Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Svetlana Vetrova, Hayden Pike

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Break Up, Getting Back Together, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy Ending, cannot stress enough that this ends happy I promise, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, Exes to Lovers, Mild Sexual Content, canon hollanov situationship dysfunction

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of Divorced Shane AU

Stats:

Published: 2026-01-17 Words: 3,077 Chapters: 1/1

good ol' days

Summary

Check the news, Hayden Pike texts him, and it is news to Ilya that he has this man’s number at all, and that he is even saved under his own name and not just an unknown number. Ilya cannot help but to be curious so he does as the message says and checks his Twitter account, even though he has been awake only three seconds and he doesn’t trust Hayden Pike as far as he can throw him.

Shane Hollander and Rose Landry Announce Divorce, the headlines announce.

Ilya sits up.

~*~*~*~*~*~

On a random Tuesday, Shane Hollander divorces Rose Landry. Ilya Rozanov does not waste time.

Notes

Inspired by Good Ol’ Days by Hayley Williams, who I am absolutely obsessed with. This is the second Hollanov fic I have named after this song. The brainrot is real and infectious and you are catching it right now by being here.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Ilya will not forget that it is Hayden Pike who texts him first.

Check the news, Hayden Pike texts him, and it is news to Ilya that he has this man’s number at all, and that he is even saved under his own name and not just an unknown number. Ilya cannot help but to be curious so he does as the message says and checks his Twitter account, even though he has been awake only three seconds and he doesn’t trust Hayden Pike as far as he can throw him.

Shane Hollander and Rose Landry Announce Divorce, the headlines announce.

Ilya sits up.

It’s been years since he has last seen Shane Hollander, except that it hasn’t because Boston has faced Montreal so many times on the ice. Ilya has always chirped and barked with plenty of flirtatious remarks on center ice, and he’s always liked the way Shane looks like at him like he sees him, even when the engagement rumors turned to marriage and Ilya cried so hard and drank himself so deep that some of his teammates had to come pick him off the bar floor, and he never explained why. He doesn’t think, in hindsight, that he needed to. He thinks they figured it out, and that is why they avoid him in the locker room.

Ilya hasn’t slept with anyone since then, and he thinks that’s why Svetlana texts him second: Holy shit.

I’m going to text him, Ilya replies.

Do NOT do that, she replies.

It’s too late—Ilya already has the text chain opened, all of his settings changed so he can keep this years old conversation fresh and reread it at his leisure. He hasn’t contacted Shane directly in over three years. Ilya feels nauseous at the thought of it having gone on for so long.

Sorry, he texts, and sends it.

He is sure Hollander will not answer—except that he does, within minutes, and Ilya feels like he is going to throw up when his phone vibrates and he sees Jane across the screen, and Ilya hesitates before clicking it, unsure of what he is about to see.

It’s okay, Shane wrote. It was inevitable.

Ilya has half a million teasing things he can say in response but he says, Am sure you’re not okay.

Shane types for a while before he replies, Actually, I am.

Not the one?

Something like that, Shane responds.

“Is bad idea,” Ilya decides, staring at the text conversation.

He does not let it stop him.

Want to meet up? Ilya asks.

He expects an easy no.

Instead, he receives, Please.

He nearly launches himself out of the bed.

~*~*~*~*~*~

They have sex.

And fuck is it good.

“Ilya,” Shane moans, back arched and hair in Ilya’s hand, keeping his head up. Ilya is balls deep inside of him and he thinks this is as close to heaven as he will ever get. He hasn’t had sex in a while and he doesn’t think it would be this good anyway with anyone else, which only makes Ilya fuck into him harder.

“Fuck!” Shane cries, too loud. “Fuck!”

“Yell for me, Hollander,” Ilya purrs, grabbing him by the hair and holding his head up.

And he does.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Boston plays Montreal soon after.

“Meet me,” Ilya says, this time on a phone call, because apparently they are the kind of desperate to make phone calls. “Can go to my place. No one will know.”

