dee

So yeah, the first time Ilya is just down and out gross in front of Shane he gets one of those hard and fast stomach bugs that hits out of nowhere. One minute he’s waking up in bed feeling kind of off, and then he’s sprinting to the bathroom and doesn’t fully make it to the toilet before puking

Now, given his upbringing, I would imagine he was raised in a house where, if that happened when he was growing up, he got scolded while sick and told it was his job to clean it up. So he’s feeling awful, throwing up, thinking that Shane’s gonna be annoyed and he’ll have to clean it quick because Shane doesn’t like mess

But Shane, raised in a supportive household, sees this and just quietly grabs paper towels. Ilya takes a second to lift his head and sees Shane cleaning up the floor. Ilya tries to say that he’ll get it and it’s fine but Shane just tells him not to worry and he can’t argue because he has to throw up again

A big wad of gross paper towels land in the garbage and then Shane is gently rubbing his back and saying soft soothing things about how he knows it’s miserable and he’s sorry Ilya is feeling this way but he promises that once everything is out Ilya will start to feel better. And Ilya is kneeling in front of a toilet, puking, covered in clammy sweat, and is hands down the least sexy he has ever been in Shane’s presence

When the dry heaving is done Shane makes sure he can stand on his own and lets him brush his teeth while he goes and gets something. Ilya is surprised he’s allowed back into bed being sweaty and gross and not sent to the couch, but Shane gets him down and settled, puts a Gatorade on the nightstand for him, wipes his face with a damp cloth, and then sits down and strokes his sweaty hair until Ilya falls asleep, curled up on his side with his face pressed to Shane’s thigh

He spends the next day sleeping, eating toast, rehydrating, and getting spooned by Shane until he feels ok enough for a shower where Shane washes his hair for him, telling stories about times he was sick growing up

The real kicker comes the first time they spend a night apart. Shane has been booked for a photoshoot that requires him to stay overnight. It shouldn't be a big deal. It's one night. They've spent countless nights apart before.

However, it's nearing 2 AM and Shane still can't fall asleep. There's no deep breathing that boarders on snores filling the room, no one snatching the blankets from him, no cloying warmth of a furnace disguised as a 220 pound hockey player forcing him to stick his feet from under the blanket in an attempt not to overheat. It's awful. It shouldn't be this difficult. They spent years in a long-distance relationship, Shane wishing every night for Ilya's presence. He should be able to do this. But never before has he felt his absence this keenly.

David does it for the first time in front of Ilya when the boys are visiting and Shane and Yuna are planning (arguing) about something new brand deal.

He puts a song on the record player (Yuna has given up teaching him the Alexa), and he takes Yuna’s hand without a word. She protests that they need to plan out these contract terms and how his son is being difficult about it.

Shane starts to protest at that, but doesn’t get far until Ilya pulls him up to dance, too. A very embarrassed Shane goes willingly. He’s watched his father do this for years but never thought he would be pulled up to dance one day. From the fond looks from his parents, they probably didn’t either.

like before the tuna meltdown they were having a lovely time having midday nap with each other!! you can’t tell me that wasn’t the most relaxed and peaceful either of them has ever looked!!! Ilya is definitely the bigger napper between them (i think it’s canon that napping is a part of his pregame ritual?) Shane is more hesitant about naps on game days because he wants to feel productive but once Ilya looks at him all soft from the bed and pats the mattress he’s a goner. Sometimes he won’t fall asleep but just let Ilya lay on him while he reads or works on his laptop, plus he gets to fidget with Ilya’s curls. Ilya will get whiney about it though cause he wants Shane’s full attention and wants him to relax too. “hollander stop looking at emails, i want to cuddle” or “lay down, just for 5 minutes!”

Once Shane gives himself over to it though it literally becomes one of their favorite things to do together. Shane of course starts scheduling in naps for them, especially when they’re on the cens together and traveling, and it goes something like…

Shane: “Okay so we’re gonna check in to the hotel at noon, then I’m thinking we nap for an hour, unpack a bit, then we can go out for lunch or something?”

