Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It wasn’t that sex with Ilya was bad. No, the sex had been fantastic from day one, though Shane would privately admit that he didn’t have the most context for comparison. Sex with Ilya was at alternate turns earthshattering and incredibly tender, and sometimes looking forward to it was the light that kept Shane going through tough weeks and brutal practices. If he kept working hard, then he could keep playing hockey, and if he kept playing hockey, then eventually he could see Ilya again. Simple math that didn’t need looking at very hard, thank you.

But some of their encounters were more memorable than others. There was the time after the MLH Awards that they’d both been so drunk that their whiskey dicks couldn’t get much done and Ilya was so frustrated that Shane thought he was going to pop a vessel or something.

There were the nights they didn’t have enough time, when it was all so fast and messy that it became a vaguely pleasant blur, over far too soon, goodbye kisses mashed against the corners of mouths before you knew it.

And then there were the rare occasions when Ilya was determined to move at the most leisurely pace possible. It wasn’t the slowness that was hot to Shane, though maybe that was a small part of it. It was how creative Ilya seemed to get when given a large enough canvas of time to work upon.

There was another MLH Awards night that came to mind: the night Rozanov had won MVP, just weeks after he’d won the cup.

He’d been so unbearably smug that night, and after he’d given Shane the cold shoulder for months. A stronger man than Shane Hollander would have told Ilya Rozanov to go fuck himself and walked away. But Shane was weak. Terribly, terribly weak. So he’d taken the elevator up to Ilya’s penthouse hotel room, and he’d sat on a bed and he’d done whatever Ilya told him to do for an entire evening.

Afterwards, descending in the lift back down to his own room, Shane had been overwhelmed by two diametrically opposed ideas. The first was the incompleteness of the evening. The things they hadn’t done. The way their lips had never even touched. The second was the low, burning fire in his gut that wouldn’t go away for days afterwards. It hadn’t been perfect, but damn, it had been hot.

Shane spent the rest of the summer thinking about that night, about Ilya Rozanov, trying to piece together what it was about that particular encounter that had done it for him. He found himself on the types of websites he always immediately cleared from his browser history, searching for things that made him blush in the privacy of his own home.

He learned the term “JOI” (Jerk Off Instructions), which was helpful, but not quite right. Some of those videos did it for him, but others fell short. It was when he started comparing the common tags on his favorite videos that he put the pieces together. And that led him down a rabbit hole that took him to a very interesting place that… well. He enjoyed it.

That could have been the end of it. Just a new little tidbit of information about himself.

There was just one problem.

Ilya was Ilya, he was never going to be anything else, but he was never quite the same as that night in Vegas. And Shane… Shane was starting to crave it. It didn’t help that in the weeks or months between hookups, he kept watching videos, and his mind kept unhelpfully mixing reality and fiction in this strange, dreamlike swirl and it was slowly driving him insane.

Shane tried to keep quiet about it. He really did. Shane Hollander was not normally the type of person who complained when the service he was getting was perfectly adequate, if not exactly what he wanted. If you forgot the cheese on his cheeseburger, he wasn’t going to say anything.

He didn’t really eat cheeseburgers anymore, but that wasn’t the point. Shane knew not to ruin a good thing.

But god, he couldn’t stop thinking about better things.

It was November, 2015, before he got the nerve. Almost a year and a half since Vegas, because he was kind of pathetic when it came right down to it.

They were at the Montreal condo, Shane still reclining on the rumpled sheets while Ilya looked around for his underwear that had gotten thrown to the wind in their hurry to get undressed. It had been far too long a wait this time. They’d both been impatient. Now, they could take the afterglow slowly, and Shane used the opportunity to admire Rozanov’s ass as he bent over to peer under the dresser.

“Where the fuck are they?” he grumbled, standing up straight once more with a deep pout on his face.

“You can borrow a pair of mine,” Shane offered.

“Ah, you want to steal my boxers to sniff when I am gone? Is okay, you could have said.”

It used to be that when Rozanov teased him, Shane mostly just got pissed off. And he still did, sometimes. But he’d come to realize at some point just how funny Ilya was, even in a second language. And sometimes… sometimes he said things that made Shane shiver, just a tiny bit.

He hoped Ilya didn’t notice.

But then again, maybe it was a topic worth broaching. Shane had been trying to bring it up for ages, but the moment never seemed right.

“I’ve been thinking about something,” he said, trying to keep his tone casual.

“Ah.” Rozanov nodded as he pulled out the top drawer of the dresser and found the change of clothes Shane kept here, “This is dangerous for you. You might hurt yourself.”

“Fuck off. Can you be serious for two seconds?”

Ilya shrugged as he pulled on a borrowed pair of briefs.“I can be serious for long time, but is hard when I keep getting distracted by your dick.”

Shane himself was getting distracted by the idea of Ilya wearing his clothes, but he rolled his eyes and threw a pillow over his groin. “Better?”

“Yes and no,” Rozanov said with a mournful sigh, “What are you thinking about, Hollander?”

And now came the part where Shane had to be brave. He just had to open his mouth and say it. “I… like doing this with you.”

That made Ilya grin. “Good. Then we should keep doing this, yes?”

“Just shut up for a second and let me finish. I like what we do together. But sometimes I think about doing…” He paused, words failing him. “Other stuff.”

Something strange flickered over Ilya’s face for half a second before he bent down to pull on his jeans and Shane couldn’t read his expression anymore. “You do not need my permission to fuck girls. Or boys. Do whatever you want. Is your cock.”

While the reassurance was comforting, it wasn’t what Shane was looking for. “No, I mean… I want to do other stuff with you.”

Thankfully, Rozanov looked up at him again, though his face was pinched by confusion. “I am not following. You want to do what? Parcheesi?”

This was useless. Shane groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face. “No. God, just forget about it.” He slid off the bed, standing and starting to look for his own clothes.

But, after only a second, Ilya was standing in front of him, hands on both his shoulders. His face was deeply serious. “Hey. I am listening. But I do not understand. Help me understand.”

They didn’t talk like this often. Not about things that were hard to say. They skated along on the surface of things and talked mostly about hockey, if they talked at all. But Ilya seemed to sense Shane’s distress, that this thing was clawing at the inside of his chest, threatening to burst out. He hadn’t even joked about Shane’s dick being out again, which was a big leap in maturity for Ilya Rozanov.

“Do you remember Vegas?” Shane asked softly, “After the MVP awards?”

Rozanov’s face softened, a cocky grin spreading across his face. “Ah, yes. I won. Very good night for me. For you too?”

Shane laughed, shaking his head. “In some ways.”

“Spit it out, Hollander.” Even with all they’d grown, Rozanov still wasn’t the most patient man in the world. But he rubbed soft circles into Shane’s tense shoulders as he said it.

Deep breath. “I want to try BDSM,” Shane said, “It stands for Bondage-”

“Yes, I know what it stands for,” Ilya cut in. He didn’t look angry or disgusted or anything like that. They might as well have been having a conversation about who was going to make the playoffs, for all his face changed.

“Oh. You do?”

That devilish grin was back. “Yes. I have watched porn. I am not a nun.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. So.” Ilya slid his hands up Shane’s neck, tangling his fingers into dark hair, “What do you want to do?”

It was becoming increasingly hard to think with all the touching Rozanov was doing, as well as the possibility hanging in the air. The tempting idea that maybe, just maybe, he might get what he’d been dreaming of for over a year.

“I just told you,” Shane breathed, barely a whisper.

Rozanov shook his head. “What you said is like saying ‘I want to play sports’. There are lots of sports, all very different. We could play golf. We could play baseball. But you like hockey. What is your hockey, Hollander?”

Shane had done a lot of research. An unhealthy amount, probably. He’d watched so many videos, read articles, devoured stories, and he’d liked quite a lot of it. But his only experience was that one night in Las Vegas. So when Ilya laid it out like that, basically asking him where he wanted to start, Shane was at a loss. It was like looking at a menu where everything sounded good, but also most of the things sounded a little scary at the same time. Ilya had asked him a reasonable question, but Shane had no idea how to answer it.

“Can I… get back to you?”

“Yes,” Ilya said, releasing Shane’s hair and giving him a peck on the cheek, “Get back to me. When you watch kinky porn, you will text me and tell me what you think about it.”

Even after all this time, there was a part of Shane that instinctively resisted whenever Rozanov got like this. “Why would I do that?” he snapped, pushing Ilya away and snatching his boxers off the floor.

Ilya hummed, stepping back to lean against the wall and watch Shane with a panther-like expression. “Because you want to be good for me, I think. That is your uh… skating. Basic part of hockey.”

“Fuck off.” Shane knew he was bright red by this point, and he kept getting dressed, regretting that he’d even brought this stupid idea up.

“Okay,” Ilya said with a shrug. He found his shirt and pulled it over his head as he made his way towards the door. “Do or do not. Does not matter either way. I will see you in Boston next month, yes?”

And suddenly, now that Ilya was leaving, Shane wanted to give it all up. He wanted to try again, do whatever Ilya asked, fall to his knees, prove he could be… good. Fuck, Rozanov might have a point.

“Uh. Yeah. Next month.”

Rozanov stopped in the doorway, looking over his shoulder with that coy, knowing smile. Goddamn this absolute asshole. “Goodbye, Shane Hollander.”

How dare he know Shane that well?

Fucking hell.

It took Shane a week before he had the nerve to text.

Shane got rid every single text the next morning, his dreams having been plagued by nightmares of the whole team finding them. But he reread each one first, taking his time, his heart pounding as he pressed delete, delete, delete.

Chapter Text

There wasn’t much when it came to sex that Ilya Rozanov hadn’t tried. When beautiful women approached you often, you had many opportunities to sample from the wide buffet of options that intercourse has to offer. Ilya had tried BDSM before Shane mentioned it in his adorable way. He’d tried it with a few different girls, almost always because they brought it up as something they were interested in. Ilya liked to please his partners, so he was always happy to experiment if someone was interested in something special. But Ilya wouldn’t have said he was “kinky”. It wasn’t an essential part of sex for him.

Well. Until he met Shane Hollander.

Ilya loved to get a rise out of people, to annoy them, to poke and prod. It was fun. A pleasant passtime. A nice way to spend the afternoon. But when it came to Hollander, teasing the poor Canadian lit a fire inside Ilya. He just got so pink and indignant and came off like an angry kitten. It was cute and sexy and endlessly entertaining. Every time Shane said “fuck you”, Ilya just wanted to kiss him more.

So, maybe there was some merit to the idea of integrating BDSM into their hookups. At first, Ilya had been almost indifferent, more turned on by the fact that it seemed to turn Shane on than anything else. But the longer he sat with the concept, the more excited Ilya became. This was actually the perfect opportunity to toy with Hollander, to make him ask for what he wanted, to watch one of the greatest hockey players in the world squirm and plead under Ilya’s hands.

Okay, consider him invested.

Ilya did a fair bit of research in the weeks that followed, consulting porn as well as quite a few forums and subreddits and niche blogs with terrible web design. There was a mountain of material to absorb, but Ilya felt like he did an alright job narrowing the field down to a few items he and Shane could tackle together. He wasn’t positive what Shane was looking for, but he had that night in Vegas as reference, an evening that had apparently resonated with them both.

Their next game was in Boston, so Ilya had some flexibility to work within as he set up the evening. He could tell from Shane’s texts that Hollander was itching for even the slightest hint about what Ilya was planning, but drawing things out- teasing -was half the fun. Ilya’s phone buzzed a few times that day with inquisitive texts from Hollander, but the only response he gave was a thumbs up in reply to the text with Shane’s room number. He was too focused on getting into the right headspace for the game they’d play tonight that would go well past the final buzzer.

When Ilya skated out to center ice for the face-off, Shane was already there, that adorable scowl on his face.

“Nice night,” Ilya said conversationally as he tapped his stick on the line, “You are enjoying your visit to Boston, I hope? Doing some sightseeing?”

“Fuck you,” Shane spat, because he was always such a flirt.

“You should go to the aquarium sometime,” Ilya continued, “There is a very old turtle. Reminds me of Scott Hunter.”

Shane’s eyes narrowed, peering darkly at Ilya as if trying to pick apart his ulterior motive where it sat beneath layers and layers of subtext. He would have to dig for a while. Ilya was just having fun making Shane question everything. That was how this game always started.

The puck dropped and they were both off like a shot, rocketing across the ice. Ilya was grinning broadly the whole time, just enjoying his favorite sport- messing with Shane Hollander. He checked the Montreal captain against the boards with a coy “excuse me”, and Shane had murder in his eyes. Adorable.

Boston won by a mile, 6-2. It was probably stroking his ego a bit for Ilya to think Shane was distracted, but he could have his little delusions. Either way, Shane’s contemptuous expression as they shook hands afterwards was something Ilya coveted.

“See you around,” Ilya said brightly.

Shane just grunted, dismissive and pissed off.

It was fine, Ilya had plenty to focus on. He tried to keep up a calm appearance as he showered off as quickly as possible. Team celebrations were quick and perfunctory, though not cold. They’d played well and deserved to have that moment uplifted by their captain. They just also didn’t need to notice their captain slipping out of the locker room in a finely pressed suit. He had places to be.

Sneaking through the Metros’ hotel without getting noticed took a little more effort, but it was going to be worth it for the theatrical moments Ilya had choreographed in his mind. Thankfully, Shane’s hallway was abandoned when Ilya arrived, so he could lean against the wall and give off that casual aura that seemed to incense Hollander more than anything.

For a few seconds after he knocked, there was no response and Ilya’s mind began to spiral. Maybe Hollander wasn’t back yet. Or maybe he’d finally come to his senses and wanted nothing to do with Ilya anymore. Maybe he’d realized that asking anyone to push him around was dangerous even in the best case scenario.

But then the door flew open and Ilya was yanked inside by the lapels of his suit jacket, Shane shoving him up against the closed door once they were safe.

“You’re an ass,” Hollander growled, furious and beautiful, “I thought you ghosted me.” His rage was tempered somewhat by the way he pressed hot, open mouthed kisses against Ilya’s neck.

Ilya laughed, his hands finding an immediate home on Shane’s hips. “I told you I would see you later, yes?”

That got Shane to pull back and glower up at Ilya as he stepped away and put some space between them. “If we’re going to do this, I need you to actually communicate. I can’t just be sitting there, wondering what’s happening for hours, feeling like an idiot.”

“Mmm. Is that so?” Ilya cocked his head to the side, grinning as he studied Shane Hollander. “But I thought that was what you wanted?”

“I didn’t ask you to be a dick.”

“But you asked me to take control,” Ilya pointed out, taking a few steps forward that had Shane retreating towards the bed, “And when I am in charge, I do not always tell other people my plans. Certainly not the desperate whores I fuck when I am bored.”

It was a gamble, but one that paid off. God, Ilya loved being right. Immediately, Shane’s eyes went wide and he sucked in a sharp breath, and Ilya would have sworn he could watch the blush bloom under those divine freckles. Shane kept walking backwards, legs hitting the mattress and making him sink down onto the edge of the bed so perfectly.

“You like it,” Ilya stated, because it was a fact, “You like just being a toy. That’s why you asked for this.” He stepped between Shane’s spread legs, grabbing a fistful of dark hair in one hand and forcing Shane to look up at him. “It’s okay. Is not embarrassing. Knowing what you like is good. Knowing what you are good for is better.”

“Fuck,” Shane groaned, his mouth falling open as his eyes fluttered closed. And that was when Ilya knew for certain that they were going to have fun tonight.

He gave Shane’s hair one last yank before stepping quickly back, leaving them both cold. “Stand up,” he ordered, “Clothes off.”

Slowly, Shane opened his eyes, his gaze lingering on Ilya like he was really seeing him for the first time that night. “You’re wearing a suit,” Shane said, “Why? Did you change?”

“No questions. Clothes off, now.”

There was that spark in Shane’s eyes, that look like he was considering arguing, weighing the benefits of that against the possible benefits of obeying and finding out exactly what Ilya had planned for them. In the end, it wasn’t a dimming but instead a shifting of the light within Shane Hollander. Less argumentative fire and more of a soft lantern glow.

No. Starlight.

Shane stood, stripping off his t-shirt, sweatpants, and boxers, folding them and setting the clothing aside in a neat pile on the dresser. Always so adorably fastidious. Ilya would have grinned if he weren’t trying to cultivate a mood. As it was, he set about unbuckling his belt, pulling it from the loops of his pants with a snap that had Shane’s eyes going just a tiny bit wider.

“Lie down,” Ilya said, dropping the belt on the foot of the bed and starting in on his tie.

He’d been nervous about bringing a bag to the hotel, about looking like he was staying or planning something. So, he’d gotten a bit creative.

Once Shane was lying down, the tie was looped around his head, red silk covering his eyes. The belt was carefully wrapped around his wrists and tied to the headboard. It was shoddy and Shane could probably wriggle out of either if he put in any real effort, but that was a pro more than a con. If Hollander felt truly trapped, he might start to panic. This was just to test the waters, to see if the feeling of being at someone else’s mercy was as good as anticipated. And judging by the fact that Shane didn’t resist any of the bindings, that he instead sucked in another sharp breath and went pink under the mask, he liked it at least somewhat.

“Do you know your colors?” Ilya asked, trailing a delicate touch along Hollander’s ankle and getting a shudder in return.

Shane frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Red, yellow, green,” Ilya explained, “Like traffic lights. I thought you did research.”

“Oh. Yeah, I did. I’m green; I’m fine. Keep going.”

Really, they probably shouldn’t be doing this. They should be having a measured discussion instead, a talk about limits and interests and safewords and logistics. But they’d never been good at talking. They’d always been better at the physical parts, using their bodies to find something that worked for them. And frankly, Ilya was impatient. He didn’t want to wait. They didn’t have time.

“Use your colors if you need them,” Ilya said as he climbed up on the bed, forcing Shane’s legs apart and settling in the space between them.

“I will,” Shane said, sounding a little impatient himself. Or maybe that was anxiety, that tightness in his tone. Maybe a part of the mighty Shane Hollander was afraid of this.

“Good.” Ilya bent to press a few kisses to the planes of Shane’s stomach. “Now listen. There are rules. You are allowed to say your colors whenever you want. But other than that, all I want to hear is ‘yes, sir’ or ‘please, more’. No other sounds from you. Do you understand?”

Shane nodded, which wasn’t an answer, so Ilya took his left nipple between thumb and forefinger and twisted cruelly.

“Ah!” Shane gasped, “Yes, Sir! Yes, Sir.”

“Good boy,” Ilya rumbled, running the flat of his tongue over Shane’s nipple as a sort of apology. Feeling the way Hollander’s whole body shivered underneath him soothed Ilya’s mind. He could do this. They could do this.

Shane was predictable, and always kept the lube and condoms in the same pocket of his suitcase. Ilya dug them both out, but then stopped, standing at the foot of the bed and just watching. Observing Shane as he lay in semi-sensory deprivation. At first, Hollander was perfectly still. All that training, all that self-control, focused on behaving for Ilya. But after a few minutes, Shane started to squirm, pulling feebly at the belt around his wrists. Ilya shifted his weight, the rustle of fabric just enough motion to let Hollander know he hadn’t been left alone. But neither of them said anything, and now it had become a game of sorts for Ilya, an experiment to see how long it would take before Hollander couldn’t contain his need any longer.

The answer was about four minutes.

“Please?” Shane croaked, his voice sounding wrecked already. His cock was half hard between his legs, just from being left alone. “More. Please, more.”

If Ilya had any doubts remaining about whether or not he would enjoy this, they were summarily squashed in that moment. He loved watching Shane Hollander writhe and beg while tied to a headboard with Ilya’s belt. And he was fairly certain he would love many more things, his mind spinning with all the possibilities, all the things they could do in all their future encounters.

But Ilya couldn’t get ahead of himself. He had a perfect, beautiful man pleading for his touch right now, and it wouldn’t do to get caught up thinking about things that might be.

“I’ve got you, shhh,” he said, climbing back up onto the bed and pressing a kiss to Shane’s bent knee, giving him that fresh spark of contact. “I’ll take care of you.” He ran his hands up and down Shane’s strong thighs, just touching wherever he pleased. “So good for me, aren’t you?”

Shane’s nod was jerky and desperate and adorable. “Yes. Yes, Sir.”

“You do exactly what I tell you, yes?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Ilya hummed, brushing his thumb along Shane’s bottom lip and stifling a noisy inhale when Hollander pulled the digit into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it. “So fucking perfect.”

Without even really realizing it, Ilya had become fully hard inside his suit trousers, and all at once that was too much to bear. He removed his thumb from between Shane’s lips and pulled his own cock out, drizzling a little lube on his hand so he could stoke himself slick and fast. He knew Shane could hear it, the sloppy sounds that would tell him Ilya was getting pleasure and not from Shane. Of course, that set Hollander to twitching again, shifting awkwardly on the bed as he tried to hold back his obvious desire to participate.

“You know,” Ilya drawled, “I was going to fuck you, but I think that might be too much for a desperate slut like you. I think you would come before I even got two fingers in you.”

Shane groaned, so loud that whoever was in the room next door would probably hear. Something to consider for next time. With a needy little whine, Shane buried his face against his bicep, like it was all too much even with a blindfold on. Maybe it was, judging by the way his cock was dribbling now.

“Give me color,” Ilya ordered, wrapping a hand around both of their cocks at once, sliding them against one another.

“Green, green, fucking green!” Shane panted thrusting up into the circle of Ilya’s hand.

“Bad boy,” Ilya chided with a grin, a little breathless himself, “I do not think ‘fuck’ is on the list I gave you.”

The frustrated thrash Shane gave him in response was absolutely divine. “Fucking- Yes, Sir! More, please!”

Oh, god, he really was perfect.

Shane Hollander was immaculately made, some otherworldly being sent from the heavens to lie in Ilya Rozanov’s bed, to be ravished and dismantled and reassembled as a new man who knew that no one would compare to Ilya. No one could.

So Ilya was having a little bit of an ego trip. Sue him. What else was one meant to do in a moment like this?

It all went embarrassingly quickly after that. Ilya worked both their cocks with a frantic energy, his head thrown back as he laughed at the ceiling, pleasure rolling through him in waves. It was only a minute or two before he came, and Shane followed not far behind, both of them panting for a moment as they caught their breath.

When he felt a little less rocked to his core, Ilya grabbed some tissues from the nightstand to clean up the worst of the mess before carefully, gently undoing the tangled knots of his belt and freeing Shane’s hands. He rubbed pink wrists, making sure circulation hadn’t been cut off. And then, at last, he lifted the tie from its place over Shane’s eyes. Hollander blinked a few times, rubbing at his lids in the sudden light.

“Well?” Ilya said as he stood, tucking himself back into his trousers. “What do you think? You want to do again?”

Ilya himself was already thinking about possible future encounters, the ways he could sneak toys into hotel rooms or carry-on luggage. He would have to be creative, but with a little ingenuity and some online shopping, they could have some real fun with this.

But Hollander hadn’t said anything. When Ilya glanced down and looked at him, really looked, that was when he noticed the dampness shining at the corners of Shane’s eyes.

“Hey, hey,” Ilya murmured, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking Shane’s face between his hands, “What’s wrong? Not what you expected? You didn’t like?” Teasing and torturing Hollander was a delight, but only because he was certain Shane secretly enjoyed it. Making people cry was not something Ilya did for fun.

