Work Text:
There were a lot of people in the house. This was a surprise. Everywhere Shane looked there was another person desperate to congratulate him for having just gotten married. That last part was less of a surprise. He had orchestrated it following a series of - it had happened because he wanted it. The wanting was very recent, and then he’d been unable to think of anything else, so - having now done it - he was sure he would feel really, really good very soon.
In the meantime he was on the patio just outside the double doors that led back into the house, holding a glass of champagne that he brought to his mouth periodically. Somehow it never occurred to him to drink from it. He was happy, obviously.
His mother appeared at his elbow, smiling, which he hoped meant he’d succeeded at looking like he was busy admiring the crowd. She touched his back. “You see now why I wanted to rent those chairs, sweetie?”
“Yes,” said Shane, though everyone had survived the ordeal of standing. “We didn’t think this many people would…” He watched, transfixed, as one of the Cens - one of his - Chouinard - emptied the dregs of a beer into the bushes. When he looked back up his mother was watching him expectantly.
“I’m going to – one sec,” he muttered, as though he’d just spotted something inside. He walked towards the kitchen just for somewhere to go, but this part of the house was also jammed. The caterers had made it their own. Platters of smoked salmon blinis on the countertop. Where the fuck was Ilya.
There were some more Centaurs clustered throughout the living room. Centaurs - what a fucking name. He had never thought about it before. Growing up that was just what the team was called, but now that the word applied to him it sounded ridiculous. Centaurs? Centaurs. Half-man, half-horse. They were from Greek myths or something. The one team in the league with no basis in reality. The champagne flute was heavy in his hand - glass. Yuna had insisted, and they had agreed with her on this.
A tap. “There you are,” said Rose. She looked glossy, beautiful. She was also smiling. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. We have a question for you.” Rose linked her arm through his and led him back out into the yard, where the vast majority of guests were talking and eating. Troy Barrett and his boyfriend - Harris, the social media guy - waved them over.
“Huge congrats,” said Troy, clapping Shane on the shoulder. Shane stared at his hand. “I mean it, man. We’re so happy for you.”
“So happy,” said Rose, a strange echo next to two people she had just met.
Harris looked like he was going to get a cheek ache. Shane almost gave him the Advil in his pocket. “Yes, congratulations! Loved that you kept it simple with the vows. Very classy.”
Shane had no idea what he and Ilya had said to each other half an hour ago, only that they were now legally married. “Thanks,” he said.
“As the unofficial DJ,” said Harris, “I was just wondering if you had any thoughts for the first dance?”
“First…” Had Ilya left? Was he gone? Was he a ghost? Were all these people collectively indulging whatever had become of Shane’s mind?
“You know, like a song that Harris can play to get the dancing started…? And you and Ilya can open the dance floor. If you want,” said Rose, who was now looking at Shane with a slight frown.
“I don’t know? Just a song, I guess,” said Shane. “No preference. Sorry, I just have to—”
He left them and followed the path that ran down the side of the house. It was quieter for a moment and then he heard Ilya’s laugh. Three more steps and he saw some women in a circle, and also Ilya at the top of their driveway with a few of his former teammates - Marly, Connors, Dubek, St-Simon - it was as if Shane had walked into the wrong locker room. The wrong year. Shane had the strangest urge to flatten himself against the wall. He turned around and went back the way he came, grimacing. He was being so weird, he knew.
Life was good. He was married. Everyone had seen it. It wasn’t a shock to anyone. Everyone who was here knew he was with Ilya, they had bought in, they had come because they liked them, they were okay with this. Three months ago five people had known his life. He had made a decision to undo the knot, let the secret out, and it hadn’t happened the way he planned. Sometimes life didn’t happen how you planned. For example, Shane was supposed to be the number one draft pick of 2009, but all the Boston Raiders in this house had played with Ilya. That was for the best. Shane wouldn’t have done well in Boston. Ilya would have been fine in Montreal, though. He had been better suited to Boston, but he could adapt to anything. Although – here —
“Congratulations, Hollzy,” said Scott Hunter, suddenly before Shane with his hand clasped around his boyfriend’s waist. “I don’t know about you, but this has been the craziest day of my life.”
This was a joke. Shane could say “same”, show that he was in on it, but it wouldn’t be true. He could say remember the day my former teammate sent a man on the internet a video of me and Ilya because the man’s wife paid my former teammate one hundred Canadian dollars. And now I live in Ottawa again. Instead he said, “Yeah, thanks.”
“I think it’s hot,” announced Kip, who had a kind of glazed air about him. “You’re both super hot. I can’t believe you kept each other secret for so long.”
“Eleven years,” Shane mumbled into his warm champagne.
“What?” said Scott.
“Nothing,” said Shane.
“Are you taking a honeymoon?” asked Kip. There was a small orange stain on his lapel. What had they even served here that could make that. Did art historians need good hand-eye coordination, Shane wondered. Well. They didn’t do the painting.
