Chapter Text
It was probably impossible to be any level of celebrity in the age of social media and not have had someone sit you down to read horrifyingly embarrassing tweets on camera. Shane Hollander had done it before, and his thirst tweet interview had gone moderately viral after he stammered and blushed his way through reading that someone would love him to shove his hockey stick down their throat.
Ilya Rozanov had also gotten a lot of attention when he did the same style of interview, but it certainly was not for blushing. Matching the freak of twitter patrons with a grin on his face had only encouraged them, and he had developed a bit of a reputation for retweeting and replying if he found them funny enough.
So it wasn’t really a surprise when Thirst Tweets won the twitter poll asking what the people wanted to see from the Centaurs next. By a landslide.
Having the pair of them read together as a married couple was either Harris's best idea or his worst. Shane thought it might be the latter, but Ilya had been over the moon and badgered him into it.
"Alright." Harris turned his attention away from the light set up and eyed them, most specifically Ilya, with a wry twist to his mouth. "I've got cue cards for both of you. You'll be reading tweets addressed to you, but people will really be watching for how you react to each other's. So just try not to say anything too... unairable, but also don't hold back too much. I'll beep out anything too crass or you can ask me to edit out tweets that make you too uncomfortable; but remember this is meant to be at least a little fun."
Shane shifted in his seat uncomfortably, cheeks already heating up as he imagined what his husband was going to be saying. Since the initial chaos of being outed had died down a little, Ilya had delighted in showing the world just how much he loved his husband, and there had been a few press interviews that had left Shane choking on air when a question had been answered with a searing innuendo and a wink. Telling the grinning Russian that he was allowed to openly say filthy things was like letting a kid be unsupervised in a candy shop.
"Yes, yes. This will be very fun." Ilya nodded, his grin even bigger as he too shifted in his seat. Unlike Shane, his inability to sit still was eagerness, and he had a large hand already stretched out to take the cards that Harris was pulling from a desk drawer. "I wish to hear how many people are sad they cannot touch my love." He shot a wicked glance to the blushing man next to him, "Or me."
"Uh-huh." Harris did not openly roll his eyes, but his tone certainly implied it as he handed them each the cards. "Remember, Shane, you can just ask me to cut if you need to."
"No, I'll be fine." Shane laughed a little weakly, "I've done this before."
"Yes." Ilya said warmly, "Was very cute."
The blush on Shane's face spread, making his freckles stand out, but he appreciated Ilya's attempt at reassurance. He waited quietly while Harris finished setting up, letting one finger drift off the arm of the folding chair he sat on to brush against his husband's wrist in thanks. Ilya turned his hand to reciprocate, squeezing Shane's hand just long enough to convey his support. It might be a bit of a game for him to make Shane blush, but he always made sure to keep the intensely private Canadian from being so mortified he was truly upset. It was more like a new way of chirping - a backbone of their relationship even now - rather than any sort of malice.
Truthfully, he did not even mind it all that much. He just found it extremely difficult to be so open himself, in part from years of hiding pretty much all of himself, and in part from simply not being as gregarious as Ilya by nature.
"Okay." Harris clapped his hands together as he came to stand behind the camera and lights, "You ready?"
Both men nodded, Shane sitting up straighter and Ilya immediately leaning over so he was nearly tipping his own flimsy wooden chair into his love.
"Three, two-" Harris counted them in, forgoing a verbal final count in favor of a pointed finger.
"Hello," Shane tried to look less like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin; although he supposed that might only increase the viewers’ enjoyment if his last attempt was any indication, "I'm Shane Hollander of the Ottawa Centaurs."
"And I'm Ilya Rozanov," Ilya took up the baton eagerly, his teeth blindingly white as he grinned at the camera. "Captain of the Ottowa Centaurs."
"And we're here to read thirst tweets." The finished together, as instructed by Harris.
"I am very excited for this." Ilya puffed out his huge chest, "I wish to see how many of you appreciate my Zolotse."
