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Chapter Text

Shane staggered out of the meeting into an empty corridor, sweat sticky and uncomfortable at his back, already answering his phone.

“Mom.”

“Okay, listen honey. The trade is completed so there’s no appeal process here. So we’re not talking about whether it happens, we’re talking about what happens next.”

Sliding down the wall, he hunched over his untied sneakers, shoved on hastily when Coach had called him in for a meeting after morning skate.

“Boston wanted you specifically. I’ve already spoken to their GM. You’re flying this evening or tomorrow morning: I’ll confirm once the paperwork clears.”

“Mom,” Shane said again.

“Oh sweetie. I know, okay. Those fuckers, how dare they do this! Two fucking cups! Now all of a sudden they decide they want a reset and you’re going to fund it.”

Shane put his head between his knees and tried to breathe. God, Boston. They hated him there; it was so far away; he was fucking their captain.

“Shane? Baby? Can you hear me? I need you to breathe, okay? With me, one, two, three, four. That’s it. Come on.”

He was hot, burning up. It was hard to breathe over the tightness in his throat. There was a terrible pressure just behind his eyes, like he’d taken a hit to the bridge of his nose. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. He’d been following instructions since he was five years old.

“Shane?” It was Mike. Mike who’d been Assistant Coach when he’d been a rookie, now Head Coach for the last three years. He’d continue on, it was only Shane who they’d decided to cut away, like a dead root in winter. “You good?”

“Yeah.” Shane made himself stand. “Let’s talk later, Mom,” he said with as much steadiness as he could manage.

“Two cups,” she told him. “Walk out with your head high.”

He cut the call and looked at Mike, tucking away everything he felt behind the expression he wore when he was facing the media after a bad loss.

“Let’s get you to your car, okay?” Mike said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Mohammed has gone to get your stuff.”

He wasn’t even going to get to speak to his team. It wasn’t his team, that was why: not anymore. He wasn’t covered by the Metros’ insurance—the best thing they could do was get him off the property as fast as possible.

The side exit Mike led him to was one he’d never seen before. Why would he have? He’d always come in and out of the front entrance, security greeting him by name each time. Lauren had been on shift this morning: she’d shown him a picture of her new kitten.

He was supposed to go to the new smoothie place downtown with Hayden that afternoon. Hayden had been so proud when he’d shown Shane the place on Google: he’d even rang them and it sounded like he’d put the management through some pretty intense questioning to make sure they sold something that Shane could drink.

God, he hoped they gave him the captaincy.

Mike shook his hand when they reached his car. He’d done the same after the GM had broken the news, his face grainy on a bad connection from head office. Shane got in and hesitated, his hand on the ignition—he’d left his favourite water bottle in his cubby. He started the car and drove out of the parking lot, merging into midmorning traffic.

It was a two-hour drive from Ottawa to his Montreal apartment, longer at rush hour. So basically, he was on his own for packing—his dad would have come if he’d known. He was getting his big suitcases out of the den when his mom rang again, her picture crowding out a multitude of notifications.

She dived straight into logistics, which he listened to while checking all the zips and locks were working.

“Your flight is at 6pm and someone from player services will pick you up. Rozanov offered for you to stay at his house, if you can believe it, but—”

“Yes,” Shane interrupted.

“...You’re okay with staying with Rozanov. Are you sure?”

“Yes. I need to fit in with the team: I can’t be saying no to offers like this.”

“Well, if you’re sure, honey.”

“I am.”

“Okay, let me go give Joanna a call back. You just keep packing and call your dad if you need anything.”

The group chat was lighting up and his own messages were buzzing away. Hayden’s name flashed, the phone dancing across the table as it rang. Shane left it where it was, going into his bedroom, the suitcases banging awkwardly against the door frame.

Clothes were first, underwear after that. He went through his laundry and bundled anything he needed into a plastic bag he fished out from under the sink. His laptop, iPod, and chargers went into his backpack. He remembered his dildo with a jerk of horror—the cleaner, his mom could have found it—and shoved it in a sock, along with a half-full bottle of lube.

Back in the kitchen, he stared at his blender for a few minutes before unplugging it and wrapping it in a heavy sweatshirt. His kitchen scales fit as well, along with an unopened pack of freeze dried kale and some spirulina. Rozanov probably didn’t have spirulina in his apartment.

Fuck, he was going to have to have someone come clean out his fridge. All that wasted food. He’d just bought a new grill. He was going to have to sell his apartment. Sitting down on the edge of the bed he scrolled through his messages, ignoring everything to open Lily.

There was a text from about the same time as Shane had been finding out he wasn’t a Montreal Metro anymore: I didn’t know

Then, a few minutes later: You can stay with me

The last was from about five minutes ago: Late game, help yourself to anything. Aija will pick you up: she’s from Latvia so ask her about song and dance festival. You won’t have to talk for whole journey.

It was probably the longest text he'd had from Rozanov that didn't include any mention of sex.

Okay, he sent back, then added, thanks

His mom’s picture popped up, along with a time for the car that was coming to pick him up to take him to the airport. Trudeau airport was big enough that there was almost no chance of reporters catching him. He had another hour to kill so he went through the fridge and freezer, double bagging everything so it wouldn’t smell. The trashcan needed a clean so he did that as well, leaving it to drip-dry in the shower, writing a note so the cleaning service would know where to find it.

For the last fifteen minutes he wandered through the apartment, unplugging everything and then just touching furniture and pictures. He’d been moving around for hockey since he was sixteen, he should be taking this hit the same as he’d taken all the others.

When his phone buzzed with a message to say his ride was there, he was already standing in the entrance way, all the shades drawn against the weak winter light.

Aija had put her name on the sign rather than Shane’s, which was smart. She was also very proud of Latvia’s song festival, which actually did sound pretty cool. When they arrived she insisted on helping him with his suitcases, but left him alone to figure out the locks, Rozanov’s spare keys cold in his hand.

The house was massive and much warmer than outside, though that wasn’t hard when talking about Boston in January. Taking his shoes off, he wandered through the house in socks, his feet cooling on the hardwood floor. It was a beautiful house, all open plan with big windows overlooking a landscaped garden. It wasn’t a million miles away from the cottage he was having built in Ottawa, but a darker cousin, all deep grays and blues with modern art on the walls. Upstairs there were three bedrooms, though he didn’t go beyond the doorways, even when he was sure he could guess which one was Rozanov’s. He went back downstairs and stared at his two suitcases, sitting ready in the entranceway. Was he supposed to unpack? He wouldn’t be skating tomorrow, even if he’d probably have to go to morning skate.

He went back into the main room and sat down in the corner of one of the massive black leather sofas. His phone was mostly quiet now: the team having given up on contacting him. He sent a text to the group chat he had with his parents and then managed about three minutes of Twitter before he started to feel the familiar creep of panic set in. He turned his phone face down and took two deep breaths before opening up Google and going directly to the team's websites.

The Montreal Metros have completed a trade with the Boston Raiders, sending forward Shane Hollander to Boston in exchange for six early round draft picks.

Shane has been an integral part of our organisation and played a key role in our recent success. We thank him for his contributions on and off the ice and wish him and his family the best in the next chapter of his career.

It was so bland it was actually almost comforting. Like reading the back of a cereal packet.

The Boston Raiders have acquired center Shane Hollander from the Montreal Metros.

Shane is an elite player with a proven track record, and we are excited to add him to our group. We look forward to welcoming him to Boston.

Acquired. God, he could almost forget he was the equivalent of a show horse when he was grinding away the corners with his whole team behind him.

It was already 11pm. Rozanov could be home anytime, but likely not for at least a half an hour: he was sure there would be a scrum of reporters waiting for him after the game. He could be grateful that no-one would be letting him anywhere near the media for the next few days at least. He scrolled through his contacts and hit Hayden.

“Shit, Shane! Are you okay? Are you in Boston?”

Shane took a shaking breath, but couldn’t seem to get any words out.

“Shane?”

He didn’t know what sound he made, but something must have gotten through the hundreds of kilometers between them.

“Shit, buddy. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

Putting his hand over his mouth didn’t seem to help: he could feel ugly noises breaking free. He curled forward, phone still pressed to his ear. He didn’t even have it in him to startle when a familiar hand curled over the back of his neck, taking the phone away from him.

“It’s okay,” Rozanov said. “I have him.”

He couldn’t hear what Hayden said in reply, but Rozanov snorted. “He's my teammate now, and we look after our own.”

Shane went where he was directed, tucked against Rozanov’s side, his head on his shoulder. He wasn’t even crying, just dry sobs that shook him even as he tried to claw back control.

“Shhh,” Rozanov comforted, murmuring in Russian against his hair. He rubbed circles on his back, warming Shane when he hadn’t even realised he was cold.

He should be counting his breaths, listening for sounds in the room, working through any of the hundred or so grounding techniques he’d read about over the years. What use was it though? He hadn’t been good enough for the Metros and he wouldn’t be good enough now. No matter how fast he was, he’d always be chasing the Shane Hollander that everyone seemed to want. Someone who was calmer, who had his fucking shit together.

That was the thought that shook him out of his self-pity spiral and he was able to quiet down finally, painfully aware that he was now cuddling with Rozanov. His captain.

“Fuck, I’m—”

Rozanov made a deep sound of disgust. “No Canadian apologies, please. You only just arrive and already with the apologies.”

Shane let out a shaky laugh. “Still an asshole.”

Rozanov kissed his hair again. “Always.”

He smelt so familiar, felt so familiar against him. Six years of fooling around once in a while had built up muscle memory and he splayed one hand flat on Rozanov’s chest, as if they were coming down from the high of sex instead of whatever the fuck they were doing right now.

“What are we going to do?” he asked, not even sure which part of this shitshow he was referring to.

He looked up when Rozanov didn’t answer to find him looking back with a soft smile tucked into the corner of his mouth.

“Play hockey.”

Chapter Text

Shane was in the kitchen by 06:45 am, texting Hayden and then his parents one-handed while he drank his smoothie. Rozanov did have a blender, actually, but he’d been right about the spirulina. He’d need to reply to the group chat at some point, but he couldn’t bring himself to read through it yet. Hayden replied instantly, assuring him that everything was fine and he was glad Rozanov hadn’t murdered Shane in the night.

There was a home game that morning. For the Metros that was. Philly would be brutal: without him taking defensive-zone draws, they’d lean hard on the Metros’ second line—especially on the right side.

Wish Hayden good luck or not? Not, he decided, drinking the rest of his smoothie.

Rozanov came down into the main living space at 7am, just as Shane was about to call player services for a ride. He mumbled something that might have been a hello and turned on the coffee maker, his sweatpants showing a line of pale skin at his hip.

“It’s twenty minutes to the rink from here,” he said, once he’d had a draft of what must have been boiling hot coffee.

“You don’t need to—” Shane cut himself off as Rozanov gave him a look. “Thanks. You’re really not a morning person, huh?”

Rozanov said something in Russian that sounded nasty. Japanese didn’t really work for swearing so Shane did the next best thing and told him he was annoying.

“You speak Japanese?” Rozanov asked, coffee cup in midair.

“Not fluently. My mom didn’t want to confuse me when I was learning French at school. I think my grandparents were pretty mad about it, but I learned enough just being around them that I could tell them about my school day and stuff.”

“They still here?”

Shane cast around for the dishwasher, opening a door that Rozanov pointed to. “No, they had my mom when they were in their 30s, so.”

Rozanov hummed in acknowledgment, set his cup in the dishwasher, and checked his phone.

“We should go,” he said, already half-way out of the kitchen.

The drive to the rink was accompanied by some truly terrible dance music that Rozanov tapped his fingers to all the way there. They were ushered into the locker room by a no-nonsense woman from ops called Marie-Anne who narrowed her eyes at Rozanov’s attempt at a winning smile.

“Okay, off with you, Ilya. Go skate, I hear you’re good at that.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Rozanov replied, clapping a friendly hand on Shane’s shoulder before retreating.

His nameplate was already up on his cubby: between Marleau and Laine, one away from Rozanov. He stared at it, jerking his attention away when Marie-Anne continued.

“The equipment manager, Terrence, is running a few minutes late but he’s going to walk you through everything. Your gear should be here this evening and you’ll go watch morning skate after this.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Shane agreed, taking a leaf out of Rozanov’s book.

“You’re sweet,” she told him. “After morning skate we’ll hide you from the media so you can go for lunch with the team, then you’ll have a medical check in, then player services. Any questions?”

“Do you know roughly when I’ll be skating?”

“Tomorrow. Assuming medical clears you today and your gear arrives tonight,” she smiled and it softened her whole face. “Don’t worry, we want you out on the ice as much as you want to be there.”

Terrence showed up just as Marie-Anne disappeared, breathless and apologetic, clipboard tucked under his arm. He walked Shane through the cubby, the gear order, where his skates would go once they arrived, tapping nameplates and hooks as he talked. When the team started filtering towards the ice, another staffer appeared and politely asked Shane to follow him. They went down the tunnel together, the air turning colder with every step, the sound of blades and pucks echoing ahead of them. Shane took a seat in the stands just as the first line jumped over the boards.

