Chapter Text
September 1st, 2020, 2:03AM
Alex sighed and picked up his wine glass.
“Look, Nora, as much as I’d love for every famous, chiseled and attractive man to be Queer, it just doesn’t work like that”
Nora pulled a face and diverted her attention back to the series of graphs, timelines, and powerpoints she was studying on her laptop. According to Nora, there was enough evidence to back the fan theory that two random hockey players in the NHL who Alex and never even heard of before had been in a romantic relationship with one another for the last decade.
“I mean, come on, it’s hockey! Aren’t those guys all like, annoyingly straight?”
“Alex, you know that about 20% of the population identifies as Gay or Lesbian, not even including Bisexuals, Pansexuals, Queers, and other identities, and that does not exclude hockey players. Just because they are masculine doesn’t mean that they’re straight! Didn’t people assume you and Henry were just a couple of straight dudes in some kind of homoerotic friendship for like, months, before you were outed?”
Alex considered this as he piled some of the cheese and cold cuts from the charcuterie board in front of him onto a cracker and shoveled it into his mouth.
“Okay, tell me the whole Hollanorv timeline, or whatever”. “Hollanov” June corrects him. He looks up and she is standing in the doorway, wearing her bathrobe and looking tired. “I could hear you two yapping from all the way down the hall. I came in here to tell you both to shut up, but if we’re talking about Hollanov theories, then I’m here to stay.”
As it turned out, there was a small group of teenage girls on tumblr who had written an extensive post describing an elaborate conspiracy theory they came up with that NHL players Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov were actually in love. They described an all-star game where the Russian gave the Canadian a fat kiss on the cheek after assisting a goal, and Rozanov’s heartbreakingly emotional reaction to Hollander’s on-ice injury during their rivalry days. Alex thought back to his rivalry with Henry, and thinks that if Henry had fallen on his face during one of their public appearances together, he probably would’ve laughed his ass off. But he wouldn’t have laughed if Henry had fractured his collarbone. He then realized that he felt somewhat uncomfortable speculating about the sexualities of other public figures when his own identity and relationship was outed publicly just over a year ago.
“Alex” June says, pulling him out of his trance. June had become invested in the theory only because she thought it was ridiculous. Hockey players are straight, they’ve always been straight. Nora thought there is something to the theory, and that while it is invasive and insensitive for so-called “fans” to be posting about it for the world to see, she secretly hoped that Hollanov was real, and that Shane and Ilya would come out publicly. Alex figured there isn’t really any harm in reading the theories privately, so long as no one is pressuring the athletes to do anything about their alleged relationship.
“What do you think?”
Alex pulls a lopsided grin. “I think I want to hear more”
March 30th, 2021, 1:33AM
Ilya couldn’t sleep, which was pretty common these days. It had been less than a month since his relationship with his NHL rival, Shane Hollander, was outed by accident by stupid Hayden Pike. Well, stupid Hayden pike and fucking Brad. He felt Shane turn on the bed next to him. It took him hours of fighting sleep to finally give into his exhaustion and pass out. Ilya couldn’t let his restlessness affect his boyfriend, so he gave Shane a gentle kiss on the back of his head, grabbed his phone off the nightstand, and tiptoed down the stairs into Shane’s living room. After scrolling aimlessly on instagram, he came across an old message from the day their relationship was outed. It was from the verified user, @AGCD, and read: “Hey, I know we don’t know each other and this might be super weird, but I think I am one of few people in the world who knows what you’re going through right now, and I just wanted you to know that my boyfriend and I are here and in your corner. If you guys want to talk, we’re around.”
Ilya smiled mischievously, running a hand over his face and rubbing his stubbly chin as he typed his reply. “Talk about what?”
March 31st, 2021, 8:07AM
Henry sighed and turned off his alarm that he had already snoozed once. Alex was dead to the world next to him. Henry recalls hearing him type furiously on his phone all through the wee hours of the night. He thought about how re-traumatized Alex had felt, seeing the two hockey players get outed in such a similar manner to them. Alex had asked Henry for his help typing out a direct message to whichever of the two players seemed more outgoing, offering their support. Henry wondered if Alex stayed up all night going back and forth with him. He secretly hoped so, because lord knows they could both benefit from the friendship of a couple with some shared life experiences. They were still sorting out their own feelings about being outed, so he could only imagine how these guys were doing. Henry shudders to think how the other hockey players must be responding to the news.
April 3rd, 2021, 10:15AM
Shane doesn’t want to do this. But Ilya does, and Shane would do anything for Ilya. So, here he is on a random Saturday morning, in an airport cafe next to his boyfriend, waiting to meet the former First Son of the United States and the abdicated Prince of Wales at a layover in Montreal. It was ridiculous, he knew it was ridiculous.
