Shane is the best hockey player on the goddamn planet and nobody knows this better than his husband, who plays on the same team as him and is privy to all of his overlapping intricate rituals and basically fucking grew up with him and is so fucking proud and smug of the fact that he's married to the best hockey player on the planet that sometimes he zones out in public with his eyes in the middle distance and the most self-satisfied smirk on his face and his hand shoved deep in the back pocket of Shane Hollander Hometown Hero Hockey Jesus' jeans.
"You can't make that face in public," Shane hisses, and Ilya squeezes the part of Shane's body he's got lovingly cupped in his hand and that, for some reason, is worthy of some clickbait on TMZ where Shane looks bored out of his mind because he's going to that place in the back of his brain where he used to hide from all of his desires and now mostly just uses as a way to avoid crying or getting hard in public. Next to him, Ilya just looks fucking smug. Because he's got his hand on the ass of the best player in the NHL.
(Second-best ass, though. Ilya knows where his assets lie.)
Ilya also knows with no hint of uncertainty that he can never tell Shane that he knows that he is the best hockey player in the entire fucking world. Shane once told him that when Ilya told him so, that night at the 2021 All-Star Weekend, he'd gotten the ick so hard that he'd almost asked Ilya to pull out.
"The Ick?" Ilya said. "What is this, the Ick? Like you were grossed out--"
"I dunno, kind of? Like when something turns you off, takes you out of the sex--Rose said it's called the Ick--"
"Is called a turn-off, Hollander, fuck! What is this fucking...the Ick..."
("You are a curse on my fucking marriage," Ilya tells Rose, some time later, and she smiles serenely and tops off his already impressively full wine glass while Shane yells incoherantly about the Detroit team captain's machinations to be traded to one of the Florida teams in exchange for what Shane is only referring to as 'PISS AND SHIT' but is apparently, Ilya gleans through context clues, a rookie center and two retirement-age defensemen)
So Ilya knows that he's married to the best hockey player in the league. He also knows that if he tells him this, stops competing in any way for the label, that it will read to Shane as some kind of pity, some kind of gentle acquiescence, and that Shane will get so mad about it and so sexually disappointed that Ilya may have to crawl into Anya's dog house with her and earn his spot back in his marital bed via a series of labors that would make Hercules himself lie down and die.
He can't even brag about this shit to other people because those people inevitably cannot keep their mouths shut. His marriage almost fucking ends one night in November because Ilya is engaging in some lighthearted negging with his own fucking husband and the idiot in the seat across from them on the bus (Formerly known as Troy Barrett, but Ilya is taking those privileges away until Fucking Idiot learns from his mistakes) says, "That's not what you said the other day, Roz," and then physically flinches because Shane turns a look onto him that could peel paint and Ilya immediately begins manifesting Troy's imminent and perpetual stubbed toe.
"Oh my God," Troy says, out loud at the looks. "All I meant is that Rozy told me he knows you're the best player in the league, Hollander. He's proud of you."
"Shut up," Ilya says. "Barrett, I will literally kill you."
"Don't touch me," Shane says, when Ilya puts a hand on his knee.
"Baby," Ilya croons, "Baby, no. Your edges were shit tonight. That fall you took in the third period? Fucking embarrassing. You looked like a fucking turtle. Cute and helpless. Maybe you needed a big Russian man to help you--"
"Not in the mood," Shane says firmly. Ilya begins plotting Fucking Idiot's goddamn demise.
Will be murdering your boyfriend Ilya texts Harris after an hour spent staring at the back of Shane's neck while he lays on the edge of the bed with his phone in front of his face and his arms crossed. Sorry not sorry.
Harris doesn't reply. Doesn't even read the stupid text.
Ilya throws his phone to the end of the bed and rolls over, shoves a hand down the back of Shane's pants, massages his asscheek.
"Ilya," Shane says, warningly
"I tell you what you are the best at," Ilya murmurs into the back of his neck. He sinks his teeth in, sucks a kiss over the mark.
"Don't wanna hear it," Shane snaps. "I don't need you to pay me fucking lip service. I need you to keep showing people that we're not going soft on each other. We need to keep playing our best, we can't get complacent, we can't--"
"You," Ilya growls, "are the best fucking hole in the NHL." He yanks Shane's sweatpants down over the curve of his ass.
"Oh," Shane says, all of the wind out of his sails. "Fuck."
"So good at taking cock," Ilya continues. Hand between Shane's thighs, smoothing warm and firm on the soft skin inside, broad side of his thumb nudging the silky skin of Shane's sac, a warm and plush place on Shane's body that should have Ilya's fucking name written on it because only he ever gets to see or touch it.
"Yeah," Shane says. "Yours. Your cock."
"Prettiest fucking cockslut," Ilya says. "Nobody loves getting fucked like you. Can't even call you a whore because whores expect something in return. You take cock and say thank you. You take cock and ask for more cock."
"Yeah," Shane whines, back arching, phone dark and clattering to the floor. "Fuck. Fuck. Please."
"I want your cock. Please give me your cock. Fuck, can I--"
Ilya flips him completely onto his stomach and looms over him, shoves his own pants down his thighs and slides the throbbing ridge of his cock along the fluttering pucker of Shane's hole.
"Tell me what a good slut you are, Hollander."
Ilya slaps his ass, hard, slides a finger into his crease and rubs dry at his hole and watches the muscles in Shane's back go crazy.
"Fucking tell me what you are, Hollander."
"I'm the best slut," Shane says, almost incoherant in the pillow. "Fuck, fuck, I'm the--the best cockslut in the world--"
Ilya shuffles down, spreads Shane's cheeks apart with his thumbs dug ungently in until flesh wells up on either side, white-red mottled with blood that will burst and bruise. He spits on his hole, watches it clench.
"They should call that thing the Hall of Fame," Ilya growls.
"Oh my God," Shane babbles. "Oh my God."
("Who asked this?" Ilya asks, microphones in his face after their game the following night. "Why are we talking in riddles? What was the question again?"
"Do you feel increased scrutiny from hockey fans now that Hollander is on the team with you? By most metrics, Hollander is the best player in the league, and it's hard not to draw direct comparisons between your records and play styles in light of Hollander's transfer to the Centaurs, not to mention your former rivalry and marriage. Are you feeling the pressure?"
"Hah," Ilya says. "First mistake is assuming that rivalry is over. It is very much alive. Hollander and I still keep score."
"Yeah, it's on a white board in their kitchen," Bood jokes, and the press scrum titters, and Ilya reminds himself that Bood is the father of a toddler and that toddlers love to make messes with glittery gifts bought for them by well-meaning hockey uncles.
"Second mistake is calling Hollander best in league," Ilya says, then shrugs, then winks. "Always room for improvement.")
