Chapter Text
Shane chews at his thumbnail, ass glued to the bench and eyes locked in on his phone as his team carry on around him. They’d won, but it was against Buffalo so it barely counted. 5-1 says less about them and more about Buffalo’s shitty defence. Still, some of the guys are making plans to go out and celebrate. People are moving everywhere, in and out of the showers. Packing up their gear, changing back into regular clothes. There’s a general din of water being turned on and off, overlapping conversations, zipping up of bags and jackets, the familiar cluttering of tape shoved in lockers, of shoes against benches. The sights and smells and sounds of a hockey locker room are more familiar to Shane than his childhood home.
“Tu viens avec nous, Capitaine?”
Shane blinks and tucks his phone under his armpit, looking up at J.J. He’s changed into an all-black ensemble, a wide necked shirt that shows off his collar bones and tight jeans. J.J. nods his chin at Shane’s phone.
“Or maybe there is someone else waiting for you?” J.J. wags his eyebrows.
“I’m not even changed yet,” Shane deflects, looking down at his sweaty gear, “No point waiting around for me. You guys go, have a good time.”
J.J. shrugs, not like he’s disappointed but to show that Shane’s answer was what he expected.
“If you say,” Gagnon claps J.J. on the shoulder, “We’re heading to Caché if you want to meet later.”
“Cool,” Shane flashes both of them a smile, “Thanks, guys. Have fun.”
J.J., Gagnon and a bunch of the other players leave, the locker room gradually thinning out. Hayden left as soon as he’d showered, off to pick up Ruby from a slumber party on his way home. Shane takes his phone out from under his armpit and thumbs away the sweat from the screen.
Lily: can’t wait for my reward ;)
Shane’s just finishing the last neat hospital corner on the bed when Ilya comes out of the bathroom. His hair is still a little damp from his shower, and he’s in nothing but a clean pair of black boxers. Shane watches him out of the side of his eye as he smooths down the fresh sheets. He’s feeling pleasantly used and satisfied, but even with the possibility of more sex firmly off the table, Ilya’s always nice to look at. As soon as Shane stands up from his task, he feels a shove between his shoulder blades.
“My cuddle time, now,” Ilya demands.
Shane remembers years ago when he was afraid to ask Ilya for as much as a kiss. Who would’ve known the biggest baddest Boston Raider was such a snuggler. He lets himself be pushed onto the bed, flipping over so that he’s sitting up against the new pillow cases. All of the linen from earlier, covered in sweat and cum and lube, is in the hamper ready for a load of washing to go on tomorrow morning. Ilya flops onto the bed, Shane opening his arms wide for Ilya to tuck himself against Shane’s chest.
“When is your next home game?” Ilya asks once he’s settled in Shane’s embrace.
Shane’s arm is threaded underneath Ilya’s armpit, his fingers running over Ilya’s damp hair and tracing where the curls are just long enough to form perfectly round Os.
“Uh, the 23rd?” Shane says, “We’re playing Buffalo.”
“I have a home game on the 24th so no practice that morning,” Ilya offers, “I could come to yours afterwards. Stay the night and be back for warm ups.”
“That’d be nice.”
Shane presses a kiss to Ilya’s temple. He smells like cypress and sage. It’s been Shane’s favourite soap since he was seventeen, and now it’s in both of their bathrooms. It still feels unreal sometimes, that this is something he gets to have.
“I’ve been thinking about what I want as a reward if you win,” Ilya says, stroking along the skin of Shane’s arm.
Shane snorts into Ilya’s curls.
“If I’m winning, why are you getting the reward?”
Ilya stops his caressing and gives Shane a light smack.
“Because I am your boyfriend now, not just a hookup. This comes with privileges.”
“Oh yeah?” Shane rolls his eyes where Ilya can’t see him.
“Yes. Like when you get awards, you must say I could not do this without support from my team, my coaches, and my partner. It’s me, the partner.”
“Fine, fine,” Shane acquiesces, “What does my supportive partner want as his reward for my win?”
The cornerstone of hockey isn’t the rink. Anyone who’s played any kind of hockey — from Timbits to the beer league, all the way up to the MLH — knows that. Teams aren’t made on the ice, they just perform there. The real core of hockey is the locker room. It’s where teams are formed, where chemistry builds with inside jokes and shared pre-game rituals. Shane can’t count the number of locker rooms he’s been in over his career. They’re ubiquitous to the sport, but they haven’t always been places where Shane’s felt wholly comfortable.
