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“Shane.”
“Mm?” Shane asked.
He felt Ilya shift under him. “Shane.”
Shane mumbled another complaint before starting the work it took to figure out which limbs were his and untangle them from Ilya’s. It was not normally a slow process - Shane woke up quickly if not cheerfully most of the time - but the night after being out late, things were different. It was cut short when Ilya sat up, grabbed Shane’s arms, and jerked him upright too.
“Ilya!” Shane’s eyes snapped open. “What the fuck?”
“What the fuck, that’s what the fuck,” Ilya said.
Once Shane focused on him, he saw that Ilya was pale and sweating. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Do you need to puke?”
“No. Maybe. Not the point.”
“I’m very confused,” Shane said.
“You’re very something else,” Ilya said flatly. He held up his left hand, fingers spread. A shiny new ring glittered on his ring finger.
“Oh,” Shane said, sitting back on his heels.
”Oh,” Ilya agreed. He was still up on his knees, eyes glittering, hand shaking a little.
“You really do need to throw up, don’t you?” Shane asked.
“Stop talking about it,” Ilya said through gritted teeth.
Shane just moved so Ilya had an easier path off the bed. “We’ll talk about it after you’re done,” he called after Ilya, then sighed and went to rub his back. It was the husbandly thing to do, probably.
***
Shane was used to loud tables full of hockey players. He had learned, though, that those had nothing on loud tables full of small children.
He let go of Ilya’s hand under the table to catch one of Hayden’s twins as she jumped on him. “Emma, be careful,” he said automatically, swinging her up to sit in his lap. Across the table, Hayden shot out a hand to intercept Ruby, who was a little too obsessed with the water feature on the wall.
“What are you eating, Uncle Shane?” Emma asked him. “We only had boring mac and cheese.”
“I showed you a whole menu and you asked for mac and cheese,” Hayden said, gesturing around at the very nice (but fortunately family-friendly) restaurant. “Let your uncle eat in peace.”
“It’s fine,” Shane said. “Do you want a piece of my steak?”
She nodded enthusiastically, and Shane maneuvered her around so that he could cut a tiny piece of steak off and hand her the fork.
He looked up to see Ilya watching him with heat in his eyes. Shane raised an eyebrow. Me cutting a piece of steak for a kid does it for you? Ilya shrugged a little.
Across the table, Jackie was looking amused and Hayden was trying not to roll his eyes.
Shane laughed and pulled the fork away from Emma as she made a face. “Maybe the mac and cheese wasn’t such a bad idea, huh?”
Emma stuck her tongue out at him, and all the adults laughed.
Ilya reached out to ruffle Emma’s hair. “Maybe I should try some of this magic mac and cheese.”
Her head nearly bashed Shane in the chin as she hurried to wiggle out of his arms and jump down.
“Aww, abandoned for another man,” Jackie teased. She was simultaneously balancing Amber on her lap and cutting up a piece of chicken for Arthur.
“No worries.”
Ruby made another break for it, and Hayden reeled her in. “What are you two doing after dinner?”
“Probably going back--”
“Going out,” Ilya said at the same time.
“Going out?” Emma was leaning up against Ilya, all but shoving her plate in his face, so Shane just tapped his foot against Ilya’s.
Ilya nodded, looking away from Emma to shoot Shane a challenging look. “The awards are not until tomorrow night, and we can do whatever we want tonight. And I want to dance.”
***
One of the benefits of being famous, at least by Vegas hotel standards, was getting your choice of drink stocked in your room. Shane bypassed the vodka and brought out two cans of ginger ale, cracking one open and passing it over to Ilya as he dropped down on the couch next to him.
Ilya took a tentative drink, then sighed and nodded. “Better.”
Shane took a drink, then looked down at his hands. He tapped his left hand against the can, hearing the clink of the ring hitting it.
A silence stretched between the two of them.
“We are married,” Ilya said finally.
Shane nodded.
“How drunk were we?”
“You--” Shane blinked at Ilya. “You don’t remember?”
Ilya inclined his head. “Pieces are coming back to me.” He smiled slightly. “I remember dancing.”
“Yeah, I remember you dancing, too,” Shane said, trying to keep the bite from his voice. From Ilya’s grin, he failed.
“You did not like it when I danced, Hollander? Then why did you watch so closely?”
“Fuck you. I'm sorry I was nice to you this morning.” Shane took a long drink of his ginger ale.
“You are not.”
Shane glared at Ilya over the rim of his can.
