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OH when Shane says "we just want a future" you HAVE to look at Ilya's face, he gets this tiny smile that goes all the way to his eyes and you KNOW it's the first time he has ever ever heard himself and Shane referred to as "we" and he's losing it
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no you know what i'm still talking about "good morning i like you"
because ilya spent the previous night having what he previously thought would be the most boring night he could imagine. he sat in front of a fire and looked at it all night! that is so boring!
and YET
getting to sit quietly in one place with shane for a whole evening is transformative for ilya. they spend a whole slow evening in each others' presence, softly talking and learning about each other, constantly gently touching in a non-sexual way for the first time ever maybe? and he liked it so much
he liked it SO much you guys
he is so clearly comfortable, pliant and soft that evening - even when he's having these hard truths wrenched out of his throat he is able to be soft about it. he actually likes talking to shane! he likes sharing parts of him he hasn't before! he likes the quiet mundanity of sitting in front of a fire with someone you care about and just breathing it in for a few hours!
like it's literally their "i would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you" moment! everything ilya thought would feel mundane (and would make shane realise he wouldn't want him any more) was thrilling and joyful
ilya doesn't just get to love shane, he gets to like him too! it's SUCH an important step for them! they've never had time to like each other before! ilya likes shane through the mundanity as much as in the thrill! they finally get to like each other!!!!
Imagine you're Ilya Rozanov and you've spent a long time thinking about how you would like Shane Hollander to be more than a hookup in the dark whenever you are in the same city. You want to share with him that you want more but you don't have the words so you try to show. You invite him to your home, make him food, encourage him to stay over, try to ask questions to learn more about him. And it's working. You can feel the bricks of the wall between you falling away, slowly, slowly. Until you slip up, get too familiar and physically feel the wall being rebuilt in front of your hazy eyes. You messed up, like you always do, tried letting someone in and they rejected you. Again. You'll always just be a secret, and you're not even that any more.
And then that same boy who ran away from you runs straight into the most public relationship anyone has ever had. A movie star who parades him around in front of the paparazzi while he smiles and smiles and kisses her and smiles. She's everything you can't be - she's safe and pretty and he can be so normal with her. You don't see Shane Hollander for months, but you've never been more aware of him. He pops up on every social feed, every news bulletin (and you have news notifications on him that chime every day), he is inescapable. All you hear about is how happy he is, how his new girlfriend has changed his life. It's all so very out in the open and there you are, stuck in hotel rooms alone.
Then you go to Florida for an All Star game, knowing you're going to have to see Shane Hollander off the ice for the first time since he ran away from you and into her arms. He walks in to the bar you're sat at and he looks so good. Better dressed than you've seen him, yes. But more than that - he looks confident. Sure of himself in public in a way you've never seen before. He looks beautiful. And he comes to sit next to you, orders a beer, looking so calm and relaxed while you feel like you're going to crawl out of your own skin. Is his new girlfriend so perfect that he's made him this self assured? Shane Hollander would never talk to you in public if he thought people could guess that something was going on. Shane Hollander wouldn't even acknowledge you if he wanted to be anything other than rivals on the ice - he's too afraid, too paranoid. So when he's talking to you all you can think is - this is over. Years of stolen moments and it's all lost because of the confidence that Rose Landry has given the man you only ever loved behind closed doors.
You're Ilya Rozanov, cockiest player in hockey, and you are terrified that you're going to love this man forever, and no one will ever know.
so glad we're talking about them holding hands in the car because it really is the most important moment! they have never spent this much uninterrupted time together where sex was off the table! and it's so awkward and stilted at first because they literally do not know how to do this.
they have two hours ahead of them to what? talk? what do they even talk about? they have never had time to just talk! but then shane is just so so shane and ilya is reminded of how endearing he is and how much he just likes being around him and he gets to touch him and hold his hand!
they don't have to use the guise of sex to have intimacy with each other any more, they can just hold hands! because they want to! they can be loving and intimate and sweet to each other just because they can and they don't have to pretend that all they want is sex any more!
GOD Ilya used to DREAD the summer! His desperate appeal to Shane so he understood how miserable he was in Vegas was to tell him he had to go home for the summer! His summers were spent looking after his sick father who hated him while being tormented by his cop brother! He just had to trudge through the summers so he could enjoy the rest of his life!
And now summer is his most beloved time of all. He gets uninterrupted time with the love of his life in his favourite place! He gets peace and quiet and rooms filled with love! He gets to celebrate the anniversary of becoming boyfriends and becoming husbands in the summer! He gets to love Shane in the bright summer sunlight! He gets to love summer!
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I don't think Shane has ever been able to think about retiring for even a single second like he truly believes he will be the first hockey player still at the top of his game at age 55 he honestly cannot fathom a world where this isn't his every day it's literally impossible for him
I do think Shane tries to respect the effort that Troy has gone through to make himself a better person but he also can't get over the concept that Troy can be totally rehabilitated for his past and even celebrated when he comes out where Shane has dedicated his life to being the Perfect Person Who Does Nothing Wrong and is punished and ostracised for it when he is forced to come out
Thinking about how at the beginning montage of episode four we see Shane and Ilya in their places of comfort.
Shane is at home alone, the one place where he doesn't feel like he needs to Perform or Be Anyone. He can rest in his domesticity and relax in himself where his brain gets to be quiet.
Ilya is out, surrounded by loud music and bright lights and beautiful people. He's so, so lonely and the club is the one place where his senses are so overwhelmed by the absolute hedonism that he can forget how isolated he is.
Shane can't imagine anything less appealing than being out out and Ilya is terrified of the quietness of domesticity (and also terrified by how much he wants it, but that's a subject for another time)
They each have these safe spaces and they have never existed in each other's space. And the rest of episode four is just them invading those safe spaces and having to deal with the terror that comes with that.
When he's at Ilya's, Shane experiences what his quiet home life looks like with Ilya there. They are napping, they're watching tv, they're cooking together. It's so normal and Shane is just absolutely freaking out because the quiet in his brain he gets in his haven at home hasn't gone away with Ilya there. It feels so normal, so nice and the fear he has of the intrusion of another person in his space just doesn't manifest when they're together. And that is so terrifying, because it means that he could do this always. He's like this feels too good I have to run away from it I cannot deal with this.
Then they're at the club, the one place Ilya feels normal and not like the loneliest man in the world, because how can you be isolated when you are surrounded by a thousand people who all want you? And then Shane turns up in that space, and Ilya's one haven away from thinking about The World's Most Public Relationship is broken immediately. He thought he could hedonist his way out of feeling heartbroken but he has to watch Shane with the most perfect woman on earth and so he lashes out! He wants to be Rose so, so bad. He wants to dance with Shane and show Shane off and be with Shane even when he's surrounded by so many beautiful people, and it kills him!
They've invaded each other's safe spaces and it should, by all rights, break the connection they have. But it just makes them both realise how real they are to each other, how much they want each other outside of their normal, neutral spaces. And it's so terrifying and it's so intimidating!
