Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

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, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Zane Boodram

Additional Tags:

Spoilers for Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers), Fluff, there's really no plot to this one it's mostly just ilya thinking too hard about emojis, POV Ilya Rozanov, light Rose Landry related angst, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, and is in canon typical denial about it for sort of a minute, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-09-14 Words: 7,052 Chapters: 1/1

you plus me equals a heart forever

Summary

For the most part, Ilya didn’t do cute nicknames for his contacts – he found it tended to confuse him, when someone called. So most people were just their names or their relationships to him – Misha Agent and Carlos Physio. Papa for his father and Dickhead Brother for Alexei and Sveta for Svetlana. Simple. Ilya liked it simple.

It hadn’t really mattered, he thought, until Cliff Marleau had mentioned it as they prepared to board a plane home from Montreal.

“Dude,” Marly said. “You’ve been texting this chick for fucking years and she’s just Jane in your phone? Kind of cold.”

--

Ilya's contact name for Shane changes a bit, over the years.

OR: Emojis in a phone contact can be a love language, if you think about it.

Notes

Ilya was proud of himself for Jane and Lily, he could admit that. Or, no, actually – he couldn’t admit that to anyone, it would defeat the point. So he was proud all by himself, alone in his head, even if Hollander had rolled his eyes and gone really? when Ilya had handed his phone back. 

It hadn’t exactly been a scheme, getting Hollander’s phone number, but it had been mildly premeditated. He’d spent the run up to the All-Star Game thinking about getting Hollander in his bed again; it was a persistent enough thought, Hollander on his knees, his eyes wide and wet and so brown, and Ilya was only a man, at the end of the day. He wanted to get laid. It was only as he was packing to leave for the game that he realized he had no way to contact Shane. That was where the thought first germinated – I need to get Hollander's phone number. It would be useful to have – maybe they could keep meeting up, after games or something. A simple, fun way to blow off some steam. 

Most of the players arrived at the All-Stars Game a night or two early, Ilya included. He'd hung around the shitty hotel bar, subjecting himself to the likes of Scott Hunter and Vincent Lemaire, hoping to spy Hollander – he only needed a moment to tell the man his room number – but Hollander hadn’t shown. Typical. He probably didn’t drink during the season, like the good golden boy he was. 

It wasn’t like he needed Hollander, or anything, if getting laid was the primary goal. There were, obviously, other opportunities, several of whom were very blatantly camping in the hotel bar that night – after all, nothing attracted the puck bunnies of the world quite like the All-Star Game did – but Ilya hadn’t been interested in any of them, that night. He wanted Hollander. He was determined to make it happen again. 

Now, the CCM shoot? That had been a scheme. There had been something undeniable about Hollander at the Prospect Cup, and then again at the draft – both in the stuffy room where they were being served champagne and forced to talk to boring old men in suits and, of course, in the hotel gym. He’d seen Hollander’s eyes dart from Ilya’s mouth, to the hollow of his throat, to his chest, back up again. Ilya was good at reading desire – you couldn’t get laid as much as he did if you didn’t pick up the signs. And Hollander had been giving signs. 

He wasn’t totally sure Hollander picked up his signs though. The man screamed repression – did he ever even jerk off?

(And what did he think about if he did? Was it Ilya? Did Shane Hollander make himself come in the shower thinking of Ilya, the same way Ilya had gotten himself off thinking of Shane? Of that face and that mouth, his eyes wet with tears and–

That was a very distracting train of thought.)

It would be better and cooler for Ilya to say that the CCM thing was an impulse – that he was on the phone with his manager, talking about the shoot, and the idea just came to him, a sudden opportunity to maybe get laid or, at the very least, push Hollander’s buttons some more. Wouldn’t it be a good idea if we did the shoot with Hollander? Really played up the rivalry? But the truth was that Ilya had been trying to come up with a way to see Hollander before the season started. He hadn’t been bold enough to make a move in the hotel gym, worried about being wrong – what a way to blow up his life, right? Still, he thought if he let it go all the way to the season, Hollander wouldn’t ever take the bite – would be too worried about his reputation and his career to bet it all on one night with his biggest rival. Plus, once they were playing, it would just be too much of a risk for both of them to ever bother. The way Ilya figured it, if he was going to ever fuck Shane Hollander, it had to be before either of them had ever played an MLH game. Before things got too real. So, yes, he’d been looking for opportunities, semi-casually asking if there were any MLH events he needed to attend, and when his agent had put the shoot on the calendar he’d immediately Googled if CCM had signed Hollander too, and when he saw that they had: jackpot. The rest, as they say, was history. 

