permets-tu, darling?

Cliff buys Ilya's house off him when Ilya moves to Ottawa -- mostly furnished, because Cliff needs pretty much everything (bad breakup, she kicked him out and somehow got his condo out of it) and what is money to Ilya Fucking Rozanov? As he settles in, Cliff starts to notice little...curiosities. The smart TV is still logged into Roz's YouTube account and the guy watches a LOT of Shane Hollander highlight compilations? And interviews? And shirtless ads? But whatever maybe it's chirping material. But also there's a ton of ginger ale in the fridge and Cliff has literally never seen Roz -- or, like, anyone -- drink the stuff. Well, he's heard Hollander does. He keeps finding more and more random but extremely telling clues like a fucking Hollanov scavenger hunt and by the time Ilya and Shane get outed, Cliff isn't even surprised, he's just glad his best friend isn't a stalker.

Like, he thinks the ":)"s in this response are just in his head, and that he's not literally in the hospital beaming at his parents as he says "I guess I can't play violin anymore."

I do think (and am charmed by) the idea that end of season/contracts/photoshoots is Mango Time

literally waits ALL year to have his delicious, delicious forbidden treat

Shane, actively setting his GPS to the nearest supermarket as he's leaving the locker room: "Sorry, I can't make it tomorrow."

Hayden: "... Mango day?"

it's like their second year of being friends, and hayden comes over because they're going to go for a run, and he opens the fridge to get some water and sees a COMICALLY large bowl of mangoes in there and is uuuh?? buddy?? you doing a new diet of just mangoes? and he is TOTALLY playful about it. it's just such a funny number of mangoes to see together.

and shane like. understands this is probably a non-normal way of celebrating the end of the season. he knows he's probably going to get chirped about this, and after a lifetime of being the odd man out at lunch tables and birthday cupcake sharing, he knows what's coming. so he explains that he's a little allergic (not dangerously but like. needs to take some allegra and also just be a little itchy for a couple of days) and yeah it's weird and he knows but-

a few ways this could happen, but chiefly of which i imagined: injury scenario, quite possibly the concussion from cliff. shane drugged up and loopy when ilya visits him in the hospital waxing poetic abt how ilya is so nice and shane loves how he always has mangos for him because no one ELSE lets him have mangos (big pouty shane face here). and ilya is like. why does no one let you have mangos shane. and loopy filterless shane is just like oh yeah because im allergic! not BAD allergic but my mouth gets tingly and kind of burny for a while and sometimes i get hives. but its worth itttttt. and ilya TRAUMATIZED is like no it is NOT WORTH IT. i have been poisoning you??? for Months????? he is SO betrayed. this could also happen later, not during the concussion, but during some other injury incident during the post-cottage pre-tlg gap, where ilya is caring for a loopy shane for whatever reason and the secret gets out-- which draws out the length of time ilya has been spoiling shane with mangoes AND thus increases the level of betrayal/guilt on ilya's part.

option three is that it comes out during Dinner With Mama And Papa Hollander during their time at the cottage... not that first meal maybe but the dinner the next day. like, as a fun anecdote yuna and david bring up shane's allergy to mangos and how it was DETRIMENTAL as a kid because he loved them so much it took them so long to realize he was allergic, and even after he'd always find ways to run off to get his mango fix, haha ... wait ilya whats wrong why arent you laughing. meanwhile shane (whose attempts to shut his parents up with increasingly wide eyed Looks all failed) is thousand-yard-staring like a dog who got into the pantry and ilya is just LOOKING AT HIM. like. shane. shane is there something you would like to tell me. were you ever GOING to tell me. or were you just going to let me KEEP POISONING YOU for the REST OF OUR LIVES . look at me shane LOOK INTO MY EYES. and he's just having a whole crisis realizing he was made an unwilling agent in shane's mango-eating agenda... (though there is A bonus point in the form of: ilya's EXTREME distress over accidentally poisoning his situationship-boyfriend-soulmate endear him very much to yuna and david. shane's going "its a really mild allergy ilya its fine!" and ilya, going through the five stages of grief preemptively, is half-yelling back at him "WELL IT MAY NOT STAY MILD IF YOU KEEP FUCKING EATING THEM. YOU KNOW HOW ALLERGIES WORK SHANE YOU HAVE MANY OTHERS WHY DO YOU DO THIS" and yuna and david are like oh .... he Loves Him... our baby's in good hands ❤️)

anyways i hope u enjoy this humble contribution to the shallergies posting 🙇

oh my GOD

it's an attempted playful callback to the vodka being his reward in vegas, and shane is a little more honest by this point and is just *makes a face before he can stop it* make it something i actually want.

