Chapter Text
Of all the strange places he’d been in his life, this was probably the strangest. Standing in the backyard of two of the most famous hockey talents in a generation as a guest at their wedding was not a place Scott ever thought he’d be. For a lot of reasons. Most of all, being that he never would have dreamt that said hockey talents would be queer, let alone marrying each other.
He was also staggered at the sheer disorganization of this wedding. The fact that Shane Hollander, arguably one of the most obsessive and methodical players in the MLH, seemingly didn’t have more structure for his wedding was astounding. Scott wouldn’t call himself a planner by any stretch, but his wedding had been more thought out than this. They didn’t even have chairs for Christ’s sake!
And so, as he stood slightly sweating next to his husband in an oddly clumped group of wedding guests in Shane and Ilya’s very underdecorated backyard, he couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up.
“What?” Kip asked, looking up at the mirth on his husband’s face.
Scott shook his head, trying to hide his smile. “Life is weird.”
Kip returned his laugh and reached down to take his hand.
Once the ceremony started, Scott really tried to rein in his bemusement. These boys were hardly rookies anymore, but he couldn’t help but view this whole thing as slightly chaotic in the way that young people don’t think through details. And as he sat (stood) there, adding to his mental list of admonitions for the haphazard ceremony, Scott was slightly horrified to realize that Rozanov might have a point about all his dinosaur comments.
Blessedly, the ceremony was short, and the grooms were ushered inside to finish the paperwork. Of course, that left their wedding guests standing in awkward silence on the lawn. Jesus, how had no one stepped in to plan this just slightly better?
“Uhh, I guess I’ll get some music going,” Harris called out over the crowd.
Scott had met the Centaurs’ social media manager and Troy’s boyfriend only a couple of times in passing during pre-camp meetings over the Summer. It was enough to know he was by far the most organized one in the bunch of them, or at least usually the one thinking the most rationally. How had he not taken some control over this event sooner?
A couple of hours later, Scott somehow found himself sitting in the grass with a few Centaurs, Pike and Boizeau, and Ryan Price. Kip had wandered off to chat with Fabian Salah and, by the looks of it, David Hollander. Scott was dying to know what that conversation could possibly be about.
“Did you ever think you’d live to see that?” Boizeau muttered next to him and nodded at a point further away in the backyard.
Both Scott and Pike looked in the direction he indicated, where they saw Ilya Rozanov laughing as he chased the Pike children in a game of tag, theatrically letting them slip just out of reach several times.
“Believe me,” Pike responded, “it’s like the fucking Twilight Zone every time he and Shane offer to babysit.” They watched as the kids all dogpiled on top of Ilya. “They call him ‘Uncle Ilya’ now, which is just,” he waved his hand in the air as if he was unable to find a word that accurately captured how bizarre that fact was.
Shane went over to help remove Ilya from the gaggle of children and gently brushed off the dirt and grass from his suit as he stood up. They both had the sappiest, dumbstruck, lovesick looks on their faces as they murmured to each other.
“How did we miss that?” Scott wondered out loud. Boizeau and Pike jumped a bit as Scott spoke, maybe forgetting he had been sitting there.
“I always told Ilya his heart eyes would give him away,” Pike chuckled. “You should go back and watch that first Irina Foundation announcement. I thought they were bound to be found out.”
Scott filed that away as something to find later. The Centaurs in the group, who had mostly been wrapped up in their own conversations, all stood up and made their way hurriedly inside. That team was bizarre. They were like a pack of middle school boys…well, Scott could admit that wasn’t strange for hockey players; they all seemed to be in a paused stage of never having grown up fully. But the Centaurs were truly something different. It was boyish innocence, almost. They were all too happy and too friendly to be like other MLH teams. Even the Admirals, a team Scott had worked hard to make accepting and supportive, were not on that level. He was almost tempted to label the Ottawa team toxically positive, but he knew better than that. They were probably going to wipe the floor with the whole league next season, in no small part because of their seemingly stellar team dynamics.
He looked back over at Shane then. A massive smile had been on his face all day. It was more smiling than Scott had ever seen from him.
“You know Montreal really screwed over the league, right?” Ryan Price suddenly piped up. Now it was Scott’s turn to be surprised. He’d completely forgotten the massive man was sitting on his other side.
