i really, really hate that we've gotten back to 2000s eating disorder bodies being marketed as the pinnacle, and what people should gun for.
and no, i don't mean to hate on ppl with bodies that malnourished, obviously; there are mental hurdles they're trying to overcome or medical issues that are none of your or my business.
i'm saying that i hate that hollywood is, yet again, saying that this body type is what everyone should aim for, and that the "advice" being handed out is "magical weightloss drug" or "starve".
closing statement for those who's reading comprehension is tumblr grade; ME NO LIKE HOLLYWOOD. HOLLYWOOD SAY UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD GOOD. HOLLYWOOD BAD. ME SAD PEOPLE HAVE BAD RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD. STARVATION BAD. HOLLYWOOD USE PROPAGANDA. HOLLYWOOD MAKE PEOPLE WHO STRUGGLE STRUGGLE WORSE. BAD HOLLYWOOD. NO. NO LIKE HOLLYWOOD.
Rose had Miles drive her to the ER, and now they were both sitting in a private room while an IV dripped into her veins and sticky pads were plastered all over her chest. Her heart beat had been very fast when they came in, and while the sticky pads were precautionary, Rose hated the way they felt on her skin. She just knew that when they peeled them off, a sticky latex residue would be left behind that she'd have to scrub in the shower.
The LA heat in the middle of summer, August, just around the corner, made the entire affair even more miserable. Outside, the muggy evening pushed almost triple digits, and inside the AC turned the hospital into a freezer. She could see the goose bumps on Miles' arms as he sat scrolling his phone on the chair next to her. It had been a miracle he was even at her place when she started having the stomach pains. They both had press for the movie they filmed last year, and he was staying with her instead of an in-person hotel.
A doctor came in, "Hello, Ms. Landry. I'm Dr. Kim. Test results came back and you did test positive for hCG. Which is the hormone produced in pregnancy. I can't tell how far along you are from this test.
Miles choked from next to her. His phone screen dark and set down as he trained his gaze on her.
"Impossible," Rose said. "I haven't had sex all year. There's no way I'm pregnant."
She had not had sex since breaking up with her last boyfriend, Shane Hollander, who, like too many of her exes, turned out to be very, very gay. Which was a shame because he was such a sweet guy, all sad-eyed and big-thighed and bulging-biceps-and …
It was just a shame, is all.
Her three brothers had been furious with her when the relationship ended before she could introduce the hockey superstar to them. Particularly Liam Landry, who had said "What the fuck do you mean you're not compatible? You're an actress, Rosie! You couldn't have pretended long enough for us to meet him?"
"Well," The doctor said, "it is still July." And Rose had half a heart beat to be offended before the doctor was coming closer and pulling on a pair of blue gloves. "May I examine your abdomen?"
"Yeah, sure," As she pulled up the blue gown, she caught Miles mouthing the word "pregnant" to himself in the corner of her eye and shot him a side-eyed glare. He caught it and smirked at her.
The doctor caught it too. "And would this be the father?"
Miles and Rose both snorted ugly at the question. She took in Miles' purple eye shadow, bejeweled ears and fingers, slim-fitting and effortlessly chic clothes.
"Well, there is no father because I'm not pregnant, " Rose said. "But—"
"But you can call me Daddy, if you want to," Miles said with the flirty wink at the doctor, who did indeed blush. She rolled her eyes but paid a little more attention to the, admittedly hot, doctor as he pressed his hands into her abdomen, gently putting pressure in certain places, and now that he mentioned it, her stomach had been pretty tight lately. Her being pregnant wasn't really a possibility because she'd been diagnosed with PCOS in her early 20s and knew how that affected fertility. Not to mention, She wore a condom with Shane.
She wore a condom every single time she had sex.
"Are you on any form of birth control? I didn't see any in your chart."
"…No."
"Are you using any other form of contraception?"
"Well, I'm not having sex right now, and I haven't had it since December, and we did use a condom." She wouldn't let this random ER doctor think she was an idiot after all. She was Rose Landry. He was very professional, though, had not even batted an eye at seeing her. He must bepretty used to dealing with well-known individuals as an ER doctor in LA.
"Hm," he said. "You came in today due to pain in your abdomen and vomitting. You're dehydrated and you've been feeling dizzy, correct? Any other symptoms?"
"She's been huffing and puffing since I came into town, " Miles said. "Like, she can't breathe right. And every time she gets up, she puts a hand on her back and her face twists all up in pain. And you should see her feet; they look like watermelons."
"Okay, thanks Miles." Rose said sharply. "My feet do not look like watermelons."
She had only been wearing sandals lately, though. Her feet tortured when shoved into the heels required of her on red carpets.
He gave a skeptical, catty little hum that the doctor chuckled at. He pointedly did not glance at her feet or even ask to see them. She was glad because she would have had to kick both men in the face if he did.
"Okay, so, have you ever heard of a cryptic pregnancy?"
"Like when women don't know they're pregnant until they're giving birth?"
"Yes, exactly," the doctor said, standing and stripping off his gloves. "I'm pretty sure that's what we're dealing with here. I'm going to bring in the ultrasound machine so we can get a measurement on the potential fetus, and then we'll follow up with a referral to an OB GYN if you do not already have one."
"I do."
"Great. Hang tight, and the nurse will be with you soon." Dr. Kim offered his hand, and Rose shook it, and then she was alone in the room with Miles and a baby? A fetus? A malignant tumor? Fucking Mary, mother of christ?
"Wow," Miles said. "How do you get yourself into these situations, Rose Landry?"
Her head fell back on the starch pillow and she groaned. "Fuck," she said. "I don't even like kids."
===
It turned out she was pregnant, about to tip into her third trimester, and as Miles drove them home in the early hours of the morning Rose spiraled. They both collapsed into their own beds at her L.A. apartment and when she woke up after noon, the first thing she did was call her mom.
See, the thing was that Rose did not want kids. Ever. She especially did not want to be a single mother. Her mother and father and brothers and friends all knew this. Rose was a working woman. That's what she wanted to do with her life. Diapers and bottles and running after a toddler, hockey games and dealing with a moody teenager. None of this appealed to her.
She was an excellent aunt to her brother's children, but that's the extent of it.
"Here are your options, Rose." he mother said after taking a minute to collect herself from the shock. "It's too late for an abortion, and you will not be putting a child into the system. It would be completely unethical for a woman with your resources to not take care of this child."
Harsh, but true.
Her mom continued. "You need to talk to Shane and ask what he wants to do. You can offer him full custody of your baby, but your father and I would be absolutely devastated to never get to be a part of this kid's life. I would appreciate you mentioning that to him before deciding anything drastic. Like a no-contact order. Besides, you're friends now, right? He's not a bad guy?"
"No, no," Rose said. "He's not bad. He's one of the best, a great guy." She hesitated. "Yeah, we're friends."
"And you broke up why, again?" She asked skeptically.
Rose ignored the question. "Okay, that's option one. What are my other options?" Rose liked for all of her cards to be on the table before making any decision. It was the same process she had when deciding on which scripts to audition for.
"Your second option is to ask your brothers to adopt the kid as their own. They would. And if they did, it'd be nice if you gave them a little money to help out, but that would be between you and them. The third option is that your father and I could take in the baby and raise it, but we are getting older, Rosie Pie. I don't know if that would be the best option for the kid. You could also raise them yourself. Did you get a gender, by the way?"