Ilya slid closer and put his free hand high on Shane's leg. “You are not,” he said again, giving Shane a sultry look.
“I'm a little sorry,” Shane said, but he was leaning closer. “You brushed your teeth, right?”
“Come find out,” Ilya said.
“Gross,” Shane said, and kissed him.
***
Walking into the wall of noise coming out of the bar wasn’t exactly like being boarded, but it had its similarities. Shane tried not to flinch too obviously. His hand twitched at his side, but they weren’t quite two years into his Hollander and Rozanov Are Friends plan. Taking him to dinner with the Pikes was pushing things far enough; being clingy in public was a sure-fire route to people asking questions Shane didn’t want to answer.
The bar - more of a club, really - had a row of tables along each of three sides, with a giant bar holding up the entire back wall. The rest was filled with people dancing, some holding drinks, some shouting in each other’s ears, some grinding against each other. Ilya was drawn immediately to it; he shot a challenging look over his shoulder at Shane, who smiled and waved him on. Ilya shrugged and went. He was immediately enveloped in a crowd. Shane recognized a few of his fellow hockey players, some with wives or girlfriends. He didn't recognize the majority of the people out there, though, including a tall woman who wrapped herself around Ilya from behind and shouted something in his ear.
Ilya shook his head, shouted something back. She laughed and put her hands on his hips, moving him along into a dance. He followed, body as graceful on the floor as it was on the ice.
Shane stayed, watching Ilya, for a moment longer. Ilya looked over at him and winked.
Shane huffed out half a laugh and nodded his head in Ilya’s direction before going to find a table and a drink.
***
They hadn't kissed for nearly enough time, as far as Shane was concerned, when Ilya broke away to say, “But, Shane…married.”
“We are,” Shane said. Reality reasserted itself. “This isn't…this wasn't the plan.”
“The fucking plan,” Ilya said, rubbing a hand over his face.
Anxiety drove Shane to his feet. He rushed to one end of the hotel suite's living room, then back. “Yes, the fucking plan,” he said. “The one we agreed on. The one that made sense. The one that didn’t out us to the entire league during the fucking MLH Awards!”
He kept pacing, his brain going a million miles an hour, and it took him a minute to hear Ilya’s voice. “Shane. Shane. Shane.”
Shane paused mid-stride. ”What?”
Ilya's hands were on his shoulders, and he turned Shane to face him, then slid his hands up to cup Shane’s face. “It will be all right.”
“It might not,” Shane said, stubborn in his anxiety.
Ilya kissed him. “It will.”
“Weren't you losing your shit ten minutes ago?” Shane asked, letting Ilya pull him in until they were flush against each other neck to knee. He took a deep breath, then let it out, molding his body to Ilya’s. Ilya smelled like last night’s sweat and very faintly like Shane’s cologne. Shane wasn’t sure if it was a good smell, but he turned his face into Ilya’s shoulder anyway.
“I was,” Ilya said. “But only one of us can lose their shit at a time, and it was your turn.”
“Fuck you.”
“Plus, I remembered our secret weapon.”
Shane pulled back enough to look Ilya in the eye. “We have a secret weapon?”
***
Shane wasn’t going to drink too much. Not enough to, say, join Ilya on the dance floor and grab him away from whoever this newest woman was, tiny and soft, looking up at Ilya with stars in her eyes. But maybe one more beer.
“Hollander!” he heard, and jerked his gaze away from the dance floor.
“Hunter,” he said, raising his voice a little. A little voice in his head that sounded suspiciously Russian-accented wanted to ask Scott Hunter if he was out past his bedtime. He silenced it and smiled at the shorter man holding hard to Hunter’s hand. “You’re Kip, right?”
“Thank you for pretending you don’t already know,” Kip said.
Shane wasn’t sure what made him do it, but he gestured to the empty seats across from him. Hunter looked surprised, but sat, tugging Kip down next to him.
“How are you liking Vegas?” Shane asked Kip. “Have you been here before?”
Kip shook his head. “It’s pretty cool. We came out early and did a bunch of touristy stuff. There's this great installation out in the desert. Painted boulders stacked on top of each other. Just gorgeous.” His hands drew giant shapes in the air.
“There is?” Shane asked.
Kip looked slightly sheepish. “I’m a grad student. Art history.”
“Cool,” Shane said. “I don’t know much about anything history. Except hockey history.”
“Probably more useful,” Kip offered.
