Archive of Our Own

The videos start as soon as the Centaurs enter the club. Small moments posted to the various social media platforms, none official, all blurry enough to make the club visceral. 

The first video goes up at 12:07 a.m.

By 12:11, hockey Twitter is in flames.

By 12:32, somebody has already edited together a compilation fancam of the Centaurs’ season set to Von Dutch.

By 1:00 a.m., nobody inside the club has any idea this is happening yet.

The Centaurs are too busy having the kind of night people talk about for years afterwards. Different angles, different players, the night documented as the MLH players mingle, dance and descend into the drunkenness of unabashed celebration.

The club pulsates around them in hot ultraviolet colour that painted everyone luminous, when the videos have sound, the bass is so heavy it feels embedded in bone. There are drag queens near the bar. Somebody in sequins is dancing on a table. Inside the club, the air smells like sweat, vodka, expensive cologne, and overheated speakers.

Seven years ago, this exact space hosted Scott Hunter Night after the MLH Awards when Scott kissed his boyfriend Kip on the ice after the championship-winning game. It had been a marketing ploy, but the owner regularly rejoiced at that decision. Who knew what was to come for hockey; the Ottawa Centaurs being champions and this gay? Yeah, nah he had thought it would be a one night only event to get some of that MLH player cash. That night had been a club full of the general Las Vegas queer scene, one gay MLH player, a handful of his teammates, their wives and Ilya Rozenov. 

Now framed photographs from that night line the hallway, and behind the bar, a montage of signed jerseys held pride of place. They hung from the rafters, just like jerseys from legacy players did at their home ice.

Hunter

Barrett 

Hollander

Rozanov

Bennett

Ryan Price’s Boston jersey from 2014, the year Ilya led the Bears to win the Stanley Cup. It wasn’t the last team Ryan played for but no one wanted to see a Toronto jersey in a gay club, and Toronto hadn’t won a Stanley cup in over fifteen years, anyway.

The Centaurs’  jersey from their 2021 Pride Night hangs together near the bar too, framed beneath a plaque explaining how the team had continued returning every year. If the 2017 night was about supporting Hunter, 2021 was about supporting Shane and Ilya after they were outed, benched and then Shane was forced off his team.

The first Centaurs’ Pride Night had been awkward.

Protective.Tense around the edges.

The fourth one had a waiting list and celebrity DJs. The Centaurs practically own the place tonight.

Three Stanley Cups in a row and now both the season and the MLH Awards were done and dusted.

There were months until training camp began, and even Shane Hollander relaxed his diet and regime by this stage of the year. Collectively the Centaurs, their partners and the other invited MLH players only had one goal for tonight. It resulted in a social media frenzy in the early hours of the morning fueled by too much vodka, too much adrenaline and too few inhibitions.

Rose Landry is already dancing on the booth seating before anyone else properly commits to the night. They had moved from the official awards dinner to the club after everyone changed out of their tuxes and formal gowns. Depending on who you asked the entourage arrived around 10pm and if the videos were to be believed (for their chaotic energy) this seemed to be true.

“Get up,” she shouts over the music, grabbing Shane by the wrist. “You are not standing there like a divorced accountant.”

“I am literally drinking vodka and ginger ale.”

The thing about winning three Stanley Cups in a row is that eventually the shock wears off before the exhaustion does. That’s what Shane thinks, standing in the middle of the club with bass shaking through the floor and the Stanley Cup sitting beside the DJ booth beneath the purple strobe lights like some holy relic dragged into a sweaty hell.

Three years.

Three Cups.

Back to back to back.

Dynasty territory.

Historic.

Only nobody says it like that.

Not really.

The Centaurs are everywhere across the sports channels tonight. Highlights loop endlessly on television screens above the bar. Shane can see Ilya lifting the Cup over his head beneath falling gold confetti. He can see Troy Barrett screaming wordlessly into the camera after overtime. The images are on a loop, the on ice victory celebration more contained than tonight, but rendered “a queer declaration” by sports commentators nonetheless.

Even now, even after all of this, the headlines still drift somewhere else eventually. The first year it was deemed some anomaly, the second was spoken of with interest. This, the third championship in a row, a feat only accomplished by three teams ever and not for over four decades, should have been talked about as a dynasty. Each of the team members should be spoken of as future hall of farmers, legacy players. The team had two generational forwards, they’d both been called “teenage phenomes” at their draft. The Centaurs, captained by Rozanov, were the greatest MLH team of the 21st century. 

That was not what the hockey commentary focused on though, it preferred to talk about;

The married superstars.

The openly queer dynasty.

The MLH’s golden couple.

The spectacle of them.

Not the hockey.

Not what they’ve built.

His old Montreal team is still spoken about like mythology, leaving out his contribution. Grainy saints preserved forever in reverent language. Dynasties. Legends. Immortals. 

The Centaurs get called marketable. Shane knew it shouldn’t bother him anymore. It still does. Even as the team, his friends and his husband celebrate around him he cares about how their legacy will be remembered.

The club itself feels sacred now to a certain generation of hockey fans, fans who never felt represented, who looked at the overtly heterosexual players and felt like they could never play in the MLH. 

“Why are you brooding?”

Ilya’s voice slides through the noise, warm and amused. Shane looks over automatically. And there he is.

Jesus Christ.

The man looks like every bad decision Shane has ever happily made (and some he would prefer to forget - hello penthouse MLH awards 2014!

The pastel pink singlet clings tightly enough to feel vaguely dangerous, fabric clinging to his chest and stomach beneath the neon light. There is an iridescence woven through the fabric, not quite metallic but some sort of magic thread that casts Ilya not only in a pink hue but makes every strobe light that hits his torso halo him in golden orb.  His blue Bermuda shorts sit low against narrow hips, exposing tanned thighs every time he moves. Loose strands of his hair curl around his temples. Earlier in the night his blond curls had been carefully slicked back neat and elegant for the MLH Awards. Earlier they had been perfect, now they were becoming untamed. 

