who actually got to kiss shane on a kiss cam? please elaborate
Some random fucking guy with a dream.
TW for suicidal thoughts and self destructive behavior
The kiss cam incident happens as part of a saga I like to call “Shane and Rose’s adventures in Chicago.”
The Boston Raiders feel personally victimized by Shane and Rose’s adventures in Chicago. The Boston Raiders feel that Shane and Rose’s adventures in Chicago sort of ruined their fucking lives.
SHANE AND ROSE’S ADVENTURES IN CHICAGO, ABRIDGED:
One of the factors complicating Shane And Rose’s Epic Quest To Find A New Thing To Dedicate Their Entire Lives To So The Emptiness Of Existence Doesn’t Send Them Screaming Mad Into The Desert is the fact that they have absolutely no internet access. This is due to their own personal choice. They cannot risk anything with a screen that’s more technologically advanced than their shitty hot pink Razr flip phones from 2004. This is an absolute fucking corner stone of their mental health.
Shane and Rose are in hard core avoidance mode. They medically cannot handle facing what’s happened to them. They are trying to triage the situation. They’re going to figure out how to want to be alive first and then they’re going to go back and address the fuck ton of trauma rotting in their guts like nuclear waste. They’re doing absolutely every single thing they can to avoid having Any Awareness Whatsoever of what people are saying about them because neither of them are admitting it out loud but they’re both worried that if they actually have to grapple with it it’s going to turn their reverse suicide pact into a suicide pact. So right now they simply cannot fucking risk internet access. If they see a fucking screen then they are dodging and they are weaving.
There are inherent issues with this strategy. For one:
How. How the fuck do find ice sculpting lessons if you can’t google it.
Shane and Rose have a collection of phonebooks and a final thread that they’re hanging onto with every ounce of strength in their bodies and also two shitty hot pink razr flip phones from 2004. That’s. That’s all they’re working with right now.
To fill in the gaps, they’re willing to diverge from the List Of Possible Life Passions they wrote in a fugue state in New Mexico and just try whatever they see a fucking billboard for. Sure. Maybe they could be cheesemongers. The opportunity to find out is only 63 miles away, and they don’t have anything scheduled. Ever. Ever again.
Eventually they find themselves in Chicago. They saw a billboard for the Chicago school of shoemaking and leather arts and said to themselves. Hey. We’ve got time.
Forever.
Because our lives are empty.
Anyway they decide to hit up a cubs game while they’re there. Rose knows Shane very well, they share a soul, but sometimes he just gets. Quiet. In a way that makes her secretly terrified that maybe the pact won’t work. And she just has to sort of fucking guess how to pull him out of the funk.
Her boy is a Purebred Jock of considerable pedigree and she thinks maybe he misses sports?? Testosterone?? Men in tight pants?? They are two people lost at sea trying to fling driftwood to each other so they don’t drown but also the entire time they’re struggling to keep their own head afloat. Rose Is Trying Okay.
She thinks maybe baseball. He’d like baseball, wouldn’t he? America’s pastime. Super popular sport. And maybe he’d even like being a baseball boy. He could do a space jam. Yeah. A space jam. Maybe his new life passion is just Another Sport But People Try To Kill Him Less. Shane will love baseball.
Shane absolutely fucking hates baseball.
There’s so much standing and waiting and running but only for short periods of time and no one even tries to fight each other. When the players get mad the teams just stand in a line facing each other and making angry eye contact. That’s embarrassing. You’re embarrassing yourselves. Punch each other.
Rose: Shane you barely ever fought when you played
Shane: I liked having the OPTION
Shane does not want to be here watching this fucking baseball game. He does not want to do that at all.
He doesn’t want to do anything, actually, in a way that’s starting to really scare him. Some days are just. Really bad. This is one of the worst he’s had so far.
Shane woke up feeling like there was spit on his skin and ice pressed against his cheek and a third feeling he’s never been able to place, something sticky and hot and cold at the same time next to his brow, until this morning he finally realized it was the feeling of his own blood caught between his skin and the ice. And then the sleep cleared from his brain and he threw up in the shitty motel trash can because he couldn’t make it to the bathroom in time.
He’s. He’s been angry pretty much every single second of the day since.
