What if Shane was the captain of the Boston Raiders and Ilya was a hockey influencer and personal trainer?
Explicit
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandoms: Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid
Relationship: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov
Characters: Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Anya | Ilya Rozanov's Dog, Svetlana
Vetrova, Boston Bears | Boston Raiders Team Ensemble (Game
Changers)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Social Media, Strangers to Lovers, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, Under-negotiated Kink, in a canon-typical way, Light BDSM, sweeter than those tags make it sound!, Boston Bears | Boston Raiders Player Shane Hollander, Boston Bears | Boston Raiders (Game Changers), Autistic Shane Hollander, of course, Adoption, past adoption of a canon character, POV Shane Hollander
WIP with a new chapter just posted on Ao3 that nobody can read. :(
Here's Chapter 1.
Shane shouldn’t be lurking on social media. People say the worst shit online. Even the brightest star in the MLH isn’t immune to that.
And there’s no question that Shane is the top player in the MLH at the moment. He's a generational talent on a level of his own. The Boston Raiders have won the Cup three times since Shane became captain in 2013, and in the year when they didn’t win, 2015, Shane had the flu. It’s not unlikely they’ll lift it up again in 2018, too.
Maybe that has something to do with why Shane is wasting his time on the internet this evening while snow falls over his Boston penthouse. The tension coiling through him just won't fade, and it's been that way for so long. A good hard game used to let him slip into that perfect focus that left all other thoughts behind. But for the past few years, there’s been nobody in the MLH who can really push Shane to his limits as an opponent, leave him wrung out and exhausted and ready to fall into that sweet, deep sleep he misses so badly. And there’s nobody he can really enjoy beating, either. The expectation is that he’s always the best, and if he fails, it’s a disappointment.
Going for a run, which usually helps when Shane gets feeling like this, is out of the question. Even here in the heart of the city, the sidewalks are all foot-wide icy paths carved into grubby, two-foot-deep snow. Plus, these days it gets dark early, gets light late, even more so than in Ottawa.
Sometimes Shane wishes he’d been drafted to a Canadian team so he wasn’t so far away from home.
Anyway, today the topic of discussion on Reddit is (not for the first time) the merits of Vincent Lemaire, who was drafted second the year Shane was drafted first. For a while, the NHL tried to spin up some kind of rivalry between them for PR, to add some excitement. That soon fell flat: Lemaire is a good player, just not a match for Shane. In the end, there was never any contest at all, except in the minds of people who thought Shane was too “cerebral.” They never seemed to be able to provide examples of what that actually meant.
Reddit mostly agrees that Shane and Vincent are not on the same level, though a few Lemaire fans are arguing on his behalf. What’s weird is that lots of people are replying to the Lemaire fans using the same meme.
It’s a picture of a strikingly beautiful man who’s as built and muscled as any guy on Shane’s team. That’s clear because the man is shirtless, wearing only sweatpants and a gold chain with some kind of small pendant glinting where it rests on his chest.
This stranger looks loose-limbed and relaxed, sitting on a couch with an arm stretched out over its back like he’s saying I own this place, like he loves inhabiting his body. That’s a feeling Shane has never been able to grasp, although it seems as though he ought to; his own body is nothing if not a perfectly honed machine.
The man’s face is handsome too: expressive and confident, interesting in its angles. His curling, dark blond hair is half-damp, as though he just got out of the shower.
The subtitles on this image say: Hollander is best, it’s just a fucking fact.
At first, Shane thinks this is one of those memes where people edit out the real words and put in whatever replacements suit the current situation. As he scrolls, though, the same image keeps popping up. Did this guy really say that?
Eventually, breaking his rule of only commenting online when he’s contractually obligated to, Shane actually replies to one of the images: Sorry, who is the guy in the picture? This should be safe; he’s using a totally anonymous username that’s mainly for lurking. So there's no reason for him to feel nervous or awkward about it. Even if someone doxxed his Reddit account, Shane’s never done anything bad. He sometimes gives diet and workout tips to guys in fitness subs.
Ilya Rozanov. Influencer, he’s so funny, responds one commenter, providing an Instagram link.
Thank you, Shane types.
He clicks on the link. Instagram opens up, and there’s no question this profile belongs to the same man: Ilya Rozanov, a personal trainer, apparently. There’s a link to inquire about booking a session in the Boston area(!), and the text: Correct opinions about ice hockey. I will probably never reply to your DM.
There are a lot of thirst trap photos. The videos are more varied. Some are Rozanov (again, gorgeously shirtless and wearing that thin gold chain) demonstrating workout tips in a gym. Others seem to be hockey tips filmed in the Raiders’ very own practice rink, Victory Ice Arena, which has public sessions when the Raiders are out of town. It's oddly surprising to see this man in a place that's so woven into Shane’s life.
