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Ilya winced faintly at the dull twinge in his shoulder when he reached up to the cabinet, letting out a low breath as he managed to slip his fingers around the stems of three wine glasses. He pulled them down gingerly, making a mental note to do as the Centaurs PT had advised and ice the muscle later before he went to sleep. Shane had already reminded him once already, and if he had to do that a second time he wouldn’t be pleased. Ilya could already picture the (admittedly adorable) scowl on his partner’s face if he caught him trying to brush it off again. Games against Montreal were always tough, in more ways than one. There was a reason Ilya started this tradition of hosting post-Metros match gatherings with the team.
He shut the cabinet door, pulling a bottle of rosé from the rack, and wandered back to the sofa area, where the lovely Ottawa WAGs were waiting for him, joined by a special guest.
Jackie Pike grinned up at him, already brandishing the bottle opener. He surrendered the wine willingly, handing it over to her with a smile as he sank back down into the cushions next to her. Although Ilya’s relationship with her husband would probably never amount to more than the uneasy truce they had reached, Ilya had grown genuinely fond of Jackie. She was whip-smart and didn’t suffer fools or bullies gladly, despite her sweet outward demeanour. Hayden didn’t deserve her, something which Ilya made sure to tell him frequently. Funnily enough, it was one of the few topics he and Hayden were always in agreement on.
She and Hayden were staying over with them tonight; taking advantage of the rare opportunity of Ruby and Jade being at a week of camp back in Montreal and their two younger kids staying with Jackie’s parents. Although Ilya did miss the twins - he delighted in matching their energy and making it his mission to get them as hyper as humanly possible every time he saw them, much to Shane and Jackie’s amusement (and Hayden’s exasperation). Still, he couldn’t deny that he was glad of the chance to catch up with the couple on their own for once - for Shane, in particular. He didn’t have a lot of friends left from his time in Montreal.
Other than the Pikes, JJ was really the only other person from the Metros that Shane stayed in touch with. Although Ilya still felt, sometimes, that his kindhearted husband had forgiven the man far too quickly and easily after the total shitshow of Shane’s last season with the team, Ilya found that he actually got on with him quite well, once they had gotten a chance to get to know each other off the ice. Ilya could hear him somewhere in the house too, laughing and speaking in rapid French with Selena.
The rest of the Montreal Metros were, presumably, cooped up at a hotel bar somewhere in Ottawa. Ilya had watched them earlier, following their satisfying thrashing by the Centaurs, as they stiffly shook Shane’s hand in the post-game line-up. From what Ilya could see, not a single one of them - barring Hayden and JJ - had opened their mouths to say even a word to their former captain.
Well, fuck them, was Ilya’s only refrain on the rare occasion he let the Metros occupy his thoughts. He couldn’t deny feeling a smug sense of satisfaction now that it was becoming Shane’s first reaction too. He knew the Metros’ betrayal still stung, but he was pleased that Shane, over a decade into his professional career, was finally learning what it meant to be surrounded by a genuinely good team who cared about him beyond his performance on the ice.
Ilya held his glass out and let Jackie fill it as across from them, Caitlin cooed over the youngest Chouinard baby, Elsie. She was only two months old, all chubby cheeks and gummy smiles. Lisa and Wyatt, sitting next to her, grinned down at the baby being balanced carefully in Caitlin’s lap, pulling silly faces to encourage her happy gurgles.
Ilya couldn’t help a smile tugging at his own lips, watching them. He loved having his teammates’ kids around the place. It felt like having an extended family. Although he tended to prefer children when they were a bit older and could banter with him and play along with his stupid games, he had to admit that Elsie was a cute baby. It was crazy how much she was growing, every time he saw her. He could only imagine how Nick and Selena felt. This was their third child, so Ilya had wondered if they’d be jaded with the new-baby phase by now, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. They both lit up whenever they saw her, even if she’d only been out of their sight for a few minutes.
Wiebe’s wife, Sally, appeared with what looked like one of Cassie Boodram’s signature G&Ts clutched in her hand. She stopped to lean over Caitlin and do her own bit of cooing and ah-ing at the baby, before sinking down into the armchair between the sofas.
‘Oh, bless her,’ she said, taking a sip. ‘Isn’t she just the cutest?”
‘Yes, she is! The cutest baby, aren’t you?’ Caitlin sing-songed in a high-pitched voice to the baby, gazing down at her. ‘Want to hold her, Sal?’
Sally laughed, leaning forward to set her glass down on the coffee table. ‘Give her over to me now, before I have too much of this gin and she starts giving me baby fever. Getting too old for all that!’
