My brain and my heart are still VERY FIRMLY in a hotel in Gatwick airport, basking in the most insane and most wonderful memories ever made!
As always, there will be a write-up, this one will be MADNESS (because this time around I have VIDEO from all the panels (THANK YOU @siren-events-uk for that wonderful option!)) and the THINGS that happened away from the panels are so crazy, they'll be stuck with me forever!
As of now: pics! Enjoy!
(and yes, that DJ hug pic IS indeed signed as well but it feels too freaking personal to share right now *shrugs* it's weird, it's probably not even that deep or anything but to me it's special so I'll keep it to myself for a while!)
Im still flying so fucking high, you won't believe it!
These people and this fandom are fucking outstanding - there's nothing else in the world that comes even CLOSE to what just happened this weekend!!!
I am so full of love for every single person at this con, and I would do it all again in a fucking heartbeat!
Last November was already great but this?
#myshane loves the pwhl and the pwhl loves him back. in montreal, he would go to every victoire (triomphe?) game that he could given his schedule. he has jerseys and gets wedding invites and the entire roster's numbers in his phone. they adore him and he loves being around people who share his love of hockey without being boisterous dickbags
this leads to a full fledged uprising when shane gets run out of montreal though. they're so pissed off because really?? you got rid of your best player because he's GAY? the victoire no longer even associates with their nhl equivalent. it doesn't exist in their minds. meanwhile ottawa's pwhl team is already best friends with the centaurs and is just excited to have another addition that happens to be shane thee hollander
I 100% think that at some point someone (Troy?) told the rookies/younger Cens players that if they were "real" allies they'd kiss boys just to be sure.
Cue like, all of the Cens rookies/younger players discovering they're bi/pan/gay/queer and Troy having to explain to Ilya that it was a joke no he didn't purposefully make them have gay awakenings he thought it was harmless!
Ilya is losing it and trying not to, Shane is trying to figure out if Troy was trying to haze the rookies/younger players, Scott is getting updates and has discovered that this "ally proof" has spread to his rookies and beyond.
It gets to Boston and Marleau just drags everyone to a gay bar and sets them loose to see what happens.
it’s so special to me that so much of fan culture is textual analysis for the love of the game. like thank god there are people in my phone who are also thinking about this thing i love so much that they are writing transformative fiction as character studies and setting clips of the show to music with theme-relevant lyrics and writing long text posts analyzing every line of dialogue like!! yay!!!
My smol contribution to shallergies is that mangoes can be REALLY hit or miss ESPECIALLY when they're out of season and ESPECIALLY in north america, so I can imagine Shane buying his Illicit Mango, cutting it up, and tasting it, only to discover it was a Bad Mango. He feels personally betrayed. His hands are already red and itchy from the juice. Motherfucker can he not have ONE SINGULAR GOOD THING. There are times when he has especially bad luck and ALL the mangoes he picked are bad and he is literally already having the allergic reaction so he cannot go out and buy more.
Then, maybe one day hollonav get to the point where Ilya is resigned (aka understands it is Shane's choice to make) to The Mangoes, so it's the end of the season and it's Shane's Illegal Mango Time and Ilya (huffing and sighing and whining) presents Shane with a batch of precut, pre-tasted mangoes that Ilya visited like 3 separate stores to get. There are 3 in the tupperware versus the like 15 that Ilya bought to try, ranked for sweetness and juiciness etc etc. They are hands-down the best mangoes Shane has had in his entire life. This ranks amongst top 5 most romantic things Ilya has ever done for him. Ilya remains bewildered that he is getting kissed and thanked and blown because he is aiding and abetting Shane willingly poisoning himself every once in a while.
HI HELLO PLS HAVE FICLET BECAUSE I WAS INSPIRED BY WHAT IS INDEED THE MOST ROMANTIC GESTURE OF ALL TIME
Having his entire life implode around him has meant a variety of changes and plans and contingencies and conversations and contracts and discussions.
It has also meant reducing this year’s Mango Time to only one week to fit within all of his other obligations.
Naturally, because apparently it’s the theme of the entire fucking year, it also has to go badly. He had allotted himself three mangoes for the first day, but he’d ended up going through six in his increasing desperation to just find one fucking good one.
He hadn’t succeeded.
By the time Ilya–away for a photoshoot for a magazine and then a brand event and thus not here for Mango Time–calls, Shane’s mood has plummeted sharply in a way he knows shouldn’t be hitting him so hard.
And yet.
“Hello Mango Maniac,” Ilya says with fond resignation as soon as the call connects. “How badly-what’s wrong?” His levity drops in an instant. “Shane, what happened? What's wrong?”
Shane wonders if it's worse to answer and tell him the humiliating truth or just hang up. Knowing the latter would likely have Ilya on his doorstep within two hours, though, photoshoot and contractual obligations be damned, he answers, voice absurdly tight for such a stupid thing.
“My mangoes all sucked.”
Ilya blinks.
“I tried, like, six,” Shane says, feeling stupid and weak and ridiculous.
And itchy.
“And they were…not good?” Ilya says carefully, obviously a little thrown by what’s happening, which Shane can’t blame him for. He knows it’s beyond ridiculous, being upset because the mangoes were all stringy or bitter or astringent, but-
“It's not fair,” he says, scrubbing his arm over his eyes, hating himself and mangoes and allergies all together in a blend of hurt and humiliation at being so hurt over something so fucking stupid. “I already feel like shit, and it’s just going to get worse, and it was for nothing.”
As soon as he says it, he's aware it's not just something that applies to this year's shitty inaugural session of Mango Time.
But at this stage of things, being upset about the mangoes is easier than being upset about the Metros.
