Work Text:
“Shane, it is too early for this,” Ilya whined as he studied himself in the mirror in the dressing room, fiddling with his curls.
“The sooner we do it, the sooner we get it over with,” Shane answered as he tugged his jersey over his head, the fabric swallowing him slightly without his pads on.
“But the later we do it, the more we could have done other things, мой будильник.”
Shane paused for a second as he thought. “Alarm clock?”
“Yes, first time since last season ended you woke me up and it was not for…” Ilya said, waggling his eyebrows with a sly smile on his face.
“Well we could have done that too if you were willing to wake up earlier!”
The day before the first “official” day of training camp was always a grind. They started off with medical and fitness testing and the ceremonial peeing in a cup as the first official acts of the new season. Then the hockey players - after baring more than just their souls to a team of medical professionals - would be handed over to a caffeine-fueled marketing department for a couple of hours.
At some point, “media day” had morphed from a quick post-medical stop to get their annual headshots taken for Getty Images and a couple of posed shots for the game programs to a whole production. LED screens, smoke machines, neons, multiple rooms filled with cameras all wanting them to show some personality for the website and in-arena and social media and both TSN5 and RDS and even EA goddamn Sports… it was a lot.
Ilya had always been one of the ones to roll up later, right before the rookies and minor leaguers would come in to close out the day. No reason to start the season at eight in the morning with a doctor watching your dick as you pissed.
But really, it gave him the opportunity to razz some of the younger players who were still starstruck. Get them used to his bombastic brand of humor before they were expected to share the ice together for the next few weeks of camp. Once they saw Ilya joke around with the videographer before putting on his “scary Russian” face when the camera was recording, they stopped being as intimidated.
Well, some of them. Maybe a quarter of them. He was still Ilya Rozanov, the best player in the MLH.
Shane, on the other hand, had always made it a point to be one of the first ones to arrive. Set a good example, get the painful process over with, and sometimes he even managed to dodge the social media station.
“Oh, there was a personality survey the social team asked everyone to fill out? Fuck, must have missed it,” he’d say to Hayden, and then dodged Marcel the social media manager for the rest of camp and never ended up filling out the personality survey. Of course, the few times he failed to avoid the survey he filled it out with the driest answers imaginable. Favorite food? Salmon. Pre-game routine? Get dressed. Career if not a hockey player? Hockey coach. The uninspiring answers weren’t entirely on purpose, but enough that he wasn’t the first choice for any extra content, despite his on-ice achievements.
It was a great system for Shane.
But now that Shane and Ilya were married and lived together and commuted to the practice rink together… They had to compromise.
And it was their second season playing for Ottawa together, so they had already gone through one round of Cens media day. Though the first season didn’t really count. The team was over the moon at getting the “first husbands of hockey” and ran Shane and Ilya through more shoots than Shane thought was possible.
And Shane had spent his career managed by Yuna Hollander, so that was a high bar to clear.
They got a special call time separate from the rest of the team, and were personally guided through the media gauntlet to ensure not a single station was missed. All the while, one of the video team members had followed them around, recording for an episode of the team-produced docuseries. It was a lot. Understandable, but a lot.
This year was a return to normalcy. It wasn’t novel for husbands to play for the same team, even husbands that were two of the best players to step onto MLH ice in two decades. The world had moved on, mostly, and the two were now just run-of-the-mill superstars instead of the only hockey story to break containment since, well, Scott Hunter.
So Shane and Ilya had to figure out when they would arrive at media day. Arriving separately was out of the question, of course. That nonsense wasn’t even considered. Shane wanted to be there first thing at eight in the morning. Ilya argued for 11AM.
And so, as a compromise, they were there at 8AM, dressed in workout clothes with their Centaurs game jerseys layered on top, slightly swallowing each of them without the pads to fill it out and the fight strap peaking out the back like a tiny tail.
Shane joined his husband at the mirror, locking eyes with Ilya as he smirked. Ilya’s hair was slightly blonder than usual, sun-kissed from a summer at the cottage. His face had always been chiseled, but the combination of years of maturity plus a slight leanness from sharing Shane’s cleaner diet had turned it into something absolutely lethal.
