Chapter Text
Ilya dreams of 2017.
He awakens in Shane’s Montreal apartment alone. He glances at the bed to a pair of sleep pants folded with crisp edges on Shane’s pillow.
Ilya finds Shane in the kitchen standing at the slatted window, drinking a shake and looking out the gaps at the grey, misty morning. Winter slinks early this year.
Shane is wearing Ilya’s shirt, swallowed up in the excess fabric. He looks old in it, rather than young. Frail like an old man he’s becoming for the first time.
Ilya thinks he might die soon, or Shane. Or maybe lose their minds. And he will never know the truth that he needs to if they keep on like this. He’s been waiting for something tragic like that to happen, maybe, so they never have to talk about this. But it feels like it may strangle them if Ilya let it draw any tighter around them.
“Do you hate me for marrying Svetlana?” Ilya asks, and it breaks across the calm morning.
Shane turns around, horror growing in his eyes.
“What?”
“Do you hate me for marrying Svetlana?”
“No.” Shane fidgets, moves his drink from one hand to another. “Did you want one? I can make another.”
“Shane.” Ilya catches his wrist gently. His heart sighs when he sees Shane looking at him with such frustrated fondness.
“Ilya,” Shane mimics. “Are you going to keep asking until I say yes?”
“Is it a yes?” Ilya feels his heart sink.
Shane shakes his head, tries to pull back but Ilya follows him. Presses Shane gently against the half-shuttered window. The glass is cold, freezing against Ilya’s hands. Shane shakes at the first startling touch of chill along his back, then stills.
“She was your wife. I can’t hate her. She loved you and she gave you Nikolaj.”
“I didn’t ask if you hated Svetlana,” Ilya says, his heart sinking even more.
Shane blinks at him, eyes desperate for him to stop. Ilya can’t; when Ilya saw Shane in the commissioner’s office, he thought that through time, he forgave Shane for all the hurt of not answering Ilya’s myriad calls. As an older man, he could understand it, make sense of the riotous emotions of the youthful past and comprehend that Shane made the best choice he could for himself. It was so much easier to forgive and forget when they were distant. Now, Ilya realizes that he has not forgiven or forgotten anything, only buried it to once again pursue this baffling, complicated man with single minded intensity.
Now, Ilya has him, has closed the gap, and he is so deeply afraid and angry in the same stroke.
“You would never marry me yourself,” Ilya says, and if it sounds accusatory, then it is because it is. “I needed to be safe. I married her because you wouldn’t.”
Shane’s hands shake because his fists are so tight, so controlled, so intense—
“You could love someone else and I never could. This proved it! How is that safe for me?” Shane demands, scoffs. “And looks like you made the right choice, had a child, happy fucking life.”
That’s not fair.
“I would not have married her if I thought you would ever risk hockey—"
“You never even asked me! You never asked me to marry you—”
“You wouldn’t have! We had not even said I love you and you think I can ask for marriage without sounding like parasite?” What Ilya needed and what Shane could possibly give him back then—the timing was so cruelly off.
“You still don’t get it.” Shane shakes his head heard once, viciously. “You don’t care. Even now you didn’t ask if I wanted to come out with you. You never even asked me to come out. You never asked!”
Ilya feels his mouth go dry. Shane’s visceral pain is like a knife to the heart, the way he’s pulled away from Ilya these past months. But it’s laughable, so wrong.
“But you wouldn’t. You’d lose everything. Without hockey, without work, you’d be miserable,” he tries. “It’s everything to you. How could I ask you to give that up?”
“Ask me!” Shane’s jaw shakes, his dark eyes bleeding pain. “Ask me to give it all up!” Ilya feels woozy, but Shane isn’t done. “My whole life has been about what I can do. About being the best at fucking everything like a fucking machine, but you made me… you made me wonder who I might be without that. Made me think that I could be someone without hockey. Made me want to be—”
Shane cuts off, chest heaving and furious. Hiccoughing and enraged. “You keep saying you ‘won’t bring me down with you’ when all I want is to be with you!”
Ilya staggers back from the window, hovering in Shane’s space and looking at him like it’s the first time again. Does he see how bright he is, how thriving? How overflowing he is in a way that has nothing to do with hockey and world domination. And Ilya has always known this, has known Shane has a tender, artless core he can’t bear showing the world. Shane’s needed someone to pull him apart to ever risk being real. Cannot dissemble it himself. Ilya has done that physically, but emotionally he’s realizing how much his fear has stymied him again and again. Over and over.
Ilya did not ask Shane to come out with him… Because he did not think he would say yes. He did not ask Shane to marry him for the same reason. That same old fear curdles inside of him. So afraid of rejection that he does not ask. But he was trying to be the good partner, the one who did not ask too much— in the end, all he did was ensure they could not be together.
