Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander & Rose Landry

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Rose Landry, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau

Additional Tags:

Animal Transformation, (temporary), (very temporary), post tuna meltdown, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Marleau might be at his most himbo here, Crack Treated Seriously, Sort of seriously anyway, It's like a tuna meltdown fix it and will fix their relationship so, It's at least THAT serious

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-10-07 Words: 7,716 Chapters: 1/1

That Time a Witch Turned Ilya into a Dog

Summary

Shane, Ilya, and Rose all happen to be wishing for semi-related things at the exact moment a drunk witch wanders into the club bathroom, which is how Ilya ends up as a dog for the night

Notes

This is a silly little Halloween vibes fic I thought up when I was trying to come up with a much spookier fic. I almost abandoned this, but I thought it would be a cute little mid October treat before I tackle the bigger one, and I sort of love the way it came out!

Witches generally stay out of normie business (for obvious reasons, if you have ever so much as glanced at a history book or have ever thought to Google ‘why would witches not be interested in sticking their necks out for humans? Has that ever gone well for them, historically speaking?’) Staying under the radar is one of the first things a baby witch is taught by their mothers and grandmothers and aunts and all the dozens of people who make up a typical witch’s support system. 

Gladys has followed those teachings faithfully for all of her twenty-three years of witchiness. Most days, she doesn't even think about the power that thrums under her fingertips. She only uses it for little things, and only when she is alone, or with her family, and she has (almost) never been tempted to intercede where she isn't meant to. 

It's just that, well, Gladys is drunk. 

And she's not just drunk. She's fucking hammered, out at a club in the city, and she has lost her friends. In her defense, she was just laid off. She also very bravely refrained from using her witchy powers to convince her shithead boss to cancel those layoffs, or at least spare her in them, so she figured she deserved to put on her shortest dress and head to the club with her friends to try and pick up a hot dummy for at least the night. That is her right as a human being and a twenty-three year old woman who also happens to be a witch.

It's just that Gladys starts recognizing patterns so much easier when she's drunk, and her drunk brain is a lot more susceptible to thoughts like I might as well fix this, since I can. One of the most annoying parts of being a witch is that you can hear all sorts of things that people haven't spoken aloud. Wishes and prayers and wants. Desires that are sort of wish-shaped because of the yearning. Witches count those. And so Gladys is hammered, and everyone in the club around her is full to the brim with want, and she stumbles her way to the bathroom, and she sees fucking Rose Landry of all people looking at herself in the mirror, and she hears Rose thinking I just wish I knew more about him. I wish I could tell what he wants. I wish I knew for sure if this feels weird for a reason or if I'm just paranoid. And then there's another mass of emotion, from another person, somewhere close by, somehow connected to Rose, as if on a string, that's not so much words as it is a ball of want and regret and fear that it's never going to get easier and is never going to make sense and is going to ruin his life. And there is a third person spinning around somewhere, an awareness deeply tied to Rose and her yearning friend. This person is tired, and they want to disappear, at least for a little while. To become something small and soft and loved and wanted. An ugly jealousy, a desperate desire. 

“Wow,” Gladys says aloud. “Oh wow, what a coincidence. I can solve all three of your problems at the same time! How lucky are you?”

Rose Landry looks at her in the bathroom mirror, plainly confused. Gladys waves her hand, mumbles a spell she will not remember in the morning, and promptly throws up in the sink. 

She will never think about any of this again. 

 

---

 

Shane is waiting for Rose by the bathrooms and trying not to panic about having seen Rozanov across the crowded club when Cliff Marleau barrels into him and grabs him by the front of his T-shirt, eyes wide and wild with drunken shock. 

“He turned into a fucking dog,” he says. 

“Uh, hi, Marleau,” Shane says, trying to gently pry Marleau's fingers off his shirt.

“A dog,” Marleau insists. “A fucking ugly dog, too. Like this little gray terrier with its fucking tongue flopping out, dude! And then he ran away! I still have this!” Marleau releases Shane's shirt and almost falls over as he grabs a pile of clothes off the floor. He shakes them in Shane's face once before grabbing onto Shane's shirt again. At the top of that pile, angled perfectly to face up towards him, Shane makes eye contact with the leopard on the shirt that Rozanov was wearing earlier. His stomach turns over. 

“Um,” he says. “Are those all of Rozanov's clothes?”

“Every fuckin’ stitch, bro. And his wallet! And his fucking half-smoked cig, man. I'm telling you! Just, poof! Gone! Hello, doggy!”

“Oh my god, hi,” Rose says as she emerges from the bathroom. “Sorry that took so long! Some cute blonde just yarfed all over the mirror. Me and this other girl were…uh, are you beating up my boyfriend? Or?”

Marleau looks down and sees that he's still gripping onto Shane's shirt the way a bully in a cartoon would do before shoving some kid in a locker. 

“Rozanov turned into a dog,” he says. “I need help.”

