Chapter Text
It has been a tough couple of weeks. With the Centaurs in the middle of the playoffs, Shane and Ilya were skating around the clock. Game day after game day, resting days were filled with slow but intense workouts and practice. Refueling, Recovering. Analyzing played games for every wrong step on the ice, every unprecise pass, every shot on the goal – successful or not. Team meetings, talks with the coach, high praising from Ilya in his captain’s position. Everyone was locked in. Especially Shane. He was passionate on the ice; fast and unremittingly. Ambitious. Brave. And together with Ilya, he was unstoppable.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough this time. Playing against New York in the Eastern Conference Finals brought the Centaurs’ downfall. Maybe it was the one penalty in the second period that was too much. Maybe it was the one missed shot on the goal that only grazed the crossbar. Maybe it was the one unlucky break of Shane’s stick in the middle of their offensive zone on a two-on-three race. In the end, it didn’t matter, because the Centaur’s missed the Finals by a spot.
It was disappointing, of course. For everyone. Ilya, being the great captain he was, was comforting his team, showing off his love and appreciation for their work this season. It made this devastating loss a bit easier to swallow. They still celebrated. This was the best result the Centaurs had reached by decades; they have made their point in between the other strong teams in the league and would be watched closely for sure from now on. Especially with Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander together on the same team. They would win the cup, eventually. It was only a matter of time.
Shane felt the deep disappointment maybe a bit more than anyone else. He knew he was competitive, so was Ilya and the rest of the team. But it was slightly different for him, especially after leaving Montreal with him being outed; later, his relationship to Ilya included. He had had a hard time adjusting, leaving everything behind and coming to terms with everything that had happened around him. Suddenly being out in the open, with Ilya on his side. Trying to fit in with a new team, with Ilya as his husband being the captain. Shane had learned early on that he had made the right decision, that he couldn’t have picked a better team than the Centaur’s. Maybe that’s one reason the disappointment went so deep for him; he had learned to love these guys, and he had always thought they would have earned it to win. Maybe he could have played better. Just a bit.
It took a couple weeks of overthinking, struggling on his own terms and releasing the tension in his body and mind until Shane was able to accept the loss. He was even starting to feel a bit proud of them, making it all the way to the Conference Finals after starting the season with a losing-streak Shane had never experienced before in his entire hockey career. He felt like everything was possible with this team.
Long story short, Shane was tired. Like bone-tired, dead-exhausted. The weeks of game after game, running on little sleep and the aftermath of feeling empty, stressed out and tensed, had taken a toll on him. They both had moved their resting days to the cottage, enjoying the silence around them. Days were slow, breakfasts were served in bed, and terrible movies were watched on the couch. An easy run or a swim was thrown in, the rest of exercise was being covered in a lot of passionate sex. Shane was blissed out. Slowly, he felt himself relaxing, the tension seeping out of his tired bones. He even slept in sometimes.
It was this one evening in the middle of June. It’s been a few weeks already; the summer days were definitely arriving and everything around them felt easy. Today’s dinner was served by Ilya who made a delicious pasta dish, joined by a nice, cold ginger ale and a coke for himself. They both cleaned their plates, feeling sated and happy. After dinner they migrated to the couch, deciding on continuing a show they had started a week ago. Ilya had been a bit skeptical at first; a dark-fantasy-romance not usually his go-to genre but Shane had talking about it a lot, so he had given in. It was not that bad, but honestly, Ilya only relented because he couldn’t deny his husband anything at this point. Not that he ever was able to.
This is how Ilya found himself lounging on his back with Shane at his side, slightly curled into him, his head pillowed on Ilya’s collarbone. Ilya himself slowly cared his fingers through his husband’s thick hair, comfortably scraping his fingernails over his head. Shane usually wasn’t a napper in front of the TV. During the season, he had a strict bed routine which contained a minimum of 7 to 8 hours sleep and no screens an hour before going to bed. So, it was almost entirely impossible for him to fall asleep on the couch during a movie. Things were different outside of the season.
It was only then when Shane seemed to let go of his strict routines (which had been a long journey) and allowed himself to stay up late or sleep in. Therefore, that included him sometimes falling asleep on the couch in the middle of a movie because he was stubborn enough not to go to bed. Ilya noticed immediately how Shane’s body was starting to grow heavy against him after being maybe twenty minutes in the second episode of said show this evening. His head was jerking softly, when Shane caught himself falling asleep, only to go limp again after a few minutes.
Ilya kept quiet for a bit, until Shane was starting to shift after jerking a bit harsher this time. He gently nudged his husband’s neck, murmuring soft words over the dense muttering voices on TV. “Let’s go to bed, moya lyubov.”
“Hm?”, Shane’s raspy voice vibrated against Ilya’s chest, reflexively answering as if he just had been caught falling asleep. “’m fine.”
“You are tired, and you fall asleep.”
“No, I’m not. I want to watch this.”, Shane grumbled back.
“I wonder how you want to watch through the back of your eyelids.”
