Archive of Our Own

Ilya woke up with an ache in his chest and what felt like a black hole in his stomach. He rubbed his eyes and stretched his arms lazily in hopes of wiping the horrible night of sleep away. He didn’t feel like getting out of bed today. The feeling is always there, a cloud that sort of lingers sometimes near him, sometimes over him in a way that feels like he will never be able to escape. At least when he was with Hollander, the cloud felt farther, still there but manageable. Hollander was like the sunshine peeking through on a cloudy day. The sun hasn’t been able to shine through for some time now. Especially since Russia. Ilya wanted nothing more than for the storm in his mind to clear. He knew that he and Hollander couldn’t be anything completely, but he still wanted just a part of him. He needed it back.

Training would start tomorrow, then the season. This meant he would be seeing Hollander soon. He hoped he would see Hollander off the ice as well. Ilya decided he could stay in bed a little longer, rot in bed before he would have to start being an athlete again and getting up with the birds. He opened Twitter knowing the only thing the app could offer him was impending doom.

Ilya rolls his eyes. No one can resist Hollander. If this NBA player can’t resist following back then, Ilya doesn't have to resist texting Hollander. Ilya will just have to remind Shane who he’s ignoring. He needed to make sure Hollander would be a guaranteed spot back on his roster by the time the season started. He scrolled through the replies to the tweet, knowing all it would do was annoy him even more.

CODE TWEET THREAD

@JaredMccainUpdates

Jared McCain has followed Shane Hollander Back on Twitter!

At jaredswifey
I should have kept my man inside. Now Shane Hollander took him from me!!

Goatcenter24 its so cool seeing hollander make friends outside of the league!!
MccainHollander oh i think hollander wants something inside instead of outside smirk

Thunderties

Chat no one told me last time!! who is shane hollander??

This NBA player had fans who didn't even know who Hollander was. This would never work. Ilya clicked on one of the replier's accounts. What is a Mc cane Hollander? Sounds like a McDonald's order the Canadian player would tell Rozanov was disgusting before giving him a lecture on his body being a temple and how he should treat it as such.

CODE IMESSAGE

Jane

Today 12:52 pm

I play sports and am shirtless as well.

Today 1:30pm

Hollander
I am happy to provide reminder 😈

Today 2:12pm
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/89/0f/f6/890ff648dfd3e79335d577f55a603cc3.jpg

?

It is reminder.
Not shirtless
https://i.pinimg.com/control1/1200x/aa/f2/42/aaf242c3c01b874883a6b79d25a134fc.jpg
Better?

Rolling eye emoji

Ilya couldn’t help the smirk that spread across his face. It was nice knowing he was still able to get under Hollander's skin. He found comfort in convincing himself this meant Hollander still wasn’t over him. He might be able to fix this. Hollander would not need to keep following a famous NBA player if he were back in his life.

--

Shane Hollander folded faster than he folds his clothes during a night with Rozanov. He really did try not to answer, but then Rozanov had to go and send a picture that was not what he had promised to send. Shane was just politely correcting him. He hated when things weren’t exact; he had a suspicion the Russian knew this and used it to lure him into another text. The butterflies that fluttered in Shane’s stomach from seeing Rozanov shirtless quickly morphed into a pool of disappointment that weighed heavily on him.

Shane was like a doe-eyed deer that couldn’t help but get lured into a hunter's trap. Despite knowing he shouldn’t, Shane kept following the trail; who could blame him when the happy trail led to something he wanted so bad?

Shane needs to dial in his focus, seriously. He makes his way to the gym to start his 30-minute easy yoga workout, warming up his body for the hour of weight lifting he has to complete today. Official training for the season started soon, and he needed to make sure he was ready. He will play his Zen Music Playlist during the Yoga, then switch to headphones and a hockey podcast during weight training. Man on the Crease felt like a special motivator to train harder. All those men did was criticise his game. He took that and used it to drive himself closer to perfection.

After his Yoga session, he slipped on his over-the-ear headphones and pressed play.

“Shane Hollander, the kid with a high hockey IQ, didn’t quite live up to his potential last season. I mean, the stats didn’t really live up to what was expected of him. Why couldn’t he take his team to the cup?...”

