Work Text:
November 2021 — Ottawa
Shane: Okay, if you bring Chiron I think I can get you 20 min of peace
Shane: Long enough for Luca and hopefully Troy?
Harris: Perfect!! One Chiron coming up 🐶
“I don’t need help from your weird complicated schemes,” Troy grumped, reading over Harris’s shoulder.
Harris rolled his eyes where Troy couldn’t see, because Troy absolutely needed help from this scheme and would never admit it.
“It’s not complicated, it’s just… misdirection,” he said.
“It’s manipulative,” Troy said, and Harris just snorted. “What?”
“I’m devising a way for everyone to be happy today and you’re over there acting like I’m orchestrating The Manchurian Candidate is what.”
Troy’s face remained perfectly blank.
“It’s an old movie,” Harris explained. “Angela Lansbury brainwashes her son so she can… uh, something political. I think. It’s in black and white.”
“Okay?”
“It’s a dog. It’s not a scheme.”
“You’re plotting.”
Harris just grinned, leaning on the breakfast bar with his elbows.
“You think so?”
Troy frowned, a piece of toast halfway in his mouth.
“I’m basically an evil mastermind,” Harris said, and batted his eyelashes, just for fun.
“You’re enjoying this too much,” Troy said.
“What, my nefarious plots and schemes?”
That got Troy to roll his eyes.
“Whatever you are, you’re not nefarious.”
“That’s not what you said last night.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Troy said, with the air of a man losing an argument. “Why would I call you nefarious while…”
He blushed. Harris knew he should stop harassing his boyfriend before nine o’clock in the morning, but sometimes Troy was just so… harassable. He raised one eyebrow.
“You tell me,” he said, but instead Troy shoved the rest of the toast into his mouth.
“Okay, come on,” Troy said around a mouthful of bread. “We’re gonna be late. Chiron!”
A moment later, the giant black dog thundered down the hallway, tongue already hanging out.
“Good news,” Troy said, crouching down and ruffling his ears. “It’s puppy scheme day, so you get to come with us.”
Chiron panted happily.
* * *
“You know you don’t have to do this,” Harris said as they walked from the car to the arena, Chiron prancing along in front of them.
“I’m doing it,” Troy said.
“Okay. But you don’t have to.”
“Harris. I’ll survive reading whatever weird, dirty tweets you found,” Troy argued. “You think I’ve never seen thirst tweets?”
Harris was very, very sure that he was more dialed into the hockey thirst twitter community than Troy, but he chose not to say that out loud.
“I’m just making sure that we’re respecting your boundaries,” was what he went with, half-distracted by texting Shane Chiron has entered the building. Troy frowned, then continued frowning until they were walking down the hall in the arena.
“You’re not going easy on me, are you?” he asked.
“I’m going easy on everyone,” Harris pointed out. “It’s an official Centaur video, I’m not making you say I want Troy Barrett to dick me down so hard that dogs start howling five blocks—"
“Hey,” said Shane, from directly behind Harris, because of course he did. At least it was Shane. Who had, like, manners and tact, even if he looked very entertained right now.
“Um,” said Harris, but he was saved by Chiron yipping happily and bounding into Shane’s arms, where he immediately tried to lick Shane’s face and Shane immediately blocked him.
“C’mon. We had an agreement,” he said, but he was grinning as he ruffled Chiron’s ears. Chiron pranced on his front paws, snuffling and generally being ridiculous and giant. “You don’t lick my face and I don’t lick yours. Jesus, what are they feeding you?”
“Dog food, mostly,” Harris said, which was both dumb and true.
“And Harris gives him table scraps when he thinks I’m not looking,” Troy offered.
“I don’t give him table scraps,” Harris lied. “He steals them.”
“Chiron,” said Shane, who was now sitting on the floor, the enormous dog basically in his lap. “Don’t do that. People food isn’t good for puppies.”
Troy gave Harris a significant look, and Harris rolled his eyes, because Troy had a dog for three months and suddenly thought he was an expert.
