Rating:

General 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

Additional Tags:

sports fans, being a public figure, Boston, Married Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Post-Canon, Canon Compliant

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2025-12-25 Words: 2,095 Chapters: 1/1

esplanade

Summary

"Hey. Hey, Hollander."

Shane sighs, drains the last sip of his beer, and turns towards the voice.

"You mind if I ask you a question?"

Can I fucking stop you?

OR: Shane Hollander meets a Boston Raiders fan. The conversation doesn't go quite how he expects.

Notes

Set vaguely post-TLG, with some general world-state spoilers for that, but nothing super detailed.

"Hey. Hey, Hollander."

Shane sighs, drains the last sip of his beer, and turns towards the voice.

"You mind if I ask you a question?"

Can I fucking stop you?

Probably not, realistically, or at least not easily. The guy's been looking over at their table for a while now, squinting and frowning and muttering to his buddy. He's started to stand up once or twice already, but his friend has managed to wrestle him back down before. Friend must have left, though, because now the guy's up, leaning unsteadily against Shane's table, eyes narrowed.

He's a big guy — not hockey-big, but solid, with broad shoulders and the kind of muscle that comes from hard work. Shane's age, maybe, or a little older, his face flushed red from beer and anger.

"Sure thing," Shane says, bracing himself.

Over at the bar, Ilya says something to the woman pulling their pints, making her throw back her head in laughter. He glances back over his shoulder and meets Shane's eyes, face sharpening as he takes in the scene. He flicks a finger between his chest and their table, raising one eyebrow in a silent offer, but Shane shakes his head. He's never going to enjoy these kind of fan interactions, but he's had enough of them by now to be used to it, more or less.

"You fucking listening, pal?"

"Sorry," Shane says, turning to face the guy, smoothing his face into something blandly polite, media-ready. The guy's loud, and the bar is crowded; if there isn't somebody filming yet, there will be soon enough. "What did you want to know?"

"What I wanna — " The crowd shifts around them and the guy wobbles slightly, gripping the table hard enough to jostle it. "What I wanna know is, what the fuck is so great about Ottawa, huh?"

Shane blinks, recalibrating. Not the question he was expecting to get at a pop-up beer garden along the river in Boston, but not a new question, either. He played for Montreal for over a decade, and planned to stay there for a decade more. Even now, after three years and two cups with Ottawa, some fans are still angry.

Some days, Shane can't even blame them for it. They were building something in Montreal: a dynasty, a legacy, with him as the face of the franchise. Letting that go wasn't easy, even if staying would have been even harder.

He takes a deep breath. "Listen," he says, "I have nothing but respect for the Metros organization —"

"Man, fuck the Metros," the guy says, slapping his hand on the table hard enough that Shane's empty cup rattles. "Bunch of fucking idiots."

"I'm — sorry, what?" Shane blinks, the rest of his usual answer drying up on his tongue.

"You heard me," the guy says, his chin jutting out aggressively. "The Montreal goddamn Metros are a bunch of crybaby jackasses who couldn't find the net if you drew them a fucking map."

Which is — not wrong, at least not for the past few seasons, but —

"Sorry, wait." Shane shakes his head, trying to clear it. "You're…not a Metros fan?"

The guy scoffs. "Are you fucking deaf?" He curls his hand into a fist, thumps it on the table. "With a gun to my head, I wouldn't cheer for the Montreal fucking Metros." He narrows his eyes, leaning in slightly. "What I wanna know is, what does Ottawa have that Boston doesn't?"

"I —"

"You want a river? Look at this fucking river," the guy continues, gesturing over his shoulder to the gleaming sweep of the Charles River. "Beautiful river! Clean enough to fucking swim in!"

"The Ottawa River isn't that —"

"And we got the ocean," the guy says, barrelling over Shane's reflexive, bewildered defense of the Ottawa River. "You got the ocean in Ottawa?"

"No, but —"

"We got museums! History! Good schools! Good beer!" He pauses, seeming to remember the plastic cup in his free hand, and takes a swig. "Great beer," he says. "You got fucking beer in Ottawa?"

