Rating:

General Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike

Additional Tags:

Established Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Humor, Accidental Outing, livestream, Social Media, Internet Chaos, Jealous Ilya Rozanov, WAG Shane Hollander, College Student Shane Hollander, Flirting, Idiots in Love, Bruins Captain Ilya Rozanov, Accidental Boyfriend Reveal, Ilya Rozanov Would Like Everyone to Stop Looking, No One in Bruins Twitter Is Normal About This, Hockey Player Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov is Obsessed With Shane Hollander

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-04-19 Completed: 2026-04-20 Words: 4,366 Chapters: 2/2

trending topics

Summary

Shane noticed three things, almost all at once:

1. Ilya wasn’t moving, just sitting there too still, staring straight at him.
2. The small green light next to the webcam was on.
3. The chat on the screen was flying.

Or: the internet spiraled trying to figure out who the guy in boxers and Rozanov’s hoodie was in the Bruins captain’s bedroom.

Notes

show creator styles!!!

ps: the social media part is interactive!!

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Chapter 1

Shane Hollander was, technically, studying.

In practice, he had spent the last ten minutes staring at the same paragraph of Cognitive Behavioral Theory, rereading the same explanation about cognitive distortions until the words completely lost their meaning.

The cursor blinked in the corner of the screen, constant, irritating, like it was judging every life decision that had led him there.

Catastrophizing.
Mind reading.
All-or-nothing thinking.

He knew how to define all of them, he could give clinical examples, he could even recognize - with almost offensive clarity - that he was actively engaging in at least two of them at that exact moment.

Because, in his head, if he didn’t understand that today, he was going to fail tomorrow’s exam.

And if he failed, that would obviously trigger a perfectly logical chain of catastrophic events that would end with him failing at absolutely everything in life.

Totally rational, very scientific, peer-reviewed, probably.

Shane let out a short sigh, dragging his hands over his face, and turned his head toward his phone next to the laptop.

The screen lit up automatically.

Hayden
you alive or dead?

A small breath of laughter slipped out through his nose. He typed quickly, one-handed.

alive.
barely.
going to get coffee and I’ll be bacc 
you can start the call

The reply came almost immediately.

Hayden
ok.
if you don’t come back in 5 minutes
I’m assuming you dropped out

tempting

Shane dropped the phone on the desk, pushed his chair back, and stood up, running a hand through his hair in a half-hearted attempt at looking functional.

He was wearing the bare minimum required to exist inside his own apartment: glasses, socks, boxers, and one of Ilya’s oversized training shirts, hanging off his shoulders in a way that was too loose, too comfortable.

He couldn’t even remember when he’d started using it as sleepwear.

Probably sometime after Ilya had said he looked downright edible in it.

He looked back at the screen and immediately regretted it.

Right, coffee.

He left the room on autopilot, crossing the hallway toward the kitchen.

Shane opened the cabinet without thinking, grabbed a random mug - probably clean, he chose to believe - and set it under the coffee maker with the ease of someone who had done that a thousand times.

He pressed the button and waited.

Nothing happened.

Shane stared at the machine for a second, like he might have missed something obvious, then pressed it again, harder this time, as if that would somehow convince it to cooperate.

It didn’t.

He watched it for another beat, half-expecting it to sputter back to life out of sheer stubbornness.

It didn’t.

He considered, for one full second, dropping out of college.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered, already irritated.

He turned it off, turned it back on, and tried again.

The machine remained completely silent.

Shane let out a breath through his nose, slow and sharp.

He grabbed his phone from the counter and typed quickly.

coffee machine died

Hayden
so did your GPA

shut up

Shane rolled his eyes and headed out of the kitchen, turning into the hallway. He’d seen Ilya in the office not too long ago; he was probably still there.

If anyone was going to fix this - or at least take the blame for it - it was him.

“Ilya,” he grumbled, pushing the door open with his foot, not even really looking. “The coffee maker broke again and I feel like this is your fault. I have a test tomorrow, I can’t do this without caffeine.”

No response.

“Ilya?”

It was only when he looked up that something felt… off.

Shane noticed three things, almost all at once:

Ilya wasn’t moving, just sitting there too still, staring straight at him;

The small green light next to the webcam was on;

And the chat on the screen was flying.

It took a full second for it to click.

Shane looked down at himself and then back at him.

“Fuck! Are you-”

Ilya’s gaze dropped before he could stop it, quick but unmistakable, tracking down Shane’s bare legs, the hem of the shirt, the way it sat on his body like it belonged there.