“This might be, like, a full scale drugging situation,” Rose says conversationally as she tucks her arm through Shane's and gently begins to lead him and Marleau down the back hallway towards a door that will take them out into an alley. “Because the blonde was saying some weird shit too, before she threw up. Maybe this is like that movie where everyone goes crazy except for Timothy Olyphant. You know that one?”

“But he turned into a fucking dog, Rose Landry,” Marleau insists mournfully. “I'm not on drugs.”

But Marleau is too wasted to say anything else in his defense, and he allows Rose and Shane to maneuver him out into the alley for some fresh air. And obviously Rozanov didn't turn into a dog, because that's insane, but clearly something has happened to him, right? All of his clothes are here, and his wallet. Is he in trouble? Shane locked eyes with him less than fifteen minutes ago, and now Rozanov is apparently naked somewhere? That's weird, right? 

Shane’s eyes are still, unfortunately, locked on that snarling leopard on Ilya’s shirt. 

“Does he have his phone?” Shane wonders aloud. Marleau shakes his head, starts trying to dig through the heap of clothes in his meaty hands. One shoe clomps on the ground, and Rose picks it up for him. 

“His shoes too?” she asks. She looks at Shane. “Okay, what are the odds this guy isn’t crazy?” 

“What are the odds that Ilya Rozanov turned into a dog?” Shane asks. “Uh, a solid zero.” 

“Boo, you’re no fun,” Rose teases, but she helps Marleau with his burden, and they eventually find Ilya’s phone in one of his pant pockets. Then they all just stand in a circle with their heads down, staring at it for a bit. Rose sighs. “You ever think about how dependent we are on our phones now? Like, I don’t even know what to do now that we know he doesn’t have his phone.” 

“Rose Landry, my boy is butt ass naked out in the streets of Montreal. As a dog. He couldn't answer his phone even if he wanted to. He doesn't have thumbs!”

“Well, he’s definitely naked,” Shane has to admit. “Was he hooking up with that girl? Have you checked, like, any closets? Or offices? Or maybe bathrooms? Where do people hook up in clubs?” 

“You’re so cute,” Rose says. 

“You guys aren’t listening to me,” Marleau says. “He was standing right in front of me, smoking this cigarette.” He holds up the now-extinguished cigarette in question, as if it’s proof in a court case. He waves it around in front of their faces. “And then he was a small, ugly gray dog in a puddle of clothes. And then I screamed, and then he took off running, and I tried to catch him, but he’s fucking fast as a dog, bro. And then I came and found you, because you were the first person in there that I recognized, and because I don’t know what else to fucking do!” 

“Okay,” Shane says, trying to sound sort of gentle, or comforting, maybe, but he’s not sure it works. To be fair to him: Marleau is trying to claim that Rozanov turned into a fucking dog, and that’s just obviously not what happened, so of course he's talking to Marleau like he thinks Marleau has lost it. He does think Marleau has lost it!

Rose pops back into the club to ask the bartender if he saw anything weird in the last fifteen minutes, like maybe Ilya Rozanov's bare ass and/or dick, and Shane spends some time poking his head into shops and alleys and various dark corners on this block, because maybe Rozanov ran off, for some reason naked, and is now cowering behind a dumpster in abject embarrassment or something. 

Neither possibility pans out, and he and Rose meet back up in the alley, finding that Marleau has gathered three more drunk Raiders, and is in the middle of trying to convince them about the dog thing by doing show and tell with the clothes again. Shane is starting to feel tense, like he shouldn't be part of this, even though it's normal to be worried about a guy when he wanders away from his team and also his clothes. It's just the sportsmanlike thing to do, trying to help. It doesn't have to mean that he and Rozanov were until very recently fucking on the regular. 

“Bartender hasn’t seen a naked Russian man wandering around,” Rose jokes as she approaches the group. A few of the Raiders stare at her in awed incomprehension for a second before they apparently decide that Rose Landry is helping us is probably less confusing than Marleau thinks cap turned into a dog. 

“How would they know he’s Russian?” Conners asks. 

“I think the naked thing was more of an indicator,” Rose offers. She glances at Shane with an incredulous expression that makes him smile for the first time since this whole thing started. 

“Has anyone called Jane?” someone asks. Shane closes his eyes and breathes in deeply, and then releases that breath shakily, and he acknowledges to himself that this is probably the worst night of his life, but he just has to keep breathing through it, and he’s not going to die. 

“No man, no, don’t talk about Jane,” Marleau insists. “Jane dumped his ass and broke his heart, and we don’t talk about her anymore. She's evil. She made him cry! She's probably the one who made him turn into a dog!”

“Aw, poor Rozanov,” Rose says. 

“Not Jane!” Conners cries. “Is that why he's been so fucking miserable? Dude!”

“Broke his heart,” Marleau insists. 

