Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nobody in Texas cares about hockey. Ilya’s not even on the Dallas Meteors’ roster; it’s doubtful that anyone will recognize him — a visiting Boston Raider — in some dim gay bar in Oak Lawn. That’s what he’s telling himself as he gets dressed and leaves his hotel room. It’s not a smart decision, but since when has Ilya been smart? He’s made plenty of monumentally stupid choices (eying up Shane Hollander in a communal shower, sleeping with Shane Hollander, doing it again, doing it again —), including some very recent ones (asking Shane Hollander to stay the night, making him a fucking tuna melt, calling him Shane —). What’s one more? It doesn’t even involve Hollander, this time; you could call this progress.

It has absolutely nothing to do with Shane fucking Hollander that Ilya had begged off from post-win celebrations with his team so that he could sneak out of the hotel and go to a gay bar. He’s just… horny, that’s all. It’s making him agitated. It’s nothing more than that. He’s tried to scratch the itch the usual way on the other stops on this road trip, but for whatever reason the women he’s slept with haven’t… satisfied him. He doesn’t feel any better. So, time to try something else.

He’s not even at the bar for very long. Two beers, both terrible, and he’s found a man to grind against on the dance floor. The man has shaggy blond hair and a lip ring, and he’s about Ilya’s height but much smaller than him — wiry. Something different, his brain supplies unhelpfully, and he tries to shove that thought aside. He has a pretty mouth, and he’s a good kisser, and he doesn’t seem to recognize Ilya at all. When he asks whether they should go back to Ilya’s place or his, he accepts Ilya’s line that he’s travelling for work, so going to his apartment works better.

He’s loud in bed, doesn’t seem to have a care in the world about his neighbours overhearing them, and Ilya takes great satisfaction in wringing every possible sound from him. He doesn’t mind that Ilya has an early flight and isn’t surprised that he won’t stay the night. They’re on exactly the same page about what this means: nothing. It’s just a good fuck in a city where they’ll never see each other again. If he ever gave Ilya his name, Ilya’s already forgotten it by the time he gets back to his hotel.

It’s a perfectly good night, and as far as Ilya can tell, no one had recognized him. But by the time he’s showered and lying in his hotel bed, he has to grudgingly admit that it hadn’t helped. He had hoped maybe he just needed to suck a cock to get it out of his system but he’s increasingly concerned that it’s a person he wants, not any particular kind of sex. But there’s no point in wanting that, because Hollander said it was over, so it is.

Telling himself that doesn’t make him feel any less awful.

It’s almost humiliating, to be lying in some random hotel room in fucking Dallas and realizing that, despite hooking up with four different people in the space of a week, he’s lonely. He feels pathetic. He can have anyone he wants, and the only thing he wants is for the one person who doesn’t want him back to be in this bed with him. Just to be able to hold him.

“Blyat (Fuck),” he mutters at the ceiling, and pulls a pillow over his face. Maybe he can fucking smother himself with it.

He pretends to be asleep when Carmichael gets back a while later, trying to let himself be amused by Carmichael’s clumsy attempts to be quiet so as not to wake him up. But it’s not until after about an hour of Carmichael snoring in the next bed over that Ilya finally manages to actually doze off.

Shane returns from the showers to find the locker room far more animated than when he left it. Everyone has their phones out, and when he sees Shane coming, JJ says, “Câlisse (Holy shit), Hollander, about fucking time! Ilya Rozanov got caught kissing a man.”

Shane is surprised he manages to stay upright with how fast the blood drains out of his face. JJ said “a man”, so presumably it’s not Shane? But people will surely be looking into things now, and Shane’s certain they haven’t been as careful sometimes as they needed to be. He’s ashamed to admit that it’s only after this has all run through his head that he thinks about Rozanov himself. About Russia. Fuck, it doesn’t matter if Shane’s not implicated, this is still so fucking bad.

“What?” he manages to say, maybe a beat too late, although no one seems particularly concerned.

“Yeah, man, Deadspin has pictures and everything.”

JJ gives Shane his phone, and right there on the screen is Ilya Rozanov kissing a man on a dance floor. The man has his hands on Rozanov’s ass and Rozanov has his fingers curled into the man’s blond hair, so it’s clearly a reciprocal situation. There’s a sick swoop of jealousy in the pit of Shane’s stomach, as though he has any right. As though that’s what’s important in this situation. He doesn’t know what the fuck to say.

“Wild,” he says eventually, and JJ gives him a strange look as he takes his phone back. Fuck.

“So I guess all those women were an act, huh?” says Comeau on the other side of the room, and he sounds almost gleeful about it. Shane wants to scream. He wants to tell Comeau that it’s not fucking funny. He wants to ask if anyone in this locker room has any idea what could happen to Ilya now if he has to go home. Shane wants to run away.

“Nah, dude,” Hayden says to Comeau, shaking his head. “I once saw him straight up fingerbanging a woman in a hallway of a hotel. If it’s an act, he’s really fucking good at it.”

“Guys,” Shane hears himself say, “This is kind of fucked up of Deadspin, I don’t know if we should be —”

That draws a few laughs from the room, which is the exact opposite of what Shane wanted to happen. “Loosen up for once, Hollander,” Mitty says, chucking one of his gloves at Shane’s head. “I promise fucking everyone is talking.”

“That doesn’t mean we need to be spreading the pictures around, or anything. He must be having a terrible time right now.” The Raiders are still on the road, if Shane remembers correctly, but he doesn’t know what city they’re in.

“Oh, I hope he is,” Koch says with a snort. “If he has some off games we’ll pass Boston in the rankings.”

“We’re not spreading shit, Hollander,” JJ says, ignoring Koch and still sounding playful. Amused. “The Internet has that handled.”

Shane doesn’t know what the fuck he’s supposed to do right now. He wants so badly to tell everyone off, but he’s already getting some odd looks just from the mild pushback he’s offered. Defeated, he shrugs and starts pulling his street clothes on. His skin crawls with shame as he gets dressed as quickly as possible without defending Rozanov further. He mumbles something about his parents wanting to talk to him after practice as he passes Hayden on the way out, and doesn’t look at anyone’s face.

He manages to drive almost halfway home before he has to pull over to have a panic attack about it all. Fuck. Why the fuck would Rozanov do something so reckless? How are his teammates reacting? How is his coach reacting? Shane’s heard LeClaire can be a dickhead, but he has no idea what he would do about this. What about his family back in Russia? Maybe… even if they are prejudiced, maybe they love Ilya enough to look past this? To have his back? Shane doesn’t have a good feeling about that scenario, though, based on what little he knows about that situation — the way Rozanov had sounded on the phone last time Shane saw him —

Fuck, he absolutely cannot start thinking about that now. He feels terrible enough already.

He just hopes that Ilya has someone there with him. Someone he can talk to. Someone on his side. Shane has a feeling that if he tried to reach out, Rozanov wouldn’t answer.

“Sveta,” Ilya says into the phone, smiling for the first time all day. He’s standing by the elevator of the team’s hotel in Anaheim; a bunch of guys wanted to go out for lunch before the game, and he’s decided to join them. Probably better than sulking alone in his room, again.

Before he can even say anything else, like hello or how are you, she starts speaking, too fast for it to be anything good. “Are you at your hotel?” she asks, and Ilya nods before he remembers to confirm it verbally. “Good. Don’t go out. There are photographs of you kissing a man.”

“What?” he says. He’s sure he misheard somehow. He’s been speaking English too much and now he doesn’t understand Russian, because that can’t be what she said.

“You went to a gay bar? In Dallas?”

Fuck. Fuck. “No one would recognize me in Dallas,” he says, but it’s a useless thing to say, because he had been recognized. Maybe he just wants her not to think he’s a complete fucking idiot. Even though he clearly is.

“Someone did, Ilyusha,” she says, unnecessarily but not unkindly. “Deadspin has an article up. I saw it on Twitter.”

Marleau chooses this moment to emerge from his and Ilya’s room, joining him by the elevators to wait for the rest of their lunch group. “You okay, Rozy?” he asks, a frown on his face.

Ilya nods jerkily. He can’t imagine how he must look right now. “I have… small issue to deal with,” he says, and hopes Cliff won’t notice the fact that his voice is shaking slightly. “I will get room service. See you all at rink later.”

Marleau lets him go without argument. Ilya slips back into their room and sits down heavily on his bed. His ears are ringing. “What the fuck am I going to do?” he asks Sveta, and by now it’s completely obvious from his voice how much he’s not holding it together.

Before she can reply, his phone starts chiming and vibrating endlessly. He’s not sure what is making it happen, and he doesn’t want to look.

“I don’t know,” Sveta says slowly. She’s only a year older than he is, but she always knows what to do, and hearing her sound lost makes him feel completely unmoored. “Do you want me to fly down?”

Ilya forces himself to swallow the yes, please, right now that wants to burst out of his mouth. “No. No, we are back in Boston tomorrow.”

“Call your agent?”

“I don’t think I have an agent anymore. Or I won’t once I tell him why I’m calling.” There’s always the possibility of a miracle, but his agent came up in the Russian league and lives in a stately penthouse in St. Petersburg, so he’s not feeling optimistic.

“Fuck, Ilyusha,” Sveta sighs. She sounds despondent, now. “I will ask Papa if he knows any US agents who would be willing to have you.” They both know that whoever takes him on after this will be after his money, and not so much his well-being, but he has to be represented by someone. Someone better at English than he is, who will at least know his rights, if nothing else.

His phone is still going wild in his hand, and also Ilya’s pretty sure that if he has to stay on the line any longer listening to Sveta sound so defeated, he’s going to completely lose it. So he swallows hard and says, “I have to go.”

“Ilyusha —”

“I will call you if I need to,” Ilya interrupts her. “And I’ll speak to you after the game. I love you.”

“Good luck tonight. Score a goal for me.” She’s trying hard to sound more cheerful, Ilya can tell, but she’s not managing it. “I love you too.”

As soon as he hangs up, his phone starts ringing with a call from his coach. There’s no way Ilya can take it. He’s in very serious danger of bursting into tears as it is; his throat has gone tight. Almost without thinking, he hits the button on the side of his phone that declines the call. He’ll be in even more shit for that, but he just can’t.

The second he ends the incoming call, his screen lights up with notifications. The team group chat is pinging with messages faster than he can read the pop-ups, but someone has definitely linked the article. Most people seem to be confused right now, but he knows that won’t last. Sveta would have mentioned if there was any chance it wasn’t him in the photos. At least one person has already sent a puke emoji. The team doesn’t seem like they’re going to come down on his side.

He covers his face with his hands and takes a few of the slowest, deepest breaths he can manage. That’s not saying much, but it’s enough to pull him back from the brink.

His phone starts ringing with another call from LeClaire. He knows only bad things will come of dodging it a second time, so he picks up. “Rozanov,” LeClaire says without any further greeting, “you’re scratched tonight.” He sounds like he’s barely restraining himself from shouting. Like he might be talking through his teeth. “If anyone in the media contacts you, don’t fucking comment. You and your agent will be expected at a meeting with management once we get home, but until then, I don’t care about any explanations, so just save it.”

“Yes, sir,” Ilya says.

“There will also be a team meeting before the next practice. You can apologize to your teammates there. In the meantime, try not to do anything else fucking stupid.”

Then LeClaire hangs up on him. Well, it could probably be worse. Maybe.

He goes into the group chat only long enough to mute it, deliberately not looking at any of the messages. As he does, he gets a text from Cliff.

Cliff Marleau
Are the photos real?

Ilya considers ignoring him, but Cliff is (was?) his closest friend on the team and hadn’t started off by calling him a faggot, so maybe he wouldn’t be contributing to the puke emojis in the group chat if Ilya at least answers.

Ilya
Yes. I assume. I haven’t seen them. After our game in Dallas?

Cliff Marleau
That’s what the article says, yeah. So you’re gay?

Ilya
Bi. I like both. I am scratched tonight, so you might be moved to second line with Joey. That’s where I would put you anyway.

Cliff Marleau
OK.

He doesn’t say anything further, and after a few minutes of waiting for another text to arrive, Ilya lies back on his bed. That wasn’t so bad. Now he just has to survive the next… forever.

Shane feels like he’s in a dream. A really weird, bad dream, one that will have him feeling fucked up all morning after he finally wakes up. He avoids ESPN, afraid they’ll be talking about it. He tries to distract himself by playing MLH 2017 but gives up after ten minutes, unable to concentrate and not wanting to fuck up his (fictional) team’s playoff run. Ilya grins at him from the cover of the game and Shane catches himself staring at it for way too long. At least he got to be on the cover this time, because he would never have been asked after this.

Over the last six years, Shane has imagined countless scenarios where he and Ilya weren’t careful enough and got caught out. He’s lost sleep over it, he’s worked himself into a panic over it, he’s mentally drafted dozens of hypothetical statements for hypothetical scenarios. Somehow, never once did this scenario occur to him: one of them outed, while the other stayed safely in the closet.

Maybe he should feel lucky, or relieved or something. But he doesn’t. He feels sick and guilty, even though he doesn’t strictly have anything to feel guilty about. Worst of all, some tiny part of him — one that has absolutely no interest in reason — wishes that it were him in those photos with Ilya. That they were in this together, as a team. And maybe he hates this other man, just a little bit, for getting to kiss Ilya like that. Even though it was Shane who ran away, so he has no right to be jealous.

At 8 PM, Shane puts on the Raiders v. Geese game. He normally wouldn’t bother watching unless the Metros were playing one of the teams soon, but he needs to see Ilya with his own eyes, see if he’s okay, and he can’t think of any other way to achieve that right now. Maybe Boston is backing him up — if not for reasons of genuine support, then because Rozanov is an amazing fucking hockey player who brought the Stanleigh Cup back to Boston for the first time in thirty years. If they’re backing him up, maybe even talking about extending him, maybe he’ll be safe. He can apply for a green card or something. Surely the Raiders can see that keeping Ilya Rozanov is just good business sense, regardless of who he’s kissing.

The news that Ilya is a healthy scratch is the first sign that Shane has been way too optimistic.

“Maybe they're resting him up so early in the season but I'd put money on it being about the Deadspin article leaking photographs of him in a scandalous position in Dallas two nights ago. What do you think, Jim?” one of the play-by-play announcers says, as if it’s just an interesting thought experiment rather than a sign of something terrible coming down the pike. They cut to Ilya in the WAGs box, and he looks pale and drawn. His eyes are red-rimmed. Shane’s chest hurts. He wants to reach into his TV and pull Ilya to safety.

He can’t help himself anymore. He picks his phone up from the coffee table and opens his text thread with ‘Lily’, ignoring the twinge he feels when he sees the most recent set of messages from several weeks ago. He writes, re-writes, and deletes several drafts before he finally sends a simple, Hey. Are you OK?

“I would’ve played Rozanov tonight if I were LeClaire,” Jim says. “Boston hasn’t beat Anaheim on their ice in four years now, so I’m sure they’d like to break that drought. I think it’s more likely to be about the photos of him kissing a man that were leaked earlier today, as you suggested, Tony. Whether it’s interrupting team cohesion or Rozanov doesn’t feel like he can get his head in the game for tonight, we’ll have to wait until LeClaire gives a statement.”

Right, of course. Maybe Ilya’s just not feeling able to play. Shane tries to let himself feel relieved — to ignore the fact that Rozanov is known for thriving on adversity.

It’s a hard-fought game on both sides, with Boston squeaking out the win 2-1. Shane doesn’t bother listening to the talking heads analyze a high-sticking penalty one of the Geese took in the third period that led to Boston scoring the game-winning goal on the power play, instead just anxious to know whether Ilya has media availability.

He doesn’t, and when Coach LeClaire is asked about him, he doesn’t manage to hide his disdain. “Rozanov's well aware of our expectations. He knows we expect our players' focus to be on the team and the game, and he knows he hasn't met that expectation this week.” He refuses to comment on the photos, but there’s a muscle jumping in his jaw.

Shane turns off the TV then, not giving a shit what LeClaire has to say about Boston breaking their Anaheim drought or whatever other bullshit. Rozanov still hasn’t texted him back. He goes to bed, but doesn’t fall asleep — he can’t stop thinking about Ilya, the miserable look on his face as he sat out the game in the WAGs box. What he must be going through right now, and how alone he probably feels. And Shane wants to talk to him so badly, but he can’t, and it’s his own fault.

