I'll learn to get by on the little victories...

Because what do you mean they went to the batting cages for some silly fun to watch everyone flail at an unfamiliar sport, only for Shane to need three practice swings before figuring out the force and timing needed to start hitting every single pitch? What do you mean he sets the course record at the mini golf place they have the Pike twins birthday at? What do you mean he learned how to play cricket over a long weekend in the UK? What do you MEAN your Canadian ass that grew up on a calm, tiny lake went to visit Rose in LA and just learned to surf from “some guy” one of the days she was busy??

Shane doesn’t get why they all think it’s so crazy. He’s a professional athlete, he’s good at full body and mind control as well as adaptability and hand-eye coordination, and he’s so used to being the best in the world at hockey that he views being mundanely good at anything else as barely noticeable. He argues with Troy over whether he counts as being good at basketball just because he killed them all at the basketball shooting game at a Dave and Buster’s

They all start making bets to see who can find a sport Hollander isn’t good at. Harris is convinced he’ll win with figure skating because Shane’s muscle memory will want to work against him with a technique that’s so similar but also so different, only for Shane to come out of an afternoon learning from his old friend who was at the Olympics with the ability to do simple jumps and spins and is insisting the whole team learn so they can incorporate it into plays. Harris is not allowed to make suggestions after that

Ilya watches Shane’s eyes blink, slow and heavy. Long lashes down against the lightest freckles just under his eyes. Ilya thinks Shane might have finally slipped into sleep, a slow exhale from Shane’s nose that fans out against Ilya’s thumb, where it is rubbing slow circles over Shane’s pouty lips, the rest of his fingers curled gently around Shane’s cheek, tucking into the silky hair behind his ear.

Ilya’s eyes fall over Shane, from the top of his head, to his strong brows, his closed eyes, strong nose, the shape of his full bottom lip that Ilya rubs rubs over, watches it pink and warm smudging under his touch. Ilya wants to kiss him, but he doesn’t want to pull him out of sleep if he’s sinking into it. Ilya takes a deep breath in, licks over his own lips instead. They taste like Shane anyway, Shane’s skin, the warmth of him, his salvia, his cum. Ilya’s eyes trace the line of Shane’s neck, down to his shoulder, bare where the covers had slipped down. Ilya catches the corner of the blanket, with the hand not cupping Shane’s back tugs it up over Shane’s shoulder and he rubs his warm flat palm over the fabric.

Shane lets out a low whimper, a noise caught in the back of his throat and then a low soft hum and his eyes are blinking back open, a tiny flutter of lashes and the dark brown of his eyes are on Ilya’s once more. Hi baby, there he is, Ilya thinks fondly, and his pointer finger drifts up, rubbing by the corner of his sleepy eye. Shane just stares at Ilya, big sweet brown eyes and dark lashes and Ilya loves him so much, so desperately.

Knowing Shane is awake, Ilya leans in and takes the kiss he’d wanted, Shane’s upper lip between his, his thumb still playing with Shane’s bottom lip in gentle brushes. Ilya feels Shane wiggle and flex his toes against the top of Ilya’s foot and Ilya smiles as he draws back.

Shane is content, soft and sweet in his arms, doing his happy toe wriggle, Ilya feels like he truely must the the only man in the world to experience this level of joy, since he is the only man to have Shane Hollander in his bed, in his arms, doe eyed and his. Gorgeous and pliant and sweet, after Ilya had fucked him to tears, shaky wet gasps in the sheets as he bared his hips back up into has driving thrusts. After he’d whined “love you love you” as he came. Muttered “Ilya, Ilya” with reaching grabbing hands to pull Ilya down onto him as he came down form his orgasm, voice broken and shaky and desperate.

It’s been a month since he’d seen Shane, and the ache of missing him felt like a distant memory, like years ago, like he’d never lost the shape of him in his hands. Like Shane won’t be gone in the early hours of the morning.

Shane tilts his chin up and Ilya is distracted from his thoughts, eyes back on Shane and watches the slight part of his mouth. His silent ask for a kiss. Ilya rushes to comply, kisses him soft and sweet, slipping his thumb away to lick into Shane’s mouth, rubbing it over his cheek in slow circles instead.

The sound Shane makes as Ilya parts the kiss makes heat rush through Ilya, makes his stomach twist. He’s so desperately in love with him. He wants to live his life just to hear that sound again and again and again. He wants to lick Shane’s molars and brush his thumb over his eyelids and nuzzle his face info the curve of his hip and bite his chin.

“Love you” the words are sweet soft from Shane’s mouth, spoken against Ilya’s mouth and Ilya has the entire world between his fingers. He is water, afternoon sunlight. He is here here here and safe.

“I love you” Ilya whispers back, runs the back of his knuckles from the top of Shane’s cheek to his jaw, skimming his fingertips down over his neck.