It was mostly watching Rozanov apparently flirt with every member of his team. He was a menace, winking at whoever scored on him during drills; chirping everyone who flubbed a pass; making every single one of his own passes flashier than they needed to be. Half of the bench seemed determined to encourage him, some cheering wildly whenever he completed a drill perfectly, which was most of the time. It was overwhelming and loud and very, very different to the Metros.

The head coach, Dan McAdam, introduced him briefly as the team headed back to the locker room—we’re happy to have him: let’s make sure he feels welcome—and then Shane was led to the lounge where a buffet lunch had been set up. He wandered over, eyeing the portions and trying to guess approximate weights.

He heard the team before he saw them: someone shouting in French, maybe Marleau or another Quebecois guy. An arm wrapped around his shoulder before he’d gotten up the courage to go meet them. “Don’t worry,” Rozanov said, low in his ear. “There is boring food for you.”

He turned Shane to where the rest of the team were starting to get plates and complain about who was first in the queue.

“This is Shane Hollander! Just called up from the AHL to play on my line. You don’t know him but don’t worry, he’s good.”

“Oh yeah?” Someone replied. “From which team?”

“Laval Rocket,” Shane said, naming one of Montreal’s affiliates, which thankfully got a laugh.

Rozanov dragged him to the front of the line and handed him a plate before finally letting him go. His heart was racing from the proximity. How the fuck was he going to do this every day?

Once he’d loaded up with plain rice and chicken, he sat down at the table Rozanov was beckoning from. He didn’t even bother trying to join in the conversation that was happening between Marleau, Laine, and a new call-up whose name Shane hadn’t caught. Rozanov was inhaling his food, yet more coffee steaming in a paper cup balanced on his knee, completely at ease. Shane chewed slowly, eyes wandering over the team and matching faces to names where he could.

He was just about finished when yet another person from player services came over—Michael, according to his lanyard. “Shane, you ready for Medical?”

“Yes, let me just—”

“Leave it,” Rozanov said, gesturing lazily at Shane’s plate. “Go get cleared for skating.”

Shane nodded his thanks and went, the corridor outside the player’s lounge cool and quiet. Medical was quick but thorough: vitals, mobility checks, a concussion baseline, and a few questions about his sleep and stress. Player services handed him a stack of forms to sign and a welcome pack with everything from gym codes to a dentist’s address. The woman at the desk offered to help him find an apartment, but Shane just shook his head and thanked her for the offer. The thought of apartment hunting right now made him want to crawl under the covers and never come out.

Rozanov’s phone rang the second they were through the door and he answered in Russian, flopping down on the sofa, one foot on the floor. Shane made some gesture to indicate that he was going to go upstairs but Rozanov didn’t see, a small smile touching his lips as he listened to whoever was on the other line.

Shane took a quick shower in the main bathroom, calling his parents as he tried to find the socks he wanted. The room he’d slept in last night was spacious, with deep blue sheets and off-white walls. Outside the large window a manicured garden rolled away into the distance. Shane started to put away his underwear in a drawer as the phone rang out at his parent’s house. They were probably out with friends somewhere, lingering over a late lunch. He’d ring them later.

When he went out into the corridor he could hear laughter from downstairs. Maybe Rozanov had a Russian girlfriend.

He went back into the guest room and closed the door. Sitting on the floor with his back to the bed, he finally scrolled through his messages, going through his teammates' individual messages and answering as best he could. No, he hadn’t known. Yes, it did suck. Yes, he hoped Hayden would be made captain. He probably had been already, but there was no way Shane was going to go on hockey Twitter. Hayden had sent pictures of fans at their at home game this morning: it was just a sea of signs—a lot thanking him, some about the Metro’s two cups. Shane’s eyes started to blur so he put the phone down next to him.

After a moment he picked it up again and just sent thanks without looking at the rest of the pictures.

The latest message was from JJ: you’re staying with him??

Yes

Shane stared at the screen for a while, but what else could he add to that?

He scrolled back up but couldn’t see the group chat. He scrolled down his messages again, more slowly. It was usually at the top because it was so active.

It wasn’t there.

Of course it wasn’t there. Shane turned his phone completely off and reached up to put it on a side table. He wasn’t a member of the Montreal Metros any more: he was the enemy, they would have had to remove him from the chat. It had been more of an annoyance than anything else, fast paced and full of half-incomprehensive memes. He certainly wasn’t looking forward to being added to Boston’s group chat. If they bothered, that was.

A knock sounded at his door. “Yeah,” he called.

Rozanov poked his head around the doorframe. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just going to nap.”

“Sure, me too. Come here first.”

“Come where?” Shane asked, getting up and following Rozanov out into the hallway and then into his room. “What—”

Rozanov pulled him into a heated kiss, one large hand framing Shane’s face. Shane let him deepen the kiss, pulling him closer by his sweatshirt. They kissed for long minutes, Shane slightly out of breath when Rozanov finally pulled back.

“We should—” he tried, but Rozanov bit down hard on the muscle of his neck and Shane moaned instead, his cock twitching in his sweats. “Fuck.”

“That is the plan, yes.”

This was definitely a bad idea. It hadn’t occurred to him that they might just keep on fucking, that Rozanov would be a good captain—offering a room to the new recruit—but also not immediately want to stop whatever this thing was between them.

Rozanov bit down again, harder this time, and Shane pushed his hands under Rozanov’s hoodie, desperate to get at his naked skin.

“You want me to fuck you?”

“Yes. Yes, please.” He couldn’t think of anything he wanted more, in fact.

“So polite,” Rozanov murmured, and then just picked Shane up by the backs of his thighs before depositing him on the massive bed.

They had prep down to a fine art at this point, but Rozanov seemed intent on taking his time, kissing and kissing as he opened Shane up, lube smeared wet and sticky on the inside of his thighs. He was too careful entering Shane, shallow rocks of his hips when normally he was fucking Shane inches up the bed with each thrust.

“Fuck, Roz. Harder, come on.”

“Don’t need to fuck you hard,” Rozanov told him, his mouth against Shane’s ear. “Can fuck you every day. Can suck your cock, fuck your thighs, hold you down and come down your throat.”

Shane whined high and loud, his arms locked around Rozanov’s neck. He wasn’t going to survive this: he didn’t need to worry about skating with a team that hated him because their captain was killing him right now.

“Please, please,” he begged.

“Please what? Hmm?” Rozanov kissed him. “Please make you cry on my cock every day?”

“Yes! Please. God, please.”

Rozanov growled something out in Russian, his thrusts finally becoming hard and fast. Shane wished the condom wasn’t there: he wanted to feel it, wanted Rozanov to come inside him, to feel it dripping out from his hole.

He was being loud but so was Rozanov, who propped himself up on one arm and got a hand on Shane’s dick. Thankfully Shane was beyond embarrassment because that was all it took for him to come all over them both, Rozanov panting into his mouth as he came too, his thrusts almost too much.

“Fuck. You’re too good,” Rozanov told him, still catching his breath.

Shane kissed him rather than reply, his hands winding into Rozanov’s hair. When he pulled back, Rozanov kissed the end of his nose and then rolled away, going into the en suite but leaving the door open.

“You want to shower before nap?” he called over the sound of the tap running.

“No, I’m good,” Shane replied, taking the warm cloth that Rozanov offered him. He wiped himself down while Rozanov shut the blinds, startling a little when he got back into the bed and flipped the comforter over them both.

“Give,” he demanded, and Shane looked down at his outstretched hand in confusion before giving him the cloth.

Rozanov dumped it on the floor then directed Shane with touches at his shoulder and hip, much the way he did when they fucked, until Shane was lying down with his back to Rozanov who, still naked, tucked his knees behind Shane’s and put an arm around his waist.

“Didn’t you want to nap?” Shane asked, hesitating before putting his hand over where Rozanov’s rested on his stomach.

“Yes,” Rozanov kissed his shoulder. “I set an alarm for 3, okay?”

Shane blinked. “Yeah. I mean. Yeah, that’s fine.”

“Good.”

That seemed to be the end of the conversation and, before long, Rozanov’s breaths lengthened, his exhales stirring the hair at the back of Shane’s neck.

Chapter Text

At practice Shane pulled on the same black jersey as Rozanov and Marleau and tried not to read too much into it. First line colours, or perhaps just convenience. Warmups told him quickly where the problems were going to be: his body kept wanting to slide back into the middle, curling low out of habit, and he had to keep reminding himself to stay wide, to hold the boards, to let the play come to him instead of driving it. The puck felt right on his stick but everything else was half a beat off. An assistant coach murmured something about spacing to him and Shane nodded, eyes down on his skates.

Once the drills sped up he started arriving where the puck was going to be instead of where it was, stealing it clean or popping free at the edge of a defender’s vision. Rozanov carried the puck on a rush drill and Shane cut across without calling for it, a move that would have been stupid on any other line. The pass came anyway, not to his stick but to the space in front of it, and Shane sent it back blind, one touch, right into the slot. Marleau scored. There was a short, strange silence after that, the coaches watching carefully.

They did it again. A delay here, a give-and-go through traffic, a pass that should not have made it through but did. Rozanov grinned at him, tapping his stick, asking for more. Shane finished practice breathing hard, sweat dripping under his helmet, aware of the looks from the bench but too tired to try to make anything of them.

In the locker room Rozanov burst in ten minutes after everyone else, fairly bouncing off the walls with energy.

“You tell them, Cap?” Benny, possibly the second line left-winger, asked.

“I tell the media nothing, they’ll see at the game tomorrow,” Rozanov announced with glee, leaning across Marleau to lightly punch Shane’s shoulder.

“Wanna swap with me?” Marleau asked Laine who was sitting next to Shane, drinking a recovery shake.

“Nope.”

“What is this bullshit?” Rozanov demanded. “I’m a delight! Of course you want to be next to me.”

Shane continued to re-tape his stick, half-listening to their comfortable chirping, unsure how to deal with Rozanov’s enthusiasm. Yes, it had been a good practice, way better than it’d had any right to be, but that was never any guarantee of success.

Once he was done he showered and changed, as he’d done a thousand times before in dozens of different locker rooms. He was halfway across the room when Rozanov caught his wrist, fingers warm and careless, stopping him without breaking stride in whatever story he was telling.

“Where you going?” Rozanov asked, shirtless and grinning, still half-turned toward two rookies.

“Just to talk to Terrence about my sticks,” Shane said.

“Okay, I’ll come find you after.”

Shane nodded and kept walking, heart thudding a little too hard. Rozanov touched everyone, no-one would think anything of it: he was just another member of the team.

Rozanov’s front yard was mostly tall, pruned hedges backed by taller scrolled fences. Rozanov drove them into the massive garage, past a collection of tiny, brightly coloured sports cars. He was currently driving something slightly more sane, thankfully, but the Audi’s matt grey paint job still got them appraising looks when stopped at the lights.

“Thanks,” Shane said automatically as they parked.

“You going to thank me every time I drive you somewhere?”

“Yep.”

He should really get his Jeep driven down here, now that he thought about it. He glanced around the spacious garage. There seemed to be room for it, but maybe Rozanov was saving that space for friends. Or more sports cars.

“Your car in Montreal?” Rozanov asked as they grabbed their bags.

“Yeah. Is it cool if I get it driven down here?”

“My casa is your casa,” Rozanov replied with a shrug, searching his pockets for something.

“Cool.”

They were quiet then, negotiating the smaller back entry way that led into the mud room. Shane needed to call his parents but he needed a drink first. He went into the kitchen and Rozanov followed him, filling an odd double teapot with boiling water.

“Montreal don’t understand what they did, do they?” Rozanov asked, pouring tea from the smaller pot first, dark and bitter, then diluting it from the larger one without looking.

“What do you mean?”

Rozanov rolled his eyes. “You were on the ice today, no? We’re going to do that tomorrow, and then every time we play from now on. Montreal wouldn’t give you to me if they thought it would be like that.”

“They didn’t give me to you, Jesus,” Shane spluttered, his face hot. “They wanted a reset, that’s all, and I was the funding.”

“You’re on my line,” Rozanov said, somehow making it sound dirty. He put down his tea and came over to Shane, bracketing him against the counter.

Shane let go of his water glass when Rozanov took it off him, leaning in as Rozanov kissed him, slow and heated.

“They gave you to me,” he repeated, sucking a kiss just under Shane’s jaw.

“No marks,” Shane warned him, then yelped as Rozanov bit him.

“Say it.”

“What?”

Rozanov had his hand in Shane’s sweats, rubbing against his hardening cock.

“Say they gave you to me.”

“No—ah! Fuck you.”

Grinning, Rozanov only stepped back, pushing his pants and boxers down far enough to show his cock, half hard against blond curls.

Shane gave him an unimpressed look, but probably undermined it completely by dropping to his knees on the kitchen tiles and swallowing Rozanov’s cock down. Guys had been making jokes about cocksuckers his whole life but he was pretty sure that was just because they’d never tried it. He moaned as Rozanov pushed his hands through his hair, holding him still as he started to thrust, shallow and slow. He was fully hard now, keeping his hands on Rozanov’s thick thighs and drooling a whole lot as Rozanov got closer to the edge. He’d thought he’d hate having him come in his mouth—everyone always painted it as an amazing thing when their girlfriends or hookups did it—but fuck it was so good. He moaned again, his hips twitching, but not as loud as Rozanov as he came.

