Meditations on Magic

It’s surprisingly easy, natural even, to crawl into Rozanov’s lap. To cradle his blonde head between his palms and weave his fingers through Rozanov’s thick curls; to rub his thumb over Rozanov’s earlobe and gently rock them back and forth at the edge of the mattress.

The shape of Rozanov--Ilya, he reminds himself, Ilya--is solid beneath him, warm and sniffly, his face pressed into Shane’s pec right by his armpit. There are tears soaking through the fabric of his nice, new shirt but Shane finds he doesn’t mind. Doesn’t mind even a little bit when Ilya breathes shakily and rubs his nose over the sleeve of Shane’s shirt, probably leaving behind a trail of snot. In fact, something in him warms and unfurls and spreads all throughout his body at the action. At the vulnerability in it. He wants to tuck Ilya into his chest and keep him there. Maybe forever.

That particular thought makes Shane’s stomach twist itself into an uncomfortable knot.

I would never be able to go back home again. Do you get that?

Shane pulls back, just a fraction, his palm still cupping the back of Ilya’s head as he slides his thumb along Ilya’s temple, catching stray tears on the pad then smudging them into Ilya’s hairline. Not burying the evidence of Ilya’s vulnerability but carefully, tenderly, tucking it somewhere safe. Between the press of their bodies.

You don’t like me.

Rozanov--Ilya--shudders through a snotty inhale then blinks up at Shane, his eyes wet and dark in the low lamplight. Involuntarily, like he just can’t help himself--he can’t, he really can’t--Shane’s forehead drops and then their noses are bumping together, breaths mingling in the space between them. The tip of his nose catches on the bump of Ilya’s bridge--the bone broken and healed and broken again--before sliding down further, dragging over the curve of Ilya’s cupid’s bow.

He closes his eyes. Ilya shifts and presses his lips to the corner of Shane’s mouth and then just lingers there. Lingers, and lingers, and lingers. His nose tucking into Shane’s cheek, fingers grasping at Shane’s shirt. Somehow it’s the closest they’ve ever been.

“Do you feel better?” Shane breathes, and it’s muffled where his mouth is smeared against Ilya’s damp cheek, but he knows Ilya hears it because he tenses and sucks in a ragged breath. His shoulders rolling back like he’s preparing to push away. Shane holds him tighter, clamps his thighs around Ilya’s hips. He doesn’t want him to pull away. “Don’t,” Shane says and Ilya pauses, fingers flexing against Shane’s hip. A nervous twitch perhaps.

“I’m not--” he starts and Shane shakes his head, dipping down and brushing their mouths together. He tastes tears on Rozanov’s lips and he licks away the salt.

“You are,” Shane insists and finally settles when he feels Ilya relent, spine slumping as Shane slides his fingers through his hair. “Stay,” he murmurs and Ilya shivers, tilting his head, mouth smudging against Shane’s chin. Shane soothes his thumb in circles over Ilya’s earlobe, something he’s seen Rozanov do a dozen times to himself before. The effect is immediate. Ilya’s head tilts into the touch and his lashes flutter. “Stay,” Shane repeats.

“Is my room,” Ilya retorts, tone bordering on bitchy. Shane huffs a laugh and pulls back to look down at Ilya again. Ilya is watching him warily, eyes darting around Shane’s face like he doesn’t quite trust anything he’s seeing. Like he’s the one that’s asking stay and Shane is the one pulling away.

Shane thinks of Ilya asking him to stay in Boston. Lips pressed to the pinched corner of Shane’s mouth as he whispered stay into the quiet afternoon. In the months since then he has wondered what would have happened if he had stayed.

Is simple for me.

Nothing about any of this has ever been simple. They both knew that. Any attempt at pretending otherwise was, as Shane had said, bullshit.

“You are staring at me,” Ilya mumbles then. It sounds self-conscious in a way that Shane is unfamiliar with coming from Rozanov’s mouth. And he wants to say something witty or flirty or teasing in retort but he comes up short. He's too busy fixating on the shifting colours in Ilya’s eyes, clearer to him now that he is sitting in his lap. Blue and green and hazel flicker behind the curtain of Ilya’s thick lashes and Shane presses his thumbs to the apples of his cheeks. Shane is most certainly staring. Trying to figure Ilya out. “Hollander.”

Shane. He thinks. Call me Shane.

Instead of replying to Ilya, he ducks his head and presses their brows together. Between them their breaths shudder and mingle. Ilya’s breath smells like mint and cigarettes and Shane wants to want to reprimand him but instead finds he’s missed the smell.

