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It was a regular practice, just like any other really, except that coach Wiebe came in and waited for everyone's attention to be on him so he could announce something big. When the guys had quieted down and were looking inquisitively at him, he put his hands on his waist and with a growing proud smile announced “Well, I’ll just cut to the chase, we’re getting a new teammate!”
They all looked shocked because they weren’t really expecting a new addition to the team. Bood asked cautiously “Is it a trade? Is someone leaving our little family?”
Wiebe waved him off “No, no, we just aren’t taking a rookie this year. We are getting someone real good. Someone I never even dreamed of getting.”
Wiebe looked excited and that obviously peaked everyone’s interest. They started throwing out guesses.
“Cliff Marlow?”
“Better.”
“Ryan Price?”
“Better. And isn’t he retired?”
There were other miscellaneous guesses that were shot down with a simple “Better”.
Wyatt threw out “Hayden Pike?”
And that is when Ilya spoke up for the first time since this guessing game started “Wyatt, what the fuck? Gross. Why would we take someone worse than a rookie? Only thing Pike is good at is growing world population.”
The guys laughed because of course Ilya wouldn’t stand for even the idea of playing on the same team as Hayden Pike. And just to stir the pot further and make Ilya even angrier, Wyatt guessed “Okay, Scott Hunter? That would be craaazy!”
Ilya blew a raspberry “Why would we take a geriatric patient away from his retirement home? He has a standing chess game opointment with his young boyfriend.”
Wiebe was done with all the guessing and shushed everyone "Arguably better than Scott Hunter, who is Ilya’s grandpa apparently. We…are getting…”
And then he took a long pause and watched everyone get more and more impatient.
“Shane fucking Hollander.” The room was in shambles. Some of the guys were shocked silent and some of them were loudly freaking out and shaking each other.
Luka asked incredulously “How is that possible?”
Bood chimed in “Yeah, yeah! Like are we all going to be paid pennies to afford Hollander?”
“No, we made it possible and he was okay with getting paid less for now.” Wiebe answered.
Bood nodded but continued to ask “Okay, but still it doesn’t answer the question of ‘how?’”
“He asked for it himself actually. At first I was also in disbelief but he said he really wants to come home to Ottawa and who are we to not take him, am I right guys?”
They cheered in agreement but were still quite flabbergasted at the news. They would not only have THE Ilya Rozanov but also THE Shane Hollander. It was a beautiful day in history. They were obviously excited and then slowly one by one noted Ilya’s unusual silence. He had been in a great mood lately, smiling and talking more but now his silence was heavy. Did he not want his ancient rival on his team?
They all tried to nonchalantly look at Ilya’s reaction but his face was blank and he was busy taking his gear off. Bood ventured to ask “Roz? Bro, are you okay? Are you good with Hollander being on the team?”
Ilya whipped his head to the curious eyes of his teammates “Yes? Of coarse. At least it’s not old, old, old, OLD Scott Hunter. Hollander is second best player in league so we might even have a chance at the cup.” Ilya was doing his best to keep himself neutral but he could feel that he wouldn’t be able to cover his own excitement for long. He obviously knew about Shane coming to the centaurs. It was something they had talked about together a couple of weeks ago.
Shane had driven over to Ottawa that evening and after their nightly activities, as Ilya was falling asleep, Shane said in the quiet room “Ilya, I want to stay in Ottawa with you.”
Ilya answered sleepily “Yeah, I want you to stay too. At least we have 4 days this time..” Ilya gave Shane a lazy nuzzle.
“No, Ilya, I want to stay. Forever. I can’t take the distance anymore and the metros are being extra mean these days. And I’m so tired.” Shane said quietly. Now Ilya was wide awake.
“Shane, baby, are you serious?” Ilya asked tentatively and tried turning Shane around to look at his face.
“Yeah.” Shane turned and Ilya saw that Shane was being serious.
“You will come to the centaurs, yes? We live together here? Shane, are you sure?” Ilya felt like he was dreaming. He had imagined Shane and him living together, playing on the same team and not leaving each other all the time hundreds of times.
Shane nodded “Would you be okay with that? Are you sure you wouldn’t mind being on the same team?”
