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The argument was stupid. They were always stupid, until they weren’t, until they became something real and cutthroat and capable of saying the million things they didn’t actually know how to verbalize in all the wrong ways. This one, though, came petty and swift, the kind to flair quickly and should have ended just as fast. But, of course, it happened in the middle of a roadie when they’re three out of five games in and on top of each other while sharing a tiny hotel room, because of course they shared a hotel room. Only after Shane had tried to talk to the travel coordinator about not sharing to keep things “fair and professional” and got told that the reservations had already been made with one king size bed for them both, per the information his manager had provided, and while she could switch him to another room, that would require them to reserve an additional one— Captain Rozanov always roomed alone as stipulated in his contract, unless of course his husband needed a bed— because they had an even number of men and it would really do her a favor if he could stay in Ilya’s due to the hotel being booked completely. Shane accepted the shared room with graceful apologies for the unneeded stress and left the meeting feeling like he had gotten away with something he didn’t usually get to touch.
So they shared a room that had nowhere to run that wasn’t on top of the other or outside into the night. Even then, it wasn’t a space that was theirs or a space that was truly safe. They managed to keep their voices down in the room, all quick shot off comments and snipped responses that built on top of the last, so the teammates bracketing their room on either side would be none the wiser despite the paper thin walls. Ilya couldn’t even remember what actually started it. Each domino seemed a landmine, and both of them were stumbling around the minefield blindfolded and reaching for the other. Whether to soothe or hurt, he didn’t know.
Shane telling him to keep his voice down because of their teammates next door, like they hadn’t just been whisper-yelling at each other for half an hour, broke the last of Ilya’s resolve, sparking a rage so deep and dark it left him momentarily speechless. He snatched up his emergency pack of cigarettes, kept mostly for show now, from the depths of his bag before he said something they couldn’t come back from.
“I’m going for a smoke,” he snapped over his shoulder and walked himself out of the room without a second glance. Probably a good thing, considering Shane had turned away from him to stare out the damn window like he’d find something actually interesting on the other side of the glass. Ilya would smoke a fucking cigarette because he wanted a fucking cigarette and Shane can go fuck himself if he had an opinion on it. He made his way down to the back alley by the parking garage and leaned against the crumbling brick wall. A single cig perched between his lips as he tucked the pack into his pocket. Maybe he’d smoke every damn one just for the thrill of doing so. Just to spite his husband.
Ilya ignored the way his hands shook and struggled to click the lighter with the adrenaline coursing through his vein and cold settling through every limb.
“Blyat,” he cursed around the filter. He’s transported to another cold back of a building, another city, another time when his lighter only sparked after a beautiful boy shook his hand. An entire string of Russian curses slipped from his mouth. Only then, did it finally spark to life. The first deep draw burned in a way he relished, in a way he missed and wouldn’t admit to missing. That cheap reminder of his own temporary existence, and how easy it could slip away from him.
How much would Shane forgive him for? Surely not for thinking that. Not for what he said upstairs in that too small hotel room. He always reached for the sharpest knife first, and he knew Shane so well. Knew exactly where to hurt.
“You good, Roz?” a voice called from a few parking spots over. Ilya looked over to see Brandon Wiebe appearing from behind a parked car, as if he had been dropped off by the garage entrance and walked over.
“Uh. Yes, Coach. Just a smoke,” Ilya said, gesturing with it as he flicked ash from the end. Wiebe frowned.
“Thought you quit? Something about Hollander not liking them?”
Ilya must have made a face, something icy and twisted, that tipped his coach’s attention towards understanding. Wiebe leaned against the wall beside him. He shook off Ilya’s silent offer of a cigarette, lapsing the two of them into silence. Ilya waited for him to scold him, in that gently disappointed way of his, about being out so close to curfew or smoking as a high performance athlete.
“Anything I can help with?” Wiebe asked instead, when it became clear Ilya wouldn’t say anything. Ilya sighed, flicking the gathered ashes again just to have something to do other than answer. Easier to stare into the depth of the filled up parking garage as he debated what to say and how much. He didn’t exactly want to sprout about their martial problems, not when they were so focused on showing a united front to anyone related to hockey. Criticism fell like a swift guillotine back in March, with that stupid video and Pike’s stupider excuses, and had only gotten worse through playoffs and Shane’s signing with the Centaurs. Everyone watched them like animals in a zoo shitting where they ate. They had agreed, in a hard conversation after they got back from their honeymoon about what being on the same team actually looked like, to always show a united front for the media, to keep personal arguments out of the locker room and off the ice. They didn’t want a regular disagreement to inflate into something the league could use against them. Shane especially wouldn’t like him telling their coach their issues, Ilya was sure, after what happened with Theriault and Montreal. Shane still hadn’t told Ilya everything in detail, just hints and off handed comments he won’t let Ilya question further. It would surely lead to another argument, or simply a continuation of the current one.
Wiebe would let it go, if Ilya said he didn’t want to talk about it. He wasn’t the type to push into his player’s personal life without due reason.
