Romain's Den

This is a spot from an italian estate agency (we are governed by the right-wing party)

The woman says "Ridiculous..."

Confused, Shane immediately calls him.

"Is this some new and unique way to psych me out before the final, Rozanov? I didn't know you had money on Detroit."

"No, I am sending for a good reason," Ilya laughs. "I know it sucks for us that when you win all your team will be kissing their girlfriends and Pike will be making out all gross with Jackie, and we will not be able to. So, I wanted to show you exactly where I first kissed the cup. It was on the top, right over where it says Ottawa 1905, left of where it says 'Challenge Cup'. I remember because I did this on purpose. We weren't anything then, but I was thinking of you. I couldn't help thinking of you. So if you kiss the same place, it will be a little like we are sharing a kiss. And only we will know about it."

And Shane feels the air clean knocked out of his lungs and the back of his throat get tight, as he barely gets out, "Baby, that's... Thank you. I don't know what to say. I love you so fucking much. I'll make sure you see our kiss, okay?"

"I will be watching. I love you, My Shane. Go show the world why Shane Fucking Hollander is the goat, okay?"

On the night Shane wins his third Stanley Cup, he kisses their spot on the cup, thinking only of Ilya, and longs for a day where he can pull him onto the ice like Scott did with Kip.

Shane: we were 19, give us a break

Hayden: 19????

It's a free, no sign-up, no ads fitness resource created by professionals who view this as activism (fitness should be accessible to everyone), and it's very thoughtful and thorough.

Features I really like:

- all instructions for workout routines are diagrammed on single pages with a clean, easy to read layout

- there's 30 or 60 day programs you can follow if you, like me, don't know what to do. they take you through a rotation of workouts so you're working different muscle groups on different day for a specific purpose

- there's so much variety and there's a filter so you can find the level and your goals and type of workout you wanna do

- you don't need any equipment

- some of the programs are RPGs or adventure stories! How's that for motivation. There's also badges and achievements or something but I haven't looked that closely at how that works yet

- they're nerds. they name workouts after D&D classes. There's a Lannistrr workout, a batcave workout, a witcher workout

- I've only scratched the surface

I'm doing this really easy one to start out

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQSMS0J6JbrKdSOSbyJXaQ_zN_HSSp7zZ

double points if they don't even plan to do it. they decide to soft launch via no longer actively hiding their relationship, just slowly acting more like a couple around other people. they're both at some event and ilya finds shane and just wraps his arm across his shoulders, which maybe that could just be ilya being ilya, but then shane just leans into it? like this is fine and normal? and when someone questions it shane panics and is just like "why wouldn't i? he's my boyfriend" and whoever they're talking to is like "what? since when?" and ilya is immediately onboard with this game "since 2017."

they just keep doubling down "you don't remember me sneaking out to go visit him every time we played in boston? you were all chirping me about it."

"wait, did you two drive here together?" "why would we take separate cars, we live together?" "you WHAT?"

when someone thinks they're joking they bring up the group chat with shane's parents, ilya scrolls back to a text where yuna calls him her favorite son. they bring up a video clip jackie sent of the twins saying "we love you uncle ilya!" shane brings up his thread with svetlana where she sends him russian words and phrases she thinks he should know.

they quickly enlist everyone who already knew, get them all onboard to pretend like their relationship wasn't ever top secret information. shane posts a picture of him with anya, when someone comments "that looks just like ilya rozanov's dog?" he just replies "yeah, we adopted her several months ago" and ilya replies "love our daughter ❤️"

Yuna notices something is wrong because of course she does and together with David they herd Shane into some private empty side room hoping it will help him calm down. But it doesn't. He wont stop shaking and his breathing is too fast and he flinches at their voices even tho nobody is speaking loudly. Won't let Yuna come close to hug him or rub his arm.