“I told Luca he was first,” Shane said, blocking Chiron’s tongue again. “I think he might be up there already, he’s very punct—”
“CHIRON!”
“Go now and save yourselves. Ow,” Shane deadpanned as Chiron leapt off him and toward Ilya, smacking Shane in the face with his tail. “Traitor.”
Chiron barreled into Ilya, who was on the floor and grinning about a second later.
“I told you I am his favorite.”
“Because he knows you keep dog treats in your stall,” Shane pointed out. He was smiling, though.
Ilya laughed as Chiron licked his ear.
“Do you know what he just told me?”
“I can’t wait to find out.”
“I am the best at ear scritches. Also belly rubs.”
Shane snorted. “You want a commemorative plaque?”
“Is not so hard. Even you could learn.”
Harris did not understand their relationship, like, at all. He was pretty sure that if anyone picked a quarter as many fights with him as Shane and Ilya did with each other, he’d curl up and die. It just seemed so… stressful and unpleasant.
But then again he’d seen the way Shane’s face lit up at Ilya’s smile just now, so what did Harris know?
“He need a walk?” Shane asked, nodding toward Ilya and Chiron. Ilya was flat on his back and Chiron had two paws on his chest, wiggling around like he was having the time of his life.
Troy raised one eyebrow and looked at Harris, like: this is your big scheme?
“Sure,” Harris said, super casually.
“We will take him,” Ilya said, sitting up. Chiron had started hopping around the moment he’d heard walk, and Troy tossed over the leash. Ilya got more face-licks while he clicked it onto Chiron’s collar, then immediately got pulled away.
“You want to record after Luca and Troy?” Harris said to Shane. “We might have time to get you in before…”
Harris tilted his head in Ilya’s direction.
“Thanks, but I’m a lost cause,” Shane said, making a face that was somehow annoyed and fond all at once. He probably got a lot of mileage out of it. “If there’s anyone else who doesn’t need—”
“Hollander! Come the fuck on!”
“—that bullshit while they’re on camera, take them,” Shane finished.
“Thanks,” Harris said, and then Ilya yelled something else and Shane rolled his eyes and waved and headed off.
“That’s still weird, right?” Harris said, once Shane was out of earshot. “Like, cool. But weird.”
“So fucking weird,” Troy agreed.
* * *
When Harris had discovered that Shane Hollander was going to be joining the Ottawa Centaurs, the first thing he’d done had been to post about it on social media, since that was his job.
The second thing had been to call an emergency meeting with both his sisters, during which he threatened them with total ruination if they ever breathed a word about how into Shane Hollander he’d had been when he was thirteen.
It was just: Shane was from his hometown, and already a big deal, and not that much older than him, and extremely attractive, and exactly the sort of attainable-ish-but-not-really-but-kinda-maybe-he’d-see-Shane-at-the-grocery-store-and-they’d-nod-at-each-other celebrity that thirteen-year-old crushes were built on.
Anyway, there had been a poster. Technically, two posters. Next to his bed. They’d helped him… confirm some suspicions, and if adult Harris was being totally honest, he was kind of impressed with his teenage self’s gaydar.
In other words, he sympathized with Luca Haas about how very fucking weird it was for your former crush to suddenly be your coworker and also, like, a real person and stuff.
“Taco Bell hot sauce?” Luca was saying, looking adorably confused and flustered, sitting on a stool in front of a white backdrop with a Centaurs logo. “This is a sex move?”
In a chair off the the side, Troy made a noise. Harris shot him a look.
“No,” Harris said, ninety-nine percent sure he was right. “It’s more like, they’re so into you they’d let you do that?”
“Ah. I see,” said Luca, who clearly did not.
Another moment of silence. Poor Luca was bright red, and Harris was very glad that the Chiron scheme had worked.
“And the swimming pool?”