In the majority of the reels, however, Rozanov is sitting on the couch in what’s obviously his home. It’s such a warm, comfortable-seeming place: a large sash window, framed pictures and a Boston University pennant on the wall behind him, a knitted blanket with a bright geometric design tossed over the back of the couch.
Not at all like Shane’s penthouse, which is pretty much exactly how it was when the interior designer he hired left. The penthouse is bold, plain, masculine. Those are the words the designer chose when they were talking, because Shane didn’t know what he wanted. He doesn’t hate what he got: dark wood floors, good quality furniture in simple shapes, lots of blue. His apartment is a lot like some of the hotels he stays in, actually.
Shane plays through the reels, choosing them more or less at random. In the ones on Rozanov’s couch, he’s often ruthlessly tearing into a team or a player for their weaknesses— always with a hockey-typical amount of cursing and in deep, Russian-accented tones that are nice to listen to. Rozanov is funny. Charismatic, too. Shane breaks into laughter at a scathing diatribe about Hayden Pike’s missed shots this season and then stops himself guiltily, as
though a reporter is going to pop out of the walls of his penthouse and catch him being unsportsmanlike.
From Rozanov’s comments, it seems like half his viewers find him hilarious, and the other half love to hate him. Rozanov feeds off the hate comments, often creating reels demonstrating the exact skills he’s criticizing in professional NHL players.
And . . . he’s good. Like, actually good. His handling of the puck is smooth, easy. His skating is fast and natural. Of course, demonstrating a single skill in isolation is nothing like playing in a professional team. For all that Rozanov groans about the Centaurs’ failures, he surely couldn’t stand to-to-toe with worst of them. But all that cocky boasting isn’t totally baseless. Rozanov has real skills as well as good looks and a wicked tongue.
Yes, Rozanov obviously has played hockey at some point, even if he was just a kid. Shane wonders why Rozanov gave it up, if he still loves it so much. He’d be a great player to watch.
The video that the meme was taken from is one of Rozanov’s most popular. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he says, next to an image of an article with the headline: Lemaire and the Art of Instinct: Why Shane Hollander is Overhyped.
“I’m so sorry this writer can’t do basic fucking math,” Rozanov says. He counts on his fingers, starting from the pinky and working inward. “Goals, assists, points, shooting percentage. Whatever stat you pick, Hollander is best, it’s just a fucking fact!” As though he’s genuinely getting a headache, he rubs his forehead hard. “Like, I get it, it’s fun to argue on the internet. But it is not fun when the argument is so fucking stupid. There is no Hollander– Lemaire rivalry, it’s just Hollander way in front”—Rozanov holds his hand out to demonstrate—“and Lemaire following him like a slow sausage dog on long leash. Can we please argue about more interesting shit like whether Comeau actually knows the difference between left and right. Which, he doesn’t.”
Shane bursts out laughing again. He can’t help but watch the reel several times more, even though it’s strangely kind of embarrassing. It shouldn’t be; Shane’s used to this kind of praise, or at least he thought he was.
Eventually, Shane moves on, prying further into Rozanov’s posts and stopping on a photo from June two years ago. Rozanov, shirtless still, smiling wide, crowded together into the frame with a bunch of other friends in the bright summer outdoors. A flag with blue, purple, and pink stripes is painted on his cheek.
Oh.
Rozanov looks so joyful, grinning in the sunshine with his arms around his friends. So gorgeous.
Shane closes his laptop, gets a ginger ale from the fridge, sits on his own couch. Puts his head between his knees for a minute, just until the worst of the agitated buzzing along his skin goes away. When he’s more centered, he leans back and sips his drink, focusing on the familiar taste to bring him back to himself.
After Rose broke up with him last year, Shane had some questions to face. “Have you ever been with a guy?” she’d asked.
“No.” How could he risk totally fucking up his career? How would he even meet someone without doing something potentially disastrous like downloading Grindr or going to a gay club?
“Have you ever thought about it?”
“Yes,” Shane had said. The word just came out. Yes, he thought about it before Rose, and he thinks about it even more now. He thinks about it when he uses the dildo in the plastic box in his closet. He thinks about it and tries not to think about it, which is actually thinking about it
even more. He doesn’t think about it so hard that it feels like it’s going to destroy him, sometimes.
Before Rose, Shane wouldn’t have known what the bisexual flag meant. He did some research that summer, half a year ago. He still isn’t completely sure whether that flag is for him.
