Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Hayden Pike, Rose Landry, Miles (Game Changers), Troy Barrett, Ottawa Centaurs Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Scott Hunter (Game Changers)

Additional Tags:

Falling In Love, Light Angst, Jealous Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander is a Babe, Shane Hollander knows Russian, Hurt/Comfort, Flirting, Fluff, Insecurity, reassurance, excessive descriptions of male beauty, Book 2: Heated Rivalry, Book 6: The Long Game, 5+1 but the kind of 5+1 that is sort of coherent, Literally I had so many ideas I couldn't narrow down to 5, so 6+1, Possessive Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Beautiful Shane Hollander, Massage

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of the sweetest honey is loathsome in its own deliciousness

Collections:

Hollanov___completeeachother, *Heated rivalry melts my heart*

Stats:

Published: 2026-01-16 Completed: 2026-02-07 Words: 33,419 Chapters: 7/7

a secret to yourself

Summary

When you’re in love with someone as beautiful as Shane Hollander, you get used to being jealous.

God, do you ever.

Notes

I once said I wouldn’t be writing a fic because I don’t know anything about hockey. Unfortunately, I wrote one anyways because I read too many fics. And then tried to read enough about hockey to write this passably. And then learned a little TOO much about hockey and might start watching it. Love this show, read the books, watched the interviews… here we are. Whoops.

There might be a sequel that deals with Shane’s insecurity instead of Ilya’s if this is received well. I took a lot of inspiration from the lyrics of Hot and Heavy by Lucy Dacus, which is what I named the fic after. Specifically, the idea of loving an amazing person you understand deeply, but knowing your time with them is fleeting, because once they come into their own, they’ll look beyond you and shoot for greater things. Intending to do some mostly canon compliant scenes throughout the timeline (for when they're juniors, rookies, boyfriends, husbands, and teammates). Mix of book and show canon.

Alternate title: Six ridiculous people Ilya Rozanov was jealous of and one Extremely Ridiculous person he was jealous of lmao

Chapter 1: A Sixth-Round Draft Pick

Chapter Notes

Let’s start with one thing: Ilya knows how pretty Shane Hollander is. Possibly, he knows better than anyone else ever will.

He isn’t able to ignore it, even from the moment Hollander first comes up to him outside a rink in Saskatchewan. It's one thing to have seen him in photos for years, and to note, as anyone would, that Hollander is both a talent and a looker. It is entirely another to be facing him down in person, tracing his gaze over the freckles splashed across his nose. Somehow, no photos had done him justice. Looking at Hollander, it’s clear that he glows with something undefinable, a spark in his eyes, a shyness to his smile. 

Ilya’s English is barely passable. He gets through interviews by being terse and standoffish, shrugging his shoulders at the questions that blur into gibberish. With Hollander’s face a meter from his own, his abilities are somehow even worse than that. Yet, had he known English perfectly, he likely would’ve been similarly unable to string a sentence together, his brain too caught up in cataloguing what should’ve been simple: a face. Hollander’s pretty fucking face. His glossy hair, the slope of his cheekbones, those dark eyes. 

He’s known plenty of pretty people, knows how to scan a room for them and hold their gaze, catch their attention. He’s slept with more pretty people than he cares to remember, and some he wished he didn’t. They knew they were beautiful. How could they not? It got them the things they wanted, including Ilya. They sauntered up to him with their eyes lidded, they fluttered their lashes and touched his arm, letting him admire, letting him imagine.  And yet, Hollander buzzes with nervousness. He slouches his shoulders against the wall. With each retort from Ilya, he draws further into himself, frowning, disappointed and resigned. He doesn’t like it.

Eventually, he's able to get it the fuck together. He shakes Hollander’s hand, which is amazingly warm in his, even though it's freezing outside, the wind whipping snow crystals into their eyes.

“Good luck in the tournament,” Hollander offers. 

Ilya grins. “You will not be so friendly when we beat you.” 

Hollander is Canadian, though. Maybe he'll try, and wouldn't that be something? 

“That's not happening.”

It happens. 

When Ilya leans in for each face-off against Hollander, he looks him right in those dark eyes and smirks. Hollander is beautiful even in the bulk of his gear, even through the cage on his helmet. Ilya’s heart beats faster each time he sees the way it shakes Hollander, how he clenches his jaw and grips his stick tighter. 

The Russian junior team pushes the Canadians around, Ilya included. When Hollander rushes down the ice with the puck, Ilya bursts after him with all the speed he’s known for, the crowd rippling with fury as he gains on him. His heart pounds in his ears. Hollander’s glide is quick and graceful as he moves to tuck, but Ilya goes for the puck. His stick jabs against Hollander’s ankle, but Hollander adjusts himself to remain upright, staggering. Undeterred, Ilya lunges for him from the side, and they go tumbling into the boards as the puck shoots back towards the neutral zone, where a Russian defender is quick to take possession. 

When they slam into each other, Ilya has the brief thought that he checked Hollander too hard, that he's not sure whether his skates left the ice, that he threw too much weight into it. It was a second of their bodies pressed against each other, the burst of blunt pain, and a swooping sensation low in his stomach. 

Hollander doesn't even look at him after he wrenches away. He's clearly come off worse in the collision, stumbling as he rights himself, grinding his teeth after the ref doesn't blow the whistle. Ilya can barely say he's met the guy, at this point, but somehow he can see the seething over the questionable check get shoved down, and his typical face of resolve settling over him as he skates back to the bench to await his next shift.

When Ilya gets the chance to just watch Hollander play, what he feels is hard to categorize. First, there’s the need to tell himself why he’s still the superior player, no matter what Hollander does. He’ll win World Juniors, and he’ll be drafted first overall because of it. Ilya knows how fast he is, how good, he knows what he’s destined for.

But Hollander.

He never could’ve complimented him back, outside. He doesn’t have the words for it, even if he felt like being nice to the competition, which he never does. 

Because Hollander is something else. The power behind his shot, the accuracy. Ilya watches, face carefully composed, as Hollander dodges a check, causing a Russian player to fall hard to the ice in his wake. He doesn’t go for the most dangerous moves, doesn't skirt the edges of the rules the way the Russian team does.  He'll choose to pass when it’s smarter, in positions where other, more hot-headed forwards would shoot. He sets up plays that even Ilya can't predict, and these things never catch him off-guard. He realizes there's nothing he wants more than to watch the tape of Hollander's other games, to learn his tendencies so well that he can predict what Hollander will do on the ice before he does it.

Ilya’s eyes widen as Hollander spins smoothly, placing his back between the puck and the encroaching defender to move past, like its second nature. Hollander leans, he waits until the last possible second to look at the net, feinting so well that his shot from just over the line catches the defense completely off guard. His hands are so fast, so precise, that it all happens quicker than anyone else on the ice can process. The puck glides like it’s floating, somehow zipping straight through the knot of players and past the goalie. 

Ilya can’t help himself. He gasps, just a soft exhale of disbelief, inaudible under the blare of the buzzer. He should just be admiring the skill on display, as any keyed-in future hockey star would. And yet, what he’s really doing is noting how Hollander doesn’t really celebrate the goal, even as the other forwards grab him, grinning. He just purses his lips and nods, looking a little relieved, but still like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. Goal or not, he can see where the game is going. 

Humility is not something Ilya has ever had the need to demonstrate. He’s the best at what he does and he knows it, and he makes sure everyone else does, too. Playing down his skills would make him look weak, like his self doubt is his true flaw as a player. For Hollander, though, it intrigues him. 

There’s something about it. That undeniable beauty, that honed talent, that surgical precision… juxtaposed with that doubt, those nerves. It irks him. Hollander is about to be a star. He’ll be a top draft pick, he’ll become rich and famous, he’ll be drowning in rabid fans and breathless admirers. Maybe celebrity and achievement will put some pride in the bend of his spine. Maybe Ilya will see him at some awards show in a few years, watching him sip champagne as beautiful women hang onto his every word, regaling them with stories about his best goals. Maybe he’ll take to the attention, maybe he’ll tend that glow into a forest fire. Hollander doesn’t carry himself like a beautiful person— but eventually he will. How could he not?

The thought bothers him. But he imagines it anyway, like poking a bruise. 

Ilya looks up as Hollander zooms past the Russian bench, turning gracefully on the edges of his skates as the puck gets bounced behind the goal and back up the ice during a clash. The scrape of his blades is a whisper in the commotion.

…

The victory is the sweetest one he’s ever had, humiliating the Canadians in their own arena, in front of their own fans. It’s nothing compared to knowing that it’s the start of something much greater. Russia might get his summers, but the rest of the time is his to show them all what he’s capable of. While most of the upcoming draft picks will go back to juniors, or go to development for a few years or maybe the rest of their sorry careers, Ilya won’t. He’s sure he’ll see Hollander again and again, still trying to prove himself.

Ilya’s lounging in the hotel lobby with some guys from the Russian team while their coach finishes up with the front desk. He’s tapping his fingers on his armrest, bored, while his teammates chatter about the final game around him.

The guy sitting next to him, another forward named Kostylev, nudges him. “Look, over there. It seems like Hollander’s still babying that shoulder after you hit him,” he murmurs in Russian, laughing. “Poor guy.”

Ilya chances a look, flicking his eyes over the lobby to Hollander. He’s standing across the lobby with a teammate in a Team Canada jacket, duffle bag slung over his good shoulder. It’s subtle, but as Hollander shifts, he winces slightly, rolling the other shoulder gingerly and straightening his posture. There’s a shadow of a bruise on his cheek from the slam. Seeing it makes something twinge in his chest, makes him feel like a vandal.

“Good eye,” he acknowledges. “Shame it will heal before the start of the season. Then he would have an excuse for scoring fewer goals than me. Maybe this is better, it will bother him more.”

Kostylev grins. There’s an edge to it that makes Ilya tense. “He’s still too pretty for pro-hockey, even when he is bruised up.”

Ilya’s fidgeting fingers still. His jaw goes tight. He can’t look at his teammate– he’ll glare, he’ll look too invested. Instead, he leans back in his chair as casually as he can, sneaking another glimpse of Hollander. He’s smiling now, a little tightly. His teammate is still wearing his silver medal; Hollander is not. 

“You have a crush on him?” Ilya says flatly. “Congratulations. Maybe this is why he could steal that puck from you like you were standing still.”

The kid snorts. “This makes no sense. He came from behind. Did not see him. That was him, not his face.”

Ilya huffs. “If only Hollander was behind you now. Then he could see you drooling over him.” 

Kostylev rolls his eyes. “Relax, Rozanov. Just noticing. Even if he was not good, I think they would still draft him. Just for the commercials.”

He can definitely imagine it. Even though photos of Hollander are nothing compared to him in person, well. They’re still photos of Hollander, who could never look anything but stunning. 

“Go get his autograph, then,” Ilya drawls. “It will be worth a lot, after he has starred in all those commercials.” He’s joking, of course he is. But the player eyes Hollander up like he’s really thinking about it, and then, horrifyingly, he gets up. 

Ilya stares openly as the boy makes his way towards Hollander. Top junior players aren’t complete strangers. They mingle at the same tournaments, hotels, media days, and training camps. Even if they haven’t spoken, they at least know of each other. And so Ilya watches as Hollander gives the approaching player a nod of recognition, even though he squints his eyes in confusion. 

He’s not breathing as he watches them talk, with some of the other boys from the team stopping their conversation to watch, too. The Russian player says something, and Hollander laughs, his hair falling into his eyes. It lights up his face. If Hollander is pretty when he’s focused, he’s incandescent when he laughs. 

Ilya’s fingernails bite into his palm. 

Maybe this could have been him, making Hollander laugh. If only he had actually engaged with him, outside during that practice. 

The player digs a glove from his bag and produces a marker, and a smiling Hollander actually takes it and signs it, shaking his head a little with disbelief. The player says something else, and they both, briefly, look at Ilya.

The eye contact with Hollander sparks up his spine. Hollander’s smile becomes a little more guarded, and his frame a little heavier. 

When Kostylev comes back to the chairs, the team is already making fun of him. But he just shrugs. “Like Rozanov says, it will be worth a lot someday.”

And isn’t that the fucking truth. 

There’s one thing he can console himself with. Kostylev will probably get drafted, but he’s not a top prospect. Sixth-round pick, maybe. He’ll be in development for years longer before he gets on NHL ice, if ever. But Ilya? He’ll be playing this fall. If he and Hollander get drafted to the same division, they’ll play each other all the time. They’ll rack up historic numbers, draw vicious press, and push each other relentlessly. They’ll stand across from each other in face-offs, battle for the puck, race each other for goals.

It’s more of Hollander than this irrelevant person will ever have, autographs be damned. 

Chapter End Notes

I was rereading the plane scene from TLG, where Ilya recalls that Shane's hands were really warm when they first met... and of course I reopened this draft to fix a line that described Shane's hands as freezing cold. That's on telling myself I'm not overthinking canon compliance, and then proceeding to do only that.

Shane probably thinks Ilya is guilty of an illegal check and hooking and it went uncalled, and he’ll stay mad about it. The Russian team canonically “plays dirty” and so does Ilya, like even when they’re dating Shane is yelling at the ref to penalize him for tripping, I think he was probably even worse in juniors. The Russian guy probably also got drafted by the KHL, signed that contract because the prospects were better, then sold the autographed glove on eBay years later.

Chapter 2: A Dinosaur

Chapter Summary

It doesn’t matter. Sure, Hunter might be handsome, a veteran All-Star captain, and renowned in the league for his integrity, but Hollander is allowed to be happy to have reached a similar level to a childhood role model. It would be completely unnecessary to overreact.

Ilya flickers his gaze back to the door. Hollander and Hunter are gone.

Chapter Notes

Originally had a completely different idea for this chapter, it was going to be a fistfight during a Boston/Voyageurs game, but I ended up deciding it just wasn't right for this fic. Maybe I'll rework it into something else.

When their first All-Star game rolls around, Ilya tells himself he’s only excited because it means he’s made it. He’s on the list of the best players in the league, he’ll meet the others as an equal, he’ll have fun, he'll party. It’ll be good to have some time doing something a little less high stakes, the closest thing to a break he can get halfway through a busy season.

He packs his bags, he checks his gear, he boards the plane, he double checks his hotel reservation in his email. In the air, in the taxi, in his room, his eyes always find the window, and he stares.

There’s nothing he can do in the days leading up to the event that isn’t interrupted with thoughts of Shane Hollander. Those freckles, dusted across his face, dotting his neck, his back, his shoulders. Ilya thinks if he was allowed, he’d count them all, press his mouth to each one, memorize the map of them so he’d always know where they were, even in the dark. Those hands, famous to the crowds for being so sure and so fast. Yet, last summer, those long, shaking fingers had twined through his own, gripping him harder and harder as Ilya had laved his tongue under the head of Hollander’s cock.

When he's checking into his room, when he's speaking with the concierge, his mind drifts to Hollander, and he gets visibly distracted. People repeat themselves, slower, like they think he can't follow their English.

It's a problem. It's all his fault. There's something wrong with him– maybe he just can't stop looking for trouble. When he was backing Hollander up against his hotel room door, he'd felt that rush of adrenaline, like when he made a risky play to get another player off the puck.

Maybe it's stupid, but he'd scratch himself up countless times just to get the high of that one game winning buzzer beater, the deafening roar of the crowd, being swept up in his teammate’s arms. He pursued those moments with dogged determination. So yes, he threw himself in Hollander’s path, knowing he could get steamrolled, just to get a chance at something far more precious than his dignity. Yes, he'd told CCM to book them for a joint ad campaign just to see him again, just because he couldn't stop dreaming about Hollander dripping with sweat on the gym floor.

Of course, an unforeseen problem is this: he's a fucking idiot. He'd convinced himself that just because he's always been able to churn through partners without thinking about them ever again, it would be the same for Hollander. But no, Ilya had tasted him, his lips, his sweat, his come– and still, all he wanted was more.

Every game they've played since then has only made this problem worse.

No one else can match him like Hollander, who thinks so far ahead, who skates so fast everyone else looks like they're standing still. Hollander plays hockey like a bird of prey, silent, precise, and deadly. He sees openings no one else does, and swoops in to exploit them before anyone can keep up with what's happening. On the ice, Hollander skates like something divine has been poured into his veins, possessed by a focus and drive that seems to evaporate by the time he sits down, exhausted, for the next wooden interview. Hollander's skills have only sharpened since his debut on NHL ice, like a blade honed against a whetstone. It's beautiful. Ilya can never look away.

By the time he sidles up to Hollander, waiting in a concrete hallway for the start of their joint press conference, he’s doing everything he can to put the persona back on. He’s been drowning alone in his thoughts all week, but he can’t act like it. The calmness will follow his body language, so he stands with his shoulders back, leaning against the wall casually.

Hollander stops his pacing.

Ilya smirks, offering a handshake, a mirror of Hollander when they first met. It’s little more than an excuse to touch him again.

But when he finally looks Hollander full in the eyes, he’s drowning again. Their games this season have gotten him used to Hollander’s flinty face-off stare, getting more and more focused as Hollander grew used to his particular chirps. This is different, Hollander’s gaze is softer, relieved, even.

When Ilya had kissed his way down Hollander’s chest, mouth hovering above his weeping cock, he had looked up at Hollander’s face through his lashes. It’s been months since that night, and he has not been able to forget the look that was in his eyes. It was awe, and disbelief, and reverence– those eyes had brimmed with something powerful, and Ilya had felt like he was kneeling at an altar. Hollander clearly hadn’t done very much with others, and Ilya laid awake at night thinking about what Hollander’s face could look like after Ilya showed him everything else they could do together.

“Rozanov,” Hollander greets. It’s the first Ilya has seen his smile in weeks– this time, it’s something timid and tired. “Hey.” Hollander takes his handshake, and it’s probably Ilya’s fault that it lingers for a couple seconds too long, his fingers brushing against the pulse in the other boy’s wrist.

When Hollander takes his hand back, he’s flushing under the freckles. Ilya wants to brush his thumb over them.

“You look like you will faint,” Ilya tells him. He’s only half-joking, noting with some concern the bags under Hollander’s eyes, the sheen of sweat on his face, the way he shifts his weight awkwardly from foot to foot. Seeing him in the hallway, Ilya had thought he radiated unease, unable to stand still as officials and PR people bustled around him.

“It’s been a long week,” Hollander sighs, looking away and bringing his hand up to rub the back of his neck. “I’m just not good at these, not the way you are. Feel free to laugh at me for telling you something you already know.”

Ilya raises an eyebrow. “I do not give interviews in two languages.” If only he could. Giving up the comfort of his native language was one of many worthwhile sacrifices he made to get the hell out of Russia.

Hollander shakes his head. “You might not know French, but I promise that if you did, you’d think I sound exactly as boring as I do in English.”

Ilya shrugs. “You should speak more. Is sexy.” He means it, but he says it just to see Hollander’s reaction. Hollander doesn’t disappoint, flushing deeper. That’s one of Ilya’s favorite smiles right there, the one where Hollander smiles at him even though he’s clearly trying not to.

“What I mean–” Hollander takes a deep breath, “is that the press loves you. You give them every soundbite they want, you make them laugh, they can’t wait to talk to you. I know what they say about me. I can’t help it.” Hollander chews his lip, thinking. “Sometimes I think of something a little more interesting. Maybe my real opinion, or a joke, or something sincere. And I immediately decide not to say it, because what if it’s poorly received? That’s so much worse than just being boring.”

God, Hollander is unsure. And wrong. It seems these things are an unavoidable aspect of his eternal state of being. It’s adorable.

“Hollander.” Ilya looks down at him, considering how much to tell him. Considering they’re about to go on stage in a minute, his secret probably won’t stay one for long.

“It seems this way, yes. But I– English is new for me, yes? I do not always have the words. The reporters, they use words I do not know, they talk fast. Easier to keep it… simple.” It’s hard enough to explain, in English.

Hollander blinks at him, frowning. “I– I had no idea. I’m sorry. I mean, it’s their job, they should be thinking about that when they ask you questions.”

Ilya just shrugs, but inside, Hollander’s words spread through him like a warm balm. No one’s ever said that to him before. It’s only ever his father telling him he should’ve done better, studied harder.

Someone wearing a headset and holding a clipboard pokes their head around the corner and calls to them. “Twenty seconds, you two!”

Hollander appears to steel himself, throwing his shoulders back. You would think he was preparing himself to get pelted with rotten vegetables. Ilya supposes that for him, the two experiences are about on par.

As they stand in the dark behind the curtain, about to go on, Ilya should just be thinking about what to say. Unfortunately, he’s addicted, and he can’t stop himself. Hollander flinches a little at Ilya’s hand on his shoulder, fingers gently clasping the wool of his suit.

He decides to repeat an American phrase he’s learned from months of games with his new Boston team. Ilya leans as close as he dares to Shane’s ear. “You got this,” he whispers lowly, pulling back from Hollander’s answering shiver just as the media coordinator shows up to usher them onstage.

It’s just a stupid press conference. There shouldn’t be anything notable about it, except that Hollander notices that he’s having trouble with a question without him having to say anything. The reporter’s words turn to a jumble in his head, and he has no idea how to laugh it off, but Hollander swoops in after only a moment of hesitation to answer for him. He does it for Ilya, even though these interviews and this attention makes him so nervous that he stays up late and paces the hallway alone worrying about it.

