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The slow, blinking clock on the nightstand reads 7:30 on a Saturday morning, which by each and every of Ilya Rozanov’s perfectly reasonable standards, it is far too fucking early to be woken up by the god forsaken and far too familiar crescendo of canaries chirping from his dear husband’s phone.
“Shane,” he says, incredulous, half asleep, and resisting the ever growing urge to, lovingly, strangle said husband. “Please say you’re fucking kidding.”
The man in question groans from beside him, drool adorably coating the corner of his lips. “Fuck,” he mutters, pulling the blanket over his head and more importantly, doing nothing to stop the goddamned birds who had progressed from chirps to a full on melody, and with it most of Ilya’s pre-coffee sanity. “Was gonna go for a run.”
“A run,” Ilya says flatly, arm reaching over to fumble for Shane’s phone, blearily typing the password and turning off all two of his set alarms. Two. Not for the first time, Ilya ponders how he married the kind of psychopath who only needs two alarms to wake up. The second one really more of a failsafe that never quite needs to go off.
“Yes, Ilya. A run. The thing professional athletes do,” Shane snips, any edge that statement might have had lost to the tuft of bedhead poking out from beneath the lump of blanket like a little sprout fighting its way above ground.
“Da. Yes. Professional athletes who only got back home at midnight after plane delay and long, tiring game against old boring hockey player. Those professional athletes, yes?”
From the lone tuft of bedhead, grumpy brown eyes emerge. “Da. The same professional athletes that have a game coming up in three days.”
“Shaneeee,” Ilya whines, throwing his arm around the now wriggling lump of sheets, burrowing deep into them as if to tether him to the bed. “Please,” it comes out all puppy-like and muffled. “Rest day. Rest is important for peak athletic performance.”
An arm escapes their blanket and winds its way around Ilya’s back. His lips chart their way to the golden mess of soft curls tickling up his nose that smells suspiciously like his seaweed shampoo, but never quite like when he uses it.
“Snooze,” Shane sighs, not-so-secretly too content to move. “One hour.”
“Two.” Ilya mumbles, already lulled back to sleep as his grip around Shane tightens, Ilya’s body a warm, steady furnace against him on this chilly winter morning.
Shane picks his phone up, its charging cable haphazardly strewn across the bed, checks the weather app as he did last night. Storm clouds. 65% chance of snow.
In all truth, he had already decided the night before that he was going to sleep in, only that he had drifted off before remembering to turn off his alarms. Eyes falling shut against the gentle morning light, he nestles himself into his husband, and before he knows it he’s out like a light, snowflakes meandering their way down the overcast skies.
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The next time Shane blinks his bleary eyes open, it is to the creaking of their room door and the smell of hot coffee wafting toward him. With great effort, he rolls over, tangling himself further into the sheets, splayed out on the wrong side of the bed that’s far too cold and empty for his liking.
“Good morning, solnysko.” He hears the click of ceramic against their bedside table, and the weight of a shirtless 200 pound man dips into their mattress and drapes himself across the length of his spine.
“Morning–” Shane turns his head up to chase a kiss, morning breath mixed with coffee, a whiff of a midnight cigarette that always throws him back to those long years of quiet stares and wanting and sneaking around hotel rooms across the continent. Solid planes of muscle meld itself across his back, an arm sneaks its way to wrap around his waist. Most days, Shane still can’t believe that he has this – everything the seventeen year old version of him couldn’t imagine, didn’t even know how to articulate into existence. “What time is it?”
“Ten,” Ilya replies. Shane’s gaze tracks to the clock on the wall and raises an eyebrow. 10:39. “Ish,” he shrugs unbothered, bare shoulder dragging against Shane’s back.
“I brought you coffee,” Ilya says, lazily motioning toward the two cups haphazardly stacked on top of the coasters.
“Mmm. Love you.” He wriggles his way up to pick up the navy mug, shifting Ilya to lie against his legs. On a childish whim, Shane shoves an icy toe into the crease of his hip which Ilya hisses against and shoves, but eventually wraps his warm fingers around anyway.
“Bad,” Ilya grumbles, squeezing a toe for good measure.
Shane giggles. “Did you take your pills yet?” he asks, taking a long sip of his coffee, dark roast and almond milk, brewed fresh from their far too expensive coffee machine that Ilya had insisted on buying when they officially moved into their new Ottawan home after their wedding of a century. He still gets texts complaining about the lack of chairs.
