Archive of Our Own

The worst thing about Shane Hollander, Ilya decided on an early Saturday morning, was that he insisted on doing these ridiculous runs at the crack of dawn.

When they were first exclusive, Ilya joined him on a few runs (okay, three). And yes, the sunrise in Montreal was very pretty. Like a fool, Ilya stopped during the run to take a photo of the sunrise, a photo he promptly forgot about. And like a bigger fool, Shane took this as a sign that his boyfriend loved early morning runs. Which is why, when Shane surprised Ilya with his own headlamp in Boston Raiders colors as a gift for his early morning runs… Ilya had to break down and confess.

Running was awful. Early mornings? Might as well be hell. Needing a headlamp or micro-spikes for winter running was positively insane to Ilya.

Shane was free to do these runs, and if he truly needed Ilya on these runs for their relationship… Ilya would need to get a lobotomy. Perhaps a blowjob, no, two blowjobs every day to get him up (ha!) on these runs. Shane laughed at Ilya’s dramatics and assured him that no lobotomies were necessary. So, as Shane woke up for his “Beat the Sun Runs,” Ilya pulled the blankets over his head and slept his mornings away until Shane came panting back into the house.

Ilya still loved that idiot with his headlamp and running shoes.

They had the routine down. Shane would enter the house, toe off his shoes, and make some one liner comment about the run. Anya would trail after him, her tail wagging, following him into the kitchen. Shane would then grab the water that Ilya conveniently left on the counter as he scoured the fridge for carbs to inhale.

All the while, Ilya was sitting at the counter on his phone, drinking his sugary coffee. He eyed his favorite show: Shane sweaty, red, and out of breath. Sometimes, Ilya was lucky and saw Shane tear off his top, which was always his favorite running mornings.

Then came the day when Shane came into the kitchen, and instead of gulping the entire glass of water, he leaned against the counter with his phone out. Anya bumped her head against Shane’s leg and looked at Ilya in confusion. Ilya looked over his mug as Shane tousled his hair, biting his lip in a way that Ilya knew meant he was thinking about something deeply.

“Can I help?” Ilya asked, lowering his mug, as Shane kept typing into his phone.

“Just trying to figure out what to title my run,” Shane mumbled, and Ilya frowned at him.

“Title your run?”

“Yeah, for Strava,” Shane said as if that were a normal sentence at 8 AM.

Ilya shook his head, placing his hands on the counter. “What the fuck is Strava?”

“You don’t know what Strava is?” Shane asked incredulously, tearing his eyes away from the phone, as Ilya shook his head at him.

“Shane, do you know who Bad Bunny is?” Ilya asked seriously as Shane squinted at Ilya, looking up at the ceiling as if Ilya had scrawled the answer up above.

“Is that like a kid’s book?”

Ilya blinked at him, trying to rein in his indignation. Though it was hard, because he had sent Shane a playlist earlier this week. So it turned out that his boyfriend wore headlamps like a dork and was a liar.

God, why did he love him?

Ilya grinned, shaking his head. “You’re actually hopeless. I may need to return you to your parents, claim defective son–”

“You don’t know what Strava is!” Shane said, picking up his phone, as Ilya rolled his eyes. He pulled out his own phone, quickly searching the term.

“Strava is a social media app that tracks fitness activities such as running, cycling, and other workouts,” Ilya read out loud in a formal tone. He immediately dropped the phone as he put his face in his hands.

“Oh my God, Shane, you’re so boring. You barely log into Instagram but this–”

“But look, it can track my runs and times. And I can upload photos, give out Kudos–”

“What the fuck is a Kudos?” Ilya asked, lifting his head from his hands, as Shane shoved his phone into his face. Ilya’s eyebrows rose as he looked down at the activity page.

“It’s similar to a ‘Like’ on Instagram, and you can follow your friends–”

“Wait, this is Hayden Pike’s time? Incredible. I love this app,” Ilya said gleefully, as he snatched Shane’s phone out of his hands and tapped into Hayden Pike’s profile.

