Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

F/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander & Rose Landry

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Rose Landry, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe, Trans Female Character, Trans Shane Hollander, Feminization, Gender Dysphoria, Angst, LGBTQ Themes, Autistic Shane Hollander, Coming Out, Ilya Accidentally Cracks Shane's Egg, Suicidal Ideation, Shaving, Dom/sub, Anal Sex, Coming Untouched, Angst with a Happy Ending

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of mortal girl

Stats:

Published: 2026-01-16 Completed: 2026-01-24 Words: 28,644 Chapters: 5/5

dust bowl

Summary

"You should grow this longer," Rozanov once said, running his fingers through Shane's practical cut, the same one he had since he was fifteen. Rozanov's blond curls had fallen in his eyes. Behind them, his blue eyes glittered like he was looking at the sun. "You would be so lovely."

It felt like being lit on fire.

Or; Shane is Rozanov's girl.

Notes

Content warning for misgendering of a trans character by the narrator simply because she hasn't realized that she's trans and internalized sexism/transphobia. No slurs are used in this chapter.

If you're coming here to get mad about making hollanov "hetslop" then reread the fucking tags and try again. This is an exploration of a specific but real queer experience.

• Inspired by like one of your girls by creamsicle_melt

Chapter 1: tend to your row of violets

Chapter Notes

Rose asks Shane if he'd rather be kissing Miles. If he's ever told anyone that he's gay. If he had been with another guy. If it was different. Better.

He doesn't give any answer to the first question and responds to the next two without words. A shake, then a nod. He finds his voice for the fourth question, manages to say, "Of course," and not choke on it.

The last one makes him stumble. "Yeah, it was," he starts, Rose's eyes glimmering at him so kindly. Better with another guy.

Something about it cracks the truth right through his chest.

//

It was maybe around the age of sixteen that Shane realized his life operated around three conflicting points of interest.

Liking hockey was the first point. The easiest point. It was genetic. His mother and father met at a rink. She was wearing a Voyageurs shirt when she gave birth to him. Shane was better at skating than walking. There was nothing complicated about liking hockey. Shane liked hockey, and hockey liked him back. He was good at it. It was natural in a way that most things for Shane just… weren't.

Everything was complicated about liking boys. Including hockey. If anything, hockey got complicated because he liked boys. Boys were so… so handsy in locker rooms. So affectionate, so handsome on the rink. Shane was worried his heart would leap out of his mouth every time he had to change before practice, every time someone smiled and complimented his passes and his plays. He was glad that he liked girls well enough to seem normal. That he could have girlfriends to blend in amongst the pack.

The last point was the trickiest. That last point was being Shane. Awkward, stilted Shane who didn't pick up on jokes the first time. Or subtext, or facial cues, or anything that everyone else seemed to get. Short, half-Asian Shane who didn't grow facial hair when everyone else did. Who was… soft looking. Not very manly, not even a man at all, but a pretty boy. Shane got called a lot of things, and he hated that one the most, which just meant that the other kids would use it all the time.

Such was the order of operations. Liking hockey was easy and made it easier for Shane to appear more like other boys, so everything in Shane's life was about hockey. Liking boys was difficult and made hockey harder, so Shane ignored anything that had to do with liking boys. And being Shane was tricky but entirely unavoidable, so Shane did what he could to make things easier.

Then, Ilya Rozanov happened.

Rozanov liked hockey and was very, very good at it. Rozanov liked girls and boys, and was very good at that too.

Rozanov liked Shane.

Rozanov was gentle with Shane's inexperience. He smiled fondly when Shane stopped and folded his clothes. Rozanov liked the way that Shane would fight him, but always seemed to know where to stop before Shane got mad.

And Rozanov called him pretty.

Not a pretty boy. Just pretty. Shane didn't know why that made a difference, why it uncoiled something hot and painful deep within his gut—but it did. Rozanov had a talent for doing that. It happened whenever his hands wandered to Shane's chest to grope and squeeze, whenever he'd crowd Shane against something and make him feel small and vulnerable, whenever he pressed so deep inside Shane that it would ache.

It happened the first time Rozanov called him a girl.

More specifically, "Wetter than a girl." Something that Rozanov whispered as he danced his fingers up Shane's leaking length after he had edged Shane for close to an hour. It was one of the rare nights when they were able to take things slower. It was after Sochi. After Vegas. After they started making the same mistake, over and over again.

When Rozanov said that word, girl, thick and twisted with his accent, it was Shane's undoing. He sobbed, hips chasing Rozanov's hand, something deep and painful in his chest.

"Please," Shane whined against it, that terrible word, shaking like Rozanov had pressed salve into a festering wound. Rozanov stopped, eyes darting to Shane's face. Shane was terrified of what would be left once it stopped, and gasped out, "Please, wanna be your good girl, please."

Rozanov's eyes had gone so dark. "My good girl," he echoed, and Shane nodded desperately, and there weren't many words exchanged after that.

The three points remained. Shane still liked hockey, still liked boys, and still was Shane. He didn't let himself add a fourth point, didn't want to complicate his life further. But he let himself indulge in the thought, from time to time.

He was Rozanov's girl. It lanced right through him, bright and sharp like a flame. 

//

The sex changed after that.

Rozanov got sweeter. As soon as the door locked and Shane had folded his clothes and put them to the side, Rozanov would start purring and cooing at him. Sweet girl, shy girl, pretty girl. He was handsy about it too. Licking long and slow into Shane's mouth, showering wet kisses all over Shane's body—he liked to linger around Shane's chest and thighs.

"My girl's pretty tits," he whispered against Shane's nipple, grinning at the goosebumps that rose in response. "And my pretty girl's legs."

It was the kisses to Shane's ankles that made him the dizziest. There was something about the way it looked that just made Shane feel… small. Delicate. Sweet, to match the way that Rozanov treated him. Like he actually fit the part.

Usually. Rozanov sometimes liked to be mean.

Shane was still his girl. But now he was a bad girl, a slutty little girl. A girl with cocksucking lips and fuck-me eyes, who left the door unlocked hoping to be fucked, who was fucking gagging for it.

When Rozanov was mean about it, he went the extra mile. He'd bring lipstick to smear on Shane's mouth, laughing when it left his dick all red and tacky after a messy blowjob. He'd bring lingerie for Shane to wear, cheap women's lingerie that never fit and always looked so horribly slutty that it was a relief when Rozanov finally ripped it off.

He'd call Shane's cock a clit. His ass a pussy. And Shane would cry and cry and cry and cum harder than he ever had in his whole life.

After, Shane would lie there and try to piece things back together, try and recenter his mind around those three points, shoving the fourth non-point into the box where it was meant to stay.

Afterwards, Rozanov was always the sweetest. An absolute gentleman. It was almost more overwhelming than the sex. The way he'd wipe Shane down and help him to the shower. Get him water and ask if he was okay. Sometimes Rozanov would even wash Shane's hair.

"You should grow this longer," Rozanov once said, running his fingers through Shane's practical cut, the same one he had since he was fifteen. Rozanov's blond curls had fallen in his eyes. Behind them, his blue eyes glittered like he was looking at the sun. "You would be so lovely."

It felt like being lit on fire.

//

For some reason, Shane could never get off to memories of it. Sex with Rozanov, sex as Rozanov's girl. 

He cried over it, once. Staring at his cock as it weeped in his hand, trying to hold onto the echo of Rozanov's voice calling him a sweet, slutty little girl. Trying to make his body remember the way that Rozanov's hands gripped the back of his thighs to push Shane's knees to his chest, the way that Rozanov carved open his– his cunt–

It turned him on, turned him on so fucking much. But when he chased that pleasure, stroking himself with a tighter grip, working his dildo into his ass and riding it until his thighs ached—the heat never burned over. It flickered, and it died, and Shane was just left feeling cold. Left to curl into himself, shaking with tears, his cock softening and his body oversensitive to the point of making him sick.

Masturbation had never really felt good for Shane. It was something he only ever did as maintenance, something quick and clinical and perfunctory. He wasn't good with his own body. Shane never knew how high to lift his arms when he waved, how wide to curve his lips when he smiled, or how tightly he should hold someone's hand when shaking it. He never figured out how to get himself off and enjoy it.

His parents joked that off the ice he had the mannerisms of a newborn giraffe. Shane found it hard to disagree. Sometimes, he felt as if he was living in someone else's body. As if his mind found the shell of some random boy, and Shane still hadn't learned how to puppeteer it, all these years later.

The only time that Shane seemed to know what to do with his body was when he was on the ice. He knew the exact angles for slapshots, the exact balance for sharp turns, the exact posture for a clean check. On the ice, Shane's body was his own.

Rozanov knew exactly what to do with Shane's body. Something about his touch made Shane's head slot back on his shoulders. Rearticulated Shane's joints, recalibrated Shane's system.

Ruined him, really. That's what Rozanov did. The humiliating truth of it burned after every failed attempt at masturbation. With every ache left by Rozanov's hands, Shane allowed himself, his body, to be ruined by Rozanov's touch. Reshaped, remade in Rozanov's image.

Defiled. Deflowered. Not a very good girl thing to be at all.

//

Shane knew, logically, that Rozanov had actual girls. It was hard not to know when every other night he was spotted in some club with beautiful women hanging off of his arm. Shane knew this—that he was not actually Rozanov's or his girl, let alone Rozanov's only girl—and accepted it. It was one of the unstated terms of their unspoken agreement.

Staying was another one of those terms. A violation of those terms, to be specific.

He should've known better than to stay. He should have told Rozanov of their order of operations: it was convenient, and secret, and not meant to mean anything. Violating one threw the entire thing out of order.

But Shane still stayed, tried to stay, when Rozanov asked. When Rozanov offered a tuna melt and gave him ginger ale. When Rozanov sat on the couch and talked to him like… like a person? A friend? A girlfriend, even? Not quite that, because Shane wasn't a girl, much less Rozanov's but it gave him the kind of butterflies a girlfriend would probably have.

And he got Rozanov off the way a girlfriend would. Maybe. Shane wouldn't know. But he got wet the way that Rozanov liked, leaked all over Rozanov's cock like a girl would. Rozanov cried out his name, not his last name, but his name like they were– something, like Shane was Ilya's–

That was the problem. When Shane called him Ilya.

Shane was said like a lover's name. Shane said Ilya like a… like a boy.

Reality came crashing back in the opposite order of operations. Being Shane was hard, liking boys made things harder, liking hockey made it easy to be Shane.

He couldn't be Rozanov's girl. Ilya's girl. Everything about his life said the opposite.

So Shane left. He had to. There was nothing else he could do.

Still, it almost shattered him entirely when he got back to his hotel and realized that he was still wearing Ilya's shirt.

Shane tore it off and shoved it into his suitcase before he could follow that train of thought to its natural conclusion.

//

Shane really, really tried to be Rose's boy.

He liked Rose. Loved her, even. Shane loved her so much that being with her would sometimes make him ache with it. Her hair was always so nice and soft, and she always smelled like something delicious. Her laugh was bubbly and bright and high. He told her that it sounded kind of like a bird, and immediately started apologizing because it was kind of a weird thing to say, but she turned so pink and called him sweet.

She was lovely. She was so fucking pretty.

Rose was so nice to him too. She called him cute. So cute, all the time. Sometimes adorable. Once, she said that she wanted to rescue him from a shelter, which was a little weird, but not as weird as him saying she sounded like a bird. She always said things that made him blush, and there was something about blushing that made him feel… nice. Safe. Taken care of.

Shane had to update the definition of being Shane to include 'being a bad boyfriend.' Because boyfriends were meant to take care of their girlfriends, not the other way around. But Rose was always taking care of Shane.

After the club, when he couldn't cum, or stay hard, or even get her off—his body failing him again, his body unused to her hands and her touch—she was so fucking nice about it. Even though it wasn't the first time. Even though she wore his jersey on her delicate frame. Even though she was his girl, Hollander's girl, and that meant that he should take care of her.

"It's okay," she said. Kept saying. Kept murmuring into his skin as her nice, long nails scratched against his skull. "It's okay. We can just sleep tonight. It's okay."

Being Shane meant being pathetic. Being a liar, and a cheat, and everything his parents said that he wasn't. Being Shane meant thinking about being Ilya's girl to try and stay hard enough to make his girl cum. Being Shane meant failing to do it anyway.

Of the three truths that Shane's life operated around, being Shane was the worst one of all.

//

Now, Rose thinks that he's gay. It's a very logical conclusion to reach, given her position. She's gorgeous and beautiful and so fucking sexy. There was nothing wrong with her. There had always been something wrong with Shane. She would've realized it eventually.

"Was it better?" she asks. About Shane being with a guy. Another guy.

"Yeah it was," Shane starts, then stops, because it wasn't another guy. It was Rozanov. Ilya.

And Shane was his girl.

"Can we go? Somewhere?" Shane asks. His voice breaks in all the wrong ways. Rose sits up, alarmed, but Shane doesn't let her speak. "I don't– I don't think I can say this here."

She nods slowly. "Okay," she whispers. She still leaves a tip for the waiter that never came to take their order. Seeing it cracks Shane's heart open in his chest. He wants to be in love with her. It would all be so much easier if he was in love with her.

They get in the car, and they start to drive. Rose keeps looking at him, and Shane can't look at her, but he can feel the worry radiating off of her. He keeps trying to breathe through his mouth. Keeps trying to cling onto this– this untruth, this habit, this thing that she– he isn't but still has to be, because the easiest part of being Shane was liking hockey and if this… thing, this problem, this reality– if it's allowed to be true then there's nothing left–

"Shane?" Rose asks, so gently, and the crack in Shane's chest opens into a cavern of grief.

Shane pulls over into an empty parking lot, puts the car in park, and lets it bleed out of her. "I don't think I wanna kiss Miles, because Miles is gay," she chokes out, wretched and painful. "I think– I think I want to kiss a guy that likes girls. Because I– I think I'm–"

The worst part is that she's still lying, because it's not a matter of thinking. If anything, it's probably something that she's always known. Shane has never really been a boy to begin with. She has always been Shane. Liking hockey just made that easier. And liking boys just always made that harder.

She has always been broken. Right from the start.

Rose's eyes go so big, then so fucking sad. She unclips both of their seatbelts to pull Shane into a hug. "Can you say it?" she asks, lips against Shane's scalp. "Do you need me to say it for you?"

Shane shakes, and shakes, and shakes, but eventually she manages to sob, "Rose, I think I'm a girl."

"I think you are too," Rose whispers. It sounds like an apology. She pulls away. Her eyes are red and watery, but she manages a smile. "So I guess you're actually straight."

The laugh that leaves Shane is mostly snot. "Sorry."

"Don't be!" Rose rummages through the glove box until she finds some Kleenex. "It's a nice change of pace. I've had gay ex-boyfriends, but I've never had a straight ex-girlfriend."

"Stop making me laugh, I'm going to get snot everywhere," Shane complains, still crying. Rose smiles as she passes Shane a tissue. They both laugh at the way Shane honks as she blows her nose. "Fuck. God, I'm so fucked."

Rose grabs her shoulder and squeezes. "Hey. Hey."

Shane gives her a wry, watery grin. "I might've heard of gay MLH players, but I've never heard of any female ones. Especially not a… a transgender."

The thoughts crash down in quick succession. She can't be a girl in the league, that's not allowed, it'd be a media nightmare. She can't come out and join a female league, because that'd be an even bigger nightmare. She could stay and play hockey as a boy, but that would kill her eventually. Probably. Not even because of her body, her flat chest and her cock and whatever. Living that lie would choke her out.

Shane doesn't know what to do now that liking hockey is at odds with being Shane.

Rose grabs Shane's face and forcibly turns it. "Don't go there," she instructs. "Not yet. There's no point in going there yet."

Helplessly, Shane just laughs. "I don't know what else to do."

"Let's start with a name. Is there a different name that you would want to use?" Rose asks, which really throws Shane off guard. "Something that maybe I could at least call you? As your girl friend?"

"Girl space friend," Shane clarifies, for some reason.

Rose laughs, and it's not hysterical in the slightest. "God, you're funny. What would be a funny name? Shauna would be pretty good."

"Don't try and name me something funny," Shane complains. She's still crying, but it's not as awful as it was before. But something between lust and longing almost chokes her when a name comes to mind. "Um. What about Jane?"

Something weird happens to Rose's mouth. "Jane Hollander?" She's trying to be nice.

It sounds… pretty bad coming from her mouth. But it still makes Shane burn. Just a little bit. "I, uh. I said I've been with a guy before," she explains, tearing her face out of Rose's grasp. She cannot deal with Rose's massive, curious stare right now. "It's another player."

Rose gasps and covers her hands with her mouth. "Sorry," she says into them.

Shane laughs. "He saved me in his phone as Jane so it looks like he's texting a girl." Rose gasps again, higher this time. Shane can't stop laughing. "He's the only guy that I've ever been with. That I’ve, uh, been with. Over the last… eight years. So."

"Girl. Girl." She's not even saying it like that but it still makes Shane feel so much better. "Jane."

"Yeah, no, I actually don't like that," Shane says, grimacing. It makes her sound even lamer than she actually is. "Just stick with Shane."

"Who cares about your name right now!?" Rose shrieks. "Eight years!?"

Shane keeps laughing. It still feels like she's dying, like the world is falling apart. She's still crying, still weeping so fucking much.

But she's laughing. So that's at least… something.

Chapter End Notes

I've read and reread creamsicle_melt's fantastic work so many times that I inevitably had the thought "What if Shane was one of Rozanov's girls? What if that was her queer journey? Not one of accepting her sexuality, but her gender?" That, coupled with some reading I did on Harrison Browne (a trans male hockey player & actor on Heated Rivalry!) as well as some musings on the intersection between the autistic dissociation with one's body and gender dysphoria, led to this fic.

Shane will come out the other side better. I promise. But given the story and setting, we have to start in a hard place.

Chapter 2: the holes in his sneakers

Chapter Notes

Content Warning:
- use of a transphobic slur by Shane against herself in the narration
- mention of a homophobic slur being used against shane by an unnamed player
- lots of misogyny by shane against other girls but also in a longing way for herself. it's like, misogyny as a form of gender envy
- lots and lots of internalized transphobia
- this chapter ends in a bit of a hopeless place for Shane. obviously, this is not the end of the fic and the next chapter will be about fixing it, but it's not a great place to sit in. please take care of yourself

The amount of support I got on chapter one has been absolutely insane. Thank you so much to everyone who commented and kudos'd. I never expected this fic to get even half the attention it got.

Shane couldn't hate Rose, because Rose was now her best friend and her confidant. But she wanted to. She wanted to, she really did, because if Rose hadn't asked, then Shane might have never been forced to know this truth about herself. The vague and ever-present feeling of wrongness would've stayed exactly that, and Shane would never have had to know the aching devastation of wanting something she couldn't have.

