Chapter Text
The party after the Centaurs win their second Stanley Cup is huge, obviously.
They’re in Montreal, too, which makes everything about it more personal, more intense. Some of Shane’s ex-teammates go out after the game too, but they stick to the straight bars, while the Centaurs stick to gay bars to avoid them.
They do party hard, as is their right after a game like that. Ilya isn’t allowed to drink on his meds, but he can smoke, like a little weed, which he does, because it’s fucking legal here and he’s got to keep up somehow. He’s going to be relatively responsible, yes, especially with Shane here, but not a wet blanket.
Shane gets pretty drunk. Not, like, dancing on tables drunk, that would be Wyatt, but drunk enough that he’s all flushed in the face and making stupid heart eyes at Ilya from across the bar, while Ilya kicks Bood’s ass at pool. Weed makes him awesome at pool the same way alcohol makes him awesome at Karaoke, he learned this at a very young age. Probably too young, in the grand scheme of things.
He will definitely supervise his children better than he was supervised.
Bood loses, badly, and Ilya can feel Shane’s eyes on them as he gloats his way back to the table.
Bood says “I gotta get home to my kid.”
“Good excuse to nurse your bruised ego,” Ilya teases.
Bood rolls his eyes, and shoves Ilya down into an empty seat at the table across from Shane. He ruffles his hair aggressively, and says “You’ll see one day, Rozy,” before doing his goodbye rounds.
Ilya scoffs, waves him off dismissively, then turns away, just to find Shane staring at him, his head resting on his hand. He looks dreamy and lost in his thoughts, although that might be the alcohol.
“Hi,” Ilya teases. “You okay, Hollander?”
Shane bites his lip, taps Ilya’s foot under the table, and nods. “We should go too,” Shane says, looking Ilya up and down.
Ilya has never claimed to have a spine when it comes to Shane.
They say their goodbyes, which takes a while, spirits being high, and all, and then they’re walking back to the hotel, which is luckily only a few blocks from the bar they picked. Shane doesn’t have his Montreal apartment anymore, having sold it when they decided to settle down in Ottawa at least semi-permanently, so hotel it is, just like old times.
The night is beautiful, and Ilya is on top of the world. He’s got a wonderful husband, a good team, a nice, supportive team, and a million stars above him. The stars are so pretty. He doesn’t think the stars in Russia were ever this pretty. Nothing in Russia was ever this pretty.
His life is so perfect.
A lot of this, he can admit, might be the weed talking. He’s coming down, though, for sure. It’s been a good few hours, and it’s somewhere near midnight. His head is clearing.
They bump into each other’s shoulders all the way home, and talk about the game, talk about their summer plans, the way they’ve been doing all night. It’s nice. It’s perfect.
“I’m thinking of taking the next season off,” Shane says casually as he watches Ilya unlock their hotel room.
“Why the fuck would you do that?” Ilya asks, looking at him like he’s crazy as the card beeps to let them in.
Ilya puts the do not disturb sign on the door, lets it slam behind them, and latches it, all entirely out of habit.
“Because I think Bood was right, earlier, and Hayden’s been right for the last year or so,” Shane shrugs. “We should have kids, and I think we should probably do that soon.”
Ilya blinks at him. “And you want to carry them?”
“I want to take next season off to carry one,” Shane clarifies. “We can talk about more after that, maybe.”
Ilya giggles at him stupidly, he can’t help it. “You want to have my babies,” he teases, crowding Shane up against the wall. It’s supposed to be sexy, but Ilya is giggly and excited and stupid, so it doesn’t quite have the desired effect.
Shane rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling, too. His eyes look clearer, having sobered up to just tipsy status from the walk. “I want to have children with you, and I think that it makes the most sense for us right now if I carry them.”
“And you think the time to bring this up is when we are drunk and high?” Ilya laughs.
“You aren’t that high, and I’m not that drunk,” Shane points out. “And, yeah. Our season just ended, we’re both feeling good, I want to have kids,” Shane shrugs, bringing his hand up to cup the side of Ilya’s face. “Plus, it’s a decent time in our careers for us to each take a year off and be able to come back just fine… and also you make me impulsive and stupid.”
Ilya hums, kissing him firmly, just a hint of heat in it. “You make good points,” he admits. “And you make me responsible and boring. Good system.”
“It’s been working pretty well so far.”
“It has.”
“Plus, I don’t know how pregnancy would interfere with your meds,” Shane adds quickly. Ilya doesn’t know either, frankly. They’ve always wanted kids, always, but when Ilya first got on antidepressants, he hadn’t remotely been considering pregnancy in the near future.
“This is true,” he grants him.
Ilya looks him up and down, studying his face. Freckles, dark eyes, cute nose. Ilya was never fond of his nose, it would be nice to give his children Shane’s, instead. “Okay,” Ilya mumbles, smiling stupidly. “Okay, let’s have a baby.”
