Rating:

Not Rated

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Accidental Confessions, Crack Treated Seriously, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Feelings Realization, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Tenderness, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Yearning Ilya Rozanov, Getting Together, POV Outsider, POV Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Shane Hollander Walks Ilya Rozanov Like A Dog, this is honestly just 15k of Ilya wanting to wife shane up, and wanting to be wifed up by him, Mutual Pining, Ilya Rozanov is Whipped For Shane Hollander, Set Post-Tampa, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Protective Ilya Rozanov, Fluff and Humor, Supportive Boston Bears | Boston Raiders (Game Changers), they try their best to give their repressed russian captain dating advice, Ilya Rozanov's Montreal Jane, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, Shane Hollander is Ilya Rozanov’s baby, Ilya Rozanov's Love Language is Acts of Service, So is Shane’s, Smut, Fluff and Smut

Language:

English

Series:

Part 2 of Outsider POVs

Stats:

Published: 2026-06-19 Completed: 2026-06-20 Words: 15,945 Chapters: 3/3

my love, my life

Summary

Cliff watches him squeeze the phone between his cheek and shoulder, lifting the jersey over his head as he continues to talk, a bit distracted now by the multitasking.

“And was good practice, you know, for when I am your husband."

Immediately, the locker room goes dead silent. And so does Rozanov, in fact.

In which Ilya accidentally calls himself Shane's future husband in the middle of the Bears locker room. Worse still, they're not even dating yet.

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter Notes

This is set post-Tampa and after Ilya's father dies. The accident does happen, but not when you think it will ;)

Disclaimer: author is, as mentioned, painfully European and does not claim to know anything about Canadian laws and regulations. I try to google some things but sometimes i also make them up to fit the plot xx

Prologue 

Distantly, albeit very, very distantly, Ilya thinks, “This really isn’t how you fuck your rival.”

It’s a recurring thought he’s had since…well, since that first time, if he was being honest.

He’s inside of Shane. Deeply inside of him. They're in missionary, which only ever really happens between the two of them when Shane is on top, and Ilya flips them when he notices Shane getting close and feels the need to finish him off by thrusting hard inside of him.

Shane Hollander riding him is the single greatest pleasure of Ilya’s life, so much so that he has never been able to let Shane finish them both while on top. Because if he let it happen, Ilya knew the sensation would finally snap his last, barely hanging-on thread of self-control around Shane. 

It had practically happened once already. That whole ugly tuna-melt-first-name fiasco. Ilya was still reeling from that, still flinched at every fucking Google alert he received for the name "Rose Landry," which he had set up but had yet to disable, torturing himself with the expectation of a headline announcing their reunion. 

At this moment, that fear seemed rather silly, with Shane withering and panting underneath him in a way Ilya knew and fucking prided himself on that Shane had never been like this with anyone else. Would, if the universe would stop being cruel to him, never be like this with anyone else. 

No, at this moment, Shane Hollander belongs to him and him only, Ilya fucking him like he’s trying to consume him.

Almost as soon after flipping them over, Shane’s hands had fumbled for the hold he previously had on the headboard and on Ilya’s shoulder, one of them digging into Ilya’s hair and tugging just how he liked while the other flailed around, reaching everywhere it could. Ilya had taken it and promptly pushed it into the mattress above Shane’s head, holding it down with enough gentle force to make Shane moan and arch his back beautifully. When his other hand lifted from Ilya’s curls to reach down between them, Ilya quickly caught it and also placed it over Shane’s hand, not allowing him to touch himself, which earned him a high whine that shot through his entire body. He simply lowered himself, putting even more weight on Shane's body until their fronts were almost entirely pressed together, knowing and telling his sweetheart that if he wanted to be good for him, he would come from just the friction between them. Ilya then eagerly swallowed Shane's subsequent groan as he pressed his crossed wrists into the mattress with one hand while holding Shane's leg up over his hip with the other.

“You’re so fucking perfect. I can't believe you're real," he breathes the Russian into Shane's mouth, lifting his lips from where he had been kissing and sucking, eliciting another beautiful moan from the man of his dreams beneath him.

Their lips barely separated while fucking, which wasn't unusual for them. Ilya would tease Shane for how much he loved to be kissed, how obviously desperate for it he was, if he didn’t share the same fucking desperation for him in equal measure. 

He had refused to kiss Shane Hollander once, in a chilly Vegas hotel room that was simultaneously his favorite and worst memory of their ten-year secret and vowed never to pass up another chance again.

He wasn’t entirely sure this could even count as kissing, though. With each cut-off breath, every rising moan from beneath him, Ilya increased the movement of his hips until they were panting into each other's mouths rather than kissing, their lips attached but mouths open, exchanging air and spit. 

The only thing keeping Ilya from simply reaching out and swiping his tongue over the row of Shane's annoyingly flawless teeth - an inexplicable urge that was new to him but figured wouldn't be entirely unwelcome - was his impending orgasm.

“Ilya….Ilya…Il-…” 

Shane hadn't been able to say anything for the past few minutes but cut off pants of Ilya's name over and over until he eventually broke into a moan at another shift in angle or pace.

It had taken months of misery to get here. 

This new development where Shane fucked Ilya while breathing his first name like a prayer and Ilya fucked Shane while knowing he was devastatingly in love with him. 

It’s when he smiles into Shane’s mouth before lifting his leg over his shoulder so that he can press even closer to him, their chests sheen with sweat now gliding against each other, that he thinks it again.

This really isn’t how you fuck your rival.

And then-

This is how you fuck the love of your life.

He can’t dwell on the thought too long because suddenly he’s coming (and maybe later will have to examine if it was exactly that thought that pushed him over the edge) and holy shit, so is Shane, untouched, they’ve never at the same time-

Ilya is struck so hard that his vision becomes blurry and he briefly believes he is truly blacked out. When he regains consciousness, it is due to the groan Shane lets out beneath him as he tries to put down the deadweight of his leg that is still hanging over Ilya's shoulders. He lets go immediately when he hears the unsettling sound and then has to use all of his strength to keep from falling onto him completely.

“Are you okay?” he instantly asks, or rather mumbles against Shane’s lips, alarmed at the slight discomfort on his face.

Shane's eyes are tightly shut, but the furrow between his brows eases once his leg is back on the mattress. Slowly, he opens his eyes and Ilya can tell that he’s in that specific space a million miles away but he still manages a nod for him. His good boy.

Relieved, he leans forward, pressing his open mouth against Shane, who doesn’t kiss him back so much as just lightly parts his lips to give Ilya the access he needs. 

As he settles his mouth over Shane and presses his lips forward in the gentlest kiss he's probably ever given to someone, he realizes with blissful clarity that this wasn't just the best sex he and Shane had ever had, but probably the best sex of his entire life so far. So his mind is on autopilot as he pulls away to say "I love you" against Shane’s lips in his native language. 

He doesn’t last long in this position, however,  thinks his whole body is shaking until he just fully falls onto Shane when the arm holding him up finally gives out. He hides his face next to Shane’s in the pillow and thinks he hears him sigh next to him. As the seconds pass, he tries to catch his breath and gradually becomes more aware of his surroundings. Which mostly refers to how Shane is suddenly quiet and soft beneath him, with the exception of his short puffs of breath. Ilya wonders if Shane’s chest is also rising like he’s just run a marathon or if the motion is just coming from him. 

Fingers begin to run through his damp curls, and Ilya's entire body viscerally relaxes under the touch, making him barely register the soft words spoken against his temple before a tender press of lips warms him from the inside.

“Hm? he asks, attempting to lift himself off Shane but only managing to turn his head slightly.

“...’you okay? That was…intense,” Shane mumbles. He still seems far away, but that crease between his brows is back, a concern directed at Ilya that seems to tether him.

Ilya wants to snort incredulously; under different circumstances, he might even crack a joke like, "I was not the one just folded like German pretzel, Hollander." But it doesn't happen; instead, his treacherous heart, which has long since broken free from all the rationale his brain had been attempting to impose, squeezes tightly in his chest in a familiar way he had almost forgotten. That feeling of being cared for.

He feels close to crying all of a sudden. His face contorts before he can control it. So he simply nods, lifting his arm from Shane's wrists, where his grip had already loosened, to run through Shane’s hair before cupping his cheek and angling his face to press a kiss to his cheek. 

"Da," he murmurs against the freckles before kissing the place once more. 

It’s only after he’s eventually pulled out and they’re all cleaned up, with Shane cuddled into his side (ready to stay the night because they can officially do that now with this new, lovely post-Tampa All-Stars thing between them), that he remembers the thought.

This is how you fuck the love of your life.

It really shouldn’t shock him as much as it does. He knows he loves Shane. Has known it for a long, long time, even if he spent most of the years running away from that truth. He’s said it to Shane underneath a snowy tunnel in Russia, although the other didn’t understand.

Still, it feels like one thing to realize that you have only ever loved one person, and somehow quite another to realize that you never will love anyone else again. That this person…is it. The most complicated person your heart could have chosen.

Maybe it is also the nature of it. That it wasn’t during some slow, romantic sex with a thousand candles around them like in the movies. That they hadn’t been ‘making love’ as TV would call it but hungrily, eagerly, nastily fucking each other like it was another sport they were competing for a medal in.

It reminds him of something a teammate once said, a mindless drunken remark made at the guy's bachelor party that Ilya only vaguely recalls but that has always stuck with him. They had been discussing the guy's previous endeavors and lamented his decision to abandon everything for monogamy.

“Listen, you can have all the hot meaningless sex you want…but there are some things you only do with your wife…it’s just…when you know, you know…”

Bits and pieces of the overall monologue, which his teammates had all interpreted as him simply "marrying a chick who was down to do anything in bed and had him whipped for it," were missing, but he had somehow hung onto that one sentiment, possibly because he was still young and impressionable. 

“There are some things you only do with your wife.” 