He’d never really had to scheme to get laid before. The girls came easy; the only man he’d ever been with was Sasha, but Sasha, too, had come easy – was bold and open with his desire the first time the two of them ended up alone. Hollander would be tougher, he assumed, but the chase was fun. Ilya had figured that outside of arranging the photoshoot, it would be simple: he’d hit Hollander with some obvious pickup line, call him pretty or whatever, then get Hollander’s room number, suck his dick, get his dick sucked, and then it would be out of his system. The next time he saw Shane Hollander it would just be about the hockey, their one night of fun merely a memory. A fluke. 

He’d been so convinced of Hollander as a one-and-done hookup that he neglected to even try to get the man’s phone number, after the CCM shoot. He figured he wouldn’t need it, and it would be suspicious to have. It was only after he left Hollander’s hotel room and was alone, staring up at this ceiling, that he realized he’d fucked up. Shane Hollander was not out of his system; he was replaying the man dropping to his knees, mouth open, eyes wide, on an endless loop, almost getting hard again at the memory. 

So: The All-Star Game. A more minor scheme than the photo shoot, but still a scheme. He just needed to find a way to talk to Hollander was all. He was sure once he offered that Hollander would come – he was sure they’d both enjoyed that night in Toronto very much. Luckily, talking to Hollander should have been easy, because this was basically a big social event. 

Except Hollander was Shane Hollander, and he didn’t fucking go to the bar and have a drink, not even during the All-Star Game. He probably was still in perfect game mode, even though this was basically a pointless vanity project for charity, and Ilya was pretty sure half the guys showed up hungover. Not Hollander, though. Never Hollander.

So Ilya had been forced to result to drastic measures and give Hollander his hotel room number on the ice. Maybe not his smartest move, but it had been smooth, and he could tell it had flustered Hollander – he got that cute little flush on his cheeks. The one that made the smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose all the more noticeable. It made Ilya want to lick him. 

Then, when they were alone, he’d made sure they exchanged numbers. He knew that there was no good reason for Shane and Ilya to have each other's numbers, but he’d thought of the fake names the night before, seething at the bar and hoping against hope that Hollander would show up. If he had the fake names pre-planned, there was no way Hollander could say no to exchanging numbers. Not unless he was done fucking Ilya, which Ilya, frankly, doubted – at least for now. There would come a day, he was sure, when he’d be done with Shane Hollander, or vice versa – when Hollander met some boring Canadian woman and decided to get married at 24, like every other player, or when Ilya grew bored of him, which he tended to do with the repeat customers on his roster. 

(He’d never grown bored of Svetlana, of course, but their sex had always existed in a more playful realm than any of the other sex he had, more tied up in friendship than true lust. He was, maybe, growing bored of Sasha though. As a person he slept with and as a friend. Sasha liked danger too much, maybe, flaunted himself too broadly. Ilya was doubtful they could be seen together in public much longer without it becoming risky.

Of course, fucking Shane Hollander was also risky. Ilya didn’t know how to reconcile those two things in his mind – why one risk seemed so much more worth it than the other – so he stopped trying.)

When Shane had relented and handed over his phone, Ilya had felt like he’d won a much tougher game than the All-Stars. There was no reason for the dumb, giddy feeling trapped in his chest, but it wouldn’t go away. It chased him stubbornly throughout the weekend.

And if he pulled out his phone a few times, just to check that Jane was still there, saved in his contacts, safe and sound? Well. That was his business and no one else’s. 

— 

Over the first few years of their sexual relationship, Hollander remained simply as Jane in Ilya’s phone. The women he slept with were usually just listed by their first name, occasionally with an added detail if their name was generic – Megan Toronto to indicate the girl he saw sometimes after Guardians games, or Jenny Royale to indicate where he’d met that specific Jenny. But he never slept with another Jane, and even if he did he figured he at least owed Hollander the rights to the name in its primary form, without an asterisk. 

For the most part, Ilya didn’t do cute nicknames for his contacts – he found it tended to confuse him, when someone called. So most people were just their names or their relationships to him – Misha Agent and Carlos Physio. Papa for his father and Dickhead Brother for Alexei and Sveta for Svetlana. Simple. Ilya liked it simple.

So: just Jane, for Hollander. 

