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Shane wouldn't say he was panicking about All Stars this year because there was no need to panic if you had a plan, and Shane and Ilya had a plan. At least Shane had a plan, and Ilya was going along with it and offering surprisingly prescient critiques.

"It would look more suspicious if I ignored you entirely, solynishko," Ilya was pointing out now, from where Shane's phone was propped up on the toilet tank. They were on a video call, since Ilya liked to watch Shane shave. Shane only had to shave once a week at most, so they took advantage when they could. "And you are on enough suppressants to murder a bear. No one will smell anything if I say hello to you at the bar."

The league was doing another East Meets West match-up this year, meaning they would be competing. They didn't need to strategize as heavily as they would have if they had been forced to spend time together as teammates. Shane stayed focused on the razor as he got to the hinge of his jaw. Ilya wasn't wrong - Dr. Chen had assured Shane his new suppressant cocktail would mask his body's response to his boyfriend. Shane was still paranoid, though. Feeling nervous about being sniffed out was nothing new for Shane, though. He had worried about that long before he and Ilya were official. Ilya affected him so totally that Shane never knew how no one smelled it on him. How no one just read it on his face.

Shane rinsed off his razor. Ilya also wasn't wrong that it would look strange if noted fuckboy Ilya Rozanov completely ignored the famous omega in the room, especially since part of the reason Shane dreaded All Stars was that alphas treated the weekend, as Rose put it, like a Shoot Your Shot Event. "Okay, so at the bar you come over and say hi for maybe ten minutes."

"Should I hit on you?" asked Ilya.

Shane got started on his left side. "Maybe just be kind of suggestive? We don't want it to stand out, but you have a point that people would think it was weird if you were blanking me."

Shane had been prepared for Ilya to suggest that Shane skip All Stars altogether if he was so anxious about it. Especially when Ilya clearly thought his duties as Shane's alpha included shielding Shane from potential danger and pain. Over the past few years, as Shane's presence at All Stars became expected, he himself thought about skipping the weekend like everyone else did. Still, Shane always hung in there because it was an honor to represent the best of the league, and also, he had to admit, in a petty little crevice of himself, spite. But still, he was worried, and Ilya didn't like that, but hadn't said a word to stop him from going.

"You're right," Ilya purred, holding his phone close to his face. "Blanking you would be insane. That jaw is a fucking vision. First thing in the morning, and you are already this stunning. Fuck, my heart can't take it."

Shane ducked his head, only partially hiding his shy, pleased smile. As Ilya had become more effusive, Shane had noticed certain patterns in his compliments. Ilya enjoyed Shane's maleness in a way Shane found flattering. It was no secret that part of what made male omegas such a flashpoint was that they were guys who didn't make alphas gay to fuck. But Ilya was never weird about it in any of the myriad ways alphas could be weird about it. He just seemed like he liked all parts of Shane equally.

Shane said, "Definitely don't say that in front of anybody."

"I'll wait until nighttime," Ilya said. "When we'll be alone."

Shane finished, rinsing himself off with a damp washcloth. "Should we play it by ear? It might not be safe to meet up."

Ilya's expression went a little less easy. The major appeal of All Stars for both of them was three days in the same location together.

"Okay," said Ilya. "If you think that's best." Since Shane accepted the intention of his claim, Ilya could be cautious with him sometimes, like Ilya had gotten a wild animal to eat out of his hand and didn't want to startle it off. Shane didn't know how he felt about it.

"It'll probably be fine," said Shane. There were some perks to All Stars. It was being held in Raleigh this year, so at least the weather would be decent. JJ was the other Metro coming with him, and Carter Vaughn would be there. Carter, JJ, and Shane were all friendly; they had a group chat called Minority Report. So Shane would have a social base of operations. Dallas Kent wouldn't be there this year. And, of course, two consecutive nights with Ilya. Despite Shane's fretting, that would be hard to give up. "As long as we're careful."

"We are very careful," Ilya said. "And hockey players are very stupid. It will be fine."

The vast majority of hockey players were indeed very stupid, and so was the media, except that reporters could also be canny. Since the Metro's championship last year and this year's season shaping up to indicate, at the very least, a deep playoff run, Shane noticed reporters' questions were coagulating into one of two new types. 1) What were the special omega qualities of Shane's playstyle that gave the Metros their edge? 2) Hadn't Shane already proven he had the chops? What was left for him to do? Both categories were present at the All Stars press conference.

Shane was a lot more worried about the second question than the first. If they were the beginning beats of the jungle drums of retirement pressure.

After the media portion of the day was over, Shane had to socialize. All Stars was being held at the Raleigh Hilton, blurring it into the same anonymous smear as all the other endless hotels in Shane's life. As he stood at the vestibule of the bar, Shane reflected on how often he dreaded entering a room. Specifically, the moment when all the alphas in a space instinctively picked up on the intrusion of an omega, and then when their conscious recognition kicked in, and they realized the omega was Shane Hollander.

Ilya was already in there. Shane could sense it, which was new. He made a note to tell Dr. Chen. She was a good doctor. She was remarkably patient with his emails sent at two in the morning about his new concerns after researching the effects of being claimed as true mates or on an elite athlete. She always reassured him that what he found was a fringe or discredited study or, once in a low moment, creepypasta.

Shane took a breath and walked in.

Ilya was at the bar, talking to Cliff Marleau, a Raiders' defenseman. As Shane found a table and settled down, he saw that the two of them were being shamelessly flirted with by the unclaimed male omega bartender. Marleau was very into it. Ilya's response was much more desultory, but the bartender was lavishing him with significantly more attention.

Fortunately, JJ found Shane quickly and came over with a wave. While they talked, Shane told himself to ignore what was happening at the bar, but kept getting glimpses out of the corner of his eye. The omega was cute in the way males typically were - short with a wiry build and a sweet face. He kept finding ways to expose his throat to Ilya, an only vaguely subtle invitation. Shane would bet he traded his coworkers every conceivable favor to work shifts during All Stars weekend.

Shane forced himself to focus on the conversation at his table when Vaughn and a few other Admirals joined them. They were talking about the new trend started by an influencer - one of the big deal ones who was married to a recording artist and had her own reality show - of flaunting special presents she had received for claiming and childbirth on Instagram. Bite presents and push presents, the guys were calling them. Vaughn was trying to point out that claiming and childbirth both hurt, so he could see why an omega wanted extra compensation. That was Vaughn for you. The other alphas at the table were entirely dismissive of the idea: wasn't being claimed and having kids reward enough already, since omegas never shut up about wanting those exact things? It showed what omegas were really after. And their particular omegas had lifestyle expectations - they wanted expensive shit like cars to show off to their own Instagram followers, so why not get sponsored by the brands and not take their alpha's hard-earned money?

