Heaven is a bedroom by Charlotte_Stant/@thomasmomwell (18k, shane x ilya) (aka the Mormon one)

“You are…” Ilya paused as he searched for the right word. “Attracted to me, no?” It didn't feel like there would be much point in lying. “Obviously.” “You are scared?” “I’m not scared.” Scared was too small a word. Scared couldn’t encompass the possibility that maybe if you did what you wanted the whole carefully planned structure of your life would implode. “This is wrong, okay? I shouldn’t want any of this. I should just leave, right now.”  Shane stood there, not leaving, and Ilya watched him. The air between them smelled like cigarettes and cologne: bad decision-making.

It took a few recommendations from people whose taste I really trust before I dove into this one. So glad I did as I've found myself rereading it more than once when I need a pick-me-up. Lovely, sexy, funny, just charming from beginning to end.

american motor over smoldered field by @garagepaperback (8k, shane x ilya) (aka the catfish one)

She’s a smart girl. For lying, first off, though she has less stamina for it than Ilya. He was sleeping when the confession cracked out of her. Gushing, dripping admission after dripping admission. She was sorry, she was scared, she didn’t mean to. She really, really likes— Such a little thing, saying she was in Boston instead of Wherever, Canada. Ilya doesn’t care at all. He cares only to have this much more of her, how much there always seems to be. It makes his cock twitch: years and years of doing this, only six months of Jane and still she surprises him. She is so sweet, so, so shy, and suddenly the gloss slides off to show the fox beneath. Even if she acts sorry, small and scared. She’s got sturdier teeth than the rest; she is the only one of them that insists on buying the ticket herself instead of wiring him money.

Okay, like the boys here, I lied. Shane is a hockey player in this one. But the hockey is beside the point. This author has such a gift for pulling us into the darker recesses of Ilya's brain, while never losing sight of his kinder, softer parts. This is a delicious morsel of a story.

A Side Door into the Dark by magnetica (8k, shane x ilya) (aka the Antarctica one)

After that first encounter on the deck Ilya began to appear everywhere Shane went. It was a small base with only about a hundred people on it, he reasoned, it made sense for anyone to run into each other. But then there was the slight tendency to lean a bit closer towards Ilya when he passed him in the hall, or let his gaze linger a few seconds too long on the back of his neck when he saw him by the kitchens, and this seemed to signal something altogether more serious than a simple coincidence of place. Potentially nothing. Probably something. And that was fine—they stocked antibiotics specifically in case of STI outbreaks, of which there had been none so far but usually, at least according to the physician, happened annually. The walls were paper thin, Shane was pretty sure he could list by now exactly how many sexual partners both of his neighbors had and how often they saw them. It was no secret that winterovers engaged in a kind of stringent fucking during free hours. One had to be precise, because one could not, evidently, survive a winter in Antarctica without sex.

Shane and Ilya are scientists at the end of the world. Filled with a quiet yearning and warmth; like the beginning of spring after a long winter.

bloodfeather by embodied/@crossnecklace (17k, shane x ilya) (aka the boxing one)

He knew it broke his mother’s heart when he asked to quit hockey and join martial arts instead. But, as an only child, and an ostracized one, he usually got what he wanted. He started with Muay Thai and Jiu-Jitsu, and later, after a few years of lifting weights in his basement until he stopped fitting into his clothes, he dabbled in wrestling. At seventeen, his mom finally let him join boxing, too. He didn’t like wearing the gloves, but the skills were crucial. It would round him out, give him the edge he needed to be a real fighter, if he worked himself hard enough. Gradually, he transformed his body into a weapon, a steel trap of tender flesh, waiting for the catch.  The punching bag his dad hung in the garage for his birthday one year became something like a friend to him. The old basement VCR was a close second, where he’d spend entire nights rewinding every UFC fight he could find until the tape got jammed. He’ll never forget how seeing the blood on the mat for the first time made his dick harder than any girl he’d ever seen.

Apparently, there's something about boxing that translates to the HR universe, because this is the second boxing AU that knocked my socks off. Violence, sex, and even a little bit of tenderness.

oh well, I guess we're gonna find out by angel_deux (95k, shane x Ilya) (aka the zombies one)

Ilya wakes up on the first real full day of the apocalypse feeling, actually, pretty good. Shane Hollander is a warm, beautiful prize, laying half on him, his face pressed against Ilya's chest, fully naked despite his pissy insistence last night that we need to be dressed in case the zombies get in, idiot, because he had fallen asleep like ten seconds after that insistence, and Ilya had been more than happy to let him.

A survivalist, zombie love story. What's not to like?