gay ianto trash

fell asleep thinking about this concept and woke up still thinking about it... gosh the angst is delicious. i think to figure out how the hollanov dynamic would unfold you would have to first figure out how the outing impacts both of them. for shane, i think it's like... if he were older and more well-established, i think he would still have to walk through his personal version of hell (violation of privacy, losing control of his public image, strangers knowing everything about his private life, etc), but he would at least have the security of knowing like, i'm really, really fucking good at my job. i've won cups for this franchise and this city. i've paid my fucking dues. so if they want to hate me they can hate me but i know who i am. but shane getting outed two or three years into his career, maybe as his ELC is expiring? he hasn't won a cup. i'm pretty sure montreal misses the playoffs at least once in those first couple years (because ilya texts him playoffs are fun why aren't you here or something teasing like that) so like, fairly or unfairly, he's probably starting to get heat for not IMMEDIATELY saving the franchise. the internal and external pressure he's putting on himself must be intense.

and then somehow he gets outed, and it's like... suddenly he goes from being this up-and-coming superstar, former rookie of the year, hottest item in the league, to nobody wanting to touch him. i don't think montreal dumps him right away... i think they just sort of start burying him. no contact with the press. they ask him to give up the C because the scandal is a "distraction" for the team. his on-ice performance takes a hit under the stress and they use it as a reason to demote him from the top power play unit. refs stop calling penalties against him and look the other way when guys call him slurs on the ice, and he starts getting pissed off (he's so angry he's so helpless he's so so so so so so so powerless) and getting into fights, which means he gets penalized, which gives the coaching staff an excuse to bench or scratch him, which means his points totals drop even further, which means he starts taking more and more heat in the press for not performing to expectations... combined of course with rumors coming out about locker room tensions, conflicts with the coaching staff, attitude issues, leadership issues, the impact his behavior has on the young fans who'd looked up to him, etc etc etc.

it just never fucking ends!!! not to mention he's been quietly dropped from all his sponsorships and his family/home life has become incredibly tense. i think his parents are 1000% in his corner (one thing about the hollanders is that they're gonna love shane!!) but in some ways that almost makes it worse? shane has to watch them put on a brave face about everything, trying to act like it'll all blow over and it'll be fine, all while knowing that they can't go out in public anymore without fans harassing them or jeering at them or asking invasive questions. all of his mom's dreams and plans for his future have turned to ash. he's wasted the years and years of financial and emotional sacrifices they made for him.

and then let's think about ilya... i think the outing happens so early in their relationship that ilya can sort of tell himself: it's not my fault, i don't owe this guy anything, i don't even know him, we were just fucking. he's young and scared and fucking stupid, and when shane offers him an out (makes it clear that he's not going to name the other guy in the video), ilya seizes it. shane's the one who offered!!! shane's the one who said he'd take the fall. shane's the one who said something painful about how - he wouldn't wish this on anyone, he gets it, he knows the scandal would make things hard for ilya in russia. and if ilya sort of feeds him those lines, like - my family, my country, i don't know if i could go home - well. shane's the one who said he didn't have to come out. ilya just shared what would happen to him and shane made the call. except of COURSE ilya knows what the right thing to do was. and as he watches shane's entire life and career implode he knows 1) he did the right thing to protect himself, but also 2) he doesn't deserve to ever be forgiven for it. i think that the guilt and shame of what he's done (or failed to do) would eat him alive. ilya shame thesis dialed up to 11 million. he's a bad person. he's a fundamentally rotten, dishonest person without integrity, someone who hurts people and ruins them by touching them. he can't be accountable for his own actions; he pushes the blame onto others. ever since he was a boy.

i think ilya would go to some pretty dark places in the years after he lets shane hollander take the fall. and i also think he would completely shut off all conscious thought about it. he's not sitting there thinking I'm a bad person. it's just this roiling, molten sludge of toxic self-loathing churning underneath the surface of his every thought and action. and he channels it all into his hockey, and his star just continues to ascend, and there's nobody who can even come close to touching him, because the one guy who could've given him a run for is money is playing fourth-line minutes for some playoff bubble team, shuttling back and forth between the MLH and the AHL, living out of moving boxes he doesn't bother to unpack anymore because chances are he's not going to be here next october.