Heated Rivalry: lightweight canadian by unseemlyndisturbed

mific posting in

Fandom: Heated Rivalry
Characters/Pairings: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Svetlana Vetrova, Rose Landry, J.J. Boiziau, Hayden Pike, Scott Hunter
Rating: Explicit
Length: 269,116
Content Notes: Rape/Non-con - very much read the tags on the story. Self harm and suicide attempts including passive self-harm. Ilya is deliberately cruel, Shane is into pain and degradation, intense and often toxic co-dependency, child abuse (Ilya's past), depictions of significant mental disorders such as PTSD, borderline PD, eating disorder.

Also the author notes the use of AI in the early phase of writing the fic: "a few months ago, ai was used to aid in coding the text messages for this fic. as well as used to proof read the spelling for 8 lines. the ai coding was promptly removed and done by hand a few weeks after it was used after being informed about the damages of ai. however, the proof read lines were forgotten about and not removed. that is to say PARTS OF THIS FIC HAVE TOUCHED AI. please read my thread and apology here, which includes my evidence validated by anti-ai advocates. i am wholly against ai and have been for months."
Creator Links: unseemlyndisturbed on AO3
Themes: Unreliable narrator(s), Hurt/comfort, BDSM, Mutual pining, Canon LGBTQ+ characters, Enemies to lovers, Novel length, Trauma and Recovery

Summary: "He stared at the screen. His body was thrumming, vibrating with a desperate, pent-up energy that made his skin feel too tight. It had been two days. Two days of Ilya saying start. Two days of Ilya saying stop. Two days of being edged until his brain felt like it was melting out of his ears. The ache in his balls was a dull, constant throb, a pressure that bordered on agony.
But it felt so good."

Two men, one secret, a decade of choosing each other in every wrong way possible.

Shane Hollander is careful, controlled, and very good at performing both. Ilya Rozanov is the one person who has ever seen through it, and the one person Shane has never been able to perform for.

What started in Vegas in 2011 has followed them through six years of rivalry, obsession, and something else neither of them has been willing to name. When Shane falls apart, will Ilya be able to put the pieces back together again? Whether what he builds from the pieces is something Shane can survive is another question entirely...

Reccer's Notes: Okay, so you might look at the content notes up above and wonder why anyone would want to read two novels-worth of this! The answer, for me, is that it's absolutely gripping and well-written, and although a lot of the fic is dark, in the end they do come through to a much better place together, and that's incredibly rewarding. There's the usual romance throughout, but this story definitely doesn't follow romance novel tropes - it's a complex novel that explores the traumas hinted at in book and show canon and leans heavily into those. It follows the main beats of canon, plot-wise, but often uses canon-type dialogue and details in different parts of the story, weaving them through the AU aspects. I've called it a canon-divergent AU, and it is, but there are a lot of divergences, not just one point. There's also a lot of psychological complexity and twistiness and ultimately, very real growth and a reasonable degree of recovery for both Ilya and Shane. The story's full of drama and intense feelings, is extremely hot if you're into BDSM, and the author absolutely sticks the landing at the end. This isn't an easy read, often a painful one, but it's powerful and adds much more depth and reality to their relationship. Absolutely not safe, sane or consensual though, so be aware of that, going in. I couldn't put it down.

Fanwork Links: lightweight canadian