“Get up here,” Rozanov demanded, wiping away a line of spit leading from the tip of his cock to Shane’s mouth.

Shane stood up unsteadily, kissing Rozanov back and bucking up into his warm hand. He was already so close.

“Say it,” Rozanov murmured, twisting his hand in a way that made Shane cry out.

“I—uh,” Shane tried, eager to give Rozanov whatever he wanted, once he understood what that was.

“Say that they gave you to me.”

Shane repeated the words without hearing the meaning. “They gave me to—to you.”

Rozanov brought up his other hand to grab Shane’s pec hard and Shane came, going up on his toes to get as close as possible, his head buried in Rozanov’s shoulder.

“You fucker,” he panted, his brain starting to come back online.

Rozanov grinned, unrepentant before leaning in for a soft kiss. Shane stroked a hand through his curls, rubbing a thumb across the delicate skin under his ear. Smiling quietly now, Rozanov placed a kiss at the centre of his palm.

Down in the den, it was dim even in the late afternoon. He'd come down to speak to his parents as somehow even the guest room next to Rozanov’s seemed inappropriate: like his parents might guess what they were doing together.

“How was practice?” his mom asked, almost before he'd finished saying hello.

“Good, they had me playing on the first line.”

“Left-wing?”

“Yeah.” Shane put his socked feet up on the ottoman.

“Did you stay wide?”

“Yes, Mom. I stayed wide: it was a good practice.”

“And Rozanov, did he make an effort?”

“Yeah,” Shane said, leaning back to look up at the spotlighted ceiling. “He did. He was—Rozanov was good.”

His mom hummed, clearly about to ask a follow-up, and then his dad’s voice cut in from somewhere nearby. “Are you still calling him Rozanov? You can’t live in someone’s house and call them by their last name, son.”

“It’s rude?” It didn’t seem rude: they were hockey players—no-one used anyone’s actual name. The rules could be different for living with someone though.

“It seems a little impolite.”

“Okay, that’s good to know.”

His mom immediately pivoted to logistics, asking about cleaning schedules and whether Rozanov was pulling his weight in the kitchen. Shane did his best to answer, which mostly meant admitting he didn’t know. The place was spotless. He’d assumed there was a cleaning service and hadn’t asked, because that felt like a strange thing to bring up on day three. Or any day he was living with his hockey rival of the last six years, actually.

“Should I be doing anything? Like for Reebok or Rolex?”

“No, don’t worry about that for now, sweetheart. Let me deal with them and I’ll let you know what happens.”

That didn’t sound good but he wasn’t sure if he had it in him to be posting on Instagram right now, so he just accepted that.

“The team treating you okay?”

“Yeah, they’ve been pretty quiet, but Marleau and Laine seem alright.”

And Rozanov keeps touching me in front of other people. He was going to have to get used to that one on his own.

“You’d tell us, if you were having any problems?” his dad asked, in the same way he had when Shane had been a kid and already better than everyone else on his team.

“Yeah, Dad. I’d tell you, I promise.”

“You're a great kid and you were a great captain, you didn’t deserve what Montreal did to you.”

Shane put his fist against his mouth and closed his eyes. “Thanks, Dad,” he managed.

“Have you looked at any of the reporting?” his mom asked.

“No, no I haven’t even been on Instagram.”

“Probably for the best,” his dad said.

“That bad, eh?” Shane tried a laugh, but it sounded flat.

“Honey, people just don’t understand what Montreal was thinking. There’s a lot of disappointed fans out there.”

“Disappointed with me?”

“No!” both his parents said, their voices perfectly in sync. “No, honey,” his mom continued. “They’re disappointed with the front office, that’s all.”

Shane nodded, even though they couldn’t see him. He’d really wanted to speak to them but now, guiltily, he wanted this phone call to be over already. It wrapped up soon enough with Shane promising to call them after the home game tomorrow.

His first game in Boston colours. He couldn’t even begin to imagine it.

Staring at the wall did nothing to ease his anxiety so he got up, intending to see what grocery service Rozanov used when his phone buzzed. Opening up messages, he smiled to see Jackie’s name at the top: she’d sent some pictures of the twins, Jade and Ruby holding ice cream cones with no ice cream in them as they seemed to be wearing most of it. It was their birthday in a couple of months: the first he wouldn’t be there for.

He pressed down on the pictures one by one until a heart appeared under each.

That night he stretched next to the bed. Well, his bed, he guessed, at least for the next little while. Rozanov was still downstairs by the sound of it, speaking to someone in low, clipped Russian.

Holding the stretch for thirty seconds, counting slowly under his breath, he released it and moved into a spinal twist, the carpet thick enough that he only had a towel under him. He’d done these stretches so often he no longer had to think about them, so he listed his game day clothes in head, laying them out like he would a play.

Once he’d finished with child’s pose, he got up and folded the towel, placing it on a chair. He’d got his clothes out already, but he didn’t think these were the right socks. They were black with the soft ribbing he liked, but there was something different about the texture of one of them. Going to the dresser, he got all of his black socks out and unpaired them, feeling the weave and holding them up to the light. None of them seemed right.

He didn’t pay any attention to the sound of Rozanov coming up the stairs, only turning when he knocked on Shane’s open door. Rozanov’s curls were dishevelled, as if he’d been running his hands through his hair over and over.

“Come sleep with me?” he asked, one hand hooked in his sweats, the other rubbing at the cross he always wore.

Shane looked down at the odd socks on the bed, the lines of the ribbing at the top warping in his tired vision.

“Yeah,” he decided. “Sounds good.”

Chapter Text

Shane was dressed in his base layers when Rozanov burst into the room, grabbing a naked rookie—maybe Tiz—in a headlock and starting a conversation with Marleau while the rookie tried to squirm out of his grip.

It was ridiculous and Shane smiled at the ground while he rolled his socks up.

“He’s in a good mood,” Laine commented.

Shane stilled, but there was nothing suggestive in his tone. “Isn’t he always like this?”

Laine snorted. “Moodier than my teenagers, that one.”

Rozanov finally let the rookie go when a trainer rolled a whiteboard into the room, lines and positions written on in neat, blocky handwriting. Shane put his jersey on, straightening the number 21 on his arm. He glanced up to find Rozanov looking at him, something hungry in his gaze before he smiled, tilting his head.

“On my line,” he said quietly, leaning across Marleau’s cubby to do so.

Shane looked at the board then: first line, left wing. He really was going to go out onto the ice on Rozanov’s wing. He bent down under the guise of putting on his skates, but he just closed his eyes and breathed slowly for a count of ten.

There was a buzz to the locker room, a kind of noisy chaos that looked ungoverned until you noticed how often the team looked to Rozanov. The rookies in particular seemed to have someone older assigned to them, maybe formal, maybe informal, but everyone was standing and ready a minute before the trainer came in: no phones in hands, no helmets off.

The tunnel opened up to cold and noise, Boston fans screaming like they’d won already. Shane went straight over to what would be his usual place at home, stretching first then taking shots when they were passed his way. Marleau drifted over, catching Shane’s eye and nodding up at the stands. Shane looked up and saw the signs: Hollander Home Ice, read one. Welcome to Boston. Don’t Suck, read another. There were others too, less welcoming and Shane pointed them out to Marleau with a raised eyebrow. Marleau snorted and clapped him on the shoulder before skating off.

The horn sounded and they all went back into the tunnel, the sound of the crowd waning to something manageable. Shane re-laced his skates in the locker room, sitting up as Dan came in to give what was apparently the standard NHL pre-game talk. It could have been Mike saying those words in the Metro’s locker room: matchups and first line reminders, with a hockey cliche tagged onto the end.

“Pittsburgh don’t fucking know,” Rozanov told them, fierce and proud, and Shane hoped he wasn’t talking about him.

Out on the ice again. Shane could barely hear the anthem over the sound of his heartbeat, the words unfamiliar. The Boston fans cheered throughout, sometimes reaching scoring-levels on certain words or phrases. Helmet and gloves back on, he had half a minute to feel Rozanov and Marleau standing close. His line. Then they were going over the boards and skating into place. Anderson was facing Rozanov, having replaced Williams who was out with an upper-body injury. He had his head down, but the line of his shoulders was unsure.

Shane had time to think that they were going to win, then the puck dropped.

The final horn cut through the noise and Shane coasted to a stop, lungs burning, sweat cooling fast under his gear. Rozanov was on him almost immediately, pulling him in to kiss his helmet, Marleau closing in from the other side, laughter and noise and motion collapsing into something warm and loud. Shane smiled because it would have been strange not to.

6-2: they’d won.

But Pittsburgh hadn’t been ready for them. They’d overcommitted on Rozanov through the middle; assumed Shane would drift harmlessly wide; left the weak side open one too many times. Their defence had chased the puck instead of the pattern. That wouldn’t last: anyone watching the tape would see it. Teams would start holding the lane instead of stepping up, forcing Shane lower, pinning him to the boards.

Shane tipped his helmet back, taking in the crowd, the noise washing over him again. This had worked because it was new and fast and no-one had solved it yet.

Rozanov skated over to the boards, bumping fists with everyone as they headed towards the bench. Shane went towards the vaguely organised huddle, losing his helmet and looking longingly at his water bottle a few feet away.

“I love you, good game,” Rozanov said to Tommy, who was in front of Shane.

Looking up, he caught Rozanov’s wide eyes as he hesitated for a split second. “Love you, good game,” he mumbled, like he was embarrassed.

Shane almost stumbled over the boards, suddenly hot under his pads. Had Rozanov thought that Shane would take him seriously? Hockey players said all sorts of shit to each other, both on the ice and off it. Last year, Hatsy had come into the locker room with a ring and proposed to Wheels, going down on one knee to do so. It had been dumb and kind of uncomfortable, but pretty much the whole team had laughed until they’d cried.

He forgot about his water until he was herded into a conference room and sat down in front of a scrum of reporters.

“Have you heard anything from Montreal?” someone asked.

Shane nodded once. “Yeah. A few guys reached out. They wished me luck.”

“And from the front office?” another voice cut in. “Did tonight feel like a message?”

Shane shook his head, careful. “No. It was just a hockey game.”

“What clicked so fast on that line?” a reporter asked. “It looked like you’d been playing together for years.”

Shane glanced down at his hands, wishing he’d brought his water bottle as a shield. “We kept it simple. They draw coverage through the middle, I stay wide, we move the puck quickly. Pittsburgh chased instead of holding structure.”

“You don’t think teams will adjust after seeing the tape?” someone pressed.

“Of course,” Shane said immediately. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

There was a beat of quiet, pens scratching.

"Have you congratulated Pike on his captaincy?" another voice asked.

Shane opened his mouth then closed it again and swallowed hard. He was so happy for Hayden, he really was.

There was a small flurry of activity and then Rozanov was sitting next to him, shirtless and sweaty. "I spoke to Pike,” he announced. “Told him Holly is ours now."

If that nickname stuck, Shane was going to kill him.

“Is that the kind of confidence you want from your captain?” someone asked, half-amused.

Rozanov grinned. “We won 6–2. I think it is correct confidence.”

“And Shane,” another reporter said, turning back to him, “how are you feeling about your new linemates after a night like that?”

“They’re great,” Shane said, a little too fast. “Their captain needs a shower, though.”

That got a laugh, thank god. Rozanov was so close, a line of heat down his left side. He smelt of sweat and ice, familiar in a way that made Shane’s gut clench. He fixed his eyes on the floor, willing the flush out of his face.

“Okay,” Jen said briskly, stepping in before anyone could ask another question. “That’s it, guys. Thanks.”

Shane was so relieved when Rozanov pulled up next to his candy-coloured sports cars. They had to be up at 6:30 to get their morning flight. He’d already got most of his stuff ready, he just had to eat and pack and then he could fall face first into bed.

He got out the car with his phone in his hand, scrolling past a message from Hayden to read:

Congratulations! You all must have practiced hard to be clicking so well! That blind backhand slip looked impossible. We’ll need a whole run-down when you have some free time. Much love, Mom and Dad xx

Thanks will do, he sent back.

Looking up he took his garment bag off Rozanov who, instead of letting go, used it to reel Shane in for a kiss.

“That was amazing,” Rozanov told him. “I’m tired now but I owe you a blowjob.”

Shane spluttered out a laugh. “You’re getting old.”

“Fuck you, I’m not old. Take off your pants! I will give you the best blowjob!”

Taking a step back, Shane shook his head. “No, no. You can owe me a blowjob.”

Rozanov relented, smacking Shane’s ass as he passed him.

He was aware of Rozanov watching him as he took out his scales and pre-made pasta, scooping it into a bowl until he hit 550 grams exactly. He ate it cold, sat on a remarkably uncomfortable bar chair while Rozanov inhaled a cup of tea, two glasses of water, and a bowl of steaming hot rice, with what looked like chicken thighs in some kind of sauce.

They put their plates in the dishwasher and worked together to turn off all the lights downstairs. Rozanov followed Shane into the guest room, flopping onto the bed just behind where Shane had put his folded clothes for the trip.

“Did you pack already?” Shane asked.

