Chapter Text
The team arrived in New York for the first round of the playoffs.
It shouldn't have been a surprise that they'd made it this far. The whole team had been playing brilliantly, and with Shane Hollander on the roster, it was inevitable that they would go even further. Ilya couldn't help how proud he felt of every single player on his team, but especially of his husband.
Unfortunately, his husband was currently avoiding him.
Shane had come to a truly terrible realisation a few nights ago. In the years they'd won the cup, they hadn't had sex during the playoff season. Therefore, if they wanted to win this year, they couldn't sleep together. For the first time since Shane had joined the centaurs, they had separate hotel rooms, sat as far apart as they could on the plane, and Ilya had even moved into the guest bedroom of his own house.
Ilya thought the whole situation was ridiculous. He'd never agreed with the no sex during playoffs rule, but Shane had made a very good point, and Ilya wasn't going to jinx their chances at the Stanley. So he was complying.
He was also secretly enjoying himself. He loved how much Shane wanted him, and the no sex rule was forcing himto come up with new creative ways to tease his adorable husband.
Ilya sat on the bench in the guest locker room, tying his laces, waiting for the rest of the team to finish putting on their gear so they could head onto the ice for warm-ups.
Shane was still shirtless on the other side of the room. Ilya wanted to bite him.
"Okay, enough is enough, guys," Bood said loudly, gaining everyone's attention. "We're about to start our playoff season. This is not the time for whatever the fuck is going on with you two."
Bood wagged his finger between Ilya and Shane.
"Yeah," Hazy chimed in, "Whatever has happened, it needs to be dealt with before we go out there. You're our best players, we need you in top form, not avoiding each other."
"Exactly," Bood said, patting Ilya on the shoulder, "So, start talking, boys. What's wrong? You two love each other, I'm sure we can fix this."
Ilya had been wondering how long it would take for the team to bring up their very obvious change of behaviour. Looking around the room, Ilya saw that Luca, the youngest on the team, was looking between them, eyes wide, biting his bottom lip. He looked like a kicked puppy. In fact, every face in the room bore an expression of concern.
"Oh my fucking god," Shane muttered berrying his face in his hands.
Troy, who was sitting next to Shane, wrapped a protective arm around him and shot Ilya a glare.
"There is nothing wrong," Ilya told them, which in his defence was sort of the truth.
"Bullshit, you two haven't been within two meters of each other all day, usually you're glued together." Hayes said, "And don't think I didn't notice that you two are in separate hotel rooms, that's never happened before."
The rest of the team nodded in agreement
"Are you two getting a divorce?" Luca asked, his voice even quieter than usual.
That's what seemed to break Shane. He sat up and took a deep breath.
"I'll tell you, but you have to promise not to laugh," He said, his face turning bright red.
It was Ilya's turn to cover his face. He knew he wasn't going get through his conversation without laughing.
"Promise, no laughing, right guys," Troy said decisively, his arm still around Shane.
"We can't have sex," Shane told them, looking miserable.
Whatever the team had been expecting him to say, it wasn't that. There was a long, silent pause.
"Can't as in can't get it up or what?" Hayes asked, his eyebrows scrunched together in confusion.
"No, it's just that," Shane hesitated. He knew he was about to be made fun of. "So we have four cups between us, right. And the years we won are the only years that we didn't have sex during the playoff season. So if we want to win this year, which we obviously do want, then we can't have sex. So that's why we're trying to stay away from each other, so that we win the cup."
"So, you're not getting a divorce?" Luca asked again. His face was now bright red.
"No, we are not getting a divorce," Ilya confirmed.
"Oh, thank god, we thought this was serious," Bood said, smiling.
"It is very serious, we are sacrificing sex for the good of the team," Ilya countered.
"Sure, but like, it's not that hard to not have sex," Chouinard said, trying to cover his laughter.
"I pity your girlfriend," Shane snapped back, making Ilya smirk.