Ilya slapped Shane’s ass playfully “Hollander, are you serious? I would sow us together if I could. I am happy, I am happiest man on planet!” And just to prove his point further, Ilya sloppily kissed Shane’s face until Shane was giggling and pushing his face away.
“Ilya, you’re acting like a dog!”
“Good, I like dogs.”
Shane laughed and caught Ilya’s face in his hands and held him. Shane’s smile was heart meltingly soft and he also gave Ilya a soft kiss. “Okay, enough, I will call Farah tomorrow and start setting everything up. I love you but we should go to sleep now, yeah?”
Ilya mirrored his smile and tried to not cry. He went to sleep that night feeling like he won the lottery. When it was all basically decided and settled Shane asked Ilya “So what about the team? You said they were good people sooo…”
“Yes, they are good. Will be nothing like shitty metros. Are you worried?” Ilya asked as he petted Anya.
“No, I meant, are we telling them about us?” Shane asked.
Ilya’s hand stilled “They would be good about us, I think. You would be okay with telling them? ”
“I don’t think we could hide for long and I don’t want you to feel sad because of all the hiding.” Shane said earnestly.
Ilya couldn’t help but smile and take Shane into his arms.
“Shane, I love you.”
“Love you too, Ilya. Do you want to tell them alone or together?”
Ilya thought about it and then something only he would call genius popped into his mind.
“Shane, can we do it in a fun way?”
“What? Why? We should keep it simple.”
“Nooo, don’t be boring, boring Hollander. Let me think of a more fun way to announce it.” Ilya whined.
They argued about it for a while longer till Shane yielded and gave a hard “Fine.”
And so Ilya couldn’t let on about his relationship to the new centaurs player yet because he still hadn’t thought up the best way to announce it. He quickly got ready to leave and as he was exiting the room he turned back to say “I am very excited to have pretty Hollander join the team so don’t worry. Rivalry was part bullshit anyways. Bye, bye now.”
~~~~~~~~~~
The next day the guys were still excited about Hollander joining even though he was only coming to practice next week. After a drill as Ilya was drinking water, Troy slid up next to him “Ilya, what’s Hollander like off ice?”
Ilya noticed how excited Troy was and found it weird but answered casually “Boring. Polite. Nice.”
Troy frowned and said jokingly “Go, girl, give us nothing!”
Ilya gave him the middle finger and wiped his mouth “He can be very specific about the way he like things. He can be surprisingly funny but don’t tell him I said that. His head. Will get too big. Very caring, very anxious. That good enough for you?”
Troy nodded along and whispered “And very handsome…”
“...What?”
“Cap, you have to admit he is a very good looking guy. I think even straight men would agree. All I’m saying is, I would want that cookie if offered.”
Ilya was frowning now. Who does Troy think he is calling cookie? And who would ever allow him. Ilya had to struggle for years to claim his ‘cookie’ and Troy thinks Shane would just go for him.
“I think Shane has higher standards.”
“Fuck you.”
“You have better chance fucking me than Hollander.” Troy cringed away from him.
“Okay, let’s stop now, please. I was just curious about him.”
“Well now you know he wouldn’t be interested in you. And what? New sexy Hollander comes to town and you forget about Harris?”
Troy blushed “NO! I mean no. Anyways, that’s not even going anywhere.”
“Because you are pussy.”
“Ughh, fuck you.” And Troy skated away out of embarrassment leaving Ilya feeling ominous.
~~~~~~~~~~
“You ready?” Ilya asked
“Yes? No. Yes.” Shane had been anxious the whole morning. He was afraid they wouldn’t like him, which Ilya called bull, because of course they will love him.
“Shane, they’re going to love you, okay? Let’s go in, you don’t want to be late loser on your first day.” Ilya teased and earned a glare.
Shane pushed the door open and walked in. Everyone went silent and Ilya saw Shane’s shoulders slightly hunch and stiffen so he stepped up to say “I would like to introduce you to my good friend, Hayden Pike. Former metro. New centaur. Mid player.” Shane elbowed Ilya in the stomach and finally the guys came to it and laughed. They just needed an ice breaker and Ilya loved breaking ice, so to say.