“No, I will do it in the morning.”

Shane looked up at him, but Rozanov was on his phone, scrolling through what looked like Twitter. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

Rozanov rolled his eyes. “Of course I have packed. You know I’m the captain, yes?” He leant on one elbow so he could show Shane his phone. “Look, highlight reel is all you.”

Glancing away from where he was checking his clothes, he caught a glimpse of himself in black, an unfamiliar number on his shoulder.

“There,” Shane said, pausing the video with a finger. “I shouldn’t be there yet. I get away with it because they chase, but if the weak-side D holds his lane I’m boxed out.”

Rozanov looked at the phone and then Shane in disbelief. “You didn’t look! You passed to empty space!”

Shane shrugged. “I knew where you’d be.”

It had been a good pass, but it wasn’t going to work so well next time. He took half a step towards a wardrobe before remembering where he was.

“Shit.”

“What is it?”

“I—” Shane looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t have my small suitcase here. It’s in Montreal.”

Along with every fucking thing I own. Everything would be shipped soon, it was just taking a while for the movers to finish packing everything. Even then, he wasn’t 100% sure what his mom had marked to be sent down: he’d told her to pack light.

“It’s okay, I can lend you one.”

Shane nodded, hoping Rozanov would just get up and go fetch it. The bed springs complained behind him, but then Rozanov’s hands were on his shoulders, turning him around.

“Okay?” he asked.

Shane nodded again, swallowing hard. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just looking forward to having my shit here. I mean—” he looked up. “If it’s still okay for me—”

“It’s good,” Rozanov cut him off. “I already say you can stay here, I didn’t change my mind.”

“Sorry, it’s just a fucking suitcase.”

Rozanov brought his hands to Shane’s hips. “This isn’t easy, I know okay?”

“You moved to an entirely different continent where you had to learn the language. I need to fucking suck this up and deal with it.”

“Not the locker room,” Rozanov kissed his forehead. “Don’t need this bullshit. It’s okay to be sad about your lame friends and your terrible team and your very boring apartment.”

Shane half-smiled. “Good job it’s not the locker room,” he joked, then froze as he realised what he’d said.

But Rozanov just smiled back and dropped a sweet kiss on his lips. “Yes, good job. I’ll go get you a suitcase.”

Sitting on the end of the bed, Shane put a hand over his wildly beating heart. He was tired and a little sad, yeah, but he needed to keep a better watch on what he was saying. This thing between them was fine, but it needed to stay where it belonged and joking about doing anything in the locker room was not the way to do that.

Rozanov came back in then, wheeling a small suitcase and Shane couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him. It wasn’t just that it was a branded Boston Raiders suitcase, it was that it was covered in the logo, overlapping canons into infinity.

“Thank you, Ilya,” he said, touching one finger to the ridiculous thing, and looked up to see Rozanov’s expression brighten into something like wonder.

“You’re welcome, Shane.”

Chapter Text

“Two assists!” someone yelled in his direction and Shane tilted his still-full tonic towards them.

He’d had fourteen assists in the last fourteen games, but his scoring average was down from where it had been in Montreal. The Boston coaches didn’t seem worried, but Shane couldn’t help but calculate it after every game.

“No, but seriously,” Tiz said, leaning over the sticky table, eyes wide. “That thing you did in the second. You passed it through the guy. I thought it hit his skate.”

“Tiz, how are you drunk already?” Marly asked from Shane’s left and the table guffawed, as this was the best chirp they’d heard in years.

Columbus was cold in February but the sports bar they’d found themselves in by default was nice enough. They were in some booths at the back and so far no-one had even looked their way.

Shane checked his phone. He’d sent Hayden and JJ and congratulations texts: they’d won their game against Minneapolis in overtime. Boston was playing Montreal next week and Shane was excited to see them both but dreading the game itself.

Montreal had picked up a second-pair defenceman from the West who was doing okay, but he kept stepping up too early at the line, getting caught flat-footed when plays turned over. Shane could see it even without watching the games closely: the gaps were wrong, the timing half a beat off. He’d do better if he just held the lane and trusted his partner instead of trying to force the play. Shane was still avoiding Twitter, but from what his mom had said fans were desperate for someone tangible to be angry at, and this poor guy was bearing the brunt of it.

“Where’s Roz?” Willis asked.

Shane turned in his seat, leaning to one side far enough that he could just about see the bar.

Ilya was talking to a woman there. He was laughing, in fact, his hands moving as he spoke. She was tall with long brown hair, dressed all in black and she looked like the models he worked with on ads sometimes. Ilya spoke and she searched in her purse for something. Her phone? Were they exchanging numbers?

She looked away from her purse and put a hand on Ilya’s arm, smiling. Shane stood up.

“Hey, you okay?” Marly asked.

Shane looked down into his concerned expression.

“I don’t feel great,” he replied, which was the absolute truth. “I’m going to go back to the hotel.”

Marly, maybe Tiz, said something after that, but Shane kept walking, past the bar and out into the cold night. He’d left his jacket on the back of his chair. Someone would pick it up.

He hailed a cab and gave the driver the name of the hotel they were staying at. It was a good job that he and Rozanov were at an away game: their rooms were on different floors. In Ilya’s house the bedrooms were all on the same floor, so maybe Shane would have had to sleep down in the den to give him some privacy.

Shoving some bills at the cab driver, he got out and went up to his room, shivering slightly. It was dim inside, the white bed almost glowing in the lamp light. Shane took off his shoes, stared at the bed for a moment, then walked into the bathroom where he threw up into the toilet, coughing against the acid burn. When he was done he sat on the floor, using some toilet roll to wipe his eyes and his mouth.

He was having a panic attack. He hadn’t vomited with anxiety since school.

Shaking hard, he got up and flushed the toilet, running his hands under the hot tap and concentrating on the sensation, the sound of the rushing water. He felt well enough after a few minutes to brush his teeth, though he had to fight against his still-unsteady hands.

He got into bed when he was done, still in his slacks and shirt, wrapping the comforter around him.

Was Rozanov back already? Was he in his room, even now, kissing that woman with his hands in her hair. He bent forward on the bed, his breathing coming fast again. This was the most pathetic he’d ever been. He shouldn’t be having a meltdown over Rozanov—famous womanizer—taking a woman back to his hotel room to fuck. He conjured some images: Rozanov with his hands on her ass, kissing her. Holding her down while he fucked her, his cock pumping in and out of her pussy.

Gasping now, Shane fought to slow his breathing, counting to four over and over until he felt less like he was going to faint.

I love you, Ilya told him after every game, but he didn’t mean it. He didn’t mean it and he wasn’t ever going to and Shane shouldn’t care anyway. He didn’t fucking care because he wasn’t—

A knock sounded at the door.

Shane ignored it. It was probably Marly, making sure his star teammate wasn’t dead in a ditch or anything.

“Shane!” Ilya’s voice. “Open the fucking door!”

Shane wiped at his eyes and got up, unlatching the door and standing back as Ilya barged in, his jacket in one hand.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Shane shrugged. “I just didn’t feel great.”

“So you just took off,” Ilya said, flatly. “Without your jacket.”

“Thanks for bringing it back.”

Ilya dropped the jacket over the back of a chair and took a step forward. Shane took a step back, staying out of his personal space.

“What are we doing? Are we dancing?”

It could have been a joke, but there was an edge of annoyance to Ilya’s voice.

“Don’t you have—I mean, what about that woman?”

“What woman?”

“At the bar. I thought—” Shane looked up at the shadowed ceiling, folding his arms over his chest. “Did you—” he swallowed hard, then tried again. “Did you kiss her?”

Ilya looked at him like he’d grown another head, before puzzlement shaded to anger. “You really do think I’m an asshole? Think that I would pick up the first pretty girl that smiles at me.”

“Well, you could. You could do that, if you wanted to.”

Again, he seemed to have made Ilya speechless. “What are you talking about?” he asked, finally. “You think I would do that to you?”

“Do what?”

“Fuck this.” Ilya turned and took a step towards the door, then wheeled back around. “What do you think we are doing? Hmm? We live together, sleep in the same bed!”

“I don’t know.” Shane shook his head, and collapsed on the nearest chair, his breath coming short again. “You never said and I didn’t even fucking know I could be jealous of you. Shit. This is so fucked.”

A hand, cool and firm, settled on the back of Shane’s neck. “Hey, come on. Everything is okay. We are fine: first fight, eh?”

“Fuck,” Shane swore, unsteady. “We’re together, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” Ilya kissed the top of his ear. “I think so.”

Pretty much everyone had slept on the way home, wiped out after six days on the road. Shane was jittery, desperate to touch Ilya but now more aware than ever of the dangers of even then most casual intimacy. They’d collapsed into Ilya’s bed when they’d got home and had fucked slowly that morning, unbearably tender.

Ilya had somehow managed to dodge PR for the whole day but Shane wasn’t so lucky, speaking to Sports 104 at midday and then taking some Instagram pictures for Underarmour.

He should probably take a quick shower and get a snack, but he was putting off calling Hayden. It was a shitty feeling, not wanting to call his best friend, but they’d both been too busy to chat and he really didn’t know what to expect.

It was late afternoon. He really did have to call Hayden: he had a day off as well but he was taking the kids out later.

He hit video call and waited. Hayden appeared, pink-cheeked and smiling, wearing a Metro’s branded hoodie that looked like it had yogurt on one shoulder.

“Shane! How are you, buddy?”

“I’m good. How are you and the kids? And Jackie?”

“We’re all good. Ruby snuck three extra cookies somehow and was up until 2am with an upset stomach.” A voice called out in the background. “Hayden! He doesn’t want to hear about that!”

“Hi Jackie,” Shane added.

“Hi Shane!”

“How’s things? Is that your apartment? Looks nice!”

“Ah, no. I’m staying with Il—Rozanov,” Shane caught himself just in time. “I thought you knew?”

“Yeah,” Hayden agreed, surprised. “I just thought, you’ve been there a month, right?”

“It’s a big house.”

“For sure. Listen, I’m glad if you’re getting along with your teammates, you know? Everyone was worried about you.”

“They’re just hockey players.”

“Well, good.”

“How is everyone?”

Hayden’s smile dipped a bit. “Man, I have no idea how you did this captain sh—” he looked off screen for a second. “Stuff. Captain stuff for so long. The meetings! So many meetings, man. I just want to be on the ice.”

“Yeah, it’s a lot, you’ll get the hang of it,” Shane reassured him. “Is JJ okay?”

Shane had sent a couple of dumb animal videos to him but hadn’t gotten any reply.

Hayden winced. “Yeah. I think he’s just spent a bit too much time on Twitter, you know?”

“No? I haven’t really been on much.”

“Well, there’s a lot of videos of you and Rozanov being buddy-buddy and I know it’s just PR shi—. Just PR, but that with the way you are on the ice. I don’t know, he’s just gone down a bit of a rabbit hole. He’ll come round.”

Shane didn’t even know where to start with that. What the fuck did buddy-buddy mean? What kind of rabbit hole?

“How are we on the ice?” That seemed like the safest question to ask.

“Well, you know-” Hayden made a sweeping gesture with one arm. “You keep doing impossible shit that you didn’t do here. I mean, you didn’t do so much of here. And you seem to have a lot of friends on the team already. Some people—” he stopped and there sounded like there was a whispered conversation going on. “He’s going to find out at some point,” Hayden said to Jackie, before turning back to the camera. “Look, some idiots are saying you asked for the trade.”

“I—” Shane didn’t even know what to say to that.

“I know it’s not true, okay? I spoke to you that night: you were devastated.”

He’d almost forgotten about that, about not being able to even form words, Ilya coming in and speaking to Hayden. He wanted to be upstairs with Ilya now, to be lying on the sofa with his head on his shoulder, dozing while Ilya scrolled Instagram or Reddit or watched Russian TV with the sound low.

“And JJ thinks it’s true?”

“You just need to talk to him, okay? Maybe we can hang out after the game next week?”

“Sure,” Shane agreed, despite his misgivings. He had a horrible feeling Boston was going to trounce Montreal, which wouldn’t endear him to JJ.

“Not going to be past your bedtime?” Hayden joked.

Shane just rolled his eyes at him. “Tell me about the kids,” he requested, and Hayden’s eyes lit up.

He could hear the sound of some kind of racing game as he came up from the den, revving engines filling the living room. Voices too, and he stood on the top stair until he was sure it was only Marly up there with Ilya. Laine would have been fine too, but any of the rookies would have been a little too much. They were endlessly starstruck by Ilya and just a little too interested in his personal life. Marly and Laine just came over to play video games or watch Daredevil.

“Hey,” Shane said, sitting down a respectable distance from Ilya.

“Hey Holly,” Marly greeted him and Shane rolled his eyes.

Thankfully only Marly called him that. “Are you losing again?”

“Only—” Marly gritted his teeth and turned his whole body with the controller. “Because Roz is cheating.”

“Is Mario Cart!” Ilya replied, jumping to his feet and leaning towards the TV. “How can anyone cheat at Mario Cart?”

“You kept speculating about Coach’s sex life during the first lap!”

“Big word,” Ilya replied, throwing a bomb behind him on the screen. “Too difficult.”

