I saw a post about Shane and Ilya being sad that they can't thank each other in their acceptance speeches like other can with their spouses and it got me thinking:
Ilya wins his first awards and hes got nobody he really wants to thank after his team and coach cause he he hates his family but he knows his speech is too short so on impulse he goes "And I want to thank Shane Hollander for being slightly worse than me this season". Everyone knows it was going to one of those two, so everyone thinks hes an asshole to say that but whats new so it works for him. But from then on it then becomes a bit for both of them to thank each other in their speeches in a snide way as a reason they won.
Shane winning the Art Ross Trophy (Awarded to the player who leads the league in total points at the end of the regular season). and going "special thanks to Rozanov for missing at least 5 shots this season, he was a huge help"
Ilya winning the Conn Smythe Trophy (Awarded to the most valuable player for his team in the playoffs.) "Just want to give a quick shout out to Hollander for getting knocked out in the second round this season. Must hate to see me up here."
They find a way to mention the other in their speeches every time all the time.
And after they get outed ppl expect them to start genuinely thanking eachother but no. they do not. they are just as snarky as before. the only thing that sometimes changes is when one of them wins a non-hockey award they start choosing extracurricular reasons that the other wouldn’t win the award.
Ilya, receiving the Canada Volunteers Award on behalf of the Irina Foundation: I would like to thank Shane Hollander for spending half of the off season in photo shoots, couldn’t have picked up the hours without you
Shane, picking up a GLAAD advocacy award: I would like to thank Ilya Rozanov for taking the time to enjoy his retirement so that I could be here tonight
Ilya, winning Taskmaster UK: I would like to thank my husband for being too boring to compete on this show. Love you sweetheart!
Ilya on taskmaster with greg davies and little alex horn might actually do me in someone PLEASE make this fic and also IMMEDIATELY notify me when you do
So Harris decides to do something special for the moms of the team for Mother's Day and lines up a series of posts to go live hourly throughout the day, wherein there is a featured picture of each player's mother wearing that player's jersey and a few extra pictures provided by that player's mom--pictures from Timbits games, family vacations through the years, holidays. A few players' moms actually provide Harris with pictures of themselves in the hospital holding the newborn who would someday become an Ottawa Centaur! Super cute! And if making these posts in alphabetical order by last name means that Harris gets to make sure that his own wonderful mother-in-law goes first, well...you didn't see anything.
It's just a day of cute posts, and Ilya keeps checking to see if Yuna's post has gone live because those baby Shane pictures always hit like crack and Shane so rarely lets his parents pull them out.
Delightfully, Yuna chose one of Ilya's favorites--a VERY nineties newborn photoshoot where Shane already has a shock of black hair sticking up in all directions, and a pinched little expression on his face. He is all cheek and eyebrow, and Yuna is twenty-four and has bangs and denim overalls, and it is so nineties.
"Yuna sent Harris the Sears photo," Ilya tells Shane, giddy.
"Oh great," Shane groans.
"People are saying you make the same face when you argue with ref."
"I don't argue with the refs," Shane mutters.
"True, you have very smart and sexy Captain husband to do this for you now."
Ilya scrolls through the rest of the pictures--not to be outdone, Yuna has provided more than most. Shane in the Metros onesie that Ilya knows he was brought home from the hospital in. Yuna holding a year-old Shane in her lap, her narrow frame nearly dwarfed by his chubby body. Yuna with little Shane at what is clearly a Centaurs game, circa 1995.
The next one--he sort of wasn't expecting, but he isn't completely surprised either. His own face, smiling politely next to Yuna and David the day he flew out to Ottawa to sign some paperwork for his contract with the Centaurs. It was only the second or third time he'd seen them without Shane, and maybe the first picture they'd taken together as well. He'd been carefully cropped out of previous ones.
"Oh, that's nice," Shane mumbles. He's stopped pretending he's not looking over Ilya's shoulder, watching him scroll.
