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They make a point to show up to breakfast together, the entire team, when they’re staying at a hotel. It was Bood’s idea originally, and now it’s become a whole thing, with social media posts about everybody’s favorite breakfast foods and such.
It also has a more practical purpose: it gives them a headcount, and deters the younger players from breaking curfew or drinking. If you have to be at breakfast with your Captain and your Coach at eight, you can’t really stay up too late.
“Good morning, sunshines.” Opposite of Ilya, Bood smirks up at the kids, who are just coming down, all of them looking a bit bleary-eyed.
“G’morning.” Bolduc, their current rookie, rubs his eyes which makes him look even more like a toddler than usual. LaPointe and Holmberg just groan; the only one looking somewhat awake is Luca.
They trudge off to the buffet. When they return, sitting down with the rest of the team, Ilya can see Shane check their plates and purse his lips in disapproval at the heaps of chocolate chip pancakes, eggs and butter on their plates.
“Late night last night?” Bood asks innocently.
They only reply in murmurs, avoiding everyone’s eyes. Ilya knows they didn’t break curfew; they haven’t done so since the incident with Young’s ER visit.
Ilya notices Luca’s ears turning red, so they were definitely up to something. As long as nobody gets injured and everybody shows up on the ice, he doesn’t care.
They eat in silence, and get a second helping of food. Young comes back with another stack of pancakes and bacon, Holmberg has found the waffle maker, and Bolduc returns with not one, but two chocolate muffins. At least there’s half a slice of melon on his plate, too. Ilya thinks he can see Shane’s eye twitch.
“You know,” his husband says, trying to sound casual, “Fibre and protein instead of sugar and saturated fats would help you feel better on game day.”
Ilya suppresses a snort, watching them look up from their plates and at Shane. It’s funny, really; Shane isn’t team captain, but his sheer stardom and achievement makes them regard him as an authority on anything hockey.
“I had eggs,” Young defends himself half-heartedly.
Meanwhile, Ilya can see Bolduc’s eyes go from his own plate, to Shane’s (which currently contains a half-eaten portion of plain oats and yoghurt, three slices of cucumber and a slice of smoked salmon), then to Ilya’s sausage and cheese muffin, lucky charms and strawberries and nutella. Ilya catches his eyes, and very slowly shakes his head.
“They’re still young,” Bood tells Shane good-naturedly, “They’ll burn it all off in a second. Unlike us old fucks.”
“Speak for yourself,” Ilya grins, and stuffs his mouth with a heaping spoon of cereal.
Shane’s ire turns to him, now. “Lucky Charms aren’t good for you, either.”
Ilya blows him a kiss. “They are good for my soul.”
Shane snorts. “I’m just saying, have some vegetables. All of you. Or some fruit, at least.”
“Does banana count?” Ilya asks innocently, causing a chorus of “Ewww”s.
-
Anaheim has a new defenseman, Ripper, and he’s a problem from the second they step on the ice that night. He’s wiry, with a weird look in his eyes, and seems to be seething for violence. He runs Troy into the boards so hard that it takes him a few seconds to get back up, and tries the same on Ilya, too. Ilya is too fast for him, though, and ignores him when he yells shit at him from behind to score instead. After that, he seems to find a new target in Luca.
Ilya has no problem getting into fights; hockey is a contact sport after all. Sure, there are some guys you want to avoid, like Ryan Price, because they can fuck your shit up. But he’s never backed down from a fight. Shane generally avoids fights, which Ilya is, frankly, glad about, because he doesn’t want anyone touching that beautiful face.
Which makes it even more of a surprise when Shane shakes off his gloves and goes for Ripper, who meets him gleefully. Ilya flies across the ice to Shane’s side immediately, but the refs are already breaking them up. Both of their helmets are off, having tumbled to the ice, and to Ilya’s immense satisfaction, Ripper is bleeding from his mouth. Shane is breathing hard, his face full of rage when he spits.
They both take their penalty, and Shane lightly bumps into Ilya when he skates towards the penalty box, not saying anything.
They win 3-2, and it’s very satisfying.
Ilya can tell Shane is embarrassed by the fight now; one of his cheekbones is turning slightly purple, and his eye is red where a blood vessel popped.
Ilya can’t help but think he looks kind of hot like this.
