Archive of Our Own ^beta

Ilya ends the very first preseason game of his Ottawa hockey career in the back of an ambulance with an injury so bad he’s not entirely sure he’ll ever play again, and yet, the worst thing to happen to him tonight is that he thanks Hayden Pike.

Shit. Probably won’t get to suck his boyfriend’s dick now.

No. Yeah. The Pike thing is still worse.

It’s silent, and in his head, and couldn’t get waterboarded out of him even if Shane tried in those very new, very little running shorts he’s been wearing lately. But Ilya Rozanov is going to be stuck with the knowledge for the rest of his life that he is, for one brief moment, so thankful Hayden Pike exists.

It’s ridiculous. Can’t even blame the thought on good drugs, because there are no good drugs anywhere near his nervous system. EMTs look like they graduated Kindergarten yesterday. The A team went with the first ambulance to get sent on its way. B team and C team and D team too. Ilya has the trainees, probably. He’s been in and out of consciousness since the hit, but he’s pretty sure one of them suggests putting ice on Ilya’s ankle at one point.

He risks the splitting headache the motion will only exacerbate to try to peek up and over at where his left leg is bent at an angle he did not know was humanly possible.

Ilya is no medic, but he does not think an ice pack will cut it.

His head flops back onto the gurney with a groan, hiding his eyes from the harsh overhead lighting in the crook of his elbow. He does not miss Boston, but Jessica, their arena’s head medic, always sent Ilya off with a lollipop for good behavior if he didn’t threaten bodily harm to anyone in their general vicinity while she was getting a splint in place. The maybe five he earned in his near decade playing there were quite good. He got a very nice butterscotch flavor twice.

A month, at most, living in Canada and half a game under his belt only—nobody likes Ilya enough yet to sneak sweet contraband into their supply kits. Nobody knows Ilya well enough yet to know how much he’d appreciate that.

So no ice, no splint. No lollipop to sweeten the blow. And these fuckers couldn’t get an IV in Ilya’s very good veins, thank you, so no good drugs. He wants a cigarette so bad but thinks—no, knows—that this would be a frowned upon ask. No pill pain medicine because he is, what did they call it? Aspiration risk. Because of his head.

Embarrassingly hot tears sting at his eyes when Ilya realizes his last request would be for one of these awful EMTs to finally do something useful and pull his boyfriend off the ice so he can sit here and hold Ilya’s hand.

Fuck. Ilya pinches the bridge of his nose. Why the fuck haven’t they left yet?

“Did we run out of gas, or what?”

“Sorry, man—uh, I mean, sir,” the first medic chirps, doing some sort of salute with a pack of gauze he’s just ripped open. Good lord. He stammers on, “We’ll be on our way in a minute, promise. Chris just had to go back—”

”Who is Chris?” Ilya swears, propping himself up by his elbows impatiently and wincing through the pain, “Forget it, I don’t give a fuck.”

“Right, well—”

It’s a valiant effort, Ilya will give him that, but the sad baby deer eyes do not work. Because he isn’t successful in looking Ilya in the eye with them, for one, and because he is not Shane Hollander.

And with no promise of a lollipop in sight, fuck it—Ilya has no problem cutting this kid off.

“I know my bottom half looks like shit right now, but I still have two perfectly good hands here to strangle anyone who does not start getting me the fuck out of—”

“I’m back! I’m here!” The second medic slides into view, looking every bit as frazzled as his counterpart. He tosses something Ilya can’t see into the truck, whatever was the cause for their delay he assumes. He wishes it were the ability to teleport, but is likely boring supplies.

“See! We can go, right now!”

“Actually,” Thing Two turns sharply to Thing One, cheeks flushed, “One more minute.”

Ilya yelps, feels confident enough these bozos do not understand Russian and miss every insult he hurls under his breath as he claws at the thin sheet he’s laying on. Everything hurts and he wants to die. A freak collision in the middle of a preseason game, and the fate of Ilya getting to correct this embarrassment ends up in the hands of dumb and dumber.

Nothing broke through the skin, which is maybe a good sign, he thinks, but something is definitely broken down there. Ilya wouldn’t be surprised if it was multiple somethings, the way he’s feeling right now. It’d be convenient if he’d pass out again, but no such luck. He is forced to squeeze his eyes shut and will the throbbing, aching pain he feels acutely into a numb static if he wants to survive this, which, contrary to his train of thought thirty seconds ago, he really, really does.

Their dull bickering could have almost faded into nothing, a buzz in that static he was working very hard on slipping into, if he didn’t catch the tail end of what the second guy says next.

“His partner’s coming,” he whispers, knuckles trilling far too loudly on the door he’s gripping anxiously. It’s to his teammate, not to Ilya, but Ilya feels dizzy with want immediately.

Shane?

“They wanna ride with him?”

Ilya risks the headache to see the kid nod in answer, still acting like Ilya isn’t literally right here, and can hear them, and for the first time tonight doesn’t want to murder them and anyone who had a hand in granting them medical licenses.

“Coming now, and I promised we wouldn’t go without ‘em, so uh, yeah, if we could just, wait one more minute.”

“Yes,” Ilya sighs, a happy hiss to his voice as he relaxes back onto the gurney.

Okay, they may still be the worst medics Ilya’s ever met, and Canadians are all definitely still too fucking polite for their own good, but it worked out for him in this one instance. They’re delaying medical care to make sure Shane, Ilya’s Shane, gets to ride in the ambulance to the hospital with him.

Ilya couldn’t wipe the smile off his face if he tried.

Maybe they did give him something after all, Ilya thinks, feeling a little delirious all of a sudden. He keeps his eyes shut because the lights are still awful for his head, and he stops trying to glare at the kids because his shoulder hurts from sitting up, and he hates the way the blood makes his uniform pants cling to his skin, but Shane is coming and he has the best detergent in the whole wide world, it smells sooooo good and Ilya’s gonna sleep in sheets that smell like it later! Isn’t that the best! And he—

“Sorry, sorry, I’m here, I’m here! Thank you for waiting!”

A voice comes in from outside, and it’s not—hm.

It’s familiar. It’s not Shane.

The disappointment only curdles in Ilya’s stomach for half a second before the voice gets closer, and a hand slips into his. “Hi baby, hi—no, no Mom, I don’t have Chompy. He’s definitely in the car, you need to actually look for him.”

Shane will probably lose his mind when he finds out that this is how Ilya meets Jackie Pike for the very first time.

The image of the scrunched confusion he’ll wear on his face manages Ilya halfway to a smile, and Jackie Pike gets it the rest of the way there. She whirlwinds into the ambulance like she owns it, which is good, because someone in here needed to have some fucking confidence, and it’s not the two people who work here, clearly. The lightest bits of her dark blond hair wisp around her face, the rest tied into a ponytail that bounces as she slides herself across the bench, towards Ilya’s head. Though, it’s clear she doesn’t know it’s Ilya she’s heading for. Her shoulders are squared towards the phone she’s got propped in her left hand, yelling frustratingly into it.

Ilya’s heard about this stuffed alligator. He got left at Shane’s once, and Ilya got play-by-plays as Shane scoured his place for it. So he knows the severity of the situation, and doesn’t blame Jackie for not even glancing his way while she does damage control. Really, he doesn’t.

But she squeezes his hand like it’s a reflex as she settles into her seat, and Ilya’s tongue feels like a dumbbell in his mouth.

“I really gotta go, I’ll call as soon as we get there,” she hums, chewing on her bottom lip, waving at the EMTs to get moving with her free hand. “Yes, yes, he’s fine. Here, he can tell you himself—”

When her eyes finally meet Ilya’s they fly open, wide and unblinking.

He still has no fucking clue what to do here.

“You know what? I gotta go. Yeah, I gotta—” she relays, frenzied, into her phone, gaze raking up and down Ilya, and struggles to hang up. “Yes. Bye. I love you, bye! Byebyebye. Bye—Fuck.”

His thoughts exactly.

“What the fuck? Fuck! Shit. Are you—where’s—fucking hell. Fuck,” she babbles eloquently, head shaking. “Sorry, swear jar at home, I don’t get to—”

“No please, keep going. This is the best I’ve felt since these idiots put me in here,” Ilya drawls.

Jackie’s shoulders jump once with a sharp, surprised laugh that she immediately tries to hide with a hand, “Sorry, again. Of course the very first game I decide to bring all four kids to—at least my mom was here, but then the nightmare of getting them to the car and—anyway, you don’t care about this, sorry. Weird night.”

Ilya would let her ramble forever if it meant her not asking the ambulance that has finally, finally started moving Ilya in the direction of a hospital to pull over so she can leave.

She doesn’t, sinking back against the side of the truck. She just sits, quietly appraising Ilya’s bruised and bloody face, tapping her phone on the top of her knee. Six swears in rapid succession was a mild reaction, really, and Ilya wasn’t kidding about her feeling free to let some more out. Surely she has about a million questions—Ilya knows he does.

A trampling collision in the last five minutes of a game against Montreal isn’t uncommon, but it is when it’s still the preseason, and against Ottawa. Ilya can’t even remember how it had happened, who hit who, who else ended up in the scuffle, not that it really matters at a game like this. Just a lot of people in the wrong place at the wrong time, Ilya most of all. Fell at a weird angle on his left leg, more people smashing in to each other above him, against the boards, who even fucking knows?

Most of the players injured don’t make it to the point of needing an ambulance, which is good, but Ilya feels a little nauseous when he realizes he knows exactly which Montreal players are on that list, but not his own.

When Ilya finally came to he was on a backboard in an unfamiliar hallway, and he was so busy thinking about how he’d never be able to look his new team in the eye again and that he really should have had Shane remind him who the Prime Minister was before the game because Ilya always fucks up the concussion questions, that he does not give Hayden Pike on the bench beside him a second thought. He’s loud, and bloody, and not really Ilya’s priority.

He is Jackie Pike’s though, so now Ilya feels terrible for not paying better attention. He won’t be able to help her, and he really was her last hope. These EMTs couldn’t even get her in the right ambulance. 

Jackie sighs, big and deep, and with eyes intently on Ilya’s, asks, “Are you okay?”

“That is what you want to ask?” Ilya balks, the words tumbling out before he can stop them.

She nods.

It is far too earnest than what Ilya knows what to do with, so he just clears his throat, and tries, “I am fine. All good.”

She rolls her eyes like she doesn’t believe him, but doesn’t immediately press, so Ilya continues, “I think they took Hayden in first ambulance, I am sorry they did not tell you.”

“You recognize me?”

And well, even if Ilya had his wits about him right now, he would not have found the strength to play dumb about this.

It’s a less than thrilling fact that one of, like, seven people in the world who know about how happy and in love Ilya is right now is Hayden Pike, and by extension, his family. But it is thrilling that some people know, and whenever he doesn’t have to pretend, irradiating pain or not, is a very good time for Ilya. He was too busy uprooting his entire life this summer to attend a formal introductory dinner, but Ilya knows the people important to Shane.

He would rather not—elephant in the room, that’s the phrase right?

This ambulance is too crowded as it is. They really don’t need to pretend that Ilya doesn’t know that Jackie is pretending not to know.

All he can manage is a small nod, but this is enough for Jackie, who squeals in delight, “I knew he talked about me.”

Good. No elephant.

It should piss him off, her very high octave and pitch clashing with his likely concussion, but she is largely impossible to dislike, Ilya’s finding, and she leans in closer, smiling brightly, “Sorry, it’s just—it’s incredibly important to me that I’m Shane’s favorite. This is a big development.”

“Favorite who? Between you and Pike? Is not competition.”

Her nose scrunches in a snort, “Okay, okay, circle back later. What do you mean they took Hayden first? He looked fine.”

“More urgent, I guess. He was bleeding.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“We are in Montreal,” Ilya manages a humorless laugh, “And I am me.”

“Assholes,” Jackie mumbles under her breath, then lights back up at Ilya, “We’re not like this in Ottawa, I promise.”

“We?”

“Force of habit, sorry. I grew up there.”

“Really?” Ilya piques. He did not know this. “With Shane?”

“No. I mean, sort of?” she says, “Hockey’s kind of the only thing happening there—”

”I noticed.”

“So everyone knew who he was, everyone had a crush on him.”

“I see, is why you want to be his favorite.”

“Well, I couldn’t marry him, and I need something to rub in Susie Carroll’s smug fucking face,” she teases, and then in explanation, “My middle school nemesis, long story—she was a bitch, and dating an American hockey player who didn’t even get drafted, so fuck her.”

Ilya knows he will want to hear the long story here at one point when he can focus on more than three words that come out of Jackie’s mouth at a time between bursts of having to squint away pain, and tries to make a mental note of this, but for now, says, “Sounds like she got punishment enough, but I can beat her up for you when my leg heals.”

Jackie laughs gratefully, “Seriously now, no bullshitting, how are you?”

“Fine,” Ilya answers, curtly.

“Ilya.”

“Ah, so you recognize me too!”

She ignores him, looking down his leg, “Did they tell you what happened?”

“No, and I don’t think I trust an assessment from these two,” Ilya grouses, as his EMT friends busy themselves at the far end of their moving ambulance. “Probably concussion. Broken leg. I don’t know what else.”

“Hopefully nothing else,” she says, “But I don’t know. You look like shit.”

It startles a genuine laugh out of Ilya, her honesty, the way she delivers even this with a gentle care in her voice. Ilya still hurts everywhere, and all over, a concerning amount that he doesn’t know how he’ll bear the rest of this drive, but he knows at least that he’s safe here. And it’s not because the medics suddenly remembered how to use those stickers they put on your chest to see your heart rate.

No, it’s just that he realizes, when she squeezes and runs her thumb over his knuckle, that Jackie still hasn’t let go of Ilya’s hand she’d accidentally grabbed on her way in.

This must be what breaks him, he’s sure. He blinks at the ceiling, and knows there is no feasible way to keep the tears in when he says, “I’m a little scared, I think.”

He feels hollowed out. Like this stupid injury cut him down to size, scooped his insides out and tossed them onto the ice and no one stopped to pick them up between there and this truck.

So now he has to—he doesn’t even know how to finish the thought.

He’s embarrassed that this happened even though he knows it wasn’t his fault, that it could have happened to anybody. He doesn’t even know all his teammates' names yet. He wants to be home, but that’s not Russia, and that’s not Boston, and that’s not Ottawa either, really. So he wants to be…nowhere? He doesn’t fucking know. It’s definitely not Montreal, with it’s stupidly terrible ambulance services, and his leg hurts so bad, and what happens if it’s more than a broken bone, and Shane came up with a whole fucking plan for them that hinged on Ilya not just being here, but playing here.

And he fucked it up night one.

Classic Ilya.

He blows all the air in his lungs through his lips, “It’s stupid—and I don’t—I’m sorry. It does not make sense—”

“It’s not stupid,” Jackie shakes her head, resolute, “And you don’t have to explain. I’d be terrified too.”

Ilya lets out a sort of choked-off sob, just one, but his tears keep silently falling.

He has so many things swirling around in what he can make out of his head right now, he doesn’t even know how to start trying to articulate them to Jackie, to make her understand this feeling that’s clawing at his chest, the bits of his gear he didn’t get off, the way it’s suffocating him from the outside in and the inside out to know just how badly this could fuck things up, on top of everything just fucking hurting.

“I really can’t have them trade me, Mrs. Pike.”

She presses her chin to the top of their interlocked hands, making her bottom lip pout out.

Ilya feels his whole chest expand.

“Okay first of all, Mrs. Pike is my mother in law,” she says, putting the lights in here to shame with her smile, “And second, no. No. No way we’re letting that happen.”

“No?”

“We’re gonna get you to the hospital, and they’re gonna fix you up, real quick, and you’re gonna stay right here, in Canada, for so, so long that we forget you ever belonged anywhere else,” she grins, understanding perfectly. Ilya’s tears are hot, and wet, and gross. “And we have no choice but to name you the second best thing about Canadian hockey.”

“Second?” he sniffles, surprised at how easy it comes out, “Should be third, for you, right? With Shane and your husband.”

“Please, Hayden’s like, fifth on a good day,” she scoffs, “And he stole your ambulance so he’s lucky if he cracks the top ten right now.”

And that’s when Ilya thinks it for the first time: thank you, Hayden Pike.

He is going to be thankful for the rest of his life that everyone in Montreal likes Hayden Pike enough to fast-track him to the hospital, leaving the person that likes him most to make sure Ilya didn’t have to be alone right now.

Ilya can’t believe Hayden is such a dumb hockey player, because he is clearly brilliant. This is his wife! How did he do it?

His head is a mixture of painful thoughts and actual pain, which he could blame this all on, but he knows he really is just plain thankful. If Shane couldn’t be here, well.

This is okay. This is good.

“You cannot tell anyone I am crying,” Ilya says, hoping it’ll stop them.

“Course not,” she answers, knocking their interlocked knuckles softly on Ilya’s sternum, his heartbeat settling beneath it. “Here, actually, I can hide the evidence.”

He doesn’t get a chance to ask what she means before she swings her large bag up from beside her and onto her knees, flinging it open and rummaging through. She hums lightly to herself, talking through finding a lone diaper she does need, a lipgloss she swore she’d lost, and—

“Shit,” she wheezes, holding up a small stuffed alligator.

The dam breaks, and Ilya laughs. Cackles. It makes his ribs hurt, but it is worth it, especially when Jackie is helpless to join in.

”Shut up, this isn’t funny,” she giggles, pushing the stuffed animal into Ilya’s free hand across from them, “I don’t know how Arthur had time to get so attached to him considering he spends more hours a day missing than with him.”

“You should try a leash, maybe,” Ilya trills, “Some superglue.”

“Shut up,” she repeats, with even less bite. With Chompy out of the way, she finally spots her intended target, and pulls a baby wipe from its packaging hastily. “Here,” she beckons, but doesn’t actually mean for Ilya to move closer. She leans in and starts gently tracing his cheeks, his forehead, under his chin, wiping away the grime, the blood, and all his tears.

Between this and the alligator, Ilya feels very, very small. Teeny tiny. He doesn’t hate it.

“Thank you, Jackie,” he whispers, not sure he remembers any other words, in any language, right about now.

It is good enough. Jackie’s smile sparkles in the awful ambulance lighting, “Anything for my favorite hockey player’s favorite hockey player.”

Pain bubbles back up but it’s hard to be bothered by it anymore. He scrubs the alligator, not willing to part with either thing his hands are holding onto right now, over the tightness in his chest, “I need a cigarette.”

“I don’t think that mixes well with morphine,” she tuts, which is at least a nicer ‘no’ than Shane would have given him.

“No morphine.”

“No? What’d they give you?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” She all but screeches, disbelieving. “No.”

“Yes.”

“Excuse me!” She twists in her seat, making direct eye contact with the medics to yell at them, “Would it kill you people to turn a siren on? My husband is dying here.”

There’s a flurry of ‘yes ma’am’s that make Jackie laugh once she’s turned safely away again. Ilya almost misses it with the way black starts to swim at the edges of his vision again, which would be a shame. He has already decided he likes her laugh very much, and would really like Ottawa not to trade him because he stupidly got injured in his first game for a lot of reasons, but he adds hearing Jackie laugh more to the list.

“The tabloids will like this,” he murmurs, trying to stay awake.

She must notice, patting the side of his cheek, “These guys clearly don’t know any better, and I think crazy wife works better than crazy friend of a friend.”

Ilya hums, hears the trill of it doing just that as the sirens do indeed turn on, and his dry eyes flutter shut.

She’s saying something else, Ilya is sure, but he can’t make it out.

His body finally switches away from sharp pain all over into a little bit of that fuzzy static he’d been hoping for earlier, and his brain is soon to follow, but not before sending one last emphatic thank you to Hayden Pike for the road.

What a very good shitty game.

“What are you reading?”

The prettiest boy in the whole wide world stops exactly where he is when Ilya wakes up, voice croaky with unuse and finally, some good fucking meds.

“Hey,” Shane’s whole body kinda crumples to one side, like the guy outside the place across the street from where Svetlana sells her cars. Tall, limpy balloon guy. She says they will not get one, no matter how many times Ilya assures her they are very funny and good for business. Does not matter now. Ilya has his very own! Shane’s hair flops over his crinkled forehead and his shoulders slump cutely. Looks just like inflatable. Only thing he’s missing is the big, tacky smile face.

This will not do.

“Hey,” Shane repeats, folding whatever he’s stopped reading under his armpit, “You’re awake.”

“That’s what you’re reading? ‘Hey Hey You’re Awake?” Ilya feels more and more fidgety in this hospital bed the longer Shane stays all the way over by the door, pacing, and not over here. “Sounds terrible.”

“Oh my god,” Shane’s voice lifts around a smile, finally, “Shut the fuck up.”

Perfect!

Ilya is so, so good at this!

He must spend too much time internally patting himself on the back for his quick and clever work in fixing his boyfriend’s sad face from about a bajillion feet away, because Shane crumples again. This time into a chair he pulls up right to the side of Ilya’s bed.

“No, no, don’t—I take that back,” Shane sighs, the chair scraping the floor as he scoots it even closer. Amazing! “Please do not shut the fuck up. Keep talking. Please keep talking. Don’t—stay awake for me, okay? Okay?”

Ilya’s never shutting his eyes again. Look at him! Look at his Shane!

“You are here,” he smiles, woozily.

“Yeah,” Shane nods. “Did you think I wouldn’t be?”

“I don’t know,” Ilya answers, honestly.

“Well, I have a good alibi,” Shane taps the little visitor sticker on his chest, a scribbled ‘Uncle Shane’ with lots of decorative stickers. “You broke my best friend's nose, so…”

“You know that wasn’t me,” Ilya pouts, and given how smiley Shane stays, he knows that he knows that too. He’ll let it slide, just this once, because Shane already looks so much less like the car seller balloon. His face is soft, glowy from just the last bits of sunlight in the window, the lights overhead blissfully turned off, definitely Shane’s doing, anticipating Ilya’s headache.

Next thing Ilya has to work on is the knee Shane can’t stop bouncing, frantically, bumping into the bed’s mattress with every pass. He hums softly, “I guess, since you brought it up, I can ask—”

“Hayden’s fine, not even actually broken. Just needed a couple stitches,” Shane shrugs, smile pinching cutely to one side, “Already home.”

Now it’s Ilya’s turn to scrunch his whole face up. How does Shane live like this? His head already hurts. He pushes his palm over his forehead to manually get rid of the worry wrinkles, “Yeah, okay. Whatever. How’s Jackie?”

Shane laughs, bright and loud, “How’s Jackie?”

“Yes,” Ilya nods. He doesn’t know how he could have been clearer? He urges his boyfriend on with a hand, “We had very bad EMTs, they probably sent her to whole wrong hospital.”

“Mhm,” Shane hums, an amused lilt.

“And the baby,” Ilya tacks on, “Did he get his, ah—his—what is this?” Ilya picks the hand they don’t have hooked up to the monitor and starts tapping his fingers to his thumb repeatedly, pantomiming.

Shane freckles get a rosy dusting, “You just woke up from a major surgery with a lot of anesthesia, and that’s the first thing you ask?”

Ilya doesn’t really understand what the issue here is. “She asked about me, so…”

Shane’s eyes flit really quick to the door, and like that split second was all he needed, grabs Ilya’s right hand that’s still searching for the word ‘alligator’ and pulls it to his lips. He smacks three loud kisses between each knuckle, eyes glittery and bright.

He keeps his chin propped there to answer, “Jackie and Chompy are both safe and sound at home.”

“Chompy! That’s it!” Ilya feels so much better.

“I was really worried for a second there you’d handle the pain meds better than me and I wouldn’t get to see you be so cute,” Shane says, regretfully leaning back a smidge, making Ilya’s good feeling very short lived. Can Shane just get the telepathic message that he’s supposed to stay right here, please? He drums his fingers on his no longer bouncing knees, “I was supposed to get someone, when you woke up—”

From bad to worse! Ilya scrambles to tug Shane back into position, which is difficult given his very limited range of motion right now.

Everything is a little achey underneath the general numbness that tingles across his skin, like he’s—he really hates to keep coming back to this but the balloon guy is a really great visual aid. Maybe when he and Shane get a house he will buy one for the backyard. Shane being the worst boyfriend in the world right now and not understanding the urgent need to superglue himself to Ilya’s skin is going to be very good leverage.

“No! No, no, no—don’t go, stay, stay,” Ilya whines. He's not even embarrassed by it. “If you leave the screen will stop beeping. Flat line. I’m dead.”

Shane actually turns and looks at the monitor beside Ilya’s bed, like his presence could actually affect the steady green line rhythm on there, then rolls his eyes back to Ilya, “Don’t even joke about that, you dramatic asshole.”

“Yes! I am so good at this,” Ilya babbles airily, relaxing back into his pillows. Shane! Shane is here! His feet are tucked under the bed to be even closer, and his forearm is resting on the side rail, his cheek just above it. So cute.

“Don’t get used to it. Just this once,” his perfect, beautiful, brilliant boyfriend chides, a little muffled behind his hand nervously worrying over his lips, “You really scared the shit out of me there, Ilya.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, no, that’s not—I didn’t mean it like that,” Shane soothes, voice pillow-soft. Ilya turns his cheek to see Shane more fully, his worry face back on, “I just, I have no idea how you did this.”

“Um, I was playing hockey. You were there.”

“Not your—I know how you got hurt,” Shane avoids his gaze, tucks his papers he was flipping through while he was pacing when Ilya woke up deeper into the crease between the mattress and the bedrails. “Because, yeah. I was there. I was right there, Ilya.”

“There was nothing you could do.”

“Exactly,” Shane shakes his head, and Ilya hopes that’s the only reason his voice is shaking too, “You were right. You were good at this and I’m—I’ve been terrible at this all day. Think I need you to give me some tips.”

Ilya files that away for later. Hold seminar on how to break your leg. Not a super common hockey injury—he didn’t even think about how this will help. His boyfriend is so smart!

Shane continues, voice thick with emotion, “I don’t know how you survived it, when our roles were reversed, because I—I haven’t been able to breathe right for hours. I feel like I got hit.”

“Did you?” Ilya rushes to ask, because there is a very strong likelihood he did. Shane didn’t have much ice time, sure, since preseason games weren’t really for testing out if Shane fucking Hollander could play or not. But maybe after the clusterfuck of that random multi-player collision, Shane had to go in. Oh god. Oh god.

And now Shane is crying—shit. Definitely hurt. He's probably hiding bruised ribs under his soft white t-shirt that hems never going to mention, Ilya just knows it, and he’s being so strong and brave and selfless.

Ilya beckons Shane forward with his pulse-ox finger, the blinking red light the brightest thing in the room now that Shane sits here without his beautiful smile.

Shane follows, of course he does, and they were already close to begin with, so it’s not difficult for Ilya to cradle his face with a hand and start wiping away his tears, one by one. Shane whimpers, bright pink bottom lip jutting out, “You’re not supposed to be taking care of me.”

“Why not?”

“Because you got hurt.”

“Lots of people got hurt.”

“Lots of people aren’t my boyfriend.”

“Mhm,” Ilya hums happily through his ministrations, looping a finger around a lock of hair at the nape of Shane’s neck, “I am your boyfriend!”

Shane’s smile comes back, finally, nodding, “You are.”

“You like me!”

He shakes his head at this one, “I love you. I love you so much. You know that, right?”

Of course Ilya knows that. He plays it on loop in his head almost constantly.

“I was always going to be here. I don’t know why I joked about that before, it was stupid,” Shane stresses, “You and me, okay? No matter what.”

“Uh oh,” Ilya jokes, all sing-songy, “It sounds like you are gearing up to tell me some very, very bad news!”

Shane stills, or—that is a bad word for it. He starts jittering again. His left knee bouncing, his hand that isn’t swiping back and forth over Ilya’s cheek thumbing through his almost-forgotten stack of reading material. God. Ilya gets like, thirty seconds of victory at a time!

“It is bad then, yes?”

“I don’t know if I should be telling you this. I should really get—”

“Doctors use too many big words, I am probably still high, and you are the only person in the world I trust to not bullshit me on this,” Ilya insists, “Please.”

Shane rocks backwards on the back legs of his chair, blowing what must be all the air left in his lungs up at the ceiling, shaking his hair that Ilya can tell has been air drying because of the little fizz to it. He probably ran straight here from the game. Hasn’t left since.

There it is again. Loop-di-looping in little swooping heart shapes in his head: Shane Hollander loves him.

“I was telling myself, to try to stay sane while you were in surgery, that you were gonna be such a little shit about this when you woke up,” Shane starts, once he looks like he’s worked up the nerve, but keeps his eyes on the blanket covering Ilya’s bottom half, “I fractured my collarbone, and that needed six to eight weeks to heal.” He points to his collarbone while he says it. Ilya wants to kiss him. “But you can’t let me win even comatose. Doctor left these papers for you that say that injuries like yours, a fractured—sorry, I can’t remember if they said it was your tibia or your fibula—whatever, your leg, it typically takes at least ten to twelve.”

Shit. Shit.

“And that’s just for the bone to heal. Not including your concussion, and bruised collarbone, and all the months of physical therapy and reconditioning and—”

“People play on broken bones all the time.”

“Not like this, Ilya,” Shane shakes his head, “I mean, no one will tell me anything directly, but from what I’ve pieced together, it was a complicated break. I think you have screws in you.”

Ilya doesn’t know how to think anything other than shit, shit, this is so fucking shit, on loop.

“The fact that you didn’t immediately follow up that screws comment with something gross confirms you really are fucked,” Shane smiles weakly, doesn’t reach his eyes. It is so awful. Maybe they could put screws in Shane’s cheeks to keep the smile there. Ilya will suggest this when the doctor comes in later and has to ruin Ilya’s life. It would be the least they could do for him. “I think they put you on blood thinners for stuff like this. No contact sports.”

“I am out for the season?”

“Probably."

“Are you by any chance looking for a trophy husband?”

“Ilya.”

“Yes? No?”

“I am looking for a husband who has lots of trophies, and gets even more when he plays some kick ass hockey next season.”

“Now I know I am dying, you’re letting me win things.”

“It’s one season, Ilya, we’re not—it’s bad because you’re hurting, not because—I’m not letting this fuck anything up for us, okay? We’ll figure something out,” Shane says, resolutely.

Ilya’s memory is a little fuzzy, but he thinks Jackie said something similar to him, on the way here. Two people more than Ilya has ever had rooting for him.

Shane does not know how good this feels though, and Ilya doesn’t have the ability to articulate it right, so he still looks a little wrecked. His tears have stopped actively falling, but Ilya can see where they sit, right at the end of his bottom lashes. It’s so much worse this way, nothing for Ilya to help fix.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re not allowed to say that anymore,” Shane chides, “Not about this.”

“You were really here the whole time?”

“The whole time,” Shane whispers, tracing his thumb over Ilya’s eyebrow, “And if anyone asks, I wasn’t here for Hayden. I was here for you, okay? We’re friends.”

“Boyfriends.”

“Yeah baby, boyfriends,” Shane looks like he’s going to correct him for about two seconds, then immediately melts into a coo, smiling. The slip of the pet name zips up Ilya’s body in a, frankly, unreal way. See? All those idiot EMTs had to do was get Shane before, Ilya was not kidding.

“And one day we will be husbands with trophies.”

“Mhm,” Shane continues sweetly, “But until then, I was thinking…all those visits you’re going to have to make to see your Montreal-based orthopedist, and all the free time you’ll have not playing…might be good to make a friend to start a charity with.”

“Shane Hollander,” Ilya flirts, his eyebrows doing something that delights Shane, “Are you looking for a friend to start a charity with?”

“Ilya Rozanov,” Shane blushes back, “I thought you’d never ask.”

“We must seal this business arrangement the proper way,” Ilya says, scooting up on his elbows, “As all business arrangements are sealed. With a kiss.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, is how Ottawa had me sign my contract last month. Why? How’d you do yours?’

“You’re so annoying,” Shane huffs, arms crossed over his chest and slumped in his seat.

“C’mon, you will not even kiss it better? I know you read those papers front to back,” Ilya prompts, pointing to his forehead, “Right here. Is extremely medically necessary, you know this.”

Shane laughs, bright and loud, then turns his whole head to the door across from them, eyes squinted shut. After a beat that’s not as long as Ilya was expecting, Shane jumps up from his seat, folding his body over Ilya’s with one side of his jacket swung out beside and above them, like a curtain shield.

“That’s not any better, you look like you are about to smother me.”

“I might,” Shane quirks, before he plants the sweetest, softest kiss right under Ilya’s eye. He can feel it press on the bruise he didn’t know was there, but it’s so tender that it doesn’t hurt one bit. “How was that? Do the trick? All cured?”

“Don’t think so,” Ilya shakes his head just a bit, his eyelashes fluttering against Shane’s cheek, “Try again.”

“How ‘bout here?” Shane kisses Ilya’s chin, one of his favorite spots, he’s learned. And then does two more on his temples, and above his eyebrows, “Or there?”