But Shane shook his head, still wiping at his face like he could hide what was happening, what he was feeling. “It was fine. It was good. I liked it.”

Bullshit. “You are not acting like it was fine, or good, or like you liked it.” Ilya frowned, swiping his thumb over a cluster of freckles on Shane’s increasingly flushed cheeks. “Talk to me, Hollander.”

For a long moment, Shane just closed his eyes and breathed, all the muscles in his body so tense, Ilya could feel it even from the few points they were touching. His hands on Shane’s cheeks. Their knees bumping on the bed.

“I didn’t have permission,” Shane whispered eventually, the words a bare puff of air.

Ilya frowned. This had to be the stupid language barrier again. He was missing something. “Permission to do what?”

Shane’s whole face was absolutely scarlet now, twisted up with some emotion Ilya couldn’t quite parse. “To come. You didn’t give me permission to come.”

Hollander really was operating on another level.

“Hush,” Ilya chided, which made Shane wince until Ilya pulled him into a firm embrace, his arms firm but gentle as he held Shane close until his body melted into Ilya’s, “Was that in the rules I gave you?” Ilya murmured against dark hair, “Did I say you couldn’t come without permission? Answer me.”

For a beat, Shane was silent, his breath puffing against Ilya’s shoulder. “No,” he whispered eventually, “No, that wasn’t a rule.”

“Exactly. So you didn’t need permission. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Pulling back a bit, Ilya took Shane’s jaw in hand and pressed their lips together, softer than their usual kisses, a bit more fond. He realized in that moment that it was the first kiss they’d shared all evening. “Don’t give people power over you they haven’t earned. You were perfect. Exactly what I wanted. Tell me you did a good job.”

Shane’s cheeks were still pink, his eyes still shining a little, but he seemed to have calmed considerably, a soft smile playing on his lips. “I did a good job.”

“Good boy,” Ilya smiled, rewarding Shane with another kiss. “Come here.” He laid them down on the bed, throwing a possessive arm over Shane’s waist and pulling their bodies close together. “Breathe, Hollander.”

And Shane obeyed, because he apparently always would. Because he desperately needed this, it would seem. He went down so easily. How long had Shane been coasting through life without a dynamic like this? And what role had Ilya played in it all, dragging Shane right to the edge of true submission and leaving him dangling at the precipice, or else letting him tumble over with no one to catch him?

Research. Ilya would need to do research. Not just about how to get Shane deep into submission, but how to get him out of it safely.

They stayed like that for a while. Ilya didn’t care how wrinkled his suit got. But eventually he had to leave. He pressed a soft kiss to Shane’s bare shoulder before sitting up.

“You are alright if I leave?”

“Yeah, of course,” Shane said, sitting up as well and not even looking at Ilya, just starting to gather his clothes and get dressed. “See you around.”

It was almost cold. Or maybe just more like the way they normally spoke to each other. They’d been both unusually harsh and unusually soft tonight. Maybe that was what kink called for.

“Yes,” Ilya said, feeding his belt through the loops on his pants, “I’ll see you at the All Star Game, right?”

“Mmmhmm.” Shane was transfixed on buttoning up his shirt, like it was the most important thing in the world.

“Hollander.” Finally, brown eyes glanced up. They were clear, at least. Not clouded by tears or dissociation. “Did you like it?”

He seemed to consider it, smoothing his hands down the front of his already creased linen shirt. And then, he smiled. Just a little, but enough to light Ilya’s soul on fire.

“Yeah,” Shane said, “I liked it.”

Ilya couldn’t hide his grin. “That makes two of us, yes?”

Chapter Text

“Ay, cap. You okay? Shane?”

It was only his own name that pulled Shane out of his thoughts. He looked up at J.J. with no idea of how long he’d been zoned out in his uncomfortable airport chair, thinking about silk ties and leather belts and broad, strong hands.

For a moment, he and J.J. just blinked at each other, until J.J. hefted his suitcase in the air beside him. “Plane’s boarding. You coming?”

“Oh. Yeah. Of course.”

Really, he was happy that both he and J.J. had made the All Star team this year. It was exciting. He liked J.J., and it was nice not to travel alone. But the problem was that Shane’s brain had been locked onto the fact that he’d be seeing Ilya for the first time in over a month. He couldn’t stop thinking about what they might do. What Ilya might have planned. And when you started thinking about those sorts of things, it made it awkward when your chill, normal teammate was in the seat next to you asking why they stopped serving peanuts on planes.

“Allergies,” Shane said, thinking about a video he’d seen of a man getting spanked for half an hour straight.

“But I hate the tiny pretzels,” J.J. whined.

Shane fished a protein bar out of his backpack and shoved it into J.J.’s hands, wondering if Ilya would punish him this time. Shane wasn’t really a rule breaker normally. In fact, he hated the feeling that he’d done something wrong, but it might be worth it if he could get the resolution of being absolved of any sins, punished and forgiven entirely.

God, he was pathetic.

The flight actually passed quite quickly that way. Shane just put his headphones on and halfway listened to a random playlist while his mind ran wild. He’d tried to be disciplined about it, to limit his daydreaming so it didn’t impact his playing. He pushed Ilya out of his brain during practices, during games, when he was training. But that just meant that late at night, when he was lying in bed alone, the thoughts all came flooding in, memories of all the encounters, of teasing texts, and especially of last time.

Shane Hollander had been going through a lot of tissues.

And now that they were so close to seeing each other again, Shane couldn’t contain the craving any longer. It was like back when he’d first started his current regimen and he’d spent a full week thinking about Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups night and day, just constantly fixated on the thing he wanted but couldn’t have. Now, years later, he had much better self-control. Except when it came to Ilya.

Of course, Rozanov could never know how much he’d dominated Shane’s thoughts the past few weeks. He’d be unbearably smug about it. Shane could still see the lopsided grin Ilya had sported after last time. No, he couldn’t know.

So, Shane played it as cool as he could when they arrived at the hotel. He didn’t immediately scan the lobby or the bar to look for a familiar mop of curls. He went straight to his room and unpacked, like an adult who wasn’t constantly thinking about BDSM sex with his arch rival.

If he also jumped about a foot in the air and leapt on his phone when it buzzed with a text, that was his own business and nobody else’s.

Which left Shane standing in the middle of a hotel room, wondering what the fuck had just happened. That was kind of the standard for interactions with Ilya Rozanov, but that didn’t make the feeling any less disorienting. The familiar sensation was still unmooring, even if it was a part of exactly what he’d been salivating over.

He was still standing there, rereading the conversation for the fifth time when there was a knock at the hotel room door. There was no one outside by the time Shane got there, just a small, silver gift bag on the ground with plumes of white tissue paper coming out the top. Shane scooped the package up quickly, glancing down the hall in either direction to make sure no one had seen before he brought it inside. Once he was alone, he set the bag on the desk and studied it, a part of him mildly concerned that it might be booby trapped.

It was a fairly small bag. It would be tough to fit a shirt inside. Maybe it held jewelry? Shane wasn’t usually one for that sort of thing, but he’d always admired Ilya’s distinctive chain and cross. It had a way of swinging as Ilya moved, especially when he was bent over and fucking into Shane. Maybe Ilya had gotten him something that matched? Shane could hide it under his shirt and it would almost be like a sort of collar. They’d talked briefly about that, but it was impossible to tell when Ilya was joking. But a collar… It was possible. It seemed incredibly possessive. Forward, even. Shane liked it all the same. In fact, it made him feel a little bit insane.

He practically tore the bag with how frantically he grabbed it and yanked out the paper concealing his prize. He tipped the bag over, dumping its contents onto the desk, and frowned at what he saw. It was just a blob of black fabric. Maybe a shirt after all? No, there wasn’t nearly enough there.

When he picked the item up, he was finally able to pick out the details of it, and his jaw hit the floor.

Shane tossed his phone on the bed, because Ilya was being absolutely ridiculous. He was crazy if he thought Shane was going to go out to drinks with his All Star teammates while wearing lingerie under his clothes.

He realized belatedly that he was still clutching the underwear, running his thumb back and forth over the fabric. It wasn’t solid lace, he discovered upon closer inspection, but the parts that would touch his most sensitive areas were actually silk-backed, so they would be more pleasant to wear. Hypothetically, the panties would glide against his skin, smooth and buttery, with the sheerest, laciest parts just sitting on his hips. They’d probably be more comfortable than his jock. They’d cover more skin, too.

Maybe.

He could try them on, at least. It would be rude not to, since they were a gift.

Stripping down to nothing was a matter of a few minutes even with Shane’s careful ritual of folding his clothes. And then he was just standing there, staring at the underwear sitting on the desk, ignoring the now obvious fact that he wasn’t entirely soft at this point.

Without even really thinking about it, Shane’s phone was in his hand again, and he reread the last texts from “Lily”.

Look pretty for me. Be good.

Shane shivered, because he was naked and cold and not for any other reason.

In the end, he was too curious. Too eager to be perfect. He picked up the panties and stepped into them, biting his lip as they brushed up against his legs and settled into their final home, gently cradling his cock. It felt better than he’d imagined. He ended up in front of the mirror in the bathroom, practically standing in the shower to get as good a view of his whole body as possible.

He should have felt silly. He should have looked at his reflection and felt like an idiot, offended by the absurdity of what he’d been talked into doing. But instead, he noticed the small details. The way his pale skin peeked through the gaps in the black lace. The way his treasure trail disappeared into the intricate waistband. The way that, even through the dark fabric, he could see a tiny wet spot forming at the front.

He was kind of… pretty. And he liked it.

Perhaps he ought to have texted Ilya that he’d complied; maybe that was what a “good boy” would do. But Shane felt certain that Ilya would ask for a picture as proof, and there was no way Shane was doing that. No one could see him like this.

So he was quick when he pulled his clothes back on over the lingerie, hiding all the lace and silk beneath well-worn denim and a loose t-shirt that concealed his waistband entirely, lest anything slip through. Standing perfectly still, just looking in the mirror, he could convince himself that nothing was different. But every time he moved- Oh. He could feel it.

There was both a slipperiness and a slight rasp on his skin as he walked back down to the lobby, finding J.J. and some of the other guys. They talked to him completely normally, because they didn’t know what he was wearing. What Ilya had told him to wear. They all piled into a van and ended up at a club, and Shane almost forgot about it. He could focus on the loud music and the cold can in his hand and everyone laughing and joking. And then he moved just right, and he remembered all over again.

Someone convinced him to dance. Well, “convinced” was probably the wrong word. “Dragged” was more accurate. But either way, he ended up on the dance floor, in a sea of people, bassline pounding through his entire body. He’d never been a good dancer, but he was feeling a little more compelled to try tonight, swaying to the beat and lifting his arms over his head, though he lowered them when he realized the hem of his shirt had raised too, exposing a bare strip of his waist. Still, he couldn’t find it in him to care too much. He was flying too close to the sun, but god he was flying.

And then, his eyes landed on Ilya.

Rozanov was standing by the bar, sipping a beer. There was a beautiful woman talking to him, twirling her long hair around her finger, glitter shining on her cheeks, but Ilya wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at Shane. Their eyes locked, the connection occasionally cut off by the heads of any of the dozen or so people between them, but every time Shane caught Ilya’s face again, he was staring. Smiling. That smug, cocky grin Rozanov always wore when he got exactly what he wanted. When Shane handed it to him on a silver platter.

The song changed to something fast and techno, and people whooped in delight, yanking Shane deeper into their morass. When he looked back, Ilya was gone, but they’d both seen enough.

If Shane had found it hard to focus on the plane, it was even harder now. Between the constant sensory reminders of what was under his jeans and the constant feeling that he was just missing a glimpse of Ilya out of the corner of his eye, it was impossible to think about anything but the promise of what lay ahead of him tonight. By 8:30, he was making excuses, saying polite farewells, and paying his tab. Normally, he would be a better teammate, making sure all the boys got back to the hotel safely, but tonight he was allowing himself to be selfish. Just this once.

The problem arose when Shane got back to his hotel room and had nothing to keep him occupied for over half an hour. He tried turning on the television, but none of the tired sitcoms could catch his attention for long, and the laugh tracks grated against his nerves. In the end, he was just staring at the Weather Channel, barely absorbing information about a cell of thunderstorms rolling in across Texas.

He considered, briefly, that he could masturbate. Ilya hadn’t expressly forbidden it, and Shane was an adult who was becoming increasingly turned on as the clock ticked slowly towards their meeting time. Don’t give people power over you they haven’t earned. That was what Ilya had said before. Shane could do whatever he wanted.

But.

Something prevented him all the same. He knew Ilya wouldn’t be upset if he got off. Refractory periods aside, Rozanov would probably be a bit smug about it. He’d like the idea that Shane couldn’t wait, that he was that excited. And in a way, he was. But Shane also was determined to make the most of his limited time with Ilya. So, he sat on his hands and listened to the light, instrumental music as he watched clouds roll in over San Antonio.

Time passed. Glacially, but it passed. And then there was a knock at the door.

Shane was on his feet in a second, and he barely got the door open before Ilya was slamming it behind himself and shoving Shane across the room and down onto the bed. Their mouths found each other in the chaos and dim light, and Ilya took Shane’s lower lip between his teeth, pulling back as far as he could stretch it, making Shane whine. It was a miracle he wasn’t bleeding. Well, a miracle or a tragedy.

“Did you wear them?” Ilya whispered, scraping his teeth along Shane’s jugular.

“Y-yeah.” The quiver in his voice was humiliating, but Shane had a feeling the humiliation had just begun.

Rozanov purred, kissing a trail down Shane’s chest and stopping at his waistband to peer up at him with dark, hungry eyes. “Is that so?” he rumbled as his thumb flicked open the button on Shane’s fly, slowly dragging his zipper down and working the jeans over Shane’s hips to expose the underwear. “Oh, Hollander,” Ilya breathed, his pupils dilating even more, “Such a good boy. So well behaved.”

In a scramble, they were face to face once more, Ilya kissing Shane like a man who’d been starved for weeks and could only find sustenance behind Shane’s teeth. One strong hand cupped Shane where he was getting hard in his panties and the other was braced on the headboard. Desperate for something to ground him, Shane grabbed onto Ilya’s shoulders, though the tables quickly turned when Rozanov grabbed both Shane’s wrists in one of his own and pinned them above Shane’s head.

“I couldn’t bring anything to tie you up with this time,” Ilya said mournfully. “Such a shame. You will just have to be extra good and keep your hands out of the way.” Shane shivered as soft lips dragged along his jawline. “But you will be perfect for me, won’t you?”

Shane felt like he’d been drugged, like someone had slipped something in his ginger ale at the club and it had just taken an hour to kick in. But he knew that wasn’t what had happened. That this was just Ilya.

“Yeah,” he said with a jerky nod. “Yes, Sir. I’ll be good.”

The grin Ilya gave him was lethal- a small silver knife slipped between two ribs and headed straight for Shane’s heart. Rozanov quickly set to work divesting Shane of all his carefully selected clothes, except of course for the lingerie, which he first kissed, then mouthed at, open and sloppy. By this point, Shane was rock hard, his cock straining against silk bounds. He wanted to grind against Ilya’s face, but that would have required a little more leverage than he could get with his hands on the headboard. So instead, he just whimpered, desperate and needy.

“So fucking pretty,” Ilya mused, still seemingly hypnotized by Shane’s groin for the way he was staring at it. Though he did reach up with one hand to paw at Shane’s chest, squeezing one pec meanly. “Should get you a bra to match next time. Something to hold your tits.”

A part of Shane wanted to object. A different part of Shane wanted to go find a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. He was having a very confusing night. He’d never expected to like this, when he opened the bag, so the fact that he enjoyed this at all was a bit shocking. But the way Ilya was looking at him now, that took things to an entirely different level. Shane closed his eyes for a moment, just trying to calm himself down so he didn’t have some kind of sexuality crisis in the middle of his one night with Ilya.

“Hey.”

His eyes flew open again as he looked down at Rozanov, who had an oddly stern look on his face.

“Listen to me,” Ilya said, sitting up and taking Shane’s jaw in a bruising grip, “I am not doing this to humiliate you. I am not doing this to treat you like a woman. You are a man. I like that about you. I am doing this because these-” He cupped Shane’s lace covered dick in his hand, “-are beautiful. And you are beautiful. Two nice things look nicer together, yes?” And then that grin was back. Sharp and toothy. “If you want me to humiliate you, or treat you like a woman, that is separate conversation. One thing at a time, Hollander.”

Maybe their brains were broken in the same way- too many tumbles onto hard ice. Maybe that was how Ilya could read his mind, could know exactly what Shane was thinking, the anxieties plaguing him at any given point in time. Maybe that was how Ilya always knew exactly what to say to wind Shane up or get him to relax, whichever suited his motivations better at the time.

Shane melted into the sheets, giving a small nod of understanding. “Yes, Sir.”

“Of course,” Ilya drawled as he hooked his fingers into the waistband of the panties, “There is one other reason I did this.” He nipped a kiss onto the inside of Shane’s thigh. “Because I love when you do what I tell you.”

I love it too, Shane thought wildly as he lifted his hips and watched Ilya pull his underwear away, bringing it to his nose for a hearty sniff.

“Gorgeous,” Ilya sighed, “But all good things must come to an end.” He set the bit of fabric aside on the duvet and stood, bending over Shane’s suitcase and returning with condoms and lube. “Last time I did not get to fuck you. But don’t worry. I will not make the same mistake again.”

Shane was still processing that sentence when his legs were shoved apart and a slick finger pressed against his hole.

“Tell me,” Ilya mused, “Does it feel different to take my cock when you are submitting? You will have to take notes. Compare.”

He made it sound like watching the game footage back afterwards to see if new equipment had impacted his play. And maybe it was like that. Maybe it would feel different to get fucked in this new context of whatever they were.

Shane took a deep breath, trying to brace himself for the second finger, but had been so long that he still gasped a little, and then when Ilya started poking around and found his prostate, Shane threw his head back and moaned, hands scrabbling at the wooden headboard.

“Shhh,” Ilya chided, “Boiziau is right next door, yes? You do not want him to hear.”

Normally, Shane would have been more reluctant about fucking like this with a teammate in the next room, but tonight he was too desperate, too keyed up to care. He pulled his lower lip between his teeth to try to hold his noises back, but it was difficult with the way Ilya seemed to be pulling out every trick he had. Almost like he didn’t care one bit if J.J. heard.

Ilya tutted, running his thumb over Shane’s lip and pulling it free. “Poor thing. Don’t worry. I have an idea.”

Really, Shane should have seen it coming, but instead he just stared blankly as Ilya picked up the panties once more, smirking like the handsome devil he was. He just blinked, and Ilya rolled his eyes, holding the underwear up in front of Shane’s face.

“Open,” he ordered.

And Shane did. And then he had a mouthful of lace muffling every sound he made. He could smell himself. Taste himself. His eyes went wide, and his cock dribbled just a little bit.

“Perfect. Snap your fingers twice for yellow and three times for red.” And Ilya slipped a third finger in while taking Shane’s cock in his mouth.

The panties weren’t really made to be a gag, but they did enough to suppress the sounds of Shane’s moans that J.J. probably wouldn’t be too suspicious. But Shane was fairly certain that the noise was the least of Ilya’s concerns. That it was more about making Shane feel as indecent as possible. Maybe not quite degraded, but put in his place. Reminded of what he’d agreed to. And it worked. And Shane loved it.

He loved it perhaps a little too much, because within two minutes he was thrashing desperately, knowing he was on the verge of an orgasm but not wanting it to end like this. He could have easily shoved Ilya away, or even snapped his fingers like he’d been told, but Shane was determined to be good, his hands resolutely above his head.

Luckily, Ilya seemed to get the message, removing his fingers and pulling off Shane’s cock with a wet pop. He wiped his mouth with the back of his clean hand, still wearing that sharky grin.

“Getting impatient, are we?” he asked as he freed his dick, rolled on the condom, and drizzled more lube on his fingers, slicking himself up, “It’s alright. Me too.”

He pressed into Shane’s body, a steady, unrelenting force, and though they’d done this part before, it felt different now. Shane was completely at Ilya’s mercy, at least in his own mind, and it felt divine. He groaned into his makeshift gag as his legs wrapped around Ilya’s waist, pulling him closer the only way possible. When Ilya finally bottomed out, they both took a second to catch their breaths, Ilya braced over Shane on his hands, their faces only inches apart.

“You still good?” Ilya whispered, dragging his nose over Shane’s cheek. “Snap once for yes, twice for no.”

Shane snapped once. He didn’t even have to think about it. His cock ached where it was trapped between them and he was certain he looked ridiculous, but he wouldn’t have changed anything about this moment for all the money in the world.

“So good,” Ilya growled, giving his hips one quick, dirty, testing thrust. Shane moaned, so Ilya did it again. “Yeah? You like that? Like it rough?”

Yes, apparently.

It took a moment of calibration, but in the end Ilya set a brutal pace, fucking into Shane like the Stanley Cup was on the line. His hands gripped Shane’s hips so hard there might be bruises, and Shane probably should have been worried about what that would look like if the guys saw them in the shower, but he didn’t care one bit. He just wanted this to keep going forever.

But even Ilya Rozanov had his limits. Shane could tell he was getting close by the way he threw his head back, the line of his throat pointed straight up at the ceiling. Ilya also wrapped a hand around Shane’s cock and started offering messy strokes, probably to try to get them off at the same time. But Shane had been teetering on the edge for so long, it took maybe ten seconds of contact before he was spilling all over Ilya’s hand and clenching his whole body around Ilya’s cock, moaning into the panties like he was being paid to do it. Thirty seconds later, Ilya was following him, coming with a low groan as he ground his hips against Shane’s ass.

“Holy shit, Hollander,” Ilya panted, reaching up to grab the panties and pull them from Shane’s mouth, casting them aside specifically so he could press their lips together, feverish and needy, “God, such a fucking good boy.”

Shane might as well have been glowing. He felt lit from within by a warm, content satisfaction, like when he’d barely eked out a win during a particularly challenging game. It was like he’d scored the goal they desperately needed right before the buzzer. It didn’t really make any sense. He’d just been lying on his back, taking whatever Ilya gave him, but it still felt like victory.

Eventually, they did have to separate. Ilya gently guided Shane’s arms down, massaging them to make sure nothing was strained. He pulled out and cleaned them both up, but then Rozanov just sat on the end of the bed, staring at Shane like he didn’t know what he was supposed to do next.

“We both have team meetings in the morning,” Ilya said.

“Yeah,” Shane agreed. He rolled a loose thread on the sheets between his fingers, not meeting Ilya’s eyes.

Last time, Shane had been on the verge of a breakdown, so Ilya had stayed. But tonight they’d both enjoyed themselves. There was no puddle of Hollander to mop up. Just that strange heaviness to the air, a tightness in Shane’s chest that wouldn’t go away.

“I think-” Ilya began, then stopped himself. Shane stared at him, waiting for the sentence to finish itself. “The blogs said I should watch you for a little bit. To make sure you do not get weepy like last time.”

Shane bristled, “I did not get weepy.”