“Shane” Ilya pulls him out of his trance. He realized that he had been ripping the sleeve of his coffee cup into shreds. There were cardboard fibres all over his lap and on the table in front of him. His boyfriend smiled at him weakly. “It will be okay, yes?” Shane nods uncertainly.
“Good Morning” said a deep, velvety voice in a posh English accent. Both men jumped. “Jesus, Babe!” exclaimed a shorter man next to the Englishman. He had light brown skin and a wide smile. His dark brown eyes shared the same aura of mischief as Shane often saw in his own boyfriend’s hazel eyes. Shane recognized him as Alex Claremont-Diaz, which means that the taller, blond man next to him must be Henry-something. Shane didn’t know his proper title. Shit. He should have been more prepared for this. He would have been more prepared for this, had this week not been, well, this week. “Hello” Ilya said awkwardly. Shane wondered silently if it wasn’t too late to grab Ilya and run away. Instead, he swallowed the lump in his throat and said, “please, sit”, gesturing to the empty chairs across the table.
The four men sat in silence for a minute. “How was the flight?” Shane asked. Henry smiled warmly. “I don’t love airplanes, but luckily I was fortunate enough to be given the distraction of listening to this one”- he nudged Alex playfully with his elbow- “complain about forgetting his favourite trousers at home!”
“First of all, they’re called pants, not trousers, and they’re my best chinos. Second of all, I’m still grieving the fact that they aren’t in my suitcase right now, so how dare you remind me of this devastating loss.” He crossed his arms over his chest, with the air of a toddler having a tantrum, but there was a soft smile on his face. Shane and Ilya chuckled, and Shane felt some of the tension in his shoulders lessen.
“We’re here to talk about you guys, though. How are you doing?” Alex asked, his face suddenly serious. Shane shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Um…”
“We’re okay” Ilya said simply. The truth was, they were both reeling. They had just met with the commissioner with the NHL to discuss the media frenzy surrounding their relationship. It had ended with Shane essentially telling him to go fuck himself and then the two of them storming out. “The NHL Commissioner wants us to lie about our relationship, and say that the whole thing is just a joke” Shane said, his voice dripping with anger and resentment. He watched Alex and Henry’s mouths fall open in unison. “That’s….” Henry started “...Fucked” Alex finished for him.
“Yes, it is fucked” Ilya agreed. “What I really want to talk about is Shane’s reaction to it,” he said happily, placing his hand on Shane’s knee, steadying the anxious tremor that started there. Shane felt his face get hot as he realized that Alex and Henry had both directed their attention to him. “I told him that we would sue the league if they stopped playing us, then I said that I would choose Ilya over my career” Alex lit up with a shit-eating grin. “No shit?” he said. Shane nodded.
“I mean, we basically did the same thing when Henry’s grandma told us to deny our relationship,” Alex remembered. Henry laughed dryly. “I think it was my mum who made the threats, but yes” he smiled shyly at Alex. “And if I could go back, I wouldn’t change a thing”.
The hot ball of stress that had been sitting in the centre of Ilya’s chest since the news of their relationship became public had just started to ease up. Hearing Alex and Henry say that they never looked back after publicly coming out was something he needed to hear, he realized. He knew he wouldn’t regret choosing Shane, but he sometimes feared that Shane would regret choosing him. He thought about Alex Clairmont-Diaz, and how he was on track to be the youngest congressman in US history or something, before the public scandal of being outed as Bisexual derailed his plan.
“What about…” Ilya started. “Did it affect your future, um, like long-term jobs, what’s the word…” he trailed off awkwardly. “Careers?” Shane finished for him. Ilya smiled at him gratefully. Somehow Shane always seemed to know what English word he was searching for at any moment.
“It actually steered me onto a better path,” Alex said, gazing fondly at his beautiful blond boyfriend next to him. “I thought I wanted to be a politician, but after my first week of law school, I knew it was where I belonged”. “And I,” Henry started, “Would have been pressured to enlist in the military had I not abdicated” Shane and Ilya shared a knowing glance. Anyone who had even heard of the Waterloo letters knew that Henry was a lover, not a fighter. “Which would’ve left me learning how to stare longingly out of the window, wondering when my love would return from battle” Alex said dramatically, clutching his chest and extending one of his arms, as if reaching towards an invisible window. Henry rolled his eyes fondly. “Honestly, I wouldn’t ever admit this publicly, but after we were outed I felt freed in some ways. I finally gathered the courage to pursue writing, and started a charity-” “We did too!” Shane said excitedly, accidentally knocking his empty coffee cup off the table. Ilya smiled widely at him, grateful that his adorable boyfriend had something boring to talk about.