He’s dated four nice, beautiful women, Rose being the last of them, and none of those women made Shane feel the way he feels looking at the way this shirtless hockey influencer is sprawled there on the couch, the way he occasionally winks at the camera. It’s not just that Rozanov is beautiful. It’s the way he seems so free.
But that captured moment of Rozanov’s happiness at the Pride parade—it’s so totally out of reach for Shane. Impossible. Shane’s never even tasted a kiss with another man. How could he, when he’s been a celebrity since he was eighteen?
Shane now has an anonymous second Instagram account.
It happened about two weeks after Shane first discovered Ilya Rozanov. On wintry nights when Shane was at home alone, lying on his couch and staring at his phone by the light of a single lamp, his thumbs had taken him again and again to Rozanov’s funny diatribes and his cocky smile. And that terrified Shane, because it would take just one fumble for ShaneHollanderOfficial to like Rozanov’s reel. Would someone suspect that Shane had some further interest in Rozanov that went beyond hockey? Shane didn’t want to find out.
So, Shane is now NewYorker1990. He was actually born in 1991, so that part’s fake, and the NewYorker part was inspired by his dad sending him an article while Shane was trying to think of a name. This is perfect: it has no connection to Shane Hollander, who was born in Ottawa and lives in Boston.
To make his profile seem more genuine, Shane takes photos of some of his meals and posts them, always making sure that nothing else is in the photo except his black kitchen countertop. No identifying details. He can’t afford to make a mistake.
With this safety mechanism in place, Shane can keep watching Rozanov without risking everything. This is probably not healthy. Shane knows it. But the playoffs are getting closer, and Shane’s not feeling in sync with himself like he wants to be. He’s off his game oh so slightly—maybe just five percent. That’s still not good.
He can’t really tell whether this thing with Instagram is hurting or helping. It’s probably bad that Shane keeps thinking about Rozanov’s apartment and how it would feel to live there, to just . . . be a normal guy and be bi, or gay, and kiss whoever you wanted, and make videos telling professional hockey players that they’re fucking useless, and not have to worry all the time about whether you were letting everyone down.
In March, Shane likes one of Rozanov’s posts for the first time. This is because Ilya— Rozanov—has bought a dog, a soft, sweet puppy that he’s named Anya. Rozanov obviously dotes on her, and the wave of reels where he’s ranting about hockey while cuddling her into his forever-shirtless chest get considerably more likes than before. The sight of it makes Shane feel—something. And plenty of people are liking the Anya content, so nobody will notice.
Rozanov is super responsive to comments praising his dog, too. And eventually Shane can’t resist. Sweaty-fingered, Shane types out: Anya is great! She’s becoming a hockey fan already!
An hour or so later, Rozanov actually replies. Thank you! It means a lot that my fans like her too.
That’s a lot more vulnerability than Shane had expected. It’s a connection, though a tiny spiderweb-thin one, between him and Rozanov. It keeps Shane up late, way later than he should be staying up since he has a game the next day.
That's been happening too much recently, anyway. But the tough thing about sport is that stuff you can’t put numbers to, like gut instinct and confidence, can either destroy you or make you fly high. Right now, Shane doesn’t see the playoffs going well, and he can't tell whether that's Instinct or self-fulfilling prophecy.
At least Rozanov is definitely less hard on the Raiders—not surprising, since they’re his home team. He’s hopeful about their chances. When he criticizes Shane, he’s always correct and even . . . kind. He never calls Shane a dumb fucker or useless.
That’s not really surprising either. Shane is the captain who got the Raiders three Cups. Boston is loyal to him. It doesn’t mean anything.
And yet Shane keeps watching Rozanov’s videos like they’re a lucky charm.
It’s extra embarrassing, then, when Boston’s first game in the playoffs goes badly. Shane heads home, showers miserably for like half an hour, and opens up Instagram as soon as he’s toweled off. He’s dreading Rozanov’s breakdown of the game. Rozanov fucking hates Montreal, too, which makes Boston’s defeat by them even worse.
Instead, what greets him is a reel on a totally different subject.
Rozanov is sitting cross-legged on a soft rug on his floor and petting Anya. The sunshine is bright through his apartment windows, spilling over the living room and turning the edges of Anya’s speckled fur golden-white. “I have been getting so many DMs asking for fitness help from people who don’t live in Boston,” he says. “Okay, so I am offering a new service. Limited time only, and limited numbers. If you don’t get chosen, sorry.” A curling smile that doesn’t look sorry at all. “Fill in the form I link, and I will create a custom workout video for you. Fifty dollars. Thirty minutes. And yes, is workout video, perverts. I only fuck for free.”
Shane would never have imagined that he’d be laughing tonight, but Rozanov has made him do the impossible.
