Chapter Text
Shane
Ottawa, June 2018
It was last year that Shane had heard about surrogacy for the first time during a game. Not an MLH game. God, no, it had been ages since he’d been to one. Well, ages since he’d participated in one. This had been an OYCL (Ottawa Youth Champions League) game, since Shane was the head coach of the U12 division. He’d gotten bumped up from being assistant coach just this year when the previous head coach had sadly retired (died in a freak woodchipping accident at the lumber yard). One of the parents worked for a fertility treatment center, and she’d gotten to telling Shane all about how it had changed her life; how she and her husband had struggled for years to have their son, James, and how it had finally been possible to do so through IVF and surrogacy. It made Shane think of his own parents and how they had never been able to have another child after having him, and how they’d probably never end up having grandchildren considering how fucking bleak their son’s dating life was. It was why Shane had asked about the egg retrieval and storage options the fertility center offered…and it was also how he’d somehow ended up leaving that day with not only a pamphlet for egg retrieval, but egg donation and surrogacy as well.
The agency had offices all across North America– but predominantly in the United States. It only took about 20 phone calls, 3 in-person interviews, 2 medical examinations, and about a billion different forms before Shane was cleared as a viable surrogate in their database. He didn’t even know why he’d done it. Well, he sort of knew why. The thought of helping people to have kids sounded great. He liked kids. He liked helping people. He wasn’t very good at it, but he liked the idea of doing it, sure, and…he didn’t really know how to explain it to anyone, but the thought of doing something like this made him feel a little less shit about the fact that he would most likely never have children of his own. Maybe it would make him feel like his body wasn’t a complete failure, either, after it had only lasted him five seasons with the MLH before everything had gone to hell.
He’d gone into all of this with the assumption that, if it worked out and he got a call to be a surrogate, great. He’d consider it. Maybe he’d be over it and have changed his mind by then, anyway. Truthfully, though, he had figured there was pretty much no chance of him being picked. Male omegas weren’t exactly sought after for surrogacy– more risks, more bias, more hassle, and for what? For nothing, when female omegas were the majority and were a lot less hassle. Not to mention the fact that he was Canadian, which meant more travel costs and legal fees for whatever American couple was looking for someone to carry their baby. Why would they choose him when they could choose some nice woman who probably lived in the same city as them?
All of these were the reasons why he was really, really fucking confused when he got a call just two weeks after his approval asking him to fly all the way out to Boston, Massachusetts, to interview with prospective parents. He didn’t know what made him get on that plane. Curiosity? Stupidity? Maybe the fact that it hadn’t really sunk in yet just how insane it would be for him to actually do this? Maybe all of the above. Maybe it was something else entirely.
Ilya
Boston, June 2018
Another Stanley Cup. The Raiders had ended up with another great season, mostly thanks to Ilya. Not that his team wasn’t just as responsible for the win as he was, but they weren’t the captain of the team. They hadn’t scored 64 goals in a single season like he had, nor had they won the award for most valuable player three years in a row (he was sure he would have won it last year, too, if a leg injury hadn’t taken him out of the running). Ilya would bet money on it, too, that they also weren’t anywhere near as fucking miserable as he was. That would be pretty hard to match, considering he was sure he was one of the most miserable people in the whole world. He just didn’t understand why.
Sex. Money. Fame. Success. More sex. Lots, and lots, and lots of sex. Drugs, sometimes. He tried to limit himself to only doing that during the off-season, but occasionally, shit happened and he ended up hammered in the bathroom at a club doing god knows what. No matter what he did, though, nothing seemed to make things any better. Sometimes he felt a little rush, a little glimpse of what could possibly be something akin to joy when he had a good fuck, or a decent bump of snow, or set another record, but it was always gone just as soon as it had come. Always fleeting, always drifting, and Ilya? He was always left chasing after it like a fool.
There were more nights than he could count where all he could do was lie awake at night, stuck in an endless loop of thoughts of his mother, wondering if she would be disappointed in him that he had practically nobody. He had not spoken to Alexei in over a year– not since their father died– and he hardly spoke to anyone who wasn’t on his own team. He had Svetlana, yes, but they were not more than friends. Friends with benefits (and excellent benefits at that), but they both had their own lives to live. Ilya was always on the road, busy playing hockey, or babysitting rookies, or chainsmoking cigarette after cigarette out of hotel windows until he felt like he was going to be sick just because he simply wanted to feel something. Svetlana had a real life, with real friends who were probably far less fucked up than Ilya was, and it was more than likely she didn’t even need him. Ilya wanted– no, needed somebody to need him. He supposed that was why he had made the stupid decision to start thinking about having a child six months ago.
He had told one person he kind of (sort of) considered himself friends with on his team. Ryan Price, who had been traded back and forth about a dozen times now and ended up on the Raiders once again this year (for how long, who knew). He had casually mentioned wanting to look into adopting a child this year. Price had looked at him like he was fucking insane, but the poor guy had been too kind to do anything but try and wipe the look off his face as he nodded his head encouragingly. Ilya had quickly realized after that that Price wasn’t the only person who thought he was nuts. He was turned away by two separate adoption agencies who said that his lack of marital status, citizenship, and his line of work all proved to make him a very, very poor candidate for adoption. Ilya didn’t fucking understand how someone who was rich, successful, and absolutely willing to give a poor, orphaned child everything they could want in life made him a poor candidate, but the second adoption agency he had spoken to suggested another route.
