Shotgun Smiles

Ilya Rozanov practice sketch

Another batch of trading cards for @luulapants fic The Tennis Club 💖

Hollanov, Shane/Others, Ilya/Others, Scott Hunter/Many, Ryan Price/Many | Explicit | secret gay hockey player network AU, feat. my army of hockey OCs

Chapter preview:

Henry McGee lay limp on a hospital bed, the mattress elevated, covered in a blanket to the neck, bruises peeking over the top of it. His face had taken a beating, too, probably from falling: both his cheekbones purple, the whole left side of his face swollen in various gruesome shades. It had been five years since they last saw each other in person, but Greg didn't need to remark on how Micky had grown since then. He'd been watching.

When the door shut behind him, his eyes blinked open, more alert than he'd feared, though he looked around the room, confused. His voice wheezed, short of breath, when he asked, "The fuck are you doing here?"

"I called," Greg told him. "You too good to answer your phone?"

"Been busy. My, uh, my chest kind of exploded. Dunno if you heard." Struggling to get his words out and still a jackass. Some things never changed.

"You scared the shit out of me, watching you go down like that." He'd watched the game with his daughter, Hannah. Had one hell of a time explaining away his catastrophic reaction.

Micky shifted a hand out from under the blankets, reached for him.

Greg went. Took his hand.

Tears brimmed in Micky's eyes as he stared up, a miserable sort of loneliness that Greg remembered well from their brief, too-intense year together. He'd hoped he would outgrow it.

Swiping a thumb gently under one of his eyes, Greg murmured, "You're alright. I can stick around, if you want. I got nothing but time for you, baby."

For a moment, Micky looked like he would really cry, but then a woman's voice in the hallway drew his attention away. He sniffed, muttered, "Fuck," and let go of his hand to wipe his own face. "Okay. Play along," he instructed.

The door opened a moment later, an older red-headed woman with a full face of makeup and a skirt-blouse combo that struck him as too dressy for a hospital. She had a cell phone in hand, mouth open as if about to speak, but she stopped short when she saw Greg. "Oh," she said. She put the phone away. "Hello."

"Greg," Micky said, as if it wasn't the first time he'd ever called him by his first name, "this is my mom, Cathy. Mom, this is Greg." And then, without missing a beat, he took Greg's hand again and added, "My boyfriend."

Greg kept his face carefully neutral. Playing along. What the fuck.

With coding and art by the constantly cooking @mock-speed

the long game - rachel reid / autoclave - the mountain goats / heated rivalry - rachel reid

Okay doesn’t technically fit in the timeline since Ilya would be with the Centaurs but I didn’t want to make up my own Centaurs jersey LOL

Sorry for the obnoxious watermark but I saw an A*I scam bot stole my work so now I gotta do this

There have been a few nights lately where Ilya's come home from a practice or a game or a dinner and sat down in his house in the dark. He moves past the light switch like he doesn't know it's there, sits on the couch in his outside clothes and stares in the television's direction, empty glasses on the coffee table, or if the cleaner's been through the still life's swept of any personal touches, no evidence that he sat here in this same affected sulk two nights ago. The house already staged. But he's getting ahead of himself. Not yet on the market. He's always getting ahead of himself, and it's an unnecessary piece of theatricality he's never been able to train out of himself, though many figures in his life - from his teachers to his brother to Sveta - have instructed him, with varying levels of patience, to do so. If they can't see how his reactions are based in reality it's not his issue.

Ilya doesn't know how he's supposed to stop skipping ahead, especially when he knows he's right. It's not intuition, it's not some girl giggling in his ear about planetary cycles and mood, not vibes or vice or clickbait. "When this happens, then this happens" is a cornerstone of his life. He is the literal best at it. He is paid millions of dollars for it. It has shaped his body. I am right, so I'm right, so I'm right, so I'm right, an image of infinite mirrors. There's only one other person he shares this psychology with and he'd rather throw himself in front of the T than pollute that stream with what he sees now. He fondles the remote. Turn it on, tune it out.

Or.

“Shane, how does it feel to be back on Montreal ice?”