Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Boston Bears | Boston Raiders Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Connors (Heated Rivalry), Svetlana Vetrova, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Coach LeClaire (Game Changers), Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais

Additional Tags:

Boston Bears | Boston Raiders Player Shane Hollander, Married Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coming Out, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Hollanov are in their honeymoon era, Domestic Fluff, Anxiety, slightly more hockey in my hockey fic

Language:

English

Series:

Part 3 of all the stars aligned

Stats:

Published: 2026-05-02 Completed: 2026-05-07 Words: 29,262 Chapters: 3/3

none of it was accidental

Summary

Shane hasn’t been new on a team since his rookie season. He hasn’t had to walk into a locker room full of guys he doesn’t know since he was nineteen. That first year in Montreal had been one of the most exhausting of his life, and the hockey had been the least of it.

Boston’s locker room will be easier than Montreal's, Shane thinks. Hopes.

Notes

We're baaaaaaaack. I am currently in a golden break between spring semester ending and summer session starting, so this installment of the series will go up over the course of this week.

First things first, thank you thank you thank you to LeahKnox for beta-reading this fic. We would not have this part of the series yet without her, as I got very in my head writing this one. Any comma errors remain mine, though. I keep moving them around despite LeahKnox's best efforts to reign me in.

Russian and Quebecois translations are mostly Google translate (sorry) and I welcome corrections if I have any speakers of either language reading along.

A note on fandom etiquette: as I was writing this fic, things blew up in a big way in this fandom around norms and etiquette of fic reading and fic writing. So, a blanket statement for everybody: I write fic because I love writing and I do it FOR ME. Posting it is fully optional (ask me about the hundreds of thousands of words I’ve written I’ve never posted anywhere) and something I do because so far, it is fun to share. When it stops being fun, I stop sharing. If reading this fic stops being fun for you, I encourage you to use the back button. This is not my first rodeo, and I am not shy about curating my fandom experience to be a positive one. I encourage you to do the same.

Chapter 1

Shane wakes up even earlier than normal before his first day of Raiders training camp. He doesn’t mean to; he’d set his alarm for six after they stayed up later than they intended to, moving his clothes into the walk-in closet and laughing over how there was almost no point in trying to keep anything separate. Aside from a small collection of what Shane thinks of as Ilya’s going-out clothes (flashy shirts, painted-on jeans, a leather jacket, a silky bomber jacket) and his own small collection of stylist-selected clothing, plus their gameday suits, pretty much everything else they both own is athletic gear, in similar enough sizes that most of it fits both of them. Really the only difference is the brand, because Ilya almost always wears Adidas and Shane has more Reebok and Nike.

Ilya is still asleep, his arm thrown across Shane but not clinging to him as tightly as he does sometimes. Shane slides out of bed slowly, and Ilya stirs a little but doesn’t wake. He goes to the bathroom and brushes his teeth, and then into the aforementioned closet to pull on running shorts (his own, he’s pretty sure, because last night Ilya laughed at how many nearly identical pairs of teal/dark green/dark blue running shorts he owns) and grab his sneakers. 

The lights in the gym come on automatically when Shane descends the stairs, and not all at once, a gradual brightening that Shane didn’t notice yesterday and wishes he’d thought to do for the lights in his gym in Montreal. He wonders how many features in the house were like this when Ilya bought it, and how many he added himself.  

The treadmill is a familiar model and Shane hits the quick start button, warming up for a few minutes before he speeds up to a comfortable jog. He’s not trying to tire himself out before going to the rink, he just needs to burn off the frayed edges of his nerves. 

He hasn’t been new on a team since his rookie season. He hasn’t had to walk into a locker room full of guys he doesn’t know since he was nineteen. That first year in Montreal had been one of the most exhausting of his life, and the hockey had been the least of it. So much of his energy had gone towards figuring out how he was supposed to exist in the Metros locker room, how to be the new face of the franchise in the same room as guys who’d been on the team since he was in primary school, his face replacing theirs on posters the size of billboards outside the Centre Bell. How to be one of the few Asian guys in the league. How to read the room, every single day, trying to track the jokes and the chirps and the shit-talk, always parsing whether someone was trying to befriend him or insult him or just get under his skin a little because he was the rookie, sometimes not being sure until he was home after practice, still working through the various possible meanings of every interaction. Sometimes not being sure at all, even after that. 

(And he wasn’t even really grappling with being gay that year, yet; one hookup in Toronto and one in Nashville were both still anomalies enough to allow Shane to think it was just something about Ilya, not something about him or about both of them, that pulled them together like magnets.) 

It got a little easier when Hayden decided they were friends. Hayden could read a room the way Shane could read plays on the ice, like second-nature, without having to think about it, and he was never a dick to Shane about it. He covered for Shane, laughing a little louder than he needed to at the jokes to clue Shane in. 

Boston’s locker room will be easier than Montreal's, Shane thinks. Hopes. He’s not a rookie anymore. Ilya promises it’s a good team, one that won’t constantly say things that feel like a knife in his back when he thinks about them after practice. He won’t be expected to carry the franchise on his own, and while he’s sure he and Ilya will end up doing some amount of rivals-turned-teammates media, at least they’ll be in it together. Maybe it will even be fun. Media was always excruciating in Montreal because he was doing it alone. And because they always asked such stupid questions. That will probably still be the same, unfortunately. Just once he’d like to have a reporter who actually played hockey ask him a question. Even fucking Timbits hockey. (Do they have Timbits hockey in the States? Shane already knows his closest Tim’s is now somewhere in Upstate New York, so basically Canada, and it’s not like he’s a frequent Tim’s-goer, but there’s something about not being close to one that feels deeply strange. So no, they probably don’t have Timbits hockey here.) 

He’s halfway through mile six when he hears Ilya on the stairs. The treadmill is perfectly placed to watch him descend, like a dramatic movie entrance or something. He’s still just wearing the boxer briefs he went to sleep in, and Shane doesn’t even bother trying to hide that he’s staring at Ilya’s perfect thighs and the cut of his abs and the spread of his shoulders as each comes into view. His hair is sleep-rumpled, and even that is hot somehow, and Shane hopes he never gets used to this, never takes it for granted, getting to see his husband like this in the mornings. 

He drops the speed on the treadmill to start his cool down, and Ilya leans against the exercise bike next to him. 

“You could not sleep?” Ilya asks, frowning.

Shane shakes his head. “I slept okay, I just woke up early.”

“And instead of sex with your husband, you choose running on treadmill listening to your own thoughts.” Ilya shakes his head, pouting. “I am wounded. Honeymoon officially over. Divorce is pending.”

Shane laughs. “Sorry, baby.” 

Ilya blinks at him. Shane blinks back. Ilya calls Shane things like sweetheart and любимый and other Russian endearments Shane is slowly learning. Shane’s only called Ilya baby once before, last week, but it had been on the phone, and he’d mostly been joking and trying to needle Hayden a little bit.

Baby, Ilya mouths, and then his lips curve into a smile that has Shane slamming his hand on the treadmill’s emergency stop button before Ilya does something insane like try to get on the treadmill with him while the belt is still running. He’s confident it was the right call, because the second he steps off the treadmill Ilya is on him, crowding him back against the wall. 

“I did not think I would like this,” Ilya says. “Not when you sound so pretty saying my name.”

“But?” Shane asks, while Ilya’s biting at Shane’s collarbone. 

“Say it again,” Ilya growls against his skin.

“Baby,” Shane says, and Ilya drops to his knees. Shane’s not sure which of them is more surprised by this reaction, but he’s certainly not about to complain. 

Later, when they’re both breathing hard on the floor of the gym—Shane’s in the middle of a moment where he’s eighteen again, watching the rise and fall of Ilya’s chest and wanting to trace the lines of his throat with his tongue—Shane nudges Ilya’s shin with his foot. “You were right. This was better than the treadmill.”

“I fucking hope so,” Ilya says, darkly. He holds a fierce glare for one beat, then two, before his face splits into a grin and Shane grins back. “C’mon,” Ilya says, getting to his feet and holding out his hand to haul Shane up. “Breakfast.”

In the kitchen, Ilya pulls labeled glass containers out of the fridge and slides them across the island to Shane. “You pick,” he says. Shane chooses the overnight oats because the texture of chia pudding has always grossed him out. “I am also making eggs. Breakfast should be hot.”

“I would eat some eggs,” Shane says, because he’s eaten eggs that Ilya made for breakfast almost every day since Ilya first arrived at the cottage, except for the five day stretch where Ilya declared eggs were giving him the ick (and then proceeded to laugh at Shane for not knowing an expression Ilya learned watching a TV show Shane had never heard of).

Ilya has the same espresso machine Shane had in Montreal, and he shoots Ilya a curious look. Ilya heaves a dramatic sigh like Shane accused him of something.

“Yes, fine, that time you made coffee for me I got home and bought same machine, are you happy? Was good coffee.”

Shane grins. He’d pulled two shots of espresso for Ilya at four in the morning two years ago after Ilya had accidentally fallen asleep in Shane’s bed and was at risk of missing the team bus back to the airport for a six AM flight. Until the cottage, it was the closest they’d gotten to spending an entire night together. 

“Yeah, I’m happy we don’t have to ship mine from Montreal. We can take it to the cottage instead.” 

Shane makes their coffees while Ilya cooks the eggs, and then they sit to eat side by side at the island.

“We need a smaller table,” Shane says, "maybe put it over there.” He nods to the corner opposite the living room, where there’s not quite a nook but enough of a space before the hallway that leads to the guest rooms for a small table. “It feels silly to sit at that thing,” he hooks his thumb at the table that seats eight in the dining area behind him, “and I want to be able to sit across from you.”

“You want to watch me eat, admit it.” 

Shane thinks it’s probably the other way around, from the way Ilya is always trying to feed him, but he doesn’t say that, just shrugs. 

“Okay,” Ilya agrees. “Smaller table.”

Shane finishes his oats but after two bites the eggs start tasting like rubber in his mouth. This is what Ilya meant by the ick, maybe. He sets his fork down and pushes the plate away. 

“You are nervous,” Ilya guesses, and Shane nods. He picks up Shane’s plate, tipping the eggs from it onto his own. “I will finish. Go make one of your protein shakes.”

Even that sounds unappetizing to Shane, but he knows he needs the calories to make it through practice.

“Do you want to go to the rink early?” Ilya asks, after the blender finishes whirring. “Skate a little before everyone is there?”

“Yes.” Shane nods, relieved. “I just keep picturing walking into the locker room and they all just stare at me.”

“Probably this will happen, for a little while. You are Shane Hollander. You saw the group chat last night.”

Ilya had added Shane to the Raiders’ group chat last night after both of them updated the names in their phones, Jane and Lily changed to Shane and Ilya. It had been surprisingly bittersweet. Shane had promptly muted the notifications from the group after he got seventeen messages in about thirty seconds, despite the fact that Ilya had texted everyone BE COOL before doing it.

“Maybe we will beat the press there, too,” Shane says. 

Ilya snorts. “Probably not. They probably camped out yesterday when the news broke. We will give them a good photo, yes? Arriving together?” Ilya hesitates. “Unless you want to drive separately?”

Shane thinks the only thing that’s going to make today bearable—the press, the new team, probably at least an hour of his life filling out forms, scrutiny from the fans in the stands—is having Ilya next to him. Even if people don’t know who they are to each other yet. “No. Together,” Shane says. “Unless you don’t—”

“I do,” Ilya says firmly. “We exist. We agreed.”

Shane nods and feels the relief of it settle in his shoulders. “Good. Okay. I’m gonna shower.” 

He drops a kiss on Ilya’s shoulder as he passes, and he’s not at all surprised when Ilya catches him around the waist and reels him in, kissing him soft and slow. 

“Will be okay,” Ilya says, confident. Shane nods, doing his best to believe him.

---

There’s a small scrum of press crowded by the players’ entrance of the practice rink. Not as many as Shane had convinced himself would be there—he’d been expecting a sea of them, a wall of people to battle through, but that’s dramatic. His trade is big news in hockey, but it’s hardly newsworthy otherwise, and how many sports reporters can there really be in Boston, anyway? A few each for the local news stations, a few each for the papers, maybe a couple freelance ones, some podcasters and radio guys… That feels about right for the group huddled on the sidewalk, a security guard in a Raiders-branded polo taking up space next to the door, keeping them from pushing too close to it. Shane’s under no illusions what the media circus will be like when the rest of their news is out. Undoubtedly, the news that Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander are married is going to break containment beyond hockey media, beyond sports media in general, and out into regular pop culture. That’s how it was for Scott Hunter. He’d even gone on a couple late night talk shows; the clips of him joking affably with Seth Meyers still make the rounds on Shane’s Instagram feed now, three months later, an eternity in internet time.

Ilya parks and looks over at Shane. The morning is bright and they’re both wearing sunglasses and Shane wishes they weren’t, wants to be able to see Ilya’s eyes and search out any hesitation, any regrets. 

Ilya reaches over the center console and squeezes Shane’s thigh. “Ready?” he asks, and his voice is steady and warm. The sunlight glints on his wedding ring. 

“Yeah,” Shane says. He isn’t, but he’s also not going to spend ten minutes sitting in the car breathing himself down from the edge of a panic attack when all it’s going to do is catch the attention of the crowd by the door. He’s sure they’re familiar with Ilya’s ridiculously expensive SUV. 

It’s fine. They’re going to get out of the car, get their gear from the back, walk across a parking lot and into a building. The reporters by the door will probably shout things at them and take their picture. Shane’s heart will race in his chest and he’ll feel like he’s going to die, but it isn’t real. 

“Shane,” Ilya says seriously, clearly not believing him. 

“I’m just nervous,” Shane says. “I hate people looking at me.”

“You picked wrong career, then, I think,” Ilya says, a wry smile twisting onto his face. 

“It’s different on the ice. Then they’re looking at me because of what I can do. Out here, this shit,” he gestures at the press, “is just about who they all think I am. And I’m never doing it right, never being the person they want.”

Ilya cocks his head, like he’s trying to figure something out. “You talk to them like…” he frowns, “like it doesn’t bother you.”

Shane shrugs. “I have to.” Ilya doesn’t like that, Shane can tell from the pinch between his eyebrows. This isn’t the time or place to keep talking about it, either way. Shane unbuckles his seatbelt. 

“Shane,” Ilya says again.

“C’mon,” Shane says, “we’re losing skating time here.”

He’s out of the car and grabbing his gear out of the back before he can rethink it, because sometimes that’s the only way to beat his brain. He has to sneak up on it, if you can sneak up on your own brain. Or maybe it’s more like he just has to let the familiar routines take over, let his body go through the motions, and put his brain in the backseat for a bit. His body knows how to get out of a car and walk into a rink, so his brain doesn’t have to steer. 

Ilya scrambles to catch up with him, grabbing his own gear and falling into step next to Shane. The reporters start shouting their names as soon as they see them, and Ilya snorts next to him. 

“Why do they shout?” Ilya mutters. “We are only people here.”

Shane shoots him a small smile, and Ilya smiles back. “Habit?” Shane says. “Trying to be as annoying as possible? Trying to out-do each other? Who knows.”

Ilya’s hand comes to rest between Shane’s shoulder blades as they draw nearer to the press scrum, a comforting weight, and then he surprises Shane by pressing more firmly, steering him efficiently past them all and through the door the security guard opens smoothly. 

“Ilya,” Shane says, struggling to process how quickly it happened, how seamless it had been. One second, they were outside being shouted at, and the next they were inside, the glass doors a comfortable (and surprisingly soundproof) barrier between them and the press. 

“Like you said,” Ilya grins, “we’re losing skating time.”

Shane follows Ilya to the locker room, which is blessedly empty. Not even a single overeager rookie. 

“At my first Metros training camp, I got there so early the doors were still locked. I had to get back in my car and drive around for an hour until there was someone there to let me in.” 

Ilya laughs. “Very on brand for you. I love it.”

The locker room smells like every locker room Shane has been in, disinfectant and soap and the rubber floor, all layered over years and years of hockey sweat. It’s oddly comforting that the smell is the same, even with everything in black and gold and red instead of the Metros’ blue and white and red.

“Oh, look,” Ilya points to the stall next to his. Shane’s name is already printed above it, a practice jersey hanging inside, and a stack of folded Raiders-branded clothing on the shelf. Shane doesn’t even need to check to know it will all be in his size.

“Did you make this happen?” Shane asks, squinting suspiciously at Ilya.

“Just coincidence,” Ilya says innocently, and Shane doesn’t buy it, sure Ilya reached out to the equipment managers at some point in the past few days to arrange it. “Perfect, though, yes? I know how much you like to sneak looks at me in locker rooms.”

Shane swats him and drops his gear bag on the bench with a heavy thud. They don’t bother getting into full gear yet, just put on skates and grab helmets. With a little pang, he fumbles with the clasp of the chain around his neck and slips off his wedding band, threading the ring onto the chain. It lands on his sternum, warm and comforting. Ilya does the same, and Shane hears his ring clink against his mother’s cross as Ilya refastens the clasp. 

Shane pulls on one of the Raiders hoodies from his locker. It’s similar to one he’s seen Ilya in before, black with the logo on the front and his number (still 24, and Shane will have to look back at the roster to see if he stole it from anyone) stitched in gold on the sleeve by his shoulder. 

“I will have to get used to this,” Ilya says, staring hungrily at Shane. 

“Yeah,” Shane says, “you will. Preferably sooner rather than later. Are we skating or not?”

Ilya laughs and herds Shane out the door to the tunnel. The rink is empty but the lights are on and the ice is perfectly smooth, like the Zamboni just went through. They skate a few laps together, slow, just warming up. They’ve never done this, never spent time on the ice just the two of them, always trapped on opposite sides every time they’ve shared it. All-Stars was the only exception, and as much fun as Shane had, it hadn’t been like this. Everyone had been watching them every minute of that weekend like they were an attraction in a zoo. Cats and dogs, Vaughn had said to them, and everyone had watched, waiting for the claws to come out, for the snap of teeth. 

Shane bumps his hand against Ilya’s as they round a corner. Ilya glances over at him. Shane grins and says “race you,” taking off before he even finishes speaking.

“Dirty play, Hollander,” Ilya complains but Shane hears him speed up, and within a couple strides they’re neck and neck, racing around the rink purely for the fun of it.

