disclaimer: my awesome header was made by the wonderful @louistonehill
hello there! im deelay! you can call me dee, if you want! gender is so weird tbh but please use she/they for me! everything useful is consolidated on my carrd, but you can keep reading for more detail!
some generic DNIs
if you're anti-lgbtq+ in any way
if you support AI in art or writing
if you're pro-war (or pro-israel, pro-putin, pro-trump tbh, et cetera)
racists, ableists, sexists/misogynists, incest shippers, pro-shippers, etc.
-you could say i'm queer of gender and use she/they
-im very very aroace, so like, blanket disclaimer, even if you might think I'm thirsting over a character, im really not and it makes me uncomfortable when others think so (and tell me that) so yeah lol
-i've got a bachelor's degree in english (anglophone literature, efl/esl & pedagogy are topics i'm pretty passionate about)
-im in my 20s & im white (but not in an anglosaxon way)
-my flex is that my country (🇬🇷) hasn't colonized anyone since before the 1500s but im aware that this doesnt have shit to do with white privilege. i try to be mindful but like feel free to call me out on shit!
-I'm technically a writer? like I write,,, supposedly lmao. like all the greats, the one thing I never seem to do is yknow write
-I write sometimes, let's say. and I'm also really interested in writing my own crime fiction novel one day. but that's for some day in the future lmao
-definitely a reader tho (yes ao3 and i are in a committed relationship)
-my interests and fandoms are. a lot. some examples (in no particular order) are here
-also, if you're here for any of my fics/my ao3 then go here. (all of them are locked to users only fyi) (in case the link fails, my ao3 username is Justice_not_Revenge)
Tips for Interaction
If you wanna see some of my thoughts without infinite scrolling, you can also search for the tag "deelay words".
Another tag of mine is "deelay's tbr" (which stands for "to be referenced") which you'll find at posts that really make me Think™ and that I want to keep in mind when I do anything creative with the characters involved.
If you want to avoid spoilers at all costs, I suggest blocking the fandom tag because what you consider spoilers might not be what I consider spoilers if we're at different arcs of whatever that media is.
That said, I'd also appreciate it if you gave me a heads up on spoilers in any asks.
Also, unless I'm literally at your post saying shit you disagree with. don't come at me. like, if you saw my post or reblog and decided I suck then just block me will you?
it is honestly amazing how much of writing and editing is just. logistics. like... do i use a name here or a pronoun? if i move this dialogue tag to the middle of this line and break it in half, does the end of the line hit harder that way? what if i move the tag to the front? what if i remove it entirely? ...wait, whose point of view am i in; can i reasonably say this character is appalled, or must i say they look or seem or sound appalled? is this a deliberate action or a step-removed one; is her hand closing on his shoulder, or is she closing her hand on his shoulder? environment environment environment, we need to break all this dialogue up with some narration, the scene is coming untethered. what! are! they doing! with! the rest of their bodies that are not hands! fuck fuck fuck FUCK i forgot we covered this two chapters ago and now i either need to cut this whole chunk or find a reason to reprise the conversation from earlier. name or pronoun? name or pronoun? name or pronoun? move this clause around in this sentence? oh i'll add this phrase-- nope, never mind, past!me added the same phrase two lines down. okay, if i add too much environmental narration it's going to take away from this bit, but not enough and it won't feel grounded. what if i move this to its own line? where the FUCK are their hands?
One of those 'shane makes friends with another of ilya's hookups' fics except it's the summer after the fated 'we didn't even kiss' unsent text fiasco and Shane is in Paris for something or another where he ends up at some wine bar getting his French lightly mocked by some guy who has a weirdly familiar burr to his own French and they go home together
Because Shane wants to convince himself he can
And he tries topping for the first time
And then they're laying in bed together after and the guy is smoking (which shane wrinkles his nose at but can't bitch about bc he is still in the guy's bed, wearing his come, and that seems like poor form) and he starts making the 'whelp i should hit the old dusty trail' noises when the guy laughs and tells him to spend the night
So he does
And it turns into one of those nights where you stay up all night talking and fooling around a little
Because shane is shane he talks about hockey
And the guy moans that of course shane likes hockey, he is doomed to only like men who like hockey - and shane learns that the guy's dad was a player, then a coach in Russia, and he played long after he should have stopped bc he's an only child & didn't want to disappoint his dad even though he did anyway bc he's Pretty Obviously Gay. And his first crush was a hockey player. And the first guy he fooled around with. So he leaves Russia whenever he can, obviously.
And Shane's like - [flat affect] wow, i'm sorry that must be so hard
Eventually the guy gets out of him that he usually bottoms and likes it more -
And that's how Shane ends up on a weekend sexcapade with Alexander 'Sasha' Coachovich NoLastNamekin and proves he actually cannot do casual bc he leaves Paris with Sasha's number and they text kind of all the time
In French, which is the only language they share
Crucially - no one puts this all together. Shane doesn't realize that Sasha is Ilya's 'coach's son back in Russia' and Ilya doesn't find out about their friendship til like their 2nd year long distance and he blames Svetlana but why would she ever assume that Sasha's cute little baby gay jock and Ilya's Jane were the same person??
The upside of this fic is shane gets someone he can actually talk to about his whole thing with ilya (without revealing its ilya)(and Sasha's help is debatable at best bc he IS a messy party gay)
And ilya gets to be put through the torment nexus of shane having another FwB he's kept around for years and he would like ilya to meet and be nice too bc they're good friends - oh but I thought meeting our former fuck buddies was a Relationship Step, hm? Why else would you want me to meet the woman you'd marry instead of me?
especially when the solutions proposed by either side literally do not make sense to the other side and are in my opinion sometimes the opposite of helpful
In the Sochi outing AU, who do you think is coaching Shane as soon as the leak drops?