God, Shane’s husband was so hot.
Shane ran one hand through his hair, breaking up the gel cast and allowing one strand to slip over his forehead. Ugh, that was going to annoy him-
Ilya kissed Shane’s neck. “Shane why do you do this to me,” he murmured into Shane’s skin, slowly moving up the jaw. “You make yourself all pretty for me but I cannot do anything for hours.”
“We’re going to get fined again,” Shane responded, not entirely caring.
“Would be new record. Fastest fine to start the season.”
“Y’know, we don’t have to be the best at everything.”
“Would not be us if we weren’t.”
Shane sighed into Ilya. This was why he wanted to get there early, if he was being completely honest. The chance to steal a few moments alone with his husband while at the rink. Making up for the years and years where they had to put on the act of hating each other on the ice and in the room.
“Hollzy! Roz! Getting started on the postseason party fund already, eh?” Evan Dykstra’s voice boomed out across the dressing room.
“Fuck off, Dykstra. Training camp starts tomorrow, it’s not the season yet!” Ilya yelled back, face still buried in Shane’s neck while Shane turned pink.
“You’re in a Cens sweater in the Cens room doing Cens things, hell yeah the season has started,” Evan argued as he made his way over to his stall where his pads and sweater were waiting.
“Dykstra. Give us a mulligan, please? It’s eight in the morning,” Shane argued, turning away from the mirror.
“All the more reason for the fine, you guys,” Evan said as he pulled his sweater over his head, forgoing his pads. “We’ve got to outdo last season’s rager. Better music, at least.”
“I will personally double the payment if you promise NOT to do the music this season,” Ilya shot back.
“Hey, fuck you, I listen to some great music.”
“Oh yes, which song is your favorite? The one about the beer and the truck and the dirt? Or the one about the truck and the dirt and the beer?”
“Shut up, Roz, they’re not all like that!”
“Right, there was one about Olive Garden.”
“Applebee’s,” Shane interjected mindlessly as he fiddled with his loose strand of hair, causing Ilya to grin widely.
“Aw come on Hollzy, you don’t even listen to music,” Evan whined.
“Boys, it is a FANTASTIC day to pee in a cup!” Tanner Dillon said, entering the room and - thankfully - ending that particular argument.
“Dilly! Did you piss orange again or did you finally drink enough water?” Ilya asked, walking over to give the winger a hug.
“It was a nice canary yellow this year, thank you very much,” Tanner said as he embraced Ilya.
“That’s still not healthy,” Shane added, still distracted by his loose strand of hair.
“Hey guys!” Harris Drover, the team’s director of communication, popped his head through the door. “We’ve got everything set up for you. If you care about how your hair looks in the team photos, I’d recommend doing the off-ice stuff first.”
“Harris means you, Dilly,” Shane chirped, smiling.
Tanner Dillon, after years of fighting his gradually disappearing hairline, had finally given in and shaved his head midway through the last season. It was a relief for everyone, frankly. And Tanner had fully embraced his newly shaved head.
But that didn’t stop Tanner from flipping Shane off. “C’mon, man, I get enough of that from your husband.”
“He learned from the best,” Ilya said as he kissed Shane on the cheek again.
“Wow, two violations from the husbands and we haven’t even taken headshots yet. This has gotta be a new record,” commented Evan.
“You still don’t get to play the music, Dykie.”
Shane nudged Ilya. “Hey. Let’s go get this over with, ‘kay?”
Ilya and Shane first headed over to the locker room where the Getty photographer was stationed, wanting to ensure that their carefully coiffed hair was captured before it was messed up by one of their teammates (or each other, to be frank) (it was perfectly normal for the newlywed phase to last into the second year of marriage, right?).
But they were not the only ones with that idea.
Centaurs head coach Brandon Wiebe had beat them to it. Unfortunately for him. Fortunately for Ilya.
“This is why I keep my phone with me!” Ilya cackled, pulling it from the pocket of his team-issued gym shorts, opening up the camera app.
Shane covered up a snort of his own. It was hard not to.