As Caitlin gently manoeuvred the baby over to Sally’s waiting arms, Ilya tried in vain to translate what she had said in his head and realised he didn’t quite get it.
‘Fever? The baby is sick?’ he blurted out, a hint of worry slipping into his voice. He felt guilty immediately, for not knowing. Then again, Nick hadn’t said anything….
‘No, hon!’ Caitlin smiled kindly at him. ‘It’s just an expression. She means Elsie is so cute, she might make her want to have another baby herself’
Ilya nodded, thankful - not for the first time - that neither the Cens nor their partners ever gave him stick about still messing up with English, sometimes.
Baby fever. That made sense.
‘Well, I am sitting with expert baby fever patients, yes?’ he grinned. Between Jackie’s four kids and Sally’s three, they’d have more than enough for a mini hockey game on their home practice rink in the backyard.
Jackie snorted. ‘Oh no, I’m fully reformed and recovered by now, thank you very much. Thank god for vasectomies, is all I can say’
She turned her glittering eyes on Ilya, nudging him with a sharp elbow. Ilya tried not to grimace at the brush against the bruising he was sure was developing underneath his t-shirt.
‘How about you, Mr. Hollander-Rozanov? All this baby talk awakening anything in you?’
Sensing, as he innately always did, the perfect opportunity for innuendo, Ilya let his mouth twist down, putting on a fake sad face. ‘I have been trying to get Shane pregnant for many years, but so far has not worked’
The women (and Wyatt) responded with a mix of screams and laughter. Ilya smirked, taking a sip of his wine and allowing his thoughts to just briefly wander to memories of the previous evening, in the bedroom right above their heads, and the breathtaking way Shane’s voice had hitched when he begged for Ilya to come inside him, strong thighs wrapped around his waist. What a lucky man Ilya was.
Unfortunately, Elsie seemed less appreciative of Ilya’s joke. She started to squirm a little in Sally’s hold, unhappy noises beginning to spill from her mouth. Unfazed, Sally lifted her up until she was resting against her shoulder, patting her gently on the back and hushing her.
‘Shane is great with babies’ Jackie announced, happily sipping her wine. ‘He has this amazing way with them. Back in Montreal we used to joke that he was, like, a baby-whisperer. He could calm all the team babies down. They’d be screaming, red-faced and crying, then a couple of minutes in Shane’s arms would have them settled right the way back again’
Ilya felt a familiar rush of fondness as he pictured it. His sweet, kind Shane.
‘Really?’ he asked, grinning. ‘He has same effect on me’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Jackie replied. ‘I swear he could calm Arthur and Amber down quicker than Hayden, sometimes. Particularly Arthur. You know that he was the first person to ever hold him?’
Ilya nodded, already familiar with the story - Shane was fond of all the Pike children, but particularly Arthur, who he was godfather to. He was a quiet little thing, with dark eyes, and very attached to Shane. They were alike in a lot of ways.
‘How’d that happen?’ Wyatt asked.
‘Went into labour two weeks earlier than expected and it was a really difficult birth. I started haemorrhaging and they couldn’t get it to stop for a while. Shane had driven Hayden to the hospital since he was in no state to drive himself, and when all the emergency docs started racing in, Hayden got pulled into it and there was no one around to hold poor Arty’.
Jackie took another sip of her wine, eyes a bit far away. She was smiling, though. ‘One of the midwives got Shane in from the waiting room once me and Hayden had gone to surgery and handed him over. Even got him to take off his hoodie so he’d have skin-to-skin contact. I think he ended up holding him for an hour or so before things calmed enough for Hayden to come back. The nurses said it probably made a big difference to him, having someone hold him like that for the first while. We were always so thankful Shane was there. That’s when the whole ‘Uncle Shane’ thing started’
‘You know, what?’ Lisa said, smiling. ‘That sounds just like Shane. You married such a sweetheart, Ilya’
Ilya beamed. ‘I know’
The conversation drifted over the next while, as easy and comfortable as breathing. Harris eventually led a delegation of guys into the back room where Ilya had his consoles set up and very soon what sounded like an intense game of Mario Kart was raging. But Ilya found he was happy where he was, sitting and chatting with the WAGs. The thought crossed his mind, as it sometimes did, that some of his old Boston teammates wouldn’t believe how happily boring he’d become out here in Ottawa.
