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Shane finds it a little offensive that no one really expects him to be good at the kneeling duties of being a captain. In the first year he's mostly overwhelmed and trying to keep his head on straight, trying to grind through the season and give every skate, every training session, every fucking game everything he has. But in the back of his mind it bothers him, that no one really expects to kneel for the rookie. He knows the C on his jersey is mostly aspirational, more to create a reality than to reflect one, but still.
There's nothing about hockey he doesn't want to ace, nothing he considers superfluous or meaningless, and kneeling is an old damn tradition. It's there for a reason. Kneeling isn't a superstition, it's almost as old as the MLH. He knelt his first year and it definitely helped to settle him. Helped him focus, took some of the noise away. Made him feel closer to the older guys who'd been on the Metros for years.
No one really expects him to step up in that way, and that's why Shane insists on it. He talks to the coach, talks to the GM, fucking takes deep breaths and steels himself for those conversations and all that awkward eye contact and does it.
He's the captain. It's his now, just like the Cup will be his one day. He believes it, steers his whole life towards it, and so it must come to pass.
Halfway through his first season as captain the half hour he sets aside after every game is filled up guys who are new to the team, or roughly his age.
They're freshly showered and dressed in street clothes, exhausted for the most part, and they rest their heads on him as he stays silent and keeps an eye on the clock.
He doesn't enforce timeframes. Most guys don't want to do more than 5 or 7 minutes, and that's fine. As long as they know Shane's here to offer it. As long as they feel the captain who's supposed to be the backbone of this team there for them.
At first it's only after they lose a game. And then sometimes guys come after a win too - Shane always makes sure he's available.
By the end of his first season as captain even the oldest guys on the team, veterans who've been around the MLH since before he started Peewee, are lining up outside the door of his hotel room, patiently waiting their turn.
His thighs always feel too warm afterwards, his knees have a weird phantom ache. But he knows that's probably just in his head.
They don't win the Cup. They don't even make playoffs. But they start to take him seriously as a captain, and with each game the team gels better and better together, and that's all that matters.
She is so desperate to touch the Cup he literally dreams about it, but he also knows the virtues of patience. Rebuilding takes time. Being the sort of captain players feel comfortable kneeling for is an essential part of that.
*
He doesn't need to ask Ilya if the Boston guys kneel for him. He's sure they do. Eagerly, enthusiastically, not even on game days, probably. They just all line up at his house, until Ilya's thighs are numb and his legs are tingling with lack of blood flow.
Fucking Ilya Rozanov, the rookie who was born to be a captain.
"Do they kiss your feet after?" Shane teases, once, when they're catching their breaths in downtown Montreal, after the Raiders thrash them 3-0 and Ilya was an hour late because the press all wanted a piece of him.
"Yes," Ilya responds, casually. "They also give me chocolates. Handmade."
Shane rolls his eyes. Regretting giving Ilya the opening to bust his balls, but also grateful for the comfort. Ilya making fun of him is becoming a dangerous constant in his life.
"Fuck you," Shane replies, the words so routine it almost feels like they mean the opposite.
"Does Pike not give you blow job when you let him kneel?" Ilya looks over, feigning confusion. "Marley does this for me. Basic manners."
It's times like these that Shane is grateful to have so many decorative pillows to grab from the floor by the bed, where Ilya's tossed them. Shane throws them with as much precision and force as he can muster, while Ilya chuckles, trying to defend himself.
"What do you usually do after a loss?" Ilya asks, when Shane's run out of pillows and the two of them are at rest again.
Shane doesn't know what he means. "This?" he answers, a little resentful that Ilya's making him spell it out. As if it's only him who needs this, as if Ilya's doing Shane a favor.
Ilya thinks for a moment, looking away. He's half sitting-up in bed, his chest having that slightly rounded quality that Shane can't look away from. His nipples look so good Shane wants his mouth on them again.
But he can't. It doesn't feel right. He can't get it up again so soon and without a clear path to orgasm it would be... weird. It doesn't work like that between them.
