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They don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about it until they have no other choice.
They’re in bed together, Shane lying on Ilya’s chest, relaxed and boneless as he strokes his hair.
“We play Montreal tomorrow,” Ilya speaks softly so as not to disturb Shane. It doesn’t work as he immediately feels Shane tense in his arms.
“Yes,” Shane replies tersely.
“I want to kill them, of course. I want to hit them until the ice is covered in blood and they need ambulance to take them home.” Ilya pauses. “But I will not. If you do not want me to.”
Shane doesn’t reply for several long moments. Ilya lets him take his time. (Because they had that now. Time. No more rushed hookups because curfew was in thirty minutes. No more conversations stretched across entire games, held in two-second increments as they faced off or checked each other. Ilya has the rest of his life with his husband, so he could wait a little bit for a response.)
“I want that too. Is that bad? They were my team for years, and now I want to see them injured…”
“No, lyubimiy moy. Is healthy I think. They hurt you, you want to hurt them. You don’t owe them anything, not anymore.”
“We need to win, though.” Shane sits up, pulling out of Ilya’s arms. “I need to win. Beating them up means nothing if we lose. I want them to see what they lost. That I’m not a good player in spite of you, but because of you. Because you push me to be better.”
“Ok, ok. I can fight Montreal, but only when we are winning, ok?”
Shane sighs, letting Ilya pull him back down to the bed. “Deal.”
*
They have a lazy morning. Ilya wakes Shane up with a very very thorough blowjob in his best attempt to keep Shane relaxed.
After, they make breakfast. Or, more accurately, Ilya makes himself a generous portion of bacon, eggs, and toast, while Shane blends his disgusting smoothie. They’ve been working on Shane’s diet, and any other morning Ilya would bully him into oatmeal or yogurt instead, but he knows that Shane needs this today, something simple that he can control. Shane ends up stealing a couple of bites off Ilya’s plate anyway, so he counts it as a win.
Their drive over to the arena is quiet, holding hands loosely across the console. Ilya pulls Shane into a long and lingering kiss in the parking lot, just because he can.
The locker room is loud, as always, but Shane is silent as he gets ready, methodically putting on his gear, wrapping his stick with careful, measured movements. This is not unusual. Shane has never been particularly rowdy in the locker room, although Ilya always attempts to rile him up, with varying levels of success. Ilya lets him be today, and the rest of the team does the same.
But, eventually, the game awaits.
“Alright, listen up you fuckers.” Ilya shouts, the locker room falling silent as all eyes go to their captain.
“I want to win. I know you want to win too. But tonight, tonight is personal. Because Montreal-” Ilya pauses for a second and is rewarded with the well-rehearsed chorused reply.
“Fuck Montreal!”
“-Because Montreal decides to be idiots and give up the best thing they ever have. Their loss, our gain. They still think they are better, though. Whole world thinks they are better. They think being best team means winning the most cups, having the big names. They forget how to work together, how to focus on future, not just legacy. Everyone calls us the worst team. Me? I don’t think this is so true anymore. But if being the worst team means having each other’s backs, playing as team, then I want us to go out there tonight and be the worst fucking team in the league!”
The end of his speech is met with hollers and banging sticks. Good, Ilya wants his team fired up. Then Shane stands up and clears his throat a little. The room goes silent again as they all look to him.
“Ilya is right.” Shane begins. Those are Ilya’s three favorite words, behind “I love you” and “fuck me, please,” though he doesn’t get to hear them often. Any other time, Ilya would be gloating, but, priorities.
Shane’s not a captain anymore, not even an assistant captain, so really, he shouldn’t be giving pre-game speeches. But when have the Centaurs ever done something the usual way?
“They’re a weak team. They’ve relied too long on having a star center, let their defense get lazy, and their plays become nothing more than getting the puck to me-to the center. Drapeau’s reaction time is a little slow on his left hand. Schneider has a bum knee, can’t make sharp turns.” Shane turns to face Wyatt. “Comeau will feint like he’s going to the upper right, but he doesn’t ever commit to it.” Shane continued, listing every single member of their opponent’s roster and how to beat them. Ilya watched in awe, overwhelmed by how attractive his husband was at this moment. Biggest fucking hockey IQ in the league and he’s using it to completely disassemble his asshole former teammates. Ilya wants to push him into the nearest wall and kiss him senseless, among other, even less appropriate, things.
They exit the tunnel to a roaring crowd. Ilya is thankful that this match is in Ottawa. Their stadium, their ice, their fans. The stadium is packed. Now that the team is consistently winning, and now that they have Shane Hollander, they’ve finally started to have sell-out games. He can see quite a few Metros fans in the stands who have made the relatively short drive over for this historic match, but a majority of people are there for them. He spots some people in Shane’s old Montreal jersey and wonders which team they’re actually here to support today.
Ilya crouches down across from Montreal’s new first-line center, Berkes. He’s supposed to be decent, recently promoted from the second line, but he’s no replacement for Shane, and based on the nervous look on his face, he knows it. Ilya feels slightly bad for him, playing for such a shitty team with enormous shoes to fill. Because of this and because he promised Shane he would play nice, for now at least, he sends him a lazy smile.