At first, the idea seemed ridiculous to Ilya, who had always thought of sex as just that: a physical thing you could do with anyone at any time for any reason as long as they were willing, all for the sake of satisfying a need and having fun.

But then he thought of sex with Shane Hollander and how it had always felt anything but meaningless, so much so that it scared him enough to run away from it from time to time. 

Next to him, Shane has all but drifted off, unaware of Ilya’s mental state. He was occasionally humming softly to express his approval of the way Ilya's lips were ghosting over his wrists, where he was gently pressing apologetic kisses into the red skin. The room is mostly dark but if he twists Shane’s wrist around and holds it up slightly into the moonlight, he can even make out the individual blotches of where his fingers had dug into his skin. 

The claim feels strangely right. 

They’ve never really done marks, other than a few accidental ones that couldn’t be helped if either of them got too excited. Shane was, as with everything else, very particular about them, and Ilya, who couldn't care less about another bruise on his body, whether from hockey or good sex, respected his wishes.

Now, however, as he thinks back on their entire time together, thinks of the realization he's just had - that he doesn't just want to be with him, but wants to be with him forever - he suddenly laments the fact that he hasn't left his mark on Shane Hollander much sooner. Perhaps then no one else, especially not beautiful movie stars, would have dared to take him from him.

He is able to fall asleep in spite of his epiphany, the fear he anticipates settling in buried somewhere beneath Moscow's thick snow, along with his father. The deep sense of reassurance he gets when he turns to find Shane soundly sleeping next to him, arm lain over Ilya's chest possessively as if it were his own little claim, makes him feel less alone in his feelings.

And for the first time in nearly ten years, the knowledge of being in love with Shane Hollander isn’t accompanied by an impending sense of dread and fear. Because up until now, Ilya had never given himself permission to consider a future for them, much less a "forever". 

With Shane by his side, determined to make it known to Ilya that he wouldn’t run away from this again with every touch and caress and whispered admission, it seemed more possible than ever before.

The next morning, Ilya wakes to an empty bed. 

It utterly confuses him for about five seconds and then terrifies him for another five until an unfamiliar buzzing sound on the other bedside table grabs his attention. He instantly relaxes. Shane wouldn’t leave without his phone.

Same phone in hand, he finds him in his kitchen a while later, after he’s taken enough time in the bathroom to just stare at his reflection and wonder if that bright, involuntary smile on his face that makes him look so much younger than he has in years will fade before their game against each other later today. When he finally sees Shane handling his coffee maker like he's done it a thousand times and Ilya's house is a familiar sight, he realizes it's probably a lost cause. Oh well, he's always enthusiastic before Montreal games, his teammates won't notice if they don't look too closely.

Whilst his posture is relaxed, he’s still handling Ilya’s coffee maker with the utmost attention, that same meticulous focus he applies to anything. So Ilya just…allows the moment to stretch in front of him. Leans against the kitchen wall, watching Shane exist in the space he's called home for the past few years, which he purchased with his own hard-earned money, just to take him in. After all, Ilya's gaze had always been drawn to him like a gravitational center.

He's wearing the shirt Ilya laid out on the bench at the end of his bed because, yes, he seems to be so infatuated with Shane Hollander that he meticulously arranges his visits. He has food in his refrigerator that has been specially chosen for peculiar Canadian palates, an extra toothbrush in his bathroom, and clothes neatly folded in close vicinity to the bed.

And this time, it doesn’t seem like it will end in heartbreak. 

When the machine is done with the first cup, Shane places another under it, and when his fingers start thrumming against the cold countertop impatiently Ilya physically cannot stand to be apart from him anymore. He leaves Shane's phone on the counter and walks up behind him, placing his hands on his hips and pulls him towards him, eliciting a satisfied hum from Shane. He must have noticed Ilya's presence a long time ago since he does not startle, and the thought pleases Ilya, who is ridiculously fond of how nothing seems to be able to break Shane's concentration, even on the simplest of tasks.

Eventually, Shane leans back into Ilya's embrace and says, "Hey," in a quiet, contented voice. Ilya can't resist wrapping his arms completely around his midsection, fully clinging onto him now. Shane’s arm comes over Ilya’s and he hums pleasantly when Ilya begins peppering his neck with kisses in lieu of a greeting.

“You are up early,” he eventually says. A small reprimand. I woke up without you. I didn’t like that.

"Still on West Coast time from the last few games," Shane says, squeezing his arms and turning his head to press a featherlight kiss against Ilya's jaw. A small reassurance. 

When the machine finishes the second cup, Shane places it next to the other. And Ilya thinks something must have truly broken inside of him during sex last night because he finds himself getting emotional over the whole thing - the domesticity of standing there, swaying, and embracing in his kitchen, staring at those two stupid cups next to each other over Shane’s shoulder.

“Do you take your coffee black?” Shane asks, snapping him out of it.

“No, too bitter. Milk and sugar,” Ilya replies lazily, the last remnants of sleep still clinging to his consciousness. Shane doesn’t comment on his preference, only nods his head in a way that tells Ilya he has it memorized from this day forward. The same way Ilya memorizes how Shane pours milk into his own cup.

They don’t move from the spot yet and from the familiar way Shane takes a deep breath of air without releasing it, his posture becoming a bit straighter, Ilya knows he’s gearing up for something to say.

“I…uh,” he starts, then chuckles awkwardly as he looks down at the counter. Ilya hums into his ear before kissing the spot behind it, encouraging him to go on.

“I wanted to make something for breakfast, but I didn’t know if I should just grab something from your fridge. I mean, I figured you wouldn’t mind, but I don’t know if you have a dietary plan, or something, and I didn’t want to mess your nutritionist's regimen or-”

Ilya is briefly confused by his rambling. Not because Shane was overthinking if he could take something from Ilya’s fridge without asking - that seems pretty on brand for his polite Canadian - but because he seems downright shy about the implication, if not embarrassed. 

He takes a moment to buffer, then realizes with mounting glee Shane’s intention.

"Did you want to bring me breakfast in bed, Hollander?” he teases with delight.

“Fuck off,” comes Shane’s instant reply but oh, his pretty ears are turning red fast and it’s enough confirmation Ilya needs. 

God, Hollander is going to kill him. Ilya is torn between laughing out loud, making fun of him, kissing him senseless, or perhaps breaking down in tears. In the end, he turns Shane around by his hips, pulls him into a passionate kiss, and then lifts Shane onto the counter by his thighs. 

It's hot and heavy, then sweet and tender, until they send one of the freshly prepared coffees clattering into the sink. When the noise startles them apart, they both start giggling like teenagers before Ilya tells Shane that his mouth was the best breakfast he could have prepared, giving him the sweetest blush over those annoying freckles.

Even though he can no longer bring it to Ilya in bed, Shane still seems determined to make them breakfast, murmuring something about how Ilya prepared it for them the last time.

It makes Ilya feel, as with almost everything Shane does, far too fond of him. Because it's clear that while Ilya was overseeing his cleaning lady, picking out toothbrushes, and buying another batch of ginger ale for his fridge, Shane was probably looking up the best breakfast foods and how to properly cut up a kiwi with borderline surgical precision, as he was now. 

Ilya watches from his kitchen island, sipping the remaining coffee after Shane admitted he disliked the taste anyway, confirming Ilya's suspicions that he wasn't much of a coffee drinker anyway.

Shane then moves on from the kiwi to the grapefruit with the same meticulous focus and it’s been five minutes for just cutting up fruit and god, he really was the most boring man alive. Ilya wants to sink his teeth into him and never let him go.

Shane's phone on the counter buzzes in quick succession before stopping again.

“What does it say?” Shane asks offhandedly, not even looking up from his task and snapping Ilya out of the trance he’s been in. 

He tries not to delight in the trust Shane seemingly gives him, allowing Ilya to turn his phone over and look at the notifications piled up on his lock screen. For some, he can see the preview, while for others with multiple messages, he only sees the number, which he relays to Shane.

“Ten messages from your mother. A few in team group chat. Hayden telling you to be back by 12. Three from your Da-”

Just then, a new message from Shane’s father popped up.

“Ah, a new one. Here, let me say it like true boring Canadian; ‘I know you don’t want to deal with this right now, Shane, but it’s probably best to just get it done and over with."

The imitation makes Shane tell him to fuck off, causing Ilya to grin. Just as he opens his mouth to make an innuendo, another message from Shane’s father pops up.

“‘Me or your mother can deal with it, if you’d like,'"  he reads out, trying the same bit of doing the accent again. He can tell it falls flat when Shane goes quiet and Ilya can visibly see his shoulders tensing for a beat before he sighs deeply.

He frowns at the reaction, then looks back down at the phone.

“Deal with what?” he asks, trying to keep his tone light. 

Shane just sighs again, focusing his entire attention on cutting up another mango, which feels more purposeful than before.

“It’s nothing. Boring stuff,” he mumbles. 

Ilya can immediately tell that it is definitely, absolutely not nothing. 

So he hums and settles the phone down before approaching Shane. 

“Yes, most things with you usually are ‘boring stuff.’” 

The dig makes Shane tense up right until Ilya is pressed to his back again, relaxing when a sweet kiss is pressed to his cheek.

“Tell me,” he demands softly, curious now about what could possibly make perfect Shane Hollander so obviously upset that wasn’t Ilya.

Shane sighs, giving him another entirely unconvincing ‘It’s nothing,’ that so clearly means it’s everything. 

Ilya has always been able to read Shane like a book, after all, even if he didn't always speak the language of it. 

He settles his hand over Shane so he stops cutting and takes a step back from him, tugging at his side. 

Shane gets the hint immediately, sets the knife down and turns around to face Ilya, pleasing him enough to press a quick kiss to the side of Shane’s mouth, which immediately curls up into a small, soft smile. So he kisses him again and again, until Shane is fully smiling and relaxed enough for Ilya to know he can keep digging. 

