Archive of Our Own ^beta

Shane had routines. He had a training schedule, a meal plan, and a very specific way he liked his pillows arranged. But it was the off-season, he was bored, and he’d made the mistake of clicking a suggested link on twitter.

Now, he was staring at his phone in his darkened living room, his jaw aching from how hard he was clenching it.

On screen, a grainy webcam showed a guy with messy blond hair and a devastatingly handsome face. The username was ilyaroz. He was speaking english with a thick russian accent while staring at a Wordle grid.

[LIVE] ilyaroz: playing the words game until i get bored.

Ilya typed: H O R S E. The 'H' and 'E' went grey. 'O', 'R', and 'S' turned yellow.

"Okay," Ilya murmured, leaning back. "Horse is bad word. No horse."

Shane nodded instinctively. Right. Try 'SOLAR' or 'ROAST'. Move the 'S' and 'O'.

Ilya hummed, then typed: H O R S E.

Shane froze. "What are you doing?" he whispered to his empty room.

The chat started flying:

• Chaotixcx: horse again?

• IlyaSimp: have u tried horse though??

• Vanya22: i think the word is horse.

Ilya hit enter. The tiles flipped. Exactly the same result. "Ah," Ilya said, looking genuinely surprised. "Still no horse. Very strange. Maybe... wait, I have idea."

He typed: H O R S E.

"Are you kidding me?!" Shane yelled, his thumbs flying over his screen. He’d never sent a Twitch chat in his life, but his competitive soul was screaming.

shane_h: STOP TYPING HORSE. THE TILES ARE LITERALLY TELLING YOU THERE IS NO H OR E. MOVE THE OTHER LETTERS.

Ilya glanced at the chat, squinting. "Shane-h says stop horse. Shane, you have no vision. You have no passion."

Ilya typed H O R S E for the fourth time.

Shane slammed his phone face-down on the sofa. He couldn't do it. He was going to have a stroke. He exited the app, deleted his history, and went to bed angry.

The next evening, Shane was eating a plain chicken breast when his phone buzzed.

Twitch: ilyaroz is LIVE: "i have solved wordle forever."

Shane stared at the notification like it was a personal insult. He shouldn't click it. He really shouldn’t.

He clicked it.

"Welcome back," Ilya was saying, looking like he’d just woken up from a three-hour nap. "Today, I show you how to win every time. I have math. I have strategy. We use three words to... how you say... optimize."

Shane narrowed his eyes, fork suspended in mid-air. Okay, fine. Maybe he’s actually smart. A three-word elimination strategy is a real thing.

"We always start with STAIR," Ilya said confidently. "Then LEMON. Then PUDGY. By then, we know everything. Watch."

The Grid:

Shane was vibrating with rage. "You just wasted two turns! You already knew the 'T' and 'A' were there! You didn't need to check for a 'P' or a 'G' yet!"

shane_h: YOU LITERALLY JUST WASTED GUESSES. YOU HAVE TWO LETTERS. WORK WITH THE TWO FUCKING LETTERS.

Ilya saw the comment and smirked. He leaned into the mic. "Shane is back. Shane is very stressed. Relax, Shane. Look at how many letters are grey. They are gone. I have deleted them from the universe. I am genius."

Ilya typed: B A T C H.

🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩

The chat exploded.

• GamerGuy: HOLY SHIT

• Chaotixcx: THE STRAT WORKS

• User101: STAIR LEMON PUDGY IS THE GOAT

Ilya clapped his hands once, looking smugger than any human being had a right to be. "See? I told you. The trick works perfectly. I am king of words."

Shane was typing so hard he almost cracked his screen protector.

shane_h:THAT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TRICK. STAIR TOLD YOU THE 'A' AND 'T'. LEMON AND PUDGY TOLD YOU ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. YOU GOT LUCKY. THIS IS THE WORST STREAM ON THE INTERNET.

"Shane is so mad," Ilya told the camera, his eyes dancing. "I think Shane wants to play me. You want a piece of the king, Shane?"

Shane hadn't joined the stream for clout. In fact, his agent, Farah, had nearly had a heart attack when she saw he was planning to go live with a "chaotic Russian Wordle-troll."

The screen was split. On the left, Ilya sat in his usual dimly lit room, wearing a threadbare grey hoodie. On the right, Shane appeared in high-definition—perfect lighting, hair styled, wearing a crisp, expensive-looking athletic zip-up.

Ilya froze for a full five seconds when Shane’s camera connected. His smug grin faltered, replaced by a look of genuine, stunned silence.

"Oh," Ilya murmured, his voice dropping an octave. "You are... very shiny, Shane. Do you use a filter or is your face just like that?"

Shane scowled, leaning closer to his mic. "No filter, Ilya. Just a skincare routine. Are we doing this or not? One word. Side-by-side. Most efficient path to the answer wins."

