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“I think I deserve a reward tonight,” Ilya announced as the engine cut off, like he’d timed it just right to be able to hear Shane’s responding snort.
Shane turned towards Ilya, already knowing what he’d find; an endearingly obnoxious grin only encouraged by the laugh Shane hadn’t been able to conceal.
“Oh, do you now?”
“Yes. I have finally won a Scrabble game against Jackie. Better than any trophy.”
“Hey, Hayden and I were playing, too!”
Ilya let go of the door handle to make a dismissive hand gesture before bolting out of the car so Shane’s playful slap couldn’t reach him.
“You and Hayden are nothing competition. Jackie, Jackie is the real opponent. She knows too many words.”
Shane spluttered, briefly struggling with his seatbelt as he tried to follow after Ilya. He didn’t think that yelling ‘I know words too!’ would do him any favors.
“You two get weirdly competitive over games,” Shane started, huffing when Ilya raised an incredulous eyebrow at him. “Don’t. How long ha-”
“Three years. I have been waiting to win Scrabble for three years, Hollander.”
Shane didn’t bother with trying to hide his delighted smile, something in his chest squeezing with fondness at how serious Ilya looked before his face twisted with familiar mischief.
“You I beat years ago. Did not have to study or prepare. Easy.” He paused to wheeze slightly when Shane poked him in the stomach. “That wasn’t worthy of a special reward.”
“Enjoy rewarding yourself, then, fucker.”
Ilya chuckled as he pushed himself up against Shane’s back, impeding his door-opening abilities.
“I don’t think that’s what you want. Reward for me is usually - oh wait, always - good for you, too.”
Shane tried to scoff but it was all too easy to give in to the smirk he could feel pressed against his nape, Ilya’s lips catching on the goosebumps that had given him away long before Shane allowed himself to go pliant under the attention.
Door barely unlocked, Ilya was already nudging them forward, teeth grazing at Shane’s shoulder and distracting him from hitting the correct switch, making him accidentally turn on the driveway lights instead.
While Ilya patiently paused for Shane to line up their shoes his hands never stopped making his intentions clear, as if Shane had any questions about why his shirt was already halfway up his chest.
It was all the way off before they even started making their way to the bedroom, both difficult tasks to accomplish with Ilya refusing to detach his mouth from the back of Shane’s neck.
Once the dimmed lights were on in their room, Ilya spun Shane around and leaned in for a kiss, but right before their lips could meet, he lightly shoved Shane back onto the bed with a grin. Shane laughed through his faux-frustrated noise as he raised his foot to stop Ilya from following him down, smiling when Ilya used the opportunity to yank his sock off before tugging at his pant leg.
“Naked. I need you naked, chop chop.”
Shane bit down on his bottom lip to stop himself from laughing again as he scooted towards the headboard, shoving his pants off as he went. He quickly folded them and laid them out on the bedside table they always kept clear of clutter for this exact reason, not looking up despite his curiosity when he heard Ilya leave the room.
By the time Shane was settling naked against the pillows, Ilya was back. His smile was big and goofy as he made a show of pretending to struggle with carrying in an armchair from the living room, placing it at the foot of the bed.
Shane’s breath caught and tangled up in his throat, freezing there along with the rest of him. He instantly knew he was being ridiculous, far too many years between the memory locking up his limbs and who they were to each other now. But. The familiarity of the scene pressed in on his sternum before he could reconcile the context.
Cold dread he didn’t have time to logic his way out of sparked down his spine. They hadn’t kissed yet, not really, and suddenly it felt like he was right back there, to that time.
He’d learned since then, under Ilya’s considerate and insistent coaching, to always ask for what he needed, that Ilya would give him anything, even before they were officially together. He’d learned since then, through trial and error, that he should never ignore his feelings, his wants, his comfort. That Ilya would never want him to.
That didn’t seem to matter to his mind, scattered as it was between two moments, throwing him right back into that Vegas hotel room where he’d been terrified of rocking the boat, of losing what he had with Ilya by asking for too much, by being too needy. By wanting a kiss.
So when Ilya immediately clocked that something was wrong and asked him if he was alright, Shane automatically lied. Of course, he said, shoving his shaking hands under his thighs like Ilya hadn’t already seen right through him.
