Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov

Additional Tags:

Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Unreliable Narrator, Hockey Magic, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Spoilers for Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers)

Language:

English

Series:

Part 6 of here a fic there a fic everywhere a fic-fic

Stats:

Published: 2026-10-07 Words: 1,444 Chapters: 1/1

what kind of magic spell to use

Summary

Most Europeans who have good magic for hockey stay in Europe. There are a few leagues that don't use magic over there, but most of them do. Russia is famous for it, and famously does shit in the international leagues that don't allow it, and phenomenally in the international leagues that allow it.

Rozanov's powers don't just guarantee him the win. The last Russian with solid Hockey powers who joined the MLH was Varkov, and while he never admitted why he made the switch, it seems obvious to Shane. He still doesn't understand why Rozanov would.

Notes

Title from Magic Dance by David Bowie because (say it with me) it was playing when I needed a title.

Word is Oxygen

I love magical realism for these two so much. Please enjoy.

No beta, we die like the Metro's chance at a cup post Shane leaving.

Shane usually likes the All Star Game. He likes playing good hockey, and he likes winning and usually the All Star Game gives him both.

This year they changed the format — not only are there far more fan voted in attendees then ever before, but they're allowing magic during the game itself. The teams are chosen based on last names — gotta keep Hollander and Rozanov from playing on the same team, apparently, and this is what they've come to for that goal. And most damningly, in Shane's mind, they didn't tell everyone about the magic rule until after fan voting had closed, so the attendees aren't the best at hockey or even with the best magic to work for a hockey game.

It's just stupid, is what it is.

Rozanov, of course, loves it.

Most Europeans who have good magic for hockey stay in Europe. There are a few leagues that don't use magic over there, but most of them do. Russia is famous for it, and famously does shit in the international leagues that don't allow it, and phenomenally in the international leagues that allow it.

It's why Russia was predicted to win both of the Prospect Cups that Shane played in, since those allow magic. It's why Shane '=is so smug about getting the gold the second time. He would've, obviously, preferred to get it the first time too, but even watching tape of Rozanov, it was too hard to predict how he'd use his teleportation until he'd actually played it.

So basically there are only a handful of players with any even vaguely useful magic, and Shane predicts that only Rozanov's is going to use his in any sort of useful way. Hunter's healing would be great if they were playing play off level and he could shake off a nasty hit, but no one hits that nasty during the All Star Game — and unfortunately for Hunter he only heals the moment the injury happens, which means even he's limping on the rare occasions his team makes it to the play offs, since by the time the game ends his injury is set.

At least Rozanov's powers don't just guarantee him the win. The last Russian with solid Hockey powers who joined the MLH was Varkov, and while he never admitted why he made the switch, it seems obvious to Shane.

A goalie who can create an invisible wall that keeps pucks from the net unless they're teleported in by another player certainly leads to many wins — but not interesting games. He can only imagine how bored Varkov would've been, just using his magic night after night and not actually getting to play hockey at all.

Rozanov, on the other hand, only teleports short distances, so he's still playing. Obviously Shane wouldn't want to play hockey that way, but he's not Rozanov and Rozanov is such a cocky son of a bitch about it anyways.

Either way, it's going to be a fucking obnoxious game.

---

Ilya gets the puck free from the scrum, shoots it towards the center and immediately teleports after it. He's laughing when he catches it, laughs more when Hollander is suddenly there — not teleportation-suddenly, he's just a fast motherfucker, but he always is — and teleports out of the line of the check but then has to scramble back for the puck that Hollander has stolen.

He doesn't regret coming to the MLH at all — North America is the freedom he wanted and more — but it's fucking freeing to get to play hockey with magic again, even if he's only ever going to get to for All Stars games, the rare Winter Classic where they decide to make it a thing, or the occasional pick up practice games he can talk his team into.

It's better with Hollander though — he's not magic, of course, but he's good at anticipating where Ilya will go and getting there faster than anyone else could.

Ilya's team is still going to win, of course, but Hollander will make him fight for it.

---

Shane isn't nervous about showing Ilya around the rest of the cottage, not anymore. Not after everything. But he does want to share it all with him and let him make memories across every possible bit of it. He wants it to be their cottage.

"Wow," says Ilya, elongating the word obnoxiously, when he steps into the rink.

Shane loves him so much, but he knows he's about to be an asshole.

"Who are you inviting here that you have all these anti-magic runes, huh? Scared someone is going to break in and force you to play and don't want to give them an advantage?"

"You're an asshole," Shane says, dragging him into a quick kiss before smirking. "I don't need any advantage to beat you though."

---

Ilya wishes he could teleport further, could just appear in Shane's Montreal apartment as soon as his game was over.

He'd thought he missed him before, but now that he has him, missing him is worse. Better, but worse.

He calls, instead, because he can't teleport more than a yard or so at a time, and while doing it would be faster than walking it wouldn't be faster than driving, and he doesn't have time to drive there and back before he has to attend practice.

Shane's freckles still appear in the video, and it's good, but he wishes he could feel them under his thumb, under his tongue.

---

Shane's in the middle of practice when his mother's voice sounds in his head. "Sweetheart, your father says that Ilya's plane is going to crash." He stops where he is, rooted through the ice, as he strips off his gloves to get to the silicone band on his left wrist, which he pulls off, drops, and then he stretches and —

It only takes him a moment to find where Ilya is, already afraid — his father's premonitions never give much warning at all, unfortunately — and he can't soothe him, can't waste the time on that, but he cradles the plane in his mind and doesn't let the oxygen get to the fire, and holds it steady as the pilots do everything right to get them onto the ground. It wouldn't have been enough, but it's easier for him to let the pilots direct things so that he doesn't yank too hard and accidently hurt them anyways, instead he just supports and keeps a tight seal on the wing until the plane has landed and everyone has disembarked — and then he releases his hand and the rest of the wing goes up in flame, oxygen rushing in. But it's fine, there's a fire truck there, and Ilya is fine. His team is mostly fine, a few bruises, but nothing that should impact play.

He brushes a kiss across Ilya's knuckles where he's still holding his mother's cross to his mouth and then settles back into his body.

His team hasn't noticed his disengagement, of course they haven't, he'd been turning them away and back to focus on something else the entire time. He scoops up the silicone band, covered with runes to suppress his magic, and skates off to the side so that when he puts it back on and they realize he's still there they aren't confused about why he's standing like a log in the middle of the ice.

So they don't realize they've been skating around him like he's not there.

The problem, he thinks, when he fiddles with his suppression band, is that he's not suppressed right then and he is now far too aware of how little most of his team thinks of him.

Ignorance is bliss, he thinks, as he slips it back on. And even as Thériault yells at him to get back in position he knows he's going to have to talk to Farah about it, talk to his mom. He can't be on the team now that he knows what they all think of him. Now that he knows what they think of Ilya.

He's never needed the confirmation of how Ilya feels about him, but it's still a warm weight in his chest, to know just how deeply he's loved. He never would have checked, never would have cheated.

But he knows, now.

And he loves him so much.

So probably he has to do something to make sure Ilya knows how much he returns those feelings.

A call to Ilya first, he decides as he skates a drill he's done hundreds of times before, just to hear his voice, then to Farah to discuss feeling out Ottawa, then his mom to check in about brands.