Ilya: “Sounds perfect moya lyubov :>”

Shane: “Okay great I added it to our google calendar.”

Their teammates are always ribbing them about disappearing off to hotel room together thinking they can’t keep their hands of each other but little do they know it scheduled naptime!!! Despite Shane’s hesitation around PDA, they start sitting together on the bus/planes so they can rest their eyes together. They fall asleep together so frequently the cens have an entire photo album of them sleeping on each other in various locations.

not jackie, not shane, not anyone. he has completely cut himself off from his family and despite the church's many attempts to contact him (a common tactic of mormon churches if they have you in the records. evangelism and all), the moment he had enough money he had a lawyer send a cease and desist. he has not spoken to his family in years, and the sibling relationship he has with shane? it's sort of all he has. he never tells anyone about this. why? because he is so fucking scared. he grew up scared, he's only ever known fear, and when he finally got out, he literally couldn't even speak about growing up without being drowned by it. that fear. the fear that it's not over and he's not safe and actually everyone was right and he'll never be safe. myhayden suggests therapy to shane because he started therapy himself because he knew he needed to do something because every time one of the guys on the bench would mumble some kind of prayer he would nearly throw up.

He has one photo of his family. one single photo of him from the ages of 0-18 that he took with him. he's 14 in the photo, the family took a group picture before sending his older brother (he was the youngest of eight) on his mission. he can't look at it, but he has it. His family was exceptionally devout. it is so ingrained in his psyche that he doesn't pick up on his latent bisexual tendencies and when jackie makes a joke about it he laughs and then has to hide in the bathroom and weep while jackie, ilya, and shane sit on the couch in the living room drinking wine. he had never been able to put words to the suffocation. could never explain why he needed to leave.

it's myhaydens initial driving force behind his dislike of ilya. because ilya had only ever spoken negatively about him and it was chirping to ilya but it accidentally hit on every bruise left by the hands of the church. you are not good. you are not capable. you are not enough.

and they get past it, obviously, myhayden is a hollanov diehard. eventually, it's Ilya who notices how hayden flinches at mentions of religion. how he has no childhood photos. how he has never told a story that occurred before he was 18. he knows what jackie said, that hayden's relationship with his parents was pretty much nonexistent and he hated talking about it. so he wonders. and ilya likes knowing things. so he asks shane and shane says the same and he knows neither of them are lying but now he's starting to realize that they've sort of been lied to, or at least not told the whole truth, and he wants to know now more than ever.

it happens one night looking at baby photos. ilya and hayden were flipping through photo albums when jackie and shane had left to pick up the girls. and ilya, after seeing a thousand photos of the kids, turns and asks, "do you think they look more like you or like jackie as kids." and hayden looks at him and ilya's eyes have that knowing behind it and hayden caves. jackie and shane aren't pushers but ilya is and hayden is at a point where he thinks he can say at least something without bursting into flames. so he tells ilya. not the whole thing, but just that he doesn't remember what he looked like as a baby. and ilya, of course, asks about pictures. and hayden says he only has one. and hayden, shockingly (to both himself and ilya) walks to his room, pulls down a box from a high closet shelf, and pulls out a single photograph. and ilya looks down at all that hayden has lost and it kicks the air from his lungs.

Yuna and David are doing something (cooking dinner, out to the store, etc.) and Shane is giving Ilya the tour. An actual tour this time because they are at his parent's house.

Once Ilya sees the little practice rink, he lights up. The walls are splashed with Shane's youth trophies - snowplow sam badges in a case, tiny little baby skates, power-skating ribbons, pictures from his first tournaments, team jerseys from U8-16, his first hockey stick hanging on the wall, his first game winning puck on a shelf, his first tiny jersey. Ilya takes his time to comment on everything.