Hockey is its most fun when it’s against Ilya, but thanks to the Montreal/Boston rivalry, it’s never been allowed to just be fun. The stakes have always been too high, they’ve each been weighed down by the twin albatrosses of two franchises around their necks, and before that, at World Juniors, it was two countries, pinning all their hockey hopes on two seventeen-year-olds. Shane hasn’t skated without pressure, without eyes on him, without expectations heavy on his shoulders, since he was ten, maybe younger than that even. 

Ilya edges past him on the last curve, mostly because he hooks his hand around Shane’s elbow, just enough drag to put Shane a step behind Ilya. 

“Now who’s playing dirty, Rozanov?” Shane asks, but he’s laughing, grabbing onto the back of Ilya’s hoodie, trying to pull him backwards.

They’re still squabbling when someone whistles loudly in the empty rink, and Shane looks up to see Marlow and St-Simon at the bench. Marlow was the one who whistled, Shane’s pretty sure. 

“Coach is gonna kill you if you break our new toy, Roz,” Marlow says. 

“He started it,” Ilya protests in mock outrage. 

“Sorry Roz,” St-Simon snorts, “nobody’s buying that.”

“You see this,” Ilya says, turning back to Shane. He hooks his thumb over his shoulder at Marlow and St-Simon. “You have been on my team less than a day and already they take your side, Hollander.”

“But honey,” Shane says, his voice teasing. “I thought you said it was our team.”

Ilya’s mouth curls into that soft, private smile that belongs to Shane before he’s skating backwards towards Marlow and St-Simon on the bench. Shane follows, pulled like there’s a tether between them. 

Marlow and St-Simon both reach to shake Shane’s hand, and he’s glad that they do because this has never come easily to him, navigating meeting guys off the ice he already knows on it. They insist that he call them Marly and Vic.

“You good?” Marly asks. “Since the, uh, concussion and everything?”

“Yeah,” Shane says. “All good. No hard feelings.” He feels a little dumb as he says it, because it was a clean hit so there’s no reason to have any hard feelings about it at all, but Marly grins. 

“Good. I felt bad, really didn’t mean for you to go down that hard.”

Shane believes this easily. Marlow has never been the kind of defenseman that seems like he’s hunting for sport on the ice. He does his job and it comes with hazards, like hitting a center at an unexpected angle that leads to a concussion and a fractured collarbone (and, tangentially, six weeks at the cottage for him and Ilya and then an engagement and a marriage and a trade to Boston for Shane. He should tease Ilya—and maybe eventually Marly—about this at some point. He always had intentions of inviting Ilya to the cottage, but he wonders if he would’ve actually managed it had he not been high as a kite on pain meds.) 

“Why are you here so early?” Ilya asks Marly and Vic.

“We could say the same to you,” Vic says, grinning.

“Shane wanted to skate,” Ilya shrugs, “so we are early.”

For a beat, Marly and Vic blink at them, uncertain. Then, Marly shrugs. “Fuck it. Sure. Decade-long rivalry, over like that.” He snaps his fingers. “Why not?”

“We are teammates now, yes?” Ilya says, his eyes on Shane and his lips curving into a smile that’s all mischief. “To still be rivals would be petty.”

“And you’ve never been petty ever, obviously,” Vic says, rolling his eyes. 

“Of course not.” Ilya grins. “I am a very reasonable and logical person.”

“Yeah,” Shane agrees, “that’s what everyone is always saying about you.”

Ilya slings his arm around Shane’s neck and Shane half-expects Ilya to kiss him right there, to tell Vic and Marly about them that way, but Ilya just shakes him back and forth a little the way he does sometimes when he’s excited. 

Vic and Marly are putting something together, they’re not blind. But they also seem content to wait it out. 

“We aren’t the only ones who are early,” Marly says. “Locker room was already filling up.”

Ilya sighs. “No one on this team is capable of being cool.”

“Can you blame us?” Vic grins. “Huge fucking day.”

Ilya’s mouth twitches, just a little, in the corner. Shane thinks it’s an apology of sorts, that despite their best efforts this morning, Shane is still going to have to walk into a locker room of people staring at him. 

“Dude, what the fuck is up with Montreal?” Marly asks Shane. “It’s like they want to lose.”

“I’m just glad to be here instead,” Shane says. He’s not sure how much more than that he’s allowed to even say. Farah and Bethany are working on a statement that fits within the parameters of the NDA he signed, but Shane’s expecting a lot of questions between now and whenever they post it. And after it too, probably. He knows they’ll give him talking points but that really only works for the press. At some point, the rest of the Raiders are probably going to want an answer not written by his publicist.

“Montreal are idiots, we know this,” Ilya says. “Time to gear up?”

Shane checks his watch. It’s quarter to nine. “Yeah, probably.”

Marly falls into step next to Ilya as they make their way back down the tunnel, Vic walking next to Shane. 

As promised, the locker room is filling up, but the guys do a better job of playing it cool than Shane expected. The chatter and the noise continue when he follows Ilya in, and they do a decent job of pretending they’re not staring at him. 

A few guys come over to introduce themselves to Shane (Kane, Varkov, Hammersmith, a couple of prospects, a rookie who calls him Mr. Hollander which makes Ilya bark a laugh somewhere over Shane’s shoulder) and nobody asks about Montreal, even though they obviously want to. They talk around it (“that was fucking crazy news, man,” Hammersmith says, “literally thought I was high or something”) but nobody demands to know what happened. 

Filled with all the prospects and the rookies and the vets, the locker room is loud and Shane takes a deep breath. Ilya knocks his shoulder against Shane’s. He’s just in his base layers and Shane can’t look or he’s pretty sure he won’t be able to look away. 

Connors and Carmichael come to slap Ilya’s back and introduce themselves to Shane, and Carmichael asks, “The team put you up somewhere good while you find a place? I came midseason and all they could find for me was some, like, sketchy divorced dad long-term hotel. It blew.”

“He’s staying with me,” Ilya says. Vic, Marly, Connors, and Carmichael all stare at him. 

“With you,” Connors repeats. “What the fuck? You don’t let anybody stay at your house, man. I was wasted on New Year’s Eve and you put me in an Uber.”

“Yes, obviously. I did not want to clean up your vomit. And Shane Hollander is not just anybody,” Ilya says, grinning at Shane. 

Connors flips Ilya off and says, “Hollander, seriously, is this a hostage situation? Or blackmail? Give us a sign if it is, dude.”

“What’s Montreal Jane going to do when she comes to town?” Carmichael frowns. “You can’t sexile Hollander, that’s not cool, Roz. And you can’t make your fiancée stay in a hotel.”

Ilya grins before quickly looking into his stall, reaching for his practice jersey, trying to hide it. Marly’s eyes narrow, darting between Ilya and Shane. “Montreal Jane,” Marly says, quietly. And then, “holy shit.” He starts laughing. “You guys have gotta be fucking kidding me.” 

“What?” Vic frowns at Marly. Marly shuts his mouth with a snap, his jaw going tight. He darts his eyes nervously to Ilya. Connors and Carmichael don’t seem to notice, still ragging on Ilya about Jane, and whether they’re actually engaged, and when she’s going to come to visit, and Ilya is saying all the right things, but his eyes are on Marly, and Shane can feel Vic staring at all three of them.

“Ignore me,” Marly says, a beat too late. “Too many concussions, right Roz?”

“Yes.” Ilya rolls his eyes. “Is hard to know how, though, with a skull as thick as yours.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Marly says, shoving at Ilya’s shoulder.

“Don’t feel left out,” Carm says to Shane, “sometimes those two have one fucking brain. We never know what the fuck they’re talking about when they’re like this.”

“Yeah, one brain for them to share sounds right.” Connors says, and then Marly shoves his shoulder and the conversation devolves into chirping, and Shane feels a short burst of relief—he’s never been clocked in the locker room before, one notable exception in a Toronto shower notwithstanding, and as much as Ilya has told him they’ll be safe, that runs counter to everything he’s experienced in locker rooms to this point—followed almost immediately by a wave of something like guilt. It was an easy opening that they gave up.

The back of Ilya’s hand brushes against Shane’s. It might look accidental, to someone who didn’t know what to look for. “Okay?” he asks, quietly enough that nobody else can hear, not even Vic at the locker just beyond Shane’s. 

Shane nods, a tiny dip of his head. It feels like the words are trying to fight their way up out of his chest—Ilya is his husband and he wants everyone to know, wants the entire fucking world to know who he belongs to—but all he can think about is Montreal’s locker room last week. He has the contradictory impulses to kiss Ilya here, in front of everyone, but to also drag him somewhere private and hide his face in Ilya’s neck to block everything out for a while. 

He probably just needs practice. It was his idea to do this, to pull a total one-eighty on secrecy all of twenty-four hours ago and twenty-four hours isn’t very much time to get over a decade of locking his feelings for Ilya behind his ribcage and never breathing a word about them to anyone.

He nudges Ilya with his shoulder. “Really,” he says. “Okay.”

Ilya smiles. “Good.”

---

It’s a long day. In the morning, the prospects get herded up into the gym for more speed and endurance testing on the treadmills, and LeClaire sends Shane out onto the ice with as many different line combinations among the vets as possible, testing for chemistry. He doesn’t put Ilya on Shane’s right wing, despite Ilya’s insistence that he should, and Shane thinks if things trend the way they did today, he’ll end up centering a line (probably second, Ilya’s faceoff stats are better, and he’s the captain, and Shane’s had a decade to get used to being second to Ilya, although he’s already dreading the tweets and the press room questions about what Shane leaving Montreal to give up the C and be a second line player in Boston says about what was going on in Montreal) with Varkov on his left and Vic on his right. They’re faster than Hayden and Wilson, Varkov especially can almost match Shane for speed, and it’s going to be a learning curve, figuring out how they’ll work together.

Shane spends the hour over lunch inhaling salmon and quinoa and steamed vegetables while filling out a stack of HR forms, dutifully listing Ilya as his emergency contact and next of kin, getting a little thrill when he can write husband in the box that asks what their relationship is to one another. It’s enough to soothe the still twinging regret from earlier. Then he meets with the GM, Richards, mostly just a formality of shaking hands and being welcomed to Boston and saying thank you for the opportunity. Also, he’s pretty sure Montreal didn’t keep his secrets from the way Richards finds three different opportunities to tell him that Boston is an organization that values inclusivity. It’s not as awkward as he expected; Richards mostly still seems a little surprised by this turn of events, like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, but also not entirely willing to look the gift horse that got him Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov on the same team in the mouth.

(Shane wonders if he should tell him the other shoe is definitely going to drop and is going to be more like an anvil than a shoe. He decides it will be better coming from both him and Ilya together, a united front. Or maybe from Farah.) 

The rink was closed to fans and media in the morning but opens in the afternoon. LeClaire sends Shane upstairs for cardio and weights, not yet ready to put him on the ice in front of fans and press. Shane isn’t quite ready for that either, so he goes up to the gym and picks a treadmill without argument, and he’s unsurprised when Ilya appears on the treadmill next to his a few minutes later. Ilya matches his pace to Shane’s and it’s a little like being on the ice together this morning, or like their morning runs at the cottage this summer. Training side by side because they can, not needing it to be a competition for now.  

The familiar noises of the gym—the whir of rowing machines and exercise bikes, the clatter of weights, someone’s shitty workout playlist blaring through a Bluetooth speaker, chatter from guys catching up after a summer apart—are comforting. Shane feels so much more normal than he expected to, comfortable in the familiar routine and structure of the day even if everyone around him is different. He also feels a slight easing in the permanent knot of tension that has lived between his shoulder blades for as long as he can remember.

He and Ilya take turns spotting each other at the bench, and at some point after the treadmill Ilya pulled off his shirt so Shane ends up staring down at his chest, at his wedding ring and his mother’s cross shining under the fluorescent lights of the gym. He keeps jerking his eyes away with a rush of something like shame, and then remembering he’s supposed to be watching Ilya and dragging his eyes back to Ilya beneath him. 

“It’s just weird,” Shane says, when they go to the bottle filler for more water. “Good weird,” he adds. “But weird.”

“It will get easier,” Ilya says, but Shane’s not sure he wants it to. He wants this half-hiding thing to stay weird, and for things to feel easy and normal only once they’re out. Probably that’s idealistic. He’s pretty sure things are going to get harder before they get easier.

They wrap up in the early afternoon, and Shane doesn’t exactly rush through his post-practice routine, but he’s certainly faster than Ilya, who’s still showering when Shane is mostly done getting dressed in front of his stall. He’s not the only one, though, quite a few of the guys are changing quickly so they can head home.

Next to him, Vic asks, “T'as-tu quelqu'un à Montréal?” and when Shane glances over at him, a little startled, Vic nods to the ring hanging on its chain, sitting outside the neck of Shane’s t-shirt. 

“Oh,” Shane says. “Uh. Non. Ici à Boston.” 

“T'as quelqu'un ici pis Roz quelqu'un à Montréal. Drôle de coïncidence…”

Shane grins. “Ouais, on trouve ça drôle.” 

Vic rolls his eyes. “Pas un pour rattraper l'autre.”  

Before he can ask Shane outright, LeClaire’s voice cuts through the locker room chatter. 

“Hollander, a word?” LeClaire tips his head toward his office.

Shane nods, and follows LeClaire to the office. He can’t help thinking about the last time he was in Theriault’s office. It was a week that feels like a year ago, at seven in the morning. Two full hours before anyone else was scheduled to show up at the rink, but Theriault was always like that, treating Shane’s time like he owned all of it, regardless of whether or not it was reasonable. Shane didn’t even really notice how unreasonable it was until a couple years ago, when he’d made some comment to Ilya about needing to go to the rink to meet with Theriault on a day everyone else had off, and Ilya had been confused. He’d brought up the CBA, even. If anyone had asked before that moment, Shane would’ve said confidently that he knew the terms of the CBA better than Ilya did. 

But once he noticed, it ate at him, little by little, like so much else in Montreal had done. There was no fucking reason to drag Shane in at seven when eight-thirty would’ve been fine. They hadn’t even really talked about anything. Theriault had talked at him, made several statements about what he expected from Shane that season. It could’ve been a phone call. Or a fucking email. 

So he’s really not expecting it when LeClaire offers him a seat and asks, once he’s sitting, “How are you doing?”

Shane doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say. Theriault didn’t really ever ask him questions that weren’t leading, that didn’t have the answer he expected couched within them. You’re going to fix that shit with Wilson, right, Hollander? Theriault had demanded once, meaning the way Wilson hadn’t had his head in the game for weeks. 

“Uh,” Shane says. “Good. Good first day.”

LeClaire nods. “I’m gonna get to the elephant in the room first, and then we can talk hockey.”

“Okay.”

“Comms wants to do a series of videos for social media, you and Rozanov. A putting the rivalry to bed sort of thing.” 

Shane holds back a laugh, just barely. He wishes Ilya were here too. He’d probably have a good joke about how they’ve been putting the rivalry to bed for years.

“I’ve told them to hold off, to give you some breathing space. I don’t want to make assumptions about what you and Roz want, but I also don’t want Comms to back you into a corner if they can back your play instead.”

“We have a publicist,” Shane says. “We can have Comms coordinate with her.”

“Great. I’ll pass that on.” LeClaire nods. “Come in with the vets tomorrow. No reason to put you on the ice with the rooks, it will just make them cry or wet themselves with excitement, probably. We can play around a little more with the lines. I like you and Varkov but I’m not sure about St-Simon. I want to try out one of the kids with you and Varkov. He’s showing promise—”

“Sorry,” Shane says, knowing his interruption is about thirty seconds too late, “there’s not more?”

“More?” LeClaire frowns.

“About the, uh, elephant?”

“Oh,” LeClaire says. “No. I mean, if you and Roz need something from me, let me know.” Silence unspools between them and Shane opens and closes his mouth a few times, too many questions ready in his brain. The expression on LeClaire’s face might be sympathy, but Shane isn’t sure. Maybe it’s pity. “Seems like you were expecting a different conversation,” LeClaire says.

“Did they tell you? What happened in Montreal?”

“Yes.” 

Shane nods. “I figured.”

“Listen, Hollander, you don’t need me to tell you all the ways this could go south. You probably have thought of at least ten more than I have, and I’m sure you and Roz have some contingency plans.” They’ve burned through Plan A and are on Plan B, and Shane’s not sure he has Plans C or D locked and loaded. His mom does, maybe. “But your marriage isn’t any more my business than Carmichael’s or Hammersmith’s or any of the other guys’ in that locker room.”

Shane appreciates the sentiment but, “if the league makes it your business?”

“I’m sure they’ll try, but that’s what the front office and legal are for,” LeClaire says, unbothered. “My job is hockey. So is yours. We can let everybody else worry about the other shit.”

The stubborn streak in Shane wants to push, wants to keep digging, wants to do anything but take this acceptance at face value, because if he gets the rug pulled out from under him again he’s not sure he’s going to survive it. But, god, he just wants his job to be hockey. “Okay,” Shane says. “Which rookie?”

LeClaire grins. “Tremblay. He’s twenty, winger, wicked fast.”

“Is there video?” Shane asks. “Juniors or anything?”

“He played for Cornell the last two years. I can send you some video, but don’t worry too much about it yet. I want to see how he does tomorrow first.”

“Okay,” Shane says. “Thanks, Coach.”

LeClaire nods. “Welcome to Boston, Hollander.” 

---

At home, Shane makes a beeline for the couch and collapses onto it, tired more from the unrelenting peopleness of the day and everything that had come with (Marly this morning, and Vic this afternoon, and the weird tension of wanting people to notice them after years of secrecy and hiding) than from the training itself, although he’s definitely also feeling an ache in his quads after finally getting back on the ice. Ilya settles directly on top of him, squashing him deeper into the cushions and Shane lets out a sigh. 

“Could sleep like this,” he says. This is definitely not news to Ilya; they’d napped more or less like this plenty of times at the cottage over the summer.

“I know,” Ilya says in his ear. “Go ahead.”

Shane lets his eyes drift closed, and he nods off only a minute or so later. 