Shane stares at a cockroach that’s crawling up the brick wall behind Marleau’s head. He sort of wishes he could turn into that cockroach so someone could step on him and end this conversation. 

“My boy didn’t deserve that,” Conners says mournfully. “Maybe that’s why he took off.” 

“Naked?” Shane puts in weakly. 

“He’s going to remind her what she’s missing,” Carmichael suggests. 

“Maybe he sent her a dick pic. Like a bat signal thing. Let’s check. Anyone know his password?” 

“Uh, how about I take the phone, actually,” Shane says, and he reaches in and sneaks the phone out of the pile of clothes in Marleau's hands. That’s the benefit of being the most sober person in this huddle of hockey players and Rose Landries by about two drinks. No one even notices. 

“I know it! It’s 242424,” Conners says, and everyone stops talking. 

“Oh, so he’s like obsessed with you,” Rose teases Shane, and everyone laughs, and takes it as a joke, and Shane clutches the phone in his hand so hard that all his fingerbones start to hurt, and only when everyone has started suggesting increasingly more insane things (“can we check at the dog pound? Is that a real thing? Like from cartoons?”) does he take a few steps away from the group and check if Conners was right. 

When the password unlocks Rozanov's phone, Shane’s stomach swoops and rolls and generally feels like total shit. Why would that be Rozanov's password? They were just casual hookups! 

And then Shane feels uncomfortable, as if he has found Ilya doing something obscene and embarrassing, like drawing eyeballs and freckles on his hand and practicing making out with it, or batting his eyes at a poster of Shane on his wall. Shane shoves Rozanov's phone into his pocket where it can live temporarily squashed up with Shane’s phone, safe from the comedic potential of Marleau sending a text to Jane milliseconds before Shane's phone starts going off, or whatever. 

The Raiders are all too drunk and confused to ask about Rozanov's phone again. They search in and around the club for more than an hour, and by then, Marleau is sober enough that he starts coming up with real ideas, like checking with police and hospitals in the area for anyone who was brought in for exposure, whether weather-related or indecent. Shane’s stomach hurts at the thought of Ilya alone in the city, naked, without his phone or his wallet or even shoes, so he offers that he and Rose will check a few places on their way home. He gives Marleau his number, even though that feels like playing with fire, considering the Jane thing. Marleau still hasn't let go of the dog story completely, so he describes the little gray terrier in even more detail so they can keep an eye out for it, but concedes that maybe he was a little more drunk and a little more high than a person really should be, and maybe he imagined the dog. Maybe. 

Rose is laughing about the whole thing as they walk down the street towards an all-night diner type place. They stop inside and get a coffee, and Shane takes out Rozanov's phone to see if anyone texted him something obvious like meet me outside with no clothes on, or else. This is the Russian mob, by the way. No such luck. 

“So,” Rose says once Shane has tucked the phone back into his pocket. “Crazy password, huh? Think he has a crush on you?” 

“What are you, twelve?” 

Rose laughs, but she takes a knowing sip of her coffee. 

“You seem really freaked out by this,” she says. 

“Well, yeah. The guy dropped all of his clothes, his phone, and his wallet, and it’s fucking cold out there. And I’m not, like, a complete dick. We’re rivals. That doesn’t mean I want him to turn up frozen in the river, or…” He chokes back whatever he’d been about to say next, because he can feel tears prickling behind his eyes, which is so stupid, actually. 

“Oh no,” Rose sighs. “I did it again, didn’t I?” 

“You didn’t do anything,” Shane says, because it seems like the right thing to say, even though he’s confused, and not sure what she means. 

“I did,” Rose says. “But this is not a conversation for a diner. Let’s go back to your place.” 

 

---

 

So they walk back to Shane’s place, and on the way, Rose tells him about all her gay boyfriends, and he starts out insisting that he’s not gay, and that he likes her, and that he wants to be with her, but Rose has this weird determination to her, this certainty that Shane could probably argue against, if he really wanted to, but he doesn’t want to, because it’s not like it isn’t true.

Like, okay, maybe he’s not gay. Maybe he’s like Rozanov, and could be with either men or women? But he hasn’t ever felt about a woman the way he has felt about Rozanov and other men. Even Rose, who is perfect, only ever inspires feelings of friendship in him. And if there’s any desire at all, it’s a desire to be normal, a desire to pretend, and he knows that’s not the same thing, as much as he has been trying to pretend that it is. 

“I didn’t mean to, like…lead you on?” he tries, feeling wretched. “I really thought maybe I could make this work. With you. Because I like you so much, and I really like spending time with you, and I thought, maybe, all the other stuff could work out?” 

Rose pulls him a little closer, their arms tucked together, and she makes a sympathetic sound that Shane frankly doesn’t think he deserves. 

“I know,” she says. “It’s not…I’m not blaming you. I think, if anything, it makes me feel better? I knew there was something going on. I just didn’t know what it was until tonight, you know?” 

