ifyoustay

"Yuna," he says, shifting his elbows on the table to point at it. "What is this on his hand? Was broken?"

Shane's head snaps up from across the table, where he's pretending that Photo Album Time is very boring to him and not worth paying attention to. He hasn't scrolled on the article he's pretending to read for over five minutes.

"I never broke a bone as a kid," he says, brows furrowed. "Not until U13, when that fucking kid from Guelph--"

Yuna and Shane both inhale quickly through their noses in what Ilya has learned to recognize as a moderative measure, lest they start yelling about something that everyone else on Earth has forgotten about.

"No," Yuna says, once her face looks a little less intense. "No, it wasn't broken. It was this...contraption that the dentist gave us to correct his thumb-sucking. He was so mad about it, we only put it on him a few times."

"Oh, Jesus," Shane mutters, eyes going back to his phone.

"Aw," Ilya says. "Poor baby Shane." He taps his finger against one little red cheek and laughs. "You really do look so mad, sweetheart. How did you make him stop?"

"Hmm...you know, I don't remember," Yuna sighs, tilting her head. "I guess he just stopped by himself eventually. Do you remember, Shane?"

"No," Shane says, shortly.

"Of course, that didn't get rid of the oral fixation," Yuna sighs, adjusting her reading glasses as she flips the page. "The things you used to chew on, Shane. Pens and straws and--"

"Mom," Shane snaps, while Ilya vibrates beside him. "Can we not?"

"I was afraid to give him popsicles because I thought he would gnaw on the sticks until he got a splinter in his stomach."

"Mom!"

"Well, honey, it's true! And you did outgrow it eventually, so it's not as if you have to be embarrassed."

"Oh, you did?" Ilya says, shoulders shaking. "You outgrew the, uh, oral fixation?"

"Stop," Shane hisses.

"Mm. Excuse me." Ilya stands from the table and sweeps out onto the back porch, though the sliding door does nothing to prevent the sound of his guffaws from floating back into the kitchen.

"You know," Yuna says, "I'm just going to assume that this is some kind of language barrier thing--"

My stepmother did NOT like the way her Libertarian Viking Neighbor framed pregnancy as the fetus "attacking the woman". She incredulously told him this was extremely disrespectful to expectant mothers to portray pregnancy as so violent and negative.

Libertarian Viking Neighbor's response was that people consensually hurt each other all the time, and "there's like a whole community about that, with the acronym the one that starts with a B" And his reasoning was that if the mother was consenting to bring attacked by the baby, it in fact wasn't violent and negative because there was consent.

Not seeing Rozanov is not an option, so instead Shane picks out a few other cities to regularly go out by himself in. He'll go for a long walk, maybe sit down somewhere for a drink, and then catch a taxi back to the hotel an appropriate amount of time later. It's honestly pretty nice, unwinding by himself in this way, and now disappearing after games is not a thing specific to Boston! It's just another strange Hollander quirk!

Unfortunately, he fails to account for the guys on the team jumping on the most obvious explanation for all these disappearances, which is that Shane now has a girl in every port.

Word about this starts to spread quick, because it is so out of character for Shane, and pretty soon half the league is under the impression that he's some secret playboy.

@scunthotter

Shane has been in face offs against Ilya for years, even if they didn't have their thing of the ice, he knows his face by memory. Which is why he notices when a mole in the underside of his jaw gets bigger.

It's the 2015-2016, middle of the hookup era, and he is truing to get this motherfucker to see a dermatologist, but nothing he says works. Ilya either distracts him or dismisses him with some stupid denial like russians don't get melanoma.

But the mole keeps changing and now its not even the same consistent color and Shane has googled the signs so he says fuck it, I'm gonna make him.

Shane uses his barely active public account to tweet a list of Boston based dermatologist and tags Ilya in each one.

This of course goes crazy with the fans because what the hell? Shane Hollander? Tweeting at Ilya Rozanov? Doctors? This is a very advanced very strange chirp? Is he calling his moles ugly?

The next time the Boston Raiders have a game the media scrum doesn't even try to pretend they came for another thing, they want to know about the Dermatologist Thread.

Ilya, at this point frustrated because his moles are fine, they're perfect, why is this a problem, so he answers.

"Hollander should mind his own businesses, he wants me to visit stupid skin doctor because he sees mole. I have lots of moles, always had, there's no problem here, it's normal mole!"

And Shane is getting out of his own game a few hours later, prepares himself to answer about the fumble in the second period when the media comes, and it's surprised when, instead, he gets shown a clip of Ilya's earlier interview. Now, this fucking reckless motherfucker, Shane explodes.

"You fucking asshole! You want to die by driving a Porsche into a wall be my guest! But you're gonna die of the most stupid thing in existence! A MOLE! A mole you decided not to check even if it changed size and color and it's in your fucking face where we can all see it every fucking face off with arena lights shining right into it! Why? Because you're stupid and you don't want to go to the doctor and you don't respect the sun. You're gonna die from a perfectly preventable thing and then what are I'm gonna do? I'm gonna be the best hockey player in mi generation with 10 cups and Harts and Conn Smythes and no competition because you're gonna be in the history books as that one promising dude who died from a mole. A mole! Go to the fucking doctor and use fucking sunscreen."

That one goes viral. That one breaches containment and goes internacional meme viral.

Shane Hollander Skin Cancer Awareness King.

There's "Go to the fucking doctor and use fucking sunscreen" T-Shirts.

Shane Hollander angry sneering face with the text "RESPECT THE SUN" under it.

Ilya Rozanov gets bullied relentlessly about it, everyone asking if he has gone to the doctor yet. He doesn't answer. Eventually, he appears with a new scar in his jaw where a wonky mole used to be.

@hr-rep you see the people of the internet are going to argue if Shane Hollander was the guy who noticed a suspicious mole in his lover's face and had to resort to public pressure to get him to get it checked

Or if Ilya Rozanov was the dude who fell in love because "oh god my hot rival started screaming at me and saved my life"

ilya is holding her like a baby and cooing in russian going, "who is my beautiful little baby bunny? is it you? it IS you, beautiful little baby with your beautiful little baby paws and your beautiful little baby face and-"

ilya sets up a den down there and it’s all cosy and shane ribs him for it and is like ‘oh you should show the team next time they come over for game night’ and ilya like ‘😒 would not be a secret door then would it kotenok’ so the cens don’t know about the door even though ilya is DYING to show them.

one day they have a gathering at the house and shane starts to get really overstimulated so he goes up to their room but people keep coming to find him and bring him back so eventually he just sighs and is like fine! i’ll use the stupid secret door! fuck it! and he disappears downstairs.

ilya’s like ?? where is husband?? he checks the house and can’t find him, people are asking where he is, and then it hits him and he feels so vindicated “shane thought secret door was stupid, is not so stupid now”.