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 Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:34 pm
Lovely leaned against the new island in the new kitchen of their new house, sipping loudly at a milkshake, which was almost empty, while he stared very seriously at their new kitchen cabinets and tried to decide how best to organize their new pots and pans, plus the new dishware, and the new silverware, and the new appliances.
Everything in the house was new. They hadn’t bothered to bring any of their old furniture. The couch and the coffee table and the TV stand they used to own were donated to coworkers and friends of coworkers and whichever neighbors were interested in free furniture, along with the bed and the dresser and the TV itself. The only thing they kept was the piano, which now assumed pride of place in their new living room. (They bought a second, newer piano for Ilian’s music room, but it wouldn’t be delivered for another few weeks.)
What few boxes they brought with them were full of clothes and the minimal possessions Ilian had from his past, which wasn’t much at all. They bought the rest and had it delivered, or transported it home themselves in cars that were as equally new as the house.
Maybe they’d gone a bit overboard, but after living in that dumpy apartment for five years, Lovely thought they deserved to indulge themselves.
It was a warm day, almost unseasonably so, except that the weather in spring was always a series of ups and downs. If it wasn’t warm and sunny, it was cold and rainy; there was nothing in between. Lovely had to remind himself that they had air conditioning now. He could turn it on whenever he wanted to, but old habits die hard. It seemed like a waste of money, when he could just as easily open the windows to let in the breeze.
They had windows now. Over a dozen of them. Their apartment only had three, and there’d always been someone smoking outside, which meant opening them was a hazardous venture.
So Lovely opened the windows. Here, the scent of soil and fresh cut grass filled the air. They didn’t have curtains yet and the house was flooded with light. The heat of it would have been uncomfortable if he wore anything other than a pair of short track shorts and a loose t-shirt, the origins or which might have dated back to Soren for all he knew. (Lovely tended to lose track of which shirts he’d bought himself and which belonged to Ilian.)
Besides, he reminded himself again, there was the air conditioning if he got desperate.
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Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2021 7:06 pm
This was… strange for Ilian. He had spent so long in cramped living spaces that it was weird to be able to walk more than two feet without running into anything. And they had so much storage but for what? What could they possibly buy to store in all of the empty cabinets. Did people really own enough to fill all this space? Did they overdo it when they decided on the design of everything. Not that he designed the kitchen. Or most of the house. He let Lovely do that. But that was also because he had no idea what he was doing.
“Did you know the toilet has a button?” Ilian asked, still a little miffed by all the higher end appliances and… everything…
And there were pocket doors. Which he thought was a thing in old houses, but apparently it was a new thing, too. They definitely took up less space.
The whole place was so bright, he didn’t know what to do with himself. And it echoed a bit. It was almost like walking into a home from a magazine. It probably didn’t help that nothing there was theirs. Well it was, but also not because it was so new. But they would get used to it eventually.
While Lovely was working on opening the windows, Ilian went to the box of items he brought with him, and pulled a flat square object wrapped in light blue paper. He actually did spend the time wrapping it, although he figured he could have just handed it to Lovely and be done with it.
He put the wrapped gift on the island and waited for Lovely to return.
“Did you say they put air freshener in the paint?” he asked, sniffing at the room again, because it didn’t smell completely like new paint. It was fresher than that. Super weird.
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Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2021 7:31 pm
“Should I add sniffing paint to your list of vices?” Lovely asked as he opened the window above the sink.
Before, all they had to look at while washing dishes was a dingy, stained wall, and the dishes themselves had to be washed by hand. Now they had a dishwasher, and a window that overlooked the backyard and their own private pool, which was another amenity their dump of an apartment lacked.
The window opened easily. He didn’t have to strain to lift it. It didn’t make a loud, screeching noise against the frame, or get stuck halfway. Lovely pushed it up and stood back to stare again, marveling at such a simple thing.
Moving into their new house was almost like an out of body experience. He kept expecting that they’d have to go back to the apartment, that this wasn’t real, that someone was going to come along and take it away, even though they designed it and paid for it with their money.
Well… Lovely’s money, but technically what was his was also Ilian’s, so the distinction didn’t seem worth it to make.
“There are other ways to get high that’ll do less damage to your brain,” Lovely continued to joke, turning back to the island once he’d successfully shaken himself out of his temporary stupor.
Obviously he saw the gift — he even paused to examine the size and the shape of it — but he didn’t pick it up, choosing to spear Ilian with an unimpressed, “are you about to make things awkward” look instead.
Flatly, he asked, “What is that?”
He figured he might as well get it over with.
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Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2021 7:44 pm
Ilian took a moment to realize that Lovely was joking about him sniffing paint, and he rolled his eyes at the insinuation. He didn’t need to get high off of drugs or paint or any of that. He wouldn’t be able to play the piano with a clear mind if he did drugs or drank alcohol.
