Work Text:
When he’s sure Shane is looking, Ilya crosses out “12 pm photoshoot” on the kitchen calendar.
“Hey, don’t fuck with my schedule!” Shane protests. “I’ve never shot with this brand before. I need to make a good impression!”
Ilya ignores him completely, drawing yet another red line across the note. He digs the pen in extra hard this time, and Shane resolves to kill him if the ink bleeds through to the next page.
“I am not fucking with your schedule.” Ilya corrects. “I am fixing your stupid schedule. You are welcome.”
As much as Shane wants to argue with him, he has more pressing concerns at the moment. Namely, snatching the pen out of his obnoxious husband’s hand.
“Knock it off.” He says firmly, once the pen is back in his possession. “What are you doing, anyway?”
He’s on the verge of becoming actually annoyed as opposed to fun, flirty annoyed when Ilya puts his hands on either side of Shane’s waist. It should maybe be embarrassing, how quickly all his tension evaporates at Ilya’s touch, but he just can’t find it in himself to mind.
“I’m fixing your schedule.” Ilya repeats. “Team barbecue on Saturday, remember? Starts at 12:30.”
Shane cocks his head to the left. This little joke would soar over his head if it were anyone else talking, but he has enough experience being teased by Ilya to understand he doesn’t actually expect him to skip his photoshoot. He’s about 90% sure of that.
“Shit.” He says. “I totally forgot. You’re sure it’s this Saturday?”
Ilya’s mouth turns up just slightly.
“I’m sure. You still have the group chat silenced, yes?”
“Well, yeah.” Shane admits. “Not in a mean way! They just…talk so much. And it’s hardly ever about hockey.”
Laughing, Ilya brushes his lips against Shane’s temple.
“We all know there’s not a mean bone in your body, моя любовь.”
Never one to let a patronizing remark like that slide, Shane shrugs.
“I don’t know….” He says. “They saw me get pretty mean at the last party. When I kicked your ass at pool?”
Ilya makes a big show of gasping.
“And now you are rubbing it in? I take it back. You are mean. Terrible.”
He mutters that last part directly in Shane’s ear, sending jolts of pleasure down his spine with every syllable.
“Uh-huh. But, seriously. I doubt anyone will even notice I’m not there. You know I’m not great at parties.”
Drawing back so he can look Shane in the eye, Ilya scrunches his brows together in confusion.
“Everyone will notice when the captain’s husband, second best player in the league, is not there. You make parties so much better, sweetheart.”
Ilya’s only saying this to be nice, but Shane smiles anyway.
“For you, maybe.” He concedes before switching to a more mischievous tone. “God, I hope the guys don’t want to play pool again on Saturday. I’d hate missing a chance to beat you.”
Ilya practically growls into his neck, using his grip on Shane’s waist to hoist him onto the counter. Shane laughs, the pen bouncing once as it drops from his hand and onto the floor, totally forgotten.
Ilya ❤️
Terrible news everyone
Troy Barrett
?
Zane Boodram
You alright, cap?
Luca Haas
Is everything okay?
Troy Barrett
I’m pretty sure he’s just fucking with us again. Shane, can you confirm?
Shane rolls his eyes while actively fighting a smile. After years of pretending he and Rozanov were nothing to each other, he likes that he’s now the go-to for Ilya related questions.
Shane
He’s upset because I can’t make the barbecue on Saturday. Sorry guys, it’s a work thing.
Wyatt Hayes
What?????
Wyatt Hayes
That IS terrible news
Evan Dykstra
Damn that sucks
Zane Boodram
Oh man, for real?
Ilya ❤️
See? Horrible. I miss my husband already.
Troy Barrett
You know we all know Shane, right? You can just say his name. You don’t always have to say my husband.
Ilya ❤️
I know. But is fun :) My husband my husband my husband
If they were in the same room right now, Shane’s not sure if he would kiss him or strangle him. Kiss, probably. That’s the way it always goes.
Troy Barrett
On second thought maybe it’s better if Shane’s not there.
Zane Boodram
Yeah seriously, I forgot how crazy Roz’s PDA gets when we’re not at the rink.