That’s what hits Shane every few minutes like delayed whiplash. 

Two hours ago they stood beneath white-gold stage lights at the MLH Awards in sharply tailored designer suits while cameras flashed, reporters shouted and his goddamn husband pouted like a super model. He had looked over at Shane and goddamn winked, causing Shane to sputter and almost come undone right there in front of an entire ballroom of hockey players.

Two hours ago Shane wore black Saint Laurent so perfectly fitted it looked painted onto him, clean lines and white gold cufflinks and polished hockey player composure.

Two hours ago Ilya stood beside him in a dark Tom Ford suit with satin lapels and a shirt unbuttoned just enough to feel vaguely indecent.

He had looked like a Bond villain.

Not a modern one either. The old kind. One from the USSR, not even one from Russia

Beautiful enough to distract you before ruining every aspect of your life.

Every year since their marriage the league saw to it that they were up for the same awards. Just as surely as they had made year after year of the All Stars team roster in a way that played up their rivalry, now they made them compete for awards. They never even sat them together as a couple, one year they were on entirely different tables. Every year their separate invitations arrived complete with the ability to bring a “plus one”, they had been bringing Rose and Svetlana for several years; this year Svetlana was in Russia so technically Rose had been listed as  both of their “plus one”. Ilya’s idea to fuck with whoever continued to ignore the fact the league’s two greatest living players were actually married to each other.

The MLH still couldn’t understand that Shane and Ilya loved competing against each other. For points. For minutes on ice. For brand deals, For who could come first. For who didn’t come first. Every year the league marketed Hollander versus Rozanov like mythology. The stoic Canadian captain against the emotional Russian superstar. Discipline against chaos. Ice against fire. Cameras constantly cutting between them whenever nominees were announced because everyone knew one of them would  win and the other would  look tragically beautiful losing.

Tonight they split the wins almost evenly. Shane took home another Selke.Ilya won the Hart.

The Centaurs took everything else worth having.

There are already photographs online of them staring at each other across the awards table while pretending not to smile during the MVP presentation. ESPN posted a slow-motion clip of Ilya fixing Shane’s tie before he walked onstage, someone had already translated what Shane had said to Ilya in Russian. The comment now meaning the post was NSFW.

Tom Ford should have been unbeatable. The sharp jawline. The brand ambassador Richard Mille custom watch. The controlled elegance.

It wasn’t though. Ilya was now soft and glowing in pink silk and little shorts, his curls a manifestation of his journey from smooth professional to chaotic demi-god. Shane immediately felt his brain stop functioning (he also thought he was probably more than a little drunk by now).

“You are staring again,” Rose says knowingly from beside him.

“I am literally married to him.”

“Yeah, and somehow you still look shocked every time he exists.”

“That’s because he keeps changing aesthetics.”

Ilya drifted closer to Shane as though summoned by praise alone.

“What aesthetics?” he murmured against Shane’s ear before catching the lobe gently between his teeth, the bite soft and deliberate. His mouth traced a slow line of kisses from Shane’s ear to the warm curve where neck met shoulder.

Shane exhaled sharply.

“You looked like a supervillain two hours ago.”

“Thank you.”

Ilya sounded distracted now, focused instead on the slow press of his lips against Shane’s throat as both hands slid possessively down the length of his husband’s spine.

“And now you look like a bisexual lifeguard.”

“That is also thank you,” Ilya whispered, the words almost incoherent against Shane’s skin.

Both men leaned instinctively into each other, bodies pressing together with intimate familiarity as the beat rolled through the room in vibrating waves. Drifting together beneath phosphorescent ribbons of colour, skin glowing warm and cinematic while the humid air thickened around them with heat and music.

Rose nearly spilled her drink laughing. It contained vodka. Everything tonight seemed to contain vodka. Not subtle vodka. Seductive vodka, “let me help you make mistakes” vodka. Russian vodka.

Ilya had personally made certain of that earlier in the week by hooking the club owner up with Svetlana’s contacts, and now the alcohol flowed through the room in glittering waves: potent, expensive, and smooth enough to ruin people quietly.

The club had renamed half the cocktail menu after the Centaurs just for this event. The bartender slides another tray past, carrying bright neon drinks, some with glitter but all looking like tomorrow’s regrets.

“The Rozanov,” Lisa Hayes reads aloud dramatically, “contains vodka, raspberry liqueur, Red Bull, edible glitter and poor judgement.”

“That’s accurate,” Wyatt says immediately.

“The Hollander,” Troy Barrett says, peering into another glass suspiciously, “is just vodka, ginger ale and emotional repression.”

Shane narrows his eyes. “That feels targeted.”

“The Barrett,” Luca said, already folding into laughter, “is vodka, blue curaçao, lime, and one catastrophically repressed thought.”

Troy narrowed his eyes. “That feels homophobic.”

“It comes with a complimentary identity crisis,” Harris added from beside him.

“And a lease agreement with your team’s social media manager,” Rose said sweetly.

The entire table erupted.

Cassie Bood lifts her own drink proudly.

“The Bood is apparently champagne, vodka, peach schnapps and ‘married confidence.’”

Vodka kept appearing regardless.

Shane watched Ilya drink straight from the bottle somebody had pressed into his hand moments earlier, head tipped back beneath the light while his throat moved slowly around the burn of it. His c cheeks flushed while vodka glossed his mouth pink.

Somehow this version felt infinitely more devastating. Shane genuinely didn’t understand how that was possible.

He looked  more real. He looked deeply Slavic. Deeply expensive. Deeply like temptation Shane had never once learned how to resist.

He looked like every beautiful, reckless bisexual fantasy the internet had ever collectively projected onto one man.

Shane wanted to drag him into the nearest dark corner and kiss him until neither of them could breathe properly anymore.

