Work Text:
Ilya feels settled in a way he has very few times before.
Completely, blissfully content in the kind of way he used to think didn’t belong to people like him. The kind of way that he felt destined to witness from the outside, but never experience for himself.
Ilya is in the home that he shares with the love of his life. He can hear his husband loading the dishwasher in the kitchen, while humming the song that has been stuck in his head for days now. Their dog is curled up in her bed, sleeping peacefully after running riot all day. The sun has already sunk beneath the horizon, but Ilya can see the solar fairy lights lighting up their back garden through the patio doors.
And two weeks ago, on home ice, they won the Stanley Cup together.
Beyond the thrill and joy and elation of the win, there had been another emotion simmering just beneath the surface of Ilya’s skin. Something smaller, quieter, that he didn’t acknowledge but couldn’t quite ignore either. Relief.
Ilya knows that he and Shane are good players. The best, in fact. Since the moment they entered the league, their only real competition has been each other. He also knows that being together - being out, being married, being on the same team - does not affect their ability to play the game.
He just wishes everyone else knew that.
There have been think-pieces, and headlines, and keyboard warriors typing up essays online. There have been politicians weighing in. There have been accusations, and threats, and - maybe worst of all - fake cheating scandals. And yet, with everything the world has thrown at them, they’re still here. Still better than everyone else.
Still madly in love.
So to win the cup with his husband, with their team, in their first season playing together, feels like proof. Not just for himself, but for Shane too.
Shane, who lost the team he captained to three Cups because of their homophobia and bigotry. Shane, who was already expected to be a model minority because he’s one of the few people of colour in the league. Shane, whose every fear about coming out came true, but he still chose Ilya anyway. Still refused to regret or resent or do anything except love Ilya.
So it feels like vindication, to have won together - to have lifted the trophy and kissed beneath it, and proven to everyone who ever doubted them that they’re still the best to ever play the game.
Ilya is on cloud nine.
They’ve done the partying, done the parade, done the celebrations that lasted for days. He’s won the Cup before, of course, but nothing has ever felt as good as celebrating with Shane and with the Centaurs.
It had felt like a never-ending family party, with his husband by his side every step of the way.
But now, Ilya is ready to rest. He wants a quiet night in with his Shane, doing absolutely nothing at all. Ilya, like everyone loves to tease him for, has been domesticated. The leash is wound tightly around his neck, and Ilya does not want to slip it.
He is now proudly, happily boring. It’s perhaps his favourite thing to be, second only to being Shane’s husband.
He steps into the kitchen as Shane is leaning back against the worktop. His legs are crossed at the ankles, a pair of Ilya’s sweats slung low on his hips, and his henley is pushed up to his elbows, revealing his corded forearms as he dries his hands on a dish towel. He’s also glaring at Ilya’s phone, which lets out a perfectly timed buzz. And another. And another.
Shane raises a single eyebrow at Ilya, and he looks so fucking good that for a moment Ilya just stares at him. Fuck, he can’t believe he managed to lock down The Shane Hollander.
Hollander-Rozanov.
Ilya’s phone buzzes again.
“Are you gonna get that?” Shane asks.
“Yes, my love,” Ilya answers obediently.
He’s got entirely too many notifications. When they won the cup, Ilya had been overwhelmed by the number of people who reached out to him. His guys from Boston, old teammates throughout the years, even one from a guy he’d played with on the Russian Olympic team back in 2014. It had taken him by surprise how many people cared enough to congratulate him.
He ignores them all in favour of the most recent ones, and grins as he reads them.
“Who keeps texting you?” Shane grumbles.
“Why? Are you jealous?” Ilya teases.
No matter how much Shane tries to pretend otherwise, he’s got a possessive streak a mile wide and two miles long.
During their post-win celebrations, Ilya can think of at least three separate occasions where Shane came and sat on Ilya’s lap while someone was talking to him. There were also countless more instances where Shane would wrap his arm around Ilya’s waist or take his hand, and once he even pulled Ilya away from an overly flirtatious fan by his tie.
It’s unbearably hot to be so wanted. So loved.
Shane sends him a withering look, eyes narrowed and brows furrowed, and it’s unfortunately very sexy.
