

“You ran,” Ilya corrects. “It’s okay.”

“I didn’t run— and it’s not okay,” Shane replies. He lifts his head, needs to face Ilya head on for this. Ilya raises a brow, like which is it then?

“I needed space,” Shane reframes.

“You can have space,” Ilya says, and then shuts his mouth quickly. Shane is anxious how flexible Ilya is sometimes. Ilya’s knack for moulding himself around Shane makes it hard to understand what he really wants, and worst of all, it echoes the way he reassured Shane that he didn’t have to come out. The kindness makes Shane’s weakness feel more humiliating; it wasn’t even worth asking Shane to try and change— Shane couldn’t. Incapable of growth or discomfort. Just a robot good at functioning in its set parameters.

Although, since Shane started this conversation with a lecture about how he can’t change his workaholic tendencies, maybe he understands Ilya’s hesitation here…

And even with that awful speech about Shane’s nonexistent work life balance, true as it was, Ilya still finds the errant cord. Says, but you left work for Niko like it was enough. How could something that small ever be enough for anyone in a committed relationship?

He exhales, tilts his neck a little. “I will… try to talk to you or text in the future. And ask for space before leaving.” Hard to do when he’s so worked up, the buzzing in his head so loud, but it’s important to remember Ilya and be considerate, even when Ilya is desperately hurting Shane. He’s… not always done with his other partners, and he’s realizing maybe he’s been a bit of an asshole. It’s just so much easier to process things on his own, in his apartment away from the chaos of people and the feeling, the heat of the moment.

God, but loving someone this much is strange. Runs counter to all his self-protective tendencies.

Ilya eases at Shane’s words, and it makes the difficulty of what he said easier.

“About the thing,” Shane says, because he knows they still have to talk about it.

“If it upsets you, we don’t have to talk about it,” Ilya says, and his hands work on his thighs.

Shane rubs his face. “We can’t not talk because it upsets me.”

Ilya’s expression betrays his vague accusation that Shane will only run again when he’s hurt, but they literally just talked about this. Ilya seems to realize it, and he looks at the ceiling and takes a deep breath. Shane’s heart thuds as he sees how uneasy Ilya is, that this communication between them is also an effort for him.

“I do not think I know why you are hurt by our discussion on open marriage,” Ilya finally admits. Shane wonders if he’s been to therapy since they talked because there is an impressive lack of accusation in the words. It makes Shane stop and think very hard before answering, checking and double checking himself before he finally speaks.

“I think… that I am worried that we may have different ideas of what a marriage is. It terrifies me.”

Yes, more than the scrape of Svetlana, this is what scared Shane most. A fundamental gap between them. The way Ilya said normal marriage.

“You think it makes us, um,” Ilya hand came up, battling his English. “Not a good pair?” he tries.

“Incompatible?” Shane supplies. Ilya makes a soft, aching sound.

“Did not know there was a ‘in’ for that word. In-compatible,” Ilya whispers. “I think I have said noncompatible before many times.” The joke is soft, doesn’t hide the anxiety twisting Ilya’s expression. “You think because of this we are—"

“I don’t,” Shane says, throat so tight and so hard. “I don’t think we are in. We’re compatible. So compatible, Ilya. But when things like this happen, I worry because…”

Even if we are incompatible, I want you anyway. This is too insane to say, sounds downright unhealthy because who would ever want that. But Shane feels it in a way he never cared about when dating the rest of those men. He always had an escape route, a map to his own safety. He doesn’t have any of that here—is actively ejecting all the safety pods he lovingly installed over decades in his pursuit of this baffling, tender man. Shane’s man.

“I think we have different idea of marriage,” Ilya says after a beat. “But it's okay. We make what our marriage will be together. It’s not something we have before, it’s something we have to…”

“Create?” Shane offers.

“See why I must learn Quebecois? I see you, your freckles, I cannot find any of my English words. You make me stupid, trying to communicate complicated, unknown topics. Never did I need this kind of English before I knew you.”

Saying Shane makes him stupid is hardly a compliment, but Shane feels himself flush down to his neck, pulls Ilya’s hoodie strings into his mouth to ease the burn of the feeling. He realizes how gross the habit is on a hoodie not his own, but Ilya leans forward, kisses into the mouth and the knot of string tangles between them, saliva slick.

Shane sleeps deep and long, catching almost ten hours. Ilya lolls awake on Shane’s side at 6AM, and Shane is too sleep satisfied to not press gently against his head, until Ilya slinks down and suckles Shane’s cock until he’s shaking and moaning, half certain he’s still sunk in a dream. Ilya moans, deep and hard as Shane edges him with a plug, and the yes, yes, yes of his body talk is so affirming after the difficult words of yesterday. It is good to speak the same language of release again. Like factory reset, back on the same page.

Ilya’s body cannot lie about what it wants, what it needs, and Shane relishes this artless honesty, hopes one day the sincerity can spread to everything they do.

Ilya skips morning practice (so easily, so generously. It is a competition and Shane will one day catch up) to accompany Shane to his home gym and spot him for his augmented chest presses. Exercise always brings out that sharp, competitive look in Ilya’s eyes as he watches each of Shane’s muscle groups strain and press. You’re getting so fucking huge. Big arms. Big thighs. My big man.

Silly. Shane has barely put on three pounds of muscle, his gains are nowhere near what they were in his twenties, not to mention his stubborn belly has hardly shrunk. And yet, Ilya puffs up every gain, makes him feel towering in that unapologetic, braggy way that made Ilya so hated in the league and so beloved by Shane.

Ilya shaves Shane, quick and dexterous, and kisses his shorn cheek before he leaves out the door.

“Have a good day at work, Sweetheart.”

Shane turns back to him, grabbing his bare arm and just holding him. He doesn’t know how to say it, what he wants to say. All the all of it. His gratitude, his attraction, the strange magic where Ilya transforms crisis to catharsis.

“I’m going to fuck them up today.”

Ilya grins. “Wow. Very scary. They will run if they’re smart.”

Chapter End Notes

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uhhh i think death and taxes (and shane hollander) has officially broken containment. considering one of the tags is "the difficult morass of adulthood" i think it probably has only reached readers through word of mouth, so thank you everyone who has spread the old man hollanov disease. you really are doing the most for this strange little fic. i appreciate you. <3

Chapter 8: shane is scrupulous

Chapter Notes

i'd call this chapter the spiritual successor to the shane hollander dick collection.

Hayden meeting Ilya is about as difficult as Shane expected. In Hayden’s defense, he clearly means well. Ilya just has a nasty habit of eating means well for breakfast. Ilya raises an eyebrow as Hayden scans him up and down, arms crossed, brow furrowed.

Ilya shoots Shane a doubtful look, but Shane shrugs— stay calm.

“I guess…it sort of makes sense,” Hayden decides.

“Does it?” Ilya asks, dry. “Sort of?”

“Yeah. Shane needs someone to challenge him, right? Or something.”

"Or something," Ilya agrees, a mean mimic in his mouth.

Seeing Hayden try to make logic them is almost silly, but Shane would rather reward the behavior than not.

“You definitely do that, right, Ilya?”

Ilya gives Shane an unamused look, but when Shane holds his hand out, he raises a brow, I know what you’re doing, Sweetheart, but takes it, squeezing gently. Hayden seems satisfied with this show of affection. He nods to himself.

“It’s been ages anyway. Only an obsessed idiot would hold onto old sports grudges. Besides, what are two lost teeth in a long MLH career, right?”

Now Ilya is the one with his brow furrowed.

“Two? No, I took three of your teeth.”

Hayden’s back goes up and Shane puts a hand on his forehead.

“Three?” Hayden asks tightly.

“2022 I think? Winter Showcase in Detroit.”

Shane feels like throwing his hands up. Ilya pretends amnesia whenever fans bring up games, you sure I was there? Was not someone else demolishing the Metros? And Shane gets that because there is nothing worse than meeting fans who correct you for not remembering one of literally thousands of games, but apparently, the games where Ilya takes teeth from Shane’s good friend, the when and where and how many, that was worth setting into stone.

“No, it was two. Only two. Marleau got that one in Detroit,” Hayden corrects. "You're misremembering."

“Was a scrap, you in middle of me and Marleau. I hit your head hard—”

“Ilya,” Shane warns.

“I pushed you into Marleau’s stick and front tooth goes flying… Should be at least an assist, no? I get a point for that.”

“Ilya stop arguing for three teeth.”

Ilya shrugs like what, what did I do?

Shane begins to suspect Hayden’s jaw is Ilya’s real Boston Bears.

Hayden seemed to be having similarly unhappy thoughts.

“I take it back,” Hayden says to Shane. “He’s worse than his son.”

“My son is the best player of his draft year. Weird you want to compare me to highly competitive 18-year-old. You would be lucky if he joined your team. Very badly need a more talented center, don’t you?”

“Crazy to hear advice from someone coaching the smalltime college league.”

“Maybe. But the Marlet’s won our cup? Where's yours?”

Hayden makes a strangled sound.

“I don’t want to know either of you,” Shane decides, and both rise in protest, accusation. “Neither of you are invited to the wedding if you act like this.”

Ilya is all exaggerated outrage. “It's our wedding? Who you marry? Anya? Yourself?”

“Better a dog than this shit stirring!”

Ilya scowls, probably because he likes being a shit stirrer. It’s a cornerstone of his personality, certainly.  Shane doesn’t mind when he gets to watch Ilya say all the terrible things Shane is too polite to, but he needs Ilya to point it away from Shane’s small but preciously maintained group of loved ones.

Hayden coughs Got ‘im.

“And Anya could be my best man, if it comes to it. Or JJ.”

“Hey,” Hayden says, serious. “That’s not funny. I was your winger for years!”

Shane looks at both of them unimpressed.

It’s shocking how quickly they can find common ground after that. What they end up bonding over is therapy of all things. Hayden name drops his couples’ therapist in relation to counting down from ten (“before I murder you, Rozanov”) because Jackie is starting meditation, and it’s interesting to see Ilya hold back for a moment, then choose to expose himself. My therapist, she also says it’s good to try meditation at this point in life. Quiet the world a little.

Hayden leans back and looks at Ilya with new respect, as if anyone willing to work on themselves is worth hearing out. Ilya clearly itches under the vulnerability, but forces himself to open on the private topic. For Shane.

Shane sets his hand on Ilya’s thigh in appreciation, and Ilya loosens his posture.

“Maybe we can get Shane to go one day,” Hayden jokes.

“I’m good, thanks,” Shane says, uneasy as it’s brought up again. Ilya watches him carefully.

“He reads his books. Besides, he sometimes knows more about being a good parent than I do,” Ilya says, so easily seeing through Shane and it makes him feel safe. No one else in Shane’s life has ever accused him of anything like emotional IQ before Ilya, that’s for sure.

Ilya snaps. “Reminds me, I should read the book on dating later in life.”

“You can borrow my copy if you ask nicely,” Shane jokes.

Hayden laughs. “I’ve had that feeling too with Uncle Shane and my kids. He might just be a savant, you know.”

“Kids and hockey, it may be,” Ilya agrees.

At the end of their meeting, Hayden says it again easily, “Whatever I can do or say to help, you just let me know. I’m there. My locker room knows how I feel, so does my GM.”

Now Shane sees Ilya’s respect swell, along with a fidgety guilty feeling that Shane has had before. Like Hayden is somehow a bit braver than either of them and has been for a while.

It’s unjustifiably annoying.

Shane voices it aloud in the car on the way home and Ilya commiserates. “We are slow, very homophobic.” He sighs, curses in Russian and shakes his head. “Time to catch up.” He kisses Shane’s cheek. “We still have time to beat Pike!”

Whether it’s remembering Ilya’s old play style, or the idea of his plan finally going well after such a bumpy stretch, Shane is champing at the bit when they get home. A stirring, hot, clenching need.

He gives Ilya look after look at the front door, waiting for him to do something about it, but Ilya obsesses over Anya, pets her pretty wet face and takes her out for a walk. He asks Shane if he wants to come along, and Shane tells him no in a very clipped tone.

Ilya leaves, and Shane goes to the bed, uncertain if Ilya is not picking up the hint or if Ilya is teasing Shane, making him wait.

…That idea is a little hot. He pets himself through his khaki’s, feeling his cock rise to the occasion. Wonders if Ilya is strolling around Montreal thinking of what to do to Shane when he gets back.

So wrapped up in his thoughts, Shane doesn’t hear the front door. Doesn’t notice Ilya until he is standing in the door, leash loose in his hand and a smile curling over his face.

Right now, Shane feels perverted, humiliated to be seen so wanting, hand grinding his own cock, couldn’t even take his pants off— but in Ilya’s hands, all these things only make Shane grip himself harder, panting a long hot breath out.

“You are impatient. Starting without me when I try to keep our house together and your floors clean of shit.”

Ilya carefully moves Anya out of the way and shuts the door to keep her out. He slinks inside. His body moving with such careful grace that Shane can only jerk up into his hand.

He likes looking at Ilya, watching him openly. Being seen.

“Desperate. I should give you something better to rub into.”

Shane’s mind grapples, hand? Mouth? Thigh? Foot?

Ilya grins, leaving Shane’s curiosity unanswered as he starts stripping. His running has shaved a little more width from his stomach, added more lean muscle to his thighs. Shane misses how huge his pump got his chest, but there is always something to appreciate about Ilya’s body. His cock is heavy, limp— it often is when they start. Ilya takes a little riling and Shane doesn’t mind. Likes how long everything lasts.

Ilya goes to the drawer on his side, collects the bottle of lube (chocolate flavored, Ilya’s favorite) and he kneels on the bed.

“Take off.”

Shane listens, his fingers working quick on his shirt buttons. He wriggles out of his khaki’s, letting Ilya peel them off Shane’s legs. Shane quickly folds them, watching Ilya’s considering gaze. For how often he accuses Shane of plotting, Ilya is always working quietly behind his eyes.

Ilya coats his hand in the lube. Yes, yes, yes, Shane loves that big square hand—

Ilya gropes downward, not for his dick, but for Ilya's own thighs. Oh fuck.

“Come, this is the closest you get to fucking me.”

Shane hesitates, he doesn’t want to fuck Ilya, but it is somewhere new to rut against. Warm and strong. Ilya turns on his side, so Shane’s good shoulder presses against the bed, and he plasters himself against Ilya, arm around to keep his other shoulder aligned. They are getting closer to the same size again, it makes Shane feel more desperate somehow.

He rocks his cock against Ilya’s ass, uselessly.

“Ah, ah, not there. Though maybe you come between my ass cheeks someday. Honeymoon idea. We will have such a long fuck vacation.”

Shane flushes. He already feels close, is that pathetic?

Ilya reaches behind, and gropes at Shane’s thigh, jockeying him closer. Shane wiggles up close, his cockhead kissing between Ilya’s thighs. They’re so hairy. He shivers at the brush of his sensitive head against Ilya’s coarse thighs.

“Come on, Sweetheart. Don’t be afraid. I don’t bite.”

“You fucking do.”

“Only when you beg.”

Shane pushes his cock against the seam of Ilya’s thighs and moans as it enters. His cockhead tingles when he breeches the other side, feeling the sting of cold air on his head..

“You are so long, fucking huge cock commissioner.”

Shane ignores Ilya’s version of sex talk. It’s always arousing but strange. Shane feels his hips rabbiting up, in and out of the warm heat, the strange texture that almost makes him shudder, but mostly makes him shiver.

He’s so hot, so desperate. Ilya always puts him off his game enough that he’s at the mercy of feeling. Animal and simple. He’s panting so hard a little drool falls behind Ilya’s ear and Ilya groans.

Maybe all of Ilya’s talk about Shane being selfish is true, because he is on the cusp of coming when he finally realizes that he should touch Ilya, stoke him the way Ilya always does when he is behind Shane, rocking into him; he’d be such a terrible top.

Shane pants, reaches around, and cups a soft, fleshy cock. Ilya’s limp—

Shane comes hard, seeing it splutter on Ilya’s thighs, dip from the crease of his legs and it all smells like chocolate and sex and he moans hard, rocking a few more times until his cock feels gross and cold.

He wriggles off, reaching for the wetwipes in his bedside drawer.

Shane’s breathing is still heavy—more worked up than any exercise can get him.

Did he just miss it? Did Ilya already come? His brain whirs, trying to make sense.

“You didn’t…?”

“No. Not today, it seems,” Ilya doesn’t sound bothered, or even particularly frustrated as he rolls over onto his back. Shane feels stunned.

“It’s okay,” Ilya preempts. “I’ll think about you humping me so hard you drool. Will make me cum gallons when I am alone.”

Shane wrinkles his nose. Fucking nasty... worst still that Shane kind of likes it. Still. he really didn't come. Shane feels like he missed a a turn somewhere, he's so disoriented, turned around. It's just never happened.

On automatic, he cleans himself up, strokes Ilya’s cock with the wetwipe by habit, before remembering he didn’t come. He still holds Ilya’s cock, feeling its limp, uselessness.

“Shane… Is normal sometimes for people,” Ilya tries, a thread of unease slinking into his voice. “And on my meds, it can be tricky some days. It's normal,” he argues, and is probably working himself up. “You don’t have to try anything or…”

Ilya’s dick is fleshy, warm and giving. Plump like a polish sausage. Shane kneads it gently.

Ilya’s head cocks like a loon. “You like that I am limp?”

“No.” Shane flushes. “I like when you come. A lot.”

“But you are not acting like this because you are bothered I didn’t… Is this another power thing?”

“I don’t have power things.” Shane ignores Ilya’s sound of incredulity. “I Just…” Shane was so afraid of this happening, of their desires being out of sync, of wanting so much and the excruciating humiliation of being the only one, but now that it has happened... “We’re like a married couple. You know. We’ve been around each other long enough that we’ve had sex that isn’t…” Shane can’t explain it. “We didn’t have time before, you know?”

“To mess up?”

“Yeah.” Shane huffs a laugh.

They never had time for their cocks and desires to be out of sync, always crashing into each other like each time might be their last. This, Shane’s uselessly persistent arousal, Ilya’s mercurial cock, this is the gift of a long-term relationship.

Ilya looks sad but covers it with a smile.

 “I will be limp many times, Sweetheart. You will have to get used to my feet and thighs. Or maybe I will fuck you with a toy.”

“You don’t have to make sure I come,” Shane says, because he doesn’t want to put Ilya off by needing too much. Knows he has done so before with other relationships, made them feel put-upon and dating a deviant. Shane’s sexual appetite, once stoked by Ilya, just hasn’t eased, even all these years later. It’s embarrassing to want to fuck like he's twenty all the time.

“But what will I think about when you are at work? Or when you take too long in the bathroom? Sometimes you are in there for ten minutes. Or more.”

…Shane should have remembered who the real deviant in the relationship is, and how much he adores it.

Even with Ilya’s (questionably sweet) lip service, Shane tries to be on his best behaviour the next day and not ask for too much sexually. Ilya saying he’s fine with it is one thing, but it’s got to be a chore to get someone else off all the time. Ilya watches Shane sit a completely appropriate distance away on the couch with faint amusement and a glint in his eye that makes him look like a very patient animal. Shane scowls at the sly expression and opens his phone to answer a few work emails now that they are in the final talks with a new hotel chain for playoffs.

Ilya stands, makes a show of stretching in front of Shane, drawing the bow of his chest wide and taut, muscles and warm flesh broadening and flexing. He’s lost some weight, but he has also made good on his promise, he is definitely Shane’s bear in all ways that matter. Stretching only proves his hugeness, his breadth. Fuck.

Then Ilya leaves, hand drawing his sweatpants up in a practiced, cozy motion that had no right to being alluring. Anya trots after him, ever obedient. Shane can relate.

Shane got off yesterday. There is no reason he should be so worked up, he tells himself as he stares sightlessly into an email. He puts his phone down and thinks about the things he wants to fix about his apartment, the new lightbulbs to order for the hallways because he thinks some of the brightness has faded and there are surely more energy efficient lights on the market. Mr. Kim complained that the elevator stalls and he has a few people coming by to service it. His renewed workout schedule had made him want to install a a sauna, but he isn’t sure where he can fit one on their floor without compromising their space and he doesn’t much fancy walking past Nina Semonov and her eight grandchildren in a towel—

“Shane, I think you forget something.”

Ilya’s voice echoes down the hallway from their room. Shane thinks about ignoring Ilya for all of three seconds. Then he stands, follows the voice beckoning him closer.

“I don’t think I did,” Shane says. Despite Ilya’s certainly joking words, Shane does check that he has his phone in his pocket as he reaches the door. He has it.

He glances up to Ilya’s curling, amused grin. Smug bastard. He’s sitting on the bed, shirt removed, and a roll of thick Canadian cash in his hand.

“You are a bad landlord. Not asking for rent for a long time.”

“Ilya, I don’t need your rent,” Shane says, mouth dry. It’s that weird thrumming feeling he gets whenever Ilya mentions things like this. Being his landlord. Controlling his financial assets.

“No?” Ilya stands, strides closer and Shane finds himself widening his legs automatically, bracing for the hit, and Ilya gives it to him. Wrapping his arms around Shane, dragging him to the bed. Shane thrashes, wrests free, laughing, as Ilya readjusts, grappling around Shane’s waist. He’s so preoccupied trying to suck in his belly that Ilya manages to drag him down onto the bed and his lap. Shane twists but it’s mostly for show— this is one of his favourite places to be.

Surely not getting off until three pm is good enough behaviour to show he’s not totally deviant, right? Right? Probably not.

“Ilya, you don’t have to, like, prove anything to me,” Shane mumbles, guilty.

“What am I proving?” Ilya asks. “I am just trying to pay my rent.” One arm wrapped bandlike over Shane’s chest, he uses the other hand to grab the cash and shove it into Shane’s sweatpants pocket. Shane expects him to then strip Shane and flip him over, but instead, the hand lingers. Wriggling around in the pants pocket, stretching the fabric until he reaches Shane’s boxer covered cock and rubs.

Oh fuck.

Shane’s head rocks back onto Ilya’s shoulder. Ilya, having won the fight and subdued Shane, uses the second hand to slip into the other pocket, rubbing him intently and imprecisely. The wild, inexact nature of his touching works Shane up in fits and starts, sweatpants dragged down past his iliac crest, pubic hair spreading wildly down as his cock swells in his boxers. Ilya's fingers are inarticulate through so much cloth but dogged in their quest to stroke him.

“Fuck. Fuck me, Ilya.”

Ilya’s breath brushes Shane’s neck. “You sure you want that, Mr. Landlord? Sure you do not want to sit next to each other on couch twenty centimeters apart? Answer work emails?”

“Ilya.” Shane swallows. God. “Please.”

He doesn’t care if Ilya is hard, if he means to use a toy or a fucking screwdriver. If Ilya just gets off on the mental game of Shane begging, Shane will give it to him, will humiliate himself gladly by needing so much sex while Ilya is slack and impotent.

He rocks against Ilya’s hips— and today it seems he need not ask, because there is an answering hardness from his begging.

Ilya withdraws his hand and moves, splaying Shane out on the bed— A quiet snap. The quick move made the rubber band break and money spills all over the bedspread. Shane writhes there for a moment, hot and bothered… but the scratchy texture of the money has him grunting and moving away. It smells awful, dirty and oddly metallic. He pulls back, almost falls off the bed. Anya starts barking and that’s when Shane realizes she’s been there the whole time.

“Ilya, with Anya watching?!”

“She is a dog.”

Shane shakes his head, horny and irritated in an Ilya special cocktail of emotions.

“Can you pick up the money while I put her away. It’s dirty, I don’t want it on my skin. Maybe put down a towel?”

Ilya raises an eyebrow. “You know, after working so hard to get rent money for my demanding landlord, I may be too tired. Might just lie here. You can do the work.”

Shane’s mind processes this. Ilya against the backdrop of the money. Riding Ilya like that. Is that really…?

He sees Ilya reach down and squeeze his own cock, hand lingering and petting his bulge. Shameless. Oh, so shameless.

If Ilya wants Shane to ride him on a gross pile of money, then Shane will do that. He’s generous, okay?

Shane turns away, lest Ilya get too smug, and snaps his fingers at Anya until she follows him back into the main room. Shane has let Ilya turn one of the spare rooms into an Anya play space, because if they leave her in the living room while they fuck, she spends the whole time scratching on the door, and Shane has spent too much time getting fucked to the steady sound of scratching than he would ever prefer.

Shane shuts the door on her gently, ignoring her whining. There is a puppy pad and plenty of toys, and even a door to let her out onto Shane’s spacious balcony.

He turns and makes a b-line for the bedroom… only he stops, goes to his jacket and pulls out his money clip without really knowing why.

Back in the room, Ilya is naked there, lying on the bed, one hand lazily stroking his hardened cock with lube. One beady blue eye peeks up at Shane as he enters. Ilya looks indulgent on the money. He’s spread it out, made a bed of cash in many colors. If the plastic feeling bothers him, he doesn’t say, sprawling and loose like he might go to sleep.

Shane throws his money clip on the bed and goes to the bathroom, cleaning his hands and taking off his sweats. He comes out and picks up the lube. Vanilla today, apparently, and dribbles a clear line onto his fingers. Then he bends over, one hand on Ilya’s stomach for stability as he rubs his fingers inside himself, getting a good spread. Ilya’s breathing hitches under his palm and Shane can feel the pressure of his eyes boring into the side of his face.

Ilya moves himself back on the bed, money crumpling, making space for Shane to kneel and settle himself, inch by inch, onto Ilya’s cock. He bottoms out and groans, always so appreciative of the pressure around him, in him, the weight of Ilya’s cock. Ilya’s eyes are feverish, bright and wild. His jaw tense as he fights the urge to jerk up, fails, and makes Shane groan like he’s been punched.

Shane rocks himself up and down a little until the burn feels familiar and good. Not for the first time, he is glad that he has the shoulder injury and not the knee injury like Ilya. Lets him get fucked in so many myriad ways.

He and Ilya work in tandem, so often do, and in no time at all they are sweating and heaving. Sweat drips down Shane’s forehead, drops onto Ilya, who drags a finger through it on his chest. Shoves up hard in answer and makes Shane gasp.

Ilya looks like the definition of debauched, rich, spoilt, tacky. Like his second year on the league where he wore nothing but name brand tracksuits and heavy gold jewelry. Ilya’s clearly loving the crinkle of money, running his hands through it and Shane wants so much to know what he’s thinking, what fantasy he’s living in. Shane still thinks it’s a little dirty, it’s just money— but maybe that’s because it’s not his money that Ilya is bathing in. And Shane understands why he took his money clip.

Shane picks his clip up, legs stalling and making Ilya do all the work as he writhes and pivots inside Shane. He slows as he sees Shane opening the latch. Bills, small and big denominations of American and Canadian cash fall onto Ilya’s chest in plops of folded paper and plastic. Ilya’s hands flutter from Shane’s hips and onto Shane’s money, clutching it to his chest, and dragging it, spreading the bills out into a beautiful fan. Hugging it to himself, chest heaving. God, god. It’s so good. Makes him look wrecked and wreathed. Precious and terrible and so Shane’s.

Shane rocks himself up and down harder, hand traveling up, feeling Ilya’s nipple, and the purple tenner beneath it. He comes, handsfree onto Ilya, onto the money. Just like the money, Ilya rubs it into himself and Shane moans, almost pained as Ilya jerks up into him harder and harder, until he spills.

And Shane realizes at that point that he forgot a condom.

Cleaning up without a condom is a deeply inelegant experience that requires a lot of Ilya helping aim the showerhead and a bent over Shane trying to backseat drive the whole process. The only thing more humiliating is seeing the stack of dirty money with Shane’s cum on it on their bed.

“Oh my god.”

“I know. We are so hot. Even I am surprised by the things we do.”

Maybe Shane should have felt relieved at the affirmation of their physical relationship despite Ilya’s slightly different sex drive. Mostly Shane feels horrified about the cum money.

“Can it be laundered?”

Ilya laughs.

“No, I mean— put in the laundry.”

“No one will be weird if there is a dirty spot on money, you know.”

“Ilya. We cannot use any of this if it isn’t cleaned.” And Shane may be (possibly) too rich for his own good, but he isn’t rich enough to the point where throwing away perfectly good money is logical, ethical, or reasonable. But it’s not like they can give it away either, even to the bank. Shane would perish if any of it got sent under a black light.

Shane and Ilya spend a good half hour with dozens of antiseptic wipes swiping down each and every single bill, front and back.

Shane looks at Ilya, stunned and vaguely accusatory, whenever he has the presence of mind. What is Shane’s life that this is what he does on his day off? He's 48 with an office job. He’s not a deviant, not at all compared to Ilya, he’s realizing. He’s never wanted to do something egregiously tacky like this, and yet, he now has a lube covered c-note in his hand.

“First you fuck me like we are dumb rookies on a power trip. Now this. Has anyone ever cleaned money like this? I don’t think so. I think you invent new boring activity.”

Shane scowls, disgusted at the American hundred-dollar bill in his hand. “Why are they still using paper money? Seriously?” He’ll have to air dry it. He lays it flat on his plate and swipes both sides anyways. “I’m not sure this is usable.”

Ilya peels it off the plate and pulls it close to his nose, making Shane gag.

“Vanilla.” He grins. “It’s just lube. Not to worry, I will put to good use.”

Shane fidgets, latex gloves squeaking as he clenches his hands. “Isn’t it my money?” Shane’s money and Ilya’s pretend rent money, supposedly. Really just foreplay to stick his hands in Shane's pockets, though Shane is easy enough he doesn't even think the whole pretense was necessary. Not worth this effort, anyway.

“Mmm, well, it was. But am pretty sure you gave it to me when you fucked me on it. It’s how it works with strippers. You know. Which is how you treat me.”

“I didn’t treat you like a stripper,” Shane says, trying to avoid Ilya’s eyes. God, he’s too old to feel like an embarrassed teenager about sex. “You were the one really loving it, rubbing it all over.”

Ilya’s expression drops to a zen-like pleasure. “Yes. When I was younger, I think I will make it in life when I can take a money bath. And I really did.”

Shane splutters. “You did not.”

“I did! Got in the bath and then poured money in. It was very dirty, actually, not like a bath.”

Shane laughs. “Smells disgusting, right? We really need to change our sheets.”

“I thought if I had money, I could buy a very fast car and get away from all bullshit. It was very big fantasy. But when I had the fastest car and money bath, I realized I was not any happier.” He tilts his head. “Very sober thing for eighteen year old me. Destroyed me for like, two days before I went to a club." Shane snorts. Ilya quirks his head. "Did not know yet I needed the love of a good, very boring and tidy man.”

Shane’s hand reaches for Ilya’s on reflex, and their latex gloves squeak hideously together. Ilya bursts out a laugh.

“I get to relive fantasy, but it's much better with you, obviously.” He winks, turning back to a c-note. “And I will look forward to spending your money later. Ah, no fighting. Stripper rules.”

Shane feels a flush go through him again, Ilya’s eyes clocking him, but saying nothing. He knows something about Shane, and it’s freaky that Shane does not know what it is. The feeling that Ilya understands how Shane works better than himself, but how can that even be possible?

It grates on some competitive streak. Shane, reluctantly, asks himself why the idea of Ilya taking his money and spending it makes him feel so hot and spacey in his head, like the best of Ilya’s games. Can’t think of why, it’s not like Shane had fantasies of sex and money ever in his life before this moment. He’s never really cared for showing off that he has it like some players, much prefers nurturing and growing his finances through strategic investment like his father taught him. Another game off the ice, another place to put his energy that rewards him with thick dividends and enables him to pursue his very particular lifestyle. He knows Ilya has gone through periods where, despite all his cars and money, he’s been broke because of his greedy family, which is probably another reason he loved the cash. But Shane and Ilya never brought that to their dynamic—

His mind stumbles over a moment.

“Do you remember the All-Stars game, at that hotel? You were in the pool.”

“Mm, yes, you were very sexy in your sunglasses. Almost as hot as reading glasses.”

“Of course you have an eyewear ranking.”

“Of course,” Ilya echoes.

Shane thinks of Ilya in the water, the powerful shape of him made childish and kind. And then he strode up to Shane and said something like, Hollander, give me money. I don’t have my wallet.

Shane was trying hard not to be obvious about enjoying talking to Ilya in public. He reached for his billfold and took out an American tenner.

More, Ilya said, his favorite word, his favorite request. More, more more, more of Shane, and Shane always gave it.

Shane handed him one twenty, then another when he asked until Ilya had enough money to buy a school class candy. Ilya smiled, folded the bills between his fingers with a neat flick and turned on his heel, leading a parade of children around the corner. Shane had to go back to his room, all he could think about was Ilya’s hands around Shane’s money. Holding it, carrying it. Maybe even still. The tether connecting them, a real physical thing. Substantial in a way things between them hadn’t been in almost ten years.

“That was the first time I ever gave you anything,” Shane says, flushing. “Not that it was for you. But. I don’t know, it made me feel…”

Useful is not the right word, hardly accounts for the everything and all of it. Needed, maybe? Valuable? A provider? Essential? Something. Something to Ilya. Something concrete and real amid their wordless thing that had to vanish like a shy shadow whenever the eyes of other people were on them.

That day, their fingers brushed over forest green money where everyone could see and Shane felt his heart squeeze.

(And years later, on the heels of a rough breakup and a rare night out of too many drinks, Shane would wake from a shallow sleep with the idea to start a foundation with Rozanov. Yes, Rozanov was married, but it would just be professional, just a way to be in public together in a friendly setting. Good for their images. They would be fronting a worthy cause, something that mattered to both of them, and if it meant the odd breakfast meeting, if it meant flying to hotels or even motels, if it meant having Rozanov in his life again, scheduled and metered in doses, then wasn’t that what Shane’s money really was about? That just like the Montreal apartment, a foundation was another way ((another excuse)) to touch the skin of Ilya Rozanov?)

(But then Shane had thrown up more beer. Fallen asleep again, woken up and cried— not because he missed Rozanov, but because of how disgusted he was with himself. Because he knew it was a plan to sleep with Ilya, laced through a hundred very respectable, justifying hoops, but it was a plan to ruin his marriage and destroy his family life because Shane was sick of seeing his face everywhere, in every rink, and not being able to have even a shred of him, despite being mad as all hell at Rozanov anyway and hardly wanting him. It was baffling. Shane took a shower and ran until his body made him stop, tried to remember who the hell he was and to forget this total lapse in character and judgement.)

Ilya’s hand comes around his shoulder, and he is mindful to keep his dirty glove off Shane’s skin. His arm squeezes, draws Shane closer, even in his awkward, locked-up posture, so Ilya can kiss his cheek.

“Eighteen-year-old Ilya does not know that his fiancé will not only be very rich, but also a powerful man. And nice too. You are so useful to me. I need you so badly.”

“Ilya,” Shane groans, because that was blatant and gross pandering.

“And even if you lost all money in a bad real estate investment—”

“Ilya. Shut the fuck up. That would never happen. Never.”

“I will still need you.”

Ilya sighs, spreads his arms up and draws all the cash towards him. “But since I am hot and stripper rules apply, I am taking this with me. I will tell you what I buy with it.”

Does Ilya know him well enough to send pictures?

"How do you know that money isn't yours?" Shane asks in a wan attempt at exerting anything like control over the situation that has heat spreading down his face. 

"It's not my money in your wallet. You are taking good care of my finances, I know. Building it big and strong. You'd lose your own money before mine."

"I'm not losing anyone's money." 

Shane peels off his gloves and covers his eyes with a hand, praying to someone for something. Wisdom, maybe, to understand how Ilya is the greediest, most selfless man he knows. Letting Shane have so much of him by handing over every bit of his finances, entangling them desperately and awfully to the point where this relationship has to work out because the alternative is accountant hell for years possibly. But Shane had jumped into that, was only thinking I will make you so rich by being with me, let me, let me, let me have control of all of it, trust me too much. He felt responsible, considerate even, and now suspects maybe those feelings were actually a cover for Ilya’s old favorite power mad. And Ilya sees that, has his hand out for more. More. Be more mad for me.

Shane rubs at his eyes, thinks, you will be the death of me. Ilya smiles, beatifically, as if knowing this.

Chapter End Notes

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next chapter is a bit heavier, so we take a little break here. i also don't know what is happening with this story, but I am enjoying exploring nonsense.

Chapter 9: shane is a family man

Chapter Notes

Ilya taps his ring on the steering wheel on the way to Hawkesbury, his favorite nervous habit. Only, instead of one clicking from his right hand, there is an answering click from his left.

Shane eyes the click of the ring greedily. A fat gold ring fits snugly on his crooked pinky, a dark, glowing gemstone in the center.

Last week, Ilya sent a picture of the pinky ring along with the line.

I ♡: They took the money. Though I did see the jewelry owner sniffing. Think he knows it’s lube?

Shane was flushed, thumbs flexing as his mind worked through responses, but mostly he was transfixed on Ilya’s left hand. He drew the picture closer to his face.

Ilya’s pinky was crooked from breaking it so many times, and it was always a little curled. The little ring looked delicate on his large hand and yet…

Shane didn’t wear jewelry himself. He found the constant reminder on his skin aggravating the few times he was fitted out for commercial spots, not to mention there was something that rang wrong to him. Something about delicate necklaces that echoed too much like Cosmo calling him the “prettiest on the ice,” in their write up of the hottest MLH players. Princelike was a word they loved to throw around and it just… wasn’t how Shane saw himself.

On Ilya, the pinky ring looked only smooth and masculine, the same as his necklace. Apt and lusciously bold. Like he belonged in gold and amber gems.

I ♡: Stone is Tiger’s eye. Pretty, no?

Me: Thought you’d be more for diamonds.

I ♡: I make space for that later. Now is warm up. Practice round with clever, pretty stone my fiancé buys me. Like my little engagement ring.

Shane groaned because he wanted badly to get his wedding ring on Ilya, to make a pair for this pretty ring bought with Shane’s cash, but for the perfect fit, he wanted them to try the wedding bands on in person. Thus rings were the last thing on his wedding to-do list. He supposed he had this image to tide him over.

His eyes caught again and again on the dark stone streaked with burning amber enveloped in warm gold. A tangible connection from him to Ilya. Shane shivered a little to be so carried.

Once Shane was back in Montreal, Ilya wasted no time in feeding his pinky and fourth into Shane’s mouth, and he obligingly slid his tongue over the beveled edge and tasting the flat, tumescent roundness of the gemstone.

Ilya watched him with satisfaction, drawing his fingers slowly out with a pop. He cupped Shane’s face and set his left hand against Shane’s cheek, eyes flickering between the ring and Shane’s eyes.

“Mmm, yes. What a good match with you I think.”

Shane’s mouth was still open and he didn’t care to shut it, not with the air so wet between them. Fuck. Shane had known all his life that his body was his tool, his vessel to sense and interpret the world around him. To win. But after meeting Ilya, he understood his body could be hypnotic. Magnetic. Fucking alluring.

Confidence bloomed, hot and steady under his skin. Made it easy to draw the beringed fingers back into his mouth while reaching for Ilya’s jeans, tugging him closer and pulling his cock out as he stroked in time with his sucking.

Now, Shane stares at the ring drumming on the steering wheel and wishes he had something physical to pull on for his nerves. Instead, he only finds his familiar, too busy mind.

Dad texted this morning to let Shane know that his mom was struggling last night. What he didn’t say but what Shane knows from getting calls from the center is that his mom had an episode, claimed she didn’t live there and tried to leave Hawkesbury House multiple times. She had to be given a mild sedative to get her down for the night.

Dad suggested that maybe they should reschedule their visit, but it only made Shane want to see his mother more, to reassure his anxious heart that she’s well.

Anya's sharp bark does nothing but ratchet Shane's nerves up higher. Ilya speaks sternly to her in Russian. Shane glances warily back to see her snuffling at her crate door, dissatisfied with the gentle rocking of the car. He's already regretting their choice to bring her, is sure she's going to make a mess of their apartment, but it's too late to turn back. 

Ilya wanted Shane’s parents to meet their Anya, and they had it out over whether it was a good idea considering. Ilya argued that animals were great for all people, especially the sick, and Shane snapped at him for calling his mom that and then apologized because it was true. Ilya didn’t hold it against him, just rubbed his back.

In they end they compromise. They bring Anya in the crate so if she overwhelms Shane’s mom, they can put Anya away.

Shane watches the river swim by outside the window and braces himself for more smell, and even some yelling, (though he prays Mom won’t for Ilya’s sake more than his own). His eyes flick to Ilya, once again aching for the burden this has to put on old scars, the nerves that make his fingers work on the steering wheel. He smiles when he catches Shane’s glance, takes Shane’s hand a squeezes.

At the door, Shane’s dad looks tired, wrinkled face more craggy than usual, but he’s delighted by Anya’s wet nose poking through the wire of her kennel. He sticks his fingers inside and gets licked and gently gnawed at for his trouble. Ilya sets the crate down, chest puffing out like a proud new father. Shane leaves them to see his mom, perched on the couch in a soft sweater.

Shane spots the difference in her, a slight vacancy to her expression that he has never seen from his whip smart mom. But when she sees him, she smiles brightly and Shane feels relief.

“Onii-san,” she says, smiling and Shane feels a kick in his chest.

“Mom?”

She frowns. “Our mom’s not here. She’s in Ottawa, right?”

Shane gets closer, reaches for her shoulder. “Mom, it’s me.”

She stares back, unrecognizing. Blank and odd.

He wants to give her some smelling salts, like they are players on the ice not getting enough oxygen. Her back would arch, she’d be enervated, awake again. Or maybe she just needs a shake to get her out of the funk like she is a teammate turned around by a bombarding offensive.

She glances up at him, at his towering nearness, and her eyes cloud over in uncertainty, unrecognition. Fear.

He staggers back.

Dad says, “Shane,” in a wet, aching voice that cements it all.

Shane flees, brushes past Dad and locks himself in their small, cloistered bathroom. Shane’s eyes are burning and the apartment that he carefully selected for them to live in is too small and too cramped and too miserably pathetically sad. His parents filled it with all the same things their old house used to have but it looks wrong, cramped together. The effort of trying to make a bad thing work.

“Shane?” Ilya’s voice is a whisper against the door.

Shane breathes in and out hard, leg thudding against the floor. He squeezes his eyes trying to keep the feelings in.

“Can you open the door?”

Shane thinks about it for a second before he unlocks the latch. Ilya presses his bulk inside, shutting and locking the door behind him.

“Hey, hey, what happened? What did she say?”

“Onii-san,” Shane parrots.

“What is that?”

“Brother. It’s what she called her brother.” Shane’s hands drop from his face to his side. “She doesn’t recognize me. She doesn’t remember me.”

He feels so angry, so hurt. Forgetting his career he understands because he was her hockey playing son for so many years, an identity built alongside the relationship between them. But to forget Shane all together? To forget him, her son? Hasn’t he been the most important thing in her life for years? Or at least, hadn’t she made him feel that way? Obsessing over his career and his life and smothering him with her forceful, controlling love.

And now, after decades of unrelenting pressure, she doesn’t even remember him?

“Shhh, hey, come on.” Ilya rubs his back, holding Shane’s face up with his other hand. The pinky ring rubs his jaw. “It’s just a bad day. She will remember another day.”

Shane’s voice feels high, untethered. “How long will that last though? Will she even remember our wedding? Will she even know who I am?”

Why he matters to her? Who and what she sacrificed so much of her life for?

Shane fights and fights his tears, looking hard at the ceiling even as he feels the pads of Ilya’s thumbs hovering by his waterline. Ready to catch each drop, maybe.

Ilya says, “I can tell your dad we need to leave. He'll understand.”

Shane sucks a deep breath in, swallows the burning guilt, and nods. He can’t do it, he just can’t. They shouldn’t have come today.

Ilya stands and leaves the bathroom. Shane knows he’s going to have to apologize to his dad on the phone. He already feels like shit for leaving so abruptly, but it’s just too much. He’s teetering on the edge of a total reactor meltdown.

Breaking here will only make it worse, more confusing for his mother.

He breathes through the ache of wanting her comfort, and knowing she’s incapable to provide it in one long inhale and pained exhale.

Ilya taps the door and Shane stands, opens it and darts out into the hallway. Shane tries to keep his head down, but he glances up and sees Anya sitting on his mom’s lap. She’s grinning at the dog, lavishing the dog with pets on her belly and grinning head.

She looks up at Shane recognition—

“Look, onii-san. Isn’t she cute?”

“Yeah,” Shane says, voice quiet and tight.

“Yuna,” Shane’s dad says, but he’s as choked up as Shane is. Can’t imagine there would ever be a day she can’t recognize her son in front of her. They thought they were lucky with her slow degeneration and the nametags, but it seems they’re beginning to tip over the edge into oblivion. It’s an ugly glimpse, and part of Shane feels like she may never come back after this. They’ve lost her completely today, an unassuming Saturday.

Ilya calls for Anya, saying something in Russian. Probably to get into her crate, but Anya ignores her papa in favor of getting more scratches from Shane’s mom. Shane can’t blame Anya— his mom is a professional at making people feel better. Her touch has always made Shane feel so much—

He turns away, his eyes are burning.

“I’m glad you came to see me, onii-chan.” His mom says. “You took forever to come!”

His mother’s brother died when she was twenty-seven. Motor accident on the freeway, hit and run. His grandfather said it was on purpose, that he was hit intentionally, in his general way that he distrusted people to take care of their family because of ingrained biases, but nothing was ever proved and the driver remained unidentified. Shane never talked to his mom about it, but he has hazy memories of the funeral, of how sad Mom was for a long time. Does Shane as an adult really look so much like him?

She never mentioned it before.

“They won’t let me go home right now, but I’ll be back soon,” she reassures him, a faint accusatory look at Shane’s dad. “David’s being a bit of a freak about this, but when I’m out, I’ll be back.”

Dad’s lip works, but he keeps it together remarkably well, opening Anya’s crate door wider to at least get Shane out of here, even as he traps himself alone with her.

Mom continues, “I wish Shane was here for you to see. He’s doing well,” she says. “Top of the draft—he’s going to be picked first for sure.”

“I’m right here,” Shane can’t help but say. Knows it’s useless.

His mom tilts her head. “I know. Thank you for coming by Onii-san. I know the drive is long back to Ottawa— it’s just too bad you missed Shane. He’s on the ice now. Practice, you know. He’s doing so well. Beating the pants off everyone. My little Shane. Best hockey player in the world.”

Anya licks at her face and Mom laughs, innocent and happy.

Shane is speechless at her joy. Expected anything from a bad day, including tears, but not this happiness. Why does it hurt more, almost?

“Say goodbye for now, Anya.” Ilya gives up his patience. He approaches the chair and carefully pulls Anya from Shane’s mom’s lap. Mom frowns but Ilya loads Anya into the crate and does the latch.

“We have to leave,” Ilya announces, and it makes the two Hollander men move again. Shane stumbles after Ilya towards the door, his dad following after.

“Don’t tell her she forgot me,” Shane says in the hallway.

“Shane.” His dad swallows hard, chin shaking. “She’s going to figure it out eventually.”

“I won’t be the one to tell her.”

Shane and Ilya stand outside the Alzheimer’s house in Hawkesbury. There is an open grassy area by the water, and they release Anya to run her energy out and pee before the car ride back. The weather is temperate considering the cold and yet Shane can’t really feel it.

He’s losing his mom, he realizes. He’s really losing her.

He understood it conceptually. Hated that she couldn’t keep track of her life anymore. But losing track of his, of him…

“I never thought she’d forget about me,” he admits. Sounds stupid, aloud. His mom will eventually forget about nearly everything. Of course he is part of that, not excluded.

“She didn’t,” Ilya corrects quietly. “She could not recognize you. But she did not forget. How good and talented her son is.”

“That doesn’t help,” Shane says. “What’s the point of making commissioner if she doesn’t see it?” Doesn’t see me?

Ilya’s jaw works but he stays quiet.

“What?”

“Nothing. It's good I go to therapy tomorrow, maybe. Brings some things up.”

Shane looks down at the iced-over grass. So bright and so far away it felt like. Ilya’s words only make him feel worse.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you with this. I wish I could.” Shane wishes he could support Ilya through all the feelings this brings up with his dad, but the thought is crushing. Like twisting an irritated wound.

“Sweetheart, that’s my line,” Ilya says. “I wish I could save you all of this. Is not fair.”

Anya comes running back, glossy fur bright against the drab frost scarred landscape. She launches herself at Shane’s clean black pants and for the first time he doesn’t chastise her. Instead he drops down to her level.

Shane pets Anya hard, puts his face in her dirty, damp hair. The places where his mother touched and loved, uncaring of her muddy paws.

His mom held her so close, touched her with so much love. Smiled.

His mom was still happy, right?

She smiled—

Shane’s heart hurts. He’s so glad Anya is his dog. That he and Ilya have her. To share this small thing with his mom when nothing else Shane has done means anything, at least he can bring some measure of joy to her shrinking world.

Ilya drops down carefully on his wincing knee, hand wrapping around Shane and holding him there around a wriggling, panting Anya.

The next day, Shane’s dad video calls them and Shane’s mom blinks at him, smiles.

“Who are you playing tonight, sweetie?” she asks.

Shane doesn’t correct her on anything. “San Jose Seals,” he lies, just to listen to her voice as she tells him to watch his playing because they are rough boys, to angle his stick and mind his edges, to work the corner.

He used to say I know, Mom. I’ve been watching the tapes, I know.

Now, he says, “Yeah, you’re so right. Thank you, Mom. I’ll be sure to do that.”

“Of course, honey. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Shane goes for a run that afternoon. Ilya asks if he should come with, voice low and concerned, but Shane shakes his head. He just needs space.

He doesn’t usually run in Montreal— even years later, Shane is too known, too iconic. Phones come out, people stop him, pens are put in his hand. He has peloton he makes a lot of use of, but today he needs the bracing chill. He wears a thin runners toque for some anonymity and then heads out into the cold. His high traction shoes eat the snow and ice and the work of his lungs is good. A welcome, clear burn.

Shane knows his time with his mother is limited. He’s read the literature. A 5.8-year life expectancy, depending on the severity. It’s been two years since onset, far as Shane can tell. 3.8 left, if they are lucky

Maybe Shane has been drawing away a little because of that, trying to adjust mentally to a world without his mother, without her humor, her warmth, her commanding spirit. Her overmuchness that Shane never really appreciated until he noticed it slipping away like thread from a ragged sweater. Is it odd to miss being smothered?

Shane loves his dad, is as much a product of careful, pedantic David Hollander. Even so, Shane and his mom… they were meant to know each other, is how it felt.

Mom pushed him when the hockey and the rest of the world would hardly have cared to see him succeed. She knew he could handle anything. Her faith meant everything to Shane who only ever wanted an expectation to meet, to surpass.

So close, she used to say, even as a baby with blocks that went in slots. So close, Shane! You can do it, try again.

Mom poured so much time and energy and her life into Shane who worked endlessly hard to give it back, to make it mean something.

Now, Shane is the only one who can appreciate what they’ve done together. His fingertips brushing the edge of the commissionership, he is a player for a generation of hockey, being that icon she wanted for kids who look like him.

Shane has tried to remind her. He gave his parents his four Stanley Championship ring. They sit in a case by his mother’s bedside so every day she could wake up and know she raised a winner, but that only makes him feel bitter when all she asks is about his games, who he is playing, if he is still winning. Every question just picks at that old wound, that not enough feeling.

Would five rings have made a difference? Six? Should Shane tried harder to win game six in his tenth playoffs?

He knows it’s just her asking more of him, the way he loves her for doing— but he wants to be enough at some point. Had thought the MLH commissionership might have been that enough thing.

Now, with her memory slipping in chunks, he isn’t sure anything ever will.

Hell, she looked happier petting Anya than she has discussing his life— which isn’t fair to say. But every time he sees her it just feels worse, which is what the disease does.

Shane feels a tightening ache in his side and slows his pace. His breathing has gotten all kinds of fucked up.

He slows down on the pavement, facing the wall of a brick building to hide his face from the shoppers and passersby as he breathes deep and hard.

He’s in an older part of Montreal, he realizes. Running for longer than he realized. Ilya will worry, in that quiet, wordless way of his. Not unlike Anya, in some senses, who paces and sniffles when she’s stressed. Ilya’s anxiety swells quietly, so different than Shane’s which pours from him in fits and starts, coalesces in tears and overthinking and overspeaking.

The overmuchness from his mother, maybe.

You are so easy for me Ilya had said. Only Ilya could mean that, really.

Shane thinks about trying to find the Semenov’s bodega. Maybe he can surprise Ilya with some black bread, thank him for the support…

Shane realizes that Okashi no Hamada isn’t far away either.

Shane hesitates, then turns his feet down a few streets. He smiles at a few people who wave to him, holds a hand up in acknowledgement when he gets shouted down.

People know he has family in Montreal, it’s not bad to be seen here, he reminds himself. SWNSYG…

When he’s out, he will never have to worry about whether it makes sense to be seen anywhere.

Shane reaches the front door of the sweet’s shop, a sudden rush of nostalgia sweeping as he reaches for the tall, wooden doorhandle that stretches from the top to bottom. He remembers when he could only reach the lowest part, scrapping against the heavy door, light up sneakers scrabbling to open it for his mother who laughed at him, her easy hand reaching above and wedging the gap wide for both of them to enter.

Now he opens the door easily. A greeting rings from the front of the shop, in Japanese and Quebecois.

On the small side, Okashi no Hamada doubles as a cramped store of Japanese goods and a countertop with wagashi sweets arranged in neat, beautiful squares behind glass.

He came here almost a year ago, searching for something appropriate to bring to Ilya’s house beside wine to meet his son. Flowers were his go to— but while he thought Ilya would love them, he wasn’t sure what Niko would say, (was it too gay to bring flowers?). In his desperation, Shane somehow ended up outside Okashi no Hamada.

He used to buy wagashi with his mother when they visited his grandparents. An appropriate, proper sweet to share, and a gift to soften Shane’s issues with eating so many foods his grandparents tried to provide for him. His mother always kept ginger ale on hand to help with the nausea when Shane ate too much of the wrong thing, her anxious eyes flicking between her one and only difficult son and her plainly perplexed parents.

Wagashi were the elegant, understated gift he associated with family, so he instinctually found himself buying them to meet Niko. A silly, whimsical thought. Maybe manifesting a quiet unspoken wish.

He can still feel Ilya’s thumb on his lip, touching that sweet taste.

A young woman comes around from the back. She speaks in Quebecois.

Hello. Welcome to Hamada sweets— Oh, Shane Hollander!

Shane flushes. Yeah, I’m back.

Doremi Hamada was here last time. The lone teenage worker manning the shop on a rainy overcast day. Shane liked the privacy, but today seems not to offer him the same thing.

Wait here, Grandma will want to meet you. She got so mad at me last time for not grabbing her, but she was sleeping!

Oh, that’s— ‘You don’t have to do that,’ just doesn’t sound polite no matter how he tries to make the French work decorously for him.

Doremi skips to the back, returning with an older woman, bent and tiny but extremely fastidious in her apron. Mariko Hamada’s eyes light up when she sees him.

Mr. Hollander! Welcome, welcome. Doremi-chan, get us some tea.

That’s okay, I’m just stopping by—

I insist.

Shane makes small talk about the weather until Doremi returns. He takes the tea onehanded, feeling awkward and bumbling compared to the elegant way Mrs. Hamada ferries hers with both hands.

I was just looking for a few wagashi to send my mother, Shane says, trying to get out of here as quick as possible.

Ah, Yuna! Is she well?

Shane opens his mouth, shuts it. She’s ill…

Ah. I’m sorry to hear that. Very difficult. Mrs. Hamada doesn’t say it in the wincing, sympathetic way of Shane’s coworkers, she says it simply, like a part of life.

You remember her?

Yes, yes, she used to come in all the time. Never stopped talking about her hockey son! Said he was going to be the top player. You were only eight. Mrs. Hamada grins. Well, she showed us, didn’t she? We all watched you go and go and go. She brought the jersey by after your first cup, we’re very grateful for it. Thank you ever so kindly.

Mrs. Hamada gestures to the wall and Shane blinks to see the back of a Hollander Metro jersey on the wall and the faded sharpie of his own signature. He’s stunned to find himself here, not remembering his mother mentioning it. One jersey among the many his mother put in front of him to sign, but this one hangs in the shop of his childhood in a place of pride.

You’re a hockey fan? He asks, because he can and will sign more of something.

Ah, no, not exactly. Which, Shane knows from his grandparents meant not at all.

She smiles. But many people come in and they are happy to see it. Even now, when you don’t play.

Shane swallows. He didn’t realize he was carried here too… Shane curls his fingers around his cup, the waft of barley tea.

Mrs. Hamada sips her tea and smiles. Yuna must be very proud.

Yes, he admits. She is.

Mrs. Hamada nods agreeably, of course, obvious, it implies. She helps Shane select four wagashi in the theme of the seasons to look forward to summer when we are in winter, she suggests. Mrs. Hamada boxes them neatly, paper folded tidily around in brisk gestures, shooing away Doremi when she tries to help.

Shane pays but doesn’t move from the counter. The lovely spread of sweets. He wanted to share it with Ilya, those months ago. Give him… something, he couldn’t quite explain with words. Ilya bit in, chewed, looked delighted with what Shane gave.

He really wishes weddings were different, because Shane thinks he would have liked wagashi.

Shane ends up buying a second four pack for him and Ilya to share.

Ilya almost visibly slackens in relief when Shane reenters their apartment, wagashi in hand. It’s Shane’s turn to cook, but Ilya shoos him off to shower. Ilya’s cooking has becoming familiar now, comforting in its simple satiety. Home cooking. Shane sits across from his fiancé and lets their sock-clad toes mingle, laughing when he finds a ticklish place on Ilya’s high arches.

After dinner they eat wagashi on the couch. Ilya likes the spring's white bean paste most, like Shane did as a child. Shane enjoys the richness of winter’s black sesame and autumn’s red bean the best.

Shane realizes that for all Ilya made space for Shane to bring something of his family history to the wedding (aka, nagged at Shane for pretending to like cake), Shane has hardly done the same. Only, he doesn’t even know what Russian weddings are like.

Ilya looks chagrinned when he asks.

“I did not have a Russian wedding. I was married by Marilyn Monroe and Elvis. Very American.”

Shane, despite not liking to hear anything about that production, cannot help but snort. He holds a hand to his face to try and compose himself from the idea of Ilya Rozanov at the aisle with these pop icons.

Ilya grins. “I know what you think— it's a bisexual’s fantasy.”

“I was not thinking that,” Shane protests. But needs to know to picture it fully, “70s Elvis or greaser Elvis?”

Ilya laughs hard. “Was Elvis a crush?”

“No, but there’s a difference, you know.”

“Hm, I am sure you crushed on all your captains first, not movie stars, not singers,” Ilya says. And how does he know that? Shane can’t even feign annoyance, he’s struck again by how transparent Ilya makes him feel. “Oh yes, I can imagine you. Very sweet, very adorable young player looking up to your captain, maybe glancing in the shower.”

“I never glanced in the shower,” Shane protests. His eyes might have wandered time to time, but he couldn’t stare at the tile forever. Ilya’s lips curl, the definition of delight. Remembering, maybe, Shane glancing at him…

Shane isn’t sure he lusted after his captains—didn’t have the self-awareness to let it be lust, but he definitely noticed them, wanted them to notice him. Wanted to do right by them… He got hard sometimes but all men got hard, especially at that age. Back then, it felt like pretty much anything made him hard (except, of course, his girlfriends, so who was he kidding?)

“Must have been difficult when you became captain, no one to lust after until me,” Ilya bemoans.

Shane has a fleeting fantastical thought about Ilya as his captain. God. Shane would have hated being an A or just another player, would have chafed so much at not having the control over the game, but the idea of being on the same team, using his considerable skills to earn Ilya’s delight and smacking kiss as each goal scored was for him, for the team, for all of them… All Stars was never taste enough to what they might have been. He can’t help but think Ilya would have been a good captain.

“You still didn’t answer my question about Russian weddings,” Shane says, mostly to change the subject, because he dreads Ilya prying deeper into Shane’s former captains. If he asks for names and stats, Shane might vanish from embarrassment.

Ilya lights up and goes to the storage closet where Shane keeps extraneous files and various whiteboards when he needs a visual aid. Ilya has moved a few things of his own in, it seems, and he pulls out a dusty, faded yellow box.

He doesn’t open the lid immediately. Instead, because he is Ilya, the first thing he explains about Russian weddings is the ransom. Paying the bride’s family ransom. Because she’s captive? And then there is a fake bride so he has to pay a second ransom, apparently.

Shane doesn’t totally follow, but he does love the grin that cracks over Ilya’s face as he explains the ploy, the puckish games of switching the bride around. Ilya loves a prank, the simple humor of messing with people so of course this ceremony is right up his alley.

“A man has to prove he really loves her, you know. It’s not about buying her,” Ilya reassures. “Or at least, not anymore.”

“Sure,” Shane says, a little dubiously.

“If I paid to your parents, it would be a very high ransom,” Ilya says. “And when they asked for a second ransom, it would bankrupt me,” he says, delighted. Reading Shane’s flat expression at his fantasized poverty, Ilya grins. “Or maybe you could pay ransom for me, since you are Mr. Money. Offer a very nice apartment building to rescue me.”

“Didn’t I already do that?” Shane asks, perhaps a little too literally, but Ilya’s expression glows. Well, Shane didn’t give it to Ilya’s parents, but then he wouldn’t.

“I want to show you picture of my mother’s wedding dress. Very pretty. Almost as pretty as you.”

Oh. That’s what the box is. Photos. Shane’s hands feel restless with the desire to turn the box over, spill Ilya’s life in Russia out on the coffee table of Shane’s Montreal apartment. Every secret edge and corner known by him. But Shane will be patient, temperate, will take what Ilya shares—

“Take this stack, help me look.”

Or not.

Shane takes a pile of pictures greedily and starts in. It’s not that sharing is easy for Ilya, and Shane suspects maybe casual disregard is his way around that difficulty. He takes sorting the images perfectly seriously.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of pictures of random family members that Ilya snorts through, and Shane doesn’t know if Ilya realizes how Slavic he gets when he complains about them.

Shane pauses on a picture of younger Ilya. He’s in some sort of uniform jacket, and Shane wonders if it’s the same sort of coming-of-age ceremony that happens in Japan. He flips it over to Ilya and asks when this was taken of him.

Ilya looks at the picture and then at Shane, lips twisting a little. “It's not me, it's my father.”

Fucking hell.

Shane looks down at the picture, and now he notices the signs of yellowing on the paper. But the figure is almost a spitting image of Ilya in his twenties. Maybe leaner, the blue of his eyes is off, the eyebrows a different shape. Grigory's curls are tighter, less relaxed and flowing as Ilya’s but the shape is so similar it hurts.

“Sorry,” Shane stammers.

“You must be close to the wedding pictures,” Ilya says, ignoring it coolly. “This is a glamour shot for the wedding in his police uniform.”

Sure enough, Shane cycles through a few pictures and finds a similar glamour shot of Irina Rozanov. His first reaction is shock because she is not especially pretty. Ilya swore to Shane that she was beautiful, and some part of him thought he’d find the same gorgeous charisma of her son here. Instead, her face is scrunched, mouselike. Her hair is straight and darker than her husband, her blue eyes clear, and in general there is a smallness to her, a thinness to her hands and shoulders that the white puff of dress and silver gauzy lace cannot hide.

"Isn't she beautiful," Ilya murmurs, blue eyes quietly longing. 

“How old is she here?”

“Eighteen. You cannot really tell but she is pregnant with my brother, Alexei. My father is twenty-eight,” Ilya says, easily. He brushes over the minor tragedy like it’s a fact of life. It is, of his life, and helps Shane’s numb fingers turn the next few photos to find one of them at the altar. Grigory and Irina walking hand in hand around the altar in gold crowns.

“Crown. Uh, religious thing. I don’t know the English for the ceremony. My mother loved this part of weddings most. She said the brides always looked royals. Like princesses.”

Shane is still caught in the gears of Ilya’s paternal resemblance. He doesn’t know why he expected Ilya to look like his loving mother, but he really did. They share very little in common aside from the eyes and a certain clearness of expression that Grigory lacks. Irina has glimmers of vivacity peeking between her pictures, caught only in corners, as if fretful of being captured head on from the camera.

For Ilya to look so much like his dad is...

Shane must be spending too long staring down at Grigory because Ilya sighs, shrugs a little.

“I mentioned I am glad that Nikolaj looks more like Svetlana, and it's because I loved her yes, love dark features. But I think also part of me is glad that I do not pass down my father’s genes as much, maybe. My therapist says this is like my way of killing him, psychologically. I think she is dramatic a little.”

In each quiet, half-joking word, Shane hears Ilya’s fear and paranoia of being like his father. Raging and hurting and trapping those around him. The way this entangles with his subtly alluded suicidality.

Shane doesn’t know what to say—but he relates in a sense. Shane has always been seen as his mother’s son and hardly his dad’s. He takes after her so much that it frightens him sometimes, because he has all her will but none of her grace of spirit, none of her serenity, and he has worried that he will destroy himself sometimes.

Shane doesn’t know how to say that even if Ilya inherited some looks from his father, that they are transformed by his ownership. Made wonderfully Ilya by his possession of them. How he moves his face and his kindness. His aching compassion and playfulness.

How none of what he ever accomplished has ever been as an extension of Grigory Rozanov, but pure Ilyaness despite. Shane thinks about saying this to Ilya, but he is worried Ilya might say, in that incisive way, and you are not only for Yuna Hollander. And Shane thinks that would be too hard to hear, because he has never known how to be anything else.

He says, instead,

“I noticed that Niko’s nose looks so much more like yours, you know. Since he started playing and it’s been broken a few more times.”

Ilya’s grin splits his face. “It is a good nose. Handles punching like champ.”

Shane laughs. Ilya gestures to his own crooked nose, tiger’s eye ring flashing.

“I am lucky to have you to help with my Nika.”

“Ilya, you have already thanked me a hundred times for the car thing.”

“No, I mean. You know, as a parent.”

Shane’s mouth goes dry. He doesn’t know what to say. “I’m not a parent, he’s an adult.”

“As support in his life,” Ilya reframes it fecklessly, uncaring of Shane’s very valid quibble. “I did not think of this when we start dating. No, I am selfish. I was just thinking to get you into my life and hopefully Nikolaj will accept this relationship. I aim too small. First time for me, I think. Because instead, he loves his bisexual papa, and now he has you too—”

“Ilya, I’m not—"

“Parent. Okay. Whatever. Point is, you are teaching him. You are helping him feel better. Understand topics I cannot help with as a white man. Our Nika is so lucky to have you in his life.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

“You cannot call him my Nika, or our Nika,” Shane says, immediately spiraling, because if Niko hears… Shane doesn’t know but he is certain it ends with Niko scoffing and Shane imploding.

Ilya is steady, with that same look on his face, Slavic and dismissive, whatever. Semantics.

“But the rest is okay, yes?”

What can Shane say? He feels overwhelmed, he never planned on having a kid. Does not have a kid. But he does have Niko in a sense. And Ilya. Anya. A family of sorts. He never really thought he’d ever have any more of that than he already had. Shane, Yuna, David, the three Hollanders. All of it was supposed to end with him, but…

“Yeah.” His voice feels hoarse. “The rest is fine.”

The next day Shane’s dad sends him a picture of his mother with the delivered wagashi. She wears a blue Montreal Hollander jersey. Grinning in that toothy way Shane sees in old pictures of the two of them on the ice when he was young.

Ilya has to hold Shane for a long, long time as he tries desperately to stop the tears from slipping down his face, because who can cry with their mother smiling like that?

Chapter End Notes

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i love engaging in the comments section because it gives me so many ideas and different avenues to understand the character. it really helps my writing/editing process! thank you for the patience with my responses. we have added close to 20k to this fic and i can only blame/thank you all.

more will still be out soon so fear not!

(every time i see a picture sharing moment in fic and irina rozanov is a beautiful tragic mirror of ilya i shake my head and go, chance wasted!!! you all are welcome to throw tomatoes at me. i like a salad.)

Chapter 10: shane is aspiring

Chapter Notes

Telling Cliff Marleau is an odd experience. Firstly, because Shane really never got to know Marleau. They were both French-speaking Canadians, but Marelau was always gruff, outgoing, loud, a club crawler. All tacky things Shane privately disliked. They never played on the same team, not even for All-Stars, which is something of a marvel for their lengthy careers.

Sure, one time Marleau cross checked him so hard that Shane was out for the rest of the season, but aside from a hey this is marleau, my bad for real dude text, they had never exchanged personal words.

He follows Marleau as a coach and has respected the way he got results from the Metros, but even then, he doesn’t know anything specific about how the coach really is as a person. Just words from Niko about the locker room, about the ghost of the toxic hockey culture Shane remembers too well still echoing up the MLH work ladder. The amount of complaints in the Metro’s stall is honestly disquieting, but they are an original franchise. Shane isn’t so naïve to lay all the blame at Marleau’s feet— though he is certainly partially culpable.

The second reason this meeting is odd is because unlike telling Niko, Ilya asks Shane to come with him when he tells Marleau.

“He already knows I am a bisexual man and seeing someone. It's better if you can explain what we want, I think. In terms of support.”

Ilya is right, Shane has a very specific vision with very specific wording. Still…

That also means showing the man Ilya is bisexual with is him.

Shane feels his posture tightening, all of the everything he doesn’t know swirling anxiously in his chest. This will be the first person he’s told he’s gay. Everyone else he’s spoken with has already known he was gay, just didn’t know it was gay for Ilya. But Marleau… Marleau will be a good litmus test for how the wider, straighter hockey world might react.

When Shane and Ilya tell Marleau in the living room of his house, the current coach of the Montreal Metros opens his mouth, shuts it, points at Shane like he's seeing double.

Shane braces himself for the same questions him? Really? Your enemy? When, how, why did this start? You were hockey players, did you give away our fucking secrets man??? etc.

Marleau says, “Did you fucking tell him about me fucking my teammate’s brother?”

Shane goggles. Holy shit. What is he saying? What is he talking about??

Then a passing memory hits Shane like a coke can thrown off the freeway. This is who Ilya was talking about that time in bed??? If someone told you that they fucked their teammate’s brother, is that something I follow up on? Ilya asked. Shane thought it was just a shitty roundabout way to introduce some roleplaying. Ilya was literal?

Ilya rubs his face. “No.”

Shane stammers. “I— he mentioned a story— but never said who.”

“Oh.” Marleau goes quiet.

“That was you?”

Shane tries to process this curveball, looks at Ilya. Is he trying to come out too?

Ilya makes a scything gesture across his neck and Shane clamps his mouth shut.

“You will support us when the time comes,” Ilya says, mercifully moving the conversation on. More of a statement than a request.

“Support how?” Marleau asks, and if he gets tired of working with the Metros, Shane can suggest a career in hockey politics because that is a noncommittal line worthy of some of Shane’s office colleagues.

“Support in saying you support me and Shane,” Ilya says simply. Ilya looks to Shane who nods, massages the point.

“You say that you’re proud of us speaking out,” a very key angle considering how many fans may come out of the creases asking why do we need gay news in our sports, regardless of whether Ilya and Shane are long retired. “That you think this will benefit hockey in the long run. Also that you wish us well.” That last part is just nice.

“So, I support the gay stuff.”

“Yes.”

“Is that a problem?” Ilya asks, menacing like a rough rookie all over again.

Marleau rolls his head. Not a yes. Certainly not a no either.

“I don’t know,” he muses. “Could be. Politics and sports, you know.”

Ilya takes a short, choppy breath. Shane can feel his anger radiating.

Shane smothers his own spike of irritation. The casual above it all way Marleau considers the issue. As if this is something that has nothing to do with him (fucking his friend’s brother aside). Shane will have to show that this is not the case.

Shane puts a hand on Ilya’s wrist, looks forward at Marleau.

“Did you like Theriault?” Shane asks.

Marleau blinks. “Him? Well, yes. I mean, he was a legendary coach—”

“No, I mean did you like him?”

“Hockey isn’t about like. We can’t all be Hayden Pike. Some of us have to win.”

“You are not going to win if you cannot keep players in your pen. Players who would otherwise stay leave because of the shitty conditions,” Shane points out. Ilya twitches next to him at this oblique mention of Niko but stays still. Trusts Shane.