And so, at the end of the night, they wind up in bed together, like they always, always do.
“Where did you put the condoms?” Ilya asks as he has his mouth against the back of Shane's neck and three fingers inside of him.
“Why would you need a condom?” Shane asks over his shoulder, out of breath from how much attention Ilya’s been paying to his prostate.
“Oh, we are trying right now, are we?”
“It would be kinda romantic, right? We win a Stanley Cup together, fall into bed, one thing leads to another, nine months later we have a baby.”
Ilya buries his face in the back of his neck, breathing him in for a moment. “It is,” he says, smelling the day on his skin - the sweat and the bar and the traces of shampoo from his quick post-game shower.
“Okay,” Ilya says, his heart pounding. “Fuck condoms, then.”
----------
Obviously, Shane’s nonchalant attitude doesn’t last very long. His ridiculous nutritional obsession thing comes back a little, although not to a detrimental degree, and he starts taking prenatals immediately, because apparently the sooner you start that, the better.
Ilya supports him, of course, and he will continue to support him, and when he’s pregnant he’ll spoil the living shit out of him, but he decides that that area of things is probably none of his business. Shane likes to take his control issues out on food, and nutrition, and supplements, and there’s no chance in hell that Ilya will be able to contribute anything meaningful to that situation.
Ilya wakes up a few days into their yearly cottage stay to find Shane biting his lip, sitting up in bed, and staring at his laptop.
“Good morning,” Ilya mumbles, sitting up a bit to squint at his computer. “Why are you googling clinics, are you pregnant already?”
“No,” Shane says, holding up a negative test to prove it. When he took that test, Ilya has no idea, but he’s not particularly surprised that he wanted to do that alone. Shane likes to process things in his own quiet, anxious way sometimes before talking about it, but he came back to bed after, came back to Ilya, after he was done, and that’s what matters.
Ilya hums, sitting up a bit more to press his lips to the side of Shane’s arm. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “I’ll try harder.”
Shane manages to snort, reaching up to pet the side of his head clumsily. “It might not be you,” Shane says, nervously fiddling with Ilya's hair. “That’s why I think we should go to a clinic.”
“A clinic?” It’s probably too early in the morning for this conversation. Ilya needs coffee.
“Fertility testing,” Shane elaborates. “I think we should know what we’re working with, you know? We can afford it, obviously, and… I’d just really like to know.”
“Sure,” Ilya says, kissing his arm again. “Anything for you. I will jizz in a cup, if this is what you want.”
“Gross,” Shane mumbles distractedly.
Ilya snorts, leans up to hiss his face, and says “I am making coffee. Do you want some?”
“Only one cup,” Shane says distractedly. “Lowers sperm count.”
“Sure,” Ilya agrees. Anything.
----------
He didn’t realize anything would include so many goddamn needles.
He keeps a stiff upper lip about it, so to speak. He doesn't complain, or beg for his husband to come back and hold his hand when they tell him they can just take both their blood in different rooms simultaneously. He does, however, bite hard on his tongue and attempt not to tear up.
In the end, though, they wind up sitting in a Doctor’s office in Ottawa, some time in late May, being told “I have good news and bad news.”
Ilya feels more that sees Shane’s energy change at that, and he puts his hand on his thigh instinctually, rubbing up and down. That usually helps him calm down, at least a little.
“Start with bad,” Shane says after presumably steadying himself.
“So, the bottom line is, you are pretty unlikely to conceive the way things are going now. It isn’t impossible! I wouldn’t be totally shocked if you came in next month with a positive test, but it isn’t likely. Shane, your hormone levels are just not ideal for naturally conceiving a pregnancy, and, to be frank, Ilya’s sperm count is lower than yours.”
“So, is both of our fault?” Ilya asks.
“It’s nobody’s fault,” the doctor assures them. Ilya knows this, he said it for Shane's benefit, because this is the sort of thing Shane would blame himself for if Ilya didn’t immediately remind him not to do that in some way. “But I would say your physiologies are both contributing to you having issues conceiving.”
“You said there was good news?” Shane asks, sounding partly hopeful, partly crushed. Ilya squeezes his leg.
“Yes! So, the good news is I see no reason why you guys can’t conceive a different way, and we can help you with those options.”
“Walk me through it,” Shane says, pulling out the notes app on his phone. He reminds Ilya a lot of mom when he does that, and that thought makes it hard for Ilya not to smile, despite the inappropriate timing. Yuna is a good parent, Ilya wouldn’t mind if Shane wound up a lot like her. Perhaps slightly less overbearing, but they can work on that. There’s time.
“If you’re dead set on Shane carrying, we can make that work, although the easiest way to do that would probably be to do IVF with Ilya as the egg donor and Shane as the sperm donor.”