“What is boring stuff, hm?” he asks again, his hands now resting on the counter behind Shane, successfully bracketing him.

Shane looks at him for a moment, a mixture of amusement and that familiar sense of devotion that always makes Ilya’s heart skip. He tries not to let his delight show too much on his face when Shane surprisingly wraps his arms around his shoulders with a sigh, swaying forward into Ilya’s space until their fronts are pressed together. 

“It really is just boring stuff to do with my accountant,” he huffs out, chuckling at the unimpressed “Ah” Ilya lets out.

“Told you,” Shane teases before he presses a kiss to the corner of Ilya’s mouth and fuck, it’s getting harder and harder to bite back the delighted grin threatening to spill over Ilya’s face. 

This feels so new and yet so familiar at the same time. They've held each other a million times before, but never in this context: a lazy morning spent in one of their kitchens discussing real-life issues. It’s something Ilya’s younger self could have never imagined for them or would have thought he could want. Now, he lifts his hands from the counter to hold onto Shane’s waist and wishes he’d never have to let him go. 

“He do what, file your taxes wrong?” he asks, tilting his head.

Shane lets out another huff but then there's something swimming in his eyes, an unease just beneath the surface that makes Ilya frown. 

“Something like that,” he mumbles. 

Ilya sighs internally. He wishes he wouldn’t have to dig information out of Shane but knows it’s his own fault. Shane had tried to talk to him for years, after all, and Ilya had always shot it down and still did occasionally when it came to things like his family, which he couldn't bring himself to discuss, even if he was now gentler with it than he had been in the past. 

He lets his hands run over Shane’s sides, rubbing comfortably, and hopes his silence and expression are enough to convey that he really does want to hear about it. He doesn’t waver when Shane looks at him as if to assess exactly that, only raises his brow to say, “Go on with it then.” 

Shane lets out another sigh, defeated this time, though he can’t hide the way the corners of his mouth twitch up at having Ilya’s interest in his life.

He leans back slightly, but the arms around Ilya's shoulders and neck remain, fingers playing with the ends of his hair on the back of his neck. The touch, the whole embrace, is so achingly familiar and yet entirely different outside of sex that it makes Ilya feel the warmth spread down to his toes. He doesn’t think anyone touches him as tenderly as Shane does. 

I love you. Let me hear your sorrows and be there for you. 

“Well, my dad used to handle my finances, cause he’s good with money. He works for the treasury in Canada. But when I started buying real estate and things like that, I got an accountant. Anyways, I still let my dad look over some things from time to time, cause I value his opinions, especially when it comes to new investments-"

Ilya really can’t help the snort that comes out at that, his little Mr. Landlord, which makes Shane roll his eyes and try to pull away from him. With a whine that Ilya will absolutely deny is a whine, he pulls Shane back towards him, urging him to go on. 

“Anyways, he found some…discrepancies. In my accounts. Over the years. Small amounts that are missing that I otherwise wouldn’t have noticed…” he finally continues. 

It takes Ilya a moment to decipher Shane's conflicted expression before he comes to the obvious conclusion. 

“So your accountant is stealing from you?” he asks, genuinely taken aback. 

Shane, then, does something he’s never done before. 

He pouts. 

Genuinely, adorably, crazily fucking pouts. He nods at the statement with furrowed brows and closed eyes, then lets his forehead drop against Ilya's with a whine, clearly overwhelmed by the ordeal. 

Ilya believed he had witnessed every aspect of Shane Hollander. His skill in hockey on the opposing side. His entire, glorious naked body from every possible angle. All the various expressions he tries to hide from the world behind that media-trained smile. He’s seen him on the verge of tears, has seen him actually cry, has seen his beautiful face contorted in anger while yelling at him, has seen him completely blissed out and glazed over.

But he realizes with a startling clarity that he’s never seen this side of him. The entirely unmasked one. 

He’s never held anything more precious in his arms than a completely comfortable Shane Hollander, who feels free enough to make breakfast in Ilya’s kitchen and initiate physical contact and fucking pout about the inconveniences in his life. 

And just like Ilya earlier in the mirror, he looks so much younger. Perhaps as young as they were never really allowed to be. 

“It’s this whole thing now where technically I have to report him because of Canada's fraud regulations and can’t just fire him, and…ugh. It’s just, I don’t know his whole situation, you know? I don’t think he did it to be malicious; he’s this kind of old guy with his own firm and I mean, maybe he’s just hit a rough patch in his life. He’s shown me pictures of his children and shit and I just can’t put someone’s dad in jail because of a few bad life decisions or something. My parents understand but also tell me I can’t just let him off the hook because what if he does it to someone else, and…”

Early into their careers, Shane had gone viral once for skating up to a little girl in the front row in a Hollander jersey and handing her a puck after she had already caught one during the game but her father had snatched it out of her hand and handed it to her brother. Another time, he went viral for catching and then laughing with a Montreal ref who had fallen to the ground. There were other times, even outside of hockey, when fans on Twitter would write paragraphs about his good looks and manners after meeting him in public. One, most notably, was an overwhelmed mother with a newborn, whom he assisted in carrying groceries to her car while carrying her newborn, only to discover who had assisted her and share the dash cam footage later. 

So the reputation of being kind to a fault had followed Shane ever since their rookie years. Ilya could attest to it, remembering those first oh-so-polite meetings with the double handshakes and compliments that had completely captivated him. 

And yet still, Ilya was struck by the definitive goodness in him. 

In a world where the kindness had been criticized out of him by fathers and brothers and trainers, where the locker rooms all made fun of people who were “too soft” for their sport, Shane Hollander was just so irrevocably good that it flared up an instinctive urge inside Ilya to just care and protect.

“What would help?” Ilya asks gently, interrupting Shane’s rambling. His hands come up to cup his cheeks, thumbs running reverently over freckles as he looks at Shane with what must be such unbridled affection that it makes the Canadian blink at him for a moment. 

“If he’d report himself. The consequences would be much different then, cause we have this whole leniency thing. He'd probably only have his license revoked if I provided a letter of forgiveness, but between the games and everything else, I've been putting off the conversation. It’s just-…I don’t mind confrontation, but I have to focus on the playoffs. And I dislike the idea of my parents dealing with it because they also got a lot going on and I prefer handling things myself but-“

“I do it.”

The words are out of Ilya’s mouth before he realizes he’s even said them.  

“What?” Shane chuckles as he pulls back slightly, halfway between disbelief and confusion. 

Ilya feels a flash of panic in his chest, but he suppresses it with practiced indifference and simply shrugs at Shane. 

He tries not to falter in the face of Shane's imploring gaze, focusing on his freckles rather than his eyes as he tries to school his features into something more casual. 

“I mean, I can do it. Is no big deal. I am good with confrontation; do it all day long,” he waves off, speaking before thinking it through. 

He realizes in that moment how desperately he suddenly wants to do this for Shane. To handle something for him that aren’t just mind-blowing orgasms in anonymous hotel bedsheets. 

It doesn't feel rational, but the image of Shane's pouting face and the worry Ilya felt for him as he watched the furrow in his brows deepen and his voice grow more agitated by the moment as he explained his situation drowned out any rational thoughts. Not to mention the silent fury and outrage he feels beneath his skin at the thought that someone would dare exploit Shane's said goodness. 

He’s always been a protective person, had finally gone against his own brother for attacking Sveta. Safe to say there probably isn't a line in the world he wouldn’t cross for Shane Hollander. 

Shane snorts at his statement, obviously thinking Ilya doesn’t mean it. 

"I don't think slamming my accountant into the boards is going to solve the problem," he chuckles, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly. 

Ilya rolls his eyes. Brat. 

He pinches Shane’s sides, who yelps “Hey!” followed by a laugh so bright Ilya just has to lean forward to press a kiss to his cheek.

“I do different confrontations as well. I am captain, so I have to tell everyone not to be fucking stupid on ice all the time. Just last month, I tell the rookie, "Hey, we are going to trade you, if you do not stop being fucking bad-"

“Jeez, you wanna trade Carmichael already?”

“Is just example. And I deal with all my fathers medical stuff across ocean. Had to deal with lots of emergencies because of my stupid fucking brother, so, am good correcting people over phone,” he continues, trying to keep the pain out of his voice. 

Shane goes quiet at that and Ilya can’t bear to look at him but when the arms still wrapped around his shoulders hug him a little tighter, he relaxes a bit.

“Are you…serious? You really…wanna talk to my accountant?” Shane asks him then, sounding hesitant and confused.

Ilya can’t blame him, even he doesn’t fully understand why he so eagerly wants to do this. How they went from being nothing more than rivals who fucked to ignoring one another to having this unspoken, probably one-sided, love. 

So he just shrugs again before forcing himself to look Shane in the eye, determination on his face.

“Да. If it will help you. I do not mind,” he tells him, squeezing his hands around Shane’s waist and hoping the physical contact can convey what his words are probably failing to do. 

Shane’s eyes turn into oceans, big and glistening, and Ilya wants to swim in them. 

“I-…but, I mean, how would that even work…what if he recognises your voice, and-…”

Amidst the various concerns Shane lays out, Ilya doesn’t hear a single no. 

He knows then, even while Shane goes on and on about how his parents can just handle it for him or he’ll simply send a well-crafted email, that he’ll let Ilya do it. 

Because if there’s one thing Shane could never say no to, it’s letting Ilya take care of him. 

And for the first time, Ilya wants to prove how much more he can take care of Shane than just his body.

Chapter End Notes

this is just the pre-lude, I'll upload the rest tmr but im just so, so sleepy

+ this was supposed to be just a crack oneshot but then i was in my feels and wrote this prologue and then the epilogue so here we are now

Chapter 2: the mortifying ordeal of public phone calls

Chapter Notes

good morning to me - good afternoon or night, probably, to the rest of you! I really only uploaded the first part last night to have the big things like tagging etc over with but i was so so surprised to find so many responses already oh my god!!! thank u SO much, i love you all. Hope the rest will live up your expectations *nervous chuckle*

we've offically reached the crack of this 'crack treated seriously' au now

Cliff

It's technically a practice like any other, but they can all feel the pressure of the cup slipping between their fingers. Fucking Montreal had been leading consecutively for the past two years, which was annoying enough, but now New York was coming around the corner, with Scott Hunter somehow having the run of a lifetime. 

