Chapter Text
“I am here for the puppies. Shane can answer questions. I am here to play.”
Ilya sits cross-legged on the floor beside his husband, who is already apologising to the producer that Ilya will be too distracted to answer any questions, “He will forget how to speak English when the puppies arrive.”
“Yes,” Ilya admits. “I want puppies. You promised me puppies.”
The producer asks them to introduce themselves. Both men look into the camera as they say,
“Hi, I’m Ilya Rozanov…”
“And I’m Shane Hollander. We are NHL players, and we are here to answer some questions and play with puppies.”
Before Shane is able to finish the introduction, Ilya has already clocked the puppies being brought out of the carrier and placed on the floor at the edge of the filming area. His voice leaps out of her chest, too excited to pay any attention to the formalities of opening the interview.
Six 10-week-old puppies trip over their own paws racing towards the two men. “иди сюда!” Ilya whispers, tapping the floor by his feet to coax the puppies towards him. They look curiously at the beats he taps out as they sniff his fingers. “Spaniels, yes?” He takes the closest puppy’s ears and gently played with them. “как тебя зовут?” The puppy tilted its head into the teasing, tongue lolled to the side and as small, ecstatic pants fill the air.
Who do you think this puppy would cheer for: Canada or Russia?
“Canada,” both men answer instantly.
Which of you is more likely to sneak a puppy onto the team bus?
“Ilya actually did that once,” Shane cautiously used the back of his fingers to stroke the head of a shy but curious all brown cocker who was sniffing the bottom of his shoes. “We have a team dog, Chiron, who Ilya absolutely loves, and who comes with us on short road trips. But Ilya decided that our dog, Anya, should come with us too to keep Chiron company. The rest of us on the bus didn’t realise until we were halfway to Toronto, and Anya barked. So, yeah. He’s already done it.”
Ilya holds up two fingers and mouths, “twice,”
“What? When was the second time?!”Shane demands, his voice breaking and eyes narrowing.
Ilya shrugs, picking up a shivering puppy who had caught his own ear under-paw. “Oh, you are so small and cold. Come here and I will keep you warm. Ко мне” He tucked the puppy in the gap between his legs. “Садись! You stay here and keep warm.” The puppy yawns and slumps against Ilya’s thigh.
If this puppy were a hockey player, what position would it play?
Ilya is far too distracted to answer. His fingers rub the sleeping puppy as he murmurs over it in Russian. Shane watches the interaction as he gives a thoughtful answer.
“Goalie,” he says, his mind made up. “Dogs like catching toys. Any time a puck came near the goal they would want to catch it.”
“But pucks are not so good for their teeth. Hayes is proof of this.”
“Hayes isn’t a dog.”
“But he wears guard for mouth. Dogs should only be mascot.”
“The costume wouldn’t fit. They’d get too hot.” Shane says under his breath. Ilya scoffs gently, relishing the way his husband’s mind works.
“Yes, they would,” he grins.
Out of the two of you, who is the most romantic?
“Ilya,” Shane smiles gently at a memory, before admitting, “but I don’t always realise he’s being romantic.”
“It can be frustrating sometimes,” Ilya laughs.
Shane’s smile falters. He shifts to release the discomfort rising inside him. “He sent me a picture of us from before we were out. He’d kept it for years and made sure that it was moved onto new phones when he upgraded them. He was so careful about it. It’s the only picture we have of us together back then that one of us took. We had to delete them. And he sent this picture that he had taken and taken care of…” Shane trials off, suddenly realising that the story is not only about how romantic Ilya is, but also how embarrassingly oblivious he had been to this side of Ilya. He picks at his trousers.
“And your reaction?” Ilya prompts, hugging a chocolate brown puppy with a dopey expression close to his chest.
