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Ilya’s first interaction with what is soon to become his greatest enemy is when the fucking thing ruins a perfectly good seduction during a rare weekend he’s had the time to make it up to Montreal for more than the length of a game, a stolen little stretch of time to spend with Shane that he plans to make good use of. It’s a rush, still, having his own key to Shane’s place, and he still feels a proprietary little thrill at having the right to use it, to let himself in even though Shane is home, to be a big enough part of Shane’s life now that he doesn’t have to ask to share his space with him.
He can just walk right in.
“Hello?” He calls, slipping out of his shoes and hanging his jacket up on a hook next to a line of Shane’s, smiling slightly when the way one hook has two jackets on it tells him that Shane left the spot for him specifically.
Beautiful, strange, wonderful man.
“Living room,” Shane calls back, and isn’t that a new thrill as well, Shane not even getting up, being comfortable enough to sit and wait, to trust that Ilya will come to him.
He does, naturally.
“Hi,” Shane says, looking slightly rumpled in a way that says he was just deeply asleep, smiling groggily when he catches sight of Ilya, rubbing his eye with one hand and then shaking his head like he’s trying to shake the tired off. He stretches enough to make the blanket he’s under slide from his chest to pool around his lap, arching in a way that Ilya wishes he could capture in a picture for lonely days. Maybe he’ll do just that, he considers, get Hollander to pose pretty for a camera for Ilya to have a little souvenir. He’ll ask.
(…later.)
“Hi,” Ilya says, his attempt at making his voice a purr lost to how fucking happy he is, to have this, to see Shane Hollander in a way no one else ever gets to. He crosses the room and kneels over him, pulling him up into a kiss that Shane gives him easily, making a sweet, soft noise that makes Ilya want to bite him with how cute it is. Instead, he gets a handful of the edge of the soft, fuzzy blanket to whip it off of Shane and replace it with his own body-
-only to be stopped when the blanket turns out to be far, far fucking heavier than he anticipated, pulling him up short when his attempt at a flick ends with barely moving the edge before it flops back down with audible weight.
He pulls back from the kiss, confused as fuck about how the hell a blanket just defeated his attempt at seduction, and looks down to figure out what the fuck is happening here. Shane makes a small, displeased noise, eyes still closed, waiting impatiently to get what he wants because Ilya spoils him.
“Why does your blanket weigh a thousand pounds?” Ilya asks, perplexed, lifting up the edge and finding that he actually has to engage muscles to do so. He’s been a hockey player for most of his life, so it’s not that much of a struggle, but why Shane suddenly has a blanket filled with concrete is beyond even the little quirks he’s learned to expect from him over the years.
“Mm?” Shane asks, finally opening his eyes when Ilya’s mouth doesn’t return to press against his. He blinks twice before he seems to return back to earth, and then he looks down. “Oh, it’s a weighted blanket. Rose sent it to me.”
Ilya makes a face before he can stop himself, and Shane catches it, rolling his eyes.
“Be nice,” he scolds, the way he always does when Ilya is displeased at a reminder of exactly how much of Shane’s life his ex still occupies. “She read something about it being good for anxiety, and she sent me one to try out.”
Ilya is annoyed when that makes him a little less immediately irritated with the starlet, not when she’s doing something to help Shane. He reaches up to brush Shane’s hair back, cupping his face in one hand.
“You have been anxious?” He asks, and Shane snorts.
“I’m always anxious,” he says dryly. Seeing something on Ilya’s face, he leans his face more into his palm. “I’m good, seriously. It was just giving me some really bad insomnia a couple of weeks ago, and Rose brought it up when I was texting her later than usual.”
“You could have texted me,” Ilya points out, trying not to feel insulted at Shane turning to someone else when he can’t sleep when he has a perfectly good boyfriend available. “You could have called, even. I would have answered.”
“I didn’t realize how late it was until she pointed it out,” Shane says with a shrug. “Anyway, she sent me this, and it actually really did help.”
“Hm,” Ilya says, dismissing it at once. He leans in, brushing his lips lightly along Shane’s jaw until he makes it to his ear, exhaling just to feel it send shivers through his body. “I know what else always puts you right to sleep.”
“What?” Shane asks, voice low. He nuzzles at Ilya’s jaw, earning some shivers of his own. “Watching you play?”
Ilya pulls back, stunned and insulted, and Shane grins at him in open challenge.
“Take it back!” Ilya demands, trying to scowl despite the way his face wants to respond to Shane’s by mirroring a smile back. He gets a hand around Shane’s jaw and doesn’t miss how it makes Shane shift his hips slightly in response, though his expression stays playfully defiant.
“Probably didn’t even need the blanket,” Shane goads. “I could have just watched you getting your ass kicked by Detroit last wee-”
He lets out a startled, half-panicked laugh when Ilya stands, yanking Shane up by the arm and using the momentum to toss him over his shoulder, Rose Landry’s stupid heavy blanket sliding to the ground. Shane clings onto him, clearly afraid of being dropped, and Ilya hitches him up a little more securely mostly just to startle him, landing a firm smack to his ass before he loops an arm around the back of his legs, holding him in place as he starts carrying him to his room.