So they knew today’s practice would be full of grueling backskates, of trying out new plays and probably leaving them limping home. 

(But, well, nothing could be as bad as whatever hell Rozanov had decided to put them through earlier this year; their American trainers nowhere near as terrifying or punishing as the Russian menace they called their captain. No one really knew what had brought that streak on, and what had miraculously ended it, but they only spoke of it in hushed whispers for fear of bringing it back.) 

Speaking of the devil, Cliff was wondering where Rozanov was as he peered at the stall next to his. He wasn’t late yet, but it was unusual for Rozanov not to be one of the first for practice. The kid had a dedicated work ethic he’d deny if anyone ever asked, but Cliff knew that natural talent only got you so far; didn’t make you a legend if you didn’t also put in the work. 

He turned around as one of his teammates called out, "Hey Cap!" and saw Rozanov walk in with a phone to his ear and an unusual bounce in his step. He greeted the teammate by raising his hand, but he quickly covered his mouth with a finger to tell him to keep quiet. 

Having spent his entire life with athletes, Cliff was aware that most of the greatest ones often had their little quirks. Some were neurotic about their pregame rituals, some were superstitious to the point of delusion, and some simply had odd habits that didn't hurt anyone. 

Rozanov’s quirk was his phone. He was so attached to it that it seemed to control his entire life as well as his mental state. While that was true for most people, who use their phone organize their lives and stay in touch with their loved ones, with Rozanov, it always seemed a different level altogether. Cliff had watched for years how it could make or break his captain's mood in a single second. It wasn’t hard to figure out the pattern. 

Messages from random girls that wanted to hook up were followed by a smug smile and mild bragging but never really acknowledged as anything more than the dick appointment that they were. 

Messages from his friend Svetlana were usually accompanied by a happy smile and an invitation to any high-end club of their choice. 

Messages from Russia were followed by a lot of cursing, horrible mood swings for the worse, and self-punishing exercise. 

And then, there were the messages from Canada, of course. Messages from Montreal Girl, more specifically.

Nothing and no one could get Roz as worked up as a single message from Montreal Girl. Much less turn whatever mood he’d been in for the better.

Cliff hadn't been kidding when he had pointed out once how his captain downright blushed at whatever filth that girl was most likely sending his way - because Cliff couldn't think of anything else that could possibly make their captain look so affected. 

“Hey, do you thin-”

Before their line mate could even finish, Rozanov had promptly muted himself from the call and glared at him. 

“I am on phone, shut the fuck up,” he called out, loud enough for anyone else to get the memo. 

Asshole. He was lucky he was the captain and no one really cared about chattering before practice anyways. In addition, most players were still reeling from the phone call he received informing him of his father's passing and were making an effort to show him sympathy. 

After looking at everyone's faces and receiving several eye rolls along with nods of agreement, he smiled cockily before unmuting himself and walking up to his stall next to Cliff.

“So yes, is all taken of. He will not bother you again,” he said in his thick Russian accent. 

He listened to what the other person was replying while unceremoniously dumping his to-go bag on the bench next to Cliff, who, even after all these years, chuckled at his captain's antics. 

“You sound very tense. I did you a favor, no?” 

Cliff gives him a side glance and finds a grin on Rozanov's face that lacks the usual smugness. It reminds him of the kid's rookie season and those few genuine proud smiles he’d show after a hard-earned win right before he’d have to go brag to the media about it.

Rozanov keeps listening while removing his jacket, and his face scrunches up in confusion before rolling his eyes, but the corners of his mouth remain lifted.

"Ugh, you are so dramatic. I did not threaten him!” he says loudly and it sounds like it's not the first time he’s had to say it. 

Cliff huffs a laugh and turns around to find several other team members chuckling. Silence during a phone call in the locker room comes with the price of privacy, something everyone knows. Rozanov doesn’t seem to particularly mind, however. 

“So what? Maybe he just scares easy. Is not my fault he misunderstands,” he continues petulantly while tossing his shoes off. 

Cliff busies himself with shedding the last pieces of clothing, already thinking about if he’ll make use of the team’s masseuse later on or not.

“No, I did not say I would torture and murder him. Who am I, fucking Bravta? Is all lie, he is liar,” Rozanov says with a snort.

Another huff of amusement leaves Cliff, though he is starting to wonder who the hell Rozanov is talking to. If he thinks about it, aside from that awful phone call about his father, the kid never really held any calls in front of them, always leaving the room - though his loud voice could occasionally be heard through the walls, especially if he was shouting in Russian at a family member or something. His phone was his little quirk, after all, and he was usually rather private with it. Huh.

“No, it was also not implied. He misunderstand. Maybe…he was just racist,” Rozanov continues, waving his hand around in the air, which he sometimes did when he couldn’t find the right words.

Cliff's and other people's heads turn toward him, but he doesn’t notice them, standing with his back to the room, allowing only Cliff next to him to watch his face from the side. He’s holding the phone between his shoulder and cheek while unzipping his pants.

“You know, cause of accent. He hears pissed-off Russians through his phone and immediately thinks is mafia. Is very annoying stereotype,” he replies after whoever on the other end must have asked the same question the team had in their eyes.

Rozanov drops his pants and kicks them off before taking the phone in hand again to listen to the other person, looking a bit ridiculous standing there with just his shirt and boxers. 

“Okay, okay, you’re right, not racist but…ceno-…xeno…? Ah, who the fuck cares? Point is he is dumb fuck. Is good he’s out of your life,” he groans. 

Cliff has to suppress his snort as some team members quietly chuckle. The curiosity about who Rozanov is talking to is back, however, because from the one sided context of the call Cliff has gathered, his captain sounds downright protective of the other person, even if he is trying to downplay it.

With what superficial knowledge he knows of Rozanov’s inner circle, he figures it could be that Svetlana chick. Though he suspects they fucked at some point - or are still fucking, who knows - they did always seem to have a rather brotherly-sisterly vibe going on. 

Rozanov turns around and reaches down for his skates inside his bag, stopping mid-action at the words spoken to him on the other line. Cliff watches his face contort in confusion for a moment before he seems downright perplexed.

“Did you just call me ‘white as shit’? The fuck does that even mean?” he replies. 

Right, must be Svetlana then. He chuckles, not thinking much of it and starting to put on his gear over his compression shirt.

“What does all the mayonnaise in my fridge have to do with that?” Rozanov asks incredulously. 

Somewhere on the other side of the room, their teammate Johnson is doing a piss-poor job of hiding his laughter behind a cough, so much so that it makes the corners of Cliff’s mouth lift up.

“Is not proof of anything. Is good Russian mayonnaise, is much better than fucking American ranch they put on everything here!” Rozanov grumbles, sounding downright offended.

“Hey!” Lawrence, who puts ranch on absolutely fucking everything, shouts. 

Rozanov’s eyes widen in panic for a brief second before he quickly mutes himself.

“Shut the fuck up!” he calls out seriously with a cutting motion over his throat. 

It confuses Cliff a bit. Why would Svetlana care if he were talking with her in front of his teammates? She’s met most of them during different parties and it’s not like she and Roz seem to be discussing anything too private. Before he can contemplate it for too long, Roz has already unmuted himself, and the room seems to know better from his expression than to make noise again if they do not want to skate suicides all day.

“Nothing, nothing. Just a teammate passing me by. Am on way to practice…No, he did not hear, do not worry….No, I do not need to hang up yet, is fine…”

Cliff only listens to him half-heartedly as he puts on his gear, but when he turns to look at him again, listening to the other end of the line, he is frozen in place. Because Rozanov had a strikingly familiar expression on his face. One he’d deny even if Cliff held a mirror in front of him

The motherfucker was smiling from ear to ear and definitely, one hundred percent, blushing. 

“Ah, but you know, your pretty skin is much brighter than mine,” he teases.

And oh, that’s definitely not Svetlana. Could it be…?

Rozanov sighs deeply but it’s nothing but fond.

“Yes, I know you’re half, дорогой, I was not born yesterday. Why are we even talking about any of this? Okay, so old man shit himself after the phone call. Point is that the problem is solved and you do not have to worry anymore, yes?” 

Rozanov finally starts putting on his uniform pants, that besotted smile still on his face. 

Just by looking at the familiar expression on his face, Cliff starts to suspect Montreal girl on the other end of the line. He isn’t too sure, though. He hasn't noticed any signs of her in a long time - Rozanov didn't even go to see her the last time they played Montreal - and their captain isn't the type to keep a girl around for that long, with the exception of Svetlana, who is different because she's from his home or whatever. 

Rozanov briefly sets the phone inside his stall before taking his shirt off and then promptly holding it to his ear again. 

“Good. Now what do you say?”

Cliff has to roll his eyes at Rozanov’s smug tone. He truly doesn't want to overhear his captain engaging in foreplay before he’s even had lunch. 

“Hm, yes, that’s better. Next time you see me, you will show me how grateful you are,” he replies with a low voice. Usually, that would lead to a lot of cheering and whooping, but instead the team just starts quietly laughing and making crude gestures. 

Cliff leans forward to grab Rozanov’s jersey to throw it in his face, mouthing the word 'practice' at him. Rozanov just rolls his eyes but unfolds the jersey.

“No, you should definitely ask me to do you favor again. I think it went very well,” he teases into the speaker.

He squeezes the phone between his cheek and shoulder again, lifting the jersey over his head as he continues to talk, a bit distracted now by the multitasking.

“And was good practice, you know, for when I am your husband,” he continues absentmindedly after finally poking his head through the hole of the shirt.

