Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov

Additional Tags:

Canon Compliant, Missing Scene, Episode: s01e05 I'll Believe in Anything (Heated Rivalry), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Swimming, Canon-Typical Angst, but this is pretty fluffy for my standards, Mutual Pining, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Happy Ending, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Water as a metaphor, Ilya Rozanov Character Study, get this: ilya is a bad swimmer

Language:

English

Series:

Part 3 of Hockey Husbands Anonymous Collection

Collections:

Anonymous

Stats:

Published: 2026-10-17 Words: 4,237 Chapters: 1/1

Infinity Pool

Summary

"I am… Not great. At swimming." This was something Ilya never would have admitted in any other circumstance, but he'd confessed to worse, earlier tonight.

Shane laughed in his face, bright and loud, the corners of his eyes crinkled. It was hard for Ilya to be annoyed, with Shane's face still cradled in his palm. "No shit, I've seen you swim. Who taught you that terrible breaststroke?"

OR: 2017, All-Star missing scene: after Shane's confession, Shane and Ilya go on a midnight swim. A meditation on love, trust, and the body.

Notes

The idea for this fic came to me while I was idly wondering when it was exactly that Ilya admitted to himself that he was in love with Shane, and how the realization might have come about. It was supposed to be a 500-word writing warm-up exercise (and a way for me to procrastinate on drafting my 60k Immigration Lawyer!Shane AU) that I had no intention of posting but here we are now, haha.

Everything in this fic hinges on TV canon, with the exception of the invention of a rooftop pool.

CW: This fic isn’t very heavy but there is one aspect that warrants a content warning. Please check the cw in the end note.

February, 2017. Tampa Bay, Florida.

As the rooftop door slid closed behind him, Ilya was relieved to find he had the entire space for himself. It was quiet here, high up in the night's stillness. The infinity pool was open but the bar was closed, a precaution against the stupidity of a horde of athletes hopped up on booze and testosterone. The real party was downstairs in the hotel pavilion, where there were no vaultable edges or open bodies of water. If he closed his eyes and focused, he could barely make out the distant thrumming of music and the occasional bursts of laughter from far below.

Ilya slumped onto a damp chaise lounge, dropped his phone face-up next to an astray on the poolside table to his right, and dug a lighter and a fresh pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He tapped the bottom against the wooden armrest a few times to compact the tobacco, then peeled the cellophane off the top. No Leavitt & Peirce imported blends this time, just a green pack of Marlboros.

It was a last-minute purchase. The night before he left for All-Stars, he'd stared at the display behind the counter at a corner store and debated his options until the shopkeeper snapped her fingers in his face and asked if he was having a stroke. In the end, he'd gone with the menthols even though they always stung deep in his sinuses.

Ilya supposed it would have been better if he could resist smoking during this weekend at all, but the nicotine withdrawal was killing him. So. He had hoped that the menthols' chemically simulated mint would at least help his mouth smell and maybe taste less disgusting, on the off chance that Shane, under the ill-advised influence of hockey-fueled adrenaline and lust, would fall back into Ilya's bed, his budding relationship with America's sweetheart be damned. And he had.

He had, but this time it was different.

Ilya flicked the lid of his Zippo lighter open and closed, open and closed, its metal warm in his palm. He needed to end this; he needed to end this, not. A small flame flared with each roll of Ilya's thumb against the knurled flint wheel and was just as quickly snuffed. Feeble bursts of light, yellow-orange tip with a blue core.

There was a lingering ache behind his eyes. The muscles in his abdomen were tight and sore, and his face was puffy from what seemed like hours of crying with Shane in his lap. Already he missed the warmth and weight of Shane against him — the night had still been young when he'd asked Shane to leave. His rationale was that he had an early flight to catch and he desperately needed his beauty sleep, but the truth was that he was too much of a coward to risk Shane bolting at another request to stay longer.

In his empty bed Ilya had tossed and turned, stuck in a stalemate with his own brain. Two options: either he could dwell on the absurdity of whatever the fuck was going on between him and Shane, or drive himself insane with guilt over not having replied to Alexei's torrents of texts.

Ilya had assumed that some air would help clear his head. Once he was outside, though, he realized that Tampa's oppressive humidity was anything but refreshing. It was a La Niña year, and with it came the mugginess of an early spring. The silken fabric of his shirt stuck uncomfortably to his skin, and the back of his thighs to the chaise lounge's wooden slats.