“No,” Ilya says, in a way that really means – yes, he did, but he wants to be annoying. “Want you to feed me.” He puckers his lips and makes obnoxious kissy noises. “Like bird.”
“You’re a freak,” Shane deadpans, bringing the icy toes of his other foot over to dig into — he contemplates his next plan of attack — finds the nook of Ilya’s armpit this time.
Ilya lets out an only slightly squeaky squeal, shuddering away and pouncing on top of Shane, hot coffee sloshing dangerously to the edge. “Ilya!” he laughs, quickly placing it back – centered he might add – onto the top of the coaster.
“I’m going to bite you,” Ilya declares, making his way up Shane’s body, arms caging Shane’s head as he stares down, playful glint flashing predatorily across his eyes. Shane swallows, thinks of the quietly fading hickeys and teeth marks scattered across his thighs and that night after their game against the Admirals, where Ilya, coming back from the hotel bar after a couple rounds of drinks, had taken one look at his husband wrapped up in bed, furrow of concentration on his face as a green bird on his phone squawked rudely at him in Russian, and those fucking glasses slipping down his nose, and had fucked him so good he passed out, relaxed and boneless into the too soft mattress of another borrowed room.
Shane looks up now, the edge of his mouth curved into a sly grin, hands slipping to the waistline of Ilya’s boxers, tugging it off, tugging closer, he couldn’t begin to tell. “Pozhaluysta,” he murmurs. Please. His forehead gently slips forward to knock against Ilya’s, brown eyelashes brushing against rosy cheeks, thanking god they had all the time in the world.
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They’re in the midst of staring blankly side by side into the mostly empty refrigerator, courtesy of their two week trip away from home, bickering whether leftover pizza and a half eaten salad from that one late night Italian place counts as brunch food when the repeated buzzing of their phones against the marble counter distracts them from their hunger induced reverie.
Shane turns, sees the crescendo of notifications from Twitter flooding their phones.
“Maybe we should go get groceries,” he says distractedly, casting a doubtful eye to the piled up snow and grey strewn clouds and their driveway, covered in a layer of overnight frost. He glances back at Ilya who nods in agreement but already has a slice of cold pizza in his mouth.
“Jesus, Ilya. At least heat it up first,” Shane grumbles, definitely not at all charmed by his husband’s soft, sleepy face, boyish under the pale blue light, puffed up around last night’s dinner.
Ilya chews obnoxiously. “Leftover pizza tastes better like this,” he says, shrugging. “So?” He gestures around a mouthful of food, pizza slice hanging from his teeth, to his phone now in Shane’s hand. “Did Hayden Pike come out for us again?”
Shane bites out a laugh despite himself. Hayden probably did deserve that one, after all. His fingers tap across the screen and scrolls through the list of notifications coming through, eyebrows rising further up his forehead as his glances over the incoming stream of mentions and grainy photographs scattered across his feed. You’d think being famous would become easier, but the same nervous energy thrums through his nerves and under his skin as he waits for whatever scandal he may or may not have participated in this time. Or more accurately, he muses as the myriad of tweets begin to puzzle themselves together, whatever scandal Ilya has a talent for finding himself caught in the middle— he blinks.
Oh, for the love of–
“No,” Shane sighs, grumbling as he leans his weight against the island counter. He turns the full force of his brown wounded eyes onto Ilya, who can only brace himself for the worst. “I can’t believe you’re cheating on me again, Ilyusha.”
Ilya blinks owlishly back at him, swallowing the remaining bit of crust as he licks crumbs off his fingers. “Oh no,” he deadpans. “You caught me. Is it Russian Goddess or Hot Young Twink this time?”
Shane turns his phone around to show the picture of him walking out of a trendy East Village restaurant with his hand resting against the curve of Svetlana’s back, their faces cast under the warm glow of streetlamps, a cheeky cigarette hooked behind his ear. He’s wearing one of Shane’s linen shirts, but with the sleeves rolled up and top buttons deliciously undone and the way it stretches, just a little too tightly, across the expanse of his chest. The gleam of a ring hung around his neck glints like an oath under the orange light.
Shane sniffs mournfully. “I just don’t know how long I can live like this.”
Fuck, is Ilya’s first thought. Svetlana was right. He woefully says goodbye to the second last bottle of Beluga’s he’d been saving in its crate in the basement.
