Chapter Text
Shane didn’t know what had happened.
He and Ilya had just gotten back from his parent’s place—awkwardly coming out and explaining their relationship, and now he had woken up in some sort of movie theatre. Shane was a movie guy, watching lots of films on plane rides during the hockey season, but he was never the type of person to go out to the cinema; he barely tolerated any sort of socialising in public spaces and was overloaded with strangers.
Though, after a quick glance around, he realised that this room wasn’t filled with strangers.
He was an avid hockey-watcher and recognised many faces instantly from fellow MLH teams, not to mention the instantly recognisable face that was Rose Landry, his old girlfriend who helped him realise his sexuality.
Hayden was just a few seats away from Shane, looking stressed out of his mind alongside his wife and that was when he knew something was wrong. There was no way in hell that Hayden and Jackie wouldn’t be taking care of their kids in the summer. They had no reason, like him, to be in this strange room.
“Sh—Hollander?” He heard the accented voice of his boyfriend, Ilya Rozanov.
Shane instinctively whispered his name, “Ilya.”
He couldn’t help it. He prayed nobody could hear. It was too soon to be discovered by others.
Shane would never get sick of thinking of Ilya as his boyfriend. It was awful that they had to hide it. He hated how Ilya wasn’t able to say his first name publicly.
Everyone else stuck in this room began to murmur, with some already turning to shouting.
“Crisse, what the fuck is going on?” J.J. swore beside Hayden, with Andropov beside him.
“I don’t know,” Hayden replied to J.J. with worry, “We just finished putting Arthur to bed—! Fuck, where are we and why are we all here?”
“Calm down.” There was a deep voice intruding on the conversation that Shane was spying on. “I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”
“Marlow?” Hayden shrieked, “Why are you here?”
“It’s not just your team here, Pike. All the Bears are here like me and Commissioner Crowell is too.”
“Rozanov’s here too, then,” Hayden sounded upset.
“He’s sitting right beside your very own captain, Pike,” Marleau replied with a smirk.
Shane and Ilya sat up, now fully listening to the ensuing drama in the seats one row ahead of them. It was the problem with being who they were; their teams were rivals, so were they, and their best friends had to be too.
“Guys, relax, we can figure out what’s happening,” Shane stood up, trying to break up the tension between Hayden and Marleau with his words.
“Hollander’s right.” A recognisable voice chimed in, “And there’s a letter right in front of me and Kip. It’s gotta mean something.”
Scott Hunter was closest to the screen, sitting beside the guy he kissed after winning the Championship and holding the Stanley Cup. He got up to open the envelope, nearly ripping it as the wax stamp pulled away.
He was staring at it, not even saying a word.
His boyfriend, who Shane assumed was the Kip he mentioned, stepped over to him, reading it from across his shoulder.
“Well, what does it say, Hunter?” J.J. exclaimed, saying what Shane thought everyone must be thinking right now.
“It says,” Scott began slowly, “To enjoy the show and witness the greatest hockey players and the greatest love story.”
“Are we gonna watch you falling for Kip?” Carter Vaughn said, smiling beside his captain. “I’m already used to your heart eyes for him, don’t know if everyone can handle seeing that!”
“No, no, no,” Ilya butted in, a teasing grin on his face, “It said ‘greatest hockey players’—we can’t be watching old man Hunter then!”
Ilya’s teammates chuckled loudly, sounding as if they were in unison, while Scott’s face soured.
“Fuck off, Rozanov,” he grumbled before sitting down beside Vaughn and his boyfriend.”
“He’s right though, there’s gotta be more to this,” Hayden chimed in.
Shane watched as everyone spoke, quietly digesting everything, but his mind was stuck on the words Scott had spoken.
They felt very particular, very precise—and far too familiar for Shane’s liking.
He had just gained Ilya as his boyfriend and they were undisputedly the best at hockey.
Shane didn’t know if people, especially whoever shoved everyone into this strange room, would think of their love story as ‘the greatest’ so he kept his thoughts to himself. Yet, it felt too eerie, hearing these words made him only think of them together.
Nobody else could match it better than he and Ilya.
If his suspicions were true, then their relationship would be exposed.
Their love, their fights, their messy arguments—everything would be out on display.
This reminded him of the day before, when his dad caught them together. At least he only got a glimpse of them, Shane thought. The people in this theatre would be getting a whole show full of intimate feelings and everything Shane and Ilya kept closely guarded inside their hearts, even from each other.
Shane’s eyes crossed Ilya’s and he could instantly tell what Ilya was thinking.
We are so fucked.