Chapter Text
November 2018
Shane made it to the parking lot before he whirled on Hayden, “I told you not to punch him,” he says, voice tight with anger.
“Ugh,” Hayden groans, “and I said I wouldn’t if he wasn't a dick.”
“No, you punched him because you wanted to. We have a fucking press conference tomorrow Hayden.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Maybe it has to do with the fact that I don’t want my best friend fighting my boyfriend for no reason. I told you not to punch him, twice. It was the end of the game, no reason to drop gloves, and we have a press conference tomorrow.”
“Come on Shane, it’s not a big deal.”
BAM
The sound of flesh hitting flesh echoes in the parking lot. Hayden reels back, “What the fuck, man?”
“Its not a big deal,” Shane’s mocking voice is almost worse than the sneer he wanted to level at his friend. He knows this behavior will surprise Hayden, and would surprise most people who think they know him. While it’s not wildly out of character, it is unusual for Shane to not only reach his limit, but act out because of it. But when it’s about Ilya, he’s always done the unexpected, and he’s reached his fucking limit with Hayden. He’s used to people giving him crap, but he won’t let people talk shit about his boyfriend, especially not his best friend, who’s done nothing but shit on Ilya since he found out. He tried to let it go that first dinner, he was stressed, and he knew his friend needed to adjust to the information and learn who Ilya was to Shane, off the ice. But it’s been a goddamn month and Hayden has shown no signs of coming around.
“What the fuck?”
“You were being a dick,” Shane repeats Hayden's words back to him, still mockingly. He’s pissed. He should care that he just punched his best friend. He should care that he punched the one person who could ruin his life. But instead he’s just tired and angry.
“Oh, come on.” Hayden is still nursing his eye, glaring at Shane in betrayal.
“No, Hayden. I'm sick of it. Stop treating my boyfriend like some kind of disease I caught. Fuck this,” Shane hisses, “Fuck it all, go back to not knowing Hayden. I'd prefer that. If this is so fucking difficult for you, then fine, you don’t know anything. We can just pretend you never found out, ok?” He gets in his car without waiting for an answer.
Shane does send a text when he gets home, before he goes inside, where Ilya is waiting for him.
Shane: Don't come to the conference tomorrow. If I see you, I’ll probably punch you again.
He turns his phone off without waiting for Hayden's response and climbs out of the car. He finds Ilya on the couch, already changed into sweats and shirtless, icing his eye.
“How's your face?” Shane asks, setting his own stuff down and standing where Ilya can see him. If he sits down, he’ll stand right back up again. Energy is buzzing in his veins and it’s overwhelming.
“Fine,” Ilya waves the ice pack to prove he's taking care of it. Shane nods at him, crossing his arms and chewing on his words for a minute.
“I punched Hayden,” he confesses to his boyfriend. Ilya looks surprised and a little turned on.
“What? Why?”
“I told him to leave you alone, twice,” he emphasises, “then he said he still couldn’t believe you were my you know.”
“I know what? That I’m your boyfriend? Yes, Hollander, I do,” Ilya teases. Shane huffs, finally sitting on the edge of the couch, ignoring Ilya’s pout that he’s too far away.
“Apparently, Hayden doesn't. He said just that, you’re my you know. And not like he was trying to be discreet because we were on the ice. It’s not the first time, he acts like calling you my boyfriend would infect him or something.”
“Stupid thought from Montreal’s 15th best player, all his brain went through his dick and became a hundred children.”
“Probably,” agrees Shane. Ilya raises an eyebrow at him, the other still covered in an ice pack. “I’m pissed at him.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Shane’s voice pitches high in that special way that Ilya only hears when he’s done something he should know how to do, but fucked it up anyway. “Why, Ilya? Are you serious? He’s been nothing but disrespectful to you and by extension, me. He laid his hands on you today, Ilya, and it’s not the first time.”
Now he’s wearing his angry kitten face, except it’s more angry and less kitten. Ilya reaches his hand out for Shane to take, which he does, without moving more than one couch square over so he’s still too far away for Ilya’s liking.
“Moy lyubov, what are you talking about?”