“You are a terrible life saver, Hollander.”

“Shit,” Shane says, kissing Ilya’s mole, on the corner of his lips, on the tip of his nose, “Still nothing?”

“I’m practically dead by now,” Ilya winces, plays dead with his eyes shut, head titled and tongue poking out.

So Shane kisses his tongue. His actual tongue. Pushes it back into his mouth with a laugh, and it's so absurd, so perfectly Shane that Ilya worries it’s going to tip off anyone that’s outside monitoring his vitals, because his heart rate goes wild.

Maybe things really weren’t all that bad. Anything that gets him Shane, like this, so bright and unabashedly happy cannot be a mistake, cannot be a problem. Silver lining, Ilya thinks they call it. The beginning may be tough, but eventually he’ll hit that sweet spot where he’s well enough but his schedule is still thinned in the aftermath of injury that he’ll have so much time to just be with Shane. The embarrassment of not even making it through one full game in the preseason will wear off, and he’ll draft up several apologies to his teammates and coaches and get them all, he doesn’t know, what do Canadians like? Baskets of maple syrup? Point is, Ilya is going to make this work—Ilya is going to make this work with Shane.

God, he cannot wait to go—

Ilya flops back onto the pillow with a loud groan.

“Ilya, I don’t think there’s a single other place I could kiss you that's appropriate in a public hospital,” Shane giggles, his kissing tirade finally letting up after he truly does smother every inch of Ilya’s skin with kisses.

“No, no, is not that.”

“Shit, something hurts,” Shane’s lackadaisical lovesick grin tightens up real fast, brows pinching together, “Where—please let me go get a nurse now—”

“I’m fine, I’m fine, you fixed me,” Ilya says, patting his cheek where he got his first magic kiss, and when even that doesn’t soothe his tense boyfriend, deploys his greatest battle strategy and breaks out some Russian. One ‘my love’ and Shane is knocked out in his chair, deliriously grinning, even though Ilya can see the undercurrent of his fighting it. Too easy. “No, I am just thinking about the fact that I have to go back to a sad, empty apartment in Ottawa.”

Shane snorts, “And whose fault is that?”

“My very picky boyfriend,” Ilya doesn’t miss a beat in answering.

He has stared at listings so much the past few months he is sure that if this concussion wiped his memory, everything would go except for the image of fucking Zillow.

“Ilya.”

“Sorry, sorry, my very charitable acquaintance.”

“I have liked all the houses you sent me,” Shane insists, knowing full well that it’s a bold faced lie. Ilya loves Shane so deeply that he thinks he spoke too quick about the Zillow thing—you could strip him of every other sense and he’d still remember exactly how he feels about Shane, he’s sure—but he is specific. Is cute, most of the time. Less cute when Ilya is staring at boxes he can’t unpack in a sad, beige apartment in Ottawa that was supposed to be a one month stopping point between Boston and the rest of his life.

He maybe dragged his feet with the whole process a little more than he should have, and the start of the season snuck up on him before he could find a Shane-approved house and get rid of the one in Boston, but. Ilya is injured! Sick! Dying! Embarrassed! Still recovering from having a positive thought about Hayden Pike! He cannot be held to residential decisions he did or did not make in this state! Please!

“You like, you do not love,” is what Ilya goes with. Nice. Neutral. Not untrue. Hides how insane Ilya feels to suddenly have to know so much about water pressure.

“I will love any house that has you in it.”

“Romantic, but not practical,” Ilya shakes his head, “What if there are not enough rooms and you are forced to do yoga in my kitchen?”

“Okay, great. Pain meds have worn off, for sure, lemme go get—”

“I am looking for a really nice yard, for all the loons we will adopt.”

“You know, I was gonna offer to let you stay with me, but keep it up, and you can figure out how to get to your tenth floor apartment in that cast all by yourself.”

Ilya doesn’t even think about fighting the big, full-faced toothy grin before letting it take over every last one of his facial features. His nose scrunches, his eyes squint, his teeth click-clack together. His upper body sways happily from side to side, loopy with delight and oh my god, maybe he will let Shane go out and get that nurse. Ilya knows Shane won’t let him on his phone in his sight, and he really needs to ask Svetlana about this car dealership balloon guy.

“Stay with you?”

Shane shrugs, like this is an off-the-cuff idea, and not something that probably contributed to the pacing Ilya caught him doing when he woke up, “I have a lot of guest rooms available.”

“For me to do some paperwork in?” Ilya piques, twisting to lean his forearms on the bedrail, catching his Shane’s smile on the tip of his nose. “As your new, friendly business partner?”

“No,” Shane shakes his head, “For me to do yoga in. Wouldn’t want to interrupt my boyfriend’s very important ten to twelve weeks of recovering in my bedroom.”

And as with all legitimate business arrangements, they seal it with a kiss.

Ilya doesn’t know anything about the logistics of this whole thing other than that they get sorted with, honestly, way too much ease.

He will maybe think a little harder about it all once he can formulate a single thought that isn’t about how much his cast itches.

But that’s a hard maybe. Ilya is so busy being so deliriously happy that it does work to worry about the details.

(And seriously, the itching. He’s going to claw this thing off his leg in a second.)

By the time he’s leaving the hospital a few days later, Ilya knows all the important things: he is not kicked off his team, not out of Canada, he has a calendar full of color coded appointment reminders that he will not miss, and there is literally nothing in the world Yuna Hollander can’t manage.

So yeah. Ilya might not know the specifics of how, but everything is going according to plan.

It would be nice if his stupidly hot rule-following boyfriend also got that memo.

“Absolutely not.”

“But it is tradition, Hollander!”

“Maybe if you were my bride,” Shane huffs, kicking the door to his apartment open with the back of his heel as he pushes Ilya through the door. Over the threshold, to be exact. Without carrying him. “Which you’re not. You’re my freeloading temporary roommate.”

“Don’t tell me this means you will also say no to the other very important tradition?” Ilya drawls, peeking over his shoulder, elbow propped on the top of the wheelchair behind him to ogle Shane.

“I know I’m going to regret asking,” Shane sighs, “But what other tradition?”

“We must christen every room of the house.”

“Okay, back to Ottawa you go.”

“Very bad luck if we do not do this,” Ilya shrugs, wheeling himself further into the familiar apartment, mindful of his leg propped up and stretched out ahead of him.

“I am so glad I made you call me so I could listen in and hear for certain what your doctor said about strenuous activity.” Shane drops their bags at the door so he has two hands free to ball into stressed fists at this side, “Which, I’m guessing I already need to remind you, was that you’re absolutely not allowed to participate in it. At all.”

Ilya smiles innocently, “I don’t think strenuous activity counts a nice, slow, lazy blowjob.”

“And where exactly are you getting this lazy blowjob from?” Shane scoffs, “Because I know you don’t mean me.”

“No?”

“No,” he says flatly, but the tiny lift of his lips betrays him, “I’ve never given a lazy blowjob in my life.”

“Eh, I don’t know. There was that one time—”

“You fucking asshole,” Shane laughs, walking behind Ilya and passing a hand through his ruffled curls as he does, plants a kiss on the side of his head for good measure. He rounds the side of the kitchen island and swings the door of the fridge open, “You hungry? Thirsty? How’s your head?”

“Lazy.”

Shane collapses onto his counter with laughter, like he can hide it behind his forearms, but no such luck. Ilya can see the bright pink tips of his ears even from all the way over here and he swoons with it.

He must decide on thirsty being the answer he didn’t get, and slides a water bottle across the counter to Ilya’s side. Ilya is enjoying the way he’s still helplessly giggling at him, but he does take the water bottle and starts sipping. He can be a rule-follower too. Sometimes. When they are Shane’s rules.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Shane squints quickly, like he’s smiling too big to get a wink out correctly.

“I could probably do it if I tried really hard.”

“Trying really hard would defeat the purpose of lazy.”

“This is my own fault, I have treated you too well all these years and now you don’t believe I know how to be a slacker,” Ilya says, looping an arm around Shane’s hips when he’s close enough to do it. “Look, my worried, sexy nurse. You’re at the perfect height like this. Neither of us will even have to move.”

He nuzzles against the side of Shane’s thigh sweetly, nosing closer and closer inward.

Shane’s annoyance reads more like a whine, “You’re insatiable. You still smell like hospital but you want us to have sex.”

“I want to practice the age old tradition of bedding my landlord.”

“That is not a tradition,” Shane’s breath skits across Ilya’s skin, stuttery through impenetrable joy, “That actually sounds like an ethical nightmare—”

“I was planning on being a perfect housewife for you, really, but can’t if we do not consummate the marriage.”

“I’m getting real confused about the scenario here—are we married?” Shane puzzles, the most delightful little bunch of skin between his brows, like this is actually troubling him. “Or is this like a strangers sorta thing, the nurse comment—”

“Oh my god, you are so cute I’m gonna die.”

“That’s not really convincing me to let you blow me, Ilya.”

“Doctor did not say I was banned from being in love!” Ilya says, looking up to find Shane’s smile, that hasn’t gotten even a smidge less blinding through all his grumbling.

His voice drops to almost a whisper, then mumbles something Ilya misses right under his breath, exasperated and fond all at once, “No I guess he didn’t.”

It’s this exact look that has made Ilya the least attentive patient in the world this week.

Shane looks at him like this, soft and unhurried, like nothing else exists, and Ilya is helpless but to believe him. There are no rules, no logistics, no secret schedules, no excuses, no questions, no unrealistic moves to convince people of.

There is only this, far as Ilya is concerned. A whole empty year, full of it.

Ilya is about to take it all back, agree to however much non-sexy bedrest Shane needs to feel better about his health because he is so heart-stoppingly content with exactly where he is, clunky full-leg cast and strict activity instructions and all, but Shane beats him to it with a breathy, “Fuck.”

And then without wiping the million-wattage grin off his face, slips his legs over the left side of Ilya’s chair, and deposits himself right in his lap.

“C’mon my little underachiever,” Shane says, looping his arms around Ilya’s neck, “Bed me.”

Shane has a lovely apartment!

Would you like Ilya to tell you all about it in great detail?

Where should we start? The kitchen has six lightbulbs in it, eight if you count the two in the fridge, which is one and half crutches tall, if you were wondering. Ilya can’t be certain about this one but he counted all the throw pillows twice and got fourteen one time and thirteen the next, so, maybe a third count could be a fun post-dinner activity when he’s done pulling his hair out. The windows in the living room don’t open but they do in the bedroom. If you stare at the art in the hallway long enough it can look like at least five different decapitated animals. Oh! This is a fun one—you can touch the ceiling with one of Ilya’s crutches from the couch but not the loveseat. Isn’t that crazy! He can balance three boring hockey books on the top of his casted kneecap for a full thirty seconds but he really thinks if he puts his mind to it, he’ll get to four before Shane gets home.

Ilya is having a very great first day of Shane going back to work, thank you for asking.

No boyfriend, no hockey, no screens. What the fuck was he supposed to do? A nap after the half hour he begged Shane to not leave this morning only took him to about ten o’clock, and he knows that’s barely halfway through Shane’s pre-practice workout. Half a box of cereal that Shane will never buy again for breakfast later and it’s still not noon. Thank god getting down the stairs takes as long as it does. Kills time. And some of Ilya’s will to live, but who's counting!

This train of thought recounting all the boring ways he spent the last six boring hours meandering around Shane’s boring apartment barely took a minute!

Shane hid the television remote because he’s not playing about that no screens rule and Ilya is pretty sure he used his one allotted “look that will convince Shane to do anything I want” on that box of cereal with more sugar than Shane consumes in a year so. Worth it, but fuck.

His concussion was mild, so this rule is Shane-imposed, and therefore so lame, and awful, and Ilya looks as hard as he can, but he knows this fucker put his phone somewhere nice and statistically impossible to get to in Ilya’s current state.

Ilya knew this wasn’t about to be months of sitting at home with a doting Shane Hollander giving him attention every minute of the day. He knew that. He knew that Shane had practice and press lines and rookies to be nice and welcoming to. He wants you to know that he really did know that.

But fuck. He did not know it would feel like watching paint dry.

Actually, Ilya wishes Shane had recently repainted. Watching paint dry would give him something to do, other than just thinking about it.

He knows Shane will call him dramatic for this when he recounts what a terrible, awful, evil day he left him to have all alone, as soon as he gets home, which should be in…

Ilya flops his head over the arm of the couch dejectedly with a groan, squinting at the now upside down clock. He tries to parse it out, but Shane’s ridiculous designer picked out this clock that doesn’t have numbers, so, he’s trying his best. He counts the dots that stand in for time, getting a little dizzy with the tick of the second hand and the longer he leaves his head in a position for all the blood to rush to it.

If he’s counting correctly, it looks like Shane should be swinging open that door and toeing his shoes off and not even saying “hello” before triple checking Ilya followed his eight thousand rules today in one, two, three—

The distinct click of the front door unlocking stuns Ilya still.

Wow. He is worse at telling time than he thought.

He was sure he had hours left, but okay, sure! Great! He flips himself back upright, curls bouncing, and blinks the vertigo of the motion away while he leans on his elbows.

Then he opens his mouth to great his terrible, awful, evil boyfriend, and give him a piece of his—

“Amber! Get back here!”

Ilya knows this voice.

“Stop—don’t touch. That stool probably costs more than our house—Arthur, let’s just go quick—oh!”

”Hello,” Ilya waves over the top of the couch at Jackie Pike, who has frozen herself, mouth agape, in the middle of wrangling two children in the doorway.

Ilya knows Shane has lots of extra sets of keys, because he is too fucking Canadian (read: perfect and wonderful and nice to a fault) and wanted to make sure everyone he loves has keys in case of emergency. Which, before last week when he granted Ilya his on a loon-shaped keychain, was limited to his parents, and, much to Ilya’s chagrin, the Pikes.

He thought after The Great Half-Naked Makeout Sighting of 2017 Shane would have scaled back on this blind trust, but. Here we are.

Sitting on the couch fully clothed and casted is a great step in the right direction if this is going to keep happening, so Ilya decides to smile on and go with it. He looks between the little Pikes and then back up to a bright red Jackie, “Can I help?”

He means it literally, because Jackie looks like she could use a hand, or, at least a crutch, since that’s all Ilya can offer right now, but it must not come out that way, because her whole expression shutters, mortified, and she starts backing up, “I—I am so sorry—so, so—uh, we’re going, we’re going.”

She picks the little one up onto one hip, and tries to drag Arthur back towards the door as she keeps mumbling apologies, but he is not having it.

He’s bouncing on the tips of his toes, barely visible from Ilya’s vantage point, but he can see he is clearly Shane’s godson, scrunched up with worry, “Mommy, I really have to go.”

Ah. Yes. Emergency indeed.

“Shit—Nope, nope, you guys didn’t hear that, um—”

“You know where the bathroom is, yes?”

Jackie’s whole body sags on an exhale, “Are you sure?”

Ilya’s halfway to standing, tucking his crutches under his arms, and gesturing them on, “Please. I can watch the alligator for you, if he is here.”

Her smile screams ‘thank you’ as she drops her things at the door and starts shooing Arthur in the right direction, and tries to keep a very curious Amber on her tail, with no such luck. “Amber, no, no, c’mon—sorry, she’s a runner, I’ll—”

“She’s okay, I got her,” Ilya loops his thumbs up through the handle of his left crutch, “Go, go.”

“We will be so fast, I promise!” Jackie yells, just as she disappears, and Ilya catches the tail end of her muttering before the sound of the bathroom door clicking shut.

As fast as all the excitement came in, it is gone, but instead of being faced with the never-ending quiet nothingness of this apartment again, Ilya has to contend with the fact that this is, quite possibly, the cutest baby he has seen in his whole entire life.

This is the best thing that has ever happened to him.

She is fascinated with the seat cushion of the stool at Shane’s kitchen island, the way she can just reach high enough to make it spin a little back and forth. She’s looking up at Ilya with these giant brown eyes, and bouncy curls that are almost blonde, and like she is going to get Ilya in so, so much trouble. He would die to make sure this little angel gets to play with whatever expensive, designer-picked furniture she wants.

“Hi there, my name is Ilya,” he coos, points to his chest, “What is yours?”

Her head quirks to one side, ear to her shoulder and bright pink bow clip slipping off, like she understands Ilya perfectly, just doesn’t feel like answering him.

Then she giggles!

“That is a wonderful name,” Ilya giggles back, carefully propping his crutches against the island and balancing against it with his hands instead, “Do you want to sit with me?”

The stool her itty bitty attention span is about to move on from is actually one of the best places for Ilya to sit, he’s learned, with all his free time to investigate today, given its easy height and position for his unbending leg. And now, how exciting to learn, his years of strength and conditioning training won’t go to waste this season after all! At least, not in the upper half of his body, as he expertly balances enough to keep weight off his leg and scoop her up and onto the adjacent stool. He keeps one of his arms safely and securely around the back of her seat to keep her squirming in place.

“There we go! Good? Comfy?” he chatters, getting comfy himself. She looks up at the ceiling like she’s going to count all the lightbulbs, and Ilya laughs, “I think we are going to get along very well. Similar interests, right about now.”

She babbles, to herself or to Ilya he isn’t quite sure, but it is so precious Ilya would love to listen to it for hours. He nods along to her meaningless sounds, quietly thrilled with all the things he’ll get to tell Shane later other than how terrible, awful, and evil his busy hockey career was for him. Eventually, she becomes interested in the stacks of paper Shane left on the counter with Ilya’s “activity plan”. Stupid. A lot of words just to say Ilya is allowed to do nothing.

“Yes, sure, please. Be my guest,” Ilya says, when he figures out she is trying to reach for the pen. He happily obliges, and sinks onto his forearms to watch her scribble all over his paper work.

She holds the pen tight in one tiny fist—an impressive grip for one year old, which he thinks she is, if his math is right, and considering he doesn’t think he actually got the clock wrong before, Ilya does trust himself.

He laughs, “You are going to be a very good hockey player one day. You you will have to come to our house to practice though, I don’t trust your dad to know what to do with raw talent. But it is okay. I’m going to pick a very good house for us.”

She babbles again in answer, scribbles making loops and swirls all over the paragraphs. The first word he recognizes from her as they wait for Jackie and Arthur is a squeaky little, “More?”

Ilya thinks this must mean she wants another sheet of paper, but once he slides the stack apart to reveal more surface area for her, he looks up to see she’s holding the pen out to Ilya, ballpoint almost directly on his eye. He thinks it actually does leave a little inky mark next to his nose. He scrunches his whole face up, and she mirrors him cutely.

When Shane does not get to see this and has to settle for the way Ilya tries to describe it to him, that will be his own fault. Fucking screen ban.

Ilya commits it to memory best he can, insides a squishy, mushy mess.

“Oh, I would be honored. Thank you,” he replies happily, taking the pen to draw a couple shapes himself. She is quite impressed with his star-making ability, but must not like his hearts, because she immediately takes the pen back after his one lopsided attempt at one.

He lets her get back to Picasso-ing, sure his eyes are doing something stupidly fond when Arthur and Jackie reemerge from the long, dimly-lit hallway ahead of them.

“Ilya, we have to stop meeting like this.”

“All good?” Ilya piques, watching everywhere Arthur’s excited sneakers stomp as he runs back in.

This is a better outcome than he could have imagined, really. Ilya gets to clean after they leave! He gets to do something! Jackie’s shoes are notably off, so it won’t take him the full three hours of waiting he has left but, still. Ilya will appreciate the 20-minute task.

“Thank you, seriously, so much,” Jackie collapses onto the countertop directly across from Ilya, her words muffled by her forearms a little in her exhausted slump, “I swear, I would never, ever just barge in like this, but we literally just finished potty training and I could not backtrack all that hard work.”

“I am glad you were close by.”

“Ugh, me too. He really was ten times worse than doing the twins at the same time, for some reason. I could not handle a redo,” she shrugs, eyes tracking where Arthur runs around the back of the island, like he needs to join his sister and Ilya.

“I say this about Shane all the time,” Ilya tuts, pausing to appropriately gasp in awed admiration at the next scribble Amber wants to point out to him, “We’re very lucky he’s cute.”

Jackie’s chuckle is grumbled and aborted, but in there somewhere, as she rambles, “I really do promise I knew they were still at practice and thought no one would be home.” Her wordy explanations and incessant apologies are not necessary at all, but Ilya lets her continue, “I just picked up Arthur, and was trying to stay on this side of the city killing time before I have to get the girls from dance, but then, you know. And this block is like, a breeding ground for businesses that lock their bathrooms unless you’re a paying customer. So. Sorry, really.”

Ilya cannot fathom seeing the most wonderful woman in the world with the two cutest kids in the world hanging off her arms coming into your establishment and turning them away, but Montreal continues to surprise him.

“Hm. I am being very brave and keeping the words I want to use to describe my feelings about Montreal to myself right now.”

Jackie lifts her chin, and Ilya gets to watch the biggest, brightest smile bloom across her face. Her laughter skitters out between her teeth and tickles the air around them.

“So,” she points, attention spotlighted on Ilya, “I see you’re still in Canada.”

Ilya smiles back, “You knew they couldn’t get rid of me.”

“Sure did. When’d you move in?”

“Is not really move in, just—I don’t know,” Ilya feels the need to distinguish, because little word choices like this mattered to Shane, who Ilya knows, despite outwardly confirming how much he wanted this, was being really brave in fucking up his carefully sculpted timeline for Ilya’s comfort right now. He would never, ever say how nervous this makes him, but Ilya knows. Ilya will stay cooped up in this boring box to keep quiet for as long as Shane needs, really. It is worth it.

He clears his throat, shaking off the thick emotion he can’t really name, “Nobody knows I am here. Team okayed me, thinks I am recovering quietly with family.”

Jackie hums softly, amused, “They bought that? Impressive.”

“Said as long as I feel supported it’s okay with them, but I know really they are just afraid to ask questions.”

“Right, because you are notoriously terrifying,” Jackie lilts, eyes raking over Amber’s bright pink headband he has looped around one wrist, the pen ink she’s managed to scribble on his knuckles, his nose, with no objection.

“Of course,” Ilya nods, not trusting any words more than that, “I will go back to Ottawa soon though, hopefully.”

“Good, I wholeheartedly agree,” Jackie nods, apparently deciding she’s let Arthur try to scale the kitchen stool himself long enough and comes up behind him to help him. “I didn’t wanna say it outright and jinx it before, but I knew there was no way Ottawa let a little injury keep them from having you. You were a steal.”

Ilya shrugs, not used to such easy kindness, but she continues, “Also you should be supported, that’s what you date a rich athlete for. Was worried I’d have to smack some sense into Shane if he didn’t offer.”

“I know you would have hated that. I could pass you in the favorite ranking.”

“Not a chance. And I know why he didn’t say, but please know I’d really have loved to visit you like, you know, a normal person,” she rebuts, turning to face Ilya with her hip pressed against the back of Arthur’s stool, arms crossed over her chest, “You’re going to get tired of me ambushing you with my presence eventually. But I’m very glad to see you’re doing better.”

“Much,” Ilya nods, taking the pen back from an insistent Amber, thankful for the reprieve of Jackie’s intensely knowing stare, "Thank you.”

“Of course, and thank you again, seriously. I’m sure potty training emergency is not part of your carefully curated…” Jackie trails off, squinting to try to read between the scribbles the kids are working on, “Whatever this is. Oh my god. This is very detailed.”

“Do not get me started,” Ilya says, taking his turn to flop boneless onto the cool marble, “I was thirty seconds away from pulling all my hair out, strand by strand, for fun, before you walked in. So you really have to stop thanking me.”

“That bad?”

“I am banned from all screens, I am not very mobile, and I have no hobbies.”

“So yes, that bad,” Jackie chuckles, “Well damn, Arthur has a book about dinosaurs we can leave with you, if that would help. I mean, you’ll have to read it cover to cover forty five times with how late I know Shane always stays at practice, but—”

“Oh my god he is so annoying, being such a good hockey player,” Ilya groans, now that Jackie has reminded him he might have been wrong about his countdown timing after all.

“What was that saying? We’re very lucky he’s cute?”

“So very,” Ilya tuts, “I will take the book, thank you. Shane owns the encyclopedia and that is it.”

“I’m sure we can do better than that, but here,” Jackie returns after grabbing Arthur’s cute little sea creature backpack from where it got dropped before, sliding it across the island, “Do you need help with anything here? Have you eaten yet?”

Ilya shrugs, Arthur leaning and stretching his arms so he can help Ilya unzip the bag, “I had breakfast.”

Jackie turns to look at the useless abstract clock, then whips her head back around, ponytail slinging against her cheek with the force of it, “Ilya, it’s like, four pm!”

“I get tired of standing after maybe, ten seconds. Hard to cook anything that’s not cereal that way,” Ilya says, and the rest of any chiding Jackie would do to counter that is swallowed up by Arthur taking to excitedly showing Ilya every single item that is absolutely necessary he carry with him to daycare.

“Well, now I really do need to murder Shane for not telling me you were here,” Jackie says, her ire doing a very poor job of hiding her fond smile as she looks between Ilya and the kids. After a beat, she claps her hands together decisively, “What are you in the mood for?”

“You really don’t have to do this,” Ilya attempts to protest, but he is quickly shut down.

“I have to kill time, remember?” Jackie spins on her heels and opens the fridge, poking around for something, “I make a mean grilled cheese. You’re going to love it. Tell him, Arthur! What is mommy’s magic food?”

“A grilled cheese!” the toddler squeals, his enthusiasm rolling all the words together into one, and making Ilya feel like the inside of the melty sandwich he’s being promised. He nods eagerly, and seriously, holding up his bite-sized pinky to Ilya with it, “Is sooooo yummy. Promise.”

Shane says Ilya’s not allowed to exaggerate like this anymore while he’s critically injured, but oh my god. Ilya is going to die.

He takes the pinky happily with his own, “Okay. I can’t promise Shane keeps anything good here, but the kitchen is yours.”

Ilya is not exaggerating there, at least. He is not sure Jackie’ll be able to make magic, cheesy goodness with what his strict boyfriend keeps on hand. But she looks very excited with the go ahead, and very determined, and for a third reason he cannot think out loud, Ilya will let her look for as long as she wants.

It is hard to feel lonely when Ilya knows he made this move for the exact opposite of that. He’s here for Shane, he couldn’t possibly be lonely.

And yet.

He feels guilty for even thinking it, because everything about the past year, the past few years, if Ilya’s honest, have been nothing short of the greatest blessing of his life, a true gift. He is a phone call away, on a non-concussed day, from handfuls more people than he ever has been before. He doesn’t even know how many people were involved in helping him make the initial move, and then this one too. Forget the strange anxiety that’s coiled in his chest, the twinge of embarrassment over how supportive the virtual strangers that are the Centaurs and their staff are being from miles away, when Ilya has done not nearly enough to deserve that kind of blind kindness and trust.

So it feels—wrong, really, to be anything but grateful for it.

But he can’t deny how much better he feels, from just five minutes now, talking to some other people. One of them couldn’t even talk back!

As if on cue, Ilya’s little babbling friend leans up on her stool and tries to step off her seat cushion, and literally onto Ilya instead.

“Yes, sure. This seat is not taken,” he whispers as she nuzzles into his neck. He tries his best to hide his smile in the top of her curls, but doesn’t feel too terrible at how spectacularly he fails.

“And of course she chooses now to nap. I’m sorry, she’s like twelve thousand pounds heavier when she’s asleep. Here, let me move her to the couch,” Jackie offers.

“I think she earned it, little artist,” Ilya coos, already trying to think of what will be best to use to hang her artwork up on the fridge when they leave. “No, no, she is okay, we’re good.”

He keeps her hugged close, tracing mindless patterns on her back as he feels her get sleepy and sleepier, but peeks his chin up and over at Arthur, “Can I still borrow your book?”

Arthur nods excitedly, “It’s my favorite!”

“I am very excited,” Ilya grins, sprawling back in his seat lazily and patiently.

Jackie clangs around in the pots and pans, a welcome tinny background noise. It’s not so different from the click-clack of Ilya crutches that he’d heard echoing all day, but it is. The place feels alive, like Shane’s really lovely apartment really is that lovely after all.

When Arthur finally procures the book, he places it proudly in front of Ilya, so preciously he has to practically bite back a squeal. “Oh, very good. I was worried when you said your book was about dinosaurs that you were giving me a Scott Hunter biography.”

The joke flies right over Arthur and lands directly in the center of Jackie’s delightful full-body laugh. She has to hold the sleek handle of the refrigerator for balance, it seems, trying to bite off her continued giggled into the crook of her elbow, “You’re awful.”

“I am not wrong.”

“You’re not,” she seems loath to admit, “He should have retired after his Cup. End on a high note.”

“Exactly! I have told him as much.”

“You told him? To his face? You said, ‘Scott Hunter, you should have retired two years ago?’” Jackie gasps, incredulous, “You know what, yeah. Of course you did.”

“Clearly I did not sound serious enough. He did not listen. I will have to try again at next awards.”

“Oh my god, I need Hayden to lock in this season so I can be there to see that,” she practically wheezes, ecstatic. She tosses a small pad of butter in a pan to let it start melting, barely having to look as she does it, “I can’t believe the Admirals have kept him all these years. I thought he’d be having a slow, painful death of a retirement somewhere like, I don’t know. Buffalo?”

“Buffalo are too fast for Scott Hunter. And this is considering last time I played them we had to skate so slow I got gray hairs.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem for him then. Scott Hunter’s definitely already gray.”

“Jackie Pike, I hate to tell you this,” Ilya smiles, letting Arthur, none the wiser, peel open his pop-up book, He’s awaiting the appropriate oohs and ahhs, but Ilya is allowed to say, with more raw meaning than he should be allowed in a conversation happening over a 3D stegosaurus, “But I think we have to be best friends, now.”

If Jackie catches his earnestness, it is only to wrap it up tightly in both hands. She smiles, “Obviously.”

He feels very settled, suddenly, like he’s been slowly coming back into his body since his hit, Shane getting him most of the way there the past few days, and Jackie Pike, of all people, topping him off. Amber is laying against him like she can keep the good feeling trapped in his chest, and Arthur is holding his pointing finger in his whole hand like Ilya’s not allowed to drift off anywhere ever again.

It is almost too wonderful. Almost.

Ilya practices roars that strike the perfect balance in making Arthur giggle but not waking Amber, and is just getting to something interesting about pterodactyls when Jackie screeches, undoing all of that hard work.

“I’m sorry, is this supposed to be bread?” She holds up a loaf by the very top end of the plastic it’s in, spinning at the twist tie.

“I think so,” Ilya says, carefully tucking his giggles into his cheeks, because he loves his boyfriend and his ridiculous diet so much.

“This looks like it’s made out of top soil.”

“You know Shane.”

“Yeah, and I’ve made him a lot of weird shit—sorry—stuff, over the years. But I think this crosses some sort of, I don’t know—moral code I didn’t know I had,” she clutches a hand to her chest, “I might have to dump him for you.”

“No can do,” Ilya lilts, a faux regret laced in his voice, “I am sugar baby until further notice.”

“No, you are the world’s wealthiest temporary WAG. I promise, we do not need to suffer through mulch bread grilled cheeses.”

Temporary WAG. That’s cute. Ilya does have a hot as fuck athlete boyfriend, thank you very much!

He’s going to insist, once again, that he is sure her grilled cheese will be incredible even with Shane’s weird carb choices, worried that saying her presence is sustenance enough would be too revealing of his complicated feelings he doesn’t know how to parse through himself.

But Jackie groans to the ceiling Ilya stared at for hours today, then leans in like she’s going in for the face-off.

“What does that million part rule book have to say about getting you out of here for a burger?”

Which is how Ilya finds out that the Pikes have a lovely minivan!

But he can’t really tell you all that much about it, in any detail.

Other than that the passenger seat is very comfortable when you have to turn all the way around in it to help scrape the ketchup off a kiddie meal burger, and that there is just the right amount of leg room to keep a clingy little girl in your lap the entire time, and that the center console is the perfect height to bite two ends of a gloriously deep-fried french fry, like they do in that one animated movie about dogs he is not embarrassed to admit he watches on many away game flights, with your new friend over.

In case you were wondering.

He knows these are all very important things to know when you are picking out a good, reliable, supportive minivan.

In Ilya’s defense, Shane put him on the screen ban.

And of course, Jackie stayed off of hers all afternoon. In solidarity. Of this cruel and unusual injustice. Obviously.

“So. How much trouble do you think we are in?”

Ilya peeks over at where Jackie’s phone, finally unsilenced after a few leisurely hours driving around Montreal, lights up with several unread messages and notifications.

Shane Missed Call (7)

Shane: Have you seen Ilya?

