Chapter Text
“Engaged…” Hayden sighed, again, before he said the word for the… seventh time? Eighth? Shane had lost count. “Engaged! Man, I’m so fucking happy for you. Jackie’s going to be so psyched.”
“Thanks,” Shane said, yet again. “But, like… maybe calm down a little? He hasn’t said ‘yes,’ I haven’t even asked yet.”
Hayden waved a disagreeing hand from the passenger’s seat. “Eh, whatever. He will.”
Hayden’s certainty was making Shane more nervous than he would have expected, and he furrowed his brow. “Just maybe tone it down. We had, like, a huge fight the last time I saw him. I’ll have to see how he actually feels when he sees me again.”
“Dude. Did he seem that mad when you talked to him earlier?”
“No,” Shane had to admit. “He seemed ok.”
“Exactly. Big scary shit puts stuff in perspective, and fights happen. I think Jackie’s going to divorce me, like, every other month basically. And she hasn’t yet, not even close. You guys will be fine.You’re catastrophizing, cut it out.” Hayden looked ahead again, grinning like he was the one about to be proposed to. “That asshole is obsessed with you.”
The song playing through the cable connected to Shane’s phone changed, “Under Pressure” to “Space Oddity,” and Hayden looked at Shane again with surprise. “Wait, did you turn on Bowie on purpose?”
“Yeah.” Shane didn’t see why that was so noteworthy. “Is that weird?”
J.J. spoke, up, his voice nasally as he held up Shane’s towel to his still lightly bleeding, rapidly bruising nose. “Not for most people, but you just listen to, like, white noise and shit, so it’s weird for you. But Bowie’s fucking cool.”
“Bowie is fucking cool,” Hayden affirmed. “And I didn’t know you liked him. Because of the white noise and shit.” He gestured with his thumb back to echo J.J.
Shane shrugged. “My parents really liked him when I was growing up. We listened to him a lot on road trips.”
“God, your parents are the best. Super fucking cool.” If Shane didn’t know Hayden was completely sober, he’d think he was maybe drunk, or that he was the one who had lost a lot of blood, based on the generally loopy, affectionate energy he was radiating.
“They are,” Shane agreed.
“Do they know?” J.J. asked.
“About what?”
“About you. Rozanov. All of it.”
“Yeah, they know.”
“Ok, so your parents, Hayden and Jackie… who else knows?”
Shane ticked through the list that had become a part of his daily routine, reiterating it nightly. “My parents; Hayden, Jackie, and the kids; our agent; a couple of immigration attorneys; Rose; Ryan Price and Fabian - that’s his boyfriend - and now you.” He didn’t mention Ilya’s therapist; that was Ilya’s information to keep or share.
J.J. exhaled in a way that could only be described as exasperated. “Ok, I could look past Hayden’s enfants but Ryan Price and his boyfriend, who I do know, by the way? Come on, Capitaine, what the fuck?”
“Sorry, man, I didn’t, like, tell them on purpose. Ryan walked in on us making out at camp.” Shane’s face crinkled again in thought. “Actually most people we didn’t tell on purpose. Fuck.” There was a beat as his chest clenched at another realization. “But he’s telling his team right now so… I guess that’s a whole bunch of people we are deciding to tell on purpose. Sort of on purpose anyway.”
“Your parents, the Pikes, Rose Landry, your agent, your lawyers, the Centaurs, and fucking Price and his beautiful angel music man…” J.J. shook his head maybe in frustration, maybe acceptance, before he lowered the towel and leaned forward, grinning ghoulishly through the drying blood on his face. “Remind me, though… how many of them did you tell you were going to propose?”
Shane shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Zero. Just you, Jay. Just you.”
“Just. Me.” J.J. made each word its own sentence, reaching around the headrest in front of him, squeezing Hayden’s shoulders with each one. “No. One. Else.”
Hayden grinned again and wordlessly flipped off his friend without looking back at him.