“He hit you,” seethes his boyfriend, eyes now narrowed at the air in front of him. “I told him to drop it and he did it anyway. At the end of the game, for no reason except he hates you. I know you didn’t say anything to deserve it. On top of it all, we have a press conference tomorrow. He hit you, Ilya.”
“Shane, I know, I was there. Is not a big deal.”
“Yes it is. Fuck, have you really not noticed? You call him the 15th best player, he calls you a cheating slut.”
Ilya’s eyes go wide, jaw dropping, “Moy lyubov, I think I would know if he said that.”
“He did, at the cottage, that first time we had dinner, remember? He shoved you and threw your past in your face, told you you couldn’t possibly love me because you’re not ‘all the way gay,’ and said explicitly, several times, that you don’t deserve me. He wouldn’t stop. The whole night I had to listen to him. We could talk about what Shane sees in you? I bet he was drunk. What are you going to do when you break up? What’s your game? He thinks you don’t care about me, or that you’re doing this for fun like there are only consequences for me. The consequences are worse for you! He also forgets constantly that I’ve known you longer. Fuck!”
Shane stands and walks away. Ilya lets him go, a little stunned. He remembers Pike’s words. They’d hurt, but not as much as they’d clearly affected Shane. It was all stuff he expected to hear, and was willing to give grace to his boyfriend’s best friend. Having it laid out like that really sold the point home that today had been Shane’s final straw with his best friend.
“If it was just dinner and after that he made an effort to get to know you, the real you, the you I know, then maybe it wouldn’t matter as much. Maybe I could move on, but I can’t. I can’t, Ilya. I was so excited to have someone who knew, who I didn’t have to lie to. Instead, he just keeps talking. And to wrap it up! He was upset that I didn’t tell him. You could have told me, Shane. Clearly not! Clearly, I can’t tell you. First, there was nothing to tell, then you think I owe you my secrets because your my friend, fuck you. It hurts, he said. You should have told me, he said. Fuck that.”
“Shane,” Ilya says slowly, putting down the ice pack (Shane could yell at him later for the water on the couch), and standing. He approaches his boyfriend like he would a wild animal, “Shane, I need you to breathe. In and out, please. Good, thank you.”
“Sorry,” he says, letting his head fall onto Ilya’s shoulder.
“No sorry, solnyshko,” comforts Ilya, stroking his hands down Shane’s back. “Yes, maybe it hurts a little, but I do not believe him. Is fine, Shane, I promise.”
“No, it’s not,” comes Shane’s muffled voice. “I hate it. I hate it so much and I can’t do very much about it. It scares me sometimes too,” he confesses, “that he knows and doesn’t like you. I’m scared of what he could do with our secrets. I don’t even know if it’s just my anxiety telling me that if I don’t placate Hayden, he’ll decide he hates you more than he likes me, or if that’s something I actually need to be worried about. I was hoping it would go well so that you could tell one of your friends, like Svetlana or Marlow or something, but now, I’m just terrified that the only place we’ll feel safe is when we’re alone.”
Ilya squeezes his boyfriend harder, staying silent. Truthfully, the thought of telling someone back in Boston about them rarely crossed his mind. It would be nice to tell people, he wanted to shout from the rooftops that Shane was his, but he knew why he couldn’t. Not only were their jobs on the line, but Ilya’s job was directly tied to his physical safety, something Shane took–pun intended–deathly seriously. But apparently, Shane still wanted Ilya to have support beyond him and his parents (and that came with its own baggage, for both of them). Shane wanted him to have his own best friend that knew, like Shane had the Pikes. He might not like Pike, but he was Shane’s friend, so he made an effort to get along with him. It was, admittedly, difficult to do when all Pike wanted was to take shots at him. Ilya wished he’d noticed how much of a toll it was taking on his boyfriend. Shane’s extreme peacekeeping tendencies suddenly made way more sense.
“Ok, Shane, ok,” he says, finally. “I’m sorry I didn’t see how much it hurt you.”
That’s the wrong thing to say, because Shane rears back suddenly, “The fuck? No, Ilya, fuck. Yes, it hurts me, but that’s because he’s saying awful things about you.”
“Ok, yes, but it still hurt you and I didn’t see. I will not chirp him in future, ok. Nothing to say then,” he shrugs. Shane’s angry face isn’t going away, fuck.
