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Ilya knows he should have checked their shared calendar. He had meant to that morning, but he’d woken up next to Shane Hollander with nowhere to be, and, well, the expected events had occurred. He’d then gone out with David and his childhood friend (a wedding planner named Evangeline. David was not being subtle) and by the time he’d driven them back to the Hollanders’ Montreal rental apartment he’d entirely forgotten what day it was, and wanted nothing more than to rush home and collapse into his fiancé’s arms.
He expects a calm, quiet homecoming when he taps in the code to Shane’s apartment. Maybe some dessert and the next episodes of WandaVision with his man. What he gets when he swings the door open, however, is the obnoxious laughter and scuffling of seventy-five percent of the Montreal Voyageurs roster.
Ilya freezes in the doorway when he meets the sightline of Gilbert Comeau, who is sat wide-kneed on the back of Shane’s couch. It’s a domino effect then: Comeau elbows the defenseman to his left and then the defenseman, borderline laughing, leans over to whisper to another teammate in the kitchen. No less than four seconds later, Shane, eyes wide, rounds the corner and all but runs up to Ilya. His gait is stiff, his expression even more so, and when Ilya takes his hands he sees his shoulders drop.
The anxiety in his expression makes Ilya’s stomach feel all hollow inside. “I got my dates mixed up, Shane, I’m so sorry. I can leave, go stay with your parents-”
Shane shakes his head and squeezes Ilya’s hand. “No, no. It’s fine, baby. This is your house too. I’m not gonna kick you out.”
Ilya hears a loud laugh from the kitchen and he knows that it’s at his expense. Either that, or it’s at Shane’s expense, which he hopes to God isn’t the case. For the laughers sake. He swallows hard and looks Shane in the eye. Steady, grounding.
“Are your friends here? Pike? Boiziau?” Ilya says gently, gaze then scanning over Shane’s face to catch every twitch of muscle.
Shane shakes his head. “They’re running late. Carpooling, since J.J. is designated driver. I told them it wasn’t logistically effective, but J.J. hasn’t been listening to me since-” His lower lip trembles and he bites it into his mouth.
Ilya rubs his thumb over his fiancé’s wrist. “Okay. I can wait upstairs. Enjoy yourself, if you can, and I’ll be in bed whenever you have had enough.”
Shane meets his eyes, dark pupils flicking between Ilya’s own and the space between his eyebrows. He nods, squeezes his hands, and sets his jaw. There’s something in his expression that Ilya can’t pinpoint, and that makes him nervous, but he drops their hands and lets Shane return to the kitchen.
He toes his shoes off and hangs his jacket on his designated hook, the one right next to Shane’s. He is very, very aware of the tension that presses up against his back, even as he hears the Voyageurs gather silverware and open pizza boxes, and he keeps his expression cool, collected, and Slavic as he starts towards the staircase.
“Ilya!” Shane’s voice is loud and clear, cutting through the thick quiet of the living space, and Ilya stops dead in his tracks. He pivots on a heel and tilts his head towards his fiancé. “Do you want something to take with you?” Shane motions at the spread on the island. “If you want pizza, the pepperoni and olive slices are in the last box to the left.”
Shane is staring at him, unsmiling but not unhappy, and Ilya stares back as if to ask, ‘my love, what are you doing?’ Shane’s gaze is measured, sure, and a bit deranged.
“Actually, wait. I’ll make you a plate. Everything you like, yeah?” And Ilya nods slowly. He crosses the silent room to stand in the kitchen with them all, behind Shane, leaning back against the counter. He crosses his arms and watches the quarter-profile of his handsome fiancé as he drags the bowl of edamame towards himself and starts to slip the beans out from their casing.
The Voyageurs are moving, yes, but the lack of speaking is so significant it’s nearly oppressive. Shane’s shoulders are stiff under Ilya’s observation, but he mills around the kitchen searching for the sauce that Ilya likes to smother his pasta in. He has to nudge Drapeau’s arm to grab it, and Drapeau’s whole body goes tense. Shane, if he notices, doesn’t mention it, instead reaching for a bowl of edamame and starting to pop the beans out into a small bowl for Ilya, like he always does when they’re alone.
Ilya looks at the ceiling, or the wall, until one of Montreal’s wingers breaks the near-silence. “So, Roz,” Martin tongues around the nickname like it’s an insult, “how long has this fling been going on for?”
“That’s none of your busine-” Ilya starts.
“The whole time.” Shane says at the same time. Loudly.
For the hundredth time that night, the kitchen goes silent, save for some soft snaps while Shane works the edamame.
“This fling started in twenty-ten, the summer before our rookie season. You remember that promo commercial we did? Posters everywhere, that ad they ran at every game break, you couldn’t escape it. That’s the day we first hooked up.”
Somebody laughs. Ilya doesn’t know who and doesn’t care, since all his attention is lasered onto Shane. Shane, who hasn’t looked up from his busy work, raises an eyebrow. “You think I’m joking, Buchanan?”
The man, Buchanan, clicks his tongue. “Nah, man. I just feel bad for you, if that shit’s true. We all remember the tabloids. Your boyfriend here fucked half the continent, and you’re bragging about being cucked like it’s hot.”
Shane finishes with the edamame and finally looks up, making direct eye contact with Buchanan. “Sure, for a while it was sporadic and infrequent and in between lots of other partners-” he side-eyes Ilya at that, and the other man just smiles, “and we danced around each other for years because of shit just like this.” He waves a hand out towards his teammates, then grabs a plate off of the stack on the island. The ceramic makes a sharp scraping noise and Shane doesn’t even flinch as he continues. “But we found our way to each other eventually. Isn’t that exactly what happened with you and Angela, Bucky?”
