Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Yuna Hollander & Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Yuna Hollander

Additional Tags:

Angst, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Protective Yuna Hollander, Celebrity culture, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Bodily Autonomy, All-Star Weekend, Coming Out, Getting Back Together

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of But I'm not a real person, just the shit you can't make up

Stats:

Published: 2026-01-22 Words: 3,113 Chapters: 1/1

don't owe you my body (i'm really trying)

Summary

Momager is not a title that would have suited Irina Rozanova.

It's the kind of thought that Ilya knows to be true, but still fills him with a sickly, childlike guilt — part of him still 12 years old when he thinks of his Mama. It's a betrayal to think of her as not being good at something even when he knows it's not a thing she would have enjoyed. Mama was soft, gentle, the type to press kisses to skinned knees and put balm of frost bitten noses.

She was not weak. But she did not have the lethal energy of Yuna Hollander.

Though he suspected there weren't many who did.

Notes

Title from Will Wood's Against the Kitchen Floor

Momager is not a title that would have suited Irina Rozanova.

It's the kind of thought that Ilya knows to be true, but still fills him with a sickly, childlike guilt — part of him still 12 years old when he thinks of his Mama. It's a betrayal to think of her as not being good at something even when he knows it's not a thing she would have enjoyed. Mama was soft, gentle, the type to press kisses to skinned knees and put balm of frost bitten noses.

She was not weak. But she did not have the lethal energy of Yuna Hollander.

Though he suspected there weren't many who did.

He sees Shane in her eyes, genetics, probably the other way around. For Mrs. Hollander the world was the ice and she was the enforcer keeping the worst of it away from her son. Fierce, even the bravest chirpers don't make comments about her, not for fear of Shane but the loss of brand deals and partnerships. She would drop gloves faster than the worst of the penalty box guests.

Still it was nice to hear the motherly undertone as she asked, "How did this happen?" With a bluntness he still fondly thinks of as purely Hollander.

"In 2010, your rude son decided to say stop smoking instead of hello."

"Ilya."

His first name leaving Shane's mouth is still such a foreign treat, even with the bitter edge to it, he can't help but look up. Shane's arms are crossed tight enough that it pushes his pecs together like tits, the pale, nauseous look on his face replaced with a more familiar annoyance when he notices where Ilya's attention is now.

"Is it not true?" He asks, trying to smirk, but his mouth doesn't feel right on his face.

"It's beside the point."

"Well move the point closer then."

"You know that's not what that means."

"How am I supposed to know this, English phrases all stupid."

"Boys!" Yuna snaps. It's just her voice through Shane's phone leaving Ilya to wonder if she also gets that little, angry focus line between her brows that Shane gets when he's annoyed. It's there now, a deep dimple not half as cute as the ones above his ass but still Ilya wants to smooth it away, rub his thumb over it until Shane's annoyance shifts to something more fun. Until he grabs Ilya by the wrist and pulls his thumb down, away from his forehead and into his mouth.

Yuna calms her voice, none of the panic that tinges her son's. "Can you just tell me what's happening, Shane? What can I do?"

Ilya glares holes into the black rectangle her voice is coming from, it keeps him from asking the same thing. From looking at Shane with a prayer in his voice and begging him to answer the same question. What can he do? The taste of metal is grounding, as he works his mother's cross into his mouth. She can't be here, but he'll take her comfort any way he can get it.

"This isn't how I wanted to do this. I had a plan."

This isn't how he had planned to spend his All-Stars weekend either. He'd also had a plan, one that mostly looked like wear Hawaiian shirts, get drunk, and hope that Rose Landry wasn't here; but Ilya had been willing to adjust, added look up compatible and see how many times he could make Shane Hollander come on his fingers after they ran into each other at the bar. Changed it again after getting the worst text he's ever received in his life, including the ones where Shane said he wouldn't come see him and anything he's received from his brother.

So Hollander could be a little fucking flexible.

Yuna Hollander sighs, a gravelly sound through the phone but doesn't say anything about her son's so called plan. They're probably two beans in a can or whatever the stupid English phrase is about this plan. He taps the cross in his mouth with his teeth, fights the urge to bite down on it, squeezing it between his lips instead.

"Ilya, look at me."

Ah, so that comment about plan had been for him.

It's the last thing he wants to do, but it's hard to remember a time when he wouldn't do exactly what Shane Hollander asked him to. Face still pointed toward the phone he privately hopes will be a lifeline out of this fuckshit situation, he looks up through his lashes at the quiet devastation on Shane's face.

He has caused this.

The wet, red-rimmed eyes. The angry flush hiding those freckles. Shane won't cry, he never does, but it doesn't change that Ilya has hurt him. That he's hurt him again so soon after getting him back. He's exactly as selfish and hurtful as everyone has always claimed that he is. A monster for doing this to Shane again and again.

"Kotik," the endearment scrapes raw from his throat, he should just get up and leave while he can. Save Shane the hurt and Yuna the trouble, the Hollanders can get back to their lives.