Do you think Shane would know that he needs to find Ilya immediately and pretend to be desperately in love? Does someone push him in the right direction amidst his panic? Or is the Romeo and Juliet strategy a result of his initial instinct to get Ilya and go to an embassy?
In my mind, Svetlana is the one who pushes Shane in the direction of using his influence to get Ilya out of the country. But the Romeo and Juliet strategy wasn’t exactly planned. Shane and Ilya both have moments in the immediate aftermath that leads the world to conclude that they are ass over tea kettle in love with each other, and Shane decides that narrative gives Ilya his best chance, so he starts pushing it.
The initial instinct to get to Ilya is Shane’s own. He doesn’t know just how bad this is going to be for him, but he knows enough to be afraid.
In my mind, they get outed while Shane is on the ice competing. It’s not the final match. Shane’s off competing against fucking Finland or something. Canada wins, and it’s in the press conference after that he gets confronted with reporters asking him if he has a comment on the reports of him in an intimate encounter with Russian captain Ilya Rozanov.
Critically, Shane does not know what encounter they’re talking about. He’s panicked. He doesn’t think of Vegas immediately. They’d been so careful, and the last time they were together intimately was in Shane’s own building. The last time they were physically together Ilya told him that they weren’t anything. Could someone have planted a camera in one of their hotel rooms? Did fucking Scott Hunter blab?
It’s very chaotic. The organizers are frantically shutting the press conference the fuck down. His delegation is trying to shuffle him off somewhere private. There’s someone in his ear reassuring him that he’s going to be absolutely safe but they need to discuss how to handle this.
And that snaps Shane out of it. He’ll be safe. What about Ilya?
He keeps asking what about Ilya, and they keep telling him to not worry about that right now, and he just.
He can’t. He can’t leave without him.
He’s sorry. He just. He has to find him.
Shane runs.
He bolts from his own delegation. He’s not really thinking in this moment. Of how it looks or of what people may think of the decision later. He saw Ilya before the match, watching from a quiet place near the rafters like he had during the men’s figure skating finals. So he dodges everyone, the press and the crowd and the Canadian delegation trying to corral him, and he just fucking runs like he’s trying to qualify as a sprinter in the Summer Olympics.
This is one of the moments that escalates the entire scandal. Shane Hollander leaving behind the safety of his own delegation in a desperate attempt to find Ilya Rozanov becomes etched into the public consciousness. It’s a culturally defining moment, like the V-E Day New York Times Square Kiss only better because it wasn’t actually just some rando forcing a non-consensual kiss on a lady trying to go about her fucking day.
This moment is brought up constantly in the aftermath. It’s one of the reasons why Shane and Ilya are worth so much political capital. The image of Shane Hollander simply fucking running to find Ilya becomes a symbol for pure, unequivocal love.
Again, it is against Shane’s best interests to leave the safety of his own delegation. And he knows that. They just told him that. But he doesn’t think. He moves in a panic, dodges the press and his own people, and goes to find Ilya.
And that moment haunts both Shane and Ilya later, because neither of them know why the fuck Shane did that. The entire world is touting it around as this show of honest, sincere, sun-moon-and-stars, soulmate love. And maybe it was. But they don’t know. They didn’t have the time to figure it out together, and now it feels like it’s too late.
The question of whether it was torments Shane and Ilya because it feels like the answer resolves so much of their complicated feelings around what happened, but in opposite ways.
Later, Ilya wants it to have been an act of love, because he’s obsessed with him, Shane Hollander, obsessed with his freckles and how he’s secretly funny and the way he folds his clothes before sex. He’s completely and utterly sick over him, and it’s not fair, because he feels like he trapped Shane in this relationship. He kissed him in Vegas even though it was a bad fucking idea, because he was young and stupid and so fucking afraid of going back to Russia, and because he just wanted to kiss his pretty crush on the balcony the way anyone else could. He knew it was a bad idea and he did it anyway, and it fucked him, and Shane bailed him out even though he could have left Ilya to his own devices and told the world that Ilya had forced the entire kiss on him. He pushed him off at the end, look. That means he didn’t want it. That means it meant nothing to him. Ilya meant nothing to him. Don’t pay attention to how long he was kissing back.
If Shane ran because he loved him instead of because of him just being a good person who wanted to save someone, then maybe this is okay. Maybe Ilya didn’t trap him because Shane loved him already. Maybe he can feel less guilty.
On the flip side, Shane’s doesn’t want to have ran because he loved Ilya. Because maybe the entire stupid plan he rushed them both into after wasn’t actually because he thought it was a good plan. Maybe he did it because he was a lovesick idiot who saw an opportunity to trap the guy who’d told him less 24 hours prior that he didn’t feel the same way. Maybe he could have come up with something else and convinced everyone that the stupid kiss was just some dumb fucking hazing ritual. Shane’s suffered through enough hazing in his time to know that there’s plenty of people in the League who’d make you shove your tongue down your rival’s throat as a fucked up hazing ritual. Maybe he had other options, ones he didn’t explore because he immediately jumped to the thing he secretly wanted all along.
And if that’s true then maybe he’s just some fucking asshole who trapped the guy he likes in a relationship he doesn’t want and can’t escape.
Shane manages to get into a back stairwell and up to where he saw Ilya watching alone.
Ilya isn’t there.
Svetlana is.
She drags him into storage closet and tells him that she doesn’t think it’s bugged. She checked.
She’s a friend of Ilya’s.
Ilya ran already. She was hoping that maybe Shane had seen him up here and would come looking for him. She’s glad she was right.
Shane doesn’t know if he should believe her. He doesn’t fucking know her. And he doesn’t know what the fuck is going on or what the stakes even are or if he just fucked everything up by running first and asking questions later. Shane is Stressed.
Svetlana insists that she’s Ilya’s friend. And Shane is Ilyusha’s Jane, isn’t he? The one Ilya is always texting.
She can always tell when it’s him. There’s a way Ilya smiles when Jane texts. He only ever uses it for Jane.
