chinesebakery

Posting Date: August 9, 2026 Title: Hooped Rivalry Artist: @adromelke Author: @tea-or-die

Fic Summary: High on pain meds after a fall, pole dancer and aerial hoopist Shane Hollander invites his biggest rival to come spend the summer at his cottage. Ilya Rozanov is not the kind of person who hangs out with guys like Shane, so it's a big surprise when Rozanov accepts the invitation. Together, they make the kind of magic other athletes can only dream of, and Shane finds himself hoping Rozanov never lets him go.

Snippet: Hey, Ilya starts out. I do not go back to Russia until third week of June. Was your offer genuine? It would have been almost out of character, if he hadn’t tacked on, Or do you forget inviting your biggest rival to your studio this summer? ;) Shane just shakes his head, composing his reply. It’s the last day of May, he’s only got a little bit of time to make sure Ilya knows this is worth it.

While he considered being just as flippant as Ilya, Shane wants the other man to know that his offer is genuine. He really would like to work with him over the summer, honing their skills together and maybe even coming up with a pairs routine they could trial when the season opens back up. He doesn’t expect them to rank very high if they do, but Shane can’t shake the idea of working the pole with Rozanov instead of against him.

Hey. Shane mirrors Ilya’s opening. The offer was absolutely genuine. I would love to have you work with me in my studio this summer. Though he thinks about it for several minutes, he can’t come up with anything else to say. At least, not anything that won’t make him look like an idiot.

Is in Ottawa, ya? You have suggestion for hotel?

That won’t do at all. There’s no way Shane wants to waste any of their time due to a commute. My place is pretty big, he shoots back. You are more than welcome to stay here. There’s enough space that we would be able to stay out of each others’ way.

And what if I don’t want to stay out of your way? ;)

Shane swallows hard. His mind starts running the odds on how Rozanov wants him to take that. Is it supposed to be silly? Flirty? A threat? Maybe even all three. With a deep breath, he responds. Then I guess we’ll just have to dance around each other. There, that’s a witty enough response. He thinks.

I like that idea very much, Ilya sends back. What is address? With another deep breath, Shane drops his location in the chat. He makes sure Ilya knows he’s welcome to come up as soon as he’s able, asking that he just give Shane at least a few hours notice before just showing up. He gets a reassurance that there will be a message at least a day in advance, then Ilya lets him know he’s got to go, his father is calling him.

No worries, Shane shoots back. Talk to you soon.

After a meeting with the Centaurs management, Ilya finds Shane crying in their walk in closet | Words: 1444

Ilya and Shane are both home on this lovely Friday afternoon, a rare occurrence for them these days. Shane came home from a meeting a bit ago, and headed upstairs to change. He’s been up there for a while, and Ilya is getting impatient.

He’s hoping to spend the afternoon playing some video games, or doing a workout. Or really, whatever Shane wants to do, as long as they’re together. Because they’re out, they’re engaged. And they’re going to play on the same team (bearing all went well with Shane’s meeting today).

Ilya wanders into his (now their) bedroom and doesn’t see Shane, but he does hear something coming from the big walk in closet.

The door is closed, so he moves a little closer to investigate. As he places the sound, he immediately feels a knot well in his throat.

Shane is crying. All alone. In his their closet.

As we are building things in the background, let us introduce you to a new fandom event coming to an AO3 Collection near you very soon !

In the next few weeks of summer, expect an interest form, a calendar, rules and FAQ as we get ready to launch Paris Week, a NSFW multishipping event that will celebrate the threesomes and moresomes of Heated Rivalry and the Game Changers Universe.

Posting Date: August 8, 2026 Title: At A High Speed Artist: @heatry24 Author: @happyholigayss

Fic Summary: Five times Officer Shane Hollander sees Ilya Rozanov in a good mood, and one time he tries to cheer him up.

Snippet: “Officer Freckles!” Rozanov said with all the joy that should not be on the face of someone talking to law enforcement.

“It’s Hollander,” Shane corrected uselessly, though he couldn’t help the small smile tugging at his lips. “You were speeding. Again.”

“We should stop meeting like this,” Rozanov said with a solemn shake of his head.

“Have you considered not speeding? That would probably fix the problem.”

All Ilya has to do is press the little button above his seat and in a matter of seconds a beautiful man will come stand in front of Ilya and ask what he can do for him. A beautiful man with beautiful freckles and shining brown eyes and biceps that had flexed tantalizingly when he'd helped an older woman with her overhead luggage during boarding. And not Ilya, no. He'll ask what he can do for Mr. Rozanov.

It's honestly almost too much. (Almost.)

The first couple of calls had seemed innocent enough, and the flight attendant ("SHANE," his name tag helpfully provides) had been the picture of customer service as he arrived at Ilya's seat with a pasted-on pleasant smile and confidently strode up and down the aisle to bring him a hot towel, a snack, an extra blanket, and always "if there's anything else I can do, sir, please let me know." Ilya had never appreciated the phrase "hate to see them go, love to watch them leave" more.