“I think… we are still figuring out how to do this, and sometimes we get it wrong,” Ilya said, almost without meaning to, thinking of the man who sat in his house and told him he was bisexual over coffee and reassurances. Thinking of the man who loved his wife as much as Ilya loved Shane and had three kids and over a decade of marriage to show for it.
“Playing together?”
“No, never. That has always been easier than everything else,” Ilya answered without hesitation. He and Shane had always orbited each other, but especially on the ice, a constant low-lying understanding of where the other was at all times by some animalistic instinct, some gravitational pull. It only heightened with them existing on the same team. The guys joked about it being telepathy so much it started to leak out onto social media. Ilya didn’t know how to explain that Shane existed as an extension of himself and vice versa, that they breathed the ice in the same way. Adjustment to a player like Shane Hollander always took time. It came with hang ups and slip ups and fucking arguments, but he and Ilya worked like water, like a dream brought to life.
“What then?”
“Marriage. Co-existing,” Ilya admitted quietly, feeling like even letting the words slip out on the smoke burning his lungs was a betrayal. It had only been a couple months since they got married, since Shane moved to Ottawa, since everything good and bad dissolved into chaos. Ilya hadn’t expected easy. When have they ever been easy? But…
“Ah.’
“It has been a long time. Longer than anyone ever guesses.” —the guys took to making a game of trying to figure out how long Shane and Ilya had actually been together. The media and fans too liked to speculate. So far no one ever really got close.— “I guess I just thought it would be easier than this. To finally have him.”
“If I could offer some advice?” Wiebe said. Ilya nodded, bringing the cig up for another draw. It burned fast, gathering ash before Ilya could savor it the way he intended to. “Take it from a man who’s been married for over ten years to an absolute bombshell, stubborn woman. It’s always hard in different ways. Life’s good at making it hard, even when you love each other to death.”
Ilya huffed a half laugh in agreement. Didn’t he know it?
“But you need to remember it’s you and him against the problem. Not you against him, or vice versa,” Wiebe continued. “You’re a team. A damn good one from what I’ve seen.”
“Yeah?” Ilya knew it, but sometimes it was nice to hear. At least from someone other than Shane’s parents. Someone who didn’t have a weighted interest in the same way.
“Absolutely, Ilya. I’ve never seen a couple more intent on making it work, no matter how hard it gets. Who rises to adversity with the complete confidence that their partner will stand with them. Who treats their partner as an extension of themselves instead of a tool to wield. Watching the two of you in the rink and outside of it, well, it reminds me why I work so hard at my own marriage.”
“It took a long time to get here,” Ilya said, pretending his eyelids weren’t fluttering to keep tears at bay. It was just fucking cold, that’s all.
“You spent quite a while long distance, right?” Wiebe asked, not in a searching way that people got when they just wanted the gossip, but in a way that told Ilya the question was means to an end.
“Four years,” Ilya supplied without thinking about it, “Or eleven, depending on how you look at it.”
“Your rookie season?”
“The summer before.”
He didn’t know what possessed him to admit it so openly. They were coming up on twelve years wrapped up in each other in one way or another. The same amount of time he had with his mama. Ilya didn’t know how to swallow that, didn’t know how to chew it into bite sized pieces. Maybe saying it out loud made it easier. Wiebe took a second to sit with that, a moment of adjustment everyone seemed to need when they found out the nitty gritty truth of it. Even Wiebe and his wife only had a couple years on them.
“The two of you have already gone through difficulty between that and the fanmail incident and everything afterwards,” Wiebe said, instead of questioning it further. “Probably more than anyone even knows. You’ll get through this too. But not if you hide down here instead of talking to him.”
Ilya hummed in agreement, taking another drag. His cigarette, and the excuse it provided him, neared its end.
“It takes patience and a willingness to listen. To actually talk to each other. With that amount of time, you probably already know that, but it’s different when you’re faced with it every single day, instead of constantly making up time. You’re hot headed. He’s stubborn. It will take too long for you guys to get through to each other if you’re not willing to listen to the other. Then you’re just circling instead of coming together, and nothing gets resolved.”
“Yes, you are right.” Ilya knew his own proclivities to running away and burying difficult feelings under a big persona. Shane worked opposite, drawing tighter and tighter internally until he imploded. Having that all of the time, instead of having space to cool down by the whims of their competing schedules, forced them into the battlefield before they knew to be ready. Ilya wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
Shuffling footsteps interrupted their silence. A cadence that had Ilya simultaneously straightening his spine and feeling settled somewhere deep inside his being. As if some piece he hadn’t realized sat out of place had been fixed back into place. Funny how one person could do all that. Wiebe clapped Ilya on the shoulder, knowing him well enough to guess who came towards them.
“Talk to him, Ilya. It will work itself out once you do.”
Ilya nodded in agreement. Wiebe pushed off the wall and headed towards the footsteps and front of the building. Shane appeared from the side just as Wiebe hit the corner, leaving them to pass each other. Wiebe clapped Shane on the shoulder too, a momentarily pause in Shane’s determined shuffling. His coat buttoned up tight to his neck, but his hat and scarf were missing. A rush then, to find Ilya. Or perhaps he thought they wouldn’t be down here for long.