Rushing out on Ilya like that the last time they saw each other was, Shane’s pretty sure, one of the stupidest things he’s ever done. Heartless, almost. He hadn’t been thinking about it that way, obviously — he’d been panicking — and he hasn’t really been able to bring himself to think about the whole incident ever since. He’s done such a good job of not thinking about what it means about himself that he enjoys sucking Ilya Rozanov’s cock so much that he counts down the days until they see each other next. He’s managed it for years, and then Ilya called him by his first name and it had suddenly all come crashing into clarity — the way things had changed between them over the past year, the way they’d started actually texting each other and not just sexting, the fact that Ilya had asked him to stay and the fact that Shane had wanted to. It wasn’t just sex, not anymore, and Shane had barely been coping with ‘just sex’. He couldn’t handle the sudden realization that he’s caught feelings. He’d panicked, and he regrets it so much that it makes him feel physically ill.

He’s also terrified that he’s never going to meet the “right” girl. Sure, he hadn’t made much of an effort, but the thought of trying to date a girl feels so exhausting on top of all the hockey. Meanwhile, one of the rookies just got engaged, and Hayden has just announced he and Jackie are expecting a fourth child. And instead of dating, putting himself out there or whatever, Shane spent the recent off-season sitting on his couch, smiling at his phone, texting Ilya. When was the last time he’d even tried to think of anything but Rozanov when he jerked off? He’d tried watching some porn, concentrating on the girl, but he could barely keep an erection.

But it’s not just that they’re girls, it’s that they’re not Ilya Rozanov. That’s the part that really fucking scares him. He doesn’t know how he let himself end up in this position, but here he is anyway, and he’s already completely screwed it up. And now Ilya is in a really bad spot — maybe even in danger — and Shane can’t shake the feeling that he needs to do something, but he has no idea what to do.

Against his better judgement, he grabs his phone off his sidetable and opens Google. He knows that Russia isn’t good about gay rights, but he has no idea how bad. Is being gay illegal? Will Ilya get hanged? Does Russia have capital punishment? The results he gets are… well, not quite as bad as he expected, but still extremely fucking bad. He’s going to have nightmares for sure after some of the articles he’s read. And yeah, any vague hopes he’d had that maybe Ilya’s high profile enough that he could go back to Russia without any insurmountable complications have been completely crushed.

He hasn’t breached his contract and there’s no way the league can spin it like he has, so he’s safe until the end of next season, but after that? Will the Raiders keep him? Will they be willing to give him an actual long contract, or will he be stuck on a series of bridge contracts that keep him in limbo, unable to guarantee anything past the next year or two? What if he gets put on waivers? Shane has no fucking idea how immigration law works, and he quickly gets overwhelmed trying to Google it.

Despite his lack of law degree, there’s one thing he can think of that would be, relatively speaking, an easy path for Ilya to get a passport from a country besides Russia — to get a Canadian passport.

The thought stops him cold. He sits there, tangled up in his bedsheets, hands frozen around his phone, breathing shallowly, and then he lets out a hysterical giggle.

It’s insane. Completely insane. He absolutely cannot ask Ilya Rozanov to marry him. He clearly needs to go the fuck to sleep.

But he can’t let Ilya be ostracized from the MLH and sent back to Russia to be… disappeared, or tortured, or… he can’t even bring himself to think about it. His stomach lurches dangerously when he tries. He can’t let that happen, he won’t let that happen, because Ilya Rozanov is a brilliant person who doesn’t deserve any of this, and Shane is realizing right now, at what is possibly the most inopportune time imaginable, that he might be in love with him.

He sits there. He lets out a few more hysterical giggles. He lies down and puts his phone back on the bedside table. And then he finally closes his eyes and tries to sleep. He’ll revisit this fucking insanity in the morning to see if he has any better, less crazy ideas once he’s gotten some rest.

Chapter Text

Shane wakes up feeling jittery and only more certain that he does, in fact, have to ask Ilya Rozanov to marry him. It’s the decent thing to do. That makes it sound like he’s got some poor girl pregnant in the 1950s, but apparently it’s basically the 1950s in Russia, so maybe it’s appropriate.

It’s not just some weird sense of obligation, though — for fuck’s sake, he’s not even the one Ilya’s kissing in the photos, it’s not like he’s the one who got Ilya into this. It’s also that he thinks maybe he wants to marry Ilya Rozanov. Like, he let himself think it once, and now it has a hold on him. His teammates get to have lovely weddings, and everyone gets to be happy for them. And sure, it’s not like he and Ilya have been in some kind of long-term committed relationship, or even, like… talked about their feelings, or whatever, but Hayden married Jackie only a year after drunkenly picking her up at a club and no one batted an eye at that. Shane just wants people to stop expecting him to say horrible things about the man he is (maybe, probably) in love with, and has been for… well, he’s not sure he’s ready to think about how long he’s been in love, but he has a horrible suspicion it’s longer than Hayden knew Jackie before he proposed. He wants Ilya to be safe. He wants to be the one to make him feel safe. He doesn’t want to let him go through this alone.

He grabs his phone and checks his notifications. Ilya still hasn’t texted him back.

Shane tries not to feel too crushed at that. Maybe Ilya’s phone is off — God knows Shane’s would be if he were in Ilya’s shoes right now.

There is, of course, the possibility that Ilya wants nothing to do with him, and that Shane has irreparably damaged their relationship by panicking and running away. But even if that’s true and Ilya doesn’t want to marry Shane, not even for immigration reasons, Shane can draw media attention away from him by also coming out. That will split the North American media, at least.

His mind made up, Shane gets out of bed, gets dressed, and decides to FaceTime his parents. He owes them a heads-up before they catch wind of any of what’s about to happen from the media, or some other third party. He should probably also tell his agent, but his parents come first.

He’s glad it’s a Sunday and both his parents are home. They’re still in their pajamas when his mom answers the call; they seem to be cozied up on the couch together, probably working on a crossword, and they look surprised but happy to hear from him so early.

“Good morning, honey!” says his mom with a smile. That’s good — Shane must look a lot more normal than he feels. “You don’t usually call so early, everything okay?”

“Yes. Kind of. Maybe not.” Shane exhales through his nose. Is he really doing this? He’s really doing this. If you’d suggested this to him less than 48 hours ago, he would’ve shot it down immediately, but yeah, he’s doing this. “I needed to talk to you guys. I have a few things to tell you.”

His mom puts her coffee mug down on the table. She’s looking a little concerned now. His dad is mostly looking puzzled.

“I’m gay,” Shane says, and instead of finding out what his mom is about to say when she immediately opens her mouth, he just barrels on. “Also I’m in love with Ilya Rozanov, and I’m going to ask him to marry me.”

His mom closes her mouth.

“...What?” his dad says.

“I’m sure you’ve seen that he got outed, and if he goes back to Russia I’m pretty sure something terrible will happen to him. And I can’t let that happen. Because I’m in love with him. And so I want to marry him.”

His mom opens and closes her mouth twice before she finally seems to find some words to actually say. “That’s… a big step,” she says. Shane expects her to follow that with something, but she doesn’t. Her eyes are wide.

“It isn’t you that he’s kissing in the photos,” his dad says, holding up his phone screen as if Shane needs to see it.

“No, of course, I know.” Shane can’t help the sigh he lets out. “It’s… kind of complicated. I screwed things up between us a few weeks ago. It’s not like — he didn’t, like, cheat on me or whatever, with that guy. But we’ve been… I dunno, involved, I guess? For a long time now.”

“If things are complicated,” his mom says, hesitating just a moment before saying ‘complicated’, “then are you sure he’ll want to marry you?”

Shane shakes his head. “No, but I’m still going to ask. And I’m going to come out either way, so at least he won’t be the sole focus of attention.”

“I see,” his mom says. “Well…” She trails off without finishing her thought. She seems pretty shellshocked.

“How long is ‘a long time now’?” his dad asks.

“Like… since just before our rookie season started? Almost the whole time I’ve known him.”

“How?” his dad asks, exchanging a confused look with his mom.

Shane shrugs. “It just happened? I know we shouldn’t have, and we definitely shouldn’t have kept going for years, but…” But what? There’s no excuse he can give for this. He shrugs again.

“I thought you hated him,” his mom says.

“Why would I? We’re both good at hockey, that’s all. The league decided we hated each other. He’s a dick on the ice, sure, but he’s never been cruel or said slurs or anything that I know of. When Berkes’ sister got diagnosed with cancer, he told Berkes he really hoped she beat it, and didn’t chirp him about anything for the whole game.” It’s the first example that comes to mind, but there are more like it. Meanwhile, other players can say vile shit on the ice, but they say it quietly enough that they don’t have a reputation.

“Good,” his mom says. Her voice is quiet, but she sounds more certain. “You deserve someone kind.”

“He is. I promise.”

“Okay, that may be so, but Shane,” his dad interrupts, “don’t you think that you’re kind of… I don’t know, getting ahead of yourself? Rozanov must have some kind of plan, or maybe you’re overestimating the danger? I mean, he was kissing a man in public.”

“In Dallas,” Shane says. “No one cares about hockey in Dallas.” Yeah, it was stupid, but Shane can’t really blame Ilya for doing it.

His dad looks like he’s going to protest, but Shane cuts him off before he can. “Look, I really want to do this, okay? I’m sorry about…” It hits him, then, how much his parents have invested in getting him here. Of course he knew that before, but maybe they feel like he’s throwing away all their work, too. “I’m sorry if you feel like I’m wasting all your effort, or something, because I know you worked so hard to help me get to the MLH and I’m so thankful for that, I really am. I know that this could get really messy. But this is more important to me than hockey. Please understand that.”

“Does it have to be you?” his dad says.

“Dad, I’m trying to tell you that I want it to be me.”

Neither of them protests again. They’re both silent for a long moment. Shane barely dares to breathe. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do if they just completely reject this — reject him — outright. But he’s worrying for nothing again. His mom lets out a big breath, and then squares her shoulders.

“Okay,” his mom says, in that tone of voice Shane knows so well. “I’m going to start calling immigration lawyers. I’ll get you an appointment with someone today.” She doesn’t need to add, I’ll make sure it’s someone good, because Shane knows that without her saying it. “I’ll get you a meeting with your agent, too. We’ll see if I can make that happen this afternoon before the game. I’ll text you the details, okay? You focus on getting game-ready.”

Shane almost wants to cry with relief. He loves his parents so much. “Okay. Thanks, Mom. I love you both.”

For the first time in his career, he skips morning skate, calling Coach Theriault and telling him that he has a family emergency. Coach doesn’t press for details; it probably helps that Shane never does this. His mom has him set up with his agent and a Montreal-based lawyer before noon even rolls around, and he meets with both before he heads to the arena. Neither is a particularly long meeting, but once they’re over, he feels a lot more… grounded. This is no longer just an idea, it’s a plan.

It’s a plan that’s only slightly hampered by the fact that Ilya still hasn’t texted him back.

He decides that enough time has passed that he can send a follow-up text. After some deliberation, he sends. Please call me after my game. I need to talk to you.

By the next morning, Ilya still hasn’t responded. Shane considers sending another text, but then decides to try calling him instead. When the line rings out and he hears Ilya’s voicemail message — Hi, this is Ilya, I will never listen to your voicemail — he finds himself going online and buying a plane ticket to Boston.

Ilya’s agent has, in fact, dropped him by the next morning, via a terse email. This has an upside — he’s able to respond to the email from management about the appointment LeClaire had mentioned by requesting a postponement while he secures new representation. Maybe it’s not ideal to show his hand by letting them know he’s lost his agent, but he really can’t face this meeting today. He tried to read the CBA to find out what his rights are, but the English feels completely impenetrable. The team meeting still happens, though, and it’s basically awful. Coach LeClaire starts the meeting by announcing that Ilya is scratched again for their next game, and then he beckons for Ilya to take the floor. Ilya stumbles his way through an apology, trying to toe the line between genuinely apologizing for causing a distraction and apologizing for being bisexual, which he refuses to do. It doesn’t seem to make much of a difference. Marleau and a few others nod awkwardly along, but several of his teammates just stare at him stonily the whole time and don’t say a word.

Sveta comes over after practice, but Ilya’s not feeling particularly sociable. She makes an attempt to get him to talk about it, but doesn’t press the issue when he makes it clear that’s not going to happen. Then she lets him put his head in her lap while they watch some stupid action movie, and she strokes his hair in the way he likes. So it helps, just a little bit, seeing her. But he doesn’t ask her to stay the night. She heads home around midnight, and Ilya gets into his bed and tries to sleep.

Hollander has texted him twice — once yesterday and once today. Ilya wishes he hadn’t. At this point, he has very little dignity left to preserve, so he’s not above admitting to himself that he’d been dying to hear from Hollander, for weeks before this. Even though Hollander ran away from him. Even though Ilya should probably be angry at him. And so yes, when the first text came through during the game in Anaheim, Ilya’s heart had jumped right into his throat. And then it had immediately plummeted back down as he’d read the text and realized that Hollander’s probably just trying to make sure he isn’t somehow going to get dragged into this. So he hasn’t answered the text, or the one that came yesterday just before Montreal’s game. He has enough to deal with right now without having to ease Shane fucking Hollander’s self-induced panic.

He tosses and turns, and when he finally falls asleep near dawn he dreams of his family. His father, furious, cuffing his hands behind his back as he arrests him. Alexei smirking and punching him in the gut, which his father does nothing to stop. And his mother — his mother standing silently, looking on with disappointment written all over her face. He calls out to her, crying like a child, but she doesn’t react. It’s like she doesn’t even hear him. His father drags him out the door by the cuffs and slams the door behind them, cutting off the sight of his mother’s face, and then he wakes up.

He lies in bed, with no desire to go back to sleep in case he dreams that again, but also no desire to get up, either. What’s the point? He drifts, not asleep but not entirely awake. He’d turned his phone off when Sveta arrived yesterday and hasn’t turned it back on, so he doesn’t get any notification of the multiple texts Hollander sends him that he’ll discover later.

At some mystery hour, long after the sun has risen, someone rings his doorbell. He doesn’t move at first — Sveta has a key, and she’s the only person he would let inside, so it’s not worth the energy it would take to find out who it is. When he doesn’t answer, though, whoever’s ringing starts knocking on his door instead. Ilya closes his eyes and tries his best to ignore it. It’s probably a fucking reporter or something. The knocking finally stops, and he thinks the person has gone away until five minutes later, when the knocking starts again.

Ilya groans loudly at the ceiling and finally hauls himself out of bed. He’ll go tell this unwanted visitor to fuck off or else he’ll call the police or something.

He looks through the peephole and is greeted with the sight he expected the least: it’s Shane fucking Hollander. On his doorstep. In Boston. Shane Hollander, who lives in Montreal and isn’t playing the Raiders for another two months, and when he does, Ilya will be travelling there. Well, he will if he’s still on the team.

He opens the door. What else is he supposed to do?

Hollander steps inside, Ilya closing the door behind him. For a moment, Hollander stands there, thumbs still in his pockets and cheeks pink from the wind, just looking at Ilya’s face. And then he’s throwing himself at Ilya with such force that Ilya staggers backwards a little, Hollander’s cold nose buried in the juncture of his shoulder and his throat. He says, “Fuck, Ilya,” against Ilya’s skin, and Ilya’s head is spinning. On pure instinct, he wraps his arms around Hollander’s waist and breathes him in. He should probably ask what’s going on and what the fuck Hollander is doing here before he caves like this, but he can’t help himself.

“Oh my god, Ilya,” Hollander is saying, his lips still brushing against Ilya’s skin as he talks. “I tried to text you, you weren’t answering — fuck, are you okay? I mean, clearly not, but —”

“Hollander,” Ilya manages, and finally forces himself to drop his arms to his sides. Before he does, he actually feels it when Hollander flinches at the use of his last name, and maybe he should feel self-righteous about that, but he mostly feels weirdly guilty. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“You weren’t answering your phone,” Hollander repeats, “so I flew down.”

“You flew down,” Ilya says flatly. “Why? Is not you in the photos.”