He did the same boring routes as Shane, which meant that Ilya had done the same runs, and Pike’s times were horrible.

“6:45 per mile for a 5K?” Ilya asked as Shane pressed his lips tightly together. “How the fuck did Montreal win the Cup?”

“Okay I think he was sick that day or running with one of the kids–” Shane protested, as Ilya shook his head, scrolling through the rest of Hayden’s workouts. And okay, Hayden’s time did pick up for some runs.

But his average was still closer to 6:45.

“Shane, you liked his slow runs.”

“No, it’s giving a kudos–”

“Okay, you ‘kudosed’ these runs? You’re the captain! You should be commenting on these runs!”

“Oh yeah, and what would you comment?”

“Something helpful like, ‘run faster’,” Ilya said, rolling his eyes, as he passed back the phone to Shane.

“Okay, not helpful. And I am doing drills with him later. But, oh, I can title my run ‘King of the loop de loop’!” Shane said happily as he went back to his run and punched in the title.

“Shane, what the fuck–”

“No, okay, so in Strava there are segments and you can compete with those in the area for the top time. And today, I finally got the top time for the segment.”

“Shane, that is ridiculous,” Ilya said, before pausing. “But what is the segment?”

Shane showed it to Ilya on the map, and just as the name suggested, it was a loop de loop. Ilya also noted the time and made a mental note for his own run today.

“Impressive,” he said calmly, taking a sip of his coffee as his boyfriend finally grabbed the cup of water. Anya lay down at Shane’s feet, a small groan escaping her.

Of course, Ilya downloaded Strava. He was about to head out for his own run, but he absolutely needed to procrastinate as much as possible before the 5K. With his shoes on, untied, Ilya sat down on the bench in the hallway as he navigated the app.

After creating his profile, locking down the views (he didn’t need the fans to know where he ran), he started adding some of his friends.

To his surprise, Cliff Marlow, Zane Boodram, and Wyatt Hayes were on the app. Ryan Price was there, even though it was mostly just cycling. Ilya was quick to add all of them and even went so far as to add Hayden Pike and Scott Hunter. Hell, he even added Kip.

Almost immediately, Ilya heard Shane walk out into the hallway.

“You downloaded Strava!” he said excitedly, lifting his phone to show the friend request.

“I did,” Ilya replied, bending down and tying his shoelaces.

“You’re going to love it,” Shane said, leaning against the banister of the stairway. “Do you know where you’re going to run today?” Shane asked, and Ilya shrugged his shoulders, pulling out his headphones.

“Not sure, maybe just a lap around the neighborhood,” Ilya said, as Shane started to shake his head.

“No good, it’s actually not 3.1 miles, as I found out from Strava–”

Ilya groaned loudly, standing up and stretching his arms over his head. “Oh my God, you’re so boring. I love you,” Ilya said, leaning over the banister to kiss Shane quickly.

“I’ll see you in twenty or so!” he shouted to Shane, waving, before exiting the house. He started to jog in place as he navigated his phone for his running playlist. Once the music was blasting, he started his own watch and went on his run.

Within fifteen minutes, he made it to the loop de loop segment. Grinning, he picked up his pace and sprinted through the segment. Looking down at his watch, he noted the mile time (faster than his average) and figured it was good enough. He ran home, confident that he had beaten Shane.

Ilya glowered at the Strava app, pinching the screen to get a close-up of the loop de loop segment as Shane bumbled around the kitchen, humming to himself as he unloaded the dishwasher.

Ilya couldn’t find it in himself to be happy that Shane was humming “DtMF.”

“I thought this stupid segment started earlier, I didn’t realize it started at the sidewalk,” Ilya grumbled, throwing the phone on the counter and grabbing the glass of water that was conveniently left out.

“All I hear are excuses,” Shane said as he shut the dishwasher. He brushed his hands on his pants, frowning at the empty towel rack.

“No, because I would have beaten you. Did you not even see my mile pace?”