“Okay,” Shane says, catching Ilya’s eye. Ilya shrugs. Egg retrieval sounds… unpleasant, from everything he’s read about it so far, but doable. Not worse than pregnancy, which is the end of the deal that Shane is signing up for.
“If you aren’t dead set on Shane carrying, though,” the doctor continues. “If you would prefer, I also see no reason why you would have trouble conceiving through well-timed sexual intercorse with Ilya as the carrier.”
Ilya shakes his head immediately. “I am on, um-” he snaps his fingers, trying to think of the word in English. The only downside of having a Russian therapist, Ilya’s found, is that getting to discuss everything in his first language makes it harder to find the right words in his second when he has to.
He looks to Shane for help, who says “He takes an SSRI for depression.”
“That,” Ilya replies with a gesture towards Shane. He hates when that happens. He also hates talking about taking medication too in depth, still getting used to the idea of it, but it’s necessary sometimes. It’s important.
“SSRIs are generally considered safe in pregnancy,” the doctor informs them. “I generally encourage patients to stay on them, actually. Depression is associated with a lot more risks in pregnancy than SSRIs.”
Ilya stares into the middle distance for a moment, thinking. “Oh,” is all he says.
He looks at Shane, who looks right back at him, just as surprised. Ilya shrugs again, although that one, he hopes, reads more as a ‘maybe’ than a ‘sure.’
“Could we have a second to talk about it?” Shane asks, and the doctor, luckily, nods, stepping out of the room quickly.
They turn to each other fully on the uncomfortable doctor’s office loveseat, the weird leather squeaking under their legs. They just look at each other for a moment, thinking about it, before Ilya asks “Would you be okay with that?”
“Would you?” Shane shoots back. “And don’t say you’d do anything for me, I know you would, but I don’t want this to be what’s best for me, I want it to be what’s best for us.”
Ilya thinks that over for a moment. Yes, it would be scary, but so would Shane being pregnant, that’s something he’s come to accept, and if he can keep taking his meds, keep seeing his therapist… he thinks he could handle that. With Shane, he could handle that.
“I can do it,” Ilya decides. “If you can handle not being in charge of things? I know you wanted to do it to feel more in control of everything.”
“I can handle it,” Shane decides. “I trust you, Ilya. I'll be nervous, but you’d keep our baby safe the same as I would, I know that, and if I’m too anxious I’ll just channel that into hockey.”
“That’s worked pretty well for your career so far, right?” Ilya laughs, and Shane agrees with a little smile.
“It has,” he says. “And I’d rather top for a while than be artificially inseminated, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Fair,” Ilya laughs, leaning in to kiss him. “Okay, it’s a deal.”
When they pull back fully, they each take a deep breath, steadying themselves with a little bit of closeness, before Shane says “Okay, let’s tell her we’re doing this,” and stands to grab the doctor again.
Ilya stares at the wall for the short time that Shane is gone, just processing what he’s agreeing to.
Okay, they’re doing this.
He can do this.
----------
Shane tells their agent that he’s going to stay with Ottawa for another season, and Ilya informs her that he is not. Shane knows they’ll need to tell the team an excuse at some point, considering the fact that Ilya probably won’t be very far along by the time practice starts up again, but that can come later. For now, Ilya simply tells their agent that this is ‘Just for one season,’ and she doesn’t pry.
Switching it up has been… weird, mostly because their lives have basically just gone back to status quo for Shane, which is unnerving after spending a few months stressing out about tests and timings. Now he’s just stressing out about Ilya, which is… less new. Working out with a goal again is nice, too. Shane has gotten on the grind of getting ready for the season, and Ilya has gotten off of it, which he doesn’t seem to mind too much. He still works out a little, of course, they have a home gym, but it seems less like training and more like a habit.
Ilya’s just been… Ilya, except that he doesn’t drink, or do anything exceedingly stupid, and he takes prenatals now, at Shane’s insistence, which he complains about nonstop. (“These are fucking horse pills, Hollander, what am I having, a foal? Are we breeding centaurs?”) The complaining is very Ilya, though, and that’s also comforting.
Ilya still tops, too, they just use condoms again, because Shane is absolutely terrified of the idea of an accidental ‘double pregnancy.’ That is actually pretty much his idea of hell.
But it’s normal, mostly. For Shane, at least.
Until Ilya texts him ‘We fuck tonight,’ while he’s training one day in early July.
‘App says,’ he elaborates.
Shane texts back ‘?’
‘Means I’m ovulating Hollander get with the fucking program’
‘Oh,’ Shane replies, and Ilya reacts to it with a laughing emoji.
Shane didn’t know they made apps for that.
In the evening, as Shane drives home, he calls Ilya on the bluetooth.
“Hello?”
“Hi,” Shane says as soon as he hears Ilya’s voice. “I’m just heading home. I ate already, but I didn’t know if you wanted me to pick anything up on the way.”