Shane: He literally can’t get very far on his own which is the only thing calming me down but my parents are in Ottawa and Hayden’s with me and literally no one else knows he exists

Shane: So now I’m thinking kidnapping

Shane: Jackie

Shane: Oh. my god you’re dead too

Shane: The kids

Shane: This is one of the girls headbands right *Image Attached*

Shane: It was left on my counter next to paper that looks like an aborted ransom note

Shane: Jackie

Shane: Pick up the phone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shane Missed Facetime Request

Shane Hollander [email protected]

Subject: Maybe the kidnapper doesn’t know how to track your email

Shane Hollander Requests your Location!

Drop Pin

Jackie’s eyes flit from the road to the phone and back to Ilya, illuminated by the first few street lamps turning on on the softly winding roads she drives them down.

Lips pressed into a perfectly straight thin line, she deadpans, “Looks like he’s already over it.”

She’s lucky he holds his sputtering, buoyant laughter for even a second.

The goal really was not to scare his boyfriend half to death, Ilya promises.

They really did plan to just head out to get something for Ilya to eat, something quick and drive-through and terrible for your cholesterol, then they’d drop Ilya back off in the safety of the broken-leg-proofed apartment. Really. Really!

He probably would have said it was the greatest food he’s ever tasted even if it was pulled from the trash at that point, but he’s sure the accompaniment of Jackie’s hilariously never ending secret stash of napkins in the glove compartment did most of the heavy lifting in how much he enjoyed the meal.

So they lost some track of time.

Sue them! The daycare gossip play by play they were getting from Arthur was juicier than Ilya was expecting, and he was an active listener, thank you very much! There was no sense in heading back to the apartment in between, Jackie reasoned, and well. It’s not like Ilya had other plans. It would be nice to ensure that all the Pikes liked him so much it would piss Hayden off. He’d like to meet the twins.

So yes, Ilya maintains that it really was a good plan, in theory. But maybe too good, because three small fries later, they were testing the speed limits of the minivan to get to the twins’ dance studio. They were impressively only five minutes late, but no problem, Ilya was good at making things up to people, and a box of donuts later, all was forgiven, and more time was blissfully lost.

Jackie’s car was full, and cozy, and lovely, and Ilya could not be blamed for enjoying the company after the day he had. It didn’t surprise him how easy Jackie was to talk to, how genuinely they seemed to get along without the presence of any sort of emergency, finally, and how distractingly adorably the kids are.

Just a reminder, Ilya’s phone is currently hidden somewhere in Shane’s house. By Shane.

So he doesn’t know how he was supposed to let him know he’d left, and that he might not find him at home when he got back from practice.

Ilya groans, laughter petering out as he hits his head against the passenger seat headrest, “Should we get our stories straight, before we get there?”

“I can do the talking,” she waves him off, makes a quick turn into a residential neighborhood, “Speech and debate team captain and champion three years in a row, thank you.”

“Wow. You will show me your trophies when we get home?”

“And I was a communications major before I dropped out of college. I know the dropping out bit might not help my case—”

“Oh yes, because I famously have a PhD.”

Jackie’s fingers drum melodically on the steering wheel, “They’ll probably be sitting in the living room window, watching for our headlights, ready to strike.”

“No. You have a porch?” Ilya asks, “Shane will be pacing up and down it.”

“I’m not above using the kids as shields, just to be clear.”

“Smart,” Ilya nods, “When you go back to school for your PhD, please thank me in your thesis.”

She just shakes her head, embarrassed scrunch to her smile, and pulls into the driveway, where Hayden is sitting on the top step by the front door, his face unreadable because its turned around, but Ilya knows the signs of trying to get Shane to sit the fuck down.

“I don’t know why I doubted you,” she chimes, following the way Shane does, indeed, jog up and down the front steps, hands stuffed anxiously in his pockets. “Quick, put Amber back in your lap.”

He likes that either she was very serious about exploiting her cute kids for protection, or just likes indulging how attached Ilya has already become. Either way, he wastes no time in obliging, all the kids unbuckling excitedly as Jackie puts the car in park, and Ilya smiles, “Everyone ready? Like we practiced?”

Ruby and Jade, who have squeezed shoulder to shoulder between the front seats pout aggressively, on cue.

“You are perfect,” Ilya glints, watching Jade fold and giggle back for just a second. Ruby is scary good at keeping in character, lethal puppy dog eyes that put his Shane Hollander to shame. Ilya will try to remember this.

Amber’s just starting to chew on the strings of Ilya’s hoodie—which is a genius and unchoreographed manipulation move, Ilya is so proud of her—when Jackie rolls her window down, feigning nonchalance, “Hey guys! Good practice?”

“What the fuck, Ilya!”

”Ah!”

“Uncle Shane!”

“Bad word!”

“Yeah, Uncle Shane,” Ilya gloats, pressing his hands to Amber’s ears, but his eyes, he knows, are sparkling, “Bad word.”

“What the heck,” Shane over-corrects, eyes bulging wide and annoyed, as he stalks up to Jackie’s closer side of the car, “I get home and you’re just? Gone?”

“What did you think happened?”

“I don’t know, Ilya, but when I called your name a dozen times with no answer and the house was dead silent,” Shane huffs, his cheeks bright red and chest heaving like practice didn't end a whole hour ago, “I had a sudden, very vivid image of you unresponsive on the floor of my shower.”

“Mm, no,” Jackie points, shaking her head seriously, “Not possible. Showers are prohibited in his activity plan.”

Okay yes, Ilya thinks, as he wheezes bit-off laughter onto Amber’s forehead, Jackie can do all the talking.

“This is gonna be real fun for me, huh?” Shane postures back on his heels, points between Jackie and Ilya.

“You can blame me, Shane, okay?” Jackie ignores him verbally, but the uptick of her brow and matching smirk say otherwise. “I had to feed him!”

“I have plenty of food!”

“Yeah, if you want him to wither away into nothing!”

“I would say I never should have introduced you two, but I didn’t.”

“We’re going to make the Metros first responders team a heartfelt, handwritten thank you card,” Jackie grins.

“As long as you do the writing, Jackie,” Shane breaks, the first hint of a smile inching up on the corner of his mouth, “I wouldn’t want him to wither away in the process.”

“Of course,” she agrees, turning briefly to smile conspiratorially with Ilya. His heart flips off his ribcage, lands in a pool of want you can’t see the bottom of.

Shane is too easy, always, but especially in this. Ilya knows he clocks the feeling Ilya’s having before Ilya knows he’s feeling it. He presses his forearms to the top of the car and peeks in, relaxed set to his jaw, “Thanks for being with him. You have a good day?”

Ilya will blame not wanting to speak too loudly into Amber’s ear if ever asked why he can’t get out anything more than a nod.

“Good,” Shane nods, decisively, like that was all he needed.

Ilya beams.

Shane peeks a little further into the car, gaze ripping off Ilya for the first time since they pulled in to wave to the kids in the backseat, “Hi guys. Sorry about my bad word.”

“It’s okay, Uncle Shane!”

“Ilya can live with us if you don’t want him!”

“A generous offer, Ruby, thank you,” Shane bites his lips together to damp down his amusement, trying to answer her very serious offer very seriously, of course, “If he keeps raising my blood pressure like this, we might have to circle back.”

Shane’s gaze lifts back to Ilya’s for a split-second. They’re going to have to peel Ilya off this seat.

“But I think I’ll keep him for now.”

“Well, we tried,” Ilya looks back at the girls and shrugs, delights in how funny they find him. He promises to visit them as they shuffle out of the car, their work here done.

“Okay, lemme bring the car around, so you can just,” Shane straightens up, fishing in his pockets for his keys, “Just scoot over.”

“It’s right there, Shane, I can walk.”

“Bleeding out on my bathroom tiles, Ilya,” Shane warns, “Let me have this.”

He doesn’t even wait for Ilya to concede before he’s off, jogging towards his terrible car, the lights blinking on bright in the soft sunset behind them.

Hayden appears, or maybe he was there this whole time, Ilya really never tries to waste brain power on him if he doesn’t have to, and Shane was just here, so clearly, this was one of those cases.

He helps Arthur out of his seat as he chimes in, “Dude, if you give my best friend a heart attack before he’s 30, I’ll kill you.”

“For the thousandth time, Ilya’s not supposed to be on his phone right now—”

“It was barely a concussion.”

Oh my god. Ilya hates agreeing with Hayden Pike. He will pretend he is having horrible, spotty vision and vertigo just to prevent him from thinking he’s right. Ah! Ilya is dying! The headaches! How will he survive!

“And I meant to text you guys after practice ended, so, that’s on me. We were busy.”

“I just don’t know how you ended up with him in the first place.”

“You know I like to have help with me when I have all four kids.”

“What help? He can barely move!”

“And whose fault is that?”

“That’s not—no, no. You know I didn’t do this,” Hayden shakes his head, distressed, “Forget it, you’re pissing me off on purpose.”

“I haven’t said a word,” Ilya’s smile is shark -like, very pleased. He sees why he and Shane are friends, maybe, for the first time ever. So easy.

“I can’t believe Rozanov is in my minivan,” Hayden scoffs, rolling his eyes back up at the sky, “And this isn’t an invitation for you to start making fun of the cars I drive, either.”

“Oh, I know you don’t drive,” Ilya says, “Don’t worry, I will put this seat back up where I found it so you can see out the window when I leave.”

“Asshole.”

“Hayd.”

“Seriously? He—whatever. Glad to see that break kept your personality in tact, Rozanov,” Hayden skirts, avoidant, and Ilya really, really tries not to chuckle. He’s so funny looking when he’s grumpy, the hockey gear does not do it justice. He will have to remember this when he can finally play against him again. “I’ll take Amber in. Jackie, you’ll help Shane?”

“You really don’t need to help anymore,” Ilya says softly to Jackie as he starts handing-off Amber in his arms, “You have already been too nice to me today.”

“I’ll be as nice to you as I want, asshole,” she whispers, and opens her mouth to say something else, but is cut off by Amber letting out a sharp, insistent wail.

“Oh no,” Ilya worries, watching her sad little face, and her hands reach out, grabbing, distinctly, for Ilya.

It’s like getting whacked in the head all over again. He thinks he has cartoon birds flying around him, puffy little hearts in his eyes to match.

“It’s okay, baby, he’ll come back! It’s okay!” Jackie soothes, rocking her gently side to side, to no avail.

“I don’t think she’s—” Ilya tries to reason, knowing there are lots of reasons babies cry, but Amber’s perfect future hockey grip claims the edge of Ilya’s t-shirt as its next victim, and well.

This is an inappropriate time to smile. Ilya tucks it into his cheek for now.

“Yes, zolotse,” Ilya shushes, voice feather-light, letting Amber paw at his palms he leaves open for her, “Will see you soon. Whenever you want! I have no job!”

Jackie laughs a bit, and that looks to help, as Amber’s grip loosens and her big eyes stare directly at Ilya. He whispers, “I am here a whooole year, okay?”

It doesn’t really soothe her, all the words foreign to her, but it settles something in Ilya, getting to say that out loud—that he will be in just one place, for months and months and months.

“Let me just,” Jackie sighs, starts slipping out of her seat, “Stay put, I’ll be right back.”

He watches her scurry off to pass Amber, cries gently trickling out, to Hayden by the front steps, just as Shane is finishing his one trillion-point turn to get the car in the exact position he believes it needs to be for Ilya to slide from one passenger seat to another.

A whole year!

Ilya smiles up at the roof of the car.

“I got it, I got it,” he protests as Shane awkwardly wedges himself between both doors he’s swung open, brows furrowing. Ilya tucks a crutch under one arm as he stands, easily, “I draw the line at you carrying me.”

“Funny, I think you were begging for that less than 48 hours ago,” Shane deadpans, unamused, but backs off, glaring beneath his lashes, “At least let me hover.”

“Go crazy,” Ilya concurs, turning his back and shifting his weight to get in the best position to hoist himself up the couple inches difference in cars.

Shane watches him carefully, with clinical alertness, his gaze feeling suspiciously similar to the way he studies games. It should not make Ilya feel as hot all over as it does.

Jackie reappears at some point after Ilya has given the thumbs up that he’s successfully in his seat, and Shane can shut the door. It swings shut gently, and, like habit, Ilya cracks the window an inch, leans against it lazily.

His eyes drift shut, the day catching up to him, none of this in the activity plan that maybe had a smidge of validity. Just like. The littlest bit.

He’s so sated and dazed here that he almost misses the sound of the conversation happening not a foot behind him. Their voices are low, so he has to strain a bit to hear, but it comes through the small opening in the window:

“Shane Hollander,” he hears Jackie say, “We need to have a serious discussion about something. I am so pissed off. I hate you.”

Ilya’s eyes stay shut, because he is comfortable, but also because he knows what the sound of Shane sputtering like that looks like, exactly. Cute.

“Um—what—I—”

“How dare you keep that man from me for years. I’m going to kill you. He is perfect for you, and I’m obsessed with him.”

Oh.

There is a long stretch of silence that follows, in which Ilya has to be braver and stronger than he has ever had to be in his whole entire life and resist flinging himself out of the car to hug Jackie Pike to the point of suffocation and re-break his leg in the process.

Then, “No, shit, don’t—don’t cry! I didn’t mean it, oh my god, I was kidding! Shane. I don’t hate you. My sarcasm’s rusty, we can’t use it in the house because the twins are at that age where they have to take everything literally, but—”

“No, no, it’s just,” Shane’s voice is small, wet, but obviously smiling, “Nobody’s ever reacted like that before. Guess I didn’t realize how badly I’ve really wanted someone to.”

“Oh, Shane.”

Ilya may only know a couple hours worth of Jackie, but he thinks he knows enough to be sure this is accompanied by a tight, tight hug.

Shane’s sniffles catch in the air, “Nobody’s ever just, I don’t know? Happy for me?”

Another wash of quiet. Ilya keeps his eyes shut, holds on to the handle of the crutch across his lap tightly. This is Shane’s conversation to have, no matter how badly Ilya wants to storm out there and wipe every last tear off his face.

“I know we haven’t told a lot of people, and I don’t know what I was expecting, but—” Shane’s voice sounds so nasally, mid-waterworks. “Like, I get it, all the questions, and the trying to set me up with ‘nice guys’ comments come from a good place, really, I do get that—”

“I don’t.”

“What?”

“I don’t get that at all,” Jackie counters, resolute, “Seriously, I don’t get it. He is funny, and kind, and patient, and stupidly attractive. Honestly, Shane, it’s offensive. He has a black eye and like a dozen broken bones. He should look like an ogre.”

Shane’s laughter is a soothy balm on Ilya’s pitter-pattering chest, “He is kinda hot.”

“He’s so hot, and so wonderful, and I wouldn’t expect you to be with anyone who was anything less,” Jackie insists, “So no, I really don’t get it. It makes perfect sense to me.”

The little string that’s tied between Ilya’s chest and Shane’s tugs gently.

“Sorry I snotted on your shirt,” Shane chuckles, likely wiping his snot on the collar of her sweatshirt once more for good measure. He doesn’t cry often, but he’s messy when he does. It’s so cute. Ilya is hopeless. “But thank you, for uh, for liking him.”

“Shane, I love him,” Jackie emphasizes, “And I don’t hate you. Am I a little mad I’ve missed out on years of having a partner in crime against you and my husband? Maybe. But I think Amber’s going to insist you babysit even more frequently than you normally do, so I’ll forgive you eventually.”

“The kids like him too?” Ilya struggles to hear Shane whisper, shyly.

“Oh my god, you’re like, in love love.”

“Shut up.”

“No, this is incredible. You’re blushing! I wish you hadn’t drained my phone battery with all your calls so I could memorialize this forever.”

“Sorry about that, I just—”

“You worry. I get it.”

“Yeah, well,” Shane blows out a long sigh, “Thanks for taking care of him.”

“Anytime. You’re good to drive home?”

“Yes, yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, mom.”

“And people think you assholes weren’t made for each other.”

“Goodbye.”

“Hey, Shane?” Jackie calls, and Ilya can hear the gravel scrape where Shane pauses, stopping his run around to the drivers side quickly.

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to heavily remind Ilya whenever I can that he’s dating up,” Jackie says, every word draped around a smile, “But just in case you need to hear it, you are too.”

Shane’s resounding giggle floats up and over the window pane, lands smack in the middle of Ilya’s cheek, like a kiss.

“Goodnight, Jackie.”

Ilya rolls his head to the opposite side, eyes barely peeking open, just enough to not miss Shane round out the front of his truck and slip into the driver’s seat.

He’s wearing such a dopey smile. Ilya is not in a place to judge.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Shane whispers, not even putting his seatbelt on, just leaning as far over as he can to grab Ilya and kiss him silly. Their noses nudge together, and he tastes Shane’s words more than hears them, “We’re really lucky, huh?”

Ilya nods, catching a stray tear on his nose with the motion. He lets it roll down to the dip of his lips, savors the salty taste.

“And not just because I followed your boring rules and did not die in the bathtub.”

“Oh my god,” Shane barks, extracting himself just enough to start the car, push the gear into drive.

“You gonna punish me when we get home?”

“Jesus, do you have an off switch?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Ilya glints cheekily, eyebrows waggling, “But you’re more than welcome to investigate yourself.”

“Jackie wanted you to have this, asshole,” Shane says, slapping something in Ilya’s lap as he starts driving. His tone is tight, but the asshole betrays him. It is, Ilya’s learned, his sweetest pet name.

When he peeks down, he finds the dinosaur book.

“Something about Arthur being very worried about you going home with nothing to do. What’d you tell them I read? The dictionary?”

“Nothing,” Ilya shakes his head, flipping open the pages, gingerly, trying to untangle the knot that has formed in his chest at the gesture.

He traces the spikes of the stegosaurus on the first page, the tiny arms of the T-rex on the next, as Shane guides them out onto the road, and then just as he’s flipping to page three—

A note, hastily scribbled, that reads:

Pretty sure the stunt we pulled today will reinstate your phone privileges. You’re welcome. For when you get it back:

With a phone number at the bottom.

When he feels Shane’s gaze still intently on him, quietly beaming at the note for too long, he tucks it back into the pages and clears his throat. “Seriously, I tell them you read nothing. I am so very bored all day. He is good kid, looking out for me.”

Shane hums, reaching over for Ilya’s hand, threading his fingers between, and holding it hostage over his lap.

“Lucky,” Shane smiles.

And Ilya doesn’t hesitate in smiling back, “The luckiest.”

Jackie: So I went to the grocery store today and a  whole loaf of bread and tons of cheese accidentally ended up in my cart. So weird.

Jackie: Ideas? Help?

Ilya looks at the long, empty couch he’s barely taking up a quarter of, the TV on a low hum as the Metros warm up for their home opener.

Ilya: This sounds like an emergency. bring your key?

Jackie: Of course. I’d NEVER make you go against your activity plan and GET UP to unlock the door for us

“Is this super weird for you?”

Ilya scrubs the crumbs off the corner of his mouth with the back of his wrist as he looks to Jackie, her brow piqued questionsingly.

She was not kidding about this grilled cheese. He’s on his third, plate balanced on top of his cast so Amber can claim his good leg. He smiles before he takes one last bite, shaking his head, “I’ve been watching Shane play since before we met.”

Jackie lets out a little ‘aww’, stacking some discarded paper plates in front of her.

“Only weird part is that his backhand hasn’t gotten any better in all that time.”

“Oh my god.”

“It’s true!”

“Unecessary. He’s not even here.”

“Forgot I am dealing with a superfan,” Ilya smiles, thanking her when she takes his empty dish too. Montreal is up by two, largely thanks to Shane, and Ilya feels pride fizzle warm within his chest, but Jackie does not need to know that.

“I’m completely objective. He and his backhand are gonna win this for them.”

“I did not say they won’t win, though it pains me,” Ilya grins cheekily, “Next week when they play us, ask me again.”

“I thought Ottawa wasn’t until next month?”

“Yeah, what does that—” Ilya starts to ask distractedly, because they’re doing a close up on Shane. But the second the camera pans away his words catch up to him.

The Metros play Boston next week.

No one will believe Ilya when he says he hasn’t been able to sit still long enough to have to think about this, given how all Ilya does these days is sit still and complain about how much he has to sit still. But it’s a busy sit, so it hasn’t hit him, really, until right now.

The thought of seeing Shane play a game against Boston that he is not part of almost knocks the wind out of him.

He hasn’t been avoiding Boston games on purpose—thank you screen ban, lifted yesterday, Ilya almost threw a party—but now that he’s thinking about it, he realizes he hasn’t thought about it at all.

He didn’t have to, is the thing, before this injury. He would have played Shane next month, when Montreal goes to Ottawa. He would have gotten all the lingering Boston out of his system by now, would have practiced press answers for hours and hours about things he loved about his new home and new team, would have skated directly into feeling like Ottawa was something he could refer to in the collective ‘us’ when trying to pick on Shane.

Instead, he’s here. Not that he knows where here is besides the couch.

It’s a very in-between feeling.

Last year was supposed to be the in-between.

Fuck. It’s going to take a much longer time for habits like this to unstick when he doesn’t have new habits to lay on top of them. He just has to sit still and think about the fact that the Montreal-Boston game schedule used to be how he kept track of time. He has to sit still and think about the fact that Shane is going to fly to the city Ilya’s pretty sure he fell in love with him in next week and not be there. He has to sit still and think about the fact that he’s not playing hockey against anyone any time soon.

And playing Montreal in that Boston uniform used to be his only connection to Shane.

Ilya knows it’s a silly thought to have, an illogical comparison to draw, because he’s literally living in the guy’s house right now.

But he watches Shane on the TV ahead of him head into a face-off against some rookie Ilya hasn’t even learned the name of yet, as insignificant as it could get to Ilya, really, and yet he still can’t stop the very real, painful, and illogical way his heart twists at the sight.

Yeah. There is no fucking way Ilya stomachs watching that game next week.

“Sorry, I, um,” Ilya sighs out of his thoughts quick as he can, before the puck gets blurry on the screen, “Got the dates mixed up, I think.”

“Happens to me all the time, especially when I first started dating Hayden. You have to like, rewrite your brain to remember a schedule that’s not yours,” Jackie answers, somewhere behind him in the kitchen.

Jackie Pike has only been Ilya’s friend for maybe a month, so it’s very annoying that she’s already able to practically read his mind like that.

By the time she’s back by the couch, Ilya has had at least three more existential crises over the game, and is very happy Ruby is back to distracting him with a game of her own. He doesn’t know what it’s called, how you score, or any of the rules, but this is a loss that won’t bother him in the slightest. He’s having fun one-handed tossing a ball back and forth from the couch to this seven year old and collectively holding their breath when he overshoots too close to these ugly, expensive vases Shane has for some reason.

He’s just been successful in avoiding an unlit candle when the hockey game cuts to commercial and Jackie finally continues her previous thought.

“We make a wives-edition calendar of the schedule every season. It’s color coded to the point of obnoxiousness, but I promise it helps. I’ll send you a copy later.”

“Thanks,” Ilya gulps. Ruby gets all his attention, of course, so there’s no energy left to keep this in, “I may have been too quick in telling you this wasn’t weird.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he nods, “I’ve never only watched.”

“I see,” Jackie hums, leaning her cheek against the top of the couch behind them, making Amber giggle happily. Ilya bounces her on his knee, catches another pass from Ruby while he lets whatever thought Jackie’s having marinate, “I’ll let you keep trash-talking him, if it helps.”

Ilya giggles with Amber this time, “Oh it will, thank you very much.”

“And I can teach you all about being a stay-at-home hockey partner, don’t worry.”

“What do you need to teach me? I’m already staying at home all the time, watching my partner play hockey.”

“It’s an art.”

“It sounds like a cult.”

“Oh it is, for sure. You’re in for life. You’re going to love it. Your coach is going to hate me because you’re never going to want to go back. I’m domesticating you.”

“The grilled cheeses are good, but not good enough to get me to cheer for Montreal for the rest of my life.”

“Okay, rule one: you do need to root for your boyfriend to win his game.”

“You just said I could trash-talk.”

“Yeah, it’s allowed because you’re rooting for them.”

“Mm. Impossible.”

“You can do it,” Jackie cheers herself, shaking Ilya’s shoulder lightly, “C’mon, just one big ‘Let’s go, Metros!’”

“My English, Jackie, it’s so bad.”

She flicks the back of his head with her middle finger, “Even Amber can do it, isn’t that right, baby?”

“Ah no, not my Amber,” Ilya purses, pinching her little face between the fingers of his free hand. She practically drolls down his thumb, her smile leaving her mouth wide open. Ilya presses his cheek onto the top of her curls and coos, “Her first words are going to be Ilya Rozanov is the best hockey player in the league.”

“She’s already said her first word.”

“First full sentence. We are already practicing.”

“Rule two,” Jackie laughs, “Wait to hijack your own baby’s vocabulary.”

“Just cheer for them, Ilya. You get ice cream,” Jade shrugs, not even peeking up from her coloring book to say.

Ilya’s English is actually very fucking good, thank you very much, but he feels like he’s parsing through another language altogether when he talks to these seven year olds sometimes. What the fuck was this supposed to mean? Is ice cream a code word? Is he—

“Uncle Shane might not get him ice cream, Jade,” Ruby matches her sister’s nonchalance exactly, which is only more confusing.

“Why would he want anything other than ice cream?”

Fair point, Ilya thinks, if he was at all following, that is.

“Remember last time! Uncle Shane didn’t eat any with us!”

“He had a bite!”

“Well he can’t get Ilya a bite of ice cream. They probably eat broccoli when they win. Uck.”

“Hey you,” Jackie glares at Ruby, who hides her whole face behind the ball Ilya’s just tossed back, “That’s enough.”

“No please,” Ilya trills, amused. “That was just getting very interesting.”

“I like broccoli,” Arthur says, plainly.

“Well now Ilya watches games with us, so we can give him ice cream.”

“You didn’t even ask if he likes ice cream, Ruby!”

“This is a silly question,” Ilya waves them off, earns a whole living room full of giggles, “But I am still not following. What does the best food in the whole world have to do with cheering for the worst team in the whole world?”

The girls barely register his question as an actual question, caught back up in bickering with each other from across the room over the logistics.

“I did a very dumb thing, once, when they were little,” Jackie finally leans into Ilya, to whisper with an explanation, “And got the girls to sit still during a whole game with the promise of ice cream at the end. My first mistake was thinking toddler short term memory applied when sugar was involved. It’s been years. The freezer aisle hates to see us coming.”

Ruby is laughing at Ilya’s latest miss, softball right to the forehead because The Ball Toss Game With Rules He Was Supposed To Magically Just Know stops for no one, “Dad brings home ice cream whenever we watch a game he wins!”

“It’s a rule, mom said so,” Jade fills in.

This is just about the cutest thing Ilya’s ever heard, and also the saddest. Their ice cream intake is dependent on Hayden Pike’s hockey playing ability! How cruel!

“I can’t pretend I don’t also benefit from it,” Jackie shrugs in defense, not that Ilya was looking for one. He wishes he knew about this fun trick sooner, actually. He was always rooting for Shane, begrudging appearance or not—his own being on the ice or not—so he might as well get something out of it.

Maybe he needed to take these lessons from Jackie seriously.

“Does Uncle Shane really make you eat broccoli?”

“No, but he didn’t tell me about this ice cream rule, so, just as bad,” Ilya shakes his head.

“It doesn’t have to be ice cream,” Jade reasons, swinging her colored pencil around from the opposite couch like she’s a courtroom lawyer with a gavel. “You could tell him to give you anything!”

And oh, was he gonna, Ilya winces, chokes on the thought to the point that it startles Arthur who is wedged between the couch and the coffee table under his leg.

“Well, if you guys had to pick a second thing, what would you?”

Jade takes a very long, hard, serious minute to think about this while Ruby immediately starts rattling off everything from a puppy to McDonald’s and later bedtime.

“That’s it, yes,” Ilya clucks, “Shane is so boring and sleepy. I will make him stay up five extra minutes.”

“Five minutes is so lame.”

“Well yes, maybe, since you’re making us cheer for Montreal,” he says, “They never win. It’s so sad. You probably don’t even remember what ice cream tastes like.”

“That’s not true!”

“Is so,” Ilya nods firmly, content to go back to half-listening to the commentators who don’t know shit and losing his game with Ruby while Jackie takes Amber for diaper-change duty. “You should have made a deal with me instead, I am the best player in the league. Amber says so.”

“Diaper changes are a stationary activity, Ilya. I can hand her over like that,” Jakcie yells.

“Fine, fine, if I must,” Ilya over exaggerates his flop backwards over the arm of the couch, towards the girls. Their lopsided grins look good from any angle, but it’s especially fun to get to be so silly with it, to know he’s putting them there. “Hoping they win is too hard for me, but I do like when Shane scores goals. I can cheer for that.”

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Ruby jumps onto the couch with her sister, socked feet swinging wildly against the base as her excitement bubbles out, “Five minutes later bedtime for every goal!”

“I like the way you think, Ruby,” Ilya shoots her a thumbs up, rolling the ball she’s done with absently down his cast and watching it bounce on the hardwood, “And since it was your good idea, I think it counts for you also.”

Even Jade perks at this, tucking her feet under her to stand on the cushion, coloring book long forgotten and eyes wide as saucers at the TV now, instead, “Uncle Shane scores like, a million goals every game.”

“Three if you’re lucky, but I like the way you think too,” Ilya smiles, “This will be the warm up, for next year, when I’m playing again. You’ll have ice cream and an extra hour every game I play.”

“And this sugar rush all-nighter is gonna happen at Uncle Ilya’s house, right?” Jackie bubbles, settling back into her spot tucked up against Ilya.

God, can she stop ushering in emotional breakthroughs in this living room? Ilya is getting real sick of his sinuses always being clogged because he’s forced to sniffle back tears every other business day, lately.

Because all Ilya’s been able to think about tonight since he unhelpfully was finally able to have the thought, was wondering how he fit here, in Shane’s life, anymore. He wanted a place that no longer existed, not without the one thing that had always tied them together.

But here was easy permanence, handed right over to him like it’s nothing, in the middle of a boring hockey game that he can’t play.

Uncle Ilya.

“Mm, I see,” he blinks, finally, letting Amber crawl right back into her space in his lap. “You’re trying to throw me off, being extra sweet. But it is not really necessary.”

“I’m sorry?”

“The best stay-home boyfriend, wife, whatever,” Ilya waves flippantly, “The grilled cheese won you the point tonight immediately, but the rest of the season? Ask Shane, I make a very good tuna—”

“I’m sorry,” Jackie repeats, pressing up on her elbow, “I don’t remember this being a competition?”

“Understandable, since you are a Montreal fan,” Ilya shrugs, lips pursed to one side, “Winning a competition is a foreign concept to you.”

“You are so lucky all my children are within earshot.”

“There are places on the podium other than second, if you can believe it. And I don’t mean third.”

“You have one cup, Ilya.”

“And after this season, I will have two,” he grins, two fingers pointed up for visual effect, that Amber takes a sudden keen interest in, “When I win Best WAG.”

“Oh my god.”

“New category at MLH awards, and I know you wanted to go. I’ll get a plus one.”

“You’re so ridiculous, how do you even go about keeping score of something like this?” She’s sitting back on her heels suddenly, perched not unlike her children are across the room, a young and playful bounce to the way she’s buzzing to agree despite her protests, “You can’t objectively be the best at—”

“Sounds like something someone in second place would say,” he sing-songs.

It doesn’t take even a second for her to take the bait, which is one of the reasons Ilya is sure they became such fast friends. He blinks, stupid smile on his face that had been pinched with an untethered worry one commercial break ago, and watches the hand she extends out to him.

“You know what, fine. Yeah. You’re on, Rozanov.”

“Yes?”

“You don’t know the monster you just created.”

“Oh, I think I do, Pike—”

“Five minutes!”

His and Jackie’s competitive stare down is cut-off abruptly, both of their heads snapping to the TV to see the Metros up by one, courtesy of a barely-celebratory Shane Hollander on the ice.

This humble fuck. He’s so hot. Ilya’s going to devour him when he gets home. He has five extra minutes to do so.

“You wanna take back that five minutes rule?”

“No, no, I’m in,” Ilya nods, “If he gets a hat trick they can sleepover here. For all their extra minutes. Deal.”

And just like that, the room descends into the happiest version of chaos Ilya’s ever been inside of. Ruby is yelling to get Ilya’s attention, like she didn’t have it the second the announcer uttered Shane’s name. Jade is happy to donate her artistic endeavors (messy, half-finished coloring page) to the cause of starting a goal tally, cutely clapping for Shane with her arms stretched all the way over the top of her head. Amber does no cheering of any kind, because she is perfect. Arthur wants in on the excitement and is clambering into his mom’s space, which is sinking into the gap between cushions right next to Ilya even with a whole, grossly expensive leather couch of space open to choose from.

This existential player-to-spectator identity crisis still twists painfully in his gut, and probably will for a while.

But as he looks around at this very full living room, and the TV that catches Shane happily skate by, Ilya thinks he might be in the right place to let time, and new normals, come into play.

“Was an okay goal,” Ilya finally relents, without even thinking about the possibility of being nauseous over it, and finished with a tacky, plastered smile, “Congrats to the team.”