"What about you, Hollzy?" someone asked, inevitably. "Would you go in for that shit?"

Shane snapped back to the table from wherever he had gone off to. He gave them a short, boring answer that also happened to be the truth. "No, probably not."

"Right on," said one of the Admirals. "See, that's how to do it. You're a class act."

"Hollander doesn't need anyone buying presents for him," said Vaughn, probably trying to help. "We got an omega here who makes his own cash."

"No, Hollzy just doesn't like fancy shit," JJ said. "The only push present he would want is a hockey puck."

There was a joke here about how Shane only wanted the cup and the Metros got it for him last year, but Shane felt too clamped down to tell it. He wanted to tell them to go fuck themselves, but it wouldn't be worth the energy. He just smiled thinly and let the conversation continue to wash around him.

He watched out of the corner of his eye as the omega bartender laughed at something Ilya said, leaning his elbows on the table and tilting his head to show the underside of his jaw. He was probably the type to moan 'alpha' during sex like it was porn. He probably presented on the first date. Shane literally felt the hair raise on the back of his neck. If he had claws, they would be lengthening.

Before he could do anything truly embarrassing, St.-Simon from the Raiders came into the bar, trailed by his omega holding a child who could have been three or four. In sharp contrast to the polite indifference he had been showing the bartender, Ilya's eyes lit up.

"Lapochka!" he said, reaching out for the little girl. "There she is! Mama, give me this baby, we have important business to discuss."

The omega handed her over easily, and Ilya settled her on the bar, facing him, so they were at eye level. The girl was delighted and bashful, giggling at Ilya from behind her hands. Ilya affected a concerned expression. "But this isn't the lapochka I met last time. She is much too big. And her hair is long, that lapochka only maybe hair to her chin."

"It's me, Ilya!" she squealed, completely overcome with joy.

"Hm, maybe," Ilya allowed. "There's only one way to know for sure. Do you remember our secret handshake?" She nodded and led Ilya through an elaborate, messy fistbump that they were clearly half-making up as they went along, until Ilya nodded seriously. "Yes, okay. You pass. It's you. Now, our important business: have you been to the pool yet?"

Shane honestly might black out. This was a component of his All Stars dread he hadn't consciously factored in; that he had seen before, but maybe hadn't allowed himself to name. Ilya was good with kids. Ilya genuinely liked children in a way Shane thought Ilya secretly didn't like most adults. And Ilya could get away with playing with kids because people construed it as pack-oriented and authoritative, didn't read weakness in it the way they might in another alpha. Ilya had spent every previous All Stars he and Shane had attended together making friends with all the other players' kids, acquiring a gaggle of little ducklings whom he corralled effortlessly using methods completely alien to Shane.

The omega bartender was laughably obvious as he tried to surreptitiously take pictures of Ilya and the girl on his phone. Maybe Shane should report him to management. Maybe he'd get fired.

"Hey, St-Simon," one of the Admirals at Shane's table called over, alerted by the ruckus. "You give a push present for that one?"

"Fuck no, man!" St-Simon said. His omega's smile stayed frozen on her face. "No one was doing that shit back then. Thank Christ."

"What about you, Rozanov?" the Admiral asked. "Would you fall for that bullshit?"

Ilya addressed the little girl first, gravely. "Excuse me. This will only be a minute," Then he called back to the Admiral. "I don't have an omega, Rassmussen."

"C'mon, you know what I mean," Rasmussen said.

"I know what you mean. Who the fuck cares?" Ilya said. He turned to the girl again. "Sorry lapochka, ignore all rude words." Then to Rasmussen again. "If she wants a present, whatever, give her a fucking present. She deserves it for having to put up with your unwashed ass for the rest of your miserable life."

St-Simon's omega discreetly plucked the little girl off the bar and whisked her away.

"Oh, here we go," Marleau said good-naturedly to the room at large. "Don't let Roz get on his fucking pulpit."

"Go fuck yourself, Marly," Ilya said, equally pleasant.

"You should hear him in the locker room," Marleau said. "He gets such a stick up his ass sometimes. You should have heard him last time he caught some of the rookies talking about-" Marleau, who had a head made out of granite, visibly remembered himself, glanced over at Shane, and froze up. "Stuff."

If Ilya felt the clench of panic Shane did, he didn't show it. He shrugged. "Whatever. If people are going to talk shit in my barn, they better be able to back it up. That's all. It's how I've always run things."

Shane forced himself to wait exactly fifteen minutes after the conversation had moved on before he quietly fled to the bathroom. Shane checked under the stall doors to make sure it was empty before sitting down on a toilet and putting his head between his legs. He was going to be on the roster with Marleau and St-Simon soon. And Ilya wanted to have kids. They'd never talked about it, but he must, right? He must have known that little from Raiders barbeques and wedding receptions among a throng of his teammates children. He was so good with her, warm and sincerely engaged.

Shane wished he had packed one of his pregnancy tests, just for reassurance. When she had found the bulk package of pregnancy tests in Shane's bathroom, Rose had asked him if he had ever thought about some form of sterilization, if he was so freaked out about accidental pregnancy that he took tests about twice a month just to assuage his anxiety. Shane had mumbled some excuse about surgery recovery time, but honestly, it had just never occurred to him. Kids seemed entirely theoretical to him, not something that he could access seriously, but the idea of the option being closed off permanently felt like coming to the edge of a steep and mournful cliff.

Did Shane want kids? He definitely didn't want them now. He didn't even know if he could do it. He liked kids fine - he loved the Pike children - but he wasn't made to be a parent the way Ilya clearly was.

Shane could feel Ilya as a fixed point on the map, throbbing in his brain. Okay, so this was going to be part of mating for them, then. An increased awareness of each other. Okay. Shane couldn't remember if that indicated emotion bleed was on the horizon. Maybe Ilya would soon always know when Shane was upset, and Shane would never again have a moment to himself to goddamn think.

Shane did a little visualization - inhale calming light, exhale his anxiety as gray smoke - until his heart rate calmed down. He went to the sink and washed his face in cold water, practicing a smile in the mirror.

