The Forever Conversation

Three years after coming out to Jackie and officially becoming a part of Hayllanov, Hayden Pike has grown in more ways than he ever expected. Now living at the cottage with Shane and spending his free time with Ilya at his new place in Ottawa, things seem to be looking up.

The pressures of still staying a secret force the throuple to tackle if now is the right time to finally come out and be open, with differing opinions leading to a calamitous fight that sends them apart.

But what happens when one of them is put in harm’s way and they have to decide if being who they are is worth the sacrifice of potentially losing hockey for good?

OR

The saddest plotline from The Long Game, but much worse because there’s a third person there who has skin in the game now and can’t be impartial.

Notes:

I need you all to know that when I started this series and realized it was going to be multiple different points in the canon, I've been (impatiently) waiting to write this one specifically.

The Long Game broke me in ways that have only been done a few times, but I knew that I had to do the aftermath of the Christmas fight.

Shane always gets flack for how he acted in canon and while I agree, he was being a dick, there are layers to it that I don't think people put into consideration. He's built his entire life on the image of Shane Hollander the product (his future rap name, maybe?) and when anything comes in the way of that, he has almost a gut reaction to protect himself and everyone around him from the blowback.

His entire career has been him fighting off his eventual coming out, but having Hayden there and being in a throuple would make his anxiety worse by tenfold. He'd be petrified of the media circus, the constant invasive questions and God knows what else, and that interested me SO MUCH.

I wrote this in exactly two days and let me tell you, I cried so many times that I genuinely can't tell if I love it this much because of how proud I am of it or because these men have forever changed me.

Hayden Pike, especially this version, is my actual child and I'll defend him until my dying breath.

I only have one more of these planned out and I'm thinking I'm going to end it there, so here's the penultimate installment of Hayden Pike: Certified Bisexual!!!

I hope you love it! <3

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

“I know in the future, we won’t see each other.

Cold just like December, but I will always love you.

I’ll love you forever.”

Forever

Charli XCX

♡♡♡

Hayden’s POV

Hayden Pike: Certified Bisexual (No. 4)

The Forever Conversation

January 2021 - Montreal

It’d been three years since the things came out at the Pike House, since the reveal that brought about the end of a marriage that was thought to last forever.

Hayden never really thought about forever as a full-fledged reality, moreso a concept of endless time that never really made sense. He had no understanding of what those years would look like and now…

Well, now it was different.

His life had been laid out for him and in the present day, he was left with the building blocks and asked to figure out a way to construct a future for himself. He had to contemplate what he wanted from his life and although he had people to consider, the door was open to go anywhere.

And out of anywhere, there was no place he’d rather have gone than straight to Shane’s cottage in Montreal.

He’d moved in shortly after Jackie filed for divorce, taking one of the guest bedrooms for exactly one night before Shane asked him what the fuck he was doing.

“I’m your boyfriend,” he could remember him saying, his nose scrunched up as he got progressively more annoyed until Hayden joined him in his room. He laughed, putting his arms around him and pressing his lips against his cheek. “You’re staying with me”

So he did.

They spent every night in bed together, save for when one or both of them were staying the night with their other boyfriend.

Fully moving to Canada for the first time, Ilya bought himself a home in Ottawa that wasn’t far from where he played and his team seemed nice. He was going out with them often, inviting them back to his place, and starting to build a new life.

Hayden learned more about him as the years progressed, the two of them truly becoming best friends in a way that transcended their sexual relationship. He asked everything he could, wanting to be a student at the University of Rozanov and get a gold star.

It was nice being with them.

It was calm, usually, and when it wasn’t, they found a way to make it work.

Usually.

But that was different as of the past few months.

Shane and Ilya had been at each other’s throats off and on, silently clashing over little things and it eventually spilled out into a night that he wished he could forget.

He never liked to take sides, the two of them being the closest people in his life, and he tried not to.

But that fight…

He’d never seen something like that.

The screaming, the shouting between all three of them that eventually ended in Ilya leaving for the night. He had a game the next day and Hayden knew that they wouldn’t have had much time to spend until he came back, but the way that they left it was so… painful.

When he didn’t hear anything from Ilya the next day, he assumed that he was busy with the game or traveling.

He didn’t know that the next week would be simultaneously the best and the absolute worst of his life.

♡♡♡

Practice was as practice always was in Montreal.

Shane ran them through drills, perfecting the tested plays and maximizing every second that they got on the clock in every game.

No exceptions.

It was nice to have a captain like Shane who genuinely cared, but it was harder now that they were together.

Not a single person on the team knew, so they had to continue pretending that they were just roommates and best friends who definitely weren’t licking each other’s assholes a few hours before they got there.

But he got through the day like he did every day before that, doing his best and pushing through until it was time to go home.

He thought that was how today was going to go, but everything changed in a sudden gathering around the ice, everyone checking their phones and whispering to each other.

“Did you hear about Ottawa’s plane?” JJ asked.

“No,” Hayden replied, his mind immediately going to Ilya and heartbeat racing with the infinite ideas of what could’ve happened. “Is everything okay?”

“It went down,” he explained, not noticing the stream of tears that’d subconsciously fell from his teammate’s eye. “There was a fire and they needed to make an emergency landing.”

“Are they…”

Hayden couldn’t say it out out, but brain screamed at full volume.

Dead.

Dead.Dead.Dead.

The word rang in his ears like a church bell and he felt every bone in his body turn to dust at the same time. His mind raced through everything that could’ve happened, how scared Ilya must’ve been and in that moment of desperation, he completely missed what JJ said back to him.

“What?”

“Everyone’s alive,” he said. “At least that’s what I heard from a friend who works for management there. You alright, Pike?”

“I-I’m okay,” he struggled to say, needing to bolt toward his phone and call Ilya NOW. “I just… I just need to go make a call. See if anyone… if anyone needs any help.”

He turned around, waiting until he’d skated far enough away that no one could see the tears fall, and then he let them rain as he searched for Shane.

Fuck.

Shane.

Did he know?

Was he alone when he found out?

Hayden found his phone in the locker room and when he opened his lock screen, he saw that he’d been put into an Instagram group chat with Shane and Ilya.

What the fuck?

They never use socials to talk to each other.

In fact, Shane didn’t even want him following Ilya in the off chance someone made the connection, so it had to be some kind of spam.

He opened the notification and inside was a chat thread with only a handful of quick messages: sent by Ilya himself.

So… not spam.

He read the first couple words, the first of a few messages being addressed to Shane, and he felt a hollowness spread through his body as he froze in his place on the bench.

He looked them over, reading Shane’s first and then…

It was for him.

From Ilya.

And it…

Oh God.

The tears started to fall more as he read them both again and again, putting together what he was actually looking at, and he couldn’t help but stay mute.

He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs.

He wanted to shatter into a million pieces and let them find the scraps.

He wanted to be dead because if Ilya was gone…

If Ilya was gone, so was a third of himself.

Without the body, he would be just a beatless heart trying to communicate with a wandering head.

But he couldn’t be…

No, he wasn’t.

He couldn’t…

But then Hayden read the messages again, taking every single letter as gospel and came to the conclusion that that’s what it was: his last words if the plane was going down.

I am thinking of you both right now

Something I need to say

Shane

You are the best thing in my life. I love you. Always. Maybe from the first time I saw you.

Hayden

I’m sorry we didn't get the chance we wanted. I love you. I know you’ll make him happy again.

I’m sorry

He… called him by his first name.

He called him Hayden.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get the cha-“

He started reading the words aloud and his body instantly reacted, the nerves shooting up his stomach and through his throat until he was projectile vomiting into the closest garbage can.

He nearly missed, now fallen and laying on the floor with the full intention of never getting up.

“Hayd?” he heard a voice say from the other end of the room. “Oh my god, Hayden?! Are you okay?!”

He turned over to see Shane’s mocha eyes staring down at him and that was what broke open the floodgates, his soft tears turning into guttural sobs.

“Hayden,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

He could barely form the sentences needed to tell him and knew for a fact that Shane was going to be worse than anything he’d felt.

They’d been together for a decade.

Off and on, but a decade.

Hayden pulled himself onto his feet, wiping the tears as he grabbed his best friend as roughly as he could and dragged him out of the locker room and into a private office.

Locked door.

No windows.

Perfect.

If they broke down here, their secret would still have been safe.

“What is going on?”

“Have you checked your phone?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “I always do. Why?”

“Did you check Instagram?”

“No,” he said, a confused look on his face. “I have those notifications off. It’s basically just a business account. Nobody I actually know would contact me there.”

“Not nobody,” Hayden said, handing him his phone and bracing for impact as he read the messages. “Ilya’s plane went down earlier today coming home from the game…. They… They had to make an emergency landing, but… I guess he sent us these in case…”

Shane’s face went blank, white as a sheet and his eyes completely lifeless.

“Is… is he…?”

Hayden stopped a sob from coming out, but it still leaked through as he tried to speak.

“I-I don’t know,” he choked out. “JJ said they surv… that they made it, but he didn’t know for certain.”

“Then how the fuck could he know if they’re okay?!”

“He’s friends with someone in management,” he said, trying not focus too hard on the details. Making sure Shane was okay was more important. “Look… Ilya’s going to be okay. He has to. There’s no way that this-“

“Please,” Shane said, holding up his hand to his best friend in the hopes that he’d just… stop. “I just need a minute… alone.”

