shalls

"and your mother?"

"dead."

shane: *gets on his knees*

- being cared for in a classic way. It’s something he thought he wouldn’t ever have and now he does and he’s horny for it.

- Shane standing up for himself…

- Shane taking really good care of Anya. Ilya wants to get him pregnant so bad HE starts ovulating

- Shane wearing an old man outfit. Button up pajamas, reading glasses, slippers, etc. if Shane came downstairs with a night cap and a candle Ilya would pass out. Mr. Scrooge style.

- the playoffs (he is just like his husband)

- their wedding rings. He starts jerking off with his non-dominant hand so he can feel it (left handed Ilya Rozanov truthers please rise)

- Shane being His Boyfriend ™️

- one time Shane ordered for him at a restaurant and Ilya got so hard they had to leave.

- weed. He can’t smoke weed in public anymore because he gets too horny.

Fast forward a couple of months, the Centaurs are playing LA. Shane is sitting out the road trip due to a minor injury. Ilya meets up with Rose at a small restaurant to avoid the press, but they get caught by paparazzi. And they get absolutely swarmed. Usually, Rose can handle a few paps going after her, but this time there are so many, they block the way from the restaurant’s door to where her car is parked. Rose was just caught leaving a party hand in hand with another actor a week ago and the paps are after her like crazy and because she and Ilya were meeting on the dl she didn’t bring security. Turns out, she didn’t need to. The paparazzi are in their faces, yelling at Rose about her possible relationship with her actor or whether she’s hooking up with her ex-boyfriend’s husband now, shoving them around and flashing their cameras. Unfortunately for the paparazzi, none of them have a lot of experience with professional hockey players. Hockey players who can fight and are good in a scrum. So Ilya drags up his I’m gonna drop my gloves and punch out your teeth persona and yells at them loud enough that at least two of the paps drop their cameras. Even these hardened vultures don’t know what to do in the face of Russian hockey player fury. Ilya doesn’t punch any of them, but he doesn’t have to. Just wraps an arm around Rose and clears a path for her with the other, his broad shoulders and the murderous expression on his face equally well suited to get them back to Rose’s car. The clip goes viral, especially because it catches Rose’s absolutely vindicated expression when Ilya basically glares the last photographer out of his way, and says, just audible for the camera, “next time we go out, we bring hockey sticks and just sweep them out of the way like ugly overgrown pucks.”

#when your partner gets kidnapped by a killer, and you escape the hospital even tho you are injured because you don't trust anyone else to save them. And you were having a nice time with some rock music before it all went to shit.

Bones 1x15 “Two Bodies in the Lab” -> 911 9x13 “Mother's Boy”

shane is obviously not the animal lover of this household. his parents weren’t pet people (david has allergies), and he’s always been on the road too much to even consider it. plus, there’s so much hair and dirt and slobber and mess and it just feels unnecessary

but he sees how happy anya makes ilya, and that alone is enough to make him look past all the mess

it takes him a while to bond with her though. she and ilya are basically inseparable at home, and when shane is alone with her, she mostly keeps her distance, napping on the couch and lifting her head to stare at the door every once in a while, waiting for her papa to come home

but one long weekend while ilya is visiting boston, shane takes anya on a hike. that’s something you do with dogs, right? anya seems to love it, anyway. she noses at some leaves when they pause for water, and rolls around in the grass at the top of the hill happily, but otherwise is just as focused on her run as shane is. she keeps pace with him, her leash attached to shane’s waist, and she’s like his adorable little shadow. and shane kinda loves it, having this running partner who enjoys the fresh air and quiet with him

so when they get home, he makes sure she drinks water (but not too fast, he’s read about that) and fishes some treats out of the bag at the back of the closet

and they’re okay, he thinks. kinda boring for her, maybe? they almost look like kibble, which can’t be fun and enriching for her. she’s a hunting dog by breed, or at least has a little of that in her gene pool, so she must want something more prey-like?

so in the four days ilya is gone, shane goes ham researching enriching and delicious dog treats, and ends up at one of those obnoxiously expensive pet food places in town picking out refrigerated and freeze dried things that would probably gross ilya out

and while he’s there, the sales girl opens up his world even further. what kind of human food is okay for anya to eat. doggie cookies and pup cups and a universe of treats that of course anya deserves, look at her! just sitting at shane’s feet staring up at him, not reacting to the other dogs and sounds and smells, just bopping her head against his knee

so on the way home, back of the jeep loaded with a frankly obscene amount of purchases, including a number of toys, they go through the timmy’s drive through to get a black coffee and a pup cup

and when ilya returns, anya runs up to him at the door, bouncing and jumping and getting her little paws up on his chest

Scott and Kip don’t talk before Sochi, so when Carter talks to him and Shane about Joe he feels like a bucket of ice has been dumped on him. Even so after he’s processed what Carter said he feels warm at the words shared by his friend.

He feels safe in a way he hadn’t before. And he knew that it could be different if it was your own teammate but at the same time he didn’t think Carter would care not any more at least.

Once they are back in New York they are in Scott’s apartment sitting on the couch when Scott speaks before she can really think about it too hard.

“I met someone” a bref moment of silence before Carter grins at him and montions for him to continue. “His names Kip.” He says carefully but Carter lights up like there was nothing out of the ordinary with the conversation.

