Chapter Text
“Would you ever tell anyone?”
Shane looked up at Ilya from where he lay between his arms, the sun shining on his face through the blinds, “Would I ever tell anyone what?” He asked.
“About you,” Ilya paused, “About us,” he paused again, “Or just coming out—would you ever tell anyone?”
Shane sighed, leaning back into Ilya. He wanted to say yes, that he’d show Ilya off to the world some day when they were far away and safe as can be. But the truth is, he didn’t know.
“I want to,” Shane replied, “One day. I want to tell people about you—about us,” he answered the question neutrally, because in reality, he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to tell anyone about him and Ilya. His team would react poorly, his management even poorer—he knew how they felt about “the gays”. Shane being with Rozanov would do nothing but fan the flames of an evergrowing fire. And then there was his family.
“Would your parents be ok with it?” Ilya asked hesitantly.
Shane knew what Ilya was implying. Would your parents be ok with you being gay? Would they be ok with us being together? And to be honest, he hadn’t really thought about it that deeply, only in passing.
He loved his mom and dad, they were his first supporters and arguably, some of the biggest (second to Ilya). But truthfully, he didn’t know if they’d be ok with this. They might be ok with him being gay, although he wasn’t even entirely sure on that. But, he was sure on how they would not be ok with Ilya. There was no way in hell that they would ever come around to that—and Shane didn’t want to have to choose.
“Shane?” Ilya lightly squeezed his shoulder, “Are you ok?”
Shane nodded, “I’m fine,” Shane sighed, “Ilya,” he hesitated, “I don’t think-” His voice caught on his own words, growing slightly shaky. Ilya just held him tighter. Shane knew he knew what Shane was about to say, but was grateful that Ilya was letting him take his time regardless.
“You don’t think?” He prompted.
“I don’t think they’d be ok with it,” Shane’s last words came out as a whisper, “Maybe with me being gay, but...”
“But not with me,” Ilya sighed, “It’s ok, I understand.”
“No, it’s no ok, Ilya.”
“I don’t want to make you choose, Shane,” Ilya’s voice shook this time.
Shane reached up and pulled Ilya in for a kiss, feeling tears start to drip down his cheeks, “You haven’t made me choose anything,” he smiled, “And even if it came down to it, I’d choose you. Every. Fucking. Time. I need you to know that, ok?”
“I’d choose you too, Shane,” Ilya sniffled, “In every way.”
From there, it was decided. While it was sort of unofficially, it was still decided—Shane and Ilya would never be shown to the world. Hollander and Rozanov were what everyone else would see, but Shane and Ilya would always remain hidden. Even to friends, even to family, even to teammates or those close to them, Shane and Ilya would never, ever be seen by anyone other than themselves.
The remainder of their cottage adventure was honestly more of a stress-inducing experience than a vacation. Every phone call sparked anxiety and every text message and notification sometimes made one of them physically jump. They got to be together and alone, but they never went outside. The blinds were shut, the doors were locked, and they were both on high alert listening for cars pulling up or voices nearby in case one of Shane’s parents decided to make a surprise visit. Even when they slept, Shane and Ilya sometimes found themselves flinching awake at a noise outside thinking that someone had found them.
Shane’s dad had texted during their retreat asking if he could come by to grab a specific charger that he had left there. At first, Shane didn’t even notice his phone ringing off the hook until a gut feeling occurred while he and Ilya were preoccupied, for lack of better wording, that he needed to go back downstairs, so he did—and thank goodness he did. He caught David’s last text stating that he was about to leave and come over and Shane quickly called him to tell him to stay home and that he would be the one to go over and drop it off himself.
“You do not have to do this, Shane,” Ilya squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, “He can always come get it later-”
“But what if he decides to drop by here un-announced? And he see us?” Shane swallowed, “I mean if he walked in just now, he would have seen us kissing and there’s no way I’d be able to convince him we were anything but involved with each other.
Ilya sighed, but nodded in understanding—and so Shane went, somehow leaving his parent’s quicker than he arrived. He grabbed the charger and left it in the mailbox not even taking time to greet his dad as he drove away under the excuse of needing to get back to a silent meditation he had paid a lot of money for.
Like all things, even good things had to come to an end—but just those two weeks of utter secrecy had weighed on Shane and Ilya so much harder than the literal years they had kept each other locked away (granted, they weren’t in an actual, committed, relationship all of those years, so that definitely made things a bit different). On their last night together, Shane couldn’t sleep. The thought was foolish and he felt like a child but he thought that maybe if he didn’t sleep, then tomorrow wouldn’t come. If he didn’t fall asleep, he could keep Ilya right here with him forever. He wouldn’t have to drop him off at the airport and go back to stolen moments and secret phone calls and private meetups that couldn’t last for too long because someone would get suspicious.