Shane couldn’t control how his thoughts were tripping over themselves between the past and their present, the way he could always rationalize the asinine ones but not stop them.
Maybe, this time, if he’s good enough, Ilya won’t make him leave.
You live in the same fucking house.
Maybe, this time, if he’s good enough, Ilya will kiss h-
“Hey, hey, Shane. What’s the matter? We don’t have to-”
Panic, bright and breathless, surged through every one of Shane’s nerve endings. “No, no, it’s fine, I can do it. I can be good, please, I’m-”
He registered, distantly, that the sensible part of him had lost out, which was as embarrassing as the sting in his eyes. He had already fucked it up, given the obvious worry all over Ilya’s face as he rushed across the bed to him.
“I can do it, I- I can do it right this time-”
“Shane, please look at me.” Ilya’s hands came up to cup Shane’s cheeks, not letting him turn away. “Sweetheart. You have to tell me what’s going through your head right now, okay?”
Shane knew, with his entire being, that he could ask for reassurance, for a kiss, for the fucking armchair to be taken back to the living room, but the dread from another lifetime was choking out the words, leaving them strangled in his stomach down where it had dropped.
It wasn’t like they hadn’t done this kind of thing since Vegas. They both loved it, building up the desperation until someone was begging, finding fun ways to deny touch until need bubbled over. This wasn’t new, Ilya wanting to watch Shane get himself going until one or both of them broke, there just... had never been a chair involved. Not since that night.
Which Shane knew, consciously, was hopelessly silly. It was barely a difference, it was barely anything. And yet.
“I’m sorry, I know I’m being-” Shane interrupted himself, aware that he wasn’t doing what Ilya was gently asking of him. Just as aware that Ilya wouldn’t want Shane to feel guilty about that, about any of it.
Ilya smiled at him encouragingly, one hand slipping into his hair, brushing it back, letting him take his time.
Shane took that time to find his way back to himself, to the space they’d persistently and tirelessly carved out in the universe for them to exist. To the present, where he was loved, where he was adored, where Ilya held his face between careful palms and called him Shane, called him sweetheart.
Where Shane could remember that even the version of him that had felt cold and used back in that hotel room had also been cared for, cared about, before Ilya had been able to show it, before Shane had learned to accept it.
They’d been so fucking young, and scared, and absolutely atrocious at communication, but even back then, the knotted up thing between them had never been casual, no matter how frantically they’d tried to delude themselves and each other.
An armchair in their shared bedroom, in their shared home, wouldn’t rewrite that progress, a thought that made Shane smile. Especially since that particular chair had been an accidental purchase because Ilya didn’t know how the shopping tab worked on some social media app. It didn’t match anything they owned, it was garish and weirdly uncomfortable for how soft it was, but they’d still brought it with them when they’d moved houses, despite everyone in their life hating it. Mostly Hayden.
When Ilya had gone to get a chair for horny reasons he’d purposefully chosen the most preposterous one, probably just to make Shane laugh.
Sucking in a fortifying breath, Shane brought his hands up to cover Ilya’s, squeezing them like he was reassuring him that he was present, back in the moment.
“It reminded me of Vegas.”
Ilya had evidently already figured that out, his eyes didn’t widen in surprise, but the guilt there was threatening to spill over.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think-”
“You did, you thought it’d be hot, and it was. It is. I should be over it by now.”
“Shane.”
Ilya said his name in the exact same way he had the couple times they had discussed Vegas, both the next time they’d hooked up - using the same inflection on Hollander - and years later, after it had turned into Shane.
After Vegas, the next time they’d been alone together, Ilya had picked up on Shane’s nervousness right away, which had frustrated Shane to no end, determined as he was to pretend that night hadn’t left him shattered after one of the best orgasms of his life.
The frustration had boiled over when Ilya had refused to start anything until Shane told him what was wrong, unknowingly adding onto the metastasized hurt because that meant turning Shane down when he’d tried to kiss Ilya quiet.
Humiliation burning him up from the inside out, Shane had made to leave, only stopped by the visible despair in Ilya’s eyes as he’d thrown out some meek quip about making Shane feel better that had sounded an awful lot like ‘I’ll be better, help me be better’.
