uncle randy’s gardening club

•founder of the Bad Friend Hayden Pike tag on ao3 • fic ideas/prompts welcome • it’s just chaos otherwise •

[femmedefandom]

when it comes right down to it, Hayden’s objections to Ilya as Shane’s partner aren’t compassion-founded criticisms based on Shane being in a legitimately destructive and unsafe relationship. and as such, all his petty jealousies and pointed remarks and intentional obliviousness and downright cruel behavior come across as him disregarding and infantilizing Shane to an insane degree all because he doesn't like Ilya and he never bothers to try.

Shane is a grown man who knows his own mind and can make his own decisions, especially about the people he chooses to let into the privacy of his personal life. and Shane made the conscious choice to be with Ilya. to choose a man who plays hockey at a top tier level equal to his own and who gets the world they live in, who is just as competitive and can give as good as he gets, who is gorgeous and very sexually compatible, who makes him feel good and safe and alive and relaxed and understood and treasured, who is completely devoted to him.

and for Hayden to just disregard Shane's choice, to ignore the fact that Shane loves Ilya, wants Ilya to be in his life forever, is willing to risk a secret relationship to be with Ilya....is insulting on so many levels.

Hayden doesn't care. he just does NOT care. not about Shane's opinion about his own romantic life, or even the validity of the relationship he best friend is in. he refuses to acknowledge that Yuna and David and Jackie and Ruby and Jade and Arthur and Amber all genuinely enjoy Ilya's company, his teasing, his kindness, his thoughtfulness. he seems incapable of separating Rozanov (81) from his public branding and persona to see Ilya (Shane's boyfriend/fiancé/husband). he is ready to assume the worst possible interpretation at the drop of a hat and his temper is one of the quickest I've seen to some light teasing.

he's constantly making subtle and not so subtle remarks that Ilya is not good enough for Shane, that Ilya is going to cheat on Shane, that Ilya is using Shane, that Ilya is such an asshole, that Ilya isn't worth it, that Ilya doesn't love Shane or have any depth as a person. he's uncomfortable around Shane and Ilya kissing and the fact that Shane wants to spend less time with Hayden or that Shane will show up with Ilya. he actively encourages JJ to keep trying to set Shane up with guys despite having had PLENTY of evidence that Shane is in relationship and does not want to look for anyone else.

and let's be honest here. Hayden, Shane's best friend in the world, still not fully accepting Ilya as Shane's boyfriend (after months/years) had a huge impact. it told Shane that acceptance of his sexuality was conditional on who he was with. it told him that the best he could hope for was indifference instead of full support. it probably also played a role in Shane being too scared to tell JJ about Ilya (a guy who was very supportive of Shane being gay!) which in turn, made JJ feel like Shane didn't even seen him as a friend and fractured the trust there.

and the final insult to injury, after years of hiding, after the stress and pain and hypervigilance that Shane and Ilya needed to operate under to keep their love safe and secret, Hayden delivers the final blow. that not even in his home, where they thought that they could be safe to show affection, could they be protected. in one of Shane and Ilya's many many many occasions of offering free childcare to the man who is apparently allergic to contraception and needs multiple adults outside his marriage to adequately care for his own kids, they were exposed. and then, instead of having a planned and well worded announcement of their relationship and/or marriage as they intended, Shane and Ilya became a sordid sexual scandal that picked them apart down to their bones.

but Hayden said sorry so it's fine. right?

[homunculus-argument]

The Odyssey but retold as a low-stakes modern adventure of one guy out with his girlfriend leaving the bar with his buddies to do just one (1) simple thing real quick, it'll take like 15 minutes tops, he'll be right back, but then some bullshit happens and the trip keeps getting more complicated as more bullshit keeps happening while he just tries to get back to the bar because he promised his girlfriend that he'd get back and he knows that she's still there because she told him she'd wait there.

And by the time he finally gets back it's almost 3 am and the bar is about to close while she's sitting there stone cold sober, surrounded by 5 drunk guys unsuccessfully trying to convince her to give up on waiting for him and go home with one of them instead. And the guy shows up to proceed to beat the shit out of them before explaining himself to her like hey sorry bullshit kept happening, my phone fell into a storm drain and my wallet got stolen when I was trying to find someone who'd borrow me a phone so I could call and

[thekijs]

His girlfriend had been fending off the 5 drunk guys for most of the evening by explaining that even if she was going to ditch her boyfriend, she can't possibly leave without finishing her beer, which she is keeping perpetually full via careful sleight of hand where she's just pouring it back and forth into and out of the pitcher.