“What the fuck happened?” In the locker room, while their team celebrates around them, Ilya runs his thumb carefully over Shane’s cheek. Shane avoids his eyes sheepishly.
“He was getting on my nerves.”
“I do that every day,” Ilya supplies.
“He, uh,” Shane briefly looks back over his shoulder; their guys are busy chanting “Centaurs, Centaurs!”, “...he kept calling Luca a,” he lowers his voice, “faggot, and kept asking if he gets, y’know,” he pulls a face to indicate something dirty, “by us in the locker room.”
Ilya says nothing for a full three seconds, but feels a grin spread on his face. Shane rolls his eyes at him. “You know I normally ignore that shit, but…”
“Not today.” Ilya pulls him in, pressing a kiss to his temple.
“I don’t know what got into me.”
Ilya gives him a smirk. “Was kinda hot.”
“Shut up.” Shane grins down at his stall. “I’m just protective, I guess.”
Ilya’s smirk grows, and it brings a cute blush to Shane’s face.
-
“I found out what the kids are doing every night that causes them to stay up so late,” Bood tells Ilya conspiratorially.
Ilya furrows his brows at him. “What?”
“They all got each other Switches for Christmas, and now they’re playing Overcooked every night.”
Ilya blinks at him slowly. “What?” he repeats.
“You know, Nintendo Switch.” Bood mimes playing on a handheld console. “Overcooked is a game where you have to, like, assemble dishes at a restaurant.”
Ilya gives him a long look, narrowing his eyes. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Bood laughs with a shrug. “Honestly, that’s way better than the shit we got up to at that age.”
Ilya has to agree. He used to regularly go fuck a player from a rival team at that age. He slowly shakes his head, rubbing his palm over his face. “These kids, man.”
“They’re good kids,” Bood says fondly.
-
“Shane, hey.” Luca jogs after him when they return to the hotel from the bar later, and Shane stops to let him catch up. His face still hurts, and he still feels a bit like an idiot for letting himself be provoked so much by the most obvious slurs and insults.
“Hey. Good game today.”
Luca beams at him with a shy little “Thank you”. Shane wonders if he will ever get used to being idolized like that by his own teammates.
“I just wanted to say, thanks. For standing up for me.” Luca softly bumps his shoulder into Shane’s. Neither of them are big on casual physical contact, so this is a huge sign of trust.
“Please don't look at this kind of behavior as an example. I shouldn't have punched him.” Shane stares down at the tips of his sneakers as they walk. Behind them, some of the others are singing a made-up victory song to the tune of Old MacDonald. Ilya is conducting it.
“It was kind of awesome.” Luca gives Shane a lopsided little smile. “He deserved it.”
“Slurs and stuff are such a low-hanging fruit, I usually just try to…” Shane mimes something going in one ear and out the other, “I think it pissed me off that he was directing it at you and not me.”
Luca is quiet for a moment, just glancing at Shane. “You know I'm artistic and quiet, right? I've been called faggot before.”
“Oh, wow.” Shane feels a little embarrassed. “Sorry to hear that.”
“Eh,” Luca shrugs, “It's what guys say when they can't think of something smarter.”
It makes Shane snort.
“Besides, I'm still figuring stuff out. Maybe he's right.” Luca says it so lightly, so casually that it almost causes Shane to trip over his own feet.
“Wow,” he repeats, like a dumbass. “That's, uh… great.”
Luca shrugs, giving Shane a brief glance and a shy smile. “It shouldn't be a big deal, should it? Scott and Ilya and you and the other guys, you make it feel less scary.”
“Oh.” Shane feels his eyes sting all of a sudden, his throat closing up. “Thank you for saying that.”
“It's true. It's awesome, what you've done.”
“We never meant to do anything, but sometimes you don't really have a choice,” Shane admits.
“You had the choice earlier. It's… I don't know, nice to know people will get into fights for me.”
Shane tries not to sniffle, but fails. “Okay, jeez. Stop it,” he tells Luca fondly. “I just really appreciate this team.”
“So do I.” Luca bumps Shane's shoulder again. “Sorry to get so cheesy all of a sudden. We can go back to being drunk, now.”
Shane laughs, and reaches out to squeeze Luca’s shoulder. He doesn't say it, but he thinks, this kid will go far.