Shane shrugged. He looked over at Ilya again. Ilya was looking back at him. Shane jerked his head back around.
Hunter was watching him, a crease in his brow. “Are you presenting tomorrow?”
“Nope. Up for the Most Sportsmanlike Award.”
“Mostly the player with the fewest penalty minutes,” Hunter translated for Kip. “I’m sure Hollander will win.”
Shane shrugged again.
Hunter jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Rozanov definitely wouldn’t.”
Shane tried to keep the panic out of his voice. “That’s why he’s presenting, I guess. Compare and contrast, or whatever.”
Hunter laughed.
Shane swallowed hard. “Uh, so what exactly makes the boulders gorgeous?”
Kip lit up and started explaining. Hunter turned to smile at Kip, and the conversation moved on, but Shane's shoulders refused to relax.
After Hunter and Kip left, Shane ordered yet another beer, putting him firmly over his usual self-imposed limit. He was most of the way through it, resting his head on his hand and staring glumly off into space, when the table shook and Ilya dropped into the chair opposite him, dropping a bottle of vodka and a half-full glass onto the table between them. Shane’s dick absolutely did not twitch at the sight of Ilya taking a drink of vodka, damn it.
“You should dance,” Ilya told Shane, his voice thick and just a little slurred. He poured a healthy slug of vodka into his glass.
“I should not,” Shane said firmly. He forced himself up to sit normally. He took a drink of beer that hopefully displayed that he was normal, totally normal, and totally not thinking about climbing into the lap of the man across from him. “Go dance more if you like it so much.”
“You are jealous,” Ilya said, sounding delighted.
“I’m not jealous,” Shane snapped.
Ilya pointed at him with the hand holding his glass. “That is what someone not jealous would say.”
Shane rolled his eyes and grabbed the glass from Ilya. He tossed half of it back and gasped as it seared down his throat. “I’m not jealous.” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Just because I want to be out there with you.”
Ilya’s gaze kindled. “With me?”
Shane dropped his voice automatically, leaning forward so Ilya could hear him. “You don’t wish it was me? Out there? Wrapped around you, with everyone watching us?”
Ilya said something under his breath - English or Russian, Shane couldn’t tell - and reached for the glass.
Shane pulled it out of reach. “Get your own.”
Ilya wrapped his long fingers around Shane’s hand on the glass. Shane had a dizzying flashback to Ilya, panting, taking a water bottle from him a decade ago. “It is my own.” He yanked, pulling Shane closer to him along with the glass. “It is mine,” he said, his gaze dropping to Shane’s lips.
“Not in public,” Shane said. Their eyes met, held.
“Public?” Ilya asked. He blinked hard. “I will give you public.”
Shane swayed closer, head still spinning, but Ilya jumped up and pulled Shane up with him.
“What--” Shane started, but Ilya had a firm hold on his elbow. Shane barely managed to drop the glass onto the table before he was dragged away, through a wall of noise and alcohol fumes and out the door.
It was relatively quieter out there, with a handful of smokers and some bored looking cabbies leaning against their taxis. Ilya kept moving, waving at the next driver in line to open the door for him. He let go of Shane to climb in; Shane followed him in automatically.
“What are you doing, Rozanov?” he hissed.
Ilya was looking at something on his phone.
The driver got in and looked back at them. “Where to?”
“The marriage license place, please,” Ilya said.
“Gotcha.”
The car pulled out into traffic. Shane swayed with the motion of it, still staring at Ilya.
“How drunk am I?” he asked. “I thought I heard you say--”
“You want public?” Ilya asked. “You want to be mine? I know one good way.”
“How drunk are we?” Shane corrected himself.
***
Shane paced some more as Ilya dialed, waiting as it rang once, then twice.
“Ilya, honey?” his mother asked through the phone speaker. “Is everything okay?”
“Ah…I don’t think I would call it okay,” Ilya said. He gestured Shane over. “A good thing might have happened? But a scary one.”
“I’m…not sure I know what that means,” Shane’s mother said carefully.
“We got married, Mom,” Shane said.
There was a slight pause. “Married,” his mother said.
Shane grabbed the phone. “Yes, Mom. We got drunk and then we went and got drunk married in Vegas. Happy MLH Awards Day to us all.”
“Shane,” Ilya said reprovingly.
“Well, we did.”
“Married,” his mother said again, but with a more considering tone.
Ilya leaned in. “Yuna, you have a plan for everything, yes? Is there a plan for marriage?”