Immediately, the locker room goes dead silent. And so does Rozanov, in fact.

From his position right next to him, Cliff can quite literally see all the color drain out of the kid's face.

Holy shit.

“I mean-...” Roz’ starts after a long stretch of silence, but nothing else comes out. He just stands there, a few strands of his hair, which he’s recently started to wear naturally, out of place from putting on the shirt, an utterly terrified expression on his face. 

Cliff jokingly calls him kid, but Rozanov has never really looked like one, certainly never acted like one. Until now. 

With the stunned silence in the room, Cliff can distantly hear sounds coming from the phone, although too low to really make out anything concrete. No doubt the girl Roz was talking to asking for fucking clarification.

Instead, Rozanov’s eyes just fall shut and he looks downright…defeated. Cliff doesn’t think he’s ever seen that look on his captain's face. Their champion. 

“I…have to go now. Practice is starting. Goodbye.” 

With that, he hangs up.

His arm falls limp to his side and the caller ID flashes them. From the upside-down angle, Cliff can only make out J. 

Right. Cliff had seen that name over Roz' shoulder a hundred times while sitting next to him at airports, team buses, or planes, but had always chosen 'Montreal Girl' because he couldn't be bothered to remember it for the longest time since he thought she was just a flighty thing like all the others. 

Well, looking at their captain now, Jane didn’t seem to be like all the others. She probably never had been.

“Dude,” Lawrence snorts across the room, officially breaking the silence.

“Did you just tell a chick you’re gonna marry her?” he asks. 

A couple of snorts follow, Cliff among them, because the notion seems truly ridiculous, until they break out in laughter.

It’s only when he turns his head towards Rozanov again that the laughter fades because their captain does not only seem to not find it funny but is still wearing that strangely defeated expression on his face

"Ебать," he curses, and perhaps because it's not a shout, grunt, or hiss like usual, but rather this quiet, sad sound which instantly makes Cliff sober up.

With the phone still clutched to his hand, Rozanov slowly takes a seat on the bench and puts his head in his hands. 

Cliff experiences a brief flash of panic and turns to his teammates with wide eyes, making a frantic cutting motion across his throat.

 One by one, their laughter dies, smiles frozen awkwardly on faces as they all realize their captain’s demeanor.

Before anyone can say anything, the phone lights up with another call.

“Fuck!” Rozanov then calls out, lifting his head only to shut it off and then throw it into his bag, his head back in his hands as he braces his elbows on his knees and rocks forward while groaning.

The Bears have seen their captain frustrated, of course; hockey was a frustrating sport -  but never like this. In fact, they’ve never seen him chicken out from something, especially not something as ordinary as calling your girl back. 

“Come on, man. It was just a…slip of the tongue,” Cliff tries to say helpfully, though his confusion is detectable even to his own ears. 

He doesn’t really get what the big deal is. Sure, saying that to a girl and not meaning it can be a fucking headache, but Rozanov looks even more devastated than when he got actual devastating fucking news in this lockerroom.

All of this felt like…uncharted territory. 

He claps a hand to Roz’ shoulder, who quickly shoves him off.

“Fuck you! Is not ‘just’-” he starts but stops himself, groaning deeply as he scrunches his face up, his hand coming up to rub over his temple.

Their teammates are all throwing confused looks at the captain and then at Cliff, who surveys Roz to make sure he isn’t looking at him before simply mouthing his suspicion of what was causing this. Montreal Girl.

“Holy shit, you were talking to Montreal Girl?” Johnson calls out and yup, Cliff will have to ask Coach to trade that bastard.

Montreal Girl had, of course, become a team inside joke fairly quickly. Their captain wasn't the type to keep a girl in every port, as people assumed, since it would be "too much work to maintain" in his own words; it was easier for him to go to a club and pick up someone anonymously. His unwavering commitment to meeting Montreal Girl quickly became a glaringly obvious contrast. 

At Johnson’s words, Roz’s head snaps up and goes through about 50 different emotions. 

Confusion, something like fear that turns into terror, which becomes tangible regret.

He doesn’t give an answer, just groans again and puts his face into his hands.

“I am so fucked,” he laments, more to himself than to them.

“Jeez, you really got it bad, huh, Cap?” Cliff tries to say sympathetically, though there’s a twinge of bemusement underneath it he hopes can't be detected. He’s been teasing Roz about the same girl for years now, after all, and even if his captain seems to be malfunctioning at the moment, the situation overall has a twinge of humor in in.

Talk about a Freudian slip.

“Look, maybe it’s time you face the music,” he continues, looking between Roz and their teammates who are nodding at him encouringly.

“Face the…huh?” Roz asks, lifting his head from his hands to frown at Cliff exasperatedly.

Okay, here goes nothing. It’s not like Rozanov ever shies away from tough love; maybe it’s what he’ll respond to as well.

“I am talking about how it’s time to put on your big boy pants and admit that your Montreal girl isn’t just a casual fuck to you but that you have…feelings for her. Big shit type of feelings, bro. I mean, you basically just proposed-”

“I did not!”

“Look, just admit that you’re in love with her!” 

Roz's whole face just…flattens then. Entirely serious.

It’s downright eerie. 

They watch as he leans back into his stall, his head hitting the wall with a small thud while he closes his eyes.

“Marleau, of course I am in love with her,” he finally says, the words leaving him like a heavy sigh.

And well, if that doesn’t suck the entire air out of the room. Because holy fucking shit.

“What?” Cliff only manages to creak out, genuinely shocked at the admission 

“I have been for years. That was never issue.” Rozanov sighs, rubbing a hand over his face like he was trying to massage a headache out of it. 

Cliff casts a look over the room, which is watching in equally stunned silence. Any pretense of putting on gear or minding their business has long since ceased, the attention now solely on their captain and his re-enactment of The Notebook.

“So what’s…the issue?” Cliff asks awkwardly.

He’s not adapted at this, he realizes painfully. Probably none of them are. This really isn’t usual lockerroom talk. Even if they're teammates who spend almost the entire year together, that doesn't mean they're qualified to hold each other's hands through a relationship crisis or any other type of emotional turmoil. Least of all Rozanov, who they generally assumed was all about fast cars, fast girls, and fast money.

(But apparently hiding away an almost decade now - holy shit - one-sided love. Fuck, that Jane chick must be fucking something.) 

“Is none of your busine-”

Before Rozanov can finish, Michaels is suddenly abandoning his gear before marching over, shaking his arms widely infront of him.

“Okay. No. Nope. Sorry. I am not going to take another 4 to 6 months of whatever that hell was of you in a bad mood. My entire body is already sore from playoffs. This is officially a class discussion now and we will fix this before we’re hitting the ice today.”

Damn. Balls of steel. Cliff thinks with respect.

Expectantly, Rozanov’s face twists in indignation.

“Fuck of-”

“Listen, asshole, if you don’t want your shit out in the open then don’t take phone calls in the fucking locker room,” Micheals continues and it feels like for the first time, he’s pulling out the ‘I’m the oldest of this team and too tired for your shit’ card he’s always secretly held up his sleeve, something even Rozanov had quietly respected. 

It takes a long, tense moment, in which Rozanov and Michaels are having a stare-off, until the Russian simply closes his eyes again with a heavy sigh.

“Fine.”

Michaels just nods, ignoring the looks of his teammates who are either appreciative or thinking ‘why the hell couldn’t you have reigned him in earlier?’

“So, what is the big deal about telling that woman you are going to marry her if you are so in love with her? I mean, you said ‘one day’, not ‘tommorrow’. Chicks usually love that crap,” Michaels says and Cliff admires how he manages not to come across as condescending or mocking. 

Rozanov groans, looking up at the ceiling so he doesn’t have to meet any of the eyes of his teammates who are slowly approaching since Michaels declared this a ‘class discussion.’

“It’s…complicated…we’re…fuck…” he tries, and for once Cliff can’t tell if he’s struggling with the English or simply his emotions.
“Come on, man, you can do it,” he encourages, patting Roz’s thigh once as he sits next to him on the bench. 

“Fuck! We’re not even dating, okay? Fucking hell!” Roz blurts out, promptly shoving Cliff’s hand off him.

Micheals seems to process this, as do the rest of them.  

“Okay, so you are not even dating…but you just told her you-...” he starts, then his eyes go wide. 

"Well, shit.”

“Jeez, Cap.”

“Fucking hell, Roz”

Though Cliff is also astonished at the fact that Rozanov basically proposed marriage to a woman he’s not even dating, that fact in itself confuses him even more. Because, come to think of it, Roz hasn't seen much action lately, at least not at the after-game parties. And he’s apparently doing fucking couply shit with that Jane, like calling on the phone with her in the middle of the day. Not to mention apparently threatening people on her behalf.

Holy shit, Rozanov got it bad.

“But if you love her, why no-” he begins to ask but Rozanov cuts him off.

“Do you not think if I could be with her, I would be? But I cannot. Is why.” he grumbles.

“I mean, I get she’s from Canada, but I’m sure there’s ways, even if long distance sucks-”

“No…is not reason. Well, not entire reason. She…does not want to. Not like that, anyways. How could she, she is too good for-...fuck.”

He leans forward again, his head in his hands and now it’s just…sad.

“Fuck my life,” he mutters and Cliff’s heart aches for the kid, even if he feels out of depth with the situation. Usually, if a teammate was down, they’d just talk big about going out to some club and getting him laid, but this seems like quite literally the opposite of the solution. He’s not sure Roz’ dick would even work for anyone but that Jane chick anymore with how pathetically down bad he seems to be right now.  

“Look, Roz’, she’s been dealing with you for years. I mean, you might be surprised, she’s probably fucking thrilled you finally got your head out of your ass! Maybe she was waiting for you this entire time!” Micheals encourages, chuckling afterwards along with a few teammates.