“Wow. You’re a natural. That sounded so, so sincere,” Jackie snickers, “I’m gonna mop the well-vacuumed floor with you.”

“Mopping and vacuuming, interesting,” Ilya balks, “Your loser tears are actually the secret ingredient in most of my baked with love, home cooked meals I will have waiting for when my husband comes home from his long day at the office.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, have you been able to cook lately? Who fed you tonight?”

“I already said you win tonight.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I respect the rules of this very serious, legitimate competition.”

“I think you’re just gearing up to ask for another grilled cheese in the third period.”

“Jade, can I borrow a marker?” Ilya yells, and as soon as she can peel her eyes away from the screen scanning for more five minutes he catches the bright pink marker he’s tossed. He reaches around Amber, who is going to want to be helpful any second now, so he has to act fast, and he writes a J with one tally mark next to it on the kneecap of his cast, and a blank I underneath it. “Good?”

Jackie stares at him, a little gapingly, but entirely as real and illogically happy as Ilya knows he is right now too.

“What happens when that comes off?”

“I’ll have majority already by then,” Ilya smirks.

“Confident,” Jackie nods, twinkle in her eyes, “Good to see you back in the game, Rozanov.”

“Um, hello?”

“Hi,” Shane says, like the lone syllable is personally offensive to him. Ilya doesn’t know how the feeling is even possible for Shane, considering he is currently very singularly focused on mauling Ilya’s neck.

The scratch of his fancy game day pants against Ilya’s cast as Shane forces his knee into the space between his legs where it barely fits is hotter than it should be, really, because it’s the plaster on his broken leg we’re talking about, but he can’t really think about it when Shane’s kissing him like this.

Wet and messy, from chin to brow, over and over and over again. Shane walked through the door three seconds ago.

“What uh—ah, hm,” Ilya stumbles nonsensically. He can’t breathe. Shane is licking the roof of his mouth.

“What was that?” Shane’s voice melts directly into Ilya’s pores, their cheeks smushed together so Shane can bite at Ilya’s earlobe. 

Ilya can feel the whine wheeze out of him, and for all he knows, Shane swallows it and hands it right back in the form of more kisses to his neck. “What was what?”

“You were saying something,” Shane answers, fucking asshole, with his hands on Ilya’s nipples and his breathing straight down the back of his t-shirt collar.

Sorry, Ilya just feels like he needs to catalogue this real quick:

Shane is still in his game clothes.

He’s blinking at an unnatural speed, breathing to match, as Shane makes himself very comfortable in his lap on the couch and presses all, and Ilya means all, his body weight onto Ilya’s chest, away from his legs. Stupid. Considerate. Attractive as all get out.

“What’s with the good mood?”

“I am in such a good mood, yeah,” Shane’s laugh devolves into more filthy kisses, not really answering the question.

He nuzzles his nose against Ilya’s pulse point and scratches at his scalp, instead.

Ilya normally knows exactly how to give as good as he gets, but everything is all fuzzy right now. How is he even supposed to respond? Shane won’t let him get in a kiss edgewise, let alone a word. His lips keep getting redirected so Shane can suck on something else. Everything sounds like Shane and looks like Shane and feels like Shane and is Shane, probably.

“Oh fuck, fuck Shane, what—” Ilya squirms, antsy for no reason when he’s being treated so good.

His still sorta damp hair smells like his locker room shampoo, the strands tickling Ilya’s eyes when Shane licks up the side of his face. He’s placing the sloppiest, open-mouthed kisses on every inch of skin, no real pattern or direction that Ilya can decipher or follow, making pleased little humming sounds the whole way. Ilya is helpless to echo.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Shane sighs.

Hm. That’s—hm. Ilya’s confusion manifests in lips twisted to the right, which Shane mistakes for another place he wants a kiss. He smacks one there with an audible ‘mwah!’

To clarify before Shane can start nibbling between the creases on the sides of his eyes, Ilya asks, “On your couch?”

“Here,” Shane repeats, but if he wants Ilya to be cognizant of the abstract conversation he’s clearly trying to have he’s really going to need to get his hands out from under his shirt. It feels like he’s playing tic-tac-toe with the blunt edge of his nails between Ilya’s abs.

If he’d stop trying to x-marks-the-spot for a half a second, maybe Ilya would remember what he was trying to say in the first place, way back whenever Shane got home.

He had a plan. He was pretty sure he had a plan. It’s unclear now. There was a vague outline of an idea for a plan to welcome his wonderful, winning boyfriend home from the first game Ilya got to watch from the comfort of his couch in some, nice, special way. He was, at least, sitting innocently on the couch, waiting. He thinks he preheated the oven for…something. Whatever Shane wanted. He laid sweatpants Shane habitually steals on the bathroom counter for his post locker room at-home shower shower.

There was like, the real makings of a plan happening here!

But Shane threw himself into Ilya’s space on the couch, where he was waiting to execute his probably well thought out plan, so, so fast. Ilya’s not even sure Shane took his shoes off, which—oh, nope, Ilya can peel his eyes open for the half a second it takes to confirm the world is not ending.

His socks peek out from the cuff of his dress pants and his tie is flipped over the back of the couch and Shane is making out with him like he didn’t get bullied out the very door he barely locked just now, less than six hours ago.

Kissing was in the plan somewhere, but fuck. Shane wins this round. It feels so good Ilya might even say this, out loud. When he remembers either of the languages he knows.

Ilya tries talking again, if you can even call it that. It’s all breath, nose to nose, “Sorry, what were we talking about again?”

“I came home,” Shane says, “And you were here.”

“Yes,” Ilya says, moving one of Shane’s hands to his casted leg, “I could not have gotten very far.”

“You’re not getting it.”

“Clearly,” Ilya huffs. Ilya’s not going on record with this thought, but Shane needs to stop kissing him for a second. Every word is filtering in through his senses in the texture of slushy, half-melted snow. He’s sliding around, like he can’t get a grip on anything but Shane’s annoying perfect hair. Which he does, grip, by the way. For leverage, of course.

“I’m seeing you after a game we didn’t play.”

Shane’s eyes crinkle, squint up real tight, like he needs to make room on his face for how big and wide and toothy and beautiful his smile is. It stretches his bright red cheeks, freckles pushing up under his lashes like we’re playing connect-the-dots, and it’s weird that he keeps making these game metaphors, but Shane’s joy is so bright and youthful that it’s infectious, and maybe it makes perfect sense. Ilya doesn’t know. He knows nothing. Shane is so beautiful and he’s all over him.

His words sort of start to sink in with what little brain power he has control of and—his boyfriend is a mind reader, surely, on top of all the other things he is inhumanly good at.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” Shane giggles into another assault, smattering pecks between each finger on both hands that are holding Ilya’s face in place, “Do you know how much energy I have right now?”

Ilya opens his mouth to reply. Shane sticks his fingers in there instead.

“You don’t, because I’m always fucking exhausted after playing you,” Shane’s words feel punched out of him, delirious-edged, “And I love playing you, it’s my favorite. But I barely had to try tonight. I mean, did you see their fucking goalie? I did so little I almost didn’t shower, Ilya. Which was mostly just because I wanted to get home sooner, but my sweat! Did you see! I know they did a close-up. You could see. I wasn’t even sweating!”

Ilya did see, and Shane was sweating, which Ilya had liked a lot, but. Well. He’s incapable of forming a full coherent thought that he can get to then come out of his mouth, so he lets his silence acquiesce to his over-excitable boyfriend. He looks so good so giddy like this.

“And now I have all this energy that you don’t even know about—”

“Shane—”

“I can’t believe people just feel like this, every day. Do you think that’s why other players have so many kids so—ew, no, forget I—that’s gross.”

“Shane.”

“I love you. I love you so much, oh my god,” Shane finally collapses under the weight of his rambling, snuggles right into the crook of Ilya’s neck, like he’s trying to use all this energy he’s going on and on and on about to burrow into Ilya’s skin. He sucks the chain of his necklace up with the motion of a kiss, syncs their breathing, their heartbeats, every last cell in their practically fused bodies.

He’ll have to text Jackie later—much, much, later—and let her know he understands the appeal of this whole thing much more than he initially let on.

“I can’t believe I didn’t have to play you to see you,” Shane smiles. Ilya can’t see it, but he feels it on his skin. “Best fucking game of my life.”

“For me?”

“You can take with you to practice,” Ilya beams, palms pressing into the cool surface of the kitchen island. “Fits in the cup holder. I checked.”

“Yeah, but um—I mean, thank you, this is sweet,” Shane mumbles, spinning the tall metal tumbler around in nervous circles. The sound it makes is oddly soothing, Ilya thinks, as Shane does it over and over again. “But I don’t drink coffee.”

“I know,” Ilya nods, “It’s your green juice.”

“My—” Shane’s chin dips, lifts part of the lid so he can squint into the small mouthpiece opening, his still-damp morning shower hair flopping over his forehead with the motion, “Oh. You made me juice.”

“Wasn’t difficult, I just put anything green I saw in the fridge into the blender,” Ilya slides his hip forward on the edge of the counter top, swaying into Shane’s space, who is still staring at the inside of the cup, “Kale, spinach, some green skittles, the moldy part of a slice of bread—oh, you like jalapenos, right?”

“Asshole,” Shane blushes, tapping his toes on top of Ilya’s as he takes a tentative sip, “Shit, I hate you. This is good.”

Ilya bites his lips together to hide his smile, “I researched, this brand has the best reviews for insulation. Keeps drinks cold for up to 24 hours.”

“I’m gonna be out like, four, max.”

“And, it’s in Metros blue!”

“I see,” Shane says, fingers trilling melodically on the surface.

“Your water bottle is in the fridge. And I didn’t know if you wanted breakfast, but I do have a whole box of those protein bars you like for after your workout.” Ilya leans around Shane’s shoulder to slide the box forward, giving it a little shake for effect, “I didn’t put them in your bag for you yet, because I know you don’t like when they get crush—what are you doing?”

Shane has unceremoniously slapped the back of his hand to Ilya’s forehead, eyeing him up and down, from head to toe, slowly and carefully.

“You feeling okay?” Shane quirks, a couple of his teeth poking out cutely where he bites the side of his bottom lip. He runs the back of his wrist back and forth once over Ilya's forehead, “You don’t feel warm.”

“What?”

“Your antibiotics course finished a few days ago, but I guess you still could have caught something.”

“Oh my god,” Ilya groans, throwing his whole body over the top of the counter dramatically, “I can’t just be nice? Want you to have a good practice?”

“It’s just,” Shane snickers, kisses the top of Ilya’s head. “No, no, nothing. No, it’s nice. It was very nice. Thank you.”

“You don’t sound convinced,” Ilya says, props his chin up, “I’m not playing, Shane, I don’t need to poison you.”

“Right, ‘cause that’s the only reason you wouldn’t try to bodily harm me. Not just because you like me, or anything.”

“And I don’t even have one single ulterior motive.”

“Not even one?”

“No, none at all.” Ilya’s whole body lilts to the side with his shoulder-shrug, leaning more into Shane than all the way back upright. “Definitely not to give you extra time before you leave to let me suck your dick.”

“There he is,” Shane gushes, slapping the palm of his hand twice to Ilya’s cheek affectionately.

“I said I wasn’t doing that!”

“Mhm.” Shane backs up a smidge to pull the fridge open, tucks the water bottle Ilya filled this morning out of the pure and well-intentioned kindness of his heart under one arm, “Thank you for the juice, and the bars.”

“You’re going? Now?” Ilya worries, “I saved you twenty minutes! You don’t need to leave now!”

“I should really be setting a good example, getting to practice early.” Shane’s laughter bounces around the kitchen, sweet if it were not accompanied by the act of him throwing his gear bag over his shoulder, starting to toe off his slippers in favor of sneakers.

He studies Ilya for a long moment, who is definitely not moping in the face of failure, because failure would imply he was trying to do something here, which he wasn’t, not at all, he was literally just—he was up! He was awake early! It’s such a production for him to get out of bed and trudge towards the bathroom that he couldn’t fall back asleep, so it just, you know, it made sense! It was really nothing, nothing at all for Ilya to help his boyfriend get ready for his day.

Ilya stacks his crutches beside his hip, presses his palms on the counter behind him, shoulders only slumped a little because he’s not upset, really, and tucks his chin over his shoulder as he turns to pout at Shane, “What?”

“You can put your bottom lip away.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ilya goads, pushing his pouted bottom lip out even further.

“You know, maybe you’re right,” Shane nods, meandering oh so slowly back towards the island, “I should eat before I go.”

Success! Or—a happy total coincidence. Because Ilya didn’t plan any of this.

“Yes, yeah, I can make you whatever you want.”

“Yeah? Would you? Thanks,” Shane lilts sweetly, “Though, I gotta warn you. I’m pretty specific.”

“Anything. Anything for you,” Ilya assures, tracking Shane’s body until he’s pressed almost directly in front of him again. One of his hands slots on top of Ilya’s on the counter. The other hovers somewhere around the elastic waistband of Ilya’s sweats. Ilya gulps, “Breakfast is, you know, historically, the most important meal of the day.”

“Mm. Twenty minutes?”

“I’m a good, I mean—I can be—” Ilya gasps a little when Shane’s hand wanders, and his lips attach to a spot right behind his ear, “I can be faster.”

Shane’s laugh is honey-sweet and drips down his whole body deliciously, his quick, insistent kisses following straight down with it, “Oh, I know you can.”

Jackie: This shit is disgusting. No wonder Hayden thought I was trying to poison him this morning.

Ilya is finally finishing up putting away the ungodly amount of appliances it took to make Shane’s disgusting juice away, a task he put off for hours and is only doing now because Shane should be getting out of practice any minute. Jackie’s apparently a glutton for punishment, because not only did she clearly lose today’s point, but she’s insisting she can’t let the juice “Ilya forced her to try” go to waste and must give Ilya live updates on every awful sip.

Ilya: Dont do this to yourself. you must have some plants somewhere that need fertilizer.

Ilya sees her laugh at the message while he pushes the blender back into place on the counter, then a few more messages roll in.

Jackie: Rigged in your favor.

Jackie: Also don’t you have a brand deal with this company?

Jackie: I call cheating

Ilya: No. An old teammate did. offloaded all their extras

Ilya: So this is just. using my resources

Jackie: Right 🙄

Ilya: Wait

Ilya: How do you know what brand mug I put Shanes juice in?

The typing bubble floats up on screen for a minute, Ilya swinging the damp dish towel around his wrist while he waits impatiently.

He’s finally greeted with a picture of Shane smiling shyly through Jackie’s open car window, his empty blue tumbler tucked in the crook of his elbow.

Jackie: Can’t believe he doesn’t have a hot boyfriend to personally pick him up from practice :( This is so sad. An absolute tragedy.

Despite the fervor in which he texts back, Ilya can’t stop smiling.

Ilya: Talk about cheating

Ilya: You know i cant drive

Jackie: Using my resources!

Ilya: 🖕

Jackie: Be ready in twenty we’re coming to get you

Jackie: Family dinner at our house

Jackie: Bring me one of those offloaded mugs and you can have the point

“C’mon, you can do better than that, Hollander.”

“This is,” Shane pants, “An unfair interference.”

“Terrible form. You’re not even getting all the way down.”

“Yes—yes, I am,” Shane’s voice doesn’t even have the decency to shake, because he’s ridiculously ripped and well-trained and conditioned and full of lung capacity. He sucks in a deep breath as his elbows bend, and those, thankfully, do shake a little.

“Then how come I haven’t gotten a single kiss?” Ilya’s head tilts enough that one ear presses into the workout mat, the other wide open to catch Shane’s long suffering sigh.

“You’re an asshole,” Shane laughs his way into another imperfect push-up, “Since when is that how—hm. How working out works?”

“Since we started working out together,” Ilya tsks, because obviously. Ilya was here, face-to-face and sprawled directly under Shane’s body on the floor of his living room, to be a good workout partner. Supportive. Helpful. Motivating, if you will.

He winks, terribly, his whole face going with the motion.

Shane sputters, shaking the bead of sweat over his upper lip directly onto Ilya, “That’s not what we’re doing.”

“No, because we cannot call your sad excuse for a plank right now ‘working out’,” Ilya grins, not entirely fair. The position he’s put them in makes a real, good push-up quite impossible. Shane’s arms are definitely too wide, his feet too close together. Doesn’t give him much room to get down, if any at all, before their chests and noses bump together.

But Shane’s not making Ilya move.

“What would the fans do if they knew the great Shane Hollander could not even do a push up?”

“I can do—” Shane’s indignation wheezes out of him in a grunt as he lowers his body down, slowly, then—he smacks a kiss, to what Ilya’s guesses was aiming for his lips but lands a little off-kilter, half on his cheek. He heaves his body back up, “Fuck you.”

“When it’s time for cardio, yes. Of course.”

“Oh my god,” Shane sighs, but he does it again, punctuates his push-up by meeting Ilya at the bottom with a kiss. Ilya is giddy. His best scheme yet.

“Think of the muscle you will build if you hold it down here long enough to make out with me!”

“Not a chance.”

“We’ll work up to it,” Ilya nods rapidly, agreeing. Shane kicks him in his good shin, a silly little shift of weight where their feet are side by side, but he stays happily caged in up top, Shane’s hands resting just above his shoulders. “Little kisses are fine today. Aim for my nose next.”

“You’re insane.” Shane aims for his nose.

“Mm, again,” Ilya hums, accepts the teeny-tiny peck Shane gives him when he comes back down. He is so cute. Ilya’s boyfriend! Cutest man on the planet! And simultaneously the hottest, strongest, most skilled hockey player currently on the ice! Emphasis on currently. Expect an edit here next season.

These sort of opposite physical traits—his disciplined athleticism and unrestrained affection—do not coexist naturally, however, which Ilya learned the hard way two days ago when Shane retreated to his gym during some perfectly good cuddle-with-your-boyfriend-on-the-couch time.

This is a problem. Mainly because when Boyfriend Shane gets cute, which Ilya has learned with his new vicinity is always, all Ilya wants to do is be all over him. And hockey captain and back-to-back Cup winner Shane Hollander does not have time for this.

So fine. Ilya can get creative.

He waited a day to dispel suspicion, because Shane is too brilliant (strike three, really. Shane being so hot is going to start becoming a problem, because Ilya has eyes.) It was a long day of saving all his ogling for after business hours, but it’s Ilya’s cross to bear. You may hold your sympathies.

He bravely sustained himself on just three measly pre-practice kisses until Shane got home, exercise endorphin happy, and knew it was his time to strike. He lured his creature of habit boyfriend into hanging out and watching a movie with him with the compromise that he was allowed to drag a workout mat to the space between the couch and the TV in the living room and work out at the same time.

Ilya is a genius. And a fan of the tight, enclosed space between and underneath Shane’s shoulder blades.

Problem solved, he thinks, as Shane now dips into worse and worse push-ups every rep, pretending to begrudge it, but Ilya can taste the amusement on his tongue. He can be well-disciplined and athletic right here, where Ilya can be all over him and come up with new words for cute, because it’s stupid only one exists in English. They can both multitask. Because Ilya is considerate like that.

“How many of these do I have to do before you get what you wanted out of this little stunt and go back to your movie?”

“It’s cute that you think I was ever watching in the first place, Shane.”

Shane shoots up on straight arms, squinting between Ilya and the TV behind them rapidly, “You were excited to watch this!”

“You were a foot away from me doing squats.”

“We paid, like, twenty dollars to rent it.”

“And I hope none of it goes to anyone in this,” Ilya gestures best he can with the hand on his chest to the screen, “Terrible actors."

“Rose is in it.”

A pause. A full five seconds Ilya counts, which is just, a very good core building exercise for Shane, so. You’re welcome.

“You asshole,” Shane says, finally, the hold on his laughter collapsing but not his body. He holds himself up, and Ilya almost purrs into the mat beneath him. His Shane. His Shane. Look at him!

His biceps bulge and Ilya barely restrains the urge to bite.

“Repetitive.”

“Well it seems to go in one ear,” Shane starts stoic, kissing the bottom of Ilya’s left ear lobe, but loses it on the second push, giggles smattering across his face as he comes back for the right, stays down long enough to nibble a little, “And out the other.”

“See? This is working.”

“It’s not.”

“A million more!”

“No, Ilya.”

“Why? You cannot count that high?”

“Do you need me to repeat, again?”

“If you say it like you said the last one, sure. It will help you with your million goal. I will start count for you, ready? One…two…”

“Holy shit,” Shane exasperates, “I’m definitely in the double digits by now, at least.”

“Fine. A thousand?”

“You can’t count that high.”

“One hundred,” Ilya glints, “Final answer.”

“If you’d shut up for two seconds I’d be close to that by now, probably, but you keep being—”

“Asshole, yes, I know,” Ilya rolls his eyes, feigning offense, “But I get kisses so. I can live with the title.”

And now Shane is rolling his eyes too. Ilya can’t complain. Shane’s eyes always look wonderful, but the light from the worst movie ever—or maybe okay, Ilya couldn’t tell you, remember—catches them the way they move now in their annoyance, a little sparkle on the edge of bright brown irises, almost lost to his wide, interested pupils.

They’re so close together laying like this, by design, but it’s still a small thrill when Shane doesn’t move, plays along.

It’s an honor and a privilege to be so close to Shane. In all senses of the word. For English, it’s not such a bad one. Close.

There’s always new parts of Shane to notice, to memorize, to love. And yet he still feels starved for it, knows his own eyes are flitting around obviously and rapidly to find his next favorite little bit of Shane that he’ll be closer to than anyone else. He hones in on his lashes—the longest, most beautiful wisps that curl almost all the way up to his brow, but there’s one on the corner of his right eye that points a little askew, like it’s always waiting to wink at Ilya. He gets, not quite a dimple, but something on its way to one when he half-smiles, like he is right now. Pink crawls up his neck, but only the top tips of his ears get bright red. And when Ilya tries to have a coherent thought about his cheeks—

“Do you know how many freckles you have?”

It’s barely more than a whisper, after maybe a beat too long of lovesick basking, but Shane doesn’t seem to mind. A smile lights up his face and he answers, voice pitched just as low, “You know, I can’t say I’ve counted.”

“Shane Hollander, this is a very disappointing day to be a fan,” Ilya admonishes, hand reaching up at the awkward angle he can manage to cup Shane’s face, thumb running right under his eyeline, “First I learn you have weak push-up form. Now you don’t even have the decency to know each and every single one of your freckles personally.”

“I think we’re well enough acquainted," Shane says, squirming a smidge as Ilya’s thumb continues to trace his freckles and his other fingers happen to tickle behind his ear, because he’s so, so, so fucking cute! “Stop that.”

“They are so perfect and beautiful, they deserve better. You should really know.”

“Could you—” Shane can’t focus. “You should really know that’s ticklish.”

“Probably a hundred,” Ilya continues, the pads of his fingers purposefully featherlight and goading. Shane shifts and huffs and giggles and giggles and giggles. “A hundred little kisses.”

“Alright—” Shane puts his weight into his right palm so he can grab Ilya’s busybody wrist with his left and bends them back and up and around so they’re pinned on his back, out of reach of tickling.

Shane’s maybe having a moment not unlike Ilya had a second ago, with the scrutiny he can feel in his stare for a second here.

He wonders what he sees.

Doesn’t have to wait too long to find out when Shane quickly expels all the air haughtily out of his lungs in one blow, making the flop of hair over his forehead sway, then bites his lips together, like he’s parsing out his next play.

And then—

Look. The last solid, eh, five minutes of train of thought has definitely made what he’s about to think very, very clear. Repetitive, like the use of Shane’s favorite term of endearment.

But Ilya is sure they could wipe his brain clean slate tomorrow, and he would somehow still know two things: Shane is a fucking good athlete, and Shane is fucking cute.

So no, no surprise there. And yet, he’s here, swallowing a gasp.

Shane’s whole face lights up, giddy shy smile, a mismatched determined set to his brow to go with it, as he pushes down on just his one arm left on the floor by Ilya’s head, and lands a smacking kiss on Ilya’s nose, then pushes himself back up, without once moving the hands from behind his back, or breaking even a singular fucking sweat.

An immense show of athletic strength. Used to deliver the cutest kiss.

Shane smiles some more, like he didn’t just do the hottest thing Ilya has ever seen.

“Wow, wow, wow,” Ilya cants, catching his breath without having moved a muscle, “One-handed.”

“I might not count something impossible to quantify in my spare time,” Shane says, all nonchalance. “But I can do a fucking push up.”

“Is what you have me for, sweetheart,” Ilya says, “I count, you push up.”

“You mean kiss?”

“Yes. You will do one for every freckle. Good compromise since you can’t count to one million, yeah?”

Shane glares, “You’ve got thirty seconds before I switch to abs.”

“You will do as many as I can count in thirty seconds.”

“That’s right.”

Shane smiles into his first push up, two handed again but lips puckered, exaggerated, good sport to a fault.

”You know, maybe I changed my mind,” Ilya posits. He places a kiss to Shane’s cheek before he can get his own in, and yelps a delighted, “One!”

“Oh my god,” Shane repeats, cycling through the next of his four favorite phrases, which assures Ilya he is doing a very good job at being a boyfriend today.

“Two, three,” he mumbles against Shane’s cheek in rapid succession when he returns, tries to hold him in place for a messy, “Four, five, six!”

“You’re not counting for real.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Well if I’m sacrificing form, the least you could do is not half-ass it,” Shane huffs, which turns into a ticklish laugh when Ilya pecks several more kisses on autopilot, “I’m kinda intrigued to know now. And that was eleven, by the way.”

“You are so perfect.”

“Fifteen. You never seem to have this problem with numbers when you think you’re beating me in points—”

“Because hockey is the worst sport in the world and it makes it hard for me to see your freckles when we play,” Ilya says, kissing him three more times. “I can count fine then. But now, impossible. My brain is mush. Can’t focus.”

“You shouldn’t have introduced me to a fun numbers exercise if you were gonna quit before we started.”

“You cannot be strong and sweet and smart all at the same time, Shane. Now my brain is mush and woozy. Enough. Have mercy on the sick and injured.”

“Twenty-fucking-four,” Shane grits, cutting off Ilya’s continued kisses that pepper his poor freckle count between every word. “And I think it’s quite bold of you to joke about medical problems when I am the only thing standing between you and an emergency room.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I will cart you and your barely healed concussion out of my house so fast, Ilya—”

“Doting is also not allowed. Bad for my terminal heart condition,” Ilya says flatly, getting a hold of Shane’s face with both hands, and kissing slowly on either side of his nose, “Twenty-nine. Thirty.”

Shane nuzzles into his hand, giving away any semblance of annoyance he pushes into his next eye-roll, “If that heart condition has my name anywhere in the title, I swear to god—”

“How did you know? In Love With Shane Hollander-itis, chronic. Hmm. Strike two on being smart,” Ilya admonishes, patting Shane’s cheek with his palm twice, “Is a very good thing I already reached my thirty second cut-off and we have to stop, switch to abs.”

Shane glares like everything Ilya has just done and said and probably even thought has penalty box written all over it.

Then future hall of famer Shane Hollander with a perfectly curated exercise regimen, impeccable work-out form, enviable discipline, and textbook levels of training that they practically teach to every rookie that hits the ice, does just about the worst push up in the world.

He falls completely out of it, directly onto Ilya’s chest.

Both audible ‘oof’s that are pushed out of their chests are covered up by pitter-patter giggles and Shane licking into Ilya’s mouth the very first second he can.

He kisses wildly, curling into every crevice of Ilya’s body comfortably on the floor of his living room, credits rolling on Rose’s very terribly expensive movie, only coming up to get the air to growl, “Fuck my abs.”

Ilya is having his winningest season yet, he thinks.

“Cardio it is.”

There are few upsides to having to lug himself alone to his doctors appointments, but getting to think “God, I need a cigarette,” and there being no one around to stop him from pulling the box out of his pocket is, at least, one.

Ilya all but runs out of the building once the receptionist gives him the okay, having successfully scheduled his next waste of time for two weeks from now, and all he wants is to stand in the already cool fall air and smoke. When he pulls his phone out with no new calls or messages, and the reminder that he has to get an Uber to get himself back to Shane’s, he doesn’t see a reason why he shouldn’t. No rush, no one waiting for him. He hobbles around the corner of the building, finding the most privacy he’s probably going to get in the middle of this city. It’s an awkward fumble to get the lighter out of his pocket around the stance of his crutches, jacket pulled tight as he can across his chest, but he manages.

The appointment itself was benign enough. There’s not really much he can do yet, the full leg cast still firmly in place for a few more weeks. But he feels wrung out all the same, all the complicated feelings he has around this whole situation being forced up against his will. There is enough distraction from all of it in almost every other sector of his life, right now. But he can’t escape it here, startlingly alone for the first time in weeks.

Hence, cigarette. Desperate times.

Ilya huddles closer to the wall, checking once again that he’s obscured from the main road’s view while he bites a cigarette between his lips, and fumbles once more with the lighter.

He’s staring the gravel of a mostly empty side-parking lot, and the chipped yellow paint that’s supposed to be on the curb, and he’s going to fucking cry if he can’t get this thing fucking lit in the next thirty fucking seconds.

He’s probably going to cry anyway, he thinks. Fuck.

Doctors ask so many fucking questions, things that have nothing to do with anywhere he was injured. How is he feeling and how is he sleeping and does he like Canada? How are his new teammates he has been avoiding? Is he resting? Getting around wherever he’s staying fine? Which, where is he staying, by the way? Does he keep in touch with his Boston teammates? Are the painkillers still helping? Is he taking them with food as instructed? How’s his family he’s staying with? They heard in the Centaurs press release—have they always been in Canada? Just checking again, that he’s enjoying Canada so far? And hey, he’s friends with Shane Hollander now, right? What’s that like? Are the crutches still comfortable? A good fit?

Ilya fumbles around for answers in there with worse precision than he’s having right now, the lighter still not fucking lighting.  

“Fucking hell,” he curses out loud to no one at all, banging the back of his head against the textured brick wall in frustration, face scrunched painfully.

It is strange, Ilya thinks, that he is so upset that he’s alone right now. It is exactly as he would have wanted it a year ago. Is that all being in love is? Knowing you can do everything alone and still spending all your energy on uselessly wishing you didn’t have to?

It might not be any easier, or smoother. He thinks this stupid fucking lighter that he’s still trying to light is probably never going to, and not for his lack of skill, but it would be better, so, so much better, to be here with a defective lighter and no good answers to questions if he was with—

His phone rings so loudly and suddenly he drops the lighter.

“Shit,” he mumbles, trying to toe it back over to him with his right foot while he bends at an awkward angle to get his phone out. Ilya doesn’t want to think about what he’ll do if this is just the doctor’s office calling back with another fucking question, because it would put him on a list surely, but he braces himself as he flips the screen over to see the caller ID. All his weight goes back into the wall and his crutches, sighing, “A sixth fucking sense.”

Ilya picks up, his stupid smile going nowhere as he tucks the phone to his ear, “Hi, Shane.”

“Oh my god, is that the greatest orthopedic surgery patient in the greater Montreal area?”

“Shane.”

“Coming in with a perfect check-up record, an impeccably well-kept cast, and timely paid medical bills, it’s the one, the only, the no longer concussed legend of penthouse D, Ilya Rozanov! Ahhh! Ahhh! And the crowd! Goes! Wild!”

“Is cute, you practice that?”

“Hayden’s currently looking up where the tallest building in Boston with a publicly accessible rooftop is, but that feels unrelated,” Shane says flatly, making Ilya’s smile unputdownable. The foreign loneliness pulses like a second heartbeat.

“How is it?” Ilya hums, “Boston?”

“No, no, I called you, I get to ask first,” Shane shushes him, “How was your appointment? Did I time it good? You’re just leaving, right?”

How he tried to time when Ilya would be finished is beyond him, but it is wildly endearing, and wildly Shane, and somehow very accurate, so Ilya has to fight to sound unaffected, “A couple minutes ago. Was fine. Nothing new.”

“No news is good news, right?” Shane perks, “Wait, shit, are you on your way home already? You said a couple minutes?”

“No, no, I uh,” Ilya fishes for the words, because his boyfriend’s middle name is lie-detector, “I’m still here, outside, I mean. Getting some air.”

“Put that cigarette out right fucking now, Ilya.”

“There is no cigarette!” And it’s not even a lie, Ilya thinks, staring dejectedly at the lost cause lighter. He physically can’t bend down to get it like this.

“Getting some air?”

“A lot to see in this parking lot, you know? Scenic!” Ilya defends, “I am trying to assimilate. I heard this is the national pastime.”

“Bothering your boyfriend from a thousand miles away?”

“God bless the loons and the maple leaves,” Ilya taunts. He presses the phone between his ear and shoulder, turned slightly away from the parking lot now, like he can tuck Shane away from the rest of the world. He is just Ilya’s right now. “Okay, my turn. How is Boston?”

“Kind.”