“Hockey cannot stay the same forever,” Shane says. Marleau’s eyes dart to Shane, knowing his positioning in the head office. Yes, in the run for Commissioner. Probably the number one seed. Being gay will make the game much harder, but he’s still up there. Is still a possibility.

And maybe Marleau has played against Shane enough to know not to count him out of a race too quickly.

He was a bit of a cunt, Theriault, no? Marleau says in Quebecois, conceding and conspiratorial. Shane huffs.

Understatement.

I know word! Ilya crows. Cunt, he says proudly.

When the hell did you start learning French? Marleau demands, laughing.

Hot man. I learn anything.

Marleau has a good time chirping Ilya for the French, asks about Niko and the carjacking. They wrap up their coffee meeting and Marleau makes it explicit.

“Would be a little hypocritical of me not to help, no?” Marleau says, self-deprecating and plainly unbothered, only teasing about his one-time man-fucking behaviour. “Crazy about you being gay but it does explain some shit, eh?”

Shane tenses. Crazy, huh. He’ll take the win if he can. Let Marleau align his values with Shane’s even if it is only on the off-chance of Shane becoming commissioner and remembering Marleau very favourably during his long and prosperous reign.

“You’re going to have an uphill battle though, with Troy Barrett being the last one to come out in retirement, you know.”

“Marly, you are so fucking stupid. Why would you even mention that?” Ilya groans. Marleau shrugs his shoulders.

“Just want you to watch out for yourself, man.”

The worst part is Shane suspects it is true. It doesn’t make the reminder of Troy Barrett, the once star forward of Toronto and former detainee of Ottawa-Carleton detention center any easier to stomach.

In the car, Ilya has a death grip on the wheel.

“You okay?”

“He compares us to Troy Barrett. What the fuck. We are not drinking alcoholic players who beat that rapist Dallas Kent so hard he is almost dead. That is fucked.”

Shane remembers the events during his 2025 season, the shock at the spiral, and then the gut clenching anxiety several years later when Troy was released from jail and part of his public statement included the words I’m gay.

Shane thought, as he often thought at the time, I can never come out because of this.

“We’re not like him. People won’t make those comparisons.” Shane has made a study of his statement and is avoiding any incidental comparisons. Truthfully, comparisons were already made on social media when Ilya came out, but mostly it was observations of there being a lot of "gay" hockey players. Someone tagged Ilya asking if he thought Troy's repression and lack of support system was to blame, but Shane knew the whole situation was just a tragedy wrapped in another tragedy.

“Marly knows me well and he did.” Ilya scoffs. “And he did not… He did not say yes for right reasons.”

Shane rubs Ilya’s right arm as it strangles the gear shift.

“He is my friend,” Ilya says eventually. “Does not give a shit. Just about his career. But it’s my life. Our life. He…” Ilya shakes his head. “I thought he was a better man.”

Shane understands the disappointment… but also understands Marleau, oddly. Not everyone has the luxury of working for an academic institution with manifold protections. Marleau has to balance his answers to the GM and even to Langstrom. His livelihood is on the line. And he reacted just as Shane hoped he would— with fear and respect for what Shane could do to him.

Ilya is rattled by this revelation of character but Shane? Shane is almost relieved, as terrible as it is to think. Relieved that he was right about his doubts and right about how to handle it. That meeting was a success… just not emotionally.

Though, it was also surprising.

“Do you think he is gay? Or bi?”

A laugh cracks Ilya’s face and he grips Shane’s hand, squeezes it. His eyes shine as he glances over at him.

“Sweetheart, I love you. You work on building your gaydar, no? But it's a bit of a gimme when a man says he fucked another guy.”

Shane humphs. “Do you?”

Ilya shrugs. “He is nothing until he decides he is. A little like you. We fucked long time before you thought maybe you are a little baby bit gay.”

“Fuck off,” Shane says, flushing. Even if it is true. He remembers the feeling so well. Of being sure he wasn’t gay, just doing things that felt good. It was a safe cocoon of ignorance. A little shocking to think back on though. The false surety next to the real certainty he felt after his conversation with Rose. Stark and clear, painful but cleansing. Like standing in the sun after a long cloudy winter.

“We really let people in that much denial into… into huge positions of power,” Shane murmurs. Ilya looks at him, amused. “Thank God I was never in that much denial.”

Ilya hums. “Yes, you are a very brave man.”

“Rose is a brave woman,” Shane corrects. “I wouldn’t have known without her pushing me.” Ilya goes a little still.

“You're talking to her soon?" he says.

“Yeah. I’m gonna drop by her production house. She’s finally back from filming in Malta. Give out the first invitation card.”

Ilya nods, as if unbothered. But when they get home, Ilya digs through Shane’s toy drawer, glancing through each one until he selects the anal beads. He feeds them into Shane, pulling them out in long, slow pulls, a popping that sends shivers down Shane’s spine.

“Did she ever do this for you?” Ilya asks.

“What?” Ilya is lucky that Shane is even capable of language after being edged.

“Did Rose Landry ever fuck you like this?”

Shane wants to laugh and cry. Ilya cannot be jealous of Rose this many years later. “Let the tuna melt go!”

Ilya pokes another bead inside in such a way that scrapes long and hard against Shane’s prostate and he moans.

“Did she look good with a strap-on?”

“I will kill you, Ilya.”

“Maybe I will wear one, fuck you twice.”

Shane groans at the idea. Jesus fuck, he’d be so spread, so fucking gaping after that. Sore like the best workout. Ilya’s ears perk up like a dog.

Ilya picks his purple dildo of course he does, and after a lot of stretching, pokes both heads in.

Shane has surpassed fulness into an area of so much muchness that he thinks he might explode from all that Ilya gives.

Shane drops by In Distress production studios. Rose, of all Shane’s friends, is one of the few people he has been able to keep up with because of her New York office. He’s a familiar face around, gets waved in by the receptionist without even having to say his name.

Rose expanded to producing first before branching into directing with the force of a fully operating development house with an Oscar nomination under its belt. Apparently, men in Hollywood far prefer Rose as a damsel over being a director, but that has only made her grin brighten, sharpen a bit. If they’re feeling shitty, then I’m where I should be, right?

Shane saw her last piece, an indie film with a lot of ocean shots and voice over. He’s not sure he could say very much about it, other than that he liked it and felt sad without really being able to vocalize why.

Rose graduated from cute to cool with age, a transition so smooth Shane is honestly jealous of it. He thinks he’s only gotten stiffer in some ways. Rose just wears black these days, but her makeup is eyepoppingly pink and her hair looks fiery and strong in contrast. She flings her arms wide when she sees him.

“Shane!”

He hugs her tight, yelps when he feels her hand pinch his thigh.

“Geez, are you bulking or what?”

Shane shrugs, smiles. He’s had to size up his wardrobe. Too tight in his thighs and shoulders. It was a happy moment, only doubled when Ilya bragged about dropping another kilo.

“Something like that. How was Malta?”

“I almost had a mutiny from my 1AD.” Rose laughs, explains about how the 1AD was in dialogue with the distribution company and was genuinely trying to oust Rose as the director until she showed the dailies to the company head and shut everyone up. Shane, in his own corporate hell, can only respect the game. He tells her so and she laughs.

“It’s because the film’s based on this stupid popular book. Too much money involved. I’m never adapting anything again, too much pressure.”

“You like pressure.”

“Of course. But I hate having to fire people for trying to oust me, y’know?”

Shane laughs. Rose’s eyes sparkle when she grins and she asks him what’s new with him.

Shane looks down. What isn’t new with him? A new engagement. New neighbours. New Nika. New, new, new. Ilya is like that, a green thriving thing in his life, sprawling and spreading vines everywhere without care. Once caught and frozen in winter, now Shane wants only to pour more water, to let Ilya drive his roots deep into Shane and never let go.

“Everything,” he says eventually. “I’m getting married.”

“Oh my God, Shane! Who’s the lucky guy.”

“Ilya Rozanov.”

Rose’s mouth opens, her mind searching. “Isn’t that the guy… your hockey rival?”

Shane looks down at the table. “It was always Ilya. That guy, the one I told you about back then. It was him.”

Rose listens to the whole story, hands folded under her chin, like she’s seeing the movie of them in her mind until he stalls in 2017. “So, I was your rebound, good to know.”

“Not a rebound,” Shane stammers.

“A port of denial?” she suggests, and he has to pick between laughing and scowling and somehow does both.

“We ended up reconnecting after you and I… But yeah. It didn’t last back then.”

“What happened? Why did you split up?”

Shane bites his cheek. “We were both too afraid, I think. And he…” Shane wrestles with his desire for fairness, but he trusts Rose more than anyone else with his feelings. She has proven time and time again that she is safe and a hell of a lot wiser than him.

“The president made that shitty call out about deporting him,” Shane says.

“Oh, I remember that,” Rose says. “That guy was the fucking worst.”

“Ilya was really scared—he, uh, married his childhood friend for a green card.”

“Oh,” Rose says. Shane can see her trying to make it make sense of how she feels. Understanding battling with but he should have married you, right?

“Without telling me,” Shane finally finishes.

“Oh shit. Shane. That’s so fucked up.”

“He said it was just for the green card, that he still wanted to be with me.”

“But you didn’t want to be with him anymore? I mean, I get it.”

Shane grapples. It’s not that he didn’t want to be with Ilya anymore, it was never that. It was like, he couldn’t afford to be. Couldn’t handle the risk of being hurt in a way he couldn’t recover from.

That Shane’s pride could not survive being second in Ilya’s life. Which is funny, because Shane is now second in Ilya’s life, and he feels completely different about it now. Niko is worth coming in second for. Shane understands it in the way he was first in his mom’s life over his dad. To see Ilya do the same is almost comforting and familiar. A credit to his character.

But being second to Svetlana…

“He ended up having a kid with her, their marriage became real.”

Rose frowns. “What the hell? Was he lying then?” Her face betrays her concern. Is this good that you’re back together?? it asks.

“Oh, no,” Shane clarifies, “This was like three years later. During that time he was trying to talk to me at games, hook up, calling me drunk nonstop. It was a whole thing.”

Rose stops there. Her brow furrows. “Wow. That’s… a long time to be hung up on an ex.”

“We never dated,” Shane clarifies. “We weren’t like ex’s. We weren’t anything, really.” And she just looks even sadder for both of them.

“He must have really loved you.”

“Yeah.” What else could Shane say? That he now wonders what would have happened if he did respond to any of those calls, but pride and hurt wouldn’t let him? It’s too late, all of it is too late.

Shane swallows over the emotion in his throat. It’s always so hard to get this deep in his feelings. Doesn’t think he could do it with anyone else but someone he’s close to. It’s just so flaying, makes his eyes feel so wet.

A pink painted hand reaches for his and squeezes. She’s been married twice already, once in Italy and once in Jamaica. Both ceremonies were beautiful and both divorces were messy, and last time they met, before Malta, she told him she wanted to try marrying herself and her work. He laughed at her, said she was pulling a him. She laughed too, said she was about to be the Shane Hollander of the directing world. Now, here they are, and it’s like they have switched roles in the play. He thinks she makes an amazing career woman and he makes a clumsy romantic, but he wants to dedicate himself to the part, to learn his lines and hit each mark better than the last.

“Well, that’s why you’re together now, right? I can’t wait to meet Ilya. I love second chance loves.”

“You know he’s still jealous of you?” Shane says to lighten the mood.

Rose guffaws. “What? He knows you’re gay right.”

“Oh, he knows.”

Rose laughs, then gets a little quiet. “Are you… do you feel that way about his ex-wife?”

Oh. Oh. “She’s dead. That’s sort of why we’re…”

Rose opens and shuts her mouth. It’s fair. Shane doesn’t really know what to do about it either. Rose doesn’t ask again, seeming to think the jealousy topic closed, because Svetlana Rozanov is dead.

Shane can’t help but think, I am. Even now. More jealous than anyone. Of a dead woman. At first it was simple, because I was on the outside, trying to break in to be with him. I ached for him. But now that I’m going to marry him too, there is nothing else I can do but compare myself. It only gets harder, not easier, the deeper I get and the more I love Ilya Rozanov.

He lets Rose compassionately change the topic, lead it to a wedding shower and a stag night and whether she can organize both between making her next film.

Shane laughs and hands her the first wedding invitation on embossed cardstock, asking her to save the date. It’s right to give her the first one, not just because of her hectic schedule, but because so much of this would not be possible without her kindness. So much of Shane would not be without her kindness.

Traveling home on the train, lights passing over his face, Shane thinks he might have been like Cliff Marleau, stuck repeating bad habits in hockey, lingering overlong on a memory of a single, long hot night in another man’s bed— if not for Rose Landry in his life.

Chapter End Notes

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okay i might take a wee break because half of me wants this story out IMMEDIATELY, and the other half is like do it right. debating what chapter should come next but FAITH either way will give you all something to chew on.

rose's experience getting ousted is based on coppola's attempt at filming and adapting a little movie called the godfather.

thank you for the support!!!

Chapter 11: shane is disagreeing

Chapter Notes

“This is… nice,” Niko says from the backseat of the car. His bemused gaze suggest he feels anything but charmed. Shane squints out at the sleepy city of Hawkesbury, trying to see what an eighteen-year-old could really critique about it, but only comes to the conclusion that an eighteen-year-old could more or less critique anything.

“Nika, it's not a party spot for punk teenagers. It’s a retirement place,” Ilya says.

“Hawkesbury has a balanced night life,” Shane argues, because he had read plenty about the area before suggesting it to his parents and there were several highlights—

Ilya blows a laugh from the side of his mouth, moves it into a cough by the time Shane glances flatly over.

Shane remembers when they broached meeting Shane’s parents with Niko. He's out for two weeks for a hairline fracture in his hand and trundled back home to moan to Ilya, determined to be taken care of as much as Ilya was determined to take care of him. They were both bafflingly loud and complainy about hating the whole thing, but they seemed to enjoy the whining as much as the time together.

Shane likes Niko for all they've been through together, but admittedly Niko's gotten a bit worse since his New York adventure. Apparently, chasing a carjacker and then being photographed with Shane Hollander in the club is the real rehab his image needed, because the rest of the hockey guys worship the ground he walks on. It’s made Niko a little more abrasive, a little louder, if Shane is honest.

Was Shane ever that arrogant? Surely no. He told Ilya so yesterday, and earned a laugh.

“Mr. ‘That’s-not-going-to-happen’ at World’s Juniors?”

“That wasn’t arrogance,” Shane defended. Was it? It wasn’t quite humble, he can admit now.

“No? So was it flirting?”

“Fucking absolutely not.”

“Hmmm, too bad. I thought it was hot.”

“You know what it was?” Shane said, ignoring Ilya’s provoking words and his hands on Shane’s hips. “It was you bringing out the worst in me.”

It sounded like an insult, and Shane frowned. Sometimes his words did that. Were so blunt they read differently than he meant them to. He can’t always correct them, but luckily, Ilya seemed to read his meaning, arched a brow gamely.

“You blame me?”

“I have eight Lady Byng trophies.”

“Only because they do not know how of an big an asshole you are,” Ilya chuffed. “I am being a louder asshole so no one notices who bigger asshole is. Should give me a big thank you.”

“Fuck off.” Because it wasn’t close to being true. Shane dropped his weight on Ilya who groaned, basically ceding the fight as Shane rode his dick into oblivion.

Shane turns away from the memory of last night, as they pull up outside the Hawkesbury House entrance and get out of the car.

Niko hits his vape outside while Anya runs free. Apparently Niko’s trying to quit smoking after Shane sent him several articles (then videos, when those links weren’t getting clicked) and mentioned his and Ilya’s differing running stats. Ilya was highly offended (“I am used to weights!”), but mulishly grateful that Shane convinced him to try quitting.

Ilya eyes the vape hungrily, even though he critiques it constantly for looking ridiculous. It’s the sense memory, the process of smoking, the comfort of holding a cigarette, that Shane suspects he misses most. His thumb is rolling the place where his old wedding ring sits and Shane looks away.

“Remember everything I tell you, Nika,” Ilya says, and he sounds serious.

“I remember, I remember.” Niko pockets the vape and helps Ilya kennel Anya as they go inside.

Shane swallows, wonders what all Ilya mentioned. His mother’s smell, her forgetfulness, her accusations? All of the above? Niko will never be anything more than a stranger to her, no more memorable than the nurses she remembers maybe half the time.

It’s not fair to Niko to bring him here, but Shane is so grateful anyway. This will mean the world to his dad.

“Thanks for coming, Nika,” Shane says eyes down, as he writes Niko on the nametag at the front desk. The front desk worker gawps, and Niko winks at her. Shane knows it’s hypocritical, but Niko looks like such a child that it makes an uneasiness swell in his stomach to imagine him 'out in the world.'

Ilya looks unphased as they walk away, drawls, “Wow, you are famous. Not bad for boy cut from U-12.”

“Shut up. Shane doesn’t need to hear about that,” Niko protests.

“What happened?”

“Nika tried to set his hockey jersey on fire because they did not give him his papa’s number.” Ilya smirks angelically.

“Well, the coach is probably eating his puck now,” Shane says, mild. Ilya raises an amused brow, as if to say you do not need to help his confidence level.

Niko looks increasingly smug. “Probably choking on his stick.”

“Nika,” Ilya warns.

“Sorry, habit.” He looks a little chagrined at the gay joke, but not as distraught as he would have been if he said it right after finding out. Shane decides it’s probably a… good sign, all said. Progress that they are all working on this together. Or something. (He'll never get teenagers.)

They arrive outside Shane’s parents’ unit, a little hockey-themed wreath on their door.

Shane’s dad opens after one knock, pulling Shane in for a tight hug. Shane returns it, steps back and groans.

“What are you wearing?”

Dad grins, turns around, revealing a solid blue jersey with gold accents. ROZANOV is spelled on the top.

“Oh, no. Dad. Please,” Shane begs.

Niko strangles a laugh in his throat, Ilya thumps his back and he gets it under control.

“What, we’re watching the Blades game right? You must be Niko!” David says, reaching out for a shake to his unsplinted hand. "How is that healing?"

“Uh, good. Nice to meet you,” Niko says, bewildered and amused by Shane’s goof of a dad. God but Shane’s parents are kind of the worst.

In the living room, Shane is at least braced for Mom to be wearing the same terrible jersey.

“Hi, Honey.”

Her eyes glaze over as she looks at Ilya and Niko. Confused about Niko, definitely unhappy to see Ilya.

“What is Rozanov doing in my house?”

“Holy shit,” Niko mutters.

Ilya coughs, and Shane kisses his face, takes his hand. “Ilya is my fiancé mom.”

He sees her processing. Her anger wars with her need to have the upper hand and she shrugs.

“Right. I knew that.”

“We brought Anya,” Ilya says, setting the kennel down. Anya springs free, darting around the room, investigating. Mom’s smile lights up at the dog. Doesn’t matter if she remembers Anya, does it? Anya doesn’t have to do any work to be liked.

Mom coos, holding out her hand and Anya eagerly leaps the invitation onto the couch, which she is normally not allowed onto when Shane is around.

“How are you, Shane?” Mom asks, rubbing hard on Anya’s back, earning leg drumming, tongue out pleasure for her trouble.

“I’m good, happy to see you.” He hugs her, hopes she enjoyed the wagashi he sent. Knows better than to ask if she remembers getting them. She must have enjoyed eating them in the moment and that has to be enough for him.

“Niko, we’ve been watching your season, it’s been a good one, eh?” Dad says. “Tough hit last game, but you were pounding that number eighteen pretty hard all leading up.”

“Oh, thanks. Yeah,” Niko says. Perplexed, probably, that Shane’s parent are his fans. He must know it’s not their actual team, that no born Canadian would ever support Buffalo. This really just is because he is the kid of the man Shane is gone on. Ugh.

“What do you like to drink? Any dietary things we should know?”

“Coke is fine,” Niko says. "I eat whatever."

“We'll cook tonight,” Ilya says. “Niko and I made something to share.” Shane lowers his backpack which has all the thawing, frozen pelmeni Ilya and Niko made the night before with the Semenovs, sipping hot drinks and complaining at the TV the whole time in Russian, father and son spitting images of each other. Shane helped with the folds, but he was a little too stringent with the amount of meat he ladled in, and he was consigned to sit at Ilya’s side and eat the results as taste tester— as if Ilya did not make special ones for Shane without the squishy onion. 

They made plenty to share with Shane’s parents.

“That’s terrific of you both, can’t wait,” Dad says, getting misty eyed over absolutely nothing. Niko looks appropriately unsettled, but Shane can’t do anything about that.

Ilya waves it off, goes to the kitchen and starts setting things up. He comes back and hands Niko a coke and Shane a Perrier. Niko fidgets on the couch as Shane’s dad grills him pleasantly on his life in New York, if he has any hobbies, gosh they’re glad he was alright after the carjacking, any special girl or boy in his life? Niko lasts an impressively long time before he offers to go help his papa plate up the food.

Shane’s dad sighs when he goes, like he was the one nervous with Niko around.

“Good kid,” Dad says, almost nonsensically, because he barely knows Niko. Shane agrees though. His dad eyes him up. “Having an alright time with him? Stepping in as a parent has gotta be hard.”

“I’m not really his parent,” Shane says, also to assuage the total bewilderment in his mom’s eyes, because yes, he is still the childless gay son she’s always had, and it’s not considerate of his father to be confusing her.

“If you say so. Still, tricky spot with him and his mom." 

Shane grits his teeth. "Can we not talk about them while they're in the other room?"

"Okay, okay. Just saying it might do some good to talk to someone about it for support. You know, like a therapist or something.”

Shane can’t bite back his groan this time.

“What?”

“I’m tired of everyone suggesting that I go see a therapist,” Shane says, fighting to keep his tone down. Niko does not need to hear about his mental health, Mr. doesn’t-everyone-have-a-therapist?

“What do you have against it? You’re the one who suggested your mother and I see someone.”

Yes, because the book promoted that therapy might help couples coping with Alzheimer's in the early phases (and it has). Admittedly only his dad attends now because it confuses Mom too much. His dad reminding him of that makes Shane wonder if maybe everyone except him does see a therapist, which really only makes him feel worse, thanks.

“I don’t need to tell a stranger all my problems, that won’t help me. It stresses me out just thinking about it,” Shane says, and he feels his heartbeat rising.

“Shane, calm down. It’s alright.”

“You should already know this. Mom took me to see one once and it was— it didn’t— It was terrible.”

“She what?” Dad asks, disbelieving. “No, she didn’t.”

“Yes, she did! I don’t remember what we talked about but it…” Shane’s stomach twists at the memory, the shame. The tight clench of his mother’s hands on the wheel. “She would tell you if she remembered; that the therapist was shit.”

“It was a psychologist,” Mom says. “Not a therapist.”

Shane and his dad’s head snap to her. Her eyes are down, hands buried in Anya’s hair.

“What? Why did you take me to a psychologist?” Shane half expects her to blink at him, to wonder what he’s asking about, but her eyes are crystal clear.

She says, “I took you to try and get an autism diagnosis.”

Shane’s jaw drops. “What? What the fuck? You think I’m autistic.”

“Oh honey,” she says, sighing.

Shane looks at his dad for support, because she must have really lost it— but his dad only looks guilty.

"You too?!"

“I didn’t know you got him tested,” Dad murmurs.

“He didn’t find any proof, right?” Shane demands, because that is the only explanation that makes any fucking sense for why his parents are saying autistic to his face.

“He said that ‘kids like you’ are normally a little hyper-focused, good at academics, struggle socially.”

“But I… I wasn't great at academics.” Shane blinks. 

“I tried to tell him it was hockey, that you were waking me up at six am to play and sleeping with your sticks, hell you wouldn't go to school for three years without one!" Shane blushes at the memory but that wasn't fair. It just took him a while for his inherited stubbornness to be outmatched by the harsh judgement of his peers. He just didn't know how to act normal yet, but that didn't mean he was autistic. Everyone had to be taught.

His mom goes on, caught in a memory, and the anger makes her face warm and familiar. "That asshole doctor just blinked at me, said physical sports weren’t really autistic coded and maybe my inability to feed you half the time was because you were too picky. And when I pressed it, he asked, 'oh but you're sure he's not academic? Not even math?' Some people are fucking idiots,” she repeats, in an impressive show of selective memory. 

Shane rubs his face. That’s not nice to know about the racist doctor but… “You never said anything. About you thinking I was…” God, he can’t even say it. Hasn’t he heard it enough as a chirp all throughout his youth? What are you, fucking autistic?

“We thought it might distract you,” Dad says. “Make you feel worse.”

"I do feel worse." So there’s that.

Mom scoffs. “It’s not like we could get any support from infrastructure without a diagnosis anyway.”

“Yuna.”

“What? God knows I tried! Even though my mom was pissed at me for even mentioning it don’t you know it’ll make him more of an outsider, she said. Don’t you know they’ll never accept him if he’s damaged. She could be so fucking mean sometimes. My Shane is fucking perfect.”

Damaged. Fuck. Shane can't handle this. He can't handle staring at his parents who both definitely believe that he, Shane Hollander, is fucking autistic. Socially awkward, hyper focused, blunt, weird, damaged—

He feels his eyes burning, that overwhelmed feeling rising in his throat.

His parents watch the edges of his freakout sympathetically.

Jesus, are meltdowns one of the symptoms???

“Sorry, honey,” his mom says.

“I can’t talk about this right now, we have guests,” Shane says, scraping for control. "Just, be normal. Please."

He needs to be somewhere else, like now.

Shane pauses outside of the kitchen, pressing against his eyes. He enters when he feels placid and calm. Opaque like good ice.

...Opaque to anyone who isn’t Ilya Rozanov. Ilya takes one look at him over his two boiling pots and says something short in Russian to Niko whose eyebrows go up. Niko looks at Shane and beats a sullen retreat back outside to the living room. Thank god he’s gone, Niko’s out-of-pocket questions are the last thing he needs.

Ilya's knack for knowing only makes his walls crumble, and his attempt at pretending the topic never came up vanishes like steam, replaced with a kind of righteous outrage. 

“What happened? What did she say?” Ilya sidles close to Shane, cups his face.

Shane stares hard back.

“Do you think I’m autistic?”

Ilya opens his mouth. Shuts it. “I do not think there is a good way for me to answer this question. Feels like a trap?”

“Fucking fuck,” Shane says.

“Autistic is word that means what I think it means,” Ilya tries, scrambling. “Then I think. Maybe. I did not think about it before, but maybe explains why you hate potatoes and crunchy so much. Food is part of it, no?” He pets Shane's face like a little touch might make his honest words easier to stomach.

Shane steams, irate and without an outlet. “Was anyone going to fucking tell me they thought this?”

Ilya raises both hands to say woah, I cannot do anything here.

Shane forces himself to calm down and he quickly explains what his parents said.

“Wow,” is all Ilya says. “Can you take this plate outside?”

“That’s all? This is big stuff!”

“Maybe,” Ilya says. “It's just a word to describe you. Don’t know enough to be sure, do we? Need to do reading.”

Reading. Yes, Shane needs to buy a book, maybe three. He’s walking into this without enough ammo, just the suspicions of parents who have always been too coddling and a boyfriend pointing out his longstanding food pickiness. How much is that really to go on?

He narrows his eyes, nods. Ilya kisses the side of his face, pats Shane’s ass which is more grounding than it should be.

“I’m not autistic,” Shane says, just to say it.

“Okay. I believe you. Now go, pelmeni are getting cold.”

Shane goes to the table, but his dad and Niko both wheedle and whine to eat on the couch because the pre-game is already on.

Shane is flummoxed, feels like the oldest person in the room when they ask him, and can only agree because it’s not even his house. He hands out three plates for them. Mom frowns, looks like she wants to say no, but Dad tells her loudly that this is food Ilya and Niko made special for them. He then reminds her that Ilya is Shane's fiancé before she can make dry quips about poisoning Shane to win the cup. 

Fiancé cooking is apparently enough for his mom to pick up the pelmeni and eat.

Ilya soon joins them, curling around Shane just as the game between the Buffalo Blades and the Ottawa Centaurs starts.

It takes no time at all for Shane’s mom to start in on the players. “That was shit. Puck hog. Buffalo should have passed.”

Niko glances at her, off-balance. That was his team she was criticizing.

“Forgive my wife. She chirps worse than the players,” Dad says so fondly.

“Ignore her,” Shane echoes.

“Bad puck possession. The Cens are going to score with their next line if the Blades don’t tighten up. It’s a bad match with the defense—does number eight look stiff to you? He’s not at 100%. Looks like ankle issues, unless his edges are always so shit.”

Niko stares at Shane, an insulting tilt to his head that seems to say I thought you said she was brain dead?

Shane politely glances away. His mom has good days, bad days, but there is always hockey, it seems. Always the Boston Bears. At least, for Ilya’s sake, that’s not who the Buffalo Blades are playing against.

Shane looks down at his carefully made plate of food. He has the augmented pelmeni to avoid his hatred of shitty cooked onion texture; the taste is fine, raw onion is good if it’s not too crisp, but Ilya made cauliflower and beef for Shane so he can even swallow it.

Autistic. Fucking autistic.

There’s no way, right?

Shane takes out his phone, texts Hayden.

Me: Do you think I’m autistic?

No answer. Hayden must be working, tidying up from losing his game earlier today.

“That’s fucking dirty,” Niko says, when Miller, his replacement center, gets hooked. The whistle isn't blown despite Miller's wounded production. 

“Nika,” Ilya warns, lowly.

“Fucking blind ass ref,” Mom agrees, and Ilya goes quiet, flummoxed, clearly more out of his depth as a “good fiancé” than Niko is as a puck head. Niko and Shane’s mom bounce filthy commentary off each other. Shane’s dad just sighs, happy and content as a man can be, eyes falling shut to listen to the music of them.

“That left-winger needs to fix his fucking edges, eh?”

“That’s my teammate,” Niko says. "I play with Buffalo."

“Well your teammate needs to fix his fucking edges, eh?” Mom repeats, without missing a beat. Niko rocks in his crossed-legged spot on the floor, laughing hard.

Their first meeting could certainly be going worse, but having these two blunt hockey freaks in a room will take some getting used to... Shane used to do that with her, before the diagnosis. Isn’t sure when he got too old or too wearied by her degrading memory for silly, overdone commentary.

Hayden answers at the start of the second period.

Hayden: Uh, woah. Kind of out of the blue.

Hayden: I don’t know. I’ve never thought so.

There. Finally, someone rational, some vindication for Shane—

Hayden: Tho autism would kinda explain the eye-contact thing.

Hayden: Not that it’s bad!

Shane flips his phone over and focuses on breathing through his nose. Ilya’s hand comes around his shoulder, thumb digging careful pressure into the touchy, tight tissue until the old injury is loose and slack beneath his hands and Shane is zoning out about the game.

Shane can’t look anyone in the eye at that moment, ironically, so he looks at the ceiling and listens to the commentary. It’s a good game. Buffalo struggles without Niko though, who seems only selfishly pleased to see that they need him.

He’ll get there, Shane thinks, more time yet to finish cooking.

“The Blades have gotten better,” Shane’s mom says at the end, “But they need a stronger first-line center to win.”

“That’s me, that’s where I play, we’re top of the eastern conference right now,” Niko says.

“You? You play for Buffalo?” Mom frowns, as if forgetting what jersey she’s wearing. Niko bites back a laugh, which is a good thing, because Shane thinks it’s really not funny. Not most of the time.

“Yeah, I already told you like twice,” Niko says. Ilya’s teeth clench. Shane knows Niko isn’t being rude— it’s just human habit to correct someone when they forget something. A habit that drives some Alzheimer’s carers mad if they can’t break it. Niko’s still new to this, still innocently reminding.

His mom hums, glancing him up and down. “Well, good luck with Buffalo,” she says, dubiously.

Niko takes the chirping with a good spirit. He helps Shane’s dad take the plates back to the kitchen, and when Shane’s dad offers a baked muffin (“I’m not sure it’s on your diet plan, but our neighbour brought too many,”) Niko eats it in two huge bites, asks if there are any extra. His simple greediness seems to give Shane's dad real joy. Dad packages up six more muffins for Niko, glad, in that inexplicable older person way, to give fuel to the scrappy young.

“Say goodbye to Yuna, Anya.”

Shane’s mom scrubs Anya once more before she trots into her kennel.

Shane hugs his mom, surprised but happy when Niko bends to do the same.

“Nice talking shit with you, Mrs. Hollander.”

She laughs, and even if she is confused as to who Niko is, she has decided she likes the person in the room with her anyway, enough to give him a shoulder hug.

Ilya groans under his breath. “This is unfair. She likes the son more than the original.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Niko quips.

Mom glares at Ilya who can only wave today it seems. To make up for it, Dad gives Ilya his usual big, slow bear hug, murmuring something in his ear that perplexes Ilya.

In the hallway, Niko asks, “Why does he hug you like that?”

“No one knows why my dad does what he does… What did he say?”

Ilya shrugs, befuddled. “He says I am good father and should be proud.”

Niko hums, rolls his shoulders, as if any of his behavior denoted good child-rearing habits. His goodness is mostly in his heart, in Shane's opinion, but he did well today, all said.

Niko adds, “Well, I like them. Yuna’s funny.”

Ilya tenses, trigger finally pulled. “Maybe a little less laughing.” He drops his tone and carries on in Russian. Niko snaps something back.

Shane stares, lost, as their exchange escalates until Niko shouts,

“You’re such a fucking asshole, you know that?” Niko stalks ahead, outpacing both of them to trundle down the stairs alone.

Shane raises an eyebrow at Ilya, asking, What was that?

Ilya looks away. “He shouldn’t laugh so much. Her situation is not funny.”

“He was laughing at her swearing… mostly.”

“Mostly,” Ilya grunts, solemnly.

“What did you say?”

“Just that I hope he laughs as much when he’s taking care of me.” Ilya puts on an attempt at casual bluster, but it withers in the face of Shane’s glare.

“Ilya… That’s not cool.”

Ilya throws a hand out, jostling Anya in her kennel. “What? What? You think I should lie?”

“Not lie, but you don’t have to throw it in his face.”

“It's not him that will have to deal with it,” Ilya hisses. “It's me. Doesn’t matter I’d rather be put down like a fucking sick dog than…”

Shane’s fist clenches.

Ilya curses, rubs at his face. Anger fights apology in his every line but Shane feels numb.

“Sorry, I'm sorry Shane,” he says quietly.

“Go fuck yourself.”

“No, I am sorry. Should not have said.”

“No. You think my mom should be put down.”

“Not Yuna, never Yuna.”

“But you?”

“I'll be like my father, I think. He is good at pushing people away.” Ilya smiles, bitter. “See I am already good at it. Imagine when I am actually ill.”

Shane clenches his fists. Too angry for words even. His rage, Ilya’s rage. The pain between them. He doesn’t have space for both.

Shane says nothing, getting in the car after Anya pees and Niko vapes. All of them are quiet, and Shane sees the way Ilya takes their unhappy silence on his shoulders. Bears it heavier than he should, as if it is all his fault. And some of it is— but a lot of it is just shitty old life chipping away whatever pieces it can.

When they get home, Niko goes to the guest room, door shut hard behind him. And this is where the strength of Ilya's heart shows, because Ilya gives Shane a regretful look before he goes, knocks softly and speaks to Niko for a long, difficult hour.

Ilya comes back, drained but more at ease. Shane sits in bed, researching books on autism, because he doesn’t have enough fucking going on in his life, apparently.

“He’s still mad, but he will not be moving to Labrador anytime soon.” Ilya collapses hard on the bed, groans. “Are you mad?” he asks, bluntly.

Shane is furious, but he wrestles it down into his tone. “I don’t want you to feel that way about yourself.”

Ilya sighs, scrapes at his jaw. “I am sorry I mentioned. I’m going to call Galina tomorrow. Book an appointment. I don’t want to… I never want to dump it on you. It's my own fucked up issues, I know. I’m sorry, Sweetheart. I am so sorry.”

“It scares me that you feel this way.”

“It scares me too, sometimes.”

“If I get Alzheimer’s—”

Ilya makes a wounded noise, as if the idea of Shane ever applying the same to him, put me down like a sick dog would simply break his heart.

“You’re going to take care of me. Hand and foot,” Shane says. His eyes feel hot and terrible. “And remind me when I forget to shower and put up with my yelling and trying to leave.”

“Yes,” Ilya swears, like penance. “Yes.”

“Because that’s what it means to be down bad for someone. To love them.”

Ilya nods, like an obedient pupil, like a dog who wants to learn. A good dog, one that will never be put down. He crawls, his head burying in Shane’s lap. This is why he has to be Shane’s, why Shane has had to move the world, heaven and earth, just to keep them together.

Shane pets his tangled curls.

“And you’re going to let me do that for you. If you love me enough.”

“I love you so much it's almost terrible,” Ilya murmurs. Shane wonders for a moment what he means, but must admit to himself he rather knows.

“Good.”

Chapter End Notes

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basically i wanted to take a break to answer comments, but instead ended up chopping the rest of the story up and moving around the pieces. Usually i ask that you pray for them, but pray for me and the rewriting process lmao.

thanks for reading, love hearing your thoughts etc. Shane's current feelings about autism are part of the journey and do not reflect the writer's pov!

more on svetlana, autism, and that shane ilya niko mix next chapter<3

Chapter 12: shane is possibly

Chapter Notes

CAVEAT: the views of someone in denial do not reflect the author. this is in no sense comprehensive for any of the sensitive topics discussed. Tags have been updated!!!

also we're in shane's head, so while it should be 'Rozanova' for Svetlana and Irina, he uses the western convention of the name 'rozanov.'

Shane wakes up early. It’s taken a long time, but he has finally perfected the art of leaving the bed without stirring the formidably sensitive Ilya Rozanov. Shane’s new trick is to move slowly and to pause every few beats, just to lull Ilya back into a deep, restful slumber.

Ilya needs the sleep with how emotional he got last night. Shane is better at shifting off emotional drain from years of wrestling his feelings into the dirt, but to Ilya, each emotional strife leaves him hungover, wrung out and dehydrated, eyes bleary like he’s just escaped a club.

Shane opens his drawers, picks out a few exercise clothes and pads into the hallway. He changes in the guest bathroom, rolling his neck and feeling his shoulder pull. Alright, maybe he does feel a little bit of the tension from yesterday in his body. How else can he carry Ilya’s awful words and his even more awful promise to let Shane love him, come what may? No weights today with muscles this tight.

He scoops up his yoga mat and heads to the broad balcony for some sunrise stretching.

Shane pauses when he sees a cloud of smoke and a bustle of puffed-up dog hair through the glass. He opens the glass door and sees Niko, collapsed in a chair in the corner, cigarette burning between his fingers, a puddle of black silk and white suede.

Niko is what it looks like when someone has actually spent all night in the club. His shirt has circular sweat stains down the side. His bared chest looks matte with dried sweat and glitter from bodies against bodies. His eyes squint against the sunrise and sway belatedly to Shane.

Niko waves the cigarette. “Don’t worry. Just a little treat after a long night, I’m not back in the habit or anything.”

Shane wasn’t worried. It’s not his place as the man dating Niko’s papa to make a comment either way, not even on whether Niko should really be enjoying the lower Canadian drinking age considering he was recovering from a concussion. Shane would really like to.

Shane shifts on his feet, uncertain of whether he feels comfortable doing yoga in front of Ilya’s son with his rampant chirping and out of pocket comments. Anya runs little circles around Shane’s legs, snorting for his attention, and Shane drops down to greet her properly, letting her bump her wet nose and stamp from the excitement of his attention.

Niko taps the cigarette ash off the side of his building and Shane bites back a curse.

That ash could float into the apartments below, or onto people on the street. Shane makes himself look away so he doesn’t burn a hole in Niko’s blissed out little face.

Niko hasn’t been an incredible guest all said. Shane entered his room to drop off clean towels and was unimpressed. Niko leaves his bed unmade, a pile of rumpled sheets sitting in their own tangle. His clothes are spread carelessly on the floor in dirty heaps of athletic wear. Even in the kitchen, he has a habit of stacking his dishes so high and precariously in the sink that Shane cannot reach the water knob to even wash them.

Shane gave Ilya a look about it yesterday before they went to Shane’s parents. Ilya only shook his head.

“Now you empathize. I lived with him for eighteen years.”

“So it’s your fault?”

Ilya made an exaggerated expression of martyrdom, very Slavic in nature. “What you want me to do? Yell at him to clean up after himself? Wow. I never tried that.”

At Shane’s flat look, Ilya hitched his shoulders, okay, okay, it said. “I’ll have a little talk with him.”

Of course, Ilya ended up having a different conversation with Niko last night…

And maybe Niko’s choice to end up at a club isn’t just about being back in familiar haunts among old friends, maybe it’s about the things parents say…

Still, doesn’t mean he gets to drop ash into the other balconies.

“Can I get you a plate or something?”

“I’m almost done,” Niko says, which is not a solution.

Shane goes inside and digs around his cupboards for a moment. He can’t actually stomach the idea of using a plate he eats on. The idea of tasting even a particle of residual ash in his food as his skin crawling. He finds some strange looking lily pad dish in the back. Ilya’s, he’s sure, which is fitting since this is his son’s mess, and brings it outside.

He hands it to Niko who looks amused, tapping his cigarette on the edge while Shane is still holding it instead of taking it himself. Another of his endless teenage power games.

Shane resists the urge to react. Places it on the ground, thinks better with Anya, and then puts it on the edge of a planter, out of her reach.

He’s still annoyed at Niko treating Shane and Ilya’s carefully curated home like yet another one of his endless hotels on a long road trip.

Of course, what choice does he have? Ilya sold his house. Niko has nowhere to return to…

Shane glances at Niko. “Do you…” He hesitates, how to phrase. Squints at the early morning sunrise creeping over the horizon. “Are you bummed that your dad sold the house?”

Niko looks at him, surprise blinking back the bleariness.

Shane shifts. “I… had to sell my childhood home lately. It was hard to do.”

When Shane’s parents announced they were moving to Hawkesbury House, Shane thought long and hard about keeping the property. This was the house where his height had been measured in notches against his dad’s college hockey stick, the kitchen window he’d broken by playing too hard with his basketball, the stairs he fell down and broke a leg on and also ran up to get his parents every impatient early morning in his desperate rush to get to practice and get on that beautiful ice.

Only, it would never be that house without his parents. The idea of visiting those memories alone, without his parents to remember with him, had made him feel so sick. Like keeping a grave memorial for them while they were still living.

The best and only cure was to have someone else move in. Shane vetted all the families thoroughly and selected a couple with twin daughters. His dad met the family at the final contract signing and he was delighted when the daughters had run away from the table and into the yard where Shane and his mom and dad used to play field hockey in temperate summers. The parents apologized but Shane’s dad waved it off. Can’t expect them to hang around for the boring parts. Too much to explore in their new home!

Dad was happy, and Shane was happy about that, but leaving that house still felt yawning and difficult.

Shane looks for a hint of his own ambivalent ache in Niko, wonders if Ilya found a family to live there and if Niko also yearns—

“No,” Niko says simply.

“Oh.”

Shane… doesn’t know what to say after that. He resists the urge to analyze his pause any longer, to think is this why people think I’m autistic? He has books on the way to his local store. He can’t speculate until he knows more.

“Did he really not tell you?” Niko asks.

“What?”

“He didn’t sell the house, he gave it to me.”

Shane blinks— remembers— he tried to give Ilya his real estate manager’s number, but Ilya waved it off. Shane assumed that he had an agent from when he bought the house, but now he’s realizing that he never saw the expected deposit from a sale in Ilya’s finances like he should have.

“Oh.” Great. So good that Shane tried to be vulnerable with a teenager for nothing. Wonderful that Ilya communicated any of this to Shane. Did he hide it on purpose? Was he ashamed that he was clinging on to old memories? Does he think Shane would judge him for giving it to his son? That’s the right thing. It’s the right choice, Shane knows. But it feels weird that Ilya didn’t mention it.

“Yeah. I told him not to. It’s not like I spend any time here. I plan on spending summer in New York anyways.”

And, maybe a fight with his son about it would be why. Shane huffs.

“It’s something you might want later in life,” Shane says, and Niko snorts at the thought, at the mythical idea of later in life. Shane tries again, “It was the last house you had with your mother.”

Niko is quiet at that. He takes a long deep inhale, stubbing the end into the lily pad plate.

“He’s so sentimental about that shit. He gave me her ring when she died, told me I could wear it on a chain. Like I was going to wear a woman’s ring into the locker room.”

Ilya would have, if a diamond ring was the only thing he got from his mother. If Irina’s necklace, instead of being a delicate orthodox cross, was a pearl or inset gem, Ilya would wear it loudly, close to his heart regardless. It wouldn’t, couldn’t be feminine or ill-fitting with how he would own it. His masculine body would curl around the twinkling gem, transforming it into something cherished and apt.

Niko continues, “He got mad when I didn’t want the ring, but I’m not going to be lugging that weight around. I don’t need it, you know.”

“Right.”

Shane looks out at the city. A few other people are on their balconies, far enough away that their morning moments are blobish and unknown. Just taking in the sun, coffee. A moment of peace.

When Shane’s mother dies (and she will, he knows she will) what does he want from her? Would he wear her dainty bracelets or the simple silver chains? Pierce his ears for the sapphire gemstones she wears all during her birth month? Maybe.

Somehow, those material objects feel so much less important, even as they have made up his mother for years. What she gives him is so intangible, so much greater and heavier than any item itself. He couldn’t stop thinking about her if he tried, he couldn’t stop bringing her with him into every boardroom meeting, into every challenge. She’s with him, cheering him on, egging him to work harder, push farther—

“I think I get it,” Shane says eventually. “I wouldn’t… from my mom, I don’t think I’d need anything." Maybe he’s wrong, maybe when she is dead he will ache for those blue stones pressed against his ears, but for now.

"She gave me enough, you know?" Niko says. “I’m sad that she died, obviously. I’ll always miss her. But she set me up really well. I’m a winner because of her. She loved me and the old man a lot.”

He sounds certain, factual. It’s impressive to see on a teenager at 6am washed up from the club.

Maybe Niko’s therapy does really work. Shane has to give it some points.

He wonders about a world where Ilya got a listening ear instead of a shut up after his mom died. Wonders if he’d have to hold onto the cross like he was the only one who cared to remember. Shane is grateful that now is better than back then— for Ilya and his son. Is glad that Niko knows he was loved and feels it.

“Besides, she pops up sometimes in weird places. She’s all over this apartment too.”

Shane glances curiously at Niko, who picks up the homemade lily pad plate and cradles it. Oh. It must have been hers, maybe even made by her. Her hands forming it just like her child and Shane feels a shiver of shock. Not even sure what to feel.

“Love you, Mom,” Niko says to the plate, and then blows the cigarette ash clean off the balcony and into the morning air.

Shane watches it scatter down in wafts—

And then he hears a spattering of Korean and feels his stomach drop. Niko looks caught out, surprised that there are other people in the world. He hangs his head over the side of the balcony, curls floating as he gawps.

“You’re going to help me bring some of your frozen pelmeni to the Kims, and then you’re going to sweep their deck in apology,” Shane says, not caring about respecting Niko as an independent adult remotely. If he’s old enough to drink in Canada, he’s old enough to clean up his messes.

After apologizing a hundred times to the Kims who tell Shane they will be reporting this to the management company (oh, the irony) Shane supervises as Niko sweeps and mops their ashy balcony. When they get home, Shane nudges Niko to the sink where his pile of dishes sits. It might be Shane’s cool expression, or Niko’s defenses being down after a night out, but Niko does them. Complains the whole time, but does them.

Shane starts breakfast in the interim, cooks enough for three and enjoys Ilya’s surprised face when he stumbles in, tired and soft like a bear, and sees his son at the sink, wrist deep in soap suds. Shane drinks his coffee, reveals nothing, enjoys the kiss on his head, the snake of his hand down Shane’s torso in a quick thoughtless grope.

Ilya turns then, reaching out to his son and murmuring something Russian in that easy, joking tone of his. Niko deadpans something back and Ilya grabs his arm, reels his son in and kisses his cheek. Niko shoves Ilya off, wet gloves and suds making a sloppy handprint on Ilya’s shirt, but his scowl is the mild, toothless bucking of a teenager against sentiment.

Shane glances away, always feels a little off beat witnessing the physical affection. Shane’s father hugged him, sure, but he can’t remember a time when his father kissed him. For all the (probably cultural) difference pricks Shane’s attention, he can’t help but find the rampant, warm-handed affection so well suited for Ilya. Soft, yet demanding.

“I guess it means you don’t want bacon, Nika,” Ilya says, winking at Shane as he sidles over to add some cracked pepper to the sunny side eggs cooking.

“I’m the only one here with a real, physical job. You shouldn’t be having any if you want to drop your gut before the wedding.”

“Hear that, Mr. Deputy Commissioner, my son is the only one with a ‘real job,’” Ilya drawls, and Niko looks at Shane, embarrassed and flummoxed.

“That’s not what I meant.”

Shane can’t help but grin. “You must be exhausted from carrying the load.”

Niko makes a disgusted face at both of them and flings the sponge into the now empty sink.  

“I’m going to bed.”

“No, no. Eat before you sleep. Something to absorb all the alcohol. Trust me,” Ilya says, corralling Niko to the glass table. Ilya grabs the plates and Shane metes out the food. He does give Niko more because he is reaching the home stretch of the regular season and looking too lean for it.

“More, more.” Ilya waggles the plate a little. “He has real job. Has to eat very big diet for all his work.”

Shane adds a few more slices of bacon to Niko’s stacked plate and earns Ilya’s winking.

Shane sits down at the glass table and has the sudden, flush memory of Ilya fucking him on it across the floor and he has to look down at his plate concertedly.

Ilya smiles at him, eating his breakfast. Maybe not even knowing what Shane is thinking of, just enjoying Shane’s flush the same way he relishes his glistening bacon.

“What did you say to him?” Niko asks Ilya suspiciously. Then shakes his head. “Actually, no. I’m too hung over.”

Shane privately agrees.

Ilya grins like he has all he wants in this room, then his eating pauses when he spots the lily pad on the coffee stand by the door. Ilya stands up, taking his own plate with him for more fruit, but like a magnet, he goes to the lily pad. He picks up the plate and rubs it with a cloth carefully before stowing it in the cupboard, like a careful artefact in a museum. His smile is soft, loving, and private.

Shane feels his heart thud, but not sickly. Uncertainly. Like a slow realization that there are four of them in the kitchen, only Shane had not noticed.

His eyes whisk around the open plan of his and Ilya’s apartment—he thought it was just theirs, anyway. Only, every painting, every dog-eared Russian detective novel, even the chips in Ilya’s old fashioned, crystal glassware that he liked to use too much, all of these were also half Svetlana Rozanov’s once. The way Ilya was also hers once. How did Shane actually convince himself that he only took Ilya in this deal?

But seeing Niko’s easy smile as he sips OJ from a crystal glass, eyes glancing to old touchstone spots, Shane doesn’t know how he should feel. It’s not simply unsettled and not only joy for Niko. It’s muddled understanding of long lives blended.

It’s almost funny, because they talked recently, and number by number, they recognize they’ve both slept with a good amount of partners.

Shane never had a “slut period” for all Ilya has alluded to it, but he was active these twenty years apart. Once you meet people in the closet, they tend to know of another closeted guy who once had a fling with a closeted someone else who was a real freak in bed (complimentary). So, Shane has been able to find his way through this adult life without wanting too much for physical stimulation, in a way he thinks his younger self could not even dream of.

Big jock like you, were fantasy for these gay men, weren’t you, Ilya had murmured, eyes narrow and mouth wet.

Shane can admit— he was popular. Often times a simple hookup was all he really wanted (especially after Ilya, no strings sex was all he could stand) but, Rose often liked to accuse him of having a secret romantic streak.

Shane thinks a little longing for emotional intimacy is normal and above board, thanks. And his many attempts to find a blend of physical and emotional intimacy whilst not risking any real intimacy (or, God forbid, coming out) left a trail of lovers, some successful, and some less so.

Ilya, for his part, winced while trying to remember exactly how many girls it was in his twenties, and the number was kind of horrifying but after the fact he had been sixteen years loyal to Svetlana and busy with hockey and his son, and the demands that living put on a person after her death.

(and as Shane remembers, he did not ever use the open relationship… Probably Shane should take it as proof of his loyalty, but it just sits in his stomach hard.)

Somehow, Ilya took the body counts harder than Shane, expression crunched and arm heavy around Shane’s shoulder. Shane arched a brow at the unconscious possessiveness.

“There's a lot I missed,” Ilya said.

“Hmmm, yeah, somehow I don’t feel the same way. Considering we were having sex while you were fucking those 600 women.”

Ilya grinned, boyish and blameless. “Yes, you were better than all of them.”

Shane scoffed. He wasn’t fishing for praise, and he didn’t think to compare himself to all those women… he knew he was more important, more defining for Ilya’s life. What they had was physical, absolutely, but they were able to meet competitively, emotionally, and Shane, in his sentimental moments, thought even spiritually. He knew Ilya Rozanov must have a soul even if Shane himself didn’t know if he believed in them; he didn’t know how else to say that he and Ilya were so well-suited to know each other in this life.

But they weren’t all each other had known.

Ilya’s expression was strange, a hint of longing that betrayed that he was thinking of that time where he was Shane’s one and only. Of a night in a hotel room, laughing around a hand and reassuring a panicking, inexperienced Shane that a little shit on a condom was not the end of the world.

And Shane bristled. An uncharitable thought that Ilya didn’t like things being equal between them that he dismissed. A half-formed certitude that there wouldn’t be as many men in Shane’s life, just one, just Ilya, if Ilya had just texted Shane one long Vegas night…

Ilya didn’t say anything about that, about useless regrets or longing to monopolize something for the greed of it, just kissed Shane’s neck, tongue licking out a little to taste under his jaw. Savouring, if Shane had to say anything.

“You will have to teach me something new. You know more about gay sex than I do at this point.”

Shane flushed, felt awkward despite all Ilya teased him because… he already had. Last year when they started up again, Shane ate Ilya out as foreplay, but he’d been so tightly wound that he blew his load. Ilya’d look crushed, a little ruined, and Shane liked how distraught Ilya was at the thought that he couldn’t fuck Shane. Shane had cooed a little even as he licked the sensitive ring of Ilya’s muscle once more as farewell.

“I don’t usually come hands free,” Ilya tried not to sound apologetic, but Shane could see the shape of it in his brow, stress that snuck back on his face uninvited. He looked perplexed, mind working slowly as they reimagined their night.

“You can get hard again,” Shane said.

Ilya laughed, said, “I’m not twenty anymore.”

He tried to roll over onto Shane, lips reaching to kiss down his torso to his cock, but Shane kept a hand on his wide, strong side, steadying him like a horse.

Shane dropped his mouth down to Ilya’s spent cock which lay sensitively in a nest of hair and come. He took it into his mouth and Ilya tensed in pain, hands going to Shane’s hair.

“That won’t work…” Ilya grit out, overstimulated.

Shane hummed, and Ilya hissed again. He still didn’t push Shane away. Not even as he snuck a finger down and started playing with his untaut ball sack, stroking the patch of skin between, his perineum. Then finally, landing inside his hole again with one dry finger just for sensation.

Ilya thrashed at the overstimulation, his face was red and sweaty like it was during the most intense of hockey games, but he watched Shane with watery blue eyes and an open mouth as he harassed Ilya’s dick into hardness again over the course of an hour. Ilya’s second orgasm, when he gave it to Shane inside, twisted his expression into such ecstatic pain that Shane thought he could be cast in stone, it was so beautiful to watch.

Afterwards, he goggled at Shane, kissed him hard and lovingly down the back of his neck, around his shoulder to his chest and looked up at him like he had performed a miracle. Like he had invented something.

Shane never mentioned the man he learned it from. And maybe the lily pad is something not dissimilar. Should Ilya have pointed out all the things that belonged to Svetlana once? Shaped by her hands? Where was the line between her and what Ilya took and integrated into himself? Did he even see the hundred small, invisible ways he had been shaped irrevocably by her?

When Niko finally goes down to nap, Shane brings up the lily pad because he can’t quite help himself.

“We made it together. Pottery class.” He senses Ilya watching him, his words careful. He hums. “Maybe we will go to one when you are out. You and I will make many things.”

“I don’t want to make pottery,” Shane says, words faster than his head. He squeezes his hands a little. “The texture. I don’t…” He breathes in and out, wonders what exactly he feels but can’t name it. Worries this too is that autism thing people have started accusing him of. Ilya is quiet, watching him battle the words out, find what he actually wants in this. “Cooking or baking… I want to do that with you more.”

Ilya grins. “I will convince you of the way of carbs. You will never look back.”

Shane can only wrinkle his nose. “Doubt it.”

“Mm, no, I will make you so hungry for them I think. We will make such sweet bread together.”

Shane plans to read his autism books in his New York apartment as a light activity before bed. He doesn’t always have that leisure with Ilya around, smirk curled on his lips and hands pulling and tugging and teasing Shane closer after sundown. Considering Niko crashed their last weekend, Shane has a feeling this next weekend will be even more hands on than usual. He only hopes Ilya doesn’t have any greater plans like sex on a pile of money again. They are still out of sanitizing wipes.

Shane has his usual two hours at the airport luxury lounge to start catching up on his work, but when the Teams won’t sync on his laptop and with IT out for the weekend, he settles on only answering the emails. That only takes an hour, and the passengers haven’t even started queuing to board yet.

Shane tries not to text Ilya too much at the airport— it makes it less painful to leave if he doesn’t draw out the goodbye and instead gets to hold onto the memory of that farewell kiss in the doorway, Ilya’s body wrapped around his, warm and big.

At a loss, Shane pulls up an article on autism to start reading just as a primer before the books.

He adjusts his glasses, eyes skimming over the information—

He makes it halfway through the article by the time he realizes this is absolutely categorically not about him.

There is no way they’re talking about Shane here.

Difficulty in stimulating environments, difficulty in social situations, difficulty reading cues, difficulty, difficulty difficulty—

He wasn’t difficult. He knows he said that to Ilya sometimes, apologized for how difficult he felt, but it wasn’t anywhere close to the same as this.

He was a functioning, downright successful adult. Could an autistic person be captain stretching across a decade and multi-Stanley cup winning? Could they handle the pressure and the stimulation of press and sponsorships? Could an autistic person navigate the sensitive, political waters of a high-pressure office setting? Shane didn’t think so.

What a waste to buy those books, but still. At least he knew for sure now.

Shane breathes deeply, leg drumming against the floor as he tries to think about something other than the itchy upset on his skin he can’t label. His phone rings with a facetime request— Rose. He sighs in relief, popping in his earbuds, letting her cheerful voice wash over him.

She’s getting ready for a networking event. Her face has daubs of product she rubs in with efficiency as she tells him that every time she attends one of these, a male director will beg her to stop directing and come back to act for his newest picture.

“What do you say?” Shane asks, already feeling better just by listening to her voice, the patter of her life, so familiar to him.

“I say that if he stars in mine I’ll star in his, but the competition for male leads is pretty high for my projects and nudity is a requirement,” she deadpans. “Though that does remind me why I called…”

“What?” he asks, dry. She has that sweet, wheedling tone that never even fooled him when they were dating. “What do you want?”

“Would you consider being in my film?”

Shane blinks. “I thought you finished shooting that in Malta?”

“We’re doing pickups. There’s tonal issues I need to fix. Right now the whole thing is so literal,” she complains. Right… Is that a bad thing in a movie?

“And you want me to be like a background guy?” Shane isn’t the type to question directors and their visions since Rose joined the trade but it seems silly to have him in a bit part when there are dozens of aspiring actors champing at the bit to be in the next Landry pic. It could be fun, he supposes, to hang with her on set.

“Not exactly. You’d be playing yourself—or rather, playing Shane Hollander.”

“I am Shane Hollander,” he says stupidly.

“Exactly. You’re going to be so perfect. I just wanted something popculture-y but not recent, you know? Like a glimpse at someone’s childhood.”

Shane is losing the plot here.

“It’s a dream sequence,” she clarifies, which actually clarifies less for Shane.

“It’s not… nothing too…” Shane fumbles around the words ‘big’ and ‘visible’ and ‘career damaging.’ ‘Gay’ might also be in the mix of unutterable things.

“No, you don’t even have to say anything, it’ll be like a thirty second shot. Simple, really simple. Just nonverbal acting. And you’re good at that!”

Shane snorts. He always hated doing lines in the commercials— for the normal reasons. It was stiff work, but he wasn’t awful at performing. Rose saying it as a professional counts for double. More proof that he isn’t autistic, which is obvious. Of course.

“If you think it’ll be good. I’m happy to at least shoot it—"

He draws his phone back as he hears her yells of excitement. Her arms pump in the air and she shimmies on her make up chair.

“I can’t wait for you to see it, see my vision, you’re gonna love it,” she gushes. Shane thinks of her last piece with all the ocean shots and can only imagine what she has in mind. She picks up her makeup pads again, as if forgetting that she was doing her base layer. “Anything new with you and Ilya?”

Shane tells her, humorously, about what his parents said about being autistic. His humor sometimes lands weird, he knows, so he’s not surprised the punchline gets a little wonky, but Rose usually gets what he was going for and laughs like he said it right.

This time, all she says is, “Oh.”

“Yeah, crazy right.”

“This is…” She stops. She isn’t rubbing foundation into her face anymore, making her left and right side look clownishly mismatched. “You didn’t ever… I don’t know, hear that before?”

Shane glared. “Of course I heard it before. In every fucking locker room along with being a fucking cocksucker and hitting up everyone’s mom’s and sisters.”

He twitches his face too late to the side and sees a scandalized expression from someone sharing the executives lounge with him. Red faced, Shane picks up his duffel and messenger bag and moves to a more private corner by the window. He resists the urge to pace, keeping a hand firm on his hip instead to squeeze the muscle.

“Right. Hockey talk. But, I mean, besides that. No teacher or doctor ever…?”

“Rose, what the hell?” He drops his voice. “You don’t think that I’m… We dated.”

“Autistic people date,” Rose says, sharp.

“That’s not what I meant,” Shane says, teeth tight. “You never even mentioned thinking—"

“I didn’t think it needed mentioning! I thought you maybe knew!” Rose finally admits and Shane feels his mouth popping open. She thought it was that obvious? “I just mean, it wasn’t really my business to say anything about it, you know.”

“Yeah, it’s not your business,” Shane grunts, “And I’m not.”

Rose makes an annoyed sound and Shane can feel the mood souring between them.

“I didn’t know you’d gotten tested. You could have led with that.”

“I wasn’t tested!” Shane says, “Or I guess, kind of I was but… I’m going to be commissioner of the MLH. I’m not exactly inept.”

“A lot of autistic people actually excel in their fields you know. Kinda the opposite. It’s a hyper-fixation thing.”

“Yeah, but those are niche fields, like computer science and cows and… whatever. Hockey isn’t niche.”

“Right,” she drawls. Okay, Shane, disbelief lurking in her voice.

“It's rigorous and demanding,” he snaps, trying to make his point.

“Uh-huh.”

“Yeah. Well, in the future, I’d really appreciate if you didn’t imply that I was autistic.”

Rose has evened out the complexion on her face and she looks dewy and stony when she says, “Shane, you’re the one who mentioned it. Don’t bring up topics if you don’t want to talk about them.”

Which is aggravatingly fair, and by the time they hang up, Shane feels foolish and chastised in the terminal lounge.

Work is a blessing—so often is. An arena where Shane can excel, where everything has a place and purpose. Shane gives a presentation on the recent outreach efforts post Switzerland Olympics. He manages to deftly tie his point of audience appeal and reaching new fans to a definitively anti-fighting stance without saying the actual words. He doesn’t stumble, he makes eye-contact in the places he practiced, he only glances at his notes on occasion.

He’s smooth and polished as anything. Kimmi comes by afterwards to tell Shane he gave a good speech, complains about her dog barking when the fights come on the TV. Shane hedges over mentioning Anya, how she yips when the crowd gets loud, but ultimately decides against mentioning it— she’s legally Ilya’s dog after all. He hovers with Kimmi for a long moment, belatedly realizing he should mention another topic, but she pats his back, shifting to join another group talking about some weekend golf trip.

Kimmi inserts herself so easily, makes space for herself in a way that Shane just finds perplexing. He goes back to his office, thinking about how much time in the office is spent on non-work conversation, then feels petty.

Shane knows that he’s liked in the office— Shane is competent. Even when social easiness fails him, he has a simple and devastating competency that makes his place in any professional setting unassailable. He’s worked hard to get good at something outside of hockey, and it’s nice that it’s appreciated. It’s nice that he doesn’t have to be good at the golf talk to be where he is. (That’s definitely how some people, like Halstead, climbed the ladder.) He wonders, constantly and quietly to himself, how the hell people talk about topics like that, like literally, what can they possibly even say? He can’t imagine. It’s golf.

He goes to get a coffee at 2pm, as usual, before he settles into his next round of meetings, but Jamison still hasn’t gotten the coffee pods he likes. Shane hovers a good distance from the rainbow float that Jamison calls a desk.

“Sorry, Mr. Hollander. I can’t find them anywhere.”

It’s been six weeks since Shane mentioned it. Initially, Shane fretted over whether the coffee pod company went out of business, but when he stops by the store he still sees the blue containers on the shelf. So he tells Jamison which store exactly they stock them, what aisle, the cross streets, and the best way to take local transit train and bus. “If you happen to drive there’s a public parking lot under the nearby office building…” Jamison’s eyes have glossed over and Shane rubs his face.

“Just… do your best, please.”

“Sure,” Jamison says. “In the meantime, there are the other coffee pods. You know. The red ones.”

Shane doesn’t dignify that with a response. The red ones left grit at the bottom of the cup that made his last sips hurl worthy. He can’t even think of stomaching that. So he goes coffeeless and spends the remaining seven minutes he budgeted to get coffee with an itch under his skin. A perfect routine destroyed.

He’s predictably tired when he makes it home. He calls Ilya, they catch up while Ilya cooks, with Shane practically dozing off.

“World domination is so hard,” Ilya hums. “I think you will sleep well, even without reading a boring book.”

Shane scoffs. He brings Ilya along to start a skin mask before he settles in his bed with a very unboring Mario Lemieux biography because he does want to at least start the next chapter.

“How are the autism books?” Ilya asks.

Shane feels his hackles rise and fights the snap. It’s a completely fair question. He did end up picking them up from the store, but they’ve languished on his bookshelf and Shane has been thinking about donating them to his local library. He’s sure the information in them is valuable, just not to him.

“I don’t think I need those. I did a little reading online and there’s just no way I’m autistic.”

“Okay,” Ilya says.

Shane itches behind his neck roughly, trying to sort out if Ilya is being genuine or indulging Shane the way apparently so many people in his life have been (his parents included). Ilya isn’t the type though. Hell, even when Shane was saying he wasn’t gay, Ilya was…

Actually, Ilya was reacting pretty much the same way. Unfighting, easy agreement. He can’t help but remember their conversation in the car after telling Marleu. You’re nothing until you decide you are.

It’s not really fair.

“I’m not, Ilya.”

“Okay. I believe you.”

Shane rubs his face, has to put the book far away from him.

“Do you really think I could do everything I do, captain so many teams, give speeches, handle office politics bullshit if I was actually autistic?”

“It's you,” Ilya says, simply. “Shane Hollander. You can do anything. I'm pretty sure.”

Shane feels a little choked up and isn’t sure why.

Ilya goes on. “I have had a couple autistic players before. I think maybe it is harder for them in some ways. Maybe easier in other ways.” Shane scoffs. He hasn’t seen shit about anything being easier. “But it doesn't mean they cannot do what they do. Does not mean you wouldn’t be where you are.”

I can’t be autistic because I don’t want to be anymore difficult than I already am. It sticks in his throat, too terrible to mention out loud. He knows he’s demanding, asks for a lot, has made Ilya bend over backwards to keep this secret so Shane can come out just how he wants it. Being autistic in addition to everything else feels like another weight around his neck. He can’t explain why, can’t explain how badly he needs to escape at least one thing going on in his life, even if he can’t escape being gay or being half-Japanese—

And he doesn’t want to escape, those things are who he is, but god, why does it have to be so exhausting?

Ilya watches him through the camera, huffing an unhappy breath.

“I used to think, maybe, depressed person can’t keep good things. You know, good jobs, good relationships,” Ilya says quietly, and he’s turned off the stove, leant back against the counter and showing the worst angle of his chin, the way it cushions a little chin fat, the unshaven stubble. He only does this when cooking, or when he doesn’t want to look Shane head on over the phone. “You've seen what I am like.”

Shane remembers Ilya’s last depressive episode but that isn’t a fair comparison. Ilya is a charismatic, moving person with a mental illness, and Shane is a guy who wasn’t even diagnosed with autism at the doctor’s office.

“So, I think labels and things, it's just like sports. Limit is what you think it will be. What you expect you can and cannot do.”

“Now I know you’re a coach,” Shane says. “I never heard enough about pushing limits as a player,” he drawls.

Ilya lets him change the subject, waggles his eyebrows. “What, you want me to be your coach?”

Shane splutters. “God, Theriault is such a boner killer.”

Ilya laughs. Hums. “Maybe your captain then? First year on Junior team?”

And Shane glares but only because Ilya knows him so well.

After Shane has been humiliated by his transparent fantasies and been encouraged, cheered, and egged onto a brain melting orgasm captain style, he cleans up, removes the skin mask he forgot he had on, and goes to bed at the perfect time.

Then he lays awake, Ilya’s words running ramshackle around his head.

Ilya’s last depressive episode settled in like an icy snow a month ago, freezing everything out. He stopped answering Shane’s messages frequently, withdrew from badgering his son’s life.

Shane had actually called Niko— his first time ever in a personal capacity— to ask whether Ilya was alright.

“He’s just being a depressed asshole,” Niko assured Shane over facetime, or at least Shane thinks it was supposed to be reassuring.

“He’s depressed?!” Fuck. Weren’t episodes like this what medication and therapy was for? Shane grappled to understand. “Did something happen?”

Niko shrugged. Right. If something did, unlikely Ilya would have dumped it on his kid, especially in the middle of a tight season.

“I’ll check in on him.” Tomorrow was Friday anyway. He could leave work to catch an earlier flight.

“Just don’t be surprised if he’s not smelling so great,” Niko said, and Shane frowned at the jab, at how uncaring he was. Being a depressed asshole, he had said. but Niko was looking away, lips tight. Bothered, for all he pretended not to be, and Shane finally could read that sheen in his eyes as protectiveness.

"I wouldn't judge him." For this or anything. "I'd never..."

Niko scoffed. “Right, forgot who I was talking to.” Niko shook his head, like Shane's mawkish love for his papa was too much, but his eyes turned to Shane again, more appreciatively. Shane told him about catching an earlier flight and Niko shrugged like he didn't care, but his shoulders slackened after the movement. Loose and young again. Yes, he should let Shane handle this one.  

While Niko seemed more at ease, Shane fretted after the call ended. He wondered whether it was possible that Ilya missed a dose of his medication.

Only he knew that wasn’t the case, knew that Ilya took his meds every night like clockwork. Little orange bottles that had a permanent place in their shared, master bathroom counter, sitting like a strange mirror to Shane’s bottles of skin care products on his basin. Their separate maintenances.

Shane flew into Montreal and found Ilya in bed and only just resisted asking how long he’d been in there. He was terrified Ilya had been laying supine and low this the whole week he’d been blue. Anya was parked on the bed with him, her usual frisky body low and quiet, sensitive to her owner.

As Niko promised, he did not smell exceptionally good, but Shane was immune to reek from years as a jock.

“Did something bad happen?” Shane asked softly, knealt on the bed, hand petting Ilya’s face intently.

Ilya shook his head. His eyes were glassy and far away, a sadness like a deep, sudden well in the ground.

“Nothing with your team? No? Hmm, well, were you thinking about something?”

“No. Just normal day.” Ilya shuddered, a little crawling movement up his spine.

Shane swallowed. He did some reading. He understood that to be true of depression, that there could be no cause.

He cupped Ilya’s precious face to get the strength to say what he thought Ilya would not like to hear.

“Mon couer, I don’t think your meds are working,” Shane said gently. He had a phone number ready for a different, highly rated psychiatrist who could prescribe something better over telehealth, something that would save Ilya from the turgid marsh of his mood.

“They work. Just, sometimes there is a break through.”

Clearly they didn’t work though. Ilya had to see that. With all the decades of research, surely there had to be the right drug to obliterate these shadows from his lovely face.