“No, no,” Ilya said, waving a dismissive hand, his brow pinched. “Wrong word. I forget the one they used.”

Relaxing a little, Shane sighed. “Subdrop.” He’d spent a good couple hours reading about it after he’d stumbled across the phrase a few weeks ago. He’d thought of Vegas. Of vodka and empty elevators and cold sheets.

“Yes. That.” Ilya nodded, climbing onto the bed and lying down beside Shane, looking at him across the chaste six inches of mattress that separated them.

Shane rolled onto his side, studying Ilya’s expression, but it was unreadable. “There’s domdrop too, you know.”

“Maybe. But I will not get that.” Always so sure of himself.

“How do you know?”

Rozanov looked almost offended. “I’m fine. I was not the one bent in half with underwear in my mouth.”

They both fell silent after that, Shane hating the way he could feel his cheeks heating, shame creeping up his spine. After a beat, Ilya sighed, reaching out to brush a strand of hair off Shane’s brow.

“You did a good job. You did everything I asked. Perfect.” Despite himself, Shane relaxed a little at the praise, closing his eyes to focus on the feeling of Ilya carding fingers through his hair. “What do you need to feel safe?” Ilya asked in a whisper.

It was a little easier not having to look at him, Shane decided. He rolled over, putting his back to Rozanov so he could open his eyes and stare at the wall.

“Last time, you… you…” He felt stupid for not being able to say it, but it also felt ridiculous to actually speak the words you held me and it made everything feel alright.

Somehow, Ilya understood. He threw an arm over Shane’s waist, pulling them close together and brushing his nose along the base of Shane’s skull. “Like this?”

“Yeah.” Shane swallowed hard and nodded. “Like that.”

He was still naked, but it was too late to do anything about that. Too late to stop himself from feeling horribly vulnerable, when his limbs were already irrevocably tangled with those of his arch rival.

Chapter Text

For someone who literally played a game as his full time job, Ilya couldn’t remember the last time he’d had this much fun. Toying with Shane Hollander was a sport all its own, and Ilya Rozanov was the best in the world. They should give him a gold medal, honestly. He could show it off to his family and maybe then they’d finally be proud, as long as nobody told them what it was for. “Excellence In Sadistic Sodomy” could just be written on the back.

It was just such a joy that, whenever Ilya got bored, he could simply text Shane something like “Metal handcuffs or leather?” and get a good hour’s entertainment out of it, if not more. Ilya spent the better part of the 2016 playoffs he wasn’t in searching for a maid outfit that might fit Shane. He’d been exceedingly polite and not sent the shop link until the cup was safely in Shane’s hands. Shane had protested, of course, but he tended to come around on things like this after about a month of sitting on it. They’d be talking shit about Seattle’s defense this year and suddenly Hollander would say “Do you still have that link?”

He was transparent. Easier to read than a children’s book.

But that was half the fun: the game of push and pull, the chase. If everything was easy, Ilya was certain he wouldn’t be enjoying himself this much. If he and Shane just met at a club and went on a date in public, that would be boring. But the sneaking around, the mind games, that was what kept Ilya coming back. At least, that was the only explanation he could come up with for why he was so addicted. Why he was constantly looking forward to his next hit.

Ilya didn’t get a chance to see Shane after he won the cup for the second year in a row. They wouldn’t be in the same room again until the MLH awards in June, and then they’d spend a whole summer apart before the season started up again. Ilya would go back to Russia. Shane would go to his stupid Canadian wilderness retreat. Boring.

But what was that thing people said? Something about boredom fostering creativity. Like a caveman making a game out of rocks and sticks, Ilya Rozanov had a stroke of genius while he was packing for Las Vegas. He spent more of the flight there than he would like to admit smugly smirking to himself, trying to think of just the way he wanted to implement it. There was a chance Shane would refuse, of course, but there was a certain beauty to that as well. Ilya would be greatly interested to see the kink that would finally make Shane Hollander snap.

They weren’t presenting any awards this year, which was a shame, but at the afterparty, Ilya got his chance. He sidled up to Shane with a Coke in one hand and a ginger ale in the other. A peace offering. Plus it seemed important that they both be sober tonight, if it was going to go the way Ilya had planned.

He held out the glass of ginger ale in wordless offering, and Shane raised a brow but accepted it once he’d glanced around to make sure no one was watching too closely. Always so worried.

“You had good season,” Ilya said, sipping his drink.

Shane’s brown got that cute little furrow in it that Ilya sort of wanted to kiss. “I led my team to the cup.”

“Yeah, I think that counts as good.”

“It’s great.”

“Okay, so,” Ilya shrugged, “Great season. Congratulations.”

It was obvious that Shane was suspicious, which of course was half of why Ilya was doing it like this. “Thanks,” he said, looking into his glass like there might be a bug floating in it.

“You will not win three years in a row.” He had to say something at least a little snide or Hollander would think he’d had his brain swapped out.

It worked. Shane smiled a little, shaking his head. “Just wait and see. We’re going to be even better next year.”

Ilya hummed, taking a sip of his Coke. “You have fancy summer training regimen, I bet.”

“I’m not telling you.”

“Afraid I will copy it?”

Shane laughed, actually laughed, his eyes glinting in the dim ballroom lighting. It was a good sound. “Well, whatever the Raiders are doing clearly isn’t working.”

“Maybe you could learn something from me,” Ilya said, a little amazed he’d managed to steer the conversation so perfectly, “Maybe there is a thing or two I could teach Shane Hollander about discipline.”

The innuendo got exactly the reaction he’d been hoping for: just the slightest shiver through Shane’s whole body, the faintest hint of a flush spreading under his freckles. God, he was easy. Just as naturally as Shane allowed his body to be manhandled in the bedroom, he allowed Ilya to push his mind this way and that, like a cat batting around a mouse. A dearly beloved mouse, but a mouse all the same.

He watched Shane flounder for a moment, his jaw flapping as he tried to conjure a witty retort that wouldn’t give everything away. Adorably hopeless. Ilya took mercy on him when it got too sad.

“1286,” he murmured, a smile playing on his lips as he sipped his Coke and turned to leave.

Ilya didn’t stay to see Shane’s reaction or get confirmation, but he didn’t need to. Of course Shane would show up. They were both too desperate for this messy, raw thing they’d built together. That much was clear. The wait wasn’t even that long. Ilya had barely gotten his tie off back in his room before he heard the knocking.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Shane spat as soon as he was inside. “Talking like that in the middle of a party?”

“No one was listening,” Ilya said as he shrugged off his suit jacket, “Besides, we were just talking about training, right? Normal topic for two hockey players.”

Either the logic was starting to win Shane over, or he was just as horny as Ilya was and he was tired of arguing when they could have been kissing. Regardless, the line of Shane’s shoulders relaxed, and he took a few steps towards Ilya, grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him closer. “You’re fucking impossible,” he grumbled, their lips an inch apart.

“Yes, but you like it,” Ilya pointed out, swiping his thumb over Shane’s bottom lip. “You’re Mr. Organized on the surface, Mr. Perfect, but deep down you like when I make things messy. When I ruin you.”

Shane couldn’t have denied it if he tried, not with the way his eyes went wide and dark and he pressed his mouth against Ilya’s like there was only one breath of air left in the world and they were going to share it. Ilya allowed it, just for a while. His plan would work even better if he got Shane nice and worked up first.

Either that, or he’d get punched in the face. Hard to predict with 100% certainty. Shane could be surprising at times.

Ilya pushed at Shane’s shoulders, getting him up against a wall in a way that probably would have made a more normal person feel trapped, but just made Shane moan. He reached down, palming Shane’s cock through his trousers, pressing just so he could feel hardness bloom under his touch.

“Do you want to play a game with me, Shane Hollander?” Ilya whispered into the shell of his ear.

Immediately, Shane was suspicious, which was a good reminder for Ilya that Hollander wasn’t as naive as some people liked to think. He frowned even as he rocked his hips against Ilya’s hand. “What kind of game?”

“One where we both get to come at the end.”

And that was when he had Shane’s full attention. “Okay. How do we play?” Bless his competitive, Canadian spirit.

Ilya couldn’t help but grin. “Is very simple. Until I see you again, you can touch this-” He gave Shane’s cock a hearty squeeze and got a whine back. “-as much as you want, but you cannot come. And when you do touch it, you will text me and tell me all about whether you won or lost our little game. And if you are good, then when I see you again you get to come your brains out.”

For a second, Shane just blinked and stared. Then he shoved Ilya backwards with a palm to his chest. “Fuck off! We won’t see each other until-”

“October,” Ilya supplied, “Yes. Five months.”

“You’re insane.”

“It’s a chastity kink, is very common. Lots of non-crazy people have it.”

This was the part where Ilya would get hit, surely. Shane would storm out and they’d never talk again and Ilya would have ruined the thing he looks forward to most in life, which was pretty much par for the course.

But Shane just kept staring at him, his chest rising and falling a little more heavily than with his regular breathing. “What happens if I fail?” he whispered.

Ilya had to bite his cheek to keep from beaming like a child who’d been told he could have ice cream for dinner. “Then I will punish you when we see each other again. Very simple.”

Was that a flicker of interest in Shane’s eyes? Did he want to be punished? Hmm. Something to be filed away for later. Or maybe he’d blow the game on day one just to see what Ilya would do. Either way, this was going to be a lot of fun.

“Do I have to wear one of those… cage things?” Shane asked, still not saying no, which meant he was going to say yes sooner or later.

“No,” Ilya sighed mournfully, “I googled and could be dangerous to have you do that for the first time for so long. Also probably not safe to play hockey, even under your cup.”

Shane looked almost disappointed. For someone with the fashion sense of a turnip, Shane Hollander sure loved a kinky accessory. “And what will you be doing? While I’m… resisting?”

This time, Ilya allowed himself a toothy smile. “Me? Probably masturbating every day in lovely Russia. I am not slutty sub who gets off on being controlled. Is different for me.”

An indignant pink spread across Shane’s cheeks as he crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at Ilya. “I’m not-”

“Slutty? A sub? Getting off on this? All three are true.”

Shane must have found it hard to argue, because his teeth clacked as his jaw shut. He glowered for a few more moments, but Ilya knew he was close to giving in. Stepping closer again, Ilya brushed his lips along Shane’s jaw.

“I will make it worth it,” Ilya whispered, “You might get punished, yes. Or you might get nice reward. I am fair. I know…” He pulled back a bit, frowning, “I know I am asking you to do something difficult. But difficult things can be fun, yes?”

Hollander didn’t answer right away, which was probably for the best. It was good for him to think about this before agreeing to five months of torture.

“What about tonight?” Shane whispered, his throat bobbing sinuously.

“If we do this, it starts now. You can’t come tonight, or at all, not until October.”

The next exhale from Shane’s lips was shuddering and thin. “Okay,” he whispered. “Yeah. Okay.”

Ilya felt lit from within by a roaring fire. He attacked Shane’s lips, claiming them in a wild kiss. “God, so fucking hot,” he growled. “So fucking good for me, Hollander.”

Shane whined into Ilya’s mouth, rocking against his hand. “I hate you,” he whimpered, and Ilya didn’t believe it for one second.

“Going to be so worth it.”

Shane sighed, pushing Ilya back again and dropping to his knees as his hands set to work on Ilya’s belt. “Stop talking.”

And as much as Shane Hollander found it impossible to say no to Ilya Rozanov, the river flowed in both directions.

Coming back to Boston was always a relief, probably always would be. But Ilya’s summer in Russia hadn’t been too terrible, not when he had a text from Shane every so often talking about how he’d just edged himself, or else dithering on about some hockey statistic or another. Ilya was a man of simple pleasures. So what if he enjoyed watching Hollander squirm just as much as he enjoyed the casual connection? Usually, in Russia, he only had Svetlana, but this was one more person to talk to who didn’t make Ilya feel like a sponge being wrung dry. It was nice.

But even the most tolerable Russian summer was overshadowed by a return to the ice. By a chance to play against Hollander.

Montreal played Boston on their home turf first, and Ilya had never been more delighted to go through customs in his life. Even his teammates seemed to notice how eager Ilya was to get to Montreal, though he brushed them off with comments about how excited he was to destroy Hollander. If only they knew. Marleau said something snide about “Jane from Montreal”, but Ilya couldn’t even begin to care. This was his night.

He sent Shane a good luck text before stepping onto the ice, but didn’t hear back. That wasn’t unusual, especially given how worked up Hollander probably was. The first time they spoke that day was at the face off.

“Good to see you again,” Ilya said brightly as he bent over center ice.

“Been a while,” Shane agreed.

He looked good. Not completely distraught with arousal, but instead slightly ruddy from warm up, a soft smile playing on his lips, like he was vaguely amused by this whole experience and not about to play a game of hockey against his arch rival. One of these days, they were sure to get caught. Some referee would go to the tabloids with a story about how Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander look at each other before face off, and it would all be over, but it would be worth it for this.

“Ready to be beat?” Ilya teased, tilting his head to either side in a casual stretch.

Shane was trying to hide his grin and he was bad at it. “You talk a big game, Rozanov. Not sure you can back it up.”

A riptide roared in Ilya’s chest, dragging his heart off to the depths of an unknown ocean. “Oh, I always keep my word.”

If they checked each other more than usual that night, no one commented on it, other than to mourn the penalty Ilya received for driving Shane straight into the boards when it might not have been entirely necessary.

It was a self indulgence on Ilya’s part. He’d been planning the evening ahead of them when he realized for the first time that he couldn’t leave any marks on Shane. They’d always been careful about hickeys and things like that, worried about teammates asking questions, but Ilya had been about to add a riding crop to his online shopping cart when he’d realized Shane would have no way to explain the welts to the other players who would probably see them in the shower.

Their bodies didn’t belong to them, not really. They belonged to Major League Hockey. To the Metros and the Raiders. Ilya could tease all he wanted about owning Shane Hollander’s ass, but it would never be true. The only bruises Ilya could give him were from things like an elbow to the ribs, not lips on a collarbone or teeth on an inner thigh. Every collision had to be filmed from four angles, had to be broadcast in a top ten segment on ESPN. The ways they touched each other in private could never leave lasting marks.

Ilya blamed his slightly morose mood afterwards on the loss, rather than the rumination that had taken over his thoughts somewhere around intermission. But there was no way to be sad as he stepped out of his Uber and looked up at the building Shane had bought specifically so they could have sex. The league could take some things from them, but not this.

The smug grin on Shane’s face as he opened the door would have been annoying if it weren’t so cute. “Rough day?” Hollander quipped, in a sassy mood apparently.

“Rough summer?” Ilya cut back, showing all his teeth and reveling in the way Shane immediately looked at the wall, his face heating.

Hollander took a moment to swallow before waving Ilya inside. They walked up the stairs in silence, a burning tension radiating off of Shane. Ilya delighted in it. They stopped in the kitchen, Shane staring at him with those brown eyes like coals in a firepit, smoldering and hot.

“You said you’d beat me tonight,” Shane whispered, as if someone might overhear. Or maybe more like he was slightly afraid of his own words.

“I did.”

“But you lost.”

Ilya had to laugh. “Funny. Lots of English words mean more than one thing. I keep my promises, Shane Hollander. Do you keep yours?”

It was the same conversation they’d had on the ice, just more open, more starved for everything they’d both been denying themselves of for five months.

“Yes,” Shane said. “Yes, I keep my word.”

They went stumbling to the bedroom after that, mouths pressed together with biting tooth and searching tongue, hands scrabbling to strip each other bare. Separating long enough to tear off shirts was the greatest tragedy in the world to Ilya. Worse than losing to the Metros. And the coming back together, that was better than winning.

When he’d had his fill of the kissing, Ilya shoved Shane onto the bed, just so he could see that wide, lusty look in those dark eyes. Shane was panting openly as he laid back against the pillows, watching Ilya clamber onto the mattress and pin Hollander with his full body.

“So fucking pretty,” Ilya growled, nipping at Shane’s ear and getting a whimper in return before sitting up a bit so he could take Hollander’s perfect jaw in hand and force their eyes to meet. “I need you to listen carefully. And ask questions if I am not making myself clear.” Ilya had been practicing this speech in his head for days and had pulled up multiple dictionaries to make sure he wasn’t going to say the wrong thing.

“Tonight, you are mine. I am nice to the things that are mine, usually, but you like it when I am mean. So this will be a treat for both of us.” Ilya couldn’t help but give Shane’s face a cruel little shake. “I am going to hit you with this hand.” He displayed his right palm for Shane’s inspection and got the honor of watching already dark eyes dilate even more. “Mostly on your ass and thighs. But since you beat me tonight, I am also thinking I would like to slap you in the face at least once. Listen to me, Hollander: I will only do this with your consent. At any point, you can change your mind. You can say yellow or red and I will stop. But if I do not hear those words, I will keep going as long as I am having fun. This is not a punishment. This is not bag skates. This me knowing we are both the type of whores who will enjoy this, yes?”

Shane just blinked up at him, already glassy-eyed and practically drooling.

“Hollander, I need you to speak. I need to know if you understand.”

“Yeah,” Shane croaked, his voice wrecked like he’d already been throat fucked for an hour. “Yeah, I- Green. It all sounds good, green.”

“Good boy,” Ilya purred, peppering kisses along any skin he could reach- face, neck, shoulders, chest.

When he sat up again, Ilya could feel Shane’s cock pressing against his ass, which would have been amusing if Ilya weren’t also already desperately hard. But he forced himself to slow down, to study Hollander’s face. They’d both become more chiseled with time, the soft roundness of their teens melting away over the years, replaced with sharp angles. The man beneath Ilya now was just that- a man. A man who was watching Ilya’s every move, licking his lips like a dog observing as his master prepared a meal he might get to taste a scrap of if he behaved.

The first one was fast- Ilya wanted the element of surprise on his side. He quickly lifted his right hand and slapped Shane’s face with an audible crack.

Immediately after, horror gripped Ilya’s heart. What if he’d miscalculated all of this? What if he hadn’t explained himself well enough? What if he didn’t know his own strength, like that time he accidentally checked a rookie from Columbus too hard and broke his arm? What if he knew exactly how strong he was, like the time Grigori Rozanov had grabbed Irina by the hair and dragged her across the kitchen while Alexi watched and Ilya covered his eyes?

He might have spiraled like that forever, down, down, down, maybe until he reached whatever rock bottom his mother had found and made a home of, except Shane was squirming under him. Moaning, eyes shut. Saying, “Fucking green.”

And that sound, Shane’s enjoyment, was like a clean rain washing over Ilya’s body, carrying away all the doubt and fear and shame and guilt. Well. Most of it. He still felt slightly off-kilter as he kissed the cheek he’d struck, trailing the tip of his nose along hot pink skin.

“You liked that?” Ilya whispered.

“Yes,” Shane groaned. “Please. More.”

It took a few seconds for Ilya to recenter. He’d never had that happen before, the twisting in his gut as he did something both he and his partner wanted. It didn’t even make sense. He was nothing like his father, as everyone in his family constantly liked to remind him and as Svetlana had said on more than one occasion. This was different. This was consensual. This was supposed to be fun.

Ilya’s time with Shane was scarce and sacred. An escape from the rest of the world, from the expectations that stifled them both. Every second spent thinking about Grigori in Shane’s presence was a second wasted, time that could have been spent drawing noises of ecstatic pleasure out of hockey’s favorite golden boy. Ilya needed to focus. He needed to get back to the plan.

For the first time, they could be as loud as they wanted while trying this new thing. There were no teammates the next room over, not even nosy neighbors who might overhear something and call TMZ. Just Ilya and Shane. Shane and Ilya. It would be a shame not to take full advantage of their current situation.

“Move,” Ilya ordered, repositioning them until he was the one with his back to the pillows and Shane was draped over his lap, cock trapped against Ilya’s thigh and already blushing so prettily. “So,” Ilya drawled, trailing light, teasing touches along the curves of Shane’s ass, “I never asked, officially. Were you good for me, Hollander? Did you come while we were apart?” Shane squirmed a little and Ilya dug his nails into pale flesh as a warning. “Answer the question.”

“Yes,” Shane gasped, clutching desperately at the duvet. “Yes, I was good for you. No, I didn’t come. I saved it for you.”

He’d known, of course. Ilya hadn’t ever really doubted that Hollander would do exactly what he was told, not when perfection was an option. But still, the confirmation did things to Ilya. Shane doing everything exactly the way he was supposed to was one thing. Shane resisting his every urge for five months because Ilya told him to? That was something else entirely.

Ilya growled, scraping his blunt nails down Shane’s back just to watch him arch and writhe. “Good fucking boy. I promised you a reward, didn’t I?” He bent down to breathe in Hollander’s ear. “You can have whatever you want tonight. I’ll do anything. But I think we both know what you’re going to ask for.”

“Please,” Shane whined, burying his face in the comforter.

“Please what?” Ilya’s fingertip traced the line where Shane’s ass met his thighs. “Please stop touching you? Please leave? Please go home to Boston and never come back?”

The one tragedy of this position was that Ilya couldn’t see Shane’s face very well, couldn’t watch him turn scarlet in shame. “Please,” Shane gritted out, “Spank me.”

“Fuck. So perfect.” Ilya continued to pet Shane’s hair and back, offering soothing hushing noises. “It’s alright. I will take care of you. I know exactly what you need.”

Maybe he could have kept feeling like a degenerate if Shane weren’t just as obviously eager for this as Ilya was. They had that same fatal flaw, a desire to play out a power struggle so real, so intense, that it reached down to the most base impulses a human could have.

They got off on it, both of them.

It was that thought that comforted Ilya as he lifted his hand in the air and brought it down firmly on Shane’s ass. Hollander moaned like he was getting his dick sucked, when instead it was trapped against Ilya’s lap, twitching pathetically. Ilya allowed himself another few quick swats- not at full power, just experimenting with location and speed to find something that seemed to elicit the best response. But really, it seemed like there was nothing Shane didn’t like, judging by the sounds he was making.

“You sound like a slut,” Ilya said as he kneaded at Shane’s rear end, keeping the blood flowing, “I knew you would get wet from this, but I did not think you would sound so much like I bought a night with you. You promise you are not putting on an act for me?”

Shane shook his head, whimpering.

“Say it,” Ilya ordered, “Tell me you like it.”

“I love it,” Shane whimpered, grinding his hips down against Ilya’s legs. “Please, more. Again.”

“You asked for it,” Ilya said on a sigh, giving one last squeeze, “Use your colors if you need to.”

“Just fucking do it!”

Shane whiny and needy was fun, but Shane desperate and impatient was a treat.

Ilya wasted no time, he brought his hand down hard and fast, building up a beautiful ruddy color on Shane’s skin. And oh, the sounds Hollander made. Wanton little keens and gasps, but never his safewords. Never any indication that he was doing anything less than thoroughly enjoying himself. So Ilya kept going. He worked over Shane’s entire backside, making it all one uniform shade of red as Hollander’s cries of pain and pleasure got louder and louder. One of them had to give up first, and Ilya was a little worried Shane would push past his limits just to prove a point. Ilya kept going until his arm got tired, and then he stopped suddenly, the sounds of his panted breaths mixing with Shane’s.

“Good boy,” Ilya rumbled, brushing a touch along Shane’s tender skin and grinning when he gasped, “So pretty. Love looking at you like this.”

