Buddypallady

@eddiediaznetwork - eddie diaz week

The big stretch the first baseman has to do to catch the ball and remain on base

When a pitch rolls away and the catcher has to look all threatening at the base runners when he gets it

When the batter strikes out so bad and he can tell

When the fielder gives up trying to catch the home run ball

When the second baseman tries to catch a ball twenty feet above him

Of course they all attend, and, as per usual, Shane and Ilya stick together as close as humanly possible all the time, but at some point they do get seperated for a moment as they get called to sign rainbow jerseys and take pictures with kids.

Ilya starts looking for his husband - he gets fidgety like a chihuahua with seperation anxiety when Shane is out of sight for too long, a fact that he conveniently avoids talking about in therapy, as he knows that Shane is not much better, so obviously they are both perfectly fine and well adjusted.

Anyway, he spots Shanes scribbeling something as he is standing next to a participation wall that is covered in colourful sticky notes where people write their thoughts for the question that is printed in big letters on the top: "What makes you Proud?"

Ilya's immediately sprints over to Shane because that is NOT the time and place for his sweet and lovely husband to write "being a olympic gold medalist, world champion and four times stanley cup winner :)"

He reaches the wall, just as Shane is ready to turn around and leave; a big smile hits Ilya like a ray on sunshine as Shane spots him.

"Solnyshko", Ilya wraps his arm around Shane's waist and presses his forehead against Shane's, allowing himself a moment to revel in the relief of having his Shane back, before turning them both back towards the wall. "What did you write?", Ilya asks and carefully trying for a carefree tone.

From the side, he can see a blush creeping up Shane's cheeks and he looks so cute, flushed and freckled and Ilya wants to eat him up and- omg Rozanov get it together, Shane being so pretty really fucks with your concentration.

"You know, just the normal stuff", Shane mumbles and tries to turn around, but Ilya presses his body even closer to his side - not that Shane fights against him really hard.

Ilya scans the wall, taking in the heartwarming messages of people being proud of being out and happy and living their best lives, of finding joy in their communities, of embracing their identities, of finally being comfortable in their bodies, of fighting for their rights and through hardships, of celebrating life and joy. And all this joy is so much and wonderful and it makes Ilya's knees wobbly and he is once again very lucky to have Shane to lean on.

And then, right under the "What makes you Proud?" print Ilya spots that purple sticky note, covered in chicken scratch. Obviously the author tried very hard to write neatly on this one, but still, it's unmistakably Shane's writing.

Ilya's breath catches as he reads: "My husband. The strongest and kindest and funniest person I know. Who takes care others and of himself, every day. Who loves life and makes mine so much better. I love him."

Ilya reaches for Shane's hand. It is barely Shakespeare, but the sheer earnestness of Shane's note make him feel like being checked into the boards, his knees really are close to give up now, his fingers seeking purchase in Shane's flesh it must be painful and he let's himself be hold by Shane's solid and warm body.

Of course he knows that Shane loves him, he tells Ilya every day, and he knows that Shane is proud of Ilya for going to therapy, for being a good captain... but reading it, here, and for everyone to see?

No, Ilya does NOT want to cry about it, not before he's got his mouth on Shane's cock and then fuck them both to tears afterwards.

For now he presses his nose in Shane's hair and whispers: "Kindest person? Seriously? What have I have done to be insulted like this, Lyubimyy?"

"What the fuck, Ilya?" Shane's face scrunches up in that adorable way that makes it hard for Ilya to suppress a smile.

"No it's true, ask entire league. They all say I'm biggest asshole. I worked very hard for that reputation."

"Oh don't worry, you earn that." Shane huffs.

"See, even my husband agrees."

Then Shane turns his head around just enough to eye Ilya with this open, soft glance of his and Ilya knows already his heart will give up. "Yes, you are the biggest asshole, but you also have the biggest heart. And I'm very proud of you, baby."

"I'm just thinking about when we met. There should have been some sort of sign."

"There was, you pointed out the no smoking sign, was first thing you said."

Shane smiles, "sure but it just seems crazy to me that I met you and no one told me that I'd just met the most important person I'll ever know."

Ilya felt like he'd just been sideswiped by his husband. It was so like Shane to just be thinking the most romantic thing Ilya's ever heard while Ilya's playing candy crush.

"I thought that I'd found the thing that would make me happiest in the world already, and I did, because hockey led me to meeting you. It's just crazy is all"

Gay people are INCREDIBLY ANNOYING for production when they are on reality shows cause they always do shit like this. Reality shows pick their cast specifically for people who will create drama, so it tracks that bringing in some gay people (in the era that I worked, 2013-2018, this was considered to be new and interesting) would diversify people enough to create some conflict. To a degree, this was true.

But what actually happened was that the gay person, or worse, people, would end up estranged from the other people because Straight People Who Are Fucking Nuts in a way that would be ideal for a reality show are very different from Gay People Who Are Fucking Nuts.

There's one particular instance I remember in which our Gay Person tm wasn't getting into drama and no one could figure out why. Any time anything happened it would just defuse almost instantly. Eventually we prodded during a solo interview and one of the guys said something along the lines of "Mayn gay marriage just got legalized n shit if I yell at this guy I'm being a homophobe". This meant that our gay was COASTING along in this reality show cause no one would vote him out!!

But you know what the PINNACLE of this was?

DATING SHOWS.

One... Very popular dating show I worked on (you know the one) has an unofficial, unwritten rule: you can only have 1 queer woman in the cast of ladies. This is because for a solid few years, if ever there were two bisexual women in the show, they would ALWAYS abandon the man and run off together instead. You can't have contestants saying shit like "this guy has no personality and sucks ass. I prefer this girl I met who actually listens to me". Like this was an actual epidemic in the casting. It happened over and over for YEARS and they couldn't find a way to stop it without literally separating the women from each other, which obviously wouldn't be good for the show. They also couldn't show this was happening because that. Uh. Would be pretty bad to reveal to audiences.

Eventually they just decided to subtly prod and see if women who were going on the show were gay and then avoid having two on the same season at the same time. To my knowledge they still do it this way.