okay well i got out of the shower just now and in the shower an entire omega verse setting reproductive thriller au just unfolded itself for me in my mind like a deathly orchid. now what am i supposed to do with that.
so the concept would be that in this specific iteration of omega verse, the MLH has essentially breeding rights to every single player that they sign, and the children that are produced from this are raised in kind of a boarding school from birth, dedicated to developing incredible hockey players. And Shane and Ilya make such a big splash their draft year because neither of them in any way are tied to this extremely regimented and valued school/breeding system.
Of course they both being who they are kind of. Hope they're gonna get out of having to participate in this until the year before they retire, but the Ottawa plan kind of throws all of that out the window because it was assumed that Ilya would retire with the Boston Raiders, he would play for that team his entire career so they never used their rights for him. And suddenly hes not re-signing, so they demand it. And Ilya was always going to be matched with Shane for this, are you kidding?
they of course, still have their concealed relationship, which would still be discouraged and punished in this universe because the entire breeding program is like if they have an independent relationship the MLH doesn't own those kids. theyre essentially Stealing if they have a kid w each other under contract w the league.
So they are basically forced to procreate in what is a devils bargain for Ilya being closer to Shane, and they dont even get to keep the kid. Horror World!
and what if the kids a girl? well. normally players can keep the kid if its a girl (MISOGYNY DOESNT GO AWAY JUST BC ITS OMEGAVERSE BC THE MLH IN ALL THE OMEGAVERSE FICS I READ IS STILL MEN ONLY SO WE MUST CONTEND W MISOGYNY)
But uh Shane and ilya are not going to be Allowed. to have a girl. if you get my meaning.
im actually torn on if i want to go for less heavy handed horror and have it be an artificial insemination deal Or if inwanna go full handmaids tale style and they have to have sex where they pretend like they dont even like each other in front of a league appointed monitor. well. both can be horrifying in their own special way
Love to try and figure out what Ilya was trying to achieve with the tuna meltdown, happy to read endless takes about that. Particularly because in the book, the last time we were in Ilya’s POV for any significant period of time was in 2014! (There’s two very brief scenes in Ilya’s POV between 2014 and post-tuna meltdown, the one where he thinks about being 30% gay and the one where he’s watching the cottage documentary.) So who the fuck knows what he was thinking.
Anyway, I know some people think he was trying to initiate an actual relationship or exclusivity, but I really don’t. His dad was still alive at that point, that just wouldn’t have occurred to him as an option. I think the most realistic option is that he was trying to move them from “this is just a one-night stand that somehow keeps happening over and over again” to friends-with-benefits. He’s talking about girls like “I have relationships in my life where we’re friends who also fuck, do you have relationships like that? We could have a relationship like that, maybe.”
This makes me think about an idea for a canon divergent story that I will probably never actually write because IDEK I’m allergic to angst, but:
Ilya does a slightly better job of explaining that he just wants them to be friends who fuck. He says something about how it seems like Shane could use more friends. Shane doesn’t freak out and leave. Shane still meets Rose, doesn’t try to date her but does get papped hanging out with her and Ilya texts him like “???” and Shane says “I thought you said I could use more friends.”
So they continue on relatively the same, they text a little more, Ilya spends the night that next game in Montreal. Maaaaaybe (we’re in book canon here) Shane actually lets him come over to his actual apartment. All-Star weekend is business as usual, there’s no cathartic conversation about Shane being gay, them being more or Ilya’s reasons why they can’t do that.
But then! After All-Stars, a reporter asks Ilya about playing on the same team with Shane for the first time. And Ilya is like “Rivalry has been going on for years, is boring. I think instead Shane Hollander and I are friends now.” And Ilya is just kind of swaggering his way through that being the new reality and Shane is like “Yeah … Rozanov is a great player” and wanting to murder Ilya a little bit but secretly not hating it.