Instead, he took another long sip of his drink and stared at the Stanley Cup, somebody had balanced glowsticks through one of the handles, while the familiar ache returned quietly beneath his ribs.

“You have your little sad hockey face.”

“I do not.”

“You absolutely do,” Rose says, “You look like somebody just told you Santa isn’t real.”

“You say this every time I think quietly for more than ten seconds.”

“Because every time you think quietly for more than ten seconds it’s about existentialism or hockey.”

“Those are legitimate subjects.”

Rose hands him a drink.

“You won three Stanley Cups in a row. Stop looking like a widower in a Russian novel.”

Ilya leans heavily against Shane’s shoulder, warm from alcohol and dancing. With lazy possessiveness, he tugged Shane backwards properly between his legs until Shane’s back settled flush against his chest on the booth seat. Their knees knocked together first before Ilya hooked one long leg around Shane’s, winding them together beneath the table like it was instinct.

“He is upset,” Ilya announced to the group, chin resting briefly against Shane’s shoulder.

“I’m not upset.”

“He is upset nobody calls us a dynasty.”

One of Ilya’s hands slid low across Shane’s stomach as he spoke, fingers spreading lazily against him beneath the open grey shirt. Shane hated how easily his body softened into him. Hated it mostly because everyone could see it happen.

Rose snorts immediately.

“Oh my God. Is this because of the Montreal documentaries again?”

“They won fewer consecutive Cups than us and people speak about them like they descended from Olympus.”

“Baby,” Rose says gently, “people are obsessed with you and Ilya because you’re hot and gay and weird. That’s not exactly a tragedy.”

“We are historically good at hockey,” Shane argued weakly, even as he leaned further back into the warmth of Ilya’s chest.

“Yes,” Troy said. “But unfortunately you’re also like… insanely in love in public.”

“It’s very distracting,” Lisa added.

Ilya looked entirely unbothered by this.

“We can be two things,” he said calmly before pressing a slow kiss just beneath Shane’s ear. “Dynasty and married.”

 Luca Haas films random snippets for his Instagram stories, and later turn into TikToks. Wyatt, Lisa and Cassie are arguing over whether tequila shots are a good idea. “This,” Harris says loudly while staring at the ceiling, “is officially not my responsibility because it is the off-season.”

“You say that every year,” Troy says.

“And every year I mean it.”

“You literally ran PR during the Eras Tour incident.”

The entire group groans immediately.

Rose throws both hands into the air dramatically.

“Oh my God. The LA Eras Tour.”

“That was not our fault,” Shane says automatically.

“It absolutely was,” Luca argues.

“It was ONE video.”

“It was fourteen videos,” Harris corrects. “And two livestream clips.”

“And TMZ.”

“And Rolling Stone.”

Rose points accusingly at Shane and Ilya.

“In fairness,” Ilya says thoughtfully, “Taylor Swift did create environment for emotional collapse.”

“That sentence alone should get you legally classified as bisexual,” Troy mutters. Ilya beams proudly.

The Eras Tour clips had broken the internet for forty-eight straight hours.

Mostly because somebody caught Shane and Ilya slow dancing to Lover while Rose cried beside them dramatically enough to become a meme. Shane still hasn’t recovered.

The Stanley Cup glints gold beneath pink neon near the DJ booth while somebody in sequins drapes rainbow beads over one handle.

Nearby, Wyatt lifts a tequila shot toward the cup.

“To the gayest dynasty in sports.”

Cassie nearly chokes laughing.

“You cannot keep calling them that in interviews.”

“Why? It’s accurate.”

“Honestly,” Troy says, “it’s statistically impressive.”

Ilya lifts his drink toward the Cup reverently. 

The music changes. “You,” Rose says, pointing dramatically at Shane, “need to stop pretending you’re too emotionally repressed to dance.”

“I’m literally dancing.”

“You’re swaying.”

“That counts.”

“It absolutely does not.”

The music changes again.

Charli XCX floods through the speakers, bright and chaotic and impossible not to move to. The reaction around the club is immediate. Rose grabs both Shane and Ilya by the wrists simultaneously.

“Oh, this is your song.”

“It is absolutely not.”

Ilya tilts his head. “I do not know this woman.”

“Neither do I,” Shane says.

Rose physically recoils.

“You don’t know Charli XCX?”

“No?”

Lisa, appearing seemingly from nowhere with a vodka cranberry in hand, gasps so loudly several people turn around.

“You two don’t know Charli XCX?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” Rose said, climbing dramatically onto the booth seating, silver dress glittering under bright candy-coloured flashes that made the whole club feel feverish and dreamlike, “that your husband is the physical embodiment of Brat summer.”

There was silence.

Shane blinked slowly.

“What the fuck is Brat summer?”

The collective horror around him was immediate. Lisa grabbed Rose’s bare arm hard enough to bruise. Both women were overwhelmingly having too much fun at this stage of the night, the entire club had become blurred around the edges. In the videos online nothing was as coherent as it seemed to them in the moment.

“Oh my God,” she wheezed. “He doesn’t know.”

Around them, the booth dissolved instantly into mild chaos. Wyatt folded sideways against the table laughing while Luca physically dropped forward into Troy’s shoulder hard enough to spill vodka across their shirts. Even Harris looked up from his drink for the first time in nearly half an hour, expression somewhere between concern and fascination. Rose turned sharply toward Ilya like a woman handling a medical emergency.

“Ilya,” she demanded urgently, “did you know what Brat summer was before tonight?”

“No,” Ilya said happily. He was definitely drunk now.

The alcohol had turned him molten around the edges, affectionate and loose-limbed beneath the club lights. His curls had entirely escaped their earlier careful styling, pale gold against flushed cheeks damp from dancing. The gold-threaded pink singlet clung tightly across his chest beneath the heat of the club, metallic fibres catching flashes of neon every time he moved.

Rose climbed higher onto the booth dramatically, nearly stepping directly into Wyatt’s lap.

