too gay to live-too straight to die

-Shane smashed his fingers in between the headboard and the wall one time (the jolt of pain that shot through him as Ilya kept pounding into him made him make a sound that was not entirely agony)

-some lube spilled on the hardwood floor and Ilya slipped and fell on his ass (cue Shane laughing his ass off until Ilya is not getting up for like ten seconds Should I call an ambulance? to which Ilya replies, panting heavily I AM FINE)

-so many instances of sprained adductors. like it’s a miracle that they manage to heal fully before Shane pulls them next time. And that’s not even taking into account the sprains he gets during hockey

-that one time Ilya got a hamstring cramp that wouldn’t go away for a couple of days (baby, have taken magnesium? yes. have you tried rolling it out? yes. do you want me to massage it out? yes 🥰)

-difficult to say how actually close and how many times Shane was to a concussion from banging his head on the headboards. This tally is also tainted by hockey to be fair.

Ilya's been being a chirping, aggressive bitch on the ice all night, grin sharp and teeth bloody from one too many gloves off, and Shane's trying not to get so hard he can't skate straight

Shane finally breaks his perfect media persona and shuts down a shitty reporter with a sharp tongue and sharper words, and Ilya's forcing himself not to take Shane right there on the table

It shocks people when Ilya's being worse than normal and instead of stopping it, Shane's egging him on with a look and a seemingly innocent but targeted touch

Ilya's wrapping himself as tightly as possible around Shane in a bar, face buried in his neck because Shane started bitching off to someone who wouldn't just leave them the fuck alone

shane — who at this point has spent the entire book being told by literally everyone that he needs to be less mopey and anxious and to support ilya’s life more — fully compartmentalises everything and pushes all of it down. he’s never been happier, truly. yes he’d love to host the centaurs at his new house without warning. he’d love to do a photoshoot. he’d love to post a video on instagram. he’d love to be the butt of the joke. look how much fun he’s having. this is great. he just needs to be less worried about everything and it’ll all work out. ilya will take care of it. he just needs to go to the back of the line. yes, he wants another slice of chocolate cake please and thank you

then he tries ribbing shane — the classic ‘fuck you’ ‘asshole’ ‘boring’ game where they volley shots at each other back and forth — and shane, his shane, is slightly too slow to return the hit. shane is very quiet in their house, and he doesn’t always notice ilya has spoken. when asked, shane doesn’t have a strong opinion about their new lounge set. shane doesn’t mind staying out later. shane asks ilya to turn off game 4 of the stanley cup finals.

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And may your pets always stay healthy ♡

We also know that Shane has fantasies about Ilya Wet and Jerking It. (To be clear: This is my interpretation of the shower scene at the end of episode 4. I have Thoughts.)

So my question is for Ilya and it's: Hey dude. How long did it take you to remember THAT look on your Schroedinger's Boyfriend's face and realize how much he would actually genuinely like to watch you jerk off. Definitely didn't happen during their hookup era because Shane would have whined and scowled and probably ghosted for a bit if Ilya wanted to waste one of their precious few meetups on mutual masturbation. The order of operations for Shane goes: 1: Blowjob To Warm It Up 2: Dick in Ass 3: Give it to me baby 4 (optional): Showerhead shower head 5: Make NO EYE CONTACT as the beautiful slutty butterfly returns to the safety of his athleisure chrysalis. So we're working with a very narrow margin of error and absolutely no space for Antics.

Because during The Long Game, Ilya decides not to tell Shane because it’s not his secret to tell, and Shane has to find out eventually, right? Wiebe says something like “I’m sure Ilya has told you that I understand a little bit about your situation.” And Shane is thinking like, what, you definitely don’t, you were a mid player at your absolute best. But eventually Wiebe gets the point across and it goes, I think, one of a couple different ways:

One: Shane HATES this information and tries to memory hole it immediately. Shane has had a complicated psychosexual attachment to every hockey coach he’s ever had, which is fine because hockey coaches are straighter than God. Even though both Shane and Wiebe are in happily married monogamous relationships, finding out that it’s actually hypothetically possible for a coach to experience reciprocal attraction to him is the worst thing that’s ever happened.

Two: Finding out that Wiebe is bisexual pushes Shane over the edge into having a meta-textual breakdown. Shane: “It’s fucking ridiculous. It’s absurd! We’re already the gayest team in the league. The gay married team. And now we have a gay coach?” Ilya: “Lubimiy, he is bisexual, do not make me ask Harris to give another PowerPoint presentation on bisexual erasure.”

someone at dinner is talking about the complexities of funeral arrangements and how hard it is to organize everything when already grieving and ilya sees The Look happening on shane's face at his side and is then just

knowing he's going to get woken up at fuck o'clock tonight to talk about the fully-detailed options of cremation versus burial shane is going to run past him.