convergent evolution or something

he says, "then let's make a deal" (it's not a suggestion. shane's already said yes without needing to) and lays out what will happen if shane wins. "i will blow you, fuck you, whatever you want," he says calm and unbothered. he's laying it all out there! giving shane a chance to win some power here.

except he isn't. he isn't telling shane a single thing about how tonight's going to go.

because here's the thing: shane isn't winning mvp. that's just not happening. ilya won the cup and was (as far as I can tell) the winner of playoffs mvp. we've heard he's been on fire since they came back from the olympics. ilya and shane both know who's winning.

so no, there wont be any 'whatever you want' for shane tonight.

but what will it be then? when ilya wins mvp?

shane wants to know. so he pushes. still doesn't look ilya in the eyes but asks, shyly, "and if you win?"

he's asking 'so what's happening tonight? what are we gonna do, actually?' he dares to look up into ilya's eyes with those big brown bottom eyes

ilya doesn't answer. he just leans in for a kiss, and dominates that too (like usual). grabs his head, tilts it, manhandles him. and when they pull away, ilya gives him a few gentle slaps on his face, tells him good luck.

and when he walks out of that bathroom, shane still has no idea what's going to happen in ilya's hotel room that night. because ilya will win and they never negotiated the second half of the bet (the actual reality of what's going to happen).

ilya's giving shane the illusion of choice, in a way here. he's letting shane pretend there's a chance tonight will go wherever he wants. but it won't and they both know it.

it's just so fucking hot. and such a mean way to keep the power here, to make that dynamic felt.

imo canon shane primarily experiences his asianness in terms of the racism and othering he receives, which is not AS depressing to live as it sounds (he doesn't know about all the sweet sweet asian grocery snacks he's missing out on) but is still pretty depressing

(previously, on "the figure skating au")

ilya is 16, and on the cusp of his first senior season. by this point, the stipend he gets from the russian fed covers his training, and he's starting to pick up some smaller endorsements, and none of that has stopped him from hearing from his father about exactly how much grigori has sacrificed so that ilya can prance about on the ice in costumes. he doesn't say, so you had better be worth it, but he doesn't have to. ilya has not been worth it yet. his father was not happy about him losing the junior worlds title to that canadian boy. well, maybe this year will be the year.

ilya spends a lot of time that summer at the rink, or at the gym, or literally anywhere except at home. there is the heaviness of alexei's resentment -- his brother has just entered the police academy, and the muttered asides about how one of us has to have a real job are not something ilya is lowering himself to respond to -- and there are a set of new programs that he hates, and there is a training regime that can only be described as brutal. if his father and his coaches can agree on anything, it's that ilya needs more discipline.

in between all of this, there is sasha. sasha washed out of figure skating long ago -- having neither the talent nor the inclination to reach the competitive heights ilya is now at -- but he makes excuses to drop by the rink anyway, and barely seems to notice the undisguised contempt ilya's coaches aim at him. he chats casually to ilya in between ice sessions, and ilya lets him. they go to parties and to clubs, and sasha kisses him up in someone else's bedroom with vodka on his breath and a heavy bass booming through the walls, and ilya presses sasha up against the wall and kisses him back, harder. in another world, this would be the tragic teenage love affair of both their lives. as it is, sasha is a neat little summation of every bad decision ilya is allowing himself to make in an otherwise regimented life: the parties, the drinking, the cigarettes, the sex.

you're no fun, sasha pouts, when ilya refuses the little baggie of cocaine sasha has produced from god-knows-where. i have drug testing, ilya points out, and sasha rolls his eyes.

your season hasn't even started yet, he says, and ilya replies, idly, this kind of thing is why your skating career never went anywhere.

ilya does not relay any portion of this reasoning to his father, who is predictably terse when he hears the news over breakfast. "typical," grigori says, with a soft scoff. "maybe if you spent more time working on your quad and less time fooling around with that idiot boy, they would want you in russia, hmm?"

"yes, father," ilya says, very evenly.

naturally, the first thing he does, when he finally gets a free minute, is invite himself over to sasha's. sasha doesn't know why ilya is upset about any of this ("i'm not upset," ilya insists, and thinks he is probably telling the truth), because going to france sounds much more enjoyable anyway.

"i'd definitely rather be in paris than this shithole, if you gave me a choice," sasha says derisively, and then his expression shifts into a wide, lazy grin. "hey, maybe if i ask nicely papa will let me tag along with you all, hmm?"

ilya snorts. "you know that's not going to happen," he says. because his father and his coaches may not know what's actually going on between him and sasha -- the response would be much more violent if anyone did -- but the fact remains that absolutely no one in ilya or sasha's life, including ilya himself, thinks their relationship is a good idea.

sasha's smirk is undimmed by the harsh intrusion of reality into their circle of two; ilya is halfway tempted to kiss it off his face. "no. i suppose not." he stretches lazily on the bed. "maybe in a couple of years, then. once you're grown-up and they've let out that collar around your neck a little."

he's so terrified of being viewed as weak & feminine, especially as an asian man. the fear of being gay keeps him up at night. and has to confront that he is not only gay but exclusively a bottom. which is the girl one, the really gay one. and he fucking loves it, his response to sex make it completely undeniable that his deepest most true desire, the thing that frees and fulfills him the most is also the realization of his greatest fear and the worst thing anyone could know about him. every day terrified of how it will alter his relationships and his public image, terrified of how it will change what it means to be the product his manager is selling.

he lives perpetually terrified of being caught out as a fake bad version of the real Shane Hollander who is palatable and good and Normal. "yeah no it’s just that we were all working even to help you maintain your closet and you don’t really seem very grateful for it. you keep struggling against these ties we very lovingly bound you in. oh well, maybe we can monetize the disappointment you've become. please stop kicking."

of course it's the other thing he loves most, hockey, that necessitates this posturing and his closet. it's the thing that demands total discipline over his body and mind. went through hazing and stuck to stringent performance diets (orthorexia btw) and grueling training programs and the monetization of his life and a surveilled existence and season after season of full out, failure-is-not-an-option level effort at all times and the responsibilities of the captaincy and and and and. all to be the man he is expected to be, required to be. for so little thanks, for so little acknowledgement of what it takes, except as criticism. work so impossibly hard and it’s kind of weird and off putting, you know you can unclench a little right? that diet you’re on is kinda gay haha just kidding, but no really haha. but anything less than utter hockey robot perfection throws EVERYTHING into question. one bad game after a bad day, month, year, and where was shane hollander tonight?

not to speak of when the two halves overlap. did you trip on purpose?

did you work your entire life to build an airtight, unimpeachable legacy, to conceal the deep fundamental wrongness of who you are from everyone else? sorry baby it caught up, and ooh yeah we hate what we see. let up on that iron grip for even a single second and it will come back to bite you. brought ilya to the cottage -> outed to parents, caught in his lie, in need of forgiveness. shared ilya/intimacy with the tightest circle of friends -> a careless straight man who has never exercised a fraction of the caution his life depends upon outs him to the world and then his team ices him out. his reticence to come out strains the relationship he had already given up so much for, almost to the breaking point. his struggle to give up what he had and give up control is itself a joke, even to his loved ones.

people rag on houston because they think it's not cool. and they're right. houston is hideously uncool. it's also THE most quintessentially american of the major american cities.