“Shane-“

“Alone,” he snapped. “I’ll meet you in the locker room in five. We can tell the team we’re leaving early in… solidarity or something.”

“Okay,” Hayden replied. “I… I love you, Shane.”

“I love you too.”

With that, Hayden did as he was asked and left the room, but as he walked down the hallway, he heard it.

That same sound he made all those years ago when Shane got hit by Marlow.

It was that breathy sigh, taken in at an intense speed and let out as a blood-curdling scream that could’ve been heard miles away.

That was the sound of someone who was heartbroken.

That was the sound of a man hopelessly in love.

Hayden walked into the locker room and came face to face with JJ Boiziau once more.

“Are you sure they’re okay?” Hayden asked, dead serious in his tone. “Like completely, irrevocably, could not be incorrect, sure?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “I decided to just call my friend directly and ask for details. They’re all getting checked out by medics now, but there weren’t any… casualties.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem,” he said. “I know they’re in our division and everything, but can I ask if there’s someone specific you want me to ask about?”

The thought crossed his mind.

He could just say his name.

Ilya Rozanov.

World class asshole.

Total dickbag in public.

The funniest man he'd ever met.

The most adorable smile he’d ever seen.

Those eyes…

That laugh…

Hayden felt the tears come again and when he saw Shane round the corner, he shrugged everything off and got out of that conversation quickly.

“Nah,” he said. “Nobody specific. Just… concerned.”

He practically bolted over to where Shane stood, still looking like he’d just witnessed the planet crash in front of him and was still watching it happen like it was on repeat.

“He’s okay,” he whispered to him. “JJ asked his friend for specifics and they’re getting medical checks now.”

He watched as Shane’s shoulders actively loosened for a moment, a little tear forming in his eye before he wiped it away.

“Thanks,” he said. “For… for everything.”

“Of course.”

♡♡♡

Leaving practice early was easier than Hayden thought, the whole team caught off guard by the plane incident and in definite need of a break.

That was also true for Hayden and Shane, who’d both tried to call their boyfriend over a dozen times to no avail.

Did he not have his phone with him?

Was he in medical check and there was something wrong with him?

Was he hurt?

Every thought circled both of their heads and they didn’t need to talk about it, the worst of it already out in the open. They left the building together and made their way to the car, Shane trying to go for the driver’s seat and Hayden stepping in.

“Hell no,” he said. “Not while you’re barely still on planet Earth.”

“And you’re any better?”

“Better than you,” he replied. “Not much better, but we'll at least get home safe if I drive.”

He thought back to when Shane got hit and he had his first little road trip with Ilya.

He remembered how frightened he was of his own actions, the thought of getting behind the wheel seeming more dangerous than he’d anticipated.

He also remembered barely being able to drive that damn stick shift, the horrific thoughts of damaging a car that cost more than someone’s house. He could still see it like it was yesterday and because of that, he could hear Ilya’s voice in his ear.

He could hear him making fun of his driving, of telling him when to switch gears, and staring at him with those beautiful ocean blues.

He’d give anything to see those eyes again.

Just one time.

So that he knew he was okay.

He started the car and the two of them began their relatively short journey home to the cottage.

It was completely silent, the only audible noise being the click of the turn signal and the soft hum of the heat coming from the vents.

They existed together for those couple minutes, letting the road take over and help them momentarily forget about everything, when both of their phones went off.

It was their group chat… with Ilya.

He’d texted them.

I’m okay. I’m sorry about messages.

Hayden felt himself jerk back in surprise, excitement, and ultimately horror as they nearly swerved into incoming traffic.

He took a deep breath, trying to center himself as he pulled to the side of the highway.

He was just about to dial his number when Shane was already ahead of him, the FaceTime call starting to ring within seconds.

He set the phone up on the dashboard, propped up against the windshield, and the two men felt their entire world open up as Ilya Rozanov answered.

“Hi.” he said.

Shane and Hayden sat there for a moment, taking in the fact that he was there.

On the call.

Alive.

Alive and just as beautiful as the last time they saw him.

It all happened so fast, the both of them breaking into tears and talking at the same time. Ilya looked at them through the screen, trying to decipher what either of them were saying.

“Is okay,” he said, trying to calm them down the best he could. There were loud noises and lights around him, the sound of people talking and passing cars in the distance. “One at a time, please. My English is… not so good today.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Hayden asked, simply elated to hear the sound of that beautiful voice in his ears, strumming on repeat like it was his favorite song. “We heard… We heard your plane went down.”

“It was up,” Ilya joked, covering up how terrified he looked. “Then it was heading down… but then it fixed itself. Is complicated machinery. Too complicated.”

He was joking, trying to make them laugh.

“When are you coming home?” Shane asked, his voice raw and desperate. This was the voice of someone whose last words to the love of his life were horrible.

They were honestly horrible.

The guilt was bleeding through Shane’s pores, every single piece of his skin fracturing and splitting apart at the seams because he couldn’t take back what he said.

Any of it.

And neither could Hayden.

Or Ilya for that matter.

They’d all said shit that they were regretting and now, none of that mattered.

All that mattered was that their boyfriend was safe.

He was fine.

He was… smoking a cigarette?

“Wait,” Shane shouted. “Are you smoking?

“No,” Ilya lied. “I’m outside of bar and other people smoke here.”

“Show me your hands.”

“I am holding phone, Hollander.”

“It’s fine,” Hayden said, giving Shane a nudge that was code for ‘shut the fuck up and be happy our boyfriend’s alive’. “You can have one after a day like today.”

“Thank you, Pike.”

“Of course,” he replied, holding back the tears that were continuing to well in his eyes. “I’m just happy… you’re okay.”

“Me too.”

“But really,” he asked. “When are you coming home?

“Tomorrow,” Ilya replied. “Team wants to stay here another night and then fly back in the afternoon. I should be in Ottawa by 4 or 5.”

“That’s-“

Hayden was cut off by the loud yells of Ilya’s teammates coming out of the bar, the one and only Troy Barrett wrapping his arm around their boyfriend and looking into the camera.

“Hey Roz,” he said, obviously a bit too drunk for the middle of the day, but trauma does shit to people. “Who’re you… talking… to?”

He stopped as he noticed who was on the other line, looking directly through the screen to see two of Montreal’s best players sobbing their eyes out.

He turned to look at his teammate, then back to them before clearly putting two and… three together.

“Hey Hayden,” he said, waving hello and recognizing the other famous face welled with tears and bloodshot eyes that looked even more awful on camera. “And Shane Hollander! Wow. I didn’t know-“

“Barrett,” Ilya hissed. “Find another place to stick your nose so that I can finish my conversation, please.”

“You got it, Cap!”

After he was gone, Ilya looked back with a pained expression.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his face full of worry that he’d just outed them by accident. “I didn’t tell him yet. I promise.”

Hayden went to speak, but Shane did instead.

And to be completely transparent, it was good that he was the one who said the next few words.

Especially after that fight.

“I don’t care,” Shane said. “Tell him… Please. He deserves to know. I’m… I’m happy he’s there for you.”

“Thank you, Shane…”

The silence sat there between them, the unspoken words from their last night together blaring around them like they were hooked up to a loudspeaker and set to the highest volume.

It was hard to think, hard to breathe.

But they tried anyway.

They had to do something.

And Hayden had to see him as soon as he got back.

“I’m picking you up from the airport.” he said.

“No,” Ilya replied. “I can drive myself.”

“Fuck you,” he said. “You nearly died and I’m the only one of us stable enough to be behind the wheel.”

“We almost crashed five minutes ago.”

“And?” Hayden asked. “What’s your point? If it would’ve been you driving, we’d be the ones…”

He trailed off, the reality of what he’d just said stopping him in his tracks as he looked at Ilya.

“I’m sorry,” he said, quickly. “I didn’t think-“

“Is fine,” Ilya replied. “You were thinking with your feet again. Didn’t go as well this time, I think.”

The first laugh they’d shared since before the fight.

The first glimmer of positivity that Hayden and Shane had felt since getting the news and of course, it was because of him.

“Wait,” Shane said, confused. “Thinking with your… feet?”

“Is inside joke,” he replied. “From when you were the one being cried over like it was end of worlds.”

“Well,” Shane added. “For me, it was.”

They sat there, on the side of the road and outside of a random bar, talking like nothing had happened. It lasted for a few minutes, but when he had to go, it took all of Hayden not to ask him to stay on a little longer.

It was okay.

He was going to see him tomorrow.

He just had to get through the rest of the day in one piece.

He just hoped that when they came back together, they could find a way to forget what happened the week after Christmas.

♡♡♡

December 2020

The Cottage - Montreal

It was Hayden’s third Christmas separated from his family and he thought by now, he’d have figured out a single way to handle dealing with it.

He thought that seeing them on Christmas Day was enough, that watching them open the presents he bought and seeing their eyes light up would fix the fact that he felt like they were growing up too fast.

The reality check came too quickly as he saw the garbage bags of wrapping paper from the other presents, the ones that they’d gotten as soon as they’d woken up. They got to rip open the gifts from Santa without him, experience the magic of this holiday without their father there, and he felt like he’d been shot.

