Chapter Text
Ilya hung up the phone and walked towards the bedroom, “Sweetheart, where are you?”
A muffled reply came “In the closet”
“Yes, muy lubimuy, I know” Ilya walked into the closet and rested in the doorway a smirk on his face.
Shane snorted, “Fuck off, I’m putting the laundry away” Ilya fondly watched him carefully hang his clothes, in color order of course, how boring, he smiled. “I just got off the phone with Yuna, SportsCenter wants to do ten year look back on rivalry, turned friendship. They want interviews. From both”
“Why’d Mom call you?” But really Shane knew why his mother called Ilya instead, it’s something she thinks they should do, but she knew Shane would be less open to it than Ilya, so she was bringing it to him first and hoping he would charm Shane into saying yes. Ilya just shrugged. “So what do you think? You want to do this?”
“Don’t know, muy lubimuy, Yuna says could be good opportunity to promote ‘friendship narrative’”
“It might be hard” Ilya smirked, and Shane threw a tee shirt at him “Don’t”
“I know what else could be hard” he pouted, stepping forward and grabbing Shane’s face. Ilya pressed their lips together and pulled Shane into the bedroom, they could finish this conversation later.
After they were both spent, Shane nuzzled into Ilya’s side resting his head on his chest. “I’m just worried, how are we supposed to give a whole interview and pretend we don’t mean more to each other?”
“We are careful Shane. Always careful. Always guarded. Maybe this is time to show rivalry is over. We are friends. We have foundation. Was supposed to let us be more open. Maybe this can help more.”
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Morning of filming
“Shane is ridiculous. We drive together. No camera crew in parking lot waiting for us. Is long drive, I don’t want to drive by myself. You can drive boring car, drop me off at McDonald’s. I get McGriddle, you park car. We walk in separate. Win-win.” Shane wanted to argue that it was too risky, but to some extent he knew he was being ridiculous. Even if someone was paying attention to the fact that they arrived in the same car together, it was known that they were friends, it would only fit the narrative that they were so carefully trying to concoct. Friends can drive places together. If it was Hayden he was giving an interview with, he wouldn’t give a second thought about carpooling, they did it all the time. He was just being paranoid, but he couldn’t help himself. If anyone found out it could ruin their careers. It could ruin everything.
He relented, but dropped Ilya off at the McDonald’s around the corner, if he wanted to eat like shit and mess up his performance that was on him. Shane had finished his breakfast smoothie on way over and he really didn’t think he could stomach anything else. He was far too nervous about the interviews. What if they said the wrong things and gave it away. What if Ilya gave it away. Hayden was always saying that Ilya had heart eyes when it came to Shane and while that was cute in private, it was not cute broadcast on SportsCenter or parsed into bite sized clips on TikTok and Twitter for fans to pick apart and make their own theories about. He breathed. They could do this. They had a plan, just stick to the plan. Media trained answers, keep it to the hockey and the foundation, if this got a lot of attention that could bring in more donations for the Irina Foundation, and that’s always a good thing.
Shane walked into the building just in time to see Ilya checking in with the receptionist and making his way towards the elevator banks, he walked slowly checking out the art in the lobby but in reality waiting for Shane so they could ride the elevator together. “Good morning Mr. Hollander, Mr. Rozanov is on his way up already, you can go ahead up, 5th floor”
The elevator dinged open as Shane was halfway across the lobby and Ilya stepped in, when the door started to close he casually stopped it with his hand, crowding the doorway so there was no way Shane could get in without brushing his shoulder. Shane shuddered at the forbidden contact between their shoulders that both terrified and soothed him. Shane reached across Ilya to push the button for the fifth floor, brushing his ear past Ilya’s lips. He could feel and hear Ilya’s warm breathe as he pushed the button, but didn’t rush to pull away as the door closed. The elevator was empty and moving slow. They had 20 seconds or so to regroup. “We got this muy lubimuy. I love you” “Love you too”
Shane stepped a respectable distance apart and smoothed his shirt as the elevator doors slid open.
