Chapter Text
Shane will be the first to admit he’s particular. Fastidious, even. (“Anal,” Hayden calls it, but what does he know, he’s a fucking fox.)
His backyard is a manicured garden of several aromatic plants, including catnip, each in its own section. In the middle of it is a shagbark hickory to scratch on.
His house is neat, painted every year, shutters all in repair, with a smooth front lawn.
He cleans and vacuums every two weeks, dusting his bookshelves and washing windows.
He just hates clutter, okay?
Shane noticed his neighbors moving a few weeks ago, but didn’t really register it.
Until the new neighbor moves in.
The new neighbor is terrible.
The music and loud parties every weekend are bad enough.
The trash bins constantly at the curb, often overflowing, more often than not looking like they’ve been rummaged through are worse.
After a couple weeks the front yard is surrendered to neglect, parts of it drying up, other parts overgrown with weeds.
But when Shane gets the mail one Saturday morning to see tire tracks running across the corner of his lawn, he’s had enough.
He marches next door, noticing the beer bottles in the yard out of the corner of his eye, and raps on the door.
After a long moment, it opens, letting out a cloud of very…distinctive-smelling smoke.
The interior is dim, but Shane can tell the guy at the door is fucking built.
“Are you the owner?”
“Yes, I am,” the voice comes. “Why?”
Shane waves a hand at him. “Come here.”
The somewhat-bemused guy (who is only wearing grey sweatpants and nothing else, Shane notices as he comes into the light) follows him back to the yard. Shane isn’t able to place the ears, other than “small and round,” but then he sees the fluffy striped tail and thinks Fuck is he a raccoon?! This might be harder than he thought.
Shane motions to the tire tracks through his yard.
The guy winces and says “Oh, sorry, sorry, that was Connors, he is dumbshit. Will not happen again.”
“That’s not all,” Shane continues. “Your trash bins are always at the curb, your lawn is overgrown and creeping onto mine…”
The guy gives him a smile full of teeth. “Sorry, I will fix.”
“See that you do,” Shane says, somehow less annoyed than he knows he should be.
***
No one runs over his lawn again and the trash bins are in their place next to the wall except the night before pickup day.
Shane figures this might not be so bad, despite the parties.
He’s wrong.
At first the overgrowth onto his property was haphazard, but it’s getting worse. Shane grits his teeth and prunes it back.
But it keeps growing.
So he goes over again to complain.
This time the owner is wearing a tank top and gym shorts and is really...excessively sweaty. He grins at Shane. “Hello again!”
Shane sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Look, your yard...it’s really getting bad. Like, it would trail into my yard a little bit before but now I’m needing to cut it back.”
“Oh?” The guy looks genuinely surprised. “Sorry, will not happen again.”
“Good,” Shane says, feeling a sense of deja vu as he goes back home.
***
Shane lies down and stares at the ceiling, trying to get to sleep. It’s 10 P.M. and there are lights playing over his ceiling and walls. There’s also an obnoxious, throbbing unf-unf-unf coming from next door.
Shane growls, gets up, pulls on jeans over his boxers and the first T-shirt his hand lands on, sticks his bare feet in a pair of sneakers and heads next door.
When his neighbor opens the door he has a half-drunk beer in one hand and a girl wearing as little clothing as legally possible plastered to his hip.
His face lights up when he sees Shane and he gives the girl a peck on the lips and pats her ass as she pouts. “Come join the party!”
“I’m not here for—” Shane’s protest falls on deaf ears as he’s ushered into a house with at least one-and-a-half times the max occupancy limit inside.
Someone hands him a beer and another a plate with some chips and a couple of sliders.
Shane tries several times to make it to the door, but every time he tries his “host” buttonholes him and starts on some convoluted story that Shane’s not sure would make sense even if he was telling it sober.
So finally he wedges himself down in a corner of the couch and drinks his beer and eats his sliders for lack of anything better to do.
He actually falls asleep, he has no clue how, and when he wakes up his neighbor is standing over him and the house is empty.
Shane nearly jumps out of his skin, then looks at his watch. 2 A.M. “Fuck!”
“So did you enjoy the party?”
Anger kindles in his chest. “Fuck no I didn’t enjoy the party! I didn’t even know anyone here!”
His neighbor shrugs. “You know me!”
“Dude, I don’t even know your name!” Shane complains.
The fucker actually grins at him and sticks out his hand. “Ilya Rozanov.”
“Shane Hollander,” he mumbles, taking Rozanov’s hand. He uses the grip to haul Shane to his feet so they’re face-to-face.
“So, Shane Hollander,” Rozanov breathes, way too close. “What can I do to make up for my rudeness?”
Shane licks his lips, feeling Rozanov’s body heat. “Um…”
And then Rozanov’s lips are on his and Shane’s hands are fisted in his shirt.
They hold the clinch for a long time, and when they break apart, Shane realizes he’s fucked.