Chapter Text
Ilya Rozanov was winning at hockey again, and everything was back to normal. Shane wasn’t sick, his arm wasn’t bruised, and Wiebe wasn’t treating him like a bomb with a chip on its shoulder.
They had cleared him to resume play a week after the fateful incident of the coach sending him home. Ilya had steamed, angry, then slumped, sad, and spent a good part of the week hating hockey and hating his father and hating himself, most of all, for hating things he usually loved, all because he’d let himself be caught off guard.
When he spoke to his therapist, first, she hadn’t been pleased with that frame of mind. Neither had Shane, later, when he kept his promise and talked about his feelings. What a strange night that had been. Shane had been of the mind that on or off the ice, it wasn't Ilya's job to soak up all the negativity and pain for everyone else just because he could take it. It should never be his job to suffer through all those things just because he could.
His therapist told him to think of all this separate from himself. Told him to view what had happened as if it was someone else. What if Barrett or Haas got slammed like that? What if another one of your teammates was black and blue and couldn’t skate without biting all over? And he had known the answer - he’d throw the teammate off the ice and lock the rink behind him.
“So why do you think you can't treat yourself like that?”
Because I am Ilya Rozanov. Because no one can take a hit like me.
And then he was back on the rink, crouching low against the opposition, the team captain of the Utah Squirrels staring at the ice in front of him from under the helmet. He was of average height, and a stocky build, strapped into the brown and yellow of the team’s uniform. Ilya smirked. He looked like a stickler, like someone who got easily riled up and was easier to beat.
“Squirrels.” Said Ilya, musingly, as the crowd screamed around them. “What, every other name was taken?”
The captain surprised him by flashing a smirk in response, squeezing his stick tighter. “You’re going down, fairy.”
When Ilya won the face off, he vaguely wondered what the other man had meant. Fairies, these were the little flying things that took teeth, and that Americans dressed in pink tutus and wings. The fairies of Ilya’s childhood slept at the bottom of lakes and lured men to their deaths, or had long blonde hair and were so beautiful it hurt to look at. Maybe the other captain was confused, or making a pun out of the mythical connection - centaurs to fairies. He’d have to ask Shane later, maybe it was a popular insult.
None of that mattered when they scored seven minutes later, a clean assist from Ilya right into Shane, who darted it in easily. They celebrated, and then were back in the middle, and Ilya had his stick low, waiting to catch the puck.
“Bet you can’t score a goal without your little boyfriend.” Hissed the captain. Ilya was surprised. It was very rare to find a hockey player nowadays willing to banter with him.
“Husband.” He replied, smoothly. It was a weird angle to take, but maybe the captain thought he would take offence. “And watch this.”
The next goal wasn’t his, the goalie caught it, but the one after that was. When he circled back around to crouch low in front of the other man, he gave a mock pout.
“What? Squirrel got his mouth full of nuts?” He asked, when the captain knuckled down in front of him, no longer smirking, his knuckles white on the stick.
“Die.” Spat back the other. Rudimentary. Not anything Ilya could bounce off, either. How disappointing.
When the first period got called Ilya was happy to skate over to the stands where Wiebe was waiting, throw back half a bottle of water, and go around checking in on his players. Bood gave him a look when he came over.
“You alright, Roz?”
Ilya was instantly on his guard. Was he worried Ilya was slow because of lingering bruises to his ribs? Was he talking about the incident last week? Had something else happened which he missed?
“Yes. Why.”
Bood put his hands up, his helmet half hanging off his head. “Hey man, I was just going to say, looks like their captains giving you some lip.”
Ilya relaxed. “Oh. Yes. It is boring, do not worry. Uncreative.”
“Ilya!” Said Shane, who was talking to Wiebe, gesturing for him to come over. Ilya shrugged and resigned himself to tactics.
Then it was the second period, and Ilya had the puck. Shane was ahead of him, but blocked, and Haas was left, also covered. Barret had darted ahead and Bood was nowhere to be seen, but Ilya had glanced at his teammate earlier and guessed he was somewhere behind.
He saw the Squirrels captain before he pushed him into the boards, and used the opportunity to distract both the captain and his left wing, before sliding the puck towards Shane, now open.
It was a good move, and the captain let out a loud grunt of frustration as the puck slipped past him. Ilya saw his chance to push back, and then heard it, loud enough that it seemed to echo slightly.
“Faggot.” Hissed the Squirrels captain, his eyes blazing with hate. Ilya shoved him off him and shrugged. It was half true. It was half true. He wouldn’t let it hurt him, because it was half true. It was half true. It didn’t matter what it meant, or that it made the other man hate him, or that everytime Ilya heard the word, he thought of his father. It was half true. The captain made to skate away, shaking his head.
He did not get far. Within what seemed only a second, Zane Boodram had the man by the collar and was slamming him into the plexiglass.
“What the fuck did you just call my captain?” Grunted Bood, shaking him, and then started swinging indiscriminately at his captive’s helmet.
