deep in oc hell

Shane and Ilya are obviously hunkering down at the cottage together. There's no hockey, but they don't know for how long, so they're still training all the time. They're doing interviews and having to make it look like they're in completely different places. Ilya has to keep being reminded that he's supposed to still be back in Ottawa.

Ilya's teammates keep asking if they can be in a lockdown bubble together and he's gotta be like "No, can't do that. I'm not taking any chances." But now they're worried because he hasn't seen or been around another human being in months and they've noticed that even before lockdown he made more jokes about killing himself than the average person, so they're stressed to their eyeballs about his mental health.

Meanwhile Ilya's living the kind of domestic fantasy with his man that he didn't think they were going to get until retirement. For the first time ever most days he can truly pretend that he and Shane are the only people in the world. Sometimes David and Yuna come over for dinner because they are also isolating at their cottage. But most of the time it's just endless hours of just the two of them and neither of them could be happier. Their biggest decision every day is when and where to fuck. Some people are getting into sourdough – Shane and Ilya have committed to learning one new sexual position every day.

Shane comes out of the closet sometime after Scott does, and in some random, lighthearted interview, they ask him what he's looking for in a man. And Shane's just, off-hand like, "Well, he'd have to have at least one Stanley Cup. Obviously." And when he gets a good reaction from that, he keeps going, like "Needs to be amazing at hockey. Definitely needs to be at least an All-Star, if not a captain. Hot too. If he can't bench-press me, I'm not interested."

and ilya gets struck (again) about how time moves and leaves traces on the human body, how he got to grow up and now gets to grow old with shane, and be the person to notice the first trace of wrinkle on his face.

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

Seemed to work for Michael because he won some ridiculous amount of medals, so Shane talks to the trainer and they get him set up with a few appointments at a local provider.

Fast forward a few weeks. The therapy is going fine and Shane thinks he is feeling the benefit, great. Boston and Montreal meet for the first time in the season. Ilya and Shane get to be together in person since the season started and god, they are so desperate for each other. Ilya's got Shane's shirt off in less than 30 seconds and they're kissing and hands are everywhere. And then things move to the bed and Ilya growls at Shane to get on his knees and HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE HOLLANDER, WHY are you COVERED in HICKEYS????

And these bruises are old news to Shane and they are perfect circles exactly the same size lined up perfectly down his back, Ilya, it's just a new physical therapy thing, didn't you watch the Olympics and why aren't we fucking yet??

Ilya is grumpy for a second because what do you MEAN some random physical therapist can give Shane hickeys but he can't, how is that fair?? He does move past it for a while but when they're catching their breath a little while later and he's spooned up around Shane, he can't help but suck a mark into his trap muscle.

Ilya loves this game. The moment it starts he pretends to be all jealous like "Oh yeah? Sounds like you already know. Are you telling me you slept with him, Hollander?".

And Shane shrugs like "So what if I did?". And at this point the movie is completely forgotten as Ilya swings onto Shane's lap.

"You cannot tell me he was as good as me."

And Shane's already all breathless and so fucking hard, but he manages to gather himself enough to say, "And what if he was?"

Ilya pins down Shane's arms to the couch and tucks his head into Shane's neck. "Uh-uh, you are lying, Hollander," he says, lips just brushing the skin so that goosbumps start forming. "No one can fuck you as good as I can. That is a fact."

Ilya pulls back just in time to see Shane's eyes get that glazed look, pupils blown wide as he stares straight at Ilya's lips. There's much less fight in him as he says, "Oh yeah? Fucking prove it then, Rozanov." And Ilya is only too happy to.

in shane's early hockey years, or even before that, he had made a close friend who was deaf. upon learning this in their first encounter, shane hyper-fixated on learning asl through his friend and whatever he could find in books or on the computer, to make it easier to communicate. shane had this friend for a couple years before falling out because of different lives, professions etc. shane never really forgot what he had been taught, and frequently found himself mindlessly signing words that he'd remembered.

usually it's just with a free hand, his fingers twitching out the sign. so subtle no one really noticed, it was just something hollander did.

but after living with shane for a couple years, ilya started to notice the pattern. how shane's wrist would flick forward, his finger pointer to the ground every time the world "penalty" was announced on the ice. how he spun his pointer finger that sat at the side of his body every time he said "smoothie", all so subtle they really could just be played off his as a reflex tick.

“what does that mean?”

“what?”

ilya spins his pointer finger at the ground like shane had, nodding his head at the blender. “that, with your hand. whenever you make a smoothie.”

shane is a bit flustered at first, surprised that ilya had noticed it enough to be the first person to point it out. he explained that it had just became a habit because of an old friend. ilya of course found whatever little quick shane had extremely endearing, asking him to maybe teach him a couple of words for the ice.

a few years later they would both use signs for their children before they're speaking, signing out words like "more" or "milk."