Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Ilya does not fuck men often. It is not because he doesn’t like men. Ilya loves men. Ilya loves women. He is not picky about bodies; not unless it is to do with a person’s designation. Then, he is very picky and for very good reason.

“Rozy loves his omegas,” his teammates will boast to whoever will listen. “Some days he gets to the rink still stinking of them. He’s a player, you know. True alpha type.”

Ilya does love omegas. Ilya loves omegas regardless of gender, although he is seen with female omegas more than any other combination. Statistically, they’re more common, but that is not why Ilya likes them. He likes how they are soft and gentle and can take his cock like they’re made for it. 

And if you ask anyone who knows him even a little, they will claim Ilya does not like alphas.

Shane Hollander is an alpha, and to the rest of the world, so is Ilya Rozanov.

Fucking an alpha does not bother him like it would the rest of the world.

Neither does it seem to bother Shane Hollander.

“I want to fuck you,” Ilya says, voice echoing in his large, fancy hotel room which does not, and likely never will, feel like home. “Will you let me fuck you, Hollander?”

A few mind blowing blowjobs in anonymous hotel rooms between alphas, athletes at that, is not as uncommon as the masses believe. Sex, on the other hand, is not.

Hollander, alpha darling and captain of the Montreal Metros, does not recoil like so many have before. He does not spit vitriol about not being that kind of hockey player, about being a true blooded alpha man. No, Hollander moans, turns to liquid within the cage of Ilya’s arms, and rolls over like a good boy.

“Fuck yes,” he says, shoving an already half-empty bottle of lube at him. “Get me ready.”

It takes Ilya seconds to return to his body. The sight of Hollander stretched out over the bed, round backside propped up and ready to go, is almost too much to comprehend. It is a good thing Ilya is a quick thinker.

Hollander’s flesh is silky smooth under his large hands, his hole tight and unyielding when Ilya nudges his thumb experimentally against it.

“I do not often meet alphas willing to bend over for another man.” He is a quick thinker, but that does not mean he is smart. “Full of surprises, yes?”

“Try to fuck a lot of alphas?” Hollander grunts when Ilya squeezes a generous squirt of lube down his crack. “That’s cold.”

“Is not cold.” Ilya would know—Shane should know, too—but he warms it up with his fingers anyway, smoothing it over Hollander’s entrance. “I have shared my body with very few alphas. As said, not many are willing.” His thumb finally slips into Hollander’s hole, his body so hot and tight around him, Ilya wonders if there will be any penetration tonight after all. “You are very willing.”

From his place behind him, all Ilya can see are Hollander’s shoulders are tense and trembling as he is gently opened by Ilya’s thumb. When no response comes, Ilya pulls out, ignores Hollander’s protesting whine, and slips him his middle and index fingers. It is a further stretch, but Hollander takes it well.

Hollander takes many things well, Ilya thinks.

“Feels like you do this a lot,” Hollander grunts. He is slowly relaxing around Ilya’s fingers with every thrust. “Should I be jealous?”

“Mm, nothing to be jealous of,” is Ilya’s dismissive answer. It is not false, because Ilya will not dream of doing this with anyone else for a long, long time. He twists his fingers and spreads them as wide as he can, drawing a sharp gasp from the man beneath him. “How could I find this anywhere else?”

“With any omega you want.”

Ilya removes his fingers, ignores Hollander’s questioning noises, and slips a condom on his hard cock. 

“Why would I want omega?” he muses, notching his head at Hollander’s grasping, desperate hole. “Why would I, when this is better?”

Hollander is molten inside, even through the condom. He sucks him in slowly, hotter and tighter than any of the omegas he’s fucked before. A glove made just for Ilya to sink into, and to forget this isn’t the right way.

“Rozanov,” Hollander gasps wetly, face half-buried in the pillow. His eyes are hazy, lips bitten red from the effort of keeping his voice in. Ilya would like to break him, he decides, before he puts him back together. Yes, he would like that very much.

“Okay?” Ilya asks, voice only a little weak. “Hollander, you okay?”

“Fuck me,” is his succinct reply, and Ilya is only so strong against such sweet pleas.

He grips Hollander’s hips tight and pushes in.

Ilya is no stranger to fucking. He is good at it. He enjoys it. He is an athlete, built for endurance. This is standard for him, being the one thrusting inside a hot, tight body.

He is not as used to it being Hollander’s body, the same man he’s fooled around with for years, and somehow that makes all the difference.

“Fuck, you are gorgeous,” he pants, craning down as he fucks into his body to lick stripes over Hollander’s sweaty neck and shoulders. He tastes like heady alpha and it makes him hotter. “You do not know it, do you, sweetheart?”

Hollander whines beneath him, hole clenching around him tight, body twisting and turning into the sensations. “Rozanov—”

“Mm, yes. Say my name. Say it, Hollander. Say it.”

His sweet alpha is only too happy to oblige. “Rozanov!” he moans, body clenching tight, neck curled down as if to hide from him.

It would be sweeter to hear Ilya fall from his lips, but he will take what he can get.

“That is it,” he grunts, hands slipping on slick hips as he speeds up, cock mercilessly being buried inside Hollander’s tight asshole without reprieve. “Good boy, good, good for me, Hollander, you—fuck—you take me like such a good alpha. So good, so perfect.”

Most alphas do not like it when Ilya starts to run his mouth, both on the rink and in bed, but Hollander proves the outlier.

“Yes,” he cries, tighter than ever, back bowed in a perfect arch. “I’m a good—good alpha, yours, your alpha, all for you, Rozanov, all for you.” He gasps, wet and teary, and when Ilya tugs his head back by gripping his thick, black hair, he sees he is crying and oh—

Ilya desperately wants to slip free of Hollander, slick his alpha’s cock, and climb over to straddle his hips before sinking down. His hole clenches down at the very idea of it, getting fucked hard and dirty for the first time in this cold apartment where no one knows him. He’s only ever touched himself, has never let another person there before. He couldn’t risk his career, couldn’t ask some alpha to fuck him stupid and keep quiet about it, not when they’d had the Ilya Rozanov beneath them, not when that Ilya Rozanov is an omega.

He wants it with Hollander. Against all of his reason, Ilya wants to get fucked until he can remember nothing but the sound of his name spilling from Hollander’s lips.

He will have to settle for this instead; fucking Hollander like another alpha would, brutal and fast and without feeling. Like it’s a game, a challenge, and a fight all in one. Even when he wants to curl into his neck and lick the sweat-slick skin there and mouth and suck and bite at that special little spot under Hollander’s ear until they’re bound together forever.

No, Ilya will take what he can get. He will savour what he is allowed.

Ilya cums in a rush and without his consent, full-bodied and overwhelmed from the very idea of being fucked by the man he is current buried inside. His head is filled with static, his body charged and breath lost. He cums and he cums and it feels like the first time because it may as well be. The first time buried inside Shane Hollander, and Ilya is already ruined for anyone else.

When he returns to his body, he finds Hollander whining like a bitch in heat, fucking himself back onto Ilya’s softening cock, desperately chasing his own orgasm.

How discourteous of him.

“Good boy,” Ilya rumbles, reaching around to grasp hold of Hollander’s neglected cock. “Look at you, so good for me, waiting as I took my own pleasure from your pretty body. Now you will give it all to me, yes? I am owed it.”

“Yeah,” Hollander slurs, voice thick like syrup even as Ilya strokes him until he’s a whimpering, shivering mess. Until his thick alpha cum is drenching the bed and Ilya’s hand and the scent of it, fuck, it is everywhere.

It takes everything in Ilya not to toss him onto his back, crawl down the bed, and suck him down.

“You didn’t—” Hollander shudders and gasps and whines as Ilya milks his knot with his hand, squeezing the very last of his cum from his body because as far as Ilya is concerned it now belongs to him. “Fuck, Rozanov. You didn’t knot?”

“I do not,” he replies into Hollander’s trembling shoulder, quick and without telling inflection, voice still wavering from the effort, giving his knot one last squeeze—and selfishly enjoying his overstimulated, punched-out whine—before regretfully releasing him. “Not with everyone.”

It is not a lie. Ilya does not let anyone fuck him, let alone knot him.

Hollander collapses onto his stomach, landing in his own wet patch.

“Oh.”

Ilya disposes of the condom while Hollander is catching his breath, even though he would prefer to stay and bask in those sweet seconds afterwards. It physically hurts to extract himself from Hollander, but he is far too perceptive.

Ilya ties the condom—far less used than an alpha’s should be—and throws it away, hiding the evidence as best he can considering the circumstances. If he were in Hollander’s hotel room, he would probably go as far as taking it with him.

When he returns, he finds that Hollander has not moved. The bed is warm and it smells like them but not; like Hollander’s rich alpha scent, crisp like the morning after first snow and heady like cut pine. It smells like nothing of Ilya besides the generic fake alpha scent created by his suppressants. Hollander does not say anything, but he might realise the longer Ilya lingers.

It is dangerous, but Ilya would like to stay.

Ilya drapes himself over his back, to press wet kisses along his spine, and to whisper in his ear; “Are you jealous?”

“Of what?” is Hollander’s pissy reply.

“Of alpha you think I am knotting.”

Hollander stiffens beneath him.

“No,” he grumbles.

“Do not be.” Ilya leans back to palm Hollander’s cheeks, spreading them apart to see his work. He would like to see his own cum, thin and clear as it is, leak out of his hole, but it does not. For a moment, he pretends the lube is his cum. Hollander squirms when he presses his thumb back inside, but does not protest. “It is not good for alpha to knot another alpha. Dangerous.”

At least, that is what Svetlana told him. Ilya wouldn’t know.

“I’m not saying I wanted it,” Hollander says, but Ilya can already read him so well. “I just thought—It doesn’t matter.”

“Mm.” Ilya lets it go. For now. He spanks one cheek, then the other, then allows himself to be tossed over by Hollander’s powerful thighs and scooped up to rest on his chest.

It is a good place to be. He could almost fall asleep.

And then Hollander’s lips drift over his cheekbone, over his Cupid’s bow, down to nose along Ilya’s jawline, then to his neck and suddenly he would rather be a million miles away.

“I will shower now,” Ilya mutters, wrenching himself free of comfort to the cold reality of his existence because he can allow himself to fuck Hollander, he can even allow some playful teasing, but he cannot allow him to go near his scent gland. “Okay?”

He can see how Hollander flounders for a moment from the drastic flip before he regains his bearings, cool indifference slipping over his pretty features like a grotesque mask. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Go ahead. I’ll, uh. I guess I’ll get going?”

“Yes. Good idea. See you next game.” Ilya doesn’t wait to watch Hollander get dressed and leave, and instead retreats to the shower. Besides, he is not sure he is able to.

Even still, he hears the click of the door closing after five minutes of uselessly running the shower, staring into the mirror at his own sorry reflection.

He cannot let that happen again, but he will.

Chapter Text

Hollander always knots. 

It surprised Ilya the first time. They were only a few months into their first season when Ilya found himself on his knees in a hotel shower with his mouth around Hollander’s thick cock. The fleshy base started to swell under Ilya’s attentive grip, and Hollander cried out and shook before pulling him off only to cum far more than Ilya ever has all over his chest.

Ilya thought alphas only knotted when inside of someone, but of course it would take Hollander to prove him wrong.

“It’s embarrassing,” Hollander mumbled when Ilya questioned it. “Other guys don’t do that, but I can’t help it. It just… it just happens.”

“This happens with all of your conquests?” Ilya teased, only half seriously. Am I special, Shane Hollander?

“It just happens,” Hollander replied, but not without a petulant look in his eye as if challenging him.

At the time, Ilya tried not to think too much about it. Perhaps some alphas did knot every time, the method of their orgasm not a consideration.

Nor was the partner, apparently.

Yet the more they hooked up in anonymous cities around North America, Ilya couldn’t help but wonder if Shane Hollander was popping a knot with anyone else.

If he was knotting anyone else.

Ilya tries to tell himself that he isn’t jealous, but he is. He’s ridiculously jealous to the point where it consumes him. 

He jerks off in the shower of his empty Boston apartment imagining putting his mouth around Shane Hollander’s knot.

He fingers himself wondering what it would be like to be stuffed full and plugged up by Shane Hollander’s knot.

Ilya even imagines what it would be like to be fucked in the middle of a full blown heat, what it would feel like to be held down and thoroughly bred in the safety of his own nest by his very own alpha Shane Hollander.

Yet only one of his many fantasies can be acted on whenever they can spare a moment away from reality.

“Would you fuck my mouth if I let you?” Ilya murmurs into the crease of Hollander’s thigh.

“Fuck, yes,” Hollander breathes. They are stretched out over the length of the large bed, and Hollander’s head is against Ilya’s pillow. If he is lucky it will still smell like him when he goes to bed tonight.

Ilya grinds his bare cock against the mattress and mouths along his freckled belly to kitten lick the tip of Hollander’s pretty dick.

Already, the soft skin at the base of his cock is starting to swell. Not only does he knot all the time, Hollander also knots quickly.

“Remember when you knotted hands free?” Ilya teases, the tip of his tongue tracing a thick vein down the length of Hollander’s cock to the base.

“Hard to forget,” he forces out between gritted teeth. “‘Cause you don’t let me.”

“Is nice memory.” Ilya has used it while fucking his fist many times since. “How fast do you knot on your own?”

He swallows down his length then, just to hear Hollander struggle to answer.

“Fuck, fuck, I dunno, I think—god, fuck yes—like, ten minutes?”

Ilya pulls off, the wet sound obscene in the otherwise silent bedroom. “You have knotted in three with me.”

Hollander flushes even redder. It makes his freckles stand out even more.

“Of course it would be quicker with someone else.”

“Weak defence.” Ilya wraps his fingers around Hollander’s growing knot, squeezing it the same way a hot cunt would. It sends him gasping, shaking, shivering towards an orgasm only Ilya can control. “You are too easy to play. Like hockey. I am good at this, too.”

“Fuck you,” Hollander spits, even with his entire body one tense line. Then, when Ilya squeezes his knot again, he begs. “Please, Rozanov.”

“Asking so nicely.”

“Begging, more like.”

As if to prove a point, Ilya releases him.

Only to return his mouth to Hollander’s growing knot.

“By the way, I wanted to—” Hollander grunts, fingers threading through Ilya’s curls as he starts to suckle on the sensitive skin. “Fuck, Rozanov. I gotta—wait, I’m trying to—”

Ilya regrettably pulls back again, because clearly Hollander can barely string a sentence together while his mouth is on him.

“What?” he asks, grumpy.

Hollander’s head falls back against the pillow. “Fuck.”

“What is it?” Ilya demands. He has a thick cock in front of him and he is not allowed to suck it right now, and to make matters worse, Hollander is stroking Ilya’s hair like he is a pet.

“My rut is coming up soon,” Hollander says in a rush, almost as if he can’t get the words out quick enough. It takes Ilya a second to translate, to comprehend, then form a reply.

“Is it?” he says lamely, because what else is there to say?

Thank you for telling me, Hollander. Should I go off my suppressants at the same time so we may engage in the dirtiest heat sex known to man?

Hollander’s cock wilts under Ilya’s gaze. Mm. Not the response he wished for, then.

“Yeah. It’s not going to be during a scheduled game, and my ruts are usually pretty standard. Three days, nothing crazy, you know…”

Ilya does not.

“That is good.” Ilya returns his mouth to Hollander’s cock, because it is sad watching it deflate when it should instead be down his throat.

He hears Hollander’s head hit the pillow again.

“Yeah,” he says, a little strangled as Ilya works down the length of the cock. “Yeah, it’s good. I’m lucky in that. I—ngh, fuck, Rozanov… I hear other alphas aren’t as regular.”

He might as well just come out and say it.

Ilya pulls off again, but this time he keeps a firm grip on his knot. He makes sure to look up at Hollander, a predatory smile on his face.

“You want to ask me something?” he teases, even as his stomach swoops low.

Hollander turns red—redder—and nods. His hand returns to its gentle stroking. It is almost too much for Ilya to take.

“I dunno what your ruts are like, or if they’ll sync, but… I saw you don’t have any games either, and I know—or, I’ve heard, I mean—that ruts are easier to spend with someone else. But that’s only if you want to, so…” He inhales sharply. “Do you want to spend my rut with me?”

Ilya feels sick with equal parts desire and fear.

“There is no one else?”

He isn’t sure why that is his first thought. Not a protest, or a refusal. No, a question which has been burning through Ilya’s mind ever since Hollander first confessed to knotting every single time.

Hollander doesn’t look at him. “No,” he says quietly. “I don’t do that with anyone else.”

Fuck.

There’s no one else.

“Is bad idea.”

It’s an understatement, but a true one. Even if Ilya were what he presents himself to be, two alphas in rut—or even just the one—would be a disaster.

As it is, one rutting alpha and an omega hiding his designation behind suppressants would be a fucking shitshow.

Not that he can actually tell Hollander this, even if he now desperately fucking wants to.

Hollander’s nose scrunches when he’s distinctly unhappy, his freckles bunching up. “Why not?”

“You would try to assert dominance.” Ilya kisses his nipple in a wordless apology, then bites it because he wants to. Hollander hisses. “Is bad.”

“I wouldn’t,” he grumbles, trying to rub his nipple. Ilya beats him to it and starts to suckle it instead. Hollander’s hand comes back to rest on the back of Ilya’s head instead. “I know I wouldn’t. I don’t get mean when I’m in rut. I get…”

He doesn't finish his sentence. Ilya pulls back, a string of saliva connecting his bottom lip to Hollander’s shiny red nipple.

“You get?” Ilya repeats.

“Needy.”

Ilya does not try to stifle his laugh. “You are needy already.”

“Needier.”

“Hard to imagine.”

“Asshole.” Hollander tries to roll away, but Ilya does not let him. “Let go. I wanna leave.”

“No, you do not,” Ilya murmurs. He rubs the nipple again, and tries not to think about Hollander doing the same to him. “You want to spend your rut with me?”

Hollander stills, like he will spook Ilya if he moves too quickly. “Yes. Yeah, I do.”

Ilya is no frightened horse. “And if I wish to fuck you during rut?” He curls his grip back around what remains of his half-inflated knot. “What will you do then?”

Hollander squirms, oversensitive but aroused. “I’d let you.”

“Mm, is not an alpha’s nature,” Ilya warns.

“It is mine.”

Ilya removes his hands—and attempts to ignore Hollander’s protesting whine—allows the words to sit with him, to consider the implications. Could he fuck Hollander during his rut without fear? He isn’t certain. He had only slept with a few alphas before Hollander, and none in rut, but their reputations do not fill him with confidence.

Alphas are wild and cocky and aggressive. In rut they are likely to fuck any hole available to them, regardless of whether it belongs to an omega, a beta, or even another alpha.

Ilya is not an alpha, but as far as Hollander knows, he is one. A textbook alpha at that, and certainly not an alpha with a reputation as one who would happily roll over for another alpha in rut.

Ilya has carefully crafted this persona his entire life. He isn’t certain he is capable of being anything else anymore.

Even if he would like to.

“If I want to tie you down during your rut?” Ilya challenges. “What then?”

“You can do that,” Hollander is quick to agree. He sounds eager. “I think I’d actually like that. I get so worked up during it, it’d be nice to have someone else in charge. But the rut, it’s like… something else takes over. Like it’s not me, y’know?” He laughs, nervous and reedy. “What am I even saying? Of course you know.”

Ilya does not. At least, not firsthand. His only comparable experience was his first heat, and he tries to forget about that every single day.

“I do not,” Ilya decides to say, despite the way Hollander’s face seems to drop. “I do not feel much different during mine.”

“Oh, well… I guess I’m just weird then.” Hollander laughs again, but this time it is sharp. Painful. Ilya does not like it. “I always wondered if I was a fucked up alpha. I thought maybe I was normal because I could be aggressive on the ice—” Debatable, as Ilya had to pull out most of his techniques to truly annoy him. “—but man, doing this with you makes me think there a something really fucked up inside me.”

Ilya wants to lean into his conversation and away from it. He wants to bury himself inside of Hollander’s body and worm himself into his heart. He wants to validate his feelings—because has he not just spoken what Ilya has been thinking his entire life?—and run as far away as possible and never return.

“Not fucked up,” he says instead. Ilya does not have the vocabulary in English to say anything more. “Not fucked up… I will share rut with you. I would like that, if you want.”

Hollander smiles. It’s weak and watery, but not hurt. Not pained. Not anymore.

“Thanks,” he replies.

Ilya shrugs, and bends down to press his lips between Hollander’s pecs to avoid that look in his eyes.

“Is not difficult,” he says between kisses. “You will not tire out so quickly like you do now. More fun, yes? I will make you cum many times. We can set records.”

“Yeah, sure.” Hollander laughs and wraps his arms around Ilya’s head, burying his long fingers in his curls like he belongs there. Maybe they do.

Ilya could sink into this domesticity, but he doesn’t let himself.

“Can I fuck you now?”

Hollander’s nose scrunches up again, but Ilya can see he wants it just as much as him.

This is a game they’ve played multiple times now, so much so that it is second nature to thoroughly prepare Hollander. There are artificially slicked fingers slipped into his hole, stretched until Ilya is happy with the pitch of his moans, before Ilya slides a pointless condom on and fucks into him.

They both groan in unison when Ilya stills.

“Is good thing I fuck you,” Ilya teases, breathless as he massages Hollander’s now fully inflated knot. He hadn’t come yet, but he’s always so close. “Would not get very far with this.”

“Shut up,” Hollander gasps. “Wait. Wait, I wanna ride you. Let me—”

He’s so sweet in bed, sometimes Ilya forgets Hollander can toss him around just as easily as Ilya does to him. But then Hollander pushes him onto his back, and another sensation ripples through him.

He ignores it. He takes control again, hands tight enough to bruise on Hollander’s hips. Ilya fucks up into him until Hollander is yelling through his orgasm and cumming copious amounts over Ilya’s chest.

Ilya cums into the condom again, and wishes he didn’t.

Hollander stays in bed for an hour this time, whether it is because Ilya has agreed to help him through his rut or otherwise, he is not sure.

Ilya knows he is getting in too deep. He should not have agreed to help Hollander, he should not even talk to Hollander about anything involving their designations.

Now he is going to work Hollander through a rut. He is going to have to scent him at his best and listen to him talk to Ilya as if he is more and how is he supposed to handle that?

How is Ilya supposed to pretend to be something he is not with Hollander tied up at his mercy?

He is not certain he can. He does not think he wants to anymore.

Only two people have ever known about Ilya’s designation; one of them killed herself, and the other one can barely remember who Ilya is.

Adding a third person to that list is beyond terrifying.

Ilya hates that he’s even considering it.

Chapter Text

Ilya does not see Shane Hollander for three weeks after he agrees to spend his rut with him.

It is not ideal. There is a sinking, clawing sensation in the pit of his stomach which grows every second the time grows closer. There are a million ways this could go wrong, beyond even what Ilya’s overactive brain can come up with first.

Shane isn’t stupid. He is boring and hyper focused on hockey, but he notices things about Ilya and he has already pushed his luck too far. Five years of this and somehow Ilya has managed to keep his little secret all to himself.

Three people. One dead. One dying.

And Ilya.

Hollander sends a text the week before his rut is due, then another one the day before, and a final one that night. As if Ilya is going to forget.

Then, Ilya’s phone vibrates during dinner with his publicist.

Jane: come to apartment soon investment one downtown let yourself in

He finds it difficult to concentrate for the rest of the meal.

The text lacks Hollander’s usual attention to proper grammar, but Ilya isn’t an asshole like he is and doesn’t point it out. He will later, maybe. Depending on how he feels afterwards. What he feels afterwards.

Hollander was right, Ilya notes as he lets himself into the familiar building through the propped-open back door. His rut was timely and they don’t have a game in the next few days, which leaves more than enough time to get through Hollander’s rut.

As he takes the stairs two steps at a time, he wonders what Hollander does when he has a rut during a game. It never occurred to Ilya to consider what he should be doing, and the concept of missing a game to pretend to have a rut wasn’t ever on the table. He guesses everyone assumed he was lucky with the timing of his ruts, or taking suppressants, or was fucking impotent. Who knows. Who cares, as long as none of the signs pointed to omega.

But Hollander has ruts. Hollander isn’t on suppressants. Hollander is clearly regular enough to predict it down to the day.

Hollander has never missed a game.

“Hello,” Ilya sings, entering Hollander’s fancy apartment with slow, measured steps.

Hollander has always let him inside before, a heated gaze the second the door opens followed quickly by his mouth devouring Ilya’s. This time, there is nothing but eerie silence.

“Hello?” Ilya tries again. He locks the door firmly behind him, then double-checks it. “Hollander? Are you hiding?”

There’s no answer. He wonders if Hollander is already so far into his rut that he’s nonverbal, if Ilya is going to find some rabid alpha waiting for him, and what he’ll do then.

Probably roll over and let Hollander do what he wants, if he is honest.

“Is this big elaborate joke?” Ilya wanders into the kitchen and finds it empty and ridiculously tidy. It doesn’t look like Hollander has been here long. Ilya wonders if he has even stocked the fridge.

The living room is also untouched, save for a jacket uncharacteristically thrown over the back of the couch. The first sign of life, and it settles something in Ilya’s gut.