It wasn’t Jackie’s fault.

She’d invited him to come to Christmas Eve, but her family was going to be there and he didn’t feel like having the kids witness whatever that would’ve been.

He had no idea what they were being told by others when he wasn’t there and so when he was, his priority was to make those days count. He wanted them to remember this time in their life fondly, the days playing in their dollhouses with their daddy and not the nights that they’d go to sleep without him nearby in the other room.

The twins knew about the fact that he was bi.

They’d figured out a way to explain it that was centered on love and acceptance, finding the truth about himself and falling in love with someone who wasn’t their mother. It was difficult, agonizing, and he wished that they didn’t have to, but they understood what they could.

They asked if he was happy and he answered immediately.

“Yes.”

It wasn’t completely a lie, but he couldn’t tell them the whole truth.

He couldn’t explain that it’d been over three years since he, Shane and Ilya became a throuple and somehow, they were still locked behind closet doors.

How could he explain to children that they’d completed every step of their plan to the letter, with Ilya moving to Ottawa and being within reach to help with a hockey school he and Shane ran together, but no one was allowed to know the truth?

It drove him insane.

It drove Ilya insane.

Now that the Russian was two hours away, Hayden spent every moment that he could driving over and spending whatever time he had keeping him company.

There was something different about him, something more…. raw now that he’d moved away from Boston. He didn’t have the same group of friends, the same teammates around him and while the new players on the Centaurs were nice to him, Hayden could tell that Ilya felt more alone than he was letting on.

He came over to the cottage often, but there were nights that he kept to himself.

He didn’t talk to anyone.

He just smoked weed, drank with his teammates and tried his best to adjust.

It was painful to watch, but he couldn’t do anything.

Ilya wouldn’t accept his help.

He’d let him be there, sometimes just the two of them having the night together, and watch as his boyfriend fell further into his own pit of despair.

And it was because he couldn’t be open about anything going on behind closed doors.

It had to be.

Hayden couldn’t think of another option and that was why as the month started to end, it grew increasingly difficult to diffuse the arguments as they came up.

He was trying to be impartial, trying to not take sides, but he had his own opinions.

Both of his boyfriends were being shitty to each other over the past few months leading up to that night in December, but none of them knew the war that was going to break out.

They didn’t know that would be the last time they were all together before they’d get the news that the Centaur’s plane would have an accident.

They didn’t know that the last words they said about the subject would be filled with so much vitriol that now looking back, they couldn’t even recognize themselves.

It started and ended as all of the arguments had before.

With one of them asking a question and another not responding well.

“I came out to most of my team yesterday,” Ilya said, bringing it up like he was setting a grenade on the table, careful not to disrupt the pin as he put it down. “They took it well. I want to tell Troy about us, about all of us. He’s been good friend to me... Is okay?”

Shane sat in silence for a moment, looking at his phone.

“I’m proud of you,” Hayden spoke up. “That must’ve taken a lot to tell them. I’m okay with it if Shane is.”

The silence continued from the other end of the living room and Ilya looked to his love, hoping that he’d get the answer he wanted.

He wasn’t that lucky.

“We can’t,” Shane said. “It’s too risky. He might say something.”

“Troy’s pretty cool,” Hayden responded, trying to advocate for their boyfriend’s resident team-bestie. He was the person that he spent the most time with outside of their relationship, so it only made sense that he’d want to tell him. “At least from when I’ve hung out with him. I don’t think he’d do that.”

“He wouldn’t.”

Ilya’s response was very clear and to the point.

They’d had this fight before and it was clear that he just wanted to have that conversation.

The conversation about how they were actually going to make this work.

He and Shane hooked up for years before they even called each other by their first names and waited more than that before they could actually be together.

They’d taken things slow enough and now, it was time.

They were going to have to come out eventually and Hayden was ready, too.

He was divorced.

His kids knew about him.

But he was hiding the rest of his life from everyone else.

It was starting to feel suffocating, almost drowning in a pool of wet cement, every time that he thought about playing the rest of his career as a divorced dad who never found love again.

The public already saw him as Shane Hollander’s understudy.

Regardless of how much he loved them with all of his heart, he would never be able to measure up to either of the men in this room and the thought of having to live out those years as a public joke was too much to take.

And so, he took a deep breath, understood what he was doing, and forced them into having The Forever Conversation.

“I don’t see the issue,” Hayden said. “It’s not like we’re making a public post on our socials or something. It’s just Troy.”

“No,” Shane replied. “We’ve already told too many people for now.”

“I think you’re being a little unreasonable,” he said, tiptoeing around the issue in the best way that he could, but walking right onto a landmine as he continued to speak. “You told your parents about him. I told Jackie. He should be able to tell one close friend.”

“But-”

“Is always ‘but’ when I want this,” Ilya chimed in, breaking his quiet position at the outside of the kitchen. “But before we got together, you told Hayden? He was your closest friend at the time. Pike, is this not the same thing?”

“I mean,” he replied, trying to lighten the mood. “Considering we sleep in the same bed now, I’ll say it’s a bit different, but I see your point.”

“Troy is also gay,” Ilya continued, looking directly at Shane as he explained more. “He came out to Scott Hunter. Has boyfriend and everything. He knows how serious that is. He wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” Shane said, not looking up from where he sat. He was being uncharacteristically cold and distant. Hayden wondered if it was just the fear of what would happen if they came out or if he’d been holding this in. “I love you, but we can’t risk losing our careers yet. We’ve still got so much to do and-”

“So much to do,” he replied with a tone of complete frustration, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Like what? Hockey school? Charity foundation? Move teams to Ottawa? Is all done, Shane.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Shane responded, a slight groan under his breath. “We’re almost finished with this season. At the very least, can we just wait until after this one is over?”

“That’s what we said last year,” Hayden stopped him. “And I have a feeling that come next year, we’re going to be having this same-”

“That’s not-”

“He is correct,” Ilya said, getting increasingly more upset by the second. “Entirely correct. Last year, we said that we would wait for me to settle in with Centaurs before we do this. I waited, bought house, played for Ottawa like we planned, and now you want to move goal post again!”

“Who taught you the word goal post?”

“We play hockey, Shane.” Hayden said, rolling his eyes.

Ilya wasn’t great at figures of speech.

He still wasn’t too great when it came to long thoughts, either.

But he was really smart, especially in Russian.

About a year prior, Hayden offered to use Google Translate to learn some phrases in their boyfriend’s native language and it transitioned to him just receiving full text messages in Russian to use as practice.

It was eye opening and showed him how much Ilya was really holding back, how hard it was for him to structure his thoughts twice every time that he had to talk, and that was why Hayden decided to take over in the fight.

It wasn’t his role, but they were expanding that.

In the years since they’d spoken to Jackie, Hayden had become so much more confident in himself. He was still a filthy submissive who lived to be bred by his master, but he didn’t necessarily need as much control outside of the bedroom anymore.

He felt himself healing, growing in his own comfortability, and he was going to use that to mitigate whatever was starting to go downhill here.

“He’s done enough,” Hayden practically spat, potentially taking the defensive nature a little too strong too fast. He pulled back, trying to even himself out to avoid bringing this argument to nuclear level. “He did everything you’ve asked of him and all he wants is just to be honest. Can’t you see that?”

“I do,” Shane answered. “I know how hard this is for all of us, but once the press gets a hold of this, we’re going to be under fire for years. It’s going to be impossible to escape and I want to prepare as much as possible before we-”

“Is simple,” Ilya said, cutting him off. “I cannot stay like this forever. I thought I could for as long as you needed me to, but is very hard. I am so tired. I don’t want to hide anymore.”

“It won’t be that much-”

“How does he know that?” Hayden snapped. “How does he know that you’re not just going to pull the rug from under him next year?”

“Please,” he added. “Shane, please just put your own needs aside for a second and think about what’s best for him.”

Shane put his phone down, setting it on the couch and putting his hands in his face before letting the anger out. Whatever he was stuffing down, whatever he was suppressing to make himself think that any of this was okay, was coming up like a fucking volcanic eruption and none of them were going to be ready.

“And of course,” Shane spat back. “Of course you’re the one who knows what’s best for him because it couldn’t possibly be me!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’ve seen you two,” he continued, putting whatever insecurities he’d had out into the open and now, they were staring into the burning light of nuclear fallout. “We live together now and I swear that he’s been around you more than I have. You visit him alone almost every week and it’s like you have your own language.”

“Shane-”

“No,” he shouted. “You know what? Let’s actually talk about it if you want to talk about it. When was the last time you and I had sex alone?”

“It was-”

“Two weeks ago,” he was at full volume now, fully given over to whatever had consumed his thoughts the past few months. “I’ve been trying to get your fucking attention for weeks and when I do, you’re still texting him and he responds back every time like it’s an emergency.”

He was really going there.

He was actually…

Ugh, Hayden wanted to scream his head off.

What the fuck?

Did he actually think that?

“It’s not like that,” Ilya spoke up. “I-”

“You two can just be honest with me,” Shane finished, letting himself go nuclear and watch as everything around them went up in smoke. In the aftermath of the explosion, they were left to sit with the concept that his best friend might not know him as much as he thought he did anymore. “This whole thing started out with two of us and it’s clear that that’s where it’s going. I just never thought you’d end up loving each other more than me.”

