Chapter Text
January 2021
Shane and Ilya were luxuriating in bed that morning after the proposal, cosy under the thick duvets and in each other’s arms. They were both shirtless as they cuddled, Shane’s hands tracing Ilya’s gold chain where the ring now sat, while Ilya played with Shane’s hair absentmindedly.
“Moya lyubov,” Ilya started. Shane’s answering hum urged him on. “Were you serious last night? That we can be less careful? And this summer…”
Shane untangled himself enough to look at Ilya’s eyes. “Yes,” he said with conviction. “It’s scary, but I’m so tired of the world not knowing.”
He took a deep breath, hand going to Ilya’s chest where the latter’s heartbeat can be felt. “When…”
“Shane.”
Shane shook his head. “No, I have to let this out.” He took another breath, and tears pooled at the corner of his eyes. “When I thought you had left me, I thought I was going to die myself. And no one would have known, Ilya. No one would have guessed that the most important person to me, the most beautiful thing to have happened to me, has died. And I can’t–”
His voice broke, and that made Ilya reach out for him. Shane let himself get back to his original position, but he continued, “I need everyone to know that you, Ilya Rozanov, are the love of my life. That you are my whole fucking world. And if you die, I die.”
Ilya made gentle comforting noises, his hands now at Shane’s back. “I love you so much, Shane.”
Shane reached up again to pepper Ilya’s face with kisses.
“I’m telling my team, next practice. Will probably tell J.J. first, though,” Shane then said, in between kisses. Ilya stilled at that, searching his face. He just shrugged and reiterated, “I told you, I’m tired of hiding.”
Moisture filled Ilya’s eyes. “Dorogoy…”
Shane smiled, shyly, “And you can tell your team and friends, too.”
Ilya took a shuddering breath and, with great effort, flipped their positions. Now, it was his turn to pepper Shane’s face with kisses.
***
“Yeah, so my team is not taking the news well. It was obviously a shock, but they’re honestly making it hard to be around them now,” Shane told Rose. It was a week after the proposal, and they were in Shane’s apartment in Montreal, Rose having had to come up to film something. Ilya, who came up due to a couple of days off, was in the kitchen cooking something while the two of them sat on the stools in front of the kitchen island, with Rose nursing a glass of wine and Shane’s open can of ginger ale on the table.
The woman was privy to how the Montreal team reacted to Shane’s coming out. She bonded with Ilya over how much of an asshole the team is, save for Hayden and J.J. The news that Shane was in a relationship with Ilya only made the environment more hostile. Shane hadn’t been benched, but their most recent game showed a different dynamic on ice. Sports commentators mentioned it.
Rose wouldn’t be surprised if Shane leaves Montreal at the end of the season.
In contrast, Ilya’s team was welcoming and had been nothing but giddy at the news. Obviously delighted that Ilya Rozanov bagged himself the Shane Hollander.
“I think, if we’re truly coming out this summer, the public needs to be prepared.”
“Ooh, yes, a soft launch!” At Shane’s look of confusion, Rose hurriedly explained. “Basically, giving hints to the public that you are in a relationship. Like posting photos of you at dinner with someone sitting across from you, but the face is not shown at all. Taking photos of gifts you receive and just saying ‘thank you’ without naming anybody. For celebrities, which you two are, being seen more often out in public. Not necessarily all loved up, but like, places you wouldn’t be expected to go? Does that make sense?”
Ilya finished cooking and was plating the food. “So all we need to do is go out, then? Let people take photos of us?”
Rose nodded. “Yes, like that. It will get people thinking and more used to seeing you together. Then, when you do finally do a hard launch, it is not a surprise anymore.”
Shane made a face at that. “Is there any way to do this without attracting a lot of attention?”
Ilya came around the island after setting the plate down. His smile was mischievous as he took Shane’s face in his hands, slightly squishing it. Shane’s hands automatically came up to Ilya’s waist. “We will always attract attention. Look at us.”
Shane rolled his eyes. “Not what I meant, asshole.”
Ilya kissed Shane’s nose. Rose tactfully focused on the food in front of her.
“But we can’t entirely keep the attention away, moya lyubov. We might as well lean in to it.”