“Good luck tonight.”
Berkes looks bewildered, clearly having been bracing for a classic Rozanov chirp. His face cycles through a few emotions before landing on an unattractive sneer. He spits out, "Surprised you can still talk with Hollander’s dick so far down your throat.”
Ah. Nevermind. Ilya does not feel bad for him at all. He wonders if he had been practicing that chirp in the mirror all morning, it felt rehearsed.
Ilya doesn’t give him the reaction he wants, instead he arranges his face into a blank, confused look, tilting his head. “Yes, I enjoy satisfying my husband. Do you not go down on your wife? I feel very bad for Amelia. I will have to call her after game, tell her she deserves better sex.”
Berkes opens his mouth to respond, probably with a question of how he knows his wife’s name (thank you Shane), but then the puck drops and Ilya is busy skating off with it.
True to his word, Ilya plays a clean game. For eight minutes. Shane scores with a quick snapshot over Drapeau’s left shoulder, who, just as he said, lifts his glove a second too late. Shane has to skate past Comeau to get back to the bench, and Ilya watches as Comeau leans in to mutter something to Shane as he passes. Shane frowns in response, his face hard and unreadable. Ilya doesn’t hear what was said, but he doesn’t have to. He’s grown up in locker rooms, knows the kind of words that get thrown around. He makes eye contact with Shane, raising an eyebrow. They are winning now, after all. Shane gives a short nod in response, and Ilya grins. Game on.
*
Ilya has Berkes pinned up against the boards as they’re battling for the puck. He’s decided that he’s not even worth a clever chirp.
“You’re a terrible hockey player.” Ilya huffs out as he manages to knock the puck out from under them over to Bood, who instantly shoots on the goal. It gets caught by the goalie, and the whistle is blown. It happens quickly enough that Ilya still has him pressed against the glass. Berkes finally elbows him off, spinning to face him as he drops his gloves. Ilya follows suit.
“Do you get off on doing that you fucking fa-”
The sickening crunch of Berkes’s nose breaking finishes the sentence.
*
Ilya gives up all pretense of trying to score. He spends half the game in the penalty box, the other half instigating things in order to get himself thrown in the penalty box. At one point, in a move that he’s sure is already going viral online, he leaves his gloves on the bench, skates out to immediately throw some punches, and skates right back into the box for his waiting gloves, a grin on his face the entire time.
He even manages to get some hits in on Drapeau, he knows he was one of the worst ones during Shane’s time in Montreal. Goalies are famously hard to start fights with without it turning into a whole team brawl, but Ilya throws some well-timed elbows during a scrabble for the puck in the crease, just innocent enough to not have goalie interference called.
It’s honestly a miracle Coach Wiebe doesn’t bench him. The fact that they’re still winning seems to help, and that Wiebe knows that if Ilya doesn’t get to semi-legally beat up their opponents on the ice, he will find a way to do it much less legally with much more blood and much more bad press. Ilya makes a mental note to get him a nice bottle of wine.
The rest of the Centaurs fight dirty too, Ilya’s happy they understood his double meaning of being the worst team tonight. Unlike him though, they keep it just on the side of legal to not get thrown in the box. Even Shane, especially Shane, has an edge to him tonight. His face may look deceptively blank, but there’s an angry fire in his eyes. Whereas Ilya turns his anger into hard fists and a filthy mouth, Shane turns his into pure talent and focus.
The nice thing about being in the box is that Ilya has nothing to do but watch his gorgeous husband. He has his eyes locked on Shane as he nabs the puck from a scrum in their defensive zone and skates off with it. Shane races off with it, set for a breakaway. But, all of a sudden there’s a defenseman chasing after him. They’re through the neutral zone, into the offensive zone. Shane is one of the fastest in the league, but the defenseman is catching up. They’re hurtling towards the boards behind the Montreal goal.
Does Shane even know he’s there?
For a second, Ilya can see it happening in slow motion. A hard check, Shane crumpling to the ice again. And Ilya can’t go to him. Not because they can’t show their love for each other, but because he’s trapped in this stupid box.
Except, that’s not what happens at all. They’re going at full speed down the ice. Centimeters away from the boards, the defenseman lowers his shoulder for the check. But right before he hits the boards, Shane pirouettes away with the speed and agility only Shane fucking Hollander can pull off. Without the soft cushion of Shane’s body he had been expecting, the defenseman slams hard into the boards, falling to the ground. Before Ilya can even blink, Shane is skating around the back of the net, sinking the puck deep with a wraparound goal while the goalie is still distracted by the fact that his teammate seems to have given himself a concussion and a dislocated shoulder.
As he skates by the penalty box, Shane sends his husband a wink. It’s the sexiest thing Ilya has ever seen.
*
In the end, they win 5-1. Shane gets a hat trick, Troy and Luca each score a goal of their own. Montreal’s sole goal was scored late in the third period, by Hayden Pike of all people, who is also the only Metro to walk away from the game not bloodied and bruised.
