first post for context / see the tag 'open relationship au' for more snippets or the masterlist so kindly put together by @tafkarfanfic. mhl awards part three out of four! a chill little scene 😇
MHL Awards, 2015
Shane leaves the party at a respectably late hour. Ilya suspects he was counting the minutes until he could go for at least half the evening; he's been tense, his smile strained.
It makes Ilya want to punch something. This should have been a happy night, the cherry on top of Shane's achievements this season, and Shane couldn't even enjoy it because his fucking useless, piece of shit boyfriend didn't think he was getting enough attention.
Probably Ilya didn't make it better with his stunt earlier.
He needs to make sure Shane is okay, because he doubts fucking Brian is gonna do it.
Ilya gives it ten minutes and then quietly dodges out of the party. Shane probably went straight to his room so Ilya makes that his first stop.
It occurs to him as he knocks that he has no idea where to go next if Shane isn't there.
What if he actually did go see Brian?
Ilya thankfully doesn't get long to dwell on that horrible possibility, because the door swings open just a few moments later. Shane steps aside wordlessly, letting him in.
It's a stark difference from earlier in the day. Shane looks exhausted, tie undone around his neck.
"No one saw you come here, right?" he asks once Ilya is inside.
"No," Ilya assures him. "I made sure."
Shane nods. His brow is furrowed, and not for the first time Ilya is struck with the urge to kiss him until it smooths, as if chasing away his worries could be so simple.
"Right," Shane says, voice distant. "Listen, I'm sorry but I'm not really in the mood -"
"I know," Ilya cuts him off. "I'm not here for that. Are you okay?"
Shane blinks, taken aback. He recovers, saying flatly, "Sure I am. I just won MVP, didn't I?"
Ilya doesn't respond and Shane exhales slowly, running a hand through his hair.
"I just -" his lips twitch, corners twisting unhappily, "I don't know what he was thinking. I can't believe he'd do something like that."
"You can't?" Ilya blurts, before he can think better of it.
"Rozanov..."
But Ilya isn't done. "It's exactly the kind of shit he would pull."
Shane scoffs. "You don't even know him."
"I know what I see, and I see him all the time making you fucking miserable!"
"Don't make me defend him," Shane says, weary. "I can't do it right now."
"Why?" Ilya is crossing a line, he thinks. He can't stop himself. "Why is he still your boyfriend? He doesn't make you happy."
"Well, who else?" Shane snaps.
He sounds angry but his voice is wavering, his eyes shining with unshed tears. When did that happen?
"Who else?" Ilya repeats dumbly.
"Yeah, who else." Shane laughs. It's not a happy sound. "Who am I gonna - even if I did find someone I like, even if I let my guard down and risk fucking everything to tell him I'm gay, who else would actually like me back? Who would put up with the secrecy and my schedule and all my other bullshit?"
Put up with. Like Shane thinks he's someone to be tolerated, and not loved and cherished and fucking worshiped. Like whoever ended up with him shouldn't wake up everyday thanking God that Shane Hollander chose him.
It hits Ilya then, the truth he's kept buried inside for months, hidden away even from himself. A truth he's known but never once acknowledged, never looked at directly.
He wants to be with Shane.
It's not just sex. It's not about him wanting to prove he's better than Shane's asshole boyfriend, or even about convincing Shane to dump his ass for his own well-being.
Ilya wants Shane, so much it terrifies him.
And under any other circumstance, maybe Ilya would rebury that truth, never to say a word out loud. But Shane is looking at him, worn down and defeated, somehow believing he deserves less than absolutely everything.
Ilya needs him to know how badly he's wanted, more than he needs to protect his own foolish heart.
"Me," he says, voice distant to his own ears. "I would."
Shane stares at him. "You wouldn't," he finally says. It almost sounds accusitory.
"I would," Ilya insists.
"No," Shane argues back. "You told me you don't do relationships. You said you might, if you met the right person, but that you hadn't yet."
Ilya blinks, bewildered. "When did I say this?"
"I don't know, a couple of years ago."