Wiebe was in the outfit version of a mullet, if there ever was one. Business in the front, party in the back. Well, more like business on the top, gym on the bottom.
From waist up, Wiebe was wearing a crisp white button-down shirt, red tie, and charcoal suit jacket. His favorite combo, and one that he often wore on the bench. Waist down, he sported gym shorts, bright white crew socks, and slides.
“I better not see that photo on Twitter, Rozanov!” Wiebe called out while the photographer directed him where to look.
“Don’t worry Wiebe, it won’t be there!” Ilya called back, before muttering to Shane, “It will be on Instagram.”
A head popped out of another locker room down the hall. “Boys! If you’re waiting, we don’t have anyone here for EA.”
Every few years, EA Sports would send a facial scanner to media day to ensure the “highest degree of realism” for the latest MLH game. It didn’t help, with the faces always ending up like the Geico caveman commercials. But, contractually, the guys still had to participate. Plus it made for some great chirp material.
“Go for it, Ilya. I’ll see if there’s another station open that I can do,” Shane urged Ilya.
“Okay, but wait for me before you do the fun videos room. I need to hear your answers, yes?”
“Promise,” Shane shot Ilya a grin as he headed back in the direction of the dressing room.
Ilya quickly wrapped up EA’s 360 degree facial scan, ducking through the curtains and out the door of the locker room only to run into Wyatt Hayes.
“So many cameras in there I thought Hayden Pike outed us again,” Ilya joked.
Wyatt grinned. “The EA thing is back?” Ilya nodded. “Man, I love that we’re in video games. I don’t care if they make me look like a Victorian child and give me an 85 overall.”
Ilya snorted. “You are much better than 85.”
“Right? That’s like for backup goalies, man. I swear there’s a Toronto fan who’s in charge of the ratings that’s still bitter about everything,” Wyatt shook his head. “Totally unrelated, but I saw that the team finally shelled out to do a Marvel theme night this season. Do you think they’ll be asking us to do Avengers trivia today? I wonder if they’ll go out of the MCU and cover the comics as well. I hope they ask about the difference between Fresh Start and Marvel Legacy…”
“Hazy I already speak Russian and English, I do not speak comic book,” Ilya said honestly.
Wyatt’s eyes widened. “Oh man, you’re missing out! I can get you a Fresh Start collection, since that’d probably be best for someone who is really only familiar with the movies, but you should really start with the Silver Age as that’s when a lot of the modern lore started.”
“Uh, sure Hazy,” Ilya’s eyes darted over to the Getty headshot room, which looked like it didn’t have a line. “I need to get headshot now, yes? And then maybe you can tell me about the Justice League.”
“The Avengers, Roz, come on,” Wyatt called after him as Ilya slipped into the locker room, thankful that it was free.
“Ilya Rozanov?” the photographer asked. It wasn’t one of their team photographers, but a freelancer that the Centaurs brought in to help with the volume of photography needs on media day, so it was understandable that he wouldn’t easily recognize Ilya on sight. Mostly understandable.
“Yes, is me,” Ilya confirmed.
“Great. There’s a mirror over there if you want to double check how you look, otherwise stand over on the white tape.”
Ilya took his time ensuring he looked good in the mirror. Was some of it vanity? Of course. He was voted fifth hottest player in the MLH. Fifth! It was a travesty. It only somewhat soothed him that his husband was voted the hottest. Deservedly so, but Ilya was better than fifth. And so he had to ensure that his headshot could get him to second place, maybe. Not first - Shane was definitely first. For his freckles alone, really.
But Ilya also knew that this headshot was the most important photo he would take this year. It was the photo on all the sports websites, on all the TV graphics, all over social media. He had teammates who didn’t take it seriously, and then seriously regretted it for the rest of the season.
Nick Chouinard once didn’t fix a severe case of bedhead prior to taking his headshot, and Ilya called him Eraserhead that whole season (Ilya was proud of that chirp, while his teammates wondered when had had watched a ‘70s David Lynch horror film) (in all honesty he did not, but had heard that chirp used for someone else and filed it away). Harris had the design team make Nick’s hair in the lineup graphic slightly taller every game. Eventually it got to be so tall it was covering the other players on the graphic.
