Chapter Text
June arrives, gaunt and haggard; in need of loving rest. At the cottage, Shane has another Cup, and less of himself. The through-glass kitchen sunlight seems to illuminate Shane’s exhaustion, making stark what this year took from him. Still, it’s a perfect morning, the start to the summer they dreamed about all season long. Ilya leans against the counter, grinning like he just won the Stanley.
“Is there something on my face?” Shane smiles back; half teasing, half fishing. “You’re staring, Ilya.”
“Ah. No.” Ilya strides forward, wrapping his arms around Shane’s waist to hug him from behind. “It is only that I woke up next to my boyfriend,” (the way Ilya says that word still gives Shane butterflies), “for the first time in many months of punishment. The coffee smells beautiful and you, in the light, even more beautiful.”
Jesus Christ. Shane feels his cheeks heat as Ilya kisses his shoulder. Is there such a thing as an emotional insulin spike? Shane won’t be able to survive next season’s bitter loneliness, not if the summer tastes this fucking sweet. The coffee machine chirps. Ilya opens the ceramics cabinet.
“I don’t want any,” Shane tells Ilya when he reaches for two mugs. “I haven’t decided if I’m doing caffeine this off season.”
Ilya hums in response, turning away to pour his coffee.
He’s so handsome. Shane wants to sue. Shane is so in love with Ilya that it’s stupid. It’s insane, really. Shane wants to live the rest of his life in this kitchen, watching Ilya take a sip of coffee and do a little happy dance.
Shane’s lover has on boxers without any socks, and is wearing a shirt for a change. Or, half a shirt, because Ilya is wearing the “crop top” that he’d sent Shane a 2:00AM selfie of in the moments after cutting it back in March. It’s a Metros shirt, so it does double clandestine duty. The only way Ilya can wear something as gay as a crop top is in secret: at the gay cottage he shares with his gay boyfriend who gives him gay t-shirts to chop the sleeves off of gayly. The shirt exposes an appealing expanse of Ilya’s belly; furry and curved despite its playoffs-leanness because of his relaxed posture.
“You need breakfast.” Shane tells him.
Ilya laughs. “I know this! I will make for us both. Give me a minute, my God.” Ilya takes another sip of coffee, still grinning. “And what is it that you are implying, Shane? I call you beautiful, you call me skinny, huh?”
“Shut up.” Shane laughs. “That’s not what I said. Besides, I have my own three pounds I need to gain back.” His tone is teasing and it’s a humble-brag, Shane knows. But he’s proud of himself: very few players have the discipline to keep their weights as consistent as Shane does during the season.
Ilya is certainly never able to keep the weight on, claiming to enjoy bulking after the fact. This season was a rough one; a maximum effort exertion to give Boston one last Cup to remember him by. Ilya wasn’t able to keep up with the eating, and Shane can see it now, in the grim shadow his cheekbones cast in the morning light. Shane can also see, with a pang of guilty jealousy, that for all the ice has taken from Ilya this season, it has left him with an unfairly photogenic set of abdominals and obliques, plainly visible beneath the scissor-jagged hem of his shirt.
Ilya blows a raspberry at Shane, taking out one of the eight cartons of eggs from the refrigerator.
“Will you let me scramble your eggs?”
Shane wrinkles his nose, thinking of the half-stick of butter Ilya likes to basically fry his six eggs in.
“I will let you boil my eggs,” Shane compromises.
“How many?” Ilya asks, taking out spinach and that preshredded cheddar cheese Shane would rather do an hour of bag skates than ingest.
Shane holds up three fingers. Ilya boos him loudly.
“Are you training to become little girl ballet dancer?” Ilya squints at him. “We will work out today, even if it is only fucking. Okay.” He slaps Shane on the back, deciding. “I make you five.”
Shane watches the five eggs shimmy beneath the rippling waterline of his stainless steel pot. He’d thought he could get away with the mini-cut without talking to Ilya about it, but he was obviously an idiot because he’d failed to consider that they’d be eating literally every single meal together at the cottage.
Last September, the week before the preseason had started, the UnderArmour rep had asked Shane to flex his abs and complained in an audible whisper to his associate that Shane’s body looked “bulky” on camera. Later, while a perfectly pleasant makeup artist waterboarded him with a spray bottle, Shane had heard further conversations about him that did not include him that’d used words like “soft” and “definition.” Blinking the cold spray water from his eyes, Shane’s cheeks had burned with shame and frustration. What had these people known about hockey? About being the best? People try to knock Shane down for a living, of course he’s bulky! Should he have started the season weak and starved, dehydrated until his abs looked a little more like Ilya’s? Shane’s abs have won more Cups, even if their etchings are not as dramatic.
