#knocking

Shane and Ilya as parents who are both still actively playing but decide they don't want to be old dads and have a child a couple years after they're outed:

Is this good timing? Wise? Fair? Not sure, but they're rich as fuck and they can have a baby if they want one. The money is just sitting there. Shane mentions it at the cottage after their first season playing together and Ilya gets on top of Shane in bed and pulls the covers over their head to block out everything except them and asks Shane if he's sure. "I want this, with you. I want everything with you," Shane says. Well, Ilya's never been able to deny Shane, and he wants this too, more than he's ever said. They're just a couple of romantic guys, and this is fucking romantic. A baby. A kid. A family. All while still playing hockey. They're going to do it. They've already done the impossible.

The little baby boy comes via surrogacy, he's got Shane's eyes and his pronounced cupids bow top lip and Ilya can't stop resting his finger there. He arrives just as playoffs are wrapping up in the subsequent season (the Cens lose in one of the final rounds, so much for a Cup before baby) so they get a whole summer of playing house. They have a fucking team of nannies, of course, but they want to do this themselves too. Ilya especially, who has spotty memories of his own childhood at best and giant gaping holes where the trauma lives at worst, wants to experience it, so they forgo like 24-hour help for now. Shane actually fucking treasures getting up in the middle of the night, loves feeling wrapped up in the quiet with this little being that they care for now. They get a little crabby sometimes, but this is normal for first time parents. They have so much help how could they complain?

The hockey world is rabid for information about this new family, but Shane and Ilya are crazy private. On their own though, they are taking pictures constantly, making up for the lack timeline tracking in their relationship so far. They're constantly buying more phone space because they document everything, every moment in this baby boy's life is archived. Shane gets a little hyper-fixated on it. "Ilya do you remember when he first stuck his finger up his nose" "Hmm not sure sweetheart why don't we ask him" *blows giant raspberry on baby tummy*

When the training and the season starts up again, it's easy to bring this baby to everything. The nannies have him waiting after practice—in a little centaur's jersey with Shane's name one day, Ilya's the next—Yuna and David drive him to close away games like Montreal and Toronto, and then when they have stretches of time at home they can be dads again, keep the routine going. Hockey players have kids. So many of them have entire families and kids. They love being dads and they love playing hockey. They are just doing what they've seen others do!

But then it starts to show some holes. The constant whiplash of intense focused hockey play and then back home where they're just Dad and Papa, and they're trying so hard. They want baby boy to have all the right things, and they have ALL THE RESOURCES to be able to provide, so why do they start to feel like failures? They stay up all night one time researching pre-schools in Ottawa even though baby boy is only two. Somehow if they stay up doing something for him, denying the needs of their own bodies, maybe that will make up for the two week road trip coming up to the west coat where their son will only see them on facetime. And the next inevitable separation. But it's their guilt. Their burden to bear, not the world's. But unfortunately, the world moves in.

Despite Shane being extremely against posting any photography of their child (Ilya agrees, but he kind of mourns putting baby boy in like a silly outfit every month and posting a picture of his progress like a plant), the media latches onto them like a science experiment. "Can Rozanov and Hollander have it all?" brand think pieces. Suddenly they are spokespeople for queer families but also spokespeople for... working moms? Suddenly instead of being looked at as these two badasses who are at the top of their game, suddenly they're on the cusp, on the brink, ready to be put out to pasture, despite them winning their first cup together the year baby boy turns three.

And guess who bears the brunt of this?

I'm not talking post-game interviews, those are still mostly passive-aggressive with their relationship, but the influx of like lifestyle pieces that are requested of them. Finally, Shane sits down for an interview for an ESPN spinoff or podcast or something, some fluff piece on his career he thinks won't be anything, but the questions are seared into his brain for weeks after:

"Do you ever wish for family life full time?" "Is this a normal life for a child?" "What do you see for yourself in the next five years?"

Shane feels weird for days after, and when the special airs it's clear that it's a bid to sensationalize their family, to farm rage about their decision to parent and both remain active players. PWHL players come to their defense on social media maybe, citing their successful families and queer stories, and it sparks a whole social media thing with queer people sharing stories of their families, but they've never wanted to be icons in this way, and even with it all it's just not enough to quell the public response:

Is this child being raised by nannies? What is the best for this child? Should these men even have a child? Should we trust two men with selfish career aspirations to raise this child? Should queer people be allowed to adopt?

At this time the real world is in 2026ish time. Canada is not immune to the bullshit happening in the bullshit country below them, and Ilya and Shane are just as famous in American by now for their relationship as much as hockey. They're icons. They're icons, so matter what they want. No matter how much they crave privacy to raise their son in peace while playing the sport they love.

Shane takes four year old baby boy to his first skating lesson. He's asked later whether he will force his son to play hockey or if he'll be allowed to make choices for himself. People online spin off this debate to fight about homophobia in figure skating for some reason. There's also talk of concussion protocol for children in hockey. Shane's asked if he's going to retire to raise his son for real now. When will you retire Shane. When will you make this child your world Shane. Do you even love him Shane?

That night, Ilya tucks their child in bed with them, his first bruise from the ice on his little knee. It's okay for him to crawl into bed with them if it's just sometimes, or at least that's what David says. He pulls the covers up over all three of them, blocking out the light, blocking out the world, and takes Shane's face in his hands.

Kitchen Hopping