However the drunk guys are also drinking, and eventually she can't afford to buy another pitcher for the table so she can't keep up the ever-full beer glass trick. At this point she has to resort to setting up the pool trick shot that she's never seen anyone but her boyfriend pull off, and says she'll leave with whoever manages the shot first.

That buys her another hour or so and then, finally, her boyfriend makes it back. He looks like shit, hair down and just a mess, he's wearing an entirely different jacket that he got from an alley, and barely recognizable—especially to 5 guys who've been drunk for hours now. He lurks for a minute, finds out what's going on, and proceeds to pull off the trick shot first try. Throws the jacket off, fixes his hair with a hair tie his girlfriend lends him, finally looks like himself again, and THEN beats the shit out of them with the pool cue.

[weaselle]

yuh i was there, that's how it happened

[lavenderprose]

At least once a year when the Raiders come to town Ilya reactivates his inner fuckboi and goes out with his boys who are still on the team, goes hard at the club, wears something objectively hideous, steals someone's Raider's ballcap and throws it on backwards. Phone buzzing in his pocket all night while he ignores it (this is Part of the Game) and when he finally closes out his tab after midnight he sees that someone has changed his contact for Shane back to 'Jane' and that 'Jane' has been blowing up his phone for the last few hours

Jane: Are we still on for tonight?

Jane: ???

Jane: Rozanov.

Jane: Fuck you I'm not going to just wait around for you all night.

Jane: Asshole.

Ilya just smirks to himself and replies with a room number.

And the thing is that they do actually have to be a bit sneaky. It wouldn't do for someone to draw some false conclusions about why one half of the most scrutinized marriage in the NHL is loitering in a random hotel lobby in Ottawa on a Thursday evening. Ilya doesn't want that kind of publicity and he does not want to try to explain that it's not what it looks like to his in-laws.

So there's a thrill to it when he scans the keycard into the reader and Shane is sitting there in the dark, breath heavy like he's nervous or like he's just run up six flights of stairs to avoid elevator cameras.

(It's both)

And yeah maybe it breaks kayfabe a bit that Shane already had the room key or that he's wearing his Centaurs team crewneck instead of the Metros one that he would have been wearing in this scenario years ago (because he threw them all out in a fit of pique and Ilya cheered him on) but the hotel room is dark and the only difference in the crewnecks is that the number 24 over the breast is red instead of blue.

He's even combed his hair down over his forehead. Fuck.

"Where the fuck have you been," Shane says, cornering Ilya as soon as the door is closed. "I've been sitting here like a fucking idiot, Rozanov."

"Relax, Hollander," Ilya coos, angling Shane's face with a hand on his jaw, and Shane tries to jerk away and Ilya steels his grip and then the game is really on.

[apageinthisbook]

Love bad friend Hayden tag, thank you for making it. I'm having so much fun reading all the works related to it

Would you ever post one big masterwork of your Romeo + Juliet series, sorted in the order of reading?

ive definitely thought about it. if that’s what the people want, I’d be open to doing that once its fully complete.

[sabotage-on-mercury]

After TLG, the one thing Shane enjoys more than competing against his husband is competing with his husband. On the ice, playing hockey, obviously. But also against other couples.

It isn't that Shane dislikes Scott & Kip or Troy & Harris or Hayden & Jackie. It's just that Shane enjoys knowing that his and Ilya's relationship is just. better.

It doesn't mean that Ilya and Shane are always lovey-dovey - bickering and trashtalking is Ilya's and his love language, just a little foreplay - no, Shane dissects other couples teamplay, connection and communication with the same precision he analyses a hockey game.

Meeting one of the other couples and exchanging meaning glances with Ilya over a sip of his drink when he notices a hint of a strain between the other two.

He's 100% the guy to say: "Oh, I just think, if he really loves you, he would help you with the dishes, just saying." "Oh, Ilya and I would never fight about this."  or "I mean, it's good when that works for you two but Ilya and I like spending a lot of time together, so..."