When he wakes, Shane doesn’t need to check his watch to know he’s been asleep for hours. The living room is darker and the light that does come in through the giant windows is warm orange as the sun sets. At some point they shifted to their sides, Shane wedged between the back of the couch and Ilya, the big spoon with his arms around Ilya’s waist. Ilya is awake, scrolling on his phone, and Shane presses a kiss behind his ear.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” Ilya says back. 

“What are you looking at?” Shane asks. 

“Twitter. Many pictures from this morning.”

“Yeah?” Shane asks, still feeling a little sleepy. 

“Yes. People in the comments are being very stupid.”

“Well, that’s what the internet is for.” Shane reaches over to take Ilya’s phone, shoving it under one of the throw pillows. “Don’t worry about them.”

“Don’t worry about them, he says, like his brain is not running on worry at all times,” Ilya teases.

“I know,” Shane says, “it’s the reason I locked down all the social media apps on my phone.” He allows himself fifteen minutes a day, max. Any more than that, he spends his days with other people’s comments drowning out his own thoughts. Shane presses his face into the back of Ilya’s neck and inhales. Ilya smells like the soap in the showers at the rink, clean but not the expensive soap he has in the shower here. “Dinner?” Shane asks. Ilya nods.

They drag themselves off the couch and Shane goes to the fridge, pulling out two pre-portioned dinners to heat up. He enjoys cooking in the off season, or at the very least enjoys following the same five recipes he learned how to make a few years ago, but during the season when he spends most days burning more calories than he can reasonably consume, he isn’t bothered by the nutritionist-prepped meals like some of the guys are. He likes not having to think about it, just chucking things in the microwave (or the oven, if he plans ahead enough) to warm up and he doesn’t really care that much about eating more or less the same thing every day. 

Ilya leans heavily against him while the microwave whirs, his head on Shane’s shoulder. “You okay?” Shane asks him. 

“Tired,” Ilya says. “Long week.”

Shane wraps his arms around Ilya’s shoulders, holding him close. “Very long week,” he agrees. “This time last Monday I was telling Hayden, I think. It feels like a year ago.”

Ilya hums in agreement, and the microwave dings. Shane pulls out their identical meals of chicken and rice and vegetables and they sit side by side at the counter. Shane houses his food while Ilya actually takes time to taste and chew it, his eyelids drooping with exhaustion. 

“Okay, baby,” Shane says, when they finish and he’s stacked the dishes in the dishwasher. “Shower and bed, I think.”

It’s testament to how tired Ilya is (Shane suspects maybe something closer to an adrenaline crash, the comedown from the truly insane week they’ve had) that he doesn’t even point at the windows and insist that the sun is still up, he just nods and lets Shane steer him to the bathroom and into the shower. 

The shower is mostly a quick rinse to get the last lingering smell of the rink off, and they dry off quickly before collapsing into bed. Even with his nap this afternoon Shane is still tired, although not as much as Ilya, who gets his arms around Shane and almost immediately falls asleep. Shane can’t help staring at his husband’s face, feeling warm and fond and relieved, but as much as he’d like to fall asleep right now, his brain is whirring at a hundred miles an hour in about fifteen different directions. 

He twists to pick up his phone from the nightstand, and thumbs into his texts. He hearts a picture of the twins at their skating practice from Jackie and sends his mom a thumbs up to her text from earlier this afternoon, asking him if he wants her and his dad to come to his first home game in Boston. He ignores the message from Rose asking how his first day went, because he knows he’ll respond and then she’ll call him back and they’ll end up on the phone for two hours, probably. He’ll text her tomorrow instead, maybe.

There’s also a message from JJ, one that Shane had seen come through during lunch and hasn’t really known what to do with. Can we talk is all it says, and Shane doesn’t know what to do with that. JJ isn’t one to text first, he’s the kind of guy who just calls and calls and calls until he gets an answer. Shane’s been expecting it and dreading it in equal parts all week, and he wonders if he should’ve ripped the bandaid off sooner, should’ve called JJ himself. 

He slides out of bed gently, trying not to wake Ilya up, and brings his phone out to the living room with him. Sitting on the couch, he types out four or five different responses before painstakingly deleting each of them. He gives up and navigates into JJ’s contact page on his phone, tapping the call button. 

JJ answers on the second ring, his tone cautious. “Hollander?”

“Hey,” Shane says. “Is this an okay time?”

“Fuck, man, I guess so. I kind of figured I’d never hear from you.”

Shane finds himself immediately on the defensive. “It’s not like I heard from you at all last week, JJ. My life was fucking imploding and—”

“And you talked to Hayden, like you always do.”

“He showed up at my apartment.”

“Yeah, I told him I’d come too and he told me he thought it was better if just one of us went. He said he’d bring the baby so you could meet her and it would make talking easier.”

Shane blinks. It had been easier to talk to Hayden while he was holding Amber, and he wonders how many times in their friendship Hayden has used his kids as a conversational buffer for Shane. “He didn’t tell me that,” Shane says.

“Fucking Pike.” JJ sighs, clearly frustrated on the other end of the line. “So, what, you think I’ve just been buddying up with Comeau and Gagnon and Wilson since you left?” 

“I don’t know, JJ. I didn’t hear from you.” 

“Hayden said we should give you space. And then I found out in the group chat you were going to fucking Boston. That you were already in Boston when the trade news broke.”

“I didn’t ask for space,” Shane says. “I don’t know why Hayden thinks that’s what I wanted.”

“Could it be because you literally fled the country?” JJ says sarcastically and Shane snorts. 

“I was traded.”

“Are you saying you didn’t want to go to Boston?”

“I needed to get out of Montreal. I figured I’d end up in Buffalo or Ottawa. But Boston is better.”

“Everyone is better than Buffalo and Ottawa,” JJ says, and Shane can practically hear him rolling his eyes.

“No,” Shane says. “I mean yes, obviously, but no, Boston is better for me. Personally.”

“Let me guess, your boyfriend is there. Boston Lily, right?” 

“Um,” Shane says, hesitating. He hates fighting with JJ; they almost never do it. Disagreeing with Hayden is easier, mostly because Hayden will freak out about something, process it with Jackie, and then come back and admit he’s wrong. Or at least that it wasn’t a disagreement worth arguing over. JJ is more stubborn, so on the shit that doesn’t matter, Shane is usually fine to coast along. “Husband, actually.”

There’s a long silence, and Shane half-expects JJ to hang up. “You’re married,” JJ says flatly.

“Yeah.”

“Since when?”

“Wednesday.”

“Fucking hell, Hollander.”

“I know. It was quick. A courthouse thing. We eloped, basically.”

“Why the hurry? Marrying somebody none of your friends have met is kind of unhinged.”

Shane sighs. “You’ve met. And we got married because we were always going to, but also because there were some legal implications.”

“Legal implications,” JJ repeats. “What the fuck?”

“Citizenship stuff. Workplace protections. When the league finds out, we’re going to need that shit.”

“The league? Why would the league—are you married to another player? Is it Hunter?”

Shane thinks it’s a joke, because JJ is always ready with a dumb joke when things feel awkward, but it pisses him off. “We literally saw Hunter’s boyfriend on TV three months ago, and contrary to popular belief, Hunter’s not the only queer person in the league.”

“I know, you just took the shit about Hunter so personally.”

“Yeah, JJ, I did. Because I’m gay too.”

“Okay, fair. Sorry. But you are married to another player?”

“Yes.” 

“Who lives in Boston?”

“Yes.”

To JJ’s credit, he puts it together way faster than Hayden did. “Shane. You’re not—please, don’t tell me—I saw those pictures this morning and I figured it was a fucking PR thing the team was making you guys do, but you and Rozanov?”

“Yeah. He’s my husband and I love him and we’ve been together casually and then way less casually for almost a decade. And you can’t tell anyone. At all.”

“I won’t tell,” JJ says. And then, “A decade?”

“Almost. Since the summer before our rookie season.”

“Does Hayden know?” There’s a hint of accusation or hurt or both in JJ’s tone.

“Yeah. Ilya called me while Hayden was at my apartment last week. But nobody else knows yet, except my parents. The Raiders are going to figure it out,” Shane admits. “We’re not hiding that we’re living together.” 

“It kind of seems like it won’t stay a secret for very long, then.”

“No, probably not. But we’re hoping we’ll get at least until Ilya’s Canadian residency comes through. Russia won’t be safe for him, once we’re out.”

JJ goes quiet. “You could’ve told me.”

“You’ve called Ilya a cocksucker, JJ. Like, for years.”

“That’s just the locker room, I don’t mean anything by it.”

Shane huffs out a sigh. “Do you get how that’s kind of the whole fucking problem? Ilya and I had a plan to stay in the closet until we retired. He was going to leave Boston next season to make our lives a little easier, so we could see each other more than once every few months. And then Comeau called me a faggot, and I blew everything up because isn’t just the locker room, it’s my whole fucking life. And maybe you or Hayden or some of the other guys wouldn’t have said shit like that if you knew about me, but I didn’t know for sure. How could I? The guys in the Metros locker room have said some fucked up shit over the years, and nobody pushed back at all.”

Shane thinks about that for a second, considers the way he’s spent so many years fitting himself into the exact mold Montreal demanded of him and all the places it pinched, like when he was thirteen and grew so quickly his skates were always a little too small, no matter how recently his mom had gotten him a new pair. Ilya had told him Boston was different, insisted even, but Shane doesn’t think he could’ve ever just believed it outright. Shane didn’t hear a single slur in the Raiders locker room today, where nobody besides Ilya knows he’s gay. Vic suspects and Marly figured it out right in front of him, and neither of them have treated him any differently since.

JJ is quiet again, and Shane tamps down the urge to fill the silence. 

“I should’ve called you last week. I got pissed off when you didn’t call me and only talked to Hayden, but I did not mean to make you think I agreed with them. I don’t.” JJ says finally. It’s not an apology, exactly, but he suspects JJ is as unfamiliar with fighting with him as he feels about fighting with JJ. “You might want to tell Hayden to calm the fuck down, he’s like a fucking brick wall right now between you and the rest of the team.”

Shane feels oddly touched by this, even if it’s not something he asked of Hayden. “I wasn’t trying to avoid you,” Shane says, although maybe he was, or was at least compartmentalizing. “Everything just spiralled really fast.”

“And you are sure?” JJ asks. “About Rozanov? Because there are so many men who aren’t him. If I had known sooner, I could’ve helped—”

Another stupid joke. Shane rolls his eyes, even though JJ can’t see him. “Fuck off, JJ. We’re literally married.”

“Someday you will tell me the whole story? Preferably over drinks?”

“Next time I’m in Montreal, maybe,” Shane says. It’s not just his story to tell, and there are parts of it he never wants to share with anyone else. 

They talk for a few awkward, stilted minutes, mostly asking after each other’s families, before they hang up. Shane tosses his phone aside, sinking back into the couch.

“Better?” Ilya asks, and Shane looks up to see him leaning in the doorway. 

“Did I wake you?” Shane asks. “I’m sorry. It was JJ.”

“I thought so.” Ilya nods. “Did it help?”

“I don’t know.” Shane sighs. “Maybe, yeah.” 

“Do you want to come back to bed? Is very empty without you.”

“Yeah. That sounds good.”

Ilya offers him a hand to pull him to his feet. Shane turns out the lights as they pass the light switch, and he follows Ilya down the dark hallway and back into their bedroom. The sheets on his side of the bed have gone cold in the time he was on the phone, and he lets Ilya pull him close, warming up against the furnace that is Ilya’s body.

“Get some rest,” Shane says, turning to press a kiss to Ilya’s shoulder. 

“You too, sweetheart.”

 

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

It's the last few hours my birthday, so have a new chapter as my gift to you all.

As with the first chapter, Russian translations are from Google translate and I welcome corrections, because I am fully confident Google is not correct (or at least isn't getting the nuance).

A note re: Ilya's mental health. I have not tagged Ilya's depression, as it is not something I am writing in significant detail in this fic (although I may go there in later installments and if I do, I will absolutely tag for it). There are a few moments throughout this fic that can definitely be read through that lens, and one specific comparison Ilya makes to his mother in this chapter, but at this point in the timeline he is only just beginning to suspect he might struggle with some of the same issues she did. I decided not to tag as it is not a key piece of this particular story, however I am certainly willing to add the tag if it seems necessary.

Ilya startles awake in the middle of the night, with no real indication of what might’ve woken him. Maybe he should’ve expected it, considering they went to bed so early because he was falling asleep eating dinner, something he hasn’t done since he was fifteen and physically couldn’t consume enough calories to keep up with hockey and his growth spurts. Even when they’d gone back to bed after Shane’s call with JJ, it had still been early. 

When he grabs his phone off his nightstand to check the time, it’s just past midnight and he has a series of texts from Marly that came through in the last fifteen minutes. Ilya doubts it was the buzzing of his phone that woke him, and Shane is deeply asleep next to him, his face half-hidden under one of the pillows. 

Ilya swipes his phone open and squints at the texts. 

 

Marly

Feeling bad about this morning

Like maybe I put you in a 

tough spot

Shouldn’t have done that 

Sorry Roz 

 

Ilya frowns. Is Marly up at midnight worrying about something that happened fifteen hours ago? He slips out of bed, bringing his phone with him and grabbing a hoodie from the foot of the bed. He pulls it on and knows from the way it’s a little short in the sleeves that it’s Shane’s. Ilya pauses in the kitchen, rummaging through the junk drawer, pretty sure he has a pack of cigarettes and a lighter hidden in the back of the drawer. He’s quit smoking. Mostly. Or he definitely doesn’t smoke as much as he used to, and he can go weeks sometimes now without craving a cigarette. But there’s something about waking up in the middle of the night that always sends him looking for one of the packs he still has stashed around the house. 

Plus he thinks it might help make whatever this conversation with Marly is about to be a little easier. 

He slides open the glass door to the gravel patio at the side of the house. It’s surprisingly warm for September, especially since so many of the leaves in the trees have started to change colors, and he settles into one of his patio chairs, lighting his cigarette first and then tapping on Marly’s contact in his phone to call him. 

The phone rings a few times, and Ilya wonders if he missed the window, if Marly has fallen asleep and now Ilya’s going to be waking him up, but the call connects and Marly sounds fully awake when he says, “Hey, Roz.”

“Marly,” Ilya says, his voice feeling loud in his quiet yard, echoing off the gravel and the privacy fence and the wall of windows behind him. He lowers it slightly, mostly for Shane’s sake. None of his neighbors live close enough to overhear. “Why are you texting me sorry at midnight?”

“Because I feel like shit not saying something,” Marly says, and Ilya believes that. He sounds down, in a way Marly rarely does. Most things bounce off him, even some of the shit that shouldn’t. (Ilya remembers, back in his rookie season when Marly was only two seasons ahead of him but seemed so much older than that, the alternate captain they had who talked to both of them with an exaggerated slowness to his speech, to convey how stupid he thought they both were. It had made Ilya seethe but Marly had just laughed it off. Neither of them had been particularly torn up when he had a career-ending knee injury the next year, and then Marly had ended up with the A.)

“Nothing to feel like shit about,” Ilya says and takes a deep drag on his cigarette.

“C’mon, Roz. I almost outed you guys, didn’t I?”

“Nobody noticed,” Ilya says, although he thinks maybe Vic did. Marly hums out a disbelieving noise and Ilya asks, “Have I ever not told you if we have a problem?”

Cliff blows out a breath on the other end of the line. “Well…”

Ilya frowns. “What?”

“I think you were pretty pissed at me after that Hollander hit last season. I just chalked it up to it being your first game back after your dad died, but I dunno. Today made me think it was Hollander after all. You can tell me if I’m wrong.”

The thing is, Marly’s not wrong. Ilya didn’t do a good job of hiding it, maybe didn’t even try particularly hard to hide it. “No,” he sighs. “You aren’t wrong.”

“Shit,” Marly says. “I wanted to be.”

“I know.” Ilya stretches his legs out, resting his feet on the coffee table in front of him even though it’s silly to even have a coffee table here. He only ever sits out here to smoke. “It was a clean hit. I was a dick about it because I was worried about Shane, and yes, probably because my father had just died, too. I am sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” Marly says. “I could tell you were upset.”

“Whole world could tell I was upset. Even announcers who can’t see for shit said how upset I looked.”

“Roz, listen,” Marly says, “I should’ve said something. Asked about it. Made it so you could tell me, if you wanted to.”

“I wouldn’t have told you then.” Ilya only knows that the silence on Marly’s end of the call is the hurt kind because he’s known Marly for so long. “Not like that,” he says. “Not because of you. Shane and I weren’t anything yet.”

“Bullshit,” Marly scoffs. “I watched you blush at your phone for years before that.”

“Was complicated,” Ilya says. “Obviously not exclusive. And seemed impossible, until Hunter.”

“Still,” Marly says. “I could’ve been better at being…a safe person, or whatever. My brother is gay, I know that shit is important. But, you know. Locker room blind spot, or something.”

Ilya wants to crack a joke just to steer them into familiar territory but he already hurt Marly’s feelings once without meaning to in this conversation. He doesn’t need to do it on purpose, too. 

“I would have told you,” Ilya says. “Soon.”

“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty about it,” Marly insists. “It’s your shit to tell—”

“Marly, I was not going to hide my husband from you,” Ilya says, laughing. 

“Your husband,” Marly repeats. “Are you serious? How long have you guys been married?”

Ilya grins. “Five days.”

“So, what, your emergency was a fucking wedding?” Marly laughs. 

Ilya weighs how much he should share. How much Shane would be comfortable with. Ilya trusts Marly, obviously, but Shane doesn’t know him very well yet. “Things went to shit in Montreal,” he says. “Shane can tell you more someday, maybe. We had a different plan but…he’s worried about what will happen to me with Russia—we both are—if the league finds out before I have Canadian resident card.”

“And when will that be?”

“A year, probably.”

“So, what, it’s just about the paperwork?”

“No.” Ilya sighs. “Of course not. I bought rings in 2014.”

“Fucking hell. Surprised you didn’t buy them on day one. Which was when…your draft?”

“World Juniors,” Ilya says. “2008. He introduced himself to me behind the practice rink. Told me not to smoke. I didn’t speak enough English then to flirt with him the way I wanted to.”

“Jesus, I was joking.”

