Chapter Text
To his credit, Shane did ask Ilya if he wanted to come to the shelter with him. Ilya was the one to decline.
"I picked Anya," he insisted. "So you get to pick your baby too."
Shane's mouth did something giddy and small, like reciprocal pet choosing was his ideal vision of domestic bliss. Ilya just had to kiss it.
Against his lips, Shane murmured, "Okay," with that same, quiet delight. He kissed Ilya back, gave Anya one last pet, and then he was off.
What Ilya didn't say was that he already had a pretty good idea of what kind of cat Shane was going to bring back from the shelter. At the age of thirty-one, Shane had started getting weirdly emotional about the little birds that came to their bird-feeder. He'd probably go for a cat that looked like a little bird, fluffy and tiny. Ilya was already delighted about it, because he could add to his growing collection of videos showing Shane Hollander getting teary-eyed over a little animal for no apparent reason. He had thirteen at this point. It was great.
The cat that Shane brought back was not little.
"That is not a baby," Ilya said, gesturing to the fat, furless beast that Shane was cradling like a real human infant. It seemed entirely made up of pink skin and wrinkles and disdain. "That is an uncooked rotisserie chicken."
Alarmingly, its already baleful glare deepened with resentment, almost like it could understand. Shane's entire face was glowing with his smile. "His name is Pork, actually," Shane laughed, soft and fond and sweet.
Ilya frowned. "...Pork?"
Shane nodded. "Pork."
"Pork."
"Pork!"
"Pork!?" Ilya spluttered, to which Shane burst out laughing again. Ilya briefly wondered if the whole world had actually gone insane.
Shane didn't seem to notice Ilya's crisis of reality. He bounced Pork—fucking Pork!—in his arms, smiling down at the sack of meat, honey dripping from his eyes. His face held a sort of maternal adoration that Ilya had only ever seen in nativity scenes, in Mary's face as she looked down at baby Jesus in his manger.
Jesus, this cat was not. It couldn't even be called a baby! This adult creature was an abomination of God. Ilya was actively fighting the urge to clutch his crucifix and cry begone, foul demon!
He got distracted by Shane's soft voice, murmuring, "Pork Hollander-Rozanov."
"Absolutely not," Ilya blurted.
"Absolutely yes," Shane retorted, which didn't even make sense, but made Ilya laugh anyway. Then, Shane tilted his head and corrected, "Well. Hopefully yes. The shelter is letting us foster Pork for the first week and then we can decide if we want to formally adopt him."
Ilya nodded, relieved. "Good. We can cancel before the end of our free trial."
"Ilya." Shane clutched Pork protectively against his chest. "Stop bullying the poor baby!"
For a moment, Ilya could only gawk at his husband. Poor baby? Poor baby? Shane did not call anything baby. Not Ilya, not Anya, not even the actual babies of their friends. When they finally got to meet Bood and Cassie's kid, Shane happily declined to hold him, stared trepidatiously at him over Ilya's shoulder, and wholeheartedly told Bood, "He's very, uh, small."
Pork put a paw on Shane's face and tipped his head back, looking at Ilya upside down. Yeah, you fucking heard him, the fat fuck seemed to be sneering. I'm his baby. Eat my raw chicken ass.
Ilya exhaled evenly. "Shane," he started diplomatically. Shane looked up with those beautiful brown eyes of his. "I only say this for. Uh. For the sake of Pork."
Shane's nostrils flared with a silent laugh. "Pork's sake," he repeated, which made Ilya have to bite back a smile.
"Yes. I think he will feel like an outsider in our home."
"Well, we'll have a week to see if he'll–"
"No, no," Ilya shook his head. "You do not understand. Let me demonstrate. See?"
Ilya gestured up and down at himself. The way his sweatpants sat low on his hips, exposing the band of his boxers. The contour of his pecs, the soft layer of fat that overtook his abs after their playoff elimination. Then, of course, his face. He flashed a wink for good measure.
Shane's eyes dragged along Ilya's body appreciatively, but met his with slight confusion. "I'm looking," he said.
"I am very sexy," Ilya declares. He points to Anya, curled beautifully in a patch of sunlight. "And our daughter. Oh! So adorable. Most adorable baby in the world."
Shane was biting his lip, trying not to laugh. "Mhm?"
"And you," Ilya stepped forwards. He wanted to gather Shane's face in his hands and kiss every last one of his freckles, wanted to bite the apple of his cheek and chew, wanted to mark up his neck and blow as raspberry in the hollow of his throat to startle a laugh out of Shane's mouth—but Shane was still holding that fucking tumour of a creature. And that tumour was looking at Ilya with genuine malice.
Ilya did the next best thing: he dropped to one knee, spread his arms out wide, and cried, "My God, look at you!"
"Fuck off," Shane groaned, laughing as stepped back.
