failed medication

We don’t talk about this enough. With all the big romantic gestures in The Long Game, this, to me, is one of the most romantic moments.

We know Ilya isn’t a fan of Shane’s restrictive diet. He teases him about it, but Ilya is an expert ragebaiter who knows how to tease the people he cares about when they feel safe and in ways that never really hurt.

Shane is “frantic” in this scene. Ilya has the perfect opening to say something about his diet, and he doesn’t take it. He sees that Shane is panicking, steps in and fixes it. He was looking at that menu thinking about Shane and Shane’s fuckass diet that Ilya doesn’t even like. But he knows this is important to Shane. He knows Shane is already nervous about being on a date with Ilya in public and being with another queer couple. So he meets Shane’s needs without Shane ever having to ask, and he does it quietly, without drawing any attention, so that Shane can save face.

Of course he’s gonna tease him about it a little bit later because that’s what they do. But he only does that AFTER Shane’s had a chance to catch his breath and feel safe again.

My stepmother did NOT like the way her Libertarian Viking Neighbor framed pregnancy as the fetus "attacking the woman". She incredulously told him this was extremely disrespectful to expectant mothers to portray pregnancy as so violent and negative.

Libertarian Viking Neighbor's response was that people consensually hurt each other all the time, and "there's like a whole community about that, with the acronym the one that starts with a B" And his reasoning was that if the mother was consenting to bring attacked by the baby, it in fact wasn't violent and negative because there was consent.

so i posit for your consideration:

autistic shane who becomes like a cat when he's comfortable with someone (speaking from personal experience)

yes, draping himself on ilya at every opportunity, biting ilya's face and then tearing off laughing when ilya jumps up to chase him, leaning his full weight on the top of ilya's head when he's trying to answer emails or be even slightly professional, sneaking his hands under ilya's tank or shorts just to self-soothe on his husband's warmest, softest skin

but also

leaning with his arms dangling over hayden's chest like a living backpack while talking to jackie (probably with the twins on his back), and hayden ignoring it completely

curling up against Yuna's side, shoulders touching, while they watch a game together, each person used to subconsciously dodging the other's wildly swinging arms at a bad call or goal

laying with his head on rose's lap when they go on a "bffcation" to cabo, each on their phones with drinks at their knees, showing each other memes and tipsy giggling

curling his arms around harris's neck and putting his cheek gently against harris's while harris scrolls through the photos he took for the latest social media campaign, talking excitedly about them

and some reporter asks ilya if he thinks shane is cheating on him bc ofc the tabloids have caught wind of this behavior and his face gets that particular smirk that means someone is about to be verbally defenestrated. "genius observation. they hire you at top of your class? breaking news: man is affectionate with loved ones. congratulations your pulitzer will arrive in mail in 6-8 weeks. no, truly brilliant idea for next Centaurs social media campaign. adopt a hockey player. ‘shane hollander: domesticated but not trained. may climb into pockets unsupervised.'"

of course it goes viral. of course shane reams ilya bc what was all that media training for??? and ilya just shrugs and gives him the big eyes like no one talks shit on you but me, but also fuck toxic masculinity and shane sighs and pets his hair and grumbles i knew i shouldn't have let you on tumblr

and of course harris absolutely loves the idea and begs shane to let them do it, which he acquiesces to.

shane's has an entire reel of him hanging off of people and shane is mortified bc he didn't even realize he was doing it but he's not actually mad bc it proves how many people he can be open and loving with, and the response is insanely positive

and then ilya's goes live and it leads with that infamous image of him skating away smirking with blood running down his chin.

One day it randomly comes up as Ilya says something about a time he acted like a dick and Shane is just like “Eh it’s ok, looking back I understand now that you were in a ‘I’m going to hurt you before you can hurt me’ mindset and that’s why you acted like that.”

And Ilya is staring at him and Shane asks what’s wrong and Ilya goes “I hurt you?” And Shane’s just like well yeah but it was forever ago don’t worry about it. But Ilya is worrying about it because back when he’d done the various hurtful things he’d been in downward spirals where he was convinced he didn’t have the ability to hurt Shane because he didn’t matter enough to Shane to hurt him, so he didn’t think the way he acted had any negative effects. And now he’s turning pale and his eyes are getting big as he’s realizing that oh god when he did those things he hurt his favorite person and he hadn’t even realized it

He makes Shane tell him the different times it happened and Shane doesn’t really want to because clearly this is just going to upset Ilya more, but hiding it or lying is probably also going to make things worse in the long run so it’s better to get it out now. So he mentions Ilya ghosting him after they had sex, and then how Ilya acted in Sochi, and that whole night in Vegas, and “I like you… Not as a person, obviously”

And the whole time Ilya is silently nodding and looking like he wants to throw up because no no no those weren’t supposed to be things that hurt Shane, those were supposed to be things that bounced off Shane without affecting him because they were only ever meant to hurt or protect himself, Shane was never supposed to have been hurt by those and fuck how did he not see in the moment the way that he was actively hurting Shane by doing that

And now it’s even worse because Shane won’t even be mad at him about it, he keeps insisting on being understanding and not upset and trying to make Ilya feel better when in fact Ilya is the worst most awful person in the world who should be punished for eternity for making 22 year old floppy haired baby Shane SAD like some kind of MONSTER

Ilya gets pulled for a live post-game media scrum, and instead of being asked about the two goals he scored or how cohesively their team played that day, he gets asked the umpteenth question by some smarmy sports reporter about his and Shane’s relationship, with thinly-veiled jabs about how having two married queer players on their team must be bad for their locker room.

And Ilya loves being able to openly talk about Shane and their relationship, but he’s so sick of this offensive line of questioning. So instead he just makes his innocent-confused-puppydog face and replies in rapid-fire Russian. The reporter is thrown off and repeats his question, but Ilya just replies in Russian again, going on and on until the reporter gets flustered and gives up.

Later when the internet translates what he said, it’s something along the lines of, “I don’t understand such idiotic English questions, but if the sports reporter wants to ask questions about the sport he’s paid to report, I can answer those,” and then it’s just him praising his teammates on how well they’ve been playing.