Ilya watches Shane chew the inside of his cheek for a moment before he shrugs and continues, almost shaking with brimming emotion. “Ilya is my soulmate. We’ve been completely monogamous for almost five years – not that it would be any of your business if we weren't – and this year I asked him to marry me, and he said yes, and so I’d really fucking appreciate it if you all acted like my fiancé being in our apartment was normal, because it is.”
There’s no response. A defenseman that Ilya kind of recognizes opens and closes his mouth like a goldfish, but can’t come up with anything worth saying.
Shane reaches for a ladle. “You called me selfish last week, Comeau. I’ve never been selfish before in my whole fucking life. Everything I have ever done was for somebody else. Hockey for my mom, algebra for my dad, three languages for family I’ve never met in Japan, and making myself polite and digestible so that the whole damn league can use me as their poster boy. Three Cup wins, making the playoffs nine years out of eleven, all of your weddings? All for you. And yes, through all that –the whole fucking time– your captain was taking it up the ass. It’s not fucking selfish to fall in love, or to withhold some incredibly private information because I was fucking scared that exactly what is happening would happen.”
Comeau, face full of Shane’s food and with three of Shane’s Stanley Cup rings back home, starts to laugh, and Ilya wants to knock all the cheese and teeth from his mouth. “That what would happen, Holly? That your teammates would be pissed that you kept such big shit from us for, what, a decade? That’s a crazy expectation to put on us, even for you, and now you’re playing the damn victim and taking credit for our wins… That’s shitty.”
Ilya has to dig his nails into his biceps so hard that he’s sure he’ll be bruised in an hour. He keeps his attention on Shane, though, because all these other poor excuses for men can drop to their knees and suck his whole dick.
Actually, no. Sucking Ilya’s dick is a privilege and an honor that only Shane Hollander is worthy of.
For some reason, Comeau is still talking. “I had so much respect for you, man. We all did. We didn’t even care that you were gay, or whatever. I said I got no problem with people like you.”
Shane barks a laugh, humorless and dry. “Right, because the years of calling each other ‘faggot’ and ‘cocksucker’ made the locker room a real safe space for ‘people like me.’ You’re full of it, Gil. Always have been.”
“Wanna talk about whose ‘full of it,’ bitch? You were literally sleeping with the enemy for ten goddamn years!”
“He’s not the enemy,” Shane snaps, “he’s just a guy who plays hockey. Who cares if he wore a Bears jersey for a few years? Who gives a fuck if he’s got a place in Canada now? Rivalries are bullshit built-up media constructs, let me fucking tell you. None of it was real. Ilya and I, meeting in hotel rooms and in this very apartment, was always real. Trust me, Bucky, you don’t want to know what we’ve done on that counter.”
Ilya watches Buchanan flinch. Like, full-body flinch, and he pulls his hands off of the marble countertop faster than he’s ever been on the ice.
Shane grins, toothy and a little bit maniacal. “And since I’ve decided that I’m not renewing with the Voyageurs next season,” it felt like the air itself turns to concrete at this admission, “I really don’t have to pretend like the way you’ve been treating me is okay anymore, and I can love you all, and have so much pride in our accomplishments and the memories we share, but I’m not going to apologize for being a man who fell in love, even if it’s with somebody who is inconvenient for your hockey brains to understand. If any of you can get past that hurdle, I’d like to remain friends even after I leave. If not, then good fucking riddance, because I deserve better. Ilya, is this a good portion for you?” Shane picks up a platter heaped with pizza and pasta and edamame and holds it out beside him.
Ilya shifts his weight to stand fully and steps up beside his fiancé.
“Perfect. Like always. Thank you, my love.” Ilya says, taking his plate with one hand and snaking the other around Shane’s neck to rest on his shoulder. He leans in and presses a kiss, chaste but lingering, to his cheek. When he pulls back, Shane is staring directly into Martin’s glare.
“You are all invited to our wedding,” Ilya says, unsmiling and with one hand still heavy on Shane’s shoulder, “at my house in Ottawa on July tenth. It’s not a big event. If you come, just wear a suit and eat some cake. You could also wear a dress, if you’d like.” He smirks in that signature Rozanov way that had hung up on the wall of the Voyageurs locker room with dart holes all across it. “We don’t mind. Whatever makes you happy.”
It’s not even a dig, but Ilya knows that the mere insinuation that a man of such high excellence to qualify as a Montreal Voyageur would ever wear a dress is so offensive to these boys that he could get another broken tooth in a split-second. He sees the effects immediately, in Martin’s flared nostrils and Drapeau’s curled lip. They’re all expressions that he knows well after years of being the league’s leading ragebaiter, knowing exactly where to probe and tease at his opponents until they’d launch themselves at him, seething, and earn his team a power play.
He’s been at the receiving end of a four-on-one glove drop before, in a playoff game when he was twenty-two, and it had been a rush. Pure anger and adrenaline had painted his opponents’ faces and had made him grin and bare his teeth like a man possessed. Now, at twenty-nine, Ilya stares down eighteen seasoned players and feels that same flood of energy. Though now it’s less of a rush and more of a churn: steadier and stronger, like an ocean of pride and hate and strength and love and resolve sloshing around him and his fiancé.
Said fiancé reaches up to squeeze Ilya’s hand and turns to give him a soft, proud smile. He nods only one time, as if to say, ‘thank you’ and ‘I love you’ and ‘you can go, I’ll be fine’ all at once, and Ilya leaves the kitchen without so much as glancing at any of the men who had made his Shane cry in his arms. They don’t deserve it. For once, Ilya Rozanov takes the high road.