The next few minutes were spent in, at last, an amiable silence, the music washing over them as the exit numbers continued to decrease, creeping rapidly closer to their destination.
Reminding Hayden of the fight had ratcheted up a little of the anxiety that had haunted Shane on the plane to Orlando. Logically, even emotionally, he did think Ilya had forgiven him, or at least that he trusted Shane’s love for him enough, and returned enough love of his own, to make the fight a bump and not a conclusion. Sometimes, Shane worried that the lengthy secrecy of their relationship, the years spent seeing one another only in stolen chunks of time, loving each other before they could even acknowledge to themselves that they were a thing, had frozen them in a sort of stasis. Ilya had once told him that they were too good at publicly pretending they weren’t a couple, that they were in a relationship that was so accustomed to being hidden and maybe, Shane worried on dark and especially anxious nights, it would be all too easy for Ilya to leave, when he realized that a relationship didn’t have to be this difficult. That Shane was too difficult.
They were thoughts that usually had him reaching for that plastic purple ring he kept hidden away.
Beside him, Hayden had started softly singing along to the newest song that was playing, his eyes closed, head swaying subtly against his headrest. “Oh we can be heroes, just for one day…” The sound of his friend’s voice, barely audible, helped ground Shane, bringing him back to now and out of his worries. It was a peaceful night, despite everything that had happened first to Ilya and then to the three of them in the car. Shane drove and felt his body relax, pulled by the sensory memory of the comfort of being small and watching the blanket of stars out the window as his dad would drive them to his parents’ cottage for long weekends, trees and the vague outline of sporadic houses racing by in the night, familiar music clearing out the catastrophizing, as Hayden (Shane had to admit) had very aptly labeled it.
His anxiety, he knew, usually lied to him. He was safe. Ilya was safe. They were going to be ok. Ilya’s plane hadn’t crashed, Shane had survived whatever the fuck was cursing this car, and they’d make it past the Christmas fight. They were going to be ok.
And dammit, if Ilya was on board, they were going to stop being a secret, sooner than previously planned.
Suddenly, J.J. leaned forward, over Hayden’s shoulder and joined his singing loudly, dramatically.
“And I, I will be king… and you, you will be queen!”
Hayden startled and jumped in his seat and let out a full belly laugh, increasing the volume of his own voice, until they were both belting out the song, only pausing once for Hayden to complain, “Fuck, dude, back up, you’re getting blood on me!” J.J. didn’t miss a note as he shook his head like a wet dog, flecks of blood flinging off his face, then stopping quickly, hand flying up to his head, the movement clearly putting pressure on his absolutely broken nose.
“Gross!” Shane grimaced but laughed as he spoke, because it was gross, but he almost didn’t care, so overwhelmed by the warmth and safety of this moment with his two friends and teammates, who had been there for him and had his back without always knowing what they were even protecting, for longer than any of them had realized.
**************
The entirety of the Centaurs, all fully clothed, although most in pajamas and socks only, had reconvened in the lobby bar again. The energy that had led to the team tackling their captain had moved downstairs with them, and more chairs had been pulled together around the gathered tables, even more beers poured. Based on the palpable anticipation moving through the group, apparently finally winning a fucking game and then not dying wasn’t actually the most interesting thing that had happened to them in the past 24 hours.
Ilya sat, Wyatt on one side of him and Troy on the other, eyes glued to the door and his leg bouncing with excited energy. The guys had given up trying to talk to him, instead surrounding him with the familial warmth of their own enthusiastic conversations.
And then the automatic doors from the outside slid open.
The three Voyageurs walked into the lobby side by side, and Ilya wasn’t sure if everyone actually stopped talking, or if his mind just shut them all out. He vaguely registered Pike and Boiziau on either side of Shane, Pike looking like shit as Shane had promised and Boiziau bloody for some reason and neither of them entirely dressed, but Shane looked perfect, his small, easy smile widening as his eyes met Ilya’s.