Shane cleared his throat and said “Hey, I’m Shane Hollander and I am very excited to play with all of you!”
Bood laughed “My man, we all know who you are! Glad to have you!” They all greeted each other and fell into talking to Shane. Shane fit in perfectly and Ilya couldn’t be happier. Shane had also decided to tell them he is gay right away as to avoid another metros situation and they took it well, as Ilya had expected they would.
Troy though went wide eyed. He snapped back to reality quickly enough and told Shane that he was gay too and everyone on the team was extremely chill and safe. That was the last worry Shane had and he was truly feeling much better in the locker room than he had in years. But Ilya didn’t like the way Troy was looking at Shane. He had way too much interest and the way Troy had to stop looking at him and blush when Shane started getting undressed was making Ilya boil.
They had a great practice. Shane fit into their team perfectly and it was shaping up to be an amazing season. Ilya still thought this might be an extended dream until Troy slid up to him and made it into a nightmare.
“Roz, Hollander is even more beautiful than I remembered. I had never noticed his freckles.” Troy said dreamily.
“What? No. He is…super ugly.” Ilya could barely get the words out of his mouth.
Troy looked visibly confused “Are you blind? He is the most handsome man I have ever seen! And he’s super nice and cute. And you know…gay.”
Ilya hated this “Sure, whatever you say. He is still boring.”
Troy scoffed and said “Dude, you’re so weird. I’m gonna go talk to him.”
And before Ilya could protest or murder Troy, he skated up to Hollander and began with “Hollander! You know, Roz just called you ugly.”
Shane looked confused and whipped his head to look at Ilya and Ilya looked extremely uncomfortable and almost scared. He tried to shake his head and prove that it wasn’t true. Shane just laughed and said “He can be quite the dick you know. I’ve learned to sometimes just let it in one ear and out the other.”
Troy also laughed and then after a brief silence said shyly “You know, I think you are quite handsome.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, thank you, Barrett. After learning that Rozanov thinks I’m a slug, that’s pretty nice to hear! And you know, you’re not too bad yourself.” And Shane clapped him on the shoulder making Troy’s smile widen.
“You think I’m handsome?”
“Of course! You have very nice hair and your smile is very attractive.” Ilya’s jaw dropped. What was Shane saying? Was he also flirting? But he said it as if it was the most obvious thing and had Troy blushing in seconds.
“Thanks! Also, you can just call me Troy.” Troy said sheepishly.
Shane smiled brightly “Okay, Troy, then you call me Shane too!”
And before they could continue breaking Ilya’s psyche further, coach called them all for a team meating.
After practice when Shane and Ilya had gotten into the car, Ilya stared Shane down with a death glare.
“...What?”
“‘What?’ What was that, Shane?”
“What do you mean? I thought it all went great.”
“Da, Da, why were you flirting with Troy?”
“I wasn’t! We talked for like one moment. When would we even have time to flirt?”
“You called him handsome. What, do you not like me anymore? Am I not pretty enough?”
Shane let out a startled laugh “I was just returning his compliment. And plus, you were the one calling me ugly.”
Ilya cringed “Lies. Liar told you that.”
“No, Ilya, you said it.”
“Did not mean it?” Ilya tried.
“I would hope so.” And Ilya started driving before it could escalate.
~~~~~~~~~~
The flirting did not stop. It also didn’t stop killing Ilya every time it happened. One time they were in the locker room. A shirtless Troy walked up to a shirtless Shane and asked “How are your muscles so perfect?” Then he lifted his biceps and flexed “See? Mine are not nearly as good.” Shane looked at him seriously and reached up to squeeze his bicep.
“Troy, your arms are amazing, very well developed, so I don’t know what you think the problem is.” Then Shane also lifted his arm and flexed “You see this part on mine? I recently started a training regime that focuses on this muscle. But right now it’s still not perfect. But yours is great!” Troy stared at Shane’s flexed arm intensely and asked “Can I touch it to understand better?”
“Sure, sure” And he did. Shane continued talking about muscle groups and in the process Ilya swore Troy touched every single part of Shane’s arm and likewise.
