Shane shortly before waking Ilya up at the cottage: ‘Hmmmmm, I can’t trap him with a baby. wait let me google……okay i definitely can’t get pregnant. Hold on…..sea-horse dads?…..nevermind…..can i adopt a baby-trap?…………no I’d just have a kid……………………okay wait what if we like coached some kids? Like they wouldn’t be ours but like- we wouldn’t be able to break-up because of the kids. Am i fucking on drugs? What the fuck am i thinking……..wait………..like a team of kids but it’s like charity…………cause men leave their children all the time but it would be a really bad look leave a charity……………….i can make a charity and it’ll have kids and we’ll help the kids……..and Ilya likes kids…………and he likes me………..and he’ll wanna stay with me forever….so he’ll be baby trapped AND we’ll be doing a good thing.* “Ilya wake up i have an idea.”
Another dimension to Ilya’s emotional avoidance to me personally is Ilya’s idea of what it means to be a dominant sexual partner, and what he believes is his role given that most of what people want from him is his body and what it can do for them.
To Ilya (during the hookup era) what Shane wants from him is Sexy Russian Machine who’ll fold him in half and praise him or call him a slut or whatever the mood is that night- they only see each other a handful of times a year, Shane doesn’t want to see all of the big, ugly emotions he pulls out of Ilya, that’s not what he came for. No one ever comes to Ilya for that.
If Shane sees any crack in the facade it’ll ruin the fantasy of The Perfect Dom Top you can trust to fuck you into oblivion at a moment’s notice. It’s what Shane needs, it’s what he deserves.
They get so little time.
I think it goes hand in hand with Ilya’s complex attitude towards dominance in general and how he was taught that dominance and true emotion were incongruous concepts. Emotion in the moment is different- that can be waved away with the plausible deniability of a fuck that was too good not to crack a little- but when the moment’s over? The shutters need to come back up. Protect the image. Protect himself.
It’s not the only reason, and it’s not even the most prominent reason, but I do think it’s a factor in how long it takes Ilya to open up emotionally. All these preconceived notions of masculinity and power that needed to be slowly unspooled the more distance he had from Russia, from his father, from Alexei.
By the time we get to the cottage, we have an Ilya who’s (almost) fully reconciled that- able and comfortable to show raw emotion and knowing that it doesn’t make him less sexually dominant or sexually competent/attractive and knowing that to Shane, he means so much more than what his body can do. ‘That’s not what this is- you and me.’
This is such a good read of Ilya from this perspective. There's a lot of emotional growth that happened over the years for them and definitely by the time he gets to the cottage part of it is that he has reconciled this and is actively choosing to share the way Shane has also shared with him*, but it's also because he doesn' have the capacity to hold it all in anymore.
He is so tired of holding all of that in. He puts so much energy into appearing unflappable. He is the ragebaiter, the troll, the teaser, he is the one who coaxes emotions out of others, and wins by not letting them know there's even anything to coax out of him in return. And it's exhausting having this inner life that is a secret, it's lonely.
His feelings had been trickling out of him for months and he gets to the cottage and Shane once again asks him to be honest, creates this space that is private and comfortable. Show yourself, just for me, I promise, I want to see everything. And Ilya doesn't have the energy for "go away hollander, we aren't anything" or "we fuck, is simple" or even a "maybe, maybe". The gates open and that trickle becomes a flood, and he learns how much stronger he can be for it.
Ilya shows all his intensity to Shane and it makes him a better dominant, safer, more reliable, more attuned to Shane. He doesn't need to be a fantasy of a Perfect Dom Top anymore, Shane wants the reality, the man, the partner. He'll still be avoidant of some parts of him, the darker parts, because they don't have time for that, their time is still limited and he can't put all of it on Shane. But he isn't hiding his love and tender desires anymore.
* just a little addition: I find it so beautiful how Shane becomes a sort of inspiration for him. Ilya really admires how brave he is and Shane has asked him to talk to him and share so many times, and Ilya wants to be brave for him too. He also knows being vulnerable is not weakness because look at how Shane, the bravest person he knows, is opening up to him
MyShane was DEVASTATED when "Ilya Rozanov Best Hits Compilation" by Hockey_Guy435423 disappeared due to copyright claims. It only had like 200 views and 100 of them were Shane watching with his dick in his hand.