Brad Hammersmith forgot his teeth one year when Ilya was still on the Raiders. Instead of going with a no smile, serious game face look like most others would do, Brad had leaned into it and embraced the toothless hockey player look with a wide grin. That earned him the nickname of Vending Machine, which eventually morphed into Vendy. He still wore his teeth most of the time, in contrast to others who went full-time toothless, which made the nickname funnier.
Shane had told Ilya about his old Metros teammate Justin Taylor, who had arrived at media day with a bushy, unkempt beard he had spent all offseason growing, and then immediately shaved it that night as part of a “team bonding exercise.” Justin, bless his heart, didn’t realize that the beard would be on every photo and video throughout the season even after he shaved.
But the Metros were no fun and didn’t give him a funny nickname. Ilya had suggested “Razor” at the time, but Shane had just given Ilya a tight smile and said they weren’t that kind of team. It was also Shane’s final season with the Metros, and the stupid Metros were giving him the cold shoulder for having the audacity to be gay, so Ilya didn’t push.
Anyways. The headshot was the most important photo of the year.
Ilya had always favored putting on his “Scary Russian” face for it, ever since he was a rookie in Boston. It leaned into his reputation, and was easy enough to pull off. He just thought of his idiot brother asking for more money after blowing through what Ilya had already sent. Simple.
Last season he went for a different tactic. It was unintentional, as Shane was standing right besides the photographer and there was no way Ilya could keep his scary Russian face straight with Shane looking at him with his soft smile and freckles. The CCM commercial was proof of that, and that was before they knew what each other’s dick looked like.
So Ilya smiled. It was a wide, genuinely happy smile for his husband and his life.
And it got noticed.
People - okay, Harris - pulling together year over year compilations of his headshots on social media didn’t help. Eleven seasons of Scary Russian and then bam! Ilya just had to get married to the love of his life and play on the same team as him and own the goodest dog in the world together and well given all that it was impossible for Ilya to pretend to be scary.
“Russians do not smile, huh?” Cliff had chirped him on the ice the first time the Centaurs and Raiders played each other that season.
“Fuck off, Marly!” Ilya had responded, but with a smile similar to what was being displayed on the video board.
Which meant that despite Shane being somewhere else in the gauntlet, and his face no longer forcing a smile, Ilya wasn’t about to switch things up again.
He stood on the white tape, looked up into the camera, and smiled widely as the photographer’s strobes flashed.
“Thanks, that should be good.”
Ilya nodded to the photographer and stepped out of the locker room, finding Shane leaning against the wall waiting for him.
“Headshot time?” Ilya asked as Shane shook his head.
“Nah, slipped in after Wiebe while you were getting your head scanned.” Shane smiled slyly at that, obviously up to something. It was almost impossible for Shane to hide anything from Ilya, and that was ignoring Shane’s generally poor ability to lie. Except about his sexuality, which he was very good at. Well, to everyone except for Ilya. The exception that proved the rule and all that.
But before Ilya could question Shane about his obviously nefarious plans, they were interrupted.
Jenny, who worked for the Centaurs Foundation and was equal parts perky and perpetually annoyed, approached the two. “If you guys aren’t doing anything, we’ve got around 200 pucks and 40 jerseys for you to sign.”
Shane frowned. “I thought there was a separate signing event after media day?”
Jenny sighed. “We only did that because all of you guys bitch so much about signing things every freaking year, and we didn’t want it to be caught in the doc they were filming.” She shook her head. “The media is prepared to jump down both of your throats for every freaking thing so we didn’t want to give them any additional ammo.”
“Jenny! When did I ever complain about helping the Foundation? I love the Foundation!” Ilya protested.
“Ilya Rozanov. You literally spent five minutes whining about having to sign things at locker clean out day, which was LITERALLY the last time I saw you,” Jenny rolled her eyes. “Don’t even pretend that you didn’t.”
Shane snorted. Ilya did whine about having to sign approximately 200 items that day, but that was mostly because Anya and Chiron had a playdate scheduled for after his media responsibilities were done. Shane could have sent a nude and Ilya would have still asked him to hold off until later.