Shane and Henry spent the next half hour comparing notes on the maddeningly dull details of running a charity. Ilya's eyes started to glaze over when he looked across the table to see Alex, looking every bit as bored as he felt. He was slouching low in his chair, his body mostly hidden under the table. He was fidgeting with his coat zipper, zipping it up and down repeatedly. “Would you like to get some coffee?” He asked him. Alex’s eyes glanced up at Ilya and he nodded. Ilya gave Shane a kiss on the forehead while he continued to babble about whatever it was that had him so excited, and led Alex to the line in the coffee shop. That’s how they got to talking about much more interesting things, such as the best ways to torment your uptight boyfriend.
“I had him convinced for a while that he’s a sleepwalker” Alex said with a laugh, “until he bought a smart watch to monitor his sleep patterns and he realized I was full of shit.” Ilya smiled mischievously as he told Alex about his ongoing joke about inviting Shane to look at pictures of desert instead of eating it, since Shane so carefully limited his sugar intake during hockey season. He recalled fondly one particular memory when he surprised Shane with a romantic macrobiotic diet-friendly dinner, complete with an ornately framed photo of a chocolate cake.
Alex was shorter than Ilya realized. He looked small next to Ilya’s broad frame, yet Ilya felt his eyes pull to the bulge of his biceps as he ran a hand through his dark curls, talking a mile a minute. Ilya didn’t struggle with comprehending English as he had when he first left Russia as a teenager, but when people spoke as quickly as Alex did, he sometimes missed things. Ilya wondered to himself if Alex had ever been screened for ADHD. Since Shane stumbled upon an autism screening video on YouTube a couple of weeks ago, Ilya’s social media had been bombarded by psychological experts and researchers giving advice and guidance on how to identify ADHD and Autism in undiagnosed adults. Together they made the connection that Shane was probably autistic. Shane found the discovery to be devastating, while Ilya was relieved to know that there were words to describe why certain things were harder for Shane than they were for some other people. His train of thought was shattered when Alex went silent and Ilya realized he must’ve asked him a question. “Fuck, sorry. What did you say?” he managed, shaking his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts.
Alex smiled kindly. “I just wondered how long you two have been together? There’s all kinds of speculation online, and it’s truly no one else’s business, so don’t feel like you owe me anything. I was just curious.” He hurried through the end of his sentence nervously, his hands fidgeting in front of him. Ilya was silent for a moment. It was still a novel feeling, being allowed to talk openly about his relationship. About his boyfriend. “We hooked up in secret for almost a decade before we realized we were in love.” Ilya smiled at the memory of their first time visiting Shane’s cottage together, when they finally admitted their feelings for one another. “Wow. That long?” Ilya nodded. “And you and Henry, it was about a year, yes?”, “Just under that. We hooked up for about 8 months before H ghosted me because it was getting too real” Alex replied, scrubbing a hand over his face, as if he wanted to erase the memory. “Ah, yes. Shane ran away from me, too. He is better at feelings than me, and he was able to imagine a future for us when I couldn’t, so-”
Just then, a young boy, probably no older than 7, approached them. “Are you Ilya Rozanov?” he asked excitedly, bouncing on his heels. Ilya crouched down to meet him at eye level. “Da. Yes” he said with a wink. “Woah” the kid responded, his eyes wide. “Who is this, is he a hockey player too?” the child asked, gesturing to Alex. Alex beamed indulgently. “Yes! I’m Shane Hollander, don’t you recognize me?” The kid shook his head violently. “No you’re not!” Ilya chuckled. “If you're going to pretend to be a Montreal hockey player, you may want to choose a less famous one, like Hayden Pike”, he said, looking over at Alex. Ilya turned back to the boy. “This is Alex. His mother is the President of America” the boy nodded seriously. “Cool!” He turned to Alex. “Can you take a photo of us?”
Alex smiled as he snapped some pictures for Ilya’s young fan. He wasn’t offended that the child did not recognize him, it was a refreshing change. He had spoken to lots of children around that age who recognized him, in all different countries. He supposed that his fanbase did not necessarily overlap with Ilya’s. “Who is stronger, you or Shane Hollander?” the child asked excitedly. Ilya laughed, and looked around until he made eye contact with someone Alex assumed was the child’s parent. They gave him a thumbs up, and Ilya turned back to face the boy “I am the strongest, if you don’t believe me, I can show you!” He bent and held out his muscular arm, forming an “L” shape, inviting the boy to grab ahold of his bicep. “Ready?” he asked. The boy nodded, beaming. Ilya then made a show of standing up slowly, easily straightening and bending his arm, completing several bicep curls with the young fan hanging off of his arm. The boy kicked his feet and giggled until the hockey player lowered him back to his feet once more. Alex noticed the boy’s family a few feet away, filming the interaction on an iPad. Soon, a line-up of children formed, each one wanting a turn.