One of the nearby Squirrels players made for them to break it up, their youngest one, the huge but nervous defenceman, and Ilya watched as Lucas Haas intercepted him. Then Barret was on the floor with one of the frontlinemen, Holmberg was swinging for the defence, Young and LaPointe both got accosted on their way over, and suddenly the rink was a brawl and Ilya was just standing there and staring.
He knew from the looks on their faces that only Bood, Haas, and Shane had heard. Shane wasn’t fighting but he was yelling, loudly, at the ref who was attempting to try and get control back. His face was red and he was holding his stick like he might hit someone, and at that moment he didn’t seem to care about a penalty.
“Duck!” Said Dykstra, barreling towards him, and Ilya did, just in time for the defenceman to shoot past him and collide with a Squirrels player who had come in from the top of the rink, shoving him away from Ilya physically until it seemed there was no end to the arms and legs and punching, puck and stick forgotten, frozen somewhere between Ilya and where Shane had been.
Ilya was just staring, and staring, and staring. Most of his team had only seen Ilya get shoved, and then Bood fly in, but they had all hopped in without a second thought. Dykstra was now taking a hit meant for Ilya, and all he could do was stare and stare and stare.
Eventually the teams got yanked apart and sent, by a furious, whistle-blowing referee, sending them all to the penalty box while they consulted and decided on punishments for the participating players. Which had been everyone apart from Ilya, and one other Squirrels player. It was one of the ones who had been close enough to hear his captain’s remarks.
Wiebe’s mouth was hanging open when he circled around in front of them.
“Boys!” He said, palms open. “What was that?”
The Centaurs had never gotten into a fight like that on the ice before. Their coach had clearly not been expecting it.
No one spoke, but Ilya felt Bood glance at him. Shane was to his left, and seemed to have purposefully inserted himself there, and nudged him slightly, questioning.
Hayes spoke first. “I saw Bood punch the captain and grabbed the guy nearest me. We kind of just… rolled.”
“I saw Bood punch the cap.” Said Chouinard. “But I did more than roll.”
There were general murmurs of agreement from most of the team. Wiebe looked at them all, eyes wide.
“Bood? Why did you punch the guy?” Asked their coach, sounding at his wit’s end.
When Ilya remained silent, Bood sat up a little straighter, his jaw set. Wiebe stared at him. Bood stared back.
“Anyone? Can anyone tell me why they punched anyone? Can someone please explain why in this huge mess I just watched, the only one not fighting in this team was Rozanov?”
Haas and Shane were both silent too. The rest of the team, who hadn’t heard, mainly shrugged and muttered and mumbled something about a cliff and jumping off as long as Bood did it first.
“Ok.” Said Ilya, when he thought Wiebe was going to quit on the spot.
Everyone turned to look at him. Bood nodded supportively.
Ilya sighed. “Yes. He called me a faggot.”
Wiebe stared at him. Everyone stared at him. They all looked angry, but Ilya felt it was not directed at him.
“The captain did this?” Asked Wiebe, after a few seconds.
Ilya nodded. So did Bood, and Haas, and next to him, Shane.
“You guys all heard?”
The four of them nodded again.
Wiebe wiped a hand over his chin, the red draining from him, an eerie calm settling. Then he turned away, and marched towards the penalty box on the other side of them, where Ilya imagined the Squirrels coach was having a similar conversation. He did not look.
“Damn.” Said Hayes. “Now I wish I did more than rolled. Bastard.”
Ilya expected laughter, but the goalkeeper was answered by general murmurs of assent. When Ilya chanced a glance upwards, his team was looking murderous, each and everyone of them, jaws set, eyebrows drawn down. Bood clapped Ilya on the back with a firm, but gentle hand.
“We won’t let him get away with it, Roz.” Bood reassured him.
“We’re 2-0, who does he think he is?”
“Idiot probably thought he could psych out our captain.”
“We’ll all tell the ref we heard him chirping you before, as well.”
“Fucking homophobe has no place in the league!”
“Their team name is the Utah Squirrels!”
“I’ll walk out the game if they put that fucker back on the rink.”
There were murmurs of consensus.
“I’ll beat the shit out of him and then walk off the pitch.”
There were cheers of agreement.
With Shane leaning at his side, patting him on the knee in a rare, but still restrained, show of PDA, with his huge sad-boy eyes staring at Ilya earnestly and deeply, and Hayes leading the Centaurs in a fictitious plan of attack, with Haas sporting what would be a nice black eye and Dykstra with a bloody lip and Bood with his scuffed jaw, with the rest of his teammates gleaming with vengeance and drive and not a single ounce of regret, Ilya suddenly felt like crying. He was beginning to see what his therapist had been getting at.
Every single player on the bench had taken a hit for him, and here they were, planning on how to do it again, while their coach yelled incomprehensibly to the left and his husband leaned into his side. When Ilya felt Shane press into him a little closer, seeing the water in the blue eyes, and cup his chin with the pretence of brushing away the helmet strap, Ilya knew three things.
1: That he would be called that word a million times over if it meant he got to keep Shane Hollander.
2: That he could take a hit if necessary, verbal or otherwise, with no complaints, with no flinching, and carry on afterwards.
3: That with a team like this, he might not ever have to again.