and ilya still trying to be playful is just "oh? and what do you want, hollander?" and HE'S kind of playing at going for a round 2, but shane is blissed out and is honest anyway so just *wistful sigh*

"mango"

and ilya obviously is fucking delighted because this is so Classic Hollander. he's going for sex and hollander?? is thinking of mangoes?? okay, you bizarre person. ilya must have you carnally once more.

and the next time they meet up, ilya has remembered this and is being playful when he offers up a mango (100% just playing it like a bit), but shane is genuinely visibly delighted before he can stop himself. he doesn't buy them for himself because obvi he knows they're bad for him

...but...if he didn't buy it...it would be rude...to NOT eat it... :) oh no :) guess he has to eat this mango :)

BUT it continues being a joke that shane only gets his mango after sex, WHICH MEANS! ILYA HAS NEVER BEEN AROUND FOR THE AFTER OF SHANE EXPERIENCING A REACTION TO THIS GAME. HE DOESN'T KNOW.

and shane like. logically knows he should probably say something, but atp it would feel awkward being like, "soooo by the way, i'm allergic to this so you should probably like. stop." and he also doesn't want to risk being rude/making ilya stop wanting to be playful with him or seeing him because he made it weird. and he's SO disciplined all the time. ALL THE TIME. he is SO disciplined.

buuuuut if he's already indulging in this with rozanov...really...what's being a little itchy for a day or so with a rare mango treat. it's not like they meet up THAT often. and this is for SURE the last time so it doesn't matter. it's for SURE the last time. NO more. for SURE no more. last fuck last mango.

...for SURE.

.........after the NEXT one-

and by the time they get to the cottage, like. shane knows he's going to have to tell him. but there's priorities above and beyond The Sex Mangoes between them, and ilya had to cross an international border so it's not like he brought any with him, and shane obviously doesn't have any in the cottage. so like. that can be a Later conversation.

...except for the fact where they're talking to yuna and david about them as a couple and ilya says something offhand to a question about their relationship to the effect of, "just mango by mango" meaning it to be like. playful and sweet and nudge nudge at them having a cutesy couple thing.

but shane who can FEEL both of his parents look to him sharply is just

no no get back here let's play mango metaphors

because the mango is a source of pleasure, but it's complicated by the impact it has on shane afterwards, but this isn't an impact that ilya sees or shane shares (something that goes both ways for them tbh) (god forbid they talk about their feelings). and shane tells himself over and over that he should stop. and he will stop. but he can do it just one more time because what's one more.

and maybe it turns out that shane can eat it if it's peeled and rinsed or if it's cooked, but this isn't something they discover until they've actually talked to each other, and ilya decides to make it a mission to find a way for shane to enjoy something he loves so much. because all it took was them going, "maybe it doesn't have to be the way it has been." shane's self-denial was based on the wholesale judgement of "this thing is bad for me" without any real examination of the issue beyond that.

Hey, so many of you are familiar with fix-it fanfiction, the superglue which holds together the hearts canon has shattered, right? Well, I have a point to make. As of right now (1-28-2020), there are 6,659 fanfictions in the Leverage category on AO3. You know how many of those are fix-it fics? 25. A measly 0.38% of Leverage fanfiction is tagged as fix-it. For comparison, 2.20% of MCU fanfiction and 1.25% of Supernatural fanfiction are fix-its.

So yeah, Leverage is so amazing that hardly anything needs to be fixed. But we already knew that. No, it gets better. Of those 25 fix-it fanfictions, 16 (64%) of them are actually fix-its for OTHER fandoms. Leverage has been used in fix-its for White Collar, The Walking Dead, Coupling (UK), The Flash, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Kings, Person of Interest, Pacific Rim, Once Upon a Time, The Losers, Merlin, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the actual 2016 US election (yeah, that).