“No, because I only look at the results. Why would I bother with someone’s time who came in second place?” Shane said, leaning on the counter and wiggling his eyebrows.

Ilya groaned, lifting the bottom of his shirt to cover his face. “My boyfriend has been taken over by the Strava monster, this is the worst,” Ilya moaned, letting the shirt fall off his face to find Shane rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, go call the wambulance. Are you going to shower? We should start heading over to the offices in a bit,” Shane said as Ilya pouted and looked down at his phone.

A plan was hatching.

Later that night, while Shane was reading his book, glasses perched on the edge of his nose, Ilya turned to his side. He lowered the brightness on his phone, put in one headphone, and started his relentless search.

“You are making a salad?” Shane asked incredulously the next morning, eyes nearly falling out of his head as he took a closer look at Ilya’s plate.

Ilya frowned, pulling his plate closer to himself, suddenly feeling self-conscious about the breakfast he had put together. It was a perfectly normal meal for breakfast.

Even if Anya didn’t want to eat the pieces that had already fallen to the floor and snorted at the leafy greens, it was a perfectly normal meal.

“No. It is just eggs over spinach and some vegetables,” Ilya said, attempting to be nonchalant as he picked up his fork, ready to stab into it.

Okay, Shane wasn’t wrong. It was a salad. It was very different from Ilya’s typical breakfast, which was sugary coffee, eggs, and a shit ton of bacon.

However, thanks to the internet and briefly downloading some running books on his Kindle, there was a consensus that to beat Shane in running, he would have to make adjustments to his diet.

Like eating a salad in the morning, which, if you asked Ilya, was sacrilegious. God made breakfast sandwiches for a reason.

“It is 9 AM and you are eating a salad,” Shane repeated, pointing to the salad as if Ilya didn’t have eyes.

Ilya rolled his eyes, shoved the fork in his mouth, and chewed loudly. Shane crossed his arms and waited for Ilya to swallow.

“Is not different than drinking a green smoothie in the morning. At least mine has an egg, you just drink liquefied grass,” Ilya said, stabbing his salad again as Shane moved around the kitchen.

“Okay, but does it taste good? It looks dry,” Shane asked, shutting cabinets as Ilya hummed down at his salad.

The truth? It tasted bland. Mostly because the house didn’t have the ingredients Ilya needed for the dressing. And while Ilya could have gotten into his car and driven to the grocery store… he opted for the easier route. Even if his salad was boring.

“Delicious. I can feel myself becoming Popeye the Sailor,” Ilya said, his mouth full as he flexed his biceps in Shane’s direction. Shane’s eyes lingered on his arms, and he licked his lips, pausing with his own smoothie ingredients out on the counter. Ilya swallowed his bite and grinned, ignoring the spinach stuck in his teeth. Shane shook his head, as if shaking a fog off, and returned to his smoothie prep.

“You are ridiculous. But it’s good that you’re eating healthier. You’re going to feel better when you work out,” Shane mumbled, half to himself, half to Ilya who continued to eat his sad salad.

On Ilya’s run day, he prepped with all the same superstitions that he used with his hockey gear. Not that he was superstitious because, logically, he knew that it did not matter if he put his socks in one order over another and that the color did not determine if one was going to have a good game or not.

That was stupid.

But there was no denying the luck that the green running socks had over the blue ones. He was sure that he had read in one of the running blogs that lucky socks were absolutely a thing.

Ilya had dropped a pin exactly to the coordinates of where the loop de loop was set to start. There was no way he was going to make the same mistake twice. He made it a point to do a five-minute jog on the treadmill before stretching out in the gym. Shane walked in part way through Ilya’s stretching and nearly walked into a wall in confusion over the fact that Ilya was stretching before a run.

Because Ilya doesn’t stretch before running. He also definitely doesn’t do quick warm-ups on the treadmill like Shane does. And before he could get interrogated by Shane, he gave him a quick kiss, resisted the urge to pants his very handsome boyfriend in his ridiculous short shorts (God should give him credit for this), and bounded up the stairs to start his run.