As Rose bit into the food, a thought popped into her head. As the lovers became more lovey-dovey beside her, the idea took shape, sharpening into focus.
The abrupt sound of metal striking glass made the two men jump apart slightly. Rose noted Shane’s flushed face and Ilya’s plumper lips; she’ll tease them about that later. For now, she forged on. “How open are you two to leaning into the attention for your hard launch?”
The two looked at each other, some form of silent communication going on. Finally, they looked at her. “What do you have in mind?” Shane asked, cautiously.
“I have a friend – Bruno Mars –”
“You are friends with Mr Mars?” came Ilya’s almost outraged voice, whipping his head to properly look at Rose. “How come I didn’t know? Shane, Shane…”
“I’ve only heard one song from the guy! Just the Way You Are! Mostly because Hayden played it every single day after he met Jackie.”
Rose laughed. “Okay, well, to be fair, I only met him recently during an awards show.”
“I must meet him!”
“This plan would be perfect then! His new album is coming out in two weeks, called “The Romantic”,” Rose started.
Ilya nodded his head. “Yes, I have heard of this. It’s already pre-saved in my Spotify.”
“Well, I’ve heard one of the songs, and I think it’s perfect for you two. The official music video for it is done, but I know there’s talk of getting celebrities to use it for their weddings – there’s apparently a lot getting married this summer – and then releasing it as sort of an anthology music video for the song.”
“Ok, so what is plan?” Ilya was excited now, losing his grip on the finer points of English grammar in the process. Shane could feel his fiancé practically buzzing beside him.
“You’re planning for the wedding in late June, right? I’m thinking of pitching your story to Bruno to see what they make of it. I’ll present it hypothetically at first. Then see how it goes.”
Ilya’s smile was so bright it got Shane to nod along.
February 2021
The album came out on an ordinary Friday. In that odd time between lunch and dreaming of what to do over the weekend.
For Ilya and Shane, it was like a permission being granted.
Had they been scheduled to play today, they would have been too busy going over their pre-game rituals and would not have had the time to hear the song Rose was talking about as soon as it dropped. As it is, their schedules matched, allowing them to spend a whole 24 hours together before Shane had to go back to Montreal tomorrow morning.
They were in Ilya’s house in Ottawa, having a lazy mid-day lounge after a lazy, but mindblowing, morning sex. Something was playing on the television – a rerun of an old sitcom – when Rose messaged saying that the album dropped.
After that discussion last month, Rose informed them that she reached out to Bruno and his team. They’re interested to hear more and, after some back-and-forth, have agreed to let them listen to the song first before going further.
“What was the song title again?” Shane asked, already opening up the Spotify app on Ilya’s phone and looking up Bruno Mars’ discography.
“Risk It All,” came Ilya’s reply as he moved to mute whatever was playing on the TV.
After a few seconds, the song's melody wafted through the air, enveloping them.
It was…emotional. Passionate. A quiet promise of doing everything just for a chance, a touch, a fragment of time to be with that person.
Say you want the moon. Watch me learn to fly.
The lyrics stunned Shane, and he looked at Ilya, whose eyes were closed as he leaned back on the couch.
If you told Shane before, hell, a minute ago, that a simple line in a song would fully encapsulate what Ilya had done for him, for their relationship, Shane would not have believed you.
But here were those lyrics.
He remembered that one summer evening in 2017, when he woke Ilya up to tell him about a plan. To leave Boston. To come to Ottawa.
And Ilya had simply said yes.
Disregarding everything – a promise of another Cup, his legacy uncertain, a chance to go back to Russia and visit his mother's grave – he simply said yes to Shane.
Oh, I'll do anything, anything you ask me to
And Ilya really had.
In the original plan, he asked Ilya to wait until they were both retired before coming out. He sees how stupid that is now, with everything that happened to them in between then and now. But back then, in the quiet of the night when everything was both new and old, with no inkling of what would come next, Ilya still said yes to Shane.
Shane didn’t realise he was crying until he was sniffling and tears were cascading down his cheeks. Ilya opened his eyes, startled. Whatever his fiancé saw must have alarmed him because he all but lunged to Shane’s side of the couch and stuck to him like a koala.
