A Hockey Secret
For absolutely no reason at all, I feel like folks might enjoy this tonight. This is set after The Long Game, so beware there will be spoilers. Also some celebratory drinking, secret sharing and reflections on leadership.
Summary: While drunkenly celebrating, Shane shares a secret with Ilya. Word count: 2.2k
Shane is, maybe, the drunkest Ilya has ever seen him. It’s understandable, really. They are celebrating.
As if he can read Ilya’s mind, Shane flashes a silly, lovesick and extremely drunk smile at him.
“We fucking did it,” Shane says, his voice quieter than Ilya expects it to be. Almost like he can’t believe it.
“We did.” Ilya is entirely certain it’s true. He’s also unsure how to handle feeling this much pride and happiness while staying on his feet. They had done it.
Today — or maybe it was technically yesterday? He hasn’t looked at a clock in hours — the Ottawa Centaurs won their first Stanley Cup. His and Shane’s first, together.
It’s already Ilya’s favorite achievement. Hockey achievement, anyway, he thinks, twisting his wedding ring around his finger.
Shane chugs whatever is left in the red plastic cup one of the rookies shoved into his hand about 15 minutes ago. Ilya really hopes it had been full of champagne because Shane does not need more hard liquor when he’s already looking at Ilya like this, and Shane has never been a huge fan of beer. Stanley Cup celebrations should only ever involve things you like, as far as Ilya is concerned.
Shane drops the empty cup on a nearby table and tugs Ilya into a sloppy kiss.
Oh good, Ilya thinks, it was definitely champagne.
The kiss is more than welcome, of course, but Shane’s intensity is another sign that he’s very drunk. His husband is many wonderful things, but he is still so shy about affection like this in public. Ilya thinks he probably always will be, even if they play for Ottawa with these people they love — people who love them — for years to come. It’s just who Shane is.
It’s adorable.
Shane breaks the kiss and leans his forehead against Ilya’s, still grinning.
“You’re sure this is real?” His words slur together the smallest amount.
Ilya pretends to think about it for a second. “Mmm. I am sure I saw you score twice tonight. I am sure I saw Hazy,” Ilya turns his head away from Shane’s and raises his voice a little so it will carry through the space, “get us a fucking shutout!”
As he expects, even just saying it this way — the most subdued way he’s said it all night — elicits a heartfelt cheer that ripples through the entire crowd of teammates, partners and other assorted family members.
Somewhere around here, Ilya knows that whichever teammates are closest to Wyatt just jumped on him and shook him senseless in their excitement. He sort of hopes Wyatt has a headache, courtesy of too much beer and his many, many happy teammates refusing to leave him the fuck alone.
Relishing the noisy joy, Ilya presses a kiss to Shane’s temple. “Very real, yes?”
“You scored, too,” Shane says, as if Ilya needs the reminder. As if he’s the one drunk enough to have forgotten a single moment of this day. “Plus the assist on the power play.”
“Yes,” Ilya says, smirking. “So impressive, I know.”
The look Shane directs at him is too soft and full of love for Ilya’s playful, cocky comment. Then, abruptly, his expression turns almost mischievous. Maybe a little shy.
Shane leans into him. “Can I tell you a secret?” Shane wobbles as he asks and catches himself by winding an arm around Ilya’s waist.
“Of course.” Trust is the foundation of their relationship. They’ve always kept each other’s secrets. They just have far fewer of them now. “Is what husbands are for, I think.”
“This is a hockey secret,” Shane says, nonsensically.
A hockey secret?
“Maybe you did not hear,” Ilya says it like he’s sharing a secret of his own, “but I just won the Stanley Cup without any top secret Hollander hockey moves.”
Shane smacks his shoulder and leaves his hand on Ilya’s chest. “We did that to-geth-er.” The words come out of Shane’s mouth strangely musically.
It reminds Ilya of Shane inviting him to the cottage that first time, high on painkillers.
