...happiness is expensive.

- sneezed wrong

- turned your neck a little too fast

- slept weird

- took the trash out to the curb and stepped at a slightly different angle than usual

- breathed

- failed to breathe properly

- breathed in the wrong stuff. Allergy time

- looked too hard at something too far away

They have no immediate family to care for the baby, and Buck is told by a social worker that as the baby’s biological father he has the option for custody/kinship care - and that he has a few days to decide because the birth was traumatic and the baby needs to stay in hospital for a while. Buck hates the way the hospital staff/social workers just say “the baby” and he lets them know that Connor and Kameron told him the name and he’s called Theo

The firefam are split on what Buck should do, but there’s definitely an undercurrent of them feeling that Buck is not ready to be a parent- let alone a single parent to an orphaned baby. Bobby mostly stays out of it but does dispense some fatherly wisdom when he and Buck are alone that whatever Buck feels in his heart is right for Theo is what he should do

Buck almost lets Theo go, but he’s stopped by three things. First, that a new family might change Theo’s name and that’s the only thing he has left from his parents. Second, he knows that when Theo is grown and looks at his records he would see that his biological father was offered custody and turned it down, and the idea of Buck making his own child feel unwanted kills him. And third, he goes to the hospital and gets to hold his son, and knows he can’t let him go

At first, he only tells Bobby, he can’t deal with everyone else’s opinions right now. He moves out of the loft and into a little fixer-upper house in a decent neighbourhood, and buys as much baby stuff as he thinks he might need- staying up late to research different baby monitors and cribs and toys

He brings Theo home and has some time off work to get himself together. Bobby comes round with meal prep and the rest of the firefam turn up with baby gifts. Everything is great for a while but then after they all leave the reality begins to hit and Theo starts to cry and Buck is desperately trying to get a bottle together and the kitchen faucet is leaking and there’s a knock at the door and he’s thinking to himself I can do this I can do this oh god I can’t do this

It's not an entirely new thing, he was a bit of a string bean growing up, and while he put on some muscle since then, he's not exactly well-insulated, so the cold just generally gets him more than others.

But ever since rehab, his body is just vaguely out of whack in weird ways. He suffers from protracted withdrawal syndrome, not badly, but sometimes he just randomly gets the shakes, aches and pains with no particular cause, or cold spells where he just can't warm up no matter what he does.

So in S3, every time we see him, he's added another layer of clothing under his scrubs, and at some point he has a lab coat on on top of all of it because he just can't seem to get warm. He's doubling up on latex gloves to trap some heat. He's trying to be subtle about hanging out under air vents that are blasting warm air into the ED.

And then as part of the S3 clusterfuck, the heating in the hospital breaks and he looks like he's about to cry.

At one point, him and Mel are in the ambulance bay, and he can't even talk to her, because if he doesn't clench his jaw, his teeth start chattering, he's trembling like a wet chihuahua and he can't stop it.

Mel runs really hot, fast metabolism or whatever, she's dying in summers, comfortable with a simple long sleeve shirt under her scrubs in winter, even during brief stints in the cold of the ambulance bay, so seeing Frank struggle really tugs on her heartstrings.

She keeps pulling him onto hypothermia cases with her and parking him in front of the infrared lamps they're setting up for those patients. At one point she just full-on takes him into an empty room and tells him he needs to take twenty before swaddling him in all the blankets she can find him.

"You should take a hot bath when you get home," she tells him when they're finally leaving during S3E15.

"My place only has a shower, and the boiler's so fucked I'm happy if I get five minutes of lukewarm water."

"Would it be weird if I offered to run you a bath? My tub is huge."

I have a lot of thoughts about ace4ace kingdon, and I love the question.

You could sell me on any gender identity and sexual orientation with Frank, because I think he was so firmly entrenched in heteronormative culture and getting top marks in all life milestones that he never once stopped to question anything.

At ... whatever his age is, early 30s... he's done it all. He's a doctor, with a wife, and two kids, and a dog, and a house with a lawn. And he's fucking miserable. It put him on a hamster wheel he can't get off of and ultimately led him to the end of S1.

People forget the pre-glee times, the times before education about different identities was wide-spread. Frank still firmly falls into that time period. There's a good chance that the term asexual was entirely foreign to him as a teenager, or if it was mentioned somewhere, it was more of a whisper about extremely weird people, because who the hell doesn't like sex, how fucking strange.

Among girls, not wanting to have sex would get you a massive side-eye, but I can only imagine how much worse that would have been for boys. And Frank, who wants to get everything exactly right in life? He definitely made sure to tick all the boxes. Find a girl, hold her hand, take her to the movies, kiss her... can't go to college a virgin etc.

