#whatstheproblembaby

21. porch

The sky broke open less than half an hour from the cottage, forcing Shane to slow the car to a crawl as he peered through the windscreen and tried to watch the road through the sheets of pouring rain. It had been warm and bright for most of the journey, both of them wearing sunglasses, Anya happily sticking her head out the back passenger window - tongue lolling, the breeze ruffling her fur. Warm enough inside the car for the AC to be on, for Ilya to strip off his T-shirt and reveal the light gray tank top underneath that drew far too much attention to his bulging biceps, being very distracting while Shane was trying to drive.

But now, the sky was dark, rain fell faster than the windshield wipers could catch it, and Shane was not looking forward to the trip between the car and the porch to bring in their bags if this rain didn't stop.

"Maybe is just a summer storm, yes?" Ilya offered when they were ten minutes out, though he was looking out the window at the dark grey clouds and the driving rain with some doubt.

"Your optimism isn't very convincing, you know," Shane said. "It's your face. It's a very pessimistic face. And it's obvious this rain isn't going to stop."

"Ah, but it is a very handsome face, milyy," Ilya quipped. "A handsome face you love, do not forget that."

Shane rolled his eyes, but his lips couldn't help but quirk up in a tiny smile regardless. But nope, it looked like Ilya was wrong - the bad weather was staying, and that was not doing good things for Shane's stress levels.

He'd had a whole weekend planned. A barbecue, swimming in the lake, taking Anya for long walks in the woods surrounding the cottage, lying out on the deck reading or listening to music or kissing or fucking...

Too soon, they were pulling into the driveway of the cottage. The sky was almost black now, and the rain was so heavy it didn't seem to be individual droplets but full-on upturned buckets of water thrown down from the heavens.

"We cannot stay in this car forever, you know," Ilya pointed out, after Shane had made no move to climb out for a while.

"I know," he replied. He stared out at the pouring rain, his teeth already gritted against the sensation of being soaked through just going from the car to the front door.

"We are going to get very wet," Ilya said.

"Yes, thank you, Captain Obvious," Shane muttered.

They both stared out the windshield. Anya paced in the back seat, whining a little, probably wondering why they weren't already inside so she could sniff out all the smells she'd missed since the last time they'd been here.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, Shane saw something like mischief glimmer in Ilya's eyes - and he grinned a wicked, beaming, maniacal grin.

"Last one to the door is rotten egg!" he yelled, before shoving the car door open and making a break for the house.

"Jeez, what are you, twelve? Ilya, wait!" Shane called after him - but his inner competitive streak won out and he, too, threw open his driver's side door and made a run for it, beckoning Anya to follow him.

He was soaked in seconds, his shirt sticking to his back and his shoes full of water, but he caught up with Ilya just in front of the porch steps, making up what he lacked in stride length with the speed he was known for on the ice.

"You will not win, Hollander!" Ilya crowed, jostling him on the steps, trying to get past Shane by elbowing him in the ribs. Shane retaliated by kicking Ilya in the ankle, making him stumble and trip - but that was all Shane needed to make it up the last few steps, under the safety of the porch roof.

"Yes!" he cheered, pumping his fist in the air. Anya circled him, barking loudly, her own fur heavy and dark. "You're getting slow in your old age, Rozanov."

Ilya joined him a few moments later, breathing hard and looking like Anya when she'd had a bath. "You are the same age as me," he panted. "Asshole."

"But you love me," Shane pointed out. There was a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Unfortunately, yes," Ilya said, wrapping one dripping wet arm around Shane's waist and pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. "Even if you make me rotten egg, I still love you."