And there’s absolutely no way he can resist this. He needs it. He’d spend five thousand dollars for it.
After a couple of clicks, Rozanov’s simple form opens up in front of Shane. It asks for some basic details—name, age, fitness level, any injuries, fitness goals. Shane gives a fake name, of course.
What are Shane’s fitness goals?
I already have a strength training program. And I jog for cardio, and I do yoga. And I play a sport, like I wrote above. I need a routine to help me focus on the ice—
Shane backspaces.
I need a routine to help me focus during sport and get from 95% to 100%.
It’s a few days later, the morning before an away game in Montreal, when Shane gets a reply. His hotel room is worn and tired-looking, a lot like Shane himself, and the lamp by his bed
doesn’t work. Shane has to scramble in the winter dark to find his phone on the nightstand when his alarm goes off.
When he sees the email from ilyarozanov81, he sits up in bed, all at once wide awake. Congratulations! You have been chosen for one of my custom workout videos.
Sean, I am going to create a routine for you based on stretching and mindfulness, with elements of yoga and barre. If this is acceptable, click this payment link.
“Fuck,” Shane says to himself. Is this good? Has he taken this obsession too far?
Doesn’t matter. A thirty-minute video just for him, and Rozanov might even call by a name that sounds almost like his own?
After checking twice that the payment system is truly private, Shane pays.
Since AO3 is down and I have about 10 fics I want to read with nothing else to do, I figured I'd post a sneak peek at the new Hollanov fic I'm working on. It's a corporate/office au with CEO Ilya and IT guy Shane. I've never written an office-setting fic before so I'm excited!
Admittedly this is a very long sneak peek. I'd love to know what y'all think!
• • • • • •
Ilya Rozanov is a romantic.
He’d deny it to his grave, if asked, but it’s something that he knows to be true. Maybe it’s inherent to him, or maybe it is a learned thing. He remembers the novels his mother read to him as a child. Not just the Russian classics of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, but also the romances that his father never would have allowed if he knew. Irina Rozanov saw a different future for her youngest son than what her husband had planned, patiently ensuring he learned English all while Grigori Rozanov paraded his elder son around as his heir apparent to the family corporation.
For all the good it did him, since Andrei is exiled back to Russia to avoid serving a twenty-five year sentence in an American prison while Ilya sits in what was meant to be his office doing a job he never wanted.
It’s only the Harvard business degree that was forced upon him that saves him from drowning entirely. He has no help from his father, whose mind is all but lost to dementia now, and the shareholders seem to be waiting for Ilya to fuck up so that they can rip into the company like lions over a bleeding carcass. Ilya knows that he can leave it all behind at any time. He’s wealthy enough on his own now, and can live comfortably with his personal investments for the rest of his life, if he so chooses.
But his father’s hard work is poured into this company, and Ilya isn’t in Moscow to help him through these final stages of his life. Andrei is the one taking care of him every day, not out of duty but out of a desire to see Ilya’s money deposited into his account every month.
Ilya may not like his father, but he’s beholden to the obligation he feels as his son to keep the one good thing he did in his life alive.
So here he sits, in a perfectly tailored suit behind a broad, heavy oak desk with a perfectly made cup of coffee within reach and a brewing headache behind his eyes. In his short time as CEO of Rozanov Incorporated, Andrei did everything he could to ruin everything their father built. There was no true intention in his actions, only impulsive stupidity. Now Ilya is cleaning up his messes, one meeting at a time.
Speaking of…
“Mr. Rozanov,” the ever-anxious voice of his executive assistant comes over the speaker of his phone. “Your next appointment is here.”
Ilya takes a long drink of his coffee before pressing the button to answer.
“You can call me Ilya, Luca,” he reminds him for what must be the hundredth time even though he knows the young man never will. “Send them in.”
He doesn’t have to wait long, and he navigates to the employee file already opened on his computer just as the door to his office opens and he hears the quiet tread of footsteps over the carpet. Tearing his eyes from the computer screen, Ilya is struck by the appearance of the man that hovers between the door and his desk with his thumbs tucked into the pockets of his pants and an expression torn between uncertainty and irritation.
Ilya is a romantic man.
He’s read novels and he’s seen movies and there’s a part of him that has always wanted to believe in love at first sight.
As he takes in the dark-haired man dressed in a perfectly pressed light blue shirt with a slightly furrowed brow and a constellation of beautiful freckles scattered over his nose and cheeks, Ilya is nearly struck dumb. He has to recover quickly, because this is an employee of the company that now belongs to him and he scheduled this appointment for a reason. It isn’t the time, place, or occasion to openly admire him.