He didn’t know exactly how he made it around (over?) the table and teammates surrounding him, but the next thing Ilya knew, he was in Shane’s arms, and Shane was in his, and their mouths were on one another’s in desperate relief. He ran the fingers of one hand up into Shane’s hair while the other went under the back of his suit jacket, needing to feel his scalp, feel more of his heat through his shirt, just feel Shane and know he was really there. One of Shane’s hands moved over Ilya’s chest, resting over his heart, while the other wrapped tightly around Ilya’s waist, holding him in place as their tongues moved against one another and Shane gasped into his mouth, a sound that Ilya recognized as equal parts hunger and exhaustion, the warmth of his breath entering into Ilya like a resuscitation.
They may have kissed for two minutes, or twenty, when Shane wrapped his arms both fully around Ilya’s back and buried his head in his shoulder with a sharp exhale that sounded distinctly like a sob. “I’m so sorry,” the words mumbled into Ilya’s shirt.
“No, shh, what are you sorry about, everything is ok, sweetheart, it’s ok.” Ilya ran his hands reassuringly along Shane’s spine and placed gentle kisses onto his temple between words.
“No, it’s not. I keep thinking you could have died, and the last things I would have said to your face… you wouldn’t have known… no one would have known…”
“It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok.” The words were a reassuring mantra, whispered into Shane’s hair. “We’re ok, it’s ok…”
Shane pulled back and met Ilya’s gaze in that very direct way that generally meant they were either about to fuck or Shane was very serious about something. “No, it’s not. Listen to me.” He took a deep breath. “If something had happened, no one would have known why I died, too. Because I would have. Maybe not literally, but… I would have in every way that matters. I wouldn’t know how to be alive without you.”
Ilya felt his brow creasing as Shane spoke. “Do not say that. Ever.”
“I understand, and I know that’s a horrible thing for me to say, and I’m not trying to bring up any… memories right now, but I need you to know. It’s how I would feel. I love you so much, and I know I don’t always do the best job showing that, but… you’re everything, Ilya. I will always choose you.” His voice cracked, the tears that had been building in the corners of his eyes starting to fall. “There’s no universe where I don’t pick you. Every time. My mind might… you know, mess with me sometimes, but it will always land on you. Always.”
Ilya’s expression softened, his hands moving to Shane’s face so his thumbs could move over those miraculous freckles. “I know, moy lyubimy. I know. I love you too. And I am sorry about-”
“No, shut up, I’m not done.” Shane looked so serious that Ilya had to let out the laugh that had bubbled up in him. Shane moved his hands to hold Ilya’s face too, one hand on each side, his eyes focused fully. “I don’t want to do this, the secret thing. Not anymore. I know we have a whole plan for retirement, and I know the passport thing is a problem, but I want to figure it out sooner. I want… I want people to know how important you are to me. You deserve that.” Ilya’s eyes widened, enraptured, as Shane continued.
“We can, like, get a house in between Ottawa and Montreal. Keep our current places for late games or early practices or whatever, but actually have one place, together, that’s ours, both of ours, our home, that we share and come back to together, every night. I can even help take care of the dog you want so bad.” The words had come out in a rush but Shane smiled gently at how Ilya’s face particularly lit up at that last part.
“I want to marry you. I don’t know when, exactly, but not years from now. Sooner. Much sooner. We’d have to plan it out, and make sure you’re safe, obviously, but… I don’t want to wait anymore. Do you…” He took a deep breath, recentering amidst the jumbling words, slowing down and focusing, swallowing, his throat bobbing. “Will you marry me?”
Ilya thought he had understood everything Shane had said, although admittedly sometimes with Shane, he was relying more on instinct than real comprehension, when Shane was talking fast and Ilya was tired and distracted by Shane’s beautiful eyes and beautiful freckles and beautiful everything. But he knew he had understood the last part. He ran his thumbs across those extraordinary cheekbones again and leaned his forehead against Shane’s. “You want to marry me?”
“Yeah.” Shane’s breathing was shaky. “More than anything.”
Ilya kissed him softly, briefly, before the corners of his mouth turned up into a smile against Shane’s lips. “Of course I will marry you, Hollander.”
