Chapter Text
It's three days into the Montreal Metro's and captain Shane Hollander was riding high, the team had won their first two games of the trip against the New York Admirals and the Jersey Gardeners and Shane against his better judgement and not aligning with his strict post-game routine went out with the team to celebrate. He'd planned to stick to just beers until random teammates presented him with shot after shot after shot. When he wakes up the next morning his head is killing him and Hayden shoving a phone into his face.
"Dude, you're never gonna believe this" Hayden says as he shoves his phone into Shane's hand, before Shane can even register what's happening. One the phone screen is a clip from some random podcast with the host and his guest laying on a bed, the walls behind them decorated with various posters of singers, movies and TV shows. Shane has no idea who the host is, but has a vague idea of who the guest is, he's wearing a black turtle neck jumper, blue jeans that are rolled up slightly and showing off a couple tattoos on his shins and his curly blonde hair is beautifully wild.
"You gotta hear what they say about you" Hayden says as he presses play on the screen whilst Shane sits himself up and groans as his head rushes and he tries to listen to what is being said on screen.
"Would you say you're a big sports fan?" The host asks and the attractive guest nods "Yeah, before I left Russia and before I went down the path of music, guitar, piano. I played a lot of hockey and almost joined the national youth team and now I just like to watch it" The guest relied, his Russian accent felt oddly soothing to Shane as he continued to listen to the video whilst Hayden made a face to encourage him to keep watching. "You have been seen attending a lot of Raiders games" The host remarked.
The guest raised his eyebrows and laughed "Yes, my best friend Sveta works for the team so through her I became pretty good friends with their captain, Cliff Marleau. So attending games and supporting my friends is important. They come to as many stops of my tour as they can and I used to live in Boston so I have no choice, but to support." The host nods "Any players you have your eye on at the moment then?" the host and the guest laugh. The guest nods "I do, but is super inconvenient because of the team he plays for".
The host scoots a little closer to his guest and shrugs his shoulders "How come?" the the guest sighs and shrugs "I don't want to name names, but he's the captain of Boston's rival team, which I'd say is the biggest problem, but apart from that he'd be perfect. He's got these cute freckles, he's gay; so I might actually have a chance, as far as I'm aware he's single. I saw that Calvin Klein ad he did and I thought of nothing else for the entire week".
The host nods eagerly "does he have hockey butt?" the host asks and they both laugh "If you're talking about who I think you're talking about, I say go for it", the guest smiles and laughs, hiding his face behind his hand to cover the blush creeping up his face "Maybe I can give him a friendship bracelet or something at the next Boston game". Hayden pauses the video there and smiles like a man that's just won the lottery "Shane, this is fucking crazy".
Shane groans and rolls his eyes, trying to cover his eyes with the bedding, which Hayden promptly pulls it back "Shane, this is fucking crazy" he repeats, Shane just gives him an annoyed looks and shrugs "Hayd, I have no idea who this guy is. Why you're showing this to me?". Hayden tutted and threw his head back in frustration "I forgot you know literally nothing outside of hockey. It's Ilya Rozanov. On a podcast. Talking about you." Hayden says slowly and Shane shrugs again "I still have no idea who the hell that is".
"He's this huge fuckin' popstar, you must've heard one of his songs at some point, Karma? Shake it off? Love story?" Hayden lists as Shane shakes his head, quirking an eyebrow for a second "Wait the eras tour guy?" Shane questions and Hayden laughs and nods his head whilst shaking Shane's shoulders "Finally proof you don't live under a rock all the time". Shane shrugs again, he's not really into music usually preferring to listen to nothing some sort of hockey podcast, as Shane looks at the paused clip the podcast, Ilya's confident smirk still on the screen of Hayden's discarded phone he can't help but feel so taken off guard.
The confidence to be the biggest popstar in the world and shoot his shot is making Shane feel hot under the collar. "We don't even know he's talking about me, that could literally be anyone" Shane remarks and Hayden sighs again "Shane, it's clearly about you. Captain of Boston's rival team and who's captain of Boston's biggest rival? You Shane Hollander" he begins to list and Shane shakes his head "Boston has so many rivals" he defends, Hayden huffs "I don't think he's talking about Dallas Kent is straight and everyone knows he's an asshole and Scott Hunter is gay, but he has a husband".
Shane shakes his head as Hayden gets off his bed and goes to his side of the room to gather his things for a shower "He's clearly talking about you dude, you're gay, you did that Calvin Klein ad that had literally everyone barking for weeks, even Jackie saw that and had no idea you were like that. All I'm saying is you should totally hit that" He encourages with a laugh as Shane groans and pulls the covers over his head "Don't say hit that" he hears Hayden laugh once again as the bathroom door locks.
Shane reaches a hand out of the cocoon of bedding, grabs his phone and types Ilya Rozanov's name into the google search bar, the songs Hayden had listed had jolted a few memories and his face did look pretty familiar from Shane seeing it in passing when the singer appeared on morning talk shows. Shane forgoes looking at Ilya's Instagram and clicks his Wikipedia page and reads the entire thing. He reads that Ilya grew up in Russia and grew up playing hockey and various musical instruments until ultimately going down the route of music.
He learns that Ilya left Russia when he was eighteen he immigrated to the United States after being scouted by a record label and released his self-titled debut album not long after, becoming an almost overnight success, he became an American citizen at the age of twenty after winning his first Grammy and had a seemingly unstoppable career, releasing hit album after hit album and amassing millions of adoring fans along the way. He'd been involved in feuds with other celebrities and popstars, but that didn't really mean much to Shane.