“Mr. Hollander, yes?” Ilya sounds out carefully, glancing at his computer screen to make sure he gets it right.
The man nods his head slowly, eyeing Ilya almost as if he’s a predator waiting to close his jaws around his throat. It’s not an entirely unearned suspicion. Ilya knows the reputation he’s earned over the last several weeks. He can’t deny that he’s cultivated it purposefully, or that he’s enjoyed the resigned expression of every person who walks through the door into his office knowing what fate awaits them.
That isn’t the case here, and Ilya knows that he’ll quickly have to correct the course of the meeting.
“Shane.”
Ilya blinks, not expecting that.
“What?”
“I prefer to be called Shane, not Mr. Hollander,” the man says, tilting his chin up ever so slightly.
Ilya has to bury the urge to grin, a warm delight stirring in him at the subtle show of defiance. For someone who thinks he’s about to be fired, it seems that this Shane Hollander has no intention of groveling. Still, Ilya isn’t all that good at doing what he’s told, and there’s a part of him that wants to see just how much he can rile up this perfectly put together man. He’s been bored, handling meeting after meeting and being forced to give up a good chunk of what used to be his life. If he wants to have fun where he can find it, who can stop him?
“You can sit if you want, Mr. Hollander.”
An eye twitch is the only reaction he gets, but Ilya will take it.
“I’d rather stay standing, if you’re just going to tell me that I’m fired.”
It’s getting harder and harder to fight a smile, and Ilya knows that his amusement must be shining in his eyes regardless.
“Who says you’re fired?”
Shane’s frown deepens, and he looks away from Ilya as he seemingly gathers his thoughts.
“Well, you fired my boss and then you fired my boss’s boss a few days later,” he recounts, glancing at Ilya again. “I’m pretty sure I saw the chief techology officer being escorted out by security yesterday. Some people think you had him arrested.”
It isn’t a bid for gossip. Ilya can tell the difference. This man may be curious, but he isn’t trying to pull information out of Ilya. He simply seems to be stating the facts as he knows them.
“I did,” Ilya says simply.
Shane’s eyes widen ever so slightly but he doesn’t say anything. Ilya stares back at him, wondering how long they can endure this stand-off before one of them breaks.
“You’re not being fired, Shane Hollander,” he finally says with a sigh. “Now, will you please sit?”
There’s no mistaking the relief that sweeps over Shane’s face as he finally steps closer to the desk and takes one of the chairs across from Ilya.
“Can I ask why I’m here, then?” he asks, clasping his hands in his lap and sitting with a board-straight spine.
Ilya has to wonder if he’s ever relaxed a day in his life.
“Your boss was fired for incompetence,” Ilya informs him, sitting back in his chair. “You shouldn’t need to hear more. Your complaints against him are very… detailed.”
“He had no idea what he was doing,” Shane says as if he has to defend his well-documented emails that were sent to HR. “I’m not even sure he has a background in IT.”
He didn’t. Andrei met him through a friend of a friend at a party and offered him the job without bothering to determine if he knew how to do it. Ilya is surprised that the IT department managed to run in spite of the incompetence of its manager, but he knows that is almost entirely due to the man sitting in front of him bouncing one leg anxiously.
“I am fixing mistakes that happened before my time here, Mr. Hollander. Now that I am left with good people in the company, I need to fill the empty roles.”
Shane gives him a speculative look.
“You need a new IT manager.”
“Yes, eventually,” Ilya says, nodding his head in agreement. “I need a CTO more.”
Shane’s dark, expressive eyes grow wide in an instant and his lips part in a disbelieving gape. Ilya is equally surprised at himself, in truth. The suggestion isn’t one he planned to make prior to this meeting, but the words slipped out before he could help it. He’s happy to blame it on the freckles.
It takes several long moments for Shane to recover from his shock with a singular word.
“No.”
Ilya blinks at him once, twice, and a third time just to make sure he didn’t hear incorrectly. While he didn’t inherit his father’s effortless command or his brother’s brutal demand for the same, he isn’t quite used to hearing the word ’no’ in his adult life. Ilya certainly isn’t internationally famous but there are two cities in the world where his name and face grant him certain privileges. Many privileges in truth.
One of them is Moscow.
The other is here in Boston.
Yet here this man sits, wearing neat but cheap clothing that probably wouldn’t even equal the price of Ilya’s preferred brand of socks, rejecting an offer he has yet to make with a stone-faced expression. Not that he wasn’t going to make it, but it’s discomfiting to be turned down before he can put any of it into words.
“No?” Ilya echoes, raising his eyebrows.
“Absolutely not,” Shane says with a shake of his head. “This is insane. I’m twenty-seven years old. I haven’t even been at this job for two years.”