“Maybe something else might…”

Ilya did not get angry, he got quieter, somehow. More ashamed.

“Shane. You do not hear me. It's normal for all meds. This depression is not fixable, just… helped. Still happens and there is nothing we can do.”

Shane was aghast. Absolutely outraged on Ilya’s behalf because he should have been completely cured. He deserved to be when Ilya was doing the all the necessary maintenance, enduring the grueling emotional therapy and navigating medication side effects. For what? What did these meds even really do if they didn’t fix Ilya?

As if sensing Shane’s bafflement, Ilya roused himself out of bed, put on a watery smile and ghosted out of the bedroom to the living room, Anya on his heels like a solemn sentry. He sat heavily on the couch, but the strange distance of his expression was just the same as the bedroom—actually it looked worse for being so well lit. He was doing a mimicry of wellness. God.

Are you thinking of killing yourself? Shane wondered, from where he stood in the door. Do you know what I would do if you ever did?

Ilya didn’t give any inclination that he was thinking of ideas so grim. If anything, he made a lot of effort to do things the same as they always did. Over the course of the weekend they cooked together, caught up, kissed and curled around each other. They even went on a night run with headlamps when Shane was sure no one in Montreal could tell Shane Hollander apart from the shadows.

Through it all, Shane had this nagging surety that Ilya was not there, not really. The gap between responses, the long lull before he managed his way out the bed. The way he would lay down after standing for any stretch of time, as if seeking horizontality constantly. His diet went down the drain and he ate like shit or nothing at all. Ice cream and highly processed snack cakes vanished from the cupboards, and he looked sick after all the sugar, more ashamed to meet Shane’s eyes, but it beat the times he shook his head when Shane offered something, anything, like the idea of eating was conceptually alien to his body.

Then there was way he looked at Shane like he was terrified of him and undeserving all at once. It made Shane’s mouth dry and he had a frightened certainty that he would never get his Ilya back. Just like his mother, he was losing the man he loved to the damning mechanics of his brain.

How hadn’t anyone cured this? Cured Alzheimer’s?

One night, Ilya tried to have sex with Shane, hand reaching out automatically for Shane’s admittedly tented boxers, but the look in his eye was still gone. Elsewhere. Sunk into himself. Shaking, Shane caught his hand and kissed it, pulled the heft of Ilya back into his chest and feigned sleep for all the position caused pain in his shoulder. Ilya’s knee probably hurt too but he didn’t say anything. Just laid there, numb. Neither of them slept.

Shane tried to act normal, tried not to let on too much how each change in the man he knew ached like a new cut in a growing collection. Shane knew how his own pride would smart if this were him suffering and Ilya met him with pity. He tried to return the favour, to be present but not overbearing. In return, Shane earned Ilya’s long, relieved exhales against Shane’s chest at night, an almost gasping quality to his breath that somehow Ilya had not ruined this thing between them yet.

As if Shane would ever let him.

Leaving was difficult. Shane put it off til Monday morning, taking a red eye to salvage an extra night together. In one sense, it was heartening to know that Ilya wouldn’t starve on his own, that he could still operate, go to work, cook, interact. Yet, it was also somehow terrifying to know he could do all of those things while utterly sick in the head with thoughts that only showed in the frightened corners of his expression. He was so practiced at it.

Shane packed his bag and kept replaying the day before when Ilya had dropped a plate of food on accident, trying to carry too much to the table. Shane could see from his non-reaction how little Ilya cared at all. For the dropping, for the ruined food, for the broken, shattered plate.  

How easily that apathy could translate to not caring about something far more precious…

But Shane had to trust Ilya when he said he would be okay. To not hover…

It wasn’t hovering to knock on the community outreach manager’s door at work, to mention an underserved school in his old neighborhood of Montreal and whether it was possible to reach out to collegiate partners for McGill to do some community work. And Ilya’s boys would go on Wednesday to teach teamwork and general skills and drop by bags of donated sports equipment of all sorts, and the coach probably didn’t need to show up for that if he needed a day off. Or maybe Ilya could go and could see how wonderful hockey was the same way that always struck Shane with brisk freshness when he saw U-12 playing, so unsure of what they were doing and yet so bright in every move.

Maybe Shane did send food to the apartment, which was certainly something Ilya could have done on his own, but sometimes it was just nice to have someone do for you.

By the fourth day apart, Shane got a picture of the really rich poutine Ilya was partial to, the first message from Ilya since Shane left aside from the automatic “I love you” when Shane sent his daily, just to know Ilya was still okay.

I ♡: we are not even married and you fatten me up.

I ♡: I have to be skinny soon. Wedding pictures, suits. Is kind of a big deal.

Me: I don’t think your husband will mind.

I ♡: oh you think this because you haven’t seen him. Sexy, big man. Very muscular, very sleek. Like sexy cat.

Shane toyed over his response, but Ilya was faster.

I ♡: I sent a picture. Where is mine back?

I ♡: Send something delicious.

Shane flushed down to his toes. Jesus. He didn’t love the idea of a picture of him floating on the servers, but also… Ilya had been sick. He deserved something.

Yeah, that was the only reason.

He tried not to feel his cock hardening as he laid out against the bed. He made a good amount of gains, but something about photographing himself always showed all the bad sides, his stubborn belly and the pathetic skinniness of his calves. He missed the professional photographers who always got the best of him and could edit out all the rest.

He sent the best one off anyway and waited for a response.

When one didn’t come, he poked.

Me: Ilya?

I ♡: one minute. Am VERY busy

Shane immediately videocalled and Ilya was in fact whacking off in their Montreal kitchen, poutine going cold in front of him. And it made Shane ache for their apartment and its high ceilings and the way it could take Ilya for granted everyday in a way Shane could not yet.

After they both came and Ilya cleaned up the kitchen, stealing a little poutine to eat and saving the rest for later (the textural idea of day old poutine horrifies Shane), they curled up in their separate beds.

Shane examined Ilya’s face on the screen, so familiar to him. The winking mole and arched lips below playful eyes. No hidden corners and uncaring ledges. He looked normal again, like Ilya. All playful light and warm corners of skin.

It made Shane feel bone-shakingly relieved. A breath released that he’d been holding for weeks. Ilya made it out. He outlasted the episode and came back to Shane.

“I’m glad you’re okay.” Shane wished he could take the words back immediately, because pity and drawing attention was just what he promised he wouldn’t do. But he wasn’t hiding shit, apparently, as Ilya quietly pointed out the phone was shaking in his hands. Shane steadied the phone against the pillow, forgoing the tripod to keep Ilya close.

“I’m sorry,” Ilya said, and Shane shook his head briskly, almost beyond words, because Ilya shouldn’t have to apologize. “I am sorry,” he argued. “Should have told you about it sooner. How it works. I made you afraid. I think I hoped that I wouldn’t…” He sighed. “I am optimist. I always think after I live through episode maybe I there will not be another, but that is not how it works.”

“I don’t know a lot about it,” Shane admitted.

“I'm newer to knowing about it too. Took me a long time to get help.” Ilya chewed his words, said lowly, “Svetlana and I used to fight about this.”

Shane shivered at this invitation into their marriage. The shape of it beyond the glistening euphoria of their wedding picture and teasing casualness at MLH events glimpsed across big rooms. Shane wanted to know, so he bit his tongue against saying it wasn’t fair of her to fight Ilya about his genuine mental illness. Some of his expression must have shown anyway because Ilya smiled, and it was a little sharp.

“She had to deal with worst. She knows I am like this before we marry. Have always been like this as kid, but we both think it will get better when life gets better.” He waved a hand to gesture to the optimist thing. “No tough father, no deportation threat, new house, new kid. My life is great, and still, I…” He shakes his head, jaw tight. “She dealt with it when I never had medication or therapist. It’s our culture, maybe, that we do not think of laying around as mental health stuff. Or maybe was my pride, I don’t know. But now I think what I did to her? Not getting treatment. It is one of the most unfair things I ever did to another person.”

Shane jumped to say it was not Ilya’s fault, but he tried to think about this weekend if he didn’t know Ilya was in therapy, if he wasn’t on meds. The withdrawing, the moodiness, the constant, oppressive desire to lay down. Imagined that young prideful Ilya laid low by his own brain, and he must have bucked hard against the reality. Lashed out the way he accused himself of being so good at. An Ilya who did not know that it could be helped, that he could and would survive many more dark episodes… And a child in the house. Poor Niko.

Poor Svetlana.

Poor Ilya.

It hurt to think about. How everyone suffered. Hurt moreso to admit that maybe Shane didn’t know how Svetlana got through it except that she must have had the utmost faith in Ilya and loved him incredibly.

“I always try to be there for my family, but… I think sometimes I fail,” Ilya confessed. His eyes flickered to Shane’s on the screen, and he chuckled softly. “What are you doing, so close to the screen?” He murmured something in Russian, fond, amused and Shane realized brought the phone very close to his face.

“I wish I was with you.”

Ilya laughed again.

“What?” Shane asked.

“It's a funny reaction to someone telling you they fail very much at important things.”

Shane hummed. “I don’t think I see it like that at all. When you really needed the help, you got it for you and for Niko. And because of that… it gets to be different for us. Because of what you’re doing. You and me are okay and so is Niko, even if it's still a little hard sometimes. That doesn't seem like a failure to me.”

The words feel clumsy in his mouth, always so unwieldy, but Ilya put a hand over his eyes, hiding them and whatever he was working through. Shane kept talking to him, and was relieved when Ilya nodded, voice thick and overwhelmed as he promised to try and call Shane next time, not to shut him out for so long. 

The next day, Shane received a reverse care package from Ilya with all his favorite brand protein powders and Shane’s absolute favorite chicken breasts from the farmer’s market stall. Niko got one as well, but Ilya moaned about how he looked like an absent father buying his son off. Fretfully, he sent it anyways because he worried about Niko eating enough more than made possible sense.

Niko was rather shrewd about his papa in Shane's opinion. He may have understood the withdrawing was as much low energy as it was Ilya trying to protect Niko and Shane from his moods. Ilya feared hurting his loved ones more than anything, more than he had a right to with how loving and warm he was, but his specific dynamic with Niko, how the depression fits into their history, that mesh of feelings belong fully to the two of them.

Shane already knew how much Ilya worried for his son inheriting his depression, how much he stressed the importance of therapy to keep Niko always in touch with himself, aware of warning signs. Ilya might not be able to prevent Niko developing depression, but Shane knew if Niko did, he would be miles ahead of where Ilya started in trying to survive it.

(And light years ahead of where poor Irina Rozanov started…)

Back then, listening to Ilya confess his perceived shortcomings, Shane felt sympathetic and openhearted to the struggle Ilya was going through, even if he couldn’t relate.

Shane always did everything for his family. Will continue to do everything for his parents, Ilya, Niko, and Anya. He has never doubted this about himself.

Lying in bed, he can’t help feel the spines of those autism books glaring into him like a brand from the shelf. He doesn’t think he has autism, really. But if there’s a chance that his parents and Rose and Hayden are right…

If there was advice for how to make himself less difficult…

Shane flicks on the lamp, mind grating against breaking his schedule, but antsy enough to go to the bookshelf and pull out the first of the three autism books, simply titled Neurodivergence. Shane puts his glasses on, aiming to read the first chapter. At the very least he could put to rest whether he has the damn thing.

Shane finishes the first book and starts the next before he arrives at work the next day. He brings the third to the gym. He goes home and reopens the first book with a mechanical pencil and starts making notes.

Shane flies into Montreal-Trudeau airport on Friday with a heavier duffel than usual. Ilya has a late game, so Shane takes a Lyft to the apartment. He starts dinner, using gloves so there’s no cross contamination between Ilya’s beef and Shane’s chicken.

Ilya comes in, tired expression perking up as he sees Shane flicking gloves off to greet him. They kiss, Ilya’s pinky ring dragging gently down Shane’s jaw as he cupped Shane's face. Ilya tastes like a long day and faintly of cinnamon gum.

Anya yaps, stamping to get at Ilya and he lifts her under her front paws like a baby to shove their faces together. Noses touching as her tongue works all over his scruffy face.

Shane watches this mildly gross sweetness but can’t feel anything for his nerves. Decides it’s better just to get it over with.

“You got me something?” Ilya asks when Shane starts digging through his duffel. Ilya puts Anya down as Shane hands over the stack of autism books.

Ilya doesn’t ask anything, but his body language leaks a mild question.

“The one on top is the first book you should read,” Shane says. “It’s co-written with an autistic person and a neurotypical person. I think it has a good balance of information and inside/outside perspective.”

Ilya takes Neurodivergence, flips it open, eyes scanning the margins where Shane scrawled some notes. He pauses on a page of symptoms and signs which Shane scratched circles around more than one. Eyebrows climb, but Ilya remains patiently silent as Shane dumps information on him.

“Self-diagnoses is a whole thing in the community… but also there is a history of accessibility issues, especially for people of color.”

“Do you want to try diagnosis? Maybe find Asian doctor, see what they say?”

“No.” The thought of replicating any part of that shitty experience with that psychologist makes Shane’s throat tense. He already hates the idea of that much bullshit vulnerability with a total stranger, but trying to pass someone’s perceived test only makes him feel more unwell. Like getting evaluated by those sports psychologists, getting told whether he could play when his own body and head had clarity of purpose. But even though he felt ready, the questions they asked were so hard, tricky, brought out the most awkward sides of him as if meant to reveal all the ways he was different and less than.

Ilya shushes him. “You don’t have to at all. We don’t have to get diagnosis.”

Shane felt pettily relieved and still silly. “I don’t want to see a professional. I just circled what I thought applied to see if it helped. You can tell me if I’m wrong about any of them.”

“Okay.” Ilya’s tone is cautious. “But this is a lot of circles.”

Shane knows. He buries his face in his hands. “Yeah.”

Ilya rubs his back, which does make him feel better even as he fights the hot feeling in his face. Fuck.

So, turns out autistic people could actually be hyper-competent. Hyper-competency actually might be what makes them super autistic. Shane learned that there was a spectrum. For every autistic person who sucked at public speaking, there was another who excelled (especially when it was structured, with rules, like, say a press scrum or practiced presentation). Those who shirked physical contact, and those who threw themselves into it like waves against a rock. That struggling with social cues did not equate to having no friends or people who loved them, or having a sex life that was fulfilling. Autistic people went to the moon, were teachers, fell in love, and even played hockey.

Someone’s success in any of these areas came down to personality type (like anyone else) and having the resources to manage emotions, changed routines, black and white thinking… The list went on sickeningly like a row of Shane Hollander’s greatest hits when he was managing being a professional player and he probably owes Rose an apology. Owes his mom another thank you, because if there was anyone who made sure he got what he needed to succeed, it was her.

“Yeah, so… I think. I think I might be autistic.”

He doesn’t know when he started squeezing his eyes shut until Ilya comes over, his thumb dragging down his neck.

“Okay.”

It’s a little anticlimactic.

“That’s it?”

“What do you want me to say? Alikazam?” Ilya snaps his fingers like a magic trick. “And now you are autistic.”

“It’s alakazam,” Shane corrects, irritated. “And go fuck yourself.”

So rude. This fucking asshole, calling Shane autistic to his face so easily and unbothered. Alakazam… Shane huffs a low laugh, curling his body into his fiance as he waits out the overmuchness of his own feelings. Stupid. Alakazam is accurate somehow, for how, with a snap, Shane feels released from an invisible cage of anxiety. He was so afraid that he might be autistic that he was building list of hellish condemnation and suffering tailor made by his brain for his brain, cementing a certitude that autism as the worst possible thing. But now he and Ilya have both said it aloud and the terror of autism crumbled into simplicity. Into mundanity. Into okay. Into Ilya’s swift acceptance and obligatory crass joke.

Into just a word, a thing so many people are.

Ilya’s brow furrows, he kisses Shane’s mouth. “Are you okay?”

Yes. No. All of the above. He can't explain the anxiety cage, so he goes for his pettiest complaint. “It’s fucking bullshit to be figuring this out so late. I’m forty-eight. Wasn’t anyone going to tell me I was probably autistic?” He dreads to think of how many people, like Rose, maybe thought that he already knew.

“I think… it's apart of you. I didn't always see it as being something else. It's just how you are.” Which, Ilya is so fucking in love with him it is a little disgusting. Ilya squeezes him and picks up the book, skimming the page and then pausing with his finger on one sign, lips pursed.

“What?”

“Maybe also this one? Not something I noticed, but Marleau has commented on it—”

Shane glances over. Flat affect and voice. Is Ilya fucking kidding him?

“My voice isn’t fucking flat!”

Ilya raises an eyebrow, and okay, Shane can kind of hear the way his voice doesn’t exactly go up or down. Jesus fucking Christ. Is this something he’s going to notice about himself now? How is he going to do meetings knowing that apparently he fucking drones on and on?

He rubs his eyeballs. “Maybe my parents were right, it doesn’t even help to know.”

“Nothing helped?” Ilya pokes, because he knows Shane is lying. “Will never have to eat another bad food again. And it's good to say so people know you are not picky. It's neurological. They judge you for it, but they shouldn't. And you understand yourself better. It's the point if all this.”

Funny, Shane thought he was doing this for Ilya. For the other people in his life… But when Shane read the stories from people who were successful in the book, it had soothed something in him. He saw himself in them, in the exacting nature of their thinking, their blunt honesty. And beyond the success, there was even happiness. A full life, the kind that Shane always hoped for, because they learned they were autistic and found new metrics to measure themselves. A new format to thrive in.

Shane, obviously, can't do that. His goals are too complex and the nature of the field too intolerant of difference, but maybe small areas in his interpersonal life could be improved and better understood through the label of autism. Maybe when he and Ilya fought, Ilya will know without Shane saying that he doesn't mean to be difficult. If Shane had understood his neurodivergence earlier, maybe he could have integrated it into his life fully... That thought isn't quite comfortable either.

He tries to imagine a world where he got the diagnosis when he was seven. Would his coach have said something to the other boys about including him? (Would it have even helped?) Would his particular game process and robotic-like playing have been treated as such teasing fodder? He’d cried so much until puberty hit and he found a wall to put his tears behind, but until then he had to force himself to play through the tears, to make the shot so no one cared he was an unsociable, robotic, crybaby.

Would they have accepted his idiosyncrasies?

Would they have let an autistic be captain?

Sorry not autistic— an autistic, gay, half Asian.

Fucking ridiculous.

There is bitterness in his mouth, and Ilya hums. Leans forward and kisses Shane sweetly. He doesn’t seem to find the bad taste on his tongue. Instead, Ilya pats Shane gently on the back.

“I will change. We can have an early night.” Ilya looks at Shane with that arched brow, asking if he’s okay. Shane swallows hard, nods. Of course he’s okay. Obviously. This stuff isn’t anything real or bad just… Just…

Ilya totters his head, maybe thinking we will work on it as he turns and heads into the bedroom.

Shane turns back to the sauce he was whisking together. Tamari and a little olive oil, a dash of honey for Ilya’s. He wants to stop thinking about autism, but his mind spins, relentless.

It’s not like Shane never knew autistic people. He used to do outreach for kids all the time. They would come by with their special needs schools or with their independent tutors and Shane might spend half an hour as captain showing off the facilities. He remembers one teen boy was quiet, taking in everything with eyes that darted to only the odd places. Whether he even enjoyed the hockey tour, Shane had no idea. Yet, at the end pulled out the single biggest hockey trading card binder collection from his backpack and shoved it at Shane to sign 36 different cards from his seasons. Another girl was so chatty that Shane could barely get a word in, smile spread huge over her face, laughing loudly and correcting his tour with blunt pleasure. They’d bantered about who was right about certain Metros hockey facts, and it was different to how he spoke to other people, but not bad. Privately, he thought her one of the most joyful people he'd ever met, as if it had never occured to her to be anything but boldly herself.

Shane liked spending time with the kids, but even the nicest player on the team would say, after, christ, they are awkward. This was charity. Outreach. An assignment to complete.

There was a buzzing, anxious awareness Shane had about himself when other players said that kind of thing. That Shane himself was awkward, sometimes. Off.

The autistic kids hadn’t always been aware of it though.

Shane has that sickening fear, like when Ilya explained that gaydar was real. That maybe Shane has been humored for a long time.

Does Ilya see him like those kids? Does he pity him and the things he doesn’t see? A worse thought, will he now start pitying Shane now? Ilya didn’t suspect any of this autism stuff before Shane brought it up, but now he could connect Shane to others, to those awkward kids. To a mental difference. Neurodivergent.

Shane’s eyes bore into the shadowed hallway to their bedroom, as if willing Ilya’s thoughts to pass through the walls into him.

He has to know, suddenly. He must know what Ilya really thinks.

Shane rinses his hands, dries them. He pads down the hallway to the open door. Ilya is halfway through changing, flipping a shirt inside out to wiggle into. He stops when Shane enters.

Shane carefully slides Anya outside the door and shuts it. Looks up at Ilya.

“Sweetheart?”

Shane goes to Ilya and drops to his knees, feeling the sting against his kneecaps and joints. It’s a nice ache, almost, grounding. He leans into it, feeling flush. He has to look silly, a grown man in his slacks tottering closer, but Ilya’s breath only gets deeper as Shane reaches out. Shane’s hands wrap around to Ilya’s back, feeling the burr of his back hair and following the trail dipping down to the crest of his plump ass in jeans. Shane presses his face against the front of Ilya’s zipper. Ilya inhales sharply, brightly.

“Shane?”

Shane glances up at him, as if daring him to say something more, some pitying, are you sure? Are you okay? To look at him any differently or less.

Shane feels like he might cry if Ilya does anything less than treat him the same. Wonders, suddenly if he should he have let Ilya jerk Shane off when he was depressed. Was Shane pitying Ilya then? Not respecting his autonomy?

If this autism thing has ruined the bright burning thing that first sparked their relationship Shane will perish. He has to know what Ilya thinks, and he has to know in a way that doesn’t lie— in the body.

He looks up, expectantly, anxiously. Ilya’s eyes are dark burning holes, his lips wetting.

“It's embarrassing to have the deputy commissioner on his knees all the time.”

Fuck. Shane presses his open mouth to the denim, imagines he can smell Ilya through the thick cloth. His knees hurt from the crawling, a stinging feeling growing into an uncomfortable numbing sensation. He likes it so much.

Ilya unzips his pants, revealing the black of his underwear. Ilya’s beringed hand goes to Shane’s face, it's twisted while he was changing and the tiger's eye embosses itself into Shane's cheek. Ilya guides Shane against his underwear and Shane can feel the coarse pubic hair springing up against the fabric, poking through in odd places against the smooth planes of his forehead and nose. The heat and rank smell of Ilya’s cock after a long day of work in his office and on the ice. Making his players run for him and skate hard and love the sport the way he had.

“You know in a few months it will be May. You will be 49 and you will still be on your knees for me,” Ilya says. Shane nuzzles him, feeling the hardness against his face. “A month after that, it will be June and you will be on your knees as my husband.”

Shane moans, tries to draw back to breath but Ilya presses him harder into his crotch, into the dense darkness of fabric and smell and sex.

“And a year after that? You will be my fifty-year-old husband. And guess what? You will still be on your knees, sucking my cock so good.”

Shane groans, he’s never been so fucking hard, but Ilya makes him feel that way constantly. His face feels wet and he buries the tears in the cloth, in Ilya’s hardness.

“And when I’m commissioner?”

Ilya lowers his underwear, letting his cock out and it perks up against Shane’s face, warm and familiar. Shane presses the erection against Ilya’s warm, hairy stomach, and takes it into his mouth.

“You know,” Ilya says, groaning. Shane sucks. He does know.

Shane will be here. Yes, Shane will be autistic, is autistic. Now and for years after. He will be Ilya's just the same, (also now and for years after). This man who could not see the difference between Shane and autistic tendencies, understood they were the same. Shane feels it to be true in every warm, familiar touch. That this life is still his.

Shane pops off, and Ilya helps him stand, raising him up and kissing him like he knows how silly Shane is about these things, how demanding he is of proof even if he won't ask for it explicitly. As if he doesn't know the ex's in Shane's life that have accused him of never telling them what he needed and manipulating them into sex to take what he wanted to self-soothe.

Ilya only sighs, his face affectionate. I will give to you, I will fuck you anyway, silly man, it says. I'm happy to prove anything.

Shane staggers on numb legs, weak kneed from love most of all, and lets Ilya maneuver him back outside to the hallway. Is he wanting sex on the couch?

Ilya steps away to put Anya on the balcony, and then turns and eases Shane up against the glass table.

“Ilya, please. Please, we were in the bedroom. Why can’t we use the bed?”

“You look good on the table. Nice expensive glass.”

Shane makes an irritated sound. Ilya raises an eyebrow. “What? You don’t like because you keep thinking about me fucking you when we eat? That's not my fault, is it? Take that off.”

“Tables aren't meant for this, asshole.” Still, Shane strips while Ilya gets the lube from their miscellaneous drawer.

"Ours is." The glass is cold against Shane’s back when Ilya picks his hips off the floor, splays him across like something fit for display. Ilya lubes up and draws an oily fingers inside, over Shane’s walls with long, deliberate drags. Careful, too careful.

“Fuck you,” Shane says. "I'm replacing it with a two seater." It’s worth it for the hard way Ilya pushes his cock into him, all at once, sending the breath from his lungs.

“You're bigger on the table this time. Two person table will break, you are too heavy with muscle. Huge fucking jock commissioner breaks table,” Ilya says, like a headline, hovering over Shane as he starts his steady, awful pace. Shane’s legs kick out but there’s nowhere to get friction as they dangle in the air. The best he can do is wrap around Ilya and pull him in, closer, ever closer. Ilya groans, thrusts in like he can erase Shane's doubts with enough will.

Shane feels like the table might shatter at any moment just like him. Alakazam.  

Ilya comes and braces himself hard on the glass, seeking some deeper place in Shane as he hitches his hips up the last few, rabbiting times. Ilya’s hand, still half oily from the lube, lands on Shane’s cock and in moments he’s spilling quickly in the dark place between their bodies. Ilya lays on Shane afterwards, dragging his navel and limp cock over the puddle of come. Shane shivers, overstimulated. It’s bliss. Wonderfully heavy… but also.

“Get off, we’re going to break it.”

“Your super expensive table is strong enough for us both. No need for a tiny table.” Ilya kisses Shane’s neck, his breathing heavy and smooth. Ilya swears fondly in Russian. “When we live together, I think you may kill me. Welcome home every day like this. Sounds very dangerous for the heart.”

“It’s good exercise,” Shane says, but his mind is starting to wander and his face feels too hot.

Like fucking on the money, or the first time they fucked on this table, Shane feels very silly afterwards. The feeling is compounded by his getting on his knees just to know whether Ilya still wanted to fuck him. What is wrong with him? They had to make dinner still. This is not the rational reaction to finding out you’re probably autistic. Why is Shane like this?

“You should walk Anya. I’ll start cooking.” Shane wriggles out from under Ilya. He feels even more foolish being naked in his open plan dining room (again). Fuck, but he feels like a fucking deviant.

“Come here.” Ilya reels a reluctant Shane in, pulls him close and examines his eyes. Shane doesn’t know what he sees, but they feel wet. Ilya kisses his silly face anyway. “We should both shower, first, hm? Anya can wait. She is a good girl.”

Ilya washes Shane with the same tenderness and shameless groping as always. It’s endlessly reassuring.

And next weekend, Shane finds Ilya with a book, Dating on the Spectrum, a sheepish grin quirked on his lips. “My therapist suggests it is a good read. Real experiences from neurodivergent people.”

Part of Shane wants to get mad, to say, you’re still just engaged to me, not some abstract autistic person, nothing has changed. But Ilya has a right to figure things out, the same way Shane can read books about dating someone depressed.

He settles stiffly in bed, determined to read a hockey biography, but Ilya makes these aggravatingly interested hums. Shane leans his biography down to peek at what’s so interesting and ends up nestled on Ilya’s big chest, chastising him for turning the pages too fast as they read the autistic and neurotypical couple experiences together.

So even if it is horrifying to read that Shane’s incessant longing for strong touch might be tied to this new shard of identity (hyposensitivity), Ilya’s hand rubbing his bicep softens the blow.

“No wonder you like hockey. Getting hit so much. And being on your knees for me.”

“Ilya.” Shane scowls, honestly flustered. Is Ilya allowed to make his autistic tendencies sexual? It doesn’t seem… kosher.

“And when I keep fucking you after you come. You make these noises—”

“Ilya!”

“What?” Ilya glances with a guileless look. His words are glib, but the hand pressing into Shane speaks volumes. I see, it says, I touch you already, now I touch you more, a little harder. How is this? When Shane draws closer to the pressure, Ilya rolls his head to rest atop Shane's, smothering Shane with the all of him. We’re doing this together, his lovely body says. We have done, and will do more.

Ilya kisses Shane's crown pleasantly hard and flicks the page to the next chapter.

Chapter End Notes

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this is three chapters stacked on top of each other in a trenchcoat the way this fic is three separate fics all under a trenchcoat. we're definitely gonna hit 100k and i am in shambles.

my tenses are so bewildered after the memory inside memory and future speak that I can only pray this makes sense. Do comment if no

i came up with 600 as a body count for Ilya as homage to sir paul mccartney who said he slept with over 600 girls during the beatles touring years... which was a four (maybe five) year span between 1962-1966. Ilya does it over a ten year span, which I think is pretty fair for his lifestyle, but this may be yet another example of truth being more absurd than fiction hahaha.

anyone who knows the (oblique and obscure and non HR) fic i am referencing alakazam from will win my gushing, undying love.

thank you for your patience. something silly this way comes.

Chapter 13: shane is physical

Chapter Notes

fun fact, the original 70k story had 2 sex scenes total.

When their demo suits arrive, Ilya teases about not letting Shane see his, isn’t it bad luck? Shane gives him one narrow look, and his to-be husband starts stripping.

Anya paws at the door, but Shane does not want her fur on the three test suits. Shane met with a tailor who did Rose’s last two Oscar outfits. Discretion is the name of the game, as usual. She chafed when Shane said he would take the measurements himself.

“My team is discrete,” she promised, offended.

“I know, I just… not yet. We’ll do the final sizing in person the week before the wedding. We’re still losing weight and bulking.” She sniffed, but accepted his words. Shane can’t tell her it’s because he isn’t even out yet, but he will be by then. One week before the wedding, Shane Hollander will be out… It’s still hard to picture. Somehow he thinks she would only be more offended at the reason his discretion. Shane sent an apology to Rose anyway who laughed when she heard, You’re going to get me blacklisted, she sent back.

There are three suits for Ilya to try on. The first is a boxier cut, draws attention to his shoulders and arms. He models dramatically for Shane, as if aping for the SportsCenter cameras like they used to as young men. Despite his silliness, Shane has a good image of the outfit at the wedding. This suit would need a bracelet, might not look as good with a flower.

Shane makes him try on the second which is better, nipping in at the waist, now that Ilya has one again. He really has slimmed up impressively. Privately, very quietly, Shane thinks he lost a little warmth, that heft that Shane likes so much, the way his weight crashed into Shane when Ilya fucked him— but he wants Ilya to look how he wants for the wedding.

The third has tiny, shiny pinstripes that add a mysterious but effective glimmer to the solid black and Shane likes this one the most with the cut of the second. He suggests this to Ilya who is happy to agree, asks that his pants be tighter, which Shane is only too gleeful to accede to.

“My turn, no?” Ilya says, and it doesn’t make sense, because he just went— “I get to watch you now. Go, fashion show.”

Shane shakes his head. He wears the first black suit, pulls at the sleeves which are a good length but drag against his biceps. More gains, which is good. Still, when he looks at himself in the mirror, he can’t help but see a tired, businessman. Worse still, the little tummy hasn’t melted off like he hoped. He’s gained muscle in his core, but that’s melded with the fat, giving him a thicker waist. He’ll have to do a drastic cut in the weeks before the wedding.

The whole outfit looks a little drab. Shane’s impression is not helped by Ilya’s gentle frowning as Shane changes into his second black suit.

“Why is there no white suit?” Ilya asks, when Shane is done with all three.

“Ilya that’s fucked. Just because I… It doesn’t make me the bride just because I—”

Ilya groans. “No, not because of that. Fuck. No, because your skin. You are a summer palette.”

Shane blinks at Ilya the same way Ilya has looked at him when he explains his skin care routine. Complete and total lack of understanding.

“You had a stylist, no? Did she not tell you that you look fucking incredible in white?”

Oh. That was one of the colors she highlighted for Shane, although he rarely wore it aside from dress shirts under suits.

“Or maybe a nice burgundy,” Ilya suggests.

Shane splutters. “Burgundy? Jesus, Ilya, this is a wedding, not a casino.”

Ilya groans. “No, it's not a wedding. Is our wedding. We do what we want.”

Shane gives him a dubious look. Doesn’t he know how a wedding goes? But then Shane remembers that Ilya got married in Vegas last time. He knows that, even if only subconsciously, that is part of why Shane wanted to give him a big, formal wedding. Not the impulsive vegas wedding night he sought out of fear, but a flower laden, cake frosted, suit-wearing wedding.

And maybe (maybe) another part of Shane is also making sure they are legible as a couple. Shane will be out, but their wedding will be their first major event as public figures. This will launch the public perception of their relationship. Is he so wrong for wanting to make the two of them more decipherable for their largely straight audience?

(To show, that, as aspiring MLH commissioner, Shane is not at all different from everyone else.)

“White is a wedding colour,” Ilya argues. He goes to his closet, he fishes out a white blazer, creamy in coloring and rich in fabric. “Try it. See how amazing you will look.”

Shane looks at the blazer, terrified, comments already playing in his mind. Here comes the bride. Big, gay, can’t hide.

“No,” Shane says, curt without realizing.

“Both black, we will look like a funeral—”

Shane’s heart thuds, remembers that dream of Ilya, gone in the dirt.

“Fuck off,” he snaps.

Ilya watches him, warily. Waiting for a blowup maybe.

Shane waits for Ilya to fight back.

Neither of them do. Instead they wrap the suits back in the bags. Shane circles the number he liked best on himself, boring businessman or no, and shows it to Ilya who wearily nods in agreement.

Shane is already ready for Ilya to try and leave, to ask for space. He’s on his guard, mouth ready with arguments our marriage can’t sustain fights that always end in someone leaving, we need to be able to communicate, I told you I was a lot, I warned you, but Ilya lays down placidly in bed.

He seems thoughtful, if a little morose. Still, he doesn’t hesitate when Shane squirms up next to him, almost provokingly even as he quietly asks for something physical. Ilya accedes, holds him carefully, mindful of Shane’s shoulder.

They stay like that until Shane’s hackles lower.

Ilya is the first to speak.

“You know, I am glad you are a man.”

Shane stares, baffled. He knows this, obviously. In the hundred ways Ilya fucks him, thumbs his chest, tastes his balls, kneads his cock.

“I know. I’m glad you are too.”

“I know.”

Shane kisses Ilya’s neck. Covetous of the space.

“Part of me thinks, if you are not a woman, you will be safe around me.”

Shane freezes, the hot greediness draining out of him. His eyes glance to the slantwise cross, the wedding ring on his finger. The dead women Ilya carts around, the blame stirred thick inside of him.

There is nothing Shane can say that Ilya will hear. He tries anyway.

“It was not your fault.”

“I know,” Ilya murmurs, lip service. “But I think maybe you will be different. It makes me hopeful.”

The room is dark, intense. Shane feels a bead of sweat glance off the corner of his eye and tread slowly down to drop silently on his blue jersey, fabric bright like a beacon in all this darkness.

He turns slowly from the window to the dimly lit bed, empty but rumpled. His hips pivot like winding up a shot slow motion, only there’s no puck, no goal, no moment—

“Cut!”

Rose’s voice breaks through the darkness, and like an act of God, lights outside the frame spark up and Shane winces at the thrush of brightness and the dozen or so bodies that appear from the shadows with their eyes trained all on him.

Shane fidgets in his full hockey gear, rocking on skates with practiced ease on the black taped floor. He feels hilariously overdressed and tall compared to the black jeans and tees and the occasional pair of dark sweats everyone else wears on the film set.

A PA scurries over with a water bottle. Shane knocks the water back conservatively. He’ll be damned if he has to take a piss in all this gear.

He wonders wryly, not for the first time, if he’s making a fool of himself. Only, when he’d called Rose to apologize, she’d listened patiently, kindly to his words (and saying “I’m sorry for flipping my lid because you thought I knew I was autistic… If it’s any consolation, you’re probably right” was humiliating enough), but Rose did not get where she is by letting things lie. She sighed, mouth pushed into a moue he knew so well. Well, I know one way you can make it up to me…

Shane’s call sheet said “Shane Hollander, as Himself.” He arrived to the studio early Saturday morning instead of flying out to Montreal to be with Ilya which is kind of killing him if he’s honest because he wanted to get the wedding music nailed down (and he also wanted to get nailed down, if he’s very honest).

Shane texted Ilya incessantly during his obligatory three hours on set after hair and makeup, waiting for all the other moving pieces to be ready for him. Now that they are shooting his scene, Shane can’t help but hope she won’t even use it, that this whole day is a waste. Well, if it keeps going on like this, she definitely won’t. Shane feels like a sweaty mannequin and is sure he looks like one on-screen as well.

“Hold for costume change!” the 1AD’s voice shouts, and Shane takes that as permission to dab his forehead for all the sweat. This is the third jersey he’s sweat through in only six takes. It’s hot under the lights, hotter still to be in full hockey attire.

Whoever did the wardrobe did a very good job because his uniform is almost a clone of his old Montreal uniform. The blues and reds are a shade off, the iconic M arches smoothed and blocked, resembling a letter Shane doesn’t think exists in French or English. When he first saw it in the mirror he was unsettled. All the little differences to something so recognizable made such an uncanny valley effect, for the uniform and for him so many years removed.

The whole shoot is rather odd, eerie with the empty bed and cramped room. Rose says that’s how dreams are and Shane, who doesn’t like remembering his dreams for just that reason, has to admit that maybe she is correct.

He dabs his face a little harder, mindful of the makeup, as bodies scurry around him, making last minute adjustments to the hot lights, and changing the camera lens like a surgical procedure.

He hopes the new lens will make the next take work. Hilariously, Shane feels like an imposter wearing all the blue hockey gear mimicking his time as Shane Hollander of Montreal Metros. It’s silly because he is still that person. Some years removed, but still Shane Hollander, right?

Rose’s eyes are not on Shane’s sweaty fidgeting as she watches the play back on the monitor and frowns like all of Shane’s severest coaches at what she sees on tape.

He wonders if she’s having second thoughts about this just like Shane. Surely she can see that he doesn’t know how to act like Shane Hollander. Or maybe it’s that he’s out of practice. He used to have lots of practice being Shane Hollander Liking a Sportsdrink or Shane Hollander Admiring Rolex Watch.

Shane Hollander Wakes in a Dream is so much harder.

He chose to stop any modeling or sponsorships since getting scratched forever by his shoulder. He’s after the commissionership. While ads help keep him in the public conscious, they are also not quite respectable for someone looking to head an organization. Besides, he never did the tedious sponsorships for pleasure, just for his finances. They helped make him a household name (his mother’s longterm goal for his career in years 1-5), but there’s nothing Shane needs to do now to maintain his fame. He wishes he had less of it, honestly.

So maybe he’s gotten out of practice about acting. He sweats, remembering how confident he felt on the phone when acting was proof he wasn’t autistic (haha) and wonders if he over estimated himself.

During shots, he tries to be Shane Hollander, You Know, That Hockey Player You Remember, but it seems the more he digs at that feeling, that glossy, impenetrable feeling of that player he was, (Admired By All The Kids Who Looked Like Him, Generational Talent), the more mired Rose’s expression gets.

Rose hops off her folding chair and unwinds the snaking black cord of her headset. She comes over to him easily, as if she has plenty of time, despite Shane knowing that each minute is some thousand dollars. The 1AD behind her certainly feeling it if the tight clutch on her printed schedule means anything.

“How are you feeling, Shane?”

“Not as easy as I remember,” he admits, as she stops in front of him. The heat doesn’t seem to phase her, just makes her smile brighter, more nuanced. He hates to say, but she is so suited for the stage.

“It’s not bad,” she soothes.

“It’s not great.”

“Not yet,” she argues.

Shane hesitates, sweat beading on his lip. He licks it, quick and habitually. Lowers his voice to be polite.

“I don’t think I really know what… what you’re going for here,” Shane admits. She told him it was a dream, that the main character found an old childhood hero in her bedroom, but he was older and strange. Shane gets it conceptually. Maybe. “You want me, as Shane Hollander to…” He shrugs one of his shoulders, trying to invite her to give clearer, more actionable instructions. He’s good with those.

Rose tilts her head, considering. “Tell me something about Ilya.”

“What?” Shane parrots, just because now he’s really lost the plot.

Shane’s eyes glance around, but everyone is far enough away, resetting, even if the DP looks minutes away from jumping on Rose for her opinion when she’s done and the 1AD looks twitchy.

“Something recent about him.”

The first thing that comes to mind is that Ilya installed a handheld shower nozzle. Both of them prefer the top down, ceiling spray, so the only reason he could have installed that is to obliquely ask to come in Shane’s ass before he actually does. And Shane has already seen the conversation coming, can hear the ring of Ilya’s whining tone when Shane argues about it being a mess, but we have shower nozzle. Will clean you so good inside. Shane could tell Rose that Shane knows Ilya set the nozzle up before the conversation so Shane had time to get used to the idea, not out of real manipulative subterfuge, but because it takes him time to adjust to things, which is probably one of those autistic aspects. And that Shane will probably say yes because he loves that he hates the idea in a way that makes him lean into Ilya’s mess, especially on and in Shane’s body.

That tidbit seems crass though, something he might mention to Rose on the phone and not Rose in the directing chair, so he thinks about mentioning the way Ilya shaved him last, his hand was so heavy on Shane’s chin, and he felt the mild possessiveness in his grip. Baffling to have so much beef about Rose this long after.

Shane doesn’t really understand why Ilya shaves him every day, or the wordless evolution of that tender gesture so he doesn’t talk about that either.

He squints. “We’ve been arguing about the wedding, actually.”

She nods, encouraging.

Shane wrestles a smile. “He wants me to wear my glasses at the altar.”

Rose laughs, bright and clear.

“Your reading glasses? To the wedding?”

“Yes, exactly,” Shane drawls. “He says I’ll need them to read vows. But we both know I’ll have it memorized. The glasses make me look so old, you know?”

Rose nods, humming to herself. Her eyes drift to the side a little even as she answers, “Some guys are into that.”

I’m not, Shane wants to say, but that’s more to do with how it looks on himself when he’s still very much in his prime, on top of his skin routine. Ilya… he doesn’t mind. But that has more to do with the way Ilya has grown into his strength gently with age, each bit of softness. The lines of his face are so hard earned, care worn from parenting and loss.

You mean I smoked like chimney for years, Ilya corrected, when Shane murmured his appreciation one night. And maybe it is from the smoke, but Shane still likes how the lines make his smile so much bigger, eyes crinkling so sweetly.

Rose’s gaze snaps back to the present. She looks like someone who’s seen their way through the traffic to the net.

Wardrobe appears with a jersey change, and Shane flicks the sweaty jersey off— he’d stepped out of sight for the first change but now on his fourth jersey he’s lost any politeness about his body for sweaty fatigue. Everyone is very professional, besides.

Habitually, he rubs his face with the jersey, mopping sweat, and winces, because he knows that means more make up—

“How do you feel about going shirtless?” Rose asks, shrewd.

Shane looks down at the blue jersey and feels a little flustered. He’s been working out, but…

“I don’t think… I mean, it won’t compare to…” to before. Rose looks at him like he’s stupid, and maybe he is. Because obviously. But also… Other people will make that comparison. Other people will put this picture against old advertisements, will tease out all the differences like their thesis depends on it and hold the gap between past and present up like a failing of Shane’s moral character.

“If you’re not comfortable—” Rose says, switching gears.

Shane hates the pity in her voice, and he lowers the jersey he held half over his chest. Maybe when she sees the whole thing, she’ll change her mind.

Rose looks satisfied if anything when she sees the whorls of dark straight hair crawling up his chest, winging his pecs like a bird, trailing into the faintest line down his stomach. He sucks in instinctively which brings out the faint lines of definition, the burnished color of his nipples. “This is perfect.” She turns and calls to the side. “Make up! Can I get some color matching.”

Three people come over, one of which, Violet, has been Rose’s makeup artist for years and Shane’s met at parties. She’s a trans woman (“Just say woman Shane, it’s really not that deep”) and at least he has a familiar face as they dab and powder up and down his body.  

“These, can you make these a little deeper?” Rose asks, pointing to his face. “Keep the freckles.”

“Oh, yes, obviously,” Violet agrees.

“We’re going to give you deeper wrinkles,” Rose decides, and Shane bites back irritation.

“I don’t have any—”

“Yes, exactly,” Rose waves it off, in a way that is insultingly practiced for actor wrangling. “That’s why we need the makeup. Stay still.”

Shane finishes, let’s Rose maneuver him from side to side and he thinks the real reason she became a director is that she wanted to play with dolls, instead of being the one played with.

He can’t suck in forever and he tries to slowly ease the tension of his stomach so it’s at least not humiliatingly obvious what he was doing. He looks down at that stubborn bit of fat, the way it dogs him as he approaches his wedding day. If anything, it’s gotten worse as he’s worked to put on muscle. Of course, he’s had to eat a caloric surplus, and he’s used to doing that from years of playing hockey with those extra games of the playoff in mind, but the excess is aggravating to see now, in this space under the lights. Maybe when he cuts the gut will vanish, but he still feels…

Violet expertly and impersonally runs her brush over his stomach. It tickles, and he clenches again.

He thinks of Ilya so many years ago pressing his young mouth against the solidity of Shane’s abs.

“Oh, very nice. I know how you get these.”

“Fucking working out, dumbass,” Shane huffed.

“No. Is from jacking off.” Ilya’s hand dipped below and dragged slowly down Shane cock, eased by the hotel lotion that would leave his cock greasy and velvety after. Shane inhaled, his abdomen clenching and he saw the tightening of all those lines on his lower stomach. “See?” Ilya said. “Very clear lines. Must be doing all the time. You have time for sleep with all this cock grabbing?”

“Sure you’re not talking about yourself?”

Ilya hummed, stroked slower, more pressure, thumb swirling pre over his head.

“Mmm you are thinking of me so much?”

“You wish.”

“How many times a day?”

Shane hesitated, breathing hard through a kick of arousal and anger. Those hideously embarrassing questions Ilya always asked that made Shane feel… He didn’t know what.

“Fuck off.”

Ilya clucked, and his hand stopped moving. Shane fell back into the hotel bed, hips moving up into Ilya’s fist, pathetically, but Ilya put his other hand on Shane pelvis, stopping the movement.

“How many?”

Shane panted, sweat rolling to the back of his short hair, onto the pool that was already on the hotel pillow.

“Fuck. Two. I don’t know.”

Ilya’s hand started again. “Liar.”

“It’s true.” Once in the morning and once after practice or the game when he got home. To unwind. It was just mechanical, managing his body’s needs. It wasn’t anything lush like this. Indulgent and slick and depraved. Hotter than anything he could dream up.

“How many when you have time? What is most?”

Fuck. Ilya’s hand was slow, taunting. Shane felt that creeping embarrassment that Ilya made him like so much.

“Six.”

Ilya’s eyes shone almost gold in the dim light, his hand immediately doubling down, thumb flicking over the head and sending Shane’s head rolling back. Ilya treated it like a compliment, and not like Shane’s hormones taking over for him. As if he knew that Shane spent every one of those six times thinking about moments like these. Their hookups were food that he lived off of year-round like he was rationing in a famine. Fuck.

“Six is a lot. No wonder you have these.” Ilya kissed down, tongue laving between the line of muscle. “Jerking off to me makes you very hot, I think.”

Shane’s teammates often called him vain, especially when a new billboard came out, whether Shane was topless or just sexed up in the mysterious post-production editing that made him look powerful and dripping with sex appeal that Shane didn’t think he could grope at. He didn’t feel that way about himself, vain. His body was good for the things it did. Except—

The only times he felt that youthful, vain pride is when he stripped in dim hotel lights. Ilya spread over on one of hundreds of tacky, cheap bed spreads, anticipatory and bare, watching Shane folding his clothes. How easy it was to turn, with Ilya’s consuming eyes on his body with so much plain appreciation. Shane would glance down at himself, see the beautiful lines of his flesh, the arch of his own cock between powerful thighs and felt glowing, cocky, and irresistible. A grin would pinch his cheeks, bursting from his chest. He always wanted to be seen like this by Ilya. To be so gorgeous and desirable. Invincible.

Now, being older, Shane almost wonders if he should have enjoyed having such an obedient, fully working body more, relished it more, taken more pictures or something. He doesn’t know. Done more arm swings and golf and all the shit his shoulder won’t take anymore.

Now, when they have sex, Ilya’s wide tongue still laves down his chest. Still wanders on its way to Shane’s cock, but curls around a lip of fat. When Shane comes, it’s not with that clean tightening of abdominal lines like laces on a skate drawing tighter, it’s with the faintest jiggle. And Ilya mouths over that too licking up Shane’s spilt come and Shane doesn’t know how he feels except a little humiliated and loved at the same time.

He wants to be better for Ilya. To be like before. Stupid, silly thought. But still…

Whatever Rose finds in his body is not the perfection it once had, but she’s unbothered. The makeup complete, she positions him this way and that before she nods to herself and is still satisfied.

“Perfect. Okay, Shane. I want you to— no keep holding the jersey, no, the clean one. That’s good. Now do like before, look from window to the bed but picture yourself on the ice.”

Shane stands at his mark in just his hockey pants and skates and goes through it again, but apparently he looks violent.

“Try it again. That person, your special person is watching,” she says, obliquely. Shane glances around nervously, but no one can possibly know… The lights grow brighter, consuming his vision and shrouding the extra bodies in darkness.

Shane waits for the action. It calls, and it’s odd the way Ilya’s sight seems to fall on him like a physical thing. Shane forgets he’s on a set for a simple moment. He glances out the window and then turns to the unmade bed. Smiles.

“Yes,” Rose says. “Yes, you looked just like the Shane Hollander I remember!”

The only thing worse than seeing Ilya getting hugged and borderline felt up by Sasha Volkov is knowing that the whole thing is Shane’s fault.

To be fair to Shane, he didn’t realize how quickly things would get out of hand.

It started when they sent out their first batch of invitations and Shane asked Ilya whether they should make Cyrillic invitations. Ilya sighed, said no, is no one to invite from Russia.

Not even old friends? Shane asked.

No one who can risk association with bisexual man.

Some of Shane’s ache must have shown on his face, because Ilya shook his head. Have my friends here, coworkers, neighbours, my former college players to invite. That’s plenty for me. How many Semenov’s will be there? So many! Nina has big enough family to fill Russia.

Shane still felt regretful for all the ways Ilya couldn’t reach for his past. Cut off by a government who touted Ilya when it benefited them, and unsanctioned him when it didn’t. Shane is sad enough to snoop on Ilya’s social media (thriving with the additional pictures of Ilya and Anya together. Shane netted him almost ten percent increase of followers), to see if there were any old friends that could be invited as a surprise.

He remembered how hard Ilya worked so Shane could feel like he had parts of his heritage in the ceremony, and while Shane did not want nor need the wagashi, it was a sweet gesture— one he felt driven to return to his homesick fiancé.

Yes, homesick. In odd moments, in a long glance at old pewter glasses kept in his entirely too large hutch of crystal. In off-handed gripes about his Russian getting rusty, forgetting the specific word for wheelbarrow, passive vocabulary drifting. Longing that winks around large bites of black bread that he reached for on blue days when there was nothing else homey to reach for. Shane tries to imagine him in Russia, but only imagines Ilya in a big hat and fur, or slicked back hair in a edgy tracksuit and realizes his imagination is hardly up to the task. He does not know the spirit of the real place at all, and it’s no wonder he can’t mimic it by offering Russian restaurants to try, or drinks to make. Russia is a sensibility, a way of speaking, being, only truly captured by the people.

Having someone from Ilya’s home might be a nice surprise, really. Just the thing to make their wedding truly special.

Shane logged onto Ilya’s social media, reminding himself to text Ilya the new password, not that he would care. Still, the principal remained. Shane wasn’t locking Ilya out of his socials, just tending to them. They weren’t Shane’s, really.

Shane usually stuck to posting, but today he thumbed open the DMS.

Ilya wouldn’t mind Shane skimming his private messages for names—Shane knew because this is what it meant for Ilya to hand over the control, to hand over his social media. Total carte blanche to look into his past.

So all the girls dropping pictures of themselves in Ilya’s DMs, the ghosts of old hookups wondering if he ever comes around Boston anymore were only fuel for the growing, dark pleasure in Shane’s chest. They didn’t even know that Ilya was not active, that it was Shane taking the pictures of Ilya that they were liking so much.

They could not know that Shane was the one getting blowjobs and footjobs and fucked up the ass, sometimes with two cocks. That he sucked Ilya’s asshole until he blew himself, hands free. Shane almost pitied them, because Ilya didn’t even care enough to even look at their messages, nor to even hide them from Shane— that’s how insignificant they were in the scheme of his and Ilya’s relationship.

Shane honestly couldn’t wait to come out just to see the messages pop up. Shock, maybe. Congratulations, some of them. Blocking Ilya for embarrassment, hopefully. Everyone would know who Ilya was loyal to now, why none of these messages would ever be answered.

Shane’s power trip ended when he finally landed on unfamiliar Cyrillic letters. He opened the chat and blinked when he found old photos. In seconds he opened the images and was zooming in. The first was a selfie.

Ilya was young; the long, square corners of his face that Shane was used to were uncut here, mired in babyfat. He must have been fifteen, in a disheveled school uniform, teeth bared teasingly as if to bite Svetlana who was next to him. Svetlana was all gangly legs. She’d used some hair wax to press curls against her forehead and the rest of her curly hair burst in a ponytail behind her and Shane did see that sporty version Ilya mentioned in the muscle of her strong arm. She was the jock girl playing hockey and she bared her teeth back at Ilya.

There was a third teen who slouched in an exaggeratedly modelesque way to reach a long arm around Ilya’s hip, the other holding the camera for the selfie. The three looked young, absolutely silly for their posturing. They looked effervescently happy the way kids sometimes can.

Shane quickly translated the last message Ilya sent online years ago.

Me: Thank you, Sasha. I appreciate this. Though you really never changed, did you?

Sasha. Sasha.

Shane’s heart thudded, a little sick, a little curious. This was the old friend of Ilya’s—the one who he had the relationship with. His coach’s son. The first man Ilya ever had sex with…

Shane’s eyes dropped to the hand that sat low and easy on Ilya’s waist in the picture.

Could that first time even have been the year this photo was taken…?

Shane clicked Sasha’s social media page.

A blast of color and fabric. Moving between moods was a thin, elegant man, straight hair gliding across a strong forehead above a statuesque nose. The same teenager, but blown up, older. Elegant posturing perfected and polished as a professional model.

Shane grimaced. Knowing Svetlana, this elfin creature seemed right for Ilya’s taste. They were both so different from square, solid Shane. Sasha’s page was in French, and Shane felt enervated to find Sasha was residing in Paris, not Moscow, and there were several posts of him with men. Holding, kissing, clinking wine glasses. Gay, gay, gay, the photos blared tastefully, but blared nonetheless.

Sasha was perfect, surely? The trip would be inconvenient, which may be why Ilya did not think to invite him, but that would only make the surprise from Shane even greater.

Shane huffed, amused at himself.

No, the real reason Ilya hadn’t invited Sasha was because Ilya would not want to make Shane feel jealous or in any way lesser by inviting an ex to the wedding. Simple grace of character is why Sasha wouldn’t be there.

Ilya knew Shane felt… some kind of way about not being Ilya’s first, of not returning the favor of guiding him into sexuality the way Ilya did for him.

Shane surprised himself with how excited he was at the idea of meeting Sasha. Given how much a headache Svetlana still gave him, he was surprised to be so giddy. How could he not be, though? He was reaching out to Sasha to tell him to come to their wedding. The first time Sasha would meet them, it would be to clap his hands while Ilya kissed the groom, Shane.

(And if it had been Svetlana who was coming to their wedding, maybe years earlier, he probably would have loved that too).

Shane could be an adult about Ilya’s first male hookup— would be an adult about it. Sasha was probably the only person from Ilya’s past who could not be at risk from the Russian government for fraternizing, besides. Shane’s gracious coolness would only make Ilya marvel, kiss him so hard, so gratefully.

He wrote the text a couple different ways before sending the best one.

Me: Hi, is this Ilya’s old friend Sasha?

Саша: Ху зе хел из мис?

Ahhh right. Shane scrambled for a moment, flicking to a translation app, when another alert popped up.

Саша: Français?

Oh thank fuck.

Me: Yes! I speak French and English.

Саша: Fuck English. Okay who???? Cause you’re not Ilya.

Me: No, I’m Ilya’s fiancé.

Саша: 😂

Саша: oh you are being serious.

Me: Yes!

Саша: Okay.

Me: I wanted to invite you to the wedding.

Shane flicked through his phone for the French language invitation. He hesitated a moment before scrubbing his name out of the invite on his phone’s editing app. Sasha didn’t need to know just yet.

Саша: Where is the other name? Ilya marries himself? So on brand.

Me: No, we’re just keeping it quiet, we’re both a little public.

Me: But I’m excited to meet you.

Саша: Are you Quebecois?

Me: Yeah, you use Parisian French, right?

Саша: yeah your accent is crazy. Was trying to figure out if you were mentally like🤪

Саша: or just Quebecois.

Shane stared at his phone, incredulity on his face. The feeling grew the longer no congratulations! Popped up, or, how amazing for you both. As his friend I am so happy. You’re such a lucky man etc etc.

Okay, maybe Shane overstepped a little here, because clearly Ilya didn’t invite Sasha because he was a fucking asshole.

Shane was already thinking that maybe he was going to have to make an excuse, lowering the attendance cap, running out of chairs for rude people— find a way to squeeze Sasha out of the wedding because while the thought of inviting Ilya’s old friend was a nice gesture, Sasha was clearly not someone Shane wanted at the wedding.

Саша: Sad but I cannot make the wedding, I have a fashion show that day.

Shane felt a skip of pleasure. Thank god. Yes, sad. A real tragedy.

Саша: But you are in Montreal, no?

Саша: I will be there for Fashion week. I can drop by!

Oh no. No, definitely not. Shane grappled with how to handle this without saying hell no or hell the fuck no.

While Shane hedged over what to say, alerts were popping up, lightning fast. Sasha getting bored and checking Ilya’s feed, liking “Ilya’s” posts. Posts of him eating, posts with Anya, last year tagged by his team heaving the silver cup of victory up—

Саша: Ilya coaches now?

Саша: Wowowowow

Саша: I have to see that.

Саша: What kind of impression can he leave on the youth mdrmdr.

Саша: I can stop by McGill college.

Me: I don’t think this is|

Before Shane’s message was even sent, Sasha had hammered a nail into the coffin.

Саша: Next weekend is good yeah? I’ll be in Montreal!

And Shane blinked hard at the screen, mind skimming through faked illnesses, sudden stomach bugs, that trip to Hawaii that Ilya pouted endlessly about. Any excuse to either be trapped in the house or in a different country, on an island, far out of Sasha’s fecklessly rude reach.

Shane rubbed the bridge between his nose and his forehead, slid his glasses up on top of his head. He… maybe had overdrawn his bow here.

He looked up from his phone to see Ilya noshing on baby carrots right from the open bag on the kitchen counter even though there were plenty of little plates to use.

Ilya blinked at him, looked at the open bag. “Sorry. I get a cup.”

“No. It’s fine.” Guilt churned in Shane’s stomach, and a small dose of anxiety. “Ilya, I may have fucked up.”

Ilya blinked at him as Shane showed him the conversation, then translated each line.

“I think Sasha’s going to show up here anyway. He knows where you coach.”

Ilya stared at him sideways. “What the fuck? Why did you invite him?”

“I just wanted you to have someone from Russia!”

“You picked my ex?”

“You were still talking not too long ago! I thought you were friends.”

“We are. I guess,” Ilya said dubiously.

“You can cancel it, I know I overstepped,” Shane said, annoyed with himself. Ilya only grinned.

“My poor sweetheart. First time you get messed up by your own power. Drunk on it— this is a DUI. My sweet landlord.”

Shane would accept the teasing if it meant Ilya would step in and put a stop to his stupid mistake, but Ilya paused for a long time, he had reached the top of the messages and was looking at the picture of the three teens together, mock biting, too cool, adolescent messes in an old selfie.

Ilya hummed. “It might be nice to catch up. The last time I saw Sasha was for Svetlana’s funeral. The three of us used to be best friends.”

Oh.

So Shane girded himself to meet Sasha. Not only Ilya’s ex nor the man who took the only virginity Shane cared about, but also testament to the memory of his dead wife.

Great.

The first thing Sasha does, when he arrives at Shane’s apartment lobby, is hug Ilya and feel up his thighs, a long stream of Russian leaving his lips.

Ilya grimaces a smile, pushes away, speaks back in Russian that makes Sasha bark a laugh.

Renee at her mailbox, gives a long, shocked and pitying look at Shane, and he feels himself wilting from the heat of this public humiliation. She already thinks he’s gay, even if she doesn’t know, but he has a terrible feeling she is seeing this tableau entirely accurately, and that makes him want to die in new and extreme ways.

“Can we move this upstairs?” Shane says, then repeats it in French.

Sasha finally turns on Shane and says, kisses. He presses their cheeks and Shane yanks his head back, bristling. Sasha doesn’t seem to notice nor care. Sorry, I know, so rude to speak in Russian! I’ll translate for you. I told him it was good to know he missed me, but he didn’t have to get so into comfort eating. What a fat fuck!

Shane’s spine curls in outrage and he hears Renee drop her mail.

He called me a bulimic slut, which, true, Sasha laughs hard, and at least Ilya gave as good as he got, but that’s also kind of fucked up. He’s gotten so coarse, don’t you think? He used to be a real pretty boy. He should use more lotion. I have a great serum. Sasha hums. You still kept all the good looks, hockey jock or no, didn’t you? Yes, I knew I recognized you!

Shane has never wanted to tell someone he’s just met to fuck off more in his entire life.

Stop, Ilya says in halting Quebecois. Don’t call pretty. Not here.

Sasha laughs, delighted. I cannot believe you got him to learn French. Holy shit the Canadian accent is even more bastardized when he uses it.

Shane actually has to look away now, he glances to the side, sees Renee by the door, makes fuck-the-Parisian-French-speakers eye contact, before she grimaces, gives him a go with god look and leaves Shane to his self-made misery.

Shane wishes he could say something to Ilya— realizes that Sasha doesn’t speak English, and so he does.

“What the fuck is wrong with him?” Shane demands.

“Fuck!” Sasha parrots. I know all about this word. You move quick, huh?

Ilya says something quick in Russian, and Sasha holds his hands up, innocent. Answers back. Ilya rubs a hand through his hair.

“He wants to go to the club.”

Shane frowns. “What? We have dinner planned.”

“I know.”

“It’s only eight. We haven’t eaten yet.”

“He wants to eat on the way.”

Shane bites his tongue against saying but we planned dinner. He doesn’t need to have Sasha accuse him of being boring— the word is not charming coming from him. Plans are plans. Shane thinks Ilya will side with Shane considering their recent autistic discussions but…

Shane asks himself if spending three hours with Sasha in a cloistered dining setting in his beloved apartment is really what he wants.

“A straight club. Nothing too LGBT.” Shane is not getting fucking outed over Sasha of all people.

“He will make it work either way,” Ilya says, like he has seen it play out a hundred times already.

Oh Shane was so worried.

The club is loud and obnoxious, but the light is dim enough that Shane does not deal with the usual amount of double-takes. It’s lowkey, thankfully, because the last thing Shane needs is more pictures of him at a club… But there are no hockey stars here, just old legends and their tagalong. Also helps that the clientele slants a little younger than them. Thirty and twenty year olds trundle inside. Shane almost wasn’t sure if they would get in, but Sasha walked up when it was their turn in the queue, was unspeakably charming and well-dressed that they were shooed inside, even as the British lad tourists before them were turned away.

Sasha beelines for the bar, and Shane feels like a drink might be necessary for the night. Ilya gets Shane a Corona, a single shot of vodka for himself—probably nostalgic because Sasha is in town. He usually drinks non-alcoholic beer with Shane. Sasha teases Ilya for sipping it so slowly when he is working on his second martini, but Ilya shrugs it off. Shane can’t blame Ilya for not getting into his SSRI use with Sasha in the club. There is something about Sasha that deflects depthfulness, turns everything surface level and glancing.

Sasha irritates Ilya, obviously. But even so, he clearly charms Ilya as well, and they speak in rapid Russian, talking about the people, the shitty vodka, Sasha’s latest modeling gig. The language triangle is hard to navigate, with Ilya or Sasha glancing over to loop Shane in on a conversation that he doesn’t really care about but also doesn’t want to be excluded from for pride reasons. It’s a real pickle.

I cannot believe he coaches, Sasha cries, too loud, too dramatically. As if wanting every one of his words to be overheard at all times. Have you seen it? Is he just teaching them how to pick up boys and girls?

Shane bristles, because Ilya is entirely competent as a coach. He has that guiding warmth, innate people skills that make people turn their heads and listen. Not to mention that depth of game that always made Shane skate a little harder to keep pace in the past. Maybe Ilya was (according to Niko) probably too invested in his team’s love-lives’ and whether they were finding life’s joys among the labors, but even so that didn’t cheapen his dedication to leadership and excellence. It only added to his care and compassion as a coach at a lower, developmental level.

Instead of sharing the time Ilya rallied the whole team to help the tendie ask a girl out by having each of them skate up to her, tossing notes over the boards until she had the full written request by the end of the game, Shane bites his lip and says nothing but, he’s very good. They won last year, will probably win this year too.

Sasha hummed over the end of his words, eyes casting about the dance floor as he murmured in Russian something that was almost certainly some iteration of boring.

In French, Sasha says, Come on, Shane, if you dance, he will have to dance. He won’t let anyone else dance with you but him, I’m sure.

Shane feels his shoulders lock up instantly. Yeah, no.

You go. We’ll watch the drinks, Shane suggests.

Sasha laughs— his laugh is so grating, so effortlessly mean without trying to be that makes it hard to call out.

Oookay.

Sasha raises his eyes at a staid Ilya, inviting him to mock Shane. Ilya snaps something back, most certainly an iteration of behave, that makes Sasha wink as he blends into the crowd. As Ilya predicted, it takes no time for a man to find Sasha, a large, muscular guy, dehydrated from dancing such that the muscles in his arms are bulging.

Ilya huffs to himself, amused almost by Sasha’s predictable eroticism.

Shane cuts a look and Ilya only shrugs, not even chastened.

Shane remembers that even as Shane loathed the various club outings with his team, this was something of a regular habitat for Ilya in his younger days. He remembers seeing him in that club, pink lights throbbing against his skin, the sweat on his neck. The memory makes him feel strange.

"Do you want to dance?” Shane asks. He senses Ilya’s surprise. “Not with me,” Shane clarifies quickly. Not yet, he thinks to himself. “I want to dance with you someday but… you know, tonight you can do it just for fun.”

“People out there, not all of them are dancing just for fun. They want something.”

Shane raises an eyebrow. “And you’re a grown man. You can figure out how to dance without anything happening.”

Ilya hesitates and nods, like he recognizes it is a weird idea for him, a habit to break. One he is willing to break for Shane.

“Go have fun,” Shane says, when he senses he’s won the argument. “I’ll watch.”

Shane kind of wants to watch. Ilya must sense this because that seems to cinch it.

Ilya takes another drink of his vodka, hand casually nipping down Shane’s spine in a quick stroke, before he moves away from their table by the wall and into the throng of bodies.

Shane fidgets. The slacks Sasha tossed at Shane when he told them they needed to dress up for the club (I’m an expert!) were an old pair and fit tight around Shane’s hips. He fights for space for his cock which gets harder when he spots Ilya, just on the edge of the dancers.

Ilya may be older than most of the rest, but his body remembers old rhythms. He slips into the beat in a single movement, his chest and hips moving in a simple, effortless pulse. A cool, unbothered expression drips down his face. Aloofness marrying with the deft tilts of his body. He has no right to look so competent.

Shane has always liked watching Ilya move. It was the first thing he noticed, his heavy grace on the ice. Sensual, before Shane was ready to admit it. Now, his body in motion is just as appealing, like scenting an old favorite sweet. Nostalgic attraction, the same that wafts up when they run or he spots Ilya in the gym and sees his skin pull when stretching. The body, the physical, has always come to Shane first over the mental and emotional. His first language, above all others. The way he first came to love Ilya Rozanov.

Sasha is also there. His muscle hunk doing his best to fuck him into the club floor without saying anything. Shane can’t help but wonder, is this what Ilya and Sasha looked like, back then? It makes Shane’s nose wrinkle. He’s not exactly jealous, not really. Not in the rock solid way he feels envious about Svetlana.

Sure, Sasha is desirable to some, clinging to a twinkishness even late in life, anti-aging products hiding much of his real form. Truthfully, Shane has never been attracted to the thin type. He tried dating a Dominican model, Marcelo, that Rose set him up with. Marcelo did modern dance as a hobby, and Shane and he bonded over the physical demand of their respective sports.

Even though Marcelo had the most artful, devastating hands Shane has ever seen or felt, the narrowness of his chest and thin hips never really did it for Shane. Marcelo was objectively gorgeous, but Shane just didn’t feel affected, even if Marcelo was fabulously dominant. They were probably doomed to be better friends (and maybe that also had to do with Shane trying to donate enough to Marcelo’s dance company to have controlling power over the days of their performance’s so he could meet up with Marcelo at more convenient times for his schedule, but that was neither here nor there.)

Whether big from muscle or edged with fat, Shane just likes… the heft. The bigness. The breadth of a man’s body. It’s always made his gayness feel more extreme, more shameful, that he dreams of big men. Strong torsos. Thick wrists. Chest hair between his fingers. Nothing that could even hint at the feminine has ever drawn his eyes. Even the girls he dated in high school played softball, had strong arms and chests. They were faint impressions of what he really wanted.

No one has been bigger in body, maleness and personality than Ilya Rozanov.

When they met again in Shane’s office, Shane noticed immediately the weight that had accumulated over the years, but the shock of their re-meeting had set it aside for a moment. Until Ilya got close to Shane in the shop, and later in the hotel, finally stripping his clothes off. Revealing each muscled, thick part of himself, the weight acting like a pull on gravity. Dragging Shane closer, hands aching to touch.

Shane knows the word for it now, bear. Liking one is hardly uncommon, but that Ilya became one… fuck, doesn’t he know how crazy it makes Shane?

A woman dances up to Ilya, pressing against him, matching his pulse. Shane’s spine straightens, and he feels smug watching Ilya gently push her shoulders away. She goes easily, moves deeper into the crowd, unbothered, but it makes Shane feel a thrill of control anyway.

When Shane comes out, he’ll take Ilya to the club, will dance with him somewhere hideously public, will make everyone see.

Shane is vying for commissioner. He should have more elegant thoughts, should be thinking of slow dancing like his parents used to do in the living room and his dad’s chamber of commerce work events, but maybe Shane is still repressed, is still seeking out those moments he denied himself in his youth. All he wants is to be seen being filthy in public with Ilya wrapped around him. To see Ilya’s body pulse and feel it go into his body, to draw his hands around the huge sweaty width of his big shoulders, drag Ilya’s strong arms onto his own body. It hurts how much he wants that, and he understands obliquely that he only wants desperately because of how his anxiety flashes sirens at the thought of having it now. The danger of being seen wrong, seen wanting.

He puts the want away, wrestles it down into nothing, knowing it will only grow wilder with time. His cock beads wetness which he ignores, trusting his underwear and the darkness to safeguard him.

Ilya looks to Shane, watches him watching, and his eyes go low, intense.

Ilya crosses the room, dancing stopped, but a rhythm to his actions with the movement. A vein is standing out at his neck. He settles next to Shane, eyes scanning before he slips a hand down between the wall and onto Shane’s ass. Kneading.

Fuck.

He loves when Ilya grips his ass, holds it so proprietary when doing nothing much at all. Makes Shane feel so attractive even when he isn’t trying to be.