The bedroom, then.

He barely sets foot in the room before Hollander steps out of the bathroom, naked and in a plume of steam, towel strung over his head.

“Hello,” Ilya greets.

“Oh, fuck!” Hollander jumps back and rushes to pointlessly swing his towel around his waist. “Rozanov. You scared the shit out of me!”

“Sorry,” Ilya says, not really sorry at all. “I called your name. You did not answer.”

“Sorry,” Hollander echoes. His shoulders relax, and he scrubs his hand over his face. This close, Ilya can see the dark circles heavy under his eyes. “I was showering.”

“Yes. I see that.” There are tiny droplets of water hanging from strands of Hollander’s dark hair. Ilya watches as one falls, hands on his shoulder, and slides down between his pecs. “A hot one?”

“Yeah. I know doctors say cold showers are better during a rut, but I can’t face it, y’know?” He sheepishly rubs the back of his neck. “We spend enough time on the ice.”

“Yes,” Ilya says slowly. “You are feeling it, then?”

“My rut? Uh, yeah. Since… since yesterday.”

“Why did you not message yesterday?”

It would have saved Ilya an annoying dinner where his publicist suggested he start dating Svetlana more seriously.

“You’re getting older,” she’d said with a gentle smile. “The playboy thing wears thin once you hit your mid-twenties. Besides, most of the players in the league are in committed relationships already and Ms. Vetrova would be a good match.”

He wanted to say that Shane Hollander wasn’t in a committed relationship and seemed to be doing fine, but kept his mouth shut instead. No need to complicate her job further.

“It wasn’t that bad,” is Hollander’s weak reply. He returns to the bathroom. Ilya follows. “It was mostly just hot. I turned the AC on, that made it bearable.”

“Hm.” Ilya watches as he finishes drying his hair and starts to pull on a pair of sweats. “Why are you getting dressed? Hard to fuck when you are wearing clothes.”

Although not impossible.

Hollander pauses, a t-shirt in his hands. “I… should we start now?”

Ilya shrugs, aiming for casual but probably failing. “If you want.”

Hollander inhales, then nods. “Yeah. We should start now, otherwise it’ll get worse.”

Ilya clicks his tongue and follows Hollander back into the bedroom. “See? You should not wait. Bad for you.”

“Shut up.” Hollander shoots him a scathing look.

Ilya grins. “So, how do you want to do this?”

Do you want me to look you in the eye while I fuck you through your rut, or is that too personal?

“Oh! Right. I brought, um….” Ilya watches Hollander scramble to his bedside table before shoving a package wrapped in a brown paper bag towards him. “Here.”

“Oh, Hollander. You did not have to.” Ilya tears open the bag, and holds up the fake handcuffs in surprise. “Hm. You really did not have to.”

Hollander flushes red and stammers something embarrassing like remember? I need to be tied up as Ilya inspects the sex cuffs. They are poorly made and lined with pink fluff, but have no padding. If Hollander were to use them during his rut, tugging cruelly at his wrists for hours on end, he would surely injure himself.

“I do not know this side of you,” Ilya teases before tossing the cuffs aside. They will not be using them tonight. “Is dangerous to use those. Too rough.”

“Oh.”

Hollander can’t seem to look him in the eye. His face is red, but his neck is redder. He is surely burning up from the inside out by now, but he doesn’t show it. Not the way Ilya thought an alpha in rut would.

“Yes, oh,” Ilya says drily. He would kill for a cigarette, but he hasn’t smoked in months. “If you want to be tied up so badly, I have solution.”

Ilya doesn’t tie Hollander’s arms to either side of the bed frame how he would anyone else requesting some light bondage play. This isn’t some unknown tryst, this is Hollander and this is his rut. Ilya wants more from this, and more for Hollander.

“How does it feel?” he asks once he’s finished tying his own silk tie around Hollander’s wrists. “Comfortable?”

Hollander flexes his arms above his head. Ilya has tied them together, but without any tension. He has room to turn over or sit up if he really wanted to, but not enough to touch Ilya. There is no reach to grab him and turn him over and fuck him like an alpha would.

He almost regrets it.

“They’re good.” Hollander’s chest rises and falls with every deep breath he takes. He tries to pull free again, this time with more effort, but can’t. “Yeah. Yeah, this is good.”

“I like seeing you like this,” Ilya murmurs, dragging his fingers down and over his bunched muscles. He wants to put his mouth on the faint smattering of freckles over his hips then take his cock down his throat. Yes, that is a good idea. “At my mercy. Is good look.”

Hollander laughs, but it’s on the edge of hysterical. “Is it? I can’t even imagine what I look like.”

Ilya drags his fingertips up to his pecs and squeezes one. It gives way under his grip, plump flesh spilling over between his fingers. “Like you are mine,” he says, entranced. “Like you belong to me.”

Hollander exhales, breath stuttering. His hips jerk up to meet Ilya’s, their covered cocks briefly brushing together through thick fabric.

They groan in unison.

“Fuck,” Hollander whines, and Ilya can see that he is now truly starting to descend into the throes of his rut. “Fuck, Rozanov, I think I’m… This is faster than usual.”

“Usual?” Ilya says, wondering what more lies beneath. “You have fucked many people in rut? Women? Men?”

Who?

“No, no one,” is Hollander’s rushed answer, said as if he could not get the words out quick enough. “It usually takes longer for me to feel like this, but I’m—” He groans, head thrown back, arms straining against the silk tie. “I’m usually not this desperate.”

Ilya groans, then lowers himself down to cover Hollander’s hard, hot body. “You are desperate for me,” he says, because he might die if it isn’t repeated. “You are very cute, Hollander. Very cute, and very sweaty.”

“Not cute,” Hollander protests. His arms flex.

“You do love to be wrong.” Ilya kisses down his chest, laving his tongue over his abs and freckles, dipping into his bellybutton before settling between Hollander’s spread legs. “Has anyone sucked your cock during rut before?”

“No!” Hollander gasps when Ilya parts his towel. His cock is hard already, has probably been hard the entire time, or before Ilya even arrived. “Fuck, touch me, please touch me, Rozanov, you have to, you promised, please.”

Ilya wraps his hand around Hollander’s cock, then starts to stroke him slowly, teasing him towards his first orgasm.

“You are so hard already,” Ilya murmurs, and leans down to lick over the slit of Hollander’s cock, who then whines and throws his head back. “Mm. I have not tasted alpha in rut before.”

“And?” Hollander groans between gritted teeth. He is on the knife’s edge already, the soft skin at the base of his cock already swelling. So quick, his alpha.

“Mm, is good.” Ilya doesn’t tease him any longer. He takes Hollander’s thick cock into his mouth and down his tight throat.

“Fuck!” The bedhead creaks as Hollander strains to reach him. His hips lift up, unnaturally strong, and Ilya knows he would do anything to grab Ilya’s curls, to fuck his face until he’s cumming down his throat. He might even be thinking about knotting his mouth.

Ilya groans and grinds his own cock onto the bed. Fuck, he hasn’t even taken his clothes off.

He pulls away, gasping for breath, and throws himself off the bed.

“No!” Hollander strains to break free. It’s the most out of control Ilya’s ever seen him, and he adores it. “No, no, Rozanov, I—Come back, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I won’t move again, I promise, please come back.” He practically sobs, body bowing, trying to reach Ilya. “I’ll be good. Please.”

He is well into his rut now. Ilya didn’t know it would come on so fast.

“Shh, calm down.” Ilya removes his clothes faster than he ever has before, feigning calm even as his own instincts are screaming at him to go back, to help, to tend to his alpha. “Hollander, I will—no, calm down. No pulling. Is bad. You need those hands to play.”

Hollander does calm down, even through the haze of his rut. He collapses back onto the bed, his body deceptively loose as his eyes track every one of Ilya’s movements. There’s something of a predator in there.

“Okay,” he says, voice a little bit slurred. “Okay, R-Rozanov.”

Ilya finishes undressing, leaving his clothes piled on the floor because he does not have Hollander’s fastidious nature, and returns to the bed.

He doesn’t bother with sucking him down this time, and instead wraps one hand around Hollander’s cock, and the other hand around his swelling knot.

Hollander yelps and tenses up, but doesn’t pull against his bindings again. 

“Yes, that’s it,” Ilya praises, then starts to stroke his cock at a cruel pace. “I will milk your orgasm from you now, yes? Be good boy and stay still for me, Hollander.”

Hollander is gorgeous like this, restrained and at Ilya’s mercy. He holds his body tight and ready, legs shaking and skin drenched with sweat as Ilya drags him to completion. He holds his knot tight and squeezes in time with his strokes.

“What a pretty knot,” Ilya teases, abandoning Hollander’s cock momentarily to put both hands on his knot. “The prettiest I’ve seen, Hollander.”

“Rozanov!” 

It would be so fucking easy to swing his legs over Hollander’s hips and slide down onto his cock. To look him in the eye and ride him until he begged to be allowed to knot Ilya.

He doesn’t. He won’t, not ever, even if he desperately wants to.

“Cum for me now, Hollander,” Ilya demands, indulging in his fantasy. “I want it. I want your cum. I want you.”

Hollander’s back arches and his body goes ramrod straight and he cums all over his belly and his chest and Ilya’s hands. It’s overwhelming and it’s beautiful and even though Ilya can’t believe he’s never let himself experience this before, he cannot imagine doing it with anyone else.

“Oh, god. Fuck me,” Hollander begs as he comes down, face still red from the force of his orgasm. When Ilya looks down, he finds his cock is still hard against his stomach. “Please, Rozanov. Fuck me now. I’ll beg, you know I will.”

Ilya grins. “There is no need to beg.”

Even if it sounds so good coming from his sweet mouth.

Ilya fucks him three times until the sky has darkened and he is covered in sweat. He is ready for a fourth when Hollander makes a pained sound.

“Hollander?” Ilya croaks. It is the first word he’s said in well over an hour besides incoherent noises. “Okay?”

“Fuck,” Hollander groans, eyes closed tight but otherwise relaxed. “Fuck, Rozanov. I think you killed me.”

“Is over?” Ilya asks as he carefully pulls out of Hollander’s exhausted body. He is surprised. For all he’s heard, an alpha’s rut usually lasts a full day at least, if not more. Hollander’s was only the better part of an evening. “Already?”

“I lied. My rut started three days ago,” Hollander confesses, sheepish and tired. The heated haze of his rut has already left his eyes, and only the too-aware Shane Hollander remains. “I waited to text you. I didn’t want to waste your time.”

And oh, how is Ilya supposed to tell him there is no wasted time when he is inside of him?

Ilya doesn’t reply, and Hollander takes the opportunity to tug his arms down, then looks up in surprise when the tie stops him.

“Oh. Could you please…?”

Ilya leaves him in bed rubbing his wrists to get the feeling back in his arms and goes to regretfully shower the scent of Hollander away.

When Ilya returns, he finds it as easy as breathing to fall next to Hollander, to allow his arm to snake around him. Hollander’s left hand comes to rest over Ilya’s heart. He can see the faint marks around Hollander’s wrist which will surely turn into bruises. He’s certain there will be matching marks on the other, too.

“You pulled too hard,” Ilya notes quietly. “I should not have tied you up.”

“I asked you to.”

“You have not shared your rut with anyone else,” Ilya says. He rubs the mark with his thumb. “Not with alpha, not with—not with omega. Why do this?”

He feels rather than sees him shrug. “I didn’t know what it was gonna be like. I didn’t want to… y’know. Do anything to you. This seemed easier.”

Easier to be tied up. Easier to wait until his rut was at his peak before bothering Ilya.

“Is not difficult to do this,” is Ilya’s only response. He wants a cigarette and a drink and the cold, quiet ice. “Next time, text sooner. Do not bother with restraints. You were pussycat this time, next will be no different.”

Hollander is quiet for a long, excruciating moment, and for a second Ilya wonders if he has overstepped.

Then, the hand over Ilya’s heart squeezes into a fist.

“Next time?” Hollander says quietly.

Ilya relaxes. “Yes. This was good. Easy. If our schedules align again, I will help you through your rut again. Is no problem.”

Fuck, Ilya will probably come to him even if it isn’t convenient.

“Wow. That’ll be…” Hollander huffs a laugh. “Thanks, Rozanov. You know, even if I waited to text you, this was probably the easiest rut I’ve ever had.”

Ilya can believe that.

“Yes. Is better. You will spend less time off the ice, give me actual challenge.”

Hollander laughs for real this time, the echoes Ilya feels through his entire body.

“I don’t need any extra time to beat you,” he teases. “But I do appreciate it.”

Ilya allows the moment to sink in; the warmth of the bed, of Hollander’s overheated skin, and the comfortable press between their bodies.

He has never felt so close to anyone before. He isn’t sure how he is supposed to leave this time.

“You know I can repay the favour,” Hollander says, and that warmth Ilya was feeling is gone in an instant.

“What?” Ilya asks, voice cold and clipped. He pushes himself up and off of Hollander’s chest. “What do you mean?”

Hollander seems to realise he’s misstepped, and tries to clarify. “Your own rut,” he says, a small, hesitant smile on his face. “I can help. I mean, I don’t know what yours are like, but I guess it would be like… how it usually is? Between us?”

Ilya can’t keep the scowl from his face. “I do not share my ruts,” he says, and leaves it there. The more lies he tells to Hollander the worse he’ll feel. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, um. Yeah?”

“Good.” Ilya grabs his clothes and quickly dresses. “I will go now.”

If it feels like a cowardly retreat, it’s because it is.

Hollander follows him to the door, even though Ilya can see his exhaustion clear in his sluggish movements.

Ilya wants to tell him to go back to bed, wants to undress again and curl up next to him and fall asleep. They could fuck again later, fully aware, slow and lazy. Ilya might not leave at all.

“Thanks again,” Hollander says quietly, leaning against his doorway. His arms are wrapped around himself. His wrists are already bruising.

Ilya nods, tense and nervous for too many reasons. “Yes.” He pauses at the door, then turns back to face him. For a second, he sees Hollander’s face light up before it’s carefully blank once again. “Text me when your next rut is. I will be there.”

Then, Ilya leaves. Again.

Chapter Text

Ilya discovers over a very impersonal text that Hollander’s next rut will be in January. The exchange is awkward and weird, and he knows a large part of that is because of how he left last time.

They’ve hooked up again since his rut. Small, not insignificant moments in the time before and after games, in hotels across Boston and Montreal. Ilya has long forgotten the dates, but not how Hollander’s mouth felt skating across his collarbones or how beautifully he responded when Ilya fingered and sucked his cock at the same time.

January cannot come quick enough, Ilya decides. It is hard to find these moments together, and harder to wait for time to pass in between.

The rut did nothing to quell the fire burning inside of him. It only added fuel to the flames, and now Ilya is worried his desire for Shane Hollander is going to burn him up from the inside out. Like a heat.

Not that he’ll go into heat. It’s impossible.

Everyone assumes Ilya is on “alpha” suppressants; unusual for a professional athlete and unheard of for a Russian, but what is even more unheard of is an omega being on any kind of suppressant for more than a few cycles at a time.

Ilya is going on twelve years.

He isn’t going to have a heat anytime soon. He might not even be able to have children, although that’s never been a consideration. Hockey was, and so was making his dad and his country proud.

But children…

Ilya doesn’t let himself dissect that thought anymore. Not with Hollander’s rut approaching.

Hollander’s rut is scheduled right before their next game in Montreal in January. It’s worked out well, and not for the first time does Ilya wonder if Hollander is messing with suppressants himself to time his ruts perfectly or if he’s just lucky.

Probably the latter.

They played each other the day before yesterday. That night, Hollander came to a hotel room Ilya specifically booked to hook up. They fucked for a few hours, pointedly did not talk about Hollander’s upcoming rut, then went their separate ways. 

Ilya won’t see him again for another month. It’s not the longest they’ve gone without hooking up, but it feels like it. His absence is like a bruise beneath his ribs that keeps getting checked. It can’t heal; it just grows bigger and bigger until Ilya can’t ignore it anymore.

He should go to the gym. He should work out his frustrations with a punching bag and a treadmill; then he’ll return to his empty house and not fucking smoke and go to bed at a normal hour and not think about Shane Hollander and his freckles and his fucking ruts.

Ilya’s phone vibrates, and when he checks it he sees he’s received a message from Jane.

It’s probably something stupid about the game or a random observation Hollander thinks he should know. Boring shit. Domestic shit.

Ilya doesn’t let himself pick it up straight away, but he doesn’t go to the gym either.

Instead, he makes himself drink a glass of water, because his coach is always complaining about how he drinks too much alcohol and coffee and coke to be actually hydrated.

Buzz.

He puts on a load of laundry. He makes sure to include every item of clothing he wore to see Hollander the other night to forcefully remove his scent from Ilya’s home.

Buzz.

He flicks to a game on the tv. NFL, not that he cares. They’re lumped together more often than not but Ilya couldn’t give a shit about the fucking Patriots. He watches it mindlessly.

Buzz.

Ilya gives in.

(8:37) Jane: it’s early

(8:40) Jane: my rut

(9:02) Jane: fuck im sorry it’s never been early before

(9:09) Jane: i understand if you’re busy

Then, as Ilya is reading:

(10:43) Jane: sorry. don’t worry i’ll wait it out. see you next game

Fucking fuck. While Ilya was being stupid about looking at his goddamn phone, Hollander was—

Ilya is calling him before he knows what he’s even doing. It takes three awful, agonising seconds for Hollander to pick up.

“I—Rozanov?”

He doesn’t sound gone yet, but there’s a little warble in his tone Ilya knows isn’t from static.

“Hollander.” Ilya runs his tongue along his gums and considers his words carefully. “You are in rut?”

Hollander exhales loudly in Ilya’s ear. “Yeah. Like I said, it’s early and I’m sorry but you don’t have to help me. I know it’s not what we p-planned.”

Ilya does not care.

“When?”

“When what?”

“When did you notice?”

Hollander takes a moment to answer. “Yesterday,” he says quietly.

Ilya hisses through his teeth. “Yesterday? I told you—”

“Fuck, I know!” Hollander exclaims. “I know, but I didn’t think it was even my rut, okay? It’s never been early before. Never. I thought I was—” He cuts himself off with a sad noise. “I thought I was just feeling things from… from us, you know? From the night before.”

Fuck. “Come here,” Ilya says. “To my house. Come to my house for your rut. Next game is not for a few days. We can—You can ride it out here. Is private. Quiet. You can change flights. Whatever.”

Hollander makes another little noise, somewhere between a moan and a whine. It makes Ilya crazy.

“I can’t,” Hollander says, and there’s a little hiccup at the end. “I can’t, I can’t leave my hotel room. I’m already too far gone. Someone will notice and follow me and it’ll get out and I can’t—”

Ilya is already slipping his shoes on before Hollander can even finish his sentence.

“Hotel?” he asks, keys in hand.

Ilya makes it to Hollander in fifteen minutes.

“I didn’t mean to drag you here,” Hollander says as soon as he opens the door, apologies already spilling from his lips. “I don’t know what I was thinking actually, I just remember last time you said to tell you and I sent it without thinking, so I’m sorry—”

Ilya shuts him up by kissing him. It is very effective.

Hollander falls into the kiss, his stress melting out of him until he leans completely into Ilya, pushing him against the now closed door.

“You are sorry too much,” Ilya says when they part for air. He strokes his fingers over Hollander’s freckled cheek. “You do not need to be.”

Hollander gazes at him from under thick eyelashes. “Sorry.”

Ilya replies by bending down and picking him up. Hollander wraps his legs around Ilya’s waist, and oh, he’s already hard.

“Since yesterday?” Ilya clarifies as he carries him in the direction of the bedroom. It is a nice hotel with many windows overlooking Boston, but Ilya does not care.

“Yeah.” Hollander buries his face into Ilya’s neck. It would be inconsequential as an alpha, but Ilya can’t help but feel exposed. “Like I said, I didn’t think it was…”

“Rut?” Ilya deposits him onto the bed. “Is it not obvious?”

“Maybe for you.” Hollander huffs, then starts to strip himself of his clothing. He was only wearing a t-shirt and some sweats. No underwear. He’s bare in seconds, laid out on his hotel bed like a fucking vision.

Ilya can’t believe he’s getting this again so soon.

“You are too unaware, Hollander,” Ilya teases, and starts to strip himself. “Could get yourself in trouble. What would you do if I was not here?”

“Suffer, probably,” Hollander says. His mouth is already going slack, eyes heavy-lidded with want as he tracks Ilya’s movements. Once he’s as bare as he is, Hollander reaches out.

Ilya accepts his offer and joins him. He presses the long length of their bodies together so no space remains then presses their mouths together as well.

Hollander is quickly descending into his rut, but what will he be like this time? Ilya doesn’t have a silk necktie to restrain him this time, although he isn’t sure he even needed one last time.

“I would not let you suffer,” Ilya replies into his mouth. “This should not be suffering.”

“No suffering,” Hollander repeats, although Ilya is not certain he fully understands what he is saying.

They make out for a while, languid and lazy as Hollander’s rut builds into a steady flame. There is no violence yet, nor any desperation. He wonders how long it will last.

“How do you want me this time?” Ilya asks into the quiet space between them

“No restraints.” Hollander’s hands twitch, as if he’s imagining a set of poorly made handcuffs. “If I get, um, handsy…”

“I want you to use your hands.” Ilya intertwined their fingers together. “They are nice hands. Very useful.”

Hollander huffs, but doesn’t pull free. He squeezes back instead. “If I get handsy,” he repeats, “you need to leave, okay? Don’t feel like you have to stay here if you don’t want to.”

More of this nonsense.

“I am not leaving,” Ilya promises, although not that Hollander knows it is a promise. “I will stay, like I did last time. Was easy then, will be easier now.”

“How so?”

“I will not have to worry about hurting you.”

“What?” Hollander tries to back away, but Ilya doesn’t let him. “How would you hurt me?”

Ilya drags their joined hands up between them.

“I should say instead: I do not care to worry about you hurting you,” he says simply. “Restraints are annoying.”

Hollander goes quiet, but Ilya knows he is thinking. Considering. He is thoughtful like that, often too in his own head.

“Okay, I see that,” he finally says. “But that doesn’t mean this is going to be easier. What if my mind knows I’m not tied up and I’m rougher than before?”

Ilya shrugs. “I am stronger.”

“I don’t think you are.”

“Is true. My muscles are bigger, and I am taller.”

“You are not taller than me!”

“I am. Check the stats.”

“I bet you lie on those.”

“I do not lie.” Ilya pauses. “Not about that. Not about hockey.”

“Yes, you do. All the time, actually.”

Ilya kisses him again, because he wants to win and because it’s the quickest way to distract Hollander. 

“I can handle you,” he says into his mouth, tongue tracing along his. “Whatever happens, I can handle it.”

He means it, too. He doesn’t think anything Hollander can do or say which will drive him away now, and that very thought terrifies him.

“Okay,” Hollander breathes. “Let’s do this.”

The second rut Ilya helps Hollander through is just as high energy and exhausting as the first, but this time there’s an edge Ilya didn’t really anticipate until he was in the middle of it.

“You take me so well,” Ilya pants into the space between Hollander’s shoulders. “So good for me. So—” He groans, then straightens up for better leverage. “Fucking perfect.”

“Rozanov!” Hollander responds, open-mouthed and desperate, face half-buried in the pillow. There are tears in his eyes as Ilya fucks him, slipping down his freckled cheek. “Fuck, fuck, you fuck me so good, I can’t—”

“Can’t what?” Ilya teases, just on the edge of being too mean. His hands slip across Hollander’s sweat-slick skin. “Can’t come? I think you can.” He leans back down to whisper into his ear; “You have to try harder, alpha.”

Ilya expects him to arch back more, or to reach around and pull him closer to kiss. He doesn’t.

He pushes Ilya away, rolls over onto his back, and is pulling him back with his strong, powerful thighs before Ilya can even process what is happening.

Hollander reaches up and pulls him back down. With their bodies crushed together, Hollander’s swollen knot pressed between their stomachs, he growls into Ilya’s ear: “Fuck me.”

“Oh, fuck,” Ilya groans, scoops his arms right around Hollander’s waist, and obeys. “Fuck, yes, whatever you want.”

He fucks Hollander with singleminded want, like there is nothing else in this world Ilya is capable of other than getting him through this rut. He fucks him so hard they slide up the bed, until the backs of Hollander’s thighs are bruised and Ilya’s pelvis feels ruined.

He fucks him so hard Hollander cries when he cums into Ilya’s tight fist, alpha cum drenching his chest and Ilya’s stomach and he follows after three more rough thrusts into Hollander’s tight hole.

It’s so fucking hot, Ilya can’t think straight. In fact, he can’t even really see, his sight hazy as he watches Hollander come down from his first orgasm.

His body is loose and languid, limbs aching pleasantly. He can still feel the remnants in the back of his neck, his spine, down to his lower back…

The warmth is addicting, it’s somehow familiar, it’s—

Oh, fuck.

Ilya leaves Hollander gasping for breath on the bed and escapes to the bathroom. He locks the door behind him, then shoves a towel up against the gap under the door before running the faucet.

Then, Ilya leans against the sink and breathes.

He’s wet. He’s wet from fucking Shane Hollander through his rut.