“So?” Hollander has the nerve to sound confused. “You’re in the photos. You’re the one I’m worried about.”

“Is not your concern. You made that clear last time.”

“I made a huge fucking mistake last time,” Hollander says after a beat. “I was an idiot, and I’m sorry. The photos made me realize what’s actually important.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that? You forget something when you ran out?”

That seems to finally crack whatever weird version of Hollander has taken over his body. Now Hollander looks down at the floor, and his voice is smaller. “No. I realized I’m in love with you.”

Ilya takes a full step back. He doesn’t mean to, but Shane’s words hit him like a punch to the chest. It’s more than he ever thought he’d hear from Hollander, even before the stupid tuna melt fiasco. He’s not even sure what he wanted from Shane last time, apart from him not running out the moment Ilya accidentally said his first name. Maybe he just wanted Shane not to act any differently, to join Ilya in his bubble of insanity where they could call each other by their first names and stay the night and wake up curled around each other. Ilya hadn’t let himself think about why he wanted it, because that question was too big and he knew he wouldn’t like the answer. And now Shane is in front of him just saying it. Now, when it’s too late. When it doesn’t matter anymore.

His eyes are suddenly burning with tears. He turns his head sharply, not wanting Hollander to see. “Don’t fucking do this to me, Hollander,” he says, the tightness in his voice betraying him. Shane’s hands come up and gently touch Ilya’s face, and he squeezes his eyes shut. “Don’t. We can’t — we would not be able to hide this anymore. Not now.”

“Yeah. I know,” says Shane, and there’s something in his voice — something warm and soft — that makes Ilya open his eyes despite himself. They make eye contact for a long moment, and Shane’s mouth curls up at the corners into a tentative smile. And then.

Then he drops onto one knee. Ilya opens his mouth to say something and then shuts it because he has no idea what to say.

“I know these are the worst possible circumstances,” Shane says, “but will you marry me? I love you, and I know I hurt you and you don’t have to forgive me, but I can’t let you go through this alone.”

All Ilya can do is stare at him. He feels like every word of English he’s ever known has just been knocked right out of his brain. Even if he knew what to say, he’s not sure he can speak. When he opens his mouth, a sob falls out, and so he clenches his teeth together instead. Shane looks mildly panicked when he hears the sob, and for a brief moment Ilya thinks he’s going to stand up, but instead he reaches out and takes one of Ilya’s hands in both of his.

“Marry me,” he repeats. “I — I’m sorry I don’t have a ring, I didn’t know your ring size or anything. But, like, I’ll get you one.”

“Hollander,” Ilya chokes out, with great effort, “you are being fucking crazy. You don’t want to do this.”

“I do,” Shane insists, and he doesn’t even hesitate. It makes Ilya want to vomit. It makes him want to cry. It makes him want to drag Shane into his bedroom and pin him down and make him come for the next several hours. He can’t do any of those things. He can’t let Shane do this.

“You can’t. You will — you will realize what you’ve done, and that I let you do it, and then you will hate me.” He forces himself to take a deep breath in through his nose. “You don’t owe me anything, Shane. Don’t be fucking stupid and blow up your career.”

Shane shrugs, completely failing to come off as casual. “I’m going to come out regardless. By the end of the week. I won’t mention you if you don’t want me to, but I already met with my agent and she’s sending me some draft statements tonight. I told you, I’m not letting you face all this shit by yourself.”

Once again, Ilya is reduced to staring at him in disbelief. He almost wants to put his hand on Hollander’s forehead to check for a fever. Or pinch himself, to make sure he hasn’t fallen back asleep into another fucked up nightmare, this one revolving around dangling things in front of him that he can’t have.

“You will lose everything,” he whispers eventually. “For nothing. No good reason.”

“Okay, but what do I actually have to lose?” Shane says. “Yeah, maybe I get traded or even sent down to the minors but I won’t go to prison. I won’t be… disappeared, or blacklisted from everything, or whatever will happen to you in Russia. So, no, not for nothing. I’d call that a pretty good reason.”

God, Ilya’s been trying hard not to think about that. He’s been telling himself that he has time to figure it out. He’s not actually sure what would happen, though, if he got put on waivers or something. He probably needs to make an appointment to ask a lawyer about it, now that he’s without an agent. If Boston bought out his contract, how long would his visa last? He’s always let his agent handle those kinds of logistics, and it’s not like his employment has ever been precarious.

But still, his potential visa troubles aren’t Shane’s problem. He’s the one who made the stupid mistake. The thought has even crossed his mind that maybe he deserves whatever happens next, for being so fucking sloppy. Shane doesn’t deserve to be punished for this, though.

“Listen to me,” Shane says, quiet but insistent, cutting across his train of thought. “Ilya. Listen. Okay? I want you more than I want to keep playing hockey. I want to marry you. And if you don’t want to marry me, that’s — that’s okay, I mean, you don’t have to. But please only say no if that’s the reason.” He grips Ilya’s hand a little tighter. Ilya can’t look away from his face. It’s shining with sincerity. “Or if you only want to marry me so you don’t have to go back, then I’m fine with that, and it won’t change how much we see each other, so you don’t have to spend any actual time with me —”

Okay, now Shane is starting to ramble. That’s nerves showing through. Almost without thinking, Ilya tugs hard on his hand, trying to haul Shane to his feet, and he’s pretty sure he watches Shane’s heart break. So, with some effort, he finds his words.

“Shane Hollander, please get up here so I can kiss you already.”

Shane laughs, high and bright, and scrambles up so he can crush their mouths together. This is the first thing that’s felt right since Sveta called him with the news that photos had leaked. Shane’s tongue in his mouth finally overwhelms the fizzing terror in his body that not even sleep got rid of.

“So is that a yes?” Shane asks against his lips, and Ilya can’t help but laugh.

“Yes. I will marry you,” he says, and Shane pulls back to smile at him as though Ilya, rather than dragging Shane down with him, has instead just given him a precious gift. It makes something twist in Ilya’s guts. This is good — at the very least, a backup plan. But he needs to get to work on figuring out a solution that doesn’t drag Shane into his mess.

When they’re lying in bed together several hours later, naked under the covers and tangled up with each other like they can’t stand to not be touching, Shane tilts his head up until he’s looking into Ilya’s eyes. His fiancé’s eyes. It’s going to take a while to get used to the way that makes him feel like he’s about to float away. Or have a panic attack. Or maybe both at once.

“Really, though, what’s your ring size?” he asks, picking Ilya’s hand up off his chest and examining it as though he’ll be able to figure it out for himself. “I’ll buy you one when I’m back home. Maybe I can give it to you at the next game.”

Ilya stares at him, a smile slowly spreading across his face, and then he starts laughing. “Hollander, you are fucking ridiculous.”

“Shut up,” Shane says, with as much affection as possible, but he drops the ring issue. He’ll figure it out later.

Chapter Text

This is a statement I was planning to never make.

I have always kept my personal life private. When asked, I have always said that it’s irrelevant to my performance on the ice. I still believe that; over the course of my six years in the MLH, what I am about to say has never once affected my game. But life is more than just hockey, and I’ve come to realize that by sharing something about my personal life, I might be able to help bring about some desperately needed change in the sport I love.

I’m gay. This is something I struggled with for a long time. As an Asian-Canadian player, I already felt like I didn’t fit in. I didn’t want to make it worse, and I knew that being gay would make it worse. My whole life, I’ve heard comments — in locker rooms, on the ice, from the crowd, and even from coaches and other leaders — which made it clear that if I came out, I wouldn’t be welcome. Anyone who’s played hockey at any level has heard the slurs thrown around in the locker room. In hockey culture, to be gay is to be weak — to be lesser than. I’ve spent my career so far proving that that’s not true, and I hate to think how many talented young hockey players have left the sport because the culture showed them that they weren’t welcome.

I love hockey. I have for as long as I can remember, and I always will. But hockey culture needs to change. Players should not be shunned, ostracized, or punished for their sexuality. We should be judged based on our skill on the ice, not based on who we love off of it.

My hope is that, by sharing this part of myself with you, I can start to change the conversation. We have a long way to go. In the meantime, I look forward to leading my team to a third Cup victory.

Sincerely,
Shane Hollander

It’s been a really weird week.

For one thing, Shane definitely needs to give his agent a raise. Maybe send her a nice fruit basket or something. He’d thrown a major curveball at her and she’d hit a home run with it. Or something. Shane doesn’t really know how baseball works.

Before he put out the statement, he’d come out to Hayden and JJ privately, and then the rest of the team. Hayden and JJ have actually been really supportive, which Shane does appreciate. JJ had even apologized for how he'd reacted to the news about Rozanov; he'd seemed abashed, mumbling something about how "it's not funny, even if it's Rozanov". As for the Metros’ management, he’d been afraid that maybe it would be similar to the reaction the Raiders had to Ilya, but they’d taken it in their stride. He got the impression that they expected this to change basically nothing, since this was his personal life and didn’t belong on the ice — which he knew would be less true once he announced his engagement to Ilya, but for now, he let them believe it.

The team has been… well, the only word Shane can think of is ‘fine’. A few of them were weird about getting changed in the same room for a week or so, but that faded. He’s not sure if Hayden or JJ gave them a talking to or whether they just realised they were too ugly for Shane to ogle, but he doesn’t plan to ever bring it up. Ilya’s team had been far from fine, so Shane tries to tell himself that he’s grateful that it was only kind of awkward and weird. He knows it could be worse. He can make his peace with ‘fine.’

Commissioner Crowell had sent him an extremely stiff email “reaffirming the League’s commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” and requesting a meeting with him to “discuss how he and the League can work together moving forward,” in a way that very much suggests that what he really means is that he wants Shane to shut the fuck up. His agent had handled it for him though (again: raise, fruit basket), and he’s not super worried about it. It’s not like he’s planning to start marshalling Pride parades or anything, and he still plays amazing hockey.

What he really hadn’t been expecting was the small wave of support he’s received. He’s heard from people he definitely hadn’t been expecting to hear from: Carter Vaughn sent him a text message that just said “♥️✊ Right on, dude!,” and a handful of guys he’s only met in passing or on the ice have reached out over Instagram with congratulations and well-wishes. By far the most surprising messages he’s received, though, had been from Scott Hunter, who had sent him a photograph of himself with a man Shane doesn’t recognize, their cheeks pressed together and huge smiles on their faces. The accompanying text message was simple: “Your statement meant a lot to us. Thank you.” Shane had had to put down his phone and just stare into space for a while, processing. Scott Hunter, captain of the USA Olympic hockey team, has a boyfriend and trusts Shane enough to tell him about it.

Shane’s been lucky enough to always know he’s not alone as a queer man in the league. Ilya has always been there for him as very solid proof of that. Obviously, things haven’t been easy, but he can’t imagine how lonely he would’ve been otherwise. Did Scott know of any other queer players? Shane would never ask him, of course — he doesn’t want to put Scott in that position — but he hopes he hasn’t been alone all these years.

Shane had spent too long staring into space, and before he could think of a response Scott sent another text: “I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough to make your time in the league easier. I imagine this week has been rough for you as well. If you ever need anything, know that I'm in your corner. I'll tell Rozanov the same thing as well. Just know that I really admire your courage. It's not the right time for me yet, but this is going to make a huge difference to lots of people. Seriously, reach out if you need to, or even if you just want to talk to someone who gets it.”

It was a very sweet message, but he also couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought of how pissed Rozanov will be that Scott Hunter has acquired his phone number at all, let alone that he’s going to send a friendly text. He’d thought about warning Hunter that Ilya will probably be snarky back, but then realized that he and Ilya haven’t landed on any kind of timeline yet for the whole “going public” thing and decided not to risk it. In the end, he’d sent back a sincere thanks, and extended an invite for drinks next time the Metros play the Admirals, telling Hunter to bring his boyfriend too if they’re in New York.

So, it’s been a really weird week. He wishes he could’ve been with Ilya for all of it, but he’d only been able to spend one night in Boston before he’d had to get back to Montreal for practice and then fly with the team to Winnipeg for their next game, which they’d won handily. If there had been any derogatory signs in the crowd (at least, more derogatory than usual) he hadn’t seen them. But he hadn’t been put on media availability after that game. Tonight they’re back on home ice playing the San Jose Sunfish, and Shane has to admit he’s kind of nervous to get back in front of their fans for the first time since he posted the statement. He hopes they’ve taken it well, but if they haven’t, he knows they will let him know. Montreal crowds are like that.

The second the Metros hit the ice, though, it’s clear that he’s been worried for nothing. A deafening roar goes up in the arena, and Shane realizes with a start that there are even a few rainbow flags scattered throughout the crowd. It makes a lump appear in his throat, although he manages to choke it down quickly. San Jose is going down tonight.

Shane is a little apprehensive about the first face-off, but all he gets is a nod and a brief smile instead of hostility, which sets the mood of the whole game. The Sunfish fight hard, but Mitty is a brick wall whenever the Sunfish manage to get the puck in front of the net. The Metros win 4-1, with Shane getting a hat trick right at the end of the third. He knows that being gay doesn’t affect his hockey — he’s been gay the entire time, after all — but it’s a relief to be able to point to something notable as proof that he’s still at the top of his game.

Any awkwardness that might have briefly arisen in the locker room seems to have been swept away definitively, and no one hesitates to clap Shane on the shoulder or give him a hug, even when he’s only half-dressed. He’s sent out to the media scrum and it’s only a little disappointing that the first question is not about the game at all:

“Shane, was your decision to come out as gay on Instagram on Wednesday related to the photos which were published of Ilya Rozanov late last week?”

Well, he can’t say that he’s surprised to have been asked, although it is irritating they couldn’t have at least asked about the game first. “Obviously it’s not unrelated, but I did it because it made me realize I didn't want to live with the fear of the same thing happening to me for the rest of my career. The actions of whoever leaked the photos and the decision by Deadspin to publish them are both despicable.”

“Have you spoken to Rozanov about it?”

“Of course,” Shane says. He and Ilya had workshopped an answer to this inevitable question. “We’re rivals on the ice, but this happening to anyone is awful, and I reached out to him privately to show my support before I posted the statement.”

When the next question is again about his coming out instead of the hockey game they had just played, he refuses to answer, saying, “Guys, I said everything I wanted to say about this in my statement. I’m really thankful for the support of the fans, but I’m here to play hockey, and I want to talk about how great the guys were out there tonight. Our defence played their asses off, and I’m really proud of how tight our plays are.”

After that, all the questions are refreshingly boring — more or less the same questions he answers after every win. Yeah, of course he hopes they’ll go all the way this year, yes the rookies are fitting in well, they won because they put pucks in the net, blah blah blah. It really feels like hockey reporters could be replaced by robots who run the same tape every time, but tonight he’s kind of grateful for it.

When he finally leaves the arena and makes his way home, he’s feeling good. Buoyant. He’d thought he was facing a future where he’d have to choose between hockey and Ilya, and he’d decided to choose Ilya. But now it’s occurring to him for the first time that maybe he can actually have both. Things could still go wrong, but it’s hard not to let the excitement — the feeling of hope and possibility — take hold of him.

Ilya gets about fifteen minutes into the Metros-Sunfish game before he has to turn his television off.

He knows that he should be happy for Shane, that his coming out is going so well. He knows full well that Shane only came out to try to help Ilya and that he should probably be grateful. But it kind of just makes him feel hollowed out, hearing the Montreal commentators make supportive comments and watching as the camera pans over fans in the crowd holding Pride flags. It’s even worse when the game actually starts and everyone’s just behaving normally. Shane’s team are all obviously still looking to him as the leader, and the Sunfish aren’t targeting him more than usual or with a notable increase in viciousness. He feels something ugly and jealous rearing its head inside of him. It’s when he catches himself bitterly thinking that at least Shane had a choice that he decides to give up on watching and just go to bed instead. Not that he’ll be able to sleep.

