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Hayden storms in to his shift with Shane just shy of eight in the evening. He huffs and grumbles his way past the open back doors of the ambulance Shane had already begun checking for them. Shane’s not surprised. It’s the beginning of the new year, shifts just got rotated, and he and Hayden are stuck working from eight in the evening to eight in the morning, three days a week, indefinitely. Hayden has made his displeasure known, loudly, since the day the schedule change was announced. Shane doesn't really care, personally, because all he really does is work.
Shane’s trying to decipher the method the day crew seems to have used to organize the medication bag. He’s coming to the bleak realization that there doesn’t seem to have been any method at all, short of just throwing drugs in randomly and hoping for the best, when he hears Hayden haul himself up into the back of the truck.
“Dude, this shift is going to fucking suck,” Hayden moans, flinging himself into the airway seat.
Shane starts emptying the bag onto the stretcher, resigning himself to having to reorganize the entire thing.
“You say this every shift, Hayd.”
“Tonight’s gonna suck extra hard though. The Response Paramedic on tonight out of Mercy’s ER is fucking Rozanov. Rozanov.”
Shane taps the right side of his chest with one of the syringes of Narcan he’s holding, where his polo is embroidered with S. Hollander, PARAMEDIC. “I think we’ll be okay without needing to call for another medic.”
Shane and Hayden are almost always okay with just the two of them on calls. Even though in theory it’d be nice to have two paramedics on a call—Shane, as a paramedic, can do a lot more than Hayden can do as an EMT, and sometimes, on really sick patients, it does get sticky—Shane’s also seen one too many incidents of egos colliding between two medics who both try to take over the same call.
Hayden keeps ranting. Shane sighs and zips the bag shut, having done his best to make the chaos managable. He’s really only half listening at best, trying to go over what needs to still be checked in his head. Shane’s glad he they kept him and Hayden together with the new schedule, he is. Hayden is his favorite EMT to work with, by far, competent and easy-going (comparatively), but sometimes he’s so irritating when Shane’s trying to check their fucking truck.
“Can you check our portable suction? Last time we didn’t check it we didn’t have any tubing, and it near fucked us over on that cardiac arrest, remember?” Hayden looks like he’s about to start throwing a fit if Shane refuses to engage with his rant. Shane tries to recall what he’d been on about so he can answer appropriately. “Hayd, this guy sounds like an ass, but plenty of the people we work with here are asses. We’ll be fine”
“He’s like, extra awful, you don't get it. Just trust me, you’ll see.”
They immediately get fucked, a bad car accident dropping within the first half hour of their shift starting. The patient they take definitely has a broken leg—Shane’s not a doctor, he can’t legally diagnose for certain, but he feels pretty confident in his differential, given the bone he can see poking out of the patient’s shin. It’s a simple affair, they get the wound covered, get going, and on the way the patient gets IV antibiotics and pain management.
At the hospital, they move the patient over from the stretcher to the bed in the trauma bay, Shane gives his report to the team gathered—and that’s his job done.
Hayden’s already gone to bleach wipe the stretcher down, so Shane heads to go restock. The door to the ER’s central supply room is propped open, he notices. It’s usually locked, but someone’s keeping the door open with an IV pole jammed in the frame. Shane’ll take any opportunity to restock from there as opposed to from the shitty EMS supply cabinet by the entrance to the ER that’s always missing shit. So he ducks in, trying to remember what he needs—definitely IV supplies, gauze, a c-collar—but he’s stopped short immediately after he makes it in by the sight of someone else in the room. It looks to be a man, bent at the waist, his entire upper half blocked from view as he bends down to sort through a supply bin on the ground.
Shane’s immediately distracted by the sight of his ass. Shane’s respectful, he makes it a point not to ogle people, but he didn’t know butts could look like that in tactical pants. And the way the muscles in his back stretch as he reaches further down is genuinely sinful considering the dull grey polo he has on. Nobody should be attractive in those clothes.
Tactical pants? And a dull grey polo? Shane is realizing, with a mounting sense of horror, that that’s the uniform of the hospital-based response medics. He clocks the narc keys dangling from the man’s belt, accompanied by a bear keychain, just as the man stands up and turns around to witness Shane, who is still staring.
Shane’s aware that he should definitely look somewhere else, but he’s a bit overwhelmed. His gaze is locked to the man’s chest—he’s wearing his polo with all the buttons undone and no undershirt, which exposes a borderline inappropriate amount of chest as well as a gold crucifix hanging from his neck. There’s no name on his polo, the embroidery is simply the hospital logo with the word PARAMEDIC written underneath. Shane tries to move his gaze to the man’s face, and notices light brown curls, framing a sharp jawline. The man has a piercing gaze and a smug look on his face. He is, unfortunately, objectively, really handsome.
The guy smirks at him. “Can I help you?” He asks, and Shane can hear traces of an accent when he speaks. Russian, maybe? “Sorry, but I am not a supply available to restock.”
Holy shit, this guy is an asshole. Shane frowns.
“I’ll pass. Do they pay you to do anything around here, or is your job just to take up space and block the saline bags?”
The man doesn’t move, and instead seems to be sizing Shane up. He drags his eyes up and down Shane’s body. Shane feels too hot, all of a sudden. Shane refuses to flush, or to be intimidated. All he wants is to get his supplies and to get out of here.
Shane tries again. “Can you make yourself useful and get me a twenty gauge IV needle, at least?”
“Are you sure you don’t want something bigger than that?” The guy asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Wow, you’re an asshole.”
Shane thinks he fucking hates this guy. Shane can’t look away from him. Shane feels like he can’t catch his breath. Maybe he’s coming down with something, and that’s why he feels so feverish all of a sudden.
The man grabs something from one of the shelves and walks up to Shane. He’s close enough that Shane thinks he can feel the heat from the man’s body on his skin. Or maybe the heat is just Shane, burning up from the inside. Shane’s heart feels like it’s about to pound out of his chest. Is this what palpitations feel like? The air in the room feels heavy with something Shane can’t put into words.
The man takes Shane’s hand and presses something carefully into it. It sears where the man is touching him. He feels electrified. He thinks he might be getting hard in his tactical pants a little bit.
“Is not quite as big as what you want, but maybe it will do the trick.” The guy curls Shane’s fingers around the object, and then winks at him.
Shane wants him to lean in, or maybe Shane’s trying to lean in. And then the the guy steps away from Shane, walking towards the door and out of Shane’s field of view.
Great. Shane’s confused, kind of turned on, and he’s forgotten what he even came in here to get in the first place.
Hayden, being the amazing partner that he is, doesn’t comment on how long it took Shane to make it back, or on why the only supply he brought with him was a single 14 gauge IV needle.
Shane pockets the needle and swipes a ginger ale from the fridge in the EMS room on his way out.
He means to bring it up to Hayden, but they get hit out on another call immediately. Shane ends up not having to wait too long to find out who that man was. He gets his answer right after their next patient.
Shane doesn’t even know how it started. He’d just been putting sheets back on the stretcher, and had heard muffled yelling from the EMS room. He makes his way to the door—he can’t see inside, the door has no window, but he can make words out if he stands just outside.
He hears Hayden’s voice, first: “You disgusting pervert.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, Pike,” responds a deep voice, with a vaguely Russian tilt to it. Shane wonders if it’s the guy he ran into, earlier.
“Are you doing this on purpose? You have to be.”
“What do you mean? I do many things on purpose. I work, I eat, I fuck—that is when you have sex with someone, by the way—”
“I HAVE A WIFE.”
“And I’m sure she and her vibrator are very happy together.”
“I’m going to fucking kill you.”
“Do they teach EMTs how to do that now? I thought they only covered how to blow bubbles and call for backup. Or was that just the class you took?”
“You’re not any better than me just because you’re a Medic—”
“Shall we drive down to courthouse, so you can change your name to Lucas—”
Alright, Shane should intervene. Listening to this conversation is a bit like watching a car crash, Shane thinks. No, actually, he’d prefer to be watching a car crash. At least he knows what to do, in the aftermath of a car crash.
He opens the door to the EMS room, bracing himself to walk into the site of a bloody massacre. Instead though, it’s just Hayden and the guy he’s yelling at, standing at opposite sides of the room, glaring daggers at each other. Both of them turn to Shane when he walks in. Hayden looks relieved to see him, but Shane’s not paying attention to him, he’s focusing on the other guy.
Shane was right—he recognizes light brown curls, a sharp jawline, pretty blue eyes Shane can only glance at for a second—it is the man Shane met earlier, in central supply. He looks at Shane, and if Shane didn’t know any better, he’d say the guy almost looks hungry.
“What’s going on in here, guys?” Shane asks.
Immediately, like he’s a toddler in trouble, Hayden says, “Rozanov started it.” How Hayden is the actual parent out of the two of them baffles Shane occasionally.
Shane knows he’s going to regret it, but he asks: “Started what?”
“I started nothing. Pike simply cannot handle discussion of fine art,” the man who must be Rozanov argues.
“Fine art? You were talking about his ass like—”
Shane’s heard enough. “Okay, Hayden, let’s go.”
Hayden gives Rozanov the middle finger as he leaves. Rozanov blows him a kiss. Shane refuses to acknowledge either of them, and follows Hayden out.
As the door closes behind him, Shane hears Rozanov yell, See you around, Hollander!
He wonders how Rozanov even knows his name.
“So this Rozanov guy is a response medic?” Shane asks, on their way back to the station. Shane’s met some of the other response medics that run out of Mercy’s ER before, but he’d been working the same three days of the week for the last two years and as a result really isn’t familiar with any staff outside of the people who he shared shifts with.
The ones he met were cool, though, even if he didn’t interact with them a whole lot. The whole job of a response medic is to respond to calls as backup. If the unit responding to a call doesn’t have a paramedic on it, a response medic will get dispatched along with them. They can also come to back up a full crew on a bad call. Rarely, if there’s another one-man unit on that’s responding to a call and needs a second person, they’ll show up to drive the other person’s ambulance to the hospital.
Since Shane is also a paramedic, they’d never get dispatched with a response medic, and Shane’s loathe to call for backup, so he rarely ever saw them in that context, either. He’d mostly see them around the ER, occasionally, since that’s essentially their station.
“Yeah, I told you this earlier, during truck check.” Hayden should know better than to try and have conversations when Shane’s trying to check their truck, this is on him. Shane cares about one thing when he checks his truck, and it’s checking his fucking truck. “He does weekend nights, and he fucking sucks. He’ll jump on calls sometimes just to harass the crew. Even when he doesn’t, he hangs out at the ER and he’s always a dick when we bring patients in. At least the other response medics have the decency to stay in their office, Rozanov is just always lurking about.”
“Have you worked with him before?”
“I had him on a few calls before I worked here, when I was running double EMT at my old job. It was years ago, and all I remember is that he was a fucking douche. I think he might be worse now, actually.”
“Was he a bad medic?” Shane’s not sure why he’s so curious.
“I don’t remember, he’s just the fucking worst, man, I’m telling you. Plus, he’s a fuckboy. He’s slept with nurses at like, every ER in the area. I don’t know why anyone sleeps with him, honestly, he’s such an ass.”
Rozanov’s stare had felt like a spark of kindling inside Shane, the kind that leads to whole forests being wiped out. He doesn’t know if he hates it. He thinks he might understand the appeal.
Shane doesn’t remember until much later, when he catches his reflection in the side mirror of the truck, that his uniform has his name on it.
He catches more of Rozanov over the next few weeks. Hayden wasn’t lying, sometimes it really feels like Rozanov does just lurk around the ER, waiting. They don’t always transport to Mercy, but they’re there a lot, since it’s a trauma center, stroke center, and they have full cardiac capabilities. Rozanov’s also not always there—more often than not when they come in, he’s out on a call—but when he is he definitely makes his presence known. Shane hasn’t had to defend his treatment decisions this hard since he was precepting in paramedic school.
He brings in a trauma, Rozanov’s giving him shit and calling him a coward for doing full spinal immobilization.
Shane brings in a patient with no IV? Rozanov is offering to give him a personal course in getting stuck. Shane walks out of the room, when Rozanov tries that one.
Sometimes, though, Rozanov does have good feedback. He asks detailed questions about the pathophysiology of Shane’s patients, ones that sometimes make him stop and look at the call differently. Only sometimes, though. Most of the time he’s just annoying.
The most annoying part is how badly Shane wants him. There’s electricity, whenever he and Rozanov are near each other. It gets under his skin, makes him buzz. He thinks about Rozanov’s hands, how they felt on his hands, how they might feel on the rest of them.
Maybe he's just sick, or stressed out, or something, and that's why he can't get Rozanov off his mind. Shane just wants whatever it is that’s making him like this about Rozanov to go away soon. He’s never jacked off this much in his life.
When Rozanov walks into the EMS room, Shane’s not really paying attention to him. Someone’d put the game on the shitty TV in there, and Shane couldn’t help but tune in.
Shane’s leaning against the wall, because Mercy’s EMS room is so shitty it doesn’t even have a fucking table or chairs for people to sit at. Everyone has to stand, all the fucking time, or hoist themselves onto the counters that line one wall, and fit their asses in between the coffee maker (broken), and the microwave (functional, but only if you plug it in the right way).
There’s two fridges, one that’s full of shitty sandwiches, sugary abominations, and tiny cans of sodas. The second fridge contains six packets of mayo, and also doesn’t work, at all. There’s a freezer, too, filled with five hundred ice cream sandwiches that were manufactured before the end of the cold war. And, of course, they have an awful TV that Shane can sometimes catch NHL games on, if he’s lucky, so there’s that.
That’s just how it goes, though. The better the care at the hospital, the worse the EMS room is. It’s all the shitty places that Shane’d never bring a family member to that have all the good shit. The worst hospital in their area has a fucking nacho cheese dispenser and an ICEE machine in their EMS room.
At least Mercy’s EMS room being so awful disincentivizes people who aren’t EMS from going in it. There’s rarely anybody in it, besides whatever crews have just brought a patient in.
Shane glances over and gives Rozanov a cursory nod before turning his attention back to the game. Rozanov follows his gaze to the TV, where the Habs are thrashing the Bruins in the second period.
Rozanov breaks the silence. “I did not know you liked hockey,” he says, leaning against the wall opposite Shane.
“Yeah, I used to play when I was younger. Now I just try to catch games when I can,” Shane responds.
“You played?”
“From when I was eight. Captain of my team in high school, won our league three times.” Shane can’t keep the pride out of his voice when he says it. He worked fucking hard for those wins, spent more of his high school years on the ice than doing anything else. He’d wanted to go pro, but he’d been walking home when he was seventeen and had been hit by a guy on a bike, breaking his left leg in three places. The recovery and rehab had been brutal, but not as brutal as coming to terms with his dreams of going pro being crushed.
Shane’s snapped out of his pity party by the sound of Rozanov laughing.
“What?”
“Nothing, nothing. Just that my team in Russia won our league four times.” Shane tears his eyes away from the game to stare at Rozanov. He can’t tell if Rozanov’s being serious, or if he’s just trying to fuck with Shane.
“You also played?”
“Yes, I was center, and captain. Let me guess, you were goalie?” Rozanov grins. “No, wait. Reserve goalie.”
“Fuck off, I was our starting center.” Shane feels a smile creep onto his face. “You said in Russia, did you grow up there?”
“I know it is hard to tell, because my English is so good,” Rozanov deadpans. “I moved with family friends when I was in high school. I have been here ever since.”
Shane wants to ask more, learn why Rozanov moved, ask him more about his time playing hockey. But his phone buzzes and when he checks, its a text from Hayden, asking where he is and reminding him that if they don’t get the chance to stop for coffee before their next call Hayden’s not responsible for his actions.
Shane’d really rather not deal with an uncaffeinated Hayden, but he also really wants to stay here with Rozanov. It was nice, having a conversation where Rozanov wasn’t being a complete dick the entire time. He didn’t know Rozanov had it in him.
“Sorry, I’ve gotta get going, Hayden will have my head if we don’t clear here in the next five minutes.” Shane apologizes. If Rozanov’s upset, Shane can’t tell. “Next time, though, I wanna hear about your games.”
Whoever decided to hold a mandatory continuing education session at nine in the morning on a weekday needs to be held down and spoken firmly to. And then killed. Shane’s used to the required monthly continuing education session—the hospital system hosts one a week, all of the medics in the region are required to go to one, monthly, to keep their credentials. And of course, the only session he can make it to this month is a morning one.
Shane’s just not used to being on night shift. Shane hadn’t even had time to change after his shift, he got off at eight in the morning and went straight from the station back to the fucking hospital. All so he can sit in a classroom in the administrative wing, and have some retired fire captain drone on and on about vehicle accidents for an hour and a half.
He barely makes it in on time, dropping into one of the few empty seats left in the back. He grabs a pen and a his notepad out of the side pocket of his pants. Shane’s taking notes, of course, because this could be important, but he’s not happy about it. He’s placing them on the table in front of him when he sees the seat next to him being pulled out.
He’s hit first with a vaguely familiar scent before he watches Rozanov drop into the chair. Shane’s never seen Rozanov at any of these, but Shane also supposes he wasn’t paying that much attention before—this being the first monthly session since Shane swapped to nights, and thus started seeing Rozanov around. He’s also still in uniform, so he must’ve just stayed here after his own overnight ended.
They don’t have any time to speak, the lecturer is about to start talking. Shane settles for giving him a nod as a greeting. Rozanov nods back, and scoots his chair slightly closer to Shane’s.
Rozanov spends the first fifteen minutes of the lecture behaving. At the seventeen minute mark, when the lecturer is just finishing up talking about himself and all his accomplishments, he presses his foot up against Shane’s. Shane doesn’t pull away. The heat is nice, in the cold room.
Thirty minutes after the lecture starts, Rozanov places a hand on Shane’s knee. The sudden touch makes Shane near flinch and drag his pen across the entire paper. What the fuck is Rozanov doing? Shane chances a glance at him out of the corner of his eye. Rozanov’s looking straight forward, looking bored but ostensibly paying attention. Shane decides to ignore it.
Shane has a harder time ignoring it, when forty minutes after the lecture starts, Rozanov starts inching his hand up Shane’s thigh. The palm of his hand feels so warm against his leg, and as Rozanov dares to trace the tips of his fingers over the inseam of Shane’s pants, Shane can feel himself getting hard. God, he hopes Rozanov doesn’t notice. Or maybe he does? Shane’s head is spinning. He wants Rozanov to get his hand off his thigh. He wants Rozanov to put his hands all over him.
Rozanov’s hand has made it up Shane’s inseam, and is now sitting inappropriately close to his dick. Shane has to bite the inside of his cheek to stop from making any noise when he feels Rozanov’s hand squeeze his leg. He risks glancing over at Rozanov again, and finds him still facing forward, looking every bit as disinterested as he did before. Shane adjusts his position in the seat a bit, trying to relieve some of the pressure that’s very rapidly forming in his pants. It doesn’t work. He still doesn’t pull away from Rozanov.
Shane scribbles at the bottom of his notepad. He plans to write STOP, but when he nudges the notepad closer to Rozanov, it has NOT HERE written at the bottom of it. Shane doesn’t look over to see if Rozanov notices it, but clearly he does, because he takes Shane’s pen with his left hand and writes something else on it before nudging the notepad back over to Shane. His other hand is still on Shane’s thigh.
When Shane looks down at it, BATHROOM is written in blocky handwriting underneath his own note. No sooner does Shane register what it says than does he feel Rozanov’s hand leave his thigh. He watches Rozanov quietly stand out of his seat and slip out of the door in the back.
Shane absolutely should not follow him. It’d be suspicious, for one, and they could so easily get caught. He also works with Rozanov. They technically don’t work together, but there’s a high chance they’ll both be medics on the same call someday. Besides, he doesn’t want things to be awkward if Rozanov’s at the ER when Shane brings in a patient. They are also, technically, at work right now. Shane is very aware of every reason why he definitely shouldn’t get up to go and meet Rozanov in the bathroom.
Shane spends the next three minutes trying and failing to think about things other than the way Rozanov’s hand had felt on his thigh, the heat of Rozanov’s body when he cornered Shane in the supply room, the way Rozanov’s stare feels like it’s burning through him, lighting him on fire. It’s all new, this all-encompassing desire. Fuck. Fuck.
Forty-eight minutes after the lecture begins, Shane’s standing in the nearest bathroom, staring at Rozanov. Shane hadn’t been sure exactly what bathroom Rozanov meant, so he tried the first one he saw, down the hall from the classroom. It’s the single occupancy, non gendered kind. Shane double checks the door is locked behind him.
Rozanov is just standing there, relaxed, hands in his pockets like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Must be nice, not feeling a string’s pull away from fucking exploding. The lighting in this bathroom would make anyone look awful, dim and weirdly toned, but somehow Rozanov still looks good.
Shane glares at him. “What the fuck was that about, Rozanov?”
Rozanov just smirks back and approaches Shane. The noise of his shoes off the tile is so, so loud in the small room. Shane wills himself not to panic.
“You didn’t like it?”
“That’s not—we were in public!”
Rozanov stops, directly in front of Shane. This close, Shane can feel the heat of his body again, like he did in central supply. Rozanov bends down slightly, so that he’s inches from Shane’s face. He places a hand on Shane’s face, thumb on his chin, holding him in place. It almost feels like he’s cradling Shane’s head in his hand. Shane can’t breathe.