Shane ducked his head to hide his immediately pleased response to Ilya's endearment, before peeking up with a sheepish shrug when he remembered that those sorts of reactions will be the point. "I'm sure we'll see some interesting ones. You love to inspire them." He finished dryly.
"Hah!" Ilya laughed boisterously, "My fans are all brilliant. Such creativity!"
"They sure are." Shane laughed a little too, the anxiety clawing at his lungs making it come out a bit strangled. "You want to go first?"
"Yes!" Of course he did. Ilya brought up his cards and wriggled in his seat like a puppy. "Oh! This is good: I would let Ilya Rozanov to smash me into a fine paste and thank him after." He laughed again and shot an obnoxious wink to the camera, "Many ways to do that."
Wrinkling his nose a little, and belying the expression with a soft huff of amusement, Shane shook his head as he looked at his first tweet. "Shane Hollander is baby girl. I want to pat his hair and dry his tears after-" He looked up with wide eyes and then down with a small cough, "After I ride him till he cries." Clearing his throat again and refusing to look at the smug grin he just knew Ilya was wearing, Shane faced the camera with a quick smile, "Well, thank you, I think?"
Ilya was practically vibrating in his seat, and tossed the first card away to read the next. "I bet Ilya Rozanov is the kind of man to make you forget your own name and then keep going." He waggled his eyebrows, not at the camera, but at his husband, 'True, I am. I make it difficult to remember any name except mine."
Covering his face with one hand, Shane elbowed and shoved the leering man away with the other until the chair was no longer creaking alarmingly. Once he felt like he could actually look up without combusting, he set his used card on the floor much more carefully and took a deep breath to steady himself before he started on the next.
"I'm changing my pronouns to sweat/drop, just so I can run down Shane Hollander's neck." Shane chuckled a bit more genuinely and gave the camera a lopsided smile, "Well, I always try to respect anyone's identity."
"Perhaps I should change too, then?" Ilya smirked, "But I would not be sweat, I would be-"
Shane's hand shot out to cover his mouth before he could finish, and he rolled his eyes when Ilya licked his palm immediately. But, he did not call for Harris to cut. He knew Ilya had been expecting his reaction, and would not have finished the sentence anyway. They stared each other down for a moment before Shane dropped his hand and retreated fully to his seat. Ilya remained grinning at him, once again hanging so far over the arm of his chair that he was risking its structural integrity. Harris was massaging his forehead behind the cameras, but it was obvious that he had expected as much and he did not call a cut either.
"Is my turn now, yes?" Ilya's voice curled around the words as though he had forgotten they weren’t alone, and he was eyeing Shane with a dark glint in his eyes.
"Yes, Ilya." Shane sighed, giving him a look that said 'behave' as loudly as possible.
He did not hold out much hope there, but it was worth a try.
Holding up his hands in mock surrender, Ilya tossed the latest used card away with a flick and settled a bit more securely into his seat. "Ooh! I don't just want Ilya Rosanov to rearrange my guts, I want him to scrape them out and make a modern art piece."
"Oh, wow." Shane stared wide eyed at the card Ilya proudly held out to him, "That's... Graphic."
"Yes. Is like I said, my fans are best fans." He made a show of tucking the card into the pocket of his pants with a filthy grin. "I maybe frame this and hang it in our bedroom."
"Please don't." Shane did not need to feign a shudder. He knew Ilya wouldn't leave it up there as a permanent decoration, but there was a non-zero chance that he would walk in to sleep and find that card in a frame just to get a reaction.
"Maybe." Ilya smirked like a cat sitting in a suddenly empty bird cage. "You next? What are your fans saying?"
"Er..." Shane shuffled the cards in his hand a bit to bring the next one to the forefront. "Oh... um, this one is a picture of Katniss Everdeen saying 'I volunteer', and the tweet is Me if Shane Hollander ever gets sick of Ilya topping all the time."