♡♡♡

Hayden and Ilya stared at their boyfriend with shocked faces, gaping jaws as if they’d just been slapped.

It was painful to hear that Shane, his Shane, thought for a second that anyone would take precedent over him. He was just as in love with Ilya, just in a different way and with everything he’d been reading about when it came to poly relationships, jealousy was bound to come eventually.

It wasn’t about sharing. It was about multiplying.

That’s what he’d read.

That’s how he tried to reframe it.

They would get through this.

It was just all about how they talked about it.

“I love you both,” Hayden said, underlining every word, but especially the last. “Equally.”

Shane wasn’t looking at him.

He wasn’t looking at either of them.

The head had gone quiet, stopping any signals it needed to send to keep the heart beating. The body was caught in the crossfire, waiting in the wind as the other two lobbed verbal bombs at each other.

“Ilya,” Hayden said, turning to their boyfriend. He looked over to him, catching a glimpse of the Russian’s forlorn face and he knew that this was only going to keep getting worse. “None of us loves one more than the other, right?”

“Correct.” was all he can respond with, not taking his eyes off of Shane. He, who still hadn’t turned to them, continued to be frozen in place until he finally spoke again.

“Do you really expect me to believe that?”

“Uh,” Hayden shouted, verbal blade coated in a heavy dose of sarcasm. “No, I expect you to think I’d lie to you. Fuck… After everything, Shane? After everything we’ve been through, you really think I’d do that to you? That he would-”

“It’s not just that,” he replied. “Its-“

“It's what?”

“It’s how none of you are actually thinking this through,” Shane shouted, trying to breathe through what looked to be the early makings of a panic attack. Hayden moved to be closer to him, but Shane held up his hand to stop him. “If we come out, if we tell the world that it’s the three of us, everything will come crashing down and they could bench us until we get traded away from each other or quit. It’s not worth it right now.”

Wow.

Not worth it?

Fuck him.

Hayden loved him so much, but fuck him for that.

“The three best players in the whole league?” he replied. “You really think that they’d try to get rid of hundreds of millions of dollars in investments over… being gay?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It kinda is,” he said. “We don’t even need to formally announce anything yet, but we probably should. It could honestly be a good representation for someone who might be where we are right now. Good optics, you know?”

That’s what Scott Hunter had said.

He mentally repeated the advice he told him and let it guide as he held firm.

It was at this point that Shane finally turned to face him.

“And you really think they want that,” he asked. “All three of their star players being openly gay? And in the same fucked up, secret love affair that ruined a marriage?”

“My marriage was-“

“Your marriage,” he snapped, the shitty tone reeling in his breath. “I forgot… It was already doomed because you were… Oh, yeah. You were living a lie for years and cheating on her for half a decade with your best friend.”

Ouch.

“Fuck you.”

“You did,” he continued. “You fucked me in every way you wanted. We did everything we both wanted to do and guess what? That sounds great and all when we laugh and talk about it, but how do you want to explain that to the media? To my parents?”

“You think I like keeping this from them either?” he asked. “They still think we’re just roommates after my divorce. You came out to them and they met fucking Ilya, but telling them about me is the fucking stretch.”

“They wouldn’t understand.”

“I think your mother understood perfectly when I was crying about you in Boston,” he said, remembering that FaceTime call and Yuna’s advice to tell her son how he felt about him. He wondered what she would think now, watching her son go to battle against his boyfriends to try to prove a point. “She saw right through me, but didn’t call it out, so I don’t think it’s going to be that big of a jump to make.”

“We can’t tell them yet,” Shane said. “Or anyone else. Not right now.”

Hayden was silent, seeing the visible distress on his best friend’s face. His love, his favorite part of every morning, was throwing the worst of it at him and all he could see was that Shane was just kicking up dirt, trying to convince himself that being out was anything other than the next step.

“We’ve been together for three years now,” Hayden said. “It’s going to be a big deal, sure, but so would’ve just you and Ilya. He is ready and you seem to keep thinking that this can last forever because you don’t have anything to lose.”

“I don’t?!”

“In comparison to him,” he pointed back toward their boyfriend, who’d still been silent as he watched the sparring from the sidelines with soft tears in his eyes. “The man who left his country, his family… He left Boston for you!”

“So the three of us could be together!”

“Yeah,” Hayden spat. “To be with you, Shane! My fucking God, how hard is it for you to understand that out of everyone in this room, you are the only one whose entire life is still spotless.”

The last word was sent out like a smack and he immediately regretted them.

He’d been talking to their new friends, Fabian and Ryan, about coming out and he’d really started to learn more about what it meant to be queer.

He couldn’t explain why, but he always had a problem understanding the concept of pride and why there had to be a celebration. He didn’t get why he even had to come out or why his sexuality was even that important.

And that’s where he needed to grow up.

That, and a few other places in his life, but he could start with respecting the fact that coming out wasn’t easy for everyone. It could be horrifying, potentially life-threatening and as he learned about some of the harsher laws around the world, he fully understood the risks Ilya took to be here.

The man they loved, the man he gave himself over to, could’ve been imprisoned on the suspicion that he’d been with one man. He failed to stop the assault of thoughts that detailed what could’ve happened if they found out that he was in love with two.

“That’s not fair,” Shane said, the panic overtaking him as he started to shake in his seat. “None of this is fair. You both have lost enough already, but you still have hockey.. Don’t you care about that going away too?”

“It’s about more than just hockey,” Hayden replied with a suppressed grunt, trying his hardest not to completely lose it on one of the people he loved the most in the world. “At least it is for us… I’ve been trying to tell you, we both have, but you’re just not listening and I guess it makes sense.”

“It makes sense because if it came down to it” he added, the words feeling like poison as he said them. “The legendary Shane Hollander would never choose anything else.”

“Fuck you.”

“It’s true,” he spat. “If you had to choose between having both of us or being able to keep playing fucking hockey, you wouldn’t choose us. Would you?”

The surrounding area was stopped in time, caught in the middle of a battle that just didn’t seem to stop.

Hayden wanted to take that back, too.

He was angry. He wasn’t speaking rationally.

Or was he?

He thought hard and came to find that…

Fuck…

He might’ve been right.

Shane had always chosen hockey over everything else in his life, prioritizing the sport over having food with flavor and even refusing to have fun anytime they’d want to go out. He wouldn’t over socialize, even at Hayden’s house where there were literally no social obligations.

Shane could’ve been himself or even stayed completely mute and that would’ve been fine by him.

But that wouldn’t happen.

He never wanted to risk the game.

Ever.

He was always on guard about what could take away that rightful throne of his and while it wasn’t anything to do with ego, Hayden knew that his best friend was terrified that his sexuality would define him.

He’d done so many amazing things, broken records and won cups, but that would all be prefaced by his preference for dick in any future headlines.

At least, that’s the picture Shane painted for himself.

They had Scott Hunter and his gaggle of gays that he’d been gathering around the league, finding the likeminded souls and making them know that they had someone on their side if they needed it.

It was beautiful and when he reached out to Scott privately, the response he got was nothing but pure support.

There are going to be people who fucking hate you because of this. The universe is going to turn against you in ways you never thought possible, but being who you are will always be worth the sacrifice.

He didn’t say who he was dating or how they got together, but they had a safety net and Shane refused to acknowledge it as an option.

Time had passed and he realized he never got an answer to that dumb, insensitive question that flew from his lips.

It was a question he already knew the answer to before he asked it, so whatever he’d reply with would probably be along those lines.

It was one that Shane should’ve been able to create an answer for, even if it was just a temporary bandage to a bigger wound, one he somehow ripped open even bigger.

“Why are we acting like I’m the only one who thinks of the game first,” Shane replied, his answer coming under the table like a guest that was meant to be seen and not heard. He turned to their boyfriend, gesturing toward him. “Now that you’re playing in Ottawa and have your new team, you expect me to believe you’d choose me over that?”

“Shane-“

“No,” he said to Hayden. “I want to know the answer.”

“That’s not-“

“Ilya-“

“Shane-“

“Hayden, stop-“

“No, you’re-“

“Shut up!” Ilya screamed.

There was a long gap of silence, like the sound had been suctioned from the air and all that was left was the repetition of that fucking question.

Why did he have to say that?

Why did he have to pour gasoline on that flame?

Fuck.

It continued for a full minute before Ilya spoke again, his voice broken and holding on for dear life. He rubbed his eye for a moment, trying to hide the fact that a single tear had managed to escape.

“I already chose you, Hollander.”

“You-“

“No,” he replied, grabbing his jacket from the kitchen table and throwing it on as he went for the door. “I can't do this right now. I am fucking done. I’m going home.”

Hayden watched as their boyfriend walked away, every step forward like each one was another mile and he was on his way to never seeing him again. The thought was enough to make him spring to his feet, dashing over to the door and holding it closed for a second.

He had to do something. Anything.

Anything to make him stay.

“Please,” Hayden said. “Don’t go right now.”

“I must."

He thought back to that image of Ilya standing in front of the balcony at his Ottawa house, crying to himself when he thought no one could see him as he looked at the drop below.

They talked about it, or at least tried to, but he couldn’t find the right words in English. He kept stumbling over every other phrase and by the time he finished a thought, none of it really made any sense to either of them.

