So one afternoon at the cottage, Ilya has been in and out of the lake all day, excited like a kid, splashing around and clowning and fascinated by the wildlife and showing off for Shane. And after they finally head back inside and shower off the lake smell, Shane settles on the couch with a book and Ilya flops down with him, stretched out with his head in Shane's lap and whining until Shane frees a hand to sink into his hair. And it's been such a nice full day and it's all warm dozy sunshine and the lovely earthy nature smell that's everywhere around the cottage and Ilya has his face tucked into Shane's stomach where he can breathe him in, the familiar scent of his detergent and body wash, and Shane's big warm hand is in his hair and Ilya's pleasantly tired and drowsy and so comfortable that he just... drifts off, the kind of wonderfully indulgent nap that he never really gets during the season and finds hard to justify when he's in Russia for the summer.
But this year he's not in Russia, and he slips into this warm syrupy slumber while Shane pets through his hair (incidentally making a disastrous mess of his curls) and reads his book. When Ilya eventually rouses, with a happy grumble of contentment, nuzzling closer into Shane's stomach, he can feels Shane laughing gently at him almost before he hears it.
"Did you sleep well?" Shane asks, and that sounds warm and syrupy too, and Ilya rolls over so he can smile at Shane and revel in the smile he gets in return.
And then Shane says, "Are you hungry? It's almost dinnertime," and Ilya realises he's been lying here, napping and pinning Shane to the couch and wasting both of their time, for hours, and he jackknifes upright so suddenly that Shane startles back.
"Fuck!" Ilya spits out. "I was--fuck, has been so long. Why didn't you wake me up?" already guilty because Shane had wanted to make some pasta thing that he was weirdly excited about and they'd talked about maybe playing more Chel but now the whole day's been napped away and--Ilya sneaks a look---Shane's book is lying closed on the couch, bookmark set neatly aside, so Shane had finished his book and not even been able to get up to go do something else.
And he's just smiling at Ilya, completely unconcerned that Ilya's been idle and asleep and... and... lazy, all afternoon, just glad Ilya had a good nap.
Shane's frowning in mild confusion at him. "Why?" he says, genuinely not seeing the problem. "You were napping, it was nice. I mean, if I'd needed to pee or something I'd have got up but I was fine." He reaches out and smoothes some of Ilya's hair down. "Oh, the pasta. We can do that tomorrow, we have all that salad from lunch and rolls and there's peaches if we want dessert."
Ilya must have responded somehow because Shane beams at him and says, "Cool, I'll go set the table if you want to go wash your face." He smirks and pokes at Ilya's cheek. "Got a little drool there." And then he smacks a kiss on Ilya's head, gets up, and trots over to the kitchen while Ilya just sits there reeling.
Anyway it's really important to me that Shane dismantles all of Ilya's awful self-talk about laziness.
