Inspired by Tbtf. Thank you, always, garage.

None of this would have happened if Shane had followed his rule: no looking at your phone in bed.

Phones fuck with your sleep schedule, and good sleep hygiene is critical to a good game. But by the fall of 2015 he's been breaking this rule a lot. When it’s time to go to sleep, he finds himself bringing his phone with him more and more. Keeping it close on his nightstand and grabbing at it if it gives the faintest tremble of a buzz.

Unless they're playing a game against each other, or in different time zones, he usually gets texts from Lily at night. Half of his brain is thrilled about this, because it means that Rozanov thinks about him in the dark, maybe when he's with other people he's fucking. Maybe, when Rozanov texts him at night, it means he's home looking at his phone like Shane is and not fucking other people at all. Maybe Rozanov, too, sometimes rams against the boundaries of what they’re doing and finds them blurred, before he reins himself back in and puts his head on right.

The other half of Shane's brain thinks: he never texts you during the day because he never fucking thinks about you at all.

It’s likely that Rozanov only texts him when he can’t go out because he has a game or an early practice, and he’s horny and someone else isn’t answering his texts. To Rozanov, Shane is a roadside motel with the neon "VACANCY" sign illuminated twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, eighty-two games a season; a two-star convenience off the highway at which Rozanov knows he can always book a room at a discount.

The hung jury of Shane's warring brain agrees on one thing: when Rozanov texts him at night, Shane cannot always text back. The compromise he makes with himself is that he can look at his phone in bed, and he can read Lily's texts if they show up, but he can only respond to half of them.

In sum, this adds up to a lot more time on his phone in bed, which means he spends a lot more time on YouTube.

The Rozanov shit complicated. It’s a fucking mess, actually. YouTube is not complicated.

Shane loves YouTube.

With YouTube, It's not really about learning anything, or even being entertained. It's ambient noise; it’s a switch that flips on a screensaver in the whirring machine of his mind. Books and documentaries and even action movies seem always to demand something back: his attention, his reflection, his effort. It’s the same with watching hockey: when it’s on TV Shane has to study it with Captain eyes, has to follow the game and play out the ways the lines could have moved differently, track weaknesses in other teams that he can exploit. But hockey on YouTube isn’t a stone he has to sharpen himself against. "20 Most Embarrassing NHL Press Moments OF ALL TIME” adds nothing nutritional to his media diet and it asks nothing of Shane in return.

Shane's feed has always been pretty generic. The videos under the "home" icon read like an ever-repeating continuum of mindless garbage. Best hockey goals 1990s. What a body builder eats in a day. How I hit my macros. ADORABLE Puppy meets Baby!!!!!! Awww!! NHL hit so dirty they called the police. What I eat in a day: Vegan Clean Diet (86 Bananas???). 2011 best chirps (NSFW).

So when whatever is going on with Shane's YouTube feed changes, he doesn't notice it happening until it's already done; incriminating and humiliating and broadcasting the twisting core of Shane's nightmares back at him from the small, sad screen of his phone.

The change is gradual, and no one could fault Shane for missing it; the damning videos that creep in are, in many ways, exactly the same as all the others. He does eventually notice that he’s getting a lot more hockey in his feed. And of course when more and more hockey videos keep getting recommended, he watches them.

By the time he realizes that his feed is mostly clips of Boston games, it feels too late to do anything about it.

The changes mean he’s been seeing a lot more of Rozanov's face, which isn't helpful for his usual strategy of pretending he never thinks about Rozanov at all except for when he needs to play against him, or for when Rozanov fucks him so hard he forgets his own name.

Sometimes Shane will be watching YouTube ("The Rozernator Highlights #BEANTOWNCANNONSBOOM #RAIDERS") and a notification will appear floating above the image of a sweaty snarl beneath a black helmet. The name Lily, floral, feminine, small, accompanied by the incongruous text: my dick is so hard, too bad your pretty mouth is not here to suck it, I know how much you like it. When this happens (more than once, so much more mortifyingly frequently than once), Shane hits the home button on his phone so quickly that he sometimes drops it.

Shane has rules about Rozanov, too, and he still hasn’t broken a few of them. This is important.

For example: Shane hasn't done anything so embarrassing as searched for videos of Rozanov on YouTube. Ever. He's just watching what the app puts in front of him. YouTube feeds him as a keeper would feed a starving animal in a zoo who can’t hunt its own meals; desperate even for the imitation of the wild, hungry for Rozanov's body even when it's an inch tall. Even for grainy footage filmed from a shitty cameraphone, soundless and distant, Rozanov’s mouth open and moving and no way for Shane to know, ever, what he’s saying.