"I'm- I was going to- Mom, I'm sorry." The longer Shane tries to start the sentence the less sure Ilya is that he knows what Shane is trying to say. Just that Shane has his hands fisted in the fabric of his fancy new pants, clutching so tight his fingers have gone pale and bloodless. It's hard to think of a time he's ever seen Shane Hollander, best player in the MLH, look scared.

But even scared Shane is so fucking brave. "I'm gay, I was going to tell you this weekend."

"Me this weekend?" Ilya asks, brows raised high on his forehead.

And like that a spark returns to the watery depths of Shane's eyes. "Yes, you this weekend. I wanted- I'm serious about this, Ilya. I thought-"

"You thought. You thought I wasn't? You thought Boston and tuna melt and stay tonight wasn't serious." The words pour out of him, an anger he's been sitting in for nearly a month. "You left, Hollander, you."

"I didn't get some girl pregnant!"

"This sounds like an argument that isn't going to help anything." Yuna Hollander's voice carries with all the weight of team coach. She knows she's in charge in this room, she doesn't even have to be present. So while Ilya might be drowning in more emotion than he knows what to do with, certainly more than he knows the names of, he keeps his mouth shut. "I'm not sure why you aren't going to your own team for this, Rozanov."

This he thinks is lie. He doesn't think there is a person with the last name Hollander who is dumb, Shane is greatest hockey mind of their generation, Yuna runs his empire like a Soviet commander, and Mr. Hollander reads the New Yorker. They have never been very good at subtle so she has to be putting some of the pieces together of why this problem, Shane has decided, also is his.

Instead of saying this truth, he chooses another, "I pay a lot of money for people who fuck off and let me do what I want."

"Well." She can say a lot in one word. He imagines her face, like Shane's, frowny lips and expressive eyes adding what her polite Canadian mouth won't. 'Look where that has gotten you.'

"Is probably how strange woman can text me, yes I know."

"I'm going to ask you both one more time then, how did this happen?"

In Ilya's mind, it happened because of this. There isn't a time that his body has truly belonged to him. From birth he was labeled Ilya Grigoryevich Rozanov. His father's name printed on him, a possession like the house, the car, his mother. Ilya belonged to him and as his father's mind slipped away he became more and more beholden to the family, to his brother.

Andrei saw him as a tool. Takes one to know one, Shane said that once when Ilya called him asshole. Andrei is bastard, and Ilya knows he will be dead before his brother thinks of him as anything other than a way to get money. This he is fine with, has accepted. He can be the bank, the celebrity brother that Andrei complains about all while Ilya keeps a too nice roof over his family's head and coke in his nose. This would have been true just as much if Ilya had stayed in a Russian league as it is in MLH.

But MLH is different. America, the whole of it, treats celebrity different. He is public figure. Figure belonging to public, the conjugation is different he knows even if inelegant English doesn't understand it. And he is treated like public. Someone to be touched and photographed and spoken to like friend or employee even when he doesn't know the person. He is celebrity, so he is object.

That is how this happened.

But Yuna has done a better job of shielding Shane than anyone has done for Ilya. Dropping him in American culture and expecting him to float. So he doesn't think she will understand this. Shane stays in and reads his books, getting interviewed with his careful training, only pap shot when he's out with Rose fucking Landry.

"Sveta cannot come over like she say, busy with business degree, so I go to bar. It's American bar so vodka is shit," he wonders if he should be watching his mouth in front of Yuna Hollander, the night he's describing is still a blur he doesn't think he could force the stupid articles to appear any more than he could force the memory to clear.

"Girl approaches," like poking a bruise he can't help but look at Shane as he says this. The way his nose curls like disgust as Ilya's mouth wraps around the ugly sounds of the word, fuck English. "She replaces my ginger ale with ginger beer."

He waits long enough to be sure that Shane is looking at him still after that admission, to add just for him. "I am sorry for calling you suka for drinking, is stronger than the terrible Smirnoff I have forced myself to adjust too. I only had one and rest of night…" He wiggles his fingers, trying to smile like it is joke that one beer is all it took for the night to disappear, like magic. But Shane has his little zaychik nose wrinkled, eyes watery and sad again.

They've been on opposite sides of the room for this entire conversation, Shane curled up in the desk chair while Ilya had taken the couch. Shane's phone on speaker resting on the small table between them, closer to Ilya, but it is Ilya's problem that this call is supposed to be managing. Now he wants to reach out. He wants to be able to pull Shane's hand into his, take his thumb from where it rests on his lower lip — that stylist will not last if they keep him out of hoodies, no strings for his mouth to play with.

Ilya doesn't want to continue, but Yuna's silent presence and the black screen of the phone wait like they know he has one more thing to say. "I wake up next morning in ugly hotel room, cheap. Cheaper than they normally put us in. No pants, alone."

"Ilya." Shane has always dragged out his name. It's a personal game, to make it break in the middle, get him to moan Roz, Roz, Roz. Was a game, now he won't be able to hear it without wondering if it is really him Shane is thinking about. Ilya is better, he only wants to hear this from Shane, the way his tongue lingers on the L. Next time though it won't sound so sad. Won't break like he wants to cry.

"You know what is next, text from number wanting money for to get rid of the baby." He knows the word, doesn't want to say it. He's Russian, he knows extortion, blackmail, that's what this is.

