laters gators

But Shane is just as Ilya-sexual and that - infuriately - crops up a lot in the workplace, when Shane's two favourite things (his husband and hockey) mesh. When Shane first joined the Centaurs, there were many (good natured) jokes about Ilya needing to keep it in his pants around his husband. Shane soon found out it was not Ilya they needed to worry about.

It started with Ilya giving out corrections, like any good captain.

"Young," Ilya said in that low, soft, but unavoidable tone. "You need to stop looking at puck, that is for goalie, yes? Find open ice and watch player who has the puck."

Shane, to his horror, shivered. The order, not even to him, locked in place. Watch team, not puck.

"Shane?"

"Mh?" Shane's eyes shot up to look at him.

Ilya gave him a look. Then a quick once over. "Practice passing assists to Young, okay?"

"Yes, s-cap," Shane flushed, blaming it on the biting cold of the rink. "Yeah, of course. C'mon, Rook."

It just got worse from there.

"Again, Holmberg, or you drive Zamboni for a week."

"If you pass like that in game, I will send you to the Maple Leafs."

"Young!" Ilya raised his voice and Shane's knees buckled. "Shoot puck at net, not at teammates. Don't make me come over there."

But even worse than the corrections, was the praise.

"Good job, Luca, that was beautiful goal."

"That was what I am talking about, Wyatts, I love you."

"Exactly like that, Holms, great job."

"Good job."

"Good job."

"Good job."

It was going to kill him. He could not take it anymore. More often then not, he pounces on his husband as soon as they're home from practice. Sometimes even in the car (far away from the parking lot, of course). Not that Ilya complains.

One such time, a couple months of Shane slowly losing his insanity, he has Ilya pressed up against the wall in their entryway.

"You are in state tonight," Ilya breathed in between kisses. "You have been for months."

"Have not been," Shane exhaled shakily. He wanted to be in the bed, but he didn't want to waste time walking there. He leaned more of his weight on Ilya, hoping that signaled he wanted to be carried.

"No?" Ilya caught on and took on the extra weight, and turned them, so Shane was against the wall. "But I wanted to give you reward."

"Hmm," Shane smiled into his neck. "For what?"

"For practice," Ilya pulled back to look at him, a slow, smug smirk taking over his features. "For doing such a good job."

Shane shivered then stilled. He pulled back, face hot. "You-you asshole! You knew!"

"Of course I know," Ilya finally lifted him, hands braced under his thighs, not letting him pull away. "I know you."

"Its so embarrassing." Shane lamented, melting into Ilya's hold.

"Is only fair," Ilya carried him to their room. "Now you know how I feel every time you fold laundry, or wear little yoga shorts, or power wash deck, or fix light bulb, or..."

"I get it," Shane interrupted him.

In all seriousness, though, OP is right. They play the same position: centre. Which means Ilya will be the first line centre in Ottawa and Shane the second line centre. And no, it’s not a demotion for Shane. If you have arguably the two best centres in the league on different lines, the opposing defencemen and goalies can NEVER rest. The offensive threat is relentless.

On most hockey teams, the strongest offensive players are on the first line. Which means when the second line’s shift starts, these players aren’t as good. But when the second line centre is Shane motherfucking Hollander, you don’t get a rest. You never get a chance to catch your breath.

Particularly when your first line centre and second line centre are competitive with each other. You just know they’ll be pushing the wingers on their respective lines relentlessly because each of them wants to outdo his husband’s line. For bragging rights or better sex or whatever.

Every team in the league will hate playing against Ottawa, and be bitter at Montreal for fumbling Shane. Because they effectively have two first offensive lines, and that’s very difficult to play against.

Like this is a man who Shane gets hard from just looking at him showering or playing hockey or existing. He’s like okay so we have a Greek statue come to life and we are going to pretend he isn’t the hottest man alive. Okay. Am I being pranked? Is this a joke? Have you seen his ass? What is wrong with you people?!

I think once they are out and married, and Shane is once again voted hottest man in the league (or specifically hotter than Ilya), he crashes out about it online. He’s saying the vote was rigged and he’s telling people (who are complimenting him) to delete their account. He’s replying to his most vocal supporters, “but have you considered this” with the gif of ilya winking. He’s calling for a recount. And everyone is like wait… is Shane Hollander, most competitive man alive, mad that he won something?

He loves bringing Shane a warm towel, helping him wipe down. He loves massaging soap on Shane’s sore, but relaxed muscles in the shower. He loves bringing Shane a snack and feeding him by hand. He loves how boneless Shane goes, how snuggly and warm and carefree.

But he can never shake the feeling of deep regret after each time. He remembers how, for years, he did not do this for Shane. He would let himself indulge just as much as he dared, laying in bed together for a couple minutes, sometimes showering together (but that always ended in shower sex), throwing a towel or clothes at Shane.

The first time he tried to provide the type of aftercare he wanted, was the day Shane left him for Rose Landry. Shane insists he didn't 'leave him for Rose Landry' because A. they weren't together and B. he met Rose weeks later. But since Ilya was the one that got left, he feels entitled to call it how he wanted to.

"I'm sorry," Ilya apologized one day, running his hand through a pliant Shane's hair.

"For what?" Shane mumbled.

"For not doing this," Ilya said. "For so many years. For just kicking you out."

