Chapter Text
Unknown to Shane Hollander, it all started with a flippant comment from a Boston UPS driver.
“Hope you have a brand deal for whatever this is, man. You'd save a fortune.” (Or something like that; Ilya couldn't remember the exact wording)
Yet it was enough for him to do the math. He wasn't going to message his agent, so he reached out to the company himself. When they realized he was actually Ilya fucking Rozanov and was serious, the ad agency outdid themselves. The company saw major improvements in their site traffic and sales. Mostly in Boston, not surprising, and surprisingly in Montreal- really any city with an NHL team.
Ilya shot the commercials and forgot about them. So completely, yet he'd been really smug and sent a selfie from in front of a cologne ad next to Shane's Reebok ad in Times Square. He was proud of that and thrilled they were next to each other in public and no one knew. “We look good together, no.” Shane had agreed, which had surprised Ilya and led to some phone sex later. So he hadn't told Shane about the small commercials he filmed; 10-ish over a few days during the off-season, no one was likely to see them if what he was paid was any indication.
That was how Shane Hollander nearly had a heart attack after his first cup win. He was opening his laptop to order more of his favorite lube with discreet packaging after the end of the stupid sex band. took a sip of his ginger ale and spit it directly onto Ilya's face.
On the home page was his hookup/every sexual fantasy crawling on a bed. He wondered if he was hallucinating for a minute, but no, not a picture, an actual commercial. He had to just wipe down his laptop and press play. He was sure whatever this was would be a problem. He may be panicking, but he was alone, and the curtains were closed. The ad was Rozanov crawling on a bed toward the camera with the lines “take care of yourself like how I would take care of you,” while he clicked open a bottle of lube and started warming it between his palms. With intense eye contact, kneeling on the bed in boxer briefs. Shane started opening that ad multiple times a day; his lube order did increase, and he might have backed up the ad to his locked folder. Just for when they took it down.
A few days later, Shane didn't mention the campaign to Ilya when he was asking if he wanted to arrive in Vegas early this year. Ilya said he was happy to celebrate Shane's win however he wanted; it was his year after all. Shane may have jumped Ilya at the door of their Vegas hotel with more fanfare than normal, but the results were amazing. He seemed to have developed a Pavlovian response to the sound of lube opening. He was never going to tell Ilya why. Ilya, on his end, had just said You should win more cups, and went with it.
He debated flying to Russia when 2 weeks after the first ad and just 2 days after he'd seen Ilya in Vegas, the next commercial dropped in what was promised to be a hot summer series. Shane saw a countdown and worried about what the next ad would do to him. Ilya leaned against a doorway, wet hair and a towel just barely on his waist. He does an eye slide up and down and says “only the best for you,” adjusts the damn towel and gives a smirk as he reaches into a drawer and pulls out a bottle of the lube and approaches the camera slowly till it's a close up of his lips parted slightly whispering “the only brand I use.” Shane had feelings about this one but had to admit he'd never seen Ilya use anything else. Also, the first ad was still being used daily. Completely unrelated, his texting to Russia was also increasing.
The 3rd ad was not the sexiest, and Shane was curious what order they had filmed these in. It wasn't accurate either, but it seemed made for Shane. This one had Ilya knocking on a hotel door in jeans and a V-neck black sweater with his cross visible. Shane had touched that sweater and had taken it off Ilya. He had a travel bag hanging off one shoulder and, for some reason, was holding a hockey stick. He smiled at whoever opened the door and crossed to the nightstand, pulled a travel-size lube and condom out of his back pocket. “Travel size is my favorite for convenience and a smooth glide for all your stick handling,” with a wink. Shane had learned in week one to no longer have a drink when opening the website. He also wondered if he watched that one more than once, if he'd blush every single time someone mentioned stick handling next season, or worse, get hard. That ad, he mostly kept the audio off and watched Ilya walk through the hotel door in his tight jeans and V-neck sweater. A still from that ad may have been his phone background while he was at the cottage.