Ilya just shuffled forwards, still on his knees. "The most beautiful man in the world, so handsome, so wonderful," he moaned like he was overcome with it, like these were his dramatic, dying words. Shane was trying to kick at him now, balancing poorly with all his laughter and Pork in his arms. Ilya dodged him easily and clutched his chest. "His freckles like stars on his face, oh, the constellations I could make with my kisses–"
"Since when were you a poet?"
"The very picture of beauty, yes, that is what they will say!" Ilya finished dramatically, flourishing his arms to behold Shane's flushed, smiling face. "And in this most gorgeous man's arms…"
He lowered his hands in a lazy gesture. "Pork."
Pork's eyes narrowed. Ilya managed to suppress his flinch. Could this fucking cat understand him?
Shane huffed, half-laugh and half-disappointment. "Get the hell up already," he said, and so Ilya did. Then he said, of course, "You're such a fucking asshole."
Ilya grinned. Fourteen years and those five wonderful words still made his heart flutter in his chest. "I know, yes."
Shane rolled his eyes. Then his voice softened. "I know that this wasn't the cat you expected me to bring back. But I just…" he shrugged, laughing a little, a helpless sound. "I felt like he was the one immediately."
He looked at Ilya almost shyly, imploringly, and said, "Just… can you give it a chance? A real, actual chance?"
And man, did that make Ilya feel like an asshole.
Shane took their first round elimination from the division playoffs… poorly, to say the least. It wasn't his fault—their defence crumbled after Dykstra got injured at the end of the season and Boston had put together one of the best scoring lines in the league—but being eliminated in five games, losing four and only winning one, was brutal. It took Ilya a week to shake it off.
Shane would have probably still been in mourning if they hadn't started talking about getting a cat. Today was the first day in weeks that Shane had been able to laugh so loud, so bright, so much.
All because of fucking Pork.
Ilya sighs, dropping his gaze down to the demon still cradled in Shane's arms. So pink. So wrinkly. So fat.
"Hey," Shane said. Ilya looked back up at him. Shane tilted his head to the side and said, "For me?"
"...you are a terrible man," Ilya sighed. Shane beamed and didn't say anything until Ilya finally conceded, "Okay, dorogoy. I will… try to give this big, weird, rat a chance."
Shane huffed admonishingly. "You're off to a bad start," he reprimanded, still letting Ilya step closer and kiss his mouth. It was chaste, but sweet. It was domestic and sweet and lazy, and Ilya hummed and tried to press closer, not to deepen it, just wanting to smell Shane's sun-drenched skin–
He was sent stumbling back with the sharp, painful pinch against his skin.
"Ow! What the fuck!" Ilya spluttered, looking down to the indents around his nipple, and then back up to meet Pork's sharp, impetuous scowl. "Did he– did he fucking bite me?"
"Ilya," Shane said, absolutely horrified, but also so plainly trying not to laugh.
"On the fucking tit?"
"He wouldn't–"
Pork bared his teeth and hissed.
Ilya looked at Shane, betrayed. "He fucking bit my tit!" Shane flattened his lips into a quivering line and closed his eyes. "Your hideous cat bit your husband's tit and you're laughing?"
"I'm not–" Shane started before crumbling into laughter. He laughed, "No, I'm sorry, I'm not laughing–"
"Pork bit my fucking tit!" Ilya shouted again. Partly to keep making Shane laugh, but mostly out of genuine outrage. He clutched the wounded area—that was thankfully not bleeding—and used his other hand to point accusingly at Pork. "Evil! Demon! Бес!"
To his absolute horror, Shane cuddled Pork closer to his body and insisted, "No, Ilya, he didn't mean to!" He dropped a kiss to Pork's wrinkly forehead, promising, "It's okay, sweet thing, I know he startled you, you didn't mean to hurt him, did you?"
Pork blinked up at Shane with big, blue eyes and let out a plaintive mewl. Shane's face melted. He kissed Pork's face again, cooing at him affectionately. Ilya watched, flabbergasted. He didn't even know that Shane's vocal chords were capable of cooing.
In his stunned silence, Pork turned his evil little face to look at Ilya. It gave Shane more room to nuzzle into his disgustingly bare flesh. More importantly, it meant that Pork was looking right in Ilya's eyes when his teeth bared in what could only be described as a grin.
Ilya's jaw dropped. Pork preened, turned back to Shane, and licked his forehead. Shane giggled, bright and delighted.
It was with sudden, startling calm that Ilya decided, I'm gonna fucking kill that thing.
Pork purred against Shane's face, peeling open one eye to glance at Ilya, as if lazily issuing a lazy challenge: I'd like to see you fucking try.
Ilya grit his teeth. Pork closed his eyes and nuzzled back into Shane's face, purring even louder.