What's allowable and what's forbidden lines up sensibly in Shane's head. It’s normal and fine to Google stuff about Boston’s team. Shane is a captain, he has a responsibility to know what’s going on with other teams in the league. Searching "Raiders Game Schedule 2016" is permitted.

Searching "Ilya Rozanov girlfriend" absolutely is not. Though really, Shane has a perfectly good reason to search stuff like that, because if Ilya is sleeping with someone trashy and sleeping with Shane at the same time, Shane might get a disease. There's nothing insane about Shane worrying about his medical well-being. Caring about his own health isn't anything for which he can be condemned.

But he can’t quite bring himself to believe this, not when every text he gets from Rozanov makes his stomach drop and his mind go static. His health is an afterthought. All he wants is more.

He wants more and his stupid phone is a fucking traitor, and Shane finally, way too late, decides to do something about it.

At twenty-four, the answer to most of Shane’s problems is still to go to his mom. His mom is the smartest person he knows. She knows his schedule, what he can improve about his play, all of the mind-numbing details of his financial portfolio. She knows everything important there is to know about Shane and she doesn't know the secret that's living in his phone and planted inside his gut like a latent bomb ready to detonate.

It turns out Yuna has lots of opinions on YouTube. She treats him to a long monologue on the most influential hockey channels; he realizes she thinks he's asking about sponsorship opportunities, and then that turns into an impromptu business planning meeting, which pivots into a discussion of someone named Sheryl Sandberg and what Yuna thinks about her tenure at Google.

"It's a fascinating business," Yuna is saying. "There's been a lot of articles coming out recently about the YouTube algorithm."

Shane knows what an algorithm is, enough to know this might be relevant to his problem. He asks, "What about it?"

His mom looks a little surprised at that. Shane isn't sure he's ever expressed an interest in the articles his mom reads that aren't about hockey. Maybe he should start. He's also made it very obvious that he doesn't care about social media, despite the fact that his mom has hinted a few times that it would be good for his personal brand to be a bit more vocal on there. "To show off your personality," she said.

Shane thinks the best case scenario of showing off his personality would be the general public thinking he's the most boring person on the planet. The worst case scenario is, of course, unthinkable.

Yuna answers him, even though he’s being transparent and unsubtle and even as she must be compiling a million theories and suspicions. "They've changed the algorithm, I think. The way they recommend videos. So they can show you more ads and make more money, obviously."

Shane tries to imagine how psychosexually torturing him is somehow beneficial to YouTube's bottom line.

"That's… interesting," Shane hedges. He wonders if he's blushing; he reminds himself that his mother cannot, in fact, read his mind. "I think mine has been a little… weird? Recently?"

"Weird? How?"

"Um." Shane thinks. "Just, like… kind of repetitive? A lot of the same type of video?"

His mom suddenly seems to find something on the wall behind Shane's head very fascinating. He swallows nervously.

Yuna says, "Apparently it used to be all about the titles of the videos you clicked on, but now they've changed it so that the thing that matters the most is how long you watch. So the type of videos you stay on for the longest are the ones you're going to see more of."

"Oh." His mom still won't quite look at him.

Too late, he puts two and two together and realizes his mom now probably thinks that Shane is watching some really gross shit on YouTube. Like, porn. God. He fucking wishes it was porn.

He does change the subject then, awkwardly and obviously, and Yuna lets him, and they don't talk about it again.

He does some more research later on his own. “Google tracks your activity across other websites to recommend videos you will be most interested in,” a blog informs him, so Shane starts using private browsing tabs to Google "Raiders schedule 2016." It doesn't change the videos he gets shown, so he stops Googling anything about Boston altogether, which only makes him want to click on the videos more when they inevitably resurface in his feed. He unsubscribes from any channel that has ever posted about Rozanov, which is most of the hockey channels that exist.

None of it makes any difference.

The next bad thing that happens—the really bad thing— is Shane's fault. He should have deleted the app once he figured out what was happening. He should have made himself watch videos of something unincriminating with his own eyelids taped open until his phone got the fucking message and stopped splashing the wet, ugly mess of his own desperate need all over his feed.

But Shane hasn't ever been particularly good at denying himself contact with whatever molecules of Rozanov are on offer.

They play an away game in Boston, and lose. Shane gets two texts from Lily after: one just contains a link to a hotel room on Google Maps and the second is a string of three numbers. No messages taunting him about the loss, which means Rozanov is waiting to bring it up in person.

When Shane arrives at the hotel to which the link led him and the room number matching the second text, Rozanov doesn't bring it up so much as he knocks Shane's knees to the ground with his bare feet and growls, "Two more goals than you tonight, Hollander. That means I am coming twice before you can."

Shane’s knees burn against the carpet, and all he can do is groan against the mouthful of Rozanov he's already easily accepted.