"A girl." She said faintly, mind already racing ahead of this conversation.
"That's lovely, sweetie," her mom said. "Why don't you take a week to think about your options, go to your doctor's appointments, and then you can call Shane and with the news?"
"A week, yeah, okay, I can do that." That would give her enough time to get her head screwed on straight and maybe talk to her lawyer. Plus, she had the press circuit for the next few weeks for the movie and then the movie premiere and actually… She did some quick mental math, then consulted the internet and her period tracking app…She was maybe due the third week of September.
Hockey season started in earnest in October, and Rose was scheduled to fly to New Zealand in November to start shooting her next movie. Could Shane even take care of a baby and be a hockey player? Could she take care of a baby and be an actress at the same time?
Rose tapped her finger on her thigh relentlessly. What the hell had she gotten herself into?
Rose had Miles drive her to the ER, and now they were both sitting in a private room while an IV dripped into her veins and sticky pads were plastered all over her chest. Her heart beat had been very fast when they came in, and while the sticky pads were precautionary, Rose hated the way they felt on her skin. She just knew that when they peeled them off, a sticky latex residue would be left behind that she'd have to scrub in the shower.
The LA heat in the middle of summer, August, just around the corner, made the entire affair even more miserable. Outside, the muggy evening pushed almost triple digits, and inside the AC turned the hospital into a freezer. She could see the goose bumps on Miles' arms as he sat scrolling his phone on the chair next to her. It had been a miracle he was even at her place when she started having the stomach pains. They both had press for the movie they filmed last year, and he was staying with her instead of an in-person hotel.
A doctor came in, "Hello, Ms. Landry. I'm Dr. Kim. Test results came back and you did test positive for hCG. Which is the hormone produced in pregnancy. I can't tell how far along you are from this test.
Miles choked from next to her. His phone screen dark and set down as he trained his gaze on her.
"Impossible," Rose said. "I haven't had sex all year. There's no way I'm pregnant."
She had not had sex since breaking up with her last boyfriend, Shane Hollander, who, like too many of her exes, turned out to be very, very gay. Which was a shame because he was such a sweet guy, all sad-eyed and big-thighed and bulging-biceps-and …
It was just a shame, is all.
Her three brothers had been furious with her when the relationship ended before she could introduce the hockey superstar to them. Particularly Liam Landry, who had said "What the fuck do you mean you're not compatible? You're an actress, Rosie! You couldn't have pretended long enough for us to meet him?"
"Well," The doctor said, "it is still July." And Rose had half a heart beat to be offended before the doctor was coming closer and pulling on a pair of blue gloves. "May I examine your abdomen?"
"Yeah, sure," As she pulled up the blue gown, she caught Miles mouthing the word "pregnant" to himself in the corner of her eye and shot him a side-eyed glare. He caught it and smirked at her.
The doctor caught it too. "And would this be the father?"
Miles and Rose both snorted ugly at the question. She took in Miles' purple eye shadow, bejeweled ears and fingers, slim-fitting and effortlessly chic clothes.
"Well, there is no father because I'm not pregnant, " Rose said. "But—"
"But you can call me Daddy, if you want to," Miles said with the flirty wink at the doctor, who did indeed blush. She rolled her eyes but paid a little more attention to the, admittedly hot, doctor as he pressed his hands into her abdomen, gently putting pressure in certain places, and now that he mentioned it, her stomach had been pretty tight lately. Her being pregnant wasn't really a possibility because she'd been diagnosed with PCOS in her early 20s and knew how that affected fertility. Not to mention, She wore a condom with Shane.
She wore a condom every single time she had sex.
"Are you on any form of birth control? I didn't see any in your chart."
"…No."
"Are you using any other form of contraception?"
"Well, I'm not having sex right now, and I haven't had it since December, and we did use a condom." She wouldn't let this random ER doctor think she was an idiot after all. She was Rose Landry. He was very professional, though, had not even batted an eye at seeing her. He must bepretty used to dealing with well-known individuals as an ER doctor in LA.
"Hm," he said. "You came in today due to pain in your abdomen and vomitting. You're dehydrated and you've been feeling dizzy, correct? Any other symptoms?"
"She's been huffing and puffing since I came into town, " Miles said. "Like, she can't breathe right. And every time she gets up, she puts a hand on her back and her face twists all up in pain. And you should see her feet; they look like watermelons."
"Okay, thanks Miles." Rose said sharply. "My feet do not look like watermelons."
She had only been wearing sandals lately, though. Her feet tortured when shoved into the heels required of her on red carpets.
He gave a skeptical, catty little hum that the doctor chuckled at. He pointedly did not glance at her feet or even ask to see them. She was glad because she would have had to kick both men in the face if he did.
"Okay, so, have you ever heard of a cryptic pregnancy?"
"Like when women don't know they're pregnant until they're giving birth?"
"Yes, exactly," the doctor said, standing and stripping off his gloves. "I'm pretty sure that's what we're dealing with here. I'm going to bring in the ultrasound machine so we can get a measurement on the potential fetus, and then we'll follow up with a referral to an OB GYN if you do not already have one."
"I do."
"Great. Hang tight, and the nurse will be with you soon." Dr. Kim offered his hand, and Rose shook it, and then she was alone in the room with Miles and a baby? A fetus? A malignant tumor? Fucking Mary, mother of christ?
"Wow," Miles said. "How do you get yourself into these situations, Rose Landry?"
Her head fell back on the starch pillow and she groaned. "Fuck," she said. "I don't even like kids."
===
It turned out she was pregnant, about to tip into her third trimester, and as Miles drove them home in the early hours of the morning Rose spiraled. They both collapsed into their own beds at her L.A. apartment and when she woke up after noon, the first thing she did was call her mom.
See, the thing was that Rose did not want kids. Ever. She especially did not want to be a single mother. Her mother and father and brothers and friends all knew this. Rose was a working woman. That's what she wanted to do with her life. Diapers and bottles and running after a toddler, hockey games and dealing with a moody teenager. None of this appealed to her.
She was an excellent aunt to her brother's children, but that's the extent of it.
"Here are your options, Rose." he mother said after taking a minute to collect herself from the shock. "It's too late for an abortion, and you will not be putting a child into the system. It would be completely unethical for a woman with your resources to not take care of this child."
Harsh, but true.
Her mom continued. "You need to talk to Shane and ask what he wants to do. You can offer him full custody of your baby, but your father and I would be absolutely devastated to never get to be a part of this kid's life. I would appreciate you mentioning that to him before deciding anything drastic. Like a no-contact order. Besides, you're friends now, right? He's not a bad guy?"
"No, no," Rose said. "He's not bad. He's one of the best, a great guy." She hesitated. "Yeah, we're friends."
"And you broke up why, again?" She asked skeptically.
Rose ignored the question. "Okay, that's option one. What are my other options?" Rose liked for all of her cards to be on the table before making any decision. It was the same process she had when deciding on which scripts to audition for.