The conversation ended up with them basically setting up a date, where Shane would give his very specific recommendations. On the ride back home Shane denied flirting with Troy and said if Ilya is so annoyed and delusional, he should just tell the team that Shane is his fiancee. But Ilya still hadn’t thought of a plan and Shane got annoyed at him.
One time they all arrived at a team dinner all dressed up. Shane came last because he was coming from a meeting. He came dressed in tight fancy pants and a very classy button up. He looked absolutely delectable and Ilya was already planning to whisper it in his ear but Troy ruined it by just saying “Shane, those pants really were made for you. They look amazing.”
“Thanks, Troy! I mean they were tailored for me and I’ve got to say…your jewellery really accentuates your eyes. Your pretty eyes are shining.”
“Maybe it’s because I’m looking at you?” Troy said in a low voice, probably going for sensual and failing in Ilya’s professional opinion.
“Why would your eyes shine looking at me?” Shane asked confused.
“Because I really like looking at you. And talking with you…”
“Oh! I really like talking with you too.”
“I’m really glad, Shane. How about you sit next to me during dinner so we can talk some more?”
“Sounds great!” Shane gave him one of his blinding smiles that Ilya wanted to keep locked up at home. Ilya was on his last straw. Now he sat between Luca and Wyatt sulking and watching Shane and Troy talk and laugh. Wyatt noticed something was wrong and asked “You okay, bro? Something not sitting well with you?”
“Oh ‘somethings’ not sitting right…” Ilya said under his breath while he stabbed his meat with more strength than needed. The dinner dragged on longer than Ilya wanted and when they finally got home Ilya confronted Shane.
“Stop doing it.”
“Stop doing what?”
“Flirting with fucking Barrett.”
“God, Ilya, I’m not! We’re just friends!”
Ilya massaged his eyes “Suuure, does he know this? He is very into you.”
Shane was getting visibly frustrated “When are you gonna stop accusing me of this? It’s getting really annoying, Ilya.”
“I stop when you stop.”
Shane groaned in annoyance “Can’t we just tell them about us? Then even if he IS into me, which he is not, he will know that I am taken.”
Ilya was silent for a moment “I still don’t have plan.”
“You don’t need a fucking plan. We can just say it!”
“Would be very boring.”
Shane gave him the stink eye and went to take a shower alone. Ilya really needed to figure this out quickly for his own sanity.
The next morning the tension was still high and they didn’t talk much. When they arrived at the facility and were about to get out of the car Ilya just had to say “Don’t flirt with Barrett today, Hollander.”
Shane looked at him and said “Fuck you.”
They got to the locker room and Shane immediately went up to Troy and said “Good morning, Troy. Sleep well?”
Troy looked shocked because Shane doesn’t usually strike up conversations like that “Yeah, slept great.” And then after a moment of deliberation he added “Would have been better with you next to me.”
Ilya was ready to fight, but stopped when Shane softly placed his hand on Troy's knee and asked in a low shy voice and held intense eye contact “Yeah? And how would I help you sleep? I’ve been known to keep people up at night.” At this point everyone was watching this exchange. They had all noticed Troy flirting and were kind of rooting for him but Shane never really seemed too into Troy, but this was different. Troy also looked shocked and he couldn’t gather any comprehensible reply. Then everyone watched Ilya, the most silent one throughout all of this, come up and say with a blank if slightly angry look “Could you stop flirting in the locker room? Public space.”
Shane looked away from Troy and turned to look at Ilya and asked dead pan “Ilya, are you homophobic?”
This broke Ilya’s facade, he looked so genuinely confused and disgusted “Shane. What the fuck. No. You of all people should know that no.”
Shane shrugged his shoulders as if he had done nothing wrong. He got up and went off to get ready. The whole practice felt charged. Bood came to a brooding Ilya at one point and asked “What was all that this morning? You never said anything before.”
Ilya perked up “You also noticed? Those two flirting.”
Bood laughed “Man, how could we not! Some of us are rooting for them, you know.”
Ilya’s face dropped to disgust “No. Don’t root for them.”
“Dude, ARE you being homophobic or something? Love is love man.” Bood said carefully, looking genuinely worried that Ilya was against gay love.