“You think that you’re saving me pain by not asking me to make the hard decisions, but, Ilya, it’s always a hard choice. The least you could do is let me make it with you.” Shane cries now, tears that run down a placid face. Quiet, so no one will notice.
Ilya opens his mouth, wordless. Shane pushes Ilya away, a move so smooth, so forceful that he staggers back despite having more bulk.
“Now, I’m making you a fucking shake,” Shane spits, rubbing his eyes and steps around Ilya’s wreck on his way to the kitchen. “Stop bringing up old shit that doesn’t matter. It’s not fucking helpful.”
Ilya watches Shane dump powder into a blender, popping half of a banana in. Spoonfuls of peanut butter, a substance Shane hates for its textural peculiarities and distinct scent but that Ilya loves. Shane hits the spoon on the side so hard Ilya is surprised that the blender does not break. He drops the spoon inside and cusses, fingers digging into the gross unblended mess.
Shane’s wrong. Because it’s not old shit, it’s also now shit. The same shit, smothering, insane fear. Ilya is so tired of being afraid.
“Will you marry me?”
Shane’s fingers twitch where he is wrist deep in the blender.
He looks so shaken, betrayed, and worst of all hopeful.
“What?”
“I’m asking now,” Ilya says. “I am so late, but I ask you now.”
Shane opens his mouth and shuts it.
“Ilya, my hand is covered in sludge—”
“I will marry that hand anyway.”
Shane huffs a laugh, incredulous. He’s still silent, eyes so wide like an owl. Ilya comes over and pulls the water and powder and peanut butter coated hand into his and clutches it.
“I know you want to be commissioner. I know you need to rule the world for the better. Marry me anyway. Even if it means none of that ever happens.”
“What the fuck.”
Shane is shaking his head, but he looks clear-headed. He looks incredible. Ilya lifts the hand above his head, pulls it closer so he can kiss Shane.
When they pull away, he sees Shane’s dark eyes. Fear glows inside the nearer Ilya gets. And Ilya sighs.
Oh. It’s too late. He did not make first chance, and he blew second chance without even knowing it.
He draws away, goes to the sink, and rinses his shaking hand. Then he returns to bed—it’s a general truth that the world makes more sense the more horizontal that Ilya is.
Ilya asked— he did what he was always too afraid to. Just because he is brave, does not mean everything works out. Scott Hunter did not get it all either. This is not perfect rom-com, this is real life. And he and Shane are always a series of almosts and missing each other, even when they share a bed. When they don’t…
Ilya wonders if this night will also be spent alone. And he wonders about every night after in a way that makes him small and sick. About waking up alone, disoriented and afraid—
A few hours later, Shane crawls into his bed like a wary cat. He sits on the side, looking at the wall. He’s still such a big man, broad shouldered and lovely.
“Do we have to get married or do you just want me to come out so we can date publicly?”
Ilya talks to his turned head, the tidy nape of his neck.
“I want to get married.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you to have half of everything I have. I want you to have all my passwords and control of all my bank accounts. You can run my life for me. I think you might like that.”
Shane turns, looks at him. From the bright, burning in Shane’s eyes, Ilya thinks he might be righter than he knew about that. Ilya is old enough to know that Shane cannot cope if he does not think he has power. There is no greater power than vulnerability that is shared, and Ilya will make himself vulnerable, will hand over his leash to this man willingly so he never has to chase Ilya anywhere again. He would love only the attention of him for the rest of his life. Could better cope with Shane’s crippling control than anyone else could, can tease him down from his megalomaniacal heights back to his soft, and tender core. Remind him who he is when he doesn’t have to be so afraid to be seen. In this devil's exchange, Shane will be so vulnerable for him that he might shatter. Ilya will spend a lifetime loving and being loved by Shane Hollander.
“So it’s for laziness reasons and for legal reasons.”
Ilya reaches out and Shane slowly lowers himself into Ilya’s arms, head on his chest, onto Ilya's swollen heart which thumps with stubborn hope. Shane came back. He cannot blow this third chance.
“It’s because I want it to be hard for you to leave me again. Embarrassing to explain. Legally difficult. Expensive with lawyers. I want you to have to file your taxes with divorced status, to remember that we were married once a year if you ever try to leave. Very humiliated every tax season.”
I want to become like death and taxes to you, Ilya says in Russian, because he cannot make sense of it in English.
Shane groans like he heard and understood and presses his head into Ilya’s neck, burying himself there.
“You’re crazy,” which is as good as an I love you from Shane.
“Very,” Ilya agrees. “You can think about it—”
“I will marry you, Ilya Rozanov.”
“You’re even crazier,” Ilya barks, and rolls around into Shane who is so clear, so decided and so settled. Firm and beautiful like ice.
