Hello! I'm Jay, I'm an adult, and my pronouns are they/them. You can find me on Ao3 at bluejayblueskies. My fics are tagged under #my fic and fics I've liked are tagged under #fic rec. I bookbind as well, and you can find my binds under #jay's bound books. I have a Ko-Fi here!
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first post for context / see the tag 'open relationship au' for more snippets or the masterlist so kindly put together by @tafkarfanfic. we're nearing the end now! just two parts left.
July 2015
Under normal circumstances, returning to Russia feels like treading water.
Ilya keeps himself busy. He trains, he cares for his father, and on the weekends he drinks and parties and fucks his way through Moscow's best nightclubs. It's all just enough to keep him afloat.
But these aren't normal circumstances. Right now, Ilya feels like he's drowning.
He ruined everything in Vegas. Approaching Shane the way he did, pushing his feelings onto him and demanding he break up with his boyfriend. Ilya doesn't know what the right words would have been in that scenario but he does know that he picked exactly the wrong ones.
And still, he didn't appreciate at the time how badly the night went until the radio silence from Shane that followed. The night before his flight to Moscow, Ilya caved and sent a text. Shane read it almost immediately but he hasn't replied.
Ilya understands rejection when he sees it.
Worse than his own broken heart is knowing that Shane is suffering, too. Ilya doesn't know how Brian convinced Shane to stay with him but he sure as fuck knows he didn't do it by becoming a better person. Men like him don't change.
So Ilya failed. He failed himself and he failed Shane, and all he can do about it now is drown his sorrows.
Sveta helps. She follows him from club to club, drinks with him so he doesn't have to do it alone. She hits the dance floor when he insists he's fine, really, go have fun, but she's always there to drag his ass home at the end of the night.
"You'll figure it out," she tells him in the backseat of a taxi one night, her hand soft on top of his.
She doesn't even know what happened. Ilya would rather die than tell her how badly he fucked up. "I won't."
"You will," Sveta says with absolute confidence. "As soon as you're done feeling sorry for yourself."
Ilya wants to tell her it's not himself he feels most sorry for.
His hangover the next morning is thankfully mild. The emotional hangover - he's pretty sure he shed a few tears while hugging Sveta goodnight, how pathetic - is much worse.
Still, Ilya keeps the blinds drawn and the lights low as he goes through his morning routine. He eats is breakfast in a distracted daze, mind running through memories of last night (he didn't cry in front of the taxi driver, too, did he?). It takes him a few moments to notice that his phone is ringing.
He glances down and nearly drops it in surprise.
Shane is calling.
Ilya has the phone by his ear before he can even stop to think.
"Hi," Shane says again. His voice is tinny and far away and Ilya misses him so much it aches. "I, um. Sorry. I know we don't really call but it's been a weird night."
Ilya does a quick calculation in his head. "It is still night for you, Hollander."
"I guess so, yeah." Shane laughs. "I just got home, and I realized it would be morning for you and I just - I wanted to talk to you."
Ilya's heart is pounding. This has to be a good sign, right? Shane wouldn't call in the middle of the night just to tell him he never wants to see him again.
Shane clears his throat. "I wanted to apologize, first of all. About Vegas. And about not responding to your text."
Ilya is shaking his head before he realizes that Shane can't see him. "Don't. I should be apologizing. I didn't mean to push you like that."
There's a long silence.
Then, "I'm glad you did. What you said... I needed to hear it."
Ilya doesn't know how to interpret that, can't read Shane over the phone like this.
"I thought about it after you left," Shane continues. "What I really want. If I'm happy. I don't think I've done that in... fuck, maybe ever. Not since I decided I wanted to be a professional hockey player."
Ilya laughs, because God. That is so Shane.
"I think - I think we could be happy. Together." Shane's voice is quiet but steady. Ilya's hand curls, itching with the need to touch him. "I want us to try, at least."
"I want that, too," Ilya says thickly.
Shane lets out a shuddering breath. "Fuck. Okay. Good, that's - good."
"So you and Brian - ?"
