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The Centaurs are gathered in a booth at the back of Monks celebrating a hard-fought win against Toronto. Before Ilya, Shane, and Troy had joined, Ottawa had no rivals. Now, most of the division hated them. Plus, inexplicably, Dallas (as in Texas, not Kent). Well, perhaps not inexplicably, because their captain was a well-known raging homophobe and Ottawa was both the self-proclaimed and statistically-backed gayest team in the league. That was to say they had three out players, each with a disgruntled former team that treated any and all games played against Ottawa as a grudge match.
Toronto was probably the best of those three former teams, which was why celebrations were in order tonight. Ilya had bought the first round, citing his duty as captain, then plunked himself down in the middle of action, dragging Hollander along with him. Zane was sitting on his other side, so he was poised to have a front-row seat for whatever nonsense Roz was going to drum up tonight.
“Bood, man, great goal today,” Evan claps him on the shoulder as he sits. He’s the last to arrive, which isn’t a great surprise. It’s usually either him or Ilya.
“Always happy to kick Toronto’s ass.”
“Hear, hear,” Wyatt raises his glass.
Troy raises his as well.
“Who do you think hates losing to us more? Toronto or Montreal?” Dillon asks.
“Toronto hates us more,” Zane observes. His teammates nod in agreement.
Ilya’s face curves into an expression of pure loathing, “and we hate Montreal more.”
It’s perhaps an exaggeration. They do all hate Montreal out of loyalty to Share, of course, and because it was pretty obvious they had been very shitty to him. But also Zane himself is actually pretty thankful to Montreal at the same time. They’d pushed out the best center in the league and instantly doubled Ottawa’s (already good) playoff chances. Zane was actually pretty sure it was mostly just Ilya who hated them anyway. Shane’s best friend was still on the team and he’d never actually heard Shane say anything negative about them. They had plenty to say to and about him, as well as an excess of aggression to take out on his fellow Assistant Captain, but that actually worked out to Ottawa’s advantage. Anytime another team was called for a penalty, Ottawa brought out what their fans had lovingly dubbed the “Hollanov Power Play”, which had an unprecedented 51% conversion rate. The only trouble was keeping Ilya out of the penalty box himself when Montreal players were targeting his husband.
“Did you see Dale tonight? I was convinced he wasn’t going to shake your hand, Hollzy,” Evan grins.
Dale, the second line center for Toronto, was one of the most outspokenly homophobic players in the league. Shane grins, “I don’t think he enjoyed losing to the gayest team in the league.”
“You beat him in every face-off!” Ilya gloats, “every single one!”
“The power of the gay,” Harris nods sagely.
“I’d hardly call it that,” Shane begins to protest.
“No, because you are a terrible gay. So boring. Will not even watch Drag Race with Harris and I.”
“I don’t either,” Troy attempts to defend him.
“You are also terrible gay,” Ilya tells him.
“You’re not being very supportive of your gay teammates,” Wyatt teases him.
Ilya gasps, outraged. “Excuse you! I am most supportive! All of you came out to me first.”
“Rose.” Shane says simply.
“Nuh-uh! She came out for you. Does not count.”
“It should count! You were mean to me about it!”
Several people start talking at once then.
“You were?!”
“Ilya!”
“He was nice to me,” Troy offers.
“Me too,” Luca seconds.
“He laughed at me!” Shane complains. “It was the first time I’d ever told anyone I was gay and he laughed at me!”
Ilya throws his hands up, exasperated, “you had been sucking my dick for seven years! I already knew!”
“Seven years?!” This is chorused around the table.
“Wait, how recently do we think this was?” Zane turns to his fellow teammates, “how does this change the bet?”
“Gotta be before they got married, so hang on, 2021 minus seven, sometime between 2013 and 2015 depending on the time of year and how accurate Ilya was being with the ‘seven years’ comment. But we can probably assume it was actually earlier than this because Shane likely came out to Hayden before the infamous FanMail, sorry again that that happened to you,” Wyatt pauses to acknowledge them, “so if Ilya was the first person he came out to it was probably before that so we can safely assume 2013 as an upper bound for the start of the relationship. I believe that only leaves Luca, Harris, and myself.”
Shane stares at Wyatt. The rest of the team is wide-eyed, looking between Wyatt, Shane, and Ilya.
“Since 2013?” Holmberg asks.
“You can’t be serious,” Young frowns.
Ilya shrugs with a self-satisfied grin.
“I can’t believe you guys are betting on us,” Shane groans, perpetually more embarrassed than his husband, who has literally no shame about anything ever.
“Is a form of love, Shane! They see too very sexy people and wonder hm how long have they been fucking?”
Shane buries his face in his hands on the table.
“So? When did everyone guess? I will say who won.”
“Dillon thought it was after your first charity camp-”
“Dillon!” Ilya complains, “we said several years, da? That would hardly have been several years.”
Wyatt continues, undeterred, “Young thought after you announced the charity camp, LaPointe and Holmberg thought it was after you moved to Ottawa, and then Evan thought 2018 All-Stars but that there were vibes at 2017 All-Stars which was why 2018 was when you got together.”
Ilya nods, “specific.”
“And then we had a large cluster of votes for 2017. Troy, Nick, and Zane all thought 2017 All-Stars. Boyle said the Olympics in 2014.”
“The Olympics!” Ilya exclaims, “no one but Shane and I have been, so I forgive this, but Olympics is a terrible place for secret gay hookup. First of all, was in Russia. Very dangerous. Second, rooms were tiny with tiny beds and we both had roommates. Third, team Russia was in completely different part of village from team Canada. Would be very hard to sneak into.”