He ended up adding 45 minutes of cardio to his workout.

After a relaxing hot shower, he reluctantly let his thoughts wander off to the shirtless, sweaty photo Rozanov had sent him. Shane unlocked his phone and opened up Twitter. He checked his notifications to see that the attractive NBA player had followed him back. His mind couldn’t help but wonder if maybe he was interested. He scoffed; he’s probably not even gay; maybe the basketball player is just a big fan of hockey. Either way, it might be nice to have friends outside of hockey. He needed to get out more this time, maybe find a girl. He needed some way to regain a sense of normalcy in his life. His routine felt all over the place. He knows he sounds desperate, but maybe he needs to give women another chance. Of course, he knows he finds men attractive, but maybe if he tried harder, he could feel the same for the opposite sex. He knows when women are objectively beautiful, like his friend Rose, the women in every photo across the internet of Rozanov's nights out in different cities.

--

Two weeks had passed since Ilya had sent a picture of himself shirtless mid-workout to Hollander. Training for the season had started, and he got swept up trying to get back to his peak physical condition for the season. He really had to slow down on his smoking, during the first few days of training, he thought he was gonna pass out from bag skates. It wasn’t his fault the stress of the past few months had him smoking through a pack a day, sometimes even more. Not to worry, now back in his routine, he was determined to start texting Hollander more, and that would hopefully limit the cigarettes he smokes a day by settling his nerves on whether they would hook up this season. Two loons, one rock or whatever they say.

He wasn’t too worried about Hollander having wandering Twitter thumbs since he knew training for him also started and he would be laser-focused the first week. Hollander is quick to lock into a routine, so now is the time to wiggle his way into it, making sure that Mc Cane guy didn't get a time slot in there. He knows Hollander's mind had very little space for anything other than hockey. He would not let anyone else dare to even try to take that space; it belonged to him.

Ilya opened up Twitter, having followed all the necessary accounts on a secret second account so as not to let anyone in on his completely normal surveilling activities. Unfortunately, these necessary accounts included Jared’s account. It was annoying to see him practising or showing his outfits, his painted nails.

CODE TWEETS

@jaredmccain
Look good -> feel good = practice great 🚶🏽‍♂️👜

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/6b/1b/2b/6b1b2ba3566aef007b5bb79a282189b5.jpg

@jaredswifey
THE BICEPS. SOMEONE CATCH ME.

@Thunderties
I see the weight room is paying off!!

@Mccainsmanicure
Sucking on that red shirt till it turns pink
Girl be calm!!!

Ilya couldnt help but roll his eyes as he scrolled through his feed. Everybody knows Shane Hollander can not dress. No one has seen him wear anything outside of Reebok and expensive watch. He is like cartoon character spawns in same outfit. Hollander and McCain will never work out. Basketball should also be of no interest to Hollander, on top of fashion. Still, Ilya needed to know more about this inferior sport. His Google search taught him that they have the same season as Hockey. This should hopefully make it harder for Hollander to find time to hang out with this man. If he even wanted to hang out with him, Ilya had no reason except paranoia to think they had any connection outside of following each other on Twitter.

--

Training had officially started, and Shane Hollander immediately submerged himself fully. Giving his all to make sure he was the best on his team and best in the league despite what men with Best Buy mics and 4 sporadically placed panels of soundproof insulation said. This was exactly the type of distraction he was looking for to clear his mind for a bit. This past week, his mind was mostly focused on the burning sensation as he pushed himself to his limit at least twice a day.

Unfortunately, Shane knows rest days are necessary in order to perform your best. His mind drifted back to his situation with Rozanov now that he had downtime. He really needed a way to stop thinking about him. He thought Rozanov was done with him. Then he had to blur the lines again with those stupid texts asking if he liked basketball. Shane lifted his phone to try and get his mind on anything else.

Jesus Christ. If Shane didn't think it would be bad for his image or raise suspicion, he would block these update accounts. How were they getting this information so quickly? Did these people not have jobs? Was this their job? Shane knows this is just a part of having a following, but sometimes he wishes he could just be! Hopefully, Jared wouldn’t think liking his posts was weird.