He laughed at the ridiculousness of it all through the tears.
“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” God, Shane felt his heart ache a little bit with that worried tone from Ilya. “What is it? Was this about this coming summer? We can-”
He leaned back a bit to look at Ilya and shook his head. “No, no. It’s not that,” he tried to smile so he could reassure the other man but it must not have come across as genuine because Ilya’s frown did not let up. “The lyrics just reminded me of well, everything you’ve done. For me.”
The song was about to end now, reaching a telling crescendo, so Ilya reached for his phone to play the song back. As the lyrics came up again, Ilya’s eyes flashed with recognition. “Shane…”
“You did so much. For me. For us. And when it was my turn to do something, I…” he trailed off, vividly remembering the fight they had over the Christmas season.
“Hey, hey. No, okay?” Ilya continued to whisper soothing words, once again enveloping Shane in his arms. Shane let him. “We talked about that one. That part is over. We both promised to communicate more, da?”
Shane nodded.
“And Shane, moya lyubov, I love you. But you can’t make me do anything I do not want to. I want to make you happy, so I do it. I want to be with you, so I say yes. I risked, I sacrificed because I want you and me together.”
“But I still asked for too much. And I didn’t have to risk a lot.”
“Is same.”
Shane looked at him now, confusion in his features. “What do you mean?”
The playlist switched over to a new song, and Ilya turned it off first before continuing. “Shane, the fact that you chose me, that you love me, that you share your parents with me, and that you were willing to create gazillion plans so we can be together is a risk in itself.”
His confusion must not have let up because Ilya sighed and continued, “Shane, look at you: Golden boy of hockey. No bad reputation. Your family is solid unit. You could have had anyone – a nice boy in Montreal. Someone easier to explain.” A corner of Ilya’s mouth twitched upwards in response to that self-deprecation.
Then, he turned serious. “But we can’t deny that there are people just waiting for an excuse to force you out of the league. Despite the glory, some bastards think you do not belong there: you’re half-Japanese, and you look like it, solnyshko. And at this point, is open secret that you are gay. One more thing, and they will be only too happy to call for your retirement.”
Shane’s brows furrowed. Of course, he knew all these things, but something about that last thing Ilya said struck him, and his confusion turned to anger. “You think you are a weakness to be used against me?”
Ilya, to Shane’s growing anger, just shrugged. “Is me. Big, bad Russian. With a fucked up brain.”
Shane cupped Ilya’s cheeks, a little too fiercely, but Ilya did not complain, “Hey, your brain is not fucked up, okay? It just needs a little help. Your therapist and I are here for that. When you want to tell my parents, I’m sure they can be here for you, too.” A beat, then, “Also, never, ever think you are my weakness. No, Ilya. You are my strength. I will give up everything for you, too.”
It was now Ilya’s turn to be misty-eyed. God, Shane’s eyes were blazing, and the fierce sincerity and assurance wrapped him up like a hug. And because Ilya could not help it anyway, he resumed cuddling with his fiancé. “Shane, the things I did for you – which are all equal to the things you did for me, by the way – I will do those again and again. Just for a chance to hold you, as Mr Mars would say.”
Shane smiled; the anger at the suggestion that Ilya is a mark against him was slowly dissipating. He still wasn’t entirely convinced that his contribution to this relationship is equal to what Ilya had done, but he’s going to spend the rest of his life making sure Ilya will never regret being with him. “I love you.”
“Ya tyebya lyublyu.”
Later, when they have both calmed down again, they will talk about what to do. The laundry list of things and people they have to work with is already looming at the back of Shane's mind.
For now, though, they can hold each other.
June 2021
[close-up photo of two hands, wedding rings visible, suit cuffs - one light pink, the other slightly darker shade of blue - are visible. The post is overlaid with the song Risk It All, particularly the part "It's crazy but it's true, there's nothing I won't do, I'd risk it all for you."]
@BrunoMars✅: There was a plan for this one but well, and I think it's safe to say this is very appropriate for the occasion, plans change 🤷♂️ Risk It All [a very special music video] 07.02.21