The meeting he had with the brass this morning was exhausting. Sveta had come through for him and found an agent who spoke Russian but didn’t treat his queerness like a plague or a despicable character flaw, thank God, but that didn’t stop management from treating him worse for it. His agent had made it clear that they can’t formally punish him for something like this — he’s committed no crime, and it has nothing to do with his conduct on the ice — but they both knew that informal punishment was still on the table. He’d been told in no uncertain terms to refuse to talk to the media about what happened and not to release any statements without going through management first. And, of course, to never be seen within a hundred feet of a gay bar again. Getting traded for not ‘fitting into the culture of the team’ is still very much on the table, but his skill makes them reluctant to pull the trigger. For all his terrible, unsportsmanlike conduct (bisexuality), he had won Boston a cup for the first time in thirty years, and they haven’t forgotten that.

The way they’d all talked about the photos like Ilya had wanted it to happen had made him so fucking angry, but he knew he couldn’t say anything about it — that his position is already precarious enough. He’d just had to sit there gritting his teeth and letting his agent do all the talking — let his agent reassure them that of course Rozanov takes the matter seriously and of course he prioritizes the team.

The worst thing that has happened since the photos leaked, of course, is that he received a text from Scott Hunter. He’s not sure how Hunter got his number, but there are multiple potential culprits who would know him from previous teams or the Olympics, and it’s not like he can ask anyone. The text isn’t long, just says, “Hey, it’s Hunter. Hope you’re holding up okay. Sorry about what happened. I’m in your corner, and if you want to catch up when you’re in New York let me know.”

Ilya would rather die than be seen out and about with Scott Hunter. Or make conversation with Scott Hunter. He’d been very confused as to why Hunter had even texted him; they’re not in the same division, and Hunter has absolutely no reason to like him — he’s annoyed Hunter so much that once he’d actually told the media Ilya would be better if he focused on his game rather than finding new ways to chirp his opponents, which from him was basically a declaration that they have a blood feud. He’d thought maybe Hunter was just trying to get in his head, but then he’d texted Shane to complain about Scott Hunter texting him and Shane had texted back that Hunter had sent him a cute photo with his boyfriend. So… that explained a lot. And now Ilya feels like he owes Scott Hunter gratitude or something, which is a horrible feeling. He’d at least managed to restrain himself from sending back the text he wanted to send (“I am very impressed that someone as old as you figured out how to use a cell phone”) and just stuck to a terse “Thank you.”

If pressed, he would have to grudgingly admit it’s not the worst thing that’s happened since the photos leaked. The worst thing is probably the level of open hostility in the Raiders’ locker room. Or the videos he’s seen online of people defacing or burning his jerseys. He hopes they inhale all sorts of fumes from whatever the jerseys are made of. There’s a company that’s offering a discount to people who want the name and number of their Rozanov jersey changed to a different Raiders player, which he wouldn’t have found out if Cliff Marleau hadn’t texted him a link with an angry-face emoji. His heart is in the right place, but he’s doing a terrible job of being supportive.

Or maybe the worst thing is that seeing Ilya get outed had apparently caused Shane Hollander to lose his mind. That might be up there on the list. Remembering him getting down on one knee, the sincerity on his face, and knowing that it’s all just some kind of temporary insanity that he’ll probably snap out of sooner than later… it makes Ilya’s chest ache if he lets himself think about it. The real reaction had been him running away after Ilya called him by his first name, and this is just… guilt, perhaps? He’s just being all fucking Canadian about it.

He couldn’t bring himself to try to talk Shane out of his whole coming-out-via-statement plan, especially after he’d agreed to leave Ilya out of it — he’d just seemed so excited about it, and Ilya couldn’t help but feel like it wasn’t his place to try to sway him. But he’s been dreading it, not wanting to watch Hollander get knocked down the way he’s been. And now it turns out that there was nothing for Ilya to worry about after all. Shane is still Montreal’s golden boy.

Well, that won’t last if they go through with the rest of Shane’s plan.

He’s starting to get really pissed off at himself for pouring all that vodka down the sink.

Shane FaceTimes him at quarter to eleven, and he considers just pretending he’s already asleep and not answering, but eventually he picks up, because of course he does. Shane looks so happy when Ilya answers, which just further cements that he probably shouldn’t have.

“Did you see the game?” he asks excitedly. He’s all cuddled up in bed, holding his phone pretty close to his face, and Ilya tries not to let himself wish he were there with him.

“Mh, yes,” Ilya says. He thinks his smile might be coming off a bit forced, but Shane doesn’t seem to notice. “You were great. Pope is Catholic.”

“Hughes didn’t even insult me or anything!” John Hughes is not someone Ilya had been worried about in terms of who was going to use slurs. He’d been seen at the San Jose pride parade carrying his niece on his shoulders, so perhaps that had had something to do with the lack of hostility from the rest of the team. Toronto is going to be a shitshow, and he’s pretty sure Columbus will be as well. He wishes Shane didn’t have to play them, because Shane deserves to live in a little bubble of happiness. Perhaps Ilya just won’t tell him about whatever happens in Columbus next week when Boston faces them. “And the media even backed off when I told them to. But did you see the flags in the crowd?”

Ilya nods, looking off to the side of the screen because if he keeps having to look at Shane’s excited smile, he’s going to lose his cool entirely. “They showed on TV.”

“I wasn’t expecting that at all! It was kind of sweet, right?”

He hates himself for wanting to cry. For the jealousy churning inside of him. For not just being happy for Shane. “Yes, very sweet.”

“I’m so relieved that the room’s been fine, too. Drapeau and a few of the others weren’t great at first, but I think JJ or Hayden must have told them I’m not any different from before.”

“I’m glad,” Ilya says, and he’s horrified to hear his voice crack on ‘glad’. He has to fight the urge to just hang up, realizing distantly that that would not help. He does duck his head, trying to look like he’s busy with something off-camera.

Shane frowns for the first time on this call, and Ilya feels like a monster for causing that. “Are you okay?” Shane says, his voice going all soft and concerned.

Of course not, Ilya wants to say, but he can’t get the words out. “Just tired,” he says instead. “Is late. We should both go to bed.”

Shane looks at him silently for a long moment, clearly still concerned, but then he yawns and cracks a sheepish smile at the camera. “Alright, you have a point. Goodnight, I love you.”

Fuck. He has to stop doing that, because Ilya cannot let himself get used to the way it sounds — or, more importantly, the way it makes him feel.

“Goodnight, Shane,” he says, his voice far too fond. Then he hangs up, presses his hands over his face, and breathes hard until he has himself back under control.

Ilya’s first game back starts off as a shitshow. He’s been demoted to third line, and whatever the Sabretooth first-line center says to Carmichael makes Carmichael turn to give Ilya a dirty look, which Ilya thinks is pretty rich considering how the puck spends the entirety of Carmichael’s shift in front of their own net. Ilya’s first shift is unremarkable, but in his second shift he plays as hard as he can, stripping the puck from the Sabretooth left wing in the neutral zone and dodging all the attempts to get it back. He carries it past the blue line alone. His wingers aren’t with him, partly because he hadn’t paid attention to where they were and partly because he’s not sure they would cooperate on the play. So instead he shoots, getting it in on the rebound.

As he skates back to the neutral zone, Kohn knocks their helmets together in celebration, but no one else does.

Buffalo ties it only a few minutes later, and the rest of the period is full of turnovers. Oregan standing on his head is the only thing between them and humiliation. In the break between the first and second period, Ilya steps up to give them a speech. They may hate him, but he’s still their captain, and he’s run out of fucking patience. “Look, I don't fucking care what you think of what I do in my free time, but I'm here to play hockey,” he snaps at the room at large. “Are the rest of you here to play fucking hockey? I will not lose to Buffalo. We’re better than that.”

The reaction is lacklustre, but they’re much better at keeping possession from then on, so Ilya will take it. The game goes to a shoot-out, but Sebbin gets them the win eventually. Ilya’s survived his first game back, and they didn’t even lose.

The atmosphere in the locker room is still strange afterwards, but Ilya refuses to address it. He’s fucking sick of this. He’s more than proven himself. They’re the ones with a problem, and they should fucking get over it already if they want to keep winning games.

Chapter Text

Ilya keeps thinking that Shane is finally going to snap out of it.

It’s been almost a month since he got down on one knee in Ilya’s front hallway, and since then, he’s shown no sign of coming to his senses and realizing this is a stupid idea. Or that he doesn’t actually want Ilya. He keeps doing things like finding a Russian restaurant in some old neighbourhood in Montreal and suggesting they go some time, or sending him memes dumping on Buffalo. And sure, he chuckles at the text that says “🙏 Hope Kent has a long and difficult recovery” about Dallas Kent being out for two weeks with an upper body injury, but these are things you send to friends, or boyfriends, and not someone you only see four or five times a year to secretly fuck. So that really doesn’t bode well for Shane recovering from his temporary insanity.

The whole thing is getting to the point where he thinks that Hollander might be fucking him up even more than the undercurrent of homophobia that now follows him around. It takes him way too much effort not to just let himself sink into it. The way Shane is acting would make that so easy. But then he’s not convinced he could make it through the rejection that he’s completely sure is looming.

Sveta, meanwhile, has been… well, worrying about him and not trying very hard to hide it. He manages to fend her off with a road trip in the west and by constantly insisting that he’s definitely fine, but after the twelfth time Shane sends a text that ends with “I love you :)”, he accepts that he can’t deal with this alone. He’s going to break down and start saying it back, or something equally disastrous. Sveta will know what to do. Or, if she doesn’t (Ilya’s not sure how much experience she has with very polite Canadian boys thinking they’re in love with you), she might at least be able to take his mind off it for a bit.

He’s so desperate — so afraid that any second now he’s going to say something he’ll regret forever — that he even reaches out to her instead of waiting for her to inevitably check in. He gets home from yet another unpleasant practice, sees the message that Shane had sent while he was on the ice, and immediately texts Sveta, Are you free? Can you come over?

He busies himself with a shower while he waits for her, partially because he could use a more thorough shower than he’d taken at the rink (which he’d made as short as possible so no one had time to accuse him of looking at them funny or something) but mostly because he can’t take his phone with him in there. By the time he emerges — without having tried to drown himself under the spray, although he’d briefly pondered it — Sveta has arrived and let herself in. She must’ve dropped everything to get over here, or maybe she’d been waiting for him to reach out; either way, he suddenly feels very guilty. She’s made herself at home on his couch, and doesn’t stand up when he enters the room, just pats the couch cushion next to her.

“What do you want to order for dinner?” he says in Russian, going over to sit down. Instead of replying, she rolls her eyes at him.

“Cut the bullshit, Ilyusha, what’s wrong?”

Perhaps he shouldn’t have invited her over. She’s far too perceptive.

Then again, if there’s anyone he can finally lose his shit at, it’s her. And he’s definitely on the verge of losing his shit. He groans, scrubs a hand over his face, and avoids her eyes as he says, “Jane is Shane Hollander.” That’s probably a good place to start. This way she can get the whole picture of how fucked up all of this is.

“Ah,” she says, remarkably calm. “That explains quite a lot.”

… He wishes she were much more rattled than this. She doesn’t even sound surprised. He’s almost tempted to dig into that, but Jane being Shane isn’t even the thing he needs to talk to her about.

“And he asked me to marry him.”

This time she doesn’t respond, and when he finally chances a glance at her, she’s trying and completely failing to hide a gigantic smile. His stomach sinks at the sight; maybe she won’t be able to help him after all.

She clears her throat, and finally manages to school her face into a more neutral expression. “And what did you say?”

“I said yes. But I shouldn’t have, not even just for immigration. It was a bad mistake. I need to figure out a different way.” Please, please help me get out of this, he doesn’t say, but hopefully it comes across in his tone.

“Did he propose just to help you get… whatever they call a green card in Canada?”

“No. He thinks he’s in love with me, and he doesn’t want me to risk going back to Russia, and this way I would have some kind of permanent status that wouldn’t be tied to hockey. But there has to be some other way to do that.” He huffs and slouches into the couch. It’s pathetic, but he’s kind of been avoiding sitting here ever since what happened with Shane. Maybe he should get a new couch. “I still have my visa. I could at least apply for a green card here. I still have some time before my contract is up.”

June 30th, 2018. It hadn’t felt important before, because of course he would sign an extension with Boston. He’d probably get offered a no movement clause, although he wasn’t worried about getting traded — why would Boston do that? He’d got them a cup, and everyone knew he could get them another. So maybe he would go for more money instead of the NMC. They’d give it to him, because they’d want him to stay.

And now everything is different, because he’ll have to go back to Russia to renew his visa, and Boston might not want to keep him. Some team will want him, he’s almost entirely certain. But not Boston.

“Are you in love with him?” Sveta asks, which is so far from what he’d been expecting her to say, and so far from where his thoughts had been, that he can only blink at her for a long moment.

“Why does that matter?”

“So that’s a yes, then.”

“It doesn’t matter if I’m in love with him or not. That’s not the point! The point is that Shane Hollander is going to blow up his whole life just because I did something stupid. Because he is an idiot and very Canadian.”

“I think it matters a lot, Ilya.” She’s starting to sound impatient. “What’s really the problem? And whatever it is, are you going to talk to me about it? Because this sounds like a perfectly good plan to me. Hollander’s career can probably weather it. This month has gone well for him. Even if it can’t, he’s the one who gets to decide what he wants to do. The man’s in love with you and he’s offering you a good option, so if you’re trying to poke holes in it like this, either you hate his guts too much to marry him or you’re scared. Which is it?”

“He’s not in love with me,” Ilya insists, ignoring her question altogether. “He thinks he is, but he’s wrong.”

“And how do you know Shane Hollander’s brain better than Shane Hollander?”

“I am using logic! He fucking ran away when I used his first name! We fuck four times a year, and we don’t do… we aren’t friends. You and I fuck, but we’re also friends. It’s not like that with him.”

“But that was enough for you to fall in love with him. So why can’t the reverse be true?”

Ilya’s lip trembles, and he bites down on it hard. Because Shane is easy to love, and I’m not, is the answer, but Sveta won’t want to hear that.

“Ilyusha.” Her tone is much softer this time. Her hand comes up to stroke his cheek, and he manages not to flinch away from it. “I wish that you would let yourself have this.”

“I can’t, Svetochka,” he says in a very small voice. He doesn’t tell her that she had it completely right when she guessed that he’s scared. He’s pretty sure she knows that already.

Sveta sighs heavily, then tugs him closer and maneuvers him into place so that his head is resting on her shoulder. He relaxes into her on instinct, and neither of them speaks again for a while.

“It’s very romantic,” she murmurs eventually, pressing her cheek against the top of his head. “Sweet, really. Of Hollander, I mean. I better be invited to the wedding.”

Ilya doesn’t bother arguing with her. She’s clearly not going to be any help in salvaging this. It’s a strange feeling, because he can’t remember the last time they were on opposite sides of something like this. There’s a voice in the back of his mind timidly reminding him that Sveta is usually right, that if she’s disagreeing with him maybe he should re-evaluate, but he pushes it aside.

Preparing to tell Hayden and JJ about Ilya is the first time Shane has truly, actually been nervous about all of this. He’d known that even if he had to talk them around, his parents would still love and support him no matter what — at least, he hadn’t really had time to convince himself otherwise before he’d jumped into the deep end — but this is different. He’s had too much time to think about it, and even though they’ve been playing together for Shane’s entire career, he’s not sure they’ll be with him on this. They’ve insulted Ilya both on and off the ice, and it’s not really more than any other teammate, but these are the teammates that matter to him.

He spends a frankly embarrassing amount of money on steaks, having decided that cooking his friends food they’ll actually want to eat can only help. He also buys potatoes for the first time in… well, probably ever? Even though the store near him only has potatoes in fuck-off-gigantic bags and he’ll never be able to get through all of them. Maybe he’ll send JJ and Hayden home with the rest of them.

JJ whistles when he sees the meat Shane has bought. “Câline de bine (holy crap lol), Hollzy, why did you buy us such nice fucking steaks? Are you asking for a fucking trade or something?” He then immediately takes over the grill when Shane starts it up, insisting that he doesn’t trust Shane to handle meat this nice, “recent news aside.” He ignores Shane’s protests that JJ is a guest and doesn’t have to cook, and the fact that he is blushing bright red. Hayden is free to instead look at Shane suspiciously.

“Are you asking for a trade?” he says, and Shane feels bad when he sees how hard Hayden is clutching his unopened can of beer.

“No,” Shane says, shaking his head emphatically. “No, it’s not that.”