"Your second option is to ask your brothers to adopt the kid as their own. They would. And if they did, it'd be nice if you gave them a little money to help out, but that would be between you and them. The third option is that your father and I could take in the baby and raise it, but we are getting older, Rosie Pie. I don't know if that would be the best option for the kid. You could also raise them yourself. Did you get a gender, by the way?"
"A girl." She said faintly, mind already racing ahead of this conversation.
"That's lovely, sweetie," her mom said. "Why don't you take a week to think about your options, go to your doctor's appointments, and then you can call Shane and with the news?"
"A week, yeah, okay, I can do that." That would give her enough time to get her head screwed on straight and maybe talk to her lawyer. Plus, she had the press circuit for the next few weeks for the movie and then the movie premiere and actually… She did some quick mental math, then consulted the internet and her period tracking app…She was maybe due the third week of September.
Hockey season started in earnest in October, and Rose was scheduled to fly to New Zealand in November to start shooting her next movie. Could Shane even take care of a baby and be a hockey player? Could she take care of a baby and be an actress at the same time?
Rose tapped her finger on her thigh relentlessly. What the hell had she gotten herself into?
Rose had Miles drive her to the ER, and now they were both sitting in a private room while an IV dripped into her veins and sticky pads were plastered all over her chest. Her heart beat had been very fast when they came in, and while the sticky pads were precautionary, Rose hated the way they felt on her skin. She just knew that when they peeled them off, a sticky latex residue would be left behind that she'd have to scrub in the shower.
The LA heat in the middle of summer, August, just around the corner, made the entire affair even more miserable. Outside, the muggy evening pushed almost triple digits, and inside the AC turned the hospital into a freezer. She could see the goose bumps on Miles' arms as he sat scrolling his phone on the chair next to her. It had been a miracle he was even at her place when she started having the stomach pains. They both had press for the movie they filmed last year, and he was staying with her instead of an in-person hotel.
A doctor came in, "Hello, Ms. Landry. I'm Dr. Kim. Test results came back and you did test positive for hCG. Which is the hormone produced in pregnancy. I can't tell how far along you are from this test.
Miles choked from next to her. His phone screen dark and set down as he trained his gaze on her.
"Impossible," Rose said. "I haven't had sex all year. There's no way I'm pregnant."
She had not had sex since breaking up with her last boyfriend, Shane Hollander, who, like too many of her exes, turned out to be very, very gay. Which was a shame because he was such a sweet guy, all sad-eyed and big-thighed and bulging-biceps-and …
It was just a shame, is all.
Her three brothers had been furious with her when the relationship ended before she could introduce the hockey superstar to them. Particularly Liam Landry, who had said "What the fuck do you mean you're not compatible? You're an actress, Rosie! You couldn't have pretended long enough for us to meet him?"
"Well," The doctor said, "it is still July." And Rose had half a heart beat to be offended before the doctor was coming closer and pulling on a pair of blue gloves. "May I examine your abdomen?"
"Yeah, sure," As she pulled up the blue gown, she caught Miles mouthing the word "pregnant" to himself in the corner of her eye and shot him a side-eyed glare. He caught it and smirked at her.
The doctor caught it too. "And would this be the father?"
Miles and Rose both snorted ugly at the question. She took in Miles' purple eye shadow, bejeweled ears and fingers, slim-fitting and effortlessly chic clothes.
"Well, there is no father because I'm not pregnant, " Rose said. "But—"
"But you can call me Daddy, if you want to," Miles said with the flirty wink at the doctor, who did indeed blush. She rolled her eyes but paid a little more attention to the, admittedly hot, doctor as he pressed his hands into her abdomen, gently putting pressure in certain places, and now that he mentioned it, her stomach had been pretty tight lately. Her being pregnant wasn't really a possibility because she'd been diagnosed with PCOS in her early 20s and knew how that affected fertility. Not to mention, She wore a condom with Shane.
She wore a condom every single time she had sex.
"Are you on any form of birth control? I didn't see any in your chart."
"…No."
"Are you using any other form of contraception?"
"Well, I'm not having sex right now, and I haven't had it since December, and we did use a condom." She wouldn't let this random ER doctor think she was an idiot after all. She was Rose Landry. He was very professional, though, had not even batted an eye at seeing her. He must bepretty used to dealing with well-known individuals as an ER doctor in LA.
"Hm," he said. "You came in today due to pain in your abdomen and vomitting. You're dehydrated and you've been feeling dizzy, correct? Any other symptoms?"
"She's been huffing and puffing since I came into town, " Miles said. "Like, she can't breathe right. And every time she gets up, she puts a hand on her back and her face twists all up in pain. And you should see her feet; they look like watermelons."
"Okay, thanks Miles." Rose said sharply. "My feet do not look like watermelons."
She had only been wearing sandals lately, though. Her feet tortured when shoved into the heels required of her on red carpets.
He gave a skeptical, catty little hum that the doctor chuckled at. He pointedly did not glance at her feet or even ask to see them. She was glad because she would have had to kick both men in the face if he did.
"Okay, so, have you ever heard of a cryptic pregnancy?"
"Like when women don't know they're pregnant until they're giving birth?"
"Yes, exactly," the doctor said, standing and stripping off his gloves. "I'm pretty sure that's what we're dealing with here. I'm going to bring in the ultrasound machine so we can get a measurement on the potential fetus, and then we'll follow up with a referral to an OB GYN if you do not already have one."
"I do."
"Great. Hang tight, and the nurse will be with you soon." Dr. Kim offered his hand, and Rose shook it, and then she was alone in the room with Miles and a baby? A fetus? A malignant tumor? Fucking Mary, mother of christ?
"Wow," Miles said. "How do you get yourself into these situations, Rose Landry?"
Her head fell back on the starch pillow and she groaned. "Fuck," she said. "I don't even like kids."
===
It turned out she was pregnant, about to tip into her third trimester, and as Miles drove them home in the early hours of the morning Rose spiraled. They both collapsed into their own beds at her L.A. apartment and when she woke up after noon, the first thing she did was call her mom.
See, the thing was that Rose did not want kids. Ever. She especially did not want to be a single mother. Her mother and father and brothers and friends all knew this. Rose was a working woman. That's what she wanted to do with her life. Diapers and bottles and running after a toddler, hockey games and dealing with a moody teenager. None of this appealed to her.
She was an excellent aunt to her brother's children, but that's the extent of it.
"Here are your options, Rose." he mother said after taking a minute to collect herself from the shock. "It's too late for an abortion, and you will not be putting a child into the system. It would be completely unethical for a woman with your resources to not take care of this child."
Harsh, but true.
Her mom continued. "You need to talk to Shane and ask what he wants to do. You can offer him full custody of your baby, but your father and I would be absolutely devastated to never get to be a part of this kid's life. I would appreciate you mentioning that to him before deciding anything drastic. Like a no-contact order. Besides, you're friends now, right? He's not a bad guy?"
"No, no," Rose said. "He's not bad. He's one of the best, a great guy." She hesitated. "Yeah, we're friends."
"And you broke up why, again?" She asked skeptically.
Rose ignored the question. "Okay, that's option one. What are my other options?" Rose liked for all of her cards to be on the table before making any decision. It was the same process she had when deciding on which scripts to audition for.
