Work Text:
Today 1:33 PM
Shane: My mom made butter tarts and now I can hear colors
Today 2:24 PM
Ilya: You should probably have a third to stabilize yourself medically
Shane: Finally, a doctor with vision
Shane: I wish you were here
Ilya: ;
Today 3:17 PM
Shane: One has gone missing
Ilya: Did you eat it
Shane: [photo: tray of butter tarts, one empty spot, one tart to the right with a tiny paw print sunk perfectly into the filling]
Ilya: Must be a very tiny thief
Shane: My dad asked my mom if she's been letting the raccoons eat at the table again
Shane: ???
Ilya: Again?
Shane: She said "not since last time" what is happening
Ilya: I love your family
Shane: Helping or hurting, Dr. Rozanov
Ilya: My apologies Sherlock, please continue your investigation
Shane: I just think the hippocratic oath probably has a subsection about whatever this is
Ilya: I prefer the oath of lasagna
Shane: You're making that up
Ilya: I am not
Shane: [photo: tiny sticky paw prints across tile]
Ilya: She is not subtle
Shane: SHE???
Ilya: Look at the print. Obvious feminine hand
Ilya: You're insane
Shane: I know anatomy
Ilya: That's not how cats work
Shane: [voice note: David in the background: "I'm telling you, they remember houses. They send scouts!" Yuna: "They rang the doorbell last time, they have manners. It's not the raccoons."]
Ilya: ???
Ilya: The ring cam?
Ilya: I'd like to see this footage
Today 3:43 PM
Shane: Found the tart
Shane: Under the Christmas tree
Ilya: The patron saint of breaking and entering is traditionally paid in shortbread. Maybe he just wanted to try something new
Shane: [video: branches shaking. Yuna crouched beside the tree saying, "is it a cat?"; David, armed with a fire poker: "could be a tactical raccoon"; a tiny cream colored kitten appears between ornaments, nose dark, blue eyes huge, whiskers sticky with butter tart filling]
Ilya: Congratulations
Shane: No
Ilya: It's a girl
Shane: NO
Ilya: You have a cat now
Shane: No we don't
Today 4:28 PM
Shane: [photo: kitten wrapped in a blue towel, glaring, face sticky, one paw resting on half a butter tart]
Today 5:52 PM
Ilya: Hello tiny princess
Shane: She's a CRIMINAL who stole from my mother's kitchen
Ilya: You admire initiative
Shane: My mom says that if you were here you'd know whether tarts are bad for cats
Ilya: I work primarily with human children but I imagine it would be similar
Ilya: Excessive patisserie consumption carries a nonzero risk of acute gastrointestinal dissatisfaction
Shane: Update
Shane: She bit me
Ilya: A woman with taste
Ilya: Her coloring is exquisite
Shane: Don't compliment her I'm pretty sure she can hear you somehow
Shane: [photo: kitten in a blue towel, brown ears angled sideways, blue eyes narrowed, dark nose still glossy with filling]
Today 7:08 PM
Ilya: I will give her all the compliments
Ilya: She found light and food and the right people
Shane: You're the right people
Shane: And you found me
Ilya: Always
Ilya: Сопляк 💛
Shane: You love it
Ilya: I love you
Ilya: How's the little Облачко?
Today: 7:41 PM
Shane: Oh are we naming her
Ilya: Are we pretending you aren't keeping the cat
Shane: My dad's allergic
Ilya: I'll wait.
Shane: Ilya.
Ilya: Shane.
Shane: We can't adopt a cat
Ilya: We?
Shane: It's only been a year
Shane: It's too soon to have children
Shane: People might think we weren't careful
Ilya: Shane.
Today 8:19 PM
Shane: I haven't made an honest man out of you yet
Ilya: Always a competition
Shane: Obviously
Shane: That kilt you wore for Dr. Baillie's wedding
Shane: It gave me ideas
Ilya: You need adult supervision
Shane: I'm literally asking for it
Shane: I miss you
Today 8:47 PM
Ilya: Мне тебя не хватает, позёмка
Ilya: I am sorry
Ilya: I tried
Shane: Very on brand of you to abandon me on Christmas for the selfish hobby of keeping children alive
Ilya: Tiny narcissists always making it about themselves and demanding unreasonable things like oxygen
Shane: Exactly! Have they considered that I'm all the way in Ottawa spending Christmas with a feral cat
Ilya: It won't always be like this
Ilya: But I do wish I was with you
Ilya: And кнопочка
Today 9:23 PM
Shane: About that
Ilya: ?
Shane: I sneezed and it scared her
Ilya: Tragic
Shane: She ran into the wall a little
Ilya: Did you check for concussion?
Shane: No? Should I?
Shane: Do I just wave a flashlight in front of her face and see if she blinks
Ilya: …
Ilya: I am concerned about your team's concussion protocol
Ilya: Apologize to her immediately
Shane: I DID
Shane: [video: small kitten sprawled across Shane's chest purring violently while he tries to play video games one handed]
Shane: Can't move
Ilya: You live there now
Shane: She keeps grabbing the controller every time the puck drops
Today 9:51 PM
Ilya: She yearns for violence
Ilya: Partial foot degloving following high velocity Crocsicle sledding event
Ilya: Will call you later to check on our baby
Shane: Gross
Shane: Wait what
Shane: Our baby?