It hadn’t really mattered, he thought, until Cliff Marleau had mentioned it as they prepared to board a plane home from Montreal. Hollander had sent a simple safe flight, and Ilya had been staring at it like a fucking freak for two full minutes, heart doing something weird and head unable to come up with any cognizant response. 

“Dude,” Marly said. “You’ve been texting this chick for fucking years and she’s just Jane in your phone? Kind of cold.”

Ilya locked his phone and stuck it in his pocket quickly. Their conversation had been pretty tame – Hollander wasn’t a major sexter, and Ilya mostly said things that could be considered gender neutral (women also liked getting fucked in the ass, in his experience, at least some of them) – but still. Better safe than sorry. Especially when his teammates were so fucking nosy. 

“What are you, her mother? Upset I don’t know her last name?”

Cliff looked stunned for half a second at Ilya’s ire, and then immediately doubtful. “You don’t know her last name?”

Okay, well. When Cliff said it like that it made Ilya sound like a dick. He scoffed. “I know her last name,” he said, which he very obviously did, so it wasn’t a lie or anything, even though Cliff looked hugely skeptical – “but she is a girl I fuck, not a coworker. I did not think I needed it in my phone. Besides, you are looking at my private messages, no? Perhaps I am scared you will fucking stalk her or whatever, find her on Facebook and scare her away.” 

Cliff rolled his eyes, like Ilya was being particularly annoying. “Don’t be a shit, Roz. I don’t mean her last name, I mean, like–” he cut himself off here to fish out his own phone, and then pulled up his texts with the most recent girl he was seeing, a beautiful but frankly very dumb woman named Angelica who was some sort of Boston-based fitness influencer and who responded to every single sentence Ilya had ever said to her with either wow or an oddly shrill fake laugh. Ilya didn’t really want to see what their texts consisted of, and was actually more disgusted to see it was obnoxious coos of i miss you baby!!!!!!!! and boring photos of coffee instead of sexts. “Not the texts, asshole,” Cliff said, apparently sensing Ilya’s disgust at Marleau’s patheticness, “her name.”

At the top of the screen, her name was saved as Angie 😇💗.

“Okay?” Ilya was genuinely at a loss for what he was meant to be learning here. 

“Dude, it’s playful,” Marly said. “The emoji shows that her and I are, you know, flirty and fun, or whatever. Just Jane is so clinical dude, it sounds like she’s your doctor.”

Ilya took a moment to consider this. Were he and Hollander flirty and fun? Sometimes, he supposed – Shane saying no you come here as they both moved towards each other; the soft, slow way they kissed sometimes, which Ilya knew was trouble; the way Ilya would say boring and let it roll off his tongue, trying to make it mean a million other things that he knew he would never be able to say out loud, even if he wanted to. 

“She’s not my girlfriend, Marley,” he said. His tone was a bit harsher than he meant, but – well, thinking too much about Hollander made his brain screwy sometimes, so what? They weren’t together. They could never be together. They would never have the type of relationship where they saved each other's names with cute emojis or whatever. They weren’t Marly and Angie – which was probably for the best, because he’d been sleeping with Shane Hollander for six years already and Marly and Angie would be lucky to make it six months. 

Marleau rolled his eyes again. “No need to be an ass, Roz. It’s an emoji, not a fucking proposal. I’m just saying, chicks dig this shit, alright? Makes it look like they’re more than just a notch on your bedpost.”

By this point, Shane Hollander was much more than a notch on Ilya’s bedpost. He was, at best, many notches. At worst, he was–

Well. A few weeks ago in New York, after a brutal loss to the fucking Scouts of all teams, Ilya had impulsively texted Shane. Because he wanted to talk to Hollander. He wanted to hear what Hollander thought about his game performance, but he also wanted Hollander to distract him with inane things from his day, wanted to chat idly about what the weather was like where Shane was and what his plans for the summer were like. And then, when Shane hadn’t answered (because he was in LA, and probably busy, which Ilya knew and he’d texted Hollander anyway for some god forsaken reason) he’d gone out to a club and danced with a very beautiful woman, but then turned her down when she offered to take him home, knowing that he'd somehow end up disappointed by the whole experience. That it wasn't quite what he wanted, that night. 

He didn’t really know what it meant. He didn’t want to know. 

“It doesn’t even have to be cute,” Marleau was saying, oblivious to the personal turmoil in Ilya’s head. “You can put a fucking peach emoji, dude, if she’s got a fat ass, you know? It just shows that she’s different. She’ll dig it.”