"A couple of years," Ilya repeats incredulously. He waves a dismissive hand. "So I was young and stupid, I'm allowed to change my mind."
"You haven't," Shane says. It would be infuriating, this insistence that he knows Ilya's mind better then he does himself, but the pained edge in his voice makes Ilya think that's not what's happening here. "This is just - you're being competitive, or it's fucking pity, and you've got yourself convinced of something that isn't true."
Ilya lets out a frustrated noise. "Why would I pity you?"
"Why would you want me?"
Words failing, Ilya does the only thing he can think of and pulls Shane in for a kiss. Shane's lips part for his, hands grabbing for Ilya, grabbing his jacket, his shoulders, his face, clumsy in their desperation.
They're breathing heavily as they part, Shane's lips slick with spit and eyes wide and dark and shining.
"Break up with him," Ilya begs.
Shane stiffens and then's he's pulling away, brushing Ilya's hand off when he tries to tighten his grip on his lapel.
"I can't -" he mumbles, eyes cast down and away. "I have to talk to Brian about this."
Ilya isn't sure how it happened, but he can feel his control over the conversation slipping away. "So he can convince you to stay?"
"I owe him that much," Shane says, firm. "It's been eight years, we - he loves me."
It's heartbreaking, the certainty in Shane's voice.
"If he loved you, he wouldn't treat you this way." There's an old, familiar ache in Ilya's chest, a helplessness at his complete inability to help someone he cares for. "You're not stupid, how can you not see this?"
Ilya regrets those words as soon as he's said them. Shane flinches as if struck and his mouth goes flat, a moment too late to disguise the wobbling of his chin. He's still not looking at Ilya. Ilya reaches for him, wanting to hold his face and make him look, but Shane flinches away.
"You should go," he says quietly.
"Shane -"
"Go," Shane repeats. "Please."
He doesn't wait for Ilya to leave, turning on his heel and heading into the bathroom. Ilya's stomach sinks as he hears the lock click in place.
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i think if you showed minecraft or fortnite to a little medieval peasant boy he would probably start writing parodies of church hymns. it’s human nature
Infidelity au where Shane comes out to his parents of his own volition and end up marrying his Nice Man From Montreal™ and living in his big tastefully decorated McMansion where he hosts brunches for his Nice Milquetoast Husband's nice milquetoast friends from work and at any moment he is gonna start screaming and never stop except he can't even explain WHY he's so deeply unsatisfied with his nice picture perfectly palatable Gay Marriage.
And then Ilya Rozanov comes tearing into his deeply sexually repressed life like a missile target locked on Shane's understanding of himself and his sexuality, ready to blow it all to smithereens, no longer just Shane's first flint of desire but his fucking nuclear bombshell.
i also need you all to know the actual translation of "pebble" isnt like the small rock pebble, it does literally translate to "baby" and simon would hear it as "baby". i wrote "pebble" because grace translated eridian babies as "pebbles" for his own amusement. therefore: you, the viewer, get the grace terminology.
I mean....if u want to talk about mafia brat Shane being soooooo outraged that he's being given a glorified babysitter at his big age of 25......he is determined to make this man's life as hard as possible in punishment but . well . i guess he Does succeed but maybe not in the way he was expecting.......
oh luna you killllll meeeee
okay yall here's another au for you to munch on!!!
he is acting like an actual child!!! stomping his feet and throwing things and cursing everyone around him out.
he storms into yuna's bigger office that she uses for group meetings right in the middle of a discussion about a large drug move they're about to make. "what the fuck, mom??? i'm 25 goddamn years old and you're making me have a fucking babysitter??? and fucking ilya of all people!!!! this is bullshit, i'm not gonna listen to that decrepit rasputin fucker!" [a nickname he's had for ilya for about 12 years now]
"shane hollander i am in the middle of a very impor-"
"i don't care! this is so fucking stupid, mom; i don't need to be spied on!"