“Just for that,” he informs Shane, moving through the doorway carefully to avoid banging his head against it, “I am not showering before I fuck you. You’re going to have airplane germs in your bed, and it’s going to be all your fault.”
“You sick fuck!” Shane cries, but he doesn’t sound too upset by it.
Especially not when Ilya tosses him onto the bed and gets down to work getting those airplane germs all over him.
*
After a long, busy afternoon of fucking Shane–broken only for the important task of feeding Shane dinner and making him eat things other than rabbit food mostly by putting it right into his mouth when it’s open to argue–Ilya waits patiently for him to finish up his skincare routine, content to stretch out and make himself comfortable in a bed that now smells of nothing but detergent because Shane did in fact refuse to sleep in airplane germs and insisted on changing the sheets.
Largely from Shane making empty threats about withholding sex, Ilya has been bullied into some form of regular skincare–even routinely putting on sunscreen after his daily morning text of “Put on SPF 🔪”–but it’s still nothing compared to Shane’s. He sometimes enjoys spectating the process, including occasionally tuning in via Facetime when he’s in Boston and feeling particularly lonely for Shane’s company, but for tonight he’s content to wait and undertake the important job of warming the bed up. He doesn’t bother opening his eyes when there’s the sound of Shane moving from the bathroom, because he knows already that the next step in settling down for the night is Shane refilling his water bottle, and Ilya smiles faintly when Shane stops by his side of the bed to grab his, too, despite the fact that it’s still over half-full. He peeks an eye open enough to grab a palmful of Shane’s ass in thanks as he turns to walk away and smiles when he gets a metal water bottle to the wrist in response, closing his eyes once more in contentment.
Contentment that is popped by startling when Shane returns and tosses something onto the bed that makes the mattress jolt.
Ah. The stupid heavy blanket.
Ilya makes a face.
“It’s nice,” Shane says, seeing it, leaning over him to put Ilya’s water bottle back on his side and popping him lightly on the jaw when Ilya takes advantage of the angle to help himself to a nipple. “Stop.”
“Hmm,” Ilya hums thoughtfully. “I don’t think you want me to.”
“Yes I do,” Shane says, but the way he settles back and looks at Ilya from under his lashes makes a liar of him, and when Ilya settles over him–more than heavy enough to make the stupid blanket pointless, thank you very much–Shane’s only protest is that he’s done his skincare for the night already.
Because Ilya is good and helpful and respectful of his boyfriend’s sacred routines, he decides to make up for not kissing Shane’s face by kissing everywhere else on his body very, very thoroughly.
Shane, making sweet, beautiful noises with his fingers tight in Ilya’s curls, seems to find it an acceptable compromise.
*
Ilya wakes in the fuzzy hours between midnight and dawn feeling oddly cold when his brain is registering Shane’s smell all around him, his boyfriend usually always pressed close and sharing warmth with him. Frowning, he realizes that Shane has managed to shift away in his sleep, and without opening his eyes, he reaches out towards the shape of him blindly, ready to fix this horrible mistake. He finds Shane’s shoulder, covered by something soft and fuzzy, and then moves to slip a hand down to wrap around his chest-
-only to find a long line of impenetrable soft and fuzzy keeping Shane’s warmth hostage.
Ilya lifts his head, squinting into the darkness of the room, confused until he catches sight of the thing holding his boyfriend hostage.
The fucking heavy blanket.
Rolling his eyes, he searches with his fingertips until he finds the edge of it, slipping his arm under and then shouldering the stupid thing out of the way. He winces when it hits the floor with a muffled bang, startling Shane into half-awakeness, but he just wraps an arm around him securely, nosing at the hinge of his jaw.
“Shh, solynyshko,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the soft skin behind his ear. “Back to sleep.”
Shane makes an indistinct, wordless response and then settles, shifting until he’s pressed tight to Ilya’s chest and then rolling slightly to pull Ilya on top of him.
Just, Ilya thinks contently, settling back down to sleep, like a blanket.
*
“You are going to pull something with this stupid thing,” Ilya says the next morning, assigned the task of holding the stupid heavy blanket while Shane makes the bed because breakfast is being withheld until the task is complete. “Then you will have to tell the world a blanket beat you up, and then everyone will laugh at you even more than they already do.”
“Then I’ll just play them that clip of you getting a puck to the head from that game in-”
“Fuck you and your stupid blanket,” Ilya says, tossing the thing back to Shane and feeling appeased slightly when it makes him grunt and stagger under the weight. “I am making breakfast and you cannot have any,” he says archly. “Let stupid Rose Landry blanket feed you.”