Alex wasn’t sure what to expect when meeting two all-star hockey players, but it wasn’t this. Ilya was kind, thoughtful, and gentle, and Shane was polite, quiet, and well-spoken. He remembered his old lacrosse teammates back in high school- he had his friends on the team, but there were a bunch of meatheads too, jerks that were pumped so full of testosterone there was nothing else in their brains. He wondered, silently, if any of Shane and Ilya’s teammates had the emotional depth and complexity that these two men had.
Henry was surprised to discover how much he truly liked the person in front of him. He had always valued fitness for himself, and he’d never pretend not to appreciate how impressive Alex’s muscular legs and ass were, but he always thought of professional athletes as the epitome of toxic masculinity. Looking at the anxious eyed, freckled faced man in front of him, and listening to him speak so passionately about philanthropy, Henry was forced to question everything he knew about hockey. Which, to be fair, wasn’t much to begin with.
“I watched the press conference a few years back, when you two announced your charity. I thought it was very brave when Ilya spoke of his mum.” Shane nodded seriously. “I was so proud of him. He didn’t plan to say any of it, I think it just felt important to him to share in the moment.” Henry leaned back in his chair and wondered if he’d ever have the strength to speak openly about his own father’s death. “I don’t talk about it much, but I lost my father to cancer when I was young” he managed, his throat feeling strangely tight. “It is something that is hard to share with anyone. What Ilya did, it means a lot to people like me, who are still afraid.” Arthur Fox’s death was no secret from the world, but in all his time as a public figure, it seemed that the press and the public all knew not to force Henry to talk about the way he lost his father.
“Can I ask,” Shane said timidly, avoiding eye contact, “Is there any part of the experience, losing a parent I mean, that I should know, as his partner? I can feel his grief some days, but he doesn’t like to talk about it, and I don’t always know what the best way to support him is.” Henry smiled, the whole conversation feeling bittersweet. He couldn’t believe he had stereotyped Shane and Ilya, it was clearer than ever that they were both so much more than just athletes.
Eventually, the crowd of fans dissipated, and Alex and Ilya were able to return to their boyfriends with (slightly cold) coffees in hand. “Sorry”, Ilya said to Alex as they walked back to their table “I always spend time with my young fans, when I can. They are so small and full of life. I guess I am too soft.” He felt his face get hot. He knew exactly what his father would say if he saw him indulge young children like this. Alex looked at him with piercing brown eyes that somehow seemed to read his mind. “Being kind is not a bad thing” He said gently. “You just went out of your way to make those kids smile, and that is something they'll remember forever. It’s really fucking special, actually.”
Ilya sat next to Shane, wiping away tears he couldn't explain as he did. Alex, thankfully, pretended not to notice. “For his royal highness, a half-calf espresso” he recited dramatically, placing the drink in front of Henry, who rolled his eyes at the use of his title. “I saw you doing bicep curls with children again” Shane said, in a tone that Ilya knew was meant to be scolding but came across as affectionate instead. “I swear, one day you’re going to hurt your back! Or your arm.” Ilya threw his hands up in the air “How is it that you see everything, huh? I thought you were busy talking about tax receipts or something” He pointed a finger at Henry, a smile on his face, “Your job was to distract him. You failed.” Henry put his hands up in a mock surrender. Alex absently checked his watch. “Shit, we’re going to miss our flight if we don’t find our gate!” He smiled sadly at Shane and Ilya. “This was fun” Ilya said, “Is nice to speak to people who understand what it’s like” he gestured awkwardly between himself and Shane, hoping they understood. They both nodded in agreement. “Montreal is cool, we’ll definitely be back” Alex said. Ilya could tell he truly meant it, unlike so many other public figures, who pretended they were friends with Ilya when they only really cared about how to use his brand to promote their own. “I’m sorry we were not able to stay longer” Henry added. They both stood slowly, and Henry offered his hand to them. Ilya sat staring dumbly at it for a moment, his sleep deprived brain forgetting how people greet each other with their hands. Shane took his hand and shook it, and Ilya did the same. Alex held out a fist, and Ilya enthusiastically bumped his against it. “We’ll see you soon” Henry said, tucking his hands in his jacket pocket.
To Be Continued...