“We might go back up to the lake,” said Shane.
Scott made a face, shook his head. “The lake? Come on. You guys deserve a proper vacation. Take your husband out, show him off.”
Shane fixed his gaze down the side of the house, though he couldn’t see Ilya from this far away. Your husband. Him to me. Scott Hunter standing in his yard calling Ilya his husband. Black waves at the edges of his vision.
“Uh… actually, oh, man, you know where you should go? Ibiza! We were just there last summer, it was so good. Beaches, nightlife, just a really fun time. And it’s super gay, so—”
“Right,” Shane said. “Because I’m a faggot.”
In perfect sync, Scott and Kip stepped backwards.
“Hey,” said Kip, kindergarten teacher’s voice, “no, hey, he didn’t mean it like that—”
“No, but it’s true,” said Shane. He sounded very calm, he thought. “I’m a big fucking faggot, so of course I’d enjoy super gay Ibiza, right?” He tossed the champagne into the dirt - if it was good enough for Chouinard - and the noise the splatter made looped in his ears, woke him up. He wiped his mouth.
“Me and my cocksucking husband—” he had the vaguest of senses that maybe his volume was increasing– “—me, Shane Hollander, queen of the NHL, giant homo gayboy, me and my huge fucking dick-eater of a husband. Fags like us, we should go to Ibiza. Because it’s super gay.”
Pressure on his shoulder. Why did people keep touching him.
“Hey, bud, should we maybe get you some water—”
Shane wheeled around. It was Hayden. Shane punched him square in the jaw.
***
Ilya was wearing the afternoon like a cloak. He felt drunk on it, actually, the way the light was hitting everyone he loved all at once. When he’d first come down this end of the house Sveta and some of the PWHL cohort were passing a blunt around in the driveway and he had said no thank you, thinking about how he wanted to feel just like this, languid and clear, when he fucked Shane in about… ten minutes. Currently he was letting him roam but soon he was going to go after him and get him all red in the downstairs bathroom, the one just next to the kitchen. He wasn’t going to let him come till later, because you had to respect the arc of a day like this, but it was time to lay some groundwork, shove fingers in Shane’s mouth till the caterers could hear his choked out moans.
Well. Something to be said for those fingers having recently held a joint - Shane could probably use it - but Connors was filling him in on the filth the Raiders rookies had gotten into this past season and Ilya wasn’t inclined to step away. If it was meant to be it would be, he could get stupid and woo-woo with it at his wedding, why not. Ilya knew many different ways to get Shane loose. A thought - that kept recurring despite his best efforts to banish it, because it invited trouble - was that right now wherever he stepped a cloud would rise to catch his feet.
“—so then Marly and me basically have to bust in the door, and Roz, you would not believe the sight. These two fuckers are ass up, they’re on the bed—”
“Something you know all about,” grinned Marly. Ilya slapped the side of his face, grinning back.
“—and there are five girls in there with them, dude, the ratio is fucked. I mean, these kids are barely out of diapers…”
This was heaven, maybe, Ilya thought. To be married, diluted with just enough champagne, and listening to your fucking idiot friends talking shit you didn’t need to pay too much attention to. Shane was his husband, and they would live together in this house, and wake up together every day, go to the same practices, play the same games. Found himself in Лукоморье. Maybe he should try sucking himself off, test the limits, because if there was ever a time— a shouted phrase snagged his ear:
“—fucking dick-eater—”
Sounded like – but it wouldn’t—
“BECAUSE IT’S SUPER GAY!” Shane’s voice ricocheted from behind him.
“Ah. Excuse me,” said Ilya, navigating around the Raiders and taking off at a sprint.
He arrived just in time to see Shane’s fist connect with Pike’s chin. Clean hit. The clock made total sense to him even if the rest of the tableau - Scott, Kip - didn’t. He wanted a replay.
“Jesus, Ilyusha, do something.” Sveta had caught up to him, was by his side.
“Not yet,” he muttered to her.
Hayden was holding his jaw and staring at Shane, but he gave the impression of a guilty child rather than a wronged party. Hunter and his Brooklynite looked like they were trying to back away - Ilya was very interested in their part in all this. Shane hadn’t yet noticed Ilya was there, didn’t even seem like a person who had just thrown a punch, standing with his hands at his sides and only a slight hitch in his breath. If this was where they were, Shane must need it. Ilya had thought they would fix the rupture he’d felt building all day in private, as they’d always done, but now that things that had once belonged just to the two of them were exposed maybe they had to be dealt with out here, too. Not comfortable, but maybe right.