"you are out of control and WILL be reined in. if you refuse to cooperate, you're cut off. i mean it, shane. you will have to figure your life out on your own, because i will not be bankrolling you anymore if you refuse to listen. clear?"
and she's using bad ass mob bitch voice, so shane knows she isn't fucking around. so shane is mad af but he quietly agrees.
but he promised his mom he would tolerate ilya, he never said he would play nice!!!
ilya is waiting outside the door and yes he heard everything. shane rolls his eyes and storms off to his wing of the mansion.
and he facetimes rose to complain, her family works with shane's and they've been besties since diapers. that's when she plants the idea in his head.
"you know, i overheard my mom talking about it and ilya is into men as well as women. he had a bad breakup like 5 years ago with some guy named sasha."
shane scrunches his nose. "okay? so? yeah i hate him but i'm not going to out him. i'm not that awful. i just want him to go away."
"oh my god, shane. obviously not!!!! what i'm saying is, he's used to dealing with the most dangerous, hardened criminals in the country. HE'S a dangerous hardened criminal. he's not going to crack because you screamed and threw your cellphone at him."
shane scoffs and narrows his eyes. "so what are you saying?"
"i'm sayingggg.... if you really want to get under his skin... use your body, baby. wear skimpy stuff, be suggestive, flirt with him. you're very charming when you want to be, shane hollander. you'll wear him down eventually. and yuna isn't gonna like it when her main muscle man who's almost twice your age makes a move on her only son. she'll drag his ass back to working the streets faster than you can blink."
shane contemplates this. "i don't want him to lose his job..."
"please, no way yuna would fire him. he's too important to the operation. but she would almost certainly ban him from being around you anymore."
it kind of is a perfect plan. shane nods and smiles. "that actually is... an amazing fucking idea."
rose grins and winks. "duh. now, let's talk details."
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is it any surprise that ilya latent suicidal tendencies rozanov was a club rat in the early 2010s when every single song was a variation of Tonight Is Literally The Only Night Worth Being Alive We Are All Killing Ourselves Tomorrow
In answer to a lovely anon asking for a HR meta / take I don’t see as often, I decided to write a whopping four pages on the intersection between family dynamics, money and why Ilya does not cut his family off until after his father dies, so buckle up and let’s go:
Ilya growing up as a gifted child in a post-soviet family that has some social mobility through the military/governmental institutions, but is most likely capital poor, means that any talent he displays, presumably at a very young age, is immediately transformed into an obligation. (Side note: I also imagine this may be why he has some distance from hockey, or at least interacts with it differently compared to Shane, given they’re regarded as on the same level. I do think Ilya loves hockey, but this essay is not about that).
His potential becomes something that can be possessed and used by others, for their own benefit. At some point I imagine Ilya became aware that his talent is not his own. It belonged to his family, his family’s name, their social rank and how others view them.
The pedestal that he is paraded upon is also the cage that keeps him from being able to truly separate himself from his family, even from far away (and I’ll get to distance + co-dependency later on); any mistake he makes is detrimental to his family and their name. Side-stepping the Shane Hollander Walks Ilya Rozanov like a dog tag fully for a moment: his potential / talent is harnessed by a leash, and the leash is a metaphor for shame. I’ve read some great meta about Ilya’s dominant psychosexual preference in relation to the submissive position he is forced into within his family; shame acts as an enforcement mechanism to keep him submissive.
This is made explicitly clear when Grigori says:
Image text: “The real shame is squandering the promise you showed when you were young.”
What breaks my heart about this specifically is the suggestion that Ilya’s personhood as a young man (he was what, 22 years old during Sochi?) is collapsed entirely into his early potential; his ‘peak’ has already passed, and he did not live up to it. So now he exists in a world where everything he could ever do is either fulfilment of a past (non-existent) self, or a waste of a past (non-existent) promised self. Ilya is thus always compared to his child-self, further compounded by the fact that Grigori has dementia. I imagine as the disease worsened, his father could only recall memories the past and memories of a younger Ilya more frequently, which is confirmed (to me, at least) when he is on the phone with Alexei and says,
Image text: “On the phone yesterday, he asked me to bring home some bread.”