“It’s all just exaggeration for comedic effect,” Harris explained, because Luca apparently wasn’t on thirst Twitter. Maybe his strategy had been all wrong and he should’ve gotten Wyatt or someone to go first, so Luca and Troy would loosen up a little. “You know, it might be best if you don’t read them to yourself first, so you can just react in real time.”
“Yes. Sorry,” Luca said.
“You’re good. Go ahead.”
Luca got through his set of thirst tweets, and once he relaxed, he was great: charmingly flustered and adorable with exactly the right nice boy reads dirty things vibe. This video was, obviously, going to result in even more Twitter filth, but Harris tried not to feel guilty about that. They’d live.
There was no sign of the peanut gallery yet when Luca finished, so Harris hurried Troy onto the stool, where he looked at the camera like a deer in the headlights.
“Come on, smile,” Harris said. “Quit looking like I took the last of your protein powder.”
“Shut up,” Troy said, but then he smiled and Harris’s heart did that non-medically-problematic fluttery thing.
“Hurry up if you want to read these in peace,” he said.
Troy cleared his throat and looked down at his index cards.
“Troy Barrett is so hot he could—uh. I thought you said these were kinda tame?”
Oh, buddy.
“They’re not that bad,” Harris said, hoping Troy would somehow be convinced by that. “Just pretend you’re talking to me.”
There was a high-pitched noise from somewhere behind Harris, and he belatedly remembered that Luca had stuck around.
“Sorry,” Luca said. “I can—”
“It’s fine,” Harris said. He felt a little like he was losing control of the situation, which was bad, because if he felt like he was losing control of the situation with just Luca and Troy, he was well and truly fucked. “I didn’t mean—you know.”
Troy, at least, had enjoyed that, blue eyes sparkling as he looked back at the card. He cleared his throat.
“Troy Barrett is so hot he could stick a…”
* * *
Troy was reading his last filthy tweet to the camera when the door to the conference room opened, and Tanner Dillon walked through and stood there, looking around. At least he was on time for something.
“Hollander said I should come do the thing?” he asked Harris, sounding for all the world like he had no idea what doing the thing entailed. It was entirely possible he’d forgotten what the thing was during the walk between downstairs and this conference room, if Troy was being honest.
“Yep!” Harris said brightly, handing him a small stack of printed cards. “Just sit on that stool, introduce yourself, and then read the cards. Feel free to react, too.”
Troy was pretty sure he hadn’t done the greatest job with that last part—most of his reactions had been along the lines of uh, wow, okay—but he’d at least given it a shot.
Dillon sat on the stool and then stared into the camera.
“So, what’s your name?” Harris prompted. Dillon looked into the camera like he’d already forgotten.
Still, Dillon managed to get through about three tweets—way tamer than what he and Luca had had to read, Troy couldn’t help but notice—before the door opened and Rozanov basically burst through, already talking.
“—said to be here at ten and it is not even nine-fifty!” he was saying. “Harris, what the hell!”
“Oops,” Harris said. He was very unconvincing, and Roz just huffed. “That email must have had a typo or something.”
“I do not think it did.”
“Well, I’m very sorry that you already missed some of filming, but it’s great that you’re up here now,” Harris went on. He looked way too smug to be sincere, Troy thought, trying not to smile.
Roz seemed to think the same thing, because he narrowed his eyes, but before he could say anything, everyone else started filtering in.
“Roz,” Wyatt said cheerfully. “You’re supposed to shut the hell up when the cameras are running.”
“When has he ever done that?” added Bood.
“He was quiet that one time,” Wyatt said, thoughtfully.
“Was he asleep?”
“You know,” Troy said. “Sometimes when we need Chiron to be quiet we give him a chew toy.”
Roz grinned. “Shane had to talk to Wiebe for a min—ow, what the fuck?” Something bounced off his shoulder.
“That’s your husband, dipshit, don’t call him a chew toy!” Dykstra called.
“Guys, please don’t throw—uh, whatever that was,” Harris said.
“Sorry,” Dykstra said.
“You cannot throw books at your team captain for making a joke!”