“I wrapped it so you’d have to open it, but if you don’t want it then I can put it back,” Ilian let out a frustrated sigh through his nose. No, they weren’t the most romantic.
If anything, he would think Lovely was allergic to the word. But it was a new house and new beginnings and all of that, so it was good to start things fresh.
“Whatever, you can open it later if you want. Did you already get the wifi set up, or do you want me to do that?” he asked, tempted to snatch the gift back off the island, but instead ignored the heat in his face from Lovely’s unimpressed look and left it there.
“Did you see the outlets have lights?” he asked, holding his foot up to one of the outlets near the floor so the shadow would block the sensor and make the light turn on.
Oh, Lovely probably picked those outlets on purpose.
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Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 7:55 am
“You are a child,” Lovely said with a snort at Ilian’s behavior.
He did pick those outlets on purpose. Just like the lights and the corresponding switches and the toilets with their buttons. He picked the pocket doors and the countertops and the paint, with the occasional assist from Ilian, though he seemed too overwhelmed by most of it to have much of an opinion beyond, “Yeah, sure, that sounds nice.”
It was nice. They deserved nice. After living in that apartment for years, and dealing with all the Negaverse s**t they went through, they deserved a lot more than nice. (Hence the pool. And the new cars. And Ilian’s music room with all of its recording equipment. Lovely would probably never say it, but after everything Ilian had been through in life, Lovely wanted to treat him to nice things now that his trust fund was available to them.)
Instead of answering either of Ilian’s questions, Lovely finished his approach to the island and grabbed the present. He set it in front of him so he could look over the wrapping job while he took one final sip of his milkshake; the gurgling, sucking sound it made through the straw was loud in such a large, open space. Once he discarded the cup (in the trash can hidden in one of the lower cabinets), he carefully tore open the paper to see what was inside.
Only to find a framed picture of the two of them.
They didn’t take pictures often, not being the sentimental sort. Most of what they had were selfies, which generally showed one or both of them making a ridiculous face. This one was a bit surprising, because it showed Lovely kissing Ilian’s cheek.
It must have been taken in the seconds between Lovely licking the side of Ilian’s face or biting his jaw. He certainly didn’t go around kissing Ilian’s cheek for the purposes of capturing it on film.
Somehow, Ilian had managed to capture it anyway. Objectively, it was a nice picture. Neither of them looked weird. They seemed comfortable and happy together — not their usual snarky, defensive selves, but not so gross as to require vomiting over it.
Lovely ignored the faint heat in his cheeks and cleared his throat. “I suppose we can put it on top of the piano.”
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Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 9:12 am
There was so much to see in the new house. And Ilian was still in awe about how much space there was. He could actually spread out his arms and not touch something. What were they supposed to do with so much floor space? And their bedroom could easily fit a king sized bed with room to spare.
They had random pieces of furniture that he still didn’t understand. Why did they have a table in the hallway? Was it just for a lamp? He understood that it was to fill space, but he’d never lived anywhere that just had random things to fill space.
And he had no idea where the refrigerator was, but he would figure that out later when he was hungry.
He turned back to watch Lovely open the wrapped framed photo and crossed his arms over his chest as he waited for Lovely to either criticize it or… who knew.
When it didn’t seem as though Lovely was going to laugh at the picture, Ilian felt the tension in his shoulders relax a bit.
“Yeah we can do that,” he agreed, still thrown off by the echo in their overly large house. He supposed it would be better once they got the rest of the furniture in, or just got used to it. “I thought it would make this place look less like… a model home or something,” he shrugged, not wanting to sound too sentimental, but was also pleased to see the pink in Lovely’s cheeks.
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Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 10:09 am
Lovely hated the pink in his cheeks and did everything he could to pretend it wasn’t there — which meant he was very quiet for a minute or two and refused to look Ilian in the eye. He cleared his throat and marched determinedly out of the kitchen, heading into the living room to situate the picture on top of the piano (where he would occasionally glance at it and feel a little funny inside, like his guts were twisting around or something, then flush faintly and quickly glance away, only to go back to pretending it didn’t exist for several days, until the next time his gaze caught on it).
Eager to put the moment behind them and return to normal, Lovely made his way back into the kitchen with his cheeks free of pink and his face set in its usual resting b***h expression.
“It’s too quiet in here,” he complained, just to have something unrelated to complain about. He quickly solved this issue by playing music via his phone and a bluetooth sound system.
Then it was time to get back to unpacking kitchenware, but not before he gave Ilian a playful shove, which was totally normal behavior and not at all overly affectionate. Just two dudes who could file taxes together, living in a nice house and not talking about their feelings more than they had to.
“Did you see the wine fridge?” he asked, nudging it with his foot as he circled around to the other side of the island to begin putting pots and pans away.