“No, I had dinner, and I assumed you would have high protein bullshit,” Ilya replies.
Shane rolls his eyes, even though Ilya can’t see him. “What’s this app you’ve got?” he asks, moving on.
“I pee on a stick every day, take my temperature, app tells me when to fuck,” Ilya summarises succinctly. “App says we fuck today. Possibly tomorrow also.”
“Tomorrow too?” Shane teases. “Are you just trying to get into my pants?”
“If I was just trying to get into your pants I wouldn’t be on bottom,” Ilya points out, and he does have a point there. Not that topping is unpleasant, or anything, but it’s not exactly something Shane tends to do without an occasion. “I also wouldn’t have to use app. I would say ‘Hollander, get your dick out,’ and you get your dick out.”
“Are you calling me easy?”
“Yes. We are both easy, it is the best thing about our relationship.”
Shane snorts, hits his turn signal, and says “I’ll be home in, like, fifteen minutes.”
“I will be in the bedroom,” Ilya informs him.
“Sounds good,” Shane laughs. “Love you.”
“Love you too,” Ilya replies, then he makes an exaggerated dick sucking noise into the phone before hanging up right as Shane is about to tell him to shut up.
----------
“Get on the bed,” Ilya orders as soon as Shane gets into the room, not giving Shane a chance to move before he’s pushing him backwards until the backs of his knees hitting the bedframe and his upper body hitting the mattress with a thud.
“Bossy,” Shane teases as Ilya climbs on top of him, his knees on either side of his hips. His weight is solid and comforting and all-consuming above him, demanding from Shane one hundred percent of his attention.
“Naturally,” Ilya says, flashing him a smug little smile. Shane tries to put his hands on his hips, but Ilya grabs them, pinning them above his head by the wrists with one hand. “You think because I let you fuck me you get to be in charge, hm?” he asks, and that sends a shiver down Shane’s spine. “You have to be good if you want to fuck me. Can you be good?”
Shane nods, and Ilya uses one hand to grab his jaw, staring intensely into his eyes. “Words, Shane.”
“Yes,” Shane says, groaning into it when Ilya rewards him for that with a forceful kiss.
And then his weight is gone from Shane’s wrists, and Ilya’s pulling his shirt up over his head. “Suck my dick while you finger me and maybe I let you come,” he orders as he drops himself unceremoniously backwards against Shane’s mound of pillows. Ilya usually throws half of them off the bed at some point in the night, then Shane puts them back to replace his presence when he inevitably wakes up earlier than him to make breakfast. He finds Ilya curled up around one or two of them an hour later more often than not.
Ilya pulls his pants off, and Shane follows his lead, standing up briefly to shuck his clothes off. He struggles with one sock, almost falling down, and flips Ilya off when he laughs at him for it.
“Fuck you,” he laughs as he grabs the lube from the bedside table.
“That is the plan, yes,” Ilya agrees playfully as Shane tosses the bottle down. He does not grab a condom.
There’s a flash of something behind Ilya’s gaze. Nerves, probably, and a vulnerability he’s scared of admitting to or showing.
They’ve done this before, the switching thing, tried out different configurations, because when you’re with someone for long enough that’s just something you do. Sex becomes a fun, cool, and intimate activity that you do together after a while, and it’s an activity that’s fun to experiment with. They both prefer it when Shane bottoms, they know that, but they’ve never not gotten off before, either, and no experiment can really be called a ‘fail’ when there’s an orgasm at the end.
This is a little bit different, though, because this isn’t a fun experiment, this is the beginning of Ilya making a very large commitment to a very scary experience. Shane doesn’t blame him for being nervous. He was terrified, when he thought it was going to be him. Excited, yes, and willing, but absolutely terrified.
So Ilya can stay in charge, even if he’s not on top. Shane's not going to take that from him, especially not when they both like it so much.
Shane climbs on top of him and just kisses him for a while, settling them both back into it. Ilya’s hard against his thigh, and Shane reaches down to massage his balls as he grinds down into his hip, both of them groaning.
He moves further down Ilya’s body, kissing over his collarbones, his tattoo, drawing his tongue along the dip in the middle of his abs until he reaches his happy trail. He also moves his fingers down lower, pressing two fingers behind his balls.
“Shit,” Ilya groans as Shane licks all the way up the underside of his dick. “Don’t tease,” he says, and it’s more of a command than a plea, so Shane takes it as one.
He slicks up three of his fingers, puts one of Ilya’s legs on his shoulder, and takes his dick into his mouth, all in pretty rapid succession. Ilya groans as he starts working his tongue over the head, and makes a little breathy sound as Shane’s fingers move down lower, sliding over his hole.
Ilya does this for Shane occasionally too, sucking his dick while he fingers him, but not always, especially considering that Shane likes it from behind a lot of the time; likes the weight of Ilya on his back; likes groaning into pillows and letting Ilya pull his hair.
