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Shane wasn’t paying attention.
He knew it was bad manners, but no one would blame him if they had the view Shane was enjoying by ignoring his friends; Ilya, sleeves rolled up, moving around their kitchen with the confidence he did across the ice.
Fuck, he was glorious to look at. Hypnotizing, even. The light coming from the window was settling into Ilya’s skin, making his blond curls shine, and his eyes sparkle as he winked at Shane before going back to the stove.
“Shane, settle this! Tell Rose that I’m your best friend, dude, this is ridiculous!” Hayden’s voice had a petulant tone, like his twins when they denied them ice cream whenever they babysat. “Watch this, Landry!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I’m his best friend! He comes to me with more things, I bet, because I can relate and you can’t!”
Shane was confused as fuck. How did they end up with this topic? Before he tuned out of the conversation, they were deep in a conversation about the who-is-who of the Hollywood-ense dating scene, which bored Shane to no end, so he had switched his attention to his husband.
“Guys, what? How did we end up with this topic?” He was completely befuddled—suck that, mom, he’ll win at Scrabble next time—with them fighting for a title in Shane’s life that was already taken. “Are you guys fucking with me?”
“They better not, that’s my job!” Ilya yelled from across the room, his ears of a fucking bloodhound already tuned into the mess of a conversation he was struggling with. “No fucking with my Shanebug. That’s reserved privilege.”
“Ugh, shut up, Rozanov!” Hayden snipped back, backing down when Shane shot him a vicious glare that made him pale a bit. Good. “Sorry.”
“God, Pike, you are so jealous of Ilya, huh?” Rose chirped, like a true hockey fiend, and Shane got a spike of fear as he remembered that Rose was the only girl of 5 brothers. She was mean, and loved Ilya way too much as they went along with each other’s schemes way too many times. “Accept it, you lose.”
“No! I’m not jealous of Rozanov, fuck, I’m straight!”
“No one mentioned your sexuality here, Hayd.” Shane pointed out, a smirk painting his face. “Are you no-homoing out of this conversation? I thought you wanted to know the truth.”
“Well… I just wanted you to tell Rose that she’s not your best friend. Dude, I am your best friend, for fuck’s sake.”
“Gotta say, I would choose Rose as my best friend if I was Shane.” Ilya snarked, safe behind their kitchen island and his entire body focused on the stove. “She’s cooler.”
“Aha! If Ilya approves, then I know I’m right—”
“Ilya is my best friend.”
He clapped a hand over his mouth as soon as he said it, and a flare of panic went through his body as he heard three sounds of surprise echoed around the open space.
“What? Why? How? Why, Shane? No!” Hayden’s face was red, an unflattering shade, in fact. He seemed to be ready to implode into itty-bitty pieces. “Is this a joke? Are you fucking with us? Please, say yes.”
Rose, though, settled her shoulders into the cushion of their sofa and nodded as if it made complete sense. And it did, it truly did, because Shane had gone through life hand-in-hand with Ilya, even when they insisted they were nothing, when all they did was an occasional tumble in hotel rooms, they knew that no one understood the other the same way they could.
They were both sides of the same coin. His mother had coined—ha!—that one, and it had stuck on Shane’s brain like scrambled eggs on a supposedly non-stick pan. Since day one, they had been inevitable. Their rivalry had been written in the stars, and so was their love, their devotion to one another.
“Shanya.” Ilya broke the silence that had formed, his voice only a hushed whisper. “I am your best friend?”
“Am I not your best friend, Rozanov?” He deflected momentarily, his cheeks flushed as he tried to fight the urge to hide.
“Of course you are.” Ilya responded, as if it was nothing. As if he wasn’t admitting to something that rewrote Shane’s entire being. “Everything you can be for me, you are.”
“Okay, pause. Is he really your fucking best friend, Shane?” Hayden's tone was weird, an entitled undertone shining through that was starting to bother Shane to his bones. “You gotta be kidding me, bro.”