“I can't have fucking anything,” he says, scrubbing his arm over his eyes, knowing he sounds petulant and stupid but unable to help it, knocked down in this last little cosmic fuck you, offering him all of the price and none of the pleasure of his singular fucking vice. He eats clean. He trains hard. He follows the rules. He does everything right.
And he can’t even have the one fucking thing he lets himself indulge in knowing it’s not good for him.
It’s just not fucking fair.
“Everyone else gets to eat whatever the fuck they want all the fucking time, and I have to read every goddamn label and menu and ask every waitress and check every ingredient and be so goddamn careful all the goddamn time and never slip up because I could fucking die and-” He cuts himself off, looking away, like that’ll mean that Ilya doesn’t notice that he’s being a fucking basket case right now. “And I can’t even have a good mango,” he finishes miserably, voice small.
“I’m sorry you had bad mangoes, malysh,” Ilya says, and the sincere sympathy in his voice just makes him feel even worse.
Shane tucks himself down a little firmer on the couch under the throw blanket he’s under, primarily as a guard against him itching the way he wants to.
A price he’s paying for something he didn’t even fucking enjoy.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know it’s stupid to-”
“Is stupid to eat something you are allergic to, yes,” Ilya interrupts. “But is okay to be upset, Shane. You do not have to apologize for this.”
“Okay, Galina,” Shane scoffs, but Ilya doesn’t take offense.
“Hey,” Ilya protests, faux-offended. “She is very smart person, and I listen to very smart people.” He lifts his eyebrows. “Just like other people could listen to smart people like, oh, I don’t know, their fucking allergist-”
Shane makes a face, but he does feel a little better, just having Ilya in front of him, even if only on a screen.
If he can’t have good mangoes, at least he can have a good boyfriend.
*
By the end of their first year on the Centaurs together, his and Ilya’s sex life has gotten sparse enough that when Shane is playfully told to close his eyes and hold out his hand after collapsing on the couch after coming home from end of season PT for his bad shoulder, he's expecting to feel the weight of his husband’s cock or a new dildo in his palm. It wouldn't be unwelcome, honestly. He’s already been making a list of everything he’d like to catch up on that he’s thought about but not had the energy to explore in the bedroom.
Instead, though, what lands in his hand is…tupperware?
He opens his eyes before he's told to.
“What’s this?” He asks, tilting the container up and then frowning when he realizes what’s in it, even more confused. “You're enabling my mango habit with pre-sliced mangoes?” He asks, suspicious, frankly, at this gesture from the president of the Jesus Fuck Shane Stop Eating The Fucking Mangoes Club.
“I am enabling you with the best mangoes,” Ilya corrects, dropping down next to him and looking distinctly pleased with himself. “You still should just stop eating the fucking mangoes,” a look, “but if you are going to keep making bad choices, it should at least be worth it. So: the best mangoes.”
“The best mangoes, huh? Promise?” Shane asks, both touched and amused at the grandness of the declaration. “What, did you hire a mango witch?”
“Would have been easier,” Ilya says wryly. “Then I could have not eaten so fucking many. I don't know why you-”
“You were eating them?” Shane asks, thrown, as he pops the top on the container, mouth watering immediately at the sweet, juicy, floral scent that wafts up to him, feeling hunger so intense it feels almost like arousal.
“Yes,” Ilya says. “For the first day of the world's most stupid annual event-”
Shane kicks him.
“-here are the best mangoes Ottawa has to offer. I bought five from five stores, and these are the winners of all 25 in celebration of the first day of Shane's Stupid Mango Time Cel-”
“You bought 25 mangoes?” Shane asks, incredulous. “You-wait, you also ate 25 mangoes?”
“After peeling them–which was the worst part, why do you have to love such a stupid fruit, huh?–I ate a piece from every single one, and these are the best. The others-”
He doesn't get to finish the sentence.
Not when Shane carefully puts the bowl of mangoes down on the coffee table, straddles his husband, and pulls him into a kiss so filthy it couldn't be aired on television were someone filming them. When he pulls back, it’s only far enough to rest their foreheads together. If his eyes are a little wet, Ilya doesn’t mention it, instead thumbing affectionately at the apple of his cheek.
“You got me the best mangoes?” Shane asks, voice a little rough.
“I would still prefer if you would just have healthy bad habits like normal people, like maybe getting addicted to cocaine-”
Shane snorts.
“-but this is what you like, and I know you wait all year for it.” He brushes Shane's hair back, stroking over his cheek before resting his hand along his jaw. “And last year was bad. So this year I am making it good. So you can have a good Mango Time.”
“Ya tebya lyublyu” Shane says, kissing him again, once, twice, three times.
“I love you, too,” Ilya says affectionately, ruining a bit of the sweetness of the moment with an appreciative squeeze of Shane’s ass before he nudges him off. “Now eat your stupid choices so both of us suffering can be worth it. Commence Shane Hollander’s Very Stupid And Bad Mango Time.”
Shane graciously ignores the slander of his holiday and climbs off of his husband to sit on the couch again. He reclaims the bowl and picks out the smallest piece of mango he can find from the beautiful morsels on offer, moaning without meaning to when he chews. Jesus fuck. It is a fucking excellent mango.
Ilya's look of pleased amusement at his reaction fades slightly into hunger of his own when Shane slides off the couch to his knees and reaches for Ilya's belt buckle, swallowing his bite of perfect mango and licking his lips as he lowers his husband's fly.
After all, sweet always tastes better with a little salty to go with it.
(And if he pauses mid-blowjob for another bite of mango, well.) (Ilya already signed the marriage certificate and can’t follow through on his threats to leave him.)
"Try our ai-powered-" and I've stopped reading. You've instantly lost me. I don't trust anything that labels itself ai-powered. I'd rather deal with something that's squirrel-powered. Like Norm. I trust Norm. He won't try to sell my data.
