Work Text:
The letters F, P, and R were quite familiar to Ilya. He had studied them and their sounds for many hours in order to speak English well enough to be signed to a major hockey team, and many more hours since then so he could keep up with a certain rival player/fuckbuddy.
But one day, while at home in Boston and scrolling through his replies on Twitter, he saw these letters in a combination to make, what he assumed to be, an acronym he had never seen before. RPF? Shilya?, he had asked himself. He tapped the name of the person who had the acronym to try to find context on what "RPF" meant. Given the nature of Twitter, he turned up empty.
He refused to give up, however. He had bookmarked a website that Cliff had showed him when they first met, a website helpful for learning unusual words and acronyms. Ilya wasn't sure how he would have survived in America without it.
UrbanDictionary.com. Ilya's favorite non-social media website.
He typed the three letters into the search bar and tapped the little magnifying glass button.
RPF
"Stands for Real Person Fiction. Fictional stories relating to the lives of the famous from movies, bands, etc."
Interesting.
He started a new search, typing in "shilya" into the search bar.
Shilya
"Pairing name for the Boston Raiders' Captain Ilya Rozanov and the Montreal Metros' Captain Shane Hollander. Used mainly on social media to refer to the pair either as a duo or in a more romantic context (see: shipping)"
Ilya decided he will not see "shipping", and avoided going down a "rabbit hole", as Shane called them.
He decided to go down a different rabbit hole instead.
He went through posts with the word "shilya" in them on Twitter, and even discovered a second name for him and Shane: hollanov. Ilya liked this one better, plus it seemed to be the more popular choice among fans.
He quickly found that people wrote fanfiction about him and Shane. That concept was not new to Ilya. He had been asked about it before from fans, journalists, reporters, management even, but he had never actually sought it out before.
But he soon found himself with close to 50 tabs open with fanfiction about him and Shane. Some of it was cute and sweet, but there was a large portion that definitely was not. He liked to indulge, so what?
He started with one that sounded the most realistic, unbeknownst to the author, about him and Shane sneaking around, not labeling anything and trying to keep it casual. Except, this ended with him and Shane getting together and having a happily ever after.
Ilya wasn't so sure that he would get to have that in actuality, even if he wanted it and were to go for it. Part of him was a bit crushed at that idea, but he tried to ignore it. He moved on to another story to keep himself from thinking about Shane and their involvement with each other too hard.
In hindsight, he maybe should have just stopped after the first one.
This story was much more hot and heavy, with Shane acting like a needy little dog, complete with the puppy-eyed look Shane is known for having. It was tagged with things that they had already done, with a few things that Ilya wanted to try with Shane. In it, Ilya carried Shane to the bedroom and they ripped each others clothes off and messily marked each other with bites and scratches and bruises, and Shane moaned his name desperately and Ilya thought he could hear it--
He locked his phone with a click and just held it as he processed what he had read. He decided to save that one for later, and copied it into a private tab.
He sat in silence for a moment as he digested what he learned in the past hour. There are people on the internet who want him and Shane to kiss, to fuck, to hold hands, to hug, have children, be werewolves, vampires, florists, tattoo artists, baristas, doctors. It was a whole new experience for Ilya. He wasn't sure how to to take it all in.
He knew it was entertaining; he did have fun reading them and found a good handful of them intriguing. They were sweet, and he couldn't help but to feel warm and fuzzy inside at the idea of people wanting him and Shane to be together, some times even going so far as to root for them and defend them despite neither of them even being out. He didn't realize he had become such a romantic either as he found himself wanting to do some of these things with Shane, but not just the sexual things. It was a lot to take in.
So, instead of dwelling on it, he decided to be annoying about it and ignore the whirlwind of confusion, lovesickness, and resigning to a life of being able to touch, but not have.
He unlocked his phone and copied a link to one of the fanfictions marked "explicit" and sent it to Shane, along with the message "thoughts?🤨", a mischievous smirk on his face as he did so. He watched his screen until the bubble with three dots appeared in the bottom left corner. Several messages from Shane came through a minute later.
> What the fuck
> What is this
> Why did you send me this
Ilya smiled to himself and rolled his eyes before he responded. Even when they were apart, he still had to find a way to annoy Shane. It was good for them, Ilya believed.
< is good writing
< the people want to see us kiss ;)
< thoughts??🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨
The three dots disappeared and reappeared several times over the next minute. Ilya could see Shane's frustrated and flustered expression in his mind, and it made him smile softly to himself. He felt his phone buzz in his hand, removing him from the mental image.
> I think
> It was a very well-written story. It was cute
Ilya's mouth screwed up, not exactly satisfied with the, honestly, boring answer. He was about to reply and let Shane know about his aforementioned boringness and Ilya's disappointment when another text came through from Shane.
> It was good. I think we should recreate it
Ilya's jaw dropped at the uncharacteristic flirtation from Shane. He felt like he had accidentally awoken something in Shane by sending him that fanfiction. He's surprised Shane even read it. Ilya watched as his chat with Shane darkened and the message "Jane🦭 has notifications silenced" appeared, knowing right away that Shane was surprised with himself and needed a moment.
Ilya laughed to himself and put his phone down on the coffee table and laid down on the couch. He was planning on gently questioning him further about that once Shane got over his self-inflicted embarrassment.