"So, you hate outdoor stuff but Harris wants to go camping? Well that's too bad. No, Ilya and I are always very much on the same wavelength when it comes to planning our vacation."

"A dry spell? What is that? Oh. Yeah no, sorry buddy, Ilya and I never had anything like this. Are you and Kip okay though?"

And of course that ends in the nastiest debrief with Ilya, later, like Shane is a total gossip. "Jackie said she and Hayden have seperate duvets isn't that weird? I'm worried about them."

Shane already forgot that just this morning Ilya and him bickered over socks left laying around, but as most of their arguments this problem ending in mind-blowing sex, who would remember a little argument after that?

Shane also gleefully ignores that Ilya and he jumped a from decade long  homoerotic rivalry while secretly being emotionally repressed fuckbuddies straight to mutual codependency, still with homoerotic competitiveness. He's sure that's the healthiest relationship anyone ever has had.

[wannabetonthat]

"Shane goes to Boston" "Ilya goes to Montreal" "They both go to Ottawa"

What about one of them goes to Brooklyn and the other to New Jersey and they get to compete against each other and live together in the same city and haunt Scott Hunter forevermore?

[jimmysownworld]

i love the “hollanov has a crush on carter vaughn” take not necessarily in a “i think they would invite him to watch” way but more in a “ilya would accidentally let it slip while chirping at shane to fluster him that vaughn is at the top of their ‘would’ list and vaughn is a little thrown off and straight so he’s like “are you guys asking?” and ilya laughs and pats his shoulder and assures him “absolutely not, i do not share my shane, we just think you are good looking man, i like that you are pretty and fun and my shane likes that you are serious about hockey and have good grooming habits. is not serious, do not worry vaughny we will not be asking you to witness me and my beautiful husband ever” and vaughn low key is overjoyed about it, his teammates who are around and hear the exchange are sometimes like “that doesnt bother you? you dont find that a bit weird?” but vaugh genuinely is just like “rozanov just called me pretty and fun enough to hang out with and hollander thinks im good at hockey and clean enough for him, you could hand me a nobel peace prize and it wouldnt come close to this achievement” and eventually it gets out to the general public so vaughn is captioning his instagram posts shit like “#1 contender for being the hockey husbands third goes fishing” despite shanes mortification about this getting out and vaughns clear delight with it” way

[ilyapasta]

We talk a lot about Shane’s closet. The flat color of the paint on the walls. Its contents are piled high, hangers filled and shelves packed, but it’s also organized, everything in its place. Everything perfect, if only everyone else would follow his plan, he can find a way out of it that won’t make anything fall.

But what about Ilya’s closet?

Ilya views his sexuality positively, but practically. He is attracted to men, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but let’s be serious. It’s a treat. Something you do to indulge. A vacation from the path that he must walk. I don’t believe one single article of Ilya’s being thought he would end up with a man until it was too late. He already loved one. Oops.

He hasn’t built an elaborate closet organizational system like Shane, he simple aborts the possibility before it forms. My coach’s son, nothing serious. It’s just a plan to fuck. We get together, we fuck, it’s simple. Even at the cottage: Hollander! It’s not a big deal!

I believe Ilya saw his life as inevitable, rather than trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, like Shane, where there’s effort to hide. To Ilya, it’s simple. Ilya would marry a woman, maybe Svetlana, maybe someone else who he likes and gets along with. Women are fantastic, he prefers them, canonically, or at least acknowledges that it’s easier to prefer them. Have children, he loves kids! No problem. His life is not going to rock the boat, so what does it matter if he fucks a few men now? What does it matter if Shane Hollander stays the night and Ilya makes him a tuna melt and says his name tenderly because he wants to? None of this is real. None of this is the inevitable life that will be his. Is his.

You can contrast this to Ilya’s relationship to hockey, which I think, like Shane, he thought would be the pillar of his life. It would be his actual legacy. Where he made an impact for himself and others.