Today 11:11 PM
Shane: Hi.
Ilya: Hi.
Shane: I miss you
Ilya: ;
Ilya: What are you doing up so late
Shane: Waiting for Santa to bring me my present
Ilya: Did you give him a list?
Shane: A demand
Ilya: Bossy
Shane: I know what I want
Ilya: Tell me
Shane: I miss your face
Ilya: Just my face?
Shane: What else are you offering?
Ilya: What more do you want
Shane: The rest of your life
Shane: If you're up for it
Ilya: Greedy
Ilya: Maybe if you ask nicely, Hollander.
Shane: I can't stand you
Ilya: You love me
Shane: So much
Ilya: Are you actually waiting for Santa
Shane: I'm missing my boyfriend
Ilya: That's significantly less whimsical
Ilya: One of the residents asked if I had plans for tonight
Shane: Excuse me
Ilya: For Christmas Eve, Shane
Shane: Still.
Ilya: I told him I do
Shane: Do you
Today 11:36 PM
Ilya: Song: Merry Christmas Darling (Single Version) - Carpenters
Shane: Don't do that
Ilya: Do what
Shane: I'm one Christmas carol away from becoming clinically pathetic
Ilya: I'm in love with you and it's terminal
Ilya: Far more embarrassing
Shane: You can't just say stuff like that when I can't touch you
Ilya: You can touch me
"Do you see the way this man speaks to me?" Shane asked the kitten, who was currently two paws and all whiskers deep in a saucer of whipped cream. She could not, in fact, witness the casual cruelty of Ilya Rozanov due to the fact that she was at most eight weeks old and hardly literate, nor did she appear to have any desire to be. She ignored him and sank further into the bowl, her smoky tail twitching happily behind her. "You're going to make yourself sick," he warned her while rereading Ilya's texts for the hundredth time.
The kitten paused and looked at him with blue eyes wide and unburdened by consequence, her brown ears angled sideways. Her nose was encrusted with dried butter tart filling despite three separate and increasingly humiliating attempts to clean her face with a warm cloth. She lowered her head and took another enthusiastic bite of whipped cream.
"Okay. Good talk." He reached for a tart and had moved it less than an inch before one delicate paw landed on the edge and a razor thin claw sank into the flaky pastry. He took the opportunity to wipe her face with a damp towel while she was arrested by shortcrust. She immediately chomped down on the terrycloth and began vibrating in place, purring with the power of a motor that had no respect for the scale of her mildly undernourished body.
The kitchen was quiet around them. The fridge hummed its low, tuneless note. The whole room still smelled faintly of cinnamon and butter and the brown sugar his mother had been caramelizing all afternoon, and the warmth of it sat in his chest like a second pulse.
He wished Ilya were here.
The thought had been with him all day, but in the dark kitchen it stopped being cute and became stupidly painful. He wanted Ilya leaning against the counter with his arms folded, watching the kitten with professional concern and absolutely no veterinary qualifications. He wanted Ilya's perpetually cold hands sneaking under his hoodie. He wanted to hand him the remaining half of the butter tart and watch him pretend he was above it for two seconds before eating the whole thing in one bite. He wanted Ilya here in the sleepy, overdecorated warmth of his parents' home, wanted him tucked into the configuration of it so naturally that the house would remember him afterward.
He wanted to look up from this counter and find Ilya already there.
From the foyer came the soft metallic click of a lock turning.
Shane went still. The kitten stopped purring.
For a second, Shane did nothing. He sat with one hand curled around the kitten's warm, scraggly body and listened to the front door open. There was a hush of cold air moving through the hall, then the careful thud of shoes being set on the rack. Fabric shifted. Someone caught a coat before it could slide to the floor.
His father, probably. David Hollander had once gone outside in slippers at eleven at night because he heard a noise in the cedar hedge and came back twenty minutes later with binoculars, half a bag of stale hamburger buns, and a theory about territorial raccoons adapting to urban warfare. It wouldn't be entirely out of character.
Except Shane was pretty sure his parents had gone upstairs over an hour ago.
His mother had kissed his temple on her way past the kitchen and told him not to let the cat have dairy, which was rich coming from the woman who’d spent half the evening letting the cat nose at the melting cream in her cocoa. His father had followed with a mug of tea and a grin.
They were upstairs. Probably.
Shane stared into the dark mouth of the doorway leading into the living room and tried to make sense of it.
The kitten's ears flattened. He picked her up before she could launch herself into combat or another dessert. She was warm and tiny and sticky, all bones and fur and unreasonable confidence. She dug one paw into the pocket of his hoodie and turned her head toward the foyer.
Toward the sound of footsteps crossing the hardwood.
Shane's pulse migrated from his throat to his ears.