The next picture is of their wedding day, unsurprisingly--one of several pictures from that day wherein Shane and Yuna had matching misty eyes and Ilya was actually just visibly crying with his face pressed to someone's shoulder.
Lastly, Yuna in her jersey--custom-made, Hollander-Rozanov on the back and 24|81 below. She's smiling over her shoulder at some game or other, proud of it.
Then there is one more picture. Yuna's hand in frame, holding a wallet-size picture of Irina Rozanova as she was thirty-two years ago, young and smiling with a baby Ilya pressed to her cheek.
It's one of only a few pictures that Ilya knows exist of his mother, and he thought the only copy was in a frame in the room he's currently sitting in.
"Why does Yuna have tiny picture of Mama?" Ilya murmurs.
"Oh." Shane rubs the back of his neck. "She, uh, she does this thing--she has pictures of all of us in her purse. It's, like, so that she has us with her. She asked me for Irina's picture a little while ago."
In the picture, Yuna is holding Irina's picture up next to the Jumbotron broadcasting Ilya's grinning face from the season intro video.
"Oh," Ilya murmurs. "That's..."
"If you think it's weird--"
"No," Ilya snaps. "Don't even finish that sentence, Hollander. I love it."
The caption of the post reads:
Yuna Hollander, mother of #24 and mother-in-love to #81! Mama Hollander is a reformed Metros fan and a proud Ottawan who can almost always be seen in the crowd at Canadian Tire Centre cheering on the home team. We love you and your boys, Yuna! Happy Mother's Day!
The Hollander-Rozanovs also treasure the memory of Irina Rozanova, mother to #81. Happy Mother's Day, Irina.
anyway good morning a crucial tenet of hollanov’s relationship is that they’re equals and they’re the only people in the world who could ever be each other’s equal. they were supposed to stand alone at the top but they’re there together. shane does not view ilya as a lazy useless inconvenience. ilya does not view shane as a nagging killjoy. they are equals and they both think the other is the best thing since sliced bread and they love each other but more importantly they LIKE each other. stop making them not like each other!
like ilya spends his entire life being told (by people objectively shittier than he is) that he’s not good enough, he’s lazy, he’s undisciplined, he lets people down. and then he meets the one person who would actually be in a position to assess whether ilya is any of those things, and shane just earnestly looks into his fucking soul and says no, they were wrong. ‘you’re an awesome player to watch’ ‘i don’t know that side of you at all’ ‘this isn’t what this is. me and you’
and it’s such a fucking tragedy that people are trying to push MyIlya back into a setting where he’s constantly being lectured about his inadequacies by the very person that canonically reminds him all the time that those inadequacies were figments of his dad’s imagination
“It was a ball held to celebrate the coming new year. 1541 was also the year Henry took Katherine as his wife, making it the first Christmas Ball they attended together as a married couple.”
“Uh, ok?” Epel twisted into confusion, standing up properly to face Sebek, “I don’t really care about Henry, like at all,”
“Likewise,” Sebek laughed quietly at Epel’s expression.
Can be read as standalone, HNA background knowledge better experience
Words - 1,401 (shorten ver.)
Pairing - Sebek/Epel
✦•┈๑⋅⋯ ⋯⋅๑┈•✦
“Ok, 1, 2, 3–”
Peering into one of the second floor rooms of Ramshackle, Sebek quietly pushed the door further ajar to watch the scene in front of him.
For the past hour, the soft melody of bells and chimes echoed from the room, its waves reaching to Sebek’s ears while he brewed his new cup of caffeine for the night. His tail lifted before falling with a muted thump against the floorboards, the late nights and tired mind letting more of his fae characteristics slip free as he quietly made his way upstairs.
Now leaning against the door frame, Sebek’s eyes tracked the couple’s movement, entranced by the dance.