“Fuck,” Hollander sobbed, the word hitching in his throat.

“Too much?” Ilya asked, rubbing Shane’s back in soothing circles.

“No, not at all. It’s perfect.” He sounded completely wrung dry, and he hadn’t even come yet. Neither of them had. But both their cocks were achingly hard.

“Here,” Ilya said, taking pity and bending his leg a bit to give Shane a better angle. “Get off like this. Take what you need.”

Hollander didn’t need to be told twice. He immediately started humping Ilya’s like a pathetic animal, and he looked divine. The only thing missing was a nice leather collar around his throat, one with a tag so everyone in the world would know who he belonged to, at least in the bedroom. At least in small glimpses every few months, when schedules aligned.

It was a silly fantasy, one Ilya would keep to himself, but it wasn’t hurting anyone inside his brain.

Ilya got to watch, drool practically falling from his mouth, as Shane’s pink ass bounced up and down a few more times until he came with a shout and fell limp against Ilya’s lap, his whole body completely drained.

“You’re amazing,” Ilya murmured as he gently shifted Shane, cleaning him up as best as possible with tissues from the bedside table and guiding him to lie on his stomach. “Did so good. Perfect little toy.”

After raining a few kisses down on Shane’s back and shoulders, Ilya ducked briefly into the bathroom to grab a warm washcloth and a bottle of Hollander’s stupid, expensive moisturizer. He carefully wiped Shane’s body clean and did his best to remedy the mess on his leg and the duvet. Then he poured a bit of the lotion into his hand and gently rubbed it into the tender skin of Shane’s ass. Hollander hissed at the pressure, whining a little.

“I’m sorry,” Ilya murmured, kissing the small of Shane’s back, “Just want to make sure it heals right.”

Hollander mumbled something into the pillow that Ilya couldn’t quite hear.

“What? Are you okay?” he asked, lying down beside Shane and running his fingers through dark hair.

“You didn’t come,” Shane said a little louder, his eyes still closed.

He was right. Between his legs, Ilya was still hard, though his erection had flagged slightly during the aftercare ritual. And while Ilya Rozanov was a kind and considerate lover, he didn’t typically walk away from sexual encounters without an orgasm. In fact, he could maybe be accused of caring about his own climax more than anyone else’s.

But tonight, Ilya didn’t care.

He shrugged. “I will make you suck me off in shower later,” he said. “Or I could jerk off over your perfect ass. So many options. Nothing to worry about.”

Shane rolled his head out of the pillow a little more, his dark brown eyes peering up at Ilya. And in that moment, it felt like Hollander could see right through him. Like maybe all the little lies that Ilya was trying to tell Shane and himself were laid bare under that keen gaze. There was no more hiding, at least in those few seconds.

And then it was over. Shane closed his eyes and hummed as he melted into the mattress once more, and Ilya took a full breath for the first time in who knew how long.

“Okay,” Hollander muttered.

Ilya kept taking care of him. It felt more natural than breathing, holding Shane, petting his hair, kissing his temples. When they both had a little more energy, Ilya led them into the shower and took his dear, sweet time, washing Shane like it was a holy ritual. His cross sat heavy around his neck as he knelt on the shower floor and washed the fine bones of Shane’s feet. His heart felt like it was going to burst as Shane bent his head so Ilya could wash his hair with shampoo that smelled like the Atlantic Ocean.

Oh no. Oh no.

It was almost a relief when Shane pressed their mouths together and backed Ilya against the tile wall, wrapping a hand around Ilya’s cock and stroking him as they kissed. Sex was easy. Sex was simple. Input and output. But whatever was happening in Ilya’s heart was complicated and messy and possibly deadly.

Ilya might literally die from this.

But god, he wanted it anyway.

Chapter Text

Shane would have never thought there would be a day when he looked forward to games in Boston. The crowds were brutal, the Raiders were worse, and there was always just that extra layer of pressure. That background knowledge that this game mattered a tiny bit more than the rest.

But now, games in Boston meant seeing Ilya. Meant an evening of escape from being Captain Hollander. A few hours in which he could just be a thing. A toy for Ilya Rozanov’s amusement. Shane could just trust that Ilya would choose what they did and it always felt good.

So, when Ilya texted, suggesting that they meet before the game instead of just after, Shane hesitated less than he probably should have. The smart thing to do would have been to refuse, to insist they focus on the game. After last time, Shane’s ass had been tender for a full day. It was stupid to agree to this knowing it might affect his play in more than one way, that it almost certainly would.

But Shane went. He went and he didn’t even really think about it that long.

Ilya’s house was tucked in the woods a little bit outside of Boston proper. There was something about it that was both strange and perfect. There was a time when Shane would have pictured Ilya at some penthouse in the heart of downtown, where he could be within walking distance of bars and clubs and fancy boutiques. But this made more sense, he knew now. A little spot with everything Ilya could want, but far enough away from the hubbub that no one would bother him. Private. Because as much as Ilya was an extrovert who loved to chat and chirp and cause chaos, Shane was starting to realize how much Rozanov savored the quiet moments.

When he answered the door, Ilya was shirtless, sweatpants slung low on his hips. He didn’t even care about the implications, because there was no one around to see them, no one to peer through the windows and see the way Rozanov almost immediately lifted Shane up onto the kitchen island and kissed him senseless. There were no spectators to this game, the way they nipped and bit at one another’s lips. No Boston fans cheered at the way Ilya grabbed Shane by both wrists, pinning them behind his back. Shane cheered though, in his mind.

He’d worried a little, after last time. They’d both been feeling out how much aftercare was necessary, but last month at Shane’s ‘sex condo’ in Montreal, Ilya had seemed to go a little overboard. There was something about the look in his eyes as they’d showered that seemed… remorseful. Like he was apologizing for everything they’d done. The last thing Shane needed was an apology, when he’d come harder that night than he ever had in his entire life. But if Ilya was starting to regret what they were doing, maybe that meant it would change, or even come to an end.

Given the way Ilya was acting now though, he was still very much in a dominant mindset. One hand still holding Shane’s wrists, the other grabbed a handful of his hair, wrenching Shane’s head backwards and exposing his throat so Rozanov could kiss his Adam’s apple.

“I am glad you came,” he murmured against Shane’s skin, “I bought a few things for us to play with.”

Shane’s breath hitched against his will. Up until now, most of their scenes had been simple, in a way. No complicated equipment or toys. Just Ilya’s hands, mainly. It made sense. They’d been meeting in hotel rooms or flying internationally. Ilya could hardly have packed a riding crop in his carry-on. How would he have explained that? The panties were enough of a risk. But this afternoon they were in Ilya’s home, where anything could happen.

“Yeah?” Shane whispered, struggling weakly against Ilya’s hands, just because he liked the way it felt when Rozanov tightened his grip in response. “What did you get?”

“Mmm. You will have to come see.” Ilya released Shane and took a few steps away from him, that mischievous grin making him look especially boyish and charming. “I would not want to ruin the surprise.”

He wandered off then, leaving Shane scrambling to scoot off the counter and follow, kicking off his shoes as he went and doubling back to place them by the door like a responsible house guest. When he arrived in what turned out to be Ilya’s bedroom, Shane stopped in his tracks, gobsmacked. First, by the beautiful wall of windows letting sunlight stream in, and then by the array of items laid out on the bedspread.

The largest was a metal rod with cuffs at either end, which Shane was fairly certain was called a spreader bar. There was another set of matching wrist cuffs beside it. But the thing that drew Shane’s eyes the most was a heavy looking wooden paddle. It was carved from a single piece of rich, dark wood, and had a series of holes drilled through it in a geometric pattern. It looked significantly more expensive and official than the cheaply made bamboo option Shane had been eyeing online. This paddle was richly polished, and something about it seemed almost… custom.

“We don’t have to use any of it.”

Shane’s head jerked to the side as he actually looked at Rozanov for the first time. He was standing beside the bed, hands awkwardly clasped in front of his body like a child’s attempt at presenting for military inspection. Shane had never seen the man looking so nervous, so unsure of himself. There was a wrongness to it. Ilya Rozanov was born to radiate confidence, to glow from within with a golden light. Fear had dimmed that luminosity, and it made Shane’s gut roil.

“No,” he said, stepping into Ilya’s space and looping both arms around his waist, “It’s perfect. All of it.”

Instantly, Rozanov relaxed, melting against Shane’s body as a smile spread across his face. “Yeah? You like it?”

“I like it,” Shane whispered, kissing Ilya like they had all the time in the world, because they did.

There was no rush, no real urgency to it, just a leisurely meeting of two bodies who slotted together perfectly. Ilya’s hands wandered, grabbing at Shane’s hair, his ass, his biceps. Like he just couldn’t get enough touching in. Like he might never get another chance. Shane found himself holding Rozanov’s face, murmuring soft nonsense to try to calm him. You’d have thought they’d been apart for a year and not just a few weeks.

“Hey,” Shane said, pulling back a little, “You okay?”

“Mmm, fine,” Ilya rumbled, slipping his hands under Shane’s shirt and scratching along his back, “Just impatient. Want to take you apart and put you back together. Slowly.”

Shane smiled. “Alright. Then do it.”

In under a second, Shane was getting stripped bare, his clothes flying off under Ilya’s urgent hands. Shane couldn’t remember ever feeling so desperately wanted in his entire life. Not during the draft, not even with a home crowd of thousands cheering his name. Rozanov wanted him more than all of that, and the feeling was fucking mutual.

Once Shane was naked, Ilya grabbed the spreader bar and kicked his legs apart, making Shane stumble and clutch at Ilya’s shoulders for balance. Rozanov laughed and kissed him. This was a game as much as the hockey, but Shane always let Ilya win. They both liked it better that way. They could stop fighting for their lives and just walk into an encounter knowing the outcome.

The spreader bar made it hard to walk in a way that probably should have been humiliating, but instead Shane just found it desperately hot that Ilya had to help him waddle over to the bed before bending Shane at the waist, letting him rest his chest against the mattress, ass on full display. Ilya grabbed the cuffs next, fastening Shane’s wrists together in the small of his back, so he had no way to push himself up from his predicament. He was completely at Ilya’s mercy.

“What do you say if you want it to stop?” Rozanov whispered as he checked each bond, making sure they weren’t too tight or too loose.

“Yellow for a check-in, red to stop everything,” Shane murmured, cheek mashed against linen. “It’s fine. I want it.”

“I know you do,” Ilya said, the grin in his voice audible despite the fact that Shane couldn’t see his face. “So desperate to be treated the way you deserve, yes? And me, so desperate to mistreat a pretty boy. Perfect pair we make.”

Something about the words itched at the inside of Shane’s chest. He wanted to object, or maybe just ask for clarification. Not for the description of himself, but the one of Ilya. It didn’t quite make sense. Shane didn’t think of himself as being mistreated when they did this.

But before he could say anything, the first strike came.

It was obviously the paddle. Shane hadn’t seen Ilya pick it up, but he was certain. He’d memorized the way Rozanov’s hand felt on his ass, played it over and over again in his head since that night, and this was different. Heavier, less yielding. Shane gasped against the comforter, thankful that Ilya gave him a moment afterwards to sit in the feeling and adjust to it.

“Okay?” Rozanov murmured, tracing his thumb over the stinging curve of Shane’s rear end.

“Yeah,” Shane said when he’d caught his breath. “Harder.”

Ilya Rozanov had a lethal slapshot on the ice, and maybe this involved similar muscles. Once he got going, laying cracking strokes across pale skin, Shane’s mind went to a different plane. A lovely, floaty place where he almost barely felt the actual hits, just the searing pressure of Ilya’s full attention on him. There were no distractions, just them and the paddle and that feeling of scales balancing inside Shane’s chest.

Sometimes he worried he was a freak of nature for loving this so much. And sometimes he felt like it was only right, a fitting punishment for the secrets he was keeping from everyone close to him. For all the ways he’d failed his team and loved ones. Everything from not setting up the cones fast enough to being the number two draft pick could be wiped away by the forgiveness of Ilya’s hand.

But in the heat of it, like this, Shane just felt right.

“Hollander?”

“Mmm?”

“Need a color.”

Shane hadn’t even noticed that Ilya had stopped, could barely register the fact that he almost sounded a bit out of breath.

“Green,” Shane said, though it came out more like an ecstatic groan. “Fucking green.”

Ilya’s laugh was warm and resonant as he ran a hand up and down Shane’s sweat-slick back. “Good boy. Ready for the next part?”

“I get more?”

Another bassy chuckle. “So greedy.” Shane gasped as he felt something blunt and slick probing at his hole, probably Ilya’s finger. “You are going to get fucked. You think I can stay away from this pretty pink ass for long?”

Shane moaned loudly, canting his hips back as best he could, shuddering when Ilya breached him. He wildly thought of asking Rozanov to take a picture of his view so Shane could see after, but then remembered that if anyone ever found it, they’d both be ruined. No one else could ever know about this.

He might have had more time to spiral into fear about that particular line of thinking if Ilya hadn’t chosen that moment to add a second finger.

“Oh fuck,” Shane groaned at the first press against his prostate, thrashing in his bonds. He very nearly lost his balance, with Rozanov having to steady him by pinning Shane against the bed with a hand between his shoulder blades.

“Moy kotenok,” Ilya groaned, already slipping a third finger in, “So pretty. So needy.”

Shane wanted to ask what that meant, one of those little Russian phrases Ilya kept dropping but Shane could never remember well enough to spell later. But a part of him also knew Rozanov would also never answer, too precious with his secrets, just like Shane was. This was how they did it. They played games with each other, things that normal people might consider cruel, but to them it was just part of the routine.

“Mon loup,” Shane groaned, “Si tu ne me baises pas bientôt, je vais hurler.”

And if Shane liked the way Ilya grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled sharply, if maybe that was the whole point of breaking out the French, could you blame him? Could anyone really judge Shane for his sins when it made Ilya finally push his cock inside?

The fucking was brutal, but it was exactly what both of them wanted. Rozanov shoved Shane into the mattress, and every time his hips slapped against Shane’s tender ass, it stung just a little, the perfect reminder of everything they’d done already. It took Shane a moment to realize he’d started crying at some point, not from pain or upset, but from pure overwhelm. Little gasping sobs punched out of him with each thrust, with matching grunts falling from Ilya’s lips.

It took embarrassingly little time, and no touch to his cock at all. Shane came with a shout, making a mess of Ilya’s comforter. Ilya growled and gave one last filthy grind, and then he was filling Shane up, hot and messy.

When they’d both caught their breath a little, Ilya pulled out and Shane felt him fall to his knees, then moaned desperately as Ilya’s tongue swiped at his sloppy hole.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Shane whined.

Rozanov chuckled, undoing the buckles on the spreader bar before getting to his feet and freeing Shane’s hands. “Careful,” he murmured, guiding Shane to slowly flex all his muscles and make sure nothing had gotten pulled or gone numb. Seemingly satisfied, Rozanov pulled Shane down onto the blankets, reeling him into an embrace that felt oddly possessive, Ilya’s front pressing against Shane’s red ass.

He was overwrought and oversensitive, but for some reason the soft kisses to the back of Shane’s neck didn’t frustrate him like they might have usually. Instead, he just wanted to melt into it all, his eyes drifting closed.

“I can’t stay long,” Shane mumbled, already half asleep.

Ilya just hummed in response, his arm squeezing a little more tightly around Shane’s chest. “Rest,” he rumbled, as if that was the only thing that mattered.

Maybe he was right.

“I should go soon,” Shane protested weakly.

“Or you could stay.” The words were barely a puff of air against Shane’s skin.

He thought about it. He argued against it in his head. But their game wasn’t until tomorrow afternoon. And he was so exhausted, like after a hard fought game, but with twice the satisfaction.

“Okay,” he whispered in the end, “I’ll stay.”

It was maybe too easy. To just have an afternoon nap in Ilya’s arms. To let him make them both tuna melts. To sit on the couch watching hockey and talking shit. Shane should have had better defensive instincts, more things stopping him from doing something so foolish.

“Do you like them?” Ilya asked as they were finishing their meal. Shane had to give him a quizzical look. “Girls?”

“Oh. Yeah, sure. Of course I do.”

Ilya arched a brow. “I never hear about you with girls.” Shane wished he would stop talking with his mouth full.

“I mean, it’s private.” He wiped his hands on the napkin. The sandwich had been good, but now the grease of it sat uncomfortably in his stomach. Definitely not macrobiotic.

“Right. Private,” Ilya nodded, leaning back on the couch like this was a normal conversation that didn’t stress him out at all. It probably was. “Do you do this with them too? The kink?”

“No, I… It would be different. Weird. I’ve only done it with you.” In truth, he’d never even considered trying it with anyone else. Shane could think of no other human he would trust to dominate him. No one who would do it so thoroughly. “What about you? Are you tying up women all the time?”

Rozanov waved a dismissive hand. “Not usually. Svetlana does not like it. She is… plain?”

“Vanilla.”

“Yes. She does not like all the games. But sometimes I meet a girl who likes it.” He turned to face Shane with a coy, playful smile. “Very hard to find anyone who likes it as much as you do, though.”

There was something in the gleam in Ilya’s eye that made Shane want to do more than just blush. He wanted to ask how many girls there had been, if any of them compared.

But then Ilya’s phone was ringing, the moment cut off at the root before it could grow into anything real. And later, Shane had his head in Ilya’s lap, and Ilya’s hand on his throat. God, it was so easy to get distracted here. It was very casual, just a resting touch, no pressure at all. But it made Shane feel owned, and he couldn’t cope with that feeling for long. He ended up burying his face in Ilya’s groin, breathing in the scent of him, mouthing lazily at Rozanov’s clothed, half-hard cock.

“Come here,” Ilya growled, pulling Shane up into his lap.

There were no toys nearby, no accessories or space for artifice. Nothing to hide behind. All they had was the way Shane’s hand wrapped around both their cocks, and the way Ilya’s hand wrapped around Shane’s throat. There was something in Ilya’s eyes that looked almost… scared. Like for once, even he didn’t know where this was going.

They panted into one another’s mouths, keening and depraved and Ilya squeezed. Just a little bit. Just the tiniest hint of pressure on Shane’s windpipe. Not enough to cut off his air or blood flow or even really be uncomfortable. But just a reminder of what could be.

It felt amazing.

“Ilya,” Shane panted as he came in ropes over both their stomachs.

“Shane,” Ilya whimpered as he did the same.

They sat there for a moment, Ilya melting into the cushions and Shane’s mind rocketing off at a million miles an hour.

What were they doing? What was Shane doing? If anyone ever found out about this… All that would have to happen is a nosy neighbor peering through the window, or someone seeing the wrong text over one of their shoulders.

Shane Hollander was the captain of the Montreal Metros. What team would follow a captain like this? One who got off on being teased and degraded and choked? For that matter, what would the other teams say if they found out? The chirping on ice could be bad now, slurs tossed back and forth faster than the puck, but what would it be like if this got out? If the world knew?

And Ilya… Ilya, who should have always stayed Rozanov.

Rozanov tried to kiss him again, and Shane pulled away, the hand falling from his throat.

“I should uh… I should go. I should go.” He was blathering like an idiot, repeating himself, but he was struggling to think of other words in their only mutual language. An excuse that didn’t sound feeble and pathetic. He gave up. “There’s a team meeting in the morning. I forgot.”

Rozanov had never looked so young, not even when he was a teenager. In this moment, he looked so small and meek, not at all the captain of one of the greatest hockey teams in the world. “You… Hollander.” It sounded like a plea.

Shane didn’t stay long enough to hear what he was asking for. He was terrified that, whatever it was, he would give it without question. Without any consideration for his future, for either of their futures.

So he went back to his hotel and he ignored Hayden’s stupid, intrusive questions and he barely slept at all the night before a game. A game against Boston.

When he showed up in the locker room the next day, his team were nice enough not to say anything about the massive dark circles under his eyes or the way he couldn’t seem to focus at all, his mind constantly drifting off, replaying conversations he could never do over. No one even commented about the fact that Shane’s ass was still a little red. Some of them probably assumed he and “Boston Lily” had broken up. It was close enough to the truth that he didn’t bother to correct anyone when they gave him pitying looks. Even though he deserved no pity at all.

But the worst part was the face off.

The thing that would stay with him for weeks afterward was the look in Rozanov’s eyes as they met at center ice, the vacant stare that had none of his usual spark. Neither of them chirped or taunted the other. They just stood there in silence, staring at the red line between them, the one they couldn’t cross.

They had to do it several more times throughout the afternoon, standing a foot apart, pretending the other man didn’t exist but also having to stay constantly aware of what he was doing. It ached a little less each time, Shane told himself.

This was for the best. They’d go their separate ways and it would be better for both of them, in the end. After the game, Rozanov didn’t even shake Shane’s hand, skipping right past him in line, and Shane wasn’t even upset about it.

It didn’t matter.

Chapter Text

If you had asked Ilya how he was doing in the following weeks (few people dared, but some made an attempt), he would have told you he was doing great. But if you had looked at him for more than half a second, taken in the shadows around his eyes, the tense set of his entire body, the way he snapped at basically everyone, you would have known the truth.

It wasn’t domdrop. It wasn’t domdrop because Ilya didn’t get domdrop because domdrop didn’t even make sense as a basic concept. This was different.

This was just facts.

Ilya had gone too far, and that was the truth of it. All the blogs, every single one of them, said you had to talk about what you were going to do with your partner before you did it. If you tried something without asking, that was non-consensual. That was assault.

So, when Ilya had sat on that couch and wrapped his hand around Shane’s throat without checking in first, he’d crossed a line. When he’d added pressure, when he’d gotten harder at the sound of Shane’s breath hitching, that had been an unforgivable attack.

Shane was the sub. Of course he didn’t feel like he could say something in the middle of the scene- if you could even call it a scene. Ilya had just gotten done beating him black and blue; how could he feel safe stopping something he didn’t like? It was only afterwards, when Ilya had dragged an unwilling climax from his body, that Shane was able to walk away.

This wasn’t domdrop. Domdrop was what people got when they hadn’t done anything wrong.

His team didn’t know, which made it all easier and harder. They had no idea they were sharing a line with a violent abuser, that they were asking the scum of the earth if he wanted to come for drinks after a game. It meant they couldn’t judge him for what he’d done to Shane Hollander, but it also meant they might be at risk too. Every time Ilya checked someone on the ice or slapped a teammate on the shoulder, there was a split second where he wondered if he’d gone too far again, if this would be the moment when everyone figured out what he was.

On the bright side, Ilya Rozanov had never had fewer penalties.

But that also meant he’d never played worse.

It was honestly a miracle they hadn’t stripped him of his captaincy yet. Perhaps they felt sorry for him. They could all see how he was moping around, not even chirping like he used to. Someone asked how “Jane” was and that was the only time Ilya snapped. He tossed a helmet across the locker room and nearly hit the goalie.

That was what decided it, really. This would be his last season. He’d find some way out of the last year of his contract, pay whatever he needed to pay, and go back to Russia. He’d sell his place in Boston and move full time into the Moscow apartment. He had enough money to live for a while, but probably not forever, to say nothing of his family who were still depending on him. Maybe he could get a job commentating on hockey on Russian television. That seemed safe. He couldn’t hurt anyone that way.