"I tried breaking it off," Shane says, and Ilya is flooded with relief for a moment before his brain snags on the word 'tried'. "Last week. I invited him over to end it. I was so sure that I didn't want to be together anymore, I don't know how I let him change my mind." He laughs, a bitter sound. "Bad habit, I guess. I don't know, I had a whole speech prepared. It threw me off when he showed up with a black eye."
Ilya winces. "Ah. I'm sorry about that."
He's not, really, but it feels like the thing to say.
"Sorry about what?"
"About... punching him?"
"Ah." He hears Shane exhaling slowly. "That's not - he told me something else."
This surprises Ilya. He would have figured Brian would relish in the opportunity to make him look like a violent thug.
"He tried to punch me first," Ilya offers.
"Of course he did," Shane mutters. "That's - I'm getting off topic."
"Sorry," Ilya says, more sincerely this time.
"I met someone tonight," Shane says, and Ilya's heart seizes before he continues, "Rose. She kind of... talked sense into me. I didn't realize how bad things have been with Brian until she laid it all out."
Ilya is glad for it but also, "I told you he was an asshole many years ago."
"Can't imagine why I might have thought you'd have an ulterior motive," Shane says dryly.
This is fair.
"But you will break up with him now," Ilya says, not quite as confidently as he'd like.
"I want to," Shane says. His voice has gone tight. "I'm just scared."
Ilya feels cold. "He would hurt you?"
"I'd kick his ass if he tried." It calms Ilya's heart, how quickly and certainly Shane says it. "But I don't trust my own judgment, I guess. I don't think he could change my mind again, but I didn't think he could the first time, either."
"I'll come with you."
The offer has left Ilya's lips before he can think twice. But he means it, truly.
"You'll come with me?" Shane repeats, baffled. "To break up with my boyfriend?"
Right. Maybe this is a strange suggestion. "Or I will be close by. For moral support."
"But you're in Russia."
"I will be back in..." Ilya hesitates, calculating the shortest possible amount of time it would take him to put all his affairs in order, "four days."
"Really?"
"Really," Ilya says. He will have to look up flights as soon as he hangs up. "If this is alright?"
"Are you sure? You must have other plans."
Ilya waves his hand. "Nothing that can't wait."
"If you're sure," Shane says. His voice is shaking, a little bit.
Shane was there when Ilya got the call, his arm heavy across Ilya's stomach, like even in sleep he could tell something was trying to take Ilya away from him.
When Boston realize Ilya wants out, they send him to the highest bidder. The highest bidder is LA.
Washington Post is paywalling the article but it looks like Taylor Farms — a consumer bagged salad brand that also supplies produce to grocers and fast food chains like Taco Bell, Walmart, McDonald's, Chipotle, Burger King, KFC, and Meijer —may be at least one of the sources of the current cyclosporiasis outbreak.
Taylor makes bagged greens, salad kits, chopped salads, the works. Keep avoiding supermarket greens, but keep an especially close eye out for this brand/supplier. The above list of grocers and fast food chains is NOT exhaustive, so please continue getting lettuce and other raw produce taken off your burgers, sandwiches, etc.
My absolute gospel truth and I'm sorry this is so sappy but--where I'm living, Ilya fully changes his name to Hollander when they get married, like just fully legally changes it. And despite the fact that he continues to use Rozanov professionally ("Just like J. Lo," Ilya says.) everyone who knows them personally obviously knows what Ilya's legal name is and also assume it's a way to kind of stick it to his shitheel father. To this end, and kind of as a joke at first, people start referring to their two-person unit as The Hollanders ("Okay, the Hollanders are in room 508" etc.) but it becomes steadily less and less a joke when neither Shane or Ilya really seems to think of it as one. Ilya especially seems to genuinely love it. He'll say shit like "Oh yes the Hollanders will be there" when asked if they're coming to a barbecue like they live in a postcard. He LOVES to give his name as Ilya Hollander and he LOVES to book reservations under 'Misters Hollander' and he LOVES to say the words 'Shane and Ilya Hollander' out loud with his mouth. I also think that for their last game together in the league Ilya and Shane wear jerseys that say S. Hollander 24 and I. Hollander 81 and it's like. An end of an era type thing. And they frame the jerseys.
