S: Nineteen-nineteen. That’s the code. For the front door. I’ll text it to you.
I: Front door. Brave.
S: Fuck you.
I: Later
This scene lasts only around fifteen seconds, but puts so much rich subtext into the story with so few words and is the first whisper of the Ottawa plan and “we just want a future.”
Personal note: All of my Heated Rivalry analyses are based exclusively on the television show and do not include anything pulled from the books. I have and will likely go further into depth about this at one point or another (and if you follow me on tHReads you’ve already read some of my thoughts on this), but the long and short of it is that the show is superior to the books in the way a full moon on a cool, clear night is superior to the LED indicator light on my toaster oven.
We know Shane is deeply anxious about potential discovery, but likewise only weeks before had admitted to Ilya that he couldn’t keep up the pretense of hatred between them anymore. And here he is, instigating a quiet but very public conversation about their shared sex life. This is frankly, given everything we know about Shane, absolutely nuts.
Shane, a man who’s always awkward when the topic of sex is brought up (except when actively having it), skates over to his clandestine lover, in front of God, the general managers, and the sponsors (don’t think for one second that the perfect centering of the Cheetos logo is accidental), to confirm their meeting-up and to share his apartment’s security code. To paraphrase an office worker’s battle cry, this could have been a text message. After seven years of doing this, Shane Hollander goddamn knows this could have been a text message.
But this moment across the red line is about them getting to see and hear each other ahead of the “hatred” act of the game. A rare moment of permissible public kindness is available to them due to Ilya’s recent personal loss.
And there’s the fact that Shane is inviting Ilya into the house through the front door for the first time since Ilya started visiting. In all this time, Ilya’s been stuck in the dark, scary murder alley behind Shane’s apartment, but now he’s been given the code for the front door, the well-lit, public-facing entrance.
It’s important to remember that scene previous to this was the gutting tunnel scene, and as we know the next with Shane’s injury will be just as upsetting, so this bit of flirtatious levity serves as brief emotional reprieve. But again it’s more than that. This is a Shane who has a plan to invite Ilya to his cottage, to ask for “a week or even two,” more time than they’ve ever had and are aching for. Shane’s giving Ilya the front door code is a preview of that. Come home with me, my real home, a place where no pretending is required.
And on the ice the dialogue goes from “if overheard this would certainly raise questions” to raunchy and downright undeniable when Ilya responds to Shane’s “fuck you” not with retaliation but with a promise, pulling the affectionately-delivered insult into its verb form and his voice to its huskier register. Five years before, Shane had reprimanded Ilya for sexting him before a Metros-Raiders game, but he’s certainly no longer thrown by the bald desire in Ilya’s well-chosen single word. “Later.”
And then the moment’s sexy playfulness turns into an unwitting moment of quiet devotion when Shane skates back over to Hayden, who asks what Shane could possibly have been discussing with Rozanov. Shane is forced to lie in that moment (and it’s sad how good he’s gotten at it), that he had offered his condolences for Rozanov’s recent loss only to be rudely rebuffed. Hayden laughingly calls Ilya a dick. There have probably been dozens of variations of this exact same conversation. Except this time, instead of quietly agreeing, Shane says something new.
“He’s really not that bad, it’s mostly an act.”
Despite his deception seconds before, this is probably the most truthful thing Shane’s ever said to anyone about the man he’s in love with. This is Shane’s first moment of unraveling a story that has been dictating his life for the better part of a decade. This fiction of the two prodigies despising each other is no longer tenable, not on this side of Tampa. Shane may not have an active plan to do so yet, but he’s already desperate to change the narrative. I don’t think I can keep pretending not to like you anymore.
This is like one of those romance novels where people bond over accidentally writing each other emails but better.
Like Pride and Prejudice but instead of the love interest getting dissed for his toxicity and then reforming, it’s just two people bonding over dissing a dead toxic asshole.
Remember in the Princess Bride when Prince Humperdinck wanted to go to war with Guilder, he pretended to fall in love with a beautiful commoner girl, kept her in the public eye long enough for the populace to like her, then hired mercenaries to kidnap and murder her because the idea of invading another country without the will of the people behind him was so unthinkable, and neither the characters nor the audience ever questioned it?
Ok I have been thinking about a Heated Rivalry X Percy Jackson AU for months, JUST STICK WITH ME FOR A SECOND-
Alright so Shane has to be a son of Nike. I mean he loves hockey, but he also loves winning. And he’s damn good at winning. That man literally got the ick from Ilya playing for a losing team. I think he could also have wings like Nike, but not all the time.
But then Ilya is a son of Mercury(Hermes) which is literally perfect. Mercury representing trickery, speed, and athletics. Ilya looooves fucking with people.
They’re at different camps obviously, they have to dislike each other in that way. But also maybe Ilya being a praetor? I mean he’s captain so I feel like that role of leadership at camp Jupiter would fit him. But he doesn’t always feel fit to lead. Ik Shane might feel more at home with the structure and rules of Jupiter, I kinda disagree. In HR Ilya grows up with much more structure compared to Shane’s childhood- more rules and way more responsibility. Ilya is forced to grow up before Shane.
I am not done with this AU. I just wanted to get my thoughts out there lol
(They’re basically Percy and Jason variants holy shit life is worth living)
I have two tabs open. one is tumblr. I am 160 posts back on my dashboard - I have made it back to the place I left off the night before.
satisfied, I open the second tab to pull up a post-avengers fanfic. everyone lives together in stark tower - each of them has their own floor. for no explained reason, loki shares thor’s. no one questions that he has not been arrested. the team has friday evening movie nights. at breakfast, thor eats all of tony’s pop tarts.
to all the people saying this was an embarrassing time: I am 34 full years old and reading/writing these fics brought me so much joy and rereading them still does. embarrassment is a construct, cringe culture is dead, and the found family trope saves lives.
No matter what the name of the Tierneyverse Ottawa team ends up being, we had better get another hilarious and blatantly sexual visual pun for the logo.
protagonists can and will be sexist, racist, insensitive, cruel, stupid, etc, especially towards the beginning of a story. these are called character flaws and they are a surprise tool that will lead to narrative fulfillment later
And sometimes "narrative fulfillment" doesn't mean "the character overcomes their flaws" or even "the antihero is punished for their flaws"! sometimes it means the narrative says "wow was that fucked up or what? anyway i'm rod sterling"
snowghoul
discoholicmusic
andulkaphoto
stormborns
janainaart