Only clad in a night shirt and shorts, his cardigan abandoned over a chair rest, Epel’s brows were furrowed in concentration as he counted beneath his breath, tracking each practiced step and hop. Ortho followed behind, his steps slightly off beat from Epel’s, and yet together, the movements melded into something cohesive. Ortho was always just a step behind, always within reach as Epel spun, meeting Ortho’s outstretched arms without fail.
Ortho swept Epel back against his chest before releasing him into another spin, guiding him away once more. Despite the constant switching between the two, the dance never felt chaotic. Instead, the story unfolded through the gentle guidance of one force leading another soul toward its own ending, a final moment of clarity and peace before the inevitable.
Ortho, sensing another presence in the room, looked up, golden eyes whirling before fixating on Sebek by the door.
Sebek gave a small smile, tilting his head toward Ortho.
Taking the moment, Sebek raised a fist against the door and let out a crisp knock, finally alerting Epel to his presence.
Epel stopped in place, looking up as he wiped away a growing bead of sweat, surprise flickering across his face at the sudden noise.
“Sorry,” Sebek pushed himself off the frame and stood properly, “Am I interrupting?”
“Oh, uh– no, no,” Epel shook his head, walking over to grab the towel resting on the table, “Ortho and I were just practicing our routine, nothing big.”
“Epel-kun and I are reviewing some of the harder passes in the dance,” chirped Ortho, “So far, we only had 4 slip ups, an improvement from before!”
“An improvement indeed,” Sebek nodded, “Do pace yourself however. I can hear the music from downstairs and it’s been playing for over an hour now,”
“Yeah, yeah,” Epel huffed, “I’ll take that advice when I see you without a coffee mug in your hand,”
“I don’t have one in my hand right now, do I?”
“Dude.”
Epel pointed outside the room, where a mug filled with freshly brewed coffee sat atop the hallway drawer.
“…”
“Well, it’s not in my hands.”
“Ha ha. You get my point,”
Epel leaned back against the chair, elbows propping him up as he looked toward Sebek.
“Something you need?”
Sebek shook his head, “I was just watching.”
Floating between the two, Ortho looked back and forth curiously.
Epel avoided Sebek’s eyes first.
It was subtle, the way his shoulders straightened ever so slightly beneath Sebek’s attention, fingers curling tighter around the towel in his hands before he quickly busied himself wiping sweat from the back of his neck. Sebek, meanwhile, had not looked away from him once since entering the room.
Not the dance itself.
But Epel.
The realization made Ortho’s optics flicker.
The room suddenly felt a bit warmer and way smaller. And it wasn’t his circuits miscalculating the dimensions.
Sebek’s tail gave a slow sway behind him before settling near his ankles, the sharpness in his posture easing in a way Ortho rarely saw around others. Even his voice had dropped quieter than before, absent of its usual volume.
Ortho’s circuits clicked once in understanding.
“Oh!” he suddenly chimed, raising a finger, “Speaking of that, I just remembered Ace asked me for something!”
Both boys startled slightly, almost as if remembering he was still there.
“I’ll be right back!”
Before either of them could answer, Ortho zipped past Sebek and out into the hallway, leaving the room noticeably quieter than before.
And neither of the remaining occupants seemed quite sure what to do with the silence left behind.
Epel cleared his throat first.
“So,” he muttered, fiddling with the edge of the towel between his fingers, “guess it’s just us now.”
Sebek gave a small hum in acknowledgment, though his attention drifted toward the speaker resting near the wall. An unreadable glint flickered through his eyes as he slowly walked over, crouching slightly to adjust one of the knobs. The soft chiming melody lowered enough to settle into the background, no longer filling every corner of the room.
Without looking back at Epel, Sebek asked,
“Your dance… was there an inspiration behind it?”
Epel hummed, crossing his arms as he leaned farther back, face tilted toward the ceiling.
“A little bit. Howard’s favorite pastime was dancing and well…”
Epel scratched the back of his head.
“Woah, this is actually embarrassing to say out loud.”
