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Ilya hadn’t slept much that night, unable to ignore the high winds and thick rain that thundered against the tenth-floor window. The doctors had changed the dosage of his pills, and the change messed up his sleep. It would be fine though, he thought in the darkest hour of the night with Shane’s head resting on his arm, Ilya would be able to sleep tomorrow, during the day, as they flew home.
But it became clear that the storm was not going to let up. If anything, it grew louder, lashing so heavily against the door of the hotel that a pool of water crept in and soaked the logoed welcome mat.
Check out was at midday, and every single room was booked for the night for a large pharmaceutical event. Even though many of those guests had been prevented from arriving by the same storm that trapped the all-star players inside, the hotel manager was confident that the weather would break and everyone would be on their way. It was simply not possible, he told the gathering of large hockey players, to give them their rooms back.
Shane had found them a large couch to sit on in some hidden corner of the lobby, away from the noise of their colleagues and the televisions with their 24-hour news cycle solely commenting on the extreme weather front that was making its way inland. The deep leather couch lay low to the ground and seeing Ilya’s eyelids drooping, Shane sat the two of them down on the sofa. Each time Ilya’s head began to drop, he lurched upright unable, or unwilling, to embrace sleep.
Shane kissed Ilya’s cheek and took his husbands shoulders, encourage him to lie down on the couch. With his head resting on Shane’s lap, Ilya finally, finally, fell into a deep sleep. Shane watched as his husband’s face slackened and his mouth fell open. When the soft snores began, Shane smiled.
He loved watching his husband sleep. Especially deep sleep, when he stopped having dreams. Ilya complained about the vivid dreams he had when taking the medication, that sometimes his dreams turned dark and violent and Ilya was trapped in them, unable to run or fight his way out. He would be far away from Shane, screaming and begging for help. Awake, Ilya knew that Shane would always comfort him, but his unconscious still hadn’t caught up to reality. His unconscious still dreaded the day that Shane would inevitably leave him. He would wake, his body was frozen stiff, unable to reach or cry out to Shane, to plead for reassurance.
With Ilya finally settled, and Shane not seeing a trace of a dream, he wanted to see if his mother had messaged, whether any new emails from sponsors needed an urgent reply, and also check the weather report on his phone, to track the movement and make uninformed predictions about how long it would take for the whole thing to clear up and he could take the two of them home, where, if nothing else, it was dry.
His phone, however, was in his bag. The bag that was on the far side of Ilya. Shane was determined not to interrupt the first real sleep that his husband had had in days. He wasn’t sure that this sleep would last all too long anyway, Ilya had been sleeping barely longer than an hour or two at a time, and Shane was not going to disturb him for as long possible.
His phone was in the bag. His book was in the bag. There were going to be no distractions for him, but that didn’t matter. He gently ran his fingers through Ilya’s curls with one hand, and gently stroked his shoulder with the other.
Ilya groaned. He turned his head into Shane’s lap and gripped tighter with his hands. Perhaps he wasn’t in a deep enough sleep.
A loud scoff broke through the peaceful world Shane was trying to maintain for his husband. Across the lobby, Kent and Comeau stared at Shane and Ilya, laughing mockingly at the two of them embraced on the couch. Embarrassment washed over Shane, tinged with shame and then also guilt of that shame. He didn’t look up, couldn’t bear to make eye contact, try to warn the two of them to back down. He was weak and trapped under his lover. All he could hope for was that Kent and Comeau would get bored and wander off.
Shane felt his skin crawl before he realised that the two of them were making their way over. He suppressed the spasm in his thighs, the desire to leap up and do something, anything. Ilya was finally asleep and he was going to do nothing that might wake him. With one hand still massaging his husband’s scalp, Shane cupped his other hand over Ilya’s exposed ear, hoping to at least dull the sound of Kent and Comeau.
The laughter broke into sneering jeers, mean-spirited barbs. Shane couldn’t hear the words, but he could feel them. His body tensed at the pitch of their attacks. He was used to chirps, he wasn’t particularly good at returning them, but he was used to hearing them. They were meant to elicit a response, get the opponent riled up and lash out or act stupid. The words coming over from Kent weren’t chirps, not even the bottom-of-the-barrel offensive lashings that Kent was known for. No, these were private and hateful, uncensored by referees and live mics.