Ilya stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray he keeps on the little side table. He’s tempted to light another but he won’t, not when he’s getting back into bed with Shane after this. Shane will probably wake up from the smell alone, like a bloodhound. 

“No you weren’t,” Ilya says. “Like you said, you saw.” 

Marly hums again, and then he’s quiet for a stretch. Ilya is used to this, knows to wait out Marly’s quiet stretches. He’s thinking, or processing maybe. Working through something. Marly can run his mouth with the best of them, talking about fucking nothing, but when he wants to talk about something he’s like this. He’s probably been chewing on this all day. 

“It must have been really fucking hard sometimes, Roz. This thing with your boy. Lonely.”

“Sometimes, yes.” Ilya agrees. The five months between Sochi and Las Vegas. The summer after Vegas that Ilya spent hating himself, going on punishing runs and doing everything to get Shane’s attention except fucking apologizing. The longest month of his life, when Shane was dating Rose Landry and every single person on the internet talked about how perfect they looked together. Flying to Moscow to bury his father, desperately wishing Shane could come with him despite knowing all the reasons he couldn’t, trying to make up the difference with phone calls and video chats. The night Shane spent in a Montreal hospital and no one knew to call Ilya and tell him Shane was going to be okay. 

There were other times, too. Less vivid in his memory but no less difficult. Every time Shane slipped out of a hotel room without looking back at Ilya. Every time Ilya did the same to Shane. Nights when they were in the same city but the timing still didn’t work, when there was a flight too soon or a team demanding their presence to celebrate a win.

“Maybe most times,” Ilya corrects. There has been a lot of loneliness over the years. 

“I’m sorry if I ever made it harder. Giving you shit about your Montreal girl.” 

Ilya frowns, not sure why his best friend keeps trying to apologize. He would rather be having this conversation in person, over a drink, so he could read all of Marly’s tells. “Which brother?” he asks, working purely off a hunch.

“What?”

“You said your brother is gay. Which one? You have, what, four of them?”

“Fuck off, Roz, you know it’s only two.” 

“And two sisters you won’t introduce me to.” It’s an old joke. Marly’s sisters were twenty and eighteen when he and Ilya became friends, and Marly was like a forcefield between his little sisters and the young, single guys on the team (and Ilya especially), but now one of them lives in Seattle and the other is in Chicago and it’s mostly just circumstance that has kept Ilya from meeting them. 

“Yeah, well, it’s probably safe now that Hollander put a ring on it. He’d kill you faster than I could, I think.”

Ilya laughs. “So which brother?”

“The younger one. Robbie. He had a hard time in school. Some of my friends, and Jack’s too, were shitbags, especially once he came out.” 

“And now?”

“He’s good. He’s in law school in Philly. He’s got a boyfriend I haven’t met, apparently I’m not allowed to yet. I’m too scary.”

“Clearly he has not seen you watching the baking show.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Marly says. It used to be easy to wind Marly up, giving him a hard time about watching British people be nice to each other while baking cakes as part of his postgame ritual, but Marly is mostly inoculated against this particular brand of teasing now. 

“Do you think because your friends were shitbags to your little brother and because I did not come out to you that you did not learn a lesson, or something?” Ilya asks.

“Fucking hell, Roz,” Marly complains. “I don’t know. Maybe. It feels like I’m being a shitty brother all over again.”

“You are a good brother,” Ilya says. “You have to stop saying sorry for things I did not tell you. I did not tell anyone.”

“What, at all?” Marly sounds shocked. “Not even Svetlana?”

“Not about Shane, no.”

Marly sits with that for another quiet stretch. “I’m glad he’s here.”

“Yes, me too. We might actually win the Cup this year now.” 

“Don’t be an asshole,” Marly laughs. “I’m trying to be nice.”

“So stop. It’s weird.”  

“Fuck you,” Marly says.

Ilya laughs. “Better. You sound like yourself again. Will you be able to sleep now?”

Marly sighs. “Probably.”

“Good, you need it if you’re going to keep up with Shane and me at practice tomorrow.”

“Stop making me regret being nice to you,” Marly says. “Go to sleep.”

“You too.” 

Marly hangs up the phone, and Ilya tips his head against the back cushion of the chair, looking up at the night sky. There’s too much light pollution here to really see any stars, not like at the cottage, where he’d stretched out on his back on the lawn and looked up and it was clear enough to see the Milky Way and a bright light Shane had insisted was Venus and Ilya had taken his word for it. It almost doesn’t seem like the same sky without being able to see the stars.

He pushes to his feet and slips back into the house, closing the sliding door behind him and locking it again. When he gets to their room, Shane is still asleep with his face mashed under a pillow, but he turns towards Ilya’s side of the bed as Ilya climbs back beneath the duvet.

“Ilya?” he asks, his eyes still closed, and Ilya’s not sure if he’s awake or talking in his sleep. 

“I’m here, sweetheart.”

Shane burrows closer, until his head is on Ilya’s chest and his arm is flung across Ilya’s waist. 

“Cold,” Shane mumbles and his feet feel like ice cubes against Ilya’s, even though Ilya was just outside. He pulls the duvet tighter around them both. If Shane was actually awake he’s asleep again immediately, and Ilya can’t help pressing a fond kiss to the top of his head before he lets himself drift back to sleep too.

---

Waking up on Tuesday is a significant improvement on Monday, because Shane is still in bed with him, and at some point in the night they had shifted around, Shane on his back, Ilya’s head on Shane’s chest, and Ilya has a sudden, stinging memory of how much he used to want this: waking up in Shane’s arms, Shane holding him, his heart a steady thump beneath Ilya’s ear. 

It’s like a magic trick, like he made something he wanted so much appear out of thin air, just by wanting it. 

(It’s not out of thin air, really, he knows. It had taken years of sanding off the sharp corners of the walls he’d built up around his heart, years of chipping away at Shane’s too like an archaeologist on a dig with a little chisel and a soft brush, years of learning how to be honest even when admitting something as simple as I like you felt like it needed to be pulled from his mouth like a dead tooth.)

“Are you feeling better?” Shane asks, when he notices Ilya is awake. “You were like those videos of babies falling asleep in their food last night.”

“Ah, adorable, yes?” 

“So adorable,” Shane agrees, laughing. “But I’ve never seen you crash like that.”

Ilya shrugs. “It was long week.”

“Yeah,” Shane says. “Were you on the phone at some point, too? I woke up for a minute and you weren’t here, but I thought I heard you talking.”

“Yes,” Ilya says. “With Marly, around midnight.”

“Is he okay?”

“I think so.” Ilya nods. “He was feeling…guilty. Sad, maybe? About yesterday morning. He thinks he almost outed us, but I don’t think anyone noticed. Vic, maybe, a little.”

“Oh,” Shane says softly, and then he adds, “Yeah, Vic asked me about my ring yesterday. We joked around about it.”

“They are good friends,” Ilya says.

“You were so willing to leave Boston for Ottawa I thought maybe…” Shane hesitates, and Ilya tips his face up to see Shane’s, to read the way he catches his lip in his teeth, the way his eyebrows come together in a little frown. “You didn’t really have anyone here. But you do.”

Ilya frowns, thinking about that. “It would have been hard to leave,” he says, eventually. “But not being with you would be much harder.”

“I’m so glad we’re here,” Shane whispers. “And not on different teams or in different countries or even in Ottawa. The locker room yesterday was just…normal. I didn’t know it could be like that.”

It breaks Ilya’s heart, just a little, hearing that. He aims for a joke, trying to cover. “Don’t worry. They were on best behavior. They will go back to being weird idiots soon.”

“Ilya,” Shane shakes his head, “no. They’re good guys. A good team. You said it and I believed you but I was still nervous.” Shane tips Ilya’s face towards him. “You’re a good captain. Locker rooms don’t feel like that by accident.” Shane’s frown deepens, and Ilya knows exactly what he’s thinking.

“Shane,” he says, wanting to get ahead of the thought before it has time to take root, to become another thing about Montreal Shane tortures himself with, “is much easier to make a locker room like ours when coaches and management and organization want it to be that way.” 

They listen to him when he says there is a problem. A backup goalie who was a racist piece of shit; eventually he’d been traded to Arizona, and Boston had gotten Carm. A defenseman who drank too much and got increasingly more aggressive as he did (with men in bars he threw punches at, with women from whom he didn’t want to take no for an answer) and ended up getting arrested and put on waivers during the off-season. A rookie who would’ve washed out anyway, because he didn’t take it seriously enough, but washed out a whole lot faster when one of their physios made a sexual harassment complaint against him and the organization believed her and investigated and terminated his contract.

And then there was the other stuff, the words guys defaulted to using because they all grew up in locker rooms, they all knew the script for what you said about the defenseman on the other team after a hit, or to the guy on the other side of the faceoff to try to rattle him, the way they were all used to picking the easiest, laziest thing. It hadn’t even been that difficult to suggest maybe they could be more creative with their chirps, and nobody had really fought him on it, not with Ilya and Marly and Kane all on the same page about it. Ilya had even incentivized it a few times with both positive reinforcement (five hundred dollars once to Hammersmith when he called Dallas Kent such a beautiful combination of curse words and insults that didn’t contain a single slur and still made Kent lose his shit and hand Boston a power play) and punitive (bag skates, usually). But none of that would’ve mattered, really, if it wasn’t a team of fundamentally good guys, working for a good organization. 

“So you were not the reason your locker room was full of toxic assholes,” Ilya adds, just in case he wasn’t being clear enough.

“I know,” Shane says, but his voice sounds small in a way that makes Ilya doubt the truthfulness of this statement. And then he says, even quieter, “I don’t think I was a very good captain. At least not for the Metros. Boston gave you the C and then all of a sudden there was all this pressure from the GM to make sure I had it too. I don’t know, maybe it was the league, always trying to push the rivalry. I think Theriault would’ve chosen someone else, if he could.”

When they were named captains of their respective teams in the same off-season, Ilya hadn’t even questioned it. He was already used to sharing all of his accomplishments with Shane, even if it was just in the way that everyone spoke of them in the same breath. He hadn’t even really resented it the way he did back in the first few years of their careers, and then, when he accepted he was in love, it just made him feel fond in hindsight that so many of his accomplishments are tied up with Shane’s, that their lives have been mirrors of each other’s for so long. But now he feels sad thinking about Shane trying to lead a team that didn’t want him. 

“I think you are wrong that you were not good." Ilya also thinks this is a sentiment colored by hindsight, that the last week has changed the way Shane feels about a lot of things that happened in Montreal. "They did not deserve you. But I am sorry.” 

“It’s not your fault,” Shane shakes his head, “and I’m glad you got it because you earned it. You deserve it and you’re so good at it. I’m relieved since I think it means they aren’t going to try to give it to me.”

“They might try,” Ilya says. “You are Shane fucking Hollander.”

“Yesterday LeClaire told me my job is just hockey. And I really, really want that to be true, Ilya.”

Shane’s job will never be just hockey, Ilya knows. There will always be so many extra things that come with being the greatest player in a generation. But maybe in Boston some of those things will be easier. Ilya will do his best to make them easier, if he can. 

“Is good, then, that I plan to hold onto the C until I retire. Maybe even after. I will be the first retired player to retain captain status.” It’s dumb, but it makes Shane snort a little laugh, which is enough to break the sad, serious spell that has overtaken their bed, and Shane shoves at him until they’re out of bed and heading to the kitchen for breakfast. Shane even manages to finish his eggs this morning. 

It’s a good start.

---

Ilya thinks, skating alongside Shane, firing the puck back and forth between them, that every journalist and podcaster and pundit who talk nonstop about Shane’s hockey IQ have done him a disservice, because nobody talks enough about how terrifying Shane can be. He’s all power and single-minded focus on the ice, and Ilya can see it click for the rest of the team: Shane is going to fit right in in Boston. Montreal has kept him in his very specific box for many years, taken the teeth out of his bite, and now that he’s allowed to be out of the cage, he’s like a fucking tiger flexing his claws.

Ilya can’t help glancing over his shoulder at LeClaire on the bench. He looks fucking smug, and Ilya knows it won’t be hard work to convince him to fuck with the lines, to let Ilya and Shane on the ice together for all of their minutes, not just on the power play. Maybe not this season, but next year? Especially if the rookie from Cornell shapes up to be the center LeClaire thinks he could be or if Heikkinen comes back up from Providence after his ACL surgery and PT. Ilya can see it easily enough, a first line centered by Shane with Ilya on his right and Vic on his left. Hammersmith centering the second line with Varkov and Connors. The rookie on the third with Johansson and Dubek. The fourth line wouldn’t need to change at all: Aud and Sebbin and Kovalev are all slowing down as they get closer to retirement but they still play solid hockey. 

Shane slaps the puck into the net, and Ilya feels a little bad for the backup goalie up from Providence. Oregan has cursed Shane’s name more than once in the locker room after making goals that nobody else possibly could and is probably more relieved than anyone that Shane Hollander is a Raider now. This guy probably hasn’t had to stop anything that comes close to Shane’s shots in his two seasons in Providence. 

Ilya slings his arm around Shane’s neck and kisses his helmet, and Shane rolls his eyes at him.

“Are we done showing off yet?” he teases. 

“Never.” Ilya laughs. “And is not showing off. Is very educational for everyone. Coach especially.”

“This is feeling like All-Stars all over again,” Carm chirps at them as they skate back to center ice. 

“Yep,” Connors agrees. “Same vibe.”

“Yes,” Ilya says, deadpan. “This is what it is like when Hollander and I play together.”

“Alexa, play ‘All I Do Is Win’.” Hammersmith grins. “Oh, that should be our goal song this year. Somebody get on that.”

---

Shane is less tense than yesterday, Ilya can tell. He is still faster showering and getting changed after practice than Ilya is, but Ilya thinks it’s his regular amount of wanting to be clean and changed and not that he’s racing to get out of the locker room. He gets back to his stall and Shane is on the bench putting his shoes on, and Ilya can’t help remembering that first locker room, after the CCM shoot. He stops next to Shane, maybe a little closer than necessary. 

“You need something?” Shane asks, tilting his face up to look at Ilya, and Ilya grins as Shane’s eyes track down his chest to the towel around his hips before jerking back up to his face. 

“Yes.” Ilya smirks. “Many things.”

“Roz,” Carm says, looking up from his phone. “Is Jane coming to any games this season?”

“Hmm, yes.” Ilya says. “Why?”

“Cayla was asking. She said they can, like, sit together or whatever.” 

“Jane has a seat somewhere else,” Ilya says. Both Marly and Vic laugh. Shane rolls his eyes.

Carm frowns. “Not the family section? Why?” 

“You’re so fucking weird about Jane, Roz,” Connors complains. “Like, you still haven’t convinced me she isn’t a serial killer or something.”

“Literally why is serial killer always your first thought?” Marly asks. “Maybe she’s married.” 

Ilya barks a laugh and Marly grins at him, knowing. 

Connors frowns. “I mean, that’s kind of shitty if she is.” 

Shane laughs. “She’s not a serial killer.”

“Wait, Hollander knows Jane?” Carm cries. “I’m so confused.”

Ilya looks down at Shane again, who does his tiny little nod that’s barely more than a dip of his chin. 

“Hollander is Jane.” 

For a long second, Carm and Connors stare at him in stunned silence. Vic only grins, and Ilya isn’t surprised he put it together already. He was halfway there yesterday if he was asking Shane about his ring.

“No fucking way,” Connors finally says, the expression on his face particularly gobsmacked.

“Was the family emergency whatever shit went down in Montreal?” Vic asks. 

Carmichael stares at Ilya. “Are you guys engaged? For real?” 

“No,” Ilya says. He pauses a second and Shane rolls his hand in a get on with it gesture. “We are married.”

“Oh fuck off,” Carmichael says, shoving Ilya’s shoulder. “You asshole. You’re supposed to tell your boys first. We weren’t invited?”

“Nobody was,” Shane says, and his voice comes out steadier than Ilya thought it might. “Just my parents.”

“Okay.” Carm concedes, “That’s a little better, I guess. I would’ve been pissed if like…all of Montreal was there.”

“No,” Shane says. “They definitely weren’t.”

Marly scowls. “Fuck Montreal,” he says darkly, meeting Shane’s eyes. 

It catches on through the locker room, shouts of fuck Montreal echoing around them even if nobody outside the group huddled in front of Shane and Ilya’s stalls knows why they’re all cursing Montreal. It’s Boston and it’s a day ending in ‘y’. They don’t need a reason to curse Montreal.

“We keep this between us for now,” Ilya says, gesturing around their circle. “We will tell rest of the team when the roster is set. No sending anyone back to Providence with story to sell, yes?”

“Yeah, no problem,” Vic says and Marly nods.

“You got it, Cap,” Connors agrees. 

“You crazy fuckers,” Carm says, clapping Ilya on the shoulder. “You better give us the whole story at some point.”

“Yes, yes,” Ilya says, rolling his eyes in feigned annoyance. “Go get dressed,” he waves them away and they filter back to their own stalls. 

“Having fun?” Shane asks, grinning up at him.

“Yes,” Ilya says.

“Good,” Shane says. “Me, too. Now will you please get dressed? I want to go home and sleep for like four hours.”

“Just sleep?” Ilya pouts and Shane throws a towel at him.

---

Ilya watches with pride unfurling in his chest at the way his team—their team—spends the remaining week of training camp fitting Shane into their routines and rhythms easily, without question. Vic and Shane take Tremblay, the rookie from Cornell, under their wing, since they’re the only ones who also speak French. Oregan finds out Shane likes yoga and excitedly shows Shane the new yoga and meditation room he and Kohn had campaigned for all last season. (It used to be an office, but Ilya supposes it’s nice enough now that it’s been renovated.) Aud, Kane, Vic, and Feller add Shane to their Canadian Raiders group chat where Ilya assumes they mostly just apologize to each other and talk about where to find good maple syrup in Boston. They also insist on eating lunch at a separate table from everyone else once a week, and Shane sends Ilya a bemused little glance over his shoulder when Vic herds him to it on Wednesday. 

