Chapter Text
"Hey." J.J. held out his hand for a handshake, as if he were meeting Ilya for the first time, and Shane supposed that in a way he was. "Zane says you don't suck."
Shane had not made Ilya promise to be on his best behavior, and he regretted that immediately as he watched Ilya shake J.J.'s hand with an expression of exaggerated confusion.
"Bood is slandering me? Why would he do this?" Ilya turned to Shane. "And you! You are letting your friends believe I don't give excellent—"
Shane put his hand over Ilya's mouth. "You know that's not what he meant."
Ilya nodded, and when Shane removed his hand, he blinked innocently. "English is so hard," he said. "Like you when I—"
"NOPE!"
The front door opened and Hayden poked his head out. "Are you guys gonna come in any time today, or what? Not that I mind if Rozanov stays outside. That is one hundred percent fine with me."
"Ilya was just getting everything inappropriate out of his system before we spend time with the kids," Shane said.
"Oh, is that what we're doing?" J.J. asked, sounding way too amused. "In that case I wanted to know if you guys are aware Rozanov has performance-enhancing jizz?"
Hayden made a strangled noise and closed the door, disappearing back inside his house and leaving Shane alone to deal with this.
Ilya looked gleeful.
Shane needed a shovel. He needed to dig a hole in the ground and climb into it. "Is there any way to escape this conversation?"
J.J. grinned. "No chance, buddy. You know how people love to analyze your stats? You used to play like fifteen percent better in games against Boston and games right after. And what do you know, that stat bump happens around Ottowa games now."
Half of Shane still wanted to ruin Hayden's lawn but the other half wanted to cross-reference his stats with days Ilya had off that Montreal played at home. He had a horrifying suspicion that J.J.'s theory would hold true there as well. He'd played the best hockey of his life last year, with Ilya only two hours away. Ilya was smirking, and seemed only seconds from declaring that his dick was responsible for Montreal's most recent Stanley Cup.
Shane wished he could say with certainty that it didn't have anything to do with Ilya's come at all, or at least that he was able to say they'd had safe sex before they were exclusive, but while they'd used condoms with fucking, when it came to other things… Shane had swallowed. Basically every time.
"Okay, we're going inside now," Shane said, and dragged Ilya in behind him.
As he watched Ilya crouch down to listen to the twins talking over each other about something to do with sharks, maybe, Shane realized he'd divided up his feelings incorrectly, because there was a third part, bigger than the other two. That part was just proud and happy and wanted to point at those stats and yell about them to the world. Look, he wanted to say, see? Loving Ilya has only ever made me better, in every way possible.
J.J. stood just inside the entryway, hands in his pockets, a soft smile on his face, and Shane thought that maybe he got it too.
What followed was an afternoon of family-friendly activities. Shane sat with Jackie and happily listened to her talk while Ilya joined the kids' game of princess tea party slash backyard mini ninja warrior. As far as Shane could tell, it consisted of navigating improvised obstacles on the lawn while covered in children's costume jewelry. The kids raced over and past Ilya as he pretended to be bested by an overturned bucket, all of them laughing in the sunlight. Shane watched as Arthur pulled Amber in a wagon over the finish line while Ruby and Jade tackled Ilya to the ground. Ilya flopped backwards dramatically, and the miniature tiara which had been clinging desperately to his curls finally gave up and fell off. His hair was a tangled mess. There were grass stains on his knees. He was beautiful. Hayden and J.J. were there too, probably.
Afterwards Shane teamed up with Arthur and Ilya teamed up with Amber for extremely fraught rounds of Monopoly Junior and Candyland and a stacking game that involved small balls of fuzz that seemed specifically designed to disadvantage large hockey player hands. Ruby and Jade spent a lot of time laughing at them, but at least they were all occupied while Jackie and Hayden and J.J. worked to put together a dinner that was both kid-friendly and fit everyone's nutrition plans.
Then it was dinner and bathtime and bedtime routines and finally, the adults all ended up in the living room with wine.
Well. Shane wasn't having any, but nobody had commented on it either, and he was sitting on a couch pressed next to Ilya surrounded by some of his favorite people, which was basically as relaxing as things ever got for Shane during the hockey season.
He took a sip of his seltzer, and turned to J.J. "About what you said earlier—"
"Man, I wasn't serious about the jizz. I just meant that getting laid regularly is clearly working for you. I am absolutely not suggesting you bottle the stuff and take it on road trips—"
"No!" Shane would flee the house before opening that conversation up again. "Really no. I meant what you said to Ilya. I thought you were friends with Wyatt? Why did you ask Boodram about Ilya and not him?"
J.J. laughed. "Wyatt is way too nice, dude. Anyway his wasn't the kind of opinion I needed. Which you would know if you didn't mute the groupchat, Shane."
Ilya, the meddling gossip-hound, practically had stars in his eyes as he leaned in. "There is groupchat?"
"You don't get to know about the groupchat, Rozanov," J.J. said. "No offense, but you're like the whitest man alive."
Ilya gasped. "How dare you say this to me when Hayden Pike is right here!"
He gestured at Hayden, who rolled his eyes and sipped his wine and gave Ilya the finger. Jackie patted him on the thigh for his restraint. Shane approved.
"Poor baby," Shane cooed tauntingly at his currently more annoying partner. "You're equal to Hayden, is that better?"
"Equal. Me. Equal to Hayden Pike? How could you betray me like this?" Ilya was clearly refraining from yelling only due to being in a house with four small sleeping chidren. "Most of Russia is geographically in Asia!"
