Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Fandoms: Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid
Relationship: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov
Characters: Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Rose Landry, Hayden Pike, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Svetlana Vetrova, Jackie Pike, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Grigori Rozanov, Sasha | Ilya Rozanov's Coach's Son
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Work In Progress, Reality TV, Rookie Year, Secret Relationship, Sneaking Around, Sneaking Out, Non-Penetrative Sex, Penetrative Sex, Blow Jobs, First Time Blow Jobs, Consensual Sex, Anal Sex, Top Ilya Rozanov, Bottom Shane Hollander, POV Third Person Limited, Pre-Relationship, Rivals to Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, Video Cameras, Sex Tapes, Masturbation, Sexting, Dirty Talk, POV Alternating, Slow Burn, Complicated Relationships, Flirting, Canon-Typical Behavior, Ilya Rozanov is a Menace, Smut, Yearning, Texting, Mutual Pining, Porn With Plot, Mixed Media
Shane’s name is supposed to be called tomorrow. First, his mother keeps saying — his agent, technically — like it’s already decided, like all Shane has to do is show up and let it happen.
The NHL Draft, a day his whole life in the making.
He’s been on this track since he could skate, the pressure really picking up since he was sixteen — watched, measured, ranked. Talked about like the future before he’s had the chance to grow old enough to really have a past. The last two days in LA have just been more of the same: interviews, media hits, stepping in front of cameras and then away again, able to breathe once they turn off. His social battery, charged and then depleted, over and over.
He barely has anything left as he cuts through the lobby toward the elevators and looks up to see a full setup already waiting, lights on, cameras fixed, a space cleared out like it belongs to them now — and realizes, with a slow drop in his stomach, that these are the cameras that won’t be turning off.
“Ready?” Yuna asks, a hand on his elbow.
“I kind of have to be, don’t I?” he says, smiling without looking at her.
The commitment spans more than a year, embedded media tracking him from Draft Day through his rookie season — including whether he even makes the roster, or burns out before the show ever airs. The First Shift won’t premiere until the start of the 2010–2011 season — slated for primetime on a premium network in both the States and Canada, A-list narration, press tour, the whole thing. There are options, depending on how he performs — whether his team makes the Cup, wins it.
But first, he has to get drafted.
And he’s only one of three players they’ll follow.
He didn’t ask who the others were.
So when he finds Ilya Rozanov standing at the center of the film crew, mouth curling into a wry smile at something a cameraman has said, he’s both surprised and not.
Ilya Rozanov — Russia’s number one export, and, if things go the way they’re supposed to, the player drafted right after him. Of course he’d be at the top of their list alongside Shane — their budding rivalry already a recurring theme in every interview he’s done today.
“Hollander,” he says, low, as Shane approaches. Not a greeting exactly, but more than Rozanov gave him back in Regina when Shane introduced himself the first time.
“Rozanov,” Shane returns, just as even. He can feel the shift as a camera — and everyone around them — locks in on the space between them, on the moment their hands meet. A firm shake. Once. No more. “Good to see you again.”
“Will not be when I am drafted first and you are crying into jersey of a team no one wants to play for.”
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