Shane thinks Rozanov starts leaning in first. He’s not entirely sure, because he draws in too, like he’s magnetized to Rozanov’s lips. They press against Shane’s in a gentle kiss. Shane melts into it immediately, his hands coming up to clutch at Rozanov’s arms.
The kiss very quickly escalates past being gentle and slow—it’s barely any time at all before Rozanov’s tongue is pressing against Shane’s lips. Shane opens, letting Rozanov into his mouth. The touch of Rozanov’s hands, running up and down Shane’s back, has his hips canting against Rozanov’s. Shane groans quietly into the kiss at the brief pressure against his straining cock. Their lips are hungry against each other, exploring, urgent.
One of Shane’s hands lands on Rozanov’s belt, while the other wanders his chest.
Rozanov pulls away enough to ask, “Is okay?”
Shane nods. It’s more than okay. It’s not enough, Shane’s realizing. He needs more, now. Rozanov’s discovered Shane’s ass, grabbing and kneading at it through his pants while Shane continues to grind against him.
Rozanov’s touch disappears from where he’s been feeling Shane up, but Shane doesn’t have enough time to be upset about it before Rozanov’s yanking at Shane’s belt.
“You are still in uniform,” Rozanov notes. He doesn’t even sound out of breath, that asshole. Shane feels like he’s fucking drowning after running a marathon.
“So are you,” Shane points out. “Came here right after I got off.”
“Oh, I will get you off.” Rozanov murmurs. He’s gotten Shane’s belt undone, and is pulling his fly down.
“Shut the fuck up—” Shane cuts himself off with a low moan, as Rozanov gets his hand in his underpants and around his cock. “Oh, fuck, Rozanov.”
He’s overwhelmed by the feeling of Rozanov’s hand on his dick. He starts slow, spreading some of Shane’s precum around, his touch careful. Shane leans in to capture Rozanov in another heated kiss, grunting softly into his mouth as Rozanov continues to work him. His hips buck up into Rozanov’s touch.
Shane realizes he’s been gripping onto Rozanov’s waist, and begins to fumble with the buckle of Rozanov’s belt, tugging it off and yanking his fly down. Rozanov groans as Shane pulls his cock out of his underpants. Shane’s never touched another man’s dick, but he’s realizing rapidly he doesn’t hate the weight of it in his hand. It would probably feel nice in his mouth, too.
He breaks his kiss with Rozanov so he can look down, see where they’re touching each other. The head of Rozanov’s dick is shiny with precum, and he’s thick in Shane’s hand. Rozanov thrusts his hips into Shane’s grip when Shane doesn’t start moving his hand fast enough for him.
Shane takes the hint and tightens his grip on Rozanov, begins moving his hand up and down his shaft.
“Yes, Hollander, like that,” Rozanov moans. Shane presses into him, their chests flush as they jack each other off.
Shane doesn’t know how much longer he’s going to last. Rozanov squeezes where he’s firmly grasping Shane’s waist, and Shane feels dizzy with it, rapidly hurtling towards orgasm.
“Fuck— fuck, Rozanov, I’m going to—” Rozanov keeps pumping his cock, and Shane kisses him again, his lips moving messy and desperate against Rozanov’s.
He comes over Rozanov’s fist with a drawn out groan. He realizes he’s been breathing heavily into Rozanov’s mouth, which he can’t find it in himself to find gross, not when Rozanov is panting right back.
Shane’d slackened his grip on Rozanov during his orgasm, but he picks up his pace again, sliding his hand up and down Rozanov’s cock.
It doesn’t take much longer, Rozanov grunting out a low fuck before spilling over Shane’s hand. Shane strokes him through his orgasm, enjoying the low noises Rozanov is making.
They stand there, in silence, for a moment. Shane’s suddenly acutely aware of the fact that he’s in a hospital bathroom with Ilya Rozanov, during a fucking work lecture, with the man’s cum on his hands. He doesn’t have the time to freak out about it before Rozanov is pressing a short kiss to Shane’s lips and disentangling himself.
He grabs paper towels from the dispenser for the both of them, and it’s not long before they’re both cleaned up and tucked away. Shane can’t look at Rozanov at all.
Once they’re both presentable again, Rozanov asks, “Was good, yeah?”
“Maybe for you,” Shane bites back.
“Ah, do not act like you did not enjoy it.” Shane flushes, and risks looking at Rozanov. He’s smirking at Shane. The smug look, unfortunately, suits him.
“I guess we should go back,” Shane might just throw up, thinking about having to return to that lecture hall, acting like he didn’t just experience the best orgasm of his life at the hands of Ilya Rozanov. He has to, though, the only other choice is just fucking leaving, which will invite more questions than Shane really wants to answer.
“You go first. Would be more suspicious for you to be gone than for me.” Shane nods, and gives himself another once over in the mirror to make sure nothing’s out of place. He’s in his fucking work uniform, he let Rozanov get him off in his fucking polo. Shane takes a deep breath, in and out. He cannot spiral over this right now. He smooths his shirt down and takes another glance at Rozanov, who just looks bemused. Rozanov probably does this all the time, fuck, why did Shane do this with him of all people? Why did Shane do this at all?
When Shane slides back into his seat, he misses the look Scott Hunter shoots him from across the room.
Their first call of the evening drops at around ten. Shane and Hayden approach the man that’s presumably their patient: lying on his back in the parking lot of a car wash, cradling Wendy’s fries to his chest like they’re a lifeline.
The patient is conscious, thankfully, but that’s all Shane’s thankful for. The other guy milling around on scene by the patient tells Shane that he and the patient drank a bottle of jack, did some coke, and then the patient had a seizure—which he has a history of.
Shane normally operates under a strict “no food in the back of the ambulance” rule, but it rapidly becomes clear the only way this patient’s agreeing to go to the hospital is if he can take his fries with him. (He tells Shane, outright, that he is only going to the hospital if he can take his fries with him.) Shane tries to make himself become Zen with the concept of fries all over his ambulance floor. It doesn’t really work, but he’s trying.
Immediately after they start transporting, the patient asks Shane for his phone so he can call his husband. Good for him, Shane supposes, love wins, and all that, but he’s still not getting Shane’s phone.
“I’m sorry sir, I’m not allowed to let patients use personal devices, company policy.” Shane’s seated on the bench seat, jotting down notes on his clipboard. His personal IV bag and the ambulance’s locked narcotics box are sitting next to him, just in case.
Shane expects the patient to argue, or complain.
“What’s your boy’s name?” The patient asks, instead. Shane feels lost. His boy?
“Excuse me?”
“Your boy’s name. What’s your boy’s name?” The guy repeats. Shane doesn’t have any kids, and doesn’t know how, or why, this guy thinks he does. Or even what that has to do with literally anything.
“I don’t have a boy?” Shane starts rooting around in his IV bag for a start kit. This is a short process, Shane brings his own IV supply bag for a reason, and that reason is so he doesn’t have to waste time trying to find where other people have thrown shit. It’s frustrating enough having to re-arrange the medication bag every shift, he doesn’t want to have to tackle the IV drawer too. Shane also has very specific brand preferences—sorry, but he doesn’t want to have to use some shitty IV needles because the last crew restocked at a different hospital, that’s trying to cut corners with shitty equipment. Hayden calls it neurotic, Shane calls it being exacting.
“That’s a shame. You’re a nice looking young man,” his patient slurs. “You’ll find one, and he’ll be perfect for you, and the two of you will be sooo happy together.”
Wait, what?
Shane fumbles the start kit and it drops onto his lap. Does this patient think Shane is gay? Where the fuck did he get that impression? Shane loves women. Shane has the attitude and appearance of a man who loves women, he’s sure. What he did with Rozanov was just—that was nothing. A one off. Plenty of straight men own dildos. He’s not gay.
“Sir, I—” Shane’s cut off by the man abruptly stiffening up, and then watches as french fries fly out of his lap and all over the floor as the man starts to spasm.
Goddamn it, now Shane definitely won’t find out why this patient thinks he’s gay.
He drops the head of the stretcher, gets the patient flat on his back, and starts setting up oxygen. Yells to Hayden up front. “Hayden, light it up, he’s seizing.”
Shane hears him curse from up front, and then the familiar wail of sirens fills the air.
Thankfully, their patient doesn’t vomit, or stop breathing, which would be the two most inconvenient things he could do short of dying. So once Shane has oxygen going, it’s a relatively simple matter for him to draw up and push the Versed to try and stop the seizure. By the time they’re pulling into the ambulance bay, their patient is no longer actively convulsing, and Shane even had time to get an IV.
They hand off the patient to a nurse who asks if Shane has an IV in place, and when he says yes, immediately looks more invested in the presence of the french fries than anything else Shane has to say about the patient. He bristles at being blown off, but he’s learned to let some things slide. He gets a signature and ducks out of the room.
Rozanov’s not hanging around, so it’s easy to grab supplies, get everything put together, and get on their way.
Shane’s in the passenger seat of the truck, sipping his ginger ale, while Hayden attempts to back them out of the ambulance bay. Shane recalls what their patient said—does he really look… gay? Is that what people think of him?
“Hey Hayden?”
Hayden’s just starting to swing the truck forward to clear the bay, and hums noncommittally, which Shane takes as a cue to continue.
“Do I look gay?”
Hayden simultaneously chokes, swerves violently, hits the gas, and then slams on the brakes. He narrowly avoids hitting another crew trying to bring a patient into the ER on their stretcher.
One of the people pushing the stretcher scowls at them and flips Shane and Hayden off behind their patient’s back. Hayden flips them off in return—even though it was his fault to begin with—and then turns to Shane.
“What?”
“Do you think I look gay,” Shane repeats.
“Yeah, okay, that’s what I thought I heard. Why are you asking me this all of a sudden?” They’re still stopped in the middle of the bay. Shane can hear another ambulance coming in hot, so he gestures to Hayden to keep pulling out.
Shane does not want to get T-boned by some nineteen-year-old baby faced EMT with some Zyns and a dream on this particular evening.
When they’re safely back on the road, Shane continues. “Our patient said I was gay before he started seizing,” and then elaborates further, explaining what happened.
Hayden takes a second. “So let me confirm: our drunk, cokehead, fry-loving patient asked about your boyfriend before he immediately started seizing, and now you’re what, worried you look gay?”
Well when Hayden puts it like that, Shane feels a bit stupid. He pushes on anyways.
“Well uh—” Shane hesitates.
“Do you think you look gay?” Hayden asks.
Shane doesn’t even know what it means to look gay, short of being fully decked out in rainbow swag. And there’s nothing wrong with looking gay! He’s just concerned other people think he’s gay. Not in a homophobic way! But if he’s coming off as gay to people, he’d like to know about it.
Especially considering what he did with Rozanov last week. Do gay people have a sense? Did his patient smell it on him? Do you start walking differently once you’ve had your dick touched by another man?
Okay, so Shane’s spiraling a bit. He can recognize this. He’s not sure this is the kind of personal revelation he wants to have in the front seat of an ambulance. Where else he’d have it, he’s not sure, but now is definitely not the time.
Shane shakes his head.
“Nevermind, just drop it.”
“Shane—” Hayden tries.
“Seriously, it’s fine. it’s nothing.”
“Whatever you say, man.”
Hayden gives him another look, but drops the subject.
There’s another con-ed session the next month that Shane has to go to. It’s not directly after his shift this time, so he can actually show up in business casual, as specified. He gets there fifteen minutes early and spends the entire time sitting in his seat scared Rozanov’s going to show up. Or maybe scared he won’t show up. The minute before the session starts, Shane spots a mess of brown curls entering the room.
Shane’s even more on edge as soon as Rozanov drops into the seat next to him. is Rozanov going to touch him again? Shane tells himself that if Rozanov does, he’s going to put a stop to it. What happened before shouldn’t have, and it won’t happen again.
Rozanov keeps his hands off Shane, and Shane is in purgatory until nearly halfway in, Rozanov rests his hand directly on Shane’s upper thigh. Shane’s leg stills—he hadn’t even realized he was bouncing it. Rozanov’s grip tightens. He leaves his hand there, unmoving, for the entire rest of the lecture. Immediately after the speaker finishes their closing notes, Rozanov is gone.
Shane’s not going to follow. He’s not going to. He doesn’t know where Rozanov went, he could be somewhere else, he could’ve just fucking left. He’s not going, even if Rozanov’s in there already with his cock in his hands, stroking it slowly. Even if what Rozanov wants is for Shane to get on his knees, take his cock into his mouth, and suck Rozanov off.
Oh, god, Shane’s mouth is watering. Shane just barely manages to wait for most of the crowd to disperse before he leaves his seat and slips into the same bathroom as before.
Rozanov’s on Shane the second that the door’s locked behind him. Shane kisses him back with equal fervor, and before long he’s being pressed up against the wall. Rozanov’s mouth is insistent, and Shane parts his lips immediately for him. The heat of Rozanov’s tongue as he licks into Shane’s mouth feels a bit like ecstasy.
Rozanov places a hand on the back of Shane’s neck, tangling his fingers into the hair at the nape. He tugs, firmly but not harshly, and Shane moans into his mouth, his hips jerking up in immediate response. Rozanov yanks harder, pulling Shane’s head back by the back of his neck. Shane makes a noise of displeasure at the kiss being broken.
The feeling of Rozanov’s grip, right at the base of his skull, holding on tightly to his hair and keeping him in place should not be making him nearly this worked up. Shane tries to grind his hips against Rozanov’s, only to be met with another tug of his hair in response.
“What do you want?” Rozanov asks.
Shane can’t admit what he wants, Rozanov is just supposed to fucking know, or take it, or whatever. That’s how this works.
“I want you to stop being a fucking asshole,” Shane spits.
Rozanov tugs at his hair again. Shane’s dick throbs in his pants. He thinks about Rozanov’s cock, the way it looked in his hand, before, the way it might feel on his tongue. His mouth waters again.
“Can I—” Shane cuts himself off, suddenly feeling too aware of himself to get the words out. Rozanov slides his hand out of Shane’s hair and gently cups his cheek with it, instead.
“It is okay. But I cannot give you what you want, if you do not tell me what it is.” Rozanov presses a kiss to Shane’s chin, and then his lips, soft and brief. Shane’s deeply concerned his legs might be giving out from underneath him sometime very soon. Maybe from lust, it’s unclear.
“I want—I want to taste you,” Shane admits.
“Then get on your knees.”
Distantly, Shane thinks he should be ashamed at the speed at which he drops to the floor. It’s hard to focus on that though, when Rozanov is unzipping his pants, pulling them down just enough for the outline of his dick to be visible, straining against the black boxer briefs he has on. Shane leans in, getting closer. He brings a hand up to trace over the print of Rozanov’s cock, the other one sliding up his shirt, feeling his abs, squeezing his pecs.
“Yes, Hollander, good,” Rozanov praises him, and oh—
Shane rushes to pulls Rozanov’s underpants down with a sharp tug, exposing his dick to the air. Rozanov’s fully hard, his cock jutting out from between his legs. There’s curly blonde hair at the base, which Shane notes is surprisingly well groomed.
Shane presses his open mouth to the base of Rozanov’s cock, trailing his way up to the tip. Shane’s never done this before, but he’s gotten like, three blowjobs, so he has something to work with at least.
At the head, he sticks his tongue out for a tentative lick at Rozanov’s slit, bracing himself for the worst. It doesn’t taste bad, actually. It’s definitely not like, a top ten taste, but it’s not bad.
Shane wraps his lips around the head, applying the slightest bit of suction. He feels a hand land in his hair as Rozanov moans.
“Oh fuck, Hollander, so fucking good—” emboldened by the praise, and making care to keep his teeth out of the way, Shane starts trying to take more of Rozanov’s dick into his mouth.
He can’t make it all the way down, his gag reflex threatening to kick in before he even gets halfway. He draws back, dragging his tongue along the underside as he pulls off, which earns him another long groan from Rozanov.
He can feel Rozanov trying his best to avoid thrusting into Shane’s mouth, which he appreciates. As hot as that’d be, he needs more practice before he’s ready for that.
The hand in his hair is running though it, petting him, encouraging him to take more, and so Shane dives back in. He tries to establish a rhythm, bobbing his head on the part of Rozanov’s cock he can reach, using his hand where he can’t get to with his mouth.
Shane’s sure he’s using too much saliva—he can feel drool begin to drip down his chin, and he’s positive he looks like a mess—but he doesn’t care. The bathroom is filled with the slick noise of Shane sucking Rozanov off, and Rozanov’s low groans, increasing in frequency. Rozanov’s hand in his hair feels good, and Shane’s absently aware that he’s bucking his own hips up, trying to get friction where there’s nothing there.
He takes as much of Rozanov as he can into his mouth and holds him there, breathing through his nose. He looks up at Rozanov, who’s breathing heavily and biting his lower lip as he groans. Rozanov’s looking down at Shane, and Shane feels his hips twitch again at the heat behind Rozanov’s stare. He pulls off, and goes back to sloppily sucking at the head while stroking the shaft.
“Hollander, fuck, I’m going to—” Shane’s led away from Rozanov’s dick by the hand in his hair. Shane resists the pull. He’s curious, wants to know the taste of Rozanov’s release on his tongue. If it tastes like garbage, he’ll spit it out.
Shane wraps his lips back around Rozanov’s dick and sucks, pressing his tongue against the slit, again. With another gasp and a choked off groan, the grip on Shane’s hair painfully tight, Rozanov shudders and comes into Shane’s waiting mouth.
The taste isn’t great. He hadn’t minded the precum, but Shane can’t say he’s a fan of semen. It’s not that bad, so he swallows anyways, because pulling off and spitting onto the bathroom floor feels rude. Also, Shane can admit it’s a little hot to be swallowing down Rozanov.
Once Rozanov’s done, Shane pulls off his dick. And is immediately reminded of his own arousal, Jesus, his dick is borderline painful in his khakis. How was he able to ignore this? Shane feels like he could come at the first real touch on his dick, he’s so fucking worked up.
Rozanov tugs Shane up by his hair, and Shane stands easily, his knees used to being on bathroom floors for much longer, in much weirder situations.
Shane’s mouth is immediately occupied again, this time with Rozanov’s tongue. Rozanov seems to have no qualms kissing Shane with the traces of his own release still in his mouth. He makes quick work of Shane’s jeans, getting the fly down and plunging a hand into Shane’s underpants to grab at his cock. Pulling away from their kiss, Shane has to bury his face into the crook of Ilya’s neck to muffle his moan at the first touches to his dick. He bucks up into Rozanov’s grip, unable to stop himself.
“God, you are this wet from just sucking my cock?” Rozanov’s hand is moving, slick against Shane. “You are fucking dripping, Hollander.”
“Do you ever shut up?” Shane groans as Rozanov starts moving his hand. He doesn’t waste any time, establishing a rapid pace that has Shane panting desperately into Rozanov’s skin. God, he isn’t going to last much longer.
“C’mon, Hollander, cum for me,” Rozanov demands. A ragged, broken noise escapes Shane, muffled by Rozanov’s skin, as his orgasm hits him, and he comes all over Rozanov’s hand. He collapses boneless against Rozanov once he’s through, trying to catch his breath. Holy fucking shit.
Shane lifts his head from Rozanov’s shoulder, and finds him staring at Shane, mouth open. Rozanov looks just as messed up as Shane feels, still breathing heavily. Rozanov pats Shane on the cheek and Shane bristles, which only seems to spur Rozanov on, because he then leans in to kiss Shane gently on the lips.
“Wow.” Shane says, because he’s lost for words. He didn’t expect to enjoy sucking dick so much. Shane can never tell Rozanov this, he’ll never fucking live it down.
Rozanov winks at him. “I will return favor next time, ok?”
Next time. Shane can’t let there be a next time. Even though the thought of Rozanov on his knees for Shane is an appealing one. Doing this twice was bad enough, but planning for a next time?
Shane has to fucking stop this. He tells himself there will be no next time.
Their tones drop when Shane is just starting to fall asleep, which is how it always goes. He rolls himself out of his bunk, slipping his boots on as he hears dispatch tell them over the radio that they’re going to a nursing home for a one-hundred-year-old female who slid out of bed, time out: 0124. Ugh, Shane hates people sometimes. He just slid out of bed, but he’s not calling 911 about it, is he? Shane groggily puts them en route on the radio on his way out the door, and drags himself into the passenger seat of the ambulance.
Hayden appears in the driver’s seat a moment later, his hair sticking in every direction. Shane’s seen it worse, so he doesn’t bother saying anything. It’ll probably deflate, or something, by the time they make it there.
This particular nursing home is at the far edge of their service area, and it takes them a solid fifteen minutes of flying down empty roads and honking at suicidal deer before they’re approaching the right building.
The building itself is a familiar sight. The response car parked out front with its lights on, is not. It sure looks a lot like Squad 81, the response unit out of Mercy’s ER. What the fuck is Rozanov doing here, Shane wonders.
Hayden rubs at his eyes. “Is this a nightmare? Am I still asleep? Why is Squad 81 here?” He asks, voicing Shane’s thoughts.