Wyatt Hayes
You can’t keep blaming it all on Rozanov! Hollander’s not exactly putting a stop to it ;)
You disliked “You can’t keep blaming it all on Rozanov! Hollander’s not exactly putting a stop to it ;)”
Ilya ❤️ emphasized “You can’t keep blaming it all on Rozanov! Hollander’s not exactly putting a stop to it ;)”
Troy Barrett
Seriously, it’s kinda gross
Ilya ❤️
You are a homophobe now, Barrett? Seeing two men in love is gross?
Troy Barrett
Oh my God, I’m not dignifying that with a response.
Shane shakes his head, exiting the group chat as his teammates flood it with their typical chatter.
"You’re sure you can’t just tell them you’re sick?” Ilya asks, sidling up behind Shane on Saturday morning.
Closing his eyes, Shane savors each soft kiss Ilya places to his neck.
“Sorry, can’t.” He tells him. “I made a commitment.”
This time, his husband drags his teeth gently along Shane’s skin.
“So responsible.” He purrs. “And such a good model. What is it today, shoes?”
Shane sighs, wondering why they ever make plans that don’t involve staying home and making out.
“The company sells hoodies or something. Joggers? Both, maybe. My mom set this up. Apparently, they’re huge online.”
Ilya nods, his nose grazing Shane’s skin.
“Mmm. Whatever it is, you’ll look great. You always do. So pretty.”
Shane turns around, wrapping his arms around Ilya’s neck and kissing him once on the lips.
“It sucks to miss team stuff.” He complains.
“I know, I know.” Ilya says. “Someone might talk about hockey, and you’d miss it. Shane Hollander’s biggest nightmare.”
Shane narrows his eyes like he always does when Ilya undercuts his sincerity with a joke.
"No, idiot. It sucks because I’m married to the captain, and I can’t show that off if I’m not there.”
Ilya softens. Even after all this time, he sometimes seems a little taken aback by Shane’s adoration for him.
“Are you flirting with me, Hollander?”
“Always.”
Shane kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him, right up to the moment when he has to leave.
Shane doesn’t text while driving, obviously. And he’s as strict about that as he is everything else in his life, so that means no peeking when he's at a stop light either. By the time he’s driven almost an hour to the photography studio, there are a few new messages burning a hole in his pocket.
Ilya ❤️
So proud of you ❤️❤️❤️ You will be amazing
Shane
Love you so much. Have fun at Bood’s.
Ilya ❤️
Always more fun when you are here. I love you.
After letting himself smile stupidly at his husband’s text for a moment, Shane moves on to a message from Rose.
Rose 💖🎬
Shaneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Rose 💖🎬
The picture on Ilya’s story is killing me. You’re so cute!!!!!!!
Rose 💖🎬
And don’t act like you’re mad, I know you secretly love it ;)
This is why Shane should keep closer tabs on social media. He opens Instagram, heading straight to Ilya’s story, and…there he goes again with the lovestruck smile.
In the photo, Shane sits in the dim light of his and Ilya’s kitchen. His hair is wet from the shower, a plate of sliced apples in front of him as he grins past the camera and toward the man behind it.
Boring snack for my boring husband ❤️ The on-screen text reads. The post captures a quiet, ordinary moment, fondness palpable in Ilya’s words and on Shane’s face.
Shane
Oh my God.
Shane
He’s out of control.
Shane
I do kind of love it though.
Shane
Don’t tell him I said that
The photoshoot goes smoothly. Normal. Shane starts out stiff and eventually warms into something…not quite natural, exactly, but at least marginally more relaxed.
Privately, he thinks his best modeling always happens when Ilya tags along. He has a way of soothing Shane’s nerves just by being in the general vicinity, even if all he’s doing is making small talk with assistants or standing conspicuously near craft services.
Plus, there’s the fact that Ilya can effortlessly charm anyone he meets, which takes some of the pressure off Shane to, like…perform. Because if his husband is this affable, sweet, and fun to be around, people will assume Shane is all those things, too. At least that’s what he likes to think.
Shane pulls out his phone to text his affable, sweet, fun-to-be-around husband as he leaves the studio and walks toward his car. He wants to say something mild and not strictly necessary, like I miss you or let’s watch a movie later. The kind of horribly plain texts Shane used to fantasize about sending and now gives out freely, because he likes to indulge in domesticity whenever he can.
