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

Additional Tags:

Autistic Shane Hollander, Closeted Character, Episode: s01e01 Rookies (Heated Rivalry), Episode: s01e04 Rose (Heated Rivalry), Episode: s01e05 I'll Believe in Anything (Heated Rivalry), Episode: s01e06 The Cottage (Heated Rivalry)

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-20 Words: 728 Chapters: 1/1

man is not made for defeat

Summary

When Shane is five, he tells his parents that he’s going to be the best hockey player in the world.

Notes

this was going to be something different, and then it turned into this. bon appétit

When Shane is five, he tells his parents that he’s going to be the best hockey player in the world.

They don’t believe him—or, rather, they believe him exactly as much as any parent believes their five year old when their five year old says something like that—and he doesn’t have the words to explain that being worse than someone else feels like wearing a shirt with a tag or being poked over and over by a stick or having mud dry on your body and not being able to wash it off.

He becomes the best, and when he meets someone who’s better than him, he figures out what they’re doing that makes them better, and then he figures out how to beat them at it, or to work around it.

Teammates fall away, or he moves past them. He forgets most of their names, except for the ones he had to get better to beat.

He hates Ilya Rozanov, sort of.

Rozanov is the drill boring holes in the foundation that makes up Shane’s life. Russia wins. Rozanov goes first in the draft. Shane doesn’t know how to beat him, not consistently.

And Rozanov makes Shane make bad choices, the sort of bad choices that can ruin Shane’s life.

Interacting with Rozanov makes Shane feel like he’s chewing on gravel. Not interacting with Rozanov makes Shane feel like he’s chewing on gravel. He doesn’t know how to win this game. He doesn’t understand its rules.

Because here’s the thing that Shane is incredibly aware of, and is aware that other people are probably aware of, even if most of them are unwilling to say it out loud: Shane is only good at about three things.

He’s not good at school. He has his GED, but sitting in a classroom learning shit has never been interesting to him, and he frankly doesn’t care.

He’s not good with people in any sort of social setting. He doesn’t recognize most pop culture references, and he doesn’t really care about the ones he does recognize. He watches movies on flights, but he can probably only name about half a dozen actors. He’s watched Miracle on Ice seventeen times.

He can cook, sort of, but mostly hates to. He doesn’t like eating much either, most of the time.

He’s not funny, he’s not witty, he’s not really generous or particularly kind. He doesn’t care about that many people, and other than his parents, most of them don’t really live in his head. He likes some of them, loves a few, but if he goes a month or two without seeing them during the summer it doesn’t really bother him.

He was sad when his grandmother died, sort of, but more in an oh that’s sad way than any sort of really feeling it way.

He’s not good at any of those things.

What he is good at is hockey, mostly. He’s very good at hockey, which takes up about 80% of his being good at stuff quotient, which honestly he’s not mad about.

The other things he’s good at are designing homes for himself and having sex with Ilya Rozanov.

Shane cannot be in love with Rozanov. It will ruin his life.

He leaves. He dates Rose Landry, one of the only actresses whose name he actually knows. He’s bad at having sex with her, because he’s good at having sex with Ilya Rozanov, and apparently that skill is non-transferrable. He likes her. It feels like chewing on gravel being with her.

She tells him he’s gay. They break up. He duct tapes the foundation holding his life together. None of the holes Ilya drilled have filled themselves in. Shane buys more duct tape, metaphorically.

They get back together. Shane gets hurt. His season ends.

Scott Hunter, who Shane looks up to so much it hurts sometimes, wins the Cup and then throws a grenade on the foundation of his own life.

Some of the pieces patch holes in a foundation Shane is holding together with duct tape and gritted teeth.

Shane hates him. Shane hates his parents. Shane hates hockey. Shane is the best player in the fucking world, and it feels like being surrounded by a million needles, one inch from his skin.

Shane cannot love Ilya Rozanov, but that doesn’t matter, because he does.

He does.