When he got back to the table, JJ asked if he wanted to check out the golf course. Shane was thankful that JJ could tell he was getting overwhelmed. It was good to have the reminder that JJ had his back. He felt Ilya's eyes track him as they left the bar together.

Shane cared about golf in the dutiful way in which he knew he was expected, but JJ had apparently developed an actual passion for it at some point recently. Shane thought it was kind of sweet, considering JJ was an extremely cool guy, and even Shane thought golf was pretty lame. It allowed Shane to contribute minimally to the conversation, letting JJ ramble on about bogeys and the course's walkability. Ilya's presence faded from Shane's head the further they walked away. This probably wasn't a precursor to emotion bleed. And emotion bleed probably wasn't that bad. What did he have to hide from Ilya, anyway?

"It's good it's the two of us this year," said JJ, dragging Shane's attention back. North Carolina was humid and smothering, the air sticking inside Shane's lungs in an unfamiliar way. He had no idea who would want to golf in this. "Family men like Hayd and Gauty take vacation, but us single boys should live it up while we can."

Shane didn't think of All Stars as living it up, but honestly, JJ would know more on that front than he did. "Yeah, totally."

JJ nudged his shoulder. "See, yes, you know I'm right. You're quiet, Hollzy, but once I get you to leave your house, you're a good time."

Shane doubted that, but said, "Thanks, man."

"We have good times together, right?" JJ said. Something about the way he swallowed made Shane abruptly realize JJ was nervous. "We get each other."

"Sure," said Shane.

"So, I was wondering," said JJ. "Have you thought more about what we were talking about a few months ago?"

"What were we talking about?" Shane asked. He didn't understand the question and had felt tilted at an angle before this conversation had even started. He could read from JJ's expression that this response was somehow offensive.

"What we talked about at team dinner after the game in Buffalo," reminded JJ, voice betraying a thread of dismay.

Prompted, Shane remembered something, vaguely. JJ had asked if Shane would ever share a heat with a teammate now that his cycle had balanced out. Shane had said he didn't think it was a good idea to do that with teammates and JJ said they were friends, too, which Shane had agreed with, and JJ asked him to at least think about it, and Shane said sure, and had promptly dropped it from his mind, because the unattached guys on his team said things like that sometimes and it didn't ever matter.

JJ was looking at Shane like maybe it mattered.

"Oh," said Shane, suddenly very aware of his posture. "Oh… no. That's still not a good idea, I think."

JJ's face fell. "Oh."

"Because we're friends," Shane continued awkwardly. "And because of the team. It would be complicated. Thank you, though."

"It wouldn't be complicated for the team," JJ said with worrying authority. "Does that change things?"

"Oh. Uh, no," Shane said, trying to figure out what to do with his hands. "Not really. It'd still be complicated. For me."

JJ's scent was turning a little sour. "Because you have an alpha already?"

"No!" said Shane, probably too emphatically. "No, of course not. Just - we're friends. I don't like crossing streams."

"Ah, okay," JJ said, nodding a little. "No crossing streams because we're such good friends."

There was a bitterness to JJ's voice, a twist to his mouth that Shane had never seen before and was alarmed to see now. JJ's whole thing was being unbothered. Vaughn would bitch in their group chat about microaggressions, and Shane would chime in when appropriate, and JJ would agree it was bullshit, but was still always carefree and untouchable, protected by an aura of easy, swaggering cool.

"We are," said Shane, bewildered and on his way to feeling a little hurt. Shane didn't have many friends, and the ones he did have were hard-fought. He liked being friends with JJ. "No hard feelings?"

"Mon chum Hollzy," JJ said, in that way that was meant to sound like he didn't care but still made it clear that he was wounded, and that his being wounded mattered. "Of course not. No hard feelings. Got it. Very cool. I'm going back inside to grab a drink then, buddy."

"Okay," Shane said tonelessly as JJ made his way past him. He was disoriented and had that hangdog realization that he had disappointed someone. It warred with how he also felt indignant that JJ was disappointed at all. JJ acted like Shane hadn't held up his end of some bargain, but Shane had never made one with him.

Shane's flowchart of life indicated that when he got stuck somewhere, he should either work harder or acquire more information. He didn't see how to work harder at this, so he found a quiet place under a tree near a water feature, sat down, and called Hayden.

Hayden was a good sport, picking up Shane's call while he, Jackie, and the kids were in Aruba. He was also kind enough to stay on the phone with Shane for nearly thirty minutes as he apologetically explained that, yeah, JJ had a crush on Shane for a while now, and the whole team knew about it.

"I told him not to," Hayden said. "But everyone else was egging him on about using this weekend to make a move."

"Why?" asked Shane, genuinely perplexed.

"They think it's cute," Hayden said. "They think you two getting together would be a good idea."

JJ had been Shane's friend for over six years. "I don't like him like that, though."

"I know," said Hayden. "That's why I told him not to do it. The other guys got in his head, though, I think. They, uh… okay, I don't think this."

"What?" asked Shane.

"They thought it was a good sign that you let JJ cuff you," Hayden said.

"It was the cup celebration!" Shane said, aware he sounded shrill. "You cuffed me! Guys were drinking beer out of shoes!"

"I told him not to take it that seriously," Hayden agreed. How much conversation had there been about this? "The team just likes the idea, you know? You and JJ get together, become a little Metros family, really lock down the dynasty."

"Great," said Shane. "Well, that's my future taken care of."

"No one really means it," Hayden hastened to add. Shane wouldn't have thought they did, but he also apparently hadn't known that his team was comprised of meddling aunties. "It's just a joke. We all value and respect your autonomy as an omega."

Shane closed his eyes around a flash of annoyance. Hayden had been doing some reading since their fight, and it wasn't fair that it irritated Shane this much. "Okay. Should I talk to him?"

"I'd just let him cool down," Hayden said. "Give him a couple days."

Shane wasn't comfortable leaving this unresolved. "Are you sure? Maybe I should tell him how I really appreciate our friendship, even if it's not romantic."

"Shane, buddy," said Hayden. "Remember when I told you that your goal song couldn't be Get on Your Feet by Gloria Estefan?"

Shane hadn't been wedded to it; he just didn't know much music, and that was his mother's favorite. Hayden had been emphatically against it, though. "It's like that?"

"It's like that," Hayden confirmed. "Just give him some time. He'll get over it."