“My own husband betrays me!” Ilya gasped dramatically.
“Shut up, asshole,” Shane said, shoving Ilya playfully. “And we’ll do the signing now. I heard Chiron won’t be showing up for another fifteen minutes anyways.”
Ilya gasped again, even more dramatically than before, going so far as to clutch his chest. “Chiron? Chiron is coming?!”
Nodding, Shane replied in the affirmative. “Yeah. Harris said he had some videos planned around the team with Chiron, but only for the next couple of hours.” Shane smirked. “Everyone arriving after 10AM would have missed it.”
“Моя любовь you were so smart to make me come here early, I will never doubt you again,” Ilya showered Shane in kisses.
“Jesus Roz, you don’t have the fund the entire party this morning!” Tanner shouted from down the hall. “We’ve got a whole season left!”
“Fuck off Dilly, Chiron is coming, you cannot yuck this yum.”
“Who taught you that?” Shane asked, pushing Ilya off.
“Um, guys, we’ve got a pile of pucks waiting to be signed?” Jenny interjected.
“Lead the way, Jenny!” Ilya declared, much more enthused about the whole thing.
The next fifteen minutes were taken up by autographs. Shane and Ilya being Shane and Ilya, turned it into a competition.
“Done!” Shane said, capping the Sharpie with a flourish.
Ilya had just finished writing the final “1” as part of his “Ilya Rozanov 81” signature. “Is practically a tie.”
“Nope, I won. Faster than you on the ice and with signings.”
“On ice was a tie too!”
“That’s not what the All Star results say.”
“Bah, was a tie,” Ilya dismissed Shane’s argument, as he had done for the past three years.
Ilya took in the stack of newly-autographed memorabilia. A not-insignificant number of them had “Ilya Hollander 81” scribbled on them. He couldn’t help himself; they had decided to keep their own last names for now, but sometimes the thrill of being a Hollander got to him.
Though looking at Shane’s pile… He thought he could spot a few “Shane Rozanov 24” signatures in Shane’s looping cursive.
Fuck. They should have saved this station for last.
“Ilya!” Harris’s voice broke through the stupor the Sharpies had put him in. “Your best friend is here!”
“Chiron!” Ilya made a mental note to return to the Shane Rozanov pucks later. And to maybe convince the equipment staff to let them take home their game jerseys for the night. They wouldn’t need them until the preseason schedule started in a week anyways.
But now it was Chiron time.
Best media day ever.
Ilya stepped out onto the ice to somewhat muted cheers. While the Centaurs had come a long way from playing in front of a half-empty arena on a good day, this was still preseason. Rosters were usually all guys from the MiLH or juniors outside of the mandated eight veterans, and the sub-par product was competing with the last gasps of summer weather in Ottawa.
While both he and Shane could pull the superstar card to beg off of all of the preseason schedule, they loved hockey too much to willingly skip too many games, even if they were meaningless. Plus, as Shane argued, it set a good example for the younger guys to see a combined 1,000 MLH goals willingly suit up for a preseason game.
So Ilya was skating around the Centaurs’ zone with the rest of the team as the in-arena announcer read off the starting lineup - Shane was centering a kid just signed out of college and a career MiLHer tonight - when he glanced up to the video board.
And immediately tripped over the blue line. Hard.
Ilya found himself face-down on the ice, sliding past the center red line.
“Watch it, Rozanov!” one of the referees barked at him.
But Ilya didn’t care.
He couldn’t care.
He slowly picked himself off the ice, a dazed look still on his face as he kept his focus on the video board. Sure, the cameras were following his every move after his pratfall on the ice, but more importantly, there was still a graphic of the Cens starting lineup on the board.
With Shane’s new headshot.
Shane.
Wearing glasses.
Ilya was going to die.
Ilya slowly skated back to the bench, not taking his eyes off the video board, almost running into both Holmberg and a guy on PTO he hadn’t quite gotten to know yet.
The team looked at Ilya curiously, eyes darting between Ilya and the video board in confusion. The slapped-together roster being what it was, none of them made the connection until Wyatt Hayes stopped by to get a drink of water.