Hayden and JJ call her their boy. Mom books Shane for Men's Health magazine. Dad has her contact saved as "Shane (My Beloved Son)."

And Shane has to lie to them, and the rest of the world, and just keep living like she wasn't constantly fucking lying. She can't even indulge herself with the truth, because she can't afford to be found out.

It's strange, the way that Shane is transgender. She didn't particularly mind her body most of the time. Most of the time, she's playing hockey, so being broad and built and manly is good. It makes her better, it makes her the best.

When she's alone with her body is when things are bad. When she doesn't have anything to think about except the nauseating thing between her legs, her painfully flat chest, her boyish cut and squarish jaw. In those moments, she sits there and obsesses about the lie that she lived in, the lie that would only ever be the thing that other people saw. This body is not Shane's, just the one that she's been given, and she hates lying more than anything, because that's not who she is.

Shane would never hate Rose to begin with, but Rose makes it especially hard to hate her with how much she tries to help. How much she has helped, all the ways she made it easier to bear. 

She bought Shane a tube of tinted lip balm that was just barely pinker than her lips, perfume with gender neutral scents, encouraged Shane to go get a manicure done with clear polish—things that felt soft and girly without giving her away. She even helped Shane find a stylist who couldn't care less about hockey players who were possibly trannies, someone who helped fill Shane's wardrobe with clothes of a softer cut.

Little, miniscule things, but they help more than Shane can really say. She's not sure why such inconsequential things are so pivotal in keeping her grounded and sane. They're almost like reminders of the truth. Secrets that no one else knows to look for, but allow Shane to indulge in the person that she actually is.

No one's noticed the manicure, or the perfume, or the lip balm yet. Not even Hayden, for all that they hang out together. Of course, everyone has noticed the clothes, but there are enough well-groomed athletes in the league for Shane to avoid wide-spread scrutiny. Sure, she's gotten a bit of chirping from a few of the older assholes in the league, and there's a few media guys looking for any excuse to call her a weak sissy, and Mom for sure had some pointed questions about the sudden interest in clothes—nothing too probing, though. Not yet. 

It helps that Shane looks good in these newer looks. What helps even more is being able to say, "Oh, my friend Rose suggested a makeover." That keeps things quiet.

Quiet. Easier to bear. Absolutely necessary, because the order of operations was all out of sorts.

Being Shane is harder than ever. Liking hockey no longer helps with being Shane. Liking boys did, sort of, but also didn't. Now Shane is looking at boys as a girl, which only reminds her of the ways her body overlaps with theirs, and the parts of her body that they would find disgusting. Nothing about that helps with hockey, which is still the most immediate thing in Shane's life.

Outside of the fourth thing. The thing that Shane can't let herself have. The thing she wants more than anything.

//

Shane tries hard not to preen at the way Ilya looks her over as she approaches the bar. The way his eyes flicker at her loose, almost sheer white top that's tucked into her highwaisted, wide-legged black pants. At her slightly-pinker lips, which Ilya's eyes linger on for just a moment before they tear away, like he's been burned, finishing the rest of his beer.

He's wearing the loudest Hawaiian shirt that Shane's ever seen. Her heart aches at the sight of it, at the tension in his jaw, and the way he stops looking at her. The way he can't look at her as they exchange polite conversation. Captain to teammate. Hollander to Rozanov.

God, Shane thinks, stealing glances at him as they speak stiltedly. He's so fucking handsome.

She takes in his sharp nose, pointed chin, his steady eyes. Rose screamed when Shane showed her Ilya's picture—she forced Shane to after she figured out who exactly had Shane saved as Jane. Shane thinks that Rose could figure out the secret to immortality if given enough time.

"You like bad boys!" Rose gasped, sounding delightedly scandalized. "Oh, I should've known you were that kind of girl!"

When Ilya looks her up and down, his eyes glowing with a gentle heat, Shane wonders what kind of girl she looks like to Ilya. If Ilya even wants to think of her as a girl at all, after everything.

The thought makes her stomach freeze over with ice cold dread. It happens right when Vaughn crashes into their conversation, whooping "Let's go East boys!" and making Shane's hand tighten around her bottle.

Right. Boys. That's what they look like together. Two men having a conversation at the bar. They're safe to talk like this here, because no one would ever know what was underlying this conversation.

If Shane was a woman, a real one, not even a pretty one but just a woman, then they wouldn't have this luxury. Everyone would think, oh, Rozanov's trying to pick up another one. Shane would look like a slut desperate for his attention. She'd look exactly like what she really is.

Flames lick on the inside of her gut, the shame of it thawing her out.

"I feel like we're gonna," she manages, just barely avoiding choking on the half-melted chunks of her guilt. "Get a lot of that this weekend."

Ilya considers her. "It should give us a chance to get to know each other." He's smiling, flirty and small. He says, conspiratorial and quiet, "Who knows what we have in common."

Shane flushes. She's always fucking flushing around Ilya. She tries to hide her embarrassment in her beer. Ilya uses that to say, "You're looking very pretty today. Different, maybe," and God, fucking God–

He pokes and prods until he pulls the truth about the stylist. For some reason, it makes his face split into the biggest smile that Shane has ever seen. It stuns her, how boyish his face can be, and how much of a girl it makes her feel in response.

She must have been fucking blind to have slept with Ilya so frequently and never realized that she was a girl. Ilya looks at her, teases her, smiles at her, laughs at her—it makes Shane feel like a blushing schoolgirl doodling hearts in the margins of her notebooks and writing Shane Rozanov on all of her assignments.

"So," he starts, face losing its humour. "This has nothing to do with Rose Landry."

Shane feels her smile slip as well. "Not… really," she starts slowly, because it really has everything to do with Rose Landry. Ilya's eyes harden, and Shane knows that she should've tried to lie, but she's barely managing one. "Rose recommended this stylist to me. Because I, uh, wanted to try something new."

There's a beat. "Does she like it?"

"She's…" Rose called Shane a coward for refusing her suggestion of low cut tops and 'working her natural cleavage.' There aren't many words for that, but Shane eventually settles on, "Supportive."

Ilya's face closes off. "So you and her are still…"

"What? No!" Shane's hand moves before her brain can stop it, grabbing Ilya's arm and squeezing it. She doesn't know if she wants him to feel the manicured shape of her nails. "No, Rose and I aren't– not for a while now. She's great but we're not. Uh. Compatible."

Her face is warm again. Ilya is studying it. Studying her. Shane runs away, saying that she has to circulate, which sounds stupid the moment that it leaves her mouth.

Ilya doesn't smile, but the corner of his mouth curls upwards the slightest bit. "You have your new pretty clothes to show off." He necks his beer, looking her up and down like he wants nothing more than to eat her alive.

Shane manages to make her escape. She can feel Ilya's stare on her back. It emboldens her. It terrifies her.

//

The All-Star weekend is almost a dream.

There's lots of sun. Lots of swimming. Shane doesn't get in the water, has never really liked it in the first place, but Ilya does. Ilya makes her sit at the pool side and watch him play with random kids who absolutely adore him after a few seconds.

Shane gets to watch him be loud and happy and soaking wet, gets to have him shake his soggy curls all over her like a wet dog. It's fucking hot, it turns her on, and she can tell by the way he bites his lip that he fucking knows. 

She doesn't let herself chase the fantasy. Doesn't let herself think of little white bikinis or family vacations, of having children of their own. But the ghost of that idea turns her on even more, for some reason. The weirdest fucking things keep turning her on now. Before meeting Ilya, she had almost been convinced that she was some kind of sexless, celibate creature. Now it's like all she has in her body is desire.

Better than the sun is the hockey. Good hockey, some of the best in Shane's life, Ilya always where she wants him to be, the two of them an unstoppable pair. If the pool turns her on, the hockey sets her on fire. Ilya's always matching his plays to her. He's always being everything she needs him to be.

It's a weekend of Ilya's undivided attention. It's too good to be true, so it of course comes to an end.

At sunset, the day before Shane has to fly out, Ilya finds her on the beach and asks her about Rose again. They brush thumbs in the sand. Ilya's gorgeous in the setting sun. It makes Shane brave.

She asks for his room number.

She doesn't end up being brave enough to say it.

It's one thing to say it to Rose. Sweet, lovely Rose, who's from Michigan and has three brothers and knows puck—but still isn't in the league. Isn't another player, isn't someone who can reflect the cold, stark reality of the situation in Shane's face. Who isn't someone who knows, just the way that Shane does, that this is a game that Shane will lose no matter what.

Shane wants to live with her truth out in the open, that's what she wants more than anything. But she's not ready to live with the consequences of it. Of doing something, saying something that could ruin the other dream that she's been so thrilled to achieve. Hockey is her heart, her reason for living, for waking up every single day. 

There's another reason for it too. A reason that Shane isn't so oblivious to pretend isn't there. Not anymore. A reason of a boy, with blond curls and blue eyes and a talent for pulling her pigtails, for making her feel like a person.

She goes to that boy's room and apologizes, her heart in her mouth, for ruining things, for being a coward who ran away. A boy who asks her what she wants, who tells her that it's simple, and she looks at him and barely manages to confess that she's not sure if she ever liked girls at all. A boy who laughs at her for that, but still goes and sits next to her and asks why she's telling him this.

And Shane tells that boy that it was nice, the last time that they were together. That she thinks she likes him a little too much. That she can't keep pretending to hate him, even if the world thinks that they're arch rivals, even if he thinks that she's a–

She doesn't tell him that. But he tells her that he can't do this. That he couldn't be with her, and he won't consider a world where he could. That his brother is an asshole, that his father is sick. That his mother is dead. And that boy starts to cry like he's desperately trying not to.

And Shane climbs into his lap and holds him, kisses his head, and tells herself, this is enough. This is more than you should even be asking for. This is more than you deserve.

Ilya likes girls and Ilya likes boys. Ilya likes it when boys want to be his girl. Shane doesn't know if Ilya likes girls when they have a boy's body. If Ilya only likes boy-shaped things who say that they're girls when he's fucking them.

She doesn't want to know if Ilya will keep liking Shane once he knows the truth.

The lie settles like lead in Shane's stomach. She ignores it as best as she can, trying to lose herself in the feeling of his skin against hers. Tries to drown in his too-wet kisses, in the way he gasps her name into her nape as he fucks her thighs.

She tries to be there for him, but she can't help but be selfish. She twists around to look at him, cupping his face in her manicured hands, and murmurs, "My strong, handsome boy." The clear gloss glistens on her nails, the way his tears do on his cheeks. "I've got you."

Ilya's face gets so soft and warm. His cock leaks against her thigh. "My sweet girl," he murmurs against Shane's throat. It sounds like prayer. "Taking such good care of me." 

Shane holds onto that feeling. Clutches it as hard as she can.

When she leaves, Ilya says, "Good night, Shane."

Shane knows that she's smiling too wide when she replies, "Good night, Ilya." She wonders what kind of person smiles so wide while lying. If she's always been that person, even before she knew who she was.

//

It doesn't take long for Shane to put together that her newfound libido tends to activate when girly things happen to her. When someone treats her with… delicacy. A gentle touch. It should terrify her, it should make her feel like she's been found out, like her worst nightmare has been realized. It shouldn't make her veins buzz and her head slightly giddy.

But it does. She gets turned on when J.J. carries her equipment bag from the airport to the bus, even if he's just doing a stupid bit about his gains. Shane gets turned on when she sees a few of her fans on twitter calling her their 'beautiful princess who has never done anything wrong ever' whenever she gets a minor penalty. Shane even gets turned on when one of San Jose's defenders checks her into the glass and calls her a weak fucking faggot, a fairy who's too much of a pussy to fight back.

Shane doesn't think much of it. She tries not to, at least. She's still trying to keep things quiet and easy to bear. Still desperate to avoid confronting the reality that looms ahead of her. 

It's really hard not to hear about it after her call with Ilya. A call that ends with her being desperately, achingly wet.

Shane exhales shakingly, curling further into herself on that stair step and putting her head between her knees. She lets the shame and guilt wash over her, hoping that it kills her arousal. She tells herself, his father just died. His brother is being terrible. He is grieving, and he finally let you comfort him, and you go and get horny over it? He didn't even call you his girl. What's wrong with you?

It'd be okay if she was turned on by the way that he sounded when speaking Russian. It's very sexy, and that's very normal, even if every word sounded like it's been painfully torn from Ilya's chest. That's something that normal people get turned on by. Even a degenerate liar like Shane wouldn't be judged for getting turned on by a hot Russian man's hot Russian accent.

But Shane is a degenerate liar, and she knows it's not the accent that turned her on. It's… it's the vulnerability. The trust. The honesty, even though he veiled it in a language that she can't understand, and she hasn't even begun to tell him her truth. Their mutual charade of… of–

Marriage, Shane's mind supplies. She has to stifle a hysterical laugh into her jeans. Yes, marriage. Holy matrimony, heterosexual domesticity. Him coming home from work, the provider of their family, and falling into her arms to breathe in her scent. Being a– a fucking wife to him. Feeding him, comforting him, providing him respite in the soft curves of her body, supple breasts and round hips and gentle face.

Going out to the cottage together in the summer. Inviting her parents over for dinner to meet him. Letting him pick which skirt she should wear for the evening, and then telling Mom, I can see where Shane gets her looks, telling Dad, I promise to take care of your daughter. 

Shane leaks into her briefs and feels her throat close with self-loathing. What a stupid, childish want. It's entirely untethered from reality, wholly based on just– just something petulant. Infantile.

Even if Shane wasn't built wrong, if being Shane wasn't at odds with liking hockey, if she was actually a he and not a paradox of a person—he still would never get to be Ilya's wife. Husband. Whatever. They would still only get to have each other for one night at a time, only have each other for sex and not much more.

Fuck, even if Shane was born in the right body, she still wouldn't get to have Ilya. They only got to meet because of hockey. Shane tries to imagine a world where she met Ilya like one of– one of his real girls, the scantily clad and desperate women who hang off of his arms in nightclubs. Who knows that they might have a night with him at most and don't even care.

Shane wouldn't ever be one of those girls. Couldn't. And even if she was, even if she whored herself out and managed to capture his attention, managed to get a night with him–

The sickening truth settles in her throat: this is the best world she could've hoped for. Even if it's hopeless, even if she is doomed. This is the world where Ilya's hands made her, shaped her. This is the world where she gets to be his girl, even if he will never mean it in the way that she wants to. And even though this is the world where it will, inevitably, break her, she wouldn't trade this world for anything less.

Shane presses the heel of her palm into her eye and breathes once, and then again. "Fuck," she croaks out, and then takes in a deep breath and stands up. She's still turned on. The grief wasn't enough to kill her arousal, but it'll be enough to keep her from cumming. She knows that.

She'll go and take a cold shower. She'll let that shock bring her back to the real world.

//

Maybe Shane should be more upset about the concussion, the fractured collarbone. The fact that her own fucking stupidity knocked her team out of the play-offs. The embarrassment of inviting Ilya to the cottage while she was floating on anesthesia, convinced that her delusions were things that she could actually have.

Drowning out all of that is the relief that she didn't come out to anyone. That Rose is still the only one who knows.

"You could come out," Rose suggests. "At least to your parents, now that your season is done. Speaking of which, how is it flicking your bean with your left hand?"

"Flick–" Shane splutters. "Okay, first of all, I know that I wasn't very impressive but a bean?"

Rose is laughing. "I'm trying to be gender affirming!"

"Second of all," Shane laughs back, still unable to stop herself from nervously glancing at the back door, just in case her parents are listening in. "I'm at my parent's house, ma'am, so–"

"Okay, then this is the perfect time to tell them!"

"There is no perfect time," Shane sighs. "They still keep asking if you're gonna come by this summer even though I said we broke up."

Rose makes an unhappy noise. "Hey, we may have broken up but I am going to come down to your lakeside palace one of these days," she threatens. "I would already be there if it weren't for these stupid reshoots for this stupid, nonsense movie."

"At least you're not kidnapped this time," Shane tries.

"I wish I was. Shapeshifting sucks."

"I wish I cou–" Shane starts, just barely able to bite back the words.

Rose still hears it, because of course she does. She makes a sound, soft and sad, and Shane braces herself for the next unavoidable truth–

"Third period's starting," Mom calls from the porch.

Shane turns to her and smiles, saying over Rose, "Yeah, I'll be there in a minute."

Rose falls silent. Then she sighs. "I'll let you know what I decide about Labour Day weekend." She sounds so fucking sad. "Shane… I love you, you know that?"

Shane swallows the lump in her throat, but still sounds strangled when she says, "I know. I love you too."

"Please promise me you'll think about it."

"I promise," Shane says, and she really, actually does.

Rose isn't wrong. Shane's only responsibility right now is to recover. There aren't any games, or press appearances, or commercials that she is promised to. Now would be the best time to blow up her whole life, to shatter her relationship with her parents, to tell them that she's wasting all their hard work over something she realized barely six months ago.

Shane watches the two teams find their position for the face off and tries to swallow the dreadful bile. How much of Dad's hard-earned money has he spent on her equipment, her training camps, her tournaments, her dream? How much of Mom's time and energy has been spent fighting for Shane's place in the league, chasing brand deals and sponsorships that would force people to remember that it was an Asian-Canadian player dominating the sport?

How could Shane have been so stupid, so blind to this undeniable truth of who she was? Why didn't Shane realise it sooner, realise it before her parents wasted their whole lives on their failure of a son?

"He's playing hurt," Mom says, jerking Shane out of her thoughts. "It's his ribs, I bet."

Shane looks at the screen. Ilya's slow moving on the ice. "How do you know that?" she says instead of I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

She forces herself to focus on the hockey on-screen. On Mom's freakishly accurate intuition, at least until the conversation fades into the kitchen. And then, when Ilya's on the bench and the hockey isn't interesting enough anymore, Shane focuses on Ilya.

In that impossible world where she was born the right way—normal enough, less Shane enough, just perfectly Ilya's girl—this is probably what her life would look like. She'd be at home for a playoff game in New York, his wife-and-girlfriend in his jersey, eagerly cheering him on and his victory. She'd be wearing his colours and his jersey. She'd be hoping for him to stay safe, to win, to make it to the Cup finals and to make her proud.

Maybe she'd be carrying Ilya's kids. Waiting for him, barefoot and pregnant. Him mentioning her in a pre-game interview, this one's for my girl, Shane. I'll make you proud.

It doesn't turn her on. Nothing about this turns her on.

Shane doesn't want to be a wife-and-girlfriend. Maybe it's selfish, maybe it's stupid, but she doesn't want her life reduced to just two truths—liking boys and being Ilya's girl. She still wants to play hockey. She'll always want to play hockey.