“She’s not different” Ilya argued, but it sounded weak even to his own ears, and Cliff fully waved him off, having long decided that Ilya had something special for Montreal Girl. “And Jane would hate it.”

Of this he was certain. He could picture Shane’s reaction to seeing it – what the fuck are you playing at, Rozanov? He wouldn’t give Ilya a chance to explain; he’d assume the worst – that Ilya was mocking him, somehow – and he’d go all red and scrunched in the face, and Ilya would probably have exactly thirty-five seconds to distract him with sex before Hollander turned and walked out of the door (and probably out of Ilya’s life forever). 

Luckily they were called to board shortly after that, and Ilya was able to ditch the conversation entirely. He sat next to Connors on the flight, who promptly passed out and asked no questions about Ilya’s love life. 

Left by himself in the darkened cabin, everyone else asleep or watching a movie, Ilya opened Jane’s contact and changed it to Jane 🍑. He stared at it for a long moment. Then deleted it, and wrote Jane 🥵. Then Jane 😍. 

The third one felt damning and humiliating. He deleted the emojis, kept Hollander as Jane, and tried and failed to fall asleep.

— 

The day that Ilya learned about Rose Landry, he almost blocked Hollander’s number.

Or. Well. He thought about it, anyway. Thought maybe it would be for the best. That it would stop him from doing something stupid, like getting horrendously drunk and calling Hollander to demand to know what the fuck he was doing.

Plus, blocking Shane – Hollander, what-fucking-ever – would stop him from scrolling through all their old texts, treasuing every eyeroll emoji Shane had ever sent like it was a heart emoji instead. He was pathetic. He was pathetic and needy, and Shane had seen that in him and had bailed the minute he could, had fallen into the arms of a gorgeous, talented movie star whose hand he could hold in public. Who could meet his parents. 

He was fairly sure Shane was gay, but maybe Shane didn’t care – maybe he could fake it well enough and find some sort of semblance of happiness like this, pretending to be someone else. And maybe Rose Landry didn’t care – maybe the handsome, hockey star boyfriend was enough for her, and she could accept the disinterest in bed forever.

Or maybe Ilya was wrong. Maybe Shane wasn’t gay. Maybe Shane did like women, but only certain women, and maybe Rose Landry was that certain woman. Maybe they fell into bed each night with enthusiasm and woke up in the morning and went for a second round, and maybe they were in love and already planning a wedding, and maybe in a few years he’d be at an All-Star Game looking at Shane holding their child while Ilya drowned his sorrows in a glass of vodka alone. 

It made him sick to think about. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. He resolved himself to block Shane, and then failed to do it. A part of him knew he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. That he was so deeply, unendingly pathetic that he was going to leave the door open just a crack, always, in case Shane might accidentally slip back through it one day.

Loser. Fucking pathetic, stupid, loser.

Instead he added a little emoji after Jane – 🚫. Just a reminder, in case he got too drunk tonight and tried to do something dumb. 

Do not contact.

He wouldn’t. He promised himself he wouldn’t. He promised himself that tomorrow he’d block Shane Hollander for good and text the girl he knew who had dark hair and brown eyes and freckles and ask if maybe she wanted to get a drink, or come to his. Maybe, if he squinted, she could almost be what he wanted. 

He’d do all that tomorrow.

Tonight, he scrolled back to the start of his texts with Hollander and read them all the way through for the fifth time.

—

After Shane slipped out of the hotel room in Tampa Bay – goodnight, Ilya uttered so softly, yet still somehow floating around the room – Ilya grabbed his phone and deleted that do not disturb sign. It had felt childish when he’d done it, but a type of righteous childishness – the way it felt good to stomp your foot and go I don’t want to! 

For a moment he resolved himself to return to just Jane. But it felt wrong. It felt like it was no longer the truth. Like it didn’t encapsulate that something had changed. 

Ilya wanted proof of that change. Tomorrow he and Shane would get on different planes to different cities; there were weeks before they’d play again. Ilya knew Shane would text, and he wanted those texts to prove something. He wanted some sort of thing he could look at and remember – they had talked. They had held each other. Shane had told Ilya he was gay. Shane had said would you want to be together? If we could?