*
Shane, because he is devious and evil and manipulative, does worm his way into having breakfast by cuddling close to Ilya’s back and opening his mouth until Ilya puts food in it. He tells him loudly every single time that this bite is the last bite he will be getting, but it’s still a group project to clear Ilya’s plate, and the smug look Shane gives him when he goes to pull his blender out to make protein smoothies says he enjoyed getting his way.
Ilya rolls his eyes and starts to load the dishwasher, resolving to seek reparations for his suffering in the form of a blowjob later.
(And pleased, in a way he’ll never, ever admit, by a morning spent doing nothing but being silly with each other, by the satisfying luxury of seeing Shane fed and happy through his efforts, relaxed enough to take food from Ilya bite by bite from his own fork.) (He wishes in a way that threatens to scuff his joy that there wasn’t an end date to this, that it wasn’t possible to count down to the end of this time in hours, that he had days and weeks and months and years ahead of him right now, ready to be filled with being silly and and affectionate and disgustingly in love. He wishes-)
(He just wishes.)
“You okay?” Shane asks when he hands him his smoothie. The smell of it informs him that he has been allowed a luxurious spoonful of actual peanut butter instead of Shane’s usual sad peanut powder, and the small indulgence of it, the way it speaks to Shane knowing and accommodating his preferences, has him putting the smoothie aside before taking a single sip in favor of gathering Shane close instead, moving his smoothie while he’s at it so he can kiss him without worrying about suspiciously green protein slop spilling over the floor.
“I’m great,” Ilya breathes against his lips when he lets Shane pull back briefly to catch his breath. “I’m with you.”
He feels it against his lips when Shane smiles, and he pushes all of the ugly things away, forcing himself only to enjoy the beautiful thing in front of him.
*
The heavy blanket–”weighted blanket, Ilya”–remains a tragically reliable presence in Shane’s life, putting in unwanted appearances even in their video calls with each other and always lurking nearby when Ilya visits, somehow always making its way into their bed no matter how many times Ilya tries to banish it elsewhere.
“She has new clothes now?” Ilya asks during this visit, a scant stretch of hours after a game before he has to get on a plane and return to Boston to play one of his final games as a member of the team, summer and his move to Ottawa approaching rapidly, looming large in front of him.
Just like the blanket approaching the bed currently in Shane’s arms, dressed up in a cover he’s never seen it in before.
“She-it’s not a she,” Shane corrects, the same way he always does, rolling his eyes and tossing his blanket onto the bed because he apparently enjoys subjecting Ilya to earthquakes.
“You have bought your mistress new clothes?” Ilya asks, ignoring him. “She will get spoiled and expect a ring soon.”
“She’s-” Shane apparently gives up on making Ilya drop the mistress bit. He is sometimes so wise, Ilya’s boyfriend. “It’s a cooling cover. Feel.”
Ilya gives it a doubtful look but grants Shane’s mistress a brief stroke.
“It’s nice,” Shane says, slightly defensive.
“Hm,” Ilya says, taking the edge of Shane’s shirt between two fingers and tugging him onto the mattress with him. “I have many different covers as well. Feel this one.”
Shane rolls his eyes when his hand is guided down to inspect the soft fabric right over Ilya’s very not-soft cock, but he remains even when Ilya lets him go, tucking himself close and teasing Ilya by hovering his lips almost close enough to kiss but pulling back when Ilya tries to chase him enough to touch. Shane’s hold turns firmer, wrapping around Ilya’s erection in his cupped hand and squeezing. Ilya moans, pressing his mouth to Shane’s neck and shoulder, breathing over the shiny spots he leaves behind just to make Shane shiver.
“Move this,” Ilya says, guiding Shane down but pulling him halfway up again when they end up on top of Shane’s mistress, the filling shifting under Ilya’s knee unsteadily. “You have said no threesomes.”
“You’re fucking ridiculous,” Shane says, and Ilya knows that an eyeroll always accompanies that tone, not even needing to look away from his very busy work sucking the threat of a hickey onto Shane’s neck.
“So is your mistress,” Ilya says, pulling back only slightly, “and yet I let you have her to keep you company when I am not here. I am very generous, yes?”
“I’m not fucking the blanket, Ilya,” Shane says, sounding amused. “It-oh.” His train of thought is cut off for a moment when Ilya slips a hand under his sleep pants in return, and he helpfully pauses to let Shane think clearly because he is a good listener.
“It?” He prompts, ghosting his fingers along Shane’s shaft, enough to be felt but not enough to actually do anything, not even for someone as sensitive as Shane.
“It helps–oh fuck, please–it helps me sleep.”
“Hm,” Ilya hums thoughtfully. “Yes, she is very boring, your mistress. Just like boring Rose Landry, yes? This is why she introduced you both?”
“Fuck you,” Shane breathes, but the way he rocks his hips up says “fuck me.”
Ilya decides to listen to the latter.
*
“Does it actually bother you?”
Half-asleep, Ilya considers for a moment pretending that he’s actually fully out already, but the tone of Shane’s voice tells him this isn’t the first time the question has occurred to him, and the idle fingers on his chest tracing nonsense patterns tells him Shane’s been especially turning it over in his head while they’ve been laying here.
