#so he's initially unsettled by the intensity of his feelings for Ilya bc another ~miscommunication~ like that could ruin everything :(

[antisocialxconstruct]

#maybe I gotta post that little snippet later 🤔

post it post it post it 👀

LOL well if you're gonna twist my arm about it......

It starts very abruptly because I had intended to drop it into a larger piece but that larger piece isn't coming together so for now.... 1k of angst-tinged tenderness 😔

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Just as Ilya’s attention drifts down the hall and they turn away he reaches out, hand trailing down their forearm to linger around their wrist, and when they turn back to face him he throws his other arm around their shoulders and draws them in close. He can feel the ripple of tension that passes through them, for no more than the length of a heartbeat, before their body settles into the embrace.

“You didn’t have to do any of this,” he says, breathing the words into the warmth of their throat as he rests his head against their shoulder.

“You keep saying that,” they point out, lacing their fingers together at the small of his back. “Like it wasn’t the only choice that made any sense.”

None of this makes any sense, Maksim thinks, but he doesn’t argue as the moment stretches quietly into another second. Another. When he lifts his head away he can still feel the air stretched tight between them. A tether–or something more active. A magnetic pull as Ilya’s eyes lock with his, two opposing forces drawn back together into something natural and inevitable.

Then that moment bursts like a soap bubble as Ilya lets out the unmistakable snort of a poorly stifled laugh.

Maksim doesn’t lean any further back but he does narrow his eyes. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing, sorry,” Ilya replies quickly. “I just remembered the last time I asked if you were about to kiss me and you nearly decked me for it.”

Maksim holds their gaze for another beat. Then he leans in, places a light kiss along their jaw, another against the soft skin just below their ear, and in his gentlest, most confidential tone, he tells them, “I still might if you’re going to make this weird.”

Ilya’s hands unclasp just to wander up the curve of his back and rest against his shoulders. Their grip is light but he can’t ignore the way they’re holding him in place, the fact that if he tried to step away it would be easy for them to stop him. Even without seeing it he can hear the grin plainly in their voice as they respond, “if you think threats are going to make me behave better then there’s been a serious miscommunication between us.” Maksim pulls back again, just enough to properly take in the pleased little smirk that they flash him to punctuate the comment.

There’s a shift then, something in the stream of his thoughts abruptly changing direction, catching on a hook in the midst of the natural current. It registers as an invitation- no. A challenge, like Ilya is daring him to…

He’s got the collar of their jacket in both fists before he can think about it and he shoves, just hard enough for them to hit the wall with a startled huff that turns into a muffled exclamation against his lips as he kisses them–deep, insistent bordering on aggressive. But there’s an underlying note of desperation to it that Maksim can feel in his own gut, a need for something he can’t name but is suddenly convinced, on some fundamental level, that he could finally have. Something Ilya could give him, that he could find in them–in the way they relax into the kiss just as quickly as they relaxed into the hug, the way they invited this and then surrendered to it so easily. He can feel their hands balled up in the fabric of his shirt and now they are holding him fast, telling him stay here, stay. There’s a stability, a realness to being held that he had allowed himself to forget. A feeling of certainty in being this close to another person, feeling the rise and fall of their breath and the warmth of their skin. Of course he would stay, he would dissolve into this moment, fall into Ilya’s orbit like a captured moon, let himself be pinned through the chest and held in place forever-

Then the rational part of his brain finally catches up only to bring the rest of it to a stuttering halt as it cries out you can’t, you can’t have this, you can’t want this. He breaks away with a sharp inhale, a breathless silence hanging between them as he leans back into Ilya’s arms still wrapped around him. They let their head tip back to thump softly against the wall, seemingly unaware of his sudden discomfort as they study him with an expression that’s difficult to read. Eyes a little wide, skin darkened by a subtle flush across their cheeks and the wry twist of a smile just barely tugging at the corner of their lips again. Maksim’s chest constricts with growing unease and he lets his gaze fall, grasping for something to settle on other than their eyes.

As they so often are, Ilya is the one to find the nerve to break that silence, though they still sound a little stunned. “Sure, that’s one way to shut me up I guess.”

“Sorry,” Maksim utters, and the contrition feels wrong on his tongue, feels like someone else speaking for him. He doesn’t want to apologize. There are so many things that he does want but he’s pushing them all back down below the surface where they’re quiet. Where it’s safe.

“I’m… not complaining.” There's a note of surprise in their tone… at hearing themself say it? Or just at the fact that Maksim needed to hear it? It doesn't matter, he doesn’t want to know what they’re thinking. He wills his hands to loosen, to let Ilya go, and is at once both relieved and disappointed when they take it as a signal to do the same and allow him to step away. It's for the best, he tells himself. Because what he wants won't be good enough, it won't be enough, it never is, and he can't bear the thought of facing that frustration and disappointment again. Not from Ilya, not after all this. Best to never let it come to that.

#ghost city #maksim girard #ilya kasharin #Maksim has some Trauma™ around being ace and not having his boundaries respected in the past #and his solution has mostly been to repress any impulse toward physical affection for fear of '''sending the wrong signals''' #so he's initially unsettled by the intensity of his feelings for Ilya bc another ~miscommunication~ like that could ruin everything :( #it never occurs to him to just ask otherwise he'd know Ilya's also ace LOL #rom fiction