The living room lay between the kitchen and the front hall, dark except for the Christmas tree. His mother had decorated it herself this year, which meant it looked effortless but was likely the result of a complicated three stage lighting plan. White lights wound deep around the trunk, then diffused amongst dense branches that glittered with incandescent red, green, and blue bulbs, packed tightly enough that the tree seemed to glow from the inside out. That same tree had collected hundreds of Radko ornaments over the years, jewel toned baubles in every shape and size, elongated finials and mercury glass ornaments, whimsical figurines nestled in the boughs, tucked amongst delicate icicles dangling vertically between them. The lights shimmered against the window, the piano, and the polished floor.
Against the copper sparks of Ilya's hair as he moved across the room.
Except that wasn't possible.
Because Ilya was in Montreal. Ilya was working. Ilya had sent him a song twenty minutes ago from what Shane had assumed to be his loft, possibly his couch, possibly his bed, possibly somewhere Shane couldn't reach him without becoming clinically dramatic about it. Ilya would not have crossed two hundred kilometers of winter snow on Christmas Eve and let himself into Shane's parents' house as if Shane had wished too hard and broken physics.
Shane's hand tightened on the edge of the counter. The kitten squirmed against his suddenly rigid grip and let out a small, indignant warble but he barely registered it because the figure in the living room was still moving, familiar in silhouette, and Shane's body had recognized him before his brain had finished arguing about it.
Ilya stood in the kitchen doorway with snow still melting in his hair, his cheeks flushed from the cold, a scarf partially unwound over a dark sweater. He looked tired and a little smug. He looked real enough that Shane's heart performed a small, dangerous stunt against his ribcage.
Ilya's gaze dropped to Shane's chest. "I was wondering where that went," he said.
He meant the hoodie, the old one from his fellowship days that Shane had stolen three months ago and Ilya had either not noticed or chosen not to mention, which amounted to the same thing. It was black and too long in the sleeves and it had a small embroidered bear in a surgical cap on the upper arm, I. ROZANOV stitched in white thread across the chest, and it was the softest thing Shane owned and he was not giving it back.
"I don't know what you're talking about." His grip tightened around the kitten, who was now purring directly into the embroidered letters of Ilya's last name. "This is my jacket. The bear and I have bonded."
"The bear is technically wearing my name."
Shane shifted on the stool, angling himself toward Ilya as if pulled by something gravitational and embarrassing. "Could be any Rozanov."
"There is only one Rozanov," Ilya said, unwinding the rest of his scarf and draping it over the back of a kitchen chair without looking. Snow was melting in his hair, small bright droplets catching the under cabinet light and sliding down the side of his neck, and Shane tracked them with a little more intensity than was necessary because twenty minutes ago his texts had said you can touch me and now the entire physical person responsible for that sentence was standing in his mother's kitchen and all Shane wanted to do was comply. He resisted.
Ilya smirked.
"Maybe I just like wearing your name," Shane said.
Ilya's chin dipped. He was looking at Shane from under his lashes now, still half in the doorway, and his playful smirk settled into a real smile, the private one Shane had only ever seen aimed at him. "Maybe I like you wearing it."
"Yeah?"
"Yes," he said, and he was already moving.
Two steps and he was across the kitchen. Shane's back hit the counter's edge, the kitten gave a scandalized chirp, and Ilya's hands were on his jaw, cold from the drive, and Shane flinched at the temperature then pressed into it because the cold meant the car, meant the highway, meant that Ilya had driven here and was standing in his parents' kitchen.
"Are you actually here right now?" Shane whispered.
"Yes."
"How?"
"Your mother."
Shane choked on a laugh. "Of course."
"She left me a key under the porch moose." Ilya brushed his lips over Shane's, barely there, then again more slowly. "Did you know it's wearing a surgical cap?"
"I didn't have a Santa hat so I improvised." Shane exhaled a shaky breath. "She's going to be insufferable about this."
"She's earned the right to be."
Ilya kissed him properly then and Shane forgot the kitten until she placed one paw against his throat and screamed directly into their mouths.
Ilya laughed against Shane's lips. His hands slid down to Shane's hips and then lower, firm under his thighs, and Shane grabbed Ilya's shoulders on instinct as the ground left him. His bare heels knocked against the cabinet doors. The butter tart tray rattled behind him and one tart slid dangerously close to the edge before stopping, apparently held in place by the same residual stickiness that had been plaguing every surface the kitten had touched. The kitten herself launched from Shane's arms to the floor with an affronted mew and landed in a crouch, tail enormous, staring up at them like they had committed a crime against her personally.
Shane looked down at Ilya from the new height. Ilya looked up at him, his hair flecked with snow and his cheeks flushed and his hands on Shane's thighs, warm through his sweatpants, and the under cabinet light caught his eyes from below and turned them pale and almost translucent.
Shane hooked his legs around Ilya's waist and pulled him closer. Ilya went without resistance and his hands slid from Shane's thighs to his hips. Shane's heels locked behind his back and they were pressed together from their chests to their hips, Shane's arms around his neck, Ilya's hands holding him steady on the counter's edge. The hoodie had ridden up and Ilya's thumb found the bare skin at his hip, cold against warm, and Shane shivered. "You're freezing," he said.