“I’m sorry,” Shane says. That’s the truest thing, really. He is sorry. He feels like such an asshole. 

“No, no,” Rose says. “Don’t be. It’s okay.” 

“It’s really not.” 

“But it is! Look, I’d rather if we were both happy and you…oh my god. Shane. Shane, look. It’s him.” 

They’re like twenty steps from Shane’s apartment building, and Shane imagines for a second that Rose is pointing at the huddled, naked form of Rozanov trying to hide behind one of those parking stanchions. It would probably be kind of nice, that even despite everything, Rozanov would still turn to Shane when he didn’t know what else to do. But Shane follows Rose’s eyeline, and instead of Rozanov, it’s a shockingly teeny dog curled up just beside the door, under the spotlight. When it hears Rose’s voice, its head raises up from where it was curled into its body, and its tongue flops out of the side of its mouth for a second before it pulls it back in. 

“Ilya!” Rose cries happily. Shane groans. 

“It’s not…Rose! Do not pick up the stray dog.” 

Rose jogs up and crouches down in front of it, and she holds out a hand for the dog to sniff. The dog does not sniff her hand, and only looks at her warily, but when she reaches out a gentle hand to scratch between its ears, it settles a little, eyes closing. 

“We’re bringing it inside. You have to take a picture for Marleau, see if it’s the same dog.” 

“Rose, Ilya Rozanov did not turn into a dog,” Shane tries to explain patiently. He feels like he’s losing his mind. He feels like everyone has gone insane except for him. 

“Such a nonbeliever,” Rose says. 

“It probably has so many worms and fleas and shit.” 

“I think worms are a country dog thing.” 

“What? You think dogs in the city can’t get worms?” 

“Can they?” 

“I don’t really care, honestly! I don’t want that thing in my apartment.” 

“That thing? Oh my god, you’re a monster. This is Ilya Rozanov, generational talent!” 

“I fucking hate you,” Shane laughs. 

 

---

 

The dog, of course, is Ilya Rozanov, which he is struggling with mightily, having never been a dog before, and not particularly enjoying the experience so far. He starts enjoying it even less when Hollander finally returns home and has his fucking girlfriend with him. If Ilya was a human, he'd just scurry away into the shadows unnoticed, but dog Ilya has insultingly tiny little legs, and cannot scurry away fast enough, and he's cold and tired from all the scurrying he already did to get here.  

And then Rose pets him, which actually feels insanely good, and she starts talking about getting him inside, to where it will be warm, and Ilya is thinking might as well go in there and be forced to listen to them fuck, since I've been turned into a fucking dog for some reason. This day might as well keep getting worse! 

“This is the ugliest dog I've ever seen in my life,” Hollander tells him, right to his face. 

“How dare you. He's so cute. Look at his face!”

“Is he, like, missing teeth or something? Why's his tongue doing that?”

“Hockey players lose a lot of teeth, don't they, Ilya?” Rose says. Do they actually know he got turned into a dog? Why do they keep calling him Ilya? Why does Hollander seem so calm if he knows that Ilya was turned into a fucking dog? Rose reaches out her arms, and Ilya sighs, but allows her to pick him up. She awws and cuddles him close. 

“Rose,” Hollander groans. “Fleas!”

“Oh my god, relax, Mr. Billboard Model. Pay a dude in an app and tip him a ridiculous amount to go to a pet store or a drug store that's still open or something. I'm bringing him in.”

Ilya is unsurprised when Hollander relents, because that's how Hollander is. He will kick up a fuss and be all huffily annoyed about stuff, but he relents so beautifully, so often. And he would never let an innocent little dog freeze on his front steps, which is why Ilya came straight here after turning into a dog in front of a very confused and panicked Marleau. Yes, Ilya probably could have just stayed with Marleau, but Marleau had tried to pick him up with those giant mitts of his, yelling you're a fucking dog bro oh my god you're a fucking dog now my guy, and Ilya knew he was going to get squished or stepped on or accidentally thrown into a wall if he stuck around with Marleau in his panicked state, but Hollander? Hollander will at least treat him gently. 

Hollander unlocks the door and frowns aggressively down at his phone, probably rush-ordering flea shampoo. Ilya is a little insulted, because it's not like he picked up fleas and worms in the like two hours during which he has been a dog, but maybe Hollander doesn't think it's actually him.

Hollander is pretty woefully bad at being romantic, because he makes Rose wait down at the bottom of the stairs with Ilya as he goes upstairs and “gets the apartment ready”, whatever that means. 

“This is crazy,” Rose says to Ilya when Hollander is gone. “I didn't believe Marleau at first, but I don't know. You look like an Ilya to me.”

