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Ilya did not really understand why someone would want something as corporate as a Human Resources Department involved in the inner workings of a professional hockey team’s locker room.
Until Bernadette Martin joined the coaching staff.
He was still a little ashamed that Wiebe had gone to Jean, the chief human resources person, instead of letting Ilya take care of the issue. But, that did mean Wiebe had also been unwilling to address the problem himself, so.
Maybe Ilya could give himself a break.
“I still don’t really think there is an issue. Berna-” Ilya shot his husband a look from the other side of their kitchen island. Shane’s mouth flattened into a tight little line. “Bern and I get along just fine. Our offensive production is up since she came on, and I’ve had more time in practice to dedicate to myself instead of spending so much time working with staff on new offensive drills.”
Ilya looked back down at the dishes he was hand washing. Everything Shane said was true. But it was still uncomfortable to near their swiping at one another, and whenever someone would try to discuss it, the concern was brushed aside, or taken as a slight made about the other, and for some reason, Shane would not accept a single critique of Marty, nor would she accept one about Shane.
Even Ilya had gotten a dirty look for telling Shane he was ahead of his partner in a drill, something he, as team captain, was supposed to do!
It was unbearable.
“Right?”
Ilya looked up again at Shane. Time for honesty.
“Yes, but also no.”
“Yes, but also no?”
“Everything you said, about accomplishments since Marty joined us, yes. But, Shane, you must know it is, uncomfortable, to be with you two.”
Shane blushed and looked away.
“I- yeah, I guess. We, well, Jean, I guess, set some ground rules.”
“Yes? What are they?”
“We call each other by the names or nicknames the other person has expressly said they want to be called.”
Ilya could already see where that would still be a problem. There was no way in hell Marty or Shane would admit to hating what the other called them.
Shane actually rolled his eyes.
“And we can’t call each other Bernadette and Hollywood.”
“Good, what else?”
“If we would not say something to another person in each other’s position- (So, what Shane would say to another coach and another former Team Canada competitor, and the same for Marty, but to any other player) “-then we can’t say it to each other. Preferably not at all, and never in front of others.”
“Okay, also good.”
Shane got up from his seat and walked around the kitchen island to take over drying. Ilya kissed his husband’s cheek.
“We also promised to let the other person deal with what things are and are not okay for other people to say about us.”
“Thank god.”
“We aren’t that bad.”
“I love you, but you and her, I do not why, but you are the worst together. The worst, Hollander!”
******************
“Fuck yeah! That’s it, Hollander!”
It was weird watching Marty and Shane celebrate a goal together. Ilya looked to his right where was Hana quietly fuming.
This was, in theory, a photo shoot for ‘Team Ottawa’, a mishmash of different athletes from the area who were competing in a series of purposely silly athletic challenges for a Canadian disaster relief fund. But, they'd put four hockey players on the ice and suggested they 'play around a bit', so of course it had become competitive.
“Want to shut them up, Rozanov?”
She pronounced his surname correctly, like a Russian would, her eyes never leaving her new wife.
Shane was smirking at Ilya over Marty’s shoulder. Ilya would destroy him on the ice, then take him home and make him cry.
“Oh, your royal highness, I think we can do more than shut them up, yes?”
Hana giggled, like a small girl, but her grin was truly evil.
********************************************************
“I gotta call the city tomorrow.”
Shane mumbled this against Ilya’s shoulder, both of them falling asleep after a hard game against San Jose. It was the middle of their longest road trip of the season, and Ilya would rather trade the few hours they’d gotten on the beach for a full day in his own bed, in his own coach.
He hated having their long road trip this late into the season.
“Why, is there a problem with the trash?”
“No, gotta bully them for a parade.”
“Parade?”
“Yea, Blizzard swept in four, got their cup. Marty said the city was gonna do something small for them.”
