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2018
“Taken?” Ilya asked hollowly, trying not to stare daggers at the Ottawa Centaurs spokesperson, Matt, that was negotiating his contract. “What do you mean, ‘taken?’”
Matt winced a little, obviously afraid of pissing off Ilya and ruining such a lucrative deal. “The number. Your–um…eighty-one. One of our older players, Gomes…he’s already got it on this team. We’ve tried convincing him to give it up, but…he won’t. Very superstitious guy, you know? He’s, ah..told us there’s nothing we can do to make him budge. Says you’re good enough that it shouldn’t matter, anyway.”
For a moment, Ilya considered throwing a fit. He’d been number eighty-one for his entire damn career; it was part of his brand. It was what announcers roared when he stepped onto the ice. What thousands of people in Boston wore on their backs, chanting his name.
It was what was connected to Shane. Eighty-one and twenty-four. Rozanov and Hollander.
For a few weeks over the summer, the four-number combination had even been his damn phone password.
The number held memories and a certain sense of nostalgia that he would never admit to. Plus, this team was just lucky to have him, he shouldn’t even have to ask twice. If they only knew that he wasn’t actually here for a challenge, for a change of scenery, for anything other than Shane fucking Hollander–
Wait.
He felt his face split into a devious smile.
There was only one other number in the world that even came close to holding the same weight.
“Is there number twenty-four?” he asked, smirking widely.
The shocked face on Matt’s face did nothing but convince him even more that this was a fabulous idea.
---
“I’m going to kill him,” Shane muttered under his breath, heart racing, chewing on the string of his hoodie furiously as he read the headline JJ showed him from his phone. “I’m gonna fucking–”
“We’re going to kill him, capitaine,” JJ interrupted, looking both annoyed and determined. “What, he thinks that taking your number will make up for the fact he is on a shit team now? No. We will kick his ass, there is no question.”
But Shane was already reaching for his own phone, firing off a text to ‘Lily.’
Shane: You think you’re hilarious, don’t you?
Lily: ah i am glad you finally admit this. i have always been funnier than you jane
Shane: My fucking NUMBER, Rozanov?
Lily: you do not like it? i thought it was cute. closest we can be to matching outfits, like cute couples in stupid romantic movies you pretend to hate
Shane: 🖕
Lily: 🍆🍆🍆🍆💦💦💦💦💦
Lily: solnyshko
Lily: if you do not like it i can change. is not too late
Lily: but it is nice. to have you with me always
Shane glowered at his phone screen, reading Ilya’s words. Fuck Ilya for making the whole stupid, maddening gesture unbelievably romantic in a way that meant Shane would never, ever tell him to change his mind.
The asshole.
“Damn, Hollzy, Rozanov’s got you so pissed off you look like you’re about to blow up and the season hasn’t even started yet. What, you think if you concentrate from here, you can kill him with your mind?” someone chirped in Shane’s direction, causing him to shake himself from his thoughts and realize he was staring far too intensely at his phone screen to seem normal.
“A guy can dream,” he muttered under his breath, though there were many other things he’d do to Ilya with his mind right now if he had the ability to do so.
Shane: Keep the damn number.
–--
It doesn’t take long. In fact, they purposely plan an extra meet-up, squeezing it between two pre-season events that are ridiculously far away from each other, booking last-minute flights that cost more than the average car and meeting in a hotel that is questionable at best.
Somehow, Shane finds himself face-down, ass-up in a hotel bed, his chest being pushed roughly into the mattress by Ilya’s ridiculously strong hand on his jersey-clad back.
He’s never felt more desperate in his entire life for Ilya’s touch.
“Ilya, please,” he gasps, the feeling of Ilya’s cock thrusting in and out of him perfect enough to make him delirious, his toes curling with each precise dragging past his prostate.
“Fuck, Shane,” Ilya groans from above him, his other hand gripping Shane’s hip so tight that it might–hopefully–leave bruises. “You look so fucking good like that. My name. Your number.”
Because of course, Shane has Ilya’s new jersey on. It’s all he’s been able to think about for weeks. The way the two things look together. The way it looks draped on Ilya’s ridiculously chiseled frame, every time the man sends Shane a selfie. And, once, the way it’d looked with the hem pulled upward into Ilya’s mouth, making obscene shapes across his perfect chest, Ilya’s lower body mouthwateringly bare, his cock rock-hard.