“Kind?”

“A surprising lack of asshole here right now.”

“Ah, not entirely true. My favorite asshole is there.”

“I can’t figure out if that was sweet or gross,” Shane’s voice prickles, and Ilya can picture the face that goes with it almost perfectly in his mind. The second best thing to having Shane physically here is knowing exactly what it’d be like if he was.

“Depends on if you switch this to a video call so I can see—”

“Hayden is literally in the room, Ilya.”

“To see your beautiful smiling face!” Ilya snarks, proud of the double-whammy blush on Shane and annoyance on Pike he has surely produced. “Tell Hayden Boston Lily is being a bitch and needs to see you. I’ll order you an Uber and text you the door code.”

“The door—what?”

“If you’re worried about dust, don’t. Svetlana stays there all the time, takes good care of it.”

“I’m sorry, you still own a house in Boston?” Shane balks, incredulous. Ilya can hear the rustle of sheets, like he’s getting up from the stiff hotel bed to pace. “Why—what? What? The same house you’ve always had?”

“Well I didn’t buy a new one.”

“No, you definitely haven’t,” Shane huffs.

“I was too busy going to extra doctor’s appointments because my boyfriend consulted Doctor Google and learned what a pulmonary embolism is.”

“You have metal rods in your legs, Ilya.”

“But if you went and stayed at my house tonight we could talk about something else being in me.”

“Only you could use a life threatening medical condition that I’m worried sick over you developing as a segue into a proposition for phone sex—no, no, Hayd, we’re—one sec.”

Ilya hears the loud thud of a door, followed by the softer thuds of Shane’s jog on thinned-out hallway carpeting. When he finally speaks again, there’s a slight echo, like he’s found a stairwell, “Are you deflecting for fun or did the doctor say something you’re not telling me?”

Ilya smiles, “World’s best lungs, I promise.”

He thinks of all the ways he can keep Shane on the phone, especially if illicit sex in his old house is off the table, because he knows it’s the only thing keeping Shane from doing another WebMD doom spiral.

“Well now I know you’re lying. I can smell your cigarette breath from here.”

“I literally couldn’t get the box out of my pocket, Shane.”

“So you admit it? You were trying to smoke?”

“I’m going to change the locks. You can’t come home.”

“You know, maybe I’ll take you up on that offer, make sure I clear out every cigarette in your house before you pack up to sell.”

“You think I left any there?” Ilya says, switching into something low and adoring when he continues, “I wouldn’t be out here trying and failing to smoke if I didn’t miss you so much.”

“Okay well, that one was just sweet,” Shane’s voice sounds all smiley-soft now too, “And true, I think. Haven’t seen you smoke since you moved in.”

“I miss you a lot less now.”

“I think I miss you more,” Shane says, his deep breath trickling in over the phone. “Everything between Boston games was always bad but this is…”

“Yeah,” is all Ilya can think to say, swaying his weight between his wobbly crutches, “Yeah.”

The doctor’s appointment on the day of the Boston-Montreal game had been Ilya’s latest stroke of genius, because now at least Shane being in his old city without him wouldn’t be the worst part of the day. Thank you, nosy ass Sherry at reception.

There are so many things he wants to ask Shane, but they all get caught somewhere in his throat. How is the weather? Did they replace the stop sign by the arena yet? Is that sandwich place still open a block away from that stop sign? Do sandwiches travel well on planes? How about that bar, the one they’d go to after games? Is it a good Dunkin day or a bad one? Is there traffic? Does the city sound the same? Smell the same? Does he have mail? Is that ad they did a few years ago on bus stops gone? Has he bumped into anyone who has asked about him? How is his favorite EMT? Security guard? Is Boston exactly as he left it? Has it gone on existing without him? Has Ilya really vanished into thin air the way he feels like he did?

He is no better than his doctor, really, the way his mind swims and swims and swims, conjures up more inquiries than he has the words for. Shane being there makes whatever the feeling is a little harder to dodge, a little less abstract, because nothing in the world feels realer to Ilya than Shane.

“Alright, enough sad talk,” Ilya clears his throat, “How was the flight? You ready for the game?”

“Fine. Was just packing up my bag, actually, we’re gonna head over soon, I think,” Shane says, “Don’t know why we need to be there so early. No big, scary players left on the team to need to warm up extra for.”

Ilya smiles, “I never knocked you out on the ice. Remind Marly I still know where he lives.”

“Big and scary.”

“Did you eat?”

“Don’t really love how you’ve flipped my check-up call,” Shane laughs, “But yes. Lunch was good. Nobody has any ginger ale anywhere here though, but I’ll live, I guess.”

“Ah, not nobody. You know exactly where there’s a whole ice cold case available for you.”

“In your house? What is it, eight months old? No thanks.”

“Ginger ale doesn’t expire.”

“Yes, it does.”

“Not the special, magical version I have that makes boring Canadians fall in love with me.”

“How many boring Canadians have you tried it on?”

“Mmm, two. But I told Hayden he couldn’t divorce Jackie, I like her too much.”

Shane’s laughter echoes brightly, warms Ilya up better than anything he could have done with that useless lighter when it slips through the phone and onto his skin, “Asshole.”

“You’re right, I was getting off topic. So you and my favorite asshole, go to my house—”

“I’m not sexting you,” his voice drops into a warning whisper, “Before a game, from a bed that probably smells like Svetlana.”

“Ah, you are still jealous.”

“I’m not.”

“Shane.”

“I’m fucking not.”

“She only borrowed a t-shirt once, and it was old Boston Raiders one that I know you won’t so much as look at, so, you’re safe.”

“I’m gonna kill you before your lungs ever get the chance.”

“It’s your lucky day. I can’t bend down to pick up the lighter I dropped when you called, so,” Ilya sighs, kicking at the lighter in question absently as he says it, “Last call for Uber and door code. I’m about to order my own home.”

“I don’t wanna sleep in that bed without you.” Shane is resolute, assured. Ilya’s stomach twists, thinking of the big empty bed he’s preparing to go home to. “And don’t, I uh. I got you a ride.”

“Really?”

“You’re not the only one who can be sweet sometimes,” Shane says. Ilya can hear the shrug that goes with it, like his sweatshirt rubs against the wall he’s leaning against. “I feel bad I missed it.”

“Was just a check-up, Shane. No big deal, I did nothing, seriously.”

“Yeah, well. I don’t know. I don’t know,” Shane’s voice trails off listlessly, and Ilya knows it goes straight into his head, a deep, deep spiral, because he knows Shane, but doesn’t know how to stop it like this. He wants to touch him, to unwrinkle the crease between his brows he gets, but he’s down a lighter and up a few hundred medical bills on the sidewalk of a random Canadian shopping mall, and Shane is in Boston.

Shane speaks again after a long beat, “Did you want to stay here?”

Ilya bites at the chapped skin on his bottom lip, “What?”

“In Boston,” Shane clarifies, worriedly, “I’m probably over thinking it, but I just—you still have the house here, and probably doctors you like better and friends with addresses you know and—and maybe I pushed—”

“Shane no, no,” Ilya asserts, “I wish you were here.”

“Because I left you alone.”

“Because I don’t wish I was there,” Ilya says, surprising even himself with how strongly he means it. “It really is a very nice parking lot.”

“Shut up.”

“I wish you could nag me about lung health while you pick up my lighter, and insist it’s not that cold but keep your hands in my pockets when you go to put it away, and drive me home the whole way not even a smidge more than five below the speed limit,” Ilya explains, not worrying about choosing his words carefully. The feeling swells up in him so organically. “If I was there I’d be stuck alone in a house too big for me, just waiting for you.”

He’s more and more sure, as he sees so clearly in his head how today could have panned out here with Shane, or there, that it’s not Boston itself that he misses so much.

Loneliness is a little better, Ilya thinks, when you know who you’re feeling it for.

“I’m still waiting for you. Probably the only thing I’ll be able to do until you’re back,” Ilya admits, “But this is the only place in the world I can wait, and still see you everywhere.”

Shane sighs so loud the sound tickles the hair behind Ilya’s ear, “You poetic fuck.”

“Okay, you caught me, I lied. I found time to squeeze in some Shakespeare between missing you,” Ilya beams. “I’m confused about a lot of things, but not this, not you. The house is—was just bad timing. I meant to sell it, and then I didn’t, and then I broke my leg, and had to get a new job.”

“A new job?”

“Cheering for the Metros from your couch.”

“You don’t cheer for us,” Shane snorts.

“I cheer for you. Jackie’s teaching me,” Ilya says, “And even more tonight. I heard Boston already gave up my number.”

“That poor rookie who got it. I can probably get away with calling spitting in his face an act of mere muscle memory.”

“Look Shane, if you’re really not going to send me a picture of you shirtless from the bathroom you have to stop being sexy and defending my honor.”

“You’re still outside your doctor’s office, Ilya,” Shane laughs, “Which, speaking of inappropriate time and place for your crude conversation starters, I can’t give you an exact ETA on your ride because it’s on Hayden’s phone, who I had to flee.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I knew I’d be on the phone with you, but I should have known—whatever,” Shane miffs, “It’s a blue car. Big, so your leg isn’t squished. You’ll know it when you see it.”

“Okay,” Ilya says, turns back to face the parking lot, looking for a big blue car. He considers this might not be the best place for a rideshare pick-up, still sort of hidden around the corner, but he’s too content in the bubble he’s created with Shane back here. “I can stay on the phone until I’m home. I know you worry I’m going to lose a fight against the stairs.”

“We have a perfectly good elevator. And I’m allowed to worry.”

“You are,” Ilya says, swallowing down the insane urge to thank him for it.

It’s quiet for a while. Ilya can’t count Shane’s breaths like he usually can when their long-distance phone calls lull into this, because the world keeps on existing right around him. A car horn honks, gravel rumbles under a turning tire, a store doorbell chimes, wind rustles the last leaves on a tree. Ilya doesn’t vanish.

“I miss you so much, Ilya,” Shane whispers, “I miss you so much it hurts.”

“Where?”

“Hm?”

“Where does it hurt?”

“I don’t know, it’s an expression, like, I don’t know,” Shane’s forlorn whisper gets a little uptick, so minuscule only Ilya could parse it, but it is Ilya who hears it, and Ilya only. He pushes the phone insistently into his ear like he can get Shane closer, catch every other little inflection, “All over, I guess.”

“Where is it worst?”

“I don’t know,” Shane repeats, a giggle in earnest now. Ilya keeps poking to earn himself another.

“Pick someplace,” he goes on, seriously.

So just as seriously, Shane answers, “I don’t—my elbow? I guess?”

“Oh my god I love you so much.” It rushes out in one long syllable, and thank god Ilya had the foresight to prop himself up against something while waiting.

“What’d I do? I picked a place! You said—”

“Listen very carefully, okay? This is very important,” Ilya manages through nauseating waves of wanton affection. He’s holding a hand over half his face and he’s sure his smile is still visible from outer space. “I’m going to kiss my phone. You take yours and put it on your elbow, hold it until it feels better, yeah?”

“Yeah, okay,” Shane says, “And because I love you so much too I’m not even gonna point out how many germs your phone screen probably contracted being in a doctor’s office.”

“Big of you,” Ilya gushes, then makes a show of kissing as loudly as possible over his phone speaker so Shane can hear it. “Alright, elbow up.”

“Thank you,” Shane replies, voice a little more echoey, so Ilya knows he’s been put on speaker. “Feeling better already.”

“I had ginger ale for breakfast, so, yes, I am magic,” Ilya chirps, his eyes shutting contentedly, picturing Shane in a stairwell, tongue peeked out in concentration as he tries to get his phone to balance on his elbow. “Maybe if you let me give you two extra phone kisses for your hands you might score—”

Ilya’s eyes snap open when a familiar voice yells loud and annoyed enough to dispel his quiet Shane-induced trance.

“Three laps around this stupid parking lot when I should have known to just come straight to the sketchy back alleyway!”

“Jackie?” Ilya’s smile makes his cheeks ache. She’s pulled her car up directly in front of him, almost on the curb, and is rolling down the windows in the back seats to follow hers. “Wow, everyone—what—what are you guys doing here?”

“Very important pre-game errand,” Jackie explains, “Which is melting the longer you don’t get your butt in my car. Seriously, this is a weird place to brood, Ilya. You’re in between a shoe store and a vitamin and supplement shop.”

“Your—um, sorry. Shane said,” Ilya starts, takes his phone away from his ear and gestures it towards Jackie like she’ll understand what that means. “I’m supposed to be looking for—”

A blue car with a spacious backseat.

A specific description that he figures Jackie’s dark blue minivan may fall into.

“You are my ride?”

“I was gonna make a little Uber sticker for the bit but we needed a full half hour to agonize over what your favorite flavor of ice cream may be,” Jackie taps the top of the doorframe through her open window, then nods to the backseat.

“Do you like cookie dough, Ilya?” Jade screeches, straining to lug a flimsy plastic shopping bag over her head. 

Five people. Ilya was about to cry on the curb of a strip mall parking lot because he wanted to have just one person here with him. Shane sent him five.

He shifts the phone to his other ear, holds it with just his shoulder scrunched up so he can start maneuvering over to the car. To Shane, he coos, “You are sneaky.”

“I said I got you a ride,” Shane smiles. His voice is close again. Elbow must be all better. “I know it’s just, just a check-up or whatever, but I really, really wish I was there, Ilya. I hate the thought of you alone, and not because I’m worried, just because I love you, and I want to be with you for everything.”

Ilya’s heart somersaults.

“Plus, Jackie and Hayden’s house has a lot less steps, so,” Shane admits, sort of shy, “But that’s like, second to the loving you part, of course. A happy, secondary coincidence.”

“Mm, speak for yourself,” Ilya says, letting Jade trap the whole of his upper body in a lopsided hug, the bag of ice cream slapping against his shoulder, “You are low priority now, Hollander.”

It’s a bit of an exaggeration, sure, because this is Shane he’s talking to, but not as much as Ilya ever thought it could have been. To be practically swallowed whole by love in the form of Ruby’s giggles and Arthur’s insistent high-fives and Amber’s affront at not receiving his full and undivided attention immediately.

Ilya is really no match for any of it at all, and melts the second Amber gets a hold of his hand and doesn’t let it go, “Jackie, I hope you weren’t looking for company up there.”

“I had a feeling,” she rolls her eyes up at him in the rearview mirror, “C’mon, get in. I’m afraid of not getting a five star rating from Mr. Hollander.”

“He is a tough customer,” Ilya smirks, trying to coax Amber out of one tiny, minuscule second of non-contact so he can clamber in. He squeezes into the middle ungracefully, what with his unbending cast, and ends up shoulders squished between car seats. But his legs are stretched comfortably in all the leg-room between Jade and Ruby’s middle row seats, because Shane is perfect and thoughtful about things like this. “I hope you gave him the carpool discount.”

“We have Ilya, Uncle Shane. Jade’s helping him buckle,” Ruby, who pickpocketed Ilya’s phone in the shuffle, holds the screen up to her rosy cheek and takes over.

Ilya is quickly amused by her half of the conversation, hearing her tell Shane assumedly about her day at school, their trip to the grocery store, throws in something about how Shane and her father have to win tonight. He settles comfortably as Jackie pulls out of the parking lot. His useless medical team could ask triple their million set question, and they’d still have never figured out how to prescribe him anything this right, he thinks, one arm on the top of Amber’s seat and kissing delightedly all over her giggling face.

“So,” Ilya yells up to the front of the car, “Ice cream purchase before the game? You are quite confident, no?”

Jackie shrugs, like it is the easiest thing in the world, “A one time thing.”

“Is that so?”

“Boston really doesn't have anything going for them anymore,” she smiles, peeking over her shoulder, hand on the opposite headrest and chin propped on her forearm to look right at him when she says it, “The way I see it, we win either way tonight.”

Ilya thinks he might know the answer, but he asks anyway, “And why is that?”

“Because you’re here, and not there.”

“Ruby, can I have my phone back for one second?” Ilya leans forward. “I have to tell your Uncle Shane something very, very important.”

“I can tell him for you,” she guards the phone protectively. It contradicts Ilya’s goal here, but it is very sweet how much the kids adore Shane.

“Are you sure?” Ilya asks, “It has to do with how I love him sooooo much.”

“Ugh, Ilya!”

“And all the kisses I’m going to give him when he gets home.”

“Now you made Uncle Shane start talking about kissing too,” Ruby falls over in her seat, distressed. Shane must be laughing on his end too. She flings the phone back in Ilya’s direction like it is the sole harborer of cooties, “Gross.”

“Don’t scar the children,” Shane says, when the phone is back in Ilya’s hands.

“You started it.”

“Did not.” Ilya thinks about switching to FaceTime, just to be able to see his pout. Ultimately decides against it, because he is sure whatever his face does when he lets Shane know he did start it by being sweet and considerate and knowing Ilya better than anyone ever has will indeed, scar the children.

“Maybe,” is what he settles on. “Did you catch any of that or should I worry about making Ruby vomit before ice cream when I repeat?”

“No, no, I’m gonna let you go,” Shane laughs, “Just wanted to hear your voice one more time.”

“Really?” Ilya piques, “You’re hanging up? You don’t need to worry about me the whole way home anymore?”

“I mean I will, you know me,” he answers, sighing softly against the phone, “But I know I don’t have to now. That’s enough for me.”

Ilya looks down at the palm of his free hand that Amber has commandeered, and smiles.

“Yes. I am in very good hands.”

“Would you believe me if I said I miss him?”

Shane’s staring right at him.

Well, at the reporter that’s questioning him, if we’re being technical, but Ilya knows.

He knows Shane put on a sweatshirt that is a little too big on him in the shoulders because it’s not really his, plastered on a smile that to the unknowing eye can be mistaken for nothing more than his polite, post-game press demeanor, and starts speaking directly to Ilya, and Ilya only.

“Raiders didn’t give me a lot to work with tonight, without him,” Shane says smugly, half-smirking and arms crossed over his chest. “But no, our win has nothing to do with Rozanov, or the lack of him.”

“Oh my god,” Jackie cackles from the opposite end of the kitchen island, spooning celebratory ice cream into five and a half bowls, “How is he so polite and so not at the same time?”

“He did not learn it from me,” Ilya says, in charge of sprinkles but unable to tear his eyes off the screen in front of them.

Jackie glares at him.

“He didn’t! I am polite only, very sweet,” he replies, Amber punctuating his point by smacking her sweet, syrup-sticky hands on Ilya’s cheek. “Press loves me. That's why they’re asking about me even though I am gone.”

“Sure, that’s it.”

“I look forward to playing some good hockey whenever he’s back, in Ottawa,” Shane continues, still smirking like he knows he’s got Ilya actively ignoring dessert, “And my thoughts are with his friends and family who have to deal with what a joy I’m sure he is bedridden.”

“This is your fault,” Jackie insists, slinging bowls across the countertop. Though her words say otherwise, she looks positively tickled pink by golden boy Shane Hollander’s rogue press run.

The internet’s going to have a field day. And he’s sure the league is thrilled, having found a way to keep their rivalry alive without Ilya playing, and even in light of their new, tentative public acquaintanceship. Shane delivers it all so casually, so smug and smart and attractive and confident and yes, polite, in a way only he could.

Ilya has never liked mandatory interviews so much.

The reporter cuts back in, “Was a good win though, two beautiful goals. Anything you think did contribute?’

”Sure, I don’t know, I mean, a lot of things. The usual,” Shane starts, the timbre of his voice returning to his usual post-game line delivery, just a little brighter. Maybe Ilya’s imagining it, but he doesn’t think he is. He looks loose, free. He goes on for a minute or two, talks about new lines and teammates and the importance of good assists and whatever. It’s all white noise to Ilya, shoveling spoonfuls of sugar into his mouth while he watches, transfixed.

But then Shane’s gaze focuses again, right on Ilya, he’s sure of it, and he flashes his most delicious smirk yet.

“Oh, and uh, I’ve been testing out a new workout routine,” Shane says, “Push-ups, if you’ll believe it. Went back to basics. Never underestimate the power of good form.”

And then he winks at the screen.

Ilya’s dreams and reality have become so similar these days that sometimes it takes him a second to figure them out.

This one could go either way, as usual.

Sunrise light flickers across the sleep-warm mattress that he feels a slow, gradual dip in, blanket tucked up to his chin, and Shane settling in beside him. If it were a dream, the blinds he knows he forgot to shut before falling asleep last night would have magically shut, so point for reality. But he was so bone-deep tired after Jackie dropped him off that he remembers mourning his favorite blanket left on the downstairs couch, but he’s pretty sure it’s on now, so that’s more dream. Shane is, unfortunately, a useless data point. It’s always good to see Shane, awake or not.

So when Ilya asks, it is less for clarification, and more out of excitement, “You’re here?”

“Yeah,” Shane says, just loud enough for Ilya to hear over the rustle of a pillowcase, “Got an earlier flight.”

Hm. A dream.

“We were s’posed to,” Ilya croaks through a yawn, “Me and Jackie. We’re gonna get you from the airport.”

“I’m already home.”

“I made a sign,” Ilya explains. He thinks he means to get it to show Shane, very proud of his work. It’s propped up against the bedside table, Ilya just has to reach behind him, but he doesn’t think he gets that far. He’s very wrapped up.

“What’d it say?”

“Welcome home,” he blows through his lips, petulant, eyes still shut. They’d roll if he could open them. He’s so warm. “Jackie vetoed my ‘must have scored two goals to enter car’ sign, because apparently we can’t leave Hayden in the airport.”

“How dare she.”

“And the one I made that said I accept tips for excellent taxi service in the form of handjobs.”

“Did you actually make that?”

“So boring. There’s one with your name and just,” Ilya sighs, trying his hardest this time, he really means it, to get his arm out of the cozy blanket he’s been cocooned in to show Shane the evidence. “Lots and lots of hearts. So many.”

“So many?”

“Probably not enough,” Ilya says, managing one eye open. Shane is bright. Bright and smiley. Nothing to do with the blinds and sunrise thing. “Arthur was creative director of that one, and his knowledge of numbers ends at about ten, but we’d have needed to go in the thousands, probably, to be accurate.”

“You’re blaming this on a three year old?”

“I’m just explaining,” Ilya explains, because he needs Shane to know his artistic endeavors are not a real reflection of him. He’s not a ten heart guy. He loves Shane in a way he doesn’t have the math skills for. Knowing the imaginary number that is equivalent to his feelings for Shane is a dream skill, for sure, and his mind is blank, so. That’s another point in the “really happening” column of evidence.

“Well since I’m already here, you can add a couple more for my next trip.”

“Yes,” Ilya agrees, and then, like the information catches up to him on a lag, he gets his second eye open, wide and startled, and repeats, “You’re here?”

“I’m here.”

“It’s early.”

“Very,” Shane coos, his fingers tracing the outline of Ilya’s face, “You can go back to sleep.”

“No, no,” Ilya starts to shake his head, then thinks better of it, because it may dislodge Shane’s hand from where it’s resting on his cheek. “It’s too soon. For flight.”

“Got an earlier one.”

“They rescheduled the whole team flight last minute?”

“Just me,” Shane whispers, pressing his thumb on the crease between Ilya’s calculating brow, “So you can still go with Jackie to the airport and show off your signs later, if you want.”

“You just said you are already home?”

“You’re so cute when you’re sleepy,” Shane’s breath lilts like a laugh, drops itself on Ilya’s nose. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.”

“I’m wide awake,” Ilya corrects, his eyes slipping closed. Unrelated. “Did something happen?”

“Sort of.” Shane tucks one of his hands under his pillow, a crease already starting to bloom on his cheek. “I didn’t want to be there anymore.”

“You’re here.”

“I’m here.”

Ilya rolls further onto his side, properly face to face with Shane now. He is perfect. All soft lines and morning light. Rumpled. Awake. Here.

“How is your elbow?”

A smile explodes on Shane’s face. “Survivable through the game. But could probably use some touch ups.”

“Yeah?” Ilya says, turning Shane’s arm over in the small space between them, inside up. His shirt sleeve’s already been rucked up beneath his elbow, all skin exposed and ready for Ilya’s taking. He dips slowly to meet it, noses in the crook, “I just realized.”

“Hm?”

“You got in your bed,” Ilya kisses once, twice, peeks up under his lashes, “Airport still all over you.”

“Well, the elbow situation was dire,” Shane reasons, swapping places with Ilya in shut-eye. He snuggles. Snuggles! “We couldn’t both be down a limb.”

“Mmm, true. How would you wash your airplane germ sheets?”

“Well, it’s our sheets on our bed,” Shane says, forehead falling over onto his wrist as Ilya continues his featherlight kiss path, “And you have two working arms.”

“You don’t know that,” Ilya tsks, “You didn’t send me any kisses.”

“Lemme see,” Shane hums, dipping to pull Ilya's blanket up. He peers down, surveys Ilya from tip to toe. “You seem in tact.”

“Easy on the compliments, Hollander.”

Shane chuckles, shimmies himself over so he’s under Ilya’s blanket too. He wraps an arm around Ilya’s waist, presses his ear over Ilya’s chest. He could probably count his heartbeat, dream Shane or not.

It used to get erratically fast whenever Shane ended up on top of him like this. So revealing, he’d think, trying to count in numbers he didn’t know to slow it, to set it back on pace. Now, Shane’s presence does that naturally, calms everything in him.

Shane looks up just enough to kiss Ilya’s chin, “Boston sucks when you’re not there.”

“Everywhere sucks when you’re not there.”

“Then it’s a good thing we’re here,” he nods. “Go back to sleep. Then, maybe, when you wake up, I could make here suck just a little, or—actually, that made more sense in my head, forget it—”

“Was that a blowjob joke?” Ilya's voice is high-pitched, wheezy with joy, “From my boyfriend? Before seven in the morning?”

“Go to sleep, asshole.”

Ilya’s laugh is the loudest thing in the room, his heartbeat slow and steady. He can feel Shane’s little smile against his skin.

Real, Ilya thinks, all real, all mine.

Then he closes his eyes to dream up something similar, but probably not as good.

“I just want both of you to know that no matter your decision, it will not affect how much I love you.”

“I do not want you to know that,” Ilya says flatly, “Shane, if you do not pick mine I will divorce you.”

“We’re not married,” Shane pouts, so thrown by Ilya’s very reasonable request, that his chocolate chip cookie stops frozen, mid-air on its way to his mouth for a bite.

“Small victories,” Hayden sighs.

Jackie throws a dish towel at his head.

“Then I will marry you just to immediately divorce you.”

“That’d probably be an annulment, not a divorce.”

“Seriously, man?”

“Never change, Shane,” Jackie smiles, leaning forward, weight in her palms on the kitchen island. “Alright, reminder, we are currently tied, so—”

“How could you be tied?”

“Jade and Arthur said my cookies were better,” Jackie grins proudly, accepting a high-five from Jade who cannot stop bouncing on the balls of her feet beside her mom. “Ruby and Amber—”

“No way Amber counts!” Hayden protests, arms flailing so wildly he splashes crumbs all over the counter Ilya had just so lovingly cleaned while their cookies were baking this afternoon. This being Hayden’s house is only a technicality. He only got home from practice with Shane twenty minutes ago and Ilya doubts he even knows how to turn the oven on.

“Of course she counts,” Ilya coos into a kiss on the crown of Amber’s head, exactly where she always is whenever Ilya is around, balanced on his hip. “Don’t listen to your dad, printsessa.”

“She can’t form a culinary opinion, let alone say your name to let us know it’s yours she prefers.”

“She says my name all the time,” Ilya disagrees, half-frowning, “See?”

Amber babbles a couple syllables as she reaches for the plate of cookies in the centre of the countertop, which technically has both Jackie and Ilya’s cookies, but Ilya knows who’s she’s going for.

“Sounds like Ilya to me,” he shrugs.

“I mean, it’s definitely not mom, which, we know she knows,” Jackie reasons, breaking off a piece of Ilya’s cookie until it’s basically crumbs and handing it over to Amber’s grabby hands.

“Shane, can you go over the annulment thing again?” Hayden spins on his stool, propping his elbow on the back of Shane’s.

“Let’s just try the cookies,” Shane exasperates, which are maybe the five most beautiful words that have ever come out of his boyfriend’s mouth. Sixth best word will be when he announces Ilya’s victory after their blind taste test.

It is an agonizing thirty seconds. The end of an animated musical is blasting from the living room, Ilya’s still half dressed in the costume the twins put him in to reenact that movie, and everyone except Hayden and Shane, who are the slowest fucking taste-testers in the world, apparently, is running on nothing but fumes and pure sugar.  Ilya knows once they eat his cookie and insist on having eleven more each they will join the delirium, but until then, just their whole side of the island—Ilya, Jackie, the kids—is buzzing.

It has been a very good day.

Would be better if Ilya won this point though. He has never baked cookies before, so he doesn’t even think Shane can cheat and know which is Ilya’s to vote for on sight alone. He’s going to have to operate on blind faith and the power of love (an incredibly pointed and maybe too obvious stare.)

Hayden and Shane try the first cookie, then the second, ruminate on it like Ilya hasn’t seen them eat cold pizza and mushy buckwheat respectively. Their palates are not refined enough for this shit. It’s a fucking chocolate chip cookie. With incredibly high hard cast tally mark stakes.

“God I hope I don’t regret this, because I really like being married,” Hayden sighs, so uselessly dramatic, “But I’m going with number two.”

“Yeah, same, number two,” Shane agrees, “Sorry to whoever made the first one, but that was genuinely the greatest cookie I’ve ever tasted.”

So. Looks like we’re googling divorce lawyers.

“Ah!” Jackie squeals, long and squeaky and annoyingly cute when she pairs it with grabbing both of Jade’s hands and jumping around in a giddy circle, “Point Jackie!”

“Oh, thank god,” Hayden slumps backwards in his stool.

“Alright, alright—” Ilya groans.

“My ego—sorry,” Jackie laughs, fingers to her temples, “My head’s literally not going to fit through the door. I made the greatest cookies Shane Hollander has ever had.”

“I liked them too!”

“It’s more important that Shane liked them, babe.”

“It was reverse psychology!” Shane flounders in defense, but laughter squeaks through his every lying word. He bites his bottom lip in a last ditch effort, “It was a trick! Obviously, I was picking the worse cookie.”

“You cannot possibly think that’s better for me.”

“Maybe I assumed you made them bad on purpose! Because you care about how much I care about sugar intake.”

“You can’t make a chocolate chip cookie bad, Shane.”

“Well, I mean,” Shane gulps, eyes flitting down to his discarded cookies, “I mean, clearly you can.”

“Oh my god.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Shane whines, slithering his body down and across the counter. He tries to grab a hold of whatever part of Ilya he can reach, but Ilya dodges. No, he’s not a sore loser. This is unrelated. He turns around because the overhead island lights are too bright for Amber, that’s all. “Come back, no. C’mon. Ilyaaaaaa.”

“Your uncle is an evil, awful traitor,” he says to Amber, but the act is hard to keep up for more than a second. He’s smiling at Jackie on his left, who is dishing out more winning cookies to the kids and Hayden. There is one very pointedly left for Ilya on a napkin.

“Did you try them?”

“Of course I tried them,” Ilya grumbles, “They are delicious. That is beside the point.”

Jackie cackles.

“I’m sorry,” Shane tries again, stool tipped forward on its front legs so he can tug at the back of Ilya’s shirt. “Best two out of three?”

“I have a feeling Ilya’s going to ask us to bake every day until he wins,” Jackie bets, nudging Ilya to turn around and acknowledge his betrayer.

“I love you,” Shane coos, probably pouting his stupidly perfectly cutely pink lips oh my god Ilya is hopeless. “If that counts for anything?”

“I loved your cookies,” Ruby pipes up, muffled through her mouth full of one.

“That counts,” Ilya nods, accepts her apologetic fist bump, “Shane’s thing, not so much.”

“Hey!”

“So what does Jackie win, after all that?” Hayden asks, unhelpfully. Ilya’s baseline dislike feels like it was broiled in a perfectly preheated three hundred and fifty degree oven. Maybe a little burnt. Like Ilya’s crispy-edged cookies.

“I mean nothing, yet, since we’re apparently in a fight to the death tournament,” Jackie says, smile splitting her face. “Should we have cookies for dinner, or…”

Take one wild guess as to which four people cheer enthusiastically in favor of that suggestion.

“We’ll get out of your hair,” Shane says, legs of his stool grating against the tile as he pushes up to standing. “Thank you for the—”

“No, no! Don’t go!” Ruby cries. “I needa show you guys my new helmet!”

“She would not show me until you were here too,” Ilya leans towards Shane, whispers.

“And Uncle Shane hasn’t seen Moana yet!”

“Yeah, Uncle Shane,” Hayden teases, “You haven’t seen Moana. How will you survive?”

“Let us feed you, at least,” Jackie offers, “As an apology for the quickie divorce.”

Shane is skeptical as he rounds out the side of the island, settles a hand by Ilya’s hip and quirks one brow, “Are you sure?”