When he’d been with Rose a few of her Hollywood friends would chain smoke after dinner. One in particular had smoked Ilya’s brand of cigarettes -- Newports -- and Shane had shivered when the smoke had wafted over him outside the restaurant in the freezing Montreal air. Something within him had churned hot and nauseating at the sense memory. Almost like he could taste Rozanov’s lips on his -- taste his tongue licking into his mouth, hear himself complaining about Rozanov’s smoking, see Rozanov rolling his eyes in response. An attack on all his senses. His whole body overcome by Rozanov.

Maybe it wasn’t that he’d missed the smell in general. But that he’d missed it on Ilya. The way the menthol scent mixed with Ilya’s cologne. Bergamot and vetiver. Rich and masculine and warm. Beneath that the smell of Ilya’s skin, his hair, the salt of his sweat. The sharp scent of peppermint on Ilya’s breath, attempting to cover up the cigarettes.

Shane presses his mouth to Ilya’s then and sighs, moans, gasps, as Ilya’s tongue slips between his teeth. His fingers grasp, on instinct, tugging at Ilya’s hair, trying to bring them closer together. Not that they possibly could be closer. Shane still heavy in Ilya’s lap, pinning him at the edge of the mattress with his thighs. Ilya beneath him and gripping back, his fingers digging into Shane’s flesh through the soft material of his shirt.

They kiss for a while like that. Gripping and grasping at each other. Mouths dragging, lingering. Each kiss getting deeper, hotter, wetter. Until Shane’s jaw is aching and his head is spinning and his chest is shivering, desperate for a full gulp of air.

When they drag apart Shane is breathing heavily. Ilya’s pupils are wide and black, almost entirely encompassing the blue of his irises. His breathing is unsteady too. Puffing over Shane’s cheeks in damp gasps as he licks his bottom lip and nudges their noses together.

“Hollander,” Ilya calls and Shane shakes his head.

“Don’t,” he answers.

“Don’t?” Ilya asks, head tilting, mouth smudging against the corner of Shane’s lips.

“Ilya,” Shane murmurs. And in those two short syllables he feels so hopelessly exposed.

I think I like you a bit too much.

Ilya is quiet for a beat. Then two. Shane doesn’t dare look at him.

Then, he says, “Shane.”

And Shane shivers. The sound of his name on Rozanov’s--Ilya’s tongue rolls right through him. From the hairs on his scalp to the tips of his toes. He feels warmed by it. He feels overwhelmed by it. He wants to hear Ilya say it again. And again. And again.

So, he repeats, “Ilya.”

It’s a thing Sirius does, apparently.

Has always done, presumably, though Remus only has data from the eight months they’ve shared the flat. He showers and then he just…exists, afterwards, drifting through the kitchen or the hallway or the sitting room with a towel around his hips and his hair dripping onto his shoulders, looking for his phone or the remote or something to eat or drink, completely unbothered. Like it doesn’t occur to him that this might be difficult for anyone.

Remus has gotten very good at looking at other things.

🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧

There’s a Tuesday where Sirius leans across him to reach the coffee, and Remus stares at the wall behind the kettle and tries to think of awful things for as long as it takes Sirius to find a mug and leave. He can’t very well risk getting a stiffy near his best friend!

Then there’s a Thursday where Remus is halfway through a chapter of a book, and Sirius wanders in to ask something about the gas bill, and Remus answers without looking up, which he’s proud of, and then ruins it by glancing over the moment Sirius turns to go.

Sirius catches him that time. He doesn’t say anything, just smirks, and goes back to his room.

Remus reads the same paragraph until the letters blur together, forming something completely unreadable.

🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧

It becomes a sort of game, though Remus would never call it that. He gets better at the looking-away. Sirius, he suspects, gets better at engineering reasons to be in whatever room Remus is in after he’s had a shower. It’s hard to prove, but Remus suspects Sirius might be doing it on purpose. He’s not going to bring it up, though. So he makes his tea and keeps his eyes on the mugs, keeps his eyes on his book, keeps his eyes on the middle distance while Sirius stands in the hallway going through the post, water still tracking down his spine, taking up more space than one person strictly needs to. Not just physically, but in Remus’s mind, too.

It’s fine.

It’s completely fine.

🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧

It’s a Sunday evening when it stops being fine.

Sirius has been to the gym. He showers; he emerges. He drops onto the other end of the sofa with the towel still on and picks up the remote, scrolling through channels with total serenity while Remus sits very still beside him and looks at his book. The words are shapes; the shapes mean nothing. There’s a drop of water moving down the side of Sirius’s neck, and Remus watches it without noticing, and then Sirius turns his head and catches him, and this time Remus doesn’t look away fast enough, and the smile starts at the corner of Sirius’s mouth—

Remus puts the book down.

He stands up, crosses the small, stupid distance between them, takes Sirius’s face in both hands, and kisses him. Sirius goes still for one second—and after one long, suspended second, makes a sound low in his throat and kisses back, his hands coming up to grip Remus’s shirt, pulling him closer down with a desperation. His mouth is warm, and his lips are soft, and he kisses the way he does everything, completely committed to the bit, like there’s nothing else in the world worth doing.