Rozanov leans back again, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“She will not be,” he says with a shake of his head, his eyes cast down to his bag where his phone is lying.

“How can you be so sure?” someone asks.

“Last time-...No. I will not tell. This has been enough. No more. Let’s just go to fucking practice and-” he says while trying to get up but Micheals presses him back with a hand to his shoulder. 

“Hey, dickhead, I said class discussion, no? Look, you’ve got an entire panel of experience at your disposal right now. Jackson, married. Lawrence, engaged. Houston, serial monogamists. Marlaeu, Hendricks, Carmichael, fuckboys. Now let us fucking help you."

The few offended "Hey's," one from Cliff, are ignored in favor of watching Rozanov frown and chew his lips as he considers whether to give up more information.

Though Cliff knows he’s not really one for girl talk, like feelings and shit, he is a bit of a gossip. He’s practically on the edge of his seat to know more about Cap and Montreal girl’s relationship, especially after so many years. 

"Look, I will know she will not like it because last time I…went over agreed…boundary…. She did not take it well,” Rozanov explained slowly. Cliff immediately cringed.

“Jesus Christ, what did you do? Did you try to put something inside her that she wasn’t cool wi-”

“What? No, you asshole! I just tried to have more than casual fuck and she freak out and got  a fucking gir-boyfriend!”

“Oh, that suc-” Cliff starts, but is interrupted by Micheals, who suddenly stands up very straight.

“Wait…when was this?” he asks carefully, squinting at Rozanov like he’s trying to figure something out.

“What?”

“When did that happen?” Micheals repeats, accentuating each word with a hand gesture. 

“Why does it mat-”

Micheals sighs deeply, the kind of sigh only a parent can manage. 

“Please don’t tell me 5 months ago,” he grinds out while pinching the bridge of his nose.

Cliff frowns at his teammate's sudden attitude until he actually thinks back to five months and it slowly starts to dawn on him. 

“Wha-...yeah, so?” Rozanov confirms.

Micheals lets out an incredulous laugh that borders on hysterical and the team takes another minute to catch up until they all finally reach the same conclusion.

Rozanov was putting us through hell because his Montreal Girl had left him. 

“I can’t believe I genuinely had to book a session with the team’s psychiatrist because some chick named Jane in Canada was fucking someone else,” Lawrence mutters. 

“You are exaggerating,” Rozanov dismisses, seemingly aware of what they were referring to.

“You made Carmichael cry,” someone pointed out, which earned them an eyeroll.

“He is pussy."

“Hey!”

“Go cry about it, pussy.”

“Okay, let’s go back to-”

Just then, the door to their locker room slams open, and if the loud noise doesn't make them flinch, then the absolute fury on their coach’s face as he marches in does.

“WHY THE FUCK IS NO ONE ON THE ICE YET?”

There’s a brief silence in which they all seem to take in their various stages of being half-dressed, with equipment strewn throughout the room, abandoned, as they all stand in a circle around Roz. 

Nobody is brave enough to speak up, and Coach does that thing where he blows air out of his nose so forcefully that his nostrils flare, and then Johnson suddenly points at Rozanov.  

“Captain accidentally told his Montreal Girl he wants to be her husband even though they’re not even dating and we’re not sure if she even wants him for more than his dick,” he rushes out in one breath.

Several heads turn to stare at him incredulously and Cliff thinks there is genuine murder (and sorrow) in Rozanov’s eyes. They all hold their breath when they look back at Coach, whose face scrunches up, to await his response. 

His eyes assess the situation the same way they do when he can’t figure out why a power play isn’t working until he stands up straight, his posture loosening. He gives a curt nod, looking straight at Rozanov.

“Ten minutes and then I will see you on the ice,” he simply says before turning around and walking out.

Well, that’s that.

Practice obviously went shit. Hockey is a team sport. One player, arguably one of the most important players, distracted? Yeah.

They’ve long learned that Rozanov doesn’t really get sad or quiet like other people do when something's wrong. He just gets frustrated. Which, the more time he spends on the ice, turns into anger. And gone was the quietly defeated boy they saw in the locker room.

The equipment manager will have to order a new goal, three new hockey sticks and about a dozen new pucks just after his practice. At one point, Cliff genuinely thought Roz was just going to stomp on them with his skates, split them in half and then trample them to dust. Or maybe chew them between his teeth like gum. Instead, he just shot them so hard he broke the goal post. 

So yeah. Being back in the locker room, they kept their mouths shut. No more group therapy, just painfully awkward silence under the pretense of being too exhausted to chat. 

Cliff was keeping an eye on him out of the corner of his eye, wondering - and perhaps secretly hoping - that if he simply turned his phone back on, a message from Jane might magically lift his spirits, as it had done countless times before. Cliff really didn’t want a repeat of that hellscape that was earlier this year.

Their teammates continued to cast long-suffering glances at Roz as well, watching as he stood at his stall, hands clenched into fists against the wooden frame, trying to control his breathing. 

Fucking Jane. 

If Cliff wasn’t so fucking intrigued and slightly impressed by whatever magic that girl must possess to reduce Rozanov down to this, he’d be calling her every fucking name in the book right now. 

Just then, the door to their locker room swung open, and Miranda, one of the arena’s staff, walked in. Cliff never really remembered what her job title was precisely, she was just kind of one of those people that did everything. From filling water bottles to providing information of any kind, handing out paychecks, and, most importantly, answering the phone - all with a justified 'I don't get paid enough for this shit.' The players all referred to her as the arena's secretary, but no one dared to say it in front of her for fear of sounding sexist, and also because really you don't want to piss off Miranda. She was quite the character, as you would expect in such a testosterone-filled environment. They all respected her enough not to even try to fuck her, which says a lot. 

She walks in with a grin, unconcerned about the various stages of undress, and laughed at a few outraged yelps from the partially naked players.

“Put your dicks away, gentlemen. I got a new message,” she declares, holding up her yellow notepad and grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

Some members, who’ve been on the end of Miranda’s personal brand of public humilitation, groaned lightly while others, Cliff among them, chuckled, glad for the change in the otherwise tense atmosphere. Rozanov didn’t rouse, but he was probably the most respectful towards Miranda, so he also didn’t tell her to fuck off.

“Now, this is a special one, fellas. Because after years and years of relaying the calls from your puck bunnies, or wives, or girlfriends, or your wives who are asking about your girlfriends, from almost each and every one of you, we finally, at last, for the first time ever, got one for the captain himself,” she declares proudly, still holding up the sticky pad like it was the Olympic torch.

Everyone's eyes instantly turn to Rozanov, who spins around, appearing just as shocked as them. Because the thing about Miranda and the calls was that the telephone in her office was very much on a restricted access, authorized personnel only basis. It wasn’t like any Boston fan or random hookup from yesterday at the bar could just call the arena hotline and get through to the actual players. So the players only gave Miranda's number out to either immediate family or women they were actually seeing as a “if you ever need to reach me at work” scenario.

Miranda laughs at Rozanov's disbelief, walking into the center of the room to position herself before making a show of looking down at the message and shaking her head with a "Tsk."

"You better practice those frog stretches ‘Cap, ‘cause it sounds to me like if you want to keep this girl, you’re going to have to get on your hands and knees. You really pissed this Jane chick off, huh?” she chuckles.

Holy fuck. Jane had called the arena?

Fuck. This was prime gossip. Cliff can’t fucking wait to debrief this shit with his mother and sister, from whom he had inherited the trait. 

“Jane called?” Rozanov breathes, disbelief clear on his face, followed by something that looked almost like fear. 

Well, he had disconnected the call and then shut his phone off. Cliff wasn’t one for relationships, but from the several fuck-ups of his colleagues and thanks to Miranda’s little sadism, he knew there was nothing scarier than a woman with a backbone chewing you out for being a piece of shit

“Well, not directly. Her assistant called. He was very polite but boy, did he have a detailed message. Makes me wonder if she wrote it all out for him to read,” Miranda answers with a snort.

Assistant? From the chicks Roz usually fucked, Cliff hadn’t thought he’d be into high-career-powered women. Well, she could probably still have an assistant as a model or something, but somehow he doubted it. Rozanov’s Jane had always been different from all his other girls after all. 

He briefly wondered if perhaps she was famous, and that was the big deal, but he couldn’t think of any big or small female celebrities permanently living in Montreal of all places. The most famous person there was probably Shane Hollander.

Oh well. A mystery to be solved. 

“Now, here goes nothing,” Miranda keeps going, loudly clearing her throat before holding the pad in front of her. 

“Fuck you, Rozanov. I can’t believe you just hung up on me after that. And then to shut your phone off? I know you did because my calls are not even going through. Fuck. You. You’re such a piece of shit. I don’t know why I even put up with you. I hate you. Weren’t you all ‘I love confrontation, especially over phone’? And now I have to jump through fucking hoops to call Boston fucking management, which means I’ll probably have to flush my fucking phone down the toilet after this. I really can’t believe you. I hate that you’re making me do this. You’re the fucking chicken, I hope you know this. Go fuck yourself with your stick. I hope you get fucking destroyed when you play Buffalo tomorrow because that’s the only thing more embarrassing than what you just did and you deserve a public humiliation. Asshole.” 

Miranda made a pause to catch her breath after peeling off her third sticky note of Jane’s lengthy message. Cliff, as well as the rest of the lockerroom, just stood there in stunned silence. Because yes, girlfriends had called to cuss players out before, but this was fucking Rozanov, their larger-than-life, scary Russian captain, who quite genuinely had girls falling over themselves to jump into bed with him. Along with the small glimpse into the hopeless , apparently one-sided relationship between him and Jane they just heard about, that message just seemed like the worst possible thing to happen. 

And Jeez, that chick sure had a mouth on her.

They all stared at Rozanov, who was blinking at Miranda before rubbing another tired hand over his face.