Shane pulled his face back to look at Ilya again, discerning for any hint of teasing, any indicator that Ilya was being anything other than entirely serious. “Yeah?”
“Yes, Shane. Yes.” He kissed Shane again, slowly, gently, releasing the fatigue of years in the moment, before he shifted to place another at the corner of Shane’s mouth and laughed against his cheek. “Do you think I would fake accept a proposal from you? I am not this big an asshole.”
“Well, you are, but - oh, shit, I forgot!” Shane’s face scrunched up in that adorable pout that made Ilya want to devour him, as Shane reached around frantically in his pocket, finally producing a small purple plastic ring. “I had a ring ready and everything.”
Ilya held his hand up, and Shane pushed the tiny ring down as far on Ilya’s ring finger as it would go, barely to his first knuckle. They locked eyes, and Shane’s smile widened, and even though Ilya had seen that unguarded grin before, it was a revelation, like it was every time.
Ilya reached into his own pocket and pulled out the matching pink ring, holding it up to Shane between two fingers. “And look, I have one for you too.”
Shane’s eyes softened. “You carry that around with you?”
Ilya shrugged nonchalantly. “Yes.” He slipped the ring onto Shane’s finger and placed a kiss into Shane’s palm. “But I think is not so unusual, since it looks like maybe you do too.”
Shane’s hands returned to Ilya’s face, and Ilya didn’t know whether he had gotten lucky or made a deal with a devil he had forgotten about or somewhere there was a god who finally felt bad for the decades of shit his family and the universe had thrown at him, but he didn’t know what he had done to deserve this perfect person standing in front of him.
“I love you so much, Ilya.”
“I love you too, Shane.” He leaned in to kiss Shane properly this time, but suddenly, in horror, processed that some of the flecks on Shane’s face were not, in fact, freckles but bits of dried blood. “Oh my god, are you hurt?” His voice was panicked. “There is blood!”
Shane shook his head. “No, no, I’m fine, it’s J.J.’s.”
Ilya’s shoulders relaxed instantly. “Oh good.”
And without a single follow up question asked, he kissed his fiancé, good and hard, in the middle of a hotel lobby, not a care for who saw them.
**************
Wyatt Hayes would later tell his wife that it was the coolest moment of his life.
The three had entered the lobby in slow motion, Wyatt was pretty sure, which didn’t actually make sense, but he saw it with his own eyes so who was he to question the magic of the universe.
All three were still in their game day suits, albeit in various levels of dress. Pike’s jacket was gone, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, burgundy striped tie still on, but his shirt was wet, black smudges on both it and his slim gray slacks, matching the streaks on his face. Boizy had stripped down to his sleeveless undershirt, stark against his stylish blue plaid pants, both of which were covered in a surprising amount of blood that had apparently originated from his very clearly broken nose. Hollzy stood in the center of the trio, composed as always and so hot it honestly was kind of unfair, his charcoal gray tie loosened but otherwise his tailored, ridiculously expensive blue suit still fully intact.
All three looked tired, dark shadows under their eyes and almost dazed smiles on their faces as they walked through the door. Relaxed and cool as fuck and steps in synch with one another’s, or at least that’s how Wyatt would always remember it. They were astronauts returning to Earth, spies casually walking away from an explosion.
They were the goddamn Avengers.
Until their eyes landed on the Centaurs on the opposite side of the wide open lobby.
Their faces broke into full grins, as Pike and Boiziau stopped walking, and Hollzy began to run. The ceased movement of the two behind him made it look even more like Hollander had broken into an immediate sprint, full-on Flash mode.
Yep, definitely cool as fuck.
At Wyatt’s side, Ilya rose and in three quick steps stood on his chair, planted a single foot on the table in front of him (somehow the beautiful son of a bitch didn’t knock over a single drink), leapt through the space between Chouinard and Haas sitting opposite him, and hit the ground literally running. He and Hollander crashed into one another in the middle, arms around one another’s bodies and in one another’s hair, kisses moving from mouths to faces to necks, until eventually they were just standing there holding one another, merged into one entity.