Neither of them talk nor look at each other. Shane’s eyes glance for anyone looking too long at them, for all Ilya’s hand is hidden against the wall but sees nothing but people wrapped up in themselves, the way he and Ilya are wrapped up in each other.

Sasha goes on and off the club floor to the back spaces. Gets more drinks while Shane and Ilya stand against the wall of the club, Ilya mapping Shane’s ass and looking out at the dancing crowd until Shane’s vision begins to grow blurry. Sometimes a wetness comes, and it has nothing to do with crying and everything to do with feeling so full he’s bursting.

“I’ll say goodbye to Sasha, it’s time to go home,” Ilya says, low and hot. A promise.

“You’ll never find him,” Shane argues. He doesn’t want to wait. He wants to go back to the apartment now.

“If he is not dancing then he is in a bathroom,” Ilya says, simply, and Shane grimaces. Ugh.

Ilya cuts across the floor, vanishing into the bodies.

Shane finishes his beer, expecting a quick return, but ten minutes pass, fifteen.

Tension builds in Shane’s spine, wordless anxiety. He forces himself into action, to cross the room. The bodies move with difficulty around him, hot and sweaty and he feels his nerves ratch up even more. He hates the feeling of sweat from people he does not know, not his team, not Ilya. Despite the ratcheting disgust, he forces himself onward.

Shane finds a bathroom— genderless— and enters.

He forces himself forward, uncertain what he might find, just a feeling—

Crying. He hears crying. He goes to the last stall, peeks underneath to see Ilya’s white, designer sneakers, Sasha’s pointy suede boots against black painted floors. Shane knocks.

“Ilya?”

Ilya murmurs something in Russian, hears Sasha’s gasping reply.

The door opens for Shane. He shimmies inside.

In the narrow space, Ilya has a hand reached out for the door, the other holding Sasha’s long hair back as he vomits. Shane blinks, takes the door from Ilya and closes the wobbly metal latch.

“Is he okay?”

“He’s fine. He takes too much sometimes,” Ilya explains, simple and unbothered.

“Isn’t he almost fifty? Shouldn’t he know how much is enough?”

Ilya shrugs, hapless and tired looking. This aches of an old, practiced habit.

Sasha throws up a little more, all liquid, then turns, sniffling. He presses his head into Ilya’s shirt, crying and mumbling Russian.

Ilya rocks Sasha, says comforting things. The ugly jealousy in Shane’s chest is quickly ousted by the tired look Ilya gives Shane, why did we come out tonight, it says. Why am I not wrapped around you at home?

“I’ll call a Waymo,” Shane says, going onto his app. He will reserve his words until he has Ilya blanketed safely back home.

“Thank you,” Ilya gusts.

Ilya nudges Sasha until he sleeps on his side, silver mixing bowl by the guest bed to catch any stray vomit. Shane hovers in the doorframe, like a ghost watching an old memory, the practiced habit of two partiers taking care of each other— except neither is a kid anymore. Sasha doesn’t seem to be aware of this, leaning into this odd dynamic of an adult minding a child, whining for another blanket, fighting the straw when Ilya tries to give him more water.

Defeated, Ilya goes to leave, but Sasha’s hand snaps up, clings to Ilya, pulling him back. He says something desperate in Russian. Ilya responds gently, but carefully and pointedly extracts himself. He leaves the door ajar and stays quiet until he is in his and Shane’s room.

“What a fucking night,” Ilya groans. He pulls off his shirt, flinging it to the basket.

“Did this happen a lot?” Shane can’t help but ask, he’s only just resisting pacing.

Ilya grimaces. “There's a reason we do not hang out too much.”

“Aside from him being a fucking asshole?” Shane asks. “You’re not fat—”

“I know, he should have seen me before!” Ilya rests a hand on his waist, sucking in as if to show.

“No, even before. He doesn’t have a right to weigh in about how you look. You’re fucking hot. Always, alright?”

“Alright?” Ilya says, amused by Shane’s pique. Shane is sure he sounds like his mother, but the sheer rudeness of Sasha— not like how Ilya is rude by being honest. Sasha is rude for the pleasure of it, for the discomfort of others. It aggravates something core and simple in Shane’s moral character.

Yet Shane can only blame himself for tonight, can’t he?

“It’s my fault for inviting him, or, well, not inviting him…” All Sasha needed was the idea of a door to wiggle his way through.

“No, it was sweet of you. And is good to see him,” Ilya reassures. “He just needs a lot of managing.”

“Well thank god he’s not coming to the wedding.” Ah, Shane definitely sounds like his mother here.

“You haven't been this mad since fight with Scott Hunter,” Ilya teases. “Yes, it is probably for the best. Sasha has habit of making things about him.” Ilya still doesn’t sound mad, merely circumspect, and that makes Shane’s back go up.

Shane remembers Ilya’s last message to Sasha. “He really never grew up, did he?”

Ilya shakes his head. “No. Not really. His job does not help. Models are partiers.”

“That’s not really an excuse.” Plenty of hockey guys couldn’t hack retiring, kept trying to recreate life on the road, wandering around clubs, hooking up with strangers, spending long stretches away from home, but that was on them, not on the lifestyle.

Shane and Ilya had to drag Sasha up the stairs, he was so boneless. Listing to the side as if ready to fall to the bottom at any moment. If they hadn’t been there… but of course, they were. Shane says, “You shouldn’t have to babysit him.”

“I know. I know,” Ilya says, placating.

“…But you always will. He knows that,” Shane intuits, and it makes him a little madder. Sasha takes advantage of Ilya’s kindness to push the envelope, to get more wasted and out of control because he knows he has a minder. It’s hardly how Shane would treat an old friend on their one night together.

Ilya shrugs, helpless. “Yes, probably. He did for me.”

Shane tries to imagine Ilya ever needing that kind of managing. Sure, he was a club rat, but even in his twenties he’s always been so in control, so powerful, on top of his shit—

Ilya smiles, a little amused at Shane’s scowl. “I was not always so put together or medicated. My breakdowns in the club were legendary in Moscow. Though usually for fighting or making people mad with chirping, not always for overdoing it… But sometimes, yes, for overdoing it.”

Shane can’t relate. He got drunk plenty in his twenties, sure, but never… never pathetically. He knows that’s judgmental, but it’s true. He had hockey to focus on, couldn’t imagine the irresponsibility of getting so messed up he couldn’t play, and felt hostile at times whenever his teammates did.

Ilya though…

Shane feels sick, a little sad. He has a flash of Ilya in the bathroom, young and angry and throwing up, and spinning out. Sasha and he holding each other together, through the vomit and fighting and long nights. Littler boots and white designer shoes. Boys in pain, looking to escape a place and country that would not accept them, egging each other on to dance the line.

It smacks of that criminal goodness Shane remembers feeling with Ilya when they first fucked. This could destroy both of us, let’s thread that needle. Self-destructive, if Shane had to call it anything now. Because Shane was repressed, because Ilya traded one repressive national system for the hockey one. Doing something bad was the only thing that felt right with so much noxious pitch inside his stomach.

And maybe he understands that while Shane didn’t drink or do blow like Sasha, Shane did have a vice; Ilya.

With time and distance, all the hiding, the illicit feelings he and Ilya shared are just sad. Sasha is also sad in that he hasn’t escaped it, has not managed to mature it into something sustainable and giving like he and Ilya. For all that Sasha may live in Paris and travel to Montreal for fashion week, he still carries that dark unrelenting place, unforgiving Russia, with him like a piece of luggage.

“Will Sasha be okay?” Shane asks, eventually. Ilya pets his face, thumbs his freckles and looks at him with plain adoration for the question.

“Tonight, probably. In the future, I don’t know. He has a habit of taking too much,” Ilya murmurs. “I never know if… Agh.” Ilya shakes his head, turns away to the bathroom to floss and brush his teeth.

And Shane takes his shirt off, reaches for the button of his slacks— feels a little sick kick as the meaning finally clicks for him. He stares down at the unbuttoned gape of his zipper. I never know if it’s on purpose? Is that how Ilya meant to end that comment?

And Shane cannot condemn Ilya for taking care of his fucked up, terrible friend even if he’d like to. Shane would really like to. Because if Sasha ever did do that to himself… Took too much and didn’t have someone to pull him back… Shane wouldn’t begin to forgive him for how low Ilya would go.

Shane, down to his boxers, is drawn to the bathroom, to Ilya. Leans against the doorframe and watches Ilya bend to spit in the sink. The bigness of his body moves with him. The extra weight in his hips, the strong, muscular curl of his back.

Did you ever take too much? Shane wonders to himself. Ilya looks at him in the mirror and smiles, wrinkles bunching sweetly.

“What?”

Shane reaches for him, and drags Ilya into his side, tight and unrelenting.

“I’m going to take you out dancing one day,” Shane murmurs.

“Oh? We'll waltz?” Ilya teases.

“Maybe.” Shane nips at his lip, doesn’t correct him. Thinks instead of painting Ilya with his own body.

When they fuck Shane’s hands spread on Ilya’s big stomach for balance, hair poking between the webbing of his fingers. The thought of Ilya trying to make himself smaller, suddenly fills Shane with ire. How dare he take that big part of himself away from Shane, shrink himself at all. Shane groans as he drops down on Ilya’s cock, leverages to push up and feels a twinge in his bad shoulder.

Ilya removes his fingers from Shane’s waist, takes Shane’s hand attached to the rotten shoulder and pulls it to his face. Kisses the palm, licks along the side to take the thumb into his mouth. The other hand digs into the little lip of fat Shane can’t kick, and there is nothing for Shane to do but endure the heat of the sex, the kick of Ilya’s hips as he makes Shane moan for it. Above him, yet so out of control. Ilya comes inside of Shane, messy and awful, come sliding around and out and onto Ilya and the towel Shane laid down. Ilya pulls out, and it’s a visceral dripping.

Shane feels base, simple, as cum leaks down his thighs and he rocks his cock against Ilya’s hip, turning to catch his stomach on the next draw. Ilya reaches down to finish him, but Shane pushes the hand away, rocking against hairy warmth of Ilya’s belly until he’s coming in helpless strings over his warm, sweet strength. So big, so unabashedly male for Shane. Ilya’s eyes are blown out. He swears in Russian, curling around Shane protectively until Shane can feel stable amid the deep well of humiliating, desperate wanting he can’t stand to look at.

In the shower, Ilya dips wet fingers inside, making Shane moan as he pulls every white drop out of him, humiliating and cleansing all at once.

“Fuck, Shane,” Ilya murmurs. Shane’s cock twitches, getting hard again. Insatiable. And Shane looks down his body, to Ilya’s open, awed mouth, wet and lush and wanting Shane so much. Like he's incredible. A smile cracks over Shane’s face.

Any pity Shane valiantly gathered last night for Sasha is lost when he enters the kitchen and finds Sasha perched at the island with a cup of coffee, milk sitting out by his elbow and sugar spilled across the counter.

Morning, Sasha murmurs, dehydrated but content. Like the night at the club was a nice exertion and not a fucking nightmare for everyone around him.

Shane gives him a look as he pointedly cleans up Sasha sticky mess, putting the milk away before it can rot. Shane makes Ilya and himself a pot of coffee and a protein breakfast. Sasha can eat overpriced crackers at the airport, for all Shane cares.

Shane pulls down his mug and one for Ilya.

Does he still take tea with cherry jam? Sasha asks.

Sometimes. Sometimes he just drinks it black.

And Little Kolja is good?

Shane furrows his brow. Who?

Nikolaj.

Nika is fine, Shane says gruffly. Sasha doesn’t even know the diminutive Ilya uses… God, is this actually the first time he’s asking about Ilya and Svetlana’s son?

I never wanted kids, but it sort of looks good on Ilya. Being a daddy.

Shane grunted. He couldn’t bring himself to agree even though he did in every way.

Shane senses Sasha’s eyes following him, watching the stretch of his shirt as he moves around the kitchen. It’s insulting.

What? he demands.

You are out of his league, for sure. A hot, stable businessman. Some guys have all the luck.

Shane bristles. Not even fucking close to being true—

Sasha talks over him easily, nonchalantly. It’s a good thing. Svetlana used to be the best of us you know. Shane’s teeth grit, but Sasha goes on, Now it’s just him and me, so he’s the best of us now, I guess. Sasha rolls his head back, long neck arching. It’s certainly not me.

No, it’s not, Shane silently agrees.

So, he deserves good things. A good man, a good job. This cozy, cute little life in Montréal, his tongue drags through the words, like a strange, foreign thing. And Shane sees the envy in each arch syllable of Parisian French, the feigned distaste.

You could have something like this too, Shane wants to say, if you stop trying to overdose for the hell of it. To thread that needle. But saying it is too impossible. So far past rude.

I’m glad Ilya is not like you, Shane says instead, and then freezes, because while it felt nicer in his head, it feels rude as fuck out in the air.

Sasha blinks, smiles and laughs like the boy he still acts like he is.

You are too perfect, you know? I only wish you could walk in one of my shows!

Chapter 14: shane is comparing

Chapter Notes

someone (organic0rganges) gifted me a BOUND copy of death and taxes and shane hollander and I am IN AWE!!! https://archiveofourown.org/works/85766541 it's so pretty and introspective. i really am in awe of ya'll's kind reception to a story i thought would net 300 kudos if i was lucky.

thank you all!

Ilya’s team wins the cup a second time—a sincere feat considering the turnover of players at that level and the ever-rising range of competitive schools.

Shane watches the win from his Montreal apartment, Anya curled at his knees. He debated about going— how strange would it really be for Shane to be there at his family’s alma mater on such a day?

In the end he decided against for the simple reason of temptation.

Sitting on the couch, watching Ilya’s captain hand the cup over, the team patting Ilya’s back while he lays chirps and love in equal measure, hands groping to squeeze whatever shoulder in reach and brush warmly the back of whatever d-man’s head, Shane knows being there would just make Ilya want him to join. Pull a sweet but foolish Scott Hunter-like move just to share some shred of this moment with Shane.

It’s better to wait.

Shane bites his lip as the interviews happen— Shane knows most everyone has turned off their stream. NCAA hockey doesn’t have the same appeal as the MLH, not the same cult of personality for the players. Only the diehard fans or the sentimental watch the final interviews after the game. Hewes, Ilya’s captain in his final year, is ruddy red with exertion and glee on the ice. He answers every question with a dazed, useless pleasure that Shane still tastes in the back of his throat, the nostalgic waft of victory in those early years that led to nothing useful coming out of his mouth.

The broadcast gets the camera on Ilya, and two of his players keep hovering the trophy behind him, and he stretches an arm back, as if to ward them off.

“The team pulling together, doing what they needed,” Ilya says, more of the useless happy bullshit all winners say. Then Ilya grins, devilish and him. Kisses the flat of Shane’s ring on his hand and Shane feels a shiver of dread and anticipation.

“I’m getting married this year, I told them they must win or my fiancé will leave me. They are lucky they didn't lose!” He turns, tease-threatening, and Shane feels the ripple from the camera, an unfolding pleasure and stress down Shane’s spine even though he knew Ilya would say it. God. It’s still a whole other thing to see it on broadcast.

“Maybe if you give him this, he won’t leave,” Hewes says, moving the champion cup in front of Ilya, who squints.

He. Of course Ilya’s students know. Not the who, but they know it’s he. That Shane, as Ilya’s male fiancé, exists. And he doesn’t think this was planned and it makes his heart feel hot so far away. Someone else is talking about them. Teasing them. Celebrating them. It’s so close to real.

“No, that will be the third trophy. Second is so he marries. Third so he will never leave. Everyone will have to practice a lot over the summer.”

Hewes laughs long and hard and Shane can imagine other players thinking fuck yourself! In that cheerful, beautiful tone that winning has.

Shane thinks that next time he wants to be there beside. With.

A fucking hockey coach’s wife, if anything. Seen and hardly heard because this moment is all about Ilya. And Ilya will return the favor when Shane needs that support as Commissioner. Ilya will be a pillar, wordless and beautiful, because it’ll be about Shane and the MLH, and how could it feel demeaning when they’ve waited their whole life to being something to each other, something the cameras could see? There for each other.

The interview ends and Shane drops online, onto Ilya’s social media, unsurprised by the flood of messages and interview offers from studio and independent journalists alike. Ilya's legacy is so much larger than Shane thinks he sees, and his casual words have such a wide spread. Soon, anyone who cares will know Ilya Rozanov is getting married.

Shane feels pleasure— how could he not?

He just wishes that there was less of that burning, aching stress in his stomach as this truth creeps closer to reality.

During the week, Shane finally finishes booking the caterer for their wedding. Shane quibbled over finding one that specialized in Russian food before Ilya reassured Shane that Mrs. Nina Semenov would never speak to Ilya again if she could not provide the kotlety and shuba for the occasion. Herring is not on Shane’s preferred food list, so he went to find someone who could keep him fed with chicken breasts while also catering to the innumerable other guests.

He’s pleased about the catering group he has found, another rec from Rose who used them for film wrap parties and swears on their discretion. (If they didn’t reveal that the love interest died, they can be trusted with any secret.)

Shane flies into Montreal, buzzing. He’s picked up another half a pound of muscle and he thinks with Ilya’s efforts, the two of them must be close to the same size. Shane does miss how big Ilya was, how encompassing, but he knows it won’t last forever. That Ilya will ease after the wedding, grow comfortable again, soft and strong and so heavy when he lays on Shane. For now, the change is nice, and Shane thinks with his own body being bigger, Ilya might just find it in him to fuck Shane harder than usual. Shane can take it— Shane wants it.

He drifts into the apartment after sundown, waving and smiling at a squinting Mrs. Kim at her mailbox. Shane can’t be bothered with annoyance, not now that they are almost two months out from their wedding.

Yes, really truly coming out and all the hard conversations that brings are coming up, but then it will all be over and Shane can spend the rest of his life having Ilya completely.

It has to be pure bliss. It has to.

He goes into the apartment, toeing his shoes off.

Anya comes racing around the corner and Shane drops to his heels to greet her properly. She wriggles under his hands, licks at his jaw, flops on her back for the belly rubs. Shane glances up, expecting Ilya to round the corner, watching Shane and Anya with those fond eyes. Ilya isn’t there. Maybe in the bathroom? He usually kennels Anya if he goes out.

Shane goes to their bedroom, working on his buttons.

He stops when he sees Ilya on their bed, eyes up on Shane and waiting.

Shane grins, but it drops.

Ilya’s eyes are red. He’s been crying.

Shane looks around the room for a clue. Maybe a phone call from someone? Issue with one of his players post-season? He mentioned one of his D-men is in alcohol recovery. God help Shane if it’s Niko.

Then he sees it. In Ilya’s hands is the book on dating later in life. Maybe that kicked up some emotions for him, Ilya is so soppy about some things—

Ilya’s thumb is in the back half of the book though. In the journaling section.

Shane feels his breath catch in his throat, his mind freezing.

“Shane.” Ilya’s voice is tight. “Is this what you really think?”

“Ilya—”

“You only give me three things?”

“Four,” Shane corrects. Ilya looks more unhappy, sniffles hard. Shane looks at the ceiling, humiliation crawling sticky over his spine, like a scratchy scarf he can’t unwind.

Betrayal is the second thing to hit.

“You weren’t supposed to see that,” Shane says, striding across the room to take the book out of Ilya’s hands like he can undo all of this.

“You gave it to me to read—”

“Not the back part. That was for me.” Shane forgot. How could he forget he’d written his list? Only, he’d shelved it so many months ago when they fought. Meant to leave it there, but Ilya made that joke about reading it and Shane tossed it over without thinking, mind busy with work and weddings.

Ilya refuses to hand it over, pulls the book back to his narrower chest. There is less give to him, and he looks more fragile for it paired with the devastation on his face.

Shane tries to keep his expression calm. Professionally cool, even as his heart thuds double time.

“Ilya, I know I give you more than four things. It was just an exercise for me.”

“Okay. Exercise. What do you give me?” Ilya pushes.

Shane fumbles for a moment, not ready for the challenge. “Um. Financial stability,” his mind decides. He peeked at Ilya’s assets, and they were thriving well in the copper market, the steel reserves. Ilya’s face shutters and Shane grapples.

“A wedding. I give you a great wedding.” A perfect one, if Shane can manage it.

Ilya’s expression crumples. “Wedding is for us.”

“No, yes, it is—” Why aren’t any of his words working? “It is, but it matters more to you, because…” Because Ilya asked Shane to marry him. For a wedding. To be damned at tax season.

Because Ilya is a marrying kind of man, the sort who did it once and liked it so much he wants to do it again and Shane will put up with the burden of comparison for the honor.

“You don’t want to get married?” is the hurt conclusion Ilya comes to.

“Stop, stop! Stop talking! I want to get married to you. I said yes, didn’t I?” He scrapes for his control, for control of this whole situation. “It’s not fair of you to throw this in my face because of something private you read—”

“Do you compare yourself to Svetlana?”

“No.” Lying, not lying. The list was progress tracking, it was a direction to travel, it was stats on a player’s card, it was…

Ilya raises the book with cruel disbelief, flashing the two lists side by side in all their unforgiving difference. How long her list was, how flush with lovely things.

“You are Shane fucking Hollander!” Ilya burst, almost betrayed, absolutely agog at Shane’s lack of confidence. The betrayal in his face, the disbelief hurt that the man he saw as so stable and clear and strong was anything but. But who put that lack of confidence within Shane fucking Hollander?  Who?!

“And you loved her most! How can I not compare?!” Shane bursts. “She knew you best! She gave you a son! She’s the one you went to when you were scared of getting deported! You sure didn’t say shit to me.”

“And I apologized for being coward, for not saying and I am sorry!”

Shane threw his hands up because he knew this but it didn’t make it feel any better.

Ilya ploughed on. “It's not true I loved her more, I married her for us,” Ilya protests, stubborn. “But I said this before. I said that I loved you most back then but you didn’t believe. You still don’t believe me.” Ilya goes quieter, anger ceding to his distinctive well of sadness. “I tell you, try to show you a million times I love you, but you still don’t believe me.”

“No, no, no. That’s not fair.” Shane wants to stamp his foot. All of this is fucked up, so fucking fucked. He tries to bypass language, goes for touch where he won’t be misunderstood, but Ilya pulls away. Gets out on the other side of the bed, leaving Shane empty handed, kneeling alone on the sheets.

“Is it wrong that I want to give you more than she did?” Shane demands.

Ilya’s hands are drawn up to his torso, as if bracing for a hit against the boards.

“If you think… if you think this, I don’t… we cannot get married with you still thinking this.” Ilya’s words are scattered, straining to be compassionate, but all Shane hears is we can’t get married.

He can’t even give Ilya a wedding now.

“Shut the fuck up. Stop fucking talking. I don’t want to hear you fucking talking!”

Ilya struggles for a moment, mouth moving. Shane is wordless too. When did this get so tangled? Why is this so thick and impossible.

Ilya says, “I cannot be here. I need space.”

Shane, body moving before his brain, staggers back towards the door, blocking the exit.

Anya, watching all of this, barks at them, stirred up.

“No. Ilya, stay.”

“This is not fair! You get space when you are mad at fucking— fucking open marriage discussion, but not me?”

Shane’s blood is rushing. It’s because he can’t let Ilya out of his sight thinking he doesn’t want Shane, that Shane won’t give him this wedding, that they are incompatible here. It’s too out of control— might end Shane.

I don’t know what to do if this doesn’t work, he remembers thinking, the last time they were in dire straits, after this same but different fight. Those same words in this same room echo back to him, truer now than ever.

“Ilya please. Can we try… Try to do it different. Please. You can’t say you won’t marry me and then walk out. You can’t.”

“I didn’t…” Ilya stalls out. “That’s not what I meant.”

“So stay. Prove it,” Shane says, as if he can provoke Ilya into staying. “We’ll put a pin in this for now, okay? No more talking.” Shane says, like it’s a fucking committee topic. No more words, no more threats of taking Ilya way from Shane, physically or otherwise.

Ilya squeezes his hands, book clenching and pinky ring flashing. He is vulnerable to Shane, to his eyes. Ilya looks away, nodding tightly. The fight leaves him; drained from the act of loving Shane.

Ilya goes to the bathroom. The door is shut, withholding the simple intimacy of him pissing and brushing his teeth from Shane.

Shane runs a hand through his hair, through Anya’s hair. He works hard to keep himself calm even as he feels everything slipping fast through his fingers.

Shane hasn’t eaten yet, but the thought of attempting any food down feels nauseating.

Ilya doesn’t want to marry him.

Shane enters the bathroom after Ilya, door ajar, unable to help glancing at Ilya between every step of his skincare routine that he’s only doing to act normal, to keep their relationship normal. Anya is on their bed, wriggling her little body against Ilya’s legs, and Shane doesn’t have it in him to say anything about moving her off the duvet.

Shane rushes through his process, scraping at his skin, his stubble. He wonders, achingly, whether Ilya will even want to shave him tomorrow.

Shane has never really cared that much about being shaved by Ilya until he made him crave it. Now he wants those hands on his throat, the tender gaze and careful thumbs.

Shane joins Ilya in bed, getting on his side to see Ilya staring at the ceiling, the blue of his irises misty still. Did he cry in the bathroom alone with Shane shut up in the other room, unable to comfort the man he loves? Is their marriage doomed to be an unhappy one? The kind that Shane has heard about from so many teammates, the resentment, the unbreachable invisible walls between two people in close proximity.

Silly for Shane to even think about an unhappy marriage when he cannot even be sure of a wedding at all. He is a failure to launch.

Shane tries to will himself to sleep, uses every trick he learned in a sports book meant for maximizing performance and clear the mind, but nothing does the job.

Ilya must hate him. Must finally have had enough. How fucking much Shane is all the time, and it’s not like Shane wants to feel this way, wants to be so wanting when it comes to being with Ilya. To compare himself with a dead wife. Who would want that?

“What are you thinking?” Shane asks, cannot help himself but at least try to know. If he knows, at least he can prepare himself for tomorrow. Control it better.

“I'm thinking I am the worst lover in the world to make you feel this unloved.”

“Hey, hey, you’re not. I fucking love you.”

Ilya rolls away, his spine curling back towards Shane.

“I’m only coming out because of you, you know that,” Shane tries. He means it as proof but it comes out so accusatory it startles him.

There is a hitch in Ilya’s breathing. “I think you really think this. But it is not true.”

“You’re so fucking wrong.” Shane huffs, incredulous. Can Ilya really think that he is not Shane’s one and only motivator? That Shane wouldn’t stay in the closet his entire life if he had a fucking choice because at least he could keep everything he worked for, his job and his legacy without the utter humiliation of people knowing Shane Hollander is gay and lied about it his whole life? He’s almost fifty.

That before meeting Ilya he would never have. Never.

But Ilya won’t even look at him as he talks.

Ilya says, “I understand why you think that, because I ask you to come out. But I am just your excuse. You want to come out for you,” Ilya says, simply and devastatingly. “Because you are tired of living half-life. Not being appreciated for who you are. Not being able to be in an equal relationship. You need that, I think. Equal partner. And you hate no one can know how loved you are—” Ilya swallows here. “I do love you. I love you so I make it easier by asking you to come out, but I am just your excuse.”

“That’s not true,” Shane says, if only because Ilya’s words land wrong and too hard and are too much to take into his hands, so they can’t be right.

Ilya sniffs, and Shane knows from the sound that this soft man is crying. It almost doesn’t feel fair to Shane, because he is the one whose world is being ripped from under him because of a stupid misunderstanding he just wants to clear up. He resents Ilya for a moment, for his words and his tears. Ilya always cries at the right times, and meanwhile there is a hot wall behind Shane’s eyes that won’t let anything drop and he feels such a villain all the time.

Ilya makes it worse, says,

“But I am worried that it will not be enough that I love you. That they will come for you for being gay, that you will lose job, legacy, and you will become sad like me… Sad like my mother and…” He took a deep, heaving breath. Upset rolling the heaviness of his body. “What if our relationship isn’t enough?”

Seeing this dark thought, Shane’s own thought, reflected back at him is enough to make him start shaking. Because yes. Coming out has felt like it would literally kill him.

He once thought a compromising picture of him had gotten leaked by a fucking drone at his cottage, and his body had rioted. His sinuses flushed with mucus, his throat closed, his head felt so pressurized it could explode, his heart crashed against his chest. Fingernails dug into his hands so hard that he’d broken skin and all Shane could think was a ringing certitude; my life is fucking over. I want to kill myself, I want to be dead.

That is what his body told him in the moment with every swollen blood vessel. Death was there, waiting on the other side of being outed. His body, which did not lie, his only path to truth.

When his agent got in touch with Shane an hour later, told him that none of the photos showed anything but his love for swimming, had only glossed over that he had a “friend” drive up and visit, a blur between parents and teammates, he felt oh so relieved to be safe and still unseen.

Was there… some part of him outside of that deathlike feeling that almost wished the complex game of lies and sex and shame and constant vigilance was over?

Shane doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if Ilya is an excuse.

Shane doesn’t have the words for any of the feelings rattling like skates around his chest. His irritation drains for simple animal pain. Shane lays on his back, hand on his breast and rubs his own sternum, as if by rubbing enough he might erase this whole stupid night between them.

Chapter 15: shane is under pressure

Chapter Notes

sincere thanks to @Luthien for helping me with this chapter and the next. i needed a little intervention for this and wow, look, apostrophes aren't flying like shrapnel like they usually are. it's all terribly nifty and i'm very grateful.

An alarm wakes Shane up from his dozing. Not his work alarm, but a fire alarm.

“Fuck,” Ilya curses, half sitting up in bed. He looks bleary, disoriented. Emotionally wrung from the fight that is bleeding back into Shane’s mind between each honking Klaxon. “The fuck is that?”

“Fire alarm. We should go,” Shane says, without looking at him, already pulling himself up, dragging sweatpants over his briefs. Ilya groans, hand going over his face.

“Is probably false alarm.”

“Ilya.”

Shane huffs, opens the door—

Shane stiffens. Smells smoke. Knows that Ilya does too because instantly he is standing, hopping into his sweats.

“Jesus fucking Christ” and his equivalent in Russian spews from Ilya. “There is a fucking fire!”

Shane feels a numbness spreading in his fingers, a lightheadedness that banishes his irritation for plain shock.

Who—

How—

No, it doesn’t matter.

Shane’s apartment is on fire. Shane’s apartment.

Shane's lips move, trying to catch up with his mind.

“Get Anya’s leash. The fire department should— they’re coming. It’s an automatic system.”

“Okay, okay. Fuck. Fuck!” Ilya scoops up Anya from her crate, cradling her wriggling, barking body close to his chest. “Shhh! Anya.” She writhes, but Ilya’s grip and big arms are stronger. Shane glances back to the safe where all his documents and passports are— no, it’s a fireproof safe. It’s fine. It’s all fine. Those will be safe. Shane and Ilya have to go because they aren’t safe. Because Shane’s apartment is—

Ilya opens the hallway door and recoils. The smoky smell is stronger here.

“Shoes. Shoes, Ilya.” Shane crouches down, shoving slides towards Ilya, whose lips look pale.

“Nina and her boys,” Ilya says. Shane grimaces, thinking of all the other people in his building, how he once thought it great most of them were elderly, so they wouldn’t know about social media. Stupid. So stupid. Shane clips the leash on Anya and wraps it around Ilya’s arm. He cannot think about anyone until Ilya is out.

It strikes him again like a hammer on anvil.

Shane’s apartment is burning and Ilya is in it.

“She has to hear the alarm,” Shane reasons.

“Shane, we should—”

“You need to get Anya out. Fucking now, Ilya!”

Ilya jams on his slides, Shane borrows Ilya’s second pair, and they are flip-flopping down the hall and swinging open the heavy door to the stairway doubletime. There’s no smoke, thank god.

In the stairway they meet Nina, her husband, and three Semenov sons are there, juggling five cats which she definitely did not list on the lease. Ilya spews a font of tense, yet relieved Russian at them. He grips Anya tighter as the cats and dog revolt, scratching all their owners.

“Come on, keep going down the stairs,” Shane orders. Ilya echoes the words in barking Russian, syllables fighting the clamor to be heard. Ilya moves to the back, keeping Anya as far from the cats as he can.

The Semenovs look disturbed, but not ashy. So it wasn’t them—

On the second floor, there’s a haze in the air, the promise of smoke rising from below.

The heavy, second stair door wavers open, and Mrs. Kim is there in a nightdress, supporting a limping Mr. Kim who grips an aged photo album in lieu of his cane in the other. They look up as the Semenovs rush down one by one. Mrs. Kim wavers on the step, and Shane turns around from his place halfway down the stair flight and jogs back up to them, thighs burning.

Shane squats and scoops up Mr. Kim before there’s a moment to protest. Mr. Kim goggles at him, eyes bulging, his hands are shaking around the album clenched between them. He’s heavier than he looks, spite weighing him down, maybe, or the dense album of memories.

“Keep going,” Shane says to Mrs. Kim, feeling his arms burn. Thank fuck he’s been bulking, thank fuck, he’s been working out. Thank fuck everyone heard the alarm and is leaving because his fucking building is burning down and he’s still thinking of Ilya in bed, rolling over, soft and sleep rumpled, it’s probably false alarm. God.

Mrs. Kim wobbles, but one of the Semenov boys goes to her side, supports her side with the hand not wrangling a cat. Shane tries to handle his steps carefully when he can’t see his feet; he should have done an over the shoulder carry for Mr. Kim. He’s certain he’s going to take a step wrong in these hellish slides and send them both tumbling to their deaths and then Mrs. Kim will finally have a good reason to hate him from beyond the grave.

Of course, they still have to find a safe exit at the bottom, so Shane guesses there’s time for that.

The Semenovs stop and curse— first floor stairway is flooded with dark smoke leaking from the shut hallway door in pluming curls. A thick haze covers everything and it’s instantly harder to breathe.

Renee and Pete. Baby Beatrice. Fuck.

“Shane—” Ilya says, eyes burning red and begging permission to go help, to do something.

“No.” Shane resists a cough. Mrs. Kim heaves, lungs gasping.

Shane’s own hands are literally too full. His heart is already breaking because no one has made it out from his burning apartment yet. He can’t look at Ilya and see his thoughts going to a different baby, baby Niko, a dead mother. He can’t let Ilya go anywhere that isn’t out— “We can’t.”

If Shane was alone maybe he would try. But the idea of Ilya following him into smoke and danger is too tangled and awful to think of. He can’t breathe. It’s the thickening air. It’s the thought of Ilya in peril like that. Trapped in Shane’s burning building.

“We have to go before the fire spreads here.”

Ilya glances at him and his expression tightens, firms like a face off.

The Semenovs have stalled. Ilya says something in Russian, pointing to the green, emergency exit sign just winking from the cloud.

Ilya looks at Shane once, wordless and full of meaning, and then goes down the steps, into the smoke. His heavy breathing and coughing sounds, yipping and wheezing from Anya before Ilya opens the door and keeps it open.

Smoke floods out, lightening the haze. The Semenovs go next, shirts over their noses, helping Mrs. Kim. Finally, Shane follows with Mr. Kim, feeling each step with his slide before taking it because he can’t see anything, wonders why he never counted them that day he and Ilya raced to the top, breathless and young.

Shane tries to hold his breath, but there’s too much smoke and he quickly feels the burning ache in his lungs. His muscles throb in turn as he finds another stair and yet another.

He pushes through, has spent his whole life learning how to push through pain, to operate physically anyway, low on breath and support and strength.

He reaches the bottom and races for the door which Ilya lets shut behind them.

Shane jogs away from his building oozing smoke into the air, until the haze is clear enough that he can take a breath than only just burns. He sets Mr. Kim down, both of them coughing and hacking over each other on the cold pavement.

Shane looks up, watering eyes scanning for Ilya who hacks into his own arm. His chest is a little dark with the smoke. The soot. He’s strong. So alive.

He comes over, Anya on the leash, barking and panting loudly. She vomits she’s breathing so hard and Ilya pets her back through it.

Ilya and Shane look back together at Shane’s apartment. There’s a glow of fire from the first floor of the apartment. Licking at the windows. Oh god.

Finally, the ringing in his ears clears enough that Shane can hear crying.

Renee Boucher, a sooty, darkened mess with her arms wrapped around the form of her wheezing child, sobbing. Pete beside her, looking shell-shocked.

Ilya clocks them at the same time, and Shane knows both their hearts are dropping. Smoke inhalation. A baby.

Before they can do anything, the sound of sirens rings down the deserted street once at the intersections before the silenced lights finally land outside of Shane’s apartment building. A firetruck and an ambulance.

The firefighters unload first, coming up to them. “How many people are still inside? Does anyone know?”

Shane’s voice is raw, painful. “This is everyone… This is everyone, right?” He isn’t missing a Semenov, right?

Ilya nods. “Is everyone.”

The fire chief blinks, maybe surprised for the size of the apartment building, but he doesn’t skip a beat, gets to work hooking the hose up.

The EMT’s arrive and quickly zoom in on Renee, speaking quick, soothing Quebecois as they try to wrest baby Beatrice from her hands. It’s touch and go before Renee finally surrenders.

There’s a few moments that Shane can’t see and then Beatrice is crying, loud and clearer. It’s the best noise he’s heard all night.

“Fuck,” Ilya says, then swears in Russian. He drops to the pavement on his ass. Anya crawls on him and he pets her dirty face. Shane leans his hands on Ilya’s head, like he needs the support to stay standing. Mostly it’s to hide his trembling in the curling bush of his fiancé’s hair. Ilya’s hand snakes up to his forearm to hold him there.

Everyone made it. Maybe there will be aftereffects, but for now…

Shane stares numbly at the yellow glow. The home that was supposed to mold itself around Ilya, become a place of their own. Shane’s ransom for his Russian groom…

Have the flames reached their floor yet? Eaten up wood floors to the kitchen table that screeched across the apartment from their hard love? Engulfed the shower where Ilya soaped Shane’s feet? Consumed the high-ceilinged room where Ilya took his virginity decades ago on a tall pile of pillows?

Svetlana’s things were in his apartment, and now Ilya may never get them back.

They will be like ash, like maybe she is. Jesus.

Ilya may never recover. Shane wants to apologize, inanely. Hear Ilya chastise him for being Canadian, but Shane is sorry. So sorry. More sorry about that than the 6,000 CAD marble countertops or vintage couch. Shane’s precious things are all in the safe or with his parents or in his many storage facilities. Ilya’s are always out, spilled around in overt places. Like his heart, always on his sleeve.

Shane doesn’t know why he’s thinking about this now. Shock, probably. It doesn’t matter really, not compared to everyone who is here, and not burning in Shane’s apartment. He stares at the glow inside and wonders at all the things lost and saved.

“Sir?”

Shane startles, withdrawing his hand from Ilya’s head. There’s a catch when Ilya’s grip tightens to keep him, before slackening. Shane pulls a polite distance away on instinct.

The EMTs corral all of the tenants, giving them oxygen for the inhalation. The firefighters trundle back towards the truck, with the fire seemingly contained. The glow inside has died down, now only a dark windowed building again.

Shane is desperate to know how much was destroyed but all his questions are redirected to an oxygen tank and two bottles of water he is expected to finish.

The pressing words of the EMT and the milling firefighters makes Shane aware of a new rising issue.

The rest of the neighborhood hasn’t woken yet, because the streets were already empty so firefighters used their alarms judiciously and Montreal is the city— if you woke up every time an alarm rang down the street, there would be no sleep. So it’s strangely private, this smoky experience.

Shane glances to Ilya every time that he isn’t looking at his building which has firefighters crawling inside and outside of it, the curling flames long tamped by the generous wheel of hose they’ve dragged inside with them. Ilya is sitting away, speaking to the Semenovs in quiet, gruff words, the soft Russian dragged harsh in his sore throat.

Shane pulled away first. Had to, of course.

The rest of the neighborhood isn’t up, but now that everything is settled, Shane’s anxiety is ramping up, as if only waiting for the pressure to release to rush in. There are so many bodies crawling inside and over his building, so many eyes on them. It’s only a matter of time—

All of them are squatting by the ambulance, on their oxygen, when the fire chief comes by. He’s a brick of a man with a thick handlebar mustache and one of those indestructible tablets cradled in his soot-stained hands. He hesitates upon approaching when he hears the Russian spewing from an irate Nina Semenov.

Are we all able to communicate with French?

“English is better,” Ilya says, pulling his mask a little away.

The fire chief nods, making a note of it in his tablet. “It was a pretty small fire, the first floor unit’s mattress caught, but there wasn’t too much nearby for it to eat. Most of the damage is centered in that unit.”

“The infrastructure is okay?” Shane asks, and multiple eyes give him bewildered looks. Shane just wants to know, though he guesses if the structure was at risk to collapse they wouldn’t all be milling out front.

“No, we got there in time before the wall had too much damage. Anyone know how it started?”

Pete swallows.

“I think it was a candle. Renee and I lit one by our bed for…” Pete trails off. “We were just so tired. We fell asleep without putting it out.”

Shane can picture it. Flopping over in their sleep, a blanket or sheet catching. Something harmless. And now this.

Renee looks awful, exhausted, guilty even with her and Beatrice getting cleared first. Beatrice dozes in her arms, her little snores blessedly loud. They’ll probably bring her in for overnight observation, even if she is breathing strong.

Pete rubs his face. My God. We’re going to be evicted, he says in French.

Shane wants to burble a laugh, because their apartment is burned. They evicted themselves—

“The important thing is that everyone is all right.” The fire chief says. “The EMTs will give you a few signs to look out for the next couple of days for the smoke inhalation, but everyone is alive and there was minimal damage. There’s a lot to be grateful for.”

That seems to soak in. Two of the Semenov cats start yowling.

“Someone should contact the management company or your landlord.”

Eyes swing towards Ilya, but Ilya looks to Shane, and then away. “There is management office number,” Ilya offers slowly. It’s a nice thought, but Shane doesn’t want to have a middleman for all this bullshit paperwork and emails.

“Uh, that’s me. I’m the landlord.”

Renee’s head snaps to Shane and horror falls onto her face. Mrs. Kim looks apoplectic.

“Your name?” The chief asks. Shane clenches his jaw.

“Shane Hollander.”

The chief’s eyes snap up from his tablet. His jaw dropping as he peers through the light grime on Shane’s face to the former hockey star grinning in adverts.

One of the other firemen says, “No fucking way. Shane Hollander?”

“I, uh, dabble in property management.”

“Shane Hollander’s apartment. Wow.” The chief looks away from Shane, trying to clear his throat and be professional. But then the chief blinks harder, his eyes zoning in on Ilya half turned and sat on the pavement.

“Is that…”

Shane feels like a meltdown might be on the schedule tonight, actually.

“No frickin way. Ilya Rozanov?”

The exhausted tenants look between Shane and Ilya curiously. They don’t get it yet.

Shane resists the urge to rub his neck and cup his head between his arms. He thinks about what he can say. If he says nothing, the odds are still high that their names are mentioned together. Incriminating pictures. Enough for people to say that’s odd. In the same building?

God save them if pictures are released. They don’t exactly look innocent. Both topless in matching sweatpants and slides. Maybe Ilya could pretend to be related to the Semenovs?

Only the Semenovs are looking curiously at Ilya, like they have walked into a pleasant tangle of gossip and are patiently waiting for it to play out.

Pete Boucher belatedly goes pale. Who is it? Renee asks. Should I know?

Famous old hockey players, Pete hisses back. Like huge rivals. He was that guy on the Rolex commercials when I was young. I didn’t recognize him at all.

And they are— Renee shuts her mouth, looking between Ilya and Shane with big eyes and this is just humiliating. The fire department seems to be wavering too. Uncertainty, half formed notions. And Shane thinks about what Ilya said about straight men seeing what they want to see, but there is so much evidence that Shane feels like he might drown in it.

SWNSYG SWNSYG

Yeah it doesn’t really work when Someone Definitely Suspects You’re Gay.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“I am just visiting Nina,” Ilya says, fully about to lie to fucking public service workers. Shane’s sweet, foolish man.

“I’m gay,” Shane says, and wants to swallow the words back for how every eye snaps towards him and gets bigger because he’s realizing that wasn’t even the question and he doesn’t know where the words came from.

The fire chief’s eyes are wide under his helmet, his hand hovering uselessly over the tablet.

"Uh…”

“I’m coming out this year. I’ve already started telling people,” Shane says. “I know I’m a public figure, I have no right to ask, but can you… can you please keep this to yourself until then? Please? I’ll sign anything, get your tickets to any game, the playoffs even, if you can just…”

Shane swallows hard. He’s never felt so out of control in his whole life. So far at the mercy of others. Is this even fair to ask? To try and repress the names on the file so no nosy clerk goes around spreading it? To ask all the EMTs and firefighters not to bother talking about the time they saved two former hockey stars’ lives?

The firefighters look to their chief whose jaw works for a moment.

“We’re here to put out fires, not get free tickets to games.”

Shane feels humiliated all over again. Of course, he was old news. Hardly mattered—

“No one here cares who we rescue as long as everyone is well. Am I right?”

The other firefighters echo his agreement, some more certainly than others.

Ilya comes behind him and puts a hand on his shoulder. Shane unclenches, just a bit.

“Thank you,” Ilya says. The chief grins, a little bewildered looking at them, but nods.

“You can stay at a hotel if you need, but the rest of the floors should be fine to return to. Most of the smoke was limited to the stairway. We’ve opened the stairwell windows to air it out, but I really suggest a professional cleaning service when you can. We’ll find a rental for the Bouchers—”

“They can stay on the second floor for now when they get back from the hospital. There are plenty of empty units,” Shane says.

Thank you, thank you, Renee says. Shane shakes his head. He can’t even imagine kicking them out tonight, even if they set his fucking building on fire.

Shane sends emails to his property company explaining what happened. He also requests that a no candles clause be added to all current property leases. He previously allowed them for religious reasons. He’s no longer feeling generous.

When Shane is done, he goes to the bathroom where Ilya is washing Anya clear of soot in a low level of water. She shakes her fur constantly, grinning in her doggy way. So unbothered by what happened tonight.

When Anya is done and dried off, Shane and Ilya take their turn, letting the ash slink down the drain.

They end up in bed again, but this time Ilya’s hand gropes until he finds Shane’s.

It’s almost four am. Ilya has already texted his assistant coach to call out of some academic fundraiser tomorrow. Shane looks at the high ceiling. Still standing, untouched and unmarred. The adrenaline is crashing from his system, but he can’t find sleep.

“Do you think they won’t tell?” Shane asks, throat tight in a way that has nothing to do with smoke inhalation.

“I don’t know.”

“I think they will,” Shane says. “Why wouldn’t they? It’s ruined.”

Ilya sighs. “We will be okay, Sweetheart. Whatever happens.”

Shane trembles. Feels his eyes go hot.

“I was so close,” Shane whispers. “So close to coming out right.”

Ilya’s thumb brushes his hand, his palm. “Shhh, we are okay. That's enough, it is okay.” He murmurs in Russian, soothing inane words. Warm and doting and Shane doesn’t know he’s drifted off until he has.

Shane wakes at 11AM, unconscionably late. He hears a low murmur of voices in the living room. Ilya. Someone else.

Doing damage control maybe, now that they are public figures thrust back into the spotlight. A burning apartment building and illicit sports affair, a scandalized populace at a gay Shane Hollander.

Shane glances at his phone, unsurprised to see it is full of notifications.

Of course they told. Shane knew it would happen.

Shane closes his eyes, thinks that maybe he will have to go offline from now on, just like Ilya. Live pretending that the larger world doesn’t exist. How hard can it be to do that while being MLH commissioner? Not that he has to worry about that anymore. This has scandal written all over it.

He thought about emailing Langstrom and Kimmi a heads up last night, but Shane just didn’t have the words in him after everything. What should he have said? My building almost burned down and I’m gay? No. He may not get to come out like he wants anymore, but he wasn’t going to be rushed into humiliating messages in addition to that.

Don’t give them ammo if you don’t need to, his mother used to say. She loved a good reactionary post with grace and tidy phrasing instead of a preemptive post in all its telling defensiveness.

Shane takes his phone without opening it, pockets it, and leaves the room.

He braces himself—

Mrs. and Mr. Kim sit at the table across from Ilya, who shovels rice into his mouth at a rapid clip. There is a neat array of dishes and a heavy tray—a second arrangement of food set out as well at an empty seat.

“Shane,” Ilya says, around a mouthful of rice.

Mrs. Kim stands, picks up the rice bowl and scoops warm rice from her steamer basket, gesturing for him to take it and sit down.

And… have breakfast?

Ilya makes a sound of realization. “Ah. You're thinking we are in trouble. Outed.”

Shane goggles at him.

Ilya shrugs. “Firefighters are good at keeping word so far. Nothing is leaked. Nothing ruined. It’s okay, Sweetheart.”

Shane blinks, certain Ilya must be speaking Italian or something.

“But my phone. It’s been blowing up.”

Shane pulls it out, as if to prove it—

“Oh.”

Messages from his dad, who Ilya reached out to. Niko. Shane’s property company, Hayden, who Ilya must have told too. Even Rose. All about the fire.

Holy shit.

Shane sits down in the chair, mostly bewildered. They really weren’t outed? Not yet, anyway?

“Eat.”

Mrs. Kim puts another scoop of rice in Shane’s bowl and Shane blinks awake, seeing the Korean breakfast spread. A crispy egg dish and plenty of vegetable banchan in a neat circle.

“You didn’t have to do this.”

Mrs. Kim gives him a dismissive, almost disappointed look, as if What? What do you expect us to do after you carry my husband out during a fire?

Chastened, Shane picks up the chopsticks and starts eating. The rice is warm, and the vegetables have a nice snap to them. He toys with the fried noodle omelet, tries a bite. No. Too grindy against his mouth. Shane looks down at it, wondering if he can shove more of it down if he takes a long time between bites—

Ilya’s chopsticks descend, plucking the crunchy bit off Shane’s plate rudely. “Trade you.”

He slides one of his side dishes of namul over, and Shane feels a flick of gratitude as he digs in in earnest to the now right food. Mr. Kim oversees the meal quietly, and Shane tries not to feel self-conscious in his own dining room. Mrs. Kim’s nose wrinkles when Shane picks his rice bowl off the table to eat but turns approving as Shane eats a second and then a third serving of rice.

He can’t remember the last time he ate so many carbs. His body clearly needed them after the crash from yesterday though.

“Good,” she says.

“Thank you for the meal,” Shane murmurs.

“Yes, very good. Very nice of you.” Ilya leans back in his chair, looking like a cat.

“We did not know you were the landlord,” Mrs. Kim says.

Ilya muffles a laugh behind his hand.

“We know why you are so helpful now,” she goes on.

“No, that's just Shane. He is helpful like that,” Ilya says, so completely lost on Shane that it is embarrassing. The Kims don’t bat an eye, and whether they believe Ilya or think Shane is just a very effective, responsible landlord, remains to be seen.

Mrs. Kim stacks the used dishes, batting Ilya’s hand away when he tries to help. She has no patience for him today, saving all her smiles for Shane who can’t help but be perplexed by this change in their fortunes.

Mr. Kim stands with his cane, and looks at Shane. He bows his head in acknowledgement, and Shane jolts, half-remembered habits from his grandparents flooding back as he echoes the shallow bow.

They leave, Shane more than a little bewildered.

“They are nice…” Ilya stands, refreshes Anya’s water bowl.

“Yeah. Kinda shocking.”

Ilya’s eyes are cast down. “But I am still sorry for making you get neighbours.”

“Ilya—”

“The Bouchers lit a sex candle, were not so responsible as I thought. I pushed you to let them in. It's my fault your apartment almost burned down.” Ilya stands after petting Anya, looks haplessly sorry for it all. “We don’t have to have neighbours. But we can give them a month or two to find new place.” Ilya rinses his hands off in the sink, shoulders busy and tone vulnerable like a schoolchild.

“Ilya.”

“What?”

“No one knows?”

Ilya stops, water clinging to his hands. He wipes them on his pants. He comes over and kisses Shane gentle, affirmingly.

“No one knows you’re gay. Not yet. Probably not until you tell them.”

“Okay.” Shane shudders. Okay. Okay. He still has this. Still has the wonderful burden of coming out himself. He feels it as a precious thing now. His to carry, his to share. Still his secret to unravel one piece at a time, slowly, like unfolding the corners of himself.

He didn’t want coming out before, was dreading every aspect. But now, seeing how close he was to getting outed over an accident? He wants more than ever to do it himself, to choose to let go.

“We’re keeping the neighbours,” Shane decides.

Ilya smiles against his face, pulls back a little doubtful. “Really?”

“Yes. Even the Bouchers. They can split the floor with the Kims.”

“You’re joking.” Ilya kisses him again. “Who are you? Who have you replaced my lovely controlling man with?”

“It’s my fault for not specifying about the candles in the tenant rules. I’ll update all the contracts moving forward, probably should include incense too—what?”

Ilya eyes are the shining, admiring color. His hand is strong on Shane’s neck, thumb petting behind Shane’s ear.

“You are so responsible.”

Shane wants to shrug, because people usually say it as a drawl when he’s being boring or as a bland compliment about his leadership. Ilya says it as a beautiful gem of a thing that he can’t believe he found. Every time, Shane only thinks wouldn't everyone? But the last time he said that aloud to Ilya, Ilya laughed and kissed Shane so hard, so persistently up his legs and down his spine, in the creases of his elbows and the cove of his ear, and it felt embarrassingly close to worship for such a mundane, simple thing.

“Come on, Sweetheart, we have a lot of people to call.”

Shane groans. “I can’t believe you texted Hayden. Since when do you text?”

“He has a lot of wisdom from going to therapy. Maybe not such a bad guy after all. Even if he is a terrible coach.”

Chapter End Notes

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WAIT WAIT WAIT. I promise the rest of the discussion is coming. The chapter just got too large so it had to be split. Next chapter will be in 48 hours and it will have all the emotional morass of adulthood and more (you know I love that shit).

also, am i the first the burn down(ish) one of shane's properties? would love to know if there are more of us.

Chapter 16: shane is vocal

Chapter Notes

Luthien was kind enough to help with this and last chapter-- any lingering mistakes are additions i made because the old man middle aged yaoi made me.

strap in

Shane and Ilya handle their post-fire reassurance calls together. At one point, as Shane listens to Hayden’s drawn out relief of how he wouldn’t know what to do without my best buddy, Shane starts glaring at Ilya who only hitches an ambivalent shoulder back, on his own call. Sure, Ilya had to say something to their friends and family, but he could have done a little more to minimalize what happened. Shane’s father was practically near tears the entire call as he demanded each and every detail of their escape between saying oh, oh, I am just so relieved you two are okay.

Shane wanted to go visit his parents, reassure his father in person and not over the phone, but his dad insisted they rest up after all this action. They could save the visit for another time. Besides, chances were, Shane’s dad would be too upset by seeing him today and that would only upset Shane’s mom.

Upon their call connecting, Shane’s dad had called a nurse and walked outside the assisted living home for privacy. A nod to their mutual, unspoken agreement not to tell Shane’s mom one detail of this.

Despite all the time since her diagnosis, Shane still feels that shiver of danger he felt in his youth at the gall of keeping important things from his mom. She was Hollander HQ, the command base for decisions. He couldn’t even keep his preference for skate brands a secret. After his first endorsement deal, he bought a new pair on recommendation from the equipment manager with the Metros. His mom sat him down, solemn and intense, you have to tell me when you switch brands, I can’t be the last one to know and Shane argued, voice going tight because he was an adult now—and by the end felt like he’d been the most disrespectful of sons for not even considering how important it was for his one and only mother to know what was going on in his life.

She had such a keen-eyed way of rooting information out. Her tactics were never unkind, but it was intense under her sharp care. Even Shane’s dad had never been able to keep big surprise gifts from her because it was like she could scent the fact that he knew something she didn’t and despised that immensely.

Being gay is probable the only thing Shane ever successfully hid from her, or maybe the only secret she allowed to slide. Maybe she didn’t know what to say either, the way Shane’s mouth has always felt so empty on the topic.

If he told her a few years ago about the apartment fire, she would have her contact list pulled up in case he wanted to sue the Bouchers under some oblique clause, (I don’t, he’d say annoyed, I know, but just in case, she’d say, voice easy like commenting on bringing an umbrella), she’d be batting down the door of the housing insurance via email to speed up their renovation process and she’d have an opinion on which cleaning service to use, what to do to prevent a fire again, and she might pause, glassy eyed and say, I’m glad you’re okay, but only after she said everything else, covered every detail in a thick heavy thoroughness that Shane has always associated with love and care, even as he occasionally bucked against it.

Now, telling his mother that his building burned would only upset and confuse her. He never imagined a world where silence and secrecy would be such a kindness to his mom.

Niko’s reaction, on the other hand, is painfully nonchalant. A roll of his shoulders, “You already told me you were okay when you texted. Is there anything else …or?”

Shane feels his mouth working as he tries to find words to explain how simple and obvious it is to talk to someone after a brush with disaster, even if Shane was despising the calls only moments ago. He looks to Ilya for support but sees the same bland, unimpressed look, a perfect mirror from father to son. It’s easy to forget, for all Niko looks like his mom, that he has all his papa’s affectations.

“Ah, Nika, it's this little thing people do in North America called caring. People are big on it here, especially for families. I don’t know why.”

Shane can’t say he’s ever seen Ilya’s parenting style described in any of the books he’s read, but it seems to work on Niko—or at least it annoys him.

Niko scoffs, glancing somewhere off the camera. He’s at a park somewhere in Buffalo, running, based on his gear. This time at least he has earbuds in so. That’s something.

Ilya makes a noise that seems reserved for his son. Paternal aggravation and dutiful love.

“You're coming in two weeks, yes?” Ilya says.

“I don’t know. Will the apartment still be there?”

Ilya says something in Russian, Shane’s name leaving his lips, syllable drawn longer, and he’s sure there’s a slight at minding Shane’s delicate temperament and not making such jokes, but Shane gamely rolls his eyes.

“I don’t know, depends; will you do any of your dishes?” Shane retorts

That has a bit of colour in Niko’s face, if only for getting called out. Shane can feel Ilya’s grin beside him.

Niko surprises Shane by looking away again instead of snipping back. Maybe something’s happening at the park? Please don’t let him be running with a friend who can see his screen. One near outing is enough for Shane.

He still can’t believe no one knows yet. Maybe they’re waiting but maybe… Ilya said something after the Kim’s left. Sweetheart, sometimes you have to trust people to know you and not hurt you. And it was way too much, but it summarized well what had happened and this fragile gratitude growing in his chest. More than he hoped or expected from fans who knew him from decades of play and discovered him, ashy, and chest bare, among the dearest of his secrets. And still, (so far), said nothing.

Ilya says his goodbyes to Niko in English and Russian with instructions to do the post-season bulk thoroughly because he looks like one of those ‘scary skinny dogs.’

Niko rolls his eyes, corrects his papa that’s a greyhound, and signs off.

Ilya’s hands fold on his stomach after he’s done and he looks bothered.

“What?”

“I don’t know. Something off with him.”

“He did just lose in the semifinals. It’s not a great feeling.” For how good Buffalo has gotten, it still wasn’t enough to beat Colorado this year. That Colorado went on to win the cup is probably an ill balm for the wound, because it meant seeing your victorious opponents become deliriously happy.

Shane hadn’t thought Niko was that off though. He was the same churlish yet sensitive boy Shane’s gotten to know. Less wind in his sails than the last time Shane saw Niko, but after losing that irresistable Stanley cup— well, that is to be expected.

But was that what his distraction was? Shane doesn’t know. There is still a lot he doesn’t understand about Nikolaj Rozanov.

Shane briefly wonders if Ilya knows all his son’s secrets the way Shane’s mom did, even if he doesn’t say them. Or he wonders if they had a completely different dynamic, a mutual respect for secrets as recognition for personhood in that fierce independence Niko has. Shane doesn’t know but suspects both of these things —knowing and choosing not to know— might oddly look like love.

“You’ll see him in a couple weeks anyway.”

Ilya nods, kisses Shane’s cheek and stands with a long stretch.

“My head hurts from all this calling.”

Ilya decides against pain meds in lieu for a nap and it sounds like a fine idea to Shane. He wanted to do a few errands today, but he’s decided to cut himself a little slack all said.

Ilya lays in bed, Shane follows, bringing his latest book on Coming out at Work. The testimonies are interesting to read. Not only do people share that they were not always ostracized, but some even discuss that things improved.

Shane sincerely doubts that will happen for him, but it is nice to hear how people have navigated the issue in both the short and long term. Informative. One day, there will be people who meet him and will know this is Shane and he has a husband at exactly the same time, no longer separate topics that need connecting. Just one fact, indivisible from his identity. It’s as scary as it is exciting, like a big hill on a ski run.

Shane glances over at Ilya and freezes when he sees that Ilya has the Dating Late in Life book in his hand. He doesn’t open the hideous inside, Shane’s choppy writing measuring himself against Svetlana.

Ilya slowly hands it over to Shane.

“Sorry for reading the back.”

Shane takes it, his heart thudding.

Ilya continues, “I thought maybe you gave to me on purpose. That you wanted me to see. Something you could not say.”

Ilya is giving Shane more credit, more openness than he is due. It makes Shane feel scolded like Anya.

“It’s hard to talk about her. I don’t want to hurt you.” Shane flushes, ashamed, because clearly he did anyways.

Ilya takes his silent turn.

“Do you… will you still marry me?” Shane asks.

“Is what you want?” Ilya asks. “Really?”

“Yes,” Shane says, without thinking about it. He wants to give Ilya this so badly.

Ilya scans his face, sees something that makes him sigh. Shane doesn’t know what he failed, what he’s done wrong, but Ilya pulls him closer anyway and Shane is selfishly glad.

“You do not need to compare yourself to Svetlana.”

Oh, so infinitely easy to say. Maybe it’s the safety of not looking at Ilya, but Shane finds words leaving his mouth on this impossible topic.

“You never chose me,” Shane admits quietly. “The only reason we’re together is because…”

Because she died.

Ilya freezes and Shane glances at the hand holding him, the ring hot against his skin and Ilya tracks the movement.

Instead of anger or tears, Ilya reaches around for his wedding ring.

“Ilya. You don’t have to—”

“It is not the rings that I— our marriage gave me safety. That always meant more to me than the ring. Even now, I am still safe because of her, because of the visa. And I will always love Svetlana for giving me that and our life. Always.”

Shane would rather the ring have stayed on Ilya’s finger, that Shane never heard those words. Safety—the one thing Shane could not give Ilya, still cannot—

Ilya is frustrated, but also he’s sniffling and it’s so absurd looking that Shane wishes he could laugh. Ilya slides the ring off and fumblingly puts it on his necklace, gold band sliding into Irina Rozanov’s cross.

“I love her for that because now we can do this. You and I, without any pressure or fear about me going back to Russia.”

Shane swallows this terrible truth.

Ilya babbles. “Even now I am using her! Using her safety.”

“You didn’t use her,” Shane says. He knows better, he knows because Ilya has told him. I loved her, over text. Right before saying to Shane, I love you, too.

Shane has wrestled with how these things co-exist. It’s hard. Hard to see it outside of putting one above the other, ahead of the other, safer than the other.

Shane knows he wasn’t safe back then. Knows now, facing down the terror of his own coming out, that if Ilya needed him to come out to be safe, Shane thinks he would have said no— bartered. Done anything and everything else before and but.

It doesn’t mean that Ilya’s choice for the both of them didn’t hurt. Doesn’t mean the glimpses of his beautiful married life without Shane don’t ache. Doesn’t mean Shane can stop comparing the version of himself back then who was apparently so lacking that Ilya didn’t even ask, to perfect, beautiful, strong, safe Svetlana.

Shane tries to find the words to make the hurt make sense to Ilya.

“If it had been me in your situation—”

“It was not you. Not you being at’d by president of shit—”

“No, if I married Rose.”

Ilya’s mouth purses shut, a deep, loathing look drawing shadows over his dramatic features.

“You wouldn’t,” he said, voice low.

“Maybe I would have.”

“You’re gay.”

“If it kept our cover, if it meant we could visit more easily, if I was ‘doing it for us.’”

Marrying her for you.

Ilya shakes his head almost violently. Rejecting all of it as if he can wave it away. It’s pissing Shane off.

“I’m not saying it makes sense, just. Fuck.”

“It’s not the same—”

“It fucking hurt, Ilya!”

Ilya’s mouth opens, the vein on his neck moving and a rush of vitriol seems fit to spit from his mouth— but he swallows hard, mouth closing. His hands are clenched where they’re folded over his thick chest, still clinging to fat. It looks more swollen in his upset, the place where his heart must be working double time for his strong emotion.

Ilya’s counting down from ten. Shane can see the mental counting happening with the deep breathing. Shane wants to point it out, to snip at the vulnerability like he would on the ice, but the only reason Shane knows of his little therapy tools is because Ilya self-deprecatingly told him each one like they were a weakness (am too old and too medicated to act so crazy. Not as cute when you’re in your 40s), and it’s too cruel to pull on when he’s trying to help. Against his will, Shane finds himself breathing in turn.

Maybe they both do need to cool off. Shane actually yelled that Ilya hurt him, which feels entirely rude now, somehow, even if he did mean it. Because it’s not only hurt, he loves Ilya deeply— it’s why the hurt is so sharp.

“I don’t think talking today about this is good. There was a fire. We are…”

“Worked up?” Shane supplies.

“Yes. And life is more clear.” Ilya’s hand rises, floats up uselessly. “We are alive, it’s all that matters, right?”

It’s such a measured response. True, even. And Shane is annoyed at himself for not feeling that perspective-shifting grace that comes with dire situations, that should enable him to instantly let go of the hard things. Probably that’s what let him allow the Bouchers back in because he’s just so fucking glad baby Beatrice is alive and well— but when it comes to Ilya, Shane just isn’t that sort of person.

Instead, all he can think is that Ilya’s words sound exactly what a therapist might say. And maybe that’s what grates so hard on Shane’s ears.

“If I wanted to talk to Galina I would call her,” he mutters.

“What? What the fuck, Shane.”

Shane tosses his copies of Coming Out at Work and Dating Later in Life on the bedstand as he throws his legs out of bed.

That feeling is happening again. The ‘I can’t be in a room with you’ exorcism. He’s purging himself from their bedroom, from this situation, from this feeling that won’t be wrestled into control.

“Shane?” Ilya calls from the bed. Shane doesn’t glance back, down the hall and already going to the coat rack by the door, thinking of where his running shoes are, if he’s still got exercise gear packed in his running bag from last time. He doesn’t need to wash them that badly, right? No one’s really going to smell him.

“Shane?”

Shane could even go to a coffee shop, change there, answer work messages. At least look at the excel one more time before going for a few kilometers. Then when he’s tired of running he can work again, whatever it takes to run out the clock on this fucked up feeling that can’t even be cured by surviving a fire in his fucking apartment.

“Shane?” He hears the rustling of fabric. Ilya getting out of bed. No, Shane can’t stick around any longer.

Shane toes into the first pair of shoes that aren’t slides. He grabs the over the shoulder bag and is out the door, padding down the hallway trying not to think about the stickiness of his heart.

He just has to leave. He’ll message Ilya later, or whatever, to follow their rule, so he can be soothed. Shane doesn’t mean to hurt him, but he also doesn’t want to spend another moment in the room with Ilya Rozanov if he can help it. 

Shane is trundling down the stairwell, soot free as of an emergency cleaning service from this morning. They’ve done a good job even if it smells a touch chemical. It’s like nothing even happened—

“Shane!”

Shane’s head snaps up to the door where Ilya, in slides and his sweats, judders down the stairs at a steady pace, a tight look on his face.

“I’m just going for a run,” Shane says, not really stopping. “We’ll talk later.”

Ilya curses in Russian and doubles his pace. The slap of his slides down the concrete stairs is obnoxiously loud and fuck him. Shane picks up his pace, and they’re racing to the bottom. Shoes hitting the cement, breaths bouncing off the walls. Racing again, only despite Ilya’s intense cardio exercise, Shane’s ahead and keeping his lead, cutting across each landing in two angled strides to reach the next set of stairs. It’s a mockery of their trundle down this early morning, chased down by sirens and anxiety.

Shane hits the turn before the last staircase just in time when he hears a sharp gasp of pain. His head cranks back to see Ilya’s trick knee scooping in instead of out. Ilya’s breathing pattern is stuttered and his hand takes a strangle hold on the railing to support more of his weight. Ilya’s strong face crumples in pain and he hovers in a limp for a moment.

“Jesus Christ.” Shane stops, turns back. He hates being responsible sometimes, because he goes to Ilya’s side.

The moment he’s close, Ilya’s hand snatches out and takes a gentle hold of Shane’s wrist, his expression of pain clearing for a simple, greedy got you, look.

Shane feels his face puffing in irritation. How many times has he seen Ilya draw penalties from other players, miming drawn out, exaggerated pain from the simplest clip of a stick on his head or skates, only to go to the bench and grin, impish and unbearably smug.

“You’re a fucking asshole.”

Ilya straightens his knee and rolls his neck, unbothered.

Shane says, “Let go.”

“Shane. You cannot go. You told me last night we could not be doing this.”

“That was different. “

“Why?”

Because Ilya was trying to run. Shane is, alternatively, trying to keep his sanity and pain from spilling out of him like a broken fucking pot. “Let me go. I just need to go for a run.”

Ilya’s expression is so judgmental, so mean that it makes Shane throw his hands up.

“Look. I agree, we’re both alive so who cares, I guess. Let’s just move on.”

“No, you want to talk—”

“Not if you’re busy recycling therapy bullshit and counting down.”

Ilya’s jaw grits. Low blows, Shane knows, but he just wants Ilya to let go. His grip is not strong, but Shane has never had it in him to be physically harsh with Ilya outside of play and sport. Not after all he heard about his father—and it makes it so the easiest, faintest grip will always keep Shane tethered to the spot, and Ilya knows this, relies on it.

“What do you want me to say?” Ilya demands, short and hot. “That I would sleep with you even if you were married to Rose Landry?”

“What?” Shane recoils, pissed. “No. I don’t want you to lie to me, Ilya.”

“It’s not lie. All Stars, Florida. I did not know you were not together but I was still planning to try and sleep with you.”

Shane stares at Ilya, flummoxed. He never knew, but he supposed… Ilya had been surprised at the bar by the news, even as Shane felt his eyes scanning him before, soaking him and his linen in with that simple absorbing greed that was all Rozanov. Jesus.

Ilya says, “You want me to say I did not care I was the other woman? Because this is true. I did not care, I would be the other woman for you.”

Shane stares in shock and intense annoyance. This cannot be what Ilya is taking away from their fight, an almost moralistic, holier-than-thou attitude about his willingness to be Shane’s other woman, which is a shitty phrase to boot.

 “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Ilya huffs his cheeks, annoyed at Shane’s lack of understanding. “Shane—”

“You hate the idea, you looked furious. You double penetrated me the last time Rose came up. You could not stand it!”

“I know. I fucking hate it!” The loathing shifts in a curious, watercoloured way, blurring blue and inward— mild self-loathing. Ilya shrugs it off. “That would not stop me from sleeping with you.”

Shane stares, cannot fathom the idea. Of having Rose and stringing Ilya along, because that is how it would feel… But Ilya is telling him he’s already come to this crossroads and made his choice a long time ago. It’s flattering and bewildering in one stroke.

As if sensing Ilya has his attention, he leans in closer, dropping a stair to be nose to nose with Shane. His tone is quiet.

“And if fucking president wrote your name— if it was your name written, and you tell me you marry her just to be safe from those people in videos, pulling families off the street— If you tell me you are safe, I spend the rest of however long as other woman, until paperwork is done and asshole is out of power. I wait and wait and I don’t care because you are safe.”

Shane swallows hard, he has to look away because he’s too angry, too upset and it’s not only with Ilya, but also himself. Nothing was accusatory, just simple, just words, but in it was a breadth of feeling and hurt and agonizing fear, crystalized in 2017, that moment in time.

“That’s not fucking fair.”

“I know.” Ilya sighs, his grip around Shane’s wrist easing up to his elbow to cup the curve. His tone eases, and he sounds tired. “I know now that you are not like me. I know now. And maybe it took me a lot of therapy to see that in the past maybe I was expecting too much without ever talking to you about any of it.”

He looks a little wry at the end. The asking of it all, the way he’s failed before floats in dialogue with now, how much more he asks of Shane, the wonderful ways he demands and takes up space and air, filling Shane’s life again even as he makes it hard.