It’s like acid under his skin. He’s angry and he’s humiliated and he just wants to not think about it anymore. He’s so tired of being angry. He’s so tired of it hurting all the time. He just wants to stop thinking every day. He wants to live but he doesn’t want to live like this and he doesn’t know if it’s possible for him to live any other way now. He just. He’s so angry. It boils under his skin, every single day, every single moment. He doesn’t know how to get better. And he’s terrified that this is all a big waste of time because. Because maybe sometimes all roads lead to Rome. Maybe there was only ever one way this was going to end.
It’s just. A bad day. He doesn’t want to talk, really.
Of course, People Notice that Shane Hollander and Rose Landry are sitting watching this cubs game in the fucking nosebleeds. There’s a lot of whispering and Shane’s pretty fucking sure multiple people are filming them. Jesus can they fucking go yet
The kiss cam lands on them
Fuck
They famously don’t want to kiss each other. And normally they’d just kiss each other on the cheek or something and not give a shit, it’s not like they’re shy with each other. Shane has been inside of Rose in an act that still sort of haunts both of them. But. Really tears down those physical boundaries. They’re fine with a fucking cheek kiss. But Shane doesn’t want to do a fucking cheek kiss. He doesn’t want to be expected to kiss rose at all. He wants everyone to fuck off and leave him alone. They already fucking broadcast his sexuality and his stress ulcer and his eating disorder and the play-by-play of that one kind of degrading thing that he enthusiastically let Ilya do to his body in 2015. They got enough out of him already. He’s just fucking done.
They don’t kiss.
The camera. Lingers.
Just when Shane thinks that he’s finally won this staring contest with The Entire Stadium, someone starts shouting to wait.
There is some random fucking guy absolutely goddamn booking it to their section. He scales over the seats in multiple rows. He nearly takes out a family of four. He flirts with bodily injury, both his own and the injury of others. The man runs like God’s fucking flood is coming and the doors to the Arc are about to close.
He reaches Shane and rose. He shakes one of Shane’s hands in both of his.
And he’s like. Hi, hello, super cool to meet you, Shane Hollander. Sir. He doesn’t mean to put Shane on the spot but this is sort of a long held dream of his. Since 2015. Specifically.
And Shane is like. 2015…? Oh Jesus Christ. The Calvin Klein photoshoot.
And the guy’s like. Yes. Huge fan of his work. Huge. No pressure, he’ll walk away right now if Shane wants but also. Could not let the opportunity pass without shooting his shot. He’d like to offer himself into service for this once in a lifetime opportunity.
He doesn’t look anything like Ilya.
His hair is brown and floppy. He’s attractive and fit and has a bright white smile with very straight teeth. Shane doesn’t really want to kiss him all that much, if he’s being honest.
But also the anger is still itching beneath his skin and he’s so tired and frustrated that it’s unbearable. He just wants to feel something, anything other than what he’s feeling right now.
So he’s like fuck it. How old are you?
The guy swears he’s 24.
And Shane is like. Uh-huh. Do you have ID to prove that?
Shane’s in a self destructive spiral but he’s not in such a self destructive spiral that he’s letting some fucking. 19 year old shove his tongue down his throat. Or, worse, younger. Some people just look older than they actually are, and shane’s always been bad at telling ages. He wants a government ID
This guy needs his fucking wallet. Oh my god oh my god oh my god SOMEONE THROW HIM HIS FUCKING WALLET
One of the guy’s friends makes his own sprint up with the guy’s wallet in hand. He delivers it with a smile, as well as a fist bump and at least four excited slaps on the back. The guy hands his ID over like it’s a winning lottery ticket.
Ugh. His name is fucking Matt. That makes this worse, somehow.
Shane hands back his ID. So. He really is 24.
Uh-huh. And, Matt adds, he has an Olympic-level talent at hockey. He swears
Shane tells him he’s hurting his own odds.
Then, he stands up and kisses him.
He lets it go on for too long. Definitely lets it involve too much tongue. And he realizes half way through that Matt’s like, fucking fist pumping, which makes him feel gross. And the entire stadium is cheering, which makes him feel humiliated.
He ends the kiss. Matt looks like he feels weak in the knees.
Shane feels just as shitty as he did before, except now he has a strangers spit in his mouth.