Ilya sweats under the hot lights, boxed in by the crowd and the stuffy suit with its high collar. If only he were anywhere else, he could allow himself a moment to feel the full, exquisite, ache that Hollander’s kindness puts in his chest.

…

Ilya can’t resist talking to Hollander when they’re on nearby benches for the skills competition. An excuse to just talk to him a little, when Hollander isn’t laser focused on competition or barely holding back his panic before seeing the press. This is a rarer, high-spirited Hollander, eager to show off his phenomenal skill, basking in the positive attention from his heroes.

Speaking of which.

Hollander and Scott Hunter have been chatting for ten minutes while the other players take their turns. For the life of him, Ilya can’t make out what they’re saying, he can only hear the murmuring interspersed with bursts of laughter. He can’t resist looking over to catch a glimpse of Hollander’s starstruck smiles. Ilya knows that Hollander has been looking up to Hunter for years. He’d put money on there having been a poster in baby Hollander’s bedroom, abandoned whenever he travelled for his junior level games.

Perhaps if Ilya had been allowed such frivolities, he’d have had a poster, too. Scott Hunter is– well, he’s quite good looking, especially for a hockey player. Even if he doesn’t seem to leave well enough alone. Hollander doesn’t seem to believe it, that he’s sitting on the bench with his idol, minutes after beating the man’s record. And Ilya’s.

He can’t take it anymore. He skates past their bench, muttering his room number as he does.

“1221.” Ilya doesn’t smile, he doesn’t. Let Hollander explain that.

Will Hollander show up? Has he been thinking about Ilya as much as Ilya has been thinking about him? Fuck, he hopes so. He hopes that he sucked Hollander’s dick so well that he’ll always come back for more, that Hollander will look at him again with those dark, adoring, disbelieving eyes. Maybe Hollander dreams about Ilya, too.

Ilya knows he’s something to look at, because he’s never wanted for sex or attention, and because he’s heard it countless times, and he likes it that way. He splurges his new money on designer jeans and silk shirts, and before he goes out he styles his curls with gel and a diffuser. Ilya might not be effortlessly sweet or loveable like Hollander, but he’s handsome, he’s muscular. Hollander couldn’t look away from the deep V of his hips, he dropped to his knees the second he felt the weight of Ilya’s massive cock in his hand, he was practically drooling.

Ilya is no fool. He knows what he has to offer someone like Shane Hollander, and that’s his body, his sexual experience, and his guaranteed secrecy. And maybe, just maybe, the company of the only other person who could understand what it’s like. They’re eighteen-year-old newly minted professional hockey players, generational talents, breaking all the records, doing it all while closeted, and knowing it can’t be any other way. Who else could ever understand?

…

That night, after the skills competition, Hollander shows up at room #1221. When Ilya hears the knock, he only has a second to process the wave of relief and lust and longing that crashes over him. Hollander is harried, he’s nervous, he reaches for Ilya like he’s thought of nothing else in months, like he can’t wait another moment. Ilya gives him what he wants, he pulls him close and kisses Hollander the way he kisses him in his dreams.

…

After the final All-Star match, Ilya goes out to the bar with most of the other players. Hollander is known for only making rare appearances at Voyageur celebrations, but he comes anyway. When Ilya asks Admirals player Carter Vaughan about it, he only shrugs.

“Hollzy did say no at first, when we asked him,” he recalls. “Then Scott insisted, said he deserved it after the event he’s had. True enough, right?” Vaughan laughs. “It’s good, right? Get the kid to loosen up. I know you don’t need any help on that front, Roz.”

Ilya forces himself to chuckle, rolling his eyes and waving off the comment. “Not me, no.”

He can’t spend the night obviously tracking Hollander. Hopefully, Hollander will end up in his bed again tonight, anyway, if the hungry look in his eyes earlier was any indication. Ilya knows his limits, so he drinks just enough to make the club music sound like a neverending wave of dopamine, carrying his body from song to song. It’s a blur of nonstop dancing, and he loses himself in the sensory explosion of neon strobe lights and pounding electronica. He allows it to overwhelm him, to overflow until it becomes a new, thrilling baseline.

This is what he’s used to, drowning out his thoughts. He loves drinking and he loves dancing, and he’s able to get so lost in it that he does not think about Hollander until he’s stumbling back to the players’ tables, covered in a sheen of sweat.

Laughing and joking with the other guys, something catches his eye. Looking up, he sees Hollander, face pale in the lights, speaking with Hunter near the door. Each of them holds a drink, and Shane looks fucking thrilled. Clearly it’s been long enough that the ice has broken between them, Hunter is passing down sage wisdom from him and his fellow dinosaurs, spreading his knowledge through oral tradition before he rides off into the retirement sunset.

It doesn’t matter. Sure, Hunter might be handsome, a veteran All-Star captain, and renowned in the league for his integrity, but Hollander is allowed to be happy to have reached a similar level to a childhood role model. It would be completely unnecessary to overreact.

Ilya flickers his gaze back to the door. Hollander and Hunter are gone.

It feels like a pit opens up in his stomach. He looks around a little too frantically, scanning the bar, the tables, the dance floor. He can’t see them, they were just here– the only place they could have gone is out the door.

Fuck this. He pulls away from the conversation, unable to feign attention any longer, his feet taking him to the bar without conscious thought. He asks for water because he’s dehydrated from all the dancing, and he’s starting to feel like he doesn’t want to be in the club much longer. He grips the glass tight in his sweaty fingers, gulping it down angrily. The faster he finishes the faster he can leave. Ilya looks into the swaying mass of bodies on the dance floor, trying to put his mind on anything other than Hollander, Hollander, Hollander. He’s so goddamn obsessed.

“Oh, taking a break?” a familiar voice says behind him.

“Fuck!” Ilya whirls around, startled. It’s so loud in here, he can’t hear anything.

It’s Hollander. Just standing there, like he never left.

“Sorry!” Hollander says, trying to talk above the music. Clearly, he isn’t used to it. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Am not scared,” he snaps. “Just ready to leave.”

Hollander’s brow furrows. Ilya wishes he could smooth it. “But you looked like you were having fun!” Then, he grins up at him. “You’re a really good dancer, you know.” Amid the deafening music, the sultry edge to the observation is audible only to Ilya, making his face warm.

“They say most athletes are, but I guess for some of us, it doesn’t really translate,” Hollander adds with a shrug.

“No,” Ilya agrees simply, unable to put the image of Hunter out of his head. “Come back with me?”

Hollander frowns. “It’s a little obvious.”

Ilya wants nothing more than to tug him into the alley, shove him up against the brick. Seeing Hollander so excited to hang out with Scott Hunter of all people, it makes him feel inadequate, like he needs to suck new bruises into Hollander’s chest, into the dip of his hipbone. Claim him properly, as much as he can.

Hollander would never. Too public. They can’t even share a cab.

“We take separate cars,” he says, shrugging. “You take time to prepare. You seem done here, also.”

Hollander nods slowly. “It’s a little loud for me. Okay.”

It’s only a couple hours before Hollander is back where he belongs, splayed out over Ilya’s sheets, covered in hickeys that make something in Ilya roar in satisfaction when he looks at them. It feels almost blasphemous, to put his marks on that smooth, golden skin. He reclines back, letting Hollander nuzzle sleepily into his neck.

“I saw you leave the bar with Hunter earlier,” Ilya mentions, as casually as he can.

“Hmm?” Shane looks up at him blearily.

“It was a little before we left, I think,” Ilya adds helpfully.

“Oh yeah,” Shane mumbles, closing his eyes. “I can get overwhelmed by those kinds of places, sometimes. Music too loud, too many people, bright lights, it’s just a lot. It’s why I don’t usually go. I think Scott noticed, maybe he felt bad about asking me to come.” Ilya didn’t know. It makes sense, he supposes, that Shane would feel this way. Maybe he wasn’t like Ilya, who just let the overwhelming tide of the club wash over him. Maybe Hollander drowned in it.

“He said sometimes it’s a lot for him too,” Hollander continues. “He offered to take a breather with me outside.”

Ilya tightens an arm around Hollander, pulling him close to his chest. “Nice of him,” he says flatly.

“Right?” Shane pipes, oblivious. “Guess that reputation of his is accurate. Cool dude.”

“Enough about Hunter,” Ilya scoffs.  He bends, pressing his lips to the shell of Shane's ear. “Better things to talk about.”

“Oh?” The corner of Shane’s mouth quirks up. “Like what?”

Ilya cups Shane’s face, bringing their warm mouths together. Shane exhales, relaxing in Ilya's arms. He buries his hands in Ilya’s curls, kissing back sweetly, moaning softly into his mouth. 

Ilya smiles into the kiss.

Chapter End Notes

Next up: Montreal's fifteenth best player

I appreciate every comment!

Chapter 3: Montreal's Fifteenth Best Player

Chapter Summary

Ilya knows that Shane has never believed his assertions about Pike’s little crush. He rolls his eyes when Ilya brings it up, like it’s just some running joke he sticks with arbitrarily, just to get a rise out of Hayden. Fair enough, there are a few of those. And yet…

And yet.

Chapter Notes

This takes place about a year after the Heated Rivalry epilogue and the infamous dinner with Hayden, so still before TLG. Now that Hollanov is together, today I have something both a little sadder, and a little sweeter. And I've changed the rating lmao. These chapters are getting longer,,, I just cannot help myself. This whole thing is gonna be like 20k words send help

Not that it matters, but Ilya’s known for years that Hayden Pike is kind of into his boyfriend.

Normally he loves being right, but surely if there’s one thing he’d prefer to be wrong about, it’s his boyfriend’s best friend secretly being attracted to him. It’s not that he finds the idea threatening– honestly, he doesn’t think Pike would ever have the balls to go for it. He certainly loves being a family man, doting over his wife and countless adorable children. It’s just that Shane, for some heretofore unknown reason, seems to really like this guy, despite him being utterly charmless and uninteresting. Of all the people on the Voyageurs, he’s chosen Hayden, who spent months in denial over his and Shane’s relationship, sometimes casually bringing up single gay men he knew who were looking for “friends” in the area. 

Weren’t there any nice men in Montreal? That’s what Yuna Hollander had said to Shane, when Ilya was first introduced to his parents. It still stings to think about, despite having moved long past that point in his relationship with Yuna and David. Hayden, though, had never seemed to get the memo. 

Ilya knows that Shane has never believed his assertions about Pike’s little crush. He rolls his eyes when Ilya brings it up, like it’s just some running joke he sticks with arbitrarily, just to get a rise out of Hayden. Fair enough, there are a few of those. And yet… 

And yet.

Hayden is simply way too defensive about the subject. He’s never seemed to really accept his and Shane’s relationship in the way that everyone else who knows has, including literally his own wife and kids. However, Ilya’s willing to shrug it off, for Shane, who has made it very clear that it’s important that he make an effort when it comes to Hayden. That he needs to stop going out of his way to be such a dick to Hayden, despite the fact that the guy has repeatedly accused him of not being serious about a relationship he moved countries for. The whole hockey world was wondering why star center Ilya Rozanov had willingly switched from a contender to a basement-dwelling team, and still Hayden doesn’t take them seriously. It’s a little irrational, frankly, and at this point, Ilya would be unsurprised if he discovered that Hayden’s been errantly fantasizing about Shane since they met, and that’s playing a role. 

And because Ilya’s so generous, he compromises by being slightly less of a dick. It’s fine. He knows how oblivious his boyfriend has always been about his own appeal. Shane can never seem to tell when anyone’s hitting on him; after all, he didn’t clock Ilya’s interest until Ilya had literally jerked off in front of him. Some might judge him for his forwardness, but by that point, Ilya had realized Shane would only acknowledge something extremely direct. If Pike did have a thing for him, if he did anything less than shoving Shane down and kissing him, his secret would be safe from Shane. 

Whatever the truth is, it shouldn't even matter. He’s won, he has Shane, and Pike will only ever be able to dream, just like always. All good, yes? 

So he thinks. 

Tonight, Ilya has mostly made himself scarce in Shane's apartment. It's summer, and Shane has invited Pike over to watch the US Open, one of the night matches. They're downstairs, drinking, the sound of their laughter rising up towards him and echoing in the hallways. 

Of course Shane had asked if he would like to join them, but Ilya honestly hadn't been feeling it. They'd recently returned from the cottage, biding a little time before they both had to report back to their respective training camps in Montreal and Ottawa. The time they'd be spending apart, for yet another season, loomed in front of him. 

Without Ilya around, how much longer could Shane reasonably put up with their terribly inconvenient relationship? Ilya could see it, the way it put Shane on edge when they were together in public, always so careful, so scared. At this point, Shane certainly has more to lose, and Ilya fears they won't be able to keep this up until they retire. That either he'll change Shane's mind about the current plan, or this tenuousness will force them apart. The summers are amazing, gauzy and dreamlike, and then the start of the season feels like being dunked into ice-cold water. 

Reasonably, he should be spending every second he has with Shane like it’s precious, even if he has to share with Hayden. Instead, he camps out in Shane’s bed, which is big and soft and smells like him. He mentally checks off which new trades he needs to contact before the start of the season, to get on the same page with them. 

He wastes time, he texts the team, he scrolls through meaningless sports reporting speculating on the upcoming season, as if anyone knows what will happen. He answers his emails, he calls his agent. He reads about a new luxury sportscar, taking in the image longingly, knowing he could buy it, and groaning into Shane’s pillows when he realizes it won’t make him any happier. The car won’t solve any of the problems he’s been trying not to think about. 

Ilya distracts himself by skimming over lists of Russian verbs, deleting the too-stuffy sounding words and attaching them in an email to Shane. It's kind of amazing that Shane is so determined to learn his language, just to know and understand him better. Ilya doesn't think Shane's ever forgotten the day of their first press conference, when he was angry on Ilya's behalf that no one considered accommodating his mediocre English. It's sweet, really. Romantic. And as a bonus, when Shane speaks Russian, it's really fucking hot.

He looks to the window, the sky outside pitch black, and decides to head downstairs for a glass of water.

It sounds like the game is over, because Ilya can’t hear it anymore, even though the lights are still off. He’s in the hallway when he stops, hearing the conversation happening on the other side of the wall. 

“Can’t believe you skipped Wimbledon again this year, Shane,” Hayden muses, slurring like he’s pounded a few too many beers from their fridge. 

“You know why!” Shane insists, sighing mournfully. Ilya smiles, despite himself. His boyfriend is a total lightweight. He knows exactly what that pout looks like without being able to see it. Most of the time, tipsy Shane is remarkably lighthearted.

Hayden snorts. “Would’ve felt wrong without him, I know.” And he still says it like it’s a joke, like he can’t believe it. As if their relationship isn’t the most important thing that’s ever happened to them. “You could’ve taken me, though. I’d love to be your date, Shane.” He giggles. 

Ilya has never heard Pike giggle before, but it sounds exactly as stupid as he would have imagined. 

“Sure you would,” Shane mumbles doubtfully, sleepily. “You’d probably have to get blackout drunk to kiss me.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“Maybe. Not for the reason you’re thinking, though.” In the dark, quiet room, Hayden’s words seem to still the air, something liminal between a dream and reality. 

Ilya tenses up as he hears Shane’s weight shifting on the couch, the brush of him against the leather. 

“No?” Shane asks, sounding nothing but confused. Ilya leans his head back against the wall, looking to the ceiling in exasperation. Despite himself and the context, he still finds a truly befuddled Shane adorable. 

“No,” Hayden admits, softly. “You’re a good-looking guy, Shane. I’ve always known it, everyone knows it. Being friends with you… it’s like wherever we go, everyone’s like, just basking in your presence. You light up a room. Everyone’s looking at you. If they aren’t, they’re trying not to.”

Ilya bites hard at the inside of his cheek. Hayden might sound halfway conscious, but the confession is so tender it aches. He's not surprised, because really, he already knew. And Ilya can't even be mad, really, because he's not so delusional that he thinks he can keep the fact that his famous boyfriend is devastatingly handsome a secret from the world. It's a little more than just Shane's pretty face, he thinks. Some concentration of well-meaningness that radiates from him like an aura, drawing people in. The glow he'd seen when they first met, now brighter than ever, imbued with new confidence.

“I've never been able to resent you for it.” Hayden chuckles weakly. “You're just that nice to be around, I guess. I'm… really glad we're friends.” 

“Hayd…” Shane says, trailing off.

Ilya closes his eyes and imagines Shane's face, wishing he could see it, because then he'd know exactly what he was thinking. 

“That's… really sweet of you to say. Thank you.” Shane pauses. “Are– are you, do you think you might be…?”

“I don’t know, man,” Hayden says, flustered. “Who knows, right? I’m not sure if it matters.”

“I think it matters,” Shane offers. Ilya exhales through his nose, remembering a different night in Las Vegas a decade ago, when Shane said something so similar to him. I think it matters quite a bit. “It’s okay, Hayden. You don’t have to… elaborate, or anything. I’m always here for you.”

Hayden hums in acknowledgement. “Maybe this is why I can barely get along with Rozanov, even after a year. Maybe I think you’re too good for anyone. Especially that asshole.” 

Ilya can’t help it. He should leave, maybe, or he should walk in and pretend he hasn’t heard anything. Instead, he tilts his head, straining his ears for what Shane will say next. He feels a little like a beaten dog, sitting there tamely, expecting his next hit. 

Shane breathes out slowly, as if preparing himself. “I know he gets under your skin. He’s very good at that. I guess I always saw something beneath that, like– he always anticipated what I needed. Everyone’s always seen this really… curated version of me, even my friends and my parents, but he’s the only one that paid enough attention to see through it. And he’s so good with kids, they just love him.” Shane sighs dreamily, he’s fully gushing now. 

What’s more shocking than a hit you were expecting, Ilya thinks, is expecting a hit that doesn’t come. He presses back against the wall, feeling a little off-balance. 

Hayden snorts. “My kids are obsessed with him, that’s for sure. I can’t imagine their taste is that bad.”

“No,” Shane agrees, chuckling. “They learned from the best. Their mother.”

“Fuck you, man.” 

Ilya smiles to himself. An image comes to him, years of sticking six-packs of Canada Dry ginger ale in his fridge before Shane came over. Swimming in the pool with the other All-Star players’ children, shaking his wet hair all over a grinning Shane. 

Hayden pauses, considering. “I’m willing to accept that you’re getting some special, amazing side of him, fine. But, like– okay, he’s kind of a dick, Shane. That bothers me. It’s weird to see you with him, because you’re literally the nicest guy I know. It doesn’t bother you?”

He really, really shouldn’t be here. This conversation probably has Ilya’s heart rate spiking a concerning amount, all of his anxieties peeking out from the shadows to see what Shane will say about him when he’s talking to someone who doesn’t like Ilya, when there’s no reason to hold back. Ilya knows that Shane sometimes wishes he had a boyfriend that was a little more palatable to other people, someone less abrasive and mouthy. Someone less like Ilya, maybe.

“I’ve had a long time to think about this,” Shane says. “To overthink it, really. I’d say that, like, if you really love someone… maybe you can’t bring yourself to hate their flaws because really, they’re not flaws. They’re an extension of what you love about them.” Ilya frowns, thinking.

“Like, I love that Ilya’s really confident,” Shane explains. “He’s perceptive. He’s really dry, really funny. Kind of confrontational, and doesn’t care what anyone thinks about him. I’m not really any of that. I admire it, really. Someone like that, well, he’s gonna give people shit, especially when they egg him on. I roll my eyes and stuff, but– I can’t hate it. I couldn’t.”

Hayden is quiet for a moment. “This is it for you, isn’t it?” And there it is, there’s something in his tone that’s a little like resignation, and a little more like acceptance.

“I know it.” Shane says it without an ounce of hesitation, with a surety that pierces through Ilya’s chest. “With everything he gave up for me, I don’t think anyone in the world could love me as much as he does. Sometimes I still think I’m dreaming. Maybe I’ve loved him since I saw him? I don’t think there’s ever been room for anything else. Whenever this whole secrecy thing gets to me, I realize how lucky I actually am that we get to do this at all. Sometimes I think, if we couldn't have made this thing work at all, I would’ve died still in love with him.”

Shane’s words melt into him, warming him up from the inside out, and suddenly all he wants is to push Pike out the door and drag his boyfriend upstairs. 

“Shane,” Hayden says, sounding half shocked and half admonishing. “That’s… actually kind of sweet. Morbid, maybe. But sweet. Like, god, he’s a dick. But yeah, maybe you really have met your match. Maybe the legendary Shane Hollander could never settle down with a yoga teacher.”

No, he couldn’t. They’d be too boring together. Shane spends so much time trying to be perfect, carefully composed, polite; Ilya can give him a place where he doesn’t have to be. That’s the Shane that Ilya gets: carefree, with his guard down, all his. Precious. 

“No,” Shane says wistfully, echoing Ilya’s own thoughts. “It was always gonna be him.”

Ilya closes his eyes, exhaling a soft, involuntary breath. He eyes the kitchen, then the stairs. After a moment of consideration, he heads back up silently and slides into Shane’s bed, piled high with its too many blankets and too many pillows. He thinks. He replays Shane’s words over and over, allowing their certainty to sink into his bones.