With his back bowed and his elbows resting on his knees, Ilya finally lit a cigarette and took a long drag, much longer than advisable, until his lungs began to burn. What a valiant effort, holding off on smoking until now. He stared through the cloud of gray smoke at the illuminated edge of the pool, where the water flowed serenely past a glass barrier down a lowered gutter, making bright, trickling sounds that reminded him of a small stream. Beyond it was a murky lilac sky, the darkness of night pushed far toward the bay by light pollution.

He was halfway through his second cigarette when he heard the low hiss of the glass door sliding open, then the familiar heavy tread of Shane's footsteps. He didn't need to look to know it was Shane, but he turned his head anyway. His heartbeats quickened, both from a Pavlovian response to seeing Shane and from the sinking dread of having been caught out.

"Hey," Ilya croaked, throat scratchy and thick with smoke. He willed his shoulders to loosen and flicked the ash. His eyes raked shamelessly over Shane's form: he was topless with a towel draped across his shoulders, wearing only a pair of swim trunks.

Shane narrowed his eyes at him. "Early flight. Right."

Oops. "Could not sleep," Ilya reasoned. "Same as you, yes?"

Shane didn't reply. He walked in Ilya's direction, still wearing a barely suppressed scowl, and dropped the towel on the arm of Ilya's chaise lounge. Ilya assumed Shane was going to take the free seat to his left, but instead, Shane turned and deposited himself on the edge of the pool right in front of him. His heart ached at Shane's display of trust, sitting with his back to Ilya, his feet in the water, completely at ease with another person's presence behind him. There was no fear of being taken by surprise, no consideration of the fact that Ilya could just push him in.

Shane braced his palms flat on the tiles and kicked his legs back and forth, making a gentle and rhythmic splashing soundtrack. A flash of memory slammed into Ilya, as quick and hard as an illegal check: him and Alexei at eight and eleven at the Luzhniki Sports Complex in the summer, their bodies long and scrawny, all limbs and ribs, waiting for their swim instructor to arrive.

A turn of the back, a kick behind the knees. Turquoise tiles, chlorinated water rushing into his nose. Far-away cackles of pre-adolescent boys, muffled by the burbling of air escaping his mouth.

Humiliation, followed by the vindication of violence. It was the first time Ilya had ever drawn blood. Knocked loose his own brother's milk tooth and felt the power of rage coursing through his muscles. I hate you. I hate you. I fucking hate you.

"You should quit, you know," Shane muttered, cutting short Ilya's train of thought.

Ilya raised his brows at the back of Shane's head.

"Quit what? Hockey?" he asked, his tone mocking and testy. "Cannot handle facing off against me again after playing for the same team?"

Shane scoffed. "No, dumbass. Smoking."

"Ah, right."

Ilya looked down. The neglected cigarette had been burning between his fingers almost all the way to the stub, flecks of ash falling and dotting the damp tiles between Ilya's feet. He snuffed it out on the ashtray. Next to it, his phone buzzed intermittently.

The last tendril of smoke drifted up and curled in the night air like a beckoning finger. Ilya watched until it dissipated entirely, and then he volunteered another scrap of truth, because apparently he was on a roll this night:

"I, ah. Have been trying. This is my second in a week, maybe."

"Oh," Shane said, pleased. "Well. That's good. Pretty impressive, actually."

In his mind's eye, Ilya saw the greedy beast within him wag its tail. He could be good for Shane, couldn't he? Maybe there were still parts of himself worth salvaging. If he could cobble up enough of such parts, he could—

Yeah, right. Who was he kidding.

From behind Shane, Ilya didn't bother with schooling his expression into something nonchalant. He took in the smattering of freckles on Shane's back, densest on his nape and the wings of his shoulders. His eyes lingered on the curve of his lower back, the dimples above his ass. Under the band of his swim trunks, Ilya knew, were bruises the size and shape of his fingers. He hadn't realized how tightly he'd been gripping Shane's hips until Shane winced when he got off of his lap.

Ilya had unceremoniously pulled Shane's pants down to check. Don't worry about it, seriously, I don't mind, Shane had said in response to Ilya's guilty reaction. It wasn't the first time he'd bruised Shane, but it was the first time he'd done it unconsciously, outside of sex.

A breeze passed through the air around them, providing a momentary release from the thick humidity. The skin on the sides of Shane’s arms pebbled, and he sneezed. God, he was so cute.

Ilya changed the subject. "When do you leave tomorrow?"

"Not as early as you, that's for sure," Shane replied, voice tight. Ilya watched Shane's back stiffen and his shoulders rise defensively.

Fuck, okay, wrong angle. Ilya wanted to backpedal, he wanted to escalate. After a few moments of consideration, he went with, "My brother texted. Before you came to the room. I needed to reply."