Beautiful. Just damn gorgeous.
Behind them, Pike and Boiziau had each thrown an arm around the other’s shoulders, either celebrating or literally holding one another up, and were beaming, talking to one another and staring unabashedly at the two captains, still intertwined. Wyatt felt a hand clap on the back of his shoulder, and Bood stooped down to speak into his ear. “I guess we should go greet the in-laws, huh?”
Bood grabbed two beers and Wyatt grabbed a bar towel, and they swung wide around Ilya and Hollander, clearly now in intense, emotional, private conversation, on their way to the two men still standing near the entrance.
Bood handed Pike and Boiziau the beers, briefly grasping each of them on their shoulders as he did. “Good to see you, but why do you two look like such shit?” he asked with a signature warm laugh.
Wyatt offered the towel to Boizy, who waved it away, so he offered it to Pike instead.
Pike frowned as he took it. “Wait, do I still have stuff on my face?” He looked to Boiziau accusingly. “Why didn’t you tell me I still had stuff on my face?”
Boiziau shrugged and took a long pull from his beer, then held the end of the cold bottle alongside his nose and sighed in relief. “I was busy shattering my face and defeating a monster.”
Wyatt’s face lit up as Hayden scowled. How were these guys so cool and just, like, casual about it? “It was an alligator, idiot, and you didn’t defeat it, you drove around it.”
Boiziau shrugged again. “I faced a living dinosaur. You drove over a piece of metal. Who is the idiot.”
Hayden went to argue, but then stopped, a genuine smile growing over his face again, as he elbowed Boiziau and gestured with his head to the two men who were still wrapped up in one another, literally and figuratively. “I still can’t see that great, but did he…?”
Wyatt and Bood both glanced back, in time to see Ilya pulling something small and pink from his pocket - some kind of kid’s toy? Ah, ok, a ring, based on how he slipped it on the end of Hollzy’s finger, wait, he what? Wyatt’s and Bood’s heads snapped back to Pike and Boiziau, as Boizy wrapped both arms around Pike and squeezed him tightly, beer sloshing from his bottle onto Pike’s back. “He did, mon ami. He did.”
Pike burst into tears, which streamed through his still sooty face through the creases around his absolutely mushy grin. He buried his head into Boiziau’s shoulder and wept, unmistakably overjoyed.
***********
At Shane’s embarrassed insistence, Harris took a few pictures of the entire group together, for the sake of the cover story J.J. had given to their coach. Theriault would probably be less enthusiastic when he saw the state of them, but he’d need to find out about J.J.’s nose eventually anyway, so oh well. Shane and Ilya stood in the center of the group, arms thrown over one another’s shoulders, absolutely silly grins on their faces, a small spot of purple barely visible on Ilya’s hand where it rested on Shane’s shoulder, with Hayden, J.J., and the other Irina Foundation volunteers standing closest to them, with the rest of the pajamaed men mugging to fill the rest of the frame, the rookies lying in poses on the ground in front of the others. Then Ilya waved over to the young woman at reception, who had barely looked up from her book since the Voyageurs arrived, to get a picture with Harris in it too. “Just for personal memories, not for media, I promise, Harris.”
Ilya noticed as Shane tensed just a little bit, his long-standing anxiety over being found out, his dawning realization that it wasn’t just their friends with them, visible on his face, as the woman took Harris’s phone from him. “Is ok,” Ilya whispered reassuringly, quickly. “She’s very cool. Russian. She won’t say anything.” He turned his attention to her as Harris took his place next to Troy. “Hey, Katja, you’re cool about this, yes?” He gestured between himself and Shane and then elaborated in Russian. “You won’t tell anyone, yeah? It’s a big, sexy secret, because Russia. And hockey.” Shane cringed visibly.