"You're not wearing any socks."
"I was in the middle of something."
"Waiting for Santa?"
"With our daughter. Who you displaced."
Ilya glanced down. "Our daughter," he repeated. The kitten was sitting at his feet, looking up at both of them with an expression of deep personal offense. Her tail flicked once, twice, and then she began grooming her paw with pointed indifference.
"You said it first," Shane reminded him.
"I did."
"No take-backs, Rozanov."
Ilya's thumb moved across Shane's cheekbone. "No. I'm keeping both of you," he said, and kissed Shane again.
Shane dropped his head against Ilya's shoulder and laughed until his ribs ached. Ilya's arms came around his back and Shane thought about his mother in her silk robe this morning, drinking coffee, asking him perfectly casual questions about Ilya's schedule. She had already called. She had already arranged the key. She had set the whole thing in motion while asking Shane if he wanted more bacon, and he'd had no idea, and she was going to be absolutely insufferable in the morning and he loved her so much in that moment that his chest felt tight.
"How long can you stay?" Shane asked.
"I don't have to be back until the twenty-seventh."
Shane pulled away far enough to look at him. "That's two days."
"Otherwise known as forty-eight hours."
"You got two days off? Over Christmas?"
"Your mother was very persuasive. She threatened to call the chief of surgery."
"Oh god."
"She is a difficult woman to refuse." Ilya paused. "She may have sent him a gift basket. Or so I'm told."
Shane pressed his forehead against Ilya's. "What was in it?"
"I didn't ask."
Ilya's hands were still on him, broad and warm at his hips now that the worst of the outside cold had left them. The counter pressed into the backs of Shane's thighs. He could feel the old stone chill of it through his sweatpants, the soft bulk of Ilya's hoodie bunched around his waist, Ilya's thumb resting just under the edge where it had ridden up. The whole kitchen was dark except for the light under the cabinets and the faint colored glow coming in from the living room. It caught on the floor where the kitten had begun a careful investigation of Ilya's socked foot, which she sniffed at once and immediately decided was an excellent place to sit.
Ilya looked down at her. She stared unblinkingly back up at him. The standoff lasted approximately three seconds before she yawned, showing a mouth full of tiny translucent teeth and a tongue still faintly white with cream, and then curled into a ball on top of his foot and closed her eyes.
"I think you belong to her now," Shane observed.
"She's as territorial as you are."
"Like you said, she has good taste."
Shane slid off the counter. His bare feet hit the cold floor and he winced and Ilya's hands steadied him at the waist reflexively and for a moment they were just standing very close in the dark kitchen with a kitten between their feet and the colored glow of the tree bleeding in from the next room.
"Have you eaten?" Shane asked.
"No, but Yuna promised to leave a plate for me. Top shelf, behind that foul puck of fungus you call a snack."
"Heille, retire ça." Shane poked him in the chest and Ilya caught his finger and held it briefly before letting go. "Leave my le pizy alone. You literally eat fish that wears vegetables like a parka."
Shane pulled the plate from the fridge. His mom had done what she always did, which was make it look like she hadn't tried when she obviously had. Turkey sliced thin and fanned in a half-moon across one side. Roasted potatoes golden and glistening with rosemary, tucked against a neat crescent of cranberry sauce. Several butter tarts she must have snatched from the claws of defeat lined along the back edge like sentinels. A small square of tinfoil covered what Shane suspected was a second helping of stuffing his mother had hidden from his father. She had tucked a post-it under the cranberry sauce: Welcome home, sweetheart.
Shane peeled it off and stuck it to the fridge before Ilya could see it, because there was a limit to how many emotional ambushes one kitchen could sustain in a single evening, and this particular note would have ended him.
He set about warming the plate while Ilya relocated the kitten from his foot to his lap and took a seat at the counter. His hand settled on her back and his long fingers curled gently around her ribcage. She was so small his palm nearly covered her entire body.
"She's underweight," he said neutrally, as though the observation were separate from the concern. But his thumb was already moving in slow passes over her ribs, like he was counting them.
"She's a stray."
"She'll need vaccinations. And deworming. And a proper examination by an actual doctor."
"Are you not on call for once?" Shane teased.
Ilya shook his head fondly. "Of veterinary medicine, Shane."
"Definitely," Shane agreed. "I'll find one tomorrow."
"Tomorrow is Christmas," Ilya reminded him.
"Then I'll find one on Boxing Day." Shane set the plate down on the counter and rubbed the top of her head with the back of his index finger. She leaned into it with her whole body, which at her size meant she nearly toppled sideways off Ilya's thigh. He caught her with mild exasperation. "We don't even know how she got in. My dad thinks there's a gap in the basement window frame. She must have come in from the cold and followed the smell of my mom's cooking up the stairs."
"Clever girl."
"Buttercream bandit."
"Often the same skill set."