“Does what bother me?” Ilya asks around a yawn, shifting a bit to try and feel more awake, using the arm he has on Shane’s back to tuck him a little closer.
“Me having something from Rose that I use?”
When Shane’s head shifts on its place on his shoulder, he looks down to find Shane studying him. He smiles slightly, reflexively, because there’s no world in which he can see Shane Hollander’s face and not be happy about it, but Shane’s eyes are intense. He slouches a bit to kiss the top of his head.
“No,” he says, and it’s kind of true. Mostly. Does he love Shane cuddling up every single night with something from Rose Landry? No. Can he resent Shane snuggling up with something when Ilya himself is too far away for it, though?
Also no.
“You sure?” He presses.
“I am sure,” Ilya says. He shifts enough to settle Shane back down on the mattress and then rolls halfway on top of him, enough to make his weight felt but not crushing. “But while I am here, there is no need for your mistress.”
“Not my mistress,” Shane says, but the last word is broken by a yawn as he starts settling under the weight.
Ilya holds his peace about it, largely because it means holding Shane.
*
(And if he gives The Mistress a middle finger the next morning before he leaves, well, Shane’s too busy brushing his teeth to notice.)
*
The less said of the day llya wakes up from one of the better naps he’s ever taken only to find himself under The Mistress, the better.
“Told you it’s nice to sleep under,” Shane says smugly when Ilya appears in the kitchen, disheveled and annoyed both at Shane taking liberties at pushing his mistress on Ilya when he wasn’t awake to protest and at himself for sleeping so well under the stupid thing.
“This is not how consent works,” he growls playfully into Shane’s neck, making him crinkle to one side and distracting him from the salad he was chopping up for dinner. “You have pushed her on me without asking. Very bad behavior, Hollander.”
“Just admit it was nice and you were wrong,” Shane says mildly, offering a cucumber slice over his shoulder that Ilya opens his mouth to accept, crunching right next to Shane’s ear just to get on his nerves and holding him still when he tries to retreat from the sound, cringing.
“She should have her own apartment,” Ilya says when Shane gives up the struggle and even offers him a pepper slice before returning to chopping tomatoes. “This is good manners, you know, keeping your mistress out of sight of your wife.”
“You’re my wife now?” Shane asks, turning slightly and lifting a brow. “Did I forget asking you a pretty big question?”
“Too busy with your mistress,” Ilya teases, reaching around Shane to feed him a cucumber slice as well. “And after I have given you five children.” He tsks, shaking his head close enough to nuzzle at Shane with the movement. “My body is ruined, and you have no gratitude.”
“Hm,” Shane says, sounding amused. “Your body seems fine to me.”
“Maybe you should make sure,” Ilya says, holding Shane’s hips to press them back against his own. “I am such a good homemaker. I deserve a reward, yes?”
“What homemaking?” Shane says, though he doesn’t protest when Ilya puppets his hand to put his knife down and then slides him down a bit so he can boost him up onto an empty stretch of counter.
“You see how he disrespects me?” Ilya asks an imaginary third party in the kitchen, feigning outrage. “I set up an entire house in a new country for him, and he can’t even remember.” He leans forward, nipping at Shane’s neck. “And you leave me all alone in the home I worked so hard on and stay here with your mistress.” He bites a little harder than he knows he should, feeling the usual temptation of wanting to leave a claim on Shane’s skin, a mark to tell the world that someone has the rights to him that no one else does.
As if hearing his thoughts, Shane’s hand comes up gently to push at his jaw, redirecting him back to kiss his lips instead before Ilya can make a decision he’ll get in trouble for later.
“I’m very happy you’re here now,” Shane says, sincere. He wraps his legs around Ilya’s hips, pulling him in. He frames Ilya’s face in his hands with enough tenderness that Ilya feels almost shy under the weight of it. It’s easy, in these moments, to remember why he uprooted an entire life.
He had a better one waiting for him, after all.
“I’m very happy I’m here now, too,” he says, softer than he means to. He leans in, kissing Shane slow and soft before drifting to his cheek, his jaw, hiding his face when the thought makes his head venture to sadder places the way it always does when he remembers that even now, he only has Shane for days at a time at most. I wish I was here all the time, he thinks but doesn’t say. I wish you were with me all the time.
“I should finish making dinner,” Shane ventures, in a tone that says he’s not remotely committed to what he’s saying. Ilya smiles and hides it in the curve of Shane’s neck, pressing soft, teasing kisses to the sensitive skin there, Shane arching enough to offer him more real estate for the effort.
“Hm,” Ilya says, with faux consideration. “I think maybe we should work up an appetite first. You can reward me for being such a good wife and putting up with your mistress.”
“You’re fucking ridiculous,” Shane says, a smile in his voice.
Ilya grins back, wrapping his arms around Shane to lift him and carry him to the bedroom.
The Mistress remains abandoned in the living room, where she belongs.