Wyatt took one look at Ilya’s face and cracked up. “Roz, you are so down bad for your husband.”
Shane finally took pity on Ilya and skated over from the other side of the rink to join Ilya and Wyatt at the bench, wearing a sly grin as a faint blush crawled over his cheeks and to his ears.
“So, what do you think of this year’s headshot?”
It was unfair, frankly, to expect Ilya to react with any sort of restraint.
Ilya tackled Shane into the boards, planting a huge kiss on him to the delight and amusement of everyone watching - which was everyone, as the in-arena cameras were still faithfully following Ilya post-wipeout.
“Why are you wearing your glasses? Do you want to kill me?”
Shane pushed Ilya away, grinning.
“Ilya Rozanov, dead at 31, killed by his husband’s glasses,” Ilya continued as Wyatt doubled over in laughter. “The MLH season suspended due to great tragedy.”
“Tragedy, huh?” Shane teased.
“Yes, like Russian novel. Too happy, now I die,” Ilya hugged Shane one more time before hopping over the boards to take his place on the bench for the anthems.
Josh Holmberg skated over and swung his leg over the boards to take his spot next to Ilya. “What was that about?”
“Shane wore glasses in his headshot,” Ilya answered, taking another look up at the video board. Disappointingly, they had taken down the graphic.
Ilya could not be embarrassed about his first reaction to Shane’s act of deception. He was blameless, after all - how could anyone expect him to keep his composure with Shane wearing his glasses?
But then midway through the first period someone in game ops got the bright idea to put Shane’s headshot back on the video board. While Ilya was skating over to take a faceoff.
Down goes Rozanov.
He also stumbled when they showed it during the first TV timeout in the second period. Almost fell off the bench when they showed it again after an icing late in the third and Shane was stuck on the ice after a long shift.
“I think they’re trying to desensitize you,” Wyatt commented, grinning as he squirted some water into his mouth at the bench during the last TV timeout.
“It is not working,” Ilya grumbled. While he loved seeing Shane in glasses, he was getting a little annoyed that he couldn’t do anything about it.
“Shane, you should probably ask if you can get your headshot re-done!” Wyatt called out as Shane skated over to chat with the two. “Otherwise your husband is going to be useless this year.” Wyatt turned thoughtful. “Unless this was sabotage for the scoring race.”
“Shane do not even think about it,” Ilya glared at Wyatt. “I will beat you even if you distract me with your glasses.”
Wyatt tucked the water bottle back into the boards and skated backwards towards his net. “Down bad, Roz!”
The good news: Ilya had managed to get used to seeing Shane’s headshot during a game. Sure, it took him playing an unplanned preseason away game where the opponent’s game ops foolishly spammed it at every opportunity.
The bad news: well, the reason why the other team’s game ops knew to spam that photo.
The thing was, it was preseason. Everything was made up and the points don’t matter. Not even the die-hard lifelong fans that discovered the Centaurs existed in 2021 were paying attention. The issue was that nothing was going on with any of the other teams either. Montreal was mired in the same mediocrity from when Shane had left, and Toronto hadn’t traded a first round pick for at least the past six months. With nothing going with those teams, the Canadian sports media needed to find something else to talk about.
It started with a quick intermission hit by the Cens regional broadcaster. The studio hosts joking about how Ilya had been dealing with extra slippery ice that night, cutting together a quick highlights package of all the times Ilya had fallen.
Then someone on the internet decided to do some amateur lip reading. Extremely accurate amateur lip reading. Broadcast across social media: “What was that about?” “Shane wore glasses in his headshot.” That caused some waves, mostly among Ottawa fans.
THEN someone else got their hands on the arena feed. The one that included Shane’s headshot. And was able to sync it with the camera following Ilya, showing that - without fail - Ilya lost his balance whenever he saw Shane in glasses.
And, well. It went viral. Sportscentre and Sportscenter.
Ilya still refused to be embarrassed. His husband wearing glasses was distracting. Any sane person could see that. Except for Shane when he wasn’t wearing his glasses. Since he couldn’t see as well.
It all culminated a week later, in the final preseason game.