And even though she'd rather be anyone else in the world, liking hockey means that she will always be Shane. There's no way to separate those truths. It's genetic, it's what her parents gave her: her life as Shane Hollander, and her love for hockey.

She can't throw it back in their faces. She can't kill their one and only son.

Shane tells herself that she has pink-tinted lip balm and flowing shirts. That she has Rose's silence and her ear. That she has Ilya's hands, and his cock, and his affection—at least for now, and it might ruin her when she loses it, but she'll dig her clear-coated nails in for as long as she fucking can. She has her moments of respite, her places to live in her truth.

She can endure it. Especially with hockey. With her parent's love and support in her dream. And when Shane can no longer stand on the rink, when there's no other way to survive being Shane other than to give into these indulgences—then she'll tell them the truth.

Mom re-enters the room right as Shane rubs her eyes. "What's wrong?" she asks, rushing to her side. "Is it your head?"

Shane nods, standing, letting Mom help her to the bedroom. Once again allowing Yuna Hollander to do the hard work. Once again curling up in the darkness, covering her ears, and pretending that everything will be alright.

//

Scott Hunter has just won the cup. Right now, he's kissing a man on TV.

Mom is gasping, sitting forwards on the sofa. Dad just chuckles and says, "Well, how about that." Shane barely hears him. There's cotton in her ears. She barely even feels her phone vibrating in her hand. She barely feels herself lift it to her ear.

"Hello?" Shane breathes. Mom and Dad glance at her.

"I'm coming to the cottage," Ilya says, like he's swearing an oath.

Shane inhales. "Okay," she chokes out. She can hear Ilya start to ask something, his voice softening with concern, but Shane lets her thumb hang up the call before she drops her phone face down on the sofa.

"Shane?" Mom asks, or maybe it's Dad. It's probably both of them, standing up and crowding her, trying to grab at her face as she chokes through her desperate, ragged sobs. "Shane, honey–"

"I'm sorry." She's not sure if she's coherent. She wants to be. She wants to them to know that she means it, that she'll never be more sorry about anything in her fucking life. She doesn't want them to hear her grief, or jealousy, or terror. "I'm so fucking sorry."

The crowd on TV is still cheering. The announcers on TV are surprised, but congratulatory. "Good for Scott Hunter!" one of them says. It's not what Shane wants. Even in her wildest hopes and dreams, this isn't what happens.

What happens in those dreams is that it's not a big deal. Shane wakes up one day and everyone knows that she's a woman, and no one thinks otherwise of it. She's her parent's daughter, Ilya's girl, the only female player in the NHL and still at the top of the damn league. Life continues as normal, except no one bats an eye when Shane goes down on the ice and Ilya rushes to check on his wife. No one is scandalized when Mom posts their wedding photos from Shane's twitter accounts. No one cares that Ilya made Shane his girl, that she now has a body to match. It's just normal, just a simple fact of life that never required any coming out at all. 

It doesn't seem like a lot to ask for. Just four fundamental truths that can exist together. All she wants is to be Shane, to like hockey, to like boys, and to be Ilya's girl. She doesn't need to win the cup and kiss him at center ice.

But Scott Hunter can. And she hates him, and herself, and she wants, and wants, and wants–

Being Shane has always meant being selfish. Has always meant demanding the most from Mom and Dad. Tens of thousands of dollars on lessons and equipment. Hours and hours of negotiating deals and securing sponsorships. Endless patience for faulty wiring and the complete inability to be normal.

Being Shane means being someone who just can't endure the discomfort of a lie. Who can't fucking stick it out. Who ruins everything good that she already has, because it's not exactly what she needs, and she can't withstand anything less.

"I-I'm not gay," Shane starts through her sobs, because she knows what it looks like. Mom still tries to comfort her, to assure her that it's okay if she is, but Shane shakes her head and explains, "I'm not. But I am a girl. A woman."

Mom stops speaking. Dad's voice is barely louder than breath when he asks, "Like… like that transgender thing?"

Shane nods, face still in her hands, not brave enough to even fucking look at them as she weeps, "I didn't want– I only realised recently, I'm so sorry for–"

"No, no," Dad insists, tears and terror thick in his voice as he pulls Shane into his arms. "Please don't apologize. Oh, baby–"

Shane weeps into his shoulder, wanting nothing more than to have already been dead before this conversation even began. Of course they still love her, they still want to support her. They've always been that way, no matter how much Shane doesn't deserve it.

Mom rubs her back the way she would after Shane's nightmares. She sounds sick when she asks, "What does this mean?" Dad says something that Mom speaks over. "No, David, I'm not– of course we'll always love you, no matter what, but–"

"I don't know." Shane clutches Dad's shirt as she lies, because she does know. She knows what Mom is asking and what Dad is avoiding. She knows what this means. She knows it, and she knows that she can't keep denying it. "But I can't– I can't keep living like this any more."

People are still cheering on TV. Dad's lips are shaky when he kisses the side of her head. Mom is saying, "We'll figure it out." She sounds terrified, but she repeats it again, louder, like it'll be true if she believes it hard enough. "We'll get it all figured out. It'll be okay."

By her leg, her phone keeps buzzing with Ilya's calls, texts, whatever. Shane hardly notices. The grief is too strong, too powerful. It rips through her with every wretched breath that she takes. She treasures them, because she knows that she'll soon run out, that she'll soon be dead.

She's known right from the first moment, right in that first dinner with Rose, that this was going to kill her eventually. One way or another. She was always going to have to choke on the truth or cut out her own fucking heart.

Maybe it's something she knew from the beginning, even before she knew who she was. After all, she's always been Shane. She's always been doomed, right from the fucking start.

Chapter End Notes

as you read, I made a lot of changes to way that things play out in canon. Shane doesn't come out to Ilya as gay because she doesn't identify as gay at all, and she doesn't come out to Ilya as trans because that is very different thing. I also want to say that while Shane is having an very different experience, Ilya's is fundamentally identical to canon, which is why we haven't seen much of him this fic. He's still going through his beats. Things will intersect at the cottage.

Shane comes out to her parents as trans first because I could not imagine trans woman!Shane having the same reaction to the Scott Hunter kiss as gay man!Shane. Good for Scott Hunter, yes, but that is not the kind of thing that would fill a transhet person with hope. Especially not someone like Shane.

pls no one yell at me for the ending here I PROMISE shane will get better. in a bit. the next chapter might take a bit longer than this one.

Chapter 3: eighth grade death pact

Chapter Notes

good news!! chapter 3 and the fix it came way earlier than I thought. bad news!! the chapter count went up. next chapter will, definitively, be the last of this work though. I promise

Content Warning:
- Suicidal ideation. LOTS of it. But they're slightly roundabout.
- Internalized transphobia
- Unknowing misgendering (before Ilya learns that Shane is trans)
- One use of the f-slur in the narration
- A little bit of like. Traditional & somewhat sexist gender roles being used as gender affirmation

If you spot any spelling/grammar/gender mistakes (it's sometimes hard to switch back into the right voice when I'm jumping between docs/tasks) please let me know!!

EDIT: why did scott hunter become scott pilgrim in this doc. what the fuck

It's not until they're on the highway that they start talking.

Talking again, really. They exchanged a few words at the airport—Ilya commenting on Shane's choice of car, Shane heatedly defending it, both of them pretending that they weren't anxiously looking around for pedestrians trying to peer in through the windshields. That tension lingers as Shane pulls out from the parking lot, and it doesn't really fade until they're on the outskirts of the city, hitting a long and straight stretch of road that disappears into the horizon.

Surprisingly, Ilya's the one to break the silence. "You are alright?" he asks suddenly. "I know that you said you are. But on the phone…"

Shane dares to look at him out of the corner of her eye. He's staring straight ahead at the road. "I'm alright," she says. For the most part, it's honest. "Are you alright?"

Now Ilya looks at her, eyebrow arched over the frame of his sunglasses. "Me? Why would I not be?"

 "I don't know, are you hungry or anything?" she offers. It's not the most graceful conversational side-step, but for Shane, it's pretty good. "We can stop and get something if you'd like. It's a two hour drive out there."

Ilya shakes his head. He doesn't catch on. "I'm okay," he says with the smallest shake of his head. The mid-morning sun turns his blond curls gold. Shane wonders how bright his eyes are behind his sunglasses.

She forces herself to look back to the road. Forces herself to keep up the idle conversation. She'll have the next two weeks to indulge herself, to look at Ilya as much as she wants to. She'll take her time with it, memorize his voice, his scent, his smile, his strength when he fucks her. She'll make sure to burn an impression of him behind her eyelids so he can keep her company when she falls asleep.

At the end of these two weeks, it'll be all that she'll have left of him to keep her company.

Shane shakes her head, dislodging the thought. "What?" Ilya asks her, oddly insecure. "Should I not be thanking you for inviting me? I am trying Canadian politeness."

It's easy to laugh at that. At him. "No, nothing like that. I'm just…" she has to swallow the want and longing. "I'm glad that you're here."

"Me too, but…" Ilya looks at her. He's smiling, boyishly bright and nervous. He's so beautiful. So fucking beautiful. "Also terrified, yes?"

Shane breathes out a laugh. They hold each other's eyes for a moment longer, and then turn away. When she tells that her parents think that she's doing a silent retreat, he laughs in a way that she's never heard before. It's wonderful enough to drown out the guilt of lying to him.

Her parents don't think that she's doing a silent retreat. But they do think that she needs two weeks of complete silence, without outside interference, while she makes up her mind about what to do. About which part of herself she's going to kill.

But Shane has already made up her mind. Shane already knows that she can't survive another season of pink lip balm and clear nail polish, of only being a girl when Ilya is fucking her, of choking back the truth as she stands in front of the world as Shane Hollander, captain of the Monteal Voyageurs. She doesn't have the strength to keep tiding things over, to just keep getting by. Even if her parents know and support her, even if she has Rose in her corner.

At the end of these two weeks, Shane Hollander is going to retire from the MLH and all but disappear from the public eye. A formal statement will cite mental health reasons, but that won't be believed. The hockey world will erupt into a frenzy, scrambling to figure out where he went, what really happened, what could've possibly made the number one player in the league just give it all up. And they'll continue to speculate and gossip until there's something better to talk about, until Shane Hollander is nothing more than a distant memory, an unsolved mystery in the league's history.

All the while, Shane will be rebuilding herself. She'll start HRT and grow herself a pair of tits. She'll start voice training and do away with her low register. She'll go under the knife for bottom surgery, facial feminization surgery—whatever procedure she needs in order to make her body feel like her own.

And while she's under, she'll cut her hockey-shaped heart out from her chest. And maybe, just maybe, she'll find something that can take its place. Another reason to keep living, after she's finally gotten a body that she's able to live in.

It's laughable, even in her own mind, but she has to try. At least while her parents are still alive. If she hasn't found anything by the time that they're gone, then she'll…

Ilya takes her hand in his and holds it in his lap. His hands are so kind and so warm. He holds Shane's hands like he's cradling ceramic. Like Shane is something precious that could shatter in his hold.

Shane swallows the lump in her throat and keeps on driving. Two entire weeks, she tells herself. Far more than you deserve.

When Ilya thumbs over the back of her knuckles, she wants nothing more than for this drive to last forever. For the cottage to never arrive. Maybe even for the car to crash and kill them both, before she has to go and break their fucking hearts.

But Shane knows better. Shane has always known that she's always been Shane. That she has always been doomed, right from the fucking start.

//

Ilya kisses her senseless on the couch and accidentally reveals that Shane was the last person that he fucked, all those months ago. Ilya tackles her onto the bed and pins her arms down while she writhes and squeals, grinning at her resistance and making her melt by bringing his teeth down to her neck. Ilya laughs at her for making eight burgers—even though that's what the recipes said—and hugs her from behind while he teases, hooking his chin over her shoulder and squeezing around her waist.

Ilya asks about her parents. Tells her, "I don't know anything," only to immediately then add, "I know your mother is Japanese, or something."

Then his face gets all soft in the quietest of ways, in the corners of his mouth and eyes, as he leans over and pets the back of Shane's head. "Probably where you get your good looks." His words come out warm, like they've been left on the rocks in the sun.  

Shane realizes that she might have created her own personal hell.

She wasn't stupid enough to think that Ilya only liked her for sex. Not anymore. Not after she left and he tried to make her stay, desperately pleading, "Hollander." Not after the All-Star weekend when he gasped "Shane" into her neck like it was the only thing keeping him whole. Not after Scott Hunter, when she finally called him back and he sounded so painfully worried about her that it took almost an hour to convince him that she was okay, that she just had a weird panic attack in response, that he didn't have to worry about her at all.

That's the awful truth of it. Ilya cares for Shane. Maybe, as much as it terrifies her, maybe, he even loves Shane. It seems like a likely possibility, the way he's looking at Shane now, with ketchup smeared at the corner of his mouth and eyes crinkled over with fondness.

But the Shane that he might love is not who she is. It never really has been, even if she wasn't aware of it herself. Ilya had come to care about the Shane that she desperately tried to be, that she somehow convinced him that she was. A real boy, Mister Shane Hollander, a repressed and dutiful little faggot who liked to be bitched, liked to be degraded. Who gave selflessly to his team and devoted his whole life to hockey and wouldn't give it up for anything.

He doesn't know the coward that she really is. The liar who has perverted his careful affection, who defiled the honour he gave to her as Rozanov's girl. And Ilya might be kind, might be caring, might even be stupid enough to forgive Shane completely, were she to tell the truth.

But it's not something she can count on. It's not something she can bank her hockey on. It's not something that she can burden him with—not when his country looms over him, when his family threatens to choke him out, when his own career and safety is at stake.

Shane's also not stupid enough to think that he won't care. She knows damn well that she will be betraying him. That she'll be throwing it all back in his face, leaving him as devastated as he was back on his couch back in October. That what she's doing is unforgivable, that maybe losing hockey is what she deserves for hurting such a sweet, innocent, and caring boy.

So she entertains his questions. Laughs when he calls her dad boring and scoffs when she mentions McGill. Chokes back her revulsion and just tries to smile. Maybe if she smiles enough now, it'll be easy enough for him to hate her when his messages to Jane go undelivered, when he realizes that his calls aren't going through.

God, she hopes that he will hate her. He hopes that he hates her enough to never think about her again.

But for now, he might just love her. Right now, he's asking Shane, "Do they know?"

Shane looks at him. "About you?" She wants them to. She really fucking wants them to. But she couldn't burden them with that knowledge too. "Of course not."

Ilya shakes his head before she's even done speaking. "No, about you."

"...no," she says eventually, because that's the correct response to her question. No, they don't know that Shane likes boys, even if they've probably inferred as much already. No, they don't know that Shane was made a girl by the hands of one such boy, not in an act of corruption but one of revelation. No, they don't know about Shane, only about what is wrong with her. What is going to kill her.

Shane looks at the water, her throat tight. "Would they not be good about it?" Ilya asks kindly.

"They would be," Shane sighs, leaning back in her chair. "It's just…"

Mom has already bought Shane a few skirts that she thought would look pretty. They've been stuffed in the back of Shane's closet, and she hopes to God that Ilya isn't the curious type. Dad has been so careful about pronouns. He even texted Shane the list of names that they might have used if they knew that they were going to have a girl. Shane texted back her thanks and then completely broke down in the shower.

They've always been good about everything. About Shane, as much trouble as she's been. Shane has already exploited that goodness enough. She can't ask for anything more.

Ilya tilts his head. "Is it my fault?" he asks, sounding genuinely worried that it is.

"No," Shane shakes her head, but her body wasn't built for so many lies. This one breaks almost immediately. "I mean. Not entirely. Kind of."

Their cottage is just down the road. It's terrifying how easily Shane can imagine Ilya in their living room. Laughing with Mom as they bicker about hockey. Helping Dad with his garden in the back.

Ilya leans in, putting his hand on Shane's thigh. "Look…" he starts. There's mischief on his face, but beneath that, there's something like hurt. "I think you can tell your parents that you're into guys without giving them a list of every guy that you've fucked."

Shane huffs out a sound that she hopes sounds enough like a laugh. That would be a short list, she thinks and doesn't say. She's already being cruel enough. "I know. It doesn't really matter. You done?"

She collects the plates before Ilya can reply and escapes into the cottage. She can feel his eyes on her back. She savours it, and the fading heat of his hand on her thigh.

Two weeks, she tells herself. Just two weeks.

It's almost funny how her indulgence has become her punishment. But maybe that's exactly what she deserves.

//

In the evening, right as the sky starts to darken, they make a fire. Ilya asks about Rose, and Shane almost throws up because she wants to get rid of the tight jealousy in his eyes but she cannot say, 'Rose sees me as a dress-up doll, not a love interest, so trust me, you're good.' She's almost grateful for the loon that disrupts their conversation. For the way that fear makes Ilya look like a kid, cute enough that she almost wants to bite him.

"I hate you," Ilya tells her, scowling.

"No you don't," Shane replies, and she hates herself for loving that it's true.

When the sky has turned to a shade of purple that's almost black, Ilya tells Shane about his mother. About her accident when she swallowed a whole bottle of pills.

"Twelve," he answers, when she asks how old he was when she died. Without inflection, but thick with emotion. Then, he adds, "I found her."

The fire crackles in front of them, and the crickets chirp in the underbrush. Ilya's voice is so steady when he states, "I don't want you to think she was weak."

Shane's hand is still in his hair. She's glad that he's looking at the fire, that she can't see his face. That he can't see hers when she says, "I don't."

"She wasn't." So steady, but so full of pain. Of heartbreak. Of loss. Unthinkingly, Shane moves her fingers against his scalp. Ilya's voice starts wavering, just the slightest bit. "She was so funny and beautiful. She was so sad. And my dad was so hard on her. And–"

Another loon cries in the distance. Ilya startles, and then laughs. "Motherfucker!" Shane hopes that the sound that leaves her sounds more like a laugh than it does a sob.

He's smiling. She can see that from the way that he's turned his face. He's smiling, eyes so bright in the light of the dancing flames, and he settles back into her lap like it's where he's always belonged.

Shane strokes his cheek. Caresses the edge of a dimple. "Do you wanna go inside?" she asks.

Ilya shakes his head, nuzzling into her lap. "No," he says, and he doesn't say anything else. He stares at the flames, his breathing even and slow.

Shane stares down at him, at the beautiful boy in her lap, and tries to hide her shaking hands in his golden curls. Tries not to choke on her self-loathing.

She never should've invited him. She never should've allowed him to come. She never should've promised two weeks of quiet, of bliss, of happiness, not if she was only ever going to cruelly rip it away.

In two weeks time, Ilya will once again lose a woman that he loves. Only this time, there won't even be a body for him to find.

Shane looks up at the sky. At the stars that are coming into view. They blur into faint white smears in the darkness.

In her lap, Ilya sighs, utterly content.

//

"I like you," Ilya croaks the next morning, sleep thick in his voice.