Ilya isn’t supposed to be able to get wet. He hasn’t experienced this since he was a teenager going through his first awful heat. 

On top of that, his heart is racing, his hands are shaking, and body is getting warmer, even when he splashes cold water over his face and neck.

His suppressants are top quality, none of that black market shit that fails all the time. Ilya’s barely lived as an omega for over a decade, and now he’s getting pre-heat symptoms at the worst fucking moment.

“Fuck,” he hisses, glaring at his reflection like he’s the one who fucked up because he is. He fucked up. He missed a dose or didn’t take it right or it’s—

It’s this idiotic set up he agreed to. Helping Hollander through his rut, an unmedicated alpha he already has a history with. It was practically inevitable that something would break.

It was always going to be Ilya.

He stays in the bathroom for a while, waiting for his body to calm down.

It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s just a natural response to an alpha, but his suppressants are good. Powerful. After maybe ten minutes, Ilya feels his body start to calm. His breathing evens out, his temperature goes down, and when he swipes a hand between his cheeks it comes away dry.

A blip on the radar. Nothing more.

“You left me alone,” Hollander whines when he returns, knotted cock still hard against his stomach. He’s cradling it with one hand, and reaching out for Ilya with the other. “Did I bore you?”

“Of course you did. You are boring,” Ilya says, and is happy when his voice doesn’t betray his new nerves. He settles down next to Hollander and knocks his hand out of the way to stroke his cock.

“Asshole,” Hollander replies, but he makes a small, happy noise at the same time and relaxes into his touch. It’s good. It’s familiar.

Ilya can do this. Hollander has at least another day of his rut to go, if not more since he contacted Ilya earlier this time—like he asked. He can do this, because he promised and because he wants to help him, desperately. He isn’t sure what he would do if Hollander went to find someone else to help him through his ruts.

If he found another omega to help him.

Fuck. Ilya can do this. He can.

Forcibly pushing his own worries out of the way, Ilya leans down and breathes into his open mouth: “Are you ready for round two, alpha?”

Chapter Text

Ilya is in Moscow on break when he receives three messages in a row from Shane Hollander.

Jane: I don’t know if you’ll be around, but my rut is next week. I’ll be in New York.

Jane: I understand if you don’t want to help me out again. Last time was an inconvenience.

Jane: But I just thought I’d let you know.

An inconvenience. Said as if Ilya doesn’t really care about Shane Hollander at all. As if he found the task annoying or a hassle, as if he didn’t even want to be there.

He doesn’t know why it stings so much. After helping him out through two ruts, is his participation not guaranteed? Did Ilya not show him how much he really wants to be there for him?

Probably. Ilya is not good at using his words. Sometimes his actions are also confusing, he knows this, but last time he sincerely could not help it, fleeing their bed—their makeshift, temporary nest—just as the pre-heat symptoms began. He knows shouldn’t do it again, not after the last rut. It took him a week to feel right again after he left Hollander’s hotel room.

Ilya stayed with Hollander for two full days during his last rut, and every second after the initial knot was agony. It became less about the sex and working Hollander through the rut, and more about just keeping Ilya’s body in check. His body fought his suppressants every step of the way, a faux heat desperately trying to break through. It was fucking awful. It felt like he spent half the time in the bathroom putting himself back together just to go back out and fuck Hollander again.

But that didn’t compare to when he left.

He suffered through an entire week of feeling nauseated and weak and off, like his skates were too tight and his helmet too loose. Like everything felt a little wrong. Even his body rebelled against him, going from hot to cold to angry to so fucking turned on he couldn’t think straight.

It wasn’t a heat. Ilya knows what that feels like, and this wasn’t it; but it was too close for comfort. That familiar itching want bubbled under the surface for a whole seven days until it ebbed away to dissatisfied emptiness, as though his body knew what it should have received and was instead denied.

Fuck. Fuck, he should not do this again.

He books a flight back to Boston for the next day, then opens his conversation with Shane.

Hotel?

Ilya spends a week in Boston ruminating in his house, forming messages like I changed my mind and I cannot help this time after all and deleting them all before he drives to New York.

He wears a cap and sunglasses all the way to Hollander’s door and keeps his head down the entire way. He doesn’t want to be seen in New York, neither of them need the rumours following them around.

He can see the headline now: Off-Season Scandal! Boston’s own Ilya Rozanov spotted in the same hotel as rival Shane Hollander! What are these two alpha star hockey players up to?

Fucking dirty through alpha Shane Hollander’s third rut, that’s what. Ilya could come up with a great soundbite, something about dick measuring contests.

That would probably upset Hollander.

He knocks once on the door, and is pulled inside before he can knock again.

“Rozanov,” Hollander gasps, pushing him against the closed door and taking his mouth. He lets it happen, allows himself to be dragged under the force of his rut already.

“Did you wait again?” Ilya demands between wet kisses. “Did you want to text?”

“No.” Hollander has slipped his hands under Ilya’s shirt and has started playing with his pecs, pinching his nipples. It is very distracting. 

“Hollander—”

“I didn’t wait, I promise.” He licks along Ilya’s jawline when he stops reciprocating, biting little nips into his skin that will surely show up the next day. “First day, it’s just—I dunno. It’s stronger than usual. Maybe ‘cause I knew you were coming.”

Well fuck.

“And now I am here.” Ilya pushes him away gently, just to put a little space between them to get rid of his shirt. “What shall we do now?”

They fuck. As usual during Hollander’s ruts, they fuck a lot. In the bathroom and on the sad love seat and even in front of the windows, which Hollander is only interested in during his rut and not outside of it, a fact Ilya makes sure to take advantage of.

He likes to watch Hollander’s face in the reflection of his glass when he fucks him from behind. Sue him.

It’s the second day and they’re fucking in the bed, face to face, breathing in each other’s breaths when Ilya flips them.

He forces Hollander to sit astride his hips. He looks surprised for a split second, and then melts into him, limbs going loose, face lax with pleasure.

“I want you to ride me,” Ilya says softly, dragging his hands down to rest on Hollander’s soft hips. His thumbs skim over the spot where his thighs meet his pelvis. “Take what you need and I will watch.”

He sees Hollander’s swallow. “Yeah,” he says, just as softly. “I can do that. I want that.”

I want that, too.

Hollander helps him slick his cock up and slip a new condom on. He wants to fuck him bare, desperately wants it, wants that skin-deep connection, but he can’t risk it. Can’t risk Hollander fingering himself later finding nothing but weak, colourless fluid in place of thick alpha cum.

Even if the idea of it is enough to send him wild.

“Sit down on me,” Ilya orders once he decides Hollander is ready. It doesn’t take long, the amount of times Ilya fucks Hollander during his ruts leaves him open and soft and ready. “Go on. Fuck yourself on me, rid yourself of your rut using my cock.”

“Fuck, Rozanov.” He feels rather than sees Hollander grip Ilya’s cock to notch it at his entrance. “You can’t just—fuck, fuck—can’t just say shit like that.”

“Why not?” Ilya’s voice is strangled as Hollander slowly, carefully sinks down onto his cock. “Mm, yes, like that. Not so fast, alpha. Be careful.”

“I like that.”

“Like what?”

“You calling me alpha,” he says, then bottoms out. He falls forward, strength sapped, and collapses onto Ilya’s chest. 

“You with me?” Ilya murmurs into his neck. He can’t help but brush his lips over the part he would bite if he were to…

“Yeah.” Hollander squirms on Ilya’s cock, tight hope clenching down with every movement. “Yeah. Fuck, even though it’s only been a day you still feel so fucking good.”

“You steal my line,” Ilya says, voice strained and broken. His hands tighten over Hollander’s hips, surely digging bruises into his skin. 

“Yeah,” Hollander slurs, head tipped back in ecstasy. “Mine.”

Hollander rides him with single-minded focus. There’s no question in his eyes, no hint of hesitation. He is a wild animal sat astride Ilya and takes what he desires. The slam of his hips is brutal, legs locked tight around Ilya’s as if he is afraid he’ll try to get away.

This is an alpha in rut, Ilya thinks, holding on and admiring the man above him. This is instinct and possession. He owns Ilya, and he takes what he wants. It is everything.

Hollander cums the second Ilya wraps his hand around his knot. It overs Ilya’s chest, soaks into his skin, and fuck, he is going to scent Hollander on himself for days to come.

Ilya follows a second later, and in a small insignificant moment, wishes he was an alpha too. That he had a knot of his own, that he could truly knot Hollander the way he should. It might make his ruts better.

It might make them worse.

It doesn’t matter, he thinks as his orgasm fades. It never matters.

“Be back,” Ilya murmurs against his lips, and Hollander—still in the throes of his orgasm, the joy of an alpha in rut—barely makes a noise saying he’s heard him.

Good enough.

Ilya grabs his track pants on the way to the bathroom then locks the door behind him. Inside the left pocket, he pulls out a small pill bottle. He’s supposed to take two pills once a week at the same time, and no more; unless it’s an emergency.

As the pre-heat symptoms start to crawl up his spine once again, Ilya decides this is definitely an emergency.

He pops the pill and glares at his reflection as he swallows it down.

Fuck. His skin is on fire, blazing hot wherever Hollander touched him. He’s vaguely surprised it’s not showing on his skin like finger-shaped bruises littering his body. There’s a red mark on his pec and some scratches down his back, but he’s otherwise untouched.

He doesn’t feel like it. Over-sensitised and overstimulated, Ilya isn’t sure how much longer he can do this, and wills the suppressant to kick in fast.

“Fuck, fuck,” he breathes as the heat expands. His hole clenches down on nothing, and without permission, Ilya reaches around to palm one cheek. His head dips forward. “Oh, oh god—”

Maybe if he just fingers himself a little to take the edge off. He could orgasm from it, then not have to worry again. Get the urge out of his system like he wants. Remove the temptation so he can be fully present when fucking Hollander.

His fingertips inch closer, and his legs shake with anticipation. He loses track of time, fading in and out, fighting his very instincts. Everything inside of him is desperate to walk out the door back into the bedroom, to lay himself at Hollander’s feet and beg to be—

Then, there’s a wash of nothing. As if his desire disappears into the air, his skin cools and his body unclenches.

The suppressant is working.

He’s relieved. He is so relieved he could cry, but he’s also strange, inexplicably devastated.

“Hey, did you shower?” Hollander asks when he returns. His voice is slurred, deep in his rut. Ilya isn’t sure how much time has passed. “You don’t smell like…”

“I took shower,” Ilya rumbles, nudging his face into Hollander’s neck. He did shower to wash away any remnants of pre-heat, but Hollander is likely also picking up on his lack of scent. “Do you want one too?”

Hollander moans and shakes his head, his arms coming up to wrap around Ilya’s neck. “No,” he mumbles. “No. Want you to fuck me again.”

“Mm. Yes.” Ilya noses along his neck, down his jawline and over that little spot behind his ear which is so, so perfect when he is in rut. “I will. Perfect for me, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Hollander sighs, legs falling open. “Don’t make me work for it again, yeah? I’m tired.”

Ilya scoffs, but acquiesces because he is so far gone and can’t even deny it anymore.

“Yes, alpha,” he replies, crawling to drape himself over Hollander’s body.

They fuck for hours, far longer—but slower— than they have before. It takes three days for Hollander’s rut to break this time, and by the end of it Ilya is already mourning the loss of connection.

His extra dose of suppressants did the job. Almost too well, actually. There were times during when Ilya desperately wanted to properly scent him, wanted to drown in the strength of the Hollander’s smell and fall deep, deep into what was promised to him on the other side.

He couldn’t, but it was for the best.

It didn’t mean he was fine, however. Ilya had to leave numerous times to take stock of how he was feeling, or to calm himself down again. By the end of the rut, he almost believes he’s spent just as much time in the bathroom as he has inside of Hollander, but he did so without fear. He trusted his suppressants, even as he suffered.

He showers again, and dresses in more than a robe for the first time in days. His pill bottle is tucked inside the inner pocket of his jacket now, safely out of view. He’ll need to get another refill soon, especially if he’s going to rely on them to get through Hollander’s ruts without falling into heat.

Ilya should leave, but Hollander is laid out naked on the bed. His skin is slick with sweat. He’s staring at Ilya with lidded eyes, and through his own exhaustion, all Ilya wants is to crawl back into bed with him and fall asleep together.

“What?” Ilya asks instead.

“Nothing,” Hollander replies, but Ilya knows it’s not nothing.

“Tell me,” Ilya orders, then returns to bed because he cannot help himself. He curls his arm around Hollander’s shoulders to pull him close.

He feels right under Ilya’s arm. Like he is supposed to be there.

“I just—” Hollander stalls, but Ilya will wait him out. He is patient. It gives him a reason to stay. “It’s like… Okay, I know this isn’t normal,” Hollander says quietly, as if afraid to admit it. “What we do together as two alphas, and with my rut, and the…” The tips of his ears flush a beautiful shade of red. “The way you fuck me.”

He says it like a secret.

“Normal is not always normal,” Ilya replies the best he can, because there’s so much he wants to say but so few words he can say it in. “It does not matter.”

“But it does,” Hollander says, then turns those big, brown eyes on Ilya. “It matters to me. Not what other people think, but because it doesn’t seem to matter to you.”

Ilya bristles. “You matter to—”

“No, not like that,” Hollander interrupts. “More like, you don’t care about what other people think. You never once made me feel like I was fucked up for wanting what I want. I like that. I needed that. I don’t think I would have got that with anyone else.”

And Ilya doesn’t really know what to do with that confession. The raw vulnerability etched on Hollander’s face is almost too much, but Ilya cannot look away. How could he, when Hollander has trusted him with his feelings?

When even now Ilya still hides so much from him?

“You are not fucked up,” Ilya says quietly. “What you want is not fucked up. I would know. I am authority, okay? I would tell you. Promise.”

Hollander doesn’t reply, but he seems calmer. Comforter. Ilya wishes he felt the same.

He holds him for another half hour, but by then the clock is ticking and Ilya can’t let himself stay.

“My next rut is during the season,” Hollander says as Ilya is tying his shoes. “If it’s regular again, I’ll be in Boston.”

“Convenient,” Ilya murmurs, pointedly not looking where Hollander is spread out, loose and fucked out because of Ilya. 

Ilya’s body is still thrumming, overworked and confused with his body still actively battling his double dose of meds. He doesn’t need a vision seared into his memory that will only make him want to stay again.

“Yeah, it will be.” Hollander clears his throat. “I don’t really want to have it at another hotel. The scents are always… a lot. It’s clean but never really clean, you know?”

Ilya doesn’t. His suppressants dull everything, but Hollander does not know this, so he nods instead. “Yes.”

“If I were having it in Montreal, it wouldn’t be a problem. My apartment just smells like me.” He laughs, but it’s weak.

Ilya knows what he is angling for. He wants it, too.

“Come to my house,” Ilya says, and finally looks Hollander in the eye. There’s a hopeful spark there, and it almost crushes him. He shouldn’t have looked. “My house in Boston. Is nice. Clean.”

Hollander flushes red, and this time he looks away. “I wasn’t trying to—”

Ilya rolls over and buries his face in the crook of Hollander’s thigh. He hasn’t showered since the last time they fucked, and even though the suppressants and the condom, Ilya can pick up a thread of them, of their scents mixed together into a heady combination he wants to roll around in.

“I would not offer if I did not want you there,” Ilya says into his skin. This close, he can taste him.

Hollander doesn’t shut up. “I was only meaning… since you mentioned it last time,” he babbles. “You asked me to come to your house for my rut. I wouldn’t have said anything otherwise—”

Ilya interrupts him by crawling up the bed and kissing him quiet, soft and gentle. “Please have your next rut in my home, Hollander.”

Sleep in my bed, alpha.

Chapter Text

The day of Hollander’s next rut, Ilya doesn’t know what to do with himself. This isn’t like every other rut they’ve worked through in hotel rooms or even Hollander’s impersonal apartment.

This time it is at Ilya’s house, and besides the occasional visit from Svetlana or Cliff Marlow, Ilya does not host often.

He tidies up, but he has a cleaner come through once a month so there isn’t much extra to do. He stocks his fridge and makes sure to buy all of the snacks he’s seen Hollander eat during his rut; protein bars and fruit mostly. He changes the bedding, and refuses to give into the urge to add more blankets than is needed.

He makes himself workout before taking a shower, then forces himself to sit and watch TV. He even considers doing some fucking mediation or yoga, anything to get rid of the underlying current of nerves.

He shouldn’t be nervous. It’s Hollander. They’ve done this three times before, and it’s always ended mostly fine. Besides, Ilya’s already taken a double dose of his suppressants in anticipation. If he gets on top of it early, and not when the faux-heat is already ramping up, he will be better prepared when the symptoms do set in.

At least that’s what he’s hoping for. This isn’t an exact science, but if he goes to any doctor for advice someone will likely sell him out to the press. He can’t trust anyone, and he’s doing his best.

He just hopes it’s enough.

Hollander arrives at midday.

“Hey,” he says, awkwardly standing in the middle of the entryway. He knocked on the wrong door. Ilya is fond.

“Hollander,” Ilya greets, then steps aside.

Seeing Shane Hollander in his house is very strange. Not bad, just… strange. He makes a point to look around Ilya’s kitchen like he’s truly interested and not just buying time. Knowing Hollander, he probably is.

“Did you find the place okay?” Ilya asks, his hands shoved into his pockets. Hollander’s arrival has done nothing to quell his stupid nerves.

“Yeah. Your directions were good. Clear.” He smiles, but it’s tense, and before Ilya can ask him to spit it out, words start to spill free in a torrent Ilya can barely keep up with. “You know, you don’t have to… I could leave, or, um, I don’t think I can leave now. I won’t make it back to my hotel. So not to kick you out of your own house, but… yeah, we don’t have to have sex.”

Ilya is lost. “Hollander, what are you talking about?”

Hollander exhales. “Well, it’s just, I’ve been thinking. I know you freak out a little during. You leave halfway and don’t come back for a bit. I get it, if it’s too much, or not what you signed up for. You’re not… contractually obligated to help me during my rut. We don’t have to. I’ll be okay.”

Fuck, he didn’t think Hollander was taking any notice of him in the middle of his ruts beyond Ilya’s scent changing.

“I do not freak out,” Ilya protests, because he doesn’t. Not really. Well, not for the reason Hollander thinks. “You will not leave. I will not leave. No more talk of leaving, yes?”

Hollander purses his lips. He is getting pissy. “Rozanov, I’m trying to give you an out.”

“Well I do not need ‘an out’. Is pussy Canadian thing.” Ilya frowns. “I am here. You are here. There will be no leaving.”

Hollander sighs, but seems to accept it. “Yeah. Okay, no leaving. For either of us.”

Ilya nods in agreement, and considers his next steps.

He gives Shane the tour because he is clearly interested and his rut hasn’t quite hit yet. As he is marvelling over the fucking balustrades or whatever stupid English word he said, Ilya slips away to the bathroom.

He can’t leave Hollander this time. He promised. Even if he feels a false heat coming on halfway through, he isn’t allowed to leave.

This is fine. Ilya has dealt with worse. Perhaps after a few ruts, his body has built up a tolerance to Hollander’s pheromones and he will have no reaction. It would be the best case scenario.

Ilya takes another dose of his suppressants anyway, because he is not a lucky person.

When he returns, Hollander has moved on to the skylights and is talking about adding them to his cottage.

“You could come out during the off season,” he offers quietly. “It’s private. I’ll probably end up having my next rut there.” He barrels on, even when Ilya tries to answer. “It would be nice. It would mean not going to Russia, but…”

Ilya shouldn’t. There are a million reasons why he shouldn’t. They could be found out, it would be suspicious of him not to return to Russia, and worst of all, Ilya would be alone with Shane Hollander.

He would have to empty his entire pill bottle just to make it through the two weeks unscathed.

And yet, despite all of the reasons why he shouldn’t go—

“Maybe,” he says with a tight smile. “Maybe.”

This is the earliest Ilya has ever been present for Hollander’s rut. In contrast to previous ruts, they don’t fuck immediately. Ilya is prepared for his insatiable appetite, but instead Hollander wants to sit, have a drink, and watch TV. Ilya indulges him, because it’s not his rut, and it isn’t unpleasant to talk to Shane Hollander.

They mostly talk about other teams, their own teammates, who are going to win the Stanley Cup—Boston, always—and what their plans are for the off-season.

Ilya doesn’t say much about Russia and Shane doesn’t say much about his cottage, but there is an undercurrent Ilya cannot ignore.

They have a light dinner. Ilya cooks. He makes sure there is a lot of protein, because Hollander does not eat enough during his ruts and always gets faint near the end.

Eventually, closer to midnight, Hollander starts to make movements. Noises. Little tells Ilya could notice from a mile away. He fiddles more, touches his lips, then reaches out to touch Ilya. A hand on his arm, thighs pressed together, intertwined fingers… Ilya doesn’t say a word about it, not until Shane is practically crawling out of his skin to climb on top of him.

“Needy, aren’t you?” Ilya murmurs when Hollander breaks and lowers himself to mouth at Ilya’s clothed cock.

It’s midnight. There’s nothing but the faint glow of the TV lighting the room, and Shane Hollander is fucking gorgeous as Ilya turns him onto his hands and knee and works him open.

“Beautiful boy,” he rumbles in English, then again in Russian. “Waiting patiently for me. You could have taken your pleasure sooner. I would not have any complaints.”

Hollander can do nothing but pant wetly into the sofa cushions, his back a long, tense line as Ilya fingers his tight alpha hole open for his cock. “I—Rozanov.”

Ilya hums, and specifically targets his prostate. Hollander yelps and shivers, fingers clawing at the sofa, but Ilya doesn’t let up.

“You know you last longer if I make you cum like this first,” Ilya murmurs, stroking that place inside of him, milking his first orgasm from him slowly and methodically. “I have had practice now. I am Shane Hollander expert.”

“F—Fuck, be quiet,” Hollander gasps, then when Ilya reaches around to cup his knotted cock, he tenses and cums in long, thick ropes into his hand.

“What a good boy,” Ilya croons, gently turning him over onto his back. He puts a cushion under Hollander’s hips, uses his alpha’s own cum to slick himself up, then without waiting for him to come down, fucks into Hollander’s loose, twitching hole. “Mm, fuck. You feel so good. So tight, even after my fingers have been inside of you.”

Hollander practically wails as Ilya begins to fuck him. He is fast and brutal and unrelenting. The motion—the thrusting, the touching, the kissing—is almost meditative. He could do this forever, if his body doesn't give out on him. Ilya wants to do it forever. Would kill someone to stay here, wrapped up in Shane Hollander in his own house in his own world.

He is in so deep, he doesn’t realise how far they are falling until it is too late.

“You are mine, yes?” Ilya pants, gaze shuttered and hazy as he falls deeper into a headspace he isn’t sure he will come out of. “Tell me, Hollander. Say it.”

“Yours,” Hollander gasps wetly, looping his arms around Ilya’s neck to pull him close. He whispers into his ear; “Only yours.”

And then he buries his teeth into Ilya’s neck.

It is in the sensitive space just below his ear, the place other partners have known to avoid, lest they do something they will regret.

Perfect, Ilya thinks through his pheromone-drugged haze, it is the perfect spot chosen by Ilya’s alpha, nice and visible, a clear claim to any who would say otherwise.

Ilya cums immediately, a deep, dark bellow which emerges from his very core. Hollander follows, teeth still buried in Ilya’s tender neck until the very end.

“Fuck, I didn’t mean to bite you.” Hollander winces as he inspects the mark on Ilya’s neck in the aftermath. 

His fingertips ghost over the wound. When Ilya shivers, Hollander pulls back. He wishes he wouldn’t.

“You have staked your claim,” Ilya says drily, carefully masking his thoughts. His panic. “Will you make an honest man out of me, Hollander?”

Hollander only frowns. His hands clench like he wants to reach out again, but if fighting his instinct not to. Ilya only recognises this because he is doing the same.

“Don’t joke about that,” he replies, too aggressive to be anything but hurtful. “I could have lost control—I did lose control. What if—”

Ilya leans back, feigning casual curiosity. “What if what?”

Hollander inhales sharply and stares at his hands. “What if you were an omega?” he asks, but doesn’t see Ilya’s visceral reaction.

What if.

If Ilya were the alpha he claims to be, this would be an insignificant moment. An act of aggression, yes, but not binding.

Since Ilya is not the alpha he claims, the effect the bite is having on him is far, far worse, but Hollander cannot know.

“Mm. Well. Is good thing I am not, yes?” he replies brusquely, fingers twitching, desperate to touch the bite.

Hollander’s head snaps up. “I don’t mean anything by that!” he says quickly. “I’m not saying I want an omega, or that I want you to be an omega, or—or, fuck, that I think you’re one, okay? It’s just… it’s a legitimate worry.” 

He goes back to staring at the teeth marks. Ilya wants to cover it with his hand, because Hollander is not looking at it with the reverence an alpha should have, but with regret.

His alpha regrets marking him. His alpha doesn’t want him. Ilya was a mistake, a convenient whore, a means to an end he’ll drop now because he’s gone ahead and bitten the wrong person.