He smiled that same way when he saw Shane on TV once. That’s how she knew.
Shane has no idea what to do with that information.
He doesn’t have time to unpack it. And also it could still be a lie or a trap. The Russian government could tap their phones and find out about their texts, which is. Wow. He’s discovering a new fear called “Did Putin read my sexts?”
Svetlana doesn’t have time to convince him. If he wants to help save Ilya, he’s taking a leap of fucking faith.
And fuck. Fuck. Shane wants that.
How bad is this? He doesn’t even know what happens, what, what the punishment is, what could happen to him. Could he go to jail for this?
Svetlana says the law just sets a fine.
Shane doesn’t get it. Why would Ilya be running if it’s just a fine? Is, is it his family, or—
No. Yes, but no. It’s not that.
The government is very angry with him right now.
Don’t ask her how she knows. Don’t. And don’t repeat what she’s about to say, not to anyone.
They just endorsed Ilya to the entire nation. Putin just endorsed him to the entire nation. Right after they condemned the gay community to the entire world. Him being queer, it’s a betrayal. He just humiliated them in a way they’re not about to forgive or forget. They are going to try to stop him from leaving the country alive. Ilya ran, but Svetlana doesn’t think he has enough time.
Russia will not just let Ilya leave after this. Not with the way he just embarrassed them. But the eyes of the world are watching. And maybe that could force their hand.
Shane is important to his country, isn’t he?
He’s a good player. And she’s seen him on the news. Sometimes she thinks they talk about him the way Russia talks about Ilya.
Maybe they’d save Ilya if he asked them to. It’s the only idea she has.
And Shane. Has no fucking clue if she’s right about that. But he’s like. Okay. Okay. How, how does he do that if Ilya’s already gone?
Svetlana gives him a jacket and a hat to hide his face. She tells him how to get out of the stadium without being caught by the cameras. She gives him car keys and tells him the train station Ilya’s headed for. He has to go fast if he wants to stop Ilya before he gets on a train.
She can’t go with him. She can’t be seen with Ilya anymore. Her father’s in trouble enough for their association. But she asks Shane to tell Ilya that she loves him. And that one day they’ll be together again. She’ll find a way.
Shane now has no idea if he’s the shameful side piece and this is the person Ilya’s actually in love with.
But he doesn’t have time. He puts on the jacket and the hat. He goes to leave.
Svetlana stops him. Shes struggling with something.
Ilya’s a very good liar, she tells him. He had to be. But she’s known him for a long time. And her gut is telling her he didn’t actually go to the train station.
She sends Shane to a cemetery instead.
It’s a gamble. If she’s wrong, Ilya will be in the wind, and Shane may get fucking jumped and murdered while he’s out looking for Ilya. If she’s wrong, she’s fucked Ilya and his boy.
But she doesn’t think she’s wrong. And she wasn’t. Ilya didn’t run.
He went to be with his mama.
Yes I know his mother was most likely not buried anywhere near Sochi but I want the drama so we are saying that she was buried in the city.
Ilya’s was pretty positive he’s about as fucked as you can be. He found out too late what had happened. He didn’t have much of a headstart. There are already memes flooding the internet about Putin sucking him off which. Could not possibly do more than it was already doing to shorten his lifespan to a period of hours. Sveta had gotten the tip off from people in her dad’s office that the government was fucking nuclear levels of pissed at him. Evidence would probably be planted soon that would frame him for a crime that they could incarcerate him for, if he wasn’t killed before then. They’d have an excuse to put a travel ban on his passport before he ever reached the border. It was just a matter of how long it took them to catch up to him.
He’d have more of a chance at running if he wasn’t so fucking recognizable, but the government had just spent the months leading up to the games putting him on every nationalist propaganda campaign imaginable. Everyone knew his face. He’d never make it.
So he figured if he was probably going out anyway, he might as well see his mama one last time.
He figured his brother would find him there. Or his father. Maybe they’d come or maybe they’d just send the police. He guesses he’ll see how far that ol’ familial love will take him when whoever’s coming arrives.
He was expecting someone to find him at his mother’s grave.
He just wasn’t expecting Shane.
And Ilya is immediately like. You Cannot Fucking Be Here.
His one comfort when he was taking off was that Shane would be fully protected by his delegation and also that Shane probably fucking hates him after their last conversation so maybe never seeing Ilya again won’t hurt him too badly. Shane’s not fucking protected if he flees alone into Russia. Is he fucking stupid?
And Shane’s like. Probably. But he’s not here for himself. He’s here for Ilya.
They have a very tense conversation. Ilya wants him to get the fuck back to his people and never leave their sight again. He wants Shane to get the fuck away from him and be safe.
Shane wants Ilya to go with him.
Ilya doesn’t think it’s a good plan. He thinks that it’s just going to make Shane’s position more precarious. And he doesn’t think fucking Canada’s going to intervene on his behalf. He’s not a Canadian citizen. He doesn’t even play for a Canadian team. They have absolutely no reason to help him.
But Shane won’t budge. And Ilya just wants him to go back to where he’s safe. He’s fucked either way. He might as well make sure Shane Hollander isn’t fucked with him.
Ilya finally relents. He walks back to his mama’s grave, and he tells Shane to just. Just stand next to him and not say anything. He just needs to say something and then they can go.
Shane doesn’t know what he tells his mom. It’s all in Russian. But at the end of it, Ilya stands and leaves with him.
Okay. Okay. Shane knows they need to go to the Canadian embassy.
A problem: he has no fucking clue where that thing is.
He doesn’t have a phone or a gps or a fucking map. He doesn’t even know if there is a Canadian embassy in Sochi. He can’t ask for directions because whoever they ask may recognize one of them and hate crime them. Svetlana had to give him directions to get this far.
And Ilya is like. Oh my god. Stellar planning. And Shane is like. Shut the fuck up.