He had just handed Jackie a second bottle of wine to crack open when he heard the front door opening. After a few moments, the sound of Shane’s voice, low and familiar, drifted in from the hallway. He, Hayden and Troy had been dispatched to walk Anya around the block a few times to try to wear her out a bit before bedtime. She was all excited, having so many adoring people in her house giving her attention, and had nearly tumbled a few glasses earlier during a case of the zoomies before Shane had declared it was time to go get the leash. Ilya couldn’t help smiling to himself as he heard her paws clatter up the stairs - probably to jump up on their bed and curl up to sleep, which he knew Shane would pretend to be put out by later (and then let her lie by their feet, like always).
Just then, Elsie, having never quite settled again, began to kick up more of a fuss, face scrunching up in a telltale sign she was about to let loose. Sure enough, despite Lisa’s best efforts (whose turn it was to hold her), she started crying, small hand bunching up near her face and legs weakly kicking in her onesie. She wailed heartbreakingly as Lisa and the others cooed at her and commiserated.
‘Oh, I know, angel, I know. You probably miss your mama, don’t you?’ Lisa murmured.
‘I’ll go get her,’ Wyatt said, going to stand up.
‘Wait, hold on’ Jackie interjected. ‘Let’s see if he’s still got it’
She tilted her head back until it was lying on the back of the sofa. ‘Shane?’ she called, raising her voice over the noise.
They heard the sounds of the closet door closing, probably Shane finishing putting away Anya’s things and hanging up his puffy winter jacket.
He came through the doorway, cheeks adorably flushed and nose slightly red from the cold. Hayden and Troy came trundling in after him, deep in some conversation about Toronto. Shane stood out of the way to let them pass, his eyes automatically landing on Ilya across the room, as they always did, before flicking his gaze to the crying baby and then on to Jackie.
‘Yep?’
Jackie waved him over, her third (or was it fourth?) glass of wine sloshing dangerously. ‘Come here, sweetie. We need your magic baby-calming aura over here’
Shane rolled his eyes good-naturedly. He set his keys and phone down on the kitchen counter before making his way over, running his fingers gently over the curls at the nape of Ilya’s neck as he rounded the sofa. Public displays of affection came so easily to his husband now, in a way that Ilya was sure would have shocked Shane only a few years ago. These years in Ottawa had already been so good to them both.
Wyatt stood and nodded for him to take his seat beside Lisa, muttering something about needing the bathroom as he drifted away. Shane sat down carefully, already reaching for Elsie.
The others watched as Lisa handed her over, placing the wailing and squirming bundle in Shane’s arms. He placed a large, careful hand behind her head and tucked her up against his shoulder the same way Sally had earlier, bouncing the baby very gently. She looked tiny in his arms.
Quite unexpectedly, Ilya’s breath hitched slightly and his mouth went dry. Elsie had very dark brown hair, almost as dark as Shane’s, and that, combined with the easy, faint smile on Shane’s face as he looked down at the baby on his chest, had him suddenly feeling a type of way that he somehow wasn’t quite prepared to deal with, even with all the baby talk earlier in the evening.
It was almost funny, how quickly Jackie was proven right. Within a few moments, Elsie’s full-throated wails had quietened down to a few unhappy gurgles, and then to her usual soft baby grunts. Her legs stopped kicking and her fists settled against Shane’s chest, twisting into the material of his t-shirt.
‘What?!’ Caitlin laughed, delighted. 'That's insane'
Jackie grinned. ‘I told you! It’s magic, I swear’
Shane scoffed, but he was still smiling. ‘Nah,’ he said softly, so as not to disturb the now snoozing baby. ‘I think we just get each other'. He was gazing down at her face, now smushed up against his collarbone. 'I mean, I feel like crying and screaming a lot of the time at parties, too’
It wasn’t like he and Shane had never spoken about having kids before. They had had a few conversations over the years, in the mostly abstract way that, for a long time, was the only way they could really talk about their future together. Both of them agreed that it was something they would probably want, some day.
Ilya suddenly found that he could picture it all so easily. He could so easily imagine sleepy weekend mornings and quiet evenings, lying in bed together with their dog at their feet and a wiggling, happy baby in between them. He could picture another team gathering some evening in the future, and this time, their own little dark-haired baby being passed around and cooed over by their loving friends and family. He could see Shane sitting where he was right now with their sleepy child in his arms, fingers gently stroking through a head of curls much like Ilya's own.
He blinked, and realised he was staring wide-eyed at his thankfully oblivious husband just as he felt Jackie’s hand reach up to his jaw and gently push it shut, after it had been hanging open like an idiot.
She winked at him, nudging him again with her elbow.
‘Looking a bit warm in the face there, Ilya. Feeling a bit feverish?’
And Ilya, ruining all his previous, proud announcements that Russians do not blush, blushed.