There are others from SportsNet and ESPN but that one just had a certain je n'ais ce quoi that got Shane going. Shane DMs Hockey_Guy435423 but doesn't hear back and goes on a deep dive trying to figure out if there's a way to recover deleted youtube videos and he never does but it's okay because in the process he finds like 5 more Ilya Rozanov fight compilation videos from small creators. He meticulously downloads these to a special folder just in case and adds them to the regular rotation.
shane in the beginning of their official relationship being unsure of how to do casual intimacy because he’s used to only get it if it’s during sex or with the intent of turning into sex but now they’re boyfriends and he doesn’t always know how to navigate that so sometimes he will just 🧍🏻♂️ in the middle of the room because he wants a smooch but he’s unsure of how to progress and he feels weird asking for it before eventually realizing that ilya is more than happy to indulge
yuna is actually the greek goddess nike whereas david hollander is just your Average Guy who managed to clumsily charm his way into her heart. so of course their offspring would be shane hollander aka a multi-time mlh champ who also happened to suit up before his first ever booty call
I think the first and only time Shane found out he was having a wet dream and Ilya woke up and noticed and didn’t have his way with Shane while he slept like Ilya tells him the next morning oh I wanted to touch you so bad but you were sleeping. Shane was like. Did I do something wrong? Are you mad at me?? and almost starts crying while Ilya is left to figure out that Shane thinks Ilya not touching him when he clearly wants it is a punishment. He’s like moya lyubov how could I know for sure when you were asleep? And Shane is like you literally know my body better than I do. You would know. If I thought I didn’t want it and you knew better I would trust you. And Ilya has to try not to pass out when all the blood in his head goes straight to his dick.
Ilya clocks the way David is almost supernaturally attentive towards Yuna's every need - her eyebrow twitches while she's reading emails on the couch after dinner and suddenly David appears with a full wineglass of her favourite merlot; she'll be chatting with Shane at the kitchen counter and he'll materialize with an aromatic tea in hand that he'll deposit with a kiss to her cheek; David almost always returns from the shops with a little treat just for her that he delivers with an exaggerated flourish to make her laugh - and Ilya is Noticing and Seeing™ 👀👀👀 all of this, but he is keeping his mouth shut
i tried making a contrapuntal poem for hollanov, which can be read 3 ways: shane’s side alone, ilya’s side alone, or both sides together. inspired by the long game.
shane fucking loves that ilya just be holding his big balls while hes on the couch watching tv. like he never tells him to Not do that even though he's heard jackie complain abt it in regards to hayden a few times. he knows he should probably find it gross but he thinks it's actually one of the hottest things ilya does without realizing
Shane asking Ilya if he can maybe hold Ilya's balls one time because he literally likes those guys! or, more realistically, he just shoves his own hand down there one day while they're lounging on the couch, sliding it right under Ilya's hand. and well, now it's kinda like they're holding hands. so Ilya just smiles big and wide like a lovesick fool while Shane cups his balls so softly with his big warm hands and a satisfied look on his face. he's such a good ball holder :)
why wasn't Shane diagnosed with autism as a child?
Yuna "I am masking at insane levels because of racism and sexism and I love my special boy so so much" Hollander x David "we love our son so so much and obviously he's just like my wife who I love so so much and I've never questioned any of their traits because they're perfect" Hollander.
can i just say, going by how Rose and Shane were both before they broke up and maybe even more after when she was asking him about jerking off at his parents' house...i have a feeling that Rose is still extremely like intimate with Shane whenever they interact?? idk if i can explain it well but like, asking him super personal stuff that he always answers, and then when they do get together there is a lot of touching and stuff. and Shane initiates it too, it's not just like one sided on her part. i think Shane genuinely likes and gets along with her and i think this drives Ilya absolutely INSANE even tho he has Svet. cause like Shane hasn't known Rose their whole lives and Ilya never seriously dated her, it's not the same thing. and like he doesn't HATE Rose but sometimes he hates how easily Shane tells her stuff, or how she will drape herself over Shane and hold his hand etc, like it genuinely makes his eye twitch sometimes but he feels like he can't say anything bc again, Svetlana exists and Ilya still hands out with her so...
i feel like the difference is that ilya is definitely not talking to svetlana about his and shane's sex life because 1) ilya thinks their sex is Sacred to a degree that's embarrassing 2) he's experienced enough that there's not a lot svetlana is going to be able to offer or add 3) that's hisshane and nobody else should be thinking about him.
and then shane is out here being like rooooose does that throat numbing spray stuff actually work. roooooose is it weird if i want him to pee on me. roooooose should i be worried if sometimes after coming he starts crying. rooooooose do you know how to fix anti-depressant related erectile dysfunction. rooooooooose have you ever tried shibari. like rose is simply too in the loop. rose is the yuna for questions that shane cannot ask yuna. and ilya is like "ROSE LANDRY does NOT need to know about my TICKLISH EAR!!" and shane is like 🥺 "but she's my friend...."
AU where Shane and Ilya don't hook up or have a decades-long secret. They don't really know each other at all, except to play each other.
Shane comes out of the closet sometime after Scott does, and in some random, lighthearted interview, they ask him what he's looking for in a man. And Shane's just, off-hand like, "Well, he'd have to have at least one Stanley Cup. Obviously." And when he gets a good reaction from that, he keeps going, like "Needs to be amazing at hockey. Definitely needs to be at least an All-Star, if not a captain. Hot too. If he can't bench-press me, I'm not interested."
And it's all in fun, except two days after the interview prints, Ilya Rozanov shows up at his door like "knock, knock. I am here to apply for boyfriend position. Do you need resume? I brought my Stanley Cup ring, just in case."