He told him that he’d been seeing a therapist off and on, a Russian woman named Galina, and that he didn’t want to tell either of them until he was ready. Hayden promised he wouldn’t say anything to Shane, but it was getting hard not to defend him when he was getting ready to walk out.

“If it’s okay,” he offered. “I could go with you… Stay with you so you don’t have to be alone.”

Ilya put his hands in his boyfriend’s hair, dropping those perfect fingers down his cheek and to his chin before giving the faintest smile.

“Is okay,” he smiled. “I need tonight to myself, moy khoroshiy.”

He watched the third love of his life walk out that door and as it closed, he felt every ounce of irritation he’d held back toward Shane come to the surface.

He didn’t want to keep fighting with him.

He didn’t want to fight with him at all, but he didn’t have any choice.

“Why did you have to be like that,” Hayden snapped. “I get it that you have a lot going on, all of us do, but you had no right to talk to him like that… to either of us.”

Shane scoffed at him in response.

“You know,” he continued. “I’ve been trying real hard not to tell you what an ass you’ve been lately and that’s my fault. I’ve been thinking too much like your boyfriend and not enough like your best friend, so I forgot that sometimes you need to be told to stop being a fucking dickhead.”

Shane still didn’t respond and the anger only increased.

“You fought for him so hard all of these years,” he said, trying to reach him beneath all of the genuine terror. “You fought for me. I know you love hockey with a lot of you, but there’s got to be some left for the rest of us too.”

He watched as his best friend, the light of his life, stood from the couch for the first time in what felt like ages and walked toward the bedroom hallway.

“Tell me something,” Shane said, his look of overstimulated confusion and fear wrapped into one caked onto his brow. He looked in pain, but channeled outward at anyone who wanted to get close. “If I never got hit… If I never told you about Ilya, would we even be together right now or would you still be with Jackie?”

Ouch.

That was supposed to sting, and it did, but Hayden didn’t let himself show it.

“No,” he replied. “You’re right. If you never got hurt, this might’ve never happened, but I’m thankful it did.”

“Are you?”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“Explain it to me,” he said. “Please. Like I’m five. Tell me how I feel about the day I almost lost you?”

No response.

“You can’t,” he pressed further. “You can’t fucking imagine what that day was like. I lived a lie for years, but loving you is the one of the few things I’ve done that I can’t find a shred of regret for. It’s you and my four fucking kids, even when you’re backed into a corner and acting like a little bitch.”

“Fuck you.”

“Oh,” he replied. “So that dignified a response, but you won’t dare talk about how you refuse to actually have a life outside of that fucking rink!”

“That’s bullshit.” Shane muttered.

“It’s not,” he retorted, loud enough that he made sure his boyfriend knew he heard that. “You put all of your hard earned time and money into a sport you’ve played since you grew into those annoying little freckles. Think about it. It’s been the only place that loved you back openly for years and so, you stay away from anything that could put that at risk.”

“That’s not-“

“Stop,” Hayden shouted. “This is me being your best friend again, so shut the fuck up and listen to me.”

Shane stood still in front of the hallway, staring at him as if he was supposed to do something to magically fix whatever was broken in this fucking household tonight.

“Ilya needs you,” he said. “I know you think he loves me more than you, but he doesn’t. The motherfucker doesn’t keep your name out of his mouth for more than five sentences and I love it, but you hurt him tonight.”

“He sacrificed heaven and earth to be with you,” he continued. “Have you even asked him about meeting Svetlana yet? She’s asked to come visit him like a dozen times and he still hasn’t told her about any of this… His closest friend in the world doesn’t know he’s been in a goddamn throuple for three years, let alone that his ‘Jane’ is Shane Hollander and they’ve been fucking for like ten years.”

Hayden took a deep breath, knowing that Shane was probably going to shut down and this wasn’t going to go anywhere, but he couldn’t care less.

He had to try.

For the sake of their relationship.

“You have me,” he added, trying to sink the point as much as he could without breaking him. “You have your parents, no matter what. You have a support system around you that will literally make it impossible for you to fail. Your mother alone would secure you so many queer brand deals that you’d be more financially stable than ever before, but you can’t even think about it like that!”

There was another gap when they just let the words marinate within the fog they’d created, their words jumbling in the air and emulsifying into a congealed cloud that covered the whole room.

The battle had left them marred and bruised, one forced to retreat and the other two still locked in combat.

Hayden sliced through one more time, locking in his final round into his vocal cords and aiming for the head.

“You will always have the two of us,” he said, taking the shot and hoping for the best. “Ilya and me. Whether you’re filthy rich or living in a ripped cardboard box, and especially whether or not you have a stupid jersey with your name on it.”

“I love you because you’re just Shane,” he finished. “My Shane. And whoever you are to the rest of the world doesn’t matter because that’ll never change, no matter how much you suck right now.”

He watched as his boyfriend, his best friend, looked at him with eyes that just saw the rest of his life flash in front of them. He could tell because he’d been there too, that look of utter shock and dismay at the idea that this love that they share could be a forever thing.

“Those… sounded an awful lot like wedding vows, Hayd.”

He called him Hayd.

For the first time all night.

They were getting somewhere.

“I’m freshly divorced,” he said, remembering the process like it was personalized torture and he wasn’t in the mood. He and Jackie were still friends and they talked every other day, but it wasn’t the same. “So I’m not really looking to get married again right now, but I would in a heartbeat if it was you.”

“Hayd-“

“But it should be Ilya,” he said, taking in the truth and accepting it just as fast. “The two of you… After everything that happened between your rookie season and now, you deserve that more than anyone. If two of us are going to get legally bound together, there’s no other choice.”

“You’d give that up for me?”

“Without a second thought.”

It was in that second, that moment, that he saw the recognition on his boyfriend’s face.

He could see it, how absolutely ridiculous he’d been toward Ilya and how stupid it was that they were still fighting.

“I’m-“

“It’s okay,” Hayden said. “I love you. I do, but you’ve got to make this right.”

“I’ll text him.”

“No,” he replied. “You’re going to give him space to cool down and really think about what you want from him… from us. After you figure that out, you’re going to call him and actually tell him you’re sorry like an adult.”

Shane nodded and they called off the armadas, soldiers sent home to their families and the endless spree of bombs flying through the air calmed into a quiet breeze as the two boyfriends walked off into their bedroom together.

♡♡♡

January 2021

Ottawa International Airport Parking Garage

Hayden arrived at the airport and his hands couldn’t stop shaking.

While they could’ve let Ilya drive himself home, there was no way in hell that he wasn’t going to make sure with his own two eyes that he was okay.

He couldn’t believe that the fucker would even opt to drive himself, that he didn’t even think to ask for help until it was offered. He was so stubborn, so headstrong and determined to support himself so that he’d have the ability to help the two of them, but he was the one that needed it now.

He thought about that message, about the simplistic and well-thought out way the words had come across. How he talked about their love, how depressing it was that they were going to end there and the immediate feeling afterward when Hayden realized that that could’ve been the last thing he ever heard from him.

That last look as he left the house after that fight around Christmas played behind his eyes like a drive-in movie, the sensation as he touched his chin before leaving on repeat like he wanted to remember how his fingerprints felt against his skin.

He tried to call him after.

The days between the fight and the plane crash were near radio silence, Ilya taking the time to recover from the battle and Hayden fighting every urge to drive the two hours to his house. He’d had so many thoughts of what could’ve been going through his head, but this wasn’t a fight that he could settle for them.

So he gave him his space.

He gave him his fucking space.

Fuck.

It was wrecking him inside, destroying him, that he wouldn’t have been able to say everything that he needed to. The whole relationship between the three of them would’ve just ended with the worst fight he’d ever seen, blood-soaked insults and bombs thrown back and forth like they didn’t love each other more than anything.

That would’ve been it.

The tears had been coming ever since they first heard about the plane going down and had come in waves ever since, the dry spells between crying fits only to be submerged in salt water the second they thought about the man they loved. He felt himself covered in tiny paper cuts, slowly bleeding droplets as he imagined a life where he’d never have that presence in his life again.

It wasn’t about the sex anymore.

It wasn’t about anything physical, if he was honest with himself.

He’d thought that since Ilya was his true sexual awakening, since he was the source that helped him find himself, that somehow their relationship would only ever be under the guise of submission and safety. He thought that because their arrangement had evolved that the emotional, beautiful foundation they’d laid for themselves that day in the hospital might end up overshadowed by his need for comfort.

But he understood now that it wasn’t a one way street.

He wanted Ilya to feel safe.

He wanted Ilya to feel like he was guarded, protected.

That was something he’d idolized in the Russian blonde for the entire time he’d come to get to know him and in that second that he stared out into the dimly lit parking garage, he couldn’t get the thought of losing him out of his head.

He was in love with Shane.

One hundred percent.

That was his best friend, the second love of his life, but Ilya was definitely the third.

And as he looked into his rear view window, he could see the elevator start to open, a tall figure stepping out onto the concrete.

His heartbeat increased, the thought of it possibly being him taking over every single synapse in his brain. He was wired with a desire to run to him the second that he saw even a part of his face, but reminded himself to hold back.

He couldn’t risk someone seeing.