…

Shane slides into bed sometime later, and Ilya blinks awake in the darkness. 

“No, no,” Shane mumbles tiredly. “Back to sleep.”

Ilya rolls over to fit his head into Shane’s neck, throwing an arm across his muscled chest. “Told you so,” he says, pressing a kiss to Shane’s collarbone. 

“What?”

“Hayden. Always told you he had a crush. You would not believe me.” He growls it into Shane’s skin. 

“Hold on,” Shane says, shaking his head as if to clear it. “You heard that? When were you downstairs?”

Ilya shrugs. “Could not interrupt him. Is a big deal for him, yes? He is trying something new. Self awareness.”

Shane chuckles, seemingly despite himself. “I never would have guessed. I can't believe you were right! It was probably by accident, though. I think you just think that everyone is obsessed with me.”

“Yes. Because it is true.”

Shane nuzzles his cheek against Ilya’s curls. “I seem to remember you saying something about having a threesome with him?” he teases, laughing.

“He wishes,” Ilya grumbles. “Maybe we just let him watch, and he remembers who you belong to.” 

His boyfriend gasps, arms tightening around Ilya, and he can feel the way the air changes between them. It’s one of his favorite feelings in the world, the way the space between them crackles with energy, the way they both realize what is about to happen without saying a single word.

“Oh, yeah?” Shane asks, a little breathily. 

“Yes.” Ilya mouths over his neck, nipping, kissing. “If anyone sees how desperate you get for me–” Shane’s breathing hitches– “they will know you are all mine.”

Shane nods, tilting his head back to bare his neck, a silent plea. Ilya wraps his arms around Shane’s waist from behind, latches his mouth over the juncture between his throat and jaw and sucks, relishing Shane’s needy moans. Shane grinds his hips back, rubbing up against Ilya’s rapidly hardening cock.

“No question,” Ilya continues, his hand drifting lower to graze Shane’s cock, already hard and dripping. “Not when you want my cock so badly, milyy. You are already wet for it.”

And suddenly, Ilya finds himself pressed back into the bed, Shane straddling his hips to kiss him hard. Ilya groans into his mouth, sliding a hand into Shane’s hair and gripping his waist tight. Ilya sucks on Shane’s tongue, hips stuttering uncontrollably upward. Shane bites down on Ilya’s lower lip, seizing Ilya’s face between his hands, pressing forward, searching, wanting. 

Ilya clutches him close, kisses and kisses and kisses him through the haze of want that he can barely think through. He tries to kiss him harder, deeper, feeling like no matter how close he pulls this man against him, somehow, it’s not close enough. 

He fumbles for the bottle in the bedside drawer, not wanting to waste precious seconds when he could be kissing Shane. Shane presses back into his fingers as Ilya prepares him, eyes hungrily drinking in the sight of his partner’s head thrown back, his hair a mess and his cheeks flushed. 

When Shane sinks down onto him, their hips flush together, Ilya can’t help but stare. It’s been years, he’s had this, seen this, countless times, and it never stops being the best thing he’s ever seen. Shane shines, he glows, his eyes fixed fiercely on Ilya’s, mouth open in a soundless gasp.

For a long second, Shane doesn’t move. Then he leans forward, and Ilya can’t breathe as Shane wraps a hand around the back of his head and pulls their faces together.

“Maybe you’re right,” Shane whispers. “Anyone could see how much I want you.” He rolls his hips, and Ilya tilts his head up, gasping.

“But I think… if someone did watch–” Shane’s eyes are so deep and dark, pupils blown wide– “they’d see that you’re mine, too. All mine.”

And then he moves.

Shane brings their mouths together and rides him, rough and fast and hard into the mattress. Ilya had been forming other plans in his mind when Shane got into bed, part of him is always planning ahead, but tonight he feels taken and owned in a way he rarely does when they’re together. Shane tangles his long fingers in Ilya’s hair and tugs, he bounces on Ilya’s cock just the way he likes it, he kisses him fierce and claiming, pressing his tongue into Ilya’s mouth. 

His boyfriend is gorgeous when he lets go, when he's not thinking about anything except Ilya inside of him. It's spontaneous, it’s explosive, it’s everything.

Shane pulls away from the kiss, pressing his lips to Ilya's ear. "Ty moy," Shane rasps, and Ilya keens, fucking into him harder.  "Moy yedinstvennyy– ah–" Ilya has to interrupt him, has to flip them over to drill into him properly, can't think, can't handle it, can't do anything but give and give, just give Shane anything and everything he wants.

Shane arches his back off the bed, moving back against him, desperate. "Fuck, oh fuck, oh my god–" 

They finish within seconds of each other, moaning into each other’s mouths, grinding through the aftershocks. When Shane pulls away, the room is quiet but for their ragged breathing.

Later, cuddled close, tucked beneath the covers, they’re finally ready to sleep. Ilya presses a tender kiss behind Shane's ear. There's another freckle here, he knows. One of his favorites, because it's usually hidden just under the curl of his hairline, just for Ilya to see, to kiss. He holds Shane against his chest, their warm skin pressed together. Shane is mostly asleep, dead tired from the late night and the drinking and the sex. Ilya can’t stop pressing kisses to his ear, his neck, mouthing at each cluster of freckles. It’s completely dark in the bedroom, but he still knows where each one is.

Ilya jolts when Shane whispers one last thing. “You… heard everything else I said, didn’t you?” he seems to realize, shifting. “All that sappy stuff. About you.”

Ilya smiles into Shane’s shoulder. “Yes.”

“Oh.” Shane considers this for a second, then nods once, barely. “It’s okay. I meant all of it.” He almost breathes the words, muffles them into the pillow. 

Shane is asleep within seconds, his chest rising and falling steadily. He's lovely, asleep. Perhaps it's the only time that he sees Shane without the tension he always carries in the line of his shoulders, a burden he's always affixed to himself. 

It's nice, he thinks. For years he's been thoroughly, irrationally jealous of everyone who looked at Shane Hollander and saw a sliver of what he saw. Now that Shane's his, though– really, truly, his– at least he can’t stay jealous for long.

Chapter End Notes

I know that with Hayden, Ilya loves to choose violence, but I was pretty interested in showing a turning point in their relationship, maybe the start of how Hayden went from hating the relationship to accepting it, and how Ilya developed enough maturity towards Hayden that he immediately forgave him after his fuckup in TLG, even when Shane was crashing out about it.

 

Thank you for all your comments!

Chapter 4: A Man in Crisis

Chapter Summary

Barrett nods like he’s preparing himself. “I was just wondering, you know, um—” Barrett seems to be looking at a spot just behind Ilya’s head. “If I could get Hollander’s number.”

Ilya freezes. “Sorry— what?” He has no time to think of anything that sounds less suspiciously invested. No superior clever response can come to the tip of his tongue faster than the reality of his shock.

Chapter Notes

Some canon-divergence here with Troy and Ilya. This is set shortly after Troy Barrett’s trade to the Centaurs. You get some angst, but don't worry, there's fluff.

At a certain point, jealousy has to become a little embarrassing, right? Especially when you’re jealous about the attention your gorgeous boyfriend—who you’ve been seeing in some capacity for your entire adult life—gets from the countless people he can’t even tell are interested in him. 

If that’s the case, then yes. Ilya should be embarrassed. 

He’s secure in his relationship, he really is. Shane isn’t going to leave him for some random guy, he would never do that. Shane’s a good person, the best person, and is deeply in love with him. Even if the reason they still have to hide, after all these fucking years, at this point has more to do with the fact that he’s dating Ilya, rather than the fact that he’s gay. Sure, yes, someone else might be better or easier for Shane, but Shane doesn’t want easier or better, he wants Ilya. And he can respect that, respect his choice. Shane had to do the same by accepting that Ilya could be living a different life openly with a female partner, but would never do that, because he could never bring himself to settle down with someone who isn’t Shane. That’s just the situation, and it’s fine. It works. He needs to move past the void his mind can become on a bad day, spiraling, wondering, poisoning his thoughts regarding everything he loves. 

On a good day, he can watch someone trying to chat up his boyfriend from the other end of the room and feel nothing but sympathy. He can roll his eyes and smirk and sip his champagne, not begrudging this innocent person their wide-eyed stupor. He’ll think about fucking with them by walking up and chirping something like: “why yes, that is Shane Hollander. He’s remarkably prettier in person, don’t you agree?” Just to watch them bluster. The pity comes naturally, because he too remembers the first time he saw Shane. He had barely been able to string together an English thought, staring at him almost in disbelief. Yes, he understands Shane’s admirers quite well.

At least when he had met Shane, he’d had a chance with him. No one else can say the same now. How unfortunate for them. 

Something unrelated: on the ice, Ilya is very well known for beating other players to the puck. 

On the bad days, everything that goes wrong seems to echo off the walls of an infinite mental tunnel, rebounding upon itself to amplify one ordinary setback into a world-ending failure. When he feels like that, it becomes much harder to laugh it off. Ilya has seduced too many people not to recognize someone else’s game, and he can clock the signs at a hundred paces. Each simpering look, each exaggerated laugh, each brush of fingers against Shane’s arm— Ilya finds himself gritting his teeth against his irritation, growing restless.

It doesn’t help that ever since Shane came out to his teammates, rumors have been spreading about him being gay, particularly in the world of pro-hockey. It means more men have been making advances than ever. 

All of this would not bother him so much if he had the option of doing what he does best: showing off. He wishes he could saunter up to Shane in a crowded room, sling a possessive arm around his shoulders, and whisper something low and filthy in his ear that would suddenly have Shane looking at him like there was no one else in the room, suddenly eager to leave. Whichever player, investor, fan, or admirer had been talking to him would suddenly feel invisible, and any fantasies they had been entertaining would be immediately singed away. 

He is convinced the ideal solution would be to buy Shane a T-shirt that reads in big block letters: ATTENTION: I AM DATING ILYA ROZANOV. That way, anyone who looked at him would be generously gifted a moment to admire someone beautiful, and another to process that they would only ever be looking. 

If only.

Ilya wants to get caught kissing Shane in the arena stairwells. He wants to embarrass him in interviews with a barrage of matter-of-fact compliments that put a flush across his cheeks. He wants to fill his walls with photos of them together, snapshots from the last decade of their entanglement: teenagers in love, All-Stars at a press conference, leaning into a face-off, shirtless in their swim trunks by the lake with stupid smiles on their faces. He wants to post pictures on Instagram of Shane on Ilya’s couch in his sweatpants, reading a book with his glasses perched on his nose. 

He wants to say a sentence he’s never said out loud, not once in his entire life: this is my boyfriend, Shane. Fuck, he wants everyone to know, everyone to see, and he wants it to be too much, to shove it everyone’s faces, for everyone to roll their eyes at them because they’re so disgustingly in love. 

But he can’t. And maybe that’s what this is really about. It’s not that he fears being left for someone else, it’s just that every time someone tries to flirt with Shane in public, Ilya is reminded that he can’t do that. Around others, he can’t show anything more than friendly affection to the goddamn love of his life, but apparently every complete fucking nobody experiencing a moment of delusion can. That’s it, that’s what hurts. The jealousy burns, a bitter lump in his throat. 

Unfortunately, today is one of the bad days. Ilya wakes up from a fitful night spent dreaming about his mother, lying there in a thick, mental fog that makes his bedroom seem unreal and distant. He has to force himself out of bed, cursing the day anyone decided to make him captain. He has practice in thirty minutes.

He drinks bitter instant coffee hunched over the counter, unable to bring himself to eat a real breakfast. Ilya doubtfully looks through his fridge and pantry, but everything looks utterly unappetizing, and he can’t stomach the idea of eating any of it. Turning around, something catches his eye— a half-eaten box of doughnuts on his kitchen counter. Shane had had it delivered to his place yesterday morning, with a note congratulating him on his two goals during Ottawa’s recent game against Seattle. They had still ended up losing, of course, but one of Ilya’s  goals had been absolutely devious, a feat of slick and practiced stickhandling that would end up in his career highlights for sure. It’s sweet, really. Shane must have been really impressed, if he willingly bought Ilya doughnuts. He watches Ilya indulge in anything unhealthy silently, with pain in his eyes. It’s probably a similar expression to what Shane would look like watching someone kick puppies for fun. 

The card with Shane’s message is still affixed to the cardboard lid, the words rendered in clean type. 

Okay, fine, you were incredible against the Sirens. The next time I see you, I’ll have something better to give you.

Next time. Sometimes he goes enough days without seeing Shane that he feels so, crushingly alone. In this moment when he’s doubting his ability to get through today, just this innocent reminder that he will see Shane again, and he’ll see him in just a few days, makes him feel a little more settled. There’s something to look forward to. 

Ilya opens the box, selecting a large specialty doughnut smeared with thick fudgy frosting and dusted with spiralized rainbow sprinkles. He takes a bite, and the sweetness of the chocolate coats his tongue. It’s indulgent.

By the time he finishes it, he realizes that he’s smiling, just a little. 

…

Ilya is standing in the locker room after practice, feeling a little like he’s been forced to do an impression of himself all morning. He strips his gear off methodically, trying not to pay attention to the way Troy Barrett’s eyes keep darting over to him, lingering.

Here’s the thing: Ilya grew up in Russia as a deeply closeted teenage athlete. Hooking up with other boys had been extremely risky, and in order to do it anyway, Ilya had developed a very sophisticated sense of when other men were attracted to him. He thinks he’s the polar opposite of Shane, in this way, who seems so wrapped up in being the perfect golden boy during interactions he fails to process when someone else deviates from the script. But Ilya knows. He notices the prolonged eye contact, the way people dip their gaze to his lips, to his neck, to his sculpted chest, looking back up with their pupils wide and their lips parted. 

They’re not always like that, though. Some guys have to develop their habits a little differently, to survive. Some guys won’t look him up and down, but they will tense up their jaw when they’re trying not to. They’ll breathe a little heavier, they’ll jerk their chin towards him, just a micromovement, when Ilya shows up to a party, when he moves sinuously on the dance floor— because they want to look, but they can’t. Or they’ll do it in moments like this one, when he’s peeling off his sweaty shirt in the locker room.

It is what it is. It’s not like he feels the need to whip out a notepad so he can list the names of every hockey player who’s ever wanted to fuck him. Really, he couldn’t care less.

Right now, he and Barrett are the last ones left in the rink, because Ilya had insisted they stay later to talk and do a few extra drills. It’s clear Barrett has been slumping hard since he was traded. He’s always standing away from the rest of them, head bowed like a man in crisis. It’s only been worse since they got back from the game in Vancouver. Ilya hasn’t asked about whatever is going on with him, but it probably involves his public falling out with his best friend, his complicated relationship with his father, his recent and sudden forced move across the province, and the fact that he’s an NHL All-Star who is suddenly playing like shit. 

Probably. 

“Hey, Rozanov?” Barrett says. “Can I ask you something?” 

Ilya turns to look at him. Troy’s face usually doesn’t display much emotion— he’s known for never smiling— but right now, he looks downright nervous, shifting around where he sits on the bench.

Ilya raises an eyebrow silently. If Barrett tries to come onto him, he’ll need to stop himself from laughing. It would be insensitive. 

“You’re friends with Shane Hollander, right? You guys seemed pretty close during the charity camp.”

Huh. That is not where Ilya thought this was going. 

“Yes,” he says simply. 

Barrett nods like he’s preparing himself. “I was just wondering, you know, um—” Barrett seems to be looking at a spot just behind Ilya’s head. “If I could get Hollander’s number.” 

Ilya freezes. “Sorry— what?” He has no time to think of anything that sounds less suspiciously invested. No superior clever response can come to the tip of his tongue faster than the reality of his shock. 

“I…” Barrett looks around the room, seeming to find great interest in every spot where Ilya isn’t standing. “I mean, you have it, right?”

“Do I have— we run a charity together, Barrett, what do you think? We each keep a supply of carrier pigeons?” Ilya sneers. He cannot believe he is having this conversation. 

“Yes. Yeah, of course. I just wanted to text him, that’s all.” 

“Yes?” Ilya can’t resist a look back at his locker, knowing that inside sits his cellphone, which contains, among many other things, Shane’s number. It’s both at arms length and a million miles away. “Text him about what?

Barrett blows out a breath. Clearly he wasn’t expecting this much pushback. “I mean, okay. So, you can keep a secret, right?”

He thinks about long drives back from Montreal when he has practice in the morning. Throwing his gear into his stall, his phone lighting up with texts from “Jane”. Slipping out of his rival’s hotel room, his hair mussed from being clutched with desperate fingers, and the parallel scratches of nail marks on his back stinging against the fabric of his hastily buttoned shirt. 

Ilya smiles without humor. “I can keep a secret.”

Barrett closes his eyes. “A lot’s going on right now. I’m sure you… and everyone else… basically knows what. But when I was in Toronto, I was… dating this guy.”

Ilya tilts his head, considering. So Barrett wasn’t that kind of closet case. He had some kind of experience with men, at least. 

“He cheated on me,” Troy admits dully. “He dumped me. I’m… moving past it, but it’s been hard, with all the other stuff.”

“I see.” Ilya looks at him. “And Hollander, he is what?” he says, his voice now low and dangerous. “Rebound?”

Troy’s face turns bright red. “No! I mean, I’ve heard— that he’s also gay. The best player in the league, I couldn’t believe it. I think at the very least, maybe he has some advice, right? He seems like a level-headed dude. And maybe…”

Ilya thinks he’s probably glaring. If Troy was making eye-contact, it would probably stop his sentence dead. 

Barrett shrugs helplessly. “Well, Hollander is a babe. If he was interested, that would be even better.” 

Yeah, Ilya fucking bets. And it shouldn’t matter, it shouldn’t, because Ilya promised Shane he was okay with his preferred timeline, with their plan. Because it was the only way to be together and still play hockey. Shane is so scared to come out, and he has no reason to know that it breaks Ilya’s fucking heart whenever he thinks about more years, more seasons, of this. Of every Troy Barrett who wonders if they’ll get lucky with Shane asking his boyfriend for his number. 

“Right.” Ilya finishes changing, he can shower at home. “Good plan, Barrett. Too bad I don’t have his number.” 

Ilya gets one second of seeing the pure shock on Barrett's face, eyes wide, mouth agape, before Ilya turns to leave. He lets the door slam behind him. Barrett does not follow.

Ilya pulls out his phone in the drivers’ seat of his car. His fingers grip the case tight— they’re trembling. He doesn’t know what to do. He should’ve laughed Barrett off, hell, he could’ve given him what he wanted. Shane would probably chat with him innocently,  text him some cheerful self-help advice and remind Ilya to support his new teammate as he’s going through a tough time. 

He looks at the lock screen. There are new messages from Shane.

Shane has sent him a bombastic fan edit of his goal against the Sirens, the one he’d gotten Ilya a box of doughnuts for. It contains energetic music and about a million cuts, with a vivid filter that makes Ilya look like just about the coolest person ever as he fakes out the goalie, drawing the puck back at the last second and swiveling it around his legs to shoot straight into the other side of the goal. It happens so fast that the goal is nearly impossible to see in real time, looking at first glance like a certain miss until it’s played in slow motion. The commentators go crazy, and the Centaurs bench explodes, the team pounding the boards with their sticks. 

My mom sent me this, Shane’s text says. She’s very proud. 

Ilya snorts, but he can’t stop the corner of his mouth from lifting. 

…

This weekend, it had been Shane’s turn to drive up to Ottawa, but he’d come down with a miserable flu sometime during his recently concluded road trip. He calls Ilya to tell him the night before, his voice barely a rasp, each word sounding like it scrapes up his throat on the way out. 

Ilya’s concern drives him to stand, immediately heading upstairs to pack his duffel. With his phone jammed between his ear and shoulder, he throws the bare essentials into his bag: a change of clothes, some toiletries. A few of his sweatshirts, for Shane, who always keeps one when they part again, claiming Ilya’s scent lingers on it for days. That it comforts him.

“It’s alright,” Shane tries to tell him, trying to muffle a horrifying cough. “I just need to lie low for a bit. I won’t be much fun, I can barely stay awake right now.” 

“Oh no,” Ilya deadpans, hefting the bag over his shoulder. “How can I take care of my sick boyfriend when it won’t even be fun?” 

“It’s not as bad as it sounds.” Shane sniffles. It sounds pathetic. “I promise.”

“What are your symptoms?”

“Well—“ Shane coughs again. “The cough. Stuffy nose. Headache, fatigue, sore throat. Maybe a fever.”

“Two hours, Hollander,” Ilya warns, slamming the trunk of his car. 

Ilya feels hypnotized as he drives, the roads blurring into each other as his body remembers each turn and lane change without turning on the GPS. After two full seasons and counting, this drive is drummed into his bones. It has to be, when Shane is at the other end.

When he gets close to Shane’s place, he pulls into the parking lot of a pharmacy. 

He throws stuff into the basket, trying to get everything that could be useful. Cough medicine, cough drops, Tylenol, a thermometer, a cold compress, decongestant spray. He doesn’t know the English words for everything, so he has to rely on a mixture of Google and brusque questions to a confused looking employee. 

Before he goes to check out, he considers for a second, then throws in a bulk package of tissue boxes. Shane never fucking stocks these.