So he started thinking. He wracked his brain over and over going through plan after plan to see what he could possibly do to make this easier—and then he finally came to a conclusion. He turned over to turn on a light and shook Ilya awake. This couldn’t wait until morning—he needed to tell Ilya before he forgot.
“What is it Hollander?” Ilya muttered as Shane shook him, “What is wrong? You are ok?”
“I have an idea for how we can be less secret,” Shane started.
Ilya rubbed his eyes, brain still waking up as he prompted Shane to continue, “Ok,” he said, “But slow. It is late, brain is sleepy.”
Shane nodded and continued slower, “If we can’t be lovers in public, then maybe we can at least be friends?"
“What are you saying?” Ilya mumbled.
“I’m saying,” Shane said, flicking a piece of dust off of Ilya’s chest, “What if you played in Ottawa?”
“We’d still be rivals,” Ilya said sleepily, “What are you saying?”
“Yea, we’d still be rivals, sure, but we’d be closer. They need a star Centaur and they have room to afford you. We could lessen the rivalry a little bit—there are plenty of rookies coming in who can do that type of thing with one another—and become friendly in public,” Ilya nodded as Shane continued, “We could start something, like a charity. We’d have an excuse to meet up a lot, be in the same area, and be seen together outside of the rink. Our teams, friends, and my parents wouldn’t bat an eye because it’d be charity work. I could say that I approached you-”
Ilya raised a brow, “You approached me?”
“Or you approached me, whatever,” Shane rolled his eyes, “But we could say that and say that we developed a...,” he paused, “mutual respect for one another. And the charity thing would be real, a real charity for a real cause that we both really care for. You’d play for Ottawa, I’d play for Montreal, we’d be two hours away—and not just during games. All year round, you’d be right there. You could apply for Canadian citizenship—and then, after all that sometime in the future when we retire...we could be together.”
Ilya’s voice grew wobbly, “You really think that far ahead, Hollander?”
Shane nodded, “I do.”
“And is that what you want? To be together?”
Shane nodded again, “I do. So much,” he blinked back tears in his eyes, “So much that it scares me.”
Ilya stopped speaking and in that moment, Shane panicked thinking that his entire plan was terrible and he had hurt Ilya in some way, reaching over and whispering “hey” while thumbing at the tears on his cheek, but no. Ilya rubbed his eyes and turned over until he was on top of him, kissing his chest, neck, and forehead, while murmuring something in Russian. He held Shane’s face and kissed him again before leaning their foreheads together.
“I love you.”
Shane’s eyes widened as he processed what he just heard, looking into Ilya’s eyes, “Holy shit,” he said, “I love you too.”
They fell into one another’s arms after that, Ilya falling asleep entirely wrapped up in Shane with Shane entirely wrapped up in Ilya.
The next morning, neither of them wanted to wake up—but they knew they had to. They started discussing more about the charity with one another—what it would be for, what its name would be. When Shane tenderly asked Ilya what his mother’s name was before suggesting more plans about a hockey school and donating the profits to suicide prevention, Ilya had pulled him close, tears in his eyes, murmuring about how his mother would have loved him just how he loved him. Right then and there, the plan was set in stone—and as Shane dropped Ilya off at the airport that night, he was determined to put it into action.
Ilya’s move to Ottawa was a “big shock” to everybody, but thankfully, Shane found that he could funnel his excitement into fake surprise. What Shane didn’t know how to do, was not freak out over bringing up the charity to his mother.
He and Ilya had an extensive conversation of how the talk would start. Ilya had approached Shane (Shane had teared up when Ilya told him that it was to take any heat off of him) and proposed the idea. Shane surprisingly liked this idea and from then on, they decided to move forward. It was simple and outright—it sounded like a good plan. So when Shane got the reaction that he did from his mother, he was utterly heartbroken.
He hadn’t expected her to be super on board with the idea, but he didn’t expect her to completely trash it. She didn’t just dislike it, she hated it and took the conversation as an opportunity to make every possible jab at Ilya that she could. Shane bit the inside of his cheek and squeezed his hands in his lap as he struggled to not snap at Yuna as she went on about how the idea with Rozanov was a bad idea. Shane wanted to yell that he didn’t care about his reputation, that this charity would mean a lot to him, but he knew that would prove cause for concern. She’d start interrogating him about why doing this with Rozanov mattered so much and that would put them at risk of being revealed, so as painful as it was, he stayed quiet.
“I mean seriously Shane, really? You think you can be friends?” She had asked. Shane felt like a scolded child, “He would only damage your reputation, you have no business doing any sort of thing with that asshole other than beating him in the rink.”
“Mom, we’re not wrestlers,” Shane argued, “I mean sure, we’re rivals—but this could be beneficial. We’re more than a rivalry. We should use our fame for something productive and that productivity would be this charity,” he leaned back into his chair, “Think about it. There are many fans struggling with their mental health and-”
“If you’re so keen on the charity,” Yuna interrupted, “then we can definitely work something out. But Rozanov,” she said his name like it was a bad word, “Rozanov cannot be anywhere near involved with it. I don’t really care what his reasoning is, doesn’t seem legit.”