They go back to the Olympic Village. Shane’s phone is there, in his dorm room where he left it before competing. He can contact his country’s Olympic organizers from there, and then just… figure out what the fuck is next.
The way back is one of the most terrifying trips of their lives.
They keep waiting to be recognized and stopped. Their heart rates are through the goddamn roof the whole way. But somehow, they make it. Shane power walks Ilya straight to his dorm room and shut the door behind them.
An extremely distressed J.J. is waiting in there.
And he’s like, “Oh thank G—”
Ilya raises a finger to his lips to shut him up. Then they check for bugs.
There’s one in the light fixture. Another in the socket. They think that’s everything. But it’s not great. They definitely know that Shane and Ilya are here now. If they didn’t figure it out when J.J. reacted, they figured it out when their bugs went dead.
Shane grabs his phone and calls their officials. His hand is shaking.
And j.j. is like. Dude. What? The fuck???
And Shane’s like. I know. I know—
And J.J.’s like. No. No, you don’t know. No one knew where Shane went. He’s been sitting here fucking terrified that Shane was fucking dead. Does Shane have any idea just how much he scared everyone when he took off like that?
And that’s. That’s the thing. There is an ongoing international crisis right now around where Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are. Like the second Shane Hollander fucking took off, emergency briefing hit the desk of every single world leader with a delegation at the Olympics.
Russia was a very controversial host country for the 2014 Olympics. There was a lot of concern in the media leading up to the event about whether athletes—especially queer athletes—would be safe in Russia. But Russia was allowed to host anyway, and countries chose to send their athletes to compete despite the public concern.
Ilya has less protections because he is a Russian citizen. Like it’s a scandal if something happens to him, but countries tend to primarily intervene for the safety of their own citizens. Russia has more freedom to pull shit against Ilya because he is their citizen. Shane is a different story.
If anything happens to Shane Hollander on Russian soil, then it is going to be one of the biggest scandals in the history of the Olympics. There is going to be a reckoning. People are going to blame Russia’s anti-LGBTQ+ policies. They are going to blame the Olympic organizers for allowing it to be in Russia. They are going to blame every single country that sent a delegation over the public’s concern. This is potentially a worst case scenario.
At this point, there is global news coverage about the search for Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov. The footage of Shane Hollander fleeing his own delegation has been broadcast to almost every country on the planet. The entire nation of Canada is holding its breath. That country watched Shane Hollander grow up. He has been on their TV screens and in their newspapers since he was 12 years old. He is the nation’s beloved son and he is missing.
Russia has already received a very tense phone call about from Canadian officials about just what’s going to happen if Shane Hollander is harmed within their borders. The prime minister is in an emergency meeting. The president of the United States is in an emergency meeting. The Russian government is in every kind of emergency meeting it can possibly have. The Olympics organizers are scrambling.
The Canadian delegation answers shane’s phone call on the first ring. They want to know where the fuck he is. Shane says he’s in his room at the Olympic village. He needs to get somewhere safer. The, the embassy or whatever.
Uh, yeah, he fucking does.
There’s not an embassy in Sochi, but they have an outpost there for the Olympics. Shane is not going to move a goddamn inch. A convoy is en route. It will be there in eight minutes. He is going to wait for their call. He is not leaving the room until they come for him. And he is not fucking running from them when they arrive to collect him.
Eight minutes. Do not go anywhere.
Shane hangs up. Ilya notes that Shane didn’t say anything about him.
And yeah. Shane didn’t. Because he’s not giving them an option. Ilya’s just… getting in the car too and they can all deal with what that means after.
This is a bad plan.
Ilya has absolutely zero confidence in the fact that Canada’s helping him too. He frankly only went along with Shane’s crazy fucking plan because he thought it was the only way to get Shane safe. He thought it’d do jack shit for him.
He was already fucked, but Shane needed to get back to his own delegation, and he wasn’t budging unless Ilya came too. So Ilya came too. But he has no illusions about Canada letting him in that car.
He is not their citizen. And it doesn’t matter how good Shane is at hockey. Canada is not starting an international incident just because Shane Hollander asks nicely.
There is a heavy beat.
And J.J. is like. Honestly they may.
Shane’s like. Sort of a big deal in Canada. Has been for like. a decade. J.J. remembers watching Shane on the news when Shane was like 12. Everyone’s a Shane Hollander fan in Canada. The prime minister is a Shane Hollander fan. Whether the candidates were Shane Hollander fans was an actual point of contention in the last election. J.J. has quite literally never met a Canadian who doesn’t know who Shane Hollander is. And they made him an answer on the naturalization test last year, so they actually won’t let you be Canadian unless you know who he is.
J.J., hands folded in front of his face: Montreal is probably already on fire
Shane, with profound consternation: I know.
J.J.: Hayden texted. The SPVM called him asking him to do a press conference to try to keep the public calm. Man they do not care what he says
Shane, with even more profound consternation: I know.
Ilya: what are you talking about?
J.J., still low key thinks this man forced a kiss on J.J.’s fucking boy and that Shane only took off to help him because he’s Just That Nice A Person, bringing an Aggressive Energy to this conversation: you’ve been to Montreal. What, do you never go outside when you’re there?
Ilya, always ready to Be The Bigger Bitch: hmm, no. I am always so busy doing other things
Shane, the Other Things he’s doing: guys
J.J.: *stands up like he’s going to fight a bitch* you are such a fucking asshole
Shane: lay off of him
J.J.: he doesn’t know the first thing about you—
Shane,: I’m basically anonymous in Boston anyway he has no reason to know—
Ilya, bewildered: you are one of the most hated men in Boston
J.J., talking over both of them: he dragged you into this, he put you in danger, he forced his tongue down your fucking throat and he doesn’t even care enough to know the first thing about you—
Shane, also talking over him : he didn’t—it’s not like I knew he was Putin’s favorite hockey player when I blew him—
And Shane. Regrets. Sharing that detail.
