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June 2022
The Cup sits somewhere behind the DJ booth, already showered in champagne, just like the Centaurs themselves.
The locker room celebration, after the game-winning goal scored by captain Ilya Rozanov himself, had been incredible, but afterward the whole team decided it wasn’t enough. They wanted more. This was Ottawa’s first ever Cup, and no one was ready to let that night end.
So now they’re here, packed into an Ottawa club that’s dark, loud, and pulsing with life.
The bass rolls through Ilya’s chest like a second heartbeat. Gold and blue lights strobe across the dance floor, catching on the wide, reckless smiles of a team that just did the impossible. Ilya himself can’t help but smile at them. He’s been happy for most of the season, but this right here, this is the cherry on top. He feels so full of happiness it almost hurts.
That might also be because Shane is right there in front of him.
His husband. His center. His everything.
And finally, finally, Ilya doesn’t have to keep his distance. He doesn’t have to keep his hands to himself when it comes to Shane. He steps in close, slides his hands around Shane’s waist, and pulls him back until Shane is flush against his chest. Shane laughs, startled for half a second, then melts into it like he’s been waiting just as long.
Ilya sways with him, deliberately slow, deliberately close. He presses his chest to Shane’s back, moves his hips just enough to hear Shane’s breath hitch. It’s wicked and playful and very public, and Ilya loves it. He dips his head and murmurs into Shane’s ear, “You are so beautiful, and I am so proud of you, moy chetyrokhkratnyy obladatel´ Kubka Stenli,” then kisses him there unapologetically. Shane lets out a soft moan at Ilya’s words. Ilya keeps kissing Shane’s ear, and after a few moments his kisses trail along Shane’s jaw, down to his neck, soft and lingering.
And right then, while Ilya is kissing his husband’s neck on a packed dance floor in Ottawa, a moment flickers in front of his eyes and a long-ago memory crashes into his brain.
This memory takes Ilya back to a Montreal nightclub in January 2017. It was a very different night from the one he is having right now.
Ilya had stood by the bar back then, nursing a drink, as he saw Shane on the dance floor of the club. He couldn’t help but watch Shane dance under bright lights with Rose Landery, his girlfriend at the time. Shane had looked effortlessly beautiful then too. He had always been stunning and magnetic. Ilya could not help it, he locked his eyes on Shane, and it felt like he could not ever look away, even if it hurt him deep inside to see. Because back then, Shane was laughing, his hands resting on someone else’s hips.
It had stirred something deep in Ilya’s chest, something he hadn’t wanted to name at the time. But he could now name it. I had been jealousy.
In reaction to seeing Shane with Rose, Ilya had danced with a girl of his own. She was very pretty, but it hadn’t mattered. At the end of the night, she had not left with him. After dancing with her, when he wanted to take her back to his hotel room, she declined. She had explained to Ilya that she in fact had a boyfriend, who liked watching her make out with other men in clubs. After that second disappointing encounter, Ilya had gone back to his hotel room alone, want still buzzing under his skin.
He went to the club in the first place to get rid of that want and fuck someone, since he could not have Shane Hollander anymore. To his sheer luck, Shane had been in that club, looking achingly beautiful. So when he came back from the club unsatisfied and still wanting release, Ilya had to jerk off in the shower, thinking about Shane Hollander.
In retrospect, Ilya had always been thinking about Shane when he shouldn’t, wanting what he couldn’t have. So that night he had come alone in the showers, his release washing down the shower drain, when Shane should have been there with him to swallow it.
Back then, to have the kind of closeness he allowed himself with women had been only a fantasy to have with Shane as well, one he didn’t even let himself name.
But now…
Now Shane turns in his arms until they’re chest to chest. Shane’s fingers curl into the back of Ilya’s shirt, grounding him. Shane grins up at him, flushed and bright, eyes dark with something private and thrilling. Ilya moves against him, flashing that crooked grin Shane always teases him about but secretly loves. Just to make him blush. Just because he can. And God, how Ilya loves this. Having his husband blushing in his arms in an Ottawa nightclub.
After everything.
After hiding. After waiting. After fighting for every inch of this life.
It feels good to be so open with Shane and right now on the dance floor they are as open as can be.
Ilya knows people are watching. He can feel the weight of their eyes. Curiosity, awe, maybe even envy. He knows how they must look together. Two hockey legends, Stanley Cup champions, and the first hockey husbands. They are bathed in golden club light, unapologetically dancing together in the middle of it all.
Shane, on top of everything, is wearing something sinful, soft fabric that is clinging to him in all the right places. Ilya can’t wait to take Shane out of those clothes later, but he files that thought away for now. The night doesn’t need to end yet. He doesn’t want it to. He feels too good with Shane pressed against him.
Ilya rests his forehead against Shane’s, swaying with the music. Gratitude washes over him. His life had been rocky, but now, with his second Cup and the years between then and now, it feels like something close to perfect. He never imagined life could feel this good.
Hockey had always been good. Fun. He loved being the best…well, maybe the second best, at something.
But this? This is all Ilya will ever need. His husband by his side. In a sweaty club or on a quiet beach, it doesn’t matter, as long as it’s Shane.
And this moment, right here, feels exactly right. This is the dance he waited for, for at least five years, and he’s not letting it go.
So he kisses Shane fully, openly, right there on the dance floor, and thinks about how lucky he truly is.