When they pull apart, Sirius is staring up at him with wide eyes. The infuriating smirk is finally gone, replaced with something much more meaningful.

Remus holds his gaze.

It’s a thing Sirius does, apparently.

Has always done, presumably, though Remus only has data from the eight months they’ve shared the flat. He showers and then he just…exists, afterwards, drifting through the kitchen or the hallway or the sitting room with a towel around his hips and his hair dripping onto his shoulders, looking for his phone or the remote or something to eat or drink, completely unbothered. Like it doesn’t occur to him that this might be difficult for anyone.

Remus has gotten very good at looking at other things.

🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧

There’s a Tuesday where Sirius leans across him to reach the coffee, and Remus stares at the wall behind the kettle and tries to think of awful things for as long as it takes Sirius to find a mug and leave. He can’t very well risk getting a stiffy near his best friend!

Then there’s a Thursday where Remus is halfway through a chapter of a book, and Sirius wanders in to ask something about the gas bill, and Remus answers without looking up, which he’s proud of, and then ruins it by glancing over the moment Sirius turns to go.

Sirius catches him that time. He doesn’t say anything, just smirks, and goes back to his room.

Remus reads the same paragraph until the letters blur together, forming something completely unreadable.

🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧

It becomes a sort of game, though Remus would never call it that. He gets better at the looking-away. Sirius, he suspects, gets better at engineering reasons to be in whatever room Remus is in after he’s had a shower. It’s hard to prove, but Remus suspects Sirius might be doing it on purpose. He’s not going to bring it up, though. So he makes his tea and keeps his eyes on the mugs, keeps his eyes on his book, keeps his eyes on the middle distance while Sirius stands in the hallway going through the post, water still tracking down his spine, taking up more space than one person strictly needs to. Not just physically, but in Remus’s mind, too.

It’s fine.

It’s completely fine.

🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧

It’s a Sunday evening when it stops being fine.

Sirius has been to the gym. He showers; he emerges. He drops onto the other end of the sofa with the towel still on and picks up the remote, scrolling through channels with total serenity while Remus sits very still beside him and looks at his book. The words are shapes; the shapes mean nothing. There’s a drop of water moving down the side of Sirius’s neck, and Remus watches it without noticing, and then Sirius turns his head and catches him, and this time Remus doesn’t look away fast enough, and the smile starts at the corner of Sirius’s mouth—

Remus puts the book down.

He stands up, crosses the small, stupid distance between them, takes Sirius’s face in both hands, and kisses him. Sirius goes still for one second—and after one long, suspended second, makes a sound low in his throat and kisses back, his hands coming up to grip Remus’s shirt, pulling him closer down with a desperation. His mouth is warm, and his lips are soft, and he kisses the way he does everything, completely committed to the bit, like there’s nothing else in the world worth doing.

When they pull apart, Sirius is staring up at him with wide eyes. The infuriating smirk is finally gone, replaced with something much more meaningful.

Remus holds his gaze.

The whole team settles in with rapt attention, ready to roast the shit out of Roz over it via group chat, only to see. Well. It's a series of interview clips over the years. It's made up exclusively of three things. One, clips of Hollander "stealing" linguistically challenging questions that the whole team knows Rozanov hates. Two, clips of Rozanov derailing questions that are about Hollander's "representation of his community," which gossip on the street says makes Hollander uncomfortable. Three, Hollander and Rozanov commenting individually on the rivalry, with vicious comments such as. "He's of course a great player, but he'll find us difficult to beat." Such fire in Rozanov's comments are especially damning, given his whole chirp-king-schtick. The video editor, with all the obsession and perception of a true fangirl, makes sure to circle every instance where you can see the shadow of Hollander and Rozanov pressing their feet together - and in one instance holding hands - beneath the interview table. (You wouldn't see it unless you're looking for it - or unless someone circles it in red for you.)

The video finishes, and the team sits in a kind of shocked silence as the next video auto-plays. This one is a compilation of Rozanov chirping Hollander on the ice. Here, the editor has helpfully drawn an arrow to Hollander's face whenever he blushes. The editor has also inserted text overlays with comments like. "Look at how fiercely Rozanov insults his rival." And then puts smaller arrows pointing to Roz's body language, with helpful texts like "excited wiggle indicating absolute fury," and "besotted grin indicating deep hatred." The sarcasm is distressingly accurate in its point.

(Listen, the whole team knows what Roz looks like when he's chirping someone. This - this is not it. This is not it at all. This is him when he's being silly with people he really likes. What is going on.)

The video finishes, and this time someone has the presence of mind to stop the auto-play before another mind-breaking thing comes up.

