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:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Svetlana Vetrova

Additional Tags:

Fluff and Crack, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Hybrids, Shane is a Cheetah Hybrid, Svetlana mistranslates on purpose, Autistic Shane Hollander, Anxiety Disorder, That's also Shane's but I think it could apply to both of them tbh, Pre-Relationship, approximately two seconds of angst about Ilya's family

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of Cheetah Shane

Stats:

Published: 2026-02-21 Words: 3,960 Chapters: 1/1

A Cat By Any Other Name...

Summary

Svetlana gets Ilya a cat hybrid "as a present."

Ilya just wants to know why his kitty speaks bird, constantly "has the zoomies", and is anxious about literally everything.

Notes

Of all the HR fics that I could write, it had to be this one, didn't it?

This part is mostly just an introduction to the worldbuilding/concept (and is more light and fun,) but I could probably be convinced to write more in this universe if y'all are interested. It's definitely possible to read as a standalone, though!

If you had asked Ilya, he would’ve told you that he was doing perfectly fine, thank you very much.

Evidently, Svetlana had disagreed.

“What is that, and why is it in my house?”

“He,” Svetlana emphasized the pronoun, “is a cat hybrid. And he’s your birthday present. Twenty-two is the first boring birthday, in America. I needed to get you something exciting.”

The look on her face was absolutely devious, and Ilya knew that he was only digging himself into a whole with each passing second.

“And you couldn’t think of a more normal gift? Nice vodka, maybe?”

Svetlana chuckled, running her fingers over the top of the hybrid’s head, almost like he were an actual animal and not a human man with cat ears and a tail. He almost seemed to press back into her hand for a second, before blinking a few times and tensing further. He was pretty, at least. And the freckles on his cheeks were absolutely adorable. They seemed to match the dots on his cat ears, which–unlike most hybrids Ilya had seen–didn’t match the color of his hair, the fur mostly being a light yellow in contrast to his black hair.

“I’ll admit, the idea started as a gag gift,” Svetlana continued, walking away from the hybrid to sit on Ilya’s couch like she owned it. It just made the hybrid look even tenser, if that were possible. His eyes kept darting around the room, as if danger would come from some unknown corner. “But then I talked to my contacts about finding a cat hybrid as a gift for a hockey player, and well… Turns out the hybrids who are raised without any fully human parents have their own sports leagues. This one here is the best hybrid hockey player in North America. He probably knows your stats better than you do.”

“Sounds perfect for you, Sveta. Why aren’t you keeping him?”

Svetlana laughed like the idea of it was funny in and of itself. “He’s only attracted to alpha men, unfortunately.” She glanced over at the hybrid once more, swapping to English. “And he basically starts salivating any time I mention your name.”

The hybrid blushed, looking down at his lap.

Ilya rolled his eyes. “And how young is he, that he’s the best hockey player in the continent and no one’s taken him, yet?”

“He’s a month older than you, actually,” Svetlana answered. “You know how most alphas are. They don’t like the idea of an omega that could be better at something than them. He’s been… Tragically lonely, according to his previous caretakers. All of his childhood friends already have human owners. He needs someone, Ilyusha.”

And there was the emotional manipulation, since clearly the base sex appeal was not going to persuade Ilya on its own.

“You know I don’t like the idea,” Ilya said. “He’s a person, not a pet. And I’m an asshole, but I’m not that kind of asshole.”

“Yes,” Svetlana replied, “but the law doesn’t believe that. So either you take him, or someone else takes him sooner or later. Consider him a strange roommate, if you must.”

Yes, because having a strange omega roommate who’d been raised to defer to non-hybrids would be a totally normal experience. And that wasn’t to mention the shedding. He wouldn’t shed that much, would he? Only the ears and tail had fur, after all.

“He can take care of himself, right? I can’t take him on the road.”

Taking him home to Russia over the summers would be a nightmare in and of itself. Ilya’s bag was still half-packed in the corner of his bedroom, and he was set to leave for Moscow in a little over a week. Taking a hybrid who barely knew or trusted him would only be another complication in Ilya’s inevitably terrible summer plans.

“Basic life tasks, yes,” Svetlana answered. “His taste in food is terrible, but he can do his own cooking if you get him the ingredients.”

“And you know this, because…?”

