Chapter Text
It had started as a simple phone call from his grandmother.
Her familiar voice came through the speaker warm, sharp, and entirely unimpressed, scolding him for not visiting her and his grandfather over the summer. Truthfully, it had been far too long since he’d seen them. But every spare moment Shane had was spent with Ilya.
And he didn’t regret it.
Ilya had slipped into every corner of his life so completely that Shane sometimes wondered how he had ever functioned before him. Loving Ilya felt like finally stepping into something he had spent years wanting but never quite believing he could have.
“I know, Obaasan, I’m sorry,” Shane said, pacing slowly across the living room. “I’ve been busy. Yes, I’ve been eating properly. Yes, vegetables count.” He rolled his eyes affectionately, a smile tugging at his mouth. “I promise I’ll try to come see you and Ojiisan before the season starts.” A pause.
“Yes, I’m resting. Yes, I’m balancing work.” Another pause, followed by a softer laugh. “And I’ll tell Okaasan to call you. She isn’t ignoring you, I promise.”
His shoulders relaxed.
“Okay. I love you too.”
The call ended with a soft click.
Shane let out a long breath and ran a hand through his hair, a faint twinge of guilt settling in his chest. He knew he’d neglected more than a few people lately. Family. Friends. Messages left unanswered. Yet whenever he tried to feel truly bad about it, his thoughts circled back to Ilya.
To the man currently watching him from the couch with an expression so intent it sent a pleasant shiver down Shane’s spine.
“Excuse me,” Ilya said quietly.
The words were calm, but his eyes were wide and dark, pupils blown just enough to make Shane’s heartbeat skip.
“What was that?”
Shane blinked. “My grandma. She’s upset I haven’t visited.”
Ilya stared at him as if Shane had missed the point entirely.
“No,” he murmured, voice lower now. “That voice.”
Heat crept up Shane’s neck.
Ilya reached for him, strong hands settling around his waist and drawing him effortlessly into his lap. Shane landed with a soft breath, knees bracketing Ilya’s hips, the solid warmth of his body immediately surrounding him. His hands were warm through Shane’s shirt, fingers spreading over his hips as though anchoring him there.
“I’ve never heard you speak like that before,” Ilya said.
It took Shane a moment to understand.
Japanese. Of course.
He’d never spoken it in front of Ilya before. There had never been a reason to. He used it almost exclusively with his grandparents, something private and familiar that belonged to childhood summers, homemade meals, and being fussed over relentlessly.
The fact that Ilya apparently found it devastatingly attractive had never once crossed his mind. A slow, teasing smile curved Shane’s lips.
“Oh,” he whispered, leaning in until his mouth brushed the shell of Ilya’s ear. “You mean this voice?”
The reaction was immediate.
Ilya shivered beneath him, a visible tremor running through his shoulders. His fingers tightened on Shane’s hips, drawing a breathless laugh from him.
“How did you never tell me you speak Japanese?”
Ilya asked, voice suddenly rough.
Shane shrugged, though his pulse had quickened.
“It never came up.” He pressed a feather-light kiss just below Ilya’s ear, smiling against warm skin. “And you don’t speak it, so I didn’t think it mattered.”
Ilya looked almost wounded by that answer.
“It matters.”
The sincerity in his voice softened something in Shane’s chest.
He brushed their noses together, his lips hovering just out of reach.
“If it helps,” Shane murmured, dropping his voice into a low, velvet purr, “your voice drives me just as crazy.”
He nipped gently at Ilya’s ear.
The effect was catastrophic. Ilya muttered something rapid and breathless in Russian, the words tumbling together too quickly for Shane to catch. His accent thickened whenever he got flustered, and Shane adored it.
A wicked thought crossed his mind.
“It seems,” Shane said, tracing his lips down the line of Ilya’s throat, “that I could say absolutely anything right now, and you’d agree to it.”
Ilya groaned, hands flexing against Shane’s hips as he tipped his head back. The sound was deep and needy, vibrating through his chest and straight into Shane.
“Eager as ever,” Shane teased, his voice all silk and mischief. “But you can wait.”
He punctuated the words with another lingering kiss, smiling when Ilya shuddered beneath him.
“Even if you only talk to me like that,” Ilya breathed, eyes half-lidded and desperate, “don’t stop, moya lyubov.”
The endearment hit Shane with the same dizzying force it always did.
He exhaled slowly, trying and failing to steady the rush of heat spreading through him.
“Desperate and begging already?” Shane murmured, fingertips sliding into the hair at the nape of Ilya’s neck. “I love when you get needy.”
The sound Ilya made was somewhere between a groan and a whine, Shane felt a thrill of pride.
For so long, he had held parts of himself back, his wants, the quieter pieces of his affection. But here, in Ilya’s lap, with warm hands on his body and adoration shining openly in those beautiful eyes, Shane found he didn’t want to hide anything at all.