Someone else, trying to lighten the silence with a joke, and maybe dismiss it all as a fever dream, says, "Montreal Jane? More like Montreal Shane, am I right?"

And. Well.

Once it's out there, there's no coming back from it.

it makes me want a 5+1 story with 5 times shane went to a centaurs event as a "friend" of ilya's and the +1 as either him attending as ilya's partner or as a centaur himself.

the first time would be at the end of summer, right after the end of the ottawa summer camp. wyatt asks shane how long he's going to be in town for before he heads back to montreal, and he says it'll be a few more days, and hayes says bood is hosting a pre-season bbq and shane should totally swing by. he's hesitant, but the fact that it's wyatt who invites him and confirms with bood that it's cool vs him clearly tagging along with ilya that makes him risk it.

the boxing day party would probably fall as time 3 or 4? i haven't decided what the others are yet.

but through these 5 parties, shane slowly gets to know the cens and their partners, sees how different the culture is from montreal, gets to know these people ilya talks about for himself, and slowly lets his guard down.

for their part, the centaurs get to know shane as a person better and not just The Shane Hollander™️and they also can't help but notice that their captain, who's always so busy on their days off, is conveniently always available if hollander is also around.

by time 5, most people have figured out that something is going on between them. everyone has pet theories about if it's serious or exclusive or new, but they're trying to tip-toe around it and not let shane or ilya know that they suspect something. it doesn't help that ilya brings anya, and she seems very familiar with shane.

Yuna at the beginning is like 'urgh David not our shane, not under our roof' 😆😆 and David will just smile with a cheeky twinkle in his eye with a 'sure dear so 20 dollars?' 'You're on!'

The bed in their son's childhood room is heard creaking very lightly at 11 pm and Yuna is the first to notice. She glances the sleeping man next to her hoping that he's fast asleep, but a heavy arm drapes across her waist pulling her into the warmth of her husband.

He sleepily murmers, "I think this is round 2 actually." And she feels her cheeks burning.

"Oh my god David, how do you even know that?"

"I know my sons"

"Ew that sounds so wrong"

"My love, they've been together for nearly 15 years now. Surely you know they're having sex with each other."

"I know that! I just.... I don't need to hear my literal child having sex!"

"Well, he's an adult who has a husband he's happily married to and they'reboth in their prime years of life while they play a physically straining game for a living...i would suggest you use your ear plugs. But then again, They're not even being that loud"

"David!" Yuna hisses, giving his arm a slap which results in David chuckling.

"Want me to distract you darling?" He says rubbing her stomach and pressing a gentle kiss to the top of her shoulder

"David I swear to god!"

"uh huh, then you better be quiet and let me take care of you"

And David is anything if not efficient. Yuna needs to press a pillow to her face in order to not moan outloud as her thighs shake.

Down the hallway, shane has had to stuff his mouth with a pair of (clean!) Underwear while ilya fucks him cause he will not have his mother finding out the noises he makes in bed!

Yuna pretends to not notice purple spot on her son's stomach as his shirt rides up while he's trying to get flour out of the top cabinet and ilya can barely suppress the smirk growing on his face as he notices a hickey at the base of Yuna's throat that he's certain wasn't there yesterday.

Wolfstar in ✨skirts✨

Ilya always had been a light sleeper, so no matter how lightly they stepped he was awake moments after the first shocked gasp.

Ilya knows it’s over for him. There’s no mistaking that there’s a man asleep on his chest in a clearly non-platonic cuddle. Usually Ilya would be punching the intruder, threatening violence to try and ensure they kept their mouth shut but he has quickly realised something far more important. With the way they are sleeping, Ilya on his underneath on his back and Shane on his stomach on top with his face pressed into the gap between Ilya’s neck and the couch, they can’t see his face.

He quickly pulls Shane’s hood up over his head to hide hair and rests a hand over it to gently discourage Shane from moving it should he start to wake up.

So Ilya just stares down his team and goes “you can be upset, but are going to be fucking quiet about it because if you wake my guest I’m sending all my blackmail on you to your wives, and then start fucking them to help them get over the divorce.”

So the whole “You’re fucking gay!” “No, I’m a fucking bi who is fucking a gay” conversation happens at a furious whisper, with Shane blissfully sleeping on Ilya’s chest as life implodes around him.

Shane may be a deep sleeper - and the argument in whispers - but even he starts to stir at the noise.

Ilya can’t have him moving his face into visibility now, so he just scruffs the back of his neck harshly and pressed him deeper into his shoulder.

Shane lets out a pleased (and not at all quiet) moan, and - worried that he is going to start talking - Ilya realises he needs to shut him up.

So he glares at the Bears to be quiet, while suddenly putting on the softest voice they have ever heard him use as he goes, “shhh quiet time now mоя любовь. Back to sleep.” And then shoves his fingers into Shane’s mouth.