Chapter Text
The date starts out perfectly.
Ilya has pulled all the stops for the most romantic date night within the confines of his house since he and Shane cannot go out.
Fancy linen tablecloths, check. Nonscented candles (because Shane is a sensitive princess), check. Matching plates and cutlery (Ilya bought new ones because his sets invariably become mismatched over time from all the team gatherings), check. Ginger ale (the special holiday flavours), check. Mood-lighting and sultry jazz (he wants to play Stravinsky since Shane hates his first choice – European EDM – but Cliff says only do that if he never wants to get laid again), check. Fresh flowers delivered the same day as a centrepiece and also throughout the house (as suggested, no, demanded by Sveta – ‘Ilyusha, it is very important that you lockdown Jane Hollander. I am emotionally very invested in this relationship, yes?’), check.
And most important of all, the food. It must fit Shane’s strict performance diet and at the same time not offend Ilya’s taste buds (which are worldly and flexible, but even he has limits); simple yet delicious, grounding yet full-flavoured, with a single focused goal that one day, hopefully, Shane will associate Ilya’s food with home, comfort, and love. Like Ilya did with his mama’s cooking.
The dish Ilya picked is Japanese salmon rice. With a side of steamed broccoli. Ilya isn’t an amazing cook (he just graduated from tuna melts not too long ago), but the internet proclaimed that even “dumb frat bros can’t mess up”.
Ilya sourced wild Alaskan king salmon from his local fishmonger, acquired dashi stock and furikake from the neighbourhood Asian grocer, and made the executive decision of substituting sushi rice with organic shortgrain brown rice. He even followed the recipe down to a tee without any improvisation like he usually does with everything else in life.
It really does start out perfectly – beginning with Shane stepping into his living room and being pleasantly surprised by the setup.
“I can’t believe you did all this. I love it! And the food smells amazing.”
Shane sounds delighted, which is so completely different from the noises he lets out in hotel rooms, desperate for Ilya’s hands and mouth. It makes Ilya regret not doing this sooner, way sooner. They have wasted so many years. He is determined to make up for the lost time and be the best boyfriend. (Shane says it is not a competition. Whatever. Ilya is definitely counting.)
Once drinks are served (ginger ale for Shane and beer for Ilya) and the food plated, they sit down to eat. He will never give Cliff the satisfaction that he’s right (for once!), but he can admit to himself that The Firebird perhaps does not have the best melody for a romantic date.
Ilya waits for Shane to take the first bite, trying not to stare too intently.
It goes well for about five seconds and Shane makes a weird pause before chewing again. Perhaps most people may not notice, but Ilya has not strung along a situationship for close to ten years to not understand the beautiful creature that is Shane Hollander, and decipher his every switch and ever tell, even back when Ilya was lying to himself.
“This is great!” And Shane has always been a terrible liar.
“Tell me what I did wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong. It’s great.” Shane takes another bite and chews almost exaggeratedly.
Ilya sets down his spoon and levels Shane a look. “Солнышко, we both know you cannot lie.”
“It’s true. Nothing is wrong, technically.”
“But…”
“How did you make the rice?”
“What do you mean? The normal way. On the stove.” Ilya finally takes his own bite. The soy sauce gives the salmon a rich flavour that mixes with rice perfectly. The furikake adds texture. It turned out great, if he does say so himself.
“It tastes good to me. Has flavour, yes?”
“I’m not disagreeing with you.”
“But you are disagreeing with the rice.”
Shane grimaces, almost unconsciously. “Well, the rice, it’s a bit uneven. Some are fully cooked but some are still hard in the centre.”
Ilya takes another bite and chews thoughtfully, trying to understand what Shane is talking about. It tastes completely normal to him. Maybe this is a texture thing for Shane, like he doesn’t like shirts with a tag on the back.
“I’ve read this can happen when you cook it on the stovetop.”
Now Ilya is completely lost. Is this some weird English thing? How does rice cook if not on the stove? He is aware of microwavable rice but he is under the impression that nothing microwavable is considered real food by Shane unless it’s strictly for reheating.
Shane must see his incredulous look and decides to enlighten him. “You can use a rice cooker, Ilya.”