I think one take that I’ve not seen all that often is how tight knit Ilya’s family actually is, even though they are far from being loving or even tolerant of each other. Given the context of him being born the literal year of the collapse of the soviet union, Ilya’s childhood was likely to be framed by immense social, economic, and national insecurity. Your family is as quite literally all you had. Even if Grigori was of middle-rank as an officer or a police commander, there is no suggestion that they had much money, and even if they did, it looked different from what we think of now after decades of Western capitalism and Russian Oligarchy.
But I don’t think they did. I imagine that after a long career Grigori was probably respected, but I can’t imagine he was particularly cash-rich. Alexei constantly asking Ilya for money was not just an exercise of domination and financial abuse, but also a real need (even if he blew it on drugs or spent it irresponsibly). Irina marrying a much older man, possibly for security or protection or status makes me think she grew up in poverty, too.
Throughout the season, when Ilya is on the phone with either his father or brother, it is implied that they speak often, maybe even weekly (though I imagine that there are periods when the calls are frequent and then there’s stretches of time when they are not); in episode four, nearly five years after the scene above, Ilya says:
Image text: “Yes, I got your message. I did answer you, father. We spoke yesterday.”
This family isn't shown as being kind to each other and openly expresses their disdain for one another, and yet, its implied they speak somewhat often. While on paper this seems like a contradiction (and, well, it is), playing out in real life, it makes a lot of sense when thinking about the geography of Ilya’s guilt (and the leash of shame woven so artfully by his family and their expectations). I’m taking a lot from my own experience here, but I identify Ilya’s inability to ignore (for long, at least) his brother and father’s calls, even though they are actively harmful to his mental and emotional being. He is probably aware of this, especially when he’s older, but while he might procrastinate dealing with his brother and father, he cannot fully ignore or refuse them.
The reason I think Ilya cannot cut them off is not only due to his father’s illness, but also because distance does not actually absolve someone - and let’s be real, Ilya’s not merely someone, he’s the gifted child - of their role in the family structure.
By Ilya leaving (and while I want to acknowledge the symbolism of a post-soviet family allowing their “promised one” to leave for the United States, I do not think I’m the best person to talk at length about this) to play hockey in the US, he is not able to show up for his family anymore, he is the one who has “left.”
So the family structure adjusts his role to be centred around money. You cannot come to the table, so you must at the very least pay for the table: it’s compensation in its purest form. Throughout the entire season, we see Ilya send money whenever they ask, and it’s a given that Ilya will.
This is why Alexei can continue to treat him the way he does, and go as far to demand a ‘plan’ in the middle of a funeral that his younger brother has paid for. Because the dynamic that Ilya is part of and plays a role in is one where he’s done something wrong (the perceived abandonment) and he accepts this as a true (by continuing to financially support them). It’s Ilya’s responsibility, (or penance, if you will) to make up for his absence. The remittance then becomes an admission of his guilt.
Ada Limon said it better, of course:
This is the crux of the saw-trap I see Ilya in. The irony is that both the remittance and the geographical distance are false boundaries. If anything, every wire signaled availability, making it harder to refuse each time he gave in (and he will give in, he knows it). He is literally on-call to manage crisis after crisis, be that financial or emotional, to absorb the distress of whatever is happening back home, to manage it or make it go away. Ilya is left with the emotional weight of needing to fulfil his family’s expectations and respond to their needs. The distance compounds the anxiety of not being able to know exactly what is the problem or how to fix it: Alexei retains what little control he has over Ilya by keeping him in the dark about his father’s condition. There is no way for Ilya to verify what is actually going on, so he must pay.
Eventually, Grigori is no longer reliable as a witness to his own life as we see in Episode Four. Dementia is a devastating illness that I experienced first-hand, as the primary financial support and the one to arrange the care of my family member, all while living on a different continent. Your imagination of what could happen is a cycle of torment, and even though it is equally tormenting to answer the phone to whatever problem (or abuse) will be sent your way, there is no option to refuse entirely; to just not answer to their calls. Especially if there’s always this insidious hope that it won’t be as bad news, or at least as bad as whatever’s been cooked up by your worst fears.