“Ilya.”
“It’s the guys,” Ilya says, folding under absolutely no pressure at all. “They are texting you, too, but you have silenced group chat.”
Shane rolls his eyes even though he’s trying not to smile. “What do they want?”
Ilya shrugs his shoulders as he continues to read the slew of messages in the groupchat. “They’re going to a club and want us to join.”
Shane pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “Ilya…”
“I’m telling them you said no,” Ilya says, his tongue poking between his teeth as he taps out a response.
It immediately gets a bunch of thumbs-down reactions.
“I didn’t say that!” Shane splutters. “They’re gonna think…”
“Relax, sweetheart. Is fine!”
“You can go, y’know, if you want-“
“Ah, no. I do not want to,” Ilya interrupts. “Stay at home with my very sexy husband who is wearing his glasses, or go out to a club filled with people who are not you? The answer is very simple, Shane.”
Shane rolls his eyes again, but he’s smiling as he saunters towards Ilya.
Ilya opens his arms for Shane, who winds his own around Ilya’s waist and burrows his face into the crook of his neck. Shane squeezes him tightly, his nose rubbing up and down the side of Ilya’s throat. Ilya tosses his phone back onto the counter and wraps his arms around his husband, who melts into the hold like ice cream left out too long in the sun.
Shane presses a kiss to Ilya’s thrumming pulse, and Ilya moves his hand upwards to scratch his fingers through Shane’s silky-soft hair. He closes his eyes and kisses Shane’s temple.
“Are you sure?” Shane asks quietly.
“Hm? Sure about what?”
Shane leans back just enough to look Ilya in the eyes when he says, “That you don’t want to go out with them?”
Ilya scoffs.
He’s spent so much time with the team in the last few months - playoffs, and all the travel between games, and the celebrations after their win - that he absolutely needs a break from them. He loves the guys, really, he does. But he desperately needs some alone time with his husband.
Holding hands with Shane in public is wonderful; having Shane sit on his lap is even better. But there’s still that element of performance when they’re in public - that constant, low-level awareness that they are being watched, and photographed, and judged. It’s the price you pay for belonging to the city.
But Ilya wants a night alone, where they don’t have to belong to anyone but each other.
“My love, I cannot hear them sing We Are The Champions one more time. They’re starting to make me hate Queen.”
“No one hates Queen.”
“Exactly! Which is why I can’t go out with them.”
“As long as you’re sure,” Shane says, softly kissing Ilya’s chin.
“I am sure,” Ilya promises. “I want a night alone with just my husband, please.”
Shane leans in close, hovers his lips above Ilya’s, and murmurs, “Well, that can be arranged.”
And before Ilya can say anything in response - before he can even kiss his husband - Shane is bending down, pressing his shoulder into Ilya’s stomach, and picking him up. He tosses Ilya over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, like Ilya weighs nothing instead of over 200lbs.
And Ilya, well, he squawks.
He instantly grabs the waistband of Shane’s sweats for something to hold onto, while Shane lightly slaps Ilya’s ass and laughs.
“Oh my fucking god, Shane.”
Shane snorts. “Problem?” He asks, as he begins carrying Ilya into the living room.
“Yes. Big problem,” Ilya says. “I have never been so turned on in my entire life.”
Shane spanks him again, but Ilya can feel the way his shoulders are trembling as he tries to hold back his laugh. “Shut up, you dork,” Shane says.
But Ilya is only half joking.
Shane loves being manhandled - loves sitting in Ilya’s lap, and when Ilya pushes him around a little or carries him. But sometimes, every now and then, Shane likes to remind Ilya that - actually - he’s a big, strong hockey player, too. And it’s unbelievably, heart-stoppingly sexy when he does.
Ilya has found that he’s certainly not opposed to being thrown around a little, as long as Shane is the one doing it.
When they make it to the living room Shane ever so gently places Ilya down on the couch…and then proceeds to flop down on top of him, causing Ilya to grunt as his breath is forced out of him. Shane just laughs, though, and presses a flurry of kisses up Ilya’s throat and along his jawline, stopping just before he reaches Ilya’s lips.
Ilya whines, leaning forward in search of a kiss that Shane denies him. “Not fair.”