He eyed his watch as he made sure his pace was slower than usual, even if only by twenty or so seconds. When he finally reached the segment start, he grinned and sprinted through the loop, getting high off the adrenaline coursing through him.

“You think the league will be angry over this?” Harris asked nervously, checking over his shoulder as Ilya continued to stretch out his stubborn hamstrings. Those bastards were fucking tight.

“The league will love to retweet this and put it all over Instagram. Fucking relax, as long as no one twists an ankle, then everyone will be happy,” Ilya said as he stood up, looking around the park.

Hayden and his family had a picnic blanket out. The kids were running around with flags in their hands. Arthur was clutching Chompy tightly to his chest as he chased after his sisters.

J.J. was standing next to Shane, who was stretching out his IT band. Ilya snorted. Shane had no hope of relaxing that muscle. There weren't enough Theraguns, massage therapists, or foam rollers in the world to make a dent.

The rest of the crew milled around the park. Cliff, Bood, Troy, and Luca were huddled in the corner, clutching their coffee tumblers. Troy was also balancing the leash that held Anya, who was more than happy to lounge in the grass. Ryan and Fabian were at the edge, clearly timing when to re-enter the conversation based on their shared glances.

“You ready for this?” Harris asked, and Ilya nodded solemnly. As he approached the sidewalk, a woman in hot pink shorts sprinted past him. Cliff stared at her before flashing a thumbs-up and winking at Ilya.

Ilya rolled his eyes, responding with his own thumbs-up and laughing at Cliff’s sudden heart eyes. Cliff’s ability to fall head over heels in love with a girl in bright spandex should be studied.

Ilya started to run in place at the starting line. The Pike children had drawn some cartoons of people running and a checkered rectangle.

“None of the kids want to be artists, right?” Shane whispered to Ilya, taking his spot next to him.

“Thank God, no. Wait, Shane,” Ilya looked over at Shane, staring at the sweatpants and running jacket. In the summer sun, Ilya was sweating in his shorts and his top, a hoodie with the sleeves cut off. “Why are you wearing all the layers? You forget it’s summer? You are going to join a convent now?”

“Oh, did your running blogs not tell you how important it is to warm up?” Shane asked innocently while stripping out of his sweats and jacket.

Ilya glared at him, giving a dirty look to the sweats as Shane fiddled with the waistband of his short running shorts. That fucker was cheating with slutty attire.

“They said to warm up, not to roast like a fucking chicken in the sun–”

“Jesus fucking Christ, you two need to shut the fuck up so Fabian can sing the national anthem,” Hayden said, throwing his arms between the two.

“Do we have flags?” Shane asked, turning his head.

Ilya bit his lip to stop himself from laughing. Fucking adorable dork who needed his Canadian flag.

“My kids have pride flags and we’ll all just need to pretend that those are Canadian flags,” Hayden said, clapping the two on the back as Fabian loudly cleared his throat in the middle of the park. A few folks stopped, pulled out their phones, as Fabian started to sing the Canadian national anthem.

Shane and Ilya placed their hands over their hearts, as the Pike children waved their pride flags throughout the duration of the anthem. Once Fabian had sung the last note, everyone clapped. The Pike children continued to zoom around the park as Shane and Ilya took their places at the start of the segment.

Hayden and Cliff went to the start of the segment, and J.J. and Bood were stationed at the end. Bood had taken a roll of toilet paper from the hotel bathroom and had JJ hold on to one end while he held the other. They made a bizarre finish line.

“Alright, we’ll do a countdown. You two will record on your watches,” Hayden pointed to the two of them. “And we’ll have Harris do a photo finish.”

“It should go without saying, but no pushing each other off of the sidewalk–”

“Yeah, Ilya,” Shane muttered under his breath as Ilya swore, rolling his eyes.

“I do not need to cheat to win, Shane,” Ilya said, about to continue on before Hayden cleared his throat.