Fuck, Ilya is getting in too deep. No, that’s not right. He’s been in too deep this entire time; since Hollander’s first rut over a year ago, or earlier. When he approached Ilya in nowhere Saskatchewan and burrowed his way into Ilya’s skin.

“Next time wear muzzle,” Ilya says deadpan, and Hollander takes the bait for what it is.

“Fuck you,” Hollander says tiredly, but without the fraught edge. “Do you actually own a muzzle?”

Ilya does not, but he knows it won’t matter. Hollander can bite him again and again and again, but it won’t take no matter how desperately Ilya wills it.

He has too many suppressants in his system, has probably fucked himself up biologically by taking double doses anyway. If not that, then his decade-long use would have surely rendered him infertile. Either way, he just needs to leave it alone. A mark not returned will fade over time.

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself, even when the pit in his stomach yawns wider.

Ilya makes tuna melts with pickles. He serves Hollander his preferred brand of ginger ale, and gets himself a Coke. He makes sure to put on a game, because it’s easy to fall back on something familiar when everything else is not.

He tries to pretend like the bite isn’t bothering him, because Hollander keeps looking at it whenever Ilya goes anywhere close to his neck. It is annoying. Hollander even offers to clean it for him, but the very idea of him going anywhere near it, as if to try and remove the claim, rallies against Ilya’s base instinct.

Despite his hovering, Ilya does like having Hollander in his house. They have spent the night together before during his ruts, but always in hotel rooms or Hollander’s depressing apartment. Nothing close to a home.

This is Ilya’s home, or as close as he has gotten since his mother’s death. It has his favourite clothes, a stocked pantry, the little knickknacks he’s picked up over the years. It has the nice linen bedding he prefers, the menus to his favourite takeout spots stuck on the fridge, and framed photographs of Svetlana and his niece and his mother.

It has been home for Ilya for many years, but he never realised how empty it was until Shane Hollander stayed the night. It is even better waking up next to him.

Ilya brings him breakfast in bed in the form of water—boring—and a banana—hardly enough—and manages to coax half of it into him before Hollander is desperate again. He gets like this during his ruts, mindless and bossy. Ilya finds it cute because all Hollander really wants in his rut-induced haze is to be put where Ilya wants him and thoroughly used.

Ilya is powerless, and will always give him what he needs.

They fuck in bed, Hollander straddling his hips, hunched over and whining as Ilya brings him to orgasm with his cock and his fist. He is so beautiful above him, shiny slick with sweat and tears. Ilya stares up at him open-mouthed, reverential and desperate for something—something… 

There are words on the tip of Ilya’s tongue that want to burst forward, but he bites his lip and keeps them trapped inside.

“Fuck, fuck, ngh, I can do it again, I can do it again,” Hollander whines as he comes crashing down, one orgasm out of many rung out of him cruelly. “I can do it again, I can, I will, promise.”

“You make so many promises,” Ilya forces himself to say. His head feels like cotton, his mouth clumsy. He doesn’t pull out, merely rolls them over until he can cover him. He likes having Hollander in his own bed, laid out and fucked stupid. The sight sparks something dark and possessive in his gut, no doubt a feedback loop from the mark on his neck and Hollander’s heady scent. “Come for me again, sweetheart?”

Hollander nods, tears welling in his eyes.

They fucks for hours, tireless and single-minded, and it is like every only rut before.

Except this time, there’s a mark on Ilya’s neck. A sign of ownership, even if it was given in the heat of the moment, even if Hollander did not mean it, it is there.

Despite himself, Ilya’s mouth trails over the long line of Hollander’s neck as he thrusts his cock inside of him. He sees the tight throb of a vein on the left side of his throat, right where his gland rests.

He puts his teeth to it as he fucks, hard and fast and brutal, into Hollander’s tight hole.

If Ilya were to bite down, perhaps even his suppressants wouldn’t be able to withstand the connection. Perhaps they would be tied together immediately, Hollander realising Ilya’s dirty secret and loving him regardless.

He sucks a mark into his skin instead, and tries not to think about sinking his fangs in.

“I can be good,” Hollander promises. There are overwhelmed tears streaming down his freckled cheeks. “I can come again. Promise.” Hollander arches his back, ripping his neck away from Ilya’s mouth.

Ilya tries to chase him, but the angle is wrong and Hollander is incensed. He becomes like this sometimes in the middle of his ruts. Closer to the mindless animal of the stereotypical alpha and less like the soft, needy thing Ilya usually deals with.

“Come back,” Ilya orders as he pins him down, eyes trained on his neck. “Hollander, be still. Hollander.”

“Ilya,” Hollander sobs instead, sightless wet eyes gazing up at him, lost in his rut. “Please, Ilya.”

It is the first time he has spoken his name in his rut. Not Rozanov, but Ilya, and he has said it so sweetly it almost proves to be too much.

“Shane,” Ilya breathes into his mouth, eyes open wide to take everything in. Fuck, he can’t keep it in anymore. Can’t deny it anymore. Not with Hollander—Shane, Shane—looking at him like he hung the fucking moon. He’s terrified and turned on and the bite mark is throbbing in time with his thrusts.

“Ilya,” Shane breathes right back. “Ilya, fuck, you feel so fucking good.”

“Yes,” Ilya groans, fucking forward like a mindless beast. Is this what it is like to be in a rut? Desperate and wild, driven by nothing but primitive instinct? He could spend forever inside of his mate; he would never, ever leave.

“Fuck, you’re so—” Beneath him, Hollander goes unnaturally. “What is… Do you smell that?”

Ilya forces himself to stop, buried deep inside.

“What?”

Still lost in the sensation of his overheated mark and clenching hole, he doesn’t fully comprehend what Shane means until it’s too late.

“That smell…” Shane gasps, shuddering, eyes fluttering in a way that has nothing to do with what Ilya is doing to him. “Fuck. Fuck, it smells like omega.”

Ilya freezes. Omega?

No. There is no omega. There should not be a single trace of an omega because Ilya made sure to change the sheets and have a shower and take twice the recommended dose of suppressants. There should be nothing.

Shane buries his face into the pillow Ilya has been lying on all day and all night. The pillow which is saturated in his sweat. The pillow that should have no scent.

“It smells like omega.”

Of course it does, Ilya realises, panicked. His body is hot and his hole clenches tight and the bite mark throbs in time with the pulse of his heart. His body is primed for the alpha he is currently inside of. Of course it smells like an omega. 

“Did you…” Shane isn’t hazy anymore, and Ilya watches in horror as his rut retreats in real time. He squirms free of his grip—and his cock—to stare at him, accusing and betrayed. “Rozanov, did you fuck an omega here?”

“No.” The denial bursts forward without Ilya even realising it. He’s stuck on omega and fuck and Rozanov.

But you called me Ilya.

“Then why does it smell like one?” Shane buries his face into the bedding again, and Ilya can see his eyes slipping shut in realisation. “Fuck. Fuck, Rozanov.”

For a second, Ilya thinks he knows. That beneath the suppressants, Shane knows it’s him, that the scent on the pillow and the scent hidden under all the meds is the same. That it’s Ilya, that he realises and he doesn’t care and he will love him regardless.

But then Shane sits up, and he’s nothing.

“Really?” he says, voice flat and dangerous. “Couldn’t even be bothered to change the sheets first?”

“What?” It’s like Ilya can’t think, like the only word his mind can form is no.

He wants to say more, but he is blank. Nothing forms, and certainly nothing useful as Shane wrenches himself free of Ilya and his bed and starts to get dressed and no.

No. No. That’s not right. That’s not what his alpha is supposed to be doing, not now, not when Ilya is clearly falling headfirst into—

“Hollander,” he finally says, but the word sounds heavy in his mouth. “Shane.”

But Shane has already grabbed his keys and his wallet, and now he’s just standing there. There’s a devastated look on his face, like he’s been crushed, but that isn’t right, because Ilya’s about to—he’s halfway to—

“You could have just told me,” Shane says, voice small and quiet and nothing like an alpha’s should be. “I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t have cared if you had someone else. I know what this is. I know it’s just—I know it’s nothing. It’s just, a little decency would have been nice.”

“Hollander.” It’s all Ilya can do. His senses are shutting down in real time, narrowing into a pinprick. He can’t even move from his place on the bed, can barely think past he’s going to leave.

“Sorry.” Shane looks down. He’s wearing Ilya’s shirt. “Sorry. I’ll—I’ll see you at the game, I guess.”

And then he’s gone. After a minute, Ilya hears the front door shut with a click and it might as well be a punch in the gut for all it ruins him.

He isn’t sure how much time passes, but it’s dark when Ilya finally checks his phone.

There’s a missed call from his father, a text from Marlow, and a reminder about training tomorrow from his coach. There is no text from Jane.

Okay. Okay.

Ilya is going into heat.

He opens his contacts, finds a name, and lets the phone ring.

Chapter Text

Ilya dreams in hazy emotions and vague sensations. He dreams of fingers carding through his curls, a soft kiss against his cheek, and warmth. He is so warm and he is floating. He does not want to ever come up from these depths again.

And through it all, he dreams of Shane. His freckles and his smile and the long line of his back, everything about him cycles through Ilya’s dreams on agonisingly perfect repeat.

“Ilya?”

He doesn’t want to wake up, but can feel the last vestiges of sleep gently fading.

Someone brushes their fingers across his forehead, then smoothes his sweaty curls away from his face.

“Ilya, are you with me?”

The voice filters into his subconscious. He scents the air, and smells a familiar warm-and-cold scent drifting over him. It almost lulls him back into sleep.

“Mm… yes?”

“There you are, baby.”

When Ilya opens his eyes, he sees Svetlana sitting next to him. He knew it was her, remembers dialling her number in a pre-heat fugue the night before—or has it been longer?—but for a second there he really thought he scented Shane.

He loves Svetlana, but the sight of her is disappointing.

“Sveta,” he mumbles, then buries his nose back into his pillow. It doesn’t smell like anything but Ilya.

“I’m surprised you are lucid,” Svetlana notes idly, although Ilya can hear the concern in her voice. “I couldn’t get a straight answer out of you last night, or this morning.”

Ilya lifts his head to fumble for his phone, but he can’t find it.

“I was very surprised when you rang,” she continues. “I thought you were finally going to ask me to help you through your rut, but imagine my surprise when I found you in heat.” She gives him a pointed look which he ignores. “My Ilya, an omega, and don’t think I haven’t seen that mark on your neck. You will tell me about that later.”

Where is his fucking phone?

“Are you actually surprised?” He chokes on his words. “That I am an…” He can’t bring himself to speak the word aloud.

“I am surprised you didn’t want me,” she says instead. “I offered to help you, but you were insistent on not having me. Now I know why.”

“I did not tell you for your own good.”

“My own good?” She brings a hand to her heart. “How sweet of you.”

Ilya growls, low and annoyed, and searches the bedding for his phone again. “You know my father. He did not want anyone to know.”

Svetlana softens. “I know, baby. I figured. I’m not angry.”

He knew she would be like this. Sad, rather than angry. Svetlana is not the type to become offended over perceived slights. She loves him, as he loves her, but he could not burden her with his secret.

Now she is involved regardless, all because Ilya could not stay away from Shane Hollander.

“Where is my phone?” he asks, rather than face his guilt. “What day is it?”

“It’s the day after the Montreal game.” She pulls his fully charged phone out of her pocket to hand to him. “The afternoon. Would you like something to eat, my little omega? I can order in.”

“Mm, whatever you want,” Ilya says absently, unlocking his phone to check the damage. “Use my card.”

He has a dozen missed calls, over fifty texts, and too many notifications from his email, voicemail, and ugh, social media.

“How was the game?” he asks as he starts to sort through his messages. Most are from his teammates telling him to enjoy your rut, Roz!, a few are from his coach informing him the press have been told he’s come down with the flu, and one from his brother telling him he better not be injured or retiring.

There are no messages from Shane.

The phone calls are mostly from his brother, and one from his dad. He’ll need to ring back—until a rogue cramp shoots through his stomach like a blade—later.

It stings to admit it, but he isn’t capable of doing much right now. His heat lingers, unwelcome and unfamiliar. It has been a long time since his first, and it is no more pleasant at twenty-five than it was at fifteen.

He has managed, however. He recalls small snippets of his heat. The desperation and the need. The want, no, fuck, the need for an alpha—for his alpha—to come back and claim him fully, and to let Ilya claim him back.

He begged into his empty room for a while, his body in revolt, wondering where the man who placed the mark on his neck was and why he was not with Ilya in his nest.

Oh, his nest. How pathetic. It can hardly be called one, but it had to do with how unexpected and unwelcome his heat was.

Ilya didn’t change the sheets of his bed. When he fully fell into his heat not long after he rang Svetlana, they still smelled like the two of them mixed together.

Ilya knows if he really presses his nose to some bunched corner, he will probably retain some of Shane, although only faintly. Now, they smell mostly of his own musky heat. 

He will change them eventually, but not right now. His stomach clenches tight at the very thought, and besides, he is too tired and his heat remains simmering beneath the surface. It would be a waste of time.

There are other reasons why he does not want to change the bedding, but he does not want to admit it. Not out loud, and not in his own head. Those are dangerous thoughts better left alone, unless he decides to go down a path he won’t be able to come back from.

(Thoughts of a life he is not allowed, not even when he retires. It’s not only Ilya’s career at stake, but his legacy. A lifetime of work, of secrets, of honour gone in an instant.)

“Montreal won,” Svetlana tells him, but for the first time in as long as he can remember, Ilya doesn’t actually care. “Boston played well, but not well enough. But Montreal, their captain…”

This gets Ilya’s attention. “What?” he demands.

“Your little rival was a mess,” she sings. “Barely touched the puck all game.”

“He isn’t mine,” Ilya growls, but the implication sits heavily on his mind. Shane played badly. Shane was clearly distracted, or upset, or… or angry. “Did he do an interview afterwards?”

“No.” Svetlana starts to tidy the room, and Ilya wants to tell her to stop. No, don’t pick up that cup. Shane drank from that last. “Hayden Pike and their coach answered questions, but not for long. Everyone was asking about you.”

Ilya growls. “What about?”

“Lots of speculation about where you were, if they only won because you weren’t there, what could cause you to miss a game… but nothing is close to the truth.” She hums. “Well, mostly.”

Ilya’s gaze snaps to her. “What do you mean?”

She has the audacity to look at him like he’s being obtuse.

“Shane Hollander came by last night,” she says slowly, wry smile on her lips. “And he returned this.”

Svetlana drops a black t-shirt in his lap. It belongs to Ilya, but it's the same one Shane wore when he left Ilya’s house two days prior.

“He was here?” Ilya croaks, desperately grabbing the shirt before bringing it up to his face to inhale. Ah. Yes, it’s there. Not as pronounced as if he were in the room, but it’s more than Ilya has received throughout his entire heat.

Better yet, the shirt smells like the both of them together. Ilya wore it first, the fabric woven with his scent, but layered on top is Shane and the remnants of his rut. It is heady and intoxicating. 

He inhales again, and can taste the two of them on his tongue.

“Should I give you a minute alone?” Svetlana teases.

“Don’t.” Ilya pulls the shirt away from his nose, but doesn’t let go of it. He isn’t sure he is capable. “What did he say?”

Svetlana shrugs. “Nothing too important.”

“Sveta.” He is not in the mood to be teased.

“He wanted to know if you were feeling okay since you missed the game,” she says. “I wasn’t aware you two were so close. It’s sweet.”

He doesn’t want to give her more ammunition, but draws the shirt back to his nose anyway, so it’s probably obvious.

“What else?” he mumbles into the shirt. “Tell me what he said.”

Svetlana sighs and leans back. “I don’t remember! It was last night. My memory is not good.”

Last night, after the game…

“It was not that long ago. Think.”

“I was busy,” she retorts. “Taking care of you. Cooking your meals, cleaning your stupidly large house!”

“Sveta,” Ilya says through gritted teeth. “What did Hollander say?”

“Ugh, fine! You let me have no fun.” She rolls her eyes. “He returned the shirt, and said you let him borrow it last game? Silly excuse. Then he asked about how you were, if you were sick or… otherwise afflicted.”

“What?”

Svetlana raises an eyebrow. “I can only assume he was asking me if you were in rut, alpha.”

“Do not call me that.”

She shrugs. “It is what Shane Hollander thinks you are. It is what the world believes. Is it wrong?”

Ilya doesn’t answer her. “What else?”

“Nothing.”

“Did he…” Ilya scrubs his hands over his face, but they smell like the shirt. Like Ilya and Shane together. “Do you think he knows?”

“That you are an omega?” She pats his leg. “No, I do not think so. He seemed concerned for you. He didn’t like me, I think. He is a very awkward person.”

Ilya fights down how fond he is. “Yes. He is.”

“I thought he might have stayed,” she then says. “Since you help him through his rut so often.”

Ilya’s head snaps up to stare at her. “How did you—”

She levels him an unpressed stare. “Do you think I am an idiot? That I don’t notice you gazing at your phone all of the time? Texting Jane? That you smell like rutting alpha after you face Montreal?”

“Is it obvious?”

He isn’t as worried as he would be if it were anyone else. He trusts Svetlana implicitly, although he never intended to tell her about his and Shane’s activities. Not out of a need to be secretive, but because she would look at him how she does now; with kind sadness and regret.

“No,” she says softly. “I only know because I know you too well.” She pauses. “And because your house stinks of him.”

“Fuck.” He exhales. His stomach cramps. “Anything else?”

She smiles at him sadly. “No, baby. He left after that,” she says. “You know I was surprised you let Shane Hollander of all people mark you like a mate.”

Ilya frowns. He touches it, unbidden. The mark does not feel any better than it did when Shane’s teeth first sunk into his neck. In fact, it almost feels worse.

“I have not seen such a pathetic alpha in a very long time. You have done well.”

Ilya sinks back into the sheets that no longer smell like them, and clings to the shirt that smells like Shane Hollander.

“Mm. Yes, very pathetic.”

They make a matched pair.

Svetlana orders food and they eat it in the living room. His instincts rally against his common sense, and he willingly gives in. He loves her, but he doesn’t want her in his nest anymore. Not with Shane’s shirt, not where they shared his last rut.

He tells her he is grateful but that she doesn’t have to stay anymore, that he is past the worst of it now and near the end of his heat.

“It was short,” she warns him at the door. “You should get yourself checked out. No heat for a decade, it is not good for you. You could have another one unexpectedly, even with suppressants.”

Ilya is very careful not to roll his eyes, thanks her again, then ushers her out of his house.

And then he is alone. Conscious, and alone.

An icy chill seeps into his bones and does not leave, even when he returns to his nest and surrounds himself with blankets. The heat continues, but the cold remains.

Ilya is very alone.

He mourns. There is the life he desires, the life he needs, and the life he has been given, and then there is a mix of all three that he cannot quite imagine, although he tries.

He wonders what it would be like not to have to hide his designation. Would his teammates refuse to follow him if he revealed he was an omega? He can’t imagine alphas like Marlow bending to an omega’s will, but plenty of the mated players do whatever their wives want.

But Ilya is not a wife. He is not a mate. He is their captain. Their leader. He cannot show weakness, cannot bow to their posturing. He must be better. He must rise above.

Even if he wants his rival on the ice to fuck him until he cannot remember his own name anymore.

“Fuck,” Ilya breathes, and finally brings the shirt up to his nose to inhale. “Fuck me.”

Shane came back, even if it was just to return Ilya’s t-shirt. He came back and he asked how Ilya was and it shows he cares, even if it’s surface level, even if Ilya is just a good, convenient fuck. 

It’s the stupid bite talking, he knows. Ilya scratches at his neck and hisses when he pulls a scab off. It starts to bleed again, sluggish and slow, the scent of coppery blood sharper than usual but it reminds him of when Shane sunk his teeth in and that makes the pain worth it.

Ilya wishes Shane ignored Svetlana and had come inside. He imagines it now, Hollander rushing up the stairs because he smells him somehow through the very walls and has to be with him.

With one hand holding the shirt to his face, Ilya ignores his cock and slides his fingers down lower, past his balls, to slip two straight into his hole.

“Ngh—!” Even though he is alone, Ilya bites off his groan with the shirt, and is assaulted with Shane on his tongue. Sweat and cum and his scent all rolled into one, Hollander didn’t even wash the shirt before returning it. He probably wore it all day.

Ilya must have been fingering himself during the worst of his heat, or maybe he’s just so incredibly wet, because it’s so fucking easy to fuck himself. He’s slick and tight and it feels amazing to finally have something tucked up inside of himself. 

Ilya doesn’t let himself have this, usually. It’s a slippery slope. If he lets himself finger his hole, then he’ll want it more. He might even ask for it from Shane during his ruts when Ilya falls deeper into his own heat, fucking Shane with Shane’s own fingers inside of him, giving him exactly what he wants and needs like the perfect alpha he is, crooning into his neck that Ilya is—

He bites off a desperate noise at the thought of Shane helping him through his heat, Shane in the middle of his rut, the two cycles syncing up because they’re mated, they should be mated, bodies responding to each other like the oldest dance in the world.

Ilya squeezes another finger alongside the two already buried inside of him, and the stretch is so good, so full, so perfect, it’s how he imagines a knot filling him up. Marking him with his cum, his alpha’s, yes, claim him, good boy, Shane, so good for me, so good for your omega—

Ilya cums with a bellow, body tense and spasming, with three fingers forced inside and Shane’s scent in his nose and on his tongue.

His breath hitches with every inhale. He stays that way for too long, but it’s not enough to pretend he’s stuck on a fat knot. 

Eventually, the scent on the shirt fades, and Ilya is alone again.

Chapter Text

Shane Hollander has a girlfriend.

He has a pretty omega girlfriend, a Hollywood star Ilya is only mildly aware of from some blockbuster he was forced to watch on a plane. He liked the movie too, which is almost the worst part.

No, the worst part is having to see Shane Hollander and Rose Landry plastered on every magazine cover, in dozens of Instagram posts, and on the lips of all of his teammates.

“I didn’t think Hollander had it in him,” Marlow scoffs, waving his hand dismissively at the phone being passed around the locker room. “Good for him.”

“Why do you even follow that account?” Ilya grumbles. His body aches from the workout he pushed himself through earlier in the day. It was stupid, and he’s paying for it now an hour before the game, but he couldn’t help himself. If he had stopped, he started to think, and that was not a good idea for Ilya at the time. It isn’t any better now, not with half of his team seemingly occupied by Hollander’s new fling.

“It’s interesting,” Carmichael replies from the bench next to him. He takes back his phone, the screen still open on the latest paparazzi shots Ilya has been avoiding. “We’ve played against him for… what? Six years now? This is the first time I’ve heard even a hint of him being interested in someone. That’s impressive.”

“Or lame,” Marlow retorts.

“He could’ve just been really private,” someone—Connors, maybe—pipes up from across the room. Ilya doesn’t bother to see if he’s right, gaze instead trained on Carmichael’s phone showing a screenshot of Rose Landry wearing Hollander’s jersey at a game in Detroit. “I know guys who keep a girl in every city and no one knows. Could be like that.”

Shut up.

He makes himself look away. He feels like he can’t breathe. He looks at the phone again.

“Hollander?” Marlow scoffs. “Nah. He’s cleaner than a Boy Scout. You know, I kinda figured he turned himself off at night like a fucking robot.”

“A hockey robot.”

“A fucking good one, though,” Carmichael adds. “This might throw him off his game. Give us a chance.”

“Christ, he’s not that good,” Marlow rebuffs. “We’ve beat Montreal before.”

Carmichael makes a scoffing noise and starts scrolling through the carousel. “I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. If Hollander starts to play shit because of this, all the better for us.”

Shut the fuck up.

His eyes are burning, but he can’t look away. Photo after photo. It’s been one fucking month, how many highly public dates have they been on?

“If Hollander suddenly sucks because he’s dating Rose fucking Landry, he’s not worth his skates.”

“What I’d do to have a shot with her,” someone else groans. “How did Hollander even meet her?”

“My wife said it was some lowkey bar thing last month. There were photos leaked. They looked pretty cozy.”

Jesus fucking Christ. Shut up.

He’s going to throw something. His skates, maybe. At Marlow, or Carmichael, or Connors. He hasn’t decided yet.

“Moving fast, aren’t they?”

“Yeah. I’d probably keep it on the down low a bit longer, especially with her following.”

“Her last relationship with that soccer player got leaked on that gossip site. Must’ve been a shit-show for her image, two omegas together.”

“Either way, Hollander must be pretty loved up to go public so quickly.”

Someone laughs. It’s grating. “She must be showing him a good time!”

Everyone laughs. Ilya is going to kill them.

“Or he’s showing her what a real alpha is like!”

Ilya launches himself off the bench and towards the showers. His teammates shoot him surprised looks, but go back to the conversation without a word.

Good. Good. Let them fucking gossip all they want, that doesn’t mean Ilya has to stick around and listen to it.

He’s been trying to avoid Rose Landry all week. He muted her name on every site he frequents. He turns the TV off if she’s even mentioned. He doesn’t want to see her, especially when every appearance now comes with the addition of some variation of “she was spotted with that ice hockey player, right? Shane Hollander? What a power couple!”

Ilya avoids her, but in his worst moments, he can’t help but go looking for himself. 