“Yeah, sounds like my Jane,” he said…fondly. Cliff could even make out a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Well, Cliff would never have thought that Roz would be into a girl that would talk down to him, but to each their own. He probably needed someone to keep him in check, and his Jane sure seemed capable of that. 

Miranda took another deep breath and ripped off another note before briefly glancing up.

“I then asked the very polite and honestly kind-of-attractive-sounding–if-he-wasn’t-based-in -fucking-Montreal assistant if his boss had anything else to say to you and it was just this; “Yes, thank you. Tell him that she said it’s fine if he didn’t mean it. We all speak before we think sometimes, and even though his English has gotten really fucking good - which she is proud of him for, even though she never says it -  its still his second language. She won't mention it ever again if he doesn't want her to. But if you could ask him something for her, I’d be extremely gr-...’ Jesus, I had to start squeezing all that on there at that point, fucking Canadians. Okay, point is, Jane is asking if you’ll come to her cottage this summer,” Miranda continued with a shrug, as unbothered as usual. 

Cliff was so, so confused. 

They all turn to look at Rozanov, holding their breaths and sharing the same question of ‘What does that mean?'

After a short silence, Rozanov just huffs a quiet laugh before turning around and finally, finally powering his phone up again. Each player quickly turns back around, pretending to go back to minding their own business while shooting wary glances at each other.

When a teammate asks him a few weeks later if he’ll go to Russia again for the summer and instead of the usual snippy response, he just smiles with a light shrug, the Boston Bears all exhale a collective breath of deep relief.

Whoever this Jane chick is, Cliff can’t fucking wait to meet her at the wedding.

Chapter End Notes

ilya no filter rozanov strikes again, he just wants to be wifed up SO bad you guys its embarassing

Chapter 3: Epilogue

Chapter Notes

i want to say here that recently i've gotten more and more comments of people saying they are reading through all my works after enjoying whatever story they found and to all of you i just want to say um HI THANK YOU I LOVE U SM? THANK U FOR COMING BACK. It rlly is such an honor to me bc i know for myself i only go through mutiple works of an author if i rlly enjoyed how they write smth or their ideas so this means the world to me. i am so glad to do smth other ppl can enjoy, writing rlly gets me out of my head and if i can brighten up someones bad day or bring a smile to someones face it truly encourages me to keep going, i love ur comments and smile at all of them

Ilya knew since the cottage that it was hopeless to try to contain that stupid grin that seemed to be permanently stretched across his face now, so when he saw himself in the reflection of his own sleek front door and thought  “I look like an idiot” he simply accepted it. 

At least he was an idiot utterly in love.

He almost skips into his own house, his pulse thrumming with excitement even though it’s been close to a week now. He actively has to suppress the urge to shout out “Моя любовь, I’m home,” because he doesn’t want to become a complete cliché just yet, but it was getting harder day by day.

When he walks down the hallway and sees the object of his affection sitting right in sight by the giant table in his kitchen, however, he stops in his tracks.

"Sweetheart, no," he says quickly, concerned, placing the grocery bags full of boring, healthy, Shane-approved snacks and dinner ingredients on his equally massive kitchen island before walking up to the table.

He was by Shane's side before the other even had a chance to turn around, which he wasn't supposed to do with the sling still on anyway to avoid disturbing his shoulder.

“Hey,” Shane breathes as he looks up at Ilya, his gorgeous face finally coming into view.

Ilya's concern is temporarily alleviated by the fact that his boyfriend is wearing the fucking glasses. He immediately takes Shane's face in his hands and kisses him, which serves as both a greeting and a way to quell the hunger that has been building up inside him all day. 

God, Ilya had never dreamed there could be a world in which he’d come home to kiss Shane Hollander hello.

When they finally part ways, mainly because Ilya was afraid of making Shane uncomfortable with the angle, Shane simply smiles at him and lets out a pleased little hum, looking so so happy, content, and at peace. He’s the most beautiful thing Ilya’s ever seen. 

He's wearing one of Ilya's hoodies, despite the fact that he has plenty of his own here, thanks to a silent agreement they've had since the cottage that they enjoy sharing clothes. And, most importantly, seeing each other wear their clothes.

“You should not be up,” Ilya scolds after drinking in his fill of the sight of his cozy boyfriend, the reprimand softened by the kiss he places between Shane’s brows.

“Ugh,” Shane grumbles, leaning back in the chair. Ilya chuckles at his antics, squatting down next to Shane's chair to be level with him and placing an arm over the backrest. He cups Shane's cheek and runs his thumb over the freckles, which still had a red hue to them, opening his mouth to retell him the doctors' orders when he notices something in the corner of his eye. He looks over and sees that nearly the whole table is covered in papers with yellow sticky tabs all over them.

“What is this?” he asks, concerned. 

Shane places his good hand in Ilya's hair and massages his scalp, causing him to close his eyes and hum with satisfaction. God, he loves when Shane plays with his hair, even if it reduces him to the image of a dog wagging his tail at getting pets.

“Just paperwork. How was practice? You stopped slamming Marleau into the boards every 5 minutes yet?” Shane replies softly, still massaging his scalp. 

“It was fine. And Marleau deserves it. Today, we-” Ilya leans happily into his touch until he realizes he is being actively distracted, at which point he opens his eyes and stands up again.

“No, no. You should be lying down, still. And no paperwork, doctor's orders. Up,” he demands, making the motion with his hand.

Shane groans, scrunching his face up adorably before pouting up at Ilya.

“All I’ve been doing is lying down. First the hospital and now you won’t let me move. I’m going crazy. At least let me do this. It’s perfectly fine, the doctor just said to avoid screens. She said nothing about no paperwork," he whines, and Ilya does his best to keep his expression disapproving, even though all he wants to do is press a thousand little kisses to Shane's face and give him everything he asks for.

“You can confirm it with my discharge papers,” Shane snickers at Ilya’s expression.

He sighs and squats down again beside him.

“I do not need to. I was there at your discharge. Where I promise Yuna I take care of my little Shanebug,” he teases, taking Shane’s face into his hands once more to squish his cheeks.

Shane rolls his eyes, though the little smile on his lips tells Ilya he’s close to establishing the pet name. Shane had let his childhood nickname slip in his slightly drugged state after his parents had entered his hospital room and Ilya simply had not been able to let it go since.

Naturally, he had been absolutely terrified when his boyfriend had been laid out on the ice in front of him - by his own teammate, no less. What a fucking way to begin his final Bears season. Despite, however, the awful circumstances, he couldn't deny that he had loved having Shane here ever since.

It had been a slight miracle to him when Shane’s parents had been okay with the idea, uncomfortable with making their hurt son fly with a concussion. While they had met a few more times during his stay at the cottage, and Ilya knew they had accepted their relationship, it still surprised him that they had allowed him to keep Shane here until he was ready to fly back to Canada. 

But perhaps when they had entered Shane’s hospital room and saw Ilya sitting right by his side, holding his hand in his own and pressing insistent kisses to it while probably looking like absolute shit, who hadn't slept since the game, they saw for the first time the love their son had so fiercely spoken of and defended all summer.

So with Shane’s parents' approval and a stretch of home games for Boston, Ilya was allowed to take care of him. And oh, how he relished this little reclaiming of the domesticity they had back at the cottage, even if Shane had mostly been asleep or complaining about being bored from being forced to lie still and uncomfortable with his restricted mobility. Ilya made it his mission to make it all better and well, Shane had always been good for him, so being a good patient came naturally to him.

“I know you are restless, but it is important to heal, yes? And you have probably been running around and doing whatever this is since I am gone, so now is time to rest again. Maybe you can nap while I prepare dinner. I might even wake you up nicely if you are good for me now,” he prompts because, well, Shane had always bent to his will under the promise of affection and he wasn’t above using that weapon in his arsenal. 

Shane’s interest was definitely piqued, his eyes dropping to Ilya’s mouth almost instantly as he swallowed.

“Yeah? How ‘nicely’ will you wake me up?” he asks, his voice breathy in a way Ilya knows his words are affecting him the way they were supposed to.

He moves closer to Shane until his lips are hovering over his, humming to himself as he pretends to consider it.

"Well, the doctor said no physical activity, but I think if you lie on your back and don't move your shoulder too much, there are many, many nice things I could do to you," he whispers suggestively, turning his head to give Shane a barely-there kiss on the corners of his mouth. 

They haven’t had sex since Shane’s injury for obvious reasons and they were both starting to get a little restless. While they were cuddling and kissing on the couch yesterday, Shane attempted to start something by putting his hands inside Ilya's sweatpants and claiming that he had "one good arm left." However, Ilya was too worried to cause Shane any harm by unintentionally aggravating his injury, even though he knew he would be cautious, so he put a stop to it.

Ilya's suggestion is met with Shane's charming smile, which is enough for him to kiss him properly. Usually, he’d tease him a bit more, linger over his lips and kiss him everywhere but his mouth to build up the tension. But Shane was wearing Ilya's personal Kryptonite on his face, and he had just spent 5 hours at practice with all of his thoughts focused on the beautiful man waiting for him at home.

"Can't we skip the nap and get right to that?" Shane mumbles against his lips after they separate for a moment, smiling into the next kiss Ilya presses to his lips.

“Hm, no,” Ilya says decisively, swallowing Shane’s annoyed groan with a smile of his own.

They keep exchanging kisses, still sweet and tender despite the lingering desire thrumming underneath both their skin. Ilya had kissed Shane Hollander a thousand times, and he could never grow tired of it, even though his knees are aching from his crouching position and the angle, with Shane still in that sling, is slightly off and pulling on his neck.

“I need-” Shane breathes but Ilya interrupts him by slipping his tongue inside his mouth. 

He eventually turns his head to kiss down Shane's neck, who easily grants him access, his ministrations becoming softer the closer he gets to the strap of the sling around Shane's shoulder before kissing his way up again, nibbling at Shane's earlobe.