He lets himself into Shane’s penthouse with the key, and trudges up to his bedroom to find him fast asleep in a pile of blankets. His nose is red from sniffling and rubbing, his hair is sticking up in every direction, and his face is covered in a sheen of sweat, even though he’s shivering. God, he looks miserable. 

Ilya quietly sets down the pharmacy bag, but the crinkle of the plastic has Shane stirring. 

“Ilya?” he mumbles, dark lashes fluttering. “You’re here.” His voice is barely a whisper, to avoid irritating his throat.

“Yes.” Ilya digs out the Tylenol, and hands him a couple tablets and the water bottle from the nightstand. Shane swallows them wordlessly.

Shane makes a noise of protest as Ilya begins to take his clothes off to get into bed with him, but Ilya slides beneath the covers anyways.

“I don’t get sick,” he says, softly. “I’m Russian.”

“That doesn’t—-“

“No, lyubov.” He presses a kiss to Shane’s forehead. His skin burns against Ilya’s lips. “Go back to sleep.”

He can tell Shane wants to protest more, but the second his eyes close again, he can’t help himself, he’s already drifting off. Ilya doesn’t cuddle him for fear of causing him to overheat, but he allows himself to caress Shane’s face, stroking a gentle thumb down his cheek.

…

The next day, Shane’s a little more lucid. By late afternoon, he at least wants to move from lying in bed to lying on the couch. 

Ilya sits on the end, letting Shane lay his head in his lap and sprawl out over the cushions, layered in blankets and swathed in one of Ilya’s biggest hoodies. They’ve spread the meds out on the coffee table, along with a box of tissues and a trash bag for the growing pile of used ones.

“Checked my phone this morning,” Shane mumbles, nuzzling absentmindedly into Ilya’s thigh. “Your new winger Barrett texted me.”

Ilya can’t stop himself from tensing. His fingers still where they’ve been combing through Shane’s hair. 

“I think he got my number from Hayden. He used to train with Lescher, who plays for the Guardians now.” Shane looks up at him. “How is he? I’m sure getting traded like that was pretty rough.”

Ilya clears his throat. “Barrett texted you? What did he say?” He doesn’t sound concerned, even a little.

Shane frowns. “Just hey, how’s it going, that kind of thing. Haven’t responded to anything all day, just hurts to look at the screen with this fucking headache.”

The words leave Ilya’s mouth before he can stop himself.  “Barrett’s trying to fuck you.”

Shane suddenly tries to sit up, looks concerningly dizzy, and Ilya has to push him gently back down. “I’m sorry, what?”

“You heard me.” No going back now, he supposes.

“He just said hi!” Shane looks downright scandalized.

“Yes,” Ilya says. “Because this is a better opening line than ‘are you interested in having sex with me?’ Even Troy Barrett knows that.”

“Oh yeah? Has he been telling you all about his grand plan to seduce me?” Shane quips, rolling his eyes.

“You think you are joking,” Ilya huffs. “That is the funny part.”

Shane’s mouth drops open. “Wait, really?”

Ilya shrugs, biting back the venom that is his first impulse. “He is a good looking guy.”

Shane smacks his chest playfully, but he’s so weak and tired it’s more of a tap. “I have a better looking guy. He’s so thoughtful, he apparently bought everything in the pharmacy on the way over here just because I was sick.” Shane’s smile is so sincere and happy, Ilya swears his heart stops in his chest. It hits him out of nowhere, a feeling so full there’s no room inside him to hold all of it. 

“Reminds me,” Ilya says, taking a deep breath to clear his head. “You can take another dose, soon.” 

“Does it bother you?” Shane asks, clearly picking up on the attempt to change the subject. “I don’t have to respond to him at all.”

And doesn’t that just make him feel terrible. “No, no.” He could never take him up on that, even though his worst impulses tell him it’s a great idea. Another one of Shane’s admirers, cut off from him. “I trust you,” Ilya assures him. “He is probably just asking for advice, anyways. If he asks for more, you will just shoot him down, like everyone else.”

“I—“ Shane looks utterly bewildered. The illness has clearly been making it hard for him to think, with the exhaustion and the splitting headaches. “Like everyone else? I’m not getting constantly propositioned, Ilya. I barely even go out. I never hear the end of it.”

Ilya chuckles. “You don’t need to go out, Shane. They’re everywhere. At the games, at the galas, the awards shows, on the street, in the hotel lobby. In the Centaurs home locker room, apparently.”

That’s not the half of it, Ilya thinks. For everyone hanging off his boyfriend, there’s five more who are looking, waiting, watching, dragging their eyes up his body, letting them linger on his pretty, pretty face. 

“Do you just think everyone is hitting on me, all the time?”

Ilya shakes his head. “You forget I have experience with these things, I can always tell. It is not all the time, no. It is too much of the time.”

Shane blushes. “People get the wrong idea. I’ve never liked getting hit on just for being famous, or a hockey player. It makes me feel, I don’t know. Like who I am doesn’t matter. Like they’d be saying the same thing to whoever was captaining the Voyageurs instead of me.” 

“Oh, Shane,” Ilya sighs, fond. “They are not just hitting on you because you are famous. They are hitting on you because you are famous and hot.”

Suddenly, Shane goes very quiet. He looks… uncertain. 

Ilya cups his cheek. “What is it, solnyshko? Tell me.”

“I know you think I’m… that I look good,” Shane manages, closing his eyes again. “You have to. I mean, the way I think about it, inevitably some people will think I’m a good looking guy. Then there’s the fame, and that’s the rest.”

“Shane,” Ilya says slowly, disbelieving. “You were voted the hottest hockey player in the NHL. By Cosmopolitan.”

Ilya had bought two copies of the issue years ago when he saw it by a checkout stand, smirking at the wide-eyed teenage grocery store clerk. She had needed three tries to scan the magazine with a shaking hand. Ilya had brought Shane one of the copies during their next hookup, the grin he wore threatening to split his face. Shane had been so mortified, Ilya had wanted to eat him. 

The other, of course, he’d kept for himself. What? It was a fantastic photoshoot. His copy had certainly been well loved.

Right now, Shane looks nearly as embarrassed now as he did then. Ilya goes back to petting his hair, waiting for Shane’s response. What could he possibly say to deny the evidence in front of him? Did he think the whole world was in on some cruel joke? How the fuck could the league’s prettiest player, a man who could’ve been a model even if he didn’t play hockey, be in this much doubt over his looks?

Shane opens his mouth a few times, then closes it again. He appears to be deep in thought, and Ilya tries not to get distracted admiring his freckles. He fails. His eyes trace them, lingering on each, giving Shane time to figure out what to say.

Finally, Shane sighs. “Okay. So I’m not fishing for compliments here, so just listen for a second, okay?

Ilya meets his eyes, curious. “Okay.”

“Right. So the entire time I was growing up, no one ever brought up what I looked like, except to make fun of me.” Shane stares at the ceiling, his gaze far away. “Not a lot of Asians in my school, and by the time I was a teenager, I saw a lot more of my not-very-diverse hockey team than I did of school, especially once I was homeschooled for the last couple of years, because my travel schedule was so brutal. Before I was a top prospect, it was a lot worse. It’s not like the other kids brought it up all the time, but believe me, I could tell it was the first thing some of them saw when they looked at me.”

Ilya wishes, badly, that he could understand exactly what it had been like. Maybe he could, a little; he had always been too aware of his accent, his poor English, his foreignness. But if it had been Shane struggling with those things, life would have been much worse for him. His experience was similar, maybe, but certainly not the same. 

“And then I got older, and some girls were obsessed with the idea of being with a hockey player. Especially, I mean. I play in Montreal. I know you were recognized a ton in Boston, but it’s just another level there. It just seemed like the second I had signed that contract, there was all this new attention,” Shane recalls. 

Ilya nods, bringing his fingers to brush through the fine hairs on the nape of Shane’s neck, listening.

“Then came the brand deals, the photoshoots, the underwear modeling. So here was my problem: people would tell me I was really handsome. Directors would say it, and women, and, well, you.” Shane says “you” with a wistful emphasis, with a smile that’s a little loopy. He grabs another tissue, wipes his eyes and his nose. “And then I would look at the photos, and the campaigns. Montreal was full of my billboards, you know? I hated it. I looked at them, and I just couldn’t see it, Ilya.” He sounds so lost, remembering. 

Ilya’s heart aches to look at him, at his boyfriend who’s worn thin from the fatigue of his sickness, head foggy from the meds and the fever. Apparently, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Shane’s never been able to see himself as beautiful. It throws Ilya off balance, because he’s blinking down at the most perfect person he’s ever seen, somehow still beautiful through the sweat and the exhaustion and the watering eyes. Flawless, he could never dream of changing anything. 

“I should be able to,” Shane insists. “But I just feel like I’m going crazy. Like everyone’s telling me one thing, and my own eyes are telling me another. Some days I look in the mirror, and I think I look alright, and other times I’m just… confused. Because I don’t look anything like people tell me I look, not at all. And then I think they must be lying, or blind, or have ulterior motives.” Shane exhales, throwing his arms around Ilya’s hips, pressing his face into Ilya’s stomach. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Ilya curls his hand around the back of Shane’s head, protectively. “Nothing,” he says fiercely. “Nothing is wrong with you.” He needs him to believe it.

“I don’t know how you can say that,” Shane mumbles miserably, curling himself up. 

“Shane,” Ilya urges, “Listen to me. Lots of people have…a complicated relationship. With how they look. You have a whole life to think too much about it, but other people… they just look, they just see, yes? Do you understand what I am saying?” 

Shane pulls his face away from Ilya’s shirt. “I think so. You’re saying that all the bullshit from like, when I was a kid or a teenager, I’m still thinking about it when I look at myself. And other people aren’t.”

“Yes.” Ilya smiles, as gently as he can. “That’s it, that’s all. You will learn to accept it. You are very beautiful.”

“Y-yeah?” Shane returns his smile, seemingly despite himself. “I’m sure you’ll be happy to remind me every day.”

“If you want,” Ilya says softly, “I will remind you right now. I will tell you that when I first saw you, I had no words. I had seen the pictures, yes. But right in front of me, you were prettier than I had ever imagined. Could not pick a favorite thing.”

Shane’s mouth parts, transfixed. 

Ilya slowly traces a finger through the hollow of Shane’s under-eye, across the splash of his freckles, over the pads of his cheeks, the pout of his lips, the cut of his jawline. “Maybe I still cannot. It is all perfect.”

The smile on Shane’s face turns wobbly, his long lashes look wet. “Thank you,” he manages. “You’re very nice, when you want to be.”

Ilya laughs, moving to readjust Shane’s blankets, tucking them more securely around his body. “Maybe you need exposure therapy. I think I still have that Cosmopolitan magazine in a box, somewhere at home.”

“What?” Shane raises his eyebrows. “I threw that thing in a recycling bin in Los Angeles.”

Ilya winks at him, feeling a rush of victory at the way Shane's face flushes pink. “I bought two. I needed one, of course.”

His boyfriend narrows his eyes. “Needed one for what, exactly?”

Ilya just winks again. 

Shane clearly tries his best to look unimpressed, but can’t manage to fight off the grin stretching across his face. When Ilya’s trying to cheer him up, he never can.

Chapter End Notes

This ended up being 5K words! I was just so committed to including a conversation about Shane's insecurities, I had to extend it. Basically, I spent some time thinking about how to square the canon that Shane is the best looking player in the league, and the best looking book series lead character period, with the fact that he never really seriously acknowledges this and is generally someone who lacks confidence in his personal life. Let me know what you thought about this one!

Chapter 5: A Publicist's Dream

Chapter Summary

Part of him isn’t fully past the blow that relationship had been at the time. He now has the benefit of knowing that it was never that serious, that it had been relatively brief, and that they’d had chemistry as friends but not lovers. Ilya wishes he could hack his own brain, rewrite his thoughts and make his emotions the right ones, just delete whatever hard feelings still linger. But he can’t.

Chapter Notes

Breaking news: I've written a chapter that is not about Ilya being jealous of a hockey player

When Shane had asked about driving down to Montreal for the weekend to visit the set of the X-Squad sequel, Ilya had stared back, eyebrow raised. Shane had jiggled his leg nervously under the kitchen table, waiting. Finally, Ilya had said: “They are making another one? In Montreal, again?”

Shane can’t recall the plot of the last movie very coherently, but he's quick to remind Ilya about tax breaks for the Canadian film industry, encouraging productions reluctant to film in the US to move north for financial reasons. This must be what happens to a person, Ilya supposes, when they grow up with two parents in finance. Instead of telling him why their ex-girlfriend is painted bright blue in all the movie posters, they choose to tell him things like this.

So now Ilya and his fiancé are back in Montreal, staying downtown in the kind of hotel suite that folds the towels into swans and leaves a bottle of champagne on the table in a bucket of ice.

Being an NHL player in Canada will get you recognized, will get you in with some well known people, but Shane's the only player Ilya knows who knows this many actors, because everyone in the industry seems to love Rose. Whenever Ilya talks to her friends, they gush over her, about how Rose is so down to earth, so dependable. How she has them over for dinner, cooks all the food herself, and even insists on washing the dishes between sips from her wineglass.

Maybe it would be easier if he could hate her, but he can't. If she was rude, if she flirted with Shane, if she was anything less than she was, Ilya could bitch about it, could tell his fiancé to keep his distance, a bit. But she's lovely. Really.

He's left to ruminate. It's a gross feeling, this kind of jealousy. The kind that is ugly and laughably irrational, and not substantiated by anything significant enough to bring up as an issue. What's the point of even mentioning it to Shane, when there isn't anything actionable he can ask for? When Shane rolled his eyes over his jealousy years ago at the cottage, he was right to do it. Shane's gay. There is literally nothing to fear from Rose Landry.

And yet, it still happens. He looks at her, and he remembers his teammates gathered around a phone screen, motioning him over, and seeing those paparazzi photos. The way he had gasped no, horrified. How he couldn’t process the sight of Shane with a famous actress on his arm, in public. Shane, who had never been romantically linked with a woman publicly. Shane “I keep a lot of things private” Hollander?

That had been… a hard year. Ilya had truly believed that things with Shane were dead, that their years of whatever it was, something secret and intense and wonderful, had come to an end in the worst possible way. He had thought he might have to endure years, or the rest of his life, pathetically wishing his partners were Shane fucking Hollander. After the grief there was the bitterness, and after the bitterness there was the regret. Just reliving that day, his failed plan to make Shane stay, wondering how he had managed to fuck this up so badly, and not having any clue what could come next.

There had been months where Ilya had seen images of Rose Landry, and had to notice everything she was that he wasn’t. Someone Shane could be with openly, someone he could take home to his parents and hold hands with in the street, someone who could wear his jersey at his games and that he could brag about to his teammates. She was a PR dream, and maybe if Shane was bisexual, like Ilya, that really would have been it.

So, yes. Part of him isn’t fully past the blow that relationship had been at the time. He now has the benefit of knowing that it was never that serious, that it had been relatively brief, and that they’d had chemistry as friends but not lovers. Ilya wishes he could hack his own brain, rewrite his thoughts and make his emotions the right ones, just delete whatever hard feelings still linger. But he can’t.

There's nothing left to do but let it wash over him, and beat himself up for even thinking it, wishing he was the kind of person who could be normal and relaxed about the situation. Instead of being that person, he pretends that he is.

He leans back casually in his chair, vodka in hand. Ilya is used to it, how he slouches, spreads his legs, takes up space, radiates the energy of someone completely unbothered. Sitting with Shane, Rose, and Miles, the familiar body language settles him.

They're in a private courtyard, behind some exclusive club. The place caters to celebrities. Anyone caught taking pictures is kicked out for life, and you need a member to vouch for you to get in. It's a little silly, he thinks. He's a celebrity himself, and he's never had a problem slipping into whatever grungy, sleazy establishment was blasting music so loud he couldn't hear his own thoughts on the dance floor. But he knows Shane is probably grateful; the new media attention focused on them has been overwhelming for him, to say the least.

Ilya isn't paying much attention to the conversation at the moment. His attention is on Shane, who's laughing at something Miles has said, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Shane is normally so reserved around other people, even if he's acquainted with them. Ilya considers himself the foremost expert on Shane's smile. He knows the way he smiles in a group, genuine but strained, a little nervous, always aware, always overthinking. How, when it's just them, and Shane feels relaxed and safe, Shane's smile is like sunshine beaming, the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

Shane's smile now is wide, glowing. He's so happy, almost like he looks when Ilya makes him laugh. If Ilya was a better person, he'd be nothing but grateful that Shane is enjoying himself.

Instead, his eye twitches. He has to bite his tongue. God, he needs to fucking get it together.

“You have to promise, Shane!” Rose insists, eyes wide. Her smile is bright white and blinding. “You can’t tell anyone that Miles’ character dies. I think his publicist is one more phone call away from fighting the studio execs in one-on-one combat, they’re so mad about his last interview. That’s the one thing no one knows yet.”

“I didn’t mean to spoil anything!” Miles groans, crossing his arms. “I’m just pissed about it, and it’s making it hard to focus when I talk about the movie! In the comics, Apex can literally survive anything, that’s his whole thing. And then in this movie, they kill him off for nothing? What a waste, man.” He shakes his head in disgust.

Shane grimaces in sympathy. “My dad is gonna be disappointed when he sees it. He’s got a decently sized comic collection. He always complains when the adaptations don’t, um… stay loyal to the spirit. Of the source material.”

Ilya smirks. God, his Shane is talking about comics. Shane who has the general pop culture knowledge of someone’s grandparents on Facebook. “Tell your publicist to call me,” he suggests, looking at Miles. “I have gotten in many fights, I will give them good advice. The executives, they are old and weak— should be easy.”

“Half his teeth are fake, you know that?” Shane says, eyes narrowed in accusation. “It’s mostly his fault. He says things to his opponents that make them want to elbow his teeth onto the ice.”

Miles’ eyes widen in shock, but Rose, ever the hockey fan, looks unsurprised.

“Ask Shane how many of his teeth are fake,” Ilya drawls, taking another sip of his drink. He looks at Shane sideways, who glares at him.

“I can’t believe I’ve never asked you this,” Rose says excitedly. “Well?”

Ilya takes a completely unnecessary moment to feel pride for knowing something about Shane that Rose doesn’t.

Shane grits his teeth. “Two.”

Ilya grins. “Does not fight, really, but loses teeth. Maybe if you wore that mouthguard, it would be less. Instead, you think it is a chew toy.”

It’s true that Shane doesn’t really like fighting, and can get away with it due to his position. The two teeth he lost were knocked out by an especially blind rookie forward from Colorado who had hit Shane with a bad high stick to the face. It happened in their fifth season. Ilya had winced, watching the game at home, rubbing his jaw in sympathy. He had scrambled for his phone to ask Shane to keep him updated on what the team doctor said. And just maybe, he had made sure to have icepacks in his freezer the next time Shane came over, just in case he was still sore.

Shane really should have had the mouthguard in. Unfortunately, Ilya is a hypocrite, because every time he chases Shane down and sees him biting down on his mouthguard, sees the thing hanging halfway out of his mouth, he still thinks it’s hot. He’s only so strong.

Rose laughs, reaching out to put a hand on Shane’s arm. Ilya’s eyes snap to the movement, too sharply, too quickly. He notices Rose’s eyes dart to his own for just a moment, even as she’s saying something faux-admonishing to Shane. Ilya looks away, face too hot. He’s perceptive, but so is she. He hates the thought that he could be transparent about something he’s tried to purge from his thoughts.

The four of them talk for a little longer, just chatter and teasing and small talk, but then Shane takes out his phone and curses.

“God, sorry guys, I completely forgot about this, it was so last minute. I have a call with my agent about what commitments I want to move around, with the wedding coming up and everything— it might take, I don’t know, half an hour?” Shane looks at him apologetically, but Ilya shakes his head. It's fine.

Ah yes, business. Always following them whenever and wherever they go, because the two of them are millions of dollars in investment, and even more in profit. 

“You’re totally good,” Rose assures, waving away Shane’s concern. She's always so accommodating, her hectic schedule means she can never begrudge someone a last-minute obligation. “I know you don’t like dancing, so maybe us three will hit the dance floor, and you can stay here and take your call in private? That should be enough time to tire me out, if we go hard enough.” She turns to Ilya and winks. “Shane tells me you’re quite the dancer, too.”

Shane just smiles at him sheepishly, giving him a look that says, what can I say? It’s true.

Ilya smiles, touches his shoulder, kisses his forehead.  and lets Rose take his hand and lead him out of the courtyard.

…

If there’s one thing Ilya can do, it’s party. With people he wants to be out with, or people he doesn’t.

The lights, the sound, the bodies, every sense screams from the input and coalesces into one pulse, one thrum of fervor. Rose lights up when she dances, grinning uncontrollably, the sequins on her dress rippling with her movements. After they slam another couple rounds of shots, it becomes hard to tell when one song ends and the next begins, or how many songs it’s been, because he only knows the beat and how to move to it, giving his body over to the energy of the crowd.

By the time Rose pulls them into the hallway, where a few others linger for a break, Ilya can feel sweat sticking his curls to his forehead. Spots dance in his vision, a souvenir of the bright, flashing lights. 

