Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov & Svetlana Vetrova

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Svetlana Vetrova

Additional Tags:

Communication, Good Friend Svetlana Vetrova, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Established Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Post-Season/Series 01, Post-Episode: s01e06 The Cottage (Heated Rivalry), Building a Relationship One Conversation at a Time, Podfic Available

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-01-24 Words: 3,125 Chapters: 1/1

brick by brick rebuild us

Summary

“No, I mean you and Shane – I mean, Jane. You’ve made up.”

Ilya lurches towards her, halfway out of his seat before his brain catches up with him. He lets himself drop back into the couch, though the smug glimmer on Sveta’s face tells him the damage is done. He’s given the game away.

That doesn’t mean he can’t try regardless. “That’s – no, I don’t know a Shane,” he protests.

---

After the cottage, Svetlana lets on she knows, Ilya tries to play dumb, and Shane takes it a lot better than Ilya may have ever dreamed – roughly in that order.

Notes

I rewatched eps 4-6 last night and then sat down and banged this out before my friends come for game night. I should have been vacuuming 😅

Title is from Ruin by The Amazing Devil, because relationships are kind of built one conversation at a time.

To Sveta’s credit, she waits until Montreal has left the city and they’re all alone in Ilya’s condo to accost him.

“So,” she says as she wanders into the den where he’s sprawled on the couch. She has a cup of tea cradled in her hands, taking a sip right there in the doorway.

“Hm?” He raises one eyebrow at her when she doesn’t go on.

For a moment, she just surveys him, so he lets his gaze travel over her familiar form. She’s changed out of the tight, short dress she was wearing for their brunch, into a pair of comfy Yoga pants and a Boston Raiders t-shirt that is clearly his, her curls untamed around her head. It’s not so dissimilar to what he’s looking like – sweatpants and a Raiders tee, though his is fitting because it is also his own – and for a moment, it feels like it used to, familiar and like a matched set.

It’s different, because now Ilya has admitted to himself that there’s a hole in his life, a gap where a stupid, pretty Canadian should slot.

“What?”

Sveta shrugs and makes her way over, nudging his legs aside so she can curl up on the couch next to him. Their legs touch, but she is self-contained, untouchable, and looks at him with far too assessing a gaze.

He drops his own eyes, picks at a smudge crusted into the side of his coffee mug.

“I am just wondering,” Sveta says conversationally, “you’ve been… different.”

Ilya wordlessly raises both eyebrows and tilts his head.

“You have! Don’t play coy with me! And I thought maybe you’d tell me yourself, but… you’ve sorted yourself out, haven’t you?”

Ilya presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth for a moment. There’s no ambiguity in Russian to fall back on: it’s a plural-you. He swallows. “Yeah, we played much better than the embarrassment of being kicked out of the playoffs by a dinosaur.”

Sveta rolls her eyes and kicks at his ankle.

“Ouch!”

“That’s what you get for being silly. No, I mean you and Shane – I mean, Jane. You’ve made up.”

Ilya lurches towards her, halfway out of his seat before his brain catches up with him. He lets himself drop back into the couch, though the smug glimmer on Sveta’s face tells him the damage is done. He’s given the game away.

That doesn’t mean he can’t try regardless. “That’s – no, I don’t know a Shane,” he protests. His heartbeat is echoing in his gums, rushing in his ears, and he’s probably being a bad Russian and blushing. Dammit.

Sveta’s face softens and she uncurls enough to wrap her hand around his ankle, her fingers dark against his skin. They’re darker than Shane’s, his brain supplies uselessly, and far more slender, and god. God. Shane.

“I know you’ve had concussions, Ilyusha,” Sveta says gently, “but you cannot fool me into thinking you would ever forget Shane Hollander.”

Yeah, there’s probably no getting out of this one. Christ. Shane will kill him.

Ilya closes his eyes and lets his head drop back against the back rest. “What made you think that?”

Sveta actually laughs. Laughs! He could get theatrically mad at her, but his heart is still rabbiting in his chest, and her fingers start rubbing tiny circles into the soft skin over his ankle, so he remains where he is.

“I have eyes. You are not subtle – though I can understand how people would miss it if they’re not looking. If they believe your thin veneer of assholery.”

“I am an asshole!” Ilya squawks, because hello? He’s worked hard and long on his persona both on and off the ice, and he’s proud of the shit-stirrer he is. It takes skill to be as good as he is, and he is excellent.

