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Ilya shuts down his laptop with a sigh and stretches his arms over his head, the soft pop of his shoulders a nice release of tension.
“Anya?” he calls as he steps into the newly decorated hall, the smell of paint still lingering but Anya doesn’t reply.
They’d only moved into their new home a couple of weeks ago and are still getting used to the house and neighbourhood. With his new job entirely remote he’d made the most of it and moved to somewhere a little more rural than his previous apartment, with a good-sized back garden so Anya can run around to her heart’s content.
She’d barked once, maybe twenty minutes ago, but he’d been mid-meeting and unable to go and check on her. She’d been quiet since so Ilya thinks she might have just been spooked by a passing car or something.
He heads into the living room and freezes as two pairs of eyes greet him.
Anya’s lying on the couch, looking as content as she ever has, while a cat Ilya definitely does not own nor has ever seen before is curled up on her back, looking pleased with its living pillow.
“Hello,” Ilya greets cautiously, approaching them as the cat merely watches him, Anya’s tail starting to move back-and-forth on the sofa cushions. “Anya, who’s your new friend?”
The cat sniffs the fingers he holds out delicately, and lets him rub behind its ears. It’s clearly well cared for, grey dappled fur clean and neatly brushed. He finds a collar, a little round tag with the name ‘Puck’ on it but there’s no other information and Ilya sighs.
“Well,” he murmurs softly. It’s too late now for the vet, their usual hours are over but he’s not got any meetings tomorrow until eleven so should be able to go in the morning. “Let’s see what I have that might feed you, then.”
Both cat and dog follow him as he leads the way through to the kitchen. He shakes some of Anya’s kibble into her bowl first, and closes the kitchen window where he assumes Puck gained entrance.
He checks with google that cats can eat canned fish and cracks open a tin of tuna, spreads some of it on a little dish. Puck steps up eagerly, nibbles delicately at the fish in a sharp counterpoint to Anya wolfing down her kibble with abandon.
Ilya huffs a laugh, makes a tuna melt with the rest of the tin for his own dinner, takes a seat at the kitchen counter to eat as both animals stare at him in expectation.
“No,” he tells them, “You’ve had yours. This is mine.”
They mostly leave him alone as he eats, though Anya’s puppy eyes as she rests her chin on his foot makes him feel absurdly guilty.
He washes up, and he’d usually take Anya for a walk but doesn’t want to leave a strange cat alone in his new house. Instead he takes her into the garden, shuts the door carefully behind him as the cat merely remains on the counter, licking its own paws, entirely unbothered. He throws Anya’s ball for her for a few long minutes, can’t stop his laughter as she tumbles around the grass chasing it, barking at him in demand when he takes a second too long to throw.
She collapses at his feet after a minute, panting heavily, but follows him happily when he opens the backdoor again and heads inside.
Puck has moved from the kitchen counter, but Ilya finds the cat back on the sofa, curled up on a cushion. Anya jumps up and curls up on the cushion next to Puck, pressing her nose into the soft grey fur and apparently just instantly falling asleep.
Ilya huffs a laugh, but sits on the chair he’s relegated to and sticks on the TV for something to fill the silence.
The second period of last night’s hockey game is underway when there’s a soft knock on the front door. Anya and Puck remain snoozing on the sofa so Ilya gets up as quietly as he can, socked feet quiet against the wooden floor.
A knock comes again just as he opens the door and he falters as he meets worried brown eyes set in a face that looks like it’s come directly from Ilya’s fantasies. The man is almost as tall as Ilya, just as broad with shoulders that go on for days. Cropped back hair is messy from what looks like hands running through it, thick, plump lips are parted in a sharp inhale and fucking freckles dot sharp cheekbones and the bridge of his nose.
“Hello?” Ilya manages to ask, blinking as if to dislodge the stunning vision before him, but the man remains.
“Ah, hi. Sorry. Um, I’m really sorry to disturb you,” the man says, each word precise, soft, but underlined with worry, “but, I, um, I don’t suppose you’ve seen my cat?”
Ilya blinks again, “Your… cat?” he repeats woodenly, the words taking a second to compute.
“Fuck. Sorry. Of course not,” the man mutters, turning away.
“Wait!” Ilya shakes his head to dislodge the lust making him slow, “You mean Puck?”
“Yes!” he turns back to him, eyes wide and brimming with tears. “You’ve seen him?”
Ilya nods, offers a soft smile and steps back. “He’s here. Come on in.”
“I- seriously?” the stranger practically pushes his way past Ilya into the hallway, toeing his shoes off almost automatically.
“Door to your right,” Ilya offers as he shuts the door behind him, following him into the living room as the man stops dead just inside the door, relief evident as he spots his cat lounging regally on the sofa.
“I am not sure when he turned up,” Ilya explains as his visitor steps over to the sofa, runs a shaky hand through his cat’s fur, the purring audible even from where Ilya stands across the room. “But I came out from my office and he was sleeping on top of Anya.”
The man laughs wetly, reaches out another hand to Anya who’s awoken enough to greet their guest with enthusiasm.
“I was so worried,” he says lowly. “He’s not an outdoor cat usually, doesn’t care for the outdoors, hasn’t ever left home before. But I left a window open today and next thing I know I can’t find him anywhere.”
“So you came here?”
