Name: Hollander, Shane, Ilya types. Age: 17.

He stares at the blinking cursor, a little unsure on how to proceed. He didn’t seem to have much of an issue with the others. He’s not sure why it is only now that he suddenly has this feeling of something thick stuck in his throat. Ilya clicks on the little image he’s inserted of the Canadian boy onto the Word document. He stares at it for perhaps five seconds too long, then presses delete. The image suddenly disappears from the screen and Ilya lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding onto.

It looks like you’re writing a letter. Would you like help? the annoying little paperclip in the corner of the screen is demanding to know. Ilya wonders whether he needs help with a little more than just writing a letter.

Birthday: Ilya types, and then pauses. He pretends to think for a second and then types: May 10th, 1997.

“Ilya, what the hell are you doing?” his father barks at him in thick, angry Russian. “You were supposed to be getting ready for practice fifteen minutes ago.”

“I am doing research,” Ilya retorts, annoyed.

“How do you expect to stand a chance in the World Championships if you spend all your time staring at that thing? Get off your ass and go get in the car. Now.”

Ilya sighs. He chews on the drawstring of his hoodie thoughtfully.

Position: Centre.

He scrolls up a few pages to where he’s filled in pages titled with exciting new names like Chekhov, Antony, and boring, old (old) ones like Hunter, Scott. He right clicks on a tactical table he’s half-filled in for the new Finnish Junior recruit - its margins filled with sprawling commentary on his strengths and weaknesses on the ice - and pastes a copy into the page he’s titled Hollander, Shane.

Ilya deletes all of the previous information from the table. He won’t be needing any of that. He stares at the screen again, his face flushing slightly, feeling unexpectedly giddy.

Weaknesses: Canadian; looks like he calls his mother after sex
Strengths: very hot. please remove clothes

“Ilya!” his father all but roars from the front room, causing Ilya’s pulse to quicken in his throat unpleasantly. “I will not ask you again!”

Ilya jumps when the front door slams menacingly, and with that jerky movement, accidentally slams the lid of his clunky Sony Vaio laptop shut, turning the thing off completely. He winces.

There goes six hours of hard work, Ilya thinks bitterly. Fucking bastard Canadians. Fucking annoying Russian cops.

It's December 2016, and Ilya Rozanov is spiralling. His Sony Vaio is unfortunately taking the majority of the brunt of it.

He has been searching Google for Shane Hollander and Rose Landry for the past three hours, and it has put him in the foulest mood he thinks he's been in for the past six months. Ilya decides to click on a particularly inflammatory-looking article, which is almost certain to flare up his heartburn.

Ilya rolls his eyes, feeling extremely put out and more than a little sexually frustrated. Whenever the hell Shane Hollander decided that he was refined enough to wear Versace was completely beyond Ilya, he thinks.

He clicks through the images, then has to stop for a minute to unclench his jaw where he is staring hard at the screen, because it is starting to ache quite fiercely.

To Ilya's extreme annoyance, Shane looks wonderful. He is trim in expensive designer clothing and there is a lovely colour in his cheeks, where his freckles are darker and more sun-kissed than usual, despite the bleak, harsh winter it has been. Perhaps gallivanting around with Rose Landry has been good for his complexion, Ilya thinks bitterly. He stares at their joined hands, the way their fingers fit around each other's like their hands had been designed to fit, the way they do not have to hide their touches from the prying eyes of the public. He knows that Shane will never feel ashamed to be seen with her in public, the way he is ashamed to be caught even tiptoeing around hallways in the same apartment complex as Ilya.

Shane hasn't texted him in over two months, since he all but ran from Ilya's apartment in Boston, taking with him the last vestiges of Ilya's denial that they were not anything more than friends-with-benefits. Although, they were hardly friends, and as time went on, there seemed to be less and less benefit to their strange arrangement.

Fuck Rose Landry. Fuck everything. The X-Squad film series is fucking horrible, anyway. Not sure how they've even gotten away with passing it off as a film. A 21-year-old film student in St. Petersburg could do better.

Ilya blinks back angry tears and slams his laptop lid shut. He doesn't even stop to feel bad this time when his Sony Vaio makes a little confused whirring noise in protest.

“Can you see me?” comes the slightly nervous voice from the other end of the screen. Ilya’s heart flips in his chest. The video is a little bit grainy while the picture buffers, but the sleepy smile and mussed dark hair is undeniably Shane’s. Glasses and all. It astounds Ilya how, even after all this time, the sight of Shane still kicks up a fuss in Ilya’s stomach with a tour de force so impressive that briefly, it is all he is as a person.