The chat was moving so fast it was a blur:

• IlyaSimp_99: ILYA IS BUFFERING LMAOOOO

• ChaosGremlin: rip ilya he’s in love

• HockeyFan_87: wait is that shane hollander?? like the pro hockey prospect??

• User101: HE’S SO PRETTY I GET IT ILYA

"Yes," Ilya said, suddenly sitting up straight and pushing his hair back. He looked like a predator who had just spotted a very high-quality steak. "We play. But if I win... you have to give me your number."

"Fine," Shane snapped. "And when I win, you have to delete your 'Stair-Lemon-Pudgy' video and admit you’re a fraud."

The word popped up. Five empty boxes.

Shane’s face went into 'Game Mode.' It was terrifying. He looked like he was calculating the trajectory of a missile. He typed his opening move with clinical precision: A R I S E.

SHANE: > A R I S E 🟩 ⬛ 🟨 ⬛ 🟨 (A is green, I and E are yellow)

"Good start," Shane muttered to himself. "Logic dictates the E must be in the fourth position or the second. If I try..."

Meanwhile, Ilya wasn't even looking at his own grid. He was staring at the little box showing Shane’s face. He watched the way Shane bit his lip when he was thinking.

"Ilya!" Shane barked. "Focus! You haven't even typed a word!"

"I am focusing," Ilya said, his eyes dark and intense. "I am inspired. I feel the poetry of the letters, Shane."

Ilya didn't use a strat. He didn't use 'Horse.' He stared at the screen and his brain, usually a chaotic mess of memes and sarcasm, suddenly became a supercomputer fueled by the need to impress the gorgeous man on the screen.

Ilya typed: A D I E U.

ILYA: > A D I E U 🟩 ⬛ 🟩 🟩 ⬛ (A, I, and E are all green)

Shane glanced over and gasped. "You... you got three greens on the first guess? That’s statistically improbable! You’re cheating. You’re looking at the source code."

"No cheating," Ilya purred, leaning into the camera, his gaze locked on Shane’s eyes. "Just destiny. The word wants to be found by me. It wants us to be happy."

• Chat: HES RIZZING HIM UP

• ChaosGremlin: stop he’s actually trying?? ilya sweating for the first time ever

• Vanya22: look at ilya’s pupils they are the size of dinner plates

Shane’s jaw was set. He was sweating. This was harder than any game he’d played on the ice. He had to be perfect. He typed:

A L I V E.

🟩 ⬛ 🟩 🟩 🟩 (A, I, V, E are green)

"It's ALIVE! It has to be ALIVE!" Shane celebrated, his fist pumping the air for a split second before he realized he was on camera and turned bright red.

"Is it?" Ilya asked softly. He looked at his grid. He had A _ I E _. He looked at Shane’s red cheeks.

Ilya typed: A M I D E.

             🟩 ⬛ 🟩 🟩 🟩

"Wait," Shane stammered. "No. It could be A I D E D."

"Or," Ilya said, his voice like sweet, "it could be the only thing I want you to do, Shane."

Ilya typed: A B I D E.

             🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩

The screen flashed gold. Ilya had won in three guesses. Shane was stuck on four.

Silence hung in the air. Shane looked devastated, like he’d just lost the Stanley Cup. Ilya looked like he’d just won the lottery.

"I abide by the rules," Ilya said, a triumphant, wicked smirk returning to his face. "I win Shane Hollander."

Shane stared at him, huffing a breath, his frustration warring with a very confusing realization that Ilya was actually... kind of brilliant when he wasn't being a moron.

"I hate you," Shane whispered.

"We can change that," Ilya added. "Chat, tell him he loves me."

The chat was a literal forest of heart emojis and "WEDDING STREAM WHEN?"

Shane looked at his phone. A private message on Twitch from Ilya:

“Numbers, please. Unless you are a coward who does not honor his bets? But you are a good Canadian boy. You honor everything, yes?”

With a sigh that sounded like his entire soul leaving his body, Shane typed out ten digits and hit send.

On the stream, the viewers watched as Ilya’s phone lit up on his desk. He picked it up, his face softening into something unexpectedly genuine as he read the message. He didn't show the screen to the camera. For the first time all night, something was just for him.

"Okay," Ilya said to the chat, his voice uncharacteristically warm. "Stream is over. I have important business to attend to. I have to go teach a very pretty man how to speak Russian."

"You're not teaching me anything!" Shane yelled, but Ilya had already ended the stream, leaving Shane staring at his own reflection in the monitor.

Ten seconds later, Shane's phone buzzed.

Unknown Number: i am staring at the wordle for tomorrow. i think the first word should be 'ADORE'. what do you think, Shane?