Chapter Text
Shane chuckled nervously as they pulled up to the All Night Wedding Chapel. What the fuck were they doing? A few hours ago, he had been crying in the bathroom at the MLH awards, asking Ilya what the fuck he wanted from him, and now they were both staring with trepidation at the neon sign advertising Ten Minute Weddings.
…
“What the fuck do you want from me?” Shane yelled in the backstage bathroom.
Ilya’s mocking face grew serious. He has seen Shane flustered before, angry even, both on and off the ice. But he had never seen him cry. “I want… I want to be allowed to have this. Just once, I want to be allowed to have you.”
“You’ve fucking had me!” Shane scoffed. He had every right to be upset. Ilya had ghosted him for months.
“Not… the way I want.” Ilya moved toward him. “I tried to be good and follow the rules of the hockey world and it has gotten me nowhere. I have nothing, Hollander.”
“You have a MLH hockey contract and, in just a few minutes, a fucking MVP award! You have a life people only fucking dream about!” Shane rolled his eyes.
“I’m being fucking deported.” Ilya hissed through clenched teeth. “Back to Russia, and my sick father, and my asshole brother, and nothing!” He threw out his hands as if to show Shane how empty they were.
“Deported?” The words took him by surprise.
“Yes, apparently one fucking interview, where I mildly disagreed with the Russian government, and they are pulling my visa.”
Shane blinked. He knew exactly what interview Ilya was talking about. He had watched it twice. Ilya had barely said anything controversial at all. Just that Russia didn’t allow certain freedoms that the US and Canada did. It was mostly just trash talking some North American players, calling them soft.
“Shit,” Shane breathed.
“Yes.” Ilya blew his breath out slowly between his lips.
“So you…” Shane tried to gather his thoughts after the sudden change of emotion.
“Have to go home. Soon.” Ilya nodded. “And probably do some jail time. Is fine.”
It wasn’t fine. His career would be over. Everything he had worked his whole life for. This was the end of Ilya’s entire world and Shane knew it. It also kinda felt like the end of his own. “Fuck!”
“Yes, again.” Ilya took another step closer. “So, I am sorry. That I tried to quit this. That I thought it would jeopardize both of our careers and end terribly. And didn’t want to do that to you. If I could go back and do things differently, I would.”
Shane shivered as Ilya reached out to caress his face. He had thought the same thing. Tried to quit it more than once.
“Let me have what I want. For the first time in my fucking life. And probably for the last.” Ilya begged.
“Fine, fuck!” Shane growled, pulling him into a needy kiss. If this was his last chance to get this, he was going to fucking take it.
They were only pulled apart by the flickering of lights that warned everyone backstage that they had two minutes to get to their places. Shane and Ilya went back to their seats, Ilya won MVP, and he texted Shane his room number during the after party.
…
“So, what will we tell people?” Ilya asked skeptically, still sitting with Shane in the chapel parking lot.
“That we have a deep respect for each other as athletes and hockey players and it grew into a kind of… love. That stronger marriages have been built on less. That Russia is fucking fascist and forced our hand. The League will have to understand that.”
“Yes, I know what we will tell the press. I mean people. Our friends. Your family.”
“The truth I guess.” Shane shrugged. What the fuck were they doing?
“That you could not live without my dick?”
“Oh, fuck off! I’m doing this for you!”
“I know.” Ilya swallowed, nervously. “But it is little for you, yes? That is what you said?”
“Well, you’re the only player in this whole fucking league that feels like a challenge for me. I don’t want to lose that.”
Ilya nodded. “So do we just… go in?”
…
Shane had agreed to give Ilya what he wanted. So he let him be the boss and tell him how to strip for him and touch himself and he let Ilya make him cum hands free. But just when he thought Ilya was about to kick him out of his bed, and his room, and his life forever, Ilya had pulled him close and held him.
“Hollander?” Ilya breathed against his neck.
“Yeah?”
“Would you… stay?”
“Stay?”
“Spend the night with me.” Ilya clarified. “I’m not done with you yet.”
“Yeah, Rozanov. I can stay.”
Ilya kissed him then. Maybe deeper than he ever had. Definitely longer. They kissed and fucked again, then showered together, and kissed some more. Shane loved kissing Ilya. He loved being kissed by Ilya. He suddenly couldn’t imagine a world in which he would never be able to kiss him again. Which was when he started googling.
“Have you tried…” Shane started to suggest yet another way to appeal his Visa.
