first time shane meets svetlana ilya isn’t actually around. Shane comes to boston to spend a rare weekend with ilya but when he lets himself inside he’s met with svetlana who acting like they’ve known each other for years launches into a rant about how she just found out her boyfriend secretly got married behind her back for citizenship which isn’t what she’s mad about she’s more mad that he lied and she had to find out when she was going through papers on his desk and found the prenup but she broke up with him and took his giant golden doodle which she is stashing at ilya’s house for the time being and shane’s just standing there like he stands having no idea what to say to her which is not helped by the fact he’s trying to keep a respectful distance from the dog who keeps trying to stick his nose into his crotch and svetlana is acting like she doesn’t notice but then they bond because his boyfriend once threatened a citizenship marriage to someone else so he can kinda relate to the feeling so svetlana is like “fuck this i need a drink and you’re coming with” and drags Shane to a bar with her which of course gets photographed but before those pictures are posted ilya comes home to find an empty house and a giant dog sleeping on his couch and he’s so confused he takes a picture and texts shane is like “this is either the best of day of my life and you bought me a dog or the worst day of my life because you’ve been cursed by a witch and turned into a dog but don’t worry i will break curse and if i can’t i’ll still love you forever” and shane’s honestly a little too tipsy to deal with the way that text makes him feel like he wants to cry so he texts back “come pick us up” ilya responds “us???” and shane sends a video of svetlana holding the bartender hostage by drunkingly retelling her breakup story AGAIN but in russian this time so the poor guy has no idea what she’s saying. anyway ilya picks them up and brings them home and he can’t hide the stupid grin on his face and how light he feels that he didn’t even have to lock his too favorite people in a room together so he can introduce them like two feral cats and so when they get home he makes them all tea with slices of lemon and they sit on the couch, the dog despite being almost twice her size curled up in Svetlana’s lap and they gossip about svetlana’s ex and not once mention hockey and shane’s like “wow this must be how it feels to be a normal person in a normal relationship” anyway when the photos finally get released of shane and svetlana drunk at a bar and ilya coming to pick them up everyone online is confused as fuck as to what is going on because literally no context of the three of them being in the same room makes any sense and for the whole weekend people are asking for proof of life of shane because they all think ilya killed him for stealing his girlfriend or something stupid like that meanwhile shane hasn’t gone on his phone for 72 hours because once svetlana leaves shane and ilya spend the whole weekend fucking only coming up for air to eat and use the bathroom so when Shane gets papped at the airport there obviously aren’t any hickies because they aren’t fucking stupid but there is still the sense that he just got mauled by a bear (no pun intended) so at the next press conference Shane is forced to make a statement that no there was no threat to his safety while he was in boston and him and ilya just happen to have a mutual friend