When he opens his phone today, though, the sheer volume of unread messages makes his heart stop. There are tons of them. 10? 15? Not a lot for some people, maybe, but Shane doesn’t exactly make a habit of juggling multiple conversations at once.
Is someone hurt? Has he been outed? Oh, wait. That’s already happened, and been resolved, and everything turned out surprisingly fine. But maybe there’s another piece of career-ruining information he’s hiding? Something that’s totally slipping his mind right now?
Naturally, Shane checks the texts from his husband first. A cursory glance comforts him immediately; Ilya is being his normal goofy self, which must mean he isn’t clinging to life after a tragic accident or reeling in the wake of their nonexistent sex tape leaking.
Ilya ❤️
Please explain why parties are more boring without my boring husband. Makes no sense.
Ilya ❤️
Ask photographer if they can do shirtless pictures 🙏🏻
Ilya ❤️
Anya and Chiron play so well together. She needs a brother!
Ilya ❤️
I miss your beautiful face
Shane smiles at the phone like an idiot, heat rushing to his cheeks while his other hand lingers at the car door handle. He’s heard a lot of rumors about the honeymoon period fading quickly, but as far as he can tell that’s all they are: rumors.
Shane
You’re so clingy.
Shane
I miss you too :( I wish I was there
Shane is pleasantly surprised to realize he actually means this, especially considering how nervous he’d been before his first Centaurs party.
With only the Voyageurs as a frame of reference, he’d expected locker room talk, unnecessary yelling, and a lot of people pressuring him to drink. What he’d quickly discovered was that the Centaurs, in all the best ways, couldn’t be more different than his old team. The guys he played with now were…nice. As simple and mind-blowing as that was.
They chirped like crazy, but the words always came with an underlying warmth. They talked about their wives in only the most glowing terms, and no one blinked an eye when Ilya kissed Shane’s forehead, or Troy called Harris ‘baby’.
On rare occasions when the Voyageurs actually convinced Shane to attend a team outing, he’d mostly stuck by Hayden’s side and willed the whole event to be over. This is far from the case in Ottawa, where parties generally look more like breezy cookouts than brash celebrations pumped full of toxic masculinity.
When he’s eating a veggie tray at one of Bood’s barbecues or nursing a ginger ale in the Hayes’ backyard pool, Shane feels confident that he could comfortably carry on a friendly conversation with any of the people around him.
As it happens, texts from pretty much all of those people are lighting up his phone right now.
Harris Drover
We miss you, buddy! Hope your photoshoot is a blast 📸📸
Harris might be the nicest man Shane has ever met in his life. So nice that he sometimes thinks about what it would have been like to meet him earlier, so he could have had tangible proof that someone can be both gay and incontrovertibly good.
Even though he should be used to it by now, it still warms Shane’s heart to see Harris stay completely himself, rainbow pins and all, and be welcomed enthusiastically by a group of professional athletes.
Shane
Thank you, Harris. I think the pictures came out okay.
Shane moves on to the next message in his inbox, this one from Troy Barrett. Now that he’s making a conscious effort to be a better person (i.e. no longer sneering any time someone so much as glances in his direction) Troy really isn’t so bad to be around.
Definitely not the friendliest guy on the planet, but there’s a lot more to like about him than Shane once thought. Sometimes he mutters a sarcastic aside to Ilya mid-practice, and everyone rolls their eyes as the two of them crack up. It only makes Shane the slightest bit jealous.
Troy Barrett
Ilya is talking about you nonstop btw
Shane
Yeah, he does that. Sorry.
And just like that, any residual jealousy Shane may have had regarding Troy or anyone else disappears.
Any time Shane even thinks about getting jealous, Ilya does something stupidly sweet like this. He seems to go through life just waiting—and sometimes not waiting at all—for opportunities to ramble about Shane.
It’s embarrassing. It’s adorable. Most importantly, it makes Shane consider speeding for the first time in his life just to rush into Ilya’s arms.
All these texts were sent a few hours ago, and he realizes with a twinge of regret that everyone’s probably gone home by now. He’s frowning, wondering about all the fun he missed, as he reads a text from Wyatt’s wife.
Lisa Hayes
Enjoy your night, fellow member of the “couldn’t make the party because of work” club :)
Shane
I have a feeling what you’re doing is a lot more important than what I’m doing. We’ll be there next time!