“I have heard the phrase like six times tonight,” Shane stated.

“You poor heterosexual.”

“I’m literally married to a man.”

“You still have heterosexual energy sometimes.”

“That’s hateful.”

Ilya laughed low against the side of Shane’s neck, the sound warm and roughened by vodka. He had drifted impossibly close without Shane even noticing, one hand spread possessively low against Shane’s stomach beneath the edge of his open grey shirt.

“Мой красивый мальчик,” he murmured through laughter. “You are sometimes very straight.”

His voice had slipped further toward Moscow as the night wore on, Russian vowels heavier now after hours of vodka and dancing and joy. The gold chain against his throat glinted whenever he moved. Shane turned slightly toward him automatically.

Too close. Close enough to feel the heat radiating from his skin. Close enough to smell vodka and expensive cologne and sweat.

Ilya smiled lazily when he noticed Shane looking. Then he leaned in and bit gently at Shane’s jaw.

Not enough to hurt.

Just enough to make Shane inhale sharply.

“Oh my God,” Rose shouted immediately. “See? SEE?”

Neither of them listened.

One of Ilya’s hands traced slowly up Shane’s chest beneath the open shirt, fingertips dragging warm against skin already overheated from vodka and dancing. Shane tipped his head back slightly, eyes falling shut for half a second as Ilya’s mouth brushed the sharp line of his jaw. Around them the music rolled through the crowded club in slow hypnotic waves, but Shane could only focus on the feeling of his husband slowly undoing him in public.

“You are distracting,” Shane muttered quietly.

“You like distracted.”

“That’s not the point.”

Ilya kissed him slowly, deliberately, like he knew exactly what it was doing to Shane to be touched this gently in public. The table erupted instantly.

“Troy,” Luca gasped dramatically, “they’re doing it again.”

“I hate them,” Troy replied. Rose pointed at Ilya like a lawyer presenting evidence before a jury.

“You ARE Brat summer.”

Ilya looked delighted instantly, “I am?”

“YES.”

Harris spoke without looking up from his drink.

“Honestly, 2014 Ilya Rosenov would’ve been the patron saint of Brat summer.”

The whole group collapsed laughing. Because everybody remembered 2014 Ilya Rozanov.

Boston Bears captain. Russian fuckboy. Stanley Cup champion. Tabloid menace. The MLH’s Most Valuable player,  and apparently Shane Hollander’s deeply secret friend-with-benefits. Twenty-three years old and lethally attractive, all razor-cut features and expensive bad decisions wrapped in designer leather jackets. Social media accounts, tabloids and sports journalists openly speculated about which nightclub he’d fall out of next while hockey fans built entire internet forums dedicated to analysing who he was sleeping with that week.

“You would’ve been banned from Ibiza,” Troy said.

“I WAS banned from club in Prague,” Ilya replied earnestly.

Shane turned sharply.

“You told me that was a rumour.”

“It became true later.”

Rose nearly fell off the booth laughing, “Oh my God. You were literally engineered in a laboratory to have a Brat summer. Ilya looked deeply pleased by this revelation.

“At thirty-three,” Ilya announced proudly before taking another drink directly from the vodka bottle, “I remain brat.”

Luca made a strangled noise loud enough that several people nearby turned to stare.

“Harris,” he wheezed, gripping Troy’s shoulder for balance, “put that on the team account immediately.”

“The team account,” Harris replied calmly from beside Troy, “is legally dead until September.”

Rose was fully crying laughing now, mascara probably ruined, collapsed halfway across Lisa. Wyatt looked mere moments away from falling backwards out of the booth entirely.

“Oh my God,” Rose gasped between breaths. “You were born for this.”

“You absolutely were,” Lisa agreed.

“Maybe even more now,” Scott called from the far side of the booth, one arm loose around Kip’s shoulders while he lifted his drink toward Ilya.

“Adult Brat summer,” Kip added solemnly.

“Emotionally evolved Brat summer.”

“Therapy-informed Brat summer.”

“Stanley Cup champion Brat summer.”

Every new description seemed to delight Ilya more. He sprawled across the booth beside Shane like he no longer possessed any understanding of personal space, one thigh wedged firmly between Shane’s beneath the table while his hand wandered lazily under the edge of Shane’s shorts whenever his attention drifted.

And that was the real problem.

Not the flirting. Not even the kissing.

The way affection became instinctive. Like his body simply gravitated toward Shane without permission.

One hand remained low on Shane’s thigh beneath the table, fingers stroking slow absent-minded patterns that made concentration nearly impossible. Every few minutes he leaned in just to press another unhurried kiss somewhere against Shane’s jaw or throat or the sensitive skin beneath his ear, like he genuinely could not help himself anymore. And Shane was reaching the absolute limit of what he could tolerate in public. Because Ilya looked like sex tonight. Not polished. Not untouchable. Not the immaculate superstar from the MLH Awards two hours earlier.

For so long people had spoken about Ilya like he was either a scandal or a machine. Too emotional for hockey. Too sexual. Too dramatic. Too visible. Too Russian. The bad boy. The womaniser. The player supposedly one bad mood away from dropping gloves or ending up in tabloids again.

Every version of him flattened into spectacle depending on who was telling the story. But this version sitting beside Shane beneath streaks of electric blue and hot pink light felt achingly human.

Devastating enough to make entire rooms orbit him unconsciously. Still carrying that intoxicating Slavic magnetism that made people stare too long without realising they were doing it. But softer now too. Looser in his own skin. Comfortable enough to laugh openly, comfortable enough to touch Shane constantly without worrying who saw.

And Shane was becoming painfully aware of every second of it.

Because the drunker Ilya became, the more physical he got. Not crude. Not even fully intentional. Just deeply instinctive, like every good feeling in his body kept pulling him back toward Shane automatically.