“Stop, you know that’s way too much Russian for me at 3:00 in the morning, but yeah, you’re good. I’m not an asshole.” She adjusted settings on Harris’s phone as she spoke then turned to the group. “Smile!” She snapped a few photos before adding. “And it’s not, like, the 90s. Outing people, blech, so tacky, so gross.” She scrunched up her face in disgust, her tongue sticking out between her teeth, and then made to pass the phone back to Harris.
“Wait, no, Katja, not yet,” Ilya interrupted the handoff. “Take a few more while I am talking, ok?” She shrugged but did as instructed, and when he looked back at the pictures, Ilya identified no fewer than five that he would definitely frame for the cottage, of his friends’ reactions and the subsequent celebratory group hug that turned into a dogpile, when Ilya introduced Shane to his teammates not as his boyfriend, but as his brand new fiancé.
**********
Ilya made the rounds with Shane, pulling him by the hand like an overly eager child through the players, seated again in the bar. “This is Shane Hollander, yes, you know he is very talented hockey player but also is my fiancé now, say hello!” “This is Shane Hollander, my fiancé, he will be your new step-captain, he is not as fun as biological captain but is more reliable and will help you with boring homework sometimes.” Shane shook hands, accepted congratulations, expressed his own relief that everyone was ok, apologized unnecessarily for not telling everyone sooner. “This is Shane Hollander, my new fiancé, shake his hand very quickly, I need to get him up to my room to celebrate or I will die for real.” “This is Shane Hollander, hottest hockey player according to Cosmopolitan magazine, and he just asked me to marry him because sexiest man thinks I am actually the sexiest, you can say hello to him but do not touch.”
“Oh my god, Ilya, I take it back,” Shane’s cheeks went pink with embarrassment but laughed after that one, and Ilya threw both of his arms around him and kissed him dramatically on the cheek.
“What, take back your proposal? No you do not. No take-backsies, like Jackie’s kids say.”
“Dude, they’re my kids, too, and I’m literally right here,” Hayden spoke up from where he sat in front of Harris, who had compassionately offered assistance and was cleaning his face off with a damped bar towel.
“They are also Jackie’s kids, so what I said is true.” Ilya unwrapped his arms from Shane and walked over, standing behind Pike, planting both hands on his shoulders. Hayden tensed immediately, not sure what might possibly come next but trusting it wouldn’t be great. “You did a very good thing today, bringing Shane here and helping him. You are a good friend to him, and to both of us for helping keep our secret for so long. Thank you for this. You are a good man.” Ilya put his hands on either side of Hayden’s head, as Hayden’s eyes opened as widely as was possible. Then Ilya leaned down and loudly kissed the top of Pike’s head, before he rose again and pointed at Boiziau, who was sitting across the table talking amiably in French with Chouinard and Bood. Ilya reached over, grabbed J.J.’s hand and pulled him towards himself in a very tight, one-armed, slightly too long hug. “You too, Boizy. Thank you. Your nose will be a battle scar for love, make you even sexier.”
Ilya released J.J., then stepped back to Shane and grabbed his hand and spoke loudly to the group. “Now! Listen, you have all been good friends to us today, but you have also cock blocked with so much talking, so I am going to take my new fiancé upstairs and-”
Shane clapped a hand over Ilya’s mouth. “Nope, Ilya, no.” He released his hand with a firm glare, and Wyatt noted with awe that Ilya complied immediately, as Shane turned back to their gathered friends. “Thank you all. For everything. But we’re going to call it a night.” He waved around to the group, turning to face everyone briefly, but held his own teammates’ eyes for a few extra beats with a grateful smile, and then turned away, pulling a grinning Ilya after him.
“Tomorrow I hate you again, Pike, ok?” Ilya shouted over his shoulder before wrapping his arms around Shane’s back like a koala and kissing into the curve of his neck as they stepped onto the elevator.
Hayden and J.J. turned to one another, their faces finally relaxed and contented. Hayden nodded once and held up his beer, and J.J. nodded once in return, raising his own glass, before they each took a long drink.
Protect the captain. Always.