Archive of Our Own ^beta

August, 2017

“What the fuck is Shayden?” Ilya asks, nose deep in his phone. They’re sprawled across the couch, enjoying a lazy evening at the cottage.

Shane snorts, “I think it’s me and Hayden. Like our duo name.”

“You and Pike? Shane, they are saying you are in love with him.” Ilya scowls, rereading the tweet on his screen. ‘Shayden is the best NHL ship, talk to a wall!!! Those boys are in love.’

“Huh?” Shane finally looks up from the hockey strategy book he’s been reading, plucking his bookmark out of the back cover and nestling it in between the pages he’d been reading.

“They are calling you best NHL ship.”

“What’s a ship?,” Shane asks, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes.

“Like a boat?”

Shane shoots him a fond little smile, shifting over so he can rest his head on Ilya’s shoulder and see his phone. “Oh, I think it’s like ‘friendship’. Ship.”

Ilya scowls, “relationship.”

Shane snorts, “why do you even look at twitter, you know it pisses you off.”

Ilya leans down to press a kiss to Shane’s forehead, nuzzling into his hair. He snuffles, huffing in the smell of Shane’s green apple shampoo.

“Are you sniffing me? Freak.”

“You smell so good, Hollander. Want to eat you.”

“Tomorrow, m’sleepy,” Shane tucks himself deeper into the crook of Ilya’s shoulder, pressing his face into the soft material of his hoodie.

“Goodnight kotyonok.” Kitten. Ilya only gets away with that one when Shane is halfway asleep. Ilya hooks one arm over Shane’s shoulder so he can stroke through his hair, scratching at his scalp until his breathing settles into that even, long pattern of sleep.

Five more minutes, is what Ilya tells himself at first, but suddenly there’s a link to a Shayden fanfiction and he’s clicking on it like a masochist. He gags and quickly exits the tab when he has to click through the warning that there might be explicit content. He can’t bring himself to read someone’s interpretation of Shane and Pike’s sexual relationship, no matter how morbidly curious he might be. An hour later, he knows and understands the phrase Hockey RPF. Real Person Fiction. It’s got a whole community on the internet. Ilya figures he’s also a real person, so he navigates the website until he finds a way to search for his own name. A lot of him and Cliff Marlow. A surprising amount of him and Scott Hunter. Not nearly enough of him and Shane. At least he’s always topping.

As he’s perusing, he almost clicks the heart button on a post about Shane’s absurdly fat ass. He imagines his publicist seeing that in the morning and decides he might need a new account, one where he doesn’t run the risk of misclicking and sparking immediate headlines across the world. And so, @Hollanovfucking4k is born.

Ilya logs out and back into his official account. Ilya 1, Shaydens nothing.

/

January, 2018

Ilya’s in Ottawa six months later when he decides to log back in to his burner account. He’s on the couch, watching Shane and his team demolish the Panthers, already more than a little lonely and looking forward to Yuna and David flying back from Florida. 

Shane puts a particularly tricky shot through the Panthers’ goalie’s legs to lengthen the Metros lead, and Ilya sits up and whoops. Shane looks gorgeous, sweaty and freckled behind his visor. A couple of the guys crowd around him to clap him on the back as he skates back to centre ice, and Ilya groans when Pike grabs him in a bear hug and presses an over-the-top smooch to Shane’s helmet. In the middle of reminding himself that Pike had one hundred thousand children and they didn’t deserve to watch the Centaur’s captain kill their father on the ice next week, he remembers the Shaydens.

Fuming, he grabs his phone and opens twitter, logging back into his burner account. Predictably, the Shaydens are on top of the world.

Lily

Good job baby

Hope panthers aren’t endangered… because you just killed them

Jane

LOL. Love you.

Lily

Also tell Pike if he kisses my boyfriend again he’s dead

Jane

Not doing that.

Ilya can’t resist checking Twitter in the locker room before their game. More often than not these days he stays logged in as Lily. It’s freeing in its own way, having an identity to hide behind, one where he can defend his man and tout their relationship without anyone knowing it’s him.