“I can see you. Good morning, sweetheart,” Ilya replies saccharinely, relishing in the embarrassed eye roll and pink flush that spreads across Shane’s freckled cheeks on the opposing end.

“Your webcam quality is ass,” Shane grins. “Are you calling from your toaster?”

Ilya laughs. “Is my old Sony Vaio. I found it when packing up all my old things in Boston.”

Shane shifts, and the pixels stick to the slight movement for a moment. He’s sitting up in bed, his phone balanced between his stomach and his folded knees. He looks pliant and sleepy in the morning light which is filtering through the room in Ottawa, and Ilya wants nothing more than to reach across the screen and press his lips to Shane’s soft, warm skin. The sudden force with which he feels this desire almost threatens to overwhelm him. It has been two weeks since Ilya last saw Shane – after they left Shane’s cottage with twin expressions of hope, relief, and gratitude and a sudden absence of the burdening weight that they seemed to perpetually carry with them – and he is finally starting to understand why people call them co-dependent relationships.

“Wow, your Sony Vaio? I’m surprised it still runs Skype,” Shane replies.

“Mm, is good laptop. I have many evil secrets saved on this laptop.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

Ilya leans back in his chair, stretching his arms behind his head like a languid cat stretching on hot pavement in the blistering heat. “Mm, you know… world domination plans, blueprint for atomic bomb. State Russian secrets. Not for boring guy like you.”

Shane laughs and even through Ilya’s tinny Sony Vaio speakers, he can hear the excited mirth in the sound. It delights Ilya to hear Shane laugh. He could probably be powered just by the feeling it brings him. “You asshole,” he says, but the words are fond.

“But really, I had much fun looking at old files on here. I really was obsessed with you, Hollander.”

“What do you mean?”

Ilya clicks through his desktop folders, which bare names like ‘2012 NHL season’, and ‘2013 Stanley Cup highlights’, and ‘ilya rozanov is the best.’ He clicks on one titled ‘2008 Junior Draft’, which displays Ilya’s old tactical research documents. He locates the Word document titled ‘Canadian team’ and waits impatiently for it to load. He knows what he’s about to find.

“I spent a lot of time making tactical sheets for players,” Ilya explains, scrolling through the document and trying to contain his ridiculous grin. “In yours I have only written: spit in my mouth.”

“Wow,” Shane laughs again. His eyebrows have shot up. “Would you like that?”

“Mm, probably, I think yes.”

“That’s pretty gross, Ilya,” Shane teases, but Ilya can hear the sticky warmth in his tone, sweet like molasses. “Super unhygienic.”

“Not sure many things we have done are very hygienic.”

“What else have you written on there about me?” Shane asks, and Ilya can hear the way Shane says it lightly, as if he couldn’t care less about what Ilya has written about him. It is obvious that Shane would rather expire than not know what Ilya has written about him.

Ilya grins. “You really want to know? It might excite you bit too much.”

“Come on,” Shane wheedles. “Tell me.”

Ilya snorts softly at the unbidden desperation that has crept into Shane’s voice, diligently navigating through his files.

“Okay, here I have file: Shane Hollander 2015 NHL Stanley Cup highlights.”

“Yes, that was a good one,” Shane smiles.

Though he is never one to back down from a bit, Ilya almost balks when he opens the file and sees what he’s got written on there. It’s a fifteen-thousand word dissertation of the Montreal Metros’ 2015 Championship victory match; coupled with timestamps, screenshots, and a detailed comment for almost every millisecond of Shane Hollander’s individual performance. There is no way Ilya can admit to doing this.

After a few beats of awkward silence, Shane must pick up on his reticence and starts doing that annoying thing where he starts obnoxiously begging, like a stray dog would appeal for scraps of food behind a dumpster alley. “Please, please. Please Ilya. Tell me.”

Ilya groans, grinding the heel of his palms into his tired eyes and then running them through his messy bed hair. “Ten minutes and forty-two seconds,” he reads, sincerely regretting the cognitive process that led to thinking this was a good idea. “Hollander favours left side when passing to Pike. Either cramp in leg or raging hard-on.”

“Wow,” Shane replies, and Ilya watches as his webcam-self smiles, chewing thoughtfully on the corner of his thumb nail.