Shane checks the CAD, the tablet that sits between the two of them in the truck that displays the details of their calls. It also, conveniently, shows a list of every unit in the zone and their status. Their unit is listed as still being en route to this call, so he taps the button to mark them on scene, and then scrolls down to see the status of Squad 81. Squad 81 is currently not listed as assigned to any call.
So, then what is it doing parked outside a nursing home in Shane’s service area, after midnight. Did Rozanov jump on this benign nursing home lift assist? And if so, why?
Shane throws a pair of gloves on and hops out of the front. Only one way to find out.
“Hayd, you can stay here.”
“Wha—” Hayden’s response is cut off by a yawn.
“If Roz is on scene, him and I can handle whatever this is. Just stay here and take a nap or whatever. If we need you, I’ll holler on the radio or have dispatch drop our tones.”
Hayden looks like he’s going to argue, until he breaks out into another yawn. Shane closes the door on him and starts grabbing stuff from the back. He has no idea what Rozanov’s brought in with him, and it wouldn’t surprise him to find out he walked in with nothing but a pair of gloves.
That’s not how Shane rolls, though, so he slings their house bag on his back and grabs the clipboard. If they need the stretcher, Shane’ll radio Hayden to get him to bring it in. Their patient’s on the first floor, it won’t take long.
Shane starts heading inside, and sees Rozanov standing in the lobby, chatting with staff. Rozanov has his house bag on his back as well, and is holding a tablet. He waves Shane over when he sees him, and Shane joins the congregation.
Rozanov hands him a packet of paperwork, and fills him in: “She slid out of bed. She got herself up, their policy is to call 911 for every fall, but they are saying she wants nothing to do with EMS.”
Shane sighs. He hates this fucking place and their policies, they’ve ruined so many nights of sleep for him, three months into working overnights. What’s the point of having any fucking staff here if they can’t even evaluate patients on their own?
“Fine, alright, let’s go check her out.”
Staff point he and Rozanov in the right direction, and after a knock on her door elicits no response, Shane turns the handle and lets them in, announcing themselves. It’s a pseudo-apartment, and they find the woman in the bedroom. She’s sitting at the edge of the bed when they walk in.
“WHY ARE YOU HERE,” she screams.
Shane winces. “Ma’am, you fell, we’re just here to check you out—”
“I’M NOT GOING TO THE HOSPITAL. YOU CAN’T MAKE ME GO.”
“We don’t have to go to the hospital, but can we at least make sure you’re okay?” He tries.
“GET AWAY FROM ME YOU… YOU OAFS.” The woman is reaching for her landline now. “I’LL CALL THE POLICE ON YOU BUFFOONS.”
“There’s no need to do that ma’am—” Shane will do anything to stop that from happening. It’s always so fucking embarassing when police show up because someone called 911 on 911.
“THEN GET OUT OF HERE!”
Shane and Rozanov look at each other. Shane doesn’t have any problem keeping a straight face, but Rozanov’s lips are pressed tightly together like he’s trying hard not to laugh, which would explain why he hasn’t said anything.
Shane looks at the door, then back at Rozanov. Rozanov nods. Silently agreeing, they start backing out of the room.
“We’re so sorry to have disturbed you, have a good evening and call back if you need anything,” Shane says for the both of them, because Rozanov looks like he’s going to start cackling if he opens his mouth.
They manage to make it out into the hallway and close the door to the patient’s room without losing it, surprisingly. Rozanov starts snickering immediately once they’re safe, and Shane has a hard time not joining him. He and Rozanov eventually shrug, and hand facility staff the paperwork back on their way out. She didn’t want anything to do with EMS, so she’s their problem again.
Shane stops Rozanov before they exit the lobby. Something’s bugging him. He can’t figure out what Rozanov’s game is here.
“Why are you even here?” he asks.
Rozanov shrugs. “I was awake when call came in. I got curious, so I came to check it out,” he says, like it’s no skin off his back to jump a call at near two in the morning for absolutely no reason.
“You got curious about a lift assist, at a nursing home?”
“Yes. You never know. Maybe her head exploded, fell off. Could be interesting.” Rozanov says this with grave sincerity.
Shane’s not sure why that’s what does it, but he finds himself bursting into surprised laughter. Rozanov joins him. This whole situation is so fucking ridiculous.
He looks up and sees Rozanov smiling. It’s a different smile than his normal one, the one that makes everyone want to punch him. Or fuck him. Or both.
This one is softer. Reaches his eyes more. His nose is crinkled up a bit. Shane likes it.
“Go back to… hunting deer or whatever it is you do out in middle of nowhere.” Rozanov’s still chuckling as he gestures dismissively.
“Oh fuck off, we’re not that rural.”
“Did you not bring in a farmer kicked by cow last week? Or was a that different paramedic with pretty freckles?”
Shane’s not going to blush at that, he isn’t.
Shane normally can’t wait to get the fuck out of any nursing home he’s in. For some reason though, he’s loathe to leave this one with Rozanov.
The moment’s ruined by Shane’s radio blasting some other station’s tones, scaring the shit out of both of them. Shane suddenly can’t bring himself to look at Rozanov anymore. Sucking Rozanov’s dick in bathrooms is one thing, but flirting with him at a nursing home after midnight? What the fuck is Shane doing?
“I should…” Shane trails off and gestures to the ambulance outside. “Hayden’s waiting.” They parked the ambulance close enough that from the entrance, they can both fully see Hayden comatose in the front seat.
“Yes, he’s about to die of impatience,” Rozanov says dryly.
“Go fuck yourself.”
“I do not think that is who you want me to be fucking, Hollander,” Rozanov smirks at him. “But I will see you around, yes? Have a good night.”
Shane tries his best to quietly drop the bag in the back and slip into the front seat. He thinks he’s successful, Hayden doesn’t move an inch.
Until he hears every possible siren go off at once from the squad parked in front of them.
Hayden, and presumably every other resident in the facility, jumps awake with a scream. He looks around frantically, disoriented as fuck. Shane just sighs heavily. Rozanov peels out, and Shane swears he can see him cackling in the front seat as he drives away. Bastard.
After that, a pattern emerges. Throughout the spring, Shane and Rozanov run into each other at the hospital or on calls, they snipe at each other, and Shane leaves annoyed and a little bit turned on. And then once a month, after (or occasionally, like the first time, during) their mandatory con-ed lectures, Shane and Rozanov will, for lack of a better term, hook up.
Shane cringes just thinking it. Hooking up makes what they’re doing sound more legitimate than what it really is: it’s Shane and Rozanov frantically rutting against each other, or it’s one of them (usually Shane) on their knees, or, one notable time, it’s Shane’s front pressed against the wall and Rozanov pressed behind him, thrusting between his thighs. It’s just mindless pleasure.
They’re not fucking, even though Rozanov asks if they can every single time. Shane tells him no, every time. They don’t have enough time, and he’s not giving it up for the first time in a bathroom in the administrative wing of a hospital.
Shane knows he needs to put a stop to it. He has to. They could be fired and have their command pulled if anyone found out they had been fucking each other on hospital property. It’s not that the fraternization is disallowed, it’s the circumstances in which they’ve been doing so.
There’s no reason they have to still be doing it there, besides for the fact that Shane refuses to meet Rozanov anywhere else. Anywhere else would be too personal, would mean that they’re choosing to see each other as opposed to just getting release with one another.
And, if they met somewhere else, Shane would have no excuse to not let Rozanov fuck him. It’s not that he doesn’t want Rozanov to fuck him. Shane wants it so badly sometimes he aches with it. He has to live every day with the knowledge that he’s repeatedly fucked himself with his single, pitiful dildo at home, and pretended that it’s Rozanov. Every time Shane sees Rozanov, he thinks about what it’d be like to take all of him, let Rozanov fuck him and use him until he’s crazy with it.
Shane wants it so fucking badly it scares him, sometimes.
So he doesn’t let Rozanov fuck him.
Another night, another patient going to triage that definitely shouldn’t be. Shane’s still holding the emesis bag, half filled with puke, when he attempts to tell the charge nurse, Scott Hunter, that hey, maybe the patient whose blood pressure hasn’t risen above 90/60, with the bloody vomit, shouldn’t be going to triage.
“If we had anywhere else to put her, we would,” he tells Shane in response, unapologetically.
“Maybe if you were better at your job, you’d have somewhere to put her,” Shane chirps. He’s not normally one to get in fights with nurses, and he understands it’s not really Hunter’s fault, but he’s tired of feeling like he’s abandoning sick patients to triage or the waiting room.
Hunter squints, looks at Shane. Says, “You’re starting to sound like him.”
“Who?” Shane asks.
“Rozanov.”
Fuck this.
Shane’s not proud of what he does next. In one fluid movement, he takes a step back from Hunter, extends his arm, and then drops the emesis bag. It lands at Hunter’s feet with a splash of dark, clotty, vomit.
And then he walks out. Rapidly.
Shane immediately regrets his decision, oh god, he’s going to be in so much trouble, this was such a dick move, what the hell. He snags Hayden—gossiping with another crew by the exit—by the elbow and drags him out.
“Woah, woah, Shane, buddy, what’s going on,” Hayden protests as Shane pulls him out of the ER.
“We have to go, now.” Shane is shoving Hayden into the front of the truck. This was such a fucking mistake.
Later that night, after they’ve brought in another patient, Shane and Rozanov are lingering in the hallway. They're not talking shop, for once, instead trying to one-up each other with stories about the best goals they ever scored on the ice.
Rozanov's bragging about his backhand when Hunter storms past the both of them, giving Shane the evil eye in the process. Shane winces.
“Wow. Hunter is in really bad mood tonight,” Rozanov notes.
“Yeah, that might be my fault,” Shane admits. Rozanov raises a brow at him and Shane explains what he did. Rozanov barks out a surprised laugh.
“You? I didn’t know you had it in you, Hollander.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well you are y’know,” Rozanov straightens up and gestures broadly to Shane. “Boring.”
“I am not boring!” Shane immediately protests.
“You are just very.. textbook. The other day you gave report and said patient was in ‘supraventricular tachycardia’. Do you know how many times I’ve heard people say that? None, it is always ‘SVT’. The last time was in school, probably.”
Shane refuses to get defensive. “So? That’s what it’s called.”
Rozanov smiles that stupid smug grin at him. “Do you call STEMI ‘ST-Segment Elevated Myocardial Infarction’ every time, too?”
“Okay, that’s it, I’m leaving.”
It’s when his patient completely stops responding to him that Shane realizes he’s going to need another set of hands. Shane prides himself normally on having situations under control. He rarely, if ever, needs to call for backup for help with patient care. It happens, occasionally, though, and right now is looking like it’s going to be one of those times.
Shane really hates polypharm overdoses. His patient seems to have taken a handful from every bottle of pills in the bathroom’s medicine cabinet, and then promptly collapsed on the couch. He was at least awake, when they’d gotten there, but that is no longer the case. With his patient unresponsive with frankly, shit vitals, Shane knows he needs to bite the bullet.
He keys up his radio. “County, Medic 2435”
“Go ahead 2435,” dispatch responds.
“Are any response units available?”
“It looks like Squad 81 is available, do you want me to start them?”
Hayden groans. "He's the last person we need right now."
Shane glares at him. “Start Squad 81 emergent, please.”
A new voice chimes in.
“County, Squad 81 copies 2435 direct, show me in route, emergent.”
Rozanov shows up as him and Hayden are carrying the patient out, the early summer air muggy around them. He helps load the patient onto the stretcher, and they set off across the driveway. He glances at the monitor, hanging off the edge of the stretcher. Blood pressure’s still shit over fuck, but the heart rate has dropped from 98 to 60, and Shane really doesn’t like that. Shane’s also concerned the patient is going to start vomiting again, which would be a big problem considering that he’s currently unresponsive.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Shane starts, as they’re pushing the stretcher up to the truck. “We reassess everything. If nothing else needs addressed and we still have that IV I got inside, great.”
The legs are lifting on the stretcher.
“Rozanov, I want another bag of fluid running. If the IV’s gone, drill. Otherwise, I want epi ready. Hayden, stay at the head, swap the patient’s oxygen from the stretcher to the main tank in the truck, suction if needed. Are we all clear?”
They’re pushing the stretcher in, Shane’s jumping in next to it.
“Pike, I will do airway, you handle the fluids.”
Shane runs through his primary assessment. Still unresponsive to a sternal rub. Carotids present but weak. Nasal airway in place, which is fine for now, but a definitive airway would be preferred before any more vomiting happens.
“What? No, he told me to do airway, Rozanov, stay in your lane.”
Non-rebreather mask still on, delivering oyxgen. Respirations are now absent.
Fucking Christ.
“Both of you shut up.” Shane doesn’t yell, but he’s close. “We do not have the fucking time for this right now, we’re fucking apneic. Hayden, he needs to be bagged. Rozanov, get me access and get that pressure up.” Shane throws a BVM at Hayden while he’s talking, and then rips the intubation kit out of the house bag.
It’s messy. The IV from the house is gone, so Rozanov ends up having to drill the tibia. Shane almost misses his tube because the patient starts vomiting again, but he was prepared with suction. Once the monitor is confirming that his tube is in the patient’s lungs and not the stomach, Shane feels like he can take a second.
“Okay.” Shane takes a breath. “Rozanov, take over bagging. Hayden, lets get moving.” The two of them swap without a word, and Hayden leaves to hop in the front.
Rozanov opens his mouth while Shane is making a syringe of push-dose epinephrine. He has to get this patient’s pressure up, so fucking help him god. Shane cuts him off.
“Unless this is about the patient’s condition right now, or it’s some other pressing matter, I don’t want to fucking hear it.”
Rozanov closes his mouth. A wise move.
When they arrive at the ER, the patient still has pulses. That’s about the only positive thing that can be said.
After care is transferred, Shane shucks his gloves off into the nearest trash can. His hands are drenched with sweat. He tries to compose himself, but he’s seeing fucking red.
He finds Hayden and Rozanov outside at the truck. Rozanov is wiping the stretcher down while Hayden’s shoving as much trash in the back as he can into a biohazard bag. Neither of them are speaking.
“So, do either one of you want to explain what the fuck that was?” Shane asks. “That was a critically ill patient. You are both grown fucking men. I should not have to be babysitting on top of running the call because you two can’t keep yourselves together.”
Shane turns to Rozanov.
“You. I understand that you are also a paramedic. And I value input and feedback on calls. What I do not value, however, is you ordering my EMT around, on my call, for no good reason, after I told you explicitly what I wanted you to be doing.”
“It made more sense for me to be on airway, I can do more than Pike.” Rozanov tries to defend. Shane is not having fucking any of it.
“And if that’s a concern you have, you should’ve voiced it, instead of just ordering him around. And if you had voiced it, I would’ve said that I wanted you closer to the monitor, because with the way his heart rate was dropping it looked like we were going to have to pace him, and between you and Hayden, which one of you can actually fucking pace?”
Hayden’s standing there watching Rozanov get reamed out with a smug smile. Shane turns on him.
“And you. I appreciate you trying to respect what I had asked you to do, but Rozanov, as we just established, is also a paramedic. Telling him to ‘stay in his lane’ is not what we need when the lane is patient care. Furthermore, it is not helpful, when I have my hands full with an unresponsive patient, to complain about getting another paramedic emergent, immediately, because you can’t put your ego down for two seconds to work together.”
“This patient could’ve fucking died tonight because the two of you couldn’t get your shit in check and take this seriously. I’m tired of watching you two snap at each other all the time, every single shift. Work it out, both of you, or I will be pulling rank and requesting a permanent shift swap.”
He leaves them in the truck and storms back inside. He gets a nurse to badge him into central supply, because he doesn’t feel like dealing with the shitty little EMS cabinet outside that’s never fucking stocked. It’s more private in here, too.
Shane sinks to the floor, pulls his legs up, and rests his head on his knees. What a goddamned clusterfuck.
He gives himself ninety seconds to get his breathing in check. He always crashes after critical patients, the adrenaline wears off and leaves him feeling shaky and gutted, but it’s extra bad this time. He can’t believe the two of them. Shane doesn’t mind taking control on scenes, he prefers it actually, but he hates when he has to do shit like this.
It ends up taking closer to three minutes before Shane feels like he can stand up.
When he makes it back to the truck, Rozanov is gone, and Hayden’s morosely trying to wipe vomit off the floor.
Shane takes another deep breath in, and knocks on the side of the ambulance to announce his presence.
“Hey. I’m sorry for snapping—”
Hayden cuts him off immediately.
“No, dude, I’m the one who should be sorry. You’re right, as much as I don’t like Rozanov he is another medic. I shouldn’t have let my dislike of him get in the way of patient care.”
Shane releases the breath he was holding. He’s glad Hayden isn’t mad at him. This is why Hayden's his favorite to work with. Even when things go sideways, they're always able to figure shit out together.
“Thank you. I’m sorry again.”
“Shane, if you apologize to me one more time, I will dump the contents of this mop bucket on you.”
Shane doesn’t see Rozanov again that night. He tells himself that’s a good thing.
Shane has been told no less than twice about the orange vomit on his ass. First by a volunteer firefighter on scene, and then by registration at the ER. He knows, okay. If anyone has better suggestions on ways to treat patients lying face down on the floor in puddles of vomit, that don’t involve having to kneel or stand in said puddles, he’s all ears!
The fridge in the EMS room doesn’t appear to have any ginger ale in it on first glance, so Shane starts rifling through it. He hears the door to the EMS room open and close behind him, but it’s not enough to distract him from his search. He needs this fucking ginger ale.
He hears someone clear their throat, and knows immediately from the sound that it’s fucking Rozanov. Great. He knows exactly where this is going. Rozanov is both vocal about staring at his ass, and a huge douche. Rozanov hasn’t tried to talk to him since Shane chewed him and Hayden out. That was almost three weeks ago, and Shane’s getting tired of him being a child.
“Here to tell me about the vomit on my ass? Don’t bother, I’m already aware.” Shane huffs as he sifts through a pile of soggy turkey sandwiches. “And I don’t need to hear any ideas you might have about ways to get it off.”
There’s no response, much like how there seems to be no fucking ginger ales in this fridge.
Shane is so over this shift. They got sent out on a call before they even got to finish checking their truck, for something incredibly stupid, and they hadn’t seen the station since. Their most recent patient, their fourth of the night, had been on the top floor of a third story walkup with the worlds narrowest staircase, barely breathing. The patient’d been a mess, extrication had been a mess, and by the end of it, Shane had been positive he never wanted to smell buffalo chicken dip again.
And now there’s puke on his butt, and no fucking ginger ales in this fridge, and Rozanov is here, too busy being a giant fucking slut or whatever it is he’s doing to respond. Shane realizes he’s being uncharitable, and a bitch, but also doesn’t fucking care right now.
“God, fucking what, Rozanov?” he seethes as he extracts himself from the fridge, slamming the door shut and whipping around to face the other man.
He expects to see Rozanov when he turns around. What Shane doesn’t expect to see is Rozanov holding out a full sized can of ginger ale to him. It’s not even one of the tiny shitty patient cans they stock the EMS room with, it’s a genuine full sized one. Shane freezes and feels his eyes widen.
Rozanov makes a motion with the can urging Shane to take it, after moments pass and Shane is still standing there, speechless.
Did Rozanov get this for him? Where did he even get it from? The only place on the hospital campus with full sized ginger ales are the vending machines, and Shane does not make enough money to be spending money when there’s usually free cans in the fridge. Did Rozanov buy this? For Shane?
Rozanov’s still holding the ginger ale out, and Shane is still just staring at him.
“Is that for me?” Shane asks, like an idiot. No, he’s expecting Rozanov to say, is for other ghost paramedic in here.
“Yes. I found it, but I do not drink boring drinks, so,” he motions again for Shane to take the can from him. Shane reaches out to take it. The glide of Rozanov’s fingers against his as he passes it over sends a zing of heat down his spine. He should be used to it by now, but every time it makes Shane feel just as worked up.
He cracks the can open and takes a sip. “Thanks, I guess.” At this point in his career, Shane can admit that drinking ginger ale after bad calls is less about the ginger ale itself, and more about the familiar routine. He can live without it, he’s adaptable, but it helps a lot to have one. It settles him, for some reason.
Rozanov stays silent, and Shane belatedly realizes he did just snap at Rozanov, barely thanked him, and then immediately started drinking the gift he brought.
“Oh, I’m uh—sorry for snapping at you, again, I guess. It’s just been a long shift and—”
“It’s okay,” Rozanov is looking at him almost tenderly. Like he’s concerned about Shane. Maybe Shane fell down his patient’s steps, broke his neck, and now he’s in some kind of weird coma hallucination where Rozanov is giving him ginger ales and is concerned for his well being. “I am sorry, too. For last week.”
Shane waits to see if Rozanov has any more to say on that matter, but it doesn’t seem like he does. This is fucking awkward. Shane should go, or something.
“I, uh—Hayden’s probably looking for me, I should go um,” he backs towards the door, “thanks again for the ginger ale. I’ll see you around?” Shane tries to smile and wave at Rozanov as he leaves. He doesn’t get a wave, but he does spot a smile on Rozanov’s face forming as the door closes.
Things return to normal with Rozanov, after that, and Shane and Hayden continue to get their asses handed to them together three nights a week. Except, on a shift a few weeks later, Hayden goes home right before midnight. He's definitely sick with the same cold all of his kids have had the last week, and Shane wants him out of there before he Shane, or worse, a patient, sick.
