Briar Bee

You will suffer the curse of caw!

But I’d love a fic where one or both of Shane’s parents drop by the cottage for phone charger/laundry pod reasons and find Shane snuggled on the couch fast asleep on Ilya’s chest and that’s how they find out

They’re dressed in soft casual clothes, sleeping like the dead and wrapped around each other like vines and Ilya’s hand is in Shane’s hair and Shane looks so so comfortable and relaxed

But what about Ilya’s closet?

Ilya views his sexuality positively, but practically. He is attracted to men, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but let’s be serious. It’s a treat. Something you do to indulge. A vacation from the path that he must walk. I don’t believe one single article of Ilya’s being thought he would end up with a man until it was too late. He already loved one. Oops.

He hasn’t built an elaborate closet organizational system like Shane, he simple aborts the possibility before it forms. My coach’s son, nothing serious. It’s just a plan to fuck. We get together, we fuck, it’s simple. Even at the cottage: Hollander! It’s not a big deal!

I believe Ilya saw his life as inevitable, rather than trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, like Shane, where there’s effort to hide. To Ilya, it’s simple. Ilya would marry a woman, maybe Svetlana, maybe someone else who he likes and gets along with. Women are fantastic, he prefers them, canonically, or at least acknowledges that it’s easier to prefer them. Have children, he loves kids! No problem. His life is not going to rock the boat, so what does it matter if he fucks a few men now? What does it matter if Shane Hollander stays the night and Ilya makes him a tuna melt and says his name tenderly because he wants to? None of this is real. None of this is the inevitable life that will be his. Is his.

You can contrast this to Ilya’s relationship to hockey, which I think, like Shane, he thought would be the pillar of his life. It would be his actual legacy. Where he made an impact for himself and others.

I think Ilya’s relationship to his bisexuality is tied up with what he thinks he’s deserves as a person. He’s a good lay for men and women, but he’s not anyone’s top choice. And that’s fine, he doesn’t want to get tangled up in feelings anyway. Better to keep things friendly and transactional, like with Svetlana. Like with Hollander! We have a good thing, maybe we can push it a little bit because neither of us have expectations of the other and—oh shit.

You don’t like me: I’m the fun party guy. I’m the guy who fucks you good, I’m not someone you should stake a claim on, someone that should occupy your thoughts. After all, I will not be getting deeply involved. My life is laid out before me, and this doesn’t matter. It can’t matter. We can’t be something, Hollander.

But instead, as we see, Ilya Rozanov dedicates himself to a sweeping, all-encompassing, queer love. He accepts that he has a well of feeling to share, that he has the ability to love deeply despite inconvenience. That he can go against the grain, and be strong. That he isn’t inherently lazy! There’s another Ilya Rozanov in a different universe that said this is too much. I’m supposed to just fall into a life, not build one from scratch.

Say Ilya never goes to the cottage. Instead, he goes home to Russia. Say he turns away when Scott Hunter comes out and says "I simply don't see it, that life is not for me." He lets Shane drift away by engaging that prickly side that he uses on the Vegas rooftop, that he uses in Sochi, that he uses to get an inquisitive Shane out of his bed after winning MVP, OR by just ending it and blocking Shane's number. I think these things would be OOC based on his journey so this is just hypothetical, but if it did happen Shane would accept it.

Shane pushes, but not that hard. Ilya has to be open to receiving Shane's pushes in order to be moved. I think you can see this really clearly in the Tampa All-stars hotel scene where even after acting frustrated with Shane's coming out, Ilya still moves to the bed to sit next to him, to hear him out and glean physical comfort from Shane's proximity. Shane takes the leap, but from here forward Ilya keeps catching him on the fall.

In this way, his agency and choices start to really become clear. He keeps choosing Shane, inviting him over an hour before their game, answering his calls while in Russia. He makes a decision to break things off with Shane when he gets injured (book inner monologue, implied in show), but can't even attempt to go through with it. He can no longer lash out to protect himself, to get Shane off of him, like he did in the past.

In this way, he starts making conscious decisions to enter into a complex relationship that will take years to fully grow into itself. That has a complex start that continues to be complex. Hook-ups to long distance boyfriends. Free agency move. Depression. Shane's internalized homophobia. Their differing closets. Communication issues. Russia. Being outed. Shane coming to Ottawa (where there will be MORE complexities).

I'm specifically talking about Ilya's journey here, not all bisexual people (my bisexuality and issues surrounding it are completely different, but I understand where Ilya is coming from). Bi people don't need to experience a relationship with someone other than the assumed heteronormative partner to fully experience queerness, I'm not saying that.

mom's minion memes for real justice