“Yes, Hollander. I have very good lawyers. Have tried everything.” Ilya sighed. “Aside from finding some girl to marry, there is no way to keep me in the country. And even then, there would be an investigation. Would be found out. Would do more jail time.”
“What kind of investigation?” Shane looked up at him from the cozy nest of his arms.
“To see if the marriage was real. Trust me, I asked if I could just pay hooker to marry me. There has to be a history.”
“Do you not have like an ex that would do it?” He didn’t love the idea of Ilya being married. But he hated the idea of never seeing him again more.
“Maybe my friend Svetlana. But she is also Russian here on Visa.” Ilya nuzzled into Shane. “No more questions. I don’t want to waste the night thinking about it. I want to fuck you again.”
Shane conceded, letting Ilya have his way with him for a third time within the hour. He also let Ilya smoke in bed after.
“Fuck, you are so much more fun when you feel bad for me,” Ilya grinned, offering Shane another glass of Vodka.
“Tell me about your family.”
“Never mind. Fun Shane is gone.”
“Your dad is sick?”
“Early stages of dementia. I keep hoping he will just forget I exist.” Ilya sighed.
“He was with you on draft day?”
Ilya turned and looked at Shane. “Ah. Yes.”
“He was kinda scary.”
“He is.” Ilya agreed. “Was military, then police. Always harsh and demanding.”
“What about your mom?”
“Dead.”
“Oh fuck, I’m sorry.”
“Was long time ago.”
“I can’t imagine losing my mom. She drives me crazy, but I love her.”
“Yes. I meet her once.”
“Oh god! She told me! Were you riding the elevator up to my room?”
Ilya grinned. “She was kinda scary too. In a different way.”
“Yeah,” Shane smiled softly back at him. “You said you have a brother?”
“Oh my god! You are so nosey!” Ilya grumbled.
“Just… This maybe the last chance I get to ask.” He shrugged.
Ilya sighed. “Older brother. He is asshole.”
“Oh, so it is genetic?” Shane smirked.
Ilya scowled. “He is much worse than me.”
“Do you have anyone else? In Russia?”
“Sveta, Sveta’s father…”
“What about your coaches son?”
“Ah. I forget I tell you about him. We are not close anymore.”
“Was he like… your first love?”
“No. Not love. Just… there.”
“Oh, so like me?”
Ilya shook his head. “No. Nothing like you, Hollander.”
…
“I got it,” Shane handed over his credit card before Ilya could even get his wallet out of his pocket. Three hundred dollars seemed wildly low for a legally binding wedding.
The vodka had seemingly worn off and Ilya had never looked so serious or sober as the officiant walked them through what would happen. Shane reached out and took his hand. They had to look the part anyway. Their tuxes from the night before got only them about half way there. Ilya got them memo and laced his fingers into Shane’s. Still, the split second of eye contact he gave screamed “What the fuck are we doing?!?!”
Shane didn’t have an answer. He knew Ilya wasn’t in love with him. He didn’t even have the same sense of yearning that Shane did. Based on their past encounters, he may not have even liked him at all. But there was something there. Desire at least.
Out of no where, Ilya brought Shane’s hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles, softly. And for some reason, it didn’t feel like part of the act. Shane let himself believe it wasn’t.
“Everybody ready?” The officiant asked.
…
Shane had wanted to ride Ilya for ages. He took his opportunity when they started getting hard a fourth time. They were already making out. Possibly Ilya’s way to keep Shane from asking more questions. Without breaking contact, Shane opened a condom, rolled it onto Ilya, threw his leg over him and sank right down onto his cock.
“I don’t think I can cum any more,” Ilya warned him.
“Me neither,” Shane breathed.
They were both wrong. They came less than ten minutes later.
They showered together a second time and finally agreed to go to sleep.
…
“Do you, Shane Hollander, Take Ilya Rozanov to be your wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as you both shall live?”
“I do,” Shane said, panicking slightly that he had to say it first. Would Ilya even go along with it? They were still holing hands, but he could easily slip away and leave Shane standing at the alter. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t bailing. He wasn’t running away. Why wasn’t he? What the fuck were they doing?
“Yes. Me too.” Ilya answered as soon the officiant started speaking again.
…
“Hollander? Are you still awake? I am… awake.” Ilya pulled Shane to him by the hips, grinding into him.
“How are you hard again?” Shane almost laughed. He had almost dozed off but didn’t mind being roused.
“Is hot naked man in my bed.” Ilya shrugged.