Matt asks if anyone has a pen
Shane lets him write his number on his palm. It’s nicer than rejecting him on the fucking Jumbotron. Matt says to call him if he wants to do something, anything while he’s in town. He is down for anything
Literally anything
Matt returns to his seat. He high-fives people the whole way
Shane asks Rose, very quietly, if they can please, please leave now.
He doesn’t want to go to learn shoemaking after. No, he doesn’t want to talk about it. Rose should still go. He just wants to go for a walk alone or something. Yes, he’s just going for a fucking walk.
Yes, he promises.
THE PEOPLE IN CHICAGO WHO NOTICE THAT SHANE HOLLANDER IS ALSO IN CHICAGO KISSING FLOPPY HAIRED BOYS WITH TONGUE:
The press, rabid.
The entire gay population of Chicago, wants to shoot their shot.
The motherfucking Boston Raiders, experiencing a real monkey paw of a granted wish right now.
On one hand, in an act of the fucking divine, Shane Hollander decided to move this crashout to Chicago on the same weekend that they had an away game there. The Raiders would almost let themselves hope that he did it on purpose to see Ilya, were it not for the fact that he was going viral letting an audience member round first base at a cubs game. And not in a baseball way.
And that’s. That’s the other hand.
Ilya Rozanov takes the video of his beautiful Canadian boy on the kiss cam granting liberties to some frivolous whore about as well as Chernobyl took the reactor core melting down.
But That’s A Problem For Later. For fucking once, they’ve got concrete knowledge that Shane Hollander is within a hundred miles of them. They cannot let him slip from between their muscular fingers. Carmichael, Google the nearest wedding chapel, because their boy is finally going to be Wife.
They’re supposed to be headed for the airport to get on a plane back to Boston and instead they all fuck off into the greater Chicago area to hunt down Shane Hollander like a prize elk. They are desperately combing social media for any hint to his current whereabouts. They are splitting up to cover more ground.
Finally, Connors finds a post claiming that Rose Landry was spotted at the Chicago school of shoemaking and leather arts, which sounds like the exact kind of bullshit they’ve been on lately. Hang on, Hollander, the Boston Raiders are BRINGING you your man.
Except Shane’s not at the Chicago school of shoemaking and leather arts. He’s at Navy Pier trying to remind himself that it’d be a fucking bitch move to try to drown himself in Lake Michigan after he promised Rose he’d be fine without her. It’d be the shittiest thing he could possibly do to her, actually. She’d blame herself for leaving him alone. So he’s not going to do that. He’s just going to stand here and scrub Matt’s phone number off his palm with spit and his shirt sleeve.
Shane’s just so fucking tired.
He makes himself keep walking. Walking is better. He thinks less and remembers less and dwells less if he’s on the move. His life is shark rules, now. Stop moving, and, well. You know how the saying ends.
So he moves. He moves right into a mob of reporters. Fuck.
This isn’t super unexpected. The kiss cam bullshit is probably, surely, definitely the first time he’s ended up in the news since the ol’ hate criming and life ruining thing, he’s positive. And they haven’t been doing this for a super long time, so while he has surely Somewhat Faded, it’s not surprising that the press would show up the very first time he resurfaces, because there have been no other times, he’s sure.
And it’s fine. It’s so, so fine. Shane can handle reporters. He and Rose were both immaculate planners. It’s why they were so good at life, until they weren’t anymore.
They were aware of the possibility that they’d run into the press at some point. They were also aware of the fact that hearing and perceiving the bullshit questions reporters were bound to ask them correlated negatively with their continued survival. Shane’s got a fucking iPod nano and the best noise canceling headphones on the market. He does not, however, have a way to upload new music to it. He cannot hook it up to a computer to download new music because he cannot touch a computer, ever. He’s got whatever songs were loaded onto that thing before it ended up in a pawn shop in Alamogordo. So Shane is just blaring the most emo grunge bullshit playlist like a middle schooler in emotional crisis circa fucking 2008.
He is so, so fine right now.
Shane decides the move is to text his crashout bestie his current location and a warning that the press caught up to him. Then, he thinks he will simply power walk in the opposite direction of his problems and hope that that works, in what is ideally a metaphor for his own life. Maybe If He Just Keeps Walking In The Opposite Direction Of His Problems One Day He Will Simply Outrun Them.
But the reporters have legs too. They follow him.