Shane had tried to talk around it, had tried to take the blame back onto himself because he couldn’t stand Ilya knowing just how far down the deeply rooted want lived, somewhere right next to everything while he’d tried convincing himself he could settle for nothing.
In the end, it was Ilya who had said it first.
“I do not like how that night ended. I didn’t even kiss you goodbye.”
Shane hadn’t reacted, but Ilya had already gotten too good at reading him, shoulders slumping as he saw right through the sticky heart of the matter.
“That’s what- We didn’t kiss. I let you leave without even kissing you. I made you feel... used, yes?”
Shane had shrugged, avoiding Ilya’s eyes so he wouldn’t get more truths out of him as he tried to get the right placating words in order.
“You were going through something and I kept pushing, you just wanted me-” He’d stopped himself from ending the sentence with gone. You wanted me to shut up. You wanted me to leave. You wanted me just as a warm body. You didn’t want me.
In yet another nondescript hotel room, that was the first time Shane had ever seen so many shades of Ilya’s true emotions come up to the surface, allowed to linger in the lines of his face, in the twist of his mouth, instead of being buried under the unaffected act he was so good at.
“I wanted to kiss you. I should have kissed you. I will never fail you like that again, okay?”
The mask had gone back up, then, the jokes had started up again, both of them safer on familiar ground as they’d navigated through what had essentially been a stilted but necessary conversation about boundaries.
Ilya had always kissed him since. Before, during, and after.
Shane had, for the most part, kept his own promise that he would always ask for what he needed since. Not that it was ever really necessary, given that Ilya had become even more attuned to Shane’s idiosyncrasies in bed, often anticipating his needs before they could even fully develop in Shane’s mind.
Shane had stopped being haunted by Vegas after that, only learning that Ilya still was months after their first summer together.
They’d talked about it again, Ilya hidden warm along Shane’s back, confessions whispered in the dark. He’d apologized once more - not just for that night but the build up to it too - finally unburdened by the secrets they’d both been holding onto since the first one, able to further unravel the context of the time between Sochi and that penthouse without excusing it.
Shane hadn’t needed a second apology, but he’d accepted it nonetheless, twisting around in Ilya’s arms to kiss his long-earned forgiveness against Ilya’s lips until their tremble turned into a smile.
Now, three years and a won Scrabble game later, Ilya climbed into Shane’s lap, ignoring the absurdity of doing so fully clothed while Shane was still naked. Amused by the reversal, Shane exhaled out a quiet laugh as he wrapped his arms around Ilya’s waist.
“My Shane. You are always allowed to think and feel things.”
Shane snorted, nudging his nose against Ilya’s when Ilya delicately knocked their foreheads together.
“Gee, thanks.”
“I... I was not good to you that night-”
“Ilya-”
“It’s true. You know this already, but- I was in my head and I did not properly take care of you. I thought that if I kept my distance, if I kept things detached, I could stop myself from falling in love with you. Foolish. Too little, too late.”
Shane grinned, heart doing the same silly little flip it always did when Ilya told him he loved him.
“I probably would have set fire to the room in a panic if you’d said it back then.”
Humming, Ilya squished Shane’s cheeks between his hands, making a matching scrunched up face.
“I would have handed you the match.”
“I would have used your stupid fucking lighter.”
“See, I knew something was really wrong when you didn’t give me shit for smoking in bed. I wanted to believe I’d fucked you so good you couldn’t be bothered to, but it’s because you were too upset, yes?”
Shane swallowed and kissed Ilya’s chin, the easiest spot to reach.
“You did, you know, fuck me so- it was still really fucking good.”
“But I did not kiss you. Just like I have not kissed you yet tonight.”
Closing his eyes, Shane smiled, syruppy anticipation curling up beneath his ribs.
“May I fix that?”
“Ilya, you don’t have to ask to kiss me.”
“Ah, ah, but this is an important kiss. This is one for you now, but also for that Shane, who was very bad at pretending to like vodka. For that Shane, who put on such a pretty show for me-”
“Alright, permission rescinded-”
“For that Shane, who I did not mean to poison with my own hurt. For that Shane, and for that Ilya, who didn’t yet know that he was allowed to want, and to hold, and to love.”
