Welcome ✨️

The Ilya we see in Heated rivalry would not be throwing the first punch, he's not an enforcer. Ilya is a star center and a Pest. He wouldn't be doing his job correctly if he was punching players every other game, it would end up with not enough ice time to let him be the playmaker he's paid to be.

But being a pest can be playmaking! Find a player to bait, emotionally push them just enough that they try to fight you, and then get the fuck out of there before the ref gives you both penalties. This gets your team the power play. There is probably someone on Ilya's line dedicated to helping him get out of the fights he starts, and finishing them for him!

I also think this is also something that Shane would respect. Ilya is good at it and it's a good strategy for his team. I don't think Shane would see it as some dirty tactic, because Shane probably thinks everyone with a brain can see it for what it is! He probably thinks everyone should be able to see that being an asshole is a tactic for Ilya, that it's something to ignore and not fall for, that it's a strategy and not personal beef.

I don't find Shane and Ilya's relationship compelling because they're obscenely hot professional athletes under the direction of an intimacy coordinator that knows ball.

No, I find it compelling because they were removed from a traditional classroom setting in their tweens, pushed to the limits of physical endurance to become elite athletes, and given 5 million dollars before they were old enough to drink.

To Shane the ccm photoshoot was a one time hook up. Then the all stars game happens and Ilya gives him his number. Then ghosts him. Then yells at Shane when he tried to talk after he beats Ilya out for the rookie award, then kisses him. Then Ilya spends two years trying to get back into his bed. Shane lets him. Then Ilya shuts him down at Sochi and ghosts him. AGAIN. Then Vegas happens and Shane doesn’t send that text because it’s humiliating isn’t it? Begging for affection from a man that’s only rejected it time and time again.

Shane knows to rules now. He’s allowed to want sex. Not affection or even friendship. They talk, but if Shane gets even close to a topic that matters, Ilya deflects and Shane backs off. He doesn’t make those mistakes anymore, Shane knows what Ilya wants and more specifically what he doesn’t want from him. And this arrangement works for years.

We as the audience know the circles of hell Ilya is being put through but Shane doesn’t, because Ilya doesn’t tell him. He’s unaware of the depth of feelings Ilya has for him because Ilya doesn’t show it.

Then tuna melt happens, Ilya breaks all the rules. He asks Shane to stay over, they nap together, ilya cooks for him and they are cuddling??!!? Shane is visibly confused the whole time. (“I’m hungry,” “For what?” “Food, you pervert,”)

The whole time Ilya is happily playing out his domesticity scene, Shane is sitting there waiting for the other shoe to drop. Then Ilya says him name like that. And all the feelings Shane has packed away neatly, refusing to acknowledge, comes bubbling up.

Shane maybe suspects at this point that his feelings are not one sided. But what the fuck is he supposed to do with that? It has never mattered before. Each time he lets Ilya draw him in, it ends badly for him.

Shane’s at his best friend’s house checking his phone, waiting Ilya to text him back (he won’t). He’s walking away from a balcony after getting whiplash from all the mixed signals. He’s at a stadium in a foreign country, shot down just for caring, again. He’s in an elevator in a fancy hotel, heart in his stomach, hating how much he wants.

Ilya hasn’t giving him any reason to think that this time it would be any different. But for Shane it hurts worse each time Ilya pushes him away. Shane has gone and fallen in love with his regular (and only) hook up like a fucking idiot.

YEAH HE WOULD HAVE QUALMS ABOUT*WHO* HE WAS GOING TO SEE IF HE KNEW, BUT HE DOESN'T ACTUALLY CARE WHAT SHANE IS DOING

GOD the idea of bb shane having a habit of tattling on himself because A. he wants to make sure mom and dad are up to date with everything he did all day B. does genuinely want to be Good Boy and will just own up C. doesn't always realize what he did is or isn't "bad" ("i told christy at school today that her dress looks like boogers" "oh, honey, why would you say that?" "??? because her dress looks like boogers??")

and the idea of yuna and david having flashbacks to bb shane tattling on himself when he's standing in front of them with ilya

and then had me thinking about how ilya ALWAYS had his hair straighter/gelled around his dad

which then prompted the idea that he got his hair from his mom and constantly got nitpicked about it growing up