“Makes me look like m’yours,” he groans, the truth ripped from him before he has a chance to think, because every time he seems Ilya in the damn thing, that’s what he thinks: mine. Ilya is mine.
Leaning forward, Ilya slides the hand on Shane’s hip around to grip his dick, his lips tickling the back of Shane’s neck before he pants into his ear, “Ty prinadlezhish' mne, vsegda.”
Shane knows enough Russian to come immediately, screaming a guttural cry as his back arches and he spills in Ilya’s hand.
2021
It hadn’t occurred to Shane, which is odd.
He’d always been a planner. Hell, he habitually stayed up late thinking of plans and backup plans, lists of ways things could go wrong.
But for some reason, none of them had thought of it.
Until he sat down with Matt, and found himself absolutely dumbstruck. “Taken?” he repeated.
“...yes, Mister Hollander,” Matt said, wincing like he’d anticipated this reaction but wasn’t sure what to say. “By your husband.”
And wasn’t that something? Now that Shane was finally free to play on the same team as Ilya, to play hockey and love Ilya in the same breath, to live in a world where Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov were married, not rivals…still, Rozanov managed to irritate the fuck out of him.
“My husband,” he repeated hollowly.
Matt nodded. “We’ve spoken to him. Explained the, um, situation. He said…” Matt looked down at a piece of paper that obviously contained some notes. “He said he would consider negotiating giving the number twenty-four to you, if you, quote, ‘admit he is the best player in the league.’”
Shane felt himself turn bright red, both fury and a small amount of lust bubbling under his skin. “Asshole,” he hissed. “What, he’ll just pick a random number, then?”
“I expect not,” Matt said, shaking his hand. “Gomes retired last year. The number eighty-one is available.”
For a split second, Shane considered. He hated change, more than anything else. It made him deeply uncomfortable, got under his skin and made him itchy and on-edge. And he knew that if he just asked, Ilya would give him the number in a heartbeat. Ilya was an asshole, sure, and loved to tease, but he loved Shane and knew him inside-and-out. Honestly, the other man was probably already prepared to change numbers, had probably already found all of his things with his number on them to turn in.
But…fuck, Shane loved messing with Ilya, too.
And his whole life had already been completely turned upside-down, right?
“I want number eighty-one,” he said firmly, smirking when Matt just gaped for a moment before shaking his head in resignation.
–--
“So,” Harris said smugly, sidling up to Ilya as he lifted weights in the Centaurs’ weight room and giving him a grin, “did you hear what number Shane picked?”
Ilya placed the dumbbells he’d been lifting carefully down on the rack and turned to his friend, shaking his head a little. “I am guessing twenty-four? Is okay, I told team I am okay with this. My old number is available again and–”
“No, Rozanov,” Harris said with a chuckle. “He chose eighty-one.”
It was a very good thing Ilya had put his weights down because if he hadn’t, he would have dropped them on his toes.
“What?”
–--
It’s a little embarrassing, how Ilya reacts the first time he sees it. How all of the spit somehow disappears from his mouth and all of the blood in his body shoots to his cock as soon as he sees a picture of the two of them posted on the team Instagram: Shane in his ‘Hollander, 81’ jersey and Ilya in his ‘Rozanov, 24.’
His mind goes a bit hazy with need and he’s so fucking thankful that they’ve brought the jerseys home with them instead of leaving them in the locker room.
Because, oh.
His Shane looks so fucking perfect, spread out on their bed in nothing but a jersey with the most ridiculous logo in history on the front, and the same number Ilya wore for Boston when they fucked for the very first time in 2013 on the back.
He looks so mind-meltingly destroyed, losing it on Ilya’s dick, whining in pleasure and letting out little huh, huh, huh’s as Ilya fucks into him with reckless abandon, his own jersey that’s branded with Shane’s number sticking to his sweaty body.
He’s never looked more like Ilya’s as he comes, painting the jersey with his release and groaning “Ilya,” like his name is a goddamn prayer.
Because Hollander, number 24, player for the Montreal Voyageurs and Rozanov, number 81 player for the Boston Bears, hid what little relationship they had. They were two separate entities, detached by fear.
But Shane, number 81, player for the Ottawa Centaurs and Ilya, number 24, player for the Ottawa Centaurs, have given each other pieces of themselves in every way possible. They are loudly intertwined, sharing their love, their lives, their fucking hockey numbers.
And as Ilya comes, too, groaning Shane’s name and collapsing onto his husband’s chest, he beams.
He’s never been happier.