Shane wandered back inside in a bit of a mood. He checked his phone and saw JJ had left the Minority Report chat. Hopefully, he was just licking his wounds. Hopefully, some aspect of those nearly seven years of friendship with Shane had been sincere. Back at the bar, Shane ordered a ginger ale from the omega bartender, who didn't bother hiding his smirk at the choice. Shane was absolutely going to get this man fired.

Ilya slid into the seat next to him and said, neutrally, "Hollander."

"Rozanov," Shane greeted in kind.

"We are being seen in public," Ilya murmured, staring straight ahead of him. "And I am going to do a terrible job of hitting on you."

Shane felt something in his chest unfurl. Despite everything, it was so good to be close to Ilya. Like something righting itself. "Terrible? Really?"

"Just awful," Ilya said.

"How bad we talking?" asked Shane. It had been a grueling few hours, but despite the risk, Shane's interest was piqued. It felt like they were playing spies.

"Are you an angel?" asked Ilya. "Because you look like you just fell from heaven, baby."

"Wow," said Shane. "Yeah, that's a real stinker."

Ilya took a sip of his vodka. Shane suspected Ilya ordered vodka at team events when he wanted to be obnoxious. "Mostly because your backhand is so weak it takes an act of god to get the puck in the net."

Shane had a backhand like a cannon. He turned to Ilya, knowing he shouldn't look this fond. "You're always so confident when you're wrong."

"One usually leads to the other," Ilya agreed, rubbing at his nose. He looked at Shane and asked quietly. "Are you all right?"

Maybe Ilya had smelled or felt it on him or seen it on his face. Maybe Ilya just knew these things drained Shane. Shane absolutely couldn't tell Ilya about JJ, especially not here. Best-case scenario, Ilya would give JJ a concussion during the game tomorrow. Shane traced the condensation around his glass. Ilya had picked a good spot to do this; the crowd of players was back at the booths, the bartender was paying attention to the other side of the bar, and the ambient music was an impenetrable barrier unless you were within a foot of the other person. No one could overhear them. "Do you want kids?"

Ilya stared at him with undisguised horror. "What the fuck, Hollander?"

Shane shrugged, feeling flinty. When Shane was heat drunk, Ilya always steered him away from embarrassing confessions or declarations of affection, but he only ever joined in when Shane got started on kid talk. "Do you?"

"I don't think we should have this conversation now," Ilya said, which probably meant yes. Ilya looked unsettled enough by this subject that it reassured Shane that at least he probably wasn't getting any emotion bleed either.

"Some day," Ilya said quietly, after a moment of Shane staring down at his drink. "When we retire. If you want them, too. Okay?"

Shane blinked and nodded, feeling some weight slough off. "Okay."

"And I won't get you a present unless you want one," Ilya said. "Any of these assholes' heads on a platter, maybe."

Shane ducked his head a little to hide his smile from the bartender, who was pretending not to watch them as he served other customers. "Yeah, that would be a start."

"We're in this together," Ilya said quietly, staring straight ahead of him. "I want what you want, always."

Shane had to clear his throat, looking down at the lacquered wood of the bartop. It felt crazy to hear that in public. To hear that at all. Ilya had a way of making things seem so simple. "That's what I want, too. What you want."

Ilya quirked a smile before schooling his expression, turning to face Shane again. "But if you like now, maybe you should throw your drink in my face. Show everyone here that I'm a horrible knothead and you're much too good for me."

Shane tried to hide his own smile by looking at his lap. "I think they know that already."

"He bullies me," Ilya said, getting off his barstool with an exaggerated grimace. "But he is so beautiful, I always forgive him."

"Oh, fuck off," Shane said agreeably, loud enough to be overheard.

Ilya gave him a cartoonishly flirty leer as he walked away, back into the throng. The bartender was glaring daggers at Shane, who let himself have one smug glance back at him before taking a breath and joining Ilya.

***

JJ only sort of got over the rejection. He was civil to Shane, but wouldn't knock helmets with him anymore, and stopped having little asides with him in French. He walked around with an injured superiority that calcified over time into a different relationship with Shane altogether. Most of the Metros clearly shared his position; Shane got a lot of glares and overheard a lot of loud, ambient comments about people who don't appreciate good things when they find them. The Metros group chat had gone suspiciously quiet, meaning they had made another chat that they had purposefully left Shane out of, most likely to talk about him.

Honestly, Shane thought the whole thing was absurd. He'd love to sit down and talk to JJ about this, but JJ wasn't letting that be an option. And he didn't understand why all his teammates were acting like this, like in rejecting JJ, he had rejected the group. Shane believed he also had the right to be annoyed that JJ was acting like Shane's friendship was a silver medal - a token of failure, an insult of a consolation prize.

It became clear from what they said that JJ had shared his suspicions that Shane had an alpha. The team was unhappy about that. Shane had been acceptable as long as he was, in some definable way, theirs. Now, though, they were starting to view him with vague hostility. Hayden was standing up for him, and Hayden had the A, which wasn't nothing, but Shane watched his reputation further solidify into something remote and unpleasant.

Shane watched helplessly as a similar thing happened with the press. He was playing well this season, ahead of where he was last year in the scoring race. It turned out that getting more routinely fucked by the man he loved made for even better hockey than trying to turn himself into an automaton. And the Metros might have been butthurt, but they were still professionals. They still clicked as a unit. But as the Metros solidly earned their playoff seed, a certain staticky itchiness grew in the media. Shane was getting the sense that he was less tolerated. "You are no fun for them now," was how Ilya put it. "You've proven yourself. They can't ignore who you are and what you mean."

Shane was shocked into rudeness during a press conference when a reporter asked him if he had a comment on the allegations that his suppressants were a form of performance-enhancing drugs.

Shane blinked. "What allegations?"

The reporter was an alpha from Barroom Sports, so Shane should have expected this, probably. Shane's publicity team was going to be kicking themselves for not getting out ahead of whatever soundbite had been drummed up here. "There's been some discussion in online circles that omega suppressants should be reclassified as performance enhancers, since they eliminate a lot of the issues that make omegas physically inferior. Alphas don't have access to medications that do that. Do you have any comments?"

The press scrum collectively stilled with a rustle, knowing they were verging on the taboo.

"Well, that's speculation, not an allegation," said Shane. He immediately knew it was the wrong move. No one liked it when he was pedantic, when he seemed too smart or exacting. "And no, I don't have a comment on that."