Completely unrelated to this commercial drop and very casually, with no heat whatsoever, Ilya’sJane24 had a fight on Reddit with Ilyawife81 over the accuracy of the ad and whether Ilya would wear something so soft. Ilyawife81 assumed he would be allergic to sleeves even in winter. While Ilya’sJane24 said he wore a jacket to our first hookup, thank you very much. You couldn't pull that man fight broke out. Shane might have been smug when someone commented, " Wait, are you that Jane, the one in Canada!!! Someone else said that if they had their own ringtone on Ilya's phone, they would lock that down.
Shane had to ask Jackie, very awkwardly, what the phrase "lock that down" meant. He had thought they were casual, but thatass81 did not think so, and they seemed to know some things about hockey. He added more calls to Russia into his day.
The 4th ad was Ilya laying on the bed with a top sheet artfully covering Shane's favorite parts of him while he pulls open the nightstand drawer and pulls out the lube again. “safe for taking care of you and your toys for when I can't be there” and he is pulling out a dildo that Shane eyes tell him is actually smaller than Ilya but not by much, maybe an inch. He smirks at it, puts it back in the drawer, and says, “But I'm here now.” The sheet looks like it might slip as he turns back to the camera and clicks open the lube. The smoldering eye contact makes Shane debate kidnapping Ilya ( for his own safety, of course); the man will get mobbed in Boston. This one made him sext Ilya immediately, then turn it into a FaceTime request.
To say the marketing campaign was a success was an understatement. The 5th ad crashed the site and was only up for 20 minutes. Shane didn't get to play the ad, but he did see it start with Ilya's butt front and center on the home page; this time, he appeared in the shower with his arms braced against the tile wall in front of him. Later Shane tried to find the ad, but it apparently violated YouTube's guidelines. A Reddit post dedicated to the series of ads said his line in that one was “when you want to feel clean while being dirty.” Shane wasn't sure that line made much sense. Someone else claimed it said, “for when you want to be wet.” There was fighting and a vote. They also debated whether it was his real ass (it was), but Shane didn't want to encourage people. So Shane wasn't sure he could trust their memories of the wording if they didn't even know his ass when they saw it. He was not going to ask Ilya for a copy of the ad. He wasn't. The rankings of everyone's favorite ad varied wildly all summer.
The 6th ad was still in the shower, but only from the waist up, and Ilya leans forward, arms braced against the tiles, and says, “da like that, what's your favorite flavor?” Shane might have had a moment where he wondered if Ilya was alone in that shower. The website had its own favorite flavor poll. Shane already had a tripod and a replacement toy by the time this one had come out.
Ad 7, apparently, according to Reddit, was by the same intern as the one with the hockey stick in the hotel room. Ilya was on ice, but topless, just skates, and the bottom half of his uniform pulled down to show his v and definitely did not sit where they were supposed to. “I play safe and hard, and I like to have the best equipment for the job.” Hold up lube and wink. Shane saved every still from that clip for his private folder and knew he would be hard every Boston game next season.
Reddit was feral with behind-the-scenes info about the 8th commercial, the only one directed by a woman and, according to sources, filmed the day after All-Stars. Shane knew he'd given Ilya a hickey and scratches and wondered what makeup had thought. Shane was confused by his feelings before pressing play; in the thumbnail, Ilya was fully clothed in a soft sweater, rain outside the window behind him. Once Shane started it, he watched Ilya slowly tracing his finger around the rim of a glass. He smiled gently, looked at the camera, and said. “I can not be satisfied if my partner isn't, and that starts with comfort.”
Outside of Shane's cottage, this drop may be responsible for a small baby boom in the Boston area. But really it could have been any ad in the series. Condom and toy sales increased noticeably. By Reddit's reaction, more than one baby would be named Roz next year.