“Stop biting your nails. Fifteen minutes and twenty-one seconds: Hollander initiates attack sequence thirty seconds earlier than other teammates. Maybe also comes thirty seconds earlier than teammates too. Not sure about Pike though. He is probably done in one stroke only.”

Shane clicks his tongue in mock offence. “Did you actually write this, or are you just making it up?”

“It is all here, Hollander. The writing does not lie.”

“Is there even anything actually nice written about me?” Shane asks.

Ilya bites his lip. “Nineteen minutes and fifty three seconds: Hollander makes sexiest centering pass I have seen in my life, probably ever. Perfect speed, swing, and target accuracy. If I saw this in real life, would be like pulling sword from stone trying to get me to pull out of him.”

Shane’s jaw drops open immediately, a wicked blush curling around his cheekbones. “You are so filthy,” he says indulgently, incredulous mirth bubbling in his voice.

“I am poet,” Ilya retorts, a little embarrassed but feeling strangely proud of himself in his ability to elicit such a delicious reaction out of Shane.

"You're definitely something," Shane murmurs, and Ilya is delighted to spot the not-so-hidden arousal in Shane's pupils, even from the grainy image of his webcam. "Come on, tell me more."

Ilya feels the wicked smile curl across his lips before he even has time to comprehend it. He begins to feel a tell-tale arousal build and then thicken in his sweatpants, and he rolls his neck backwards. "Excuse me, Shane Hollander. I need something to work with before I can continue."

In one fell swoop, Shane's soft hoodie is drawn up and over his head, revealing inches of bare, lean, smooth chest that Ilya's attention immediately snaps to. A smug smile takes the place of a slightly self-conscious one.

"Okay, okay, fine," Ilya huffs. "Didn't know you were so desperate for it."

Shane rolls his eyes. Ilya continues reading, some of the words on the screen lascivious enough to bring a slight flush to his own cheeks as he scrolls through the document. Furthermore, it is clear that, at some point, Ilya was typing sentences with a single hand.

"Really, I do not think this was very educational, um, study lesson," Ilya coughs. "It is very, um, non-academic. Not very helpful for you. Maybe I find something better."

"Don't care," Shane replies, absently rolling a nipple through the pads of his index and middle fingers. "Tell me."

Ilya takes a deep breath in. "Twenty-four minutes sixteen seconds: last night I had dream he passed to me like this. Now want to bury his cock so deep down my throat his semen could be seen on gastroscope."

Okay, granted, Ilya thinks maybe it was a little bit of a weird thing to write, even for him. The deafening silence on the other end of the line is so palpable that for if it wasn't for Shane's incredulous expression, Ilya might have thought he had just been hung up on. "Maybe is enough of that now. Sorry about that."

"You are a fucking freak, Rozanov," Shane laughs, but he doesn't look upset. Instead, the slight blush colouring to his chest and sudden disappearance of his right hand below the frame of the camera is intimating that he is perhaps the opposite of upset.

"What about this one: 'shane hollander pros and cons list'. Not sure I ever expected this to be useful."

"Let me guess," Shane says, and the little aroused hitch in his voice causes Ilya to grin a little madly. "You've put 'he is boring' or something on there as a con. Probably more than once."

"Mm, let me see," Ilya hums quietly, clicking into the document and pretending he is surprised that Shane's prediction is overwhelmingly accurate, on more than one aspect. "Yes, there we go. Con: extremely boring. Not just he is boring, but extremely boring, Hollander. Do not underestimate me."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Shane says, his voice hitching again. "Hey, not really fair that I'm the only one with my shirt off. It's fucking cold in Ottawa today."

"Not my fault you can't control yourself," Ilya huffs, but obliges and pulls his own shirt off. He stops for a second, taking in the soft, sheepish face of his ridiculous boyfriend - the man he has spent a literal decade of his life waxing poetic to; spending hours and hours typing dissertation of lustful praise to on his clunky old laptop. An overwhelming feeling of gratitude surges through him, coupled with this strange, divergent feeling of loneliness - one that can only really, unfortunately, be solved by physical proximity.

Shane stops too, a sappy fondness turning the corners of his lips upwards. His eyes search Ilya's across space, time, pixels, and geography. "I miss you too," he says quietly, genuinely, and Ilya doesn't think he'll ever get used to hearing Shane Hollander say that to him.

"I know you do. Now show me where you are touching yourself."

Shane grins. Ilya loves him so much.