Ilya sighed and rubbed his face “No, I’m not. Shane is mine, that is the problem.”
Bood’s eyes went wide and then he started smirking “Oh, I seee…”
And before he could comment more, Ilya skated off the ice and left for the locker room.
Over the next few weeks Troy got more bold and flirted with Shane more but now Ilya interrupted them more often than not.
One time as they were cooling down Troy asked Shane “Shane, do you think I should cut my hair shorter?”
Shane looked at him and inspected “No, I don’t think so. Longer hair looks nice on you.” And when he saw Ilya approach them he added loudly “Longer hair has more grip if you know what I mean…”
Ilya also plopped down next to Shane and asked “Shane, you like MY hair? Always has had good what you call it ‘grip’, no?”
Shane looked at him and also investigated his hair. Then he pulled off his glove and reached to tug Ilya’s hair. Ilya barely kept from groaning, remembering all the other situations where Shane has pulled his hair.
“I suppose I do like your curls”
The rest of the guys exchanged worried looks. To them it seemed like a love triangle was developing. Situations like these kept coming up and their worry did not cease.
~~~~~~~~~~
The secret meeting was in session.
All the guys minus Shane, Ilya and Troy were here.
Bood began “Guys, it may have been funny at first, but it’s getting out of hand…”
Wyatt nodded “I second that.”
Bood continued “But what do we do? I really want Hollander to be happy but stringing both of them along is going to hurt the team at some point.”
Dykstra pipped in “But I don’t think Hollzy is doing it on purpose, you know? Like sometimes he just seems to go along with the conversation and just ends up flirting!”
Some of the guys nodded but Bood continued “Okay, okay, I see your point, but the result is the same. He needs to either choose one of them or reject both of them.”
Luca asked shyly “But how can we help any of this?”
Wyatt asked off handedly “But like, who are we even rooting for?”
The guys started yelling out their side and it sounded like a mixed bag.
“Settle down, settle down..” Bood calmed the room and flipped over their whiteboard.
“I point to you and you tell me who you are rooting for.” He divided the board in half and under ‘Troy' and ‘Ilya’ wrote down the name of a player. It ended up equally divided.
“Well now I definitely don’t know what to do.”
Wyatt pointed his finger at Dykstra “Why would you choose Troy? Do you not want cap to be happy?”
They argued about it and somewhere in between even Luca interjected “They are the perfect rivals to lovers story! How could you not be on the caps side?!”
“I want him to be happy! I just think Troy got there first!” The room turned into a huge argument and had Bood at one point sigh, defeated.
“We are getting too heated about this. We’ll pick it up tomorrow. Try to think of some solutions, okay?”
~~~~~~~~~~
The next day their solutions would turn useless. Before either Shane or Ilya arrived, Troy stood up and made an announcement “Guys, I really like Shane…” Some of them exclaimed “We know!” Troy scoffed and continued “I’m planning to ask him out today.” Some cheers went up. They were also extremely glad because this would solve the love triangle problem. Troy would either get together with Shane or get rejected. It was perfect!
Shane and Ilya arrived arguing about something and the energy in the room was weird, but they didn’t comment on it. Not only was the energy weird, but also tensions were high the whole practice. They got back to the locker room and all got ready to leave. As Shane was finishing packing his bag, Ilya went to the bathroom. Troy took this window of opportunity to sit down next to Shane. Shane looked at him and waited for him to speak.
“Everything okay, Troy? You look nervous.”
Troy did look nervous and felt even more nervous than he let on “Yeah, yeah, everything’s okay. But I had something I really wanted to ask you…” Right then Ilya came out of the bathroom and watched the scene unfold. He instantly understood where this was going.
“What is it?” Shane asked innocently.
“Umm, I was wondering…would you like to go out? With me?” He got it out and looked like he was shitting in his pants.
Shane’s eyes widened and he stayed silent. Ilya couldn’t take it anymore. He stomped over and ruined the moment by leaning down and kissing Shane roughly. Shane gasped in his mouth but instinctually kissed back. The rest of the team started yelling angrily and Troy tried pushing Ilya away but wasn’t getting anywhere. Ilya let Shane go at some point and looked at Troy like he came, he saw and he conquered.