The beautiful part about being in his own fandom, is that Ilya can make his own wish come true.
“Hello Hollander.” Shane skates up to him in the centre face-off circle as the game is due to start, spraying Ilya with ice when he pulls up with a particularly hard stop.
“Rozanov.” Shane is grinning stupidly, and Ilya quickly realises it’s probably not ideal to be seeing each other for the first time in a month while they’re quite literally on the ice. The ref is still skating over to start the game, and Ilya takes the opportunity to tap Shane’s stick with his own. Shane snorts and reaches forward to bump his own stick against Ilya’s. They go back and forth a couple of times, like it's their own weird, flirty little game of footsie. They separate a little when the ref reaches them, and he shoots them both a warning glance before he drops the puck, warning the two infamous rivals (recently turned friends) against playing dirty with each other. If only everyone knew just how dirty him and Shane got.
Ilya’s taking every opportunity to playfully chirp his boyfriend, and getting slammed into the boards by him feels more like foreplay than serious hockey. Ilya can’t even bring himself to feel overly upset when the Metros manage to get the upper hand in the third period and come out on top by a goal, not when he knows he’s going to have their captain writhing and begging underneath him in a matter of hours.
It’s hardly surprising when he’s asked about Shane in the post game interviews, but he still grins wide– a pavlovian response to hearing his boyfriend’s name.
“This is your first time playing against Shane Hollander since you announced your plans to run a hockey camp for charity– did it feel different playing against him now that the world knows you two are friends?”
Ilya has to tug his bottom lip between his teeth to stop himself from doing something outrageous, like letting out the honest-to-god giggle that bubbles up in his chest at the thought of Shane. He hopes he’s sweaty enough from the game to excuse the blush he’s sure is turning the high points of his cheeks pink. As it turns out, Russians do blush when they have a gorgeous, freckled boyfriend to think about. “It was fun,” Ilya admits, “he is good friend of mine, so it is nice not to pretend we hate each other.”
Another guy speaks up, shoving the microphone further into Ilya’s face. “Does that mean we’re seeing the end of one of hockey’s most iconic rivalries?”
“Absolutely not. He is great guy, great hockey player– probably second best in the league, but Hollander and I are competitive. Is best thing about him, makes us very uh, compatible.”

/

February 2018

Lily
Hey baby
Can you post us 😄

Jane
Are you okay?

Lily
Yes. Just miss you.
And people on social media don’t believe we’re really friends 🙁

Jane
I told you to stop looking at social media
You get pissed off so easily lol

Lily
🙁 u hate me

Jane
I love you so much idiot

Lily
😸

Jane
Send me the pic you want me to post

Lily
😁

[image attached]

Lily
That is not the photo I told you to post 😔

Jane
You know damn well I couldn’t post the one you sent

Lily
Why not

Jane
You’re licking me??

/

March, 2018

Jane

Can you send me Svetlana's number?

Lily

why do you want to text sveta

Jane

Jesus christ

Chill

You're the most jealous guy I know

Lily

You know other guys?

Jane

Not funny

It's for Rose

Lily

you text so many girls behind my back :/

Jane

I'm gay, idiot.

And I have a boyfriend.

For now.

Lily

:((

So mean

You and Sveta and Rose will make a groupchat where you laugh at me

[Shared contact: Svetlana Vetrova]

Jane

Thanks <3

Lily

sveta has huge crush on rose

Jane

The feeling is mutual trust me

Lily

sex with you is so bad it made rose landry gay?

Jane

Fuck off

Could literally say the same thing about you and Svetlana.

Idiot.

Lily

🙁🙁🙁🙁

Twitter loves us by the way

Jane

Oh yeah?

Lily

Mmmhmm

They are shipping us

HOLLANOV HAS DESTROYED SHAYDEN

Jane

What??

Lily

Don't worry sweetheart

I will monitor situation, make sure we defeat shayden.

Jane

Me and Hayden?

What about us?

Ilya I have to get to practise, are you okay?

Lily

I am perfect!

Jane

Okay, talk after practise.

Stay off Twitter!!

Lily

😇

/

April, 2018

Lily

Can I post photo of us?

Jane

Which one?

Lily

[Image attached]

Jane

You sure it's not too much?

Lily

I will not post if you do not want me to

but I like it

you look very cute

Jane

Shut up.

You're cute

Lily

I am russian

not cute

Jane

Cute cute cutie 

My cutie 

Lily

Maybe I do not want to post it now

Am on market for new boyfriend who does not call me cute

Jane

Yeah okay, post it cutie

/

May, 2018

Ilya Rozanov

Hi

You should tweet something

About Shane

Hayden Pike

Are you doing this so you can say I provoked you after you murder me?

Ilya Rozanov

Haha. No.

It looks too suspicious if I'm the only person interacting with him online

Hayden Pike

Yeah, you’re probably right.

Why are you messaging me about this though?

Ilya Rozanov

He is too offline

Busy reading New Yorker etc

Hayden Pike

You two are so weird

Hayden Pike

Is that okay?

Ilya Rozanov

Perfect

Thankyou

/

June 2018