And when his eyes snapped back up, something in his expression had tightened - sharp, controlled, not just shock.

“Don’t,” he said, low, like it was both a warning and a reflex, too late to matter.

Then he closed his eyes.
That was enough.

Shane turned immediately, not thinking, a hand dragging over his face as he was already stepping out of frame.

“No,” he said, already moving too fast. “No, no, no.”

Behind him, Ilya moved, fast and precise, reaching for the laptop like he could physically block the view, like that would be enough to undo the last few seconds.

Shane didn’t stay long enough to see if it worked.

He crossed the doorway in two steps and disappeared from the room like moving fast enough might undo what had just happened.

And in less than ten seconds, it wasn’t just their problem anymore.

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

hope you enjoy this one <3

Shane only made it halfway down the hallway before stopping.

Not because the situation had improved.

Only because his brain, in a very cruel and very efficient way, decided to point out that running away without pants wasn’t exactly a sustainable survival strategy.

He pressed his forehead against the cold wall for a second, eyes closed, trying to pull enough air into his lungs.

Ilya’s shirt, too big on his body, brushed against his thighs with every breath, a soft, humiliating reminder of the disaster.

“Okay,” he murmured, low. “Okay. It’s fine. I mean, it’s not. Obviously not, but maybe there’s a way to fix it.”

His phone vibrated in his hand.

Once.
Twice.
Then it didn’t stop.

Shane looked at the screen; he didn’t need to open it to understand that his life had just tilted off its axis.

He opened it anyway.

Hayden
what the fuck was that
WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT
you’re on twitter
YOU’RE ON TWITTER

Shane’s stomach dropped so fast he actually felt nausea rise.

“No,” he whispered automatically, already opening the app. “No.”

It loaded.

And it got worse.
A lot worse.

At the top of the trending page, Ilya’s name was glowing in letters that were way too big, followed by terms that made Shane seriously consider, for a full second, changing countries and possibly his legal identity.

“Oh my God,” Shane let out, in a short, hysterical laugh that died halfway through. “Oh my God. I’m dropping out of college.”

His phone vibrated again.

Hayden calling.

Shane picked up immediately, still leaning against the wall, running a hand over his face in a useless attempt to organize his own breakdown.

“Tell me this isn’t real.”

“This isn’t real,” Hayden said immediately. “But it’s also VERY real. Shane, do you have any idea what just happened?”

“I showed up?”

“Shane,” Hayden said, in a tone already carrying enough judgment to sustain a thesis, “you didn’t just show up. You walked in, without knocking, in the middle of a charity livestream with, like, sixty thousand people watching.”

Shane squeezed his eyes shut.

The green light of the webcam still felt burned into the back of his eyelids.

“I’m going to die,” he said. “I’m literally going to spontaneously combust.”

“Before anything else, answer me quick: I already knew you lived together, I’ve accepted that, but are you out and I missed a major episode or-”

“No,” Shane cut in, too fast. His voice broke at the end of the word. “We’re not. Nobody knows, I mean-nobody knew.”

On the other end, Hayden went quiet for a second.

When he spoke again, it was slower.

“So, my friend, the entire internet just found out that the Bruins captain has a guy living in his bedroom. A guy with very nice legs, by the way, which is not helping anything.”

“Thanks for the brilliant analysis, Hayden. That really helped my process of not having a nervous breakdown.”

“I’m trying to figure out how to help.”

“You can’t.” Shane slid down the wall until he was sitting on the hallway floor, knees pulled in, the oversized shirt falling over his bare thighs. “No one can.”

For a second, he just stayed there, breathing.

“He saw me,” he said, quieter now. “Like… really saw me. The way he looked at me, Hayden. He froze.”

Hayden didn’t hesitate. “You walked into his livestream.”

“I know.”

“Without realizing.”

“I know.”

“Out of nowhere.”

“Hayden.”

“Great! I was just checking.”

Shane dragged a hand down his face, exhausted. “I forget he’s a public figure sometimes.”

“Well,” Hayden went on, “now the entire internet knows you exist. Mystery Boy, Coffee Maker Guy… people are already analyzing every frame.”

Shane let his head fall back against the wall with a dull thud.

“How is it in there?” Hayden asked, a little gentler.

Shane turned his head toward the office door, still closed.

“Worse,” Shane said. “Too quiet.”

On the other side of the door, something moved.

The sound of a chair scraping.

Shane held his breath without realizing it. His heart was beating too hard, too fast, like it was trying to claw its way out of his throat.

