It is what it is

@hollanovmicrofic / Prompt: Quiet (June n° 6) / word count: 1190 

hollanov - medieval - omega shane - knight ilya – omegas are treasured 

It was Ilya’s last day in that house. He knew it.

The preparations had already been made, and at dawn, he would leave the domains of House Hollander to officially begin his training as a knight.

It still felt strange to think about.

For years, it had been nothing more than a distant dream. The kind of dream men like him weren’t supposed to have.

Ilya was fortunate. People like him usually never achieved anything beyond hard labor in the fields; yet, by a stroke of fate, he had been given a chance.

Lord Hollander himself had personally recommended him for the knighthood.

Knights were no mere soldiers. They trained meticulously to represent the Great Houses. 

They possessed prestige, honor, and respect.

Perhaps, if he proved himself worthy, he might return to House Hollander one day to occupy an important position. Perhaps as a captain or even a commander. And, if he saved his earnings for years on end, perhaps he might even manage to buy a small patch of land. He would build a simple house (a bit crooked, a bit rough-hewn) but his own.

The idea seemed absurd.

But now, for the first time, it was not impossible.

Still, every time he reminded himself that this would be his final night in the manor, he felt a slow tightening in his chest.

Ilya knew he ought to feel grateful. He ought to be happy.

He gazed at the moonlight through the narrow bedroom window, listening to the stillness of the night as the silvery glow passed through the old glass, casting soft shadows across the room.

Then, he heard a sound in the distance. Soft footsteps moving down the corridor.

Ilya turned his face just slightly as he heard a hesitant knock at the door. Before he could even answer, the door opened slowly.

Shane appeared, holding a small candle in a bronze holder. The flame partially illuminated his face, making shadows dance across his weary features. He wore simple clothes, and his fingers fidgeted nervously around the base of the holder as he searched for Ilya with his eyes.

When he found him near the window, he breathed a sigh of relief.

“There you are,” he murmured. His voice came out low.

“Is everything alright?” Ilya asked, raising an eyebrow slightly.

Ilya watched as Shane entered the room and carefully closed the door behind him, as if afraid someone might overhear them. Shane walked over to the small wooden table beside the bed and set the candle down. The flame flickered slightly with the movement, casting a golden glow across the dark room.

Shane opened his mouth to answer but hesitated.

“Yes, I...” He looked away for a moment and rubbed his fingers together nervously. “I just...” He took a deep breath before turning to face him again. “...wanted to talk to you.”

Ilya nodded slowly.

For a few seconds, he simply stood there by the table, clearly trying to muster his courage. Then he began to walk toward Ilya.

Hesitantly at first. Then more decisively.

The old floorboards creaked softly beneath his steps as he approached, stopping right in front of him. Close enough that Ilya could feel the warmth radiating from his skin, despite the cold of the night.

“I wanted to...” Shane began again. The sentence died before he could finish it.

He let out a trembling sigh, then slowly reached out his hand, his fingers seeking Ilya’s almost by instinct. It was an old gesture between them. Familiar. Shane had done it since childhood—holding Ilya’s hand whenever he was nervous, frightened, or simply wanted to be close to him.

Shane’s fingers closed carefully around his. “I wanted to say that…” His voice faltered again. He took a deep breath, as if steeling himself to leap from an invisible precipice. “I…”

Outside, the night wind whistled through the castle walls, causing the heavy curtains to sway slowly.

He already knew what Shane was going to say. He knew this day would come.

Ilya pulled his hand away. The movement was swift—abrupt enough to make Shane freeze for an instant.

“No,” Ilya replied immediately.

Shane blinked, caught off guard by the harshness of the tone. The hand that had moments before held his remained suspended in mid-air for a second before slowly dropping to his side.

“Ilya—”

“Don’t say it.” His voice came out low and firm. Ilya immediately averted his gaze, as if he couldn’t even bear to look at him at that moment. The muscles in his jaw were clenched tight.

Shane watched him in silence.

Then he took another step forward.

“I like you… and I know you like me, too.” Ilya remained motionless. “When we’re together, I…” Shane hesitated again, but this time he didn’t back down. “Last time—when we went to the lake…” A small, sad smile flickered across his face for an instant. “That made me feel like we were something.” He swallowed hard.

“I think… I love you.”

The phrase hung in the air.

For an instant, everything went silent.

“We can’t be anything.”