"Your second option is to ask your brothers to adopt the kid as their own. They would. And if they did, it'd be nice if you gave them a little money to help out, but that would be between you and them. The third option is that your father and I could take in the baby and raise it, but we are getting older, Rosie Pie. I don't know if that would be the best option for the kid. You could also raise them yourself. Did you get a gender, by the way?"
"A girl." She said faintly, mind already racing ahead of this conversation.
"That's lovely, sweetie," her mom said. "Why don't you take a week to think about your options, go to your doctor's appointments, and then you can call Shane and with the news?"
"A week, yeah, okay, I can do that." That would give her enough time to get her head screwed on straight and maybe talk to her lawyer. Plus, she had the press circuit for the next few weeks for the movie and then the movie premiere and actually… She did some quick mental math, then consulted the internet and her period tracking app…She was maybe due the third week of September.
Hockey season started in earnest in October, and Rose was scheduled to fly to New Zealand in November to start shooting her next movie. Could Shane even take care of a baby and be a hockey player? Could she take care of a baby and be an actress at the same time?
Rose tapped her finger on her thigh relentlessly. What the hell had she gotten herself into?
Ilya first suspected something was amiss the summer after Shane won his second Stanley Cup in a row. He was back in Moscow, doing his best to avoid his father and brother by staying in his seldom-used apartment close to the bar district he most frequented when going out. At this point, he'd watched the video of Hollander lifting the Stanley Cup and skating his victory lap around the rink a hundred times, but the image he kept freezing on was when the families flooded the ice afterward. Yuna and David Hollander went straight up to their son to encase him in a hug, and right next to them was the Pikes' family. In the moment Yuna released her son from her embrace— a mother's embrace, that Ilya would never have again and hadn't since he was twelve—A woman shoved a baby into Shane's arms, turned and embraced Hayden Pike while two small children clung to the couple's legs.
Ilya rewound and replayed the clip over and over again. Shane Hollander, captain of the Montreal Metros, was cradling a baby as naturally as anything, smiling down on them with the softest smile Ilya had ever seen, and Ilya was very suspicious.
He immediately found the woman on Instagram, Jackie Pike, the wife of Shane's best friend Hayden Pike, and mother of three. Her account was public, but she very carefully blurred out her children's faces in every picture. The photos of the baby were scarce, with the exception of a picture of her from a hospital bed three months prior, with a newborn carefully cradled against her chest. Hayden Pike was also in the picture, and her caption credited Shane Hollander as the photographer. Ilya scrolled and scrolled on her account, and Shane kept popping up as far back as before the birth of her first children, twins, he noted.
Ilya had switched over to Hayden Pike's Instagram and found himself irrationally incensed at the way the man's posts were split between Shane Holland and Jackie Pike, his children, and workout pictures. Although perhaps Ilya did not mind the workout pictures as much when they included Shane, as 80 percent of them did.
It had been pure luck that Ilya had seen Hayden Pike's post of them all on the ice after winning the cup before the picture had been taken down. He'd screenshotted it. Fingers moving before his mind. It was lucky because it had been taken down within a minute and then carefully re-uploaded with the children's faces blurred out. That minute had been enough for not only Ilya to see but for several thousand other people to see as well.
To see little three-month-old Arthur Pike's face and hair, unblurred, curled up in Shane Hollander's arms, with tiny little headphones covering his ears and looking nothing at all like Hayden Pike. In the picture, Hayden Pike had an arm slung around his captain, an arm slung around his wife, two little blonde girls clinging to his knee, and his supposed baby in the arms of his captain. All beaming with infectious joy, the thrill of victory seeping off of them
Ilya didn't think he'd ever felt such boiling hot envy in his stomach before in his life. All of a sudden, he hated this man. Hayden Pike, this man who had everything Ilya didn't. Who had a beautiful wife and two, or maybe three, children, and Shane Hollander in his life. Maybe in his bed, their bed?
Ilya was confused.
There was a tangled knot of jealousy and longing and despair trying to strangle his heart. Threads of it were crawling up his throat. He felt nauseous, and he could not stop watching it. Before he knew it, he was deep in the Internet on conspiracy theory threads on Reddit, and he wasn't crazy. He wasn't. Other people had seen it too.
That baby had to be Shane's. Sweet, beautiful Shane, who submitted so easily and with such enthusiasm underneath Ilya's hands, who for years had haunted Ilya's thoughts and dreams and deepest yearnings. That Shane had made a baby?
It shouldn't matter. What they had was casual sex when they played each other, at All Stars, in Vegas, sometimes in that little town in Vermont exactly halfway between Boston and Montreal.
They went months without seeing each other. Hollander could have a person in every city. He could be fucking the Pikes or have a partner he invited over to his actual home instead of his secret sex condo. How many people had been to Hollander's secret sex condo? Ilya hated that he would never know. He imagined bullying it out of Shane, holding him on the edge, not letting him come for hours until he admitted the truth. Until Ilya could scrape out all of his secrets and spread them on a wall to torture himself with.
It shouldn't matter. Ilya could go pick up a woman and bring her to this half-empty apartment and fuck her until sunrise if he wanted to. It didn't matter that he hadn't picked up anybody since first seeing that devastating picture of Shane with the baby. He could if he wanted to. That's what mattered.
And maybe it wouldn't be fair to the girl that the whole time he'd be thinking about the freckles on a man with thighs that could suffocate him. He'd still make it good for her.
Hell, he could make his own baby if he wanted to. Svetlana wouldn't want to, but Ilya could pick a girl and start a family, and it would be fine. He was good with kids. He'd always wanted kids, and if all he wanted right now was…
He wasn't ready to put that thought into words yet.
What he wanted, actually, truly wanted, instead of just what he thought he should want. It was too terrifying and impossible to even think about in the privacy of his mind.
He rewound the video again. The woman, coming onto the ice, hugging her husband, shoving her baby into Shane's arms. Shane, smiling softly down, while his parents watched on with thrilled smiles. Hayden Pike with his arms around his family.
There was no way Shane was fucking his best friend. Ilya would know. Hollander wouldn't continue meeting with him every chance they got if he was getting fucked at home, unless they weren't fucking him right. Nobody could, not like Ilya could. Nobody could make two-time Stanley Cup winning champion Shane Hollander fall apart as he could.
He texted him.
Congratulations, Hollander
You look good lifting the cup
Next year, it's mine
Cute baby
Is he yours?
How many other people are you fuck—
---
A few months later, alone on a couch with Shane's cum drying on his stomach and the man himself long gone, Ilya cursed himself. On the coffee table, two dirty plates stared back at him.
Him, broken-hearted and alone and no closer to the truth of Shane than before.
i love when certain very specific things just gets accepted in fandom as if they’re actually canon and everyone just agrees that yes ilya is addicted to phone games and he spends too much money on candy crush and cliff marleau is a little bit bisexual (or ilya-sexual) and very unaware of it and also the biggest himbo you’ll ever meet and of course shane invents sex acts out of his own beautiful mind
JJ watched his captain doze on the fluffy brown couch in the middle of Hayden Pike's living room, their giant TV was playing the third round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, and it was looking like the Admirals were going win.
He was finding it hard to pay attention to the game, though, because Shane captured almost all of it,as he often did whenever he entered a room. He did not look good with his sling and bruised face, and JJ had spoken briefly with him when he arrived and was 100% sure that his captain was still on some pretty strong pain meds.
