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“But what if they don’t like me?”
It was a sentiment that Shane had worried over for his entire life. One of his earliest memories is of his mother crouched by the local rink, tying his skates up. Shane had his tiny fists balled into the front of his first jersey, pulling the fabric taut as his watery eyes scanned the other children doddering their way onto the ice. What if they don’t like me? He’d said through his sniffles. Yuna had unclenched his hands and held them tightly in her own, a familiar, grounding presence. Then they’re not worth knowing. Her voice had been so steady and sure. After a few practices at the under 7’s hockey club, Shane tried to believe Yuna when she told him they were all just jealous because he was so much better than them.
It had followed him through the hockey ranks like a phantom limb. If he ever spoke up about being the loner, that the other kids made fun of him and kept their distance, he was told it was hockey culture. Shane grew to despise those two words once he realised it was just a way to throw a damp blanket onto the wildfire of bigotry. Shane also grew to realise that in every locker room in every team, there would be assholes, and Shane didn’t like to cause a fuss in fear of alienating himself further, and so he learnt to shape himself into something the other guys would recognise.
In every league, every team he joined, Shane remoulded and bent himself to fit in. He supposed practice takes perfect, so when he joined the Metros, the Shane Hollander #24 mould was complete. For the first few years, he was so good at pretending. He would join in with the crass conversations about which women they were fucking and drink beer in dingy bars. He spent hours learning which songs were popular on any given week so he could pipe up with the odd I like this one! in the locker room and somewhat know what he was talking about. He said some bullshit like I don’t kiss and tell when they wanted gory details of his hook-ups with Lily that Hayden let slip once. He told them to fuck off too weakly to be taken seriously when they joked with a slur that Lily could be a man, seeing as Shane refused to share any details about how tight her pussy was or how perky her tits were.
The Metros didn’t know that every misogynistic comment made him think of all the powerful women in his life and made him feel sick that he didn’t say something. The Metros didn’t know that he would go home from the bar with a splitting headache and curl up on the floor of his shower in the dark in an attempt to regulate himself again, swallowing down the nausea from the shots he didn’t want. The Metros didn’t know that Shane was horribly, mind-numbingly in love with a beautiful man. The Metros didn’t know him.
So Shane spent almost every waking hour pretending. On the ice, he was Shane Hollander, global hockey phenom. In front of the media, he was Shane Hollander, youngest and first Asian Metros captain. With the team, he was Shane the jock, slinging shots and trying not to throw up when the guys talked about women like pieces of meat.
The one place he didn’t have to pretend was with Ilya. Ilya Rozanov, captain of rival team Boston Raiders, was his safe space. Oh, he tried to pretend with Ilya at the beginning. It was muscle memory by that point. During the CCM shoot, Shane had batted away Ilya’s comment about being pretty, assuming he was taking the piss like the other guys would and trying not to focus too hard on the way his accent curled deliciously around the edges.
In the dim lights of the hotel room, though, all of Shane’s thoughts had been obliterated with Ilya’s tongue down his throat and a gentle hand on Shane’s jaw. He really could not do anything else other than sink to his knees right there.
Ilya melted his brain so thoroughly that when it came time to undress all the way, Shane had forgotten the mould he was supposed to fit into. He knew he should’ve thrown his clothes into a heap on the floor and latched himself onto Ilya’s huge chest. Instead, he folded each item and left them in a neat little pile on the desk. With his back turned to Ilya, Shane had frozen in place for a second with what he’d done. He was supposed to be a Shane that had meaningless one-night stands. He was supposed to not give a damn about anything other than the hot, naked body splayed out on his bed. But Shane had slipped. He’d folded his clothes with reverence, and now Ilya Rozanov of all people would see the Shane that belongs behind closed doors.
Shane chewed on his bottom lip as he turned to face Rozanov, braced for teasing, or even for Rozanov to realise this had been a mistake and was already in the process of gathering his own clothes back up.
Instead, Shane was met with a bright smile that he had never seen on the Russian’s face. He hadn’t been sure Rozanov even could smile that wide. He’d only ever seen him with a cocky grin or a devious smirk. But no, Rozanov had watched Shane fold his fucking clothes, and his reaction was to beam and beckon him over.
From that point on, random hotel rooms became Shane’s sanctuary. Even in that bathroom in Vegas after a six-month ghosting, Shane had been unable to stop his feelings from bubbling up his throat and spilling out in a torrent of frustration from all the mixed messages. Despite it all, despite Shane’s neuroticism and quirks, Ilya kept coming back.
“What if they don’t like me?” Shane’s voice was small with worry, one side of his face smushed into Ilya’s thigh where he lay with his head in his lap.
The bedsheets rustled as Ilya pulled a hand out from under the duvet to stroke Shane’s hair. “Why do you think that, dorogoy?” Ilya’s voice was so soft and his fingers were so gentle.
Shane closed his eyes at the soothing motion. “I don’t know.”
Ilya tugged lightly on Shane’s hair. “Tell me.”
The duvet was bunched around Ilya’s knees, and Shane pressed a light kiss to the bare skin laid out beneath him. “You know what I’m like.”
It was only a week away before pre-season training began for the Ottawa Centaurs. As the fresh new signing, Shane would usually take this opportunity to keep expanding his Shane Hollander #24 mould. He could feel it happening already. Making more crude jokes than normal, drinking a beer over a ginger ale. But this time was different. This time, he had his husband shooting him concerned glances every time the mask came back up.
