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Ilya and Shane were pulled out of their collective panicking by a knock on the door.
“Who is it?” Shane wondered aloud. He was a bit worried about who the company could be. They were in Shane’s apartment in Montreal, which meant it probably wasn’t a Centaur, it was a Metro.
Just as Ilya was going to get up to check who it was, his phone dinged.
Haasy: it’s me at the door
Ilya stared at his phone, then up at the door, curiously. Why did Haas travel two hours to talk to him? How did he know where Shane lived?
“It’s Haas,” Ilya told Shane, showing his fiancé his phone.
“Why is he here?”
“I don’t know. Do you want to find out?” Ilya asked, only willing to let the rookie in if Shane was.
“You said…he’s good, right? If he’s come this far it must be important,” Shane said, like he was actively debating letting him in in his head. But that wasn’t a no.
“Nothing is more important than you, moya lyubov’,” Ilya whispered with a kiss to Shane’s cheek.
“Let’s see what he wants,” Shane decided with a sigh.
Ilya walked up to the door, mentally preparing himself for whatever this conversation may hold.
After being forcibly outed yesterday, Ilya had been mentally preparing himself for a lot of things. Especially regarding the future.
Opening the door revealed a nervous Luca Haas.
“Hello…” he muttered, looking around and playing with a loose string on his sweater sleeve.
“How do you know where Shane lives?” Ilya asked first. That seems like the most important question.
“The team Live360 you made us all get a few months ago when all of us rookies got lost while bar hopping. You haven’t turned yours off,” Luca explained.
Ah, that. He’ll turn that off after Luca leaves.
“What brings you here?” That was the next most important question.
“Can we talk? Inside?” Luca seemed scared witless, which wasn’t exactly new, but it’s honestly been quite awhile since he’s seen the rookie look so out of place.
Despite his entire life being a shit show currently, Ilya decides to let Luca in.
Shane is sitting at the kitchen table, pretending not to look over at Luca with interest.
“I think Hollander should hear this too,” Luca explains, glancing at the Metros captain.
Ilya is growing more concerned by the second.
But he tries not to show it, leading Luca to the kitchen table and sits next to Shane, the rookie directly across from them.
“What is it you want to tell us, Haas?” Shane asks gently, despite his constant anxiety the past two days. He’s entered captain mode, it seems.
At Shane’s prodding, Luca takes a deep breath and begins his story.
“When I was ten, I fell out of love with hockey,” Luca began. Shane and Ilya eyed each other, wondering where this was going. “There was almost no Swiss players in the NHL at the time, and I was starting to think I had no chance at ever making it big because I wasn’t American or Canadian.
“Because of this, my Mom, the biggest Admirals fan ever, turned on the Boston Raiders for me. Liam Meyer was playing at the time as right wing on the second line. I was so excited to see him play, to see myself in him and realize I had a chance, a future, in hockey. But Meyer was older and a bit boring. After he retired, my mom tried to switch back to watching the Admirals. But I didn’t let her, because in the two years I was watching, I had become Ilya Rozanov’s number one fan.” Luca grinned at that admittance, which Ilya mirrored.
“I know, your mom show me picture of poster by your bed,” Ilya teased. Luca turned bright red, but he quickly gathered his courage and continued on with his story.
“Not only were you the coolest player, you were captain and cocky and Russian and everyone respected you just as much as they loved or hated you. You weren’t from North America, yet you dominated it. Even though it was different from watching Karlsson, it helped me realize that I could still achieve my dreams despite having a different start than everyone else.”
Ilya honestly felt really touched by this. He knew Luca really looked up to him and teased him, along with all their teammates, about it. But despite how embarrassing this all probably is to admit, Luca’s realized how much Ilya needs to hear how cool people think he is due to the world turning on him suddenly. But because he’s Ilya, he has to get one quip in.
“Only coolest player? Not best ever?”
“Sorry captain, Hollander has you beat there.” Luca and Hollander shared a grin as Ilya mock-gasped in offense. Luca chuckled before continuing again.
“After that, I was confident I could actually make a name for myself in hockey again. But then I turned fourteen, and two very important things happened in my life. The first thing, was that I got my first ever social media, Tumblr.”
An odd important, event, Ilya thinks.
“The second is that I realized I was gay,” Luca tells them quietly, looking down at his hands settled in his lap.