“He’s trying to figure out how serious you were about the cookies for dinner thing,” Ilya hums, fluent in Shane and willing and ready to translate.

“Pleaseeeeee,” Jade whines, “Tell them they have to stay, Mom!”

“I can make Boring Chicken.” Jackie faces them, hip to counter, arms crossed over her chest, like Shane does not challenge her. She’d be insane in a hockey rink. “And we can have a sacrificial burning of Ilya’s cookies for a win-streak.”

“Okay, wow,” Ilya yelps, almost inaudible over all the laughter, especially Shane’s, hot all over his skin, “Maybe I don’t want to stay now.”

It is a mostly empty threat. The Pike kids and/or Jackie say jump and Ilya asks how high, plus Shane looks more delicious post-practice than Ilya’s cookies did (bad metaphor, maybe, but he is still reeling from the loss, let him have this) and seeing the three seconds he had Arthur in his lap before he got squirmy was the closest thing to a religious experience Ilya’s had in a hot minute, so if Shane’s in for boring chicken, like hell Ilya’s disagreeing.

But it is a nice touch, in the end, that Amber makes leaving very impossible.

She babbles something that sounds a lot like Ilya, so loud and insistently that everyone in the house stops. Even Moana buffers.

“Was that—”

“No, nope.”

“I think—”

“My beautiful, brilliant little star,” Ilya bounces her on his hip, his crutch almost slipping out from under his opposite arm in all the excitement.

“No, no,” Hayden shakes his head, “She said Lily.”

“Same thing,” Ilya brushes.

“Worse thing.” Shane goes bright red.

So of course, Amber holds her crumby hand right up to Ilya’s cheek, and says it again.

Jackie’s cackle sounds witch-like, and she’s scrambling for her phone.

“I can’t believe one of my daughter’s first words is your secret hookup name for Ilya Rozanov, dude.”

“Take it back! Take it back!” Shane is laughing, tickling under Amber’s chin, “Say, Uncle Shane!”

“Too many syllables,” Ilya lilts, “Try again with next niece.”

“No more nieces.”

“We’re gonna burn your Uncle Ilya with his cookies,” Shane grumbles, pretending to chomp at the rolls of Amber’s forearm, earning him another gaggle of giggles. He steals her from Ilya’s arms, and takes off towards the living room. “C’mon, let’s see these new helmets!”

There’s a flurry of kids that chase after him, heading for the stairs Ilya’s not allowed to use up to their bedrooms, and Ilya is sure if he didn’t have his crutches under him, he’d have collapsed under the weight of the giant cartoon hearts that replace his eyes.

Jackie’s still laughing, “So. Glad divorce is off the table.”

The world will try to trick you into thinking that Shane Hollander looks his best on the ice.

It’s important you don’t fall for it.

Ilya might have too, a while ago, so this isn’t judgement, just, you know, a fair warning. You’ll watch Shane Hollander on your TV screen for years, unable to track the puck because he skates so well, so fast, and with such clear precision. You’ll listen to the way commentators can’t help but practically sing about him, so enamored, in awe, really, of the way he moves. How easy he makes it look. You’ll let replays go on loop and not even care, just play his stunning breakaway over and over and over and over and—he’ll get points off assists other players could have never managed, he’ll barely break a sweat, he’ll grin over the camera like it’s not there, he’ll shrug his way back to the bench.

He looks so good that it's become objective fact: Shane Hollander belongs on ice. There can’t be anywhere in the world he looks better. Impossible.

But Ilya moves in with Shane Hollander, and instantly knows that everyone is wrong.

It is better to watch than any game, Ilya thinks, the way Shane comes home. Shane always slips in quietly, no matter the time of day, and drops his game bag or practice bag or shopping bags or whatever bags he has by the door, then he unties both shoes, one at a time. He is slow as molasses. Ilya melts into the couch cushions where he watches.

His keys go on a little hook that didn’t exist a month ago, and hadn’t that been a revelation? Shane Hollander takes out a toolbox, red tin with a little silver handle and all, and marks out a spot to drill a small hole in the wall to hang a hook, two hooks, because Ilya needs one too. Not an ounce of hesitation.

What would they do if they knew Shane Hollander, no-nonsense hockey player, skips down his stairs? If he sees Ilya from the top, sitting on the couch waiting for him, his whole face lights up and he coos. A sweet little surprised “Ilya!” like he’s just so happy to find him in the only place he could physically be. He hops and skips, one foot after the other, all the way down, like he’s humming a tune he shouldn’t know.

Shane likes lamps. They’re all over the house and he looks like he enjoys the rote process of walking through and turning them all on when they need them, turning them all off before bed. He yaps to Ilya the whole time. He reaches behind him, doesn’t even have to look at the lampshade to know exactly where to twist a dial or pull a string. He waits for a kiss when he’s done, like a reward.

But he saves hundreds on electric bills, Ilya is sure, by smile alone. They don’t need anything on very much with the way Shane’s always brightly grinning.

He’s out of milk. Smiles. He’s gotta get to six AM practice. Grins. Ilya’s hair is all over the sink. A little scolding at first but it’s done through a lopsided smirk.

“I love you,” he whispers, for no reason at all, mid-sentence.

He’ll be talking about the stuff he has to pack for his next week long road trip. He’s mumbling under his breath, “Socks, toothbrush, glasses,” tossing things in a little bag that’s all worn and frayed at the edges and he just, like it’s an item in the list, looks at Ilya and hums, “Love you,” and keeps going. “Don’t let me forget those ugly fucking Reeboks. And don’t tell my mom I called them ugly. Fuck, you’re gonna tell her, aren’t you?”

Ilya gets winded worse than he does when he’s chasing Shane on the ice.

Shane Hollander is a patient player, un-showy in a way that gets him set up for good points where they matter. Shane Hollander cannot wait three fucking seconds for his tea to cool down.

His glasses fog up. He can’t wait to take a sip of his sleepytime tea, which is the cutest thought Ilya has ever had run through his brain, so his vision clouds, and he doesn’t ever remove his now useless glasses because he thinks it’s more important that Ilya likes them on. He does, of course, but it’s ridiculous. Ilya’s heart does somersaults when Shane sticks just the tip of his burnt tongue out, trying to blow air onto it, and not even getting to see what he looks like because his glasses are all steamed up.

Shane takes them off this one time, just the once, traces little hearts into the condensation, then puts them on Ilya. His laughter makes the tea splash out of the mug.

So really, Ilya just needs to be sure you know, you can’t let them trick you.

Shane looks best here, right here, in a warm and cozy home that he put together for Ilya with nothing more than pure, unfiltered love.

He wipes down the counter after making dinner from only the side opposite the stools. He’ll lean half his body over, all the way on his toes, arm almost out of its socket just to reach everywhere from exactly where he’s standing. Ilya awkwardly sit-slides from stool to stool, following Shane down to catch his hand and kiss it.

“This is so messy,” Shane giggles, can hear his feet kick the cabinets behind him because he’s all body across the counter top. He doesn’t re-clean it.

He stands on the arm of his couch to change a lightbulb. He waits in the doorway of his giant walk-in closet just to give Ilya time to hobble over and try to discard all the Metros merch he’s waiting to put on. He leaves clothes scattered around the apartment, wherever they land, when he’s impatient to get Ilya’s hands all over him, but for no longer than four hours. He has Ilya’s appointments and schedules taped to a cabinet because his fridge isn’t magnetic. He researches magnetic fridges.

Shane is last off the ice after a game. He’s a good sport. Kind, polite, empathetic. Everyone knows: there is nowhere Shane Hollander would rather be.

He gets his first speeding ticket in that first month Ilya lives there, trying to get home from a game.

“What are you looking at?” Shane grins, knowing exactly what Ilya is looking at, across his kitchen table, and still getting it wrong. He rips the top page of his little notepad he’s scribbling in off and keeps it, slides the whole thing over to Ilya. “You live here too. If you want something added to the grocery list, just say it instead of trying to make me read minds.”

He kicks the leg of Ilya’s chair as he gets up, now without a pen and in need of one to finish his sorting and couponing and listing. He leans over Ilya when he makes it back, hands on either side of his shoulders, chin pressed into his curls, and sees that under the “To Do:” heading, all Ilya’s written is Shane Hollander.

And Ilya hasn’t even talked about all the new places and ways he’s seen Shane physically look good. He towels off so thoroughly after his showers and yet still always misses a spot. He walks around shirtless. He walks around in Ilya’s clothes. He doesn’t walk around at all, stretched and sated and flushed in his bed. He doesn’t kick Ilya out when he wants to watch the 20 minutes it takes him to get his hair to sit right.

Sometimes Ilya makes it downstairs early enough before Shane’s turned his headphones off after a run, and he gets to watch the way the sunrise hits him just right, from the huge windows Shane probably cleaned the night before. They’re Ilya’s favorite, if you were wondering. Can you believe he’s the kind of guy who has favorite windows?

He eventually can’t stand it, slips into Shane’s space, steals one headphone to put in his own ear, and he didn’t think Shane would be listening to anything as enjoyable as music, but surely they made hockey podcasts. He is delighted to be wrong, just this once.

“Dobroye ucho,” Shane says, accent stilted wrong around the vowels, but so enthusiastic. He slinks back, head falling onto Ilya’s shoulders, voice pressing into his skin before his lips do, and his Russian lessons are quickly forgotten.

He is so beautiful, Ilya thinks, in every second and in every way.

It’s a word they don’t usually use for him. Ilya would know. There isn’t an article or interview or fluff piece or stupid reddit thread that’s been done on Shane Hollander that Ilya hasn’t seen.

He’s sharp, and clean, and focused. He’s smart, and skilled, and precise. He’s a great player to watch. He looks good. Those are the words they like to use, and that must be why they’ve got it wrong.

Because if they saw the way Shane looks when he’s home, they’d see no ice time will ever compare.

Shane stops in the doorway on his way out, grabbing his key from the hook he put up. Ilya’s key almost never moves, except for when Shane spins it, habitually, on his way out, smiling to himself, like Ilya can’t see it. He toes on his shoes, hems of his favorite game day slacks perfectly tailored, a whole top two buttons undone on his shirt that he’s not gonna fix. He curses at his watch.

“Okay, I really gotta go, shit,” Shane’s chin tucks shyly, twisting his upper body to show off. “How do I look?”

Ilya smiles, “You have never looked better.”

“Do you guys have the New York game on?”

“Do you?” Ilya can feel his brows shoot all the way up to his hairline, doesn’t even have to look at the tiny rectangle in the bottom corner of the phone screen for proof. “I will have to rethink this friendship, maybe.”

“Shut up, my friend Mel is there. You remember, the one I told you about?”

“Yes, yeah, Mel is…” Ilya trails, poking out of frame to swing the fridge door open quickly, and so Jackie can’t see his confusion, “Yeah, sorry, no fucking clue.”

He can hear Jackie’s laugh through the phone, feet away from where it’s propped up against the back of the kitchen counter backsplash for the optimal recipe-following view.

“You’re too likable, it’s exhausting. Can’t keep your one million friends straight.”

“You’re dramatic,” she tuts, then asides, “Your oven’s preheated?”

“Yes ma’am,” Ilya salutes, oven mitt that matches his apron held above his forehead cheekily. He squints at the next batch of ingredients she has laid out on her end that Ilya will mirror. “Tell me about Mel while our Boring Chicken gets boring-er.”

“She just texted asking if I happened to be watching so I could try to spot her on TV, which is proof I’m not keeping up with her as much as I should be. Otherwise she’d know I’d never happen to be watching a New York game my husband and Shane Hollander were not participating in,” Jackie explains, wordlessly starting to chop.

“Why is she at a New York game your husband and Shane Hollander are not participating in?”

“Dumped an old left-winger of ours a few years ago and moved there for work,” Jackie pouts a little wistfully, “She’s the coolest person I know, reminds me of you.”

Ilya blinks, tries not to let his cutting board slip. He means to snark something back about how she can’t be that cool, or that similar to Ilya, if she went from a Montreal fan to a New York one, but all that comes out is a too soft and revealing, “Yeah?”

“My very first WAG friend, so please promise me you will also gush this ridiculously about me one day.” Jackie just laughs, mercifully, then keeps directing, “I don’t see enough garlic chopping happening over there, sir.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Ilya apologizes, tries to get back on task, “I can tell Shane to put it on. Least offended by Scott Hunter out of all of us, probably.”

“You talk about Scott Hunter an awful lot for someone who claims to dislike him,” Shane appears, sidling up against Ilya from behind. His fingers splay at the hem of his shirt insistently, soft and sweet immediately post-shower. He smiles down at the camera, “Hi, Jackie.”

“My favorite hockey player! Who I love to talk about a lot!”

Shane giggles into a kiss under Ilya’s ear, right there, in front of Jackie, where she can see it happen. Shane kisses Ilya. Two or three times, easy.

If he didn’t think it might actually add some flavor to Boring Chicken (actual name of the recipe Jackie has made up and is currently trying to teach to Ilya, he swears) he’d be worried he’s become so stock-stilled with happiness that all the food’s going to burn.

“Go away, was supposed to be a surprise,” Ilya hums, not really nudging Shane anywhere. He lets Shane slink to the side of his hip, hand in the front pocket of his apron idly.

“No, this is so cute.” Shane gestures between Ilya and his phone. “Is he being a good student, Jacks?”

“The very best, actually,” she promises. “Chicken in the oven, my star pupil.”

Well, now he does, regretfully, have to scooch Shane a little out of the way. He hangs back against the opposite counter so Ilya has room to crouch a bit and open the oven door. But one peek over his shoulder, and Shane’s downcast eyeline at Ilya’s bend doesn’t seem too upset about it at all.

“You just going to stand there?” Ilya quips, “Jackie and I were in the middle of something.”

“I guess I could go watch Scott Hunter instead of you, if that’s what you really wanted…”

Ilya throws a tuft of flour at Shane’s chest.

“Ogling actually does make the food taste better, scientifically. It’s the most important lesson I’ll ever teach you, Ilya,” Jackie says. “Lemme catch Shane up, if he’s staying. I was just saying Mel is at—”

“Mel!” Shane perks, snapping open a can of ginger ale Ilya had left for him, “Oh my god, I loved Mel.”

“You know Mel?”

“See,” Jackie brandishes her stirring spoon, “Not so hard to keep track of my friends.”

“How is she? And her—she had a dog, right? Like, Cooper, or something?”

“She’s moving to Boston!” Jackie squeals, unable to keep her excitement contained even a second longer. She doesn’t even comment on how Ilya is currently butchering this onion. “That’s why she was asking about the game, it’s her last one in New York.”

Shane pushes a drop of ginger ale off his lips and his smug smile into place with the back of his wrist, “Is she looking to buy a house, by any chance?”

“You haven’t sold your house?” Jackie gasps, maybe finally noticing his onion hack job.

“Don’t get him started,” Ilya tuts, “What do I do with the parsley?”

“Not important right now—I told her,” Jackie continues, “That I may or may not have recently come into possession of a Boston resident who would love to give me all his tips and tricks to pass on.”

“Of course,” Ilya answers. "Though my recommendations may be a little out of date. I was not there much last year.” He put a lot of miles on his cars and his airline rewards programs, back and forth to Canada whenever he had a minute. Now, he complains when Shane’s in the shower too long while he’s cooking dinner. What a privilege.

“Ooh, what was the name of that one place we always ordered from?” Shane snaps, trying to remember. “And there was this florist he’d get me flowers from, every time I visited—”

“You buy Shane flowers? Regularly enough that you have a florist?” Jackie coos, nose pressed almost right up against her camera, “We gotta kill Hayden, I think.”

“Best idea you’ve had tonight since you suggested Boring Chicken.”

“It is Boring Chicken?” Shane perks, his quarantine to keep from distracting Ilya very short-lived as he immediately comes back to rest his chin over the back of Ilya’s shoulder, “I thought it looked like it, maybe, but I wasn’t sure.”

“I thought you guys were kidding when you called it that a few weeks ago,” Ilya says.

“Shane doesn’t kid about Boring Chicken.”

“Hey, respect to Boring Chicken. Jackie made it the first night they ever had me over. It’s literally the reason I’m friends with Hayden.”

“When I say you’re my favorite, I always mean it. It’s not to kiss ass after making fun of Scott Hunter,” she blows a kiss at the screen. “Okay boys, twenty minutes in the oven. I’m gonna text Mel back, then I can tell you what to do with the parsley.”

Ilya lets Shane fuss over the mess he’s made of the counter—knew he wouldn’t be able to resist for longer than a few minutes, but it’s much more a comfort than any sort of nagging nuisance. Shane likes his mess. Can’t wipe the smile off his face while he wipes it all away.

Twenty minutes will pass and the chicken will come out dry and boring and he’ll forget to do anything with that onion because he’s too busy staring at Shane, but it doesn’t really matter.

“Tell her she’s gonna love it there. Boston’s pretty great,” Shane says, “Even if we took the very best part with us.”

“We sure did,” Jackie agrees, the perfect sprinkle on top of an already perfect thing.

“How do you think I’d be at knitting?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Knitting,” Ilya yells, trying to project his voice up and out of the bathroom. He’d heard Shane get home from his run a minute ago, which means he’s probably grabbing clothes in his room now. “Google says crochet is sometimes easier for beginners because you only need one hook, but knitting sounds fun, and I’m good with my hands, no? There are lots of beginner kits I could try.”

“I’m so confused.”

Ilya sighs, scooting back further on his perch atop the bathroom counter, “Knitting, you know—you take the yarn and the needles, make loops, stereotypically for old ladies—”

“I know what knitting is, asshole,” Shane finally appears, neatly folded sweats in hand and a smile sitting pretty under his flushed cheeks, “Why are you knitting?”

“Maybe not,” Ilya shrugs, “You still did not confirm, my hands…”

“Stop fishing for compliments.” Shane takes a step inside, and the room gets warmer. “What are you doing in here? Thought for sure you’d still be in bed. After last night.”

“Now who’s fishing for compliments?” Ilya winks. He tracks all of Shane’s easy movements, still thrilling him a little, even after years, to see him so unfazed by Ilya’s casual presence. Ilya waves the phone he’d been scrolling on and continues, “Wanted to shave before you got home, got sidetracked. I’ll get out of your way after you answer the knitting question.”

“Answer mine first,” Shane laughs, placing his clothes beside Ilya. They fall a little into the sink, but he doesn’t make Ilya move. “Why the fuck are you knitting—er, sorry, contemplating knitting?”

“I need a hobby,” Ilya shrugs, simple.

He’d made massive strides in finding ways to fill up his non-hockey and non-Shane days with things unrelated to hockey and/or Shane, but staring down the barrel of a two-week stretch of Montreal away games, the longest Shane’s been away since Ilya moved in, is another thing entirely.

“And you went with knitting?”

“I also thought about pottery, maybe painting. Little crafty things. I bought a Lego.”

“Oh, you’re gonna hate that,” Shane grins, moving to rustle around in one of the drawers for, um, something. Ilya is not sure, isn’t sure of much outside how the squat to do it makes his ass look, really. “But works out for me. What else?”

“Might start a podcast. I have a lot of useful information about how to woo your archrival.”

“Mm, says that again,” Shane coos, dipping close to Ilya, nose to nose. He’s looking at his lips, of this Ilya is certain, but the view is so close it makes his eyes look shut, his lashes wispy and wooed.

“What? Woo?”

Shane grins into a kiss, a little peck that Ilya quickly makes filthy. Literally. He licks a hot, messy stripe up the side of Shane’s cheek.

“I truly don’t understand you,” Shane says, understanding perfectly that he needs to angle his head to the side so Ilya can mouth out of his neck, so. Liar. “I’m sweaty.”

“Yes, is the point, moy krendel.”

“I don’t know that one.”

“Pretzel,” Ilya says, licks a lingering salty drop of sweat on Shane’s jaw.

“Wait a second, wait a second,” Shane pauses Ilya’s ministrations with one hand on his chest, the other on his own temple. He squints his eyes shut, “I gotta remember this one. I have a feeling you’re gonna find more creative ways to use it other than for salt content.”

Ilya loves this man so fucking much.

“Alright, enough? Can I shower now?” Shane nudges, slowly backing away.

Ilya groans as they separate, keeping their pinkies linked until the last second, but does twist to start looking for his razor, the reason he came in here, “Not too hot. The mirrors fog and I can’t see where I’m going, I’ll shave off an eyebrow.”

“What if you just,” Shane strips his shirt first, then leans in to twist the shower on, avoiding eye contact pointedly, “What if you didn’t shave?”

“Oh?”

“Shut up,” Shane flicks a spray of water across the room, starts stepping out of his pants, “I’ll be gone for two weeks. That’s a waste of a clean shave.”

“Is it?”

“It’ll be nice when I’m back.”

“You like beard burn, Hollander?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“This could be a good hobby,” Ilya preens, “Grooming.”

“Maybe your hobby could be shutting the fuck up.”

“When knitting doesn’t work and I move on to learn musical instruments, the first love song I write you will be called that. Shut the Fuck Up, Asshole, all your favorite words.”

Shane’s silence from somewhere beyond the already steamy shower door indicates he is biting back saying some iteration of those exact words once again. Ilya grins as he flops backwards, head hitting the mirror and legs swinging.

“What instrument, you think? I know I haven’t gotten a straight answer about my hands—”

“Because you’re not looking for a straight answer, you’re looking for a very, very gay one, and I don’t need to stroke your ego.”

“Could stroke—”

“Ilya.”

“Guitar! I will stroke guitar,” Ilya exasperates, picking his phone up to scroll again. It’s already hard to see, since Shane never listens and likes to scald the top layer of his skin off via water temperature.

“Pretty sure it’s strum. You strum a guitar. And you’re gonna buy one, for what? For a hobby you’re going to give up in three weeks when your cast comes off?” Shane asks. “You did make that appointment, right? And you told Jackie about it?”

“The twins are planning a really beautiful memorial service,” Ilya smiles, phone and razor swiftly discarded in favor of tracing over all the little doodles he’s collected over the last eight weeks.

Longest eight weeks of his life. Also the shortest. It feels like a million years have gone by since he got this lopsided rainbow Jade gave him, but also just yesterday Amber made the first break in the clean white with a surprise squiggle. The Jackie that had looked mortified enough to throw away every washable marker they owned is so far removed from the one he knows now, the thought alone almost makes him laugh. Pretty sure Jackie is responsible for half the shit he’s tracing right now. A game of tic tac toe, a grocery list, a blood oath promise not to watch the new episode of a show she got him hooked on without both of them present.

He can’t believe it’s going soon. He sort of thinks sometimes the hit was worse than it was, that he still hasn’t woken up, but then he looks at all of this, all this tangible proof that Ilya Rozanov was here, and he knows there’s no way he could have invented all this good on his own.

It feels monumental even if it really can’t. He does need a hobby. He’ll still be here, just with a new ability to bend at his left knee. And Shane will still be gone for weeks at a time.

“How come you never signed?”

It takes Shane a second to realize Ilya’s talking to him, which, fair enough, but eventually, “Signed what?”

“My cast,” Ilya laments, eyes still roving the colorful scatter, “I am such a big fan, Shane Hollander. Would really love your autograph.”

Shane wipes away a circle of condensation on the shower wall just big enough for his left hand’s middle finger to be visible. Ilya is going to go so lovesick boneless that he’s going to need eight different casts in replacement.

“Trust me, you don’t want it. I have such an ugly signature,” Shane gruffs. “You know I signed someone’s hat once and they tried to give it back?”

“No.”

“Yes,” Shane’s laughter fogs the little window he’d made back up. “I used to practice, which is so embarrassing that I can’t believe I’m actually admitting it to you, of all people—”

“I love your handwriting.”

“You know I’m gonna blow you the second I get out of here, you don’t need to lie—”

“I’m serious, I love the way you write,” Ilya reaffirms.

He thinks about how he’s caught Shane tracing words into his skin in bed at night, the poster from some charity thing they did way back when they were young all-stars that Ilya kept just to admire how Shane looped his L’s, the way he still practices his lettering by copying bits of notes Shane leaves around the apartment. Shane can’t even see him right now and it still feels too revealing.

He jokes instead, because the sound of Shane’s laugh is always good, safe, “Forgery. That’s a good hobby. I’ll add to the list.”

“Crimes don’t count as hobbies, Ilya.” He can hear the click of the shampoo bottle.

“Then you should really sign my cast.”

Shane won’t, is the thing, in fear of having to explain that one away somehow, so he doesn’t know why he’s insistent on asking.

Well. That’s a lie. He knows exactly why he’s asking.

The stupid metaphor writes itself. His dull, empty, white cast of a life before, suddenly exploding into color. It’s breathed new life into him, to be here, all the little pieces of him settling into place, whole again. Ilya can’t wait to get the thing off so he can do things like stand up for more than three seconds and join his boyfriend in the shower, but it is nice, he thinks, to see the evidence of how good his life has become. It just feels like Shane should be on there too. He’s where all the bright bursts of color grow from.  

There are weird things you don’t realize you’ll have to learn to keep to yourself when you fall in love.

“I’d just ruin it,” Shane finally answers.

“You can always blame it on Amber.”

“It doesn’t make me feel any better to compare my penmanship to that of a one year old, I hope you know.”

“Well I love that one year old a lot, so it should,” Ilya smiles.

Shane, because he is perfect, peeks his head out from around the side of the glass door, and smiles back.

He’s going to get cold in three seconds, away from the spray of the scalding hot water pressure, so Ilya has to be quick. He rushes, but says it plain and simple, “I don’t know how much clearer I can be, Shane. It’s just not possible. To ruin, I mean. I love your name.”

“I love yours.”

“Worst part is that I’d only get to keep it for a few weeks, that it’s not more permanent.”

“Are you—” Shane sputters, blinking. He can barely be heard over the thrum of the water hitting the tiles behind him. “Was that a proposal?”

“I think I’m a little more romantic than that, Hollander,” Ilya grins, but his thumb slides over his knuckles reflexively anyway, and he’s glad he has the way the room is steaming up to blame on how hot his cheeks get. “No, no, tattoo, I was thinking. That kind of permanent.”

Shane nods, soft and sweet and dimpled with droplets of water, rivaling the sparkle of his smile, “Okay yeah, yeah. Can’t have you beating me to it.” He starts to disappear around the door to finish washing up, and then, “Hold on—tattoo?”

“How fast can I get a tattoo gun delivered, you think?”

“Never, oh my god.”

“You are full of good ideas today,” Ilya sing-songs, satisfied, “I have a lot of surface area to practice on in two weeks. Between that and the beard—”

“I guarantee they don’t deliver that kind of thing,” Shane says, because this is, of course, what would bother him. The water trickles off abruptly, and he grabs for his towel.

“You can get anything on the internet,” Ilya waves, tutting as he searches, to piss Shane off just enough to get him horny. “Look at that, found in less than a minute. Good use of my away game tax.”

“Away game tax?”

“Jackie taught me about it,” Ilya explains, glint in his eye, “You ever notice whenever you play the next home game after you're away, Jackie has a very nice, very new, very expensive purse?”

“That’s not—” Shane sputters, toweling off his hair aggressively. “You’re messing with me.”

“I’m not!” He is, just a little. But Jackie did get them some deliciously expensive takeout while the Metros were in Toronto last week, and happily sing-songed “away game tax!” as she punched Hayden’s card in, so. He gets the idea it’s a term he can and should be using every so often to his advantage. “Rich hockey player leaves his wife to take care of the house and kids, all alone. Is the least you could do in return.”

“Sure, if you mean the house I clean, and the like, three houseplants I own.”

“Your sad little succulents,” Ilya pouts, “I must keep them alive so that I can put my tattoo gun on my sugar daddy’s card.”

“Call me literally anything other than that, please,” Shane practically jogs the space between them, towel around his waist. He peers over the top of Ilya’s phone screen, head tilting over to one side to try to make the words less upside down, “But then yeah, get whatever you want.”

“Really?”

Shane nods, starts scrolling himself, “Can I at least read the reviews? Or like, a safety data sheet? This isn’t the black market right?”

“You’re serious?” Ilya puts two fingers under Shane’s chin, because he needs to see his face for this.

“Yes,” he emphasizes, with a little nod, “I mean, I’m not thrilled about the idea of at-home tattooing, and I guess it’s too late for the Lego, but, yeah. Were you not serious about the guitar?”

“I can buy a guitar?” Ilya feels like it’s his first day with the English language, words sticky in his throat. Maybe it’s just a side effect of Shane’s unknowing sweetness.

Shane shrugs, “If you’re between two just get both. You know what you’d probably be weirdly hot with? A kazoo—no, no. A harmonica.”

Shane starts telling this story about having to learn the triangle in middle school because he missed the day they picked out instruments to play a juniors hockey game and that was all that was left when he got back, but Ilya registers only half of the details. Ilya watches this man regularly buy in bulk to save a few cents, throw a pack of new socks he doesn’t strictly need into his shopping cart just because they’re on sale.

But Ilya could order a sixty piece orchestra, apparently, and it’d be fine. Encouraged, even.

The room is cooling down and his body can’t get with the program. He is flushed, and hot, and wet, evidence of Shane’s shower falling onto his forearms, and his cast, and his cheek, like a little happy tear.

“I will um,” Ilya clears his throat, “Thank you. I will probably stick with the knitting.”

Shane pouts, “Are you sure? You got me kinda excited about the guitar.”

“But not a tattoo?”

“Well, I didn’t say all that.” Shane’s fingers walk up Ilya’s exposed right thigh, shorts riding up. “What would you get?”

“Your autograph.”

“Be serious.”

“I am,” Ilya says, slotting his hand over where Shane’s fidgets idly, “I want you with me all the time.”

“Yes, yeah. Me too.” Shane’s eyes glaze over, cloudy with want and shower condensation. He loops a damp elbow around Ilya’s neck and kisses him, soft and sure and slow. “You know, if you’re actually worried about the next two weeks—”

Ilya’s eyes stay shut, his nose bumping into Shane’s cheek, “You’re making me sound like such a sap.”

“I let you stay in the bathroom while I cut my shower down to a perfunctory five minutes just so I’d miss you less,” Shane hums, body swaying with the weight of it. Ooey-gooey, sticky-sweet. True. “So if we’re arguing over sap, I don’t really have a leg to stand on.”

“Ouch.”

Shane shoves Ilya’s cheek with a little pat, “I was just trying to say, Mom and Dad would love to have you. If you wanted company.”

And oh. That’s—hm. It’s probably not on purpose, but the way Shane says that, not my mom and dad, but just. Mom and dad.

“In Ottawa?”

“They could come here, if you’re more comfortable. Actually yeah, probably makes more sense, for your set up,” Shane says. “We have that meeting for the foundation next week, and my mom never admits she doesn’t know how to do video calls, but if you were with her…and the uh, the Centaurs play a string of home games. I could meet up with you guys, after, for a few days.”

“You’ve really thought about this.”

Shane is smiling, and he looks, suddenly, so young. An old conversation echoes through Ilya. He doesn’t know why his thorough thoughtfulness still surprises him.

“And this was before I knew I could use my dad knowing how to knit to my advantage too.”

Ilya is quiet for a minute, and wonders if he can still get away with attributing the wetness collecting on his bottom lids to Shane and his shower. Voice thick, he shakes, “I do not deserve you.”

“The only thing you don’t deserve is a shitty tattoo,” Shane nudges. “The rest of it? Ilya, I’m all yours. Permanently.”

And really, what else is Ilya supposed to do, other than kiss him?

The cast is good, but Shane is better. His fingerprints are smeared over every inch of Ilya’s life, not a spot missing. In every room of this apartment, every time of day, every crevice of scratchy-salted or soap-clean skin.

He is everywhere, always.

“I’m gonna make you a scarf,” Ilya breathes into the sliver of air they give themselves room for, before diving back in.

“Ambitious for your first attempt, no?”

“Maybe, but, is crucial. Very important. Will come in handy,” he says, moving his kisses across his cheek, down his jaw, to his neck, “For when I leave some autographs of my own over here.”

“You fucking asshole,” Shane sighs.

Music to his future harmonica-playing ears.

The room stays hot, and Ilya does nothing more than scratch his stubble into Shane’s soft and willing neck between fits of laughter.

But the feeling lingers, well after they leave the bathroom, after they pick out expensive yarn and put it on Shane’s credit card, after they tend to sad succulents, after they find new ways to use the word pretzel, after they drop Shane off at the airport for two whole weeks. The feeling, tight-squeezed and sweet, stays stuck all over.

That, and, the Love you permanent in Shane Hollander’s messy, looping handwriting on the top of his cast.

“I can’t see!”

“Arthur, you’re squishing me! Mom, tell Arthur—”

“Mooooom!”

“Oh, I do not miss the sound of that.”

“You sure? You don’t wanna keep one? Maybe? Just for a bit? Your pick.”

“Oof.”

“Sorry, Ilya!!”