“But darling, moy lubyu, you know I always come back to you,” Ilya says, backing Shane up against the table and lifting him onto the granite countertop. Like clockwork, Shane’s legs rise to pull him in, closer, always closer.
“It's the third time this year,” Shane points out, eyes comically wide, fingers weaving themselves like tapestries into Ilya’s curls.
“Only three?”
Shane snorts and primly adds, “It’s February, Ilya.”
In return, Ilya mouths at the juncture of Shane’s neck, the heady mix of post-coital sweat and their spring breeze detergent, the frayed edge of Ilya’s worn Boston jumper hanging off his clavicle, another one of those pieces of clothing that was really more Shane’s than his nowadays with how little he gets to wear it. He pulls the stretched collar of the jumper to a side as Shane arches into him, baring his neck, sighing as he’s suckled on, just on the right edge of painful, another bruise that’ll bloom like a brand, like ownership against his skin.
“She was just so irresistible,” Ilya mumbles. “Telling me all about her new boyfriend who’s taking her to Dubai next weekend. All the camels they were going to ride.”
Shane’s brows furrow, blood already rushing away from his brain. Are camels an euphemism for something? he almost asks dumbly. “Huh,” he says instead, winding an arm around the back of Ilya’s neck, pulling him until they’re smushed together. “The same guy we met last time?”
“Da.” Ilya manages to nod, morning stubble dragging roughly against Shane.
“Wow. She must really like him.”
Ilya rolls his eyes. He can count the number of boyfriends she’s ever brought around in less than a hand. “She introduced him to me. Of course she really likes him.”
There might’ve been a time when the mention of her name would’ve been enough to draw the green tint of envy into his face. When he and Ilya still were— not quite nothing, but not quite something either, and Svetlana was beautiful and simple in the way that Ilya could put an arm around her waist in public and declare they were going to be married and the world would only laugh and coo, oh, what a gorgeous couple.
But more than that, Svetlana was home for Ilya in a way that Shane could never be. In the melodic cadence of a childhood language. In the tupperware of homemade pelmeni she sometimes brings for Ilya, delivered straight with reheating orders from the worn hands of her grandmother. In that very first meeting, kids at a hockey rink, when she rolled her eyes and yelled over the stands that he shot with all the accuracy of a baby deer stumbling on ice.
And Shane had understood that. Would've been happy even, to sit aside and glean what he could in his little snatches of Russian while they treaded old steps to a place he wouldn’t know how to follow.
Except, Svetlana, for her part, had conspiratorially grabbed his arm the first time they met, and proceeded to completely ignore Ilya as he grumpily sipped on his ever-growing glass of wine, muttering about embarrassing and menaces, all while she fed Shane the memories of Ilya as she had knew him, everything he would’ve never known otherwise, sentence by sentence, pulling him into the lonely world that for so long, only the two of them had shared.
Shane’s phone buzzes again between them, a text from Svetlana herself coming through. Ilya always says there’s probably witches and baba yaga’s scattered deep into both lines of her ancestry. Shane is scared to admit he thinks he’s probably right.
Sorry I stole your man. Shrug emoji, twice. Tell Ilya he owes me bottle of vodka.
Shane snorts, untangling his arms from around Ilya, fingers dancing across the keyboard. You can’t have him, he writes. We’ll keep the vodka until you visit next.
Sorry, darling — comes her instant reply. Not even vodka will bring me to Ottawa. He laughs and reacts with a sad emoji to her message.
“You owe Svetlana a bottle of vodka?” Shane asks, looking up from his phone to Ilya across from him, his hands resting on Shane’s thighs, leaning over trying to read their texts flipped upside down.
Ilya groans. “She said she wanted to leave first in Uber so no photos. I said it’ll be fine. We made bet.”
Shane’s eye twitches, he looks down again at his phone and shoots off another quick text to Svetlana, maybe you can take him after we win the cup. He frowns at Ilya. “Remind me never to bring you to a casino.”
Ilya stares at him, incredulous. His hands rise to firmly cup Shane’s cheeks. “Hollander,” Ilya starts. “You think slot machines are morally bankrupt. You think royal flush is weird sex position. What casino are you going to in first place?”
Shane huffs, hooks his legs higher up, wraps his arms again around the back of Ilya’s neck to pull him hip-to-hip, grinding against his crotch — kindly elects to ignore whatever Ilya just said about his gambling prowess, or lack thereof. “I think you should show me how sorry you are, you know?” he says snottily instead. “For cheating on me again.”