“I need a break after doing that in these heels,” she sighs, pointing to her feet. “The music here rocks, though.”

Miles rolls his eyes fondly. “Whatever you want, Rose.” Then he looks at Ilya. “You are a good dancer,” he says, tilting his head consideringly. “Guess Shane has a type, huh?”

Ilya looks back cooly, he breathes in. He breathes out. The alcohol has loosened Miles’ up throughout the night. And the way Miles had said that, it wasn’t cutting or mocking, just stated like a cheerful observation. How could it be anything else, when he and Shane were getting married in two months?

Ilya leans back against the wall, lifting a shoulder. “Guess so.”

Miles opens his mouth to say something else, Rose’s eyes darting back and forth between them, but before he can—

“Hey,” another man says, tapping Miles on the shoulder. His green eyes are framed by thick lashes, and his hair is coiffed like he just walked out of the salon. Ilya doesn’t recognize him, but considering what he looks like and where they are right now, he’s positive the man is famous for something. “Wanna dance? I’ll buy you a drink.”

Miles smiles back, all charm. “I’m all yours,” he purrs, sultry. He turns to wink at Rose. “Don’t wait up.”

And they slip back to the bar, but Ilya still feels restless.

He breathes out slowly. “I need a fucking cigarette.”

Rose just nods, as if she hasn’t been on the receiving end of a million of Shane’s rants about wanting Ilya to quit for good. “Let’s go out back, then,” she says, jerking her head towards an exit. “There’s outdoor seating, but it’ll be pretty empty.”

He follows, not knowing what to say, but feeling a little like he’s being lured into a trap. He could just insist on going back to the floor, or on rejoining Shane, but something in him feels like this is inevitable. Whatever it is she has to say, whatever criticisms she’s been bottling up, he can hear it. It could be a little like penance, for this ridiculous jealousy he can’t quash no matter how hard he tries. It lingers like a tumor he just can’t cut out, because every time he tries, the smallest remains linger to rebuild it once again.

They sit at a spindly metal table, the moon and stars above them. Under the darkness and a plain umbrella, Ilya smokes his cigarette, watching the wisps trail into the cold air instead of looking at Rose. It would be a little too much like looking directly into the blinding white lights that had flashed above the club’s dance floor.

“Nice night, isn’t it?” she offers, looking at him innocently.

Ilya narrows his eyes. He hates avoiding it, he just wants to endure what she has to say so it can be over. “Yes. Nice.”

“I’m sure Shane appreciates that you came,” Rose adds, resting her chin in her hands. “I know he can feel like the odd one out, when it’s just him and me and my friends. Sometimes showbiz people can be a little hard to mix with.”

Ilya nods. “What are husbands for?” They’re not married yet, but honestly, he’s counting down the days. Being on the other side of being outed, of Shane being signed to his team, of being publicly engaged— well, it’s been hard to see Shane struggling, but for him, it’s been a relief. And he just wants it to be final, to be official, their names on the paperwork, and Shane in his bed, so Ilya can make him giggle by pressing kisses all over his chest and whispering my husband, my husband, my husband.

“How’s the wedding planning going?” she says, chipper. “You know, Shane’s been asking about what color suit he should wear, and I told him grey, but I think he’s going to choose white anyway.”

Ilya takes another drag, fixing his eyes on the biggest star he can see. “You can just say it.”

She tilts her head, eyes searching. “Hmm?”

“You can say what you brought me out here to say. Is fine.”

“And what,” she asks, “do you think I came out here to say?”

Ilya clenches his jaw. As someone who’s had several teeth knocked out, he can say he prefers it greatly to having them pulled.

“I can see that you see it, Rose,” he says, just laying it all out there. He’s always seeing too much, more than he wants to. “You can do it. Tell me I am being ridiculous. That I am possessive, unreasonable. I already know.” The sky is so, so dark. 

Rose sighs, tapping a manicured fingernail on the table. “I know you know that, Ilya. And how I know is that Shane can’t tell at all, he’s just over the moon that you came. If you thought it was all justified, I think you would've told him, or at least not come.”

He shrugs, too forced. “Probably.”

“Look,” she says. “I doubt what’s bothering you is that you think I’m going to crash your wedding and whisk him away to continue our love, which was actually a brief fling that happened years ago.”

“No.” Ilya’s muscles lock in place, remembering. “Brief, yes. But it was a long year.” The remnants of the smoke turn the air between them hazy, and his measured words seem so loud in the serene evening.

“I’m sorry,” Rose murmurs. “That must have been hard for you.”

Ilya just nods, slowly.

“It was his last ditch effort, I think, to prove he could be with a woman,” Rose recalls. “Like, if it could be any woman, it would be me, but really, it was always just you. He was always thinking about you, and how it just wasn’t the same. We were happy, because we got along so well, but he missed you.”

She says it so sincerely, Ilya can finally bring himself to meet her eyes.

“He said your name in his sleep, once,” she confesses. Ilya stiffens, his mind racing as he begins to sort through the implications. “Not angrily, or anything. All hushed and… like, reverent. That’s when I knew I had to let him go. He was torturing himself, and you, just trying to be something he wasn’t. It was so fucking hard for him. When I asked him if he’d been with a man, he couldn’t even say it out loud— my heart just hurt for him, he was terrified.”

The problem is that Ilya can see it happening, like it’s right there in front of him. How Shane would freeze at the confrontation, his eyes going wide in panic, looking for some explanation, anything. And even though Ilya knew, intellectually, that the media blitz around the relationship didn’t paint an accurate picture, it settled something within him to hear it from Rose herself. To know that even during that godawful year when Ilya couldn’t stop thinking of Shane, Shane couldn’t stop thinking of Ilya, either. That even the worst couldn't drive a permanent wedge between them, that the danger was never real, that what they had was never going to die. The path they had taken from their first meeting to their upcoming wedding was winding, woefully inefficient, and difficult to explain to anyone who asked, but it was all theirs. It reflected the kids they had been, and the way they had grown and changed, the way they had come into themselves.

When Rose smiles at him, her eyes are so full of gratitude that Ilya finds it hard to take his next breath. “You don’t even know how… amazing it is. To see him go from that, to how he is now. Just, amazingly happy. In love. Engaged. I’m so, so happy for him— he’s a great guy, and he deserves it. And I’m happy that he has you.”

She reaches across the table, and Ilya silently relents, reaching back and allowing her to squeeze his hand, briefly, before retracting it. Her words burrow themselves into his chest, and he feels something click into place, some kind of deep certainty he’s been longing for but unable to force into being.

He clears his throat, working his jaw. He has to say something, he has to. She’s waiting.

“Thank you,” he manages, working to keep his voice even. He doesn't think he succeeds; really, he thinks the words sound utterly guileless, so sincere it's painful. “This means… a lot.”

They sit in companionable silence for a few minutes, both of them taking a moment to process, to breathe. Ilya’s phone buzzes— it’s Shane, telling them to come back when they’re ready.

Shane looks so tired when they meet him, drained from staying up and the energy it took to get through the phone call. It's the kind of stupor he only gets in on the occasions he deigns to drink, zoning out and then blinking hard to stay awake.  Ilya can tell when it’s time to take his fiancé home.

“Did you guys have fun?” Shane asks them, an exhausted smile on his face.

Rose nods enthusiastically. “You were right, Shane. He's a wonderful dance partner. Very sexy. You would have loved to watch him.”

Shane laughs, getting up to wind his arms around Ilya’s waist, and Ilya feels victorious as he curls an arm around Shane's shoulder. He's his. “It’s a tragedy. But I’ve seen it before, I’ll see it again,” Shane sighs, wistful. He looks around. “Oh hey, where’s Miles?”

Rose snorts. “He’s off hooking up with Austin Van Hart.”

“Who?” Shane frowns.

“He’s the drummer for Retro Arcade. The indie band.”

“Haven’t heard of it.”

Rose pats him on the shoulder. “You haven’t heard of anything. It’s okay.”

“Good for him,” Shane says. He seems a little out of it, between the beers he had and his drooping eyes. “I liked to think that after you tried to give me his number, he moved on to some other closeted hockey player, but this is good, too.”

Ilya squints at him. “Sorry, she gave you his number?”

Rose laughs loudly, smacking Shane’s arm. “Tried being the operative word. He was so gone for you, he didn’t even consider it. This was right after he came out to me, by the way.”

Strangely, Ilya doesn’t feel a twinge of resentment. Looking at Shane, who’s half falling asleep on his shoulder, he can only feel fondness. Because he knows that even at one of Ilya’s lowest moments, when he was convinced the best thing in his life had been burned away, Shane was still in love with him, still thinking about their reunion.

He pulls Shane closer, possessive, allowing him to press his face into his neck.

Rose raises an eyebrow. “Should I call you guys a cab?”

Ilya shakes his head, looking down at Shane, his lips curving. “I will do it.”

When they stumble into the backseat, Shane leans his whole body against him, seeking his warmth without thinking about it. The heat of their bodies seeps through their clothing, and it seems to radiate deep into Ilya’s skin, and it feels like he’s smoldering, like coals in a fireplace. Ilya had called something a bit nicer than a normal cab, a discreet car service meant for celebrities, the recommendation courtesy of Shane. When he barks to the driver to roll up the partition, he doesn’t hear a word of protest.

Ilya reaches for him desperately, holds Shane’s face between his palms, pressing his fingers into his hairline, and brings their lips together in a slow, searing kiss, their lips moving together feverishly. Ilya can’t get enough of the taste of him, the burn, the sweetness. Shane clutches the collar of Ilya's shirt, moaning softly, suddenly, like he just can't help it, can’t do anything but offer himself up for the taking.

When Ilya pulls back, he takes in the sight. Shane’s face, perfect, beautiful— and the look in his eyes, alight with pure devotion. Shane’s lips are parted in expectation, red and swollen from Ilya catching them between his teeth. He’s so caught up in the sight of a part of Shane that exists only for him, the unrestrained  desire, the flutter of his lashes, his hot breath panting against Ilya’s neck. Shane’s never looked at anyone else like this, never retuned that coveting gaze so many turn towards him. Ilya wants to claim him in every way he knows how: a ring on his finger, a protective arm around his waist, pinning his wrists to the mattress and fucking him deep.

In that moment, Ilya realizes he’s holding the entire world in his hands.

"I can't fucking wait to marry you," Ilya breathes, lost in the intensity of their shared gaze, so charged, he can't bring himself to break it.

Shane's breath catches in his throat, his eyes fixed on Ilya’s with a feral ferocity that freezes his lungs with a painful anticipation—it fills the space between their mouths like a tangible thing. Between one blink and the next, Shane’s hands are fisted in Ilya's hair, tugging him close, kissing him hard and consuming, a fire blazing so hot it consumes them whole. 

Chapter End Notes

I really loved everyone's comments on the last chapter! I'm so glad people resonated with the ideas in it. Only two more chapters, now.

Chapter 6: A Conniving Columnist

Chapter Summary

“He’s this up-and-coming sports journalist,” Shane had told him, showing Ilya a brightly-lit staff photo of a handsome young man with a fringe of blond bangs sweeping across his forehead, smiling in glasses and a blazer. “He just interviewed some of my dad’s coworkers for this piece about sports betting, whether Canada might legalize it. They all loved him, apparently. Dad says he’s going places.” 

Chapter Notes

So while I was brainstorming my poli sci friends and I spent about an hour recounting the personal details of a recent affair between a journalist and a politician… iykyk. I could not resist writing this chapter. Enjoy. Also after last weekend… go hawks!

Here is something Ilya has known about Shane since before they had even met: he isn’t good with the press.

Now, there were probably many people that would disagree with Ilya’s assessment, namely publicists, agents, managers, and Yuna Hollander. Shane had clearly been media trained from childhood, with the brief, inoffensive answers he gave to any question drummed into him. You could probably burst into Shane’s bedroom in the middle of the night, shake him awake with an insistent hand on his shoulder, and ask him whether he was worried about facing New York tomorrow, what with the recent marked improvement in their defense— and still, he’d probably mumble some measured platitudes about how he and the team would be playing their best, that they’d been working hard on shoring up weaknesses, and that he wasn’t worried about anything right now except getting through to the playoffs. That is how deeply the reflex was buried in him, it was automatic.

Ilya had watched and rewatched a truly embarrassing number of Shane’s interviews over the years, taking in the way he seemed to stare down at the desk, or a spot above the media pool’s heads, looking anywhere but at the person who asked him the question. At first, Ilya had told himself it was just about studying his opponent— knowing your opponents’ style, weaknesses, and preferences was very key to strategizing after all. But the realizations had creeped up on him slowly, even as he was in denial. 

Ilya had needed to rewind the clips because he hadn’t heard what Hollander was saying, too caught up in looking, taking in the smooth planes of his face, the way he blinked a little in surprise when a question took him off-guard, his mouth parting slightly to take a new breath. How he fidgeted under the lights, catching his plump lower lip between his teeth. The way his face would freeze into an unsettling mask when reporters brought up his mistakes, his injuries, and the way he ducked his head at the compliments, hardly cracking a smile as he rushed to brush them off and deflect credit for any wins to his teammates. 

But even after Ilya had accepted that he watched to strategize and to admire, there was one more motivation he had refused to acknowledge for the longest time, even as he continued to spend the nights after their games shoving Hollander down onto his bed, or lifting his back up against the wall, or pressing against him in the shower, Hollander’s back a line of heat against his front.  When he played the interviews, Ilya wasn’t just looking at the way Shane’s skin had glistened on the stage, or noticing the pattern of freckles on his face changing with the seasons. Ilya was checking in on him, worrying. He was taking in the way Shane slumped his shoulders after a hard loss, eyes unfocused, looking for all the world like he wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed. He would shrug his shoulders, give terse, unhelpful answers, and use so many words to say nothing at all. Between answers, he would close his eyes, inhaling and exhaling slow and deep like he was worried a sharp breath would be enough to break him apart. 

Watching the force of Shane’s disappointment on a screen made something in Ilya cry out, just wishing he could whisk him away and lead him by the hand somewhere private, where Ilya could make him forget every sky-high expectation Shane had ever placed on himself. He wanted to cradle that trembling, painful tension that Shane carried with him everywhere and knead it out, pin him to the bed and fuck him until tears spilled to his temples. 

Unlike Ilya, Shane didn’t laugh or joke or wink, even after a win. He stayed humble, perfect, boring. Nothing was going to get clipped and go viral because it was notable or outrageous— if it ever happened, it happened based off of Shane’s popularity alone. When commentators spoke about Ilya, they would say, what a character, or he puts on a show. Rozanov talks a big game, but he backs it up. He’s never lacked confidence, that’s for sure. When it was Shane, it was different. That he wasn’t the most sociable, that all he cared about was playing. No flash, no entertaining personality neatly packaged for public consumption. 

Because the truth was that Shane hated interviews. He clearly wished he didn’t have to do them, and tolerated it because it was contractually required, a necessary evil he allowed because it simply came with the package of his talent, fame, and captaincy. 

But Shane’s responses were perfect in that he never said anything controversial, or flashy, or rude. His sportsmanship was always impeccable. He was never anything less than polite and accommodating. It kept his PR people happy, because they rarely had to draft any statements or apologies or clarifications. It kept the brands happy, who were willing to pay premium to sponsor a celebrity spokesperson who seemed like he had it all— incredible good looks, phenomenal talent, fame that only skyrocketed as the years went on, and best of all, he kept his nose clean. No fights, no offensive statements, no scandals—

Well. That’s the way it used to be. 

They’re past the worst of it, of course. It took months for the media to churn out what felt like everything that could possible have been said: that they’re so brave, that they’re what’s wrong with society and wrong with the sport, that their story is an inspiring love story, that they should have been kicked out of the league. Now, though, things have settled into a new normal. But Shane has never had to whether a real scandal before, and Ilya knows he’s lived in fear of it for a long time. 

Because right now, the scandal is Ilya. It’s their marriage, it’s their identities. The scandal is the firm bedrock of their lives that cannot be altered, denied, or apologized for. There’s nothing to do but ignore the worst and move forward, but that doesn’t change the fact that Ilya knows it’s his responsibility to bear the brunt of the media’s scrutiny whenever he can. 

Ilya is good with the press.

They flock around him when they see him, excited smiles on their faces. They ask him more daring questions because they know he might answer. Do you think Shane Hollander was the difference between Boston winning or losing that game? How’s it feel now that he’s beating you in the scoring race? Your teammates say they’re seeing a new Ilya Rozanov, less girls, less partying. Any big changes you wanna tell us about? 

He knows when to tell an obvious lie, when to refuse to elaborate, when to chirp another player or parrot his coach’s words. Ilya has always been blunt, probably due to both being Russian and doing nearly all of his press in his second language, meaning that for the longest time, he just didn’t have the vocabulary to waffle endlessly about the future and constantly pretending he may be about to say something worthwhile.

If there’s one person in this relationship who should be handling the sudden spike in attention, it’s Ilya. 

It helps that he’s the Centaurs captain, so he’s already being sought out for his comments more than the rest of the team. But Shane, he’s a bright light drawing others closer, so genuine and contemplative compared to Ilya, who gives such few serious answers. And Shane’s having a fantastic start to the season, just racking up points, already scoring two hat tricks so far, absolutely thriving with a supportive team at his back. There’s no way for Ilya to take the attention off of him when Shane commands it with his stellar playing, no way to absorb every pointed and offensive question, heavy with unspoken implications, for himself. 

Sometimes Ilya feels like he’s being baited, because what the fuck was with some of these questions? 

Do you think having a married couple on the team introduces any unique issues? 

How have the other players reacted to your move to Ottawa, Shane? Have you done anything to make others feel more… comfortable, with the changes around here?

Ilya likes to think that he knows when to let Shane fight his own battles, but it’s like they’re tempting him. Sometimes he makes a cutting comment towards the reporter, sometimes he cracks a joke so dismissive towards them that the entire locker room breaks out in laughter, and the sorry soul who asked the question stands there, jaw clenched, face reddening. 

Most of the time, he settles for standing silently at Shane’s shoulder, still and solemn like an honor guard. He’ll incline his head consideringly at the person, eyes sharp, tense with all the poise and contained danger of a predator waiting, watching in the brush. And while Shane will give his answer, the monotone, halting, reluctant thing that it is, Ilya will look at that reporter, raise his eyebrows just slightly like he’s daring them. And most of the time, they nod and smile at Shane, visibly itching with unease, and cede their time to someone else. 

…

Ilya wasn’t looking forward to interviews today. 

The Cens had travelled to Montreal to play their first game of the season against the Voyageurs, who had scrambled during the offseason, forced to make bold changes to their roster. They had spent a decade building the team around their star center, Shane Hollander, the kind of once-in-a-generation draft pick general managers dreamed of. Then they had turned on him, benched him, pushed him out, unwilling to listen to or trust him after he had spent his entire professional career driving them towards victory, captaining the team to three Stanley Cups. That alone would have been bitterly insulting— but the Voyageurs had to hold a grudge, too. 

Ilya had observed Shane silently as they dressed for the game, taking in the way he jittered nervously, the way his chest rose and fell mechanically like each breath was a conscious choice. He had clenched his fists tight, watching from the bench, as the Voyageurs had torn after Shane relentlessly. They chased him like starving sharks that smelled blood in the water, relentless and hungry and single-minded, bitter from the weeks of press dogging on them about their precipitous drop in stats from the previous season. 

Shane was tripped, slashed, grabbed, cross-checked. Clearly the Voyageurs knew how to make it look incidental from a certain angle, how to wait for the moments when the ref wasn’t looking. Ilya could read his husband better than anyone, and he knew how skilled Shane was at pretending on-ice injuries didn’t phase him. He somehow knew how to put the hurt and the pain somewhere separate, to shove it deep down and let himself think only about the play. But even so, Ilya could tell that when Shane had been shoved against the boards, battling for the puck, he’d been shoved hard, helmet smacking against the shielding. It was a testament to Shane’s grit and tenacity that he’d been able to skate away. Ilya’s concern was sharpening into something much more volatile. 

The score had ground to a halt. Between Hazy’s goaltending, the Centaurs’ fierce determination to beat Montreal, and the absolute warpath the Voyageurs were on, the players wore themselves through on each shift with little success. 

It came to a head when a Voyageur defenseman had skated directly into Shane, who had long passed the puck to Haas. The collision had looked horrifying, the smack of their helmets, the tumble to the ice, Shane’s stick being flung far away as he skidded across the ice. At the sight of crimson, shockingly stark against the ice, Ilya stood up so fast he nearly fell over, the other Centaurs reaching out to steady him as the play was whistled dead.

Thankfully, Shane had stumbled to his feet and skated uncertainly to the bench, disappearing down the tunnel with a towel pressed to his cheek. 

Ilya had jumped the boards, snarling. He’d seen Shane take much worse before, and he had tried desperately to forget what he looked like when he fell to the ice like a ragdoll— but he knew Montreal was trying to hurt him, anyone could see it. These fuckers had been trying to check him from behind all game. 

Ilya had played like a man possessed, the indignant fury radiating through his entire body, down to the end of his stick. The stick was like another limb, an extension of him, and he had mowed through the Voyageurs with a force and agility that felt superhuman. They dove for Ilya, sticks scratching the ice to take the puck from him. They scrambled to check him, but he somehow dodged it all, moments of split-second consideration flashing across his mind on a level buried too deep to consciously comprehend. 