"Did you see the team doctor, any doctor after the hotel room?" Yuna Hollander is a momager, she is not asking if he got a bandaid for his booboo. She has read between the lines, that Ilya has skipped.

"No. No." He wants to say more but there is nothing in either language he knows that makes him feel right. Russians do not do this, feels closest. This isn't supposed to happen to me, close too.

"That's going to hurt your case. Don't answer her, you haven't responded yet. Right?"

"Mom, can we- You heard what he said right? What happened?"

"I do not answer," Ilya tells her dutifully. This is something he knows, something he has done right.

"Ilya!" Shane pleads, not half as fun as his normal begging.

"When was this, does she even have a case for paternity if she tried to make one?"

"Week, two? After paparazzi shot." This he knows is vague, there were so many, but he can picture in his mind exactly what the picture was, can think of some of the comments posted beneath it. Shane's head turned and smiling, facing away from Rose Landry but still hand in hand with her.

The Florida hotel carpet is disgusting. An ugly shade of brown made to hide sand tracked in from beach, he thinks he can feel it the longer he looks at it; under his feet, between his toes even though he hasn't stepped foot on it yet. Shane left his shoes on, sandals from the pool that couldn't have been picked out by anyone but him. It's weird to see his toes, no socks, even in bed he has socks.

Kicking Ilya's ankle, like he isn't always aware of where Shane is in any room at any time, the couch dips beneath the added weight of him. Shane's hand finds the back of his head, fisting into the hair at the back of his skull and pulling tight enough Ilya whines, whines on a call with Shane's mother.

"Look at me." It's a useless order, no pointless. Of course he is looking. What else could he do with hair in hand, with brave Shane coming so close.

"Blyat! What?"

"We can- it's going to be okay."

"Oh you come all the way across room to say this. Of course we fix. We, I, your mother who offer advice and then pretend she know nothing. You, Shane Hollander, Canada's perfect boy, do not need to fix."

"It's my problem too."

"No! It cannot be." He's going to be sick. He's going to throw up the lunch he doesn't remember eating all over this ugly, brown carpet. Is this how Shane feels all the time. Stomach in knots and scared, so scared, not about the kid but about Shane and also maybe about this kid he has possibly made with some woman he doesn't remember touching. "You make it your problem then it becomes, baby and gay hockey player problem. Becomes cannot go back to Russia problem. How is this the time you do not freak out?"

"It doesn't really make sense for two of us to be freaking out at the same time, it's your turn."

From the phone Yuna makes a sound, a laugh he thinks, but it is hard to tell through the speaker. Is easier to make out the "2010," that she does not quite whisper.

"Any response is an admission of guilt," she says. "It becomes a headline. Ilya Rozanov paid for my abortion. Ilya Rozanov tried to make me get rid of my baby."

"That Ilya Rozanov is real durak neschastnyi." Shane's hand eases it's grip on his hair, petting the back of Ilya's head until it can stroke the back of his neck. A thumb presses into a knot of tension behind his ear. He wonders if it is the same one that was in his mouth.

"She won't get rid of the baby." Yuna says with mystic certainty. "There's more money in keeping it. You need a better agent, someone who can field the next calls."

"Mom."

"There are going to be other calls, Shane, he needs to be prepared. You both do."

"Not both." Ilya tries to insist again, but Shane's tricky fingers dig into the back of his neck like massage.

"Yes, both," he says.

"Logical timeline, when she doesn't hear anything back after this initial shot she'll go to the tabloids. You'll need to have someone reach out to your sponsors if they're the kind to balk at this sort of thing. Maybe she waits until she starts showing for the photo opportunities. A couple weeks, reaching out like this. Paternity is tricky, it might not be yours."

"Might?"

"Hard to say, this isn't the sort of scandal I've prepared for."

Shane takes more of his tension this way, when he straightens so fast his back arches. They're still touching, but the gentle massage has become a cuff at the back of Ilya's neck now. "You've prepared for scandals? What scandals?"

"I should think one is obvious," Ilya teases.

"You both should think of your next moves," Yuna sidesteps. "What could come up when someone goes digging. Paternity could make this go away, it could also do the opposite."

"Which you think?"

"I think there's a reason I don't gamble."

"Pizdets."

"The good news," she adds, dragging the words out enough it pulls Ilya and Shane to the edge of the couch. "If you want to call it that."

"Yes?"

"A child could keep you here, it's reason for a green card, citizenship beyond hockey."

He can't look at Shane, won't. There isn't a part of him heart, mind, or soul that could take it if Shane looked even a little trapped by this idea. Because if his father and his brother and the public feel like they own him, Shane actually does. He has possessed Ilya for years, possibly since he was 18 and saw the first bit of film of Shane on the ice. Maybe Yuna knows this, maybe she has created a Shane Hollander that the world can have so the real one can be safe.

She gets him contracts and deals, has shaped him into the most famous hockey player in the world. Ilya is used to being owned and if momager Yuna Hollander has figured out he can be, that he might be something Shane wants to have, he finally trusts that this situation can be solved.