“Please kiss me,” Shane whispered, feeling Ilya’s thumbs gently catch the tears building up on his lashes.
Ilya obeyed, lips softly pressing against Shane’s, unhurried and sweet in a way that was achingly familiar to them now but would have been devastatingly revealing back then. Shane let himself imagine being back in that mindset, putting aside how it would have probably terrified him, how he could barely admit to himself that he craved this down to the very marrow of his fucking bones.
That Shane and that Ilya, forgiven for their jagged edges and their flaws as they’d looked for ways to heal, apart and together, held safe now in their minds, in the shape of who they became, apart and together.
Shane smiled into the kiss, the taste of it losing the salt of the tears that had slipped between the seam of their mouths as Ilya’s twisted into a delighted grin.
Laughing giddily, Shane tilted sideways onto the mattress, pulling Ilya down with him, nearly getting his fucking balls crushed before Ilya readjusted, spreading himself out over Shane to kiss him over and over and over.
“In honor of not setting fire to that penthouse, I will set fire to the armchair instead,” Ilya declared the next time they ran out of breath.
“The chair is an innocent bystander. It would make Hayden happy if we got rid of it and you wouldn’t want that, would you?”
Ilya fake-gasped, going limp all at once. “The horror. The chair gets to live, then.”
Shane cleared his throat, barely making a sound but he still felt Ilya perk up anyway.
“Maybe it could stay. In the bedroom.”
Ilya leaned up on his elbows, eyebrow raised. “You would want to try again?”
Fighting against his instinct to shrug and look away when he felt his cheeks go pink, Shane maintained eye contact. “It was hot. Seeing what it took to get you out of it. Turns out, all I needed to do was tell you I needed you and, poof, just like that, you were giving in.”
“No, no, I was just jealous of your fingers. I needed to be inside you instead.”
Shane scoffed, using the leg he’d wrapped around Ilya to lightly kick the back of his calf.
“Oh, please, I didn’t even have to beg and you wer-”
Ilya moved so quickly Shane choked on his laugh, wrists suddenly pinned on either side of his head.
“You very much did beg. With your eyes.”
“Yeah, well. You fucked me stupid and then didn’t let me have it again for six months, I was desperate. That’s on you, Rozanov.”
Ilya softened, letting go to twine their fingers together instead. Shane saw it as the opportunity it was, using the advantage to flip them, Ilya too stunned and thrilled to even pretend to put up a fight.
“It is on me. I was an idiot man who didn’t yet know the consequences of my own actions. Of the greedy little thing I turned you into.”
“Greedy? Me?” When Shane tried to sit up, Ilya’s scrambling hands proved his point by reaching up to keep Shane from moving away.
“Mhm. Greedy, perfect. What was that word? Ah, yes. Insatiable. Ravenous.”
“How much fucking Scrabble research did you do exactly?”
“Important to know good words. Accurate words. Ones with letters that are worth more points.”
“Insatiable wouldn’t be worth shit for points,” Shane said, rolling his eyes at Ilya’s bright grin. “You’re a fucking nerd.”
“No, I’m fucking a nerd. There is difference.”
“So you’re not greedy, then? If I asked you to fuck me right now you wouldn’t say yes?”
Ilya looked offended, bucking up against him.
“Of course I’m greedy. Have you seen you? Have you met you? It’s a miracle I can function at all when I’m not inside you.”
“Your charm never ceases to amaze me.”
“You say that like is joke, but I know you’re being fully serious. You are charmed by me every single day.”
Shane pressed a quick kiss to Ilya’s pouting lips, then his nose, because it was right there. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. Are you going to fuck me about it, then?”
“No.”
Blinking, Shane pulled back, putting on his most incredulous face as he fought back an equally incredulous laugh.
“What the fuck?”
“No. I am going to do more of what I did not do in Vegas. You were so good for me that night, but I should have been the one opening you up on my fingers. You stole my job. I want a redo of that part. Without the fucking chair.”
“Are you really just going to finger fuck me and nothing else?” Shane asked, proud of himself for not stumbling over the crass words. He really was getting far too used to just saying this shit.