"Because it hits close to home?" asked the reporter, who was apparently content never to be allowed back in the building after this.

"Because it's ridiculous," Shane said. "I'll comment the next time anyone has any idea what they're talking about. Next question, please."

It didn't go over well. Or it went over too well, in that the media was thrilled to have made Shane Hollander lose his famous composure, and the sound bite blew up. The Metros had to release statements explaining the science behind omega suppressants, how they differed from and overlapped with alpha suppressants. It was information people should have learned in grade-seven health class, but loved to flaunt their ignorance about in long-form internet essays. The discourse made its way to the pundit circuit, red-faced alphas arguing about what suppressants did on ESPN. Front office released more statements in support of Shane, and made it very clear to him that they did not appreciate having to do all this extra work on his behalf.

The whole thing made Shane angry in a way he struggled to let roll off his back. He had spent hundreds of hours with doctors trying to figure out his suppressant regimen, and the side effects had often been so cataclysmically debilitating. He had pushed through anyway, won a fucking cup anyway, and now mouthbreathers in beer leagues whose only authority on the subject was the ability to spend forty dollars on a podcast microphone decided his suppressants gave him an edge?

Shane had thought that eventually people would stop wanting to see him fail. Or he had assumed that if he proved himself, crossed some line at some point, people would be forced to conclude he should be allowed to play hockey. They would permit him to do the one thing he loved, the thing he was exceptional at, without having to shred him into smaller and smaller pieces, trying to discredit his right to do it.

That wasn't entirely fair. Montreal still loved him. Shane couldn't leave his house without being mobbed by grateful fans, often eager to tell him how angry they were on his behalf. It somehow became Shane's job to comfort them about how they felt about how Shane was treated.

He felt weirdly not himself for a few weeks, listless and pasted together. Shane still hadn't told Ilya about the thing with JJ, but he tried to explain the rest of it in a jumble to him in bed after their last in-season game before the playoffs. He and Ilya weren't meeting for a while after this. Their schedules were too tight, and they both needed to lock in. Ilya firmly disagreed with the no-sex-during-playoffs rules, so they'd still Skype. Still, it felt so rare and exquisite to be curled warm in Ilya's arms that Shane felt awful ruining their precious golden time together talking about this. Still, it burst out of him. Shane's disorientation, his wariness, his resentment, his suspicion that the goalpost would always be over the horizon.

Ilya sighed slowly, bringing Shane closer to him on the bed. He rubbed Shane's back, holding him tight. "Oh, moya lyubov, you're so brave."

"Shut up," said Shane wetly, face in Ilya's shoulder.

"It's true," Ilya said. "You're the bravest person I know."

"Fuck off," said Shane, mashed into Ilya's skin.

Ilya kissed his cheek. "Strongest too."

It would be pretty embarrassing if that made him cry. Shane wiped the dampness away discreetly. "It's not that bad. I can handle it."

"I know," said Ilya. "You can handle whatever they throw at you. I just wish you didn't have to."

Shane cleared his throat, pitching his voice to be more even. "On the bright side, at least stuff like this is less likely to happen in Boston."

"Yes," Ilya murmured, stroking down his back, propping his arm up a little to look at him. "Moya solynishko. I will protect you in Boston. No one will ever hurt you again."

In hindsight, Shane could see how this part of Ilya had always been there, lurking under layers of defensive aloofness. Ilya had just needed permission to bloom into it. He always sounded so reverent when he talked about protecting Shane, but made it a little sexy too. The two blended interchangeably for Ilya. Shane would belong to Ilya in Boston, and Ilya found that sacred and erotic. And Shane did too, powerfully, and he was working really hard at ignoring that tiny icy drop at the center of it. Maybe it was the part of him that didn't want to need protection.

"Hey," said Shane, rolling onto his back to look up at Ilya, the sweep of Ilya's shoulders like a banner unfurled. "You should know - I want that. I really do. I want this, Ilya."

Ilya beamed at him, blinding, before bending down to kiss him, long and deep and sweet, then trailed kisses down his sternum, taking Shane's cock in his mouth.

***

After the Metros won the Stanley Cup for the second year in a row, Ilya had two dozen lilies and the biggest dildo Shane had ever seen delivered to Shane's apartment. it's modeled from mine, I used a kit, Ilya flagrantly lied on the attached note. After winning the cup, Shane was elated, nursing a worse version of last year's knee and a new shoulder issue, wrung out, wired, overdone from celebrating, and annoyed by his team's increasingly bald resentment that the media metabolized it as Shane's victory in some essential way, not theirs. Even in all that complexity, he tried to emblazon the win in his mind. This might be the last time an achievement would count as his and not Ilya's by virtue of being his alpha.

Shane and Ilya had talked on the phone the night the Metros won. Shane took the call in the alley behind the restaurant, drunk and crying with delirious exhaustion and gratitude. He didn't think anyone overheard the call, but leaving the meal abruptly to take it had been enough to fuel the rumors that he had a secret alpha. Even tipsy, he saw it on their faces when he returned to his seat.

Dr. Chen told Shane he could push his heat off to mid-July, which Shane was so excited about because, after several disastrous setbacks and delays, the cottage would finally be ready then. Furnished and all. Ilya said he would come back from Russia for two weeks to share Shane's heat with him there, then fly back. It was Ilya's last summer before he claimed Shane and planned not to return. He said he wanted to spend as much time at home as he could this summer, settle his affairs, and say his goodbyes.

Shane had mixed feelings about that after learning more about Ilya's brother and father. They seemed, to Shane, more like an angry, rapacious mouth than a family, trying to suck all the use out of Ilya. And Ilya clearly felt his responsibility as the alpha of the household keenly, despite their mercenary approach to him, or maybe because of it. Shane, personally, didn't think Ilya owed them anything, especially as Ilya told him more about his mother, how he clearly thought, despite never saying so, that his father and his casually cruel expectations of what her life should be had ground her down until she had no choice but to succumb to her disease. But Ilya still wanted to go home to see them and provide for them, and who was Shane to judge? He knew what it was like to chase love that you knew, deep down, you were never going to get. How the chase became almost more important than the hope of receiving it.

As the season ended and they faced the looming specter of Shane's last year as a Metro, Yuna kept reminding him to tell Farah.

