Archive of Our Own ^omega

"It's nice, the way you say my name
Not very fast or slow, just soft and low
The same as when you tell me how you feel
I feel the same way, too
I'm very much in love with you"
-bless the telephone

Jully 11th, 2022

Shane wakes up before Ilya. This isn't unusual. Generally, he gets up and starts his morning routine, making coffee for Ilya before starting on his own smoothie. This morning he pulls his phone off the nightstand and looks over his Instagram draft.

He isn't much for social media on his own accounts. He follows general goings-on through what Ilya shows him, and keeps up with their friends the same way. His accounts are mostly ads and sponcon. He posted when they came out, he posted on their wedding, and he posted on Ilya's birthday the last two years. Periodically, he posts something about his mom or dad, and there's a handful of Anya posts now.

But, really, compared to Ilya, he doesn't post much.

This felt important, though. They haven't confirmed a timeline for anyone, just told people it had been a while. "Several years", he'd said in the first post. Their team has attempted to pry firm dates out of them a few times, but neither of them has given in to the teasing.

But a few months ago, CCM had run their ad again. Shane had started thinking about how their entire relationship had been documented, and yet they hadn't confirmed anything to anyone. How all of their time together was there, in photos, but with no context.

He'd talked to Ilya and Farah about making some sort of post, not offhand because he didn't do that, but more hypothetical than intentional. Ilya had told him to post whatever he felt comfortable with, which wasn't much of a shock. Ilya had been documenting their relationship via instagram since the very beginning if you knew what to look for. Pictures of views from shared meals, from hotel windows, sets of both their shoes, Shane's preferred protein powder instead of his own on the counter–Ilya had documented their entire shared history.

But what Shane wants is more than a grid of moments just they know.

Farah had told him he could post whatever he wanted, at this point, but that if he posted about before 2017 to be prepared for questions. The most common theories always led back to All-Stars 2017, and Shane could understand that.

Shane flicks through the ten photos he had picked out, making sure they're cropped how he wants them, then carefully selects "Bless The Telephone" under 'Add Audio'.

He stares at the draft for a few minutes, then hits post. He waits until the post populates on his feed, then locks his phone, sets it back on his nightstand, and slides back down until he can curl into Ilya's side. Ilya shifts in his sleep, pulling him close, and Shane smiles to himself.

Photo One:  Ilya from the back, sitting at the edge of the lake at sunrise. He's smoking a cigarette, though you might only be able to tell if you'd been there. He's shirtless, and the sky is a riot of reds and yellows. The corner says 2017.

Shane hates that Ilya smokes, but he has told himself he can only try to convince Ilya to quit once every time they meet. Anymore feels like nagging, and given how short their time together has been before this trip the cottage, wasting their few and far between moments together rehashing the same thing over and over again doesn't seem worth it.

Ilya knows how he feels about him smoking. He's quite literally known since the moment they met.

Even though Ilya has slipped out of the cottage to smoke first thing in the morning, Shane still wants to be beside him. He finishes making coffee for Ilya and tea for himself and carefully gathers a blanket to take outside with him, two full cups in hand. He sets it all down at the door to snap a photo before going out to join him.

Photo Two:  A still photo from the CCM shoot. It's taken from the side, and you can see the bright grin on Ilya's face and the flush on Shane's. It's a few takes before they started laughing, but after they stopped being able to be serious. The corner says 2010.

That had been the first time. The beginning. The first day of the rest of his life. Shane isn't very poetic, but he'd come up with a thousand ways to tell Ilya it was the most important thing that had happened to him.

Photo Three:  A behind-the-scenes photo from their second All-Star game. They're both in tee-shirts and jeans, standing beside one another, but talking to other people. They're not the focus of the shot–Carter Vaughan is. But they're in focus, maybe leaning into each other even though they're holding separate conversations. The corner says 2012.

By the second All-Star game, Shane is a little less worried about being seen together. There's guys who have gotten in fights every year for the last decade having a beer together at these events. A few guys hold on to genuine animosity–one guy once said he'd get off the ice if he was forced to play with another guy, but then they did play together, and they even scored on the same line. It's not that there aren't genuine feuds in hockey, but the real, true assholes don't socialize with most of them at All-Stars.

Not that a lot of guys don't think that Ilya is a real asshole, but Dallas Kent is suspiciously absent from the bar, even though he'd been sent here by Toronto. Speelman from Tampa is also absent, even if his asshole behavior is quieter and less brash than Kent's.

