Oof

BloodyMary with different flavours of touch starved

Grace who flinches away from touch because it burns even though he wants so badly to lean into it

Mirrors part 11/11!!! (Simon is NOT beating the wet cat allegations)

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FIRST

A bit omninous but good overall I'd say 👍

Part 2-ish

but it’s there, in a nice frame. and ilya stops mid-joke and points at it and says “this is me?” as if it could be anyone else. shane’s shrugging his jacket on and doesn’t even know what he’s talking about, not really, until he looks over to where ilya is pointing. and he looks between ilya and the desk a few times, confused, because… yes? obviously?

“you have a picture of me on your desk?” ilya asks, and he’s trying so hard to play it off like it’s nothing, something to tease him about, but. but.

shane shrugs. “well, yeah. i like that picture of you.”

“is a bad picture, hollander.”

“fuck you. it’s my desk. i can put what i want on it.”

and maybe ilya would say something like oh i’ll put you on the desk in a minute if he wasn’t suddenly feeling very raw. a few years ago he would’ve said it anyway, but he’s so stuck on the fact that shane has a picture of him on his desk. after a decade of deleting pictures and messages, being so careful not to be photographed anywhere near each other, not even being able to have pictures in their own homes— now shane has a soft, domestic, printed fucking photograph of him framed on his desk in his office. in the headquarters for the charity they share. named after his mother. named for his mother, a name that shane chose, for everything she went through.

“baby, oh my god,” shane is panicking, dashing over the few steps to ilya and wiping the tears from his cheeks with the sleeves of his jacket, “ilya, if you don’t like the picture i can change it.”

“no, no,” ilya tries to wave him off, feeling silly, feeling vulnerable, but shane doesn’t let him go. eyes so wide, so earnest and worried. “no, i like it. i like you. i like you a lot. fuck.”

As Shane and Ilya are going through the box, Ilya pulls out a little Centaurs branded notebook, with "Shane's Fun Facts!" written on the front in sharpie. Ilya is understandably delighted.

"What is this?" he asks, smiling from ear to ear, quickly yanking it out of the reach of Shane who immediately tries to swipe it out of his hands.

"It's nothing," says Shane, but the way his cheeks have gone pink behind his freckles tells another story.

"Uh-uh. It cannot be nothing if you don't want me to see it this badly."

Turning his back to Shane so he can't easily grab at it, Ilya opens to a random page and reads in Shane's 8-year-old scrawl:

Lightning bolts are five times hotter than the sun. That is very hot!

Ilya is grinning even wider now.

"Wow, Solnyshko, that is a fun fact."

"Fuck off," Shane says. He doesn't even attempt to grab it again, just kind of collapses and bonks his head into Ilya's shoulder. "I used to have trouble making friends as a kid. Dad suggested I start collecting facts to use as icebreakers. Y'know, to get conversations going."

"Did they work?" asks Ilya, tilting his head so that it rests on top of Shane's as his husband gives an almighty sigh.

"I think they made it worse, actually."

Ilya turns to another page and reads it out loud.

"Oology is the study of eggs. It's so cool because it looks like there are three eggs in the word!"

"Oh god," says Shane, burying his face further into Ilya's neck.

"I think you knew all the worst kids in Canada," says Ilya, putting down the book and wrapping his arms around Shane. "Those facts would have worked on me."

"Really?" asks Shane, glancing up at Ilya's face to see if he's teasing him, but Ilya is being perfectly serious.

"Of course. You came up to me and started telling me fun facts straight away, remember? 'I don't think you can smoke here.' 'Wow, Rozanov, you are the best player ever to watch.'"

"Fuck off, I didn't say that," laughs Shane.

"Well, it was something like that," says Ilya, pressing a kiss to the top of Shane's head. "So at least the fun facts worked when it mattered, yes? Imagine where we'd be if you hadn't come over to break the ice."

And Shane tugs Ilya even closer.

the twist and the wind down ^^ (pt 1/2) a collab with my beloved @milolunde !! close ups below <333