"She needs to know," Yuna said. Shane knew this was true. Yuna had been applying herself, in her usual snowplow way, to the transition, focusing on the shift in his brand identity. She was putting out feelers, closing ranks where she could, seeing where there was room to pivot if it became necessary. Yuna would come to Shane's house with pants she picked up at Costco for him, and make mildly disapproving faces about how exact he was in weighing out his meals these days, and talk in her upbeat, pragmatic way about how they were going to handle it when Shane's life was no longer fully his to control.

"She's going to be bargaining for you," Yuna said. "It's rude to have her do that under false pretences."

"I know, Mom," said Shane, who was absolutely going to tell Farah soon. Or ask Yuna to do it.

"Call her," Yuna said meaningfully. She looked annoyed enough that maybe he wouldn't be able to get her to do it for him, which was unusual. "Actually, just give her a call in general. She has a pretty interesting idea for your cup day."

Shane did call Farah and didn't get around to giving her the speech he was composing in his head ("I just want you to know I'm moving to Boston in 2017 because I'm under the closest thing that exists to a magic spell, but don't worry, it doesn't mean I'm becoming someone else's property, for the following reasons...") because she really did have a good idea for his day with the cup. His PR team made some worried noises about it when he ran it by them, but eventually agreed it might be worth a bit of a risk.

Last year, Shane had been too blitzed out from his unsuccessful attempts at biohacking to do more than a perfunctory photoshoot with the cup on his allotted day. This year, he brought it to a Gifted and Talented Omegas after-school program. Shane succumbed to a surprisingly real and feathery joy as a gaggle of eleven to eighteen-year-olds went absolutely apeshit.

Shane fell into a persona, usually, when talking to fans, especially children. But these kids were excited in a way he recognized. Shane had done plenty of meet and greets with kids, visited hospitals with the team, and been three children's Make A Wish. That was all gratifying, but this felt different. These kids asked questions about his training regime, what classes he had taken at their age, and how he handled dating. They weren't gawking at him, though, which was what he usually experienced, even in benign ways. Instead, he was watching a bunch of bright kids try to incorporate his answers into their sense of their future, drawing themselves a blueprint.

Yuna had been lecturing him about being a role model since he was these kids' age, but for the first time, that didn't feel like a cage. What would it have been like, as a teenager, to have the sense there was a door for him to go through, even a locked one? Shane had needed to bulldoze through a mountain, but maybe these kids would just be looking for a key.

There was the inevitable backlash his PR team had been concerned about, that Shane dared to acknowledge his secondary gender in public. But Shane still felt really good about it until he got a call from Roger Crowell.

Farah and the Metros front office had both warned him the call was coming - itself concerning, that this was a pre-existing conversation - so Shane had ten minutes to compose himself, theoretically. He spent most of that time feeling like he was underwater. A call from Roger Crowell wasn't the same as being sent to the principal's office, but it carried a similar weight.

"Shane Hollander," Crowell said jovially when the call finally came, and Shane picked it up with shaky hands. "How you been? Good to finally talk to you."

Shane had met Crowell several times at fundraisers and exhibitions, and when Crowell handed him the fucking cup two years in a row. Crowell tended to take long glances at Shane's clavicle. When Shane was fourteen, Crowell had gotten into some hot water for calling a claimed omega working in his office 'very breedable.'

"Good to talk to you, too, sir," said Shane.

"Congratulations again on the win," Crowell said. "Two in a row! Hell of a thing. You must be riding high."

"Yes, sir," said Shane. "I am."

"Great," said Crowell. "That's great. Anyway, I'm calling, kiddo, because I've always wanted to tell you that you've been a great asset to the league. Talented, humble, can drive engagement like nobody's business. You're a real credit to the sport. We could use twenty more like you, omega or not, no mistake."

"Thank you," Shane said dutifully, braced.

"Which is why I wanted to make sure we're still on the same page," Crowell said.

"The same page?" Shane echoed.

"One thing I've always liked about you, Hollander, is you know how to play the game," said Crowell. "Just ask any of my friends - I say, 'Shane Hollander, that omega is savvy. He gets that hockey is a business. He knows where his bread is buttered.' So I was just a little concerned to hear about your cup day."

Shane stared out the window. Clouds were hovering over the crest of Mount Royal. "Oh?"

"Like I said, we both know hockey is a business, Shane," said Crowell. "And business and politics, they don't mix. So I was disappointed to hear you went ahead and mixed them."

"I don't think an after-school program is political," Shane tried, already feeling himself slipping away.

"That's not always true, though, is it?" said Crowell. "Those kids have a place in the world, and it upsets a lot of people if they think you're encouraging them to defy the natural order of things. I know, I know, it's not PC, but a lot of folks believe omegas are here to make babies - present company excluded. It's great that there are outliers like you. Keeps things interesting! But if you think about it, Shane, it was kind of cruel of you to get those kids' hopes up. Society needs some people to stay home, while us alphas and betas are stuck doing the boring stuff that keeps the rest of it running."

Shane wished he had thought to record this conversation. He wished he could sink into a hole in the earth. "Uh-huh."

"Not that it matters to me," laughed Crowell. "I'm not a philosopher! But the people who do care, Shane, well, they read about things like this, and they stop buying tickets. They stop buying jerseys. And it's my job to make sure they keep buying those tickets and jerseys, you understand? So if I see one of my best players do something that makes it harder to sell his jersey, well, I gotta say something."

"Over fifty percent of my jersey sales are from omegas," Shane said before he could stop himself. "And everyone else buying them already knows I'm an omega. I'm still outselling everyone in the league but Rozanov. I think I'll do just fine."

Crowell paused, recalculating. "I get that, Shane. I do," he said. "Like I said, you've always had a good head on your shoulders. Always knew how to play your cards. Always kept your nose clean."

Shane felt the dread start to claw at his throat. "Yes, sir."

"I'm not one for rumors," Crowell said. "But I know you've had a couple hit you hard. And I've heard a few here and there recently that you might have an alpha on the side that you've been keeping under wraps. I don't know if it's true. I don't care if it's true. But true or not, it could set you back if that became public, and I'd hate to see that to happen."

Crowell must have talked to Metros front office. Front office had heard something from the team. The team and front office had no interest in protecting Shane from Crowell.

"I understand, sir," Shane said from somewhere far away.

"Good then," said Crowell. "So we're on the same page, sweetheart?"

"Yeah," said Shane. "I get your point."