“Yes.” Ilya feels helplessly fond and he’s certain that’s written all over his face. He doesn’t care. “We did.” He kisses the tip of Shane’s nose. Shane smiles at the attention. “So what’s this secret?”
Shane looks up at him, blinking in confusion. “What?”
Ilya laughs. Seems he won’t be getting any Hollander trade secrets tonight, after all. “You are so drunk.”
“Yeah,” Shane says, smiling. He leans more of his weight onto Ilya. “You’re not, though.”
“No,” Ilya says. I wanted to remember every single second of this night perfectly.
He’ll do plenty of drunken partying in the weeks to come. But the memory of the night he won his first Stanley Cup is a beer-soaked blur, so he’d decided early on not to go too crazy tonight. He’s had a couple beers, done more than one shot and is generally having plenty of fun. He’s nowhere near as far gone as Shane, though.
It’s rare and intoxicating in its own way, Shane feeling safe enough to let go like this. Ilya isn’t sure Shane freely or drunkenly celebrated any one of his three previous cup wins, so Ilya’s been encouraging and enabling him.
“You want more champagne?”
“Noooo,” Shane says with a slow shake of his head. “Baaad idea.” Those words seem to trigger something, and Shane’s eyes go wide. “Oh! Right!”
“What?”
“Don’t tell anyone, but this was the easiest season ever.”
Oh, Ilya thinks. Shane’s hockey secret. “You mean because of this team? Like, you feel safe here?”
“No, no.” Shane’s face crumples in adorable confusion before brightening. “Well, yes! I love this team. Love being here. Love playing with you all the time.” Without any warning at all, in perfect Russian, he adds, “I love you.”
Ilya’s heart does its predictable Shane is speaking Russian flutter. He’s so glad they’ve already won the cup, because Ilya is so fucking happy that he’s not sure he’ll be able to pull off intimidating again for at least several weeks.
“I love it too,” Ilya says. He’s always relieved to hear Shane say he loves playing in Ottawa. He’s especially happy to hear it now, while Shane is this loose and uninhibited. “But what do you mean, then?”
“I mean it was the easiest season I’ve played since… I don’t even know. Ever?” Shane laughs, delighted. “You know me. You get me. You’re a great captain. We have a great team, a great coach.”
It all sounds a lot like a “yes” to the question Ilya had asked before, but he’s not about to tell Shane that. He’s clearly working up to something.
“I think…” Shane starts, pausing to bite at his lip in a way that has Ilya worrying he might split it.
Ilya brushes his fingers along Shane’s shoulder and down his arm to encourage him to keep talking.
Shane smiles at him, takes a deep breath, and drunkenly whispers, “I think maybe I really hated being team captain?” It’s a question and not, all at once. Shane laughs again, as if the revelation is silly and unimportant. As if he’s not talking about something he spent years of his career doing extremely successfully.
As if everyone on this team — their team — hasn’t been calling them co-captains, playfully, since basically their third week on the same roster. As if Ilya hasn’t been idly thinking about how to tell Shane that, actually, the title can be his again if he wants it back. Or that they can switch off each season, maybe, even though that is guaranteed to become dangerously competitive.
Shane is still talking, blissfully unaware of the way his words are rewiring some of the things Ilya thought he knew about his husband.
“I hate managing… personalities.” Shane says the word like it’s offensive. “I never really knew how to calm down nervous rookies or help someone in a slump. I was terrible at giving inspiring speeches after a bad loss. Or pumping the team up before a game. I just — ” He sighs like he’s tired just thinking about it. Then, like a switch flips, Shane smiles. “You are so good at it, Ilya.”
“You are good at it too, Shane,” Ilya says, because he is sure of this. “You do not lead a team to back-to-back cups if you are a shitty captain.”
Shane flushes, pleased by the reminder or the praise or both. “Maybe.”
“Definitely.”