There was a feeling, deep in Ilya’s chest, that he was terrified to give a name to. Terrified enough that he’d lashed out, tonight – that he’d feigned indifference and tried to push Shane away. Like Hollander would ever let himself be pushed without a fight; like Ilya was truly capable of resisting Shane, a thing he’d failed at a million times already. 

I have to end this, he thought, helplessly. It had gone too far. He should have ended it tonight – should not have let himself get needy and pathetic in Shane’s arms. Should not have let Shane stay and hold him after sex. Like they could be something, when they both knew it was impossible. 

I have to end this, he thought again, even as he was hitting edit on Jane’s contact and deleting the do not disturb reminder. He was a selfish man, in the end. He had to end this, but not tonight. Maybe after their next game. Or maybe over the summer, between seasons. Maybe then.

He stared at Jane for a long time. He and Hollander could never be anything more than this – than fake names in each other's phone and hook-ups when they could. They could never be together – could never have each other in their phones under their real names, or cute nicknames, or emojis. Never.

He added ❤️ after Jane. 

I have to end this, he thought, and deleted the emoji and closed the app before he could be tempted again. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He knew better. It could never happen. Never. 

He fell asleep with a smile on his face anyway. 

— 

It was only after their second dinner with David and Yuna at the cottage that Ilya thought to change Shane’s contact. 

He’d spent most of their time at the cottage ignoring his phone – it wasn’t like there was anyone dying to call him, anyway. His father and mother were dead, he’d told Alexei to fuck off, his teammates all assumed he was timezones away in Moscow, and Svetlana knew he was on what she kept referring to as a mysterious sex vacation and that it was best to leave him alone. Shane, too, had been mostly off his phone, which had turned out to be a light mistake when it led to David walking in on them kissing. Whoops!

Only a light mistake though. Ilya knew that the actual moment had been awful for Shane – and it would be a lie for Ilya to say he, too, wasn’t terrified by David’s immediate decision to flee (which he was now realizing might just be a genetic trait among the Hollander men, when faced with emotions they can’t quite comprehend). But the aftermath had been mostly lovely. Shane had his earnest heart-to-heart with his mother while Ilya helped David make pasta in the kitchen. While there had been awkward moments, Ilya had left Yuna and David’s home certain that they would accept him into their family.

The second dinner had only solidified that. Now that there were no more logistical questions about how long this had been going on, exactly, there was just time to chat and get to know each other. Yuna and David seemed genuinely interested in what Ilya had to say – the movies he liked and the restaurants he recommended in Boston and the teams he expected to make playoffs next year (okay, that one was mostly Yuna). They asked only sparingly about his childhood – Ilya thought it likely that Shane had warned them it was a sensitive topic, and he couldn’t even be annoyed at being treated like he was fragile because it was so thoughtful. 

It was wonderful. A wonderful part of a wonderful trip. Ilya felt sick with happiness. 

“I’m starting a group chat,” Shane said, when his parents had left for the evening – Yuna pressing a kiss into Ilya’s cheek, and David pulling him into a hug so fatherly that something in Ilya actually ached at it. 

“A group chat?” Ilya raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“You know, family chat. To share updates. My mom’s going to watch you like a hawk for injuries now, by the way, and she sees everything, so don’t even think about bullshitting her.”

The way Shane said family chat told Ilya it was a concept he should be immediately familiar with, but it was utterly foreign to him. He tried to picture texting both his father and brother at the same time and nearly shuddered.

Still, he figured this was one of those normal, boring, Canadian things that a normal, boring, Canadian family like the Hollanders did. A group chat so everyone got the same information all at once. Shane probably still texted his parents before his flights took off, one last love you before he went into airplane mode. 

Now Ilya would get those texts too. He couldn’t stop himself from grinning. So he dutifully went and got his phone, and let Shane tell him which number was which. He called them Yuna and David, figuring subterfuge in this case was likely not needed – it wasn’t like Shane’s parents were famous enough to be recognizable to most of his teammates, and anyway he planned to be much more protective of his phone now. Shane named the group chat Fam Chat – vague but inclusive. 

Then he looked at the text Shane had sent:

Jane: Adding us all to a chat together! Love you guys. ❤️

He melted a bit, looking at the heart. A thing they were allowed to do now. No longer an embarrassing show of emotion neither was allowed to have, or would be afraid to show – now a normal thing. He remembered adding that stupid heart next to Jane in Tampa, being so resolved it was time to end things. How dumb he’d been just a few weeks ago. 

