"i don't think i can keep pretending i don't like you anymore" x "the worst fucking part of all this is... all i want is you"
ilya and shane: free now x stupid song
"not even Rozanov wants to see someone hurt like that" is such a sad fucking line. He's literally a sweet empathetic loving boy forced into the role of an aloof coldhearted fuckboy to sell tickets. Devastating.
Ok, what if when two soulmates happen to be in front of a mirror at the same time they can see each other? It starts almost immediately so Shane at three or four is sitting on his parents' bed watching his mother get ready and instead of himself he sees another little boy with a halo of curls. They stare at each other. Shane, confused, waves. His wrong reflection does not wave with him. The other boy tilts his head and blinks in confusion. His mother doesn't notice. After a beat, the other boy pulls a face at him and sticks out his tongue. Purely on instinct, Shane sticks his tongue back out at him. They both laugh and then the other little boy freezes and runs off. Shane's reflection returns.
"What's funny, baby?" his mother asks.
"Nothing." Shane says because he has no idea what that was.
It takes awhile for happenstance to strike again, and even then it's only glimpses for awhile. Then at ten, they move and Shane has his own bathroom with a big mirror. Sometimes when he's getting ready for school in the morning, brushing his teeth, the other boy is there instead, but he's dressed like he's going to bed. By now, Shane has heard about soulmates, he wonders if the other boy has too. So Shane mouths 'hi'. The other boy frowns and mouths back something else entirely. When Shane shakes his head, the boy wrinkles his nose. It takes a few tries before Shane painstakingly writes a message out backwards and show it to the mirror 'My name is Shane. I speak English. You?'
The other boy stares at the words, frowns and then runs off. Shane waits and even though he winds up almost missing the bus it's worth it because the other boy holds up a sign with weird lettering, but he's patient enough to hold it until Shane can take a picture with his Polaroid. It takes weeks of looking in the library (Shane doesn't ask his teachers much of anything usually and anyway, he doesn't ever know what to do with himself during library time, so it gives him a project). He determines the other boy is using Cyrillic. This explains less than he'd like. The school library doesn't have any books about Cyrillic. Defeated, he finally caves and tells his parents "I see a boy in the mirror, he uses this alphabet, can I get a book?" His mother hugs him very hard. Soulmates, he learns, are rare and precious. He also learns that maybe his parents were worried about him in ways that don't entirely make sense, but okay. Fine. Glad we squared that away. Can I have a dictionary now?
If it had been two years later, he might not have asked. He would have been too afraid of what it might mean to have a male soulmate. Lucky they moved. Lucky that they brush their teeth and the same time.
Shaky-handed characters and pantomime get them to 'Ilya' and 'Shane'. A lucky glimpse in a locker room bathroom gets them to 'hockey'. They start to use clocks to make sure they don't miss each other. When Ilya misses one of their schedule times, Shane can barely think about anything else all day. He knows they won't have a chance again until tomorrow, but when he goes to pee before dinner, he finds Ilya in the mirror, his eyes red-rimmed. For the first time, Ilya seems way too far away. Shane put his hand to the mirror and when Ilya put his hand up too and it's shaking, Shane wants desperately to be closer. That's how his mom finds him on top of the vanity which is not doing well with the weight of a preadolescent hockey player with his whole torso pressed to the glass. She doesn't make him get down. Maybe because he's crying too without any idea what they're both sobbing about. He won't for years.
It goes and goes. Shane interrupts Ilya getting ready to go out, finds him styling his hair. Shane mimics him with a smile and Ilya wrinkles his nose at him. Ilya watches Shane floss in bafflement, but takes up the habit too, seemingly so he can make fun of the faces Shane makes. When they happen to catch each other in hockey gear, they use their fingers to signal goals and assists. Shane keeps track in a little book that holds a lot of things. No one else can see Ilya, anymore than any one can see Shane on Ilya's side, but they learn to be careful in public restrooms, coming up with a clear subtle signal for 'not home' since they can't see the others location. They watch each other grow up. They learn how to write in each other's languages and backwards at that.
And finally, finally, comes the sentence that makes Shane's heart skip a beat. In Ilya's pretty handwriting (good even in his second language and backwards which makes Shane unbearably jealous and proud):
I will see you soon.
They meet at four sitting on their mother's beds across the world from each other. They meet at twelve, sharing a pain that doesn't need words to be clear. They meet at fourteen, Shane fresh out of the shower and Ilya shirtless, things wakening in Shane that he thought he would never understand. They meet at sixteen, hands pressed to the place on Shane's mirror that is always marred with fingerprints.
They meet at seventeen. Shane sees him across the parking lot and tries to stay cool, walking instead of running. He watches Ilya try to light his cigarette and gets there before flame touches it.