“But it is something,” Hayden says, only lessening his grip on his beer slightly.

“Well, uh, yeah,” Shane says. “Can we talk about it once the steaks are done? It’s good news,” he adds hurriedly when Hayden’s face falls.

It takes approximately a hundred years to cook and eat the steaks. Shane’s able to objectively recognize that JJ had hit it out of the park on the grilling front while still feeling like the food on his plate might as well be cardboard for all that he enjoys eating it. They make somewhat-stilted conversation about the horseshit goaltending in the Central Division the whole time, but when JJ’s plate is finally cleared, he pushes it away from himself and says, “Aweye déguidine (Hurry up & stop procrastinating)! Why did you buy us fancy steaks instead of making us eat raw vegetables?”

Shane takes a deep breath. “I’m getting married.”

Both JJ and Hayden grin, and Hayden actually whoops, and then says, “Who’s the lucky guy? Why haven’t we met him before now? I mean, I guess you couldn’t really introduce a boyfriend without saying you’re gay, huh.”

“You have met him,” Shane says, and now he looks at the table, afraid of seeing his teammates’ faces. “It’s Ilya Rozanov.”

They both go completely silent. It stretches out so long that Shane looks back up because not being able to see their faces actually feels worse — he wants to know how that landed. Hayden is gaping comically. JJ looks like he’s trying not to crack up.

”Tu m'niaises-tu (Are you kidding me?)?”

Shane swallows hard. “No, I’m serious.”

“The same Ilya Rozanov who was kissing another man in Dallas?” Hayden says. He does not sound impressed. “Like… a month ago? That Ilya Rozanov?”

“Do you know a different Ilya Rozanov, Hayd?” Shane sighs. He really wishes people would stop rubbing those stupid photos in his face.

“I just think you deserve someone who’s actually a nice person, and doesn’t cheat on you at a random club,” he says, and he sounds so earnest about it. “I’m sure we can find you someone! You’re a hockey player, and Jackie said the WAGs chat thinks you’re hot.” He quickly adds, “I mean, you’re probably hot to men too!” and looks at Shane like he’s worried he’s just insulted him.

“You are definitely hot,” JJ says. “If you actually went out, you could pick up like that.” He snaps his fingers for emphasis. “Much hotter than Ilya Rozanov.”

“He wasn’t cheating on me,” Shane says. “We had a big fight and kind of broke up? It’s… it’s complicated,” he says instead of confessing that they hadn’t really had the kind of relationship that involved discussions about exclusivity.

“Oh, cool, sounds like a healthy basis for a marriage.”

To Shane’s surprise, JJ scoffs a little at that; he makes eye contact with Shane and shakes his head in fond exasperation. “Guy pumps out some kids and thinks he’s an expert in healthy marriages, eh? You knew Jackie for a year before you married her, Pike. You’re just lucky she’s so great.”

“I'm just saying that if I had a fight with Jackie so bad that she went out on the town and fucked another dude, I would not be engaged to her a month later.”

“It was my fault,” Shane says. “I ran away because I was scared.”

There’s silence for a long moment and then Hayden says, “...That's not better. Is that supposed to make us feel better? Dude. A month. That’s way too fast!”

“Nah, dude, it’s… um, gay-normal. Haven't you heard of U-Hauling?” JJ says, chuckling. At least for the moment he’s laughing at Hayden, not Shane. Shane has not heard of U-Hauling. It’s not like they can move in together, what with living in different cities for hockey, so he’s not sure why JJ is bringing it up.

“That’s lesbians, bro!” Hayden says, throwing his hands up in exasperation. Apparently JJ’s statement makes sense to him, so Shane hopes they’ll explain it at some point.

JJ laughs way too hard for whatever the joke is. “How the fuck do you know it’s lesbians?”

“I’ve been doing some reading!” Hayden says defensively. “You know, so I can support Shane!”

Whatever this is about, Shane can admit that that’s sweet of him. Well, it is until Hayden follows up with, “Come on, JJ! You can’t be on board with this. I mean, Rozanov’s an asshole!”

“No, he’s not,” says Shane. He’s trying hard to stay calm and to keep his voice level, but he’s so frustrated that Hayden feels so certain of Ilya’s poor character based on nothing but chirps and a few soundbites that he’s not even willing to hear Shane out.

“Dude! He’s such a dick to you on the ice.”

“No, he’s not, actually. Have you ever seen him foul me? He’s literally just playing normal hockey. And he’s always smiling at me during face-offs —”

Hayden has been opening and closing his mouth for a long moment, like he wants to jump in with examples of Ilya Rozanov’s egregious misconduct but can’t actually come up with any. Now he smacks his hand down on the table with an air of triumph and says, “Yeah, to get under your skin! Like an asshole!”

Somehow, Shane manages to resist the urge to bury his face in his hands out of frustration. “Or he just, y’know, likes me. And so he smiles when he sees me. I know him a lot better than you do. I’m telling you that he didn’t do anything wrong and he’s not actually an asshole, and you think you know better than me because… what? He’s chirped you one too many times? Tripped you occasionally?”

Hayden actually looks abashed at that, and doesn’t respond. JJ, meanwhile, seems uninterested in their bickering.

“So, you and Rozanov — how long have you been ‘complicated’?” He smirks. “Longer than Hayden knew Jackie?”

“Fuck off, dude,” Hayden grumbles.

“Years,” Shane says, which makes JJ whistle in amazement. “I mean, we don’t usually get to see each other that often because of our schedules, but we text a lot. He’s saved as Lily in my phone.” He knows Hayden will know what that means. Maybe that will finally get through to him.

“He’s Boston Lily?” Hayden says. If he raises his eyebrows any higher, Shane thinks they might migrate off his face entirely. “But that’s been going on for years.”

“Yeah, like I said.”

“Wait. Fuck. Oh my god. Boston Lily.” Hayden looks like he’s had his whole world rocked. He leans back in his chair and stares up at the ceiling.

“How many years?” JJ asks, ignoring Hayden.

“I’ve known him longer than I’ve known either of you.”

“Wow-lâ (*WOW*),” JJ says emphatically, his eyes huge. “But it’s not just for immigration, right? Because of the photos et, tsé, la Russie (and, y'know, Russia). I’m no expert but I can see why he would want a PR card.”

“No, Shane’s in love with him,” says Hayden, and he sounds exhausted. “I’ve seen him staring at his phone with gooey eyes way too much for him not to be in love. Fuck. And you just had to fall in love with Ilya Rozanov?”

“Nah, I didn’t have to, I just decided to make my life really difficult and complicated because I thought it would be fun.” Sarcasm isn’t Shane’s favourite way to communicate, but it’s that or start shouting, at this point.

“Sorry, man,” Hayden says, and he actually does look pretty sorry. “I’m being a dick.”

“The team’s not gonna like it,” JJ points out. “I mean, I’m not sure I like it, but if it really is what you want, then I’m happy for you. But the team… maybe not.”

Shane just shrugs. “Well, they can all keep in mind that I've kicked the Raiders' asses repeatedly, and I plan to keep doing that. You’ve all seen it doesn’t affect how I play against him.”

“I guess,” Hayden says, as if he didn’t remember how Shane had won every face-off against Rozanov when they last played Boston. He’d congratulated Shane at the time, but apparently the fact that they were fucking erased it.

“So you are telling the team? What about the public?” JJ asks.

“We haven’t discussed it yet,” Shane says. “Do you think it’s even possible to keep it a secret?”

“I think it’s risky,” JJ says, his brow furrowed in thought. “The team would probably react much worse if it gets leaked and they find out you’ve been fucking married to a Boston Raider in secret.”

Shane’s inclined to agree, but he’s a little worried that if they tell their teams, it’ll get to the press sooner than later. He’s not sure whether Ilya would be okay with that. He’s had more than enough privacy taken away from him by the press already. He nods in acquiescence, but doesn’t say anything.

“Well, I’m sure you guys can figure it out.” JJ’s smile is warm and genuine. “We have your backs, eh? If the team wants to say bullshit, they will have to go through us first! Right, Hayd?”

“Right,” Hayden says immediately, and Shane’s a little surprised by how hard the relief hits him. He almost feels bad for not being sure that Hayden would say yes. Then Hayden leans over the table and puts a hand on Shane’s forearm, shaking him a little. “You’re my best friend, man. I’ve got your back. I’ll even… learn to like Rozanov for you.” It sounds like he thinks this will cost him monumental effort, but it does sound like he means it. “Whatever you need.”

“Thanks, guys,” Shane says. He feels like he’s just come off an extra-long shift, exhaustion weighing his body down, but at least he’s got them in his corner now.

Okay, so Ilya doesn’t have zero other options.

He’s managed to talk to a few immigration lawyers in Boston, in between road games and other obligations, and none of them have said that his case is completely hopeless and he’s going to be put on a plane back to Moscow unless he marries Shane Hollander. He can apply for a green card in the US. They even suggest it might be fast-tracked to an extent because of how high-profile an athlete he is. Sure, they usually drop that idea and don’t bring it up again once they find out about his family’s connections back home, but… well, it counts for something, that he’s one of the best players in the MLH.

If he gets traded to a Canadian team, though, or put on waivers and then picked up by a Canadian team, it’ll basically void his application. Maybe his agent can help him get some kind of guarantee from the Raiders. Or negotiate an imminent trade to a US-based team in a different division. Maybe a team out West would want him, and then he’s out of the Eastern Conference entirely, making him far less of a threat to Boston’s continued success. And he’d only have to deal with Shane Hollander and his adorable freckles and his perfect smile twice a year, so Shane would definitely get over his temporary insanity, and maybe Ilya could finally get over him.

Anyway, the point is that a green card isn’t completely off the table. It’s maybe kind of risky (once they hear about his family, the lawyers apparently aren’t able to give him a very definite timeline, or even any firm answers about whether his application would definitely be approved before his visa runs out) but it’s a real option.

So is Svetlana. Probably. When he’d asked her if he could marry her for a spousal green card, she’d sighed and said, “That’s one of the saddest things you’ve ever said to me.” Which isn’t a no. He wouldn’t stay married to her forever — they could amicably divorce a few years after he got his green card, enough that it wouldn’t be suspicious. If he goes through with marrying Hollander, it’ll be another fucking scandal when Shane eventually asks for a divorce.

He’s distantly aware that he should probably tell Shane he’s doing all this. But he’s been waiting for some sign that Shane’s coming to his senses, so that he doesn’t have to shoot him down when he’s smiling at him like that over FaceTime, or do it over text. It’s not like he wants to hurt Shane — in fact, this is in large part about not hurting Shane. But Ilya is a coward, and keeps putting off arranging a meeting in person when one of them has consecutive off days so they could fly up or down.

He drags his feet too long. Shane beats him to the punch.

“You’ve got a couple days off next week, right?” is the first thing Shane says to him when he answers his latest call, and Ilya feels a distinct twinge of anxiety before he answers in the affirmative.

“Great! I do too, and it looks like they finally overlap, so I was thinking maybe you could come up here and we could like… do some planning?”

“Yeah,” Ilya says, hoping Shane can’t hear how much he doesn’t want to do that. “Sure. I have practice on the 12th, but if I fly up the morning of the 13th and then leave the morning of the 14th to get back for afternoon practice, that will be enough time, yes?”

“Sounds perfect,” Shane says. Ilya can hear him smiling, which is almost as bad for him as seeing it. “Send me your flight details, I’ll pick you up from the airport.”

Ilya tries his best to sound normal as he says, “Looking forward to it,” and hangs up. He feels sick. It’s the right thing to do, but he’s pretty sure he’s going to hurt Shane. He tries to tell himself that it’s better for him to get hurt now in the short term than it would be to let this all go ahead and hurt him in the long term, but that doesn’t make him feel any better.

Chapter Text

Ilya has been to Shane’s place before. This is something that Shane is trying to keep in mind in the days leading up to Ilya’s visit. It’s stupid to be worrying about things like whether he needs more art on the walls, or whether the fireplace in the bedroom is tacky, when the whole place looks the same as it did last time Ilya saw it. He tries to alleviate his anxiety by cleaning the whole condo top to bottom, and stocking up on Coke, and buying some shampoo and conditioner that’s specifically for curly hair. By the time he’s waiting at curbside pickup at the Montreal airport, though, his anxiety has done a full 180° into excitement. They’ve gone far longer between in-person meetings before, but now that they’re going to be married, it’s so much harder to wait.

They don’t have long to spend together, but Shane’s got big plans. They can talk through what Shane’s found out from the immigration lawyer, and they can decide what they’re going to tell their teams and if they’re going to make some kind of public announcement, but that’s the boring stuff. Depending on how those conversations go, maybe he can finally get Ilya a ring (he still hasn’t given Shane his ring size, but like, if they go to a jewelry store in person, the salespeople will be able to figure it out, surely?), and also they should have plenty of time to have sex. Preferably more than once.

He doesn’t dare kiss Ilya in the car, but as soon as they get to his condo, he crowds Ilya against the door and kisses him until they’re both breathless. And, fuck it, they have a lot to do, but maybe they could start with sex. To get it out of their systems.

That’s Shane’s thought process, anyway, but when his hands go down to Ilya’s belt buckle, Ilya grabs his wrists and stops him. “Wait,” he says, sounding a little strangled. “Was ‘planning’ code word for fucking?”

“Well, no, but it can include fucking.” Shane’s kind of taken aback that Ilya’s even stopping him, but it makes his heart flutter a little. Like, Ilya actually came up here to plan their future with him, not to get off. “I just kind of thought I might be able to concentrate better, y’know, after?”

Ilya’s face does something that Shane can’t quite decipher, but then he unbuckles his belt before going back to kissing Shane. So it’s probably fine.

Shane sucks him off right in the entryway until Ilya tells him to stop and practically pushes him towards the bedroom. Once Shane’s facedown on the bed, Ilya opens him up slowly, reverently, first with his tongue and then with his fingers, and isn’t moved at all by Shane begging him to hurry up. Finally, after Shane has become convinced that he might straight up die if Ilya doesn’t get inside him, Ilya slides in and fucks the thoughts out of Shane’s brain entirely. This was definitely a great idea on Shane’s part. He’s missed this so fucking much, and after the whirlwind of the past month, it feels great to just turn off his brain and float for a bit.

Once they’re both sweaty and sated, Shane starts laughing, and Ilya turns to him in confusion.

“Nothing,” Shane says, grinning so much he thinks his face might be frozen like that. “Just… I really locked that down? Go me.”

Ilya’s reaction to that is strangely muted. Before Shane can start overthinking it, though, Ilya gets up and leads them both to the shower, and Shane is once again thoroughly distracted.

In the shower, Ilya realizes he might be panicking a bit.

Well, he was panicking a bit before they got in the shower, and then he realized that Shane has gone out and bought curly hair products and left them on the inset shelf, and now he’s definitely panicking. He came to Montreal to try to let Shane down easy — to try to show him all the ways that this plan is actually not a very good idea, that he’ll regret it sooner than later. But everything that’s happened since his plane landed has basically been one big highlight reel of his fucking weakness. He shouldn’t have let Shane suck him off, and he definitely shouldn’t have fucked him, and Shane is so happy and Ilya’s going to ruin that. But better to make him miserable now than let him realize for himself how stupid they’ve both been only after it’s been made legally binding.

He can hardly start this conversation in the shower, he tells himself. As though it’s pragmatism that has him letting Shane kiss him up against the tile wall, and not yet more weakness. He’s disgusted with himself. He hates how much he wants this. He’s fucking selfish and pathetic, and the fact that Shane apparently still hasn’t noticed is baffling.

Once they’ve both cleaned off and gotten dry, he puts his underwear and pants back on before suggesting they get a drink; Shane dresses as well and follows him into the kitchen. As much as Ilya wants something stiffer, he opts for a glass of water and sits down heavily on one of the stools. Shane is still smiling at him. He feels sick. He stares down at the countertop, because looking Shane in the face is making him feel worse.

“So…” Shane says, and unless Ilya is imagining things, there’s some hesitation creeping into his voice. “Is your team still being shitty?”

Hockey talk, he maybe can do. Ease them into the green card topic.

“Mh. Yes,” he says. He even sounds mostly normal. “Is very annoying.”