“Yeah?” Ilya grins, hands slipping back between his thighs and the countertop to lift Shane and walk them over to the living room couch, and fuck, if that little display of strength doesn’t always just do it for Shane, his cock stirring again in interest. “I think I can do that.”
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An hour passes with a frenzied rush against each other, followed by the slow, languid touches of a lazy afternoon. Wrapped in their little cocoon, pantlessly strewn under the throw blanket on the grey sectional, they trade unhurried kisses as Shane leans against Ilya, nestled into his orbit.
“The internet is way too invested in your sex life,” Shane pouts, swiping moodily through Twitter as his toes curl against Ilya’s thighs.
Ilya hums. “These carrots okay for you, zaychik?” he asks, turning his phone towards Shane who huffs at the pet name but nods his approval. Organic. Non-GMO. “And that is because my sex life is very interesting.” He makes a lewd gesture towards the half empty bottle of lube on their coffee table, his boxers strewn haphazardly around it.
Ilya gets a whack on his arm for his troubles. Shane has that bitchy downturn of his lips like he’s about to give his thoughts on how exactly Ilya’s sex life was about to become a whole lot less interesting when thankfully for the both of them, before Shane could start issuing threats he had zero chance of keeping, Ilya’s phone buzzes, a picture of Chiron popping up onscreen and distracting them from that train of thought altogether.
Their eyes quickly flicker to one another in mutual dread. Harris calling on a weekend is never good news.
“Put me on speaker,” Harris says, sounding like he’d already been laughing when they pick up. Shane dutifully leans forward off Ilya’s chest and presses the little button, Harris’ voice bouncing through their living room. “You have a problem,” he announces.
“What is problem?” Ilya groans. “I hope you know you are interrupting very important grocery delivery order time.” He absentmindedly swipes away from the call screen and adds another bag of chips to the cart – sour cream and onion, and not the fucking ketchup ones that the strange people in this country like. “So if your star players starve to death it is your fault.”
“That would probably make my life easier,” Harris muses as if he quite likes the thought before jumping into it. “Twitter thinks Ilya is cheating on you.”
“Twitter always thinks Ilya is cheating on me,” Shane interjects, offended, snatching the phone from Ilya and adding the healthy freeze dried veggie chips. Removes two of the six bags of Ilya’s chips for good measure while the man pouts beside him. “How is it only a problem now?”
Harris sighs like he’d rather be doing anything than having this conversation on a Sunday afternoon, but alas, the perils of having Ilya Rozanov on your team. “Okay,” he says, psyching himself up. “You guys might want to brace yourselves for this one.”
“We already know about Svetla–” Ilya starts the same time Shane sighs, and wonders if it's too late to shove himself back into the closet. “How bad can it possibly–”
“They think he’s cheating on you with Scott Hunter.”
Ilya’s mouth slams shut with an audible snap. Shane slowly blinks.
“What?” Ilya squawks indignantly, nearly toppling off the edge of the couch, horrified, stunned, looking as if someone crashed his only sports car and surgically removed all of Shane’s freckles at the same time.
Shane takes a long, hard look at Ilya’s face, and feels a bubble expanding its way up his chest, coming to crest as he lets out a rather inelegant guffaw before promptly bursting into a fit of delighted laughter, tremors wrecking through his body as he burrows his face into the back of the couch.
“That is—” he gasps, coming up for air. “The best fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“I want you to know, sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, how much I fucking hate you guys right now,” they hear Troy groan tinnily from the phone.
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After they hang up with Harris’ extremely unhelpful advice to leave it, Ilya. Don’t fan the flames. Ilya decides that the next obvious best course of action is to slip from his seat to pace demented circles naked around the kitchen island.
“Put some pants on, idiot,” Shane says, throwing Ilya’s boxers at him. As much as he was enjoying the view, some conversations are probably better had without dicks hanging out, even if only to curb his own distraction.
“Need to call Farah,” he mutters hysterically with one leg raised midair. “Need to put out fucking statement.”
“You heard Harris,” Shane laughs, aiming a crumpled shirt at his head. “Anything you say only gives them more ammo.”
Ilya turns to him incredulously, marginally more dressed. “Shane. Love of my life. People cannot be allowed to think that I am fucking a geriatric old man. Survivor of the fucking titanic. Oldest fossil in dinosaur museum. His fucking dick probably stopped working sometime in the 1600’s.”
