Ilya making more visibly queer friends now that he’s safe enough to. Ilya wearing eyeliner for the first time on a night out. Ilya drunkenly crying with happiness because he looks so pretty and he’s never been allowed this. Not ever. This would have been a death sentence, just a few years ago. Maybe not death- but something close, and too tangible to ignore.
He starts wearing makeup more often. It gets a lot of comments, sure. An email from Crowell’s team about projecting a ‘wholesome family image’ (which he immediately forwards to his lawyer for consult.)
He’s survived some of the worst emotional and physical pains a person could weather- words mean nothing to him. And doing this feels like he’s getting away with something, somehow. It carries the same exhilaration as those early hookups with Shane- a softer edge, but yearning nonetheless.
Shane notices, but he’s not sure what to say. Does this- does this mean Ilya wants to be a woman?
They have trans friends. Shane isn’t a bigot, he’s just… confused. He’s a gay man, but no matter what, he’s attracted to Ilya. He loves Ilya. Nothing could ever change that.
After a conversation with Max and Leah, Shane finds out that sexuality and gender are way more complex than he’d initially thought. Two genders, two sexes, maybe three or four sexualities? Nope, sorry buddy. Try again.
Finally he plucks up the courage to ask Ilya about it. It’s a weird, tense conversation at first. Shane still can’t quite reconcile just how… stunning he finds Ilya in makeup and feminine clothing. It goes against everything he’d previously thought about himself- maybe. He still wasn’t sure.
Ilya wasn’t really sure what it all meant, either. By virtue of his sluttish (/affectionate) ways, he’d encountered a fair amount of trans people, and he knew slightly more than the average hockey player. He was certain he didn’t want to change anything about his body- it was one of the only things he truly loved about himself.
He loved his strong, hulking muscles, his hairy thighs and chest, his admittedly pretty cock. But… something about the way a silk slip felt against his skin. Something about the precision and elegance he sometimes felt in his movements when not on the ice; and another ephemeral, inexplicable feeling he couldn’t place, but one that had its roots in deep.
He’s not a woman. But he’s not sure he knows he’s a man, either. He’s also not sure it actually matters.
He tells Shane as much. Tells him that he feels a weird tug in his chest whenever he’s at a gay bar or at pride and some fabulous queen calls him a ‘she’. And that maybe he’d like that, sometimes.
Shane works to understand it, because he wants to understand his husband. The more time they spend around their queer friends, the easier it gets. Nothing has changed- not really. Ilya is still Ilya. Still an asshole, a little shit, and the sweetest person Shane has ever known. She just likes to be pretty now- and who is Shane to judge when Ilya still fucks like a God, even in stilettos.