The section of his Wikipedia page that did stand out to Shane was the section about the album he released in 2019 called 'lover' which was a described as a celebration of happiness, a love letter to love and Rosanov coming out to the world as a bisexual man and writing about his experience growing up in Russia where being queer was borderline illegal. After that Ilya had revealed his relationship with his actor boyfriend Sasha Petrov and the two wrote a few songs together that had featured one the sister albums 'Folklore' and 'Evermore'.
After the release of his tenth album Rosanov announced his first tour in six years 'The Eras Tour' and reportedly ended his relationship with Sasha a few weeks into the tour. Shane leaves Wikipedia and opens TikTok and types Ilya's name into the search bar, seeing the same video Hayden had shown him a few minuets ago of Ilya shooting his shot at Shane on some random podcast and talking about what he liked to do on his off days between shows. Shane's ears perked up when Ilya mentioned that he'd probably attend a Boston game whilst his tour was in the city.
The metro's played Boston in a few days and Shane couldn't help but wonder if this attractive blond stranger, apparently the most popular singer in the world right now, who'd publicly hit on Shane would be there. He lays in bed for a few more minuetes watching various clips of Ilya's performances and music videos until he's interrupted by Hayden coming out of the bathroom drying his hear with the towel "You watching Rozanov's shows now?" Hayden asks. Shane releases himself from the duvet, his hangover seemingly cured by videos of this beautiful stranger and sighs.
"Is it a bit forward of me if I ask him if he's going to the Boston game on Wednesday?" Shane asks and Hayden shakes his head "What like you slide into his DMs?" Hayden asked taken aback by Shanes question, in the years he'd known Shane he'd never known him to be forward with anyone in that way. Shane nods "Yeah, I dunno, this guy wasn't even on my radar until you shoved your phone in my face". Hayden nods as he listens to Shane "And now you wanna get to know him?" he asks, Shane nods and Hayden pinches the bridge of his nose and thinks for a moment "Why don't you message your agent, tell her to pass your number on to Ilya's people and maybe that might get his attention".
Shane shrugs "It's worth a try I guess. I'm gonna go shower first before I bother Farah with any of my bullshit". After his shower, breakfast and an ungodly amount of random hangover cures recommended by his teammates Shane shoots off an email to Farah asking her to forward his number to Ilya's people and explaining to her that he wants to get to know Ilya and see where things take him. This was very out of character for Shane and he was scaring himself, he didn't really do relationships fearing that a new person in his life would throw him off his game. That clearly hadn't been true when he and Rose became friends and many people thought they'd dated, they hadn't people just assumed they had because Shane wasn't out at the time.
A few days later, he’s in the hotel gym in Boston the night before Montreal’s game against Boston when a text comes in. He finishes his set before grabbing his phone—it’s from an unknown number. Shane’s heart skips a beat; he’s been thinking about Ilya for days and genuinely thought nothing would come of it; if this text was from who he hopped maybe he was wrong.
Unknown number
My manager passed this number onto me, is this who I'm hoping it is?
This is Ilya btw
Shane
Holy shit
I didn't kinda thought that was a shot in the dark
If you're hoping this is Shane Hollander then yeah, it's me
Ilya
I was hoping that it was
when I mentioned you on that podcast I didn't thing you'd actually see it
You're pretty famously not into anything else apart from hockey, Marly calls you a hockey robot
Shane
I will admit, I didn't really know anything about you or your music until one of my teammates/my best friend showed me that clip
I was pretty surprised and honestly kinda flattered
Ilya
I'm glad I was able to surprise you
You're one of the most beautiful players on the ice, it shouldn't come as a shock that people are into you
Shane
I don't really know how to respond to that tbh
I watched a lot of clips from your shows and even tho I don't really know much about you or the significance of it , but I'm in awe of it all
Hockey is pretty brutal and shifts are intense but i don't think I'll complain to someone who does shows that are over 3 hours almost every night
Ilya
Thank you
It's my first tour in almost a decade and I honestly wanted to make it into a love letter to my fans and give them the best show I can
Can I ask why you decided to reach out? your manager passed your number onto mine and gave it to me
Shane
It was kinda a moment of confidence
There's not many openly gay hockey players that are also captain of Boston's rival, Hayden (my teammate) told me it would be a good idea to do that
Ilya
Well I'm glad you did, I was talking about you
You're an incredibly talented player to watch, you've won almost every major hockey award
Shane
Yeah, I've won a few
I don't really know much about your career, but it looks like you've won a few awards and broken a few records as well
Ilya
Have you been reading up on me?
Shane
I have yeah
I gotta ask, why'd you choose to hit on my on a podcast for everyone to see?
Ilya
Same as you, I had a moment of confidence that caught me off guard, plus you're very pretty and incredibly talented.
I want to get to know you more, you make me curious
Shane
I'll admit, I'm curious about you as well
Will you be at Boston's game tomorrow?
Ilya
I will be, you wanna go out for a drink after?
As long as your schedule allows it, I've got a lot of free time whilst my tour is on hiatus before the European leg starts
Shane
I think I'd really like that, I don't normally drink during the season, but I would like to spend time with you
I'll be free after I have to do all the media/post-game interviews
The playoffs don't start for another few weeks so my schedule's basically insane for the next few months