Marvelshtrash

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and even before that he’s constantly checking if his baby is okay and he’s sitting in that stairwell cuddling ilya’s jacket and he’s so desperate to hold ilya’s hand when he’s off his head on painkillers. he’s rereading old texts. he’s got his phone in his hand and he’s texting ilya when he’s literally just got off the ice after winning the cup again and that’s years before they’re even together. he’s inviting ilya to the cottage because he gets two weeks off a year and he wants to spend them both with his favourite person

And Every. Single. Poster was vandalised, it literally looks like some of the most beautiful art you have ever seen

katniss: i go to a place and do a thing using a skill. also everyone hates me. oh you want to know more about myself? here are four straight paragraphs just describing food instead.

haymitch: so the baker’s in love with my best friends girl and my girlfriend’s uncle is gay and secretly dating the town window-fixer and she’s actually related to lucy gray and has beef with the mayors daughter who bullied me and her social security number is—

I think David started noticing Yuna when she routinely started showing up to McGill's hockey practices - and of course he noticed her, she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. And I'm certain he showed off a lil every time he spotted her, doing showy trick shots that weren't actually practical during a real game but looked cool during practice. Eventually he worked up the nerve to skate over and talk to her in the stands, trying for nonchalant like "sOoo you like hockey? What do you think of my skating?" And then Yuna proceeded to make shredded wheat out of David's play style, I mean truly crushingly specific critiques. The guys on David's team who overheard Yunas monologue were wincing in sympathy on the sidelines, but their pity was unnecessary: from then on, David was down BAAAD. Little hearts were circling around his head at all times. David's college team would pantomime whipping noises every time he'd skate over to her in the stands but he didn't care cause he was in LOoOve~💕✨💕✨💕✨

caretaking is a comfort for ilya and a large part of where he derives his worth and he's been deprived of it. he gets glimpses of it with shane, who allows himself to be cared for to such an extent that it scares ilya and makes him retreat

we know he was close to his mother, how he probably took care of her, made extra sure to make her laugh on hard days and feeling every bit like a failure when it stopped brightening her eyes. making her food that goes cold and rapidly running out of ways to take care of her, his ways of making her happy too quickly outnumbered by everything that made her sad until he finds her and knows undoubtedly that maybe he can't take care of people in any real way and have it be enough

so of course this created avoidance. he wants to take care of his family, but he can't do it via closeness the way he thought might work with his mother (and they wouldn't want it anymore anyway) so he takes care of them by leaving, funding their lives and winning them awards and being the best so he can keep being hated and needed in equal measure. he learned very young that love doesn't actually make much of a difference when it comes to caretaking but money, money works every time.

until it doesn't, and his father has dementia and he wants to be there to take care of him and his father is calling him and looking small and vulnerable in a way ilya's never seen him and he can't be there to take care of his father in a meaningful way so he defaults to what he always does and sends money and goes home when he can and hopes the money he sends alexei will be enough to make sure they're all taken care of

then his father dies and he's denied even the hollow bonding that typically happens to family in grief, he's met with a request for more, money rather than actual comfort, funds instead of family. he finally separates and is met with the immediate, and uncomfortable, realization that he needs to be taken care of, he wants it, and he can't ask, he doesn't deserve it, especially because he's craving the kind of care that can't be bought, the kind of care he knows wasn't enough to save his mother.

he wants family, and shane, and hand picked flowers on the way home, and company and warmth and sunshine but he can't have it so he can't want it - and then there's shane, who wants to care for ilya so badly he backs him into a corner and offers it so freely that ilya can't help but lean into it and take it in the smallest increments

but then shane gets hurt, and he wants to be there, he wants to take care of him so badly and worse, shane would let him, that default caretaking ilya is so good at, that he's so resentful of but unable to deprogram himself - shane wants it, shane wants him

except now ilya can't take care of him for reasons beyond both their control, because shane isn't - shouldn't be - his to take care of, because it stands to ruin their lives, because they have no right to it

so he pulls back as best he can but he's still this bleeding wound crying to care and be cared for in equal measure.

But I think people ignore an important aspect - the blurry line between deep love and unhealthy dependency. Arguably, Ilya in TLG has been crossing the line into unhealthy dependency on Shane, which was clocked by both Galina and Shane. Ilya has nothing in his life other than hockey and Shane and it's not healthy and also not the peak of romance.

I feel like the way Shane has provided over the course of their situationship/relationship Ilya a safe space to unload emotionally (thinking of how he comforted him through his father's death) became Ilya's primary way of regulating himself. The book is full of depictions of how things feel only right with Shane, how he wants to disappear in Shane, etc.

Ilya of course deserves support from his partner through his mental health struggles, but also having Shane hold together Ilya's psyche at all times is a very big ask. To Ilya's credit, he fully understands that this is too much to put on Shane and seeks out a therapist's help to "fix himself".

And fixing himself means learning to process his grief and trauma in a way that relies less on Shane, to reach back for the support offered to him by others (like his teammates, or reconnecting with Svetlana). And also thank goodness for Harris clocking Ilya's need for an emotional support pet and tricking him into adopting Anya.

I don't think Shane's love is any way smaller than Ilya's even if he doesn't seem so dependent on Ilya. I guess Shane being autistic and overall having led a quite lonely life, he's already was forced to learn to emotionally regulate himself, to find his soothing rituals and have things he likes to do by himself (even if he too is constantly longing to be with Ilya).

But his love for Ilya is unconditional and all-encompassing, and even in their worst fights, and Ilya's worst mental health moments he never really doubts how much Shane loves him.

And when they finally have their talk about Ilya's depression, I think it's important that Ilya has understood how it works and yes, how important it is to have a supporting partner, but it's not a silver bullet. And Shane's answer is perfect. His commitment and dedication to support Ilya through it without any hesitation.