I know canon dictates that Ilya never really felt grounded in Boston and I've only been to Boston like twice in my whole life but something about Ilya being a creature of those streets appeals to me. What's his Dunkin' order, Mass people?
I think his normal order is a regular because in Massachusetts that means two creams two sugars and I think he’s delighted that a “regular” contains cream and sugar and is basically how he’d want his coffee anyway. But as a treat he gets giant sugary monstrosities with lots of syrups that are sweet enough to hurt your teeth and give you a headache and he fucking loves them. Also yes agree with the person who said he’s double-cupping his iced drinks.
More than this thought I really firmly believe Boston was a great place for young Ilya to land. Boston has a fuck-off attitude on the outside that hides a much softer interior, and I think Ilya would fuck heavy with that at eighteen. Sure the downtown is tiny and the suburbs are fucking annoying and the whole city has like a total of three skyscrapers and everything but the exclusive clubs close before 3am but he can be an asshole there and the people will love him and be loyal to him. There’s nightlife, there’s lots of young people, there’s enough of a Russian population that he can find little pieces of home, it’s small enough that it’s not totally anonymous but it’s big enough to get lost in. There’s a cult culture around it that he revels in being a part of. It’s the perfect vehicle for him to party and feel expensive and important in and show off his chirping skills and it lets him bury the sense of inadequacy and the sadness and the loneliness in the glamor of his famous pro athlete life.
But that’s not sustainable. He outgrows what it offers him, especially as his relationship with Shane develops and he starts to dare to dream about something that will last, and he sees through the glamor to the lack of real relationships and meaning in his life. And I think that’s why, in his own retrospect, he never felt grounded there. It gave him what he needed at that stage in his life, but for his own reasons he couldn’t build something permanent there — which is honestly a very core Boston experience, considering the number of students and young professionals who live there for a few years and then move away or to the suburbs.
My final point is that it’s a shame Ilya left before they built the Seaport. In my heart eighteen year old Ilya would’ve lived in the Seaport.