Ilya huffs and wriggles to be set down, but Rose ignores him and holds on tighter. Hollander comes back down to keep them company, sitting on the same stairs where he sat the first time Ilya fucked him, and it makes Ilya seriously consider that all of this is some kind of punishment for him. What did he do to deserve this? He has no idea, but it must have been bad, because this is fucking torture. Hollander smiles at Rose as Rose tells some story about filming that isn't nearly as funny as either of them seem to think it is, and Ilya wants to start growling at both of them so they let him back outside, but he just lies limply in Rose's arms instead, because if he has to be in hell, he might as well be physically comfortable. 

The delivery finally arrives, and Hollander allows Rose to bring Ilya upstairs with her. There are towels on the couch, and a little bowl of water on the floor, and some leftover pieces of burger in a second bowl that Ilya eats happily the second Rose sets him down.

“Aw, you're gonna let him on the couch?” Rose teases. Ilya wishes he could block his ears so he didn't have to hear them flirt. Fucking dog superhearing. Such bullshit. 

“Well I'm not gonna make him sleep on the floor,” Hollander says, insulted. Ilya thinks it's cute Hollander doesn't realize he's going in the bed, but whatever. 

Ilya would like to say that it's undignified, having to be shampooed and then scrubbed clean in the bathtub by Rose Landry and Shane Hollander. It's the sort of bisexual fever dream that he never could have conjured up on his own, but now he's probably going to be thinking about it forever. They're both very thorough, sudsing him up with the anti-flea shampoo and making him take all sorts of over the counter medications and vitamins that Rose feeds him in more little pieces of burger. Hollander keeps talking about how long he must have been on the street to look so messed up, which is really starting to bug him. He was on the street for like an hour. Give him a fucking break.

After, Hollander dries Ilya thoroughly, and again it's like this unfair fantasy come to life, except for the fact that Ilya is a fucking dog the whole time, so from his perspective it's like Hollander is a very sexy giant picking him up and rubbing at him vigorously with a towel, and when it's over, Ilya has to slink away in shame and cower behind the toilet until he can get his heart rate under control again. 

“Aw, he's scared,” Rose says. “You scared him.”

“He's lucky he's not getting hosed off outside,” Hollander says. Ilya barks at him without thinking about it. Of course it comes out weak and squeaky, and Rose falls to pieces, almost sobbing with laughter. Hollander laughs too, throwing his hands up. 

“Maybe he is Rozanov,” he jokes. Ilya barks again, which only leads to more hysterics.

Rose carries Ilya into the kitchen, where she hoists him up on her shoulder like a baby as she pokes through the fridge for something he feels like eating. The emergency delivery had included some dog food and dog treats, but there's no fucking way Ilya is going to resort to that. He's content enough with some carrot sticks that Rose unearths from the crisper drawer, which has Hollander looking irritated, like it will make such a big dent in his bank account, to have wasted some money on kibble that will go untouched.

They all settle on the couch, and Ilya is petty enough to sit between them on purpose, though they don't seem eager to cuddle up anyway, so maybe his pettiness was for nothing. Ilya is starting to get sleepy, and with that sleepiness comes a sense of contented apathy. Like, okay, he is being forced to spend time with the man he stupidly might love and the girlfriend that that man got after running out on Ilya and possibly breaking his heart, but at least Hollander laid down a towel for him and doesn't want him to sleep on the floor, and at least it's warm in here, and at least Ilya's sensitive dog nose can really pick up Hollander's scent, here. The mix of shampoo and body wash and cologne he uses. He can fall asleep like this, and then, in the morning, he can freak the fuck out and try to figure out how to get back into his human body. 

“You okay?” Rose asks. 

“Not really,” Hollander says, his voice hoarse and tired. “I’m worried about him.”

“But Shane,” Rose says, scratching Ilya's ears gently. “He's right here.”

Hollander laughs a little and leans his head back against the couch. 

“Sure,” he says. “We can pretend that.”

“Would it make you feel better?”

“Uh, probably not, no. Because I don't believe he's a dog, so.”

“Sorry, Ilya,” Rose sing-songs. “No such luck.”

Hollander takes Ilya's phone out of his pocket, and Ilya is actually relieved to see it. Not that he doesn't trust Cliff not to snoop, but, well…he doesn't trust Cliff not to snoop.

“I'm gonna text Marleau and ask if there are any updates, and let him know I still have Rozanov's phone.”

“Why did you take the phone?” Rose asks. Ilya, even as a dog, reads that tone immediately as not as sneaky as it's trying to be, and his head perks up with interest. He glances at her, and she winks at him. Seriously, is she just doing a bit? Or does she actually believe he's a dog?

“Uh, I don't know. They were like waving it around or whatever, and I thought…”

“Kinda weird that your number three times is his phone password.”

Oh, fuck. How do they know that? Maybe Ilya can start biting ankles and they'll drive him to a fucking kill shelter. Fuck his life. 

“Uh, I guess. It's probably a coincidence.”

“Shane.”

“Rose.”

“Jane.”

“Jesus, Rose. Look, I don't know what you want me to say.”