“He’s back on that bullshit,” Bood muttered at the same time as Wyatt said, “It’s really more of a pamphlet,” and Luca pointed out, “It was not a very good joke.”
“What did you do?” asked Hollander as he walked in.
“You see everyone yelling at me and assume I did something?” Roz asked, but he was grinning.
“You know I wasn’t born yesterday, right?”
“Hey, you guys remember how we’re here to film things?” Harris said, very loudly. “Shut up!”
Shockingly, they did.
“Okay. Dillon, go ahead,” Harris said at a normal volume.
Tanner blinked at Harris, then blinked at the rest of his hockey team, then blinked at the cards in front of him.
“Uh,” he started.
* * *
“Bood is doing the intro for the video? Why is Bood doing the intro? I am the captain,” Rozanov said, the second Bood finished said introduction.
“You are? You should tell someone,” Hollander said in mock-surprise.
“Ilya, you're doing the outtro,” Harris pointed out.
“But that is at the end!”
“It'll be a strong finish,” Wyatt said.
“The last Riding With Roz segment got almost a million views!” Rozanov said. A paper ball bounced off the back of his head, and he ignored it. Behind him, Dykstra shrugged.
“Wow, that's a lot,” Bood said, still in front of the camera.
He was smirking. Definitely smirking. Everyone sort of... looked around, then back at Rozanov.
“Harris, just tell him,” Troy finally said because apparently it was up to him.
“Barbecue with Bood averages around a million and a half views,” Harris said. "The last one got almost three million.”
The most recent Barbecue with Bood, which was about preparing your barbecue equipment to be used in extremely cold conditions, also featured Bood pushing an unruly smoker lid into place with a little more force than was probably necessary, then patting it and saying there you go in a way that was, technically, G-rated. Troy had caught Harris watching it a couple of times for extremely professional editing reasons, and had stuck around to watch with him.
“It was very informative,” Hollander pointed out, clearly enjoying himself a little too much. “I watched it, like, five times.”
“Traitor.”
“I winterized the fuck outta my grill,” said Dykstra, who was balling up another piece of paper.
“Bood had some great tips,” offered Wyatt. “I didn't even know propane could freeze.”
“Of course it can freeze, it's a liquid,” said Bood.
“Some liquids don't freeze,” said Tanner, who was still there. “Like when you put vodka in the freezer.”
“Regular freezers just aren't cold enough to freeze vodka,” said Bood, who was starting to look worried. “All liquids will freeze given a cold enough temperature.”
“I've got a real cold freezer, though," Tanner said. "And it doesn't—”
“Anytime you guys are ready to shut the hell up so we can keep recording,” Harris said, trying and mostly failing to glare.
They shut the hell up, mostly, only whistling and shouting after Bood finished reading a tweet. Which was about as polite as they were going to get, Troy guessed. Even Hollander shouted something once, which was… surprising. Or, it would have been, a couple months ago.
Troy wasn’t really sure what he’d been expecting from Hollander joining the Centaurs. Probably that he’d be serious, quiet, polite, and constantly razzed by Rozanov thanks to their weird relationship that Troy did not understand.
He hadn’t been expecting that instead, Rozanov was suddenly going to become fair game the way everyone else had always been to him. It turned out that once Hollander relaxed a little, he was way less quiet and polite than Troy had expected.
And he was really, really good at roasting Rozanov, which—well, it actually did make sense.
The rest of the team had never, like, had a meeting where they decided it was way more fun to take Hollander’s side ninety percent of the time. It was just: one, Holly was usually in the right; two, Roz was usually annoying; and three, giving their beloved captain tons of shit was weirdly good for team morale, especially since Roz actually seemed to enjoy it.
So the next time Roz opened his mouth to say something, Troy had a balled-up thirst tweet waiting to launch at him, and when it actually went into his mouth (honestly, an accident) and Roz squealed, the whole room lost their fucking minds.
* * *
“Why don’t you just kick them out?” Troy asked, during a brief lull where Bood was giving Dillon shit about something, Dykstra was trying to get his camo snapback at the perfect angle for the camera, and no one was paying attention to the two of them.