“I asked you if I should cut my hair,” his voice is tight. He begins spiralling, trying to explain himself. “I felt really bad about it when I finally understood how careful you’d been making sure that you never lost the photo. You’d kept it in a special file that no one would ever look in. You kept this photo when we never kept photos, and you kept it safe, even during times we didn’t see each other for months at a time. You…” his voice drops suddenly and he can’t speak.
Ilya leans over, pressing his nose against Shane’s shoulder before placing an adoring kiss into the fabric of his shirt, grounding his husband and bringing him back to the room. He rests his chin on Shane’s shoulder for a moment. “Your proposal was also romantic. And fire safe.”
Shane looks down into his husband’s eyes and smiles weakly. Ilya raises his head, so they are level, placing a gentle kiss on his lips.
Shane, what’s the most Canadian thing you could teach a puppy?
“To apologise,” Ilya interrupts.
Shane considers this. “Yes, probably.”
Who sulks more when they lose?
“Shane.”
“I don’t sulk.”
“Mhm. Is Shane.”
Before you were outed, what was the hardest part of keeping your relationship secret?
Shane swallowed hard. Ilya looked at him, giving him the time he needed to process the question and formulate his answer. Ilya could think of a dozen times that it had been hard. A dozen reasons that keeping the secret had been hard, but he regretted none of it.
“The plane crash,” Shane said quietly. “It was very confusing. Ilya had sent all these messages when the plane was landing. They were beautiful. Then he sent me more messages saying that he was ok and not to worry. That was more confusing.” Shane took one end of a toy that the puppy nearest him was playing with and tugged it gently, providing resistance to the pup, who let out a pitched growl. “Then I saw the plane had crashed. I knew he was safe. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what would have happened if it had been worse. What would I have done if it had been worse. All people would have known is that we were rivals. I would have gone to his funeral as a rival. And I would have cried. And…” he trailed off. “It was hard that people didn’t know.”
Ilya nodded beside him, taking it all in, digging his fingers deep into the shaggy coat of a lazy dog.
“Mine wasn’t before we were outed, but when we were outed,” Ilya says. “We were in a meeting with an official who was unhappy. He didn’t want us to admit we were anything. He gave us a statement to release. That we were pulling a prank. It was safe. It put us…” he considers the expression, “back into the closet. And for a moment, I thought, this is it. Shane loves hockey, he will protect his reputation and his game. Not because he is cruel,” Ilya is quick to clarify, “but because he worked so hard. For a long time, I did not believe I was worthy of love. So, in that office, I thought it was the end of us.”
Shane leans into him, pressing his weight into Ilya’s side. He wanted to lean his head against Ilya’s shoulder, to kiss him, to push away all the negative thoughts Ilya had ever had.
“And then he said, ‘I choose him’. I couldn’t believe it. He was so certain.” Ilya lightly tips his head towards Shane. “So, the worst part of being secret, was not knowing if I was worth it if it wasn’t secret.”
For a moment the two men faced each other, Ilya looking Shane in the eyes, Shane, unable to maintain the direct gaze for long, looked down at Ilya’s lips.
“Always worth it,” Shane whispered.
If you had to describe the other person as a dog breed, what would they be and why?
Ilya jolted from his quiet reflection and launched immediately into his answer, excited to tell people about his husband. It was a question he had been expecting, and he had meticulously though about his answer the moment they had been invited to the interview.
“Shane is Golden Retriever. Not because he is soft. Is because he is relentless. Loyal. He will keep chasing the ball again and again just to prove he can. He makes everything look easy. And everyone likes them because they are friendly. But they are also stubborn.”
The smile that had been growing on Shane’s face tightens imperceptibly. It’s true, he is stubborn, but he prefers to think of himself as ‘driven’ or ‘directed’. Ilya notices the sudden, if slight, change in Shane’s expression.
“Yes, stubborn,” he reiterates. “When they decide something truly matters, they don’t let it go.” Shane’s face softens.