“I have never heard of such a thing!”
“Don’t be dramatic Ilya, it’s what the name says, a pot for cooking rice.”
“A pot just for rice? Why do you need a pot just for rice! Are other pots not good enough? You are making pots feel inadequate.”
“Where did you learn – you know what, nevermind. Some cultures eat a lot of rice, so I guess it’s easier to have something just for rice? It’s like… a panini press but for rice? Well, not really. You add rice and water, press a button, and voila, perfect rice every time. I grew up with one and so did my mom. We’ve never actually made rice on the stove, ever.”
Ilya does not believe him. This is completely ridiculous.
“I’m going to order one for you tonight and ship it directly to your place.”
~*~*~*~
Now, this part does not start or proceed perfectly.
The package arrives in two days in an ominous box way too large for what it is supposed to contain. Ilya opens the outer box and finds a smaller inner box with pictures of what can only be described as an alien spaceship masquerading as a cooking pot.
Gingerly, Ilya takes out various packaging materials (paper, plastic, styrofoam, and others he cannot name) piece by piece, and he’s finally left with – well, the spaceship itself.
The control panel has so many buttons, with words that Ilya doesn’t understand (and are probably not associated with rice?). He double checks that this is the English version, and he has not, by some bizarre error, a mistake created by someone with a terrible sense of humour, accidentally received the Japanese version. What are Umami and GABA brown (the one Shane said to use)? Why does rice need so many buttons!
Ilya consults the spaceship operating guide (aka the instruction manual) and learns that the machine is powered by something called Micro Computerized Fuzzy Logic technology. It does not, however, explain why aliens want you to feed their spaceship rice. Or, as he also learns, other rice-adjacent grains.
Nonetheless, Ilya follows the step-by-step instructions to set up what is purported to be a rice maker.
Once the inside components have all been washed with warm soapy water, he adds the rinsed brown rice and the appropriate amount of rice. He selects the GABA brown setting because he’s curious and prays that it does not blow up, with Ilya as the unwilling agent in secret bomb assembly.
The machine lets out a string of strange melodic beeps, much like the spaceship sounds from that old American sci-fi fantasy where everyone talked funny, the hot male lead took off his shirt for no good reason, and his sickly-looking sidekick made Ilya feel weird in the stomach whenever he gave his hot friend disapproving stares.
The display now reads “4 HOURS”. Ilya assumes it is a countdown to when the rice will be ready (or when the bomb will detonate; he’s still on the fence). He does not understand why it takes four hours to make rice when he can make it in twenty-five minutes on the stove, but he tries to trust the process (and Shane, he trusts Shane).
He putters around the kitchen and living room area for a bit after. Absentmindedly putting things away. He tells himself it’s for Shane to be able to find things easier when he comes over, expecting things to be exactly where they are, have been, and always will be. Shane would have called it “tidying up”, but Ilya is a big, scary Russian who’s never tidied anything in his life and does not plan to start now.
The futuristic spaceship machine sits quietly on the kitchen counter. There are no sounds of water bubbling or air hissing. Ilya doesn’t understand how it cooks anything if nothing is boiling, but it does not move an itch, so after about an hour, Ilya decides it’s safe enough for him to multitask and goes to workout in his home gym.
Ilya is grabbing a can of post-workout coke from the fridge when several loud beeps startle him so abruptly he drops the can, which then hits his foot. Now Ilya is hopping around the kitchen on one foot swearing in Russian, then English once he’s run out of the good Russian words, and then back to Russian for good measure. He scans the counter where the offending sound came from and spots the alien rice pot. At least he thinks that’s where it came from. It probably has a camera and is filming Ilya’s every move.
That’s it! He immediately video calls Shane, who picks up after the second ring.
“Hey, baby. I was just about to call you. Practice ended early today.” Shane appears slightly disheveled, like he took a quick shower and rushed straight home after practice without taking the time to smooth out his hair. He looks cute. More relaxed, a look that he doesn’t let many people see, pretty in all the right ways, and it does something to Ilya’s heart, and other areas. On any other day, Ilya would be right there to persuade Shane to take off his shirt, but there are more pressing matters at hand today.