“Are you ready?” Hayden asked seriously, and both men crouched at the starting line. There was a second of silence before Hayden shouted, “On your marks, get set, GO.”

Ilya pushed off the balls of his feet and started sprinting. He pumped his arms wildly as he tried to lean as far forward as possible. He could hear Shane’s heavy breathing next to him, and it took absolutely everything in Ilya not to shove him into the grass.

Instead, they both hugged the turns.

Anya was barking loudly, no doubt wanting to join in.

They were in a straightaway and Ilya could feel his lungs burning. But the finish line was so close that even though his legs felt like lead and his lungs were on fire, every step brought him closer to the finish, where J.J. and Bood were screaming at their captains to run faster.

When Ilya was a few feet from the finish line, he threw his body forward, trying to get his head over it. He knew Shane was right next to him, and suddenly, the toilet paper was ripped and he and Shane were stumbling across the sidewalk. Both men hit the stopper on their watches and wildly turned to their friends.

J.J. and Bood fiddled with their watches. J.J. paled as he looked at Shane.

“I didn’t start it.”

Ilya huffed out a laugh as Shane turned red. Ilya wished he had bacon with him to fry on his face.

“Oh, we were supposed to time it?” Bood asked, shooting J.J. a look before guiltily looking over at Ilya, grimacing.

Ilya clenched his jaw as Shane leaned to him, and loudly went, “HA.”

“We still have the photo from Harris,” Ilya said, turning to Harris who was wincing at his phone. Troy looked over his shoulder, shaking his head, his hand fighting for control of Anya’s leash as she tugged.

“It’s blurry. It looks like a lot of limbs?” Troy said, walking over to them (or mostly being dragged) by Anya, who tried jumping on Ilya or Shane, whichever legs she could reach first. Ilya bent down to scratch her ears.

“Fine. We’ll upload the runs to Strava. That should tell us who won,” Shane said bitterly, pulling out his phone and quickly tapping the screen. Ilya followed suit, syncing his run to the account.

Cliff and Hayden walked closer to the finish line, their phones out. Their thumbs dragged across the page as they kept refreshing the app. Then suddenly, they stopped and looked up at each other at the same time. Hayden let out a nervous laugh, massaging the back of his neck while Cliff howled with laughter.

Ilya looked down at his phone, navigated to the segment, and found that he and Shane had the exact same time and neither of them held the top spot on the segment anymore. That honor went to some woman who had just posted her run mere minutes ago.

“Fucking impossible,” Shane said, scrunching his nose. The others started to pull out their phones.

“There’s no way she did a ten-mile run and beat us on this segment,” Ilya muttered, as he continued to look through the woman’s time. And fuck, she was fast.

She even titled it a “chill/slow run.”

Fucker.

“There’s no way she was faster than us!” Shane exclaimed, twisting his body around as if he could catch the phantom runner.

“Oh, that was the woman in the hot pink shorts! Remember, Ilya?” Cliff said excitedly as Ilya shook his head vigorously, drawing his hand across his neck. Shane quickly snapped his head at Ilya, and Ilya could feel the heat radiating off of him.

Shane was never thrilled when he caught Ilya checking out a woman. Plus, losing a race to the same woman? Not a great look.

Cliff, lacking eyes or two brain cells, plowed on, “You for sure remember! Hot pink spandex? You used to go crazy for women like that at the gym! I gave you a thumbs up and then you–”

“Oh, okay, okay, oh wow, yes, I remember!” Ilya said quickly, slapping a hand to his forehead and dramatically leaning his head back. “Yes, okay, she was wearing shorts and she was not hot–”

“I didn’t say she was hot,” Cliff said, and Ilya peeked between his fingers at Shane who looked like a wet cat ready to pounce.

“But she was so slow, oh my God, she practically looked like she was running as slow as Scott Hunter. Plus, terrible form,” Ilya groaned, falling to the grass where Anya walked on his chest and started licking the back of his hands.