This is good too, though, this takes concentration, and he likes how Ilya slides a hand into his hair to guide his head. He rubs his own hard dick against the mattress, and slides one finger into Ilya, immediately crooking it upwards to try to find his prostate.
Ilya’s breathing is different for a bit as he adjusts, and then he gasps as Shane finds the right angle, his hand tightening in his hair. “Right there, good boy,” he groans. “More.”
Shane adds another finger, and Ilya’s heel digs into his back this time as he goes back to rubbing his prostate. He sinks his mouth down further on his dick, doing his best to multitask, and Ilya groans deep in his throat.
“Fuck, Shane,” he says. “Your mouth is so good. You look so pretty.”
Shane looks up to find Ilya staring down at him, his face flushed and the hand that isn’t in Shane’s hair fisted in his own to ground him. “Such a good boy,” he repeats, cutting himself off on a curse as Shane rubs his tongue underneath the head of his dick like he likes.
“You are going to fucking kill me,” Ilya groans, visibly fighting to keep his hips down. He’s polite like that, never too rough without asking. He could do some serious damage with a dick like that, but he doesn’t. He’s careful with it, always has been. He’s generally a lot more considerate than most people would expect.
Shane adds a third finger, and focuses on sucking his dick for a while, distracting him from the stretching feeling. Ilya confessed to him once, at the beginning of their relationship, that he thinks he was a worse top before he had bottomed a few times, and Shane can definitely see that. He doesn't prefer things this way, but because of his, uh, extensive experience bottoming, he definitely knows what to do more intimately, having felt it from the other side more times than he can count.
He wonders how many times they’ve fucked now, remembering when it was few enough that he could count. He’s glad that he can’t anymore, happy to have Ilya’s body against his own feel like a comfortable habit, but the thrill of the new was fun, back then. It was exciting.
This isn’t totally new for them, but it is uncommon. It’s novel, and that’s fun in its own way.
“Fuck, Shane, stop,” Ilya says after a few minutes, pulling him off by his hair. “I was about to come down your throat,” he says, panting into the quiet of the empty apartment. “Get on your back.”
Shane does, pulling his fingers out slowly, because he knows how weird that feels when you do it too fast. Ilya is flushed and beautiful underneath him, his dick shiny with spit and his chest rising and falling rapidly. Shane knows he probably looks similar, his cock leaking precum and his lips wet, his eyes probably shining a little from taking Ilya’s dick as far down as he could.
Ilya doesn’t wait for Shane to move on his own. He grabs him by the back of his head, pulls him up to his level, and kisses him hungrily before pushing him over onto his back. He keeps kissing him the whole time, straddling his hips and grabbing blindly for where Shane threw the lube. Eventually, he mumbles “Fuck,” and has to pull away to find it, sitting back on Shane’s thighs to lube up his dick.
Shane is absolutely gone already, but he doesn’t realize how far under he is until Ilya finally touches his dick and he full-body shudders towards him, moaning openly.
“Oh, my baby,” Ilya says, his voice sympathetic. “You have been so good, come here,” he mumbles, and then he leans down to kiss him, and lines himself up, just the head of Shane’s dick slipping into him.
“Ilya,” Shane breathes, pushing his hands into his hair. “Ilya, Ilya.”
He watches as Ilya sinks all the way down, biting his lip as he does. His pupils are huge as he stares into Shane’s eyes, and he’s panting as he stills, letting himself adjust. That takes him a minute, because he’s not used to this.
They hold that moment for a few breaths, just drinking each other in, before Ilya suddenly sits up all the way, his spine straight and his eyes intense. He splays his hands on Shane’s abs, his shoulders pushed back, and everything about him exudes power, possession. He is in complete control, Shane is at his mercy, and neither of them would rather be anywhere else.
“Move,” he commands. “Don’t come until I do.”
Shane moves, following the rhythm that Ilya starts to set. Ilya keeps shifting around, closing his eyes in concentration, until he drops his head back and to the side, exposing the long column of his throat. Shane has always loved his throat. There’s something so strong, and sexy, yet vulnerable about it; about the way he holds himself. He reminds Shane of a swan sometimes. The lines of him are all grace and poise, but his strength is always there, waiting under the surface, commanding the space around him.
“Yeah, there,” Ilya breathes. “Fuck, yes, like that. Good boy.”
Shane focuses hard on repeating whatever movement keeps getting that reaction, focuses on making Ilya feel good. He’s aware of his own pleasure, of course, Ilya is hot and tight and gorgeous, but the image in front of him alone could probably make him come in two seconds flat if he focused on it too hard, so instead he focuses on being good, on pleasing him.
