LiLee of the Valley

Yuna goes in the ambulance with Ilya — Shane can't get out of his skates fast enough to run over in time, so he drives a few minutes behind them — and she calls Shane to keep him updated. It's fine, it's all fine, Ilya is already semi conscious and talking to them both. Shane's mind goes to all of the worst places anyway.

They lose service when they get in the elevator, but Yuna still sends out a text message with the room number. Shane speeds faster and then bolts through the hospital.

When he finally sees Ilya, minutes later, already in a blue hospital gown and connected to an IV but conscious and beaming up at him, Shane breaks into tears.

"Don't cry, solnyshko," Ilya says. "Come here," he holds out the hand that's free from the needles and Shane takes it.

"I have something important to ask you," Ilya tells him. It suddenly feels so serious. Shane's heart drops.

"Will you come to my cottage this summer?" Ilya says in a sing-songy voice, using his best Canadian accent. "Don't go to Russia. Come to my house, we'll have so much fun..."

Shane laughs. "You remember that?"

“did you eat the last of my frozen dark-chocolate covered raspberries rozanov?😡”

“wanna go to costco today with me? 🙂”

“hey, sorry for waking you up again but i had another idea”

As Shane and Ilya are going through the box, Ilya pulls out a little Centaurs branded notebook, with "Shane's Fun Facts!" written on the front in sharpie. Ilya is understandably delighted.

"What is this?" he asks, smiling from ear to ear, quickly yanking it out of the reach of Shane who immediately tries to swipe it out of his hands.

"It's nothing," says Shane, but the way his cheeks have gone pink behind his freckles tells another story.

"Uh-uh. It cannot be nothing if you don't want me to see it this badly."

Turning his back to Shane so he can't easily grab at it, Ilya opens to a random page and reads in Shane's 8-year-old scrawl:

Lightning bolts are five times hotter than the sun. That is very hot!

Ilya is grinning even wider now.

"Wow, Solnyshko, that is a fun fact."

"Fuck off," Shane says. He doesn't even attempt to grab it again, just kind of collapses and bonks his head into Ilya's shoulder. "I used to have trouble making friends as a kid. Dad suggested I start collecting facts to use as icebreakers. Y'know, to get conversations going."

"Did they work?" asks Ilya, tilting his head so that it rests on top of Shane's as his husband gives an almighty sigh.

"I think they made it worse, actually."

Ilya turns to another page and reads it out loud.

"Oology is the study of eggs. It's so cool because it looks like there are three eggs in the word!"

"Oh god," says Shane, burying his face further into Ilya's neck.

"I think you knew all the worst kids in Canada," says Ilya, putting down the book and wrapping his arms around Shane. "Those facts would have worked on me."

"Really?" asks Shane, glancing up at Ilya's face to see if he's teasing him, but Ilya is being perfectly serious.

"Of course. You came up to me and started telling me fun facts straight away, remember? 'I don't think you can smoke here.' 'Wow, Rozanov, you are the best player ever to watch.'"

"Fuck off, I didn't say that," laughs Shane.

"Well, it was something like that," says Ilya, pressing a kiss to the top of Shane's head. "So at least the fun facts worked when it mattered, yes? Imagine where we'd be if you hadn't come over to break the ice."

And Shane tugs Ilya even closer.

and most of the time it's fine. shane's bedtime is 7:30 pm because he is so itty bitty, but yuna and david have always just gone to their room after that so bb just assumed they were also following The Time To Sleep rules.

which is all well and good until nana is visiting while staying with her sister, it's 7:40 pm, and she is just cooing and delighted at bb shane just repeating "night NIGHT" over and over from the doorway to the living room because she is not understanding that this is not him being cute and saying goodnight.

Shane and Hayden: *They get super concerned and get outside fast af because Ilya was showing off his Porsche to the kids, they immediately head out to see what happened*

Ilya: *Is stuck inside this thing*