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ILYA: Do we know anyone in Seattle?
Ilya texts the group chat the morning after their game against the Squids. From the opposite end of the couch, he hears Shane's phone ping, which is followed by a drawn-out sigh from his husband. “You’re seriously still on this?” he groans at Ilya.
SCOTT: Mark Bishop. Defenseman. The Admirals traded him out there a couple years ago. Why?
Shane is already typing furiously so Ilya lets him answer.
SHANE: Because we played them last night and now Ilya is convinced their second line wingers are fucking.
SCOTT: And somehow I once again find myself with the same question. Why?
ILYA: Because I am perceptive.
TROY: I think I regret teaching you that word now.
SHANE: I know I sure the fuck do.
“Hey!” Ilya says out loud.
“I cannot overstate how much it pains me to say this, but I think you're probably right,” Scott says to him as he materializes at Ilya's elbow at the hotel bar. It's All-Star weekend, and hasn't it just been Ilya's luck that both Seattle’s Andrew Kearns and Gabriel Watts have made the Western Conference's roster. Ilya's had plenty of time and opportunity to observe the two of them over the last day and a half, and their body language has been absolutely screaming “couple”.
Well, it probably would have to be for Scott “I couldn't figure out that the guy who kept surrounding himself with queer players was also queer” Hunter to have clocked it.
Scott's still talking. “I talked to Mark a bit, and, God I think I'm going to regret telling you this, but apparently they've been living together since they were drafted last year. He even said, and I quote, ‘We keep asking them if they plan to get their own places soon, but they say the current arrangement is convenient.’”
Ilya snickers. “I bet it is.”
“So am I approaching or are you?” Scott asks with a resigned sigh.
Ilya shoots him his most scandalized look. “Is my collection, Hunter!”
Scott raises both hands in mock surrender, and Ilya tosses back the last of his vodka before setting off across the bar towards the aforementioned Seattle wingers. He’s approaching them from behind, and Ilya can't help but further notice the way they're standing. How their whole bodies are angled towards each other. How Watts’s left hand is hovering awkwardly in space, intermittently clenching and unclenching, like he's fighting every instinct to settle it onto the small of Kearns’s back. How other people don’t notice these things, Ilya will never understand.
“Hello,” Ilya greets as he shoves himself between them and throws and arm over either of their shoulders. “Would you like to see the most beautiful and perfect dog ever?”
Because Ilya's two favorite things are bragging about Shane and Anya, and these guys already know that his husband is very good at hockey.
Ilya drops his arms from their shoulders and reaches into his pocket for his phone. Opening his text messages, he brings up the video his mother-in-law had sent him that morning. “This is my daughter Anya,” he declares, proudly holding up the phone. “Look how good she is at fetching sticks! Is she not the smartest dog in the world?”
For a second, both of them just blink at him, wearing matching expressions of bewilderment. Then Watts’s gaze slides over Ilya’s shoulder to where Scott's presumably still standing, watching the exchange. His eyes widen fractionally for a moment before his expression relaxes into one of understanding as he realizes they’ve been clocked. He casts a glance over at Kearns, but his partner is still staring blankly at Ilya and doesn't seem to have come to the same realization.
“She is very cute,” Kearns offers eventually. Ilya preens.
“Do you have a dog?” Ilya asks as he stows his phone back in his pocket. Kearns shakes his head, and Ilya gives a deliberately overdramatic gasp. “Why not?” he demands, clutching at nonexistent pearls. “Dogs are the best!”
“Well, right now w–” Kearns bites the sentence off on the we as something like alarm flickers across his face. He doesn't want to reveal that they live together, Ilya realizes, which is odd since it seems to be public knowledge among their teammates. Perhaps he has heard about Ilya's powers of perception.
“I mean, space is kinda limited right now,” Kearns tries again a moment later. The words are fast, mumbled, and deliberately vague.
“Yeah, our apartment’s pretty small,” Watts clarifies. Ilya wonders idly if he's always the less cautious of the two or if this is just because he's recognized that Ilya already knows about them.
Kearns shoots his partner a meaningful look, and when he looks back at Ilya, his wide-eyed confusion has begun to transition into narrow-eyed suspicion. So it’s the second one then, Ilya thinks. This is unusual for Watts, and now Kearns suspects something’s up.
“Is true dogs need space to run,” Ilya agrees, nodding sagely. “Do you think you might get bigger place soon? Something with yard in… what is word?”
“Suburbs?” Watts offers.
“Yes, suburbs! And then you can get dog!” Ilya beams at them.
Watts huffs out a half-laugh while beside him Kearns is radiating tension. “We’re actually finding it convenient to share at the moment,” he says in a way that sounds decidedly rehearsed, but also like he’s clenching his jaw tight enough to snap it in two.
Ilya gives him a blank look. “But you would share house too, no?”
