Balthazar's Stories of TF

this was a wonderful message to wake up to this morning, thank you! (immediately after reading it I got hit by a depression truck #ilyacore, but I think my brain is now back on enough to form thoughts about this)

I see your idea and I raise you Shane making the dish and Ilya eating it all. They were going to work on something to bring to dinner at Shane's parents' house together, but Ilya couldn't bring himself to get out of bed before noon, and their window to cook something complicated has closed. At some point in the early afternoon, Shane pokes his head into the bedroom and says, "Ilya. I'm just going to go ahead and put together a salad."

Fuck. "I can help - " Ilya starts, scrambling to heft himself up from where he's been lying in bed into a sitting position.

"Don't worry about it," says Shane, and then more gently: "Really, babe. I've got it. It'll take like ten minutes."

Ilya groans and sinks back against the headrest. Stupid. Lazy. Let your husband do all the work as usual. Mentally berating himself shockingly does nothing to motivate him to get up. He can hear Shane opening and closing the fridge, chopping up vegetables, whisking together a dressing. Shane will tell Yuna and David that they made this together - he always does. And they'll be none the wiser, because Ilya is perfectly charming and electric and alive in front of company. It's just when he's alone that he... yeah.

After twenty minutes Shane comes back to the bedroom with a bowl and a fork. Ilya had been picturing sad lettuce and croutons, but instead the salad Shane made is juicy and colorful, packed with bell peppers, salami, mozzarella, garbanzo beans, cherry tomatoes, and pickled red onions, all drenched in a vinaigrette.

Shane hands him the bowl and says, "I made extra for you. You slept through breakfast, please eat lunch."

Ilya doesn't look like he's been missing any meals lately, which is almost funny because he used to - he has always struggled to eat according to anything like a regular cadence, relying on protein shakes and calorie-dense foods to keep up enough energy for hockey. But moving in with Shane has changed things. In retirement, Shane has relaxed his diet, still gravitating toward healthy food but experimenting with taste and flavor. He's partial to dishes like this, where each bite is different from the last. And he often makes extra, knowing that otherwise Ilya will feed himself with a couple sticks of string cheese, or worse, skip lunch altogether.

But Ilya has not traded the increased frequency of meals for decreased volume, and it shows: a pudgy belly where his abs used to be, an ass that can only fit in the most stretched of his underwear. He's not sure how he feels about it. Mostly he can't think about it for the low-grade static that's buzzed through his brain since retiring.

He accepts the food from Shane - is there anything he couldn't accept from Shane? - and takes a bite. A cherry tomato, fat and umami and dripping with the tangy, salty, creamy vinaigrette, explodes in his mouth, waking him up a little.

"Good," mumbles Ilya.

"You gotta try the beans," Shane prompts. "They go great with the onions."

Ilya scoops up another bite, bigger this time, making sure to get beans and onions and cheese, and - wow. Yeah. He can almost feel the gears in his body turning, happy to have stimuli other than the dull glow of Ilya's phone.

Shane leaves Ilya to finish lunch in bed while he heads out to run some errands - "Remember, babe, we leave at five" - but Ilya's awake enough now that, after making quick work of the rest of the bowl, he feels able to get up, get dressed, and head to the kitchen to make some coffee. Shane hates when he drinks coffee after noon, but Shane is not here. As he's waiting for the beans to grind, he idly opens the fridge and sees the large bowl of salad, covered in saran wrap and waiting to be taken to dinner. Ilya's stomach growls.

He's already eaten the portion that was meant for him, but - it's not as if anyone would notice if he took another bite. Just one.

Oink 🐷

Big thank you to the stud who helped me out with this meal. BUUUURP 😵‍💫🥴😮‍💨

Oink 🐷

Big thank you to the stud who helped me out with this meal. BUUUURP 😵‍💫🥴😮‍💨

A fun comic made with ChatGPT, in which Sebastian Stan [he is quickly becoming one of my main men lol] is preparing for a photoshoot to promote his new MCU film.

After lift and after dinner. Crazy what 3 hours can do