With this in mind, I picture Ilya probably calling his father more in 2014-2016 than in 2008-2013. Because even if it means staring the deterioration of Grigori’s mental state in face, at least then he could assure himself that everything, at least for the moment, was okay (and by that, I mean, nothing was okay, but nothing was level-10 crisis)
These phone calls become repeated sites of trauma for an entirely new reason aside from the emotional abuse / humiliation ritual, in that dementia erodes the person and who they are. Ilya's losing his father in pieces instead of all at once.
Ocean Vuong's peom Someday I'll love Ocean captures this feeling succinctly:
It is a compounded type of grief, and it is frustrating because it becomes impossible to hold that person accountable for things they did or how they treat you. Even if Ilya resents his family, hates their treatment and expectations of him, recognises that it is unfair, he still laments his inability to take care of his father himself:
Image text: “And it kills me that he took care of my father and I didn’t.”
He is held hostage by the guilt and shame that rest on the laurels of his talent and promise. I imagine Ilya hates his father but loves him too. I think this complexity was expressed beautifully through Connor Storrie’s acting and Tierney’s writing, particularly the way in which he expanded the Russia/Family scenes. There are a lot of dynamics packed into a handful of moments.
I digress. Back to the saw trap. The damaging and co-dependent nature of Ilya’s relationship to family is a important plot point throughout the season and a crucial influence on how Ilya perceives himself in other places outside of his family: his team, the world at large, his relationship with Shane. Even though he left Russia and his family physically, he was never fully allowed to leave, and importantly, though he achieved fame, money, and greatness, he was never in control.
Ilya sending money to his family out of guilt + obligation helped fund the cycle of dysfunction that repeatedly traumatised him. It is only when Grigori dies that he is actually able to untangle himself. I don't blame him (which I hope is clear throughout this) for a second for not being able to do it earlier; his entire life was structured in a way that made it feel downright impossible. In choosing himself, it meant abandoning his family and all that was 'given' to him; becoming his own person would be an act of violent betrayal.
Anyway,,,,
Help i cant stop imagining a scenario where shane is doped up on pain medicine or smthn and ilya refuses to have sex with him despite how horny he is because he's out of his mind. Shane calls his parents to complain about this
NOT HIS PARENTS SNFNFFJCJDH ilya would never let him live that down oh my god. later he’s teasing him about it RELENTLESSLY. “aww you need this dick shane? you gonna go whine to your mommy about it?” it would be HELL
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"Tell me I'm the best you've ever had." Shane says silkly, sinking down onto his husband's lap where he sat on the couch.
"Best at what?" Ilya asked, grabbing Shane's face and pulling him in for a kiss.
Shane laughed into the kiss before pulling away.
"You know..."
"No I don't, are you asking if you're the best I've ever had at hockey?"
Shane rolled his eyes, "I'm the only one you've ever had at hockey."
"Ah, no, not the only hockey player, but believe me moy lyubimyy, you are the best."
Ilya leaned back in for a kiss, but Shane put a hand on his chest, pulling back.
"When we got together I asked if you had slept with any other MHL players and you said that you hadn't."
Ilya seemed to recognize that the mood had been suddenly cooled off.
"I haven't, she was in the PHF, the women's league."
Here's the thing. Shane very rarely gets actually jealous. Sure he never enjoyed seeing or hearing evidence of Ilya’s active sex life that didn't involve him. But there was a part of him that understood that Ilya was with those people because he couldn't be with Shane, both physically or emotionally. Shane was not an insecure person and there was always an unacknowledged part of him that believed that if he and Ilya had be a viable relationship option then Ilya would have been his. This had been validated by the fact that as soon as they had seen it as an option Ilya had come to Shane's cottage, declared his love, and locked himself down. So.
It was just hard to feel insecure in a relationship with Ilya where he was so obviously obsessed with Shane. Where Shane very clearly enjoyed 100% of Ilya’s attention and 85% of Ilya’s time.
So true jealousy, not the play acting they did for fun, was rare for Shane. Especially now that he was the one wearing Ilya’s ring.
But something was curdling in Shane's stomach.