He let the team have another two minutes of banter before he put a stop to it.
"Okay, you all know there is no problem now, we are a perfect couple." Ilya paused for dramatic effect. "Now hurry the fuck up, I need everyone ready to send Scott Hunter home to his pretty boyfriend crying!"
There was a resounding "yes, cap" as the boys finished gearing up.
They won the game.
A week later, they knock the New York out of the playoffs and secure their spot in round two against Toronto.
They met up with Scott Hunter at the Kingfisher after the final game. It had become a tradition for all the queer players to go to the bar whenever they were in New York, and a handful of other players usually tagged along as well, which was how Shane found himself in a booth trapped between Scott and Haas.
Ilya was at the bar chatting with Kip, Scott's fiancée.
"You two set a date yet?" Shane asked
"Not yet, we were waiting for the season to be over before we started planning anything," Scott answered.
"Oh, you're welcome then," Shane tried to joke.
"Fuck off," Scott rolled his eyes.
"Best to start earlier than later with this sort of thing. We forgot the chairs at our wedding."
Shane took a sip of his ginger ale. Luca was drawing a picture of the bar on a napkin, next to him. He had his own can of ginger ale as he hadn't reached the legal drinking age in the US yet.
"Yeah, I remember," Scott laughed. "It was a nice wedding, though."
"Yeah, it was," Shane agreed, looking over at Ilya, who was laughing loudly and reading the label on a vodka bottle.
They sat in slightly uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. Shane didn't know where he stood with Scott. He had inspired him greatly. Shane probably wouldn't be married if it weren't for him. But on the other hand, Scott was the only person Shane had ever fought, and he had never truly forgiven him for calling him out for his relationship with Ilya on the ice in front of thousands of people, not to mention all the cameras.
"I've been thinking," Scott said slowly, as if carefully selecting each word before he spoke. "That I might retire after next season."
"What?" Shane was genuinely shocked. "But why?"
He couldn't imagine retirement. He'd been playing for a decade, but he still felt like he was only just tapping into his true potential. And sure, Scott was older than him, as Ilya liked to point out at every available opportunity, but he wasn't that old.
"I guess, I feel like I'm not playing as well as I used to, and I'd like to stop before I completely ruin my body." Scott took a swig of his beer. "And it would make Kip happy, us settling down properly. We could start figuring out how to have kids and stuff."
"You don't need to stop playing to have kids," Shane said, then immediately felt like a hypocrite since having kids after retirement was on his ten year plan.
"Sure, but still think it's the right thing for me to do," Scott said
"Okay," Shane said, because what else could he say to that?
"Okay," Scott repeated.
"One more season, though."
"Yeah, one more season," Scott agreed.
They had two days off before the second round of playoffs started, so Boodram invited them all over for a barbecue, which Ilya promptly said was an obligatory team activity and if any one mist it they would be sitting on the bench for the next game.
Bood's barbecues were always fun, so no one complained that it was mandatory. It also helped that Cassie, Bood's wife, was there. Everyone loved Cassie.
They'd gotten lucky with the weather and were all sitting around on the deck that looked out over the garden behind Bood's house.
The grill was hot, the food was excellent, and the non alcoholic drinks were flowing. There wasn't any rule preventing anyone from drinking, but everyone wanted to be on their form even on their days off.
Ilya was draped on a lawn chair, shirt unbuttoned, sunglasses on, making it impossible for Shane to look away from him. So far, they'd managed to stick to the no sex rule, but it was getting harder and harder as the days went on, even if Shane was determined not to be the one to break first. All he wanted was to drag his husband home and climb him like a tree.
Shane turned his gaze away from Ilya and tried to focus on the conversation happening around him. Lisa was pregnant with her and Wyatt's first child, and although they knew the gender of the baby, they hadn't told anyone else. Therefore, the centaurs had done the only logical thing and had started a betting pool.
