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Ilya was happily curled up on the couch with Shane and Anya scrolling through twitter, occasionally rage baiting Montreal fans in his replies just to keep Harris on his toes.
Shane interrupted his scrolling with a mumbled, “that’s not right.”
“Hmm?”
“Your salary”
“What do you mean moya lyubov?”
“Here look it’s not right”
Shane turned his phone to face Ilya showing him the salary listed under his name.
“No, is correct”
“What? No, it’s like half what you were making last year, that can’t be right?”
“Don’t worry about it, is right”
“But you’ve done so much for the team how could they possibly cut your salary? The only change to the team in the off season is that I signed but that shouldn’t affect you, you’re still captain”
“Hey, hey is no big deal, don’t stress about it.”
He tried to distract his husband from his phone with a kiss, but Shane pulled away.
“Wait they managed to match my salary from Montreal, I thought they just used the rest of their salary cap for that. Did they make you take a pay cut for me to be on the team?”
Ilya could see the panic starting to rise in Shane and decided it was time to come clean.
“Hey, relax moy pomidor, I asked them for a reduced salary”
“Wait what why? Ilya you’re the best player in the league why would you do that?”
“It is time for me to become trophy husband,” Ilya said grinning at Shane, who stared back at him like he’d told him he wanted a loon for a pet.
“You want to quit hockey?” he finally asked.
“No? I want you to win the bread and I will be a pretty trophy husband, who also plays hockey because I’m not letting you beat me in goals that easily.”
“Win the bread-? You mean breadwinner?”
“Is what I said,”
“So, you took a pay cut for me?”
“Da”
“I don’t understand, why you would do that though?”
“Hollander you remember that we are very rich, correct?”
“I know but I don’t understand”
“Since you won’t let me fill our garage with beautiful sports cars, I don’t need a big salary anymore,”
“You gave up half your salary because I don’t want to get a call saying my husband is wrapped around a tree in one of his death traps of a car?” Shane said with a raised eyebrow.
Ilya could tell Shane was not going to let this go until he got a satisfactory explanation.
“Well I was talking to Yuna about my contract before you officially signed to Ottawa and she explained how important it is that young kids can watch hockey and see someone like them playing hockey. Not just a super gay person,”
“Regular gay, Ilya” Shane interrupted with a glare.
“Fine a regular gay player, but she also said it was important for an Asian Canadian player to be paid what he’s worth. I didn’t want you to have to take a pay cut to come to the centaurs and be paid less than you deserve because Montreal are a bunch of homophobic assholes who fucked over their only good player.”
“You halved your salary so I wouldn’t have to settle for less,” Shane said as his eyes began to tear up.
“I didn’t want little kids like you to think they weren’t worth the same as everyone else, so I changed the narrative.”
Tears began to fall from Shane’s eyes but before Ilya could wipe them away, Shane launched himself at Ilya tackling him into a hug that almost knocked them both off the couch.
“I love you” Shane mumbled into Ilya’s shoulder as the tears started to soak through his shirt.
Anya who had been woken up by their movement huffed at them and relocated to her bed near the fire to resume her nap.
Ilya snorted at the side eye the dog was giving them from her bed.
Shane lifted his head from Ilya’s neck at the noise, “I love you so much Ilya,” he said before kissing his husband, “ya lyublyu tebya”
“Ya tozhe tebya lyublyu” Ilya said kissing Shane again.
Later, after they’d relocated to the bedroom because Shane refused to traumatise Anya by doing anything with her in the room, Ilya brought up one of Shane’s earlier comments.
“So, you admit I am best hockey player, yes?”
“Shut the fuck up asshole” Shane mumbled half asleep on Ilya’s chest.
“That’s not what you were saying to me before moy kormilets,”
Shane rolled his eyes and contemplated rolling off Ilya for that remark but decided he was too comfortable and settled with asking his husband,
“What’s that one?”
“My breadwinner”
Shane laughed and lifted his head to kiss his husband again, before picking up his phone as it buzzed, “Why is Harris asking me to change your twitter password again? What did you do?”
Ilya feinted surprise, “I am innocent man, I would never troll Montreal fans online”
Smirking up at his husband he used his earlier words against him, “that’s not what you were saying before,”
Ilya smirked back at him before flipping them over and hovering over Shane, “I thought you liked when I’m not innocent?”
Shane pulled Ilya down to kiss him, “I’m not sure, maybe I need another demonstration.”