Shane's breathing becomes ragged, and he lets out pretty sounds of contentment, his good hand returning to Ilya's curls to keep him close, encouraging Ilya to suck a hickey into the spot behind his ear that Ilya loves kissing. 

 “There’s something I need…” Shane says shakily, cutting himself off with a pant, when Ilya releases the skin between his teeth and soothes the spot he'd just sucked on with his tongue. He smiles against Shane's skin, the hand resting on Shane's thighs slowly moving up to his crotch. 

"I know what you need, sweetheart," he thinks.

“Something only you can give me,” Shane continues, tugging at Ilya’s curls once.

Ilya's grin turns smug as he pulls away from Shane, his gaze lingering briefly on the red spot his mouth has left behind before settling on Shane's beautiful eyes, the edges of which have already begun to become glassy.

"Yes?" he asks slowly, reaching out to place Shane's chin between his fingers, letting his thumb run over the bottom lip and applying only the slightest bit of pressure, not yet pushing inside even if he wants to. But because his spit slickened lips just look too pretty, he can’t help himself but reach forward and press a kiss to them, connecting their lips once more before pulling back with a deeply satisfied hum on his own. God, he’s so in love. Maybe he could fuck Shane before his nap and then make dinner, that way Shane might actually rest well and he’d have something to hold him over until he could get him in his arms again after they ate and-

“Your social security number.”

Ilya blinks at Shane, frowning as if he has misheard him.

Shane laughs at his dumbstruck expression, the sound like a bell to Ilya’s ears.

“I need it for your visa application. I’m not sleepy yet and mostly done, anyways, so I’ll just finish this up and then I promise I’ll take a quick nap, if just to make you feel better. Then, I can send it back to my mom and we-”

“Shane, sweetheart, slow down, yes? What visa application, wh-”

Ilya then turns to take a proper look at the thousand papers strewn across his kitchen table, seeing forms upon forms. 

“See, the sticky notes are where I either still need your signature or some personal information. I could only get so far with your name and date of birth. Oh, if you could also grab your American work visa, that’d be great; it needs to be attached to the application for the Canadian one,” Shane continues seriously, running his hand through Ilya’s curls one last time before going back into business mode, turning towards the table and reaching for some paper.

Ilya examined all of the forms on the table before focusing on Shane's serious expression, reeling from the sudden change and attempting to ignore the semi-hard-on he was sporting in his pants.

“My love, you do not need to do this. Is what I have agent for,” he tells him slowly, not able to keep the fond exasperation out of his voice.

"Your agent is shit, you should switch to mine. It’ll make things easier with the charity and everything else anyways. The contract for that is here somewhere as well. Farah’s wage is a bit more, but you can afford it, even after you switch to the Centaurs. It’ll only start once you’re in Ottawa, which gives you enough time to break the contract with your current agent,” he says seriously, reaching for another set of papers and turning them over.

Ilya has questions, many of them, in fact. He starts with the one that scared him the most.

“How many papers to go through are there?”

Shane leans back a bit, a cute frown on his face.

“Huh, I didn’t count. There’s the application for your work visa, which requires your contract with the Cens, which is this one. I wanted to fill out the tax registration as well, but those need a permanent address, so after you’re done looking at houses in Ottawa, we can send that in. Then there’s Farah’s contract, an emergency contact form that also sets a medical proxy for the hospital, just in case, and just some minor forms that need to be attached to the visa application,” he explained, pointing at all the different papers.

“Ah,” came Ilya’s curt response. 

“You really were bored.”

Shane huffs a laugh through his nose, turning around to face him again. 

He expects Shane to call him an asshole or give some long-winded explanation about liking paperwork and how Ilya could go to jail or be deported if he didn't file taxes correctly a year in advance, but instead he sees that familiar determination he knows from years of face-offs simmering in Shane's loving gaze. Then, his face softens, adopting that familiar expression of fondness mixed with mild embarrassment, which Ilya has seen in hundreds of hotel rooms over the years. An expression he was extremely fond of that was so quintessentially Shane, his heart always on his sleeve.

“I just want to take care of this for you,” he said after finally deciding on the words in his head, his eyes not quite meeting Ilya’s but also not able to look away from him.

And Ilya…knows the feeling. Deeply, intimately. He wants to take care of Shane all the time, after all. Forever, if he’s allowed to.

But it still leaves him breathless for a moment, just as it has every time Shane has shown his care for him in the cottage or in the years before. Needs a second to catch up to the fact that he has this now.

He cups Shane’s face in both his hands, smiling at him like he can’t quite believe he’s real and that he gets to hold him. Which sometimes he still can’t.

“Я тебя люблю,” he says, his voice heavy with emotion as it is every time he says it.

Shane tries to repeat it, and while the syllables are slightly distorted and hit his ears incorrectly, it is still the most beautiful sound Ilya ever heard.

So he relents. Agrees to sign all of the little spots marked X for the time being - but manages to convince them both to take a nap after that. He always craves one after those waves of big feelings wash over him and practice has also exhausted him. 

Shane is overjoyed, even more so when Ilya takes the chair next to his that is spaced out way too far apart, so he simply places his hand under Shane's seat and pulls him close to his side, sealing their new proximity with a kiss on his cheek. 

“...and here....”

Ilya just nods, singing away where Shane directs him to. He didn't intend to be involved in his immigration process, preferring to pay someone to handle it for him. He was more concerned with finding the new perfect house for him in Ottawa, one that was close to the arena and Shane's parents and, most importantly, would appeal to Shane's specific Mr. Landlord preferences. Because, if everything went as Ilya hoped, his new house might one day become their home. 

He had learned during the summer that some dreams could become true, after all.

“-...alright, and after 3 years you can apply for permanent residency. We can decide then if we should take that course, but it would make getting a marriage license down the line easier, I think. It’s not like here where you’re granted immediate citizenship when you’re married, and if we do it before the 3 years, we’ll have to give proof of serious relationship, which is a bit complicated with us, so after you gain residency, we can-”

Ilya’s ears had started ringing after hearing the words "marriage license." Frankly, the word 'marriage,' spoken oh so casually out of Shane Hollander's mouth, was enough to cause something inside his chest to collapse in a way that an EKG machine would most likely read as a heart attack.

Shane notices quickly that Ilya has stopped responding, sitting stiff as a board in his chair and staring at him with wide eyes.

“What?” he asks.

If Ilya's entire body didn't feel like he was on a rollercoaster, during that crucial moment when you're suspended in the air just before it drops you, the anticipation rising, he'd coo over the fact that Shane had been so distracted that he missed the cue again.

Ilya has to swallow before speaking, and his throat feels like sandpaper. There are a thousand questions running through his mind, the majority of which originate from a place he never wants to visit.

Do you really want that? With me? Am I good enough? What if you change your mind? How could I ever deserve you? 

In the end, all he can say is “marriage?" and it's probably the heaviest a word had felt on his tongue since saying "Yes" to Shane's invitation to the cottage.

Shane blinks at him, once, twice. If this had been the younger version of him, the one Ilya had tried and failed so hard not to love, he would have blushed, stammered, and tried to take it back.

But this Shane knew what he wanted and went after it.

And by some divine intervention, perhaps retribution for all the pain in his childhood, Shane wanted Ilya.

As Shane studies him, his bewilderment soon gives way to something akin to understanding, which then turns into the steely resolve Ilya has always silently admired in him.

“I think ahead, Rozanov.”

And Ilya is…overcome. He falls forward, and if there had been any space between them, he’d probably have sunken to his knees to pray at the altar that was Shane. 

Rather, he buries his head into his lap and, in between sobs, mumbles poetry to him in Russian that Shane is still unable to understand but must comprehend the intention of anyhow.

After a while, he gathers himself with the help of Shane's reassurances and caressing hand in Ilya’s hair. 

He takes both of Shane’s hands in his and starts kissing them like he’s thanking him for existing.

And Shane may know what he wants and ask for it now, but the doubt inside him will most likely never fully go away, just as the dark corners of Ilya's mind will most likely remain there no matter how much light Shane brings to his life.

“You…want it too, right? I know we said you’d move to Canada to give us a chance and see if we work out, but I mean, you wouldn’t risk everything for just that, a chance, right? And that one time, during a phone call, when I had to reach the aren-”

It's ridiculous and immediately breaks Ilya's heart that Shane still has no idea just how much Ilya loves him.

"Listen to me, Hollander, because I am only going to say this once," he says, ocean eyes meeting chocolate ones and holding their gaze with utmost determination.

“You are the love of my life. Only one I have ever loved. And ever will. Yes?”

Shane's face cracks open then, as vulnerable as Ilya's, and he tells him the same is true for him. But like always, he needs just one last reassurance, which Ilya will always give to him.

“And you will be happy? With me? Even after all this?” he asks through his tears, nodding towards the table at the million papers, referring to the thousand obstacles in their way.

“I will be happy with you, always, even if we are just doing boring taxes until the end of our lives.”

To Ilya, at least spiritually, that will always be the day they married. Because what was marriage if not making the conscious decision to be together forever? He didn’t need licenses or rings or ceremonies to make it official. Shane, real and his, was enough for him. Always would be.

Later in bed that night, Shane’s beautiful eyes are misty while he strokes over Ilya’s cheeks, so full of wonder and love and the same kind of desperation Ilya had quietly thought for years only he carried with him.

“Please don’t say it just once, okay? Say it to me all the time. For the rest of our lives,” he pleads in a whisper. Ilya just smiles, understands him immediately, and takes Shane’s hand in his to press a kiss to his ring finger. It’s the easiest thing he's ever agreed to.

Forever, then.

Chapter End Notes

this fic was initially supposed to be called "love of my life" bc to me personally thats one of the most romantic things you can call someone in any language but I am still happy with the title bc it applies so well to the love ilya has for shane

anyways, i hope u enjoyed...whatever this is! these random ideas rlly just come to my mind and then i yap and write more words than necessary but if just one person can enjoy them i am happy so xxx