“What do you want from me?” He asked in a much more suggestive tone than he had used in the backstage bathroom.
Ilya hummed as he leaned in to kiss Shane. “Fuck, I want to keep you locked in this hotel room until the Russian government comes and drags me away.”
“If we’re going to do that, we should at least go to my cottage instead. Just had it built. It’s so secluded. So private. We’d have what? A week? Maybe two? Completely alone. Together.” He sighed.
“Ah. Yes. They might never find me there,” Ilya added, humoring Shane’s fantasy. “Mmm… On your stomach,” He ordered.
Shane rolled over and tucked his knees under him.
Ilya hummed. “Wish I could fuck this perfect ass forever.”
Shane whimpered in agreement as Ilya entered him. He was so spent and sleepy and it felt like a drug to be fucked like this. To think of Ilya being at his cottage with him. To think about, or even mention the word forever. It was a drug that he couldn’t give up.
“Ilya?” Shane asked as they lay together afterward. It may have been the first time he had ever called him by his first name.
“Yes, Shane?” It was definitely the first time he had ever heard Ilya say his.
“What if you…” he paused mid thought to finish thinking it.
“What?” Ilya lifted his head off the pillow to look him in the eyes.
“Marry me.” Shane offered as a solution.
…
“Do you have rings?”
They both shook their heads no. But then Ilya seemed to remember something. “Oh, wait.” He dug in his tux pocket and came back with a condom. Shane blinked, then laughed out loud as Ilya ripped and twisted the foil wrapper into a long strip, then twisted it together to make a circle.
“So romantic,” Shane forced a smile up at him.
“Better than what you have for me,” Ilya pointed out as he slipped the make shift ring onto Shane’s finger.
“No, I got you,” Shane pulled the rental car keys from his own pocket, removed the key ring, and offered it up to Ilya.
“Ah. Yes. Perfect fit.” Ilya admired the much too big ring, squeezing it between his fingers to keep it from falling off.
“By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and husband. You may kiss your husband.”
Shane looked up at Ilya again, suddenly nervous to kiss the man he had fucked no less than five times in the last few hours. What the fuck were they doing?
…
“Haha good one,” Ilya collapsed back down onto the pillow.
Shane took a deep breath to steady himself. “I’m serious.”
“No.”
“No?” Shane rolled to look at him. “No, you won’t marry me?” It stung a little, though he wasn’t sure why.
“No, you are not serious.”
“Ilya…”
“Shane, you haven’t thought this through. We can’t just get married so that I don’t get deported.”
“You literally said that was the only way.”
“Yes. To marry a hooker or an ex or a friend. You are none of these things.”
“We’re not friends?”
“No.”
“We have a history.”
“Secret history with code names,” Ilya argued.
“That’s still my number in your phone. Still your dick in my ass.” Shane pointed out.
Ilya grunted and pulled out and disposed of the condom.
“Think about it,” Shane insisted.
“No.”
“So you’d rather be deported and go to jail than marry me?”
“I’d rather not ruin the careers of the two best players in the MLH.”
“I don’t think it would.” Shane shrugged.
Ilya stared at him then. “So too much sex makes you insane.”
“Fuck off, Rozanov! This is a good idea!”
“Hollander, this is terrible idea! You almost had panic attack first time we hooked up, begging me not to tell anyone!”
“Yeah, because I didn’t know you then!”
“Oh, so because I tell you about my family, you think you know me?”
“I think I know you better than a lot of people. I think you know me better than most too.”
“That is sad.” Ilya sighed.
“Listen, I’m not saying it would be like… a real marriage. I know we’re not… in love or anything. It would just be to keep you here. In North America. Playing hockey.”
“Oh, so we would still fuck other people?”
A lump formed in Shane’s throat. “Yeah,” he nodded.
“So, like open marriage.”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “Nothing would have to change. It would just be paperwork.”
“People will hate us. They will call us names and try to kick us out of NHL.”
Shane rolled his eyes. “Let them fucking try! You’re the fucking king of hockey! You’re the fucking MVP! And we all know that I’m right up there with you! We’re a force to be reckoned with all on our own. But together? We’re fucking untouchable.”
…
Ilya stooped and kissed Shane chastely, concluding the ceremony. They signed the paperwork, took a few photos since Shane had paid for that in the wedding package, and drove back to the hotel. They were married. The Vegas penthouse was now their honeymoon suite. They undressed and laid together on the tousled bed. Back to back, facing away from each other. What the fuck had they done?