Harris winked.
“I have a vision,” he said.
“Is your vision you quitting your job out of frustration and moving to Edmonton?”
“They respond well to my stern voice,” Harris said brightly.
Troy blinked at him, unaware that his boyfriend had a stern voice.
“Troy. Focus,” Harris said.
Troy instantly stood a little straighter, one hand going to the back of his neck.
“Sorry,” he said, a little confused. Also a little turned on.
“See?” Harris said, grinning again. “It’s useful.”
“Right,” muttered Troy, and he made a mental note to ask about the Stern Voice… later.
* * *
“You gotta get it through the center of the ring light,” Dykstra was saying quietly. Luca just nodded, wondering if this was ‘peer pressure.’ “Just right through there so he can’t see it coming.”
He bit his lip, squeezed the balled-up paper one more time, and launched.
“Hey!” yelped Wyatt when it bounced off his face, mid-tweet, but it was mostly drowned out by cheering.
“Sorry!” Luca offered, not that anyone heard.
* * *
“Are you filming my good side?”
“Sure,” Harris said, once more thanking the social media gods that he’d gotten eight hours of sleep last night and at least thirty ounces of coffee this morning. If they ever did this again, maybe he’d put whiskey in it. “Ready when you are.”
“Was a trick question. Every side is my good side.”
“Jesus Christ,” someone shouted from behind Harris, and someone else threw a balled-up piece of paper. Mysteriously, several piles of scrap paper had been left around the conference room, and the Centaurs kept throwing them at each other.
Then Ilya grinned, and Harris was very certain his patience was around to run out as he looked down at his thirst tweet notecards.
“Shane Hollander is so hot I’d pay him—”
“No!” Harris yelped.
* * *
INT. A WELL-LIT WALL WITH THE CENTAURS LOGO
ZANE BOODRAM is sitting on a stool and smiling. At the bottom of the screen, the lower third reads ZANE BOODRAM.
BOOD
Hi there! I’m Zane Boodram, the assistant captain of the Ottawa Centaurs, and this is the Centaurs reading thirst tweets, where you all tweet the nastiest filth—
There is a loud beep and an abrupt cut.
BOOD
—you horndogs sent in the raunchiest—
Another loud beep and a cut.
HARRIS (off-screen)
Just say it normal!
BOOD
(looking unimpressed)
Here are some thirst tweets.
Cut to LUCA HAAS sitting in front of the camera, name in the lower third.
LUCA
(clearly nervous and very pink)
I would let Luca Haas wrap me in tin foil and throw me into a pool of hot sauce.
(he looks at the camera, pauses)
I do not think I understand the appeal?
Cut to DILLON TANNER.
DILLON (reading)
I want Dillon Tanner to spit in my mouth and duct tape it shut.
(runs a hand through his hair)
Um. Wow.
(looks at camera)
Do people do that?
Cut to WYATT HAYES.
WYATT (reading)
I would only let Wyatt Hayes choke me on a day that ended in a Y.
(looks at camera)
Well, first, thank you for your trust in—
A crumpled up paper ball flies toward his face, but WYATT blocks it easily, without bothering to look.
WYATT
—me! And always remember to use a safe word.
He blocks another paper ball.
Cut to ILYA ROZANOV.
ILYA
Was a trick question. Every side is my good side.
EVAN (off-screen)
Jesus Christ!
A piece of paper flies past ILYA’S head, and he ignores it.
ILYA (reading)
Shane Hollander is so hot I’d pay—
The camera suddenly wobbles, as though someone has kicked the camera stand by accident, possibly while in a rush to put a stop to something. Cut to EVAN DYKSTRA.
EVAN (reading)
Hey, Siri, how do you screen print Evan Dykstra’s body on a snuggie?
(looks at camera)
Shit, that sounds cozy. I’d buy one.
Cut to ILYA ROZANOV, now joined by HARRIS DROVER.