Obviously Ilian saw it at some point, but seeing it and acknowledging “this is a thing we have now, that we can use whenever and however we like” were different matters.
“We should buy a bunch of random wine to break into when we get out of the Rift,” he said. (It was easier to talk about these things more openly when they didn’t have to worry about thin apartment walls.) “We can celebrate our survival by getting wasted.”
Which wasn’t a normal thing for them at all, but there was a first time for everything.
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Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 10:46 am
Ilian didn’t say anything about Lovely’s cheeks, and he tried not to make it obvious that he noticed. Instead he went to start opening the drawers and cabinets and reminding himself where everything was. Like why did the dishwasher match the rest of the cabinets and blend in? He was going to forget where everything was.
He didn’t comment about the playful shove either, but settled himself against the island as he watched where Lovely was putting everything.
“Why do we have a wine fridge. Do you even drink wine?” Ilian stared at the fridge in question. He’d never actually seen a wine fridge, at least not in person. It was empty now of course, but Lovely had just suggested filling it.
“You’d want to celebrate?” Ilian asked, a little surprised by Lovely’s suggestion. Not that he didn’t appreciate it. He was worried that Lovely would make going to the Rift difficult, but so far he had been supportive. He knew it was important for Ilian to at least try, and now that they’d had a practice run and spoke to Axinite about their plans, and knew Axinite would come find them if they didn’t return in a certain amount of time, well… it looked like Lovely really was stepping up and wanting to help him.
“We can do that. We’ll probably want to make sure we have food ready, too,” Ilian suggested, although he wasn’t sure what kinds of food would go well with wine.
“I really like the colors in here,” Ilian said absently, looking around at the teal cabinets and the white walls and… he was probably going to be making random comments like that all day… for the next several weeks.
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Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 11:36 am
“I only drink wine when I have dinner with my mother and I want to prove a point,” Lovely said, stacking the pots and pans into one of the cabinets by the stove. They were heavy, and he had to sit on the floor to organize them on the pull out shelves, but their stacking capabilities meant they fit well in the space.
Not that they didn’t have plenty of space around to spread them out a bit more if they had to. Lovely would never admit it, but even he was having some trouble figuring out how they were going to utilize all the cabinets.
Ah, well, it was better to have too many than too few, wasn’t it? At least they had a pantry now. Back at the apartment, they had to store their non-perishables out in the open on a shelving unit.
“It tastes disgusting,” he continued, climbing back onto his feet once the task was done. “But I’m told I just haven’t found the right one for me. Whatever the ******** that means. Us celebrating would just be an excuse to try more, and surviving the Rift again seems like a perfectly good reason to get drunk for the first time.”
Surprisingly, after their trial run in the Rift, he wasn’t as nervous about going in again as he had been before, even if that trial run hadn’t exactly gone well. Next time, there wouldn’t be other people to worry about, and they could leave whenever they wanted and try again some other time if Ilian didn’t have any success. They worked better when it was just the two of them than they did when there were recruits and subordinates involved.
No, Lovely still didn’t like the idea, but he was determined to help Ilian become the sort of General he knew Ilian was capable of. The Negaverse was important to Ilian, and Ilian… well, he was important to Lovely.
In that weird, gut-twisting way he didn’t often like to acknowledge.
“It’s your favorite color,” Lovely added, a bit absentminded as he started sorting out the silverware they’d bought.
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Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 2:10 pm
Ilian watched as Lovely stacked pots and pans and tried to make note of where he was putting everything. He wasn’t used to having matching pots and pans. The ones he’d been using had been purchased second-hand by Soren when they moved in together. Everything had been second-hand, and there hadn’t been many, just the essentials. They used the same pot for full meals, which weren’t really meals, but Soren did his best, Ilian knew. Pasta and a vegetable was often the most they could afford. Ilian would have happily eaten pasta every night for the rest of his life if it meant he could have his brother back.
But since that was impossible…
It hadn’t been difficult for Ilian to get rid of the mismatched pots. He was used to not holding onto too many sentimental things, but he wanted to make an effort to make this house more than just somewhere to sleep and compose music.
He stared at Lovely for a while, not because he was thinking about wine or celebrating getting out of the Rift, but because Lovely knew what his favorite color was.
Had he ever told Lovely? Ilian didn’t think that he wore the color often. Sure, it was part of his Negaverse uniform, but that didn’t mean it was his favorite color. Oh, and he supposed he picked out his new car in a nice teal too, but it could have been any color. And Lovely had picked the paint colors before they got their cars.
“When did I tell you that?” he couldn’t help but ask, wracking his brain to think of how Lovely could have possibly known, and feeling heat in his own cheeks because it was just a color but also strangely intimate in that Ilian didn’t usually talk about his likes and dislikes.