“Because he lived with me for the past week.” Svetlana shrugged. “Don’t worry so much. Give him a library, a hockey rink, and the ingredients for his gross food and I think he’ll be okay.”

“Even when I drag him to Moscow over the summer?”

Svetlana chuckled. “Yes. Although I’ll get a kick out of your father’s reaction to you having a pet.”

“Not a pet.”

“That’s what he’ll think, though.” Svetlana shrugged. “He won’t like that it’s a boy, but at least he’s an omega. Your father will probably be glad you’re ‘acting like a real alpha,’ or some other bullshit.”

“Don’t remind me.”

Svetlana pushed herself off the couch and grabbed a folder she’d left on the counter when she’d first arrived with the hybrid in tow. “Here,” she pressed the folder into Ilya’s hand, “all of his paperwork. Health records, all of that. I already registered you as his guardian, so that’s done, but you do need to find a good local doctor for him sometime in the next few months.”

Ilya fixed her with the kind of unamused stare he knew didn’t work on her. “How helpful.”

“You can thank me later,” she said, and promptly made her way into the kitchen, probably to steal some of Ilya’s nice vodka, as if she didn’t have her own. “Shane, you don’t have to sit there scared. Go sit on the couch. Turn ESPN on, or something. He won’t yell at you, I promise.”

The hybrid–Shane, apparently, because even hybrids get boringly stereotypical English names–locked eyes with Ilya in a way that made Ilya unsure which of them was the cornered prey in this situation. Ilya shrugged, flipping open the folder to glance through the paperwork, which was apparently enough permission for Shane to slink his way from the floor onto the couch and gingerly start flipping through channels on Ilya’s TV.

“Sveta,” Ilya asked, as he scanned through the first page, “what does the word ‘cheetah’ mean?”

“Kind of cat,” Svetlana replied. “A really pretty one, I promise. I had to get the prettiest kitty for my Ilyusha.”

Ilya just rolled his eyes.

 

====

 

The first sign that something was off came the next morning, when Ilya walked into his kitchen to find Shane already halfway through his breakfast–human looking, if disgustingly healthy. Ilya had given him the tour the previous day and allowed him to choose which of the two guest bedrooms he wanted to claim as his own, but they hadn’t had anything resembling an actual conversation. Mostly because the hybrid hadn’t said a single word, mostly answering by nodding or shaking his head. Svetlana had said that was probably just the nerves of meeting someone new, and that he would probably be talking within a day or two.

Ilya started digging through the refrigerator, looking for the bacon and eggs for his own breakfast, when he heard a soft chirping sound. That wouldn’t be so unusual, this close to dawn, but Ilya could swear the sound was coming from inside the house.

Hopefully the cat didn’t actually have the instinct to hunt birds.

Ilya really didn’t want to clean that up.

He initially chose to ignore the sound, continuing to dig through his refrigerator’s half-organized piles of ingredients. And then there was another chirp. And another. Each of the chirps was louder than the previous, almost like the universe was mocking him.

Chirp.

Ilya glanced to the side, seeing Shane standing two feet away from him, empty plate in hand as he prepared to place it in the sink.

Chirp.

“Is that your noise?”

Shane looked at him, and this look was absolutely the look of a cat who had been caught doing something it wasn’t supposed to. Chirp.

“So you speak bird, too?”

Chirp.

Shane swallowed, setting the plate down. “It’s uh, just, one of my noises. Sorry. I’ll try to stop it, if you don’t–”

“No, no, is fine. Just… Thought cats make different noise. Like,” Ilya tried to imitate the sound of a cat purring. He knew he was nowhere close, but it did make Shane grin.

“That too,” Shane said. “Sometimes.”

“Hmm, so you just have big vocabulary, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“Is cute,” Ilya said. He finally found his bacon, pulling it from the fridge. “Better than knocking glass off table.”

“I’m not that kind of cat,” Shane said, looking offended that Ilya had even suggested it.

“No? You’re a very polite kitty, then?”

Shane blushed. “Don’t say it like that.”

“Why not? Cute, polite kitty is better than demon cat.”

“Lana warned me you would try to flirt, I didn’t know you’d be this bad at it,” Shane said, beginning to wash his plate. He kept his face turned away, but Ilya knew there was a grin on his lips.

“Oh, so now you’re the asshole? Not a polite kitty at all.” Ilya furrowed his eyebrows. “And she’s ‘Lana’ to you, now?”

