Work Text:
The Montreal Voyageurs were the best team in the NHL and Shane had been overwhelmingly proud to be part of that legacy. When Ilya moved to Ottawa he always wondered how he could stand being part of a team that lost more games than they won, but with each passing day since Shane had joined the Centaurs, he now understood.
It didn’t matter that the stadium was only half full at home games, that there were no Stanley Cup banners decorating the walls and that only a few of their players were invited to the All Star game each year.
Shane quickly came to realise that while the Voyageurs were the best team in the league, the Centaurs were the greatest team, full of the funniest, kindest and overall best hockey players (next to Hayden and J.J.) he had met.
Back in Montreal, Shane would sometimes find himself holding his breath in the locker room, his skin prickled with tension if he heard a couple of his teammates laughing over a homophobic joke. There were jokes in the Centaurs locker room but they were lighthearted and the person they were aimed at actually laughed along. The team also shared a lot of their lives with each other, something the Voyageurs seldom did.
It gave Shane a good opportunity to learn things about his new team. So far he had found out that Dykstra was a terrible DJ, that Bood would BBQ in a snowstorm if his wife let him, and that Luca used to (he swore to Shane he didn’t have it anymore) have a poster of Ilya on his wall when he was younger.
Before Shane joined the team, Ilya had gushed about their Social Media Manager, now Senior Director of Communications, to him. He often wondered if Ilya was exaggerating and laughed darkly at the idea of someone as out and proud as Harris encouraging his team to tweet or post selfies on Instagram.
Shane and Ilya had already been out a few times on double dates with Harris and Troy and they had spent a wonderful afternoon at Harris’s family orchard one Sunday. Anya had tagged along and been in her element, falling asleep on the drive home that evening. Shane considered Harris one of his good friends, someone he could text non-hockey related things to.
He felt so at ease in Ottawa that the team masseuse spent less time on Shane than his previous one did, as his shoulders and back weren’t always covered in tension knots. He couldn’t say for sure that was the team’s influence. It was more likely the fact that after 11 years of hiding his relationship with Ilya, they were out in the open as a couple, as a married couple.
*
“I thought I’d find you in here,” Shane said with a smile. They had just finished practice and were getting dressed when Ilya heard a dog barking. His head had shot up from where he had been putting his socks on and he gasped, practically running out of the locker room in search of the noise.
“You forgot these.” Shane tried to hold back a laugh as he held up Ilya’s sneakers.
Ilya was sitting on the floor of Harris’s office, legs open in a v shape with a large dog lying on his back between them, enjoying belly rubs from Ilya.
He grinned up at Shane and wiggled his socked feet, which made Chiron roll onto his front, eyeing his moving toes with suspicion.
“You’re going to make Anya jealous,” Shane said teasingly, handing Ilya his sneakers.
As he put them on, Ilya said, “She knows she is my number one girl, Anya does not get jealous.” He paused, raising his eyebrows suggestively and giving Shane one of his crooked smiles that still made his stomach flip even now. “Now you on the other hand.”
“I’m not jealous of a dog!” Shane said incredulously.
“You kicked Anya out of bed yesterday,” Ilya pointed out, giving Chiron one last scratch behind his ears before getting up from the floor.
Shane rolled his eyes, huffing at his husband. “She was sleeping sprawled out on my side of the bed, where was I supposed to go?”
There was a loud laugh behind them. Harris was grinning, looking between them, his arms crossed against his chest.
“Don’t mind me,” he said with a wink. “But I’m glad you’re here, Shane, I needed to talk to you.”
Shane’s cheeks flushed pink. He hadn’t noticed Harris when he came into the office. Granted he had been sitting behind his desk, but his attention went to the six foot three Russian man sitting on the floor playing with the team dog.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes, how familiar are you with my video series on the players?” Harris asked. There was a twinkle in his eye and his lips were trying, and mostly failing, to stay neutral, his smile threatening to burst before Shane could give his answer.
Shane thought for a moment, remembering Ilya excitedly showing him some videos Harris had posted on Instagram last year of him driving in a few of his different sports cars around Ottawa. Shane wasn’t a big social media user, but he watched those videos with a mixture of fear and arousal. Fear because clearly from the way the camera was jutting up and down, Ilya was driving too fast, the trees and buildings a blur outside of his window. He would never admit this to Ilya, in case he took it as permission to start collecting sports cars again, but he had looked so fucking good in the videos. In his dark tank tops that showed off his massive arms. Smiling brightly with one arm resting on the open window as he glanced at the camera every so often to talk about the car he was driving.
“I saw the ones you did with Ilya,” Shane said.
Harris’s smile finally broke free and he clapped his hands together. “Great! I also did videos with Bood and Wyatt and I was thinking…” he trailed off, his smile growing somehow bigger as he raised his eyebrows in a silent question, his hands still pressed together like he was praying.
Shane blinked, not understanding.
Harris opened his mouth wordlessly and looked at Ilya, his eyes pleading for help.
Ilya took the hint. “What Harris is asking, and I think it is a great idea, is if you did some of these videos as well.”
Shane looked between them. Both men were watching him expectedly, eagerly awaiting his answer.
“Oh.”
Shane licked his lips nervously. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
Even though Shane hadn’t agreed to anything, the way Harris hurriedly grabbed a notebook and pen from his desk and the way Ilya practically jumped in glee told him there was no backing out now. Even Chiron could feel the excitement in the air and was barking again, running around Ilya’s legs.
“So what I do is take a hobby the guys enjoy and make short videos of them, well, doing it!” Harris laughed again, his hands waving around as he spoke. Shane wondered if he would ever get used to how passionately this man expressed himself.