“Why? He’s my husband. Everyone says you gotta marry your best friend, so I did. What’s wrong with that?”
“Dude, that doesn’t make sense! I’ve been by your side longer than he has—”
“No, actually.” Shane corrected, as he fucking should have after the wedding, after the digs started to sting more than a chirp should. “I met Ilya before I signed with the Metros.”
“Yeah, duh, you two met, but he was an asshole then, so—”
“Shut up, Pike.” Rose snapped. “Let him talk.”
“Hayden. Ilya has always been the only person who could really see me.” His voice broke a bit at the confession, a need to cover it up with snark almost overtaking him, but he pushed through. “We were always pushed against each other, but the truth is that we understood each other because of the same things the league tried to push us apart.”
He heard Ilya coming closer, and his heart calmed as he felt the weight of Ilya’s presence settle into his bones. God, he needed him so badly all the fucking time. Years ago, he would fight the instinct, but now, he just sank into his husband’s arms without even twirling to look at him.
“He understood the pressure of being the best, of always trying to outdo yourself, and for once in my life, in the moment people started to put our names together in conversation, even before we met, I didn’t feel alone. There was someone else who understood what it took to reach the top and still being asked more.”
“Malysh…”
Shane shook his head, settling even deeper into Ilya’s arms, his back resting against Ilya’s broad chest. He could smell his ridiculously expensive cologne this way, and he closed his eyes instinctively for a second, his brain becoming fuzzy at the pattern recognition of his brain firing all the good hormones. Ilya just dropped a kiss on his head and hummed.
“We were assholes to each other throughout the years, yeah, but I still knew that I could count on him. That even though we were denying each other what we wanted, we would always be there for each other. If we ever dared to try and open up, of course.”
He chuckled at the end, rolling his eyes as he recalled how many missed connections they had, forced by each other or just because of pure bad luck.
“Dumb hockey boys.” Rose nodded sagely, a twinkle in her eyes as she recalled many of their conversations across the years. “I understand, though. My mom has always told me to marry my best friend. Sadly, all of them keep coming out as gay.”
Ilya let out a full-on cackle, and Shane was sure they could hear him from across the town. Fuck, he loved this man so much.
“But…”
“Hayden.” Shane barked, his entire body curling into itself as rage began to build on his stomach. “He is my husband. The way you keep questioning me with this is starting to piss me the fuck off, so please, shut up.”
“Dude, I’m trying to get it, that has to count for something!”
“No, it doesn’t. Wouldn’t you call Jackie your best friend, too?”
“Well, yeah, but that’s different!”
“How the fuck is that different?”
“She’s Jackie! Everyone loves her!”
“Well, I, for myself, love Ilya.” Rose declared, as if her addition to the conversation wasn’t adding more fuel to the fire that was this fuckass situation. “Jackie also loves Ilya, by the way. And Svetlana. God, Svetlana would go to war for Ilya, and win, probably.”
Ilya snorted and nodded, his body moving Shane’s with each subtle movement. It was grounding. It made Shane want to sigh like a kitten, proving Ilya right again with his nicknames.
“Sveta said she would burn Russia to the ground if they touched a single strand of Ilya’s hair.” Shane added, and Rose nodded back at him with a hum. “I wouldn’t like going against her, honestly, but it benefits me because she loves my husband as much as I do.”
“Back to the point–”
“God, and pray tell, Hayden, what is the fucking point?”
Shane was pissed at this point. After having given Hayden many outs of this conversation, he couldn’t believe Hayden was dumb enough not to hear the warning bells that kept sounding louder and louder the more he kept talking.
“That I should be your best friend, not Rozanov!”
“It’s Hollander-Rozanov, Pike.” Ilya corrected, a smug smirk on his beautiful face. “Get it right.”
“That’s not the point, Rozanov, this is not your conversation, this is between Shane and me.”