He couldn’t risk their secret getting out, even if that was the least important thing on his mind right now.

They’d just had a fight about this.

Ilya had just made it back alive.

He couldn’t risk them getting back to the house, only for that fight to start all over again.

The figure stepped under the streetlight and while he only caught a tuft of curled blonde hair and the quickest glimpse of a growing beard, that was enough to push through any barrier he’d kept for himself like an unstoppable battering ram.

He couldn’t hold back his arms and legs, time speed-running as he opened the car door and stepped out into the garage, turning to lock eyes with Ilya fucking Rozanov.

Hayden didn’t think.

He didn’t do anything other than sprint with everything he had in him, tears streaming from his eyes as he bolted toward the man he loved.

They collided within seconds, the impact almost creating a shockwave as his head hit the Russian’s chest and exploded into a fit of shaking tears. He wrapped his arms around him, breathlessly clutching every part of his body to make sure that this was actually happening.

This wasn’t a dream.

This wasn’t a fucked up mental prison he’d created to deal with the trauma around him.

Ilya was actually, physically in front of him and hugging him back.

He heard the sobs come from his boyfriend’s lips as they held each other, the fire they thought was almost snuffed out engulfing everything around them. They gripped each other as they collapsed onto the concrete, their knees hitting the hard surface as they let it all out.

The heart had been separated from the body, cut off from the blood supply and as he felt the circulation return to his veins, he pushed into the hug to reassure him that they would never ever be apart like that again.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Hayden stammered, barely able to string together words but forcing himself to. He was sobbing, nearly screeching in a way he hadn’t let himself until that point, but this was important. He almost lost the chance to say it and now, with the two of them locked in an embrace that wasn’t going to stop any time soon, it was the perfect time. “When you… When you sent th-that message and I heard… Ilya, I… I’m so sorry… I can’t… I should’ve come after you when you left that night. I should’ve run to you. I should’ve defended you more. I should’ve-”

“Is okay,” he replied, his voice breaking as he continued to let the tears finally drop. “I’m okay, khoroshiy. You have no need… nothing to be sorry…”

“Shane and I talked everything over,” he explained, giving into his tears and trying to set the groundwork for what was waiting for them when they got back home. He’d helped set up candles, put together the words that he’d watch his favorite person say to his other favorite person, and everything was going to be alright. “Everyone’s put that night behind us and we’re going to take care of you. You’re going to stay with us. No fighting, no questions. I’m not taking any rebuttals.”

“What is rebuttal?”

“I said no questions,” he joked, wiping a tear from his face as he pulled back from the hug for the first time to look at him. He finally saw him in his full glory and that made him want to break even further. “You’re coming home. I’ll drive you to practices and even your games if I need to.”

“Hayden,” Ilya replied, saying his boyfriend’s name like a freshly squeezed glass of apple juice. It tasted organically sweet, grown from a magical foundation and nursed every day until it became what it was destined to be. “You don’t have to do that. You’re not my mother.”

“But if she were here,” he said, knowing exactly how serious what his next words were. “I think she’d want me to take care of you. I think she’d want both of us to make sure her son was safe.”

The mention of Irina between the two of them caused Ilya’s face to drop, his eyes falling to the floor and tracing the cracks in the concrete. Hayden watched this happen, reaching down and pulling him up by his chin.

This wasn’t his role.

This wasn’t something he was used to.

But in this moment in time, in this space where it was only them, his deep-seeded desire to protect and care for him took over.

Ilya looked up at him, that vast ocean that parted at the bridge of his nose bouncing off of the light as their gazes connected. The little pockets of brightness inside of his irises sparkled like sea foam glistening off of the top of crisp waves, crashing onto each other in an unfamiliar place of unsteadiness. He was in a position that was unrecognizable, even worse than when Shane got hit.

This man was broken, torn up from almost dying in front of the whole world, and there wasn’t anything Hayden wanted to do other than hug him with every muscle in his body.

So he did.

“I love you,” Hayden blurted out, saying it in a way that he made sure was different from the other times. He needed him to know, to fully understand, that things were never going to go back to the way they were after this. “I know that when this started, I was just a bonus piece to you and Shane and I know that we turned into something different, but it’s more than that for me now.”

“You are the only person other than Shane that I think truly knows me,” he continued, peeling back every layer until he was emotionally exposed at every angle. “Like really knows me for who I am. Jackie knew me, but there was so much I didn’t tell her. I always felt so scared to be myself, to be fucking honest about anything, but then I met you.”

“I actually met you,” he finished. “And for the first time in my life, I saw that it could be whatever I wanted it to be… You and Shane are what I want. After today… After everything, there’s not a doubt in my mind that it’s the three of us until the end.”

He wasn’t going to steal Shane’s thunder.

He wasn’t, but… fuck.

Seeing this man in front of him, the man they both loved, and holding the pieces of him together made him sure that they were doing the right thing. He might not be able to marry Ilya, but Shane will, and they’ll be together forever.

But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to tell Ilya fucking Rozanov exactly how he felt about him, telling him without telling him that he chose this.

He chose them.

And it was the best choice he’d ever made.

Ilya pulled his face back from the hug, but only to crash his lips against Hayden’s with an immeasurable passion.

There it was again.

That sweetness that’d coursed down his throat, that feeling of their roots being blessed by the passing of time, had aged into a love so distilled and pure that neither of them expected. Hayden had seen this one time before, when Shane woke up from his being unconscious and Ilya melted into him.

The head and the body became one then.

And there the heart was, pushing itself back into the chest of the body, letting him know that no matter where they were in life, they wouldn’t be able to find a corner of this universe where he wouldn’t follow.

As long as Ilya would have him.

Forever and always.

♡♡♡

Their reunion was intense, passionate and romantic, but the two hour drive home to Montreal was just… simple.

They were soft, quiet and tender.

Ilya was holding onto Hayden’s free hand as he steered with his left, the Russian rubbing his thumb into his boyfriend’s skin. He moved in circles and followed them with straight lines, almost like he was creating shapes and coloring them in one by one.

He was nervous to go back to the cottage, keeping his thoughts to himself but somehow letting them echo throughout the car.

“It’s going to be okay,” Hayden said. “Shane and I already went over everything.”

“He’s not still mad?”

“No,” he replied. “He was being a dickhead that night and after you left, I lost my shit on him… It was really ugly. Worse than when you were there.”

Ilya was quiet again, looking back down at where he’d been tracing patterns and returning to that task.

“It took a lot of screaming,” he continued. “I’d never been so grateful not to have close neighbors. Well… except for New Years last year.”

They both chucked to each other, remembering the drunken night where they’d convinced Shane to have a little bit and it turned into one of the kinkiest nights they’d ever had.

They tried things that they’d likely never be doing again, but they definitely brought 2020 in with a bang.

And a slap.

And some other sounds that Hayden couldn’t think about without popping a boner in the middle of the highway.

That would be a bad decision.

He just got Ilya back today, so he didn’t want to risk his life again.

“He really thought you loved me more than him,” Hayden laughed. “I told him that he was legitimately insane. There’s no universe where it’d be me over him, but that’s the beauty in us all being together. No one has to choose and we can just love each other however more or less and it doesn’t matter.”

“I do,” Ilya said, continuing to drag his clipped fingernail around the surface of his boyfriend’s hand. “Love you as much as Shane.”

“Is not more,” he continued, stumbling over his words and eventually switching to Russian for a moment. “There was a time… Я думал, что люблю тебя сильнее, но это просто по-другому.”

Hayden could only make out a few words.

I thought I… love you… different.

It didn’t take a fluent speaker to put those thoughts together and see what he’d said.

He’d questioned it.

They both did, but that was natural in polyamorous relationships from what he’d been reading. Different pairings could have different fluctuations of their feelings, sometimes going up and sometimes going down, but it didn’t change the fact that they still wanted to be together.

All of them.

Hayden put his best known Russian words together and tried to say them in a way that didn’t sound like a jumbled mess. It was the first phrase that he made sure to learn, one that he’d practiced over and over again, waiting for the right moment to try it.

“Я тоже тебя люблю.”

I love you too.

Ilya brought his boyfriend’s hand to his mouth, lightly kissing where he’d just been painting the next Sistine Chapel and then returning to that project.

They sat in silence the rest of the way, understanding each other and letting what they didn’t have to say sit in the ambiance.

It wasn’t about who loved who more.

It never was.

Because he loved Ilya more than he could ever describe.

But he also loved Shane, his Shane, just as much.

It was as they said, just different.

It wasn’t long before they turned to exit toward Montreal and he watched as Ilya started to stiffen in his seat.

He didn’t know what that man thought he was walking into when they got there, but he was sure with every fiber of his being that he wouldn’t be able to guess.

♡♡♡

They pulled up to the cottage, parking in the driveway behind Shane’s boring little sedan, and started walking toward the door.

Ilya stopped as they reached the front door.

Hayden turned to look at him, a smile forming on his face as he knew what was lingering just beyond the threshold.

“You can come in, you know.”

He said the words that Ilya had once used to get him out of his own head, out of the car and into the house so that they could be together.

And that was exactly what Hayden was doing here.

They shared a look, their gazes lingering as the door opened and they walked in after one another.

