Gracie

“Oh, we will definitely celebrate but you are not invited… unless Shane has suddenly gotten very cool about a lot of stuff.”

“Ilya. No.”

[ilya voice] with a little umbrella?

And no one is ever ready for the switch, and even after it happens they can never fully prepare themselves for what they’re going to get. Shane has learned that when he’s going to do that he should take them aside to give them the card rather than in front of people

Once Shane feels comfortable with Hayden as a genuinely good friend in his birthday card that year he writes out a whole thing about how he’s always wanted a best friend like other kids had but never had one and had accepted he never would, and then Hayden came into his life and gave him a level of love and friendship he never thought he would get and he loves everything about Hayden and can’t wait to be by his side as friends and brothers for the rest of their lives. Hayden fully breaks down and loses it, Jackie notices they’ve been gone a while and walks into the kitchen to see Hayden hugging Shane and sobbing into his shoulder. She raises her eyebrows at Shane and Shane just gives her the OK sign and goes back to rubbing Hayden’s back

Ilya learns about the card thing when it’s yunas birthday and he notices her opening Shane’s card like she’s deactivating a bomb. She stares silently as she reads it and Ilya starts freaking out a little when she starts to tear up and then pulls Shane in for a long silent hug. He looks at it later and sees that Shane wrote about how the last year made him realize over again how lucky he is to have someone as strong and supportive as her as a mother and he hopes to one day be half the parent to his own kids as she was to him

When it’s their first time having Ilya’s birthday together he’s legitimately nervous because this is his first Shane Card and he doesn’t know what to expect and part of him is afraid he’s built it up too much in his head and Shane won’t have as nice things to say as he did with other people. And then he opens the envelope and there’s no card but instead multiple pieces of paper because Shane couldn’t fit it all into a limited space. Ilya spends the better part of the next hour walking around the house reading it, taking breaks occasionally to cry or hyperventilate before going back to reading it because holy shit does Shane Hollander love him. Like he knew logically that Shane did but now he’s got pages and pages of Shane walking him through his feelings over the last decade of their life and every moment he remembered and cherished. Shane finally catches up to him and he’s on the floor of the kitchen, face a splotchy red mess, chugging Gatorade because he’s dehydrated from crying

Shane’s surprisingly quite relaxed. He’s confident in their relationship, excited to be married, and knows that even if something goes wrong, it doesn’t matter, because at the end of the day he’ll be with Ilya.

Ilya is stressed. He keeps crying. This is the best day of his life. Shane deserves better, why would the greatest man on earth want him. He’s never been happier. Something’s gonna go wrong, he knows it. Bood, Troy, and Sveta have to keep calming him down and reminding him that Shane loves him and they deserve to be happy together. He locks himself in the bathroom.

Shane’s getting dressed with Hayden, JJ, and Rose, sipping champagne, feet up as he waits for the ceremony to start.

Once they manage to coax Ilya out of the bathroom, David comes in and does his canon speech about Ilya being his second son. The waterworks start again.

.ninety-six. happy pride :)