“You wanted to convey Katherine’s freedom,” Sebek finished quietly, “Finding peace with Death, where all are welcomed with open arms.”
“Yeah,” Epel tilted his head toward Sebek, eyes widening slightly, “I was gonna just say to let the dance do the talking.”
Sebek huffed, amusement softening his face.
“Yes, I believe that would have been a good answer as well.”
With the melody now filling the room at a gentler volume, more ambiance than performance, Sebek let out another quiet question.
“Do you know about the Christmas Ball held at Hampton Court Palace in 1541?”
“That’s an oddly specific date,” a wry smile pulled at Epel’s lips, “No, I don’t know anything about it.”
“It was a ball held to celebrate the coming new year. 1541 was also the year Henry took Katherine as his wife, making it the first Christmas Ball they attended together as a married couple.”
“Uh, ok?” Epel twisted into confusion, standing up properly to face Sebek, “I don’t really care about Henry, like at all,”
“Likewise,” Sebek laughed quietly at Epel’s expression.
Then, taking a step forward, the music carrying the movement alongside him, Sebek continued,
“Did you know,” Sebek continued, a few strands of hair falling loose to frame his face, “that when Henry finally retired to his chambers for the night, leaving Katherine alone, Anna approached her with a question of a dance on her lips?”
Epel quirked an eyebrow.
“Oh?”
His voice shifted into something more theatrical, more rehearsed, finger drumming against his arm despite the lingering sass in his tone.
“A scandal, is it not?”
“The former queen asking the current queen for a dance? The very woman her previous husband cast aside for?”
“Hm, I find it rather sweet,” Sebek mused, voice lowering into something almost dangerously fond, “Ironically humorous as well. A brief escape from the politics of court with the woman your husband deemed repulsive.”
Epel stepped forward then, matching Sebek’s approach without hesitation.
“Well,” he hummed, “I find her quite beautiful.”
Sebek’s smile faltered for half a second.
Just enough for Epel to notice the faint pink beginning to dust across his cheeks.
“The man’s eyes were clearly faulty with age.”
“Is that so?”
Sebek’s grin widened, the two now standing only an arm’s length apart. Sebek stared down at Epel, who tilted his face upward with the same fond smile resting on his lips.
Taking a half step back, Sebek placed one hand behind his back while extending the other toward Epel in a formal offer.
“My apologies for my forwardness,” Sebek said, the practiced elegance in his posture betrayed only slightly by the warmth gathering at the tips of his ears, “But with that in mind, may I ask for a dance with the lonely queen?”
Epel looked down at the offered hand, his own blush beginning to spread.
Then, placing his hand against Sebek’s, he answered,
“I could never refuse such a request from a fair lady, now could I?”
Sebek lifted Epel’s hand carefully, bowing his head just enough to press a kiss against the back of his palm.
“Indeed,” Sebek murmured, looking up at Epel, “I feared you might.”
“Now that’s just nonsense,” Epel scoffed quickly.
Yet the growing warmth across his face betrayed any confidence behind the words.
And still, his hand remained resting comfortably within Sebek’s grasp.
Shane has one (1) emotional conversation about his situationship with his girlfriend and immediately decided that he wanted Ilya… I’m telling you the man never stood a CHANCE. Shane walks into the bar looking fine as hell, who needs to do all that on a TRAVEL DAY to the ASG but he has a Man to Woo so he walks UP TO HIM IMMEDIATELY (social anxiety who, shane doesn’t know her) and starts f l i r t i n g with Ilya “I’m feeling a bit wild” “I’ve always wanted to play on a team with you” “nice shirt, you’re pulling it off” shane turned it up to 100 and Ilya folded like a bad hand. Shane Hollander flirting with Ilya rozanov in a bar full of hockey players in broad daylight is literally ilyas dream
Years into the future, publicly out and married Hollanov, playing together for the Ottawa Centaurs, are being invited to the All-Star Game. But they are invited to play on opposite teams. Organisers want to promote the event as bringing back the old ‘rivalry’.