It was mostly dark around the inside of the cottage, much dimmer than what they were used to, and Ilya went to turn on the light. Reaching out to touch his hand and bring it back down, Hayden kissed the top of his palm and guided him down into the living room.

They turned to face the glass door that led to the backyard, to the lakeside view and the firepit where they all had finally broken open for each other at different times. Hayden took a deep breath, anticipating whatever was going to happen and preparing for every alternative.

Would he scream?

Okay, then he’d just have to guide him out into the grass.

Would he pass out?

Well… fuck.

He’d have to figure out how to pick him up, but that could work too.

All of the options ran through his mind and the one that he didn’t consider was the way that Ilya’s heart skipped a beat as he caught sight of Shane Hollander standing on the porch in a circle of small candles and let himself smile like it was the first time he’d seen the sun rise.

“What-”

“Don’t say anything yet,” Hayden said, still keeping a hold of his hand and walking him out into the most perfect scene he’d ever laid eyes on. They took their first steps out and he looked at his best friend, standing there waiting for them with tears streaming down his face. “Just go to him.”

“But-”

“Go.”

Ilya did just that, walking a few feet over to where their boyfriend stood and lightly stepping over one of the candles. He lightly dropped his foot down, turning around to make sure he didn’t create a trail of fire that would eviscerate their home.

Shane looked at him with a type of love that couldn’t be put into words, but the two of them had tried their best to put something together that would work.

Something that would get the point across without causing either of them to cry.

It was going to happen either way, but they wanted to do their best.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am,” Shane said. “After you left, Hayden and I… We went back and forth about it and at the end, I realized that the only reason I loved hockey as much as I did back then was because I was playing against you. I love it. It’s my life, but so are you.”

“It’s been a decade,” he continued, stifling a cry as it came out. “A fucking decade since we met and I can’t decide if I loved you when we first met in that parking lot or if I’d just been waiting for you my entire life until that point.”

Wow.

That wasn’t in the script.

And that…

Yeah, that was beautiful.

That was what a proposal was supposed to be.

“You don’t deserve to hide anymore,” Shane exhaled, trying to keep the pace as he got closer to the big line. He didn’t even say it when they rehearsed, terrified that he’d get it wrong and embarrass himself, but he was doing great. “You never did and I’m sorry that I’ve forced you to for so long… We’re going to come out. Whenever you want. On your terms. You’re ready. Hayden’s ready. So that means that even if I’m not, I’m going to have to be.”

He stopped for a second, taking three heavy breaths before looking forward.

This was it.

The final lap before crossing the finish line.

He was going to do it.

His Shane was going to propose to the love of their life.

“Because I realized something else,” he said, the fear reading clear in his tone. “When you almost… When you… When I almost lost you, I felt a part of myself die at the same time. It was… crushing in a way I can’t really talk about, but it made me know that I can’t do the rest of my life if you’re not there with me.”

“What are you-”

Ilya started getting the words out, tears forming in his eyes, but he was stopped by Shane taking the biggest step in… well, ever.

“Ilya Grigoryevich Rozanov,” he asked. “Ты выйдешь за меня?”

Will you marry me?

The words came off his tongue in a haphazard mess, garbled and thrown together like a store-bought salad, but it was clear that the lack of practice wasn’t for lack of wanting to. He just took the world’s biggest leap in a language that he’d been struggling to learn for years, but he did it with every muscle in his body.

From the way he let that out, he’d been wanting to ask that since the day they met.

Even if he didn’t know it.

Hayden felt a tiny bit of sorrow watching the two men he loved get engaged, but it didn’t mean that they weren’t still going to be together. It just meant that Ilya would be safe, protected and never have to go back to Russia unless he wanted to.

The blonde, his face overcome with shock and disbelief, turned behind him and looked at his other boyfriend with a surprisingly concerned face.

“What about…” Ilya started. He looked at Hayden, his eyes remembering their conversation in the parking lot, and was completely unready for the next words to come out of his mouth.

“It needs to be the two of you,” Hayden said. “This started ten years ago. I wasn’t there, but I know that if any of us deserve this, it’s the two who’ve been fighting for it since they were teenagers.”

The words sat between them and he could see that it was taking everything in Ilya not to grab him right now. Their eyes were locked together, repeating the words they’d exchanged in Russian on the way home and knowing that it was always going to be the three of them, no matter what happened.

“Plus,” he added. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere. You’re going to have to do a lot more than almost die to get rid of me… Rozanov.”

That devilish smirk curled onto Ilya’s face and he turned back to the proposal, looking at Shane Hollander and letting his answer come out with the most effortless sense of ease.

“Yes,” he said, scooping Shane up into his arms and kissing him firmly on the lips. He planted another with each time he repeated the word. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. A million times, yes.”

They stayed like that, wrapped in each other and kissing deeply before they broke apart, Ilya turning to look at their other boyfriend with that huge dorky smile.

“We’re going to be family!” he yelled, hopping over the candles and grabbing Hayden’s hand, pulling him into a kiss that was just as deep. They both melted in it, Shane stepping over and joining in as they melted together.

“We always will be.”

♡♡♡

It happened.

Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander were engaged.

They’d screamed in excitement, the closest neighbors across the lake probably wondering what kind of party they were throwing. With how loudly they were screaming, it wasn’t hard to think that Shane’s parents might be able to hear from their house.

Fuck.

They were going to have to tell his parents.

About everything.

Hayden thought about his conversation with Yuna when Shane was in the hospital and all of the ones since where she hadn’t brought up what he’d said to her.

Maybe she thought that he backed out?

Maybe she thought he didn’t do it, but it was going to be interesting to explain to them that they’d been consistently lying for three years straight.

How the fuck did they do that the first time?

Those thoughts were circling his head, jumping back and forth between the spots in his brain, until he felt a hand rub against his back.

He turned to see Ilya, who’d still been kissing Shane on the couch, look at him with that hunger in his eyes that was strictly reserved for his slave. His fingers spread as he lifted his hand slowly up Hayden’s spine, tracing small curves in his shoulders before wrapping around his throat and gripping… hard.

They hadn’t slept together in over a week and after everything they’d experienced in that time, he was ready to take every inch of his master’s cock like his life depended on it.

“Open your mouth.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No.”

The response was simple.

Straight through to the root.

They hadn’t touched each other like this in long enough that just the lingering thought of what he would do to Hayden lit a fire under him, that light between them that burst into a supernova pushing him… no… begging him to push himself to his limits.

“I’m soooorry,” he chuckled, feeling himself get harder at the look of disapproval on Ilya’s face. It was about time that he acted like a brat. It’d been too long since he’d given him a good pout. “Yes, master.”

He did as he was commanded, opening his lips and sliding out his tongue.

Ilya stood on the couch from his knees, towering just a bit over his slave and dropped a heavy dollop of spit onto him. He pushed it out, giving effort into sending it his way, and watched as it missed and hit his cheek.

“Hmm,” he laughed. “We will try again, but not like this.”

He turned around and looked at his fiancee, grabbing him by the hair lovingly and pulling him toward his best friend.

“Hollander?” was all he had to say.

Following the clues laid out for him, Shane leaned forward toward Hayden and licked the saliva off of him bit by bit. Once he’d gotten it all, he slowly kissed down his face until he got to the lips, slowly licking the outside of them before pushing his tongue in.

He crawled on top of him, straddling his hips and pushing into the kiss as he grinded his ass against his lap. Hayden found his hands exploring his best friend’s body, his Shane, as they continue to embed themselves in one another.

It was passionate, hot and fiery in a way that they hadn’t had in a while.

He wasn’t sure if it was how he watched him easily submit to Ilya or if the high of knowing that he was going to be a married man, but Shane released any inhibitions he’d kept locked away, kissing and biting against Hayden as if he was ready to devour him head to toe.

“I love you.” he whispered through panted breaths.

“I love you too.” Hayden whispered back as he brought their lips back together.

Ilya approached from behind, licking up his fiancee’s back before kissing behind his ear and trailing his tongue down his neck.

“Do you want inside of him?” Ilya asked, looking directly into Hayden as if it wasn’t really a question. He knew that he did and based on the smirk that was crawling onto his expression, he wanted him to ask for it.

He wanted him to beg.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, master. Please.”

“Not yet,” Ilya teased, giving his slave’s cheek a soft slap before blowing him a kiss. “But soon… Don’t worry, kotik. We have plenty of time.”

He called him Kotik.

Kitten.

He knew how much that pet name irritated him, degraded him and reduced his masculinity to its very shreds on the ground…

…and his cock had never been harder.

It didn’t take long for Shane to feel it beneath him, biting his lip and beginning to peel the clothes off of his body. It was a matter of a full minute, maybe two, before all three of them were completely naked and feasting on each other’s forms as if they were a delicacy specifically made for themselves.

Ilya was right.

He was always right.

They had the rest of their lives to do every filthy, depraved thing they could think to each other and the possibilities were endless. If they had a thought, a passing desire, they could try it and see what happened.

It was an unexplored world of ecstasy that he couldn’t wait to dive into with them headfirst, just like Shane had done as he kissed down to Hayden’s cock and brought it into his mouth.

He looked down, watching as Shane began to worship at his hands and knees, arching his ass up in the air poking it toward his fiancee. Hungry for them, desperate to be filled on both ends, Hayden watched as Ilya took him from behind with his fingers and never broke eye contact as he did it.