Marly opened his mouth to reply but Ilya’s turtle passed over the finish line, confetti raining down on the screen.

Ilya collapsed back on the sofa, turning so he was lying down with his head in Shane’s lap. Shane lifted his hand to run it through Ilya’s hair, but abruptly remembered they had company and put it down again.

Thankfully, Ilya was pretty tactile with everyone so Marly didn't blink, instead slapping Ilya’s ankle so he could sit down. Ilya promptly shoved his socked feet under Marly’s thigh.

“You guys coming to Will’s BBQ next week?”

“Sure,” Ilya agreed. “But Shane will only go if Joanne is there.”

Joanne Laine was Shane’s favourite WAG. She was from Yorkshire originally, which seemed to be a place where half the words were optional, so Shane only caught every second thing she said but she had a kind smile that always put him at ease. She also treated Ilya like he was the same age as her kids, which was alternately sweet and hilarious.

“I’m sure Lainy can be convinced to bring his wife.”

The conversation turned to the TV show Marly and Ilya watched together on flights sometimes and Shane lent back, letting his eyes half-close. It was nice, sitting here with one teammate and one teammate who was also his boyfriend. Extremely strange and something he was trying not to think about too much, but nice.

Marly got up to go, searching for his jacket while Ilya tried to get Shane to be the one to walk Marly to the door.

“It’s your house.”

“You live here,” Ilya whined, his head still in Shane’s lap.

“I know my way out,” Marly told them, his eyes creased with amusement.

“It’s rude!” Shane told Ilya, who sighed expansively and stood up.

“Mr Marleau, please follow me,” he said to Marly, with what he probably thought was a fancy accent, but just made him sound more Russian.

Marly held out his fist and Shane bumped it with his own. “See you at skate tomorrow.”

“See you, good luck with this dude,” Marly replied, in French.

“Thanks, I’ll need it.”

When he came back into the living room, Ilya climbed into Shane’s lap. “What did you say about me in French?”

“Marly said you smelled bad and I told him you never brush your teeth.”

“Never brush your teeth,” Ilya repeated, shaking his head. “Such terrible chirps, like a small child.”

Shane knew he was grinning but couldn’t hide it. “You need a haircut,” he said, running a hand through Ilya’s unruly curls.

“I need a kiss.”

“Do you?” Shane asked, his eyes flicking to Ilya’s lips.

Ilya hummed, and leaned down.

Chapter Text

Morning skate had been optional, but Shane and Ilya always went: Ilya because he was captain and Shane because he was, according to Ilya, a goody-two-shoes. Marly had taught him that one.

Afterwards, Ilya was telling a story about a game from before Shane’s time to Tiz and Remy, sitting in just his compression shorts and one sock. Shane was half listening while he dried off, Laine sitting his cubby beside him, tapping away on his phone. Starting to turn around, Shane stopped as he felt a touch on his elbow.

“Maybe cover those up, eh?” Laine said, nodding down at Shane’s arm.

He looked down at his forearm: he had bruises in the perfect shape of five fingerprints.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, face burning. He shoved on a sweatshirt, pushing his arms through quickly.

“You’ll be chirped into next month if anyone sees them,” Laine told him.

Shane nodded, glancing over where Ilya wasn’t any more dressed than before. He was torn between remembering how good it had felt to be held down last night and wanting to murder him for leaving a mark.

Laine had gone back to his phone and Shane felt a swell of affection for him. He was so lucky Laine was so uninterested in anyone’s personal life, even Hayden and JJ would have been desperate to get the who and the how out of him.

Skate was optional but tape wasn’t. By the time Shane had showered and eaten, the video room was filling up with players who hadn’t been on the ice that morning, many with Dunkin’ coffee cups from the place around the corner, jokes overlapping as the lights dimmed, the first clip frozen ready on the screen.

“Watch their F3 here,” Coach said, indicating the screen with a laser pointer as the clip paused. “They’re high, they’re patient. If you force it through the middle, you’re giving them exactly what they want.”

He nodded with everyone else, even though he’d already clocked it. Tampa funneled play wide, collapsed late, waited for mistakes.

Montreal came up next.

Shane felt it before anyone said anything, the faint shift in the room as the logo filled the screen. Keeping his eyes down on his notebook, Shane wrote Montreal Metros across the top of the page and underlined it twice.

“Same structure as always,” Coach said, neutral. “But watch how aggressive their D are at the blue line.”

The clip paused. Shane could see it immediately, the familiar problem showing up right on time. The defenceman stepped up early, shoulders squared, stick extended, trying to kill the play before it started. Coach paused and explained, then moved on.

With every point Dan made Shane’s stomach wound tighter: excitement and fear, excitement and fear. He could see three moves ahead each time—every place where Montreal would try to compensate and every place where it wouldn’t be enough.

“He did not,” Shane was saying, following Ilya through the back door.

“He did! I swear to you! He came down out of the bathroom naked and tried to get into a cupboard. You ask Joanne when you see her, she was there, she knows her husband’s mistakes.”

Shane shook his head: he wouldn’t believe such slander of Laine until he had a secondary witness. Ilya was—

A woman appeared at the top of the stairs and Ilya swore.

“Ilyusha!” she said with a smile, and Ilya blinked at her for a second before replying in tense Russian. Shane took one uneasy step back, as if he could disappear back into the mud room and then out away from whoever this person was.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your new teammate?” she asked, in perfect American English.

Ilya sighed. “Shane, this is Svetlana Vetrova, my friend who does not know how to call ahead. Sveta, this is Shane Hollander, as you already know.”

“A pleasure! It’s so nice to see Ilya spending time with his new teammates.”

“He lives here,” Ilya told her, flatly.

“Does he now?”

Ilya said something sharp in Russian, but Svetlana simply smiled. “Why don’t you be a good host and offer me something to drink? Surely you have some black tea in here somewhere.”

With that she turned around and disappeared into the house.

Ilya turned to look at Shane. “We have known each other since we were children. Don’t listen to anything she says.”

And with that he took the stairs that led up to the main floors. Shane messed around with his shoes for a bit, making sure everything was tidy. He went directly upstairs, going into the guest bedroom where he never slept and dumping his bag on the bed that housekeeping must have made recently. He messed it up a little so that it looked slept in. Should he move his shampoo out of Ilya’s en-suite? Probably not. Why would Svetlana go into Ilya’s bathroom?

He sat on the edge of the bed. Maybe he should just stay out of their way for a while: let them catch up.

Svetlana was probably one of the most beautiful women Shane had ever met. Even in plain smart pants and a soft-looking sweater, she’d looked like she’d just stepped out of a fashion magazine. He’d seen her somewhere before, he was sure. It clicked all at once, unpleasantly sharp. Not where he’d seen her, but how. A Twitter fan account he’d almost scrolled past, Ilya in a club somewhere, laughing, an arm slung around a woman who looked effortless in the way only certain women did: it had been captioned with something speculative and winking and Shane had spent too long looking at the slant of Ilya’s smile.

He stood up and went downstairs, towards the sound of Russian conversation coming from the kitchen.

“Hello again, Shane Hollander who has lived here for a month without me knowing about it.”

Ilya said something in Russian to her and she rolled her eyes at him.

“Ilya said you’ve been friends since childhood and not to believe anything you say.”

Svetlana laughed. Even her laugh was sexy.

“Oh, I have so many stories to tell you, but first, you can’t call him Ilya. This is for Americans and you are Canadian. You must call him Ilushenka.”

“Ilushenka,” Shane repeated.

Behind Svetlana, Ilya was looking down at the tea he was making, using the double tea-pot Shane had since learned was called a zavarnik. He didn’t look up at the new name, but there was something deliberate in the way he was concentrating.

“Can you teach me some more Russian?” he asked Svetlana, who took his arm and steered him towards the living space.

“Of course, Shane Hollander. In exchange you must explain the pass you made to empty air against Pittsburgh: the one everyone is pretending was intentional. Ilya doesn’t look where he’s going, so how did you know where he would be?”

In the end Svetlana only stayed for two hours. She was on her way back to New York after skiing in Vermont and had taken a layover in the hope of surprising Ilya. Ilya had threatened to take her spare keys off her a number of times, but didn’t seem to have followed through.

He came back in from seeing her to the door, bringing a burst of cold air with him.

“Brr,” he shuddered, burying into Shane’s side.

“She seemed nice.”

“No, she is terrible.”

“And you’ve known her a long time?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever—,” Shane hesitated. “I mean, were you two—”

“Yes, but not anymore. Svetlana is always my best friend first.”

“How old were you when you met her?”

Ilya shrugged, still burrowed against Shane's side. “Eight, I think. Our parents were friends.”

That was probably enough questions. Ilya got skittish if he asked too many questions in a row: he said they were boring or he suddenly remembered something he had to do. Even Shane could take a hint that obvious.

“She knows about me,” Ilya added.

“What about you?”

“That I like men as well as women.”

Shane's heart skipped a beat before starting up again, double time. “Does she know about us?”

“I didn't tell her but she is not stupid.”

“Would she ever—”

“No,” Ilya cut across him. “No, never. She has protected me always. She can be trusted.”

“Okay.”

He wasn't sure it was okay, but what else could he say. Hayden was his best friend but he wouldn't be telling him any time soon. Possibly ever, if he could help it.

Ilya kissed the underside of his jaw, once, then twice, and Shane's eyes fluttered with pleasure, happy for the distraction.

“Hmm,” he agreed with nothing in particular. “No, wait.”

Ilya propped himself up on an elbow. “I told you a million times, this couch is wipe-clean."

“What? No, not that.” He pulled up his sleeve. “This!”

Ilya peered at his arm. “That is your arm, yes. Needs more muscle so your back hand is better.”

Shane huffed a sigh. “No, the bruises.”

Ilya put his hand over Shane’s forearm, fitting his fingers gently over the bruises. “Oh, yes,” he replied, his voice gone deep. “I remember now. I held you down last night while I fucked you.”

“That’s—” Shane licked his lips. “That’s not the point. Laine saw them in the locker room.”

“What did he say?”

“That I should cover them up before anyone else saw.”

Ilya laughed: a loud, happy sound. “Ah, he is a good man. See? No problem. I can mark you up and Lainy will make sure no-one sees.”

“That’s not the—” Shane cut off on a moan, embarrassingly high as Ilya sucked hard just under his jaw. “No marks,” he said, but it didn’t sound very convincing even to himself.

“No marks people will see,” Ilya agreed.

Shane wanted to remind him they showered naked with twenty-odd other men most days of the week, but Ilya was stripping him of his hoodie and t-shirt, his mouth going to Shane’s nipple. He bit down, lightly at first, then harder and harder. Shane’s hands flew to the back of Ilya’s head, keeping him there even as he squirmed against the feeling.

“Fuck,” he panted, when Ilya pulled away. His eyes were very dark.

“Again?” Ilya asked. “Think you can take it?”

“Fuck you,” Shane breathed, already arching up against Ilya’s hot mouth.

God it was so intense: like the physical sensation of white noise. He came back to himself panting, grinding up against Ilya’s thigh.

“Tabernak, fuck,” he swore. “Please.”

“Must be good if you’re swearing in French,” Ilya commented between tender kisses under his jaw.

“Come on,” Shane absolutely didn’t whine.

Ilya huffed a laugh, his breath tickling against Shane’s skin. Then finally his hand was on Shane’s cock and he forgot his annoyance. This time, when Ilya bit down on his nipple, Shane lost all control of his volume as he came, shoving his heels into the couch to try to get more friction, more everything.

Reality started to filter back in as Ilya muttered something in Russian, pushing his sweats down and kicking them off. Still dazed, Shane watched as he began to jerk himself off, fast and rough. He came quickly enough that Shane should’ve chirped him for it, but he was still trying to find his brain cells. He’d likely regret all this when he was putting on his compression gear tomorrow, but that was a problem for future Shane.

Ilya collapsed to the side of him, fishing for something then coming up with a t-shirt and wiping them both off. Shane put one arm around Ilya’s shoulders and snagged a throw off the back of the couch to spread over them. It was from his old apartment in Montreal: his mom had packed it with his clothes and the few books she’d sent.

They lay like that, breaths slowing. There was no-where they needed to be.

“Say it?” Ilya asked, his voice quiet.

“Say what?”

“What Svetlana taught you.”

Shane kissed the delicate skin by the side of Ilya’s eye. “Ilushenka,” he whispered.

Ilya turned his head so that Shane couldn’t see his expression. “Again.”

“Ilushenka,” Shane murmured, dropping first one kiss onto his hair, then another. “Ilushenka.”

Chapter Text

Warm-ups were fine. Ilya stayed with him the whole time, but that was pretty normal: they usually stretched together, then skated slow laps or passed a few pucks. At some point Ilya would kiss his helmet, which was originally just the signal for Marleau to do the same, but Ilya was captain so of course it had caught on.

He tilted his head as Laine came up to him, then Taz, and then Wills. He caught Ilya’s grin as he got to his feet, and discovered Pez, Sebs, and Cade all patiently waiting for their turn to kiss his helmet. Shane laughed, shaking his head. There was something sweet about how the Raiders followed Ilya’s lead: if he hugged Shane after a goal, then first Marleau and then Laine had to do the same. Ilya always handed Shane his water bottle before taking his own when they got to the bench. So now if Shane got there before Ilya, someone was always ready with it.