Shane is silent for so long that Ilya thinks he might have hung up and, if it weren’t for the static on the other line, he might have hung up too. But Hollander is clearly thinking about it, considering starting off where they left off, and Ilya is so pathetically desperate for it that he is even holding his breath. 

“Okay,” Hollander says, like he is giving something up. “Just this once.”

“Of course,” Ilya agrees,

(They both know it will not be once.)

~*~*~*~*~*~

Shane is pinned against a wall and moaning like a porn star. Ilya fucking loves it. 

“Better than Rose?” Ilya asks, his head full with it.

He half expects everything to stop, for Shane to leave, for it all to have been too much all at once. But Shane is moaning on his dick like he’s never had it before and he is crying, “Yes, yes, yes!”

Ilya fucks him harder.

They do not talk about it.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It is a while before they do.

An entire year and a fuck, in fact.

“About Rose,” Ilya starts suddenly, cautiously, and Shane squints one eye open.

“She was always more into it than I was,” he says, and it might have been a good explanation for anyone other than Ilya, who wants to crawl into his goddamn skin and make a home in his brain and understand everything that he doesn’t currently know. Shane closes his eyes again, snuggling into Ilya’s side like they are something more than occasional fuck buddies. “I went along with it, I guess, because it was better than saying no. My parents loved her and she is great, but I realized—she wasn’t my forever, you know?”

Ilya wants to know, desperately, what it takes to be his forever. He wants to know how to be someone that Shane Hollander would die for, someone he would marry and spend the rest of his life with, but Ilya Rozanov refuses to be pathetic enough to admit it. So he pretends like that is a good answer and nods like he isn’t dying to ask what kind of forever Hollander is looking for.

They have sex again. Ilya doesn’t ask.

~*~*~*~*~*~

“So good for dick,” Ilya purrs as Shane arches into it, practically begging for it as he moans loud, so tense that Ilya runs his hand down his back and Shane moans helplessly, practically shaking with the need to find his release, to find some way to let all of that tension loose. “Fuck, so good like this, like an absolute fucking dream—”

“I’m coming,” Shane gasps, and tenses like he is. “Holy shit—”

Ilya pulls out.

“Fucker!” Shane snaps, slumping into the bed. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!”

“Music to my ears,” Ilya purrs, and slides back in.

“So good,” Shane gasps, hands curling into the sheets. “So much fucking better than everything, so fucking good, Ilya—”

“Good boy,” Ilya purrs, and fucks him harder.

Shane comes with a scream.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Eventually, they kind of actually talk about it.

“I’m gay,” Shane tells him one night, sitting on Ilya’s bed in his underwear, and Ilya’s head snaps over to him so fast that he thinks he will have whiplash later. Ilya is standing there with a water bottle in his hand and his mouth hanging open, and his entire world is tilting on its axis.

He finally says, “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Shane says, and something relaxes in his shoulders, like he’s relieved to finally be saying it. “I figured I was bi for a while, you know, since it wasn’t like I didn’t like Rose. But it wasn’t enough.”

“No shit,” Ilya says, because he’s still reeling and he’s an asshole besides. “When did you know?”

“Too long ago,” Shane says with a sigh, and rubs his hands over his face. “I realized I was afraid to have sex with her.”

“Big sign.”

“Yup,” Shane agrees, and squints at him. “You’ve never had that problem?”

“No.”

“Thought so. The worst part is I knew she would understand but I didn’t know how to tell my wife that I was gay. I didn’t know how I could do that to her.”

“How did you?”

“She figured it out. Sat me down one day and told me I’m terrible at sex and she thinks she knows why.”

Ilya barks out a laugh despite the sickly feeling in his stomach at the thought of Shane having sex with anyone else. “Fuck, Hollander.”

“Yeah, it was bad. It got better eventually, and we were both busy enough that we didn’t have a lot of it, but we should have known.”

Ilya considers that. He never had problems having sex with women, even if he’s stopped casual hookups in the last couple of years, too lovesick over a stupid man who got married to a beautiful woman even when he thought he might be gay. Ilya wants to shake him. He wants to crawl into his lap and kiss him for hours and tell him how much he loves him and how he’s crazy enough to make him a husband again.