A difficult moment. Shane’s natural impulses didn’t usually announce themselves in front of an audience. Ilya suspected - and he could be wrong, and if he was he would intervene - that Shane was currently locked in a fight with his sense of satisfaction, justice. Shane had to complete the action on his own, no outside influence, or it would be like waking a sleepwalker. And obviously: Shane wasn’t going to like anything about this once he emerged from it. It was Ilya’s responsibility to make sure that at the very least this break served a purpose, because that was something Shane would eventually get behind.
Okay, so. Do it, Ilya thought. Whatever you want. He watched as Shane shifted his weight to his right.
“You took the one chance I had to control the rest of my life away from me,” Shane spat at Hayden. “Because you were careless. Because you were stupid. You made me a joke. Everything I’ve ever done—” he swallowed, regrouped, “everything I’ll ever do will always come back to that. People will – people tell me to go to Ibiza—” lightly hysterical here but he deserved it, of course, deserved whatever tone he wanted, “because they think something completely different about me now even if they already knew me. Even though it has nothing to do with reality. Because your BRAINDEAD mistake cost me my image - myself. Your fucking inability to check your own shit obliterated years! Of back breaking, painstaking, self-sacrificing work!”
Was everyone seeing this? Ilya felt a swell of something, multiple things, coursing through him. Shane had just racked a five hundred pound barbell. Hayden said nothing, looked on at Shane like the world’s most hapless herd animal.
“You made so much of my fucking life a waste. Are you sorry? Can you ever repay me? Of course you can’t! It was priceless. You - you stole from me, do you FUCKING UNDERSTAND?” Shane was radiant. Hayden nodded, still struck silent. Ilya saw Shane decide not to swing on him again. But —
“And you,” Shane hissed, rounding on Scott, who had definitely been trying to leave. Hunter’s eyes darted to Ilya. Ilya was not going to save him.
“Fuck you. Fuck you, Hunter! You’re not the goddamn mould. You’re not my gay fucking fairy godfather! I’m – I could beat you with my goddamn eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back, Jesus Christ, you don’t know what we – we didn’t get to choose some fucking Reese Witherspoon-ass movie magic moment to – don’t fucking COME TO MY HOUSE and tell me how insane you feel and how I should go to fucking Ibiza! Are you out of your goddamn mind? Seriously, no, really, are you senile? I’ll set a fucking rainbow flag ON FIRE before I—”
“Shanya,” Ilya said, stepping behind him, his hand sliding across the nape of Shane’s neck. Shane went rigid. Normally this produced the opposite effect. The world narrowed.
Shane turned to Ilya. “Where the fuck have you been,” he snarled.
“If everybody could just follow me,” Ilya heard Sveta say, “We’re all doing shots now, okay? Yes? Okay, great, come with me—”
Ilya looked at Shane’s face, scanning for signs of damage. Not that they would necessarily show up here, but just in case. Shane was sparking, though the blaze was already starting to die down under Ilya’s observation. Ilya hooked a finger just under Shane’s ear, stroked down the crest of his cheek. “That was very beautiful,” he said, softly.
Shane’s eyes were hard. He was resisting even now, which was unusual, and kind of sexy. One unprecedented reaction begat another. Ilya slung his other arm around Shane’s neck.
Shane jerked his head, frozen. “Don’t—”
Ilya ignored this. He sent his hand underneath Shane’s shirt collar. His back was damp, skin hot. Ilya grabbed his shoulder, stopped cupping Shane’s face to tug at his suit jacket.
“Why are you still wearing this,” Ilya said. He pulled back. Touch withdrawn.
Shane looked at him. Slowly, carefully, he took off his jacket, put it down on the ground.
Ilya moved back to him then, nosed in, and kissed Shane up against the side of the house, which was full of the day’s sun. Shane heaved once, twice underneath him with a wildness that made Ilya even more inclined to bite. Shane’s tongue found Ilya’s. His hands slipped into Ilya’s hair, twisting, pulling. They were pressed against each other at every possible point and Ilya wanted to laugh, sink—
“We aren’t going to fucking Ibiza on our honeymoon,” Shane huffed from somewhere by Ilya’s pulse point. Oh. Yes. The wedding. Theirs.
Ilya tore himself away. “What? No. Why the fuck would we go there,” he said. “I’m buying us our own island.”
“You aren’t,” said Shane.
“I am,” said Ilya. “Fuck the tax implications.”
“The tax implications?”
“Yes. I think about these things now, you know. As your ball and chain.”
A flash of heat in Shane, who said nothing.
Ilya grinned. “You’re going to have to do something about that,” he said, nodding at Shane’s pants.
“Oh, I am?”
“Well, I don’t know what you want me to do,” Ilya said. He leaned forward till his mouth was by Shane’s ear. “Your mother is coming.”
Shane almost leapt out of his body. “What? Did she—”
But Yuna was nowhere in sight. Ilya laughed. Shane flushed head to toe.
“Fuck you! Jesus Christ, fucker, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you—”
Exactly, thought Ilya, pressed against the wall by his husband, the greatest to ever do it, clouds all the way down.