“I’m getting lost in this timeline,” Shane muses. “How old do you think he is again? But sure, sure,” he agrees, stretching out on the couch with a shit eating grin plastered on his face. “Although, you were at the bar for a pretty long time that night. Who knows what might’ve happened?”
“Shane,” he says again, pleading. “I was doing community service. Civic duty. Taking nursing home resident out for dinner to make sure he’s not being abused. New Yorker says that is big problem in America nowadays.”
Shane giggles, grabs Ilya’s phone to reopen the link that Harris had sent — a TMZ article with pictures of them sitting together at the counter of a hotel bar. More outside in the New York cold, Ilya’s arm around Scott’s shoulder, speaking into Scott’s ear as if they didn’t want to be overheard. The headline reads, Trouble in Paradise? Cozy Night Out for Rozanov and Hunter: No Husbands in Sight.
“I don’t know…TMZ is right. You guys do look rather cozy,” Shane says thoughtfully, holding up the pictures as Ilya stalks over, glaring at them. “You really were busy those two and a half days we were in New York.”
“We talked about hockey camp!” Ilya moans, a little shrillness peeking its way through. “And his shit fucking team that lost to us! And about stupid surprise anniversary idea for Kip! And maybe…”
“Maybe?”
Ilya grimaces. “Nothing,” he says airily. “Maybe nothing.”
“Ilya.”
“Well… maybe a little blackmail…” Ilya trails off sheepishly.
“Blackmail?! Ilya!” Shane yelps, exasperated. “What on earth could you possibly be blackmailing Scott Hunter about?”
Ilya shrugs. “He tells me about nice surprise, I say surprise will only remain surprise if…”
“If what, Ilya?!” Shane groans, eyes rolling heavenward for strength.
“Bah,” he says flippantly. “Does not matter. Great-Grandpa Scott did not believe I would ruin surprise anyway. Would not tell me anything.”
Shane stops. A slow grin worms its way across his features, curling its way up his face. “You’re telling me—” he says disbelievingly. “You’re saying Scott Hunter, your mortal enemy, did not believe you would spill his secret surprise even if he refused to tell you whatever crazy thing you wanted to know.”
Ilya scowls at him. “Don’t, Shane.”
“Ilya, light of my life,” Shane says, his grin growing, eyes crinkling up into their corners.
“Shane.” In a fluid motion, Ilya throws his weight over the back of the couch and pins him down by his wrists against the cushions. “Do not,” he warns.
Shane’s full on laughing now, head tipping backward onto the armrest as he squirms in place. “My big, scary Russian,” he coos, fingers escaping Ilya’s grip to pinch at his cheek. Ilya sulks like the world’s most oversized child. “I think you’re losing your touch, baby.”
With a resigned huff, Ilya flops down onto him, defeated.
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Not ten minutes after Ilya received the worst phone call of his life, Alexei’s call to inform him of his father's death included — Shane’s phone starts buzzing with that slightly offbeat ringtone he uses only for Yuna.
“Hi, mom,” Shane says, sitting up as he untangles himself from around his husband.
“Hi, sweetie,” she replies. “We saw the news — How’s Ilya holding up?”
“Ilya?” Shane asks, affronted. “Your son is the one being cheated on.”
Yuna laughs, bright and tinkling and completely unbothered. “You really should be used to it by now.”
“My own mother,” Shane deadpans. “But, you’re not wrong,” he concedes, adding to his list of the pitfalls in marrying a former Slavic fuck boy – the Adidas slides currently taking up an entire row on their shoe rack sat firmly at number one. “Third time this year — or fourth, I guess, if you count Svetlana this morning, although I suppose that one didn’t make TMZ.”
“It’s only February!” she exclaims.
“That’s what I said!” Shane trills, vindicated.
Shane chances a glance at said husband, who had resorted to staring at their blank television like one of those lost dogs confused by their own reflections. “He’ll live,” he adds thoughtfully, going back to Yuna’s initial question as Ilya buries his face into his hands. “Probably.”
Shane reaches over to pull Ilya back into his side, stroking soothing patterns into his hair.
“I want my Anya,” Ilya moans into the phone. “She wouldn’t betray me like this.”
A video call request comes through, which upon accepting has Yuna fumbling to switch her camera view before seemingly giving up and turning her entire phone towards her lap. They’re greeted with the adorable image of Anya peacefully napping as Yuna strokes up and down her back, in honesty not too far off from what Shane was doing to him right now.