Maybe Yuna is starting to panic a little herself, her heart aching as she watches Shane wrap his own arms around himself, hates that she cant do anything when her son is so clearly in distress, hates that she can't seem to think of anything that will work-

When suddenly the door bangs open and Ilya Fucking Rozanov??? strides into the room with quick steps, makes a beeline directly for her son, eyes locked on him like he doesnt even register her and David in the room as well and Yuna opens her mouth to cuss him out, tell him to fuck off and not bother Shane right now, she can feel her body moving already to stand in front of Shane protectively when David grabs her arm because-

Because Rozanov is pulling Shane into his arms, one hand on the back of Shane's neck, guiding his head to press into the crook of Rozanov's neck and Shane isn't fighting it, doesn't flinch from his touch. He goes where Rozanov arranges him and let's himself be held and rocked back and forth gently as Rozanov presses his mouth to Shane's ear and starts whispering something so quietly that Yuna can't really make out the words but what she can see is Shane's shaking subsiding, hands fisting tightly into Rozanov's shirt, his breathing going slowly back to normal because - oh. oh - her son is syncing his breaths with Rozanov who, Yuna realises, is taking very exaggerated deep slow breaths of his own so Shane can match them. And then Rozanov turns slightly while still rocking them both back and forth and Yuna sees Shane's face where it's smushed into Rozanov's neck. Sees the look there.

And that's how Yuna realises her son is in love and the man - his years-long rival - he loves must have left in the middle of his award-winning show to come here and pull her son out of a panic attack like there was no place he'd rather be than right here with Yuna's overwhelmed panicked boy in his arms, soothing him until Shane's body relaxes completely into that hold, mumbling that he's fine yet not pulling away and Rozanov makes no move to let go either.

Yuna notices something is wrong because of course she does and together with David they herd Shane into some private empty side room hoping it will help him calm down. But it doesn't. He wont stop shaking and his breathing is too fast and he flinches at their voices even tho nobody is speaking loudly. Won't let Yuna come close to hug him or rub his arm.

Maybe Yuna is starting to panic a little herself, her heart aching as she watches Shane wrap his own arms around himself, hates that she cant do anything when her son is so clearly in distress, hates that she can't seem to think of anything that will work-

When suddenly the door bangs open and Ilya Fucking Rozanov??? strides into the room with quick steps, makes a beeline directly for her son, eyes locked on him like he doesnt even register her and David in the room as well and Yuna opens her mouth to cuss him out, tell him to fuck off and not bother Shane right now, she can feel her body moving already to stand in front of Shane protectively when David grabs her arm because-

Because Rozanov is pulling Shane into his arms, one hand on the back of Shane's neck, guiding his head to press into the crook of Rozanov's neck and Shane isn't fighting it, doesn't flinch from his touch. He goes where Rozanov arranges him and let's himself be held and rocked back and forth gently as Rozanov presses his mouth to Shane's ear and starts whispering something so quietly that Yuna can't really make out the words but what she can see is Shane's shaking subsiding, hands fisting tightly into Rozanov's shirt, his breathing going slowly back to normal because - oh. oh - her son is syncing his breaths with Rozanov who, Yuna realises, is taking very exaggerated deep slow breaths of his own so Shane can match them. And then Rozanov turns slightly while still rocking them both back and forth and Yuna sees Shane's face where it's smushed into Rozanov's neck. Sees the look there.

And that's how Yuna realises her son is in love and the man - his years-long rival - he loves must have left in the middle of his award-winning show to come here and pull her son out of a panic attack like there was no place he'd rather be than right here with Yuna's overwhelmed panicked boy in his arms, soothing him until Shane's body relaxes completely into that hold, mumbling that he's fine yet not pulling away and Rozanov makes no move to let go either.

Ilya, as the captain of the gayest NHL team, is asked for comment on this. Of course, this is half way through the season while the Cens are sitting first in their division and second in the league. So Ilya says, “Ah, yes, I can see how he would think that. It seems unfair that being queer is clearly such an advantage for hockey players. We are just much better players, and having so many of us on one team, while very fun and nice for us, does seem to be putting us above everyone else in the standings. Perhaps more teams could play well if they had gay players? The Admirals are okay, but they only have one and we have four, so it is not quite fair.”

There is a rampant debate online over whether Ilya actually understands that the original comments were homophobic or if he genuinely believes that people think gay guys are too good at hockey. People also start speculating about who the fourth gay player is because Luca hasn’t actually come out publicly yet.

Scott Hunter has to put out a statement that he doesn’t believe his homosexuality has had any impact, positive or negative, on his athletic ability even though he believes being out of the closet and in a fulfilling relationship has made it easier to focus on the game.

Troy posts a tweet that just says “got gayer and got better”

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.

fall in love again and again...

Planning the Future