HARRIS
(waving a small stack of index cards)
Those are not yours. These are yours.
ILYA
(holding index cards out of Harris’s reach)
My way is better!
BOOD (off-screen)
Your way sucks!
ILYA
That is not the only thing that—
He is cut off by approximately fifty paper balls hitting him in the face.
ILYA
What the fuck?!
Cut to TROY BARRETT.
TROY (reading)
If I were president I’d make it illegal for Troy Barrett to wear a shirt.
(looks at camera, frowning)
Don’t we have a Prime Minister?
LUCA (off-screen)
Yes.
HARRIS (off-screen)
Seriously, dude?
TROY
(makes a regretful face and turns bright red)
Shut up, I'm nervous. I know we have a Prime Minister, I just--
Cut to ILYA ROZANOV and HARRIS DROVER, ILYA still holding index cards out of HARRIS’S reach.
HARRIS
Quit fucking around or I swear I’ll edit you out of this video.
ILYA
You would not. Who would watch it?
SHANE (off-screen)
People with taste?
ILYA looks at something off-screen for a moment, then directly at the camera.
ILYA
He is married to me.
Cut to SHANE HOLLANDER.
SHANE (reading)
I want Shane Hollander to use my face as a trampoline.
(awkward laughter)
Cut to LUCA HAAS.
LUCA (reading)
I love Luca Haas so much it hurts when I pee.
There is a very long pause, filled only with an added cricket sound effect.
LUCA (still looking down)
I do not know what this means.
Cut to ILYA ROZANOV, empty-handed, looking grumpy as HARRIS DROVER hands him several index cards.
HARRIS
Thank you.
Harris steps off-screen.
ILYA (reading)
I want Ilya Rozanov to ruffle my hair and tell me I am cute.
(looks up)
Harris. What the fuck?
Cut to SHANE HOLLANDER.
SHANE (reading)
I want Shane Hollander to stick his tongue so far down my throat it comes out my vagina.
He pauses. Someone who sounds like ILYA ROZANOV is laughing hysterically in the background.
SHANE
So that’s anatomically incorrect.
Cut to ILYA ROZANOV.
ILYA (reading, sounding annoyed)
Ilya Rozanov is such a sweetheart that I want to make him pancakes and—
(looks up)
Why do I have terrible tweets? Last week I saw a tweet that someone wanted to suck my dick so hard my stomach caved in like a Capri—
Cut to ZANE BOODRAM.
BOOD (reading)
Tell Zane Boodram he can spank me while I lick barbecue sauce off his hands.
(looks up)
There's a lot going on here, but okay.
Cut to WYATT HAYES.
WYATT (reading)
Wyatt Hayes can park his Batmobile—
WYATT bats away a paper ball.
WYATT
—in my Batcave any day.
(he looks up and blocks two more paper balls)
I’m sort of unclear on this scenario. Am I borrowing the Batmobile and returning it, or are we both Batman? Because if it’s my Batmobile and someone else’s Bat—
A balled-up piece of paper hits him right in the forehead. WYATT yelps, and the room explodes into cheers.
Cut to ILYA ROZANOV.
ILYA
This has been the Centaurs read thirst tweets! Don’t forget to like and subscribe or whatever. Also watch our hockey games and keep tweeting your thirstiest takes to @ShaneHoll—
The screen fills with the Centaurs logo, as well as the ‘Like’ and ’Subscribe’ buttons.
After several seconds, cut to ILYA ROZANOV, seated, and SHANE HOLLANDER, standing behind him, leaning on his shoulder with one forearm and looking down at some index cards.
SHANE
You love pancakes, though.
ILYA
That tweet was not even thirsty! Look, this one is about kittens.
ILYA is idly bumping his right hand against SHANE’S left where it’s dangling over his shoulder, like it's a habit he doesn’t realize he’s doing.
SHANE
You also like kittens.
ILYA
You got to say vagina on camera!
SHANE (flatly)
Yeah, it was great.