His phone buzzed again, as if on cue, a flash of light in his periphery. What was it going to be this time? Another batch of hospice paperwork intermingled with copies of the doctors' ominous prognoses following their father's most recent fall? Brace yourself, Ilyukha. Any day now? Or, most likely: bills, bills, more bills.

Ilya turned his phone off without checking.

"Oh." Shane released a long breath and slumped forward. "Was it, uhm. Was it about something bad?"

The impulse to spit out something like Obviously, Shane, nothing good ever comes of talking to my fucking brother! was strong, but Ilya held his tongue. He stood from his seat and took two steps forward, until he was standing to Shane's left, looking down at the rippling surface of the pool.

"Nothing worse than usual." He sat down next to Shane, hugging his knees.

Shane swallowed. His eyes met Ilya's in the water's reflection. "I wish I could help. I wish things were easier for you, Ilya. I really do."

Tears prickled at Ilya's waterline, again — how Shane was always able to disarm him like this was beyond him. When Shane bullied his way back into Ilya's hotel room, Ilya had anticipated their usual song and dance: a kiss and a fuck and not much said in between. He hadn't had the foresight to reinforce his defenses, and so he was completely blindsided by Shane's confession, and the awkward, determined prodding. With just two questions Shane managed to crack open the shell Ilya had built around himself like an egg and soak up the emotions that spilled out as if he'd done it hundreds of times before.

They hadn't even had sex. Talking about his father had killed Ilya's boner for the night.

"There is nothing anyone could do," Ilya said through the tightness in his throat. He faked a cough. In a brief moment of insanity, he decided to throw all caution to the wind. "But it was nice. What we did."

"Hmm?" Shane glanced up, not reading between the lines.

"Talking." Ilya forced out the admission, with much effort. "It was good for me."

"Oh! That's… That's good. I'm glad."

He scooted closer to Ilya, leaning fully into his personal space. Then, he wound his arm around Ilya's back and ran his hand up and down the length of Ilya's bicep. The warmth of Shane's body at his side and the pull of his attention was all-encompassing.

"Next time, though, you could just tell me that you need some alone time, or something." He rested his head on Ilya's shoulder. "Instead of, you know."

Lying to me, he didn't say.

Fuck. Ilya's stomach cramped up. He was suddenly self-conscious about the smell of smoke that had undoubtedly clung to his hair and clothes, but he didn't pull away from Shane's hold. He let go of his knees and dipped his own feet in the pool, fighting a shiver. The water was a lot cooler than he expected.

"You are here to swim, yes?" Ilya deflected. "Do not let me stop you."

"Right, yeah. I am. Wanna come in with me?"

Ilya considered it. If he got in, it'd inevitably turn into a competition that he'd lose. The only time he’d ever been embarrassed by his body was when he was in the water. Losing the bet with the kids earlier this weekend was barely a performance. The best he could do was dog paddling and a subpar breaststroke with his face held above the water. He never really developed the instinct to hold his breath, and was prone to flailing.

"I did not, ah, bring my swim trunks," Ilya said.

Without any preempting, Shane moved away from Ilya's side and slipped into the water with a small splash, getting Ilya's shorts all wet. He stood in front of Ilya in the pool — it was relatively shallow, the water barely coming to his collarbones. Shane crossed his arms and rested them on Ilya's knees.

Shane was strong enough to pull Ilya in if he wanted, and the realization made Ilya tense up. Noticing his momentary discomfort, Shane tried to pull back, but Ilya reached forward to keep him where he was with a hand on his shoulder.

"You can swim in your underwear." Shane wound a finger around the undone string of Ilya's shorts. "I won't snitch."

"Ah, but the water is so cold."

Shane snorted. "Says the man from Moscow."

"The pool is closing soon."

"Yeah, like, in an hour."

"I have not warmed up."

"You've literally just played a game this afternoon. I'm sure you've warmed up plenty."

Ilya bit the inside of his cheek, finally out of excuses. He brushed back a strand of hair stuck to Shane's forehead with the back of his index and middle finger. Indulgently tugged at the lobe of Shane's ear and cupped the apple of his cheek.

"I am… Not great. At swimming." This was something Ilya never would have admitted in any other circumstance, but he'd confessed to worse, earlier tonight.

Shane laughed in his face, bright and loud, the corners of his eyes crinkled. It was hard for Ilya to be annoyed, with Shane's face still cradled in his palm. "No shit, I've seen you swim. Who taught you that terrible breaststroke?"