Mortification crawled over his skin, stronger than it had all day, and he was considering telling Harris to cut it when two things happened. First, Harris's head snapped up and a deep frown pulled his brows together. He looked like he had no idea what Shane had just said, and their eyes met in complete bafflement.
Secondly, Ilya blew a raspberry with a wildly suspicious lack of surprise.
It didn't take much for Shane to figure out what had happened. His menace of a husband had tampered with the cards, for reasons that Shane was probably about to find out.
"Is stupid." Ilya leaned back in his chair with a mocking expression at the camera.
"Ilya." Shane sighed and scrubbed both hands over his face, the remaining cards balanced neatly in his lap.
"What? It is stupid misunderstanding." His accent was suddenly thicker in the way it always became when he was excited or wanted to appear especially intimidating. Shane would bet it was both, because the look Ilya was giving him was a particular mix of determined and mischievous that he knew all too well. "I should clear it up."
Fully aware that his husband would just derail the rest of the interview further until he was satisfied, Shane waved a weary hand to tell him to go on.
"I am big, scary Russian, yes? Very aggressive, smash body into boards whenever I can. Love to throw boy around and good at it." Ilya grinned the same vicious grin he always wore when he spotted an opportunity to absolutely demolish some poor guy just trying to get the puck in the goal. "How would you say on Twitter? Big top energy?"
"Oh my god." Shane whispered hopelessly and looked up at the ceiling.
"Shane, he is good Canadian boy. Polite, focused on strategy and not on throwing gloves. Nice, clean player." Ilya rolled his neck with a pleased hum, "But, he is still hockey player; strong, very strong. Thighs like tree trunks and very pretty abs. We all see him take body down when he wants. Perhaps less likely to throw someone around for fun, but if you set the mood right...?" He trailed off with a clear implication in the soft sound the rumbled from his chest.
Throat suddenly dry, Shane swallowed thickly and allowed his eyes to drop down from the roof, finding Ilya already looking at him in a way that was entirely too reminiscent how he had stared all those years ago in a Las Vegas hotel room while Shane touched himself on the bed. A very different type of heat suddenly flooded his cheeks and he licked his lips without meaning to. Ilya's eyes followed the motion with a pleased languor, his legs spreading slightly as he dragged his blistering gaze all the way from Shane's face down his body.
That was definitely not a look meant for public consumption. Blinking hard, Shane ripped his eyes away and busied himself with the note cards. He kicked Ilya’s ankle, reminding him they both still had tweets to read, and tried to hide the small smile that kept creeping its way into the corner of his mouth.
Shane did not really know how he got through the remaining handful of tweets, but he could not quite meet Harris's eyes when he said that all the tweets could stay in. Ilya's dark smirk as he also confirmed there were none he wanted to cut made Shane unable to look away lest he make some sort of embarrassing noise right there in front of the social media manager. When that large hand settled on his back as they left, he sucked in a small breath that drew a chuckle from his incorrigible husband.
"I'll get you back for that." He promised in as icy a voice as he could manage with all his skin prickling in hypersensitive desire to press Ilya against a wall and do it immediately.
"Hmm?" Ilya leaned forward until the words were a hot breath in his ear, "Is that a promise?"
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Ottawa Centaurs Official @OttowaCens
Opening up our thirst tweet series with a bang:
@IlyaIlya and @SHollanderOfficial read thirst tweets!
Bear With Me @Rosanooooov
Thirst tweets from the First Husbands themselves! Holy shit, this is the best day of my life!
Puck*Me @Centauress
OMG! This is not a drill! @SHollanderOfficial read my tweet! I still volunteer, btw!
Hollanova @Hollanovtruth2481
Yep, I'm being so normal about ILYA BASICALLY BRAGGING THAT SHANE TOPS LIKE A BEAST
Mrs Rozanov @IloveIlya81
Oh my god. I think it's finally happened and I have to admit I'll never be able to compete with @SHollanderOfficial THAT LOOK Ilya gave him
I'll be crying in my room
Puck*Me @Centauress
@IloveIlya81 be for real
But also, I feel you