“Not nothing else, I am also going to kiss you the entire time.”
Smiling far too fondly given the situation, Shane tipped off of Ilya onto the bed, making a slow show of laying back and spreading his legs, stomach swooping at the genuine awe on Ilya’s face.
Eyes wide and mouth parted, Ilya shook his head like he was in disbelief, like he couldn’t fathom that life could be so good, like he didn’t witness Shane offering himself up to him most days. It made Shane laugh even as he felt the flush on his neck expand down his chest while he watched Ilya clamber over to the bedside table.
True to his word, once Ilya made himself comfortable all along Shane’s side, he kissed him through every step. Blindly opening the lube Shane liked best, accidentally pouring out too much, some of it landing on Shane’s stomach before he could warm it up.
Other than that misstep and the resulting cursory complaint that was kissed away, Ilya clearly didn’t need his eyes to follow the familiar movements, fingers gentle as they made their way between Shane’s thighs, patient in a way Shane wasn’t. There was petting and fucking massaging going on, and Shane immediately tried to twist his hips up into it, grumbling against Ilya’s smirking mouth.
Every time Shane tried to pull back to gripe, Ilya would just kiss him harder, using every trick he knew worked on Shane to keep him pliant. It didn’t work for long.
Shane bit down on Ilya’s bottom lip, the gasp he let out giving Shane the escape he needed to protest.
“They’re meant to go in, you dick.”
“Dick is not going in tonight, remember?”
“Nothing is if you don’t hurry the fuck up.”
“I am taking my time, Hollander, savoring. Is virtue. You should try it.”
“You’re really trying me, right now.”
“I have tried you, in every single way. Always come back for more. Never need anything else in life but you.”
Shane didn’t even pretend he didn’t find that sweet as hell, that special way Ilya had of saying ridiculously saccharine shit under the guise of a joke. Yanking Ilya back down into a biting kiss, Shane reached down between them to grab Ilya’s hand, inhaling sharply when Ilya’s index finger tensed, allowing Shane to guide it in.
“Like that? That what you want?” Ilya breathed against Shane’s dropped-open mouth. “Use me to fuck yourself with?”
“Someone fucking had to.” Shane’s voice came out strained, undone, something that didn’t usually happen until Ilya was already fucking a second orgasm out of him.
Ilya made a wounded noise, looking just as wrecked when Shane blearily opened his eyes.
In the grand and glorious scheme of everything they’d done together, half a finger was nothing, but Shane’s thighs were already shaking, his toes curling into the sheets at the way Ilya was staring at him, fuck-drunk like they’d been at it for hours, days, his kiss fevered as he rushed back in like he couldn’t stay away for another second.
Shane whimpered, not bothering with trying to cover up the sound when he was met with one just as broken Shane felt in his fucking teeth.
It wasn’t lost on him how this couldn’t have happened during any other phase of their relationship, not four years ago, not six, not eight, when he’d only just reconciled the version of himself he knew and the one who loved getting fucked so much. Who still couldn’t enjoy the vulnerability of Ilya’s fingers making a space for themselves inside his body.
Even once Shane had truly accepted and embraced his preferences, prep had still felt like too intimate an act that was only there to be bullied through, not to be lingered on. He hadn’t been able to look too closely at how it made him feel, to be so unguarded, more so exposed on Ilya’s hand than his dick.
Now- fuck. Now he felt godly and gorgeously human all at once, control a mercy he could hand over, share. Bestow.
Shane didn’t exist to live on a pedestal of Ilya’s making; he didn’t need or want to be worshipped. They stood on equal footing in all things, unglorified and grounded, but evidently all it took for Shane to feel hallowed was Ilya’s index finger. Not even the whole thing, just up to the first knuckle was enough, apparently.
Feeling delirious with gratitude and mortal want, Shane moved them together, Ilya’s hand in his, crying out when Ilya curled his finger up at just the right moment. To be fingered is to be known or some shit. Shane stopped being able to think around then.
“Shane,” Ilya choked out, swallowing down Shane’s moan like he was starved for it.
“More, I need- please, Ilya, I need you.”