"Give me a break, Hollander," he groaned. "Not everyone is Mr. Perfect."

Shane batted Ilya's hand away, rolling his eyes. He ducked his head, hitched the edge of Ilya's shorts up and bit the exposed skin on his thigh in response. Ilya's breath caught.

"Come on, Ilya." He nuzzled at the bitten spot, looking up at Ilya, his brown eyes shining. "I don't care about your shit form. Just swim with me for a little. Please?"

Jesus Christ. Ilya was a weak, weak man.

"All right. Fine," he said after a long pause. He stood, stripped his shirt and shorts off, and jumped in.

The shock of cold stunned him, making his chest seize up, but it was a welcomed sensation. Just for a little while Ilya was able to stop thinking — there was nowhere else for him to be but in the water.

Sputtering noises, from somewhere behind him. He stood up, unpinched his nose, and turned around, opening his eyes to the sight of Shane wiping at his face. Ilya had jumped into the pool with the intention of making the biggest splash possible, and of course he'd succeeded.

"You're such an asshole," Shane said without actual bite. Rivulets of water ran from the spiky tips of his hair down the side of his jaw, his neck.

"Was what you wanted, yes?"

Ilya grinned and waded in Shane's direction, expecting him to remain playful but was instead met with a look of apprehension. Shane took a small step back, his eyes moving from Ilya's face to the glass doors, to the security camera mounted atop the corner of the entrance wall behind them, his bravado faltering now, for some reason. If Ilya moved any closer, Shane would probably recoil, and where would they be then? Back to the square one of that awful day, probably.

He stopped at a respectable distance in front of Shane.

"Relax. I was not going to jump your bones in the pool."

Shane sucked in a breath. "Hey, no, I wasn't…" he said, grabbing Ilya's hand under the water — apparently Ilya had done a shit job of smoothing out his expression. "I thought I saw someone, but it was nothing."

The urge to shake Shane off was strong, but Ilya resisted it. He squeezed Shane's fingers. "Yes. I get it," he said, and meant it. "You swim. I enjoy the view."

Ilya looked away. He let go of Shane's hand and made for the other side of the infinity pool. It was quite a feat of engineering — the water looked like it extended all the way to the bay. He leaned his chest against the glass and reached toward the distance, the rounded edge of the barrier digging into his armpits. Water lapped at his back, followed the lines of his arms and dripped from his elbows, the tips of his fingers. It was so strange, witnessing the inverted scale between his hands and the buildings, the streets, the vehicles — the small made big, the big made small from this vantage point.

Somewhere beyond the horizon, his father lay dying.

The warmth of Shane's forehead pressing against the back of his neck startled him out of his reverie. Shane looped his arms around Ilya's waist. "I didn't mean to pull away." Goosebumps, where Shane's breaths caressed his skin. "It's just, it'd be so hard to explain."

"It is okay, Shane," Ilya said, his tone softer, this time. He gently grasped Shane's wrist and thumbed at his pulse point. The specter of Russia, of his family, loomed over him, eclipsing his hopes for anything more than this. "Is the same for me, yes?"

"If only things weren't so fucking complicated," Shane said, his heartbeats quickening under Ilya's finger.

Shane's earnestness was too much for Ilya to bear. He straightened and turned around, almost knocking Shane backward with the suddenness of his movements. A small wave spilled over the pool's edge.

"Did you not say you wanted us to swim?"

***

It did turn into a competition, which devolved into Ilya pulling at Shane's leg when he fell behind, which devolved into Shane splashing him and him swallowing a mouthful of pool water, which devolved into Ilya dragging Shane to the corner of the pool fursthest from the camera's view, backing him up against it, and making out with him within an inch of his life.

"Oh my god," Shane gasped once Ilya let up, his face flushed, pushing at Ilya's shoulder. "Fuck you, seriously! Don't agree to a race if you were gonna play dirty."

Ilya pulled the corner of his mouth in a petulant moue. "You never said there were rules." That earned him another splash.

Shane glared at him, looking about as intimidating as an angry kitten, and slipped from Ilya's hold, paddling away. When he got to the center of the pool, he turned onto his back and floated, his legs kicking the water gently. Ilya swam over to his side in a dog paddle.

"You are a good swimmer," Ilya said, conciliatory.

"Obviously," Shane said, eyes fixed on the empty sky.

"A natural athlete, yes? Everything is easy for you. Can probably be an Olympic swimmer, if you want."

Shane's legs stopped moving, his lower body sinking a little. Ilya stood in the pool and supported Shane's weight in the water with one hand on Shane's back and the other underneath his thighs. The gesture surprised Shane. His body went rigid for a few seconds, but he quickly relaxed in Ilya's hold.

