Hello!

"Nice to meet you, Katie."

He had been at the Cottage for a grand total of three hours now, ready to start his relaxing holiday. Hell, the groceries he had bought hadn't even been moved from the stack of bags on the island counter where they had been placed haphazardly.

Shane had meant to deal with that as soon as possible but unfortunately, very foreseen circumstances had distracted him from his task and sent him running outside and into the chaos.

Opening his contacts, he flicked down to a very familiar number and pressed the call button, shooting an annoyed look towards the dining room table as he raised it to his ear.

The phone rang three times before it was answered with a soft hello.

"Hi Janice, it's Shane." He said, his tone curt, his eyes not leaving the scene before him.

He listened for a moment, hearing the reply.

"Yes, the holiday just started. We arrived today actually." He continued.

There was another pause. And then….

"I don't want to know who won the bet. I just wanted to let you know, it happened again."

Another pause.

"No. Not a Bear this time, thankfully. You don't need to send everyone out here. Just Marcel will do."

Silence for a moment as Shane listened. And then….

"A baby loon actually."

Quickly he raised a hand to stop an argument coming from the dining area.

"Yeah, he thought it was an injured duck."

Silence and then.

"Ok. Thank you Janice. We will wait for Marcel to arrive. Hopefully he hasn't named it this time."

Then Shane hung up the phone, his head dropping so he could stare at the device intently.

Taking a deep breath through his nose, he held it for a few seconds before slowly releasing it through his mouth.

Then he again raised his head to glare at the table. Where Ilya sat, mud splattered and cradling a thick towel to his chest. At his feet, equally mud splattered, her tail wagging, sat Anya. Thank God she was well trained enough not to start running through the place. As Shane stared, a small and incredibly ugly head popped out of the folds of fabric, looking around in confusion.

"You can't keep it, Ilya." He said pointedly.

Ilya threw him a disappointed look, his grip on the towel tightening.

"But Katya looked so cold and scared outside." He argued. "I couldn't just leave her. Not my fault she turned out to be an ugly, stupid wolf bird. Besides, Anya bonded with her."

Shane groaned and dropped his head to meet the cool stone counter.

"Ilya, God Dammit!"

-

Look at his face! His eyes. He is trying so so so hard to be so chill. So nonchalant. "Don't look down. Turn the volume down. Don't look at him yet. He might disappear. Be cool. Don't spook him." And oh my god he is not chill in the slightest. He is so touched that Shane seems to care. He asked about the girls thing and it didn't go well so he's taking this as a sign that maybe Shane does care. It goes downhill in like 5 minutes but you know.

And then:

He settles in a bit and he looks almost almost relaxed. But he still can't look! And the barely-there jaw flex, shoving down the emotions. Looking makes it too real. Even though it's already very real for Ilya.

Like with Ilya Shane is Mr. "I don't know, maybe twice" and "Are you okay? I saw you up here" and "I don't know that side of you at all" and "I keep a lot of things private" and "Team meeting in the morning I forgot" and "Nice shirt, you're pulling it off" and "You feel it too, right?" because when Ilya looks at Shane, Shane feels like Ilya is seeing his internal organs, like everything is laid out for the taking and in some ways Shane is like just take it Rozanov just grab it stop looking at me and seeing through me and fucking fuck me instead but Ilya keeps looking and looking, crucially only looking away when Shane finally says NO YOU FUCKER I see you too, I see the way you turn things around and distract and deny because I literally barely tell myself the truth, let alone the world.

Peter Pan edited by Anne Hiebert Alton (2011)

(sorry to interrupt joke post but) this is true!

Children not clapping did happen too, (and some were even expected to have hissed, which was later written into the 1928 playscript and 1911 novel). But my all time favourite anecdote about it is from Pauline Chase (who played Peter)'s intro to Peter Pan's Post Bag 1909:

Children love to clap their hands at the play because then they feel that they are really part of it, and you can see them holding their hands poised ready to seize an opportunity. Their great chance is when I ask them to clap their hands if they believe in fairies, and so save Tink's life. But they are very wrathful if any one claps who has the reputation of being a cynic, and once there was quite an uproar in the front row of the dress circle because of a girl who clapped. Those about her pulled down her arms angrily. "How dare you clap," they cried, "when you know you don't believe in fairies!" There was one dreadfully hard-hearted little boy who came to the theatre not to clap. That was his object for coming, and he came round "behind" to tell me so in the middle of the play. His teeth were firm set. "I won't clap," he said doggedly; "I'm not going to clap." And when the time came he didn't clap; above the clapping of all the others I could hear him shouting from a box, "Peter, I'm not clapping."

saw this post by @littlespoonevan on my dash and immediately had to get to work bc i couldn't stop thinking about it:

and EXTREMELY funny to imagine him doing something like physically grabbing svetlana's hand when she's grabbing some nuts out of a little bowl at a bar and going, "no, bad," while svetlana is?? i beg your FINEST fucking pardon??? before ilya's mind catches up and he goes, "oh, nevermind" because it's not poison for svetas, just shanes. brain just went Loved One Eating Forbidden Food and had him moving before he thought it through.

but even funnier to imagine it happening with his new team. and they're still getting to know each other so the freedom to touch component isn't there yet, but they're just like. getting coffee or something one morning in a city they're in for a game, and they go to take a bite of a protein bar they got, and ilya (who is texting shane which is why brain is Allergy Mode and also hasn't had any caffeine yet) barely glances up before he goes, "no, poison. bad for you." and this new person WHO BARELY KNOWS ILYA ATP is just ??? what??? what are you talking about??? was there a recall or something?? and then ilya has to go, "oh, no. fine for you. go ahead."

Shane's actually the one to accidentally reveal the timeline, when he says "I mean, if you average it out by the seven years where we only saw each other a few times a year and the four years we were long-distance, we're probably still behind most couples."