Shane is still reeling a little from the idea of making Ilya his other woman and he hates that phrasing. Hates that it’s the only words that make sense. The other man wouldn’t track because there has only ever been the one. That’s sort of what stings, of it all.

“You do not talk to me about Svetlana either, or ask,” Ilya murmurs, his voice quiet on the stairwell. “Because you know that she is dead and you are polite and compassionate. I never knew how you feel. I think… I thought that you were this strong person, confident and uh, immune to this sort of jealousy. Because you are Shane Hollander. And you are all these things, but maybe you are also… jealous. Hurt still.”

Shane leans against the wall, drawing away from Ilya just to put his palms into his eyes. Fuck, but he feels so petty, so stupid. Ilya massaging his ego, speaking softly and handling his issues like Shane is a wild horse, too worked up for his own good. He wants to go back to being glad they’re both alive and that nothing matters but that. He was the one who wanted to have this conversation and got mad when Ilya tried to shift it. Maybe because instead of looking down the barrel to death in his building and feeling grace, Shane only felt like it was desperately more important to settle this restlessness between them. As if this was their last chance—they could have both died with only an ambiguous hope that they could work—like the promise of that cottage trip that so fueled Shane for the two months after his dreadful collision on ice.

He doesn’t want to die in hope, he wants to die in certitude, in knowing. And part of knowing is knowing this.

He breathes hard, draws his hands back. “It’s hard.”

“What is?” Ilya asks, invites.

“Feeling like I was chosen second.”

Ilya frowns, fighting a reaction. “Shane. It's not a competition. It's not winning or losing to Svetlana.”

Shane tries to take this in, but isn’t this exactly how it felt? That he was insufficient? Didn’t make the cut to join the line called marriage with Ilya? Didn’t Ilya know how much he hated to lose? The way it shattered Shane and left him running over each millisecond of play to the last and aching over the moment it slipped from his hands. And to lose Ilya to a woman—

Some part of him thinks it would have been easier to lose to a man. Some all-American boy. Easier for Shane to look at him the same way Shane looked at Sasha and measure them side by side and find all the ways that Shane worked harder, cared more, was polished and superior at the art of loving Ilya Rozanov. But a woman… Shane could just never emulate that social acceptance and instantly recognizable family presence. Svetlana trounced Shane without caring or knowing his name. And that was part of it too, that he spent years hooking up with Ilya hearing about her, and she only knew him as some fictitious woman named Jane up until their rushed, Vegas wedding night. Svetlana loomed large in his mind, and he was just a passing thought to her. How could he not feel each aching ridge of defeat.

But he’s realizing maybe it was not about Svetlana as much as it has always been about Ilya.

That fighting the ghost of Svetlana is like reaching for that moment of grace after a fire—it’s ephemeral. Insubstantial. Won’t last the night to survive the brightness of day.

The truth he comes back to is that it is easier to feel pain at Svetlana, but that there is a truer, more accountable culprit who is easy to love and so hard to hurt.

“Ilya, there was never anyone else for me to choose but you.”

Ilya’s chin dips down to his chest, eyes steady on Shane.

“And you chose someone else. Even if you meant it for me, eventually you… You two were happy. I saw you at so many events where you were just… dripping with this happiness. I couldn’t breathe.”

Ilya steps forward but Shane shakes his head, this is already so hard.

“It made me question everything I ever felt. I trusted you so much.”

Ilya was his first. Shane is trying to make him his last. But the edges of that fractured trust still sting, spark his anxiety in the worst moments whenever he catches a faint whiff of Svetlana’s memory haunting their lives. That Shane is still losing somehow, even now.

“Shane, Sweetheart, I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

Shane can leave it there, can let the pressure up, can let them both breathe—

“But if she was still alive…”

The thought of Svetlana being there seems too much for Ilya, who looks away at last, eyes full and beading with moisture. His best friend, his wife, his partner, mother of his beloved son.

But then he turns to Shane and Shane sees the moment that Ilya clocks the ache in Shane’s chest, the loneliness in his heart when Ilya’s mind and soul reached for someone else right in front of him—and this seems to be what finally sends the message home because Ilya curls his hands uselessly in the gap between them and his eyes are wide and penitent.

The ache presses hard on Shane’s heart, but finally a thread of relief for the pain, like a massage on a hurt joint. Hard, healing pressure. Ilya finally seeing, recognizing the ghost in the room, the third presence in their relationship.

“Shane…” Ilya’s capable hands are so big and so useless here. He gropes for something to plaster over the feeling, but Shane doesn’t know what to tell him either. He doesn’t know how Ilya can make him feel better. It’s a useless hurt to have, but Shane has it. Will probably continue to have it. That’s life, isn’t it? This is the second ransom— the real cost of loving and marrying Ilya Rozanov.

At least Ilya finally understands and there’s the feeling that maybe Shane doesn’t have to protect him from this anymore. This is something, and it will have to be enough.

Shane doesn’t know what to do— he still loves this man, even if it is second.

“Let’s go upstairs.”

Shane is too tired to run, actually. A nap sounds very much like the thing. He turns and starts up the steps and after a moment, he hears Ilya follow. They are quiet on the first flight, but then,

“You think maybe the neighbors are tired of hearing us argue in the stairwell?” Ilya says.

Shane snorts a little. The doors are heavy and all the units are soundproof, but they did end up hashing this out in one hell of a silly place.

“You think there’s any chance Nina Semenov doesn’t have her ear pressed against the door? You’re crazy,”

Ilya laughs. “No. I think she has that little doctor’s thing to listen even better.”

The idea of Nina Semenov crouched with a stethoscope is enough to make an exhausted grin spread over Shane’s mouth.

He feels worn out in a good way, tired. Exorcised, almost. Not physically from their bedroom, but emotionally. Like finally some of the poison has left the wound. And even if there is no cure, at least the wound exists and can be looked at and treated with more care, maybe. Shane doesn’t really know.

He wonders if coming out will be like this. Exhausting and yet clarifying. Like losing ten pounds in a skate race.

As much as Shane appreciates finally having the conversation with Ilya, he wants badly to get back to the good parts. The banter. The gossip. Ilya’s impish teasing and affectionate cock.

They remind him of all the reasons why being hurt is not the end of the world, nor does it mean joy will not visit his life often and much.

Shane settles into the bed, Ilya beside him, and dozes for a long time. When he wakes up, he sees Ilya on his back, glancing at the ceiling. He’s slung an arm around Shane at some point, pulling his bad shoulder against Ilya’s chest and letting his free hand brush against the lax muscle of Shane bicep in steady, sweet draws. His blue eyes are thoughtful.

Shane doesn’t nap much anymore, now that he’s not playing sports where a twenty-minute power nap could literally make a game after a rough night. He feels a little sluggish, hazy. He feels the rub of Ilya’s touch, gentle now since he thinks Shane’s asleep, but when Shane’s awake it has become such a stronger, more affirming touch to settle his (probably autistic driven) need for that stronger stimulation. Shane knows Ilya has been looking into weighted blankets despite his loathing for sleeping too hot.

Shane still doesn’t know all the way how he feels about the probably autism, or even certain how Ilya feels, but he realizes he trusts Ilya.

And maybe that is what matter more than fixing the past hurt—it’s creating more trust now.

The thumb works steadily against Shane’s arm, and eventually the touch is too light and entirely too teasing. Shane thought the recent drama might kill his libido a little, but Shane feels need drawing up, steady like the rising sun. The press of Ilya against him is a tempting thing. The jut of his hip wedged a bit under Shane’s. That lovely place where his cock is cradled between hairy thighs. Those moving hands.

Shane looks up at Ilya and hitches his waist just a little, just enough to suggest that he’s awake. Ilya’s eyes drop to Shane, meeting gazes and Shane lets his look speak for him. Asking without words. Ilya’s neck cranes and kisses Shane, but it’s a sweet, simple thing.

“Hi, Sweetheart.”

Shane frowns. Ilya’s still looking distracted, not picking up Shane’s hints. Shane loves Ilya, but he can get maudlin. Bad moods and sadness have a tendency to stick to him. Part of that certainly does have to do with depression, but another part has to do with a certain heaviness of personality and a lack of compartmentalization mastery that Shane admits to having.

Shane wiggles again but only earns Ilya’s stronger pressure moving up and down his arm and that’s nice, but it’s only fluffing the flames, not feeding them.

Shane tries to think about what he can say to get Ilya really going. Honestly, Ilya has been doing most of the seduction work recently. Fucking Shane on tables and roleplaying, paying him ridiculously huge wads of cash then laying his huge, beautiful body across the bills, and teasing Shane by feeding him a ring bought with Shane’s money…

He knows the whole landlord/money thing is silly and exasperating, but Shane just likes playfulness of this private game, how heady he feels while also feeling very low and base. Ilya is despicable like that, in his innate sexual prowess to make Shane feel indomitable and helpless.

Fuck. Shane wants some of that easiness, and he even thinks it might help Ilya break his funk, remember who they are outside of their past and other people. The failures and fears of back then.

Shane feels blood crawl to his face as he thinks of something small that might get Ilya going. It’s hideously embarrassing, but Shane kind of likes it for that reason. Wants to see what Ilya can do with it…

“Mon Coeur, did you know I almost started a foundation once?”

Ilya makes a little noise. “Don’t you chair many foundations?”

“Here and there,” Shane says and Ilya scoffs, mutters six. Shane ignores that. “This was going to be a special foundation. Um, I wanted to found it with you, when we were both playing hockey. We could um, pay money for a good cause and, you know, be seen together at galas and events together.”

Ilya looks amused, if a little baffled. “You never told me this. It’s a big expensive plan for a little date with me.”

“Shut up.” Shane bites down on a grin, feeling that sweet heat settling into his blood. Ilya’s hand has settled into a pleasantly possessive grip on his bicep. Yes, it would have been such an expensive date. “Several million I guess, but you would have had to pay too.”

“Mmm, I don’t know. I was an irresponsible party boy. Bad with finance. I may have needed a generous donor to help.”

Shane wriggles as he feels Ilya pressing his face into Shane’s neck, dragging his mouth in sucks edged with teeth that have his heart singing.

“This was while you were married, so I think you had it more together. You wouldn’t have needed my money, right?”

Shane sets Ilya up, waiting for the expected tease in return, no I always need your money. Only Ilya’s mouth stops and he pulls back.

“What?” Shane asks.

“You really had this plan?” Ilya asks, cupid’s bow lips severe.

Shane feels that sweet feeling twisting a little sour. He probably shouldn’t have mentioned his marriage to Svetlana—it was easier somehow this time, probably because of their discussion, to treat her as just a part of their lives and not an unspeakable topic, but— no, it was indelicate and stupid to have brought her up while trying to do foreplay. Fucking hell.

“I… Yeah. I know it would never have worked, that nothing would have—” happened, he doesn’t say. Because how audacious. “I know you were married. It was just something I thought about.”

Now the sentiment feels foolish and small, all the sexy fun gutted from it, and all that’s left is Shane’s bald and pathetic desperation. He winces a little. Ilya is blinking very hard, a strong breath pushing through his nose.

“You’re wrong.”

“Sorry.” Only, what is Shane sorry for? He blinks for a moment, trying to follow the conversation.

Ilya makes a face, waves the reflexive manners away. “Wrong nothing would have happened. Shane, we had open marriage. If you had made sex foundation, you and I would have fucked.”

Shane feels his mouth falling open a little, as if habitually reaching for that mouthguard that used to be around to chew on when things were too strange or intense to process.

He forgot there was an open marriage.

The idea that if Shane had reached out to Ilya with the foundation… he would have been met with…

They would have fucked. They might have fucked a lot. Repeatedly. Much and often.

Shane never knew—and why would he have, but Ilya had an open marriage the whole time. On any day, Shane could have reached out and had Ilya again. In his bed, around his body. Maybe not to keep— but another, darker part of him wonders about how hard it would have been to keep him. No, that was only fantasy.

But Shane wouldn’t have felt comfortable feeling like a home wrecker, even if Ilya and Svetlana were somehow miraculously both okay with it. There was just too much history between him and Ilya for it to mean nothing. It couldn’t have happened.

Even if maybe a good hatefuck would have done wonders for Shane’s mental wellbeing, he cannot imagine a world where he actually went through with it…

Except drunk maybe, or low. He got low sometimes too.

It could have. It could have happened… but it didn’t.

He feels a little dazed with the idea. Ilya’s hand has stopped moving on Shane, is drawing away, and Shane grabs the hand, pulling to close to his chest and peers up at Ilya in blank shock. It’s just a lot to take in.

Ilya looks a little worked up, upset. Like maybe he wants to leave the room.

Ilya, my heart, are you okay?

The Quebecois seems to make it easier to ask something so vulnerable, right when Ilya seems ready to draw his sharp walls up.

Ilya shakes his head, looks upwards and frowns hard.

“You know why Svetlana and I had open marriage?”

Shane blinks. It never really occurred to him to ask why. He assumed that the two of them, beautiful, cosmopolitan young people, just had that flexibility of spirit and drive in them. Remnant sensibilities from their years as club-rats. Only, Shane is remembering Ilya’s words a long time ago, that Svetlana was the only one to ever use it.

That knowledge still stings a little. Knowing Ilya is so loyal, loved Svetlana so much as to let her sleep with someone else while waiting patiently at home, dedicated to the last—

But he just said that if Shane had started a foundation they would have…

Shane feels a little pale, disbelieving as the pieces slot together. Ilya’s hand leaves Shane’s chest and floats to his face which has stubble bristling his jaw. Ilya’s thumb strokes over Shane’s chin, eyes moving over him with such pained affection.

“In Russia, it's not uncommon for wealthy men to cheat, for wives to know and maybe find someone in their loneliness. But this is not why we do it. Actually we did not discuss, Sveta just says, ‘Ilyusha, it is this way,’ and it was for our marriage.” His voice tremors a little. “And even though we don’t talk about it, I think… I suspect she did this because of me. Because she knows me.”

Ilya’s hands are shaking and Shane feels the tremor go into his body.

Ilya says, “Because maybe she knows that if you ever called me, if you ever showed up at my hotel room, if you sent me an email, a look—I would come.” Ilya cuts off, huffs an unhappy laugh. “Guess she was right. You ask me for coffee after the most humiliating MLH meeting with my terrible, foolish son, and I follow like a silly dog.”

Shane breathes hard. Ilya cannot be saying that they had an open marriage for Shane… for Ilya to…

“I know I teased about the foundation… but I really was mad at you for a long time. I wouldn’t have…”

“I know,” Ilya says helplessly, like it hurts. “But if you ever did…” Ilya would have been there. Ilya would have come.

Shane remembers that beer-soaked night in a hotel room, the foundation that never was, his financial excuse to touch the skin of Ilya Rozanov in the daylight. He shivers, remembering the awful feelings he had about himself at the time for even entertaining it with a married man. Meanwhile, that married man had left the door open this whole time.

Shane grapples with himself. That feeling of the floor falling out from beneath him at the betrayal, the shock, reaching for his self-control that keeps Shane safe and sane and protected from the mad curse of Ilya Rozanov. It fails him this time, the rush of bewildered pleasure too swift.

Shane feels dizzy, suddenly more powerful than he has ever felt in his life and it is a strange, unmooring feeling. His blood sings hard in his veins and he wants to throw up.

“I wouldn’t have, not while you were married.”

“I know.” Ilya repeats, miserable.

Shane realizes it doesn’t matter if Shane would or wouldn’t. If Shane could ever. Ilya would still wait with the door held ajar, arm tired but strong. Forever.

He said that earlier, didn’t he? That he would wait for Shane forever, as his other woman, as his and Rose Landry’s side piece. And he’s never realized the patience of Ilya’s Rozanov, that even if his love is disorganized and hard, it is long. Persistent to the point of insanity.

Ilya releases Shane’s face to rub his own, eyes looking saddened now, so estranged from Shane’s heady blissfulness.

It’s… entirely too insane, Shane thinks, grasping for rationality.

“How do you know for sure it was about me? She could have just wanted it for herself. You said she used it.”

“Yes,” Ilya says, mulish, but clearly he doesn’t believe it. “But doesn’t it make sense? That maybe she knows this about me, knows that we cannot blow up a marriage with our child because I am… not rational when it comes to you. Even as she tells me her one rule to marry me, I will not be compared, Ilya, she says, she still makes space for me to have you in way that won’t ruin the life we built together.”

“Ilya,” Shane says, because his mouth feels empty.

Ilya looks angry, close to tears.

“I never used it, but she was right to think this about me. I could have blown up marriage, our son’s life— I am not a good person. Am a terrible husband, and she plans around this because she is always thinking of next move, is strategic. Survives. And I will never make this up to her.” He breathes so hard out his chest that Shane wonders if there is still smoke damage. “I do not like knowing this about myself!”

“You’re not a terrible person.”

Ilya looks at Shane with cynicism. Shane tries to swallow but his mouth feels too full somehow, swollen almost. Ilya was going to fucking blow his life up just to fuck Shane. It unravels all that shame from his body at wanting to make a foundation to fuck a married man and turns the awfulness into something right. Matching. Co-existing.

And when he thinks about it, though there is no way of knowing if Svetlana was actually thinking about Shane and Ilya when she suggested an open marriage, or if it’s Ilya’s ego and self-loathing talking—  well, maybe there is some awful truth to the situation. He wonders about the open secrets in a marriage, what it is to know someone and their flaws so well that you plan to survive them even as you love them.

What the fuck does it even mean to marry someone you know so well? All the frightening depressive limpness and whorls of anger and uselessness at answering Shane’s declarations of hurt. Or someone’s neediness, overbearing controlling streak, manipulative nonverbal tendencies to drag sex from someone to feel better.

And a strong inclination to run.

Fuck.

And imagine if this was true. This unspoken truth between them about a contingency for Shane Hollander. Shane might have been a wordless visitor to their marriage. A ghost hanging over like the poster on their young son’s bedroom wall. Was Svetlana possessed by Shane the way he feels so haunted by her? Did she hate him? But no, she walked into this with her eyes open. Truly knew Ilya so well, even if she did not know Shane would never entertain the idea. She still knew it was possible between them and went through with an open marriage anyway.

And it’s strange because for the first time Shane more than appreciates Svetlana and all she did for Ilya and Niko, he respects her. If Ilya’s idea is right, then through strategy alone, she found a way to weave a fulfilling, successful life around so much of Shane and Ilya’s rich bullshit. She was sexually free, led a successful business, raised a good son, and survived loving Ilya Rozanov so much when it made a person mad. He feels a kindred spirit to her in some senses.

And she is no longer this person on a pedestal, but a woman with tired eyes and strong arms and a willingness to move things for herself to the greatest effect. To say, ‘this is how they are’ and let it be, come what may.

“Most men would think it was a trap, or like a test,” Shane says. If Jackie said it to Hayden, ‘Yeah sure, go on, try having an open marriage if it’s what you want!’ it most certainly would be. Shane loves Jackie, but after having six kids with Hayden, she has very little patience with any implications in the press or among friends about his eyes wandering. Svetlana struck him as a far freer spirit and accusing her of that felt small-minded when she seemed anything but.

“No, she was not like that,” Ilya confirms. “She just does it to protect me. And it must be about you— because who else?” Ilya says, so plaintively that it strikes that already tender and overstimulated chord of dark pleasure. Shane thinks of all those DMs on Ilya’s social media, all the ghosts of hookups, the women at clubs, but Ilya only looks clearly at Shane and says who else. The same way months ago he said open marriage could be only for you. I don’t need. It felt addictive, this kind of closing of the loop, first and last— Ilya and Ilya again. It was tidy like bookends and so much richer for coming back again.

Some part of Shane’s pleasure must finally teem too far, because Ilya’s head pulls back, and a completely steamed expression cracks his jaw open.

“Are you enjoying this?!”

Maybe they are both bad people. Shane shakes his head, but his mouth is fighting a bewildered smile.

“You're happy I am about to be terrible husband twice? Both you wanted to be… to be not compared—”

“Incomparable.”

“What? Fucking bullshit!” Ilya curses in Russian, a long, extended diatribe. “Why in-com-prah-ble, why not in-com-pair-a-ble?”

“I don’t know,” Shane says, unable to stop the smile on his face which only makes Ilya madder. “English is crazy.”

“You are crazy.” Ilya grunts, trying to extract himself. Shane immediately oozes over him, using his weight to hold him down to the bed. He feels heavy in the best ways here, his mouth open on Ilya’s shoulders. His cock drills a little into Ilya’s soft flank.

Ilya looks hurt and pettily annoyed. Shane kisses him.

Ilya sighs. “Both of you are incomparable,” he tries, using the right pronunciation after all. “It's all I want and apparently I suck at showing it.”

“I know.”

“Stop smiling. Fucking Hollander. I will show you this.”

“Okay. Fuck it into me.”

“This is not what I have in mind,” Ilya says, looking so aggrieved and betrayed. Bewildered by how swollen with pleasure Shane is at something Ilya clearly finds shameful and deficient in his character. Probably it is. Shane has never loved Ilya for being perfect— he’s always been anything but.

Shane sits up on Ilya’s husky stomach, spreading his thighs and feeling the skin swelling between his legs as Ilya belly-breathes beneath him.

“Okay, but can we start there?”

And when Shane makes Ilya come, a confused, almost pained pleasure bursting from his lips for the rich physical relief after so much emotional ache, Shane looks down at his release on Ilya’s stomach. The lines of spend dripping down in little paths. And he thinks of that version of himself alone in the hotel room, drunk and needful, the version of him at his cottage, collarbone aching as he hauled out too many cans of coke bought for a visitor who never came. He thinks of himself, perched here, on top of Ilya, having and still wanting so much. All the ways they did and didn’t come together—all the ways both of them keep making opportunities for the other, blindly yet decisively. There is something in how they keep tangling that comforts Shane immensely in this moment. For the first time, he thinks that if Ilya ever walks away from Shane, gets overwhelmed with Shane’s neediness, he will still come back. Who else? Ilya had said, and he meant it.

Shane now understands Ilya's meaning when he said he would marry Shane even if only to know he was filling in ‘divorced’ on his tax paperwork every season. It made Shane shiver when Ilya first said so, but he wasn’t sure why. Probably because it's not romantic to think of divorce when proposing and yet now Shane feels like he sees. Because isn’t that small tick indicating a kind of ever-long connection like what has dogged them?

And also because leaving didn't mean they couldn’t marry again… Shane would marry and divorce Ilya so many times it makes him desperately, blissfully sick to think about. Shane sees it, a hundred ways of marrying, divorcing, falling apart, only to be drawn back together again. He feels like they’ve done it a million times already in this life.

And for the first time, the marriage doesn’t feel like a desperation. Like the one way to finally make this promised, always potential thing between them happen— because for all Shane chose to pursue Ilya after Svetlana died, for all that he dug himself deeper into this mess between them, Ilya has been doing his part for a long time. Has already thrown his body, his residency, the privacy of his sexuality, and soon his job at Shane’s feet just for a chance to peek at the bride’s face.

God. So does this mean he really gets to marry Ilya for simple, good greed? Not to save them, but because Shane wants to have Ilya ringed and in his house and in his care and in his bed and enriching his life and being such an asshole all the time—

“Shhh.”

Shane blinks. Ilya’s thumb is on his face, pulling tears Shane didn’t notice he was crying to the side of his cheeks. Ilya’s eyes are comforting, his thumb warm and he looks about as fucked up about the mess of their pleasure and pain as Shane does and it is such a comfort not being so alone.

‘Marry me’ is probably the sentiment he wants to get across when he says, “Would you marry me again if we ever got divorced?”

Ilya looks so bewildered, so sweet. On the verge of tears himself for the day they’ve had.

“Sweetheart.” He sounds desperate. “I can’t… Is this a trick question?”

Shane shakes his head, knows the tears are falling even though his face feels steady. “Knowing us, it would be an ugly divorce.”

“Can we do first marriage before we think about our second?” Ilya pleads. “It could be so good you don’t need any more.” He breathes beneath Shane, hand meticulously collecting tears without knowing what to do with them. “Divorce is terrible…” He looks upset at the very thought. The idea of either one of them even trying to tear it all down.

“Right? Our finances would be so fucked up. And our assets. God, separating all of it would be a nightmare. Litigious hell. And you would have to move. If Niko still wanted to stay in contact with me, you’d have to be alright about it. We could go to court and—”

“I think I would marry you many times.”

Shane feels boneless, so completely held and safe.

“I know,” Shane says, sighing. “Me too. I wonder whether they’d have to invent a new box for us on the tax forms.”

Chapter End Notes

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thank you for reading my trenchcoat fic i'm hoping and praying that we are close to the end.

i did my best knowing this situation was a thick one so if you feel complicated about these choices, know i do too, but i did try to lead with what i think makes sense for these characters.

a few things i wanted to fix from the canon-- a life-changing event (like one in TLG or this house fire) does not mean we skip hard conversations, it means we double down and go harder. also, someone coming out on their own terms is infinitely more interesting than being outed <3

thank you for reading, just a bit more to go

Chapter 17: shane is drunk

Chapter Notes

in which i have greatest readers and commenters in the whole fucking fandom. thank you for your support and patience, you and your insights are why this fucking story is so long hahaha.

Shane wakes up. He exhales, slow and deep, arm curling over his head. This weekend had been the longest of his life, between the fire and everything said in stairways, and yet it’s still only early Sunday.

Despite all the drama, it strikes him deep in his gut how badly he doesn’t want to leave Ilya tonight for work on Monday. Shane wants curl up a little longer in this perfectly crafted apartment, curl himself around…

His hand gropes until he finds the curve of Ilya’s elbow. Shane sighs, following his hand until he’s poured half on top of Ilya. He peers up at Ilya through sleepy eyes and finds him propped up and awake.

Ilya glances down at Shane, smiles briefly, absently. His hand reaches to the top of Shane’s back, the cove of his neck, thumb rubbing hard, satisfying circles into the muscle there that makes Shane’s toes clench and unclench.

Blinking up at Ilya, Shane sees a distance to his gaze. A funny nostalgia strikes him that he can’t quite name, but there’s a coolness to Ilya’s expression that is all too familiar in bed.

“You good?”

“No fire. What can I complain about?”

Shane snorts, but Ilya is looking away, pulling up his phone and busying himself clicking around. Strange combination to touch Shane so much, so thoroughly while locking his thoughts away from Shane—

And ah, the nostalgia clicks. From their innumerable nights in hotel rooms hooking up. He remembers Ilya fucking Shane, kissing Shane, sucking Shane— fingers, mouth, cock nipples and toes— gripping his hips hard enough that Shane felt the phantom press of his blunt fingers for days after.

Then, like a Jekyll/Hyde, Ilya lying in bed with a glass of vodka, or without, and looking disengaged like he’d already left the room without saying. All of his warmth and thoughts and mercurial feelings packed back into his body, out of sight as he glanced at his vibrating phone, claiming he should go, club thing, see you next time, Hollander.

All in a vain effort to keep it just simple fucking.

It’s funny finding that here, because Shane thinks maybe it’s the same sort of cause— Shane drawing out something honest Ilya doesn’t like.

Shane thought Ilya grew out of locking down after all this therapy and years in a relationship. Shane’s felt quite subpar in some ways to Ilya’s ability to weather emotional pitfalls so compassionately, to understand and forgive Shane with so much quiet grace. And yet they are in a bed again, after Ilya has told him the worst of his feelings about himself. Told Shane that he suspects he had an open marriage just for the chance to touch Shane again— And Ilya has fled. Pulled his armor up to look cool and unaffected. Like he hadn’t spilled half his organs on the table for Shane to pick at like a greedy bird.

It was gruesome, if Shane is honest. Despite the roller coaster of it, Shane feels a sick, simple satisfaction.

Shane shouldn’t feel smug. Is probably an asshole for feeling smug, but he is a little. So often their sex games have left Shane roiling in humiliation and vulnerability. He loves the sex, but then comes the after, the post-nut clarity. Why does he like it when Ilya forces him down into the mess of his cum? Why is it so hot that he has total control over Ilya’s financial portfolio? That Shane possesses the dildo he bought thirty years ago while thinking of Ilya…

Usually Shane is the one acting like a wounded animal, trying to cover the bald, sensitive side of himself in the aftermath, the unbearable ache of all he is made to face that he wants. Ilya will usually draw him out with words or simple touch.

Their roles are reversed here, and it’s nice to know Shane can still surprise Ilya. That they both are a little raw for each other, for all it stings. Neither can feign immunity.

Ilya doesn’t need to feel this way though. Ashamed and humiliated for the depth of his longing. Not when Shane likes it so much.

Shane doesn’t know the words, not like Ilya seems to. Instead he pulls himself further over. Ilya grunts as Shane’s weight settles fully across him. Shane can feel Ilya’s breath pushing up against Shane’s torso. Shane presses his smile against Ilya’s skin. Kisses. Pulls it into his mouth for a little suck. His teeth edge around the fat and muscle of Ilya’s pec, drawing a wide nipple against his tongue. He sucks there for a moment, losing himself in the simple taste and press of body, the swirl of wiry hair on his tongue. Ilya’s phone wavers in Shane’s periphery.

Shane starts sucking harder, teeth pressing meanly in, and the phone drops to Ilya’s lap, a faint bulge to the vein in his neck as he looks at Shane head on. The hand that comes to touch Shane's face, eagerly pressing fingers into his hungry mouth is par for the course, and Shane releases the nipple in favor for an index that curls around his mouth as if checking all his false teeth are still there and fit for biting Ilya. God.

Shane feels that stubborn smile pulling around his lips, simple bliss. 

“You are… very happy,” Ilya says dubiously. His voice is rough with the morning, but the coolness has been broken. He now looks more like Shane’s warm and thriving fiancée. The one to be wreathed in green flowers.

Yes, yes Shane is happy. Ilya said he would divorce him— Or moreso, marry Shane as many times as it took their stubborn love to take. Ilya is moving countries for Shane. Ilya is sharing his whole life and finances with Shane. His considerable love. Yes.

“I’m marrying you,” Shane says, around a finger. He bites the fat pad to see Ilya's eyes dilate. Shane releases it and sighs. “It is pretty hot.”

At work, Shane hovers in the public kitchen area, once again finding no blue coffee pods. Maybe he should just buy them himself since Jamison can’t seem to locate them. It does defeat the purpose of having an office manager a little.

“Shane!”

Shane turns, a smile cracking over his face as he sees JJ, suited up, a smart goatee curling around his face. In one tailored pocket, a bobble Hello Kitty pen smiles cheerily out at the world.

Shane opens his arms and gets clapped on the back for his trouble.

“Hi Kitty.”

JJ blinks, looks down at the pen and laughs. Fuck off, he says in French.

Shane grins wider. He wishes that JJ was around the New York office all the time instead of part time. He misses the easy camaraderie that he had with teammates.

JJ’s hands drop from Shane’s back to his arm, raising a brow.

Jesus, are you going for MMA? Not enough thrills in your life running the MLH? JJ measures Shane’s arms, and Shane crosses them defensively. His arms aren’t anything huge, it’s really probably the rate of gains in the short time that have people reacting.

I don’t run the MLH. And don’t joke about it either . Sure the office is practically empty for work from home during this summer, but still. JJ scoffs.

There are not enough Francophones in the damn HQ, and that’s half the problem,

Shane can agree with that. Langstrom has a decidedly American branch assembled under him. Which makes sense for the location, and yet… Shane would do things different is all.

Do you have time to talk in my office?

JJ raises an eyebrow but gestures Shane ahead. Shane makes small talk through the empty winding halls, asking about JJ’s recent road tour. As one of the heads of outreach, JJ was in charge of the trips to schools, especially in underprivileged areas in America and Canada.

Underprivileged wasn’t JJ’s journey—he was adopted by a wealthy white couple in Montreal, which is one of those things that made Shane feel kindred to him. They were both in and out within the hockey world in so many ways. Shane for being bi-racial, and JJ for his dark skin but white parents and white culturization. Unlike Shane, JJ worked hard to connect to his Black Quebecois heritage like it was a community to build and not something to encounter randomly every now and then and fumble gracelessly like Shane.

JJ initially wanted to follow Hayden’s and Ilya’s path and coached hockey at the collegiate level for several years before stepping back. Shane had always been perplexed, because JJ loved coaching, and had been in the running for several coach awards from the NCAA division in America.

Shane said so to JJ over drinks one night and got a bitter smile. Oh, they’ll award me all day long. But that doesn’t mean they’ll pull me up anywhere useful. Shane grimaced. When I look up at the professional coaching rosters, there still hasn’t been a coach who isn’t White.

Shane knew that. Shane worked every day to try and change that. It didn’t mean JJ couldn’t be the first—

I don’t want to be the first, JJ admitted, mouth tight and eyes more moist than Shane had ever seen outside of a loss in the playoffs. Am I a fucking coward or what?

Shane felt like he was too drunk for the French required to communicate how conflicted he felt.

On one hand he couldn’t relate to JJ— he’d never been afraid of being first as he dogged climbed the rungs of the MLH office. First Asian deputy. Soon (hopefully) to be first Asian and first person of color commissioner. But maybe that ease was something he grew into with age, when he got quietly madder and madder with each revelation of the racist, sexist, preferential rot inside the headquarters of a sport he so loved. The idea that these assholes could ruin hockey if left as they were.

I leave that to giants like you, JJ said, quirking a smile at Shane's expession. Head of MLH someday. Maybe one of these kids from outreach can… Some people are made to be first. Abel, O’Ree, and Kwongs. Fucking Scott Hunters.

Fucking Hunter, Shane said and he felt maudlin drunk too, because now he could understand some of that desire not to be first. He’d been so terrified of people finding out and making him the first active gay player.

He never would be, now. A gay hockey player. Only ever former.

Well, everything that made JJ good as a coach transferred perfectly to his skills in outreach. He liked helping people, liked spending time with them. Was good at teaching and building them up. He also became quite good at gaming the system, finding the way get equipment supplied to areas most in need of it. Shane had visited his house and there wasn’t a room that didn’t have pictures of kids in scrappy teams grinning at cameras. Little tchotchke gifts from U-10 players, no doubt like the pen currently in his pocket. It made Shane want to make the sport a safe and prosperous place for those kids to one day enter into— safer than it was for him and JJ when they started.

JJ, much to the MLH’s chagrin refused to do outreach only for their headquarters, always finding a way to extend the MLH’s considerable resources to the PWLH.

Suffice to say Halstead despised JJ and his drain on MLH resources, but Langstrom had a more circumspect view. Every office needs a bleeding heart. Besides, we’re getting better and better players every year. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

A wending comment that satisfied no one and also ruffled no one’s feathers. Shane could respect it, but Shane doubted he himself would manage such circumspect comments when he was in office.

He swallows as he thinks about the last challenge in front of him. Shane has two wedding invitations in the office—one for JJ and one for Langstrom. JJ will be a perfect metric to examine how people in the office might react— JJ knows a lot about the atmosphere in the office, always milking the people on the board for more money for outreach.

The same board who has a hand in electing the commissioner.

He’s also one of the people Shane has been most afraid of telling, so maybe it's no surprise he's waited so long.

In the office, Shane goes to his desk and unlocks a drawer, pulling out one of two white embossed cards.

The cardstock feels heavy in his hands and he presses the written side to his rabbiting chest.

“I’m uh, well, I’m getting married.”

“Oh.” JJ blinks, taking this in. His expression is impressively cool. “I’m happy for you.” He hesitates. “Finally met the right guy worth coming out for?”

Shane can’t help the wash of shame and embarrassment.

All of his friends tried, in one way or another, to set Shane up with someone. Hayden with Mark. Rose with Marcelo. No one tried harder than JJ, who set Shane up with his cousin, Devone, from his recently reconnected blood family.

Devone’s dad was religious, pinning him in the closet for years. Shane always felt pity for Devone’s self-loathing, even as he was a sweet, loving person. The most sensitive lover Shane ever had. But Shane also felt weirdly comforted by Devone’s self-loathing, knew it could be relied upon. Knew Devone would never judge Shane for not coming out when he felt the same way. He was so utterly safe with Devone.

They dated for three, blissful years and then Devone got into therapy.

Devone realized he wanted to come out of the closet.

And Shane…

Ran.

The ensuing fallout put Shane’s decades long friendship with JJ at risk and their mutual plan to upend the white, conservative tenants of hockey. Shane honestly thinks that work is what saved them— this thing they both believed in, their vision of a better MLH, was unifying when everything else in their lives weren’t. Shane remembers saying They’d never let a gay man be commissioner, come on, JJ, you know that. I have to stay in the closet. We’d lose everything.

He feels a coward now, clutching the fine cardstock to his stomach.

“It wasn’t so much about finding the right guy,” Shane tries. “I just… I don’t think I was ready until now.” Maybe Ilya helped him become ready, but JJ doesn’t want to hear that Shane dropped his cousin after three years to pick up with their old archrival. Which is exactly what Shane has to get across here.

So hard to explain how, after Shane crumpled up and ruined his relationship with Devone, that Ilya Rozanov appeared in his office. Beat down, softer, and looking to fill the same gap as the one Shane always was. Simple lust. Connection. Need. How could he say that Ilya cracked Shane open so gently, spilling all of him out, holding all Shane’s pain for his mother, caressing his over muchness with care. That concern and preservation fled Shane’s mind because lust would never be enough with Ilya. Self-denial wicked away in the course of being outmaneuvered in every turn by Ilya’s love, and his confidence, and his passion, so brisk and startling.

And when Ilya said he’d be coming out, Devone was on his mind. And Shane imagined doing it again, walking away again.

But how many times would an Ilya Rozanov walk back into his office and into his life?

How many chances could he waste?

Shane does think Ilya is wrong in what he said, because it’s hard for Shane to imagine coming out for himself. He couldn’t in any other way than to be seen loving Ilya. And probably that makes him a bad person… He definitely could have been better to Devone.

He wants to be better for Ilya.

He hesitates, still holding the card.

Honestly, Shane doubts JJ will attend the wedding, but JJ deserves to hear from him.

“Is Devone… doing well?”

“I don’t think we’re talking about him. We’re talking about your wedding, right?” Again, impressively smooth. “Shane… I’m not, ecstatic, but I understand that things don’t always work out. And while I wish you didn’t break up with D right when he was getting ready to come out—”

Jesus fuck, the idea of Ilya doing that to Shane is a punch to the gut.

JJ goes on, unawares. “It’s like you said. You weren’t ready.”

Shane feels even worse for how circumspect JJ is trying to be. Hayden was always the more hotheaded of the three of them. Right now, Shane would prefer fire to death from cool kindness.

He holds out the card. JJ takes it and glances briefly before he starts swearing. Fucking shit, Shane. Are you kidding me? Mother of God, this absolute piece of shit? You have to be joking because this is a shitty ass prank, you fucker. Him? Satan’s A himself?

He’s grown a lot as a person, Shane tries, and it is true. But to say he’s not the asshole Shane first fell into love with would be inaccurate.

Oh, I’m sure, with his slur saying son!

Okay, that isn’t fair. Shane frowns.

Niko apologized. On national TV.

I’m sure he had a little help getting there.

Shane is utterly miffed at this poor read of Niko’s good character, though he knows he has no right to be. The events show… favoritism if not a grey nepotism.

JJ curses again. Shane, if you thought being gay was enough not to become commissioner, marrying your former rival really isn’t going to help. You know how people talk about him now.

Shane swallows hard. Of course he knows. Of course he’s seen how many fewer retrospectives there are, cessation in pressure to add Ilya to the hall of fame, less posts promoting him as a stalwart legend of MLH lore. Voices in even these hallways joking about a sharp tongues being put to good use, getting on his knees for refs.

And that was the reaction for Ilya, who was a beloved white pest of the MLH. Shane who was a polished, clean-cut captain icon… Model minority, even…

I know, Shane says, because he does. But Ilya never put out a narrative, happy to let people think what they may. Shane knows it has to be massaged into the message of hockey excellence but also deliver honest humanity. He has control of his narrative and he'll use it to better appeal than Ilya has chosen to.

You’re keeping it hush hush right? JJ asks, begs really. And it would be so rational, but…

No. I’m telling Langstrom next week. Coming out the week before the wedding.

Fucking hell. JJ rubs his face. He’s quiet, seemingly without any further words to add, just in shock from it all.

Sorry for trying to have a life and marriage like everyone else fucking does, Shane says, a touch scathing. His heart is beating hard and he knows he’s not being fair, but what did JJ really expect?

That’s not what this is about. It’s about time and place. I already know voting members on the board are going to— JJ cut himself off, quieter. People are going to think they put their eggs in the wrong basket. This feeling of betrayal, wrong or not, will follow you forever. Please tell me you can see how this casts your whole professional career in doubt when you’ve been lusting after Rozanov for who knows how long!

We connected later, Shane says, unconvincingly. Fell in love recently.

JJ looks waner and waner, not believing a word.

Shit. You're for real. How long are we talking?

Why does this even matter? It’s not that Shane hasn’t thought of these things. About appearances of fairness and possible accusations for his playing career. It’s just that the idea of having Ilya Rozanov makes them all feel so piddling compared to everything else. Who gives a shit about rules when there is Rozanov in his bed? Who cares about the fucking equity of hockey when Shane is going to marry Ilya Rozanov forever? And if he has to use his considerable power, flex his capital to get a certain narrative across to do it…

We reconnected two years ago.

How long, Shane? JJ presses. There has never been a clear answer. Always. Always since they met?

Does it really matter?

Jesus, fuck. We are so fucked.

Shane feels anger crawling up the line of his spine. He didn’t come here to be judged. Fuck you, JJ. We’re not fucked. Backing someone like me as Commissioner is Langstrom’s last chance to establish a legacy. He’s a milquetoast leader, forgettable otherwise. I have four rings, I’ve given everything to this organization and last year alone defused half the bullshit set to blow this building to the ground. They’d be fools not to, not to…

Shane loses steam, eloquence abandoning him as he looks across at his old friend, that same pessimistic slant to his lips as when he quit coaching.

I hope you’re right Shane.

Shane licks his lips.

I am. In a few years when he retires, you’ll see.

JJ leaves the office without mentioning one way or another whether he’ll be at the wedding.

Shane keys into his Montreal apartment, his heavier than usual work bag slung over his shoulder. Summer has set in at the office, but after talking to JJ, Shane has only grown more determined to make the next year outstanding in every metric. The years before Langstrom retires are scant to prove Shane is well and above every candidate, gayness aside. He has to crush the doubters with his competency— same as he’s always done.

He smiles tiredly as he sees Ilya on the couch, paging through a stack of papers stamped with Columbia’s large logo. Yes, both of them are looking to make a mark professionally this year. Shane feels a swoop in his stomach. Ilya leaving a two-time winning team to be in the same city as Shane when only a year or so ago he was saying I have a life here, I can’t leave. Now he is extracting himself slowly, with care. Because Shane is worth it. This life they’re learning to build together is worth leaving his old one.

The goodbye party with the McGill Marlet’s had been extensive. A summer barbecue and then a field hockey match with Ilya gamely donning a jersey to play keep away from his now-former student players. Thank God I get back into cardio, Ilya moaned. Running is so much slower than skating. Such boring hockey! I had to fight to stay awake while scoring so many goals.

Shane warned him not to strain himself but of course Ilya wound up aggravating his knee to the point it was swollen for two days after, but he smiled though every wince. Shane understood why, sorting through Ilya’s social media and seeing all the tags and pictures with his players. The one on the field, with all of them tousled and dirt smeared was nothing less than heartwarming. Ilya will always remember them as the team that he won two cups with, came out to, and who weathered all the reactions and pressure from social media and odd interviews about him being bisexual.

Maybe some of his players had reservations, but they were drowned out in the letters, the emails, the words of gratitude. Shane felt overwhelmed by mere proximity and it made Ilya beam with so much soft pride to have made a lasting mark. To know he left these young players better than he found them. Shane knows he’ll do the same with Columbia. It's a huge shift from a well-supported, champion team to a low-ranking, rebuilding, underdog one, but Ilya rubs his hands together more than he moans. A good challenge. Shane can appreciate that, and he'll be there to support the team every step of the way. (And who knows? The presence of two of the greatest ever players hanging around might draw some excitement and money.)

Ilya stands and Shane drops his bag gently to the floor, meeting halfway for a long tight hug, and a kiss that tastes faintly of coffee.

“Thank fuck you’re here.”

Shane laughs a little under the press of multiple kisses. Ilya acts like Anya, so grateful at seeing him, just pushing himself thoughtlessly at Shane. Speaking of… Anya is jumping and yapping at Shane’s leg and both Ilya and Shane tell her to stop in multiple languages, but it does nothing. Go figure. Shane drops to pat her, and looks at Ilya properly. He looks tired.

“Niko still being…” Shane trails off. Hard to explain Niko’s cool rudeness over text and his avoidance of Ilya’s phone calls for over a week.

“No, no he is normal now. Acting like being an asshole didn’t happen.” Ilya waves his hand. “I ask what happened, he says nothing wrong, stop making shit up. I don’t fucking get him.”

“It could be Svetlana’s, uh, memorial anniversary maybe? That's soon, right?”

“Maybe,” Ilya allows, but the doubt in his voice reveals he thinks he knows his son better than that. “He was cold to me and you, but Nina says the Semenov boys text him no problem.”

Shane feels a faint sweat. “So you think maybe we did something? Did we do something?”

“Shane, Sweetheart, listen to me. Is likely nothing you did. Is just Niko being a little asshole because he can, because this is how kids get off on having power over adults who care about them.”

“Jesus, that’s really gross, Ilya.” Shane wrinkles his nose. He really doesn’t think that was a chapter in his book, but Ilya has a fervent certainty of an experienced parent.

“It’s true! I have asked and nothing. Just bad attitude. I mention his mother and he scoffs. I ask about losing the cup and he calls me slow. Shane, he may never tell us. Nikolaj will die with the secret of his upset and enjoy it.”

Shane feels his mouth falling open. Parenting sounds exhausting. He’s once more grateful to be spared it. Funny, because he never really struggled with that mystery regarding his own parents. Both of them were always direct with their upset. His mother’s rants were legendary to the point where Shane often wished he knew less of what she thought about everything, and his dad’s exhausted expounding on work issues over games and puzzles were thorough if admittedly boring. The three of them shared everything, every quibble, every battle, and every thought (probably too easily). The Hollanders were a tight unit.

Shane sometimes felt embarrassed as a young adult being so close with his parents—genuinely loving their company, seeing them once a week or more, long ongoing chess or word games with them. Momma’s boy was a phrase thrown around a lot. But he liked them as people, loved the dry humour they all shared. They understood Shane best.

Was Ilya and Niko’s three-person unit like that when Svetlana was still alive?

“The important thing is he is better I suppose,” Shane says, but he’s mystified too by this hot/cold switch.

Ilya sighs, the long and deep sigh he saves for his son when he is worried but can do nothing.

“He has an expensive therapist, so he works on his own bullshit maybe,” Ilya decides. “It's normal that I don’t know everything.”

Despite Ilya telling himself that, he is clearly ruffled and moody as they prepare for the dinner party at the Bouchers. It’s more of an apology party for almost burning down the building. Frankly Shane can do without the reminder— the paper work involved with his management company is enough, thanks— but he appreciates the gesture for what it is, and the kind invitation to bring Anya too.

Shane strips from his airplane/work clothes to something more casual. Ilya watches him flicking the latch of an expensive watch with appreciative eyes, but he still sighs.

“It was simpler when my son was younger and uncorrupted by social media,” Ilya moans. “I was the special parent, probably because I am away so much for hockey. When I was home, I was the only one Nikolaj wanted. I think it pissed Svetlana off.”

Shane snorts. Yeah. It would piss him off too if he was the one there every day, through all the hard and mundane, only to be ditched when cool hockey dad came home. Though Shane remembers he had a bit of a daddy’s boy phase, obsession and intrigue with his dad’s big office and the thick stacks of paperwork that seemed as tall as seven-year-old Shane was. If only he knew what lay in his future and how unexciting all that paperwork is.

Ilya watches him carefully, but Shane is pleased that this mention of Svetlana doesn’t have him spiraling anywhere other than empathizing with her.

“You know when I used to get home, he became a leech,” Ilya gripes. “He would attach to my leg, make me drag him all over the house. Very hard on tired legs. I had to bench press more just to keep up. No, it's true! I’d drag him to the bed and he would not even leave me alone in the shower! He’d sit on the toilet and tell me everything that happened in his day even when I tell him I can barely hear over the water.”

Despite his complaining mien, his voice is mournful with the lost adoration of a young child. Small, everyday intimacies shared between the frosted glass of a shower, chasing Niko with the towel and throwing him giggling and screaming onto the bed and letting him pick out Ilya’s home outfit.

“Why does it stop being simple?” Ilya murmurs.

Shane thinks that simplicity is always doomed to expire with adulthood, with personhood. But he suspects their innocence was prematurely lost in the ordeal of grief and all its ugly pieces. Depression. Despair. Acceptance thereof.

Though, to be fair...

"You weren't exactly Mr Consistency when you were that age either."

A grin grows over Ilya's face and he sidles up to Shane, hips nestling close. "Maybe. Was pretty consistent in wanting to fuck you though. Even if the communication about it was, eh, a work-in-progress."

Shane smiles too.

Ilya adds. "You were not Mr. Consistent either."

"Oh come on." Shane is pretty sure consistent is one of the boring words Ilya always accuses Shane of having tattooed on his eyelids. It's definitely one that his coaches always used.

"How long does it take me to sext successfully? Hm? Getting off with you was like trying to catch a rabbit. For years you were running everywhere. First it was 'Oh Ilya, you are so fucking hot, such a big fat cock, let's blow each other in hotel,' and then it's 'Lonely girls in Montreal do not get any, no sir.' "

Shane laughs. It was nerves! Fear of being found out, for sure, and maybe about the sex too, but also...

"Sorry. I was really busy breaking my dildo in."

Ilya gawps. He grabs Shane by the ass, stumble walking their way until Shane's calves his their bed.

"Are you fucking kidding me? You are breaking in the dildo copy of my dick and leaving the real thing to shrivel and die for two years?" 

Shane is laughing too hard to respond to Ilya's kisses.

"Can it be burned? I'll burn it. You don't need so many dildos now that I'm here."

"Not even for DP?"

Ilya pauses there, eyes slitted, and he is so over the top about it that Shane cannot help but laugh again. 

Ilya's cock is hardening, working against Shane's imploringly, but Shane glances at his watch.

"We're going to be late. After."

Ilya sighs like waiting to fuck Shane is torture and Shane fights a smile.

Ilya uses a little product, sleeking his curls back, opening his face. Shane tries to dress in a way comfortable for him, but not overly formal. He reminds himself that he’s not here in a landlord capacity, just a tenant capacity. But he does wonder if they got the missive about not leaving misdelivered letters on top of the post box where the mail worker can not find them.

Anya leashed, Ilya kisses the side of Shane’s face and pats his ass as they exit the apartment. Shane usually feels reassured, but a curl of anxiety sneaks up.

“Ilya, can we…” Shane struggles with how to frame what he wants to say.  Yes, they are about to be in a room full of people who know that Shane is in a relationship with Ilya, but that doesn’t mean they have to see any gauche physical evidence of that.

“I will behave. Maybe.” Ilya winks, and Shane feels relief that Ilya knows him so well. Spared him from the graceless words.

"It'll be a first."

The Semenovs and Kims are already at the party, and despite the size of the apartment, and the efficient open layout, the room seems quite bursting. Anya is unleashed and runs with wild glee at a geriatric Timbit who snuffles.

“Hi Shane, Ilya!” Renee calls from where she’s stepping over the dogs with a couple drinks in her hands. Pete has baby Beatrice strapped to his chest where he sits with Nina Semenov.

“Ah, no Kolja?” one of the Semenov boys asks.

“Nikolaj comes soon,” Ilya reassures. “Couple of weeks.”

Ilya pays his respects to Nina by kissing her cheek, his Russian boyish and flattering with the older woman. Shane follows Renee into the cluttered kitchen area where he insists on helping her. She protests politely and then vociferously in Quebecois until Shane starts cutting little slices of cheese for charcuterie in the ultimate power move. She blows blonde hair out of her face and sighs.

Ahh, this was supposed to be a thank you gesture to you, but I just ran out of time.

You don’t need to thank me, Shane demurs.

She eyes him very flatly. Oh yes, every landlord lets accidental fire starters stay.

Shane shrugs. Doesn’t say that not every tenant would find out their landlord was formerly very famous and very currently secretly gay and keep that to themselves either. Not when social media cachet seems like all anyone cares about these days. What Shane has with these people is a mutual respect, the kind he encountered now and then with teammates. Not just skill meeting skill, but also a type of personal integrity meshing. Shane has to admit that Ilya did pick the perfect residents.

Renee offers Shane drink after drink— all of them alcoholic. In the end he accedes because he thinks it may be more of a favor to her. He selects a hazy IPA, enjoying the hoppy froth in the bottle and wondering if she is trying to get him drunk.

I’ve done the cheese and the bread for the raclette. Also, did you need help hanging your diplomas again? I can bring my leveler.

She groans like he has maliciously plotted her downfall as the perfect hostess. Out. Out of my kitchen. Go sit, please, socialize.

Shane holds his hands up gracefully and beats a retreat. In the living room, Mrs. Kim discusses some homemade herbal health supplements, criticizing all of the Semenov boys for looking peaky and skinny. They argue back about their planned bulk and she yells about stable diets and they get more righteously outraged because she does not know how health works. Somehow, everyone involved is grinning the more they argue. The happy noisiness makes Shane’s head spin a little. Christ, but it’s like a locker room.

He finds a seat on the couch beside Mr. Kim who rolls the cane in his hands and looks very regal somehow in this messy mix of people. Shane apologizes again for Niko’s ash accident on his porch and asks about the plants there, learning that Mr. Kim maintains a very fine herb garden when the weather permits—creating a homemade hot house for when it does not. The spacious porch must be one of the reasons he loves Shane’s building so much (aside from the dirt cheap rent, surely).

Shane glances at Ilya who pokes his fingers at baby Beatrice who is deciding whether she wants to grip the finger or put it into her slobbery mouth.

Shane feels his face going soppy and soft watching Ilya. Ilya grins back at him. This… This is so much. Just being in a room together, meeting eyes. Smiling. Togetherness in public.

Ilya goes to settle in a chair across from Shane, but Mrs. Kim makes an unhappy sound and speaks sharply in Korean. Mr. Kim jumps in his seat. “Move, move. Let them sit together,” she says, shooing her husband to the armchair Ilya has been about to lower himself into.

Shane feels himself freeze, even Ilya looks a little taken aback. His eyes go to Shane, checking, asking permission. It’s not like Shane can say no after all this fuss. It’s awkward. Shane tilts his head and Ilya comes over, sinking his weight into the couch with an oomph. His knee must be twinging. For a moment they sit beside each other stiffly, then Renee appears, handing Shane a new beer. He takes a deep draught, feels the bubbles in his back of his throat. Ilya takes a ginger beer.

And they’re… sitting next to each other. Shane feels a snuffling at his hand and pets Timbit. Mr. Kim resettles and asks Shane if he gardens. Shane admits no.

Shane tries to stay present, but honestly, with all the stress of the fire and the EMTs, Shane didn’t have time to think about how his relatively older tenants might react to the idea of Shane being gay. Were the Kims conservative? Mr. Kim shared a full name with a dictator, although considering his age, it was unlikely he was named in honor of him. He and Mrs. Kim seem to have a traditional dynamic, but what did any of that actually mean for them as people?

Nina clearly had a man at some point to have these kids. Renee and Pete were an example of the traditional family at work. And then there was Shane and Ilya and Ilya’s moody son. They were so far from simple…

Yet, Mrs. Kim wants Shane and Ilya to sit together like they are newlyweds, too dear to part.

The conversation swirls. Ilya and Pete discuss Beatrice’s sleeping habits with a parental rhythm and interest Shane has no hope of matching. Mrs. Kim sits on the other chair besides her husband.

“We watched a little hockey this year. You must be very proud of Nikolaj,” Mrs. Kim says smiling. “Taking after you so much professionally.”

Only she is saying this to Shane. Jesus Christ, he knows she probably isn’t tech savvy, but now he’s sure she didn’t google him one single bit. Does she think Shane and Ilya adopted or did in vitro?? This is something he should correct, right? He looks around at the Bouchers who must have looked Shane and Ilya up, but they seem unbothered or at least too polite to say anything.

“Yeah,” Shane says lamely. “He had a good season. When he wasn’t causing trouble.”

That makes Nina laugh and Shane feels himself easing a little.

“Are you going to lease the bottom floor of the apartment after renovating?” Pete asks. “I have some friends looking for a place like this.”

Shane mentions his vague idea of renovating the bottom floor to be a sauna. His tenants look at him like the second coming. It’s very unnerving. He didn’t realize the cross-cultural appreciation for hot water between Russians, Koreans, and tired Canadian parents before now.

They demand specs, and Shane drinks his second beer and complies. He does love discussing building specs.

At some point in his speech, Shane becomes aware of Ilya’s hand slipping around his waist, a practiced, easy gesture from all their nights curled up on a couch. Smug possession when he thinks Shane is being unbearably clever and hot.

Shane freezes. Ilya notices immediately and he tenses, hand withdrawing, scalded—

A rush of adrenaline shoots through Shane, heady and dangerous, the same kind that let him tell Ilya his room number so many years ago.

He grabs Ilya’s hand and presses it against Shane’s waist. Holding it there, just at the edge of his ribs. Shane’s heart thuds hard in his chest, his fingers pluck at the fat gold ring on his pinky, worrying the metal.

He tries to focus his blurring eyes around the room to see whether they see—

Whether they hate—

But no one around them misses a step, too caught up in discussing a cold bath and coordinating a sign up sheet for spa use in a technologically deficient group of residents. Mr. Kim’s eyes flick over Shane and Ilya, then away to Pete’s point.

The anxiety breaks like a snapping of a dead branch. A glow of pleasure unfurls in Shane. Hot and dangerously light. Like neon gas rising, bubbling in a tube. Bright and effervescent.

He has all this and everyone can see it.

Shane laces his fingers over Ilya’s squeezing his hand and feeling it cup his waist in a strong pleasant pulse.  

Shane knows now he has to be out. Soon. He can’t wait to do this everywhere. In every room. On every couch. To have and to hold Ilya Rozanov in everyone’s eyes.

More alcohol is poured and on his third beer, Shane feels pleasantly tipsy. Ilya, sober and excuseless for his sentimentality, watches Shane with such bold attraction that Shane thinks it’s amazing they aren’t kicked out of the apartment for gross indecency.

By the time they leave, Shane’s residents have cracked out a plan for their dream sauna experience and Shane can only shrug and say, We’ll see. We have to talk to the contractors. He doubts they have the patience for the tedious, exacting nature of contract work, and he’s sure there will be complaints about the noise no matter how soundproofed his complex is which may make them regret ever supporting the change.

Shane is going to miss them when Ilya and Shane move to New York. Shane doesn’t have any neighbors there. But… maybe things will be different. Shane will be out, Shane will have Ilya who has a certain warm magnetic effect on people and Shane is part of that orbit now. It crests on Shane that he might be closer with all his neighbors moving forward… and the thought no longer fills him with anxiety.

Shane wavers in the hallway, feeling that fourth drink but also feeling very good from the buzz, very sweet from Ilya’s hands. Their fingers are still laced by their side.

“What a good neighbor. Good landlord,” Ilya hums. “Building a fucking dream sauna. They will never move out now.” Shane grins, broad.

“We should be careful there are no more accidental fires. They may want a public gym next,” Shane jokes.

Ilya laughs, and it travels far down the hallway. Doesn’t matter who hears here, in this beautiful building. Shane’s mind is loose, drunk, moving freely, inanely. Stuck on the fire, oddly. The fire workers, the calls afterwards, Niko…

“Hey, didn’t Niko start being an asshole when we told him about the fire?”

Ilya frowns. “It was around when he lost the cup.”

“Yeah, but we called him and he was like, ‘who cares, it's whatever’ about the whole thing.”

Ilya huffs a laugh at Shane’s attempt at a Niko impression.

“Yes, he is a teenager. Can't gush about worrying for Papa," Ilya says. "It is illegal, I think."

Worrying for... “You think he was an asshole because he thought he could've lost you too?”

Ilya stops walking.

He turns on Shane with perplexment that grows into utter astonishment. Shane stops belatedly, rocking a little. It’s a nice movement with his head so warm.

“How the fuck you do that?” Ilya demands. “You don’t raise kids. You don’t coach teenagers, but you just.” He makes sharp gesture from his head that Shane supposes is supposed to be an imitation of brilliance.

Shane shrugs. “I might be wrong.”

“You’re fucking not. Fucking. Genius at kids and hockey. Her anniversary is soon and his papa is in a fire. Of course Nikolaj is a little asshole.”

Ilya curses, digging out his phone. He finally cottons on to Shane’s wavering and starts moving back to their apartment. He tucks the phone away and puts a hand on Shane’s waist instead.

“Hold the rail.”

“I’m not that drunk.” Shane’s like, 80% sure he doesn’t need the rail, but it is cool and slippery in a neat way against his slightly tingly hand.

Ilya’s mind is already moving to the conversation he’s going to have with his son. Shane doesn’t envy it, because he can see it so clearly the more his mind drifts through it.

It does make a strange mirroring. A sudden, terrible tragedy in a home meant to be safe.

A mother collapsed.

A father almost burned.

Niko not home both times, at hockey camp then, and now in New York. Only hearing about it after…

It must have been a strange, eerie parallel feeling.

Then he erects some distance from Ilya to try and mitigate the stress and grief at the thought of losing his father. Simultaneously, protecting his papa from the pain and hurting him deeply, the same yet different instinct that had Ilya yelling down his son for his foolish carjacking incident. The two men are related, for sure. Shane snorts to himself.

They reach the apartment and let Anya out onto the porch. She rolls around in the fake grass. Shane kinda wants to do the same. The cold night air is so nice when Shane feels so hot.

“He is sensitive,” Ilya eventually says, looking out over city lights. “Losing his mama made him sensitive. I did not really think about it because… I think if I am honest, I never felt that way about my father. Scared that he would die." He exhales, says quietly, guiltily. "When he got sick, I think sometimes I hoped for it.”

“It’s fair. I’d hardly call him a father,” Shane says bluntly, and maybe he is a little drunk, but Ilya should never feel like a bad son. 

Ilya opens his mouth, shuts it, struggling inwardly for a moment.

"Sorry," Shane says, and then also says, "But I do think that." Shane tries to find the right words. A lot are coming. "I know you like, work on coping in therapy, and you're compassionate. But even if you forgive your dad, I never will. I will always be mad for what he did to you. Always." Shane frowns. "Not mad. Furious? Fucking... I don't know. It's beyond dropping gloves. I won't ever accept or make peace with what he did, I guess, because how could he do that to you... oh fuck."

Ilya looks wounded of all things. Shane didn't mean to wound. He rubs Ilya's shoulder, pets the back of his neck. Shit.

Ilya breathes hard, in and out, manages. "No one has ever..."

Shane waits.

"It's weird, because I am grateful that you... you love me so much you cannot accept or understand why he..." Ilya's voice is strained, gratitude mixing now with anger as he says, "But also, I am realizing you are the first, and I am feeling weird that no one else ever thought this way. To be this mad at him. No one in my family thought I was worth it. My aunts. My brother."

"I am beyond mad," Shane admits. And he knows Ilya's dad is dead and the degenerative disease is horrible, but he wishes they got together early, at 18 or something ridiculous. Married, and a big family wedding just so he could confront Ilya's father in compos mentis and say how could you do this to My Heart?

Shane thought he knew rage when in the middle of his career, one of his second line player was sent to the hospital with a career ending TBI from sloppy stickwork of all things. For the rest of the season, anytime they played Dallas it was like a haze over Shane's eyes, a gritting of his teeth and the whole team was dropping gloves the minute the whistle was blown to start.

Shane thought he knew rage. And then he fell in love with Ilya a second time. Heard each painful bit and denigrating piece of his childhood. Witnessed the labour involved to change that way of thinking to be the kind of accepting and openly loving father that he is to Niko. To be a loving man to Shane.

Ilya can forgive his father, and he probably should to move on. Shane won't. He'll hold the rage as long as he can, because someone should. Because Grigori Rozanov has earned Shane Hollander's everlasting condemnation.

Ilya breathes heavily, thumbs driving into his eyes, as if he can shake the ghost out of him. He lifts one hand off his face to grapple Shane closer to him and Shane goes, rubbing his hand up and down Ilya's chest and belly. 

"You are very honest drunk," Ilya says, the joke weak, but Shane smiles. Ilya is clearly wrung out emotionally, so Shane and he watch the city lights for a long moment. Shadows and bodies in the windows across the way. Scant cars crawling through streets. It's cold out, but they are so close and warm together that it a good contrast to the sharp, pleasant chill.

“You know," Shane says, after a long pause. "I don't understand why Niko was mad at me too. Assholery by association?"

Ilya quirks his head, smiling faintly like now he is the one who sees what Shane does not.

“What?” Shane asks.

“He doesn't want you to die either. He gets used to you, I think. So he is a little asshole.”

 “But I’m not…” Shane isn’t a parent. He’s not.

Ilya shrugs, like he knows all Shane’s protests. “Like I said, it's illegal to show, but he cares.”

Shane rubs at his face, fingers feeling clumsy, numb at the ends. Heart clumsier. “I’m too drunk for this.”

“Yes, I think you really are. Let's have an early bedtime for both of us.”

The next morning, Shane runs his blender and winces. His head throbs faintly and he feels grateful again that Ilya is not a drinker. Shane fucking hates feeling this sluggish.

Ilya leans both elbows on the counter, cupping his scruffy jaw as he watches Shane. Ilya looks tired but it doesn’t stop a crooked little smile from pulling his features.

“You’re a lot of fun drunk. So bold. Feel like you are lying, only pretending to be boring.”

Shane groans. He’s heard from all his teammates what a happy, dopey drunk Shane is. Grin splitting his face as he wavers to and fro, laughing easily, saying man, I love you guys to everyone. It was the only time his teammates every saw him drop the stick in his ass, apparently, and was always embarrassing. 

“We have to do it again sometimes,” Ilya decides. “Like on my birthday.”

“No.”

“But Sweetheart. I cannot drink. You have to do it for us both.”

Shane gives him a quelling look, moving to the blender.

“Make eggs or something for breakfast. I don’t want to run the blender again.”

Shane pours his drink out, then notices Ilya still leaning over the counter, fiddling with his fingers. Shane raises an eyebrow.

“I called our Nika. You were right.”

Good to know. Shane drinks the mix. It’s refreshingly cold.

Ilya continues, “He is sorry for being an asshole and he asks me for something.”

Shane’s initial reaction is worry that Niko is in some trouble again, but that’s not really fair to him.

“What?”

“My wedding ring. The one with Svetlana.”

Shane’s eyes dart up immediately to Ilya’s necklace where the gold band and cross nestles atop his shirt. Ilya worries it reflexively, finger dipping into the hole and a wave rises up in Shane.

“He asked if I am not using it, maybe he can have it.” Ilya looks to the side. “Children. He does not want hers when I offer it, but he wants mine when I don’t just so he can…bah.” He waves his hand. It’s unknowable the gesture suggests.

“To keep you with him, maybe.” Well, the ring signaled Ilya and Svetlana’s marriage. Niko is keeping both his parents with him.

“Who knows.” Ilya sighs. “He does not need it— I am still right here. Anytime he needs… But I am too nice to point out he is dramatic. I told him we will get it resized when he is back.”

“You don’t have to give it to him just because he asked,” Shane points out gently. Not just this, but Ilya doesn’t have to give everything to his son just because he asks it.

“I think there is no better place for it to be than with him,” Ilya says. 

Then that’s that. Shane takes another sip, but Ilya is still looking at him with faint guilt.

“Ilya, please,” Shane begs, because he has a headache and he can’t handle this silly reticence. 

Ilya reaches into his pocket and holds something glinting out. A woman’s wedding ring. It can only be Svetlana Rozanov's wedding ring. The fine cut makes the shining white gem almost blue in its purity, like a little tear. The whole ring looks petite in Ilya’s large palm. Shane can’t help but think her smaller hand must have fit so well in his.

 “Will it bother you if I wear it?” Ilya asks. “On my necklace?”

Shane feels a shifting in his chest, like a little pressure. He doesn’t like having this choice.

Honestly, it surprises Shane that Ilya would even ask. The way Ilya grieves is no business of Shane’s. Ilya looks patient and open. Undemanding. Like he will really let Shane say no to wearing a piece of his dead wife’s jewelry.

Shane won’t deny Ilya that comfort, how fucking could he?

…He stares at the ring. This dainty feminine thing and he thinks about seeing it on Ilya’s neck on their wedding night, thinking about it slipped through her fingers as it tinkles against the cross when they fuck. For the rest of their marriage.

Shane takes a deep breath, and he sees Ilya gird himself. Hand closing and lowering. As if ready to stow the ring away, but for all the calm he fights to maintain there is that clawing desperation in Ilya’s eyes. Holding and carrying is the only way he knows how to do right by those who leave him.

But Shane doesn’t want to see him with a ring around his neck, like Ilya’s still waiting for his bride to come back. Eternally engaged.

“It's okay,” Ilya says roughly, the same time Shane says,

“Can you, I don’t know, take the stone off?”

Ilya blinks, glances down at the pretty blueish white stone, as if seeing the composite parts for the first time.

“I just…” Shane can’t explain it. “Maybe there’s another way to honor her without… I don’t know. It’s stupid.” Would taking the band of really change that much? Wouldn't it crush the symbol anyway?

“No, you are right.” Ilya quirks a faint smile. “I look like I am a soldier going to war." He nods to himself a couple times. "Yes, she would think this is tacky. Dramatic. She always called me this and she was always right.”

“It’s not dramatic to miss someone… Just maybe my rings can be the only ones you wear, you know?”

Ilya kisses Shane, says, “Yes. I can do this.”

Ilya pockets the dainty ring and gets ready for his run with Anya.

Shane takes a painkiller and starts his weights routine, but finds his reps hitching. That was… not good, right?

He’s pretty sure the chapter on wedding rings in dating later in life said to leave it be. It definitely didn’t say to tear the ring into pieces for your own sensitivities. Jesus fuck.

When Ilya comes home from his run, Shane has an apology and an adult compromise ready (maybe they can find something else for Ilya to wear? Like a broach or a scarf?), but Ilya looks so breathless and happy that Shane stalls.

“Look.”

Sweaty, Ilya sits down and holds out his necklace. "Rush job, but he did well." Shane takes the cross into his palm finds the little, high karat gem twinkling beside it. He must have ran to a jeweler, Shane's impulsive man. The ring itself is gone and the gem inset with a hook and added to the chain. It shines on Ilya’s chest like a raindrop caught in the sun.

“What do you think?” Ilya asks.

Shane swallows. Nods. He is shocked to find how much he actually likes this. Ilya would not be himself if he did not love so long and loyally. It's part of the manifold reasons why Shane loves Ilya. It means a lot that he has found a way to cherish Svetlana and also makes space to love and respect Shane .

Shane strokes the shining gem against the cross. 

"I was going to apologize," Shane admits. Ilya huffs a laugh.

“No need for sorry. You are right, Sweetheart. It is better. Feels lighter this way.” Ilya sighs, leaning his head against the couch, brushing his sweat slicked crown against Shane's shoulder. He looks eased. “It's how I want to feel with you, with our marriage. I know there is a lot we work through and it is blah, no fun. Heavy. But it's so when we marry it is like… We will have a clean skate.”

“Clean slate, I think,” Shane corrects, but Ilya's version is so apt. He laughs "Maybe yours is better when it comes to us."

Chapter End Notes

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if only i had used ai, i coulda been in that nyt article *shakes fist*

GO TO SLEEP IF IT'S LATE. THERE IS A FAT AMOUNT LEFT. BUT SHIT GONNA GET REAL. SO SLEEP AND ENJOY THE FIC TOMORROW.

Everyone else, buckle up (and a special guest appears!!)

Chapter 18: shane is retrospective

Chapter Notes

Shane is waist deep in reading a technical contract with the players union when Ilya comes into his home office.

“Sweetheart, I have something to show you.”

“In a sec.”

“It’s Saturday and you have been working for hours, it’s time for a legal lunch break. Canadian laws are very strict about having food and human rights like that.”