When he had whipped the puck into the net in a blur, burying it top shelf, it had only made the fire in his chest burn hotter. It wasn’t enough. 

Ilya’s internal clock was immaculate at timing his shifts, but he found himself circling back for another face-off, his body thrumming with energy. Clearly, the Montreal center had been expecting one of Ilya’s chirps, eyeing him warily, but Ilya was so focused he could barely tell his opponents apart. They were all just pieces on a board.

He had won the face-off, passing to Barrett, who sprinted into the offensive zone. Barrett’s coordination had been on full display, batting away the stick checks and leaning into the hits before he could get a shot on the goal. But Drapeau had blocked it— pad save.

 And yet, when the rebound came, Ilya had been there, lighting fast, muscles burning, not even remembering the strides he’d taken. He was already taking the next shot, his stick flexing and springing and launching, puck rocketing to the back of the net. The crowd noise was a wall of sound and fury. Ilya wanted to inject it into his veins.

Two goals. One shift.

Shane had returned fifteen minutes later and sworn he was fine, only needing some stitches mid-game from a nasty gash the other player’s visor had carved into his cheekbone. He had stewed on the bench, fresh from clearing concussion protocol, sore all over from being pushed around all game, chin up and murder in his eyes. 

The momentum swing had been what the Centaurs had needed, and Shane had clambered back onto the ice in the end, stiffly, determined to see the game through and help run out the clock. They’d made eye contact, something that burned with barely restrained anger and a vicious, triumphant spite. Shane had even managed to score an assist. 

It all means that the first day Colin Mallory shows up in the postgame locker room scrum, the Centaurs are stewing in righteous fury. They’ve won, but they’re worn through, taking in the moment with a grim sort of satisfaction. 

Ilya normally wouldn’t have recognized him, but Shane had mentioned him in a conversation a couple weeks before. 

“He’s this up-and-coming sports journalist,” Shane had told him, showing Ilya a brightly-lit staff photo of a handsome young man with a fringe of blond bangs sweeping across his forehead, smiling in glasses and a blazer. “He just interviewed some of my dad’s coworkers for this piece about sports betting, whether Canada might legalize it. They all loved him, apparently. Dad says he’s going places.” 

Ilya had raised a dubious eyebrow. “You know I only read the New Yorker, Hollander. Have not heard of him.”

Shane, of course, had rolled his eyes and told him to fuck off. 

Now, Ilya looks at Mallory from his spot at Shane’s shoulder, and considers. He’s certainly never seen him in their locker room post game before, and Mallory is a columnist, not a local reporter or sports network interviewer. He must be working on some specific opinion piece. 

When the reporters crowd them, Ilya’s already dressed thinking about the podium conference he’s about to get pulled to, while Shane is shirtless, still wearing the pads and uniform on the lower half of his body. His skin glistens, tacky with dried sweat, and his hair sticks up messily after he’s yanked off his helmet. The row of stitches stretches angrily across his cheekbone, crusted with dried blood. Spots on his chest and ribs are already bruising.

He looks strong and capable, like a fucking warrior. He also looks completely exhausted. 

“What a play from you in the third period!” someone tells Ilya. “Did something change in that moment that allowed you to dig deep and find that route?”

Ilya shrugs. “I saw that the Voyageurs are blind. Hitting players nowhere near the puck. Clearly, they were not so good at following it.”

“Are you saying that you believe your opponents intentionally targeted Hollander? Hard feelings over not re-signing, maybe?” The reporter leans a little closer, eager. 

Ilya laughs darkly. “If I tell you to leave locker room now, and you go, I cannot have ‘hard feelings.’ Is silly.” It’s no more information than Shane has already revealed about his departure from the Voyageurs himself, although Shane has always been painfully polite about it on the record. 

There’s a new wave of voices, clamoring to be heard, overlapping and rising over each other. Ilya answers each question defiantly, unbothered, keeping an eye on Shane even as he gets pulled into a different circle of reporters. 

Between questions, Ilya looks over and sees Shane shaking hands with Colin Mallory, who stands out among the gaggle of press like a shiny new penny. 

“Colin Mallory, New York Times Sports Desk,” Ilya hears him say, his voice carrying strangely deep and clear over the noise. “I just wanted to introduce myself; we’ve decided to profile you for an upcoming series we’re publishing on the latest free agent signings. It’s great to meet you.”

When Shane replies, it’s much softer, but Ilya is so attuned to the timbre of his voice he can hear the flattered response and the token nod to Mallory’s policy article.

Ilya already doesn’t like him. There’s just something about looking at the man that makes an uncomfortable feeling crawl up his spine, but he can’t really comprehend why. Maybe it’s the way he stands, forcing Shane to angle towards him. Maybe his smile looks a bit too wide and a bit too practiced, or because his friendliness is effusive enough to be both overwhelming and confusing. It’s the adept smooth-talking persona of a guy who sells timeshares in the tropics and makes fucking bank on commission. 

Shane smiles back at Mallory, automatic and perfunctory, but every time Ilya glances over, Shane’s shoulders have relaxed a little more, falling away from his ears. He still sags with the ache of his injuries, his layers of bruises, and the weight of the reminder his old team just gave him regarding where he stands with them. But Shane makes a little more effort for this guy, who seems to have shown up with questions that are at least a little more thoughtful and interesting. 

Just when Ilya is thinking of joining Shane, or pulling him into his circle, a PR person ducks into the room to tap Ilya on the shoulder.

“You’re needed for media,” she says, looking down worriedly at her phone, which is shaking from nonstop text messages. Ilya looks at her, then back at Shane, who seems to sense his gaze and catch his eye, looking away from a chattering Mallory. 

Shane’s eyes light up for a second, his smile softening, and he gives Ilya a look that seems to say, soon. 

…

When they finally get back to their hotel, Ilya makes Shane lie down on the bed while he goes to run a bath. They need to take stock. 

Being a hockey player means putting your body through abuse. Rarely are either of them completely free of injuries— maybe they’re nursing a sore shoulder, or bruised ribs, or sore wrists and ankles from pucks and slashes. They’re used to it. But rarely is Shane so banged up, visibly aching from being chased down every second of his ice time. It’s what the other teams do when they’re too threatened by the star players, they play dirty, they hit as hard as they can. They draw blood, they throw punches, they aim for the head— the penalties, the fines, and the angry tweets are nothing compared to the potential of taking out another team’s best player and ripping out the morale that keeps them going. 

While Ilya waits for the suite’s enormous tub to fill with water, he leans over the counter and breathes, staring into the mirror as it fogs over and the air goes hazy. He inhales the steam, trying to force his heartrate lower, even as images of Shane going down midgame burst into his mind unbidden. It’s not the time. He’s needed. 

Ilya mixes the epsom salts he’s dug out of Shane’s bag into the bathwater, checking the temperature as he kneels by the tub.

“Shane,” he calls, staring into the rush of water from the faucet. “Come here.”

When Shane arrives, standing so shakily in the doorway he needs to lean against it, Ilya presses a kiss to his hairline and begins to undress him. He’s done it so many times, he knows that if he wanted to, he could do it all one handed with their lips locked together. From the once-over he gave Shane in the locker room, he remembers where the tender skin demands gentleness, pausing whenever Shane hisses in pain to press apologetic kisses to his temple. 

Shane screws his eyes shut as he sinks into the water, torn between relief and discomfort. 

“Fuck,” Shane sighs, and Ilya moves to place a rolled up towel behind his neck. “Pains me to say it, but I don’t think I can ride you for a couple days.”

Ilya tries to smile, eyes still fixed on the dark bruise that blooms on his ribs like spilled ink. He’s certain it’s from Comeau shoving him into the boards shortly before Shane’s collision, but he doesn’t want to think about it anymore. “Tragic,” he says instead, kneeling behind the tub and reaching to card his fingers through Shane’s hair. He immediately leans into the touch, relaxing. 

“It’s my hip flexors, I think. God, I’ll barely be able to walk tomorrow.” Shane groans as he shifts in the water, muscles trembling. “I don’t think I caught my breath once all game, the way they chased me.”

“They are cowards,” Ilya says dismissively. “They know what they lost, there is no one to blame but themselves. I am sure they will feel the same amount of useless when they don’t even make the playoffs.”

Shane just leans his head back, frowning, thinking, probably reliving the last time he was in the locker room with his old team. There’s too much tension in his face. Ilya begins to move his fingertips, rubbing slow circles into Shane’s scalp. Shane’s mouth drops open, his eyes fluttering shut as he exhales softly, sinking deeper into the water.

“So what if you can’t ride me?” Ilya murmurs, Shane jolting as he presses a little harder. “I will just press you down, hold your wrists above your head, hmm? I can do all the work, Hollander. You just have to lie there and take it.”

Shane’s breath picks up. 

“I will grab your hips, hold you in place.” He’s trailing a hand down Shane’s chest, now, feeling the rise and fall of his quickening breaths. “You can be a good boy for me, right?”

Shane nods jerkily.

“Say it.” Ilya reaches lower, wraps a loose hand around his stiffening cock.

“Yes,” Shane whispers. His hips give an involuntary jerk into Ilya’s fist before he tries to still them, making Ilya smirk at his precious restraint. “I can be good for you.”

Somehow, taking his husband’s mind off of things feels just as selfish as it is selfless. He’s not strictly sure how that is possible—all he knows is that he’s sure they both need this. 

…

Looking at Shane dressed up for the Irina Foundation fundraiser, Ilya has a realization. His husband is the most beautiful person he’s ever seen in his life.

And no, the fact that he’s had this thought countless times before doesn’t make it any less of a realization. It still feels like he’s rooted to the ground whenever the thought occurs to him, watching his own life from the outside like a mute observer. It feels like each shard of his memories of Shane’s face— images of him grinning unabashedly, or scanning the ice with an intense look of focus, or throwing his head back in pleasure— matches up with the Shane he’s looking at right then, slotting together like puzzle pieces. They’re threads of some impossible tapestry of a masterpiece so varied and intricate Ilya could find new things to appreciate every time he looked at it. 

Right now, though, he just stares. He just takes in the sight of Shane in a perfectly tailored suit, raking his eyes down the long, lean line of his body. 

“If you keep looking at me like that,” Shane says, flushing, “I don’t know how we’re going to leave.”

Ilya’s eyes narrow. “Come here.”

When they do finally leave, only Ilya knows about the fresh bruise sucked into Shane’s neck, hidden just under the jut of his collar. He’s left the top button undone— it just looks better that way. 

Shane tries to glare at him as they slide into the car and fails spectacularly, because he can only manage it for a second before breaking into a loose, happy grin. 

They’ve rented out a ballroom for the fundraiser, which is full of donors, a handful of players, and representatives from the nonprofits that they work with, as well as families that have enrolled in the charity camps during previous years. The room fills with the hum of polite conversation, the echo of the space, the scuffling of footsteps, and the clink of champagne flutes.

As he scans the room, Shane still on his arm, Ilya spots none other than Colin Mallory.

“What’s he doing here?” 

“Who?” Shane turns his head. “Oh yeah, Colin. He contacted Farah about that profile he’s writing, he’s been texting about it. I think he mentioned that his editor sent him here to get some more info on our charity work.”

Ilya hums in acknowledgement, glancing at Mallory sideways. When Mallory sees Shane across the room, he briefly turns from his conversation to wave, grinning. Shane nods back. 

“I don’t remember all of this for my profile.” Ilya nudges him.

Shane laughs, a gorgeous, brightening sound that could heal something broken. “That was four years ago. We’d barely had a press conference about the charity.”

“Not sure,” Ilya muses. “Maybe he begged the editor.”

“What?”

Ilya grins at him. “Please, Mr. Editor,” he imitates, putting on a godawful chipper American accent. “Shane Hollander, in a suit? We can sell enough papers to get us through the winter.”

Shane smacks him. “Shut up,” he says. “That doesn’t even make any sense. He’s not a photographer.” 

Ilya shrugs. “Probably he brought one. Or maybe he will just take them on his phone. You know, for the paper.”

“Fuck off.” But Shane’s smiling back at him over his shoulder as he walks off. 

Ilya’s pretty used to the way these things go by now, the blur of questions and small talk. He can charm anyone easily, and loves the opportunity to do it, although he makes sure to seek out Shane with his gaze every now and then. Just to see how he’s doing, if he looks overwhelmed. If he is, maybe Ilya can grab him, make him drink some water, maybe step outside for a break. 

Checking on Shane in rooms like this is second nature— he just does it without thinking and goes right back to what he was doing. That’s why it jolts him a little when he scans for Shane, only to see him far in the corner of the ballroom, speaking with Colin Mallory. 

At first, everything looks fine. Shane returns Mallory’s effusive smile with one that’s practiced, measured. They speak, Mallory leaning towards him, showing him something on his phone. 

Ilya is halfway through a conversation with a donor whose name he can’t remember when he sees Shane’s smile change. 

Shane’s so used to the media, his smile doesn’t drop. It just shifts, a new, sprouting unease pulling tension into his face. The previous warmth tightens into something careful, something effortful. Ilya can’t help jerking his chin towards them to follow the line of his gaze when he sees it. 

Mallory is standing too close.

It’s nothing that would trip an alarm or look untoward if someone were to take a photo. Mallory simply stands just inside the space Shane would normally reserve for someone he trusts. Mallory shifts his stance, nearly blocking Ilya’s view of Shane when he places himself between Shane and the rest of the room. He blocks Shane in. It feels practiced, intentional, like he’s done it before.

Mallory’s lips are moving as he leans close to Shane’s ear, their shoulders brushing. His hand hovers by Shane’s elbow, not touching, just hovering. Somehow it’s worse than touching him, just being so close that Shane has to wonder if he will. 

There’s heat growing in Ilya’s chest, a righteous, creeping anger that has him muttering an apology to the donor and making his way through the crowd. 

Ilya is polite at first, keeping his eyes trained on his husband as he excuses himself around clusters of chattering guests. And then he sees Shane lean away from Mallory, widening the space. Mallory follows immediately, edging closer.

Mallory says something else, tilting his head in question and Shane— Shane’s smile falters, just for a beat, before he schools it back into place. 

Ilya knows him so well, he doesn’t even think before he’s striding across the room with something in his eyes that makes people step away to let him pass, casting him confused looks and whispering to their conversation partners. Because Ilya knows that look, has seen it on Shane’s face during the interviews that pushed a little too far. The way he looks so uncertain, frozen still, thinking about how to say no and not knowing how because he’s so overwhelmed in the moment, so worried about making things worse. 

He fucking swears he sees Mallory’s gaze drop to Shane’s mouth before moving back up to meet his eyes.

Ilya slows down as he approaches, taking in the way Mallory still wears that open, camera-ready smile and gesticulates widely with his hands. He moves with an oily, unhurried ease settled into every line of his body. 

“—that’s why I’m telling you, you don’t have to be ‘on’ all the time,” Mallory says, tilting his head down. “Not with me.”

It kills any hope in Ilya’s chest that this is a misunderstanding. He sees Shane open his mouth, hesitating. 

Ilya steps in. “Shane,” he says, trying as hard as he can to stay calm. It can be hard to change his mindset in these situations— on the ice, fights are about self-policing. You have a problem, you drop the gloves and fight it out properly instead of bitching about it, getting nothing more than a five minute penalty for the trouble. They’re not on the ice now. He has to fight with something other than his fists. 

When Mallory hears him, he turns in surprise, opening the path to Shane. Ilya closes the distance between them, sliding up to Shane to wrap an arm around his waist, pressing a thumb familiarly into the curve of his hip. Shane breathes out slowly, relaxing, seemingly instinctively into Ilya’s side. 

Mine. 

“Sorry,” Ilya says mildly, tugging Shane against him. “Am I interrupting? I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Ilya brings a hand to his chin, flashing the sleek wedding band on his finger, noting the way the corners of Mallory’s mouth tighten.

“Not at all.” Mallory’s expression flattens into something cordial. “Just speaking with Shane.”

“Seems so,” Ilya replies.

Shane is stiff against his side.

 “Oh, dorogoy?” Ilya murmurs suddenly, eyes catching on Shane’s neck like he’s noticed something. “You need to fix your collar.”

He leans, reaching with his free hand to adjust his collar. He does it slow enough to be deliberate but casual enough to be publicly acceptable. As he shifts the fabric, he reveals the bruise that decorates Shane’s throat, stippled and purpling and in the shape of Ilya’s mouth.

Mallory’s gaze dips. Pauses.

Shane shifts, flushing deep, but he stays right where he is. He even presses a little closer, looking up at Ilya with a heated gaze. When they lock eyes, it’s like there’s no one else in the room, and Ilya feels like he could topple onto those eyes, like he could drown in their depths. 

Mallory clears his throat. “I think I’ll let you get back to your guests.” He steps back, looking around, settling a bit when he seems to conclude no one is looking. “I hope you enjoy your evening.”

“We will,” Ilya says pleasantly, watching the other man slink away. Mallory retreats into the crowd, seamlessly inserting himself into a new cluster of admirers.

Shane leans his cheek on Ilya’s shoulder. “Ilya,” he whispers. “I— he was—”

“It’s okay,” Ilya murmurs, stroking up and down his arm. “I saw.”

“I didn’t, I promise I didn’t do anything to give him any— I mean, he’s only been texting about the story, about appointments for interviews—” Shane’s words get faster as he speaks.

Ilya bends to kiss his head. “I know, Shane. I know. Cancel the interviews. He’s been around a lot, yes? He has enough to write a column. Does not even need to be here. Should I ask him to leave?”

Shane shakes his head. “I think I just want to ask Farah about it. This feels— unethical. I don’t want his future sources to feel unsafe.”

Ilya nods, silently accepting his choice. 

For the rest of the night, Ilya keeps Shane by his side, his hand pressed gently against his lower back. 

Chapter End Notes

Have lost the ability to keep the chapters short. The +1 is coming soon, and it will hopefully be very nice and healing and a culmination of all the conflicting emotions threading through this fic. Let me know what you think of the chapter!

Chapter 7: Ilya Rozanov

Chapter Summary

The rest of the room blurs around Shane, the glow of him warping Ilya’s perception around a new center of gravity. His husband shines like the sun, like his own, personal sun—

“—Roz, Roz! Hey, are you even listening?”

Chapter Notes

Sorry for the delay, but the end is here. I’ve come to the realization that this fic includes a lot of drunken late night conversations. Maybe I just feel like that’s a cozy, liminal space where vulnerable confessions belong and I’m addicted to capturing it.

Ilya knows Shane believes in self-discipline, in restriction.

He’s asked about it, before. He’s leaned back against the kitchen counter, watching Shane weigh his protein, or scoop various odd powders into his smoothie, and brought it up. Yes, they’re athletes, yes, they’re all on meal plans and exercise regimens, but why does Shane take it so much farther? 

Shane had chewed his lip, looking like he wished he could shrug off the question. With anyone else, he would have, Ilya knows. Ilya had already heard all of the stated reasons: Shane wanted to maximize performance, he wanted to take care of his body, he wanted to get in the right mindset for the season, he’d said it all before. The reason Shane really had to think was that he knew Ilya was looking for a different answer. 

It holds everything together, Shane had said, leaning over the counter. He rested his cheek on his fist. It’s structure. I know the other guys, they can cheat on their diet, indulge here or there. But I just can’t, Ilya. I feel like if I skip out once, the whole thing will fall apart. I’ll stop being able to stick to any kind of routine at all. Everything will just… spin out of control.

Shane’s control is finely honed. Ilya had seen it the first time he’d seen Shane play at the Prospect Cup, the way he’d aimed that shot with jaw-dropping precision like he had simply willed it to fly in the perfect line. Sometimes he focuses so much on staying in control he trembles with it, maintaining impeccable composure. The ice pulls out a different version of him, one that stands so stone-faced after a nasty chirp that the commentators can’t even tell that anything untoward was said at all. He’s seen Shane easily ignore insults that would have had Ilya ripping off his gloves and acquainting the other guy’s jaw with all the force of his right hook. 

He knows how much Shane spirals, how easily it is for him to get overwhelmed by his own anxiety. The control, the routine, the diet, the regimen— they’re all tendrils of restraint he wraps around himself tightly, trying so hard to hold in whatever chaos and neuroticism he swears is churning inside of him, just waiting to derail his entire life. 

Ilya has spent years trying to prove him wrong. Trying to show him how an indulgence here or there won’t ruin everything, that his fears are understandable, considering the life he lives, but unsupported. At least since their outing, their wedding, and the new season, Shane has experienced such a sudden life change that little deviations no longer feel like the end of the world.

When Ilya grips Shane’s hair at the root and orders him to his knees, he’s always kneeling before Ilya’s even finished saying it, already scrabbling for his belt with shaking fingers. He’s always so sweet, so fucking eager, going along with whatever Ilya chooses, seemingly content to do nearly anything as long as Ilya tells him to do it. As long as he caresses Shane’s cheek like he’s precious and tells him he’s so desperate, so good, so perfect. And Ilya thinks that Shane’s desire to stay in control of his life and himself is why he responds to it so well— he gets this space carved out for him to stop thinking so much, to shed his straightjacket. 