“Yeah? That’s what she told me to call her.” Shane shrugged. “And I’m not an asshole for pointing out that your pickup lines are lame.”

“Who said I was trying to pick you up?” Ilya pulled out a clean plate and started arranging the bacon to go in the microwave. He knew it wasn’t healthy, but sue him. It was the summer, he’d gotten a surprise roommate dropped on him, and he was going to have to deal with his family in a week. “You already live in my house, not like I have to convince you to go somewhere.”

“You’d have to do some convincing if you wanted me to go to your bedroom,” Shane said. Ilya could feel the omega’s gaze on him, waiting for the reaction.

“Mm, no. I make you ask politely,” Ilya said. “‘Ilya, please let me suck your cock,’ like that. No sex if you’re not polite kitty.”

“Asshole,” Shane repeated, setting his plate on the drying rack next to the sink. “You’ll be waiting forever if that’s how you think this is going to go.”

“No, I make you wait. See how annoyed my kitty gets.”

Shane rolled his eyes. He walked out of the room, tail flicking behind him as he went.

Ilya hadn’t even meant to flirt with him. What the hell was that?

 

====

 

“Okay, serious conversation time,” Ilya said, over dinner two nights later, because that was about the only way he knew to lead into this conversation, “I’m flying to Moscow for two months next Wednesday.”

“Lana told me, yeah.”

“You come with me, unless you want me to dump you on unsuspecting American teammate,” Ilya said. Maybe Marleau? Connors? Apparently Ryan Price was getting traded to Boston as well, maybe having a cat for two months would bring him out of his shell. “Sveta will also be in Russia, so she can’t keep you.”

“Sveta is Lana?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Shane said. He took a bite of his meal, which looked so bland. Salmon, rice, and salad? Who had put Shane on this diet plan, really? “So I’m coming with you. I don’t, uh, speak any Russian, though. Obviously.”

“You’ll learn,” Ilya said. “You already speak English, cat, and bird. Fourth should be easy.”

“I speak French, too,” Shane corrected.

“Oh, Mr. Perfect, over here.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “I grew up in Ottawa. We all took English and French in school.”

“Hybrids go to school?”

“Not, like, normal school. Unless you have a human parent. But like, we have a school system within our facilities. Get all the basics that most people get, up to the high school level. Some of the really smart kids take college classes online, and stuff. Then they get adopted, and… It’s the owner’s decision, I guess. After that.”

Ilya nodded. “And you have no human parent?”

“No. My mom, she’s like me, and my dad’s a dog hybrid. Mom’s an alpha, dad’s an omega, so he was the one who actually carried me, but uhh… Guess mom’s genes were stronger.” Shane shrugged. “Apparently my genetic screening says all I got from my dad was human genes, so I’m technically only a single-species hybrid. No chance of puppies.”

“Do you want puppies?”

Shane snorted. “Can’t have them, asshole.”

“Kittens, then?”

“Didn’t we start this ‘very serious’ conversation talking about going to Russia?”

“Yes.” And there went the fun distraction. “I have my own apartment, in Moscow, but we will have to deal with my family while we are there.”

“Okay?”

“They are… Complicated. My father speaks some English; my brother forgot everything he learned in school, so he doesn’t. My step-mother is… Absent, mostly.” Ilya was avoiding saying anything that actually mattered. He knew that, and yet he couldn’t force himself to get to the point at hand. “I will try to keep them away from you, as much as I can.”

“What, you think they’d be… Bad? To me?”

“Something like that.” Ilya looked down at his plate. “My father and brother are both alphas, my step-mother and sister-in-law are both betas. Only omega in family was my mother, and they were… Not good to her.”

“I’m sorry.” The sympathy in his voice seemed genuine, even for how short of a time they’d known each other or how little Ilya had actually said about the situation.

“I don’t want them to say anything bad to you,” Ilya said. “Maybe their English is not good enough to say something bad, I don’t know, but… If they say something, you tell me, okay? Or do something. Don’t feel bad about telling me.”

“Okay.” Shane nodded. “Thank you for… The reassurance.”

“Of course. I keep you safe, yes?”

Their eyes finally met. The look in Shane’s eyes was softer than Ilya had seen so far. Not frightened, not anxious, not caught out. Just… Warm.

