Chapter Text
Ilya watches as Shane adjusts his socks for the fourteenth time before finally putting his hockey socks and skates over the top. He notices that Shane is still grimacing as he steps on the ice.
A few mornings later, after Shane disappears into the gym, Ilya pulls out his laptop. He knows he'll get at least two hours to research between Shane's morning run and sun salutation. He searches “autism” + “socks painful” and finds out that socks are a common issue for people with sensory issues. The issue is usually either the fabric, the seam, or the pressure. Ilya is pretty sure Shane's biggest issue is with the seam, based on the number of hours he's spent watching Shane painstakingly adjust the toes of his socks. An hour of research later and he's sure he's found…what's the idiom…a bush with two birds?
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At his therapy session that week, Ilya flops down onto Galina's sofa and greets her with “I have found my new hobby!”
Galina, as usual, deliberates before calmly asking, “What hobby, and what progress have you made this week?”
“Knitting!” Ilya exclaims, bringing a ball of hideously tangled yarn and knitting needles from the bag he's brought along. “I'm still practicing ‘casting on,’ but I've found a guide to all the skills I need to master before I begin my first project.”
“What inspired you to try knitting?”
And so, Ilya launches into a long explanation of the problems with mass-manufactured socks from their fabric types, to their construction, to their imprecise sizing.
“You would like to be able to make your own clothes?”
Ilya shifts uncomfortably, wondering if she will dislike that his reason for his hobby of choice has more to do with Shane than himself. “Actually, I want to be able to make Shane better socks. He hates having bare feet, and he needs socks for protection while wearing skates, but they bother him.” Just in case she jumps in with a question about what he gets out of this hobby, he continues quickly, “And I did research! Once you are proficient, you can knit while watching TV or listening, so it would be perfect for all my long flights and meetings. I even found other people with depression talking about how helpful it is for them to get to see a finished object get made!”
“Okay, okay!” She laughs a little as she states, “You've convinced me!”
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Soon the quiet click-clack of knitting needles becomes part of the background noise of every flight and meeting. Ilya was concerned at first that the noise would be irritating to Shane, but Shane explains that he finds it soothing to know exactly where Ilya is in any room. He shows no real interest in why Ilya is learning to knit after Ilya carefully dodges any details with “Galina thought it was a good idea.” But, he does express interest in the yarn, often helping Ilya wind and unwind it, and Ilya soon learns which fiber mixtures and textures are his favorites.
Ilya has advanced to making small scarves and bandanas within a few weeks and soon Anya has a large selection of fashionable options. He suspects this is why Troy is the first teammate to show interest in learning…though Chirons's bandanas have to be made almost twice as large.