On the phone the next day, Yuna had explained the solution, bright and practical. Next year, they’d take advantage of the weight he loses during the playoffs and schedule the photoshoot for the middle of June. All Shane will have to do is maintain, maybe cut a tiny bit to shave off the last of the belly that blurs his abs. Yuna had kept the conversation professional, focused on product logistics more than anything else, so there’d been no reason for Shane to feel so embarrassed. To have felt like he’d failed. Bad timing, she’d said then, over the phone.
Now, watching his eggs jostle in the steaming water, Shane can’t help but feel like this timing is worse. He’s sore, he’s starving, and he has to figure out how to explain to Ilya that this cut’s meal plan only gives him three eggs with breakfast.
Ilya is loading up the toaster. Shane has to stop him.
“And I’m, uh,” Shane grimaces when Ilya turns around. “I’m not eating carbs right now. So. No thanks on the toast.” His voice is flatter than usual with his discomfort.
Ilya’s eyes flicker with an emotion Shane can’t place. He’s never been good at that sort of thing, even if he can read Ilya better than anyone else in the world.
Ilya takes a breath. “What will you eat besides boiled eggs?”
“I’m making a smoothie.” Shane pulls out kale, nonfat Greek yogurt, unflavored whey isolate, and unsweetened almond milk.
Ilya scrambles his eggs (poking and prodding them without a moment's rest) and stares moodily at Shane while he blends.
“What kind of diet is this?” Ilya asks coldly when Shane stops blending. “And do not say, (Ilya puts on his best [but not particularly good] Canadian accent), “performance diet because right now you only have to be the best at Grand Theft Auto and taking my cock.” Ilya trains his pouty blue eyes on Shane, who loads more kale into his Vitamix. .
“My Shanya,” Ilya groans. “Why are you eating like contestant on The Biggest Loser?”
Shane laughs despite himself. “I’m just keeping it clean. I have a sponsorship thing in two weeks, you know how it is.”
“I do not,” Ilya says, eyes focused on his eggs which look almost done to Shane. Ilya takes a calorically dense handful of shredded cheese and sprinkles it in the pan. He shakes in a few leaves of spinach.
“So, Yuna set this up?” Ilya asks, stirring his cheese with eggs and spinach. Shane prickles at Ilya’s tone, speaking his mother’s name.
“Cut your calories after playoffs so UnderArmor doesn’t have to see sexy body that won the Cup?” Ilya makes a disdainful Russian sound. “Like you are not good en—
Shanes whirls the blender, the sound deafening and unpleasant. The awful noise is a price Shane’s willing to pay to get Ilya to stop talking and to buy himself some time. Ilya needs to keep Shane’s mother’s name out of his mouth. Besides, she hasn’t put him on a diet since middle school. All of his cuts since Juniors have been Shane’s decision, as advised by a number of stakeholders: his coach, his trainer, the team doctor, and yes, his manager and mother. Worst of all, Ilya’s anger in defense of Shane glows something golden in Shane’s belly, a hunger food couldn’t hope to satiate.
By the time his smoothie is so thoroughly blended that it pours warm into his glass, Shane has composed himself enough to formulate a response to his boyfriend, whom he loves and who loves him.
“I’m making the choice to clean up my diet to meet an appearance-clause contract obligation for an upcoming business transaction.” Shane says, using the voice he talks to reporters with. He picks up an orange from the basket and starts peeling it.
“Thank you, Captain Hollander,” Ilya says, in what Shane is sure is a sarcastic tone because he rolls his eyes, turning off the heat on his scrambled eggs.
“It’s the sort of transaction that pays for this cottage. And your egg addiction.” Shane adds, hoping to ease some of the tension. He puts the peeled orange on Ilya’s plate, because he loves Ilya and Ilya deserves something sweet.
Ilya smiles at the orange, then seems to remember the argument and scoffs, plating his eggs and buttering his toast. Shane’s eggs still have two more minutes on the boil. Ilya gets a bowl from the cabinet, dispenses ice cubes into it. He fills the iced bowl with clean well water.