However, none of that stopped Hayden from swooping in and gently laying his youngest son on Shane Hollander's chest. His captain immediately curled his free arm around the baby with a smile, and JJ blinked stars out of his eyes. Hayden left the room to help his wife in the kitchen without another word. Look, JJ had been around his teammates and their kids for years, and something about this situation was scratching at his brain.
The twins screeched by in a blur of giggling screams, one chasing the other, in and out of the living room in a flash, and Shane hardly reacted. His quiet, organized, calm captain. A lighthouse in the chaos of the Pike household.
JJ was not the only one of the teammates who had noticed that Arthur looked nothing like Hayden.
Unlike his teammates, though, JJ thought he understood the situation a bit better.
After all, Shane and JJ had been very close over the years.
Fuck it, JJ thought, and walked over to sit on the couch. He lifted Shane's feet to make room for himself and then put them back in his lap with a pat on his captain's ankle. Shane raised an eyebrow at him, but settled easily. "Cute baby, Captain. " He said in French.
"Thanks," Shane said, also in French. "I mean…I'll tell Jackie you said so."
JJ huffed. "You're not fooling me, man."
Shane huffed but didn't otherwise respond, shifting the dozing baby against his chest. They really did look adorable together, a perfectly matching set with black hair, and the baby was too young for freckles, JJ thought. He could imagine the kid running around with his sisters in a few years, little stars dotted all over his face.
"I didn't expect this from you, Shane," JJ said. "I kind of thought that you were…you know.. I mean, after we… You know, all those years ago. But then Rose Landry? And Arthur? I guess I'm just kind of confused."
"JJ" Shane said. "I thought we weren't going to talk about that. "
"Well, I didn't know you were sleeping with other people on the team," JJ muttered under his breath, "And I have a lot of gay friends, so I thought for a long time that you were pretty fucking gay, Captain."
"Dude," Shane said, digging his heel into JJ's thigh. "Watch it."
JJ let out an explosive sigh and leaned back into the cushions. "So you're telling me you're not gay?"
Shane's eyes darted to the left. A deliberate withholding of eye contact that JJ was very familiar with. "…No. No, I am. Super gay, some might say." He had a half smirk on his face as if remembering someone else.
JJ barked out a laugh. Yeah, that about lined up with his long-held suspicions. A guy didn't so enthusiastically take it up the ass and suck dick like he was born for it, while simultaneously running away from every woman who ever approached him at a bar without being super fucking gay. Of course, while JJ had seen his captain shun many a woman at a bar, he'd only ever intimately known his captain's sexual preferences once. It had been years, and they'd never had a repeat performance. Something about Shane not wanting to take advantage of his position as captain and not risking team dynamics, blah blah blah.
J.J. respected when he was getting rejected, Consent is King and all, but that didn't stop him from fantasizing about Shane ever since, specifically in a non-gay way. J.J. wasn't gay after all, but it was different when it was Shane Hollander.
He guessed that Hayden had probably thought so too. He wondered if his teammates had both fucked Jackie when they conceived Arthur, or if Hayden had fucked Shane while Shane fucked Jackie, or whatever permutation of that specific threesome had happened to result in a baby being conceived. Maybe Jackie had rode Shane while Hayden fucked his face? JJ hated that he would never know because: one, it was probably hot as fuck, and two, God, he wished he had been there.
"So what was all that with Rose Landry?"
"We're just friends," Shane said. The baby on his chest gurgled in his sleep, and Shane patted his back absently. "Good friends."
"Like you and Jackie," JJ said.
"Exactly," Shane said.
"Except you got Jackie pregnant. Are you sure there's no chance you got Rose Landry pregnant?"
Shane paled at the thought. "I mean, no, of course not. We use condoms!"
"And you didn't use condoms with Jackie?" JJ knew his captain and how careful he was. There was no way in hell he wasn't always using condoms. "They're not 100% effective." He nodded his head towards Arthur. "Obviously. "
"There's no way Rose Landry is pregnant," Shane said. "That would be crazy."
"Crazy, yeah."
Kind of crazy, like getting your best friend's wife pregnant and then raising the baby in some sort of bizarre polycule, except JJ knew 100% that Shane was not having sex with Hayden or Jackie. He had a very strong suspicion that his captain actually had a secret lover he wasn't telling anyone about, and it wasn't a woman. And if he had any faith in the idea that Shane would be honest with him, he'd be digging into that conversation like a detective, but he wasn't super thrilled with the idea of sending his captain into a panic attack while he was on pain meds, in a sling, and holding a baby.
There'd be a time and place for that conversation.
On the screen, the third-period horn sounded, and the New York Admirals poured onto the ice to celebrate. It seemed they were going on to the Cup.
I was wondering if you could recommend some fics that have Ilya bragging about his Jane to his team mates (Boston or Ottawa).
Thank you!
I tried to find fics close to what you asked but focused more on "Montreal Jane" being the topic and marks left on Ilya's body. I also sprinkled in a few where it's Shane showing off marks Ilya left on him (:
Montreal Jane
🏒 Ilya Rozanov's 2017 Dating Wrapped | 1.1k
Ilya drops a bunch of hints about his love life to his teammates. They do not pick up on them
🏒 Locker Room Talk | 1.7k
Shane is tired of having to sit and be quiet while his teammates brag about their sexcapades, so he decides to not be quiet anymore and tell them all about how great Boston Lily is in bed.
🏒 stop yelling at me, I saved the day | 2.1k
Cliff wouldn’t call himself the most observant person in the world, but it doesn’t take a genius to know something is wrong with Roz. He’s swinging from quiet and completely checked out to snapping at every little thing and back again. It started after the last Montreal game, Cliff is pretty sure. Jane From Montreal. This has something to do with her
🏒 You left your bite marks on my ribs | 2.6k
When the notoriously prudish Shane Hollander shows up to practice with some suspicious bruises, his teammates have something to say about it.
🏒 Save Us Jane, You’re Our Only Hope | 2.7k
Whatever his Captain did, Marleau takes it up on himself to tell Montreal Jane just how sorry Ilya is, and beg for forgiveness on his behalf. [Post tuna melt]
🏒 hall of fame jane | 2.7k
for years cliff marlow deals with jane. one unfortunate bluetooth connection reveals more
🏒 It had to be Jane | 2.8k
Roz was looking at his phone again. And he was blushing, even though he always loved to insist that Russians did not blush. It had to be Jane
🏒 a golden star, you think you're clever | 4.0k
Boston's got the Montreal Jane pattern basically locked down. The bite mark on Ilya's shoulder is new, though
🏒 Wow, This Montreal Girl Works You Up, Brother | 4.1k
5 times Cliff Marlow brought up Montreal Jane + the 1 time he finds out who that is
🏒 Do They Make a Greeting Card for This? | 4.3k
Five times Cliff learns something about Montreal Jane, and one time he learns her real name
🏒 match my freak | 4.8k
five times their teams find out they're freaks + one time they find out that they're freaks together
🏒 The Montreal Mystery: Cliff Marlow's Side of the Story | 5.7k
All the times Cliff Marlow almost clocks that his captain's secret hookup is Shane Hollander, and one time the trade to Ottawa makes it impossible to ignore.