“I thought you were trying to keep up the asshole persona,” Shane said, a little grin on his lips.

“Persona, yes.”

Shane nodded. “Got it.”

Ilya looked down, taking another bite of his burger. “You, uh, you should know, though, my Moscow apartment only has one bedroom.”

Shane raised an eyebrow. “‘There was only one bed’? Really?”

“What? Not my fault architect built that way. Some old apartments have combined living-bedroom. At least I have separate bedroom.” Ilya shrugged. “I can find cot. Air mattress, or whatever. If you don’t want to share.”

“No, it’s fine,” Shane said. “As long as you don’t try to cuddle.”

“What? Kitty doesn’t like cuddles?”

“If you call me ‘kitty’ one more time, I will bite you.”

“Oh, kitty is threatening me. And after I promised to keep you safe, you betray me like this.” Ilya mimed wiping a tear from his cheek. Shane just shook his head.

“Asshole.”

“You like it.”

“I don’t.”

“Mhm.”

 

====

 

The second sign that something was off came the next day, when Ilya went into his workout room and found Shane staring at the treadmill like it had personally offended him.

“Your treadmill’s broken,” Shane said, when Ilya raised an eyebrow at him. “It doesn’t go fast enough.”

“You need me to show you how to adjust speed?”

“No, I mean– Here, I’ll show you.” Shane hopped onto the treadmill, quickly turning it on and ramping up the speed to well above anything that Ilya would consider comfortable. “And then I hit max speed… And I’m still barely jogging.”

It looks like a lot more than jogging to Ilya, but he will admit that Shane looks like he’s barely breaking a sweat, as much as his legs look like they’re moving at olympic pace.

“I think you just need to go on a run outside, if you want to go faster than that,” Ilya said. “Normal treadmill only goes this fast.”

Shane looked at him like Ilya had stolen his dinner. He didn’t stop running. Or slow down. At all. “I’m trying to exhaust myself over the next few days so I don’t get the zoomies on the plane.”

“‘Get the zoomies’? What is this?”

“Like, feel like I need to run around,” Shane explained. “It’s how I usually get my energy out, if I’m restless. Sometimes I do it by skating, but when I don’t have a rink, running’s usually what I stick to.”

“Ah.” Ilya wasn’t sure what to do with that. Shane did seem to have exactly two states: frozen, and vibrating. Good to know that running could get him to stop vibrating. “Well, I still recommend run outside. For the next few days.”

“And when we get to Moscow?”

“Same thing. Is not too cold, in summer.”

“I’m not afraid of the cold. Ottawa, remember?”

“Good. Since you run too fast for treadmill.” Ilya finally let himself look away from Shane, moving over to the weight area in the corner and starting to prepare for his own workout. “I’m not going on runs with you in snow.”

“But you will go on runs together in the summer?”

“If you want.” Ilya hesitated. “But not today. Starting tomorrow.”

“Alright.”

Ilya knew Shane was literally going to run laps around him. At least the omega would look pretty while doing it.

 

====

 

The third strange thing, the one that “broke the camel’s back,” as the Americans said, came the next night. Shane lingered in the doorway of Ilya’s bedroom like he was a vampire waiting to be invited in.

“You have something to say?” Ilya asked, pretending to fold his (already mostly folded) laundry. “Or you just stand there and look pretty?”

“Stop calling me pretty.”

“Is truth.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “I just– I’m nervous. About going to Russia. I mean, you and I barely know each other, and just as I’m almost used to your house, suddenly we’re going to the other side of the planet to a country where I don’t speak the language, and you told me your family might have problems with us, and–”

“Hey.” Ilya set down the shirt in his hands, crossing to the doorway to stand in front of Shane. He didn’t touch him, just tried to make eye contact. “Breathe, okay?”

“I’m trying.”

Ilya looked over the omega, seeing that same tenseness he’d seen throughout his body that first day that Svetlana had brought Shane to Ilya. “Does this… Happen often?”

“Uh, sometimes. I mean– I have anxiety.”

Ilya nodded, but he couldn’t help himself from asking. “Cats get anxiety?”

“Not– I don’t know about house cats, but with cheetahs it’s pretty much the normal state, yeah.” Shane leans against the door frame. “They actually, uh. They pair us with dog hybrids, to try to calm us down. That’s why my mom’s a cheetah and my dad’s a dog. He was supposed to keep her calm, and well… She mated him before they could find a human to adopt him.”