"I mean —"

"You want restaurants? Clubs? Public transit? Shopping?" He spreads his arms aggressively enough to send beer sloshing over his wrist. "What's wrong with Boston, huh?"

"I think —"

"Oh my God." A hand lands on the guy's shoulder, tugging him back from Shane's table. "Mikey, what the fuck?" It's the guy's friend, carrying a fresh beer. He catches Shane's eye, looking absolutely mortified. "I'm so sorry," he says, "I told him not to — oh, no you fucking don't." He knocks Mikey's hand away from his drink. "You have had more than enough, asshole."

"Shut up, CJ, I'm just asking," Mikey repeats, abandoning the beer and turning back to Shane. "Look, I get it — you wanna be with your guy! Of course you fucking do! Of course you're gonna be with your guy, I get that, that makes perfect sense, but why—"

"Mikey, come on, don't do this—

"—why'd you have to drag him off to Ottawa, huh? What's so great about Ottawa?"

Shane has sat through probably a hundred hours of media training — maybe more, at this point in his career, between the teams and his mom and the constant, grinding pressure of being Shane Hollander. He knows how to handle a belligerent reporter, how to make a fan feel welcome without inviting more, how to bite back his actual opinion and say something polite and respectful and totally fucking meaningless.

He has no idea how to respond to Mikey.

"You want gay marriage?" Undeterred by Shane's silence, Mikey points vigorously at Shane's hand where it's spread flat on the table, at the ring gleaming on his finger. "We got gay marriage here! You got gay marriage in Ottawa?"

"Oh my fucking — of course they have gay marriage in Ottawa, you asshole," CJ says, rubbing at his forehead. "He's fucking gay married."

"Yeah, well —" Mikey hesitates for a moment, but rallies quickly. "Well, we had it first, all right? Two thousand and four, baby! First state in the goddamn country!"

"Mikey —"

"Ontario legalized gay marriage in 2003," Shane says, unable to come up with anything else.

"That's what I'm fucking —" Mikey blinks. "Shit, really?"

"I mean, I think so?" Shane unlocks his phone, types ontario gay marriage timeline, taps on the first link. "Yeah, June 10th, 2003."

"No way." Mikey grabs Shane's wrist and leans in, squinting at the phone's screen. "No fucking —" He stops, blinking. "Huh."

"Well, I guess Canada wins that one," CJ says, too brightly, jaw set. "So how about we stop harassing Shane Hollander and —"

"Doesn't fucking matter," Mikey says, shrugging him off. "You were, what, six years old in 2003?"

Shane was twelve, actually. The memory crashes into him like a hit into the boards: eating cereal at the kitchen table, listening to the news on the radio, chest tight and aching with something he pushed down before he could even really let himself feel it.

"Mikey —"

"I'm just saying, why couldn't you come join Rozanov in Boston, huh? What, you think you're too good for us?"

"Jesus, Mikey, can you fucking —"

"Shane." Ilya's hand against his shoulder feels like armor, feels like an embrace, feels like waking up to sunshine and knowing there's nowhere he needs to be all day, nothing he needs to do. "Everything okay?"

Shane leans back against Ilya, knowing exactly where he'll be without having to look. Ilya makes a noise low in his throat, soft and contented, and reaches around Shane to set their beers on the table.

"And then there's this fucking guy!" Mikey brandishes an unsteady finger at Ilya. "Ilya fucking Rozanov!"

"That is me." It's the same voice Ilya uses when he's winding somebody up ahead of a faceoff, the calm that only comes when he's getting ready to say something absolutely brutal. "Ilya fucking Rozanov." He nudges his hip into Shane's, easy and familiar, and Shane nudges back. "Did you have a question?"

"Nope," CJ says, "Nope, no he fucking didn't, isn't that right, Mikey? No more questions, we're all done here —"

"Yeah, I had a fucking question," Mikey says, ducking out of CJ's grip. "My question is, why'd you have to move to fucking Ottawa, huh? Why couldn't you bring your boy here?"