There was a peace in having a plan. He didn’t have to live in the shame with no hope of escape. There was an endpoint in sight. And he would never have to bother Shane Hollander again.

Ilya actually perked up a little bit afterwards. He got back into the routine of bantering with his teammates. He played a little more like his usual self. He even checked that asshole from Philadelphia who definitely deserved it and only felt a tiny flicker of guilt.

He was fine, actually.

Until Rose Landry.

Rose Landry, with her perfect long hair and her perfect doe eyes and her perfect dainty hands that had probably never wrapped around Shane’s throat and squeezed just to see what would happen.

Rose Landry, who was dating Shane Hollander and wearing his jersey at Montreal games and smearing frosting on his nose at a birthday party and holding his hand on a street corner. She was all the things Ilya wasn’t. All the things he could never be.

A better person would have been happy for Shane. Someone with an actual kind soul would have been glad that Hollander finally found someone who could take care of him properly. But there was that dark, vengeful monster hiding in the recesses of Ilya’s charred heart that was angry.

Because Rose Landry might be perfect, but there was no way she was everything Shane needed. There was no way those manicured hands knew the proper knots for a column tie to get both Shane’s arms bound behind his back. Her slender limbs weren’t strong enough to leave the welts Shane craved along his backside. Her plush lips couldn’t speak the words that Shane needed to hear.

Rose Landry was probably incredibly nice, but there was no way she was fucking Shane Hollander like he deserved.

Not that it could be Ilya, either. He couldn’t be trusted. But at least, for a time, he’d been doing something right.

He made an attempt to be respectful. To keep his distance. He didn’t text Hollander, and he only wasted a handful of nights obsessively scrolling through every single paparazzi shot of Rose and Shane. But there was something about their next game.

It was January, the Canadian air so bitterly cold that it was almost warmer inside the rink. And when Ilya’s eyes landed on Shane’s at center ice, hellfire burned at his insides, flames licking his ribs. It didn’t make him a better player or any more invested in the game. It just made him more obsessed with Shane Hollander.

He got his first penalty in two months for crashing Shane against the boards five minutes after the puck dropped. Ilya sat on the bench with a noxious, bitter pride on his tongue. Tonight, when Rose undressed Shane and took him to bed, there would be a mottled purple bruise blooming all up and down Shane’s side, one that Ilya caused. It made him awful. It made him the most detestable scum of the earth, but Ilya loved it.

It was tempting to read into the fact that Shane wasn’t playing his best either, his mind clearly somewhere else. Their eyes barely met, but they kept passing one another on the ice, their orbits overlapping. Ilya wanted to make Shane look at him. Not just in the context of a face-off, but in a real way. He wanted Hollander to lock eyes with him so Ilya could see what emotion would be there. Hatred? Pity? Fear? Disgust? Maybe if Ilya could name it, he would know how to feel about himself. He could close that chapter.

But when the game was over and they all stood in line to shake hands, Hollander skated off without even looking in Ilya’s direction, let alone touching him.

It only made the fire burn hotter.

The heat in his chest was overwhelming, making it hard to breathe. There was nowhere to put all the energy, the intensity, the desire to both shove Shane on his back and also fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness. It tasted metallic in the back of his throat, like he’d bitten his tongue too many times.

He had to get out, had to fucking move, had to find someone to fuck.

They ended up at a club, the drinks flowing and the music pounding so loud that Ilya couldn’t hear his own thoughts, which was frankly ideal. It was the kind of numbness he’d been craving since that day with Shane at his house. He was tired of feeling, tired of emotions, tired of all of it. Maybe this was what Alexei sought out in the drugs he took.

A beautiful man sidled up to Ilya at the bar, hitting him with a tiny wave. And there was a small percentage of Ilya that considered it. Maybe that was his problem. He just needed another man to get Shane out of his system, to prove he could do something right. But there was something about the stranger’s face. Something familiar.

It hit Ilya like a freight train.

He spun around, scanning the bar for the shape of that body he could never forget, not when it had been fully pressed against his own so many times. And there he was, in the middle of the dance floor, swaying with Rose Landry, his hands on her tiny waist, her arms looped around his neck. It ate at Ilya’s soul, the fire burning away everything inside him, all the parts that were supposed to keep him alive- his lungs, his liver, his heart. Only ash was left.

And then Shane looked at him.

Their eyes connected and for just a moment, Ilya swore he could read Shane Hollander’s mind. You’re not supposed to be here, it screamed, I didn’t want to see you tonight.

And Ilya, well, he wasn’t a good person. So he stayed. That same force that had urged him to shove Shane into the boards earlier now told him to find some pretty girl of his own to dance with, and he did. He slotted himself in behind a pretty blonde who couldn’t have looked any less like Shane Hollander. She draped her arms around Ilya’s neck, and he looped his around her waist. She was all soft curves, no hard lines of muscle. She was decorated all over with heavy jewelry, not Olympic medals. The lights danced across her skin, technicolor and hypnotizing and tempting to kiss.

Shane was looking. Those brown eyes landed on Ilya from across the bar, heavy and intense even despite all the chaos of the club. Hollander watched as Ilya dragged his lips along the woman’s neck.

This was evil, Ilya knew. This was what toxic, evil people did. They abused their partners, their partners left, and then they teased those same partners, taunting them to return for more. Acid roiled in Ilya’s stomach, and he felt like he might vomit all over the beautiful woman’s mini dress.

Rose Landry took Shane’s hand in hers, leading him off the dance floor and to the door. And then they were gone, and Ilya was alone in a crowded bar with a gorgeous stranger in his arms.

“Do you want to get out of here?” the woman shouted in his ear, barely audible over the blasting pop.

Ilya didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t want to go anywhere with anyone, didn’t trust himself. But there was no way to put that into words that wouldn’t lead to a whole host of problems.

“Come on, handsome,” the woman said, running her fingers through his hair. “Show me a good time.”

Every cell in his body screamed in protest. Ilya shook his head, taking a step away from her. “Sorry. Don’t want to lead you on. I should go.”

The woman frowned, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “You’ve got a girl at home?”

“Not exactly.” Ilya knew his smile was tight, but it was the best he could do.

For a moment, the woman just looked at Ilya before glancing over her shoulder and waving to someone. A friend, maybe? Good. No one should be alone with Ilya Rozanov. But then she grabbed his hand and pulled him through the crowd, weaving in and out of bodies until they hit a heavy metal door, which the woman shoved open, taking them out to a snow-covered alley lined with trash cans.

“I’m Mia,” she said once the door had closed behind them, crossing her arms over her chest and tucking her hands into her armpits as if that could possibly be enough to protect her from the cold with how skimpy her outfit was. “You’re Ilya, right?”

He tried to smile, tried to put on his normal bravado now that he’d been recognized, now that TMZ might hear about this tomorrow. “Ah, you are a fan?”

“My friend is,” Mia said with a shrug. “She recognized you.”

“I can do autograph for her,” Ilya offered, hoping that was all this was. “Maybe selfie?”

Mia laughed, shaking her head. “No, we’re fine. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t have a concussion.”

“Concussion?” Ilya frowned. “What makes you think that?”

“I’m a nurse. You had a game today, right? Hockey bros are always knocking their heads together. Not to mention the fact that you looked totally zoned out while we were dancing, and you barely responded to questions. Also your pupils are like, huge.”

“Just because I do not want to sleep with you, I must have traumatic brain injury?” Ilya snapped, immediately regretting it and covering his face with both hands. “Fuck,” he muttered, “Sorry.”

Mia was quiet for a long moment before she said softly, “It’s okay. Bad day?”

“Bad few months,” Ilya croaked, face still hidden. Bad decade.

“It happens. But you gotta keep going, yeah? Gotta look for the bright spots.”

Slowly, Ilya let his hands drop as he shook his head. “Is more complicated than that. I think… I think maybe I am dark spot for other people. For the people I care about.”

Mia whistled a long, low note. “That’s fucking bleak, man.”

Ilya could only blink. “You are not mental health nurse, I hope?”

“Nah, pediatrics. Most of my patients’ biggest concerns are scraped knees.” She paused for a beat, her face going serious. “But sometimes I get a rough one. I’ve seen more than you’d think. There’s a lot of kids in fucked up homes. If they’re lucky enough to have homes at all.”

There was a lot of graffiti decorating the walls of the alley, and Ilya’s eyes drifted to the streaks of paint so he didn’t have to meet Mia’s eyes when he spoke. “Do you think it could ruin a kid forever? Seeing those things. Growing up around all that.”

Her stiletto heel kicked through the snow as she hummed. “I think there’s no way it doesn’t have an impact. We’re all just a mashed together mess of our pasts. The things you see as a kid have to influence you, one way or another.” Ilya closed his eyes. He’d feared as much. “But it’s not a perfect formula. It’s not like, insert Trauma A, get out Mental Illness B. We all deal with shit differently. And your support system matters. The people in your life can make all the difference.”

Right. All those people in Ilya’s life. The ones he hadn’t driven away yet. So… Svetlana. Maybe. If she didn’t hate him too once she found out what he’d done.

When Ilya opened his eyes again, Mia was smiling sadly at him. So much pity, none of it he deserved.

“It’s never too late to fix stuff, you know?” she said gently.

And maybe that was true for six-year-olds with scraped knees. But this was a different beast entirely. Still, he tried to smile in return.

“Maybe,” he allowed.

“It’s colder than a witch’s tit out here,” Mia said, doing a little hop as if trying to warm herself up. “You coming inside?”

There was an invitation in it. She wanted to go back to dancing. To do more, maybe.

“Not right now,” Ilya said. “I will smoke first, I think.”

Mia shrugged. “Suit yourself. Just don’t get hypothermia and end up in the ER.” Her grin was a sparkling white. “Those nurses aren’t as pretty as me.”

The door closed behind her, and Ilya was swallowed up by the silence. The normally noisy city was muted by the layer of snow on everything, so it was almost peaceful. Ilya didn’t have any cigarettes, in actuality, but he wasn’t ready to go back to the party yet, not prepared to face his teammates. Instead, he leaned against a brick wall, letting the rough texture dig painfully into his skin. Tilting his head back, he could look up and see a few scant stars peeking through the light pollution and cloud cover.

Look for the bright spots, Mia had said.

He tried. He really did. But in the end, his greatest bright spot had always been Shane. And that star belonged in someone else’s sky now.

Chapter Text

The most important thing in Shane Hollander’s life had always been hockey. But it was also his favorite thing.  Every other person or event or action in life was measured in terms of how it compared to hockey. Snickers bars didn’t taste as good as winning hockey made him feel. Sleeping in an extra hour wasn’t as satisfying as winning the cup. Things settled out naturally like that, and hockey always came out on top.

Rose Landry, however, ranked pretty high. She was fun to talk to and she had a nice laugh. Her jokes were always funny and only occasionally at Shane’s expense. She knew what it was like to be on an incredibly restricted diet for work, so they complained about kale together. Rose wasn’t more important than practice, but she was often more pleasant, which was a pretty high ranking in Shane’s regard.

Sex with Rose was something else entirely. Sex with Rose ranked somewhere below the time Shane’s high school team had made a bunch of stupid mistakes in the playoffs and the coach made them keep doing laps on the track until three guys vomited.

She wasn’t unpleasant. Rose always smelled nice and looked beautiful and was patient and considerate. She laid on her back on hotel room sheets with those come-hither eyes that probably should have been doing more for Shane than they actually were. She never pressured Shane into anything, which was good.

Even though a part of Shane wanted her to be pushier. To grab his jaw and force a kiss. To shove him onto the bed with laughter on her lips. There was no way she could hold both Shane’s wrists with one hand, no way she could pin him to the bed at all, but god he wished she would try.

Though even Shane had to admit that wasn’t the entire problem. He’d liked vanilla sex with Ilya just fine. The kinky encounters were just better.

So when Rose placed a gentle hand over his in that restaurant and said, “I have a feeling that maybe I’m not doing it for you.”

Well. Shane could only protest for so long.

“We’re just not meant to fit,” Rose murmured, her thumb rubbing circles into Shane’s skin, “And it’s really fine. I just don’t think that we can keep trying.”

Shane nodded, trying to find the words to make her understand just how perfect she had been, that none of this was her fault. “I get it. I think… I just think… I…”

“Hey. You don’t owe me any explanation.”

Oh god, but he did.

But she just kept holding his hand, like there wasn’t this myriad of things wrong with him, preventing him from being with one of the most beautiful, perfect women in the world. Every man on earth was jealous of Shane, many of them in his DMs explaining as much in excruciating detail. He had to be broken, to not want this person that everyone else wanted or wanted to be.

Rose, however, seemed entirely unphased. “Can I ask if you’ve ever been with another guy?”

Even now, Shane worried about her voice carrying in the restaurant. But no one was looking their way. No one heard the question or saw the way he slowly nodded.

“Was it different with a guy?” she asked.

His mind flashed to Ilya shoving panties in his mouth. Ilya spanking him over his lap. Ilya holding him until all the tension melted away.

“In… in a lot of ways,” Shane managed to croak. “Really, really different.”

“Was it better?”

Shane hesitated at that. “I liked it,” he settled on eventually, which made Rose frown for some reason.

“Is that a distinction for you? The difference between liking it and it being better?”

“No. Yes.” Shane cringed at himself. “I mean, I liked it more than- Fuck.”

“Hey, hey,” Rose said, a laugh in her voice as she squeezed Shane’s hand, “I’m not going to be offended. I’m glad you had a good time with the guy. But…” There was a knowing glint in your eye. “There’s something else to it, isn’t there?”

Shane shook his head sharply, eyes burning. He’d already told the first person in the world that he’d been with a man. He couldn’t also say this, their filthiest secret. “It’s just uh… I don’t know.” He allowed himself to actually look at Rose’s face, to see the open trust there. The acceptance. The words clawed at his insides, desperate to escape. “It’s just kind of… fucked up?”

Rose’s brow pinched in judgement and Shane’s stomach lurched, certain he’d already blown the one good thing he had going for him off the ice.

But then Rose surprised him.

“There’s nothing fucked up about it,” she said fiercely, lacing their fingers together. “You’re just as normal as any other couple. It’s not a sin or any of that shit you hear idiots yelling on streetcorners. It’s normal.”

He tried to nod, to swallow back the truth and just let this go. But maybe there’s a limit to the secrets a body can hold. Maybe once you pull the plug, they all come spilling out at once, whether you want them to or not. “It was just… kind of… kinky?”

Miraculously, Rose looked like Shane had just said he had a puppy hiding in his pocket. “Wait, really?” she asked, a giddy grin on her face.

With no small amount of trepidation, Shane decided to just let it all go at once. “Yeah. And I like to uh… not be in charge. If you uh-”

Before he could even finish the sentence, Rose’s eyes went wide and she squeezed Shane’s hand harder. “No shit?” She laughed, but it didn’t feel like she was laughing at Shane. “No wonder you and I had trouble. Good for you though. I have friends who swear by that kind of stuff. It sounds fun.”

Hesitantly, Shane smiled. “You’ve never…?”

Rose shook her head. “Nah, I’m on camera too much. Or always around people seeing me naked for some stupid reason or another. I couldn’t deal with all the marks. Besides, I’ve been kidnapped like 9000 times. I don’t need to roleplay that in the bedroom too.”

“Do you think you’d like to be the one in charge?”

Rose shrugged, a sly smile on her face. “I’d probably try both. But you’ve gotta find the right person, yeah? You can’t just do that with anyone.”

She spoke about it all so casually. No fear of being overheard. No fear of what wanting those things might say about her. No judgement. Just that same warm smile.

And maybe, just maybe, that panic and fear and shame that had been living in Shane’s body like a pack of parasites, started to die off.

“Honestly, this explains a lot about you,” Rose mused, pulling her drink towards her and sipping.

Shane frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean the whole thing where you really like rules and discipline and structure.” She shrugged. “The macrobiotic diet is basically you domming yourself.”

It was so ridiculous and so likely true that a wild laugh burst out of Shane, the biggest, freest moment of joy he’d had in months. “You think?”

He was safe. Rose wasn’t going to reject him. Rose actually thought the fact that Shane liked submitting made him kind of interesting.

They stayed friends, kept getting dinners and texting. Rose asked questions, though she made it clear Shane didn’t have to answer. She asked him about what he liked, what he didn’t like, what he wanted to try. On one memorable occasion, she sent him a link to a full body suspension video on a porn site with just the message “Have you done this?”

He hadn’t, but god, it looked fun. It made him want to call Ilya.

Oh, Ilya.

The more Shane sat in this new mindset, the more he got used to even one other person knowing about these parts of himself, the more he started doing the math.

Ilya was better than Snickers bars or sleeping in. Ilya was more important than a practice or even a game. Sex with Ilya might actually be better than going to the Olympics, as insane as that was to even think.

And Shane had ruined it all. Had run away without even an explanation, cowardly and shameful. He would have to find a way to fix this. And the All Star game would be the perfect opportunity.

Or, it would have been, if Ilya weren’t very obviously avoiding him.

The first time Shane spotted Ilya was at the hotel bar, looking shockingly soft and sexy at the same time, wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a bold floral print, almost halfway unbuttoned. Immediately, Shane started to make his way through the crowd to get to him. But by the time he arrived at the barstool Ilya had been sitting on, it was empty.

That would have been one thing, but it kept happening. By the pool, at the breakfast buffet, in the lobby. Always, Shane would spot Rozanov from a distance, and Ilya would flee before Shane could get close enough. But there was one place Ilya couldn’t avoid him: In the locker room. Because they were finally playing for the same team, and Shane was the captain.

After a practice skate, Shane took his chance.

“Rozanov,” he barked, trying to exert all his captainly authority, “Stay back.”

Anyone else would have missed the way Ilya’s shoulders tensed slightly. The rest of the team joked, ‘oooh’ing and telling Ilya they hoped he made it to the game. It made sense. To them, Hollander and Rozanov were arch rivals being forced to work together. But the false undercurrent to Ilya’s laugh was harder to explain.

Was he actually scared of Shane? Did he think he was in trouble?

When everyone else filed out and Shane and Ilya were alone, his suspicions were confirmed. Ilya looked… contrite. It was a strange expression on his face. Deferential and apologetic.

“We should talk,” Shane said.

Ilya just nodded, gaze falling to the floor.

“Not here. I want to… god, there’s so much I have to say.” Shane’s hair was still sweaty where he ran his hand through it. “Will you come to my room tonight? Please? You- you don’t have to. But I’d like it if you did.”

The way Ilya’s head jerked up looked almost painful, like he might have snapped his spine with the violence of his incredulity. “You… want me to come to your room?” he repeated slowly.

“Well… yeah?” Shane said with a confused frown. “That’s how we usually do this. I know last time was… I made a mistake. I’m sorry. But I’d like another chance.”

Judging by Ilya’s expression, you’d have thought Shane just suggested they throw tomorrow’s game. “You think you made mistake?” Ilya said.

“I ran.” It was that simple to Shane.

Ilya’s expression transformed into one of frustration, maybe even anger. “You ran because I hurt you! Of course you ran!”

“You… what?” He blinked, looking around for a moment, like maybe there was someone watching them, so Ilya felt like he had to speak in code. Or perhaps there was a crew with cameras and Shane was going to be on a reality TV show. “What are you talking about?” He tried to remember if Ilya had checked him particularly hard in recent encounters on the ice, but nothing came to mind.

The fire in Ilya’s eyes would have been beautiful in another context. “Did I give you brain damage?” He gesticulated wildly. “I fucking beat you and choked you, Hollander!”

“Yeah?” Shane couldn’t help the way he blushed at the memory, at what he was about to say out loud. “Because I liked it. I basically begged for it.”

For a second, Ilya seemed frozen solid. Then he went slack all at once, like a puppet with his strings cut. He collapsed backwards onto a bench, his head falling into his hands. All Shane did at first was stare, until he heard the broken gasp shudder out of Ilya’s lungs.

“Hey, hey,” Shane said gently, falling to his knees in front of Ilya and putting a tentative hand on his knee. “Rozanov. It’s okay. I’m okay.”

He could barely see Ilya’s face past his hands, but there were definitely big, wet tears rolling down his cheeks, his whole body shaking with sobs. It didn’t quite make sense with so many of the pieces missing, but Shane thought he was starting to get the picture.

“You thought you hurt me?” he whispered, guilt clutching his heart with painfully sharp talons. “You thought that was why I left?”

Ilya nodded, wiping at his face with trembling hands.

It was dangerous and foolish. They were in the middle of a locker room during All Stars. Anyone could walk in at any moment. But Shane couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t just sit there and watch Ilya cry like this. Shane pulled Ilya with him onto the floor, into his arms, where they could just clutch one another like buoys in a turbulent sea. He could feel a wet patch growing on his shoulder where Ilya’s tears soaked into his t-shirt, but did nothing about it, just rubbing soft circles into Ilya’s back.

“Breathe,” Shane murmured, trying to think of his yoga instructor, the way she told them to meditate. He inhaled and exhaled slowly, modeling for Ilya until he was able to follow along, his sobs quieting down to just the occasional sniffle.

“Sorry,” Ilya rumbled, his voice raw and wrecked. “Was stupid. Forgive me.”

But before he could pull away, Shane clutched him tighter, adamantly refusing to let Ilya escape so easily. “It’s not stupid. I’m sorry. I should have explained, or… I shouldn’t have left in the first place.” He rubbed the hem of Ilya’s t-shirt sleeve between his fingers, his chin hooked over Ilya’s shoulder. “It was a good day, before I ruined it.”

Rozanov was silent for a few beats before he dragged his lips lightly along Shane’s neck, making him shiver. “I liked it, before I thought I ruined it.”

“You didn’t ruin anything.” Shane swore, pressing a kiss to Ilya’s temple before forcing himself to loosen his grip ever so slightly, letting a slight space grow between them. “Can we talk tonight? In my room? I don’t want anyone to walk in on us here and I have some… some things I need to talk to you about.” When he saw the panic in Ilya’s eyes, Shane couldn’t help but soothe him with a quick kiss. “Not bad things, I promise. At least, I don’t think so. I hope you won’t hate me afterwards.”

A sad sort of smile spread across Ilya’s face as he shook his head and brushed a thumb across Shane’s cheek. “I do not think I could ever hate you. Not ever.”

This was getting out of hand, the way a sentence so simple could just reach between Shane’s ribs and pull his heart out, still beating and bleeding. This was why they needed to talk.

“Please come tonight. We don’t have to fool around or anything. It’s not about that. I just need to get some things off my chest.”

He didn’t get a response immediately. Ilya needed a moment to think, and Shane would happily give it. He could almost watch in real time as Ilya tried to put his normal walls back up, only for them to come crumbling down all over again. He tried to school his face into that patented Rozanov disinterest, but the softness always showed through. The fear.

“Okay,” Ilya murmured eventually. “But you come to my room.”

Shane frowned. “That’s fine. But can I ask why?”

“So that if you want to be finished, you can just walk out again. You do not have to tell me to leave.”

Could Shane’s heart break any more times in one single conversation? “Ilya-”

Rozanov visibly flinched. “Will you do this for me? Please?”

It was a simple enough request. If it would make Ilya feel better, what was the harm in it?

“Okay. Tonight? At nine?”

“Okay.”