He reaches for Ilya's dick when he starts making those throatier, more desperate sounds, and Ilya fully cries out, looking down at Shane through half-lidded eyes. He’s breathing fast, and moving a lot less coordinated now, and when Shane rubs his thumb along the underside of his dick he falls forward, planting one hand next to Shane’s head and one on the headboard.
His gaze stays intense as he moves his hips desperately, clumsily taking Shane’s free hand in his so he can lace their fingers together and pin Shane down.
“Are you close?” he asks Shane, his voice completely wrecked, and Shane nods. He’s been close for a while, but he’s going to come way too fast if he thinks about it too hard.
Ilya doesn’t respond, just drops his forehead to Shane’s shoulder, groans in his ear, shudders hard, and comes between them, making choked-off little noises on each thrust as Shane fucks him through it.
“Come for me,” Ilya says as he’s still panting through the aftershocks. “Come in me, Shane, come on.”
Shane hears himself say “Fuck!” as he grips the hell out of Ilya’s hand and pushes up into him a few more times, all of his movements clumsy and desperate, and then he’s coming inside him, making his own desperate noises as he shudders through it.
They both pant as they come down, and Shane manages to find someone’s T-shirt from somewhere within reach to wipe off the come from his hand and Ilya’s stomachs. Ilya pulls off of him with an exaggerated ‘gross’ face, which Shane laughs at him for, and then he pulls Shane on top of him, pressing his face to his hair.
Ilya is the biggest cuddler after an orgasm, and Shane is way more than happy to oblige him. He settles in, tossing a leg over Ilya’s hip, and Ilya hums happily.
Ilya plays with his hair absently, stroking his hands down over his back. “You are good top,” he says after a moment, getting Shane to laugh. “Better bottom, but good top.”
Shane snorts again, and pokes him in the side where it tickles, earning himself a smack in the hand from Ilya. “You’re a good power bottom,” he teases.
Ilya hums. “Better top,” he decides. He rubs his face on the top of Shane’s head in a way that’s reminiscent of a cat asking to be petted. “It will be good,” he says, “when I am pregnant and we can have normal sex again… until I get fat.”
Shane just hums, and Ilya sighs, then sniffs, which is a good indicator that he’s thinking about something.
Shane pulls back to look him in the eyes, and Ilya moves his hand from his hair to his face, running his thumb softly over the skin under his eye.
“Hi,” Shane says. “You okay?”
Ilya smiles at him softly, “Hi, sweetheart,” he replies. He studies Shane’s face for a moment before pressing their foreheads together as he closes his eyes, his nose pressed to Shane’s cheek. “I’m okay,” he tells him eventually.
“Sleepy?” Shane asks, and Ilya nods.
“Shower first,” he says. “Your come is sticky,” he elaborates, and Shane laughs when he can feel him wrinkle up his nose against his face.
They shower together, but it’s not really sexy, just quiet, just bodies, moving around each other as they do their separate routines. Afterwards, Ilya watches Shane from the bed, both of them in nothing but towels, as Shane haphazardly moisturizes in the bedroom mirror under the low light of the bedside lamp.
Ilya lounges, his head facing the wrong side of the bed, stretched out lazily with his feet kicking up behind him. He’s smiling at something, and Shane asks “What?” skeptically.
“You are so boring,” Ilya says, in a way that a normal person might say ‘you’re so beautiful.’ “Is nice. I can’t wait to have your boring babies.”
“Asshole,” Shane says affectionately, although he can feel his face heat up as he meets Ilya’s gaze in the mirror behind him. Ilya smiles back for a second, too, before burying his face in his arms with a muffled laugh.
----------
“Hi,” Shane says as Ilya walks into the kitchen two weeks later, sweatpants hanging low on his hips and white tank top on slightly crooked from turning in his sleep. He goes straight to the fridge, and Shane takes a moment to admire the view of his strong back from where he’s sitting at the breakfast bar, sipping a cup of coffee.
“Hey,” Ilya replies over his shoulder. He makes a dissatisfied noise at the selection of food, and goes to pour himself a cup of coffee, loading it up with cream and sugar.
“Did you take a test?” Shane asks, trying to sound casual, although he knows he doesn’t pull it off. His leg is bouncing, and the sound is audible
Ilya sniffs. “No,” he says simply. He doesn’t elaborate, and doesn’t look up as he stirs sugar into his coffee. He’s nervous too, then.
“You should do that,” Shane tells him. Ilya does look at him then, letting himself be betrayed by his eyes. He never could hide anything when he looked at Shane. He laments it, sometimes, how he winds up wearing his heart on his sleeve all the time when they’re together. Shane kind of adores it.
“Is probably negative,” Ilya reasons. “Doctors said, right? Takes a while, usually, when you do it, uh, what do they call it- ‘the old fashioned way.’”
“Why are you nervous, then?” Shane asks, saying the quiet part out loud.
Ilya looks at the counter for a second before admitting “I don’t know.”