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Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 2:42 pm
“You didn’t have to tell me anything,” Lovely said, separating forks and knives and spoons into their respective places. “I’m not blind. I might be a little self-involved, but that doesn’t mean I don’t notice s**t.”
He noticed a lot of things about Ilian without either of them having to mention it. He knew what foods Ilian liked, and which he tended to avoid. He knew how Ilian took his coffee, and when he’d rather have tea instead. He knew that Ilian liked contemporary music more than classical, but that he could play Mozart or Chopin as easily as he could Billy Joel. He knew by the way Ilian sang that he’d had voice lessons at some point in his life, though Lovely never asked when or with whom. He knew all of Ilian’s clothing sizes, and the order in which he got dressed. He knew by the pattern of Ilian’s breathing when Ilian was actually asleep and when he was awake late at night, lying quietly in bed beside him.
Knowing his favorite color was hardly a difficulty between all that.
“I also know you like pizza and tacos more than anything else, and that you only started playing lacrosse in school because—”
Lovely stopped, unsure sure if mentioning Soren was a good idea. Lovely barely knew him, but he remembered Soren clearly — mostly the day he died, the shouting and the blood and his lifeless eyes.
With a shrug, Lovely said, “We’ve lived together for five years. Is it really that much of a surprise that I know you?” while digging through the plastic bags on to the counter to take serving spoons and spatulas and measuring cups out of their packaging.
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Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2021 6:40 am
Ilian continued to stare at Lovely, knowing he was more observant than he let on, but it still surprised Ilian for whatever reason. They had lived together for five years, this was true.
“No, I guess not,” he frowned, trying not to look impressed that Lovely knew his favorite foods as well, even though he didn’t think he requested either more than anything else.
Did he know Lovely as well as Lovely knew him? Ilian wasn’t sure if he could name things like Lovely. He knew his favorite color, or at least assumed it was blue by the color of his car and the color he generally gravitated towards. It was why his gift had been wrapped in blue. But Ilian felt he knew Lovely more through feeling than objects. He liked to think he knew when Lovely was joking around or when he needed space. That was just as important as knowing his favorite foods, right?
Just like how he wasn’t going to mention Lovely’s birthday. There was the gift, yes… but it could have just as easily been a housewarming gift. It didn’t have to be a birthday present, since Lovely didn’t like bothering with sentimental things like that.
“Does that mean you’d be up for pizza tonight for dinner?” he asked, figuring he might as well since Lovely mentioned it first.
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Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2021 9:30 am
Lovely glanced up to eye Ilian like he couldn’t believe that was how Ilian chose to respond. A look of mild amusement crawled across his face, but he ruined it by rolling his eyes before the expression could grow too fond.
“Sure,” he said, tossing cooking utensils into a drawer by the stove. “It’s not like we have any food in this house yet.”
They didn’t have much of anything yet — just the antique piano and their clothes, the pots and pans and utensils, a few random pieces of furniture that didn’t account for much, and a new mattress upstairs in their room. Everything else would arrive after their journey in the Rift. Until then, the house would continue to feel large and foreign and empty, almost pristine, and not quite home yet.
But it was theirs. They both looked forward to leaving the apartment behind, with its musty old carpet and thin walls and unidentifiable stains everywhere, not to mention the lack of air conditioning and the crappy heating that barely took the chill out of the air in the winter. They went from a place that was cramped and dull to one that was spacious and would soon be full of color
It felt a bit like starting over, forging a new life together.
Which was the sort of gross, sentimental s**t Lovely usually avoided, but he could tolerate the feeling if it meant Ilian was happy.
When the drawer closed, Lovely pranced back over to Ilian, reveling in the feel of gleaming hardwood beneath his bare feet.
“Enough unpacking,” he decided, propping himself against the island with a suggestive leer. The collar of his oversized t-shirt was in danger of slipping down one shoulder. “Which room should we break in first?”
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Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2021 11:11 am
He couldn’t stop the smile from appearing on his face when Lovely pranced over to him. He was glad to see that Lovely was in such a good mood, and really, it was hard not to be when there were so many good things finally happening to them.
Ilian knew it was going to be weird for a while and that they would have to get used to having their own home, especially such an updated home like this was, with more room than they could ever imagine needing, but it was theirs.
Vaguely he wondered what Soren would think. What their parents would have thought. That he was living as happily as possible with someone who he trusted and cared for. Lovely had admitted to devoting himself to Ilian and everything Ilian wanted Lovely would fight along his side to obtain. Ilian just hoped Lovely realized he would do the same for him.
“Oh?” he hummed thoughtfully, turning so his arm could find its way around Lovely’s waist. “Well, we might as well be efficient about it. We’re already in the kitchen, so…” Ilian patted the top of the island, unable to stop the laugh that bubbled from his throat.
Once they were back from the Rift, things would only get better, he was sure of it.
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