I could imagine him getting extremely good at sex, because it just doesn't do for him what it apparently does for other people, so he must not be doing it well? His partner(s?) are happy, but he just feels vaguely off afterwards. Thank goodness he has a praise kink the size of jupiter, because at least his partners being happy does something for him. He wears it like a badge of pride and continues to do what is expected of him. And... okay maybe he likes it more when he's with someone who doesn't want sex all the time, but then he feels this weird societal pressure to want it, to question if the relationship is failing, to take not being wanted personally. And so he ends up with Abby, who wants to have sex a societally approved amount, and he does his best for top marks every time.

It's not until he is divorced and pursuing Mel that he ever has a chance to stop and question what he wants. At this point, of course, he knows about asexuality, of course he does, he's a doctor, but Mel is maybe the first person he deals with on a personal level who identifies that way. And she's incredibly clear and open with him, because that's just what she does. When he asks her out, she stops him in his tracks, happy but cautious.

"I'd love to, really, but I think I need to tell you a bit more about myself, so you can decide if you actually want this, and so I can relax, knowing that you've got the full picture."

And so he listens as she tells him that she is asexual, that doesn't mean she's repulsed by the thought of sex, she's had sex before with people she liked and she finds enjoyment in their pleasure, but in and of herself, she doesn't crave it. She describes it to him in a way that makes things click. "It's like I'm not hungry. I don't crave a meal, but I might still eat a bite of cake, you know?" And the more Mel talks, the more he recognises his own experience with sex and intimacy in her words and it sends him reeling.

What he tells her that day is that he still wants to go out with her, he'd love to.

What he tells her in the car after their date, when they're parked outside her place, neither of them ready to end the evening yet, is that maybe he's like her, and maybe she's taught him something again without meaning to.

They decide to play it by ear, if he wants to he can tell her, and if he doesn't that's also fine. And he thought that would be that.

Except what really happens is that he gets to be so much more affectionate than he ever dared to be before. Because with Mel, the expectation that physical affection will escalate somewhere isn't there. He becomes aware of the subtle dread he felt for having to perform for so many years, it was so buried under wanting to be good that he didn't take note of it, but now that he can touch his fill without having to get his dick out, he's so happy he could cry.

He clings to Mel a lot these first weeks, his arms constantly around her, kissing her, wrapping himself around her at night, his legs tangled up with hers, his face buried in her neck just for the sake of being held, and he doesn't have to do anything about it, doesn't have to go through the push and pull and sweat that's meant to follow closeness.

Mel is in heaven too, by the way, this is not one-sided. It's so lovely, they're feeling so close.

Sometimes, when one of them has the desire to get off with another person, they do go for it, and it's really nice, scratches that itch perfectly, without creating the pressure to do it again soon.

Give me Shane "hates clubbing and bars" Hollander not minding Kingfisher in the afternoon but refusing to go at night. Give me Shane never understanding the slang (he's never online) and being overstimulated by drag brunch (it's so LOUD and nothing fits his diet even once he loosens it a little and brunch as a concept throws off his entire routine) and utterly bored by any TV show that isn't the latest game replay (is this reality TV? Is it a drama? He can't remember and he can't tell the difference but honestly he'd rather be watching hockey) and unable to remember the difference between Lady Gaga and Cher (he never listens to music anyway) and completely disinterested in changing his wardrobe (for fancy events he wears whatever his stylist tells him to but not anything adventurous, because he just wants to look acceptable not make a statement).

Give me Shane feeling alienated from gay culture the way he sometimes feels alienated from Japanese culture and being so frustrated that being himself, exactly as he is, still isn't good enough for anyone.

Give me a Shane Hollander who doesn't want to be "the gay hockey player" the same way he doesn't want to be "the Asian hockey player" but he'll suck it up because he's such an inspiration, don't you know how many kids look up to you? Don't you know how much it matters to them to see you out there loud and proud?

Give me Shane finally snapping at Ilya that clearly he's not "super gay" if he's so bad at it, because he's sick and tired of everyone being disappointed that he's not up on whatever the latest queer culture trend is and he does not want to be a "gay icon," he just wants to play hockey and love his husband, and he's not magically a different person now that everyone knows he's gay.

Give me Ilya reckoning with how coming out has only put more expectations on Shane's shoulders and noticing the roles Shane is always forced into - the Asian player, the gay player - and understanding a bit more why privacy seemed like a better guarantee of freedom to Shane than openness.

Step two: dig out stash of old seed catalogues saved for this purpose. Get super crabby because you can't find the Mod Podge anywhere. Give up, then have daughter find it immediately, in the "glue box" you forgot you created.

Step three: decide on a color scheme, and start cutting. I asked @phantomtheraccoon if we should coordinate or contrast and she cleverly said both.

Step four: collect your flowers and fiddle with layout.