"…here," Ilya repeats. "To Boston."

"Fucking — yes, to Boston, you fucking idiot!" All at once, the anger seems to go out of Mikey, who sways forward to brace himself against their table, head cradled in his hands. "Jesus Christ. Two best players in the fucking league—"

"Here we fucking go." CJ rolls his eyes.

"— generational goddamn talents—"

"Yup, okay, that's it." CJ takes a long drink of his beer, then looks up at Shane. "Sorry, do you mind if I just put this —" He tips the mostly-empty cup towards their table.

"Sure," Shane says, nodding, obscurely grateful to be asked a question he can actually answer.

"Thanks, man." CJ sets the cup down, then turns back to his friend, exhaling hard, visibly steeling himself. "Okay."

"— and they both gotta go and play for the fucking Ottawa fucking Centaurs? Are you shitting me?"

"I'm from Ottawa, originally," Shane says.

Mikey tilts his head to the side just enough that they can see when he rolls his eyes. "Yeah, and I'm from fucking Methuen," he says. "Doesn't mean I gotta live there now."

"And on that note, let's get you home, huh?" CJ ducks under Mikey's arm, pulling steadily until they're both upright. "Get you home, get you to bed — and you know what, I'll even find the trash can for you, because I am just that fucking nice." He looks back at Shane and Ilya, grimacing. "Seriously, I'm so sorry — I'd say that he isn't usually like this, but, uh." He huffs out a laugh, knocking his head gently against his friend's. "He's always fucking like this."

"Enh." Ilya leans forward, his chin brushing against Shane's temple. "Boston fans, they are like this." He steps sideways, just enough that he can meet Shane's eyes. "He is having some 'big feelings', is all."

Shane tries and fails to stifle a laugh. Ilya learned 'big feelings' from watching Jackie Pike manage her daughter through a tantrum, and the comparison between a shrieking three year old and a grown-ass Raiders fan is…alarmingly accurate.

"The biggest feelings," CJ says, rolling his eyes. "Okay, bozo, let's get you home before you assault any more hockey superstars."

"We could have had it all," Mikey says, as he's steered gently but firmly toward the exit. "We could have been contenders!"

"Yeah," CJ says, "and I could be at home on my couch right now, but here I fucking am, huh?"

Shane watches them go, lumbering through the crowd like the losing team at a three-legged race.

"You good?" Ilya takes a sip of his beer, moving around the table so they can stand side by side, acting like he's not deliberately putting himself between Shane and the worst of the crowd.

Fuck, Shane loves him.

"Shane." Ilya reaches out, taps two fingers against the back of Shane's wrist. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Shane says. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Shane." Ilya's eyes are warm and knowing, eyebrows lifted just enough to make it clear how unconvinced he is. "Real answer?"

"I — " Shane picks up his own beer, feeling the condensation against his palms, and lets himself think about it. The adrenaline hum from earlier is easing, tension fading out of his muscles, blood coming down from the fight-flight-freeze rush that a bad media interaction always gives him.

You wanna be with your guy, he thinks. Of course you fucking do. Like that's all there is to it; like it can be that easy, that straightforward.

Shane wants to be with his guy — of course he fucking does.

He takes a sip of his beer, which is crisp and fresh and, yeah, okay: pretty fucking great.

"I'm — good, yeah," he says, feeling his way around the words. "Wasn't really expecting, uh — " He tips his head towards the gap in the fence, even though Mikey and CJ have long since vanished. "You know. That."

Another sip of beer, watching the river, Ilya's attention a gentle, constant weight: a hand on his shoulder, a blanket, a sunbeam.

"But it was — I don't know." He shrugs. "Aggressive, but — nice?"

Of course you're gonna be with your guy.

"Boston fans, man."

"Boston fans," Ilya agrees, shaking his head. "So many big feelings."

"Yeah, well." Shane takes a half-step around the table, just enough to bump their shoulders together, his eyes on Ilya's. "Nothing wrong with that."

Nothing at all.

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