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  1. Public Bookmark *

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    Summary

    He’s about to unlock the door when his phone buzzes, no doubt with an apology or an explanation. Someone screams outside of the bathroom. There’s a loud noise. More screams. What the-

    His phone buzzes again.

    Jane: don’t come out

    Jane: hide

    Jane: guns

    Jane: idk what’s happening

    Jane: call the cops

    Or

    Shane, Ilya, Scott Hunter and a bunch of MHL players find themselves in a hostage situation in the middle of the Las Vegas award ceremony. (Mid-situationship, the year pre-tuna melt).

    Series
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    10/10
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    05 May 2026

    Bookmarker's Notes

    “I didn’t say it back.”

    Shane’s brain, already in overdrive trying to catch up with what’s happening just malfunctions.

    “What?”

    “I didn’t say it back,” Ilya repeats, stepping forward.

    This is cruel. Ilya isn’t usually cruel, just cold or distant, but not this. Why is he doing this?

    “Yeah, I– I know. It’s okay. You don’t have to explain. I get it, I–“

    But then Ilya has his hands on his face and he is walking Shane backwards into the cottage (dripping all over his hardwood floor, a little part of Shane worries). His back finally hits a wall, gently, and before he can catch his breath Ilya’s mouth is on his, wet and demanding and warm. Shane kisses him back, because it’s second nature, because he has been starving for too long, because he can’t help himself when it comes to Ilya. But even then, he can feel the knife twisting inside him, because this is cruel. This hurts too much. He lets out a whine into Ilya’s mouth and pushes him back gently, desperately trying to get his bearings.

    “I don’t—I don’t understand,” his voice breaks. “Please, I can’t–“

    Ilya’s hand still cradle his face, wet cold fingers gently brushing his cheeks. Shane isn’t sure if the wetness on his face is from crying or from the rain.

    “You beautiful, stubborn man,” Ilya says, smiling. “I think you are dead and I am ready to die too. I tell you that I would rather fall with you than lose you. I take a bullet for you. And you still don’t see it? You need to hear the words? Okay. I tell you. I love you,” Ilya kisses his forehead. “I love you,” he kisses the point where his jaw meets his neck. “I love you,” he kisses the corner of his mouth.

  2. Public Bookmark 90

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    “Shut up,” Rozanov snaps. He whips his head around, crowding Shane towards the wall. A sky-dividing sharpness to his anger, his mineral blue gaze. It fizzles out. “I did not say you are a girl.”

    Shane freezes. His heart opens before he can stop it. “Do you want me to be one?”

    or: Shane does not want Rozanov to make him ask.

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    02 May 2026

    Bookmarker's Notes

    The first time Shane had looked at a boy, truly—truly looked at a boy, he was eight. It was like staring at the sun. Shane couldn’t look at him again for a whole year.

  3. Public Bookmark *

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    “Wha’ happened?” Shane mumbles.

    Ilya presses the call button for the nurse. “You took a bad hit during the game. We are at hospital.”

    Shane frowns. “What game?” he asks, and then, “Who are you?”

    Ilya blinks back the panic rising in his throat. “Shane, what the fuck? Is me. Ilya.”

    Shane is still frowning. “Rozanov?” he asks, and suddenly, like he’s had a premonition, Ilya knows what Shane is going to say next. Knows from the furrow between his brows and the hunch in his shoulders and the hands that are very conspicuously not reaching for him.

    “Rozanov,” Shane says again. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

    So this is what it feels like for your heart to break.

    --

    Or: In 2023, Shane takes a bad hit during a game and wakes up with no memory of the last twelve years of his life.

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    30 Apr 2026

    Bookmarker's Notes

    Ilya thinks about them all the time: the lasts he didn’t know were lasts. The last time he blew Shane (in the shower, the morning before the game, Shane’s hands knotted in Ilya’s soapy hair, his groan echoing off the tiles); the last time he kissed Shane (before they got out of their SUV at the arena, a there-and-gone brush of lips over the center console for luck); their last goal together on the ice (three minutes before collision, a slick feint from Shane led to a solid pass to Ilya and a goal netted neatly in the top right corner of the opposition goal).

    The last that messes him up the most, though, is the last time Shane told Ilya he loved him, because Ilya doesn’t remember it. Was it the night before, when they were drifting off to sleep? The morning of, a quick thank-you for a disgusting smoothie, competently made while Shane was still getting dressed? Or something else entirely—something more meaningful, or less meaningful, or absent, or deliberate, but something that Ilya took for granted, something he didn’t bother to remember, something he thought he would hear a thousand more times and so something he dismissed?