And J.J., who was still very much operating under the assumption that Ilya just forced a kiss on Shane, because that’s kind of what the video looked like, is like. Wait. Is this like. An actual thing??
And Shane is like. Isn’t the source of all of my current life problems the fact that everyone knows this is an actual thing???
J.J. doesn’t have time to respond. An ally bursts into the room.
Carter Vaughn is so fucking relieved that Shane and Ilya are alive.
When shit hit the fan, Carter grabbed Scott and tried to get into contact with the U.S. delegation to figure out if there was anything they could do to help get Shane and Ilya out of here in one piece. They were told in no uncertain terms to stay in their goddamn rooms and keep their fucking mouths shut.
But Carter Vaughn does not do that. He is a goddamn ally. So he eventually decides to haul ass over to J.J.’s room with Scott, because if anyone knows where Shane is, it’s J.J.
And Scott, who had tornado warning sirens going off in his head, just sort of went with this.
This is a mistake for Scott. The second Carter stops hugging Shane in relief, Shane tries to throw fucking hands with him.
Everyone else feels this is a very strong energy to bring to the room.
Shane doesn’t care. He swears to fucking God, if Scott said shit about them to anyone and they got outed in goddamn Russia, Shane is going to actually fucking kill him—
And Ilya is like. What the fuck are you talking about, how would the fucking old man even know—
Shane: 2011 all stars
Scott, miserably: yeah it was the 2011 all stars
Ilya: what
Scott: you gave him your room number right in front of me
J.J.: *taking his own pulse*
Scott, haunted: and the walls in that hotel were so thin
Carter: whoa wait you already knew??
Shane, still fucking angry: what he didn’t go back and tell the whole fucking locker room after he threw it in my face on the ice???
Carter: you did WHAT
Scott: yeah look man I’ve been wanting to apologize for that—
Ilya does not have time for all this.
Does Shane not fucking know how they got outed?
Shane. Has had a lot of things happen really quickly. He knows enough.
Obviously he does not. It was Vegas. Stupid fucking balcony kiss in Vegas during their rookie year. There was a fucking surveillance camera that they got caught on.
It takes Shane a second to remember what exactly happened. And then he’s like. Oh Jesus Christ. It must look like I went for a handshake and you went for fucking second base.
And Ilya’s like. Yes. It looks exactly like that. Which means it’s perfect.
Shane will tell everyone that he isn’t gay. He didn’t want the kiss. He was just trying to shake hands like a good sportsman, and Ilya is just some asshole pervert who forced his tongue down Shane’s throat. He pushed Ilya off in the end and stormed off, so people will believe him.
Shane can explain everything else away. He went to get Ilya because he is such a nice guy who is on a year-round campaign for the Lady Byng sportsmanship award. He will help anyone, even asshole perverts. As long as Shane goes back and talk about how disgusting Ilya is and how violated he made him feel, everyone will just blame Ilya—
And Shane is like. Would you shut the fuck up? We are not doing that. Jesus.
The phone rings. The car is about to arrive for Shane. Shane needs to wait in the room. People will come to escort him from the room to the car.
They are also not doing that. Shane says he’s meeting them at the street outside and hangs up on them.
He wants them to have the least amount of time possible to refuse to take Ilya too. He is jumping them with the news that there’s a second passenger when the car is immediately in front of them and then they are just assertively putting Ilya in the back seat and hoping they drive away with him too. It’s his best plan.
And Ilya is like. Hollander. They are not letting me in that car.
It is his best plan. Fucking move, Rozanov.
Carter, J.J., and Scott don’t let them go alone. They flank them like secret service agents escorting the goddamn president. And they are moving fast. They are trying to get them en route to the Canadian diplomatic outpost before the fucking Russian police shows up to disappear Ilya or before a hacked off homophobic Olympian tries to hate crime them.
And like. They walk out through the fucking main entrance. It is a public street. The media is out there already.
The Canadian convoy pulls up.
Yeah, they are not letting Ilya in the fucking car.
He is not a Canadian citizen. They have no authority over him or interest in him. Shane is the only one going to the Canadian outpost. Ilya Rozanov will be perfectly safe in the Olympic village, they’re sure.
And Shane’s like. Okay. Then he’s not getting in the car either.
If Ilya’s going to be safe in the Olympic village, then so is Shane. He guesses they’ll all find out, because Shane is not leaving his fucking side. The only way Shane is getting in that car is if Ilya’s in it too.
And Ilya is like. You are being fucking crazy. Get in the goddamn car.
Ilya is stressed. He wants Shane to get out of this safely more than anything else in the goddamn world, and that was the one thing that seemed to be assured. Canada would protect him. He would be fine.
Except Shane’s not letting Canada protect him. And Ilya is fucking terrified as to what happens if that car drives away without Shane Hollander in it.
Shane won’t budge. Whatever happens is happening to both of them. He’s not getting in the car without him. He’s not leaving this country without him.
J.J. tacks on that he is not leaving this country without Shane Hollander. So now there’s two Canadian Olympians who are about to end up in Russian detention. Let them both in the goddamn car.
There is a minute where this is just a fucking standoff. J.J., Carter, and Scott are arguing with the Canadian officials. But Ilya is arguing with Shane.
You have to be dramatic about it. You have to be cinematic about it. You need politicians to see this moment and already be imagining the blockbuster Hollywood movie that will sway voters for years to come.
Ilya takes Shane’s face between his hands and begs him to get in the fucking car.
He tried. He tried. Whatever happens next, it’s okay, does he understand? Shane, please, please, just get in the car now. It’s not like the police are going to just arrest Shane with Ilya just because Shane asks.
Uh. They will if Shane punches a fucking cop.
Shane is a fucking crazy person and Ilya is going to force him into that goddamn car.