And Shane and Ilya love to play on the same team, but playing against each other was always very exciting. And they are competitive. So they agree.
New hockey fans are confused because they only know Hollanov as married, and yes, they saw some old recordings of Boston vs Montreal games and they know that the rivalry was legendary, but can the hockey husbands do it again now? They are married and they're so in sync with each other now!
Meanwhile, old hockey fans are treating it as the return of the legend. It’s fun to watch Hollanov beating other teams together, but them playing against each other? Again? After everything? It just brings so many memories! Nostalgia hits the hockey world hard, and the social media buzz is absolutely insane.
The actual All-Star Game viewership is at an all-time high, and it’s not enough to say that Hollanov delivers. Because them playing against each other is pure madness. It’s electric, it’s competitive, almost brutal, and it is the most exciting game hockey fans have ever seen. Shane and Ilya are both captains of their teams, and they are giving their all. Usually, the All-Star games are calmer, more fun, but it's obvious that the married couple treats it more seriously than the Olympics.
Harris gets so much material to create at least a month's worth of best on ice moments from that event.
And maybe, maybe Ilya and Shane kiss on the ice after. Passionately. Very passionately. They could fall on the ice during the kiss and not care. Shane forgets his no PDA rules.
So let’s say it’s good that Cliff Marleau and Hayden Pike (Ilya is sure that he was invited by mistake, or they desperately needed someone to fill an empty spot after someone couldn’t come) are there and separate them because the kiss is heated and they don’t look like they plan to stop anytime soon, and children are watching this whole thing!
Shane and Ilya do not come to post-game drinks later.
at some point people get genuinely concerned by how much Shane seems to control Ilyas social calendar, because Ilya is constantly saying "sorry Shane said no" to plans and shane has to share ss of their chat history that clearly show Shane saying "yeah ofc baby enjoy yourself" and "Ilya why the fuck are you asking me" to clear his name
ilya "it's just a plan to fuck" rozanov vs. shane "Time to buy an entire house at 19 years old for the sole purpose of getting fucked within an inch of my life by my arch rival because I'm a screamer and I'm scared Scott Hunter will hear me and personally manifest into the bedroom" hollander
Something odd is going on at their house Ilya realizes, after about two months of living together.
One Monday he'd noticed the sink in one of the guest bedrooms was dripping a little. He'd texted his plumber, who'd been able to come by the next day, only to find nothing was dripping. Ilya has figured maybe it hadn't been dripping, the faucet maybe wasn't fully off or something?
Another week he'd taken out the trash and noticed the light above the cans was out. He'd texted the electrician guy he had on call. He wouldn't usually be able to come out for a couple days. But the next day when Ilya was bringing a box out to recycle he'd found the light back on. He'd canceled the electrician, wondering if he'd just hit the lights switch funny?
And then the final odd thing happens. He's putting some stuff away in one of the guest room closets and he tugs the door too hard the wrong way and it pops off it's tracks and hits the floor. He curses as he catches it, and props it back up, leaning it into place. He texts a picture of it to his handyman. The photo is partially to explain the problem, but mostly to assure himself it really happened if the door manages to also magically heal itself.
The next day he gets a question about the door from the handyman so he goes to check it out, and walks in on Shane, with a little tool box on the floor next to him, lifting the door back into place with ease.
Ilya, shocked, "You're the one fixing everything!"
Shane, did not know this was a mystery, "Yes, of course. What did you think it was, magic?"
Shane, after hearing the story, "Wait, you call an electrician every time a light bulb goes out?!"
I’m pretty sure that Ilya is a service top. If something gets Shane off, it gets him off too.
Mostly Shane likes to sub, but on occasion he likes to switch things up. And he and Ilya have been doing this for years. So they both feel safe enough with each other to experiment.