"When did that happen?"
Ilya looked at little surprised, normally Shane did not want to hear about specific hook ups, outside the broadstrokes and if there certain sex acts he liked. The only specifics he had wanted to know was if Ilya had slept with anyone else in the league and had seemed genuinely relieved that the answer was no.
"It was Kelsey Roche, captain of the Boston Pride. She won the Isobel cup the year after I won the Stanley and we did a whole public congratulations thing."
"Why did you sleep with her?"
"Well one, have you seen her shoulders and her tits? The woman is hot. But also she and her wife told me I was her hall pass, which is also very flattering and hot thing to hear. So we fucked."
"She was a lesbian?" Shane heard his tone, okay, he heard it. It was just something about this was making his skin itch.
"Shane, my love, it is important to me that I know that you know that women can be bisexuals too."
"Shut up. I know that women can be bisexuals, I'm friends with Rose and Sveta."
"So you're cool with female bisexuals cause you have two female bisexual friends?"
"Oh my god, fuck off Ilya!"
"See, I do not think you are okay with bisexuals because this is how you talk to your bisexual husband."
"You asshole, I was just surprised because she was married to a woman. That's all."
Ilya's teasing was only half distracting Shane from the fact that how was he supposed to compare himself to a female hockey player. Like obviously he could look up her stats, but even if she was still playing, he wasn't sure she was because he knew the new Boston PWHL league team had a different captain, he'd never be able to face off against her on the ice.
"Oh my god," Ilya suddenly gasped, studying Shane's face, "you want to beat this random woman I slept with 10 years ago at hockey."
Shane notices that Ilya always has to be doing something. At first, he thinks its sweet, attentive.
"Is your blanket warm enough? I'll go get another one."
"I will carry plates, go sit."
"Practice is optional for players, Shane, not captain."
And, look, Shane isn't one to lay about. He's up for morning runs, he attends almost every optional practice, he's meticulous about his work out routines. He's a top athlete and so is Ilya, they both work incredibly hard to stay at the top. Still, Shane doesn't have a problem with a lazy afternoon reading in bed, or a free weekend spent at his cottage, or a summer relaxing.
He notices that sometimes Ilya will startle, just a little bit, if Shane walks into the room when he's laying on the couch, scrolling through his phone. If Shane makes even the slightest request, Ilya is jumping to get it done there and then. He's the first one at practice and the last one to leave.
He will take naps with Shane, but he's always up before Shane, working out in the gym, doing their monthly calendar, adding things Shane likes to their shopping list that he wouldn't add, etc.
"Just sit with me," Shane catches Ilya's arm on his latest trip to the kitchen."
"I know, I will," Ilya covers his hand. "I just want to wipe down counters before your parents get here."
"They won't care," Shane scrunches up his face. "They won't even notice. Come sit down."
"Okay," Ilya says, but looks a little torn. "We are suppose to be hosting, not lazing around."
"Ilya," Shane sat up more. "You cleaned the whole house like twice today. I cooked. We aren't lazing around."
"Yes, I know, but..."
"Ilya, you aren't lazy," Shane said directly. He doesn't know exactly why that word seems difficult for Ilya, but he has his suspicions. "And even if you were lazy sometimes, I wouldn't care. I would like it, probably."
Ilya softened. "I know. I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry," Shane tugs him and Ilya finally lets himself be pulled into Shane's lap. "Just come be lazy with me."
"Hm," Ilya adjusts himself to better snuggle into his boyfriend. "That does not sound so bad."
first post for context / see the tag 'open relationship au' for more snippets or the masterlist so kindly put together by @tafkarfanfic. mhl awards part two out of four! this is mostly a transitional scene into the next big event.
MHL Awards, 2015
The awards ceremony is a blur.
Shane wins MVP, as he and everyone else was expecting. He gets on stage, gives his prepared speech. Smiles like he should, stomach clenched tight and cold sweat prickling at his forehead. He hopes the presenter doesn't notice the tremble in his hand when he shakes it.