🏒 The Montreal Girl | 5.8k
the Boston Bears’ perspective of Ilya and Shane’s “secret” relationship over the years
🏒 Lily and Jane Fall in Love | 6.6k
The five encounters with Shane that forced Ilya to lie (brag) to his teammates about his mysterious Montreal Girl, and the time they learned that the lies had never really mattered in the first place
🏒 The Jane from Montreal Mystery | 6.7k
Cliff has been suspecting that Roz moved to Ottawa for his Montreal girl for a while now. And tonight, they’re going to go out for drinks and he’s finally going to get some answers. Not even two overeager rookies are going to stop him. Except things don’t quite go as Cliff planned and Jane from Montreal is not what he expected
🏒 Maybe: Jane | 6.8k
The Boston Raiders tease Rozanov about his mystery long distance girlfriend, sending Jane stories and embarrassing pictures of Ilya. Shane and Ilya don’t think much of it - until Theo Michaud gets traded to from Boston to Montreal and updates his contact list.
🏒 the prayers we covered with dust | 7.5k
Ilya is really struggling with the fact that he wants to keep Shane forever and steal his clothes and leave dumb hickies on him and wake up to him in the morning. He's working on it
🏒 The Great Jane Debacle of 2016 | 7.7k
how the Raiders---in particular the long suffering Cliff Marleau, dealt with the Great Jane Debacle of 2016, told in a series of texts, posts, and Cliff being the best Bostonian friend Ilya could ask for
🏒 Jane from Montreal | 8.7k
How Cliff Marlow discovers Jane’s true identity.
🏒 I said nobody knows you | 8.7k
The Ottawa Centaurs have their own theories about what their captain gets up to in his free time. Wyatt Hayes organizes a bet about it. If only getting an answer out of Rozanov would be easy
🏒 it's all fun and games until cap is in his feels again | 10.4k
Cliff Marleau's seen his captain through some crazy times and some wild crash outs. This is a little foray into some of the group chats and nights out with the boys. Especially when Cap is in his feels about his Montreal Girl.
🏒 The Hickey | 12.6k
Three times Ilya can't resist marking what's his, and one time Shane decides to return the favor.
🏒 Jane is Ilya's Favourite Lay | 60.1k
In an attempt to socialise in this new country Ilya puts 'jane' down as his WAG to connect to the team, this has unforeseen consequences for himself.
🏒 Have you heard about Jane? | WIP
The Boston Raiders are desperate to find out who Montreal Jane is.
🏒 Ilya Rozanov is not fucking subtle | WIP
5 times Ilya Rozanov talks about his freak girl Jane and 1 time everybody realize Jane Hollander is an undercover freak
If you have any suggestions, feel free to add (:
Make sure to check out other fic rec request here -> Requested Lists
JJ watched his captain doze on the fluffy brown couch in the middle of Hayden Pike's living room, their giant TV was playing the third round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, and it was looking like the Admirals were going win.
He was finding it hard to pay attention to the game, though, because Shane captured almost all of it,as he often did whenever he entered a room. He did not look good with his sling and bruised face, and JJ had spoken briefly with him when he arrived and was 100% sure that his captain was still on some pretty strong pain meds.
However, none of that stopped Hayden from swooping in and gently laying his youngest son on Shane Hollander's chest. His captain immediately curled his free arm around the baby with a smile, and JJ blinked stars out of his eyes. Hayden left the room to help his wife in the kitchen without another word. Look, JJ had been around his teammates and their kids for years, and something about this situation was scratching at his brain.
The twins screeched by in a blur of giggling screams, one chasing the other, in and out of the living room in a flash, and Shane hardly reacted. His quiet, organized, calm captain. A lighthouse in the chaos of the Pike household.
JJ was not the only one of the teammates who had noticed that Arthur looked nothing like Hayden.
Unlike his teammates, though, JJ thought he understood the situation a bit better.
After all, Shane and JJ had been very close over the years.
Fuck it, JJ thought, and walked over to sit on the couch. He lifted Shane's feet to make room for himself and then put them back in his lap with a pat on his captain's ankle. Shane raised an eyebrow at him, but settled easily. "Cute baby, Captain. " He said in French.
"Thanks," Shane said, also in French. "I mean…I'll tell Jackie you said so."
JJ huffed. "You're not fooling me, man."
Shane huffed but didn't otherwise respond, shifting the dozing baby against his chest. They really did look adorable together, a perfectly matching set with black hair, and the baby was too young for freckles, JJ thought. He could imagine the kid running around with his sisters in a few years, little stars dotted all over his face.
"I didn't expect this from you, Shane," JJ said. "I kind of thought that you were…you know.. I mean, after we… You know, all those years ago. But then Rose Landry? And Arthur? I guess I'm just kind of confused."
"JJ" Shane said. "I thought we weren't going to talk about that. "
"Well, I didn't know you were sleeping with other people on the team," JJ muttered under his breath, "And I have a lot of gay friends, so I thought for a long time that you were pretty fucking gay, Captain."
"Dude," Shane said, digging his heel into JJ's thigh. "Watch it."
JJ let out an explosive sigh and leaned back into the cushions. "So you're telling me you're not gay?"
Shane's eyes darted to the left. A deliberate withholding of eye contact that JJ was very familiar with. "…No. No, I am. Super gay, some might say." He had a half smirk on his face as if remembering someone else.
JJ barked out a laugh. Yeah, that about lined up with his long-held suspicions. A guy didn't so enthusiastically take it up the ass and suck dick like he was born for it, while simultaneously running away from every woman who ever approached him at a bar without being super fucking gay. Of course, while JJ had seen his captain shun many a woman at a bar, he'd only ever intimately known his captain's sexual preferences once. It had been years, and they'd never had a repeat performance. Something about Shane not wanting to take advantage of his position as captain and not risking team dynamics, blah blah blah.
J.J. respected when he was getting rejected, Consent is King and all, but that didn't stop him from fantasizing about Shane ever since, specifically in a non-gay way. J.J. wasn't gay after all, but it was different when it was Shane Hollander.
He guessed that Hayden had probably thought so too. He wondered if his teammates had both fucked Jackie when they conceived Arthur, or if Hayden had fucked Shane while Shane fucked Jackie, or whatever permutation of that specific threesome had happened to result in a baby being conceived. Maybe Jackie had rode Shane while Hayden fucked his face? JJ hated that he would never know because: one, it was probably hot as fuck, and two, God, he wished he had been there.
"So what was all that with Rose Landry?"
"We're just friends," Shane said. The baby on his chest gurgled in his sleep, and Shane patted his back absently. "Good friends."
"Like you and Jackie," JJ said.
"Exactly," Shane said.
"Except you got Jackie pregnant. Are you sure there's no chance you got Rose Landry pregnant?"
Shane paled at the thought. "I mean, no, of course not. We use condoms!"
"And you didn't use condoms with Jackie?" JJ knew his captain and how careful he was. There was no way in hell he wasn't always using condoms. "They're not 100% effective." He nodded his head towards Arthur. "Obviously. "
"There's no way Rose Landry is pregnant," Shane said. "That would be crazy."
"Crazy, yeah."