As a kid he’d struggled with big groups: both at school and on teams. He’d found strategies to help over the years, but he couldn’t remember a time when he’d genuinely felt popular. He had no illusions: it was all about his skills on the ice and Ilya’s lead, but it was still nice.

He caught a few of the Metro’s watching him once or twice, but they were too far away to see their expressions. He’d nodded at Hayden from within the scrum of Raiders that seemed determined to accompany him everywhere, but that was all he managed before the horn let them know it was time to go back to the locker room.

There was enough time to tie and re-tie his laces, then out to O Canada, followed by the Boston crowd doing their best to sing louder than anyone had ever sung the Star-Spangled Banner.

Ilya was already in position when he skated up and he could tell from the referee’s flat, unimpressed stare that Ilya was chirping Taylor relentlessly. He was a solid centre and he’d been a decent teammate: he’d certainly done nothing to deserve Ilya’s undoubtedly gleeful shit talking.

Ilya won the faceoff. The Metros were half a step behind the Raider’s every move, Marly scoring on Shane’s assist. The crowd threw themselves against the glass, faces pressed up against it in roaring delight. Shane was so grateful for them, they’d got behind him almost instantly and hadn’t let up since.

They came off after the goal and Shane kept his eyes forward on the bench, Ilya’s bare hand warm on the back of his neck as he talked over Shane’s shoulder to Laine. Shane caught his name but ignored them, watching Berkes finish a hit on Taz that drew a brief crowd before the refs waded in. No goals, but only because Mitty was stepping up to cover where the Metro’s were more concerned with getting choppy.

By the third, the game had stopped being about hockey and turned into attrition. Montreal kept scoring just enough to stay visible, but every shift Shane took came with a price, a shoulder driven through him at the boards, a stick across the ribs, a mouthful of abuse when the refs weren’t close enough to hear. Boston answered every time: someone always arrived after the hit, always stepped in, and the penalties stacked up on both sides as the Metros got choppier and the Raiders stopped pretending they wouldn’t respond. The only reason it didn’t get out of hand was Mitty, standing on his head while his defence burned energy trying to hurt Shane instead of stopping the puck.

They won 5-2. Shane watched his old team as they skated off the ice, Boston screaming like they’d just won the cup. He’d be having dinner with Hayden in an hour or so: almost impossible to imagine after that game.

Media was relentless. Jen had to step in twice and Shane could feel Ilya’s annoyance from across the room. He’d been banned from crashing Shane’s media about ten games back, so there was no hope of a rescue. Just a regular game; they’re a good team over there; we just came out the right way; it’s hockey, stuff happens. He put on his blandest smile and grinded all the way through five terrible minutes of questions.

Standing in the hallway, hair damp from a quick shower and a draft coming from under a fire exit, Shane felt every one of his hits. JJ had landed a couple of clean hits, not even looking at him. Hayden had passed him on the ice, head down. Schneider had gone low with his stick, catching Shane across the shin. Gagnon had gone for a cross-check and Roy had chosen a stick ride across his forearms. Comeau had driven him into the boards twice, calling him a traitor, a cocksucker, a faggot. He was going to have bruises all down his side that would take a while to fade.

The first time they’d won the cup, Roy had screamed into his ear that he was a beauty. He’d gone with Schneider to sign off on his equipment order a couple of times because he’d kept putting it off.

Shane put the back of his hand to his mouth.

He wanted to go back into the locker room and sit in his cubby, listening to the rookies ask increasingly stupid questions about the in-flight food tomorrow. He wanted to go home.

“Shane!”

Hayden was coming down the corridor, smiling brightly in the overheads, with JJ trailing just behind.

Shane took them to South Street Diner. He’d been with the team a couple of times and none of the servers ever blinked at a group of NHL players, shoved tightly into a corner booth.

“Hey, pancakes!” Hayden exclaimed, plastic menu in hand.

JJ was quiet, seemingly engrossed in deciding what to order.

Shane didn’t even need to look: pretty much the only thing he could eat was scrambled eggs on wholewheat toast, but that was fine. Hayden ordered something with churro in the name and JJ went for a wrap and chocolate milk.

Once the server left, Shane opened his mouth to say something, he had no idea what, but it would be better than silence. Hayden held up a commanding finger.

“No hockey, Jackie’s rules, don’t blame me.”

“You’re so whipped,” JJ muttered, the first thing he’d said that wasn’t hi.

“How are you doing?” Hayden asked Shane, brightly.

“Good. I, er, I’ve got to be up early tomorrow though. We’re flying to—”

“Ah!” Hayden interjected, eyebrows raised.

Shane rolled his eyes, but he could feel a smile tugging at his lips. There was no way they were going to be able to avoid even mentioning hockey. What else did they do with their time?

“Okay fine. How’s Jackie and the kids?”

“Great!” Hayden began, launching into a story about Ruby emptying a jar of honey behind the washing machine that even had JJ smiling into his drink.

Their food came and taking the edge of their post game hunger carried them past the forty-five minute mark. Shane could feel his phone buzzing in his pocket. One text would be from his parents, but the rest would all be Ilya. He put his hand over it but didn’t check.

Hayden finished his mound of pancakes first, the sickly smell of sugary syrup thankfully dissipating.

“How’s the diet going?” Hayden asked.

“Hockey-adjacent,” JJ said, without looking up from his food.

“I didn’t ask for the trade,” Shane announced.

That got him a betrayed look, but he had to make sure JJ believed him. “We know you didn’t, buddy. Right?” Hayden asked JJ.

“Yeah. I know, I’m just—” JJ made an expansive gesture. “I’m pissed at everyone right now. What the fuck were they thinking?”

“They were thinking that you’d tank,” Hayden said to Shane, all good humour gone. “They’d be able to buy whoever they wanted but you’d fail in Boston so who gives a fuck?” Shane didn’t think he’d ever sounded so bitter.

“Their fucking mistake, and now we’re paying for it,” JJ spat. “God, the fans… You seen any of it?” he asked Shane, anger sharpening his accent.

“No. I’ve posted some sponsor stuff on Instagram, but that’s it apart from ESPN. My mom tells me if there’s anything important.”

“Yeah, maybe don’t go looking,” Hayden agreed. “I’ve seen way too many edits of Rozanov kissing your helmet three hundred times.”

Shane blinked. God, he hoped that wasn’t actually a thing.

“Are you still living with him?” JJ asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I guess he’s your captain.”

“And my friend,” Shane added, firmly.

JJ looked down at his half-empty glass. “Well, I’m glad you’re making friends,” he allowed. “Even if that friend thanked Taylor for giving you to Boston every time you scored or got an assist.”

“Christ.”

“Still an asshole then?” Hayden asked, but he was smiling.

“Yeah, sometimes.”

JJ finished the rest of his drink with an obnoxious slurp and pushed the glass aside.

“You playing Buffalo tomorrow?” Hayden asked, apparently fully given up on his own rule.

“Yeah.”

“You going to steamroll them?”

“Probably, yeah.”

“Rozanov and Hollander on a line,” JJ shook his head. “Who the fuck thought that would be a good idea?”

Shane kept silent, sipping the last of his water. He was pretty sure it wasn’t a real question, anyway.

“Well, you’ll make playoffs for sure,” Hayden said, sounding at least fifty percent happy for him.

Glancing across the table, JJ’s phone showed a clock glowing upside down reading 01:30am.

“Thanks,” he replied, absently. “We better get the cheque, yeah?”

Hayden snorted. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s get you home before you turn into a pumpkin.”

Outside in the cold February air their breath plumed white while they waited for the taxi that would take Hayden and JJ to their hotel. JJ was leaning against the railings outside the diner, looking up at the old office building across the street.

“Call me if you need anything,” Hayden told him, sincere.

“Yeah, same,” Shane agreed.

“Don’t get hurt,” JJ ordered, clapping him on the shoulder.

Shane waved them off and cut east towards South Station. The parking lot was so bright that he wished he was the type of guy to walk around in sunglasses at night. He pulled his hood tighter instead, trying to cut down the glare. In the car he finally looked at his phone, replying to his parents and scrolling through the cascade of messages Ilya had sent before starting the engine and backing out of the narrow space.

It was nearly 2am when he got in, the downstairs dark except for a lamp, glowing dimly next to the couch. Shane flicked it off, climbing the stairs in the semi-darkness. The ensuite light was also on, a wedge of brightness falling across the bottom of the bed. Ilya was a huddle under the comforter, only the outline of his head visible against the pillow. He was asleep, snoring softly.

Shane went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He brushed his teeth for the whole two minutes despite his exhaustion. He turned away from the mirror as he stripped, not wanting to see the bruises starting to bloom across his skin.

As he got into bed Ilya, still mostly asleep, rolled over and clumsily pulled him close. Shane turned his face into the warm skin of his shoulder, so familiar now. They slept together almost every night. Even on the road, Shane would go over to Ilya’s room, waking early to go down to breakfast before almost everyone else was up.

He breathed deeply, his heart clenching with some emotion—trembling and full. He should have made more effort with JJ, he should have thanked Hayden for believing him, but all he’d wanted all evening was to be here, in Ilya’s house, in his bed, in his arms.

“Okay?” Ilya mumbled.

“Yeah,” Shane replied. “I’m okay. Go back to sleep.”

Chapter Text

Shane lay sprawled on the bed, Ilya’s pillow under his head, his phone tucked against his cheek. They’d got back late last night and had gone to morning skate that morning, then they’d been dragged to Row 34 for lunch: only because half the team had complained that their captain was getting old and never went out any more.

“Front office has only been giving me positives,” his mom was saying. “Good line chemistry, teamwork, you know the drill.”

“Cool.”

“How are you feeling? Think these guys are going to support you long-term?”

“Yeah? I don’t know. I thought the Metros were going to re-sign me so maybe my opinion counts for nothing.”

“Honey, I’ll tell you and your dad will tell you until you believe us, but that had nothing to do with you, okay? I never heard a bad word about you from them.”

That made it worse, not better. “The team seems good,” he offered.

“And you’re feeling more settled?”

“Yeah, I guess. The people here don’t seem to give a fuck there’s a group of NHL players getting coffee next to them, which is nice.”

“Okay, and how are you feeling about finding an apartment there? Signalling you want to put down some roots?”

Shane rolled over onto his front, burying his head in Ilya’s pillow for a moment.

“Shane?” his mom sounded worried. “If you’re not ready, that’s fine too.”

“I’m good here,” he mumbled. “Staying here, I mean.”

“And Rozanov? He’s okay with that?”

“Yeah,” Shane replied. “I mean—” They hadn’t actually talked about it, but he figured he could just stay and see if Ilya got annoyed. “Yeah. We’re good.”

“Okay, well, I just want you to be mindful of how closely you’re being associated with Rozanov right now.”

Shane sat up. “What?”

There was a pause on the end of the phone. “Shane, honey. I don’t have anything against him: he’s doing a lot for you. He just has a very different image to you and probably not one Rolex is looking for. He has own sponsors.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Or, nothing bad. Just, I worry about you getting into the party scene he seems to be part of.”

Party scene? The last time they’d gone out was the week before last, when they’d had dinner with the team and Ilya’d had two beers before they’d headed home.

Shane flopped back down. “There haven’t been any parties, Mom.”

“That’s good to know. Now, we were thinking of coming down to see a home game, maybe against Detroit. I know you said you wanted some time to settle in, but by then it’ll be two months since we last saw you.”

“Sounds good. I’ll ask around for hotel recommendations.”

“Okay, we also were hoping we’ll get to see where you’re staying? It would be nice to meet your captain as well.”

“Sure.” Absolutely not.

Ilya would do something perfectly normal like put his head on Shane’s shoulder or tuck his thumb into Shane’s back pocket and none of the team even blinked, but his parents would ask questions.

“Let’s talk about it next time, I’m sure you need a nap.”

“Yeah, thanks mom. Give my love to Dad.”

Ilya was lying full length on the couch, listening to something pop-rocky in Russian. Shane crawled up so that he was lying half of Ilya, half on the back cushions, and waited for the song to end.

“Did I hear you talking to your brother before?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it like, 1am there?”

“Yes, he was drunk.”

Shane turned and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “How’s your dad?”

“I don’t know. Worse maybe? Alexei won’t take him to the doctor, so who knows?”

Getting Ilya to talk about any of this was usually like pulling teeth: all he knew was he had an older brother, a forgetful father, and he’d never mentioned his mother.

Shane slipped a hand under Ilya’s hoodie and put it against the warmth of his t-shirt on his side. He stroked a comforting thumb back and forth while he tried to think of the right thing to say.

“He says that all people get old and forget,” Ilya continued, folding a hand absently into Shane’s hair. “That he will come out worse; that they might lock him up. He always has an excuse and I’m not there so I can do nothing about it.”

Ilya’s accent was sharper after he’d been speaking to his brother.

“Do you need to go back?”

“No: the problem will be waiting for me in summer.” He blew out a breath and pressed a kiss to Shane’s temple. “How were your parents?” he added.

“Good. Fine. They want to come visit.”