“You don't have to say anything. Just, I'm pretty sure that the reason things haven't been working out between us might be about more than just the gay thing.”

Okay, now Ilya's head is just ping-ponging back and forth as they talk, ears perking up more and more with interest. 

Things aren't working out?

The gay thing?

“That's….”

“Ridiculous?” Rose asks when Hollander doesn't finish. “You're worried about him.”

“Of course I'm worried about him. The guy took off naked without his phone.”

“Please let's not do the thing where you act like I'm crazy for noticing something that's there. I've had so many gay boyfriends, Shane, and the playbook is always the same. I'm not angry about it. I said that, right? I want to be your friend. I want to help you. I want us to hang out without having to worry about how awkward the sex is.”

Ilya laughs. It comes out as an adorable sneeze that derails the conversation for a few seconds so Rose can coo over him, which is horrifying, but Hollander is smiling a little bit too, so at least that's something. 

“He's so ugly,” Hollander marvels. Ilya curls up with his back to Hollander, putting his chin on Rose's thigh. She laughs and scratches all up and down his spine, which would feel nice even if he thought she was still dating Hollander, but feels especially nice now that he suspects that she isn't. 

“Good boy,” she says. Ilya huffs. 

“Okay,” Hollander says. “You're not crazy. But I can't…it's not just my shit to talk about.”

“Okay,” Rose agrees. Her fingernails are still scraping along Ilya's tiny spine, and he could fall asleep exactly like this, except that he wants to keep listening. “So just tell me what you can. I'm probably guessing something way more perverted than what really happened.” 

“Eh, I don't know,” Shane hedges, which makes Rose laugh loudly.

“I knew you'd be a secret slut,” she says. “Ew, sorry, that's the last horrible thing I'm going to say, I promise. What can you tell me?”

“Well, if there was anything, with another player, or another man, or anyone, it's over now. I don't want you to think that I, like, cheated on you.”

“I think you'd probably throw up if you tried. You're too sweet. But, okay. Noted. We should be, like, very clear here, though: this is done, right? You're not going to try and get me to beard for you?” 

“No,” Hollander says, though he sounds maybe a little reluctant about that. “No, I think we can call this a failed experiment.”

“Great, okay. Court adjourned, or whatever. Go back to the story.”

“There's no story! It just, it was just…it was supposed to be casual. Uh, or, like, if anything was happening, which it wasn't, then…”

“Oh my god, Shane, you were fucking Ilya Rozanov. Me and Dog Ilya Rozanov aren't going to tell anyone. Are you, dog Ilya Rozanov?”

Dog Ilya Rozanov pretends to be asleep so he doesn't have to answer, but his heart is racing. He could probably get Hollander to stop talking about this with a few well timed barks or maybe a couple of couch scratches, but he doesn't. He wants to hear what Hollander has to say. 

“I wasn't fucking Ilya Rozanov,” Hollander deadpans. “Hypothetically, if it was anything, he was fucking me.”

Rose throws her head back to laugh. 

“Okay, okay. Hypothetically: good for you. He's hot!”

“Yeah, I guess,” Hollander says. Ilya would roll his eyes, if he could. 

“Oh, shut up. You know he's hot. Okay, so why'd it stop?”

“Are you sure this isn't weird for you? Didn't we technically like just break up?”

“I'm a serial accidental dater of gay men, and I've had my suspicions for a bit. Trust me: I'll be fine.”

Hollander sighs, and then his big hand comes down onto Ilya's back, almost unthinkingly. 

“I just…what if I am gay? And what if I want more than I was allowed to want? There have always been, like, rules. Like casual hookup rules. I didn't always understand them or follow them, I guess? Like I fucked up sometimes. I'm not the best at the whole casual thing. And, hypothetically, he wasn't the best at explaining things to me. I guess. If we want to get technical.”

“He seems to agree, because he's not protesting,” Rose points out in a whisper. 

“Thats because he's not really Rozanov,” Hollander whispers back, and Rose laughs. 

“Look,” she says. “As your therapist…”

“Is that a promotion or demotion from girlfriend?” 

“Demotion, definitely. 

“Sorry, then. That blows. I can fire you, if you want?”

“Shush. As your therapist, I'm assigning you homework for the next half hour. I'm gonna take a shower…”

“Not for a fucking half hour, you aren't. A half hour?”

“...and you tell dog Ilya Rozanov what you want to tell human Ilya Rozanov. Because that is literally human Ilya Rozanov in dog form. I'm so serious about this.”

“Okay,” Hollander laughs. Rose kisses him on the cheek before she disappears up the stairs, and Ilya grumbles about it jealously even though he supposes he should be more cool about it, considering all the breakup talk. 

Hollander looks at him skeptically, and Ilya heaves a sigh and then crawls up into his lap. Hollander melts, predictably, and pets him, which is nice. Actually, all of it is really nice. Climbing up into Hollander's lap like this, feeling small and warm and uncomplicated. He could get used to this, but he hopes he doesn't have to. He's not sure how to get back to Boston as a dog. 