ILYA laughs.
ILYA
I am just saying, it is unfair.
SHANE
Have you ever considered not pissing off Harris?
* * *
@(Hot)tawaCentaurs
Hold the fuck up WHO is the hottie with the beard who told off Rozanov?
@(Hot)tawaCentaurs
Daddy? Sorry. Daddy? Sorry.
@GetPucksDeep
Replying to @(Hot)tawaCentaurs
Respectfully, I would sit on his face and never leave
@VibesFromTheBlueLine
Replying to @(Hot)tawaCentaurs
He could handle me like he did Roz, I’d do anything he said
“What?” Harris squeaked, standing in the middle of their kitchen.
“Everything cool?” Troy asked, frowning at a recipe on his phone.
Harris cleared his throat, then went to put his phone away. “Yep. Very fine and normal—”
Troy grabbed his phone without even, like, making an effort and glanced at Harris through floppy bangs. Harris sighed and leaned his elbows on the counter, his hands over his face.
“I mean, same,” Troy said after a minute.
Harris made an indistinct noise.
“Sorry, Daddy.”
“Not funny,” Harris said, voice muffled.
“Okay, okay,” Troy said, and grabbed his own phone, then wrapped an arm around Harris. “Here. Smile.”
He kissed his boyfriend on the cheek and took a couple selfies, then posted one.
@TroyBarrett17
Everybody back off.
“That’ll help, right?” he said, and it was so sweet that Harris didn’t have the heart to tell him that it really, really wouldn’t.
* * *
“I want Shane Hollander to jam a hockey stick down my throat,” Ilya said, leaning on their breakfast bar.
“Gross,” Shane said, scrubbing a pot in the sink.
“I think the hockey stick is a metaphor for your dick.”
“Oh, is it?”
“Oooh. The rumors are true, I am a slut for Shane Hollander.”
Shane just snorted.
“I want to wreck Shane Hollander’s home? No. I am blocking this person.”
“You know you could help with the dishes instead of narrating Twitter to me, right?” Shane asked.
“I made dinner. That is our deal.”
“The deal wasn’t for you to somehow use every dish we own.”
Ilya made a noncommittal noise and kept scrolling.
“I want to turn Shane Hollander into a Jackson Pollack painting.”
There was a long silence. Shane rearranged some things in the dishwasher, shut it, and dried his hands off before Ilya finally laughed.
“Okay, that one is good. Yes, five stars, would paint again.”
Shane only blushed a little. Maybe living with Ilya counted as exposure therapy, or something.
“You’re not actually replying—”
“No,” Ilya said, and rolled his eyes. “Harris would murder me, and you would divorce me, and then Harris would bring me back to life just so he could murder me again.”
Shane didn’t think Harris had actual necromancy powers, but he probably knew someone who did. Harris knew everyone.
“You done looking at Twitter yet?” Shane asked, hoisting himself onto the counter next to Ilya.
“Why, do you have something better to do?” Ilya asked, and Shane hooked a leg around his waist and dragged him over. Ilya grinned at him. “So you do like the thirst tweets.”
Shane crinkled his nose, because he mostly felt weird about thirst tweets and the fact that people he didn’t know thought about him sexually, like, at all, ever.
“I like that we’ve got a night with nothing to do for once,” he said, wrapping a hand around the back of Ilya’s neck.
“Hmm,” Ilya said, glancing down again.
Then he held his phone out to Shane, Twitter open. Shane frowned and took it.
“I don’t want—" Shane cut himself off when he realized it wasn’t his name in the tweets, then looked back at his husband. “Seriously?”
Ilya just shrugged, grinning.
“Is foreplay,” he said, and leaned in to put his mouth on Shane’s neck.
Shane bit back a sound, raked his fingers through Ilya’s hair, and forced his eyes open.
“I would cut off my own arm if I could use it to touch Ilya Rozanov’s abs,” he read, laughing. “Really? This does it for you?”
Ilya just made a noise and licked the hollow of his throat.