"Then I won't keep you," Crowell said. "I'm sure you've got a lot of celebrating left to do. An omega wins the cup two years in a row. Hell of a thing."

"Hell of a thing," Shane repeated automatically before Crowell hung up. Reflecting on the conversation later, he hated himself the most for that.

***

He called Ilya in a panic, so frantic it took him a while to unspool what had happened. Ilya was alarmed but patient, encouraging Shane to breathe.

"Do you think he knows?" Ilya asked.

"No," said Shane. He had been pacing around his apartment the entire call, worrying a crack in his lower lip. "He would have led with it if he knew about you. He just knows what the Metros know." Shane didn't want to fuck JJ, so they told themselves a story about another alpha to justify it. Even if Ilya hadn't been in the picture, Shane wouldn't have wanted to fuck JJ.

Ilya had been planning to drive up in three days anyway, so they could spend some time together before he flew to Russia. He canceled some meetings to come up early instead. Over the season, Shane and Ilya had met in hotel rooms in Montreal since Shane's gated community required IDs, and Shane hastily booked them a room now.

When Ilya walked through the door, Shane immediately sank to his knees in front of him, pressing his face to Ilya's crotch and inhaling deeply. They stood there for a while, Ilya's hand in his hair. Eventually, Ilya forced Shane into the shower, then fed him chickpea pasta he had picked up from Whole Foods on the way, and, at Shane's request, cuffed him three times over the course of an hour.

Eventually, they went to bed together. The world always felt safer and smaller in Ilya's arms. "One more season," Ilya kept murmuring into Shane's hair as they spooned together in bed. "Just one more season, and none of this matters anymore."

Shane nodded, trying to be comforted by that. It was true. Once he was claimed, a rumor like that lost any sting. Once he was claimed, there would be a bunch of new rumors, but, theoretically, Shane wouldn't care about them because he would be docile and in love. "We'll have to be even more careful this year, though."

Ilya kissed his shoulder. "Okay."

"We might not be able to see each other as much," Shane said. "I don't think we should. Just in case."

Ilya blew out a little breath. "Okay."

"Just for a year," Shane said, turning over to face him. Ilya had that crease between his brows. "We're tough. We can handle one hard year."

"See each other less, how?" Ilya asked.

"I don't know," said Shane. He hadn't thought it through. "Maybe just after games again, for a while?"

Ilya's expression constricted as he tried to smooth something over. "At least you're not blocking me," he said, the joke falling flat.

In their early days, when they were off-and-on, it was mostly Shane who turned them off. And Shane hadn't been a great communicator back then and usually did it by texting Ilya something like, we have to stop doing this. and blocking his number. Shane would hold out for as long as he could, weeks or months, until he would wake up from a particularly vivid dream or the ache in his chest would get too piercing, or once, when he couldn't stop thinking of a joke Ilya told him and was desperate to hear it again in Ilya's voice. At the time, Shane had thought he was protecting them both from something they didn't want.

"Well, I can't block you anymore," Shane said. "Obviously. Can't unring that bell."

"What is this one?" asked Ilya. Sometimes he still struggled with idioms.

"It means we can't go back to how it was before."

Ilya settled back agains the headboard, looking a little preoccupied. "No. I don't think we can."

"Not that I want to," Shane said, realizing his misstep. "We still have a good plan. We just need to be more careful than we thought for a while."

Ilya started to stroke Shane's hair. "Maybe there are other ways to look at this."

"Like what?"

"Would it really be so bad if people knew?" said Ilya.

Shane felt his shoulders constrict, his breath tighten. "Are you kidding me?"

"No, listen," said Ilya. "You're coming to Boston anyway, no matter what. I can protect you there, keep you safe. If the Metros found out, sure, okay, you'd be fired, but maybe that just means you come to Boston sooner. We can be together sooner."

Shane understood the point Ilya was making, so it would have been petty to feel betrayed. He lay there for a while, simmering with a hurt he had told himself he had grown past.

"I'm not saying we announce it," Ilya said, hastily. "Is not the new plan. Just - maybe it's not such a threat? People knowing?"

Shane swallowed down the anger welling up in his throat. He scoffed and shook his head.

"What?" Ilya said.

"Nothing. It's fine. It's just…" Shane said. "It's so easy for you, isn't it? It's always been so fucking easy for you."

"What is?" asked Ilya. He clearly sensed they were on the precipice of a fight. He wasn't being argumentative, but he also wasn't backing down.

"Everything!" Shane said. "This! Us. Your whole fucking career. Nothing can ever touch you. You don't have to care about any of this. It's all fucking hypothetical to you because you can do whatever you want. None of it matters. I'm the only one who's ever going to feel any consequences."

Ilya looked at him, expression slack and dull. He smelled strange all of a sudden, like an unaired room.

"What?" said Shane.

Ilya leaned his head back against the headboard, crossing his arms loosely. He looked tired. "Yes, Hollander. You're right. This has all been so easy for me."

Shane rushed in. "You're not the one-"

"You've had it harder," Ilya said evenly, like it wasn't even a question. "Of course you've had it harder. You'll always have it harder, no matter what I do to help you. But don't sit here and tell me this has been easy for me."

Shane hesitated. "I know you haven't always wanted…"

"That's you, Shane," Ilya said, suddenly exasperated. "You're the one fighting this. I haven't always… we were young. We fucked up. I know I have. But I want this, and you are talking yourself into it, and that gets pretty fucking hard sometimes."

Shane felt a pang of guilt. It was an accurate observation, and he couldn't argue his way out of it.

"It's not… it's not you," he tried. Sometimes it felt like Ilya was the only good thing Shane had going. "Can you blame me, though?"

"No," said Ilya, sounding tired. "I get it. I'm not mad. I've never been mad. I try to give you space, give you what you need to feel safe, since this tears you up inside. But it's not easy, Shane. Having an omega who doesn't want me back hasn't been easy."

"I do," Shane insisted, a little horrified at Ilya's interpretation. "I'm in this. It's not about you. It's never been about you. But if I don't do this by myself, they're going to take everything away from me."

"I know, Shane," Ilya said, tight now. "You've been hunted your whole life, I get it. I wasn't going to do it, too. I gave you the distance you wanted. But you are so bad at taking care of yourself that it drives me fucking crazy."

Shane stopped short. Bristled. "I've handled myself just fine."