Their management can’t find anyone else to fill his spot on such short notice, because of course they can’t. So Shane’s stuck running a truck on his own. They run two ambulances on the overnight normally, meaning they’ll be down to one full unit, and then Shane. Management tells him that if calls drop in the area he’s supposed to cover, he needs to go to the call, and then get a response medic or another unit to back him so there’s a full crew on scene.
Shane personally thinks management should have to fucking fill the spot on the truck instead of sitting in their offices. But Shane has enough to stress out about already without adding ‘beefing with management’ to the list.
As far as overnights go, it starts as a relatively slow one. It’s not until nearly two in the morning that a call drops that Shane needs to go on. He doesn’t need to go on it, really. Nobody should have to go on it, it’s for a two year old that can’t poop. Shane thinks he could probably just handle this alone, but policy is policy and policy states there needs to be two providers on a call. Even if the call is something nobody should be calling 911 for at four in the morning.
Shane’s never had to do this before, and he’s admittedly a little anxious about it.
“County, Medic 2435.”
“Go ahead Medic 2435.”
“2435’s gonna be a one man medic unit, can you get a response medic started to this call as well?”
“County, Squad 81 copies Medic 2435, en route on the back.”
Damn, Rozanov didn’t even get officially dispatched, and he jumped on the call. Shane’s never been so relieved to hear Rozanov’s voice over the radio. He knows, rationally, it’d go fine even if some other random crew had to back him up, but he’s glad that someone he actually knows is coming.
Even if that someone he knows is an asshole.
Shane pulls up on scene at the same time as Rozanov, which he notes as odd considering Rozanov was farther away from this call than Shane was. Whatever, he’s sure Rozanov drives like a reckless maniac.
Shane’s curious, and a bit anxious, about how this’ll go given what happened the last time he was on a call with Rozanov. But he doesn’t actually know how Rozanov behaves when he’s part of a two man crew, and not just the support, especially on a non-serious call.
They greet the patient’s mother at the door, and find out she called 911 because her two year old son couldn’t poop, had taken one laxative an hour ago, and she started getting scared he had a bowel obstruction. Annoying, especially in the middle of the night, and definitely not worth a 911 call no matter what time of day, but the mother seems like she had genuinely been panicking, and also appears to be a first time parent, so Shane’s feeling a bit sympathetic.
Shane might be feeling slightly sympathetic, but it’s Rozanov that sits at this woman’s kitchen table, writing detailed instructions on when and how she should give additional laxatives, when she should try an enema, when they should go to the ER or call 911 back. She has a million questions about laxatives, which it isn’t even their job to answer, but Rozanov never raises his voice, never snaps at her.
The kid starts crying at one point, and Rozanov is so patient with him. He reassures the kid, feels his abdomen to make sure there’s nothing else going on, and then gets the kid to start laughing less than a minute later. Shane feels a bit woozy. Shane wants to drop to his knees right now.
They leave the mother with the instructions Rozanov wrote and directions to follow up with their PCP, or to call back if they need to.
Shane is very seriously debating the merits of blowing Rozanov in his squad car. It’s dark out, and they don’t take patients in the squad, so the seats shouldn’t be tainted with every possible bodily fluid. He could probably get Rozanov off pretty fast, too, Shane’s been getting a lot better at taking him in his mouth over the last few months.
Shane’s radio goes off, and he abruptly remembers that they are at fucking work. He was thinking about blowing Rozanov outside of a patient’s house while they were on the clock. If he was blowing Rozanov and a call dropped for him, Shane he thinks he’d just kill himself. What the fuck has gotten into him.
Rozanov seems oblivious to Shane’s inner crisis.
“Try not to get too scared on your own,” Rozanov says to Shane as they walk back to their units. Shane shoves at him, hoping that Rozanov can’t see the smile on his face.
Shane’s hoping that’ll be the only call of the night he has to see Rozanov on, mainly because he doesn’t know if he can handle seeing Rozanov with patients again. It was just hot, okay, watching Rozanov. Shane works with so many people who he knows would’ve snapped, gotten upset, been dicks. And Shane gets being annoyed, he does, it’s four in the morning and the mother definitely did not need to call 911. But it’s their job to respond, and to try to help, and it irritates Shane when people don’t take that seriously. Part of him thought Rozanov would be like that, too. He’s ashamed now, for even thinking it, now that he’s seen how gentle Rozanov was with the mom and her kid.
Dispatch has other plans for Shane though, and he gets sent out on a call for a fifty-year-old male with indigestion just as the early summer dawn is breaking. Shane instinctively puts himself in route, before remembering he needs to call for a backer. Before he can key up again though, he hears Rozanov.
“County, you can show Squad 81 en route, backing Medic 2435”
He spends the entire way to the call smiling to himself.
Shane arrives first, and he’s in the back grabbing the cardiac monitor from its stand when Rozanov pokes his head in. Rozanov doesn’t complain when Shane greets him by asking him to carry the house bag—he just grabs it and heads inside with Shane.
Their patient is inside his kitchen, sitting on a barstool at the counter island. Shane’s immediately concerned, because this guy looks like shit. Grey, sweaty, working hard to breathe. He complains his chest hurts, and he’s feeling dizzy.
Shane’s about to tell Rozanov to start getting the patient on the cardiac monitor, he wants vitals, only to hear the familiar start-up noise of the monitor as it turns on. Good. Shane kneels next to the patient and feels for a radial pulse as Rozanov starts unwrapping the monitor’s cables.
Shane gives up on trying to find a radial pulse as Rozanov is putting the blood pressure cuff on the patient’s other arm.
“I can’t feel a radial pulse, get me a pressure and a pulse ox reading,” Shane’s already attaching electrodes to the EKG cables as Rozanov cycles the pressure cuff. Rozanov places the pulse ox on the man’s finger, while Shane sticks all four electrodes to the patient’s chest.
Shane’s not sure what he notices first. The numerical heart rate of two hundred and fucking thirty beats a minute, or the EKG, which shows ventricular tachycardia, clear as day.
What Shane is sure of, is that they need to shock this guy, or he’s going to fucking die. His heart’s beating too fast for any of its chambers to actually fill up with blood before the next beat. Barely any blood’s getting pumped out, and his body’s organs aren’t getting enough oxygen—and if it keeps up like this, his heart will starve itself of oxygen and stop beating all together.
Shane holds his hand out and Rozanov is immediately placing the defib pads in it. Shane’s ripping the package open, making sure the cables are all intact, and starts peeling the pads off the plastic backing. Shane hears the sound of the monitor charging as he slaps the first pad on the patient’s chest.
“Sir, I’m putting these pads on your chest because your heart is beating so fast it’s going to kill you. We’re going to have to shock you in order to reset your heart. If we don’t shock you right now, you will die. We don’t have time to sedate you, so this is going to hurt a lot. I am so sorry, I’ll be honest, it’s going to really fucking suck, but we don’t have another choice.” The patient vaguely mumbles his assent as Shane places the second pad on the left side of his chest, and looks over at the monitor. Rozanov’s made sure to set it to sync, and he has the defibrillator charged to the highest setting.
“One and done?” Rozanov asks.
Shane backs away from the patient.
“You’re clear to light it up,” Shane responds.
“Sorry again,” Shane says, as Rozanov presses and holds the shock button. The patient screams and jolts in his seat like he’s been electrocuted—which is more or less exactly what’s happened to him—and Shane glues his eyes to the monitor. The first beats that appear once the patient’s settled are just what Shane's hoping to see, at a rate of almost eighty beats a minute exactly. The patient’s wide fucking awake, and breathing, and looks less like shit. Shane glances at Rozanov, who’s pulling the IV kit out of the house bag. They still have a job to do.
After they’ve brought the patient in, the doctor they gave report to pulls them aside and commendates them on how rapidly they shocked. She says they must have really good teamwork, in order to have cardioverted within three minutes of showing up.
Shane thinks he’s lucky he had Rozanov. He doesn’t know what it was, but he and Rozanov read each others minds in there. Shane doesn’t even work that smoothly with Hayden, and they’ve been partners for over two years. Shane smiles and thanks the physician, before beaming at Rozanov. Rozanov’s smiling back at him.
Since it was just the two of them on that call, Rozanov had left his squad car on scene and had driven the ambulance to the hospital, with Shane and the patient in the back. So Shane drives them back to go get it, and the mood is light. They’re bickering aimlessly, Shane laughing at something Rozanov says, and he can see Rozanov turn to him out of the corner of his eye.
“You are very good at this,” Rozanov says.
“What, driving?”
“No, your job.”
Shane doesn’t know what to do with this compliment from Rozanov. He doesn’t know what do with any of the things he’s feeling for Rozanov right now, namely mind-blowing amounts of lust. Maybe it’s a good thing he’s not partners with Rozanov, because it seems like watching him be a good paramedic is like, a thing for Shane.
“Well the driving is part of my job,” Shane retorts.
Rozanov scoffs, disbelievingly. “Oh, and I am the asshole?”
“Yeah, you still are.”
When they get back on scene, Shane mumbles something about wanting Rozanov to double check the monitor in the back of Shane's ambulance before they part.
Rozanov gives him a long look, but agrees.
The second Rozanov closes the side door of the ambulance behind him, Shane pounces. Shane presses into Rozanov with enough force to make him stumble, and he places his hands instinctively on Shane’s waist to steady himself.
Shane wraps his arms around Rozanov’s neck as he tries to lick into his mouth. Rozanov parts his lips for him, attempting to return the kiss with equal ferocity. Shane wants to eat this man alive. Shane wants him so fucking badly. Shane thinks he might be a little bit in love.
Rozanov bites at Shane’s lower lip, and Shane groans into his mouth and arches against him. It’s the noise of his own desperation that reminds Shane exactly where they are right now, namely, in the back of his gross ambulance. Despite the reminder, he’s still slow to part from Rozanov, letting him press a their lips together a few more times before he pulls away completely.
Shane’s chest is heaving, his breath coming heavy, and he know his lips have to be red and swollen, because Rozanov’s are. A single string of saliva connects their lips as Shane draws back. Rozanov looks dazed, as Shane pulls away, and then confused.
“Not that I am complaining, because wow, but Hollander, what?”
Shane flushes. What indeed. What got into him? Well, he knows what he wants to get into him. Holy shit, Shane needs to get it the fuck together. This is absurd.
“I just— well. Uh.” Shane stammers and then looks Rozanov directly in the eyes. “You had something on your face.”
“You are awful liar, Hollander, truly.” Shane’s offended. He looked directly at Rozanov, which is what people do when they tell the truth. He opens his mouth to try again with a better response, a more believable excuse.
“I want you to fuck me,” Shane blurts out, instead of saying literally anything else. Rozanov half-chokes, and then starts aggressively coughing. Shane’s actually going to jump into traffic, why the fuck did he say that. “I mean—well—”
“Here?” Rozanov asks, once his coughing fit mostly abates. He’s smiling now, and Shane can’t tell if he’s laughing at Shane or not.
“Rozanov, don’t take this the wrong way, but I would literally rather die than get fucked by you in an ambulance.” This does not seem to ruin Rozanov’s good mood in the slightest.
“Okay, then we do not fuck in the ambulance.”
“Then where?”
“You have a home, yes?”
Shane has made a critical mistake.
“Yes..?”
“Okay, then we fuck there.”
“Now?” He’s not leaving his fucking job, which is short-staffed enough as it is currently, to go bend over for Rozanov in his own home.
“Yes, Hollander, I will drive you home in ambulance and fuck you there right now. We can leave our radios on, get off on the sound of dispatch yelling at us.”
Shane all of a sudden doesn’t remember why he wants to fuck this guy so badly.
“Y’know what, nevermind, forget I said anything.”
Rozanov places his hands back on Shane’s waist.
“You are off at eight, right? After that.”
“I- I don’t know. I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Shane rapidly tries to backpedal. Rozanov leans into Shane’s space.
“Oh my god, Hollander, it is just sex. Fine. I will give you my address. I will be home all day today after work. If at say, eleven this morning, you want to come over and get what you want, you can. Or you can not. It does not matter to me.”
Getting off with Rozanov in the bathroom during con-ed is one thing, but going over to his home to let him fuck Shane is a completely different story. He should not say yes. He needed to shut this down months ago. He can still shut it down now.
“Write your fucking address down and get out of my truck," Shane says.
Shane knocks on the door to Rozanov’s apartment at eleven am on the dot. He hadn’t slept. He went home, showered, tried four different outfits on, and then had paced around his own apartment until it was time for him to leave. Shane shouldn’t be here, Shane shouldn’t be doing this.
Rozanov opens the door. Every logical thought in Shane’s brain disappears and flies out of his ears at the sight of Rozanov in a tight black tank top. Shane knew Rozanov was built, he’s done more than his fair share of feeling him up. But he’s always been in polos, or occasionally button downs, because their con-ed sessions required business casual. So Shane’d never really gotten the chance to see Rozanov’s body before. And holy shit, what a fucking body. Just the sight of Rozanov’s arms has Shane getting a little bit hot. Rozanov could definitely pin Shane down and hold him there, fuck. Not that he would want that, of course.
“Do you plan to come in, Hollander?” Rozanov asks. Right. Yes. He’s at Ilya’s home to get fucked. Not stare at his fucking arms. Shane steps inside and takes his shoes off, following Rozanov deeper into the apartment. They stop in Rozanov’s kitchen, Rozanov abruptly turning around. He backs Shane into the kitchen counter, and Shane means to say something, he doesn’t know what, but then Rozanov’s mouth is on his and that all goes out the window.
Immediately, Shane’s flooded with the same hunger he had felt earlier, in the ambulance. He wants more of Rozanov, wants to taste him, wants everything. Shane ends up grabbing Rozanov’s upper arms as they kiss, his hands running up and down, feeling the muscle there. They stay like this for a while, exploring each other’s mouths. Shane’s feeling worked up already, but then Rozanov presses himself closer to Shane and slides his thigh between Shane’s. This digs the kitchen counter into Shane’s lower back, which is less than ideal. However, now there’s pressure against Shane’s clothed dick, which more than makes up for it.
Shane finds himself grinding down onto Rozanov’s thigh. He gasps against Rozanov’s mouth at the feeling of Rozanov pressing his thigh further up into Shane’s dick. Rozanov’s the first to tear himself away, and Shane groans.
Rozanov does not seem amused by Shane’s response. He asks, “Did you want to come in your pants in my kitchen, or can I take you to bedroom and actually touch you?”
Shane flushes. “Fuck you, you’re the one who escalated it.”
“I was not the one dry humping a thigh like a teenager,” Rozanov says, like he’s not the one who put his fucking thigh there for Shane to grind on in the first place.
“Fine, yes, take me to your fucking bedroom,” Shane grumbles. Rozanov pulls away from him and leads him down another hallway, to what Shane assume has to be his bedroom. It’s normal-looking, and there’s a bed, and that’s about all Shane notices because Rozanov is pulling his shirt off and fucking wow. Rozanov looks up from where he’s kicking his pants off and gestures to Shane.
“Strip,” he demands, very eloquently, throwing his clothes on the floor. Shane pulls his shirt off, folds it, sets it on a chair. Takes his pants off, one leg at a time, and then folds them too, because he’s not letting Rozanov be the reason his pants get wrinkled. His underwear gets added to the neat pile.
Shane looks up, and Rozanov is on the bed watching him, on his back propped up on his elbows. He looks amused, and Shane refuses to feel self-conscious about caring about his clothes. He walks over to the bed, and climbs on top of Rozanov. Rozanov is immediately meeting him for a kiss, which Shane melts into. He feels hands on his waist, and then Rozanov is flipping them over.
Shane surges up to keep kissing Rozanov, who is now trailing a hand down Shane’s back, and past the swell of his ass.
“Have you ever touched yourself here?” Rozanov asks, one of his fingers circling Shane’s hole. Shane has, in fact. More frequently, these days. Often while thinking of Rozanov. Shane nods, instead of saying any of that. “Do you like it?”
Shane hesitates, and then nods again. “It’s hard, sometimes—” a gasp, as Rozanov applies the lightest pressure to the rim“—to get the angle right.”
Rozanov reaches across the bed to the nightstand, pulling out a bottle of lube and a condom. Shane rolls over to lay on his front, resting his head in his arms. Rozanov returns and swats Shane on his lower back.
“Fuck, what the fuck was that for?” Shane yelps. Rozanov shoves his shoulder.
“Get on your back.”
“You don’t want me like this?” Shane tries to arch his back, to make a point. Rozanov squeezes his ass with one hand, before lightly swatting at it.
“No, I want to see you. Move.” How does Rozanov just fucking say this shit with a straight face? Shane groans and rolls himself over onto his back. Rozanov settles between Shane’s legs, uncapping the bottle and coats his first two fingers with lube. He returns to tracing circles around Shane’s rim, occasionally lightly applying pressure. Shane’s growing impatient, but he doesn’t have to wait much longer before Rozanov is slowly pressing his index finger into him.
Shane moans softly, under his breath, at the familiar intrusion. He wasn’t lying, he does have familiarity with fingering himself, so this much he’s used to, at least. He tries to relax, letting Rozanov press in deeper. Rozanov begins curling his finger, thrusting it in and out.
“Shit, Hollander, you’re tight,” Rozanov groans out. “Have you ever—”
“Yes, I just told you, yes,” Shane cuts him off. Rozanov bends down to bite at Shane’s chest in retort. He grazes his teeth across one of Shane’s nipples, and Shane feels heat blossom across his chest. Shane arches his back into Rozanov’s touch.
“I was asking, have you ever been with a man like this?” Shane turns his head to the side and looks away.
“No, not like this.”
Rozanov hums and presses a second finger in alongside the first. He keeps mouthing at Shane’s chest, biting his pecs and sucking on his nipples. Shane groans, and then his breath gets caught in his chest as Rozanov curls his fingers inside of him. Holy shit. Shane didn’t know it could feel like this, he could never get the angle right to hit his prostate on his own, but Rozanov’s found it immediately, curling his fingers against it.
Shane’s long past being on fire. He’s burnt, eviscerated, he’s been scorched to a fucking crisp. Another moan’s torn out of him, as Rozanov presses into him and simultaneously bites at his nipple. Shane’s going to fucking die if Rozanov doesn’t get inside of him immediately.
“Rozanov—” he can barely get the name out before he’s moaning again, Rozanov’s fingers relentless inside of him. “Roz— I need—I need more.”
“What was that? More?” Rozanov takes his fingers out and Shane mourns the loss, but it’s going to be so worth it when Rozanov pushes his dick into him. Except Rozanov’s a fucking asshole and instead of putting his dick in Shane, has chosen to press three fingers into his hole instead.
Shane fucking whines, breathy and high pitched and ripped out of his chest, and then tries to slap a hand over his mouth, because what the fuck was that.
Rozanov grabs his arm with the hand not currently making his life a living hell, and pins it to the bed.
“No, Hollander, I want to hear you.”
“And I want you to fuck me, but instead you’re just—” Rozanov spreads all three fingers and Shane sees stars for a second—”just fucking with me.”
“Oh, you want me to fuck you?” Rozanov asks, like that hasn’t been the whole point of all of this. Like that’s not what Shane has been craving for months now. Shane hates him so much. Shane needs Rozanov’s dick inside of him so fucking badly.
“Yes, sometime today would be nice,” Shane bites back. He’s panting too hard for it to be a credible threat, writhing under Rozanov’s fingers, but its the thought that counts.
“Hm, maybe if you ask nicely.”
“You’re such an asshole.”
Rozanov doesn’t respond to that, and instead continues working Shane’s hole open. His fingers feel so fucking thick inside of Shane. Now, with three fingers in, it feels like Rozanov’s ignoring his prostate on purpose, every thrust of his fingers just barely it. He thinks he could fucking come from this, thinks he might fucking come from this at the rate things are going. Shane grinds down onto Rozanov’s fingers and thinks maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, but then Rozanov pulls out, pulls himself up slightly, and grinds his dick against Shane’s, and Shane is overcome with the need to have that thing in him.
“Rozanov, please—please fuck me,” Shane babbles. “I need it, please, please.”
“Good, Hollander.” Rozanov praises.
Shane’s not even ashamed at having begged, because Rozanov’s rolling the condom on and seating himself between Shane’s legs. Shane spreads his legs further for him, and Rozanov traces a line up one of Shane’s thighs with one hand while he positions himself with the other, and slowly, slowly, starts pressing himself into Shane.
It’s fucking excruciating, it’s agony, it’s the best thing Shane’s ever felt. The slow press of Rozanov into him, splitting him open. Shane can’t breathe, or maybe he’s breathing too hard. He’s not sure, everything has narrowed down to one point, the place where they’re connected. Shane might just die like this. He’s okay with that.
Rozanov bottoms out with a loud groan. Shane’s so fucking full, jesus fuck. He stays there, unmoving for a second, and Shane reaches him up to pull him down for a kiss.
“C’mon, fucking move,” Shane moans against his lips. Rozanov kisses him again, gently, panting loudly.