“Please will you help me figure out what we’re supposed to do with these emails from Bethany,” Shane asks, his voice cutting through the quiet on Wednesday night, both of them stretched out on opposite ends of the couch, their feet not quite touching in the middle this time because this couch is bigger than the one at the cottage. Shane is frowning down at his phone, and Ilya swipes out of the Twitter thread he’d been reading that was mostly just pictures of Shane and him walking in and out of the practice rink all week, the replies to the thread littered with ???s and side-eye emojis and wtfs. One person suggested they might be wearing matching rings and got thoroughly trounced by people insisting they couldn’t be wedding rings because they weren’t wearing them on the same hand and also because they are Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov and they hate each other. Ilya wonders if they didn’t need to try to be quite so sneaky for so many years; it seems like the rivalry and being hockey players in general might’ve been more than enough of a cover. 

“I did not read them,” he admits and Shane huffs out a laugh, not even pretending to be annoyed. 

“There’s a lot of dumb PR jargon, you’re not missing much. I’m glad my mom likes her, I guess, they’ll probably work together most. But the Comms team wants you and me to do something and Bethany says we need to decide.”

“Okay, what are options?”

“Press conference,” Shane says.

Ilya blows a raspberry. “Boring,” he complains. “And not in good way.”

“Yeah,” Shane agrees. “Also some reporter is probably still going to ask me something I’m not allowed to answer, even if they’re not supposed to, which is going to become an even bigger story.”

“Next option?”

Shane grimaces. “I do an Instagram takeover on the team’s official account.”

Ilya snorts. “You hate this idea.”

“Obviously,” Shane says. 

Ilya’s own Instagram takeover still gets views, four years later. It’s a permanently pinned story on the official team account. Ilya suspects if Shane does one and it’s inevitably much more boring and gets fewer views than Ilya’s—where Ilya’s working out shirtless in tiny shorts, and making everyone in the Dunkin down the street from the practice rink say hello and confirm that he is their favorite Raider, and kicking Marly’s ass at Mario Kart, and making everyone in the locker room dance to a Rihanna song—someone on the internet will find a way to make it about the rivalry.

“For what it’s worth,” Shane adds, “Bethany doesn’t recommend either of those ideas. She thinks we should go with the third option. Comms suggested we do Hollander vs Rozanov trivia, so we answer questions about each other. We get to approve the questions and the final cut—”

“And the final cut?” Ilya asks, surprised. “So Yuna already has struck fear into the hearts of the entire franchise?”

“Yeah,” Shane laughs, “and Farah too, probably. But also I think the Comms team just likes you and wants to play ball.” 

The Comms team does like him. He’s usually willing to do something dumb on camera to get them views and now that he doesn’t end up photographed stumbling drunk out of clubs with as much regularity as he did in the early days of his career (he still goes out, of course, he’s just gotten much better at a discreet exit), they can safely put him on social media without too much backlash in the comments. He also doesn’t have a Twitter account they need to police, like some of the other guys. He mostly uses his Twitter to follow what’s happening in the league; it was a good way to practice his English reading comprehension and to learn slang when he first moved to America and he never really got in the habit of actually tweeting. If he’s going to post something, he prefers Instagram.

“And they’ll post the video on social media, I guess. Sort of an official truce kind of thing.”

“Is not bad idea,” Ilya says, thoughtfully. “Especially if trivia questions show that we know each other much better than people think.”

Shane nods. “Yeah, that’s what Mom said. Bethany says it’s a win/win. Boston gets to make it clear we can be on the same team without murdering each other, and we get to put something out there that shows people we’re more than the rivalry and have been for a while.”

“Okay,” Ilya nods. “We do this.”

“Okay,” Shane agrees, and types out a reply on his phone. “Probably they’ll want us to film it tomorrow.” Shane sets his phone down and looks at Ilya again. “It’s gonna make things crazier.”

The internet has been relentless—so much so that Ilya is starting to think he probably should follow Shane’s lead and limit his social media usage for a little while—with everyone speculating why Shane left Montreal and why he’s suddenly so friendly with Ilya. No one has gone so far as to speculate that they’re living together (probably because it seems as far-fetched as them being married), but there have been pictures of them arriving at and leaving the practice rink in Ilya’s G-Wagon every day this week. Montreal fans are livid about Shane’s departure, calling him a traitor. Boston fans are gloating in their replies, egging them on about stealing their star player out from under their noses. Somehow, on Tuesday, Rose Landry’s fans got pulled into it, and the Twitter war that broke out trended in Canada and the US.

The statement Bethany shared to Shane’s accounts this morning has done nothing to calm things down. If anything, the little that she can say given Shane’s NDA has just made everything more confusing. 

“Do you wish we were being sneakier?” Ilya asks, and Shane is already shaking his head before Ilya finishes asking.

“No. Most of the noise is just about hockey. Me leaving Montreal during preseason is huge news, but Montreal willingly trading me to Boston is insane. That’s why it’s like this. Nobody is putting anything together about us, are they?”

Ilya shakes his head. “There is one girl on Twitter who says she thinks we are married, but no one agrees with her.”

“Kind of feels like we could walk into the rink holding hands and they still wouldn’t notice anything.”

Ilya grins and nudges Shane’s foot. “Want to tomorrow?”

Shane laughs. “After we tell the team, maybe.”

---

Ilya’s pretty sure they’re not going to have to tell the team anything. 

Daniil Varkov noticed Shane doing his daily Russian lesson with the stupid little owl on his phone during a break in the gym on Wednesday, and spent the afternoon with his eyes darting between Ilya and Shane, putting pieces together. Ilya might’ve been worried about this, except that three years ago on Pride Night, when Danya was new to the team and Ilya was tasked with explaining about the special warmup jerseys and the stick tape in Russian so they could be sure Danya understood, Danya had just nodded and said, “Хорошо. Лучше, чем дома.”

“Он твой любовник?” he asks Ilya in the locker room on Thursday before morning skate.

“Да,” Ilya says, grinning. “Надолго. Мы в браке.”

Varkov grins back at him. “This is one way to end a rivalry,” he says in English, and Shane glances over at them curiously. 

“Danya asked if you are my lover,” Ilya says quietly and Shane groans. 

“That word is still banned.”

“What is wrong with this word?” Danya frowns. “Is nice.”

“Exactly!” Ilya says. He considers for a moment. “Husband is better.”

“Да,” Shane agrees. “It is.”

“I will have to take your word for it,” Danya says somberly. “Zoe says she does not want to get married.”

“To you?” Shane frowns. “Or at all?”

“At all. She is very, ah…modern. Feminist?” Danya says this a little uncertainly and Shane nods. 

Danya’s girlfriend is in medical school at Boston University. She won’t join the WAG chat because she doesn’t have time (and maybe also because of how modern she apparently is), and Ilya thinks that if she didn’t live in Danya’s apartment, they would likely never see each other between her class schedule and his game schedule. Ilya also thinks that maybe Danya and Zoe are not meant to be together if he wants to get married and she does not, but he keeps this to himself. Danya probably does not want this advice from Ilya, newly married and obviously overjoyed about it as he is.

 

On Thursday afternoon, Kane corners Ilya by the water bottle filler in the gym.

“The asshole I billeted with in juniors plays for Montreal,” Kane says quietly, his eyes darting over to where Shane is on one of the rowing machines, his face doing that intensely focused thing Ilya recognizes means that they could be shouting his name across the gym and he wouldn’t hear them. Ilya loves him very much, but he can’t deny that it is very unsettling. Why can’t he just listen to music? “Is it true?”

“Is what true?” Ilya asks. He’s not going to confirm anything without knowing what the rumors coming out of Montreal are. Even then, he probably won’t confirm anything without talking to Shane first. 

Kane lays out what he heard from Gagnon. It sounds, to Ilya, like more or less the truth, through the lens of Montreal’s bullshit. “Gagnon was trying to warn me, told me to watch my back in the showers,” Kane adds, scowling. “I get why Hollzy wanted out, if that’s the kind of braindead shit they’re saying in Montreal.”

“Is not my place to say, Shug,” Ilya says to Kane. Shane at least has confirmed, when he was inevitably asked, that he wanted to leave Montreal. It’s still not clear how much else he even can say, given the NDA (which is bullshit, if Gagnon can apparently run his mouth to whoever he feels like). 

“I don’t think they know he’s your boy,” Kane says. “No way Gagnon wouldn’t have said something if they did.” Ilya doesn’t say anything for a second and Kane swears. “Fuck, am I not supposed to know? You guys have rings and also I heard you call him sweetheart yesterday so I didn’t think it was, like, a secret, but I can pretend I didn’t notice—”

Ilya laughs. “Is like…half a secret. We are not coming out yet, but we are not going to hide from the team. We will tell them after the roster is set.”

 

“We didn’t get to throw you a bachelor party, Cap,” Hammersmith says, a little sadly, on Thursday afternoon, when Ilya puts his ring back on directly in front of him. 

“Is okay,” Ilya says. “Shane did not get one either.”

Hammer’s face lights up. “Maybe we can throw one for both of you. To make up for it.”

 

“Becky wants to know if she should add Hollzy to the WAG chat,” Miller says to Ilya on Friday morning. “And then she said probably it should be both of you, but also neither of you is a wife so…” he shrugs. “I told her I had no fucking clue.”

Ilya frowns. He has no clue either. He doesn’t think Shane would want to be added to another group chat, though. He’s now in four chats in addition to the big team group chat, and he’s taken to leaving his phone in random spots in the house to avoid the constant barrage of notifications. Ilya found it in the silverware drawer yesterday. 

As for Ilya, as much as he likes to tease Shane about his future as Shane’s WAG, wearing a Hollander jersey and bringing their babies to games, he doesn’t think he wants to be in the WAG chat right now either. (Mostly because Miller’s wife, Becky, scares him just a little bit. He doesn’t want her to have his phone number if he can avoid it.) 

“I think no. Would be weird, yes? Since we are players and not WAGs?”

“Yeah…and the thing would probably be HAB, right?” 

“I guess so.” Both of them frown. “Is not as catchy.”

“Definitely not. I’ll text Becky, tell her you guys said thanks but no thanks. She’ll be relieved, she was worried she was going to have to give up her head WAG status now that you’re married, Roz.”

 

Jojo, Doozy and Feller sidle up to where Ilya and Shane are eating lunch on Friday. Jojo and Doozy sit, and Feller looms silently behind them.

“It was All-Stars this year, right?” Jojo says without preamble. “My brother was there and when I said the rumors that you two hooked up after the game were bullshit—”

“There were rumors we hooked up after the All-Star game?” Shane asks, startled.

“Yeah,” Doozy says, and Feller nods. “Somebody apparently saw you leaving Roz’s room at like…two in the morning. Also, you know, there was a whole vibe…”

Shane drops forward, his head thunking lightly on the table, but he’s laughing. Ilya laughs too. “What are you asking, Jojo?”

“Was that the first time? I owe my brother a hundred bucks if so.”

“Your money is safe,” Ilya says. “Was not the first time.”

All three of them stare. “So…you did hook up at All-Stars?” Feller asks.

Ilya glances at Shane, who is flushed pink under his freckles. He smiles at Ilya and gives a little shrug. This is enough confirmation for Jojo, Doozy, and Feller.

“We won’t tell,” Jojo says solemnly, and Ilya doesn’t have the heart to tell him that most of the team already has figured it out.  

“Go eat,” Ilya orders and they scramble away from the table. Jojo and Doozy are only a year out from their rookie season, Feller only two years out, and they all still treat him with a kind of awe. He’s not looking forward to them growing out of it. 

Shane hooks his ankle around Ilya’s under the table. “I think that’s everyone now.”

“Sebbin and Kovalev?” Ilya asks. 

“This morning. The two of them and Aud told me they’re glad we’re married now because they’re too old to survive another Montreal Jane breakup.” 

“Traitors,” Ilya gasps and Shane laughs, nearly choking on the mouthful of chicken he’d just taken a bite of. He covers his mouth with his hand while he chews, his eyes lit with joy and maybe something a little smug. Ilya groans. “How much did they tell you?”

“I heard something about trying to ban all of them from talking about their wives and girlfriends in the locker room and five-hundred dollar fines for anyone who asked you about Jane. How did that work? Did you make them pay you?”

“No one actually paid me,” he says. “But fourth line definitely owes me money now for telling you.” Even if there’s no point, really, in trying to pretend he was anything but wrecked from November until All-Stars because Shane knows. Shane was wrecked in his own way, then, too.

“This is good, right?” Shane asks, glancing around at everyone eating lunch. “It’s going fine?”

“Of course.” Ilya nods. “Is how you wanted, yes? Not hiding, letting people see?”

Shane nods. “You’re okay with it?”

Ilya’s first choice, always, would be to tell the entire fucking world, to post something on Instagram or to kiss Shane at center ice (although this may need some rethinking, Ilya is not interested in spending his life synonymous with Old Man Hunter), to make it clear to everyone that Shane Hollander is taken, that he belongs to Ilya and has since they were newly nineteen and had no idea what they were getting themselves into, fooling around in a hotel room in Toronto. Or maybe longer, since they were seventeen and shaking hands behind a practice rink in Saskatchewan. 

But he likes this too, almost as much, existing next to Shane the way he has wanted to for a long time and not worrying whether anyone gives a fuck about it. 

(There are, of course, still some worries lingering in the back of his mind, but they will always be there. It would be impossible not to grow up in Russia, with the father he had, and play professional hockey without having a few worries that can keep him up at night if he dwells on them too much. But it helps, being married, and falling asleep in the same bed as Shane every night, and knowing that someday soon he’s going to be a Canadian resident and then eventually a Canadian citizen. He might burn his Russian passport when that happens.)

“Yes,” Ilya says, and can’t help leaning in, pressing a kiss to Shane’s cheek. He doesn’t even glance around before or after, just goes back to eating his lunch. “Is perfect.”

---

On Friday, they invite Marly, Vic, Carm, and Connors over after practice. They sit out in the yard, burgers and hot dogs and chicken on the grill, plus more of the vegetable skewers Shane grills at the cottage, enjoying what might be one of the last nice fall days before the weather turns too cold for this, before it becomes the gray misery that is winter in the Northeast. Ilya had loved winter growing up in Russia, but there is something about American winters (or maybe just Boston winters; he’s not sure, having only lived in Moscow and Boston), where the clouds are too close and the snow is beautiful for about three hours before it starts turning to horrible muddy slush and the mornings are so dark and the afternoons are so dark and the sun, when it makes an appearance, is feeble and chilly. Ilya could stay in bed all day on a gray January day. He has done it before. Especially this past January, when his father was getting worse and Shane was dating Rose Landry and his team just kept losing. 

(It is not good, Ilya knows. He remembers days, more and more frequent as he got older, when his mother did not leave her bed.)

But today is sunny, and Shane is manning the grill in the flannel shirt that Ilya stole from the cottage and Shane found among Ilya’s clothes when they were unpacking Sunday night, and Vic is chatting with Shane in French. Ilya hears his own name enough to suspect they’re talking about him, like maybe Marly and Carm and Connors nominated Vic to get some information from Shane.

Marly comes out of the house with fresh beers for everyone except Shane, who had declined when Marly asked, but Marly also has a can of ginger ale in his hands and when he passes it to Shane, Shane looks surprised. 

“Lucky guess,” Marly shrugs. “I’ve never seen Roz drink a ginger ale, let alone keep a bunch of them in the fridge.”

“Thanks,” Shane says, popping open the can. 

“I have to ask,” Carm says, suddenly. “You guys have really been together since your rookie year?”

“Summer before,” Shane says, before Ilya can. “But it wasn’t serious for a long time.”

“It was always serious,” Ilya says, mostly to watch the way Shane blushes. Even his ears turn a little pink. “Just not, ah, exclusive.”

“Yeah, Roz, we had a front row seat to your years of manwhoring. We figured that part out,” Connors says. Ilya flips him off and Marly laughs. “How many times was it Hollzy you were with when I covered for you?” Connors adds. 

“Obviously only when we were in Montreal, dumbass,” Carm says, throwing a balled-up paper towel at Connors’ face. 

“And Vancouver once,” Ilya says. “And I think maybe we overlapped in Pittsburgh one time too.”

Shane hums in agreement. “And Raleigh, when they got that snowstorm and Montreal’s flight was canceled after you guys landed there.”

“What about that snowstorm in Montreal your rookie season?” Marly grins at Ilya. “I thought Roz was going to lose it when our flight got canceled.”

At the grill, Shane goes even pinker. Ilya covers, because he can see the way Shane’s shoulders are going a little tight. He doesn’t mind sharing some things, but Ilya knows some things are private, only for them. “We did not see each other very often,” Ilya says, “especially in the beginning. Of course it was disappointing if plans changed.”

“So like…what’s the plan?” Carm asks. “Are you guys coming out?”

Ilya shrugs. “Someday, probably. The team mostly knows.”

“We forgot about Oregan and Kohn.” Shane says. “And we probably have to tell the rookies.”

Ilya thinks Oregan and Kohn probably clocked it Monday and haven’t said anything because they’re used to noticing things nobody else does. Goalies. The rookies are too overwhelmed to have noticed anything but the fact that they made it onto the official roster. 

“We’re just going to keep doing what we’ve been doing,” Shane says. 

“You don’t want a big moment like Scott Hunter?” Marly asks. “That shit was fucking romantic.”

Shane looks at Ilya, his eyes soft, and something about it puts a lump in Ilya’s throat like he’s about to cry. “No,” Shane says. “I don’t need that.”

“Neither does Hunter. It will make him feel too important, if we copy him.” Ilya pauses. “But maybe this is like…community service. Like volunteering with the elderly?”

Shane laughs, and so do the rest of them, and Ilya goes to where Shane is still standing at the grill and wraps his arms around Shane, tucking his face into Shane’s neck. He half-expects Shane to flinch or pull away, because they don’t ever do this  in front of anyone, but instead Shane relaxes against him, his body flush with Ilya’s. “I love you,” he says, and feels more than hears Shane say it back, his lips against Ilya’s ear.

“I don’t know,” Marly says, “I think if we win the cup this year, you two should kiss holding it up. Really one-up Hunter.”

“We’ll think about it,” Shane says. “But don’t fucking jinx it, Marly.”

---

On Saturday, the Comms team posts the video they filmed on Thursday. The internet loses its shit and Ilya abandons his phone in the laundry room with Shane’s. They work out in the basement. They eat lunch. Ilya blows Shane in the shower and then they fall into bed and make it so they’re going to need to shower again. 