“All good,” Ilya winces, but tries not to make it sound that way as he gets a face-ful of elbow and an ill-timed toddler knee to the groin. There’s only so much you can do when trying to squeeze eight whole people into one FaceTime frame. “Maybe we should take turns?”

“No!” Ruby screeches, flailing over to keep Ilya’s arms and phone screen firmly in position. “The good luck only works if it’s all of us!”

“C’mon, Ilya,” Jackie nudges, shoulder-to-shoulder, though Ilya’s not sure if it’s voluntary so much as it is squish to fit on the couch. “Don’t you know how a good luck pre-game FaceTime works?”

“You’ve seen Boston’s record,” Shane’s mom purposefully presses closer into frame, arms on top of the back of the couch, “Clearly no experience with it.”

“Mom.”

“What?” she affronts to her son on the screen. Shane’s whole face scrunches in piqued red mortification. Ilya is so pleased.

“I should have recruited you sooner,” Jackie leans her head back for a grin and palm up for a high five.

“You’re at least supposed to be on my side here, Jackie,” Shane bristles, phone voice barely audible over the chaos.

“We’re all on your side.”

“Maybe not all,” Hayden grumbles just off the side of Shane’s shoulder, which earns him the same glare Shane’s mom got. “I thought a little animosity did it for you two?”

“All our children present, by the way.”

Shane’s dad is quick to intercept, in a way only he can, awkwardly over-enthusiastic, “How’s the weather there, guys?” If Ilya hadn’t met the man, he’s sure he’d still be able to pick him out of a lineup, the way so many of the bits of Shane Ilya loves so dearly ooze out of him.

“It’s Florida,” Shane shrugs. Exhibit A.

“It’s beautiful,” Hayden corrects, “Not a single cloud in the sky. Hey, everyone tell Uncle Shane he has to go down the water slide with me.”

“A water slide!!!”

“You have to, Uncle Shane.”

“Are you doing a pit stop at a water park on the way back?”

“There’s one at the hotel pool,” Hayden smirks, arm wrapped around Shane’s shoulder. Shane squirms, clear they’ve been having this conversation since they landed, and trying to resign himself to the fact that now that Hayden's got his kids involved, it’s never going to go his way. “It’s very cool.”

Shane scoffs, eyebrows jumping in offense, “It’s a breeding ground for bacteria and injuries, is what it is.”

“Why don’t we have a slide here, solnyshko?” Ilya’s lips twist to the side, pouted in what he hopes is a cute display of innocent affection. Shane is still bright red, so probably. “Would be better than stairs…with my leg…”

“His leg, Shane,” Jackie yelps in echo.

“Slide might be tricky here,” Shane’s dad reasons, “Shane’s cottage, however…”

“Oh my god.”

“You are a genius,” Ilya points, “Right into the lake!”

“He’d have to update the documentary.”

“We could learn some new yoga poses while we’re at it.”

“Alright, maybe we got back to making fun of Boston,” Shane interjects, trying to wrestle back control of the screen.

“Are you sure, hun? I’ve gotta say, there’s untapped potential for brand deals there,” Shane’s mom pulls her phone out of her back pocket, starts scrolling aimlessly to further mess with Shane, “Let’s see who I’ve—”

“Nobody’s doing brand deals with a construction company, nobody’s demo-ing any building I own, nobody’s going on a water slide before a game—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ilya waves, “You’ll go after you lose—”

“We won’t lose,” Shane scowls.

“Then no need to worry you didn’t pack swim shorts, yes?”

“What’d I say?” Hayden looks between Shane and the phone screen pointedly.

“I thought this was supposed to be our good luck call.”

“Trust me, Shane,” Jackie leans forward over Ilya’s shoulder to try to whisper right against the phone’s speaker, “The alternative is Ruby and Ilya show you their kazoo duet they’ve been practicing—”

“My kazoo!” Ruby screeches once more, climbing directly across Jackie’s lap, then Ilya’s, to try to get to it.

“You know, I think we’ve gotta get to the rink,” Hayden feigns remorse, hissing through gritted teeth.

“We have gotten very good,” Ilya defends, for Ruby’s sake. In all honesty he knows the unit next door being owned by Shane and empty is the only reason he hasn’t been accused of homicide in the past week. They’re still working out some shrill kinks. He pulls her to a stop in his lap, giggling when she can’t get away. “They are just jealous, malyshka.”

The chaos continues to swirl around for a few more minutes, talk about the weather and hotel mattresses and kazoo alternatives. Ilya isn’t sure he’s ever seen Shane so relaxed before a game, so tense-less and buoyant. For the first six or seven years Ilya knew him, Shane wouldn’t entertain a single thought passing through his mind that wasn’t strictly hockey-related on a game day. It was focused, and regimented, and attractive, Ilya thinks, but this is something better.

He’s bickering with his mom about how she’s ruining his sheets by washing them all at once and not on the gentle setting while they’re staying over for the week, and asking follow-up questions to a story Arthur told about the book they read in daycare today that even Ilya couldn’t follow. He’s laughing, his shoulders scrunched with delight at whatever Jackie's just said to Hayden instead of with the weight of a franchise on them. He’s still smiling, worry-less, on the phone with them all, eight people squished down into mere blurry pixels, five minutes after he said they should have hung up.

Maybe there was something in the way a good luck FaceTime call worked.

“I wish I could have gotten a picture of that,” Ilya whispers, once all their good lucks have been passed around, and Ilya has slipped into the kitchen to watch Shane toe on his shoes in his hotel doorway, alone.

“I did,” Shane smiles, just a smidge out of frame and a little hop with the motion, “It’s a terrible screenshot, but I don’t know. All of you guys, I just—I kinda wanna frame it.”

“Good thing you have so much free, beige wall space.”

“Shut up, just because I didn’t decorate with random, meaningless abstract art like you—”

“I can buy a frame tomorrow.”

“Yeah?” Shane’s back in frame, and Ilya thinks about stealing a screenshot of his own. Shane Hollander, smiling, before a game with a water slide on the line. “Take mom with you, please. So I don’t end up with some hideous neon orange frame on my walls.”

“Neon orange?”

“Or something equally offensive to the eye that I know you’d pick.”

“You are so lucky I love you,” Ilya scoffs, sort of off-handed.

But Shane fixes him with a look so genuine and sincere, it feels like he’s teleported all the way back here, just for Ilya to hear it, “I am. I am so lucky.”

“I don’t know. I learned about this good luck thing too late to be of any real help.”

Shane shakes his head, “You’ve seen my record. And my phone bill.”

Shane will never believe this was not his idea, but it will probably be worth it.

“It’s perfect,” Ilya gushes, turning to admire all the new frames Shane’s dad has put up in the long hallway to Shane’s bedroom. “He was so cute, it’s ridiculous.”

“He was, wasn’t he?” Shane’s mom steps in line with Ilya to admire their work, rows of embarrassing baby pictures staring back at them. “Make sure we get a picture of his face when he gets home and sees this, to add to the collection.”

“You are a genius, Mrs. Hollander,” Ilya laughs, “And very fun. He’s going to regret moving me so close to you.”

“If you don’t drop that and just start calling me Yuna, or mom,” she tuts, fussing over getting his sweatshirt to sit right on his shoulders, which has never been possible with his crutches, but she’s been determined.

“Really?”

Yuna nods, “Kind of a blood oath pact we’ve made here, don’t you think?”

“He’s going to kill us, no?”

“That’s why I suggested we print out the nice backups!” David flourishes his part of the work proudly, photos of Shane and his family and his teammates and his incredible accomplishments—and that bad, blurry screenshot—all waiting to go into the frames after all the embarrassing ones currently up serve their purpose. The soapy suds bathtub pictures and terrible yearbook photos are very good, but Ilya selfishly can’t wait to wake up and stare at this Shane, his Shane, the one he has known almost his whole life now, every morning he gets up and makes his way downstairs.

They cannot let David know this though, Yuna hooking her pinky around Ilya’s conspiratorially, “We leave him out of all future schemes, yeah?”

Ilya laughs, “Deal.”

“And for the record, the only thing to regret about your move is that Shane gets all the credit for bringing you to us,” she rolls her eyes, like this is a terrible, horrible injustice, and leans her head on one shoulder, squeezes the other when it wraps around him from behind. “Ugh, it’s so annoying. I’m supposed to be the good idea guy in the family, and he’s made it so I’ll never beat him ever again.”

Ilya is glad they’ve done the only decorating that exists in this apartment tonight, that there’s no mirrors for either of Shane’s parents to catch a glimpse of how watery Ilya’s eyes get. God, his doctors should be focusing on dehydration, maybe.

“I don’t think that title’s in jeopardy. But just in case,” Ilya lilts, leaning into her side even more, “Should we go un-alphabetize his bookshelves?”

“The Montreal Metros are on a tear down the east coast, a three game win-streak and counting, thanks to—no, see, this is where they lose it. It should say, thanks to FaceTime and the sacrifice of Ilya Rozanov’s very bland baking.”

“You’re a comedian.”

“I guess it’s not wrong of them to credit Shane, he did do the honors—”

“Do I really have to?”

“I think we learned what happens when you try to mess with my superstitions,” Jackie’s voice seeps through the gap in the bathroom door frame, “And I’d really hate for you to piss off the hockey gods this close to cast removal.”

“This is pissing me off.”

“Your loss is Montreal’s gain,” she bickers, entirely too satisfied for the situation. Her knuckles rap on the door, “Also mine. And my camera roll’s.”

“Let’s just get this fucking over with,” Ilya bristles, shoving the door open with a harsh and annoyed shouldering, tumbling out into—

“Oh my god, it’s better than I imagined.”

“Shut up,” Ilya groans, immediately bashing his forehead into the doorframe and tugging at the hem of his brand new (snuck out and borrowed from Shane’s closet because he wasn’t giving those losers a single cent!) Metros apparel.

“You look amazing.”

“I have hives.”

Ilya scratches nonexistent grime off the sides of his arms as the kids’ squeals of delight catch up to him. Everyone’s in a disgusting, matching, azure blue. He’s going to vomit.

“You look so pretty, Ilya,” Ruby snickers, facetious like her mother, once they hobble over as fast as his crutches get him back to the living room, posed in front of the TV.

“Blue is your color!” Jade bats her lashes innocently.

“Did you teach them this?” Ilya snaps back, eyes on Jackie, only to produce more giggles. One day these girls will be begging him to help sneak out of their boring dad’s house, and Ilya will remind them of the time they delighted in his abject misery.

“We practiced in the mirror all morning,” Jackie winks, swiping her phone open from across the room. “Okay, quick, quick, everyone. While dad and Uncle Shane are both on screen!”

Jade and Ruby are flanked on either side of him, already gearing up to bunny-ears him, he can feel it. Amber and Arthur can’t sit still on the floor at his feet. The screen is blurry, paused best as Jackie could catch it on Shane and Hayden celebrating, yes, indeed, a win streak. That Ilya’s cookies, and his pride, had apparently died for.

“How do you feel about being on the Christmas card, Ilya?”

“Oh my god, just take the photo.”

“It’s at least going on the fridge.”

“The shirt comes off in thirty seconds whether you get your blackmail picture or not.”

“Alright biiiig smiles!” Jackie cheeses, squinting at her phone screen. “On the count of three, thank you for being a terrible baker, Ilya!”

Ilya rolls his eyes so far back in his head he almost believes that stupid saying about them getting stuck there.

“No? How bout a go Metros?”

“I will remember this,” Ilya warns, “Your closet will be full of Ottawa red and black next year.”

“Looking forward to it,” Jackie winks, “Everyone say, win streak!”

“Sorry, sorry, I’m here!”

“You’re late,” Ruby grumbles, arms crossed over her chest and foot tapping, the spitting image of her mother when Ilya is procrastinating getting out the door for his doctor's appointments. “And not in the dress code.”

“I know, I’m sorry, there was so much traffic by the airport,” Shane skids to a panting stop on the end of the semi-circle that’s formed in the Pike’s backyard. “Hayd’s right behind me, what—hold on, what is this?”

“Just be quiet and put on your mourning colors, solnyshko,” Ilya whispers, hugging Shane to his side in an attempt to wrap his black hoodie around his shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Shane repeats, but this one has a much different cadence. “We rushed home for this?”

This, as Shane’s wild arm gesture points to, is the funeral for Ilya’s cast.

Jade and Ruby’s overactive seven-year-old imaginations really outdid themselves, an elaborately decorated set-up around the little fire pit in their backyard. There are streamers and balloons and bouquets of flowers made out of pipe cleaners and an artistic interpretation of the cast on a large painted canvas, since even their beautiful, perfect little pleading eyes could not convince Ilya’s medical team to let them take that disgusting thing home with them today. Ilya is grateful he did not have to be the one to say no to them, his strict inability to do so evidenced by the sheer fact that this memorial service exists in the first place.

Everyone’s scrounged up their best black attire—even Shane, who can not resist a hoodie of Ilya’s even on principle—and Jackie is having a lot of fun fake crying through a box of tissues. Arthur has already started in on the light refreshments.

“Creativity is good for them,” Ilya tries hopelessly to defend, “Do you want to be responsible for stifling their development, Shane?”

Shane pinches the bridge of his nose, “We took a red eye.”

“Go eat cookies with Arthur,” Ilya shoves him, with a parting kiss to his temple, but then gets back to business. “Girls, where were we?”

With the go ahead, Jade cues up her dramatic music of choice on Jackie’s phone, and Ruby clears her throat, script in hand, just as Hayden arrives on scene. To his credit, he at least just laughs.

“They are not playing ‘The Circle of Life’.” Shane continues his hissing, whispered tirade against what is unfolding in front of them, even as he gets an armful of Arthur and some snacks.

“It’s my favorite movie,” Ilya shrugs, now someone who actually has a favorite Disney movie, which is amazing, “And fitting, no?”

“Ladies and gentlemen and Mom and Dad!” Ruby bellows, standing up on the little stool Ilya set out for her, “We are gathered here today to say goodbye to Ilya’s broken leg.”

“Wooooo!” Jackie cheers, shaking a sparkly black pom-pom, as ill-fitting for the occasion as it is perfect. Ruby only glares a little.

“Ilya was an okay patient some of the times,” Jade says, sharing the little stage with her sister, “Because he never really liked to do his exercises that Uncle Shane said were really important, and he said bad words when he stubbed his toe all the time, and he hated the thing he was supposed to put on it to make it not get wet in the shower.”

“That thing was a torture device,” Ilya grumbles.

“But he always let us color whatever we wanted on it, and he got to come over to play with us a lot, and Jade had the coolest show and tell in the whole class when she showed everybody his crutches,” Ruby half improvs/half-reads, because Ilya knows there’s like, three words total on her “script”, all in one big, long breath.

“So even though Arthur bunked his head on it lots and lots, and it had a weird smell when he doctor sawed it off today,” Jade’s nose wrinkles in remembered disgust. “We really loved Ilya’s cast because it made him all better.”

“Even though they kinda put another cast on him anyway,” Ruby smiles, pointing everyone’s attention to Ilya’s brand new and improved soft brace. “We still love him and his new leg.”

Ilya looks over at Shane, sitting in a criss-crossed heap on the grass with Arthur, and he’s pretty sure there are tears in his eyes. He grins, “And you wanted them to throw a boring party.”

“Shut up.”

“Mom, d’you wanna say anything?” Ruby asks.

“No, that was beautiful, baby. I actually just have a question,” Jackie gives her daughters a little round of earnest applause, before turning less earnestly to Shane, “Would Uncle Shane like to burn the activity plan, or can I?”

Hayden snickers, “This may make up for Shane refusing the water slide.”

“We won that game, those were the rules!” Shane yells. “Burn it, Jackie, what do I care? Remind me not to love any of you ever again.”

Ilya moves to stand behind Shane, hand covering his face to stop his whining, and smiles brightly over at the girls, “Thank you so much, for beautiful service, but you are wrong about one thing. The cast was good, but is not really what made me all better. That was all you.”

“You’re lying, Ilya,” Jade flushes shyly, twirling a pipe cleaner flower around her finger.

“No, is true, the doctor told me this,” Ilya nods, “He said Ruby and Jade and Arthur and Amber and sometimes Mom, they are the magic trick. They are why you, Ilya Rozanov, are the best patient ever.”

“You were an okay patient,” Ruby teases, which earns her and her accomplice sister a justified affronted screech from Ilya.

He then—something he can finally do, all crutch-free—scoops them both up in either arm and half flung over his shoulders, squealing in gasps of delighted giggles. “I think we need to let your dad and Uncle Shane sleep before they get even crankier,” he manages to squeeze through their laughter, “I’ll come back to hang out tomorrow, yeah?”

“Even though your leg is better?”

“Especially because my leg is better,” Ilya affirms, “I can finally get you to stop rooting for the Metros.”

They don’t end up in the ceremonial fire pit, but it’s a near thing.

If you ask Ilya to tell you his favorite kind of movie, he will tell you he likes them all, and it will only be half a lie.

You spend enough time on enough planes with enough free shitty movies to stream, you end up working your way through most genres. And Ilya does like them all. The adrenaline of an action movie, the cathartic cry he gets from a good drama, keeping his seatmate awake a whole flight when a comedy movie is laugh-out-loud. He’s not picky.

But Ilya Rozanov, it turns out, somewhere a couple thousand feet in the air with the seatbelt sign on and a wistful ginger ale on his tray table, becomes a little bit of a hopeless romantic.

He has wiped clear through the category on the plane TV catalogue, sorts through the new releases for all the romantic comedies first, has seen some multiple times. He loves them for exactly what they are, and that Rose Landry has never done one. He might not tell you outright if you ask, because he does like all movies, so he feels bad leaving any genre out. But his soft spot for rom coms is special.

Ilya likes a well-timed ballad and love confession in the rain. Ilya likes grand gestures and predictability. Ilya likes makeover montages and small towns and plot convenience town-wide events. And he really, really likes happily ever afters.

He’ll stare at the credits, watch all the names roll through, and wait for his heart to shrink back down to size. It never does.

“Dance with me.”

“What?” Shane’s laughter pops the dish soap bubbles creeping up his arms. “I can’t.”

“Your rhythm isn’t that bad.” Ilya noses behind Shane’s ear, arms around his waist.

“You and my parents decided to be party animals and left me all these dishes in the sink,” Shane argues, presses the back of his shoulder to Ilya’s front. “So now I’m busy.”

“Leave it, do it later,” Ilya whines, taking some of those bubbles and swiping them on Shane’s cheek.

“That’s what got us into this predicament in the first place, leaving it.”

“Predicament,” Ilya hums. Shane makes everything sound wonderful. “C’mon, Shane, I finally have two legs again and all I want to do—”

“You have always had two legs.”

“Two I can put weight on.”

“I did a lot of research on the plane, you should be resting.” The faucet is still running, but Shane turns to face Ilya, gets caged in by his very pleased looming, so things are looking good for him. “And you’re still in a boot.”

“So we’ll be equally limp-y and off-beat.”

Shane’s tight smile-pout twists to one side, and Ilya wants to eat the scrunch of skin it makes on the sides of his eyes.

It’s very late and very quiet in Shane’s apartment. Shane had been too tired to do his full lamp walk-around when they got home, so there’s not much light aside from the skyline out the windows and the little bulb above the sink. The TV is not on, Ilya doesn’t even remember where his phone ended up, might still be in the car. Shane’s apartment is huge, but right now, it feels like a 2 by 2 cardboard box. Tiny, cozy, packed with fluff, private, and all theirs.

“Five minutes tops,” Ilya whispers, holds up a pinky between them, “I promise.”

Shane tilts his head to look up at Ilya, a whole inch difference in their height like this, and revels in how good he looks. Jet-lagged, win-streak worn, a little sudsy. Eyes roving over every inch of Ilya.

“Did my mom teach you that?”

“I knew what a pinky promise was before yesterday, Shane.”

“But she taught you how well they work on me,” he smiles, trying to wedge an arm up and between them, hard to do with how tightly they’re pressing against each other. “I hate backing down from a challenge.”

“Pretty sure that was the first thing I knew about you,” Ilya says, “Or maybe second.”

“Second?”

“First is that you are terrible at small talk.”

“Hey.”

“And you have the most beautiful freckles in the entire world.”

“You’ve fact checked this? The entire world?”

“So okay, third thing. You like a challenge,” Ilya presses his forehead against Shane’s, his eyes going cross-eyed trying to stare at his freckles as long as possible with the motion. “And I already know you are good at washing dishes, so that can wait. I need to know how you are at dancing.”

“You need to?”

“Yes,” Ilya nods, “Need to know everything about you.”

“Well,” Shane swallows, licks his lips, “Let me not stand in the way of your intellectual endeavors.”

So Ilya Rozanov, big old softie and romantic comedy enthusiast, gets to sweep Shane Hollander off his feet for a slow dance in the middle of his dimly lit kitchen.

He tugs Shane forward so they’re in the middle of the tile between the counter and the island, settles his hands around his waist. Shane goes with a giggle, finds the curls at the nape of Ilya’s neck to twirl around a finger in time with their own slow spin. Ilya sways them, side to side and around, slowly, mindful of not stepping on Shane’s socked toe with his clunky boot. He is not entirely successful the whole time, but Shane’s yelp devolves into bites on Ilya’s collarbone, so. He may or may not become a little less careful with his two weight-bearing left feet from then on.

“There’s not even any music playing,” Shane says, and it presses right into Ilya’s skin.

“You don’t like music.”

“That’s a wild generalization, I like music—”

”This is better, now we can hear the dryer going.” Ilya turns Shane’s chin so they’re both looking in the direction of his laundry room, cheeks pressed together, “Cleanliness is music to your ears.”

“Fuck off,” Shane sighs, no bite. He drapes his arms lazily around Ilya’s neck again, “Next you’re gonna tell me you didn’t close the fridge door properly like I’m always warning you about on purpose for this too.”

“Mood lighting,” Ilya nods to the sliver of light the crack in the door creates on the floor at their feet.

“Mhm,” Shane hums, “Did you miss me?”

“Is the sky blue?”

Shane pulls back a smidge, doesn’t stop their swaying, but catches Ilya’s face in the palms of his hands, “I can’t wait until you get to come with me to stuff.”

“One day,” Ilya says softly, before something else can come out and switch genres on him. “I will steal all your airplane snacks and pick out bad movies for us.”

“I really just need you to carry my luggage.”

“At least you’re honest.”

Shane giggles, thumbs idling back and forth over Ilya’s cheeks, “Oh!”

“What?”

“You’ve got an eyelash,” Shane’s voice comes out all breath, two fingers pinching together to try to get at something on Ilya’s skin. He holds his pointer finger between their noses, smiling proudly. “Make a wish.”

“A wish?”

“Jeez, Ilya, between this and the FaceTimes, I can’t believe you win any games at all.”

“This is your secret trick, Hollander?” Ilya smirks, “Eyelashes?”

“No, no. I’m a good fucking hockey player.” His chest puffs up a little, enough for Ilya to feel his heart beat against his ribcage. “I use eyelash wishes for better things.”

Ilya gets that saying now, when people say I can’t stand it. Ilya can’t think of a better way to describe the feeling, now that he knows it so intimately. Shane is so—looking at him right now, Ilya’s eight weeks back with brand new crutches under his arms and a terrible pain med regimen. As someone who knows what it’s like to not be able to stand properly, yeah, he really can’t stand it. He can’t psychically bear the weight of how much he loves Shane.

“Aren’t you gonna ask what I wish for?” Shane pokes, eyelash still propped between them, but other arm slinging around his shoulder to start them swaying again.

“Then it doesn’t come true, no?”

“Well, one of them, I already got,” Shane babbles, like he can’t keep the bit up long enough for Ilya to prompt again, and just has to say it. His eyes go wide and doe-like, “You wanna guess?”

“I—”

“It’s you.”

Shane is beaming, all warm and proud. It’s the best kind of smile, takes up his whole face, and Ilya feels it again, like he’s going down. Can’t stand it. He grips Shane’s wait, squeezes tight, and laughs, “You didn’t let me guess. Was sure it was gonna be for more cups than me.”

“I already told you I don’t need wishes to beat you, asshole,” Shane trills, leaning in to nose against Ilya’s back and forth, sweetly. “But you—you are so perfectly it for me, Ilya. Wishes had to have a hand in it.”

Shane leans up on his toes, for no good reason since they’re pretty much the same height, and now the angle is just silly and sloppy and giggle-inducing. So maybe a good reason. He continues, words straight from his lips to Ilya’s, “I sometimes think, you know, when I wake up next to you, or come home and you’re here, or you get me to dance in my kitchen, that I might be out of eyelashes.”

“This is the most ridiculous metaphor.”

“I’m gonna go eyelash-bald, one day,” Shane says, as deadly serious as he started, even though Ilya is boneless and laughing, “I owe the universe, and whoever is in charge of wish-granting, for giving me you.”

Ilya feels all of Shane’s eyelashes flutter against his cheek when he kisses him.

“So what am I supposed to do with this, then?” Ilya asks, eyes flitting down to the eyelash Shane is still protecting on the bed of his fingertip.

Hopeless romantic Ilya Rozanov is in the middle of one of his favorite movies, with his favorite person.

There is nothing left to wish for.

“Well,” Shane says, stopping for a kiss, so Ilya knows what bullshit is coming before he even says it, glint in his eyes, “You could probably use it for a cup.”

Jackie: How do you feel about the plague?

Ilya: Depends on who has it, I guess

Jackie: Crazy answer omg

Ilya: I just think itd be helpful if some people got the plague some of the time

Ilya: Like in general

Ilya: It’s not like i have a list

Jackie: Send omg

Ilya: I said i dont

Jackie: Can’t put it in writing so they can’t trace it back to you right right. I respect that

Jackie: When I see you next we’ll talk which. Excellent segue on my part

Jackie: Let’s say YOU have the plague 🥰

Ilya: No

Jackie: No?

Ilya: No i would never have the plague

Jackie: But

Ilya: No

Jackie: I guess it doesn’t have to be the plague I was just trying to cover my bases on severity

Jackie: Is the flu better for you?

Jackie: There’s a stomach bug going around the twins school

Ilya: I have none of this

Ilya: I am so healthy

Ilya: You brought me to the doctors yesterday

Jackie: Okay but like pretend you’re sick

Ilya: Im not

Jackie: Holy shit

Jackie: THEORETICALLY LETS JUST PRETEND FOR A SECOND THAT YOU ARE SICK

Jackie: YOUD NEED YOUR VERY DEAR FRIEND TO DROP EVERYTHING SHE IS DOING INCLUDING RIPPING HER HAIR OUT AT WINE NIGHT TO COME AND TEND TO YOUR EVERY NEED

Jackie: RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!

Ilya: Yes of course

Jackie: Thank you

Ilya: Feel better?

Jackie: Much 🖕

Jackie: I literally cannot stand these people

Ilya: I thought we liked the metros wives

Ilya: Even if their taste is questionable

Jackie: No we do we do

Jackie: This is the PTA

Jackie: Gouging my own eyeballs out would be better

Ilya: Sounds fun

Ilya: Shane has this weird appliance in his kitchen that i thought was for scooping ice cream but is actually for melons

Ilya: Could be helpful

Jackie: Focused on the wrong bit there buddy

Ilya: Seriously have you heard of a melon baller

Jackie: Come save meeeeeeeee

Ilya: I literally cant drive

Jackie: If I get you a wig

Ilya: That helps me drive with a boot?

Jackie: Mostly healed!!!!!!!!!!

Jackie: But no. To blend

Jackie: So these women won’t recognize you

Jackie: I’m creating a character for you. New transfer student’s uncle or something

Jackie: Ugh

Jackie: You are actually maybe the worst thing that has ever happened to me ever

Ilya: Thanks

Jackie: Everything is unbearable now if you’re not involved

Ilya: You can keep texting me

Jackie: Not the same 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Ilya: Don’t dehydrate

Jackie: I miss you

Jackie: Amber misses you

Ilya: Early to be playing that card

Jackie: They’re talking about Facebook Marketplace and the price of produce going up

Jackie: Why does nobody want to talk about putting Scott Hunter in an old age home!

Jackie: You’ve ruined my life

Ilya: So you saw that new documentary too

Jackie: He had to have paid somebody off it’s literally playing on the hour every hour

Jackie: Like he HAD to have right???

Ilya: Same crew reached out to me and Shane

Jackie: Please

Jackie: Please please please

Jackie: Can I cameo

Jackie: I can be your mysterious Canadian cousin-in law thrice removed

Ilya: In a wig?

Jackie: They learn so fast 🥲

Ilya: Again you can keep texting me

Ilya: You know this

Ilya: I will always answer

Jackie: Not the same I want you HERE to make fun of Cheryl’s fuck ass bob WITH ME

Ilya: It’s tempting

Ilya: But i had big plans to knit a scarf tonight

Jackie: Right yeah and I’m gonna run a marathon tonight

Ilya: #1. Jackie Pike

Jackie: ?

Ilya: Sneak peek at my plague list

Jackie: Fuck you

Ilya: Your incredibly kind demeanor must be why all the people you asked first said no to your plague proposal

Ilya: Keep it up!

Jackie: What?

Jackie: What do you mean asked first?

Ilya: You’re asking me to save you now because you tried everyone else first.

Ilya: Its desperate but I cannot lie the Amber thing is probably going to work on me

Jackie: Are you sure you’re not sick? You’re making no sense

Jackie: I’m only texting you?

Ilya: You did not text your WAG friends? that you like?

Ilya: I am not your last resort?

Jackie: I literally texted you the second I had the thought

Jackie: Actually that’s a lie I’ve been planning to text you for my escape since I put this on my calendar

Jackie: Let me come pick you up

Jackie: Or crash there

Jackie: I can be supportive about yarn

Ilya: Oh no! i think i just developed rapid onset sudden ever chills, head and body aches, and weakness! ahh! scary!

Ilya: I just googled my symptoms and it is saying this could be

Ilya: THE PLAGUE!!!!

Ilya: 🤧😵😷🤒☠️😵🪦🦠👻⚰️🤢

Jackie: I love you kinda

Jackie: So is that a yes? You’ll be my accomplice?

Ilya: Yes come over

Ilya: Shane is home heads up

Jackie: Is he gonna be supportive about yarn?

Jackie: Is he willing to catch an imaginary communicable disease??

Jackie: Will he not tattle to the PTA on me???

Jackie: Or do we need to wife swap????

Ilya: Wife swap

Ilya: He is taking my yarn away☹️☹️💔

Ilya: Says I am supposed to be elevating my leg and doing exercises💔

Jackie: Quick kiss him and give him the plague

Ilya: No can do he is not on my list

Jackie: Disgusting. True love or whatever

Jackie: Hayden will take him off our hands

Jackie: Call me in five so I can dramatically announce my departure. Really try to hack up a lung for me yeah?

Ilya: Anything for you

Ilya: True love. Or whatever

“C’mon, you can do better than that, Rozanov.”

“You’re enjoying this too much,” Ilya pants, straining more than should be possible on his award-winning athlete body but, new normals, he guesses.

“Oh tons.” Shane reaches behind him to give Ilya’s leg an encouraging pat. “Thirty reps, baby.”

Ilya’s head falls back between his shoulder blades with a groan.

Up on his elbows with Shane Hollander in his lap on their living room floor and singularly focused on him is ideal in every scenario but this one, because the focus-on-him part is a little, well…

Shane got one whiff of a reconditioning regiment from Ilya’s physical therapist and couldn’t be stopped. He’s on him in seconds. To get thirty leg lifts out of him, that is.

“This is torture.”

“It’s good for you,” Shane encourages, squirming a little in his straddled position.

“I mean you, you are torture.”

“Me?” Shane balks, like he has no idea what on earth Ilya could possibly be talking about! He leans in to press his hands firmer into Ilya’s chest. “Doesn’t feel so great with the tables turned, hm?”

“Tables are exactly where they started, turned nowhere,” Ilya complains, sliding his hands up Shane’s forearms, “I distracted you away from exercise and into my strong, sexy arms. You want me to ignore you.”

“So you don’t look lopsided without strong, sexy legs to match.”

“Is torture, Hollander. I haven’t gotten even one encouraging kiss for all this hard work.”

“What hard work?” Shane laughs, but folds himself in half to kiss Ilya anyway. Nothing more than a quick peck, but it flips something in Ilya’s insides, turns them inside-out sweet. “Helpful?”

“Not really, just confirmed we are focused on wrong lower body appendage.”

“That is maybe the least sexy way you could have propositioned me,” Shane keeps laughing, “What would help, hm?”

“Not doing this.”

“Not an option,” Shane muses. He kisses right over Ilya’s jaw noisily, definitely on purpose. “Did I ever tell you how attractive it is when you lift your leg at a forty five degree angle using nothing more than the leverage of your right foot flat on the floor to help strengthen your deconditioned hip muscles?”

“You sound like a pamphlet.”

“It’s just sooooo hot when you work up to three sets of ten leg raises exactly to the doctor’s specifications,” Shane trails his purposefully sloppy kisses down Ilya’s neck, the line of saliva ticklish and sticky. “I get so worked up thinking about you healing in a proper and timely fashion because you eased into it and listened to your body’s cues.”