Their knees stayed tangled together beneath the booth until it became difficult to separate one body from the other. Ilya’s fingertips kept drifting beneath Shane’s shirt to trace warm idle lines across his stomach and ribs. Sometimes he would smile at something across the table and unconsciously squeeze Shane’s thigh while laughing. Sometimes he simply pressed his mouth against the corner of Shane’s jaw for no reason at all except apparently wanting to.

And every single touch sat beneath Shane’s skin like a lit match.

By now he felt so tightly wound with want that he thought one more slow kiss against his throat might genuinely make him lose his mind in front of the entire team. At one point Ilya leaned in close enough that his lips brushed the shell of Shane’s ear.

“You are staring again,” he murmured, voice roughened warm by alcohol and Russian vowels.

“You’re making it difficult not to.”

Ilya smiled lazily against his skin at that, pleased in the deeply unfair way only he could manage. Then he kissed just beneath Shane’s ear, slow enough to feel intentional, before dragging his teeth lightly across the sensitive skin there.

Shane exhaled sharply.

Across the table Rose pointed immediately.

“There,” she said triumphantly. “That. That is Brat summer.”

Neither of them paid attention.

Ilya only settled closer still, hand spreading low against Shane’s stomach beneath the open grey shirt while the club swelled around them in heat and flashing lights and noise. Somewhere near the DJ booth the Stanley Cup glinted beneath rainbow beads. Behind the bar, framed beside Shane’s jersey, Ilya’s name caught briefly beneath the shifting lights too.

Stanley Cup champion.

Hart Trophy winner.

Dynasty player.

And currently half-drunk in a gay club, folded around his husband with warm vodka-soft affection while Shane sat there becoming increasingly aware that if Ilya kept looking at him like that, touching him like that, they were going to have to leave before Shane forgot how to behave in public entirely.

The first performance of Guess starts accidentally.

At least Luca claims it does later. Nobody believes him.

Because the second the chorus hits, something in Ilya changes completely.

Maybe it’s the vodka. Maybe it’s the lights. Maybe it’s the fact Shane is already flushed and half-laughing beside him, grey button-up hanging open from hours of dancing, exposing warm skin and the slow rise of his chest beneath the flashing lights. Or maybe it’s the vodka finally settling heavily into Shane too, loosening him just enough that every lingering touch from his husband feels almost unbearably sharp.

Because Ilya has spent the better part of the night draped across him like a temptation Shane is rapidly losing the ability to resist.

And Shane is gone enough now, warm with alcohol and exhaustion and the slow relentless frustration of being touched constantly without ever quite getting enough back, that the second Ilya turns toward him with that look in his eyes, something inside him gives immediately.

 Whatever it is, Ilya languidly turns toward him with devastating focus. And Shane, disastrously, is still dancing like somebody’s attractive suburban father at a barbecue.

Loose shoulders.

Off-beat confidence.

Zero actual coordination.

“Oh my God,” Rose gasps. “He dances like he owns a leaf blower.”

“Fuck you,” Shane laughs.

Then Ilya grabs him.

One hand closes firmly around Shane’s hip while the other catches gently beneath his jaw, fingers guiding his face upwards toward him with slow deliberate confidence.

Not rough. Worse. Patient.

Like he already knows Shane will follow wherever he leads. And Shane does.

Immediately.

The crowd around them erupts as Ilya pulls him closer, bodies slotting together beneath hot green lights while the song pulses through the packed club.

The pink singlet stretches tight across Ilya’s chest as he mouths the lyrics directly into Shane’s face with complete confidence despite only vaguely knowing half of them.

“Don’t have to guess the colour of your underwear…”

His grin turns wicked.

“I already know what you’ve got going on down there.”

The scream around them is instantaneous. Phones appear everywhere.

Luca nearly drops his camera.

“Oh my GOD,” Wyatt wheezes from somewhere behind them.

But Shane barely hears him because Ilya is fully dancing against him now, all heat and rhythm and unbearable confidence. Nothing rushed about it. Nothing sloppy despite the vodka. Every movement lingered a second too long, like he was savouring exactly what it was doing to Shane. 

And Shane is absolutely losing whatever remained of his composure. The heat of Ilya’s body pressed against his feels almost unbearable now, especially with one hand fixed low on his hips, holding him there like he has no intention of letting him escape. 

The eye contact.

Jesus Christ, the eye contact.

Ilya keeps looking at him like they’re already alone together somewhere private, like the screaming crowd and flashing lights and Stanley Cup glittering ten feet away simply do not exist. Every time Shane laughs or tries to look away, Ilya just drags his attention back again with another slow roll of his hips or the brush of his mouth near Shane’s throat, until Shane feels stripped down to pure reaction beneath his gaze.

Then the next lyric hits.

“You wanna guess the colour of my underwear…”

Ilya mouths it directly against Shane’s mouth before dragging his lower lip briefly between his teeth.

And Shane visibly short-circuits.

The entire booth loses its collective mind.

“Troy,” Luca gasps violently, “he’s teaching him how to dance.”

“I don’t think this is dancing anymore.”

Shane is laughing too hard to function properly by now, but he still follows Ilya instinctively as he’s pulled deeper into the rhythm of it. Their bodies move together effortlessly beneath the flashing lights, hips rolling together in time with the sharp pulse of the song while sweat glints along Shane’s throat. Every time Shane tries to pull away laughing, Ilya just drags him back in again with firm hands on his waist and that unbearably focused look in his eyes, until the dancing starts feeling dangerously close to something else entirely.

Then Billie’s verse hits. And something in Shane shifts immediately.

Maybe it’s the vodka finally catching up to him. Maybe it’s the way Ilya keeps looking at him like he wants to take him apart piece by piece beneath the club lights. Whatever it is, Shane suddenly stops laughing quite so hard and starts pushing back.

Not singing. Yelling.

Like he’s trying to win another Stanley Cup through sheer force of personality.

But there’s something rougher underneath it now too. Hotter.

