Spit In My Mouth

He is also aware that he is a large man, a hockey player, and any type of violent-looking motion is going to be judged and he'll be called short-tempered or violent.

The violence of hockey helps. Sometimes, he likes getting slammed against the boards or pinned there while fighting for the puck. But that doesn't help him off ice. He has a punching bag, but its not the same. Wrestling with Ilya or Ilya laying on top of him also helps, but it's not perfect.

A couple years into their marriage, he tells this to Ilya. He works hard on sharing these things, that he'd usually worried about being judged for, to his husband. Ilya's already so vulnerable with him that he tries to return the favor as well as he can.

A week after he tells this to Ilya, he walks into their home gym to find Ilya attaching velcro strips to the walls in the corner Shane usually does yoga in, where there is no weights, equipment, or mirrors . There's a stack of huge gymnastic mats next to him, velcro on their edges. There are also boxing gloves on top of the stack.

"If anyone sees," Ilya says without turning around. "They will think this is for boxing. I recently took this up, you see."

Shane swallowed. "What is it actually for?"

Ilya grabbed a large mat, taller than him even, and pressed it against the wall, pulling to test that it's firmly stuck on there.

Ilya then takes a couple steps back and throws himself into the wall.

Shane takes a startled step back. "What are you doing?"

"Didn't hurt at all," Ilya grinned, now sitting on one of the mats on the floor. He bonked the back of his head back against the mat. "Completely safe."

Shane cheeks flushed. "I don't need this."

"Okay," Ilya bonked his head harder. "Its for me, then. Maybe I let you use it sometimes."

"Ilya...," Shane walked over and climbed in Ilya's lap, face in the crook of his neck.

"Shane," Ilya said back, wrapping his hands around him. "You know there is nothing you could do that I would think is weird?"

"This is weird."

"Well," Ilya hummed. "I have had my tongue in your asshole, so this is-"

"Shuddup!" Shane slaps him on the shoulder.

The set up goes unused until a couple weeks later, when Shane is feeling like there are ants under his skin. He tells Ilya he's going to work out in the gym, but based on the blush on his cheeks, Ilya understands what he's saying. Ilya tells him he'll go for a run, recognizing Shane wants privacy to test this out.

When he gets back, all he asks Shane is, "anything hurt?"

They start as creases in the corners of his eyes, the natural consequence of David's awful dad jokes, or Yuna's brand negotiation horror stories, or a stellar Cens reunion, or something wild and out of the blue that their toddler says, or a bitchy comment from Shane from their seats in the stands as they watch games rather than play them, or the way Shane's hip now clicks in a comically loud way every time Ilya spreads his legs.

Initially the lines fade away immediately.

Then, as the years go on, they linger, so that Shane gets to look at them and hear the sound of Ilya's laughter in his head for longer and longer. Then, they stop fading, and Shane can see the evidence of every beautiful moment they've had together etched onto his favorite face in the world.

When Ilya finally concedes and says they're not laugh lines anymore - he's officially got wrinkles, Shane beams at him and kisses each one reverently.

"You know me, I would never complain, but what was that for?" Ilya asks and Shane smiles back at him, knowing the lines on his own face largely mirror his husband's.

"Just grateful that I've spent long enough with you to get to see you with wrinkles."

Bitch, what show are you watching?! 🤣🤣 This is the "happy man" in question?

You mean the man who looks like he's going to war, instead of following a stunningly beautiful woman into his bedroom? 🤦🏻‍♀️

Media literacy is truly dying, because how do you watch this whole episode and not understand that Shane starts dating Rose because he believes she's his last chance to be "normal".

We see all episode long, the pressure that Shane is feeling, from Hayden asking him about former girlfriends, and wanting to set him up with Jackie's friend. Then our beloved Ilya trying to understand Shane and let Shane know that he's bi, but only putting it in Shane's head that if Ilya's into girls, he must be able to do it too. 😩

That man is in denial so deep he's drowning in it. Which, again, you should be able to understand, by the time he starts dating Rose. In what world do you see the stiff, uncomfortable way he is with her when they're having sex, when she's literally getting on her knees for him, and he looks like he might start crying.

That is NOT a bisexual man. Do you see the way Ilya responds to Svetlana and the other woman we see him making out with in the club during the opening monologue? That's a man who is very interested in the woman he's with. (No, they aren't the love of his life, Shane, but he's still clearly into them.) At no point does he have that same level of uncomfortable that we see in Shane when he's with Rose.

It just makes me laugh that they're almost in as much denial as Shane. 😏