“I’m doing them, oh my god.”

“I can’t tell. I should feel it,” Shane says, deliberate roll of his hips in time with Ilya doing the first of ten forty-five degree leg lifts that he will repeat three times exactly as the physical therapist told him to ease into his timely recovery. Ilya is so fucking easy. “There we go.”

“Asshole.”

“Maybe,” Shane keens, pulling at Ilya’s skin between his teeth, “After you do thirty.”

And Ilya tries, he really does. He uses whatever muscle he’s got left in combination with whatever brain power his touchy-feely boyfriend isn’t sucking out of his pores to do the fucking leg lifts. Fuck. He gets tired after like, five.

Luckily, so does Shane. He sighs, nuzzles into the spot of Ilya’s neck he’s made himself comfortable in. “This was your plan all along, wasn’t it?”

“Shane, I am getting winded after one leg raise,” Ilya says, “You think I have the ability to strategize right now?”

“Situation is more dire than I thought,” Shane laughs. “Alright, if I give you a five minute break so I can tell you about the insane video our social media manager made us do today, will I regret it?”

“Probably,” Ilya smiles as he pushes up under Shane’s shirt.

Shane relaxes even further against him, all but purring at the shapes Ilya starts drawing on the skin of his lower back, fingernails lightly scratching with the motion.

He does not know why doctors never include this in any of his plans.

Where did these hackjobs get their degrees? Did no one teach them about Shane Hollander? How he is stronger than any exercise or medicine or fucking reconditioning roadmap (because evil activity plans don’t die, they reinvent themselves.) He feels instantly re-energized, like he could lift a hundred pounds on this leg raise, just because he has Shane pressed into him, softly recounting his day, and caring about him enough to be a little bit of an asshole about muscle tendons. Someone should really clue the medical world in. They’re sitting on a gold mine here.

Ilya relaxes too, content to half-listen to the sound of Shane’s voice. He can probably get Shane to forget he promised only five minutes if he keeps it up, soothing circles on his skin.

The only predicament is his phone, on the ground beside him, which has been lighting up for the past ten minutes he’d been avoiding torture. He knows who is texting—Shane’s exercise escapade had not only been hell on Ilya’s physical stamina, but directly interrupted his conversation with Jackie.

To lose kisses from his boyfriend and gossip from his friend. This is a special kind of torture.

Shane’s still idly babbling so, fuck it, he thinks, and bravely slides it closer to him.

It’s just—multitasking! It’s why he had started this exercising-kiss scheme months ago, so really, he’s just following his own rules, and Shane just admitted to finding rule-following hot! This is what he’d want for Ilya, truly. For Ilya to do what this time was literally created for! To just, you know, happen to peek at his phone and type out one-handed responses to his barrage of messages. He shouldn’t be rude! And not responding is rude! Shane is always telling Ilya to follow rules and not be rude! So really—Ilya is just doing what he has been told to do.

“Hm?” Ilya says, once it snaps into his multitasking subconscious that Shane was saying something that required a response.

“I said—hold on, are you—are you texting?”

“No.” His phone whooshes.

“You fucking liar!” Shane sits up suddenly, grappling for some leverage and for Ilya’s traitorous phone. “You complained that I wasn’t giving you enough attention?”

“It was important!”

“More important than my love and care for your muscle mass?” Shane shrieks, "Who is it? And don’t say Jackie, because you saw her literally yesterday, there is nothing that could be that—”

“There was a crisis in the WAG group chat.”

“Oh my fucking god,” Shane shoves him, Ilya falling backwards, back flat against the ground, “You’re in the WAG group chat?

“Jackie keeps me updated,” Ilya says, “And she knows I have good hangover cure and soup recipe.”

“What the fuck?”

“Stay away from Drapeau at practice tomorrow, by the way,” Ilya keeps his arms wrapped around Shane, phone out of reach. “His kids are germy. He’ll be contagious soon if he is not already.”

“His kids are sick?” Shane puzzles, “The soup I get, I guess. The hangover cure?”

“Flu is just like hangover.”

“I thought Russians didn’t get hungover.”

“Because I have good cure and good soup before it happens,” Ilya winks. “And now you know top secret information about germs that all the unlucky single people don’t. All because I talked to Jackie.”

“I would have found that information out on my own, eventually,” Shane huffs, but his cheeks are beet red and his lips are doing that thing where they try so hard not to smile it loops around and becomes a pout. “So I don’t think this counts as something worth being ignored over.”

“I was not ignoring you. I was ignoring exercise.” Ilya lifts his leg on cue. Shane looks like he could murder him. If rule following does it for Shane, this might be it for Ilya.

“Are you done now?”

Ilya yields, sliding his phone into Shane’s back pocket to really sell it, “Break over, yes? How many more, sexy trainer?”

“I don’t think you’ve done a single one.”

“Thirty then? No distractions.”

“No—” Shane cuts himself off, when Ilya’s phone vibrates at least four times in a row.

Ilya should not laugh if he wants this end anywhere remotely in the realm of what he wants, but he cannot help it, it seems.

He giggles on the tail end of Shane’s groan, letting it get mixed up in the hot, breathy huff. His eyes squinted shut, he seethes, “I am sure tomorrow I’m gonna really love how well you get along with my best friend’s wife.”

“I’m sorry,” Ilya giggles, not a smidge apologetic.

“No, you’re not,” Shane uses Ilya’s face for leverage, palm pressed smack over his nose, to heave himself to standing, “You got much more than one kiss, avoided the workout, and pissed me off. Fucking hat trick for you.”

Before Ilya can respond, Shane starts simpering away, towards the stairs, one hand pulling his sweatshirt off over his head, the other going for Ilya’s phone.

“What—” Ilya chokes, scrambling up onto his elbows once again, “What are you doing?”

“Blocking Jackie’s number, and going to bed,” Shane lifts the phone over one shoulder, back to Ilya. He drops his sweatshirt at his feet and keeps walking.

”Shane—”

“Ah shit, my sweatshirt," Shane mumbles, not looking too genuinely put out by it. He shrugs once before continuing up the stairs, slowly, “Maybe you could use your strong, sexy leg muscles to bend down and pick up it up for me?”

His shirt lands on the bottom step, a couple more pieces of clothing as he goes leaving a deliberate trail behind him. A roadmap, if you will.

Seems like Shane can multitask too.

“Good game, Hollander.”

“You’d think after half a season you’d have learned how to say that with at least a little enthusiasm.”

Shane’s laughter is so wonderful it floats through Ilya’s phone and tickles his ear, as if he were there. Not far off, Ilya grins, watching people zip in and out of the arena parking lot, but Shane doesn’t know that yet.

“That was sincere,” Ilya says.

”Was it?”

“What are you waiting for? Balloons? Streamers? Confetti?” Ilya asks.

He peeks over the headrest of his passenger seat to wink at Jade, who is barely visible around a bunch of balloons, Arthur, who tangled streamers around his ankles that Amber is chewing the opposite end of, and Ruby, who is poised to strike with a handheld twist confetti cannon.

“You’re an asshole,” Shane huffs. Ilya can hear the click of a door shutting behind him, “Oh my god, I’m so exhausted.”

“It was a difficult game, you had to work very hard,” Ilya says, leaning his head on the window so Jackie can’t see how gooey his eyes go. She needs no more ammunition. “I told you I meant it.”

“I know, you always do,” Shane admits lowly. “I wish you were here. So much. Even if you can’t drive me home.”

Ilya smiles, “You always set up for being an asshole by calling me one first. You’re not sneaky.”

“The thought of having to put two hands on a steering wheel and keep my eyes open to look at traffic lights and press on the gas,” Shane whines, sounding like he’s made it outside the arena now. “It’s so unfair, so mean.”

“I know, moya lyubov. So mean of your car to do that to you,” and Ilya knows his voice goes pouty with it, all the kids giggling in the backseat behind him. Their eager ears mean he has to get quieter for this next bit, “Is good thing I am not the real asshole in this relationship, and got you a ride.”

“Hey, I’m—wait, really?”

“Yes, already there, waiting for you.”

“That’s—shit,” Shane curses, “If it sounds like I’m starting to cry, it’s exhaustion, purely. Nothing to do with how much I love you, or whatever.”

“Of course not,” Ilya smiles. He spots Shane, finally, at the end of the sidewalk, Hayden on his heels, but he asks to keep up appearances, “Are you outside, yet?”

“Yeah, just got out here. It’s so nice out.” The wind whips at speaker on Shane’s phone and directly into Ilya’s ear, because his boyfriend is a fucking psychopath sometimes. It’s December in Canada. It’s fucking freezing. “Okay, what am I looking for?”

“Big blue car.”

“Blue car,” Shane mumbles to himself, “Is it like? An SUV?”

“Mm, minivan, actually,” Ilya says, as Jackie starts to roll all their windows down, braving the very nice cold. She honks twice, and they catch the exact second Shane spots them. With a grin you could probably see from outer space, and definitely from where Shane is, Ilya goes on, “Hope you don’t mind, it’s a very busy time for rideshare. I had to go with the carpool option.”

“Do we even all fit in there?” Shane laughs, nudging Hayden to follow. “And what—” Ilya can see him squinting, “Are you in a wig?”

Ilya pushes the bangs of his bright blue bob out of the way of his nighttime sunglasses, “Disguise.”

“Doesn’t he look so good in blue, Shane?” Jackie leans over the center console, cheek to Ilya’s so she can yell into his phone speaker.

“I’m gonna have nightmares,” Shane says, but Ilya doesn’t buy it. He’s practically skipping over. “Back to the seating arrangement—”

“You should hurry if you don’t want the seat on the floor,” Ilya leans back to make a little extra space in the gap between the middle row seats. “And so our ice cream does not melt. Go any slower, we’ll have to eat it on the way home.”

“Sounds like a real nutritious dinner.”

“Your fault for winning.”

“Yeah, all my fault,” Shane says, still into his phone, even though he has made it to Ilya’s side of the car. He leans in through the window, barely stopping to hang up.

Shane’s got dark, exhausted circles under his eyes, and Ilya swears he says this so often it’s going to start losing meaning, but he really, really, has never, ever looked better. He smiles hello to the kids, to Jackie, even gives up his spot in a real seat between Ruby and Jade just to linger near Ilya a second longer.

“Alright, everyone close your eyes for a second,” is all the warning Shane gives, before he kisses Ilya, right there, to the sound of confetti that sticks in his bright blue wig.

“Look at you, you show off!”

Ilya’s head is tossed back in a cackle of laughter, which is probably not helpful to his demonstration, but he just can’t help it.

He jogs up three whole steps, turns on his heel to wink at Shane.

“Rozanov with a breakaway! Ladies and gentlemen, he is on fire tonight,” Shane bellows in his terrible announcer voice that Ilya loves so much, hands cupped around his lips. His voice bounces and echoes off the walls of the narrow back staircase up to the apartment. A whole set of stairs that Ilya is climbing, all by himself! “He’s headed straight for the door, no defenders in sight.”

“Will I score tonight?” Ilya giggles, showing off for real now as he hops on one foot up a step, “Only time will tell.”

“Be careful, Ilya,” Shane’s playfulness slips for a second to make way for a worried pout.

“I am fine, very safe. My boyfriend withheld sex to get me to exercise,” Ilya flips, continuing his proud little jog up the stairs.

Hot on his heels, probably because he is incapable of not hovering, Shane hisses, “Ask again about scoring tonight.”

Ilya takes the stairs two at a time. And backwards. Shane is going to have an aneurysm. He’s so hot.

“I’m only nursing you back to health once, asshole. Stay upright,” Shane says, sliding his arm up on the railing as far as it can go to try to catch Ilya by the wrist. He swerves it.

“For now,” he smarms, “You wanna join me on the power play?”

“I feel like the metaphor has gotten away from us.”

Ilya bends at the waist, balance in tact, to grab Shane’s beet red face and kiss him silly. He tongues at his lip and pulls him up a step, then another. 

“Ilya,” Shane pants. Puts his hands under Ilya’s sweatshirt.

“Shane,” Ilya spits back, meandering them to the door, not breaking their kissing even once. He pushes Shane up against the wall, cool concrete behind them. Shane hisses at the rough contact, but keeps kissing him.

“I’m very proud of you,” he sighs, as Ilya’s kisses get insistently lower and lower. His eyes are shut, head tilted back and blissed out. “You’re so fucking annoying, but I’m so proud of you.”

“You’re the one who won the game tonight.”

“Then I guess,” Shane grits, wrestling out just enough leverage to get his hand on the doorknob, “I should give you a chance to score tonight.”

Ilya: EVICTION NOTICE

Shane: Shit what the fuck

Shane: What’s happening??? Are you okay????

Ilya: YOU ARE HEREBY REQUIRED TO VACATE THE PREMISES. FAILURE TO VACATE WILL RESULT IN LEGAL PROCEEDINGS, ATTORNEY FEES, COURT COSTS, AND PENALTY DAMAGES

Shane: I can be home in 30 minutes. 20 if I drive like you.

Shane: Sorry not the time

Ilya: YOU HAVE VIOLATED THE TERMS OF YOUR LEASE AGREEMENT

Shane: Okay good yeah. I knew they had to give a reason. Like legally they definitely have to say why they’re kicking us out. And that gives us something to argue. I’m getting my shit together so fast I promise just stay put

Shane: Wait hold on.

Shane: I don’t have a lease. I own the building.

Ilya: THE VIOLATION IS CITED AS FOLLOWS:

Shane: Ilya.

Ilya: CURRENT TENANT IS NOT CUTE ENOUGH

Ilya: A NEW TENANT HAS BEEN SELECTED WHO FULFILLS TERMS OF AGREEMENT

Shane: Ilya what the fuck are you on right now. Are you fucking with me? Are you reading off a real slip of paper we got?

Shane: Send a picture.

“What do you think, zolotse?” Ilya coos, bouncing Amber on his hip opposite the hand that’s got his phone, “Should we send him a picture? Or let him keep panicking?”

Amber leans to try to grab Ilya’s phone from out of his hands.

“Have you ever seen your Uncle Shane’s panic face? It’s great, you want to deprive me of this?” Ilya whines, bumping the side of his head into hers dejectedly. Earns him a giggle. “Fine, fine. Have it your way.”

Ilya: *image attached*

Shane: Oh my god

Ilya: You have unfortunately been replaced. say hello to my new roommate.

Ilya: She is cute, no? you see why you had to go?

Shane: Oh my god

“See?” Ilya tuts, dropping Amber onto the counter, “I told you. We broke him.”

She just shakes her head, fists in the collar of Ilya’s shirt so he can’t get far.

Shane: You’re lucky I wasn’t on the road yet oh my fucking

Ilya: Because you now realize there is no point. no room for you here

Shane: Because you look so fuckign good

Ilya: Oh?

Shane: Ilya that is the greatest picture I’ve ever received.

Shane: send a million more. Mimum

Shane: minnim

Shane: minimum FUCK

Shane: You guys are so cute I’m gonna die.

”Never mind. You are a genius,” Ilya nudges his nose against Amber’s. Like she understands exactly, she noses back.

If you had told Ilya a year ago that one of the best days of his hockey career would include several diaper changes, the same episode of a cartoon on loop, a nap time, and no hockey at all, he probably would have believed you, actually.

He really loves naps. And kids.

There’s a very nebulous shaped thing that rattles around in his brain sometimes now. He can’t really tell you much about it, and not for lack of trying. Every time it comes up, it looks like Shane’s shower door, heavy with condensation that comes back the second you try to swipe it away to get a glimpse inside.

But from what he does get, these feelings that twist tight around Ilya’s ribcage with no real good name for it, and the timing they come up, Ilya can make a pretty good inference.

Chasing a one-and-a-half year old around Shane Hollander’s not really baby-proofed and curated solely on aesthetic apartment is what does it this time.

Ilya: I see. I warn you about team germs and you still end up sick

Shane: ?

Ilya: Baby fever

Shane: Shut up.

The typing bubbles float for a long while, long enough for Amber to string together a couple words that Ilya translates to some variation of “stop ignoring me for your boyfriend I am much cuter you literally just told him so yourself.” Which. Fair enough.  Ilya picks her back up, walks three laps around the island, singing something from the cartoon they’ve had on loop allllll day to appease her, by the time Shane finally responds.

Shane: Okay. Maybe. I think so. Yes.

Ilya: 😏😏😏

Shane: I can’t even come up with something that sounds annoyed enough to respond with.

Shane: I’m like. In love with you

Ilya: Would have been real awkward if you were not

Shane: I’m asking Hayden if we can keep her.

Shane: Actually I’m just telling him we are.

Shane: We’re keeping her!

Shane: The lease she signed was legally binding, yeah?

Ilya: YOU are so cute

Ilya: We actually are keeping her for at least a couple hours

Shane: Wait, seriously?

Ilya: Pike house is full of the sniffles. I said we will will keep her germ free

Ilya: Jackie had to pick the twins up from school early. At doctors now.

Ilya: Arthur made it through the whole day of daycare but i suspect he may look like he’s next when Hayden gets him 

Ilya: So me and my perfect little sous are making some magic soup for them

Shane: She is SO perfect!!!

Shane: So are you!!!

Shane: I’m skipping eighteen steps. Sorry. I need to calm down.

Amber grabs for his attention again, his name still slipping out as something closer to Lily.

”What? What?” Ilya kisses the top of her head, his whole body thrumming with delight, “I am busy negotiating you a cousin.”

She pouts back. God, Ilya can’t even make fun of Shane.

A year ago, Ilya might have known he’d enjoy today, but he would have never been able to want it.

He has such little experience with wanting that it feels more difficult than this whole day of flying blind in his first babysitting gig. But he has felt nothing but unbridled joy, and maybe a little drool on his shoulder, all day, and he has people in his life who trust him implicitly, and a home he knows well enough that he can baby-proof it, and his boyfriend is probably speeding home just to get a glimpse at him holding a baby, and Ilya wants. He wants this unnamable thing he can’t really see or touch or feel yet.

“Okay, tell me the truth. Should I quit my job and stay home with you forever?” Unintentional most likely, but she shakes her head. “No? No!” Ilya blows a raspberry behind her ear, and her laughter shrieks.

“I know, I know. Someone needs to play good hockey to make money to spoil you, since your dad is terrible. I understand.” He swings her up onto one shoulder, her feet excitedly kicking at his chest. “We will make soup and bother your Uncle Shane in the meantime?”

He snaps one more picture in the reflection of the refrigerator door that Amber is facing, reaching for the handle to open mid-giggle because she is the most perfect sous chef ever, Ilya with his head turned over his shoulder, and his phone held up.

Ilya: *image attached*

Ilya: I just read the fine print on the eviction notice

Ilya: Looks like there is room for one more person here. they must have beautiful freckles and be willing to taste test soup

Ilya: You know anyone who fits that description, shane?

Shane: Fifteen. I can be there in fifteeen

“Booooooo!”

“You would have made that.”

“You probably would have too.”

Jackie giggles with her whole body. Not her laugh, Ilya has learned, which is still just as good, because it’s loud and funny and horribly contagious, probably. But it doesn’t shake all her limbs, take up extra space, or say, spill white wine all over her couch cushions the way her giggle does. Is doing, currently.

“I’m not really making a case for my hand-eye coordination,” Jackie giggles, her drink sloshing around the glass, “But I appreciate it!”

“You could finish that whole bottle and they’d still be lucky to have your coordination out there right now,” Ilya says, groaning at the TV screen that’s showing a game Montreal would be winning if he and Jackie were on the ice, and not laying upside down wine drunk on her couch. But alas, the score remains 2-0.

“Is that a challenge?” she asks, mischievous glint in her eye. She reaches awkwardly for the almost empty second bottle on the coffee table, all the rules to their drinking game out the window after the first period, and tries to refill their glasses. Keyword: tries. It’s half on the floor.

“See! You are a natural!” Ilya has to bite his lips together to hold in laughter that would only mess with her target more. “First line. They’re promoting you to captain.”

He maybe can’t speak for Jackie, and the score may indicate otherwise, but Ilya knows at least from where he’s sitting, this is the very best game of hockey that has ever been played.

The west coast time difference of the game means it’s very late, and all the kids are asleep, and they are apparently both equally susceptible to whatever is in the very cheap wine they had impulse delivered. His head is fuzzy dizzy, he knows his cheeks are flushed bright, and everything feels funny. Nothing to do with the position they’ve devolved into, heads hanging off the bottom and feet in the air, of course. If Shane asks, it’s a physical therapy stretch.

It probably does have to do a little with the wine, but Ilya won’t credit any of his good mood to anything other than Jackie, and her ridiculous full body giggles and poor hand-eye coordination.

“Could you imagine? I just show up to a game one day, in full gear?” Jackie snickers, a weird sort of rolling motion to get back right-side-up. “I’d miss watching though.”

“You are good company,” Ilya smiles, trying to avoid a head rush as he moves to mirror her.

She preens at the praise, “There have been small uprisings in the group chat over the fact that I haven’t been to any games yet this year.”

“Really?”

“You just said yourself, I’m good—”

“No, no, you haven’t been to any games?”

“What are you talking about?” she goes and giggles again, but her carpet and couch cushions are safe this time around, glass put down in front of them, “Have we not watched all of them together?”

“Yes, but,” Ilya scratches at his temple, like a cartoon character having a deep thought. He knows Jackie’s been with him for every game. But somehow he can’t make sense of the fact that that means she’s been nowhere else for every game. One of the only things he knew about Jackie before they met a few months ago was her name coming up in passing when Shane mentioned a game. Jackie was here, he’d say. Jackie brought the kids, I swear you can hear Jackie cheering over everyone else, Jackie’s up in the nosebleeds so she doesn’t fight with a ref, Jackie came to an away game, isn’t that sweet! So, Ilya just assumes, you know, Jackie goes to games. This is one of the most concrete things he knows about her.

She brushes him off before he can finish his thought, “I don’t think I’ve recovered from my first attempt this season. I’m not jinxing anyone else’s legs or noses or heads.”

“I could have watched the kids for you,” Ilya offers, downing the rest of his glass so he can get this bit out, “So you could go.”

“They’re in California.”

“When they’re not in California,” he says. Jackie’s swiping at the damp shaggy carpet with her left foot. “It’s backwards. I should be babysitting your kids so you can have fun, instead of you babysitting me.”

“Because tonight has been a real hardship for me.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t,” she shakes her head, a little shrug of her shoulders, “I love hockey, I love watching hockey. I can do that anywhere.”

“You don’t miss it?” Ilya probes.

She shakes her head, “I’d be doing the same thing there, just in a less comfortable seat and with more expensive alcohol.”

Despite the serious conversation he’s trying to have about trapping Jackie into hockey-induced house arrest on his behalf, he catches himself laughing, leaning into her side, “I didn’t even know they made wine this cheap.”

“Isn’t it amazing!”

It’s not, Ilya thinks, though the battery-acid taste went away half a bottle ago, so maybe she wasn’t so wrong.

“But still,” Ilya probes, poking at her shoulder, because the good-bad wine makes him pliant and sappy, “They’re your friends.”

“You’re my friend.”

She says it without letting Ilya even finish the breath of his own sentence. Jackie Pike looks him dead in the eye and seriously, doesn’t even mess around with a smile in how seriously she tries to convey this. And it kinda knocks the wind out of him.

“I’m gonna—I’m gonna try to explain but you are insane to keep up with drink wise, so I can’t promise anything eloquent, okay?” she starts. Her feet are tucked under her, and she’s square to Ilya now, ignoring the TV, which still feels significant even if they’re technically on commercial break. “Like a good Canadian, I’ve been a hockey fan my whole life. But—and I think maybe this is something you get now too—things changed when I became the partner of someone who plays hockey.”

Ilya gives a small nod.

“It’s, I don’t really know how to explain it, and I know we’re just—I’m not trying to inflate my self importance or ego or whatever, just—it’s like a job, suddenly. You have to be someone else and you can’t—you can’t watch it or enjoy it or interact with it the same as you did before.”

Jackie shakes her head, then finds Ilya’s eye, “But this season so far, spending it with you? I feel like myself again.

“I was nervous, that I’d just get more lost now, with four kids. And the other wives are all great, but they’re not—they know Hockey Jackie,” she tries to explain, shrugging, “To be perfectly honest I thought you were nice and drugged up when we met, so I was getting a clean slate to be whoever the fuck I wanted.”

“Those useless fucking EMTs.”

“Useless,” Jackie laughs, reaching over to give his hand a squeeze, “Ilya, I can’t think of how to tell you how much fun I’m having, every single day. And not because of the wine messing with my vocabulary. I just really don’t think a word exists.”

Well. If this is bad with words, Ilya isn’t sure how the writers of the dictionary aren’t knocking down Jackie’s door on a good day.

Her words, good and slippery with the warmth of wine and the silliness of a bad hockey game, burrow their way right into Ilya, weave between his veins and take hold of his heart. It’s so exactly what he’s been feeling—the fear and the change and the uncertainty. But he is sure, for the first time in his whole life, that he is exactly where he’s supposed to be. He has never, ever felt more like himself, which he didn’t think was possible so far away from the ice, so far away from home but then again, was he that far at all?

When he thinks of hockey he thinks of freckles under a visor at the face-off and rules about winning ice cream. When he thinks of home he thinks of dancing in the light of a refrigerator that has drawings and doctors appointment schedules taped to it.

Maybe there’s a grander metaphor to be had about this whole thing, but Ilya is on a couch getting wine drunk and watching the Metros lose.

It’s in there somewhere. Ilya can feel it, right up against his ribcage. It beats and beats and beats.

Jackie tries to stay serious, but her giggles are sneaky, and bubble up seemingly before they can warn her they’re coming, “And I know you don’t agree with my allegis—alleg—”

“Allegiances?” Ilya’s eyes twinkle.

“Fuck off.” Jackie elbows him in the ribs. “Point is, no. Whatever you think I’m missing, I’m not, because I’m so good here, with you. You let me just be a fan again.”

“A Metros fan,” he rolls his eyes.

“Yes, but only because being a Rozanov fan might be a conflict of interest.”

“I use the term ‘play’ loosely here, but your husband does play for the Metros. Is that not a conflict of interest?”

“Thought you knew by now I’m a fan of the Metros because of Shane. He was my favorite hockey player before he was my friend.”

“Of course.”

“But you’re just—just my friend Ilya, so. Conflict of interest,” she amends, voice dropping into a hushed whisper, “My favorite friend, I’m pretty sure.”

Ilya’s eyes feel droopy and wet.

“This is usually the part where the other person says it back.”

And thank god she giggles with it. Ilya is helpless but to echo. If she notices that he’s a twenty eight year old man crying over making a friend she doesn’t point it out, which is the second kind truth Ilya remembers learning about her, way back in that ambulance.

“Sorry, sorry,” he shakes, “Svetlana has very good hearing. If I say anyone else is the best friend, she’ll track me down and kill me.”

“God, you suck,” she flails dramatically, not unlike one of her daughters. Looking up from his shoulder she’s sagged against, she laments, “I can’t even be your favorite person in Canada, can I?”

“Nope,” Ilya pops the ‘p’ sound at the end sweetly.

“Favorite person in Canada who you’re not in love with?”

“Oh, you were thinking of Shane?”

“Yeah, who—who were you talking about?”

“Amber, obviously.”

“Oh my god.”

“You can be third, maybe?”

“I’m taking it back, and I’m telling your annoying boyfriend all the terrible, horrible sins against your reconditioning roadmap you committed tonight.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Your phone ban will return,” she threatens, crawling backwards on the couch, “You’re going to have to read that history of hockey book. Cover to cover. For fun.”

Ilya petulantly throws a throw pillow at her that she swats expertly away before it can slam into her. It ushers in another bout of giggles so good they make your stomach hurt and your eyes water. Also, “Look at that hand-eye coordination!”

“Ahh!” she yelps, “That was good, huh?”

“Maybe I was wrong, you’ll be goalie.”

“And you know who’d be winning if I was their goalie?”

“The team you are a fan of.”

“The fucking Metros!”

“Okay new drinking game rule,” Ilya says, leaning forward to grab the wine, “Finish the bottle.”

“If what?”

“If nothing, we just finish,” Ilya shrugs, and his attempt to fill their glasses is not much better than Jackie’s, even with gravity and orientation on his side.

“That’s not how you play,” she refutes giddily, but makes no real protest against their matching heavy pours. “But fuck it, we should at least have a good night if they won’t.”

The game looks more and more like a sure loss when it comes back after commercials, but Ilya still doesn’t mind. Shane will be upset for a day, sure, but then he’ll win the next game, and Ilya will kiss him so silly on his return that it’ll all be nothing more than a blip in his otherwise incredible season.

Ilya thinks he might remember this game forever though.

“Svetlana is family,” he starts softly. His head has fallen into Jackie’s lap, a comfort settling warmer than any tipsy flush ever could. She had been so into a terrible play happening on the screen she almost misses him, but her eyes eventually flit down. “Only family I have. And Shane is Shane. Your children, all of them, are so perfect they get their own category.”

Jackie really hasn’t stopped smiling all night, has she? Did Ilya do that?

“This may come as a shock, I know, but I have not had many friends. I didn’t know if I’d be any good at it, I am still nervous sometimes, that I am fucking it all up. Because this has been too good for words for me too,” he nods, and smiles so easily too.

”Impossible,” she whispers. “You’re the second best thing about Canadian hockey.”

“Third maybe, depending on who you ask. And who you have to tell,” Ilya says, “Because between just you and me, since we’re not telling my boyfriend anything about tonight—”

Jackie giggles with her whole body.

“Canadian hockey is lucky to have you as a fan, but I am luckier to have you as my favorite friend.”

What a very good shitty game.

“Wrong way.”

“Hm?”

“The view,” Shane says, small nod of his chin. “Sunrise is behind you.”

He rubs at his eyes sleepily as he drops, more than walks, down the stairs. It’s melodic almost, the plop, plop, plop of his feet, slow and heavy and muffled by his socks.

“Oh, is it?” Ilya turns over one shoulder, his back pressed into the window behind him, “I didn’t notice.”

The floor to ceiling window on the far side of the apartment is maybe Ilya’s favorite part of it. It lets in so much light.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

Ilya shakes his head, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” he assures, yawning around the words. He slip-slides the last bit of hardwood in front of Ilya, making him sleep-deprived giggle. He crouches down to sit and join. “What are we doing? If we’re not watching the sun rise?”

Ilya shrugs. Shane stretches his legs out, hooks his right ankle over Ilya’s left. His sock sticks to the exposed velcro of his brace, but Shane doesn’t move it.

“You should go back to sleep,” Ilya murmurs into the top of Shane’s head.

He can feel Shane’s eyes shut against his shoulder, “Okay.”

“I meant in your bed, not here.”

Shane grumbles, low and throaty, picking his chin up just enough to glare with it.

“Sorry,” Ilya whispers, corners of his lips turning up and making the word sound even funnier than his accent already makes it, “Our bed.”

“Better,” Shane nods back into his slump. He leaves his palm face up on Ilya’s thigh so he can trace over the ticklish lines. “What do you want for dinner tonight?”

“Seriously?”

“I just figure we should,” Shane has to pause for a yawn, “We should make use of our time! If we’re up, and watching the apartment.”

Ilya had been doing well, but the yawns catch up to him too. He rests his cheek on top of Shane’s head.

“Has it done anything good?” Shane drawls.

“What?”

“The apartment? Have you caught it doing anything interesting since you’ve been up, keeping an eye on it?” His words kinda smush all together, rounded and long and cute.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know? Maybe the chairs got up and started dancing.”

“Dancing chairs?” Ilya bites a laugh between his lips.

Shane shrugs, and their bodies are pressed so close together it makes them both jostle with the motion, slip down the window a half an inch, “Was the first fun thing I could think of. And you made everything here fun.”

Ilya kisses Shane’s nose, “They did a conga line. You just missed it.”

“Damn,” Shane mumbles, “Maybe they’ll do an encore.”

“Maybe.” Ilya looks around at the apartment, at all the things Shane thinks he has made fun, and smiles. “Should we do laundry today?”

“Ilya, stop,” Shane whines, “That was so hot.”

“Thank you.”

“Yes, we should do laundry. We could vacuum too?”

“Don’t push it.”

Shane slots his fingers between Ilya’s on the palm he had laying between them, and lifts them suddenly, for a kiss.

“Can we get you back to bed now?”

“Five more minutes,” Shane sighs, his breathing evening out. “Asleep in my living room. See? You make me so fun.”

The big windows that they’ll probably have to clean today after leaning on them let in so much light, and the sun that’s almost all the way risen starts to feel warm on his back. It’s probably beautiful, all reds and oranges and glowing shadows.

Ilya doesn’t know why you’d ever wanna look at the sunrise when you could look at the rest of your life instead.

“Okay,” he whispers, and sleep comes easy, “Five more minutes.”