“Well, have you thought about asking for a trade?” Shane asks, which is about when Ilya realizes he just walked into a fucking trap. “Because if you do, I was thinking, maybe you could go to a Canadian team? It might help with the sponsorship process.”

It’s probably now or never. That’s what Ilya tells himself as he takes a sharp breath in through his nose and tries to gather his words. “I think it is not a good idea,” he says, still looking at the countertop.

“Well, that’s okay, we can still apply if you’re playing in the US,” Shane says. “I’m sure we can explain the situation, since your visas are tied to the MLH and the Raiders and stuff.”

“No, I —” God, he doesn’t even know how to have this conversation in Russian, let alone in stupid English. “I talked with some lawyers in Boston. They say I have probably other options. Ones that will not… make things difficult for you.”

“What?” Shane sounds confused.

“Even if they are fine with you being gay, the Metros will hate you marrying a Boston player. The League will hate you marrying a Boston player. Maybe you get sent down to the minors so you don’t play against me. Probably I get sent down instead, but we can’t know that for sure.” He’s tripping over his words in his rush to explain, his vowels not quite coming out right, but he can’t bring himself to slow down. “I have a year left on my visa. I can apply for a green card. Then you don’t need to do this for me.”

There’s a long silence. Ilya chances a glance at Shane through his eyelashes. His face has gone blank; but his eyes are a wide-open window, as usual, and Ilya can see his shock (and the beginnings of hurt) clear as day. He snaps his gaze back down towards the counter.

“I don’t fucking care if I have to move to Newfoundland for you —”

“Where the fuck is Newfoundland?” Ilya interrupts, momentarily forgetting that that is the least important detail of this conversation.

“It’s a province near — it doesn’t matter! If I have to play for the farm team in St John’s, then fine, I’ll go to St John’s. If we both get sent down, maybe we go play in Europe instead. Not the KHL, obviously, but maybe the Liiga or Sweden. I told you already, I don’t care about any of that.”

“Okay, and when you change your mind?” It comes out much more frustrated than Ilya intended, but he can’t help it, nor can he help it when he finally lifts his head and looks Shane full in the face. He wants to take him by the shoulders and shake him. “You will not be able to fucking undo this!”

“Change my mind? What part of ‘I want to marry you’ did you not understand?”

“All of it,” Ilya says, and clenches his hands into fists against his knees as the hurt solidifies in Shane’s expression. “You don’t want to marry me, Hollander.”

“Yes the fuck I do!” Shane insists, his eyes overly-bright. “I want to marry you even if it means never playing hockey again. I want to marry you even though you’re being a fucking asshole right now. I told you to say no if you didn’t want this, didn’t I? And what, you thought you’d wait a fucking month?”

“You’re right. I should have said no,” Ilya says. His throat is starting to tighten. “I would not be good for you, Shane. I don’t want you to ever hate me, and you will. It might take one year or five years but you will. You will miss the MLH, and you will resent me because I’m the reason you can’t play in it anymore. Shane fucking Hollander playing in Europe? No one will be able to keep up with you. You’d never play good hockey again. I’m not worth that.”

“So you think I’d prefer you catching tuberculosis in some Siberian prison over playing in Europe?”

“I would not catch tuberculosis,” he lies. He’s glad the English and the Russian are almost the same word so he can sound confident about it instead of not knowing what Shane means.

Shane goes quiet again. Now he’s not looking at Ilya, instead ducking his head and pacing back and forth across the kitchen. Ilya catches himself playing with his necklace and forces himself to drop it, instead placing his hands on the counter and trying to look calm and collected. Like he’s sure of what he’s saying, and not desperately wanting to say the opposite.

Finally, Shane stops mid-pace and takes a deep breath. He’s still keeping his eyes averted, and when he speaks his voice is flat. “Just… answer one question for me honestly,” he says, and Ilya nods, because what else can he do? “Is this just about my career? Like… if things were different, if we knew everything with the MLH would be okay, would you say yes?”

The honest answer is that he wants this so badly it scares him. The honest answer is that it’s been taking him fucking effort not to spend his free time googling wedding rings and Montreal event spaces. If things were different, he would be happy to spend the rest of his life trying to make Shane happy, trying to make marrying Ilya worth it. But the whole fucking problem is that even if things were different, he knows that his best would never be enough to make this worthwhile.

“Hollander —” he tries, and Shane fucking explodes.

“Don’t fucking Hollander me!” he yells, and it’s such a sudden change in his demeanor that Ilya can’t help but startle. He’s glaring, and his face is turning pink. “Jesus Christ, Ilya! If this is just about my career, then that’s my fucking call to make and I’ve made it. But if it’s not — if it’s about me, and you just… don’t want me like that, or whatever, then stop pretending it’s about hockey and fucking tell me the truth already. I’ve been telling you I love you for weeks and… and you’ve been letting me make a fool of myself while you talk to lawyers and figure something else out? Is that what you’re telling me right now?”

“Stop it,” Ilya says, and his voice wobbles dangerously. “Fucking stop it, Shane, this isn’t fucking fair. Okay, you think you love me back, but when you realize you are wrong, what am I supposed to do?”

“Why do you have so little faith in me?” Shane asks, his chin jutting out defiantly. “You think I don’t know how I feel?”

“Your feelings made you run away when I used your first name during sex. You said you can’t do this. Nothing has changed since then. That was your honest reaction, not this.”

“Everything’s fucking changed since then!” Shane insists. “You’re allowed to make a stupid mistake by kissing some guy in public, but I’m not allowed to make a stupid mistake? How would you have reacted if I had been the one to call you by your first name?”

“You did call me Ilya, and I didn’t fucking run away! Fuck, Hollander, why do you think I asked you to stay in first fucking place? I bought fucking ginger ale, did you think I just have ginger ale in fucking fridge?”

“So you’re telling me, what, that I fucked this up forever by freaking out?”

“You run out, then you turn up and propose. Nothing changed between, except now you fucking pity me. I don’t want your pity.”

Shane gapes at him, before he turns on his heel and storms out of the kitchen. After a few moments, the back door slams. Fuck. That probably couldn’t have gone any fucking worse.

Chapter Text

With the sound of the door slamming behind Shane still reverberating through his head, Ilya groans and very slowly leans down until his forehead is resting on the countertop. The temptation arises to just start banging his head against it, but he doesn’t act on the impulse.

He was always going to hurt Shane with this conversation, but he didn’t expect Shane to fight so hard to go through with this stupid decision. He thought Shane would realize, once Ilya laid it all out, that it was an impossible course of action. Shane would be hurt but he would at least be able to understand Ilya’s reasoning; maybe he would be so hurt that he refused to ever speak to Ilya again, and that would be alright, because at least that way Ilya would have saved Shane’s career.

What the fuck was he supposed to say? That he wants this so badly it hurts? That every night, he goes to bed wishing Shane were beside him? He can’t get through to Shane as it is, so he can’t imagine that admitting how painful it is to turn him down would’ve been helpful. Shane is so good. He’s a good person, and if Ilya had said any of that, Shane wouldn’t have heard anything Ilya said afterwards. Shane would marry him, because he’d want Ilya to be happy. He’s terrified that Shane genuinely values Ilya’s happiness over his own, but one day he’ll wake up and realize that he needs to put himself first, because no one can live like that forever.

Part of him wants to run away, to just grab the rest of his clothes and leave out the front door, but he’s not sure he could live with himself if he did. His stomach hurts thinking about the look on Shane’s face after Ilya snapped at him; imagining how he’d react to coming back inside and finding that Ilya is gone is almost too much for him. He should just wait here for Shane to calm down and come back. Then he can apologize. Or maybe Shane will come back and tell Ilya to leave and never contact him again. The thought makes Ilya want to die, but he would deserve it.

He drags himself upright, scrubbing his hands over his face. Fuck. Maybe he should just follow Shane. If he wants to yell at Ilya some more, or tell him to go away, he can go ahead. If he can’t find Shane, he can just sit on the steps — no longer taking up space in Shane’s home, but still available for whatever Shane wants to do. Maybe Shane will punch him. Sure, he’s not a violent person — he’s only ever had one fight in his career, the one with Hunter that he refused to give Ilya any details about — but maybe fighting Hunter awakened something in him. Ilya would certainly deserve it.

The back door leads directly to the weird murder staircase where Shane had greeted him the first time he came over here. He pushes it open and steps onto the landing, and immediately sees that Shane has not left the building. He’s sitting on the steps near the bottom, curled in on himself. The acoustics are very strange and echoey, which means that Ilya can hear Shane from here — can hear the sad little snuffling noises he’s making into his arms.

He hesitates, almost going back inside to wait there. Shane at least deserves the choice of when he’s ready to confront Ilya. Before he can move, though, Shane looks up at him and he freezes. Shane’s face is blotchy and tear-stained. For a moment, all Ilya can think is that this is the first time he’s ever seen Shane actually cry.

Shane hurriedly swipes his hoodie sleeves over his face, as though that will hide anything. “What?” he demands roughly, but his voice breaks on the word. A fresh wave of tears goes cascading down his cheeks, and he turns away abruptly, burying his face back into his arms.

Ilya can’t help himself. He starts down the stairs before he can talk himself out of it, his feet moving without him telling them to. As he reaches the bottom, he hesitates — everything in him is telling him to sit down next to Shane and pull him into his arms, but he doesn’t think that would be welcome. Instead he settles himself two steps above Shane — close enough to reach out and touch him, but far enough away that Shane still has space.

“I’m sorry,” he says helplessly. “I did not want to hurt you.”

Shane scoffs. “Throwing all that in my face was you trying not to hurt me? Why didn’t you just say no when I asked the first time?”

Ilya looks down at his lap, because he can’t bear to see what Shane’s face will do next. “It was… weakness,” he admits. “I wanted very badly to say yes. I… how do you say in English? Leap without looking?”

“More or less,” Shane says. His tone gives absolutely no indication of what he thinks of Ilya’s statement. Ilya still doesn’t look up.

“I should have said something before now,” he says to the stair he’s sitting on. “But I just kept thinking… he will call it off any moment. He will realize, like he did last time.”

Shane lets out an annoyed little huff, a sound Ilya’s quite familiar with. “I’m sorry about last time,” he bites out. Ilya shakes his head to stop him from continuing, and goes to reach out his arm before he remembers he’s decided not to touch Shane.

“No sorrys. You aren’t understanding me. You were right to leave. Was very good instinct.” It’s quite possibly the only smart thing either of them has done since they were drafted together.

Shane doesn’t say anything for so long that Ilya looks at him at last. He’s frowning at Ilya in frustrated confusion from where his face is half-hidden by his sleeve; his eyes are still swimming with tears.

Ilya waits, but Shane is clearly expecting him to say more, so he goes on. He has to take a deep breath first, and it feels like he can’t even get enough air in. “That day… I felt so stupid. I don’t even know what I was trying to do, what I was fucking thinking. I planned for a week and did not even know why. I say to myself: hm, if I want Hollander to stay, better buy stupid ginger ale. I will make him tuna melt, and I will put all the ingredients ready in little boxes so he doesn't have to wait too long. But I was carried away. I was so… I was thinking so much of how much I want you that I forgot all the reasons I can’t have you.”

“You —” Shane interrupts, but Ilya shakes his head and talks over him. If he lets Shane respond, he’ll lose his nerve, just like he did a month ago.

“I am not worth it, Shane. To be… together, to be something, would be very difficult. It’s not just hockey, it is me. My family, my…” He doesn’t know how to describe it, not in English. Or maybe he does know how to describe it in English, but he can’t bear to say it out loud — to say the way I am constantly haunted by my mother, by the way I know I’m like her, by how empty I feel sometimes, the hollowing-out of my insides that nothing can fix. Instead, he says, “I am not good for you. You say yourself, I am an asshole. You deserve better. You should have something that is nice, and simple, and easy. We will never be that. You know this. You left because you know it is not worth it. One day you will realize this again, and then you will leave again. And I don’t want you to have nothing left when you do.”

Shane remains silent. This time, Ilya doesn’t look up. Instead, he’s waiting for Shane to stand and go back inside, convinced at last that Ilya is correct. He’ll collect Ilya’s clothes, put them in the bag he brought, bring them back to where Ilya will still be sitting on the steps, and then he will say, “You’re right, and you can go now.” Next time they face each other on the ice Shane will ignore him like he always should have, and everything will be right.

But Shane doesn’t stand up. In fact, Ilya feels him shift closer, and then his hand is on Ilya’s cheek, drawing Ilya’s eyes towards Shane’s in pure shock. He doesn’t look relieved, or angry, or any of the ways Ilya expected him to look; he looks fucking heartbroken.

“You really think that?” he says, sweeping his thumb back and forth over Ilya’s cheek.

Ilya feels like he’s vomited up all his words and has nothing left, so he just nods.

Shane takes a shaky breath and his eyes well up with tears again. Ilya can’t bear to pull away from Shane’s touch, so he just closes his eyes instead of looking away.

“I don’t,” Shane says. “I don’t think that.” His voice is so soft, and even though what Ilya said was just… what he’s been trying to tell Shane since their argument began, he thinks that maybe marriage is no longer what Shane is talking about.

“I left because I was scared. You’re so… comfortable with all of this. With fucking guys, and… maybe it’s because you like having sex with women too, so you can be normal, but I’m…” Shane hesitates and then takes a shaky breath. “I don’t think I’ve ever liked a woman, not the way I’m supposed to. I’ve had girlfriends, but I’ve never… felt like this, not with any of them. It… I don’t know, it felt different between us that day. Or maybe just… I felt different, like, than I normally do with you. And it all just hit me at once, that it didn’t feel casual anymore, and maybe I’d never find the ‘right’ girl like so many of my teammates have, because I just want you instead. And you’re you and I’m me, fucking boring and neurotic and scared all the fucking time, and I just thought, what if he’s it for me and I’m not it for him?”

Keeping his eyes closed is not turning out to be that helpful, because Ilya can hear how hard Shane is trying to stop crying.

“What is ‘neurotic’?” he asks quietly. Maybe giving Shane a fact to explain will refocus him a little, help him to calm down.

It doesn’t work. Shane’s laugh sounds more like he’s choking. “Like, I overthink everything. And I get upset too easily. Over fucking stupid stuff, like if the lights are too bright or if my socks don’t match. And I’m no fucking fun because I’m always worrying. Neurotic.”

Ilya is suddenly struck by the horrible realization that maybe Shane actually thinks that Ilya doesn’t like him. Every time he calls Shane boring, he worries that it’s too obvious the way his voice is dripping with affection. He never thought to worry that Shane was taking him seriously.

“Every time I have sex with a woman I get distracted because I keep wishing they were you,” Ilya admits. “Now I don’t even bother going home with anyone.”

He finally opens his eyes again, even though he’s not completely sure he wants to see Shane’s reaction to that. Shane looks shellshocked.

“You don’t?” he whispers.

“Not for a long time now. Is not good for the sexy mood, you know, to be inside of a woman and thinking, ‘I wish that I were with Shane Hollander instead and that we were doing something very wonderful and boring, like drinking ginger ale and watching Columbus beat Buffalo.’ I think I realize that I love boring.”

“You love boring,” Shane repeats, like he can’t believe it unless he hears it again. That’s easy. Ilya can do that for him.

“Mh, yes. But only if it’s you.”

Shane smiles. It’s a bit trembly, but it’s there, and Ilya feels himself relax, just a little.

“I was so pissed when I saw those photos,” Shane says, and Ilya blinks at the sudden change of topic, but doesn’t interrupt. “Like, at Deadspin, obviously, and at whoever took them, but also I was pissed at the guy that you were, y’know, kissing. There was this whole shitstorm going on, and my teammates were being assholes in the locker room, and all I could think was that I hated that guy and that I wished it were a photo of us. Even though I knew what that would mean if it happened. It was like suddenly none of the stuff I’d been so stressed out about mattered anymore. I wanted everyone to see it. I wanted them to know that if they wanted to go after you, they’d have to get through me first. And the thought of something bad happening to you was…” Words seem to fail him. He flaps a hand vaguely in the air in front of him, as if to signal, ‘too much’. “It was a really weird day. I went from trying not to think about you to realizing that I can’t imagine a future without you in it, and that I’d fallen in love with you even though I shouldn’t have, and I needed to do something to make sure that you’d be okay. And so I thought…”

He looks almost embarrassed, suddenly. He stares down at his feet and starts fiddling with the drawstrings on his hoodie. “I thought… that I could fix it. Make being with me worth it. Like, you’d get a PR card out of it and not just a boring husband who’s too scared of being found out to even stay the night at your place. And if you wanted to divorce me once it had been long enough, like, so it wouldn’t look like we only got married for PR, then at least I got to have you for a few years, you know?”

