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When Hayden and JJ dropped in unannounced over the summer, Shane was pretty happy. He couldn't have guessed how badly things would escalate in just one afternoon.
"Where's your man?" JJ asked as the three of them sat down, taking the beer Shane brought. "Thanks."
"He's in the shower. And the girls are down by the lake."
"The girls?" Hayden asked, looking through the window to see Svetlana and Rose down there.
"Rozanov's hot friend?" JJ looked as well, only for his face to fall when he saw Svetlana and Rose kiss. "Oh."
Shane and Hayden laughed at his disappointment. Then Shane couldn't help but comment. "As if she'd date you either way."
"What's that supposed to mean?" JJ feigned offence, laughing.
"She would never put up with your bullshit." Shane informed.
Hayden rolled his eyes. "Come on, she's been putting up with Rozanov all these years."
Shane didn't really appreciate his husband being referred to by his last name, but he decided not to start fights. "They're childhood friends."
Hearing the bathroom door open, Anya darted towards it, prancing around Ilya and wagging her tail as if he had been gone for hours and not five minutes.
Ilya walked into the living room in shorts and nothing else, and was surprised to find guests there. "Oh."
"Nice to see you too." Hayden sighed.
Ilya was about to snap back, but managed to hold back for Shane's sake. It didn't stop him from rolling his eyes, though. "I will go tell the girls."
"Yeah." Shane agreed, then turned to his friends. "Um, the guys will stay for dinner so count two more people."
Ilya nodded and gave him a quick kiss in the passing before walking down to the lake, Anya at his heel.
"Jackie says he's a great host?" JJ looked at Hayden.
"I don't know man. All the wags love him." Hayden shrugged.
JJ made a face and then turned to Shane. "You know, my sister in law is a divorce lawyer."
"That's not funny." Shane responded.
"I mean come on Shane." Hayden giggled. "It's kind of funny. Especially because you've never actually been with another dude. Sure there was Rose, but you weren't into her."
"Still crazy." JJ added.
Hayden laughed again. "We're just saying, maybe you're settling without even knowing."
Shane gave them both a stern look before shifting the topic to something else. A few minutes later they heard the girls laughing as they approached the house, and the conversation topic reverted back to unsafe territory.
"How the fuck does he do that?" JJ sighed.
"Guys, seriously." Shane scoffed.
"Hi." Rose walked in first and sat down while towel drying her hair.
"Hi." Svetlana said. She wasn't unpleasant by any means, but she didn't appreciate the way some of Shane's friends acted around Ilya.
"I will go make dinner." Ilya informed.
"I will help." Svetlana said.
"Is he avoiding us?" Hayden asked Shane.
"No, he's trying to not fight." Shane informed.
A little while later he went to check how things were going in the kitchen, and found Ilya and Svetlana conversion in Russian. Luckily they didn't sound irritated, so Shane assumed it wasn't about his friends.
"Need help?"
"Not really, everything okay?" Ilya asked.
"Yeah. Yeah." Shane nodded, but Ilya saw right through him.
Svetlana, seeing they needed a minute in private, proclaimed she'd go and get the table outside set up.
"What is it?" Ilya asked softly, then offered Shane a spoonful of the saland he was making. "Taste test."
Shane did, then nodded a few times. "It's good. Can you please try not to fight with the guys tonight?"
"I always try not to fight." Ilya pointed out.
"Ilya...please."
Ilya sighed, seeing Shane's anxious expression. "I do always try. What you are asking me to do is not react at all when they start shit."
"I just don't want a fight breaking out." Shane said. "Please."
"Is unfair. But fine." Ilya said, the smile that was on his face only a moment ago replaced by a neutral expression.
That sent another wave of anxiety over Shane. "Don't be mad."
"I'm not." Ilya assured him, then kissed him to prove it. "I just think is unfair, but I'm not mad."
"I know it's unfair, but you're more reasonable than they are."
"Shane, it's fine."
"You're sure?"
"I am. Now go tell them to sit down." Ilya kissed him again.
With some relief, Shane informed everyone that dinner was ready. His plan to ask Ilya to not explode seemed to be working for a while, Hayden and JJ threw it a few jabs but the most they got from Ilya was an eye roll.
Then Svetlana started commenting in Russian, looking more annoyed than Ilya. He gave her a quick explanation, also in Russian, but she didn't seem satisfied.
"That's about us." Hayden told JJ.
"Jesus, enough." Shane told the two of them. "Stop trying to make him angry, would you?"
"We're just talking, chill." JJ held up his hands.
"Talk about something else." Shane quipped.
"Sure." Hayden sighed, looking at Rose. "Will there be a part two?"
"Sworn to secrecy, sorry." She laughed.