He smells like skin and sleep. Shane breathes it in. "I like you too," she rasps back, tucking herself back into his arm. 

She doesn't fall back asleep, even when he starts snoring again. She's too busy memorizing the rhythm of his breath beneath her cheek.

They have thirteen days left at the cottage together.

//

Playing video games on the couch kind of makes her feel like a boy, but not in a bad way. Not when Ilya is doing his best to piss her off, pulling her pigtails at every chance he gets.

Getting head on the couch while on the phone with Hayden makes her feel fucking insane, and there's nothing boy or girl about that.

She's grateful that Hayden sounds half out of his mind with sleeplessness, that he's completely caught up in what he's saying and not paying attention to Shane at all. Shane isn't paying attention to him either. She's hyperaware of how breathy she's gotten, how much her voice shakes when Ilya slaps her face and swallows around her.

Has her voice always pitched up as she approached her orgasm? She'll ponder that question later. For now, she redirects her full focus to making sure that her thumb lands on the mute button, and then doubling over and spilling down Ilya's throat.

Ilya pulls off, his slick mouth curled into a grin as he flops to the side. He doesn't stop touching Shane, fondling her knee as she tries to collect herself and end the call. It's almost as distracting as his mouth was, because the way he's groping the meat of her leg makes her feel all fluttery and strange–

It's probably not great that this is what makes her feel most like a woman. But Shane doesn't bother thinking about that now. She crawls into Ilya's lap, breathlessly laughing, "Fuck you. Fuck you. Why was that so hot?"

"Because you," Ilya pokes her in the chest. "Like to be bad."

And then his eyes flicker with something vulnerable. Tender. Insecure.

Maybe it's cruel to do this. To keep doing this, even when she knows she'll be gone. But she hates the way that Ilya's brow has pinched together. Shane is selfish, and she wants to see it gone.

"Hey," she murmurs, cupping his jaw and thumbing his cheek. "That's not what this is. You and me."

Ilya looks up at her, and Shane feels like she's falling into the sky. You've never made me feel bad, she thinks. You're the first person who's managed to make me feel like a person. Like something more than a series of contradictions.

Out loud, she says, "Maybe it was at first. But not now, and not for a long time."

His golden lashes flutter with each slow, satisfied blink. He looks like a big, lazy cat. Shane can't help but smile down at him. Her chest fucking hurts.

I wish I could be half as good to you, she thinks. She hopes that he feels it. That he hears it, somehow. That Ilya knows that a boy like him deserves the world and everything good it has to offer. That she'll never be sorry enough for being what the world gave him instead.

Ilya's lip curls. "So you love Hayden," he teases.

"Alright," Shane huffs, rolling to the side. Ilya grins wide enough to show all his teeth and slaps her thigh repeatedly.

It's stupid. He's stupid. Shane is still smiling.

//

The dread starts to build when they're playing sewerball in the yard, and Ilya casually mentions that he's not looking to stay in Boston. That he's a free agent next season. That he wants a Canadian passport to replace his Russian one. Thankfully, Shane can blame her lack of response on her breathlessness, on the game. She can pretend that she doesn't know what he means.

There's nothing to hide behind when Ilya says, sitting across from her on the couch, "I could marry Svetlana."

Shane looks up at him. Night envelops the world outside the windows in pitch black darkness. All that exists is her and Ilya at either ends of the couch, and the golden glow of the cottage that envelops them. 

Ilya continues, not even looking up from his phone. "She's American. Would be easy citizenship." His glances up at Shane, eyebrows rising momentarily. "She would do it. Her father is goalie Sergei Vitrov."

"Yeah, you told me," Shane replies, words that she shouldn't say.

"She would help me," Ilya sing-songs. 

What Shane should be saying is, that's good. You've mentioned her before. That sounds like a good arrangement.

But she's always been Shane. She's always made things harder for herself.

"Is she," Shane starts, voice quivering. "I don't know. Someone you'd want to marry?"

"We are friends, we would be fine." Ilya pauses, and then adds. "And it would be for the passport."

Right, you're close with her. Emotionally, sexually. Yes, she would take good care of you. She's probably been taking care of you longer than I've known you. Even if it's for the passport, it should be someone you can trust.

"Ok, but…" Shane's vision is blurring with tears. She knows with humiliating certainty that Ilya can see them collecting on her waterline.

Ilya just looks at her. "But what?"

His calm makes Shane burn when it should soothe. He has a plan, he can be taken care of, but still, Shane pushes, asking, "But you like women, right? You could find someone you'd want to marry for real and still get the passport."

She's not sure what she wants him to say. If she wants to hear Ilya agree with her, decide that in fact, he does want to find a woman to fall in love with, that Shane was fun to fuck but never someone who could fit what he needs.

Maybe she wants to hear him scoff and scorn her, cruelly mock her for not liking women, for never having the option to get married and settle down and live a normal life. 

Maybe she wants him to smile and see right through her, ask if that's what she's been counting on. If she'd been hoping that he'd find a woman to fall in love with, so she wouldn't have to feel so guilty when she eventually betrayed him like everyone else in his life has so far.

Ilya sighs, shaking his head. "I have this problem," he says.

"What's the problem?" Shane asks, before she can even think otherwise.

And Ilya sits up and tells her that he likes women. That everywhere he goes, he's always surrounded by beautiful women. Real women, Shane thinks but doesn't say, as Ilya tells her that they love him. That these beautiful women are so sexy and fun.

"But," he says next, with this aching sincerity that makes Shane's stomach drop. "I am always thinking about this slow fucking hockey player with beautiful freckles."

It's despicable, the way that she smiles, even as ice cold dread begins to crawl through her veins.

Ilya adds, "And a weak backhand."

"A weak backhand?" Shane scoffs, the sound half made of tears.

"Yes, very weak," Ilya reports gravely. Her pigtail in his hand, her love letter stuffed into his locker. "And he's so boring, and he drives this terrible car."

"It's a normal car!" Shane insists as Ilya flops back on the couch. She can feel the clawing agony of her breath in her lungs. The world feels so sharp and so close.

And then Ilya looks at Shane, his face so soft under the lights. "I am always wishing that these women were him." He smiles slightly, wryly. "It's a terrible problem, huh?"

Shane’s breath hitches. “Do you… ever want that problem to go away?”

Say yes, she thinks raggedly, desperately. Please say yes, so I can give up on your love and let you go. So that I can leave you without wishing that I were dead anyway.

But Ilya is already shaking his head. “I don’t ever want this problem to ever go away,” he says, with the most aching honesty that Shane’s ever heard.

There’s no stopping the ragged sob that tears from Shane’s throat. It’s a broken, mournful sound. Ilya sits up straight, face crumpled with worry that Shane wants to turn away from but she clenches her fists and doesn't move an inch.

She wasn't strong enough to stick it out. She doesn't get the mercy of running away. "Ilya–" she starts, but she can't continue. The tears have started to flow. The cavern cracks open in her chest, yawning and horrible with its cold, stark, grief.

“Shane,” Ilya murmurs, wavering in place. He wants to go to her, he doesn't know if he's allowed. He puts a hand on her calf and squeezes, urging, "Hey, Shane. What is it?"

He loves her. She can't run from it any longer. Not when it's splayed out across his face, not when it's weighing down every syllable he speaks, not when it rings through him from the tips of his toes to the ends of his curly blond hair. His eyes are as blue as the incoming tide. Under its force, she breaks.

"I have to tell you something," she chokes out, staring at him with wet cheeks and shaking hands that are fisted in her lap. She has to dig her nails into her palm to quiet her mind. It's screaming for her to stop, to reconsider, to understand that doing this will ruin everything.

Her heart just barely manages to be louder. Shouting, demanding, insisting that she stop being a fucking coward. Her heart knows that if she doesn't tell Ilya, then she won't be able to live with herself.

She cannot be another ghost in Ilya’s life. A love that leaves without warning. 

The least she can give him is a proper goodbye.

"I'm sorry," Shane weeps, and that seems to make up Ilya's mind. He crawls over her body, climbing into her lap. He tries to shush her, tries to wipe away her tears, but Shane doesn't allow herself reprieve. "I can't keep being that hockey player. I don't think I ever was."

"Shane," Ilya whispers, soothing.

Shane shakes her head. The words leave her almost like a retch. "I'm r-retiring, Ilya."

Ilya's hands freeze on her face. "...What?" he asks, barely above a breath. His eyes dart around her expression, searching desperately for another truth. "Shane, what are you–"

“I can’t keep playing in this league. I- It’s killing me. I’m not-“ Shane squeezes her eyes shut. She's not brave enough to look at him as she says this part. Not that she says it. The truth more so bleeds out of her mouth. “I’m a– I'm a girl, Ilya. I’m trans.”

Ilya echoes, voice faint, “Trans…”

Hysterical laughter bursts out from between Shane's gritted teeth. Of all the nightmares she's had about this moment, none of them have ever involved a language barrier.

“I was born as a boy. I've lived as a boy. But I'm not a boy. I'm a girl. A woman." She’s still crying, still breaking her own heart, but her breaths have started to come easier. But she still can't look at him. She still can't watch as her world crumbles around her. “And it really, really fucking hurts to keep living as a boy. It hurts so much, and I can't–"

Ilya's hands leave her face, and the weight lifts off her body. Shane starts to choke on a mournful sound when she's suddenly lifted, eyes flying open as Ilya roughly pulls her into his arms and flips them over. He lies on the couch, and she lies on top of him. He cradles her against his chest, tangles their legs together, pets the back of Shane's neck.

"Shane," he starts, stopping to kiss her forehead.

Shane trembles. "No," she gasps, choking on it. She can't manage the rest of it: you can't accept this so easily. You can't hold me so close. You shouldn't. Please don't.

Ilya thumbs away her tears so gently. His forehead is knitted in a frown, but his eyes are not angry. "You've always been my girl," he murmurs, understanding warm in his voice. "My pretty lady, my good girl."

Fresh tears spring to Shane’s eyes as she shivers under that truth. She laughs, watery, and resigns herself to Ilya's unflinching love. “I t-thought it was just a sex thing at first. I didn’t- I didn’t really know what it was back then.” He nods slowly. Shane can see him taking it in. "I'm sorry."

She can also see the moment that he realizes, halfway through quieting her apology when hurt suddenly flashes in his eyes. "You were not going to tell me about retirement." He barely breathes the words. Shane can't deny it. Can't even muster up the panic of being found out. She just shakes her head. 

Ilya makes a wounded sound. “You were just going to… to what? Block me, disappear, fake your death?” He doesn’t sound mad. He sounds desperate, almost ruined. His voice breaks around his plea. “Why?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” she tries to explain miserably. He tries to say something but she takes his face, desperately insisting, “But I- I can’t keep living as a man, Ilya. I can’t. It’ll kill me. It will, and I can't be a girl while in the league, so I have to disappear. It’s the only way.”

Ilya looks at her like his heart is breaking. “Quitting hockey will kill you too,” he whispers, and it’s so gentle, so fucking kind.

But that doesn’t stop it from being the truth, and Shane feels herself shatter again. “So would leaving you,” she sobs, the confession tearing through her. Ilya makes a soft, pained sound. “It would, and I don’t want to leave you, or hockey, but I don’t know what to do.”

Shane feels Ilya's hand shake in her hair. He pulls her closer, lets her snot and tears smear against his neck and the collar of his shirt. "I won't marry Svetlana," he decides suddenly, fiercely. Shane bursts into hysterical laughter but Ilya just insists, "I won't. We will figure this out. Okay?"

It's the kind of bravery that only brash little boys can have. Shane manages a smile, still weeping, and whispers, "Okay."

The words taste like ash on her tongue, a lie that she can't believe in. But Ilya believes in her, and Shane tries to take comfort in that.

//

They stay on that couch talking late into the night.

Ilya doesn't make her explain everything, but under his bright, imploring gaze, Shane finds herself spilling all her secrets. She tells him about Rose, about the little things that help her feel comfortable. About how she's always been Shane, and it's just a fundamental truth, and there isn't any other name that feels like it fits

She tells him how her body feels fine when she's playing hockey, or working out to make her body better at hockey, or doing anything that involves thinking about hockey. She tells him how outside of hockey, her body feels wonderful when they're having sex. How it's easier to believe in herself when she's talking to Rose, or with her parents, and now, with Ilya too.

She tells him that she doesn't need to be the first transgender player in the league. That she doesn't need to be Scott Hunter, out and proud for everyone to see. She just wants to play hockey, and to be Ilya's girl, and for her parents to know that they love each other.

She also tells him, "Technically, I'm straight," which is the only thing that smoothes the concerned wrinkle in Ilya's forehead. It dissolves in a huff of a laugh that he buries in a kiss against her nape.

"Malyshka," he murmurs there. Shane doesn't know what it means but it feels right. "Thank you for telling me. I am sorry that you couldn't tell me sooner."

Shane tries to protest that but he quiets her with a kiss. It's deep and slow and romantic. It leaves Shane flushed and breathless when he pulls away. "I will take care of you," he promises. While she's trying to protest that, he stands, scoops her up in his arms, and carries her to bed like a princess.

"Ilya," she complains, burying her blush and her breathless laughter into the column of her throat. "You're going to re-injure your ribs."

"I'm fine," Ilya grunts, clearly straining. He is strong, but Shane is also a two hundred pound hockey player. "Pretty lady must be carried to bed."

Shane has given herself a headache with all her crying, and her nose feels raw from how much she's had to blow it—butterflies still take flight in her stomach, fluttering and flitting about. "You're so stupid," she sighs, yelping when he tosses her into bed. "Hey!"

"Oof." Ilya flops down next to her, smacking a kiss on her cheek. "Normally after carrying pretty lady to bed, you must make love to her."

Shane's face gets so hot. "Shut the fuck up–"

"Will do this tomorrow," Ilya promises. He pulls Shane under his arm. Kisses her hair again. "For now, sleep."

Normally, Shane would find such a thing impossible. But she's all cried out, and exhausted, and Ilya's arms are so strong. Ilya's eyes are so safe. "Okay," she mumbles, curling into him. "Thank you."

Ilya says nothing. He just kisses her head again.

//

Then, all of a sudden, Shane is being shaken awake. "Nooooo," she whines.

“Shane.” The light turns on. Shane tries to hide in Ilya’s arm but she’s tapped to full awakeness. “Shane, I need help.”

“I just started falling asleep,” she groans, her head still throbbing, but she sits up, eyes still closed.

Ilya huffs and grabs her face, one hand on either cheek and squeezing them together. “You are planner, yes? I have an idea."

"Can't we do this tomorrow?" Shane groans, the words smushed between her cheeks. "Ilya, c'mon–"

"What if I played for Ottawa?”

Shane's eyes fly open. “Ottawa?” she splutters. She shakes her head out of his hands, letting them fall to her shoulders. “Ilya, they’re terrible.”

Ilya's eyes are piercing in their sincerity. “Yes, but can they afford me?"

“I mean, yeah, they're nowhere near their cap limit–”

"They are not rival to Boston, so it would look less bad to go to them. And they are close to Montreal, and rivalry is less there."

Shane squints at him through the dim light. “But they're terrible," she repeats because really, they are. The Centaurs might be one of the worst sports teams in all of North America. "If it's about your passport then you could just go to Montreal– the rivalry will make it look bad, sure, but my retirement will let them afford you–"

“You will not retire.” Ilya takes her face in hand. “You will keep playing for Montreal. I will come to Ottawa, so I can be close and support you.”

She stares at him. Her mouth protests, "Ilya, no, that's not–" but her mind is already racing. Ilya's right. Montreal and Ottawa aren't rivals, so they wouldn't have to shoulder the burden of their team's hatred for the other. Montreal and Ottawa are close, close enough for a day trip, so they would be able to see each other often.

Ilya keeps talking. "You say that things are okay when you are playing good hockey. Montreal has good hockey. When you are not playing hockey, then being with me makes it better. And your parents are in Ottawa, so it looks normal if you come often and visit." He sounds ridiculously proud of himself. His chest has almost puffed out. "See, it is good plan! Only two hours away so I can take care of my la–"

"And we can start a charity," Shane blurts.

"What?" Ilya frowns.

Shane sits up straighter. "Listen. Lots of players have friends on other teams. We don't have to hide that we spend time with each other all the time. We just have to hide that I'm–" she gestures to herself, which makes Ilya frown, but Shane just keeps talking. "We let the rookies hate each other. We leave the crazy fucking rivalry in Boston. We start a charity that we both care about, that we use as a way to be friends with each other, that lets us spend time together in public without things getting fucking crazy–"

"But you would have to–" Ilya cuts in.

"That's okay," Shane insists. Ilya's mouth closes audibly. "I'm– I'm okay if no one else knows the truth. As long as my parents do. As long as you do. As long as you're there to remind me that I'm your girl."

It's almost startling, how honest the words come out. In the dark, Ilya asks, "So we start charity. Then what?"

Shane looks at him. "What do you mean, then what? Then we get to keep playing against each other, and seeing each other, and we get to work on something cool that means something to both of us and…" she gestures vaguely, overcome with it. With how much she wants it. "And you can apply for citizenship here in Canada. And then when we retire… we can be together. For real."

Ilya takes in a shaking breath. "You really think that far ahead, Shane?"

"I– what?" Shane blinks. "You're the one who brought up moving to Ottawa. It's your plan."

"It's not– I was not thinking that far." Ilya smiles. His lips are trembling. "I just– I was just thinking how I can support my girl so she can play hockey."

His eyes glimmer with tears, like the lake in the early morning. Shane chokes on a sob as she tries to laugh. "Well, of course I'm going to think that far ahead when it's about my boy."

Ilya swallows. "This is what you want?" He sounds like he can scarcely believe it. Like he doesn't want to allow himself to even hope for it. "To be together?"

Shane cups his jaw and knocks their foreheads together. "Fuck you," she sniffles, because it hurts to start crying again. He laughs wetly and nuzzles into her face. "Fuck you, of course I want this. I want it so much it scares the hell out of me."

Most of that sentence gets lost in the desperate press of Ilya's mouth against hers. In his shaking breaths as he crawls on top of her, kissing her lips, her cheek, her neck. He murmurs Russian against her skin, indecipherable until he pulls back and confesses, "I love you."

Tears in his eyes and streaking down his face. He looks so handsome in her arms. "Holy shit," Shane breathes.

"I mean–"

"I love you too," she whispers.

Ilya's voice breaks. "Fuck, Shane–" he crashes down against her, face burying into her neck.

She presses her lips to her forehead and for the first time, lets it ache all the way through. "Oh my God, I love you so much."

Against his temple, she thinks, I think I was made to love you. I think your love is what made me whole.

Ilya presses his head into her chest, his tears landing softly on her skin. She breathes in the smell of his scalp, his skin. She feels his arms bracket her body, cradling her and keeping her safe. Emotion swells within her—how did she think she could live without this?