Shane had known parting would be difficult, but he didn’t expect the way his whole body ached as he pulled it away from Ilya and back to standing. Ilya looked similarly uncomfortable as he got to his feet. There had to be something Shane could say, some parting words that would make Ilya believe that he wasn’t in trouble, that Shane wasn’t going to run this time.

But in the end, before he could come up with anything to say, one of the other Russian players on their team poked his head through the door, exclaiming, “Rozanov!” and rattling off a long phrase in Russian that Shane could never hope to catch.

When he looked back at Ilya, his cool confidence had returned, a lazy, cocky grin on his face. “Da,” he said, followed by more inscrutable words until he turned his eyes on Shane. “I can go, Captain?” Shane’s title dripped with sarcasm, but there was a real question in Ilya’s eyes. He wanted to know if he was allowed to leave.

“Yeah, of course,” Shane said gruffly, “But I want to see you both bright and early for warm-ups tomorrow.”

Ilya beamed. “I have never been late for anything! And I would never disappoint the Shane Hollander.”

Which was true enough, but that didn’t account for the way Shane felt achingly empty as he watched the two men go.

-

For so many years, Shane had been terrified of someone catching him heading to Ilya’s hotel room. It was a dirty secret, something to be concealed at all costs. But tonight, Shane couldn’t bring himself to care. He had no shame as he walked down the hall and knocked on Ilya’s door. Though maybe Ilya was still afraid, if the way he quickly yanked Shane inside was any indication.

Once the door was shut, Shane found himself standing in the entryway, Ilya’s strong fingers encircling his wrist, his knees going slightly wobbly just from that small show of force.

“Hey,” he whispered, his voice cracking ever so slightly.

Ilya’s eyes went wide and he quickly dropped Shane’s hand, taking a step backwards to put some space between them. “Hello.”

Biting the inside of his cheek, Shane did his best not to sigh. “You’re allowed to touch me, Rozanov. I don’t mind.” In fact, he desperately wanted it.

But Ilya just nodded, turning to go sit on the foot of the bed. He kept his head bowed, eyes on the floor as he spoke. “Right. You wanted to talk about something?”

It was horrible, looking at this shell of what had once been Ilya Rozanov. Shane had hoped that maybe, when he’d seen Ilya joking and smiling in the locker room, that meant he’d recentered himself. That perhaps some of Shane’s reassurances had actually gotten through to him. But no, clearly his self-flagellation was still ongoing.

One thing at a time. Shane needed to put all his cards on the table before he could begin to fix this delicate thing between them.

He found a spot to lean against the desk, giving Ilya his space for now. In Ilya’s hand, his phone lit up and buzzed, but he barely glanced at the screen before declining the call and facing Shane seriously.

Of course, now that Shane had his chance to talk, he had no idea what to say. He’d been rehearsing this conversation over and over in his head for weeks, but he’d never managed to settle on a final draft that didn’t feel fumbling and awkward. Maybe that was just what he had to go with.

“Did you… last time we were together,” Shane said, his voice as soft and nonconfrontational as he could manage, “Did it feel different to you too?”

It was almost reassuring the withering look Ilya gave him, like Shane was being particularly dense and deserving of scorn. Shane had to swallow back the laugh that wanted to bubble up out of him, an impulse born of pure relief that he could still annoy Ilya Rozanov.

“Yes, Hollander. It felt different.”

“No, no,” Shane shook his head, fighting to keep the smile off his face, “Not the part when I left. And I can’t apologize enough for that. But before. When it was… when it was nice.”

“Different how?” Ilya asked, eyes narrowing.

Shane sighed, looking out the window at the Tampa skyline like it would somehow tell him what he needed to say to make this conversation not go horribly.

“I think I might be gay.” He tried to make the words sound brave, rather than terrified.

Ilya’s brows leapt up and he leaned back, bracing his hands behind him on the mattress. “Really? And you have mentioned this to your world famous girlfriend, Rose Landry?”

“What?” Shane frowned, shaking his head. “No, no. I mean, yes, actually. She was the first person I told. She’s the only one I’ve told, other than you. But we’re not dating anymore. We’re just friends.”

Some of the tension melted out of Ilya’s expression, one corner of his mouth turning up ever so slightly. “Ah. Just friends, hm?” He shrugged. “Cannot say I am surprised. Something about me fucking you for so many years gave me a clue.”

“Fuck off!” Shane snapped, but there wasn’t any real heat in it.

For a moment, their eyes met, and there was a silent battle. But in the end, Shane couldn’t even pretend to be angry. If Ilya was feeling comfortable enough to rib him about shit like this, then it meant they were on the way back to normal. Shane couldn’t be mad at progress.

Ilya must have seen it in his face, the moment Shane lost and Ilya won, his smile widening. “So, you dumped your girlfriend so you could go back to having sex with me? Very flattering, but not big news.”

“It’s not just that. Don’t you…” Shane literally grasped at the air in front of him, like he could pull the right words from nothing. “Don’t you feel it?”

And in a second flat, Ilya’s expression shuttered again, his jaw sharp in the lamp light as he tilted his face away from Shane. “Feel what?”

“Don’t play stupid,” Shane said, chewing at his lower lip. “It was different last time.”

“You keep saying that!” Ilya spat, turning back to him with blazing eyes. “Different, different, different! It was exactly the same. We fucked and I hurt you. Simple.”

For the first time, Shane wondered if he’d got this all wrong. If the connection he’d felt on Ilya’s couch had been entirely one sided. “So you didn’t… The cuddling on the couch, watching TV, cooking for me. That meant nothing to you?”

Maybe on another day Ilya would have been able to keep up the act. If he hadn’t already been wrung dry of energy and emotion. If things weren’t already so raw between them. But today, Ilya’s face crumpled, just for a few seconds before he hid it by leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. “It meant something,” he confessed in a whisper. “It meant everything. But it can’t. It can’t mean anything at all, ever.”

Hesitantly, Shane crossed the room, sitting beside Ilya and resting a hand between his shoulder blades. “Because… because we’re rivals?”

“Because Russia!” Ilya snapped, sitting up sharply and looking at Shane like he was an idiot. “I would never be able to go back to Russia!”

The truth unwound between them in slow lurches. Ilya’s family- police who would never understand. His sick father. His dead mother. The dangers that waited for Ilya if this ever got out, nebulous but no less lethal. And Shane knew it was stupid. Selfish. But he asked all the same.

“If we could do this- be together -would you want to?”

“It doesn’t matter, Shane,” Ilya said tightly. “We can’t be anything.”

“Right,” Shane agreed. He’d been foolish to think otherwise, of course. Even without Ilya’s family looming over them, there was the MLH, sponsorships, the press, Shane’s own family to consider. There were at least a half dozen reasons they could never be more than this. “Sorry, I just… I’ve had this stupid fantasy for a while. But I should know better.”

It was manipulative. But it got the reaction Shane wanted, or close enough to it. Ilya’s knee bumped softly against his own, eyes searching. “Tell me anyway.”

Shane took a deep, slow breath. Of all the things he’d said tonight, all the confessions he’d made, this one tore him up the most on its way out. This was the one he hadn’t even told Rose. “I want to wear your collar. I want to be yours.”

Just like back in the locker room, Ilya’s face crumpled into an expression of anguish. “Don’t,” he choked out, looking away from Shane. “Please, don’t.”

“You don’t want to?”

“Of course I want to,” Ilya practically whined, scrubbing weakly at his face.

But it couldn’t happen. They both knew that now. Ilya had shared so much tonight, been so incredibly vulnerable, and still Shane kept prodding at him. It wasn’t fair. If Ilya wanted his mask on, the kindest thing to do in that moment was to let him.

So Shane slid to the floor, dropping on his knees between Ilya’s legs, resting his head in the other man’s lap. “It’s okay,” he whispered, clutching Ilya’s ankle as a grounding point to them both. “We’re okay.”

Ilya’s hand found Shane’s hair, petting gently through with trembling fingers as tears continued to fall. Shane was happy to stay like this as long as Ilya needed, but before long Rozanov was hauling Shane up into his lap and kissing him, slow and soft. Their most recent encounters had been so dominated by the sharp intensity of their dynamic, but this was nice too. Gentler. More caring.

A shuddering breath huffed out of Shane as Ilya turned them around, pressing him into the sheets with the weight of his body.

“Can I?” Ilya asked as he dropped kisses up and down Shane’s neck. “Please?” He sounded like he genuinely thought the answer might be ‘no’. Ridiculous man.

“Yeah,” Shane breathed, finding Ilya’s hand and lacing their fingers together before lifting it to his lips so he could kiss each individual knuckle. “Yeah, take me apart.”

He’d missed it so much. The sex. The push and pull. The feeling of letting someone else take control entirely. He allowed himself to be reverently stripped of all his clothes, and watched in dumbfounded amazement as Ilya carefully folded each article and laid them in a stack on the desk. Even the boxers. Even the socks. He then set to work on his next goal, which appeared to be kissing every single inch of Shane’s body. Not just his face and chest, but the insides of elbows, the knobbles of his knees, the soft swell of his stomach, still full from dinner.

“Ilya,” Shane pleaded as more kisses were peppered across the insides of his thighs. “Please.”

“Patience,” Ilya chided, a small smile twitching on his lips.

But he took mercy on Shane not long after, guiding him to bend his knees so Ilya could get between his legs and brush his tongue ever so lightly along Shane’s perineum.

“Ah! Holy shit!” Shane gasped. Already, this was better than every encounter he’d had with Rose combined. Yes, he knew part of it was that Ilya was a man. But he could admit now that the larger factor was just how well they knew each other. That unnamable, intangible chemistry that flowed so naturally whenever they touched one another.

Shane was gay, but more importantly, Shane was falling for Ilya Rozanov.

That clever, pink tongue swiped over his hole a few times, more teasing that left Shane squirming and pleading. Nothing could make Ilya quicken his pace though. He took Shane’s balls into his mouth one by one, rolling them over his tongue like he was savoring the taste. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he pressed a kiss to the flushed, red tip of Shane’s cock, tongue licking away the little beads of precum that had built up in his slit.

“Please,” Shane moaned, his hips stuttering helplessly.

Ilya chuckled. “And people say you have self-control.”

Maybe he didn’t. Maybe neither of them did.

Either way, a few seconds later Ilya swallowed down as much of Shane as he could in one slow, smooth motion, until cock met back of throat. Shane tried to keep his desperate thrashing controlled, not wanting to choke Ilya, but still his hands clutched desperately at the comforter, fists so tight he thought he might tear holes in the fabric.

How, in only a handful of months, had Shane forgotten about the skill Ilya had of completely dismantling his entire body and soul in a matter of seconds. He’d worried, up until this exact moment, that maybe Ilya would still force him to leave, would tell him they’d been apart too long, that none of what Shane had broken was mendable. But clearly, Shane thought as he watched Ilya eagerly bob his head, there was something here they both wanted to save. A bond that couldn’t be shattered by harsh words or misunderstandings. It was too strong.

Shane shuddered.“I’m going to- Wait!”

It was happening embarrassingly fast, all due to a mixture of Ilya’s skillful touch and that look in his eyes, hot and ravenous. But Ilya didn’t stop. He kept going, redoubling his efforts, drawing an earth-shattering orgasm out of Shane in record time. And Ilya swallowed every drop down, a smile on his face as he pulled back and wiped drool from his chin.

“Some things never change, yes?” Rozanov mused as he climbed up the bed to flop beside Shane on the mattress, grinning wide. “Did Rose Landry ever tell you how easy you are? Or did she struggle with this? Tell me, who is better at sucking your cock?”

Shane rolled his eyes. “Glad to see you’re back to being pleased with yourself.”

“You missed my skills and came crawling back,” Ilya said with a shrug. “Is not surprising.”

“Maybe a little,” Shane allowed, just to see the way Ilya beamed and preened. “But there were some other things I missed too.” He snaked an exploratory hand over to cup Ilya’s cock through his sweatpants, satisfied to feel how hard he was already.

But immediately, Ilya shut down. “You do not need to,” he said, face serious as he grabbed Shane’s wrist and deliberately moved his hand away.

“I don’t need to what?” Shane asked, baffled. “Make you come? I mean I know I don’t need to, but I’d like to.”

“Is not necessary.” Ilya sniffed as he sat up, picking at a piece of lint on the duvet.

Shane felt like he was sinking into quicksand, his whole self being swallowed up by a crushing weight that wanted to smash all the air out of his lungs. “Oh,” he knew he sounded like a disappointed child, but he couldn’t bring himself to make the words come out any differently. “Did I… Is this about last time?” Clearly, Ilya didn’t trust him. Not after they’d gotten off together and Shane had immediately fled.

“What?” Ilya’s head snapped around to stare at Shane for a moment before he sighed, lying down once more and pulling Shane into his arms. “No, moy kotenok. You did nothing wrong. This is about me.”

He was still confused, but at least Shane got the comfort of resting his head against Ilya’s chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart. He got the weight of strong arms around him, the feeling of soft lips pressing against his hairline.

“It feels like I did something wrong,” Shane confessed in a whisper.

“Not anything,” Ilya promised, giving him a squeeze. “I just… I am afraid of myself, a little.”

“Why?”

Ilya sighed. “I can… lose control, when I am with you. It feels so good, I am not best version of me. It is dangerous.”

Oh. Shane had assumed they’d left this misconception in the past. But if Ilya needed reassurances repeated, Shane would happily do it. “You didn’t hurt me last time. You’ve never hurt me.” He sat up a little, so he could look into those blue eyes that seemed a little glossy with unshed tears. “If you ever hurt me, I need you to trust that I would safeword. I would tell you. I can tell my linemen when they fuck up on a powerplay, I can tell my… I can tell you when you’re doing something I don’t like. You told me once that knowing what you like is good. So fucking… trust me to do it, alright?”

For a long beat, Ilya just looked at him, that same expression he had on his face sometimes when he was trying to remember a word in English. His brow was cutely furrowed as he reached out to lace their fingers together, raising them to brush his lips softly along Shane’s thumb. “I trust you,” he whispered, like it was a life or death secret. Maybe it was. “Trusting myself is harder.”

“What about if I said I trust you?”

A smile flickered on Ilya’s features and he shook his head. “I would say you are idiot. But I knew this already.”

Shane shook his head. “You can’t have one without the other. We’re a team in this. Playing for the same side. You have to trust both of us.”

He watched as Ilya took a slow, deep breath before that patented sly grin spread across his face. It wasn’t quite as natural as normal, but it wasn’t entirely forced either. Ilya was trying. That’s what it was. “So, if we are on same team, then who is captain?”

“You can be captain,” Shane said with a roll of his eyes. Whatever it took to get them back to where they’d been.

“Oh, you would give it up so easily?” Ilya teased, sitting up and rolling them over so he was pinning Shane to the mattress by either wrist. “Does your team know this? That you would hand over all your power to Ilya Rozanov?”

All the breath wooshed out of Shane’s lungs at once, his spent cock stirring pathetically between his legs. “No. None of them know. But it’s true.”

Ilya hummed, pressing a hot kiss against Shane’s mouth, tongue swiping across the seam of his lips until Shane opened them. They made out like that for a few minutes, Ilya’s weight on top of Shane, holding him exactly where he wanted. It was overwhelmingly perfect, to have that feeling of being dominated once more after so much time apart.

Honestly, Shane would have been content with just that. But Ilya deserved more. So Shane wiggled one leg free so he could prop it up against Ilya’s returning hardness, giving him something to rut on. Ilya moaned into Shane’s mouth, biting sharply at his bottom lip.

“Maybe I had it wrong,” Ilya murmured, grinding forward, “Maybe you are dangerous one. Strutting around, looking desperate and beautiful and tricking poor, innocent hockey players into giving you what you really want.”

“Not hockey players,” Shane found himself gasping.

“Mmm? What do you mean?”

Shane knew his face was probably bright red, but he didn’t care, he needed to get these words out. “I mean it’s not players, plural. It’s just you. It’s always just you.”

He had expected more questions, or perhaps some teasing, but instead Shane got to watch as Ilya came in his pants, Shane’s thigh and his words the thing that had pushed him over the edge. It was gorgeous and heartbreaking and just cemented in Shane’s mind the fact that they were both in this way too deep. They’d crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed.

They exchanged a few more kisses- softer, gentler ones this time. And when they said goodnight, they used their first names. In short, they were doomed.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t quite “back to normal”. Not entirely. Ilya was still nervous about doing the wrong thing, pushing too far. He tried not to be. It was an honest effort. He tried to trust that Shane knew his own limits and when to speak up for himself. But trust was a new thing for Ilya, at least in recent years. So some practice was in order.

Two weeks later, when they met before their game, Ilya hogtied Shane and made him watch while Ilya stroked himself, slow and teasing. Afterwards, they ignored Ilya’s ringing phone while he massaged Shane’s joints and kissed his forehead. They were able to laugh a little and enjoy the sunshine streaming in through the windows, and Ilya felt, for just a moment, like he wasn’t the worst person on earth.

But Ilya should have known by now that nothing lasts forever. Especially not the good things.

He’d finally found his footing again, finally got comfortable on the ice, finally thought maybe, just maybe, this didn’t need to be his last season. They even beat Montreal, which was a thought that would have terrified Ilya a mere month ago.

And he got back to his locker, chirping with the team, his phone buzzing yet again with Alexei’s name on the screen. It felt like the responsible thing to do, to wait to answer until he was in a good mood.

He didn’t realize how bad his mood could get.

It took 38 hours of travel to get from Boston to Moscow on short notice. A three hour flight to Chicago, a two hour layover there, then a fourteen hour flight to Dubai, followed by an eleven hour layover, and then an eight hour flight to Moscow. Ilya was fine for the first few legs, but it was the layover in Dubai that broke him.

He was sitting in a stiff plastic chair, staring vacantly at the queue for a Starbucks, when it really hit him. His father was dead. Grigori Rozanov had died, and he would be in the ground soon, next to Irina. Of course, technically Irina shouldn’t have been allowed to be buried in a Russian Orthodox cemetery, but exceptions were made for the wives of police chiefs who said it was all a misunderstanding. It was just an accident.

That was a lesson Ilya had learned early: his father could make the rules whatever he wanted, at a moment’s notice, and the rest of the world would just fall into line. Alexei had learned faster. He’d become the golden child because he better understood when to be quiet (always) and when to speak (when asked a direct question). Ilya had taken too long to catch up. He’d been too delicate, too soft, too much like his mother. But the whole family learned compliance eventually. There was no alternative.

It had broken Irina though. Maybe not in a physical sense, though Grigori had certainly made a good effort, but mentally. Ilya could remember finding their wedding pictures and seeing her smiling so wide in her big puffy white dress. She didn’t smile much by the end. Some of it was genetic, probably, a predisposition toward melancholia, but Ilya refused to believe that was the only reason she was gone. Not when he’d seen the bruises himself, not when he’d had several of his own to match. But Ilya had had hockey, a way to escape, a path to freedom. His mother had been locked in that house all day with nothing to hold onto. So she’d gotten out the only way she knew how.

That was the part that destroyed Ilya the most. The idea that maybe, Irina and Grigori were in the same place again. That everything she’d done to get away had been for nothing.

There was, on a certain level, some grief that his father was dead. But when he sat with the feeling and picked it apart for 11 hours in the Dubai airport, he realized it looked more like shame on the inside. Shame that he wasn’t sadder. Shame that he’d done such a poor job taking care of this man who could barely wipe his own ass at the end. Shame that his father had been left with Alexei, who had probably inherited all of his father’s nurturing instincts. Alexei, who might have even seen a weak old man and thought this was his chance to get revenge for a childhood of black eyes and split lips.

Maybe that was what Ilya did too. Maybe he’d sublimated all that trauma, redirecting it towards Shane Hollander. All those checks on the ice and brutal fucks in the bedroom, maybe that was his way of getting back at Grigori. God, if Ilya ever got a therapist, she would have a field day.

He didn’t cry in the airport, because that would probably just disappoint his father more. The only thing worse than tears were tears other people could see. It was a good thing no one would ever know about the way he’d collapsed on the floor of that locker room and sobbed into Shane’s arms. Grigori Rozanov probably would have died on the spot.

But Ilya could feel the emotion building up in his chest, like a clogged artery that would probably kill him sooner rather than later. He let it be. He tucked the feelings away in a tightly latched closet and he didn’t even so much as touch the door handle until a day later, when he was talking with Shane.

Shane, with his rumpled hair and his little glasses and his soft concern. He actually cared how Ilya was doing. How he was coping with the loss. Hollander was brutal on the ice, but the real Shane, the one Ilya had been permitted to get to know, was actually one of the most gentle people he’d ever met, aside from his mother.

It wasn’t fair, the way just looking at a tiny, pixelated image of a man across the world felt more like coming home than landing in Moscow ever could.

Deflecting was the easiest way to avoid the feeling. Forcing the conversation towards sex, making Shane stroke himself while Ilya watched. Maybe he had a little bit of a death wish. If he got caught doing this, he wouldn’t have any problems anymore. He wouldn’t have to decide what to do about that clogged artery making his heart skip every other beat.

Ilya had been to a few funerals in his life, none of them pleasant, but Grigori Rozanov’s was especially bleak. There was no conversation, no happy memories. Just a ghost sitting at the table, judging them all from the great beyond. It was suffocating, the way the man could still dominate a room while six feet underground.

Ilya was drunk, but not drunk enough. He had to get out, get some air, feel a little less stifled just for a moment. So he whispered an excuse in Svetlana’s ear and stepped into the hallway. It was still awful out there, but he could let his jaw unclench just a little, his posture a tiny bit less perfect.

He should have known Alexei would follow. He’d been in Ilya’s shadow for so long, he’d made a comfortable little home there.

“Stop fucking avoiding me,” Alexei said, hands shoved in his pockets like a pouting child.

“If only,” Ilya sighed. He’d been trying to avoid Alexei for most of his life, but he’d never gotten the hang of it.

“...So?” Alexei looked at him so expectantly.

“So what?”

Neither of them had ever been great conversationalists. Not when it came to talking about complicated things. Feelings. Death. Too long being told to stay silent, probably. Ilya had gotten better at it in America. Better with Shane. But Alexei had never left Russia in his life. Had never really left their father’s side. He wasn’t good at talking about these things.

So, he shoved Ilya up against the wall, his forearm pressing against Ilya’s throat. He shouldn’t have been able to manage it. Despite being a police officer, he’d let himself get soft and weak, especially compared to an MLH player at the height of his career, who literally got paid to go to the gym. He shouldn’t have been able to pin Ilya. But there were a few muscle memories ingrained in his bones more deeply than even skating.

Go limp. Take it. It’ll be over faster

As he struggled to breathe, clutching at Alexei’s arm on instinct, it might have been the lack of oxygen, or it might have been something else that made his mind flash to sitting on the couch with Shane in his lap, one hand wrapped around a pale throat and barely squeezing. What would he want Shane to do in this situation?

Fight back.

Ilya shoved Alexei off him easily once he worked up the nerve. “Don’t fucking touch me,” he spat.

And there was half a second where Ilya saw fear in his brother’s eyes. Fear of retaliation. The rest of the conversation was a constant tumble downhill, but at least Alexei never got physical again. More blame, more calling Ilya slurs, more horrible things he tried not to believe about himself, but it got harder every day.