He has stalked her Instagram, bland and sanitised as it is with the help of her agent, but informative. He now, unfortunately, knows who her co-stars are, where she spends her vacations, which brands she’s signed with, and how popular she is.

Rose Landry has five times the followers Ilya has.

He also knows Rose Landry follows Hollander.

Ilya doesn’t follow Shane anywhere. He did not think he was allowed. No, he knows he isn’t allowed. It would be strange, and would draw unwanted attention to them.

It stings. Ilya and Shane nothing to each other beyond the rivals their fans want them to be, and yet they’ve fucked countless times and shared four ruts and Ilya’s neck is fucking marked with Shane Hollander’s bite and he isn’t even allowed to fucking follow him on Instagram.

Rose Landry gets that honour.

Ilya thinks he could hate her. He hates her in the same way he hates his father and his brother and Russia, he hates like he is watching his own life unfold from outside of his body. Detached and floating, he can’t help how he feels even though it is wrong.

Ilya doesn’t hate Rose the same way he doesn’t hate his dad or his brother. At the heart of it, Ilya hates that he isn’t enough.

Hollander’s last rut is proof, and his team noticed.

“You good, Roz?” It was the first thing Marlow had asked the day Ilya returned after his heat. It had surprised him. He didn’t think he was acting any differently at the time, although in hindsight he was… touchy.

“Why?” he snapped. He was paranoid at the time, fresh off his first heat in a decade, wondering if there was something off about him, if he was acting strange, or if Marlow scented something on him. “Are people talking?”

“Not really.” Marlow clapped him on the back, and he remembers the sensation of being touched aching like an overworked bruise. “Man, I’ve played with you for years and not once have you taken a game off for your rut. Imagine my surprise when Coach tells us you’re out. Sue me for asking.”

Ilya had relaxed, but only a little. 

“Was fine,” he finally answered. He aimed for casual, but he did not think Marlow believed him. “You know. Svetlana was good. Helpful.”

It wasn’t a lie.

Marlow whistled. “She went into heat, too? Man, I could smell her from outside the building. But hey, that’s good timing. Never managed to sync up myself.”

Ilya was ice cold. “Yes,” he said stiffly, and attempted to leave only for Marlow to pull down Ilya’s collar and expose his mark. 

“You finally gonna make her an honest woman?” He laughed when Ilya jerked back. “She got you good, Roz. Looks like she made the choice for you.”

The team gave Ilya shit about it for a week afterwards, but eventually one of the rookies did something stupid and their attention drifted away.

The mark did not.

Everything Ilya looked up online said a bite mark not returned would fade in time.

When he returned after his heat, he considered seeing the team doctor, but quickly dismissed the idea. He managed to avoid him so far, although before he started regularly helping Hollander through his rut, Ilya was chemically more or less a blank slate. Besides his lack of ruts, or the presence of a knot, there was no way for the doctor to know he was actually an omega without an unnecessarily invasive physical.

Now, Ilya isn’t so sure he will be as lucky. From the sly glances he’s been receiving from his teammates, Ilya knows he still smells like omega in heat. They’re assuming it’s Svetlana, and Ilya thanks whoever is listening that she returned to New York rather than remained in Boston.

Ilya doesn’t smell anything like Svetlana.

Before they take to the ice, Ilya gives a speech to rile the team up, but he knows it was half-hearted and lacking his usual aggression. Usually, his speeches before Montreal games are his best. Loud and angry, playing off of years of rivalry between their teams. Today, he just doesn’t have it in him.

Ilya hasn’t seen Shane since he ran out of his house, a month of no contact, not even a single text except for the unrelenting pap shots of Hollander and Rose. A month since he unknowingly left Ilya at the very beginning of a bite-induced heat.

The wound healed quickly, but the scar remains. Ilya isn’t sure it will ever heal, not when he is forced to interact with Hollander during games, and fuck does Boston and Montreal play each other a lot. What used to be the best part of their rivalry is now the worst.

Ilya can’t look at him. He doesn’t want to, but he also can’t. Time has not made it any easier to be on the ice with him. If he even thinks about looking in his direction, the mark on his neck flares and throbs. His body instinctively knows he is close, and it wants the attention, the attentive hands of the alpha who bit him a month ago.

But Ilya is more than his instincts.

“Hollander’s staring at you,” Marlow mutters as he skates past during warm-up. “Want me to rough him up?”

Ilya does not look up, can’t look up, shouldn’t look up.

He looks up.

Hollander is looping slow, steady circles around the rink. He should be keeping an eye on his team, but his gaze is anywhere but. He is staring at Ilya. There are no secretive glances, no hiding what he’s doing. It’s no wonder Marlow caught him. He might as well be screaming Ilya’s name across the ice.

Ilya turns away.

“Leave him,” he mutters, neck itching from the heat of Hollander’s gaze. “Weird Hollander shit, probably.”

Marlow chuckles behind him, but Ilya doesn’t remain to listen to what he has to say next.  He pushes himself off the bench and takes to the ice. He doesn’t want to listen to anyone right now.

He avoids Hollander right up until the face-off.

“Rozanov.”

Ilya does not look up. “Hollander.”

He thinks Hollander might have wanted to say something else, but the game starts and the puck is dropped and Ilya wins the face-off. It feels both better and worse than he thought it would to skate away with it.

Ilya wants to say he played well. He knows he played better than half his team, and most of Montreal, but that doesn’t make up for his misplays and fumbles. He isn’t on his game, but Boston wins despite his less than ideal performance.

Only mildly aware of his team and the crowd celebrating, Ilya tries to leave the rink.

He doesn’t get very far.

Ilya does not want to shake Hollander’s hand. He doesn’t want to shake anyone’s hand, his seemingly perpetual heat a low simmer bubbling just beneath his skin. The very thought of touching someone else—another alpha at that—makes his skin crawl.

The thought of touching Shane again makes him wet.

As the captain, he can’t get out of it. He dutifully shakes the hand of everyone, makes sure not to pull away too quickly or let his grimace show on his face, and forces his way through it.

Then, he gets to Hollander. They are both last in the line, no one behind them.

“Rozanov,” Hollander says again as their hands touch. It’s not even a handshake, it’s just touching, and it’s no less devastating. “Good game.”

All Ilya can do is nod. He isn’t capable of anything else.

He goes to skate away, but Hollander doesn’t release him. His touch becomes a grip, firm and unrelenting.

“Ilya,” he says, hushed as he bends his head towards him. “Are you okay?”

Fuck. No.

“Yes,” Ilya rumbles. “Fine.”

Hollander inhales sharply. “Because you don’t seem—”

Marlow skates to Ilya’s side. Behind Hollander, he can see Hayden fucking Pike hovering like the world’s shittiest bodyguard.

“All good?” Marlow asks, but it’s less of a question and more of a warning.

He sees the indignation rise on Hollander’s face. “We were just—”

“Hollander was asking for tips,” Ilya interrupts. He tugs his hand free, and tries not to let the loss of it show on his face. “Is sad, yes?”

Marlow laughs, Pike turns red, and Hollander—

He hasn’t taken his own hand back. It remains outstretched, as if reaching for him still. The sight of it is heart-wrenching, but it is nothing compared to the expression on his face.

“Ilya,” he whispers, face crumpled. Imploring. “Please.”

Please what? Ilya can’t begin to imagine what he is pleading for. He doesn’t want to think about it.

“See you next game,” Ilya mutters, then follows Marlow off the ice.

Ilya immediately takes himself to the showers. His gear feels heavy and wrong, soaked with the sweat of the game and of more. While his team celebrates, Ilya attempts to wash himself free of his desperate want. He wants to go to the visitor’s locker room, find Hollander in the disappointed crowd, and hold him. He wants to bury his face into his neck and inhale, because a brief brush in the middle of a game isn’t enough. He wants to take him to his home again, and never let him leave. He wants to apologise for everything, for saying his name, for making it more than what it is, for ever letting his scent get out of control and ruining everything.

He sets the water to ice cold and shivers until the want dissipates.

Marlow invites him out to celebrate with a couple other guys, but he declines. They give him shit, but Ilya hasn’t been out since his heat and he’s learning how to tune them out. He needs to be alone. He’s always alone now.

Once he gets home, he changes into comfortable clothes, does the laundry, cooks dinner, and does not think about Shane Hollander fucking his picture perfect omega girlfriend in a hotel room somewhere in Ilya’s city. He doesn’t even know if Rose is here, but it’s all his brain seems to want to circle back to.

He turns on the TV in an attempt to distract himself. They’re playing one of her movies. One of the shit ones, not the one Ilya watched on the plane. She’s younger, but not by much. Very pretty. Sweet. She tries her best, but she’s working with a script that even Ilya can tell is bad. He watches half an hour of it before he turns it off. He hasn’t touched his dinner. He didn’t turn on any lights. The room is dark.

Ilya quietly gets ready for bed, the whole time thinking about Shane folding his clothes before they fucked. His bedroom carries remnants of Hollander's scent even a month later. It could be Ilya’s imagination. He doesn’t want to test it.

He folds his own clothes before climbing into bed and falls asleep holding his mark.

His neck hurts. His heart hurts more.

Chapter Text

Boston loses.

It isn’t the first time they’ve lost a game against Montreal and it won’t be the last, but every loss after Hollander feels close to dying.

He commiserates with his team, gives a half-hearted interview, and packs up feeling cold and hollowed out.

The game was hard for reasons beyond a handful of fumbled plays. He tried to play a good game, but every time Shane skated past, tried to start a conversation, asked if Ilya was okay again, his mind went blank.

The lingering scent of Hollander on the ice was… Well, there was only so much Ilya could take. The end score reflected his captaincy.

His team has a flight early tomorrow and a game the day after that. If he fucks up again, the team is going to look bad, and Ilya can’t have every element of his life falling apart at the same time. He should go to bed, but he doesn’t.

Ilya has spent the last month going home alone, to his Boston house and countless impersonal hotel rooms. He’s sick of being cold and there is an itch under his skin that won’t leave, but a few drinks and some loud music and maybe, if he can bear it, a hot body pressed against him will help dull the ache.

Marlow finds half a dozen of the guys to come. He chooses some genetic Montreal club that Ilya swears he’s been in before, but they all start to look the same after a while.

He heads straight to the bar.

The bartender is quick to jump to Ilya’s request. The vodka they stock is shit at best, so a beer will have to do. He’ll just have to have a lot of them. He leans against the bar as he waits for his drink, and glances around for someone who might want to dance. 

And a pit opens wide in Ilya’s stomach.

Rose Landry’s best friend and co-star is here. Ilya can see him—Miles, he remembers from his late-night stalking of Instagram—at the other end of the bar.

He sees Ilya, too.

His presence means that somewhere in this stupid fucking Montreal bar is Shane Hollander… and his girlfriend.

He can feel the bass in his gut, heavy and oppressive. His skin is overheated and sweat beads on his forehead. His head starts to throb with the beat. His mark—

The scarred mark sitting in the hollow just below his ear is warm and sensitive. Ilya wants to cover it up, but he can’t draw attention to it. Not here. Not when the alpha who put it there is somewhere here with another woman, another omega, probably touching her and kissing her and doing everything he can’t—and doesn’t want to—with Ilya.

The bartender slides him his drink, and against his better judgement, Ilya downs it in one go. The beer sits in his stomach, heavy and sickly. The club is hot. Ilya can’t be here, does not want to be here, not with them, not when he can still feel Hollander’s skin against his, lips against his neck…

He scans the floor.

The club is packed full of bodies rubbing up against one another; alpha, beta, and omega alike. He can barely see through the writhing mass, and the flashing lights blur everyone together until they become one.

And the scents… No one bothers to mask anything in a club, not when half of the purpose is to find someone compatible to take home. Pressing noses to necks is one of the first ways to find someone willing, although Ilya has always found the process to be unnecessarily invasive. 

Pretending to be an alpha helped when omegas would bear their necks for him, already assuming he was what they were looking for. He liked it less when they drifted close to his own neck.

Against his better judgement, Ilya covers his mark with his hand. It tingles in awareness under his touch, because through the writhing bodies and the overwhelming scents, he knows Hollander is here, somewhere, not knowing that Ilya is here, too.

And then, as if touching his mark was some kind of beacon, he sees him. Hollander, on the dance floor, his arms draped around Rose Landry’s waist.

It is one hurt to see the evidence on his phone or to hear it from his teammates, but to see it himself in the flesh is agony.

Ilya can’t do this. He wanted a distraction from Hollander, and happened to find him in one of hundreds of clubs in Montreal. It feels as if fate is laughing at him.

He asks for another drink, and downs that one, too. There’s a warmth creeping up the back of his neck, the crush of bodies and scents and the bright neon lights are overwhelming. He wants to be at home—in his sad, half-made nest—but instead he is in a Montreal club watching his alpha touch someone else and, fuck, and be touched by someone else as Miles now appears behind him, one arm wrapped around Shane’s middle.

He’s jealous. He’s so fucking jealous he doesn’t know what to do. Ilya never realised how lucky he had been with Hollander’s lack of interest in fucking around with anyone else except him. To see the evidence of it now…

He can’t watch this play out in front of him, his buried nightmare coming to life.

The woman he finds to distract himself is an omega, pretty, and willing to indulge him. It is not a good situation, but good enough.

They dance, mindless movement together. Ilya knows other people are watching, too, whether it’s because they know him or if they want to be him… or if they want him.

He doesn’t care. Nothing matters anymore.

Ilya loses himself to the music and the touch, even if it’s wrong. His senses are fuzzy and it helps him forget, and all he wants to do is forget.

He opens his eyes.

Hollander is staring at him. There is no Rose or Miles by his side now, just a single drink clenched tightly in his hand. He stares long at Ilya, and his expression is heartbreaking.

Ilya tears his eyes away, because he can’t look at him like this. Not like he regrets, like Hollander regrets ever opening that door six years ago. He can’t handle that. It’ll rip him in two, because if Hollander wants to forget, what is there left for Ilya to remember?

When he looks up again—and he has to look up again, he’ll always look again—he finds Hollander gone.

He shouldn’t have looked away.

He is considering trying to find him—to what end, he doesn’t know, isn’t thinking clearly—when the woman wraps her arms around his shoulders and leans up. For a horrifying second Ilya thinks she wants to kiss him. She doesn’t. Instead, she brings her lips to his ear.

“Sorry, I don’t fuck omegas,” she says, and he goes cold all over.

He didn’t want to admit it, subconsciously ignored the symptoms and the signs even though it hasn’t even been two months since the last one. That was probably part of the reason why Ilya didn’t want to admit it, because how could he be going through this again? He’s on his suppressants again, and he’s been so fucking careful to avoid Hollander at games. He broke down his nest straight after the heat, had his whole house deep cleaned, and washed his shirt—the shirt Hollander returned—three times to fully remove his scent.

That almost broke him, but he did it.

Ilya has barely even touched himself since because whenever he does he thinks of Hollander and that makes him think of the last time they touched one another and it makes him so fucking hot and desperate, full of want and desire and love—

Fuck. It’s true. It’s happening again. 

He’s going into heat.

Ilya wrenches himself away from her and stumbles backwards. She doesn’t care, already floating away while Ilya is left untethered.

He’s miles away from his own bed and nest, no matter how sad and scentless it is, and he is alone.

Hollander is here, but that doesn’t matter. He’s with Rose, his appropriate omega who he can be seen with in public. No one will ever stop and ask him if he’s sure about Rose, no one will look at them with disgust or confusion.

This is for the best, and Ilya will…

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do. Ride it out on his own again, or even more alone because Svetlana is back in New York and Ilya is in Montreal and Shane was there, he was right fucking there and now he’s gone again and Ilya is going into heat again and he—

“Ilya.” There is a hand on his waist. Grounding. Solid. “Ilya.”

He is turned around gently, and oh. There he is. So close.

“Shane,” Ilya murmurs softly, then remembers he shouldn’t. “Hollander.”

“Ilya,” Hollander says again, and is it the vibrations from the music or does he sound different? “I didn’t think I’d see you here.”

“In Montreal?” Ilya asks, staring at Hollander’s mouth. “We played together today.”

He isn’t saying the words for Hollander’s benefit. He’s saying it to remind himself. He’s in Montreal. He played a game against Hollander today. He lost, but that doesn’t seem so terrible right now.

“In this club,” Hollander clarifies. There’s a strange twist to his lips. “Ilya, are you okay?”

“Yes.” He says it out of habit, because Ilya is not okay. “Why?”

Hollander frowns, then glances around. Ilya isn’t sure if everyone is looking at them or if they’re just another couple in the crowd.

Whatever he finds, Hollander makes a decision and grabs his wrist. “Come on.”

Ilya follows. Ilya will always follow.

It’s a testament to something Ilya can’t quite analyse right now that Hollander doesn’t care about what it might look like to be seen dragging his rival into a bathroom in a downtown club.

Hollander locks the door behind them.

Once they are alone, any walls constructed between Hollander’s last rut and now come crashing down.

“Ilya, what is going on?” Hollander whispers. His hands are firm on Ilya’s cheeks. When did he start to touch him? He angles his head to try to get Ilya to look him in the eye, but he cannot look away from his lips, from the tiny hint of fang showing every time he says his name. “Ilya!”

“What?” Ilya snaps, and wrenches himself backwards until he stumbles into the sink. “Fucking what?”

“Were you like, fucking roofied or something?” Hollander’s hands reach out like he’s going to touch him again, but he stops himself just before. His hands drop to his side, dejected. Ilya watches them fall like it’s the only thing in the world he wants or needs.

“I do not—” Ilya blinks. Steadies himself on the sink. The room is spinning. “That word?”

Hollander does touch him then, to steady him around the waist because the dirty bathroom floor feels closer than before. “Roofied? It means drugged. Ilya, did someone put something in your drink?”

They could have, but Ilya knows that isn’t it. Some faceless person in this club didn’t do anything to him; this is all Ilya.

“Mm, no.” Ilya’s gaze roams from Hollander’s lips to his neck, to that spot where his heart beats and his scent is so fucking good, where Ilya could put his own fangs, his own mark.

“Well, you’re out of it,” Hollander says. His hands are firm and somehow cold against Ilya’s waist. He wants to sink into him. “Drunk, then?”

“Two beers,” Ilya answers. Hollander has seen him drink more during ruts and stay clear-headed. “Is nothing. I think I should—” He tries to push away from the sink, to put more space between them, to leave this club and leave Hollander and go back to the life he was living unhappily but at least it was his own.

He miscalculates his stability, and the next thing he knows he is falling into Hollander, his nose pressing directly against his neck.

Ilya buries his nose into his scent gland and inhales. It is like returning home. No, it is better. It is like he has been searching for home forever, and has finally found it in the crook of Shane Hollander’s neck.

It is as if he can think properly for the first time since Hollander walked out of his door. He never even realised how fucked he was, how he was wading through life for two months straight, and now he can feel.

“Ilya,” Hollander whispers, his breath brushing against his own neck, warm and gentle against the mark— “Ilya.”

His senses return to him in a rush, and he pushes Hollander away before he can think.

Hollander doesn’t follow him this time. He stands there, mouth open and eyes wide, trained on Ilya’s neck.

“Holy fuck,” Hollander breathes. “Holy fuck, Ilya, you’re—”

“Do not do this,” Ilya says, even as he sees the realisation fall over his features. “Hollander, do not.”

“Ilya… This whole time?”

Ilya grits his teeth. “Hollander.”

But Shane isn’t listening. He’s lost in his own memories, likely parsing through years of interactions. Every time Ilya didn’t knot, every time he shied away from Hollander touching his neck, every rut he disappeared for halfway.

Ilya can see it playing out on his face, and he wants to leave but he also—fuck, he can’t even comprehend leaving now. He is tethered.

“You hid this for… fuck.” Hollander shakes his head, torn between stepping closer and moving away. “This whole time. Fuck, I knew there was something wrong. At the game last month, and–and today’s game, too! I knew it. Something was off with you. Something’s been off with you since—Fuck.”

Yes. Fuck. “Do not think too hard,” Ilya mutters, trying to diffuse this rapidly spiralling situation. “Not good for you.”

Hollander isn’t listening. “Every time we… every rut we shared you were…”

“It was nothing,” Ilya retorts. His hands grip the sink tightly, his only anchor. “I did a good job, right? Got you through your ruts even as a…”

Hollander runs his hands through his hair. “I should have known.”

“I was on suppressants.” Not fucking good ones, Ilya is realising.

“What we did together…”

“Was simple,” Ilya says. His head hurts. He wants to lie down. “We fucked. What else was there?”

Lie, lie, lie.

“What else—” Hollander lets out a strangled laugh. “Ilya, you’re… You’re a—and I bit you and you’re a—”

Stupid fucking mark. “It is nothing,” he rushes to say, to stop Hollander from spiralling. “Normal rut stuff. It healed already. Look.” He turns his head away to show him, but also because he can’t handle being pinned under Hollander’s gaze any longer.

Then, barely there, Hollander’s touch. Just a brush of his fingertips over the mark, but it is enough to send another stab of want through his body, want pooling in his gut, his cock, and fuck, his wet hole.

“It doesn’t look healed.”

Ilya shivers. “Only scars.”

Hollander inhales. “So I scarred you. That doesn’t make it any better.”

Something in Ilya hardens and he slaps Hollander’s hand away. “Would you be acting like this if I were an alpha?”

“Yes!” Hollander exclaims, angry. “Fuck, ever since I—Ever since I took off that day I’ve felt like shit, and I didn’t know you were an omega then. Okay? It has nothing to do with you being an omega.” His face collapses. “You could have told me, Ilya.”

Ilya’s mouth is dry. “No,” he says, but it is more to himself than to Hollander. “No, I could not.”

Hollander’s face twists. “Why not?”

Why not?

“Because!” Ilya exclaims. He steps out of Hollander’s reach, but he follows him anyway when Ilya stumbles into the wall.

“Because why?”

“Do not be stupid, Hollander,” he snaps. “Because Russia, because NHL, because everything.”

Shane’s expression shutters. “I know that,” he says, stiff and angry. “I want to know why you didn’t tell me.”

“I—” Ilya stalls. “No one knows.”

“Svetlana knows.” Shane throws it like a weapon intended to injure, but Ilya is too wounded for it to hurt.

“Svetlana knows because I had to tell her,” Ilya fires back. “Svetlana found out when you left halfway through your rut, when you left—” He stops himself before he says something he will surely regret.

His outburst has left Hollander quiet.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean—I shouldn’t have left. I should have… I should’ve stayed, and asked what happened, but I didn’t. I panicked.” He wets his lips, and the sight sends a stab of desire through him. “I didn’t want to face the truth, so I left.”

“The truth?” Ilya asks, meaner than he intended. “What truth is this?”

“What else is there?” Hollander says.

Ilya sneers. “I’m not mind-reader, Hollander. I do not know what you are thinking.”

“I fucking like you, Rozanov!” Hollander explodes, then, quieter: “I like you, Ilya.”

It says it like it’s simple. Like Ilya hasn’t ruined himself every day since he realised the same thing; that the gnawing, desperate want in his heart was not going to go away.

“Shane,” Ilya whispers, eyes wide, any anger gone in the wake of his—in the wake of Shane’s confession. “You know we cannot…”

“Why not?” He says it with gritted teeth and a clenched jaw, like he is going to fight anyone who dares to challenge him. “Why can’t we? We don’t have to tell anyone, but I’m sick of hiding how I feel about you and I’m—I want to do this properly.”

“Because you marked me?” Ilya doesn’t even know what response he wants. His stomach is in knots, and it has nothing to do with the ever-present gnawing heat inside.

“Because I want you,” Shane says softly, closing the gap between them. “I wanted you when I thought you were an alpha. I want you any way I have get you.”

“Ah,” Ilya whispers. It is a good answer. His eyes are damp. “I want you, too. I like you. Too much.” He loves him. It wants to claw his heart out of his chest. “I think I—” He stutters over the words, tongue heavy in his mouth. He wants to say it, but he can’t. “I think I’m going into heat.”

Vague horror falls over Shane’s expression, then is immediately replaced by understanding. Then, determination.

“Okay,” he breathes, intertwining their hands together. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

Ilya isn’t sure how they get out of the bathroom, or the bar, or into Shane’s car. One second he’s drifting and the next he’s on soft leather with Shane’s hand gripping his thigh so hard he’s sure it’ll bruise before the night is done.

He wants to talk. He wants to ask what he’s thinking, but as the streetlights illuminate Shane’s features he sees he is stone-faced, jaw clenched, and—angry? Ilya isn’t sure. His head is too fuzzy to make any deductions, so he keeps quiet, closes his eyes, focuses on the grounding presence of Hollander’s hand on his thigh, and tries not to let himself fall any deeper.

Ilya forces his eyes open when the road under the tires turns into concrete, and finds that Shane has taken them somewhere familiar. It’s not his house in Montreal, the one Ilya has never seen. No, he drives them to his fake apartment. The one he plans to renovate, or sell, or whatever. The one he brings Ilya to when they want to fuck.

Maybe he brought him here to fuck Ilya in secret, to hide him away between waves and return to his real house to make love to perfect Rose fucking Landry.

Through the haze of his heat, Ilya hopes his heartbreak isn’t plain on his face.