“Also Ilya was ignoring all my texts,” Shane lifts his head briefly to contribute to the conversation.
“One text! One boring text!” Ilya screeches.
Shane mutters something incomprehensible, but seemingly either Ilya has better hearing than him or Shane and Ilya have had this conversation plenty of times before because he goes a little soft and moves one of his hands to Shane’s thigh in a gesture of what Zane thinks is comfort.
“Okay, so not the Olympics,” Boyle rolls his eyes.
“No one has been correct so far,” Ilya tells them, a little smug.
“But if Shane was texting you at the Olympics I think we can assume it was before then,” Harris observes.
“When did you guess, Harris?”
“2008,” Harris shrugs, “mostly to be different. I don’t really think that.”
“Wyatt? Haasy?”
“The kid thinks draft night,” Wyatt answers for him, “and I said 2011 All-Stars.”
“These are good guesses. Very close.”
“Lots of you guessed All-Stars games,” Shane observes, overcoming his embarrassment to re-join the conversation.
“Roz loves All-Stars,” half the team observes.
Shane turns to look at his husband, who shrugs.
“He gets like weirdly excited about All-Stars,” Zane tells him, “we kinda figured it was because he liked to annoy as many people as possible at once, then we assumed it was because he could see you, but he was like giddy with excitement about it this year, so a lot of us figured it was like your anniversary.”
Shane turns to give his husband a loving smile, “it is, in a way.”
“So it was an All-Stars!” Evan exclaims.
“Sort of,” Shane agrees, then shares a meaningful look with Ilya before taking a deep breath. “Our relationship was very complicated for a long time,” he confesses, “and things did start to change for us at 2017 All-Stars, so some of you were right. I told Ilya I was gay and admitted I had feelings for him then.”
Whoops and “go, Hollzy” and other cheer variations ring out across the table.
“I guess in a way it was then that we became exclusive, too. But we didn’t officially start dating until the summer of 2017, after Scott and Kip kissed when he won the cup.”
“Yes, yes, was very brave. Only important thing Scott Hunter has ever done. Do not know why you need to bring this up every time,” Ilya grumbles.
“But when did you first kiss?” Luca asks.
“Ah, my sweet innocent rookie. I love that you think this is all we did,” Ilya tells him. Shane hides his face in Ilya’s shoulder. “Your guess was close, Haasy. Shane and I, we met in hotel gym after draft. I gave him some of my water, because I am nice person and he did not bring any. Was very sexually charged.”
“Ilya!” Shane complains, voice muffled by the fact that he’s still hiding in said man’s shoulder.
“What? Is true. But anyway, we first kissed,” Ilya emphasizes the word so that it’s very clear that was not all they did, “summer before our rookie season, after commercial shoot.”
For a moment, there’s silence as everyone does the math and lets that sink in. Then: “2010?!?!?”
The table devolves into chaos. Ilya watches it all with a proud grin. When they all calm down enough, he turns towards Wyatt, “but you were nearly right, Hazy. I gave Shane my phone number at All-Stars, so I could-”
Shane bolts upright and slaps a hand over Ilya’s mouth. Ilya, predictably, licks it. Shane glares at him with a look that borders on dangerous, and Ilya withers.
“So did no one win then?” Evan asks.
Shane sends a kind smile towards Luca, “Luca was the closest. I think that was the night I first realized I was attracted to Ilya.”
Zane braces for a crass comment from their Captain, but instead finds Ilya nodding along, completely serious. “Yes, Haasy wins.”
“I am surprised so many of you guessed so early on. Mostly we hear 2017 because of Rose.”
The mention of Shane’s ex-girlfriend makes Ilya scowl. “And because Ilya was being so obvious during the game.”
Ilya shrugs, “couldn’t help it.”
Another reason for the multitude of guesses clustered around early 2017: Ilya’s reaction to the now-infamous hit on Hollander by Marlow. The reason the bet existed at all was because Zane, Evan, Wyatt, and Nick had stumbled upon a YouTube rabbit hole of fan theory videos on when the couple had first gotten together. Ilya’s reaction when Shane went down was frankly heartbreaking and, in retrospect, evidence something deeper was going on between the two men. No one brings that up now, though. They’re not assholes.
“Since 2010. Montreal owes you a hell of an apology,” Evan declares.
“Anyone who’s seen them at practice when they scrimmage against each other would know that,” Harris observes.
“No kidding,” Holmberg agrees.
This makes Shane blush again. Ilya boops him on the nose.
“Have you ever thought about telling people?” Luca asks hesitantly.
Shane frowns. “Of course we have, but the circus only just died down. I don’t want people to have another reason to go back and scrutinize every interaction we’ve ever had and then bring it up in every post-game interview this team gives. It sucks for us and it sucks for you guys.”
“This summer, maybe,” Ilya grins, “for anniversary.”
“Your wedding anniversary, or…?”
Ilya grins, wolfish, “and.” He confirms, which sends off a new round of shocked noises and overlapping exclamations. “Will be cute. We have photos.”
“Photos!” Someone exclaims, “can we see them?”
Ilya passes around his phone.
“You’re going to break the internet, posting this.”
Months later, they do exactly that. It’s Shane who posts the photos, two teenagers bent over a puck, laughing and grinning like a couple of loons, side by side with an image of them from their wedding last year.
@shanehollander: Happy 1st, 12th and (nearly) 5th anniversary all at once. I love you, Ilya.