    Ilya doesn’t remember the last time his mother said she loved him, either. Which is a completely different situation, of course. But he can’t stop thinking about it.

  4. Public Bookmark *

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    The first snowfall in Boston that year brings several things: a heavy layer of dirty snow coating all the roads of the city; a freezing, threatening cold to the air both inside and out; all incoming flights to Logan getting grounded before they could even think about taking off; and the breaking rumors that Ilya Rozanov is fucking men in his spare time.

    Language:
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    29 Apr 2026

    Bookmarker's Notes

    “Everything is changing.”

    And Hollander says, “I’m not.”

    Ilya cracks a small smile. “Ah. My good, reliable, boring Hollander. But you are changing in some ways, I think.”

    “My—feelings haven’t.” Hollander takes a shaky breath, eyes still closed. “What I want from you hasn’t. All this—these photos, the tabloids, the talk—is happening, but what I want from you hasn’t changed at all. I’m just—I’m realizing—being afraid—and alone—what’s worth—”

    He cuts himself off and goes silent again. The tension has shifted somehow. Ilya, not knowing what he wants to hear now, murmurs, “Hollander…”

    “You called me Shane. Before.” Hollander’s voice is low as an ember, as a streetlamp’s reflection in the ice. “You called me Shane.”

    Ilya looks over at him. Careful. Analyzing. Unsure of what he’s finding. “You have never called me Ilya.”

    And with that, Shane Hollander opens his eyes. He looks over at Ilya. His pupils are blown dark and wide, his expression is raw and vulnerable, his hair windblown still and his lips just slightly wetted. He says, “Ilya.”

  5. Public Bookmark *

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    “I don’t really think about stuff like that,” Shane replies in interviews, his lips wooden at the words.

    ---

    Shane and being haafu, 2nd gen, and Asian.

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    26 Apr 2026

    Bookmarker's Notes

    “The worst part,” Yuna Hollander was saying, “was the food.”

    Across from her, Ilya was nodding thoughtfully, two glasses of wine deep. They had already finished dinner, and the empty plates had been sitting neglected for at least 20 minutes now. The conversation just didn’t seem to hit a lull for them to get up and take care of the dishes; Shane was starting to feel antsy, thinking about the pasta sauce slowly crusting stuck on the plates, getting harder and harder to scrub away.

    Ilya had been joking about first moving to the US, how shocked he was at how big everything was; the size of the cars, the size of the grocery stores, the size of parking lots. Yuna nodded, eyes shut in solidarity, at all of these observations, and launched into her own stories of when she first moved to Canada: hugs, bizarre questions about China, how many yappy dogs were out and about all the time.

    “It was so lonely, you know,” his mother said, a little buzzed and contemplative. “My mom, she was so sad, she couldn’t find anything, not even miso. All there was was soy sauce and a sushi restaurant. There was one guy, by the time Shane was born, who started running an import business, buying stuff from Japan and selling it from his home. But before that, well…

    “It was like I could never eat my favourite foods again. No more curry rice, no more korokke, no more miso-fried fish, no taiyaki or dango or any kind of wagashi, not even miso soup! I think I missed miso soup the most. We used to have it every day. I didn’t know I loved it so much until it was gone.”

    Ilya hummed, nodding. “I know this feeling,” he said, “I miss grechka more every day. Just buckwheat. I did not think I cared for it before.” Shane hadn’t thought much about how Ilya and his mother had this in common. Immigrants, the both of them. The term didn’t seem to fit with Ilya in his head, for some reason.

    “Once,” Yuna said, beginning to smile, “My mom went to the store and saw this stuff, instant ramen, you know it’s everywhere now, but it was new then, for Canada. And she got so excited, she bought three cups for us and brought it home, her face was splitting open with her smile. I’d never seen her so happy.”

    “She made it for us for dinner, she poured in those cup noodles and set it out for us. And we laughed, since it was a western cup noodle, and it tasted nothing like real ramen. Honestly, it was bad,” Yuna shook her head, amused. “Afterwards, my dad set his chopsticks down, and said very seriously – ‘Mother, never buy this again,’ and she never did.”

    Shane had never heard that story. The image was vivid in his mind; his grandma and grandpa, young and worn down, Yuna with her hair short, wrinkling their nose at the flimsy styrofoam Mr. Noodles cup. His grandpa laying down an order – no more trying at what we can’t have.