One could argue that Ilya is a thirty-one year old who didn’t worked in the corporate world at all until three and a half weeks ago, but he doubts that it would help.
“You’re already running the IT department on your own and without being asked,” he says, as if it’s a reminder that Shane needs. “You graduated near the top of your class, I can see it in your file, and you put in more hours than anyone else. Your current position isn’t even the job you applied for.”
Shane looks taken aback, ducking his head to pick at some invisible lint on his pants.
“They didn’t have an opening in research and development,” he says, his cheeks filling with a lovely flush.
Ilya knows for a fact that isn’t the truth, since he has multiple memos in his inbox complaining about how short-staffed they are. Wisely, he doesn’t say as much. Not when he doesn’t have any answer for why Shane wasn’t given one of the many entry-level positions in the R&D department when he first applied, much less when he requested a transfer on multiple occasions.
“I’ve made a name for myself here for firing people that weren’t good for the company,” Ilya says, thinking through his words carefully. “That’s mostly done now. I know that this has not been a nice work environment and I want to change that. It starts, I think, with rewarding good employees.”
Shane seems conflicted, his eyes sweeping the spacious office with its floor to ceiling windows and luxury furnishings before reluctantly looking at Ilya again.
“What you’re offering isn’t really a reward,” he says warily, as if he’s expecting that his words won’t be received well. “Everyone will wonder how an IT grunt made his way up the ladder that quickly, and the answer they come up with will follow me for my entire career even if it isn’t true.”
Though he’s speaking in vague terms, Ilya understands the meaning behind his words. He may not have spent much time in the corporate world, what Shane is suggesting isn’t limited to large companies. The entire world works the same, and people will always scrutinize success for what holes they can find just to bring a good person down.
“I understand,” he says, and there’s no mistaking the relief that crosses Shane’s face. “Who, then?”
The relief turns to confusion, and Ilya curses his heart as it does a little flip in his chest at the small pout that forms on Shane’s lips.
“Who, what?”
“Who should be the CTO?” Ilya asks, sitting back in his chair with his hands folded over his stomach. “I’m not foolish, Mr. Hollander. I know how to run a company but I know nothing about your world. You must have your head to the ground, yes? You know someone who could fill the role?”
Shane hesitates, his eyes searching Ilya’s face as if he’s expecting that it’s some kind of trick.
“Ear to the ground,” he corrects Ilya without a trace of maliciousness in his voice. “You’re serious?”
Ilya nods his head, content to wait him out because he knows that Shane has an answer for him without having to hear it.
“Harris Drover,” Shane finally says, his voice unwavering. “He was a few years above me at MIT and he’s a genius, but he’s also a good person.”
Without hesitation, Ilya scribbles out the name on a post-it note as a reminder for himself.
“He’s local?”
Shane nods, “Yeah, he’s lived in Boston since he graduated.”
A beat passes, and Ilya lifts his head to see that Shane is looking at him with a mix of curiosity and suspicion. He isn’t sure why until Shane opens his mouth to speak again.
“His boyfriend plays for the Raiders.”
Ilya understands in an instant, and the challenging tone in Shane’s voice makes it all the more clear. It isn’t difficult to figure out exactly who this Harris Drover is dating. There are only so many players in the NHL who have come out since Scott Hunter notoriously kissed his now-husband after winning the cup, and only one of those players is in Boston.
“He’s dating Troy Barrett?”
Shane blinks at him, seemingly taken by surprise that he would know the name.
“You like hockey?”
“Yes,” Ilya says, even though that is a vast understatement. “I’ve followed the Raiders since I moved to Boston. You?”
It’s subtle, but Ilya sees a different light form in Shane’s eyes as he nods.
“Yes. Well, not Boston. My family are all Voyageurs fans.”
Ilya exaggerates his frown, setting his pen down and shaking his head in disappointment.
“I take it back. You are fired.”
It’s a barely there thing, but Ilya knows he isn’t imagining the smallest uptick of Shane’s lips or the way his shoulders relax ever so slightly. He takes advantage of it, steering the conversation to a resolution.
“You want to work in R&D, then you will work in R&D,” he says decisively.
Shane looks a little bit like he’s been slapped and then handed a box of chocolates, his expression wavering between pure shock and uncertain hope.
“Really?”
“Really,” Ilya confirms, already putting the pieces of the transfer together in his mind. “You’ll have a new contract by next week.”
Somewhat like a deer in headlights, Shane stays frozen in his chair and stares at Ilya as if he’s waiting for another shoe to drop.
“That’s it? I don’t need to… do anything else?”