He felt Shane’s mouth against him, wet and perfect, massaging his cock with his tongue and spitting on it before taking every single inch down his throat. He put his hand overtop of his head, holding it down as he stayed down there, and fucked into his mouth until he heard him gag.

“Goood boy.” he hissed through his teeth.

His eyes went upward and met his master’s, a mischievous grin on his face.

“He is very good boy,” Ilya said, running his free hand along Shane’s spine until he brought it back down on his ass with a hard slap. He moaned into the spank, his entire mouth vibrating against Hayden as he continued to suck. “But you’re not.”

“I’m not?” he asked, cocking his head to the side and putting on the tiniest pout.

“No,” he said, fucking his hand harder into Shane’s hole, adding two more fingers to prove his point. “You’re disrespectful.”

Hayden felt his cock stiffen even more, his own hole tightening at the mere thought of whatever his master had in store for him.

“I am?”

“Yes,” he answered, pulling out his cock and giving it a few strokes before releasing a long, thick strand of spit down onto it. Hayden felt himself give a small gasp, watching as Ilya spread it around with both of his hands and jerked himself for a moment before sliding it into his fiancee. “You think that pretty mouth gets to play with words it doesn’t belong to?”

He leaned forward, pushing into Shane and reaching out to put his hand around Hayden’s throat before bringing them both close together and taking them to a lovely trip in Paris. The two of them kissed passionately above Shane’s quivering body, taking both of them with the exuberant enthusiasm he’d grown to expect this far into their relationship.

They were companion souls, best friends that were secretly cum-starved submissives, wrapped around the finger of a powerful man and giving him anything he desired; whenever he wanted it. It was like they continuously matched each other in their ability to please, their want to serve and be serviced, the perfect match to pleasure the man they fell in love with.

“What’re you going to do to me?” Hayden asked in a heated anticipation, waiting with bated breath as he watched his master’s smile get wider and wider.

“Whatever I want,” he said, gripping Shane’s hair again and pulling him up to face them. He whispered into his ear, loud enough for their boyfriend to hear. “Hollander, sit on his cock and give him what he wants. I want to show this little kotik what happens when he doesn’t follow orders.”

There it was again.

Kotik.

He knew exactly what he was doing, and Hayden loved every minute of it.

Shane smiled down at him, laying him onto his back and holding his cock in his hand for a moment before climbing on top of it. He sank down, taking all of him into that tiny hole and squeezing down against him.

Audibly moaning loud enough for the distant neighbors to hear, Ilya approached Shane from behind and bent over, leaning down to Hayden’s mouth and covered it with his hand.

“You will fuck him hard and not say a word,” he commanded. “If you so much as utter little peep from that pretty little mouth, I will make sure that you can’t sit for a week. Do you hear me?”

Hayden went to respond, but felt himself wanting to test the boundaries.

How far could he get with being bad?

How far could he push his master before he just unloaded onto him?

Turned out, it didn’t take that much.

“I didn’t hear a response, Pike.”

That was it.

He wanted him to respond.

He wanted him to say something, anything to give him an excuse to demolish his body with just the tips of his fingers.

Shane started to ride him, pulling up on his cock and then dropping down hard again and again like it was his job. The sounds coming out of his mouth as he continued to take it were unintelligible, the newly engaged fucktoy moaning into his words and losing track of his speech.

“That’s because I didn’t give you one, sir.” Hayden grunted, thrusting upward into his best friend’s hole with every intent on hitting the very back and sending him overboard. He’d been wanting to make Shane cum without his hands and he thought, right then, that it might be the perfect time.

“Remember that I asked nicely first,” Ilya taunted, getting back behind Shane and maneuvering out of sight. It was only a couple moments before Hayden was being filled with the sensation of his master’s magnificent cock. “Now, remember our rule. You speak, I make it hurt.”

Understanding exactly where they were and what was expected of him, Hayden embraced the feeling of being completely under Ilya’s control and took one last moment of defiance before letting it get however out of hand it needed to.

He wanted to be a brat.

He wanted to be punished.

“Yes… Rozanov.”

And with that, there wasn’t any other recourse that could’ve been taken, no other way that everything could’ve gone down.

Emblazoned with the confidence that little bit of defiance gave him, Hayden laid back and took every single goddamn inch as his master fucked into him with a vengance. In the times they’d tried this position, filled and fucking at the same time, he never felt this… high.

He felt like he was on psychedelic drugs, euphoric and lost within bountiful spreads of heavy clouds as he surrendered himself to the ultimate form of submission.

They continued to fuck like that, passionately hard and incredibly rough, and Shane was sandwiched in the middle being passed up and down between them like they were sharing a cigarette.

Each of them took a hit, Ilya biting into his neck and creating as many marks as he could, while Hayden pulled him into every sloppy kiss he could manage throughout being absolutely wrecked.

It continued, hot and heavy, until Ilya bent down while watching them lick around each other’s faces, biting each other’s lips until Shane’s eventually split a little.

Hayden could taste the blood, but they still kept kissing into it.

It kept building, higher and higher, until he felt his master pull them both up at once into the sexiest thing he’d ever experienced.

And likely ever will.

Ilya brought Shane into the kiss first, pushing his tongue into his mouth and passionately holding his future husband like precious treasure while still having a vice grip on Hayden’s hair.

He then brought him up to join them, the three of them conjoining into one kiss.

The head. The body. And the heart.

All fusing into one being, approaching the final stage and knowing that after they took this next step, they were bonded for life.

It hit a breaking point for all involved, the intensity of how they were ravaging each other sending them over the edge one by one.

Shane, fucked within an inch of his life by the way he was panting, gave Hayden everything he’d wished for and released his load all over him without having to touch his cock a single time.

He was painted in his best friend’s cum, licking his lips around the area that hit his mouth and moving up to kiss him again.

Funnily enough, he came right after that, filling Shane up from the inside and remaining there while he received the rest of his punishment.

Ilya finished last, but definitely not least, as he pulled out and let his two favorite men kneel before him, looking up with hungry eyes as he gave them exactly what they were waiting for.

They sprawled out on the couch, completely naked in front of the glass windows and in that very second, wondered if anyone could’ve seen in and watched them fuck each other into oblivion.

They thought about it and then understood that they didn’t care.

Not a single bit.

They didn’t even move to start the aftercare.

No cleanup yet.

They just wanted to exist in the mess of each other for a moment longer, populate this space where they’d just become one, and it didn’t matter if that meant they were covered in cum.

They were finally here.

They were going to tell everyone.

They were coming out.

Shane and Ilya were going to get married and the three of them were really going to live happily ever after.

The thought on his mind as he looked at the two men he loved the most, he brought it up with a smile on his face.

“It’s crazy that you guys are getting married.”

“Is not completely true.” Ilya said, causing both of them to look at him as if he’d just grown another head.

“Ilya,” Hayden replied. “I just watched you get engaged.”

“No,” he said, taking his hand into his and bringing it up to his mouth to give it a small kiss. It was intimate, soft and the sweetest thing he could’ve done after destroying him from the inside out. “You saw wrong. Yes, I agreed to marry Shane, but is not all.”

“When I think about this moment,” he continued. “Right now and later on when it comes back to me in future, I will remember I got engaged to both of you.”

“But you’re the ones who’re actually getting married?”

“It doesn’t matter who says the words,” Ilya finished. “I will get you ring. From Shane and me. We will be your husband, too.”

Hayden felt himself completely break, tears falling from his eyes as he reached out and brought them both into only half of the hug that they deserved.

He was worn out, exhausted, and spent too much damn time crying today.

But it didn’t matter.

Because they were together.

And they were going to be.

Forever.

♡♡♡

Hayden Pike: Certified Bisexual (No. 4)

The Forever Conversation

Spotify Playlist

1. Forever Charli XCX (Hayllanov Main Theme)

2. Dynasty MIIA (“Did you hear about Ottawa’s plane?”)

3. Afterlife Hailee Steinfeld (“Alone.”)

4. Is There Somewhere Halsey (I’m okay. Sorry about messages.)

5. THE QUIET Troye Sivan (The Christmas Fight I)

6. You’re Losing Me Taylor Swift (The Christmas Fight II)

7. Light Me Up Ingrid Michaelson (“like a fresh squeezed glass of apple juice”)

8. Compass Zella Day (Forever & Always)

9. Tightrope ZAYN (The Sistine Chapel)

10. Stay (Spotify Single Version) girl in red (Shane’s Apology)

11. Yours Ella Henderson (The Proposal)

12. Playing Around Before the Party Begins Childish Gambino (“It happened.”)

13. How Deep is Your Love? Zara Larsson (Kotik)

14. Silent Disco JADE (Shayden Main Theme IV)

♡♡♡

Notes:

They're getting married.

They're getting motherfuckin' married and I couldn't be happier to let you know that the final part of this series will be entitled: The Hollander Conversation.

We'll follow their wedding and how this gets revealed to Shane's parents, the three of them finally coming out into the open and loving each other in the way that they've always wanted to.

There's gonna be some sad stuff, but we're going to end on a great note.

Thank you again for all of the support, the kind words, and every single person who's clicked on this series and given it a read so far!

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