When he was younger, before he was the Next Big Thing and back when he was just enjoying playing hockey, getting changed in front of everyone made him nervous. He heard the same comments as every other Asian guy, except that he was one of only two in the room. Chirps about his speed on the ice was compensating for other things. No one dares to make those jokes in the Metros locker room, not with the C on Shane’s chest and two cups under his belt, but Shane’s not under any impression that no one’s had the thought. Hockey’s a very white sport. Whenever a new rook joins up and walks into the showers for the first time, J.J. and Shane catch each other’s eye and smile like white people, tight and humourless with no lips showing, as they wait to figure out if the newbie is going to make it weird.
Then, there’s the other reason locker rooms have been a site of stress for Shane. Every aspect of hockey — from being on the ice, to behind closed doors in the change room, to out on the town celebrating a win or recovering a loss — is a careful tug-of-war between two guys being dudes and two guys being gay. Navigating that battle has been the fight of Shane’s life. Smacking another guy’s ass here makes you one of the boys, but doing it there makes you queer. If you shower too quickly, you have something to hide. Shower too long and you’re a pervert. If you keep your head down, focused on the tiles, then it’s obvious that you’re trying to avoid something. Staring at another player or, god forbid, making eye contact is liable to get you punched. The rules that govern the balance are unintelligible to Shane. They don’t follow any logic, they aren’t written down anywhere or spoken about openly.
Eventually, Shane perfected the performance of it all. Through sheer amount of hours put in, not from any kind of understanding. It still doesn’t make sense, but he can play the part he needs to pass. The locker room is just another step in his routine. Shane Hollander’s wind down. He thinks ESPN ran that feature once. It’s a key part in Shane’s transition from a cog in the hockey machine back into a singular person. On the ice, Shane is allowed to be fierce. It’s sweat and force and heat. All of that slips down the drain at the end of the match, leaving a wholesome hard-working Canadian captain, fresh faced and dutiful, ready for his media responsibilities.
“I want you to skip your shower,” Ilya says, “Just come straight home after the game and then we fuck.”
Shane’s hand hovers over Ilya’s hair. No is on the edge of his tongue, instinctual. He can feel his shoulders getting tense the way they do whenever one of his routines is questioned. He knows it gets him called quirky at best, and neurotic at worst, but they do work for him. Structure is what lets him do what he does best, how he balances Shane Hollander, Metros Captain, with plain old Shane from Ottawa. But this is Ilya, and he wouldn’t ask for no reason. Slowly, he lets his fingers trace the spirals of Ilya’s hair again. An S curve here, a C there.
“Why is that hot to you?” Shane asks.
He feels Ilya shrug against his chest.
“It’s hard to explain.”
“You could try in Russian?”
Shane’s been diligently taking lessons once a week with a tutor over Skype. He schedules in two hours per week of doing his own personal study, usually when he has dead time on flights, and he’s getting much better and understanding Ilya in his mother tongue. Replying is still difficult, but Ilya’s fine to let him do it in English.
“No, language is not the problem, it’s,” Ilya swirls his fingers in the air by his ear, “my thoughts. Trying to organise them. English or Russian, it’s the same.”
“Oh, yeah, I get that, too.”
Ilya grabs Shane’s spare hand and brings it up onto his chest. Shane feels the steady thump of Ilya’s heartbeat under his palm, athlete-slow and regular as a clock. Ilya’s hand runs up and down the length of Shane’s forearm in a lazy circle as he puts his ideas together. It’s so peaceful that Shane feels his eyelids grow heavy. He tilts his head so it’s resting fully on Ilya’s and breathes in the familiar scent.
“You are fastidious,” Ilya says eventually.
Shane’s eyes snap open.
“What the fuck?”
“It was in the New Yorker crossword on Monday,” Ilya shrugs, “I asked your dad.”
“Fastidious,” Shane repeats, dumbfounded.
“Very neat. High attention to detail,” Ilya explains.
“Yeah, I know what it means.”
Shane stops his petting and lets his arm drop down to the bed with an angry whump.
“I like this about you,” Ilya’s tone goes soft and soothing, and he circles Shane’s wrist in a loose hold, “It charms me.”
“Sure.”