“I need one second, yes?” and oh, isn’t that an ego trip, to know Rozanov almost lost it the second he entered Shane. Shane grins and keeps kissing him, sucks on Rozanov’s bottom lip until the man starts slowly, shallowly, rocking into Shane.
“Is that all you’ve got? I expected more from the great Ilya Rozanov,” Shane taunts, trying to get him to fucking move.
Shane starts grinding his ass up into Rozanov. Rozanov grabs Shane’s face, holding onto his chin and pushing his head back into the mattress.
“You will take what I will give you, Hollander, don’t get greedy,” he murmurs, and then swiftly pulls out and slams back into Shane. Shane moans, louder than he intended, at the feeling of Rozanov hitting deep inside of him. Yes, fuck, this is what he wanted, this is what he’s needed.
Rozanov keeps fucking him hard and deep, both of them groaning with every thrust. Shane’s not sure what noises are coming out of his mouth any more, he thinks it’s just a lot of moans, and yes, and Rozanov, please.
Rozanov grabs one of Shane’s thighs, hitching it up to his chest. Shane silently thanks the heavens he picked Shane’s good leg to do that with, he’s going to have to warn Rozanov before next time, and then quickly loses his train of thought when Rozanov thrusts back into him. Like this, he’s deeper than before, and he has an unerring shot right at Shane’s prostate and Shane nearly cries with it, keening up, hands scrambling for purchase somewhere, anywhere on Rozanov.
He’s never fucking felt like this before, so good, so fucking full. He looks up at Rozanov, watches his crucifix bounce in the air as he fucks into Shane.
“C’mere,” Shane groans out, and Rozanov obeys, leaning down so that Shane can capture his lips again. They’re both too far gone for it to be anything but messy, but Shane doesn’t care, he just wants more of Rozanov on him.
He has to be leaving marks on Rozanov’s biceps with how hard his nails are digging into his skin but he doesn’t care, doesn’t care about anything else other than the press of Rozanov’s cock into him, and the ache of his own neglected dick.
Through sheer force of will, Shane manages to detach one of his hands from its vice grip on Rozanov’s arm. He wraps his hand around his dick, and starts stroking it in time with Rozanov’s thrusts. It barely takes any touch at all before Shane’s orgasm hits him, and he instinctively clenches around Rozanov as pleasure courses through him.
“Oh, fuck,” Shane groans, covering his own hand with cum.
Rozanov’s thrusts grow erratic as he watches Shane come, chasing his own release. Shane’s beginning to come down from his own orgasm, and he releases his vice grip on Rozanov’s bicep and cups his face instead, pulling him down. Rozanov presses lax, sloppy kisses to his mouth, and Shane does his best to kiss back in return.
“C’mon, Rozanov, give it to me,” Shane murmurs, and that must do something for Rozanov, because with another loud groan his hips stutter and he’s coming into Shane. Shane’s almost disappointed when he remembers Rozanov has the condom on, but he’s too fucked out to even care enough to unpack that. As it is, he enjoys the feeling of Rozanov inside of him.
And then lets out a loud oof as Rozanov promptly drops himself onto of Shane.
“Jesus, you’re fucking heavy,” Shane complains, but the weight of Rozanov on top of him feels nice. He feels completely satiated, with Rozanov inside of him, on top of him.
“I am dead, Hollander, you have killed me,” Rozanov says into the pillow next to Shane’s head.
“I’m off the clock, you’re not getting any compressions from me,” Shane starts rubbing Rozanov’s back. “And there better be a signed copy of your DNR somewhere around here.”
He feels Rozanov laugh against him, before he’s pulling out. Shane feels empty. He doesn’t like it.
Rozanov’s rolling off of him, taking the condom off and tying it off before dropping it off the edge of the bed to land on the floor. Shane finds that gross, but then Rozanov is handing him some tissues to clean himself off with, and he’s occupied with that.
It’s after he’s clean that Shane realizes that he has no idea what he’s supposed to do now. Does he just leave? He’s still feeling lazy, and fucked out, but he doesn’t know what a reasonable amount of time to be lying on Rozanov’s bed is. Will Rozanov tell him, when he wants Shane to leave?
Rozanov sits back down on the bed next to Shane.
“Hollander, I can hear you thinking from across the room. What is problem?” Shane really wishes Rozanov knew him less well right now.
“What happens now?” Shane asks, because he’s not going to find any answers from staring holes into Rozanov’s ceiling. Rozanov presses a kiss to the top of Shane’s head.
“Is up to you. You can shower, if you want. You are welcome to stay, but I am very tired and will probably be taking a nap soon.”
Shane doesn’t think he’s anywhere near ready to fall asleep and then wake up next to Rozanov, so he pushes himself up into a sitting position on the bed. He doesn’t wince, but it’s fucking close, and Shane’s glad he’s off this evening because he’ll definitely be feeling it by then. Now that Rozanov’s said it, Shane is also fucking exhausted, having not slept before he came over.
“I think I should probably go home and get to bed too, it’s been a long night.” Did they really just shock a man together like eight hours ago? It feels like last year. Shane’s life is now divided into two chunks: the time before he knew what Ilya Rozanov felt like inside of him, and now. The post-Rozanov's dick era.
Yeah, Shane’s getting delirious, he definitely needs to get to bed. And then needs to get his life together. Figure out a way so that this doesn’t happen again.
Nothing changes, after they fuck. They don’t do it again, in the following weeks, and Shane leaves their con-ed session that month having watched Rozanov swallow around his cock. Like normal.
Before Shane knows it, it’s that time of year again. Late summer, when the new batch of students show up and flood the hospitals, following their preceptors around like lost ducklings.
One benefit of working nights, Shane thinks, is that it means he won’t be getting any medic students this time around. Their service has a no students after eleven at night policy, because of one too many incidents involving some shitbag employees, who now no longer work there. Shane doesn’t mind having students, but he’s been told by almost everyone that he is not the best teacher. He just doesn’t know how to explain things that come so naturally to him to other people. He doesn’t know how to explain how he can look at a rhythm strip and immediately know what to do. The squiggles just look a certain way, and he knows exactly what needs to come next.
Clearly the hospital does not have the same policy, though, because him and Hayden are bringing a patient in one evening when Shane spies Rozanov getting shadowed by a kid wearing a uniform that denotes him as a medic student. Shane’s curious, he’s never seen Rozanov with a student. He wonders if he’s a hardass, or if he’s actually good. Before, he would’ve assumed Rozanov was a dick, but after seeing him with a kid, Shane’s not actually sure.
He doesn’t have to wait long to get his answer, the two of them following Shane and Hayden into the room they’re dropping their patient off in. Shane doesn’t think the patient was anything complicated, run of the mill chest pain and shortness of breath with no clear 12-lead findings, vitals normal. They stand in the corner as Shane gives his report, observing, and they pop out of the room when Shane’s getting signatures. When Shane leaves, he finds them around the corner, in discussion.
“What are signs of a MI?” he catches Rozanov asking.
“Um. That’s a heart attack, so, uh, crushing chest pain? Pain that radiates, up the jaw or down the left shoulder, and shortness of breath, sweating, and um, pale skin?” His student responds, sounding terrified.
“Yes, good job. Does this change if your patient is a woman?”
“I’m not sure?”
Shane rounds the corner, and the kid looks up at him. The poor guy looks scared shitless. He also looks like, twelve. Rozanov, however, looks like Christmas came early.
“Hollander! Come meet my student.” He waves Shane over. “This is Luca Haas, he’s doing the medic program down at the university campus.”
Luca Haas looks like he’s about to start crying. Shane really can’t tell if that’s just how his face looks, or if it’s Rozanov having that effect on him.
“Hassy, this is Shane Hollander,” Rozanov finishes introducing, and Shane puts his hand out for the kid to take.
“It’s nice to meet you, Luca. I did the same program, years ago. I’m sure you’ll do great,” Shane tries to reassure, but when they shake, Shane thinks he may have found the one person on the planet with sweatier palms than him.
“Hollander, you are with seventy year old female patient. What would make you concerned for MI?”
“A Myocardial Infarct in an elderly female?” Shane watches Rozanov mouth Myocardial Infarct with disbelief. Fuck him, that’s what they’re called, Shane doesn’t need to defend himself. “Besides the ‘classic’ symptoms, epigastric pain, nausea and or vomiting, feelings of indigestion. Dizziness and possible syncope too.”
“He is correct, even if he is also incredibly boring.” Shane wants to protest, but Rozanov keeps talking. “Women, especially those who are older and diabetics, present with different symptoms. You should not rule out a cardiac event on an older female patient with these symptoms just because she is lacking chest pain or shortness of breath.”
Haas is looking at Rozanov like he’s a god. Shane understands. It’s hard for Shane not to look at Rozanov like that, sometimes.
“Hollander is boring, but smart. Never ask him any questions, he is very bad at teaching. He is very good with intubations though. Watch him if you get the chance.” Shane knows he has one of the highest first-pass intubation rates among medics at his service (he’s actually the highest, but he doesn’t like to brag). He didn’t know Rozanov knew that, though.
He watches Rozanov with Haas, over the next few weeks. Rozanov is such a good teacher, always willing to explain things to Haas, bringing him on as many calls as he can so he can get the experience. Haas is always trailing after Rozanov like a lost duckling, with stars in his eyes. It’s cute.
There’s a road, in their service area, that Shane swears is at a 45 degree uphill angle. It has no less than three full hairpin switchbacks on it. Whenever Shane has to go up it he fears for his life. Shane thinks he’d prefer winding up that hill in their most rickety, oldest truck to what he feels when he watches Rozanov teach. He thinks it’d be easier on his heart.
“Do you have phone number for zoo? I need to call and tell them two of their dumbest monkeys got out.”
Shane’s gotten used to the way Rozanov will greet him now, saying the weirdest shit with absolutely no preamble. Shane sighs and continues grabbing supplies from the EMS cabinet.
“What happened?” Shane asks, because he gets the feeling he’s going to be told regardless. He’d seen Rozanov storm in a few minutes ago, accompanying a crew from a different service with a patient on the stretcher. He hadn’t looked happy.
“Sixty five year old, found unresponsive in driver’s seat of vehicle. When I arrived, the crew that was present had gotten no vitals. They had been busy giving three rounds of Narcan. If they had bothered to check a glucose, it would have been 20.”
Shane grabs the last thing he needs, an extra set of electrodes, and looks at Rozanov. Rozanov looks furious. He can’t blame him, a blood glucose of 20 is dangerously fucking low. Shane just doesn’t know what to do, how to fix this. He hates seeing Rozanov like this. He wants to give Rozanov a hug, but he know he can’t. Shane must take too long to respond, because Rozanov lets out a low sigh and shakes his head.
“Sorry. I did not mean to bother you,” and then he’s gone, storming out the doors to the ambulance bay. Shane’s still holding all of the equipment he was going to restock with. He should let it go, let Rozanov cool off on his own.
But he’s also concerned Rozanov is going to do something he might regret if he keeps simmering in his own rage like this. And he also just… doesn’t want Rozanov to have to be alone. So Shane makes the executive decision to shove his supplies into an empty space in the cabinet (promising to himself he’ll come back and clean up his mess later), and then leaves through the same doors Rozanov went through.
Shane knows Rozanov smokes, he’s smelled the smoke on him, but he’s never seen him do it, because the only smoking zone (i.e. place where the hospital-wide no smoking rule isn’t enforced) on the hospital campus is the freight docks. Shane never has any reason to go over there, so he never sees Rozanov smoke.
Shane marches out of the ER, through the ambulance bay, around the corner of the building, and down to the shipping docks.
When he arrives, there’s no less than four nurses lighting up in a circle in the corner. There’s also Rozanov, standing next to a dumpster, trying to light his cigarette. Shane walks up to him.
“If you are here to criticize my choices, now is not the time,” Rozanov says, as Shane approaches.
“My lips are sealed,” Shane responds.
They stand there in silence for a bit. It’s night, of course, and it's chilly, but it’s not late enough in the fall for it to be completely frigid yet.
“Are you okay?” Shane eventually asks.
“Peachy.”
“Seriously, Rozanov. You looked upset inside. If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”
Rozanov takes a long drag of his cigarette before he speaks.
“She was barely breathing. Was probably about to have diabetic seizure. Would’ve aspirated, the way she was sitting. Could’ve fucking died.”
“Is stupid fucking thing to fuck up. They teach this day fucking one. Mistakes happen, yes, but this could have been fatal. But I tell them both that they have almost killed woman, and both do not care.” Shane’s fascinated by how the angrier Rozanov gets, the more particles he drops. His accent grows thicker too. Shane wonders what it would sound like for Rozanov to rant in Russian.
“But you know me, I am scumbag paramedic who does not take anything seriously.”
Shane thinks about watching Rozanov reassuring a new mother at three thirty in the morning, thinks about Rozanov having the pads ready for Shane before he could even ask for them. Thinks about Rozanov, who’s at every con-ed session, who takes the time to make sure Haas understands everything he’s telling him.
“I don’t know that side of you at all,” Shane tells him.
The smile Rozanov gives him could do a better job bringing people back to life than Shane does.
The regional EMS conference is always, without fail, a fucking nightmare for Shane. It’s supposed to be some kind of “professional development and continuing education” thing right at the beginning of December. Three days and two nights of providers from all over the region, coming to swap stories. And spit.
Shane never got a typical high school experience, too busy on the ice, and then after, recovering from the injury that ruined his chances at ever playing professionally. If he had, though, he imagines it would’ve been something like this: a cliquey, drama-filled fuck-fest under the thin veil of “continuing education.” There’s so much fucking drama that comes from all the drunken hookups that occur over the two night event.
Rose owes him so much for coming to this with her. He tells her this, as they’re wandering the packed exhibition hall, and she laughs at him.
“You agreed to come,” Rose argues.
“Ma’am, I was under duress,” Shane claims, and she laughs again.
They’re not really looking for anything in particular, just wandering the booths to kill time. Rose’s panel isn’t until tomorrow—it’s the whole reason they’re both here in the first place: Rose is presenting on some study her flight service is doing, and Shane’s there for moral support. She doesn’t even need the moral support, she’s a fucking critical care flight paramedic. She’d begged him to come though, complaining that they barely get to see each other these days and that it’d be a good chance for them to catch up. Which is true, but Shane’s not fully convinced she doesn’t just get off on torturing him, too.
Somebody Rose must know calls out to her, and she rapidly gets caught up in conversation with them. Shane quickly makes an escape, uninterested in making small talk with strangers, so he ducks away and resigns himself to milling around the nearby sponsor booths until she’s done. There’s not even anything really interesting, their regional conference isn’t big, or legit, enough to attract any of the cutting edge vendors.
A small crowd has formed in front of a booth nearby. Shane loiters at the fringes of it as he idly watches the demo for a device that claims it’ll “re-invent the art of suction.” He’s trying to figure out what it is that seems to have people enthralled, because this just looks like a normal suction catheter, but larger, when he hears a familiar voice behind him.
“You cannot be that invested in this bullshit, Hollander,” is how Rozanov chooses to start their conversation. Shane doesn’t know why he’s surprised, of course Rozanov is here.
“Excuse me?” Shane asks, looking around for him, only to find that Rozanov has stepped forward so that he’s standing next to Shane.
When Shane finds him, he can’t help but stare. The dress code here for non-presenters is far more casual than that, though. Even keeping that in mind, Shane’s struggling to find a universe where the hospital branded t-shirt stretched tight against Rozanov’s chest is considered appropriate attire.
The logo on the front is fucking distorted by Ilya’s pecs. The chain of the gold crucifix he’s always wearing is just visible above his collar, the rest of the necklace obscured under the shirt. The sleeves look like they're going to rip apart if Rozanov so much as flexes. Who let him leave the house like this? Who let him attend a fucking professional event like this?
Belatedly, Shane realizes he’s been staring directly at Rozanov’s chest for what definitely amounts to an inappropriate amount of time. He drags his eyes up to Rozanov’s face, and finds his mouth curled in a shit eating smirk. Shane really has to stop fucking doing this whenever he sees Rozanov.
“What are you doing here?” Shane asks, before Rozanov gets the chance to make fun of him.
“Why am I, a paramedic, at conference on pre-hospital care?” He gets the distinct impression Rozanov is mocking him.
“Okay, you know what?”
“No, no, I am curious, Hollander, why is this so surprising?”
“Well you don’t seem very interested in whatever’s happening here, for one,” Shane gestures broadly to the suction demo that’s still going on.
“That is because it’s stupid. Re-invent the art of suction,” Rozanov makes air quotes as he says it, “they have just made suction catheter bigger.”
That’s exactly what Shane had been thinking.
“I don’t know, maybe there’s some merit to the idea,” Shane starts. Rozanov looks at Shane expectantly. “What if we made even bigger electrodes, re-invented the art of the EKG? We could make millions, if we did it right.”
Rozanov bursts out in a startled chuckle.
“I did not know you were such a businessman, Hollander.”
“We come up with some stupid marketing term, find some investors, and we’re golden.” Shane doesn’t think it would be hard to get investors, if he was throwing Rozanov in that shirt at them.
“Okay, and when your idea fails, Mr. Businessman, we cut and run with half the money each?”
“I was getting to that part, yeah,” Shane laughs.
The way Rozanov looks when he smiles at Shane, in that fucking skintight t-shirt, is unreal. The smile that makes its way onto Shane’s face in return comes as natural as breathing.
“Why are you here, Hollander?” Rozanov asks. “This doesn’t seem like your style.”
He’s not wrong, it’s really not Shane’s style.
“My friend Rose dragged me here—Rose Landry? I don’t know if you know her—she’s a flight medic, she has a panel tomorrow. I’m just moral support. It hasn’t been totally awful being here though, it’s been nice to see her again. It’s been a while.”
“A while?”
“Yeah, we went through medic school together years back—we actually dated for a bit, but it didn’t work out between us.”
Shane’d thought things had been going fine enough, but Rose had broken things off with an I get the feeling i’m not doing it for you, and a pointed look that Shane still doesn’t know the meaning of. He had told Rose he understood (he didn’t), and they promised to still be friends. A promise he’s glad they kept, because even now, over five years out and with Rose having moved on from 911 to critical care, they still talk regularly.
Shane thought he was getting better at deciphering Rozanov’s facial cues, but he’s really not sure what the face he’s making now is supposed to mean. He looks like he’s thinking hard about something, or maybe he could be frustrated. His brows are furrowed and his lips are pulled into a frown. It’s not a good expression, Shane can tell that much.
“Oh so, you and Landry dated. I did not know.” Rozanov sounds put out when he speaks.
Shane doesn’t know why Rozanov would care? Or why Shane would tell him? Yeah, they’re messing around off-shift, but that’s just how Rozanov is. There’s not a single ER in the district that doesn’t have a nurse rumored to have hooked up with Rozanov. Shane is just another name in the long, long, list of people who have been swept off their feet by Rozanov.
Rose chooses that moment to pop up next to them.
“Hey! Sorry, I didn’t mean to take so long, their service is doing some cool new things with blood and we got caught up talking about it. And then I got accosted by a vendor who insisted on giving me half his basket of pens.” She waves the fistful of pens around, and then notices Rozanov. She grins brightly at him. “Oh hey Roz! I didn’t know you were here—it’s been forever, what’s up?”
Rozanov grunts and does not return the smile.
“Landry.”
Rose’s smile drops and she crosses her arms. The three of them stand in silence for another moment. Shane doesn’t know why this feels so weird.
“Ah, I must go.” Rozanov says, out of nowhere, and then just walks the fuck away without a further glance to Shane or Rose. Both of them turn to watch him go. What the fuck?
“What’s his problem?” Rose asks, turning back to Shane.
“Who, Rozanov?”
“Yeah, he was being an ass.”
Shane’s not sure what Rozanov’s problem was. He’s used to Rozanov being an ass, but Shane also normally finds it. He doesn’t want to say funny, but. Rozanov’s just not normally this kind of asshole, surly and brooding.
“Rozanov’s always a dick,” is what Shane says, because he doesn’t want to unpack that. Rose glances at him.
“Is he? He was the one who backed me on that bad call I had two years ago, at the Applebees.”
Shane remembers the one, Rose’d called him that day after her shift was over, in tears asking if she could run a call by Shane. It had been a nightmare, from the sounds of it, a young adult going unresponsive after having a sudden aneurysm at a family dinner at Applebees. Things deteriorated rapidly, and the patient ended up dying at the ER.
Shane didn’t know Rozanov had been the other medic on that call. Rose had mentioned that they would’ve been fucked without the other medic, who kept his head on scene even while the family was freaking out. Rose was an experienced medic at this point in time, but the entire thing had been incredibly chaotic, and she was just grateful to have someone with strong scene management skills there.
“That was Rozanov?” Shane’s shocked. Rose had also mentioned that the medic had come to find her after the call, when she was on the verge of a breakdown in the ambulance bay, and had let her cry into his shoulder.
“Yeah? I swear I told you it was him.” She probably did, honestly, but Shane’s never been the best at names in the first place, and the name definitely meant nothing to Shane at the time. “He’s an ass sometimes, yeah, but he’s a sweetheart on the inside and he’s not normally so standoffish, though. Did you say something to him?”
Calling Rozanov a sweetheart on the inside feels like an insane thing for someone to say, and months ago Shane would’ve been baffled at the description. But Rozanov really is a bit softhearted, and Shane thinks its more adorable than he has any right to.