Come down with me. I love you, I love you, Ilya whispers in Russian, each word brave and bright, each kiss a benediction. Shane, the greedy, selfless man he is, takes it all.
Shane, all of ten minutes after their great yes-I-will-marry-you-freak sex, changes his wallpaper on the back of his phone. His same wallpaper for years (a bird’s-eye-view of a hockey rink) is papered over with a grinning picture of Ilya in his Montreal backyard, green and verdant from summer.
Ilya tries not to be too smug, even as he updates his own to show Shane in his glasses, reading documents. Shane protests, but Ilya kisses his cheeks too much.
“Aww, this cannot be news to you, that you are boring. I cannot be the first person to tell you.” Shane shoves Ilya’s phone away.
By minute twelve of their afterglow, Shane gets a look in his eye, a crazed feverish light. Ilya pets his arm, as if this might soothe the beast, but Shane only looks more intense.
“Ilya. Ilya. Tell me now if you don’t want me to…” he trails off. Shakes himself. “If you want to do this together—”
“Shane. Sweetheart. My love. I have been doing this alone for three months and you let me do it my way. Coming out with one emoji. Now it is time for the Hollander way.”
Shane kisses both of Ilya’s hands, soft, desperately. Then he flies from the bed and into the living room.
Ilya’s knees crack as he wanders out after him, pulling out his phone to see if Nikolaj has sent him more pictures of the lake nearby where he is staying in Buffalo. In the three minutes it takes for Ilya to piss and wash his hands, Shane has set up a whiteboard with parallel timelines drawn in his sharp penmanship.
INNER CIRCLE: has Mom and Dad written and checked off. Then there is Hayden (dinner at New York Apartment), a string of names Ilya recognizes from the office as being Shane’s closest compatriots in the cause (one-on-one talk). OUTER CIRCLE: Former Teammates (get sound clips from supportive ones, help draft supportive social media posts), former coaches (meet/email, if living), Commissioner Langstrom (meeting), MLH (email), Fans (social media post— what pictures? Need more pictures. Pictures key!!!)
Then there is the next timeline:
WEDDING: Rings (measure size, left or right hand?), Suits (Ilya in black!), Venues (parent’s house, possibly hockey rink, McGill’s— Too cliché?), Color scheme (Stanley gold, no former team colors) Menu (catered Russian and food for me—compromise on a cake— do not let Ilya shove it in my face) and so on and on.
Ilya squints, seeing that for each person of the inner and outer circle told, Shane would like to have one or two of his wedding goals accomplished as well. Ilya does not bother to point out that none of this has to be concurrent, there is no hurry; he suspects Shane is enjoying racing himself too much.
“Left,” Ilya says.
Shane, writing a sixth prospective song for their wedding dance, pauses.
“What?”
“Left hand.” Ilya waggles his second littlest left finger.
“You sure? I know in Russia—”
“I had Russian bride. Let me have North American husband.”
Shane tries to scowl, but a bright smile breaks through.
“Oh you like that, husband?”
“Don’t distract me.”
“I would never,” Ilya says, sneaking behind Shane and butting his chin against the back of his hair, head tilting to taste the salt along Shane’s hair line as his hands wander down to Shane’s ass.
“We just fucked.”
“Yes, but you are so hot when you are plotting. Can’t you multitask?”
He puts Shane to the test as he stands behind and ruts uselessly against him until his fiancé is sighing and leaning his ass back into Ilya’s grateful, worthy hands.
“I have an idea for the wedding,” Ilya says.
“Shoot,” Shane says, magnanimous as if he might even entertain it.
“We marry at your cottage.”
“Why? You never even saw it.”
“I did. I drove out there but you weren’t home. The windows were empty.”
Shane is quiet for a moment, his uncapped pen still on the board.
“We never made it there together,” Ilya says. “But maybe we make it now. I saw there is a lake. I like to swim. But I don’t know if the invitation is still good.”
“I think it’s still good. I’m not some asshole without manners,” Shane says, leaning back into Ilya’s arms. “If it’s not, I’ll ask again; Ilya, do you want to come to my cottage?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
Shane scrawls the word on the board. His pen stalls and Ilya kisses his neck, kisses his face. He is stubbly and Ilya itches.
“I’m not backtracking anything… but you don’t want to wait until you are commissioner to get married?” Ilya asks.
“No.” Shane turns on him. He looks intent, as if seeing a new opening on the ice. “I want to get commissioner this way— being gay.”
“They will hate it,” Ilya says, rutting lightly against Shane’s strong runner’s thighs.
“Good. Maybe someone can finally make some fucking changes around here,” he spits. "I'm tired of being nice about this."
“You are very, very hot plotting. Putting MLH on it's knees, very powerful, very sexy. Can we make love again?”
