Sanctuary for All

“When was the first time you fell in love?” 

It was a difficult question.

If Shane had been asked that earlier on in his life, he might have said it was when he was sixteen and eagerly dating his high school girlfriend. He’d been thrilled, sure, but now, looking back he knew that wasn't the truth. 

Not only was he definitely gay, but love was a very weird concept for him, so it was difficult to pinpoint exactly what it meant. 

He loved his parents, he loved Hayden, he loved Rose, but he, of course, wasn't in love with any of them. When he’d dated Rose, he may have thought for a second that he was in love with her. He felt comfortable around her, surely, and she made him laugh. But love? He loved her. He wasn’t in love. 

When he and Ilya started telling people about themselves, others asked when they fell in love. At first, Shane was very sure that it wasn't right away. It seemed impossible–there was too much confusion, too much fear and animosity. Ilya, too, was also sure that it was some time later in the almost decade they spent dancing around their feelings, some time close to when Shane got injured and they ended up at the cottage together.

So when Yuna had asked, "You spent that whole time in love?" the answer seemed obvious. Of course they hadn't! If they had been in love, things might have been easier–or more difficult–but definitely not what they were. They definitely wouldn't have dated other people, avoided the conversations they avoided, and acted how they'd acted. They wouldn't have argued so much, annoyed each other so much, or hurt each other so fucking much. 

If they had been in love, wouldn't they have worked harder for this? Wouldn't things have been simpler? No, it made sense that they weren't in love that whole time/

Until they started planning their wedding. Until he and Ilya sat down with the officiant. The officiant asked them to describe their story and how they got there. They exchanged glances and smiled and laughed because to describe their story in only a few words seemed absolutely impossible. It was like asking someone to describe the feeling of skating, the feeling of gliding along the ice, of the way your chest leapt and your heart soared as soon as you put on skates and the crowd roared. 

It was impossible.

How could they describe everything they'd gone through to get to that moment? But when Shane looked at Ilya and reminisced, thinking about how far they’d come, he realized something: The way he felt now was not truly different from the way he’d felt at age seventeen. At seventeen, it had just been masked by a million other feelings: fear and shame and disgust in himself, terror that everything else would ruin the career he'd longed for for his entire life. But the first time he looked at Ilya, he’d felt the same clench in his heart and wave of safety wash over him that he did now. 

So when he stood at the altar in front of Ilya and looked at him and said, "I fell in love for the first time when I was seventeen," this time he meant it. 

Turtle Quilt by Laurraine Yuyama

Marly drags Ilya out Post Hollandry News and they get drunk. Cliff is tipsy, but Ilya thinks anything is better than thinking about Shane with a sober brain so he gets shitfaced. Like, drunker than drunk. So drunk he definitely should've done this at home drunk. This is the hilarity that ensues.

"Come on babe, you've been more than grumpy the whole week. I'm worried about you, Roz." Ilya frowns into the table as Marly pats at him. He really wants a pickle, and now thinking of Hollander with... her is ruining his appetite.

"Fucking Landry," he mutters, but Cliff clearly hears him because he pauses from where he's rubbing his back. Ilya grunts in dissent and the massage continues but Cliff presses on.

"Did you just say Landry? What did she do to you? Does she know Jane? You better not have introduced her to Jane before me or I'll cut your dick off, jerk. Is she Jane? No, she's not your type and the schedules don't line up-"

"She stole my Jane," Ilya sulks and Cliff freezes. Stole. Not is, not talked her out of being with him. Stole. Oh.

Ooooh. Oh hoho, she's so dead.

"What an asshole, who does that?" Ilya mumbles his agreement into the table as Cliff pulls out his phone and begins typing up a storm. The team group chat was relatively dead due to it being 11pm on a Saturday with the sane people of their group sleeping or chilling at home. The bomb Cliff just dropped changed that really quick.

"Your Jane isn't in the clear just so you know. Why the hell would she leave you for Landry? I'm sure she's a good lover but you're you! What's she got that you don't?" And now Cliff is stewing on Ilya's behalf.

Landry had a lot of fucking nerve. She had Hollander and she had to take Roz's girl too? This is a level of greed even he doesn't think he'd bank on. And it's nothing to do with her apparently being bi. He'd be happy for her if she didn't ruin a relationship that made his best friend smile like he'd been personally gifted the sun.

Ilya was one of the best guys he knew. Yes, he's a brat on the ice, but anyone with a brain that spent more than five minutes with him in person could tell it was mostly all bark.

He was kind, funny, and the hottest person on their team. And he was a pretty decent cook! If he showed Jane even half of what Cliff knew about him, she's batshit for ditching him for anything less than not being in love with him after all, which Cliff still thinks is insane, but that's not the point.

And poor Hollzy! That's if he doesn't know his girlfriend has a side piece. Either way, he's not letting this shit slide. Landry can face the consequences of her actions with her first scandal and see how she feels about her life being blown up.

Connors is being reasonable and suggesting they wait until the morning to act upon anything, but Cliff's too angry to take his advice. He's on twitter within the minute and the post is up. The retweets from some of the guys follow immediately and Cliff finally turns his phone off as he hauls Roz up so they can walk back to his, the Russian muttering about freckles and pickles the whole way.

@ peakmarly yo landry, wabna tell th e ppl abt ur habit of homewrcjig?

| @ bearsbunny help is he drunk genuinely what is bro on abt😭

| @ rozrules I think he's trying to say homewrecking?? Cliff, quick, chug some water and finish spilling the tea. What did she do I thought she was cool, especially for bagging Hollander.

| @ hollanovtruth I'm gonna start a rumor

| @ bearsbunny not right now user hollanovtruth

| @ rozrules aye why did half the team just fucking repost, yo what? rose, babe what did you DO😭🙏

* well then.

* ain't nothing you can do about it.

* well how about that then.

* you brought that upon yourself dude.

* it is what it is.

* that was completely to be expected.

* tja.

* tja.

* tja.

* tja.

* tja.

* tja.

and i'm laughing rn because i'm imagining ilya getting teased by the other players about being SO quick to leave after practice in the days after because "oh, got a hot date, huh, rozy?"

and the hot date is fucking. getting shane a new ice pack and making sure he ate the food ilya left for him and also took his pain meds on time and helping him shower when he's only got one arm to use and then curling up together on the couch carefully so shane can be comfy while ilya holds him.

We also know that Ilya has been supporting his family since the second he joins the NHL - he canonically sent a ton of his signing bonus home when he first started. And then they spent it. And they asked for more that he didn’t have yet. His family’s money had run out, and if this is the situation when Ilya starts in the NHL? That means his family was in the process of running out of money through his teen years and I’m thinking of him being there watching it happen. Teenage Ilya with his dreams of leaving his home where nobody’s nice to him to become a beloved hockey star in North America, watching everyone pin their hopes on him while knowing that if he wasn’t so good that Russia wouldn’t let him stop playing he would’ve had to quit years ago.