“I do not want to divorce you,” Ilya says in disbelief. “I thought that I could not marry you because I would like being married to you too much. So then it would hurt too much when you decided to divorce me. Like maybe this would be something I could not survive.”

“I don’t want to divorce you,” Shane argues, and Ilya chokes out a laugh, and then it turns into a sob.

It takes him completely by surprise. He hadn’t felt tears coming on — or, well, he had, but he thought he had them very successfully held at bay. But now there are tears coming out of his eyes, which is absolutely awful, and Shane is looking at him in horror, bringing both hands up to cup Ilya’s face. His expression is so concerned that it’s almost funny, and Ilya shakes his head. “Oh my god, Hollander. We are arguing about how much we do not want to divorce each other. Shane, we are not even married yet.”

He doesn’t know why he’s crying now. When was the last time he cried? The way he’d teared up when Shane proposed doesn’t count. Was it when his mother died?

He wonders what she would say, if she knew that this perfect, boring Canadian boy had asked to marry him — had offered, with his whole chest, to throw away his entire career just to keep Ilya safe — and that Ilya had responded to this impossible show of love and kindness by hiding and lying and then lashing out like his father. Would she forgive him for it? Will Shane?

He abruptly wishes, more strongly than he has since just after she died, that she could be here. Shane has both his parents, and he’s seen them get interviewed when it’s the Dads Trip and Moms Trip and when Shane reached a hundred points and countless other occasions. They’re always so proud of him, always grinning and hugging him and laughing. They’re even fine with the objectively insane plan of Shane marrying his hockey archrival who got outed due to his own stupidity. “They’ll love you,” Shane had insisted over text, as if that could possibly be true.

No one in Ilya’s family will love Shane. They don’t even love Ilya. When Boston has their Dads Trip, they suggest to the Europeans whose dads can’t travel that they bring a mentor instead. Ilya brings no one. No one grins and laughs and hugs him. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard his father laugh in his entire life.

He thinks that probably having love offered to him shouldn’t feel this terrifying and foreign, but it does anyway.

“Ilya? Hey,” Shane says, his eyes wide. He pushes himself up so that he’s not reaching up for Ilya anymore, so that they’re face to face. “What’s wrong?”

Ilya heaves in a shuddering breath. Fuck, at some point in the last couple of minutes, he’d started really crying. Shane looks a little blurry around the edges. But he still looks perfect, with his fucking freckles and his window-eyes. Ilya wants him like he’s never wanted anything before in his life.

“I love you,” he manages, and Shane makes a sound like he’s just been punched in the chest, and then Ilya finds himself pressed back against the stairs as Shane kisses him like his life depends on it.

They move from the stairwell eventually. It’s infinitely more comfortable on the couch, and here Shane can kiss his fiancé like Ilya deserves, soft and sweet and gentle. Which Shane does, for quite a long while, but it eventually escalates — maybe he needs Ilya too much to be able to avoid that. But he lets himself relax into it. When he finds himself straddling Ilya’s lap, stroking both of them together as Ilya’s hands grab at his back, he manages to quell the urge to start spilling out more apologies for the way this went last time. Instead, he pulls back enough for a brief moment of eye contact and says, “I love you so much.”

Ilya grunts and comes immediately, which makes Shane laugh. Who knew that would be so effective? Then Ilya makes a grumpy face at him, which makes him laugh harder; and he completely forgets to keep moving his hand, so Ilya reaches down and starts moving it for him, controlling the speed and amount of pressure, and Shane realizes that that really does it for him about thirty seconds before he comes too.

“I love you too,” Ilya says, still breathing heavily. “So much.”

Shane can't help but kiss him again, but eventually he starts squirming a little at the sensation of come drying on his stomach. Ilya notices and lifts Shane carefully off his lap so that he can stand up. He leaves the room and returns with a washcloth, then kneels between Shane’s legs and starts cleaning him up. Shane feels like he’s going to melt right into the couch. He reaches down and twirls one of Ilya’s curls around his finger, just because he can, and he lets out a very embarrassing giggle when Ilya responds by turning his head to the side and pressing a gentle kiss to Shane’s wrist.

When Ilya gets back to his feet, he drops another kiss onto the top of Shane’s head. “One moment,” he says against Shane’s hair, and leaves the room again. Shane wiggles backwards until he’s pressed comfortably into the corner where the arm meets the couch. He can’t keep the goofy smile off his face.

This time, when Ilya returns, he’s gotten dressed. Like, properly dressed, in black jeans and a hoodie. He’s even wearing socks. So that’s a little strange. He’s not carrying his bag, so he can’t be leaving, but Shane feels a stab of anxiety anyway.

Ilya walks right over to him, leans down and kisses him, pressing him firmly against the back of the couch, and that does a lot to soothe Shane’s momentary panic. “I will be right back, okay?” he says, pulling back just enough to speak, their noses still pressed together, and Shane is so caught up in how good that kiss was that he nods before he’s actually processed Ilya’s words. It’s only when Ilya walks over to the door and starts pulling his boots on that it registers what he’d just said. Shane sits up straight and frowns.

“Wait, where are you going?”

Ilya glances up to give him an apologetic smile, and Shane studies his face closely, trying to make sure there’s nothing hiding there that he should be worried about. But it definitely looks like a real smile.

“I just want to… ‘get some air’? Yes? I feel very…” He visibly struggles for words, his eyebrows drawing together. “Shit, I don’t have English. It all feels very big. And I am happy, but also… uh, easy to break? And if I start crying when I fuck you later, I will have to change name and move to the tundra, I think. But fresh air will maybe help, so… A small walk?” He finishes with his shoes and straightens up, giving Shane another smile. “Will be right back. Leave door unlocked, yes? Or should I take the key?”

Shane shakes his head. “The front door has a code. 1919. So if you go through the front you’ll be able to let yourself in.”

“1919,” Ilya echoes, and the wide grin he gives Shane makes him remember that this is the first time Ilya will have used the front door. The idea of someone seeing Ilya leaving his place doesn’t give him half the frisson of anxiety that it did before.

“Don’t be gone too long, though, okay?” Shane says, and hopes that doesn’t sound as needy as he’s afraid it might. Thankfully, it makes Ilya smile even wider.

“You are very cute, Hollander,” he says, grabbing his coat, and then he slips out the door.

Shane takes the opportunity while Ilya’s not around to do some more Googling.

Low self-esteem
How to fix someone’s self-esteem
Depression symptoms
How to help someone with depression
Boyfriend has depression help
How to tell someone you think they have depression without making them mad at you

His findings are not very reassuring. Well, they kind of are, because all the articles and everything really stress that there’s help out there if you reach out, but the reaching out part definitely seems like a stumbling block. He has a vague memory of the league having some kind of assistance program for this kind of thing, but he’s never heard of anyone actually using it, and he doubts Ilya would be comfortable disclosing mental health struggles to the league when he’s already in a precarious position.

He’s so caught up in reading articles and bookmarking the most helpful ones that he doesn’t notice that Ilya’s gone for longer than he expected. When he does return, Shane’s surprised to find that Ilya doesn’t smell of smoke — he had assumed that at least part of “getting some air” would involve a trip to the dépanneur to get cigarettes. After the morning they’ve had, Shane thinks even he would have one, if he smoked.

“Hey!” he says, hurriedly closing his browser app and sitting up straighter. “Nice walk?”

“Yes,” Ilya says, and he does look more settled. His nose and ears are tinged pink — it must be windy out. It’s kind of adorable. He kicks off his boots, shucks his jacket, and makes a beeline towards Shane, going down on one knee once he’s right in front of the couch.

Shane blinks at him. “What —”

“Shane Hollander, will you marry me?” Ilya says. He’s trying way too hard to look serious, but Shane can see his lips twitching at the corners, the playful sparkle in his eyes. Shane is very confused, because this is wholly unnecessary, but that doesn’t make his heart feel any less like it’s about to explode.

“Was that not very good?” says Ilya when Shane doesn’t respond. “Sorry, I will try again. Shane Hollander, second-best hockey player in MLH, will you do me the honour of being my very wonderful boring husband?”

Laughter bubbles up from Shane’s chest, and also his face is wet because he’s fucking crying again. He’s laughing and crying and Ilya is grinning up at him from his knee on the floor of Shane’s apartment. “What the fuck, Ilya, I already did this part!” he protests, although he sounds every bit as unbothered as he is.

“Ah, yes, but I have a ring for you,” says Ilya triumphantly. Sure enough, he pulls a small velvet box out of his hoodie pocket and opens it. There’s a plain silver ring inside, and before Shane can say anything, Ilya pulls out a matching pouch — embossed with the logo of a jewelry store a few blocks over — from his pocket as well, which he hands to Shane. “Also a chain so you can keep around your neck during games.” When Shane opens it, he sees that the chain matches Ilya’s — he’s sure Ilya got his in Russia and not from the jewelry store near Shane’s condo, but both chains are gold and have the same style of links.

“Oh my god.” Shane’s eyeroll is definitely undermined by the beaming smile on his face. “Do you have to beat me at everything?”

“Yes, is terrible burden.” Ilya waves the ring box at him a little, pantomiming impatience. “So, will you take this? Sorry it’s so plain. I asked them if they could engrave it with hockey sticks and they said, ‘No. Obviously not.’ So we will have to find other place that will engrave with hockey sticks.”

“You’re ridiculous. I don’t need engravings.”

“Well, I want an engraving on mine,” Ilya says.

“What about our numbers?” Shane says, mopping at his eyes with his sleeves. “Like, I can get 81 on mine and you get 24 on yours.”

A ripple of unadulterated joy washes over Ilya’s face. “That is a yes?”

“Of course it’s a fucking yes, I was the one who asked you first!”

Ilya ignores him in favour of pulling the ring out of the box and sliding it onto Shane’s finger. It fits perfectly. Shane stares at it in disbelief.

“How did you get my ring size?”

“Hollander. We have same size fingers,” Ilya says, putting his hand next to Shane’s.

He’s right. Their fingers are almost exactly the same size.

“Oh my God,” Shane says, putting his head in his hands. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”

“This is why you are marrying me,” Ilya says smugly. “I am the smart one, and you are the beautiful one.”

“I’m marrying you because I’m in love with you,” Shane corrects him.

“Yes, because I am so smart and have such a nice big dick to fuck you with.”

“You’re the worst,” Shane grouses, without feeling.

“Hm, should put that in your vows.”

“Can you get off the floor and kiss me already?” Shane says, grabbing the hand Ilya had been using to demonstrate their finger size and pulling.

Ilya humours him and crowds him against the sofa, kissing him for a moment before picking him up bridal-style. It is, unfortunately, extremely hot that he can pick Shane up like this.

“What the fuck, put me down,” Shane says, wiggling, but Ilya just holds on tighter.

“I want to fuck you on the bed,” Ilya says, and Shane stops squirming.

“Well, alright, if you must,” Shane says, but the words are ruined by the fact that he can’t stop grinning.

“I definitely must,” Ilya says solemnly. And once they get to Shane’s bedroom, he does.

Chapter Text

When Shane invited Ilya up here, he really did intend for it to be mostly a planning trip. Like, they’d fill out paperwork together and stuff. Obviously they’d also do some other stuff, but he wasn’t making up an excuse or anything. And he’s not a total idiot, he’d expected that they’d probably get a little derailed at least once. But he hadn’t been expecting to be derailed by Ilya trying to back out, both of them crying, and then a second (unnecessary!) proposal. So, it’s been a weird day and hasn’t gone according to plan, but they do eventually put on clothes and eat a late lunch. Ilya doesn’t even complain about it fitting in Shane’s diet. Shane considers suggesting a nap, but really, they do have quite a bit of planning that needs to get done, and Ilya’s leaving tomorrow.

To that end, after they’ve eaten, he pulls out the folder full of documents that he got from the immigration lawyer he’s met with twice now and places it on the kitchen island between them. Ilya eyes it warily, maybe concerned that Shane’s going to try to force him to read a bunch of complicated English, but Shane mostly wants it in front of him for his own reference. “So, uh, getting married doesn’t give you a spousal visa or anything, not like in the US, which kind of sucks. Instead it’s a sponsorship process. The good news is, at the end of it you become a permanent resident — that’s like a green card. But you can’t automatically work or even live here while the application is being processed, so we need to get it done before your visas run out.”

Ilya nods slowly. “How long will it take?”

Shane’s surprised that Ilya’s not making any attempt to get out of the ‘planning’ part of this planning trip, but he’s not going to point it out. He shouldn’t give him any ideas. “Probably about a year. Maybe a little longer.”

“There is a year and a half left on my contract. But I don’t know if Boston will keep me for whole time.”

“Well, your visas are good for as long as you’re in the MLH, even if you get traded.”

“They could buy me out at the end of this season,” Ilya says anxiously. “It would be worth it for the cap space, especially if we win the Cup.” They both know Boston won’t be winning the Cup, but Shane entertains the polite fiction. Multiple Boston players will be extending their contracts regardless, so the cap space worry isn’t totally unfounded.

“They will absolutely not buy you out,” Shane says. He’s not even just pretending to sound confident — he knows it. “If they try, someone will claim you off waivers, because they’d be insane not to.” Even if Boston tries to spin him as locker room poison, other teams would be foolish not to take the risk. “Besides, it would be way better to trade you, because they could probably offload your entire salary. You’re still producing.”

Ilya doesn’t look completely convinced, but he doesn’t argue either. “So this lawyer,” he says, nodding towards the folder, “he thinks I will be… okay?”

“He says probably, yeah.” He’d thought Ilya would look happier at that news, before, but now he suspects that he’s not going to let himself actually believe it. “But… he did say that we should try to get married as soon as possible. He called it a ‘tight timeline’. Like, something could go wrong or there could be delays, so it would be better not to wait very long.”

“Americans call this something very stupid. But I can’t remember the word.”

“What, you mean ‘shotgun wedding’?”

“Yes, that. Is fucking stupid. Who the fuck brings a gun to a wedding?”

“Americans, I guess? Neither of my parents owns a gun.”

Ilya makes a big show of slumping despondently onto the table. “Ah, that is a tragedy. We can’t have shotgun wedding.”

“Okay, but seriously though. If we do this sooner than later, you’re okay with that? Because, I was thinking, you’re already going to be here for that game, like, right at the start of the new year.”

“Oh, yes. Think they let us get married at center ice?”

Shane takes the fact that Ilya is willing to joke about it as a good sign. “No, I was thinking at city hall in Ottawa. We’d both have to miss morning skate to get it done in time, probably, but the rules for getting married in Québec are really annoying, so I don’t want to do it here.”

For a very long moment, Ilya stays silent. Then he sits back upright, his face settling into something more solemn. “You are serious?”

“I mean, if you don’t want —” Shane says, suddenly uncertain. They haven’t been on the same page for at least a month, and maybe he shouldn’t have assumed they are now. “It’s up to you. I’ve just been thinking of options.”

“No, no, I like it,” Ilya says. “We can get married in your hometown. That sounds perfect.”

“You went from trying to break up with me to being very romantic so fast,” Shane says. He can feel himself blushing, even though that’s stupid. Ilya looks concerned and opens his mouth to say something, but Shane cuts him off. “I think you’re a secret romantic when you let yourself be. No one would think that of the great Ilya Rozanov, famous playboy.”

“Ah, you accuse me of being mushy!” Ilya does a terrible job of pretending to be outraged. “You will ruin my reputation!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone that you’re romantic,” Shane says, struggling not to laugh. “And you can tell everyone that we picked Ottawa for boring logistical reasons and that you wanted to do it in Vegas.”

Ilya nods. “With one of the Elvis men. Hey, think they have Elvis men in Ottawa?”