And then Alexei called Svetlana that word. Whore.

It was almost comforting to see the difference between what he normally did and true violence. The way Ilya attacked Alexei was not the way he spanked Shane, or even the way he fought on the ice. This was more like some animal defending its pack to the death. Funny, how Svetlana had become more family than his own brother. How he would never consider shoving her against a wall the way he did now with Alexei, would never pin her or grab her face like he wanted to rip it off.

“Stop, Ilya! Stop!”

He felt like a rabid dog in that moment, Svetlana holding his leash, the only one who could convince him to heel. She really would have made a great domme if she’d had any interest in it.

“He’s not worth it. He’s not worth anything.”

Ilya stared into his brother’s eyes. Alexei had gotten more of Grigori’s genes, while Ilya had gotten more of Irina’s. Alexei had dark hair and those almost green eyes, where Ilya inherited baby blues and golden curls. Ilya hated those eyes. He never wanted to see them again. And he knew that if they fought here, regardless of whether Ilya won or not, it would mean trouble. Alexei would flex his connections and get Ilya arrested. Or worse. 

And then he might never get to go back to America. He would never see Shane again. The last thing Hollander would hear of him would be some TMZ article about how Ilya Rozanov had had a violent outburst at his father’s funeral and had gone to prison. All the terrible things he’d thought about himself for years would finally, definitively, be true.

Ilya stepped back.

And he laid some ground rules.

And Alexei left.

When he was alone with Svetlana, Ilya let out a long breath he’d been holding for… maybe his entire life. The weight of it all settled heavy on his shoulders. This was his last time in Russia.

“I don’t deserve you,” he said to Svetlana, because it seemed important that she knew that he knew.

“Yes, you do,” she said, “But you don’t want me.”

“You know I love you.” They’d talked about this. Neither of them could give the other everything they wanted.

“I know you do. But it’s not the same as it is with Jane, is it?”

Ilya opened his mouth to respond, then closed it, trying to think of how best to say this without ruining one or both of the only two good relationships he had. “I am afraid… I don’t think I deserve Jane either.”

Svetlana frowned, reaching out to cup his cheek in her hand. “You think so little of yourself. It’s so sad. You have such a good heart, but you’ve built this fortress around it. Jane deserves to be let in. He’s been waiting long enough.”

It wasn’t the biggest surprise that she knew at least some scrap of his secret. They hid so little from each other, and Svetlana was basically a genius. She was bound to put the pieces together sooner or later. Still, Ilya sucked in a breath as her words hit him.

“Maybe spend less time thinking about who you deserve, and more time thinking about who deserves you,” she added, jerking her head towards the dining room. Towards his whole family. “I love you too. Whatever you need, I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere. You don’t scare me, Ilya Rozanov.” With a smile and a peck to his cheek, she left him alone with his thoughts.

Too many people trusted him, Ilya was certain. Between Shane and Svetlana and his team, there were too many people willing to follow him off the ends of the earth. But… maybe. Maybe. Maybe Svetlana had a point. Maybe Shane did too. That they’d earned his trust. They’d seen some of his worst moments and still determined he didn’t deserve to be exiled. That he was, instead, maybe a person worth holding close.

Ilya went for a walk after the funeral, hoping the cold air would clear his head a little. But it was still a jumble of feelings and thoughts and repeated phrases from decades ago. Images he’d never be able to get out of his head, no matter how old he got.

But there was one person who always made things quieter, made them make sense. Ilya called Shane.

“Hey.” Hollander’s voice was so warm. Ilya wanted to imagine he’d just woken up from a nap. Soft, cozy blankets all around him, maybe those glasses because he’d fallen asleep while reading. It didn’t make any sense. He knew Shane was on the road for a game, but it was a comforting vision nonetheless. “How are you?”

“Okay,” Ilya said, leaning against a wall and checking to make sure no one was around. “Not good. Probably bad.” It was the first time he’d admitted out loud to anyone that maybe all of this was getting to him more than it should.

“How’s your family?”

“At their worst.” The response was almost on instinct. “My brother is… I don’t know.” Ilya thought of the look in those green eyes when he’d grabbed Alexei’s jaw. “Scared. It makes him terrible and it makes me terrible back.” The understatement of the century.

“Is it very upsetting?” Shane’s question nearly made Ilya laugh. Nearly.

“Yes. Very. But maybe I am upset about the wrong thing.”

“You mean not your father?” God bless Shane Hollander and his perfect little family who would probably all be sad if one of them died. They wouldn’t be relieved. They wouldn’t feel angry. They wouldn’t feel guilt.

“Maybe. I… I wish it could be different. I wish I could be different. I… I don’t know.” Ilya scoured his brain, trying to find the words that fit but wouldn’t make him sound like a monster. He came up empty. “English is too hard right now.”

Shane was quiet for a moment, giving Ilya air to fill if he wanted. When it was clear he’d given up, Hollander said, “I wish I spoke Russian.”

“Mmm. Yeah, you could probably learn it in a week. No accent. Perfect. Bonjour.”

“That’s French, Ilya.”

It should have been more annoying when his jokes went over Shane’s head, but it always only made Ilya smile. “Yeah, I know, Shane.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m just walking.” Though he’d stopped properly now, sinking down to sit with his back against a grimy wall, probably ruining his suit. He didn’t care. “I needed to get out.”

Again, Shane was quiet for a while, like he was thinking about something long and hard. Or maybe more like those times in the bedroom when he was about to suggest a kink he was slightly ashamed of but secretly wanted desperately. “Hey, uh, I have an idea. How about you tell me everything that’s on your mind, but in Russian? I won’t understand, but maybe it’ll help.”

It was silly. He might as well talk to a concrete wall. Except walls didn’t have soft brown eyes and warm voices and gentle souls who actually made you feel like you mattered for once. “Okay.” Ilya paused for a moment, trying to decide where to begin, which raw, tender part of him to expose first.

“I’m never coming back here again. I fucking hate it here. I hate who I am when I’m here. And they all hate me too. I pay for everything, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not enough. They all want more.” He sneered at the memory of all his relatives swarming him at the funeral, like flies buzzing around a fresh corpse. “More more more more! And I have nothing for these people. There’s nothing left in me. They tore it all out, maybe years ago. I feel empty and they don’t care. My brother, he always hated me. And I know why. I probably deserve it, but it hurts anyways. The people who are supposed to love you unconditionally, they just look at me with disgust.” He shook his head.

“And they don’t even know the half of it. They don’t know what I do to you. I think if they found out I would be dead. And maybe I should be. But… But I can’t stop myself. I can’t stay away from you. You’re so beautiful when you’re in pain. It’s like a work of art. And then you trust me to make it all better, to kiss every bruise and wipe away each tear. And I don’t know what I did to deserve that, but I want to keep doing it forever. I want to do so many things with you forever.” He had to swallow so he didn’t cry, because Shane might not be able to understand his words, but he would probably make a fuss if Ilya started sobbing.

“None of my family will ever forgive me for not being here, but you forgive me every time we’re together, before we’ve even started. You look at me and you beg me to hurt you just so we can reconcile with the kinds of soft touches I never thought I would get from anyone. Let alone someone like you.” He glanced down the tunnel, looking out towards the distant night sky. Was that a star, or an airplane? “There’s no one else. Svetlana, maybe. I love her so much, but it’s not the same. It’s nothing close to the way I love you.” Ilya took in a slow, shuddering breath as he let the realization hit him like a freight train. “I love you and it hurts more than any whips or chains. You’re the only one I want.”

Shane didn’t say anything. He didn’t interrupt. Of course not, because he didn’t understand. Ilya’s many secrets were still safe. He sniffled, getting to his feet. “Okay, I’m done.”

“Do you feel better?” Shane asked. A part of Ilya had worried he’d hung up. But he was still there. Loyal as always.

“Yes.” And it wasn’t even a lie. For some reason Ilya did feel lighter just having said some of it aloud. “Thank you.”

“Maybe you could teach me Russian someday.”

Again, Ilya wanted to laugh. Who was this man? “Yeah, okay. Only useful phrases.”

“Like what?”

Ilya shrugged. “I don’t know, like ‘harder, please’ and ‘yes, Sir’.”

He expected Shane to tell him to fuck off, but instead there was the sound of shifting fabric on the other end of the line, like Shane couldn’t sit still. “Maybe. I could get Rosetta Stone or something.”

“Shane. You do not have to learn it. English is fine.”

Hollander just hummed, which wasn’t real agreement. “But I could say things like… like ‘I wish you were here right now’.”

Ilya wasn’t even totally sure what city Shane was in. Toronto, maybe. It didn’t matter. “I wish I was too.”

-

They saw each other a week later, in Montreal, and Ilya was still a hurricane of emotion. One minute he would convince himself he should drop out of the league and run away with Shane Hollander, the next he would be certain that they should never speak again, lest the world find out what they’d done together.

As they faced off at center ice, that was the thought dominating Ilya’s mind. One of them was bound to get hurt, if not both. Ilya’s future getting destroyed was one thing, but Shane’s was another. To say nothing of the physical risks. They had plans to meet up at Shane’s place that night, and there was still a part of Ilya that was worried he would snap again and do something he could never take back.

But then Shane batted his stick against Ilya’s, and it was impossible not to smile. It was, in fact, the easiest thing in the world to hit back, to fall into that playful place all this had started from. They were playing a game, after all. A game they were both the best at.

They could talk about it tonight. Ilya would try to explain some of the mess in his head. He’d get out a damned dictionary if he had to, whatever it took to have this conversation.

And for now, he smiled, chasing Shane across the ice, lunging for the puck-

It happened in a split second. Ilya blinked and suddenly Shane wasn’t standing where he had been anymore, he was sprawled out across the ice, a whistle was blowing, and two seconds later everyone started shouting.

The whole world narrowed down to just them, or it felt that way. To Shane, lying on the cold ground, and Ilya, frozen a dozen feet away. Medics swept in and that was when Ilya actually remembered to breathe, his lungs having collapsed around his shattered heart.

“Go sit down, Rozanov!” someone shouted at Ilya, but he didn’t move an inch.

He just stood there, staring at Shane’s limp body as a neck brace was applied and he was moved onto a backboard. Ilya wouldn’t have torn his eyes off that man for all the money in the world.

“Is he okay? Is he okay?! Fucking tell me!” Ilya was aware that he was panicking, that someone was pushing him back towards the bench, but all he could think was-

Not him. Anyone but him. Take me instead.

He knew, objectively, that dying from a hockey injury was rare. But permanent injuries were relatively common. What if Shane broke something? What if he couldn’t skate anymore? What if he couldn’t walk? Ilya had a brief, delirious vision of Shane Hollander as captain of the Canadian sled hockey team at the Paralympics. He looked so good in the red and white.

Red. There was no blood on the ice, which probably should have been comforting, but at the moment it just felt like less information.

The ref shoved a hand against his chest. “I’m not going to tell you again!”

Finally, Ilya sat on his team’s bench. He vaguely registered Marlow beside him, head in his hands.

“I didn’t mean to,” Cliff croaked.

It would be such a shame if Ilya had to kill his own teammate. The optics would be bad. And Marlow was a nice guy. Ilya would definitely go to prison, but probably a Canadian one, so that would be nice.

They kept playing the game afterwards, which felt like a fucking crime. Didn’t they know that the man who cared about hockey more than anyone else in the world was injured? Was maybe dying? Boston won, but not from anything Ilya did. He might as well have been sitting in the stands, for all he contributed. It wasn’t until he was showered and wearing his street clothes that he finally got word that Shane was alright. Conscious and talking and not dead, not gone forever, not permanently injured, just hurt.

The world had not ended, by some miracle of physics. The world was lying in a hospital bed in downtown Montreal, battered and broken and bruised, but not gone.

He wasn’t allowed to visit until the next day, and it meant missing his plane, but Ilya would have done anything. He would have crawled back to Boston on his hands and knees if that was what it took.

The hospital was a labyrinth that reeked of antiseptic, but at the center was a soft, drugged-up Shane Hollander tucked into his little bed and grinning as soon as their eyes met. “Ilya!” He looked like a mess, bruises covering his body and his arm in a sling.

“I just wanted to-” The sentence trailed off as Ilya realized he had no idea how to justify his presence here. “Are you okay?”

Shane was still beaming like a child who’d been permitted an extra treat before dinner. “Concussion and a fractured collarbone, out for the playoffs, but-”

“Could have been worse,” Ilya said, relaxing a little.

“Could have been worse,” Shane agreed.

He would walk again. He would skate again. He would live.

“Marlow feels terrible. He did not mean to hurt you.” Ilya said the words because Marlow had asked him to, but they didn’t feel entirely true. Not because Marlow was a bad person, but because they were always trying to hurt one another. That was how you played this stupid sport.

“I know. Part of the game. We all get our bell rung eventually, right?” Shane understood. He committed to this game knowing perfectly well that it could kill him, because he was foolish enough to trust the other teams, to have faith that he wouldn’t be the unlucky one. “Hey. Heeeeey…” Shane whined, his good arm outstretched until Ilya shushed him and crossed the room to lace their fingers together. “Yes. Better,” he said with a grin and a content little hum.

“You scared me,” Ilya confessed. It was still terrifying, looking at Shane’s broken body and thinking about how much danger he’d been in.

Shane didn’t seem to care. “I’m sorry I didn’t text you last night.”

“No, it’s okay,” Ilya murmured, allowing himself to brush a touch over Shane’s freckles, knowing it would probably bring both of their heartrates down. The monitor at Shane’s bedside was beeping rather quickly.

“Mmm. I was excited about last night. I’m mostly mad at Marlow for fucking that up.”

“He feels really bad.”

Shane’s cheeks were rosy under the bruising when he looked up at Ilya with a glint in his eyes. “You know, I had a whole plan to ask you something.”

Somehow, Ilya knew Shane’s request wouldn’t be the thing he actually ought to ask for. He should have been demanding Ilya leave and never come back, but it would undoubtedly be something too trusting, too fond, too heartbreakingly intimate.

“Maybe it’s better if you just rest now,” Ilya said.

“I was going to ask you,” Shane pressed on. “Will you come to my cottage this summer? Don’t go to Russia. Come to my house. We’ll have so much fun, it’s so private. No one will know.”

“Hollander, you know I can’t do that.”

He was drugged. He didn’t understand what he was asking for. A violent near-stranger in his house for a whole week, maybe two? A brutal man who didn’t know his own strength, who would probably do worse to Shane than a concussion if he got lost in the moment. To say nothing of the fact that it couldn’t go anywhere. Even if they had a perfect vacation in the wilderness, they would still be rivals. They would still have to go back on the ice and pretend to hate each other. They would still have to shove each other into the boards and Ilya would have to talk to the press about his supposed disdain for the man he loved.

“I bought a bunch of stuff,” Shane said, wiggling suggestively as best he could with a broken collarbone. “I set it up in the basement. We could do some nice, long scenes. You could leave marks. I could wear a collar.”

It sounded like a dream. It sounded like torture.

“Maybe,” Ilya said, because saying ‘no’ to Shane Hollander was a skill he’d lost long ago, even when it was the thing he needed to do to protect them both. “Maybe. Here, do you need water?” If his mouth was occupied, maybe he would stop talking.

Ilya grabbed a pitcher and filled Shane’s little plastic cup, placing it carefully in his hands and guiding him to sip from the straw. Shane drank half the glass in one go.

“Ahhh,” he sighed, leaning back in the bed. “You’re so good at this,” Shane mumbled, a wide, dopey smile on his face.

“Good at what?” Ilya asked as he checked to make sure there were enough pillows supporting Shane’s head.

“Taking care of me.”

He was wrong. He’d never been more wrong in his life.

“Uh oh.” Ilya’s head whipped around as he spotted the nurse in the doorway. He hadn’t even heard her come in. “You’re not going to smother him with a pillow, are you Mr. Rozanov?”

“Ah, no,” Ilya tried to smile, tried to look casual and not so heartsick he would soon need his own bed. “No. But good thinking. No, I was just leaving.”

“Okay,” Shane mumbled, sounding so sad and small that Ilya almost promised to stay until he was asleep. “Bye bye. See you next season.”

“Get well soon, Hollander.”

-

Ilya was back to being a mess after that. The Raiders made the playoffs, but barely, and they got knocked out early by the Admirals, which might have been embarrassing if Ilya had had any space in his head for a single thought other than that mental image of Shane in his hospital bed, wrecked and smiling. There was a wrongness to it that he couldn’t shake.

Nothing bad could happen to Shane. That was the crux of it. If he insisted on putting his life in danger on the ice, then Ilya would have to keep him safe off of it. And that meant they couldn’t keep doing this thing they’d gotten caught up in. The kink was physically risky, but more than that Shane’s reputation was on the line. Ilya was practically a pariah. Everyone hated him. But Shane Hollander was the MLH’s golden boy. And nothing could be done to compromise that.

The problem was the temptation. The little texts from Shane, more frequent now that he wasn’t playing. The continued questions about the cottage. Ilya Rozanov was a weak man. He knew he’d cave sooner or later.

So, back to Russia it was. He’d stay with Svetlana, visit his niece, do some local press. It would distract him, keeping his mind off of soft Canadian boys and harsh Russian men. It would be easier this way.

Svetlana didn’t approve, of course. She barely helped with packing as they watched the Stanley Cup final. Ilya didn’t pay much attention himself. He still wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be playing in the MLH.

But even he had to stop when the Admirals won. When the camera focused on a lone Scott Hunter. When Hunter summoned someone down from the stands- a man. And Ilya’s heart stopped entirely as he watched the two men join hands on the ice, looking into each other’s eyes.

That. That was the way he looked at Shane. The way Shane looked at him. Only behind closed doors, only when they could get away with it, but Scott Hunter and this stranger were doing it basically at center ice, with the whole sports world watching.

And then they kissed.

And Hunter’s hand was on the other man’s jaw, directing the movement, and the man had a hand in Scott’s hair, pulling sharply and-

Oh.

It was a thousand things at once. It was a terrible idea and a genius revelation. It was faith and foolishness and grief and elation and maybe this was the biggest mistake of Ilya’s life but good god he was tired of waiting. He was tired of self-control, of being quiet and small and all the things his father wanted him to be. Ilya deserved a chance to be himself, flaws and all. If only for a couple weeks.

He pulled out his phone and hit dial as he stepped into the hallway, away from his rowdy guests and their irrelevant incredulity. The second Shane picked up, Ilya said without hesitation. “I’m coming to the cottage.”

Chapter Text

There was a part of Shane that was nervous.

Okay, maybe there was a lot of Shane that was nervous. The whole drive to the airport, he couldn’t stop fidgeting, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, turning the radio on only to turn it off half a song later, adjusting the air vents to exactly what he assumed Ilya would want and then flipping them back because he felt like an idiot. He was, maybe, freaking out a tiny bit.

But silly as it might have been, the weeks laid out in front of them felt massive, dauntingly open with possibility. They’d never so much as spent the night together, and now they’d be sharing the cottage for two weeks. What if Ilya hated it? What if Ilya hated Shane? What if one or both of them had another spiraling meltdown over a sandwich or something even more innocuous?

Actually having Ilya in his car made things both better and worse. Better, because Ilya always seemed to have a calming effect on him. Worse, because they could both tell something was off. Their conversation was stilted and awkward, none of their usual banter, and it felt deeply wrong.

“Thank you for inviting me,” Ilya said softly, putting an abrupt stop to Shane’s rambling comments about groceries, thank god.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Shane replied, because it seemed silly to say, Why are you thanking me when I should be thanking you? It was too sentimental for this early in the day, this much sunlight streaming through the windows. That was something to be whispered in darkness, lips barely moving against bare skin.

At least, that was the way they’d normally done things. Maybe it was time for a change.

“Me too,” Ilya said, “But also like… terrified, yes?” He had a smile on his face and laughter on his lips and Shane had never wanted to kiss him more in his entire life, but he was a little bit worried the car would crash if he tried. 

They laughed together, and conversation flowed a little more easily after that, their hands linked in Ilya’s lap.

“The cottage is super private,” Shane reassured both himself and Ilya. They could do whatever they wanted without worrying about prying eyes.

“Yeah?” Ilya asked, arching a brow. “You have good… what is the word? Sound proofing?”

“Shut up.” Shane knew his words had no impact by the way Ilya chuckled. “Yes. But mostly there’s just no neighbors. My parents are the closest and they’re a mile away.”

“Mmm good.” Ilya dragged one blunt fingernail over the sensitive skin on the inside of Shane’s forearm. “Means you don’t have to hold back. You can be as loud as you want.”

“I’m not that loud.”

For some reason that made Ilya laugh even harder. Shane laughed too, because Ilya’s energy was infectious when he was like this. Loose and free and completely uninhibited. Shane could relate to the feeling.

The anxiety started to mount again though, gradually, with every inch they got closer to the cottage. By the time Shane was carrying Ilya’s luggage inside, his heart was racing, his hands clammy as he set down the suitcase in the hallway.

Talking had done nothing to help last time, but he did it anyways, words rolling endlessly out of his mouth about real estate and Coca Cola and other things that absolutely didn’t matter when they hadn’t seen each other in months. But the problem was that they hadn’t seen each other in months. And things had been so off since the day with the tuna melts. What were the rules anymore? If Shane dropped to his knees, what would happen? Safer to just talk about well water. It was a nice well.

“Shane.”

His teeth clacked together as he shut his mouth, and Shane turned to look at Ilya with wide eyes.

“Breathe,” Ilya chided, stepping into his space and placing a gentle hand on his cheek. Shane tried his best to obey, inhaling slowly and letting it out on a long exhale. Ilya smiled, nodding. “Good boy.”

It was embarrassing how hard Shane shuddered, his body practically convulsing at the tiniest bit of praise. Ilya just grinned wider, his hand drifting down to grab a hold of Shane’s jaw, angling his chin up towards Ilya’s face.

“Color?” Ilya asked, his eyes searching Shane’s, like the answer had never mattered more to him.

“Green,” Shane murmured, panting a little already, even though they hadn’t actually done anything. “Actually, what’s better than green? What’s the color for like… this is all I’ve been able to think about for months?”

“Me too,” Ilya said before leaning in to close the gap between them, pressing their lips together and licking into Shane’s mouth.

They just stood there for a while, kissing while each of them reacquainted themselves with a body they knew almost as well as their own. Ilya pulled Shane against him with his free hand by grabbing a handful of Shane’s ass. Shane struggled for a moment to know what to do with his hands, but ended up resting them on Ilya’s chest, grabbing handfuls of his tank top and tugging weakly, already frustrated by too many clothes separating them. Eventually, Ilya bit sharply at Shane’s lower lip, drawing a pathetic whimper out of him.

“Oh, god,” he whined, pulling back. “Come here, now.” He grabbed Ilya’s wrists and dragged them both towards the lounge space, falling onto the couch and groaning in delight when Ilya landed on top of him, his body framing Shane’s like the walls of a castle.

But Ilya frowned, his fingers skimming lightly along Shane’s skin. “Are you okay? Did you hurt your collarbone again? I can get ice. Or a heating pad? Where do you keep them?”

He was already getting up, but Shane grabbed onto him by the front of his shirt, urging him to sit back down. “I’m okay, I’m okay. It was a good sound, I promise.”