Shane huffs but smiles, his annoyance at the interruption draining so easily as it always does. Still. He wants his desk to be in the best shape possible when he tells Commissioner Langstrom about the wedding this week.

He hopes the stress isn’t too obvious on his face. Shane has done everything he can to be ready. Told key people on multiple levels. Even has a reluctant JJ’s influential backing for the board, but even so, he can’t help but fret over whether he’s missed something as his planned meeting inches closer.

But Ilya Rozanov is standing in front of Shane with his arms behind his back and it’s impossible to think of anything else for too long. Shane slows his treadmill and walks backwards.

“What?”

“I heard you told our Nika something very untrue.”

Shane raises an eyebrow.

Ilya says, solemn, “That I was never in the Soviet Union.”

Shane blinks for a moment, trying to catch up. Then he remembers shooting Niko one of his old summer training schedules and Niko saying this looks like the kind of no weekends thing Papa describes when he talks about being in the Soviet Union. And Shane had rightly pointed out that Ilya was lying and had never, in fact, suffered under Soviet rule considering he was born the year the Union disbanded.

“You have not. Come on, Ilya.”

“As the man who marries me, you should know.”

Ilya holds out a green booklet, slimmer than a passport. Shane glances at the Russian on the front page and the crest.

“You see this?” Ilya taps four letters.

“Ilya, you know I can’t read it.”

“The country of my birth.” Ilya rattles it off in Russian. “S-S-S-R." He jabs each letter to punctuate the point before adding, "For you, USSR.”

“Oh my fucking god, Ilya, it must have been, for what, three days before the Union fell?”

“Whole months I was in the Soviet Union,” Ilya crows. “I still have the callouses. They worked me very hard as newborn. Almost as hard as you work you.”

Shane can’t help his soft snort. Still, Ilya’s birth certificate… He powers off his treadmill and takes the document greedily, settling on his settee. Ilya immediately cozies up to him like a magnet caught in polarity.

Shane takes the document in hand carefully. His to-be-husband’s birth certificate. It’s kind of… marvelous to hold. He doesn’t know why. Maybe because it traveled so far to reach this moment in his hands.

“Getting everything ready for the wedding,” Shane intuits.

“I will use my American passport but only have one birth certificate. Luckily, this one does not expire just because the government is is scared of me sucking cock,” Ilya says, dry.

Yes, this is the final document tying Ilya to his home country. Funny because the country on here doesn’t exist anymore. Ilya is from somewhere that is not there in so many ways that matter.

The only word Shane recognizes among the cryptic scatter of Cyrillic letters is Ilya’s name. Shane’s fingers press on one of the other words— it has the same letters as Ilya’s listed last name, and also the same first letter.

“Irina Ilyinichna Rozanova,” Ilya says, all tall ‘i’ letters in his mouth. “Ilyinichna after her father, Ilya.”

“You’re named after your grandfather?” Shane doesn’t know why it’s such a surprise. Some part of him feels Ilya is so one of a kind, there can’t have been any before him. He's Shane’s first Ilya in his life, the most impactful. Strange to think there are others, but of course there must be and of course there are but…

“He was a famous violinist. I did not have the patience for music which frustrated him always. Probably I'm this big brutish shame to his name. But I'm very rich and even more famous, so,” Ilya says, smug for outdoing his ancestor's legacy. “What were you named for?”

Shane shrugs, feeling embarrassed. “Mom just decided. She saw it in a book. Said she liked how it looked like shine.”

Ilya smirks at him as Shane knew he would.

“She wanted a name that wouldn’t stand out in Canada." Little wonder why, with her name so clearly different. "My dad actually fought for Ryuunosuke. Herald of the dragon.”

“Oh, they missed with that one,” Ilya says, “You are a fucking fire breather on ice, Hollander.”

“Maybe.” Shane can’t imagine being Ryuunosuke. (Nor can he imagine the creative spellings and jokes that would come along with such a first name.) “I don’t really feel like a Ryuunosuke.”

“No, better a Shane Hollander,” Ilya agrees, clipping all the familiar syllables with affection.

Shane’s eyes drift back to the document to Irina’s name sharing so many parts with Ilya's. She gave him so much of what she carried. And there is much of Ilya is in her, too, he's sure. They share that deep melancholy but there has to be something else.

“Tell me something about your mother. Something happy.”

Shane already knows that she was sad and that Ilya believes that she was beautiful. He wishes he knew more about her. Almost like he wants to whet his longing— to know better who he will be missing at the wedding. To feel sad about her feels appropriate, but he doesn’t have the shape for the feeling.

“She was…” Ilya stares off. “I think about it lately in therapy. Maybe she was also like me?”

“Yeah?” Shane encourages.

“A bit of an asshole, I think.”

Shane feels his mouth opening. What the fuck.

“Ilya. Why would you…”

He can’t even imagine describing his mother that way especially when she dies… though Mom definitely could be when someone got in her way and refused to listen to (her) reason. Ilya is grinning at Shane’s reaction.

“She was not,” Shane says, weirdly feeling the need to defend Irina.

“Maybe she is where I get it from. She was always teasing me. Liked to play pranks. Always—”

Shane feels a tickle at his ear and turns to brush his hair, only to find Ilya’s hand snuck around the back of the couch. Shane looks at him annoyed. Ilya beams at the attention.

“She used to tell me I had pasta in my hair. Is silly now, but kids don’t know better. I would look for spaghetti curls all the time. Once I complained about her cooking my chicken the wrong way, too much spice, and she took my plate and flipped every piece of chicken over. ‘There,’ she said, ‘See, you were eating it the wrong way. Now I fixed it.’”

Shane laughs at that. He can imagine little Ilya just steaming, all worked up and stymied. It’s strange to think about Irina Rozanov with this much life and a rascally spirit like her son when she is also so sad and so beautiful.

But Shane thinks she would have a lot of sides, a lot to her. Impossible to only be one thing.

“Do you think… That she would have supported you if… I guess, maybe she might have known like my parents, I guess.”

Ilya shakes his head. “I don’t think she could know. I did not really know til I started having sex and I began to go, ‘yes, I wouldn’t mind if it was with cock either, and a pretty flat chest.’”

Ilya brushes his hands briefly over Shane, demonstratively, and Shane feels a warm shiver scoot up his spine.

“You?” Ilya asks.

Shane flushes. “I knew before. Or kinda knew.” At age 10, he and his hockey friends would compare penises, taking the other’s in hand. Shane didn’t get hard, but he just… liked it a lot. Holding and being held. A coach told them to stop playing faggots with each other. Shane jumped back as if burned, hand tingling and an awful welling in his stomach. Coach Gregg wasn’t even mad, more amused, but the warning in his voice was real. Gentle policing because what they were doing had implications, could change what people might think about them. How embarrassing. How humiliating especially so young, because Shane liked it so much and now felt mute to this fact of himself. And Shane knew, before understanding it was called gay, that what he was, and the furtive, desperate way he wanted to hold penises, was wrong. He worked really hard to look away from the fascination, to justify it, to bury the truth with girlfriends the moment he felt his sex drive even stir.

Then, of course, Ilya Rozanov skated to center ice at World Junior's and into Shane's life, slowly shredding all Shane's well meaning attempts to lie to himself. Ilya probably even relished doing it.

“High IQ.” Ilya holds up three fingers, “Sex, hockey, and parenting adult child.”

Shane scoffs. He’d hardly call his slow and arduous journey to gayness an example of high IQ and that last one is a total joke; Shane doesn’t get half of why Niko acts like he does.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t good at hiding it. Apparently my parents said they always thought I might be gay.” They were right about a lot of things, probably including the autism, and it stings that they’re 2-0 in that sense. He’s almost afraid to ask what else they suspect him of.

“I don't know if my mother knew. Or if she supported bisexuals. No idea,” Ilya says with blunt clarity. “I talked about it with my therapist and I don’t really care.”

Oh. Shane is always impressed with Ilya’s ability to just… do that. Not care. Shane would care a lot if it were his parents.

Ilya goes on. “My father, I think he suspected I was gay. He never caught me, though.”

Shane notes the distinction. “Not bi?”

“No. Just sometimes dedicated to hiding it like a good Russian man should.”

Shane has to laugh. Ilya’s attraction to women is as ingrained as his desire for Shane’s cock. Intrinsic. Part and parcel of how he navigates the world even now. Ilya appreciates breasts the same way Shane might admire a man's upper back in the crowded subway. Simply, without thought. Eyes moving to beauty, the dance between skin and cloth, and lingering.

“He really never knew you at all, did he?” Shane says, wondering. How could it even be possible. To have a son and not care even the smallest part to know them. Ilya doesn't have to say whether his father would have supported him if he knew. Shane knows that he didn't every moment he had the mental wherewithall. 

Ilya's eyes glance away and then guiltily back to Shane’s and whatever he sees there. Probably Shane's anger. Ilya doesn’t have to like it, can still feel complicated about making his father look bad after years of straining to present the best front possible for his family. Shane did mean what he said that drunk night, embarrassing as it was. Ilya can't say these things, disaffected and matter of fact without earning a peek at Shane's ire for his father. That name is undeserving of being on Ilya's birth certificate, not worth the ink.

Shane rubs Ilya's neck, thumb driving in. Slowly Ilya relaxes, shrugs his shoulders a couple times and stretches. He quirks a smile, turning his head to kiss Shane's forearm.

“Now you have my birth certificate. Do we have everything we need for a wedding yet, Fiancé? The big plan is all coming together?”

“Flowers, catering, venue, music are all set, and invitations ready to be sent. We just have to do final measurements for suits and then pick our wedding rings in a couple weeks.”

"And coming out," Ilya adds.

"Yeah, and coming out," Shane adds. He didn't think it needed mentioning really. 

Ilya squeezes Shane around his waist, a tight and appreciative squeeze. Kisses his cheek hard.

Shane glances at the precious birth certificate in his hands. He sets it down gently and kisses Ilya back hard, just to feel Ilya rise against him. Always stoking each other. Shane lets Ilya turn his working lunch into an indulgent hours long break complete with post-sex shower.

Shane’s dad hugs him in the hallway for an almost embarrassingly long time. Shane hugs back, but eventually he drops his arms awkwardly, trying a million small signals that he’s done hugging only for each one to be ignored as his dad squeezes tighter and tighter.

Ilya coughs, "David!" and Dad pulls off.

“Sorry. God, but aren’t we glad you two are okay.”

“The fire ended up being pretty small, all said,” Shane says, but he lets his dad pat his back again, hand warm on his shoulder and lingering. It’s different, seeing someone in person and knowing they were in danger.

Dad hugs Ilya too, long and hard as usual and makes small talk about the weather, the strong end of Ilya’s collegiate season. Little inane things, that help him reset to something more cheerful when he guides them back in apt 5C.

“Look who’s here,” Dad says, all smiles to Shane’s mom.

Shane swallows a little when he sees her. He knows adults shrink with age, but it’s strange to see it accelerated with the disease as she's been incapable of really working out for over a year. Her shoulders look smaller, her head larger, her hands and arms weaker. She used to kick his ass at badminton. She has twice the number of marathon medals than he does. She should only be in her 70s but looks so much closer to 90 these days.

It makes his heart tighten in anxiety for her—

Bizarrely for him too. The fear of that happening to him. And it will no matter what, but if he’s lucky it’ll be slow. He will actually be 90 when every competence starts to fail him.

She doesn’t recognize him or Dad today, and she glares absently at Ilya, as if sensing she should dislike him but unable to place why. She’s having more bad days, and it’s reached the point Shane cannot wait for good days to visit otherwise he’d hardly see them. Her moments of clarity are more harrowing too— she knows something is wrong but there is nothing she can do to change it and the conversations with her sharp, teary eyes and drooping face are emotionally impossible to navigate.

Ilya still gamely makes small talk with Mom about Anya who as usual hops up and places her furry head in Shane’s mom’s lap like a honing beacon.

On the way here, Ilya said dogs are sensitive to illness. They can smell it, he said, tapping his nose. The idea of Anya running so eagerly to comfort his mother every time because Anya knows she is sick… Well. Shane underestimated animal compassion, maybe. Most people would do anything to avoid seeing this. Shane invited Hayden once and he’d agreed. Then Jackie texted Shane later, had said, I know what he said, but he told me he doesn’t think he can handle seeing Yuna like that, I’m so sorry Shane. We still want to support you as much as we can. Shane understood, how could he not. He couldn’t handle seeing her like this either, but it wasn’t a choice. Could he really condemn Hayden for not wanting to see it? (Yes. Probably. No. Definitely for not telling that to Shane’s face and making his wife do it.)

Instead of spreading that bitter story in the car, Shane told Ilya about the cat that hated him growing up yet would always come around Shane when he was feverish or stuck with flu to sit on his face.

Ilya laughed hard. Ilya who came to see his parents the first time Shane invited him, before they were really anything so substantial. Ilya who entered full-knowing the horrors and said yes to seeing it again for Shane and for Shane’s dad, but especially for Mom.

Ilya said, “That cat was bad at comforting you maybe. Not as intelligent as Anya”

“It was trying to smother me,” Shane said.

“It was a beautiful creature with a heart bigger than its brain maybe.”

Now, Shane leaves his mom in Ilya's capable hands to take a moment to breathe in the kitchen. His dad is there, fussing with a lighter over a candle stuck in a few stacked crepes.

“Oh, Dad, please no. We don’t need to do that.”

“What? Celebrate your birthday or celebrate you coming out?”

“Either. Both.”

Shane’s dad sighs, reaches over and takes one of the extra crepes on the side and butters it. He rolls it up and eats it with a few simple bites.

“You never liked making a big deal.” Dad smiles, adds a dab of maple syrup on one crepe and rolls it for Shane to take. Shane tilts it so the maple doesn’t spill out. He takes a bite and it tastes nostalgic, sweet.

“It’s a nice idea. But I don’t really care about birthdays, and as for coming out… I still have to actually do it.”

Shane glances down at his half-eaten crepe, the torn edges.

Dad clears his throat.

“I know I don’t know anything about it—”

“Dad…”

“If you do need any advice or… heck, I don’t know, do I? You’ve found the bottom of the well for my fatherly wisdom.”

Shane laughs a little. He pats his dad’s back. They’re both awkward, but somehow together that awkwardness has always felt comfortable.

“I’m 48—”

“Soon to be 49,” his dad says, misty like he can’t believe it.

“I’m an adult, and coming out is one of those things I kind of have to do myself.”

It’s still embarrassing that it’s taken him this long.

Dad snorts, shakes his head. “If your mom was here— here I mean. She’d have a lot to say otherwise.”

Shane swallows hard. He knows.

“I never thought I’d come out… But I really never thought I’d come out without her,” Shane admits. He finishes his crepe just for something to do, but it feels thick in his mouth and heavy in his throat. Hard to swallow.

“Do you want to bring these out?” Dad asks, thankfully drawing Shane away from that feeling sitting heavy behind his eyes.

“Without the candle?”

“After the scare you two had maybe no fire is better,” Dad jokes. "Just know I'm celebrating anyway."

Shane brings the crepes out to Ilya and Mom. He starts with cinnamon and butter, then remembers his mother’s palate has changed and quietly moves it to Ilya’s plate. Ilya has the good grace to eat everything on earth but olives. He does a maple syrup and powdered sugar. Mom likes the sweeter crepe Shane makes a lot, even if her hands shake and she makes a bit of a sticky mess. Shane wipes his mom’s hands gently with a warm cloth afterwards, feeling each shake of her long fingers.

She smiles at him without recognition, thanks him absently. Shane says, “You’re welcome,” and feels a little far away from the room if he’s honest. He sets her hands gently into her lap.

Does she think he's a nurse? Like all the others helping keep her going?

Right when he wonders what is taking his dad so long, because Shane and Ilya can’t leave without there being someone with her—

Dad comes back and he has an old tote bag with him.

“Don’t get annoyed now, I was going to give this to you anyways, it just happens your birthday is next week.”

Shane peeks inside the bag to evaluate just how much he should protest this gift considering his cumulative wealth.

Hard drives and USBs. Two or three dozen, some with bulky wall plugs and others small and modern.

“What is this...?”

Then he sees that every single one has a piece of tape on them in his mother’s spidery handwriting.

They all say Shane.

The earliest hard drives date back to the mid-2000s and wrestling with compatibility issues with modern technology has Shane spending a good several hours on his phone with an available anytime IT professional. He has to leave for New York before he finishes untangling everything, and he kisses Ilya with distraction and makes a stop on the way out at an electronics store for something with sufficient storage space to collate everything. It winds up being a 50-terabyte behemoth that he pays extra for as an additional carry on.

In New York, after several meltdowns, and Microsoft Office’s attempt to end its own life in protest of corrupted or impartial, aged files—

Shane has a data journey of his own life, written in his mother’s hands, more or less.

What that really means, is that he has every letter she ever wrote on his behalf for decades. Shane snorts hard through a letter from ’02 to his former coach about Shane’s playing time compared to the other boys and her assertion that he buy a better stopwatch before attempting to bench her son prematurely again.

In one letter she threatens a teacher’s aide at school who didn’t sign off on Shane’s absences. Then another later apologizing to the aide and offers to take the woman out for coffee.

Even in his later years, Mom takes the same highly personal, hammer and tongs approach to every sponsor that handled Shane, and his mother smoothly threatening Rolex by dangling talks with Vacheron Constantin and their Overseas sports line watches makes Shane laugh with baffled delight.

She just… wasn’t scared of anyone, was she?

There was even one commercial with CMM where they wanted to drape Shane in Japanese flags as a collab for their breech into the Japanese market. He never heard about this happening, and he is grateful he was spared that moment of grappling with the instinctive discomfort of a company using his heritage so blatantly for sales. Shane is proud of the Japanese flag, and his grandparents and all the things his family has been through, but he doesn’t think wearing it to sell hockey pads is how he wants to honor that. Since Japan only allows adults to have one passport, Shane’s mother had surrendered her dual citizenship Japanese passport in favor of her Canadian one— her life and Shane’s future were in Canada. Shane has never been a Japanese citizen.

Shane doesn’t even remember what the final CCM shoot ended up being. It blurred with the rest of the tedious shoots that filled time between playing or practicing or thinking about hockey because his mother tied the whole complex, painful problem up in two swift, bloodless emails and spared him this messy grappling and paralyzing discomfort. My son is a premier Canadian sports player, you can advertise that all you want but my son's ethnicity really isn't the point here. Would hate for any viewer to feel this campaign was a reductive take belittling the diversity both CCM and Shane so value. And that was that.

One thing Shane wasn’t prepared for was how many pictures there are. Most of the gigabytes have to be dedicated to photos and videos. She digitized their VHS tapes years ago and he watches himself at eight, stiff legged but serious on the ice. His mom’s cheers and shouted advice drowning out every other parent and child in the arena. Twelve, learning a slapshot at the practice rink. Fifteen, circling like a shark, stable legged and still so short. Seventeen at Junior World's, bigger and never more ready to be pro. He sees himself skate past and wave at the camera. Hi Honey, mess those boys up! Her voice so loud even now. He rubs at his eyes for a long moment before he can move on to a different file. 

For pictures, he finds polished publicity photos from his draft, the hubbub from his first cup and the cup winning goal. The second win. Hundreds of shots tracking each season’s highs and lows, charity work, publicity events. Pictures of all three Hollanders together, taken at stadiums around the world as his parents often used his games as an excuse to travel. 

His team swap to the Centaurs— Shane's slanted smile setting up his apartment in Ottawa reminds him of how hard that change had been. The feeling of his skill getting outpaced, not as valued by Montreal as a first draft pick after Ottawa had yet another bad season. Shane, the franchise maker. Four champion rings. Four times engraving their name on Stanley silver. Traded. 

It was insulting. He spent his remaining years trying to shape up Ottawa, and it was good years. They had a nice team culture, and were beginning to cohere when Shane's shoulder took him out of the fight.

Shane’s retirement… The ugly article aftermath and retrospectives on his career that released when he was recovering still in the hospital. Like Shane was entombed while still alive. He felt insane when it happened, and his mother had written emails for that as well for the pictures of him at the hospital, exhausted and in pain. Photos of him emotionally vacant outside his cottage, all taken with drones without care for Shane's right to grieve his career in peace.

Shane startles when he realizes that her recording of his life doesn’t end there. That his mother has PDFs of every article mentioning his promotions in the MLH and events organized and chairs in committees. Pictures of him in suits at events or games, the odd write ups in sports magazines. The smiles in the pictures come back, growing from something small and stiff in his early years at the Montreal branch to the easy practiced grin of sure confidence at MLH HQ. The photo of him with the announcement of Deputy Commissioner is downright smug.

That photo is hyperlinked to a letter and he clicks it. He laughs, seeing she still was writing letters on his behalf even when he was closer to 40. She emailed a friend she had in league finances to help a Shane who needed desperately a crash course in professional excel systems after spending most of his life perfecting his puck handling skills instead of his tech knowhow.

That woman, Carrie Martel, did end up helping him. She sent him videos, gave him advice for the MLH standard, even sharing some of her own less confidential sheets for him to manipulate to as he learned to parse, sort, and wrangle the dense information within.

Despite his initial floundering, Shane felt a quiet pride that he wasn’t unintelligent in ways he sometimes feared he was. Despite being embarrassingly bad at academics in school, Shane soaked up the lessons, applied them, started winning in his conference rooms at the Montreal branch more and more. Maybe it wasn’t about intelligence, just about focus. Passion for his subject and a desire to win.

At the end of the letter to Carrie Martel, his mom wrote, He’s going to be commissioner someday soon, and thank fuck for that with the current idiot in charge!

Four years ago, she emailed the same thread with the picture of Shane as Deputy.

Shane rubs his eyes, glances at the clock, knowing he’s going to regret staying up so late for work tomorrow it’s just… Such a wealth. A deep comfort maybe, this small proof that his mother cared as much about his professional office career as she did for his hockey one. Even if she’s forgotten about it, the proof is in the hard drives. 

She only stopped collecting pictures and files about Shane when she first started getting memory issues. There is one confused letter to a former coach dated after Shane retired that he exits out of quickly.

He goes to close the drive folder, skipping down to see how many more file folders he has left, but his eyes catch on one in all caps.

IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

Shane clicks into it out of curiosity, then stalls.

There are sixteen word files and all of them are labeled the same way.

IF SHANE GETS OUTED, they say, and the date of her update in parentheses.

The last date was two years ago.

He closes out of the whole system and flips his laptop lid down. The 50-terabyte hard drive makes a loud whining in his usually quiet New York apartment. He touches the hot top of it for a moment, the heat a grounding stimulation.

He goes through his routine, glancing over his own shoulder in the mirror. The man in front of him looks tired from the corner of his eye. He’s a champion, he’s positioned to be commissioner, he has the love of a good man.

For all his mother tracked and egged his successful trajectory, for all it proves her love, Shane doesn’t think he has it in him to read the equivocations for an emergency outing.

I know my son is gay, but it doesn’t mean he’s not a champion. My son is gay but it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be appealing as a sponsorship partner. My son is gay but I can explain it a way you’ll like.

Shane sleeps but only fitfully.

He drifts through work in a faint haze, hesitating before opening his excel file for a meeting. He calls Ilya after work and explains some of the things he found.

Ilya has his tripod set up in the living room, and he’s thoughtful and patient as Shane rambles on about the wealth of materials Shane discovered. The glaring mountain of his mother’s attention and regard for Shane and his potential. That she cared for Shane more than just his hockey career.

He feels guilty in some sense, realizing Ilya never had anything close to this kind of parental care, but he can’t help himself from spilling it all.

“And she was right, in the end, wasn’t she?” Shane says, thinking of her bragging to the Hamada’s in their sweets shop about him being in the MLH, telling a friend in finance that Shane, who could barely sort his excel cells let alone make arrays from them, would be in charge of the whole North American hockey organization one day.

“Your humility, Hollander. It is one of your hottest qualities.”

“I’m serious.”

“Yes, you look serious. You don’t look happy about this at all.”

“I am. Happy that she cared so much. I know not everyone has someone to—”

Ilya makes an obnoxious snoring sound. Boring.

“Okay, fuck off.”

“What is the problem?” Ilya asks.

Shane opens his mouth and shuts it. He doesn’t know why he’s talking to Ilya about this except that he goes automatically to Ilya when his chest is tight, when his mind is spinning about life. But this time, the thing underneath it, the deep anxiety that he’s throwing away 22 hard drives and 24 usb’s worth of his mother’s work by coming out as gay. And of course he’s going to do it, but fuck, it’s scary, and he can’t ask his mother what she thinks— there are no files for if Shane came out on his own.

He can’t blame her for that. He told her so when they finally spoke about his being gay when he was 29. More of a confirmation of what they suspected, and a plea for them to stop trying to introduce him to women.

Mom asked delicately about being out and Shane explained tightly all the reasons he absolutely never could and she said that’s so sad, but I understand.

She patted his hand. She let him have that and never challenged him.

She got both parts. Yes, it was sad. Yes, she understood the necessity of his choice. Of course she did, she knew how much effort went into his career. After all, it was her hands and his that were the ones to make it. Risking destroying everything in his professional life because of personal business… How could Shane ever willingly choose to do that?

Shane won’t, of course, destroy his life. He has the right people in his corner, the big players he needs, the support on multiple levels. Getting Shane out of this level of power would be a costly and humiliating experience. Savvy as he is, Langstrom will see this, Shane is sure. Langstrom will turn the moment into his own power for a lasting legacy by handing the reigns of power over to a diverse, Stanley cup winning person most deserving of them. 

“There’s no problem,” Shane says eventually.

“Mmm. Okay, Sweetheart.”

“You know, I found a letter she wrote to that autism doctor,” Shane says, knowing the highlights he remembers will give Ilya a laugh. “She told him to fold his degree into a paper boat, because it would help with the sea of shit he was swimming in.”

Ilya coughs out a laugh it takes him by such surprise.

“Jesus Christ, Shane.”

“I know, all this trouble for not diagnosing me autistic,” Shane says. “Well, and being racist. Though it might have been a good thing, you know.”

“What?”

“That I wasn’t, like, diagnosed. I mean, not that we’re sure I am autistic, just—”

Ilya holds a hand up, forestalling the long justification that came with being an ‘unproven' autist.

“But why is that good? You could have gotten help sooner.”

Shane laughs a little, not because it’s funny but because the idea is absurd.

“They wouldn’t have let me be captain ever, you know that.” Shane then remembers Ilya mentioning he had some players who were autistic, reconsiders. “I mean, it’s different now than it was, so I’m sure modern players have less of a barrier. But back then.”

“I think you would be captain anyway.”

“It’s a social job,” Shane says. The figurehead for the franchise, the figurehead for the players to look up to. A good, genial attitude to argue with the refs without losing their cool or being assholes. The coaches, the team managers would have heard autistic and had an easier choice in their pick for captain. Shane suspected many already wanted to say no to him being captain because he was biracial, not as appealing and unifying as a white, chestnut haired boy. He worked extra hard, and earned every one of his captain spots.

Ilya smiles, lips curling, entirely too smug. “Yes. And you did very well.” He nods as if that proves his point.

“Obviously, I know,” Shane says. “Just, you know, people would have thought twice about me if it was labeled autism. You know that.”

Ilya dips his head as a concession. Ilya doesn't have to like it. Shane feels relieved he’s gotten his point across finally.

“Honestly, I’m surprised my mom even got me tested knowing that. It could have really… I mean, it could have really impacted my career if I did get diagnosed.”

Ilya tilts his head, looking at Shane with confusion. His arms fold, flexing along his chest. Shane thinks about asking him to take his shirt off. It’s not too early in the night for this, never is when Ilya is involved.

“Shane. She was not thinking of your career. Your mother was thinking about whether you were okay. Like parents think. Is my kid being understood right? Do others treat him well? Am I doing enough to get him the help he needs?”

Shane tilts his head now, bewildered by Ilya’s channel of thought.

“No, the autism diagnosis was all about hockey. She even talked about not being able to get me resources— for hockey. She didn’t realize on the higher levels of hockey that a diagnosis like that…” Shane feels a tangling mess in his chest, a little shame he tries to shake off. If there was a word back then for the things that he was that made him so awkward and robotic and off-putting… he doesn’t think it would be used well by those around him in pro hockey.

Shane shakes it off, adds, “I don’t think you understand her. Success and happiness. They’re the same thing to her. She knew I had to play because it was the only thing I cared about— hyperfixation or whatever else. It’s all I ever wanted. She pushed me to make me successful so I could be happy. And I am. Look at everything I… the life I have… I don’t know why I’m explaining this to you. You understand.”

Only Shane remembers after Ilya saying to him once, I played because of the people who made it fun. To be good, and rich and get out of Russia, but also for fun. You made hockey very fun, you know, Hollander.

That Ilya made it to his level of success with that kind of attitude is a credit to his talent and hard work, but maybe this is what separates four champion rings from three. Shane immediately feels cheap for thinking it, wonders what is wrong with him because so much of Shane’s recent happiness has to do with Ilya himself.

Ilya is still quiet.

“What? What are you thinking?”

Ilya opens his mouth, shuts it. Shakes his head.

“I am thinking that you know your mother best. Right?”

“Yes,” Shane agrees, absurdly relieved.

“You tell me she loved you a lot, and I agree with this. You are easy to love.”

Usually that makes Shane melt, but he looks away now, at the ceiling, feels a tension. His bad shoulder acting up maybe.

“Sappy.”

“Yes, all this maple syrup. It changes a person.”

Shane realizes late in the game that he needs to tell Scott Hunter.

Stupid, really, because Hunter’s voice is meaningful in the post-coming out conversation obviously. More than that, it just seems respectful to tell the only other out former player (who hasn’t been incarcerated) what Shane and Ilya are going to do.

The whole Hunter situation offers a lot of insight— not in terms of being strategic. Kissing and rushing into things so quickly, it’s not surprising the house of cards fell down with Hunter inside… but it gave Shane important insight. Insight into what not to do.

Shane looks up Hunter’s contact information on the MLH database. He dithers over sending an email before deciding that it’s private business and texting, asking if Hunter had a moment to discuss something personal.

Shane feels a little unwell about sending those words but can’t think of anything better to say. Surely the I’m gay must be leaking through the something personal in big bold font. What else could it be?

Hunter answers after a few hours and invites Shane over Thursday night for a drink.

Hunter’s New York apartment is more colorful than Shane expected. His partner Kip's influence, Shane suspects. Art badgers the walls aggressively. Colorful statuettes on coffee tables and a painting of two men looking at each other. Nothing is happening, but it makes something catch in Shane’s throat, his heart pulse a little uncomfortably that they have this in their living room where anyone could see it.

There’s being out and then there’s… whatever the Hunter and his husband are doing so blatantly. Being New York Gay, Shane supposes.

Hunter greets Shane with a brisk handshake and a dizzying amount of drink offers. When Hunter starts listing off smoothies, Shane politely breaks in to ask for just tap water, thanks.

The water takes thirty seconds to get, and all too fast Shane and Hunter are sitting across from each other in the living room, staring, as if afraid of looking away and losing the impromptu contest. Shane honestly doesn’t want to stare into Hunter’s eyes, but the painting of the two men is behind Hunter’s head, and he can’t let his concentration drift to it for fear of reacting too much.

“So, Hollander, what did you want to discuss?” Hunter rubs his palms on his jeans. He’s got a bit of wear and tear around his face. The severe expression Shane remembers meeting on the ice has only grown moreso with sunworn wrinkles. A lazy retirement spent vacationing in sunny spots. Shane cannot relate.

Shane mimics the rubbing gesture without quite realizing, his hands feel hot.

“I’m sure you already guessed…”

Hunter grimaces, nods sharply.

Oh thank fuck, Shane doesn’t have to say it—

Hunter says, “They want to rename the trophy, don’t they?”

Shane blinks, leans away then back in.

“What? No. I’m gay.”

“You’re gay?”

Shane can’t help but stare at Hunter. “Why would we rename the trophy? We just gave it a new name— your name. The Scott Hunter award for excellent sportsmanship.”

“I don’t know,” Hunter says, clearly wrong-footed. “I thought there was backlash!”

“Obviously there was,” Shane says. “But we anticipated it. Your record speaks for itself, the opposition has been minimal, we handled it—And I would have sent an email if that was the case. I wouldn’t have texted.”

“I thought this was a friendly heads up— you’re gay?”

Shane thinks uselessly of Ilya’s gaydar and feels a little better about himself.

“You never knew?”

“No. I had greater suspicions that you were a fucking shark on rampage than you being gay.” Hunter huffs a breath, relieved to such an absurd degree.

His face would be funny if he didn’t look so fragile. Hunter’s been out alone for such a long time, and the yoke of that burden has made itself clear in his paranoia, his doubt for any good news sticking around. God knows he’s lost plenty, another season of good hockey for sure, another cup, maybe, the dignity of his long career, certainly. Shane’s heart aches for him.

Shane awkwardly reassures him, “We wouldn’t… We wouldn’t rename the trophy without a big fight. I promise you that.”

“Well, Deputy Commissioner, I appreciate it.” Hunter smiles deprecatingly. As if still expecting any moment for it to happen. “So. Coming out. You want some advice?”

Shane hesitates. Not really from you sounds rude in his head. “Just wanted to give you a little heads up. Thought you deserved it.”

“I appreciate it. Who knows what people will start suspecting about you and me, huh? Two gay players in the same timeframe.”

Shane coughs. Their player timeframes didn’t have that much overlap. Besides…

“I uh, think they’ll have most of their suspicions taken care of. I’m coming out because I’m marrying Rozanov— Ilya, I mean.”

The series of expletives that leave Hunter’s mouth is impressive.

“Fucking fuck. That shit stirrer? That fucking smug, leering bastard?”

Shane scowls, tries to find something untrue to gripe about in Hunter’s words. Can’t. Scowls harder.

“You two are going to have your asses handed to you by the public,” Hunter surmises. “Say nothing about the league!”

Shane bristles. “We’re getting support. People to speak out for us. Current coaches, support from inside.”

“Marleau and Pike and the rest of your friends, huh? That’s probably a good idea.” Hunter rubs at his beard thoughtfully. It's going silver in some places, but only makes him look smarter than Shane suspects he really is. “I had an inkling about Rozanov but you and him together… This is going to be some clusterfuck.”

Sure Hunter knew about Ilya, sure. What is gaydar and what is people jumping on something after the fact has been confirmed?

“Thanks,” Shane says, dryly.

Hunter gives an apologetic smile. “Sorry. Just… taken by surprise.”

“A lot of people will be,” Shane allows, graciously.

“Goes without saying I’ll support you two. For what that’s worth.”

It’s nice of him, despite how little friendship there is between them and Scott Hunter.

“You know Rozanov thanked me at the award ceremony when I won MVP? That’s one of the things that tipped me off, aside from the leering.”

Shane didn’t know that, actually. Shane himself had said nothing to Hunter at the time. Mute and watching, hopeful but wordless. And he wonders what might have happened if he and Ilya… If together with Scott they all leant into the queer shockwave to rock the boat a little harder with more weight…

It’s stupid, so stupid to think about the past.

“I’ll be releasing a post later this week. Uh,” Shane fumbles for a moment. “I’ll text you the wedding invitation for you and your partner if you can make it.”

They can add two chairs, right? Ilya will be steaming mad, but he hasn’t seen how worn down Scott Hunter is. He could do with a little pick me up. Like a token for the effort of coming out, being first. It was worth a wedding chair or two.

“Not going to pull a me and do it big on the ice?” Hunter teases.

Shane minces a smile at the very idea.

Hunter chuckles awkwardly. “Yeah, well, it did the job. Got me the man of my dreams. I don’t regret any of it.”

Shane finds himself blinking. “Really?” the word leaves before he can stop it. “I’m not doubting your relationship— I didn’t mean he wasn’t worth it—” Shane stammers for a moment. Hunter watches him with increasingly wide eyes.

“Jesus Christ, you’re not a shark at all, are you?”

Shane scowls and forces the words into the right order. “Coming out was good, obviously. But wouldn’t you have liked to have Kip and keep playing?”

“Look, kid—” Hunter laughs to himself, eyes crinkling, as if glancing off from the weight of all the everything that happened to him, the millions of ways he was dragged through the mud. “Fuck, sorry for calling you that, habit. But come on. Happiness isn’t all about winning, okay?”

Shane looks at him dubiously.

Shane is still shaking his head, fucking Scott Hunter. He grins to himself, imagining swapping chirps with Ilya. Probably at one of those coastal retirement homes. A cruise daddy. Shuffleboard is probably more his sport now.

Shane keys into his New York apartment. He’s coming out to Langstrom tomorrow. A simple quick meeting, with time over the weekend for Langstrom to really consider how strongly Shane has positioned himself. Still, Shane wants to meditate, really get in the right headspace—

Ilya is naked on his couch.

Shane slams the door behind him, pressing his body against the wood. He looks up at Ilya. Then down. Over his languid cock one more time for good measure. Then—

“What are you doing in New York?” Shane crosses the room, unable to find a stern bone in his body for his giddiness.

“It’s your birthday tomorrow. Cannot celebrate in a cold bed. Or couch.” Ilya takes Shane onto his lap with a practiced, easy gesture. “Happy Birthday, Mr. Deputy Commissioner.”

Shane wriggles, feeling insane. He shrugs out of his suit jacket with help. Then his shirt.

“Keep your pants on,” Ilya says.

“Ilya, these are dry clean only. I can’t explain weird stains in the crotch.”

“Wet already?” Ilya kisses up Shane’s neck, like he doesn’t know how incredible he is for showing up, for being Shane’s man, naked and languid. What that daring always does to Shane.

“Before the fucking, I have a question,” Ilya says.

“What?”

Ilya hands Shane a roll of cash. “Can I live here? I have my downpayment.”

“Jesus fucking— Ilya.” Shane wriggles off Ilya to stand and get his pants off. Ilya keeps shoving the roll of cash at Shane until he shoves it in his pants pocket and throws the whole thing at the wall. “Stop with the cash. It’s filthy. I don’t need the money.”

“Because you have so much. I know. And assets and property. Thick portfolio. So rich and powerful that I am doomed to always live in buildings you own, powerful fucking man” Ilya says, eyes twinkling.

Why is that so hot? Fuck. Shane clambers back on Ilya, bare thigh to thigh, his wool socked feet hanging just off the couch. Their cocks fall together and Ilya spits on his hand, holding it out to Shane who spits too, then Ilya spits again.

“You’re going for sloppiest hand job?” Shane asks, but gamely spits again, bigger than Ilya’s.

“Oh, that was a good one.”

Ilya’s hand is ludicrously wet as he takes both of their cocks, dragging up and down. It stings, but it feels good, fantastic for it being this New York apartment. Untouched by Ilya’s love, but, Shane knows, sure to be changed by it.

When they start chafing, they switch to 69ing, and glancing past Ilya’s sturdy cock to see his curly head bobbing over Shane’s is so hot that Shane blows his load only a few sucks later, the suddenness startling Ilya off the couch.

Shane laughs hard, bending over the edge to see Ilya on his ass, cock still hard and a long suffering look on his face.

Shane stands and holds his hands out.

“Here.”

“I don’t need help standing.”

“That time you sucked my cock and couldn’t get up after—”

“It was one time.”

Shane helps Ilya up anyway. Shane licks his hand and jerks his fiancé off, staring eye to eye. A satisfied smirk sits warm on Shane’s face, pulling at his freckles.

“I thought you were going to break something."

"I always tell you I'm an old man. You never believe me."

"It was a long time ago, now. Over a year,” Shane muses.

“Mmm, first time I tasted your cock in decades. Your cum is like wine.”

“Better with age?” Shane asks, dry.

“Every day better.” Shane watches every moment of Ilya’s mouth falling open, his breathing collapsing as he jerks up, eyes half shutting. That vein in his neck drawn into relief as he lets Shane wring the orgasm from him. Pleasure unfurling.

Shane uses a rag and mops up the mess with his foot before following Ilya into the shower.

“So falling off the couch is your idea of birthday sex?”

“Birthday is tomorrow Shane, don’t try to trick me. I know the day of my fiancé’s birth.”

Shane rolls his eyes, getting under the spray, Ilya following. They don’t have a detachable head installed here, and Shane will be sure to do that before Ilya moves in properly so he can come inside Shane and make him feel all kinds of ways about it.

Shane soaps up, then glances back.

Ilya has his head dropped, hand around his cock and he’s jerking it off to Shane. That carefully intense look and the wet curls, it immediately sends Shane back.

“What are you doing,” Shane laughs, “you’re not going to be able to come again.”

Ilya drops his hand, sidles up to Shane, kisses him. They both kind of taste like cock, so it’s at least a fair exchange.

“What would you have done back then at that CCM commercial, if you were out?”

“What?”

“In the shower, if I did like this. I remember your look, but I never knew what you were thinking back then.”

What Shane was thinking. What he wanted to do.

Impossible activity, because Shane couldn’t have, he was in the closet, but he remembers now that he soon won’t be. He tries to picture that frightened eighteen-year-old, tries to imagine a world where he saw Ilya doing this as a come on and… and smiled.

“I would have gotten on my knees on the filthy bathroom floor,” Shane admits, smiling wryly.

“That'd all you wanted?” Ilya asks, running a hand through Shane’s thick curtain of coarse hair.

Yes. Honestly, with how forbidden wanting men felt, all Shane ever wanted back then was to literally push his face into it. To let it consume and degrade him because the wanting was so bad he couldn’t appreciate anything but a noseful. A faceful of cock for satisfaction. So shameful, so pleasurably consuming.

Shane got what he wanted the first time Ilya came to his hotel room, his blood singing at tasting cock. Holding one again, seeing it come for him. Getting sucked off too was like a revelation, that Ilya wanted it like him, so badly to literally shove his face in it, languishing in every sense and smell.

Imagining a Shane that was out… who smiled instead of froze. Who maybe turned and touched his own cock. Stepping through the steam, through the shower water towards Ilya. Dropping to his knees and looking up.

Shane has never been that boy, but he does wonder about him now. Maybe his name was Ryuunosuke.

In the morning, Ilya blows Shane in bed. His own cock is a little mercurial, but Ilya promises him it will be good for later for the real birthday sex. Shane blows this off. Having Ilya here on such an important day is more than he could ask for.

Shane makes his smoothie, and when he turns around there are two neatly wrapped gifts on the counter.

“Our Nika sends me with something,” Ilya says. His expression says he doesn’t know what it is either, but when Shane unwraps it he squints for a long time. It’s a long wood display case meant for rings or maybe military medals, but instead it’s jammed full of vapes.

Shane spins it around to show and Ilya barks a laugh.

“He is quitting, I think.”

Shane looks down at the case. He certainly hasn’t been subtle in his anti-vape crusade when Niko stays with Shane and maybe he did send a couple articles about vape cough and the connection between vaping and depression but still…

“Is this a birthday gift?”

“A birthday gesture,” Ilya says, making the best of it. “He thinks of you.”

Shane can accept that, though he really isn’t sure what to do with the actual case. He can’t throw it out but the idea of hanging it over his wall like a hunting trophy of a teenager’s vapes also feels… weird.

“Actual gift here,” Ilya says, pushing his own gift forward, impatient like a child to see Shane open it.

Shane sets the box of trophy vapes aside and unwraps Ilya’s square for a box with a frame inside. There’s a picture of the two of them— early days, just chatting on the ice, both smirking. Must have been some work tracking it down.

“Oh, thank you.”

“That is not all,” Ilya says, coming around the counter in his excitement, he pulls the frame out and then double taps the top. The photo changes to one of Shane and his parents when he finished his high school diploma. He taps again and there is one of Shane, Ilya and Anya.

“It’s for your desk,” Ilya explains. “I know you hate clutter, but now you can have a lot of photos without all the many frames and can change the image whenever you like.”

Shane beams down at the frame. He does hate clutter.

“A good commissioner should run a clean ship,” Shane says. “His desk is a reflection of that.” He taps the box again and it shows the pap shot of Niko handing Shane his phone outside of the club. “This one? Really?”

“We will get so many more. We can upload from our phones, and you can have a new one each day. Maybe even we can use from your mama’s hard drives.” Ilya kisses Shane’s cheek. “I will not even add pictures of my cock unless you beg nicely.”

Shane brings the digital frame to work, but it remains powered off on his desk. When he comes out in the next week or so, he can power it on and show off about Ilya and Anya and maybe even Niko, if Shane can find some better pictures that don't scream messy nepotism.

He goes to his meeting with Langstrom, his heart thick in his chest. Ilya shaved him with so much care this morning, whispering sweet reassurances. Shane took each one into his heart as he girded himself to tell his mentor the truth.

He’s dressed in a muted purple, a color he usually avoids despite it suiting his palate because it looks a little effeminate. He wants to wear something his coworkers have never seen before. Studies in the coming out book suggest it will help them see Shane in a new light.

The wedding invitation sits in his breast pocket for easy removal, and he stands outside the door. When he walks through he’ll be a different person he realizes with a pale shock.

The point of no return.

Shane walks through.

Shane exits Langstrom’s office changed.

Shane takes a long time to key into the monochrome apartment. The latch doesn’t seem to want to turn, and Shane wrestles inelegantly for a few moments, keys jingling. Finally, he gets the door to open. Ilya is padding into the living room, probably hearing his racket and coming like a big, loyal dog.

He sweeps up to Shane kissing him, worry in his eyes.

“Shane. Sweetheart, you didn't answer my texts. How was it?”

Shane shakes his head.

“Bad?” Ilya says, face pale. Old fear fighting with new anger. “What did he say?”

Shane shakes his head again, trying to force the words out. They don't come. What he says instead is,

“I love you. So fucking much.”

“I love you too, Sweetheart,” Ilya says, and he cups Shane’s head to him, hugging him tight, as if bracing himself for a storm. “I’ll fucking kill him, whatever he said I…”

Shane nudges him away gently.

“No.” Shane swallows, his stomach rocking. “I went into the meeting and he told me he's retiring. Now.”

“What? Oh.” Ilya’s face lights up. “Fuck. What does this mean? It means… It means you are commissioner now, right?”

“Maybe, I think so. But Ilya..."

"What?"

"I didn’t tell tell him,” Shane says with grim determination.

A long moment where Ilya's breathing shifts, the kind of things Shane remembers from sports. Adrenaline.

“You didn’t tell Langstrom because he was busy?” Ilya hazards, and Shane knows he understands Shane's meaning because there is fear in those startling blue eyes.

Shane shakes his head. “Ilya.”

“You can do it on Monday. It doesn’t really matter.”

“Ilya. I can’t come out," Shane says softly.

Ilya pauses, turns away and then snaps back.

“What you mean can’t, Shane. Is very fucking simple. Just I’m gay.”

“Ilya.”

“Stop saying my name. I know you know how, you did for me in shitty hotel in Florida, you can do for Langstrom!”

“Il—" Shane cuts himself off, annoyed. "He’s retiring in a month.”

“You said he had many years left.”

“His wife got cancer. He wants to focus on her chemo.” Shane says, mouth dry. “I’m next in line. I’m in the perfect position to take over. I have all the support. And I can’t—”

“Can’t come out because you think the board would not have you,” Ilya summarizes. “I see. Very neat. Nice logic.” He cranes over Shane he is yelling so hard. “Where does wedding to me fit into this?!”

The wedding. Shane feels a little faint. He forgot the huge beast set in motion.

“We still have it,” Shane says, desperately. “But maybe it’s more private.”

“Secret. Secret wedding.” Ilya huffs hard through his nose. “And after? Shane, I have moved life to New York. I work for fucking Columbia now.”

“I know, I know—”

“I cannot live in city with you and not be with you. It will kill me Shane. I cannot do it.”

“You can live here, we just use the back entrance more, be subtle." Hiding, hiding Ilya again. It's not as exciting a prospect as it was when they were nineteen for some reason. Shane swallows. "You’re the one who said no one cares in New York.” 

“Does my big moving van scream subtle?!”

“Maybe you move in small batches?” Shane says. "A couple boxes at a time addressed to a different apartment, all through the back." 

Ilya doesn't care to hear Shane's solutions. Doesn't care to actually problem solve this. Instead, Ilya pulls at his hair, hands dragging down, stretching his face. He’s so big and worked up. Angry and despairing. Each shadow of him is melodramatic suffering and it’s fucking bullshit.

“What am I supposed to do?!” Shane’s volume climbs even as his tone says flat. “Throw a bomb at the board right before the election? There’s no way, just no way— they need time to adjust!”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. I'll come out later.”

“When?!”

“I don’t know! But I can’t! It's all been building to this moment. I'm ready and I did too much to lose my whole career here! All my mom did—" Shane’s voice breaks. His mouth is shaking. “I can’t fucking blow it all right at the end. I’m sorry, but it's my career. My life. I can’t.”

“Sorry,” Ilya mimics. He scoffs, mouth opening and then snapping shut, quivering with rage. He turns and strides to the porch.

“Ilya…”

Ilya stops for a moment, sliding door wedged open.

“…Can you put your hood up? It’s still light out, people might see you.”

Ilya’s face crumples immediately, his cheek stretches in a flash of grief before he yanks his hood up and goes outside. 

Shane stands alone in his apartment, hands numb. He tries to tell himself the worst part is over. It certainly feels awful, but Ilya will adjust as long as Shane can wear him down, ply him with logic. He needs a new plan. Something to offer Ilya. Something to show that he will come out, just not now. To acknowledge that, yes, that tantalizing taste of what being out promised glimpsed at the Boucher's house party was good, but that like Shane, Ilya should accept delayed gratification for these things. They will have everything they dreamed of, perfect job and ideal wedding, but a few years to the left. In their fifties, maybe. Shane turned 49 today. He has so much time, really.

Chapter End Notes

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let. me cook.

more on all of this shortly.

Chapter 19: shane is touched

Chapter Notes

This chapter is dedicated to any and all Russian speaking readers and especially the ones who commented on death and taxes about something specific.

Shane stands alone in the apartment, belatedly setting his messenger bag down. He winces, his jaw stiff from tension.

Shane takes his purple suit jacket off and hangs it over the back of the chair, leaning against the cool metal. It’s only 7PM. He’s exhausted.

He sets up his laptop at his kitchen table. He has the door in view and Ilya would have to pass by Shane to leave the apartment if he wants to walk out. Shane doesn’t want him to leave. Not when he doesn’t see Shane’s perspective yet. Shane sees Ilya’s turned head through the glass. The dark blue of his hoodie. Wonders what his expression is like.

Shane turns his eyes back to his laptop. He needs to consider his and Ilya’s options. He wants to offer Ilya something concrete, something to help reorganize expectations from this road bump. He opens a word document, but his head buzzes from adrenaline and emotion.

This is the first time Ilya has ever done anything less than support Shane’s job-focused approach to life. Apparently even Ilya has limits.

It sucks that it comes now, with Shane’s fingertips brushing the edges of this promotion.

A chance to finally do something.

For players like he, JJ, and Ilya had been. For current players like Niko. Future players on Ilya’s roster and in JJ’s underprivileged schools.

How could Shane do anything less than snag the chance, like a puck careening towards him, how could he let it pass? It would be worse than remiss— handing it to the hands of the enemy to score. They have enough points on the board already and Shane is aching to turn the tables.

Shane’s staring at Ilya again, thinking these thoughts at him. Trying to press them to the back of his head.  

He’s going in circles, Ilya’s outrage, his own disbelief. All of it churning like choppy water inside of him.

Shane realizes the answer to the wedding question won't come tonight with emotions so high. Langstrom is announcing his leave at the ESPY awards, so what Shane needs to do is get his resume ready. A cover letter. Mundane, but the board may want to see it. He toys with the spacing around his awards. Four Stanley Cup Rings. All his Lady Byngs and MVPs. Developmental awards he won in the department. His trainings in the office for gender and sexuality, race. Workshops he helped arrange and develop. Boards he chairs. Charities piling up, pushing the boundaries of the page’s margins. Hours and days and months and years worth of his time condensed into tight, punchily written lines.

Shane knows he’s the best candidate. He needs them to see it too.

Shane tenses when Ilya opens the door to the balcony. Shane wets his lips, mouth ready to argue Ilya down, soothe him, whatever he needs—

“Dessert is on the back counter,” Ilya says, and each syllable is rough from his mouth.

His hood is still up and his face is obscured as he turns and walks deeper into Shane’s bland, New York apartment. A door clicks shut behind him.

Almost automatically, Shane goes to the countertops. Nestled next to his multigrain breads and tubs of vitamin mixes is an Okashi no Hamada box with two wagashi inside.

Shane flicks it open, his eyes skating over unfamiliar characters delicately written but he knows it says happy birthday the same he knows the black sesame is for Shane and the white bean paste is for Ilya.

Shane closes the box. He's 49 today.

He planned to come out Langstrom today because it’s Friday and Langstrom could think over the weekend. But also because… He doesn’t know. Shane wanted to start the year out right.

This is a very different start than he pictured.

Shane hears a CLANG of weights shifting violently in his home gym.

Shane’s heart picks up. He has to give Ilya time. Space to process (but not too much).

Shane works late, long past the time the gym weights stop moving and the shower water no longer runs through the pipes. The battery warning flashes and Shane plugs his laptop in, trying different fonts for his resume bullet points. When it gets very late, Shane waits a little longer and then risks going to bed.

He doesn’t want to see it’s empty. To discover Ilya is in the unbreachable guest room—

Shane’s surprised but desperately pleased to see Ilya is in Shane’s bed, on his back. Shane quickly flicks off the hallway light and steps in before he can disturb Ilya. Not that he’s asleep, but he’s trying to be.

Maybe Ilya remembers the last time they fought, how much that threat of physical distance gouged Shane. It’s a good sign, whatever the reason.

Shane completes his nighttime routine, skipping his face mask.

He settles down in bed, and once he’s horizontal, it’s strange how a weight seems to settle on his chest the first time. The adrenaline must have been keeping him from noticing.

Shane rubs at it, then slips his hand down, under the covers. His pinky gently brushes against Ilya’s hand, soft inquiry.

Ilya pulls away, rolls onto his side.

Shane feels the weight get heavier.

Ilya’s body does not lie.

Shane’s eyes feel hot and he breathes hard.

“Ilya,” he says, mouth inept.

Ilya’s voice is thin. “I need time. To adjust… It's a lot, Shane. It's too much.”

Shane swallows. He pulls his arms under the covers but above the sheets, cold but hoping that it might prevent him from reaching out in his sleep to where he is not wanted.

In the morning Shane wakes up alone, but he hears the clack of Anya’s little claws on his floors. Ilya would never leave without her.

Ilya has given Shane time. This morning, at least, to offer something worth staying for. Shane doesn’t underestimate the gift nor the burden.

He’d like to pull out a couple of his whiteboards, but somehow, plotting out another path to the wedding in the same way as he mapped the first feels… the spirit of the activity is too different.

Shane drags his phone off the stand and pulls out his notes app, typing a new heading: TAKE TWO with Rose on his mind. He learned from shooting that film, like life, rarely goes off without a hitch the first time.

Shane considers options.

A marriage sooner would be better for various reasons, Ilya’s tender heart the foremost, but also to salvage the wedding work accomplished. It took work but Shane made a wedding he felt comfortable with anyone seeing. Can it just be a matter of putting the whole thing a few months later? Say, November or December, possibly during the holiday break?

Though, coming out right after being elected would leave a bitter taste in the board’s mouth. Especially with no warning.

The first year for a commissioner is a rocky adjustment period of proving themselves in the role. The second year is when they can accomplish more of their goals, but even that requires political capital. Relationships. Trust. Compatriots to your cause.

Shane swallows as he turns over each element, following year three, and year four, and year six to each ending tail before realizing there’s no way to come out as commissioner without the board doing to him what they did to Scott Hunter— subtle and overt smear campaigns to degrade his position. And with everything Shane has done for Niko Rozanov, there is plenty of material at hand, without even getting into speculation about Ilya and Shane’s playing years.

This lack of trust for Shane would lead to a fever pitch both inside and outside the organization. Social media clamouring for blood because of feeling ‘tricked.’ Even if Shane has all his friends and family speaking on his behalf, once he’s made commissioner, the optics of his coming out are just different because of trust. Being selected as commissioner implies a level of trust to steer the organization. He can’t show instability or secretiveness, or the MLH itself looks unstable and secretive, could not function.

If Shane is right and the board turns, then what happens?

Shane, the first non-white commissioner, will watch his reign end in infamy, being ousted or asked to step down— a fucking warning story just like Scott Hunter.

It’ll be the last time anyone strays from the formula of smug white rich men for another hundred years.

He can’t risk it.

Shane stares at his words, a sinking in his gut.

So. So what does this mean? So maybe Shane can’t come out while he’s commissioner.

He swallows, throat dry with more than just the morning. His eyes feel hot and terrible. His thumbs hover at the end of a paragraph, sentence unfinished.

Retirement, maybe? Can Ilya possibly grant Shane that much time and grace? Didn’t he promise to do just when he asked Shane to marry him? Forever, if that’s what it took.

Sixties is not so late... though Shane always saw himself working past the usual age. Work hasn’t been about money for Shane in a long time.

Seventies. Ilya will still be handsome, Shane knows it. Grey and blond, even cheekier, wrier. But that's only if the two of them aren't demented at that point.

Ilya might have laughed at that, in that way they shouldn’t. Shane rubs at his chest. It’s far from funny alone. Makes him want to curl up and cry a little, actually.

There has to be wiggle room before that, Shane decides, breathing deeply to settle himself. A golden moment. He just hasn't seen it yet. But he will see it. He will. It has to coalesce. Shane archives the note and dresses himself slowly for the day, trying to brace himself for Ilya’s anger. For Ilya’s questions that still don’t have answers. The snide way he gets when he is wounded.

Shane is prepared for everything, except entering the kitchen and finding Ilya listlessly eating granola cereal. His eyes flick to Shane, then away. He says nothing at all.

Shane is so surprised he can’t say anything for a moment. He drifts to the blender by habit, starts adding powders and mixes, pauses because his hands grip the countertops in pure relief.

“I’m happy you’re staying,” Shane says, quiet.

“Where could I go?”

A hotel. Back to Montreal. To Buffalo with his son.

Shane doesn’t supply any of these. He chooses to see it as affirmation, of a choice to stand by Shane despite this setback. Even if Ilya’s eyes skate past Shane, glancing over his shoulder in an uncanny way. Even if he won’t accept Shane’s touch.

Shane glances at his large hands, watching them move cereal mechanically. Ilya doesn’t wear Shane’s ring. His hand looks bare lacking adornment by some gem and precious metal. His ring from Svetlana is also gone, sent to Nikolai. He really has nothing on him.

Ilya needs time to adjust. Ilya said he would adjust, Shane reminds himself. But Shane’s stress has him twitching. Shane always wants to touch and be touched by Ilya. If they aren’t reaching for each other, he doesn’t know who and what they are.

He wishes he had something reassuring to say, something like, I have our new wedding date, it’s going to be alright. But nothing he’s thought through will be helpful, and telling Ilya he hasn’t found a way to come out as commissioner won’t help anything.

They engage in a silent, awkward dance through the apartment. It’s like the entirety of his walnut wood floors have been covered in egg shells while they were asleep. Ilya meanders from the porch, bedroom, and living room in a slothful haze. He tugs his hood up when he goes outside.

Shane works through emails, glances again at his notes app, as if willing a golden window for his coming out to appear. No inspiration appears.

Lacking that, Shane procures things for Ilya so he won’t have to leave when he’s so low energy. Black rye bread, those awful ding dong snack cakes, pork chops. He takes Ilya’s jackets to the dry cleaners. Does any dishes in the sink. If he can’t touch Ilya, then he’ll just make do with everything Ilya has touched. Intermediary, like indirect kisses. Silly thought. Shane remembers that in middle school, a girl passing him her soda to try, flush on her face, and Shane who only felt embarrassment bubbling like the carbonated soda drink. They later dated for a year.

Shane can't cook, despite buying pork chops. He orders Thai, but Ilya takes his green curry out to the porch, feeding bits of chicken to a yapping Anya.

Shane eats alone at the kitchen table. Only a little, he can’t stomach the rest.

Shane goes to bed first this time, arranging himself close to center, arm splayed with a deep gnawing anticipation. Ilya comes in an hour later, brushes his teeth, pisses. He shucks his clothes in a pile and hovers before the bed a moment.

Instead of pulling the covers back, easing Shane aside with his warm hands, Ilya pulls the blanket from the foot of the bed over him and sleeps on top of the covers. Shane tries and fails not to feel completely fucking humiliated and lonely.

Come Sunday morning, Shane girds himself. Acting weird is hardly going to help Ilya accept their new normal. He has to get their life back on track.

Shane has breakfast, reads the sports news on his phone. He tells Ilya of a few interesting trades in baseball, and Ilya maintains studied silence or grunts. Shane’s eyes flick to Anya lying patiently beside Ilya, her nose buried in her front paws. Sensitive always to the moods.

Usually Shane should be doing weights at this point in the morning to maintain his bulk, but the reason he’s always hated lifting is because of how cloistered his thoughts feel in the tight room, the pressure on, nowhere to escape to but yet another set of reps. He prefers it as a group activity, lifting with friends to beat personal records, or with Ilya to suck his cock. On his own, it has little appeal aside from aesthetics.

Shane guesses… it’s not like he needs to bulk up for the wedding anymore. Better to clear his head with exercise he does like.

“I’m going to take Anya for a run,” Shane decides. “Do you want to come?” They could run a block apart, maybe.

Ilya is apparently not working on his wedding body anymore either. He shakes his head, pours more cereal in his leftover milk.

Shane changes and returns to find Ilya loading the dishwasher.

“I’m leaving.” Shane hesitates. He’d usually kiss Ilya here, but the rejection from the other night is hot on his mind. But Shane needs this to be okay. And besides… Shane has never really learned how not to hurt himself on Rozanov’s defensive spines.

He steels himself before approaching Ilya slowly, like an animal, each move telegraphed before pressing a peck to his still milky mouth.

“I love you,” Shane says.

Ilya’s eyes lift to Shane for a moment. Sudden intensity that flattens into absence in milliseconds. Shane hesitates, before turning and leashing Anya. On the way out, Shane glances at Ilya one more time, seeing only the curve of his strong back.

Shane trundles out the door and sets an easy pace as Anya gets her over eager feet underneath her.

Ilya’s still mad. Right. That’s normal. He probably should be. Plans are plans and Shane is making a huge change here. It would be strange if he wasn’t pissed. But unlike the other night, he didn’t draw away. He took Shane’s kiss. His body was calm… Shane considers that Ilya did not rise to meet him. His mouth was not opening, his fingers not chasing, his body not initiating, but at least he is bearing Shane despite the growing pains. It’s a start. It’s proof that Ilya is adjusting like he said.

Shane’s pace is not great after focusing so much more on weights, and maybe that explains the nausea rolling in his belly.

Shane thinks, despite his fear and nerves last night, some deep part of him… knew that Ilya would stay. Unlike the last time they fought, he feels a dreadful reassurance that even if Ilya did leave, sooner or later, Ilya would come back anyway. The truth is, Shane is so much less afraid now of losing him now. Not after hearing about his longing stretched over decades.

Where could I go? Ilya said yesterday, and Shane sees it clearer now. He moved house and job for Shane. Set up his life for this moment to take a leap. Now he’s in freefall. In a new city and entrapped in Shane’s muddled finances and crossed lines. It’s weird, because that’s not why Shane did any of that… only it is exactly why. To take care of Ilya Rozanov… to be trusted too much and proven worthy of that trust. And Shane will.

Mostly, Shane is just glad it all means Ilya won’t leave quickly because of yet another failure in their long string of attempts to communicate.

Shane can’t get that absent look from Ilya out of his head… Like he’s seen it in a dream somewhere.

After about a mile, Shane sees a harried mother crossing the street, toddler’s hand in hers, before she sweeps him up and across before the light changes in a dexterous clatter of her heels. Shane’s mind twigs with sudden familiarity.

Ilya’s look. It’s the first time Shane has clocked something recognizable from Ilya’s mother, the mousey woman in the photographs, and her son. For all their myriad physical differences, Ilya’s expression and hers, the cool withdrawness of their eyes, were completely the same. Irina, with Grigori Rozanov wrapped around her body like vines, looked implacably distant. Taking every word, bearing every touch, her eyes always somewhere else.

Shane heaves a hard breath and rubs at his face, feeling the edges of stubble coming in, rough against his trembling fingers.

Shane suddenly feels terrible about leaving Ilya at home. He turns on his heels even though he’s just begun his second mile.

He runs hard back, Anya scrabbling to keep up.

Shane takes the stairs two at a time, fully out of breath when he reaches their apartment, dropping the leash for Anya to skitter to her water bowl.

“Ilya?!”

No reply. Shane’s heart thuds. Of course, Ilya isn’t answering him. Wouldn’t answer anyway Shane anyway because he’s mad.

“Ilya?! Shane checks the porch, only finds a hoodie hung on the hook, darts into their bedroom—

Ilya laid supine and still on the bed, like a statue.

“Ilya?!”

“Fucking what, Hollander?!”

The statue moves, exhaling long and exasperated, hands fwumping to his sides.

Shane sits on the bed, careless of his sweat.

Ilya glances at him and it is that same look of barely contained… something. Ilya raises an eyebrow, hand gesturing.

Right. Why Shane was shouting. How can he say I thought I glimpsed your mother in you? He can’t, not really. I thought you made me see your father in myself.

Shane licks his lips, focuses on controlling his breathing. Sweat drips onto the bedspread. The anger and fear roil in his stomach, but he puts it aside for the salient point.

“Ilya… are you depressed?"

“Oh my god.” Ilya laughs, but it is not humourous. “What do you think?”

Shane hesitates. “I think it’s a big adjustment. Which you’re taking personally.”

Fuck. Shane knows it’s the wrong word the moment he says it. He’s already groaning when Ilya says,

“How is it not personal?” Ilya asks, but his voice is flat. “Is our fucking wedding. Only two people involved.”

“I read that sudden difficult events can sometimes trigger depressive episodes.”

“You’ve read,” Ilya mocks. He rubs his face, drawn and exhausted. “No. I don’t think so. I think I am normal depressed considering I thought we would be married and instead you and I are back to sneaking around hotel rooms like fucking teenagers. All so you can conquer the fucking hockey world!”

Shane is surprised to find his anxiety and concern switching so suddenly into anger the moment he learns Ilya isn’t in the throes of illness.

“You always say it like that. Conquering the world, like some ego bullshit,” Shane spits. Beneath it is a burning frustration. You used to understand. How many times had Ilya told him how important it was for Shane to take over? As if he had to tell Shane.

Shane, who, over the years, met or brushed shoulders with every Asian player in the league even now. Whether it was humble requests for some of his time over coffee, cornered at a public event, or a rushed conversation passing in a hallway because they didn’t know when they would find the great Shane Hollander again to ask all the questions about how to become indelible. How to cope in a league that treated them as novelties.

And Shane never had any of the answers. He used to say be the best. That was Shane’s method. The only one to shut up coaches who limited his play time or thought he didn’t gel well. The only way to stop reporters from calling skill lucky or surprising in write ups. To convince the skeptics that, yes, Asians were athletes. To make people see Shane was competition, the very lifeblood of their sport.

Yes, being the best was the only way Shane had to succeed, and he watched other Asian players burn themselves out, scraped down to the nub in the pursuit of that, while mediocre white players bounced easily from team to team on long contracts because they just seemed to gel. So, Shane had, without meaning to, told those young players to be Shane Hollander, and that advice was so unbearably bad in the face of everything they had to do, the assimilation demanded by hockey and constantly negotiated, some of which he bypassed with his white name and heritage and comfortability.

As the years passed and his awards stacked, Shane was terrified to realize how little change had happened despite all the ways he won, despite the innumerable places his face has been plastered. The league was still exclusionary; the only difference was Filipino players being asked if they would be the next Shane Hollander. And what if he had lured them into an unwelcoming sport, with his perfect PR smile on every billboard? His inability to ever talk about his race in a single interview and the unique issues he faced. How could they know what he couldn't make himself say?

Shane realized change had to come from the top. To change the expectations of people inside and outside MLH HQ or any arena so no one else had to suffer the humiliation of showing up to a game and be mistaken as a fucking acupuncturist.

To have someone Asian at the top could be a game changer.

“This might be the most important thing I ever do in my life. The only thing that means something. The rest of my career is just jewelry, I loved it but... This, MLH commissioner, is my legacy.” Shane laces his fingers together, they feel clammy and a little swollen. Hockey was his love, but this became his purpose.

“I know,” Ilya murmurs. He looks weary, apologetic, but then says. “I know legacy matters… But what about the now?”

“It can wait,” Shane says, almost begging. He doesn’t know Ilya’s rush anyways. “Look, you have Niko. You already had your marriage and happy suburban life. I have…” Shane struggles to explain. He had plenty of boyfriends, significant relationships, but when they all turned to shit, the way everything from the first, from Ilya, turned to shit, at least Shane had The Work. And hasn’t it paid in dividends? Hasn’t it always rewarded him for trying when every relationship seems to crumble harder and faster the more he desperately tries hold it together—

“You don’t understand,” Ilya groans. “You never understand.”

That was Shane’s line, but Ilya kept going.

“Yes. I had a happy marriage, happy suburban life. I had a happy wife. I had a happy mother!” Shane feels his heart dropping at the word. “But always it is taken. Always! Never can I just keep. When can I keep?”

“You have me,” Shane promises.

Ilya’s expression is raw, pained, Shane remembers, part of me thinks if you are not a woman you will be safe around me. The terrible yoke of Ilya’s life to have happiness and always lose it so completely.

Ilya shouldn’t be so worried about keeping Shane.

Their lives are so interwoven. So locked together. It strikes Shane how difficult and unlikely losing Ilya would be now, same for Ilya losing him, and that knowledge is both leaden and sweet. He likes that they are inevitable like gravity.

He knows Ilya said something about that to him once, though he couldn’t parse the language. He thought he understood the intent.

Ilya shakes his head, points a crooked finger accusatorily. "It is not death this time, it is you taking you away from me. I can't cope."

“It’s just a wedding. It's not me."

“You don’t understand,” Ilya murmurs again.

“Look, it’ll get easier,” Shane says to Ilya as much to himself. "Give it time."

Ilya covers his eyes. “I’m trying to sleep.”

“Sorry.”

Shane leaves to the guest bedroom to shower. He lets Anya into the bathroom and she wrestles with a decorative towel as Shane feels the spray wash over him and his nerves.

Please, God, let it get easier from here.

The next day Shane wakes up for work and finds Ilya once more in the kitchen, looking sleepless. Shane wants to brush a hand against his wearied, puffy face, stroke the curling edges of his hair. To talk, body to body. Something Shane understands—

Shane stays his hand. Whether Ilya does it on purpose or on accident, he somehow has made Shane feel so much like Grigori Rozanov that it scares him. So he doesn’t touch Ilya more than he has to in the course of moving through a shared space, despite all his skin burns for the stimulation of Ilya.

Shane is asking too much too soon. He has to give Ilya the space to adjust. To let Ilya come to him. Touch him.

Shane finishes getting ready for work, cuts himself shaving and tries not to feel inordinate irritation as it bleeds. When he leaves, another I love you thrown unreturned to the high ceilings of Shane’s apartment, he locks the door behind him.

The silence adds to a well of anger in his chest that he compresses down until it’s smooth like ice. He doesn’t know why he’s so unhappy. Ilya has agreed to stay with Shane ostensibly, more than that, he understands Shane’s perspective. So what if they haven’t kissed beyond that peck and Ilya’s body doesn’t answer even Shane’s accidental touch, like a dead nerve— he still has Ilya in all ways that matter. Ilya is just adjusting still. Finding a new normal that admittedly feels like their old one, but what can be done?

Shane has to be commissioner. For pretty much everyone who believed in him when they should have had no reason to. For his mom. For all the kids in JJ’s hands who fall in love with a sport that has never made space for them.

But also for himself. He’s fucking earned this.

Maybe there is a little ego, even if it isn’t the whole reason. Ilya knows Shane better than anyone, knows how Shane has to control things, and have things and win things. Maybe he hates that part of Shane in this moment, but he knew how it was when he asked Shane to marry him. Part and parcel of why Ilya fell in love with him. He knew that Shane would make choices that would be hard to stomach, but ultimately right.

His mom would understand. He’s sure she’d have several rational ideas to maximize the situation like Shane had. He remembers a time where she moved apartments without telling Shane’s dad. Mom saw one with a good price, in a better neighborhood with more robust schools and sports program. She settled the down payment, canceled their rent at the old place and the utilities, and told Shane’s dad. Just home from work, Dad had been boggled to find out he now had three days to move house.