Surrogacy. It was private. More controlled. The money of it all wasn’t an issue. Ilya could have his own child whenever he wanted; could pick out his own personal incubator, pay them to make a baby, then he could hire the best nannies in all of the United States– no, maybe the world, to take care of it. Him. Her. Whatever it would be. It was a foolproof plan, really, and better than adoption in Ilya’s mind. Less hoops to jump through, less chance of things falling through, and this child could be his own flesh and blood. Something…he had not had since he was 12 years old, since Alexei and his father did not really count. Not to him, anyway. Another perk to all of this was picking a donor and/or surrogate. There were egg donors to choose from, surrogates, people who provided both their own eggs and were available for surrogacy. It was all anonymous, at least until Ilya got to pick his top choices for interviews, but that didn’t mean he did not have plenty of information on the donors. He looked through countless descriptions of nameless, faceless women, all defined simply by numbers and traits.
#1134
Sex: F (OMEGA)
Age: 29
Hair: BLN
Eyes: BLU
Height: 5’9
Race: W
Location: MN, USA
Blonde hair, blue eyes– what, was he trying to have a kid with himself? Next.
#1096
Sex: F (BETA)
Age: 25
Hair: BRO
Eyes: GRN
Height: 5’5
Race: H/W
Location: AZ, USA
Okay, now they were getting somewhere.
Hobbies: Baking, sewing, going to church…
Ugh. No. The last person Ilya wanted having his baby was miss suzie-homemaker Jesus lover. She would probably think he was a terrible, unsuitable father and try to steal his baby. Next.
#1221
Sex: M (OMEGA)
Age: 27
Hair: BLK
Eyes: BRO
Height: 5’10
Race: A/W
Location: OTTAWA, ON, CAN
Oh? This was promising. The only male omega on the list, which Ilya didn’t mind. If anything, he was even more intrigued by it.
Hobbies: Running, biking, yoga, reading, hockey…
Hockey?
Ilya kept reading. Almost perfect medical history aside from a few hockey-sustained injuries, but those weren't genetic. Excellent diet. Boring lifestyle, which he supposed was probably why this person wanted to have somebody else’s baby since they had nothing better to do. This person, candidate #1221, was perfect. It did not matter to Ilya that they had not previously had any children, or that they would have to come all the way from Canada, or that he was a male omega. Ilya was intrigued by him. Ilya wanted him. He didn’t even request to interview with anyone else, only this nameless, faceless man whom, for some reason, Ilya felt like he knew. The only issue was that there were no photos included, so he just had to hope that this person was as attractive as they sounded. Maybe it didn’t matter that much, anyway, since Ilya was pretty sure his looks were good enough to make up for a potentially ugly candidate, just so long as they weren’t completely hideous. If this guy was a six or above, Ilya was sure he could make it work.
It was the only thing he could think about now as he sat in the office of Surrogacy4U (the dumbest fucking name he had ever heard), his leg bouncing as he watched person after person walk by the big, glass panels of the room he was in and wondering which one would finally be candidate #1221. His surrogacy agent, Nina, pressed a button on a remote to mechanically lower the blinds on the glass, and Ilya found his eyes drifting downwards along with the blinds to the point where he was nearly leaning out of his chair just so he could continue looking. “There. That’s better, isn’t it, Mr. Rozanov? Nice and private,” she said, seemingly not noticing his attempts at peeking over her to try and find a gap in the blinds to look through.
“Yes,” Ilya mumbled dejectedly. “Private.” Right. Private. Because all of this had to be private. He had made that clear to her time and time again how crucial this was because of his status, but what he hadn’t anticipated was how private everyone else’s details would be. It wasn’t like his surrogate would be famous, too, was it? So why couldn’t he know ahead of time who they were before interviewing them? Why couldn’t he have some kind of warning so that he would know how to prepare? He wasn’t just worried about if they were ugly. What if they spoke English that was worse than his and they could barely understand each other? What if they had lied on their application and they were only 5’2? Ilya didn’t want a short kid. What if they were a complete, bumbling idiot and he couldn’t stand them? Obviously he could reject whoever this was after the interview if things went south, but it would mean that this had all just been a complete waste of time. How many times would Ilya have to do this if #1221 turned out to be some freak?
There was a knock at the door, and Ilya startled. “Ah, that must be him now,” Nina said, heading to the door, and Ilya stood. He straightened his tie and tried to look as powerful as he could without looking intimidating. Strong. That was the word– he tried to look strong despite the fact he was the one doing the interviewing here, right? There was no way in hell any surrogate would reject him. Nina’s hand was on the doorknob, and Ilya nervously rubbed the side of his nose.
Please don’t be ugly.
Please don’t be ugly.
Please don’t be ugly.
He repeated it in his mind over and over again as the door opened, and as soon as it did, Ilya could only think two things the moment he saw #1221.
The first thing was that he was far from ugly. He was fucking gorgeous. Dark hair, big brown doe eyes, clear skin, adorable freckles, pink lips. He was everything Ilya could have asked for when it came to looks.
The second thing was that Ilya had definitely seen him before. Oh, yeah. That was probably because he was Shane motherfucking Hollander.