But I’d love a fic where one or both of Shane’s parents drop by the cottage for phone charger/laundry pod reasons and find Shane snuggled on the couch fast asleep on Ilya’s chest and that’s how they find out

They’re dressed in soft casual clothes, sleeping like the dead and wrapped around each other like vines and Ilya’s hand is in Shane’s hair and Shane looks so so comfortable and relaxed

at first, ilya puts up with it bc he’s big and strong and he’s not gonna be kicked out of his own marital bed goddamn it. plus once he makes the connection between the stress and the kicking he just takes it upon himself to get shane really, really relaxed before he goes to sleep and it pretty much solves the problem.

but ONE NIGHT they have an early flight in the morning, shane is stressed about them not making it in time and he refuses any advances made by ilya to try and relax him, ilya doesn’t want to tell him about the kicking bc that will just stress shane out even more so, when it becomes too much, he does the unthinkable and moves to the spare bedroom. he sets an alarm that’s a little earlier than shane’s so that he can sneak back in before shane wakes up, but it’s not enough.

two hours before they’re supposed to be awake, ilya is woken up by a dark figure standing over his bed, looking down at him creepily. he jumps out of his skin before he realizes that it’s shane, but that doesn’t make it much better, because shane looks MURDEROUS and also kind of like he wants to cry and ilya folds, opening his arms for shane to fall into and holds him for the rest of the night. kicking and all.

firstly, why does shane get an animal named after him but ilya doesn't? this is a cosmic injustice. they need to name one after him immediately so that sea lion hollander has a rozanov and isn't lonely so that the best men's hockey player is properly represented!!!

secondly, sea lion hollander is so small. criminally tiny. ilya is very proud of his big hockey player husband, thank you. they couldn't have picked a more size-accurate animal to name after him? (though admittedly the big brown teary eyes are fitting. he will give them that.)

#some gen z hockey fan intern at an animal charity realises you can fund basically anything if you name it hollander #bc rozanov will backflip through the window to pay for any and all medical expenses to keep a sad wet animal named after his husband alive #so far the ottowa humane society has saved 18 dogs called hollander or shane #all bc ilya sends them check every month with “for shane” written on them in shockingly bad handwriting

ilya is so personally invested in every single one of these sad wet animals. he's following along with their stories, he is asking the organizations for updates when they haven't posted about His Shane in a few days, he is celebrating each release or adoption where applicable. he's got a whole folder on his phone for photos of each of them.

meanwhile, shane is seeing the withdrawals on their shared bank statements like

It started when he was a kid and he was trying to help everyone get better at hockey including the opposing teams players, he would say something like “your stick grip is weak” or “you’re slow on your right” (idk i don’t know hockey very well ESPECIALLY little kid hockey) but he says it totally deadpan because little Shanebug doesn’t understand tone yet.

This makes the other teams so mad! They try and fight him constantly! Little bitty baby hockey fights and then Yuna sits him down in middle school after the first fight that he actually gets hurt (black eye and bloody lip) and asks him what he is saying to make everyone fight him?

“Nothing mean I swear mom!!! I’m trying to be nice and help correct their form”

And suddenly Yuna gets it and explains to Shane that not everyone but especially not the opposing team likes to have their flaws pointed out to them even if it’s coming from a good place and how that could be seen as chirping.

So he stops for a while, then his coach for world juniors tells him to try and piss off Rozanov enough that they can draw a penalty. So Shane does what he does best and points out a flaw at each face off. Jokes on him though because Ilya is actively changing those things and getting better every face off because he is taking it for what it is, advice.

Which pisses Shane off, he thinks his chirping tactic won’t work now that he is older. So he points out at his first scrimmage at practice in Montreal that the center who has been there for years (who he is probably replacing) is favoring his left side is staying too far left to compensate (again I don’t know hockey so I am trying to translate things I know about soccer lol)

And the center loses it on him! Immediately yelling about the lack of respect and how a rookie makes it to the MLH and thinks they are hot shit.

So Shane realizes his chirping DOES work just not on rozanov and becomes a menace he studies game tape specifically to find holes in his opponents game and pre prepares chirps and it fucking works because all these men are so far up their own asses that they just get mad instead of using the advice.

the idea of ilya handfeeding shane slices of mango and shane then licking the juice from ilya's hand and the intersection of two pleasures he only receives from ilya and ilya's satisfaction in facilitating shane's pleasure in a way no one else has or can

Sometime not too long after Shane comes out, JJ and Hayden are over at his place, hanging out. The team has been wildly speculating who Shane's secret hookup could be for a couple of weeks now (there may or may not be a bet involved), and the topic comes up because a) Hayden is desperately trying to get a good grade in allyship and b) JJ is an incurable gossip.

"I'm not telling you anything," Shane says, because duh. "It's not just my secret."

JJ nods. "Okay. But he is a Boston Raider, yes?"

"What."

Shane stares at JJ, frozen in shock. Hayden tilts his head, confused, then it dawns.

"Ohhh," he says. "Boston Lily!"

"Boston Lily," JJ agrees.