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Ilya was in his happy place.
Firm fingers gently running through his curls. Strong arms flexing in waves as they wrapped around him. A wall of warm muscle at his back. He lay on his side on the buttery soft sofa, his lover (smirk) behind him, plastered to his skin, he was surrounded.
He revelled in the firm hairy strength of his husbands’ legs and the weight of them over and in between his. The sensory heaven escalating the joy bubbling through him. He was giddy with it, stuffed to bursting, overflowing the space in his heart that beat just for this man, which was all of it let it be known and not ever debated…
Ilya softly hummed, a low rumble, deeply deeply content at his core.
There was, in his opinion, and that was all that mattered mind you, nothing in the world, absolutely nothing ever better than this. Dappled sunshine over his closed content eyes, relaxing into the lack of rush, the absence of emergency as he lay snuggled with his darling Shanya. Did he use ever too much? No, not where his Shanya was concerned.
Shane hummed with him, his face smooshed against his neck, but to Ilya it may have sounded a little too much like mirth than solely contentedness. So, Ilya of course had to twist around and break the spell. This definitely called for a drastic step in bringing his husband on the same page as him, a nip on his stunning husbands stunning nose.
“Mocking is not good for happiness, Shanya” he murmured, “in fact I think it is forbidden here”.
“Oh?!?!” Shane whispered back, one brow winging up, a silly little quirk to his kissable lips.
“Of course!!” Ilya replied almost reverently, shifting slightly to brush a lock of hair fallen over beautiful brown eyes. However dashing it made his husband look, Ilya refused to let it block his deliciously comforting view.
“It is only that seeing you so happy makes me happy” Shane’s voice surrounded their little cocoon. Both whispering as though a change in tone could shatter this moment. Ha!! Thought Ilya, hardly!! They were built of stronger stuff than that. To use his husband’s favorite words For sure.
Months of stress, despair, deranged behaviour from friends, teammates (ex-teammates), the Commissioner (may he get knocked over by Zamboni) and fans had taken its toll. Being married didn’t change that, but being together, the comfort of having the other close, both understanding the crux of the matter instead of the miles of distance and misspoken emotions of the past, made a significant difference to how the both of them tackled it.
It wasn’t enough that Shane gave and gave and gave until he was wrung dry mentally, emotionally, even physically. It didn’t seem enough to those determined to see him as a traitor. The doubt in his intentions, despite his years of dedication and hard work, the lost time for relaxation and each other, the terror of being caught, the hours and hours of effort in building the Metros into a team, the quite strength of his presence at their family gatherings, important milestones, achievements, christenings, weddings, divorces and despair. None of it mattered in the end. He was made to feel other, to feel dirty, for loving who he did. And let’s not lie to ourselves anymore. It wasn’t solely because of who he loved although that was a huge part of what they all raged against. It was also most definitely his choice of sexuality according to them, which was no choice at all.
Shane had no choice in his sexuality and most certainly no choice in who he was attracted to, not since that day in Regina where a teenage Ilya Rozanov caught him up with an off-centre smirk, his bundled-up curls and the moles on his face that reminded Shane of constellations on a dark sky and his knowing twinkling eyes.
These moments where they disappeared into each other, in the quiet of their home with a fireplace going despite the warming weather, the break a welcome respite from endless questions and deliberations, rehashing their history, their games, their commitment were bliss, an unimaginable sigh of relief.
Ilya knew he had it better. Because, notwithstanding his depression, and initial loneliness, his move to Ottawa had fundamentally changed how he saw a team, how he saw hockey even.
To know that he was beloved because he was a good Captain and not a party boy, was a change that jarred at first.
Ilya had always been a performer. He knew his audience on and off the ice. The performative fuck boy at events, chirping menace on the ice and lover of the ladies off of it. A goalie hated to see him coming, a defenseman rolled his eyes before dropping gloves because even though you knew where it was going, Roz got under people’s skins efficiently. He was a good Captain to Boston, a reliable one, who pumped up the team before the games, gave his all on the ice and entertained the fans and haters alike while building the brand of brashness and sheer annoying presence.
He was the best at it, ignoring how often he found himself feeling lost and empty at the end of it. The unbothered veneer chipping away as his father got worse and his brother escalated his demands while bleeding him of more than just money. Bleeding him of peace.
In Ottawa however, Ilya found that he couldn’t escape the keen perception of the men on his team and more importantly his Coach. While his chirps were appreciated for the distractions that they were, the team didn’t let him hide once they saw his exposed underbelly, they pulled him in. They made him family. Dysfunctional, chaotic & mad but family, nonetheless. And for Ilya who had only known family disfunction, chaos and madness through the horrors of his own, it was incomprehensible at first that sometimes…sometimes family didn’t hurt you, it poked you out of the funk, didn't put you in it. It nudged you into conversation that didn’t obfuscate the truth but allowed you to vomit it out onto the feet of those that insisted you bare all.
And while it ripped you apart at the time, you felt so much better for it.
Shane. Shane had been surrounded by the painful reality of a team that no longer trusted him, a management that viewed him as a creature of liability instead of a God of structure and greatness. What should have been a foundational talent that the Metros built their legacy on, was being treated worse that that piece of used gum at the bottom of a shoe. Discarded and stretched thin, an ugly aftermath of an enjoyable treat. It was worse than abuse. It was a flaying of all the definitions that Shane had for himself until he was raw, wet, bleeding and exposed.
And oh! Oh! How it hurt. Because every single nightmare that Shane had predicted came true in the end. Now here he was discarded by the legacy he had created.
Yet he felt hopeful. And reason for that hope was this beautiful bear of a man, loyal, flawed, perfect in his flaws, a constant twinkle in his eyes every time he looked at Shane. And now Shane could look back. Because the eye contact was never forced when it was his Ilya. When it was his love, he was laid bare. Because here he was met with equal want, equal need, equal love.
He started with this new unknown team soon, armed with the knowledge that they were wholly unlike his old one. And he trusted Ilya when he said that. He believed him.
It was good.
It was perfect.
It was what they both deserved.
Until then they tackled the world that was unnecessarily cruel in their own way.
They tackled it by escaping into a bubble of each other while the storm raged outside.