Shane’s numb grip fell to Ilya’s wrist, feeling it in the tendons there first as Ilya took over, two fingers fucking in just as slow but not hesitant, dragging back out and in again to the tune of Shane’s frantic whines hidden against Ilya’s tongue.
Finally, finally, after minutes dripped by divine into torturous, Ilya caved under Shane’s pleas, knees sliding across the mattress to find better leverage, to keep the angle just right but speed things up, hovering his lips right over Shane’s between kisses, probably so he could hear what it did to him.
There was no fucking way Ilya’s hand wasn’t starting to cramp, but he didn’t let that hinder him, seemingly determined to take Shane all the way apart at the seams, consequences be damned.
But there wasn’t enough air finding its way into Shane’s lungs to moan let alone lecture him about damaged ulnar nerves.
“Can you come from this?” Ilya asked, in the clipped way that meant he was about to lose it, which Shane distantly thought was odd since he wasn’t being fingered into a religious experience.
They both knew exactly what it took to get Shane to come untouched, which angles, which positions. Which mental state. It was always a delibrate calibration on Ilya’s part to fuck him just right, just hard enough for it to happen. They’d never found that many variations.
This might be a new one. Maybe, Shane wanted to say, but Ilya chose that moment to push a third finger in without letting his rhythm falter, like he’d been planning out his timing not to lose any momentum. Like a fucking quicktime event in making Shane fall to pieces.
“Fuck, fuck, Ilya-” Shane’s throat almost hurt getting the words out between helpless gasps.
Three fingers weren’t usually enough for him to feel the right amount of full, they weren’t usually long enough to get as deep as he needed them, but Ilya’s precision was ruthless, controlled and very well versed in the intricacies of Shane’s body.
“You’re going to come on my fingers.” Ah, clearly a decision had been made. Shane would have been annoyed at Ilya’s confidence but he wasn’t given a choice, too busy sobbing through the utterly devastating orgasm hitting him like it had just been waiting for the order.
His back arched up so violently he briefly worried about breaking Ilya’s fucking wrist, unsurprised when Ilya anticipated that, too, barely losing tempo, the fucker.
Shane didn’t consciously realize what it meant when Ilya jerked with a low groan against Shane’s slack mouth until he eventually came back down to earth, shaky and so wholly alive. When he finally had the wherewithal to nudge his knee between Ilya’s thighs he was just met with a wet spot.
“Did you- did you already come?” Shane asked with a raspy laugh, feeling weirdly pleased at the thought of Ilya coming in his pants.
Ilya just shrugged with an easy grin, clean fingers carding through Shane’s sweaty hair. “Yes, that was very hot. You were very hot. What else was I meant to do?”
Shane snorted, inelegant and unabashed, choosing to ignore the mess on his stomach and turning into Ilya’s arms, transferring it onto his clothes instead. Ilya didn’t give a shit about it either, he just squeezed Shane closer with a happy sounding noise, hand going right back to Shane’s hair.
Ilya pressed lazy kisses to Shane’s forehead, gently tilting his chin up so he could continue the line of kisses down to his lips, always coming back to them every time he diverted to Shane’s cheeks, his nose, the underside of his jaw.
“This is what I should have done in Vegas. Shane Hollander always deserves kisses after experiencing heaven.”
“You’ve always done that since. All I had to do was ask.”
“Ask for life-altering orgasms? The ones that make you tremble all over for, like, an hour, and make pretty noises that sound a whole lot like my name?”
Shane just blinked at him, a smile blooming despite himself. He watched as Ilya’s eyes caught on it, his own smile going a bit dreamy as he ran his thumb over Shane’s kiss-bitten mouth.
“I will always do anything you ask. Kissing you has and will always be one of my favorite activities. You’re the one who keeps insisting we need to go outside, and socialize, and do our jobs. Waste of important kissing time.”
“Alright, relax. We’re too old to just spend hours making out.”
“Says who? We have to catch up on lost time, no?”
Shane leaned in closer until his nose squished against Ilya’s chin, feeling the tickle of Ilya’s eyelashes. “No time together is lost. I can’t regret anything that happened because it brought me this. You. Us. I wish I could tell myself that, back then. It’ll all be so, so, worth it. Every single second was worth it.”