“Something you needed?”
“Kiss, please.”
“Oh, yeah? Well what do I get in return?”
Ilya reaches up to hold Shane’s face between his hands as he promises, “Anything you want.”
“Anything?”
Ilya hums in affirmation. He’d give Shane the damn moon if he asked for it - would do anything in the world for the man that he loves more than life itself.
“Well okay, if you say so,” Shane whispers.
And then he lets Ilya kiss him.
It’s only soft and chaste, a kiss not unlike thousands they’ve shared before. But still, even after so many years, it makes Ilya’s blood rush and his pulse flicker and the corner of his lips turn upwards in a smile.
After almost fifteen years of kissing Shane, it still thrills Ilya like it’s the very first time. Still feels brand new. Still feels like he wants to spend the rest of his life doing it again, and again, again, until they’re both old and grey, with kids and grandkids who groan at the sight of them kissing each other.
“Love you,” Ilya murmurs against Shane’s lips.
“Good,” Shane says, “because you have a debt to pay.”
Which is how they end up lay on the couch together, watching One Tree Hill from the beginning for the second time.
Ilya is lying between Shane’s thighs, his back against Shane’s chest, with Shane’s arms wrapped around Ilya’s waist and his hands tucked inside Ilya’s hoodie pocket. Shane’s head is resting on top of Ilya’s, and every so often Ilya feels a kiss being pressed to his hair, or temple, or forehead.
He loves this - loves feeling treasured, wrapped up in his husband’s arms. The game, and the Cups, and the team, and the celebrations are all great, but there’s nothing that beats this. Nothing on earth that could ever even begin to compete with it.
He’s done the partying all night, and the getting drunk and high, and the casual sex. That was perhaps the loneliest, most unfulfilled that Ilya has ever been. But if he gets to have this - just this - for the rest of his life, well. He could never want for anything more.
Ilya is at his happiest when he’s alone with his husband, and somehow - surely by some kind of miracle - Shane feels the exact same way.
Wherever Shane is, that’s where Ilya wants to be.
When Ilya finally gets bored of the tv show he lost interest in two seasons and five near-death experiences ago, he takes Shane’s hands from his pockets and rolls over between his legs. Ilya rests his chin on Shane’s stomach, looking up at his husband’s big brown eyes and devastating freckles, and he wants to bite. Wants to crawl beneath his ribcage so maybe then he’ll feel close enough.
Instead, Ilya lifts the hem of Shane’s henley and burrows beneath it.
“Baby?” Shane says. Ilya just hums quietly in response. “Are you okay?”
“Perfect,” Ilya promises.
He kisses just above the waistband of Shane’s sweats, making his way from hip to hip. Then he moves up, dipping the tip of his tongue into Shane’s bellybutton just to hear him gasp and feel him squirm. Ilya kisses up Shane’s abs, over the bruises that still linger on his ribs from the playoffs, until he reaches his dusky brown nipples. He kisses those, too. Doesn’t bite or suck on them like he does when he’s trying to drive Shane crazy, but just presses quick, soft kisses to both of them.
Shane’s breath shudders anyway, and his hands come to rest on Ilya’s head, over the top of his shirt.
Ilya keeps on kissing him - Shane’s heart, and his sternum, and the chain he stills wears around his neck so he can put his ring on it during games. Ilya feels Shane’s thighs tighten on either side of him, and when he shifts slightly he can feel how hard Shane is just from the softest of kisses.
In an instant, Shane is pulling the shirt off Ilya’s head and peering down at him with lust-filled eyes and blown out pupils.
“Baby, what are you doing?”
“Kissing you,” Ilya responds with a grin.
For a moment they just look at each other, but Shane breaks first. He groans, then grabs Ilya’s face between his hands and pulls him up to kiss him, kiss him, kiss him.
Languid, deep, filthy kisses than Ilya feels down to his toes. Shane sucks on his tongue, and Ilya bites Shane’s lip, and their hips roll together subconsciously. Ilya feels Shane’s fingers in his hair, tugging on his curls, and Ilya grips Shane’s hips and squeezes in response.
“Take me to bed,” Shane orders.