“This is stupid,” Hollander says. Ilya stands on two paws and puts his front paws on Hollander's chest and stretches up his little body so that he can lick Hollander's nose. Hollander's expression immediately scrunches up. “Gross, dude. Your breath is rancid.”

Oh my god, fuck you, Hollander, Ilya thinks, and he licks Hollander's face even more aggressively until Hollander laughs and pushes him down. Ilya sits back down on his haunches, on Hollander's thighs, and looks up at him, waiting. 

“Clearly, you're not actually him, because Rozanov would never lick my face,” Hollander says. 

I am, and I would, but okay.

“I probably should have done a better job at hiding this from Rose. He's probably not gonna be thrilled if I get the chance to tell him.”

I don't care if Rose Landry knows, just as long as you aren't dating Rose Landry anymore.

“And I don't have to tell you shit, because you're a dog. But I can try, uh. Pretending? So. I'm sorry? Uh. Sorry I left, I mean. I freaked out, and I know it was stupid, and cruel, maybe. I felt like an asshole. Still do.”

Ilya tilts his head to the side, trying to look earnest and cute and attentive.

So why did you leave, then?

“I literally didn't know dogs could be this ugly,” Hollander says, affection bleeding through in his tone. “Um. I don't know what else I'm supposed to say to you. Or him. I guess it's probably for the best that we stop fooling around. I mean, I don't think either of us thinks it's going to be forever, and I know neither of us can be, like, open about being together? And I think maybe I might be gay, but you're not. And you made that pretty clear, that day. I guess that's part of why I freaked out, but there was other stuff, too. I just feel like it would be easier for both of us, if we saw other people. And girls probably won't work out for me, but I don't have to date anyone. I like what we were doing, but I could probably live without it, and then you could get together with some perfect girl and forget about me. God, I'm throwing myself a fucking pity party at a dog.”

Oh please. You really think I would forget you? 

“I guess it just felt really real, last time? Like there was more there than just fucking. Which can't happen, obviously. Except then I wanted more, and I realized how bad it's going to suck. Like, the more used to it I get, the worse it's going to hurt when you start dating someone for real. And then it was weird, because we were even, like, saying each other's names different from how we usually do. Which sounds so stupid. Like, I can say it. Ilya. It's just a name.”

Shane, Ilya thinks dutifully. 

“Ilya. Ilya. Whatever. It just felt different that time, I guess. I wanted to stay, which is why I had to leave. I already think…ugh. You're not really him. So I can just say it.” Shane visibly works himself up. “I like you a lot. Too much, probably. Probably I more-than-like you, but I'm not saying that to a dog, even if it's pretend. But I probably do. Uh. I guess that might be part of why I ran, too. I don't think I've ever felt like this about anyone else, and it scares the shit out of me. You scare the shit out of me. You're like the one thing in my life I can't control at all. Like I'm not even myself when we're together. I'm something else, and I like that something better than I ever like me. It's fucking terrifying. Anyway, whatever. Hopefully the real Ilya is okay. I hope Marleau was making that shit up when he said the thing about Jane breaking his heart. I hope I didn't do that. I hope he's just angry. Maybe a little hurt is okay, but that's selfish to say. I don't actually hope he's hurt. I hope he's like in the middle of a giant orgy right now, having tons of fun.” A pause for consideration. “No I don't, really. I'm an asshole. I hope he ran back to his hotel and he's fine and alone. Maybe I can be a bigger person one day and be polite when I meet his wife. He's probably going to settle down soon, right? He's got to. He's so…ugh. He's so hot, and so nice sometimes. He's a catch. And I'm going to be that guy who doesn't get married and everyone gossips about it and then I'll get caught, like, sucking someone's dick at a rest stop after I retire, and everyone will be like oh, actually, that makes sense. He always had a vibe, and then my gay vibes will taint my legacy forever. Or something like that. Jesus. Even saying that to a dog feels weird. Sorry, Ilya.”

Ilya nestles a little closer, resting his head on Shane's stomach. Shane scratches his blunt fingers pleasantly on the top of Ilya's head, and Ilya is a little glad that he can't talk like this, because he probably needs some time to figure out what to say, and would probably make things worse if he tried to charge in right now and fix all of it. 

Rose comes back downstairs, and she and Shane watch a movie while Ilya stews in the uncomfortable knowledge of why Shane left. It annoys him that he sort of understands. He's still angry, and hurt, and wishes Shane hadn't done it, but it's scary for him to think about the alternative: Shane staying. For how long? For forever? Is that logical? 

Like, if Shane stayed, what would that mean? What does Ilya even want? It was nice, then. It was nice, feeding Shane and waking up next to him and feeling like they were actually together, and not just chasing the physical high of it all. But all the reasons why they can't be anything more than what they are now are still in existence. It's still a mistake to be like this at all with Shane. It could fuck up both of their lives if they were ever caught. 