Aching with it, she kisses his brow and asks, "Does it… does it fucking kill you too?"

Her boy sniffles, and shakes his head. "Not anymore," he croaks.

Outside the windows, the sky has turned purple with the incoming dawn. The two of them fall asleep like that, Ilya's head pillowed on Shane's chest, as the sun creeps into the sky.

//

Shane only stirs around mid-morning, eyes fluttering open to find Ilya's cheek pressed against her chest, his eyes soft as he stares up at her. "Good morning, handsome," Shane rasps, brushing her thumb over his cheekbone.

His eyes are brighter than the open sky. "Good morning, pretty lady," he smiles. When Shane smiles, breathless and shy, Ilya tucks his grin into her sternum. There, he mumbles, "My pretty, pretty lady with a very nice rack."

"Jesus Christ," Shane groans, laughing, tugging him up by his golden locks.

"Is true!" Ilya insists. "Best tits in the world. My lady is very sexy."

"You are a pig!" Shane scolds, swatting his cheek.

Ilya just grins and swoops in, kissing her again and again and again as the day creeps on.

They have twelve more days left at the cottage. And then, after that, they have the rest of their lives together. 

Chapter End Notes

told you that things would get better :]

Making Ilya have the plan to go to Ottawa is a big change that some people might not like. I know that Shane's plan is meant to be representative of Ilya receiving a love and devotion he thought he was incapable of having, as well as Shane's way of loving people, but this Shane's current plan is 1) Quit doing the one thing that I love and then 2) Desperately try not to kill myself at least while my parents are still alive. And if Ilya is the type to buy ginger ale and tuna melt ingredients to try and coax Shane into his house like some kind of wild animal, I don't think it's too much of a reach to say that he's also the type to hear Shane's suicide plan and go "ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT. WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO KEEP THIS GIRL ON THE ICE".

However, I did very intentionally have Ilya make this plan without any consideration for the future. He's not thinking about his citizenship, or even the idea that he would get to be with Shane in the longterm. All he's operating on is sheer devotion, which is why he's so blindsided when Shane extrapolates on the Ottawa idea to actually be a plan for their shared future. And hopefully, this keeps that important beat of Ilya needing to know that Shane actually wants to keep him.

Anyways, the last chapter is meeting the parents!! Also, probably some smut. This was originally going to be in this chapter but it got way too long. A question for you all: would you want this chapter from Shane's POV still, or would you be interested in seeing Ilya side of things? If we switch to Ilya, it's unlikely that I'll show the Yuna & Shane convo (which honestly wouldn't differ much from the show), but you will get to see Ilya be a total loser/pervert about his brand new girlfriend.

Again, thank you so much for all the support that you've shown so far!!!

Chapter 4: scared of the rain

Chapter Notes

HEY SO. CHAPTER COUNT WENT UP AGAIN. shout out to the person who said that they want me to write this forever. I think you did curse me dude

Content Warning:
- All the usual warnings that come with Ilya's backstory
- One instance of misgendering from Yuna. It's not malicious, entirely accidental, and Shane isn't there to hear it. It's just my way of showing how hard this is for the Hollanders.
- Engaging in useless heteronormative rituals/gender role stuff in a way that's gender affirming. I don't think this is triggering but I do know that it can be annoying.

Ilya doesn't think he can have sex in a dark room ever again. Not after the cottage, not after knowing what Shane looks like in the dappled sunlight of a lazy mid-morning.

She's rosy cheeked, breath heavy as Ilya nudges his cock against her slick hole. "Ilya," she murmurs, so soft and sweet, gasping as he pushes into her. Her shaking fingers tangle in his hair. She loves to grab his hair. Ilya has always loved it too, but last night he learned that Shane gets her nails manicured—the drag of those carefully kept nails against his scalp somehow feels even better than before.

"How did we let this happen?" she asks, her question ending in a breathless laugh. Ilya feels warm all over as he looks at her with lidded eyes. At her long lashes that flutter with pleasure, at her freckle covered cheeks, at her spit-slick mouth that he still wants to kiss. That he'll always want to kiss.

You made this happen, he thinks. You were the one who took my heart.

He murmurs, "We were both very stupid, and irresponsible." His lips skirt the edge of her chest.

"This is real though, right?" The question makes Ilya ache all the way through. He nods desperately, feverishly. He hopes that it's real. He's still terrified that he has yet to wake up. That this is something that he dreamt, a honeyed fantasy of a lazy summer's morning. That he's going to open his eyes and find a cold bed and an empty home and a bleeding wound where Shane once was.

Ilya rocks his hips forwards in small movements, watching Shane's breath stutter on her lips. You were going to leave me. You cannot leave me. You took my heart, I will not survive it if you leave me.

Shane breathes, "Please fuck me," and Ilya does. Languid, deep thrusts that make her head tip back in pleasure, even as she grabs his jaw, presses her thumb against his tongue, and tries to hold his gaze. Ilya feels delirious with it, with her warmth and her pleasure. He mouths at her nipple and grips her thigh as hard as he can.

He makes love to her. Impossibly, she loves him back.

//

Mama died before Ilya figured out who he was. He does not know if she would have been good about it. He likes to tell himself that she would love him no matter what. Ilya tells himself a lot of things about his Mama.

But Mama always told him to treat his wife, whoever she may be, with kindness. Love. Respect. And he must always, always listen to her.

"Always?" Ilya complained. "Always?"

"Always, Ilyushka," she instructed him, brushing the back of her knuckles along his cheeks, his nose, his brow. "When you love a lady, you must give her everything. Understand?"

"Yes mama," Ilya dutifully responded. Quietly, he wondered if his father did not love his mother. His father did not listen to her. His father did not give her anything. Ilya only ever saw him take, and take, and take. Ilya looked at his mother and decided that he would have to make up for it. "What do you want me to give you?"

And Mama's face split open into the biggest, brightest smile. "Oh, nothing at all," she started in that low, teasing tone of hers. The one that made Ilya giggle, even before she did anything, because he knew she was going to do something very silly. "I just need… a bite!"

He shrieked as she buried her face in his chest, blowing raspberries through his shirt and growling like a beast. "Mama, no!"

"Mama is hungry!" She playfully snarled, poking his sides as he squirmed and laughed. She started to pepper his face with loud kisses. "Mama just wants to eat Ilyushka up!"

It's an old, well-worn memory. One that Ilya has turned over, time and time again. The details have smeared and smudged. Ilya cannot recall the set of her eyes or the pitch of her laughter. He can't remember if she had been wearing her hair up or down.

It sits below his sternum, this everburning grief. The knowledge that he has already lost her once, and yet, he is going to lose her again. That he has already lived more of his life without her than he has with her.

Against his shoulder, Shane asks, "What was your mother's name?"

Ilya turns to look at her. At her dark, searching eyes. "Irina," he tells her, and the shape of her name makes all of his teeth ache. "Why?"

Shane looks down and presses a feather-light kiss to Ilya's collarbone. Her face is pink. Almost shy. Ilya loves her. Ilya loves her so much.

When she tells Ilya her idea for the hockey school, about giving the money to mental health organizations, about suicide prevention—his heart splits open in his chest.

He knows that even if Mama hadn't been good about who Ilya could love, she still would have loved Shane. She would've loved every version of Shane that Ilya has loved. The awkward, pink-cheeked kid that Ilya met at eighteen, outside a rink in the freezing cold. The powerful, electric player that Ilya clashed against on the ice, again and again and again. The beautiful woman who Ilya has in his arms right now.

Ilya tells her this in a whisper. Again, when she asks for it in Russian. As desperate as a promise. As sacred as an oath.

//

The bed is empty when Ilya's eyes open. His heart doesn't have the time to break, because he can hear Shane speaking, just down the hall.

He pads slowly to the kitchen island that she's pacing around her, phone held against her ear. "Really, mom, I'm fine," she huffs, holding up a hand. Ilya isn't sure if it's a greeting or a request for him to wait. He takes it as both and sits at the island, watching her fondly. "I told you that I wasn't going to be– I'm not saying that you're not allowed to worry!"

Ilya slowly takes her in. She's wearing Ilya's too-big black polo shirt and a pair of basketball shorts. Her chin is stubbly and her squarish brows are knitted together in a frown. Her short hair is, impossibly, messy—it's longer, Ilya realizes. Longer than the smart, neat cut that Shane has had for the entire time that he's known her. Not long enough to be that noticeable, but long enough for it to look messy. She's growing it out.

My girl, Ilya thinks. It's the first time he gets to savour it, the first time he gets to believe it. It came to him so naturally last night, when Shane was crumbling apart. This morning, when Ilya's head was still hazy with sleep and his cock was hard against Shane's thigh, it came to him instinctively.

It's a relief that when he thinks it now, it feels like nothing at all. That's my girl, Ilya thinks, watching Shane pinch the bridge of her nose as she argues with her mother. It's as easy as breathing, as blinking.

"I love you too," Shane is grumbling. Groaning out, "Bye," before she hangs up the phone. She leans against the counter and sighs.

"Good morning," Ilya smiles at her.

"Good morning," she mutters back, but she lets Ilya kiss away some of the irritation from her pursed mouth. "Sorry. I'll probably have to disappear for a few hours today. My parents are worried and want to do a check in."

Ilya nods, processing the information. The first thing he says in response is, "You are looking very pretty."

Shane rolls her eyes even as her cheeks go pink. "You're so fucking annoying."

"People in love often are," Ilya says gravely, just to watch her flush deepen. Then, he wets his lips and asks, "So… you parents do not think you are on a silent retreat?"

Shane stiffens. After a moment, she says, "Can we talk about this on the couch?"

She sounds terrified. Ilya, of course, agrees. He tries to soothe her worry by attempting to carry her there himself. Shane shoves him off and scolds him about his ribs, which is a shame. But her jaw loses the tension, which is what Ilya was really going for.

They sit on the couch together, Shane tucked under his arm. She pauses there, twisting to ask, "Do you… don't you want it to be the other way, sometimes?"

"What?" Ilya blinks at her. "Is this what they teach in Canada? Do Canadian men not hold their Canadian ladies? What a terrible country."

Shane swats his leg. "Don't be an asshole. You know what I mean." She mostly sounds pleased, which means she's just protesting for the sake of it. Because she feels like she has to.

Normally, Ilya would move on. Now, he takes her chin and tells her, very seriously, "You are my girl. I want to take care of my girl. Like a gentleman."

"That's heteronormative," Shane protests. Her pupils are blown wide.

Ilya frowns and kisses her nose. "Do not make up words at me," he scolds. Shane laughs. "If I want a cuddle, I will ask for a cuddle. Okay?"

Shane nods, craning her neck to kiss his chin. "You can always ask for anything," she tells him. Her hand finds his jaw to cradle his face, the same place it always seems to be settling. Shane always holds Ilya's face like she's cupping liquid gold between her palms.

"Okay," Ilya whispers. He kisses her cheek and then makes his first request. "Why are your parents worried about you?"

Again, Shane's expression flickers. But Ilya tightens his arms around her and waits. Eventually, she answers. "I told you that watching Scott Hunter made me… lose it, right?"

Ilya nods. "Yes, and he will pay."

"Ilya."

"He made you cry! I must get revenge."

She gives his cheek a firm pat, sternly saying, "Scott Hunter is not responsible for my very, very big meltdown that I had in front of my parents. I was already kind of… there. Pretty much anything could've pushed me over. And when I went over I…"

Shane's throat bobs as she swallows. Her eyes have gone glassy. Ilya hates it when her eyes do this. When she's trying to stamp down her pain, her suffering. When she doesn't let herself cry, because crying means that she's let herself go. "What did you do?" he asks, brushing his thumb over her perfect freckles.

He watches her lips part, and then press together. She looks away before she says, "Mom came up with a plan."

She's dodging the question. Ilya should push her harder, but his mouth has gone dry. "The retirement plan?" he asks. He can't keep his voice from shaking. The plan that would have taken you away. The plan that would've killed you. The plan that would've killed me.

Surprisingly, Shane shakes her head. "Mom's plan was… reasonable." She chuckles, a wet sound. "I'd keep playing but start tapering off my sponsorships and public appearances. Become less of a public figure. Maybe skip a few games for mental health reasons to establish a pattern. Then, in a few years, after finishing my contract with Montreal and becoming an unrestricted free agent, I wouldn't re-sign with anyone. I'd just–"

"Disappear," Ilya supplies. Shane smiles faintly. Ilya strokes through her hair. "Is a good plan," he admits. "Better than plan you told me."

"Fuck you," Shane mutters without heat. "I know it's a good plan. But it sounded like a nightmare back then. I was convinced that trying to do that would… would kill me." Ilya inhales sharply. Shane just laughs, quiet and bitter. "I said that I'd be dead before the start of next year's playoffs. I told them that I barely survived the last six months."

Ilya's eyes flit across her face. "Shane–"

Her thumb settles over his lips. "It's different now," she tells him with unexpected ferocity. She's not begging, but demanding for his understanding, his faith. "Now that I have you, it's easier. Before, the only time I could be a girl was when Rose could call for a few minutes, or when you and I were having sex. Now, I'm always a girl, because I'm your girl."

"I can't lose you," he breathes, against the digit, terrified. He clutches her wrist, pressing his fingers to her pulse. "Shane, I can't, I cannot keep you somewhere that hurts–"

Quitting hockey will kill you too. He said it himself, just the night before. Even through his desperate fear, he knows that this is true. Staying will be hard. Leaving will be even harder.

As if reading his thoughts, Shane says, "Mom's plan doesn't seem as scary knowing that you'll be in Ottawa too. If anything, I might be able to keep playing longer than she said I should." She pauses, mouth twisting wryly before she adds, "Also, I'm less hysterical now than I was immediately after watching Scott Hunter come out to the world."

She says it like she needs him to believe it. Ilya looks at her, at her perfect freckled face, and tries.

Maybe he shouldn't. Twelve hours ago, she planned to disappear. She intended to drive him to the airport, and send him back to Boston, and then remove herself from his life without another word. Twelve hours ago, he wasn't someone that she wanted to keep. There's no guarantee that her mind won't change twelve hours from now.

But Ilya can't think of what happened twelve hours ago, or what might happen in the next twelve hours. His world has been narrowed down to this moment, Shane's brown eyes on his, shining like quarts in the sunlight. Shane's thumb is on his lips, nestled right in the curve of his cupid's bow.

Maybe Ilya shouldn't believe her. But he loves her. So he will give her anything.

When his pulse has finally slowed, Ilya mutters, "Scott Hunter is a terrible old man." Shane sticks her thumb in his mouth to shut him up, but Ilya just bites down. She yanks it out, squawking, over which Ilya asks, "What time will you be going to your parent's?"

Shane glares at him. Ilya just raises an eyebrow back. She folds first. "In a couple of hours, I guess? They're just ten minutes away, so I can leave whenever. They might want me to stay for dinner, but I'll try and–"

Ilya silences her with a kiss. He keeps it chaste, but still deep. Something loving and romantic, something that leaves Shane breathless and pink. When he pulls away, her lashes are fluttering, lips slick and parted like she's silently begging for another.

Gently, Ilya says, "I would like to come with you to meet them."

"What?" Shane murmurs, and then she blinks. "What!?"

She shoots up, every inch of her body rigid with tension. Ilya silently curses himself and his lacking technique. Clearly, he's not as good of a kisser as he thought he was.

Out loud, he says, "Is only proper. I have not yet asked for your father's blessing."

"That–" Shane splutters. "Ilya, what the fuck?"

Her breath is starting to quicken. He sits up, massaging the back of her nape. "They live in Ottawa, yes?" he asks, keeping his voice low and soothing. She nods, hands fisted in her shorts. "Then they are part of the Ottawa plan."

"You still play for Boston," Shane insists. "They still– my mom hates you."

"I am very charming," Ilya reminds her. "No one can hate me for long. You can even ask my rival. Maybe you have heard of her? She is very sexy."

Shane's lip twitches up. She laughs, a breathless burst of a sound that Ilya smothers with a kiss. "Fuck," she wheezes against his mouth. "Fuck you. Are you serious? Do you really–"

Ilya knocks their foreheads together. "You want to start charity with me," he reminds her. "You want to retire together. And you said that all you want is for your parents to know."

"But–"

"I love you," he insists. Shane gasps, like she still can't believe it. "Shane Hollander, I am in love with you. If you are placing your hockey, your happiness, in my hands, then I will do everything to protect it."

Her eyes glisten with tears. When she smiles, one streaks a path through her freckles. "Don't you think we're jumping the gun?" she sniffles. "Meeting the parents a day after meeting their daughter?"

Ilya is so fucking in love with this stupid, impossible woman. "Quit being difficult," he scolds, and then kisses her weepy laughter off of her lips.

//

At Shane's insistence, Ilya does not wear his Raider's shirt, even though it's probably the nicest thing he brought to the cottage. Everything else is all oversized loungewear and skimpy little swim shorts that he was planning to use to seduce Shane. He wants to make a good impression, but in the end he has to settle for a plain white t-shirt and long black joggers.

It's too warm for the day's weather. Ilya stands by Shane's car and sweats for about ten minutes before he finally hears the front door shut. "I was ready to melt," he groans, stepping out from the tiny patch of shade he took refuge in. "Russians are not built for–"

"I told you, you could've just worn shorts if you wanted," Shane sighs as she unlocks the car. She descends the steps and then stops when she catches sight of Ilya's face. Her expression flickers. "Um. S-Should I cha–?"

"No," Ilya blurts. "Fuck, please don't. Please don't."

Shane blushes. "Jeez, alright," she mumbles, shifting in place awkwardly. But she doesn't try to duck and hide, and doesn't tell him to stop looking either.

Ilya is very grateful. He really needs a moment to take her in.

The past few days at the cabin, Shane seemed to mostly be sticking to items from her pre-stylist wardrobe. The same simple shirts and athleisure that Ilya's seen her wear for the past eight years. He had really been missing the pretty, elegant pieces that Shane had taken to wearing a few months ago, but assumed that she didn't put much thought into clothes while out at her cottage.

Really, she hasn't dressed up much. She's wearing the same wrinkled blue linen shirt that she wore when she picked Ilya up at the airport. Only now, she has it tucked into a long black skirt. It also seems to be linen, given that it's just as wrinkled as her shirt is. It goes down to her ankles and pairs horribly with her brown boat shoes.

"Come here," Ilya murmurs. Shane swallows and obeys, stepping out of the shade of the cottage's awning. Ilya meets her halfway, inhaling when he notices the pink tint to her lips, the darker, longer look to her eyelashes. This close, he can smell her perfume. It's light and floral.

Nervously, Shane blurts. "My mom got me this skirt. And the shirt, but that was like five years ago. The skirt was– what're you doing?" she frowns, watching Ilya untuck one half of the linen shirt.

