#hr meta

Loyalty (1869)

— by Briton Rivière

Loyalty (2025)

And then I remembered that this is almost definitely his first ever open conversation with another queer person and holy shit. It's just so poignant that Shane has no one he can talk to, no one AT ALL, except Ilya. "Weren't you afraid of getting caught" yeah, Shane is constantly bone deep terrified of this and it robbed him of any chance to make connections with another queer person. Until Ilya. Ilya's not just his first top or his first time with another man. Ilya's also his first queer friend, in any real sense.

Episode 1:

Episode 1:

Episode 2:

Episode 5:

And then that same boy who ran away from you runs straight into the most public relationship anyone has ever had. A movie star who parades him around in front of the paparazzi while he smiles and smiles and kisses her and smiles. She's everything you can't be - she's safe and pretty and he can be so normal with her. You don't see Shane Hollander for months, but you've never been more aware of him. He pops up on every social feed, every news bulletin (and you have news notifications on him that chime every day), he is inescapable. All you hear about is how happy he is, how his new girlfriend has changed his life. It's all so very out in the open and there you are, stuck in hotel rooms alone.

Then you go to Florida for an All Star game, knowing you're going to have to see Shane Hollander off the ice for the first time since he ran away from you and into her arms. He walks in to the bar you're sat at and he looks so good. Better dressed than you've seen him, yes. But more than that - he looks confident. Sure of himself in public in a way you've never seen before. He looks beautiful. And he comes to sit next to you, orders a beer, looking so calm and relaxed while you feel like you're going to crawl out of your own skin. Is his new girlfriend so perfect that he's made him this self assured? Shane Hollander would never talk to you in public if he thought people could guess that something was going on. Shane Hollander wouldn't even acknowledge you if he wanted to be anything other than rivals on the ice - he's too afraid, too paranoid. So when he's talking to you all you can think is - this is over. Years of stolen moments and it's all lost because of the confidence that Rose Landry has given the man you only ever loved behind closed doors.

They shared a single, brief, stilted conversation and Ilya was staring at Shane in the rafters while he was actively involved with a practice with his team at the International Prospect Cup.

At the draft, Ilya stares down at Shane from above and corners him in a public hotel gym to flirt with him.

At the CCM photoshoot, Ilya calls Shane pretty and cannot stop himself from giggling at his proximity to the cute boy who’s been consuming his thoughts since their first meeting. Afterward, in the shower, he touches himself next to Shane and they end up hooking up.

At the Nashville All-Star game, Ilya taps his foot against Shane’s in a room full of people, moves across the bench to flirt with him, and pointedly tells him his hotel room number as he skates by him in front of everyone. A few hours later, Ilya is throwing himself between Shane’s legs and begging to fuck him.

On the Vegas rooftop, which is accessible to anyone, they argue yet Ilya can’t help but push Shane against a wall and kiss him passionately.

At the Vegas award show, he holds Shane’s neck in the crowded room and sensually trails his hand down his back. In the bathroom, which is, again, public and accessible to everyone, Ilya can’t help but cross the small space to touch Shane, caress him, and kiss him, then text him in the middle of a crowded party his hotel room number.

In the episode 4 montage, Ilya doesn’t even make it to the bedroom in Shane’s apartment before he bends Shane over the couch, and in the same montage refuses to part his lips from Shane’s as the ascend the stairs in Shane’s apartment. When Shane comes to Ilya’s house, it’s barely a minute before Ilya’s mouth is on Shane’s and he has Shane up on the counter.

Contrast this to Sasha in the Russian bathroom in episode 2, someone who Ilya has been intimate with. He allows Sasha to crowd into his space, unaffected, and rejects him with ease because it’s disinterest motivating his rejection here more than fear.

Ilya does not trust himself around Shane because he knows he can’t resist being close to him, touching him, kissing him, holding him. Ilya tries to come off as cool and unaffected, which can lead to the shallow interpretation that he’s manipulating or using Shane, but the fact of the matter is he knows he can’t resist Shane. When Shane approaches him in Russia, Ilya barely looks at him because he knows there’s a chance he’ll crumble if he does, and that’s dangerous.

I’m watching the Moscow phone call scene, and Ilya in his grief starts talking about how his family is at their worst and are being terrible to each other. He seems resentful, almost bitter.

Shane asks “Is it very upsetting?” And Ilya responds “Yes,” and then, after a beat, “But maybe… I am upset about the wrong thing…”

Shane prompts him further, “You mean, not your father?” And from here Ilya really starts to open up. He gets sad. His heart is broken, and he lets Shane see a little piece of it. Lets it breathe out in the air.

On his real estate career:

“i had to buy a whole other house i pretended to live in just so people wouldn’t guess we were secretly together. imagine if you had to do that with jackie”

On why it’s so important everyone knows they’re married:

“i’m almost thirty and my whole career i couldn’t have my parter being my next of kin, emergency contact, or power of attorney. instead it was my mum like i’m still a child”

On why he loves spending his time with ilya:

“did you know that in the ten years we’ve been together we’ve never even had breakfast together. everything we had was rushed, clandestine, kept under wraps so we didn’t loose our livelihoods and reputation”

Bonus Ilya explaining the russia of it all

so he’s just standing in a grocery store like: is 2 minutes of hand on ilya’s back normal or is that insane. is that nothing. is that divorce behavior. & then two aisles later he’s just absentmindedly mouthing at ilya’s throat in the cereal section like they’re back in a marriott at 1am and someone’s uber is outside in six minutes and they r running out of time again even though they’re not

every instinct he has for affection....finite & filthy...bc that's all they ever had. his body doesn't know what to do with the surplus lol (let's all cry). thus no in btwn.