His hands slide properly onto Ilya’s hair for the first time, gripping instinctively as he crowds back into him beneath the flashing lights. The movement knocks another breathless laugh out of Ilya, though it dies quickly when Shane drags him closer again instead of letting him pull away.

“The ones I picked out for you in Tokyo!”

Shane practically shouts the lyric directly into Ilya’s mouth, eyes bright and wild with alcohol and adrenaline and several hours’ worth of escalating tension finally starting to crack open.

The reaction on Ilya is immediate. For the first time all night he looks briefly caught off guard. Not because Shane is dancing back now. Because Shane is looking at him exactly the same way. Like he wants to undo him completely before the night is over.

The crowd around them absolutely loses its mind as Shane’s hands tighten low against Ilya’s hips, pulling their bodies together again with enough force to make the movement feel less like dancing and more like a warning.

The crowd reaction becomes genuinely frightening.

Ilya throws his head back laughing, curls ruined completely now, before immediately grabbing Shane’s face again and pulling him back in close.

Then both of them shout together:

“Try it, bite it, lick it, spit it!”

The entire dance floor detonates.

Rose physically stumbles into Lisa laughing.

Scott Hunter nearly falls over the back of the booth.

Even Harris looks briefly horrified.

And through all of it, Ilya never lets go of Shane’s hips.

Their dancing has become almost embarrassingly intimate now, all slow grinding movements and lazy touches and lingering mouths against skin between lyrics. Shane’s hands are spread low against Ilya’s waist by this point, gripping instinctively every time Ilya pulls him closer.

Which is constantly.  At one point he presses his forehead briefly against Shane’s while they laugh breathlessly through the chorus together, bodies still moving in perfect rhythm beneath the lights.

Then Rose appears between them out of absolutely nowhere.

“Shane likes boys but he knows I’d hit it!”

She points directly at Shane.

The scream inside the club becomes deafening.

Ilya doubles over laughing hard enough that he nearly loses balance entirely while Shane grabs his waist automatically to steady him.

Luca’s camera shakes violently. Someone near the bar is literally standing on a chair.

And somehow the Stanley Cup glows quietly behind them through all of it, gold beneath rainbow beads and neon lights like this is somehow a perfectly normal thing for the most important trophy in hockey to witness.

The video ends with Shane grabbing Ilya’s jaw firmly and pulling him back close, both of them flushed and laughing and visibly wrecked by each other beneath the lights.

At 2:07 a.m., Luca uploads it.

By 2:20, hockey Twitter is clinically dead.

Shane Hollander has reached the exact level of drunk where every emotion starts sitting too close to the surface. That’s dangerous.

Especially combined with the way Ilya has touched him all night.

The dancing. The constant hands low on his hips and waist. The lazy kisses pressed against his jaw whenever conversation drifted elsewhere. The unbearable eye contact across flashing club lights, like Ilya kept forgetting there were hundreds of other people in the room.

Every touch had lingered just slightly too long. Every glance had felt warm and intimate and quietly filthy in a way only Ilya could manage. Hours of rolling hips beneath neon lights and vodka-soft laughter and being looked at like the most important person in the world had slowly worn Shane’s composure down to almost nothing.

And now they were sitting tangled together on the hallway floor at nearly five in the morning with their shirts half off and a vodka bottle between them, while Shane tried very hard not to climb directly into his husband’s lap permanently.

The hallway near the bathrooms is quieter than the dance floor, though not by much. Music still drifts through the walls in hot distorted waves, blurred slightly by distance.while laughter and screams spill out every time the hallway door swings open. Pink and green light flickers intermittently across the floor tiles, catching against discarded glitter and the Stanley Cup stickers somebody has apparently been slapping across every available surface since midnight.

They’ve ended up sitting on the floor against the wall because the club had suddenly become too loud and too bright and too much in the best possible way.

Or maybe because neither of them trusted themselves standing anymore.

Shane has gradually melted fully into Ilya’s lap over the course of the last twenty minutes, all tangled limbs and overheated skin and unconscious closeness. Their bodies fit together there with effortless familiarity beneath shifting washes of pink and green light, all lazy contact and the kind of unconscious intimacy built over years of loving each other. One of Ilya’s hands rests low against Shane’s bare waist while the other drifts slowly across his thigh in absent-minded circles, fingertips grazing sensitive skin like he physically cannot stop touching him for more than a few seconds at a time. Drunk and exhausted and softened by the hour, Shane lets his forehead settle briefly against Ilya’s shoulder while muffled music and distant laughter pulse warmly through the walls around them.

Neither of them are speaking much. They don’t really need to.

Outside the hallway somebody screams as another song changes. Neither of them move.

“Мой красивый мальчик,” he murmurs quietly against Shane’s hair.

My beautiful boy.

The Russian wraps warm and rough around the words after hours of vodka and exhaustion and dancing. Shane feels it low in his stomach immediately.

“You’re very affectionate tonight,” Shane mutters.

Ilya laughs softly.

“You were biting me twenty minutes ago.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

Shane lifts his head slightly just enough to look at him.

“Ilyusha,” he says with exaggerated seriousness, “I don’t know. I’m very drunk.”

That earns him a real laugh. God. Shane loves that sound.

It’s softer now than it used to be years ago. Less sharp around the edges. The kind of laugh that only appears when Ilya is completely relaxed, completely safe, completely himself. The MLH never sees this version of him.

The league spent fourteen years selling Ilya Rosenov as hockey’s beautiful menace instead.

The rogue Russian. The chirping centre with a temper problem and a god complex. The player who smiled while starting fights, who collected penalties almost as easily as points, who looked equally comfortable dangling through three defenders or dropping gloves because somebody touched his linemate too hard. For years tabloids painted him as some combination of heartbreak, nightlife and violence: the womaniser falling out of exclusive clubs at three in the morning, the bad boy captain with vodka in one hand and somebody scandalously hanging off his arm.