Shane grit his teeth, biting back a retort, but remained silent. Sure, the hockey player whose mother committed suicide as a child didn’t have genuine intentions behind a charity for suicide prevention. That made a lot of sense. When he met up with Ilya that evening, Ilya knew something was wrong. He could read Shane like a book and it was something that Shane both loved and despised at the same time.
“Alright, what is the matter?” He asked, holding Shane close to him, “You have seemed upset ever since you walked in. Tell me.”
It didn’t take much more prompting from Ilya for Shane to spill about what had happened with his mom, “Our rivalry,” Shane sighed, “It’s too real to her. You should have seen it—she was actually disgusted at the thought of us being friends. Disgusted! It took everything in me not to reveal it all right there. She said that your intentions behind our charity ‘didn’t seem genuine’ and she kept talking about ‘my reputation’ like I give a flying fuck about my reputation!” Shane breathed, leaning into Ilya’s side, “I could do the charity without you...but I don’t want to do that. I don’t care how selfish it sounds, I intended to do this with you and if you’re not there, I don’t want it at all.”
Shane expected Ilya to get angry. He expected him to yell, walk out of the room, or even try some sarcastic humor—but what he didn’t expect was for Ilya to just start sobbing.
“Hey,” Shane took Ilya into his arms immediately, shocked at this reaction, but comforting him nonetheless. Ilya was absolutely speechless, grasping onto Shane’s arms like Shane was going to be taken away as he cried. Shane had to bury the simmering anger that he felt in that moment. Right now Ilya needed him here, holding him through this, not spewing and angry at what Yuna Hollander had said. But he couldn’t help but get in his own head about her—how dare his mother do this to the love of his life?
Ilya had gone to bed that night (thankfully Shane was able to stay over) and Shane was relentlessly searching his brain for a new solution. He sat at Ilya’s kitchen table with a pen and paper in front of him, scribbling down every single idea that came to mind.
- Hockey camp
Too much like the charity and my mom...
- Fundraisers? That way its like a charity but
No. And my mom would start wondering why I want to do this with Ilya so much.
- More commercial shoots
That seems like it would work in theory but not in practice. Keep it on board.
He wrote and wrote and scribbled and wrote and wrote idea after idea until his hand started to hurt and his eyes started to droop. He looked at his list—7 pages front and back of different ideas on how they could be closer—but none of them felt right. He felt defeated. He couldn’t fix this with a simple plan—they were cornered. He tossed the list into the recycling and moved back into bed with Ilya who subconsciously cuddled up to him in his sleep.
He looked down at Ilya, the man he loved who he undoubtedly wanted to spend the rest of his life with, and he knew that he had to do something. His brain cut back to a moment he had had with Ilya when he had first moved to Ottawa.
”We could always just run away,” Ilya murmured as he lay on Shane’s chest, “Like birds.”
“Run away?” Shane laughed, “Someone would find us you know?”
“Mmmm not if we didn’t tell anybody and did it carefully,” Ilya laughed back, scooting up until his face met Shane’s. He kissed him gently, “And just think about it. You, me, a little house in the middle of nowhere. Maybe a dog...”
Shane raised a brow, “Is this your way of telling me you want a puppy?”
“I don’t know, would you get a puppy with me?”
Shane smiled, kissing Ilya on the cheek, “Under some certain conditions.”
The conversation had been playful, an offhanded remark about running away together and living their lives just away from everyone they knew—but Shane’s mind began to think. What if they ran away? Svetlana knew her way around real estate quite well and since she wasn’t too recognizable, they could ask her to find a house for them in a small town where no one knew their names. They could buy the house on the earlier side, slowly move their things in there over a few years, and then when they get to the “right” age, retire and move into the house. No one would know.
Shane was a little frightened about how on board he was with this. If he did run, he’d have to drop everyone. No more Rose, no more JJ, no more Hayden and Jackie, no more Pike children (who he’d miss terribly). He felt it easier to let go of his team, they really hadn’t been the greatest to him, but he was still someone they had known for eleven years and he’d miss them a little. Not to mention his parents—it’d be hard to leave them too.
He shook his head. The runaway idea was stupid—there’s no way they’d be able to pull it off and even if they did, there were just so many things that could go wrong. He didn’t know if he could pull off a convincing scheme like this, he knew he’d leave some kind of sign (-but what if he was careful)? Plus he had no idea if Ilya would actually be ok with dropping everyone and running—also what about Svetlana, would she be ok with doing all of that? He already felt like he asked Ilya to give up too much despite his reassurances and this would just be another thing he’d be asking Ilya to leave.
There was just no way that would work—right?