"Nothing ever comes easily for me. I try really damn hard, Ilya."

There was an unfamiliar edge of hurt in Shane's voice. Ilya tilted his head, waiting for Shane to keep filling the silence.

"I'm not perfect, either. I wish everyone would stop calling me that. Or, like, Golden Boy, or whatever."

"Okay," Ilya said. He had never considered the effect of these labels on Shane. "I am sorry."

"No, it's… You don't have to apologize. Most of the time it feels different when it comes from you."

Shane finally turned his head to look at him now. He lifted the hand closer to Ilya's body from the water and placed it on his shoulder, gripping lightly. "I used to swim a lot, the year before we were drafted," he said, changing the subject.

At that, Ilya almost let out a relieved breath, now that Shane had decided to steer the conversation back to easier grounds.

"There was so much pressure. And being in the water is so calming, right? I could just drift aimlessly without thinking about how I was coming across to scouts or how well I was gonna do at the Combine."

"Ah hah. That makes sense," Ilya said, although he couldn't relate. His method of lettng off steam before the draft was either beating the shit out of his gym's punching bag, or going home with the first person who laid their eyes on him at the bar.

"It's kind of, uhm, similar to when I’m with you," Shane continued, flushing bright red. He rubbed the side of his face against the space between Ilya's armpit and his pec. "I can just close my eyes and let go."

Every sound, sight, and sensation rushed to Ilya in an instant: the metropolitan hum of Tampa Bay fourty meters below, the mechanical rumble of a plane passing overhead, the lambent glow of the pool's light. The supple solidity of Shane's body atop his palms.

Ilya was in love.

The love had taken a long time to announce itself in his field of vision, but now that Ilya had noticed it, its presence was as true and natural as breathing. It was no longer possible for him to squash the feeling now. There would never be any coming back from this.

"I am going to release the hand holding your legs, okay?" Ilya murmured.

"Uhm, yeah. Okay."

Ilya let go, but made sure to keep his other hand on Shane's back.

"Was that too much?" Shane started rambling before his feet even touched the pool tile, his face still flushed. "I knew you said we couldn't, because of, like, Russia. I totally understand, you know that, right? You can just forget everything I just said. It doesn't have to mean—"

He shut up the moment Ilya pressed his lips against his. It was a different kiss from the one they shared earlier, softer, slower, without tongue. Ilya peppered more kisses on his forehead, his cheeks, his jaws.

"It was not too much." He tucked his face into the crook of Shane's neck. "I will not forget."

They stood there in the middle of the pool, holding each other, swaying lightly back and forth with the push and pull of the moving water. After a while, Ilya felt Shane playing with the hair on the back of his head.

"What about you?" Shane asked.

Ilya lifted his head, puzzled. "What about me?"

"What's your deal with swimming? Why are you so bad at it?"

"Shut the fuck up," Ilya huffed.

"Seriously though. Did you not learn when you were younger or something? It feels so weird that our skills aren't matched."

"You never know when to quit, hmm?" Ilya sighed. He decided to meet Shane's honesty with his own. "I cannot hold my breath underwater. It is. Very scary for me."

"Oh! That's not so hard to fix," Shane said, easy as anything. "I can teach you, if you want?"

***

For the last thirty minutes before the pool closed, Ilya let Shane walk him through the steps that he had already known but never practiced. With the steady warmth of Shane's palm between his shoulder blades, Ilya humored Shane showing him how to take a deep breath and seal the back of his throat, as if he was a little kid. Then, together, they rested their chin above the surface, and slowly dipped their mouths and noses while holding hands.

Little by little, Ilya sank down, and down, and down — for the first time in his life, he was able to hold his breath for more than five seconds. Under the water, Ilya kept his eyes open. In front of him, Shane beamed, overjoyed. There wasn't a trace of mockery.

I love you, Ilya mouthed the syllables in Russian. I will never love anyone else the way I love you.

Shane only raised his brows, oblivious. When they surfaced, Ilya told Shane he looked stupid, with his hair floating upright, and Shane elbowed him in the ribs. Through the pain, Ilya laughed and laughed until his eyes watered.

***

Five months later, behind Shane's cottage in Lanaudière, Ilya would swim in a natural body of water with confidence. He would practice the front crawl, and float, and dive, and Shane would watch him above the water, a flask of tea and a blanket in hand. Every time Ilya surfaced, he would search for the spark of pride in Shane's eyes, and wade over, and demand a kiss.