The guys were still angrily shouting. Bood said disappointed “Roz, that was not okay. You need to ask for consent.” Wyatt added “You can’t just do that!”
Troy put his hand on Shane’s startled shoulder “Are you okay, Shane? You know you can file a report about this, right?”
Ilya snapped his head to Troy again “Don’t worry, Barrett,” He said ‘Barrett’ as if it was an insult, “You never had a chance.”
Troy looked confused and angry “What do you mean, Rozanov? You still think you have chance after doing that?”
Ilya laughed ironically “Yes. Shane, are you keeping me?”
Now everyone was looking at Shane who was just now coming back from the shock of all that had happened. His confusion turned to irritation “I’ll get back to you about that one.” Ilya’s triumphant smirk cracked slightly.
“Shane? That was joke right?”
The guys had moved to stand somewhere close to Shane, seemingly to protect him. Wyatt had a protective arm around Shane’s shoulders. He pointed at Ilya and said “Man, what you just did was super fucking wrong. Why would he want to keep you?” Ilya finally looked around the room fully and noted the disgusted looks he was getting. This was not how he had wanted to do a relationship reveal at all! Everyone now thinks he is a pervert who attacked Shane.
“Shane, tell them. Tell them about us!” Ilya was feeling deranged and crazy. Shane looked at him and he still looked irritated.
“Ilya, what about us? This is your thing.”
“Shaaane, baby, I’m sorry!! Guys, Shane and me have been together for years, I wanted to do big reveal of this. I would never attack anyone like that! Come on, Shane, help me out.” They didn’t look like they fully believed him and Ilya was starting to freak out. He didn’t want everyone thinking he would do that to anyone without consent. Shane sighed and decided to save Ilya from the situation he had gotten himself into.
“It’s true. He is an asshole who wanted to tell you this in a not ‘boring’ way but couldn’t decide on anything. We are engaged actually. And, Troy, I’m very sorry if I misled you. I didn’t really mean to and sadly that(derogatory),” he pointed at the frowning Ilya “Is the man I have chosen.”
Troy nodded silently in understanding but looked like he wanted to leave the room as soon as possible. After what Shane said the room went silent.
Luca spoke up first “For real? Hollanov is real?”
“What the fuck is a ‘Hollanov’?” Ilya asked.
Luca blushed “Umm, your combined name? You know, to ship you two? It’s an internet thing…”
Ilya gave a short laugh and everyone was still quite shocked. Troy asked no one in particular “So I really never even had a chance?”
“Hmmm, no.” Ilya said dead pan.
“And you just let me flirt with your boyfriend this whole time?” Troy was getting outraged.
“Ha! See, Shane, he was flirting!” Ilya looked just slightly elated.
Shane sighed for the millionth time “And if you said something earlier, it wouldn’t have gotten to this point! Troy, I’m really sorry we hurt you. You really are lovely and you didn’t deserve that.”
Troy cringed at Shane’s honesty. Shane really had meant all the compliments but hadn’t been flirting on purpose most of the time. Dykstra noticed how sad Troy looked and to make him feel better said “Hey, Troy, you’ll find your man someday! You know some of us also thought you really had a chance,” He then got up and flipped the whiteboard, “See, like half of us thought you had a chance with Shane. We were rooting for you!” Troy looked at it incredulously and finally smiled slightly.
“Thanks, Dykstra, that at least makes me feel like I wasn’t the only disappointed idiot.” then he turned to Shane and Ilya “You know, I’m very happy for you two and I’ll be fine after a few days. So don’t worry about me, yeah?” Shane gave him an apologetic smile. Meanwhile Ilya was inspecting the whiteboard.
“Why were half of you on Troy’s side? I am your captain!”
Dykstra blew a raspberry and said teasingly “Because you suck! You just randomly attacked Shane, man!” Ilya wanted to defend himself but couldn’t think of anything. Shane chuckled slightly and when everyone started going back to their cubicles, he got up and wrote his name under Ilya’s column. Ilya saw that and smiled. Shane came back to him and gave him a brief kiss.
“I’m still angry at you, Ilya.”