But again, we have not had the wake-up call associated with losing it all after the tuna meltdown and Shane dating Rose, and we have not had the catharsis of the All-Stars conversation. When Ilya’s dad dies they text a little more but that’s it. When Shane gets injured, Ilya is able to non-secretively visit him, and that really cements the public friendship narrative. Scott still comes out, but both of them are like, “Well, that’s none of my business.” Shane doesn’t invite him to the cottage for the summer.
Next season, they can actually be friendly in public. They play a game against each other and get nagged into going out with one of their teams. And some girl starts hitting on Shane like crazy, to the point where he feels like he has to leave with her or it would seem suspicious. (See, you’d think Ilya would be the one getting hit on here, but he has enough confidence in his own track record to just be like “not interested tonight, bye” and Shane does not.) Shane somehow ditches the girl after they leave and doesn’t actually hook up with her, but it creates some kind of logistical difficulty that keeps him from being able to hook up with Ilya that night. And Shane is like, okay, if being Ilya’s friend in public comes at the expense at whatever the fuck we’re doing in private, no thank you, this is the worst.
So then the next time they see each other, Shane is like … “I DON’T WANT TO BE FRIENDS.” And this is the part where the plot starts to fall apart for me a little bit and why I’d probably never try to write this, because I can’t decide if Ilya takes him at his literal word and this throws them into this AU’s version of the Rose relationship torment nexus situation, or if Shane manages to say “I mean … I don’t want to be just friends.” So after some unspecified amount of torture and miscommunication Shane says that, and Ilya says, “Yeah, okay,” and that’s how they finally get together.
Unfortunately, in this AU Ilya’s “rivalry is over we are friends now” public psy-op is more successful than the charity rollout, and it’s easier for them to be seen together in public and that makes them sloppy and they get outed much, much sooner. It’s only after they literally get outed that Shane is forced to admit to himself or anyone else that he’s gay.
the first time ilya takes shane to the club after they get married, he shaves beforehand, puts on a tight black tank top and sprays himself with his fuckboy cologne from the hookup era. shane is already horny for him even before they leave the house — crucially, he loves fuckboy ilya, because come on, he’s been fucking this man for years when he looked exactly like this.
at the club, ilya buys out the entire dj set to only play 2010s club anthems all night long. he wants to give shane the ultimate 2010s clubbing experience he never had, but also make up for all those nights ilya had to spend dancing and making out with strangers and not the one person he wanted. but now he gets to do all this with his husband! who is delightfully hard for him by the way, because shane finds sleazy club slut ilya absolutely irresistible. ilya is gripping his hips, grinding against him, licking his neck and whispering the dirtiest filth into his ear, and shane gets dizzying butterflies he imagines all those girls got back then. and he isn’t even retroactively jealous, because now his ring is on ilya’s finger, and oh god, he gets to be taken home by ilya rozanov! he gets to have all his attention now and get railed stupid by him later!! in their shared home!!! shane is living his dream life, and ilya is right there with him.
ok not to be Insane but I just noticed this little freckle hudson has on his ear and I can't stop thinking about ilya discovering this and forever making a point to give it a little kiss every chance he gets
you know how that first morning at the cottage ("i like you" / "i like you too") ilya's kind of half asleep and then after they talk shane cuddles in again and ilya pulls him close....i think ilya fell back asleep but shane didn't and after cuddling for a lil while he carefully got out of bed to go take a piss and start on breakfast. and then ilya woke up to the smell of bacon (BACON!! SHANE HOLLANDER COOKING BACON!! FOR ILYA!!) and he practically floated into the kitchen wanting to wrap his arms around shane and start their first morning together and then-
then he froze in place bc shane is standing there in just his underwear and fucking stubble. stubble. ilya's never seen this man with stubble up to this point and he hadn't noticed it earlier, was too sleepy. but now he's just standing at the edge of the kitchen with wide eyes as shane plates their breakfast and finally shane notices him standing there and looks up like 🤨 why are you just standing there
titsay
turnnoffyourmind
gamechangershow
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
germansingergirl
romaincrisis