“Yeah? I thought you wanted to watch your show,” Ilya taunts, kissing along Shane’s jawline and sucking down his neck.
“Rozanov, I swear to fucking god-”
“Ah-ah, that’s Hollander-Rozanov to you.”
“Ilya.”
Ilya chuckles. He’s painfully hard already, and it turns him on even more knowing how badly Shane wants him - knowing that no one else gets him like this, no one else is allowed to make him feel so good.
“Okay, okay,” Ilya murmurs. “I’ll take care of you, sweetheart.”
Ilya carries Shane to bed, and spends hours doing exactly that.
He takes Shane apart with his tongue, and his teeth, and his hands, and his cock. He makes Shane beg and plead, so overwhelmed with pleasure that tears leak from his eyes and Ilya licks them off his face. Ilya talks Shane through it, lovingly, and teasingly, and humiliatingly, until Shane is flushed pink and shaking, and the only words he can remember are Ilya and please and I love you.
And afterwards - once they’re sated, and clean, and cuddled up in bed - they fall asleep in each other’s arms.
Ilya wakes up slowly.
His body aches in a good way, but he feels refreshed, like maybe he’s slept longer than he usually would. Longer than Shane usually lets him.
Ilya’s forehead is pressed to Shane’s hip and he’s got an arm looped around his thigh, like even in sleep he can’t bear to be apart from his husband. They often sleep like that, though - arms and legs tangled together, one of them half on top of the other.
Even after a whole season living and playing together, it still feels like they’re making up for lost time.
Shane is already wide awake when Ilya blinks his eyes open and lets out a yawn. He’s sitting up in bed with his glasses perched on the end of his nose, with his phone in one hand and the other playing gently with Ilya’s hair. Ilya nuzzles against Shane like a cat, and Shane looks down at him when he realises that Ilya is awake.
“You cheated on me last night.”
“Again?” Ilya yawns. “That’s the second time this month.”
“It’s getting very old, now.”
“I am terrible husband.”
Shane hums thoughtfully. “Yes, I should probably divorce you.”
It’s silent for a moment as they stare at each other, and then they both start giggling.
Shane slides down the bed so he’s laying down beside Ilya and they both lean in for a good morning kiss. Like every morning Shane’s nose wrinkles at their breath, but he still kisses Ilya anyway. In fact, he won’t let either of them leave the bed without their morning kiss.
After one, two, three kisses, Shane holds his phone up and waves it in Ilya’s face.
“I don’t know where they get this shit, listen: Ilya Rozanov was spotted partying in downtown Ottawa last night without his husband, Shane Hollander. Rozanov was seen getting very friendly with an unknown woman, and sources say they left the bar together. Uh-oh. Trouble in paradise for hockey’s first husbands?”
Ilya snorts.
It had hurt like hell the first two, or three, or five times that it happened, but by now they’re mostly over it.
Honestly, it’s getting pretty boring at this point. And not Shane’s fun, sexy brand of boring. Just regular old boring-boring. They’d both figured the tabloids would find something more interesting and move on from them eventually, but they still seem to be a hot topic for some reason.
Just a couple of weeks ago they were photographed while taking Anya for a walk. Shane had been in the middle of talking about the disgrace of Vegas making it to the playoffs when the picture had been snapped, and clearly the frown on his face meant a divorce was imminent.
Hockey players just aren’t famous in the way other famous people are; most of the guys in the league could walk around in their own jersey and not get recognised.
But apparently being openly queer and married to your former arch-rival makes you a tabloid headline waiting to happen.
“I’m tired of cheating, I want a new scandal,” Ilya whines.
“What, like tax evasion?”
Ilya sticks his tongue out and blows a raspberry. “Boring. I want something fun.”
Shane thinks for a moment, then, very solemnly says, “Mafia ties.”
Ilya clicks his fingers and points at Shane. “Yes. Perfect. We need someone to leak it to the media that I am Bratva.”
Shane laughs, leaning in to press a kiss to Ilya’s nose. “Oh yeah, who are we trusting that with?”
Ilya thinks for a moment, then: “Pike. He is good at leaking things.”
He’s get whacked over the head with a pillow for that one, but it’s worth it. Especially when Shane makes up for it in the shower later.