Shane’s digging in his heels. He’s been trying to figure out how to get Ilya out of this fucking country since he talked to Svetlana. He doesn’t think the Canadian government is going to save Ilya from fucking Putin just because Shane asks.
But maybe they’d save Shane.
Shane needs to chain his own safety to Ilya’s and this is the only way he can think of. He’ll put the gun to his own head. That’s the only way out of this that he can think of. He needs to make sure that he only gets out of this if Ilya does. And… and maybe that means that neither of them get out of this.
Shane’s not leaving him. Whatever happens, happens.
You have to add external pressure to it to finally get Ilya in the car. Have other cars pulling up, and no one knows if they’re more press or the fucking Russian police.
J.J. gets right in the official’s face and tells him that the entire fucking world is watching what he does right now. If something happens, it is on his head.
Now let both of them in the fucking car.
And in the moment, the official breaks. Fine. Both of them come.
Shane physically puts Ilya in that fucking car. J.J. is a step behind him, physically putting Shane in the car. He squeezes Shane’s shoulder just once before the door closes and the car screeches away.
It takes five minutes for Shane to realize he’s still holding Ilya’s hand. And he can’t bring himself to let go.
And I think that’s the start of the love story. They both act like they’re in love where the world can see it, and so the world thinks they are. The narrative starts because of what they do in the heat of the moment, and then after they realize, Shane specifically decides to double the fuck down and Ilya follows his lead.
In my mind, there’s a moment later where the Canadian delegation gives Shane an opening to start walking this the fuck back. They show him the surveillance footage from Vegas that was the source of the leak. Shane pushes Ilya off of him in it. He walks away. He looks upset. That doesn’t look like Shane wanted that kiss to happen.
And Shane’s like. No. No, he—he just freaked out because they were in public. But they were together. Are together. They have been for years. Since before they were rookies.
Ilya nods. He agrees. But Shane is the one to start it, because that’s going to be the source of so much of his guilt later.
Shane was the one who ran where everyone could see him, and Shane was the one who committed them to the love story narrative to the fucking Canadian government. He couldn’t ask Ilya for permission first. They never get a chance to talk about it in private. And so Shane is going to feel like he trapped him in this because of it.
see my thing is. i’d be a lot less mean about these books if any relationship conflict between shane and ilya was treated remotely equally rather than ilya doing whatever he wanted without consequence and shane reading his mind only so shane can assure the audience that the situation was all his fault actually and he just needs to shed all his earthly concerns to unconditionally support ilya’s career full time ☺️
This part is so true. That's why I hate the "I already chose you" scene. Shane did choose Ilya. Shane was the go-getter. Shane was the one who didn't let Ilya hide his feelings. Shane was the one who listened to the list of requirements that Ilya had and implemented them, aka I want to have Canadian citizenship and keep my captaincy/pay/career.
Shane even SAID he chose Ilya, but Ilya didn't FEEL like it was super confident. Ilya is depressed, which can make you infer the worst possible tone to everything. I would know, because I've had an argument with a friend about how I felt she didn't care about me, when the problem was that I casually asked my friend if we could hang out (emotionally, I was destroyed and needed a hangout), and she casually told me she was busy. My feelings didn't reflect reality because if I told her I needed a hangout cuz I felt like shit, she would come over. Because she does care about me. Shane "go-getter" Hollander would have figured something out if there was any bit of communication from his boyfriend, since he can't rely on his divine providence from the RR, as she wants him to be the villain in this fight.
I'll even copy-paste that part of Shane and Ilya's argument from the book. The bold is from me.
“You wouldn’t even choose me, would you?” Ilya said. “If it is between me and hockey.”
“Of course I would,” Shane said, though not as confidently as Ilya would have liked.
"not as confidently as Ilya would have liked" is literally straight-up tone policing. Ilya is ignoring Shane's words in favor of the emotional subtext, which, as we well know, neurodivergent people all over the world are telling us, is hard!
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Plus, the start of the argument only happens because Ilya tries to keep it casual, and he gets a casual answer!!! I cannot explain to y'all how badly I wanted to toss TLG into a paper shredder when I read the following page of text. I'm going to bold every mention of "casual" or when Ilya is purposely keeping the tone chill btw.
“Bood is having a party tonight.” Ilya said it casually, as if there were no particular reason he was letting Shane know. As if his stomach wasn’t a mess as he anticipated Shane’s reaction.
“Zane Boodram? He’s having a party on Boxing Day?”
“Yes. Not a big party. It will be chill. Mostly just the team and partners. Bood has fun parties.”
“Oh.” Ilya held his breath.
“Did you want to go or something?” Shane asked, clearly confused. “I could stay here, I guess. Or head back to—”
“I want you to go too,” Ilya said. “I want you to come with me to the party.”
Shane twisted around so they were facing each other on Ilya’s couch. “You want me to go to a party with your teammates? Why?”
So they can fucking meet my boyfriend, Ilya wanted to scream. But instead, he kept his tone light and said, “They are cool people. You might have fun.”
“But...wouldn’t it be weird, if we showed up together?”
Ilya shrugged easily, as if this was a normal thing for him to suggest. “They know you would be in Ottawa for Christmas. We are friends, so I invite you to a party. No big deal.”
Shane’s face scrunched up in confusion, then he shook his head. “Too weird. I don’t think so.”
The dismissal, though expected, irritated Ilya. No, irritated was too small a word—it infuriated him. For a moment, Ilya didn’t react. He stared at Shane, stony-faced, while anger scorched through him like lava. Then, before he said anything he may regret, he stood up and walked out of the living room. Shane caught up with him in the kitchen.
“You can go,” he said. “It’s fine.”
“Great,” Ilya snapped.
“What’s wrong?” Shane sounded so genuinely clueless about why Ilya might want him to meet his friends that it only angered Ilya further.