Brian is here. Not in this room but in this city, possibly even this hotel. Shane doesn't know. He didn't actually call him back after Rozanov hung up on him and he hasn't replied to any of his texts or calls since. He just... he needs to get this ceremony over with before the inevitable fight.
Because Brian is probably mad and Shane. Shane is furious.
It's been eight years of Brian keeping his most important secret and he picks tonight of all nights to risk it like this? What the fuck is he thinking? He can't actually think that Shane would be happy to see him here, can he? Shane can't even see him, not without risking everything.
At least his speech went off without a hitch. Shane doesn't think anyone noticed he was off and if they did, they'd probably chalk it up to nerves.
It should be nerves. Shane should be on top of the world right now, celebrating another career high. He should be looking forward to what's going to happen after the party - what was going to happen, because he doubts Rozanov is interested in a repeat performance today, considering how they ended things earlier. He didn't even get to come, because Brian's announcement that he was in Vegas effectively killed the mood.
Shane just wants this night to be over.
About an hour into the afterparty, Shane finally manages to sneak away to call Brian from a single stall bathroom a little ways from the ballroom.
"So your phone does work."
Shane inhales slowly. He's not going to yell, that would be unproductive. "Are you fucking kidding me."
"You don't get to be angry," Brian says, voice cold. "After that stunt you pulled? What the fuck was that? You thought I wouldn't notice? Like I don't know what you sound like when you're getting fucked."
A small pang of guilt pierces Shane but for once, it doesn't deflate him. The anger stays, lodged like a hot coal in his chest. "What are you doing in Vegas, Brian?"
There's a long silence on Brian's end. That probably wasn't the reaction he was expecting, Shane thinks wryly. Under usual circumstances, it wouldn't be.
"It's a big night for you," Brian finally says. "I wanted to be there to support you."
Bullshit.
"You know I can't see you."
"You can see him," Brian mutters, and the anger inflates in Shane's chest, a balloon set to burst.
"He's my colleague," he bites out. "We're both supposed to be here. What fucking excuse were you gonna come up with?"
"I didn't - " Brian stutters. "I thought you could sneak out. That you'd actually want to see me."
Shane thinks about reminding him of how in demand he is tonight. That he just won MVP, that even dodging out for a few minutes to take this phone call is gonna have some people wondering where he went.
"I can't do this right now," he says instead, not wanting to prolong the argument. "I'll talk to you tomorrow."
"Shane -"
Shane hangs up. There's a hollow sense of satisfaction, that for once he didn't cave. Didn't let the conversation end on Brian's terms, the way it always seems to fucking do.
The feeling evaporates quickly. In its place, there's just anger and exhaustion.
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from a discussion with cliff nation but cliff marleau in the offseason at the beach sunburnt to hell and back digging out a 6 foot deep 4 foot wide hole with one of those little plastic shovel and buckets.
cliff marleau laying a blanket over it as inconspicuously as possible to try and get roz to fall in like a looney toons trap which he gets ONCE rozys first or second year and then roz doesnt go to the beach with him for 5 years.
cliff marleau with sunburn lines from his whore short swim trunks and constant sunglasses on his face.
cliff marleau trying surfing every year and wiping out IMMEDIATELY every year (he still tries over and over for an hour every year. this year will be the year he gets it. this year will be the year he succeeds. this year is not the year he gets it. this year is not the year he succeeds.)
cliff marleau building shitty sand castles and decorating them with shells and shit he finds on the shore.
big dick cliff marleau and big dick ilya rozanov in tabloids in the summer for their whore short swim trunks and clear dick print in the pap pics. they’re sunburnt and laughing and cliff is mid thigh deep into digging his beach pit and they’re dripping wet and will have heat stroke by the end of the day because they didnt drink enough water.
cliff marleau getting a mouthful of sea water because hes diving for a cool shell before the current pulls it out, he wants it for his sand castles or for his sea shell bucket (the kiddie bucket he used to dig out The Pit).
cliff marleau being slowly taken out to sea while someone’s trying to tell him from the shore, hes having too much fun to care. roz watching him slowly get further out and snapping a pic to post with “defense position open, ours is a fish😒”. he stops doing this and is more aware of how far out he is after 3 years when his mother finds out about this behavior and damn near grounds him to his room.