Hanahaki disease is a psychosomatic illness. It's a thing that your body does in response to stress over constantly repressing/concealing your feelings in settings with high background magic. It's like you've been ignoring pain for a long time and suddenly your vision starts going dark, because your affected body is just YANKING on random alerts trying to get you to PAY ATTENTION there is a PROBLEM. Yes the flowers do really exist. So do non-magical psychosomatic symptoms. The flowers aren't special.
This does of course open up the trope to options for non-romantic concealed feelings. Which I think is great. There is something viscerally satisfying about the person who seems so outwardly chipper coughing and hacking and spitting up Depression Flowers so now everyone has to know they're hurting. Isn't there?
first post for context / see the tag 'open relationship au' for more snippets or the masterlist so kindly put together by @tafkarfanfic. some of you may remember that i said i didn't plan on including rose in this au. well, plans change :)
July 2015
Shane is really trying to do this second chance thing right.
Brian has been over to his place nearly every day, whenever Shane doesn't have other obligations. They've been doing all the usual dating activities they can at home - cooking and eating dinner together, watching movies, having sex - and Brian has been so sweet, so attentive throughout and it's all just. Fine.
It's fine.
It's just that every time Brian is over, Shane is kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the sweetness to sour, for the small, sniping comments to come back. And he feels guilty, expecting the worst when Brian is clearly trying so hard to do better, but it eats at him all the same.
There's also his last message from Ilya.
Are you okay?, sent two days after Vegas.
Unanswered, but read about a hundred times. Shane opens the thread compulsively multiple times a day, considers writing a response, and then closes it.
He's got nothing to say that Ilya would want to hear. And he should be focusing on Brian anyway, on their second chance. Shane needs to give it a proper try and for that to happen, he can't keep thinking about Ilya. He should probably block his number. He would, if it didn't feel physically impossible.
But it's fine. Shane is miserable, but it's fine. It's only been nine days; maybe things will be different next week. His feelings magically changed. He just needs to give it time.
On the evening of the tenth day, JJ calls.
"You haven't been reading the group chat, Hollander!"
"Not really," Shane admits. He hasn't been in much of a celebratory mood since Vegas, and the group chat is exclusively invitations to parties and clubs right now.
"But you are in Montreal, non?"
"Yeah?"
"Then get your ass down to Soleil right now! Fucking everyone is here, and I don't just mean the team. Models, singers, fucking movie stars, and everybody wants a piece of us!"
Brian is coming over in an hour.
"Okay," Shane says. "Sure, I'm there."
But he'll understand, right? It's a team function, Shane's expected to be there. It would be weird if he didn't go.
Soleil is a massive, three-story club, its tall windows tinted and the entrance corded off with velvet ropes. A well-dressed bouncer pulls one aside as soon as he sees Shane, ushering him inside with a nod and a "Good evening, Captain."
The theatricality of it all is kind of ridiculous, but Shane can see why it would appeal to the guys.
Shane passes by the dance floor quickly, noticing a few of his teammates in the crowd. There are a lot of very pretty people around, some of whom Shane recognizes and a few he can even place.
JJ is standing by the bar and he pulls Shane into a crushing hug when he sees him.
"Fucking finally," he says, ruffling Shane's hair. Shane laughs and shoves him off. "Vegas must have worn you out, huh?"
Shane shrugs and doesn't answer.
"Everyone has been waiting for you, mon capitaine. You know who came up to me ten minutes ago just to ask if you'd be here?" JJ leans in, hand on Shane's shoulder. "Rose fucking Landry!"
Rose Landry is an actual A-list movie star. Shane's seen three of her films on flights this year. It's rumored that she may be cast in the next X-Squad movie.
And she asked to see him?
"I will take you to her," JJ says, grinning. "You hit it off with her, I hit it off with her friend Vanessa Long, we all leave this club happy."