Then Ilya grabs a stick from the wall (one of the practice ones) and a puck from the bucket that hasn't been touched in a decade. Shane, never one to back down from a challenge, especially on home turf, grabs his own practice stick. There are no skates that fit either of them, so they just step on the synthetic ice with socks on.

And that's how Yuna and David find them, checking each other into the flimsy boards that are not meant for fully grown hockey players, firing shots into the little nets with enough force to knock them over, cursing at each other like there's a ref around to do something about it, etc.

Yuna and David are doing something (cooking dinner, out to the store, etc.) and Shane is giving Ilya the tour. An actual tour this time because they are at his parent's house.

Once Ilya sees the little practice rink, he lights up. The walls are splashed with Shane's youth trophies - snowplow sam badges in a case, tiny little baby skates, power-skating ribbons, pictures from his first tournaments, team jerseys from U8-16, his first hockey stick hanging on the wall, his first game winning puck on a shelf, his first tiny jersey. Ilya takes his time to comment on everything.

Then Ilya grabs a stick from the wall (one of the practice ones) and a puck from the bucket that hasn't been touched in a decade. Shane, never one to back down from a challenge, especially on home turf, grabs his own practice stick. There are no skates that fit either of them, so they just step on the synthetic ice with socks on.

And that's how Yuna and David find them, checking each other into the flimsy boards that are not meant for fully grown hockey players, firing shots into the little nets with enough force to knock them over, cursing at each other like there's a ref around to do something about it, etc.

Clark is addicted to his grief. His struggles fuel him and give him purpose, and embracing his flaws served as a rebirth for him (he’s literally remembered in the backrooms as a manifestation of anger, grief, and despair though Captain Clark.) without the rage, the complaining, and the alcohol Clark doesn’t exist— I think that’s what scares him so much.

Mary, on the other hand, is adverse to it. Despite being a therapist and basing her life around others, she can’t save them just as much as she can’t save herself. She runs. She spaces out when she sees mother-daughter relationships, she distances herself from areas that remind her of childhood, and in the face of the same trauma and anguish Clark craves— she runs for her life. Obviously part of it is because she wants to survive, but another layer to that is she can’t cope with her own feelings.

It even shows up in how these two talk with eachother! Clark is ego-centered, even in his more self-deprecating talk during his therapy sessions. Mary repeats phrases from her book because she’s detached from the emotional aspect of her job for reasons she may not even understand yet.

For Clark, the “Window from Within” was a way IN (deeper into his grief, into isolation). For Mary, it was a way OUT (out of her grief, out of her struggles.)

Not to mention it appears in their still lives!! As I mentioned before, Cap’n Clark is everything horrid about Clark; his drunkenness, his hostility, and the fear he brings to the people around him— he embodies Clark’s emotional complexity. In contrast, Mary’s still life is unmoving and seemingly catatonic. Her still life doesn’t feel anything. Doesn’t do anything. Like her regular self, she’s detached from feeling anything and everything!!!

In many ways I think this is partially due to the horribly misconstrued opinion that being on the bottom is inherently effeminate, which then gets mixed in with people’s widely held beliefs that women need to be protected more and that their consent matters more than men’s (I have seen this from both women and men, in both fandom and real life, and it is both misogynistic and incredibly creepy).

I will not name any fics specifically, but I have seen several fics that treat Ilya’s consent as less important than Shane’s and even actively overlooked it to go along with what Shane wants, which is seen as a good thing in the work.

One in particular was centered around the premise of Shane wanting Ilya to slap him during sex, when this was tried it made Ilya incredibly uncomfortable and he later said that he did not want to do it again. The work then proceeded to have them have a conversation which boiled down to (I am paraphrasing here) Shane saying that Ilya taking control in bed in a more violent manner was the only time Shane felt he could truly relax and that Ilya saying he did not want to hit Shane during sex felt like Ilya telling Shane that he wasn’t allowed to relax. The work ended with Ilya getting over it and everything being okay, because that’s how this type of fic always ends.