*
As Ilya finds out after they’ve married and moved in together, there are worse things than sleeping with The Mistress so long as it’s as a threesome.
“Stop calling it that,” Shane complains today, not for the first time, but under the combined weight of Ilya on top of him and The Mistress on top of Ilya, he’s currently being squished too thoroughly to summon too much of a complaint.
“No,” Ilya teases, shifting just enough that he can be confident he won’t crush Shane to death if they both drift off in this very heavy pile. “We are very modern family like this, you know. Very progressive of us.”
“You’re the worst,” Shane says, but he yawns while he says it, eyes closing. “At least my mistress isn’t annoying.”
Ilya disagrees thoroughly, but Shane is warm and relaxed beneath him, so he lets it pass for now, content to settle down into a threesome nap.
*
In Ilya’s defense, he was innocently texting his husband at a coffee shop before heading to a magazine photo shoot. The words exchanged with the love of his life while he waited for a caramel macchiato should have been sacrosanct, not subject to some nosy person behind him in line reading over his shoulder and then taking a picture of what was said. In other circumstances, it probably would have blown over quickly, with maybe some little outrage about respecting privacy.
In these circumstances, though, what the text from Shane Rozy-Hollzy🏒💕 said was
Today fucking sucked, and my head is killing me. Can we have a threesome when you get home, please?
With an awareness of their inside jokes, it’s a totally innocent request from someone having a bad day and wanting to be comforted by his husband, completely sweet and completely above board. With the awareness that everyone else in the world has, though, it looks…
Well, it looks like enough to break the internet as they try to speculate who could possibly be having such regular threesomes with famous queer hockey stars Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov that they could be called into service on a random Tuesday and still be expected to show up.
Also not helpful?
Ilya’s response.
yes, of course 🩷. do you think your mistress can take care of you in the meantime? just this once she can have you to herself. 😉
The seventeen missed calls from Shane, the nine missed calls from their shared publicist, and the long scrolling string of responses ranging from “good for you” to “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TWO DOING IN BED??” that greet him as soon as the shoot is over is a pretty clear signal that the world at large is probably not ready to believe in the innocence of their text messages.
It is, of course, entirely the fault of The Mistress.
*
He gets home to find Shane facedown on the floor in their living room, and Ilya’s kneejerk panic at the sight–scratching at memories that he thinks will always be raw–is kept in check only by the extreme rigidity of his posture.
And the neatness with which The Mistress is laying over him.
“Maybe we just fake our deaths,” Shane tells the floor, face muffled by the couch pillows his face is pressed between.
“Maybe,” Ilya says, sitting down on the floor next to him and rubbing a firm, steady hand over his back. “You cannot grow facial hair for shit, though, so this is a complication to the plan.”
The fact that he doesn’t get so much as an angry side eye for the comment is more concerning than anything else Shane could have done.
“Is okay,” he soothes, feeling a sick swell of guilt at being the inadvertent cause of this. Without his knowledge or not, it was still pictures of his phone that have dragged Shane right back into speculation about their personal lives, right when news about their marriage was finally starting to die down.
“No the fuck it’s not,” Shane says, and the lack of venom in his voice only worries Ilya more. “Do you know how many people are in my fucking DMs right now asking for a threesome? The whole fucking world thinks I have a fucking mistress, Ilya, people are saying I’m-”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Ilya says, laying down beside Shane now and burrowing his face into the cushion to rest next to his. “People say stupid things all of the time, dorogoy. Is none of their business even if you had a hundred mistresses.”
“I don’t have-” Shane starts, shoving himself to his forearms in a rush of motion.
“Shane,” Ilya says calmly, staying down, staying smaller, letting Shane loom over him to feel more in control of this conversation.
The way Shane’s eyes have gone glossy hurts worse than if Shane would have just hauled off and hit him.
“Fuck,” Shane exhales, the word more air than noise, and he wriggles out from under The Mistress enough to press close to Ilya instead. Ilya wishes he had the space to enjoy his triumph.
As it is, he just waits until Shane is ready to release him, too.
*
“This will blow over,” Ilya reassures him later, when he’s finally managed to coax him off of the floor and even gotten him to eat at least half of his mealprepped dinner. “You’ll see.”
*
It does not blow over.
*
The biggest insult, as Ilya says and Shane banishes him to the guest room for saying, is how many people assume that Rose Landry is the mistress in question.
“As if I wouldn’t pick more interesting person to be a third in our marriage,” Ilya scoffs the next morning when yet another video clip crosses his feed of paparazzi chasing after her and asking about what it’s like to be Shane Hollander’s mistress, earning himself an additional night of exile.
All while The Mistress keeps Shane company.
Ilya glares at the unfamiliar ceiling and tosses and turns, resisting the urge to groan when a sudden flurry of notifications on his phone prompts him to unlock it and investigate, finding that enough people have gotten involved in this entire stupid situation to even begin tagging Svetlana in, chasing her down as someone frequently tagged in his Instagram posts.