He went to the contact page for Jane and hit edit. Yes, Marly would give him shit for it if he caught it, but whatever. Ilya was in love. Maybe it would be nice to get chirped about it, a little.

Besides, again: he was locking his phone down. He wasn’t going to risk fucking Shane’s life up because he was addicited to having his screen at maximum brightness. 

Shane furrowed his brow. “What are you doing?”

“Something I have wanted to do for a long time,” Ilya said softly. He added the heart and tilted his phone so Shane could see.

Jane ❤️

“You’re such a sap,” Shane said, but it sounded an awful lot like I love you to Ilya’s ears. Ilya hit save on the contact and moved to kiss Shane, and kiss Shane, and kiss Shane, until both of them fell into bed together.

(The next day, he saw Shane had changed Ilya to Lily 💜 and he absolutely did not cry, no matter what Shane said.)

— 

It turned out there was exactly one downside to uprooting his life and moving to a new country and a new team in the name of love.

He had to change Shane’s name in his phone again. No more heart allowed.

(Okay, the Centaurs losing streak was maybe also a downside, but Ilya was trying not to think about that part.)

“Ilya,” Shane said, in the tone he got during their little spats that Ilya knew meant he thought Ilya was being ridiculous, “we’re friends now. It makes sense for us to text each other as Shane and Ilya, you know? The fake names are more suspicious, if anything!”

The Irina Foundation had been announced two weeks ago. It had gone over remarkably well. The press was effusive, praising Shane and Ilya for putting aside their differences in the name of the greater good.

Little did they know.

But it turned out that part of Shane and Ilya’s new public friendship meant that they should look like friends in private too. And to Shane, that meant abandoning Lily and Jane and finally being Ilya and Shane in each other’s phones. 

And really, that should have made Ilya happy – hell it had made him happy initially, until he realized that it meant he’d have to get rid of that little red heart. 

He didn’t want to do that.

It was stupid. He knew it was stupid. The heart didn’t actually mean anything;. Shane and Ilya were in love without any emoji necessary to prove it. 

Just – it had been hard, that last year in Boston. Shane had been so far away, and Ilya had gotten used to seeing the little heart emoji like a beacon of light in the darkness. Whenever Shane texted, or called, or Facetimed, there it was – ❤️. Proof that Shane Hollander was his boyfriend; proof that Shane Hollander really did love him back. 

In many ways, ditching the fake names and just being Shane and Ilya was what Ilya had wanted for years. But finally getting it, only to lose the heart? It felt unfair. He had been ready to make sacrifices for love – he’d already sacrificed his scoring record, for God’s sake – but this one he hadn’t been prepared for, not really. 

But there was no way two guys who were just friends would have each other in their phones with heart emojis. 

“You could do another emoji?” Shane offered. Ilya must have been silent for too long, because Shane was looking at him with sympathy. Initially, the fight Ilya had put up had been jokey, and Shane had been jokey back, but then Ilya had gotten too insistent. At first Shane had read that for stubbornness, but now he must have realized that Ilya was actually, stupidly, sort of hurt, and he was trying to fix it. 

The idea of replacing the heart with something lame and generic – a hockey stick or the 100 emoji, like he’d done with teammates over the years – felt worse than nothing at all. He sighed; Shane moved to hold him, gentle hands on his hips. “I am being dumb,” Ilya said.

“I didn’t realize it actually bothered you.” Shane frowned a bit. “I thought you’d be excited – that we can finally, you know. Be in public together, and stuff.” He was flushing red, here, like it was embarrassing of him to admit he wanted to be out in public with his boyfriend, and not something basically every other couple on Earth got to do without even thinking twice about it. 

“I am excited,” Ilya said, in a bit of a rush. He didn’t want Shane to think for even a moment that he had regrets. He had none. He loved Shane, he loved the Foundation. He was excited for this next part of their plan, more excited than he’d been for anything since the last part of their plan. “I just. . .” he trailed off, unsure of how to explain himself. It sounded childish, he knew. 

“I know,” Shane said, like he did. Like Ilya didn’t have to explain it – like they’d been on the same page the whole time, which Ilya knew they had been, for longer than either of them had realized. “I liked seeing it too. But this will be better. We can finally be ourselves.”

Ilya knew that was true. He did. But the past years, seeing that heart had done something to him. He knew if anyone else saw it that they’d know a deep truth about him – that he had someone. That someone loved him. Now he’d return to a world where only a handful of people knew that someone loved him – Shane, and Shane’s parents, and Svetlana, and Hayden fucking Pike, for some reason.