Shane barely knew any WAGs aside from Jackie back in Montreal, and texting with teammates’ wives still sometimes feels like a huge leap from the norm despite how nice they all are. He opens a message from Luca next, proud of how much kid’s confidence has improved lately. When Shane first joined the team, Luca would never have mustered the courage to text him.
Luca Haas
We all miss you, Shane!
Shane
I miss you guys too. Don’t play Mario Kart without me.
At the last team barbecue, everyone had gathered around the TV in Bood’s living room to play video games. Shane and Ilya wound up head-to-head during multiple rounds, which is when the Centaurs learned just how competitive Shane is even outside of hockey. There’s a pang in his heart as Shane checks his last message.
Wyatt Hayes
Hollanderrrrrrrrrr! Stop being so cool and famous so you can hang out with us more :) Party’s not the same without you!
Shane
Haha. They could have asked anyone to do this shoot, really.
Party’s not the same without you. Shane’s sure people have thought this about him before, but Wyatt seems to mean it as a compliment.
Like, we want you to come because we like you as a person instead of you always kill the mood by accident, even when you try really hard not to. Even when you have literally no idea what you did to make everyone vaguely uncomfortable.
The Centaurs like Shane. The real him. He once caught himself babbling about some niche piece of hockey history, and three of them were asking follow-up questions before he could get embarrassed by his own earnestness.
By the time he’s done replying to everyone else, he sees that Harris has already texted him back. Quick message answering comes with being a social media manager, Shane guesses.
Harris Drover
Party’s still on! 🥳🪩🍗 You should swing by.
When relief floods his chest, Shane realizes he’d been hoping for this outcome all along. He shoves the phone back in his pocket, not even bothering to reply to Harris before getting on the road and heading toward his friends.
Anya pads over excitedly when she spots Shane letting himself in Bood’s backyard gate.
“Hi honey.” Shane murmurs, scratching behind her ears. “Are you having fun?”
When Ilya first got Anya, Shane teased him relentlessly for talking to her like she could understand. Now look at him: asking a dog about her day in the middle of a party.
He looks up, hoping someone will announce his presence for him, but everyone seems too invested in their own conversations to notice he’s there.
Bood is manning the grill as Wyatt hovers nearby, hands moving wildly through the air while he talks. Luca is nodding along to something Caitlin Dykstra is saying, and Chouinard is crouched in the grass rubbing Chiron’s belly.
Shane scans the yard, only stepping forward when he sees Ilya’s blonde curls from behind. His hair is glistening in the afternoon sun, his posture relaxed as he makes easy conversation with Troy and Harris.
“Is not true!” Shane hears him insist. “I am much faster!”
When Shane catches Harris’s eye first, the two of them share a knowing smile. Harris looks way more excited than the situation calls for, grabbing Troy’s arm and nodding pointedly in Shane’s direction.
“Uh…hi.” Shane says. “Am I interrupting something?”
At the sound of his voice, Ilya’s head whips around at lightning speed. His face lights up as though it’s been months since he last saw Shane and not, like, a few hours total.
“Hollander!” He practically cheers, abandoning the conversation he’d been so invested in moments before.
Because people always take notice when Ilya speaks, his booming voice triggers a chorus of additional “Hollander!”s from various parts of the yard.
Shane’s face heats at the attention, but he’s grinning when Ilya wraps him in a hug.
“I’m so glad you’re here, sweetheart.” He says in Shane’s ear, an extra greeting meant just for them.
“Hollander, you made it!” Bood calls excitedly from the grill.
“Shane, sit down if you want.” Cassie says kindly, gesturing toward a lounge chair. “I’ll grab you a ginger ale!”
As everyone flocks to greet him, he feels Ilya’s arm circle his waist. The touch grounds him, warding off Shane’s anxiety about having so many people talk to him at once.
“Woo, finally!” Wyatt shouts. “The party wasn’t complete without you, Hollander!”
“Agreed!” Harris laughs.
“Definitely not.” Dykstra chimes in with a grin, clapping Shane on the shoulder.
“I told you, моя любовь.” Ilya says quietly. “Parties are always better with you here.”
And as utterly ridiculous as the idea is, the sincerity in his voice is almost enough to make Shane believe it.