And Ilya’s been waiting for Shane to crash all week, so he’s not even surprised a few hours later when they’re bickering about whether to eat a meal-prepped dinner or order something that actually tastes like food that suddenly Shane is folding forward on the couch, dipping his head between his knees and trying to breathe. Ilya sits on the coffee table in front of him, but it wobbles precariously under his weight so he slides off to sit cross-legged on the rug at Shane’s feet, putting his hands on Shane’s shoulders. 

“Sweetheart,” Ilya says.

“I’m okay.”

“I don’t think this is true.”

He presses Shane’s hand to his chest and makes him breathe in time with the rise and fall of it, and it works for a little while, but then Shane must think of something else, and he’s gasping again.

“Come here,” Ilya says, not sure if it will help but pulling Shane off the couch and into his lap anyway, wrapping his arms around him tightly enough that he might worry it hurts except that Shane presses in closer to Ilya’s chest like he’d let Ilya hold him even tighter than this if he could. 

They stay like that long enough that Ilya’s legs go dead and he’s starting to regret the choice to do this instead of laying Shane flat on the couch and pressing his whole body down into it when Shane finally lifts his face from Ilya’s shoulder and looks at him, eyes shiny but clearer.

“Fuck,” Shane says. “I don’t—that came out of nowhere.”

Ilya shakes his head. “No. Has been coming for a week. Maybe two. Up.”

He shoves Shane back onto the couch and drags himself up, his legs going prickly with pins and needles. He puts his arms back around Shane and holds him almost as tightly as before, wedging Shane between the back of the couch and his body. 

“Tell me what your panic brain said,” Ilya says.

Shane lets out a weak, watery laugh. “Nothing good.”

“Is normal, then.” Ilya kisses Shane’s shoulder. “Tell me. Might help.”

“Fucking Montreal,” Shane says softly. “I haven’t been thinking about them at all really, and then suddenly I was thinking about playing against them, which is dumb since it’s still months away, but maybe it would be better if it was sooner because it’s just so much time to worry about it and build it up to be so much worse than maybe it’s going to actually be—”

Ilya is pretty sure it’s going to be as bad as Shane is afraid it will be, given the current narrative that Shane is a traitor for leaving Montreal, plus the shit he’d already been dealing with in the locker room for years. Playing against them, especially in Montreal because of course their first game against Montreal this season is away, is going to be brutal for Shane. But he doesn’t say this, because it isn’t news to Shane and it isn’t going to help, either. 

“—and Hayden keeps texting me about whether it’s cool for Mitty to reach out like he needs my permission to be my friend or something now, and the Raiders posted our video and what if fucking Comeau or Gagnon or Drapeau puts the pieces together? It’s not like our team or our friends knowing, and if anything happens to you I’ll never forgive myself—”

Ilya wonders if trying to get Shane to talk about it was the wrong move, because he seems to be working himself up into another panic attack. 

“Shane,” Ilya interrupts. “All we talk about in the video is dogs and tuna melts and cars and Saskatchewan and hockey stats and yoga. Yuna and Bethany wouldn’t approve it if it was risky, and most people will watch it and see only silly promo video. Is like we said the other day, we could walk into practice holding hands and people would still not assume that we are married because we are hockey players first.”

“Except that Montreal knows about me. And if that makes it more dangerous for you—”

“This is part of why we got married, yes?” Ilya says. “Not the most important part, but a big part.” 

“I know, but—”

“I know you know. I am telling your panic brain, because it obviously does not.” Shane laughs, a little begrudgingly. “And I have decided we will order dinner. Is preseason, we are bulking, and I want meatball sub.”

“Ilya.”

“Sorry, is there more? Get it all out.”

“No. I don’t know. Nothing new. I just keep feeling like something bad has to happen to balance out how good everything else is.”

Ilya kisses the top of Shane’s head. “I do not think this is how it works. Sometimes things are bad and sometimes things are good but they don’t cause one another. Or is this like when it is bad luck to put on your right skate first?” 

Ilya isn’t superstitious, really. He doesn’t think talking about a shutout will keep it from happening, or that he will play better only if he tapes his stick a certain way. He never touched the cup before he won it, but that was more a lack of opportunity than fear of what might happen if he did. He lets a playoff beard grow because it’s easy enough to do and keeps the rest of the team from giving him shit, but he won plenty of championships in Russia without going to such lengths. 

“Maybe,” Shane says. 

“Can I tell you a secret?” Ilya asks.

Shane clearly doesn’t know where he’s going with this. “Uh, sure.”

“You are still Shane fucking Hollander if you put your right skate on first. You are still the second best player in the league even though your shitty team didn’t appreciate you. You are my husband and nothing will change that, not Russia or idiots in Montreal or the entire internet somehow growing a brain and figuring out we are together.”

“I don’t think those things count as secrets, Ilya.”

“Oh, so you agree, then?”

“I mean, I’m the best player in the league, but otherwise, yeah.”

Ilya grins, because this is a sign Shane is feeling better, that the panic in Shane’s brain has receded to its normal levels (still probably higher than it should be, but normal for Shane). “So arrogant, my husband,” he teases.

“It’s not arrogant if it’s true,” Shane insists, and Ilya laughs. 

“C’mon, I want a meatball sub, and I know you are hungry too.”

“We should order a salad too.”

“Yes, yes, I know, a salad for you, зайчик.”

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

We have reached the end of this part, but there is more coming! As I mentioned to a few folks in the comments, I just am much more reliable when it comes to writing a complete story if I break it into shorter parts of a series instead of a very long single fic.

Thank you again to LeahKnox for the beta-reading, this fic is so much better thanks to her input!

Thank you also to everyone who has been reading and kudosing and commenting. I've tried to stay on top of the comments but if I missed replying to yours, know that I read it and was delighted.

Shane doesn’t play in any preseason games, but neither does Ilya or the rest of the first line. Shane usually played preseason games in Montreal, mostly because he wanted to but also because Theriault didn’t really give him a choice either way. LeClaire doesn’t want to risk any injuries before the season, and he feels confident enough for now about Shane centering the second line with Danya and Vic, with the possibility of moving Tremblay up from the third once he gets his feet under him.

So they’re in Boston while the team is in Detroit, and Shane is going mildly insane because Svetlana is coming over for dinner, and they can’t even put the game on as a distraction because it isn’t being televised. This means, instead, that he’s currently organizing shoes in the shoe rack next to the door, because Ilya has ordered food so there isn’t anything to keep him busy in the kitchen and if he tidies up the living room again Ilya might actually smother him with one of the throw pillows he’s rearranged on the couch at least four times.

“Why do you have so many pairs of sneakers?” Shane huffs at Ilya as he lugs three clunky pairs of high tops from the entryway back to the closet in their bedroom. 

“I do not think you actually care about the answer to this,” Ilya calls after him, and he’s right, Shane doesn’t. It will be something about how Ilya needs different sneakers for different outfits, or because some pairs are rare or special edition, or whatever. Shane’s not a sneakerhead; his Reebok sponsorship is probably wasted on him. Maybe his mom can get them to sign Ilya instead, although that will probably just make the collection worse. They’ll need a whole closet just for sneakers. 

“You do not need to do this,” Ilya says, suddenly in the doorway of the closet behind Shane, and Shane jumps because he didn’t hear Ilya following him. “Svetlana has been to this house the morning after a team party. She has seen it at its worst.” 

Shane wishes he didn’t feel the need to do this, to obsessively tidy, because it isn’t really about how the house looks. He knows the house looks fine. He figures if he were someone who cared about clothes, he’d be changing his outfit seventeen times, or if they were cooking he’d be worried about the wine being right or whether the chicken was dry, but Shane inherited this particular neurosis from his mom, and Yuna tidies when she’s stressed. When Shane was seven, before his dad’s parents came over for Christmas Eve dinner, she moved the same vase from the dining room table to the living room sideboard and back about seven times. And then, right before his grandparents had gotten there, she’d tripped on the edge of the dining room rug and dropped it, and it had cracked cleanly into two pieces, one of which sliced open the top of her foot. His dad had had to drive her to the emergency room for stitches while Shane and his grandparents ate Christmas dinner without them. The following year they’d gone to his grandparents’ house instead. 

Maybe Shane should break a plate or something. They’ll have to reschedule if he needs stitches. Except he doesn't want to reschedule, not really. Even if it feels like he’s going to die. Or at least have a panic attack during dinner, and then Svetlana will think he’s crazy and wonder why Ilya married him. 

“I can’t sit still,” he says and, without even really thinking about it, pulls a wobbly stack of t-shirts off one of the shelves to re-fold them. 

Ilya raises his eyebrows, watching Shane fold. “Obviously. But you are going to have to find something else to do between now and when Svetlana gets here because if you keep folding clothes I will need to fuck you, and we don’t have time for this.”

“You’re unbelievable,” Shane says, the words out of his mouth before he really processes what Ilya said. “Wait—what?” 

Ilya takes the stack of t-shirts and shoves them back on the shelf messily. “You fold clothes, I think about the first time I saw you fold clothes, and then we need to fuck about it. Or at least fool around.” 

He says this like it’s obvious, like it’s something Shane should already know, that he’s apparently created some kind of Pavlovian response in his husband to Shane folding clothes. Shane grins. “You have a laundry fetish?”

“No,” Ilya insists. “Just folding. And only if it’s you.” 

“Jesus.” Shane glances at his watch and Ilya’s mouth turns up in a grin Shane might describe as evil. 

“I told you, not enough time,” Ilya says, gleefully. “But I’ll watch you refold those shirts later. Something to look forward to, yes?”

The doorbell rings before Shane can answer, and he feels his heart rate rocket up, the nerves he’d momentarily forgotten in the wake of learning that Ilya is turned on by Shane folding clothes returning with a vengeance.  

“Oh, Sveta must be nervous too,” Ilya muses. “Normally she would just let herself in.”

Shane’s not sure how he feels about that, given the I could marry Svetlana of it all, and Ilya shoots him a look like he knows exactly what Shane is thinking. He reaches for Shane’s hand, their wedding rings meeting with a soft clink. Yeah, okay. Ilya isn’t going to marry Svetlana because he’s already Shane’s husband. He squeezes Ilya’s hand and Ilya squeezes back. 

They’re still holding hands when they get to the door, and Ilya doesn’t let go, even when he swings it open. On the doorstep, Svetlana is wearing jeans and a vintage Raiders t-shirt, maybe from when her dad played, a giant tote bag slung over her shoulder. Shane eyes it a little warily, not sure why this dinner requires a bag that looks like it could hold enough for a weekend. 

“Let me in,” she says cheerfully, and then maybe because she clocked Shane’s interest in the bag, “I brought presents.” 

It’s better, Shane thinks, than trying to do awkward introductions on the doorstep. She kicks off her shoes and sets the bag down on the floor once she’s over the threshold, hugging Ilya and saying something to him in Russian that makes him roll his eyes, but Shane can tell it’s a feigned exasperation, so he’s pretty sure Svetlana can too. 

“Shane Hollander,” Svetlana says to him, “I have wanted to meet you for many years. That goal you scored in game four against Vancouver two years ago was the most beautiful thing I have seen in my life.”

“Hey,” Ilya protests, but Svetlana ignores him.

“I’m going to hug you,” Svetlana says, all the warning Shane gets before she does, her arms around his neck and her curly hair tickling his nose. “It’s very good to meet you, finally.”

“You too,” Shane says, and he mostly means it. 

She laughs in his ear like she knows it’s only mostly right now and squeezes his shoulders before releasing him. Ilya picks up her bag and leads the way to the kitchen, and Svetlana loops her arm familiarly through Shane’s as they follow. 

They ordered Thai food, at Svetlana’s request, which should be here any minute, and the bowls and plates and cutlery are already set out on the island waiting, because Shane put them out hours ago, when the nerves first started to kick in. He wonders if this is how Ilya had felt meeting his parents—shaky and nervous and like he could puke at any second—but then he figures probably not. At the very least, they’d had adrenaline after getting caught carrying them through most of that afternoon. 

Svetlana takes her bag back from Ilya and sets it on the dining table, starting to unearth more from it than Shane expected, like Mary Poppins or Santa or something: several bottles of vodka; a carton of what Shane assumes are Ilya’s favorite cigarettes and Ilya shoots him a sheepish little grin, like Shane didn’t find the pack of cigarettes in the kitchen junk drawer the day they got to Boston; a gallon-sized freezer bag filled with candy in bright wrappers, which Ilya makes grabby hands for, unwrapping one and shoving it in his mouth immediately. 

“Most is for Ilya,” Svetlana explains, apologetic. “Things I brought back from Russia this summer and forgot to give him the last time I saw him because he sat down at dinner and said ‘Jane is Shane Hollander’. But this is for both of you.”

She hands Shane a wrapped rectangle, the paper white and gold stripes, wrapped so expertly that the stripes match up on all the corners and edges. 

“Open!” she urges, and Shane glances at Ilya, who nods, before he tears into the paper. He can tell before he gets all the paper off that it’s a framed photo, but he’s startled when he turns it over in his hands to see that it’s actually two photos, neatly matted side-by-side. A picture of Shane, on the left, in skates and a jersey that’s too big on him, probably five or six, doing his best to stare fiercely into the camera’s lens, but it’s a losing battle. There’s a grin tugging at his mouth because Shane was never happier as a kid than when he was on the ice. On the right, the picture of Ilya is surprisingly similar: about the same age, also in skates and a too-big jersey, but he’s beaming at the camera, his face lit with so much joy it makes Shane feel like he might cry. Shane has never seen a picture of Ilya any younger than maybe fifteen, when his hockey started to get international notice. He wonders if there are many of them at all. 

“This is…wow,” Shane says, and Ilya peers over his shoulder. 

“Sveta,” he says softly. “This is why you asked for Yuna’s phone number?”

Svetlana nods. “I found this picture of you in my father’s house, it gave me the idea.”

“Look at Shane’s little face,” Ilya coos, possibly to cover for how wet his eyes have gone. “So many freckles, малыш.” 

“Thank you,” Shane says, “it's great.” 

Svetlana smiles at him, and Shane tries not to let his jealousy spike at how alarmingly beautiful she is, how perfect her face looks next to Ilya’s. Especially because he’s holding a gift from her that seems to be communicating that she thinks it’s him and Ilya that look perfect next to each other.

“We will have to find good spot to hang it,” Ilya says and it occurs to Shane they can have pictures of themselves here. This is their home and anyone who comes here will already know about them, because Shane’s parents know, and Hayden and JJ know, and Rose knows, and their team knows and Shane feels fucked up about Montreal and maybe always will, but it was worth it because now he can hang up pictures of himself and his husband in their home and nobody gets to say a goddamn word about it except nice picture.

“Yeah,” Shane agrees. “Maybe in the living room.”

“Yes,” Ilya says. “We cannot put our little innocent faces in our bedroom.”

Svetlana laughs, and Shane feels his ears get warm. He’s rescued by the buzzer for the gate sounding and goes to answer it so their delivery driver can make it up the driveway. When he brings the bags of food back to the kitchen, Svetlana and Ilya have opened one of the bottles of vodka and there’s a cold ginger ale sweating on the counter for Shane. 

“No vodka for me?” he asks and Ilya rolls his eyes.

“You will not like,” Ilya says. “You will ask to mix with cranberry juice or ginger ale and this cannot be done. Not if we want to stay married.”

Shane laughs and cracks open his ginger ale. They take a few minutes to dish up their food before moving over to the dining table. They sit at the end, Svetlana at the head of the table and Shane and Ilya on either side of her.

“Are you enjoying Boston so far?” Svetlana asks Shane. 

“Yeah,” Shane says, nodding. “The team is great. Good guys, and LeClaire and the coaches seem good too. We haven’t had a chance yet to do much beyond hockey. It’s kind of crazy it’s only been two weeks.”

“Where has LeClaire put you for now?”

“Second line, with Varkov and St-Simon.”

Svetlana glances at Ilya. “How relentless have you been about moving to wing?”

Shane snorts. “He badgers LeClaire about it every day. But LeClaire is prioritizing depth at center right now.”

“As he should. You will be on the power play together, though, yes?”

“Yes,” Ilya huffs, annoyed, “but if we were on the same line—”

“Then your game would be lopsided, Ilyusha, you know this. One powerhouse first line, and then three behind it that cannot keep up. This is how you burn out an entire roster.”

“Ha,” Shane grins, “I told you so.”

“But you like playing with me,” Ilya whines. “We have so much fun.”

“Yeah, we do. But we also have an eighty-two game season and hopefully a deep playoff run to survive. The strategy is important.”

“I will let you both be boring and talk about hockey business for ten minutes,” Ilya says, “and then we have to talk about something fun.”

He even sets a timer on his phone, the asshole. Shane barely notices it when it starts to quack (Ilya uses the duck noise for his timer, which is objectively the worst alarm option) because he and Svetlana are engrossed in a conversation about the baffling trades Colorado made in the offseason and what it might suggest they are planning. Shane thinks it’s evidence that their new GM doesn’t know what he’s doing; Svetlana is more suspicious there are other moves coming. 

“If only I had married you years ago, Hollander,” Ilya says a little wistfully. “I could have saved myself so many boring conversations with both of you.”

“Fuck off,” Shane says, laughing. Svetlana cuffs the back of Ilya’s head. “When were you planning on fitting in a wedding back in 2014? Before or after you won the cup?”

Ilya laughs. “After. In Vegas. As my reward.”

Shane shakes his head, and Svetlana looks between them, a considering look on her face. Shane feels a stupid jolt of panic—what did he give away without meaning to, just joking around?—before he shoves it down. She’s Ilya’s best friend. Closer to family than friends, maybe. It’s safe to joke around in front of her. 

Or safety is relative, maybe, because the nerves that zip through him when her mouth curves into a smug smile are different from the panic of a second ago, but no less present. She’s going to make fun of them, Shane’s pretty sure. His ears are warming up again in a sort of anticipatory embarrassment.

“This explains so much,” she says. “You were so cold with Sasha in Sochi because you were already thinking about rings and weddings.”