“Probably not ones who are allowed to officiate weddings,” Shane says. He has absolutely no idea if that’s true, but he really hopes that’s the case because he refuses to get married by an Elvis impersonator. He just won’t Google this one.

“Pah,” Ilya says scornfully. “What use is an Elvis man if he can’t do marriages? Canada is silly.”

Shane rolls his eyes. “But we’re doing it though? Ottawa before our next game? I mean, it’s not perfect, because we play Calgary the next day so we have a flight right after the game, but…”

“No, is good plan. Maybe LeClaire will have a heart attack and die when I tell him why I can’t come to morning skate.”

“But then we might not get to actually play.” And Shane kind of really wants to play this game. “Do you think we have to tell our teams? I mean, we could both just give different excuses, and it’s not like we’re inviting the media or something.”

It’s subtle, but Ilya’s face darkens. “Doesn’t mean that media will not find out.”

Shane winces. He walked into that one. “True. I guess we should probably tell everyone on our own terms, then.”

“Who is ‘everyone’?” Ilya raises his eyebrows. “Just teams, or we make announcement?”

He hadn’t really imagined making an announcement, but if they’re telling both of their teams, someone is going to leak it. Better get ahead of it instead. So, even though it sends a spike of terror through him, he says, “I’m up for announcing it if you are. We could just post on Instagram right after? Like, at lunchtime, before the game.”

“Do you post anything on there except big announcements? All the journalists have alerts for when Shane Hollander posts because they know they will write an article about it. And article will just be a copy of what you post, because you only post long text even though it is photo app.”

“I use Instagram!” Shane says defensively. “I posted…” He tries to think of when he recently posted, and comes up short. “I post stuff.”

“Yes, like brand deals and that you are gay.”

“Fine, so not Instagram. What do you want to do instead?”

“Instagram is fine. Get same P.R. person to write new announcement. Attention everyone: I, Shane Hollander, am crazy man. I have married Ilya Rozanov even though he is my great rival and better at hockey than me. We have been fucking since before we started playing in MLH, and I am very good at sucking his dick.”

“You’re not better at hockey than me,” Shane says reflexively.

“Oh, so rest of it is fine? We will tell them all about you sucking my dick?”

Shane thinks that probably everyone will just figure that out on their own, and that does something very weird to his insides, so he just ignores Ilya instead of responding to him. “It doesn’t have to be an announcement like my last one. We don’t have to write anything, or at least not anything fancy. We could just post photos with a caption.”

Ilya smiles slowly. “You will post photos of us?”

“Well, only if you want me to.”

“Yes. I want you to. Maybe we get Sveta to take some at city hall.”

Shane blinks. “Sveta?”

“Svetlana. I told you about her. My friend from Russia.”

“The one you sometimes fuck?” he asks incredulously. He’s fairly certain that’s what he remembers Ilya randomly telling him while they were waiting for the tuna melts to be done.

“Not anymore! I am engaged man.”

“Jesus,” Shane says, putting his head in his hands.

“She’s important to me,” Ilya says quietly. “I don’t have anyone else from Russia.”

Well, fuck. Now Shane feels like a dick. After a moment of hesitation, he gets up and wraps his arms around Ilya’s waist from behind, planting a kiss on his shoulder. “Sorry,” he says into his neck. “Of course she can be there.”

“She has to be, she will put a hit out if I don’t invite her.” Thankfully, Ilya doesn’t sound angry or upset. It sounds like he’s smiling again, but Shane doesn’t pull his face out of Ilya’s neck to check.

“What do you think, maybe, of having a proper wedding at some point? We can’t exactly invite lots of people to this one, but if we had it in the off-season?” Shane’s not really sure that a lot of people would want to come to their wedding — most of Ilya’s team are a write-off at this point, and Shane’s not sure how well his own team is going to take this — but he does like the idea of having a party. Ilya deserves something happy.

“If you like,” says Ilya, his shrug dislodging Shane, who makes a small noise of complaint. “As long as you are there, I am happy. Doesn’t matter if we are alone at city hall or at a big gay wedding where you are wearing a white dress.”

“I did not say anything about a white dress.”

Ilya pats Shane’s hands where they’re still wrapped around his waist. “One step at a time, okay, Shane?”

“Okay,” Shane agrees, but he files the idea away for later. The proper wedding, not the white dress.

Two games after Ilya’s trip to Montreal, LeClaire announces the starting lineup in the locker room, as he always does. Ilya is only half-listening, but he’s brought up short when he realizes he’s been put back on the first line, centering Cliff and Connors. The C Line is back.

When LeClaire is gone, Ilya looks over at Cliff, mystified but pleased at this development. To Ilya’s unasked question, Cliff says, “Me and Hammy went to LeClaire to tell him to put you back. It was fucking bullshit that he bumped you down in the first place, we’ve been playing like shit ever since.” It’s true — Cliff and Connors used to both average about a point per game, and their production has cratered since Ilya was sent down to the third line. The other lines are trying to pick up the slack, but now they’re only scraping out wins that should be easy, and they’ve lost some games they should’ve been able to win. It is, frankly, embarrassing. He glances around the locker room; plenty of his teammates are still avoiding his eyes, but no one is glaring at him in open hostility about this news, so that’s probably good. Things could deteriorate again after the wedding news comes out, but he can probably put that off for a week or two. In the meantime, if he can win them some games, maybe LeClaire won’t retaliate by punishing the whole team and putting Ilya back on the third line.

“Thank you, Marly,” he says, bringing his attention back to Cliff. “Coach was not pissed at you?”

“Well, I mean, yeah, but at least he listened to us.”

Ilya is struck by the urge to give him a hug, but he won’t do that to Cliff. The last thing they need right now is for anyone to also start giving Cliff shit. He misses when he could hug or even kiss his teammates with anyone being weird about it.

They play like a dream, as if Ilya had never left. Cliff scores a hat trick, two of which are off assists from Ilya, and Cliff yells fit to burst his eardrums as hats rain down onto the ice around them. They crush the Scouts 5-2, and Ilya finally remembers how good it can feel to play hockey. Cliff suggests Ilya come out with them to drink afterwards, but Ilya doesn’t want to push his luck, so he declines.

Instead, he goes home and calls Shane.

They talk on the phone most days now, which somehow feels both strange and entirely natural. Ilya used to wish sometimes that he could call Shane and now he just can, which is very nice. They talk about their days and about how the season is going for other teams in the MLH, and they also talk about the forms they have to fill out and other such details. Shane didn’t play today, so he probably watched Ilya’s game, and he’s sure to have thoughts about it. But mostly, Ilya wants to tell him about Cliff and Brad, and about the decision he thinks he’s reached.

“Hey! Congrats on the win,” Shane says as soon as he picks up. “And you’re back on first line?”

“Yes,” Ilya says. “Marleau and Hammersmith apparently told Coach to put me back.”

“And he listened? Holy shit.”

“Well, it was needed. We were playing like shit, and I am too good to be on third line. But I am… very grateful to Marly and Hammy. Could not have been easy to say that to Coach.”

“Has the room improved?”

“A little. It’s still not the same.” Rooms never stay the same for too long — there’s always trades happening, call-ups and shuffling around — but no matter who left and who came, the Raiders room has always been friendly. They play hard, they drink hard, and they used to be able to rely on each other. It feels like a completely different team now to the one that he used to congratulate after a win by telling them all he loved them, and that makes him ache just below his breastbone. “I don’t know. I think I’m going to ask for a trade.” He hasn’t acknowledged that out loud before now, but it’s starting to feel like that’s what needs to be done.

“You are?” Shane says, very eagerly. “Okay, well, have you thought any more about asking for a trade to a Canadian team? Like I said, it might help with the PR application, but if you don’t want to then that’s fine, it’s not that important.”

“Maybe, yes,” Ilya says. He hasn’t thought about it much yet — the concept of leaving Boston has been too big to confront directly.

“I’ve done some thinking about it,” Shane says, because of course he has. “Vancouver is garbage and also about as far from Montreal as you can get, which would suck. Calgary is an absolute mess with their salary cap at the moment because of that whole thing with Bäker even though he's in Philadelphia now, and also, you know, it's Alberta. Edmonton is also, unfortunately, in Alberta.” Ilya’s not sure what’s wrong with Alberta, but he doesn’t interrupt to ask. “Winnipeg is... fine, I guess? it's definitely an option. Montreal doesn't have the cap space for both of us unless they do a lot of shuffling players around, which I don’t think we should ask them to do because they already made big moves in the off-season. Toronto, you'd have to play with Dallas Kent and Troy Barrett, so that's probably a room that's even worse than Boston. And okay, look, I know Ottawa has been in a rebuild for over ten years but hear me out: it's only two hours from Montreal, it is in dire need of a first line center, and they would probably pay you an eye-watering amount of money if you sign with them again when your contract runs out.”

Ilya puts the phone on speaker and covers his face with his hands, unable to stop grinning. Fuck, he loves Shane so much. He’s clearly been thinking about this a lot, and it just shows Ilya again that Shane wants this — wants him. He’s thinking about how to make this work. It makes Ilya feel so good that it’s almost unbearable.

“I like Ottawa,” Ilya says. It hasn’t even made the playoffs in over a decade, but he took Boston from last in the standings to a Cup, so he’ll probably be able to turn things around in Ottawa too, even if it takes a few years. It’s not ideal, and Shane’s right that Winnipeg is a better team, but now that Shane’s said it, he can’t stop imagining being only two hours apart — they’ll be able to drive to see each other, even if they have games the next day. Maybe Shane can find out how the Centaurs would receive a bisexual player, because that’s always a risk, but if it looks like they’re not complete fucks… It's possible. “You are right, only I can help them —”

“I don’t remember saying that.”

“— And I would like to live in same place we get married.”

“Ilya,” Shane says, and he sounds as overwhelmed as Ilya had been a minute ago. “You can’t keep dropping stuff that romantic on me out of nowhere!”

“I will make sure to announce it first next time,” Ilya says instead of pointing out that Shane had been very romantic first, because he’s sure Shane doesn’t see his research into Canadian teams as romantic and would try to argue with him if he said that it was.

“Thanks,” Shane says, laughing softly.

“Do you know anyone on the Centaurs?” Ilya asks, while he’s still thinking about it. The biggest concern he has with this plan is that he could go from a bad room to an equally bad room — or an even worse one.

“Yeah, I know Dykstra. We played together at the Olympics, he was nice. And then he reached out after I posted my statement to say congratulations. Do you want me to ask him what their room is like?”

“Yes, please.” Maybe he should get Shane to give him a list of everyone who’d sent him nice messages. It would be very good to have some sense of who it’s probably safe to be around.

“Okay, I’ll send him a message and tell you what he says.”

The thought arises, once again, that Ilya doesn’t deserve this man. But he pushes it away. Whatever he may think, Shane gets to make his own decisions, and he’s decided he wants Ilya. He won’t take it for granted. “Thank you,” he says, taking his phone off speaker again so that he can press it back up against his face, like that will actually bring him closer to Shane. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Shane says, and even after they hang up, Ilya feels warm like he hasn’t since the article went up. Maybe things will turn out alright.

It turns out that getting a marriage license in Ontario is absurdly easy. The longest part of the process had been driving to Ottawa to fill out the application form (which had only actually taken, like, ten minutes to fill out) and then going back a few days later to pick up the license. Shane had also, on the second trip, booked a 10 AM appointment for a city hall ceremony on the day of the game. So now they have a date and a time and a piece of paper that says they’re getting married, and if Shane can’t stop pulling it out of its folder to stare at it, well, what Ilya doesn’t know won’t become the subject of mockery. He’s also informed his agent of the plan; Farah had reacted with remarkably little consternation, and had told him that she’d make sure a statement was ready to send to the press. The custom rings are ordered; his parents are in the loop and have cleared their schedules to be there; and because it’s a 20-minute city hall ceremony, there are no vendors to contact or anything, so that’s all the planning taken care of.

So there’s really only one thing left to do on Shane’s end, and that’s to tell his team. Telling management goes… about as well as he could have hoped — none of his worst fears come true, because they don’t threaten to send him to St. Johns or trade him or anything, so it’s fine that they’re not exactly jumping for joy. Luckily, he has back-to-back Cup wins to point to in order to reassure them of his commitment to the Metros and the possibility of a threepeat to dangle in front of them; and the Raiders have treated Ilya so badly at this point that it should be obvious that even if Shane were generally inclined to let Ilya win games (which he’s obviously fucking not), he still doesn’t want to hand the Raiders victories.

The harder sell is going to be the team. JJ was right that they’re definitely not going to like this, and he can see some of them getting some kind of ‘divided loyalty’ nonsense into their heads. He needs to remind them that he would rather die than lose to Boston, and not only because they’re horrible to Ilya.

There’s really only one thing he can do, and that’s make sure they absolutely crush the Raiders. He won’t be able to talk his whole team into liking Ilya or approving of their marriage, but he should be able to get them onboard for sending Boston home crying.

He decides to go for the second-last practice before they face Boston. They’re on home ice and they’re going to play Ottawa, who’s on a six-game losing streak and who they haven’t lost to in two years, so he’s not worried that causing an uproar during practice is going to throw them off their game.

He waits until practice is over and then lets everyone know he has a speech to make. That part isn’t even unusual — or, well, it kind of is, Shane’s not much of a speech-giver, but at least it’s a normal thing for a captain to do. “I won’t be at the morning skate before our game against Boston,” he begins, “because I’ll be in Ottawa getting married to Ilya Rozanov.”

The room immediately erupts except for Hayden and JJ, who both look at him like he’s lost his mind for announcing it like this. Shane disregards all of them, raising his voice so that he can talk over everyone’s exclamations and disbelieving side-talk. He can hear some outraged tones in among all the hubbub, but he truly doesn’t care. He’s going to make them get the fuck over themselves, because they need to win this game more than they’ve ever needed to win any other regular season game before. “Then I’m going to come back, and we’re going to fucking destroy Boston. We’ll beat them so thoroughly that they’ll never want to come back here again. If we don’t make at least one Boston Raider cry by the end of the second, then we haven’t done our jobs.”

JJ shouts, “Hell yeah!” and most of the room follows his lead, thankfully. Several people are looking dazed, like Shane just clobbered them over the heads, and there are a few distrustful glances getting thrown his direction, but the team all probably know that Shane’s not a good enough actor to fake the conviction he’s speaking with right now.

“We already know how to win against them. Make them take stupid penalties, and then take advantage of their dogshit PK. And they’ve got a call-up centering their third line because Sebbin’s out, so let’s give him a taste of what the show’s really like, okay?”

This time, it’s not even JJ who has to lead the cheer. Shane does feel kind of bad for this poor kid, and he hopes no one actually hurts him, but from the tape they’ve watched, he’s got a completely different style of play to Sebbin and he’s struggling to adapt to the plays his wingers are used to. If Shane were in charge, he would have chosen a different call-up, but Boston’s stupid decision is their gain.

“Listen to me,” he says, with enough force that the room actually goes quiet again. “Under no fucking circumstances will I allow us to lose this game. You all know how Rozanov chirps on the ice. Now imagine what I’ll have to fucking live with if he gets to boast about this forever. I will score five fucking goals myself if I have to, but I’d really prefer not to have to. Who’s going to help me kick Boston’s sorry ass?”

A final cheer, louder than the two before, goes up in the room, and Hayden starts thumping his stick on the ground, and JJ yells out, “Whatever you need, Capitaine!” Shane can’t help but grin.

When they’re getting dressed, Stedlund comes over to Shane’s stall and says, “Why the fuck are you getting married to Rozanov of all people?”

Shane hesitates for a moment, not sure whether he should tell the truth, but lands on, “Why are you married to your wife?” Stedlund’s wife is so beautiful even Shane can see it, so this could backfire a bit, but Stedlund is also completely whipped, so it doesn’t.

“Because I love her?” he says, a little uncertainly.

“There you go.”

“But Rozanov’s an asshole,” Stedlund says.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Shane says, grinning, “but it’s mostly an act. Deep down, he’s a softie.” Even if Stedlund tells people, no one will believe him — in fact, Stedlund doesn’t even look like he really believes Shane. That’s fine. Shane knows the truth. And Shane’s about to have one of the best days of his fucking life.