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“You know, I was a Centaurs fan growing up.”
Shane dropped it so casually into the conversation that it shouldn’t have been a big deal. But then Ilya looked up at him from across the couch, took in the faint pink creeping into his cheeks and the way his eyes flicked off to the side like they did whenever he was feeling shy, and felt like he could afford to tease a little bit.
“Oh yeah?” Ilya asked, casually stretching his arms to display the Centaurs logo displayed on his t-shirt, “Not Montreal?”
For a moment, Ilya worried that mentioning the team would sour the mood, but Shane just snorted and shook his head.
“No, they were my mom’s favourite. You should’ve seen her when they drafted me, I though she was going to explode.” Shane’s eyes went a bit distant, a tiny smile lighting up his face. “But I grew up in Ottawa, right? I basically begged my parents to take me to every game the Centaurs played, even if they kind of sucked.”
It was very kind of him, Ilya thought, to use the past tense. The team was incredible, and Ilya felt like he belonged there in a way he hadn’t in Boston, but he knew that they weren’t playoff material quite yet.
They will be, though, if Ilya had anything to say about it.
“Is very sweet of you to stay loyal to a team you knew probably wasn’t going to win,” Ilya said. It made sense, too. Shane was a very stubborn person; once he’d chosen his favourite team, there would’ve been no changing his mind.
“But they could’ve won!” Shane exclaimed with an exasperation that belied the number of times he’d probably made this argument. “All it would’ve taken was one player who was determined enough to motivate them towards practicing and strategizing a little harder. I knew that if Ottawa could’ve gotten its hands on one of the league’s best players, a year or two down the road they would’ve been winning cups.”
“Right,” Ilya said slowly, pieces coming together in his mind. “Shane, would you say that I am one of the best players in the league?”
Immediately, Shane’s eyebrows scrunched together, making that little crease in the center of his forehead that Ilya always wanted to kiss until it smoothed back out. “Of course I would! Has someone been saying shit? Because I’ll—”
“Shane,” Ilya laughed, crawling over to the other side of the couch in order to straddle Shane’s lap, “Nobody has been saying anything. I’m just wondering…”
Shane’s head tilted to the side just slightly, like an adorably confused little puppy, silently asking what Ilya was ‘just wondering’.
Luckily, Ilya was happy to oblige. “When you were telling me your ten year plan and suggested that I trade to Ottawa, did you maybe have another motivation besides wanting me closer to you?”
The pink in his cheeks was certainly more prominent, and he’d sucked his bottom lip into his mouth to chew on it which let Ilya know that Shane felt caught out on something. Ilya leaned in a little closer, pressing his nose against Shane’s as his grin felt like it was going to split his face. “Hm, Солнышко?”
“…No?” If there was one thing Ilya knew to be true about Shane, it was that he was a terrible liar.
“Right, yes, so you didn’t suggest that I join your favourite team from childhood because you thought I could maybe motivate them towards practicing and strategizing a little harder? That was not in your mind at all?”
Ilya leaned back a bit so that Shane could see the affection in his gaze. He wanted him to know that he wasn’t making fun of his for this, that he thought it was sweet.
Well, he was making fun of him a little bit for this. But it was out of love.
Shane cringed, working his mouth as a sheepish grin slowly spread across his face, “It wasn’t the only reason. But it might’ve been a little, tiny part of the reason. But only because I knew that, if anyone could pull it off, it would be you!”
He couldn’t help it, Ilya started laughing, loud and joyous. “Shane Hollander, playing the long game ever since 2009! Seducing the world’s greatest hockey player—” “Second greatest!” “—in order to make sure his favourite team wins the Cup! This is too good, mалыш, honestly.”
Ilya punctuated the words with a kiss to Shane’s forehead, patting himself on the back when it successfully smoothed out the crease, leaving only his beautiful smile beaming up at him.
Now that he knew that Ilya wasn’t upset at him for what he considered to be a frankly genius move on his part, Shane let himself sink into the playfulness a little bit. “Well, it’s working, isn’t it? And when we’re married, you’ll be stuck there forever, so you’ll have no choice but to win. You won’t be able to help it.”
Any snappy comeback that Ilya could’ve come up with slipped through his fingers the second Shane uttered the words when we’re married. When. A certainty that awaited them after so very long. So little of Ilya’s life had been certain, but this man, this future, was, and if his future husband was secretly an evil mastermind, Ilya was more than okay with that.
A small, muffled noise of surprise escaped Shane when Ilya swiftly leaned down to capture his lips, which Ilya eagerly swallowed. It didn’t take long for Shane to melt completely underneath him, held up solely by Ilya’s gentle hands that cradled the back of his head.
The trust wrapped around Ilya’s heart and squeezed, causing him to pull back so he didn’t try and stuff Shane into his mouth and carry him around, tucked into the warmth behind his molars. The disappointed frown on Shane’s face quickly shifted into a grin as he mirrored Ilya’s expression.
“I love you,” Ilya whispered, pressing his forehead against Shane’s. The man who would become his husband. “Even if you’ve been secretly orchestrating an elaborate scheme so that baby Shane’s favourite team will finally win something.”
Shane huffed a laugh, pressing a kiss to Ilya’s nose that still had butterflies fluttering about in his stomach after all this time. “I love you too, even if the Centaurs lose to the Voyageurs. Which they will, because we’re still better.”
Ilya scoffed, even though Shane was probably right. There was a lot of work to be done with his team, but Ilya was nothing if not determined.
And he would stop at nothing to make the dreams of baby Shane Hollander finally come true, even if that meant beating the perfect Shane Hollander of right now into the dust.
It's what you did for the people you loved.