Ilya will press the palm of his hand between Shane’s shoulder blades, pinning his chest to the mattress as he slams into him from behind. His eyes will rove greedily over the smooth expanse of his back, marred by the reddening marks of Ilya’s teeth on his shoulder. He’ll take in the sight of Shane gasping as he does it, eyes closed, open mouthed, panting and writhing, not a trace of self-consciousness on his face. And sure, maybe on some nights, it’s nice to humiliate him a little, listen to his whimpers and watch his cheeks flush deeply when Ilya orders him to open his mouth, to stick out his tongue— but it’s even better to get to the other side of it, to fuck him so good that Shane forgets he was ever embarrassed, that he ever had a reason to muffle the intoxicating moans that Ilya punches out of him with every thrust.

God, it’s euphoric. The way Shane goes from his competitive, mouthy self, to someone who can only gasp yes, and there, please, and harder, fuck— more! And he slides further, as Ilya denies him over and over, drawing out the pleasure, pulling him tight like a trembling string, and soon Shane can’t form any words at all, only asking wordlessly through garbled moans and strangled gasps and the desperate roll of his hips. 

It’s so beautiful that Ilya can only look on in awe, even as his own release rushes inevitably towards him. His thoughts are at once possessive and sickly sweet, a rush in his ears that feels like victory when he thinks about how this version of Shane is completely and utterly his. 

…

Ilya can tell it takes Shane a few months to settle into the new team. He’d played for the Voyageurs for a full ten years—- no matter how terribly it had all ended, it was a big change. The two teams had completely different cultures, and the Centaurs had their near death experience and meteoric rise last season binding them together.

The Centaurs had been nothing short of thrilled when they’d learned that Shane was joining the team. The rookies especially, because they’d all grown up idolizing him. 

 But Shane isn’t a person who opens up easily— Ilya remembers Hayden telling him how he’d spent weeks trying to get Shane to hang out with him, getting to know him better, only to realize that Shane thought he was just being polite, or that he pitied him for not immediately gelling with the rest of the team. He kept giving these excuses, Hayden had recalled, like, he was so worried about being a bother, he didn’t even consider I just wanted to spend some time with a teammate I liked.  

Shane finds going out to be a sensory overload most nights, and extended evenings of social interaction exhausting and stressful. It means that most of his teammates—past and present—spent nearly all of their time with the version of Shane that wraps himself tight in the trappings of his self-discipline, that sweeps across the ice like an osprey hunting over the water, taken by such an intense focus that its aura radiates from the tense line of his body, lifting the rest of his line to the brink of their potential as they push themselves harder to keep up with him. It’s amazing, it’s awe-inspiring, because his Shane is a monument to perfection. 

But Ilya can tell it distances him from everyone, because Shane so rarely takes a moment to be anything else, not when he’s at work. Shane makes a joke here, a chirp there, but when they play for a team as close as the Centaurs, it still feels like he’s holding back, like he’s still scared. And he knows Shane has set his eyes on the next Cup like lifting it again will prove wrong every single person who ever doubted him, like it will finally push him past the dead dream of his red Voyageurs jersey in the rafters, the loss he still mourns and wishes like hell he didn’t. 

Most of all, Shane never assumes that he’s wanted. If you want him to realize, Ilya thinks, you need to shake him by the shoulders, you need to tell him so clearly that he can’t attribute your behavior to anything else, no matter how hard he tries.

Ilya’s on a mission to make Shane truly accept the place he has on the team. He knows Shane knows he has one, but can tell that part of Shane is still waiting for the other shoe to drop, still holding some of himself back in some other place, safe from another betrayal. For the past few months, Ilya has been just truly, incandescently happy— he’s never been this happy in his entire fucking life, and never even anticipated that he could be. Now that he’s no longer hiding his sexuality or his relationship, it’s like the last barrier between himself and his teammates has dissolved, and Ilya is liberated, he simply spends his days inhabiting a truer version of himself, so used to the constant pretending that he never realized how much it was weighing him down. He knows Shane is happier too, but there’s a ways to go.

That’s why Ilya is so excited about tonight, their holiday break having just begun, and the first time Shane’s agreed to host a party for the team at their home. This is his chance to pull Shane out of his shell a bit, to let everyone see a little more of him. Ilya loves showing off that his husband is Shane Hollander, that he’d snagged the prettiest and most talented player in the league before anyone had even a chance to touch him. Tonight, he hopes that when the sky gets dark and the alcohol loosens him up, Shane will be a little more relaxed around the team.

He gets his wish. 

Shane starts the evening sitting next to him on the couch, a respectable distance apart— with every new beer someone hands him, Shane rolls his eyes, and loosens, and shifts even closer to feel the warmth of their sides pressed together. Shane tosses him a pleading look that has Ilya wordlessly sliding a comforting arm around his shoulders. He loves that Shane is a happy drunk, and thinks maybe it's because enough drinking quiets the relentless pulse of anxiety in his head, making everything impossible to overthink for a single evening. 

Ilya can’t stop himself from stealing looks at his husband, more and more as the drinks in his own hand seem to fill as quickly as he finished them. And as Shane relaxes, the curve of his genuine smile makes his face a work of fucking art, and he’s no longer shy about his interruptions and his stories and his cheesy jokes. Ilya watches him talk, his eyes alight as he regales a rapt Haas with a story about a Voyageur comically striking out with an ice girl in front of the entire team. 

They’ve dimmed the lights, but Ilya still sees his spray of freckles, an irresistible path he kisses across Shane’s cheekbones every night. Whatever Shane is saying gets lost once it hits Ilya’s ears, because at a certain level of drunken haze, it becomes a musical lilt of low tones that score the image of Shane’s lips wrapping around his words. Those lips, the way they could be swollen from kissing, parting without hesitation for the head of his cock, asking without words, begging for him.

The rest of the room blurs around Shane, the glow of him warping Ilya’s perception around a new center of gravity. His husband shines like the sun, like his own, personal sun—

“—Roz, Roz! Hey, are you even listening?”

“What?’ Ilya looks around, seeking the source of the voice. He’s blinking out of his reverie, surfacing from the swirl of his thoughts, the words echoing  far away in his ears. 

It’s Bood, sprawled on the carpet, nudging Ilya’s leg. “We’ve been trying to get your attention,” he says, eyebrows raised. 

Hayes shakes his head. “He hasn’t looked away from Shane for a bit.” Well. Ilya supposed, at a certain point, he had stopped sneaking looks and started simply looking. If anyone was allowed, though, it would be him. 

Shane turns at the sound of his name. “What’s happening?”

“Nothing,” Hayes says. “Rozy’s just got hearts in his eyes. But I’m not one to judge some newlyweds mooning over each other.”

“Newlyweds?” Shane tilts his head, frowning. He leans toward them a little, hooking his chin over Ilya’s shoulder without sparing a thought towards it.  “It’s been like… six months.”

Bood seems to consider this. “I think you could argue that you’re newlyweds for the first year.”

“You could,” Shane hums doubtfully, “but I don’t know. It’s probably just the first few weeks. The honeymoon, and then a little after that.”

“Oh, oh, I want to chip in here!” Harris appears from the kitchen, wineglass in hand, side-by-side with Troy, who looks as relaxed as Ilya’s ever seen him, his mouth barely turned up at the corners in something that one could justifiably argue is a smile. “I would say it’s not really about the time at all. It’s a misdirection.”

Troy appears to regard him skeptically.

“It’s an energy,” Harris insists, gesturing widely with one arm. Troy’s eyes linger anxiously on Harris’s glass as the wine sloshes, but doesn’t spill. “Like you look at newlyweds, and they’re just obsessed with each other. And you’re kind of like, sure, it’s a lot— but it’s kind of sweet, and what’s more beautiful than love?”

The team titters, chipping in their own opinions, but Ilya is looking into Shane’s eyes, the corner of his mouth lifting. It feels like they pour their thoughts into each others’ heads, because Ilya is dead certain that they’re thinking the same thing. I’ve always been obsessed with you. 

In the early months of their entanglement, Ilya would catch glimpses of Shane across the ice during warm ups. The sudden rush would fill his chest so quickly it made it dizzy, a thrill that zipped up his spine, a thrumming anticipation so thick he could taste it. He would open the door of his hotel room at the sound of a firm knock, and the joy of seeing Shane’s face would hit him, no matter how much he prepared. 

Looking at him now, it was easy to think that that rush had never gone away, even after all this time.

“At least you’re honest, Rozy,” Bood chuckles. “You weren’t in the group chat yet, Shane, but he would say ‘sorry, I was busy with my beautiful husband’ every time we gave him shit for not responding, even though he’s supposed to be the captain.” He reaches up from the floor to pat Ilya’s knee. “At least you know how whipped you are.”

Shane would probably wave it all off, if he wasn’t so many beers in. Instead, a sappy smile spreads across his face. “Yeah? He did?”

“How many copies of Cosmo’s Hottest Men in the NHL magazine did you buy, Ilya?” Harris asks, grinning as he takes a sip of his drink. 

Ilya just shrugs, smirking. “Watch it,” he teases. “You are revealing your hand here. Now, I know you bought one.”

Harris can barely shove his glass into Troy’s hand before he doubles over laughing, the booming sound of it filling the room. “Fuck, he’s got me. But in my defense, I was a young gay hockey fan, not to mention my future boyfriend was up quite high on that list, too.”

When Ilya glances at Shane, his cheeks are pink, and he seems to be at a loss for words.

“I’d guess Harris isn’t the only one,” Ilya says loudly. “But I think Shane would be surprised by my guesses.”

“Hockey players don’t care about Cosmo listicals!” Shane insists, looking around a little desperately for someone to back him up. “It’s just a stupid marketing thing.”

There are a few different expressions around the room, from Bood’s shit eating grin, to Hazy’s raised eyebrow, to Haas’s silent and furious blushing. Barrett, Ilya thinks, looks particularly like he wants to sink into the floor. But no one says anything to contradict him. 

An image comes to mind— the cover of that magazine. Shane, in hockey gear only from the waist down, the smooth planes of his chest glistening with body oil, helmet tucked under his arm. He’d been looking past the camera with a far-off expression, a lens flare splashing light and color across the image. When Ilya had seen it, he’d thought it looked like what one might see if they saw Shane Hollander in their dreams, some unreal manifestation of athleticism and handsomeness, posed at a distance, surreal, untouchable. 

“We can settle this!” Ilya announces, grin uncontrollable, now. Every eye in the room turns to him, even the other players off speaking in other parts of the room.  “Everyone raise your drinks.”

Everyone does, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Shane barely holds his up to eye-level, glaring daggers at Ilya all the while. 

“If you have ever owned a 2016 copy of the NHL Cosmo mag, drink.” Ilya aims a huge, smug smile right at Shane, and downs the rest of his drink.

There’s a beat of silence as everyone considers for a moment. Harris takes a sip, of course, but after, surprisingly, Bood is the first to cave. Hayes takes a sip, looking bored, then what looks like damn near every other player in the room. Haas appears to barely manage not to choke on his sip, he takes it so quickly. Troy swallows his drink with a pained wince, like he thinks it’s poisoned.  

“Gag gift,” Bood says. 

Hayes nods. “My wife slipped it into our grocery basket.”

Haas and Troy keep their mouths resolutely shut. Yes, Ilya bets Troy enjoyed his copy. Ilya felt that, at least now, he was past the incident of Troy asking for Shane’s number. In the end, Troy had more than paid for it with the months he spent tiptoeing around Shane, desperately embarrassed by the thought that Ilya may have told his husband about the incident. He had, but Shane was far too shy about these things to dare to rib someone over it, especially if they were on good terms. 

Ilya’s delighted laugh floats above the low music that pumps from the speakers. Shane’s mouth is agape, trying to shape words that he can’t pin down. His brows draw together in adorable befuddlement.

“You too.” Ilya points at him. 

“I didn’t own it! It was in my possession for like, a night before I recycled it.” Shane is protesting, but he takes a sip anyway like he’s past the point of caring.

“Counts. Even if I have a dismissive husband who throws away my gifts.” Ilya tosses his cup a few feet into the trash— something Shane is always telling him not to do, even though he has fantastic aim. 

Harris sputters, grabbing the edge of the doorway. “You gave him one?” 

“A courting gift,” Ilya defends, gesturing to Shane, who leans to hide his face in Ilya’s shoulder. “For a hockey prince. I am more of a king, of course. Princes have less power, but they’re more pretty.”

“I could make a great edit pushing you as the lead for the next Disney remake,” Harris offers, looking concerningly contemplative. “I could come up with an alliterative hashtag.”

“The team can help you with ideas.” Ilya looks around, downright gleeful. “They can skip drills if they come up with something very good.”

“Absolutely not,” Shane protests, his indignance muffled into Ilya’s shirt. Ilya can’t resist patting his head fondly, running his fingers over the glossy strands. 

Chouinard appears behind the couch, his arms full of cans from the cooler. “More drinks, anyone?”

“Yes, please,” someone groans, as many hands reach for him.

“Hollzy,” Chouinard calls, “It’ll take your mind off the hashtag.”

“Fuck.” Shane lifts his head, scrubbing the back of his hand over his eyes. “I’ll drink one more if everyone stops saying the word hashtag.”

“Deal.” Chouinard presses a drink into Shane’s hand. It looks like some of the hard cider Harris brought from his family apple farm.

Once the conversation moves on and Shane works his way through the cider, his energy heightens into a touchy exuberance. 

“I kind of wish that goal wasn’t in my career highlights.” Shane is holding Ilya’s hand in his, playing with his fingers absentmindedly. “If they hung Tremont’s jersey between the posts, it would save more pucks than he does. That shot was fucking wasted on him.”

The guys burst out laughing, and Bood nudges Ilya. “Your husband sure has more opinions when he’s drinking. I kind of like it.”

Ilya smirks, looking to Shane. “Oh no, it is the same opinions he’s always had. My husband is just polite. Professional.” Ilya feels like he’s glowing when anyone can appreciate Shane, when Shane can relax past the level of hyperawareness he keeps up constantly like a shield. His inebriation has him grasping for English words that only come to him in Russian, the fuzziness seeping through his brain. 

“This is only a taste,” he says, only dimly registering that the words leave his mouth in Russian. “You think he is so amazing, you watch his games, see the commercials— you cannot imagine how much better it gets.”

The eyes around him have barely a second to rest on him in confusion before Shane is bursting in. “You can’t just be babbling about how great I am to anyone who’ll listen. They’ll think you’re overcompensating for our failing marriage. Or maybe, they’ll just keep calling us newlyweds for the rest of our lives.”

The group goes silent.

On an intellectual level, he knows that Shane’s accent has the tells of a non-native speaker, the way he puts the stress on the wrong syllables, the way his tongue trips over the clusters of consonants, the way the r’s trill a little too much and the vowels are pronounced a little too clearly. But it’s perfect, it’s perfect, he loves every single thing about it. He loves the piece of his home country shaped from the mouth of his beloved, he loves how single-mindedly driven Shane is, that he would learn an entire language just for Ilya. And Ilya stares just as open-mouthed and transfixed as the rest of them, suddenly useless. 

He knows that Shane’s been learning. He’s helped him when he’s asked questions, he’s seen the notifications for language learning apps and Russian language podcasts pop up on his phone. But he hasn’t heard him speak much, because Shane is so self-conscious about it, and he’d had little idea of what level his abilities had reached.

Shane looks around, confused. “What?”

Bood laughs, a little hysterically. “What do you mean, what? You fucking speak Russian?”

Shane’s frown is so adorable, Ilya would kiss it right now, if he could move. “Did I say that in Russian?”

“Holy shit,” Wyatt mutters. “Someone get Hollander some water.”

“On it,” agrees a shocked looking Harris, who stumbles back into the kitchen.

“I’ve been learning.” Shane’s finger slowly traces the edge of the can in his hand. “Well, my husband is Russian, right? It’s not that surprising.”

Troy taps a finger against his chin consideringly. “The husband in question looks a little surprised.”

Ilya wants to say something, he does. He always has something to say, right? Maybe if he can find a way to make a joke without his voice breaking, the bubble of tension will pop and he can bide his time until everyone leaves, and he’ll be free to shove Shane down on the couch. Maybe he’ll refuse to do anything to him until he asks first in Russian, maybe Ilya will refuse, and make him beg in Russian, too—

“That’s really impressive, Shane!” Harris appears at the arm of the couch, holding out a large glass of water for Shane. “Russian is supposed to be really hard to learn, isn’t it?”

Shane takes the water and smiles, reluctantly, straightening his shoulders with pride. “Well.” His eyes meet Ilya’s, and Ilya can’t look away from them, from eyes so dark that they match his pupils in the dimness, matter collapsed in on itself and pulling him closer, closer. “It’s worth it, I think. For the right person.”

Ilya’s not sure what look is on his face, but he’s past the point of caring. If the entire roster of the Montreal Voyageurs showed up outside right now with torches and pitchforks, he’s still not sure he could look away.

“That settles it.” Harris crosses his arms, grinning. “They really are newlyweds.”

Shane’s freckles are stained underneath with the spread of his rosy blush. Ilya’s eyes follow the line of them. I’ve always been obsessed with you.

…

On the wooden bureau in their bedroom, the framed photo Ilya gave Shane for Christmas a year ago sits nestled among the odds and ends of their every day routine, a shifting array of training logs and charging cables, muscle balms and opened envelopes. Their faces are contorted with laughter, their smiles uncontrollable as they try and fail to maintain any semblance of professionalism for the photoshoot.

It’s still his favorite. They’re both in their thirties now, an age the Ilya in the photo would have scoffed at. God, they look like kids, so young and fresh-faced, even with their freshly signed million dollar contracts. He likes to think that even then, part of him knew, could sense the link between them. 

“Hard to top that one, this time around.” Strong arms wrap around Ilya’s waist from behind, and Ilya’s fingers immediately draw up to intertwine with Shane’s. 

Ilya laughs. “I try my best. You will see, tomorrow.” 

They’d planned a real Christmas, one with Shane’s parents. The kind of cozy, embarrassingly sincere thing that Ilya thought only existed in the kind of horrifically cheesy Christmas movies that stuffed the cable channels in December. Ilya had an envelope stashed in his nightstand with a couple tickets to a cabin retreat for New Years, the kind of quiet, romantic thing that Shane would appreciate. 

“I can’t believe you emailed the photographer to get this.” Shane presses absent minded kisses across his neck and shoulder. “I feel just— so in love with you, every time I see it. God, we were like different people, there. I can’t imagine there was ever a me that hadn’t kissed you.”

“I’m almost jealous of him, of me in that picture,” Ilya admits, the words giving voice to a strange, churning melancholy that rises in his chest. “His whole world is going to change.” He can’t muster up the will to say it with any less aching sincerity than he feels. 

Shane exhales, clutching him tighter.

Ilya’s not sure why he continues, but with Shane pressed against his back, and with his memories spiraling along the path between that photo and the current moment— “From the moment I saw you, I never stopped paying attention. I noticed everyone who ever wanted you.”

“Ilya—”

“Everyone. Starting with that fucking guy from my World Juniors team that asked you for your autograph.”

Shane’s laugh bursts out of him, surprised. “I think I know what you’re talking about. Only because you were glaring at me, and I was trying not to look at you. Holy shit, that was thirteen years ago. You still remember that?”

“He would not shut up about you,” Ilya huffs. He remembers it now, the way the bitterness had simmered in his throat, the way he’d already felt so, irrationally possessive of a boy he’d just met.

“He was a fan?”

“He asked for autograph, Hollander. What do you think?” Ilya shakes his head. “He was the first person I met who would not stop gushing about how pretty you are. I didn’t know I would have to deal with it for the rest of my life.”

Shane hums a questioning sound into his neck.

“I know you’ve… had your doubts, your problems with your looks. But I don’t think anyone else has ever had that problem, looking at you. Whenever anyone looks at you, wants you, I notice. I’ve always noticed. I’ve always been looking.” The words spill from Ilya’s lips, uncontrollable now. He wants to turn around, press his face into Shane’s neck. He wants Shane to whisper soft words of reassurance into his hair. And yet, the idea of facing him right now, of seeing whatever look is in his eyes, is painful. 

“It… it was very hard for me, Shane,” he admits, fighting so hard to keep his voice steady. “For years, I didn’t know how to handle it. I couldn’t keep you a secret from the world. You never saw how amazing you are, but everyone else could. When we were just hooking up after games, I was worried someone would commit to you when I could not. Even after we were a couple, I still felt it, I was so, so, fucking—” Ilya breaks off, his fingers tightening around Shane’s.

“Yeah?” Shane says, his breath ghosting over the back of Ilya’s neck. The moment feels so static, frozen in time. A silence that hums with potential. 

“Jealous.” The word is astringent on his tongue, it feels like poison on his lips. And yet, Ilya can’t stop his shoulders from slumping, like he’s unloaded a burden. His face burns with shame, and yet there’s a strange, pitiful relief. He’s so good at pretending the worst of his emotions don’t bother him, there are days when it’s all that he does. “Just, every time I could have been jealous, I was. Even if it did not seem that way. I was so jealous, it was all I could think about.”