Shane could almost hear his mother snapping into professional mode. “First things first. Is the marriage legal?”
“Of course it is.” Ilya sounded almost offended. “We have the license and everything.”
“You were drunk enough to get married but sober enough to get a license?”
Ilya shrugged, which was not a helpful response on a phone call.
“How did you even know where to go for the license?” Shane asked.
There was a long pause.
“I researched,” Ilya said finally.
“You researched? When, in the club? Did you ask the girls you were dancing with?”
“It was not like that, Yuna,” Ilya said quickly, and then, “I looked it up yesterday! On the drive in! When you said something about all the wedding places!”
“I commented on a couple of wedding chapels and you looked up how to get married?”
“I was just curious! I can’t be curious?”
Shane handed Ilya the phone so he could put his hands over his face and scream quietly.
“Excuse me,” Yuna said.
“Sorry,” Shane and Ilya said in unison.
“Next question. Ilya, is your trade to Ottawa final?”
“Papers are signed,” Ilya said. “They want to wait to announce until after the awards.”
“No-trade clause?”
“Three years.”
“What are you thinking, Mom?” Shane asked.
“I’m thinking you have two options. You can quietly file for an annulment, hoping nobody notices, or play it off as a joke if someone does.”
“Or?” Ilya asked.
Shane’s mother took a deep breath. “Go big or go home, boys.”
***
“They have a costume room,” Ilya said, awed, and pulled Shane down a hallway.
“I’m not getting married in a costume, asshole,” Shane said, laughing and putting up no resistance at all.
They turned a corner and Ilya halted, turning to look around. “This looks boring. I think we missed a turn.”
“Come on, let’s go back,” Shane said. “You’re not going to be my husband any faster wandering the h--”
Ilya pushed Shane up against the wall. “Say it again.”
Shane put his head back and gave Ilya his best, if blurriest, smirk. “Let’s go back?”
Ilya stepped between Shane’s legs and leaned in to bite his earlobe. “Say it again.”
“You’re going to be my husband,” Shane said.
Ilya growled - growled! - under his breath. He grabbed Shane and dragged him off again.
“This is still the wrong way, Rozanov.”
Ilya tried a doorknob and it opened. He shoved Shane in and followed him.
“I think this is a supply closet,” Shane whispered. “It smells like floor cleaner.”
“That’s nice,” Ilya said absently. He grabbed Shane’s cock and Shane whimpered, half-hard already. “Will you get down on your knees for me here?”
Shane groped Ilya back. “I don’t know. Shouldn't you make an honest man out of me first?”
“You can honestly suck my cock.” Ilya pushed on Shane’s shoulders. Shane folded to the floor, kicking something metal away to give himself room. There was a clatter and they both froze, listening, but there were no other noises, so Shane relaxed. Above him he heard Ilya give a little giggle.
Shane made short work of Ilya’s belt and buttons, yanking his pants halfway down his thighs. As long as he was down there, he sucked a bruise into Ilya’s inner thigh; above him Ilya swore in Russian and grabbed Shane’s head, trying to bring him closer to Ilya’s cock. Shane resisted long enough to bite Ilya’s opposite thigh, and then let himself be dragged to where Ilya wanted him. He mouthed at Ilya’s cock through his briefs. For all that Ilya roasted Shane for getting so wet, a suspiciously damp spot was forming even before Shane put all his best effort into expanding it.
“Come on, come on, come on,” Ilya chanted. One hand dug painfully into Shane’s hair - Shane moaned - and pushed him back a few inches, while the other yanked his briefs down. Shane was on his cock instantly, closing his mouth around the tip to suck quickly and fiercely.
There was a thud as Ilya dropped his head back against the door. “Shane. Shane…”
Shane bobbed his head to take in more of Ilya’s cock. He wrapped his hand around the base of it. His other hand was fisted in Ilya’s pants, bracing himself, and Ilya was still holding tight to his hair, although he had stopped pulling on it and just left his hand there, grounding Shane as he sucked Ilya’s cock.
Shane could stay here, on his knees, worshipping Ilya’s cock, forever, but the part of his brain that wasn’t sex-crazed recognized that they were working with very limited time here before someone needed to mop a floor or something, so he pulled off. He looked up through his eyelashes at Ilya, who pulled his head off the door to stare back, and slid two fingers into his mouth.
Ilya watched him, mouth open a little, eyes cloudy with lust.
Shane got his fingers good and wet and slid them between Ilya’s legs and up over his hole. As he reached it, he took Ilya’s cock back in his mouth and sucked hard.