“Maybe I should not give you mindblowing orgasms, actually, makes you say all kinds of things like you’re trying to make me cry.”
Shane pulled back, just enough to kiss the soft skin under Ilya’s shiny eyes, a tear finding its way into the dip above his top lip.
“All I want to do is make you happy,” he whispered, holding Ilya’s gaze, watching as more tears formed along his lashline. He caught those with a kiss, too.
“You do, sweetheart. You made me discover what happiness even was.”
Shane smiled, feeling a bit wobbly all over in the best of ways. “You make me ridiculously happy, too.”
“Are you calling me or you ridiculous? For me would it be ‘you make me boringly happy’? Because that doesn’t sound very nice.”
With a huff, Shane gave in to an instinct that would usually be Ilya’s and bit the tip of his nose. It backfired when Ilya just shoved his nose forward, kind of tenderly headbutting Shane in the process.
Shane spluttered and tried to wiggle away, putting in zero effort, getting exactly what he wanted when Ilya wrapped himself firmly around him, arms, legs, and all.
Ilya waited until they settled back down before speaking again, voice soft against Shane’s temple.
“I change my mind. Boringly happy sounds really nice. It’s finding happiness in everyday life, yes? In the, ah, the mundane. Does not only need to be big moments, it’s also the little quiet ones. Like seeing your freckles scrunch up when you yawn, or like having a favorite cup that you recommended David buy for me. Like knowing that we have homemade soup in the freezer for when it gets chilly.”
“Like making you come in your pants.”
“Like finding new way to make you come,” Ilya countered immediately, one hand reaching down to pinch Shane’s thigh where it was thrown over his.
“That should be one of those big happy moments, for you.”
“Oh, it is. I’m making an itemized list of all the best, biggest, moments of my life and your different genres of orgasms take up a good half of it.”
Shane giggled, it was the only word one could use to describe the sound he made, as much as he tried to muffle it against Ilya’s shirt.
“Does being naked in your arms while you’re still dressed count as boringly happy?”
“Nothing boring about that, Hollander. That’s just sexy. Makes me feel like I’m keeping you safe and warm.”
“Fine, it is and you are. How about... when you set the timer for the bathroom heater for when I have to wake up early so that I’m not naked and cold then either?”
“That works, but that’s also just because you are bad at using the app.”
“A central heating system shouldn’t have a fucking app,” Shane mumbled, knowing it would make Ilya laugh.
“Hearing you say that for the hundredth time. That makes me boringly happy.”
“The massive pack of post-its you got me.”
Ilya smacked his lips, something he only did when he was a little embarrassed. “They were on sale.”
“And I like post-its.”
“Yes, and you like post-its. It was mostly that. We can afford full-price sticky paper.”
Shane let his eyes close with a silly smile. “And you know I don’t like the neon ones.”
“Which is too bad because those had an even better pack deal. Also, do not lie, that just makes you regular happy, not boringly happy.”
“Oh, so my freckles when I yawn or whatever the fuck you said earlier, that’s bor-”
“You’re right, those make me ridiculously happy. We can both be a little ridiculous and a little boring. In our happiness.”
“Deal.”
“You falling asleep still covered in come makes-”
Shane’s eyes snapped open, immediately going to disentangle himself while Ilya laughed, the sound going wheezy when he accidentally got an elbow to the ribs.
“Is it time for a boring shower?”
“No, I’m gonna try for a ridiculous one. Wanna join?”
“Obviously. Can’t let you fuck up the heating in the whole house when you try using the app.”
With an exaggerated pout that was just an imitation of Ilya’s, Shane let himself be grabbed before he could leave the room, Ilya scooting to the edge of the bed to wrap his arms around Shane’s waist, grinning up at him.
“I am positively besotted with you. Kiss me and maybe I’ll teach you how to use it.”
Shane did kiss him, and he did let Ilya join him in the shower, which definitely wasn’t boring, but he still refused to learn how to use the fucking app.
As for the armchair, well, it did end up staying in their bedroom. Ilya waited until Hayden celebrated its disappearance from the living room before gleefully telling him where and why it had been relocated. It was hard to tell what upset Hayden more, his hope being killed or finding out why they’d needed to order a second identical one.