Ilya hops out of bed, startling Shane out of his staring. He walks out of the bedroom and into the living room, and for a moment Shane is confused on whether he's supposed to follow him or if Ilya is just... leaving.
But then Ilya calls out "Come on, Hollander," and Shane climbs to his feet.
In the living room Ilya locates his pants and pulls them on, grabs a chair from the dining table and carries it to the middle of the room.
"What are you doing?" Shane asks, because it can't be what it looks like.
Ilya sets the chair down, so carefully it doesn't even make a sound when it hits the floor, and then sits down, spreading his legs. He runs his fingers through his hair haphazardly, as if that would help put his curls back into place, and looks expectantly at Shane.
"You can't be serious," Shane says.
"You know Svetlana's father? Knelt after every game, even when he was captain," Ilya says.
"That was for like half a season! He was a goalie!" Shane counters, feeling like he's losing his mind.
"Gretzky did too," Ilya says, with perfect confidence.
"You're so full of shit, Rozanov, no he didn't," Shane says. But somehow he's standing closer to Ilya now, still in his underwear, looking down at Ilya's lap.
"Hm," Ilya says, looking at the floor. Shane knows by now that's what he sounds like when he was looking for the right words in English. "I want you to be good Hollander," Ilya says, finally, looking up and meeting Shane's eyes. "I need you to be very good so when I beat you, I know I'm the best." Ilya places a palm on his own thigh. "This helps."
Shane wants to roll his eyes again, tell Rozanov to fuck off, get dressed and go back to his hotel room, leave Shane alone for the night. He's an MLH captain for Christ's sake, he does not need to kneel for anyone to soothe his feelings after a loss. That's something he provides for others.
But sometimes, infuriatingly, all the chirping and spite and sarcasm goes out of Ilya's eyes, and all that's left is some messed up, unpredictable sincerity that Shane doesn't even know what to do with. Now is one of those moments.
He goes down to his knees, still telling himself this is stupid. He's doing it because he'd do anything if it had a chance of improving his game, and he'd done more ridiculous things than this in the past. He was just giving it a go, the way he'd given that weird veggie cocoa juice Hayden swore by a go once.
Ilya puts his hand on top of Shane's head, but doesn't apply any pressure. Just lets the weight and shape of it rest on Shane's hair. It's so quiet. He'd never been in the same room with Ilya when it was so quiet before.
"I'm not your captain," Ilya says. "I'm not timing this. You're in charge. Stay until you don't want to anymore."
His fingers stroke through Shane's hair casually - something Shane would never do to a teammate - and Shane takes a long, deep breath. And then another.
He can hear Ilya breathing as well. He can hear the small noises of the apartment around him, feel the hardwood under his knees. When he did this with his teammates he made sure there was something soft for them to rest on. Did Ilya not do the same?
Or maybe he didn't think about it because this was Shane's space. Shane was in charge, and he could decide if he wanted them to move, or if he wanted a pillow.
The breaths come slower and deeper, and Ilya's fingers in his hair are warm and gentle.
Shane stays.
*
Shane knows in his bones that 2014 will be a bonkers fucking year before before everything unfolds. He feels it in his bones somehow, that things are spiraling. That he can't quite keep everything he needs to under control.
And that's before Sochi. Before he tries to offer Ilya comfort and instead finds him, distant and moody, in the middle of a figure skating competition.
Before the season slips away from him and he's home again for the playoffs. Watching Ilya lift the cup and roar in triumph at the cameras.
Before anyone expects Shane to just move on from that, just get up off the couch and go have barbecue outside on the deck. As if he didn't just watch Ilya fucking Rozanov win the Cup for the first time.
He forces himself to eat and listen to what people are saying around him, focus on the here and now, not on the guy who told him to fuck off and might never speak to him again. Not on how it makes him feel to see his arch rival get the one thing Shane wants most in the world. Not on how weirdly happy he is, given the circumstances.
He doesn't sleep well, which is a rare occurrence, especially in the summer.