Ilya ran a hand over his tired face before stepping back a few paces. His boots struck heavily against the old wooden floor as he walked to the other side of the room, creating distance between the two of them.

Shane frowned slightly and took another step toward him. The floorboards creaked beneath his feet.

“But do you want to be? If we could…”

“We can’t.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Ilya finally lifted his eyes, and Shane almost wished he hadn’t. Because there was too much emotion there. A raw, messy confusion hidden behind that cold expression Ilya was trying to maintain at all costs.

“Don’t do this,” Ilya murmured. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He gave a humorless laugh, shaking his head. “You think you feel something, but it’s not real. This isn’t real.”

Shane stared at his back for a moment before answering.

“I’m not an idiot.” The answer came out firm. “I’m not a child, Ilya. I can tell when something is real.”

“Shane…” His voice came out hoarse.

“Stop acting like I’m making all this up.” Shane moved closer once again, slowly. “Like it isn’t mutual.”

“It’s not mutual.”

Shane fell silent.

His jaw clenched. Then he clenched his fist tightly, his fingers digging into his own palm until it hurt.

“Bullshit,” Shane murmured after long seconds of silence between them.

He took another deep breath, trying to keep his voice steady despite his misty eyes.

“I know what I felt.” Shane took another step forward. “I can feel it every time I look at you.” His voice faltered for an instant before he continued. “And I know you feel the same.” His eyes glistened, wet, yet no tears fell. Shane was too proud to let that happen.

“Fine.” He nodded slowly. “If you don’t want this, that’s fine.”

Then he looked away for a brief second, trying to regain his composure before turning to face him again.

“Just don’t lie to me.” 

The silence between the two felt suffocating.

“And don’t regret it.”

"who else would know how to cook you these things, hm?"

dryly: "literally anyone with internet access?"

May I present the best apple:

i have a file or folder on my pc that i want to share with other people. let's call it gayshit.mp3

unfortunately gayshit.mp3 is 750mb and im not paying for discord nitro so i need another way to send it

i put it into qbittorrent and it makes a torrent file. this is essentially a very small file that points to gayshit.mp3 so other computers can find it. kinda like a treasure map

i send this tiny file to my friend, who loads it into qbittorrent. their computer takes a moment to find mine over the vast expanse of cyberspace and then (as long as my pc is running and the file is still where it should be), it gets copied from my hard drive to theirs

this is the cool part: if somebody else loads that tiny file, they can download it from both of us. if i'm offline but my friend is on, the third person can still get it. this also means that if two people have separate halves of the file, they can download the other half from each other. as long as some combination of people have the pieces between them, they can all have the whole thing.

crucially this does not require a server!!! you can just upload the file to a few people and as long as they keep it, it's still accessible. as long as somebody, somewhere is still connected, it's available forever. the only way it goes away is if everybody disconnects from it.

he and ilya are hanging out in the yard and some bees are buzzing around because some watermelon juice spilled on the ground earlier and shane suggests they go inside or rinse the juice off the patio and ilya teases him about being scared of little bees and shane SO nonchalantly just, "no, but i am allergic and you don't know where my epipen is"

and ilya

reblogging with my own tags because i'm also CACKLING imagining the implications of this not being specific to ilya, either. they're having a barbeque at hayden and jackie's house and hayden is good-naturedly encouraging shane to try a piece of coffee cake or something and ilya just goes, "no, bad for you"

and hayden IMMEDIATELY is on the defensive because what? you get to tell him what to eat now? where do you get o-

"no, bad for him because it has walnuts in it, pike. you want him to die? this is what you want?"

"what are you talking about?"

shane: "i'm allergic"

"??? since WHEN??"

"since always??"

"you've eaten over at my house HOW many times?? and never brought this up? the fuck, dude?"

"jackie knows"

the idea of ilya on instagram accidentally pressing like while DEEP in allergy mommy blogging territory and natalie from That Allergy Mama DMing him to be like "hi, my husband wants me to tell you he says hi and that he's a big fan and also that call against you against san francisco was bullshit." "hello, husband of natalie. also do you have any suggestions for substituting peanuts in this recipe?"

"hayden, honey, you've HEARD ME tell shane what things were for him"

"yeah! but i thought that was just a diet thing!"

"well, yeah, it is."

"but i didn't think it was a "this will kill him or not" diet!"

one teaspoon of