“Cheetahs are not type of house cat?”

“No? What– I thought you saw on my paperwork that I’m not a house cat. I heard you say ‘cheetah’ to Lana the first day I got here.”

Ilya pouted, already knowing he and Svetlana were in for some kind of argument later. “I asked what word meant. She told me was type of cat. Very pretty cat.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “Do me a favor and go google the word ‘cheetah.’”

Ilya pulled out his phone, doing as asked, and waited while google images loaded. And– Oh. Cheetah. Yes, that was definitely not a house cat. And would explain why Shane was complaining about his treadmill.

“Fast kitty,” Ilya murmured, as he set his phone back in his pocket. “She was right, though. Very pretty. Like you.”

“Shut up.”

“About you being pretty? Never.” Ilya chuckled. Shane looked calmer, but he was still tense. “So you did not have dog?”

“What?” Shane blinked. “Oh, I mean… He was my best friend, growing up, and we played hockey together as kids and teenagers. But he got adopted, like, right after he turned eighteen. Beta golden retriever, basically the fastest out of the system besides the omega bunnies. But his owner, she’s a beta as well, and they’re really happy together. He sends me letters, sometimes. Pictures of their kids.”

“Did they have puppies?”

Shane stared at Ilya like he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to strangle Ilya or himself. “I mean… I think their third kid had the ears? But since she’s the one carrying the kids, they can’t have litters or anything, so–”

“Having the ears makes the kid a puppy,” Ilya said, unhelpfully.

“I’m going to tell him that you called his son a puppy, next time he sends me a letter,” Shane said, before freezing. “Wait, do you think he can still send me letters? What if he tries, and then they don’t get delivered, and then–”

“They’ll probably be forwarded here, yes? Since this is your new address.” 

“Oh. Hopefully, yeah.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, and then Shane sighed, glancing back out into the hallway. “I should– Go. Get ready for bed.”

“You sure? If you don’t want to be alone, you could stay. We share bed in four days, anyway.”

Shane looked between Ilya and the bed. “I don’t… I think I’d just keep you awake, with my nerves. At least one of us needs to be fully rested.”

“You think I get any sleep? Not for week before I go home,” Ilya admitted. “It’s better when I am there, and it all… Blurs. Until then, is… Too much, sometimes.”

Shane nodded. “And if my nerves just add to that?”

“I think you are good distraction,” Ilya said. “I can distract you, too.”

“Right,” Shane said. “Thought you were going to make me wait for sex.”

“Mm, I think I said I would make you beg for it, actually,” Ilya replied. “But that is not what I mean.”

“It’s not?”

“No. Not unless you want.”

Shane chuckled. “What would we do instead?”

Ilya shrugged. “I have TV. We can watch bad movie. Talk about terrible childhood. Describe bad haircuts.”

“You’re asking me to have a sleepover with you?”

“Sleepover?”

“Like, when teenagers stay at each other’s houses. And start gossiping. I think the girls mostly do blood sacrifices, if they’re not lying to me.”

Ilya furrowed his eyebrows. “Blood sacrifice? What girl told you that?”

“My best friend? I mean, she’s a red panda hybrid, and they’re kind of known for getting whatever they want, so maybe that’s just something she and her friends did.”

“Huh.”

“Anyway.” Shane bit his lip. “Maybe we could just… Watch whatever hockey reruns are on? Doesn’t need to have sound on, and we can just fall asleep when we feel like it, but… Maybe it would give us something to concentrate on, instead of the anxiety?”

Ilya chuckled. “You are so boring, kitty.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“Why? Is ‘pussy’ better? Because you are also pretty pussy.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

Shane walked out of the room, but he came back with his pajamas on fifteen minutes later and laid on the empty side of Ilya’s bed. Shane was asleep by the time the rerun of the last LA-New York game of the playoffs came to a close.

He was so pretty, sleeping in Ilya’s bed like he belonged there, the soft light of the TV illuminating his freckles where they were dotted across the bridge of his nose.

Ilya could wait. For his pretty, strange kitty, he would wait.

(Ilya texted Svetlana, the next day, and asked if she had ever done any kind of blood sacrifice with her girl friends. She replied, “You should ask Sasha. He is lucky the demon did not answer when we asked what we should do with him.”)