“Of course. Which makes your heart-eyes when someone brings up Hollander all the more obvious.”

“You’re the one with heart-eyes,” Ilya tells her mulishly, because she is.

Sveta laughs again. “Yes! Because I have eyes! And Shane Hollander is gorgeous, and he has such pretty mitts, and he plays beautiful hockey. You play beautiful hockey together. And you’ve always struggled not paying attention to him, especially when you’re in the same room.”

“He’s my rival.” Even Ilya can tell he sounds helpless. Plaintive. “I… of course I pay attention.”

“You were absolutely insufferable when he was dating Rose Landry.”

Even now, the name makes Ilya scowl, a reflexive action he cannot catch before it is too late.

“See! That’s what I’m talking about! And don’t tell me it’s about her – she’s gorgeous, but don’t think I didn’t notice that you only nodded along when I was gushing about her in her latest movie.”

Ilya sniffs. “There are hundreds of women like her out there. She is nothing special.”

“Ilya,” Sveta says warningly.

“Sorry. She is very beautiful and amazing actress.” He says it in English, just to annoy Sveta, and she rolls her eyes.

“You’re jealous. I didn’t think I’d ever actually get to see it, but you are.”

“There is nothing to be jealous over.” When Sveta gives him a disbelieving look, Ilya adds, “He is mine and he knows it.”

It’s terrifying. It’s stepping onto the plane for his first ever Prospect Cup in a country he barely speaks the language of; it’s entering the sterile gym of the combine, air suffused with sweat and exertion and the promising allure of the MLH; it’s knocking on room 1410 at nine pm, unsure if his heart is beating out of his chest because the door might open, or because it might not.

It’s also, strangely, freeing.

He can see the moment the meaning of his words hit Sveta. Her face transforms, a disbelieving, delighted smile, like she hadn’t actually expected him to come out and say it. In her defence, neither had Ilya.

“Oh my god,” Sveta whispers. “Really?”

Ilya shrugs. The ceramic of his coffee cup is skin warm by now, so he shifts his grip until his fingertips brush over smooth, cool glazing.

“Ilyusha! I – I can’t believe this!”

Ilya feels one corner of his mouth twitch. “Didn’t you just tell me all the ways in which we were – I was obvious?”

“Yes,” Sveta says without missing a beat, “But I know you. I… I genuinely thought you’d keep denying it. Even though we both knew the truth.”

“At least you didn’t doubt that we’d figured shit out.”

Sveta leans forward, putting her cup on the coffee table before crawling towards him on the couch. He shifts on instinct even as he tilts his head in a silent and wordless question, and makes space for her at his side. Something loosens in his chest when she curls into him, head on his shoulder and face tilted up so she can still look at him.

“It’s in your body,” she tells him. “Here.” She touches his chest right over the Raiders print and slides her hand up to his shoulder, then the base of his neck. “There’s a looseness here I haven’t seen since…” She sucks her lips into her mouth, thinking for a moment. “Maybe ever. You look… at home. And here.” She brushes her fingertips over the stubble near the corner of his mouth, intimate and familiar and yet without instigating heat. They’ve been friends long before they ever fell into bed together, and they’ve always been friends even when they weren’t sleeping together.

The thought fills him warmth of a magnitude he doesn’t know what to do with.

“You’re smiling. You were smiling all morning. Not smirking, but an actual smile.” She drops her hand back down to his chest and looks at him for a moment. “It’s a good look on you.”

Her hair tickles, and so Ilya brushes it down, tucks his chin over her hair. Sveta snuggles closer, and for a moment they just sit there, breathing in tandem.

“He is good to me,” Ilya finally confesses, the words small so he doesn’t get her hair into his mouth. “Even though he will kill that you know.”

Sveta snorts. “He won’t. It’s not like you let it slip – I just know you, Ilyusha. Like the back of my hand, and I’d be a damn poor friend if I didn’t notice that hand slipping into another.”

“How poetic. No, but – he’ll freak out. Nobody knows, Sveta. His parents – they found out this summer. Now you. Nobody else.”

“After all these years?” Sveta’s hand grips his chest, like the thought physically pains him.

“Yeah.”

They are quiet for another long moment. “If he loves you – and I don’t know him, but even to me it seems like he really does – he won’t fault you for having someone in your corner. He has his parents, so it’s only fair that you’d have someone, too, right?”