But he knows what he felt when Shane left his house, and he knows what he felt when Shane was first photographed with Rose Landry, and he knows what he feels now as he lies curled in Shane's lap. He doesn't want to leave. Everything else that is keeping them apart aside, he just doesn't want to leave. He wants to stay. He wants this. He wants Shane, however he can have him, for however long he is allowed. He will take anything that Shane can give him. 

 

---

 

Despite his earlier insistence that the dog is ugly and gross and probably flea-ridden, Shane is the one who takes Ilya outside to “do his business” and then carries him back in, warm in his hoodie. Ilya resolves to forget every second of that mortifying ordeal except for the nice moment when Shane wipes off his paws with baby wipes and then carries him back into the living room.

“You're so that dad from all the memes who says he doesn't want a pet and then is like obsessed with the dog,” Rose says. She snaps a picture of Shane carrying Ilya, and Shane and Ilya both scoff together, which sends her into peals of laughter. Ilya hopes that she will go home now, but is unsurprised when she doesn't, and glowers uselessly when Shane invites her to stay. They migrate upstairs into the bedroom, where they both change into Shane's pajama pants and t-shirts, both of them looking unfairly good. 

“How was your therapy session?” Rose teases. Shane sighs as he lays a towel down at the foot of the bed and lifts Ilya up into it. “He clearly thought it went well! Look at his little tail!”

Ugh, is his tail wagging? That's humiliating. 

“Probably more helpful than a real therapist, because I can just pretend he agrees with everything I say,” Shane jokes. He and Rose get under the covers and stare at each other for a little bit. Ilya leaves his towel and climbs onto Shane's chest, which makes Rose start giggling again. “I really am sorry,” Shane says, ruining the lighthearted atmosphere. 

“To me or to Rozanov?” Rose asks. 

“Both, I guess. Could have avoided a lot of mess if I wasn't so in denial.”

“Yeah, but then we never would have met! And I think we're going to rule as friends. We've had so much fun these last couple of weeks! And now look, we're even having fun in a bed. Things are already improving!”

“Shut up,” Shane groans, covering his face. “Oh my god.”

“We're looking on the bright side here, Hollander,” Rose says. “No negativity allowed!”

Ilya makes himself more comfortable, resting his face on Shane's chest. Tomorrow, he will figure out a way to get Shane to believe him. Rose already seems to know he's a dog, so maybe she can help him convince Shane? Eventually, they'll believe him, and then they can get in touch with Marleau, and maybe with enough braincells on this problem, they'll figure out how to get him back to human. 

But for now, at least, this is sort of nice. Hollander's hand comes up and brushes through his fur, and Ilya knows that Shane likes him, and regrets leaving, and isn't dating Rose anymore, and wants Ilya in the exact same way that Ilya wants him, complete with not really knowing what they're allowed to have. At least they'll be able to be confused together. 

 

---

 

Shane wakes up because something heavy has suddenly landed on his chest, squishing the air out of him. It's not entirely unpleasant, because Shane actually loves being squished, but it is a surprising thing to happen out of nowhere. His eyes fly open on instinct, and the room is mostly dark, the sun just barely starting to come up, but it's light enough to see Ilya Rozanov's face, peering up at him from where his chin is just casually resting on Shane's chest. He and Shane lock eyes with each other for a few seconds, neither of them moving, and then Ilya cranes his neck up a little bit, the tip of his tongue licking the tip of Shane’s nose. 

“You were the fucking dog,” Shane breathes out, because he can think of nothing else to say. 

“Yes, of course I was the dog.”

“Of course, like that's a fucking normal thing to…”

“Shh,” Rose slurs sleepily. “I told you. Hi Ilya.”

“Hi Rose,” Ilya replies. 

“Cute puppy.”

“No, he was hideous,” Shane insists, but Rose has already turned over and gone back to sleep. Ilya sighs and lays his cheek back down on Shane's chest. Shane wants to flail his way out of bed and have a complete meltdown about all of this, but apparently everyone else is going to act like it's normal for a man to turn into a dog and then turn back into a man at sunrise! Apparently no one is interested in figuring out what the fuck happened so they can make sure it doesn't happen again! Nope, just Shane worrying about everything as always while everyone else acts like he's crazy for worrying! Fine! 

Shane adjusts a little, moving his legs to give Ilya room to lie between them, tangling his fingers in Ilya's curls to remind himself that Ilya is still there, and is not a dog. 

Ilya's breathing has already evened out, soft snores coming from his half-open mouth. Shane sighs and closes his eyes and rubs his hand up and down Ilya's arm. Warm skin greets him, rather than fur, and that is enough comfort to get him to slide back into a comfortably squished sleep, giving him at least a few more hours before he really loses his shit.