Mauve

It's All Stars and a camera catches them sitting together on the bench during the skills competition, leaning in and whispering to each other, clearly trying to be sneaky. They're both kind of smiling, looking like they're trying not to laugh. Then Ilya says something that makes Shane crack up and have to hide his face while he's trying to pull himself together. This moment gets giffed and everyone is dying to know what made the famously cool and collected Shane Hollander laugh like that.

P.S David asked me to tell you that he is very excited about the puzzle he picked out to do with you."

All the pics are of ilya being soft 🤧

Him at the dinner table stuffing his face with chicken parm with a mountain of cheese, the marinara sauce tinge the corners of his mouth

Him and Yuna on the couch, his head on her lap, her fingers lost in his curls

Him in the backyard of his house, sat on the ground while Anya licks his face

Him and shane passed out on different parts couch on their tummies, with their fingers tangled together

Him with the pikelings treating him like jungle gym. The twins hang from his biceps while Arthur is licking an ice lolly sat on his shoulders totally zoned out and little Amber has wrapped her teeny tiny hands around one of his knees. To be noted, he is wearing one of his expensive ass ray bans and his nails are painted in the bi flag and he's wearing those necklaces from the DIY jewellery making kits for kids.

Him solving a puzzle with David at the dinner table with a blanket around his shoulders

Him posing with 2 hotdogs as if they are guns, face scrunched in mock strain

A family photo of four of them in a restaurant all happy smiles, a bit shaky due the staff being nervous

Him sticking his tongue out at shane with the TV remote in one hand keeping it out of reach while the other arm tries to push shane away

The hudcon lick™️ on the ice but hollanov in their Ottawa jerseys

Him and shane at the dock with Shane's arm around his waist and his wrapped around Shane's shoulders at they watch the sun rise at the cottage

A picture of them at their wedding, shane throwing his head back laughing, his hand on his stomach with the wedding band glinting as ilya tries to hide his smirk into his champagne glass

When ilya finds out, he blushes deep red and tries to hold back tears.

“you are here” “of course i am” “shane hollander is taking me home” “shane hollander-rozanov is taking you home” “shane hollander takes my last name” “yes he did. do you want to come home with him?” “i’ll go anywhere shane hollander goes” “okay then let’s go home baby”

He watches a highlight reel of Ilya celebrating with his line and realizes he's just going to have to accept it.

He finds an old binder or something, a photo album, very very few photos in their at all, mainly pictures of the city, of his old house, family portraits, a few pictures of birds. soon, it’s clear that this was made by Irina.

he’s flipping through and there are more blank pages than filled ones, and then he finds a few old pictures of himself, yellow with age and with some small water damage in places, but it’s him, in hockey gear, at the dinner table, maybe the odd birthday. ilya knows shane would love to keep them in a shared album somewhere. and he’s just about to call for his husband when he turns the page and-

Irina

it’s undeniably her, the curls he remembers, the red lipstick. a photo of her looking into the camera and then a similar one, taken immediately after, of her laughing.

and tears spring to his eyes, he’s hit with every detail he’s forgotten in the decades since he last saw her. that small mole on her chin, her silver earrings she always wore at home, her-

Ilya realises through the age of the photo you can almost make out her freckles

how could he have forgotten her freckles? he never took too much notice of them, probably mostly covered by makeup, but now- now, he can’t imagine forgetting them.

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

Harris finds it while combing through the archives for fun comparisons to the current team.

Instantly posts it with a picture of Ilya pulling Shane away from a fight single handed, and with the photo from Shane and Scott’s post-game fight when he was a Metro.

One of these is your classic TMZ highly invasive round-the-corner spy shot of Shane and Ilya--like, waiting for an Uber, is what it looks like, and the bass from inside the club is pounding and you can barely hear what they're saying except that the guy standing next to them is also TMZ and he's got a directional mic sticking out of his pocket pointed at them and when he gets into position you can hear Shane Hollander, like, fucking giggle.

"I'm sorry," Shane says, and his arms are around Ilya's neck. "I got--I'm a little drunk."

"It's okay," Ilya says, and he brushes a hand through Shane's hair. "Did you have fun?"

"Ye-s-s-s," Shane says, nodding his head decisively. "We won the Cu-p."

"Yes we did. I am proud of you."

"I'm proud of you!" Shane cups a hand around the back of Ilya's neck and giggles again into his shoulder. "Why aren't you drunk? I drank the same things as you--"

"I'm drunk," Ilya chuckles. "But I have twenty pounds on you and I am Russian, so."

"That's not a thing. That's not really a thing." Shane sighs and goes a bit boneless against Ilya's body and says, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have, uh--"

"Shh. You said you had fun, and this is all that matters. My beautiful winner." He kisses the side of Shane's face, loudly and repeatedly.

Shane makes a sound that Twitter, TikTok and Instagram comment sections will all agree is a purr.

Shane is like no! It’s embarrassing! And this is public! And you wouldn’t make me actually do that to Rose would you? You know the answer, I’m gay!

Only Rose thinks the whole thing is hilarious and gives Shane the go ahead so there’s no real reason to resist Ilya’s begging anymore, still he holds out to the day before the interview.

“Fine! Fine! You can ask about Rose, but I get to ask about anything I want too!” And Ilya’s like yes yes of course my love. His boring Shane would hardly ask anything damning.

Fast forward to the day of the interview Shane is fondly exasperated with Ilya’s Rose questions, and Ilya is being a cocky bastard so happy with how it played out.

Until they switch sides and Shane breaks out his first question:

“Is it or is it not true that despite famously calling Scott Hunter ‘a nearly extinct fossil’ you think he’s hot?” The blood drains from Ilya’s face pretty quickly after that.

“Do you think Hayden Pike is a good hockey player?”

“Do you consider Hayden Pike a close friend?”

“Who do you love more: me or Anya?”

“Besides me who is your favorite teammate?”