It would. The question is just if Shane can remain calm enough for long enough to realise that. Ilya closes his eyes. “Yeah.” He rubs his cheek against her hair. She smells like her conditioner and the perfume he gifted her for her last birthday, and he loves her.

Not like he loves Shane, but he loves her.

“I love you,” he tells her, because he doesn’t do it often enough. She’s all the family he has that is solely his, really, and it’s suddenly important that she knows. It’s always important that she knows, of course, but it hits him right then.

“I know.” Sveta shifts so she can press a close-mouthed kiss to his throat. “I love you, too, Ilyushenka.”

Ilya holds her closer, as tightly as he can without hurting her, and does not cry. If his breathing goes a little ragged, she’s kind enough not to mention it. Her returning hug is just as strong, though.

“I’m so glad I have you,” he tells her when he trusts his voice again.

“So am I. And… I’d like to meet him.”

“I’ll bring it up with him the next time I see him.”

“Good,” Sveta says, and carefully disentangles himself from him. Ilya tries not to let himself feel the loss. “And now – since sex is clearly off the table, what shall we watch?”

“You pick,” Ilya says, even though that’s always a gamble between a horrible Russian soap opera, some trashy American Reality TV, or old hockey games.

The gleam in Sveta’s eyes promises nothing good, but Ilya can’t say he minds. He loves her, after all.

“Sveta knows,” Ilya blurts like the idiot he is, instead of tactfully easing Shane into it. They’re in Shane’s apartment, post-sex sweat still cooling on their skin, and if Ilya could take the words back, he would. For all that he’s brought up Sveta to Shane over the years, he’s very much aware that it’s not great etiquette to do so minutes after an orgasm with your lover. Boyfriend. Partner.

Shane has gone very still, his heartbeat back in overdrive after Ilya had been content to hear it calm down. “Oh?”

“She asked me. If we had ‘made up’. I did not tell her, I promise, she put things together herself – she knows me, guessed Jane was a guy, and… I’m sorry.”

Shane doesn’t move. His heart keeps beating way too fast, and Ilya could kick himself. He’d had a plan – fuck Shane, and then, when he’d be all languid and slow and calm, bring it up gently, like, you remember Sveta, yes? She is my best friend, she has known me for years, and she’s put the pieces together. Maybe it would also have ended in Shane freaking out, because this is is scary. Big. So big that Ilya hadn’t been able to keep it in any longer.

The urge to defend himself, to reassure Shane, to talk until things are good again is there. Ilya valiantly swallows past it. That’s not how Shane works, and while it’s excruciating, the best thing he can do is wait.

Ilya sucks at waiting.

He skirts his fingers over Shane’s chest, presses kisses against his pecs, slides his cold toes up Shane’s calf. After a minute, Shane captures his hand, interlaces their fingers, but doesn’t otherwise tell Ilya to stop.

After another minute or two, Ilya realises that Shane’s heart has slowed again. He lifts his head cautiously, surprised when Shane is actually looking at him. His eyes are a little wild, but there’s a tiny smile lurking in the corner of his mouth.

Shane clears his throat. “I’m glad.”

Oh. Ilya’s heart stutters in his chest, and then stutters again as Shane drags his fingers up Ilya’s side, all the way to his shoulder and throat and then jaw, and urges him a little further up. Ilya’s wiggle isn’t elegant, but it gets him in kissing distance of Shane’s mouth, and Shane capitalises on it immediately. It’s a slow kiss, lazy in the best ways that don’t promise sex or heat but something else, something that threatens to make Ilya’s toes curl.

“It’s good that you have someone to talk about this with who isn’t me,” Shane murmurs when he pulls back. He’s looking at the ceiling, and the words don’t come easily, but they’re clearly genuine. Ilya loves him so much his chest hurts with it. “Or my parents, I guess.”

“Yes. Friend all of my own.”

Shane laughs and kisses him again. He’s right, though. Shane’s parents are a little scary, not that Ilya would tell him that, and Shane is… well, he’s Shane, and sometimes there are things you cannot talk with your lover – boyfriend – about, and certainly not his parents.

“It’s really good, we should have thought of that right away.”