The only thing he said to Rozanov was that she and Shane used to date, but that doesn’t feel relevant? There’s no reason for Rozanov to care about that, he and Shane aren’t anything to each other. Unless Rozanov wants Rose, but that doesn’t feel right either.
Shane shakes his head.
“Huh, weird.”
The hotel bar is packed, which doesn’t surprise Shane. What does surprise him is that Rose had been okay with skipping the bar with him, saying she’d rather take the chance to catch up with Shane. They don’t know what to do, so they end up with their pants rolled up over their knees, shoes off, sitting at the edge of the mildly gross hotel pool with their feet in the water.
Their conversation reaches a natural lull, and Shane splashes some water around with his feet.
“It didn’t occur to me earlier, but you and Rozanov were really chatting up a storm. I didn’t realize you two were so close,” Rose fills the silence. Shane was hoping they wouldn’t talk about Rozanov, but he’s never had any good luck.
“Yeah uh—he’s on the response unit out of Mercy. We’re both on nights, so we run into each other a lot.”
“Oh, neat.” Rose kicks her leg, splashing some water across the pool.
Shane’s really trying not to think about Rozanov. Rozanov makes him feel so weird, sometimes, makes Shane feel like he’s floating an inch off the ground. Or, sometimes, like he’s growing a garden in his chest. Shane’s gotten used to the lust, mostly, but these weird sensations are new and offputting.
Shane remembers the aborted conversation he had with Hayden, all those months ago, after the patient he had called him gay. Shane still doesn’t think that’s right. He doesn’t know how to describe what he’s doing with Rozanov, but it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just two guys relieving tension. Their job is stressful. It makes sense.
But why did his patient think he was gay?
If there was anyone he could ask about it, though, it’d be Rose, his ex-girlfriend.
“Do you think I’m gay?” Shane asks, knowing it’s going to sound crazy coming out of nowhere.
“No.” Okay, good, crisis averted. “Shane, I know you’re gay. That’s why we broke up?” Shane doesn’t— what. Huh? He stares at his ankles, his feet distorted by the water of the pool. His gay ankles?
“I didn’t—” he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know if he can say anything. What does Rose mean she knows he’s gay?
“When we broke up I told you it was because we weren’t compatible,” Rose explains, “you agreed, and said you understood, so I thought you knew?”
They broke up over five years ago. This whole time? Yeah, Shane hadn’t slept with any women since then but he’s been busy, EMS is hard, he just assumed he’d find someone eventually.
“I thought,” Shane takes a second to breathe, “I thought you just meant our personalities or something weren’t compatible."
“When I said that, I was talking about the fact that you acted like sex with me was equivalent to going to war.”
Shane didn’t realize he’d been that obvious about disliking it. It wasn’t Rose, he just, medic school was stressful.
“Shane,” Rose starts, in the tone of voice one would use with a spooked horse, “why are you asking me this?”
He can’t answer. He stares at his apparently gay feet in the pool.
“Have you been with a man recently?” Shane’s focusing on the ripples in the pool, which is why he can’t look at her when she speaks. They’re interesting ripples. He nods. “Was it better?”
Shane recalls trying to sleep with Rose. That was the last time he’d slept with a woman. He’d really had to psych himself up, and barely managed to get through it, but that’s how he thought things just were.
It’s been different with Rozanov. Rozanov makes him feel on fire, like he’s going to be burnt alive with the depth of his desire. Shane can’t get enough of Rozanov, craves Rozanov with an intensity that scares him sometimes. He’s never felt anything like the way Rozanov felt inside of him. Is that what better means?
He belatedly realizes he has a lot of excuses as to why he can’t, doesn’t want to, get with women, but he’s never been able to stop himself from getting with Rozanov.
Shane nods, again. Her hand finds his on the cool tile, and she laces her fingers with his.
“Hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry, I really thought you knew," Rose says, and she gives his hand a tight squeeze. He squeezes back. “It’s okay though, I promise.”
They sit like this for a while, legs kicking in the pool water, her hand in his. On one of Shane’s youtube rabbit holes, he’d watched a video on ant death spirals. Ants in a colony are reliant on pheromone trails to find their ways home. If a group of ants gets separated from the main colony, and then lose the scent, they end up following each other instead, in a endlessly spiralling circle, until they all die of exhaustion. Shane feels like an ant, following his own trail, walking in circles until he dies of ignoring the truth.
Rose stands up, and places a hand on Shane’s head.
“I’ll give you some peace.” A pause, and then she speaks again. “Tell me about him, when you’re ready, yeah?
The night is a long one, Shane unable to get to sleep until after midnight. by the time he’s able to fall asleep, he’s a little less scared at the concept of being gay. He still hasn’t been able to grapple with being gay for Rozanov, though. That feels unfathomable.
He meets Rose in the lobby in the morning. They’d gotten separate rooms—Rose had booked her single queen before Shane agreed to come, and neither of them particularly wanted to share a bed again. They get their shitty complimentary hotel breakfast. Shane’s oatmeal is bland and his banana is bruised. Shane feels like a bruised banana, and then wonders when he started getting so melodramatic.
Rose doesn’t seem anxious at all about her panel, which blows Shane away. He’s not even presenting, and he’s a wreck this morning. But she’s as peppy as always, and so Shane tries his best to mimic her energy.
The day flies by. Rose kills it, her panel had full attendance, with Shane in the audience even though most of what she talked about went over his head. She was fielding questions for the entire allotted time afterwards. At the very end, Shane tells her how proud he is of her, and wraps her in a tight hug.
In the afternoon, they split so that they can attend different events. Rose attending a few critical care workshops, and Shane getting to practice cricothyroidectomies on real pig lungs, which is objectively really cool. Rozanov doesn’t make any appearances, which is fine, because Shane’s not thinking about it.
It’s not the worst time Shane could be having this weekend. No, the worst time is after, when Rose puts her foot down about Shane wanting to skip out on the hotel bar two nights in a row.
So he finds himself in the corner of the bar, cradling a mule. It’s close enough to a ginger ale that Shane doesn’t mind ordering one and sipping on it for the entire evening. Rose is holding court a few tables over—Shane really doesn’t know why she insists on him being here, especially since he always winds up sitting alone.
He spots a head of brown curls from across the room, and groans under his breath. Trust Rozanov to make an appearance somewhere he can get laid. Shane takes another sip of his drink, watching Rozanov make his way throughout the room. Shane’s not sure what he was wearing earlier today, but he hopes it wasn’t the atrocious button down he’s wearing now. It’s white, with a tiger rug print on it. It might actually be the worst shirt Shane’s ever seen in his life. Rozanov has no business looking as attractive as he does in it.
Rozanov orders a drink at the bar, and scans the room as he’s waiting for it. The immediate urge Shane’s hit with when he locks eyes with Rozanov is to cut and run. Leave his drink on the table, fucking flee. He’s not quite that scared though, or maybe it’s the alcohol making him brave, because he shoots Rozanov a grin over the rim of his glass. Rozanov just stares back. Shane’s bout of courage leaves as rapidly as it came, and he turns his gaze away, staring at his table instead.
Somebody pulls out a stool and sits at the table, across from Shane, and he instinctively knows its Rozanov before he even looks up. Whatever he’s drinking is clear in his glass—vodka, Shane guesses. Shane looks up at him, and finds Rozanov staring holes into the table.
Shane greets Rozanov, when it becomes clear he isn’t going to be speaking anytime soon. “Hi.”
“Hello.”
Fine. Shane tries again. “How was your day? I didn’t see you at any of the workshops I was at, did you go to any fun ones?”
Rozanov grunts, and looks around the room. His gaze lands on Rose and stays there. Shane might actually be sick. Does Rozanov want Rose? She’s single right now, and they’d be an attractive couple. He’s nauseous thinking about it, he doesn’t want Rozanov touching Rose. No. No, he doesn’t want Rose touching Rozanov.
“I can put a good word for you in with Rose, if you want,” Shane offers. His tongue feels giant, his throat feels dry. He takes another sip of his drink before continuing. “She’s spoken highly of you, already.”
Rozanov stops staring at Rose and glares at Shane instead. God, what’s his fucking problem? Shane’s just trying to help.
“You do not want Rose?”
“What? No, god, ew—I mean she’s gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but I’d never want to sleep with her again,” besides, a voice in Shane’s head says, I’m gay. Rozanov looks relieved at that, so Shane keeps going. “I wouldn’t get in your way, just, don’t be an ass to her?”
“You like it when I am an ass to you,” Rozanov retorts.
“No, I don’t,” Shane lies.
“Yes, you do.”
“Even if I did, she’s not me.”
Rozanov sighs at that.
“No, she is not. She is not you.”
And what the fuck does that mean? Shane’s so fucking tired of this mysterious brooding shit. Maybe its the alcohol making him braver, but he’s fucking fed up with it.
“What's your fucking problem? You leave in the middle of our conversation yesterday, avoid me the entirety of the next day, and then what, come and sit with me just so you can brood in my presence while you leer at women?” Shane snarls. There’s tears welling up in his eyes that he refuses to let fall. “What the fuck do you want, Rozanov?”
Rozanov places his forearms on the table and leans in towards Shane.
“What do I want?” Shane has to strain to hear Rozanov’s low murmur over the noise of the bar. “I want you to come to my hotel room. I will let you suck me off, and then I will take you apart. I want to fuck you, Shane Hollander.”
Shane has to dig his teeth into his lower lip to stop from moaning at that. Fuck, why is he always so easy for Rozanov. He’s supposed to be mad at the man, not panting for his dick.
Shane knows he wasn’t really mad at Rozanov, mostly annoyed, but the point still stands.
Shane breathes out in disbelief. “Let me?”
Rozanov grins and throws back the rest of his drink.
“I think I will be going to bed early tonight, it has been a long day.” He stands up and walks around to Shane’s side of the table. Leans down to whisper, his breath hot against Shane’s ear: “1221.”
And then the fucker walks away again.
It’s much more comfortable being on his knees on the carpeted floor of a hotel room than on the cold tile of a bathroom floor, Shane’s coming to realize. He’s licking his way up Rozanov’s cock, the other man seated on the edge of the bed with his legs spread. Shane’s holding onto Rozanov’s parted thighs with both his hands as he takes the head of his dick into his mouth.
He lets Rozanov get away with a few small thrusts into the heat of Shane’s mouth, before Shane slaps one of his thighs to get him to cut it out. Shane swallows around more of Rozanov, as he tries to make his way further down his dick. Shane’s been making good progress with his gag reflex, and he’s excited to see how much of Rozanov he can take now, but he doesn’t make it more than another two inches before Rozanov is grabbing him by the hair and pulling him off.
“What the fuck, no—” Shane complains, looking up at Rozanov. Rozanov looks wild, chest heaving as he pants, his gaze locked on Shane. “I wasn’t done yet.”
“Yes, but I was about to be, and then you would not get fucked like you want so badly.”
Shane stands up and straddles Rozanov at the edge of the bed. Rozanov grabs two handfuls of Shane’s ass, spreading him as Shane resists the urge to rub their dicks together.
“Who says I want to get fucked?”
Rozanov deliberately looks down at his lap, where Shane’s dick is hard and leaking, and then back at Shane’s face.
“You’re fucking wet for it, Hollander,” Rozanov points out, “you always get so wet for me when you suck my cock.”
Shane doesn’t have a retort for that, because it’s true, and its embarrassing, so he leans in to kiss Rozanov instead. Rozanov lets him work his lips against his own as he kneads Shane’s ass almost indulgently. Shane can’t resist the urge any longer, he rolls his hips forward on Rozanov’s lap, searching for something, anything, against his aching dick.
Shane can feel Rozanov’s mouth curve into a smile against his as he slides his hands past Shane’s ass to grip his thighs, but Shane’s not prepared for the way Rozanov then picks him up, turns them around, and drops Shane back onto the bed. Shane lets out an undignified squeak at that, which turns into a groan as Rozanov presses their mouths back together for another filthy kiss. They kiss for another moment, then Rozanov slaps his chest and hauls himself off of Shane.
“Roll over,” he orders, climbing off the bed.
Shane sits up to watch him. “Where are you going?”
Rozanov’s starts rummaging through the suitcase splayed open on the floor. “I do not think you want it dry, Hollander.” He finds what he’s looking for, turning around to face Shane with a travel-sized bottle of lube and a condom in his hands. He levels Shane with an unimpressed look. “I told you to get on your stomach.”
If Shane argues, maybe Rozanov would flip him over again, use his strength, pin Shane down. Or, alternatively, he’ll decide to be an asshole and start making Shane work for it again before he can get fucked. Shane’s worked up enough, and doesn’t think he could last through another round of Rozanov teasing him, so he decides to listen, and rolls himself over on the bed. He hoists himself up onto his arms and knees, and instantly feels overexposed.
The feeling doesn’t last for long, because Shane hears the rustling of sheets and then Rozanov’s right behind him, with his hands back on Shane’s ass. He feels the press of lips against the small of his back, and keens, arching his back into the touch.
Rozanov’s mouth moves, against Shane’s skin. “Good,” he praises, and Shane’s dick feels so unbearably heavy hanging between his fucking legs.
Rozanov leaves a trail of open mouthed kisses up Shane’s spine, each one making Shane feel increasingly dizzy. The light drag of the cross he wears across Shane’s back feels like the lightest of caresses. Shane’s in good shape, he takes care of himself, so there’s no reason he should feel so fucking shaky already, like his arms and legs are going to give out from underneath him.
Rozanov’s mouth makes it up to the nape of Shane’s neck, and Shane hears the sound of the bottle of lube opening. Shane tries to focus on the heat of Rozanov’s tongue, lavishing attention to the curve of Shane’s neck. It’s hard to, though, when there’s a slick finger pressing into his entrance. The slow caution that was present the first time Rozanov did this to him is nowhere to be found—as soon as his index finger has breached Shane’s rim, Rozanov’s pushing it in deeper, deeper, and there’s nothing Shane can do to stop the moan that rips out of him when Rozanov curls his finger and presses against his prostate.
“So loud, like this,” Rozanov murmurs, his mouth almost directly next to Shane’s ear. Shane wants to say something back, give Rozanov shit, but then there’s teeth nipping below his ear, where Shane’s jaw meets his neck, and suddenly there’s another finger pushing into him next to the first, and it’s so much, it’s so fucking much. Yet Shane still can’t help but press his hips back into Rozanov’s fingers, seeking out more as he opens Shane up.
The teeth grazing down the column of his neck and the press of the hot chest against his back disappear, as Rozanov straightens out. Shane whines at the loss.
He hears Rozanov chuckle. “So needy,” he says, and scissors his fingers inside of Shane. “Are you this desperate with all the guys you fuck?”
Shane shakes his head, no, no he doesn’t fuck any other guys, and even if he did, he doesn’t think anyone else in the world could make him feel the way Rozanov does. Shane’s on fire, burning to a crisp, and Rozanov makes him want to get on his knees and beg for more gasoline, make it hotter, make the flames brighter.
Case in point: Rozanov, apparently unhappy with Shane’s response, delivers an open palmed slap to the meat of Shane’s ass, and Shane’s letting out a broken moan and arching his back even more.
Rozanov’s immediately running a hand over where he hit, soothing the blow. “I asked a question, Hollander, I want an answer.”
“You’re such a fucking dick—” A third finger, against his rim, and Shane briefly loses his train of thought as Rozanov presses it in with the first two. “No, I’m not, I don’t—It’s only you, only for you.” It’s only the sensation of being spread open, the pressure on his prostate, that stops Shane from freaking out about what he just said, whatever it was, he can’t fucking think about anything other than the thick press of Rozanov’s fingers inside of him.
Whatever Shane said must’ve been the right answer, though, because Rozanov’s groaning as he pumps his fingers into Shane’s ass.
“Should I fuck you now?” He asks, and Shane nods so hard he’s dizzy with it.
“Please,” he doesn’t care if he’s begging, he wants Rozanov in him.
Rozanov pulls his fingers out, and Shane’s so fucking empty, and he whines before he even registers he's doing so. He hears something, maybe the sound of the condom wrapper, but everything’s staticky, all his senses blurred into one hazy mess. All Shane knows is that his dick’s fucking aching, leaking and untouched, and that Rozanov’s holding onto him now, one hand splayed across his hip. And then there’s pressure against his hole again, but this time it’s different, big and blunt and hot, and Shane’s already trying to roll his hips back onto it.
The hand on his hip squeezes a bit, grounding Shane. Rozanov asks, “Okay?”
Shane can barely catch his breath enough to respond. “More than, Rozanov, fuck me,” he groans out.
Shane’s arms are fucking shaking, as Rozanov pushes into Shane. He’s gutted, flayed open, burnt at the cross and alight on the funeral pyre. Rozanov holds onto Shane as his cock slides deeper, until his pelvis is flush with Shane’s ass, and Shane thinks he can feel Rozanov in his fucking throat, God, fuck.
Rozanov groans loudly as he bottoms out. “So fucking tight, so good.” Shane thinks he might be breathing just as hard as Shane, the room silent except for their panting, the small gasps Shane makes as Rozanov gets himself situated.
And then Rozanov pulls back and starts thrusting into him, and Shane’s arms give out. His chest drops onto the bed, the sheets cool against the side of his face as Rozanov continues to fuck into him, not missing a beat. Rozanov has both hands on his hips now, gripping tight, and Shane’s powerless to do anything but take it, and moan, and moan, and moan.
Rozanov’s moaning too, mostly fuck and God, and what might be Russian, Shane doesn’t know, Shane doesn’t fucking know anything besides that he’s not going to last much longer.
Shane desperately clutches onto the sheets as Rozanov pounds into him. His mouth is hanging open, moans escaping him on every thrust, and he vaguely registers that he’s drooling into the sheets. The grip Rozanov has on his hips is bruising, and he’s pulling Shane’s ass back to meet his hips each time he thrusts back into Shane. The way Rozanov’s manhandling Shane shouldn’t be so hot, but Shane doesn’t care, can’t care, because Rozanov is hitting his prostate with every snap of his hips, lighting Shane up over and over.
Shane clenches around Rozanov, who groans, loudly, against the back of Shane’s neck, and snaps his hips into Shane with increasing vigor. Shane’s wrecked, gasping, moaning brokenly into the mattress as Rozanov fucks into him. He blinks, his vision blurry, and he distantly thinks that he might be fucking crying. Rozanov continuously abuses his prostate, desperately searching for his release.
Shane registers a hand sliding into his hair, and then there’s pressure, Rozanov holding Shane’s head down as he fucks Shane into the mattress. Fuck, Shane feels so used, it’s so, so, good, he can’t think, can’t do anything, he’s all Ilya’s to have and use and he needs— he needs—
“Please,” Shane slurs against the mattress. He’s not even sure what he’s begging for, he just needs more, needs Ilya. “Ilya, need you,” he breathes out.
Shane gets a prolonged fuck, in response, and then there’s no hand on his hip anymore, but there’s a hot chest pressing against Shane’s back again, skin sweaty against skin. Lips, at the nape of Shane’s neck, pressing kisses to the back of his shoulders. He’s so much, there’s so much of him, Shane needs him, so badly.
Distantly, he hears, “Oh, God, Shane,” the sound of his name so fucking good on Ilya’s lips, against his skin. Ilya holds him in place and comes with one more hard thrust, deep inside of Shane, directly against his prostate. His hips stutter against Shane’s ass as he releases, the pressure constant inside of him, and Shane’s gone. He’s reduced to nothing more than his pleasure, and as Ilya stills inside of him, maybe Shane’s just delirious because he knows Ilya has a condom on but he swears he can feel the heat, as Ilya cums in him, the man he loves filling him up, and oh, oh, he’s—
Shane’s sobbing, broken and shattered, with a cry of Ilya’s name as he comes untouched, onto the sheets underneath him. His eyes are closed but everything still feels blurry, unreal, as the pleasure courses through him. As it starts to abate, Shane begins to register a hand running though his hair, gently, soothing, and the press of soft kisses to his neck, the side of his face.
Once he catches his breath, he blinks his eyes open. Shane still can’t see anything, half his face still pressed to the mattress, but when he tries to turn his head he realizes Rozanov is still half on top of him and definitely still inside him.
Rozanov seems to notice Shane’s return from the other plane of existence he must’ve been on, because he presses another kiss to Shane’s neck and then he’s pulling out. Shane winces, feeling a bit overstimulated, and Rozanov presses another kiss to the small of Shane’s back before he’s climbing off the bed. Without Rozanov to hold his hips up, Shane collapses bonelessly onto the sheets. And then immediately groans in disgust and rolls himself over because right, he just fucking came untouched onto the sheets.
God, he must look like a fucking disaster. Shane was definitely crying, and drooling, he can tell from the wet spots where his face was pressed into the mattress, and he’s sure he’s also flushed, sweaty mess.
Rozanov returns from wherever he went with a towel. Shane’s arms feel floppy, still, when he tries to reach out to take it from Rozanov.
Rozanov shakes his head. “Let me,” he says, and climbs onto the bed on the other side of Shane, and then wipes Shane off. Shane’s not sure what to do with this care, or tenderness, so he just lets it happen, trying to ignore the buzzing of his thoughts as he begins to regain his higher cognitive functioning.