At 4a.m. his doorbell doesn't ring, but he hears knocking.
He stays still, listens, and hears it again. Knock knock. pause. Knock knock again. Like a code.
He gets out of bed and hurries to the door, and then briefly wonders if he's still dreaming because right there, on the doorstep of the apartment he bought a year ago in his hometown of Ottawa, stands Ilya Rozanov.
"Hi," Ilya says, lips parting into a smile, and Shane immediately realizes Ilya is very, very drunk.
Which makes sense, given he won the Cup last night, but doesn't make sense since he's here.
"Did you drive?" Shane asks, worried, and realizes how ridiculous he's being. As if that's the important question here.
Ilya looks vaguely confused and shakes his head and Shane remembers himself and steps aside to let him in.
He never gave Ilya this address. They've never met here. As far as he knows Ilya's never been to Ottowa in his life.
"Hollander, we won!" Ilya says, sounding euphoric and exhausted, stumbling into Shane's living room. "Come on, get your clothes off." His words are a little slurred.
"This is insane!" Shane calls after him, as Ilya goes to the kitchen and starts opening cabinets.
"Where is your alcohol?" Ilya asks. "I ran out."
"I don't keep any," Shane says, catching up to Ilya and closing every door he opens.
Ilya pauses. Looks at Shane intently. "You are still dressed."
"You are very, very drunk," Shane counters. "And you... you haven't talked to me since February. And how did you even get here?!"
Ilya opens his mouth once, then closes it, then open it again, and Shane thinks he can see the wheels turning in his head.
"I swam," Ilya says, finally, completely deadpan, and Shane wants to be angry at the flippancy, at the intrusion into his life, but he laughs instead.
He should get this asshole back on a plane to Boston, right now. He should get him a taxi, pray a pair of sunglasses and a hat will keep people from recognizing him, and ship him all the way fucking home. His teammates must be mystified about where he disappeared to. Or maybe they're all too drunk to notice.
Shane hopes to find out someday, how that sort of post-Cup celebration marathon goes.
"Come here," Shane sighs, and walks over to the couch.
"Yes, good," Ilya says, taking off his jacket as he follows Shane into the living room.
Shane sits down, dressed in a tshirt and pajama pants, and gestures for Ilya to get on his knees.
Ilya does, and then aims his mouth between Shane's legs, until Shane stops him.
"You kneel for me, ten minutes, then we can talk about what I'm into at four in the fucking morning," he says.
"Kinky," Ilya tries to quip, but Shane keeps his eyes on him, and the humor quickly drains out. They both know what this is.
The apartment is deathly quiet. The entire city is still asleep.
Ilya's head is warm on Shane's thigh, and his hair is soft and messy. In the low moonlight coming from the windows it looks like there's some glitter in it.
Ilya hiccups, wipes at his mouth, breathes resentfully at first, and then settles.
He stays down for longer than ten minutes. After fifteen he shifts, makes himself more comfortable.
Shane fucking hates that Ilya was right about this, too. Sometimes a captain needs to kneel. Sometimes not only after a loss.
"I did it," Ilya whispers, barely audible even in the silence. "I did it, Shane."
Through the electric charge that goes down Shane's spine at hearing his own name spoken by Ilya like that, he almost misses Ilya's quiet sob, the slight wetness that soaks into Shane's pants.
He doesn't know what to say. What even can be said. Ilya seems completely out of his mind, and at the same time more himself than Shane's ever seen him. More himself than he'd likely ever want to be around Shane, if he was sober.
Eventually Shane realizes Ilya's never getting up from his knees.
He's fallen asleep. He's snoring, gently.
In a little bit Shane will lower him fully down to the soft carpet, call him a cab, take care of getting Ilya fucking Rozanov the fuck out of here for both their sakes.
In a minute he'll do that, and probably spend another six months wondering if Ilya remembers this encounter. Or if he does, if he'd ever admit to it out loud.
For a few last moments Shane lets himself stroke Ilya's glittery hair and feel the weight of the man against him.