“Anything that concerns Shane, concerns me.” Shane let out a breath as he realized that Ilya was using words they had been cramming to win at Scrabble with his mother, in a discussion with Hayden. Why is that hot? “Also, you are in our house, Pike, this is our place, and everything that happens here is my business.”
“Shane–”
“He’s right, Hayden.” He sighed, the old disappointment that had settled into his body years ago burned bright now. “When are you going to stop treating my husband like this?”
“Like what? I’m just asking!”
“Like he’s a nuisance. Like you are waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like you are doing him a favor by barely fucking tolerating him, as if you were more important to me than my fucking husband. Do you even hear yourself? I know that Jackie has talked about this with you, and that you keep telling her that you are trying, whatever that means to you, because you are fucking not. And I’m tired, Hayden. You might be my friend, but you are not above Ilya. You will never be above Ilya.”
Rose was staring at him with a proud look on her face, and it made Shane’s stomach settle. He knew that what he was doing was the correct way to go about this, because he had talked about it with his mom, with Rose, his therapist, and then, after everything had been sorted in his brain, to Ilya.
Ilya, who had been concerned, held Shane as he went through the realization that he had to confront the situation head-on. Ilya, who had not been smug at all, and had carried a deep sadness as Shane battled with himself to reassure him that it wasn’t his fault, that this entire thing was Hayden’s fault, for not letting go of his ideas about Ilya, the moment they got married, the moment they promised each other eternity.
“That’s not fair, Shane. I’ve been by your side for years, and I have the right to be suspicious of him—”
“At first, maybe! But it’s been years, Hayden, we’ve been married for three years, everyone knows, everyone has seen what we mean to each other, and it couldn’t be more obvious how in love we are with each other! If you want to keep ignoring that, be my guest, but stop disrespecting my husband, or I’ll stop entertaining our friendship.”
Hayden stared at him with his mouth agape, his face a red color that didn’t flatter him at all. “Are you going to stop being my friend for him?”
Shane rolled his eyes heavenward, his patience thinning even more. “I’m telling you that you either respect my husband, or I’ll stop respecting you.”
Ilya whispered sweet nothings into his ear, moving his hands to caress his shoulders, trying to get them relaxed, the tension radiating off of Shane clear for everyone to see.
“Shane…”
“Hayden. I’m not joking. I’m at my wits' end with your behavior. I ignored it at first because you had not seen us together, and I assumed you would come around once you met Ilya, but fuck, this has gone on for way too long. Enough is enough.”
“I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t think about it like this.”
The apology sounded weak even to Shane, the one with more goodwill towards Hayden, and it made his heart sink.
“You should be apologizing to my husband, not to me.” Shane snarled, the entire situation getting to him in the worst way. “You don’t even mean it, and that’s the worst part. Hayden, go home and think about it, because you are hearing but not listening. I hope, for our sake, that you don’t fuck this up further. I really love you, dude, but I cannot let you keep treating my family like this.
“I’ll walk you out.” Rose was already standing, her purse draped artistically on her shoulder. “And I’ll give you a piece of my mind on the way. See you both this weekend, guys.”
Rose practically dragged Hayden out like a misbehaving puppy, and the image would be pretty funny if Shane wasn’t on the verge of a breakdown.
“You did well, Shanyushka. I’m so proud of you for standing up for us.” Ilya’s voice wasn’t even louder than a whisper, and it settled Shane’s nerves like honey on a scratchy throat. It’s like he was designed for Shane and Shane alone. “Now, we will take a bath together, and we will watch one of your boring documentaries in bed together, da? Take it slow tonight.”
“But we need to train, Ilya, we can’t just—”
“I’ll give you a training session before bed, don’t you worry, malysh.” He finished the sentence with his infamous Rozanov–now Hollander, too—wink, and Shane’s body rebooted like an old computer, nodding. “Mmmh, good boy. Let’s go, moye solnyshko.”