“You wanna sleep?” Ilya asks, fingers find Shane’s ear, thumb plays with his earlobe.

Shane nods, nods, bumps his lips against Ilya’s in a nuzzle and Ilya’s hand goes back to cupping Shane’s face, his thumb goes back to soothing Shane’s lips. Watches as Shane sighs happily.

“Sleep” Ilya urges, squeezes the arm wrapped around Shane’s waist, watches Shane’s eyes slip shut.

“Okay” Shane sighs and he’s tilting his chin up in the tiniest motion against the rub of Ilya’s thumb.

Ilya’s heart is horribly and sticky and thudding in his chest, adoration knows at his ribs and drips down the back of throat. His sweetheart, his soft thing, his heart really, his whole heart so gentle here where he exists with Ilya, his “Zaychik” Ilya barely says the word, feels it catch like how your throat clicks before you cry.

“Mm?” Shane hums and Ilya presses his face into the side of Shane’s head, exhales slowly.

“My Zaychik” Ilya whispers into his hair.

“Ty takaya milaya tol'ko dlya menya, pravda? Takaya krasivaya. Moyo serdtse. Ya khochu ukusit' tebya za shchochki, ya khochu snova zanyat'sya s toboy seksom, ya khochu dat' tebe usnut'. Mozhesh' spat', zaychik, vot tak, s moim bol'shim pal'tsem, so vsem moim telom.”

You’re so sweet just for me, aren’t you? So beautiful. My heart. I want to bite your cheeks, I want to have sex with you again, I want to let you sleep. You can sleep, bunny, like this, with my thumb, with my whole body

Ilya feels Shane’s tiny smile under his thumb, the happy sigh at Ilya speaking Russian. Even if he doesn’t know the words. Ilya know Shane loves when he speaks Russian freely around him.

Shane’s sleepy hand finds Ilya’s chest and pats, pats over his heart and Ilya knows, feels Shane slip into heavy sleep in his arms.

Shane asks in the morning, when they are saying another stupid goodbye against the door. Whispers the question, like it’s something private, asks “what is um zay- zaycherk? Zayek?” He tries to sound out the word, all jumbled and Ilya hooks his fingers in the front of Shane’s pants, pulls his hips in to his. Ilya needs to fuck his again. They barely have time for a few more kisses.

“Ah” Ilya nods. He should have known, his clever little boy, picks out words that he finds the sound of, words that Ilya coo to him, that he uses like names.

Ilya kisses Shane, long and slow, licks into his mouth like he can keep the taste of him with him for the next weeks apart. “Bunny” Ilya exhales as he pulls back, takes Shane’s face in his hand and squeezes once softly.

“Huh?” Shane asks, face all kissed and lovely and Ilya laughs.

“Means bunny, like you, cute little bunny” Ilya smirks and revels in the blush that pinks Shane’s cheeks, he wants to push up Shane’s hoodie so he can see it splotch on his chest too.

“You like hm?” Ilya says after a moment and Shane shrugs, tells him to shut up and oh he does like it Ilya realises, he really likes it. He calls Shane bunny, in English this time a week later during FaceTime sex and Shane cums so hard he goes out of frame, trembling.

Hmmm OKAY yes I think I have a few more:

- "Luca come here. Let me see. Open your fucking mouth, kid. Okay yeah, he's bleeding, tell them to give that fucker double, Ilya--"

- "Yeah so like...you eat the food with your hands. No forks. No, they give you this bread. Yeah it's good. Kind of spicy."

- "Hey buddy. Nah, not much. Jackie and the kids good? That's good. Surprised you're not part of the scrum. Yeah he told me he was gonna try to fight you tonight."

- "Ha, no, stay there. I don't wanna hear it. No, I don't want you to whisper it either. Save it for the power play."

- "Can you do this with your pinky? Yeah. Huh, maybe it's because I've broken mine. Hey, Bood, can you do this with your pinky? Huh. Chouinard--tap Chouinard--hey, try to do this--"

- "That ref fucking hates me and you know why--you fucking KNOW why--no I will not calm down!"

- "Yeah it was nice, but I don't think we'll go back. I dunno. It rained the whole time and Ilya said it made him feel homesick. No, like, for Russia. Yeah. Big sad Slavic eyes the whole time. And he's, y'know. My guy. When he's sad, I'm sad. Nah, that's not sappy, that's just marriage, man."

- "Hey, did you know that the point of hockey is actually to keep your blades on the ice? Yeah it helps. You can't go as far skating on your nose."

- "Aw shit, buddy, did he get you? Did my husband use his big stick to put you on your back? Aw man, bud, I dunno. Sounds kind of gay."

- "No, it's fine, not broken. Don't fuss. I'll tell you what I said later. No, later. Uh-huh. You get it. Eyes on the game, Rozanov."