Ilya tilts his neck awkwardly until he’s looking up at Shane’s face. He raises his eyebrows. With a sigh, Shane relents.
“Okay fine,” he sighs, “Yes, I know you like me even when I’m being fastidious.”
Ilya grins at him and brings Shane’s hand up for a dramatic kiss with an audible mwah. Satisfied with defending his point, he tucks himself back down onto Shane’s chest and starts up his gentle circles on Shane’s arm again. The movement smooths Shane’s metaphorical ruffled feathers, and he lets himself relax into the pillows.
“You are particular,” Ilya says, “But it’s not all you are. Sometimes, I think you use it like part of the Shane Hollander brand. Clean, neat, organised, particular Captain Hollander.”
Shane feels his face heat up.
“I don’t like when you show me your brand. I want to see you. Raw. Natural,” Ilya’s voice is low but Shane’s attention is laser focused on him, so every syllable rings in his ears, “Like when you’re right off the ice, sweat dripping, blood pumping. Feeling alive. Not put back in your cage yet. We can’t fuck in the locker room, obviously, so this is the next best thing I thought of.”
He turns this over in his mind. Locker room sex is a complete impossibility, that’s for sure. But he knows guys who’ve disappeared straight after games into storage cupboards and toilets and come back with lipstick smeared on them, looking like they’ve been raptured. Shane thinks of the way he feels after games. Pumped up with adrenaline, like he could take on the world. How it would feel to have Ilya pressed up against him in that moment, almost drunk on the heady mix of chemicals in his blood. Shane shifts underneath Ilya’s heavy body, grasps at the meat of Ilya’s pec. Ilya arches into the touches but says nothing, content to let Shane process everything he’s said.
Okay, so that part of the fantasy is fine. Shane zeroes in on the details. Pictures himself right after a game. Drenched in sweat, underclothes sticking to him. The smell is probably best left undescribed. That being how he shows up for sex?
He lets out a little hum, unconvinced.
“Last try,” Ilya says, “Would you think it would be hot if it was the other way around?”
Shane obediently adjusts his mental image. Ilya, fresh off a win. Straight off the ice and pinning Shane up against a wall, maybe even with his pads still on. Big enough to block out the world. Tangling his fingers up in Ilya’s sweaty curls, licking the salt right off his skin. Shane squirms against the pillows. A memory pops up unbidden, the first time Ilya came to the cottage. He’d been fresh off a flight, his clothes and hair and skin covered in that weird, stale plane air. Shane had made out with him on the couch and blown him against the window before he’d showered off the smell. Clearly, Ilya does it for him, regardless of how gross he is.
“You’re hot when you’re disgusting and sweaty, yeah.”
Ilya leans up fully this time, weight on one arm and twisting his torso until they’re looking right at each other. He grabs at Shane’s jaw and presses a chaste kiss to Shane’s lips.
“So we agree,” he says quickly, “One gross, sweaty fuck. And, I want cuddle time after, before we clean.”
“We do cuddle!” Shane protests.
Ilya has the audacity to laugh in Shane’s face.
“You only ever give me two minutes before we have to be in the shower and changing the sheets.”
Shane goes to push Ilya’s face away but Ilya catches his hand. His laughter stops and he kisses the thin skin of Shane’s inner wrist.
“I like pushing your boundaries. It’s fun. When have you ever really hated it?” Ilya doesn’t give Shane time to answer his rhetorical question before continuing, “It’s just a little bit! And it’s just with me. If you don’t like it, we stop and shower and then get back to fucking. Easy.”
Shane narrows his eyes, staring in the vicinity of Ilya’s jaw as he pushes past the last of his reluctance.
“Fine, we can have the weird, sweaty sex you want.”
Ilya rolls his eyes so hard, it reminds Shane of when he was small and his grandmother would say careful, they’ll get stuck in the back of your head!
“Fine,” Ilya draws it out long and offended, “Your boyfriend wants to play sexy reward fuck games after you crush Buffalo into the dust, and the best you can say is fine?”
Shane feels the corner of his mouth twitch.
“I’m sorry, I mean yay, we’re going to have weird, sweaty sex!”
Shane isn’t the best at modulating his tone, but from the way Ilya’s eyes shine and his mouth stretches into that impossibly wide grin, he knows that he’s nailed the faux-enthusiastic mockery. Even better, he still has a week to fully come around to the idea.