meils

But have you considered: Ilya can’t drink on his meds.

Imagine them at the club after their first cup win with the Centaurs. Shane is absolutely wasted, having the time of his life, and Ilya is also having the time of his life stone cold sober, cause he gets to see his husband let loose and then afterwards he gets to drive him home and bridal carry him to bed and feed him a glass of water and make him a greasy breakfast the next morning because Shane is hungover. Like, that is his baby!

Imagine the Centaurs at the barbecue passing around a blunt and Shane looks kinda interested actually. He has been depriving himself his whole life, he kinda wants to try. So obviously Ilya can read this on his face and is like: Shanya you can try. I will take care of you, don‘t worry I‘m here. So then Ilya gets to witness Shane getting high for the first time and Shane is absolutely trying to crawl into Ilya‘s skin in front of god and everybody and every single one of the Centaurs. Shane and Harris both get the munchies so now they are standing in Bood‘s kitchen a little after midnight arguing over how to make apple pie. Harris is like: I‘m the king of apples! I know this! And Shane is like: Well. I have never baked anything in my entire life but I‘m still pretty sure I am correct. And then they are both giggling and shoving each other and they end up covered in flour. And Ilya is standing in the kitchen doorway arms crossed stone cold sober, has never been more lucid and present, and thinks: this is the best moment of my life. Like, he keeps complaining to Shane that he misses Vodka, but he doesn‘t. He would not trade this for anything and he knows Shane only lets loose 100% because he trusts Ilya to protect and take care of him.

And then the next morning Ilya wakes Shane with little kisses on his face like: Good Morning Shanya *kiss* can you tell me *kiss* why is there so much flour *kiss* in my car? Hm? *kiss* It‘s all over the seats? *kiss* any idea how that happened? *kiss*

Rose and Shane (who are both closet cinephiles; Shane because he thinks it's embarrassing to have hobbies and Rose because being a cinephile as an actor just seems cringe to her) are working their way through one of those "100 movies to watch before you die" lists and finally get to Dirty Dancing.

"I can't believe you haven't seen this," Rose says, and Shane grumbles something about not really being a fan of the genre and well, their rule is that if they think the movie is stupid they can turn it off after an hour so Rose finds it on one of the 6000 streaming platforms Ilya pays for (the Fast and the Furious movies keep jumping around) and starts the stream fully expecting for Shane to exert his veto power in an hour.

And then he just doesn't. He sits there and watches the whole thing, mouth slightly open. Usually they talk at least a little bit about the plot or the cinematography (Shane has developed some opinions in that regard, mostly adopted from Rose whose opinions he takes as gospel by consequence of knowing next to nothing about the industry) but Shane is just. Rapt.

Then Ilya comes stalking into the living room towards the end of the movie and by pure coincidence he's wearing a black shirt and pants and Shane looks away from the TV for the first time in 90 minutes.

"Shane," he says, and puts two fingers on Shane's jaw, entirely chaste but extremely proprietary. "Have you seen my iPad?"

"Den," Shane says softly. "It's in the den."

it's well made, well shot, well directed, the music is interesting, the costumes are both thoughtful and subtly period accurate, the sex scenes are intentional and, again, accurate to what hooking up when you're like 18 actually feels like...the actors are of course attractive but they look like real people. the characters are varied and well fleshed out, the acting is really, really strong

so many shows and films shoot and then slot in whatever music kind of fits or could be licenced in the budget after time, but you can tell that the scenes in hr were shot with that specific music in mind. and the same intentional approach runs through the whole thing