Shane sounds genuinely clueless after Ilya gives him about two minutes of CASUAL warning about a party where, if the captain actually went after blowing off several team invitations, just to bring a friend, it would be weird. Guys. It would be weird if Shane Hollander going to the party is the only reason that Ilya goes to the party. Especially since the party is described by Ilya as "Mostly just the team and partners." Soooo if Shane, who would be just 'a friend' at a party for team members and their romantic partners, thinks that would be a little too weird, why the fuck is that a problem? Three guesses, and the first two don't count.
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Shane is said to not understand how much Ilya sacrificed for their future, but should I remind everyone what Ilya's original plan was going to be? In HR, Ilya plans to let the rivalry fade by moving to the west, where Ilya and Shane would only see each other twice a year.
“I was thinking,” Ilya said. It was late morning the next day, and they were sitting on the deck with coffee. “If I played for a team that was not Boston. Maybe in the west. The rivalry would not be such a big deal.”
Shane seemed to consider this. “That’s true. We’d only play against each other twice a year.” He frowned and Ilya knew he didn’t like that idea any more than he did. We’d only see each other twice a year.
“Is…like, sacrifice. For future gain, yes?”
Shane brightened. “Future gain?”
“Yes. Our rivalry has been huge. But maybe we can help it to…fade away? A little?”
“Yeah…” Shane said. He was getting excited. “Yeah! I don’t like the idea of you being so far, but we could make people forget all about us as rivals and maybe no one would care about us at all one day.”
But the thing is that Shane and Ilya want to see each other! Twice a year is too little for them, so the next scene is literally Shane thinking of a different idea. It's the famous nighttime wake-up and listen to my ten-year plan for our future scene that leads into the "I love you's". The scene I'm most interested in is when Ilya specifically declines Montreal because they couldn't afford both Shane and Ilya at their full worth. I wonder who ends up being paid less than their worth in the end...
“I am a free agent, after next season.”
He definitely had Shane’s full attention now. “You’d leave Boston?”
“I have just been thinking. Maybe…a Canadian team.”
“Holy shit, really?”
“Yes.”
“Like where?” Ilya could see the thoughts play out on Shane’s face like a movie: What if we played together in Montreal? No. Montreal couldn’t afford both of us.
“Not Montreal,” Ilya said gently.
“No. I know.”
But good god, now Ilya was imagining that. Playing together, living together, being together. It was never going to happen. But it was a nice thought.
How amazing that Ilya's dream ends up being fulfilled without him having to be paid less than what he is worth.
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In TLG, right after Shane gets angry in their fight and says that line about wanting to win cups instead of smoking between losses, Ilya thinks about how he chose Ottawa because it was Shane's hometown! What the actual fuck are you talking about, Ilya? What the fuck is RR writing?? She purposely rewrites the Ottawa move to be about choosing between love and your career, instead of the fact that it was about choosing BOTH for Ilya. In fact, the sheer insanity of how the Ottawa plan was named as "Shane's plan" when things get hard is always baffling to me, when originally, Ilya liked it more than his plan. I'm going to put the TLG passage of the Ottawa thing and the HR passage just for anyone who doesn't remember it.
In TLG:
Shane truly didn’t understand anything. Not what Ilya had given up for him, certainly. Ilya could be in Boston right now, leading one of the top teams in the league to more Stanley Cups. He could be breaking more records, and winning more awards. Instead he’d chosen to come to Ottawa, when he could have gone to almost any team in the league. He’d chosen a team that hadn’t made the playoffs in over a decade. He’d chosen it because it was Shane’s hometown, and close to where Shane lived. He’d chosen it so he could build a life in Canada with the man he loved.
In HR:
“You play for Ottawa, I play for Montreal. Those cities are an hour apart. We start a charity together, you and me. Something that benefits both cities. So now people see us working together on something. We make up some story about how I approached you with this idea, and—”
“Or I approached you.”
“Whatever. The point is, we tell the press, the fans, everyone, that by working together on the cause that means so much to both of us, we have developed a mutual respect for each other...”
“Yes. And also we are fucking each other. Any questions?”
“Fuck off! This is a great idea, Rozanov!” Ilya laughed. Shane hit him with a pillow.
“Is not bad,” Ilya finally conceded. “So we start this charity...”
“And it wouldn’t be bullshit either. I’ve been wanting to start one anyway. We’ll do something that means a lot to both of us.”
“Yes. Okay.”
“We still play hard against each other on the ice, obviously. I mean, I am never going to stop enjoying beating your ass.”
Ilya snorted. “Sure.”
“And...like I said. We’re an hour away from each other. All year.” He wanted Ilya to see this vision as clearly as he could. It seemed tantalizingly possible. Easy, even. “And you’d be in Canada. And you could apply for citizenship eventually.”
“Yes. I understand that part.” “And maybe...someday. When we both retire. We can...be together. For real.”
Ilya looked stunned by that part. “You really think that far ahead, Hollander?”
“I do about this.”
The literal reason for it is NUMBER ONE: Canadian Citizenship, NUMBER TWO: Killing the Rivalry, NUMBER THREE: Being close to each other for love.
How do we know Ilya wanted Canadian citizenship? Here you go:
In HR:
“Do you still want to become an American citizen?”
“I don’t know. I am thinking…maybe somewhere else.”
“Oh.”
Rachel Reid fucked up her own plot and themes, and now we've got a total mess that is aimed at coddling her precious mind baby, Ilya, and fucking over the selfish-asshole-who-breaks-his-heart, Shane. My anger management has never been more needed.