“Once we have the hobby, we then need to think of a word to describe it that begins with S,” Harris added, his eyes darting down to his notebook where he had already made some notes.
“Why S?” Shane asked, suddenly not following again.
“Is Harris’s idea,” Ilya explained. “Riding with Roz, Hazy’s Heroes, BBQing with Bood.”
Shane nodded and then asked slowly, “So what hobby were you thinking of?”
Ilya snorted, his expression suddenly dirty. Shane glared at him. Ilya threw his hands up innocently, but his smile was wicked as he bit down on his bottom lip.
“Ilya,” Shane warned.
Ilya laughed, high and obviously delighted at the way Shane’s cheeks were burning red, his freckles on fire.
“What? Is not like I suggested Sex with Shane. We have not been out that long, I don’t think the public is ready.”
Shane couldn’t believe Ilya. His mouth fell open as he tried to avoid Harris’s gaze, wishing the floor would open up beneath him as he felt the heat rising up his neck. When Shane took a chance to look at Harris, he saw his expression was soft, as though Ilya had suggested something romantic. Fuck, if Harris knew the kind of sex they sometimes had, he definitely wouldn’t think it was romantic. Sometimes it was but other times the memories even made Shane blush.
“What do you think, Harris?” Shane asked, ignoring his husband who was holding himself, almost doubled over with laughter.
“Well,” Harris started, his serious tone mirroring Shane’s. “Sex does sell.”
It became too much for Ilya who had to sit down on one of the armchairs to stop himself falling over. His smile was so wide, it almost spread to his ears. He was practically crying.
Harris must have sensed this was the line for Shane, by the way Shane’s mouth was pressed together in a thin line, his eyes dark and blazing at Ilya. He suddenly blurted out, “Yoga!”
“English is my second language and even I know that does not start with an S, Harris,” Ilya said. He was wiping his eyes, finally calming down.
Harris smiled at him. “Yeah I know, Roz. I was thinking something like Stretching with Shane, where Shane can showcase his favourite yoga routines.” He glanced at Shane, his smile smaller, more guarded, as he waited for Shane’s thoughts.
“I like it.”
Harris beamed at him.
“Really?”
“Really.”
Harris looked so pleased with himself. He circled something in his notebook and then closed it, tapping his fingers lightly against the cover.
“I will email you some dates if you could have a think of the positions you’d like to show me,” Harris said. Without breaking his focus on Shane, he held up a hand in the direction of Ilya to stop him speaking. Shane grinned, watching Ilya wrinkle his nose and close his mouth without saying anything.
“Perfect,” Shane said. He suddenly felt braver, so added, “Make sure it’s when Ilya is busy so he can’t come and watch. I know how boring he finds yoga.”
Shane looked over at Ilya as he said this, enjoying the way Ilya’s eyes had darkened. It was true that Ilya found yoga boring, but only when he did it himself. Shane tried to teach him but Ilya soon realised he wasn’t as disciplined or flexible as Shane, who had been doing yoga as part of his training routine since he was a rookie.
However, Ilya found watching Shane do yoga utterly mesmerising, the way his back arched and the muscles in his legs and arms pulsed as he held the poses in place. Ilya was always half hard when he entered Shane’s yoga studio, even before Shane had begun. Just the sight of his yoga ball made his dick twitch.
The Downward Dog was one of Ilya’s favourites and don’t get him started on the Plow Posture. The thought of Harris filming Shane doing one of those positions felt way more intimate to him than his joke of Sex with Shane.
“Maybe we could do a,” Ilya waved his hand in front of him as though trying to pick the English word out of thin air. “Collaboration.”
“You hate yoga.” Shane pointed out.
“I don’t hate it,” Ilya said. “I’m just not very good at it.” Shane’s expression softened. It was very rare for Ilya to admit that he wasn’t perfect at something but he knew him well enough to know that he had an ulterior motive.
“You know, we could do a couple of videos of you teaching Ilya some of the beginner moves. The fans would absolutely love that!” Harris said enthusiastically. He grabbed his notebook again and started writing, chasing inspiration.
“So we are back to Sex with Shane then?” Ilya whispered to Shane with a wink, stepping closer to him.
“Yoga is not sex,” Shane said.
“Yes but it always turns into sex at home,” Ilya reminded him, his voice almost purring.
Shane glanced over at Harris, who was still scribbling away in his notebook and not paying them any attention.
“Well maybe we should practice it not turning into sex before Harris comes over,” Shane suggested feebly. He knew it was a pointless exercise. If he had to help Ilya into different poses, his hands holding onto his hips, legs or worse, his arms, he wasn’t going to be able to hide his erection, especially in the little shorts he usually wore when he did yoga.
“Ah, we will need a lot of practice I fear,” Ilya said, his voice low and close to Shane’s ear, making him shiver. Shane felt a hand stroke down his back as he willed his dick to behave itself until they got back home.
“If you guys have somewhere to be, don’t let me keep you,” Harris suddenly said, looking up to give both men a kind smile before he returned to writing in his notebook.
“Oh yeah, thanks, well I’m sure Anya needs a walk,” Shane said, his words coming out too quickly. Ilya at least had the decency not to burst into laughter until they were out of the office and half way down the corridor.
“What?” Shane asked.
“Nothing,” Ilya said, smiling down at him with an adoring smile. “I love you, moy solnyshko.”
Shane took his hand, lacing their fingers together as his heart swelled at Ilya’s words. He could feel the metal of his wedding ring against his own skin and fuck, Shane would never get used to that.
“Ya tebya lyublyu navsegda.”