Ilya ate without talking, which was how Shane knew he'd been running on nothing. His shoulders came down after the first few bites. His free hand, which had been curled loosely on the counter, opened and went flat. By the time he reached the potatoes, he'd stopped sitting like he was about to be paged and relaxed. He closed his eyes on the first bite of turkey and Shane watched him from across the counter and said nothing.
The kitten waited until Ilya had lifted his fork and made a sudden strike. One paw hooked the edge of a butter tart, dragged it clean off his plate, and then she was gone, off his lap and sprinting into the living room with her prize. Shane stole one with considerably less finesse. Ilya let him, which meant he was either too tired to defend his dinner or too happy to care. Shane took a bite before Ilya could change his mind and felt warm all the way through.
When Ilya finished, Shane washed the plate, set it in the rack, and turned off the under cabinet light. The kitchen went dark except for the tree glow.
"Come on," he said, and held out his hand.
They moved into the living room. The fire had burned low while Shane had been in the kitchen but it was still going, throwing unsteady orange light across the floor and ceiling. Ilya sat down on the sofa and Shane dropped onto it sideways, pulled his feet up under himself, and pressed his cold toes against Ilya's thigh.
Ilya flinched. "Your feet are unconscionable."
"So warm me up then."
Ilya pulled the throw blanket off the back of the sofa and dropped it over Shane's entire body; he had just driven two and a half hours and was not at all above smothering someone with a Christmas themed fleece. Shane caught it before it covered his face, tucked himself against Ilya's side and Ilya's arm came around his shoulders like it was never really meant to be anywhere else.
The kitten appeared from under the tree a moment later, padding across the hardwood with her tail straight up. She stopped at the base of the sofa, assessed the height of the cushion, and launched herself at it with the kind of commitment that failed to fully account for her size. She made it on the second attempt. Shane reached down and set her between them and she circled four times before she dropped into the space where their hips met like a small furry comma.
"She's going to need a name." Shane knew that before he said it, knew it in the traitorous part of his brain that had already imagined a tiny collar around her neck, a litter box in the laundry room, and Ilya holding her against his chest with the same grave competence he brought to all things small and furious and under his care.
Ilya's fingers moved lightly over the toasted marshmallow kitten with burnt ears and raccoon feet, one brown paw resting on a dangling tassel at the fringe of the blanket as if she had conquered it. "Нутя."
Shane turned his head against Ilya's shoulder. "…You had that ready."
"It's just a suggestion. Because of the brown. And your addiction to Nutella horns that I’m not allowed to acknowledge.”
Shane narrowed his eyes. “What does it mean?"
"Nutya, like little nutella,” he explained as he dragged his hand back up her mussy fur, half plush toy, half dandelion that got into a fight with static electricity. She looked like she’d been dipped in chocolate at the ears, nose, paws, and tail.
Shane looked down at her. "That's… annoyingly perfect."
"I know." Nutya yawned, displaying tiny teeth and a complete absence of gratitude, then shoved her face into the crook of Ilya's elbow.
Shane watched her settle there. The fire had burned low, but the room was still warm enough that the windows had gone black and reflective. In the glass, he could see the tree behind them, the couch, Ilya's arm around his shoulders, the kitten tucked between their bodies. It looked domestic in a way that made him careful. "I can't exactly take her on the road," he said.
"No." The firelight caught along the edge of Ilya's jaw and his hair was disordered from Shane's hands. He looked tired and warm and completely at home on the sofa, in a house he'd only been to twice, with a kitten he'd met thirty minutes ago asleep against his arm.
Shane pinched Ilya's sweater between two fingers and tugged once. "We could share custody."
Ilya looked down at him and nodded. "We could."
"She stays with you when I'm traveling, I buy all the food. You send me daily proof of life."
"Hourly, knowing you."
"Are you accusing me of being needy?"
Ilya's fingers paused on the kitten's back. "No more than I am, when it comes to you."
The quiet that followed was no bigger than the kitten. The fire snapped once and Nutya's ear twitched against Ilya's sleeve. Shane kept his hand in Ilya's sweater. He had stretched the hem enough that it would probably never sit right again, but Ilya hadn't complained. Shane swallowed nervously. "Maybe not, though."
Ilya shifted slightly. "Maybe not what?"
"Split custody." Shane kept his eyes on the fire because it was easier than looking at Ilya. The logs were mostly ember now, orange at the seams, collapsing inward without drama. "I've been thinking about something," Shane said.
"That sounds dangerous." Ilya's arm tightened around him, not enough to trap him, but enough to tell him he could keep going.
Shane pressed his thumb into the ribbed hem of Ilya's sweater. "You could move in with me."
Shane felt it immediately, the small halt in Ilya’s breathing, the way his hand stopped moving on Nutya's back. The sudden and intense attention that made Shane's stomach drop even though he had wanted it.
He looked up before he could talk himself out of it. Ilya was looking at him with an expression that was difficult to parse, his lips parted slightly, his eyes searching Shane's like he was looking for something. Sincerity, maybe, or a punchline, or some sort of panic that would give him an out.