Ilya’s joking grin becomes more of a grimace at the mention of Sochi, and Shane wishes they were sitting next to each other, wants to slip his arm around Ilya’s waist, or hold his hand, or press his foot up against Ilya’s under the table. It feels like so long ago and so much has happened between them since then, but it’s been less than four years, and some of the memories are still barbed, painful in the remembering. It had hurt, the way Ilya disappeared and pushed him away, and Shane is more sure than ever now that Ilya had hurt himself doing it, too. 

Shane expects whatever comes out of Ilya’s mouth to be sharp, angry, but instead he just sounds worn out when he says something to Svetlana in Russian. Her forehead creases into a small frown and she reaches to squeeze his wrist. He pats the back of her hand once, reassuring maybe, but then he gets up and brings his plate to the sink, scraping what’s left of the food on his plate into the garbage disposal.

Some silences with Ilya are a gift, Shane has learned. Those first few nights at the cottage this summer, sitting at the fire pit, Ilya’s head in his lap, Shane’s fingers in his hair. The night they’d stretched out on the grass and just looked up at the stars. They’d each pointed out the constellations they knew and then they’d fallen silent, Ilya’s hand in Shane’s. In the hours and minutes before they fall asleep in the same bed. When they stretch out on opposite ends of the couch to decompress at the end of the day. Those silences mean that they’re allowed to just be, warm and together and soft.

This isn’t like that. This silence is a wall, cold and unyielding, one Shane has faltered at climbing before. On the ice in Boston, that horrible game after the tuna melts. In a club in Montreal. In a Vegas penthouse. In a rink in Sochi. 

Ilya meets his eyes from across the kitchen, a little wildly, and it occurs to Shane that this isn’t a wall he needs to climb anymore, because he’s already on the other side of it. There were enough cracks in it in Tampa for Shane to find a few footholds, and by the time they were at the cottage he’d figured out the way over. 

He thinks. He hopes. 

He says, “Fuck Sochi.”

Ilya blinks. Svetlana sucks in a surprised breath. 

“Fuck Sochi?” Ilya repeats.

“Yeah. Fuck it. It was a shitty fucking time. Followed by an almost-as-shitty six months.”

Ilya winces, so Shane knows he’s aiming in the right direction, trying to figure out why Sochi sent the wall up tonight. 

“So shitty.” Ilya nods. “Enough to ruin Olympics forever.”

“Well,” Shane says, “let’s not be too hasty. You’ll be a Canadian citizen in time for Milan in 2026.”

Something flickers across Ilya’s face, too quick for Shane to really read it. It’s replaced with a grin, and Shane files it away to ask about some other time. “Fuck Sochi,” Ilya says. And then, after a moment, “Fuck Russia and Alexei and my father.”

“Yeah,” Shane says. “All of the above.”

“Fuck Sochi and definitely your father and brother,” Svetlana agrees and the tension in the room pops like a bubble. “Since you’re up, bring the vodka, Ilyusha.”

Ilya grabs the bottle by its neck off the island and comes back to the table, handing the vodka off to Svetlana. Instead of going back to his own seat, he drags Shane’s chair back from the table and settles in Shane’s lap. Shane is still getting used to being affectionate with Ilya in front of people, keeps forgetting it’s allowed now, at least among their friends. He wraps his arms around Ilya’s waist and kisses the back of his neck, feeling Ilya relax a little into his arms. 

Svetlana watches them, assessing. Shane wonders if she expected something different, or what she expected at all. She knows Ilya in ways Shane doesn’t, maybe in ways he never will. It could bother him, probably, if he let it. But he just keeps thinking about Ilya telling his parents I have only been in love with one person and knows he can’t let it bother him, for Ilya’s sake, and for Svetlana’s. And maybe for his own, too. He could use a few more people in his corner and he suspects Svetlana is a formidable ally to have.

They finish eating and migrate to the living room, and it’s clear that Svetlana has a usual spot on the couch, wedged into the corner at the end closer to the windows. She stretches her legs out along the shorter end of the couch, and Ilya flops perpendicular to her on the long end. Shane settles himself in the other corner, close enough to Ilya’s head to thread his fingers through his hair if he wants to. Ilya shifts back a few inches, propping his head on Shane’s thigh so he can see Svetlana without straining his neck. 

Svetlana squints at them, still trying to figure them out maybe. Shane keeps waiting for her to grill him with questions, or maybe tell him that she’ll kill him if he hurts Ilya, but all of Shane’s expectations for how these kinds of interactions go come almost exclusively from bad movies he watches on planes. He wonders if maybe Svetlana feels a little out of her depth too, not sure of the right words to say, presented so suddenly with Ilya and Shane married and in the same house, only a few weeks after Ilya told her about Shane in the first place. 

“The last time I was here,” Svetlana says, “we were watching Scott Hunter kiss his boyfriend after winning the cup.” Shane didn’t realize Svetlana had watched the game with Ilya. He’d never thought to ask if Ilya was with other people that night. “And then Ilya sprinted out of the room to call someone.” Svetlana grins at Shane.

“Yeah,” Shane says. “I’d invited him to my cottage. Until then…I didn’t think he was going to say yes.”

“I wasn’t,” Ilya says, reaching behind him for Shane’s hand, squeezing it like an apology, although Shane doesn’t need one. He understands.

“Your fortress of solitude,” Svetlana teases and Shane groans.

“I wish they hadn’t called it that. Or that so many people hadn’t seen that dumb video.”

When Shane built the cottage, he’d built it with the future in mind. He’d never planned on spending all his time there alone. There are four bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs that the producers didn’t include in the final edit in favor of shots of him doing yoga on the lawn instead, and they cut the part where he’d shown the spot he plans to build a dock and a boathouse in a few years. They hadn’t even gone into the basement to shoot footage of him on the plastic rink down there, despite ostensibly being filmed for a sports network. Shane’s pretty sure he said something about wanting to retire there, to raise his family there. But that didn’t fit in with whatever story they wanted to tell about him, retreating to the cottage every summer like Batman going back to the Batcave or something.

“I don’t think it’s that many people have seen it,” Svetlana says. “I think it’s that one specific person, in Boston, watched it enough times to boost the viewing numbers significantly.”

“Sveta,” Ilya whines, a little pathetically. 

“You had it bookmarked on your computer, Ilyusha. It is not my fault I noticed.”

“Bookmarked, huh?” Shane grins down at Ilya.

“Shut up,” Ilya says and flings his arm over his face, hiding. 

“It’s not so bad,” Shane says. “I watched your video a lot too. With the cars.”

“Yes, obviously, I am very sexy and the cars are too. Your video just showed off your real estate fetish, I think.”

Shane gestures around the living room that looks like something out of a magazine. “I don’t think I’m the only one with a real estate fetish.”

“Is contagious. You did not see my old apartment, was garbage.” Ilya copies Shane’s gesture to the fireplace and the dining table and the art on the walls. “This is the Shane Hollander effect.”

“Honestly,” Shane shrugs, “I’m not mad at it. My mom’s gonna hate it though.”

Ilya looks stricken. “What?”

“Oh yeah, she hates modern design and open concept layouts and stuff. She thinks it’s all cold and too loud.” 

“Okay. We will go house hunting tomorrow or Yuna will come here and say ‘this is terrible, you make my son live like this, I will not get you a deal with Porsche anymore’.” 

“Is she getting you a deal with Porsche?” Svetlana asks, with interest. 

“No,” Shane says, rolling his eyes. “And we’re not moving just so you can be my mom’s favorite son. We’re the ones who live in this house and we like it. That’s more important.” 

“This is sabotage,” Ilya pouts. “You just don’t want her to love me more than you.”

“She basically already does,” Shane laughs. Yesterday, he’d called his parents to check in and after about five minutes, his mom had asked him to put Ilya on the phone, and the two of them had talked for at least twenty-five minutes. Ilya insists it was about details for his new contract with Adidas, but Shane doesn’t buy it. His mom is good at boiling that stuff down into five minute highlights because she knows Shane (and now probably Ilya) doesn’t actually care that much about the details. 

“If you buy some terrible, old-fashioned house out in Newton I will never visit you there,” Svetlana threatens.

“Even if we invite Rose Landry?” Ilya asks, a teasing gleam in his eye.

Svetlana rolls her eyes. “As if I need your help meeting Rose Landry, if I wanted to.”

“We’ll invite you over when Rose comes to visit,” Shane says. “I think you guys would get along. And maybe you’ll be a good buffer for Ilya, so he doesn’t try to murder her with the force of his glare, or something.” 

“I would not do this.”

Svetlana snorts. “I have watched you try to do exactly this through a phone screen.”

Ilya mutters something in Russian that makes Svetlana throw her head back laughing, and then Ilya’s laughing too, and Shane doesn’t even really mind not being in on the joke, not when Ilya’s laughing like that. 

Ilya explains anyway, tilting his head back to look at Shane. “Svetlana is being with you like I am with your parents. Trying to win you over.”

“Oh,” Shane says, a little surprised, sure he was the one who was supposed to be doing the winning over tonight. “You don’t have to.” He squeezes Ilya’s shoulder. “Either of you. You’re family.”

Ilya reaches back and wraps his hand around Shane’s calf, squeezing lightly. Shane knows Ilya doesn’t really believe him yet, that Shane’s parents love him, that he doesn’t have to do anything but be the man that Shane loves for that to be true. 

“This is too sweet. We must talk about something else or I will get a toothache,” Svetlana says, laughing. The conversation drifts back to hockey, and Svetlana and Ilya bicker good-naturedly about how badly Montreal is going to lose without Shane. Shane can’t say that he minds.

Later, when they’re saying goodbye to Svetlana at the door, she hugs Shane again, without advance warning this time. “I will see you at the home opener,” she says. Shane knows from years of secretly cyberstalking Ilya that Svetlana sits in his seats for most Boston home games, and most hockey media suspects she’s his on/off girlfriend as a result. 

“My parents will be there, too,” Shane says. “I’m sure they’ll be excited to meet you.”

“Yes, Yuna and I have plans to split a bottle of wine sometime and talk puck.” Svetlana says cheerfully, and Ilya shoots Shane a panicked glance. “Oh, calm down, Ilyusha,” Svetlana says, “it’s networking! I will have a career in hockey someday.”

“Oh, yeah, Mom will love that. She’s been saying for years the league needs more women in management and leadership roles.”

“See?” Svetlana says, smirking at Ilya. “I am going to be Yuna’s favorite and you won’t need to worry about it anymore.”

With that, she gives Ilya a hug and disappears out the front door, waving casually over her shoulder at them. Ilya locks the door behind her and slumps back against it. 

“Okay?” he asks Shane.

“I mean, I probably should be asking you that. You know her better. I think it went okay, though, right?”

Ilya nods. He looks tired again; not as bad as after their first practice together last week, but still worn down. Shane tugs him forward by the front of his hoodie and wraps his arms around him. “Are you okay?” Shane asks. “I know things got a little weird. With, uh, Sochi, and whatever.”

“I am okay,” Ilya says, as his arms come up around Shane’s shoulders. He clings on, leaning most of his weight into Shane. “You were right. Was a shitty time, and I was very shitty to you because of it. I don’t like to think about how badly I treated you then, but I am very sorry.”

“I know, baby,” Shane says. He turns his head to press his lips to the edge of Ilya’s jaw. “I know you are. I forgave you basically immediately.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

Shane shrugs. “Couldn’t help it. I’m not good at staying mad at you. I don’t think I ever really want to be.”

“No,” Ilya agrees, “me either. I tried to stay mad at you in Tampa and lasted about a minute.”

“I noticed,” Shane says, smiling against Ilya’s neck. 

“You did not,” Ilya protests. “I had to ask you three different ways if you were still with Rose Landry. You did not notice anything.”

“I noticed you check me out,” Shane insists. “I knew things couldn’t be so bad, if you were still doing that.”

Ilya laughs. “I will be eighty years old with failing eyes and still checking you out, Hollander.”

“Promise?” Shane asks, meaning it to be a joke but it comes out a little too sincere.

“Yes, sweetheart, I promise.” Ilya lifts his face and noses at Shane’s cheek, drags kisses across his jaw, and puts his lips up to Shane’s ear. “Now, I think there are some shirts you need to fold in our bedroom, yes?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Shane says, but he’s already moving backwards toward the hallway, dragging Ilya with him. 

---

The home locker room at TD Garden is a marked improvement on the visitors’ locker room. The stalls are bigger, the benches are wider, and the lighting is less harsh. The sound system is louder, too, Shane’s pretty sure, although that might be more of a team choice than anything to do with the audio equipment, because pregame in the Raiders locker room feels more like postgame after a win in the Metros locker room. Marly picked the music tonight, and so far Shane has known none of the songs but that’s pretty normal for him. 

Shane isn’t entirely sure where he fits in this locker room yet, too used to Hayden on his left and JJ on his right, and the familiar rhythms of the Montreal locker room. Mitty stretching on the floor talking about something weird, while JJ razzes him for it. Gagnon and Comeau picking the playlist. Wilson rolling in consistently five minutes late, usually with a story about something his kid had done on his way out the door. The rookies playing a game of sewer ball that eventually spreads to the whole locker room. 

(He doesn’t miss it. It was horrible, most of the time. He survived it by keeping his head down and ignoring at least sixty percent of the conversations happening around him. But he knew what to expect. He’s still learning what to expect here, and even if it’s so much better, it’s still so many things to learn and adjust to.)

Shane almost picks up his phone to call Hayden and JJ, to tell them how weird it is. But Montreal has their home opener tonight too—against the Admirals, Shane remembers with a pang, and he wonders if he should’ve warned Scott Hunter what he was walking into tonight, about the dynamic Shane had left behind him in Montreal.

Ilya is in his element, flitting from person to person, chirping and encouraging in equal measure. Shane keeps trying not to stare, because Ilya’s just in his compression shirt and leggings, possibly specifically to torture Shane from the looks he keeps sending him over his shoulder. 

The whole day has felt weird, his first home game in Boston. Shane thinks he might be putting too much pressure on tonight’s game. It’s against Buffalo, so obviously it’s going to be fine, but Shane feels an almost bone-deep dread thinking of the game looming ahead of him. He hasn’t felt anything like it since his rookie season, when the stakes felt so incredibly high, when the pressure to perform and live up to being the second pick overall had his hands shaking and bile rising in his throat before every game. 

Shane did his best all day to mirror his Montreal routine so he could feel as normal as possible, but it didn’t really work. His running route this morning had felt all wrong and he doesn’t have a favorite restaurant here yet so he and his parents had ordered lunch instead from the same deli he and Ilya ordered from his first day in Boston. Ilya had been busy for most of the late morning and early afternoon in captains’ meetings with Marly and Kane, and had gotten home around two with just enough time for a nap and a bland, meal-prepped dinner. 

Shane tapes and re-tapes his stick, locked in on getting it exactly right. When he’s happy with it, he finds his Sharpie in his bag and writes his mom’s name on the handle like he always does. And then, before he can second-guess himself, he writes 913 on the other side. This whole day has served to remind him that being on a new team means building new rituals, so this is allowed. He isn’t going to jinx their chances at the cup by writing his wedding date on his stick.

He’s almost completely dressed for warmups by the time Ilya completes his circuit of the locker room. He just needs to put his jersey on. It’s hanging in his stall, pristine, the white letters of his name stark against the black jersey. Somehow, in over twenty years of playing hockey, this is his first time wearing black. 

“Do you wish it said Hollander-Rozanov?” Ilya asks, starting to pull on his gear. 

“A little,” Shane says. He imagines, for a second, what it would be like if he were stepping out onto the ice tonight with his married name across his shoulders, their relationship made perfectly clear to everyone who has been confused the past two weeks. “Do you?”

Ilya doesn’t even hesitate. “Yes.” 

“Maybe next season,” Shane suggests and Ilya grins, wide and happy. 

 

The arena is packed already when they all step out onto the ice for warmups, and Shane feels some of the persistent itch he’s felt under his skin all day start to settle as he skates. 

“Look at that,” Vic says, nudging him and pointing up at the Jumbotron. Shane looks and sees his parents on screen, both in Hollander Raiders jerseys that Ilya had given them this afternoon. (He got them Rozanov ones too, but insisted they should wait to wear them for now.) She’s not in the frame, but Shane knows Svetlana is sitting next to his mom. 

The crowd cheers for them, and a chant starts somewhere in the upper deck. It catches on quickly, and soon it feels like the entire arena is shouting HOLL-AN-DER, HOLL-AN-DER. At center ice, Ilya turns away from chirping at Eichel and raises his arms, encouraging the crowd to be louder, and Boston loves their captain so they obey. 

Shane waves, feeling a bit wrong-footed. He hasn’t done anything yet. Boston has barely even seen him on their ice; LeClaire very intentionally shielded Shane from as much media as he could for the past two weeks. He said he was buying himself time to get creative, to play with the lines and try a bunch of stuff, but Shane’s been centering the second line with Vic and Danya since his second day of practice, so he figures LeClaire was doing it as much for Shane as for the team’s strategy. 

He’s grateful, because it made the first couple weeks so much easier, having a bit of distance from the fans and the media, but he also doesn’t entirely know what to do with a city he figured he’d need to win over already chanting his name like he belongs. 

“Jesus,” Shane says, when the chanting finally fizzles out and the Jumbotron switches back to the feed of the ice. 

“You are surprised?” Vic frowns. “You’re Shane fucking Hollander.”

Shane shrugs. His name had echoed around the Centre Bell just like this for seven seasons and Montreal had turned on him in an instant, the moment he drew a line in the sand. Despite his best efforts, he’s seen plenty of what people are saying about him online. He might be Shane fucking Hollander, he might’ve brought the cup home to Montreal in back-to-back seasons, but he left them for their rivals and he’ll always be a traitor now. Adoration like this is a fickle thing; he’s learned that the hard way.

“I’m just used to getting booed in this arena,” Shane says, because he doesn’t really want to say any of that to Vic, or maybe to anyone except Ilya, and he doesn’t even have to say it to Ilya because Ilya knows.

“Not anymore, mon ami,” Vic says, laughing. “I heard they already sold out of your jersey in the team store and online.”

Shane grins. He makes a mental note to tease Ilya about that later. Especially since Ilya contributed to the sales, buying jerseys for his parents.

The locker room is a little less rowdy after warmups. Ilya, Marly, and Kane confer by Kane’s stall about something, so they don’t notice when Tremblay lurches to his feet and stumbles towards the bathrooms, looking decidedly green. Vic does, and he nudges Shane.