Kind of crazy, like getting your best friend's wife pregnant and then raising the baby in some sort of bizarre polycule, except JJ knew 100% that Shane was not having sex with Hayden or Jackie. He had a very strong suspicion that his captain actually had a secret lover he wasn't telling anyone about, and it wasn't a woman. And if he had any faith in the idea that Shane would be honest with him, he'd be digging into that conversation like a detective, but he wasn't super thrilled with the idea of sending his captain into a panic attack while he was on pain meds, in a sling, and holding a baby.
There'd be a time and place for that conversation.
On the screen, the third-period horn sounded, and the New York Admirals poured onto the ice to celebrate. It seemed they were going on to the Cup.
This is an attempt to summarize/source some of the recent Tumblr discussion of The Vampire Marleau and Cliff Marleau (Marlow) as The Immortal Warrior
The first mention on Tumblr of Cliff Marleau being a vampire was a reply by cephalopodie on this post on February 20, 2026, but the concept was developed by cephalopodie and clytemnestraaa via Discord messages prior to being posted on Tumblr. Since then, the fandom has come up with a lot of variations on the concept. If you know if any major variations or any notable posts that you think should be included here, please let me know so I can add them! This list is kinda biased towards my posts/my friends posts because that's what I'm most familiar with but I'd like to expand it if you have suggestions.
Rather than laying out a timeline, I'm grouping this list by major concepts.
"Cliff Marlow was turned in 2006"
I made a few posts with lore for a version of The Vampire Cliff Marlow who was turned in 2006.
Feb 22: "The Vampire Cliff Marlow, b. 1973, was turned at age 33 in 2006."
Feb 23: "When Cliff Marlow was turned in 2006, the first Twilight book had been published...The Vampire Marleau would eventually watch the Twilight movies in secret..."
Feb 25: "...Marley can never truly be ensouled because he was turned into a vampire in 2006."
Ancient Marleau
Once the idea of Marleau as a very ancient warrior vampire was introduced, this became the prevailing headcanon.
Feb 25, from clytemnestraaa: the introduction of The Vampire Marleau as an ancient warrior
Feb 25, from clytemnestraaa: introduces Scott Hunter as a vampire slayer
Montreal: The Vampire Lestat crossover
Feb 24, an oddly prescient post from cuppydogshane: "and thats without considering the vampire marleau"
Feb 25, a teaser clip for the new season of Interview with the Vampire/The Vampire Lestat was released, revealing that Lestat is living in Montreal
Post from me and cuppydogshane: Marleau's reaction to Lestat living in Montreal
March 6-7, 2026
TVM posting kind of exploded in the evening of March 6/morning of march 7. There are genuinely too many posts to link them all here, so I'm trying to stick to the most load-bearing ones that are needed to understand other posts. All of the following posts are from March 6-7 except where otherwise noted.
Marly's Scary Mirror
The concept of Marleau having a cursed mirror is most strongly associated with more ancient variations of The Vampire Marleau, but the original idea came from a tag on a 2006!TVM post linked above.
Tag from iwrotemrtambourineman: "#his soul is trapped in the cursed mirror he does coke off of"
Post from iwrotemrtambourineman: "ilya: marly, i told you to put the scary mirror away! it freaks out the hoes!"
Mine, with tag from clytemnestraaa: "Marly making the rookies stare into the Scary Mirror" / "#everyone on the raiders knows exactly where and when they are going to die"
The Immortal Warrior
As far as I can tell, the first usage of the term The Immortal Warrior was in this poll from gayhockeyshow. While The Immortal Warrior exists primarily as an offshoot of The Vampire Marleau, it's worth noting that some people prefer to imagine him as a non-vampiric immortal. March 8th, post from cuppydogshane and urlocalhotmess
Post from clytemnestraaa: "marleau is always calling his hockey stick his sword"
Post from clytemnestraaa: "marleau nearly slew the beloved of his brethren in battle"
Post from cuppydogshane: "his idea. I don't mind it."
My post: crossover with Serial Killer Scott Hunter/The Borgias
Other notable memes
Hrœrekr/Hrœker
Post from clytemnestraaa: "ilya who looks identical to his original best warrior brother from another mother hrœrekr who died of a sheep disease"
Twilight crossover
Post from clytemnestraaa, tags from cuppydogshane: "just realized the reason shane almost died when marleau hit him was the vampire strength…"
March 8, post from nonlynear: where the hell you been, loca?
"What Is It You Desire"
This post from cuppydogshane is a reference to this tumblr post and this tweet.
A Month in the Atlantic
Post from marbertyphoon: "marleau was on a galleon that went down in a storm in the sixteenth century so he spent about a month swimming out of the atlantic ocean"
The Vampire Cult
Post from cuppydogshane and catalpa-waltz
Arthuriana/Jackie Le Fay
My post, with tag from clytemnestraaa: I believe this was the first TVM post referencing Arthuriana. Tags from cly introduce Morgan Le Fay ("a MILF") into the mix
As far as I can tell, Jackie as Morgan Le Fay started with this post from cuppydogshane.
Post from clytemnestraaa: "the witch is HERE…. as the prophecy foretold…."
Post from graceebooks: "jackie le fay when she sees marleau: hey i heard you once spent a month swimming out of the atlantic ocean"
Crossover with Shane's Mysterious Powers
March 7 saw quite a lot of posts that referenced both The Vampire Marleau and Shane's Mysterious Powers. I think this one is the most notable.
Fandom Meta
March 7, from bedlund: XKCD 2501 with The Vampire Marleau, Serial Killer Scott hunter, and The Rick Owens
March 8, from dragonmuse: on "unhinged hiatus shenanigans"
JJ watched his captain doze on the fluffy brown couch in the middle of Hayden Pike's living room, their giant TV was playing the third round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, and it was looking like the Admirals were going win.
He was finding it hard to pay attention to the game, though, because Shane captured almost all of it,as he often did whenever he entered a room. He did not look good with his sling and bruised face, and JJ had spoken briefly with him when he arrived and was 100% sure that his captain was still on some pretty strong pain meds.
However, none of that stopped Hayden from swooping in and gently laying his youngest son on Shane Hollander's chest. His captain immediately curled his free arm around the baby with a smile, and JJ blinked stars out of his eyes. Hayden left the room to help his wife in the kitchen without another word. Look, JJ had been around his teammates and their kids for years, and something about this situation was scratching at his brain.
The twins screeched by in a blur of giggling screams, one chasing the other, in and out of the living room in a flash, and Shane hardly reacted. His quiet, organized, calm captain. A lighthouse in the chaos of the Pike household.
JJ was not the only one of the teammates who had noticed that Arthur looked nothing like Hayden.
Unlike his teammates, though, JJ thought he understood the situation a bit better.
After all, Shane and JJ had been very close over the years.
Fuck it, JJ thought, and walked over to sit on the couch. He lifted Shane's feet to make room for himself and then put them back in his lap with a pat on his captain's ankle. Shane raised an eyebrow at him, but settled easily. "Cute baby, Captain. " He said in French.
"Thanks," Shane said, also in French. "I mean…I'll tell Jackie you said so."
JJ huffed. "You're not fooling me, man."