Shane spins Ilya around to face him and Ilya goes, because he can’t even think of denying Shane anything, especially now. 

“Please look at me,” Shane whispers, and Ilya feels like he’s dragging his head through molasses as he tilts up his chin, lifts his eyes. 

Shane’s eyes glimmer with unshed tears. 

“I— I’m so sorry,” Shane gasps, “if I ever made you feel like I was that easy to lose. You were always it for me, Ilya—”

And he can’t let him go down this road, not when Ilya knows in his heart that there’s no room to blame Shane for anything. Shane’s tears are a travesty, and seeing them at all lances through him with real, physical pain. “No,” he interrupts, his voice solid and firm. “No, you are not allowed to feel any guilt. This has always been my problem. If there was anything different I wanted you to do, I would have said it.”

“Why, then?” Shane brings his hands to cup Ilya’s face. His jaw settles in the cradle of Shane’s palms, and he dips his head into the warmth. “I never want to, like, dismiss your feelings. I’m glad you told me this, I never knew it bothered you much at all. But, well… I guess I’m confused.”

“About what?” The vulnerability has cracked his ribs open, and he feels more exposed than ever between his husband’s arms. Any energy he had left to hold anything back dissipated when he’d dredged up his confession. 

“I haven’t been with many people. I haven’t really had any positive sexual experiences with anyone else. And, I’ve moved past it now, but for most of the time we were involved, you were sleeping with other people. A lot of other people. What do you have to be jealous of?” And Shane doesn’t say it with an ounce of accusation, just wide-eyed confusion and the quiet urgency that underpins it. Help me, his eyes plead. Help me understand.

And the worst part is, Shane’s right. It doesn’t make sense, and it never has, and that’s the reason he’s never been able to own up to it to another person. It was always so much easier to navigate the unknowable labyrinth of his irrational mind when he didn’t have to muster up the vocabulary to lay out the map of his shame in a way that could be understood by anyone else.

At least, he has to try.

“Sex with them wasn’t anything like the way it is with you,” he begins, bringing his hands up to rest on Shane’s waist, steadying himself. “With them, it was other things. Distraction, release, whatever. I did not spend months looking forward to it. I did not spend months after dreaming about it.” He presses their foreheads together, his voice a shared breath between their mouths. “Only with you.”

Shane blinks at him, his lashes wet. “I just never understood,” he said. “I guess sex just isn’t the same for me. It was never good when it didn’t mean anything. I know I told you about the couple other guys I hooked up with, that guy in Hollywood, the one in Mexico—” Ilya remembers, unable to stop his hands from clutching Shane tighter at the mention, like he’ll float away.

“It didn’t make me happier,” Shane continues. “I just felt empty after, grimy. I gave up on it, it wasn’t doing anything for me. I was too in love with you, I think. At the lowest point, I thought you definitely couldn’t feel the same way about me, if you were still working your way through every city with a hockey team.” When Ilya opens his mouth to correct him, to reassure him that it could never have been that way, Shane stops him. “I know, I know,” he says. “It wasn’t like that. Eventually I had to accept that all those other people didn’t really mean anything, not to you.”

And even though Ilya knew it, knew that Shane only ever had eyes for him, so much so that Shane had missed the way so many others had desired him, it felt so fucking good to hear him say it. But it hurts, too, to be reminded of the way Ilya used to be, desperately trying to convince himself he wasn’t in love. 

“Shane—” Ilya cuts himself off. How is he supposed to do this? He’s barely admitted most of this to himself. But Shane just looks at him, patient, waiting. The weight of his gaze is featherlight, an embrace Ilya can step into if he only accepts it will always be there waiting for him. 

“It was just… this fucked up way of dealing with everything. Since I was fourteen, I would go and have this meaningless sex. Was stupid, irresponsible. But it was better than thinking about… everything else.” Ilya’s always had vivid dreams, as long as he could remember. And the nightmares he’d had at that point in his life were horrifying beyond words. He’d only ever described them in vague terms to Shane and his therapist. “And I know it rarely made sense to be jealous, when it came to you. Maybe… I knew that when you were with other people, it meant something more.”

Shane nods slowly. “Rose?”

Ilya clears his throat, looking away. “Yes. She made me see the truth, of course. But the problem was that, even if I knew you were serious about this, it was still… difficult. To accept that. Not when, for a long time, it felt like no one loved me. Like anyone could leave me.” When he says the words, he almost surprises himself. He hadn’t known he would say them, but as he does, he knows they’re true. Pathetic. But true.

The wounded sound that Shane makes burrows into him, a throbbing ache in his heart. He turns them, falling on top of Ilya so that they topple into the bed. Shane presses the full weight of his body on top of him, tucking Ilya’s face into his shoulder and holding it there. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane breathes, squeezing him tight, like he's trying to physically hold Ilya together. “I love you, I love you so fucking much. I’m so sorry you ever felt that way. And... if you ever want to talk about it more, I’m here.”

“It’s alright,” Ilya mumbles into the block of his shoulder. 

There was a time when Ilya was a fraction of what he was now, a man who had given up on his own happiness to the point that he didn’t believe he could ever be worth it for Shane. He’d been in disbelief, that night in his Tampa hotel room, when Shane had confessed that he wanted to be something more. More? What more could be had from Ilya? Sex was the most of him that was worth having. But he’d been wrong. Everything he’d given to Shane since then was worth having, and he’d watched Shane evolve from a shaking teenager who bled self-doubt into a man who lit up every room he entered. Being in love, being out, and having nothing more to hide had done that to him. It had liberated Shane from a prison of his own making.

“I know, now. You and me, we are forever.” Ilya looks up to catch Shane’s eye and smiles. “All the attention you get is just the price I must pay for having such a sexy husband.” 

Shane laughs, despite himself. “Ilya!”

“No, it’s true!” Ilya claims, the grin stretching across his face now. “If no one noticed, I would have to tell them. I would need to start a religion. The core belief would be that my husband, Shane Hollander, is the prettiest fucking person on the planet.”

Shane is giggling in earnest now, trying to reach for a pillow to smack him with. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m not joking, Hollander,” he says, schooling his face into seriousness. “I would need to build a church to give my speeches. I will write one about every single freckle.”

They’re wrestling on the bed now, Shane struggling to pin him. They’re too evenly matched in strength, neither one of them can get the upper hand for long. 

“You’re—” Shane hefts himself up, leveraging his bodyweight against Ilya’s bicep— “so fucking stupid—”

Ilya still has a free hand to shove Shane off with. “Whenever someone asks me how I am, I will say, I am amazing. Have you heard the good word?” 

Ilya can barely get the words out before Shane is flattening his palm against his mouth to shut him up. Shane straddles his hips, leaning over him. They stop, breathing hard, looking into each other's eyes. 

“There is, um… something I wanted to give you, tonight,” Shane says, letting his hand fall away. He reaches under the bed and hands Ilya an oblong, wrapped present. 

“Christmas is tomorrow, yes?” Ilya takes it, turning it around in his hands. The object is hard and smooth, a cylinder. 

“Well, this isn’t your Christmas present, exactly,” Shane says drumming him finger on Ilya’s hip. “But it is something I wanted to do for you tonight, if you’ll let me.”

Ilya rips off the paper, curious to see what has Shane looking so nervous. To be honest, he’s expecting some kind of outrageous sex toy, so he’s a little surprised when he sees—

“Massage oil?” He turns the bottle around in his hand. The line of viscous, amber liquid tips with the motion. 

“I noticed that your shoulder’s been a little tight lately.” Shane dips his fingers just under the collar of Ilya’s T-shirt, and Ilya can’t help but shudder at the touch. “I know we’ve been away from the rink lately, and from the team’s massage therapists. I thought, maybe, I could help you. I know it’s been bothering you since that game with Florida.” 

Fucking Florida. The Everglades were well known as a team that played dirty, even by the standards of someone like Ilya, who had never shied away from the physical aspects of the sport. A D-man had shoved him hard into the boards from behind seconds after Ilya had dumped the puck. It hadn’t helped that his stick side shoulder had gotten the worst of it. 

Ilya tugs his shirt off over his head, still delighting in the way Shane’s eyes drag down his chest hungrily. “Hmm,” he teases, tossing his shirt on the floor. “Is this going to be as professional as the massages I get at the rink?”

“If you want it to be,” Shane offers, looking very much like he would politely tolerate that outcome. He shuffles off of Ilya, grabbing the bottle from his hand. “Take your jeans off, too.”

Ilya smirks, raising his eyebrows, before unbuttoning his jeans and sliding them off his hips, along with his boxers, watching Shane’s gaze trace the crease of his thighs. He settles on his stomach, cheek to the pillow. 

It’s a little strange they haven’t done this for each other before, at least not to this extent. Sometimes one of them will identify a sore spot in their neck or shoulder and ask the other to rub it for a minute, but it’s never been… a production. Ilya’s sure it will be nice, at least. He’ll never complain about Shane touching him, especially when it looks like he really wants to do this. 

He shifts his weight on the bedspread as he waits, listening to the rustle of Shane stripping off his own shirt, but unable to resist turning his head to watch him fold it. God, he’s so fucking adorable. 

The lights in the room shift as Shane fiddles with the slider, washing the room in a dim, golden light. The bed dips as Shane comes to sit at his side, brushing his fingers lightly through the hair at the nape of Ilya’s neck. Ilya shivers as Shane kisses him there, mourning the loss of warmth as Shane’s lips move to his ear. 

“Tell me if anything hurts.” Shane’s voice vibrates through him, a low, husky timbre. “Or if I’m really close to the right spot, tell me how to adjust. Okay?”

There’s nothing Ilya can do but nod. There’s a charged energy in the air, something about the way Shane’s voice is calm, but sure. The way Ilya doesn’t want to keep his eyes open in the dim light, the way the nerve endings on Ilya’s skin light up when Shane brushes a hand lightly down his spine, the simple touch stopping his breath. It’s a hushed anticipation, and Ilya can hear Shane’s every inhale in the quiet room. 

Every sound seems louder— the snap of Shane popping the cap on the oil, the friction as he rubs it between his hands. And then—

Ilya mouth falls open in a silent gasp as Shane’s hands glide down his back in slow, smooth strokes, rubbing the oil into his skin. His muscles, tensed in apprehension since Shane had climbed on top of him, begin to relax, and Ilya settles down further, allowing his shoulders to lie flat. 

God, it’s soothing, it’s wonderful, Shane’s touch is warm and perfect and—fuck. 

Ilya is a professional hockey player. He gets massages all the time. Usually it’s a cursory ten minutes before practice, or after a game. It’s something focused, clinical. He tells them what injuries he has, which muscles are killing him that day, and their massage therapist will take it into account. Sometimes it’s nice, sometimes he’s wincing through the dig of an elbow into a painful, tender spot on his back. But at the end of the day, it’s maintenance. For all the grief Ilya has gotten his whole life for sleeping around, for having an insatiable sex drive, he’s never gotten turned on during those massages, not once. 

When Shane touches him, it’s something else.

He’s all relaxed from the gliding strokes when Shane’s thumbs dig into his neck. And then he can feel it, there, on the right side, an asymmetrical knot of tension. Shane is pressing around it, seeming to feel the location and the shape of it, before he pins it down and presses. 

Ilya groans, and Shane begins to rub, slow, delicious circles that knead the ball of tension away. Every stroke of his thumbs pushes another shocked breath out of him, another roll of ache and pleasure. Oh. 

As Shane works through various spots on his neck, Ilya can barely process the fact that his neck could possibly have been holding this much tension. But as Shane smooths his palms down Ilya’s neck, newly free of strain, it becomes clear what’s been lifted from him. And his touch, that burning, soothing touch, it has him thickening up, fuck, it has him twitching against the mattress already. 

And then Shane’s thumbs move in an arch over the top of his shoulder blades—

Ilya moans, the sound drawn from him without thought, without care. There’s simply no moment to choose whether or not to muffle the sound, because it’s that involuntary. He moans like he does when Shane takes him in his mouth, loud and affected and helpless. His thoughts are complete mush, his entire world centered down to the movements of Shane’s sure fingers, so targeted, so steady. The tissue seems to crunch at first, a blur of pleasure-pain that has him gasping, before melting into a dull, numbing ache.

“It’s your rhomboids,” Shane hums, pressing more of the weight of his body into his movements, switching to small, targeted circles of exquisite pressure. “They’re tight. The stick side, especially.”

When Shane braces his left hand on Ilya’s shoulder and leans over him, pushing, rubbing, pressing into that spot, fingers hooked over his shoulder blade, a sound rasps out of Ilya’s throat that he’s sure he’s never made before. Shane’s touch finds the spot like he can see through Ilya’s skin, like he can read every twitch of his body to find the exact place where tension knots so tightly in the muscle.

Fuck, it’s heavenly. There are tears in his eyes as Shane massages the knot, the relief beyond anything he could possibly put into words. Shane’s strong hands press and press until Ilya is melted into the bedspread, muttering snatches of Russian into the pillow, so muffled that Shane probably has no clue what he’s even saying. 

Shane’s hands, his perfect hands— Ilya knows them so well. Shook Shane’s hand on the day they met, sizing up his thick, strong fingers. And since then, he’s had those fingers tugging on his hair, shoved into his mouth as he presses his tongue into the pads of them, rubbing circles over his nipples, wrapped around his aching cock as he thrust his hips into Shane’s grip.  He thought he knew every way Shane’s hands could bring him pleasure, and he was wrong, so wrong, because with Shane, there’s always more, always better. There isn’t enough time on this earth to spend with Shane, to learn every nook and crevice of him like he’s drilling a third language into his soul, it’s not enough, never enough.

They had spent so many years speaking to each other without words, because what they had to say was too painful and real to speak into existence. Instead, they’d confessed in the way their bodies had rolled against each other, all their secrets in the way they pulled each other close, in the slide of skin on skin. Have me, take me. All yours. 

And now, now he knows what Shane’s hands are saying, especially after Ilya had just flayed himself open. Shane is kneading his promises into Ilya’s skin. The press of his hands says you're safe. It says whatever hurts, I’ll fix it. 

And Shane’s strong hands grab his shoulders, kneading them in his hands, rolling, lifting, pressing deep with the heel of his hand. Shane’s touch is its own universe, it dominates every chamber of his mind, filling him, drowning him. Noises fall from his lips in breathy gasps and high whines, and it would be embarrassing if there was any room left in his head for embarrassment. Instead, he sinks into it, into the majesty of Shane’s touch, working Ilya over until he is a puddle of loose, limber wanting. 

He’s so fucking hard, he has to hitch up his leg because it grows so uncomfortable against the mattress. When Shane bends to kiss his neck, to rub his cheek against his shoulder, Ilya moans loudly, the simple touch feeling like double, triple the sensation when he’s been craving it for so long. He feels the wet stroke of Shane’s tongue as it traces the shell of his ear, the press of Shane’s lips feels so sensitive, his nails scratch against the sheets as he grips them, mouth open, panting. 

“Ilya,” Shane croons, stroking a slow hand over his back, reaching low to palm his ass. Ilya squeezes his eyes shut, so overwhelmed. It’s too much. 

Maybe this is why they rarely do anything like this, because being the center of the full force of Shane’s affection strips him so raw. He wants to give. He wants to lie his husband down on a bed of soft things and bring him whatever he asks for, feed him snacks and stroke his hair and fuck him when he begs for it. Create a nest of security so perfect that he’ll never want to leave, watch as Shane unwinds in the sunlight, as he fills out the hollows inside himself and grows into the best and brightest version of himself there can be, a treasure among treasures, all his. 

But when it’s Shane doing so for Ilya? Ilya loves touch, loves support, but there’s always something inside him telling him to bat it away, that he shouldn’t need it, that he doesn’t deserve it. But here, in this moment, Shane has unwound a woven net of tension that has festered under his skin. He feels gloriously lighter, a pool at Shane’s feet, his thoughts trailing each other sluggishly. 

“Turn over,” Shane urges gently, and there’s nothing he can do but follow the edict that is Shane’s words, roll to follow the tug of Shane’s hands, which are the axis around which Ilya revolves. 

Shane’s face is heartstopping in the golden light. Ilya blinks up at it in awe. Shane doesn’t look real, he looks like something Ilya dreamed up in a hopeless fantasy and placed in his bedroom, directly from his mind. But he doesn’t think even his own brain could have put that look in Shane’s eyes, a dizzying radiance of pure devotion that freezes his breath in his lungs. 

It’s devastating, but he can’t look away, even as Shane trails his fingers over Ilya’s stomach, traces over his hip and the crease of his thigh, and slowly, deliberately, rubs under the head of his cock. Ilya’s breath stutters, and he has to tip his head back against the pillow as Shane thumbs over the slit, smearing precome around the head. Fuck.

“Ilya?” Shane murmurs, his lips hovering just over the head of his cock. Ilya can feel the brush of them moving, shudders at the heat of his breath, so close. His skin prickles all over in anticipation, and he has countless memories in this very position, all the times he got impatient and wound his hands into Shane’s hair, pushing him down so Ilya could fuck into his mouth and listen to the song of his desperate moans. 

But right now, his arms are so relaxed, so heavy, they’re pinned to the bed. Touching him feels impossible, like it would shatter the the dreamlike barrier between them. The scent of the oil floats around him in an effusive haze, lavender and musk and sage, drooping his eyelids. 

“Don’t do anything.” Shane kisses the tip, his lips moving against it as he whispers, his words like a prayer in the darkness. “Don’t think. I already know what you want.”

The words make him ache. He loves giving Shane what he needs, telling him what to do so he doesn’t have to think about it, doesn’t even have to ask. When they’re together, he’s always thinking. About what they should do, what Shane would like. He’ll plan to push Shane against that window, he’ll edge him until he cries, then maybe he should stop at the last second and order him to his knees, and Shane will still look up at him with a desperate gratitude, eager even at the height of his need. And Ilya loves it, it makes him feel so fucking powerful, like he has something unspeakably perfect all spread out and ready for him to do what he pleases. 

But this flash between them, so different and special, is a gift. It’s like Shane is cradling his heart in his hands. He looks at Ilya like he’s the center of the entire universe, his eyes shining with indescribable emotion. It feels like looking into a kaleidoscope, fractals of thoughts and emotions swirling, breaking, coalescing between them. The golden glow in the room shines in Shane’s hair, lighting it up like a halo. 

The moment of loaded silence spreads thinner and thinner, shimmering like the surface of stillwater. Ilya could be floating, lost, dreaming—

Shane dips his head. 

All the breath left inside his chest rushes out of him, the warm, wet suction of Shane’s mouth just as heavenly as the deft press of his hands over his muscles. Shane’s hands grip his hips, pressing down, just a gentle pressure, a reminder. Still. 

Somehow, the idea of moving feels impossible, even when Ilya is so used to just taking what he wants. He’s used to thrusting up into Shane’s mouth with wild abandon, or teasing him endlessly by clutching his head between his hands and drawing him slowly up and down. And now, now that it’s something Shane is doing to him, there’s something achingly vulnerable in just letting him. In not thinking of anything but experiencing it.

When he feels himself touch the back of Shane’s throat, the flex of the muscles, the vibrations of Shane’s moans, Ilya throws his head back, eyes fluttering closed. Fuck, it’s too much, it’s so much, the way he bobs his head, flicks his tongue, the way his wet lips wrap so obscenely around the width of his cock. There’s not a strand of tension left in him except there, where Shane’s mouth envelops him. Ilya’s moans turn to shaky breaths, and his skin burns hot where Shane’s hands grip him, and the arousal builds and builds in his stomach, and in the moment he manages to open his eyes, to peer through his lashes—

Shane’s looking right back at him. It’s a gaze that pierces, it’s pure satisfaction, it’s victory. 

His orgasm crashes through him. He feels the warmth of it radiate through his limbs, through the tips of his fingers, his toes curling in the sheets, back arching. Shane tongues him through it, licking off every drop, and even after, Ilya’s senses blind him. His chest rises and falls, trying hard to find the old baseline of his breath, but he can hardly remember what it was. 

When Shane slides the blankets over him, lays the hot line of his body against his, Ilya can barely find the energy to whisper, to offer reciprocation, something, anything. But Shane just shakes his head. He kisses Ilya’s forehead, brushing his fingers gently through his hair. 

“No,” Shane assures him. “Just for you.”

Ilya peers at him sleepily. “I know you. You have been planning this. Researching.”

Shane hums, pulling Ilya’s head against his chest. “I thought you needed it.”

Ilya’s thoughts spin into such obsessive, romantic territory, they could only come to him in the liminal state his brain is wandering, the space between sleep and waking. 

“I love you.” He’s not sure which language he says it in. His eyes are already drooping closed.

When Shane speaks, the words are so soft and loving and gentle, they sound like a dream calling him from beyond the sacred walls of their room. “I love you too, Ilyusha.” 

It must have been Russian.

Chapter End Notes

So that’s it then! Thank you to everyone who followed this story, and everyone who read it or liked it or commented on it, I’ve appreciated it very much. I’m not terribly online for someone in fandom, and I’ve been really pleasantly surprised at the experience of writing my first HR fic! And I think I definitely want to write more, because I had a bunch more ideas on my brainstorm doc, right under the first one, which was “shane hollander is a babe jealousy fic”, which ended up becoming this fic lmao