Apparently their row went on for two weeks through the stress of moving before Mom told him, very calmly, that she was pregnant and finally out of the miscarriage window that had plagued them for years. She’d had a gut feeling. And wasn’t it better to have an apartment in a good neighborhood and a school with a son on the way?

And Shane went to that school, and picked up hockey with his classmates, so maybe his mom was right in that way she always was right.

Didn’t it just show that some people knew better?

Shane returns home from work with Ilya in the doorway, duvet around his shoulders like a sweeping cloak. He looks regal, in that way he has. Bedhead a riotous mane of frazzled curls, and excessive duvet hiked around his shoulders, bulging like fine brocade. How long did he stay in bed?

“Did you tell Langstrom?”

Shane bites back an expletive. So fucking unfair, frustrating of Ilya to ask.

“You know I didn’t.”

Ilya hadn’t really thought Shane would suddenly change his mind, right? But the flash of despair on Ilya’s face before it spirits away is acidic and sharp. A lingering hope extinguished for good.

Shane has to take a cold shower, he’s so mad.

All weekend, was Ilya just laying around hoping Shane would change his mind? Withholding his touch and acting depressed to see if Shane might walk it all back?

Shane takes a deep breath, fighting his anger. Ilya wasn’t acting. He wouldn’t do that about being low. His body hadn’t lied when it pulled away or stayed limp. Even though he has to know how much that hurts Shane. Knows that Shane understands the world through the physical, and it’s fucking cruel to withhold.

No, the real issue is that Ilya said he was adjusting but for some fucked up reason thought Shane would change his mind about the career he’s spent over a decade building.

Does Ilya even know him?

Shane towels off. He treads into the kitchen in sweatpants, bare feet quiet, which is maybe why Ilya does not notice Shane behind him in time to close his laptop screen. Ilya’s scrolling through New York apartment listings.

“You’re moving?” Shane demands.

Wasn't this what Ilya threw in his face? I cannot live in city with you and not be with you. It will kill me Shane. And here he is, looking at mid-century apartments.

Ilya turns to him, shoulders tight. “If I stay, we risk people finding out. Can’t have that for the commissioner.”

Shane swallows hard, he wants to say that he knows Ilya is leaving because he thinks Shane is some kind of fucked up monster. That Shane betrayed his trust when he begged Ilya to ask the hard things. Shane is trying.

Shane hasn’t said No, I’ll never come out. Shane said, Not now, please.

The two things are worlds apart and the conflation and ensuing hurt is hard to stomach. Ilya living somewhere else feels like the ultimate betrayal somehow.

Only, this is not such a strange idea. The two of them in different apartments in New York. When Shane first asked Ilya to move to New York long before the wedding was even entertained, this was precisely what he had in mind for them. Secret, but close by. Convenient but cloistered.

Ilya is right, after all. When Shane becomes commissioner, the focus on his outward presentation is going to be heightened. Maybe it is better to live apart.

It’s frustrating because it’s almost like they have lost ground from when they reconnected, just old rivals dropping by etc. etc. Yes, he and Ilya can be friendly, but being seen too often at each other’s homes at night… No, too risky. Maybe Shane should even be seen around Rose more, reignite the old on again, off again narrative.

Ilya has that same upset but resigned look on his face. You don't understand, he said. This is what he meant, maybe. That to be commissioner would mean they can't live together.

“Fine.” Shane swallows the rest of his words and his niggling discomfort with the idea. He remembers Ilya, months and a lifetime ago, soft and worn down, still sweetly heavy with fat and muscle, saying, I don’t want to be married and live in a different place. 

The same city will have to do. Same enough a place. Close enough to marriage.

Shane stays up all night researching the ideal property. He wants something nearby without being suspiciously so. Accessible. Tall, shuttered windows, tenants in flux. Usually Shane does a tour in person, but there’s nothing for it. He arranges his assets and sends several emails to purchase the property. He wakes after three hours of sleep to a confirmation email from his company and receipt and several dense PDF contracts to sign.

Shane is tired, but his skin is buzzing as he slides the laptop across the table to Ilya who glances, bemused, at the property over breakfast.

“I bought it last night. You can move in five days.”

Ilya gawps for a moment.

Shane adds, “It’s in Harlem. In three weeks, you'll have the whole top floor to yourself. You and I will be 30 minutes apart. There are three entrances, crown molding, vaulted ceilings, a skylight. A Russian bodega nearby—"

“No,” Ilya says, pained, pushing the listing away. “I can't live here.”

“Why not?” Shane pulls it over, examining the specs for flaws, for Ilya deterrent that he failed to notice.

“I should rent from someone else,” Ilya says, and he sounds as tired as Shane. “Less suspicious. And I don't need a whole floor to myself either. I don’t want that.”

He doesn’t want this. What Shane has in his private apartment floor. The lack of security means Shane will never be able to visit Ilya without a lot of care and disguise. And what if Ilya wants it that way? What if he wants to control how much they see each other, because it will only be when Ilya deigns to visit Shane.

So, Ilya won’t leave Shane, but he will limit him.

Or maybe he just wants a life with other people, neighbours, more than he wants Shane.

Anger doesn’t come, just something more helpless.

Shane feels a brick of certitude crumbling. Because how can he love Ilya without being his landlord? Maintaining and cultivating the space he lives in?

Some fracture must show itself.

“Look, Shane, I'm still with you,” Ilya’s mouth works, almost hapless. “But I cannot stay like this. Always back entrances. Always covering my head.”

“I’m sorry,” Shane blurts out. “But I really can’t come out, Ilya. The timing is off and the board—”

“I know.”

Shane stops, mouth shutting.

“I know why it's a bad idea now for you. I know you want to wait. So you can take over the world— Sorry. I did not mean.” Ilya rubs his face. “You know I want commissioner for you too. To help young players. But you told me when we started, that you wanted to do this as you. As a gay man.” And I believed you his face says.

Well, that was when things were on Shane’s timeline, not this sudden rush to snag responsibility before it gets passed over his head to rancidly right-wing men like Halstead, ready to roll back pride nights and tape their first week in.

“The situation changed. I’ll come out eventually, I promise."

“Yes. I know you think this. Maybe, when you retire—”

“Yes, yes,” Shane says, relieved. “When I retire, we can—”

“I also know that you will never retire.”

Shane opens his mouth. Shuts it. Mute from Ilya’s sheer knowledge of him.

“I’ll find another time,” Shane promises, voice quiet.

“Maybe you will. If anyone can, it's you. I still want you to come out now.”

“Ilya,” Shane says, and it is devastating.

“I know. You cannot. Even when I ask.” Ilya strokes the kitchen table he is sitting at. And it strikes Shane as unfair they’ve never had sex there.

Shane doesn’t equivocate. Doesn’t quibble over later. Shane says,

“It’s not fucking fair that being gay means all this bullshit.”

That it means he cannot win it all and have Ilya Rozanov. That there is some limitation to total victory that Shane has yet to surpass.

Ilya studies Shane for a moment, glances away.

“No. It’s not fair.”

They don’t touch at all.

Shane runs for two hours the next day. Then three hours the day after that when Ilya is meeting with the folks at Columbia University. Then Friday after work, he fits in another three-hour run, headlamp guiding his steps.

Shane knows it’s bad to run like this, pushing himself to the max. It will only lead his body to eat at his hard-earned muscles for fuel but it just feels like any time Shane isn’t moving, that terrible pressure comes and sits on his chest.

In the guest bathroom, Shane glares at the scale. He is down two pounds. Almost a kilogram, but he suspects most of it is water weight. Ilya comes and leans a hip against the bathroom door.

Shane steps off the scale, flipping the power button before Ilya can analyze it.

“Pack your bag. You’re coming with me tomorrow.”

Shane blinks. It’s the weekend, and he knows Ilya is going to Montreal for Svetlana’s memorial anniversary, but surely… Isn’t it gauche for Shane to come? Shane had been invited initially, but he had assumed Ilya would relish a little space.

“I don’t know if I should.”

“I don’t trust you alone,” Ilya says, bluntly, which is not fair. Shane isn’t the one who gets depressed and resembles a Russian teenage bride in his more harrowing moments. “Come. Get all your stupid little bottles packed.”

Maybe Ilya is covering for a simple want of having his fiancé with him this tough weekend. That’s fair enough isn’t it? Shane is still that after all.

A protracted engagement it may be.

They fly out in different first class rows. Shane looks at his wedding spread sheet and realizes with a sinking feeling that, coming out aside, he can’t really marry Ilya this way. Secretive. Ilya was right to doubt it. The registrar would know, clerks, civil servants. Too many people would know. Is it possible they could have something unofficial. A celebration of… relationship ceremony or something. Some ritual to show Ilya Shane’s love and dedication. Something to offer Ilya.

He googles alternative ceremony options, snorting when he sees Civil Unions pop up. Yeah, right. The Big Gay Civil Union would be such an improvement.

Shane can only imagine Ilya laughing that terrible, flat laugh at the idea of a ‘celebration of dating’ ceremony. Shane stuffs his laptop away for the moment, exhausted with the whole business and answerless to it all. Maybe the memorial is a good idea. At least Shane and Ilya can get some space from their own problems.

When they land in Canada, Shane has a rental car handy and it’s simple work finding it in the lot and heading to the Montreal apartment. He unlocks it with his phone to get the key, no need for anyone to peer at them over a rental desk.

Niko is already at home, waiting for them, having flown in earlier. Hands gripping the steering wheel, Shane wants to make a joke to Ilya about wondering whether his apartment is still standing, but it sticks in his throat.

“Does Niko know?”

Ilya is kind enough not to make Shane spell out their fight, their fluctuating future.

“No.”

“Oh.”

“It's bad timing with his mama’s…”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t want to deal with any of this today,” Ilya says, gesturing between them vaguely, to the rent in the air between them. “I cannot… I cannot today.”

“Okay,” Shane says, and it’s easy to promise because he doesn’t want it to be hard like this anyway any time.

Shane squints at the road. He doesn’t know why he cares whether Niko knows— Shane is sure he’s making the right choice, a very logical choice regarding sensitive timing for coming out. He can marry Ilya later. He can have his dream job now and Ilya afterwards. It’s the most logical pathway for maximizing the outcome. To have everything.

There is personal cost. There always is. But that’s what living is, and Ilya’s decision to stay with Shane is the maturest solution to impossible situations. (Even as he moves out into a building that may not even have heated bathroom tiles— will his new landlord care for his cold feet?)

Yet, the idea of explaining this concept of personal sacrifice to Niko, his dark, bushy eyebrow climbing in rude disbelief. Shane doesn’t know. He’d feel a little embarrassed maybe. Niko would ask blunt questions. He would be too young to understand.

That embarrassed feeling sticks around as Shane sees Ilya swoop into the living room, grinning the way he hasn’t since their fight and chirping his son even as he pulls him close for a kiss.

Shane hovers on the outside, smiles weakly when Niko greets him.

Niko tilts his head at Shane’s mien, but Ilya is soon monopolizing his attention.

“This? You’re wearing this? Where are we going, a nice picnic?” Ilya plucks at a blue tee shirt Niko has on, and Niko groans.

“Like you’re better. You look like a lazy ass coach. Oh, wait.”

“I’m not dressed yet, come on. We can pick something out for each other.”

Ilya pushes Niko towards the main bedroom without a look back at Shane, hovering by the door. Shane stays in the kitchen. He gets himself a ginger ale. It’s cold. They’ve only been away for two weeks. Two weeks since the building party downstairs and yet so much about their lives and where they are going has changed. Shane has changed. Focused in on what matters.

He sips on his ginger ale, it’s too cold in his hands.

Shane hears laughter through his walls, and he has to remind himself they’re setting out for a cemetery today, right?

Curious, he creeps closer to the bedroom and finds Ilya and Niko with a spread of silk shirts on the bed between them. All of the patterns are… gaudy to say the least. Blinding, maybe. He knew Ilya had these, but he never really wore them outside. For special occasions, he always winked.

Ilya and Niko speak in quick Russian, tones all teasing as they point at and throw shirts for the other to try on. Ilya wiggles out of one with polka dots and into a tiger striped one that makes his golden arm hair stand out.

Niko howls with laughter, turns and sees Shane, wide teeth inviting him in.

“Tell him this is too much.”

It’s all a little much, if Shane is honest.

“Too much for what?” Shane asks. “Are we getting drinks before the, uh.”

Ilya laughs, even if he avoids Shane’s eyes more than he might. It’s closer to normal than they’ve been in a while.

“No, no. This is for her. Svetlana loved big, bold clothes. You should see his baby pictures. Nika is the only toddler with a Hermes scarf.”

Niko throws a wadded shirt at him and Ilya grins back.

“She knew making a statement was important,” Niko says back, easy. “Your statement is fat cereal mascot.”

Ilya rolls his eyes, unbuttoning his shirt. It’s not at all accurate, considering how much weight he’s lost. Ilya’s waist is a circling a silhouette Shane remembers from their 30s and, the mesh of youthful memory and maturity makes Shane feel strange. Ilya accepts a shirt that resembles a surrealist’s take on a spaghetti plate.

“Perfect,” Niko decides, and Ilya buttons the smallest amount possible to still be decent in public. Ilya looks to Shane, as if ready to wink, but then the moment passes, he regains that frayed solemnity that comes up whenever he seems to remember their situation.

Shane’s annoyed at his active choice to be maudlin, but it’s not a fight worth picking among the rest, especially not today.

“This one I think for you.” Ilya gives his son a purple smear that collates into a kind of butterfly on the back. It would look gay and effeminate on anyone else but a gutsy, careless teenager and his wickedly confident father.

“Since Shane’s coming, shouldn’t he wear one?” Niko suggests.

Shane winces. He didn’t mean to insert himself in their rituals by coming in. However, Ilya considers and dips his hand into the pool of fabric and pulling out something creamy and white with gold accents.

“I'll let you wear your jacket over it if you must.”

Shane takes the shirt and goes to the bathroom. Father and son start in on the Russian again when Shane is away, voices light and spry.

Ilya is so warm with Niko around. Pretending everything is alright. One of those parental instincts, Shane supposes, to protect him from familial disturbance.

Niko will have to find out eventually that the timeline is changing, but Ilya is right that this moment is not the one. This is about Niko’s mom.

So Shane gets game. He exchanges his sensible and solemn grey button up in favor for the rich white silk shirt and he pauses for a moment in the mirror. It is gauche, yes, but the cream colour brings out a certain shine in his skin. He looks younger, and not just because the fashion is so bold. Brimming white pulling gold from his skin, almost.

He wishes he could leave the room and feel Ilya’s on him, absently tease the hem lower in a way Ilya will clock because he clocks everything appealing and attractive about Shane. Even Ilya’s smugness about white being a good color would be welcome.

Well, since he’s probably not wearing white to their wedding-cum-celebration of dating ceremony, at least Shane can wear it for a funerary visit.

Shane covers most of the shirt with his sensible black jacket and exits the bathroom. Ilya’s eyes slide to him immediately, clocking the pieces of white with a quick swipe of his eyes before he’s turning away.

“I think we’re ready.”

On their way out the front door, Shane feels a tug on his hood. Turns to see Ilya gesture to pull it up and Shane draws it around his face.

The three get into Ilya’s sleek car. Russian music plays on the radio, loud techno music and a few slower folkier beats. Ilya sings softly to those as he maneuvers smoothly. For once Niko is not glued to his phone, peering out at the road contemplatively.

They make a stop at a convenience store. Ilya runs in alone, leaving Shane and Niko in the car. Shane worries Niko will ask about the weird vibe, but instead hears that Niko has found out that Shane knows Rose Landry. Shane does. He mentions her next project and his bit part and Niko groans like he’s dying.

“You don’t get it. The craftsmanship of her films. The framing. It’s like, so genius. You’re going to be immortalized by a genius.”

Shane really only remembers sweating and looking around an empty room for an hour or two, but he nods in a way hopefully mollifying. Shane wonders if Niko would believe the amount of times Rose has admitted parts of her films were pulled right out of my fucking ass, like holy shit.

“Hey, when I drop by New York, will you introduce me?”

Shane feels a sour taste in his throat. They won’t be living together which means Niko will be staying with Ilya and not destroying Shane’s apartment. All good things, really. And maybe if father and son have a little falling out, Niko can crash with Shane, just for a day here and there.

Shane gathers himself.

“I don’t know. You might be busy with your best friend Scott Hunter.”

Ilya enters the car, hearing the gist of the sentence, a gust of wind chases after him before he slams the door.

“Fucking Scott Hunter!” he says, as is due. “Should stay inside on days like this. Might blow over and break a hip.”

“Herniate a disc,” Shane says.

For a moment they grin at each other.

“No, seriously. What is with this Scott Hunter ragging? He’s gay like you guys are. Or like, queer.”

Shane squints, struggling to explain what it is.

“Yes, he is brave. But just because he is gay,” Ilya starts. “Does not mean I forget what an asshole on the ice he was.”

“Smuggest bastard. So holier than thou,” Shane agrees. “And a nosy motherfucker.”

“It would be more disrespectful to forget these things, I think, for rainbow sainthood.”

“Yeah,” Shane picks up the thread. “Just because he’s the first out player doesn’t mean he’s not the sanctimonious asshole always bawling to the ref when he skated right into my stick for the hooking call. Not once, but every fucking time we played!”

“Should be his real legacy. Fake boy scout. Boo hoo, fake tears of an old man.” Ilya guffaws.

“And he gets a sportsmanship trophy. Well, he earned that,” Shane says, a little sheepish as he remembers his visit to Hunter.

“Yes, he earned that for being brave, but the rest! Still true,” Ilya avers. “As for me, I hope I will be remembered as the greatest pest and not big bi sticker. Or maybe some of both, I don’t know.”

Ilya’s eyes flicker to Shane then away. He will just be remembered as Shane Hollander. Legend. Player complete without anything blotting that out.

These are not his concerns, really. They won’t be for years.

Ilya clears his throat, hands Niko an orange soda, Shane a ginger ale, and twists the top off of a coke.

“Okay, we are ready now I think.”

The cemetery is not especially busy on account of the poor weather. It’s not blustering, but the wind is cutting. Shane boggles as Ilya and Niko get out of the car in their silk shirts. Their boots are right and their denim fine for the weather, but the shirts are insane.

“Why aren’t you wearing coats?”

Ilya snorts. “Niko is dressed like this all the time anyway. You think it bothers him? He's young, would choose looking cool over lifesaving medicine if asked. Me, I am a strong Russian man. It doesn’t bother me, Shane, come on.”

Ilya stops by a dark trashcan before they walk over, throwing away a gas station receipt and pulling out a box of cigarettes to peel the plastic off.

“I don’t smoke,” Ilya says, noticing Shane’s look, as he trashes the clear plastic, “but it's nice to burn one with her.”

They find the plot with ease among the crowd, and Shane sees the headstone. SVETLANA VALERIEVNA ROZANOVA.

Ilya greets her in Russian, brushing his hand over the stone. He looks at Shane.

“We talk in English this year. We have special visitor. I know you don’t mind because you always show off your perfect English, American girl.”

Shane looks subtly at Niko for clues at how to handle Ilya talking to nothing space, but Niko looks fairly resigned. He sticks out his hands.

“Now we rock paper scissors for who gets to talk to her first.” Niko looks embarrassed by this, but Shane gamely sticks out his hand. He’s bewildered yet so charmed by the rituals Ilya has made to soften the harshness of the activity. Levity injected at every sore joint. Not mitigating the pain but at least adding cushion to it.

The whole affair feels stubbornly vibrant in a way Shane senses Svetlana might have been.

Shane wins the first round by habit, having long ago collected Ilya and Niko’s tells. He tries to take the win back because Shane really should not be the first, but father and son leave the grave bidding Shane a good conversation with Svetlana. Which.

Shane stares at the headstone. It’s just a rock. Not nearly as scary as it was in a half-remembered dream, but he doesn’t know any better what to do with it.

“Hi.”

He struggles for a moment for what to say. Thank her for raising a good family. For being good with Ilya’s depression. Strong when it came to Shane. He’s trying to do the same for her, but less gracefully, he’s sure.

Maybe he should tell her that Ilya is in good hands and Shane is doing his best.

Doing his best is hard, especially when he feels like the bad guy. But life isn’t Love Simon. Choices have tangible consequences. If anything, waiting as long as he has to come out has only made the consequences grow in number and magnitude. Maybe if Ilya had just asked him earlier, if Shane was in his twenties, it wouldn’t all feel so heavy.

If Ilya had asked Shane back then, not Svetlana…

He flushes, realizes he’s been thinking about himself over her gravestone. That has to be… heinously disrespectful in some senses.

“Um. Thanks for everything. Sorry we never got to meet.”

He doesn’t know if he’s spent long enough or possibly too long, but he huddles against the wind and heads back to the cemetery entrance where Ilya and Niko are talking in Russian.

Ilya did not lie— Shane has not seen a shiver go up Niko and he finds it scientifically baffling. Niko moves past Shane, treading over the grass until he is a float of curly hair and loud purple silk. With his post-season leanness, he really does look like her from a distance.

Niko may be embarrassed by his Papa, but his conversation with the gravestone is earnest.

“He has much to tell her. Busy year for our Nika,” Ilya murmurs. He spins a lighter in his hand. Even years after quitting, the gesture is practiced and easy. He has such nice, dexterous hands, his Ilya.

Ilya smiles at Shane and it’s light for the first time in a week. “Thank you for coming. I know it’s not really your desire. I always feel bad that you never got to know each other, so maybe this is my sad attempt. I know it's is a silly feeling.”

Shane nods, never really sure how he feels about it, but he appreciates the warmth Ilya extends in his voice. The implication that he hasn’t given up on Shane despite having to change so many plans.

Shane failed to give Svetlana a proper dedication at her headstone, and he wonders if, like Ilya’s mother, it is a matter of still not knowing the shape of her.

“Tell me something about Svetlana.”

Ilya tilts his head. “She was right all the time. So very annoying.”

Shane snorts. His mother was like that.

“When we find out about pregnancy, we were both so excited. It was a bit of a surprise. But before I can even tell my team about it, Svetlana has already picked out the school, everything about the nursery, and the name. We decide on the diminutive Nika. Is perfect for our little baby, because is short for a good name meaning to carry victory. This is, of course, for baby Veronika.”

Ilya waits a beat while Shane chokes on sudden laughter.

“Veronika?”

Ilya holds out his hands, shock on his face, ever the storyteller. “The baby comes and what can I do? I have a wife who is never wrong and a baby with a penis. Let’s name him Veronika anyway, I said what does it matter. She does not like this idea. Maybe baby will be trans. Shane, is no joke, but I thought she would kill me with her eyes. She called me the most unhelpful because baby has to tell us it is trans and baby cannot tell us anything now, he only screams. Svetlana was so tired from birth, and we needed to write something down. Finally, we think of Nikolaj, and Nika is not the normal diminutive but is common enough that I can sleep without fear of my life and my wife is still right about everything… ish.”

Shane fights a grin. “Is that really true?”

“It is. Kolja is usually the nickname for Nikolaj. We get odd looks from Russian speakers, but that makes Nika a special family name.”

Shane hums. Ilya said that during their first reunion. He thinks about Sasha calling Niko Kolja. The Semenovs do too. The name Nika really is for Ilya, Svetlana, and now Shane.

“She didn’t think to check the gender?”

Ilya grins. “Shane. She predicted three cups. In a row. That would be insulting.” Ilya sighs. “He talks like her, you know. Because he mostly only speaks Russian in the house. He has some of her phrases. Her accent. The way he talks, it’s a little feminine. I can’t bring myself to point it out. I don’t want him to stop.”

Shane thinks of that time Niko wasn’t speaking Russian to his father, how it was both his own voice and Svetlana’s that was being withheld from Ilya. But now… now Ilya has a son who goes along with all his silly rituals, indulgent and smiling. A happy boy, as protective of his papa as his papa is of him.

Shane clears his throat, because Ilya looks guilty for letting his son wander the world unknowingly with a feminine lilt. But maybe Niko likes that too, holds onto her phrases of his own accord. Maybe Niko is wiser to grief in those ways Ilya rarely credits him with. Shane doesn’t feel it’s his place to say.

“As long as he doesn’t get chirped too much when he travels to Russia, who cares.” Shane hesitates right after, realizing he traded one insensitive comment for another considering Ilya’s passport is now defunct.

Ilya tilts his head at Shane, perplexed.

“Nikolaj can’t go to Russia.”

“Why not?” Shane thought he knew the laws. “Aren’t you and Svetlana both citizens?”

“Yes, he had Russian passport. But after speech he gave supporting bisexuals, he lost it.”

“What?” Shane feels his breath go short.

“Yes. He got the letter in the mail same as me. Return home for trial, crimes against country, fines. All of it. He is a criminal there.”

Shane stares, feeling utterly shocked.

“But that’s—”

Niko starts treading back and Shane shuts his mouth, looking away. He feels Ilya’s eyes on him, plainly bewildered, because how could Shane not put such obvious pieces together?

“You turn, old man.”

Ilya squeezes Niko’s shoulder as he passes him and heads to the stone. Shane distantly watches Ilya light a couple of cigarettes and launch into a story. He holds both in his hands as he talks, gesticulating.

Probably telling her everything in the last clusterfuck bad luck timing week of their lives. Maybe wondering ungenerously, as Shane had, why the fuck Mrs. Langstrom had to get cancer now.

Shane’s mind is elsewhere though.

“Is your Russian passport really invalid?”

Niko blinks at the question. “Yeah. They didn’t like my speech I guess.” Niko shrugs. Shane feels the weight coming on harder to his chest. The speech that Shane helped arrange. Blissfully ignorant about the lifelong consequences he was arranging for Niko.

“You should have told me Russia would exile you.”

“Why?”

“We could have… I don’t know, figured out something else to say. Some other way. Like a secret gesture instead of…” Niko looks at Shane like he’s an idiot. Shane cuts himself off. “Look. You didn’t have to throw away your passport. We could have been smarter about this.”

“I don’t really care. I only have it because both of my parents were Russian. But I’m North American.”

Shane grits his teeth. It’s like Niko saying he doesn’t care about the house his mother lived in all over again. Him saying he didn’t care about her ring. Well, look how that panned out. Ilya’s ring is fat and shiny on his index finger.

Worst of all of this, he has made Shane complicit in his choices.

“It’s not about how you feel now, it’s about keeping the possibility for later. You might really want to be in touch with that part of yourself, Nika. Now you can’t travel there at all. You cut off a huge part of your heritage and even a potential future. Boom, it’s gone forever.” Shane draws his hand through the air in a cut. “You can never get it back!”

Niko squints at him. “Don’t try to tell me what’s what, Shane. I don’t need that from you.”

Shane just can't get through to him.

“You understand so little sometimes.”

Niko looks at Shane for a long moment, his hand jams into his pocket, as if looking for a vape, but he’s given his collection to Shane. It’s a long frosty silence until Ilya gets back. His cheeks are red, flush from the cold, and his smile fades when he picks up the icy silence between them.

“I’ll get the car, pull it around,” Shane says, holding his hands out for the keys. Ilya slowly hands it over and Shane flees. He hears Niko’s voice picking up in Russian behind him but he can’t care.

Guilt churns in his stomach. What the fuck is wrong with him? Didn’t he spend long nights looking up Russian laws, understanding the consequences after the Sochi Olympics. And then he helps some teenager blow up their own life. The consequences for this are so long-standing and Shane so culpable, handed him the TNT in the form of an international stage.

Ilya should have been pissed. Shane would have been if it had been his own kid doing this behind his back with his partner.

Niko isn’t like Shane who went to Japan and saw only people who looked like him but acted in ways completely out of step with his own understanding. Shane was a tourist there, always. Niko speaks the language, knows Russian customs. Sure, he says he has more connection to his North American side, but he might change his mind. Might find one day he wants to know that part of himself more and be left without a way to do it because his one connection is cut off—

It’s too late now to repair that broken bridge to that place. All of it is too late.

The drive home is tense. Niko blabbed to Ilya if the tension in Ilya’s jaw means anything. What’s one more crime for Ilya to come after him for? They pick up food from the Semenov’s bodega and the Semenov boys working there knuckle bump and greet Niko with calls of Khay, Kolya!

When they make it home, Niko offers to take Anya out while Ilya sets up the movie for them.

Shane is ready to go lay down in the bedroom if he’s honest. His chest hurts and the whole day has been overwhelming.

When Ilya catches Shane’s forearm it is firm. His expression piercing.

Shane remembers that frightening player he encountered on the ice. The one who committed rough, ruthless damage and never regretted it. To be honest, Shane’s always had an intense, unrelenting attraction to that man. To the violence and his grace. In this moment, there isn’t space for that, there’s no air anywhere.

“You can get upset. Voice that with me. But do not ever take it out on my son. Ever.” He holds his grip for a long moment. This is the first time he touches Shane by choice… Ilya goes on, softer in tone and hand, “Especially when it is for doing all he can to support us. Doing the most, even.”

Shane shivers. He knows. He knows this intellectually. And yet—

“There had to be a better way. A smarter way.”

Ilya shakes his head, drawing away. “He did it the way he wants. You are always telling me to respect his choices, trust he knows enough to be okay.”

“Not for this. He was too young to know what he was losing. It’s a whole part of himself, gone!”

“He has been to Russia. As a child every summer until his Mama dies. He does not know it as an adult. But when he finds out I am bisexual last year he asks me about it. What is true and fiction for what Russia does to men like me. The fines. The imprisonment and public smear campaigns. He hears all this and my son decides he does not want passport for a country that does these things.”

Ilya’s chin shakes a little as he continues,

“He knows the type of man he is and even if it is not strategic, he knows what making his choice means. And I am happy my son is brave... He is already a good man. He will be better than me.”

Shane’s eyes feel hot in his head.

Fuck. He remembers watching the award ceremony with Ilya. The way that Ilya fell apart and in bed said, I am biggest coward in the world.

Nothing like seeing a then-seventeen-year-old reject a country that would not take his papa at great personal cost to call into question Ilya’s own bravery.

Shane can’t help but feel that now. Because Shane is older. Shane won’t even lose something as material as a connection to his heritage. Shane won’t technically lose anything, people might think of him differently, he might struggle to get his job. He might lose the commissionership.

But all these mights swirling around the drain of Niko’s certitude. Some simple choice of who Niko wanted to be moving forward. It shatters Shane who cannot imagine that clarity. The idea of leaving this version of himself behind for someone else. Yes, this version is flawed and it is scared and the idea of coming out still makes his chest ache and his sinuses tighten with ringing pressure from his head— but at least he knows this. At least all of the anxiety and fear is trapped inside his body instead of freed to possibly live in the eyes of others as they look upon him as some threatening other.

But what if that new Shane could be better, the way the new Niko is such a brighter, more balanced person. The way the new out Ilya is so careless with his joy and love for Shane, a brightness drawing pings from tags on social media from out high school athletes citing him as their hero, even as ESPN has erased him largely from their verbal rotation.

He thinks the old Ilya, the closeted Ilya wouldn’t have asked Shane to marry him.

He worries that, if he’s really honest, this current Shane doesn’t have the nerve or the right to marry Ilya the way he deserves.

Shane’s cowardice is crushing in this moment, and he can feel his breathing picking up with the pain in his chest.

Warm thumbs scrape at his face and Shane obeys the pull turning his head to face Ilya. It’s the first time Ilya has initiated a real tender touch and the gentleness in this moment is just devastating.

“I’m sorry,” Shane croaks. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Little apology to our Nika, it will be okay. This is not first time our family fights on this day,” Ilya admits, sadly. “Maybe it is more common today.”

Shane shakes his head. It’s not why he’s sorry, but his throat is so tight the explanation won’t come. Ilya saying our Nika only makes it worse. Shane says sorry again, a few more times in weak recompense.

“So Canadian,” Ilya sighs, pets Shane’s cheek even though it is wet and awful in this moment. “You should eat something. I think the cold got to you. It’s been a long week.”

Shane nods, lets Ilya cajole him into a bowl of Russian stew Shane can’t pronounce.

Niko comes back halfway through, and Shane cannot bear to look at him he’s so wrung out and ashamed. Niko has to see the trace of tears which is yet another humiliation.

Ilya heats up the rest of the food for father and son, but Shane excuses himself for an early night, saying a soft good night to Niko which earns a grunt in return. Fair.

While Shane brushes his teeth, he hears faint laughter and the sounds of the old Russian movie playing. Ilya has described the plot to Shane as one of his favorites, and Svetlana’s old favorite too. A spunky, puckish female bartender on a ship who becomes a tiger tamer when the animals on board get lose. He hunted down a version with English subtitles for Shane to enjoy with them, but it’s not happening this year.

Shane hopes he gets to see the film next year. That he can do this anniversary again and do it right. To honor and learn more about Svetlana, to help his family cherish who they will always dearly miss. He wants to be in a place where he doesn’t feel so consumed by his own problems that they leak into places they shouldn’t.

He skips most of his skin routine, even though he thinks his face could use it this night more than most. He looks wrung out, tired, eyes red and cheeks a touch hollow.

It doesn’t feel like he will make it past this year. This hockey season and summer has been the most taxing of Shane’s life yet and he hadn’t played a single minute.

Shane wakes during the night, hearing soft sobs in the bathroom. The quiet, private gasps, at the end of a long day. Shane wants to go to Ilya, but these aren’t tears he can wipe away. These are ones saved and poured out because today is special and Svetlana should be cried over, missed in a way that wrings water from the face.

After a long time, the crying stops. Shane almost falls asleep but there’s a warm hand on his side. Ilya getting into bed, shifting Shane gently to make space for his starfishing, nudging the skinny pillow back under Shane’s arms to put them back into alignment for his shoulder. Every touch breaks over Shane's skin, says, I love you, I am still loving you. Shane clumsily grips at Ilya’s hand, feels his bare pinky, his empty fourth finger. He hopes it’s comforting. Hopes Ilya knows Shane will somehow fix things. Shane will make it right. Even as he grapples with the fact that behind all his logic and excuses is a well of cowardice fathomlessly deep.

Ilya pats Shane’s cowardly hand and Shane slips back off to sleep.

Chapter End Notes

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no, not everything is resolved. it's gonna take some time. like a pot-- an instant to break, weeks to fix

did i know when i had nikolaj give his speech in DATASH that he would be giving away his passport. no. but that's what sequels are for. Nika is a diminutive of Nikolaj, it's just not the common one.

EDIT: the ever kind witcherwill wrote an incredible one-shot offering a meditative and sweet look at Ilya and Svetlana upon finding out they were pregnant. Read it to offset the bitter taste of this chapter hahahaha, it's a great reprieve! READ HERE!

Chapter 20: shane is honest

Chapter Notes

Death and Taxes (and SH) now has a A PODFIC!!!

thank you so much hullomoon 🥹🥹🤧🫰it's cooler than cool and even has sound effects.

In the morning, Shane looks at a dozing Ilya for a long moment. His puffy eyes from crying, the wear on his face. His sweet fiancé who can barely stand Shane’s touch anymore. Shane is fucking up everywhere with everything. A goddamn coward compared to a teenager. Sobering. He’s really tired of it all, but doesn’t know how to begin to dig himself out.

Shane slips out of bed.

The kitchen is a bit of a mess, Ilya and Niko had a spontaneous burst of baking if the half-eaten tray of brownie’s mean anything, but Shane doesn’t mind cleaning it today. The least he can do after fighting with Niko on his mother’s death anniversary… Shane decides to take the trash out when he’s done— Ilya’s least favourite chore. Disgusting, touching trash. Sticky handles. Baffling to Shane considering how many sweaty jocks and the general rankness of their lives. Ilya apparently had a couple pairs of favoured sport socks he owned for five years before he stopped being able to patch them. Now that’s horrifying.

Shane walks the trash down the stairs because he doesn’t trust the often-jammed chute which is how he catches Niko smoking around the side of the building.

Apparently, he doesn’t have the guts to do it on Shane’s porch anymore, or maybe he just wanted to keep it secret since he supposedly quit. Shane and he make eye contact, and Niko takes a long, defiant inhale.

Shane finishes the graceless business of tossing the trash and turns to Niko who is exhaling a thin stream of smoke. Such young lungs. Shane resists a grimace.

“Hey.”

Niko nods. He looks ready for a fight, spoiling for one over the cigarette at least if not for everything yesterday. Shane is usually a spectator to this tension— watching Ilya accidentally brush abrasively against his son and brace himself to make an apology. He never told Shane how much courage it requires, being vulnerable before a teenager who leaks I don’t need this or you with every casual disregard, the way he taps his ash off with a turned thumb.

Shane owes Niko Rozanov an apology regardless.

Shane still thinks it was wrong that Niko didn’t clue him into the cost of their little stunt, but his reaction and unkind words were hardly earned by something that was, ultimately, (Shane grudgingly admits) Niko’s business.

“Yesterday, I’m sorry about that. That wasn’t right.”

Niko raises an eyebrow.

“And the timing… I really regret that a lot.” Shane feels simply humiliated for doing that on the anniversary of Svetlana’s death. Denigrating all his precious rituals with his father, the sanctity of the memorial. A time of year everything was meant to be about her. Shockingly cruel and appallingly rude.

Niko inhales again, exhales smoke. Shane waits, then nods. Right. Niko doesn’t have to accept it. Shane turns to go, ready to clean his hands and turn his apology over in his mind for flaws.

“My dad said you’re going through something at work.”

Shane pauses, turns back. Jesus, Ilya didn’t have to do that. Provide a compassionate reason for Shane’s behaviour with Niko, even if it is partially true. Especially not after how fractured things are between him and Ilya.

“That doesn’t excuse it. I was surprised to learn you lost your passport, but it isn’t… It’s not my business, I was out of line.”

More than that, Shane is deeply humbled by it. Laid flat by Niko’s simple defiance. Shane admits that he was angry, not at Niko for leaving him out of the loop, but maybe because Niko seems to have so much more courage than Shane with less than half his age and experience with more to concretely lose.

This cowardice is not a good feeling. Stings like sweat over an ice abrasion. He doesn’t like that Niko’s choice has nothing to do with strategy, with logic, with maximizing benefits, all the things Shane has hidden behind. It has more to do with a simple will to not be a certain kind of person, in favour for another better person. A simple, honest reaction to reject inequity, instead of always negotiating with it like Shane does. As if unfairness could be swayed by logical appeal.

“I do respect your choice,” Shane says, swallowing.

“Even if I understand so fucking little, huh?” Niko asks, his tone dry. Yeah, Shane earned that.

He huffs to himself, looking up at the swath of fat clouds drifting overhead, between these tall buildings.

Yeah. Shane has been acting like he understands a lot. Knows better than anyone how to come out. Better than Ilya, better than Scott Hunter, certainly. Yet, they’re out and Shane is here. What the fuck does he know? What the fuck has all this planning actually brought him? He swallows this down, the same hapless feeling so what does this mean? Which leads nowhere, as usual. He knows nothing about coming out. He can’t come out now. He’s a coward. Nothing changes but Shane does feel a lot shittier.

Shane turns back to Niko and shrugs, hapless.

“You might understand the most. Honestly, I’ve known your Papa for a long time, but even winning the cup, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him happier than watching your speech.”

Niko smiles, a deep grin that swells over his face. He instinctively rolls the gold ring on his index finger. Shane admires the way he and Ilya are endlessly, if clumsily, trying to take care of each other without letting on too much. Like two voices excitedly talking through the shower door.

Niko says, “Team effort,” curled fist out like an olive branch, so graceful in forgiving, and Shane bumps it gently.

“Yeah.” His voice feels thick.

Shane finds himself struck by how deeply he feels affection for Niko. Strong and strange, a little worried, but clear in sentiment like a bell.

He wants to be the person Niko comes to for help, even when he does make insane choices, ruins things a little (or a lot). Shane wants to help Niko fix it all, even as it makes Shane sweat and his expression go flat with exasperation. When Niko wants to make sweeping gestures of affection, Shane wants to be the one he calls. When Niko has to buy an apartment, Shane wants to be there for every part of the (thorough) process. He wants to teach Niko how to give an actual gift and not a case of vapes. He wants Niko to call him for anything, any time. He never realized how nice knowing him is, how much he likes and respects Niko even if real understanding of his personality and out of pocket questions plainly escapes Shane.

He realizes with horror and embarrassment he wants to be Niko’s parent. Some kind of one. Never in lieu of Svetlana, but maybe also. It could be Ilya and Svetlana and also Shane, right?

It’s a little unsettling for how many years he told himself he never wanted kids to suddenly feel this rush of parental emotion. He knows it’s not the same as having a baby, as raising a kid, but it’s so much at the same time. The gift of seeing who Niko becomes throughout the rest of his life. Knowing him, growing him, rooting for him.

This is embarrassing and strange, but Shane wants it. To be a… step-dad.

He dreads to think of how Shane's cruel comment has maybe damaged that burgeoning thing. This nascent connection. His mouth fumbles for a moment.

“Let me know if this is… If this bothers you, but I realized after the fire that you should probably know you’re in my will.”

“What?”

“As a beneficiary. When I die.”

Niko stares at Shane.

“Not that you’ll need it. Your papa’s assets are going to be plenty.” Shane took a peek last week with the quarterly review and was very satisfied. “Most of what I have will go to charity or my parents if they’re still alive, but a few items, um, memorabilia. A couple of my properties. I know you didn’t want your mom’s house, but I just thought… It’s just always good to own property if you can. So. Yeah.”

Is this the weirdest way to tell a teenager Shane was thinking of them? Probably. And maybe even triggering considering his fear of parents dying, Shane just doesn’t know a less direct way of saying how he cares— and this is probably why people think he’s autistic.

“Can I put you in mine?”

Shane goggles. “You have a will.”

Niko taps the ash off his cigarette.

“Yeah, when I started with the MHL. Cause it was so much money, and the possibility of terminal brain injury etc.”

Right. Shane knew that, but the idea of an minorly wealthy nineteen-year-old adding an ultra wealthy Shane Hollander to his will as a beneficiary… well, it’s probably the same silly sentiment as Shane including Niko. He thinks again of that thin connection between he and Ilya at the pool, as money traded hands. The paperwork that now ties him to Niko legally. The marriage certificate and tax boxes that will somehow, one day, cement Shane with Ilya for life. Marking each other.

What are these little bureaucratic proofs of care? Why do they mean so much to Shane?

Maybe it’s just his groping for evidence of family. A paper trail to tie those nearest tighter around him.

To be bound in return.

“Just don’t leave me anymore smoking stuff. My vape case is full.”

Niko laughs, loud and barking like his father. He has colour in his cheeks and he puts the end of his cigarette on the cement, flicking the butt into the dumpster. He shrugs, dismissively towards the cigarette.

“This was just for her. In memory.”

“You don’t have to explain it to me,” Shane says, because it’s true. “Though I appreciate you not bringing Anya out because—”

“Yeah, yeah, canine secondhand smoke hasn’t been studied extensively yet. I know. I read the articles you sent.”

Shane can’t help his squinting grin. Niko turns away, mentions Buffalo’s draft pick and Shane lets him shift the conversation to puck as they climb the stairs. Shane thinks they need better wingers over D-men, but Niko scoffs, explaining the rearranging of the current lines to fill the gaps.

“We’re going to win next year. Start of my five-cup run.”

Shane smiles. He’s heard that before. From every rookie player passing through his office. He never says anything, because seeing them try is what the sport is about.

Ilya is sipping coffee when they get back. His eyes are tired, but he smiles when he sees them together, grins on both of their faces. Shane is so relieved that their treaty of peace extends to this morning too. That Shane can have another breakfast with the people he loves before all his choices and the ensuing realities crash into Shane’s easy joy and shatter them like glass. The florist Patrice has been emailing Shane about confirmations, but he hasn’t found the words for a reply. Surely it can wait for him to be back in New York City. Back in New York City, where Ilya will be finding a new apartment…

They cook breakfast together, but Niko is soon running out the door to enjoy the sunny weather with old teammates while he’s in town.

Ilya stands and wrangles a hug and kiss from his son before he vanishes for probably the whole day and night.

Shane stands to get more coffee and almost drops his ceramic mug. Niko wraps an arm around Shane’s shoulder and squeezes.

“See you later.”

Shane juggles his coffee to return the brief gesture and barely manages it.

“Yeah. See you.”

Nika leaves in a clamber out the door, Anya pawing at the wood when it shuts.

Shane sits down, a little flush. It was their first… not hug, but… something. He hopes Niko didn’t take his slow reaction as rejection. Shane was just surprised. He hopes Niko feels comfortable trying again.

Shane supposes he could try too…

Shane then remembers he stood for coffee and finally gets it. He sits back down and looks at his egg white omelette. Ilya’s smile is beautiful on his face, simple pleasure.

“See, little apology is not so bad. Though you are used to being on the other side of the desk for teenage hockey stars, hmm?”

Shane shakes his head, smiles. He tries to stay here, in this place of happiness. A place where Niko hugs him like family… “He’s not going to be happy about delaying the wedding. Or get us living apart.”

Ilya rolls his head. “Adult relationships are complicated. Our Nika will learn this too, I think. Either way, it's between us, not him.”

Shane nods absently. He never thought he’d hear Ilya own the situation like this, for all the pain it caused him. Ilya clearly does not like it, but he’s doing it with a press to his lips that reminds Shane of the way he skated off injuries. Pure obligation.

It smarts, but so much does lately. Shane grapples with the ache in his chest, rubs it and reaches for this morning— the good moment they have. Still together, in Montreal at the apartment. It’s like a frame pulled from their simpler past.

“Did you know Niko has a will?”

Ilya nods. “Yes. He leaves concerning amount of money for Alzheimer’s research.” Ilya scowls dramatically. “I don’t even have the disease yet!”

Shane laughs, feeling terrible for doing it on such a serious topic, but this is them, grinning about what they shouldn’t.

“If I had died in the fire, he would've felt very silly,” Ilya continues, eyes crinkling as if eager to break Shane completely. “Would have to scramble with lawyers to make it anti-sex candle money in memoriam of his papa.”

Shane’s giggles burst from his stomach. “Can you imagine if that was my coming out?”

Ilya grins on reflex, but clearly doesn’t see it.

Shane fights more laughter down to his throat.

“If we died and that’s how they found out about our scandalous fucking relationship and me being gay.” Shane chuckles. “The headlines would be insane.” He tries to find a funny one, something clever about heated rivalry coming to end in fiery bed, but his words don’t cooperate. Ilya doesn’t laugh, and Shane sighs. His humor can be like that.

“Well. It would have been easier than my fifty-step coming out plan,” Shane says, huffing a laugh.

Ilya is quiet for a long moment, thoughts churning in dark fathomless water behind his eyes.

“You really think this?” Ilya asks.

Shane feels awkward. Right, his fifty-step plan has been frozen.

But Ilya goes on. “Death in fire would have been easier?”

Shane scoffs. “It was a joke Ilya.”

But the thought has crossed his mind. Amidst all his stress about getting Ilya out of the building, there was a niggling awareness. Funny, not funny at all. It would be easier, for him and Ilya to be found, to be discovered like artefacts. Ash after a great blaze of passion. A story pieced together by historians, a fragmentary truth with no confirmation.

Shane wouldn’t have to see what the world made of Shane. His embarrassingly long closeted life. His humiliating love and lust for the body and cock of Ilya Rozanov. Masculine, always so terribly wonderfully masculine. Shane’s trail of secret lovers could come forward, and Mark, if he came out, could maybe call Shane a jealous needy bottom to the press and it wouldn’t embarrass Shane any. His legacy could be torn down, his face ripped off walls, jersey torn from the rafters and it couldn’t bother Shane.

He’d be ash, wrapped around Ilya somewhere.

Shane blinks. Ilya forgot the butter for his toast. It’s low calorie, heart healthy, he likes it with his cherry jam.

Shane rises, goes to the fridge.

Shane hears Ilya’s chair scrape back. Shane drops the butter tub against the counter when Ilya presses him there. Arms snake around Shane’s torso, Ilya’s face buried in his neck. The counter ledge digs into Shane’s hips and Ilya’s chest is shaking with his breaths, his arms tight and rocking a little. Shane doesn’t really get it, but he’s thirsty for the physical affection and grips Ilya’s hands back. Ilya squeezes Shane harder and Shane’s eyes feel so full that he has to shut them.

“I didn’t realize. I didn’t realize how hard this has been for you. Coming out. I am sorry, Sweetheart.”

Shane exhales sharp and wavery.

When Ilya says it, Shane hears the truth of it.

Shane didn’t realize it would be so hard either. He felt so confident, so sure standing in his Montreal apartment with a whiteboard, making his coming out plan. Gathering support, telling people in staggered waves— all the tools he’d need to come out right. The truth is right or wrong hardly matter, even other people’s reactions are so pitifully second to Shane’s actual inability to accept the idea of being out. Even now, he cannot imagine making a broad social media post without a numbness to his fingers. He can’t picture himself dropping the bombshell on his boss who winked at him in the office, said Shane should think about his strategy for next year’s season because Shane was literally that close to being Commissioner. Just the thought has his sinuses clogging and his head pounding.

And his mother. His heart squeezes, chest aches. Everything she ever wanted for him…

And his now-realized, unrelenting cowardice.

Every part of it is so tangled, so awful.

So yes, he doesn’t want to be dead in a fire at all.

Equally true, coming out while alive feels impossible.

Shane has spent a week trying to find something worth offering Ilya, some way forward despite the delay for their life together. What he finally has is this:

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to come out,” Shane confesses, rolling his head back against Ilya. It feels painfully honest in his throat, and awful in the air.

How many times had Shane promised Ilya he would in this week alone, using eventually to provide a buffer. And the whole time, some part of him knew that waiting all these years has never helped him, only made him stubborner. Waiting longer was always shorthand for forever, even if he couldn’t let himself realize it. Forever til I’m dead.

(And that golden window, was probably a humiliating, painful forced outing dragging him out against his will, but at least it would be done even if it destroyed him. At least he’d be free of this fucking, crippling mess.)

Ilya murmurs soft noises, comforting but hurt too. Shane only feels more and more cowardly, more ashamed, because Ilya doesn’t deserve this. He wanted Ilya wreathed in green flowers, but all he can realistically offer is a lifetime of alleys and hoods pulled across his handsome face.

They lost so much time and now—

Ilya pulls back and Shane turns, sees his compassionate eyes. His stomach drops and he knows the way Ilya will say I’ll adjust. Will feed himself on Shane’s small offerings of love, the way he had for years under his father’s house. Because Shane is family now, Ilya has brought him so close to his heart and refuses to pull away. Took the marriage oath that day Shane’s hand was in the blender, and Shane had not even realized it.

Shane finally realizes with horrible clarity, that he cannot lose Ilya Rozanov anymore.

Shane sinks to his knees, holding Ilya’s waist and putting his face deep to Ilya’s belly and crotch. God. Fuck.

Ilya strokes his hair, lets Shane be low and terrible for a long moment.

Ilya follows Shane back to New York. His career is here now, but also there is a heavy concern for Shane weighing his brow. He quietly mentions looking for apartments tomorrow and in a show of kind compromise suggests Shane takes the day off to help him pick a good one with the features that will make visiting easier without sacrificing Ilya’s need for neighbors.

Shane shakes his head. Work is work.

Ilya kisses him goodbye, sweet and with tongue, but Shane doesn’t feel like he’s earned this loving touch when it’s drawn out of concern and not for the sheer pleasure and desire for touching Shane.

What can Shane expect after the last few weeks?

Shane goes to work in his usual boring grey suit. He gets into his office and collects everything he needs for the Monday meeting and his check in afterwards.

More people than usual try to speak to Shane after the meeting, and Shane knows news of Langstrom retiring has spread through the office.

He smoothly handles all the conversations, wrapping them up in short, but polite order. It feels like the scrum after winning a cup, this rush of how highly everyone thinks of Shane, everyone wanting a piece of his time. It’s a little dizzying. Shane follows Langstrom into the office and shuts the door.

“Have you seen the crap the player’s union said about the CBA?”

“I’m gay.”

Shane has rarely if ever seen Langstrom taken by surprise for all his many excellent years in politics. Langstrom almost misses his chair when he starts sitting and has to grip the bottom of it to manage it successfully.

Shane really fooled him to believing he was straight, it seems. It’s not actually that great of a feeling.

“I see. Thank you for telling me.” Langstrom looks as at a loss as Shane feels. “The timing is a little sudden.”

“I know.”

“Can’t say I’m not a little surprised.” Shane feels his own mouth, the dryness of it. He’s surprised himself too when he woke up this morning and felt a numb clarity. And Shane realizes how much his mentor does like him when he says, “I know visibility matters, but is this something you’re waiting to announce?”

Compassionate from his angle. A way to the commissionership even if it is lying to the board for the next month or so while they evaluate candidates. Buying time. There could be a scrabble to stay in power after the coming out, if Shane plays every card, calls in every favour, and dedicates himself to the most intense political game of his life.

Shane would be tempted normally, just to see if he could win, but he’s realized time won’t help a damn thing about coming out. Being commissioner, not being commissioner. Coming out doesn’t have to do with that.

It has something to do with Ilya certainly.

After realizing Shane could never come out and still somehow keep Ilya Rozanov, Shane had to think hard. Life apart, always covering his face like a shame, would drive Ilya’s tender heart spare with sorrow. Ilya would surely leave once or twice distraught for living this way… but Shane knows he would come back. Because Ilya has given everything to Shane in a way that he can’t take back, or won’t.

And realizing Shane could hurt Ilya so terribly and still keep him made the prospect of committing that hurt indefinitely too impossible.

Coming out has to do with Niko too— How can Shane be the kind of person who wants to be a parental figure when he doesn’t have any more courage than a teenager so much younger? When Niko can reject inequity head on, instead of tolerating its strangling weight for years. Bargaining, bartering, for another inch of respect that goes nowhere.

So yes, coming out does have to do with Niko and Ilya, but mostly it has to do with Shane.

Shane who realized that his life was caught between life and death over something as stupid and mundane as coming out. Something people do every fucking day. And that Shane felt sure would take his life somehow… that scrappy, fiery part of him started kicking out.

Fuck you. Fuck you for this. Being so beholden to something else. To this fear. Suddenly, now that he saw it, living the rest of his life aware of his utter weakness was unbearable to think about. Fuck you, death.

So. Ready or not…

Shane withdraws an embossed invitation and hands it over.

“It can’t wait. I’m getting married.”

Langstrom’s eyes flicker over the names stoically, and if he is hiding surprise or if he put it together the minute Shane came out as gay, is hard to say.

“The timing,” Langstrom murmurs. Thinking of his own truncated tenure and abrupt retirement, Shane’s long planned coming out and wedding coinciding so unfavourably. It leaves Shane with no time to change minds and build a platform. He is about to be pure shock like Scott Hunter. Pure chaos in freefall.

“I know.” Shane swallows. “I’m still hoping for your support.”

“Shane. I hope you know I don’t give a flying flip who you’re with,” Langstrom says. “I have several friends who are…” He cuts himself off, maybe remembering some social justice training module. “Point is, I know you’re still one hell of a guy. You work hard. You care about this place and the players. You’re better with people than you realize, and honestly, I think you’re still the face of the franchise, player or not. No one can hold a candle to what you’ve done for the sport.”

Shane nods, but his eyes are on the cluttered memorabilia. The tension in Langstrom’s eyebrow, his tell. The things Langstrom can’t politely explain. Things Shane already knows about the people here. How It Works.

That Shane Hollander, multi-cup winner, deputy commissioner would not be the headline for his platform. SHANE HOLLANDER GAY would blot out all of that gleaming success for the next three months at least, long after the board found a new commissioner.

“I can’t say what the board will do,” is what Langstrom finally says. “Whether it’s you who is elected or not, I’ll make sure you’re still in the upper level. Treasurer, retained as deputy if not commissioner. We need you up here.”

Shane swallows a little poison. Yes, being deputy for Halstead would look good to the board’s eyes. Shane now a double minority would balance out Halstead’s bullshit, macho agenda well, offer something for everyone. A little appeasement for leftists, major victory for the right.

Shane chokes on it. The poison won’t go down.

“That’s fucking bullshit and you know it.”

Langstrom glances up, and hey, Shane doesn’t need a purple suit, because he definitely sees Shane differently.

“I’m the best person for the job. I care the most. I am a legacy player. I have given everything to the MLH. I earned this fucking post.”

“That might be true, and you should make a run in the next decade—"

When things are different. As if anything will be different without Shane kicking a fit about it.

“No. It should be now. Please, back me.”

Langstrom sighs, leans back in his chair. They’ve known each other for so long, met over this desk countless times. Langstrom mentored him, trained him for this position. Shane is his legacy better than any of his centrist, milquetoast policies.

But maybe Langstrom doesn’t want to be blotted out by SHANE HOLLANDER GAY either. He says,

“I can’t change what other people on the board do. You’re giving yourself an impossible position.” Never a yes, never a no.

Langstrom tilts his head down to some papers, away from Shane. Dismissive. Shane’s stomach feels nauseous, his hands numb. Shane wonders if Ilya felt this way after talking to Marleau. Betrayed by someone who ‘likes’ and ‘respects’ you.

“You mind if we reschedule our CBA discussion? I just realized I have this meeting—”

Shane waves the excuse away before Langstrom can fill in the gap with something decidedly fake.

Shane leaves Langstrom with the invitation and walks to his office drawing the blinds. He goes to the drawer and picks up the digital picture frame. It flashes on and a picture of Shane with his mother at the draft comes up and Shane can’t breathe actually.

Holy shit.

He squats down, leaning against the side of his desk as he feels his lungs struggling against that weight that has grown boulderlike in his chest. It’s so tight. Painful. Squeezing.

He’s fucking dying. He’s actually dying. The realization makes his sinuses lock up and he breathes even harder.

Shane grapples with numb fingers for his phone and dials Ilya, who picks up, voice a blur of concern, meaning missing. Shane chokes out some sounds, something asking for him to help. Because Shane needs help.

The light of the phone seems so unnatural now, his hand around it oddly shaped. Not his, is it? Not him on the floor, shifting under his desk like a wounded animal. Some pathetic office guy, maybe. Not Shane at all.

Shane startles back when he hears knocks, tries to quiet his breathing so no one hears, but he already feels like he’s going to pass out. He’d kill someone for smelling salts. To crack a pack and be sent onto the ice where things are simpler.

He hears a voice outside the door, Ilya.

“Will just wait in his office, thank you!”

The door swings open and shut, and then a pause.

“Shane? Shane?”

Shane makes a wheezing noise and Ilya comes around, dropping to his cracking knees.

“Sweetheart. Fuck.”

Ilya grabs Shane’s arms, squeezing his biceps hard, eyes searching with growing fear.

“We need to go to the hospital. You are having panic attack.”

Shane has the wherewithal to shove a hand at Ilya’s phone, his breathing picking up even harder. Everyone in the office seeing Shane wheeled out over fucking losing the commissionership. He can’t fucking take it.

“Okay, okay. Fuck. Breathe with me. In and out, slower.” Shane can’t even hear Ilya’s breathing over his own. Ilya’s hand reaches, going for touch. “You feel me doing this?” Ilya squeezes Shane’s thigh, faint pressure growing more clear. Pulsating. Squeeze, release. Squeeze, release. Slow and measured. Shane tries to match it. Ilya goes to Shane’s hands, folding them shut and helping him squeeze hard and relax and it’s like a little stress falls out with each go.

“You feel me here? Breathe with the touch. Your beautiful ass on the ground. You feel that too?” It’s so stupid. Talking about his ass now of all times, but Shane finds himself settling back in, and it is his butt on the ground, his legs akimbo, his back sore. The fragile pain of his body rushing back to his awareness as his breathing finally settles into a slower pace, matching Ilya.

“You are very present. Breathing so good.”

Shane looks at Ilya properly. His beautiful husband.

He wheezes for a few moments, until it finally settles. Shane clears his throat hard.

“I did it.”

The words feel a little numb. Ilya says something back coarsely in Russian.

“I don’t— You are okay?”

Shane doesn’t know. He rubs his chest. The pain is gone, but it was like for a few moments, a train hit his fucking body. A few minutes. He looks at his phone which glows, still on the call with Ilya. 45 minutes from when he left Langstrom’s office.

Shane’s disturbed, uneasy. Ilya cups his face, arresting every ramping thought.

“Let’s get out of here, Sweetheart.”

Ilya grunts getting back to his feet, and his knee must be aggravated. Shane touches it over the denim; his fingers are still tingling. Ilya reaches down, helping Shane stand up. It’s easier to be up here now that his lungs are working, but he feels really, really fucking tired. Wrung like a towel. Like after a marathon, almost. It’s hard to think.

Ilya tucks in the edges of Shane’s dress shirt, pulling at his tie and fixing his hair. Rubbing away all wetness on his face with tissues. The suit jacket goes on hiding the worst of his sweat stains.

Then Ilya collects Shane’s bag, his work laptop. Ilya pauses over the desk, looking at the picture of Shane and his mom before tapping it quietly off.

Phone stuffed in Shane’s pockets, Ilya steers them towards the door.

Shane feels what little blood he has in his head drop. Ilya and him at the MLH headquarters right after coming out to his boss. He thinks everyone must already know, but Shane’s secretary Merrium only blinks when she sees them pass the desk.

Ilya sweet talks her the way he sweet talks the whole world when he wants to. He winks, mentions a kidnapping, his surprise visit in town. Summer, Shane can take a day off to show his old enemy around, surely?

Merrium frowns at her schedule, but eventually says she’ll move the rest of his meetings around. Ilya claps Shane’s shoulders. A loud, performative version of himself. So straight in his touch. It makes Shane’s skin crawl and Shane doesn’t know how he ever convinced himself that he wanted that fakeness long term whenever they were in the public sphere. It’s unbearable.

People do double take seeing Ilya Rozanov with Shane Hollander in this building where everyone recognizes them. And maybe there is a double take also at the bisexual Ilya Rozanov in the presence of someone like Deputy Shane Hollander. Shane doesn’t know. He’s very tired.

Ilya is stopped twice for autographs, and Shane can sense his irritation tucked secretly in the grit of his jaw as he smiles and agrees. Jamison, of course is among them, babbling, and Ilya apologizes for not being able to stay longer, signing that signature with a heart which will surely make Jamison have a conniption. Shane tries to look anywhere else, the walls the floors. He doesn’t fucking care if anyone thinks he’s autistic. He feels like he got thrown off a building and meeting people’s eyes after that— after Langstrom made his position humiliatingly fucking clear—

Ilya grasps his elbow. “Not enough time in the world for people with good hockey taste. Come on, Hollander.”

Shane lets Ilya lead, focusing on his feet, still moving beneath him.

Ilya and Shane are just about at the elevator when Shane sees Langstrom across the bullpen, sees him clock Shane and Ilya together. It’s scalding somehow, being seen. Shane turns to face the elevator, feeling the sweat on his face.

On the ground floor, Shane squints at the bright outdoor light. It is spring, but honestly Shane feels cold. The sweat all over his body, maybe. Ilya curses out the public transit and orders one of those self-driving cars to pick them up.

Ilya loads Shane inside their ride which slowly works around the clogged streets of New York.

Ilya tugs at Shane when they finally get to the apartment and Shane opens his eyes, not sure when he shut them. Ilya’s face is concerned as he scans Shane over.

Shane hopes he looks more worthy of the love Ilya gives him. He suspects he just looks like an exhausted, drenched mess instead.

“What happened,” Ilya asks in the elevator, unable to stop himself.

The levels flash up and the metal of the doors is flat and polished enough to show their reflection. Two men standing beside each other, one in a boring suit and the other beautiful and big in designer clothes. Strange who they’ve become. Outside matching the inside, maybe. Shane wants to reach out, bridge the space. Doesn’t.

“Did you find an apartment?” Shane asks.

“Not yet,” Ilya says, mouth twisting. He doesn’t like talking about this subject which he knows causes Shane pain, but joke’s on him.

“Good. You can stay here with me.”

“Shane—”

“I’ll take your deposit now, if you want.”

The bell dings and Ilya is quiet as they walk to Shane’s apartment. There is no one else on Shane’s isolated floor, but somehow the habit of silence in hallways is engrained.

“You told Langstrom?” Ilya asks when the door is shut and locked.

Shane nods.

“He was an asshole?”

Shane’s head bobbles not yes, not no.

He wasn’t an asshole. He wanted Shane to stay in a good position in MLH, but he did have gay friends and saw a future where Shane deputied for Halstead. Maybe in 100 years when aliens made everyone liberal, Shane could try and be commissioner.

“Not really. He was sad for me I think.”

“Sad that you are gay.”

“Sad that I won’t be commissioner.”

Ilya is quiet for a long time. “Is this why you had a panic attack?”

Shane wouldn’t go that far. It was a little episode maybe.

“No. I just…”

He can’t explain how actually saying it felt.

Ilya looks pained. “Is it because you came out?”

Yes. Yes, it is that.

Ilya’s face does that terrible sad thing. So familiar of late and it just… sucks so much.

“Why did you do this? You did not have to do this,” Ilya whispers. “You weren’t ready.”

“I realized that I’d never be ready,” Shane says. “So I would just have to… to do it anyway.”

Sobering to find that more time, more opportunity would not make this process any easier. There is no such thing as a golden moment where it could be easy for Shane, effortless. A coming out arriving on a silver platter, or rather, in the silver scoop of the Stanley cup. When he realized he wanted them to find his corpse and learn he was gay that way, was the moment he realized it would never be any moment but now.

Choose life now, that kicking scrappy part of him said. Wait and you’ll fucking die.

Sometimes choosing life was so fucking hard it felt a lot like death, turns out.

“Did it feel okay for you?” Ilya asks.

Shane covers his face, breathing hard.

“Fucking awful,” he admits, and wishes it isn’t true. But it is.

He hated every fucking part of it.

Ilya pulls him in. He brings Shane to bed, strips his clothes off, pulling Shane up to his chest. Shane’s body feels numb, his head hurts, but Ilya’s touch is a balm. Squeezing again, like putting breath into him.

“You aren’t moving, right?”

“No. No, Sweetheart, I will stay for a long time. You'll be sick of me.”

Shane cries then, just a little. Ilya’s torso pressed against Shane, his breath soothing and steady through the tears.

Afterwards, they have an early bedtime. Ilya brings Shane floss, a toothbrush, and a cup to spit in so he doesn’t have to leave the bed. Ilya doesn’t say anything about Shane’s rankness from all the sweat, just lets his exhausted body rest.

Shane is dozing, thoughts loose. He is surprised by the heavy worry still in Ilya’s brow. He thought Ilya would be ecstatic. He thought Ilya would have flung Shane over his shoulder across the threshold, showering him in kisses and cock. Shane finally came out. They will be together.

Instead, Ilya looks more concerned than ever.

Chapter End Notes

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look. when i wrote chapter 14 in the first draft, i was terrified to discover how this version of shane who has closeted himself for decades now felt about coming out. i was like HOLY SHIT he's never gonna do it/it will never feel believable. It was true, so I couldn't just unwrite it. I fixed the problem by skipping over the coming out in the first 70k draft of this story TADA!!! this solution no longer satisfies me. So we are digging into the aftermath next.

No, everything with Ilya is not magically fixed. Both of them are hurting, but yes, trying to be good for each other. STILL COOKING.

to anyone who has ever been so deep in the closet that this sentiment resonates. I feel you. it fucking sucks. choose life. pick taxes.

 

Chapter 21: shane is fighting

Chapter Notes

the ever kind witcherwill wrote a fab one-shot offering a meditative and sweet look at Ilya and Svetlana upon finding out they were pregnant. READ HERE!

have i mentioned i have the coolest readers? Who also know how to discuss hard topics respectfully with each other 99.9% of the time without getting mean to the real people at the other end of the screen? you all make it so easy to write and i really fucking appreciate it

Shane’s alarm goes off. It rings. Keeps ringing. Silences itself.

Shane should get out of bed. Shane should eat, work out, and tend to Anya. Shane should check the Teams chat on his phone to get caught up on the day. Shane… weirdly does not feel like doing these things. His brain feels numb. In shock. Outside of his bedroom is a world where Shane’s boss knows he’s gay, and soon, by virtue of insider gossip, so will the whole structure that has been his life for the past thirty-two years. His chest tightens and he blinks hard at the ceiling.

Maybe he can work from home today.

Ilya comes in, and Shane turns to him like a sunflower.

“Sweetheart,” Ilya says, and it’s amazing hearing that again. Shane puts a smile on his face, sits up. He doesn’t want Ilya to see the grim greyness churning in Shane’s mind. Not when he has Ilya’s love again, and not when Shane is trying to get them back on track.

“Today I’ll email the florist,” Shane says. “Tell her the wedding is back on. The bakery too. They’re holding a chocolate cake just for you, you know.”

Ilya looks a little perplexed and a lot worried, which is fair. What is Shane sitting around for? He forces himself out of bed and does some stretching, feigning his usual energy despite lingering fatigue and odd aches in his muscles. It’s not like he did anything yesterday. He strips for a shower, old sweat forming a nasty film on his skin comparable to a hard skate. Normally he’d probably be complaining, making faces about sleeping in it but… it doesn’t bother him like it usually might. He picks at his elbow for a moment.

Showering. Right. He kisses Ilya on the way out briefly, and Ilya’s lips move with his for the first time in a long time.

The warmth Shane gets from Ilya fades by the time he is alone in the shower, rubbing soap slowly over his body, salty sweat and skin cells sloughing off. He rests his head against the tile wall for a moment, working hard not to think about anything waiting for him at his work desk.

Shane uses the soap for his hair too since he has the suds in his hands already. Might as well. Shane dries off and changes, dabbing a bit of lotion on but he looks at the light above the mirror more than his face.

He goes to his home office. He considers his treadmill, but the urge to move feels a little remote. Probably emotional hangover like Ilya gets. Shane stands on the stationary treadmill and works through a few items on his docket. He’s glad he slept in— He doesn’t have to go into office and see the tide change.

Even if Langstrom does, somehow, keep the office from knowing Shane’s sexuality in the form of an open secret, his favour and treatment of Halstead will tell everyone about the change in course. The new favourite for comissioner. Shane wonders about all the people celebrating Shane’s downfall, who have hated every diversity workshop he’s ever arranged.

He knows for certain that Langstrom will tell the board. Not because he’s outing Shane, but because, to Langstrom, this is him doing his job. Telling the board the next commissioner isn’t as lined up as they expected, wincing politely not that you or I have anything against it, but we don’t need that kind of publicity.

The board is full of people who have shaken Shane’s hand at events and fundraisers, told him they got a kick out of following his career. People who make socializing their career.

Who is Shane kidding? Gay Shane Hollander will be an open secret at HQ before the week is out.

The DMs are already rising in count and Shane blinks hard at the screen feeling his breath picking up.

Shane stops standing on his treadmill in favour for his settee, his laptop perched at a lopsided angle certain to destroy his neck, but Shane doesn’t care.

Ilya pads in, Anya on his heels. Anya jumps onto the settee immediately and noses into Shane’s thigh and stomach. He usually warns her off the furniture, but he drops a hand to her head absently.

“You forgot breakfast, Sweetheart.”

Ilya offers Shane his usual bulking shake, and Shane takes it. His appetite is pretty tame considering he skipped dinner last night.

Ilya is watching him, so he drinks at least half of it.

“Want to go for a run during your lunch?” Ilya offers. “I have been slacking on cardio, our Nika will mock me when we do marathon in a couple months.”

Ilya hasn’t done a lick of cardio since their fight. Why trim up for a wedding that wasn’t happening? Now he’s getting back on track, and Shane should be too. Should work on regaining the muscle weight he lost when he was running too much. Should be trying to build himself bigger.

The idea of getting back to where they were, on path to a wedding, should be exciting, but Shane finds himself quelling for some reason.

“I don’t think I can get away, sorry, my heart.”

Ilya makes an understanding noise but doesn’t leave.

“It's fucked up, what happened.”

Something breaks through that grey mist, and Shane doesn’t like the feeling at all.

“Yup.”

Ilya makes an irked sound, which sets Shane on edge, but he leaves. Oddly, Anya stays with Shane, even when Ilya calls her.

Anya stays with Shane even a few hours later when his lunch break happens and he finds himself wandering to bed instead of his office.

Shane brings his laptop with him and restarts his work from his duvet and plentiful pillows. He goes cameraless in meetings and no one calls him out. How can they? He’s the deputy commissioner; now and for a lot longer if the board has their way.