That turned the conversation towards movies, which was pretty safe, so Shane relaxed.
Ilya's hand found his thigh under the table, and his thumb traced little circles there to try and comfort him.
"Do you guys have a free pass?" JJ asked the whole table. "Like an actual free pass, not just 'oh this celebrity is hot' type of thing."
"No." Came a unanimous answer from the two Russians, and Shane and Rose confirmed it.
"Well technically we agreed that Freddie Mercury would have been a free pass, but he's dead so." Rose added.
"Yes." Svetlana confirmed.
"Huh." JJ nodded.
"You?" Rose raised an eyebrow.
"Meryl Streep." JJ smirked.
"Jackie is really into younger Al Pacino, but now he's all old and shriveled so no dice." Hayden chuckled.
"Smart woman." Ilya remarked.
"Wait." Rose turned to him. "Who's actually your favourite actor? Like yeah there's no free pass but who's like the hottest celebrity to you?"
Svetlana interrupted when Ilya was about to answer. "Don't say Shane, we know."
Ilya laughed, Shane blushed.
"Man or woman?" Ilya asked.
"Both, I guess." Rose shrugged. "Both of you answer actually, man first."
"Cillian Murphy." They agreed without a second thought.
"Ah, Peaky Blinders, of course." Hayden chuckled.
"Not his best work." Ilya said. "Good, but not best."
JJ shook his head violently. "Oh really?"
"Yes." Ilya shrugged.
"Please tell me you're thinking about Breakfast on Pluto." Rose looked very hopeful.
"That-" Ilya nodded. "And The Wind that Shakes the Barley."
"And On the Edge." Svetlana added.
"Never watched." JJ confessed.
"Me neither." Hayden said.
Shane was glad they were talking normally for once. "They're good."
"Breakfast on Pluto is the best out of them." Rose added.
Svetlana made a questioning noise. "Eh? Is five star movie, but I think Wind that Shakes the Barley is a little better."
Hayden took out his phone to look up the movies in question, then looked up at Ilya with questioning eyes. "These are some of your favourite movies? Aren't you more like, Fast and Furious type of guy?"
Ilya was clearly about to make a snarky remark about the tone of the question, but held back for Shane's sake. "I like both."
"One is serious movie and the other is dumb funny movie." Svetlana added with a lot more bite.
"Give me your Letterbox top four." Rose suggested.
"Terminator, Avengers Civil War, Godfather and Goodfellas." JJ listed.
"Don't have a Letterbox." Hayden shrugged.
Rose turned to Ilya. "What about you."
To the surprise of both Hayden and JJ, Ilya didn't seem to hold any reservations when it came to Rose. What they didn't know was that that was a relatively new things, but it was sort of like how Shane and Svetlana got along perfectly after hanging out just once. Roee and Ilya turned out to be pretty good friends.
"Wind that Shakes the Barely, Dirty Dancing, Interstellar and second Lord of the Rings." Ilya answered.
"Dirty Dancing?" Both JJ and Hayden repeated.
"What?" Ilya raised an eyebrow.
"I don't know. You just don't seem like the romantic type, Rozanov." JJ shrugged.
Before Shane could intervener, Anya came to the rescue by coming to whine at Ilya's side, begging for anything she could get.
Ilya chuckled and gave her a piece of meat from his portion. "Little manipulator."
Svetlana saw the comment Hayden was about to make, but before she could stop him it was already spoken.
"Says the guy who somehow lured Shane into marriage."
"Hayden!" Shane warned.
Ilya, miraculously still keeping his anger at bay, started exchanging quick Russian with Svetlana.
To that, Shane groaned. "Not helping."
"Maybe that shrink should up your dosage or something." Hayden snapped at Ilya when he heard his last name spoken in the middle of Russian profanities.
That earned him a slap from Svetlana, which caused a defending silence to fall over the table.
Shane thought Ilya would explode at any moment, that the whole thing would dissolve into a massive fight, but what ended up happening was somehow worse.
Ilya first told Svetlana something else in Russian, then turned to Shane's friends to say: "Get out of my house." And then turned around himself and walked into the house.
"Just go home, guys." Shane told them, then sighed and put his head into his palms.
"Shane." Hayden noticed the anxiety that flooded through his friend, and suddenly all the malice from before drained from him.
"They told you to get lost." Rose snapped and put a hand onto Shane's shoulder.
Svetlana made sure to see Hayden and JJ out while Rose stayed with Shane, and then she went to find Ilya, who had gone all the way to the lake and sat there, smoking.
Having known Ilya her whole life, she knew he wouldn't talk in that moment, so she just sat with him for a while.
"Listen." She started. "Rose and me will go. You two need to talk."