Dykstra had taken the responsibility of creating a spreadsheet of everyone's bets, from the gender to the time of birth, and the weight of the baby, as everybody shouted out their guesses.
Shane thought he'd misheard the first time it happened. The conversation around him was loud, glasses were clinking, and awful music was playing in the background. It could have been anything, not necessarily one of the phones sitting on the food table.
But then it happened again, this time in a break in conversation, the unmistakable sound of a Grindr notification.
Most of the team had left their phones on the table. It was an unspoken rule at team events to encourage them to bond instead of sitting around doom-scrolling. Shane liked it, it usually works really well.
Except right at that moment, when he had no idea whose phone belonged to whom. There were three options, all worse than the other. First, it was Troy's or Harris's phone, which meant that one of them was cheating. Second, there was a closeted player on the team, in which case the last thing Shane wanted to do was draw attention to them. Third, and probably worst of all, the phone could belong to Luca Haas.
Luca, as far as Shane knew, had never been in the closet. He'd been out publicly since before he joined the NHL, but he wasn't dating anyone as far as Shane knew. But he was young, only just 20 years old, and Shane refused to see him as anything other than a child.
Shane also knew what happened on Grindr. He had joined it himself, for a period of two weeks, under a fake name, of course, and using pictures which showed nothing that could identify him. He had found the whole experience interesting in a horrifying sort of way. But it meant that he knew exactly what most people used the app for, and he couldn't imagine his baby player partaking in any of it.
"Ilya," He called, trying his best to sound casual. He must not have succeeded because his husband was next to him in less than a second.
"What's wrong, sweetheart?" He asked.
Before Shane could answer, the phone chimed for the third time. Ilya's eyes widened a fraction. He also recognised the noise.
"I don't know whose phone it is," Shane whispered.
"That's Haasy's phone," he whispered back.
"Are you sure?"
"Positive," his voice had taken ona dangerous edge.
"What do we do?" Shane asked.
Ilya looked at the phone for a second, then flipped it over so that they could see the screen. Even though it was locked, the notifications were still visible: three Grindr messages from some guy called Andrew. Ilia hesitated a second before calling out Haasy's name loudly.
"What?" Luca shouted back from the other side of the deck.
"Come here," Ilya ordered.
"What's up?" Luca smiled when he got to them.
Some of the guys were glancing over, wondering what was happening.
"Unlock your phone," Ilya said, placing the phone in question in his hand, the notifications still visible on the screen.
Luca glanced at it, then turned bright red, and tried tucking his phone into his pocket. Ilya grabbed his wrist, stopping him.
"Ilya," Shane tried to say in warning.
They now had the attention of most people there, which was exactly what Shane had been trying to avoid.
"Everything Okay guys?" Harris asked, standing up from where he had been cuddling Troy.
"Yep," Shane said a little too quickly.
Then Luca's phone chimed again. This time, everyone heard it. Troy and Harris reacted immediately.
"This is going to end badly," Harris muttered, sitting down again.
"What the fuck, Luca?" Troy laughed, "Who's sending you dick pics in the middle of the day?"
Luca somehow turned an even brighter shade of red.
"Exactly," Ilya said, "Unlock your phone. I need to see if he is good enough for you."
"What, no, fuck off," Luca said, freeing his wrist from Ilya's grasp.
"Kid, Grindr can be a very scary place." Shane tried a softer approach. "We just want to check that everything is appropriate."
"Yes, and I have excellent taste in men. I will find you the perfect guy, who does not send you dick pics at three o'clock in the afternoon." Ilya said.
Luca finally relented and unlocked his phone.
The messages did turn out to be dick pics, much to Haasy's embarrassment.
The team spent the rest of the afternoon passing Luca's phone around, rating the profiles of various men until they'd narrowed it down to three they liked. They then spent a good twenty minutes trying to craft the perfect message to send them.
It turned out to be one of the strangest yet funnest team activities they had ever had, and was the perfect distraction from the pressure of the playoffs.