"This is what's fashionable," he tells her. "Half tuck, half untucked."

"What? No, that's dumb." Shane immediately undoes his hard work, shoving her shirt back under the skirt's waistline. "Why would you only tuck half of a shirt in? That's pointless."

Ilya takes her by the chin and kisses the pink off her mouth. "You are so fucking beautiful," he breathes, absolutely infuriated by it. "This is one of the worst outfits I've ever seen."

Shane startles into a burst of laughter that breaks the kiss entirely. She actually tips back, Ilya steadying her with an arm around her waist. "Wow, really?" Her beautiful face scrunches up with all of its joy and all of her freckles. "It can't be that bad!"

"You are wearing boat shoes," Ilya tells her, gravely serious, which makes Shane guffaw. "Brown boat shoes and a black skirt. Shane, I have only ever seen skirts this long in church."

"You've been to church?" Shane teasingly asks. She straightens, and loses more of her lip tint in the kiss she presses to his cheek. When Ilya just makes a rough, frustrated sound, she crumbles into laughter again, burying it into his shoulder. "Ilya, come on. We're going to meet my parents. I don't have to look fashionable or sexy–"

"No, this is problem," Ilya insists. "You are wearing this terrible outfit, and we are going to meet your parents. I am still so fucking hard right– hey!"

He swats away Shane's hand from where it's grabbing at his crotch. Shane's head whips up to look at him. "Holy shit."

"Shane–"

"My stupid fucking boat shoes and church skirt are turning you on." She looks absolutely thrilled. "My mom got me this skirt from Costco."

"Shane." Ilya hoarsely pleads. His face has never been warmer in his whole life. "Malyshka. Please. If you want that skirt to stay in one piece, please do not tease me."

Shane's face gets very, very pink. She still doesn't stop smiling. "You're the worst," she tells him beaming, and then steps around to get in the driver's seat. "Come on, lover boy. Get in already."

Ilya takes a moment to turn his face to the sky. This woman will kill me, he laments, and is only proven correct when he gets in the passenger seat to find Shane reapplying her pink lip palm in the mirror of the sun visor. Pushing her lips out into a pout to carefully spread it over her perfect lips.

Ilya ignores his aching dick. At least she's not freaking out anymore.

//

In the middle of the drive over, Shane suddenly pulls over on the shoulder of the road, bends over the steering wheel, and starts freaking out again. "Sorry–"

"Woah, woah." Ilya sits up, rubbing her back as he looks her over. "What, what is this?"

"I don't–" she gasps, clutching her forearms hard enough for her knuckles to turn white. "Fuck, what am I going to tell them?"

Ilya works at the back of her neck. "The truth," he reminds her.

She gasps out with hysterical laughter. "You mean how it's been almost ten years? How I only realized six months ago, and only told you yesterday?"

Ilya frowns, uncertain if it's his English that's failing or Shane's. "What do you mean?"

Shane lifts her head, her pupils dry but her eyes almost wild. "They're going to ask why you love me," she explains breathlessly. "How you can love me, given everything that I am."

It takes a moment for Ilya to find his voice. "I thought you said that they accept you," he eventually manages.

"They do," Shane insists, smiling shakily. "They do, which is why they're so fucking scared for me, Ilya. And I know you, I trust you, but I–" her voice breaks. "I have no idea how to explain it to them."

Ilya takes a breath.

In truth, he's still not sure if he fully understands it himself. He looked into the words that she used last night—gender dysphoria, transfemininity, medical and social processes of transitioning—and translated them to his mother tongue. He did some cursory reading after Shane fell asleep, trying his best to fully grasp the things that she told him.

Before his thoughts shifted to Ottawa, he thought that maybe, there was a part of him that had known this truth about Shane, even before she did. The sex had always been good, of course, but Shane never seemed to be able to give herself over to pleasure. Not until Ilya started calling her 'his girl.' Something about it would open up her face in the same way that hockey did, bringing a light into Shane's eyes that Ilya only ever saw on the ice.

And afterwards, when it was time for Shane to leave, when Ilya would tidy away the term with the lube and condoms, Shane seemed to move in that stiff, awkward way that one does after taking off their skates.

If Ilya had known the words, he might have known that Shane was transgender from the start. Maybe he could have warned her, made it easier. Maybe he could have even stopped her. Saved her from this impossible situation. Maybe it was Ilya that doomed her, that irreparably changed her, and maybe Shane's parents would be right to hate him for it.

But it still wouldn't have stopped him from falling in love with her. Shane came to Ilya as a slow fucking hockey player with beautiful freckles. Maybe Ilya was the one to doom Shane, but Ilya had always been doomed to fall in love with her. With him. With whoever Shane was.

Ilya leans over, brushing his thumb over her cheek. "I will tell them this," he starts, his own voice shaking. "I will tell them that I fell in love with Shane Hollander. That my love is not a question of how can I? My love is just simply something that is."

Shane's eyes are so bright. She takes Ilya's wrist and squeezes, just once.

"Everything you are is Shane Hollander," Ilya tells her. "And it is everything that is Shane Hollander that I love."

Trembling, Shane asks him, "Even if it's something terrible?"

Ilya laughs. "Especially then," he promises, and Shane sits up and kisses him. Ilya clutches her short, dark hair, breathing her in. Against her balmy lips, he begs, "And you cannot leave me."

"I'm sorry–" Shane gasps.

"You cannot leave me alone with this love, Shane," he pleads. He's crying now, and Shane's eyes are wide as she thumbs away his tears. Ilya despises himself for his weakness, for failing her now when she needs his strength, but it tears out of his mouth. "It would kill me. You would've killed me."

Her eyes close and she presses her face against his. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I won't."

"Even if you don't love me, you can't–"

"You asshole," she complains, knocking her forehead against his. "Do you really think I can stop loving you? After ten fucking years of only ever wanting you?"

Her words rip through him like a bolt of lightning. "Even if there's something terrible?" he asks her.

Shane tilts his face up to kiss his nose. "Especially then."

"Fuck," Ilya gasps, smiling. "Is this what we will do in front of your parents?"

Shane snorts, dropping her head to his shoulder. "Maybe. It'll probably work." Every single one of her breaths still comes out shaking. "Fuck, I'm so scared."

"It is scary," Ilya soothes her, rubbing her back. "But you are very brave."

"Shuddup," she grumbles, frustratingly adorable.

"You are!"

"I feel like I'm gonna die."

Ilya pulls back and cups her face in his hands. "But does it feel like it will kill you?" he asks her.

Shane's eyes soften. "No," she replies, honest in a way that aches. She smiles shyly and says, "And even if it tries… I know that you'll always be there to protect me."

This close, Ilya could count every single one of her freckles. Mama, he thinks. I've found a lady who I could give everything and more.

"Your mascara is messy," he says instead. They spend another five minutes on the shoulder of the road while Shane curses and tries to fix it. Ilya watches her and smiles the whole damn time.

//

Ilya doesn't say much at first. He lets Shane apologize for keeping secrets for so long, for not telling them everything from the start. He lets Shane introduce him, awkward waving and greeting them when prompted.

"We're, uh…" Shane starts, and then trails off, fists bunched in her skirt and wrinkling even more.

"Lovers," Ilya supplies, putting his hand on Shane's shoulder. But then Shane calls that word gross and Ilya moves his hand away.

Though that's less because of Shane, and more because Yuna Hollander is trying to kill Ilya with her eyes alone. "Shane," she starts, voice wound taught. "You hate him."

Shane takes a shaking breath. "I don't," she says, and it's the steadiest that Ilya's ever heard her. "I don't think we've ever hated each other. But I love him, Mom. And he loves me, and–"

"How about," David Hollander gently interjects. "We all sit down, and have a drink."

So they do that. The table that they sit around is old and wobbly, it shakes when anyone so much as nudges it. Ilya tries not to stare at it, but it's hard to meet Yuna's burning glare head on.

They fumble through the questions about when things started. Shane says it was their rookie season, which is wrong, because it was the summer before, Shane is wrong about that–

Somehow, this results in them all but confessing to Yuna that they were fuckbuddies first. If she hadn't had murderous intent in her eyes before, it's definitely there now.

"I'll go get some vodka," David decides. They sit in stony silence until he gets back.

It's good vodka. Russian vodka, which makes Ilya stare at Shane in disbelief—because how did she let him think that this man was boring?

Ilya almost chokes on it when Yuna asks Shane, "You never let him win, did you Shane?"

Shane's glower is almost as lethal as her's. "Do you let Dad win at cards?"

"I'd rather die," Yuna returns, matter of fact.

"Same here!"

Yuna's mouth purses. She glances at Ilya, and then looks back at Shane to ask, hesitantly, "And is he the reason that you–"

"Yuna," David mutters. Something sour floods Ilya's mouth. 

"At least let me finish the question, David–"

"Ilya's not the reason that I'm transgender, Mom," Shane interjects loudly. She's clutching her glass, knuckles almost white. Her eyes burn holes into the table, and her breaths come quick and short. "He helped me– figure it out, I guess, but he didn't make me–"

Yuna makes some kind of gesture. "You said that Rose Landry helped you figure it out six months ago!"

"She did!"

"So what was Rozanov doing for the past ten years?"

"Ilya," David quietly corrects.

"Ilya, right," Yuna laughs. "Who we thought you hated since– since rookie season, since the summer before–"

Shane's shoulders bunch up higher. "I don't think I've ever said I hated him–"

"You called him a dick the day that you met him–"

Ilya looks at Shane. "Really?" he asks, inexplicably pleased.

Shane completely ignores him. "Just because he was a dick the first time we met, that doesn't mean that he turned me transgender!"

"I don't think that he did!" Yuna snaps back. "I was going to ask if he's the reason that you're quitting hockey!"

Shane's jaw goes slack. She makes a sound in the back of her throat, but says nothing. After a moment, David sighs and admits, "I was… wondering the same thing as well."

Immediately, Ilya puts his hands up and insists, "Never. I would never ask that."

Yuna's eyes dart over to him. To Ilya's shock, they do seem to soften after a moment of consideration. It's not acceptance that crosses her features, but maybe something like… willingness.

Shane doesn't seem to catch it. She blurts, "Mom, what the fuck?" She sounds utterly devastated. "You… you think I wanted to quit hockey? For– for a boy?"

"I never said want," Yuna clarifies, but Shane's expression doesn't clear. "Shane, honey, I just– it's all been happening so fast. And if you only realized the transgender thing this year, but it's enough to make you quit, and Roza– Ilya's been around since your rookie season–"

Ilya turns. "Shane," he starts, low and comforting, but the whole table is sent wobbling as Shane pushes back her chair and storms outside.

The back door slams shut, hard enough to shake some of the pictures on the wall. Yuna buries her face in her hands and sobs out a shaking breath. "I didn't mean…"

David rubs her back and sighs. "Yuna–"

Ilya clenches his fists in his lap. "She only told me yesterday," he says. David and Yuna look at him. He can find Shane in Yuna's eyes and the corner of David's mouth. "That she was– is transgender. You have known longer than me."

They keep staring. There's a desperation in their eyes. Ilya recognizes it intimately. He saw it himself in the reflection of his phone screen, in the early hours this morning, when he was researching the distance between Ottawa and Montreal.

"Shane wasn't even going to tell me. She planned to have me for two weeks, and then send me away, and then she was going to retire. Disappear." He tries to say it like a joke, but it comes out strangled. Yuna makes a sound of pure heartbreak. "I… I know that you hate me, and cannot trust me–"

"We trust you, Ilya," David tells him. But it's Yuna who shocks Ilya the most, with her quiet, tearful nod. "Not right away, but we do now."

Ilya looks between them. Yuna says, her voice thick, "He– fuck, sorry–" her expression crumples, and David shushes her, squeezing her shoulder. It takes a moment for her to continue. "She's never had a person before."

"A person," Ilya repeats uselessly. "Like… a lover?"

Yuna's lips twitch a little at that, almost a smile. "A lover, a best friend, a mentor– she doesn't… trust. She doesn't connect with people. Even on a team, she always seemed so… so lonely."

"We almost pulled her from hockey," David confesses. Ilya turns to him, stunned. "We did. Right when she was really starting to shine. She was better than everyone else on the team, and they started icing her out. It was horrible. It made her so sad. But she still wanted to play. Even when her team avoided passing to her, she wanted to play."

"She still wants to play." When Ilya says it, Yuna's breath catches and David's hand tightens on her shoulder. Ilya fails to choke down an awkward laugh. "We did not say. Fuck. Why was that not first thing we say? Shane wants to keep playing. I said I wanted to come meet you so you can help us plan how to–"

The table is sent wobbling again as Yuna shoots to her feet and all but runs outside.

David sits back, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hands. "Jesus," he laughs. "Those women are going to kill me one of these days."

Ilya can't help but laugh too.

("I tried, Mom," Shane is pleading outside, her mother's arms wrapped around her middle as she's hugged from behind. She can't seem to choke back her tears. "I've been trying all my life to be normal, to not be so fucking weird, to just fit in–"

"No, Shane–"

"And I'm sorry, but I need you to know that I tried–")

David watches his wife and his daughter through the window. "I haven't been sleeping," he admits. Ilya hums and watches David in turn. "I'll go to bed and I'll just lie there, and it'll feel like my heart is about to give out."

Ilya opens his mouth, and then closes it. He doesn't have anything he can really say.

"I've never seen her cry like that," David thumbs the rim of his glass. "After Scott Hunter, I thought– I thought she was dying. I thought she was going to die in my arms."

He exhales, a shaking sound. "I've been so afraid of what might happen while I'm sleeping."

("You have nothing," Yuna says fiercely. "Nothing to– hey, look at me–"

Shane turns around and looks at her mother. At the eyes that have so lovingly been given to her.

Yuna thumbs away a tear. "You have nothing to apologize for. Okay? Nothing."

Shane shakes her head. "But the sponsorships, the deals–")

"I love her," Ilya blurts. David's eyes don't widen when he turns, but there's something soft and slack in his face. "I don't– I don't know how not to love her."

David is quiet for a long moment. Then he says, "You're young. You haven't–"

"Since rookie season," Ilya reminds him. "Since the summer before." Ilya laughs, a sudden and desperate sound. "If was not for visa, I would quit hockey if she asked me to."

The breath catches in David's throat. "You would–"

"My Mama said I should give the lady I love everything," Ilya tells him. Something flickers in David's eyes. "And while I have been with other women, so many other women– I have only ever been in love with one lady."

He smiles, and he hopes that David believes him when he says, "So I still have everything to give her."

("All I wanted," Yuna tells her daughter, her beautiful and brave daughter. "Is for you to be able to do what you love, and to be recognized for being so good at it, without anyone who could tell you otherwise."

Shane nods. "I know–"

"I'm so sorry," Yuna pleads. "That I made you think I wanted anything more." Fresh tears spring to both of their eyes. "That I gave you those expectations, and you didn't feel like you could tell me.")

David smiles, ever so slightly. "It sounds like you're asking for my blessing."

Ilya wets his lips and says nothing for a long moment. "I am," he says eventually. David's eyebrows fly up on his head. "Shane will say I don't need to, but I am."

"She'll probably get real mad at you," David grins knowingly.

Ilya just grimaces. "Yeah, well, things we do for love."

David laughs so hard that he turns red.

("I'm so, so scared for you," Yuna confesses. "But more than that, I'm so proud of you, Shane." Shane lets herself be pulled into her mother's arms. Lets her mother whisper, "Please forgive me."

"I forgive you, Mom," Shane says into her shoulder. "I love you."

"I love you too," Yuna breathes, rubbing Shane's shoulders. "So much. So much, Shane. You will always be my daughter, and I will always–"

Shane loses the rest of Yuna's words as she really begins to cry.)

"This is probably the part where I ask about your intentions with my daughter," David jokes as he refills Ilya's glass. "Give you the ol' shovel talk, or whatever."

Ilya frowns at him a little. "You want to talk about shovel?"

David heavy with his own pour. "Yeah, I think we can skip that," He chuckles. "You're a good kid, Ilya."

Ilya's ears get warm. "I, uh, thank you. David." He tips a big sip, embarrassed at himself. He swallows, and then coughs, and then asks, "Do you… do you think that they are alright?"

"Who? Oh, Yuna and Shane?" David chuckles, shaking his head. "Yeah. They'll be fine. Honestly, they've always been too alike for their own good."

"Like mother, like daughter?" Ilya jokes.

David snorts. "Indeed."

("So," Yuna smiles, eyes still wet as she thumbs away the last of Shane's tears. "What's the plan?"

Shane chuckles. "Ilya says he'll go to Ottawa."

Yuna just stares at her for a moment. "Wow," she eventually manages. "That boy really does love you."

"Mom.")

//

The sun has started to set by the time they leave. Ilya keeps waving at Shane's parents until the car rounds the corner and they disappear out of sight.

"You alive?" Shane asks him, shooting a wry sideways glance.

Ilya raises an eyebrow at her. "Should I not be?"

"After all that pasta, probably not."

"Was very good pasta," Ilya sighs, patting his stomach. "Your father is a very good cook."

Shane just smiles, letting Ilya take her hand and hold it on the gearshift. "You were right," she eventually says. "You were very, very charming."

Ilya grins. "Told you. Even got David's bless– woah–"

"Sorry," Shane wheezes, taking her foot off of the brake. She's normally a better driver, but, "You– you asked for my dad's blessing?"

"Well, yeah." Ilya blinks at her. The carbs have made his eyelids feel so heavy.

"Ilya, you do that when you're asking for a girl's hand in marriage."

Ilya huffs. "I am asking for your hand in hockey. Is same thing."

"That's…" Shane starts laughing, breathless with relief. Ilya realizes that maybe for the first time in the entire time that he's known Shane Hollander, he's seeing her completely and utterly at ease.

It makes him sit up straighter and smile wider. "Marriage too, of course. I need Canadian citizenship."

Shane shoves his head. "Asshole."

"Maybe I will do Scott Hunter. Give you cup as wedding ring. Or!" Ilya gasps, excited. "Maybe you will do Scott Hunter to me!"

"What?"

"I would be very good husband-and-boyfriend. Hab." He frowns. "No, wait–"

Shane laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and Ilya takes her in. Cropped hair, wrinkled shirt, smudged mascara. The most beautiful woman in the world, driving him home at sunset, after giving him his first family dinner in over a decade.

Mama, Ilya thinks. I'll give her anything, and everything I never got to give you, and more.

Chapter End Notes

I just really needed to address the Ilya of it all of this story. He's such a beautiful character, and his grief deserved time to breathe. Between that and meeting the Hollanders, the word count got away from me.