I think Ilya’s relationship to his bisexuality is tied up with what he thinks he’s deserves as a person. He’s a good lay for men and women, but he’s not anyone’s top choice. And that’s fine, he doesn’t want to get tangled up in feelings anyway. Better to keep things friendly and transactional, like with Svetlana. Like with Hollander! We have a good thing, maybe we can push it a little bit because neither of us have expectations of the other and—oh shit.

You don’t like me: I’m the fun party guy. I’m the guy who fucks you good, I’m not someone you should stake a claim on, someone that should occupy your thoughts. After all, I will not be getting deeply involved. My life is laid out before me, and this doesn’t matter. It can’t matter. We can’t be something, Hollander.

But instead, as we see, Ilya Rozanov dedicates himself to a sweeping, all-encompassing, queer love. He accepts that he has a well of feeling to share, that he has the ability to love deeply despite inconvenience. That he can go against the grain, and be strong. That he isn’t inherently lazy! There’s another Ilya Rozanov in a different universe that said this is too much. I’m supposed to just fall into a life, not build one from scratch.

There’s a reckoning there. But there’s also triumph. Because where Shane must surrender control to find self-acceptance, Ilya must accept that he has to take control of his life in order to find love, contentment, and joy. No one is going to make this happen for him. He has to build it from scratch.

[drawnsnake]

I cried watching Project Hail Mary btw

[apollomission8]

I love Carl so much. He wasn't in the book–He's a narrative device so that Grace has a reason to explain his thoughts outloud. He's a stand in. A student for Grace. A person to bounce ideas off of. He's the part of the narration that is filled by the reader in the book. He's us. Carl is there so Grace can take us shopping. So he can show us his theories. So he can work through his hypothesis. Carl is the audience. Carl is you. Carl is me.

[lavenderprose]

Ilya is so lucky that Shane proposed. Ilya would have been a nervous fucking wreck for the entire day beforehand. Wake up in the morning. Look in the mirror. Today's the day. Sob. Breathe. Okay I'm good! Turn around and Shane's hair is all in his face, still asleep on Ilya's pillow. I am NOT good. Cold shower. Breakfast that Ilya does not eat. Morning jog wherein Ilya runs like someone is chasing him. Lunch that Ilya does not eat. Drive out to the cottage. Make Shane pull over because Ilya needs to dry heave on the side of the road. "Baby we don't have to drive out today if you're not feeling well." "NO WE HAVE TO." Get to the cottage. Immediately send Shane on some kind of extended fool's errand. Shane wants to stay because Ilya is SHAKING and he is so worried. "No my love I'm fine it's just the breeze off the lake haha." It's thirty fuckig degrees Celsius. Shane finally gtfo's. Yuna, David, Rose FUCKING Landry all descend to help Ilya set up. Well. Ilya is supposed to be helping but he is standing on the deck fully dissociating. Yuna brings him tea. "Are you going to throw up the tea?" "Yes probably." Yuna takes away the tea. 800 electronic tea lights on the deck. In a parallel Ilya has no way of understanding, he both puts on and takes off a suit. Yuna fixes his curls into the hockey boy quasi-mullet that magnetizes Shane's fingers to Ilya's hair and says, "Oh, you're so handsome!" Ilya cries big fat tears. David tells a story about how his proposal to Yuna almost didn't happen because David went to the hospital for heart palpitations that morning. Thank You David That Does Not Help Even Remotely. Ilya slav squats on the lawn for twenty minutes. Shane's car pulls up in the driveway and everyone hides while Ilya vibrates in the entryway. Shane has no less than thirty grocery bags hanging from his arms, still complaining about why the grocery service cancelled their delivery last minute. Ilya leads Shane and all thirty of his grocery bags onto the deck. Shane is doing his favorite thing (bitching) and his second favorite thing (Follow Ilya) so he doesn't notice his own mother tiptoing behind him collecting the grocery bags he drops like breadcrumbs. There is an Oscar-winning actress hiding under his sofa and Shane does not notice because Ilya takes him on the deck and drops to his knees and Shane is like, "Haha, right now?" and then he sees that Ilya has a look on his face like he's just been told the sun is never coming up again and he has his hands on Shane's knees and he is saying, "Shane. Please?" and Shane puts his hands on his head and says "Oh my God baby what's happening to you" as Ilya melts and melts and then from the depths of the cottage someone who sounds a lot like Shane's very own father is whispering "The ring the ring" and when he looks back down Ilya is fumbling a ring box out of his pocket. The first picture of their proposal is Shane glaring into the middle distance with a hand cradling Ilya's curls like a baby while Ilya ugly sobs into his knee.