Ilya wishes that he could say yes, because he very much wants to invent a reason to keep Shane Hollander in his office for the rest of the day. He’s struck by the need to create distance, because Ilya knows that the rules are different here. He can’t enjoy the same casual relationship with employees as he has in the past. Owning a club is one thing. Running an entire corporate business is another.
Rozanov Incorporated can’t suffer another scandal without being at risk of a hostile takeover.
“No, there’s nothing else,” Ilya says, trying to pull a mask of professionalism even if he thinks that it’s far too late for that. “Thank you for your hard work.”
Shane regards him for another long moment before he jerks his head in a single nod and rises to his feet.
“Thanks for not firing me.”
He spins away before Ilya can respond, all but power walking out of the office, and Ilya fails to hold back the smile that breaks over his face once Shane is out of sight. He can see Luca reaching for the phone through the blinds, and Ilya knows he has to recover his facade of hard-hearted CEO quickly because this next meeting won’t be quite as pleasant.
Still, he finds it hard to push the encounter from his mind, even hours later when he’s making his way towards his private elevator long after most people have left the building.
Ilya is a romantic.
And Shane Hollander seems to be a perfect blend of torment created just for him.
Boston Raiders captain Ilya Rozanov is trying to catch the eye of mild-mannered sports reporter Shane Hollander. A villain disaster and a Superman rescue get in the way.
There is a slightly different version of this on Ao3 with some improvements I made right before I posted, but I'm sharing this now since the document is all I can access.
As Ilya heads to the locker room, he’s buzzing with adrenaline, and it’s not solely because the Raiders just totally thrashed the ingeniously named Metropolis Metros and got through the first round of the 2017 playoffs. It’s also because Ilya’s going to get to talk about how great he is to the reporters waiting outside—one of whom is Ilya Rozanov’s very favorite member of the press.
Metropolis’s own Shane Hollander. Earnest, handsome in his dorky glasses, and truly dedicated to his job. He doesn’t ask trashy questions that are designed to make players upset and go viral. He cares about hockey, he knows the game like the back of his hand, and he wants to ask good questions, the right questions to help fans understand what just happened on the ice.
If Hollander stood up straight and bought suits that fit, he’d probably be at least as tall as Ilya. As it is, his glasses and his baggy suits make him fade into the background, hiding his beauty and his broad, strong shoulders.
To everyone but Ilya.
Because Ilya remembers Shane Hollander from his—their—days in juniors. Hollander was magic with a hockey stick in his hand. At one point, it was rumored he’d be the #1 pick in the 2009 draft.
But just before then, Hollander vanished—from the hockey world, at least. He went to Metropolis University instead, according to Wikipedia, and went into sports reporting, surfacing in 2014 at a Raiders vs. Metros game in Boston and nearly giving Ilya a heart attack.
Ilya noticed Shane Hollander when they were teens, wanted to play hockey against him, or with him. In 2017, Ilya still can’t keep his eyes off him.
And Ilya has noticed, too, that Hollander looks at Ilya more when Ilya’s shirtless and glistening after a game. Ilya’s really good at spotting men who look, men who want him.
Over the past three years, Ilya’s been getting bolder and bolder with his comments to Hollander. He can’t out himself in public, of course, but everyone knows that Ilya is a troll, a mischief-maker who winks at fans via the reporter’s lens. Ilya pretends that his flirtatious remarks are for the Daily Planet’s readers, but they’re not. They’re for Shane Hollander.
Ilya strips off his top layers, adjusts the cross around his neck, tousles his hair a little with his fingers. He knows he’s sexy this way, gleaming and disarrayed like he would be after fucking. It’s time to see whether Ilya can get Hollander to come back to his hotel room in downtown Metropolis. All Ilya needs to do is whisper a room number and the hotel name to Hollander.
That’s why it really sucks when Ilya leaves the locker room and walks into scenes of barely bridled panic. The rink is way emptier than it should be; seems like everyone rushed out, leaving only a few staff members talking in hushed voices on cell phones. The reporters that are gathered, waiting for Ilya, have grave expressions. And worst of all, Hollander isn’t among them.
One of them shoves a mic in his face and says, “Ilya, are you aware of—”
“No. What’s going on? Don’t tell me this is villain shit again.” Games in Gotham are always a pain in the ass—-last time the Raiders played there, the Joker had shut down the power grid right before the third period—but Superman usually has Metropolis under control.
One of the reporters starts reading off his phone. “Uh, an all-powerful entity from another dimension has requested champions to fight in his arena. And he’s asking for the best guys from each sport, including, uh . . . you, as the top player in the MLH.”