Rozanov doesn't allow him the tidy convenience of swallowing. He pulls his dick out of Shane's throat before he comes and finishes on Shane's face. Shane waits, scraped kneecaps and upturned gaze, gasping and trying to remember how to stand, cum dripping down his cheeks and sticking his eyelashes together.

He's not expecting it when Rozanov ducks down to kiss him, licking some of himself off Shane's lips. It’s a quick kiss, really, like there’s no need to make it last or make it count. Like there are a million more expected kisses dotting the horizon line, commonplace as weeds growing out of the dirt.

It would be, maybe, sweet. From someone who wasn't Rozanov.

He can’t look at Rozanov right now, so he stares down at the floor. Shane’s overreacting to this, overthinking it. Like he does everything when he’s in a room with Rozanov without cameras; whenever they’re behind a locked door. Of course he can’t make sense of what Rozanov does; his frame of reference is completely fucked. It’s not like Shane has a ton of experience being kissed by anyone else.

"You want to clean your face?" Rozanov asks. Then, just to emphasize that nothing about this is sweet, he adds, “Before I fuck you into next week."

Shane's brain, as always, fights itself. He doesn't want to get fucked with Rozanov's jizz drying on his face; that sounds disgusting.

He also really, really does kind of want that.

He wants it so badly that he thinks it's probably not a good idea to do it. He wishes Rozanov hadn't given him a choice.

"I'll be right back," he says to the ugly carpet, and moves to stand. He feels Rozanov's hands grasp his elbows, helping him up, and still doesn't let himself look at him at all.

Shane washes off his face in the bathroom and takes a few minutes to collect himself. He's still hard from blowing Rozanov. He didn't touch himself during, because he probably would have shot off just from a tiny bit of contact from his own hand and Rozanov's dick in his mouth, and Rozanov said he couldn’t come yet.

Rozanov won, so he gets to set the terms tonight. Or something. They've been doing this for years now, and it’s not like anything has been formalized between them. Rozanov likes rewriting the rules about sex pretty constantly while it’s happening, but that's fine. It's just sex. Shane has taught himself to keep up.

So this is his fault too: that he takes too long in the bathroom and leaves Rozanov alone; leaves him with enough time to get new ideas.

When he comes back into the bedroom, Rozanov is looking at his phone. Wait, no; Rozanov is looking at Shane's phone.

Shane had told him the passcode years ago. Apparently, he remembered it. Rozanov had needed to check on traffic to the airport, but his phone had died, and Shane had been trembling in his arms after getting fucked and Rozanov didn’t make him get up, said, “just tell me the password, don’t move.” It had been kind of nice, at the time.

Like a lot of things that felt good when Rozanov was doing them, this one apparently planted a seed that would bloom into a disaster at a later date and rip apart Shane’s life.

"What the fuck?" Shane demands. The first thing he thinks is: what if he sees the texts?, which is what he worries about whenever someone else takes his phone. Then he remembers that the only person who can see Lily's texts is in the room with him.

He has a brief moment of thinking he's safe. Then Rozanov looks up at him, face unreadable. He says, "I wanted to make you watch the game on YouTube.”

The room spins. Shane feels like he might fall to his knees again.

Rozanov is the one person who could see Lily’s text messages and it wouldn’t be a problem at all. He’s also the one person who could see Shane’s humiliating YouTube feed and know immediately how bad it is.

"It's the algorithm," Shane says weakly. It’s the wrong thing to say. It’s practically an admission of guilt, which is the thing you’re really not supposed to do when you’ve done something wrong. They teach you that in media training when you’re a rookie. It’s the most important lesson.

“What is the algorithm?” Rozanov asks. Shane doesn’t know if he’s asking Shane to define the word or asking him to explain how, exactly, Shane expects Rozanov to believe that an algorithm is solely responsible for the fact that an entire app on Shane’s phone contains a curated gallery of Rozanov’s goals, Rozanov’s interviews, Rozanov’s mouth bared in a grin missing a tooth; Rozanov, Rozanov, Rozanov.

Shane doesn’t know how to answer either way, so he stays quiet.

Rozanov is still holding his phone. He’s scrolling. Because there is no god, or because god hates Shane, Shane knows Rozanov is still looking at YouTube.

“Hollander.” Rozanov finally looks up, and now Shane can tell what Rozanov’s face is doing. He’s delighted. “I did not know you were such a big fan. Do you want my autograph? Was just planning on giving you my dick again, but —“

Shane lunges for him and tries to wrench his phone from Rozanov’s fingers; gets swatted away. His heart is going to break his ribcage. Rozanov is laughing.

“I—I watch a lot of hockey, it’s not about you, asshole. God.”

“Okay.” Rozanov’s smile is boyish; this is how he looks when he’s playing, a look that Shane has seen in dozens of faceoffs and in all of those videos his phone force-fed to him like drugs to a lab rat. “I was going to show you my goals from tonight, but now I think this will make you come too fast.”