Shane let the silence stretch.
Not the awkward kind, but the delicious, trembling pause where every breath felt charged and every brush of skin seemed to echo.
Ilya’s hands remained firm on his hips, thumbs tracing slow, absent circles through the fabric of Shane’s shirt. His chest rose and fell a little too quickly, and his lips were parted as he looked up at Shane with that same dazzled expression, as though he’d discovered something entirely new and irresistible.
A soft smile tugged at his mouth.
“You’re really this affected?” Shane asked, brushing a strand of hair from Ilya’s forehead.
Ilya leaned into the touch automatically, eyes fluttering for half a second before focusing on Shane again.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
The honesty in that single word made Shane’s heart squeeze. Ilya could have hidden it behind teasing or sarcasm, but he never did with Shane. He loved too openly for that. Shane lowered his forehead to Ilya’s, their noses brushing gently together again.
“That’s adorable.”
Ilya narrowed his eyes.
“I am not adorable.”
“You absolutely are.”
“I am a grown man.”
“A grown man who turned into putty because I answered my grandmother’s phone call.”
Ilya let out a helpless laugh, warm breath ghosting across Shane’s lips.
“When you say it like that, it sounds ridiculous.”
“It is ridiculous.”
“And yet,” Ilya murmured, tightening his hold and drawing Shane closer until there was no space between them, “I still want you to keep talking.”
The sincerity in his voice unraveled Shane all over again.
He cupped Ilya’s face, thumbs brushing over the slight flush warming his cheeks.
“You know,” Shane whispered, “my grandparents would be delighted to know my Japanese is being appreciated.”
Ilya’s eyes darkened further.
“I appreciate it very much.”
Shane laughed softly, the sound dissolving into a kiss.
It was slow and lingering, more smile than urgency. Their mouths fit together with the kind of ease that still amazed Shane, as if they had spent years learning each other long before they ever officially became a couple.
Ilya kissed him like he adored him. There was no other way to describe it. Every gentle press of lips, every reverent touch of his hands, every quiet sound he made into the kiss spoke of affection so overwhelming that Shane sometimes felt breathless under the weight of it.
When they finally pulled apart, neither moved very far. Ilya rested his forehead against Shane’s chest, listening to the quick rhythm of his heartbeat.
“Again,” he murmured.
Shane threaded his fingers through Ilya’s hair, scratching lightly at his scalp.
“Again what?”
“Talk.”
Shane smiled.
“Bossy.”
Ilya tipped his head back to look at him, his expression equal parts pleading and amused.
“Please.”
There it was. That soft, earnest plea that Ilya seemed to save only for Shane. Shane’s heart melted completely, he bent down and kissed the tip of Ilya’s nose.
“Sweetheart, please I beg you.”
No matter how often Ilya said it, the soft nickname when he was being earnest, Shane still felt a jolt of warmth each time. His fingers tightened in Ilya’s hair.
“I’m deeply in love with you.”
Ilya’s expression softened into something so unbearably fond that Shane felt warmth spread through his chest.
“Then talk to me,” Ilya whispered.
Shane laughed under his breath.
“You are never going to let this go, are you?”
“Not a chance.”
He considered drawing the moment out longer, but Ilya was looking at him with such open devotion that teasing him any further felt almost cruel.
Almost.
Shane leaned close, lips brushing the corner of Ilya’s mouth. In a low, velvety stream of Japanese, he murmured words he rarely said aloud. Words of affection. Words that felt too vulnerable in English, but somehow easier in the language that had cradled his childhood. Ilya didn’t understand the meaning but he understood the tone, the tenderness.
The way Shane’s voice wrapped around him like silk. Ilya’s eyes drifted closed, a visible shiver passing through him.
“That,” he breathed, “might be the hottest thing I have ever heard.”
Shane felt his cheeks warm.
“You don’t even know what I said.”
“I know you were looking at me like I am delicious and you want to suck my cock.”
His voice turned more sexy and passionate.
“That is enough.”
For a moment, Shane could only stare.
Then he kissed Ilya again, this time with all the emotion swelling inside him. The kiss was unhurried and deeply affectionate, carrying every feeling Shane struggled to put into words. The staggering relief of being known and cherished exactly as he was.
When they parted, Shane rested his head against Ilya’s shoulder, breathing in the familiar comfort of him.
“You’re so annoying,” Shane murmured.
Ilya wrapped his arms around him more securely, holding him as though he belonged there.
“I don’t even care what you’re saying, talk dirty to me.” he whispered into Shane’s hair.
Shane laughed softly, his smile pressed against Ilya’s neck.
They stayed that way for a long while. The warmth and the steady beat of Ilya’s heart beneath Shane’s ear. The gentle rise and fall of their breathing as the afternoon light spilled across the room in golden bands.
Eventually, Ilya pressed a kiss to Shane’s temple.