[penandinkprincess]

cackling about the idea of shane and ilya getting separated on the bench from time to time and the public thinks "oooh, trouble in paradise? the rivalry rearing its head again?? hollander getting fed up with rozanov??"

and the truth is that the team was playing against someone ilya and/or shane ESPECIALLY hates, which means shane was dropping the most vicious, lethal reads known to man and making ilya crack tf up to the point that they were attracting attention and the coach was just afraid of someone reading lips and getting them all in trouble

and signficantly, the three person buffer between them just keeps shane from SAYING his comments

he and ilya are still leaning forward and backward to look at each other and exchange "mhm" "mhm" looks that still make it clear they're still communicating their thoughts perfectly fine

[apageinthisbook]

Assistant Coach Shane Hollander arriving to the Ottawa Charge season like Hockey Jesus come to help them win the Walter while eating nothing but quinoa and having gay sex

[parcai]

ok you know what's crazy. i actually think hayden pike is a super good realistic character, esp as shane's best friend

before anyone says anything: i hate this man. i think he's awful. the fact that shane is best friends with him is a personal insult to me. if a montreal public bus ran him over i would look the other way #withthepeople ✊

the problem imo is that rachel doesn't write him ironically. she genuinely has hayden telling ilya he doesn't deserve to live as a rebuttal to "what are you four, you can't eat mushrooms?" and seems to think this is harmless banter. like look at hayden. funny guy 🫵

BUT.

if you stop looking at him through the lens the books want you to and start looking at him through shane's, he makes a disturbing amount of sense

because hayden is safe. hayden is aggressively, boringly safe. hayden talks about his wag queen wife. hayden talks about his pink-frilly daughters. hayden got married at like 19. hayden is the human embodiment of heterosexual respectability. shane doesn't even have to do anything. just standing next to him makes him look straighter by association

and then after shane comes out? after he loses his team, his reputation, the media, basically his entire support system? of course he clings to the one guy who is at least vaguely kind to him

hayden isn't good. he's familiar. hayden isn't healthy. he's safe. hayden is the friend you keep because every alternative feels riskier

like hayden is stockholm syndrome. hayden is the prison you keep returning to because at least the bars keep the wolves out..

and i genuinely think that makes sense for where shane is emotionally

what i need, however, is the version of this story where shane has been married to ilya for five years and suddenly realizes there are people in the world who are kind without making him earn it. people who don't casually belittle him. people who don't make every interaction feel like surviving

because i fully believe one day it all crashes down at once and he's just sitting there like. oh my god. i was settling. i wasn't loyal. i was scared

[ilya-sweetheart]

hollanov on separate bedrooms

jackie: yeah separate bedrooms can be a blessing! i love hayden but sometimes i need my own space

shane: ????

hayden: it’s healthy for couples to get a breather! and it makes it more romantic when we share our bed again <3 even tho you kick in your sleep babe ahah

ilya: okei….

(later, at home)

ilya: don’t you ever dare sleep in a separate bed from me i will hunt you down

shane: fuck no never — also when you kick me in your sleep i just kick you right thefuck?? like grow a pair hayd, jeez

ilya: ok i see your point but maybe hayden shouldn’t kick his wife

shane: you’re right jackie should just kick him harder

ilya: exactly! we should be marriage counsellors, solving everybodies problems ))

[aslongasitsblack]

shane has been conditioned to not like anything on social media instinctively but he does smile at those reels that say ‘sleeping on a bicep tonight…life is good’

[hr-rep]

Everyday I live in fear of the HR fandom getting ever closer to Sitcom Dad!Ilya and Sitcom Mom!Shane being what we are forced to digest as fandom staples

[scunthotter]

I get very annoyed by some of the posts that portray Ilya as an idiot. He's a giant party boy jock not fucking stupid. He's canonically very witty and clever in a second language and good at his job. 😒 also Shane is his enabler and competitor not his bitch wife. Shane wouldn't make him sleep on the couch, he'd be egging him on.