As if they needed another fucking person in this mess.
And as if they needed more fuel to the fire like Svetlana posting, “no, I am not shane hollander OR ilya rozanov’s mistress. their marriage is tragically closed, and even if it wasn’t, you are all sadly wasting your time trying to apply. there is already a closed waitlist. 💅🏾”
Ilya closes his eyes and tries to make peace with the idea that he may never be allowed back in bed with his husband again.
*
He’s still awake when the door opens a sliver, and he automatically shifts over in bed to give Shane the stretch of sheets he warmed, his husband slipping into bed and claiming the spot without speaking. Hesitant to speak when things between them feel so strained, he doesn’t reach out, but at a hand resting on his arm, he obeys the silent request, turning onto his side and wrapping his arms around Shane, pulling him close, Shane’s arms wrapping around him in return. He presses a kiss to the crown of Shane’s head, resting his chin there afterwards.
“I just wish people would leave us alone,” Shane says quietly. “I want people to ask us about hockey or the Irina Foundation or-or important stuff. I don’t want people digging into our relationship like it’s any of their goddamn business.”
“I’m sorry,” Ilya says, voice just as soft, and he is. Shane has always been happy to talk about hockey, about his wins and his work and his pride in his career, but he’s always been intensely private about the rest, partially out of caution to maintain his carefully-crafted image and partially out of personal preference. “I should have been care-”
“No,” Shane says, shaking his head without moving away. “It’s not your fault. That asshole shouldn’t have been reading your texts, and they definitely shouldn’t have posted them. You didn’t know.”
It’s more of a relief than he’s willing to admit, Shane no longer being mad at him. As much as he enjoys winding his husband up, he doesn’t like actual discord happening between them, especially not when it lasts for longer than what a fuck can work out.
“Still,” Ilya says, “I know you hate people talking about us like this.”
“Do you not?” Shane asks, pulling back a bit so he can see him but not going far, still sharing the same pillow.
“Mm,” Ilya says with a shrug, keeping his tone light, teasing. “I am not Canada’s golden boy. People don’t expect things from me. This is what you get for good behavior. You should have had a rebellious streak.”
“Pass,” Shane says dryly. He shifts slightly, settling a little closer. “I just-” He cuts himself off, clearly searching for the words he wants.
Ilya waits him out, perfectly content so long as he has Shane close and no longer mad at him.
“It’s no one’s fucking business what we do,” he finally says. “It shouldn’t matter.”
“This is the price we pay for being rich and famous, yes?” Ilya teases, but Shane doesn’t rise to it, just closing his eyes again.
Ilya tugs him closer, tucking his face down against his chest, offering the illusion of a place to hide. He rests his chin on top of Shane’s head, rubbing a hand over his back slowly. It’s one of the things he’s had to work through, not resenting how much Shane wants to keep them private. After talking it through enough times with Galina, he can understand intellectually that it’s not about shame, not about being a dirty little secret Shane wants to hide. He knows by now that it’s just Shane protecting something that’s important to him, keeping it safe by keeping it away from other people, safe from scrutiny and opinions and judgement.
It’s just still a somewhat foreign way of thinking about things when all Ilya wants to do every single day is climb the tallest structure nearby and yell to the world that Shane Hollander is his, all his, now and tomorrow and forever.
As much as he’s happy to give everyone a reminder that Shane is now his in a way that’s legally binding, though, he can’t enjoy the attention to their marriage when it comes at the price of Shane being unhappy.
“Farah thinks we should release a statement,” Shane says, voice muffled slightly. “Or I should, at least.”
“What kind of statement?” Ilya asks, hand moving up to massage the tight muscles in Shane’s neck gently to hopefully prevent him from giving himself a tension headache tomorrow, smiling slightly when Shane groans quietly in relief and leans back into the pressure.
“That it was a joke,” Shane says after a moment of enjoying the touch, voice a little distracted in a way that’s immensely satisfying as a mark of Ilya being able to make him feel better in some small way. “Just something about how you and I were kidding and that it shouldn’t have ever gotten out.”
“Hm,” Ilya says thoughtfully, knowing that he’s expected to offer an opinion but not having one beyond agreeing with whatever Shane wants to do, something he knows will get him fussed at, Shane always so worried about Ilya just doing whatever he wants instead of what will make Ilya happy.
(As if anything makes him happier than giving Shane what he wants.)
“You don’t think people will have more questions?” He offers, knowing it’s a safe question because Shane has absolutely already overthought this entire thing thirty different ways and already has an answer.
“It can’t be worse than the ones they have right now,” Shane says. “It’ll maybe at least get people to stop asking if they can hop in on our marriage.”
Ilya heroically bites back the joke he wants to make about not limiting their options so quickly, not eager to extend his banishment from their bed.
Tragically, he and Shane have been together too long for his husband to not be able to read at least some of his thoughts.
“Shut up,” Shane says, sounding equally annoyed and affectionate.
“I didn’t say anything,” he says innocently, smiling.