Shane sighed and propped himself up on his elbows. "Ilya."

"What?"

"You never just 'kicked me out,'" Shane scrunched up his nose. Adorable. "If you had tried to do this at first, I probably would have freaked out."

"You did freak out," Ilya sulked.

"I did," Shane smiled and leaned up to kiss him. "I love this, you know? I love that you take such good care of me afterwards."

Ilya felt warmth spread inside his chest. "I'm glad."

"But," Shane caught his eye. "I didn't need it. You always took care of me, maybe just not this much. But I never felt, I mean, almost never felt bad afterwards, except, you know."

Vegas. They had talked about that, extensively.

"But, Ilya," Shane continued, cupping his face in his hand. "I don't think that I need this as much as you do."

Ilya considered this for a moment. It was true - this settled Ilya, it convinced him that he did well, he took care of Shane, and made him happy. He didn't hurt him.

"You don't need this?"

"I do," Shane said. "But so do you. So if you're sorry about not doing it, so am I."

"But, I am..."

"You're what?" Shane challenged.

He becomes a consultant who shitty teams trying to not suck, good teams who want to last further into the playoffs, great teams who want to finally win the cup, call to Fix Them.

He is paid absolutely bonkers amounts of money to watch a team play for five minutes and immediately diagnose what’s wrong with them. He is always right.

Ok 5 minutes is probably an exaggeration. The coaches send him a bunch of tape to review in advance. They probably focus on their best players or the ones they think need the most improvement, but half the time Shane requests more, focusing on players they hadn’t paid much attention to before. Then one day at practice, the players look up into the stands and are filled with awe, terror, and wonder, because Shane Hollander is sitting there staring directly at them with a scarily thoughtful look on his face.

He meets with the coaches and gm and reports his conclusions. Who to trade and for who , how to get better results from certain players, how to run power plays and penalty kills, changes in line makeups.

Some lucky players get to meet with him. He takes about five minutes to list off or demonstrate everything they need to do to stop sucking. He has no time for chit chat or hero worship. Focus, listen, learn, and do exactly what he says and you will be good. Fail to do what he says and you will shame your entire bloodline.

Hudson Williams, #1 Shane Understander

I think Shane was a character who, soon as I read him, made all the sense to me. I felt immediately a kinship and an ownership over Shane. I was like, “I need to be the only person to tell this story. I get it. I want to be the person to be Shane and I want to spend time with him.” [x]

(sources below)

Irina is having a stilted conversation with one of the airport workers, maybe her tickets are wrong because they've seated her five year old away from her, I don't fly so whatever.

Anyway Ilya is bored and doesn't really understand the conversation anyway so he's looking around and notices Shane, who saw a dog and wandered away from his parent because he wanted to pet it and forgot that he should say something about the dog and wanting to pet it, something something mostly nonverbal Shane.

So Shane realizes that he can't find his parents or the doggy and starts to cry and well, no one really cares about one crying toddler when they have flights to catch, except Ilya decides that he's going to help this kid, so he goes over and gets babyShane to stop crying and tells him he'll help in his very limited English and takes his hand to take him back to Irina but they can't find her so they go on an adventure through the airport trying to find either of their parents.

Eventually Shane remembers the bording gate he and his parents were going to and they go off to find it, they get there and Ilya is helping Shane climb onto a seat but Shane won't stand on it because you're not supposed to do that, that's a bad thing and Shane's already been bad enough in his eyes today so Ilya is standing on the chair looking for two people that look like Shane because the concept of parents not looking like their kids is foreign to him.

However, they are only little and airports, adventures and new friends are exhausting, so eventually Ilya sits down in the chair and curls up with Shane and they fall asleep together sharing the same chair.

They are found by an airport worker who reports it but doesn't want to wake the children so they wait while the parents are located and brought over and while Yuna meets Irina David is taking a dozen pictures of the two on his camera.

However they do still have flights to catch and while Ilya doesn't wake up when Irina untangled him Shane does and wails the entire way to the bording gate and through most of their flight before he passes out from exhaustion.

Unfortunatly Shane asks for Ilya almost everyday for a year because he's his bestest friend and he helped him find his parents but neither David nor Yuna thought to get anything more than Irina's name, they didn't think their son would fixate on a boy he knew for a handful of hours so deeply.

Ilya also asks for Shane but well, he's no stranger to not getting things he wants so his asking doesn't last nearly as long.

Of course, David never got the pictures from that trip developed, at least not until after the Hollanov wedding, and he finds a handful of pictures of his kid with another kid (who he does eventually recognize as Ilya but not immediatly) curled up in an airport chair and thinks that looks familiar and realized that it's the same exact way Ilya and Shane curl up together on the couch or loveseat when they are over watching a movie.

And maybe there is a picture or two of Irina collecting a sleeping Ilya and of him sleeping on her shoulder before they leave.

And David wonders if maybe, just maybe they were meant to find one another.

He does, of course, use the pictures to embarass them at one of their anniverseries when Harris is asking aboit the Hollanov Timeline, David has the gleeful pleasure of saying that Ilya and Shane are both wrong as he whips the pictures out and says they were meant for each other long before Rookie season or the summer before and thus causes a breakdown in most of the team and their partners but also unlocks that memory for Ilya and Shane.