Everyone has their corny fic trope they will never not love, and for me it’s mafia/organized crime AUs. So, consider.
A summer night in Manitoba. Shane fighting sleep from the driver’s seat of his patrol car, four hours left on his shift.
Nights like this are dangerous because they allow his mind to wander back to a time when he wasn’t always a small-town cop, writing parking tickets and getting the short end of the stick with his patrol times. In another lifetime he was one of the youngest members of the RCMP, back before the lifetime blacklist and demotion down to the lowest possible rung of police work with no hope of ever rising up again.
A car zips by, the first in hours. Barely anyone drives on this back-end, one-way road this late, not even teenagers looking for trouble. Shane ignores half the cars that pass through, but this one has a trifecta of infractions: no plates, double the speed limit, dead right tail light.
Shane sighs and turns on the flashing lights, pulling away from his patrol spot on the shoulder. The car pulls over immediately, obediently. Shane is relieved; the last thing he wants to do at 3 in the morning is start a pursuit.
He gets out of his car, flashlight in one hand, wanders over to the driver’s side door prepared to see a stoned teenager or a night shift construction worker woozy from lack of sleep.
Instead, Shane freezes, his fingers going so limp he nearly drops his flashlight.
The man sitting in the driver’s seat should not be here. He should be miles away, at his home base in Montreal, not driving a piece of shit beater in the middle of nowhere.
And Shane should not be here with him, because as far as Ilya Rozanov knows, Shane Hollander’s body burned up in a car fire four years ago.
Ilya blinks at Shane, narrowing his eyes. It’s dark, even with the flashing light spilling behind them and the tiny light in Shane’s hand. If he gets through this quickly, maybe Ilya won’t even get a good look at his face.
“Can I help you, Officer?” Ilya asks, tapping the steering wheel once, twice, with his pointer finger. Hearing his voice sends twin lines of heat and ice down Shane’s spine.
“Sorry, ah,” Shane clears his throat. “You have…you were going a little fast.”
“I am not from around here.”
“Right, well, just don’t do it again,” Shane says. “Um, and get that tail light fixed. Have a good night.”
He turns on his heel, forcing his legs to move fast despite the fact they feel wobbly. He just needs to get to his car and it’ll be fine.
He hears the door of the other car open behind him, heavy boots settling on the ground.
“Officer,” Ilya calls behind him.
He keeps walking, but the feet behind him are walking, too, faster.
Shane makes it to the squad car, grabs the door handle like a lifeline, but before he can get it open, a heavy body is pinning him down.
“Too slow,” Ilya says behind him, pulling his hand away from the door handle so he could hold Shane’s arms behind his back.
“Sir,” Shane whispers. Tears prick at his eyes, the animal fear rising in his body. “Please just…go back to your car.”
“But I wanted to tell you something, Officer,” Ilya says. “It’s very funny. Do you want to hear it?”
Shane hears Ilya unclip something from his belt, feels cool metal press into his side. Ilya leans in so close he can feel his breath along the shell of his ear.
“You look just like my dead husband.”
Shane’s body goes limp, the memories rushing back to him at once.
He used to be very, very good at his job. So good he was once entrusted to lead an undercover sting of one of the country’s most deeply rooted bratva families. He was meant to find all he could on the family’s young and newly minted pakhan, find a weakness in the newly shaken power structure. He had succeeded more than anyone could imagine, including himself.
But he was not meant to get attached. And in that aspect he had failed horribly.
Ilya’s lips press to his neck, over his jumping pulse point.
“Did you think I would not find you, Зайчик?”
Shane has not heard that name in four years, and it undoes him.
“Ilya,” he whispers, the less scrap of self preservation leaving his body. “Please.”
He doesn’t know what he’s even asking for. To not die? To die quickly and painlessly?
Ilya tugs on his arm. It’s pathetic, really, the way Shane peels away easily from the car and collapses into Ilya’s waiting body. The barrel of the gun is still stuck between his ribs, but he knows he would move even without it.
“Come on,” Ilya says, nodding towards the beater. Shane can see now how obvious this whole thing was, a series of petty traffic infractions laid out of him like he’s a rat in a trap. A bunny hopping blindly to the wolves.
“At least tell me where you’re taking me,” Shane says. He doesn’t know where he finds the strength to say it, to make any request at all. Ilya looks at him like Shane has asked the color of the sky.
“You do not know?” he asks. “I am taking you home.”
one time at a funeral i panicked and said the first drink i could think of and the bartender made me the pina colada With all the fixings all the trims all the bells and whistles i didnt even ask imagine youre at a funeral and the person besides you is drinking a pina colada with whip cream as tall as the drink with a cherry and an umbrella, thats what happened to me
There exists a video somewhere of Shane Hollander standing in the parking garage of Censplex wearing a backwards snapback and althetic shorts with an inseam that is probably quite literally just listed as 'slut' on the tag as he stares down whoever is holding the camera. In his hands is a beautiful and perfectly spherical watermelon. In his eyes there is nothing.
"You want me to do what?" he asks.
"Crush it," says Harris, too loud and close to the camera.
"Like, with my hands?"
"The challenge is to do it with your thighs."
Shane, his face and his watermelon do not move.
"It's for charity."
Smash cut to Shane sitting on a parking block, face bright red as he reroutes every bit of strength in his entire body towards his thighs. He is utterly silent, straining, and he only makes a sound when the watermelon finally gives up and crumples under the onslaught.
The sound he makes is high, long and deeply inappropriate. It also echoes throughout the entire parking garage for what seems to be a preternaturally long time.
"What the fuck is--" Ilya, who heard that shit through an open window all the way in the team offices, careens out of the propped-open side door just in time to see his husband bite a hunk of watermelon from the dripping remnants. There is juice on his thighs.
"Hey," Shane says, and then squints at the camera, deadpan once again. "I nominate Ilya Rozanov for the watermelon crushing challenge. Or whatever."
CLEARING THE AIR that My Cliff Marly would never be shitty to Shane he LOVES him….. cliff/ilya/shane all share locations on the Find My App and cliff will send memes to shane constantly and Shane doesn’t think they are funny but he doesn’t want to be rude so he thumbs up reacts the messages and ilya is like. Myshane :) i love that you love my brother :) and shane is like He has me as his emergency contact ilya… I’m scared to NOT answer the phone… ilya is like wow. My man!!!! 😍 anyways My Cliff sends them an obscene amount of flowers every year for their anniversary with a hand written note thats like “Real love to some Real lovers. Big up big dogs xoxo cliffy”
cliff voice: hollzyyyy happy Birthday big dog!!! the strippers i got ya should be on their way! Ha Ha just kidding buddy i didn't order any strippers, don't worry. they're called exotic dancers now. I'm joking Buddy I'm joking. they should be there in an hour though. Roz didn't tell ya? Nah I'm just messing with you man haha take it easy. make sure you have cash on you though *hangs up*