Shane didn't give him one.
"I've been thinking about it for a while," he said quickly. "A normal amount. Well. An… amount. I cleared out a drawer for you in October, which I realize now was maybe less romantic and more unsettling, but I had intentions."
"Intentions," Ilya looked like he was trying not to laugh.
"Yes. Good ones." Shane sat up straighter, pulling his legs back under himself. Nutya made a displeased sound at the loss of the warm gap between their hips and relocated to the arm of the sofa, where she began batting at an ornament with one paw. The branch dipped under each strike and sprang back, scattering light. "We basically already live together. Your kettle is in my kitchen. Your books are everywhere, which is kind of my favorite thing about my place now, and your reading glasses—"
"I don't have reading glasses."
Shane blinked at him. "You absolutely do have reading glasses. Several pairs of them. I stepped on one last week."
Ilya's brows pinched together. "Those are only for screens."
"Oh my God, that's literally—" Shane slapped his hands over his eyes and dragged them down his face in fond frustration. Behind him, unobserved by either of them, Nutya had gotten her front paws around the ornament and was leaning backward off the arm of the sofa with the commitment of a mountaineer and the upper body strength of a bread roll. The branch was bending ominously. "Ilya. I love you. Move in with me."
"Shane—" Ilya caught one of Shane's wrists and held it loosely, his thumb against the pulse point.
"You're already here. You keep being here in pieces. Which is fine. I like the pieces. I'm pro-pieces. But maybe you could just—"
"Shane." His other hand came up and he turned Shane's face toward him, two fingers under his chin, and Shane's breath caught because he was babbling but also because Ilya's eyes were very close and very bright and the firelight was doing something unreasonable to them.
"—bring the rest of yourself? Not all at once if that's horrifying, but I just..." His throat worked. "You're in every version of 'someday' that I want and I'm tired of waiting. Everything I want, I want with you."
A log in the fire cracked loudly. Nutya knocked the ornament off the branch with a final, decisive swat and it hit the rug with a muted tink and rolled across the floor in a wide, lazy arc until it came to rest against the leg of the piano. Neither of them looked at it.
Ilya's thumb traced the line of Shane's jaw. His expression had gone through several stages during Shane's speech: surprise, then something careful, then something that wasn't careful at all, and now it had settled into the intense focus that made Shane feel stupidly warm. "I already knew about the drawer," he said.
Shane's brain briefly lost power. "What?"
"On Halloween when I was looking for a charger." Ilya's mouth curved. "It was empty except for… I don't know what to call it, a ball of scented putty?"
"It's a wax oval," Shane said into his hands, which were currently covering his embarrassment. "I just wanted it to smell nice."
"Mm. It smells like very fancy wood with notes of panic."
"Shut up, it's sandalwood and vanilla." Shane dropped his hands and glared at him. "You've known since October."
"Yes."
"And you didn't say anything?"
Ilya shrugged. "Neither did you. I just assumed you were working up to it."
"I was working up to it! I had a plan! Multiple plans! One of them involved candles!"
"Ambitious of you," Ilya nodded solemnly. "Candles are very romantic."
"So you would have said yes to the candles?"
Ilya's amusement softened. "I would have said yes to you in October, Shane."
That stole the fight right out of him and for a second, Shane could only stare at Ilya in mild disbelief. Ilya, who had noticed the empty drawer and the extra tea in the pantry and the way Shane's apartment had been making room for him before Shane had found the nerve to say it. Ilya, who had waited because he always knew when to wait, which was one of his better qualities and also deeply irritating.
"I hate you," Shane said.
"No you don't."
"I really don't," Shane agreed, and kissed him.
Ilya pulled him in by the front of the hoodie and Shane went willingly, one knee sliding over Ilya's thigh, the blanket tangling around them. Ilya's hands slid up his back under the fabric, warm now, but Shane shivered anyway and bit Ilya's lower lip and felt him smile against his mouth.
"Since October," Shane muttered between kisses. "You asshole—"
"I'm the asshole?" Ilya nuzzled below Shane's ear. "You left a ball of wax in my drawer. What if it ruins my clothes?"
"You're so annoying," Shane laughed into his mouth and Ilya's arms tightened around his waist and pulled him closer and Shane could feel the laughter in Ilya's chest, deep and low, the kind he almost never heard in public because Ilya rationed his real laughter the way other people rationed expensive wine. Shane wanted to keep it. He wanted to put it in a jar. He wanted to hear it every day in their home — their home — and the thought made his breath catch and he pulled back just far enough to look at Ilya's face.
"So that's a yes?" Shane's throat tightened so fast it was embarrassing.
"Yes," Ilya said. He tucked a stray piece of Shane's hair behind his ear; he really was due for a cut but Ilya liked it a little long. "I'll bring more than just the kettle."
“Good. I want all of you."
Ilya kissed the corner of his mouth. "You already have me."
Shane kissed him again because he couldn't think of a single thing to say that would be better than that, and Ilya kissed him back, slow and thorough, one hand in Shane's hair and the other flat against his lower back, and the tree lights moved over both of them in red and gold and blue.