“Come on,” Hollander murmurs once he parks and turns off the engine. “Wait, hold on. I’ll—” He jumps out and rushes around to Ilya’s side, wresting the door open. “Here, let me—There you go.”

The bracing cold January air takes his breath away, and for a second the heat clears and he can think clearly.

Hollander has one arm around his waist. Supporting him, their bodies pressed against each other in a way Ilya wasn’t sure they would ever be again.

“What a gentleman,” Ilya says as Hollander guides him to the basement elevator.

“You can’t be too far into it,” Hollander mutters, although Ilya hears it clearly with how close he is to his ear. It makes him shiver. “Joking around when you’re…”

“In heat?” Ilya mumbles. When the elevator arrives, he tugs himself free of Hollander’s grip and stumbles inside. He doesn’t get very far, and finds himself pressing his overheated face against the wall of the elevator. “Not quite. Pre-heat, maybe. I… My heats have never been regular.”

He hears rather than sees the elevator button being pressed. He should be taking this all in and savouring it. Ilya has never been in this part of Hollander’s apartment, and has only ever seen the back entrance and the emergency stairwell. Cold and impersonal.

“It doesn’t matter,” Hollander says. “I’m helping, however you want me. However long it takes.”

“My hero,” Ilya drawls.

Hollander doesn’t speak during the rest of the elevator ride. Ilya is grateful, and rapidly losing his ability to think, let alone form sentences, and a part of him is afraid of what he will say.

He is already treading on dangerous ground by being here, by agreeing to leave the club with Hollander, then by entering the space where they’ve shared his rut before. Ilya isn’t going to leave this incident behind as easily as last time—and calling that experience easy is downplaying it—but he can try to protect himself.

Ilya can make sure this is impersonal. He won’t let himself fall into the fantasy. Quick and rough, he’ll ask Hollander fuck him from behind if it’ll make this easier. He won’t kiss him. He won’t touch him. He won’t even talk, if that’s what it will take to get through this intact. 

Then all of Ilya’s plans fall apart the second he steps foot into the apartment where it takes him a second to understand not only what he is seeing, but what he is scenting.

Hollander’s cold apartment—the one he keeps primarily to fuck under the guise of a business venture—is lived in. There is a stack of boring hockey books on the shelves, used dishes left to dry by the sink, and old, warm blankets in a tidy, folded pile on the couch. The impersonal touch of the interior decorator is gone, and all that is left is Hollander.

But more than that, he can smell him. Hollander’s cleaner usually uses industrial bleach in between their hookups, but now Ilya scents nothing but Shane. Snow and pine and warmth soaking into every inch of the apartment. By the dining table and the couch, the kitchen and the entryway. From his position, Ilya can scent him everywhere.

“You live here now,” Ilya croaks, still glancing around the room like he cannot believe it. “You… This is your home.”

“Yeah,” Shane murmurs, hovering beside him. “Here, and at the cottage if I get a couple days off, but that’s rare.”

The cottage, the one he asked Ilya to visit for his next rut. The one Ilya has dreamed about far too often these last two months.

“Why?”

Shane frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Why do you stay here?”

“Oh.” Shane looks away. “I felt like a change of scenery, and this place is closer to the rink, and…”

Ilya audibly swallows. “And?”

“And it smelled like us,” Shane whispers. “I didn’t get it cleaned last time we… the last time we met up here. I don’t know why I didn’t. I just shut it up and it was like—” He stares at Ilya like he’s trying to tell him something with more than his words. “Like I could remember the rut I had here, and it was almost like you were still here with me.”

“Oh,” Ilya breathes. “Shane. That is—”

“Pathetic?” Shane mutters. His body tense, like he is ready for the verbal blow.

“No,” Ilya says. He steps closer to Shane, not quite touching but almost. The distance is terrible but feels impossible to breach. “No, Shane. I understand. I would do the same. I have done the same.” At Shane’s questioning stare, he elaborates. “Your last rut, it triggered a heat. I used your scent… the shirt you returned. It helped.”

He watches Shane swallow. His hands twitch like he too wants to be closer.

“I wondered,” he finally says. “When I came by, I thought something wasn’t right, but I didn’t think I had the right to barge in after I left you, and…” He inhales. “Svetlana was already there.”

“Svetlana was there,” Ilya echoes. “I rang her. I needed her.”

Shane visibly flinches. Ilya wants nothing more than to comfort him, to explain himself, but the words do not come.

“You needed her,” Shane repeats slowly. “You needed her, because I left. I bit you during my rut and then left because I thought you… Fuck. Should I call her?”

It looks like it hurt him to say it.

“I did not sleep with her,” Ilya says. “She made sure I kept hydrated, communicated with my team… That’s it.”

“Oh,” Shane breathes, shoulders loosening.

“I have not slept with anyone for a while,” Ilya clarifies, suddenly needing Shane to know. “A long while. No one. No omega.”

Shane is staring at him with wide eyes. “Ilya.”

“No alpha either,” he continues, because it’s important he knows this.

“Me too.” Shane nods, like he does know. “Look, I don’t know if I’ve been clear enough,” he says quickly, like he has to get the words out as quickly as possible. “I want to help you through your heat, if you want me. Whatever that looks like for you, whatever you usually do. If it’s just like what Svetlana did, I can do that.” He stares directly into Ilya’s eyes with the same single-minded intensity he does on the ice. “If you want to fuck me, you can. I want you to use me however you want. Whatever you need from me, Ilya. It’s yours.”

“I want you,” he says, resolute. “Not Svetlana.”

Hollander nods. “Okay.”

“I have not had many heats.” Ilya stares him down, making sure he understands. “Only two in my life; three, with this one. I have not shared with anyone. Not until now.”

Shane inhales sharply, and that is what breaks him. He falls into Ilya’s space, bodies pressed intimately together, chest to stomach to pelvis, no space in between.

“Sweetheart,” Ilya murmurs, and circles his arms around his waist, grounded by his warmth as Shane buries his face into his neck.

“No one?” Shane mumbles into skin, mouth inches away from the mark he put there.

“No one,” Ilya confirms, then hesitantly adds: “Only you.”

“How do you want to do this?” Shane asks, hushed and reverent.

Desire simmers beneath his skin, a low, fuzzy ember that is growing into a fire.

“I want to fuck you,” Ilya says slowly, the possibilities stretching out in front of him. “I want to fuck your mouth. I want to come on your stomach and rub it into your skin. I want to smell me on you for days. I want to make you mine, and then,” he says, voice dropping low, “I want to sit on your knot.”

Shane shivers. “I can—I can do that.” He holds Ilya tighter. “Is this still pre-heat?”

Ilya knows Shane’s beautiful mind is working overtime trying to understand and plan and act all at once. He needs more information, more knowledge, and his alpha loves asking questions.

“Yes,” Ilya replies, fond and buzzing gently with warm desire. “No heat yet.”

“We could go to the bedroom, or I could make you something to eat?”

Shane is no good in the kitchen beyond high-protein smoothies and functional meals which fit into his diet. The sentiment is nice, however.

“No, I am not hungry,” Ilya says.

“Do you want to sit?”

“No,” Ilya says as his eyes drift to the living room.

He does not want to sit down on Shane’s sofa, the one that smells like him in a way Ilya has yet to experience. All of their trysts have occurred in soulless hotel rooms, or this very apartment, but without Hollander’s scent baked in. Here, in the home Shane has made, he is everywhere.

And Ilya can smell himself; pre-heat beneath layers of sweat, and not all of it is Ilya’s.

“Can I shower?” Ilya asks, suddenly all too aware of his body. “I do not want to—I do not like how I smell.”

Shane nods, although Ilya doesn’t know if he’s agreeing or merely giving his approval.

“Yeah,” he says, pulling away. He clears his throat and glances away. “Yeah. Go ahead. You know where it is.”

Ilya does, but he stands unmoving for a little while longer. He realises after a moment it’s because he doesn’t want to walk away from Hollander. He doesn’t want to break this connection.

“I’ll shower in the guest bathroom,” Hollander says, and it’s not right but it’s okay. Ilya can scent others on him, too; light and floral, musk and vanilla, and half dozen other scents which belong to other people.

He wonders which one belongs to Rose.

Ilya wants to scent only Shane. The separation is not good, but it is bearable.

In the privacy of Shane’s bedroom—tidy but fuck, his scent is even stronger here—Ilya gathers enough mental faculties to realise he should message Svetlana. 

He won’t be able to catch his flight tomorrow, and he definitely won’t be able to play Boston’s next game. It won’t look good, but he has an otherwise perfect track record which should get him through with minimal questions.

Despite the late hour, Svetlana replies immediately.

Sveta: Got it. Should I say it’s your rut again or my heat?

Then, because he can even think of a reply, another message comes through:

Sveta: I could use a trip to Montreal ;)

Ilya’s heart clenches. He loves her, but he can’t stomach lying about this, even if it is for the best.

Ilya: Say I’m sick. Bad flu or something. No rut or heat, please.

Then, because he feels bad:

Ilya: I’ll pay for a vacation if you want, just not Montreal.

He doesn’t wait for her to reply. He knows she’ll agree, although surely not without questions. He will deal with it later.

Now, he needs to shower off the acrid scent of other alphas.

Hollander’s shower is familiar. His body wash hasn’t changed—a comforting constant—and his towels are worn and soft. Ilya takes his time, washing every part of himself thoroughly until nothing remains clinging to his skin but his own scent. He doesn’t know what he smells like after a decade of being on suppressants, but he hopes Shane will like it.

He likes Shane’s scent. He smells like the outdoors, like new frost and a pine forest. Like home, somehow. An ice rink under the open sky. Familiar. 

Ilya is well-acquainted with it after four ruts, but it was strongest at the tail end of the last one—the one in Ilya’s own home, the one which sparked his last heat—although heartbreakingly brief, and then Shane was gone. Even the scent-soaked shirt Hollander returned was tainted by other people.

But the very thought of getting to bury his nose where Shane smells the strongest—his neck, the crease of his thigh, the space between his pecs—is so perfect Ilya may cry.

His cock, half-hard since Hollander pulled him into the club bathroom, thickens further. He wraps his hand around himself and strokes under the warm water with no intent of seeking completion, for once in his life looking forward to giving into his baser instincts.

When he finally steps out of the bathroom, he finds Shane waiting for him—wet hair, dressed in a t-shirt and shorts—with what looks like every pillow and blanket he owns piled onto his bed.

“Did you rob furniture store?” Ilya asks, wiping his face down with the towel. He hasn’t bothered with one around his waist, and he sees the way Hollander’s eyes drift to his hard cock. “You own more pillows than you did before, and you had many.”

“I grabbed more from the living room and the spare room,” he says, clearly distracted. “I heard omegas like to nest. I thought you might want them.”

He does, Ilya thinks keenly as he stares at the pillows. The ones Hollander has been sleeping with should be closest, but the others can be close, too. Everything is covered in his scent, faintly or otherwise.

The pillows and blankets were not the only things he gathered. Cold water bottles and energy bars, entirely unnecessary lube—likely muscle memory from his own ruts—and condoms sit on the bedside table.

“I do like to nest,” Ilya answers his question, distracted. “You have condoms.”

Shane glances at the bedside table. “Yeah?”

Ilya exhales through his nose. “Good.”

“You aren’t happy.” Shane approaches him slowly, as if he is a wild animal. Perhaps he is. He touches Ilya’s arm, then wraps his hand around his wrists loosely. “I didn’t know if you were on any kind of…” He trails off, but Ilya knows what he means. Suppressants aren’t birth control, and since Ilya was not letting anyone fuck him, there was never any need.

“I am not,” Ilya croaks. “I would have, if I knew we were going to do this.”

And he would, he realises as his stomach swoops low. He would have got on birth control somehow to feel Shane’s bare cock filling him up to the brim. He might even let him without protection.

Fuck. He wants it. He wants to feel him without any barrier, wants him to fill Ilya until he is bursting, until there is no question whether Ilya is pregnant or not.

“Next time,” Shane whispers, cupping his jaw gently and pressing a soft kiss to his left cheek, then his right, then finally his lips. It is the chastest kiss they’ve ever shared, and yet one of the most important. “Next time, okay?”

Ilya relaxes. Yes. Good. Something inside of him loosens, and his limbs go heavy. “Next time,” he repeats, a reassurance to himself. “Kiss me, Hollander.”

Shane kisses him again, just as chaste. Gentle. He has very soft lips. 

Ilya deepens the kiss, impatient. His tongue reaches out to greet Shane’s lips, to trace along the seam until he is granted entrance.

Shane’s hands tangle into Ilya’s wet curls as he tilts his head, his own tongue meeting his. Fuck, Ilya loves kissing. If he were to do nothing else, he would be content doing this. Kissing for hours, mapping Shane’s mouth until it is more familiar than his own. Ilya could spend a lifetime kissing him like this, if he were not in heat.

And his taste. He tastes like he smells, cold and fresh. Ilya wants to bury himself inside and never fucking leave.

He is so warm, heat diffusing throughout his entire body. He is the hottest in his belly, his pelvis, his hole.

Ilya is wet. There is no doubt Shane can smell it now.

“Ilya,” Shane whines into his mouth, hands dragging up along Ilya’s bare chest. “Fuck, you’re starting to smell like… so fucking good.”

“Mm.” Ilya presses kisses along Shane’s jawline, then lower before he’s stopped by his shirt. He tugs at it. “Take off. Do not know why you even got dressed.”

“I didn’t want to assume anything.” Shane pulls back leaving just enough space to pull his shirt off.

“I am naked in your apartment,” Ilya mutters, leaning down to latch onto Shane's plump pec the second it’s bared. “In heat, in your apartment. What is left to assume?”

Shane moans, head dropping back as Ilya’s mouth seals around his nipple and sucks. His arms come around to circle Ilya’s head, stroke his curls.

“I don’t want to fuck this up again,” Shane says, breathless. “I wanna do it right. I want to make it up to you.”

Ilya releases his nipple, wet and shiny with his spit, to take Shane’s mouth again. 

“You do not need to. I lied, I fucked up, too,” he says, muffled against his lips. “Just make it up to me, yes?”

He feels Shane shudder against him, then nod, helpless and desperate like he is the one with heat thrumming through his veins.

“Yeah,” Shane mumbles, and begins to push him backwards towards the bed. “Yeah. Let me… Lay down. I want to suck your cock.”

Ilya falls backward onto the bed—it smells like Shane so much, he’s surrounded, engulfed—and lets his legs fall open. He would do anything Shane wants at this moment with his heat becoming less and less easy to ignore.

“Have you been thinking about this?” Ilya taunts as Shane presses hot, wet kisses down the length of his body. From his neck to his chest to his stomach before settling in between his legs, face to face with Ilya’s cock.

“Ever since I left,” Shane mumbles. He then wraps his perfect fucking lips around Ilya’s cock, tonguing the slit like he’s starved.

“Fuck,” Ilya hisses, propping himself up onto his elbows to stare. “Sweetheart, yes. Good, like that.”

After six years of this, Hollander can suck cock better than anyone else Ilya has ever had. Fuck, he could suck Ilya better even after the first time in that Toronto hotel room.

Shane wraps his hands around Ilya’s cock and strokes where he isn’t sucking, taking more and more of him down his mouth. His throat opens, and Ilya doesn’t think he’s going to survive this.

But he needs more, heat burning him up from the inside.

“Touch me,” Ilya demands, pushing the hand on his cock to his ass. “Finger me, Hollander. Get me ready for you.”

Shane groans, the vibrations travelling up along Ilya’s spine, but he follows directions so well. While he sucks Ilya’s cock, he starts to prod one finger against his wet hole.

His heat flares hotter than ever, almost as if it had laid dormant until the alpha who marked him decided to return. Ilya’s skin burns and his stomach cramps with need and he wants and he wants and he needs—

“F–uck,” Ilya exclaims with a punched-out moan as the first of Shane’s fingers slips inside. He’s wet, perhaps wetter than he’s ever been before, and it’s so fucking easy.

Shane pulls off of Ilya’s throbbing cock and rests it against his cheek.

“You’re so easy for me,” he pants with a boyish smile. “So open.”

“Another one,” Ilya manages to force out, guiding Shane back to his cock. He allows his head to drop back to the pillow because he can’t handle watching him and feeling him at the same time. “Another finger. Go. Give me.”

“Bossy,” Shane murmurs into his skin before returning, hot mouth sealing around Ilya’s cock, a second finger slipping inside along with the first.

It is better than Ilya could have imagined. Every twist of his fingers, every thrust down his throat, it is what Ilya needs.

Ten years of suppressing his heats—over half of those years spent meeting up with Hollander—and he could have had this all along.

“Hollander,” Ilya gasps, hands tangled in his hair. “Close. ‘m close.”

Shane doubles his efforts, taking him in deep, sucking him down, stroking him inside. The wet sounds of Ilya’s ass combined with the wet sounds of Shane’s mouth—and then another finger pressed knuckle-deep, fuck, he won’t survive this—sends him tumbling over the edge into his first orgasm.

“Shane!” Ilya bellows, body arched taut as he cums and cums, cock twitching as he empties into Hollander’s mouth. “Fuck, so perfect, take me so well, alpha,” he babbles, blindly searching one hand to stroke along his beautiful freckled cheek, flushed red from the effort.

Ilya sighs softly when Shane releases his still-hard cock from his mouth and tugs his fingers free, his hole continuing to twitch, open and needy.

“So fucking hot,” Shane slurs, already crawling up the bed to cover him. Their mouths meet, and Ilya can taste himself; musky and rich and all the better for being on Shane’s tongue. “Fuck, Ilya, you taste so good.”

“Can sit on your face later,” Ilya offers breathlessly, half joking and half serious. “You kiss well, you will kiss my hole just as good.”

“Fuck, you can’t say shit like that,” Shane groans and shivers against him. “Ilya, I don’t think I can—” He mouths at Ilya’s chest, lips catching his nipple and oh, that is something they need to explore later. “I don’t think I can control myself.”

Ilya swallows. His jaw aches, fangs itching to drop. His hole—fuck—clenches because even though he’s cum down his alpha’s throat, it’s not enough. He wants to be knotted and owned and claimed.

“You can tie me up again,” Shane says, not waiting for Ilya’s reply. His hands start to touch Ilya everywhere, clawing up along his sides, scratching along his thighs, cupping his spit-wet cock, then around to squeeze his ass until he is breathless. “I don’t think I can stop, but I can be good, you could just—fuck, you could ride me, Ilya. Take what you want and I’ll be tied up so I won’t be able to touch you, or hurt you or whatever. I can d-do it for you, but I don’t think I’ll be able to keep my head.” He buries his face in Ilya’s neck. “Not when you smell like this.”

It takes him a moment to work through Shane’s desperate words, the English language not coming to him as easily in his heat. 

Eventually he pieces it together.

“No,” he whispers, the want receding enough to answer. “No, I—” He swallows. “I do not want that. I want you to touch me, I want you to—” He almost chokes on his words.

Ilya doesn’t think either of them are capable of allowing it, and the idea of restraining him now is not an option.

“Ilya,” Shane whines.

“I need you to trust me,” Ilya finally says, slow and measured as he strokes the sweat from Shane’s forehead. He is so beautiful, Ilya can’t believe he is here. He can’t believe they’re both here, that they’ve made it to this point of trust and acceptance. “Like I trust you.”

His heart threatens to burst.

He pushes Shane over onto his back instead.

It’s a familiar scene, but this time Ilya doesn’t slot himself between his thighs. Instead, he swings his leg over Shane’s waist and settles over his hips. It is new, but instinctual. Bone-deep. Something dark settles inside of him, a beast temporarily quietened.

“You are gonna ride me,” Shane breathes, eyes wide and wet looking up at Ilya like he’s everything. “Come on. Take what you need from me. I’m all yours.”

Ilya reaches behind himself and grasps Shane’s hard cock. He hasn’t knotted yet, but it won’t take long. It never does.

“Mine,” Ilya growls, leaning over to the bedside table to grab a condom. He tries not to think too hard about it as he slips it over Shane’s cock. “Say it.”

“Yours,” Shane breathes. His hands don’t know where to rest, fluttering from his hips to his thighs to his stomach. “Fuck, Ilya. I’m yours.”

“Good, alpha,” Ilya croons, notches Shane’s cock against his wet hole, and begins to sink down.

Ilya loves Shane’s cock. This might be the first time he’s ever had it inside of him, but Ilya is intimately familiar with it. He has always thought it was the perfect size for fucking, if he ever dared to let himself go there in moments of weakness. When Ilya felt those stirrings of heat in the middle of Shane’s rut, when he would hold his ass in shower imagining what it would be like to be properly fucked.

Shane throws his head back when Ilya finally bottoms out, his face scrunched up so beautifully, Ilya has to lean down and kiss him, wet and slick and slow.

“You taste like me,” Ilya groans into his mouth, tongue chasing every inch of him. “I would suck your cock to show how good it is, but I am using it.”

Shane tries to fuck up into him, but he does not have any leverage and no experience fucking like this. Ilya sits up again, laughing, lightheaded. Dizzy with want.

“Ilya,” he whines. His eyes are hazy, lips bitten red. His hands clench down around Ilya’s waist, desperately trying to get him to move or to stay still, he isn’t sure. Either way, Hollander is ravenous beneath him to the point where Ilya wonders if he has managed to bring forth his rut early.

Ilya isn’t so cruel to deny the both of them, and the heat in his belly is starting to boil over. His gaze is heavy and his senses are hazy, the scent of himself and Shane together clouding his thoughts. He wants nothing more than to sink into this fully and completely.

Ilya can only hope he will remember most of this once his heat breaks, because forgetting seems too awful to consider.

“Do not worry,” he promises, pushing himself up and forward, Shane’s cock dragging out slowly, agonisingly, until only the head remains tucked inside. “I will fuck you now, alpha.”

He fucks back down to the very root. It is almost too much. 

“Oh god,” Shane groans, then swears low.

Ilya agrees. He shakes atop of him, so full, so good. Hollander is thick, the perfect size for an alpha, and while Ilya is an omega in heat, he’s never taken anything more than his fingers before and even that was rare. This is new, and a lot.

“Big,” Ilya grunts. His legs shake from the effort of just keeping himself up, from not letting himself fall too fast too soon. He braces himself with one hand on Hollander’s chest, and the other back on his thigh. “Fuck.”

“Ilya, you feel so good,” Hollander whines. “You’re riding me so good.”

“Fuck, please,” Ilya pants, words losing meaning the longer he sits speared on Shane’s cock. Soon, he cannot sit still any longer and starts to fuck himself.

It’s the first cock he’s ever taken, but he takes to it easily. It makes sense, he was made for this. Made for Shane Hollander’s cock, made to be his. He knows it. He might have denied himself for all these years, but he’s accepted it now.

Ilya loses himself in his pleasure. When he comes down a bit too hard, Shane’s cock edges in even more, so far he swears he can feel him in his throat.

“Fuck,” Ilya hisses, head thrown back. “Fuck, alpha.”

“Careful, sweetheart,” Shane babbles. He already looks so fucked out, the way he does after Ilya has already spent an evening ruining him. Eyes glazed over, freckled cheeks flushed, mouth bitten red. He’s so gorgeous.

Shane’s hands are constantly moving, from his legs to his ass to his stomach, and oh that is something, Hollander’s hand resting over his belly, like he can feel himself through Ilya’s abs. He finally settles on Ilya’s hips, guiding him down into his cock.

He is good at this, Ilya realises. He’s had barely any practice and Shane is already good at fucking him, although Ilya knows he doesn’t have much experience besides what he and Ilya do together.

But that’s not true. Not anymore.

It must be the heat talking, but Ilya can’t help but wonder if Hollander is like this with Rose Landry, too. If he is as eager to please, happy to lie back and give. If Rose ever climbed on top of him and took his cock inside of her and made him work for it.

Ilya wonders if she was better.

“Was she good for you?” Ilya has to ask, fucking himself so hard he knows he and Shane both will be bruised tomorrow.

“What?” Shane gasps. He struggles to keep hold of Ilya’s hips, both of their bodies slick with sweat.

“Rose,” Ilya growls. He grips Shane’s pec, squeezing his nipple between the knuckles of his fingers. “Was she this good when you fucked her?”

Shane throws his head back. “No!” he shouts, guttural like it was ripped from him. “Fuck, no, Ilya, n–no, you’re it, I’m yours, I’m always yours.”

Yes, fucking yes. That’s right.

“You will break up with her?” Ilya asks, but he comes down hard and Shane’s cock grazes his prostate so perfectly it comes out like he’s begging.

Break up with her, don’t go back to her, stay with me, alpha. You’re mine, all mine, and I will never let you go.

“Yeah,” Shane agrees, panting. He fucks up quickly, meeting every one of Ilya’s thrusts in a perfect dance. “I will, sweetheart. Promise. I promise.”

“Mm, fuck,” Ilya pants, head thrown back as he rides him. “Fuck, Shane, fuck. You feel so good, alpha, fill me up so good. So perfect, sweetheart. All mine, all mine.”

“I’m yours,” he promises with wet eyes and hard cock and soft, perfect lips. “I’m not going anywhere. Ever, Ilya, I’m yours.”

“Alpha,” Ilya sobs, falls to cover him, chest to chest, as Shane continues to fuck him, hips grinding desperately into his own.