“Whatever. My point is — this season, with you… it was just hockey.” Shane settles both hands on Ilya’s shoulders, bracing him for whatever he is about to say next. “Pure, simple hockey. I just… got to play hockey.” He shakes Ilya a little, buzzing with excitement. “And it was so fucking fun.”
Oh. Easiest season ever. Fun. Oh.
Ilya loves this talented, dedicated overachiever so much.
With one glaring exception, Shane has never been great at doing anything other than what is expected of him.
Everyone expected him to be captain, so he was. Everyone expected him to be a good captain, so he was. No one bothered to ask if that was what Shane wanted. And it had been that way for years.
He sounded shocked confessing this secret, so maybe Shane hadn’t even known that he disliked being captain.
Ilya's heart hurts for Shane.
He also isn’t sure he can believe it.
He worries about how much coming to play in Ottawa cost Shane. He took so much shit for the playoffs loss last year and he’s getting paid less than he should to play here. He gave up everything he’d worked to build in Montreal, which Ilya imagines still stings even if the team had been ungrateful assholes about it all, in the end. He had to start from scratch and find a place for himself on a new team. That’s never easy, even if you’re a player as skilled as Shane.
Ilya’s getting better about accepting that it’s only fair for both of them to occasionally make sacrifices for the other. He knows that, on paper, he gave up a lot for Shane: left Russia permanently, left his team in Boston, moved to Ottawa.
But he also knows that, in the end, he didn’t actually lose anything. He gained a family in Shane and Anya and Yuna and David. He found the rest of his family here, too, on this team.
Ilya is so happy here. So the idea that Shane might not feel like he lost anything, either?
Well.
Shane’s smiles had been more frequent this season, both on and off the ice. Ilya had noticed. He assumed and hoped it was some combination of being out, being newly married and living with his husband and their adorable dog full time. He hadn’t let himself dream it might be because of changes on the ice, too.
If anything, Ilya had thought maybe the changes on the ice had come at the expense of a few smiles, actually.
But here Shane is, telling him the exact opposite.
It feels too good to be true.
“Noooooo,” Shane whines, breaking Ilya out of his thoughts. He’s frowning a little. “It’s a happy secret. Don’t be sad.” The stern instruction is how Ilya discovers he has tears in his eyes. Shane’s ridiculous pout makes him laugh. It’s weak and wet, but it’s a laugh.
He blinks a few times. Shane squeezes his shoulders.
“I’m good,” Shane says, so earnest Ilya can’t do anything but believe him. “Really.”
“Promise me?” Even as Ilya asks, he realizes he doesn’t actually need Shane to promise this. He knows it. Trusts it. Trusts him.
Now that Shane has said it, and he’s thought about it, it makes perfect sense. If someone had asked Ilya if his husband would enjoy a job that is a never-ending and always-changing combination of motivational speaking, planning social gatherings and navigating interpersonal issues, he would have said no, of course not.
Strategy and leadership is a part of it, of course, but that’s not something a captain does alone. Shane is unquestionably part of the team’s leadership, with or without a C on his jersey.
“I promise,” Shane says. He sounds as certain as he does when he tells Ilya that he loves him.
“Okay, moya lyubov,” Ilya says, because what else is there to say, really? “I am glad.”
Shane is about to kiss him again when Bood yells, “Hollander! Roz! Get your asses over here!”
Shane starts in the direction of Bood’s voice, but he hesitates. He looks at Ilya, searching.
“Hey.” His voice is soft and his dark eyes are less clouded with alcohol than they’d been just 30 seconds earlier. “You okay? We can go home.”
Ilya’s touched that Shane’s checking in. Between that and the reminder that home is here, in Ottawa, 20 minutes away and they’ll go there tonight, together… His chest feels tight.
“I am okay,” he says. He means it. “We should go see what they want, yes?”
Shane takes Ilya’s hand in his, squeezes it once and then tugs them in Bood’s direction.
ao3 link (for when she's back from the war & because there's a chapter 2 😉)
