Everyone sees a post-retirement Shane meltdown coming a mile away unless they find something to fill the hockey shaped hole in his brain, and someone casually throws out Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Shane figures well why not, can’t hurt to go to one class and see how it feels
He goes in and immediately, day one, gets his ass absolutely handed to him. Slammed to the ground, choked out, beat to shit, no rest no mercy the entire time and he LOVES it. Getting pushed and tested, needing to figure out strategy, fully working his muscles and getting thrown around. He comes home bruised and sore and can’t wait to go back
Ilya isn’t super sure at first about his husband getting recreationally beat up, especially after going to a practice early on and getting nauseous from watching people choking Shane and purposely putting him in so much pain he’s forced to tap out. The spouse of another person at the gym says to wait a few months before trying to watch again
But after a while he starts regularly hearing Shane laughing and Anya happy barking from other parts of the house, and walking in to find the two playfully wrestling around. Or when they watch the Pike kids they all want turns to get flipped around and wrestled by uncle Shane
And then of course one day Shane texts Ilya saying he wants Ilya to help him learn a triangle submission, and he adds a winky face and Ilya is just ??? Ok? I guess? But then he looks one up and well. That sure. Uh. That sure would be his husbands big strong sweaty thighs locked around his head and you know maybe he shouldn’t be too hasty to judge this hobby
Very soon Ilya is looking up moves for them to “practice” and he starts to see the appeal of his big strong husband being able to manhandle him and also anyone else. When he finally goes to watch another practice he sees Shane taking down guys six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier with ease and no actually so sorry they can’t go out to eat with everyone afterwards he needs to get his hot sweaty husband home immediately
The hockey world struggles to hide how pissed they are the first time Shane wins a tournament because of course he can’t retire normally and had to go and become the best at something else, specifically something that means he could beat the shit out of any of them if he wanted
romaincrisis
amandla
kianamaiart
gracieabrams
