Thank you for making me such a cute picture for my Birthday, yesterday, Kit.

Here's a little something for you to read.

Disclaimer: Nothing.

-Routine-

We never break routine, and we never know why. I come home first, every night, relax for a few minutes, change, and then start dinner. An hour later, he walks in, locks the door behind him, and changes out of his work clothes. I always get a kiss, when he joins me by the stove, before he pushes me away and takes over. Routine, I tell you, is addictive. I put up a fight, but he shoos me away and finishes up on his own. I set the table, pore us drinks and wait for him to serve the meal, as if he was the one who slaved over it for an hour.

His lips always curve into a coy smirk; he tells me I'm beautiful, that's his prayer, and then we eat, whilst idly discussing our equally boring days at work.

I do not mind the routine, habituations, and our regular schedule – of course not; this is the week and a hectic pace, induces stress. Either of us can cope with anxiety anymore. We take things at our own pace; we have found our comfortable rhythm. There is nothing wrong with that. We are not boring; we still find ways to entertain ourselves. Guests still frequently come visit us. On days off, we go out together and do something different.

And we are not predictable.

I'm smiling again; I think he has noticed that I was daydreaming about him, us, this and that. I tell him I love him and do not want things to change.

He agrees; that is no surprise. We like surprises; random things occur all the time in our lives that we cannot control, but a sense of authority over our futures is nice. We need to know that the other will be there in the morning. We need security. We need one another. We need other things like money, and a better apartment but we have learned, over time that materialism brings us nothing but debts.

Our routine allows for us to life normal lives. We've always desired normality but we wanted each other a lot more. I could have easily found a nice girl, willing to accept my past and start a family. But no matter how much I wanted to blend in, I still wanted to stand out, in my very own way. I'm pretty sure he feels the same and together, well, we can do that.

We're two men, in love, living like everyone else in the world.

There's nothing wrong with that, either.

We have routines just like everyone else.

The only difference is, our mailbox says Ivanov and Kuznetsov.

But even strangers, at first glance, wouldn't think anything of our last names.

You have to come upstairs to see that we're different, even though we're not.

-EndE-