Summary:

"No," Shane said again, a minute or so later. "No?" Ilya mumbled against Shane's skin. "Not good," Shane said petulantly. Ilya pulled his face away from Shane's shoulders and opened his eyes, though he couldn't make out much. Some horrible realization was building in his chest, and he wasn't sure he wanted to see it clearly. Still, he asked, "You're not good?" Shane sighed like he was in pain. "Not good enough." Or Ilya reminds Shane how good he is. Playing with Shane was electric. Ilya had gotten a taste for it during their All-Stars game in Florida, when they'd finally been put on the same team for the first time in their competitive careers, but that was nothing compared to playing for the Ottawa Centaurs together. Ilya was the captain, but sometimes it felt like they shared the position. Their other teammates certainly treated Shane with enough reverence that he may as well have been their co-captain. "Assistant captain at best," said Ilya when he and Shane talked about it. Shane threw his head back in laughter in that way that showed off the long expanse of his neck. Ilya wanted to bite him. "Fuck you," said Shane through another laugh. Ilya grinned, all teeth like a shark, and gave into his base desires to sing his teeth into Shane's skin, just hard enough to make him yelp. "I don't really think of myself like that, you know that, right?" Shane asked him sometime later, when they were naked and sweaty, and Ilya was already thinking about how much they needed to change their sheets. "Like what?" Ilya asked distantly, his thoughts were still sluggish from sex. "Like a co-captain or an assistant captain or whatever. We all think of you as the captain." Shane pulled him close. "Me included." Ilya's thoughts cleared just enough for him to tease. "Is lie. Otherwise, you would call me captain in bed." Shane's cheeks turned red, his whole face turned red, all the way down his neck. He scrunched up his face like a kitten. "Gross," laughed Shane. "I don't want to think about you like that when I'm on the ice." "Gross?" gasped Ilya, offended. Shane laughed again, this time louder than before. See? Electric. Ilya had never felt anything like it. They played together and practiced together—except when Coach Wiebe separated them because they were being annoying—and went home together every night. They didn't win all their games, which Shane said he expected, but Ilya found annoying, but they won most of them, and every time Ilya was off the ice, he would have to fight the urge to pin Shane down in the showers and fuck him. For the first time, Ilya's life was full. He played for Ottawa with his husband and went home to his husband's family. He spent time with Yuna and David and let himself pretend that they were his parents too. They certainly liked to refer to themselves as such, which Ilya loved and also found unnerving. He'd never realized how scary it was to have something to lose. Things went from the empty to the grey of winter to the bright, stinging heat of summer after Shane joined his team, after they got married, after they moved in together and didn't have to sleep in separate beds. Every day, even in the frigid Canadian cold that came late in the year, felt like that first summer at the cottage to Ilya. But it wasn't all sunshine, as much as Ilya had hoped it would be. It was pretty close, almost perfect, but there was something that Ilya couldn't ignore. "Fuck Montreal," Tanner said, a sneer in his words. They trashed Montreal more than they did any other team, which was to be expected from Ottawa, but had only gotten worse following Shane's leaving the team. "They're not all bad," Shane said with a sigh, needlessly diplomatic. "Oh?" Tanner asked with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. "Should we let them win then?" Shane shook his head. He looked like he was smiling indulgently, but Ilya didn't miss the way the muscles in his neck strained slightly. He hadn't slept much leading up to this game, and Ilya could see the dark circles under Shane's dark freckles. He didn't like them. "Fuck no," Shane said with a soft laugh. They won their game against Montreal, unsurprisingly. They were a better team. Shane had carried Montreal for years, and they were finally learning what it meant to be without their star player. Especially considering that Hayden was across the ice looking at Shane like a kicked puppy. Ilya left the rink with vindication clinging to his teeth like blood. He slapped Bood on the back roughly, and the two of them grinned at each other. The other players were congratulating Shane, who was smiling politely at each of them. Not one of the smiles touched his eyes, and something unnerved grew in Ilya's stomach. “Going out tonight?" Luca asked with that chipper grin that made every like him. "Sure," Shane agreed first, which was more worrying than the lack of sleep. Ilya's eyebrows furrowed, but when Luca turned to look at him, he nodded enthusiastically. "You heard him," Ilya said with the brightest grin he could manage. The bar they went to felt more like a club for how packed it was, and despite Ilya's latent desires to be out among people, loud music blasting in his ears as he swallowed down a few shots of Vodka, he'd never wanted to head home more. He nearly told Shane as much, nearly pulled him aside, and pressed his lips to Shane's collarbone to get what he wanted.