By the fifth call in the space of an hour, Shane seems to be getting suspicious. His smile has taken on a wry edge as he approaches Ilya's seat, but Ilya maintains perfect innocence as he asks Shane if he can close his window shade.

Shane stops just short of rolling his eyes. "Mr. Rozanov, I have a feeling you're more than capable of closing a window shade on your own."

Ilya shrugs, eyes wide in put-upon bewilderment. "It's stuck! I cannot budge it."

Shane sighs as he braces one hand on Ilya's armrest leans across him to pull the shade down (easily, of course). Ilya tries not to be too obvious as he breathes Shane in, reveling in having him so close, but Shane must sense it anyway because he freezes as he starts to pull away, looking back at Ilya warily as if he's not quite sure what his game is.

"Ah, my hero," Ilya praises softly. "I knew you could do it."

Ilya watches Shane swallow hard before he straightens up. "Anything else I can do for you, Mr. Rozanov?" he asks, a slight waver in his voice.

"Not right now, thank you, Shane. But I'll let you know next time I need you." Ilya points to the button above his head and winks, smiling at the way it makes Shane flush before he hurries away.

Ilya decides not to press the button for over an hour after that, just to see, and the way it makes Shane slowly grow more and more antsy is simply delicious. Ilya can tell he's itching for Ilya's next call, nervously shifting his eyes over to Ilya as he assists other passengers.

After about forty-five minutes, Ilya is playing a game on his phone when he senses Shane next to him and looks up, where he's nervously biting his lip. "Mr. Rozanov, I just wanted to let you know that we'll be starting beverage service shortly. I'll be busy with the cart for a while, so if there's anything you might need..."

He's so beautifully nervous. He's being so wonderfully good. Ilya rewards him with an honest smile, one that seems to put Shane at ease. "Thank you, Shane. I will be fine."

Shane breathes out, returning Ilya's smile. "Ok, cool. I'll, uh, check on you later, ok?"

"Ok. Thank you."

When Shane comes with the beverage cart, he asks for Shane's number. He's never seen anyone flush more prettily as he writes it down on an airline cocktail napkin and signs it "xx Shane."

~~

Posting Date: August 8, 2026 Title: Pair/Affair Artist: @deancebra-art Author: @heatedbender (pinkspacebender)

Fic Summary: Ilya Rozanov isn't handling the separation from Shane Hollander well, especially when Shane meets the beautiful actress Rose Landry. When Ilya gets dragged to a sex club by Marleau, he sees yet another post about the perfect couple on the way, so he drowns his sorrows in vodka at the bar. There, he can't believe it when two gorgeous Shanes approach him dressed in skimpy togas wearing androgynous makeup. Is Ilya imagining things, or is it the alcohol, or is it something altogether different tonight? Snippet: Ilya found it hard enough to disguise his interest in one Shane Hollander on an ordinary day, let alone a pair of them dressed as they were today. He had to hide his desire with an accusatory remark.

"The fuck, Hollander? Why are there two of you…? Are you trying to fuck with me?"

"Yes, we are both named Hollander," the other one laughed. "But that one is Shane, who you already know about. I'm his twin brother, Isaac. Nice to meet you. I already know of you, of course. You're THE Ilya Rozanov!"

"Twin? Shane never told me…" Ilya slurred, still trying to sober up.

"Oh, so you know Shane personally?"

"We don't…know each other, actually…" Shane told his brother.

@yearnalisms requested to bring this beautiful text post by @honeyybrii to gif form! all inspo credit to op of the text post! 💜 this tag is especially a good sum up of the set:

At age 26, you don't even know yet how different you are from most people. Your unexamined assumption is that everyone works as hard as you do to get through a regular day. When moments arise that provide evidence to the contrary, you chalk it up to the fact that you care more than other people. And while it's true that you are an exceptionally dedicated person, that's not what makes it hard. Your brain is what makes it hard, but you don't know that.

On a macro level you try to hide the effort it takes to interpret other people's behavior and to downplay the fact that you are always, at least a little bit, thinking about hockey. On a micro level your brain is working overtime to process every bit of sensory information it receives, and you aren't even aware it's happening. You have low latent inhibition, although you've never heard that term. It means the ability to tune out irrelevant sensory information, such as the sensation of clothing on your skin. You've learned to live with it, and the tag in your shirt doesn't bother you exactly, but you're unaware of how many resources your brain is using to make it not bother you. You're unaware of how many resources it's using to sort out the barrage of sights and sounds present in the most mundane of settings. You're unaware how hard it's working just to push through the most basic tasks of figuring out that the car stereo is too loud and the air conditioning is too cold, not the other way around, and when you sometimes turn down the volume because you don't like the air blowing in your face, that's just something to laugh off.