“Fuck you.”

Rozanov points Shane’s phone at him. “Should I make my own video, Hollander? For my biggest fan?”

“I will fucking kill you,” Shane says, and means it. His dick, unfortunately, is still very hard.

“Okay,” Rozanov concedes, putting the phone down. “I have an idea. We watch some videos on YouTube. Just what it tells us to watch. As soon as it shows a video that is not me, you can come.”

“Fuck off, that’s—no,” Shane says, but he’s already moving closer, already bending his knees for when Rozanov pushes him onto the bed, already tipping his eyes up to watch the phone Rozanov props against the headboard. Shane has no choice. Rozanov makes the rules.

The app autoplays the same kind of shit it’s been broadcasting for months. Rozanov fucks him from behind, finishes.

Shane doesn’t get to come for ages.

He deletes the app for a while after that. Ignores more texts than he answers. There’s a long stretch between their games; he can pretend for a few weeks that he’s going to make a different choice the next time they’re in the same city.

He caves eventually, of course. Wonders if Rozanov even noticed that Shane was attempting to ghost him.

After he gives in, he’s back in bed with his phone again. Clicking to his texts, rereading old ones, opening the messages app to check for the little unread blue button even though there’s been no notification. Opening up YouTube, pressing play.

He gets hard sixty seconds into the first video: ILYA ROZANOV MIC’D UP: THE REFS HAVE HAD ENOUGH!

For all his sins and slip-ups, he never actually jerked off watching Rozanov’s game tape before. Of course Rozanov had to ruin that, too. The memory of that hotel in Boston means he can hardly even look at the stupid red app icon without popping a fucking boner.

He’s hard, but he’s not going to touch himself. He’s just going to watch.

The video is a bunch of clips of Rozanov talking shit on the ice; to other players, to refs, to fans in the stands. There’s more of his face in this type of video.

Because everything is already fucked up and ruined, Shane lets himself think: Rozanov really is so fucking beautiful. He looks so good when he’s naked, when he’s on top of Shane, when he’s looking down from above him and coming on Shane’s face; but, fuck, he looks good like this, too: dripping with sweat, fast, red-faced. Angry. Shane’s shared the ice with him like this: he knows Rozanov smells disgusting, that he always sprays spit when he curses at the other team and when he loudly celebrates his own goals.

Shane is not allowed to think about him like that when they’re playing, and it wouldn’t be normal to find any of those things hot, so Shane hasn’t.

That’s ruined now, too.

Shane knows Rozanov. He can feel him, even alone in his bed with no bigger part of Rozanov than what he can see on the stupid, small screen. The alchemy of Shane’s memories and the footage on his phone is turning Rozanov into a myth in real time; everything Shane is doing right now kind of feels like worship. It’s not like having Rozanov in the room; in a lot of ways it’s worse. It’s a dream Shane knows he’s touched and he keeps trying to make himself not believe in. Keeps reaching for, no matter what.

For all those months Shane was watching Rozanov on YouTube, this was what he got. More of him, a cheat code that Shane thought could sate his hunger without consuming any calories. There are no cheat codes, though, and all Shane’s done is dig himself deeper into the pit, gotten himself more hooked on the thing that’s bad for him. He’s not even strong enough to keep the app off his phone. He’s back in the dirt, he’s stuffing himself full again. He’s making himself sicker and he doesn’t fucking care.

It occurs to Shane for the first time that maybe it would be better if he did just jerk off. If that’s what he needed from this. If watching videos of a hot guy who sometimes fucks him looking hot only made Shane want to wrap his hand around his dick or shove things in his ass, instead of making him feel like his heart is a swollen bruise he’s pressing his fingers into and won’t let heal.

He could try to make it about getting off. He probably could finish pretty quick; he’s hard, and he can imagine Rozanov whispering in his ear, the scratchy start of his beard tickling Shane’s neck, saying “play the next video, Hollander.” He could come his brains out and fall asleep half-satisfied and pretend the only thing he gets from watching a video of Rozanov is an orgasm.

But he’s alone in his apartment, and he’s already fucked his sleep for the next day, and there’s no one left for him to lie to. Rozanov’s seen it all already; after Boston, he hadn’t even stopped texting Shane the same way he always has. He didn’t even care enough about Shane’s sick little obsession to change any of the rules, which means Rozanov already knew about it the way he already seems to know everything Shane needs and everything Shane tries to hide from him, too.

So Shane lets himself watch Rozanov tear across the ice; lets the sharp hiss of the spray from Rozanov’s skates rub against his ears like music. He stares at the miniature, too-powerful reflection of Rozanov’s face, and he wants, and he wants, and he wants.

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