Rozanov throws the towel off the bed and flops onto his back. Shane lifts his head up and rolls on his side to look at him. Rozanov looks as hot as he always does after sex, sweaty and glowing in the aftermath His hair is damp with sweat, pushed back against his head, but there’s a lone curl dangling down his forehead. He’s so fucking beautiful, in the shitty dim hotel light. Rovanov flings an arm out, an invitation for Shane, and Shane drags himself into the empty space at Rozanov’s side, curling up against him.
Rozanov speaks once Shane’s pressed against him, head on his chest. “That was so hot.”
“Yeah,” Shane agrees, because it’s starting to come back to him, and it had been really fucking hot. But as he begins to recall more, Shane also starts to panic.
Because the first thing he recalls is how much of a fucking slut he had been for Rozanov, holy shit. Shane knows he’s easy for Rozanov, and he hates himself for it, but this was a new fucking low, begging for Rozanov to fucking cum inside him. Even though he had a condom on. Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with him?
And then: Rozanov called him Shane. Which he only did because Shane called him Ilya first, during the part where Shane was begging for his cum.
Shane realizes with horror, that’s not even the worst part. No, the worst part was the part where Shane came untouched from Rozanov holding him down and coming inside of him, because it was the man he loved coming inside of him. Fuck, fuck.
Shane has made a huge fucking mistake. This whole fucking thing has been a mistake. He knows he keeps saying that, and then he doesn’t do anything to stop it but this? This is too much. He has to end this. They can’t keep doing this. He can’t have Rozanov saying his name, while it means nothing to him. Fuck, Shane’s too far gone, he let this go too far, because now there’s butterflies in his stomach thinking about how Rozanov had sounded saying his name, and Shane’s in fucking love.
This is nothing to Rozanov, but it’s slowly becoming everything to Shane, and he can’t, he just can’t. He can’t pretend Rozanov is getting jealous over him when he’s not, he can’t delude himself into thinking he’s something more when he isn’t. And he can’t be falling in love with someone who has a hookup at every fucking hospital in the county. Rozanov was just fucking checking Rose out earlier in the night, clearly this isn’t anything to him.
Rozanov says, “You should stay.” And Shane can’t, he can’t. Shane’s heart is going to break enough as it is, it’s already breaking. He has to leave, has to end this.
“I should get back to my hotel room, Rose might be worried. You know how it is,” Shane rolls out from under Rozanov’s arm and off the bed. Where the fuck are his clothes?
“You are sharing a room with Landry?” There’s a pair of pants on the floor by the bed that look like Shane’s, so he starts tugging them on, not caring about underpants in the slightest.
“No, but she’ll worry anyways.”
“She is not your mother, is she?”
Shane gets the pants on, starts looking for his shirt. “No, but—”
“So stay,” Rozanov almost sounds like he’s pleading, but Shane can’t acknowledge that. He needs to find his fucking shirt.
“I’m sorry, this was great, I just—I can’t—” He finds his shirt haphazardly flung across the desk, and isn’t even sure how it got there.
“Shane,” Rozanov says from the bed.
Shane can’t turn to look at him. Pulling his shirt on, Shane starts hunting for his shoes, and he thanks his past self when he finds them next to the door.
“Thanks, again, I—” Shane can’t say anything else, he can’t be in the room with Rozanov anymore. Shane’s feeling too much. He already feels like he’s been unmade once already tonight, and the second time’s looking to be worse.
Shane slides his shoes on and leaves without another word, pretending like he can’t hear the soft Shane, coming from the bed on his way out.
Shane spends another near sleepless night in his hotel bed. Turns out he’s been really, really gay for Ilya Rozanov, after all. This thought does not bring Shane any comfort.
Shane gets a call from his supervisor later that week, informing him that with the new year fast approaching, the schedule’s getting redone, and she’s pretty sure she can get Hayden and him back on weekdays, if he wants.
Shane says he’ll think about it. She says she needs an answer by the end of the month. He doesn’t think about it.
He spends the next two weeks avoiding Rozanov like the plague. Hayden can definitely tell something’s up, Shane’s gone from lingering around the ER in hopes of seeing Rozanov to wanting to get the fuck out of there immediately. The best part about Hayden, though, is that sometimes he knows when to not ask questions. So as long as Shane pretends everything is normal, which is easy, because things are, it’s a breeze.
He’s not moping, he’s just, embarrassingly, a little broken hearted. Which is stupid. This is why this entire thing was a bad fucking idea, Shane has never been able to be casual about anything in his life. Of course he’d catch feelings for the guy he’s sleeping with. Of course Shane’s still fucking thinking about him, all the goddamn time.
The final continuing education session of the year is the last week of the month. Shane’s had two weeks to prepare himself. It’ll be okay, really, truly. Shane can do this, he’s a grown adult, grown adults sleep with people and then flee because they fell too hard all the time, he’s sure. There were multiple lecture dates to choose from, and Shane ends up picking the timeslot he feels the most confident Rozanov won’t be there for. It’s in the early afternoon, and Shane hasn't been to an early afternoon session at all this year. He'd always been at either the early evening slots or the morning ones, and he'd only ever met Rozanov during those timeslots. So Shane signs up for the two pm lecture, and doesn't hope for anything.
Shane’s incapable of not being early to things. He’d love to be able to just show up exactly on time, and save himself the anxiety of sitting there while everyone else files in. Instead, he gets to spend fifteen minutes before the session in his eat trying to stop himself from tearing all the skin off his cuticles. He’s trying to psychically manifest someone sitting in the empty seat to his right. Literally anyone, fuck, he’d take Scott Hunter, who’s mostly forgiven him by now. But no, Hunter’s already sat down four rows up.
As the last stragglers are piling in, it belatedly occurs to Shane that he could’ve moved seats. It’s not like, assigned seating, he could’ve just moved, he doesn’t know how he didn’t think of this. It’s too late now, though, the classroom is near full, and the speaker for the day is already stepping up onto the stage.
Someone drops into the chair next to him and Shane doesn’t even need to fucking look. He never does. He can smell the bastard, his familiar cologne hitting Shane as soon as he sits. Shane doesn’t look. He grips his pen tightly. He can do this.
Shane can’t do this.
It’s always been Shane following Rozanov to the bathroom, and not the other way around. Today, Shane doesn’t even last twenty minutes before he’s getting up and leaving for the restroom. Rozanov’s not even supposed to be here, Shane picked this slot specifically because of that. Why the fuck did Rozanov sit next to him? Why did Shane not fucking move? They aren’t talking, they haven’t been since Shane left Rozanov’s hotel room. They can’t be talking, they’re nothing. Shane is nothing to Rozanov. Shane can’t be anything to Rozanov. So Rozanov has to become nothing to Shane.
Shane can’t keep sitting here, spiraling, while some nurse talks about the Parkland Burn Formula, which isn’t even something that’s fucking relevant to Shane, so he leaves.
He doesn’t know where else to go, so he sits in the same bathroom he and Rozanov always use. He feels so stupid, once he’s there, sitting alone on a bathroom floor, freaking out because he caught feelings for the dude he’s fucking. Shane should’ve seen this coming, anyone with eyes could’ve seen this coming.
He’s removed from his spiral by a knock on the bathroom door. Shane manages to croak out an occupied! that he thinks sounds reasonable, and waits for the other person to give up and go away. There’s like three more bathrooms in this hallway, they can’t all be fucking taken. There’s another knock though, and then the person speaks.
“Shane, it’s me, can I come in?” Of course it’s Rozanov. It’s always fucking Rozanov. Shane needs to stop pretending it’s ever going to be anyone but Rozanov.
Shane tilts his head back, resting it against the wall behind him. “Go away.”
A pause. Then: “Please?”
And even through the door, with Shane’s marginal ability to pick up on tone, he can tell that Rozanov sounds off. Fine. Fine. They should officially end things between them. Might as well do it in the bathroom it all started in, right? He stands from the floor and walks over to unlock the door. Rozanov steps carefully inside, locking the door behind him.
Shane’s sure he looks fucking pitiful, tears he’s barely holding back welling in his eyes. He stares at the toilet to avoid looking at Rozanov.
It’s very clean, actually, Shane’s impressed. He’d like to compliment the staff that keeps this restroom sparkling, it’s made his life the last year a lot less gross. How would he go about finding the responsible party? Maybe he could ask the administrative staff with offices around here? That’d be a good starting point. Would a gift basket be appropriate?
“Shane, you are freaking out,” Rozanov says. This is patently false, because Shane is thinking very normally, about rational things, right now. “Look at me.”
Shane doesn’t want to look at him. Shane wishes Rozanov would stop using his first name.
Rozanov approaches, and when Shane doesn’t flinch or flee, puts his hand on Shane’s face. The tips of his fingers splay across the back of Shane’s neck as his palm cradles Shane’s jaw. Shane’s reminded of the first time they fooled around in here, when Rozanov held him this same way, like he was something precious. Shane lets Rozanov tilt his head up so that Shane’s looking at him. Shane expects Rozanov to look smug, or horny. He doesn’t know why Rozanov followed him in here, but if he’s looking to get laid, he’s in the wrong place.
Rozanov instead looks upset. He’s still sickeningly attractive, and besides the darker circles than normal under his eyes, looks the same as he did the last time Shane saw him. His brows are furrowed, but his thumb is stroking across Shane’s jaw. Shane can’t help but lean into the touch.
Shane sighs. “Rozanov—”
Rozanov frowns. “Oh, so I am back to Rozanov now,” he says. Shane’s lost, does he want to be Ilya to Shane? “You are avoiding me. You will no longer say my name.” Rozanov sounds the most unsure of himself Shane’s ever heard him when he asks, “Did I do something?”
Shane hates this. Shane hates feeling like this, and Shane hates whatever it is that’s going on right now, and he hates that he can’t even be mad at Rozanov, because this is all his own fault.
“I can’t keep doing this,” Shane starts, carefully. “I know this means nothing to you, and that’s okay, I’m not mad at you. It’s just, I—I like you too much to keep pretending otherwise.” He takes a deep breath, turns his head a bit so he can stare at the wall behind Rozanov. “It’s nothing you did, I swear, I got too attached. And I can’t—I don’t want to be just one of your many ER fuckbuddies, and I know we can’t be anything more, I—”
“I have not slept with anyone else in months,” Rozanov interjects.
“What?”
“Not since the first time we fucked. It has only been you.” The first time they fucked was in like, September, so that can’t be right.
"But that was—”
“Yes, since August, I know,” Rozanov cuts in again. Shane’s so confused. Why hasn’t Rozanov been fucking other people? Rozanov so, so gently, uses the thumb on his chin to turn Shane’s head so that he’s facing him again. He looks serious. “It is only you that I have been wanting.”
Shane blinks. “I— Rozanov, what?”
“Ilya, please,” Roza-Ilya corrects.
“Ilya, what?”
“You are the only person I want. Nobody else. Only you, ok?”
And wow, Shane doesn’t know what to do with that. It’s not a love confession, but it’s also not him getting blown off. It’s Ilya telling Shane he doesn’t want to sleep with anyone else besides Shane, that he hasn’t been sleeping with anyone else besides Shane for months now. He seems serious about it, too.
So yeah, maybe Ilya’s not also in love with Shane, but it seems like Shane could have him all to himself, if he wanted. And Shane does, he wants Ilya, all the time, always. Having him like this is better than not having him at all. Maybe it’ll be enough. There’s only one way to find out.
“Okay,” Shane murmurs, and turns his head into Ilya’s touch, so that he can press a kiss to the pad of the thumb that’d been caressing his face. Ilya runs his thumb across Shane’s lower lip in response. Shane parts his lips, slightly, and Ilya presses the tip of it into Shane’s mouth. Shane takes it, and runs his tongue over it, and then lets Ilya drag it out of his mouth, pulling his bottom lip down with it.
“You are so beautiful,” Ilya tells him.
“Come over to my place, after this?” Shane rushes out. Ilya breaks into a life-ruiningly fond smile. Helplessly, hopelessly, Shane smiles back at him.
If Shane doesn’t get his security deposit back on his apartment, it’s probably because he wore a hole in the floor with the anxious pacing he’s been doing in his living room since he got home. They’d decided on Ilya coming over an hour after they got out of their lecture, at around four, and it’s four-ten now, and Shane’s being normal about it. Back in the real world, outside the safe haven of their hospital bathroom (and isn’t that a sentence,) Shane feels much less confident about himself. He cannot believe he invited Ilya over.
But, he reminds himself, Ilya said it was just him, only Shane. So it’s okay for Shane to want Ilya. Ilya seems to want him too. Shane’s not sure what this means in terms of their relationship status, or how Ilya really feels about him. He’s not entirely sure he can handle it if Ilya just wants to be committed non-attached fuckbuddies. Oh, God, is this the situationship thing Rose is always complaining about? Is he in a situationship with Ilya?
The doorbell rings, snapping Shane out of his spiral, and he tries to take a deep breath to ground himself before he answers. He opens his door to find Ilya, unsurprisingly, dressed in a similar tank to the one he had one when Shane’d gone over to his place. Shane’s not going to make this fucking mistake again though, and immediately looks anywhere but Ilya’s chest. Or his face.
Shane steps back from the door, letting Ilya in. He closes the door and turns around to see Ilya kicking off his shoes. Once he’s done, he stands up, and gives Shane a small, tight smile. Shane can do this.
“Hi,” Shane says, normally.
Ilya looks bemused. “Hi,” he says back.
Shane’s not sure what to say now. He opens his mouth, and then stops himself. Why is he freaking out? This isn’t some nameless stranger in his home, this is Ilya, who just said that he wanted Shane. Ilya has seen Shane covered in every possible bodily fluid, almost all of which did not come from him or Shane. He can’t tell Ilya everything, namely that he’s stupidly in love with him, but Shane also doesn’t need to pretend to be someone he isn’t around him.
Shane huffs out a short laugh, and then tries again. “I’m glad you’re here,” he says, because he is. That earns him a real smile from Ilya.
“So am I,” Ilya says. They’re only a few steps apart, so Shane closes the distance between them. He rests his arms on Ilya’s shoulders, wrapping them loosely around his neck at the same time that Ilya brings his arms around Shane’s lower back, capturing his waist.
They meet each other for an unhurried kiss. The first taste of Ilya’s lips on his has Shane pulling him closer, because fuck, he missed this, and it’s only been two weeks. How did he survive only getting to kiss Ilya once a month for a year? Shane hums softly into the kiss as Ilya works on deepening it, and he loses himself to the motion of Ilya’s lips against his.
They end up in Shane’s bedroom, unsurprisingly. Shane’s pushing back against Ilya, backing him towards the mattress as they continue to exchange heated kisses. Shane gets him up to the edge of the bed, and then gives Ilya a shove. Ilya falls back onto the bed, sprawled out completely naked. They’d both lost their shirts not long after they started making out in Shane’s entryway, and lost his pants when Shane had dropped to his knees in the living room, taking Ilya into his mouth.
Ilya starts trying to pose like a nude model on Shane’s bed while Shane takes his own pants off. It’s unfortunately really fucking hot.
“You look dumb,” Shane tells him.
This does not phase Ilya in the slightest. “What is that line from that movie?” Ilya thinks for a second, before seemingly remembering. “Ah, yes: draw me like one of your french girls,” he quotes, and then strikes an even dumber pose.
Shane kicks his underpants off and throws them at Ilya, before crawling onto the bed. They land on his chest, Ilya raising an eyebrow at Shane as he picks them up and tosses them off the bed. He pushes Ilya again, so he’s on his back, and then straddles his lap, Shane’s thighs bracketing Ilya’s hips. He lowers himself down and grinds his hard cock against Ilya’s.
They both moan, and so Shane does it again, chasing the feeling of Ilya against him. As good as Ilya feels against him, though, Shane knows he’ll feel even better inside of him. Shane’s reminded of their last time together, when they’d started like this, before Ilya took control. That’s not how things are going to go today, because Shane has a plan.
He reaches past Ilya to fumble around, knowing there’s lube stashed under his pillows. He’d been doing a lot of sad fingering over the last two weeks.
Shane finds the bottle, and Ilya looks like he wants to say something about it, but Shane shuts him up by shoving the bottle into Ilya’s chest.
“Open me up,” Shane demands.
Ilya raises both his eyebrows at that, glancing down at the bottle and then back at Shane. “Oh, so you are in charge now?”
Shane taps the bottle against Ilya’s chest again. “I am if you want to get your dick wet anytime soon.”
This gets the point across, because soon enough, Ilya has two, then three fingers inside of Shane. Ilya’s fingers feel just as good inside of him as they always have, thick and talented. He doesn’t mess around with Shane today, stretching him open with efficiency.
Shane paws at Ilya’s chest while he works Shane open, squeezing and pulling at Ilya’s frankly ridiculous tits. Shane leans down, and starts sucking at the base of Ilya’s neck. Ilya doesn’t stop him, so Shane bites and sucks his way across the span of Ilya’s collarbone and shoulders as Ilya opens him up.
Shane’s moving to kiss Ilya again, when Ilya delivers a teasing jab to Shane’s prostate that has him groaning. Shane stops and stares down at Ilya, unimpressed.
“Behave,” Shane warns, changing course to nip against the skin of Ilya’s shoulder, instead.
Ilya pulls his fingers out of Shane. “Do you have a condom?” He asks.
Shane thinks about it for all of half a second before responding. He does, but— “Are you clean?”
“Yes,” Ilya sounds a bit dazed when he answers. Shane grins.
“I am too, so get the fuck in me, Rozanov.”
Ilya’s just staring at Shane, like Shane’s a hallucination or something. Fine, Shane’ll do it himself. He sits fully upright, and then grabs the lube from where it’s discarded on the bedspread. Impatient, he uncaps it and drizzles it directly on Ilya’s cock. Shane reaches down to spread it around, giving Ilya’s dick a few strokes just to hear Ilya groan underneath him.
Shane rises onto his knees, using the hand already on Ilya’s cock to line it up with his hole.
He pauses, once he’s in place. “Okay?”
“Yes, very okay, fuck,” Ilya moans, and grabs Shane’s hips.
He plants his other hand on Ilya’s chest, stabilizing himself. As soon as Shane feels the blunt pressure of Ilya’s cock breach him, he begins to sink down, trying to take Ilya in as fast as his body will let him.
“Fuck, Shane,” Ilya groans when Shane’s ass is finally seated fully against Ilya’s thighs. Shane leans down to press his forehead to Ilya’s. They stay there for a moment, nothing but their breath between them as Shane savors the feeling of Ilya inside of him. Its a little different, without a condom on. He didn’t think Ilya could feel any hotter inside of him, but somehow he does, and Shane thinks he might just combust right now. The angle’s different too, like this, with Shane on top. Ilya still feels just as deep, though, filling Shane up so well.
“You feel so fucking good, inside of me,” Shane murmurs, into the space between their mouths.
Shane sits up and starts slowly grinding his hips down onto Ilya’s, moaning as he does so. Ilya’s still holding onto Shane’s hips, staring reverently at Shane. He’s breathing heavy already, his pupils blown. Shane grins at him again—he can’t stop fucking smiling, it’s so hard not to when he has Ilya like this, under him, all his.
Shane starts to lift himself up and slide back down on Ilya’s cock. He’s too impatient to go slow for any longer, his pace rapidly increasing. He tries to adjust his position a bit to get Ilya even deeper, squeezing one of Ilya’s pecs as he does. One of Ilya’s hands slides down to Shane’s ass, giving it a squeeze as Shane bounces, which gets another moan out of Shane.
The next time Shane sinks down into Ilya, Ilya thrusts his hips up to meet Shane, and oh, fuck, yeah, okay. There’s a groan ripped out of him, and Shane leans down, pressing his chest to Ilya’s and meeting his mouth in a messy kiss. He’s grinding down into Ilya, rolling himself against the snap of Ilya’s hips into him.
Ilya begins sucking on his lower lip, and delivers a particularly hard thrust into Shane, hitting against his neglected prostate. The pressure lights him up, makes him feel fucking crazy.
“Oh, Ilya, fuck—” Shane’s rhythm stutters a bit as Ilya bites down on his lip. He arches into the kiss, or maybe into Ilya, Shane’s not sure, he just knows he wants more. It’s so good, he needs more. Shane grinds back desperately, whining when he can’t find the right angle for Ilya to hit his prostate again.
“Yes, Shane,” Ilya has no right to sound that smug when he’s a fucking mess under Shane, panting and wildly thrusting up into Shane. Both Ilya’s hands are on Shane’s ass now, grip tight as he tries to pull Shane even tighter against himself.
Shane wants him so badly. “Fuck me,” he demands.
“Thought I—” Ilya groans as Shane rolls his hips back, “—wasn’t in charge,”
“You’re—you’re not—” its so fucking hard to speak, Shane’s breathing hard and grunting with every thrust into him, “I’m telling you to fuck me.”
“I am fucking you, Hollander,” Ilya accentuates his point with another aggressive buck of his hips, again, just barely grazing Shane’s prostate. “If you want more you need to ask for it.”
“You’re such an asshole,” Shane spits out. He sits up a bit, trying to find a position where he can grind back onto Ilya’s cock and get some fucking pressure on his prostate. Also, he needs to relieve the burning in his thighs that’s threatening to become a problem soon.