None of the key veterans were playing. Wiebe wanted to get one last look at some of the MiLHers before finalizing the roster with the GM, while they were also hoping to avoid unnecessary injuries.
Instead, the greater part of the Ottawa Centaurs roster were perched up in the team’s suite, the group too large for the section of the press box reserved for that night’s scratches. Though all were paying close attention to the game, it was more of a party atmosphere than it would be in the regular season.
Troy Barrett was eating popcorn, for goodness sake. And LaPointe was surreptitiously stealing pieces to stick in Young’s hair. He had already gotten 5 pieces in the mullet midway through the first without Young noticing.
“Anybody from this group you think’ll stick this year, Hollzy?” Zane Boodram said, plopping himself in the seat next to Shane.
“Number 5 on D. He’s got good positional instincts and a great motor for his first year in camp. Very active stick too,” Shane slid a look over to Ilya, who was sitting next to him. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Who, me?” Ilya said, aghast.
“The org must think highly of him too, giving him 5 instead of a rookie number,” Bood remarked. “What about 63? That kid came out of nowhere.”
“KHL is not nowhere,” Ilya replied indignantly, but then turned thoughtful. “He is good, but he is too reliant on tricks right now. Used to having more space on the larger ice and being better than everyone.” His eyes followed number 63 as the player released the pass half a second before being flattened by the other team. “He maybe also needs to learn to keep his head up.”
Bood and Shane winced.
“Hopefully that was enough of a lesson,” Bood added as the three followed #63’s slow journey back to the bench after the whistle had blown for a stoppage.
Ilya felt a presence behind him, and at the same time a crowd roar started building in the area.
Confused, he looked at the video board. The video board was always a good resource for figuring out why a crowd was reacting the way they were.
Theo, you fucker.
Ilya was staring at a live video of himself, Shane, Bood, and the giant, seven-foot tall beaver mascot named Chuck.
Chuck, wearing his normal #00 Centaurs sweater.
And glasses.
Ilya whipped around in his seat to look at Chuck’s ridiculous oversized glasses. He started to grin widely when he realized what was happening.
“Hollzy, Chuck stole your look!” Young chirped, ignoring the pieces of popcorn falling out of his hair.
“Wait wait wait - guys! Remember!” Bood called out. “On the count of three. One.. two…”
On three, in a display of teamwork that comes with literally being on a professional sports team, every Centaur in the box - save Ilya - dramatically fell out of their seat.
All Ilya could do was cover his face and shake his head as the crowd roared in laughter.
Chuck climbed down into the front row and plopped down in the seat next to Ilya, stretching his arm around Ilya while pantomiming aggressive flirting. As much flirting as a silent beaver could do. It mostly involved pointing at his glasses and doing a flirty wave.
“Chuck! I am a married man!” Ilya exclaimed, laughing. He turned around to get Shane in on it - hug him, kiss him on the cheek, whatever he could do to get Shane as red as possible - and then, well.
Shane was wearing his glasses.
All the exposure therapy had been working. Instead of falling down, Ilya was merely frozen in place as the crowd continued to laugh and cheer.
“What? I wanted to make sure that I could see the game,” Shane said innocently. Evilly.
“Shane why do you insist on killing your husband,” Ilya croaked out.
Chuck leaned over and patted Ilya on the shoulder.
“It was all Shane’s idea,” Theo’s muffled voice said into Ilya’s ear.
“Yes, my husband is an asshole sometimes,” Ilya said, distracted, staring at Shane with the intensity of a man who knew exactly what he was going to do with his husband as soon as they got home. Potentially sooner than that.
“Do we need to fine them for aggressive staring?” Evan asked Troy. .
The video board finally cut away from the Centaurs box, the TV timeout over. Chuck got up and left to make his rounds of the arena. It was back to standard preseason action. Harris had surely clipped the skit and was in the process of posting it across the social platforms, where it was about to go viral. Things had calmed down.
But the next time the cameras panned over to the Cens box, the seats where Shane and Ilya were sitting were conspicuously empty.
And they remained that way for at least another period.
And when Shane and Ilya returned, they might have been a bit more disheveled than before.
Nobody could blame them, after all.