The next day Shane wakes up, showers, has a shake with Ilya, and wanders to his office in order to collect his extension cord to more comfortably plug in his laptop by the bed.

Shane spends the next few days tangled in the duvet, slouched on a throne of plentiful pillows. Every minute of clicking his mouse makes him wonder why he cared so much about these excel files, or for drafts for the next season. Logistics for financing the league’s programs. Performative arguments for and against the spending cap for players. The age-old, tired ass assertions that fighting in hockey is the heart of the sport despite needless CTE’s knocking players out prematurely.

Who gives a shit, honestly?

Shane understands more and more why Rose’s eyes always go a little glossy when he gets too caught up in the pedantic details of his job. He can feel his own eyes glazing over.

Ilya comes in and out with food, a gentle touch, a careful reminder about showering and a upset rises in Shane, sharp and brief, what, do you think I’m my fucking demented mother? The feeling gets swallowed by the grey mist and Shane keeps it from leaving his mouth and takes the stupid shower. He’s caught between desires: he doesn’t want Ilya too near— he hates when Ilya’s not there, touching Shane, holding him, even though alarm grows clearer and clearer in Ilya's eyes for all he tries to hide it.

Unfortunately, Ilya has his own things to do in New York, things he can’t put off. He’s preparing for more meetings with the Columbia team. His official casual introduction with the university players is soon. Players who, honestly, might be lucky never getting scouted for the MHL with the way things are going, with the sweeping repeals Halstead surely plans for the locker room language restrictions, bans for pride tape and even pride nights. For the system that will squeeze their young, eager bodies for all they are worth and leave them damaged decades after.

And Shane will be out as gay when this happens. A double minority. People in the office and critics out of it will doubly expect Shane to fight Halstead tooth and nail every step of the way. Safeguard the betterment of minority players against a cruel man in a more powerful position who probably doesn’t even have gay friends the way Langstrom at least did.

Isn’t it better Shane preserves his strength for those battles? It’s coming whether he wants it or not. Shane will transform into the (toothless, impotent) figurehead for progressiveness in hockey which is ironic for how much of Shane’s hockey career he tried to avoid being just that with every interview question on race he eschewed in pursuit of being just a hockey guy.

Remember when Shane was contentious for always pushing a ban on fighting in hockey? Shane misses if badly.

On the third day of this, Ilya comes to Shane’s new office and sits in bed.

“Sweetheart.”

“I’m at work, Ilya.”

“You’re in bed.”

Shane finishes typing his email before turning to glare at Ilya.

Shane immediately softens when he sees Ilya’s empathetic blue eyes, guilt rising in his chest. He doesn’t want Ilya to ever think Shane regrets coming out. He did what he had to do, and Shane still believes it was the right choice… At least, intellectually he does.

“Can you close the laptop for a minute?”

Shane does with great reluctance.

“You will not like this, but I will say it anyway.”

“I’ve kind of had enough of things I don’t want to hear,” Shane says, and his joke comes off strained.

Ilya’s smile is grim, braced. Jesus Fucking Christ, what other terrible thing could he possibly bring to this mess?

“I think you should go to therapy.”

The anguish Shane feels is not at all proportional to the words.

“Fuck right off.” He thought Ilya understood him. Ilya, who told Hayden his emotional IQ was just fine and defended that Shane had his own way of coping, is coming after him like all the rest of the people in Shane’s life who think he’s emotionally insufficient.

Ilya is unbothered. “I didn't like when someone told me this either.”

“Yeah that’s not the same.”

Ilya’s situation is different, of course. He has a medical condition. A fucking brain wrecking disease that literally trims years of his precious lifespan off because he feels that sad.

“Did you lie the whole time about me not needing therapy? You think I have some, some, some fucking personality disorder?” Shane asks, teeth tight.

“No, Sweetheart, I think you are fine normally. You use your books, meditate. Make yourself better— but this is not just a life event. This is serious medical thing. Galina said—”

Wow, he really doesn’t need her in the room with them. Shane has enough issues with Svetlana’s presence in their marriage.

“Why do I care about what Galina said?” Shane asks, blunt and low. “Galina probably told you to leave me.”

“Now you hate therapy so much you don’t like that I go to?” Ilya demands.

Not at all. He loves that Ilya has done something to help his brain. Medication. Routines. But also—

“Did she? Tell you to leave me?”

In the past two weeks, since the fallout, Ilya had gone to roof often to make calls which lasted fifty minutes flat, something that could only mean therapy. And Shane wonders incessantly what that therapist might say. How she could tell Ilya that he deserved more than Shane, how many ways there were to say Shane was not enough.

“No. Galina doesn’t tell me what to do— she helps me process. She said maybe professional therapy is what you need for such high stress.” Ilya’s mouth wretches. “Because I cannot help—”

“You do help,” Shane protests.

Ilya shakes his head. “Because I cannot help. And I cannot put you back in the closet until you are ready—”

“Ilya. Fuck. Don’t say that.” Fucking fuck this is awful. “Look. I wanted to come out, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t fucking suck. The most. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“All of you has to do with me. And I need you to get help. For me.”

Shane feels a buzz of terrible things all fighting for space in his chest. Failure for hiding his issues from Ilya at the top of the pile. Betrayal and paranoia circling his spine somewhere. Mostly, Ilya’s face, so plainly pleading makes Shane try to be understood.

“Ilya, it’s just a rough patch.”

 “I am telling you as your fiancé who loves you that you had a medical issue. You had panic attack—”

“It was nothing. A fucking… little moment,” Shane says. “Caffeine and stress.”

“Episode,” Ilya compromises, in that way which means he compromises nothing.

“It wasn’t anything!”

“Okay, but maybe someone can help you with that nothing. I don’t want it to happen again. You were barely fucking breathing, Shane!”

It could happen again? Shane feels his chest squeeze at the very thought and he shuts his eyes, trying to ignore even the idea of that lung crushing bullshit. It feels familiar actually, the edges of it coming every time he thinks about going to work in person or coming out everywhere. Goddamnit.

Ilya squeezes his shoulders, the pressure is strong, arresting. Shane takes a deep breath.

“I don’t need therapy. I need time.” Shane needs a lot more than that, actually. He needs to be commissioner. For Halsted to have a serious poisoning accident, the way Ilya used to joke a long time ago. For Ilya to stop worrying for him/pitying him/hating him, and love Shane as an equal again.

Ilya cups Shane’s cheek, and the scrape of his three-day stubble against Ilya’s hand startles Shane a little. He didn’t notice that he hadn’t shaved.

Shane swallows. “It’s not like I don’t want help. I just. I can’t sit there with some guy and tell him all my— the shit in my head. I can barely do that with you and I only say half of what I really think.”

Ilya looks a little wounded by that, but whatever. He wouldn’t like half the things Shane has rolling around in his mind, especially lately. Shane doesn’t like them either.

“I’m sorry, but no,” Shane says. He’s said all he’s going to say, and he points to his laptop. “Can you… I have to finish this.”

Ilya kisses Shane, a quavering thing, as he gets out of bed, leaving Shane and Anya to the long four hours remaining in his workday.

On Friday, Shane’s stubble is itchy and too long. He scratches at it as he scans through documents regarding the talks for the Union’s CBAs. Anya’s tail wavers slowly back and forth on the pillow. Every now and then she finds a new body part of hers to sniff and lick incessantly. She’s good company, relative to Shane’s coworkers. He’s ignoring every attempt to message or have a meeting when it isn’t purely work focused, and even when it is, Shane leaves the moment he’s said his piece on the issue.

Ilya enters the bedroom. Shane ignores him. Probably food or a shake. Shane never used to eat in bed, but he’s surprised to find it doesn’t bother him as much as he thought.

“Shane.”

Shane glances up. Ilya’s hands are empty. This time he has the look of a coach with a strategy in hand. It makes Shane’s defenses rise by habit.

“I want you to meet someone.”

“Who… Oh, Ilya, no. Not a fucking therapist.”

“Yes—”

“Ilya.” Shane drives his palms into his eyes. He’s so fucking tired of this. “This already… It’s not great. The last thing I want to do is something that’s just going to make me feel like shit.”

He expects to see something hurt, or that quiet sad look he wears so well. Instead, Ilya’s lip is curled, his eyes tight and narrow.

“Yes, you will feel like shit,” Ilya says, like a promise. And wow, how is that supposed to make Shane want to go. Ilya scoffs, “You never felt like shit building muscle or fucking bag skates or—”

“Ilya.”

“Fucking stupid interviews that are so boring and so rude and obnoxious in your face.”

“It’s fucking different. This is my brain.”

“Yes, and you need fucking help with it.”

Shane recoils. Rude asshole.

“Will be hard, will build muscle in the brain.”

“No,” Shane says, because it’s his life. Even if it’s shit, it’s still his. Everything else he’s lost, the last thing he’s going to surrender is the right to cope with it how he chooses. He doesn’t have to submit to total humiliation from a doctor on top of the already existing pile of professional and personal failure.

“You will go,” Ilya says and Shane riles up.

“Ilya, fuck off—

“I won’t let us to destroy you!”

Destroy. That’s unflattering. Drives a nail into Shane because he isn’t trying to make Ilya feel this way. Like his presence in Shane’s life is to blame for any of this. Shane feels angry, then embarrassingly inept. What has he done aside from stew in bed? A humiliating feeling rises in his body, a sudden awareness of how unkempt and unshaven he is. Still in need of a shower.

Yet, on the other hand. Shane feels his stress rising at the thought of what some fucking asshole therapist could decide about Shane. Controlling. Fucking autistic. Difficult to love.

Shane just needs time. But Ilya is begging him now for this stupidly hard thing and it makes Shane feel helpless.

“I don’t want him to… I can’t handle if this guy is…” Shane can’t even find the words for how powerless a mental health doctor makes him feel.

Ilya takes it, seeing that centimeter of ground given and reaching with greedy hands to snag the rest of it. He crawls into bed, tucking his legs under him to invade Shane’s space.

“You won’t. I promise. He's a good guy. Someone very good I trust. You can have a preliminary meeting and see if you like. If no, we will find you something else. I will buy you a hundred self-help books and we’ll read them all together, make a thousand notes and highlight every passage, just please. Please try this.”

Shane frowns, but what can he do in the face of Ilya’s desperation.

“Only one meeting?”

“Only one.” Ilya swears.

“Fine. Who is it?”

For some reason, despite Ilya telling him (multiple times even when Shane voiced disbelief), it still manages to be a shock when Ryan Price’s large, square body enters the coffee shop. He holds the door open with his huge arm to let a few teenagers spill outside, lavender lattes in hand.

Shane stands, but he doesn’t need to, Price clearly sees him. Instead of greeting Shane, Price gestures awkwardly to the café counter where he queues in line for his turn and orders, eyes flicking to Shane and shrugging haplessly. Shane sits back down, miffed. Jesus, what an awkward guy. Shane clicks through a few emails, answering messages on his phone. Fine by him. A minute has passed since their appointed start time, and Shane really only plans to give Price an hour.

One hour, then he can come home, tell Ilya and anyone else who regularly asks in his life that he tried therapy and it isn’t for him. Even if it’s apparently trying therapy with Ryan Price.

When exactly did he get to university? When did he quit playing, actually? Shane can’t remember. Shane never really knew Price well, just hearsay from other players who shared a line with him. The times Shane and Price squared off on the ice are only minimally helpful. Shane’s impression was wariness, but generally being unimpressed with his overall stats, though it could have had to do with how the teams used him. Shane has a niggling feeling that he’s forgotten something about Price, but he feels that way about most players he meets these days; Shane’s career was a long one.

“Hi.” Price’s crooked nose is ruddy, matching the close shorn ginger buzz, hairline faintly starting to recede. His beard is trimmed to a neat edge around his face, more kempt than any playoff beard Shane ever saw. Price sits down, making the chair look rather tiny.

“Price,” Shane says. Sticks his hand out. Price juggles his drink for a moment before returning the gesture. “Thanks for coming to see me.” A fucking lie, but manners are manners.

“It’s no problem.”

“You’re in New York now?”

Price shakes his head. “Toronto is pretty close to NYC, public transitwise.”

…Shane isn’t sure that it is. Public transit? He took a train?

“You came all the way down here to talk to me?”

“And to sightsee.”

“Right.”

“It’s pretty well connected. Only three trains… Rozanov paid for the tickets.”

Shane feels so put-off from this whole thing. He knows that Ilya and Price were on the same team once, but what the hell is Ilya actually intending with this? And why the hell did Price take several fucking trains to get coffee with Shane for a, now, 57 minute conversation?

Ilya said his messages with Price were discreet, but Shane shifts through discomfort and suspicion anyway.

“Did he… What did Ilya tell you?”

Price blinks. “Nothing. Just that you really needed to talk to someone. Since I used to play hockey and I have a license to counsel, I’m probably not such a bad guy.”

Price has an honest, broad face. Shane can really only believe him.

“It’s an introductory meeting, so you can ask anything you like,” Price says.

The coffee shop is pretty quiet, more to-go orders than anything else. It’s not like they’re discussing anything bad, just a preliminary talk to see how they mesh. Still, Shane lowers his voice a little.

“So now… you’re a therapist?”

“Yeah. Mostly I specialize in child therapy.”

Oh great. Shane feels even better about this and how Ilyas sees him. Price reddens a little, spreading to his red beard and hiding in the well-oiled roots. He awkwardly clears his throat.

“That’s my main focus, but I also do anxiety, um, athlete counseling and some LGBTQIA stuff.”

Oh. That last one makes Shane’s finger twitch. Surprising from the former enforcer, but it probably widens his client base. Was Price maybe…

Wishful thinking perhaps.

“I don’t have anxiety.”

“Good to know.” Sincere enough.

Shane takes a sip of his drink, and Price mirrors it. Shane drums his fingers on the table, vaguely irritated by Price’s implacability. Shane remembers playing against him, and it was like having a particularly onery bear on the ice. The coach always put a couple bigger guys with Shane, just to be sure the opposing team didn’t try to break the Metro’s top player and cash cow. With Ryan Price on Boston’s line… well, if Shane could rip his eyes from Ilya, he thinks he’d hardly be more afraid of anyone on the ice. Price was known for a streak of concussion causing fights with six games in a row as the final count. Five players out for weeks of play, one out of a year. Shit like that happened when Shane was trying to score, put pucks in net, play a fucking game.

Price is certainly part of why Shane has long wanted to rid hockey of the fighting. Enforcers are old business. A relic of a version of the game long past considering the speedy play style preferred today.

Funny that this brick of a man is who Ilya promised Shane would feel comfortable with.

To be fair, all that toughness seems distant and abstract in the face of his calm eyes and soft sweater pulled over an oxford. He’s steady, sure, but also so fucking awkward and slow in some senses it’s almost comical, and Shane’s a bit awkward himself. Price is quite built but not aggressively so. When he shifts in the chair, there’s a faint wince. A bad hip.

Familiar. Price is familiar more than anything else. An ex-jock. Shane does understand that.

Ilya is right that Shane isn’t mentally intimidated by an unimpressive, ex-hockey player Ryan Price the way he might’ve been with some degree and diagnosis wielding stranger, but that doesn’t mean therapy is a good, workable idea. It’s only been ten minutes, but Shane feels that uncomfortable apology already welling in his chest.

“I’m sorry, but—”

“Is there a gym nearby?” Price asks.

There is a gym. In New York, there always is.

Stupid as this may be, Shane has thirty minutes left of this therapy bullshit. And frankly, he would really like to be at the gym instead.

Shane and Price pay for a single day pass and, after brief discussion, rent a volleyball. Shane strips his suit jacket, Price awkwardly wiggles out of his sweater. They look a little silly, pulling their socks and leather shoes off, but Shane has seen businessmen in suits on ellipticals before. New York is just that place, and Shane and Price are former professional athletes. They’d play in diving suits as long as it means someone handed them a fucking ball and an objective.

They settle on a little one v one volleyball, with the rule of passing three times before attempting a self-set and spike.

Shane hasn’t played volleyball since high school. He thinks maybe he played at one team barbeque, but it was so long ago Shane can’t recall who was on his team, (though he suspects they won). Price shows Shane the different hand positions for receiving with cupped hands, the spread fingertips to set.

Shane heads to the other side of the net.

Price’s cupped hands send the ball over to Shane’s side. Shane squats, feeling tension over the seat of his slacks, but the seams hold. He catches it on his forearms, sending it up in the air. He unfortunately triple taps it to get it over to Price’s side and winces.

“My bad.”

“You’re good. Reset.”

Price does and they continue, Shane’s mind already tuning his arms to receive gentler, to get more control of the ball. They manage three exchanges before Price hits the ball out.

It’s nice moving. Nice competing, even if it’s at a sport Shane is actually pretty bad at. Price is just as bad. Despite his height, he’s slower than Shane, so the contention for second worst is good. For a handful of rounds, there are no words aside from the occasional. Nice, good ball, reset. A fuck yeah from Shane after he caught Price’s heavy spike and powered it so hard over the net it caught Price’s forearm and went out.

After the inactivity of the past few days, Shane’s body is singing with the exertion, faint sweat over his body.

“If therapy was like this, I’d go all the time,” Shane says.

Price laughs. “Yeah. This is easier.”

Bump. Bump. Bump. Price sends a tough ball over the net, dropping just past the net and Shane works hard, crouches low, and follows it up with a spike.

Point Shane.

“I’m sorry Ilya called you all the way down here.” Shane waves his stinging hand, taking a deep breath after the quick movement.

“It’s cool. Like I said, sightseeing. And if it sets his mind at ease…”

“He’s such a fucking worrier.”

“Yeah,” Price smiles. “Roz is a good guy like that.”

“Sort of. Yeah.” Well, Shane has to agree with Price beaming like that. And it is true… it’s just. “He’s a stubborn asshole too.”

“Little bit of both, maybe,” Price says, in a frankly terrible Russian accent. It startles a laugh from Shane and he shakes his head.

“He thinks I need therapy because… I had this thing.”

Price doesn’t pry, just rolls the ball on the cradle of his forearms.

“I felt like I couldn’t breathe and my heart.” Shane makes a clenching, releases it. “Fucking stupid, but I kinda thought I was dying.”

“Do you think it was a panic attack?” Price asks, and at least he fucking asks instead of telling Shane, like Ilya.

“No. It wasn’t like… I wasn’t cracking up because of some pressure. I can hack it. I just… got caught up in my head for a moment.”

Price makes a soft hum, says, “Still. Sounds horrifying.”

Yes, that is the word. No panic attack, but still horrifying. Shane’s body turning on him so completely, cutting off oxygen and blood. Killing itself because… because of stress?

“Yeah, it was.”

“So, Roz wants to help you understand why, so you can stop it from happening again.”

Shane nods tightly. When Price says that, it sounds so clearly rational. How else could Ilya react, honestly? Shane has another apology for his fiancé, he guesses. Shane grimaces, gestures for the ball and Price sends it over.

“It’s not that I don’t want to know.” Somewhat true. Shane would rather forget it happened if he’s honest because it has to do with coming out and Shane has to do that now regardless of being ready. He’s halfway out, and has to finish the job and, yeah, it really sucks. Coming out doesn’t make him feel good at all and he can’t say that to Ilya, the love of his fucking life. Shane has really pushed himself out of one corner and into another. He takes a deep breath. Not the point.

“I don’t think… Therapy is not—”

Shane makes an irritated sound, does a flat handed serve that sends the ball far out of bounds.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I just. I can’t talk about things. I don’t know why. It’s not easy. I’m not like Ilya who…” Shane trails off.

“Heart on his sleeve?” Price supplies.

“I can’t be like that, even when I try. Even to people I’m close to.”

Shane clamps his mouth shut, because how pathetic is that? How pitiful to not even be open with Ilya, his own fucking heart because of some neurotic…

Price doesn’t say anything like that.

“That’s got to be frustrating.”

Relief swells Shane, because yes, that’s it exactly, and the empathy is such a balm. Shane works a wry smile out, jokes,

“Yeah. I’m 49, now. Shouldn’t I have this figured out by now?”

Price tugged on his ear. “You know, my mother called me. She told me she just discovered that one of her ears is two centimeters higher than the other.” He makes a gesture to show the height difference. “She’s 88.”

Shane laughs despite himself. “Better late than never, I guess.”

Price nods, smiles. He’s a good guy, like Ilya said, but then comes the guilt. It still doesn’t mean this therapy thing with Price will work. The central point remains true—Shane still can’t say anything real. Before he can apologize, Price says,

“I wonder… if it might be helpful for you to listen instead of talk.”

Shane stares, wondering what fucking therapy book that came from. This is not like any therapy he ever heard about. Is Price going to talk instead??

“You might have to talk a little. Your name, what you’re working on,” Price amends, sheepish, “But if you’re in group therapy, you don’t have to talk unless you want to. Other people are happy to fill the space.”

Group therapy. Other people talking about their problems. The things that make their breath catch, their heart squeeze, the hours in bed long and ominous at night… It certainly intrigues Shane, but they’d be normal people. Maybe even fans of his. The idea of any Shane Hollander fan knowing about his fucking collapse in the office is unfathomably awful.

Price seems to preempt before Shane can make another thinly veiled excuse at a no.

“I have a former pro athlete’s group— sort of an intensive. Athletes are intense about everything, even therapy, it turns out. We meet three times a week for an hour online. It might be helpful to hear what other people are going through.”

Price collects the ball. He looks unbothered by how graceless he is in trotting over and bending his bulk to get it. He’s so much gentler and… weirdly empathetic than Shane ever suspected of him. Price goes to his crumpled sweater where his phone nestles and asks for Shane’s phone number to text the information. His hands are cracked and scarred. A fighter’s hands, yet a gentle touch against Shane’s when he takes the phone back.

Price crawls back into the sweater and waves the phone at Shane. “Sent. It’s just something to think about.”

“Yeah, thank you.” Shane will be thinking about it, for sure.

Price collects the ball, offering to return it to the desk. He apologizes to Shane for leaving, says they’re only in town for a day and he has a few other sights to see.

Shane apologizes for taking up his time, thanks him, apologizes one more time just to be sure all the bases are covered and because Price is Canadian and appreciates a proper conversation. Halfway out the door, Shane can’t help but ask;

“You really came all the way over just because Ilya asked you?”

Price nods, hovering in the automatic door. “Yeah. Rozanov is a good guy.”

“There’s a lot of good guys in hockey,” Shane says, playing the devil’s advocate. Because of course Shane thinks Ilya’s a superior sort, but how the hell did Price see past his persona?

“Everyone needs advice every now and then. Roz gave it to me when I really needed it.”

Price shrugs, like it’s worth almost 24 hours of transit for an out of the blue request. Just so Shane can talk to someone who he isn’t intimidated by.

Ilya once asked Shane, Really. Really, what is your problem with fighting in hockey? Explain it to me. Make me understand why you hate our sport so much.

Shane considered his answer. Shane had a fight when he was in U15. A kid, Smith, on the circuit who always seemed to have it out for Shane for just being better. He hid it in racism, slamming Shane as hard as he could into the boards, calling it the Asian tax, or stir-frying him. Shane bored past that smokescreen to the simple, desperate gap between their skill and how fucking imposter-like Shane made Smith feel.

This was an effect Shane was familiar with, catching it in the eyes of opponents and teammates all through growing up. It fueled him. Drove him harder. Fed his ego.

You’re right to abominate me because I actually am this good.

The shitty racist things were annoying, but Shane knew it was because he was better than Smith, and it was easy to let them slide off, like extra vicious chirps, doses of poison he’d inoculated himself against. (What was the other option? Kick a fit and get thrown out or told he wasn’t geling? There had never been another option.)

And it did make Shane want to get into the MLH, to hopefully give kids that looked like him a better choice. A choice, at least.

But back then, a reset whistle was called on a face off, and Shane straightened, relaxed his grip, and Smith saw Shane’s mom’s name on the stick and… Shane doesn’t even remember what Smith said, but it was the kind of luck stupid people have for stumbling on the exact wrong thing.

Shane threw his gloves off before he could even think. Small fists shooting out and nailing Smith hard in the cheek, and it was incredible, the power in his hands. The rest of his teammates got into it, had Shane’s back because he was their star fucking center, Shane was one of them and they’d pummel the other side for him. Shane’s team tackled the other players, dragged them off their skates as they wrestled. God, but it felt just and thrilling putting Smith down, a wave of affirmation growing with every teammate joining the fray, grappling each other down to the ice.

Smith scrabbled, keeping Shane at arm’s length, and knocked Shane’s helmet off. Shane hit him again before a ref shoved them apart too roughly, and they both fell. Shane curled his head up, practiced at falling, only getting a light knock to his head as he crashed to the ice.

“Holy shit, Hollander.”

Shane cracked an eye, bewildered by the fear he saw on the ref’s face, on his teammates’ faces. Shane craned his head back and blanched. Scant centimeters above was the sharp bottom of a blade from a different knocked over player.

Shane shot back, panted for a moment on the ice, a chill sinking in that had nothing to do with the cold.

If Shane had fallen a little up, his skull would have cracked on the blade's nose, good falling technique or not.

He swallowed, scrabbling up to his feet and looking at Smith still laid out on the ice. He looked humiliated, close to tears. He looked like he abominated Shane.

That heady pleasure of the fight drained fast from Shane, swirled with Smith’s look and the phantom, imaginary ache of a skate in his head.

Shane threw up on the ice.

Shane's mom came to pick him up and he met eyes with Smith and his mother in the parking lot. Smith glared, but his eyes stuck on Shane’s mom, on the face attached to the name on Shane’s hockey stick. Smith looked sick and bad too, for what little it did.

Shane drove back in silence. His mother tried to pry things out of him, about the fight, about how it was unlike him, if the fall was okay it looked a little rough from the stand. If he threw up, he wasn’t allowed on the ice for at least a week, it could signal a concussion. She was already scheduling a doctor’s appointment to get a second opinion on the severity of his bump, and also, for the nth time, what had Shane been thinking?

Shane, sitting in the passenger seat, was thinking about the fact that Smith probably didn’t have the skill to go pro. He might go to the ALH, if he was lucky. Shane had attacked him, and by all logic it was right to for the shit he said, because talk shit, eat shit was the rule in hockey. But it wasn’t only the injustice that drove Shane. He didn’t realize until he started wailing on him how much pleasure kicking his ass gave Shane. How powerful he felt.

Yes, fighting was about protecting your own, yourself, about sheer audience spectacle, but also, Shane realized it was about ego. Taking people down pegs, putting them lower. And Shane had almost cut short his career (his life?) to take down someone who would never be anyone.

After that, Shane answered any comments about his skill with humility and non-answers. Forming the perfect polite Canadian veneer. He’d always said the right things, but he focused on actually thinking through the words, embodying them in how he played. All that churning teenage arrogance was tempered (maybe not that far under the surface) but tamed from the overflow he’d been wrestling with ever since he learned he was just as good as he thought, better than anyone ever expected.

Shane took pleasure in his skill quietly, in the right group setting. He’d promised himself he’d never let ego kill him, the way he’d seen some pretty good players end their careers. Shane Hollander was too smart for that.  

Scott Hunter had been one of the few to drag a fight out of Shane. Shane was so afraid of the chirp that his fists raised, as if he could beat the words back into his mouth. Hunter looked at Shane, and Shane knew he was the one abominating Hunter for knowing more than Shane could stand.

Ego did almost get the best of him, when he got traded to the Ottawa Centaurs, and Shane sat in a loser’s locker room to lace up for his first practice. He stared at numb fingers and thought, I can’t fucking do this.

Training was appalling. Shane skated at three-quarters speed and still felt like he was outstripping his wings. The group was too social, losers in personality who cheered about getting to play pro at all. Shane sometimes thought the Metros shooting him behind the barn when he got too old was preferable to putting him out to pasture in fucking Ottawa where they were on their third 'rebuild' in ten years.

But then Shane had his first game, and he saw his mom and dad in the stands. Mom was standing before the face off even happened and he could hear her telling him to wreck their shit! Give ‘em hell, Shane… he doesn’t know. He wanted to give her a good show, a good game, and that drive was more powerful than any humiliation of wearing an ugly purple and green uniform. Of falling from the highest mountain to mediocrity.

The Centaurs lost, but Shane had scored twice with his line. His team was looking at him warmly, and with just an edge of hunger to maybe score themselves. And Shane thought, I am such an idiot. It’s a game. Play the game, Shane and love it.

And maybe that attitude helped, because in their second year, Shane led the rebuilt team to the first cup in almost forty years.

And Shane promised himself, again, not to let ego get in the way of life.

He answered Ilya, wouldn't you rather play hockey than box? There's nothing anyone needs to prove with fists. Ilya laughed. He didn't get it, not really, but Shane charmed him in that way he tended to when he wasn't trying.

Shane returns home and finds Ilya on the couch, whipping off the reading glasses he still pretends he doesn’t use. Anya yaps once and bustles over to Shane. Shane pats her head and then sinks next to Ilya.

“Hi.” Ilya kisses Shane’s neck, nose lingering a moment. “Mmm we are sweaty, huh?”

“We played a little volleyball. If you can call it that.” Shane just eked out a win, not that they were keeping track of points verbally. “Ilya you didn’t have to call Price down from a whole country over to talk to me.”

“Surprised me he came so fast.” Ilya shrugs. “He’s a good guy, I guess. Did it help?”

Shane hates to say, but a little. “I don’t think I’m up for one-on-one therapy… but he mentioned there’s a therapy group with other former athletes.”

Ilya looks intrigued. “I have never done group therapy. Athletes would be fun. Must have so many, um, complexities. Complexes,” he corrects himself. “Will you go?”

The group meets at 11 about every other day, but Shane could just take his lunch break earlier, fit it in. The chance to have therapy with other athletes… and Shane doesn’t have to talk. It’s about the best Shane can hope for. And at least it’s something to offer Ilya. A sign he’s working on something, even if he is just listening like Price says. He wonders how much that can really help. It’s not like Shane talks that much to begin with. It’s kind of the problem, ironically.

“I don’t know.” Shane leans his face into Ilya’s curls, hiding his uncertainty. “It’s pretty embarrassing to see the deputy commissioner of MLH there, right?”

“Ah, don’t worry, it’s mutual destruction. Everyone has nuclear warheads because you all know each other’s daddy issues and trauma.”

“Jesus fuck, Ilya. You spent too much time in America.”

“Mm, yes, and I appreciate you dragging me back here, to the East Coast, best coast. The pizza is not as good in Canada.”

Shane doesn’t know how true that is, that Ilya is happy to be trapped in NYC with Shane. Ilya’s tired face tilts up and smiles, but Shane feels his eyes drifting to the ceiling. Shane should get up and shower, rinse this off and do some research about group therapy so he can make an informed decision.

“What advice did you give Price?”

“Hm?”

“Price said you gave him good advice once.”

Ilya squints like he honestly has no fucking clue what he did to earn the right to summon Price all the way here. Maybe that says something about the sort of person Ilya is. Shane can see Ilya sorting through the years and the captaining, the casual support thrown out.

“The time on the airplane? We watched Fast and Furious once?” Ilya shakes his head, “That’s not it,” which Shane hopes is obvious. Ilya mutters in Russian. “Oh. Oh! Yes, I think maybe I remember. Ugh, rotten time. We were at a funeral. You know Duncan Harvey?”

“No,” Shane answers, honestly.

“He was a player who died. Overdose. Price and I were the only ones to show up from whole fucking MLH they were so ashamed of him. And Price looks terrible the whole time. Like he was staring at his own grave. I’m not joking, it was so serious. And yes, it was depressing funeral, only us there, but still…” Ilya gives a Slavic shrug. “Felt personal.”

Shane shivers a little. He is sick of graveyards and ghosts.

“We were talking about his team I think, and he said… no this is me. I said that he looked miserable playing hockey. He said of course, and I tell him, that is stupid. If he hates it, why should he do it? I told him that he has to take happiness and hold it tight.”

Ilya’s eyes glance away for a moment. Shane selfishly wonders if Ilya could have been thinking of Shane then, their happiness that slipped through his fingers. That wasn’t held tightly enough. Would Ilya have looked bitter and nostalgic at that funeral, beneath his encouraging words, or is Shane wishing too hard?

Shane draws his attention back to the present, turning over the exchange in his hands.

“Is that when he quit?” Shane asks. He knew Price retired before his time, but he can’t recall when.

Ilya nods, shrugs, as if only now realizing it. “Hm. I guess it was.”

Price did look much happier than the solemn slab of brick Shane used to meet on the ice. He always struck Shane as the kind of player who did it for the money, or who was so emotionally locked away their game face was frozen like ice. Now, Price was like his beard, strong but oddly soft looking. Put together and tidy. Gentle and reflective.

Good for him. But as for Shane…

He withdraws from Ilya’s touch. Ilya’s eyes have already snapped back to Shane, having felt the tension bunching Shane’s waist under his hands.

“I’m not quitting,” Shane says, breath tight in his chest. If this is Ilya trying to massage that, he can’t even entertain it.

“I don’t expect that. Unless you want…”

“I don’t.”

Ilya shrugs his shoulders, as if he can shift the tension off of them. He’s trying so hard and somehow it makes it worse.

Shane gets off the couch to shower. He strips in the bathroom, feeling like a fool for ruining a sweet moment again. Crumpling up Ilya’s generosity in favor of… unproven suspicion. Ilya has never asked Shane to quit or come home early. Not even to refuse the commissionership. Even with Shane’s… non-thing/pseudo-episode, he did not leverage that as a reason for Shane to stop, take a break, give up, move on.

Glancing at the mirror, seeing Shane’s haunted face and scraggly facial hair a memory clicks— not about him, but about Price. Rumours midseason, Basket case. Price was a spastic. So crazy he thought he was having a heart attack.

Shane swallows, hand rising to his breast bone where his pulse thuds, unsteady.

The man in the mirror could fit some of those words. He does not look well. Sleepless, edgy, unkepmt, and numb. It’s humbling in a paralyzing way. No wonder Ilya is worried if this is what he sees. Shane swallows hard and breathes. God but being honest never gets easier.

Ilya is right to be worried.

When he concedes that, Shane can admit that maybe he’s worried too, about himself. About not being able to get out of bed or wanting to go for a run. Caring so little about maintaining a good weight through what he eats, or for doing his job well. Unable to settle between a pathetic unworthy feeling of love for Ilya and intense pangs of loathing. Abominating the man he loves. This isn’t him. That perturbed stranger in front of him isn’t him.

And maybe Shane is shit scared about what’s happening inside him, without his consent or control. And if there is a way to help that—

Shane sits, naked, on the toilet seat and opens Ryan Price’s message and signs up. When he gets out of the shower, he finds a Zoom invite for tomorrow.

Shane grimaces, but determinedly marks his attendance anyways.

Ilya is right about one thing; Shane has to do something. Even if it makes him look pathetic and entirely stupid in the process.

Ilya and Shane have dinner. Awkward, but certainly not the worst meal they’ve shared lately. Shane doesn’t like this dining table. Is thinking of replacing it with something better, less square, more rounded corners, with leaves to add or detract length, something more fitting for both of them and less… overall fucking awful.

Shane hasn’t slept much lately. An effect of spending all day in bed, probably. So he plans to be up for some hours still, even after Ilya sets his book aside and drifts off. Shane skims a few articles on group therapy, noting about sharing the air and intent and impact and I statements. Luckily, Shane has been subject to so many workplace training modules that he feels more comfortable with this than he might if he was doing it fresh after hockey.

Shane’s only worry is that the other athletes in the group might not be of his caliber. He doesn’t know how to explain. Just that he doesn’t want to be Shane Hollander. Even though he knows he’s always that, that he earned that, he just… he doesn’t know.

Shane decides to look up Price’s socials to see the kind of company he keeps as a clue for who might be in group. Price isn’t active, and almost all his posts are reposts of some musician named Fabian. Shane doesn’t keep up with music, but the name is familiar. Maybe someone Rose collaborated once for a movie soundtrack?

Shane blinks when he sees one of Price’s arms wrapped around a lithe, long-haired man with popping purple eyeshadow and cheek highlights. Matching rings. Holy shit. Holy shit. His fucking vibe was right.

He shoves his phone into Ilya’s face.

“Did you know Price is gay?”

Ilya blinks at the picture. Smiles. “Gaydar.” He taps his forehead and winks. “Good fit right? Must be his ‘something good.’”

“Do you think he knows about us?” Shane asks. How embarrassing that last meeting would be if so. It’s already pretty embarrassing considering the shit Shane said about panic attacks. Price had been so steady headed about it, regardless.

“I didn't tell him. But either way, he is the right man to have therapy with, no?” Ilya turns back to his gritty Russian novel, as if setting up Shane with an unintimidating, gay, ex-hockey therapist was a kindness that deserved no attention. And this is why someone would cross country borders for him the moment he asked, Shane figures.

Shane stares at Ilya for a long time. Then at the dimming picture on his phone, screen timing out.

Ilya turns off the light and Shane feigns sleep while his mind turns and turns.

It’s weird.

Hunter. Price. Rozanov. Hollander.

He has that weird feeling again. An unsettling lightness in his spine that there was something going on his whole life he was unaware of. A moment missed. So much body weight, kilograms and pounds to tip the damn boat…

Shane wears a button up for the group therapy session on Saturday. Ilya leaves the house for the appointment to give Shane space. He’s been busy with getting used to Columbia, the simple facts (where everything is) to the complex ones (injuries, histories, weights and nutrition) the delicate bits (sensitivities, baggage, overlarge personalities). It’s been nice for Shane, nice that Ilya isn’t focusing all of his considerable care on just Shane right now. It’s a pressure he isn’t sure he could take when he’s not sure group therapy will stick.

Shane rubs at his face. He really needs to shave. It’s been about a week now and the black scruff is settling in on his neck and jaw coarsely with a couple patches. Shane’s camera is off. Maybe he can see who else is in there before revealing himself. To see if he really has anything in common with them. Price would understand about Shane leaving. He could text, cite a headache. Whatever.

He’s still worried about giving details that the deputy commissioner of the MHL is so weak he needs a fucking therapy group. Shane can see the headline already if this gets leaked. Forget deputy commissioner, Shane will be lucky if he still has a desk in the Montreal branch at the end of that smear campaign. He’s too fucking public to have flaws like this.

The room opens and Shane’s eyes flit over the screen, blanching a little. There are seven windows of people. He looks over names and faces, all familiar in the way all greatness is. Gold medal wearing, ring or belt wielding champions in their living rooms or offices in easy clothes with drinks by their side.

Shane unblocks his camera, and he is one of them.

“Hi everyone, a new member today but a familiar face maybe,” Price says.

Someone, a high scoring former soccer player, unmutes to say, “Small world at the top. Hi, Hollander.”

Shane has known that for a long time, but sitting here… yeah, it is a small world. He recognizes almost everyone here by virtue of sharing sponsors or magazine shoots, the Olympics or sheer domination of their field making them a household name. Two other people of color, which is nice. He expected it to be all White, if he's honest.

Shane sees McKenna Matthews there. She went to Sochi with him and earned a bronze in figure skating. They ate breakfast together once and shared low-calorie jams. Four years younger than him, she looks chic with a tight, square haircut and a grim look in her eyes.

It’s very different from how he remembers her, glinting and girlish through her routine. She flung her hands up in the air at the end, palms spread and bejeweled chest heaving as she stilled on the carved ice.

McKenna waves and Shane does too.

“I’d like it if we can get to know our new member a little, share names and maybe a little bit of why you’re here.”

Shane immediately feels his body tighten up, that paralyzing reluctance to talk about that shit coming to dance with his desire for things to go according to plan and purpose especially in social situations that are already tough. Both piledrive more stress onto his injured shoulder. Price said he didn’t have to talk much, but even this feels painful. Before Shane can turn his camera off and make an excuse, Price says,

“Sorry, let’s have some of our returning members go first. I’ll also introduce myself. My name is Ryan Price, he/him. I played professional hockey for eleven years. I won one cup before retiring. I like to run a group where you all have the most time to talk, so don’t mind if I’m quiet."

Shane forgot Price won a cup. Part of Ilya’s Cinderella run in 2014 as he turned his season around so spectacularly that they called him the Russian Terminator in the papers complete with cheesy “Hasta la vista, comrade,” headlines.

Then Price opens the floor. Shane thought he might call people, but they just… volunteer.

Unlike Shane, everyone else has no problem talking.  It’s eye-opening.

The other members go around, discussing issues in short statements that leave Shane’s mouth numb with surprise. Orthorexia. Insomnia. Difficulties adjusting to retirement. One tennis player says, “You know that whole sexual abuse scandal, that’s old news.” She scoffs, waving off one of the most notorious cases of coach/player underage abuse in recent memory. “Mostly I’m trying to get my life back on track now that it’s all over and that fucker’s in jail.”

How do they say these things? These absolutely inside thoughts? Horrible, private struggles— fucking years-long sexual abuse— right into the air where everyone in the group can hear. How do they say it without feeling like they have cut off a pound of flesh for nothing in return.

Everyone finishes their introductions and it’s Shane and McKenna. Shane is stunned, humbled and wordless. He politely gestures for McKenna, ladies first after all, and it buys Shane time to collect himself.

“I’m McKenna. I was a figure skater.  And I’m a trans man.” Shane feels a jolt of shock, and then self-consciousness, a weird self-centered flicker of concern that she— that McKenna might somehow know Shane is gay by virtue of being trans, which is stupid but…

McKenna lets that sink in. Shane wonders if McKenna’s attention flits to Shane’s box like Shane scans the others, evaluating every reaction for clues to their feelings.

“I’m not out yet, but please use he/him or my name in group. I’m here because I’m in a trans support group, but they really don’t understand the pressure of being an athlete.”

Several sounds of agreement go around the group, and even Shane finds himself nodding despite his shock. Who could understand the pressure, really, aside from an athlete themselves? The effort and sacrifice it takes to skate on Olympic ice changes a brain so permanently.

“Thank you everyone for sharing,” Ryan Price says. “Shane?”

Shane swallows. He feels out of his depth in a way he hasn’t since he joined the MLH office almost a decade ago. He’s playing on a field with equipment he is deeply unfamiliar with and he has a sinking feeling he’s about to fumble it badly.

“I’m Shane. Hollander.” His mouth feels dry. “I played hockey. I won a lot.” A few chuckles that Shane did not mean to elicit. Words don’t come. How the hell had McKenna said trans so easily? Should Shane do that too? I’m gay. How sad was it he couldn’t say even that simple truth after everyone else left so much on the table?

“I’m glad you’re joining us, Shane,” Price says after his rolling silence. “What’s one thing this group can provide for you?”

Shane grimaces at the question. What is he supposed to say support? An obvious answer, and one worth chirping to pieces.

It’s funny because he was worried that the group wouldn’t be on his level, but Shane is feeling seriously outclassed and out of place. He doesn’t have issues like the others do. Real issues that need help and intervention. Issues with diagnoses and names. Shane is just… difficult. And an asshole to those he loves sometimes. Going through a rough patch. Gay without a solution professionally. A bit of a wreck, but it’s nothing terminal The others are simply more in need of this.

He finds himself reaching for Ilya as he stitches together a stilted answer.

“I’m here because my… fiancé is worried about me.”

“Can you tell us a little about why they’re worried?” Price asks, and Shane tenses. He grapples with language, so useless and imprecise.

“I’ve been very stressed.” Price nods, and Shane goes on, “I’m mostly looking for a place to listen and… and reflect, I guess.”

“That’s a mentality I think we can all benefit from,” Price says, and Shane is relieved to see him moving the topic along, the attention off Shane. Price opens the floor and group therapy begins. Shane braces himself to really get into something heavy, but it’s very mundane.

“Dalton, last session you wanted to ask for the group for advice on finding a compromise with your wife about how to store your trophies. Did you want to start with that?”

Shane blinks.

Dalton easily begins, launching into an outraged story about his wife’s fit over the living room being overtaken by artifacts of his old successes and their ensuing fight over whether moving to a bigger house with two living rooms was worth it just for Dalton to wallow in past victories.

Shane’s tight posture eases bit by bit until he’s nestled against his pillow, fully immersed in a rather ridiculous story about a trophy collection that has almost destroyed this man’s marriage.

Shane’s bewilderment is tempered by the fact he understands a bit where Dalton is coming from— the difficult navigation between how much to respect and engage with a past no one else will let you forget, versus living in the present.

Ilya has little patience for his own trophies unless he’s dragging Shane’s nose in them, but Shane suspects that, growing up, Niko had a plenty large place to display his if he wanted to… Does Ilya even know where his three champion rings are? They aren’t in any of Shane’s safes. That’s a problem for later, maybe.

Other members chip in, some defending Dalton has a right to celebrate his hard work, others helpfully suggesting he trim down the amount of trophies, and a few people argue that moving house could hardly be bad if it meant everyone won.

Shane clicks away, careful not to show he’s changing windows. He finds the seamless shelves that press into the walls and pull out, a compromise to display the trophies part time maybe. Very elegant engineering, in Shane’s opinion. He has them installed in his Hawaiian property where the space is limited.

He returns to the group and hesitates. His suggestion feels patently stupid, but he pastes the link in the chat.

“Shane’s added a link to some…” Price pauses as the page loads. “Cherry wood shelves that pop out and in of the wall. That could be a good solution. Displaying part of the time, but not all the time.”

“Thanks, Shane,” Dalton says, as he said for everyone else. “I’m just worried that this is like, somehow not about the trophies at all, and I’ll waste all this money on bullshit and a second mortgage and she’ll still be mad.”

Others start to talk, but then Price speaks.

“Is there something she wants to have in the living room instead of your trophies?”

It’s a simple, incisive question, but the guilt that smacks over Dalton’s face is palpable.

“She wants more space for pictures and art from the grandkids,” he admits, reluctantly.

The whole group seems torn now, because that’s a world different than a wife hating his trophies.

Holy shit. Shane eyes Price who looks as calm as ever, letting himself blend into the background of the discussion. Turns out Price is still wrecking people’s shit like he did on the ice, now it’s for trying to lie to themselves. Shane rededicates himself to never talking because that was spooky to watch Dalton go from assured outrage to guilty childishness. Dalton got, as the phrase used to go, Price checked.

“I know. I know it sounds bad,” Dalton says after being taken to task by three members. “But these medals. They show my grandkids what they can aim for. That they can be winners too. Isn’t inspiring them more important than showing off their own faces and doodles?”

McKenna says, “Think about it as putting their accomplishments next to your own. It could inspire them to believe they can be up there one day, too.” McKenna continues, unflinching, “Also, honestly, I think it shows what you value more right now.”

Dalton frowns hard. His earlier ecstasy at being affirmed overridden by a lot of things he evidently did not want to hear and a gut punch from McKenna. Fucking brutal. Honest but… yeah. Shane was thinking it too. He just didn't realize this was a social situation where people got to be that honest, just as much as they were encouraging.

And just like that, the hour is over. Price is wrapping up, thanking everyone, and Shane logs off.

He has just done his first therapy appointment and he… didn’t have to say anything. It was with people he related to, topics he understood, and Shane doubted any of them could do anything to destroy Shane’s career considering how much of their own flesh they entrusted Shane with.

Shane takes a few minutes to reheat a lunch Ilya prepped, chicken and carrots lightly roasted to keep their snap.

Shane brings his laptop and eats while working, his mind still moving. He’s surprised by his own interest in the things that were said. Maybe that speaks to how deprived of like-minded, competitive athlete company he’s felt in the upper rings of the MLH, stuffed to the gills with useless bureaucrats. Sure, some used to dabble in hockey while in college, but they traded their skates for gold cufflinks and never looked back.

Ilya comes home, opens his mouth, but he stays quiet when he sees Shane’s laptop. Respecting his working hours.

Shane lowers his laptop screen himself, sheepish. “Hi.”

“Hi, Sweetheart, how was Group?”

Shane appreciates him calling it that over therapy.

How was it? It wasn’t bad, but Shane doesn’t know if it will help. The trophy thing was interesting, but he’s hardly grown as a person over it.

Still, Shane can witness other people having therapy with full safety without having to actually feel under the gun.

Shane feels the tension drain for a strange awe that Ilya always finds the right people, the right setting for Shane to poke a few toes in the water. He creates safety with such intent care.

“Good. Did you want lunch?” Shane hasn't cooked for Ilya in a long time, he's realizing.

“I can get it.” Ilya’s hip bumps against Shane in the chair as he comes around to reach into the fridge for something to nosh on.

“Hey, where are your three rings?”

For a moment Ilya glances down to his chest, to the shining gem of Svetlana, hand cupping, rubbing his empty pinky finger. Then the meaning clicks.

“Champion rings?”

“Yeah. You know my mom has all of mine.”

“My mama has one of mine.” Ilya smiles, and it’s big. Rare for discussions of his mother to have such joy. But Shane remembers that grin, spilling off his face, when he won that first trophy and hefted it over his head Mama! Blasting out of his mouth over the roar of the crowd. He must have placed it in the dirt around her grave.

“The other two?”

“One I buried with Svetlana. It was her cup.” He shrugs. “She predicted the whole thing, told me how we could win. I nudged the coach about one thing and poof.” Ilya holds his hands up. “Fucking crazy. She used to wear it as… the thing for scarves around necks?”

“Ascot ring.” How perfectly bold of her.

“Yes. Very silly, right?”

“And the third?”

“Three I win for me.” Ilya pulls out a cup of yogurt. “To see if I can really beat Shane Hollander.”

Shane has to laugh at that. Only one of two times they ever squared off in a final. LA versus Montreal and then later LA versus Ottawa.

“Pretty sure we’re tied on that count.”

“I won first.”

“I won the last.”

“Yes, I have been thinking. Maybe you are not so bad at hockey.”

Shane laughs. Such a fucking asshole.

“Will you keep going to group?” Ilya asks. His tone is neutral, but Shane can see how badly he hopes Shane will say yes. Honestly, Shane isn’t sure how much he’s meant to get out of other people’s problems, but if it makes Ilya worry less then…

“Yeah.”

Ilya kisses Shane, kisses him again.

“You should let me shave you before your next meeting.”

Shane shifts. Longing smacks him in the face. All he’s craved is Ilya’s gentle touch, but at the same time he finds himself shying away from it.

“No, that’s okay,” he says. "I don't mind."

Ilya blinks. He doesn’t understand. Unhappiness drifts over his face, but Shane doesn’t know why he said it either.

The next day at group, Price opens the floor, and Shane wishes he were the type of person who boldly shared, who could say, yeah, my fiancé wants to shave me after weeks of coldness but I don’t think I could bear the thought of intimacy without my fucking heart breaking. What’s up with that?

Shane isn’t that guy, though, so he sits and he listens, and time dissolves as someone speaks up, and their pain and their experience unravels in lines, shaped by questions and inquiry.

“Is it helping?” Ilya asks some days later, lying in bed at night. They're touching hands but little else.

They haven’t fucked in a long time, not even for Ilya's birthday which was a guilt-ridden and awful affair on both sides with Shane groping for a present and Ilya really not wanting anything from a Shane who was so deep in the tangle of his issues he was caught unprepared.This was yet another humiliation, and Shane knows Ilya's next birthday is going to be better because it simply can't be worse.

Ilya has tried since, made overtures, reached out with that particular touch to Shane’s hip, but Shane finds himself pulling away without being able to explain why. He knows it hurts Ilya. He doesn’t know how to say he wants Ilya to fuck him more than he wants to eat, but that desire feels wrong, somehow. Guilty and awful in his chest. The irony is maddening considering how not too long ago he would have done anything to get it back, to have this language that has always been there, steady and reliable when words and emotions only got tangled and complicated.

Shane’s heard Ilya masturbating in the bathroom, crept up to the door to press his ear as Ilya’s grunts shaped into the soft SH of Shane’s name.

Yesterday, he noticed Ilya wearing Shane’s ring again. Shane felt lushly thrilled, and then a sickening lurch. Shane had taken that strange, precious thing between them, all shining tiger’s eye, and twisted it into something so warped the reflection showed Ilya’s parents. Everything feels backwards between them, and Shane is terrified that Ilya is so used to taking this kind of treatment that he does not see what they’ve become. What Shane has made them.

In bed, not touching, Shane thinks about Ilya’s question. Is Group helping? He thinks about the soccer player with insomnia. He had what Price called a breakthrough, and what Shane would call a bad fucking day full of tears.

He finally told them the insomnia was from nightmares. What are the nightmares? Oh, just normal nightmares. Everyone has nightmares. Did you want to share one?

In the dream, the soccer player found himself on the field, running further and further with the ball, his first pro coach shouting from the lines, telling him to go faster and faster even as he started losing fingers, arms, teeth dropping out. Running and running and running as pieces of him sloughed off without him ever getting closer.

“Coach used to make me stay after practice, to run more. Said I needed the extra work because I missed the goal for the semifinal match in—” His face, dark and handsome crumpled. Tears busting free, “I don’t even remember. I don’t fucking remember which cup it was.”

Shane thinks of Theriault, all the ways he had of making Shane feel like the team failure was his. No matter Shane’s goals, his assists. He was never working hard enough.

He thinks about the MLH pushing him for representation, the way even his mother made him feel he had to do more sponsorships, more publicity, schedule stacked so full until weekends and off season was more of myth than reality.

He had made space for Ilya once, two weeks on a silent retreat but that had never coalesced. And after, he doubled down on his career.

At 49, work is still everything. Even now, when he scheduled Ilya and his honeymoon in Hawaii, he wondered plainly about what he would do with the time. Whether Ilya would understand him still answering emails (Ilya would, of course he would).

Shane likes to work, yes, absolutely, but he wonders if part of it is that coach's voice telling him he hasn’t done enough, can never do enough.

“Do you think I work too much?” Shane asks.

Ilya looks at him from the bed, pauses a long time. “Like the autism thing, this feels like a trick question.”

Shane feels a smile on his lips. “Come on.”

“I don’t know. I have always assumed this is part of you. Strong Hollander work ethic.”

“Yeah. I thought so too.” Shane pauses. “I think… maybe I’d like to do a weekend with you in the mountains somewhere. Without phones and all of that.”

Ilya looks startled, and the very fact makes Shane feel guilty. Then Ilya says, “So you do plan to murder me.”

“Ilya.”

“You played a very long game, but now you have the perfect way to isolate me in the woods with no one to help.” Ilya kisses Shane’s smile, and Shane can’t help but kiss him back. “I would love to be murdered in the woods by you. There is no other killer for me.”

Ilya stares at Shane, warm, no, heated. Shane swallows. He grabs a pillow, feigning readjusting himself for sleep as he breaks the moment between them like a snapped thread.

The first time Shane speaks is an accident. Anya is in his bed/office as usual. She tends to keep him company during the day, and Shane hates to say it, but she might like Shane more than Ilya at this point. Probably because he’s home pretty much always these days.

Usually Anya is well behaved, a bit of fluffy hair for Shane to pull through during Group or other work meetings, but today a reflection from his glasses catches somewhere on his lap and she pounces on it like a bird.

The flash of fur and dog is enough to cause the former skier to cut herself off as Shane’s laptop goes flying down his legs. He collects it, pushing his glasses up and unmutes himself.

“Oh my god, I’m sorry. Anya, sit.”

There are several bursts of laughter in the chat and praise for Anya, like her wildness in any way makes her a good girl.

“Please continue,” he urges, and mutes himself again.

At the end of the meeting, everyone waves goodbye, and someone asks to say goodbye to Anya, and Shane feels embarrassed, but oddly proud to drag her face over his lap for them to see. She is a good dog, generally. And Shane does love her, is proud of her. Not to Ilya’s level of peacock bragging, but certainly she’s a good, truly decent creature. He’d be lonelier without her, that’s for sure.

When Shane really talks, it’s not a choice.

The Olympic swimmer is talking about her orthorexia. She’s talked about it before, but this time she is digging into her professional career, the stress, the feeling that she wasn’t healthy enough to be a winner, could never be the right shape. A moment she almost drowned due to not eating enough carbs because they were the wrong food and would make her heavy and worthless and unhealthy and a loser—

“Shane. You look like you maybe have resonated with something here,” Price says, a gentle invitation

Shane, hot feeling behind his wet eyes, digs his hands in to cover them. He doesn’t know actually. He didn’t think he had anything in common with orthorexia, for all he heard about it in chirps—a witty man’s anorexia joke.

But he remembers a season. The Metros had an eleven-game losing streak. Theriault was pushing Shane and the first line. His mom was stressed because sponsors were dropping Shane because he wasn’t young enough anymore, and Shane— He doesn’t know.

He got a little weird about food, in retrospect. Not too weird. He’d always been touchy about texture and maximizing performance, but this was… different. This was everything pure and organic and nothing processed. This was half the chicken looked a little charred and carcinogens would get into Shane, corrupt him, erode him, and ruin any chance he had at turning this stupid, unbearable season around. If he could just eat right, maintain his body, stay healthy, stay young looking enough for mostly-naked billboards—

He collapsed one day in the shower at home. A dizzy spell. The last thing he remembers was the feeling of his hands touching the shower wall as his vision fading. His palms were numb, and he pressed his head to tile, slumping against the wall, feeling his ass slipping between his legs and his head knocking gently on the wall and then… nothing.

He woke up to cold water, got out of shower, shivering. Without thinking or analyzing any of it, he crawled out, grabbed a towel, and went to the kitchen. He ate his dad’s frostbitten summer lasagna from the freezer, only half heating it up and felt terrible for every bite, but functioning on some primal survival instinct he never analyzed too closely because it would mean admitting his diet was killing him.

Shane didn’t turn the season around. Their problem was goalie related, a bad third string. And Shane came into the new season weirdly lean, touchy about the shakes, but his team started winning again with the new players, and that tension eased almost without him working on it. Like the crushing tunnel of seven months was merely a bad dream.

Shane hasn’t ever thought about that time. Hardly wanted to. His worst season, by far.

But hearing her talk, it was like every awful, shameful self-loathing feeling welled up like oil from the earth, choking his throat. He’d never felt like such a loser.

“Sorry,” Shane says. Speaking is hard, makes the water want to break past his lashes but he really doesn’t want it to. “Sorry. I don’t want to interrupt.”

“You’re not,” she says.

“I think maybe I understand. I think I might have had a season like that. I just wanted to win so badly, I’d cut out any food if it would let me win.”

He peels his hands back, through his thick coarse hair which must make him look a wreck. He’s just trying to survive feeling this coming back all at once. Like he triggered a trap his brain set and forgot about for years. What the fuck.

“Sorry you understand,” she says, but she has a new openness on her face as she looks at him through the screen. Something… easing. “I feel like my body forgets there isn’t some competition to win. Some moral bullshit. I’m just trying to eat to live.”

Shane nods. What else can he do? He gets it.

Going back to work is hard that day. He can honestly say he half-asses it for the first time in decades. He’s sure Langstrom must think he’s spiraling about the shift to Halstead— and maybe he is right. Shane doesn’t know what he’s doing, stuck in bed all day, only dressing for the top half of his body, listening to terrible stories from other athletes.

He’s never felt less like the man who should be commissioner. Never felt more simple and reduced. He and Ilya are supposed to be marrying soon. And Shane doesn’t know how to make that feel right, instead of like Ilya is getting scammed majorly. Ilya’s beautiful, powerful bride has been swapped for an unshaven man barely able to leave the house and facing eternal damnation as a deputy.

Shane is hardly a prize worth ransom.

That night Shane lays in bed with Ilya. It’s strange, this urge to share things from group with Ilya. Shane is barely leaving the house these days aside from taking Anya out, yet the rich topics discussed leave Shane’s brain buzzing all through the day.

Shane listened to Ilya getting off in the shower before laying down, and he feels deprived of the shape of him. Ilya looks leaner still beneath the soft shirt he wears to bed. He doesn’t fill it out, there’s a slope inward for his stomach, a dip. His thighs are sleeker. His shoulders less generous. Smaller again.

“Ilya, is the diet… do you enjoy it?”

Ilya blinks from his phone at Shane.

“What is that word, OxyContin?”

“Drugs?!”

“No. The stupid one.”

“Oxymoron?” Shane figures, sighing.

“Yes, that is an oxymoron. Diet and enjoy.” He huffs to himself.

“Oh.”

“What, don’t tell me you are so boring you enjoy to diet?”

“Yeah,” Shane admits. “It feels good to do something healthy for myself. That everything… That there are rules and things.” Not that he’s been meeting many goals lately.

“Rules for food you don’t eat like unhealthy things and texture.”

“Now, yeah. I think I used to… I was a little more strict.”

“I can believe that,” Ilya says, that way he accepts Shane as a strange, foreign concept but one he’s very fond of.

“Not as much anymore.”

“That's good,” Ilya decides.

“I’m glad you don’t understand,” Shane says in a rush. “I always liked that you… I mean you were a fucking asshole, throwing around you could eat whatever and still look… still be hot.”

Ilya grins, wry. “Well, it goes around, it comes around. I made up for it maybe with my fat belly.”

“Ilya you weren’t—” Shane turns to look at Ilya with annoyance, but sees that old pragmatic look on Ilya’s face. That he won’t believe Canadian flattery and politeness. Because he did have a belly, it’s true. It was fat, but Shane struggles when that word has only ever been used negatively in his life, as something to best in fat to muscle percentage. But this is Ilya.

“Ilya, you know I thought— I always think, you look hot as fuck.”

“Yes, I know,” he says, sighing.

“You’ve been dieting for half a year.”

“You’ve been bulking and cutting,” Ilya argues.

That is also different. “I never liked how weak I look.” Shane used to be strong. Shane used to have presence.

“I don’t think you see yourself clearly at all sometimes.” Which ouch. Smacks of more things than just the weight.

“Fuck off, Rozanov.”

“You are the most fuckable man I have ever met,” Ilya says, and somehow he has such a good instinct for language. Not hot or sexy or handsome but calling Shane fuckable as if every twist of Shane was irresistible. “I want you sleek or big. Young or old. As long as you are naked.”

Shane has to scoff, because who’s exaggerating for feelings now. His face still feels hot.

“It’s true. When I saw you, I thought this is now how aging is supposed to work. Because honestly, you got so much hotter. More confident, and your lines, your wrinkles are very…” Ilya cups Shane’s face, thumb moving to his mouth. Ilya pets them with the same care he treats Shane’s freckles. It’s obnoxious in same way and makes Shane feel so overcooked.

“Is that really what you thought?”

Ilya nods.

“Well, I felt the same seeing you.”

“I know. I know you also love big men.” Ilya sighs. If you know that then why are you dieting? Shane wants to ask, but it’s not his right even as his greediness wants to reach for that comfort, softness and rolling strength. Glorious pleasure in life and food he vicariously enjoys through Ilya.

Ilya seems to hear the question anyway. He is generous like that, finding words among Shane’s body and sparing him the difficulty of speaking.

Ilya tilts his head and speaks softer. “For you coming out is already so hard. Perhaps it is nice for you to have a husband in pictures who looks like maybe he remembers where the gym is.”

It’s said like a joke, the way Ilya says so many things, and Shane feels a thrum go through him. A strange relief and sadness, that Ilya in some small way has been worried about their coming out, how everything looks too. The pressure of eyes on them. Judging old shirtless interviews against wedding pictures. Sneaking photos of them at any beach they might ever frequent in Hawaii and critiquing every earthly flaw.

Ilya may have told himself the diet was for Shane, but also it was for himself, for peace of mind. A small self-protection same as what Shane had been grappling with their whole wedding planning. That if Shane collected the right food and flowers and picked the right aesthetic for suits, it might make it easier for the world to stomach them. Ilya, too, wondered if a thinner, more conventional body would ease the way.

It sparks a little outrage because Shane cannot believe his wedding plans are why he’s lost the attractive hugeness of Ilya. His walking wet dream.

“Hey, fuck that.”

Ilya raises a wry eyebrow. So easy to say…

“Ilya, I liked fucking a bear. The maximum amount.” Shane turns in bed, wriggling on his elbows so he can look down at Ilya, convince him. “Did you know my porn search history has been jocks and bears for years and then you came into my office going from one to the other like a fucking wet dream. So fucking huge and strong and soft. Hairy.”

Ilya’s captive under Shane’s eyes.

Shane admits, “It used to make me feel like shit that I didn’t feel attracted to twinks or otters. Something more… I don’t know. Normal, I guess. Hetero, maybe. That’s stupid. The jock with some cute small guy. I guess that’s what I always thought would be better. Easier for people to get.” The best of a bad situation. Something that still made sense and was aesthetically appealing from the outside. Him and Ilya… they’ve never made sense to other people.

Hell, Shane has barely told anyone about their marriage who hasn’t cussed when they heard Ilya’s name.

“You don’t feel that way anymore?”

“No. I actually… it made me feel very possessive. I don’t know. You’re my bear. I don’t give a fuck about other people’s thoughts on this.”

Ilya huffs a little. He smiles at the ceiling self-deprecatingly and Shane remembers in these moments that Ilya still believes in God. He wonders what they talk about when Shane’s not around.

“We are very vain old men, I think,” Ilya decides.

“We’re not old,” Shane gripes.

“We are,” Ilya’s lips twitch in a dry smile. “I feel old. I retired at 35. I tried to be a more active parent to Nikolaj, and also I adopted a whole team of dumb college teenagers, and then a few years later, Svetlana and I were looking up porn and I went for hot jock wrecks bubble butt, gets pegged by delivery woman, and Svelana laughed and said, well, that’s not you anymore, fat boy.”

Ilya waves a hand at himself, his own shocked face. Shane is almost rushing to talk.

“Yes! I fucking. Jock on jock videos for so long and then I just. I don’t know. I wasn’t making time for weights. Running was always better for my brain.”

“It builds up,” Ilya agrees. “And one day we are not the men in the video. Or, for me, we begin to play different roles.” He looks flustered. “Women I fucked after Sveta called me daddy and it was not the same reason as before!”

Shane laughs so hard he’s gasping. Ilya strokes his own stomach thoughtfully for a moment.

“I put on the most weight when Svetlana died. Very bad period. No weights, no cardio. Too much bed.” It pangs. It’s familiar to those blue days, and Shane maybe sees some of it in himself now in a way that makes his eyes burn. Ilya waves the grief away. “I lost some weight but kept a lot. I didn’t mind how I looked, because I am still hot, it's who I am and I like food, but maybe I also think because you and I are happy, I should look better.”

“Look more like how we did. Jock on jock,” Shane translates.

“I need to do lifting for that, but yes, maybe.”

Maybe they are vain old men, because they aren't jocks anymore.

Shane tries to ignore the gut reaction that he has to look good for his wedding pictures, for his coming out, that it’s a natural drive…

Shane is a corporate drone. He has limited free time and runs because it makes him feel amazing body and mind. Weights have never been like that. So it’s no wonder Shane became slimmish, but average. Losing so much muscle mass left him with a flatter ass, hardly noticeable triceps and a stomach prone to a lip of fat.

The first time Shane noticed he felt… wildly out of his body. Sliding from jock to dull office worker… no longer a fantasy or a type that popped up in popular searches despite the fact Shane once made millions in modeling. It was disorienting. He felt diminished next to Ilya who made the transition from jock to bear with so much raw appeal and grace. Shane just became… lesser.

Boring. Weak.

But Shane remembers how Ilya looked at him that first time in the hotel room when he felt so weak and anemic. A pale reflection of his golden days and sculpted strength, curved bulging muscles… and how Ilya pulled Shane’s less muscled ass to his mouth like it was heaven, Ilya’s hands gripping each and every part of Shane, even the fat where tight-laced abs had been, like they were only worth measuring with his palm and tongue.

Shane started bulking because wanted to marry Ilya as an equal, to be as visibly strong as the man he’d marry, the way Shane used to be. Equals across the ice.

…Is it crazy to so plainly want to marry Ilya as the weak man Shane is?

“You don’t have to be a jock,” Shane says. “Or I mean, don’t let me tell you what to do with your body.”

“Shane you are a bigger bear fucker than I ever realized.”

“You said it was natural for you! I’m just trying to help you to get back to your nature.”

“Will you also?”

“I don’t even have some dumb animal category. Not an otter, not a bear, not a cub, not a fawn— just a normal ass guy here.”

“Best ass guy,” Ilya says and how can Shane resist a smile at that.

“I just… maybe I want things to be less about the wedding, and more like…” He lays his head on Ilya’s chest, exhales and sees chest hair move. “Like we’ve lived together for a long time already. Here in New York. Imagine, we’re on year three of our marriage. That’s kind of how I want to feel.”

Maybe it’s silly. As if Shane can leapfrog all the exhausting difficult things it takes to get to that point, a point where they are settled and comfortable with each other. It’s so hard to imagine that happening in this moment of emotional unsteadiness, professional floundering and soul-breaking humiliation.

“How many times are we married at this point?” Ilya asks. “Did you divorce me?”

“Two marriages. You divorce me, actually,” Shane decides. “For selling one of the cars you never drive.”

Ilya sucks one of his cheeks in, his mole wriggling with the movement. “Pretty serious. But I think our second wedding must be very good.”

Shane’s heart thuds to joke about this again, when tragedy felt so fucking close only a couple weeks ago.

“Yes. Better than the first. So much easier.” He clears his throat. “And then we come home here, and it’s just life. Just life together for a long time.”

“Sounds boring,” Ilya grins.

“It is. We eat and work out how we want to. You make pelmeni the way I like, and we eat seasonal veggies, but because they taste good and for our health, not for anything else.” Not for anyone else. “I do weights so you suck my cock—”

“I go for a run to stare at your ass. You want to roleplay?”

“I want to roleplay this with you for years.” Until it’s so comfortable and lived in it is soft like the best t-shirts. Like Ilya’s belly brushing Shane’s crown when Shane gave him head, generous and thriving.

“Okay, Sweetheart, we can take it very seriously.”

Ilya kisses him. At first it’s gentle, then that trickle of hunger sneaks out from Ilya’s mouth. More consuming, and Shane loves giving into it. Loves letting Ilya. He reaches to feel Ilya’s cock between thighs, and Ilya groans. He sits up, bringing Shane with him, who scoots closer on his lap. It’s hard to feel like his body has failed or fallen from any height with Ilya looking at him like this.

Then, Ilya’s hand cups Shane’s face— the tiger's eye ring dragging across his cheek like a blade. The inequity of what Shane has made them burns anew.

Shane pulls away, breathes for a moment, eyes squeezing shut.

“I’m uh, I need an early night.”

He can’t bear to see Ilya’s hurt look.

“Does not have to be all the way, can just be quick and easy,” Ilya says, always persuasive, always dogged. Let me touch you, let me, let me. I will make all the hard parts of wanting this go away.

Shane shakes his head, turns on his back and opens his eyes to look at the ceiling. He can feel Ilya’s eyes on him.

“What the fuck is happening, Shane?” Ilya says, and Shane doesn’t know. He doesn’t fucking know either. There’s so much in the past weeks that Shane cannot explain. Ilya works himself up and down a few times, his breathing cresting and then forcibly calming. Ilya finally asks, “Is this because I didn't touch you?”

“No.”

Only the memory licks hot and painful in his chest. The lengths Ilya went to withhold that from Shane were fucking degrading. But the hurt churns with the other truth.

A few weeks ago Ilya couldn’t touch Shane. Because Shane had done something so repulsive to earn that instinctive reaction from Ilya’s body. And now that body was bleeding a yes, but Shane doesn’t know how to explain the ghosts of Ilya’s parents haunting this bed. The fear that maybe there was a lot at the foundation of this relationship that is fundamentally broken. God, but they might need a second marriage because Shane doesn’t know how to fix this one right now. Doesn't know how to touch Ilya right. Funny, because that was the first real thing he ever learned about Ilya.

“I’m sorry.”

Ilya makes a sound, frustration or pain, annoyance— hopefully anything but sadness.

Ilya reads and then turns off the light, settling loudly and repeatedly in bed. Shane listens to all of this, his heart aching and his half hard cock staging a protest.

Sleepless, Shane gets up in the middle of the night, long after Ilya drifts off into heavy breathing. He goes to the guest bathroom where only the tile can hear Shane’s slick, hopeless tugs on his cock and all of Shane’s pleading. 

Chapter End Notes

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something something, for every step forward comes another step back something something.

The "Asian tax" real story comes from a former (unnamed) Japanese player on Harvard's women's ice hockey team. She was expected to pay actual money in the form of fines. There was also a "gay tax." Stay classy, Harvard

I promise not to let group therapy OCs run amok and hog attention. it's all about shane and ilya baby.

Have I read Tough Guy? No. And I reserve the right to go back and change ryan's characterization if I like something from season two.