“Ah,” Ilya says. A lot of cameras are pointed at his face right now; he’s starting to sweat cold, rather than the hot sweat of victory. “Well, this is flattering, but I am not interested. I only fight for the Raiders and Russia.” He tries to give the reporter his usual suave wink. “I will go—” Ilya begins, turning back to the locker room.
The roof of the rink cracks open like it’s an egg, and an incomprehensibly huge hand comes and grabs Ilya around the waist—just picks him up like he weighs nothing at all. Ilya’s zooming up through the air way, way, faster than he ever has on a rollercoaster—he’s about to puke—
“Stop!”
The hand stops moving, thank God. Ilya opens his eyes—Jesus Christ he’s high up, oh fuck—but there, floating in mid-air not far from him, is a familiar shape in bright blue and red.
Superman. Ilya will never call him boring again.
The huge hand is terrifyingly tight around Ilya’s body, pinning his hands to his sides, leaving him utterly helpless. While Superman talks in fast, incomprehensible English with the giant humanoid who’s holding Ilya about—something, zones or dimensions—-Ilya focuses on trying not to vomit or pass out. That would be so fucking embarrassing.
Superman’s beautiful physique, even in that stupid costume of his, is not a bad distraction. But what’s even more appealing than Superman’s strong, gorgeous body is the determined tone of his voice, even as Superman faces an entity vastly larger than himself. “You’re not going to take him,” Superman says, unwavering. This, at least, Ilya understands.
“Then you take him,” the entity says—Ilya’s body registers the terror before his mind does—and Ilya is being thrown through the air—
And caught. Ilya comes to a stop in the warm, muscular arms of Superman. He hasn’t been carried by another human being since he got drunk as a rookie, and even then, he was thrown over Marley’s shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
“Are you okay?” Superman asks, cradling Ilya to his firm pecs.
Ilya’s eyes are prickling, but not from fear. It’s the care in Superman’s voice that’s hitting Ilya like a hard check. “Yes, fine,” Ilya says. Then he tries again and manages to say it in English this time.
They’re slowly floating down to the ground into the bright russet palette of Metropolis in autumn. While Gotham somehow manages to be gray year-round, Metropolis is the opposite: always colorful and pretty, no matter the season. Kind of like its red-and-blue-clad hero.
Ilya is gently set on his feet on a path just outside the rink. “You should probably get to shelter,” Superman says. Ilya’s never seen his face up close before; not many people have. He’s gorgeous, with a handsome jaw, determined brows, sincere dark eyes and sweet freckles over the bridge of his nose. He kind of reminds Ilya of . . . something. Something that’s on the tip of Ilya’s tongue, that he can’t quite remember. Weird.
The next instant, Superman’s soaring off into the sky again, trading blows with the alien(?!) giant like a fighter jet harrying Godzilla. Ilya’s left alone, freezing and shirtless, looking up into the expanse overhead for a few seconds before his common sense takes over and he runs away down the nearest street to watch from a safe distance.
Superman wins in the end, of course. As the alien giant resentfully opens a, a fucking rip in reality or something and steps through, Ilya calls Sveta. She’s the one person who he’s sure will have worried about him completely for his own sake, not at all because of the money he earns or his importance to the team as a star center.
“Oh fuck, Ilyusha! Is that you?”
“Yes, yes, I’m alive.” And half-naked and crouching behind a car while a passerby stares at him, but whatever. “Superman saved me,” Ilya says.
Sveta swears again in relief. “You’ll never call him boring again,” she says, tearful.
Ilya’s cheeks are wet now too. In the last ten minutes, he went from hoping to score with Hollander, to being abducted, to almost dying, to being fine again.
Of course, the Hollander plan is fucked now. Maybe Hollander was never at the rink today in the first place. But Ilya won’t give up. He’d die before he said this to Sveta or anyone else, but he’d choose the awkward charm of Shane Hollander, combined with the memory of Hollander’s beautiful hands as a hockey player, over the hunky looks of Superman every time.
Not that Ilya has a chance with Superman, of course. But with Hollander . . . he just might.
can we all at least agree that we want the best for BOTH of the boys because they’re BOTH so talented and so passionate? can we acknowledge that it is actually really rare to have two unknowns blow up like this TOGETHER and there ISNT a disparity in the talent or charisma level between the two of them. They BOTH have ✨it✨. can we agree that they both should be and hopefully are on their way to being superstars. or is that too much to ask.
ilya’s pre game captain speeches are one million times funnier when you remember that him and shane let what happens on the ice decide what they’re doing in bed later
ilya [knowing that him and shane have a deal that whoever loses montreal v boston tonight is doing a strip tease for the other]: im not fucking around guys. do not. fuck this up for me
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