Footsteps.

Familiar enough to usually mean comfort. Right now, they sounded like the announcement of final judgment.

The handle turned.

“I have to go,” Shane said, hanging up before Hayden could answer.

The door opened, and Ilya stepped out.

Headphones still around his neck, hair slightly messy from running his hands through it, Ilya looked different enough to make Shane straighten where he sat without thinking.

He stopped in front of Shane.

His gaze moved, quick and assessing, over the oversized Bruins shirt, the bare legs, the crooked glasses - details first, like he needed to confirm Shane was actually fine - before finally lifting back up to his face.

“Shane.”

“I’m sorry,” Shane rushed out immediately, words tripping over each other. “The coffee maker broke, I didn’t know you were live, I thought you were just on a call or something, I didn’t see the light, I”

“Shane.” Ilya cut him off, already moving, dropping to his knees in front of him so they were at the same level. “I turned it off.”

Shane blinked. “You turned it off?”

“I cut the stream.” A short exhale, controlled but not calm. “Too late.”

Shane made a face. “Great.”

“For what it’s worth,” Ilya continued, steadier now, attention fixed on Shane instead of everything else, “it was a few seconds. They saw you walk in, they heard you talk. That’s it.”

Shane let out a quiet, humorless breath. “Yeah. That’s kind of enough.”

“It usually is,” Ilya admitted.

Silence settled for a second. Ilya dragged a hand over his face, grounding himself.

“They’re going to clip it,” he said. “Slow it down, zoom in, pick it apart until it looks like something bigger than it is. That part was inevitable.”

“They already are,” Shane said. “Hayden said Twitter’s exploding.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“But” Shane hesitated, then pushed through it anyway. “The shirt. It looks like-”

“Like you live here,” Ilya finished, calm but firm.

Shane stopped.

“Which you do.”

That landed heavier than it should have.

Shane dragged a hand through his hair. “That’s not helping.”

“I’m not trying to help the narrative,” Ilya said. “I’m trying to help you.”

That slowed Shane down.

“Me?” he asked.

“Yes, you.” Ilya held his gaze, steady now. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You walked into your own space and talked to me like you always do. The rest of it is noise.”

Shane exhaled, tension still there but less sharp. “That ‘noise’ is about to become your PR nightmare.”

“I’ll deal with PR.”

“And the team?”

“I’ll deal with the team.”

Shane watched him for a second, searching. “You make it sound easy.”

“I didn’t say it was easy.” He smiled “I said I’ll handle it.”

That was different.

“And you?” Shane asked, quieter. “Are you okay?”

That made Ilya hesitate. “I’m thinking.”

Shane huffed softly. “That’s not the same thing.”

“I know.”

Ilya’s jaw tightened, then eased again.

“They were looking at you,” he added after a moment, voice lower. “Rewinding it, pausing it, talking like they get to decide what it means.”

He stopped himself there, like he’d gone far enough.

Then, more controlled: “It doesn’t matter. We deal with it.”

Shane tilted his head, watching him more carefully now. “Right. Doesn’t matter.”

There was a hint of a smile there, small, knowing.

Ilya caught it immediately. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Shane.”

“You’re doing that thing,” he said.

“What thing?”

“That very calm, very controlled thing,” Shane replied. “Like you’re not two seconds away from losing it.”

“I’m not losing it.”

“Okay.”

“…Maybe a little,” Ilya admitted.

That softened something in Shane’s expression. “Because of the media?”

Ilya held his gaze for a second too long. “Because of you.”

Shane stilled.

Ilya dragged a hand through his hair again, slower.

“I don’t like strangers talking about you like they know anything,” he said. “I don’t like them looking at you like they have a right to.”

Shane let out a small breath, almost a laugh. “You’re a little jealous.”

Ilya didn’t look away this time.

“…Maybe.”

Shane swallowed. “So what do we do?”

“There’s more than one way to handle it,” Ilya said. “The easy one is pretending it was nothing. My agent puts out something vague. A friend, a visit, enough to stall.”

“No one’s going to believe that.”

“No.” A glance back at him. “But it buys time.”

“That’s not a solution.”

“It’s not supposed to be.”

Shane shifted slightly. “So what is?”

Ilya hesitated  - just a second - then,“We stop hiding.”

Shane froze. “You’re serious.”

“I didn’t want it to happen like this,” Ilya said, quieter. “Not because of a mistake, not because someone decided five seconds of you belonged to them.”

Shane didn’t interrupt.

“I wanted to do it right.”