Shane turned his head slightly upwards, this way he was able to look Ilya in the eye. Scrunching his nose in the most adorable way, he stated: “You’re not funny, you know?”
“I am funniest guy ever.”
“You’re not.”
“Says the guy falling asleep on his couch at 9pm on a Thursday.”
Shane huffed and returned to his comfy position on Ilya’s collarbone, shuffling down a bit until he reached his chest. “I’m not falling asleep, I’m just… resting a bit.”
“Uh huh. Hundred bucks you are gone by end of this episode.”
“Okay, can you stop betting on me?”, Shane genuinely sounded irritated at this point. Which he sometimes did, even though he secretly enjoyed Ilya’s teasing. Still, Ilya felt like he would need to change to a different tone now.
“Shane. You know it’s okay to be tired, yes? You had exhausting weeks; you were running on… how do you say? Flames?”, Ilya tapped his finger against Shane’s clothed shoulder as he tried looking for the right word.
“Fumes?”, Shane found himself providing the right word.
“Yes, fumes. You are tired, you go to sleep. Is easy. Not a competition.”
“Well, I’m not that tired and we all had a very exhausting time. I just want to enjoy my evening with my husband and watch this show.”
Ilya insisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Fine. Be like that. But just so you know, I will not carry you to bed when you fall asleep on couch. You will sleep here all night, lying on uncomfortable pillow without a cozy blanket and you will complain about crick in your neck all morning. That is what will happen. And then you will think of me saying that you should go to bed. And you will need to apologize for ignoring me with profound measures.”
Shane propped himself up slightly, scoffing at Ilya. “Okay, first of all: you will not need to carry me to bed, because I will not fall asleep. And even if I would, the second you lift me up from that couch, I will be awake. Secondly, what do you mean by profound measures?”
Ilya smirked at him. “Maybe it will include your mouth, maybe it will not.”
“I regret I asked. You are an asshole.”, Shane laid back down in his spot, demonstrably crossing his arms in front of his chest while snuggling into the warmth of his husband’s chest and arms. Ilya chuckled and pulled him closer, going back to stroking through Shane’s hair and drawing his attention back to the TV still babbling through this weird storyline about elves and a forbidden relationship.
Shane didn’t make it to the end of the episode. He had started dropping off again barely ten minutes after their short banter and this time, he didn’t jerk awake again. He just dropped further, until his body was limp and heavy against Ilya, the rhythm of slow and deep breathing expanding his chest. There were still soft fingers carding through Shane’s hair in repetitive motions. Ilya was deliberately ignoring the fact his husband promised he wouldn’t fall asleep anywhere near the end of this episode, he just kept his cozy position on the couch, not really paying much attention the TV anymore. He rather bathed in the warm sensation of his sleeping husband weighing against his own body.
Credits were rolling around 9:30pm, announcing the end of said episode. Shane was still out and not moving an inch. Ilya shifted, grabbing the remote to turn off the TV, before he gently escaped Shane without jostling him too much. Grabbing the empty plates and cans, he went to the kitchen and put them away, before turning the lights off and close all the windows. Back in the living room, he bent down and gently lifted Shane up from the couch into his arms. Shane, who had tried to convince him he would wake the second he was being lifted, slept on like he fell into a coma, completely oblivious to the movement around him. His head lolled against his husband’s chest, body heavy and relaxed. Ilya carried him all the way to the bedroom, laying him down on the bed with the covers already pulled back. The moment Shane’s body touched the sheets, he stirred slightly, blinking drowsily.
“Huh?”, he slurred incoherently, not really awake, only floating on the surface of consciousness.
“Shh. Sleep.”, Ilya shushed him, tracing his fingers gently over Shane’s eyebrows as he watched him going limp again without any more protest. Ilya wouldn’t even count it as a protest; he was sure Shane wouldn’t even remember being half-awake tomorrow. This wasn’t Ilya’s first rodeo.
Pulling the sheets over Shane, Ilya retreated to the bathroom to take care of his needs, before he turned off the remaining lights and slid next to Shane into bed. His husband was laying on his side, partly on the stomach, his mouth slightly open against the pillow his face was smashed into. Ilya crawled under the sheets, shifting closer to Shane and pressing a gentle kiss to his neck. “Good night. I love you.”, he whispered into the comfortable silence.
Shane, indeed, didn’t have any memory of being awake at any point, nor of falling asleep on the couch. He would be sure he had found his way to bed eventually, because that’s where he woke up the next morning. Ilya wouldn’t comment, because that’s just how it was. Night after night, morning after morning. Over his dead body Ilya would spend another night without Shane in his bed. It took them a decade to finally share a bed on more than a single occasion and there was no way in hell he would want to go back to these days. Yes, Shane would deny being tired. Yes, Ilya would tell him otherwise. No, Shane wasn’t leaving the couch on his own terms. No, Ilya would not leave his beautiful husband sleeping on the couch for a single night, but he might keep threating to him to do exactly that. It’s his love language.