Kearns goes absolutely still. He looks like he's going to pass out or maybe throw up or maybe both, not that Ilya quite understands why. It’s clear Kearns has now also worked out that Ilya’s aware they’re together, but Ilya’s also pretty famously queer himself at this point. It’s not like Kearns can possibly be worried that Ilya’s planning some sort of hate crime.
“Who are the fuck is talking about us?” Keans hisses, voice low and dripping with rage, and suddenly his reaction makes sense. He thinks there’s been rumors.
“No one,” Ilya hurries to reassure him. Then he pauses and amends truthfully, “Well, no one but me.” Well, technically Scott had that one conversation with Bishop, but Ilya doesn’t think mentioning that would be particularly helpful right now.
“Bullshit,” Kearns snarls. He looks like a cornered animal, equal parts angry and terrified. He glances wildly around, but no one besides presumably Scott is paying them any attention.
“Hey,” Watts says gently as he reaches out and settles a hand on Kearns's upper arm, and Kearns does seem to calm marginally at that, because his next words are markedly less hostile.
“No one said anything to you?” Ilya shakes his head, and Kearns continues, “But you knew about…” He gestures between himself and Watts. Now Ilya nods. “But how?”
“I am very perceptive,” Ilya declares proudly.
“Really,” Kearns returns with deep skepticism, but noticeably less venom.
“I am!” Ilya protests. He glances back over his shoulder to find Scott still standing where Ilya’d left him. “Hunter, tell them I am perceptive!” he calls.
He can hear Scott's sigh from here. “He's perceptive,” Scott replies, sounding vaguely pained.
“See?” Ilya says with a broad smile at the pair in front of him. “We are good then?”
Kearns looks over at Watts, who’s already staring back at him with a gentle smile and a fond expression. Then he lets out a long exhale, and Ilya watches the last of the tension leave his body. “Yeah, we're good,” he confirms.
“Wonderful! Is settled then,” Ilya declares and claps them both on the shoulders. “You will move to suburbs and get dog and send many pictures to group chat!”
Kearns and Watts’s gazes snap back to Ilya almost simultaneously. “What group chat?” Watts asks.
The text is waiting for him the following morning.
(206) 781-1815: Did I see you trying to poach my wingers last night?
ILYA: Who the fuck is this?
(206) 781-1815: Jon Piper.
The captain of the Seattle Squids. Ilya saves his number.
JON: Your reputation fucking precedes you, Rozanov. You're not stealing our best two draft picks in the last decade just to make your team even gayer.
Piper knows? Ilya's vaguely annoyed with himself that he'd missed that piece of the puzzle, but it certainly would explain Kearns's paranoia about potential rumors.
ILYA: I didn't realize team knew.
JON: They don't. Just me and Coach. And don't change the subject. You're not stealing my fucking wingers.
Ilya lets the joke about the multiple interpretations of “fucking wingers” go.
ILYA: Steal? I do not steal! Just collect. For group chat.
JON: …
ILYA: And maybe summer camp. But not Centaurs!
It's not even like Ottawa even needs wingers right now. This slander is completely baseless. Ilya is insulted.
JON: Oh sure, because your husband still plays for Montreal, right?
ILYA: That is different. Team was not good. Unless you are saying yours will also not be good?
JON: Fuck you, I am literally actively working on making sure they will be so step the fuck OFF.
Ilya's not entirely certain he knows what Jon means by “actively working” – he presumes something like stamping down on shitty homophobic locker room talk or stressing the team's participation in Pride Night – but the fact that he's even bothering to make an effort is genuinely sweet. Ilya doesn't know Piper well, but he mentally chalks him into the “good dude” category he keeps of hockey players.
Of course, he’s not about to tell Piper that. He has more than one reputation to protect here. Plus, fucking with people is so much more entertaining.
ILYA: I will be watching.
JON: Fuck all the way off, Rozanov.
Ilya waits until he and Shane are home from the All-Star Game to message the group chat.
ILYA: Shane has very important announcement.
“I do?” Shane asks, after he’s glanced down at his phone. They’re curled together on the sofa, trying to work up the energy to go to bed.
“Yes,” Ilya replies with affected seriousness. “I am going to add Squids wingers to group chat. Remember ones you did not believe me when I said were together? Thought maybe you wanted to do honors of telling everyone how I was right.” He gives his husband his most shit-eating grin.
“Oh my god, fuck you,” Shane grumbles, but he picks up his phone.
SHANE: Ilya was right about the Squids players.
“Hmm,” says Ilya, staring down at his phone with faux-confusion. “I do not think your text went through. Maybe you should send again.” Shane kicks him. Ilya kisses his hair.
ILYA: Drew Kearns and Gabe Watts. I will add them in moment.
ERIC: You fucking scare me sometimes, Rozanov.
RYAN: I think he scares all of us but Shane.
SHANE: Oh, no, he definitely scares me most of all.