Ilya forced his tired mind to track through everything Shane said. The Ottawa Blizzard had won their league’s championship. Marty had talked with Shane about this, either tonight after the win (unlikely, she’d stayed in Ottawa to support her wife), or they’d talked about it earlier (more likely), and Shane had caught on that it pissed Marty off.
It was fifty-fifty (an English term Ilya understood right away, English-speakers should just stick to math, though he knew Russian mathematicians could make even numbers sound poetic, while these-)
No, no, mind, focus! Focus, and then sleep!
Maybe Marty told Shane she was upset about it, maybe Shane had figured it out, who knew with those two.
But Shane wanted to make a call. Tomorrow, when they would still be dead, but it might also be too late here on the West Coast to properly bully Ottawa to do what they should to celebrate their new champions.
Ilya sighed, and rolled away from his lovely husband. He fumbled for his phone.
“I will send text to Yuna and Harris, ask them to get up early to bully for us. We can call later, if their meanness doesn’t work.”
Shane hummed, pleased with this. Yes, Ilya was brilliant, even when exhausted.
He sent the text then rolled back over to snuggle into his husband’s side, careful of the light bruising on Shane's hip.
***************************************************************
Ilya started laughing. He looked over at his husband and pulled out his phone. Shane saw and grabbed it out of his hand before he could take a picture.
They were watching the World Junior tournament at Yuna and David’s house, a Canadian tradition Ilya had not known about until he became part of the Hollander family.
Marty was making her debut as one of the people they talked to between periods.
(When Wiebe had announced it to the locker room, Shane had used his weird sweet ‘I am a little shit’ voice and asked if Marty had to sign some kind of agreement to keep her language appropriate on-air.
Marty had sneered at Shane and suggested Shane would never find out because his commentary was too unoriginal and monotone to get a job in television, so it was good he was cashing in now on his pretty boy looks to fund his retirement.
Marty had absolutely won that round.)
On screen, Marty was grinning at the camera, discussing how excited she was for Ilya to play for Team Canada in the next Olympics as their starting center.
“-I’ve seen it first-hand while working with Ottawa, that creativity and ferocity he brings to the ice, and there is nothing like it! I can’t wait to see him represent his new country in best-on-best play.”
“So, does that mean you want Rozanov to take over as captain of Team Canada?”
Marty’s cheesy grin tightened, and she looked to the other commentator.
“Shane Hollander is the captain of Team Canada’s men’s hockey team, no question, Smitty. And if he isn’t, then I don’t think it really is Team Canada. Rozanov will be able to seamlessly become part of the team because of Hollander’s leadership. There is no one else on that roster, including Rozanov, who better understands Canada’s top men and the systems that will best utilize their play. Hell-” (“Of course she couldn’t keep it clean.” “Hollander-”) “-I bet he knows better than whatever coaching staff they’re going to put together for this next international run how to best utilize the players available to Team Canada.”
Ilya looked over at Yuna at David. David looked a bit nervous, the way he usually did around Marty, though she’d never been anything but polite and even congenial, for Marty, toward David and Yuna.
Well, that Ilya had witnessed. He had heard all about the first time Marty and Yuna met.
Yuna seemed both deeply annoyed and deeply amused; the Bern Martin special, as Harris regularly joked.
Another announcer-person cut in, someone Yuna often said was much smarter than the other people on this particular broadcast.
“Well, Marty, what if they put you on the staff?”
Ilya laughed again. Oh, they’d trapped her. Marty’s smile went a little wry.
“Well, of course he knows Canada’s men better than me, Tom, I’ve spent the past 15 years focused on winning medals with, and against, the best women in the sport. Though I have spent the past two years working directly with Hollander and Rozanov, so I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on how those two work best.”
The first announcer-person, the one Yuna didn’t like, the one Marty did not seem to like either, huffed.
“Really putting yourself out there, huh Martin?”
The other one, Tom, spoke up.
“Considering Ottawa is the reigning cup champion, I think Marty knows what she’s talking about Smitty.”