The four of them had spent a whole week together by then, and another few days had been planned, but considering everything Svetlana concluded that it would be for the best if Shane and Ilya got some space.
"I'm sorry." Ilya simply said.
"Not your fault." Svetlana shook her head.
After a few more minutes of silence she hugged him and decided to make her way back to the cottage so her and Rose could get their things and go home.
Shane saw them out. "You guys can still stay the night."
"Is fine." Svetlana said. "I like night driving, but you need to talk. I really like you, Shane, but you have to know you hurt him more than that comment."
Rose gave her friend a hug. "Come on, you guys have made it through worse shit. You can talk this out."
Shane nodded, trying to make himself believe it too. He stood and watched their car leave before grabbing a hoodie for Ilya and going to find him.
At the pier, Ilya sat with Anya running laps around him, trying to initiate play to cheer him up. There were at least five cigarette butts lying in a small pile by his side, and he had another one between his fingers.
Slowly, Shane came to sit beside him and handed over the hoodie. "It's cold."
Ilya put on the hoodie without argument, then looked down at the ashes and cigarette butts. "I will clean it, don't worry."
"Jesus." Shane sighed angrily. "Do you honestly think I give a fuck about littering right now?"
As a response to his question, Ilya simply put out the half finished cigarette. Even when they fought he made sure not to smoke around Shane.
And it wasn't really a fight, since Ilya wasn't angry. It was much worse. Instead of seeing anger on his face, Shane saw that same emotionally distant expression that came whenever Ilya was genuinely hurt. It broke Shane's heart to be the cause of it.
"I'm sorry. I have to talk to them. I know. And it was unfair to ask you to just shut up and take it. But it was also unacceptable for the two of you to clearly gossip about them right there at the table and for Svetlana to go slapping Hayden." Shane said.
Ilya nodded along. "How do you feel when we are with Svetlana? Or Marly and Connors?"
"What's that got to do with this?"
"Just answer. Please."
"Fine. I mean, Svetlana is great, still not okay that she slapped Hayden. And your old teammates are fun too. Why?"
"Do you ever feel like they will insult you to your face?" Ilya looked at him.
Shane felt like the sadness in Ilya's eyes would drown him. "No."
Ilya nodded again, then looked back the lake. He took in a long, deep breath before continuing. "Good. I do not want you to ever feel like that, and I hope if that happened you will tell me. Would tell me. Whatever."
"Of course." Shane slowly reached out to put a hand on Ilya's cheek in order to make him look at him. "I'm sorry. I hate that they made you feel like that. I hate that I allowed it."
"I don't want you to fight with your friends because of me, Shane." Ilya took his hand and kissed it. "And I am sorry I threw them out. Was not my call."
"Yes it was." Shane countered. "I mean they disrespected you like that in our own house and I didn't even do anything, and I even had the nerve to ask you to just put up with it for some damn reason, and it went way too far and I'm so sorry, and please don't look so hurt because I swear I didn't mean for things to end up like this-"
Ilya saw the tears threatening to spill from Shane's eyes and pulled him close. Wrapping his arms around him and placing his head into the crook of Shane's neck and running a soothing hand over his back. "Shh. Is okay."
"It's not." Shane wrapped his arms around Ilya's neck, relief flooding over him at the familiar safety of his husband's arms.
"It is." Ilya kissed the top of his head. "Solnyshko, lyubimyy, don't cry."
"I love you." Shane held onto him tightly. "I love you so fucking much, and I messed up today but I swear it will never happen again. If they can't be respectful to you they can go fuck themselves. I swear I won't allow it again."
"I love you. Ya tak sil'no tebya lyublyu." Ilya whispered, tears stung in his eyes but he managed the keep them from spilling.
Shane let himself melt into the hug. "I'm really sorry."
"Shane, is okay. I promise."
"I'm still sorry."
"Thank you." Ilya kissed his temple. "But I hate it when you are like this. Don't start spiraling, okay?"
The response he got was a tiny nod and a few deep breaths.
After taking a few moments for both of them to calm down, Ilya gently pulled Shane up. "Come, let's go back."
Anya perked up and started tangling herself around their feet as they walked, and then kept doing it while they cleaned up the mess of the dinner.
They went and took a bath together after that, without talking much. It often went like that after resolving fights. Though they hadn't really fought with each other that time.
Not going to bed angry was a rule they had established during the roughest patch in their relationship, and it had helped with not letting things simmer for too long.
They had said it at all the lake, so the bath came simply as an excuse to shower one another in kisses and reassuring little whispers.
Even when they fought, they needed to let the other one know it wasn't the end of the world. And it worked without either of them realizing just how well.
During the whole incident earlier in the day, Ilya had never once questioned Shane's love for him, despise his old habits telling him he should have.