It was very important to me to not forcibly out Shane in this fic. I don't think Reid is a bad writer for outing Shane in the original books (I actually think it says something fascinating about Shane and control) but I cannot stomach the idea of outing a trans character, even if Shane wouldn't be outed for being trans in this instance. She's so sensitive and so scared right now. However, this is now the fourth chapter in a row where she bawls her eyes out, so there is that.

I really, really think a lot about Yuna. About how she had this sweet, sensitive kid who was so awkward and too Asian and only ever wanted to play hockey, and was so good in a way that only ever comes once in a generation. And how she knew her kid would be overlooked, pushed aside, called a one trick pony when the league needs stallions, or whatever (I would level blocks for Jason Robertson, and I don't even like Dallas) and she did her damndest to make sure no one could ever ignore her kid. And how that is such a devastating act of love, and an even bigger burden, and how all daughters will fight their mothers while also becoming them. That's why I had her be so defensive of Shane, in a way that just made things harder.

I also really love David. If you've read matters of framing, you'll know that I love the idea of David and Ilya bonding over their neurotic wives. That remains true even here. I also think it must be hard as a father to have a son who was always a bit sensitive and easily hurt, who then becomes your daughter. Again, the Hollanders love Shane so fucking much, but sometimes that love makes things harder. But everything comes around in the end.

I know that the split pov towards the end was a little weird but I hope it was still enjoyable. there was so much dialogue and I hate when my chapters come out looking like this but it was impossible to avoid I guess.

Again, word count got too long and I had to cut things before we really got to get pervy. Ilya will get to be a horny wife guy for the entirety of next chapter, I promise. I do hope everyone enjoyed Shane's clocky tgirl drip and Ilya being utterly smitten with her. I despise boat shoes. Ilya must really be in love.

However, I am forcing myself to not update this for a while. I have real life shit I have not been doing because I've just been obsessed with writing this fic. I've got a master's degree to get y'all. Fuck. But knowing me, I'll probably end up posting on Saturday or smth. Thank you so much again for all of your support!

Chapter 5: his eyes all over me

Chapter Notes

What did I say. I told y'all, I'll probably end up posting on Saturday. Hopefully after this, I'll be free from this fic's clutches. I just couldn't rest until I had given Shane and Ilya their proper ending.

Content Warnings:
- Shane gets dysphoric after Ilya says some stuff & tries to get him to stop talking. Ilya pushes through and makes her hear/do it anyways. This is dom/sub stuff and is predicated on their immense trust and Ilya knowing that he is not making Shane dysphoric, his words are causing friction with her existing dysphoria. Thus, he does things to alleviate that dysphoria and makes her feel very good and gender affirmed in the end.
- Ilya is kind of a chaser about the whole thingjgfhdgsk LISTEN IT'S HIS GOD GIVEN RIGHT TO FETISHIZE HIS GF. I don't use words like "girldick" or "futa" or anything like that, but he is very horny about his transgender girlfriend.
- Again, some gender affirming heteronormativity
- Right at the end, Shane is referred to with he/him by people that she is not out to

Thank you so much for all your kind comments. I've never been more excited to post a fic chapter in my life

Shane's parents come over for dinner the day after Ilya gets to meet them.

It's a lovely time. Yuna greets him with a big hug that's only a little awkward, and smiles at him without any caution at all. David brings all the ingredients to make chicken parmesan, because Shane told him that it was Ilya's favourite, and Ilya has to step into the bathroom for a few moments just to collect himself. Shane wears a white linen skirt and a loose, light green shirt, and a small white hairclip that sends Ilya's heart into overdrive whenever he looks at it.

"It's from the dollar store," Shane tells him when he zones out of conversation to look at it wondrously. She sounds utterly exasperated and not at all charmed, given that it's the third time in the evening that it's happened.

Ilya grins at her. "Such beauty, for just a dollar?"

Shane goes bright red while Yuna and David laugh. "Oh, he's a charmer, isn't he?" Yuna teases, laughing harder when Shane kicks her under the table.

It's lovely. It's one of the loveliest evenings of Ilya's whole life.

The morning after that, Ilya asks Shane if she wants to go swimming.

Shane doesn't respond at first. When Ilya turns away from the stove to look at her, she's staring at the kitchen island and chewing on her lower lip, anxiously opening and closing her hair clip. This one is orange, and it doesn't match anything that she's wearing at all—again, that hideous church skirt and now one of Ilya's tank tops.

Then her eyes dart up to Ilya's and she offers him a weak smile. "You can go."

Ilya raises an eyebrow. "Is not what I asked," he informs her, watching her head duck down as she snaps open the hair clip again.

He can't help but smile and walk over to hug her from behind, hooking his chin over her shoulder. He takes the clip from her anxious hands and puts it on the counter. Then, he takes her chin between his fingers and turns her face up to kiss her mouth out of its troubled pout.

Her face is flushed when he pulls away. Ilya takes a moment to tell her, "You are so, so pretty." She scoffs and rolls her eyes but Ilya kisses her quiet. Then he asks, "Is because you do not like the water?"

For some reason, she gives him an odd look. "How did you know that?"

"At All-Star game, you sat at the side of the pool and refused to go in," he reminds her. "Like… like a fancy little cat."

Shane raises an eyebrow. "A cat."

"Sexy little kitty," Ilya tells her, deathly serious.

She pushes his head and rolls her eyes. "You're so fucking weird."

Grinning, Ilya just nuzzles back into her neck, dragging his stubble along the column of her throat. She squirms and tries to complain through her helpless giggles, but Ilya doesn't let her go. "Meow," he purrs, laughing at the way she squeaks. The stool swings back and forth as she tries, and fails,  to dislodge him. "Pretty little koshka."

He kisses the underside of her jaw, the lobe of her ear, the side of her cheek, as his hands wander up to her chest and squeeze her perfect little tits–

But Shane pushes him off. For real this time, an actual force behind her movements that's more than just playful resistance. Ilya starts to step back, starts to give her space, but Shane doesn't let him retreat. She holds his hands in front of her, the playful flush seeping out of her cheeks.

"Uh," she starts, voice rough. "Well…"

After dinner last night, when the two of them had waved their goodbyes to the Hollanders and were quietly getting ready for bed, Shane took Ilya's face in her gentle hand and kissed him on the mouth. "Please never let me lie to you again," she asked. Her eyes had been so tired, but still so beautiful. "The next time I try to, please remind me how happy I was today."

Now, when Ilya starts to say her name with gentle warning, Shane is already shaking her head and smiling, resigned. "No lying," she repeats, and Ilya didn't think he could be more proud of her than he already was.

"No lying," he echoes back, and smiles into the grateful kiss she presses to his mouth.

Shane rubs her thumb against Ilya's pulse. "I'm, uh,  more aware of my body. Of the parts that are… wrong." She swallows, a thick and painful movement. Ilya watches her and his heart aches. "I still like it when you touch me, Ilya, I promise. But sometimes it…"

She shrugs. It's the smallest thing, defeated and tired.

"Do you know what I was thinking when I touched you?" Ilya asks her. He drops a kiss to her bare shoulder and waits for her to shake her head. "I was thinking about how much I love your perfect tits."

Shane twitches. "Ilya…"

"I've always loved little tits. Big tits are nice, yes. But little tits?" Ilya spins the stool around, turning her until they're face to face. Until Ilya's hands are braced on the countertop behind her, and he's leaning down enough for his nose to brush against Shane's. She looks… uneasy. But not upset.

Ilya tells her, "Little tits are perfect for holding. For playing."

He watches her squirm a little and shivers. This feeling, this rush of heady power, of delectable tension—this is a familiar thing. It's what makes Shane cry so beautifully, it's what Ilya chases so fervently. Something that Ilya has been craving for months now, something that he has not had a taste of since that day in October, when Shane ran away and left him on his couch.

It's something that wasn't there that night at the All-Star game. When Ilya buried his grief in Shane's neck and came between her thighs, calling her his girl but not subjecting her to this thing. And it's not something that they've had at the cottage, not yet anyways. Though Ilya had brought with him specific things with this game in mind.

Discomfort. Embarrassment. Humiliation. An old friend. The chisel that cracked Shane wide open.

"It's different now," Shane tells him, a delightfully meek protest.

Ilya pouts. "You don't like it?"

"It's not– I like when you say this stuff, Ilya." She's so fucking red. She's so fucking sweet. "But I… I don't want you to use this to– to make fun of me–"

It's far too easy for Ilya to tug his wrists out from her hands and to grab her by the chin. This time, it's a much colder touch. "You said you will not lie to me again," he warns, his voice low, barely above a breath.

She shivers. Her pupils are so dark.

Ilya waits, and waits, but she has nothing to say. Or maybe she can't say anything. Maybe she needs Ilya to say it for her.

"You like it when I make fun of you," he tells her, matter-of-factly, without any room for an argument. "You like being pushed around by such a rude, mean, boy."

Shane tries to protest, but the words strangle out into a gasp when Ilya reaches down and grabs her through the skirt and squeezes. "N-No–" Her eyes are screwed shut, her freckled face wrinkled with it. Endeared, Ilya kisses her wrinkled eyelids. Shane keeps mumbling, "That's different, I don't want you to make fun of– of how I look–"

Ilya huffs, offended. "When have I ever made fun of that?" Shane cracks open one eye, utterly unimpressed. "I have not! I have made fun of you for being so slutty, so needy, for being a whore of a girl–"

"Ilya–" Shane gasps, desperate. She leaks against his hand, darkening the fabric of her skirt.

"When I call you pretty, it is because I mean it," Ilya murmurs, pressing the truth against her trembling lips. "Would be stupid try and bully a pretty girl by calling her pretty."

Shane laughs, wet and helpless, and Ilya slips his tongue between her parted lips to deepen the kiss. Immediately, Shane's hands come up to clutch his hair as she whines into his mouth. Those whines brighten into cries of pleasure when Ilya grabs her tits again and squeezes.

Again, her hands come down to his wrist to yank him away. But Ilya smiles when she does, laughing at her subsequent grumbling of, "You pervert. You nasty pig."

"Pig for you," he promises, nipping at her lower lip.

She rolls her eyes, pink all over and incredibly pleased. "Okay, so you wanna go swimming so you can ogle my t-tits." She only stumbles over the word a little bit.

Ilya kisses her nose proudly. Then he says, "I actually wanted to swim because it is nice outside today."

Shane blinks, realizes that he's telling the truth, and then goes pink. "Well, usually you're doing things for perverted reasons!" she hotly protests.

"I think you like when I am being a pervert," Ilya teases. He kisses her once, and then again, and then when she's waiting for the third kiss, he pulls away. "But…"

He loses his train of thought a little bit, watching her eyelashes flutter open to reveal her sparkling brown eyes. Sweet like chocolate, sweet enough to eat. Ilya might have actually tried to take a bite of her, if Shane hadn't kicked his leg, prompting, "But?"

Something about her expectant tone makes Ilya a little embarrassed. He looks away, chuckling sheepishly before he can admit, "I did bring you something to wear."

"...did you now." Shane asks without question.

"A swimsuit," Ilya clarifies, and he barely gets his hands up in time to defend himself before Shane starts to ruthlessly swat at him. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"The fuck you are!" Shane snaps and yeah, that's fair. Ilya isn't sorry in the slightest. Especially not after seeing the wet spot on her skirt. The spot that's only gotten bigger. "I hadn't even come out to you yet! What the fuck!"

She keeps scolding him for a little longer. Then, she pauses, and sheepishly mutters, "Well? Are you going to show it to me?"

Ilya laughs so hard that he just has to kiss her again.

//

Ilya gives Shane the swimsuit in the non-descript shopping bag that he packed it in. "If you don't like it, just change back out and give it back," he tells her. "We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

Shane nods, and smiles, and gives him a chaste, grateful kiss. "Okay," she says, light and easy, and then she disappears into the en-suite bathroom for fifteen full minutes.

Now, Ilya doesn't know a lot about women's swim suits, but he knows that they don't take so long to put on. "Shane?" he calls eventually, standing up from the bed to hover by the bathroom door. "Are you–

"...Yeah?" Shane calls back and oh, oh, Ilya's heart clenches in his chest. Her voice is so wobbly and small. "Shit. Sorry. I didn't mean to– to interrupt–"

"Is okay," Ilya reassures her gently. "Just want to know if you need any help."

There's a beat, and then a watery laugh. "I– I don't think so? I mean, it fits– I don't know where you got a woman's swimsuit that fits me–"

"Don't worry about it," Ilya brazenly interrupts. Shane laughs again. "Do you wanna come out and show me?"

Shane sniffles a little bit. "I look really fucking stupid," she says. The cadence suggests that it should be a joke.

Ilya doesn't laugh. "Do you want me to come in?" he offers instead. Shane says nothing. "Shane?"

The bathroom door clicks when Shane unlocks it. Ilya immediately throws it open, rushes inside, and almost collapses dead on the floor.

"Right?" Shane huffs, weepy and miserable. She stands in the middle of the bathroom with her fists clenched and her jaw wobbling. "Sorry for wasting your–"

"Shut the fuck up," Ilya wheezes.

Shane does the opposite. Shane's eyebrows fly up on her head as she asks, completely disbelieving, "This is making you hard too?"

Yes, Ilya thinks but cannot say, utterly winded. She looks so fucking cute. Shane always looks adorable, but in this swimsuit, it's borderline lethal.

In terms of all the swimsuits that Ilya's seen on women, this is by far the most modest. It's a single garment, a monokini, according to its online listing—because Ilya knew better than to try and convince Shane to wear a bikini—and its neckline is rather conservative. The bottom is cut a little high, sure, because Ilya likes Shane's legs a lot, but there are ruffles around the chest to compensate for that. It's light blue with thin, vertical white stripes. It reminds Ilya of a picnic blanket. Of something sweet and smelling like springtime.

On Shane, it looks absolutely obscene.

Shane's legs are so strong and her ass is so round, so the bottom of the bikini rides up a little more than it's supposed to, revealing the delectable stretch marks on her thighs. It's not a tight fit, but Shane's chest is so broad that Ilya gets the most delightful glimpse of cleavage behind the ruffles. Her sex is tucked up along her hip and it strains against the fabric, excited and wanting.

But then Ilya tears his eyes away from the swimsuit and looks at Shane's face. At her teary eyes, at her abject misery spread across her face, plain as day.

"Lyubimaya," Ilya murmurs, concerned. "What's wrong? You look beautiful."

Shane barks out a laugh, wet and ugly. "I look like a fucking freak show."

"You do not," Ilya tells her fiercely. He steps closer, putting his hands on her hips and squeezing. "You look so cute. So adorable."

"Fuck you," Shane mumbles. Ilya frowns at her, not understanding, and she uses his silence to try stepping out of his hold. "I'll– I'll change, you shouldn't have cut the tags off already, Ilya, you can't return–"

Ilya tightens his grip and doesn't let her go. "This is a gift," he tells her sternly. Shane opens her mouth. Ilya doesn't let her speak. "What do good girls say when they get a gift?"

Shane's breath stutters. Ilya scans her face, eyes tracing her features. Her trembling pupils, her wet and bitten mouth, her slowly building blush that extends down her neck and past the ruffles. He slides his hands down, reaching past her hips to grab her ass and squeeze.

The words stumble out of her as a whimper. "T-Thank you." She buries it against his collarbone as her head tips forward overwhelmed. "Thank you for the gift, Ilya, but I– it doesn't look right–"

"No," Ilya hums. "It does." He can feel her sex throbbing against his leg, her hips twitching forwards in clumsy, desperate motions.

"B-But–" Shane sniffles. "My legs are so– so manly."

Ilya takes a step back. Shane tries to follow, whining when Ilya holds her at arm's length, but he's able to soothe her by slipping his thumb into her mouth. His cock throbs at the desperate way she whines around the digit, but he steadies himself with an exhale, examining her legs with careful consideration.

Her legs are hairy, sure. But manly? They're muscled and powerful. They're the legs of the best hockey player in the league. They're legs that have outskated Ilya a dozen times over—not that he'll ever tell Shane that. But he wouldn't want her to have any other legs at all.

However, he is feeling kind. So he looks at her and asks, "You have razor, no?"

Shane looks at him with hazy eyes. She always seems to settle when she has something in her mouth. It takes her a moment to register his question. "M-Mm?"

"A razor," Ilya repeats patiently. She's such a simple, needy girl. "For shaving."

She does. An old pack of disposable face razors that are buried in a vanity drawer. But she doesn't have any shaving cream, so Ilya strips down and pulls her into the shower. "You can keep that on," he tells her, amused at the clumsy way she tugs at the straps of her swimsuit. "It is meant to get wet."

Shane's cheeks get rosy with embarrassment. "Shut up," she mumbles. When Ilya sits on the floor in front of her fancy shower bench and the tile, the rosy patches darken into ruddy splotches. "I- I can–!"

"But I want to." Ilya doesn't let there be any room for argument. He crosses his legs and watches her sit. She gasps when he grabs her ankle to pull her leg into his lap. He kisses her knee, smiling when he shivers, and then instructs, "Turn the shower on."

She does, and shivers so beautifully when he praises her for it. Ilya reaches to the side for a handful of her citrus scented bodywash, working it between his palms into a lather that he then spreads over her leg. Shane makes a soft noise when his fingers brush over her knee, and then a softer, pleading sound when Ilya's hands go no higher. 

"Patience," he teases her, kissing above the edge of the suds. "My lady is so needy. What happened to all those tears, hm? I thought you were so hairy?"

"I-Ilya," she protests, a breathless sound that's barely audible above the running water. Ilya just laughs and starts to work.

He starts slowly, starts cautiously. He's never shaved anyone before and he doesn't want to hurt her. It's not a particularly steep learning curve. Each drag of the razor through the lather makes Shane's breath tremble. It makes Ilya's cock leak between his legs—the reveal of tan, smooth skin. He can't help but trace a path with his tongue, up her shin and over her knee, and she gasps, the sound echoing off the bathroom walls.

Shane's leg hair is dark, but the individual strands are thin. When they start to clog the razor, Ilya holds it under the water and carefully cleans it out with a finger nail. It doesn't take long for one calf to be complete, for the skin to be left smooth and soft and clean.

"Better?" he asks her, and she nods quickly, desperately.

What a terrifying, dizzying power. Under his hands, she becomes the girl that she wants to be. The beautiful girl that Ilya has always seen.

Shane whines when Ilya moves that leg out of her lap and takes her other, unshaven leg next. "Ilya–" she starts, silencing herself by biting her lip.

Ilya aches to lean up and kiss her. But he nuzzles against the soft hair of her inner knee instead, smiling at the way her thighs flinch. "Patience," he repeats, tasting the droplets of water that cling to the hair there.

She tries to be bratty. She always tries to act up, to throw a tantrum, to get her way. About halfway through this calf, her lower lip pushes out into a pout. Ilya bites back a smile and waits and, sure enough, when he turns to clean the razor off under the shower, Shane's foot tries to wiggle into his lap to press against his dick.