“We would have realised,” Ilya says. They’re not at the cottage, so he can do that, he tells himself, because there’s no world in which he would have brought this up – not when his parents finding out had sent Shane into not one but two panic attacks – and while he loves Shane, he’s also very much aware that Shane wouldn’t have had the idea all by himself. Again: parents. Panic attacks.

Shane snorts. “You have a lot of faith in me.”

Ilya crawls up a little further so he can brace himself on his elbows above Shane. “Someone has to have faith in you. In us. Can be me.”

The corners of Shane’s mouth lift ever so slightly and his eyes soften enough that Ilya could drown in them. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Ilya presses another kiss to Shane’s lips, to his chin, the shadow of stubble on his jaw, the freckles on his cheeks.

“So,” Shane starts, going ever so slightly tense underneath Ilya. Bracing himself for whatever is coming next. Ilya pretends he doesn’t notice and keeps peppering kisses all over Shane’s face, because whatever he’s saying has him distracted enough he doesn’t protest for once. “When will I get to meet her?”

Ilya stops. Pulls back. Looks down at Shane, who is looking back all serious. Genuine.

“She ask me same thing.”

“Clearly, she’s a smart woman.”

“The smartest.” Ilya can’t help the smile spilling onto his face, and Shane smiles back like a reflex. He probably doesn’t even realise he’s doing it, and Ilya loves him all the more for it.

“Next time you are in Boston. You fly in day before, yes?”

“Yeah. And we’re playing the Admirals two days later, so we’ll have a noon flight. Time to get over our hangovers after we celebrate our win over you.”

Ilya barks a laugh, before swooping in and biting Shane’s lip. “So certain, Mr Hollander.”

Shane shrugs, expression smug. “Sorry we have the better team.”

“And no one knows polite Canadian boy is only act…” Ilya grins, and then sobers as he does the maths. “Then – Brunch? Sveta loves her mimosas…”

“We can’t go out together!”

Oh. Yeah. Right. For a moment, Ilya lets his fantasy run wild, imagines sauntering into some café with Sveta on his one side and Shane on the other, the two of them laughing about something while Ilya watches on. Imagines the shock in the hockey world, imagines Hayden Pike keeling over and taking himself out of commission so Ilya doesn’t have to watch his sorry excuse for skating on the ice.

He sighs and pushes that fantasy away. “We can also do dinner at mine. Day you fly in.”

Shane’s jaw works for a moment. “I don’t know if I should ask for a curfew exemption…”

“No one notice you text Boston girl every time?” Ilya asks, one eyebrow raised. Shane’s eyes slide away from his face, which is answer enough. “Just let them think is that. No one will hear you take exemption and think, oh, he is gone to fuck Rozanov.”

After a moment, Shane relaxes. “Especially since that’s not what we’d be doing.”

He says it like a fact, which it is. Doesn’t seem like he minds. “We could,” Ilya says casually, and then barrels on, “But yes. Take exemption. Say you are meeting up with old friend. Or sneak out and make Pike suffer in covering for you.”

Shane chuckles. His fingers are back on Ilya’s side now, almost ticklish in their light touch. “He would, you know? Hasn’t believed Boston Lily is just a friend for ages now.”

Ilya sniffs. “I guess even – what is phrase? Blind chicken finds corn?”

Shane squints up at him, which means that’s not the saying he’s thinking of.

“Even blind Pike can see something that is not total lie.”

“Ilya,” Shane says, gently chiding, but he can’t quite hide his amusement. Score. Then, he sobers. “Yeah, I think that makes sense. I’ll meet Svetlana. Stay at yours. Then go to morning skate and beat your ass later.”

“You wish, Hollander.”

“Watch yourself, Rozanov.”

They grin at each other for several seconds, until Ilya becomes aware of the ache in his shoulders and neck. He drops back down to the mattress and slots himself into Shane’s side. For a while, they bask in the quiet.

“I really am glad you have someone who knows,” Shane says softly after a while.

Ilya, halfway to sleep already by then, makes a drowsy noise.

“Do you think she’d want to work on the camps with us?”

Ilya hums. “We ask her,” he says, like the mere offer doesn’t do something strange in his chest. “But sleep now, Hollander. You need all advantage if you don’t want to embarrass team on ice tomorrow.”

Shane snorts, but he doesn’t argue. There’s the touch of his lips on Ilya’s temple, and then Shane shifts so he’s turned towards Ilya and they’re slotted closer together, and Ilya is smiling all the way into sleep.