But none of the overt assholes are there in the bar, and Shane can feel himself relaxing as the night goes on. He's not drinking, and Ilya's only had two beers so far. The rest of the guys are going pretty hard, because no one cares if you're hungover for the skills competition. But Shane and Ilya have plans–plans that thankfully don't include Scott Hunter next door.

Shane's aware of the BTS cameras hovering around them, but as the night goes on and Ilya stays close enough he can feel his body heat when they lean in, he forgets about them. It's nice to be socializing with their friends together. They don't get this opportunity at any other event, not even the awards.

Photo Four:  Shane has his head down on the table, a half-eaten McGriddle beside him, with an empty hashbrown wrapper just beyond it. A large McDonald's cup is sweating at his elbow. He's wearing a Raiders hoodie, the 81 just visible on the sleeve. He's also flipping the camera off. The corner says 2015.

The Metros win the last match-up of the year with Boston. They've been on a tear since New Years. Both their teams are headed to the playoffs, thankfully not against each other unless something goes wildly wrong with the rest of their division this week, and Marlow had invited the Metros out to celebrate the end of the season.

Shane isn't sure what combination of goading and betting had gotten him as drunk as he was the night before, but he could barely remember Ilya dragging him out of the bar sometime before last call. They hadn't even been able to hook up, though Shane does remember pushing Ilya to the couch to sit on his lap and make out with him for a while.

"Say Cheese, Hollander," Ilya says from across the table. Shane flips him off, taking a deep breath to make sure the half of a McGriddle he'd consumed stayed down. "Is better with syrup," Ilya tells him.

"First of all," Shane says, lifting his head. "Fuck you. Second, that monstrosity isn't syrup."

Shane doesn't have a lot of loyalties to Canadian products–he'll never admit it, because he doesn't want to be hunted for sport, but Dunkin is better than Timmies. But syrup is a hard line. Whatever disgusting liquid McDonald's has packaged as Maple Syrup is not Maple Syrup.

Ilya laughs at him and takes a bite of his second McGriddle, drenched in fake syrup.

Photo Five:  Ilya and Shane in Hayden's backyard. They each have a twin hanging off one arm, and Ilya is holding Amber up to kiss her cheek with his other arm, while Shane has Arthur on his hip, the boy's head tucked under his chin. The corner says 2018.

The summer Ilya moves to Ottawa, they go to dinner with the Pikes at least every other week. Shane has been staying in Ottawa with Ilya, but he makes sure that if something brings him back to Montreal, he plans in time with the Pikes, too. Jackie always has food that Shane likes and can eat, and has no problem texting Ilya to pick something up if she needs it. By the time the summer is over, Ilya is Uncle Ilya, and the kids are just as excited to see him as Uncle Shane.

Except maybe Arthur, who spends every minute he can orbiting Shane.

Photo Six:  Ilya is crashing into Shane behind the net in Bell Center after his first goal against Montreal as a Centaur. Ilya is clearly yelling, and Shane is laughing. The corner says 2021.

Shane will never admit to being nervous. He knows Ilya can tell, and probably a handful of the other guys. He doesn't care if they know; he just can't say it out loud, because then he'd have to say why he's nervous, and that's a rabbit hole he'd rather never get into.

His mom and dad had both called him. Rose had called him. Cliff Marlow had called him. Pretty much everyone he and Ilya are friends with had texted him to tell him they were thinking of him and planning to watch the game. Shane wouldn't be surprised if entire rosters were watching this game around the league.

Ilya has let him be nervous all day. He's stayed close, making sure to touch him as much as possible while also keeping other people from touching him if he can. Shane is in the kind of mood where other people–other people besides Ilya, anyway–touching him makes him feel like he needs to tear his skin off. Even Anya laying so her fur touched him made his skin prickle–until he'd shifted so she was touching his clothes, anyway.

But now they're on the ice. They're facing the men he'd thought of as family until so recently. Men he'd been in weddings of, men he'd held the babies of before their in-laws could make it in. Men he'd bled for, men he'd won three fucking cups with. And everything in Shane knows this is going to be a shit show, that they're going to target him and target Barrett and target Ilya.

And everything in Shane wants to shut them up before they can even open their mouths.