“Ah, I see how it is,” Ilya sighs despondently. “Even my daughter does not care that this is the worst day of my life.”
The camera swings back up to Yuna, who’s clearly enjoying herself far too much for the gravity of the situation. “We were about to bring her back. Just wanted to make sure you guys were home before driving over.”
“Please come,” Ilya moans again miserably. “World is terrible place. Only she can fix.” He pointedly ignores the extremely offended look on Shane’s face at coming second place to a dog, even if Anya is the sort of perfect that all pet owners can only dream of. Yuna chortles some more.
“You’re the worst,” Shane informs him, after they finally hang up. “First, you cheat on me. Four times! Then, you tried to blackmail a senior citizen. And then, you cast me aside for a dog?”
He swings his leg over Ilya’s hip until they’re pulled flush together, Shane straddling his lap. “I want a divorce,” he declares huffily.
“Never,” promises Ilya with a peck to his nose. And another. And another. He wraps his arms around the small of Shane’s back and pulls him even tighter against him, burying his face into the crease of Shane’s shoulder so his next words come out slightly muffled, vibrating steadily into the hollow of Shane’s skin. “I will keep you prisoner forever.”
“Yeah?” Shane shifts on Ilya’s lap to drape over him, whispering into his ear. “I’ll hold you to that, Rozanov.”
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They finally come around to eating the leftovers. Or at least, Ilya does, devouring the rest of the box of cold pizza while they scroll through Twitter on their phones to see what people are saying about, Ilya shudders — him and Scott.
“Shane, this one doesn’t believe either of us would cheat!” he says happily. “Wait — no — they think we are in a–” Ilya squints in confusion. “Ethically consensual polyamorous quad.”
Shane coughs out some of his protein shake. He definitely feels a little bit of it crawl up the back of his nose. “What the fuck—”
Wordlessly, Ilya grabs a piece of kitchen roll to wipe up the bits of shake that flew onto the counter, shifts his stool closer to pat his back as Shane tries to catch his breath. The furrow between his brow deepens. “Baby,” Ilya finally says, concern dripping in that one word. “I do not understand what the fuck that means.”
“It— It means—” Shane coughs, making a series of increasingly unintelligible hand gestures that probably only serves to confuse Ilya all the more. Shane clears his throat again, swallows a big gulp of his protein shake for good measure. “They think the four of us are — in a relationship — together. Fucking.”
“Chto za khuynya?!” Ilya yelps, dropping his phone as if contaminated, his face scrunching up in horror. He lets out another string of profanities in Russian before turning to Shane, staring him down serious and stone faced. “This is clearly the capitalist depravity they warned us about in Russia.”
Shane opens his mouth as if to object, and shuts it just as quick. Ilya’s probably not totally off-base here, but he’s definitely not touching that with a ten-foot pole. “I think that’s enough Twitter,” he offers weakly instead.
Ilya reaches a singular finger out to prod his phone closer back to him, reading over that tweet once again before shuddering and turning the screen off. “Yes,” he agrees, already lamenting the day he learnt this godforsaken language. “I think I call Harris again instead.”
“He’s going to kill you,” Shane points out. “Or at least Troy will.”
“Not if this kills me first,” Ilya replies, dug somewhere deep into the pits of despair.
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Ilya has to call twice. Twice! Before Troy deigns to pick up Harris’ phone.
“Roz,” he groans. “Y’know, not everyone gets their husband while on the road.”
“Unlucky,” Ilya says unsympathetically. “Put Harris on.”
“Go away.”
“I will make 6am mandatory morning practice tomorrow,” he threatens. “And bring apples from Harris’ farm so the rookies can throw them at you.”
“There is seriously something wrong with–” There’s a very loud sigh and a shuffle of hands. I tried, babe, they hear Troy mumble. “Hello?” Harris finally says breathlessly into the phone.
“Hello, Harris,” Ilya replies, pointedly choosing to ignore whatever extracurricular activities he may have interrupted. “Please say you have come up with fourteen-step master plan to stop idiots on Twitter from thinking I am cheating on beautiful husband with prehistoric caveman.”
“It’s Sunday, Ilya. And I already said to ignore it,” Harris points out, as unhelpful as earlier.
“I’m sorry, does Twitter sleep on Sunday?” Ilya demands, increasingly unimpressed that no one quite seems to grasp the severity of the situation. “Does it stop existing because Ottawa’s social media manager is getting his dick sucked by second hottest hockey player on Centaurs?”