For Shane personally, this had him calling Ilya asking if he wanted to spend the end of summer at his cottage. He needed to lock his man down before he headed back to Boston. He had witnessed him say my partner and had glitched. Was he talking about Shane or someone else? That was Shane's hickey visible partly above the cable knit’s collar. Was it just a line? They had been talking almost every day this summer, and Shane wouldn't lose that to the hundreds of thousands of volunteers he saw online.
Ilya was surprised but happy with Shane's extra attention since Vegas; his heart had been engaged for at least a year. He'd been thrilled with whatever had Shane more affectionate, and the cottage was a dream. Out of nowhere, he had a boyfriend who wanted sex all the time, and no one had interrupted them.
The internet's continual obsession with Ilya brought out Shane's competitive side. That was now his boyfriend, thank you very much. Ilya'sJane24 was deep in Reddit. He'd missed some commercials because he just couldn't watch those in front of Ilya. But apparently they were still hot. Though the intern had another commercial, that one in the locker room, for some reason. With the supposed line, "Game prep properly," he didn't bother looking up that ad. The final ad had him at a club, dancing and giving bedroom eyes to the camera in a silk shirt with 3 buttons undone and hair damp. "So you can move comfortably all night long." The comment about this one and everyone who was now planning on clubbing where Ilya was made him act. He wasn't losing his man to anyone online; he had locked that down as soon as he could and was going to keep him. The phrase lock that down had become his mantra since he learned it sticky to mirror and all. He could apply it to his game or his man.
Shane loved having bagged Ilya (thanks, Jackie). They talked daily. Yet Shane realized quickly he wanted more than his boyfriend's lube commercial to keep him company at night. More so when it was on basic cable. The first time it was on the gym's TV had almost caused an injury.
The first step after officially becoming boyfriends was the trade to Boston, which shocked his mother. "You just won a cup, Shane; it's mid-season. Talk to me, honey."
Trying to justify it to his mom, who had ambushed him at his apartment, he turned so red his mom was worried about his health. She turned when he choked and gestured at the TV. He hadn't planned on saying, "Look at him, Mom. My boyfriend is too hot to be alone," but it was shocking and awkward enough that they avoided talking to each other for a few weeks. Not how he planned to come out, and neither of them mentioned it to David or Ilya, who liked each other when they finally met.
Ilya had forgotten about his work with the lube company until months later, cuddling with his boyfriend in Boston. The ad-safe for TV was still running, and when it came on, he admitted shyly that the director had asked him to think of the person who had given him the hickey to get the soft smile out of him. Shane's reaction to that had been more satisfying than even the year's free lube (which the company was slightly regretting but had kept Ilya from seeing any of the Ads till now). The checks he got for residuals went on longer than he expected.
Shane was also more online than normal and now at bars with the raiders, so he saw people shooting their shot at his Ilya. His competitive spirit did not die being closer, so Step 2 was to upgrade him to husband as soon as he thought Ilya would say yes, which was just after they won their first cup together. Shane loved him and wanted to call him husband for multiple reasons. One small, petty one was that he wanted paperwork and a reason for the raiders to give them a shared room. They shared anyway, but as a bonus, Jennifer in travel had been eyeing Ilya, and Shane had wanted to put her in her place.
Step 3 was slower than Shane liked. People at clubs and online saw a ring, but no announcement, and some still figured they could still try to flirt with his husband. Once Ilya got his citizenship, the world learned that Ilya was taken. Shane may have done a Calvin Klein campaign before the announcement. Just in the hopes that he wouldn't have to read more posts asking how he pulled Ilya again.
Ilya was overjoyed that the world knew his hot husband was taken, and Shane just kissed him and took his sweet, smart, talented, and responsible for a small baby boom hot husband to bed.
Shane's life was better than he could have predicted in 2015, as he wiped ginger ale off his laptop. Ilya made sure his husband always knew how happy Shane's move had made him and made it worth the effort, and he regularly wore every sweater Shane bought him now. The internet had been put in its place, and he got Ilya every day.
Ilya didn't know how he got so lucky.