Meditations on Magic

(Happy birthday, Ilya!)

In which Shane throws Ilya a surprise party in their backyard with the help of their family and friends.

Snippet:

Once everyone was satisfied that Ilya was surprised, the crowd dispersed a little. Shane stayed next to him, holding his hand as Ilya took in the balloons, the Cars decorations, the face painter who’d set up on the deck and was currently turning Amber Pike into a unicorn. “You did all this,” Ilya murmured, squeezing Shane’s hand.

Shane blushed a little, squeezing his hand back. “You deserve to be celebrated by your family,” he said softly. Ilya just had to kiss him again and again. He forced himself to stop kissing Shane though when his phone buzzed. He stepped back, accepting the FaceTime request. Soon Svetlana’s face filled the screen.

And sometimes fanfiction is, ‘Watch me do a fucking KICK FLIP off this cool sentence!! Also here's some sex'

They're almost always spooning, and after taking a moment to nuzzle into his hair and press a soft kiss to the nape of his neck, he extractes himself to use the bathroom and brush his teeth because he knows how Shane struggles with morning breath.

When he gets back, Shane's usually turned over to his other side, now facing the center of the bed like he's looking for Ilya's warmth. Ilya climbs back into bed slipping one hand over the top of Shane's head to rest in his soft hair and snaking the other over Shane's middle for warmth again.

And then he just looks at him for a while, drinking in the fact that this man is his forever and how lucky he is that he gets to see this every morning. He holds out for as long as he possibly can, letting Shane catch a few more minutes of sleep, before he can't help himself any longer.

It always starts with a soft kiss between Shane's eyebrows, where he knows that throughout the rest of the day a little line will appear as he frowns in concentration, when he can't quite read someone's tone, when he's deciding what to get on the menu, when an interviewer brings up the Metros, when he accidentally stumbles across a comment section and sees all the slurs there. Ilya tries to press as many kisses here as possible, wishing it would repel any bullshit Shane might face in his day. He seems to be facing more and more lately.

Then he kisses along his eyebrows, presses a barely-there kiss to each eyelid, trails kisses down his cheekbones, over those beautiful freckles, and over his nose, pressing an extra kiss to the tip because he loves how Shane scrunches his nose when he does it to him through the day.

He trails soft kisses down his cheeks, across his jaw, his chin, and finally, he presses a small kiss to both corners of his mouth before finally catching Shane's lips in a soft, but searing kiss, laughing into it slightly when Shane groans and stirs.

"I can't believe you choose to wake me up like this, baby," he mumbles, his voice all growly and sleep-wrecked in that way that goes straight to Ilya's cock. "You have a morning breath kink."

And Ilya sits back and begins gently scratching Shane's scalp in that way he knows he likes.

"So I like to wake you up with a kiss," he shrugs. "It proves I'm your true love. Like Sleeping Beauty."

"Yeah and the hundred or so kisses I got before that one didn't do anything. How true can the love be?"

And Ilya laughs and leans in to steal another kiss, this one long and indulgent – morning breath be damned.

"My Shane," he says when he finally pulls away, lips hovering barely an inch away from Shane's, "how could you have known about all the other kisses if you weren't already awake?"

And Shane gives a sleepy little laugh and closes the distance between them to bite Ilya's lower lip.

"Touché."

Title: the detectorist Prompt: self prompt "as a result of a midlife crisis and fail[ed/ing] academic career, remus starts metal detecting as a hobby. one day sirius finds him in a field " Guidebook / Prompt List / Sign Up Want to submit a snippet but missed the email blast, drop us a DM or log a ticket in the server <3

“I’m Sirius by the way,” he says, stretching out a hand.

Remus awkwardly half-stands to reach up and shake the offered hand. “Remus.”

“I know,” Sirius answers and Remus’ eyebrow quirks. “I mean, I guessed,” he quickly clarifies in a ramble. “James told me about you.”

Remus inwardly groans. He and James have been friends since childhood and he loves James, he really does, but the guy is far too sociable for his own (or rather Remus’ own) good. “What did he tell you?”

Sirius just gives a small shrug. “Not much, just that you were exploring the fields up here and I might be interested in tagging along.”

“And why would you be interested in tagging along?”

“I study Ancient History, seems like some fun hands-on experience.”

“You’re an undergrad?” Remus doesn’t need the answer to know he’s correct, Sirius is too bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to have endured more than a few years of academic study.

“I'm twenty-seven,” Sirius answers rather defiantly, as if it’s his age Remus is calling into question.

“And you don’t have anything better to do than stand in a field all day?”

“Don’t you have anything better to do than stand in a field all day?” There’s mirth in Sirius’ voice, a twinkle of humour in his eye at his own witty comeback, but it just makes Remus’ glower deepen.

A (few) recommendation for every color of the rainbow.

Had me fighting for air,

He knows it’s bad for his posture so he usually tries to be good and sleep on his back but often wakes up on his tummy. David’s heart had gone soft when Shane had fallen asleep on the couch at their cottage last summer, on his stomach and open mouthed deep sleeping. It had taken him back to baby Shane, who would curl himself up on his stomach on his bed or on David or Yuna’s chest, hands tucked up under his chin like he still does now. He’d always loved to make himself cosy, loved best of all falling asleep snuggled up to one of his parents.

Anyway- Ilya doesn’t find out until the cottage of course, this habit of his Shane’s, how he’ll wake up and Shane will have slipped out of the cradle of his arms and be sprawled on his front head turned so his cheek is all mushed into the pillow. Ilya started to realise on the nights Shane was extra sleepy, he’d subconsciously shuffle them so that Ilya was on his back and Shane could roll on top of him, he’d let out a happy little grunt and tuck his arms to his chest, hands under his chin and be asleep in seconds. Sometimes Shane tried to fight it, and he’s tuck himself down on his back or his side and Ilya would hear his breathing even out. Sure enough he’ll wake up to Shane soft whine and rolling in bed, shuffling until he’s onto his stomach, his brow going lax and lips pouted with a content sigh, arm thrown out on top of Ilya or his thigh hooked up over him.

Ilya loves it, he finds it sweet when Shane will go from watching a moving tucked against Ilya, big heavy tired blinks and then just sigh and wriggle until he’s on his tummy, and then in two breaths he’s out, deep heavy in sleep.

It’s cute, another thing that Ilya loves about him, a little Shane fact that lives in his mind. When Shane is fighting sleep with a spinning mind, fidgeting and worrying, Ilya will get his hand on Shane’s shoulder and mumble “roll over baby”, smooth him onto his stomach and rub Shane’s back, big open palm figure of eight between his shoulder blades, little kisses over the back of his head and neck till he settles.

Shane and Ilya are obviously hunkering down at the cottage together. There's no hockey, but they don't know for how long, so they're still training all the time. They're doing interviews and having to make it look like they're in completely different places. Ilya has to keep being reminded that he's supposed to still be back in Ottawa.

Ilya's teammates keep asking if they can be in a lockdown bubble together and he's gotta be like "No, can't do that. I'm not taking any chances." But now they're worried because he hasn't seen or been around another human being in months and they've noticed that even before lockdown he made more jokes about killing himself than the average person, so they're stressed to their eyeballs about his mental health.

Meanwhile Ilya's living the kind of domestic fantasy with his man that he didn't think they were going to get until retirement. For the first time ever most days he can truly pretend that he and Shane are the only people in the world. Sometimes David and Yuna come over for dinner because they are also isolating at their cottage. But most of the time it's just endless hours of just the two of them and neither of them could be happier. Their biggest decision every day is when and where to fuck. Some people are getting into sourdough – Shane and Ilya have committed to learning one new sexual position every day.