The Weekly Pining: Fics I Read This Week, Vol. II

This week, I read 14 Heated Rivalry fics by 13 different authors. The total word count was 513,177. Here they are, in the order that I read them:

treat me like an afterthought by lupus (lupuswrites) words: 26,728, status: complete

A college frat fic, without hockey. Shane and Ilya are presidents of rival frats who hook up sometimes. Ilya is doing his best to court Shane, who he strongly suspects might be the love of his life. Shane, meanwhile, is doing his level best to keep it casual and stick to rules he’s made up, like only seeing Ilya once a week and never staying over after. Cue lots of miscommunication and mutual pining (my favourite). Would love a sequel.

weak by doubleapple words: 21,367, status: complete

I think this is the best Yuna character study I’ve read so far. It wraps in her conflicted feelings about entering the menopause with her guilt that Shane didn’t come out to her earlier, and also touches on her tendency to try and manage everyone else without looking after herself. All of this is done as she and David care for a sick Ilya during the year that he’s with Shane but still playing for Boston — he, of course, has his own baggage around being vulnerable with family. They help each other and it’s beautiful. NB: Shane is barely in this and it was so good that I didn’t miss him at all.

a temporary fix by jewelledfoxes words: 39,047, status: complete This fic uses omegaverse tropes to explore Ilya’s pov during the situationship era. There’s not a lot of substantial plot, it’s more of a character study that looks into how Ilya’s family and cultural background informs him as a captain and a man. I liked this a lot more than I was expecting to going in, not being a dedicated a/b/o reader.

count the ways by chinese bakery words: 54,344, status: complete I have no idea how realistic it is that a number one and number two draft pick would get taken by the same team, but who cares, it’s fiction. Shane and Ilya are rookies together in Montreal, and so the initial hooking up and situationship era takes place with the added benefits and challenges of working/living in close proximity. This story is all told in Shane’s pov and deals a lot with his internalised homophobia/shame. It’s great, but I would also love to see inside Ilya’s head for this plot, especially during the six months when Shane is trying to kid himself that he’s neither gay nor down bad for ilya, and their on-ice chemistry completely collapses as a result. This one is from the 2026 Hollanov Big Bang, which I highly recommend checking out.

between two lungs by the_fluff_awakens words: 53,278, status: complete

Shane is in college in Ottawa studying Russian literature, and his best friend is Russian-American student Dominika Rozanova. He agrees to accompany her home to Boston for the holidays and pretend to be her fiancé to get her nosy aunt off her back. Except, Dominika’s twin brother Ilya — college hockey star and incoming first draft pick for the Ottawa Centaurs — is also there. And… Well. At one point, there is only one bed! Dominika is a great OC, I loved her, and the family dynamics with Irina fleeing to the US with Dominika and having to leave Ilya behind in Russia are interesting too. I wished this fic was twice as long.

policy change by josie_ides words: 177,819, status: complete

I’ve been tracking this one for ages, constantly being tempted to start reading it but holding off so I could binge in one go. It completed this week so I dived in immediately. It was quite a journey! The initial premise — the Montreal Metros get bought by a progressive gay billionaire on a mission to revolutionise the league — is interesting and its impact on Shane/Ilya’s relationship is delicious (not least because said billionaire is hot and clearly into Shane). If I may get slightly spoilery, though, I was a bit surprised that the relationship and institutional tension was mostly resolved by about halfway through, and then we were into more of a TLG-style section about mental health, hiding and finding their happiness. It’s almost like this is a two fics in one: the initial getting together story and then the sequel all smushed together. Like a double narrative arc rather than a single one. It makes more sense to me like that, anyway! Regardless, I loved this and will re-read next time in the mood to immerse myself in a long story.

not gay sorry but very hot by igrowtails words: 6,944, status: complete

I’m usually a “download and read on ereader” person, but I will occasionally make an exception for a fic with interesting formatting. This one was great fun: Ilya, a “straight” Russian student applying to Ottawa to play college hockey, says he’s gay in the hope that it will help his application. Then he gets in, and needs to follow through. So he posts a Facebook ad looking for a fake boyfriend. Shane, a fellow student who does not play hockey but is a queer organiser on campus, answers. The whole story is told through their texts as the fake dating progresses.

the language of us by safelycapricious words: 2,099, status: complete

Cute, short story where you acquire a skill from your soulmate but the boys still manage to be oblivious about their feelings for many years regardless. Fics that delve into language acquisition/learning are very much my jam, if you ever have recs for this send them my way.

chapter 15 of five more minutes by rosie8818 words: 2,554, status: ongoing, standalone chapters

A rare uncompleted fic that I’m reading as it updates: this is a repository for the author’s one shots all set in this same universe, which begins when Ilya comes back after the stairwell kiss in episode two because his cab in fact is not there yet. This latest update covers Ilya’s pov for the coffee-on-the-rock-by-the-lake moment after the love confession.

pretend by carpediaz words: 7,043, status: complete

A tuna meltdown fix-it that should not be as devastating as it is, given its length. Ilya convinces Shane not to leave but instead to just “pretend” that they can be something more than casual for the rest of the day. Then they get addicted to the pretence…

it’s nice to hear your voice again by eemolu words: 3,324, status: complete

I’ll read a few shorter fics, I thought. They won’t wreck me emotionally like some of the long stuff does, I thought. Wrong. I actually cried at this post-marriage one-shot where Ilya discovers that Shane has been taking his “I will never listen to your voicemail” greeting seriously for years and leaving him messages that he just needed to get off his chest, like a private audio journal. When migrating to a new phone he has to clear out his voicemail inbox and finds them all.

puckhead by fingersfallingupwards words: 6,887, status: complete

Shane and Ilya have been hooking up their entire careers, managing to keep it a secret through team moves, cup wins, and so forth. At 39, Ilya announces he wants to retire and go back to Russia. Shane is in denial for a long time, until they eventually hash it out in a very jock way. There’s a good cameo by Ilya’s CPAP machine. A great one for old man yaoi fans.

that time ilya rozanov stole his teammate’s boyfriend and that time ilya rozanov plotted to steal his teammate’s boyfriend by mariku words: part one, 15,782, part two, 95,961, status: complete

I read the first part of this quite early on in my HR fic fixation (I started reading in Feb, it was published in March) and I liked it enough to subscribe to the series. Then I forgot about it until the sequel wrapped up publishing just recently, and decided to reread the whole thing. It’s so much better than I remember! Ilya is an exception college basketball player headed for the NBA and Shane is a journalism student dating his teammate. Part one is from said teammate’s perspective as he gradually realises that Ilya is very successfully moving in on his man (Colin sucks, we hate Colin, don’t worry) and then part two is Ilya’s pov on it all. I think this might be the best example I’ve read to date of a perspective change completely altering the tone of the work. The first instalment is funny, but the second one recasts it in a kind of devastating light and makes it way more melancholy and romantic.

All love and thanks to the brilliant writers and artists who are keeping me going at the moment with their work. See you next time for another round-up of my frankly unhinged fic-reading habit.