That goes on for. A while.
When Shane texted Rose, he told her he’d try to shake the press and meet her back at the motel. But she cannot abide by that. That is HER crashout bestie and she is NOT leaving him to the hoards. She WILL save her man.
Rose sees a guy with a motorcycle.
Admittedly, she misses the drama of her action movie star days.
She buys the motorcycle off of him with her Rolex. Normally, this guy would be way more hesitant to sell his motorcycle one exchange for a watch whose actual value he doesn’t know and which may be fake, but he recognizes Rose and realizes 1) that this watch is almost definitely fucking real and 2) he can sell it for a fuckton of money as The Rose Landry’s Rolex. Here’s the fuckin’ keys, ma’am. You have a great day.
Rose screeches off into the streets of Chicago to go Get Her Man, which means she just misses fucking Ilya Rozanov screeching into the parking lot to Get His Man. And it’s. It’s the same man.
The Raiders see the news that Shane Hollanders been spotted at navy pier only after they’ve disturbed the making of shoes in every room in this fucking building. He’s not there. FUCK.
It’s like, a 20 minute drive. But they aren’t all at the Chicago school of shoemaking. They split up originally. Some were still making their way over.
Cliff Marleau is ten minutes from Hollander if he fucking runs.
Cliff fucking runs. 
Shane’s. Shane’s trucking along. He’s just hoping the press will get tired and give up if he ignores them long enough. This. This is getting exhausting.
Rose fucking Landry screeches up to him on a motorcycle and tells him to get the fuck on.
Shane does not do that.
Where. Where did she even get that.
Rose says she bought it. It doesn’t matter. Get on.
It sort of matters. Like objectively it sort of matters where she got it. Where exactly did she buy it from?
And Rose is like. Just some guy. Jesus. She gave him her watch for it. It’s fine, get on.
And Shane is like. Oh.
Did you get a title for it?
And rose says. GET ON THE BIKE
And Shane is like. If you didn’t get a title then he could report it stolen later. Do you have any idea how much ass Shane would have to kick to survive in prison. He’s a gay Asian celebrity. A known bottom. He’d be in fights every day.
Rose is so sorry that she didn’t stop to find a notary public to sign off on her fucking title transfer before running to save him, Shane, her very best friend in the whole wide world. Could he pretty please get on the fucking bike now.
And Shane is like. Save me? From what? From the same thing that’s already happened continuing to happen just from slightly different angles? They already took his picture, Rose. What is he afraid of, more pictures from a few seconds later?
And rose is like. Shane there are people filming this. Could you. Could you maybe just get on the bike and we can hash this one out later.
But Shane does not do that.
Seriously, what are they going to do, fight him? He could kick their ass. Where’s the fire, Rose?
Rose would be more pissed at him if this wasn’t the closest he’s gotten to a smile in days.
Okay. Oka—okay. you’re so funny, Shane. You’re so, so funny. Uh-huh. Netflix is calling tomorrow with the comedy special. But for right now could you get on the bike?
The guy she bought this from could have stolen it and then they’d go down for his crime. Think about that, Rose.
And rose says:
GET ON
THE BIKE
Shane finally gives up his stand up routine. He rounds the back of the bike to open up its storage compartment and pulls out the helmet rose had been ignoring in her rush to save a total fucking asshole. He takes his sweet time putting it on Rose.
Rose. Boils.
Shane informs her with a sickeningly smugness that it’s illegal to drive one of these things without a helmet. Didn’t she know that?
Rose: if you do not get on this fucking bike—
Shane, fully grinning now: there’s no excuse for motor vehicle code violations, rose
Rose, knows for a fact that this man drives like someone who’s trying to kill himself and others: YOU ARE SUCH A FUCKING—
Shane gets on the bike.
Approximately 1.5 seconds later, Cliff Marleau sprints around the fucking corner like he’s being chased by wild dogs. He sees them and shouts, “HOLLANDER”
Shane stares at him and says, with profound fucking confusion, “Cliff Marleau?”
Rose guns it.
She barely heard Shane say the guy’s name when she did it. It takes her fifteen minutes to place where she’s heard it before. He’s a hockey player. He plays for Boston.
He’s not…?