“Yeah,” Shane says, “I got it.”

He and Vic have gotten to know Tremblay decently well over the past couple weeks. He’d spent the first ten years of his life in Laval before his parents got divorced and his mom brought him back over the border to central New York, where she was from. He’d spent summers in Quebec with his dad, and his French is better than Shane’s and worse than Vic’s. 

When Shane gets to the bathroom, Tremblay is leaning over one of the sinks, looking clammy.

“You good?” Shane asks him. 

Tremblay grimaces. “What do you think?”

“It will be better when the game starts.”

Tremblay shoots him a skeptical look as he washes his hands. “People say you’re crazy, you know.”

“Do they?” Shane asks. He’s heard himself described plenty of ways (hockey robot being the most common), but he doesn’t usually get crazy, or he didn’t think so. That’s usually saved for guys who are more reckless on the ice, loose cannons who are spoiling for a fight most nights. 

“Yeah. One of my coaches at Cornell played with you in juniors when you knocked out three teeth in a game and didn’t even let the medics look at you until after the win. He said you looked like something out of a horror movie, blood all over your face for the whole third period.”

Shane remembers that game. He’d taken a high stick to the mouth and lost his left front tooth, the incisor next to it, and broke the canine. His mom had been pissed; he’d made it until he was sixteen without needing major dental work due to hockey. He wasn’t sure if she thought he was going to be the first hockey player in history to keep all his teeth, or what. 

Shane shrugs. “I mean, yeah. There were like ten minutes left in the period. What was I gonna do, leave the game for the medic to tell me I needed to go to a dentist? Obviously I needed a dentist.”

“I’m just saying, it totally tracks that you think the cure to me feeling like I’m gonna puke is getting on the ice.”

“Works for me.”

“Yeah, because you’re fucking crazy,” Tremblay says, but at least he’s laughing now. 

“Can’t hurt, anyway. Don’t puke on the ice, though. That’s just gross for everybody.”

“Is it bad that I’m kind of glad the only thing people care about tonight is that you’re playing?” Tremblay asks as they make their way back toward the locker room. “Really taking the pressure off my first MLH game.”

“Happy to be of service,” Shane says, and he is, really. He at least has seven years’ of experience dealing with the pressure, he can take a little extra if it means the rookie doesn’t puke on the ice. 

Ilya cocks his head in a question (okay?) when Shane and Tremblay come back into the locker room, and Shane lifts his chin at him in answer (yes). 

“That was fucking creepy,” Connors says, and Ilya flips him off.

Shane goes back to his stall, and checks his phone out of habit more than anything. Shane glances to his right and Ilya grins at him. 

“Missing a text from Lily?” Ilya teases.

“You turned it into part of my game day routine,” Shane says, not really realizing how true that is until he says it. 

“Okay,” Ilya says, reaching for his own phone. 

“You don’t have to—”

But Ilya is already typing and Shane’s phone buzzes in his hand a few seconds later.

 

Ilya

You look hot in black 

 

Shane snorts and starts typing. 

Shane

You trying to get in my

head before the game?

Ilya

Head? No

Pants? Yes 😏

Shane

Later.

If you’re good.

Ilya

This is my line 

 

“You guys know you don’t have to text each other anymore, right?” Marly says, coming up behind them and clapping them each on the shoulder. “You’re in the same fucking room right now.”

“Fuck off, Marly,” Ilya says, laughing. “How else will we talk about how annoying you are?”

“To my fucking face like you usually do, Rozy.”

“Hollander is too Canadian for this.”

“Fuck you,” Shane laughs, elbowing Ilya. “Don’t you have a speech to give, or something?”

“Yes, yes. Stampede the Buffaloes—”

Shane frowns. “That’s not their name—”

“In Boston, yes it is. I will not call them anything else when their city is Buffalo. It makes Eichel very angry. Very funny for me.” 

Ilya’s speech does mostly amount to stampede the Buffaloes, and the vets on the team seem to be expecting it from the way they attempt a stampede out to the tunnel. Oregan and Kohn try to go out the door at the same time and get stuck, which elicits groans and cheers in equal measure from the rest of the team, and Shane suspects this is a tradition of sorts too. 

“It’s a thing,” Vic explains to Shane as they clomp down the tunnel. “Rozy has, like, catchphrases for most of the teams.”

Shane snorts. “Of course he fucking does.”

He almost wants to ask what all of them are, but he figures it will be more fun to find out throughout the season. 

Shane takes his spot on the bench, and it’s a little weird to not be going directly onto the ice. He’s been a first line center since his second season. He watches as Ilya shifts his weight between his feet during the national anthem (the wrong one, and Shane’s going to have to get used to that at home games) and then the arena lights come up and everyone is getting into position for the first faceoff. Shane can see Ilya’s mouth moving as he chirps at Eichel, watches Eichel roll his eyes and tell him to fuck off. The puck is dropped, and Ilya wins the faceoff. The first shift is fast, concentrated mostly in the Buffalo zone, with a couple solid shots on goal from Ilya and Connors. 

Shane doesn’t have time to feel nervous before the shift change. He just hops the boards and takes off after the puck, Vic and Danya fanning out on either side of him. 

Just like he knew it would, everything else falls away as soon as he’s on the ice. It’s just about skating, and controlling the puck, and making plays now. Reading where the defensemen are going to go. All the anxious, spinning thoughts in his brain get to take a backseat, everything in him focused only on the game. 

It’s the best fucking feeling in the world. 

Climbing back over the boards when his shift ends puts him on the bench next to Ilya, who presses his knee against Shane’s where the cameras can’t see. 

“Maybe I’ll draw penalty next shift,” he says quietly, grinning, “so we can play together.”

He does, of course, and LeClaire sends Shane over the boards as Carm comes off. Shane usually does a good job of blocking out arena noise when he’s on the ice, but it would be impossible to block out the way the crowd starts roaring, and they’re chanting ROZ-A-NOV and HOLL-AN-DER the way the crowd in Montreal did when Shane and Ilya took their first faceoff against each other.

That first faceoff (plus winning it and scoring off it) has loomed large in Shane’s favorite memories on the ice, up there with his cup-winning goal in 2015, winning the cup in overtime in 2016, and playing with Ilya at the All-Stars earlier this year. 

Their first power play together might take first place above all of them, though. Shane wins the face off, gets the puck to Connors, who brings it through the neutral zone and leaves it for Ilya in a beautiful drop-pass Shane wants to study on game tape later. Shane doesn’t even have to look at Ilya to know where he is or where he wants Shane to be, he just skates neatly the long way around Ristolainen who definitely expected Shane to go the other way, Ilya’s pass landing with a satisfying crack against his blade, and Shane shoots, knowing the opening is there without needing to hesitate. 

The puck hits the back of the net, the light flashes and the horn sounds, and seventeen thousand people are on their feet, stomping and cheering. Ilya’s body collides with Shane’s, hugging him from behind. 

“Nice goal,” he says in Shane’s ear.

“Nice pass,” Shane says, laughing. 

“Your turn to draw penalty next,” Ilya says, letting Shane go and starting to skate toward the bench. “Not fair to make me do all the work, Hollander.”

Shane just barely resists pointing up at the Jumbotron, where the screen is replaying his goal. He doesn’t think that would be a great look in any of the recaps later tonight or on social media tomorrow, even if it would probably just make Ilya laugh. 

 

They win, which wasn’t really in doubt against Buffalo. It was only really a question of how much (four-one, two goals from Shane, one from Ilya, and a short-handed one from Marly on the penalty kill). 

Unsurprisingly, the media want to talk to both Shane and Ilya after the game and Shane wonders if this was another reason to put their stalls side-by-side. It certainly makes it easier for the scrum to get both of them in the shot at the same time. 

“You both had a great game tonight,” one of the reporters says, shoving a mic through the scrum towards them. “There was a lot of speculation there might be some tension between you after so many years as rivals.”

Ilya shakes his head. “No tension. Just good hockey. Is always good hockey for me with Hollander.”

“Would you agree with that, Shane?” someone else asks. 

“Yeah, of course. Rozanov and I have been playing against each other since we were seventeen. We’ve always left it all on the ice, but we’re having a lot of fun playing together now.”

They answer a few questions about the game and their respective goals, and Shane can see Parker, one of the Comms people, gearing up to herd the scrum out of the locker room out of the corner of his eye when one more mic ends up in his face.

“Shane, do you have any response to the frustration from other teams and many fans that your trade deal appears to be structured to skirt salary cap rules?” 

Ilya snorts a laugh next to him. “Other teams are jealous they could not put together a deal to sign Hollander, you mean? This sounds like a question for management.” 

Shane nudges the toe of Ilya’s skate with his own. Farah and Bethany expected this question and gave him a handful of acceptable responses. “I can’t speak for other teams but I think Boston and Montreal made a deal they’re both happy with, or I wouldn’t be playing here now,” he says as nonchalantly as he can. “There’s a lot of uncertainty when a trade is on the table—”

Someone else interrupts him, “I think people were surprised to learn Boston wasn’t on your M-NTC list.”    

Shane didn’t have many teams on his M-NTC list, mostly because he’d assumed he’d never need it, that Montreal would want to keep him as long as he wanted to stay in Montreal. It had been naive, and Farah had been planning to negotiate for stronger language in his next contract (a full no movement clause, probably). It’s a relief they hadn’t started those negotiations yet; it would’ve made trying to leave Montreal this fall that much more complicated. 

“Probably,” Shane agrees. “But, you know, players build those lists for lots of personal and professional reasons. I grew up in Ottawa and my parents are still there, and it’s always been important to me to be relatively close to home, if I can be. Boston is a little farther than Montreal but, as I think everyone saw before the game, still close enough for my parents to get here when they want to.”

“And obviously Hollander wanted to keep his options open to play for the best team in the league someday,” Ilya adds, smirking at all the cameras. Shane rolls his eyes. 

“Okay, that’s all we have time for,” Parker calls out, and starts moving the media toward the door. Shane waits until the last camera is gone before he drops onto the bench heavily. 

“Okay?” Ilya asks him.

“Kind of feels like a matter of time until someone outright asks why I left.”

“Probably,” Ilya agrees. “And you can say ‘sorry, I have signed NDA’ and then Montreal GM will have to answer their questions instead. Or I will say it and when they ask me how I know this, we can tell them I own half of your things, including your NDA.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

Ilya blows a raspberry and Shane laughs. “Hurry up and shower, Hollander. Yuna says they are picking up ramen on the way home. I am hungry.”

“Literally when did she tell you that?”

“She texted me during second intermission for my order.”

Shane hadn’t even noticed Ilya checking his phone during the break. But he’s hungry too, and his mom already knows his order, so he hurries through his shower quickly, and he and Ilya finish changing back into their game day suits around the same time. 

The rookies are making plans to go to a club and Kane invites Shane and Ilya to some brewery, but Ilya shakes his head.

“We have dinner with Shane’s parents,” he says, and a few of the guys ooooohhh like they’re all in middle school.  

“Hollzy’s gonna have to tell the story someday of how he fucking domesticated you, Roz,” Miller calls after them as they head to the door. 

“How’d your wife domesticate you, Miller?” Shane calls back, and the locker room erupts in laughter behind them.

“Domesticate,” Ilya scoffs under his breath. “Wait til they find out I wanted a relationship and you ran away from a sandwich.”

“I know, baby,” Shane says, patting his shoulder. “Let’s go home.”

---

At home, the lights are on in the kitchen and Shane’s parents are unpacking everyone’s ramen orders. His dad comes over to hug them both. 

“Great way to start the season,” he says, and Ilya nods.

“Starting on a win is always good.”

“Go change,” Yuna says to them. “You don’t want to spill on your suits.”

Shane doesn’t really care if he does, he’s so hungry, but he figures there’s no point arguing with her. Ilya seems to decide the same, despite looking wistfully at his steaming bowl of ramen being laid out on the dining table for a few seconds before following Shane toward their bedroom. 

Shane hangs his suit up at the end of the bar on his side of the closet, so he knows it’s ready to go to the dry cleaner.

“Where do you get your suits cleaned?” he asks Ilya. He hasn’t thought about this until now.

“I have service. I just text them and they pick up.”

“Oh, that’s easy.” 

Shane’s dry cleaner in Montreal had been convenient to his apartment but was a family-owned place that valued personal contact with their customers, which mostly meant Shane had to remember to drop his suits off on the way to practice, or had to ask his mom to do it for him when she was in town. He likes the idea of not having to think about it anymore. 

“But I also wear them more than once before cleaning, which I think you do not.”

Shane shrugs. “I have more than you anyway, it will be fine.”

“Yes, Mr. Fancy Suit Sponsorship, you do.”

“I think I like Mr. Real Estate better.” Shane grins, tugging on a pair of sweatpants. 

“Mmm, I bet you do,” Ilya says, wrapping his hand around Shane’s neck and tugging him into a messy kiss. “You played beautifully tonight,” Ilya says, sliding his hands to Shane’s hips and pulling him closer. “Two sexy goals, that check on Eichel that dumped him on his ass—”

“Ilya,” Shane protests. “My parents are waiting for us.”

Ilya pouts, and Shane relents, leaning in to kiss him again, licking into his mouth.  

“Boys,” Yuna calls from the hallway, startling them apart, “where do you keep the chopsticks?”

“We only have the ones I brought from Montreal,” Shane calls back. “Just two pairs. Drawer next to the sink. You guys use them, we can use forks and spoons. C’mon,” he says to Ilya, grabbing two t-shirts at random and shoving one at him and pulling the other one over his own head. “She’ll just come in here if we don’t hurry up.”

The t-shirt Ilya pulls on is either Shane’s from many years ago, or shrunk in the wash, because it pulls tight across his shoulders and leaves a strip of skin exposed above the waistband of his sweatpants. 

“Jesus,” Shane says, tugging the hem up, trying to get it back off Ilya.

“These are very mixed signals from you right now, Hollander.”

“Just fucking put clothes on that you can wear to eat with my parents without making me want to take them off you,” Shane hisses and Ilya laughs, but he complies, grabbing a soft, faded hoodie from the shelf behind Shane. It’s blue, one of Shane’s favorites. Ilya never wears blue, Shane realizes, but he should more often. It brings out his eyes and makes his skin golden in the warm light of their closet.

“Fuck,” he says, softly, “we maybe need to rethink my parents staying with us in the future.”

Ilya shakes his head. “No, is nice that they’re here.” Then he smirks. “We’ll just practice being very quiet. Like when we were in hotel room next to Hunter that time. Very hot, when you bite—”

“Okay,” Shane interrupts and starts pushing at Ilya’s shoulders. “I’m hungry, let’s go.”

His mom is on her phone when they get back to the kitchen. “I ordered you a set of chopsticks and spoons. They’ll be here Monday.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Shane says.

“Thank you, Yuna. Shane will need to teach me how to use, I have not learned.”

They sit down, and for a few minutes it’s quiet as everyone eats. They’ve eaten together as a family only a handful of times so far, but it gets easier, more comfortable, every time. Shane can’t help thinking about all the years he and his parents sat at a four-top in a restaurant. There were times when the empty chair was just there, just a fact of a three-person family unit in a world set up for even numbers, but there were other times, more persistent the older he got, where the chair was a painful reminder of everything he wanted and never thought he could actually have. 

He presses his foot against Ilya’s under the table, and Ilya presses back. 

“Has anyone, uh, checked the Metros-Admirals score tonight?” Shane asks.

“It was a bloodbath,” David says, with barely concealed glee. “New York crushed them, five-nothing.”

Shane hadn’t wanted them to win, but he can already anticipate the questions he’ll get the next time he’s in front of the media, demanding his opinion on the performance of a team he is supposedly an expert on. They’ll ask him if he thinks the timing of his departure impacted the start of their season, if he feels any responsibility for that, if he has anything he wants to say to his former teammates... Yes, no, and fuck all the way off, Shane tells the imaginary press scrum in his head.

Ilya looks up from his phone in mock outrage. “Hunter had a hat trick! I am amazed he did not collapse on the ice from the effort.”

“Easier to see the net from outside the closet, maybe,” Shane jokes. His dad chuckles but Ilya groans.

“This does not even make sense, you were ahead of him in scoring race last year before you’d even come out to yourself, sweetheart.” 

His mom laughs and then hides her smile behind her hand when Shane glares at her. “Sorry, honey. Hard to argue with the logic.”

“This is blatant favoritism,” Shane protests, but he knows he’s not doing a very good job of keeping the smile off his own face. 

“Is okay,” Ilya says, leaning over and kissing Shane’s cheek. “We love your very bad chirps.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Shane mutters. 

They talk a little about the game, but not much because his parents know he doesn’t like to talk about it too much before he watches game tape, prefers to see an accurate accounting rather than his memory of various plays and goals, and then his dad starts yawning because it’s after eleven. 

“We should call it a night,” Yuna says, starting to gather the trash and dishes. 

“Let us clean up,” Ilya insists. Shane expects her to argue but she must be tired because she concedes. 

“All right. We’ll see you in the morning. Sleep well,” she says, and kisses each of them on the top of the head as she passes them. Ilya looks a little startled by it.

“Good night, boys,” David says. “Ilya, if you get a late night craving, I put some more Coffee Crisps in the pantry.”

Ilya grins. “This is excellent news, thank you.”

Ilya cleans up the kitchen while Shane makes the rounds to turn off the downstairs lights, check the doors and windows are locked, and set the alarm. It takes them about the same amount of time, and when he gets back to the kitchen, Ilya is happily tearing open a Coffee Crisp. He takes a bite and offers it to Shane, who shakes his head before snaking his arms around Ilya’s waist in a tight hug. 

“Okay?” Ilya asks him.

“Yes,” Shane says. “Very okay. I love you so much.”

“Yes,” Ilya says, softly. “Me too. Like my heart will explode, sometimes.”

Shane tries to say more, to tell him that it makes almost everything that’s happened over the last seven years and definitely in the last two months worth it, but he can’t quite get the words out around the sudden lump in his throat. He looks at Ilya, who’s looking back at him with soft eyes, a little bit of chocolate in the corner of his mouth, and Shane is pretty sure Ilya already knows.