“Shane. Shane! I think the machine you send me is broken!”
Shane, who is the love of Ilya’s life, does not seem to comprehend the gravity of the situation and actually looks delighted. “Oh, you got it already. I thought it wasn’t going to arrive for another week because I bought the top-of-line model that’s usually not in stock.”
Ilya lets out a distressed yelp. Involuntarily. “Why do you do this to me, Shane? Is possessed! There are strange noises! Maybe is spaceship from aliens and it will try to kidnap me and probe me and the beeping is just warning!”
“What are you talking about Ilya?”
“The machine you say makes rice. But I don’t think it does, or that’s not all it does. It says making rice will take four hours! That cannot be true! It is plotting something nefarious.”
“Oh god, I shouldn’t have gotten you that word of the day calendar. Did you select the GABA setting?”
“Yes? You told me to!”
“That sounds about right. GABA setting always takes longer.”
“Is not normal, Shane! Rice should not take so long.” Ilya is exacerbated. Shane does not seem to understand his distraught mental state.
“GABA just takes a long time because the rice has to be preheated at a lower temperature for a long time before it’s cooked. It’s a special way to bring out the gamma-aminobutyric acid in brown rice, which is like a superfood.”
Ilya directs the phone camera toward the machine, “Gay-ma. What – do not tell me. I do not know what preheated is but it is not cooking anything! Does superfood make you superman? None of these are real words!”
The artificial intelligence onboard the Fuzzy computer of the rice maker must have been monitoring their every move because there’s now a gurgling noise coming from the machine. Ilya almost drops the phone.
“Ilya your hands are shaking too much I can’t see. What does the timer say?”
“46 – minutes, I think.”
“That means the rice is cooking at a boiling temperature now.”
Ilya gives the “rice cooker" a suspicious look.
“C’mon, you have about 45 minutes until it’s done. Might I entice you to do something more productive with your time?” Shane says as he starts shedding his bags and clothes.
And Ilya promptly forgets about the evil alien spaceship currently invading his kitchen.
~*~*~*~
It takes just under 30 minutes for Ilya to wring two orgasms out of Shane. (Shane set a timer because he has a strict pre-game routine of orgasm, nap, food, gameday prep.)
Ilya starts missing Shane as soon as the call disconnects – his quirkiness, his angry kitten expression, his freckles that darken in the summer when they spend too much time together under the sun, and the way he looks at Ilya like he’s the only person that matters. It seems impossible now to wrap his head around how they used to only see each other four or five times a year. The long stretches of time without even a text, trying to not think about the other person, trying hard to ignore the want of something they cannot have. He takes a quick shower and steals Shane’s weird ocean kelp shampoo so he can be enveloped by the scent for the remainder of the day.
They’ve been doing this dance for close to ten years yet it still feels new and fragile, like it might disappear again if they are not careful. Ilya walks out to the living room with nothing but a towel around his neck to prevent water from his hair dripping all over the place. Shane’s soft grey hoodie is draped over the sofa and Ilya immediately pulls it over his head without putting anything else on first. He reminds himself that this is all real because he’s also got Shane’s special self-heating mug in the cupboard and his extra pair of glasses in the drawer beside the dishwasher. Every room, every surface of Ilya’s house has been touched by Shane Hollander who transformed this into a home.
And now – now there is a shiny new spaceship on the kitchen counter that supposedly makes rice perfectly, just the way Shane likes it.
Ilya almost drops his freshly acquired can of coke a second time in one day when the advanced piece alien technology for rice suddenly starts playing an eerily tune that sounds awfully like a slightly off-key ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ in minor. The KEEP WARM light is now on, and steam rushes out as Ilya opens the lid carefully.
It’s now or never, as Americans say. Ilya would die for Shane, he would go to battle for Shane, and he would definitely, without a doubt, confront strange new alien technology for Shane. Ilya gets a spoon and takes a bite of the freshly made rice.
Huh. It tastes nutty and mildly sweet and entirely a hundred percent like Shane. He’s going to call Shane Моя рисоварка next time they talk to each other.