And Shane is like. No. No, no. It wasn’t him. Shane barely knew that guy. He thinks they’ve talked maybe twice in Shane’s life. He probably just. Was in town for a game and saw Shane by coincidence. He must have been surprised to see Shane. That’s. That’s the only reason why he’d call out to him, right? It could only be that.
It’s fine. He just. He uh. He hadn’t realized the Boston Raiders were playing Chicago this weekend. It’s not a big deal. Just. Surprised him a little.
He didn’t think he’d ever see any of them again, is all.
Rose watches him carefully. He played Boston a lot, didn’t he? Was he friends with any of them? Does he maybe want to see if he can talk to them while they were all in the same city? Rose will go with him, if he wants to try.
It takes Shane a long time to answer.
No. No, he—
He sort of wants to get as far away from this fucking city as he can.
THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF SHANE AND ROSE’S ADVENTURES IN CHICAGO:
They have to ditch a fucking motorcycle because Shane REFUSES to go down for a theft that never happened. He’d have to start his own prison gang to survive, Rose. While he thrives in leadership roles he does not want that one. And also they are not towing that thing across the United States. It stays in Chicago.
The guy whose motorcycle that used to be is able to buy a lovely condo with a view after he sells The Rose Landry’s Rolex. Yayyyy homeownership 🎊
The guy whose tongue got to spend 12 and a half seconds in Shane fucking Hollander’s throat gets his five minutes of fame and multiple Etsy witch curses levied against him by a hacked-off Ilya Rozanov. He gives Shane Hollander rave reviews. Shane does not know this. He is simply too offline. But if you asked him, he’d say that other guy was fine, he guesses. He wasn’t super paying attention at the time. Didn’t leave much of an impression. He was sort of going through something in the moment.
Cliff Marleau is suddenly and inexorably connected to Shane Hollander in the public eye considering multiple reporters recorded him hauling fucking ass around a corner in a desperate attempt to speak with Shane. Much to his offense, no one thinks that he could be Shane Hollander’s disrespectful bisexual lover. Everyone immediately agrees he is not good enough at hockey for Shane Hollander to want to fuck him. Which. Wow. Fuck you too, actually.
There’s like a seven and a half minute span where the Raiders are worried they’ll connect Cliff’s desperation to find Shane to his motherfucking boy, Ilya Rozanov, who is objectively good enough at hockey for Shane Hollander to want to fuck him. This. Also does not happen.
Instead, the Internet decides that Cliff is gay for Shane Hollander and possibly in general and was trying to shoot his shot. Which. Not a super fun time for Cliff, dealing with that rumor. When the shit eventually hits the fan with the NHL, he finds himself schlepping up to its New York offices to have awkward meetings with executives about how he totally feels safe in the League. Yep. Super safe. Safe as a house. Haha what do you mean does he feel safe enough to come out. Come out as wha—ah fuck
He runs into Carter Vaughn a lot at these meetings. The eye contact is. Beleaguered.
Ilya watches the video of Shane on the kiss cam enough times that the Raiders feel the need to hold an intervention for him. It is one of many. Practice does not make them easier over time, they find.
Look. They know how much Hollander means to him. And they know he’s worried that Shane will move on before they can find him. But it’s not healthy for him to torture himself with the footage of Hollander kissing another dude. They know its a blow to Ilya that Hollander’s opening himself up to seeing other people, but right now it’s just kissing. Plenty of people like to just mess around when they’re getting over a relationship. Ilya still has time to woo his man.
And Ilya is like. No. No, they are wrong. That is not the issue.
The issue is that that is not how Shane Hollander kisses.
But like. Objectively it is. That’s visibly Shane. Kissing. On video. So it is how Shane Hollander kisses.
Oh, and they are experts suddenly? No. There is only one expert in the world on how Shane Hollander kisses and it is Ilya. He is the founding father of the subject, actually. Developing this field has been the accomplishment of his life. His honor. And he was dedicated to his work. He catalogued Shane’s kisses with the devotion of a scholar and a saint, all of them, every last one. He experimented with them and memorized them and learned how to elicit each and every type. He knows how Shane Hollander kisses. That isn’t it.
He didn’t like it. That’s what no one else is seeing. Shane did it, but he didn’t like it. He was miserable the whole kiss, but he didn’t put a stop to it. He just let it go on. And everyone fucking clapped.
Ilya thinks something is really wrong.