“He does it behind your back too. He says things like that to my face. Like the fact he can’t call you my boyfriend, just my you know. Or,” Shane lets out a humorless laugh, “how about our last day off that lined up, I was so excited to see you and he asked why I wasn’t coming to dinner. When I told him I was seeing you, he rolled his eyes and said ‘come on, Shane, you don’t have to spend all your time with him.’ I don’t see you for three hundred days of the year, he gets to see Jackie almost everyday. He gets to see me almost everyday. So, no, Ilya, you won’t chirp him again, unless it’s on the ice, because you’re not seeing him again.”
What? “What?”
Shane sighs, folding himself back into Ilya’s arms, “I told him to forget that he ever found out about you and we could just go back to before. I told him not to come tomorrow. My priority is you, so Hayden’s going to have to get used to reduced Shane time. Which is ridiculous, because like I said, he sees me almost everyday. If I can’t see him without you, I won’t see him as much.”
“Shane, you don’t have to do that–”
“Too bad, I am. It’ll be the same as your last year in Boston. We see each other as much as possible, except we pretend Hayden doesn’t know anymore, so anytime we’d go over as a couple, we will just have to spend together, alone.”
“Are you sure, Shane?” Ilya didn’t want his boyfriend to regret this. Regret possibly losing his best friend because of Ilya. Unfortunately, knowing someone intimately for a decade means they can read your mind.
“I’m not going to regret this, Ilya. He made his choice, so until he apologizes and wants to actually try, this is my choice.” He squeezes Ilya tighter, “Do you regret leaving Boston for me?”
“No,” he says immediately, “no, I don’t.”
“Good, I’m trusting that’s true. So trust me, please?”
“Ok, Shane.”
—
Shane does exactly what he promised. He doesn't bring up Ilya to Hayden, not outside relevant ‘yeah we’re friends, we did start a charity together, yes.’ context. Hayden, to his credit, doesn't try and force him into talking about it. Which he appreciates and hates in equal measure. On the one hand, Shane doesn't have to listen to Hayden complain about how much of an asshole Ilya is or how Shane could do better if he just gave it a try and JJ’s got so many options that would be better or watch Hayden's face scrunch while trying not to react because he’s trying to hide the disgust on his face when Shane talks about his boyfriend.
He hates it because of how easily Hayden steps back into it. Back into ‘I know nothing.’ Shane hates it. He hates that it doesn't feel like he's losing something. He thought not having a safe space in the Pikes and their home would hurt, or be more obvious. But instead he feels relief. Relief that he doesn't have to pretend anymore. Because Shane realizes sometime in the weeks following the punch and the press conference, he was pretending. A different kind of pretending, but pretending. Yes, Ilya was his boyfriend when under the Pike’s roof. Yes, Hayden had graciously invited him into their home. But there was always an unspoken caveat that while they were invited, while they didn’t have to hide, per se, there also couldn't be evidence of their relationship. Hayden's face would get a crease when Ilya slung an arm around Shane's shoulders for movie night. Or the way Hayden couldn't find it in himself to even fake enthusiasm for Shane when it had been a month since the last time he’d seen Ilya and Hayden gets to see both him and his wife almost everyday. Shane already isn’t in a normal relationship, no matter what he wants, so can't he just have this one normal thing? But no, his best friend can't even do that without making it a production of how much he dislikes the situation.
He hates the relief he feels when he doesn't have to brace for impact when Ilya is present, either in conversation or in person. He doesn't expect Ilya to stand down, not all the way at least; chirping is his love language, and he recognizes the effort Ilya is putting in. But Hayden is the one who can't let it go and it's exhausting. Hayden is the one exacerbating the problem and it’s unfair to Ilya to keep expecting him to be the one course-correcting.
So yeah, he’s angry. He's pissed, even, at Hayden and his bullshit.
The only, only, thing Hayden complains about now is how little Shane goes over anymore. This is the only time Shane allows himself to address the Ilya in the room. When Hayden invites him for dinner, or a movie, or asks him if he wants to babysit so Jackie and him can go out, he just says, it's date night, and leaves it at that. Hayden complains, to Shane, to Jackie, but he does, gratefully, keep Ilya’s name out of his mouth.