Ilya keeps a leash on that side of himself, at least, but can’t keep his tongue completely quiet: “Did you not want your parents to know?”

“It wasn’t even that,” Shane admits, and gets twitchier. Ilya knows this open moment is about to end. 

He reaches out and runs his hand through Shane’s hair. Murmurs, “Thanks. For telling me.”

Shane relaxes a little bit. Smiles all watery and sweet. “I figured, if I couldn’t tell you, I didn’t know who I’d ever be able to tell.”

Ilya knows he is the convenient, logical choice, and those have been two values that Shane Hollander has lived with all of his life. It is easy to tell the man you are fucking that you are gay, or at least easier than telling a parent. Ilya gets it. At least, he thinks he does. 

He wishes, though, that Shane would tell him these things because he wants Ilya to know. He wishes he was someone Shane trusted just because he knows he can. 

Ilya will take what he can get.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The next time they play, Ilya asks Hayden Pike, “How the fuck did you get my number?”

“You’re welcome,” Hayden tells him, and winks. “Lily.”

Ilya cannot fucking stand him.

(He might owe him forever.)

~*~*~*~*~*~

That night, Shane admits, “I was a bad husband.”

Ilya knows Shane’s brain works in inexplicable and unpredictable ways, but he wishes he wouldn’t bring up these kinds of things when they’re in bed together, sweat still cooling. He stares up at the ceiling. Tries to swallow back the continuous realization that this man does not love him. 

“Nah,” Ilya says, making his voice chipper. “Boring guy like you?”

“Terrible,” Shane tells him, slumping into Ilya’s chest like he wants to burrow inside and never come out. “She should probably hate me.”

“Rose seems nice.”

“The best,” Shane says, and Ilya’s jealousy surges, even though he knows Shane will never love her back, not in the way she needs and wants. “She texted earlier. Said your ass looks very good in hockey pants.”

“No ass looks good in them.”

“It’s her way, I think,” Shane says slowly, “of telling me she knows.”

“Oh,” Ilya says, and holds his breath.

Shane has panicked in the past when it seems like they have gotten too close, or too many people might know. He’s stormed out for less. Ilya waits for the realization, for the panic, but it doesn’t come. Shane looks up at him with his big brown eyes and his lazy little half smile and he doesn’t look like he is afraid at all.

He says, “I’m glad she’s figured it out.”

“Yeah? Plan on marrying me next, Hollander?”

Shane rolls his eyes, but does not say no.

Ilya will live off of it for days.

Shane sits up slightly, just so that he can look down at Ilya, and he whispers, “Come to my cottage.”

Ilya blinks. “What?”

“My cottage,” Shane says, and his blush makes the freckles stand out even more. “We have a few weeks off—you can come to my place and we can have it all to ourselves, and we can just—you know. Have some fun.”

Ilya understands, but he also thinks that he has completely lost the ability to comprehend the English language. He thinks he’s died and gone to heaven. He wonders if Hollander has a concussion.

He reaches for Shane’s head like he might check for blood. Shane leans into the touch like a cat, smiling all the way up to his eyes. Ilya’s heart collapses, and then explodes.

“Okay,” he murmurs, because there is really no other option.

Shane smiles like the sun. Ilya is a goner.

~*~*~*~*~*~

They don’t even make it to the cottage.

Two months later, three weeks too early, Shane says, “We need to talk.”

And Ilya knows it’s over.

He braces for it. Shane only just walked through the door so at least he’s letting him have the dignity of being fully clothed. He thinks he is going to throw up but he clenches his jaw and refuses to until Shane has left. His eyes sting but he refuses to cry. He locks down and waits, leaning against the wall to brace himself. He hopes he looks far more casual than he feels.

Shane looks—wrecked. Eyes watery and expression devastated and his hands shaking. Ilya wants to go to him. He wants to beg him to keep his mouth shut.

He bites his tongue instead.