"You're not kissing me for the first time tasting like cigarette smoke, asshole."
"This is not romantic," Ilya protested. "This is not first time I hear your voice."
"I love you," Shane said irritably, "do not light that thing or I'll throw up."
Ilya's breath caught. "You do not know me. You do not love me yet."
"I do," Shane said stubbornly. Then he stuck out his hand, "I'm Shane Hollander."
With a smirk, Ilya took his hand. "Ilya Rozanov."
Shane didn't let his hand go. He held firm and Ilya didn't try to pull away.
"There, now we know each other. I love you. Kiss me."
"Shane. I have to go back. It is no good there if we..."
"I know. Mom read me a bunch of articles," Shane said with a shrug. "But there's no one else out here. Kiss here. Everything else later. Okay?"
"Okay," Ilya said.
They kissed in that terrible parking lot and Shane never wanted it to end. He pulled away with a soft sigh.
"Wow."
"Wow," Ilya repeated teasingly. "You will say this when we beat you too."
"Not happening," Shane laughed. He was still holding Ilya's hand, a circuit completed.
When Shane got back in the car, his mother asks, "How did it go?"
Shane has a number in his pocket and a promise for a mirror meeting tonight once Ilya's roommate goes to sleep that makes his ears burn.
"He's kind of an asshole," Shane said, delighted.
"Okay," his mother laughed. "I can't wait to meet him."
And it's not that it's easy. Ilya goes to Boston and Shane goes to Montreal. They will have years before they see each other more in person than through reflections. But when Ilya gets ready for game 7 of the Cup, he does it with Shane smoldering with lusty jealousy from twelve inches away. And when it's Shane's turn, Ilya wears his jersey alone in the privacy of his house so Shane can see it before he heads off to victory.
Even years later, when they're married and more often before a mirror together than trying to communicate through them, sometimes they do it anyway. If Shane is washing his hands, ready to go back out to a photoshoot, he'll look up to find Ilya flirting with him or holding up Anya to make her wave at him.
There is always a handprint on their mirrors.
Sometimes they are apart, but they are rarely alone.
smiling thinking about the prospect of seeing Troy and Ilya together on our screens, that’s MY emotional support active suicide risk #1 and active suicide risk #2 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
my phone just autocorrected the word love to lube so obviously I'm imagining this happening to ilya. he sends shane an I lube you message and shane responds with ???? and ilya is laughing his head off but doubles down and sends 💦👆🕳 back and shane is like you meant to say I love you didn't you and ilya says no I meant what I said. anyway the next time they have sex and ilya is fingering shane they're both silent and then ilya cracks a smirk and shane is like I KNEW YOU WERE THINKING ABOUT THAT STOP IT
Shane and Ilya would have the most insane inside jokes that A) no one apart from them gets and B) just look completely ridiculous from the perspective of everyone else.
Whenever someone forgets their phone charger Ilya and Shane just look at each other and snort. "We always carry a spare one. You never know who might need one", Shane explains. Which. For some reason makes Ilya laugh every time??
Shane always takes a picture whenever they see something with a wolf, giggling to himself as he sends it to Ilya. Ilya pretends to be annoyed but secretly loves it. Very important to note that Shane also does this when they're out with the team standing two feet apart from each other. Troy once asks Ilya if he likes wolves. Ilya tells him no.
Whenever someone orders a burger Ilya asks "where are the other seven". Shane flips him off but five seconds later they're both laughing.
There also seems to be some joke involving Jurrasic Park and Scott Hunter? Wyatt tries to ask Scott once but Scott just yells "NOT YOU TOO".
Just Hollanov laughing with each other and joking around and even though nobody on the Centaurs really get it, it's nice to see the two of them just existing together and being happy and laughing at their silly little jokes.
When their baby is about a year old, Shane finds Ilya opening a package containing three toys - stuffed hockey skates, a little plastic hockey stick, and a little soft net.
“What are you doing?”
“We need to figure out what position our baby will play,” Ilya explained with a grin and pointed to each toy. “Defender, forward, goalie.”
“Why are skates defender? Everybody wears skates. And everyone has a stick.”
“Shh, Hollander.”
Shane watches and holds their baby, amused, as his husband carefully sets out the three toys. Ilya sits behind the line and tells Shane to put baby down.
Their baby toddles over and looks over the three toys. Even Shane is a bit interested now, like Ilya’s test will somehow determine their child’s future position.
Their baby reaches towards the middle one, the stick, but only to push it to the side to get to Ilya, crashing into his chest with a happy giggle.
“Oh,” Ilya breathed out, looking so incredibly soft as he wrapped his arms around the little one.
He looked up a Shane with misty eyes.
Shane came over and sat beside them. He kissed the baby’s head, “good choice.”
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