“Yea? How did you meet??” Scott had to take a second to process before he blinked at his best friend with tears burning in his eyes.

“Did you not hear me?” He asked softly and Carter looked confused.

“I heared you perfectly?”

“I said his name is Kip.” Carter paused and the. Gave Scott a sad smile.

“ I know Scotty” he says quietly. “I heard you, I don’t care but thank you for trusting me.” Scott just stared at him for a long time but then Carter smiled.

Troy calls out Dallas Kent for being a rapist and he’s on the quickest bus to Ottawa. What if he wasn’t alone in that? What if most of the guys who end up in Ottawa get there because of a general refusal to buy in to the leagues bullshit?

one guy throws a punch after hearing a defensemen talk shit about the women he’d been sleeping with. Another refuses to play nice when his teammates are being racist. Never full on social warrior campaigns but a general refusal to put up with ‘locker room culture’ to be part of the ‘good ole boys club. They’re weird. They’re woke. They’re ‘on the bus to Ottawa.’

Ilya goes to a team that’s passionate and angry. They’re good hockey players, can play with the best of them… except they can’t because they refused to play the game behind the scenes. Too good for the AHL and too ‘soft’ for the MLH.

Shane's home gym has a punching bag, and Ilya asks about it. Shane explains he used to be really into MMA— still is, as a spectator, but he hasn't fought in an official capacity since year ten.

"You fought in an official capacity?"

"Well, kind of. I had some consistent sparring partners at the gym but I only competed a handful of times."

He says this in the most infuriatingly nonchalant tone, as if this isn't coming as a huge shock to Ilya. He forces Shane to show him everything he knows, and Shane is good. Quick and calculated, in full control of his body, not a single part of him out of place. Ilya is fascinated, enamored. Falling somehow more in love with this man. Falling so damn willingly.

Ilya teases Shane about how of course he is the only one in the NHL to know how to actually fight, and the only one in the NHL who refuses to. This earns Ilya a lecture on the importance of pacifism in the face of conflict, which in turn earns Shane a lecture on how it's just hockey, let a guy throw a punch when he wants to. Ilya should have known better, because now Shane is going on about how nothing is "just hockey," and how "just hockey" doesn't exist, that all life is a metaphor for sport—

"Life is metaphor for sport? Do you mean it the other way around?"

"No. I mean, maybe it is. But not to me, anyway."

Then Shane is sitting on a weight bench, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and Ilya is on the floor with his legs spread out in front of him, and they are talking about Sport, capital S. Shane talks about his mind and his body and his soul and how the only time he ever feels at home in all of them is when he is playing hockey, and Ilya's thoughts drift vaguely to Russian Orthodox homilies about three-in-one. He talks about connection to the physical, the buzz of being completely in one's body. Neither of them say what they're both thinking, that this awareness of self also happens during sex together— that beautiful, forbidden communion— so they just stick to talking about hockey.

Shane tells a story about an assistant coach he had in juniors, a young player who retired from the pro leagues far too early due to an injury. He would always quote a line from some book, "How promising you are as a Student of the Game is a function of what you can pay attention to without running away." This coach would recite this any time he felt a player was running from something; the puck, the defense, the game entirely. Sometimes he'd pull it out when he felt like a player was running to hockey, and away from something else. It is bad hockey to playing it as a distraction, he would say. The coach was a little strange, Shane explains, but that quote of his really stuck. Now, sometimes, when Shane feels a bit untethered from the world, he audits his attention.

"Well then what did you discover in your last 'attention audit,' Mr. Accountant?"

"Well, you're here, aren't you?"

--

They stand in the kitchen, sweaty and flushed, picking at cold grapes and staring into nothing.

"Surely there's something you're good at that I don't know about."

"Hm?"

"Like me and MMA. Surely you have something, too."

Ilya thinks for a second.

"I am a good dancer." Ilya pops a grape into his mouth. "Like, ballroom dancing."

Shane's eyebrows shoot up.

"I like the waltz."

He explains that he had to learn for formal events back in Russia. That he acted like he hated it, but he didn't really. That he could show Shane how to, if he wants.

it makes me want a 5+1 story with 5 times shane went to a centaurs event as a "friend" of ilya's and the +1 as either him attending as ilya's partner or as a centaur himself.

the first time would be at the end of summer, right after the end of the ottawa summer camp. wyatt asks shane how long he's going to be in town for before he heads back to montreal, and he says it'll be a few more days, and hayes says bood is hosting a pre-season bbq and shane should totally swing by. he's hesitant, but the fact that it's wyatt who invites him and confirms with bood that it's cool vs him clearly tagging along with ilya that makes him risk it.

the boxing day party would probably fall as time 3 or 4? i haven't decided what the others are yet.

but through these 5 parties, shane slowly gets to know the cens and their partners, sees how different the culture is from montreal, gets to know these people ilya talks about for himself, and slowly lets his guard down.

for their part, the centaurs get to know shane as a person better and not just The Shane Hollander™️and they also can't help but notice that their captain, who's always so busy on their days off, is conveniently always available if hollander is also around.

by time 5, most people have figured out that something is going on between them. everyone has pet theories about if it's serious or exclusive or new, but they're trying to tip-toe around it and not let shane or ilya know that they suspect something. it doesn't help that ilya brings anya, and she seems very familiar with shane.