“I can hear you thinking something gross,” Shane says. “Stop it.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Ilya teases.
“Asshole,” Shane says, in a tone that means he’s rolling his eyes. When he tucks himself at a particular angle, arm sliding under Ilya’s body slightly, it’s a clear request.
Ilya complies gladly, settling over him enough to press him into the mattress.
“I love you,” Shane says quietly after a few moments have passed, sounding halfway asleep already.
“I love you, too,” Ilya says, just as quietly, leaning down to kiss Shane’s cheek.
He falls asleep to the slow, familiar sound of Shane’s breathing.
*
As Ilya explains when he’s yelled at about it later, his addition to Shane’s statement was meant to be helpful, to add a little spice to the bland, PR-firm-approved words explaining that through a violation of his and his husband’s privacy, an inside joke was shared with the world and spun out of control, and that they appreciate the support they’ve received from fans and to ask for privacy at this time.
Ilya’s response on Twitter of, “our marriage is closed, and we are happy with just one mistress, thank you” was meant as a tongue in cheek joke just to break the tension and to hopefully pull any criticism or speculation towards him and not Shane as the member of this marriage willing to waste hours in comment threads on social media sowing chaos for his own amusement.
Unfortunately, it seems no one else sees the brilliance of his perfect plan.
He sighs and settles down a little deeper into the couch, resisting the urge to wince when Shane snatches his feet away before they make contact with Ilya’s in the middle, a sure sign that he’s pissed. He’s curled under The Mistress and wearing his glasses, scowling at his phone and clearly refreshing over and over, and if Ilya wasn’t a little bit afraid that saying something might actually end in his death at this particular moment, he would tell him to put the phone down already and let himself have a break.
As it is, he just tries to pour gasoline on the fire a little more carefully, letting @puckbunnyhunt3r know that his username alone is a clear indication that he’s never had sex with even one other person, let alone two.
*
“Smile.”
Surprised, Ilya looks up to find Shane’s phone pointed at him.
“Is this going to be evidence to pretend I am still alive when you and Yuna kill me?” He asks, raising his eyebrows.
“Like my mom would need my help with that,” Shane scoffs. “No, this whole thing is annoying. Fuck it. Smile.”
This is not especially reassuring or helpful as a response, but Ilya obeys anyway. It’s never hard to smile when looking at Shane, after all. Shane types furiously, backspacing over and over as he changes his mind about how to do whatever he’s doing. Ilya leaves him to it, slowly inching his feet closer to Shane’s when they relax enough to emerge from under The Mistress.
When Shane lets their toes touch without immediately jerking his away again, Ilya takes it as a victory.
*
“Okay?” Shane asks, wriggling his way out from under The Mistress and crawling over the couch to lay next to Ilya, partially on top of him, phone held out.
Ilya, hand behind Shane’s on the phone to hold it steady and not five inches from his face, skims the caption and snorts, smoothing his other hand over Shane’s hair affectionately and kissing his cheek.
“Do I at least get to pack my clothes, or are you doing the whole throw all of my things on the lawn thing?” He asks dryly, moving easily when Shane shoulders him over enough to make more space to lay more comfortably.
“Depends on how many people keep on jumping into my DMs after this,” Shane says absently, pressing post.
Ilya gets the notification on Instagram that Shane Hollander has made a new post, and he opens it to offer his support with a like.
He smiles at the picture of Shane’s weighted-blanket-covered legs and himself at the other end of the sofa, smiling on command, the caption below reading, “Pictured: my “mistress” and my soon-to-be-ex-husband who likes to make jokes.”
“How long is appropriate until I can remarry?” He teases Shane, getting a hand to the face as Shane uses it as leverage to pull away.
“Okay, asshole,” Shane grumbles, retreating back to the other end of the couch again.
When Ilya dares stick his feet under The Mistress, though, he isn’t ordered to stop.
He’ll take what he can get.
*
There’s an important thing Ilya failed to consider when approving Shane’s post.
Namely that his husband is a celebrity and thus has a valuable amount of social currency brands are eager to cash in on.
“What the fuck is happening,” he says flatly on the day he innocently walks into his home to find a pile of five mistresses in the living room. “She has invited sisters?”
“PR,” Shane says absently, looking far more calm about this than Ilya is as he runs his hands over one of the blankets consideringly. “Apparently weighted blankets are a growing market or something. A bunch of brands sent me some to try out.”
“No,” Ilya says, with a growing sense of dread. “No, no more mistresses. You are one person. One mistress is enough.”
Shane makes eye contact with him as he lays back, dragging two blankets over himself as he goes.
*
Ilya has lost control of his household.
He is surrounded on all sides by mistresses, all courting his husband with fancy covers and different weights and empty, stupid promises of better sleep and calmer nerves.
Ilya, who hasn’t been asked to lay on top of his husband to snuggle since the first one made its way through their door, is feeling decidedly not calm.
“I am also here,” he snarks as Shane passes him by with his arms full of two mistresses, the latest additions to his harem. “In case you have forgotten. I am also still here and nice to touch and also heavy.”
