but at least i have a soul still

Shane gives a forehead kiss? Ilya stays the night and Shane wakes up to Ilya spooning him and waking him up with little kisses on his neck

Ilya says Shane’s name? Shane starts sending good morning texts

Shane calls worried about him? Ilya starts sending daily update texts, he’s going to the gym, off to practice, cooking dinner

Shane gets hurt and invites him to the cottage? Ilya sends flowers to his parents house

It was absolutely, mortifyingly irrational. 

Ilya was a professional hockey player. Six-foot-something, over two hundred pounds, regularly got into fights and lifted twice his weight on a good day. 

He shouldn’t hate storms so much.

But still, as the clouds rolled in and the thunder echoed in the sky above the cottage, he allowed himself to succumb to that fear around another person for the first time in a very long time. 

Pressing his face into Shane’s chest, his quivering body held tightly by the only arms that’d ever made him feel truly at home, he permitted himself to let out one, choked-off sob into Shane’s shirt, before whispering the truth in his ear.

“It was like this, when we found her.”

Shane’s sharp inhale told him that he understood.

-

They didn’t talk about it much after that. Shane had a wonderful knack for not pushing, and Ilya was forever grateful. But in late August, back in Boston and away from the love of his life, Ilya awoke to thunder.

He had coping mechanisms, yes. Some better than others. Smoking, drinking, scrolling on his phone until he became so tired he couldn’t help but pass out. But his brain kept switching back and forth between memories of his mother’s lifeless face and the comfort of Shane’s arms…and, well…he called. He hated himself for calling. But he did, anyway. He was a selfish man, after all.

“Ilya?”

Shane’s voice was, understandably, groggy. He sounded confused and worried, which made sense given the hour. Ilya tried to say something, to reassure him. To apologize for waking him from much-needed sleep. But all he could choke out was, “Shane.”

It was then that he realized he was crying.

“Ilya? Ilya? Fuck, what’s wrong?”

And that was Shane’s terrified voice. The voice he’d used when his father had walked in on them in the cottage, the voice he’d used when, over the summer, Ilya had climbed up a tree only to almost slip. 

He had to reassure him, to explain. But the words wouldn’t come. So he simply said, “It is raining. I–is raining a lot. With noises, and–”

Shane swore, tone switching to gentle understanding. And somehow, within seconds, they’d switched to facetime, Shane murmuring reassurances as he directed Ilya to cocoon himself in blankets, the anxiety and hurt slowly easing.

Fuck, Ilya loved him so much.

-

“Hey, are you okay?”

Ilya, who’d just been playing a rather tense round of Mario Kart by himself, frowned as he heard his boyfriend’s worried tone on the other end of the phone. “Yes? I was just hit by stupid blue shell, but I am fine.”

“Blue–no, Ilya. I mean the storm!”

He looked out the window, confused. It was certainly cloudy, but it hadn’t even started to rain yet. “There is no storm, solnyshko. How do you know about weather? Are you here?”

Shane sighed, sounding a bit sad. “No, I wish. But I…uh…I set my weather app to Boston. I wanted to make sure to know when the storms would be for you. So I could…y’know….call. If you need me. But if there’s no rain–”

“No!” Ilya interrupted, grinning like an idiot. “I mean–no. Maybe it will rain later. You should stay on phone to be sure. All night, maybe.”

Shane chuckled. “Hm. Yeah. If only to be sure.”

So Ilya fell asleep with his phone on his pillow, Shane on speakerphone, both of them murmuring to each other happily.

but i just never drew it

uh so here we go with some sketches

I learned to ski when i was little cause my mother insisted, and I really loved it. she learned when she was a kid because she just lived around a bunch of mountains

so lets just pretend Lily and Severus grew up somewhere with diverse terrain and also learned together as children

skiing has definitely earned the reputation of being a rich people sport/activity, and modernly I think ski lodges have a lot of nerve to charge what they do, but I never really saw it as rich people exclusive because of my mother

however, James certainly does it as a rich-people-sport

Lily and Sev reap the benefits of his bank account 1000%

“do you wanna hold him?”

ilya’s moving forward before he can process the words and everyone’s holding their breath as he gathers the newborn into his arms, pausing to take his gloves off first. it’s a few tense seconds before the baby babbles and shifts slightly before tucking his head into the crook of his arm and swiftly falling to sleep.

ilya looks up to see his whole team stifling grins, “i think we’ve found the new babysitter” and he bites back a chirp because he doesn’t want to wake the baby he’s holding so delicately to his chest.

he’s stuck on the sidelines for the whole practice while he rocks the baby through the slams against walls, waving its little arm towards its dad when it eventually wakes up.

James sat on the edge of the bed and stared into his open closet. Clothes pulled out and shoes askew.

“What are you doing?”

James looked up and saw Regulus standing in their bedroom doorway, watching him with a confused look on his face.

“I have nothing to wear.” James mumbled.

“James, you’ve literally got an entire wardrobe overflowing with clothes.” Regulus chuckled as he moved further into the room.

“But none of it is good enough!” James whined before he could catch himself.

Regulus was standing in front of him and he lifted his chin up. “Good enough for what, darling? Maybe I can help.”

James gulped. He hadn’t meant to draw Reg into his dilemma. He had been hoping to keep his secret a little longer. At least until the wine had been poured at dinner.

Regulus smiled softly down at him and brushed his fingers through James’ hair.

“Sweetheart? Why is tonight’s dinner so important?” Regulus’ voice was low and calm.

“I need to do it right.”

“Bells and whistles?” Regulus huffed a laugh.

“Because I wanted it to be special.” James blinked up at him.

Regulus climbed onto James lap, his knees bracketing James’ hips and James wrapped his arms around Regulus’ waist, pulling him close and breathing him in. Regulus buried his fingers in the hair at the back of James’ neck.

“Just ask me.” Regulus whispered into James’ ear.

“Reg. Regulus. Marry me?” James breathed out as they held each other tightly and he felt Reg grinning against him.