“Don’t stay out too late, boys. Curfew’s soon,” Wiebe called over his shoulder and promptly disappeared. Both men stared after him for a moment like they weren’t prepared to be left to their own devices. Maybe a mediator wouldn’t be a bad idea.
The thought slipped from Ilya’s head when Shane finally looked at him, all brown eyes and flushed cheeks and those damn freckles that have been getting Ilya in trouble for over a decade. He looked so beautiful, even standing there in the fall chill, it stole part of Ilya’s breath. He wandered closer to Ilya, but stopped a couple steps away. Further than he normally would be. They gravitate towards each other without thought, without effort, and often found themselves existing within each other's space, closer than anyone else ever got allowed to be. It made the distance now intentional in a way that curdled in Ilya's gut.
“Hi,” Shane said, twisting a bundle of fabric in his hands. “I thought you might be cold.”
He held Ilya’s jacket, the one Ilya had stormed off without, leaving him shivering in just a centaurs sweatshirt. One with 24 on the sleeve and Hollander across the back. Their closet play-acted at being separated most days. Ilya hadn’t thought twice about it when he slipped it on, although he knew Shane would scrunch his nose up at the smoke lingering on it. Ilya blew his smoke in the opposite direction, opening one arm towards his husband in invitation. Shane hesitated like he wasn’t sure Ilya really wanted to touch him, as if Ilya had ever not wanted to touch him.
“Come here, lyubimyy,” Ilya said. Breathed. Begged. It set his stomach roiling. He just wanted his husband.
With that permission, Shane plastered himself to Ilya’s side with no further hesitation, crushing Ilya’s jacket between them. His face pressed into Ilya’s neck, nose pressing to the chilled skin beneath his jaw, and one hand slipped into the front pocket of Ilya’s (Shane’s) sweatshirt. It absentmindedly twirled the lighter Ilya tucked there, the fabric shifting with every pass. A grounding habit. Ilya snuffed out his cig on the brick wall behind him and pushed the mostly finished butt into his pocket. He pulled Shane impossibly closer, wrapping him up in both arms. Shane sighed at the pressure and went loose so Ilya and the wall could take his weight. His warmth leaked into Ilya's skin, an armor against the chill around them.
“Are we arguing for the sake of arguing right now?” Shane asked into the space between Ilya’s shoulder and neck.
“Hm, perhaps, yes.”
“It’s shitty.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think I like this kind of arguing. Not when it feels like we’re slipping through our fingers,” Shane whispered, as if he didn't know how to admit it.
Ilya wove a hand through Shane’s hair and urged him away from his hiding place. A frown played at his lips and wetness lined his eyes, just enough he could still carry some plausible deniability to his tears. Seeing it cooled the last of Ilya’s anger, whatever lingered after the cigarette and Wiebe's advice and the warm press of Shane's body.
“Never, Shane. You hear me? Not ever,” Ilya said, slipping his hand down to cup Shane’s jaw. His lovely husband nestled into the touch, eyelids fluttering as he nodded. “I have loved you for too long to let this slip through my fingers now that I have you entirely.”
“Ya tebya lyublyu,” Shane whispered, eyes opening to meet Ilya’s. Ilya pressed their forehead together and whispered it back against his lips. Hard to say who bridged the final sliver of distance between their mouths. Ilya just knew that all at once they devoured each other, hot and sweet and so, so loving.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped the way I did. It was mean and petty, and I only did it because I was overwhelmed and taking it out on you,” Shane said when they pulled apart, foreheads still pressed together.
“I am sorry too. I said some things I should not have.”
“Not all of it was untrue,” Shane sighed. “Although I wish you had worded some of it differently.”
“Yes, I should have.”
“We’ll have to talk about it sooner than later.”
“Yes.”
“But not right now.”
Ilya responded by tucking Shane back into his shoulder. Shane hummed and nestled back in, finding that place he molded for himself against Ilya’s body. The one that had shaped and grown with all the years between them. His fingers twirled the lighter in Ilya’s pocket again, a slower movement. More thoughtful than nerves.
“You shouldn’t be smoking,” Shane whispered, when the silence stretched too long. Ilya huffed a laugh.
“Blyat, Hollander. It was emotional moment. Let me live.”
“If you get lung cancer and die, I’ll fucking kill you.” That drew out a full belly laugh from somewhere deep in Ilya, jostling Shane until he pinched at Ilya through the sweatshirt.
“Hm, moya lyubov, I expect nothing less.”
“Come back inside,” Shane whispered, pressing his lips to Ilya’s neck and then jaw.
“Only if you come with me.”
Shane righted himself and found one of Ilya’s hands to tug them both away from the wall. Ilya pulled him back into his side instead of letting Shane lead, throwing an arm around his shoulder so they could walk side by side and savor the warmth. Shane slipped his own hand into the back pocket of Ilya’s jeans and held his jacket in the other. Together, they rounded the corner to go back to their room, to their bed, to the connection they found in each other. After that, they would find their way back to each other with their words.