“Second?!” comes Troy’s indignant voice. “You really think you’re the hottest player on our team?”
“Nyet, you fucking idiot.” Ilya rolls his eyes. God, he really does play on a team full of morons. Maybe he can bump Wyatt and Luca up the rankings, move Troy down to fourth. “Obviously, Shane. If I was on this list you would be third.”
Troy tells him in no uncertain terms to fuck himself. Shane tries his best to frown and tell him off, but for his cheeks, ever transparent, tinging the slightest shade of pink.
Harris sighs, the long suffering sound of a man too used to wrangling some twenty-odd children into varying levels of presentability on a daily basis. “Ilya, please do not have a ranking of how hot your teammates are. And if you do, Troy is definitely the hottest. We’ll talk about this situation tomorrow. If this is still a problem then we can think about releasing a statement of some sort. Maybe. Probably not. Honestly, our best bet is to let this just fizzle out. People who believe this crap are going to believe it regardless.” He pauses, then adds for the sake of giving Ilya something non-destructive to do. “Maybe post a cute pic or something of the both of you on your socials.” He hangs up as Ilya begins to protest.
Ilya immediately flips to their message thread and furiously types, THEY’RE CALLING US HUNTANOV!!!!, followed by a row of skulls. His brain is melting out of his skull from the sheer absurdity of this situation.
How unoriginal, Harris replies, utterly nonchalant. He also sends back a picture of Chiron, who’s as cute as always, and allows some of his molten brain to solidify back into place. Unfortunately, that short recovery only lasts for all of a second before he notices Troy shirtless and cuddled against him, flipping off the camera, and his brain seeps out to the ground in annoyance— again.
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Their last call of the day comes just after Shane’s parents dropped off Anya who had decidedly gained some weight, despite David and Yuna’s insistence that they weren't feeding her too much outside of meal times. He pointedly ignores the half open bag of dog treats he spies in their backseat while they quietly reassure him that all of this will blow over sooner than later, trying their best to hide the laughing grins on both their faces when they think he’s not paying attention.
Ilya’s phone lights up with his contact, of all the people Ilya would categorically not like to talk to.
“Hunter,” Ilya greets tersely, after Shane had elbowed him in the ribs as he hovered his finger over the decline button. Scott’s face pops up over facetime, looking very much like a man walking to the gallows. Kip tightens his hold around Scott’s shoulder like an executioner holding him in place.
“Rozanov,” Scott replies grimly, just as tense.
“Hi Ilya!” Kip cuts through the doom and gloom like a ray of sunshine, pulling Scott further into frame. “Hi Shane! I heard our husbands are cheating on us with each other.” Despite his best efforts, he fails to hide the giggle that escapes him.
“Hi guys,” Shane replies, he lets out an unruly snort. “Thanks for calling. Ilya isn’t taking the news very well.”
“Neither is Scott,” Kip says, as both men scowl at each other. Kip continues, ignoring them. “You would think they’d be better about hiding it. Anyway,” he waves off Scott’s protest. “We talked to Scott’s agent. Scott was about to go nuclear on Twitter but she convinced him to leave it alone.” Kip dangles Scott’s phone in front of the camera. “He’s on timeout.”
“Funny, Harris said the same thing,” Shane says, giving Ilya a pointed look. “We agree then? Don’t say anything, don’t post anything that could encourage this… situation.”
“Yup!” Kip easily agrees.
“Great,” says Shane. “Good talk.” He moves to hang up. “See you—”
“It’s your fucking fault, by the way,” Scott says, just as Shane and Kip thought they were going to get out of this call unscathed. They catch each other’s gaze, two long suffering, resigned sighs of commiseration. Shane wonders if he can interest their little polycule in group therapy.
“Me?!” Ilya yells, indignant, the badly held dam exploding. “You’re the one who picked fight on ice with baby Shane. And refuses to tell me why!”
“Oh my fucking god, Ilya!” Shane gapes, immediately turning a rather alarming shade of red. “That’s the reason for all this?”
“Shane. You have been in one fight your entire hockey career. With old and boring Scott Hunter. That you refuse to tell me anything about. Please, moy lubov, I need to know why. Were you guys fighting over who has more old man habits? Which brand of porridge tastes best? Who has earlier bedtime?”
Scott has a look on his face that screams, you married this guy? Really?
