Don't give up hope, ever.

he would believe so hard

HE is the master of this situation, and he can BEAT IT

he is MIND OVER MATTERING

he is FOCUSED

he is DETERMINED

and now they're going to be late AND shane now has to convince ilya to not get him in trouble

"you canNOT tell my mom"

"i am going to tell your mother"

"do NOT"

"i am telling her as soon as we get there"

"you tell her, and I'm not fucking you for a WEEK"

man went from "okay, all done with boring medical stuff. now to have a nice lunch with my in-laws. :)" only to have shane grab him, go fucking DEATHLY pale, and then DROP

and ilya is naturally freaking tf out until a nurse very calmly lets him know everything is okay, this is very common, does his husband have a history of fainting with needles and/or bloodwork-

and the truth is that the team was playing against someone ilya and/or shane ESPECIALLY hates, which means shane was dropping the most vicious, lethal reads known to man and making ilya crack tf up to the point that they were attracting attention and the coach was just afraid of someone reading lips and getting them all in trouble

and signficantly, the three person buffer between them just keeps shane from SAYING his comments

like in the phonecall ilya says he's coming to the cottage because what other one would he be talking about, but i feel like in casual conversation, he would say things like, "you have this at your cottage as well?"

until it slowly starts to consistently just be THE cottage when he talks about it. because of course it's theirs together. it's shane's so it's his, too, just like everything of ilya's is shane's if he wants it.

and there's never a discussion about it, but ilya will be doing something like scrolling and come across a new table or deck chair and hold his phone out to shane and ask, "we should have this for the cottage, yes?" and shane just :) because his fortress of solitude isn't a fortress of solitude anymore.

Wishing Shane Hollander a very slutty 35th birthday