"Bullshit," Ilya said, meeting Shane's eyes, startling Shane with his anger. "You've swallowed everything they've given you, and I see what it does to you. You were so scared I'd bite you during your fucking heat, like I'm some kind of animal, that you made yourself sick for years. You'd give interviews looking like a fucking ghost, and I would think it was a miracle you didn't pass out on the ice."

"I didn't," Shane said, tight now too. "I was fine. I was handling it."

"You weren't handling it, Shane!" Ilya said, sitting up. "I walked into that heat center and you smelled maybe a day away from needing to go to the hospital. You were sick. And you won't ever accept help because you think it makes you too much of an omega or something, or that I'm going to use it to hurt you. I don't know how to convince you that I don't want to hurt you!"

Shane knew Ilya didn't want to hurt him, which was a testament to Ilya's innate kindness. But Shane's body was wired in at least three different ways to ensure it would submit to Ilya's body. Sometimes he liked that, but most of the time it disgusted him, and he never knew how to reconcile any of it with how good a man Ilya was.

Ilya had told Shane he had found his mother's body. Ilya described her as too much for the role she had been assigned - too bright, too loud, too lovely. The world's solution to that problem had been to dwindle her down to nothing. Maybe Ilya spent years watching Shane, from the careful remove Shane made sure to keep him, and thought the same thing that killed her was killing him.

"I don't know if I know how to do this," Shane admitted, meaning any of it. Maybe meaning being a person.

Ilya put a cautious hand on Shane's shoulder, where he was hunched over. "It's okay. Things are better now. We can fix it. It will be better in Boston. I can keep you safe. And they're good guys, not like the Metros. You'll-"

"You really believe that," Shane said. "You really think it's going to be different."

Ilya stopped with a frown. "Of course it will."

"Ilya," said Shane. "I'm a male omega. I'm an asian male omega. Yeah, okay, the Metros have been a problem, but not because they're special. Any team would have been like this. The world is like this. You think you somehow found the only twenty alphas in existence who aren't going to be assholes to me? Especially when it comes out that we've been fucking?"

Ilya drew himself up, arrogant in a way Shane knew meant he was feeling surprised and injured. "I won't let them."

"Great, so they won't be assholes to my face," said Shane. "Problem solved until you find the group chats. You're acting like I haven't met them, Ilya."

Ilya's expression crumpled into something frustrated and helpless. Of course he knew how things worked, even if Shane would bet Ilya thought he had more power to shape the raw clay of it than most.

"I'm trying, Shane," said Ilya, finally. He scrubbed his hand through his hair, looking lost. "I'm trying to figure this out. Fuck. I'm trying."

"I know," Shane said, leaning against Ilya's shoulder. He was so tired. "I am, too."

They didn't say anything for a while, just sat there, two points connected in space. Eventually, Ilya rested his head on top of Shane's and took a noisy breath.

"Do you not want to play for Boston?" Ilya asked.

"I don't know," Shane said. "I want to be with you. And you're right that it's probably the best solution."

"Maybe you're right, too, that Boston is not so special," Ilya said. "Cities, teams, they're not what's special. We'll figure something out. Just choose me, okay? Keep choosing me."

"Does it ever bother you that we didn't get to choose?" Shane asked. It felt a little unhinged to say it. They still seldom talked about it.

Ilya thought about it. "At first it did, yes," he said. "Not anymore."

"Why not?"

"Because I love you," Ilya said simply, and for the first time.

Shane blinked, a slow, bright smile crossing his face. He felt a giddy swell of pride in both of them for getting here. "Oh. Fuck."

Ilya looked mildly alarmed at this response. Shane hastened to add, "I love you too."

Ilya's expression melted, stuck somewhere between crying and laughing. Shane felt the same way. He grabbed Ilya's curls to pull him into a sweet, messy kiss.

Ilya grabbed Shane's face, kissing wet and sloppy like a dog overjoyed to see its owner. He pressed their forehead together and said, playful in a way Shane knew meant he was being deathly serious, "Besides, I was mostly only ever upset that you're forced to be stuck with me forever."

Shane cupped Ilya's face, pulling back enough to meet his eyes. "Hey. You deserve me. Okay?"

Ilya went damp all over, mouth trembling. He grabbed Shane close and buried his face in his shoulder, pulled tight and shuddering. Shane kissed his cheek and held him for a long time, feeling buoyant but anchored, a boat at harbor.

Later, in the dark, staring at the ceiling and knowing Ilya was also awake, Shane asked, "What if you bite me and I lose my edge on the ice? What if it makes me only want to do what you say? What if it makes me give up?"

Ilya made a rude noise. "That's not going to happen."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because I've met you," Ilya said. "You are the love of my life, Shane Hollander. I spent almost a decade being completely obsessed with you. So I know better than anyone that you are an impossible, hard-headed asshole."

"Thanks," Shane said dryly.

"It's a good thing," Ilya insisted, kissing his temple. "It means when I bite you, and you won't get sick anymore or have to make nice with stupid knotheads, you're going to be an unstoppable force."

"Maybe," said Shane. He let himself move more fully into Ilya's side. "I was obsessed with you, too, you know. I'm, uh, still really obsessed with you, actually."

Ilya puffed up a little, not hiding his pleasure at the compliment. "I know. I am very sexy and good at hockey, and those are the only two things you like."

"What if I get bond powers?" Shane hadn't really been listening and burst out with, frankly, his stupidest fear. "It just feels like if it were going to happen to anyone, it would happen to me. What if I start levitating?"

Ilya pursed his mouth. "Then we pivot and start a YouTube channel. Prank people. Won't be so bad."

Shane snorted a laugh, idly scenting Ilya by rubbing his face against Ilya's jaw. Ilya's scent immediately brightened as a result. They settled in together to sleep; Shane on his back, Ilya sprawled over half of him, one leg nestled between Shane's, and his face tucked in the join of Shane's neck and shoulder.

"What do I smell like to you?" Shane asked. Ilya had asked him the same question months ago. Shane had told him but hadn't asked in kind. Ilya hadn't pressed.

"Hard to describe," Ilya said, taking it in stride now. "Very fresh. A little sweet. Like being inside on a cold night, maybe. I have always liked it very much."

Shane made a soft sound, flattered. He stroked Ilya's hair, his mind still a swirl of thoughts.

"We do need to be more careful next season, though," Shane said finally.

"I know," said Ilya, rubbing Shane's arm. "We will be."