Shane huffed but didn't otherwise respond, shifting the dozing baby against his chest. They really did look adorable together, a perfectly matching set with black hair, and the baby was too young for freckles, JJ thought. He could imagine the kid running around with his sisters in a few years, little stars dotted all over his face.
"I didn't expect this from you, Shane," JJ said. "I kind of thought that you were…you know.. I mean, after we… You know, all those years ago. But then Rose Landry? And Arthur? I guess I'm just kind of confused."
"JJ" Shane said. "I thought we weren't going to talk about that. "
"Well, I didn't know you were sleeping with other people on the team," JJ muttered under his breath, "And I have a lot of gay friends, so I thought for a long time that you were pretty fucking gay, Captain."
"Dude," Shane said, digging his heel into JJ's thigh. "Watch it."
JJ let out an explosive sigh and leaned back into the cushions. "So you're telling me you're not gay?"
Shane's eyes darted to the left. A deliberate withholding of eye contact that JJ was very familiar with. "…No. No, I am. Super gay, some might say." He had a half smirk on his face as if remembering someone else.
JJ barked out a laugh. Yeah, that about lined up with his long-held suspicions. A guy didn't so enthusiastically take it up the ass and suck dick like he was born for it, while simultaneously running away from every woman who ever approached him at a bar without being super fucking gay. Of course, while JJ had seen his captain shun many a woman at a bar, he'd only ever intimately known his captain's sexual preferences once. It had been years, and they'd never had a repeat performance. Something about Shane not wanting to take advantage of his position as captain and not risking team dynamics, blah blah blah.
J.J. respected when he was getting rejected, Consent is King and all, but that didn't stop him from fantasizing about Shane ever since, specifically in a non-gay way. J.J. wasn't gay after all, but it was different when it was Shane Hollander.
He guessed that Hayden had probably thought so too. He wondered if his teammates had both fucked Jackie when they conceived Arthur, or if Hayden had fucked Shane while Shane fucked Jackie, or whatever permutation of that specific threesome had happened to result in a baby being conceived. Maybe Jackie had rode Shane while Hayden fucked his face? JJ hated that he would never know because: one, it was probably hot as fuck, and two, God, he wished he had been there.
"So what was all that with Rose Landry?"
"We're just friends," Shane said. The baby on his chest gurgled in his sleep, and Shane patted his back absently. "Good friends."
"Like you and Jackie," JJ said.
"Exactly," Shane said.
"Except you got Jackie pregnant. Are you sure there's no chance you got Rose Landry pregnant?"
Shane paled at the thought. "I mean, no, of course not. We use condoms!"
"And you didn't use condoms with Jackie?" JJ knew his captain and how careful he was. There was no way in hell he wasn't always using condoms. "They're not 100% effective." He nodded his head towards Arthur. "Obviously. "
"There's no way Rose Landry is pregnant," Shane said. "That would be crazy."
"Crazy, yeah."
Kind of crazy, like getting your best friend's wife pregnant and then raising the baby in some sort of bizarre polycule, except JJ knew 100% that Shane was not having sex with Hayden or Jackie. He had a very strong suspicion that his captain actually had a secret lover he wasn't telling anyone about, and it wasn't a woman. And if he had any faith in the idea that Shane would be honest with him, he'd be digging into that conversation like a detective, but he wasn't super thrilled with the idea of sending his captain into a panic attack while he was on pain meds, in a sling, and holding a baby.
There'd be a time and place for that conversation.
On the screen, the third-period horn sounded, and the New York Admirals poured onto the ice to celebrate. It seemed they were going on to the Cup.
Patrick Swayze, specifically in Dirty Dancing because his mom would watch that movie whenever it came on and nine year old Shane would join her, watching with an innocent but fixed fascination he usually only ever showed for hockey related things.
Li Shang in Mulan.
An 8th grade classmate who occasionally told the other boys to knock it off when they made jokes at Shane's expense. He had that 90s popular boy curtain bangs haircut and Shane would sometimes fantasize about brushing the hair away from his face.
The boy who was the Captain of his U15 team the year he joined. Confused it for hero worship. He had a habit of ruffling Shane's hair and of teasing him in a way that sometimes crossed the line from affectionate to mean. Both gave Shane butterflies.
Scott Hunter, also confused for hero worship.
A 12th grade classmate who was on the basketball team and who always stood just a little bit too close whenever he talked to Shane, forcing Shane to crane his neck to look up at him.
Ilya Rozanov, unfortunately.
Carter Vaughn. He's cute, he's friendly, and he throws his arm around Shane's shoulders whenever they meet.
Ilya Rozanov, still.
A photographer who takes Shane's pictures for one of his many brand deals and is a little more hands-on than most, without touching Shane in any way that could be construed as inappropriate. Tells Shane "good job, kid, you're a natural" once the shoot is over, his voice warm and deep.
His boyfriend, Ilya Rozanov.
J.J. Boiziau, after J.J. takes him out to a gay club post Shane coming out and forces him onto the dancefloor with him. This crush is swiftly snuffed out the next week when J.J. tosses his socks at him in the locker room and the smell nearly knocks Shane out cold.
#i think shane is absolutely the type of person to tell ilya he has a crush on him#like i'm talking they're on their literal honeymoon after getting married#curled in bed together enjoying the afterglow#and shane turns and looks at ilya and goes#ilya i have a crush on you#and ilya is filled with a cuteness aggression so strong he literally goes to bite shane's cheeks#which just makes shane more blushy and flustered#and he's like#ilya im serious you still give me butterflies im still stuck staring at you when we're in a room together#stop laughing!#because ilya only pauses nibbling and kissing at shane's cheeks to laugh and tease#and when he pulls away he looks at shane and goes#shane i have a crush on you too#and he's blushing and shane points it out#and ofc ilya is like 'never in my life have i blushed russians do not do this'#while his cheeks are pink and he's giggling at his hubsnd#and how lucky are they both to marry their most beloved crushes
@unholyhollander no you get it they literally never stop crushing on each other, they've been married for years and still give each other butterflies <3
Shane Hollander LOVES being told what to do. Every since he was a kid and his first coach fired off the first order, and he for once knew exactly what to do to make people happy, he has loved loved following orders.
His hockey coaches, his personal trainer, his nutritionist, and yoga instructor all adore him and it lights a pleased little fire under his highly tones glutes.
Ilya Rozanov takes a couple hook ups to understand the depth of Hollander's obedience but once he does it's over for them both.
If you know what you'd have to do to solve a problem, but you just don't want to do it, your main problem isn't the problem itself. Your problem is figuring out how to get yourself to do the solution.
If your problem is not eating enough vegetables, the problem you should be solving is "how do I make vegetables stop being yucky". If your problem is not getting enough exercise, the problem you should be solving is "how do I make exercise stop sucking ass". You're not supposed to just be doing things that are awful and suck all the time forever, you're supposed to figure out how to make it stop being so awful all the time.
I used to hate wearing sunscreen because it's sticky and slimy and disgusting and it feels bad and it smells bad, so I neglected to wear it even if I needed to. Then I found one that isn't like that, and doesn't smell and feel gross. Problem solved.
There is no correct way to live that's just supposed to suck and feel bad all the time. You're allowed to figure out how to make it not suck so bad.
awhimsicallaugh @awhimsicallaugh - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
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