From the floor came a pointed, indignant mew.
They broke apart. Nutya was sitting at the base of the sofa, staring up at them with an expression that could be read as impatience, if one were to anthropomorphize a small animal. She had managed to get the hook from the fallen ornament stuck on one claw and was holding her paw up and out in front of her, perfectly still, as if waiting for assistance from her personal staff.
Ilya reached down and freed her. She climbed into his lap, inserted herself directly between their chests, and began purring. "She has opinions about being excluded," he observed.
"I think she gets that from you."
Ilya raised an eyebrow imperiously. "I don't purr."
Shane leaned forward and brushed their lips together. "I can change that."
Ilya gave him a look. Shane grinned at him, wide and stupid and completely unconcerned, because Ilya was moving in and their newly adopted furbaby was purring between them and it was Christmas and he was so happy he could barely stand it.
He settled back against Ilya's chest and Ilya's hand moved lazily over Shane's back. Nutya stayed wedged between them with her nose tucked under Shane's chin, still faintly sticky despite everyone's best efforts. "I don't have anything for you," he said. "I mean, I do but it's in Montreal, under my bed. I didn't think you were coming."
Ilya's chest rumbled beneath his ear. Shane sensed judgment.
"What? It's a good hiding spot."
"I've cleaned under your bed, love. Nothing survives down there. I found a fork last time."
"I was wondering where that went."
Ilya exhaled through his nose, which was as close as he came to admitting something was funny when he was also mildly horrified. "It's fine. I brought yours."
Shane tilted his head back to look at him. "You brought me a gift? When did you even have time?"
"It's outside."
Shane blinked. "Outside."
"In the driveway."
Shane sat up so quickly Nutya squeaked. "Ilya," he said suspiciously. "What, exactly, is in the driveway?"
Ilya attempted innocence but his mouth had already defected. "Your Christmas present."
"You got me something that lives outside?"
"I got you something that should never have to share a driveway with that deathtrap you call a Jeep, but here we are."
Shane stared at him. Then he stood up, crossed the living room, and looked through the front window.
There was a car in the driveway that was most definitely not Ilya's Porsche. It sat under a thin layer of fresh snow, dark green where the porch light touched it, black where it didn't. Even half buried in winter weather, it looked sleek and expensive and wildly inappropriate for a person who was currently barefoot, wearing a stolen fellowship fleece and sweatpants with a cat claw snag in the thigh.
Shane pressed one hand flat against the cold glass of the window. His breath fogged the pane and for a second the car disappeared behind it, and then the fog cleared and it was still there, long and low and ridiculous.
He turned around slowly. Ilya was watching him from the sofa with the kitten in his lap and his arm along the back of the cushion and the faintest trace of an arrogant smile on his lips.
"You bought me a car!?”
"I did."
"You bought me a car and drove it here in a snowstorm on Christmas Eve."
Ilya rolled his eyes. "It has quattro all wheel drive and close to six hundred horsepower. The snow is afraid of it.”
"Ilya."
"And there was very little ice on the roads. I was perfectly safe. And you will be too, now."
"You bought me a car.”
"Your Jeep has been making a 'weird' noise for three months. You told me it was 'probably the wind,' but wind doesn’t usually come from an engine block, Shane.”
"It could,” Shane protested.
"It really can't."
Shane came back to the couch, stopping in front of him. His bare feet were freezing from the hardwood but he barely felt it. "This is insane. You know that, right? Normal people give each other sweaters. Books. A nice watch, maybe."
Ilya looked up at him, one hand still resting on the kitten. "Is that so. Where's the one I got you for your birthday?"
Shane's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. He could feel the silence becoming incriminating. "It's in a very safe place."
"You don't know where it is."
"I know exactly where it is. It's in… a drawer." Shane rubbed the back of his neck. "I'll find it. But that's not the point!"
"The point," Ilya said gently, "is that your vehicle is a safety hazard and I'd like you to arrive alive and in one piece. Which is now more relevant than ever since one of those places will be our home.” He scratched behind the kitten's ear. "She'll need to go to the vet. I'm not letting you put her in what is essentially a lawn chair bolted to a tractor. Very American. Very stupid."
Shane put his hands on his hips. "Oh, so this is about Nutya."
"It's about safety and structural integrity. Yours, hers, and the vehicle's, in that order." Ilya looked up at him, completely at ease, one hand on the kitten and the other resting on his own knee. His socked feet were crossed at the ankle. He looked like he belonged here, in this living room, on this sofa, making presumptuous decisions about automobiles.
"You're out of your mind," Shane said.
"Most surgeons are."
"You're controlling and ridiculous and you have an obsessive car problem."
Ilya pursed his lips. "I prefer 'discerning.'"
"You can't keep buying your way around being worried about me," Shane said softly.
Ilya's expression changed then. The arrogance eased. He reached up, hooked two fingers into the waistband of Shane's sweats, and tugged him down until Shane had to catch himself on the back of the couch. "I know," he said. "But I can do this."