It's adorable, so Ilya gives her a couple seconds to look triumphant at her supposed victory. Then he grabs her ankle, savouring her yelp of surprise at the way he holds her in place to grind his cock against the arch of her foot. "Is this what you want?" he asks, looking up through his wet curls with mocking desire. "You want me to hump your foot like a dog? Want me to cum all over your pretty little toes?"

"Don't–" she strangles out, trying to pull her foot away. But Ilya's hand is too big, too strong. She can't escape his hold.

"You don't want to taste it? To sit on it?" he taunts. He ducks his head and sinks his teeth into her calf, relishing the way that she cries. "Hm? Tell me Shane. What do you want?"

He can see where she's leaking against the swim suit. "I– I wanna be good," she pleads, her eyes glassy and bright. "I wanna be good, Ilya, I'm sorry–"

Ilya shushes her, pressing a wet kiss over the indents of his teeth. "Is okay. You're being so good for me, Shane, being such a good girl."

It's not a question, but she still nods. "I am. I am, I promise, Ilya."

"Can you keep being good? For me?"

"Yes, yes–" Ilya leans up and presses a kiss to the wet spot of her swim suit and Shane whines. "F-Fuck–!"

But she doesn't clutch his hair, and doesn't try to hold Ilya in place. Ilya couldn't be more pleased when he pulls away.

He finishes her calf quickly, and stays on the same leg to work on her thigh. He does the front quickly, laughing at her squirming, at the way her hand comes up to grab at the hair on his nape. As soon as she does, she tries to pull away, stammering out apologies, but he quiets her with a kiss to her stomach. "It's okay," he soothes. "You can hold on. It feels like a lot, doesn't it?"

"A-Asshole," she sniffles, teary again. It's too fucking cute, how weepy she gets during sex. All sniffly and bright-eyed and overwhelmed with it. Ilya has to bite, and so he does. He noses up one of the ruffles and mouths at the point of her nipple where it pokes through the fabric. Shane squeaks. "Ilya!"

"I know, I know," he coos, finishing up with the top of her thigh. He lifts her leg and hitches her ankle over his shoulder to get the underside. Shane's hands fly up to cover her red face, her whines of embarrassment buried in her palms. "Oh, I'm so mean, I know. Such a mean, mean boy to this sweet little girl. Good girl Shane Hollander, not a naughty girl at all."

She's so fucking soft here. Shane has powerful thighs, fuck, Ilya's been drooling over them ever since the night of their draft, in the gym, when he got to watch them flex and strain with exertion. They're still powerful but at the same time, so fucking soft.

God, Ilya just wants to sink his teeth in, wants to bite down and down and down until he reaches bone. Wants to kiss her with his bloody mouth and paint her lips a perfect shade of red. Wants to push her head down on his cock until she smears that red all over him.

He tells her that as he switches to her other leg. Sort of. Not exactly. But he tells her, "This is my favourite thing to do. Did you know?" Shane shakes her head, one hand over her mouth and the other hand in Ilya's hair as he shaves the top of her leg. He gasps out an aching, desperate laugh. "Make you pretty. Making you mine, I love it, I love it–"

"Ilya–" she cries, with her perfect freckles and her perfect blush.

Ilya hooks this ankle over his shoulder and lathers up the underside of her thigh. He has to keep talking, otherwise his hands will start shaking, and he doesn't want to hurt her. His perfect girl, his precious girl.

Ilya says, "I almost– I almost bought a dress," and Shane gasps. "A fancy dress. Green and sparkly and so fucking sexy, God, Shane, your tits would have looked amazing–"

And Shane bursts into laughter, breathless and dizzy and bright, and Ilya keeps talking. "Almost bought makeup but I didn't know what to buy. Fuck, Shane, I wanna dress you up, want everyone to see how fucking gorgeous you are, want all the guys to wish they could fuck you but you're my girl, all fucking mine–"

The razor clatters to the ground, knocked aside by the force of Shane fisting her hands in Ilya's hair and dragging him up and kissing him. "Fuck me," she pants into his mouth. "Get me out of this stupid fucking swimsuit and fuck me–"

Ilya curses and does just that. It takes a moment, because the fabric is heavy and wet and it clings so deliciously to every line of her body, and Ilya can't help but taste it—the indent of her belly button, the indent of the seam left on her hip, the points of her nipples again, and again, and again.

By the time he finally gets it off, all of Shane's fire is gone. She's just utterly helpless, shivering and desperate and begging, "I've been good, Ilya, please I've been good, please just fuck me, please, please, please–"

And Ilya just melts. "You have, I'm sorry," he soothes. He kicks the razor to the farthest corner of the shower and knocks over a few of the bottles on the bench before he finally finds the lube. He drizzles it over his cock and grits his teeth—fuck he's not going to last, not going to last at all–

But he doesn't think about that. He focuses solely on hooking his forearms under her calves and lifting her as he stands. He pushes her so that her shoulders are braced against the shower wall, gripping her by her hips and pulling her down to meet him as he thrust in.

She's tight. She's so fucking tight but they've been fucking so much this past week that she's all soft and hot and welcoming inside. The lube slickens the glide, and so does the precum that Ilya keeps steadily weeping, steadily pushing into her hole as she tips her head back and cries out.

Made for me, Ilya thinks, and maybe says. His world is narrowed to a pinprick, to the scant few inches between their faces, close enough for their noses to brush.

Nothing else exists beyond the desperate furrow of Shane's brow, the strings of drool stringing in her slack mouth as she pants and cries, the teardrops clinging to her lashes. Beyond her, endlessly beautiful in his arms, hot and wet and perfect as he pulls her against his hips for each deep thrust that he pounds into her. You were made just for me.

His perfect, perfect, girl.

"I'm– gonna–" she chokes out, and then her head tips back as she shouts, clenching down as she spills between them. Wet and messy and beautiful and all his, only his–

Ilya groans, long and deep, burying himself to the hilt and spilling his load inside her. She whines, and shakes, and peppers his face with clumsy, open-mouthed kisses. "I love you," she gasps, giggling breathily, and Ilya's balls fucking pulse with it. "My sweet boy, I love you, I love you, I love you–"

"Fuck, Shane," Ilya sobs, and captures her mouth with his.

They sink to the shower floor, limbs tangled together, the water plastering his curls against her forehead. Cum leaks out from around Ilya's cock, still buried in her hole, and Shane whines at the friction against her sensitive sex.

But they don't separate. They melt together, closer and closer, man and woman, Voyageur and Raider, Ilya and Shane. Until it's impossible to tell them apart. Until Ilya's heart has been pressed into Shane's chest.

"I love you," Ilya tells her, shivering at the smoothness of her skin where her legs are wrapped around his waist. "I love you, fuck, I love you."

She pulls him back, cupping his cheeks between her careful hands. He lets her eyes drag over his features—his eyebrows and jaw and nose and teeth.

Shane's eyes crinkle. "Get me a blue dress," she decides, brushing a knuckle over his cheekbone to say, "I wanna wear something that matches your eyes."

Ilya looks at her and sucks in a deep, sharp breath. "I'll fuck you again," he warns, and she bursts into laughter. "I will. I promise."

"Will you now?" she teases back, pulling him into a kiss that she smiles all the way through.

//

"You did a really shitty job," she tells him after, when he's putting a bandaid on the back of her thigh.

Ilya scowls up at her. "You hit the razor out of my hand!"

"Yeah but you also missed a ton of spots." She says it so plainly that Ilya can't even scoff, let alone try to argue. He did, in fact, miss a ton of spots. "And it's going to be so itchy when it grows back."

He huffs, kisses the bandaid, and flops down next to her on the bed. "You hate me. My beautiful girl hates me. I should die."

Shane laughs, tucking herself under his arm. "No, I don't." She presses a sweet, chaste kiss to his cheek. "Thank you for taking care of me."

Ilya hums and kisses her temple back. He glances down at their naked bodies. At her burgeoning arousal, curled against her hip. He was very, very thorough in lotioning her up. Really, it's only natural. "Do you want me to…"

But Shane shakes her head. "Maybe later. I just wanna cuddle."

"What about swimming?" Ilya grumbles, but there's no heat behind it. Cuddling sounds like the best thing in the world.

So, they cuddle. Ilya feels himself getting a little hard eventually—it's only natural, with his very sexy girlfriend's very sexy body pressed against him. But Ilya doesn't give it too much thought. He's sleepy now, after everything. The day is warm and slow outside the cottage. They have another week left together, and Ilya wants to savour it as much as he can.

He glances sideways at Shane. She's already looking up at him, eyes somehow even brighter than usual. Maybe it's the green hair clip. Maybe Ilya's just in love.

"What is it?" she asks him.

Ilya smiles. "You were looking at me first."

Shane nuzzles into his bicep. "I… I had a stupid question." Ilya gently rubs her arm as he waits. Then, "I know it's a long way off but… but would you want me to. Um. Change… things?"

She's clearly nervous, so Ilya is careful not to groan or roll his eyes. Still, it's a very hard thing. "Shane, my English is very good now. Not so good that I can know words that are not being said."

"Fuck you," she mutters. Ilya keeps rubbing her arm. "You just– you really seem to like seeing my… my dick in panties, or that swim suit. Or whatever. And I kinda hate having it, and I wanna get rid of it, and maybe it's too early to ask if you'll still wanna fuck me after I transition but–"

Ilya kisses her silent. While she gasps into his mouth, he parses through the things that she said. By the time he's figured it out, she's glassy-eyed and shivering again.

"You can't keep doing that!" she complains.

He ignores her. "Shane, are you asking if I will be mad if you get tits and a pussy?"

Shane's face colours. She smacks his chest, muttering, "Jesus Christ." Much louder, she groans, "Well, yeah, I guess that is what I'm asking."

"Yes." Ilya deadpans. "Of course I will be mad when my sexy girlfriend grows sexy tits and pussy for me to fuck."

"I'm not gonna grow a pussy, Ilya."

"Oh, the tragedy!" Ilya wails, clutching at his head in despair. "My girlfriend gets a new pussy, all for me!"

"I mean, it's for me, but–"

"And breasts, my God! How should I live after my sexy girlfriend grows brand new, sexy breasts for me to suck!"

"You are disgusting!" Shane cries, but she's laughing. She's laughing so hard that she's rolled completely into Ilya's side, clutching at her stomach, tears welling in her eyes and wetting Ilya's skin. "Is that the only reason that you're with me, huh? For my body?"

Ilya snorts, rolling over to pull her face into his chest, to bury his nose in her scalp. "Exactly," he breathes. She smells like citrus and sunlight. "I am going to fucking Ottawa to play with the Centaurs, because in ten years, you will have tits and a pussy."

He twitches when she pinches his hip. "Jeez, I get it."

"You better," he threatens.

They lay in silence for a moment. Ilya wonders if Shane can hear his racing heart against her ear. If she knows that his heart is always racing when he's with her.

He feels himself say, "You should keep growing your hair. Lots of guys have long hair in the league."

Shane pulls back, just a little bit, peering up at Ilya through her long, dark eyelashes. Ilya looks down at her, oddly nervously, unsure if his smile is sitting right on his face when he explains, "I think– I just think you would look very pretty. And it would be safe, I think, so…"

He swallows nervously. Shane blinks, and then her face blossoms with warmth, with desire, with affection, with adoration. She pushes him flat against the bed, crawls into his lap, and says, "You're such a fucking idiot."

Ilya frowns. "I'm sorry?" 

"Ilya," she laughs. "I'm already growing my hair out for you."

"You are!?" Ilya demands, but then he's being kissed. And fuck, Shane's learning too well—this keep is deep and fierce and so fucking distracting. The exact way that he kisses her, the way he taught her how to kiss.

Mine, Ilya thinks, desperate and fervent and possessive. His hands climb Shane's hips and settle in her waist. Just as I've made you, all of you, mine.

The day passes on, and they fall back into each other.

//

At the age of twenty-six, Shane sits down with her life and disassembles it. She takes down those three-maybe-four points of interest, and she catches other orbiting facts before they have the chance to scatter. She lays it all out, turns them all over—one by one, careful and considering—and then files them all away.

She decides that there are three truths that she will live her life by.

The first truth, and most important truth, is that she is a hockey player. She's a damn good hockey player. A strong skater, a skilled playmaker, a reliable goal scorer, a trustworthy leader. She has a natural talent that she's honed into a weapon. She stands at the top of the league and hardly anyone comes close to her summit.

The second truth, and the most important truth, is that she's a woman. A daughter, a girlfriend, and a girl-space-friend. This truth remains separate from the first one, a truth that only exists off the ice, but isn't proven false when she steps into a rink. It doesn't matter that she changes with her team, that Hayden and J.J. call her their boy, that Cosmopolitan names her one of the sexiest male athletes alive. She knows exactly who she is, and everyone that matters knows the truth as well.

The last truth is the only constant truth. A truth that remains no matter where she is, a truth that is summative of the first two. She's the best hockey player that the league has ever seen. She's David and Yuna's daughter. She's awkward and doesn't pick up jokes the first time around. She's short and half-Asian and would be hard to ignore if she hadn't given everything to make sure that she couldn't be ignored. She's–

"Shane Hollander," Rozanov murmurs, bending forwards for the face-off. His eyes are so bright and blue behind his visor. He's smiling so wide, so boyishly bright. "You're looking pretty today."

Shane grins around her mouth guard. "Is that what you tell all the girls?" she asks, and he laughs, and she wins the fucking face off.

It's the bottom of the third and Montreal's down by one. The crowd is roaring—it's the second week of the season but Montreal is always desperate for blood when they're playing Boston at home. It's near deafening, but it's a million miles away. Quick and clinical, she passes to Hayden, who dangles it past Connors and passes it back to J.J., who circles back to slow the pace and sends a long pass back up to Shane–

The moment it touches her stick, she fires it into the net, tying things up with ten seconds left in the period. Shane grins, arms open for her teammates to pile into.

"There he fucking is!" Hayden hollers, shaking her back and forth and making her laugh. "There's our fucking captain!"

Rozanov skates past, complaining, "You really wanna lose in overtime, Hollander? Take it easy, you've got the whole season!"

It's almost impossible to hear him. The team jeers and the crowd roars and the goal horn is still going, Jesus fucking Christ that thing is so loud.

But louder than all of that, the loudest and brightest thing in the room, are Rozanov's blue eyes. Bluer than the sky, than the ocean, than the heavens themselves. Blue and beautiful and boldly telling Shane, that's my fucking girl, for all the world to see.

Not that they will see it. This is a truth that's just for Shane.

She's Rozanov's girl. And it lances through her, ignites everything inside her. Bright and sharp like a flame. 

Chapter End Notes

I have a lot of notes (yes, even more than usual). Here we go:
1. I will not lie to you all, this fic kind of started with "I think it'd be hot if Ilya sucked Shane's dick through a bikini" and then I found a transfem character study from there. All perverts are poets, I'll tell you that much.

2. That being said, a soft, drama-less chapter that's just smut and joy was something that I felt was desperately needed. Nothing but domesticity and love and affection.

3. I have no plans to write a sequel to this that follows the events of The Long Game. I like TLG just fine, but I would never subject transfem!Shane to the trauma that hollanov experiences in that plot. The idea of a trans woman being outed in a major sports league in any capacity is, frankly, fucking nauseating.

4. However, I will give the general arc between this fic's end and retirement

Here (WARNING, THIS IS SO LONG):

- Shane never comes out to her team. She doesn't identify as gay and would never come out as trans, not even to Hayden. However, Hayden does piece together that Ilya is Boston Lily for the same reason that canon!Hayden does, and he gives Ilya a few threats but never pushes Shane on it.

- Ironically, Shane being trans makes her much more understanding of Ilya & his struggles in Ottawa because they're both keeping such close secrets. She allows Ilya to tell Svetlana why he's moving to Ottawa & Ilya isn't as bitter about Shane being in a "better" situation.

- The near-plane crash still happens, and Ilya & Shane decide to get married in a very private ceremony. It's just them, Yuna & David, and Svetlana. It's just for the legal reasons and they keep it under tight wraps.

- Shane never leaves Montreal. I think that Montreal is kind of cartoonishly evil in the books and someone like Shane would be beloved there.

- Ilya retires 'early' at 34, very peacefully choosing to do so after some repeated problems with his knee. He becomes the full time director of the Irina Foundation. He also moves to Montreal to better coordinate with his co-founder. He even moves into his co-founder's apartment with his dog. Yeah, they're both unmarried. Don't worry about it (no one will shut up abt it).

- Shane retires at the age of 37. She gets to the last year of her contract and decides, "Y'know what? I think I've had my share of hockey." Ilya isn't surprised, but he is very excited.

- What is surprising is that Shane decides to be very, very brave. She does a Harrison Browne and comes out at the start of the season to the world. She says that it's her last, that plans to win one more cup for Montreal. and then she'll be transitioning upon her retirement. Oh, also, she's been married to Ilya Rozanov for the past eight years.

- There are all sorts of reactions to that, but no one can really complain when Shane is true to her word. She wins her ninth Stanley Cup & in the summer, she gets to have a proper wedding with an actual wedding gown. Most of her Montreal team are there (especially J.J. and Hayden!), and there are a lot of Centaurs too. She becomes an advocate for trans kids in sports. Ilya couldn't be more proud.

- They don't adopt, but they foster. They make sure that their kids, for as long as they have them, are safe and taken care of. That they have someone they can rely on when they have to leave.

- Shane grows a rocking pair of tits on HRT, to Ilya's delight.

- Her facial feminization surgery makes her the spitting image of Yuna. David fucking bawls when he realizes it.

- They're both very happy together, and even when Shane gets old and wrinkly, Ilya still calls her his girl, and she still calls him a pervert.

5. I might write more of transfem!Shane, either some follow-up smut set in the Ottawa/Montreal phase of their relationship, or maybe some summer camp stuff. I also have an idea for an actual retirement fic for Shane but it's very vague right now. It is unlikely that any follow-up will be posted.

6. I'm a non-passing trans man who's best shot at transitioning in any capacity is to hold out for another 5-6 years and do it then. This fic is just as much of an exercise in catharsis as it is an exploration of an alternate type of Shane's queerness. Many people had some beautiful and personal things to say about this fic. I saw, and I get it. I'm holding your hand and telling you that we have to keep living. That we will make it through this. That I love you so much, and I know that we can do it.

I'll probably make some edits (grammar + spelling/word choice) in the next little while. Apologies for any sloppiness on my part. In short, thank you so much for all of your kind words and for trusting me with this story. It meant the world to me. Please stay safe out there. I love you all :]

Works inspired by this one

It had to be you, Wonderful you by bannerthyme

[PODFIC] dust bowl (by thathastu) by GrassReads (GrassfedChickem)