Step five: paint item with Mod Podge, place your images, and paint them again. Leave to dry, which honestly doesn't take long.

Step six: trim edges add cut out holes. I didn't actually cut out the screw holes; I just cut little X's there for the screws to go through. Worked fine to put it up, we'll see someday how it survives taking it apart again.

Step seven: coat everything with Mod Podge at least one more time, paying special attention to edges. Dry elevated on something (say, the top of the Mod Podge bottle) so it doesn't stick down.

Step eight: okay, wow, that's awesomer than expected!

🎶whiiiiiiiite gluuuuuuuuue aaaaaand waaaaaaateeerrrrr and aaaaaaaaaastrobrights!🎵

She’s counting down until Frank’s one year sober. She’ll give them until he hits the milestone to figure themselves out without her (actively) meddling. But once Frank’s lost that justification, she’s not letting him find another reason to not be happy.

I usually don't love misunderstandings in fiction, but I do kind of enjoy the fact that Frank and Mel keep missing out on learning things about each other, that maybe their coworkers now know, but the flow of information between them is interrupted, so their getting together is delayed.

Like the fact that they're both history nerds, they don't know this about each other yet, they don't even have a single coworker who knows this about them both, so when will they find out.

Similar thing with Frank's sobriety. I'm currently dying on the hill that Frank, in order to get a good grade in recovery, will adhere to the 'No big life changes in your first year of sobriety' rule like it's law.

I think that's why he sounds so defeated when he says 'but Abby stayed', because if Abby had made the decision for him, if Abby had forced that change, he'd have been sad, but they'd have figured out a schedule with the kids, and he'd be able to rebuild his life.

Instead, by staying, Abby has put him into limbo, because he has realised that this life isn't working for him, that Abby and him are strangers, that she doesn't really like him all that much, and now he's stuck. Because he's not meant to get divorced in his first year of sobriety, that's a huge decision you shouldn't make in this state of mind. So he makes amends and tries to be a good husband, an endeavour he has been failing for years, and he's miserable.

Abby stayed, so he has to stay.

Even if Abby had left, he shouldn't get into a new relationship during that first year. So Mel is double off-limits.

In a world where Frank isn't already sleeping on Yolanda's sofa, he's sleeping in the guest room of his house, trying to figure out if he wants to earn his way back into his marital bed, or if he should just let the clock run out until big decisions are allowed again.

One night, when Abby and the kids are with her parents, he ends up on Yolanda's sofa anyway, and maybe it's because he hasn't talked to her properly in over a year, but it all comes pouring out, he feels drunk just letting go of the pressure, even though neither of them are drinking. And he admits what he wants. He wants a divorce, and he wants Mel, and that's not necessarily the order of priorities here.

Yoyo listens, and calls him tragic, but she does hug him and she tells him to please please please talk to his therapist and his sponsor about this, because he admits he hasn't dared to, because she's sure (and she's right) that those recommendations are based on experience and circumstances, but not every piece of advice about rehabilitation fits everyone. In fact, with all this pressure and misery, he's putting himself at a higher risk of relapse, because the urge to escape is so bad.

So he does, and his support system mostly agrees with Yolanda, and they're glad he said something, and Frank ends up asking for what he wants. Abby is almost as relieved as he is when he says he wants this to be over. She stayed because it's what you do, but she doesn't want to be there either. They work things out, they sell the house, they work out a custody agreement, they go their separate ways as much as they can while coparenting. Frank still struggles, with money, with sobriety, with his schedule, with the pressure of it all, but at least this one big thing is off his plate, and he feels infinitely lighter for it.

"So when are you asking Mel out?"

"No new relationships during the-"

"---first year, I know. Sooo... in time for a New Years kiss?"

"Since when are you a romantic?"

"Since you've started pining after a girl who I'm pretty sure has a group of woodland creatures commuting across town to help her get dressed in the morning. I'd be less invested if your heart eyes weren't this severe. Does she know why you're not making a move?"

"No, and don't fucking tell her. She might not be interested at all."

"You're tragic."

The chat pops up the next morning. 'Mel and Yolanda' it says at first, and then the group name changes to 'Count your days' and a picture of a firework.

"Is Doctor Garcia going to murder us?" Mel asks him the next day.

A wag somewhere picks one up and discovers the hockey is really accurate and well written from a technical perspective (plus it’s super hot) and convinces her boyfriend or husband or whatever to read it and then somehow it becomes popular among hockey players as a thing that’s kind of a gag but people are also seriously reading it.

Ilya is extremely confused that CLIFF is trying to convince him to read a book but figures he’ll give it a try. Fifty pages in, reading the book on the plane, he suddenly realizes he recognizes the sex scene.

He never says anything to Shane, but starts casually leaving Shane’s books lying around for Shane to notice during their hook-ups.