Still: he knew Shane was right. He knew he was being irrational. He knew it would feel better to see Shane calling him than Jane. So he squared his shoulders and stopped being a baby. “Of course,” he said. “Of course. I will change it right away. It will be better.”

Shane had beamed at him, then, and Ilya had grinned back, and if it had hurt a little to delete that stupid red heart, well – no one had to know but Ilya.

— 

The day after their meeting with Roger Crowell, both of them still benched, Shane came down the stairs of his Montreal apartment in a sudden flurry. Ilya had been half asleep on the couch – it was strange, being so close to playoffs and having his days be suddenly empty. As much as he loved spending time with Shane, he knew both of them were getting restless. Shane had gone upstairs to fold a load of laundry that hadn’t really needed doing, and Ilya had stayed on the couch with Anya, pretending to watch a show that he wasn’t really paying attention to. That is, until Shane re-appeared, suddenly moving quick, eager and nearly anxious.

Ilya sat up, concerned. “What is it? Moya lyubov what’s wrong?” Maybe it was a bad sign, but the past handful of days had put Ilya on edge – he was constantly waiting for some sort of horrible announcement, some other shoe to drop, even though the shoe had dropped already, for the most part. 

Shane had ducked into the kitchen for something, and when he entered the living room to join Ilya, he was holding his phone. He must have left it in there, earlier – he’d been leaving his phone in random rooms the past couple days, dodging calls and texts from basically everyone. Which, frankly, Ilya understood – he hadn’t been glued to his phone the past couple of days either, although he felt an obligation to check it to see if Yuna, David, or Svetlana had checked in. 

“I just realized something,” Shane was saying. He sat next to Ilya on the couch, closer than was needed – they were touching, Shane’s knee pressing into Ilya’s thigh. “Everyone knows.”

Ilya raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Shane. That is sort of the problem, no?”

Shane let out a small, almost breathless laugh. “Yeah, sure, but I mean – I mean everyone knows. There’s no reason to hide anymore. Everyone saw us. Everyone knows. So you don’t – I can–” He cut himself off with a frustrated sigh. “We can do this again,” he said, and he stuck his phone out so Ilya could see.

It was Ilya’s own contact information in Shane’s phone.

Shane had changed his name to Ilya ❤️.

For a long moment Ilya just stared at it.

“Everyone knows,” Shane said again, softly. “We don’t have to hide anymore.”

It was the thing Ilya had always wanted, delivered to him in the worst possible way. Shane and him – out and open, together and public, against their will. It was so unfair. It was unfair that Ilya could be staring at his own name, next to a stupid heart emoji, and he couldn’t just be happy. He had to feel complicated about it. 

He realized, too late, that his eyes had filled with tears. He realized it only when he saw Shane’s face crumple. “Shit, I’m sorry, it’s – this was too much, I–” Shane was saying, pulling his phone back, like he was going to delete that heart. 

Which: no. Ilya simply could not let that happen.

He reached out and grabbed Shane by the wrist. “No, no. No. I love it. I love seeing it. I just–” he swallowed, roughly. “I wish it had been your choice.”

Shane frowned, like this was a bit ridiculous. “Ilya, this is my choice. What do you mean?”

“You would not have done this if we weren’t outed. If it wasn’t – you did not choose this.” He gestured broadly, to encompass all of the bullshit that had happened over the past handful of days.

Shane just smiled fondly – the smile he got when he thought Ilya was being a bit ridiculous. He leaned forward and pressed his lips against Ilya’s, very gently – a barely there peck of a kiss that, nevertheless, sent shivers through Ilya’s entire body. After a moment, Shane pulled away, but only just. When he spoke, the air from his mouth puffed softly against Ilya’s lips. “Ilya,” Shane said, nearly a whisper. “I wanted to do this the minute you said yes after I asked you to marry me. I only just remembered that I can.” He pulled away a little to look Ilya in the eyes. “Yes, this isn’t how I wanted things to go, obviously, but – but this is one good thing that came out of it, right? Something we can have.”

Shane reached up and wiped the tears that were falling from Ilya’s eyes. He couldn’t even bring himself to feel stupid about it anymore – he was too overwhelmed with love for Shane. He fumbled for his own phone, abandoned on the coffee table, and grabbed it. When he was done editing the contact name, he turned and showed it to Shane.