“I know I’m nervous because of the anticipation,” Shane tells him, sipping his coffee again. It’s a little manipulative, he knows, getting Ilya to do it for him, but Shane is losing his fucking mind, and he does think that Ilya needs to rip the bandaid off.
This last two weeks have felt like torture to Shane. He hates how they’re in this Schrödinger's cat situation where they have to act like Ilya simultaneously is and isn’t pregnant. They can’t be excited, can’t get their hopes up, but they also can’t process their disappointment and move on. They’re in limbo.
They also can’t plan anything, which Shane has to admit is driving him up the wall a little.
“Why don’t you go take a test and bring it in here,” Shane suggests when Ilya doesn’t say anything. “We can look together.”
Ilya looks down at his cup, nods, and takes a sip, before saying “Yes, I am tired of waiting.”
He starts to leave, but Shane says “Ilya,” to stop him before he leaves. He turns around, and Shane says “Ya lyublyu tebya.”
“You too, odeyalo.”
“blanket,” Shane translates with a grin.
Ilya grins back, says “You’ve been studying,” and shuffles out of the room.
Shane bounces his leg nervously as he finishes his coffee and waits for Ilya to come back. By the time he does, Shane is just drinking the last few drops, and Ilya sets the test down in front of him, face down, then proceeds to push his face into his shoulder, hugging him from the side.
“Gross,” Shane says, referring to the piss-covered stick that is now on their countertop, as he puts his arm around Ilya. “We eat here.”
“Where else do you want me to put it, up my ass? We have soap.”
Shane concedes the point, reaching up to pet Ilya’s hair. He kisses his head, and Ilya hums, moving in closer.
He yawns, again, and Shane asks “Do you feel any different?”
“No,” Ilya says through a yawn. “Would be too early for that, too, I think.”
“You seem sleepy,” Shane points out.
Ilya hums noncommittally, and kisses the side of Shane’s neck before crossing the room to go back to his coffee. “First team meeting today, yes?” he asks, changing the subject.
“Yeah.” It’s just something informal, more of a social event than anything, but Shane still isn’t looking forward to it; to meeting the man who’s supposed to replace his husband for the next year. He'll be a decent player, Shane is very confident about that, but the thought of missing playing with Ilya and knowing that he’s at home, literally making their child, already makes his heart ache a little. He doesn’t know how he’s going to focus this season.
Rather than bringing that up, Shane says “I don’t know how I’m going to hide it if it’s positive,” with a little smile. “You’re not there, and yet I’m smiling ear to ear? That reeks of a secret.”
“You and me always reeked of secrets, maybe they will not notice,” Ilya points out, taking another drink from his mug. “This one is a good secret, though, so probably they will be worse about trying to find it.”
“I’m so fucked,” Shane says, with a grin this time, rather than the anxious pacing that phrase was usually associated with in the past.
“Probably,” Ilya smiles back.
A timer goes off on Ilya’s phone, and he quickly shuts it off, then goes over to snatch the test from in front of Shane.
“Want to guess?” Ilya asks with a mischievous little grin.
“You think you have a good enough poker face for that?” Shane teases. “You don’t.”
He doesn’t, either, but Shane knows he’ll take the bait, which is the goal. If they turn this into a game and a challenge, Ilya will probably forget to be nervous.
“Yes I do,” Ilya claims, offended. He schools his face into something stoney and serious, and Shane can’t stop laughing at him, which makes Ilya break again. “Shut up,” he laughs. “You’re distracting.”
“Am I now?” Shane flirts.
“Yes.”
Ilya gets his face under control one more time, then looks down at the test.
He stares at it, and for a moment his face doesn’t move, then he looks back up at Shane, and he can’t hold that expression for even two seconds. His eyes go all wide and shiny, and his mouth tenses up like he’s trying not to smile.
“Oh my god! I am so glad you don’t gamble.” Shane laughs, pushing himself off of the tall chair he’s sitting on to step towards him. “Are you actually?”
Ilya looks conflicted, like he wants to be mad about losing, but he breaks into a huge grin instead, and nods.
“Oh my god,” Shane repeats, and then Ilya is on him, wrapping his arms around his waist to lift him off his feet with that excited little growl he does sometimes.
“Holy fuck!” Ilya yells as he swings him around.
“Put me down,” Shane laughs. “No more heavy lifting for you.”
Ilya puts him down, but doesn’t move away. “You are not heavy lifting,” he says. “I bench you twice.”
“Oh my god,” Shane repeats for the third time, his face buried in his shoulder because he’s definitely crying a little.
Ilya nods, clinging on just as tight, and breathes “Holy fuck.”
He pulls back a little, grinning, and kisses Shane hard, their teeth clashing a little when they both fail to stop smiling.
Shane breaks it first so he can stare at Ilya. He looks the same, for now, but something just shifted, at least for him. He holds his face in his hands, and Shane realizes his dad has blue eyes, which means that their kids, this baby, has a fifty-fifty shot of inheriting that.