“I liked last year’s pictures,” Ilya says quietly, eyes soft. “I went to UnderArmour dot com to jerk off many times last winter. You can check my search history.”
“Fuck off,” Shane laughs.
“I like,” Ilya presses on. “How you look in early season. Coming off of your bulk. Is very sexy to have big and strong Canadian boyfriend.”
“Well, you’re going to have to wait an extra two weeks before you see him because I’m sticking to the diet until the shoot.” Shane grumbles, refilling his water bottle.
Ilya turns the heat off the egg pot and cancels the timer three seconds before it will ring. He retrieves the tongs from the drawer beside the stove and uses them to pluck the eggs from the pot and place them in the ice-bath, one by one.
“I am patient guy.” Ilya says, swirling the ice around Shane’s eggs. “And I also like money. Nice clothes, good food, you do not know about these things.” Ilya smirks. “But I must, at some point over summer, see my boyfriend healthy and heavy for the ice. After glamorous Mr. Underwear photoshoot, you will eat, really eat. Yes?”
God. Ilya is so good-looking, especially when he’s using his looks to get what he wants. The face Ilya is making at Shane right now has to be medically classified as a smoulder. UnderArmour should solve everyone’s problem and take pictures of Ilya the week after next.
“Yeah,” says Shane, taking an egg out of the cold water and handing another one to Ilya to peel. “Of course. I have to be ready for the season. I’m not insane.” Shane squeezes his egg until a crack appears. The eggshell fractures. It will be a messy peel.
““хороший / Good.” Ilya cracks the egg against the counter, peeling the shell off in one graceful piece.
“You get to watch me grow big and strong too.” Ilya says, peeling Shane another egg. “You will like it, I think. More weight to fuck you with. I hope you are not afraid of little bulk belly. Sveta says I get pregnant with her vodka baby every summer but this summer I think I will become pregnant with your too-many-burgers baby.”
Ilya winks and Shane feels himself blush. He thinks about Ilya, hale and hardy after a summer eating the whole, healthy foods Shane’d prepared for him. Ilya, thick in that same cut up half-shirt; soft in the stomach, and so, so strong. Arousal curls beneath Shane’s belly. He’s fucking starving.
“You don’t scare me, Rozanov.” Shane says, throaty with want.
Broad shoulder to broad shoulder on their barstools, breakfast is a quiet affair. Ilya demolishes his six egg scramble with his four pieces of buttered toast and orange. Shane has eaten three eggs and finished most of his smoothie when Ilya asks, like a shark in the water:
“Would you give up your diet for me?”
Shane actually jumps at the question. His resting heart rate is elevated.
“I’ve been on a diet since I was fourteen,” Shane says carefully.
“This is not what I ask,” says Ilya patiently.
Shane blinks twice; not computing. “It’s my answer. I mean, it’s been a long time. I don’t think it would be possible to just… stop.”
Ilya gestures towards Shane, curling his lips inward in an I told you so-ish non-smile.
“Shut the fuck up,” Shane snaps at Ilya, who didn’t say anything. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. If I had to stop… it would be fine. But I don’t have to stop. You would never ask me to do that.”
“I wouldn’t,” Ilya agrees; waits a beat. “But what if I did? Would you give it up for me?”
Shane frowns, biting the inside of his cheek.
“OK, not to worry. I will go first to prove that I am serious.” Ilya’s expression is strange, stormy. “I will give up something important for you. My homeland, for example. Or maybe my team and city?”
Shane’s stomach swoops with guilt. He puts his hand on the table, palm up for Ilya to hold.
“Ilya…”
Ilya glares at him for a beat then seems to shake himself out of it. He takes Shane’s outstretched hand.
“I know, I know.” Ilya says quickly, tone much softer. “I am just joking, Hollander! Lighten up, will you? I move to Canada because I am very in love with maple syrup. We discuss this many times.”
“Okay,” Shane says, processing the change in the conversation’s direction. He isn’t going to eat the last two eggs.
“It is just that I worry,” Ilya says while picking up plates. “About you, this diet. Winning a cup is hard on the body. It hurts.” Ilya nods at his own knee, the MCL sprain that cost Boston game seven. “You need rest and fuel. I worry that Yuna and UnderArmour forget this.”
Ilya pre-rinses the plates how Shane likes, then loads them facing inwards, the way Shane prefers.
“Be kind to my Shanya. His body is precious to me.”