The two of them sat on a sofa ten feet away. Their presence a painful pressure on Shane’s awareness. His eyes were focused on his husband, but his attention was focused solely on the two men, analysing for any moment that their insults were not enough for them, and they would come over.
He slowly, gently, stroked a thumb over Ilya’s cheek, willing him to sleep so deep that their words and cruel snickering wouldn’t permeate his dreams.
Shane stopped looking at Ilya. His eyes were focused on the coffee table in front of him. Still unwilling to look up at the other men, hand them ammunition or acknowledgement that their barbs had landed and plucked under his skin, but his heightened concern made it impossible to look at Ilya. His focus was split between the man on his lap, and the threat across from him. He knew, or at least suspected, that they wouldn’t be so bold as to attack him or Ilya in broad daylight. To drag the sleeping man to his feet. To punch or kick them. But they could make him feel small and useless, unable to protect his sleeping love. His throat was dry, painfully so, and he the ice-cold swell of panic swirled near his core.
Wyatt Hayes appeared in Shane’s periphery, though Shane refused to look up, he knew the goalie’s gait, his slow, lumbering walk. He placed his bags on the floor beside him.
“Hollander,” Hazy acknowledged him before sitting in the armchair beside the sofa.
For a moment, Shane worried that Hazy is going to try and start a conversation with him. He couldn’t be distracted right now, he needed to think. Should he wake Ilya? Was he over-reacting? The two men had done nothing but laugh.
But Hazy doesn’t even sit facing him. Instead, he sat in his chair at an angle facing Kent and Comeau, his eyes staring daggers at the two men, daring them to say something, to start something.
Shane resisted the urge to meet Comeau’s fierce gaze, resisted the anxiety that bloomed in the pit of his stomach. Comeau who he had played with for years. He had never been a close friend, but they had been groomsmen together at weddings. They had spent weeks on the road together. Comeau had made his thoughts clear on what he saw as Shane’s betrayal. Shane had felt betrayed by his teammates as well, but worse, they had made him feel shame.
Ilya groaned again, his arms gripping around his chest. Shane ignored the snort of laughter from Kent, and gently rubbed his thumb over Ilya’s shoulders.
With Hazy watching the two men, Shane could at least now look down and focus on Ilya. The way his eyebrows furrowed as he squashed himself deeper into Shane’s thighs. The hand that combed through Ilya’s hair moved round to stroke the tense muscles of Ilya’s frown, drawing a sigh from the sleeping man.
Hayden stepped in front of the sofa and met Shane’s eyes. He placed a can of ginger ale on the coffee table with a smile, then perched on the edge of the sofa in the gap left behind Ilya’s bent knees. He looked Comeau dead in the eye.
For the first time, Shane looked up at the two men opposite them. The grins plastered across their faces had frozen and looked painful to hold. Kent sneered at something happening behind Shane.
Troy sat on the arm of the couch beside Hayden. Harris stood beside him, his arms around Troy’s shoulders, Troy’s hand on Harris’ waist. While Troy and Kent glared at one another, Harris whispered something in Troy’s ear that made Troy blush and smile. He turns to Harris sighing and placed a small, reverent kiss on his cheek. When he turns back, Kent’s lips snarled in disgust.
Shane went back to stroking Ilya’s hair, feeling calmer than he ever thought possible. There was no threat here, at least non physically. Woe betide any man that woke a sleeping Ilya. The thought of Ilya waking and seeing just how many friends were here to guard his sleep, made Shane smile. He tried to image the chirps that Ilya would come up with, what digs and burns he would point at the men around him, lovingly.
Ah, you all come to see Sleeping Beauty, yes? You can admit it, I am beautiful.
Shane sighed through his tight smile, he wasn’t very good at coming up with chirps, nor predicting what Ilya would say in any given situation.
Scott Hunter came to stand between the couch and Hazy’s armchair. “Hey, Rook,” he said with quiet affection. Behind him an excitable Luca dragged his small, unwieldy suitcase. He smiled at Shane and smiled again when he looked down at his sleeping captain.
“He is finally asleep,” Luca whispered.
“Yep,” said Shane as he burns with pride, gently stroking Ilya’s cheek.