- "Aw, fuck, he threw a blade. Oh you are not serious. Why is he crawling. COME ON, THIS IS WHAT WE LEARNED THE POWER PULLS FOR--"

- "Oh, kiss cam. You know, I asked them not to--helmet, Ilya. I said you could kiss my helme--mmm. Fine."

- "Say that again about my fucking family, motherfucker! Say that shit again! I'm not gonna let you fuckers play like that anymore!"

Shane and Ilya are obviously hunkering down at the cottage together. There's no hockey, but they don't know for how long, so they're still training all the time. They're doing interviews and having to make it look like they're in completely different places. Ilya has to keep being reminded that he's supposed to still be back in Ottawa.

Ilya's teammates keep asking if they can be in a lockdown bubble together and he's gotta be like "No, can't do that. I'm not taking any chances." But now they're worried because he hasn't seen or been around another human being in months and they've noticed that even before lockdown he made more jokes about killing himself than the average person, so they're stressed to their eyeballs about his mental health.

Meanwhile Ilya's living the kind of domestic fantasy with his man that he didn't think they were going to get until retirement. For the first time ever most days he can truly pretend that he and Shane are the only people in the world. Sometimes David and Yuna come over for dinner because they are also isolating at their cottage. But most of the time it's just endless hours of just the two of them and neither of them could be happier. Their biggest decision every day is when and where to fuck. Some people are getting into sourdough – Shane and Ilya have committed to learning one new sexual position every day.

#okay but them coming out to Ilya's team because like his team is concerned and maybe Shane and Ilya go back to Ilya’s ottawa house to get a#grocery delivery that they can't get out at the cottage and the doorbell rings and Shane goes to get it and its bood and hayes standing 6#feet from the door with like a care package for ilya and they're like “ilya said he was isolating alone” and shane is there in boxers and a#raiders 81 sweater like “....um....”

Ilya appears behind him, also in boxers and Shane's Canada fleece, and he looks over to where Bood and Hayes' jaws are practically on the floor, and flashes them an apologetic smile. But internally he's also like fuck, fuck, fuck, Shane doesn't want to come out or be out yet fuck they've fucked it. So he starts like, "So however weird your lockdown stories are, it can't be as weird as ours."

And Shane puts a hand on his arm to stop him, and is like "You can tell them the truth about us, baby, it's okay."

and ilya gets struck (again) about how time moves and leaves traces on the human body, how he got to grow up and now gets to grow old with shane, and be the person to notice the first trace of wrinkle on his face.

On the one hand, it's one of the days he can most keenly feel the loss of his mom. He misses the way she would wake him up by pulling his ears – one tug for every year of his age – and then hand him his gift. He misses the way that she would always sneak him a second gift right before bed so that he wouldn't be sad about this birthday ending.

On the other hand, they're also a good reminder that life is better than it has been for a long time. Instead of the cold, perfunctory, "Happy Birthday, Ilya," he'd get from his father (if he was lucky), his team have always celebrated him. He's always had a pile of gifts left outside his locker to surprise him, he's always been taken out clubbing, never once having to buy a drink for himself.

His favourite thing has always been the happy birthday text he gets from Shane every year, going back to long before he was his boyfriend. He's never missed a single one, and they're a good encapsulation of how much their relationship had changed over the years:

Happy birthday.

Happy birthday Rozanov.

Happy birthday Rozanov.

Happy birthday Rozanov. 🎂

God knows if you'll actually get this, it's been literal fucking months, but for what it's worth, happy birthday. Hope you're okay.

Happy birthday Rozanov. 🎂🎉

Happy birthday Rozanov. Remind me to give you your 'gift' next time we're together. 😉

Happy birthday Ilya. I'll see you soon. Counting down the days. ❤️

On his first birthday as Shane Hollander's boyfriend, he finds that he's looking forward to waking up to this year's birthday text almost more than anything, and is disappointed when there isn't one. He figures Shane must just be busy and he'll text when he's finished with whatever he's got going on. Ilya carries on with his day, finishes his workout, showers, but still there's no text from Shane.

Now he's starting to panic. He's always gotten Shane's birthday messages first thing in the morning. Has something happened to him? He doesn't want to message in case it's nothing and he makes it sound like he's desperate for Shane's birthday message (as much as he kind of is), so he ends up scouring the news sites for any sign that something might have happened to him. There's nothing.

Feeling a little pit in his stomach at the idea that Shane might have forgotten his birthday in the first year of being his boyfriend, he makes his way to the living room, deciding that he'll watch the rest of the cup final that he and Shane were too busy sexting during to finish watching the night before. He's just sat down on the couch when he hears the knock on his door.

No way. Surely not?

But it is. There, right there, close enough to reach out for, is Shane, carrying an overnight bag, holding an enormous gift box, and wearing a slightly nervous smile.