Work Text:
Once upon a time, in a modern, three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath home in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, there was a man.
This man was a tough man. He was tall, broad, and extraordinarily athletic. This man was a warrior at the top of his game. This man was loud, and brash, and cunning enough to antagonize his opponents until their memorized strategies were flushed away with boiling rage.
This man led fighters onto dangerous terrain to dance on blades and delicately carve through enemy lines. His body bore the scars of decades of training fighting recovering healing, and his skin spent more of the year coated with the purple yellow green of bruises than its regular hue. This man knew when to dodge, when to swing, and when to grin at a defeated foe with bloodstained teeth.
This man… was currently weeping on Shane’s couch.
Shane stood at the edge of the kitchen and watched the man cry. He was a mixing bowl of conflicting emotions, filled with a heavy dose of confusion, a light dollop of concern, a dash of exasperation, and a pinch of amusement.
The weeping was not what concerned Shane. The cause of the man’s weeping, on the other hand, was unexpected.
Twenty-five seconds of music played on a loop on the small screen the man held approximately four centimeters away from his eyes. Suddenly, the music abruptly changed. Shane felt a brief swell of hope that this new sound would accompany a shift in content as well, and might distract the man from the emotional spiral he seemed to be trapped in.
Alas, the new sound only made the man’s eyes well up with more tears and his lower lip tremble as he valiantly attempted to hold the fresh wave at bay. Shane’s sense of relief dwindled.
The man failed to hold back his tears and the quiet weeping continued anew.
Resignedly, Shane pulled out his phone.
Rozanov wRanglers
7:13 pm
Shane: Hello. I think I need help with responding to a situation involving Ilya.
Hayes: ??
Harris: Is he okay??
Marlow: Do I need to fight someone
Svetlana: You have Galina’s number, right?
Shane: Oh wait sorry, Ilya is fine!
Shane: Sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you all. He is okay, I just don’t think I know how to react to this… situation in the way that he needs.
Barrett: god i hate the name of this group chat
Marlow: Hey @Pike, has Shane always been this mysterious or is this a new development?
Pike: Pretty much always, but it varies in intensity
Barrett: hollander, is this a sex thing
Barrett: you have to tell us if its a sex thing so I have time to leave the chat
Bood: Homophobe 🫵
Barrett: I'm literally gay
Barrett: but yes
Svetlana: Shane, please stop being so cryptic and explain what is wrong with my family.
Marlow: Didn’t y’all used to hook up
Svetlana has removed Marlow from Rozanov wRanglers
Shane has added Marlow to Rozanov wRanglers
Marlow: Rude
Shane: Sveta, you HAVE to choose a different word or just say Родной
Shane: I love the sentiment, but that translation choice is really not working with people who know about you and Ilya's history.
Shane: Also please never teach Ilya the word cryptic
Harris: Shane, focus
Bood: Dude, you’re killing us here
Barrett: please for the love of god
Shane: Right, sorry.
Shane: Ilya watched a TikTok video of some animated birds that upset him and now he’s been watching more upsetting bird videos and crying on the couch for almost an hour.
Svetlana: You made me pause the WHL cup finals… to tell me Ilya is sad about an animated tiktok??
Marlow: Didn’t the WHL finals happen two days ago
Svetlana: Can you get off my ass
Shane: Wait, I thought you were at the game?
Svetlana: I was
Svetlana: But I couldn’t see the plays on the far half of the rink as clearly from the front row. I need to watch with multiple camera angles and I need to be able to rewind.
Shane: Oh yeah, that’s fair
Marlow: God, Roz really does have a type
Shane has removed Marlow from Rozanov wRanglers
Svetlana has added Marlow to Rozanov wRanglers
Shane: Seriously though, how do you comfort someone crying over a TikTok?
Hayes: I don’t think there’s a standard response
Barrett: yeah there isn’t some universally accepted approach to this situation
Shane: No offense, but I need confirmation from some of the more socially aware people in this group.
Barrett: um very much offense
Hayes: Nah, that’s fair
7:21 pm
Pike: I guess I’ll take that as my cue
Pike: Unfortunately Hayes and Barrett might be right this time. Your best bet here is probably to go with some combination of comforting and maybe some gentle questions?
Barrett: yes, because the person single handedly trying to repopulate the earth with the only person he’s ever flirted with is definitely the best person to give advice in this scenario
Harris: Jesus, Troy
Shane: Wow
Hayes: OOOF
Bood: Damn Barrett
Marlow: Yeah, that's not fair Barrett
Marlow: We all know Pike’s flirted with at least one other person…
Pike: Dude, I’m just trying to help!
Pike: @Marlow 🖕fuck off
Barrett: yeah thats my bad, i got a little carried away with that one
Barrett: sorry pike
Barrett: you know i love the precious gemstones and the aardvark
7:25 pm
Svetlana: I am so confused
Svetlana: What the fuck is Barrett talking about
Shane: That’s what he calls the Pike children. Because the girls are Amber, Ruby, and Jade, like gems.
Shane: And Arthur is an aardvark because his name starts with A.
Barrett: yes
Barrett: wait no. what?
Bood: It’s not because of the cartoon character??
Shane: What cartoon character?
Svetlana: What even is an aardvark?
Harris: GUYS PLEASE CAN WE FOCUS
Harris: Shane, what was the TikTok about?
Shane: Pigeons.
Bood: …pigeons?
Marlow: Were the pigeons… mean to him?
Shane: No! I think they died? Or make bad nests? It very wasn’t clear through all the sobbing.
Shane: This was about three minutes after the tears started.
Shane: [a 10 second video of the Hollander-Rozanov living room, taken from the kitchen doorway. Ilya can be seen curled up in a ball on the couch. Faint music can clearly be heard from the phone in his hand. Ilya wails, “We abandoned them!” before turning his head and sobbing into a decorative pillow.]
Bood: Can you send us the tiktok?
Harris: Oh my god is that “Wait For Me”?? From Hadestown?!
Hayes: Oh, I love Hadestown!!!
Shane: [tiktok link]
Shane: I don’t know what the song is. Or who Hadestown is.
Marlow: The musical?
Harris: I can’t have this conversation with you right now.
7:37 pm
Shane: Now he is watching more videos with the same song playing, but these are all
about a ship. The Carpathia? Something to do with the Titanic maybe.
7:49 pm
Shane: Um, hello???
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OTTAWAGS
7:54 pm
Lisa: Shane Hollander-Rozanov
Lisa: Why is my husband crying over a ship from 1912
Cassie: SHANE. It was YOU?!?
Cassie: Zane and I have been crying about war hero carrier pigeons for ten minutes!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jackie Pike
8:06 pm
What did you do to Hayden??