It's not the first time JJ's tried to wingman for him - Shane doesn't give him a lot of opportunities but he grabs the ones he gets - but for once Shane doesn't mind. Not if it means he gets to meet Rose Landry.
"Hell yeah, lead the way."
When JJ said Rose Landry wanted to meet him, Shane sort of figured it was to congratulate him on the cup and maybe ask for a nice photo op for social media.
But no, she asks Shane to sit in her booth and talk, and she seems genuinely thrilled when he agrees. Her friend Vanessa and JJ join in the conversation for all of five minutes before JJ whisks her off to the dance floor, and then it's just Rose and Shane.
Shane's expecting it to be awkward but somehow, it's not. They talk for over an hour and when Rose gets sick of people coming up to them in the crowded club, they move to one of the private lounges upstairs and keep talking there.
Rose is easy to get along with, personable and warm in a way that can't be faked. She tells him about her childhood and her family, and asks all the right questions in return. It's the most carefree, fun conversation Shane has had in a while.
It kind of makes him wish he was into women, which is a thought Shane doesn't entertain too often. It feels like a betrayal of what he has with Brian.
But it does make him wonder - does Rose think he's flirting with her?
He gets his answer about two minutes later when she reaches across the table, taking his hand in hers and giving him a shy smile that would surely melt any straight guy's heart.
Shane pulls back gently. "Um. I'm sorry, I'm not -"
"Oh." Rose straightens. "No problem, obviously. Do you have a girlfriend?"
"Uh."
"Or a boyfriend," Rose adds. "I won't judge."
It's an obvious joke - haha, the gay star athlete, imagine that - but Shane can't react quickly enough to laugh it off. He freezes instead, stomach twisting tightly.
"Oh," Rose says again, voice soft and eyes wide. "That's - that's really not a problem."
Shit. This is so bad.
"Please don't tell anyone," Shane begs quietly.
"I won't," Rose promises. "I know what that kind of secret getting out could do to a person, believe me."
She's a stranger. Shane has no reason to trust her, so he doesn't know why her reassurances work so well to calm his racing heart.
"I really didn't - I'm so sorry, that was insensitive of me to joke about. I didn't mean to corner you."
"You didn't, you just surprised me." Shane manages a stiff smile, cheeks burning hot with embarrassment. "People don't normally consider I might be, um."
For fuck's sake, he can't even say it out loud.
Rose nods in understanding. "I get it. I kind of got the impression your friend was trying to set us up. I'm guessing he doesn't know?"
"Almost no one does," Shane admits. "Just two, uh, two people. But I've slept with them both, so. Not sure that completely counts."
"Sounds lonely."
"I guess." Shane shrugs. "I'm used to it."
Rose hums. "So, do you have a boyfriend?"
She's only the second person to ever ask him that. She sounds pleasantly curious, and Shane really wishes he could enjoy it. Sharing this piece of himself with someone who doesn't seem to want anything other than to know him a little bit better.
But the question lands uncomfortably instead. Yes, Shane thinks and, I'm only here, talking to you, because I didn't want to see him tonight.
"Oh," Rose says after the silence stretches on for too long. She leans in, looking interested. "Is it complicated?"
Shane grimaces. "Um. No, not really. Or kind of?"
"Well, it doesn't sound simple."
"I have a boyfriend," Shane says. Whispers, almost, even though they're alone in the room and the door is closed. "It's just... things have been weird lately."
"You could tell me about it, if you want?" Rose suggests. "I've been told I'm a pretty good listener and it doesn't sound like you've got many people to talk to."
Something in Shane aches at that. He does want to tell her - tell someone - about Brian and Ilya and the whole mess Shane has made of everything. How many times in the past year (past decade, really) has he wished for someone to talk to?
"You really can't tell anyone."
Rose mimes zipping her lips shut. "Your secrets are safe with me."
It's actually crazy that Shane is even considering this but it's so tempting, to let someone in.
"I, uh, I started seeing this guy when I was sixteen."
He keeps going, laying it all out. Every messy detail, even the things that have him burning with shame speaking them out loud. It's like once he's started he can't stop, like he's purging himself of every secret shoved down deep in his chest the past eight years, and it's ugly and painful but it also feels like a fucking mountain lifting off his shoulders.