“What, Hollander?” he asks. He means to sound annoyed. He just sounds tired.

Shane bites his lip and looks up at the ceiling. It is a trick, Ilya knows, not to cry. He cannot stand it. He wants to rip his skin off. He wants to run into the woods and never come back out.

He bites his cheek against a sob when Shane opens his mouth. He doesn’t expect him to say, “I’m in love with you.”

Ilya stares. And stares. His mouth is dry. He’s pretty sure he’s hallucinating. 

“What?” he demands.

Shane looks so devastated that he might break apart into a million pieces if he pushes too hard. Ilya is processing what he says, his heart speeding up so much he thinks it is going to launch out of his chest. He feels a keen sense of disbelief, as if he might be the butt of a joke Shane would never dare to tell, but underneath of it all he feels a budding, sensitive hope. It feels like an exposed nerve, zinging painfully through his entire body. Ilya is terrified of it.

Shane has taken his surprise wrong, and his voice is shaking as he says, “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, Ilya—I just think I kind of always have been? And it wasn’t fair to invite you to my cottage knowing that when you didn’t, and it started to feel like I was tricking you or something, and I kept thinking that if I didn’t tell you then you would learn to hate me, and if I did tell you then you might hate me less—”

He quiets when Ilya manages to take a step closer. “You love me?” he asks. It tastes like lava. It sounds like a prayer.

Shane swallows hard. “Yes. I think I have for a long time. Before I married Rose and ruined everything.”

“Not everything,” Ilya says. Dazed.

Shane runs a hand over his face as if he expects them to come away wet, staring at Ilya like he thinks Ilya might throw a punch at him. “It took me a long time to figure it out, and then I knew you’d hate me if I told you, and I was married for god’s sake. I ruined everything and then I just keep falling harder every time I saw you, and now I’m in too deep and I don’t know what to do—”

“Shane,” Ilya whispers, and is finally close enough to hold his head in his hands. “Stop talking.”

He does, staring at Ilya like he really doesn’t know what is about to happen next. Ilya wonders how broken they must be, that Shane doesn’t know how to read the love that must be written all over his face. 

Ilya touches his freckles. Will love him until the end of the fucking world.

“I love you,” Ilya whispers, so soft it rings in the quiet room. “I have loved you. Just love me back.”

Shane blinks, surprise on his face. Ilya kisses him before he can see more of it, before he can really take it in. Shane kisses him back fiercely after a moment, all of it processing for him too, all of the realizations and truths clicking into place. Shane curls his hands painfully tight in Ilya’s hair. Ilya holds him hard enough to bruise.

Shane breaks away gently and whispers, “We still have to talk about this.”

“Yes.”

“This is—”

“Yes.”

“What if it doesn’t—”

“Shane,” Ilya cautions, leaning forward to press a soft kiss to his freckles.

Shane leans into him and looks starstruck. Like he cannot believe he can have this. Ilya can’t either. He can feel his hands shaking from how much he wants to pull Shane closer, how he wants to climb inside of his bones and never come out. He wants to be with this man for the rest of their stupid lives, hockey be damned, past be damned. He wants to forget it all for now and talk about it later, when the elation has run out and he knows they will have to be adults about it. He wants to bathe in this feeling for the rest of his life.

He doesn’t want to come up for air yet. He wants to drown in it.

He presses a soft kiss to Shane’s lips and says, “We will talk later, yes? About all things, if you want. For now, just breathe. Be here. With me.”

Shane stares at him like he cannot believe his luck and takes a deep breath. He closes his eyes and leans his forehead against Ilya’s. Ilya holds him a little closer so that they can feel how each of their hearts are pounding in their chests.

There are so many things to talk about. There are so many feelings and truths to air out and come to terms with. They have hurt each other incredibly over the years, and Shane has done the worst of the damage. Ilya will not pretend as if that isn’t true. But he will not let that dictate this moment that he has only ever dreamed of. He will not let himself drown in his own misery when something beautiful and kind is waiting for him at the end of the road.

They have so many things to talk about.

It can wait until after this kiss.