J.J. raised his eyebrows at Shane, clearly conveying: Has your man ever met a hill he didn't want to die on?
Shane shook his head back, meaning: Unfortunately I really enjoy murdering him on every single one, and said, "Oooh, geographically. Big word. Doesn't change the fact that you're from Moscow."
Ilya pouted, and started hitting Shane with one of Jackie's very nice throw pillows, which was basically admitting defeat. Shane closed his eyes and basked in his glorious victory.
"You can ask, you know," Shane said. It was just Shane, J.J. and Hayden sitting in Shane's apartment watching Ilya's team win on the television. The Centaurs had been winning ever since Shane had asked Ilya to marry him, and Shane's superstitious hockey player brain couldn't help but turn correlation into causation. He'd handed an opposing team a good luck charm; did his friends think he'd helped Ilya win in other ways too?
J.J. glanced away from the screen, which was currently showing Ilya celebrating his goal off of Troy Barrett's assist by gleefully smashing the guy into the boards. "Ask about what? Your plans to murder Barrett?"
"What? No. I'm not going to murder Troy Barrett."
"Okay," Hayden said. "Glad to know I won't be going to jail as an accomplice. What is it you're expecting us to ask about, then? Your sex life? I don't want to know about your sex life."
Shane wrinkled his nose. "Gross. No. Feel free to pretend I don't have one. I do the same for you."
"Buddy, he has four entire children!" J.J. pointed out.
Shane shrugged. "All immaculately conceived, as far as I'm concerned. No, I meant, you can ask if I ever let him win."
Both Hayden and J.J. burst out laughing.
"Why are you laughing? My mom asked me if I ever let him win. My mom."
"I would bet a thousand dollars it was before she saw how you are together," J.J. said. "I was there when you brought him to Hayden's house, remember? You fought about Candy Land. Candy. Land. For ages three and up."
"He was counting cards!"
Hayden reached out and grabbed Shane by the shoulders. "Shane. Buddy. You are my best friend. I am always on your side. If you decide you want to throw Ilya Rozanov into a fire I'm right there with you. But you sound fucking deranged right now."
"It's normal to not want to lose," Shane said.
"Seriously, though," J.J. said, "remember what I said about your stats the other day? Like, objectively, you were clearly never letting him win."
Shane realized something. "You looked it up. You thought about it and you went looking for the data. Is that what made you sure?"
"No," J.J. said, "it was when you practically got hard telling me all about how you and your boyfriend were better at hockey than Scott Hunter."
"Fiancé," Shane corrected, at the same time as Hayden said, "Ew."
J.J. laughed. "Chill, dude. It isn't enough to be the best hockey player in the league, you've gotta be the most possessive man alive, too? It was boyfriend at the time."
Shane crossed his arms. "You know I was already planning to ask and anyway nobody else is good enough for him."
He was maybe glaring at the TV when he said it, at Ilya welcoming Luca Haas back to the bench with a boisterous hug. Haas was just a baby, sure, but extrapolating from things Ilya had said about him, he was a baby who had regularly jacked off to a poster of Shane's fiancé.
It wasn't as if Shane could blame him, though. And it didn’t matter if Haas had a crush, because Ilya was wearing Shane's ring. He'd be telling his team soon, including little Luca Haas, who wasn't actually very little and also wore glasses and was more than fine at hockey. Still, he was no Shane Hollander, and Shane Hollander was going to marry Ilya Rozanov.
"Are you going to murder Luca Haas?" Hayden asked. "Because, again, I support you one hundred percent in everything you do, but I'm not really down with murdering children."
"I'm not murdering anyone," Shane said, "except maybe you two for being so annoying."
They all watched as the game ended in another Centaurs win.
"They're probably going to make the playoffs," J.J. said.
"Yeah," Shane said. "It's starting to look that way." The way Ilya talked about it was like it was a sure thing, like the Centaurs had just collectively decided one day that they were done losing and so they had begun to win, and that decision would carry them through.
"We're probably going to have to play them in the first round," J.J. said.
Hayden nudged Shane. "Is it bad if I'm really looking forward to kicking your fiancé out of the playoffs?"
"Yes," Shane said, even though beating Ilya was one of his favorite things in the world. Beating Ilya at the top of his game was even better. Still: "You can't take a series for granted. The Centaurs have been coming together really well lately."
"Whatever you say, Captain."
"You're marrying Rozanov this summer," J.J. said, which was a weird change of subject.
"Yeah. Is this about the bachelor party? I already told you—"
"You're coming out together this summer," J.J. said. He sounded serious, even if he was sticking with English, which Shane recognized was probably for Hayden's sake. "After we probably face the team your fiancé is the captain of. The guys…I think we need to start preparing them."
Honestly, Shane had been hoping to Scott Hunter his way through it. Win another Cup and then come out with Ilya and have that to point to as proof that who Shane loved didn't negatively affect his hockey at all. But J.J. was probably right. The team wasn't ostracizing Shane after he'd come out to them, but it wasn't as if everything was still the same either, and he'd done that after multiple championships together. "This is why you looked up the stats," Shane realized.
"Just laying the groundwork," J.J. said with a shrug, as if thinking about that was nothing, as if it wasn't everything to know J.J. was worrying about him and doing something about it.
"Wait," Shane said. "Is that why you guys told that whole story in the locker room about me flipping a table playing Monopoly Junior with him?"
Hayden smiled. "Yeah, buddy. We've got your back."