Shane sheepishly grins, and shrugs helplessly in return. It’s him. It’s always him. That is, if he doesn’t murder said husband in the next ten minutes.
“He picked a fight with me, if anything,” Scott points out, defeated. Ilya eyebrows shoot up, looking dubiously toward his husband.
“This guy.” Ilya checks, waving his thumb at Shane. “This guy picked a fight.”
Shane winces. “He’s not… wrong?”
Pleading eyes tremble, he lets his lower lip wobble ever so slightly. “Please, baby.”
“Ilyaa—” Shane whines. “It’s embarrassing—“
“I promise to only laugh a little,” Ilya soothes, cupping his palm around Shane’s cheek. Shane leans into it, glaring up at Ilya, his pretty brown eyes in full display. “Malysh– kotynok– please.” He leans close and says in the world’s loudest whisper, “I will spend all night eating you–”
“Ilya!”
“Jesus Christ!” cries Scott. “Please, shut up. No one needs to hear that. I’ll tell you, Rozanov.” He has the weary, terrorized gaze of a man coming back home from war. Or a sleepless night at a certain All-Star Game he tried his best to prevent.
“That is homophobic but I will forgive,” Ilya says, ever so magnanimously. “So?”
“Homopho—” Scott sighs, cutting himself off, pinching the space between his brows. He does his best to recall the breathing exercises he had googled specifically to deal with this man.
“Okay,” he takes a deep breath through his nose, exhales from his mouth. “So. Your husband decided to pick a fight about how badly I was playing. It was a shit chirp, but I was pissed because you were an asshole the game before, so I said that he was starting to sound like you. That’s it,” Scott snaps, exasperated. “That was literally it.”
Ilya is quiet for a moment, processing, the imaginary gears spinning confused circles in his head. He turns to Shane in disbelief. “You fought Scott Hunter for me?” he says, something like awe bleeding into his voice.
Shane groans in return, red in the face and wishing the earth would swallow him whole. “I did not fight him for you, asshole.”
“You did,” Ilya coos. “You were so obsessed with me, Hollander. That’s so embarrassing for you.”
“How does your brain work? We’re married!” Shane sputters. “Of course I’m obsessed with you.”
“Old man gives most boring reply to your baby chirp and my darling, paranoid husband just loses it,” Ilya says, nuzzling himself against Shane. “Such a romantic. What did I do to deserve you?”
Ilya nibbles up the shell of his ear, the movement sending a shudder up Shane’s spine. The faintest whimper escapes and his cheeks, which were finally returning to a normal color, light up redder than before. Still, he tilts his head to offer Ilya more access.
“And that's our cue!” Kip says, laughing at the ever growing horror mounting on Scott’s face. For surely hockey isn’t worth this. Surely his time is better spent sipping mimosas on a Mediterranean island, half a world and many oceans away from these twin freaks of nature.
He thinks back to that first year they exploded into the league. How he used to think of them as the little cartoon devil and angel of hockey, balancing the opposing forces of the hockeyverse out.
He was wrong. God is dead. They were clearly both sent to torment him into an early grave.
“Use protection!” Kip yells, as Scott desperately taps to end the call.
________________
“I hate you,” Shane informs him, entirely unconvincingly as he makes his way over Ilya’s lap.
“Shane.”
“Also, I think you might get Scott to retire, after all.” Shane leans back and tosses the phone onto the coffee table. “Good job, baby,” he says dryly. “One less obstacle to the Stanley Cup.”
“Shane,” Ilya says, ignoring him. He yanks him back deeper into his embrace. “I want to fuck you,” he murmurs. “Want to eat you out until you are crying and begging for my cock. And only then, will fuck you so hard you won’t be able to walk, whole fucking world will know who did that to you. Will see you limping and covered in my marks and know you are the only one for me because no one else is more beautiful. No one can fucking compare.”
Shane swallows. And he is weak, and only a man, after all. “Yes—” he breathes. “Okay— let’s go.” He scrambles off the couch, careless and loose limbed, pulling Ilya up with him.
They’re tumbling half naked up the stairs when the thought strikes.
“Fuck!” Shane yells, even as his fingers tangle themselves deeper into Ilya’s curls. “We never ordered groceries.”
“Later.” Ilya kisses Shane. “I go out buy us poke bowls, yes? Extra green stuff.”
“Order it,” Shane demands flatly, hand aggressively reaching down to cup his husband's cock over the thin material of his boxers. “I’m all out of cheating scandals for the day.”