Ilya groaned, probably too loudly.
Shane rubbed his fingers over Ilya’s hole, applying a little more pressure.
Ilya’s hand clenched in Shane’s hair. “Shane. Shane.”
Shane applied every bit of knowledge about Ilya he’d gathered, applying just the right kind of attention to Ilya’s cock as he got closer and closer and finally slid just the tip of one finger into Ilya.
Ilya slapped a hand over his mouth as he came, and Shane closed his eyes and swallowed him down, moaning around his cock.
After Ilya was done, after he moved his hand away from his mouth, having switched from shouting to panting, Shane cleaned up the rest of his cock with careful licks, then looked back up at Ilya and dragged the back of his hand slowly across his mouth.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ilya’s dick twitch.
Shane grinned.
“Fuck you,” Ilya said breathlessly, pulling his briefs up and then his pants. “Come up here and let me return the favor.”
“Later,” Shane said. He stood up and brushed his knees and shins off. Yuck. He was going to need to wash his hands for sure. But first, he leaned forward and kissed Ilya, who clutched at him with both hands. “I’m saving myself for marriage.”
“Mmm,” he said. He put his leg between Shane’s, rubbing his thigh against Shane’s cock and smiling at the noise Shane made. “Better marry me quickly, then.”
They let themselves out of the supply room, suppressing laughter and ignoring the very suspicious look they got from someone wearing an employee badge as they made their way back around the corner.
“Bathroom,” Shane said, trying not to put his gross hands all over Ilya, “and then wedding. You still have the license?”
Ilya patted his jacket pocket. “I do.”
“Not yet,” Shane said, which made them both giggle. Shane’s head was still spinning, even an hour after the bar, although some of that might have been the blow job. He saw the sign for the bathroom and nudged Ilya that way with his elbow. “Soon.”
***
“Sportsmanship,” Ilya said into the dim auditorium. He paused as a thread of laughter ran through the room. “Something I am well qualified to discuss.”
More laughter, this time more confident.
Ilya looked over at the camera, winked, and kept up his scripted nonsense.
Shane rubbed his sweaty hands on his knees. He looked around; people were starting to look his way as Ilya read off the list of nominees. Keeping his hands in the shadow of the seat in front of him, he reached into his jacket pocket and slid his ring on. He let out a long shaky breath.
“And the winner of the Most Sportsmanlike Award,” Ilya said, opening the envelope, “is Shane Hollander of the Montreal Metros!”
The applause started. Hayden hooted; Jackie smacked him. Shane's frozen smile relaxed a little. He made his way up to the stage.
Ilya was waiting for him, award in hand. Shane glanced down. At some point between Shane leaving his seat and arriving on stage, Ilya had retrieved and put on his own ring.
He handed the award to Shane. Their fingers brushed as Shane took it.
Shane realized that he was still smiling. He was still scared shitless, but something about being in the moment, taking action in the moment, had him feeling oddly buoyant.
Every bit of their plan left his brain entirely. Ilya started to step back and Shane reached out and grabbed him.
“What?” Ilya asked, quietly but still enough for the microphone to pick it up and magnify it.
Shane grabbed a fistful of Ilya’s shirt, pulled him in, and kissed him.
It wasn't a long kiss, or a dirty one, but it was very much a romantic kiss. Shane could hear the audience making various shocked noises.
Shane pulled back from Ilya and faced the gobsmacked crowd. Hayden had an unholy gleam in his eye, and Jackie had tears in hers. Closer to the front, Scott Hunter and Kip Grady looked up at him from where they were gripping each other's hands. Shane saw the clear shock on Hunter’s face, but when their eyes met, Hunter just looked at him solemnly and nodded.
Shane took a deep breath. “So, first I'd like to thank my husband,” he said, and the crowd lost its collective mind.
***
The officiant, a cheerful woman Shane’s mom's age, looked at Shane and Ilya as they stood across from her. “Are you ready?” she asked.
Shane looked around the room, full of light wood paneling and white silk flowers. The witness was sitting alone in a row of folding chairs. She looked intensely bored, but she was there, and he could ignore her. He looked back to Ilya.
Ilya put a hand on Shane's cheek and smiled at him like they were across a face-off from each other. “I am ready.”
“Me too,” Shane said. Ilya dropped his hand and Shane took it in his. The rings they'd bought in the gift shop out front felt heavy in his pocket. “Yeah, I'm ready. Let's get married.”