“Shanya,” Ilya sighed. It wasn’t frustration in his tone. Not at Shane, anyway, he knew that. Shane didn’t need to tell him about the constant reshaping and relearning to fit in. Ilya knew that in those stolen moments over the past ten years, the Shane in Ilya’s bed was what remained with all of those layers removed. It was the Shane that folded his clothes, who told Ilya to stop smoking. And once Shane had permanently moved into their house in Ottawa, it was the Shane who chirped his husband over chores, who gossiped about the hockey tabloids, who would interrupt Ilya’s workouts because he needed attention.
Ilya’s fingers moved from Shane’s hair to his shoulder blades, rubbing them to try and release his tension. “My Shanya. The Cens are not the Metros, I promise.”
Shane hummed. He wanted to believe Ilya, he really did. But he also believed his mom all those years ago at his very first hockey club.
“I’m not saying they’ll be rude. I don’t think that. But you can be polite to someone without liking them.”
“Why do you think they will not like you, hm? You are the most likeable person I know. It’s actually very annoying.”
Shane pinched Ilya’s thigh, which earned him a dramatic yelp. “You love me, you have to say that.”
“No, moya lyubov. Well, yes, of course I love you. But I like you too. Was part of why I rage-baited you so much all those years ago.”
“You need to get off TikTok.” Shane smiled despite himself.
“Ah, no, is very educational. Plus, there are thirst traps of my very sexy husband.”
“Shut up, now I know you’re lying.”
“Is true! I have a folder full of them.”
Ilya made to grab his phone from the nightstand, but Shane tackled him first. They wrestled for a few seconds before dissolving into giggles. Shane collapsed on Ilya’s chest and breathed him in.
“I wish we could stay here forever.” Shane pressed a kiss into Ilya’s pulse point.
Ilya’s hands circled Shane’s back and held him tight. “Yes, me too.”
Shane studied the wedding band on his finger. Shiny and brand-new, Shane was still getting used to seeing it in his periphery, still unable to quite grasp that all of this wasn’t just some lovely dream.
Being outed had always been Shane’s worst nightmare. He’d wake up in cold sweats after a dream where everyone found out. Ilya would console him and murmur sweet nothings in his ear because he was the kindest, most loving person to ever live, and Shane hated himself for knowing that Ilya’s deepest wish of showing the world what Shane meant to him was Shane’s deepest fear. He would give Ilya the world on a silver platter, but he couldn’t give him this. The hypocrisy of it made him physically sick sometimes.
When they were outed in a fucking fan mail video of all things, Shane wanted nothing more than to disappear. His team was more hostile than ever. The slurs became pointed and poisonous. His captaincy was stripped from him. Everything Shane had ever feared had come true.
But at the end of it, always at the end of every dark tunnel, was Ilya. Shane didn’t doubt him for a second, but Ilya stayed true to his word, and they worked it out together. He helped Shane realise that he’d been slowly suffocating in Montreal. He had spent so much time weaving a web of different identities that he truly didn’t know who he really was any more. Along with a very good therapist, Ilya helped Shane find himself, and then he helped him get a contract with the Centaurs.
And as excited as Shane was to feel the cut of the ice under his skates again after a long summer off, Shane really didn’t want to leave this bubble that he and Ilya had been living in since the wedding in July.
“You know I would never let you join another team like the Metros.” Ilya spat the team name like it left a foul taste in his mouth.
“I know.” Shane burrowed further into Ilya’s warmth and let his big hands on his back ground him.
“The Centaurs are good people. Good at hockey? Eh, we are getting there. But good hearts? The best I have ever seen. Apart from the one right here.” Ilya squeezed him for emphasis.
“You take such good care of me,” Shane murmured. “I know it’s your job now, but I still appreciate it. I appreciate you.”
“Shane, look at me.” He didn’t really have the energy to lift his head, but the sudden seriousness in Ilya’s tone caused a knot to tighten in Shane’s stomach, so he did as he was told.
“It is not my job,” Ilya went on. “It has never been a job. Taking care of you is the greatest privilege of my life. Everything I do, I do to make you comfortable, to see you smile. The world has been very unkind to you, moy pomidor, and now it is time for you to get what you truly deserve - a very sexy husband who loves you, a city that worships you, and a team that will do more than like you.”
Shane’s eyes were burning, and he bit his lip to try and stop it from trembling. “Fuck. I don’t know whether to cry or be turned on.”
Ilya’s laugh sounded like it came from heaven itself. “Because I called myself your husband?”
Shane couldn’t help it any more. He captured Ilya’s lips and tried to pour everything of himself into the kiss. “Say it again,” he said into Ilya’s mouth.
“I am your husband.” Ilya caught Shane’s bottom lip between his teeth and tugged gently. “I am yours. From the very first moment I saw you, I think. I have always been yours.”
Shane kissed him furiously then, feeling tears roll down his cheeks. Without parting, Shane delighted in the easy way at which Ilya flipped them, settling himself between Shane’s thighs.
With a new season and a new team pending, Shane felt more at ease than he ever has. With gentle hands and whispered promises from the man in front of him, Shane peeled back layer by layer until all that remained was Shane Hollander as he should be.