“Oh yes?” Ilya pushed himself up onto an elbow. “How long for?”

“Just a night.”

“They can sleep downstairs. Or they can have the master bedroom.”

“Ilya, they can’t stay here.”

“Why not? I can promise not to fuck you for one night.”

“Because they’ll know. The second they see us together: they’ll know.”

Ilya looked down at him, his fingers still tangled at the back of Shane’s head.

“They don’t know about you?”

“They don’t know anything.”

“And you don’t want them to know?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Ilya agreed, but he took his hand back, tucking it into the pocket of his sweatpants as he lay back down.

Shane sat up, his ass shoved between Ilya and the back of the couch, his legs over Ilya’s stomach.

“Look,” he started, then paused to gather his thoughts. “My mom, she had a hard time at school. Like, really hard, because she looked different, because her packed lunch was different, just everything. And she told me she thought about—” Shane took a breath. “She thought about hurting herself a few times.”

Ilya’s easy breaths froze for a second and Shane looked over at him: his expression was one of horror.

“She never did anything! She just had some dark times. But yeah, because of that she worked hard so I’d fit in. Like, she made sure my sneakers were the same as everyone’s, that I did the right after-school classes. She even—” Shane hesitated again, embarrassed. “She’d practice conversations with me so I would know what to say to my classmates. Like asking about weekends and music and stuff. Dumb stuff that other kids just seemed to know, but I couldn’t get.”

“And now I’m fucking that up. Being—Being this, with you. It’s like I’m throwing that all back in her face.”

Ilya was watching him carefully. “She never hurt herself?” he asked, voice quiet.

“No,” Shane assured him. “She just felt really bad at the time.”

“I think she would understand. She is a good mom: she loves you.”

Shane rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I know I’m so lucky. I just can’t right now. Is that okay?” He couldn’t look at Ilya.

“Is okay. They stay in a hotel, I will go do something for PR. It’s no problem.”

Lying back down, Shane laced their fingers together.

“She also said you have a party image.”

That made Ilya laugh, his stomach shaking. “A party image! Oh, yes: every night, I’m dancing on the podium at the clubs.”

“You're ridiculous”

“You like it.”

He did, but he wasn't about to tell Ilya that so he leaned over and kissed him instead. He'd meant it to be nothing, just a way to get the last word, so to speak, but Ilya splayed his hand across Shane's face and deepened the kiss.

They kissed for long moments, Ilya turning so he could push first Shane’s hoodie, then his t-shirt up and off him. He pressed sweet, closed mouth kisses down Shane’s still-bruised side. “I will kill Comeau.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “You already tried that, remember? You got a penalty for it.”

Ilya muttered something in Russian but went back to stripping Shane. He then fumbled in his pockets, coming up with a smaller version of the tube they kept upstairs.

“You’re carrying lube now?”

“Yes?”

Shane snorted, shaking his head. “You’re unbelievable,” he half-laughed.

Ilya continued to search his pockets, then swore in Russian.

“What is it?”

“No condom: I’ll go get it.”

“No,” Shane blurted. Ilya looked startled and Shane could already feel himself turning red. “If you want. We could. Without.”

“Hmm, yeah?” Ilya asked, leaning back in for a filthy kiss. “Is that what you want?”

“Maybe.”

“I think you do. I think you want to feel me come inside you.”

“Jesus,” Shane muttered.

Ilya kept up a near-constant commentary while he fingered him open, shit about how he was going to fuck him and put a plug in before practice that was way hotter than Shane would ever admit out loud.

“Are—are you done?” he panted.

“Hmm, yes, I think so.” And with that he pushed into Shane, hands on his thighs to hold him open.

He absolutely couldn’t tell the difference in the feel of it, but he knew Ilya wasn’t wearing a condom and that made it ten times hotter. For Ilya as well he guessed, by the way his control kept slipping, fucking Shane hard enough to pull bitten-off moans from him.

“Okay?”

“Yes, fuck,” Shane panted. “Like that.”

Ilya gave up any pretence of holding back, fucking him up against the arm of the couch, one hand tight in his hair.

“Fuck, going to come in you.”

“Ye—yes.”

Shane could feel it. He could feel Ilya’s cock pulsing inside of him, everything getting wetter and hotter. He got his own hand on himself and came almost instantly, making a mess of them both.

“Fuck,” Ilya breathed against Shane’s lips, kissing his slack mouth. “Fuck that’s hot.”

They lay there longer than they normally would, kissing until Ilya was soft enough to slip out of him. He was sticky where he wasn’t usually sticky and whatever he was lying on—hopefully Ilya’s t-shirt—would need a very hot wash, but it had been worth it.

“Can’t do that on a road trip: the whole hotel will know.”

Shane blinked his eyes open. “I wasn’t loud?”

It came out more of a question than a statement.

“I am deaf. I need a—” Ilya made a vague gesture towards his ear.

“A hearing aid?”

“Yes! I need a hearing aid: you screamed.”

“I did not.”

“Did.”

“Did not.”

“Did.”

Shane bit the closest part of Ilya he could reach, which happened to be his ear. Ilya actually shrieked, which meant that Shane was laughing too hard to properly defend himself from the tickling attack that Ilya launched.

They stopped when they rolled off onto the floor, Ilya kicking the coffee table on the way down.

“You okay?” Shane demanded.

“Yes. Ow. Maybe we are too old for this.”

Shane propped himself up, looking down into Ilya’s blue eyes as he reached up and brushed his thumb along Shane’s jaw.

“I also talked about something else with my parents,” he admitted.

“Hmm?”

“I told them I didn’t want to look for a new apartment.”

“Well, that works.”

“It does?”

“Yes. I don’t want you to look for an apartment either.”

“Well, I guess that does work then,” Shane said with a smile, turning to place a kiss on the tip of Ilya’s thumb.

Chapter Text

Shane saw Ilya peel off first, the familiar flick of his stick toward the bench as his shift ended a half-second early. Shane stayed out one more stride because the puck was still loose and he was already wide. Then the play went the other way, sudden and sharp, bodies collapsing towards the middle. He cut back through traffic, legs burning, aware of skates crossing his path, a stick rapping his shin, a shoulder crowding his space. He caught a glimpse of the other player’s head down, eyes still tracking the puck, already turning away.

He clipped Shane. Not a hit, not really: just bad timing and too much speed. Shane’s edge went and his weight pitched forward before he could recover. His face hit the ice with a sickening crack. White burst behind his eyes, pain blooming hot and immediate, followed by warmth, fast and wet, flooding down over his mouth and chin. He pushed up to one knee, then both, bringing one inexplicably gloveless up uselessly as the ice beneath him streaked red. The whistle screamed and somewhere nearby someone was shouting, but Shane was still trying to get his bearings.

Hands were on him almost immediately, steering him toward the boards and through the open door. Shane let them, head tipped forward because that was easier than trying to look up. The tunnel swallowed the noise of the arena, sound dropping away into a dull roar behind him. Someone pressed a towel into his hands and he held it there, more out of instinct than instruction and it soaked through red almost instantly.

“Okay, easy,” a trainer said, voice calm and practiced. “Keep pressure.”

They stopped just inside the medical room. Shane caught his reflection in a mirror over a sink, dark hair plastered to his forehead, blood smeared liberally across his mouth and chin, dripping from his nose and a deep cut he couldn’t even feel down onto his jersey. His nose already looked wrong, swollen and crooked beneath the towel. He swallowed against a sharp, unpleasant pull behind his eyes.

“Oh,” he said faintly. He hadn’t realised it was that bad.

The trainer guided him toward the table. “Sit. We’re just going to take a look.”

“Wait,” Shane said, breath hitching as another wave of warmth spilled down his face. He adjusted the towel, pressing harder. “I’m fine. I’m not dizzy.”

“We still need to—”

“I need to go back to the bench,” Shane said, more urgently now. “Just for a minute. Please. I need to talk to them before they go back out.”

The trainer hesitated, eyes flicking to his face, assessing.

“Two minutes,” he said finally. “You don’t step on the ice.”

“Thank you.” Shane was already turning back towards the tunnel.

They walked him partway, the cold air biting at his damp jersey. The bench was chaos when he emerged, Ilya at the end, mid-argument with the head trainer, hands cutting sharp shapes through the air. Shane couldn’t hear the exact words, just see the intensity of them. The trainer stood his ground, palms up, shaking his head.

Then Ilya saw him.

His eyes went wide, the anger breaking open into something raw and startled. Shane stepped up, still clutching the towel to his face, blood seeping through it again. They met over the boards, close enough that Shane could see the tension in Ilya’s jaw.

“I’m fine,” Shane told him, low so only he could hear. “I promise.”

Ilya’s gaze flicked over him, hands tight on the rail. Shane shook his head. “It wasn’t dirty. Just bad timing.” He wasn’t 100% sure of that but sure enough. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he added

Ilya nodded, sharp and jerky, but he wasn’t doing a good job of hiding how upset he was. His hands were still clenched, knuckles white. Shane glanced past him and caught Marleau’s eye, holding it for a beat. Marleau gave a small nod back, already edging closer to Ilya’s shoulder.

A hand closed around Shane’s elbow. “Okay,” the trainer said. “That’s enough.”

Shane let himself be pulled back towards the tunnel, the cold air closing around him again. He really needed to call his parents.

He got back to the hotel at midnight, a trainer whose name he didn’t remember and was too tired to feel guilty about escorted him up to his room. He stood just inside the door for long enough to hear the elevator beep, then went down the corridor to Ilya’s room and knocked. Even in the low light his eyes were red. Shane took him into his arms, running a hand through his hair.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.” He sounded as congested as Shane did.

“I’m fine, it’s just a fracture,” Shane told him. The medical staff should have kept him up to date. He’d told them to call Ilya the second he’d come out of the CT scan.

“I know, Tom called me.”

“I’m fine,” he told him again, just in case it wasn’t clear. “I can play the game tomorrow.”

Ilya nodded, his face buried in the crook of Shane’s neck. “Did you eat?”

“Yeah, Tom brought me something at the hospital. Did you?”

Ilya shrugged.

Shane had no idea what a shrug could mean in this context. “Let’s go to bed, eh?”

Pulling away, Ilya turned slowly and started stripping, dropping his clothes haphazardly on a chair. Shane folded his quickly, going over and pulling down the heavy comforter and getting in, lying on his back, propped up by pillows. Ilya turned off the lights and crawled in, half on top of Shane with his head on his shoulder.

“Okay?” Shane asked.

Ilya hummed, pressing a hand against Shane’s side.

Columbus was brutal. Early in the first, Shane took a hit he normally would have absorbed and spun off. With the cage he went down awkwardly, Ilya there within a second.

“I’m fine!” Shane snapped.

On the power play, Ilya threaded the cross-ice feed, but Shane was half a step slow and the lane closed before he could get his stick on it. They lost 2–1.

The low hum of the plane on the way back made his headache worse. Laine, in the seat next to him, was watching a movie with his headphones on. In the row ahead Marleau and Ilya were asleep, a tuft of Ilya’s blonde curls just visible from around the side of the wide chair.

Shane closed his eyes but couldn’t sleep, his head a dull, inescapable pressure. It was a short flight, but Shane was more than ready to get off and get home. Ilya had driven them, as he usually did, but he was so quiet that he nearly offered to drive them back.

He was glad he hadn’t when he woke up with a start, the garage dim around them as Ilya turned off the engine.

“Shane?” he said, quietly.

“I’m awake.”

“I can make you pelmeni,” Ilya offered, picking up Shane’s bag while Shane was still climbing out of the car.

“The frozen dumplings you eat?”

“Yes, they’re good when you’re sick.”

“Oh, no. I can’t. I’ll just have some of the pasta I made yesterday.”

He followed Ilya into the house and up the stairs. Back-to-back games were part of the job, but for once he could understand so many of his teammates complained about them. He just wanted to sleep for ten hours, not get up at 07:30 to be prodded by the medical staff. He tried to remember the tape session they’d had yesterday on Detroit: they stacked the neutral zone for sure. Looking over at where Ilya was slowly eating what looked like a convenience store sandwich he decided to ask about it tomorrow instead. He followed Ilya up to bed and fell asleep before the lights were even out.

By the time he surfaced again he was aware only of light and pleasure, a dream blurring into reality as he thrust up into the heat of Ilya’s mouth.

“Fuck! Fuck, Ilya.” He sounded terrible, congested and raspy, but fuck he felt so good.

He put his hands into Ilya’s hair, digging his heels in so he could get the leverage he needed to fuck into Ilya’s mouth. He wasn’t going to last long but morning blowjobs were never about anything except getting off as quickly as possible before they had to go to the rink. Coming down Ilya’s throat was a pretty good start to the day and he lay there panting, watching through narrowed eyes as Ilya’s fucked into his own fist, his mouth open as he came all over Shane’s rucked up t-shirt.

“Good morning,” he said, pulling Ilya down so he could kiss his forehead.

“Morning,” Ilya mumbled, placing a soft kiss on Shane’s lips.

“Do we take our shoes off?” his mom asked from just inside the door.

“Yeah, there are some guest slippers,” Shane told them, pointing them out.

“Oh, these are from your apartment!” His dad sounded inexplicably pleased by the discovery.

