ilya: hm. what makes you think that? (my brother in christ we have been having gay sex for close to a decade now. wtf are u on about)

shane: fuck you! you aren't gay! (you have the choice. you can be with a woman and it won't be a lie to yourself. you wouldn't be in agony every second of your life. you can live the way the world wants you to and it won't be a lie)

ilya: no, not completely (yeah, i'm attracted to men and women both, but what does it fucking matter? whether i am completely gay or not, the fact that i like men is enough to alienate me from the place that birthed me)

shane: well i think i am! completely. (i'm not perfect anymore. i've realised that i cannot be with a woman. i lie in bed with a woman and it feels like a punishment. i have to think of you to feel even the slightest pleasure despite having a girlfriend men would kill for.)

ilya: why are you telling me this? (why does your being gay or not gay matter? a label means nothing when it doesn't change the secrecy, the wrongness, the inevitability of this, of us both.)

Someone clips it and it goes viral.

Over the next few days, Shane and Ilya's mentions start to get flooded with pictures. Mostly it's screenshots from various games they played against each other, meticulously picked through by dedicated fans to find every moment Shane and Ilya looked at each other on the ice.

Some screenshots get shared by hundreds of different people because they stand out so obviously: Shane and Ilya meeting each other's eyes during a face off; Ilya looking at Shane while his back is turned, naked longing visible on his face; Shane chasing after Ilya with a small but delighted grin.

There are also pictures from press events, award ceremonies, behind the scenes at All Stars. Seemingly any time Shane and Ilya got captured in the same frame gets dug up and shared.

Finally, a couple of weeks later, the director of Shane and Ilya's CCM commercial posts outtakes from their shoot. It's captioned 'Took a bit of digging but I knew I still had these somewhere! I had to make my contribution to the #HollanovArchives even though this must have been a while before they got together. These kids had crazy chemistry, right from the start!'

Shane hasn't responded to the onslaught yet, too overwhelmed by the (slightly terrifying) dedication of their fans as well as the fact that he now has dozens of pictures clearly displaying his and Ilya's love for each other during a time in their lives when it was so desperately hidden.

He does respond now, sharing the director's post with a sincere (and publicist-approved) caption thanking him and the fans.

They're semi-frequently cornered by Rose's LA club gay friends and Fabian's arthouse gay friends who constantly bring up random gay culture stuff. Ilya knows 10% of it Shane knows 0%. They're all in a mutual hatred society

Shane's never heard of PrEP. Health Canada approaches him as a potential spokesperson and he's leafing through the documentation going, "Ilya did you know about this? Should---should I have been on this" and Ilya crashes out like, "Oh now it comes out, you let the Mexican guy fuck you bare"

The whole team settles in with rapt attention, ready to roast the shit out of Roz over it via group chat, only to see. Well. It's a series of interview clips over the years. It's made up exclusively of three things. One, clips of Hollander "stealing" linguistically challenging questions that the whole team knows Rozanov hates. Two, clips of Rozanov derailing questions that are about Hollander's "representation of his community," which gossip on the street says makes Hollander uncomfortable. Three, Hollander and Rozanov commenting individually on the rivalry, with vicious comments such as. "He's of course a great player, but he'll find us difficult to beat." Such fire in Rozanov's comments are especially damning, given his whole chirp-king-schtick. The video editor, with all the obsession and perception of a true fangirl, makes sure to circle every instance where you can see the shadow of Hollander and Rozanov pressing their feet together - and in one instance holding hands - beneath the interview table. (You wouldn't see it unless you're looking for it - or unless someone circles it in red for you.)

The video finishes, and the team sits in a kind of shocked silence as the next video auto-plays. This one is a compilation of Rozanov chirping Hollander on the ice. Here, the editor has helpfully drawn an arrow to Hollander's face whenever he blushes. The editor has also inserted text overlays with comments like. "Look at how fiercely Rozanov insults his rival." And then puts smaller arrows pointing to Roz's body language, with helpful texts like "excited wiggle indicating absolute fury," and "besotted grin indicating deep hatred." The sarcasm is distressingly accurate in its point.

(Listen, the whole team knows what Roz looks like when he's chirping someone. This - this is not it. This is not it at all. This is him when he's being silly with people he really likes. What is going on.)

The video finishes, and this time someone has the presence of mind to stop the auto-play before another mind-breaking thing comes up.

Someone else, trying to lighten the silence with a joke, and maybe dismiss it all as a fever dream, says, "Montreal Jane? More like Montreal Shane, am I right?"

And. Well.

Once it's out there, there's no coming back from it.

ilya pays the bill at restaurants by lying that he’s going to the bathroom - shane starts doing this too and now it’s a race to see who can covertly pay first

shane is super outdoorsy and can fix a lot of stuff around the house AND has tools!!!! ilya calls him mr get it done after hearing the GloRilla song

shane INSISTS on russian only days to accelerate his learning

shane uses ilya as his personal weighted blanket and other sensory grounding techniques (“can you grab and pull my hair” “kinky” “no - actually later”)

shane collected ilya’s hockey cards but had to have a huge binder of everyone’s so it doesn’t seem like he’s only collecting ilya’s cards - ilya has shane’s rookie card in his wallet (awwww)

lots of cuteness aggression doesn’t matter who’s around!!!!!!

“listen” “listening”

ilya’s entire camera roll goes from random pictures to shane shane shane - shane sleeping shane eating shane standing infront of the tv claiming he’s not watching shane in hockey gear shane cooking shane with anya shane with the angry kitten face shane at the cottage shane at the camps shane in his childhood bedroom shane shane shane

when apart; ilya sends 100 voice notes a day to shane (shane listens to them all together like asmr)

ilya will kiss shane just to steal lip balm

if shane is laying on the couch ilya will lay on him and put his head in shane’s shirt (“you’re stretching out the material”)

ilya learns “hate to see you go but love to watch you leave” and uses it constantly

their shared google calendar is run like the navy (“hollander i don’t see blowjobs on thursday? i will add” “STOP IT MY MOM SEES THIS CALENDAR”)

ilya lowballs people on fb marketplace and then uses shane’s account to lowball them further

ilya will lick shane when the situation calls for it

ilya’s snoring is so bad you can hear it from other rooms but it’s the only noise shane can sleep through its like white noise for shane

ilya winking at shane is to shane what shane wearing glasses is to ilya

shane peppers ilya’s face with a million kisses regularly but especially when ilya gets hurt

ilya writes to do lists / grocery lists in cyrillic and his penmanship is gorgeous (shane is surprised his jock hockey player husband has nice handwriting and that it took him 10 years to see it)

ilya calls troy his best friend and shane gets jealous

shane carries the bags when they go anywhere

ilya is shane’s emergency contact but shane’s parents are ilya’s emergency contact