And Shane didn't let himself even start spiraling about Ilya's love, because that was the most irrational thing to him by that point.
"I'm happy you said this was your house, by the way, even if the context wasn't so great." Shane said while gently detangling Ilya's hair.
Ilya smiled and kissed him, having brushed his teeth so the smell and taste of cigarettes didn't bother Shane. "Imagine telling us this is our house the first time you invited me here."
Shane laughed a little. "We've made it through worse than my rude friends. We'll be okay."
By the time they got to the bedroom they couldn't keep their hands off of each other. Ilya barely had the mind to close the door before Anya darted in.
Luckily she wouldn't whine and cry because of it, since she knew she would be let in eventually.
Ilya wasn't waisting any time when working Shane open, but his touch was so unbelievably gentle.
They got rough from time to time, yes, they both liked certain things, and they were at a point where they knew exactly what the other liked. But sometimes Ilya wanted nothing more but to take Shane apart softly.
"Ilya." Shane moaned his name over and over like a prayer.
"You are so beautiful." Ilya retreated his fingers and slowly started pushing in while leaning down to kiss Shane, swallowing the whimpers and moans that he let out. "Open your eyes, look at me."
Shane forced his eyes open and looked up at Ilya like he was God. But he tore his eyes away from Ilya's icy blue ones to look at the cross dangling between them. He didn't even think about it before lifting his head from the pillow and kissing the cross against Ilya's chest.
As if Ilya hadn't been sex drunk already. The gesture made him pick up his pace, all the while looking at Shane like he was the most beautiful thing on earth.
Between the two of them, Ilya had always had better stanima, but Shane still didn't expect himself to come as quickly as he did. Ilya kept fucking him through it before stopping just short of overstimulation.
"Keep going." Shane gasped, still clinging to his husband and barely catching his breath.
"You're perfect." Ilya managed to say before he started moving again, slowly. It took an immeasurable amount of restraint, but if was worth it for seeing pleasure flood Shane's face with every slow thrust, seeing his back arch off the bed more and more with every inch.
The only sound Shane could give in response were those maddening whimpers that Ilya wanted to eat from his lips, and so he did. He didn't let their lips part until they had to catch their breaths, and even then he rested his forehead against Shane's.
He couldn't last long like that, but it surprised him when Shane came as well, for the second time. That kind of refractory period really shouldn't be possible at all.
They took a few moments to catch their breath, Ilya whispered praise and adorations into Shane's ear, they said an ungodly amount of 'I love you's, they kissed like they hadn't seen each other in days.
That only lasted until Shane got uncomfortable with the cum and sweat drying against his skin. "Now we need to shower again."
Ilya laughed and kissed him. "You go first, I will change the sheets-"
"No, we're showering together." Shane proclaimed and dragged him back into the bathroom by hand, and Ilya was going to complain.
After the shower Ilya hurriedly changed the sheets so they could collapse into bed and go to sleep.
Anya hopped into the bedroom as soon as the door was open for her to do so, and took her usual spot on the foot of the bed, from where she looked at her owners with her head tilted to the side.
"Did you train her to be this judgey?" Shane joked.
Ilya rolled his eyes and laughed. "Actually I think that was you."
"I'm not judgy." Shane scoffed.
"Not when you are outside. When we are alone your face is open book." Ilya pointed out, then pulled his husband as close as he could and let Shane nuzzle into his neck.
With a content sigh, Shane gave up the topic. "Goodnight."
Deciding to take it as a victory, Ilya kissed the top of his head with a smirk. "Good night, lyubimyy."
Usually, during the summer, Shane was the first one awake, and it was no different the following morning. Usually he went for a run and got breakfast started by the time Ilya decided to roll out of bed, but that morning he didn't want Ilya to wake up alone, so he stayed in bed.
While he watched Ilya sleep Shane couldn't imagine how someone would call what he had settling. It was a privilege to have Ilya like this. Walls completely down, vulnerable and soft.
For someone who preferred dogs, Ilya was a lot like a stray cat. The kind you have to slowly lure into safety, who's trust you have to build bit by bit, but once you do, you're rewarded with the most pure and adoring kind of love.
Ilya woke up when Anya barked at a bird outside the window. "Stupid wolf bird."
"Will you ever leave loons alone? And I don't even think it was a loon." Shane laughed.
"Then just stupid canadian bird." Ilya grumbled and pulled him closer in order to cuddle up to him. "Five more minutes."
Shane smiled fondly, then gave an exaggerated sigh. "Not like I have a choice, you have me in a death grip."
"Mhm." Ilya didn't try to argue, just closed his eyes and enjoyed the morning sun against his skin and the feeling of having Shane in his arms.