“Where are you on the pain scale, honey?” his mom asked as she gave him a careful hug.

“Two, two-and-a-half,” Shane admitted, hugging his dad before leading them into the main living space. “It’s annoying more than anything.”

“You got used to the cage pretty fast: it barely made a dent in your passing this afternoon."

“Detroit thought they were playing dump-and-chase, grind-it-out hockey.”

“Well, more fool them. They spent sixty minutes chasing the puck,” his dad said, briefly pulling him in and kissing his head.

“Dad!” Shane complained, smoothing his hair down, but he knew he was smiling.

“Nice house!” His dad had stopped to peer out of the floor to ceiling windows and the massive garden beyond.

“Are the trainers being careful with you?” his mom asked, settling herself onto a bar stool. “Oh honey, do you have any tonic water? I’m so dry after the plane.”

“Yes and yes.”

“Where’s Rozanov?” his dad asked, coming over to the kitchen island.

“You can call him Ilya, and he’s got some PR thing to do this evening.”

“We were hoping to meet him.”

“Next time,” Shane reassured them.

“We’ve got some updates about your house, if you want to see some pictures?”

“That’d be great,” Shane told his dad, though he assumed his mom was the one with the pictures. He’d had to explain the concept of copy and paste to him the last time he’d asked him to do anything technology-based.

His mom walked him through build progress while his dad decided what to order. He couldn’t believe how quickly it was coming together: with any luck it would be finished and even decorated by the summer. His mom was the best project manager.

“You having salmon, Shane?” his dad asked.

“Yeah, on quinoa.”

“Okay, I’ll give them a call.”

Wandering down the hall slightly, his voice echoed as he made the order, Ilya’s address written on a scrap of paper in one hand.

“So,” his mom started, in a tone of voice that instantly made his heart speed up. “A coaching assistant mentioned that you and Ilya have been friends for a long time?”

Shane turned his glass around so the side with the most condensation was facing outwards. He’d known Ilya had told the team they’d been friends since they were rookies and he’d known that his mom would be talking to a lot of the staff, but somehow he’d missed this particular eventuality.

“Well, I mean. Yeah, we’ve played together a lot,” he hedged.

“That’s true,” she replied, her words slow. “But that’s very different from being friends.”

“Yeah, it is,” Shane agreed.

His mom sighed. “Please don’t use your media training on me, sweetie.”

“Sorry, Mom.”

“What are we apologising for?”

“Nothing,” Shane said quickly, hoping saying it out made it true. He could see his mom looking at him from the corner of his eye, but he just asked his dad how long the food would be and like that the conversation moved on.

The delivery came in the middle of a heated conversation about Montreal’s new defenceman: he was positive they were going to trade him in summer, his parents were sure they’d keep him just to save some face. They moved to the couch after they ate, ESPN on in the background while his mom showed him pictures of the house in Ottawa: looking so complete Shane felt he could drive up tomorrow and cook some burgers on the back porch as the cold night crept in.

His parents lingered over a coffee and Shane tried very hard to give the impression of being relaxed. Ilya was going to text when he was on his way back and he was pretty sure he hadn’t felt his phone vibrate.

Finally, when the clock on the kitchen wall was edging close to 9pm, his dad announced he was tired.

“You are?” his mom asked.

“Yes, it was a long day and I’m sure Shane is tired.”

“Yeah, a little,” Shane agreed.

His dad stood up and stretched, yawning loudly. His mom sighed and got up as well. “Okay then, we’ll leave you to it. Let us know what the doctors say about your nose. And get some Neosporin on that cut when it’s closed up: you don’t want it to scar.”

Shane said his goodbyes and locked the door behind them. He leaned his forehead against the cool wood as he checked his phone. There was one text from Ilya from ten minutes ago that just read: can I come home yet?

Yeah, come home, Shane sent back, then went down to the mud room to wait for him.

Chapter Text

The atmosphere in the locker room was sour. It felt like being back in the Metros when they'd lost a game, everyone full of ugliness Shane had never known how to reach. It was his fault this time as well.

Ilya had been quiet on the way to the rink. He’d been late up and hadn’t eaten breakfast—Shane had assumed he was just tired from the game and then having been out all evening, but now he was starting to wonder if he was ill. That was the only explanation for how badly he’d done in practice, missing pretty much everything Shane had sent his way.

He tried not to watch too obviously as Ilya disappeared into the showers. His gait was fine and his weight was about the same as it usually was in the middle of the season.

“What the fuck was that?” Marleau hissed at him in French, leaning over Shane’s cubby. He’d only taken off his skates, the sleeves haphazardly pushed up to reveal freckled forearms. Shane was down to his compression pants and top, one sock balled in his hand.

“I don’t know, he’s been in a shitty mood all morning.”

“Not that. Practice: what the fuck were you doing?”

Shane met his eyes head on, aware of Marleau’s size. “I was skating,” he said tightly.

“Listen, we don’t do that. When the captain is like this, we help him, not fucking show off!”

“Like what?” Shane asked, baffled. He’d been accused of showing off so often it didn’t even register as an insult any more. He was good: he couldn’t help that.

“He always brings everything to a game: everything. So when he can’t bring everything to practice, you simplify, you fucking help, you understand?”

“Yeah, I understand,” Shane agreed, mainly to get Marleau to back the fuck off.

“Good,” Marleau said, back in English. He took Shane’s stick and slotted it neatly into place and turned to take off his gear just as Ilya came out of the shower, a towel knotted around his waist and his hair dark with damp.

Shane watched him out of the corner of his eye as he began to get dressed.

“You showering?” Laine asked and Shane snapped his head around.

“Yeah,” he agreed, reaching for his other sock. Ilya was slowing down, likely having noticed that Shane wasn’t even undressed yet. He finished stripping and went to the showers, sluicing sweat and soap suds off in the hot water, someone laughing two stalls down.

When he got out Taz and Cade were chatting to Marly, Ilya nodding occasionally. Shane got dressed and threw his bag over his shoulder, his hair still dripping into his collar. He nodded goodbye to whoever caught his eye, Ilya standing and following him out.

“Your hair is still wet,” he told Shane, as if he hadn’t noticed.

“It’s a one minute walk to the car, I’ll be fine.”

Ilya didn’t reply, silent all the way as he drove from the rink to the river.

“What was up at practice?” Shane asked, scrolling through his phone without really looking.

Ilya shrugged one shoulder. “Tired.”

He’d seen Ilya tired—seen him when his knees gave way as he stood, sweat dripping into his eyes, but he’d never seen him miss a tape-to-tape outlet pass.

“I will be better for the game tomorrow,” he added, as if that was the thing Shane was worried about.

“I know,” he agreed.

Shane’s black eyes looked ugly, but he could pretty much breathe through his nose well enough that eating wasn’t such a chore. He’d eat after sorting out food for the week though: he hadn’t had a chance to do it yesterday with his parents there and it was nagging at him. His spreadsheet was on his laptop, but he could take notes on his phone and copy them over later. Starting with the chicken, he weighed each portion before putting it in tupperware to freeze. Rice came next. He opened a drawer, looking for the neon orange lid he used when washing his rice and caught Ilya standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring blankly at the line of tupperware along the side.

“Hey, want me to make you something?”

“No.”

He turned and opened the fridge and Shane went back to his rice. When he’d been young his grandma had made zosui for him when he’d been sick, using the last of the soup from nabe to cook the rice, adding some grated ginger and warning him to be careful because it was hot. Ki o tsukete, atsui yo!

Ilya got a pizza out of the back of the freezer, something with sausage on it, and flicked the oven on. Shane ran the numbers automatically, effort versus intake, and knew the pizza didn’t come close to meeting Ilya’s needs.

“Want a protein shake with that?” he offered.

“No, I want to eat real food.”

“I eat real food,” Shane replied, stung. The Metros had always joked about his birdfood, but Ilya had never mentioned it: none of the Raiders had.

“Not food for when sick, not food for when in pain.”

“I’m fine,” Shane insisted. He jumped at a sharp noise behind him, turning to see the oven off again, the pizza abandoned on the side and Ilya already heading towards the stairs.

Shane put the chicken in the fridge and the pizza back in its box and in the freezer before following Ilya upstairs. He was lying on the bed on his side, the light of his phone reflected on his face. Shane sat by his knees, but Ilya just kept scrolling.

“I can’t help if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“I’m fine,” Ilya replied, his tone making it clear he was parroting Shane.

He half turned, bringing a leg up and putting a hand on Ilya’s thigh. “Ilushenka,” he tried. “Please.”

Ilya sat up, pushing himself up to standing so fast his phone fell to the floor. “Nothing!” he snapped, throwing one arm out to one side. “Nothing is wrong. Except you have two black eyes and you don’t let me help! No, I can’t give you nice food; no, I can’t stay with you while your parents are here. I can’t come to the hospital with you, can’t even get on the fucking ice when you’re bleeding. Fuck!”

He dropped back against the wall, sliding down it as quickly as he’d stood, bent over with his head bowed, his breathing ragged. Shane was already moving, crouching next to him to place a hand over the vulnerable bend of his neck. He didn’t know what to say, what words would make everything better.

“I’m sorry,” he offered. “I didn’t know you were upset. I—I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t stay.”

“Shouldn’t stay where?”

“With me. You shouldn’t stay with me, you should get your own apartment.”

Shane hooked a hand into the bottom of Ilya’s sweatshirt, worrying at the ribbing along the edge. “I want to stay with you.”

Ilya shook his head. “I’m no good, don’t you see? Lazy and selfish.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

He got only silence in reply. “Come on,” he urged, easing Ilya up. Ilya went with him without resistance. Shane lay back on the bed and pulled him close, his weight a comfort against the idea that he might want Shane to leave.

Ilya buried his head in his shoulder, his breaths stirring as wetness gathered at Shane’s neck. He felt sick with sadness, like he could feel what Ilya felt, like their hearts were beating in the same painful rhythm. It made sense: he always knew where Ilya was on the ice, maybe he was learning to know where he was off it as well.

“Don’t go,” Ilya breathed.

“I won’t.”

Ilya was fine for the game. They lost, but not for lack of effort. Plenty of chances, but New York’s goalie was a brick wall. They clawed it back to one-all, pulled the goalie late, and watched it slide into their own empty net.

Media was predictable: there was something to be said for not being captain. No-one expected him to have an original thought in his head, though for once he wished he could go crash Ilya’s media, if for no other reason that to stop him being asked the same question about finishing plays six different ways. Thankfully Jen stopped them early, while Shane was just heading out to get iced.

Laine caught up with him in the corridor, falling into step at his shoulder. “How’s the captain?” he asked.

“Fine,” Shane replied, but Laine’s silence felt loaded.

“Next month I’ll have been playing for the Raiders for eight years.”

“Congratulations,” Shane told him, unsure why this was a conversation they were having.

Laine touched a hand to his arm and Shane stopped. “I don’t think Roz is fine.”

First Marleau then Laine: everyone was lining up to tell him he was fucking up this week. “You all know him better than me, I guess.”

“Will you listen to me or do you want to sulk some more?”

Shane opened his mouth then closed it. “I’m listening,” he allowed.

“It is depression, I think. He gets like this sometimes, but he can always play. You didn’t know?”

Shane shook his head, trying to place what Laine was saying with the Ilya he’d known all these years. Or not known, perhaps. “No, he’s always so—”

“Loud? Annoying?”

A laugh fell out of Shane before he could stop it. “Yeah,” he agreed. “That.”

Laine tilted his head, considering. “Not an easy thing. Not everyone could live with someone who struggles like that.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good,” Laine clapped him on the shoulder. “Need you to beat Cade at Fifa later.”

Shane turned the word over while the trainer iced the bridge of his nose. Depression was something for writers and artists—Van Gogh, battling to paint. Ilya was so bright, so full of energy and motion, it was hard to imagine him being so sad it would need a name. He’d have to Google it, find out the right things to say, how to help.

At the hotel, Laine made good on his threat. He claimed the biggest room, stole Taz’s PS4, and told Shane to bring Ilya along.

Ilya didn’t want to play, instead sitting on the floor in front of the seat Shane was on, leaning against Shane’s leg with one hand wrapped warm around his ankle. Cade was sitting on the sofa with Laine next to him, Cade leaning forward so that both of them would fit. He was also probably leaning forward in a desperate attempt to prevent Shane from trampling his team into dust, but that wasn’t going to happen.

He grinned as he scored again, Cade swearing at him while Laine laughed. “Kid, you’re playing Shane Hollander, did you think you would win?”

“Is there anything you’re bad at?” Cade asked, pressing X repeatedly in an effort to get the ball out of his own half.

“He is very bad at chirps,” Ilya offered. He wasn’t even watching the game, instead he had his eyes closed, his head resting against Shane’s knee.

“I’m not,” Shane countered. He scored again.

“What?” Cade yelled, standing up.

“That’s true, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Hollzy chirp anyone.” Laine leaned forward to peer around Cade.

“I called you old man last week!”

“Was that supposed to be a chirp?”

“Yes!”

On the screen Cade’s goalie flung himself left, a full second too early, leaving the right side of the net yawning open. Shane sent the ball to the right.