And Ilya played into it beautifully. Still did sometimes.

But the edges of it had softened over the years too. Marriage did that. Being openly bisexual did that. Now the public got glimpses of other versions of him sometimes, the Centaurs was that sort of team. Domestic. Tender. Ridiculously devoted to his husband. Still cocky enough to chirp entire benches for fun, still capable of becoming absolutely insufferable during playoffs, but warmer now beneath the mythology.

This version, though, sitting on a hallway floor at nearly five in the morning with Shane folded into his lap beneath pink and green lights, belonged to almost nobody else at all. This version belongs only to people he trusts. It belonged to Shane. 

The heat inside the club had eventually become unbearable. Shane lasted longer than Ilya expected before suddenly tugging hard at the collar of his grey shirt with visible irritation.

“I hate this thing.”

“You liked it earlier.”

“It’s touching me too much.”

Ilya had gone immediately soft after that.

Not laughing. Not teasing. Just attentive.

He reached up carefully, fingers brushing Shane’s wrists first before taking over the buttons himself one by one, movements slow and patient despite the alcohol. Shane sat there quietly while he did it, breathing a little unevenly as cool air gradually touched overheated skin.

Ilya always handled him like this when the world became too loud. Like Shane was something precious worth slowing down for.

Now the shirt lies discarded beside them while Shane sits bare-chested in Ilya’s lap, skin flushed gold and pink beneath the shifting hallway lights. Hockey has carved both of them broad through the shoulders and heavy through the chest over years, old scars and bruises ghosting faintly beneath skin. Ilya’s fingertips drift slowly up Shane’s spine.

“Better?” he asks quietly.

Shane nods once.

“Much.”

Then, after a second:

“You should take yours off too.”

Ilya’s mouth curves instantly.

“Just my shirt?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting.”

The pink singlet disappears over his head a moment later, dragging his curls into even worse disarray while Shane watches openly from barely inches away. That slight sheen of the fabric had been ruining Shane’s concentration all night.

This is somehow worse.

The chain against Ilya’s throat catches green light as he leans back against the wall again, chest flushed from dancing and alcohol and several hours of mutual destruction.

Shane visibly loses his train of thought. Ilya notices immediately.

That familiar soft confidence slides back into place at once.

“What?” he asks lazily.

“You know exactly what.”

“Say it anyway.”

“You’re unfairly attractive.”

“Mm.” Ilya’s thumbs continue tracing circles against Shane’s thighs. “Continue.”

Shane leans forward instead, pressing his forehead slowly against Ilya’s while the hallway spins pleasantly around them. Their noses brush lightly together. 

“You smell like vodka,” Shane murmurs.

“You also smell like vodka.”

“You smell Russian about it.”

Ilya grins against his mouth.

“Мой любимый,” he murmurs softly this time.

My beloved.

The words land somewhere deep beneath Shane’s ribs.

His hand slides automatically into Ilya’s curls again after that, gentler now than before on the dance floor, fingertips scratching lightly at the nape of his neck while they sit tangled together on the hallway floor like they’ve forgotten the rest of the club exists.

Maybe they have.

For a few quiet minutes neither of them does anything except sit there touching each other lazily beneath the lights. Their heads rest together. Hands drift slowly across warm skin. The vodka bottle passes between them every so often while the music swells and fades beyond the hallway.

The second video happens sometime around five in the morning.

And it is so much worse. Or better.

By then nobody is remotely sober anymore.

The club has softened into pure chaos by that point, humid with sweat and spilled alcohol and the strange emotional exhaustion that arrives somewhere after winning championships and before sunrise. There’s glitter on the floor. Somebody has stolen the DJ’s cowboy hat. Half the team is inexplicably barefoot. Rose is wearing feather boas wrapped around both shoulders like old Hollywood fur stoles while Scott Hunter is trying unsuccessfully to keep Kip from climbing onto a speaker.

The Stanley Cup is wearing pink feather boas now too.

And Shane and Ilya are shirtless. Not performatively. Just overheated and drunk and too far gone to care anymore.

The hallway had wrecked both of them a little.

There’s still the faint outline of Shane’s teeth against Ilya’s throat beneath the shifting lights, half-hidden by the gold chain sticking against sweat-slick skin. Shane’s dark hair is damp and flattened at the edges from heat and dancing while Ilya’s curls glowed softly around his flushed face like some deeply inappropriate religious painting.

And they cannot stop touching each other.

Even standing near the bar waiting for another song, Ilya keeps drifting behind Shane automatically, hands settling low against his bare hips like gravity itself keeps pulling him there. Shane turns slightly in his arms, flushed and glassy-eyed with exhaustion and vodka.

Ilya stares openly.

“What?”

“You are very pretty.”

Shane laughs softly.

“You’re drunk.”

“You are objectively pretty sober also.”

Rose’s voice immediately echoes from somewhere inside the club.

“GET YOUR ASSES BACK IN HERE.”

Shane closes his eyes briefly.

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes,” Ilya murmurs directly against his shoulder.

Then Guess starts again. The reaction inside the club is instantaneous.

People scream before the song even properly begins. Phones rise immediately above the crowd. Somebody climbs onto a booth. Luca nearly falls backwards trying to film while Harris physically grabs the back of his shirt to stop him dying.

“Oh my God,” Eric shouts. “Round two.”

This performance feels completely different from the first one.

Less teasing. More wrecked.

The first version had been all eye contact and flirtation and sharp playful tension. This one feels like the aftermath of something. Emotion is laid bare on the dance floor with the glitter. 

The two of them disappeared for half an hour and came back softer and looser and somehow even more devastating to look at.

Shirtless beneath flashing green lights, Shane stumbles laughing into the middle of the dance floor while Ilya follows directly behind him. The crowd parts instantly around them.

Then Ilya’s hands settle low on Shane’s hips again.