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Boizeau groaned, fully lying back in the grass. “I’m not looking forward to our first game.”
“I bet they can’t wait,” Scott prodded.
He knew it must mean something that both Boizeau and Pike were at the wedding, especially given the fact that no other Metros were in attendance, but he still couldn’t help but feel like these guys were part of the problem. He may not know all the ins and outs of what went down with Montreal, but he could guess well enough.
“It’s nothing we don’t deserve,” Pike added.
Boizeau shot him a glare, but didn’t protest. Another small detail that Scott filed away for later. No doubt “later” would be as soon as he and Kip got in the car and shared their gossip about this whole weird day.
The conversation lulled which was the perfect moment for the men of the hour to plop down in their little circle. Hollander practically landed in Rozanov’s lap, and Scott was stuck somewhere between shock and amusement. It really was going to take his brain a while to get used to this new reality.
“Wow, is quiet,” Ilya chimed in when the conversation didn’t pick up. “You are all too stunned by our wedding to speak?”
“I think they’re all realizing how much you’re going to beat them this season,” Ryan responded, looking just a little bit too happy about this admission.
“Not over here,” Scott protested, “Montreal might have a reason to be nervous, but I have my eye on a second cup.”
“They have special cup for senior citizens?” Ilya chirped, earning a hit to his stomach from his new husband.
“You said you’d be nice,” Shane mumbled.
“Fine, fine,” he said, capturing his husband’s hand before Shane could take it away and bringing it up to his lips. “He is right about Montreal, though.”
Shane’s frown grew deeper at that. “I think you also promised not to take anything out on Montreal.”
Ilya didn’t respond, but looked decidedly murderous. For maybe the first time in his career, Scott couldn’t agree more with Ilya Rozanov. Setting aside the fact that giving up Shane Hollander made the Centaurs practically indefeatable, he also couldn’t believe that they’d let go of Shane fucking Hollander because of homophobia. It made him seeth. He knew that when he kissed Kip on the ice, it hadn’t magically fixed everything, but goddamnit, he thought things would be at least slightly better by now. Even though fighting wasn’t really his thing and he tried not to get overly violent on the ice, he was looking forward to particularly physical meetings against Montreal this season.
Shane glanced over Scott’s shoulder into their house and heaved a sigh. “I think you better go break up whatever that is,” he said to Ilya.
Scott turned around to see a cluster of Centaurs players clumped in what looked like a very focused discussion just inside the house.
“Why me?” Ilya whined.
“I’m sorry, I thought I saw a C on your jersey last time I checked,” Shane retorted.
“Is off season. They are not my responsibility in off season.”
Shane squinted his eyes and then quipped back in very fast Russian. Which…somehow made Scott’s brain short-circuit even more. His “save for later” file in his brain was practically a novel at this point.
Whatever Shane said must have done the trick. Ilya groaned, but stood up and made his way into the house.
“Alright, children, break it up,” he heard the Russian call out before the door shut behind him.
Scott felt his phone buzz in his pocket and pulled it out to see a text from Kip. Need me to save you?
His eyes scanned the party and found him now standing in a cluster with Troy, Harris, and Yuna Hollander. God, their drive home was going to be nothing but good gossip. Not that Scott was particularly big on gossip, but being married to Kip had given him an appreciation for sharing the dramatic lives of their friends. And there was nothing more dramatic right now than the surprise, chaotic wedding of the two most talked about players in the league.
Kip met his gaze, and Scott gave him a nod in response. It’s not that Scott wasn’t enjoying the company, but he was ready to have his husband to himself. That, and his brain was practically bursting at the seams with all the new things he’d learned. He wasn’t sure he could take much more.
Kip excused himself from his conversation and made his way over to Scott just as Ilya ushered his teammates out of the house and back into the yard. Scott stood up and took Kip’s hand, preparing to make their excuses.
“You have to get grandpa back to nursing home now?” Ilya asked Kip, who had the audacity to laugh.
“Something like that,” Kip responded, and Scott just rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s past my bedtime or whatever,” Scott tacked on just to be part of the game. Ilya smirked at him, but didn’t throw any more insults out.
“It was a lovely day,” Kip said as he made his way to give each groom a hug.
They made their rounds, said their goodbyes, and Scott had never been more relieved to shut his car door as they left.
“Tell me everything,” he said to Kip as they pulled out of the driveway.