A young assistant or intern, Vanessa her ID badge said, greeted them and ushered them down the hall. “Mr. Rozanov, your dressing room is right here, and Mr. Hollander, yours is the next door. Someone from hair and make up will be by in a few minutes and then the PA will be by to fit you with mic packs and then the producer just wants to check in to discuss the cadence of the interviews.” She turned and rushed off, her heels clacking against the hard tile floor.
Shane glanced at Ilya one more time, “Vague, hockey first, friends, foundation, we got this” Ilya nodded. “We got this”
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The format would be split between joint interviews and solo interviews, the producers planned for a lot of nostalgia, so there would be a large tv set up for them to react to clips from old games, media scrums and highlight reels. The clips would take up a large part of the at home programming. The special was set to air over a two hour period and Shane couldn’t help but wonder how much of it was going to be anything new and how much of it could the viewers just search up on YouTube. Whatever, it was one day and SportCenter was paying them for this- profits being funneled directly into the Irina Foundation, they could format it however they like.
Shane would do his solo interview first, then Ilya, then they would break for lunch and then the joint interview. The walls and floor of the interview room were stark white, two wooden stools were set up on either side of a large tv on wheels.
“Mr. Hollander-” the interview gestured to one of the stool. Shane made his way to the stool and sat uncomfortably, trying his best to keep that good posture his mother had lectured him about for years.
“Call me Shane, please”
“So Shane, thank you so much for joining us today as we take a look back over the Hollander-Rozanov rivalry and your hockey careers so far. So tell me, this rivalry turned friendship- what’s the story there? Is this a real ‘I’ll help you move friendship’ or is it all PR?”
“Well, my contract is public information, if I’m moving, I’m hiring a moving company” He chuckled and waited a beat “But no, it’s real, years of meeting up on the ice, waiting backstage at award shows, press conferences side by side, All-Stars Games, you get to know someone. And of course with the Irina Foundation, we know have gotten to know each other away from a world that is completely dominated by hockey and the scoring race”
“That leads me perfectly into our first clip”
A clip plays from their Rookie Season. Rozanov is pictured on screen as a reporter asks him about a statement that he made a few months earlier, stating he would score 40 goals this season. Rozanov smirks, “Is lie. Liar told you that.” He leans towards the camera and winks, “I said 50”
“What do you remember thinking when you first saw this interview?”
“I think my first though, then and now, was ‘asshole’, it was so smug, I was ahead in the scoring race, you know”.
“When exactly did the rivalry fade into friendship?”
“It’s hard to pin point a specific moment”
“What about the All-Stars Game in 2017, you and Rozanov played on the same team, same line for the first time there, tell me about that”
A clip appears on the screen, showing a winning goal from Shane and Rozanov skating over to place an exaggerated kiss on his helmet. Both men have wide smiles on their faces.
“Yeah, you know All-Star games are always a bunch of fun. It’s a lot of the best players from all over the league and for one weekend we are all on different teams and yeah, playing against Rozanov has always been and continues to be a great challenge, but yeah, that All-Stars game was a lot of fun playing on the same line”
“Ok this next clip, might be a little tougher to watch, shortly after the All-Stars Game, during a Boston-Montreal game, to took a pretty bad hit from Cliff Marleau..”
The clip begins with Shane Hollander moving down the ice before taking a hit from Cliff Marleau
“Oh-”
The clip continues, showing Shane Hollander lying on the ice, not moving, Hayden Pike trying to get a hit in on Cliff Marleau. Ilya Rozanov is standing over Hollander shouting something that can’t be made out, a look of deep concern on his face. Faintly in the background you can the announcer saying that even Rozanov doesn’t want to see someone get hurt like that.
“Oh- how could anyone see that and not kn-”
Shane clapped his hand over his mouth, his last words had come out barely above a whisper, he felt dizzy and nauseous all at once. He had seen the hit before it wasn’t that, he had never seen Ilya’s reaction to the hit. He stood abruptly, pulling off his mic pack, apologizing to the interviewer and muttered something about needing a few minutes.
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Shane walked down the hall, passed his dressing room, into Ilya’s and straight into Ilya’s arms. “I can’t do this, I just can’t- I think I blew it in there.”