Chapter Text
Shane had just gotten home from pilates and was stepping into his apartment when the text from Hayden came through. It was a link to an article by the Boston Globe. He shrugged it off as unimportant, planning to ignore it until after his shower when a second text quickly followed.
Why is your boyfriend in a homoerotic smoothie campaign?
Shane blinks sluggishly at his phone, rubbing his eyes tiredly and hoping for the letters displayed across his screen to rearrange themselves into something different. Perhaps a little less…homoerotic. When the letters don’t magically rearrange themselves, he sighs, pressing his front door firmly shut and slumping against it in defeat.
He thuds his head against the door in frustration, once, twice, and then a third time before taking a deep breath and opening the text from Hayden.
He clicks on the link, and the article title pops up:
Ilya Rozanov, Captain of the Boston Bears, Stars in a Homoerotic Smoothie Campaign Just One Week After Announcing His Relationship with Shane Hollander, Captain of the Montreal Voyageurs.
Shane shakes his head in exasperation, thinking about the conversation they had just had about keeping a low profile. And why oh why had Ilya failed to mention this campaign? He quickly scans the rest of the article, picking up on ‘NHL’s first openly bisexual player’ and ‘suggestive display of banana fellatio’.
At that Shane groans in distress.
His shower would have to wait. He needed answers.
“Hey Ilya?” he calls out as he peels himself away from the entryway and wanders further into the apartment. “You home?”
He hears a faint “Yes moya lyubov” from the direction of the bathroom, and then the door is clicking open and Ilya is stepping out in a billow of steam, towel hung precariously low on his hips and gold cross gleaming on his still-damp chest.
Of course he’d be shirtless for this conversation.
Ilya slinks over to where Shane is standing, a contented little smile curling up the corner of his lips at the sight of his boyfriend. That little smile always does something stupid to Shane’s brain, and he softens exponentially, failing to protest when Ilya starts pressing soft kisses to his pink-tinged cheeks. “What is it you want?” he asks, breath hot against his skin and Shane has to remember to focus.
But Ilya is mouthing down his neck now and slipping his hands under his shirt so he can run them along his back. Up and down, and up and down again in wide arcs – luxuriating in the bared expanses of Shane’s skin and dropping lower and lower each time until his hands are dipping into the waistband of his shorts.
And now Shane is the one with the dopey look on his face as he practically hums in contentment, burrowing into the warm, solid presence of his boyfriend. He almost doesn’t want to disturb this quiet moment between them. They’d had so few moments like these throughout the years, their time always fleeting and hurried, intensely passionate yet fraught with all the things they refused to say. It had never been calm and playful like this before, but now with their cards fully bared, they were finally able to indulge in each other’s presence.
It took some getting used to at first. Who were they when they weren’t fighting or fucking? Building a relationship, it turns out, takes a decent amount of effort. But soon enough they were finding their rhythm, and it’s not like they stopped fighting or fucking either, there was just more to it now.
Where the use of each other’s first names had once felt like the most intimate of sins, the progression to ‘moya lyubov’ had felt like the easiest step ever. Ilya Rozanov loved him and Shane Hollander loved him back. Now that the world knew, it was a simple fact. They were going to spend the rest of their lives together.
He supposes they ought to thank Scott Hunter for kickstarting it all, but he still feels rather annoyed about the insinuations he’d made in front of live cameras and for Ilya’s retaliatory response, even if he can’t really blame the man for that part.
Ilya’s mouth is hot and languid against his neck, licking and biting at his pulse point with little nips. He’ll probably leave behind a mark, as he so often does these days. Shane’s brain has gone all warm and gooey, and he’s almost tempted to just leave well enough alone and melt into the embrace.
But shit what was Ilya thinking?
Sucking suggestively on bananas for the whole world to see.
Shane pulls out from the comforting weight of Ilya’s arms and captures his face in his palms so they’re looking each other directly in the eye when he speaks. He does his best to sound serious, but it’s hard to not let amusement colour his tone when the words coming out of his mouth are so absurd.
“Hayden wants to know why you’re in a homoerotic smoothie campaign.”
Ilya’s responding grumble is a mix of mirth and discontent that reverberates low in his chest. He shakes Shane's hands off and buries his face into the crook of his neck, nosing at the soft skin there, but no longer marking him up like before.
“Hayden can go fuck himself.”
Shane huffs out an exasperated breath. “I would also like to know why you’re in a homoerotic smoothie campaign.”
Ilya smirks against his skin, turning his head so he can look up at him through long, golden lashes. “You would, hmmm?” He pauses for a moment, before continuing with a new thought. “Is good, no? The campaign?”
When he is met with Shane’s blank stare, he tuts. “You have not seen?” Shane’s lack of response must be answer enough for the next thing he knows, Ilya is grabbing his phone and pulling him into the living room. “You must see,” he says as he pulls him down onto the large sectional and gathers him into his arms. There he proceeds to manhandle him into position until they’re spooning with Ilya draped over his back like an over-large house cat.
Once they’re sufficiently settled (and really, does Ilya think they’re watching a whole film?), he reaches across Shane’s chest to prop the phone up in front of them. He thumbs through the article until he finds the campaign video and presses play as he hooks his chin over Shane’s shoulder so that he can see too.
The ad starts out slow, a dark screen, a howl, and then the camera is shakily moving through a city, weaving through back alleys and slinking past open doors, the sound of soft pants heavy against the camera. It’s obvious they’re following the perspective of a wolf, and Shane is starting to wonder if this is the right video when the camera skids to a halt in front of a smoothie shop. It’s pitch black outside, and all the other shops are closed, but the smoothie shop is lit up with a warm, inviting light, its golden glow cascading out into the street beyond. The camera leaves the wolf behind now, smoothly entering the shop where a shirtless Ilya is seen standing at the counter, hip cocked and joggers slung dangerously low. A blue smoothie sits in a blender before him, and he seems to be in the process of adding banana. He looks up as the camera approaches, a cheeky grin displayed wide, as he slowly peels a banana. It’s almost sensual the way he ever so lightly tugs the skin of the fruit away from its flesh.
“I like smoothie with extra…” he pauses for effect, cheeky smile broadening and eyes twinkling as he takes a moment to quickly lap at the tip of the banana. “...banana,” he finishes with a wink to the viewer before engulfing the entire head of the banana in his mouth and chomping down decisively.
The camera pans back out quickly then, past the wolf waiting outside and then further and further until the city (which is now evidently Boston) is just a mass of twinkling lights, overhung by a big, blue moon.
As the camera settles on that big blue moon, script appears on screen and Ilya’s voice drawls out: “The Blue Moon Over Boston available at select Straw+Berry locations. Is like The Blue Moon Over Brooklyn, but better.”
“So? What you think – is good, no?”
Shane balks at the question, turning around to stare at his boyfriend with big eyes. “I – is this a PR stunt?” he asks.
“Eh, sure. Is like gay coming out. Blueberry smoothie…extra banana, is perfect, no?”
Shane splutters at his response, “But you’re already out. And – and this…” he tapers off, unsure of how to end his sentence.
“Is second coming out,” Ilya explains, “Gay smoothie coming out.” He continues, shrugging, and then tacking on “And it gets under Scott Hunter’s skin.”
“This is about Scott Hunter,” Shane whispers in horror. “How could this be about Scott Hunter!”
“Is his smoothie recipe, but I make better. And bring to Boston.” Ilya answers with a devilish smirk. “Is payback for what he said to you,” he adds on as he cuddles up closer to Shane. “Will give him bad mojo for next game day.”
And oh, that would almost be cute if it wasn’t completely psychotic.