Shane ignores him, retreating to their room with his concubines.
Ilya sinks deeper into the couch, sulking, reaching up with a foot to kick one of the mistresses off of the back of the sofa.
The thump as it hits the floor just makes him feel worse.
*
It’s weighted blanket sixteen that snaps the last bit of restraint he has. He has only one course of action left to him: Instagram Live.
“Enough!” He says, moving his phone enough to capture the small mountain of blankets taking over their couch, Shane visible only as the very top of a messy bun on the other side of the pile, currently happily layered under three of his mistresses. “Enough of this. There are too many in our house. We have enough. If my husband wants to be squished, he has a husband for this. Enough of these stupid blankets. Is like being-” He struggles to remember the word, knowing he’s heard it but unable to grasp it when he’s so annoyed. “Shane, what is word? People in Utah, they have many wives?”
“Mormons?” Shane offers, sounding entirely calm and unbothered.
“Those,” Ilya says sharply. “All blanket brands, listen now: enough. Household is full. Marriage is full. Enough of this! Every single day I look, and there are more enemies in this house. No more. Send them to sad, lonely people without husbands.”
“That’s mean, Ilya,” Shane says mildly.
Ilya scowls and ends the livestream, confident he’s made his point.
It almost makes him miss the days when he had only one mistress to contend with.
*
“Every single day I look, and there are more enemies in this house” goes viral as a sound, used over and over by people complaining about clutter or pets or laundry.
Shane receives five more weighted blankets.
*
“Now you are just trying to hurt my feelings,” Ilya says on the day he gets home from the grocery store to find Shane under six weighted blankets and curled around a pillow on the couch while watching House Hunters International because he is both boring and a freak who is turned on by real estate. “I am braving the world to feed us, and you are here having orgy?”
“I told you to just order grocery delivery,” Shane says without pity, not looking away from the television. Annoyingly, he looks very cozy and comfortable crushing himself under enough weight that most people would probably be struggling to breathe, sunk deep into the cushions of their sofa and clearly quite content about it.
“And then they would have selected squishy grapes instead of crunchy grapes and you would have died of a broken heart and also refused to eat them,” Ilya says dryly, leaning over the back of the sofa. He lifts an eyebrow when Shane glances up at him. “Is there space for me on the couch, also, or is it just for you and your mistresses now?”
“I mean, if you’re going to be a dick about it,” Shane says, but despite the words, he peels off five of the mistresses and dumps them on the other end of the couch, pressing himself back against the back of the couch to make space.
Ilya takes the spot he’s offered, laying down on his side and pressing Shane between himself and the sofa, Shane shifting pillows around until he can see past Ilya’s head and then wrapping an arm around his chest, The Mistress falling over them both. He settles down with an exhale so obviously content that Ilya smiles, reaching up to capture Shane’s hand in his and pressing a kiss to the back of it, keeping custody of it when he’s done and pressing it over his heart.
“You’re still my favorite mistress,” Shane says, squeezing him gently.
“I would hope so,” Ilya says, closing his eyes and toying with the idea of a nap. “You are beneficiary of my life insurance policy now, after all. You liking me is the only thing keeping me alive, I think.”
“I mean the money’s looking better the longer you talk,” Shane says dryly.
“Hm,” Ilya agrees. “Think of how many new houses you could buy with my death money. Would be very fun for your real estate fetish.”
“Think of how many mistresses I could fit in all of them,” Shane says, laughing when he gets an elbow to the side for it.
“You are mean and evil and I am filing for a divorce,” Ilya tells him.
Shane, settling down and rubbing his thumb absently over the side of Ilya’s hand, doesn’t seem very concerned by the threat. Ilya shakes his head in disapproval, but he’s smiling even as he does so, content despite himself at the heavy weight over him and the warm, familiar weight behind him, Shane’s breathing moving him with every exhale and inhale with the way he’s pressed tight, a slow, gentle repetitive motion that Ilya knows from experience is dangerously easy to fall asleep to.
This was a dream, once, an impossible, beautiful thing he wanted but knew he would never have, Shane behind him and a ring on each of them marking a promise that it’s forever, the two of them. Once, the only promise between them was that there would be a text sent to secure a stolen few hours to fuck each other and pretend like it was enough, that it didn’t leave both of them hungry for more, for things neither of them had let themselves think about enough to even consciously want. Once, the best thing Ilya could have thought to hope for was fucking Shane hard enough to have the excuse of holding him close afterwards to let them both catch their breath until it was time to part once more, leaving the other feeling even colder in the absence.
Now, he’s here, snuggling with his husband on their couch to waste hours doing nothing but watching terrible, boring television together. They can afford it, now, to spend their time on nothing. Impossible as it seems, their togetherness can now be measured in years and decades, an intoxicating amount of him and Shane stretching out ahead of him, his for the taking.
If he has to share it with mistresses, well.
It seems a small enough price to pay.