Possessive. Certain. And Shane visibly melts back against him immediately.

“You ready, superstar?” Ilya murmurs near his ear.

“No.”

“Liar.”

The music hits properly.

This time they know enough of the lyrics to be a genuine problem.

Ilya stays behind Shane for almost the entire song, one hand spread low against his stomach while the other catches loosely around Shane’s wrist, guiding his movements back into rhythm whenever he starts laughing too hard to function properly.

The dancing turns smoother now. Closer. Their bodies move together instinctively beneath the lights, hips rolling together in perfect time with the vicious pulse of the song while Shane leans back fully against Ilya’s chest.

The entire club loses its mind immediately.

“Oh, this is definitely a HR violation,” Wyatt gasps from somewhere near the booths.

Ilya only smiles lazily against Shane’s shoulder before mouthing the lyrics directly into his skin.

“You wanna guess the colour of my underwear…”

Ilya’s hands slide slowly up Shane’s bare chest as he mouths the lyric against the shell of his ear, breath warm from vodka and laughter and exhaustion. Then one of his fingers catches briefly beneath Shane’s chin before pressing teasingly against his lower lip.

Shane’s eyes lift to his instantly. Ilya smiles.

Slow.

Knowing.

“Don’t have to guess the colour of your underwear…”

The words brush hot against Shane’s skin while his finger lingers there for another second, and Shane, body humming hot beneath flashing lights and Ilya’s voice against his skin, parts his lips before he even realises he’s doing it. The crowd noise around them disappears into something distant and distorted.T  he moment Shane’s lips close around his fingers, Ilya’s entire expression changes.nThe soft teasing confidence cracks into something much rougher around the edges, something hot and wanting and visibly struggling not to lose control completely.

His free hand tightens low against Shane’s waist while he watches him with blown pupils beneath the flashing green lights, hips still moving slowly together with the rhythm of the song.

“Oh my God,” Luca whispers somewhere behind the camera.

Shane lets the fingers slip free again after only a second, mouth curling into the faintest smug smile when he catches the exact moment Ilya loses composure entirely. Then Ilya laughs softly against his ear, roughened warm around the edges now.

“You are trying to kill me tonight, малыш.”

Baby.

Shane’s breathing visibly stutters.

Then Ilya catches Shane’s wrists gently and pulls his arms back against his own shoulders, holding him there for half a second while their bodies keep moving together beneath the lights. The crowd reaction becomes genuinely deafening.

“Soft dom Ilya is BACK,” somebody howls near Luca’s camera.

Shane is far too warm with vodka and want to remember how public this still is. His head tips back briefly against Ilya’s shoulder while Ilya mouths another lyric directly beside his ear.

“Don’t have to guess the colour of your underwear…”

The next line is almost worse.

“I already know what you’ve got going on down there.”

Shane makes a sound like a gutteral groan  while the club absolutely detonates around them.

Then Billie’s verse arrives. This time Shane doesn’t scream it.

He turns in Ilya’s arms instead, still half-held there by the hips, eyes bright and wrecked beneath flashing lights while he mouths the lyrics directly against his husband’s mouth.

“The ones I picked out for you in Tokyo…”

It sounds almost unbearably affectionate somehow.

That’s what finally destroys Ilya’s composure again.

For one split second the confidence slips. He looks genuinely overwhelmed by Shane looking at him like that.

Then Shane’s hand slides into his curls again and Ilya closes his eyes briefly like the touch physically hurts in the best possible way.

Rose appears beside them at exactly the wrong moment wearing sunglasses at five in the morning and approximately six feather boas.

“SHANE LIKES BOYS BUT HE KNOWS I’D HIT IT!”

This time she grabs Shane’s face while yelling it directly into Luca’s camera.

The scream inside the club becomes almost frightening.

Ilya doubles over laughing against Shane’s shoulder hard enough that both of them nearly lose balance entirely before Shane catches him automatically around the waist.

Then Shane kisses him.

Hard.

Not polished.

Not careful.

Just drunk and exhausted and overwhelmingly alive beneath flashing green lights while the entire club screams around them.

The video ends with Ilya pulling Shane backwards against his chest again, both of them laughing breathlessly while their hips continue moving automatically together with the song.

Luca uploads it at 5:03 a.m.

By noon it has nineteen million views.

But right now nobody is thinking about the internet.

Right now it’s just joy. Pure and stupid and alive.

Shane spins Ilya badly during the next chorus. Ilya nearly trips over somebody’s abandoned shoe. His curls are completely ruined now, gold chain sticking against sweat-slick skin while green light flashes across flushed cheeks and tired smiling eyes.

He looks incandescent beneath the club lights, all ruined curls and flushed skin and lazy exhausted happiness. Shane genuinely forgets how to speak for a second.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Troy mutters nearby.

“Every year,” Wyatt says solemnly, “every year somehow he gets hotter.”

“Maybe Brat summer is steroids.”

“I heard that,” Ilya calls happily.

By five-thirty they’re all collapsing slightly. Sweaty. Drunk.

Emotional in the peculiar intimate way that only happens when the night stretches long enough to become morning.

“You okay?” Ilya asks softly later, fingers still tracing lazy circles against Shane’s bare thigh while they sit tangled together in a booth. Shane looks at him. At the flushed cheeks and messy curls and tired eyes. At the man he built this entire impossible life with.

“Yeah,” Shane says quietly.

“You still sad about dynasty thing?”

“A little.”

Ilya is quiet for a moment.

Then:

“They will remember us.”

Simple. Certain.

Shane swallows hard unexpectedly.

Because he knows he’s right.

Not just for the Cups.

For this too.

For the joy of it.

For being visible and reckless and alive in a sport that once demanded they disappear.

By morning every sports account in North America has reposted the videos.

ESPN uses one during a Stanley Cup recap.

The MLH social media team reportedly panics quietly for several hours before eventually posting a blurry photo captioned: centaurs summer apparently