“Maybe I will come like this,” Ilya threatens, “and then make you get yourself off.”
Shane chooses to ignore Ilya’s taunts, and instead keeps grinding back on him, but it’s still not fucking enough. Shane knows he could just get himself off, jack off on top of Ilya, his dick is right there, he could cum all over Ilya’s face if he wanted to.
But Ilya’s raw inside of him, and Shane loves the way Ilya feels deep inside him, bruising him, ruining him. He wants Ilya to make him come undone. Shane throws his head back and groans.
“Please, Ilya—please fuck me,” he moans, closing his eyes. Ilya’s hips still, and Shane can feel him laughing a bit beneath him, and then Ilya’s rolling them over, putting Shane on his back. Shane spreads his legs for Ilya on instinct, and Ilya hovers over Shane as he pulls out, spreads Shane’s legs even farther apart with a hand gripping one of his thigh, and guides himself back in with one smooth hard thrust. Shane’s eyes fly open at the feeling, fuck, like this, Ilya feels so much deeper.
Ilya adjusts his angle, and the first thrusts directly against Shane’s prostate make him nearly start crying. It’s so good, Ilya feels so good in him, Ilya always makes him feel so good.
“Happy now?” Ilya asks, between heavy breaths. He’s trying to sound smug, but Shane can’t even be mad, because fuck, he fills Shane so well.
“Yes, god—thank you, thank you,” Shane babbles, only half aware of what's coming out of his mouth. Shane’s seeing fucking stars, Ilya’s cock relentless now against his prostate, every snap of his hips causing pleasure to crash over him. He couldn’t think coherently if he tried, he just wants more, wants Ilya to ruin him until he’s coming. Wants Ilya to come inside of him. He squeezes his eyes shut, fuck, Jesus Christ.
Shane feels something brush against the side of his face, and then his lips. He doesn’t even think, just opens his mouth readily. It’s Ilya’s thumb, pressing into the heat of Shane’s mouth as the rest of his fingers grip Shane’s jaw. Shane laves his tongue over it, greedily sucking as if it was Ilya’s dick in his mouth. It’s pushed in farther, and Shane grazes his teeth over the pad of the digit. Ilya pulls back, and hooks the thumb in Shane’s cheek. He pauses there for a second, and then, almost tentatively, tugs. Shane’s immediately turning his head to follow, not resisting the pull on his mouth in the slightest.
Ilya groans something, loudly, above him, probably in Russian. Shane feels like fucking putty underneath Ilya. Ilya pulls his thumb out, and Shane can’t help it when he straight up whimpers. Ilya fucking full on laughs at that, and Shane opens his eyes just so he can glare at Ilya. It’s hard to, though, when Shane feels so fucking good, and Ilya looks so fucking perfect on top of Shane.
Ilya’s so gorgeous, flushed and sweaty as he keeps thrusting into Shane, his curls matted down with sweat. He’s panting, and grunting, but he’s also grinning, having just laughed at Shane like an asshole. His hand is still gripping Shane’s thigh, keeping him spread open.
Ilya huffs out another laugh, and then says, “Since you need to be full so bad, here.”
Shane doesn’t have time to question what Ilya means, before Ilya shoves his first two fingers directly into his open mouth.
Shane, in a move he’s sure he’ll be mortified by later, does not resist in the slightest and instead immediately opens his mouth even wider for them. He tries to suck on them, treat them like Ilya’s cock, but he’s moaning so much he can’t keep his mouth closed around them. Shane still fucking tries, though, and lets Ilya keep pressing them into his mouth, against his tongue, as he gets them messy with spit.
He knows there’s saliva running down his chin, off the side of his face, he can feel it. He doesn’t care, he’s so fucking filled with Ilya. He wants to be even more filled with Ilya.
Shane looks up at Ilya, his mouth wide open with Ilya’s fingers pressed into it. Ilya looks almost angry, watching the way Shane takes his fingers.
“So fucking pretty,” Ilya says, reverently.
Its so much, the praise, the fingers, the fact that Ilya’s hitting his prostate on every fucking thrust now. Shane needs to come, needs to get some sensation on his dick, needs something, anything. He wants Ilya to touch him, wants Ilya to come inside him. Shane whines around Ilya’s fingers in his mouth, and Ilya gets the hint, taking them out.
“Ilya—fuck, I need—” Ilya’s hand is on Shane’s dick before Shane can even get all the words out. Between the saliva and the ample amounts of precum, the glide is easy, and it only takes a few strokes before Shane comes with a broken moan, an arch of his back, and a loud cry of Ilya! as he clenches down around Ilya’s cock.
Ilya keeps fucking him through his orgasm, and then Shane hears Ilya moaning his name as his thrusts grow erratic inside Shane. Shane opens his eyes—he hadn’t even realized he’d closed them again—so he can watch Ilya as he comes, his mouth open and gaze locked on Shane. Shane reaches up and grabs Ilya by the back of the neck, and yanking him down into a messy kiss. Ilya shudders against his lips as he comes, inside of Shane, and if Shane hadn’t already come he definitely would’ve at the feeling of Ilya releasing inside of him. He clenches down again, instead, and gets a soft fuck breathed into his mouth.
The kiss turns sweeter, as they both come down, becoming less tongue and open mouthed panting, and more of a deliberate thing, their lips moving slowly against each other. Ilya pulls back a bit and looks at Shane. Shane smiles at him, blissed out. He doesn’t know what Ilya’s looking for, but he must find it, because he smiles back at Shane. Full on grins. Ilya’s such a fucking vision, his curls a mess, his smile so beautiful.
After Ilya pulls out, which feels weird without a condom, especially with the cum inside of him—which Shane fully does not have the fucks to care about right now—he comes back with a towel he must’ve found in Shane’s bathroom. He sits next to Shane in the bed and Shane grabs for the towel so that he can wipe his own chest off. Ilya fucking whips him in the chest with it, doesn’t let Shane take it, and then wipes him off. He’s such a fucking asshole. He’s so fucking perfect, Shane loves him so much.
He’s not even freaking out about thinking it, because he’s too fucked out to think about anything at all, in any level of serious detail. Ilya finishes cleaning him off and collapses next to Shane. Well, half next to Shane, half on top of Shane, his head on Shane’s chest. Shane runs a hand through his curls, enjoying how soft they feel under his fingers.
God, Shane wants to see Ilya like this this forever.
Fuck. Shane wants this, wants Ilya like this forever, so fucking badly, this perfect asshole who harasses Shane on his calls and then fucks him stupid.
“I love you,” Shane hears himself say, in the same way one watches a train derail.
Not even the bliss of the best orgasm of Shane’s life is enough to make him not freak out at that. Why the fuck would he say that, they literally just made up, he doesn’t even know if Ilya feels that way, maybe all Ilya does want is just to fuck—
He can feel Ilya tilting his head up on Shane’s lap, so he can look at Shane. Fuck, is he leaving? Shane can fix this before he leaves, he has to. Shane opens his mouth to try to explain, or maybe to try to laugh it off. No sound comes out.
Ilya rolls himself over and drags himself almost fully on top of Shane, their chests flush and legs tangled together. Like this, this close, Shane has no choice but to look at Ilya. Ilya doesn’t look mad, at least. He looks more fond, if anything, he has a smile Shane only ever sees directed at him on his face.
“You love me?” Ilya asks, propping himself up on his forearms, and fuck him, Shane can’t believe he’s making Shane say it again. Shane tries to avert his gaze, but the only other thing in his field of view he can see is Ilya’s crucifix, dangling from his chest as he holds himself above Shane.
“I, um,” Shane stalls. He watches the cross sway in the air, mesmerized.
“You love me or you love my boobs? You are staring at them again. Did you not get enough of them already?”
What does Ilya mean, did he not get enough already?—Shane actually looks at his chest now, and immediately understands Ilya’s point: his pecs, and clavicles, and shoulders are now fucking covered in bites and marks. Shane doesn’t even feel bad. It’s a good look on him.
Shane snaps back to reality and whips his head up to look at Ilya, registering the rest of what he had said. Shane doesn’t stare at Ilya’s chest that much, and that’s not even what he was doing this time. Initially.
Ilya doesn’t look mad though, he looks, well, fond. He’s gazing at Shane, and Shane thinks Ilya might be holding back a smile.
“No, you dick, I don’t love your fucking chest,” Shane pauses, “okay, I do, but that’s not what I was—you’re so fucking irritating, you know that?”
“So you love me?” Ilya repeats.
“Oh my god, yes, you fucking ass. I love you, Ilya,” Shane murmurs, unable to put any actual venom into it. He’s well aware he fell for Ilya’s bait.
“That is good. I was worried it was just my chest you were into,” Ilya pauses, and he seems to grow more serious. He hesitates before continuing. “It is also good because I love you too, Shane Hollander.”
Shane doesn’t even think before he’s pulling Ilya into a tight hug, crushing his chest against Shane’s. Ilya buries his head in Shane’s neck, and Shane can feel him sniffling against the skin there. Shane kisses the side of Ilya’s head, his neck, his curls, anywhere he can reach. He loves this asshole so fucking much.
Shane calls his supervisor later that day and tells her he’s fine staying on nights. Hopefully Hayden will forgive him.
About a week after they go from just fucking around with each other to being something more, Shane gets cornered in the EMS room by Ilya. Shane can admit that cornered is a bit of an overstatement, but only a little bit. Ilya’d seen him bring a patient in, and had been following him around the ER since, with the air of a predator waiting to pounce. He just waits until Shane is in the EMS room to actually do anything.
Shane’s thinking about trying to see if the fridge has any fruit cups. He’s not usually into them, too much sugar, but it’s been a long shift. Dawn’s about to break, Shane’s been running his ass off, and a cup of sad pineapple chunks could help.
He doesn’t get to ponder this any further, because all of a sudden Ilya’s right behind him. He hadn’t even heard the door open, what the fuck.
Ilya places his hands on Shane’s shoulders to turn him around, and then pins him against the fridge. Shane can feel the humming of the machine against his back, the rise and fall of Ilya’s chest against his front.
“What are you doing?” Shane hisses. Someone could walk in at any time. Last Shane checked they were they only ambulance here, but someone else could bring in a patient at any time. Fuck, even the nurses will pop in here to grab a drink or take a break sometimes.
“Mmmm, you?” Ilya answers, leaning in to mouth at the part of Shane’s neck he can reach above the collar of his polo. “You’re so buttoned up.”
“It’s professional, unlike anything you’ve ever worn,” Shane snaps back. Ilya actually does have two out of the three buttons of his polo done up today, versus his regular none out of three. The reason for this may or may not be because there’s at least two bruises on Ilya's chest that’d be visible if he had all his buttons undone. Shane does not feel apologetic in the slightest.
Shane makes absolutely no move to shove Ilya away, but doesn’t go so far as to tilt his neck to give him better access. “If I give you one kiss, will you get it together?”
Ilya hums. “Give me kiss first, then I will tell you. What if it is bad kiss? Then I have been scammed—” Shane shuts Ilya up with his mouth, placing a soft kiss to his lips. He means for it to be quick, he really, really does, but then Ilya starts slowly moving his mouth, and it’s been a long shift, and Shane’s tired, and Ilya always helps.
They only manage to actually kiss for probably ten seconds before Shane hears the door to the EMS room open. Fuck, fuck, this is what Shane had been fucking worried about, this was such a bad idea, he’s going to fucking kill Ilya. They jump apart, but whoever it is walks in before they can get more than four inches away from each other.
“Hey Shane, are you in here? You just disappeared aft— WHAT THE FUCK.” Hayden screeches.
Shane bodily shoves Ilya off of him, and wishes he wasn’t breathing so heavily already, because it’s not going to help either of their cases if they both look debauched. Ilya chooses to step away to stand on the other side of the room, putting Hayden between him and Shane.
Shane needs to run damage control, immediately. “It’s not what it looks like, Hayden, I swear.”
Hayden gives him a wild eyed stare. “It looked to me like you were halfway to letting Rozanov shove his fucking tongue down your throat,” he accuses.
“That is untrue,” Ilya chimes in. Shane glares at him, because he already knows what he’s going to say isn’t going to be helpful in the slightest, “Hollander started it.”
“Only because you were being a needy asshole,” Shane retorts. He’s getting a sudden feeling of deja vu.
“You like it when I’m an annoying asshole.” Shane does, but that’s not the point right now.
Hayden’s head is bouncing between the two of them like he’s spectating a table tennis match. Shane sighs. Clearly he’s going to have to be the adult in this situation.
“Hayden, Ilya and I are…” Shane trails off, unsure of what the right word is. It’s only been a week since they both confessed, and they haven’t really talked about what exactly they are to each other yet. Shane knows they’re exclusive, and they love each other, but he’s been scared to say something. He’s not sure what’s stopping him. Maybe some fear that Ilya might change his mind, and decide Shane’s being too needy.
“Boyfriends,” Ilya states, matter-of-factly. Shane can’t stop himself from turning away from Hayden to look at him. Then, less confidently, looking unsure: “Yes?”
Shane breaks out into a grin. “Yeah. Boyfriends.” Ilya smiles back. And yeah, that’s Shane’s fucking boyfriend right there, with the gorgeous smile.
Hayden, meanwhile, barrels on like a steamroller. “How long has this,” He says, gesturing furtively between Ilya and Shane, “been going on for?”
“Um, a while. Most of the year,” Shane confesses, cringing. He was really hoping Hayden wouldn’t ask that. The answer also depends on what exactly he means by this.
“No, it’s been a year since first night shift, when you were in supply room,” Ilya corrects. Shane shoots him another look. Not fucking helpful.
Hayden’s silent, and Shane swears he can hear the gears turning in Hayden’s head as Hayden processes. He comes to some realization, after a moment, and makes a face of sheer horror and disgust Shane’s only ever seen him make before at hoarder houses.
“Was that Shane’s ass you were fucking talking about that day??” Hayden screeches, again. Shane’s staring to get a headache.
Shane’s also getting the feeling that there’s no more productive conversation to be had here. Hayden’s borderline snarling at Ilya, and his boyfriend (!!!) looks like he’s about to start biting back.
“Hayden, I’ll meet you at the truck okay?” Shane pleads. “I’ll explain everything, and we can go and get coffee or something, on me.” He’s not proud of resorting to bribery, but he just wants this situation to be over with. Shane feels like he’s run a million miles in the last three minutes.
“Fine. But this isn’t over, Rozanov,” Hayden says, and backs out of the room, like if he turns his back for a second Ilya will start defiling Shane again.
Ilya wisely stays silent as Hayden leaves the room. Shane turns on him immediately.
“I told you it was a bad idea to kiss in here,” Shane hisses at Ilya, who doesn’t look nearly as repentant as he should.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Ilya reassures him. “It was just Pike, nobody important.”
Shane ignores the dig at Hayden.
“It could’ve been someone else though,” he argues.
“Yes, but it wasn’t. So things are okay. I will not touch you again if you do not want it, okay?” It’s not quite an apology, but it is reassuring, and Shane appreciates that Ilya’s trying to respect his boundaries.
Somehow Ilya and Shane have made their way across the room and are now standing face to face again. Shane’s not letting this fucking menace touch him again, he’s still so anxious about the conversation he’s going to have to have with Hayden.
“You’re never touching me on hospital property again,” Shane says.
“Then we cannot fuck in bathroom during con-ed anymore,” Ilya points out.
“Ilya, we don’t need to fuck in the bathroom during con-ed anymore. We can fuck at each other’s homes, all we want, because we’re dating.”
“But was it not fun?”
Shane’s not going to answer that question. “You’re awful, I actually fucking hate you.”
“No you don’t, you love me,” Ilya says, looking as smug as he sounds.
Yeah, he’s right, Shane does love Ilya.
But Shane's still not going to let Ilya keep fucking him in hospital bathrooms.
epinephrinelogue
“Do you not know how to start an IV?” Ilya asks, after Shane brings a patient in with no visible IV access, and gauze taped down to three different spots on her arms. He waits until after Shane’s handed the patient off to ask him, while Pike raids the fridge in the EMS room for something deeply unhealthy and childish, Ilya’s sure.
“Go fuck yourself, Rozanov, I’d like to see you get an IV on someone with her vasculature.” Shane shoots back.
“Ok. What room did you take her to? I will go do it right now.” Ilya gets up from his perch against the counter like he’s going to start walking over there, just to see the face he knows Shane will make in response. Shane doesn’t disappoint, he immediately shoots Ilya a glare.
“You’re such an asshole,” Shane says, glare rapidly turning fond, the corners of his lips rising. Ilya loves the way Shane smiles whenever he calls Ilya an asshole, like he can’t help it. Ilya loves when Shane smiles in general, his pretty freckles scrunch up, it’s very cute. Ilya gives him a small smile back in response.
The moment is ruined when fucking Pike interjects. “Can you two please do this weird shit somewhere else? Literally anywhere else, even.”
Pike is holding a grape Uncrustable up like its a weapon. Ilya has a whole list of things he’d like to say in response to that, including his thoughts on Pike's weapon of choice, but he holds back because he know it’ll ruin Shane’s mood.
Instead, Ilya turns to Pike and puts his most angelic smile on. It’s not hard, because he was just smiling at Shane, but he really tries to make this one look innocent. Pike immediately looks deeply suspicious.
“Pike. The trauma patient you had earlier, the attending physician complimented the wound care on the leg. Hollander says that was you, so good job.”
From the expression on Pike’s face, one would think Ilya just slaughtered his firstborn in front of him. Which Ilya would never do, for the record, he loves children. Pike’s look of horror quickly morphs back into suspicion.
“What does that mean?”
“That you did a good job bandaging wound. What else would it mean?”
Pike continues to stare at Ilya, like if he glares hard enough he’ll be able to see into Ilya’s brain. Ilya doesn’t think Pike would enjoy that very much, given how much of Ilya’s psyche consists of thinking about Shane, clothing optional.
Ilya continues smiling back at Pike. To a bystander, Shane would look apathetic to the whole situation, but Ilya knows from the slight narrowing of his eyes and twitch of his lips he’s torn between exasperation and amusement. Look, Ilya promised Shane he’d stop being so mean to Pike. It’s not his fault if it’s actually turning out to be more entertaining to compliment him than it ever was to insult him.
Pike seems to decide this is his breaking point, because starts muttering under his breath about not being able to understand Shane’s taste, and turns to leave the room.
“I will be leaving this hospital in five minutes, Shane. Do you hear me? Five, and I don’t care if you’re on the truck or not,” he yells on his way out, and Shane huffs but nods.
As soon as Pike’s out of the room, Ilya taps the counter next to him. He won’t do anything, there’s too many crews here right now and he knows PDA really stresses Shane out, especially after Pike walked in on them. But Shane can at least be closer to Ilya. Ilya’d do a lot of things to be closer to Shane, as it turns out, including going to every single continuing education session the hospital offered for a year straight, because he never knew which one Shane was going to be at and didn’t want to miss him. Ilya has enough con-ed hours to recertify through the next decade, now.
Shane shoots him a look as he hops up on the counter next to Ilya.
“Psychological warfare still counts as being mean to Hayden,” Shane says.
“It is not reverse psychology if it’s true, the doctor did compliment the bandage job,” Ilya defends.
“Yeah, but you only told him to fuck with him.”
“I am trying to raise his self-confidence,” Ilya tries instead, because Shane’s completely right. “Can I not care about the mental health of my boyfriend’s partner?”
There’s a slight raise to Shane’s brows when he says, “Ilya, when you say it like that it sounds like you’re getting cucked.”
“That is okay, because I know you would never cuck me, Shane Hollander.”
Shane sighs fondly.
“I don’t know why I like you so much, sometimes.” Ilya doesn’t understand why Shane loves him either, sometimes, but he’s not going to stop being grateful for it anytime soon.
Ilya’s been a little bit in love with Shane since the first time he saw him, this gorgeous paramedic giving what had to have been the best trauma report Ilya had ever heard. He’d been pissed when Scott Hunter asked him immediately afterwards if he could get a new set of soft collars from central supply, because that’s wasn’t Ilya’s fucking job to do. But he guesses he owes Hunter, in a way, for leading Ilya to central supply that day, and to the best thing that’s ever happened to him. For example:
Shane pushes away from the counter, and after doing a quick sweep of the room to make sure nobody’s silently snuck in since Pike left, leans in to press a soft kiss to Ilya’s lips.
Ilya knows better than to try to take it any further, so he pecks back, but he still manages to catch Shane’s lower lip with his teeth as he pulls away. Shane gives him a stern look, but there’s no heat behind it, so Ilya just smiles at him.
Shane rolls his eyes, and then swears as his radio goes off. Both of them listen as a call drops in Shane’s area, Shane telling dispatch that their unit can pick it up from the hospital.
“Duty calls,” Shane says, walking towards the door.
“Will you be ok without backup?” Ilya asks, then adds, “What if the patient needs IV?”
“I think I’ll be able to handle myself on this one, thanks,” Shane huffs. He pauses at the door to the EMS room, and looks back at Ilya. “Oh, and Rozanov?”
“Yes, Hollander?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
The door closes behind him. Ilya thinks he’ll wait a few minutes, and then start heading to the call anyways. He can’t wait to see what Shane will do when he shows up.