Shane looks critically at Ilya’s cock rising against all odds, sees that Ilya CAN go again.
“After I call the florist—they book so far in advance, you know.”
After second round of yes-I-will-marry-you-freak sex, Shane rests his head on Ilya’s chest, his shoulder at a bad angle and squints up at him through his now-smudged glasses.
“We should talk about what happens if one of us gets Alzheimer’s,” Shane says, which is the most incredibly bad pillow talk of Ilya’s life.
“What if we both get Alzheimer’s?” Ilya pitches back.
“Shut up, I’m serious.”
Ilya does not care. He is embracing the bright, ethereal lightness. Life is too good to be true and he doesn’t give a damn to ground it for anyone.
“Shane, we have known each other for thirty years. The chances we forget each other are minimal. I am your version of Boston Bears. You can forget your whole personality, but you will not forget me.”
“I guess so.” Shane laughs miserably. He says, quieter, “I already tried for twenty years. It didn’t work.”
Me too, Ilya thinks, but does not say.
Ilya cradles him closer, rocks, says instead, “When we get married, I will shave you every day for the rest of your life,” he promises, and it makes Shane laugh in such a befuddled way.
“Why do you keep saying that? What is your obsession?”
Ilya thinks he finally knows, can explain. “These. I want to touch these.”
“My freckles? Again?” Shane sounds indulgent. "Who's boring and predictable now?"
“No these.” Ilya pets the fine wrinkles in the corner of his jaw. “I will pull each crease like this, be very careful.” Ilya does, tugging on Shane’s crinkled skin until it is flat and smooth, tracing the plane he made.
“I don’t have that many creases— wrinkles,” Shane protests.
“But I love them. We have lots of time and I will make you smile so much you make many, many more.” Ilya will be there for each line, each drop of firm flesh. “And I will shave you and make sure you look so perfect. My perfect man.”
Three years later:
Ilya wants to buy a new car. They have so much space in their part-time New York Suburban house that Ilya is itching to fill it with another garage. This is not different behavior, nor worth noting, only, he realizes, for the car of choice (vintage, classic), he may need to withdraw from an account, move some money around.
He logs into his stock profile for the first time in years, mind reaching for the password, and feels his eyebrows climbing. His profile has tripled, no quadrupled. He does not know what the English word is for this much money. Has it even been invented?
When Shane comes home, brusque, buttoned up, Ilya undoes his husband’s tie, kisses into his mouth, and shows him the stock webpage with faint alarm.
“You are a mafia boss? What is it, Yakuza?”
“Ilya. Please, I just invested in some properties.” Shane’s eyes greedily flicker over the portfolio. Each asset of Ilya’s that he’d neurotically grown.
“What do we do with this? Nika will drown trying to swim in money pool like cartoon duck if he inherits this.”
“What do you want to do with it instead?”
Ilya looks at his phone, the fake number and apparently non-illegal liquid assets.
“I want to make hockey camp for poor kids.”
“That’s great,” Shane says, as if that is resolved. He kisses into Ilya harder, wriggling his ass into Ilya’s grip when it takes him too long to get the clue.
“You are in good mood.”
“Good news.”
Ilya looks at him carefully, wishes he had reading glasses because there is no way he is correct.
"No… You got it?"
"It's not official," Shane says, smile so large it is eating his face and all his freckles. “But it’s pretty much official.”
“You are king of the hockey world!” Ilya says, spinning Shane around, relishing his breathless squeaking and laughter.
“Put me down, I’m going to hurl.”
“No. You are incredible fucking man. How did you do it? You said they never let a gay man be in charge.”
Shane’s expression goes a little flat, a little intense. “Honestly, it took a little maneuvering, even if I was next in line.” Ilya desperately wonders who was killed in the ensuing cloak and dagger affair.
“What did you have to do? Promise first baby? Secret sex pact?”
“I had to fold on some of my stronger stances.”
“Which ones?”
Shane’s lips go tight. “Fighting in hockey.”
Ilya laughs so hard he cries. He has never felt so foolishly loved. Damn fucking right! Shane crosses his arms.
“No, no, I am sorry. Is not laughing matter. Sweetheart, my love. I am sorry you had to give up your beliefs. I am just so happy that you did.” He kisses Shane all over his beautiful face. He’s really, so, so gone on Ilya. Has let Ilya drag him so low. It’s incredible.
“Maybe I can circle around to it in the back half of my career,” Shane says, such a sexy schemer. “And I can finally move the headquarters to Montreal, or at least make a secondary head branch—"
“Yes, yes, you have power to change whole world so we can fuck constantly. But for now, since we are together. Let me fuck the new commissioner, yes?”
“Oh… yes.”
And even as he buries his smile in Shane’s neck, Ilya cannot help but grin.
“Let the fighting go on!” Ilya crows.