They're a minute and seventeen seconds into the game, his line's second shift, Ilya on his wing and Luca on his other. Luca passes to Ilya, who drives down, and without even looking, he sauces it to an open space that Shane isn't at yet, but he will be. Shane puts the puck in the back of the net before any of the Metros can even blink.

Ilya crashes into him before Shane can even round the net. The fans behind them are yelling, and Shane can't tell if it's because they're mad he scored or excited for him because old habits die hard. Luca barrels into them, basically bouncing off them in his excitement, and Shane can't help but throw his head back and laugh.

They win the game 4-1, and Shane has two goals and a secondary assist.

Photo Seven:  Both of them are asleep on a fairly small couch, Shane basically on top of Ilya, his head tucked under his chin. One of Ilya's arms wrapped around him, hugging him tight. Their legs are intertwined. The numbers on their hoodies are wrong–Shane is wearing 81 and Ilya has 24 on. The corner says 2021.

Shane wants to keep the PDA down when they're at the rink. Ilya agrees begrudgingly. Shane knows he'd never push him if he was uncomfortable, but Ilya is also done hiding. Shane is done hiding, too, which is why he holds Ilya's hand in the grocery store and kisses him when they meet up for dinner after time apart, and cuddles against him on the bus and the plane. But he wanted to at least try to be professional at the rink.

The problem is that between Ilya's C and Shane's A, and the fact that both of them lived and breathed for their team during the season, they spent a lot of time at the rink, and more than most people would think wasn't even on the ice. Within a few weeks, Shane had given in on hand holding–just not on the ice–and it wasn't long before he listed sideway and cuddled into Ilya to nap against him in the lounge.

This particular day the captain's meeting had run long, and Shane had been trying to talk one of the rookies off a ledge about a girl he was trying to ask out. Nap time at home wasn't happening, but Ilya was determined to at least cuddle his husband before the rest of the team started to arrive.

Instead of being up when they got there, they woke to a puddle of rookies giggling across the longue and Wyatt and Bood trying to shush them.

Photo Eight:  Ilya is kissing Shane on the cheek, on the ice. Shane is grinning widely, his eyes closed. The corner says 2022.

Shane's first hat-trick as a Centaur comes in January. It's an away game, but it's against Seattle, and the Seattle fans flood the ice with hats. There are pride flags and rainbow jerseys and Seattle Pride jerseys throughout the whole crowd, even though their Pride Night isn't for a few weeks yet. The Seattle captain had promised them a slur-free game before warmups, asking for names if one dropped from his guys.

Ilya pulls Shane to him when they get to the bench, kissing him on the cheek below his visor. It's reminiscent of their first on-ice kiss, back in 2017, when they had to play it off as a joke, and Shane can't help his smile as he thinks about how everyone knows it's real now.

He's Ilya's.

Photo Nine:  Shane and Ilya are holding hands at their wedding, jackets long lost and sleeves rolled up. Ilya's shirt is unbuttoned, and he has a beer in his hand that he's using to make a gesture about something. Shane is watching him, eyes soft. The corner says 21.07.2021.

They will probably never live down the lack of chairs, but Shane can't bring himself to care. Ilya is holding his hand in the middle of their yard, which is filled with more people than he would have ever thought would be on his wedding invite list, let alone want to come.

His mom is talking to Jackie Pike and Rose Landry, and Gloria Grey is headed their way with Ruby Pike showing her something. Knowing Ruby, it's probably a bug.

His dad is talking to Cliff Marlow and Wyatt Hayes. Setva is nodding along seriously to what Jade is saying, and Ilya is telling Scott Hunter's boyfriend about something that's making him grin. Shane isn't paying attention to what they're talking about, but instead reveling in the feeling of being married and surrounded by so many people who care enough to show up to witness it.

Photo Ten:  Ilya is asleep on his stomach, one arm above his head. His loon tattoo is visible on the arm over his head, and the sheets are low on his hips. The photo shows a few red marks on his shoulders. The sun is coming in through the windows, and his curls nearly glow. The corner says 11.07.2022

Shane had planned to put a photo of them from last summer in at the end of the carousel, but when he glanced over, Ilya had made such a perfect photo, and he couldn't help but take one. And now, if ever, was the time he could post this.

He wanted to post this.

He wanted the world to know Ilya was his. Had been his. Had been a secret, but not because they were ashamed.

They'd had to keep their love quiet for so long, but now Shane could love Ilya out loud, and he was going to.