“neil, can I take a cat from the shelter by myself?”

“yep, why not”

...

ILYA ROZANOV WEEK: DAY FOUR FAVORITE TRAIT   ↪ HIS EMPATHY AND KINDNESS 🥺💕

good morning~ 💐🍎

Shane meanwhile has had a long day and his baby is hurt and no he doesn’t want to answer media questions-. So when the game is finally finished instead of trying to help his husband painfully limp to their car while press swarm them-.

He just carries the man bridal style. He’s a 6foot hockey player he can carry Ilya a few feet to the car and buckle him in and take him home thank you very much.

“Doctor said the less weight the better. 200 some pounds of body weight isn’t nothing Ilya.”

“I’ll limp. Use my hockey stick as a crutch.”

“And land on your ass when it breaks. Either I carry you like this or sling you over my shoulder like a caveman. Which one do you want.”

“this please.”

Ilya does love seeing old photos of Shane. Fat Baby Shane™ in all his forms, toddler Shane in his little hockey gear, Shane in elementary school with a big missing-teeth smile, Shane blowing out the candles on his 10th birthday, Shane holding up his brand new driver's license at 16. The list goes on.

One day Yuna finds an old disposable camera. The expiration date on it says 2009. She tells Shane about it; it might have some old photos from his graduation on it or something. She'd gotten a digital camera around that time so she can't remember what she used this one for. Shane is pretty indifferent about it.

Yuna sends the camera off to some company that still develops old camera film. It's about 15 years old at this point, though, so whatever is on it might not even develop correctly.

A few weeks later Shane and Ilya are over for dinner. Yuna tells them she got the photos back and they actually turned out ok. She hands over the stack of 10 photos. Shane rolls his eyes, but Ilya grabs the photos and starts flipping through them. The first two look like they are from some school event; there's Shane surrounded by similarly aged kids in an auditorium. There's one of the three of them on Thanksgiving that year and another of the three of them with Yuna's parents at the same dinner. Two of David asleep on the couch with the family dog clearly taken on different days. One of a Christmas tree in the Hollander's living room. The next two are Shane on the ice in a rink that Ilya recognizes as the one in Regina. The one from their first World Juniors Tournament.

And Ilya freezes. The last photo in the stack is a close-up of Shane. He's in a white hoodie with a black coat over it. He has on a dark green beanie and he's standing next to the door to the rink. He's smiling for the camera and his freckles are crinkled near his eyes. It's the Shane that so awkwardly and so confidently introduced himself to Ilya the first time they met. The Shane that had tried so hard to talk to Ilya then. The Shane that Ilya could admit to himself now that he'd had a bit of a crush on already. His Shane.