“I tried a couple of other places first. But the family who used to live here would watch him now and again, when I was out for work, so I just sort of… hoped.”
“Well, I am glad he came here, then,” Ilya offers softly. “I do not have any cat food so I gave him some tuna for dinner, I hope that was okay.”
“Tuna’s his special treat, I’m not sure he really deserved it,” the man replies with a rueful grin, finally glancing up from his cat so that brown eyes meet Ilya’s again, lightly winding him. “But thank you, so much, for looking after him.”
Ilya shrugs. “Was no trouble. I was going to take him to vets in the morning, see if they could scan microchip, so you saved both of us a visit there at least.”
A huffed laugh as the stranger admits, "he's not a fan of the vets, so definitely glad for that. And um, Anya, was it? She was okay with him?”
Anya wags her tail harder at the mention of her name and pants gently as the man gives her another scratch behind her ears.
“She was happy to be his pillow, I think,” Ilya replies with a grin. “But she is big softie. Makes terrible guard dog.”
The stranger laughs softly again and Ilya drinks the sound down greedily.
“Can I get you anything? Drink?” Ilya offers, wonders if he can keep their visitor here long enough to know his name.
“Oh, no, you’ve done so much already. I don’t want to disturb you more than we already have.”
“You are not disturbing,” Ilya disagrees, but steps over and pets Anya from behind the sofa for a minute instead. “I am Ilya, by the way. And you have met Anya already. We are still new to neighbourhood so have not met many other locals yet. Do you live far?”
“Oh. I’m Shane. And I’m just a couple of streets away,” Shane replies softly. “I’ve been here a couple years myself, so if you need anything please feel free to ask.”
“Thank you,” Ilya smiles at him, and something arcs between them, crackling in the air. “Sure I cannot get you a drink?”
“I- okay,” Shane accepts and Ilya feels a bolt of glee.
“I have, ah,” Ilya racks his brain for what might be in his fridge, “Diet coke? Beer or wine? Ginger ale, too, maybe.”
“If you do have ginger ale that’d be nice, thanks.”
Ilya agrees and heads through to the kitchen, is relieved when he finds a solitary can of ginger ale tucked behind the coke. He turns around to see Shane in the doorway, Puck now on his shoulders, both of them watching him as Anya stands at his feet, tail going a million miles an hour in excitement.
Ilya places the can on the breakfast counter in invite, cracks a tin of coke for himself and tosses a treat to Anya so she sits nicely in her basket while they talk.
He asks Shane a couple of things about the neighbourhood, finds out he grew up a couple of neighbourhoods over. He’d bought a house in this area a couple of years ago, and adopted Puck from a shelter not long after when he’d found the house a little too quiet on his own.
Ilya nods, asks a few other questions and tells Shane a little about himself in turn - that he’d adopted Anya four years or so ago, when his friends had found her as a puppy abandoned on the side of the road and he couldn’t bear to have her go into a shelter. That the real reason he'd moved out here had been to give her the freedom and outdoor space she deserved.
“Are you a hockey fan?” Shane asks, as the third period starts on the TV in the living room, visible from the doorway.
Ilya nods and they end up in a heated discussion about the season so far, the winners and losers going into the playoffs, who they think will win. Shane’s insisting on Montreal, whereas Ilya argues for Boston. And it's fun, arguing with Shane. They’re both just as passionate as each other, but the back-and-forth is more playful than anything.
Shane gets riled up pretty easily, and the flash in his eyes when he realises Ilya’s annoying him on purpose shouldn’t be as hot as it is but it makes Ilya want to do it again and again. Shane doesn’t seem to mind, though, as he gives into Ilya’s pushing and gives dry, snarky humour back with a sharp grin.
“Well,” Ilya eventually says, entirely smitten, “you will just have to come over and we can watch together. See who is right.”
Shane blinks, but a soft smile tugs his lips up again as he agrees with a soft “I’d like that.”
Eventually it starts to get too dark outside and Shane makes his excuses a little reluctantly. Ilya holds Puck carefully in his arms as Shane pulls his shoes on, hands him over and indulges in the contact where their hands brush for a long moment, notes Shane doing the same with a flutter in his belly.
“If you ever needed someone to watch Puck,” he finds himself offering before consciously thinking about it, “I would be happy to. He already knows the house, and he and Anya seem to like each other, so.”
“That’s… yeah, that’d be great,” Shane agrees, smiling over at Ilya. “Can I- can I get your number, and we can stay in touch?”
“Yes,” Ilya agrees instantly.
Shane hands over his phone and Ilya adds his name and number into a new contact before returning it.
“Well,” Ilya hesitates, not sure he wants to let Shane out of his sight just yet but also can’t keep him here like some weird kind of stalker. “See you around?”
“Definitely,” Shane returns softly, and maybe it’s silly but Ilya’s instantly reassured. "At least for the championship games."
Ilya grins in acknowledgement and a little relief. "Whenever you like," he replies, maybe a little too honestly but Shane doesn't seem to mind how forward Ilya's being.
He watches Shane walk down the driveway, Puck secure in his arms, and pats Anya gently as she whines at the loss of her new friend.
“I know, malysh, I know,” Ilya soothes gently, feeling pretty much the same. “But we will see him again. I promise.”
Shane turns at the end of the drive, lifts a hand in a wave goodbye and Ilya waves back, heart thumping.
He's never been happier to have left a window open.