“You will be a good father,” Ilya says, then he takes one shaky breath, and he's immediately sobbing, tugging Shane back in again.
“Woah, hey,” Shane says softly. “You okay?”
“Is bringing up- something. I don’t know-” He takes a shaking breath. “Too much, I think, happy and- whatever. Fuck.”
That’s been happening sometimes since Ilya’s been to more therapy. He explained it to Shane after a particularly disconcerting random crying fit after they had sex. It turns out that the work he’s been doing breaking down some of the barriers in his head, while immensely helpful so far, has also included breaking down whatever barrier he put up to keep himself from crying at things and now… he cries at things. Many more things than he used to. Shane is frankly just flattered that he gets to be there for it, because he knows that not running off to the other room, coming to him instead, is an act of trust on its own.
Shane rides it out with him, just holding him, until Ilya pulls back, still smiling like he just won the lottery as Shane brushes tears off of his face.
“You are so fucked at that meeting,” Ilya says, and Shane laughs, kissing his face a few times.
“I know,” he admits. “I should call the OBGYN, and probably get a registry going, or something. We need a plan for telling people, too.”
Ilya rolls his eyes. “Can you wait five minutes after learning we are going to be parents before trying to become your mother?”
Shane scoffs at him, and Ilya gives him a shit eating grin. Yeah, there he is.
“You’re an asshole,” Shane laughs.
“Rude,” Ilya jokes. He moves a hand down to his stomach, and says “Watch your language around the baby!”
And that whole gesture short-circuits his brain, which Ilya clearly knows, because he keeps grinning at him.
Shane backs him up against the kitchen island, and tells him “I love you so fucking much. God, you make me insane.”
“I love you too,” Ilya says softly, putting a finger under Shane’s chin just to stare at him. His other hand is still on his stomach. He signs, knocking their foreheads together as he closes his eyes, and mumbles “Come back to bed.”
“You should really eat something, and-”
“Shane.” Ilya looks him right in the eyes, letting him see everything, all the excitement and conflict and anxiety laid bare in his gaze, and says “Please. Not for long, I just need-”
“Okay,” Shane interrupts, kissing the side of his face. “Okay, anything.”
And he means it.
----------
Shane is, for sure, fucked.
As soon as he walks into the locker room the sense of confusion and concern is palpable. These guys aren’t just his teammates, they’re his friends, Ilya’s friends, and it makes sense that they’d be worried about why he’s suddenly absent. It also makes sense that they’d feel entitled to some answers.
“Okay!” Shane says in his loudest voice, clapping once to get everyone’s attention. The general chatter dies down, and he says “I know that we all miss Rozanov, and I know you’re all worried about him, but as the guy that’s actually married to him I can promise you he is okay, he’s home safe focusing on some other projects, and when he’s ready to reveal what that is you guys will be the first to know.”
“He is coming back, right?” Wyatt asks.
“Yes, he is coming back, and he’ll be around, he’s just not going to be playing this season.” Cause we’re having a baby, his brain so helpfully reminds him, and then he has to try not to smile like a fucking idiot.
Coach Wiebe steps in to say “Enough about Rozy, guys. Dad will come home soon, but he’s not here, and we are, so let’s focus.”
“Rozy just went out to get milk and a pack of cigarettes, guys don’t worry,” someone jokes, and Shane is happy to be able to hide his big, stupid grin behind the excuse of laughing.
Troy catches him after, when they’re both on their way to their cars. “Is he actually okay?” he asks. “You’d tell me if he wasn’t, right?”
“If he wasn’t okay, I would have to tell everyone because I would not be able to act normal,” Shane assures him. “Trust me, he’s doing great. Do I look like my husband is at home and in trouble? You’ve seen how I look when he takes a bad fall, I’m not hard to read.”
“No,” Troy admits, but he looks skeptical. “You do look… off, though. Different.”
“I’m excited,” Shane explains as he reaches his car. “I can’t wait for everyone to see what he’s working on, but I’m not at liberty to say what that is, and that’s all you’re gonna get out of me. The rest is Ilya’s info to tell.”
“Okay…” Troy says skeptically, but he does look more mischievously curious than nervous now, at least, as he leaves Shane to head to his own car.
Yeah, he’s gonna figure this shit out so fast. Shane is so fucked. He gets in his car, sighs, and puts his forehead on the steering wheel, then laughs, because he can’t help it. He gets to go home to his husband now, and kiss him everywhere, and make him dinner, and tease him about ‘eating for two.’ He can’t help it.
He only has to keep this secret for a few months, he reminds himself. He’s done that for years before, he reminds himself. This is nothing.
And this time the reveal will be good, too, so keeping the secret isn’t so bad. It’s almost like a do-over, when he thinks of it that way.