“Bite me,” Shane begs. “Fuck, Ilya. You have to bite me. Mark me, please. Make it stick, make me yours.” He cranes his neck, displaying the long line of his throat. “Do it.”

And it is all Ilya has wanted since—

Shane’s last rut, Shane’s first rut, the first time they fucked, the first time Ilya got his mouth around his cock, the first time he saw him outside the rink in Saskatchewan when this shy, seventeen-year-old alpha approached him with interest and admiration on an equal playing field.

Ilya turns his head and buries his teeth into Shane’s neck.

The effect is instantaneous. It is as if he was living a half life, his alpha’s mark on his neck with no match. He was empty then, floating and alone, but now he is full.

“So good, so fucking good, I can’t believe, I want, I’ve always wanted—” Shane is babbling, the words meaning nothing and everything. “I love you, Ilya.”

Ilya’s teeth dig in further for a split second before releasing him, blood flowing sluggishly from Shane’s neck. It’s beautiful, but he’s distracted.

“I love you, too,” Ilya sobs, and he has to kiss him now, can’t go another second without feeling Shane’s lips on his own, those same lips who said he loved him. “Fuck, Shane. I love you so much.”

Shane circles a loose fist around his cock, and the hint of pressure and friction is exactly what he wanted. His hips never stop moving, powerful thighs thrusting up, his cock fucking Ilya so well he’ll remember this forever. 

Ilya is lost in his head, lost in the moment. He has to push himself away and sit upright just to stay conscious. 

Fuck, is this how Shane felt during every rut together? Out of his mind with pleasure, thoughtlessly in love and devoted?

How did he ever walk away?

“Fuck, fuck. Knot me,” Ilya practically begs. His thighs are burning with the effort to keep fucking himself, even with Hollander’s guiding hands and helping thrusts, but he can’t stop. 

He can feel the expanding bulb at the base of Shane’s cock growing. It keeps catching his rim, tugging and swelling, promising the best orgasm he’s ever had during a heat. 

“Ilya, Ilya,” Shane slurs, fucked out and desperate. “Gonna–‘m gonna knot you, I will, promise.”

“It’s mine,” Ilya snarls, falling forward, bracing his hands on Shane’s chest to grind the knot inside until he can’t move. “Fucking give it to me.”

As if by order, Shane does. He cums, cock pulsing inside of him, and his knot, oh, his knot swells and expands. It plugs him up so fucking perfect. Not for the first time tonight, Ilya wishes he never put that condom on Shane.

“Oh fuck, oh, so much, Shane—” Ilya is so full. He’s never been so full, he can feel it in his throat. Shane’s cock and his knot and his cum filling Ilya until he’s bursting, until there’s no other possibility that he’s pupped. Ilya cums to the very idea of it.

His thighs tremble from the effort to keep himself upright, but Hollander takes the effort away by pulling him down to lay on his chest.

“You’re too far away,” Shane whines, mouthing at Ilya’s neck, at the mark throbbing in time with his heartbeat and the knot in his hole. “Fuck, Ilya. You feel so good. Never thought it would feel like this. I love you. I love you.”

Ilya sniffles against his neck, licking the blood away from Shane’s own mark that Ilya put there.

“I love you,” he says in Russian, then again in English. Over and over again, because now that he can say it, he never wants to stop.

Ilya is so fucked out he barely realises when Shane rolls them onto their sides and guides Ilya’s leg up over his waist. It is a comfortable position to be in while they wait for Hollander’s knot to go down. Ilya doesn’t even want it to, would prefer to stay here forever.

Time passes slowly. Ilya isn’t quite paying attention, merely enjoying the ebb and the flow and the temporary retreat of his heat. He falls into the gentle touches of Hollander’s fingertips across his back, dragging up and down, and he is so full, so complete.

Which is when Shane has to ruin it.

“Shit,” he hears Shane whisper to himself.

“Whatever it is, not important,” Ilya drawls. He is too comfortable right here, and there will be very little which will convince him to move.

Especially a Hollander-shaped emergency. That is likely not even an emergency at all.

“I don’t have any food for you,” he says, like it is the worst thing in the world.

To Shane Hollander, it probably is.

“We can order something.” Ilya pets his cheek, hoping it will soothe him. It does not. 

“We can’t eat fast food, Ilya. You’re in heat. You need nutritionally dense meals.”

“I need easy food,” he retorts. “Fries. Burgers. Milkshake.”

“I think I have the ingredients for a protein smoothie.”

Ilya’s nose wrinkles. “No. I am good. Thank you.”

“I have salted caramel whey powder.”

“No, thank you.”

“Ilya.” Hollander presses his lips to the crown of Ilya’s head. “I want to look after you. I don’t want to be a—”

Ilya pulls back so he can see him. “What?”

Shane huffs. “I don’t want you to think I’m a bad alpha who can’t provide for you. Food is basic.”

Ilya shrugs. “If you knew I was omega in heat, you would have.”

But Shane isn’t listening. He nonsensically tries to push himself out of bed and out of Ilya, even though they’re still knotted. Ilya doesn’t even let him try, unwilling to give up the connection.

“Let me go,” Shane complains, although he doesn’t put up much of a fight. “I need to check what I have.”

“And leave me alone? No. Besides, we’re stuck.” Ilya tightens his grip, because as much as Shane’s instincts seem to be telling him to cook for Ilya, Ilya’s are screaming not to let his alpha out of bed. “Let me guess. You have protein bars in pantry, and fruit in fridge. Bananas. Berries with the antioxidants. Probably Gatorade, too. That is all I need.”

“That’s not enough,” Shane complains, but settles back down. Good alpha.

“You can cook for me next time,” Ilya promises. From their position, he can see the red mark of his teeth on Shane’s neck. His mark. The one Ilya put there. He puts his lips there, careful not to disrupt the healing process. “Simple food. Meat. No bird food.”

“It’s good for you.”

“I am not bird like you,” Ilya retorts fondly, already dozing off again.

When Shane’s knot finally goes down, Ilya mourns for a moment. He whispers something into Ilya’s ear, but he isn’t really listening. There’s a hand on his hip, a little movement, and then Hollander is pulling out slowly.

Ilya’s breath hitches. He feels empty. 

“I’ll just be a second,” Shane whispers to him before he leaves the bed—leaves their nest—and Ilya feels a little cold.

He hears him move around the room. Disposing of the condom, probably. Ilya tries not to dwell on that too much.

He better not be going to his fucking pantry.

Ilya is too open, he thinks as he reaches around to slip a couple of fingers inside of himself. The condom means there’s little mess besides Ilya’s own slick, which is sticky and plentiful but not unwelcome.

Shane returns. He coaxes Ilya’s fingers out of him, then rolls him onto his back. Ilya watches him, heavy-lidded and in love. He has brought him a glass of water and a wet cloth.

His alpha.

“Drink,” Shane says, and Ilya thinks he might even hold it for him if Ilya asked. He takes it instead, fond. “It’s important to stay hydrated. You probably lost a lot of fluid, and the next round will come quickly.”

The water is cold and the cloth is colder. It cools his overheated body and returns him to reality, but more than that it is Shane’s touch. His scent. Ilya slowly rises to the surface, breathing easily.

“Good alpha,” Ilya teases into the glass, and delights in the hot flush rising to Shane’s cheeks. “Very knowledgeable.”

“I liked it,” Shane murmurs, dragging the wet cloth over Ilya’s stomach and thighs, between his legs and across his cock. He hasn’t really gone soft, most likely won’t for a while longer, but he is content to wait for now. “I missed your cock, though.”

Ilya huffs a quiet laugh. He can read his alpha so easily.

“I like fucking you,” Ilya says. For all that he has hid his status for years, he has never been ashamed about what he wants. “Your knot is good, Hollander, but your ass.” He groans, reaching around to grab his ass. Hollander even spreads his legs for him, and Ilya’s fingers easily find his hole, thumb pressing gently, teasing. “I love your ass.”

I love you, I love you.

“That’s–That’s good,” Shane replies, a little hitch in his breath. “Maybe we could—”

“Maybe what?” Ilya murmurs into his skin as he scoops up some of his own slick to ease the way into Shane.

“Maybe we could get you a, um, knotting dildo,” he whispers, eyes fluttering closed when Ilya eases his thumb into him. “Fuck, that’s good. You could be knotted and f–fuck me at the same time.”

Ilya quirks a smile. “You will buy me a plug?” he asks gleefully. “You choose which colour, yes?”

Shane buries his face to hide. “Shut up.”

“No, I want to talk about this plug more.” Ilya is so fucking happy, he’s practically vibrating. “We should measure your knot to make sure it is the same. You have tape measure?”

“Rozanov.”

“Or you could use it,” Ilya says, delighted. “Knot me while the plug knots you. We can be knotted at the same time.”

“Oh my god,” Shane groans, then knocks his hand away.

Ilya laughs. Loose-limbed and relaxed, his heat simmers. Not forgotten and not gone, but quieter. Nothing like the prior heat where he lost himself in the haze. He is present, and he is happy.

Shane’s hand comes to rest in the hollow of Ilya’s throat.

“Hey. You’re purring,” Shane whispers, and Ilya can hear the smile in his voice. “Ilya. Did you know you could do that?”

The vibrations make sense now. Ilya places his hand on his chest, just below Shane’s.

“No,” he says softly. “I did not. I have never…”

Never once did he think he was capable, nor did he ever even want to. To purr is to show total contentment and trust, a state Ilya truly never thought he would find himself in.

Shane nuzzles his chest, pressing his lips to his skin. To his mark. His brain is nothing but mush, tingly and floating.

“I like it,” Hollander murmurs. “Unexpected, but…”

“Too omega of me?” Ilya asks, almost afraid of the answer. He shouldn’t be. He knows this now.

“No,” Shane answers. “No. This is… this is all a surprise, but I’m not unhappy. It’s still you, deep down. It’s always been you, Ilya.”

Ilya hums. “It has always been you, Shane.”

“I did wonder why you never knotted with me,” Shane says quietly, suddenly shy. “You said you didn’t with other people, but… it’s hard not to. I thought maybe it was me.”

Ilya’s brow furrows. “No,” he says softly, stroking his fingers across Shane’s back. “No. If I had knot, I would have used it with you.”

Shane ducks his head into Ilya’s neck, but he can feel him smiling against his skin. “Shut up.”

“I can buy fake knot,” Ilya offers, ideas already forming. “They sell them, I think. They go around the balls and base.” His hand drifts lower to grab Shane’s ass, eliciting a surprised gasp. “Could knot you for real, alpha.”

Shane moans into his neck, then licks his own mark again. “Please,” he begs softly. “I really want that.”

“Next time,” Ilya promises.

Shane makes a noise in the back of his throat. “At my cottage?” he asks softly. “For my next rut, or… for your heat?”

He asks like he is ready for Ilya to say no.

Ilya doesn’t think he is capable.

“Yes,” he whispers in return. “I want that. I want to go to your cottage with you.”

Shane exhales, then smiles, and it is the most beautiful thing Ilya has ever seen.

Chapter Text

For the first time in his life, Shane Hollander doesn’t want to play against Boston.

Even at his very worst, even when whatever was happening between him and Ilya was eating him alive, he still had hockey to look forward to and without it, Shane is lost.

There is something about the ice that calms him to his very bones. There’s a ritual to it; packing his gear, taping his stick, tying his skates. That first touch of blade to the rink, then he’s flying. Shane is normal on the ice in ways he isn’t off. His shoes don’t fit right, he’s too warm, people talk too much, then everything falls away when he gets to play.

Shane loved to skate ever since he was a kid, could skate better than he could walk, and it was always going to be a part of his life. In what way was always up in the air. 

Despite their involvement, Shane’s parents were surprised when he picked ice hockey as his sport of choice. For a while, they thought he would choose figure skating—not enough action—or speed skating—not enough strategy—but in the end he chose ice hockey.

A team sport.

“Shane, honey,” his mom said when he told her. “Are you sure you want to do ice hockey? Don’t just take it because of me or your dad. We’ll be happy with whatever you choose.”

At the time, Shane remembers feeling confused. Why would he choose hockey for his mom? She wasn’t playing, she was just a big fan, but Yuna Hollander was—and still is—knowledgeable in lots of different areas. That wouldn’t affect his choice in sport.

“I like it,” he said instead. “I want to play hockey. I’m not sure what position yet. Probably a forward. It sounds more interesting.”

His mom hesitated again. “Are you sure?”

Shane remembered being frustrated. “Yes. Why?”

“Well, honey… it’s a team sport.”

Shane knows he’s not the most sociable person. In fact, it’s been a defining feature of his profile ever since juniors. Polite, commentators will say, but not one for making friends.

The sting was usually soothed by a quickly followed: but incredible on the ice, but it didn’t mean the words didn’t stick with him.

He tried to be friendlier. He observed banter in the locker room and recreated it with his teammates, he made sure to look his opponents in the eye during handshakes, and answered questions from reporters with an open, genial smile and practiced responses; they always asked the same questions anyway.

Being social was a muscle he had to work like any other, but even for all his practice, he just happened to not be very good at it.

It didn’t feel like that with Ilya, not even in those first few encounters. Shane was never on the outside with him, never felt like he wasn’t welcome. He can’t read body language very easily, but Ilya always seemed to shout with his whole entire self. Like he was trying to make it easy for Shane.

Ilya always wanted him, even when everything else said otherwise, Shane could somehow tell. 

Since he was seventeen, Shane has always been able to rely on two things: ice hockey and Ilya, and there is nothing like playing against Ilya Rozanov.

The night after he scents an omega on Ilya’s sheets, one of those things lets him down, and the other quickly follows.

“No Rozanov?”

He hears it over the rabble of the locker room before the game as he’s getting ready. Everyone is worked up—they always are when facing Boston—and normally Shane would be tuning his team out, except he can’t when Ilya’s name is mentioned, drawn to it like a flame.

“Yeah, just heard from the ref,” Hayden replies, and Shane sits straight. “It’s a good thing. Not that I don’t think we could beat him, but it’ll be nice to have a day off from listening to his stupid chirps.”

J.J. laughs. “I wonder what happened,” he says, oblivious to Shane spiralling feet away. “Maybe he finally got what is coming to him?”

No, Shane thinks with a sinking feeling. Ilya doesn’t miss games.

Then, without his permission, his mind conjures an image he’d rather forget.

Ilya in bed. The same bed he fucked Shane in the day before, except this time he’s not fucking Shane, but some nameless, faceless omega instead. The same omega Shane smelled on his sheets, the omega that caused him to flee from Ilya’s house in shame and embarrassment and anger.

There are only a few reasons why a player, a captain at that, would take leave from a game, especially one against their rivals. Illness, injury, bereavement…

Heat or rut leave.

Neither have used it as far as he knows. Shane’s ruts always conveniently fall on weekends or breaks, and Ilya straight up doesn’t seem to let himself have his ruts. If he does, he doesn’t have them with Shane.

But Ilya wasn’t sick or injured yesterday, and is the type of person to push through even when he shouldn’t.

No, there’s only one reason why Ilya is missing this game. Ilya must be helping his omega through their heat right now.

Fuck, he’s sick to his stomach. Ilya with an omega, fucking them the way he fucks Shane, maybe even better, with more love and care if that’s even possible. Helping the person he’s made to help, not Shane and his stupid ruts and stupider brain that wants to get fucked when he should want an omega himself.

It would have been easier if Shane presented as an omega. Growing up, he was never the most aggressive, and never confident in anything but hockey. He didn’t want to engage in the alpha posturing of his peers, and would often tear up for no reason at all.

By the time he turned thirteen, everyone assumed he was going to present as an omega, or maybe a beta. No one expected Shane to be an alpha, least of all Shane himself.

It didn’t bother him at first. It confused him, but it also made sense. Hockey was so physical, innately aggressive even if Shane wasn’t himself. It was logical he would present as an alpha, even if he doesn’t really feel like one.

Fuck. Fuck. 

His face is heating up; no, his whole body is getting warm. It’s the same sensations as when he’s going into rut, like he’s both outside of his body and too goddamned tethered to it all at once. He wants to rip his skin from his bones and climb into Ilya’s lap and never leave. He wants to rub his scent all over Ilya so that he can finally smell like something Shane can recognise and not just blank nothingness.

He brought Ilya’s shirt to the rink with him. It was stupid and reckless, but the idea of leaving it behind in the hotel room was out of the question and made him feel sick. He stashed it in the bottom of his bag, and now all he wants is to find it and bring it to his nose and scent the two of them together, weak as it is.

He wants to go to Ilya’s house and throw his omega out and take their place in Ilya’s bed.

But the worst part, the part that has him feeling sick to his stomach, is that Shane actually liked the scent of the omega on Ilya’s sheets.

“Alright, boys!” the coach bellows, forcing Shane to stop chasing that train of thought. The locker room goes silent. “Here’s how we’re gonna play this—”

Shane doesn’t hear the rest of the coach’s speech, doesn’t listen to the plays, and doesn’t say a word to his team even though as the captain it’s his obligation. His mind is miles away, in a big bed with soft sheets curled up next to Ilya Rozanov.

“Hollander!” his coach shouts, but he doesn’t even care. For the first time in his life, Shane doesn’t care about hockey.

But Ilya doesn’t care about Shane, so he takes to the ice, and tries to forget.

Shane doesn’t give any interviews after the game. He doesn’t even shower. It’s gross, and his teammates give him shit for it, but they can all smell the lingering rut on his skin. They joke that he plays better after he’s worked through his ruts. Hayden in particular gives him sly looks and says to thank Lily for making him a better player.

This time, they think it’s the reason for their win over Boston, although a few guys make comments that Rozanov being out of action didn’t hurt either. He didn’t need the reminder, because Shane was hyper-aware of his absence all game. 

Every time he turned around he expected to see Ilya staking up behind him with a stupid chirp ready to go to unsettle Shane, or worse, an invitation to fuck. There was nothing today, and the loss of it is sharp.

Slowly, the locker room empties out. 

“Hey, dude,” Hayden calls out, his bag thrown over his shoulder. “You coming?”

Shane isn’t sure he can stomach the idea of returning to their shared hotel room right now. He would have to shower then, because it would be rude not to, and he’s not sure if he can just yet.

He didn’t shower the night before after coming home from Ilya’s house, couldn’t face the idea of washing their scent away, but Hayden was fast asleep. He made a comment in the morning, however. Playful and kind, but pointed.

“I didn’t know your Boston girl was an omega.”

He’s not.

Shane had just laughed it off, but inside he felt like throwing up.

“Nah,” he replies to Hayden, trying to be casual but likely falling short. “You go ahead. I need to decompress.”

Hayden nods, but with a wry smile. “Yeah, yeah,” he teases. “Enjoy your last night with your Boston girl, dude. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He’s gone before Shane can correct him.

With the locker room empty, Shane finally pulls out his phone.

There are two texts from his parents, one from each congratulating him on the win. A couple of emails from his publicist, a cut-and-paste group email from the owner of the Metros, and a few messages in the team group chat about catching up later for a drink or two.

There’s nothing from Ilya.

He isn’t sure he expected anything, but the silence is heart-wrenching.

Shane opens their messages.

Hope your rut went okay, Shane types, slowly and carefully with a pit growing in his stomach. Boston’s shit without you. Better luck next time.

He sits with it for a second. His phone feels like a brick in his hand, and he inexplicably wants to throw it into the wall.

He doesn’t. He deletes the messages instead. Slowly and carefully, until nothing remains but Ilya’s last text; the directions to his house.

Are you okay? he types, then deletes.

I didn’t mean what I said. Delete. Sorry I flipped like that. It was the rut talking. Delete.

He swallows the lump in his throat.

Do you still want to be my rut partner?

Delete. Delete. Delete.

Shane opens up his browser and types Ilya Rozanov, and is flooded with articles speculating about his absence.

Most of them are regurgitating the press release from Boston—illness, sure—but social media is far wilder with the theories.

i bet he’s got some omega girl on lock, user @rozysgirl81 tweets, followed by have you guys seen the supermodels he follows on insta?? why not me, rozy baby?

The same sentiment is repeated over and over again. Ilya’s omega, Ilya’s rut, Ilya having someone important enough to miss a game against Montreal.

Against Shane.

He exits Twitter. He considers deleting the app altogether. He packs up his stuff, and finally leaves the rink without the usual elation of winning.

He catches an Uber directly to Ilya’s house.

There are no cars outside.

That doesn’t mean anything. Ilya probably had his omega park in the garage to avoid this very situation; someone like Shane getting too curious.

Too bad he doesn’t know when to stop.

Shane waits until the Uber drives off before he grabs the shirt from the bottom of his bag. He resists the urge to scent it one more time. It helps that now, after twenty-four hours of being next to his stuff, it doesn’t smell much like Ilya at all, although it was sadly weak to begin with.

Now, it smells like his gear; like Shane and his sweat and his cum and his innate scent.

Even still, he doesn’t want to give it back. It’s Ilya’s, and he earned it.

He takes it to the front door anyway, held in front of him like armour when he knocks, but it doesn’t protect him from who answers the door.

Shane inhales sharply. “Who are you?” he asks, even as her scent wafts through the open door. He knows her, he realises. She must be the omega. The omega in heat Shane scented on Ilya’s sheets, the one who inadvertently drove him from Ilya’s home and away from him and now…

Now she’s in Ilya’s house.

“Shane Hollander,” she drawls, leaning against the doorway. “What a surprise. I did not expect to see you here.”

She’s pretty. No, that’s doing her a disservice. Ilya’s omega is gorgeous. She’s flawless. Every inch of what an omega should be. Even barefaced and wearing an oversized t-shirt—fuck, does it belong to Ilya?—she’s more attractive than most women Shane’s met.

In comparison, Shane hasn’t showered since the game. He has the beginnings of a bruise on his cheek from the game. He’s tired. He’s so fucking tired.

“I asked you a question,” he replies, far less polite than his mother raised him to be.

The woman smiles. “I am Svetlana,” she says. Shane wishes she said nothing at all. “A childhood friend of Ilya’s.”

Svetlana. Shane has heard her name before from Ilya. Offhanded comments about his life in Russia, but nothing concrete. Nothing close to sorry Shane, I actually have a gorgeous omega already lined up. Think you could leave before she arrives?

“A friend,” Shane echoes. “Yeah. He’s—Yeah. Hi.”

She smiles again. It’s indulgent. He thinks he might hate her. “Hello, Shane.”

They stand in the doorway, awkward and unsettled; or more likely, Shane is. Svetlana doesn’t appear ruffled, and is happy to watch him squirm.

In fact, she’s downright composed. Svetlana—the omega in heat Shane scented on Ilya’s sheets—does not appear to be in heat at all, but Shane’s never been very perceptive.

“Is that Ilya’s?” she asks when Shane has been silent for too long. He doesn’t know what she’s talking about until she motions to his hands.

“Yeah.” Shane holds it closer to his body, like some part of him is afraid she’ll take it. “He, um. Let me borrow it after the last game we played.”

Svetlana’s eyebrows rise. “Did he?” she smiles. “How sweet of him, but unusual. He is usually not so friendly with opposing teams.”

Because that’s all Shane is. An opponent. It’s not like Ilya has helped him through his last four ruts, or like Shane was devastated when he scented Svetlana on Ilya’s sheets.

“Yeah,” he croaks. “Sweet.”

“Are you returning it?” she asks. “I can give it to him, if you’d like.”

It’s exactly why he had returned to Ilya’s house. To have an excuse to see him, to ask the question he was too nervous to text, and to lay eyes on the omega.

He only realises now, faced with said omega, how fucking rude it is to be here. To intrude on their space, to return Ilya’s shirt drenched in his own rut-scent. His mom would be ashamed.

He should have never come back.

“Yes.” He holds the shirt out, even though it’s rude, but she asked for it. The fabric slips through his fingers as Svetlana takes it. She holds it to her body the same way he did.

Deep down, Shane desperately wants to rip it from her hands and take it back.

You already have him, his brain screams. Why do you need that? Give it back. Please give it back, you don’t need it. I do. You have him, and I have nothing.

“Is there anything else?” she asks, like she isn’t ripping him apart.

Yes. Yes, I want to see him. Please let me see him, even if it’s just to apologise for leaving and freaking out. Let me see that he’s okay. That he doesn’t care about me. That he loves you.

“No,” he chokes out in real life. “No. That’s it. Thanks, um, Svetlana.”

Then he turns around, and walks away.

Svetlana might have said something to him as he left, or maybe she didn’t. Shane isn’t really listening anymore. There’s a ringing in his ears and he wants to throw up. He’s had concussions that felt less destructive.

Shane is fumbling with his phone to call a ride when it hits him like a slam into the boards and stops him in the middle of Ilya’s driveway, inhales. He turns back to the house, his brain moving a mile a minute.

The scent from the house isn’t just omega. There’s something else under the cloying sweetness, something Shane hasn’t experienced much before except for those brief, precious moments in the middle of his rut.

He scents Ilya. Heady and warm, spiced and honeyed. The scent of Ilya is buried within the scent of omega in heat, stronger and richer than Shane has ever experienced before. His rut, he thinks. Ilya’s rut.