I love the sochi outing au for so many reasons (like omg it has Obama rpf and hollonov are having their everlark plot) but my favourite thing about it is that Shane's ending is so much better than canon. He gets to keep his dream of staying at montreal!! He's going to retire there!! That's his city!! This version of Shane is probably more traumatised then Canon and yet the ending is so much better that it really goes to show just how bad the tlg ending is. For so many reasons but also bc it ruins the hr ending for me. The reason shane brings up ottawa is bc they can afford to pay ilya what he's worth, he can be captain there, and he can be the first line centre. The fact that apparently none of this matters to ilya when he suggests Shane moves to ottawa just makes him look like a massive dick and also makes me think that ilya should just have gone to montreal at the end of hr. "Oh but the rivalry means - " if people found out Shane got Ilya to come to montreal they would be high fiving him on every street in the city. Ahhhhhhhh thank you for writing aus that are saving me from this dog shit ending that I pretend is not real
YOURE SO RIGHT THOUGH
In the books, when they’re talking about Ilya switching to a Canadian team, Ilya proposes leaving Boston for a Canadian team himself. It is brought up explicitly because America is bad for Russians at the moment, and he wants non-Russian citizenship. And during the conversation, Ilya has this moment where he can tell Shane wants him to come to Montreal, but Ilya doesn’t want to because Montreal could never afford both of them. Ilya says “Not Montreal,” and Shane immediately understands. He proposes Ottawa as an alternative because it needs a star center and has the cap space for Ilya.
And, critically, I cannot find a single mention of the fact that Ottawa is a bad team in Heated Rivalry itself.
Like. Please correct me if I’m wrong. I can’t remember any mention of the fact that Ottawa is terrible. I pulled up the pdf of the book and searched couldn’t find a single mention of the word “Centaurs” in it. I searched every mention of the word “Ottawa” and couldn’t find a single mention discussing how Ottawa was a bad team. The closest we get is Shane saying that they need a star center, but still needing a star for one position is a very different thing than it being the shittiest team in the whole league. And you’d think that Ilya would maybe bring up the fact that that team is absolute ass and would destroy his career if he went there if that was a legitimate concern. The Long Game rewrites its own canon to victimize Ilya and make Shane the villain in the Ottawa move. Its claims are fundamentally and irrevocably inconsistent with the explicit text of Heated Rivalry.
The entire dialogue around Shane being selfish in the Ottawa move drives me absolutely raving insane because it is fundamentally based in revisionist history. Shane is at no point in the conversation a driving factor in Ilya’s decision to leave Boston. Ilya decides he wants to be on a Canadian team before he even talks to Shane. The fact that he wants to come to Canada specifically is because of Russia, not Shane. And picking Ottawa is for the sake of Ilya’s career.
Signing with Montreal is outright considered and rejected by Ilya so he doesn’t have to take a pay cut. The explicit reason why he doesn’t want to sign with Montreal is the fact that Montreal cannot afford both of them. And that decision is later recast entirely into Ilya picking Shane over hockey. If Ilya wanted to pick Shane, he would have just taken the pay cut in heated rivalry and they would have been playing on the same team since fucking 2018–and it would have been on a team that Ilya himself describes as “the most legendary team in the entire league.” He would have had a great team and been tearing it up winning Stanley Cups but he didn’t want to take the pay cut or hit to his captaincy and his position and Shane fucking understood that and found him an alternative that wouldn’t require him to sacrifice his own position.
They explicitly pick Ottawa so that Ilya’s career doesn’t have to suffer and then the Long Game revises the entire narrative to turn it into how Ilya sacrificed his career for Shane. It is absolutely nonsensical when read in light of their conversation around the move itself. They outright reject playing on the same team so Ilya doesn’t have to sacrifice his own career.
And then!! All of the reasons why Ilya shouldn’t have to sign with Montreal suddenly do not matter at all when it’s Shane who has to suffer them. Shane has to take a pay cut? Laugh it off. Hubby will provide. He loses his entire career as narrative punishment for “making” Ilya sacrifice his career, but signing with Ottawa was explicitly so that Ilya wouldn’t have to sacrifice his career. Ilya actually does what Shane is accused of and villainized for in The Long Game, and Shane never did it to begin with. I feel like I’m being gaslit by an entire fucking fandom. Can anyone hear me hello
Shane gets to keep his team in the Sochi outing au. He gets to retire there. I put him through so much shit in the sochi outing au, but he gets to keep his team. I am building him a dream team in my mind and it will be so fucking narratively fulfilling so help me god
Been thinking about the circumstances that tend to cause Simon to act out, and what the perfect storm of circumstances would be to make him and Grace like each other as LITTLE as possible. :) At first.
I see so much of Simon being the vaguely unsettling one in the relationship and I love it and I support it but may I raise you; Grace is NOT normal about Simon in the SLIGHTEST.
Whenever he thinks Simon isn't watching, Grace is there.
Doing some gardening? Grace is watching. Learning how to mend clothes creatively? Watching. Learning how to fix little things around the Hail Mary? Watching. Sleeping? WATCHING. Always while half working on his own stuff of course, he has things to do and he also needs a reasonable excuse for 'nono I'm busy here I don't know what you're talking about'.
Documenting his eating habits and his mutations and his injuries healing and at first it's just a good thing to keep track of but it eventually becomes a source of comfort to review all the pages and remember that Simon is HERE despite EVERYTHING.
And Grace KNOWS that this is kind of creepy he just can't really bring himself to CARE anymore. A solid 75% of his social rules have been broken apart by hanging out with an alien rock spider for 4 years he's not above a little indulgence in the presence of another human. And it's not like Rocky knows this isn't normal. Honestly Rocky is just happy to see his favorite human interacting with another human.
This is the first and ONLY human he has had contact with in YEARS. He is just a little obsessed. And it's just a little concerning. He gets better about it after they're on Erid (Simon's not leaving a planet. No way would he ever. Simon's staying. Statement.)
Just. Grace being as afraid of Simon disappearing as Simon is afraid of Grace disappearing. They cling to each other like feral animals.
Tfw you come from a society where people are only useful if they can provide something and youve only ever worked with your hands in one way or another but then a giant eel steals ur arm and you knew that but haven't really been in the right state of mind to think about what exactly that means for you.