Sitting between the two men Marty was wearing a shit-eating grin.
Shane groaned and both Yuna and David started to laugh. Ilya slapped Shane’s beautiful, thick thigh.
“What you say, Hollander, ready for Marty to lead us to gold?”
**************************************************
“What!?”
Shane sighed. He sighed!
He was not even looking at Ilya.
They were in the car, Shane’s boring SUV, on their way to the cottage.
Of course his husband would begin this conversation, this very important conversation, while they were driving.
“Say it again.”
Shane’s hand flexed on the steering wheel.
“Martin and Hana want to have kids. Martin plans on getting pregnant, since Hana is still playing. They can go through a service, but I thought it might be beneficial to talk with them about helping each other out.”
“Helping out.”
Shane’s mouth twitched. His eyes did not leave the road.
“Yes.”
“By… donating cum.”
Shane’s face scrunched up.
“Ilya, ew!”
“What, Shane!? That is what you say to give!”
Fuck, the English was slipping from his mind, but if he began speaking in Russian, he knew his words would be too fast, his sentences too complex for his husband, the love of his life, his everything, to understand.
He needed Shane to understand.
Fuck, he needed to understand!
Ilya watched Shane’s throat bob as he swallowed.
“I think, someday, you and I are going to want a baby.”
Ilya… he looked out the front windshield.
Yes, he thinks, maybe, he wants to be a parent, maybe, if he is parenting with Shane, if he is raising a child with Shane.
But they still have a few years of playing ahead of them, and Ilya did not think this was something they needed to plan for yet. He didn’t think it was a decision they needed to make right now.
Now Shane was talking about making a baby with their coach.
“You want to make baby with our coach.”
Shane made that grossed out face again.
“Ilya, no, I don’t want to make a baby with Martin. I want us, two married men, to think about working with two married lesbians, who I think we trust, and think would be good parents, to help them become parents. And, maybe, later on, they could help us become parents.”
Ilya worked through that very long, very obviously planned out sentence.
“Explain.”
Shane took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.
“We would go to a doctor’s office. One, or both of us, would donate sperm. Martin would have a simple procedure to remove some of the eggs from her ovaries. Hana might have the same procedure, but probably not. Those eggs would be fertilized in a lab, but the doctors. At least one of the fertilized eggs, maybe more than one, would be put back into Martin’s body. She would hopefully have a successful pregnancy. Martin and Hana would have at least one child. They would not be our children. And some day, if we wanted, the fertilized eggs Martin and Hana didn’t use for their family, we could use for our family, if we wanted to.”
Ilya tried very hard not to be angry. Shane would not know this much information if he had not already considered this, researched this.
Talked about this.
“You already talk with Martin about this?”
Shane winced. He tried to hide it.
“Hollander.”
“I.. yes, Ilya, we talked about it. Not, not a lot. We didn't plan anything. She just, mentioned it. She complained about how hard it was to have a baby as a queer person. And I just, offered. I think we were both surprised.”
Ilya looked at his husband. He was uncomfortable, but only a little guilty. And he wouldn’t lie to Ilya. He wouldn’t.
Ilya reached over, put his hand on the back of Shane’s neck, massaged the muscles there. Shane’s eyes fluttered then he refocused on the road. His shoulders also lost some tension.
“Marty talked to Hana yet?”
Shane snorted, shook his head.
“No, not yet. She wanted me to talk to you before she even brought it up.”
Ilya nodded.
“I do not know. But, we can talk about it.”
Shane looked over at Ilya, gave him a small smile. He nodded then looked back ahead.
“We cannot say this to Yuna. She would be too excited about hockey supper babies.”
Shane laughed.
“Who would be worse, her or Svetlana?”
Ilya groaned and laughed as well.
Fuck, Martin and Hollander, only they would think this was a totally normal thing to talk about, a totally normal thing to do, not insane or weird at all.
He and Hana, they had married crazy hockey people.