I mean, my prior argument still stands: Ilya moved for citizenship, not specifically Shane. And therefore, he was always going to have to take a career hit since he'd ruled out Montreal as an option and there are in universe reasons that Toronto would have been terrible.

But also, from what I understand, Ottawa makes the playoffs as of TLG!

Like, yes, Ottawa sucks when Ilya joined it. Just like Boston and Montreal presumably sucked when they got the first and second draft pick in 2010.

Per the show, the Raiders get the cup in 2014. The Metros get it in 2015 and 2016. That's four, five, and six years after Ilya and Shane join. The text communications during the two year gap indicate that the Raiders at least made the playoffs the year before (the Metros either didn't or were booted out earlier, implicitly.) But that's still three years.

Meanwhile, by TLG, Ilya's been in Ottawa for three years. And early on, it was pretty bad which probably exacerbated his depression, but by 2021, they're in the playoffs!

I'm no expert on hockey, but it sounds like the Centaurs (or whatever they might be renamed to) do not actually suck anymore. Ilya took a temporary career hit (for citizenship!) but that seems to have resolved itself!

I can certainly understand the irritation of hockey fans who don't find this particularly realistic, but it's the genre we're dealing with.

Boston winning in 2014 and then not making it too far in conference finals in the years after that could be a sign that they're good but sort of stagnating. I could see analysts making the argument that Ilya was a great player being held back by a team that didn't match him, so why not make a move to try and build one that did. Though moving from an original six team to somewhere like Ottawa is much less prestigious, to be fair. Still, if he explained he wanted citizenship I think most people in-universe would understand the move.

Considering it sounds like Ottawa turns around in the books SO fast, it's pretty damn miraculous, imo. To go from a team that never makes the playoffs to one that not only makes it but manages to knock Montreal out (one mistake in a game can't make or break a series, so they would have had to have given Montreal a real run for their money over multiple games, so they definitely can't be bad at that stage) almost stretches believability, but it's fiction and with the right management could totally happen. They are completely the opposite of a team that still sucks.

So yeah, Ilya definitely didn't ruin his career. He had a couple of bad/iffy seasons and then somehow is out there winning playoff series against what's supposed to be a super strong team. People would be falling over themselves talking about how big of a deal that turnaround is, much like all the talk about Buffalo making the playoffs this year.

I can imagine that's part of why Shane doesn't quite understand why Ilya is struggling for some of that stretch of time - he knows what Ilya is capable of when he tries, and the depression (which Shane doesn't know about!) is making him not try for a while. Tbf I haven't read it, but I see that as Shane not looking at the things either of them are doing as sacrifices so much as opportunities that benefit them both in the long run.

Especially when hockey moves are complicated and the plan involves a situation that probably makes the best sense out of anything else. Playing on the same team would seem like a total fantasy to them at that point, it's just so unlikely to happen for contract reasons, salary cap reasons, all sorts of reasons.

In the 2002-2003 season, they had what I refer to as the Great Sharks Fire Sale. Management fired head coach Daryl Sutter, and got rid of half the team, including their captain, Owen Nolan. Dear god, they were soooo bad that year. I was actually at the game that landed them at the very bottom of the Western Conference, lol!

Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid.

Patrick Swayze, specifically in Dirty Dancing because his mom would watch that movie whenever it came on and nine year old Shane would join her, watching with an innocent but fixed fascination he usually only ever showed for hockey related things.

Li Shang in Mulan.

An 8th grade classmate who occasionally told the other boys to knock it off when they made jokes at Shane's expense. He had that 90s popular boy curtain bangs haircut and Shane would sometimes fantasize about brushing the hair away from his face.

The boy who was the Captain of his U15 team the year he joined. Confused it for hero worship. He had a habit of ruffling Shane's hair and of teasing him in a way that sometimes crossed the line from affectionate to mean. Both gave Shane butterflies.

Scott Hunter, also confused for hero worship.

A 12th grade classmate who was on the basketball team and who always stood just a little bit too close whenever he talked to Shane, forcing Shane to crane his neck to look up at him.

Ilya Rozanov, unfortunately.

Carter Vaughn. He's cute, he's friendly, and he throws his arm around Shane's shoulders whenever they meet.

Ilya Rozanov, still.

A photographer who takes Shane's pictures for one of his many brand deals and is a little more hands-on than most, without touching Shane in any way that could be construed as inappropriate. Tells Shane "good job, kid, you're a natural" once the shoot is over, his voice warm and deep.

His boyfriend, Ilya Rozanov.

J.J. Boiziau, after J.J. takes him out to a gay club post Shane coming out and forces him onto the dancefloor with him. This crush is swiftly snuffed out the next week when J.J. tosses his socks at him in the locker room and the smell nearly knocks Shane out cold.