Shane's annoyance thinned. Under it was something warmer and harder to argue with. He looked back toward the window, at the car sitting under the porch light, green and snow dusted and a little unreal, and he could see his own handprint still ghosted on the glass where he'd pressed it. "You bought me an Audi."
"Correct. Specifically, I bought you an RS 6 Avant in oak green metallic."
"What does that even mean?"
"That the details are in the engine. And the safety rating. And the cargo space, which is important now that we have a dependent." He gestured at the kitten, who had fallen asleep with one paw over her eyes. "I can walk you through the specs if you'd like."
"I don't want the specs! I want to know why you're like this."
Ilya's thumb rested against his hip. "Because I want you safe. I want you able to drive home in snow without worrying that the steering column will lock up again. I want you to stop telling me an engine noise is probably flatus." Something in his eyes shifted. "And I think you'll look very good in it, which I consider a personal benefit."
Shane stared at him. "You're impossible and I'm not agreeing to this."
"You're going to."
"You don't know that."
"You're going to sit in it tomorrow morning and make the face you make when you're being difficult. Beautiful but very annoying."
"I don't make a face," Shane protested weakly.
"You do. Your face is my favorite, I've studied it extensively. Could be my new specialty." Ilya's fingers were still hooked in Shane's waistband. He tugged once, gently. "Come here."
Shane folded into his side, still muttering, and Ilya tucked the blanket over both of them. Nutya woke, discovered she had been excluded from the center of attention for almost a full minute, and climbed directly onto Shane's chest. Her nose was cold. She pressed it directly into the underside of Shane's chin and he yelped and Ilya laughed silently beneath him.
"She's freezing!"
"She's perfect."
"Her nose is literally an ice cube."
"Literally?"
Shane kicked him lightly under the blanket. Ilya caught his ankle between his calves and didn't let go. They lay there tangled and warm and slightly ridiculous, the fire burning down to embers. Nutya purred between them, one ear twitching every time the fire popped.
"What time is it?" Shane asked.
Ilya pulled his phone from between the cushions. "Twelve thirty."
"Merry Christmas, baby."
Ilya pressed his mouth to Shane's hair. "Merry Christmas."
"My mom's not going to be normal about this."
"Probably not."
"She'll cry."
"Probably yes."
"My dad's going to ask about the car and act normal for maybe forty seconds before saying something weird about raccoons chewing through the brake lines."
Ilya stiffened slightly beneath him. "Can they?"
"Ilya," Shane sighed.
"I'm asking if I need to move the car for safety."
"No. I mean, probably not? Don't encourage his paranoia."
Shane smiled into Ilya's collarbone. His eyes were heavy. The warmth from the fire and from Ilya and from the small purring lump between their ribs was making it hard to stay awake and even harder to want to try. He traced a slow line along Ilya's forearm with one finger, following the vein from his wrist to the inside of his elbow and back.
"We should go upstairs," he said.
"Probably."
Neither of them moved.
"Ilya."
"Mm."
"We can't sleep on the couch. My dad gets up at six thirty to check on the birds."
"What birds?"
"All of them. He has a list. It's laminated."
"Of course it is."
Shane sat up. The kitten slid down his chest and landed in his lap and blinked at him. He picked her up and held her against his shoulder and she yawned into his ear. He held out his pinky finger. "Come on. Both of you."
Ilya took it. They went upstairs in the dark. Shane carried the kitten and Ilya carried the blanket because Shane told him his room got cold at night and Ilya said that was what the cat was for, and Shane said she was eight weeks old and weighed less than a butter tart so her heating capabilities were limited at best.
Shane's old room was small and exactly as cold as he'd said it would be, and had a quilt on the bed that his grandmother had made for him. There was a lamp on the nightstand that didn't really work unless you slapped it aggressively, which Shane did. It lit immediately. Ilya looked at it and then looked at Shane.
"Let me guess, you have something to say about the safety of the wiring of the lamp now too?"
Ilya kissed him before heading to the bathroom to shower and change. "I'll be right back."
Sometime later, he climbed in carefully behind Shane, which Shane rewarded by pressing his cold feet against Ilya's shins. Ilya swore quietly in Russian and pulled him closer anyway. The kitten circled the foot of the bed twice, pawed at the quilt, and settled into the space behind Ilya's knees. Her purring filled the room, disproportionately loud for her size.
Ilya's arm was heavy across Shane's waist. His breathing was starting to slow. Shane laced his fingers through Ilya's against his own stomach and held on.
The house settled around them. A floorboard creaked somewhere down the hall, the old wood contracting in the cold. Outside, snow ticked faintly against the window. From the foot of the bed came the kitten's steady, outsized purr, and beneath Shane's hand, the slow rise and fall of his own slowing breath, and between those two rhythms the room felt very small and very full.
"Ilya," he whispered.
"Mm."
"I love you. I'm glad you made it home for Christmas."
Ilya's arm tightened. His mouth found the back of Shane's neck in the dark. "Always, for you."