“Right? Awful form. Just like Hunter,” Shane huffed, crossing his arms, and Ilya smiled. He lowered his hands down from his face and winked at Shane.

“What’s wrong with Hunter’s form?”

“Everything. Literally everything about it makes me want to die,” Shane moaned, starting to pace around Ilya. “His arms are not at his side, so he wastes so much energy, and he looks like a T-Rex–”

“Just like a T-Rex,” Ilya said seriously as Shane continued through his list.

“He never leans forward, so he’s kinda slow with that. And his stride! That heel-toe stride is so long, he’s going to blow out his knees!”

“Heel toe stride, so bad, so disgusting,” Ilya repeated back, scratching Anya behind her ear. She leaned into the scratch, eyes closed.

“At that charity 5K I thought he was going to trip over himself. He’s just a bad runner. Wait, why am I talking about him?” Shane sputtered, and Ilya howled with laughter.

“Well, I only date people with good form. So no hot pink shorts for me, or Scott Hunter,” Ilya said, pushing off the ground as Shane gave him a small smile.

“Cliff, you aren’t going to follow her, right?” Hayden asked as Ilya saw Cliff’s fingers flying across the phone.

“No, of course not,” Cliff snorted, “But I did slide into her Strava DMs.”

Like a record scratching, everyone turned to stare at Cliff wide-eyed. There was even a muttered, “Oh, fuck,” from the crowd. Cliff looked around and frowned at all of their faces. “Dude, she fucking rock climbs. Obviously I’m going to shoot my shot,” Cliff said, shrugging his shoulders, as he slid his phone into his pocket.

“To be clear,” Harris said in a kind voice, “You just saw this woman run, beat your friends, and decided to slip into her DMs… on Strava?”

Cliff looked around. “Yes. Wait, is that weird? How is it different from Instagram?”

There was a moment of silence as all the players looked at each other, with Jackie visibly grimacing.

The league would probably have an issue if one of their players was accused of stalking a woman over her Strava profile. All because Shane and Ilya decided they needed to settle a race over the Loop de Loop segment.

“It’s fucking weird, man, but if anyone could pull that move off… it’s you,” Troy said, a smile on his face, as Cliff rolled his eyes.

“Alright, shall we go back to Shane’s place and BBQ before this woman comes back to beat up Cliff?”

There was a murmur amongst the crowd as they all headed back to Shane’s place for a much needed and well deserved BBQ.

Weeks later, as Ilya was lounging on the couch, Anya came sprinting into the room. She leapt on the couch and eyed Shane walking in with a collar in hand. Ilya frowned at the collar as Shane made careful steps to the couch, as if to avoid scaring Anya off it.

“She already has a collar?” Ilya said, as Shane sighed, letting his hands drop to his side.

“Yeah, but I found this Fi collar and it’s basically like a smartwatch for your pets. And we can track her mileage–”

“So it’s like Strava?”

Shane beamed. “Exactly! Anyways, I found this one dog named Miss Steve–”

“Respectful name. What breed?”

“Corgi. Anyways, Miss Steve has like a gazillion miles at a crazy pace. There’s no way it’s real. I’m guessing her owners put her in a car and drive her around.”

“Shane, we cannot let our dog get competitive. Remember what happened with the loop de loop?”

“Okay, but look at this. You’re telling me Miss Steve the corgi has these types of stats?” Shane asked, pulling out his phone and passing it over to Ilya.

Ilya took the phone and swiped through the walks. The mileage was high, the speed was way too fast for a corgi that was as short as Miss Steve. She was cute as fuck, but there was no way she was that speedy.

Ilya looked over at Anya, whose tail was wagging.

“Wanna go for a walk Anya? Yeah?” Ilya asked, making sure to use his high-pitched voice. The one only reserved for sweet Anya. Her ears perked up before she darted off the couch and dashed to the door, barking.

“Let’s go beat Miss Steve,” Ilya said, hopping up, as Shane laughed.