It read: Shane ❤️🥰😍🤤🖤

Shane’s eyes catalogued the emojis carefully. For a moment, Ilya thought he’d point out the most damning part of the name – that the hearts were Centaurs colors, not Metros. They had yet to discuss Shane’s upcoming free agency, but with the way the Metros had reacted so poorly to the news, Ilya had a stupid, secret dream growing in his heart – a shared house, in a shared city, on a shared team. He didn’t want to say this out loud to Shane, at least not yet; he couldn’t be another person adding pressure onto Shane’s already well-ladened shoulders. He knew the Metros meant a lot to Shane, and perhaps even more to Yuna. He knew that Shane was not someone who so easily quit on others – hell, they were only engaged because he refused to quit on Ilya, even when Ilya, perhaps, deserved it. Besides, there was no telling what the mood would be once their benching ended. While Ilya had a sinking suspicion that the Metros would not be quick to embrace Shane and Ilya's relationship, he was Shane Hollander – it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that everyone would simply shut up and go back to normal, or as normal as possible, for the sake of keeping their team a winning one. 

He wasn’t sure what he’d say if Shane asked – something arrogant, about his team being the better one, probably – but Shane didn’t ask. Either he didn’t notice, or he, too, was letting the matter drop for now – a conversation for another day, after the season was over, when they had less eyes on them and more time to figure out what their future really looked like. Instead, Shane let out a small huff of laughter. “Five emojis to my one, huh? Does everything have to be a competition with you?”

Ilya gasped, mock offended. “With me? Rich coming from you, Hollander. Besides: yes, obviously. It is all a competition, and I am winning, because I am the better hockey player and the better fiancé.” He puffed his chest out, like a ridiculous peacock, and Shane laughed again. 

“In your fucking dreams, Rozanov,” Shane said, but he was leaning forward to kiss Ilya anyway, and they both forgot about the competition fairly quickly in the name of some much more fun activities. 

Later, just ahead of the first Ottawa vs Montreal playoff game, Shane texted him – a simple Good luck, asshole. You’ll need it. – and Bood, at the stall next to Ilya’s, saw the message and snorted inelegantly. “Christ, Roz,” Bood said, “you think you’ve got emojis on Hollzy’s name? Is the drooling necessary?” 

“You have seen him, yes?” Ilya asked, arching an eyebrow. “He is easy to drool over.”

Bood laughed, clapping a friendly hand to Ilya’s shoulder as he did so. “You’re ridiculous, man.”

“I’m in love, Bood, shut the fuck up,” Ilya said, but he was grinning too.

Bood shook his head. “Trust me, man – it’s the same fucking thing.”

Ilya looked back down at the texts between him and Shane, and all the stupid emojis he’d put after Shane’s name – the red and black hearts most prominent among them. 

“Yes,” he agreed. “I suppose it is.” He wrote off one last text to Shane.

Ilya: Bood thinks my emojis are ridiculous.

Shane’s reply came back almost immediately. 

Shane ❤️🥰😍🤤🖤: Of course they are.

Ilya: Ah, you want me to change them?

Shane ❤️🥰😍🤤🖤: Abso-fucking-lutely not. 

Shane ❤️🥰😍🤤🖤: I love them.

Shane ❤️🥰😍🤤🖤: And I love you.

Shane ❤️🥰😍🤤🖤: Even if I’m about to kick your ass so bad you’ll have to go into witness protection.

Ilya grinned, feeling, as Bood had predicted, utterly ridiculous with love. 

"Alright," Ilya said, clapping as he turned to face his team. "Short speech today. My favorite thing in the world to do is beat the Montreal Metros. I want to do that tonight, yes? Plus, Shane will be very insufferable if he wins, and you all want me to be happy at home tonight, right?" There was a chorus of well-meaning and joking groans at this. Ilya ignored them. "Right?" 

"Hell yeah, Cap," Troy cut in, quickly edging his way to the top of Ilya's favorite teammates list. 

"Alright!" Ilya agreed. "So let's go kick their fucking ass, yes?"

The team howled in agreement, and most of them moved to head out to the ice. Ilya glanced back at his phone just once, still open to Shane's last text. He grabbed it quickly and typed out a short, simple, I love you. Shane heart reacted to it in immediately. As Ilya put his phone back in his stall, he glanced at Shane's name one more time - at the hearts he never thought he'd get to have there. 

He shook his head and followed his team out onto the ice. He had a playoff game to win against the love of his life, after all.