cliff marleau off season summer fun and hes lathering himself in aloe 20 minutes before he does sunscreen and goes right back outside for the whole day.
thank you @snail-mail-33 and @nautilussilk for this wonderful discussion, lots of progress made for the nation today
Tuna Meltdown Remix featuring Ryba where she's drawn out of her usual anti-social hiding by the smell of tuna (Ilya likes to leave her a bowl of tuna water drained from the can) and Shane is so thrown off by the Sudden Presence of Cat that he forgets to be freaked out by the Boyfriendliness of it all. He still has no clue how to interpret any of this whole day but hey he's petting a cat now and at least that's relaxing. And maybe he realizes oh, this is the other woman Ilya was talking about, maybe I don't need to be so worried. Plus Ryba is unusually comfortable around Shane, curling up on his lap on the sofa, which just makes Ilya impossibly fonder of him.
i see this and raise you: scenario in which shane had a bag with him (excuse of going to a gym if anyone asked) (shane, who was going to ask and expect a prop??? my guy), which means ryba comes out sneakily to explore after smelling the lure of tuna, CLIMBS IN because she likes sleeping on a hoodie of shane's that ilya 100% stole so hey!! i know this smell!! comfy smell!!, ryba just O.O what is happening to me rn when she is suddenly in motion and just freezes, and now shane makes it back to the hotel only to find??? he has??? A PASSENGER???
where the FUCK did a cat come from????
so now he's processing 1. apparently rozanov has?? a cat??? 2. i apparently accidentally stole?? rozanov's cat??? 3. jesus FUCK i am going to have to face rozanov again because i HAVE to return this fucking cat.
and from ilya's pov?? FULL fucking freakout when he can't find ryba. like shane leaves, ilya cleans up, and then goes to find ryba in the guest room where she usually hides under the bed because. well. at least you can come out now, rybochka, there is no one-
and then?? she isn't there???
so now ilya is facing TRUE nightmare day. situationship just noped out of a boyfriend roleplay, lied about it TO HIS FACE, and NOW?? HIS CAT?? IS SUDDENLY FUCKING MISSING????
like man is GOING! THROUGH! IT!
and now shane is BACK??? and STOLE HIS CAT??? THE REST OF TODAY WASN'T ENOUGH FOR YOU????
the comedy of ilya TRULY in hell freaking out about where ryba got to did hollander leave the door open? was there a window open? she's a housecat and has been one since she was a baby, she doesn't know how to-
and then?? gets a text from shane?? okay, maybe he feels bad and wants to-
"do you have a cat?"
what??? the fuck????? is THAT the relevant fucking information here? yes he does but-
and then it's just a picture of ryba on a hotel bed in shane's bag and ilya is just ??? what sick fuck move is this??? you stole my fucking cat??
"why do you have my cat?"
"you have a cat?"
"fucking obviously. why do you have her??"
"i didn't mean to! she climbed in my bag! i'll bring her back now."
and now they are FORCED to see each other again fucking. IMMEDIATELY after the tuna meltdown.
and shane is a bundle of knots inside, but they get there, he has to come inside again because ryba is REFUSING to come out of the bag because WHAT is happening to her today, so shane has to come inside so he can put the bag down and unzip it so ilya can coax ryba out, and now shane is watching ilya be so gentle and patient with his very freaked out cat and getting a reminder of who ilya REALLY is. like today was freaky and overwhelming but like. THIS is ilya. even in the early days when shane was nervous about things in bed, ilya was always patient and gentle with him, too.
and suddenly the day feels less overwhelming with this little reminder of how ilya usually handles him feeling overwhelmed.
the idea of ilya finally getting ryba calm and settled only to turn and find that now shane is the one freaking out is killing me.
okay, okay, yes sweet girl, is okay now, you-*turns to see shane in FULL freaking out* WAIT NO THIS IS NOT TRADING OFF SITUATION. YOU ARE NOT TAKING TURNS.