“I don’t know as much about dogs as Ilya,” he admits. A cheeky smile blooms across his face. “But I think he is a husky. Every video I see of a husky, they are dramatic and loud.” Ilya feigns feinting beside him; hand clutched over his heart, he spins round to lie on his back, head facing the camera.
“You kill me, Hollander.” The smallest puppy races round to check on him, sniffing at his face. “Ah, good dog”
“They are also really smart, but they pretend not to be when it suits them. Ilya does that sometimes. He’ll make a joke to dodge a question he doesn’t want to answer.”
“Be nice to me!” Ilya dramatically begs beside him.
“I said you were smart!”
Ilya scoffs.
“Huskies are best when they are in a pack. They need connection, even when they pretend they don’t. Ilya has a pack now. He has family. It makes him even stronger.”
Ilya stays lying on the floor, but his hand comes to rest at the top of Shane’s thigh, through it, Shane can feel his thoughts through the touch. Good answer.
Who is secretly the softest between the two of you?
Shane looks down at his husband, lying flat on his back, legs sprawled out across the floor, covered in puppies that he coos at in Russian. “Хороший пёсик!” The puppies climb on top of him, tugging at his jeans and shoelaces. He sighs with pure joy. “Красивая собака!” he ruffles the ears of the puppy on his chest.
Shane looks up at the producer and shrugs, motioning over to the pile of dogs.
Which teammate would you name a puppy after?
Ilya thinks about this for a moment, playing through a few names.
Shane speaks first, “Luca. He’s going to pick Luca.”
“Yes, I think so, probably,” he says, sitting up, his face lined with deep creases. “But maybe it is a big dog. A bully or a boxer. I think then ‘Bood’ sounds like a good strong name.” Ilya picks up a spaniel that is scrapping with his brother. “This one, he could be Luca.”
Shane reaches up and affectionally tickles the puppy under the chin.
If you could train a puppy to sabotage the other person during a match, what would it do?
“Don’t give him ideas,” Shane says sternly, but Ilya bursts upright, surprising the dogs, and comes out with plans he has already made,
“I am currently training Chiron. I bought him little shoes so he can walk on ice. He is getting good at this. Good balance. Very fast. He is maybe too sweet to attack, but maybe he is like Spanish bull with Montreal jersey. Maybe he will see red and attack. Maybe I release him at next Montreal game…” Ilya shrugs dramatically as if to imply the damage that could be caused.
“The question was how you would sabotage me, not another team.”
“I do not need to sabotage you,” Ilya wafts a hand dismissively. “We are on the same team. Montreal, on the other hand, I could sabotage. It is useful to have this plan.”
“Not when Hayden or JJ are on the ice,” Shane warns. Ilya rolls his eyes. “You’d make his kids sad.”
Ilya considers this seriously. “Ok, will not hurt Pike. No sad Pike children.”
“After watching this interview, they could sabotage us by releasing puppies into the locker room.”
Ilya nods. “It would work on me. I would forfeit the game.”
“You’d rather play with puppies than play hockey?” Shane asks, incredulous.
“You do not want me to answer this.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t be captain. Just in case.”
Ilya scoffs, “just in case Montreal releases hundreds of puppies into our locker room.”
“They could send in a single puppy and we would lose you.”
Ilya shrugs. “Дай лапу,” he says, taking a puppy’s paw in his hand and shaking it.
What can you say to both a husband and a dog?
“Good boy,” Ilya flashes a wicked grin and winks at the camera. He leans in towards Shane, “Lie down.”
Shane’s cheeks flush red, burning beneath his freckles. He hangs his head to cover his embarrassment. Ilya reaches up, his fingers running through the hair on the back of Shane’s head, dropping another affectionate kiss on his shoulder. His hand drops to Shane’s knee as he leans over to pet the puppy that is sniffing Shane’s shoe. “This one is very cute. He likes you more than me. Maybe we should bring him home.” Shane smiles, tapping his head against Ilya like they would on the ice during a game.