For a split second, he’s—fuck, he’s heartbroken. This isn’t just Ilya helping an omega through a heat, Ilya is in rut and he never felt safe enough to be so free with Shane, even when Shane was giving all of himself to Ilya. Shane never got to scent him truly, was never afforded the luxury to.

Then, as he’s wallowing in his misery, he realises Svetlana was not in heat. There was no sweetness to her scent, no flushed cheeks. She stood in the doorway and had a normal conversation with him, and yeah, she smelled good but not in heat good.

Then, like a nail in the coffin, Shane realises the only alpha in rut he could scent from Ilya’s house was himself.

Shane is stalking back to the house without any real thought in his mind but Ilya. He has to see Ilya, because something is not right.

He turns the handle of the front door and it gives way easily under his grip. It was unlocked. Svetlana didn’t lock it behind her, and for a split second he’s enraged, he’s so fucking angry he wants to find her first and yell and scream because how could she be so neglectful?

And then he scents it again. Spice and honey and warmth and it’s up the stairs. The stairs, the stairs. Ilya’s bedroom, his bed, the bed they shared, Ilya, Ilya, Ilya.

“Shane!” Svetlana shouts, following as close behind as she can. She’s fast, but she’s no athlete. Shane can outrun her. “Shane, you need to stop!”

He reaches Ilya’s bedroom, and throws open the door with a loud crash.

He isn’t sure what he thought he would find.

Ilya in bed with an omega, not Svetlana, someone else, like he’s the playboy the media try to make him out to be.

Ilya with another alpha, which surely would have ruined Shane beyond repair because why are they better than me? What are they giving you that I won’t?

Ilya going through in his rut alone, when Shane has already offered, when he wants to help him so badly, the way Ilya has helped him, and to share that connection.

He didn’t know what to expect, but—

Ilya Rozanov is in the middle of a heat, and Shane stops thinking entirely.

Ilya, face flushed and body twisted in the sheets Shane left not even a day before. Ilya, mouth open as he pants desperately into his pillows. Ilya, one hand between his sheet-covered legs, doing nothing to stifle the sounds of his fingers buried inside his wet hole.

He has turned his bed into a nest, Shane understands once his brain starts working again. There are more blankets than before, layered and arranged around him, some almost like another body, because he was alone, because Shane left him alone in the middle of his heat because he was jealous.

He feels sick.

“I told you not to come up here,” Svetlana says, catching her breath by the door. “Now you know the big secret, and I have to kill you.”

Shane barely hears her.

“Sveta,” Ilya growls, head craned to glare at her. His voice is low and deep and nothing like what Shane has heard before. He glances at Shane, but looks away just as quick.

“Fine. He’s all yours.” Svetlana raises her hands in Shane’s peripheral. She turns to him once she’s almost out the door. “He wanted you anyway. Spent all day saying your name as he fu—”

“Leave!” Ilya growls, then says something in a string of quick, angry Russian.

Svetlana responds in kind, grinning. Shane wishes he knew Russian, but he can pick up enough from the tone.

“Go,” Ilya hisses, waving a hand at her. The hand not inside of him. Fuck. Fuck.

“Have fun!” she sings, finally leaving. “Call me if you need anything.”

Shane will not be contacting her anytime soon. He’ll be happy if he never sees her again, if he’s honest.

He doesn’t move until he hears her footsteps going down the stairs. Far enough away for his inner alpha to settle, but he can only take so much.

“Fuck,” Shane breathes, then stumbles towards the bed—the nest—where Ilya lies. “Rozanov. You… You’re a—”

“Fucking omega, I know,” Ilya groans. He’s writhing around in his nest, completely naked except for a single thin sheet, and covered in a sheen of sweat. “And what are you going to do about it?”

He wants to fuck him. His mouth waters at the idea of it, even though he’s never even thought about it before. It’s never been a concern, not when Ilya could fuck Shane so perfectly.

Now, he isn’t sure why he never considered it.

Ilya is beautiful. He is strong, corded muscles and tanned, warm skin. Soft curls and dotted with moles and spread out in his nest like an alpha’s dream come to life, Shane cannot believe it ever even occurred to him that Ilya might be anything but an alpha.

Now, Shane approaches the bed slowly, the last threads of his rut coming to life. He wants nothing more than to bury himself inside of Ilya until he can never be removed, but he knows he can’t. Not yet. Not without permission, knowing Ilya wants him back.

“Can I…” He swallows. “Can I come into your nest?”

He read somewhere that’s what omegas like. To be asked to enter their nest, their safe space. Alphas have a bad reputation as it is, especially in the professional sports world. Shane doesn’t want to be considered one of them, and never, ever by Ilya.

“What?” Ilya barks. “Come here, Hollander. Stop fucking around!”

Shane does as he’s told, and climbs into Ilya’s nest. It smells like Ilya, spice and comfort, sharply warm, with something else he can’t name just beneath it. Shane wants to bury himself in it even though it would probably piss Ilya off.

“It’s good,” Shane says, crawling up the bed to meet Ilya. “You did a good job.”

Omegas like that, don’t they? He’s not even lying. It is a good nest, especially considering the circumstances.

“Shut up.” Ilya tugs him the rest of the way until they’re pressed up against each other, Shane’s clothed body against Ilya’s fully naked one. “Why are you wearing clothes?”

“Because I have to?”

“Very funny,” Ilya growls, then furiously starts on Shane’s jeans.

Shane starts to help undress himself since Ilya can’t seem to work his fly. His jeans are off in a second, and Ilya tugs his t-shirt off soon after. It’s maybe the quickest Shane has even got undressed, even in the middle of his ruts.

“You should have stayed,” Ilya says once Shane is naked, once they are pressed together with nothing else between them. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane says in a rush, burying his face onto Ilya’s neck. The mark is there. Fuck, the mark. “Ilya, I never should have left. I was—so fucking stupid.”

“You are stupid,” Ilya mutters, then drags Shane’s mouth to his by his hair. “Make it up to me.”

Ilya licks into his mouth, tongue meeting his, fighting him the same way he does when Shane is in rut, only more. More intense, more fierce. More desperate. His scent is heady and strong, and Shane takes what he is allowed.

He shudders, and pulls back to kiss along his jawline, his neck, and back to his mark. “Fuck. You smell so good.”

He’s never smelled anything so perfect, and Shane gives into his desire to licks a long, wet stripe along the mark.

Ilya throws his neck back and whines, deep and reedy. It is not the sound of an omega in submission. It’s more. It’s better.

“Fuck, I need—” Ilya pants as Shane worries the mark with his teeth. His scent is stronger now, so strong Shane can smell the slick gathering between his thighs. “I’m already—I need you to fuck me, alpha.”

Shane’s head goes worryingly blank. “Ilya, are you—?”

“Am I speaking Russian?” Ilya groans. “Yes, fuck me. I am in heat, can’t you tell?” Ilya rolls over onto his stomach. The long line of his mole-covered back is beautiful, muscles bunching and releasing as he gets his knees underneath him and presents, hole exposed to Shane’s gaze. “Fuck me like this, alpha. Please.”

“Oh fuck. Fuck, yeah,” Shane breathes, shuffling closer until he is pressed up against the back of Ilya’s thick, quivering thighs. “I’m gonna—fuck, oh fuck—I’m gonna fuck you through your heat,” he promises, pressing his cock to Ilya’s wet hole.

It takes hardly any pressure at all to slip inside, the head popping in and suddenly Shane is surrounded by slick. He gasps at the sensation, grip tightening on Ilya’s hips.

“Fuck, yes,” Ilya groans in response. He has his face buried in a pillow, and although every noise is muffled, Shane can hear everything. “More. Gimme more.”

Shane sinks in further. The glide is easy, like Ilya was made for him, hole practically sucking Shane in. It seems to go on forever until he is balls-deep, cock fully buried inside.

The knot at the base of his cock threatens to swell already. Fuck. He can’t, not yet. They’ve barely even started, and Ilya will get no relief if Shane pops this early.

“Ilya,” he gasps, bending down to press his mouth to his back in an attempt to distract himself. It’s not kissing, nothing so organised, but mindless connection. Tongue on skin, tracing patterns Shane can’t even decipher. “You feel so good. So perfect for me, omega. Fuck. Fuck.”

Ilya reaches around to grab the back of his thigh, hitting him with a loud smack before his fingers dig into his skin. 

“Fucking fuck me, alpha!” he orders with a growl.

Shane obeys and pulls out, slowly and careful to mind his knot which is growing from the sensation of being inside Ilya. He withdraws until only the tip of his cock is left tucked inside before fucking back in, fast and more brutal than he ever expected of himself.

They both groan in unison, the pleasure overwhelming and all-encompassing. Shane feels it from his head to his toes, a building heat, electrifying and so perfect he could cry.

He doesn’t wait for Ilya to complain again. He grips his hips and starts to fuck him the way an alpha is supposed to, because he was made to breed this omega. Made to give in and to give, to provide and deliver and protect and hold and love. Fuck, he loves him. He loves Ilya.

By now, all remnants of his rut should have passed, especially with Ilya’s help. He can only wonder if the way he left had something to do with how it feels like he’s going into rut again, the same desperation pushing him into brief insanity. Usually, it’s subtler. Easier to ignore, no, that’s not right; easier to channel, because usually Ilya is firmly in charge.

Shane has never been interested in being a traditional alpha, even in the very middle of his rut. Taking and owning and fucking, it was fine, but the sensation of giving himself up in the middle of it all… He often wondered if it was what omegas felt during their heats. If he was born wrong.

When Ilya came along, an alpha who could give Shane what he wanted, he didn’t pursue the train of thought anymore. He never expected that Ilya was more like him than he ever considered. A dominant omega, the perfect match to Shane.

He hunches over Ilya and buries his face between his bunched shoulder blades as he fucks him. His scent is incredible, warm and heady, like home and love and family.

“Can’t believe it,” Shane slurs against Ilya’s heated skin. “You’re here, I’m fucking you, you’re an omega, fuck, Ilya, so good, so perfect for me.”

Ilya doesn’t reply. Can’t reply maybe, at least not with words. His answer is a choked whine, instinctual and guttural. Shane has never heard it from him before, hasn’t heard it ever, and it sparks something inside of him.

That long forgotten and buried voice in the back of Shane’s mind is screaming at him, telling him not to cum before Ilya, to provide for him, to give him an orgasm before Shane. It’s what you do when you’re an alpha.

Shane’s never been much of an alpha, not in the stereotypical sense, but he listens to it this time. He circles his arm around Ilya’s waist to take his cock in hand, stroking him in time with his hard thrusts.

“Alpha!” Ilya bellows, stomach taut, his hole clenched tight in pleasure.

“Ilya,” Shane begs, thrusting once, twice, grip tight around Ilya’s hard cock. “Ilya.”

Ilya cries out in a punched-out moan, buries his face in the bed, then he is cumming into the tight clench of Shane’s fist.

It’s perfect. It’s so perfect, Shane thinks he might never leave this bed, might never pull himself free. This is his home. He won’t leave, won’t be so stupid again, he swears, he promises.

Ilya is saying something as he cums, Shane realises. He is repeating it over and over again, low and fast but not quiet. Shane has to force himself to not only listen, but understand.

“—lyublyu, love you, ya tebya lyublyu, fuck, I love you, I—”

It takes him a second to parse through the running mix of Russian and English, whispered and muffled in the pillows, but when he does, Shane sobs.

“Ilya,” he cries, thrusting in hard enough to bury himself to the hilt, until his knot is firmly locked inside with no option of pulling out. “Ilya, I love you too, fuck, I love you, I love you so fucking much.”

Ilya answering cry, his hole tightening around him, milking his cock, is enough to send Shane barrelling into his orgasm, willingly following him into the dark depths of pleasure.

Shane cums, knot full and throbbing as he empties himself deep. It’s a claim, an ownership, not only of Ilya but of Shane himself. People will be able to scent Ilya and know he’s claimed Shane, will know he lives for him, will give him the pups he wants.

But scents fade. Ilya’s heat will pass and he will shower and will wash away any trace of Shane except the mark on his neck.

This is wrong, Shane’s alpha brain thinks as he  bends down to lick mindlessly over Ilya’s mark. This is wrong. This isn’t complete. Ilya hasn’t returned his own mark yet, hasn’t put his own teeth to Shane’s neck and laid his own claim. It’s wrong.

Shane doesn’t dare to pull out, not when they’re tied together so firmly, his knot continuing to pump cum into his omega. He does manage to coax Ilya over onto his back with minimal issues, only the fainted whine in protest.

Ilya is deep into his heat, still riding the wave of his orgasm, and maybe Shane would feel guiltier about this if he weren’t also still hanging onto the very end of his rut.

“Bite me,” Shane orders, breathless and desperate as he covers Ilya. Chest to chest, he tucks his head into Ilya’s neck and mouths at his mark. It conveniently places Ilya in the crook of Shane’s own neck. “Come on, sweetheart. Bite me back. Please, come on, just bite me and then we’ll—fuck!”

Ilya’s fangs bury into the meat of Shane’s mating gland, deep and sharp. There is no chance it won’t take, not when Ilya bites down harder. The pain is secondary to the euphoria he feels from being claimed. Nothing could feel better, actually.

Something wet trails from where they’re connected at his neck, down Shane’s throat, and drops to Ilya’s chest. It’s diluted pink with Shane’s blood and Ilya’s spit.

Shane shudders, cock jerking inside of Ilya, who groans into the bite in response.

“So good,” Shane murmurs, practically slurring his words with how good he feels. “Fuck, Ilya. So perfect.”

Ilya releases him with a wet squelch, and when Shane leans back, he finds his lips bloodied, bared teeth stained red. It should be obscene, but Shane finds it beautiful instead.

He kisses him, wet and messy. He tastes his own blood in Ilya’s mouth, and it’s all the sweeter because it’s him. 

“You are sick man, Hollander,” Ilya rumbles, dragging his hands through Shane’s hair. “You like sick things.”

“I like you,” Shane replies, kissing him again and again. “I love you, Ilya.”

“I love you, moy lyubimiy,” Ilya murmurs, kissing him back so sweetly Shane can’t believe he ever doubted how he felt about him.

They doze in the aftermath, Ilya stroking long lines against Shane’s back, licking at Shane’s fresh mark. The blood eventually stops, and he starts to kiss it instead. It naturally evolves to him kissing along his jaw, his lips, his Adam’s apple.

As Ilya explores, Shane realises this position grants him more access than he had before, and with some careful manoeuvring, he manages to bend down to wrap his lips around Ilya’s flushed, hard nipple.

“Oh, fuck,” Ilya sighs, hands coming up to cradle the back of Shane’s head, to hold him to his chest harder. “Fuck, yes. Like that.”

It’s an easy leap for his alpha-brain to let his imagination run wild. Sucking Ilya’s nipples for a different reason, heavier with milk, belly round and full with their pup.

Shane’s knot hasn’t gone down yet, but Ilya hasn’t gone soft either. Pressed belly to belly, it’s as natural as breathing to start the slow, steady grind of his cock into him, Ilya’s own cock wedged tightly between them. 

Ilya groans. “Yes, Shane,” he says, on the edge of a beg. “More. Give me more, alpha.”

And Shane does, fucking in tight, grinding motions with his mouth around Ilya’s nipple until they both cum again.

He realises in the aftermath.

“Fuck,” Shane hisses.

“What?” Ilya doesn’t sound too concerned, fucked out and boneless and still stuck on Shane’s pumping knot.

“We didn’t use a condom,” Shane whispers into the hollow of Ilya’s neck, lips brushing against his mark. His own is fresh but not bleeding anymore, stinging pleasantly on Shane’s gland. “I’m sorry. I should have…”

Ilya shrugs. It brings his mark closer, and Shane takes the opportunity to give it a kiss. He thinks he can feel it on his own mark.

“What happens will happen.” Ilya’s hand comes down between them to brush along his stomach, where Shane is still buried inside, knot throbbing, a new load of cum pouring into his omega. “Oh,” Ilya says with a smile. “I felt that. Do you like the idea of me pregnant?”

Shane whines and hides his face, even as his hips jerk and stutter.

“Yes,” he growls, although it sounds more pathetic than what he thought. “Yes. I do. How could I not?”

Babies with Ilya’s dimples, scattered moles, and sunny smile.

“I will need to start thinking about a trade soon,” Ilya says idly. “Somewhere in Canada, or just closer to Montreal. I doubt the Admirals can afford me.”

It takes him a second, drunk on Ilya’s heat as he is, to understand what he is saying. Planning for a life he’s not sure will come to fruition, but wanting it all the same.

“Ilya,” Shane breathes. “You’d move for me?”

“I would move for us,” he clarifies, then cranes his neck to meet Shane. “Kiss me.”

He does. He doesn’t think he could ever deny him. He feels like he has a lifetime of interactions to catch up on. Every kiss, every rut, every time he explained away Ilya’s behaviour as being more alpha than Shane. He wants to apologise, but he knows Ilya won’t accept it. 

“If I am—” Ilya seems to struggle saying the word now that he is no longer teasing Shane with it. “If I am pregnant, then I will have to hide it. Russia cannot know. New team, new terms. Will explain, take time off for injury. Boston would not keep me, I think, and I would want to be near you. If you want that.”

“I’ll marry you,” Shane says, the words bursting forward before he’s even thought about how he would do it. Ilya stares at him with wide eyes. “Fuck, I mean. I want to marry you, Ilya. I don’t want to hide it.”

Ilya exhales. “Shane…”

“I mean, if you want people to think you’re an alpha, that’s fine. We could… I mean, I don’t mind if people think I’m an omega. We could both fake injuries. My team would be okay with it, I think. If we both stay out of the public eye, it could work. I’d need to tell my mom, though…”

Ilya snorts a quiet laugh.

“What?” Shane demands, defensive.

“Nothing,” Ilya says, smiling. He strokes a finger across Shane’s cheeks, no doubt looking at his freckles. “Is only, well…”

“What?”

“The first time you fuck me, you forget condom.” Ilya laughs again. “I have never fucked you without condom. Does not feel very fair.”

Shane’s face heats. It’s true. Ilya’s always been so careful, and Shane’s fucked it up his first time.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, embarrassed although his brain has already started to wander. “You can fuck me without one next time, you know, like to make up for it…”

“Very kind of you,” Ilya teases, but his expression is soft and indulgent. “You are thinking too hard,” Ilya murmurs, pressing his lips to Shane’s fresh mark. “I can feel it. Brain going very fast. You should relax and fuck me some more. I want to ride you this time.”

As Ilya falls back into the throes of his heat, Shane loses track of time. He knows there’s probably a million things he’s ignoring right now. He hears his phone, trapped in the pocket of his jeans, vibrating like crazy at some point, but it isn’t a consideration, not when Ilya is here in heat, desperate for relief Shane can finally give him in the same way Ilya has always fucked him through his ruts.

He never realised how much he wanted to share this experience with him. He can’t imagine what it might be like to properly sync up, to trigger Ilya’s heat with his rut or vice versa. He’s heard that’s what happens to mates sometimes, especially new ones. Shane never thought to do more research, not when he thought they were both alphas.

They could spend it at his cottage. The thought sends a shot of yes good right perfect safe mate through him. He knows his cottage, every nook and every hiding spot. It’s isolated, full of soft surfaces and his den. The perfect place to breed Ilya until he—

Shane cuts that thought off. It’s too dangerous to consider right now. No, first they need to be in the same city, or close enough. The same team would be ideal but who could possibly afford both of them? Montreal won’t take Ilya, but Shane could move…

Ilya groans somewhere in his nest, and Shane puts thoughts of trades aside for now. He has his omega to take care of.

When Shane finally checks his phone, two days have passed. He missed a flight and a meeting and there are what feels like hundreds of notifications he has to go through.

His parents’ messages are worried, his coach is pissed, and half the team asked him if he was okay. He gets it, Shane isn’t the type to eschew his responsibilities, especially not when it’s about hockey.

After a while, however, the messages take on a different tone.

Where the fuck are you, Hollander? turns into I’ll let it slide, but file the proper paperwork next time, kid.

His parents’ messages are similar. At the end of a long, worried text chain in the family group chat, his dad said Look after yourself, son and his mom said We’d love to meet her, if you’re up for it.

What the fuck?

Hayden, apparently, has the answer.

He didn’t start out by freaking out. Well, not as much as everyone else.

Hayden: dude are you going to miss this flight for your girl?

Hayden: holy shit you are! i thought i scented lily was in heat when you came back. couldn’t believe you bailed on her lol

Hayden: knew you weren’t like that though. but i’m never gonna let you live this down

After that, there is a couple of missed calls and then finally a minute-long voice message.

“Hey dude,” Hayden’s voice says through the speakers. “Don’t worry at all, okay? I figured you’re probably a little preoccupied—” He laughs. “—so I let Coach know you’re helping your girl out with her heat. Let me know if anyone from management tries to bother you about it. There’s clauses in our contracts for stuff like this. Long-term bonded couples, you know, and I figured if anyone was long-term, it’s you and your Boston girl.” There’s a brief pause, then the sound of an airport announcement. “Shit, gotta go. Look after yourself, man! And let me know when you’re back in the land of the living!” Shane can hear laughter from Hayden, and some in the background too, then the message ends.

Shane stares at his phone for a good minute after digesting Hayden’s voice message. He knew that Shane saw Lily, who went into heat. He knew Shane would have gone back to help.

Hayden had more faith in him than he deserves.

He sends a shaky message back.

Shane: Thanks, man. Yeah, with Lily now. Good call. I owe you.

He doesn’t bother looking at all the other messages. It’s sorted and he’s in the clear, but he can’t help the sinking feeling in his gut like he almost fucked everything up beyond repair.

“Why am I waking up to the voice of Hayden Pike?” Ilya mumbles into his armpit.

Shane jumps, but thankfully doesn’t jostle him too much. It took ages to finally wear him out enough to sleep. “I didn’t know you were awake,” Shane whispers.

“Am not,” is Ilya’s tired reply, but he turns his head to look up at him. “Everything okay?”

Shane relaxes. “Yeah, I think.”

“Mm. Pike is good for something then.”

He is. More than Shane right now, who should have been more prepared, should have realised what was going on days ago when he first smelled omega on Ilya’s sheets. He should have stayed like a real alpha and talked it out rather than running away, afraid of—what? That Ilya had someone else? It all seems trivial now.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Ilya murmurs. “I can feel your wrinkles growing from here.”

Shane’s hand darts to his forehead. He was frowning. He makes a conscious effort to smooth his expression out.

“How did you know that?” Shane asks, amused despite himself.

“Mm… You get all tense. Make uncomfortable pillow when stressed.”

“I’m not stressed,” Shane protests weakly.

“Stressed, worried, whatever.” Ilya bites the tender flesh between his pec and his armpit, then soothes it with his tongue when Shane jumps. “What is it?”

Shane hesitates, then gives in because Ilya can be ridiculously tenacious when he wants to be.

“I should have stayed,” he confesses quietly. “The other day. I shouldn’t have just run out like that, and left you behind.” He inhales. Ilya’s heat is broken but the heady scent remains. It settles deep into his lungs, which is a relief because he does not want to ever forget this. “I should have asked you about the omega smell rather than just assuming, or, um, thinking you would have another omega over during my rut.”

Shane has so much to atone for, and he isn’t sure where to begin.

Ilya hums. “Yes,” he agrees, and it hurts even if Shane said it in the first place. “But I should have said something sooner. Should not have left you in the dark. Was not good of me. I am sorry.”

Shane chokes on his own shame. “Ilya, don’t apologise. Not about that.”

Ilya shrugs. “What is done is done.” He looks up, eyes wide and beseeching. It is the softest he’s looked his entire heat. “Let’s talk more later, okay? When my brain is not mush and when you are not sick with sadness.”

Shane agrees with a sweet kiss. Later. They have the time now, he thinks with delirious happiness which smothers his worry. There is time.

Once Ilya’s heat finally ebbs away, Shane gives into the urge to check the house. The instinct has been screaming at him since the moment he saw Svetlana at the door, and was suppressed only by Ilya’s need.

He isn’t happy with what he finds.

“I don’t want her to come by again,” Shane mumbles when he returns to bed with food; plain toast because Ilya says he can’t stomach anything more, much to Shane’s warring instincts.

“Who?” Ilya mumbles between bites.

Shane grits his teeth and buries his face back into the well of Ilya’s neck, the space where his scent is the strongest, where his mark sits as fresh as it was when Shane put it there.

“Svetlana.”

“Mm, and why is that?”

There are a million reasons why, Shane can’t even begin to list them. He settles on the one at the forefront of his mind, the worst offender.

“She didn’t lock the front door.”

Ilya goes still beneath him. “Shane,” he says slowly. “She did lock the door.”

“No, she didn’t.” Shane remembers. He was so angry he could barely see straight.

Ilya shakes beneath him, and Shane thinks he is just as angry as he was until he realises Ilya is laughing.

“Shane, sweetheart,” Ilya laughs. “Sveta texted me. It is splinters. You broke my door.”

Shane is horrified. Did he? He remembers being overcome with–with something, an overwhelming need to get inside of the house and get to Ilya, no matter the cost. He doesn’t remember breaking the door down, he doesn’t even remember it being hard to open. Then again, he can’t recall much from the past few days besides Ilya.

Ilya laughs again and rolls them over to kiss him, slow and deep and in love. “My strong alpha.”