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It was a full three months into their first season as a couple and Shane was at the end of his rope. He has not been able to spend more than an hour alone with Ilya due to pre-season training, road trips, delayed flights and un-cancellable brand deals. Although they have gone longer without seeing each other, the knowledge that what they had was truly love, made the separation so much harder.
In retrospect, maybe dinner with his parents could have been moved to the last day of his three day ‘break’ in Ottawa but that had felt especially rude after everything that happened over the summer. Truthfully, it was more efficient to just get family dinner out of the way the first evening he and Ilya are in town - this way the next few days with his boyfriend can be spent in a distractionless bubble.
Shane was practically vibrating out of his skin in anticipation.
—
Even after almost a decade of playoff diets and meal plans, it seems like his parents still conveniently “forgot” about his requirements each time. Shane knew that it was likely out of place of concern and love, but the constant insistence that he eats something that will permanently fuck his macros for the next two days was exhausting. Any other year he would have just dealt with it, eaten everything on his plate and spent the next few days obsessing over the break to his routine…but not this time.
No, this time Shane had plans that the delicious cheesy enchiladas were not going to ruin for him. Plans that were far more pressing than sticking to his pre approved diet regimen.
Shane is proud of himself for his ability to get his mom going about the new forward for Milwaukee. As long as she has that fire in her eyes, she is less likely to notice just how few pieces of the enchilada he has eaten. He manages to keep up appearances by eating some of the rice. He keeps his hands busy with cutting up the tortilla so that everyone’s peripheral vision tricks them into thinking that Shane is eating. The enchilada is cut into small-ish pieces that end up half covered by the remaining rice on his plate.
Shane is surprised with how smoothly everything had gone thus far. His dad seems to be really exhausted from the long day at the office to the point that he is even less engaged in conversation than usual. So when Ilya asks if there is any vodka left to finish up the meal, his mom is the one that gets up to find it. Between the chair moving and everyone looking at Yuna as she leaves the dining room, Shane deposits his napkin across half of his plate.
From the corner of his eye, Shane can see how Ilya’s face momentarily flashes a frown when he notices the napkin - he doesn’t say anything. He won't say anything if he knows what’s good for him.
Shane offers to clear the table like the good son that he is as he shoos everyone to the living room to finish off the vodka.
He exhales a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He somehow managed to get away with it. All that was left was to sit with his parents for another half an hour and then politely excuse themselves while avoiding his parent’s knowing looks. It's a perfect plan.
—
It’s not a perfect plan at all. In fact - it seems that his parents have come to a mutual and silent agreement that Shane needs to have an intervention right in front of Ilya in their living room. His mom’s mouth is set in a thin line while his dad’s brows are slanting down his face in a way that make them look melted.
“Shane, you have to know it’s not healthy. You can’t even eat a family meal with your family for crying out loud!”
“Mom…please I just-”
“Just what? You were not hungry? After a day of getting here? Shane please be honest with us…Have you optimized your diet any further?”
His mom really put all of her emotion into that “optimized”. It made him feel like he was 8 all over again and trying to lie his way out of explaining his black eye. Before he could answer, his dad had directed a pointed look at Ilya.
“You should know by now about how particular Shane is with his diet. Are you really not concerned about tonight?”
Ilya, for his part, looked like a deer in the headlights. Shane could see the faint blush starting to spread from Ilya’s ears and his neck.
“Um…Uh Mr. Hollander I don’t thin-”
“Don’t answer that Ilya.”
Shane could not let this go on any further. With arms crossed across his chest he let out an exasperated sigh.
“Can we please just drop this tonight.”
This was not the right reaction judging by the determined glint in his mom’s eyes - it was her sixth sense that always told her when she was getting closer to the truth.
“Shane, we love you honey but this is unsustainable! Maybe Ilya isn’t so concerned with this but I frankly find it difficult to watch my son calculate the nutritional value of a baby carrot.”
It was a low blow, a strategic blow. She knew that dismissing Ilya was going to get a reaction from Shane. Maybe that really was how it all looked to his parents but he was not going to let them assume that Ilya didn’t care.
“I don’t know mom, maybe Ilya knows when to be concerned instead of assigning unnecessary worry to one single unfinished dinner.”
He hoped that came off more certain than petulant.
“What does that mean?”
Shane was in deep. There was no way out of this other than to thoroughly embarrass everyone in this house. Next to him, Ilya had gone completely pink. If it wasn’t for this exact situation, Shane might have pointed it out - but that wasn’t neither here nor there.
“Mom, I’m a gay man”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Oh god, he was going to have to spell it out. He was going to have to explain to his mother that he was a bottom.
What the fuck.
“Uh…I am a gay man…with a boyfriend…with whom I was going to have very specific plans”
“Honey what…honey, again what does that have to do with you not eating anything!”
“Jesus Christ” Shane buried his face in his hands - rubbing his eyes in frustration. He has had enough. He was a grown man and he should be able to just rip the damn band aid off.
He raised his head and dared to look over at Ilya. His boyfriend was looking at him with an expression between amusement and fear. Surely his parents could guess what they got up to…conceptually at least. His dad had seen enough at the cottage to help this conversation along that's for sure. On some level it was comforting that his parents didn’t understand because that meant that they didn’t have experience with this type of thing.
Why was he even thinking about this?
“Shane?”
His mom sounded tired and maybe a bit freaked out as she looked between Shane and Ilya.
“I am not going to have some cheese and god knows what else ruin the next 24 hours for me. I waited for months to uh…reconnect with my boyfriend…and I uh…I really don't know how else to say that I am…more of asocketthantheplug?”
Next to him Ilya had clapped a hand over his mouth and was trying hard to stifle laughter while his mom was slowly turning a color closer resembling a tomato than a human being.
His dad, bless his soul, looked on with confusion between the three of them.
“Yuna, what does that mean?”
“David, I think our son is a bottom”