I couldn't find the fic that you described (if anyone knows it, please send it in). I did find two others: the first one has Kurt getting hit on the head the second one has Blaine getting hit on the head. - HKVoyage

Best-Laid Plans by whatstheproblembaby

anonymous prompted: WRESTLING MATCH ON THE COUCH THAT ENDS WITH ONE OF THEM HITTING THEIR HEADS ON THE FLOOR AND THE OTHER HAS TO KISS THE BOOBOO BETTER and it turned kinda domestic and holiday-ish in the process. Oops?

~~~~~

Cindirella in reverse by @hazelandglasz

Anonymous asked

9. what calms you down?

I’ve started to listen to a couple of apps at night before I go to bed to help with my anxious thoughts. Relax Melodies plays calming sounds, like wind and rain and you can choose different combinations. I’ve also started listening to Headspace, as they gave free subscriptions to healthcare workers, and I listen to their bedtime stories. THat’s helped my sleeping a lot, which has also helped me keep a little more calm. 

14. favorite feel-good show?

Oh this is so hard to choose. I was going for MASH, but it’s not really a feel-good show, so let’s go for Ted Lasso instead, because that show was surprisingly feel-good and aspiring and I love shows that focus on characters becoming more kind. 

28. hugs or hand-holding?

ohh thank you! i'm gonna work on it tonight!

3. What were your top five books of the year? Hmm this is harder than I thought. Ok.

The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger by Rebecca Traister

Hellblazer by Jamie Delano & Starman by James Robinson (they’re comic runs but shhh that’s why I combined them)

19. Do you use the library? Yes! In high school I habitually went to the local library and practically lived in the school library. In college I worked in the library and tore through stuff reading on my shift when I was still on circ and then during the summers. Since the pandemic I haven’t actually borrowed any books but I did buy a BUNCH of grab bags from the local library’s sale this summer and since I work in a bookstore I’ve been using my employee discount very liberally. 

22. What’s the longest book you read? This year? Probs my law book from Media Law last spring lmao. The comic runs I’ve been reading have been really long. I read the entirety of The Folk of the Air trilogy in a week if that counts? 

24. Did you DNF anything? Why? I’ve got a couple things that I’m not going to have done by the end of the year but I plan on finishing them like Alice by Heart and Magnus Chase: The Ship of the Dead. I have decided to give up on the Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children series. There’s just Too Many anymore and I’m not as passionate about them as I used to be. 

Oooo, I love this! Esther and Meyer have, I think, mixed feelings, and this will come up more before the end of the story. It isn’t that they don’t love Jack and Kath as people; quite the contrary. Part of the reason they’ve been so protective of all four of the children is because they like Jack and Kath, they like the way Jack and Kath treat Sarah and Davey, respectively, and they can see the affection between both pairs. They can see that Sarah and Davey are happy, and they very much want that for their children, despite knowing that the marriages are crossing community and ethnic boundaries. They care about Kath and Jack for their own sakes, too; I think they are very fond of them as people.

However, that doesn’t mean they don’t worry. They’re both concerned about what it means to have their children marrying outside of the Jewish community - it compromises not only Sarah and Davey’s safety, but the safety of the whole family, and could potentially jeopardize the family’s standing in the community as a whole. Regardless of what Jack and Kath themselves believe, they are seen as Christians, and therefore as prejudiced and dangerous. Esther and Meyer want all of them to be safe, and that’s not necessarily something that’s achievable, without breaking up the partnerships that are making their children so happy. So they have to weigh their children’s happiness and their affection for Jack and Kath against the risks posed to their family and community. 

This was a hard thing for me to wrap my head around, I admit. It took a lot of reading, and a lot of talking with @elozable, to understand that personal, individual belief would not have counted for anything, really, in this time period. It’s all about the way your community sees you, and whether you are trustworthy to them - and for orthodox and conservative Jews, in particular, anyone who was not Jewish by birth was regarded with a lot of suspicion, thanks to the history of Jewish persecution by Christians in Europe and Russia. I think of Jack, for example, as spiritual but not religious - he believes in something, a higher power, but he doesn’t subscribe to either the Catholicism of his parents or the punishing Calvinism of Snyder; he sees both as equally cruel. However, that doesn’t matter to the broader community around him - he’s still going to be seen by others as an Irish Catholic, regardless of what he himself believes. So Esther and Meyer are more liberal, in the sense that they are wiling to see Jack and Kath’s goodness, and love for their children, and consider that more important than the Christian backgrounds of both of them. But being willing to do that comes with a lot of risk, and Esther and Meyer know that, too.