It’s a humiliating loss for Montreal, the kind that has commentators speculating what happened to the once-Stanley-winning team, if this is the end of an era for them (yes), and if they will be able to rebuild a team without Shane Hollander (no).
For the Centaurs, the win is electric. It’s not their first win of the season, and if Ilya has any say in it, it won’t be their last, but beating a legacy team, with their own former player, and by so much, makes them feel unstoppable.
When the buzzer finally sounds, they all swarm onto center ice cheering, while Montreal limps off to their bench. Like a magnet, Ilya inevitably finds his way to Shane, pulling him into a tight hug. He wants nothing more than to kiss him, but Shane has a strict no-PDA-during-games rule, says he wants people to focus on the hockey, not their relationship. Ilya understands, and even agrees somewhat, but it doesn't stop him from wanting to parade him around like a prize won at a county fair. You get to watch him, he wants to shout, but only I get to keep him. He settles for the warm press of Shane’s body against his own.
It’s shocking then when it’s Shane who pulls back from the embrace and leans in to kiss Ilya. It’s quick and as chaste as anything can be between the two of them, and Ilya relishes it all the same. It’s long enough, though, that the cameras are sure to capture it and that the Montreal players see it as they look on from the sidelines. It’s more than a kiss, Ilya realizes, it’s Shane’s own way of showing off his prize. Shane gets to be the best at hockey, play for a winning team, and kiss his husband on the ice. In the most polite, Canadian way, he has sent the message: a massive fuck you to the Metros.
The Centaurs continue the celebration, rowdy as they pour into the locker room.
Through all the hollering, plans get made to go out, hit the clubs.
“You coming Rozy?” Chouinard asks, while clapping a heavy hand on his back. Ilya, who had lost Shane in the crowd, spots him sitting in front of his locker, head hanging low. He can spot the deep breaths he’s taking from here, an emotional regulation technique he keeps encouraging Ilya to try.
“Not tonight, but I will see you at Bood’s barbeque this weekend, yes?” With that, Ilya returns Chouinard’s pat on the back, and turns to finish undressing. He showers quickly, and before long, is ready to leave.
Ilya tucks Shane under his arm as they leave out the back door. They manage to avoid the press, which they’re probably going to be given a long lecture for tomorrow, but Ilya knows the last thing either of them needs right now is a camera in their face. Ilya will promise to film a couple of TikTok videos for Harris to make up for it.
The car ride back is as quiet as the ride there, this time from the bone-weary exhaustion rather than nerves. Usually after games, especially winning ones, they’re keyed up, barely able to keep their hands off each other before getting in the door. Now that they’re on the same team, they don’t make deals based on who wins, but who got more goals, more assists, more ice time. The competition is as exhilarating as it always was, if not better, because they get to share their wins and losses together. Neither of them is up for that tonight though.
Once home, in their bed, Ilya takes Shane apart slowly, all tongue and wandering hands. He gets Shane begging, eyes filled with tears, before finally sliding in and filling him. They make love. Shane hates the term and refuses to use it, but there’s no other word for it as they rock together, panting into each other’s mouths. They’re not really chasing their orgasms, more so enjoying the closeness and the soft words they’re whispering between breaths, but they find themselves falling over the edge together anyway.
After, they’re soaking together in the bath (after they rinsed off in the shower of course, Shane refuses to “sit around in our own dirty water, Ilya, it’s gross”). It had taken some time to find a bathtub that could fit two grown hockey players, but with enough money and a very determined Shane Hollander, anything is possible. So they are able to lay like this, Shane in front of Ilya and leaning back on his chest.
“Thank you, for today,” Shane says softly. He’s fiddling with Ilya’s hand, running his fingers over his ring, and then his bruised knuckles beneath it, before raising the hand to his mouth to press a light kiss. Ilya, unfortunately, did not walk away from the day’s game completely unscathed, but he’s proud to say he took minimal punches, and the main damage is on his fists.
“Of course, solnyshko. I know you do not need me to protect you, but I like doing it anyway.”
Shane hesitates for a moment, exhaling before he says, “I kinda thought that if I could win this one, if I could just show them that I’m just as good as I’ve always been, that, I don’t know, maybe it would change things? Like maybe some of them would reach out to me after the game, or at least say something to me in the handshake line.”
Ilya frowns. He hates that his husband thinks he needs to be the best to deserve basic decency from his old teammates.
“Maybe someday in future some of them will wake up in middle of night and realize how stupid and ignorant they were, and they will text you and beg for your forgiveness, and you can choose then if you want to give it. Maybe some of them will never realize. But that is their problem, not yours.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Shane sighs, before turning his head to look Ilya in the eye. “I wouldn’t change any of it, by the way. All the things that happened that led me to you, to the Centaurs. Even if it meant all the Metros came to our door tomorrow groveling. I wouldn’t do any of it differently.”
“I know, dorogoy. Me either.” He really wouldn’t. All the pain, all the heartbreak, all the struggles they’ve been through together and alone, brought them here to this moment: happy, married, tangled up in each other’s arms in a ridiculously large bathtub. It’s a damn good ending, and Ilya would fight Montreal every single day to keep it if he had to. Shane is worth every moment of it, bruised knuckles and all.