“What does that even mean?” Shane asked.

A tired, almost amused breath left him. “For starters, you’d be wearing pants.”

That pulled a real laugh out of Shane this time - quick, but enough.

Ilya’s gaze dipped briefly before returning.

“Not through the internet,” he continued. “Not for them. For me.”

A pause.

“You’re mine.” It sounded… honest. “And I didn’t like seeing thousands of people look at you like they get a say in that.”

Shane’s mouth curved slightly. “Yeah. You’re definitely jealous.”

Ilya didn’t argue.

“This is going to be chaos,” Shane said, taking a deep breath.

“It already is.”

“And it’s only getting worse.”

“Honestly,” Ilya added, dry, “the coffee maker part is what bothers me most.”

Shane laughed again, softer now. The tension in Ilya’s face eased, just a little.

“What if I’m not ready?” Shane asked.

Ilya didn’t hesitate. “Then nothing happens.”

Shane frowned. “Nothing?”

“No statements, no posts, no confirmations.” His voice stayed even. “This doesn’t move unless you want it to.”

That hit.

“It’s that simple?”

“Yes.”

“Even now?”

“Even now.”

Something in Shane gave way. “I don’t want to be a secret,” he admitted.

“You’re not.”

“Ilya-”

“You’re not,” he repeated, firmer now. “There’s a difference between private and hidden. You were never something I was hiding.”

Shane held his gaze, and add quietly. “Okay.”

Ilya stilled. “Okay?”

Shane nodded. “Okay.”

For a second, neither of them moved. Then Ilya stood and held out his hand.

Shane took it.

He was pulled up easily, closer than necessary - and Ilya didn’t let go. Instead, he pulled him in, pressing his face briefly into the curve of Shane’s neck, breathing in like he needed something solid.

Shane’s hand slid up his back automatically.

“You’re freaking out,” he murmured.

“Quietly.”

“Terrifying.”

“I know.”

Shane smiled.

Ilya pulled back, eyes dropping instinctively to Shane’s bare legs, one eyebrow lifting.

“First,” he said, “you’re putting on pants.”

Shane huffed. “Now it matters?”

“It always mattered.” A beat. “Just less than everything else.”

“And then?”

“Then I deal with the internet.”

“And the coffee maker?”

Ilya looked genuinely offended. “That gets handled immediately.”

Shane laughed again. “Of course it does.”

They moved back into the office together.

The laptop sat there, screen dark, like it hadn’t just detonated the rest of their week.

Ilya sat and pulled Shane into his lap without asking. Shane let out a quiet breath but didn’t pull away, settling there like it was the most natural place to be.

“I love you, Rozanov,” he murmured, the words slipping out softer than he probably intended.

Ilya stilled for a fraction of a second, his hand tightening at Shane’s waist before he exhaled.

“I know.”

Shane huffed under his breath, but leaned in anyway, kissing him like he needed the contact more than the response.

Ilya answered immediately, steady and sure, his grip grounding, holding him in place.

“I mean it,” Shane said against his mouth, quieter now.

“I know,” Ilya repeated, less sharp this time, his thumb pressing absently into Shane’s side.

Shane pulled back just enough to look at him. “You’re insufferable.”

“Accurate.”

That earned him the smallest smile.

Shane shook his head, but his hand came up to the back of Ilya’s neck, keeping him close.

“I love you,” he said again, more deliberate now.

Something in Ilya’s expression shifted - not softer, exactly, but clearer.

“I love you more.”

Shane paused, studying him, like he was deciding whether to argue or not.

“…That’s not how that works.”

“It does for me.”

Shane’s mouth curved despite himself, and he leaned in again, slower this time.

“Ridiculous.”

“Still yours.”

“Unfortunately.”

“You like it.”

Shane let out a quiet breath against his lips, not quite a laugh.

“Maybe.”

Ilya’s gaze didn’t move. “Liar.”

Shane kissed him again just to shut him up.

The phone vibrated between them. Shane pulled back with a quiet sigh and reached for it.

Hayden.

He opened the chat already knowing it was going to be bad.

Hayden 
ok you need to see this
now
they figured out who you are

Shane’s stomach dropped.

Hayden
your name
your college
your major
and us too

He dragged his thumb slowly across the screen, not replying.

Another message came in.

Hayden
and yeah congrats on your literary debut i guess . just open it

tumblr.com/tagged/mysteryboyarchiveofourown.org/works/77929206

Chapter End Notes

the fake fic is not fake.

you can go read it and can click things