Rose stays quiet while he speaks, nodding along. When Shane tells her about his first time with Ilya (without saying his name, because that secret isn't his to share) she gasps and he has to look away, already feeling scraped raw without having to see her reactions.
Deafening silence settles between them once Shane is finished speaking. He finally dares to look back up and Rose is staring contemplatively into her drink.
She lifts it, taking a delicate sip, and then says, "Okay. I'm gonna tell you something you might not like, but I think you need to hear it."
Oh, God. She's gonna tell him to block Ilya, isn't she?
"Brian is an asshole."
Shane blinks. "Oh. Um, isn't that a little harsh?"
"It's not," Rose says adamantly. "It's actually nowhere near harsh enough but I don't think you're ready for the full rant yet."
"You haven't even met him," Shane protests. He ignores how automatic and rote the defense sounds even to his own ears. "Maybe what I told you didn't make him sound great, but there's more to him."
"Did you lie about any of it?"
"No," Shane says, because what would be the point?
"Okay." Rose nods. "You're right, I haven't met him. I'm sure he can seem genuinely sweet and loving at times."
"He is."
"But let's lay out the facts." Rose holds up a finger. "Number one, he corners you drunk and alone at a party when you're sixteen and he is a fully grown adult."
"I wasn't that drunk-"
"Number two, even after you tell him your age he still wants to keep seeing you." She tilts her head, giving him a wry smile. "Let me guess, he told you that you were mature for your age?"
Shane's stomach tightens. He feels vaguely sick and Rose moves on without waiting for confirmation.
"Number three, he doesn't respect your chosen field of work and in the five years you've been playing professionally he's only bothered showing up for two games."
"He showed up to my last game," Shane says, because it's true. Maybe Brian hasn't always made an effort but he's doing it now. That has to count for something, right?
"After he realized you might be interested in another guy," Rose points out. "Which brings me to number four, he pressures you into opening the relationship and you agree to it because you're afraid he might dump you otherwise."
She grimaces and adds, "And I'm sorry but in my experience, 'I want to open the relationship' usually means they've found someone else they want to fuck or they're already doing it."
Shane's heart sinks. He feels numb all over, like he's standing outside of his body.
Already doing it. The thought never crossed his mind. Maybe it should have.
"Number five," Rose continues. Merciless or merciful, Shane hasn't decided, because he doesn't like hearing this but he's starting to think he really, really needs to, "He gives you the silent treatment after every fight, knowing you've got no one else to turn to.
"Number six..." she hesitates. "It, um... it doesn't sound like you were ready when you guys started having sex. And that maybe he pressured you?"
Shane wants to deny that. He can't.
"So, yeah." Rose shrugs apologetically. "Asshole doesn't really begin to cover it."
Hearing her list it all out like that, simple, matter-of-fact, it makes Shane want to throw up. It makes him angry, that same hot, bubbling feeling in his chest he felt in Vegas when Brian showed up unannounced.
That same anger that Brian talked him down from so expertly, so thoroughly that he actually convinced Shane to give him another chance.
Even though Shane doesn't even love him anymore.
Shane buries his face in his hands. "I'm such an idiot."
"No!" Rose says, immediate and sharp. She reaches across the table, placing her hand on Shane's arm. "You're not an idiot, Shane. You put your trust in someone who said they love you, that's not stupid. That's brave."
Shane isn't sure he believes her but he nods, lowering his hands. Rose gives him a brilliant smile, thumb caressing his arm.
"But I think you know what you need to do now."
Shane nods again. His mouth feels dry, heart pounding. "And, um. The other guy?"
"He sounds good for you. But," Rose adds, squeezing his arm for emphasis, "you should probably stay single for a bit. You don't want to waste a guy that nice on a rebound."
Unknowingly or not, she's probably the first person to ever describe Ilya Rozanov as nice. It makes Shane smile, because she's not wrong.
"Besides, you're not dumping Brian for him. You're doing it for yourself."