Ilya’s eyes widen as Shane stops breathing for a second.
‘Oh, so this is why he’s here.’ Suddenly, the two hour drive makes sense. Suddenly, Ilya feels his throat tighten.
After letting the words settle, Luca begins once more.
“When I got Tumblr, the first thing I did was search up ‘Ilya Rozanov.’ There were thousands of posts, and I spent hours scrolling. Then, I came across a post with the tag ‘Hollanov.’ The actual post itself was talking about the two of you, so
I thought it was about the rivalry. Every Ilya Rozanov fan is just as obsessed with the rivalry, so I clicked. But then I found out it was actually people shipping the two of you,” Luca went on.
“Shipping us? What does that mean?” Shaw asked, confused by the slang. Ilya was lost too.
“It means, uh, people who want the two of you in a relationship. Hollanov was your guys’s last names mashed together and all the posts were speculating if the two of you were secretly together.”
Shane and Ilya froze collectively.
“When was this?” Shane croaked.
“Around like 2015?” Luca guesstimated.
“People really thought that we were together then?” Ilya pushed.
“Kinda? It was more like people wanted you two to be together rather than they actually believed you were. Shayden was way more popular of a ship anyway…”
“What?”
“Anyway!” Luca cleared his throat aggressively. This was getting way off track! “Being a recently discovered gay I got a little obsessed with the Hollanov speculation-“
“You made an account didn’t you?” Ilya cut in. Luca’s face almost caught on fire, saying more than words could.
“It’s deactivated,” he argued weakly. “But I got really into it because I thought if Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander, the two best players in the league, could be gay, then maybe it was okay if I was too. Maybe that didn’t make hockey off limits. And the fact that people supported the two of you potentially being in a relationship finally made me confident that who I loved wouldn’t make it impossible to play the sport I loved. You two were my Scott Hunter and Kip Grady kiss, even though you weren’t official or even probably a thing back then.” Luca looked so sincere right now, putting so much trust in the two of them, just like he’d apparently been doing for years. They had inspired him without even realizing it.
“We were a thing back then,” Ilya told Luca without even thinking.
Lucas eyes widened, turning to Shane for confirmation. For the first time, Shane didn’t deny it.
“We were.”
Ilya felt his heart clench. This whole thing felt so impossible just days ago, whether people knowing was good or bad, that wasn’t the focus. It was just off limits. Now, Shane is showing parts of themselves he kept so carefully hidden without even thinking.
“I just wanted you two to know how much you’ve inspired not only me, but plenty of other people just by being yourselves. I talked to a lot of people on Tumblr who were queer and wanted to play hockey but were scared, just like me. We all kept going because of you two.”
If Luca kept going, Ilya really would cry. A glance over showed Shane wasn’t far behind.
“So I know it’s selfish, but I heard that the league wants you two to deny being in a relationship. I know everyone’s giving you guys shit and being assholes, so before you make the decision on whether or not to formally come out, I wanted you to know that there’s people and groups that do support you. I wanted the two of you to realize just how many people you would inspire by being honest. I want you to know that even though people are saying you’re ruining hockey, there’s a whole lot of other people who think you’re changing it for the better. Who believe you’re giving opportunities to people who never got to even imagine themselves going anywhere with hockey because of their sexuality.”
Ilya looked away so he could keep it together for his rookie who just admitted how much he looked up to Ilya in so many different aspects. Because Ilya was himself.
“Why are you trusting us so much right now?” Shane asked with burning intensity. It wasn’t just ‘people’ who were giving Shane shit right now, it was his own teammates. Shane more than Ilya needed to understand just why random people were supporting them when people he considered family didn’t.
Ilya wanted to ask something similar, but he didn’t trust his voice just yet.
“Because you’ve never let me down before,” Luca told them honestly, his eyes teary but his smile bright.
“We won’t deny it,” Ilya decided.
Some would call it hasty, but to Ilya, this was the final push he needed. He needed someone to tell him coming out would be alright. Because he wanted to so bad.
Ilya had given up his country, his mother’s grave, everything for Shane. He would not let hockey prove all that for nothing.
Ilya grabbed Shane’s trembling hand, intertwining their fingers.
“We won’t deny it,” Shane agreed.
Luca smiled to himself. Mission accomplished.
God he is never going to live this down once his teammates find out.