You do like the cold. You've always loved the ice. As a child you loved the way it seemed to generate its own breeze and the way your skin stuck to it, and even though people told you to stop so you learned to stop, secretly you still love it as an adult, that sensation of peeling yourself free and the way your skin stretches. You love every sensation of the rink. It's like it's clearing the cobwebs from your brain. Your gear feels like a cocoon. In another life you wouldn't have liked the feeling of sweat but you're too used to it now to notice. Your brain works hard to tune it out. A hot shower after a game is almost as good as sex.

You love sex. Sex, like hockey, is one of the only times the voice in your head is quiet. You don't like sex with the right type of person, but you've finally accepted that it's something you can't change. You carried that weight for a long time, the shame of feeling good when you weren't supposed to. Now there's a relief like you've never known, allowing yourself to feel good about having sex with a man. You sink into the sensations. They take you over.

You love the sensation of your boyfriend's stubble, that gentle scrape that feels like beautiful sparks in your brain. You rub your face all over it on purpose over and over until your skin is red. Your mom asks you about it. She touches the inflamed places, and her fingertips do not feel good. Your brain works hard to come up with an excuse. It's a reaction to new shaving cream. You lie so much for someone who's not very good at it.

You love it when your boyfriend lays all his weight on you. You love it when he hugs you tightly, and you keep demanding he hold you tighter. He teases you about wanting to be crushed. He doesn't want to hurt you. Once when you were seven years old you squeezed your way in between your mattress and your box spring because you loved the weight covering every inch of your body. Your mom didn't like that, she actually screamed when she found you, so you didn't do it again.

You like smells. You like the smell of your dad's cooking, maybe even more than the taste. You like the smell of sunscreen and boat fuel. You used to breathe in deep at gas stations until your parents told you it was bad for you. You like the smell of your boyfriend's sweat. You like the smell of your own sweat, but you wouldn't ever admit it, because you know that's weird. You like the smell of semen and you know that's even weirder. It's pungent and makes you gag, but you like to gag; you like the strain in your throat and the tears in your eyes. You used to suck a dildo and pretend it was the dick of that man you weren't supposed to love having sex with. You don't do it anymore because it's never as good as the real thing and it doesn't settle your mind the right way.

So there's your sense organs, your eyes and nose and ears and tongue and skin, but there's also your vestibular system (you've always loved getting dizzy) and there's also proprioception (you don't know that word but you love to lift heavy things and you love to push and pull and when you were a kid you used to stomp your feet really hard on asphalt to feel it ricochet up your bones), and there's the difference between hot and cold, between pressure and pain, and there's the sense of time (witness how a sixty-second shift on the ice can feel like twenty minutes but a three-hour game passes in a blink), and your brain is working harder than an average brain on all of these things, powering you through the day, using up so many resources, and you

are so

fucking

tired, sometimes, but you believe it's because you are hard worker. (You are. It's true.)

And on days where your brain has worked overtime, and it's running out of things to give, the system begins to malfunction. You don't know that's what's happening. All you know is the lights in the locker room are too bright and your teammates are louder than usual, and the sweat is bothering you after all, and fuck do these guys stink, and the shower is too hot and feels like tiny needles. In an unconscious effort to limit input you walk with your head down so you only see the floor. You don't hear it right away when people speak to you because your ability to process speech has been drained to almost nothing. When someone does succeed in getting your attention, your response is sluggish, your facial expressions jerky as you try to pull up the socially acceptable one. You learned a long, long time ago that hugging your knees to your chest and rocking back and forth was not okay even though it smoothed out the wrinkles in your head, so the option doesn't even cross your mind now, in your mid-twenties. You are not that different from everyone else, you just care more, and you're not happy with how you played tonight. No one can understand what it's like to be you, but that's because you're the best. It's a lonely place to be.

You need your boyfriend. You need him to hold you tightly. He has the power to squeeze every bad feeling right out of you. You want to lay your head on his chest and feel the rumble of his voice. He is hours away from you right now and you won't see him for a few more weeks.

With tremendous effort, monumental effort, you finish out the night and make it home without anyone noticing something's wrong with you.

When Ilya moves to the Centaurs he doesn’t get to keep his number. Some old fuck on the team already has it and refuses to trade, no matter how much Ilya bribes him.

so, in true Ilya Rozanov fashion, he picks the number 24. People think he did it to be an asshole, which is true, but he also did it to have Shane with him all the time. Shane was both infuriated and touched by it.

but then of course, years later, SHANE transfers to Ottawa. And lo and behold, the old fuck who had number 81 retired, so when Shane has to choose a number?

81 is available.

so the first day of training, Shane walks into practice in a jersey that says Hollander, 81, with an absolutely shit-eating grin on his face.