Slowly, hesitantly, Ilya sat down, Shane’s legs ending up in his lap as he looked down at Shane with a pinched brow. “You promise?”

“Yeah,” Shane swore. “I promise.”

Ilya sighed, his head falling back against the couch and his eyes fluttering closed. “I am sorry. I know this is not… what you wanted.”

“What do you want, Ilya?” The words came out gentle and soft, like you would talk to a frightened child. “Do you still want to do this? We don’t have to. We can just… hang out, if you want. Play video games, watch movies, go swimming. We don’t have to do any of… that stuff.”

“No, no,” Ilya murmured, shaking his head. “I was telling the truth. I want this. I want us. I want to-” He waved a hand midair, grasping for the right phrase. “Figure out what ‘us’ is. I am just… terrified, like I said.

“You’re worried I’ll get hurt.”

“Yes. Worried I will be the one that hurts you.”

Shane sat up a little, wanting to look at Ilya properly. “We talked about this. You have to trust me to know my own limits.”

“I do, I do! I am…” He grimaced, seemingly at himself. “Trying to. You would not let me carry my bag, yes? You were worried.”

“Yeah.” Shane nodded. “Because sometimes you push yourself too far because you want to look tough.”

“Exactly. But more because I want to support my team.”

Shane smiled, just a little. “Are we a team?”

Ilya looked at him for a long, silent moment before nudging Shane’s legs out of his lap and getting to his feet. As Ilya walked away, back towards the front door, a lump formed in Shane’s throat, heavy and painful, but the sensation eased as he heard footsteps returning. Ilya knelt by the side of the couch and held out a cloth drawstring pouch in the palm of his hand, about the size of a paperback book.

“I would like to be,” he said softly. “A team. If you want.”

Hesitantly, Shane took the pouch from Ilya. When his fingers touched it, he realized it was silk and inhaled sharply. He studied it for a moment, not wanting to hope, not wanting to dream that it could be what he wanted it to be. But he had to find out sooner or later. With slightly trembling hands, he worked open the drawstring and dumped the contents of the bag into his lap.

What landed on his shorts was a collar made of fine, matte leather. The metal fittings were a shiny silvery color- or perhaps they were actual silver. It was solid black leather backed in a soft suede that would be gentle against his neck, with an intricate, almost floral pattern embossed into the surface, something that looked vaguely like Slavic folk art. But the most notable quality about it was an O ring on the front, perfect for attaching other things to. Clamps. Leashes. Rope. It had to be custom and it had to have been expensive.

Brushing his fingers gently along each feature of the collar, Shane felt tears start to well in his eyes. “It’s beautiful,” he whispered.

“You do not have to wear it,” Ilya said, resting a hand on Shane’s knee. “Not until you are ready. But I thought-”

“I want to wear it now.”

A slow, gorgeous smile bloomed on Ilya’s face. “Yes? You want to?”

“Please,” Shane said, shoving the collar back into Ilya’s hands. “Put it on me?”

They stood together, Shane turning around so Ilya could slip the leather band around his neck, buckling it in the back. It was a perfect fit- not too tight and not too loose. The weight of it was impossible to ignore, a constant reminder of what they were doing and who he belonged to.

“Do you like it?” Ilya asked in a bare murmur.

Shane spoke two languages and neither had the right words to explain how happy he was. This was why people wrote poetry, probably. Why there were songs dedicated to encapsulating the human emotions that were too big to fit in normal speech. Shane wasn’t a poet, and he barely listened to music.

But he could do this.

He could turn around to face Ilya and loop both arms around his neck, reeling him in for the most adoring kiss he could muster. Ilya gave a surprised little hum before relaxing, grabbing two hearty handfuls of Shane’s ass and squeezing. They stayed like that for a good couple minutes, devouring one another with open mouths, grasping hands, and insatiable desire.

When they finally pulled apart, Ilya had a horrifically smug smile on his face. “So, you are fan?” he teased, brushing his thumb along the edge of the collar. “You like being mine?”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” Shane grumbled even as he tucked his face into the space between Ilya’s neck and his shoulder, breathing in the smell of his cologne.

Ilya chuckled, snaking his arms around Shane’s waist and kissing his hair. “I will stay humble,” he promised, and there was an oddly earnest quality to his voice. He hooked one long finger into the ring at the front of Shane’s collar and yanked on it to force their eyes to meet. “Show me to my room.”

Shane inhaled sharply, giving a few jerky nods before he stepped away and took Ilya’s hand, leading him back to the entryway. “Right this way, Sir. There’s two guest rooms downstairs. Plenty to choose from.”

“Oh, I am not a guest,” Ilya announced, stopping to push Shane against a window with the full length of his body.

“Is that so?” Shane gasped, hating the fact that he was getting pretty horny and they’d barely done anything.

“That is so. I will be needing the master bedroom.” It was a stupid fucking line and it shouldn’t have worked on Shane, but god, it did. “Show me.”

Shane was smiling as he led the way into his own bedroom, standing by the bed with his head bowed. “I’m afraid this room is already occupied, Sir.”

“Mmm. No, it isn’t,” Ilya said. “Pets don’t get their own bedrooms.” Abruptly, he shoved Shane’s chest, sending him flying back onto the bed, where Ilya climbed on top of him, pinning him to the mattress. “Pets are lucky to sleep at the foot of their owner’s bed.”

“I- Oh god.” He couldn’t even muster a fucking witty retort. All he could do was focus on the feeling of Ilya’s fingers wrapped around his wrists, the pressure of Ilya’s hips on top of his.

“You see? I know how you like to be treated. This will be my room, and I will let you join me in it. So generous of me.”

“Sir-” Shane panted, breathless as Ilya nipped along the column of his throat.

“Hush. Let me take care of my pet.” Ilya quickly set to work unbuttoning Shane’s shirt, exposing his chest.

“The windows. There’s shutters. I can-”

Shane reached out, blindly scrabbling for the remote on the bedside table, but Ilya stopped him, grabbing his hand and pressing a kiss to his palm. “No. Let birds and bunnies and everything else look. I want to see you in the light.”

Shane’s heart clenched tight as he nodded, letting Ilya strip him of all but the collar, the cool cotton sheets brushing against his bare skin, nerve endings already sparking wildly at the slightest feeling. Ilya stripped bare too, like he was putting on a show, removing each article of clothing with a flourish as he cast it off to a random corner. They wouldn’t have to scramble to find lost socks in an hour. This room- this cottage -was theirs for the next two weeks.

“Hands and knees,” Ilya ordered as he stepped around to one of the bedside tables, pulling out a bottle of lubricant with a smile. Shane scrambled to comply. “Good boy.”

“It’s been a while,” Shane explained as he felt a cool finger pressing against his hole, “I might be tight. And I might not last very long.”

But Ilya hushed him as his index finger sank in up to the second knuckle. “Pets do not talk. Pets do not worry about things like that. You just have to do what I want. And right now, I want you to be quiet and take what I give you.”

It all sounded so simple, laid out like that. So Shane stopped talking and just focused on the feeling of Ilya slowly working him open. His moans were loud and drawn out, but there were no neighbors or other hotel guests to overhear. They didn’t have a game tomorrow, so Shane didn’t complain when Ilya dragged his nails down Shane’s back, leaving pink marks behind. And when Ilya finally pushed in, their groans echoed throughout the house.

Shane didn’t last long, but neither did Ilya. It went embarrassingly quick for both of them. But Shane wasn’t going to complain, not when it meant he got to lie on the bed while Ilya carefully cleaned him up with a warm, damp cloth. When most of the mess was gone, Ilya slotted himself in behind Shane, curving his whole body around him like a turtle shell. Shane wasn’t certain, but he thought he felt Ilya pressing a kiss to the buckle of the collar. “You were perfect,” he praised, “The perfect pet.”

“Didn’t know you were into that,” Shane admitted, “Though it worked for me.”

“I did not know either,” Ilya said, trailing his nose along the back of Shane’s neck and giving him goosebumps. “You are always bringing out new things in me, Shane Hollander.”

Shane smiled, finding Ilya’s hand with his own and giving it a squeeze. “The feeling is mutual.”

They stayed there for almost an hour, just intermittently dozing and touching and speaking softly about nothing at all. Shane was almost sad when Ilya pressed a parting kiss to the top of his head before sitting up.

“Okay, I need full house tour,” he announced.

“It’s not that big. It’s not like you’re going to get lost.”

“No. But I think you said something about you buying a whole dungeon for the basement?”

Oh. Right. That.

Shane knew his face was red as he rolled over onto his back to look at Ilya properly. “It’s not… It’s just a few things.”

Ilya’s smug face was unbearable. “You have online shopping addiction, I think. All that Rolex money is going straight to Amazon.”

“Shut up. You haven’t even seen it yet. And I didn’t get it all from Amazon, most of it is from nice places. Specialty stores. I wanted it to be good quality.”

“Right.” Ilya nodded seriously. “You wanted nice dungeon, in case anyone wanted to come by and chain you up down there for a few days.”

Rolling his eyes, Shane sat up and headed over to his closet to find clean clothes to put on. “Not anyone. You.” He’d keep saying it until Ilya got it through his head, that there was no one else.

When he emerged from the closet, Ilya was standing there waiting, wearing his own now-wrinkled clothes, hand extended in offering and a soft smile on his face. “Come. Show me.”

Shane led the way down the basement stairs, Ilya close behind him. He showed off the two guest bedrooms they wouldn’t be needing, as well as the home gym with everything they could want to keep up their fitness regimens. But tucked away in a corner was the storage room Shane hadn’t really had any plans for when he’d first constructed the house. For a while, it had just held boxes of old pee wee hockey trophies and things like that, but he’d cleaned it out last summer and stocked it with everything a deviant could want.

“Holy shit, Hollander.” Ilya whistled a long, impressed note as he looked around the room.

“It’s not that much.”

Ilya pointed. “Is that a fucking machine?”

Shane was positively magenta. “Maybe.”

It definitely was. One of the most expensive models on the market, but it came very well recommended by all the top blogs. The room also hosted a padded St. Andrew’s cross, a spanking bench, and a series of cabinets that housed every implement of pain and pleasure that Shane could imagine himself being interested in. There were even a few suspension hooks in the ceiling. That video Rose sent him had never quite left his head.

“So… What do you think?” Shane asked, studying Ilya’s profile and trying to get a reading of his reaction.

“Eh,” Ilya said, waggling his hand dismissively. “Was hoping for a little cage to put you in.”

“Oh.” Shane’s heart sank. “I can order something if you want. If I pay for rush shipping, it’ll probably get here before you leave. Was there a specific model-”

His question was cut off by Ilya looping both arms around Shane’s waist and manhandling him over the spanking bench, pressing him into it with the full weight of his body.

“It’s perfect,” Ilya growled, nipping at Shane’s earlobe as he ground his hips against Shane’s ass. “You’re fucking perfect. Can’t believe you did this.”

Shane moaned, his whole body thrumming with the realization that he might actually be getting everything he’d ever dreamed of. “Wanted it to be nice for us,” he whined.

Ilya grabbed a handful of Shane’s hair and mashed his cheek into the padded bench as he stood up, gripping Shane’s clothed ass and kneading it roughly. “Of course you did. Because you are a desperate slut who loves to be punished. Everyone knows this. Whole MLH will figure it out sooner or later.”

“Ilya…” he whimpered.

“What? You think it is not true? I could spank you right now and you would thank me for it.” One hand still pushing Shane’s head down, the other grabbed the waistbands of both Shane’s sweatpants and underwear and pulled it all down in one go, exposing his ass to the cool basement air. Ilya delivered four quick swats, two to each cheek, and Shane gasped at each impact. “What do you say?”

“Thank you! Thank you, Sir. Oh, god.”

It had been too long. Months and months. Not since the day with the tuna melts. They’d had sex since then, multiple times, but Ilya had always stopped short of this. The impact play that Shane craved so desperately, the physical sensation that reregulated him and brought him back to earth. Shane would have kept seeing Ilya no matter what, but a part of him had worried they’d lost this, that it was a step too far. Getting it back… Shane had to blink away the tears in his eyes.

“Poor thing,” Ilya cooed, gently helping Shane to standing so Ilya could pull him against his chest, holding him tight. “No one has been taking good care of you, hm? I left you alone too long.”

“It’s not your fault,” Shane said with a sniffle, his pants still stuck around his knees, hobbling him as he turned in Ilya’s arms to embrace him properly.

“It is, a little bit. But I will fix it.”

They didn’t fuck again there in the basement. Instead, Ilya peppered Shane’s ass and thighs with kisses before pulling his clothes back into place. They headed back upstairs together and started pulling things together for lunch. They had a brief, pleasant bicker about who would cook, with Ilya insisting that it was part of the aftercare while Shane pointed out that Ilya didn’t actually know where anything was in the kitchen. They ended up compromising, with Ilya prepping the toppings and a salad while Shane grilled the burgers.

Shane tried to imagine telling himself a decade ago that this would one day happen. His teenage self would never believe that he would be spending a summer with Ilya Rozanov, fucking and eating and watching TV and taking naps and talking about real things. When Ilya encouraged him to come out to his parents, Shane almost actually considered it. Almost. This was a good life, if only for two weeks, but Shane wasn’t sure what to do with the idea of it becoming his whole life.

Still, he could indulge in it for the moment. He could allow himself to relish in their little fantasy world for a few days longer. So Shane started a fire in the pit outside, despite all Ilya’s protestations that it looked “boring”.

“Nice, right?” Shane said once the flames were big and tall, reaching towards the stars and sending little embers leaping out every so often.

“So, we just sit here and look at it?” Ilya asked.

“Yes. We just sit here and look at it.” He’d spent so many nights doing exactly this with his family, even alone at times. It was lovely, and he was sure Ilya would realize that in time.

“Mm. Canada is fun.”

Shane would have shoved him if they weren’t literally right next to a roaring fire. “Shut up.”

On the bench beside him, Shane’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it and dismissed the message as soon as he saw what it was, turning back to Ilya, who was looking at him curiously.

“It was just Rose,” he explained.

“Just Rose,” Ilya grumbled, somehow making her name sound sarcastic.

“She’s just checking in.” Ilya looked back to the fire with a scowl, and Shane’s mind was spinning. “You’re not jealous, are you?”

“No,” Ilya said way too quickly.

“Ilya, I’m gay.”

“Yeah, not so gay you can’t fuck Rose Landry.”

“Oh my god.” Shane had to laugh, it was so ridiculous. “It was like twice, and she didn’t- She doesn’t do what we do. I mean, it would have been a disaster no matter what, because I’m gay, but she’s not…”

“Kinky?” Ilya said, a small smirk on his lips. “You can say the word, Hollander. It is not a complicated one.”

Shane was grateful the fire and darkness would probably cover up how much he was blushing. “Shut the fuck up.” It was the retort of a thirteen year old. But he couldn’t think of a better one.

“So she did not tie you up?” Ilya pressed, leaning in close and brushing his lips against Shane’s ear. “She did not spank you? Maybe because you could not ask for it.”

“I didn’t want to.”

“But you wanted to with me. You were brave enough for me. You said ‘I want to try BDSM’, because you knew I would take care of you.”

“So fucking smug,” Shane grumbled, turning to capture Ilya’s lips in a kiss. But he had to admit that it was all true. Ilya made him brave. Stupid, maybe, but brave.

Their kiss was interrupted by the sound of a loon’s call, which for some reason made Ilya jump about a foot in the air, his head whipping around like he’d heard a gunshot.

“What the fuck was that?!”

They ended up laughing (well, Shane did, Ilya sort of half smiled), and there was some beast in Shane’s chest that was soothed by the idea that even big, strong Dom Ilya Rozanov needed comfort and protection at times.

“I hate you,” Ilya said.

“No, you don’t.” Shane knew it was true in his bones. He didn’t doubt it even a little.

The fire kept burning, and Shane kept putting logs on, because the more night crept in around them, the closer Ilya curled to him, until his head was resting in Shane’s lap. At first, Shane worried that Ilya was genuinely afraid of the imaginary wolves, but he soon realized that this was just… closeness. That thing they never really got to have before now. Idle time in one another’s company was unfamiliar, except for the day Shane had almost ruined everything. But now, they could watch the flames dance up towards the moon as it inched across the sky. They could take their time.

So Shane scratched his fingers softly along Ilya’s scalp, and he felt safe probing the topic he’d carefully avoided for so long: “Have you talked to your brother lately?”

Ilya grunted no, his eyes never leaving the fire.

“Is that a good thing?”

“Probably,” Ilya mumbled. “I don’t know.” He sounded almost half asleep, but Shane couldn’t let the topic drop. He needed Ilya to know he was supportive.

“I’m sorry about your family.” Shane trailed a soft touch along Ilya’s back. “Even if they suck, you must miss them.”

There was a long pause before Ilya finally whispered. “My mother didn’t suck. She was great.”

Ilya had only mentioned his mother briefly in Tampa, saying she was dead. But their relationship, the fact that he missed her but not his father, that was news. Shane was nervous to keep asking questions, but he had so many, and it felt like they were in a safe place to try new things. To be honest.

“How did she die?”

“By accident.” It was a complete answer, more than Shane had thought he would get, but the thought felt incomplete, so he stayed quiet. He was rewarded with more details a few seconds later. “She accidentally swallowed a whole bottle of pills.”

Shane felt the bottom of his stomach drop out, a grief of sympathy overwhelming him. “How old were you?”

“Twelve.” So fucking young. “I found her.” So fucking painful. “I don’t want you to think she was weak.”

“I don’t,” Shane said firmly.

“She wasn’t,” Ilya pressed on, like he had to get all the pain out now that he’d started, or it would just hurt even more later. “She was so funny and beautiful. She was so sad. And my dad was so hard on her. He was hard on all of us, but her the most. She protected me and my brother.”

The fire was so warm, but all Shane could feel was a bone-deep chill as the reality of it washed over him. He could hardly imagine it, someone hurting their spouse, let alone a child. Little Ilya, with his golden curls and no hockey viciousness trained into him yet, just a kid who had never done anything wrong. Suddenly, some of Ilya’s anxieties about himself made a lot more sense. “Is that… is that part of where you…”

“I know it’s not the same,” Ilya cut in. “It took me a while to understand. But I get it now. Still, it scares me. That he did that. And that I have him in me.”

Shane bent to press a kiss to Ilya’s temple. “You’re nothing like your father,” he whispered fervently.

He could see a small smile playing on Ilya’s lips. “You’ve never met him.”

“Yeah. But I know you.”

The smile grew. “Yes. You do.”

Another loon called out in the darkness, and Ilya jolted where he lay in Shane’s lap. “Motherfucker!”

This time, they really did laugh together, any tension melting around them like ice before the fire. When they fell quiet again, Shane gave Ilya a soft squeeze. “Do you want to go inside?”

“No.” Ilya whispered, calm and certain, as he reached to lace their fingers together.

So they stayed. They stayed until there was nothing but embers left, and then they wandered sleepily into the cottage, stripping each other bare and kissing skin as it was uncovered. They were too tired to fuck again, but too entirely wrapped up in one another to not be touching constantly. Ilya reached around to undo the buckle on Shane’s collar, but stopped when Shane whined in protest.

“Okay, okay, moy kotenok,” he murmured, pressing his lips to Shane’s brow. “Just for tonight.”

Shane was determined to fight him on that, even though he was probably right that taking breaks was the sensible thing. They fell asleep in a tangle of limbs, and Shane woke with his head pillowed on Ilya’s chest.

“Good morning,” Shane mumbled, groggy and joyous.

“Good morning,” Ilya rumbled in return. He looked divine when he was this soft, glowing in the early morning light. “I like you.”

And Shane felt like he could share in that glow, like they were two stars with a single orbit. “I like you too.”

There was no rush to the morning, just easy existence. No rush to any part of the day. They ended up sprawled on the couch playing video games in the afternoon, bickering about teams and dynasties. It was absolutely perfect. And Shane could tell Ilya felt the same way, by how he joked and smiled and rolled his eyes like there was nowhere else he’d rather be.

Until Hayden called. Then the eye rolling got a little more authentically annoyed.

“He just had a baby,” Shane explained. “I haven’t talked to him in weeks.”

Ilya groaned as he flopped back onto the couch like a petulant child who hadn’t gotten his way. He could live without Shane for five minutes, even if the prospect did sound a little daunting to Shane too. But it was important that he maintain friendships with his teammates. It couldn’t take forever, could it?

Maybe not forever, but it did seem to take ages.

It wasn’t that Shane wasn’t interested in hearing about what was going on with Hayden and Jackie and the kids. It was just that he only got two weeks with Ilya and he would rather be savoring that, not discussing the best way to get Pixy Stix out of a rug. (Vacuum, obviously. Why Hayden had tried a wet rag was inscrutable to Shane.) And “discussing” was perhaps a strong description of what was happening. It was a lot of Shane just grunting and humming and saying “yeah”.

Ilya’s impatience was obviously growing with each passing minute, squirming and sighing and pouting. But the part where Shane got really concerned was when Ilya looked at him and got a sudden sly smile on his face before standing and walking out of the room.

That couldn’t be good.

He returned less than a minute later with a long length of black leather, every inch embossed with the same design as the collar currently sitting around Shane’s throat, with a loop at one end and a silver clasp at the other. It was a leash. A fucking leash.

“Hold on, Hayden, my mom’s calling,” Shane said, glaring at Ilya even as he grinned. “Let me get rid of her.” Hitting mute, he tried to imbue his voice with every ounce of seriousness in his body. “No. Not happening.”

“No? I thought you would like it.” Ilya ran his fingers slowly down the full length of the leash. “It matches.”

“I’m having a conversation.”

“Your mouth will be free.”

“Ilya.”

“Shane.” The asshole grinned, like this was a fun game to him. “What about this? I promise I will not touch your cock.”

Shane’s eyes narrowed. “Unless?”

“Unless nothing,” Ilya shrugged. “If you can come without having your cock touched, that is your problem. Means you are a slut, I think.”

For a long time, Shane just stared at him. He tried to make it withering. He ultimately failed, because god damn it, but everything this man said was sexy as hell. It was a terrible idea. Hayden wasn’t stupid. He would figure it out. And yet…

“Hey, you still there? Yeah, sorry. My mom can be so annoying sometimes.”

Ilya looked positively giddy as he attached the leash to Shane’s collar, tugging gently but firmly to urge him to his feet. Hayden dove right back into his constant babble, none the wiser as Ilya led them both down the stairs and into the basement.

The lights had a dimmer, so Ilya turned them on low before tugging Shane over to the padded bench. If there was going to be spanking, Hayden would surely hear the impacts, but Ilya didn’t respond to Shane’s lifted brow. He just methodically stripped Shane bare of all his clothes except the collar and bent him over the bench, attaching both ankles and one hand to the cuffs on each support. He left the hand holding Shane’s phone to his ear free. How polite.

It was stupid, really. Shane didn’t realize what was happening until Ilya dragged over one of the few other pieces of furniture in the room. A fucking machine. It consisted of a small electric motor that pistoned an arm back and forth, to which you could attach any number of implements. Ilya took his time perusing the shelf while Hayden talked about… god, what was he talking about? Something about Jackie’s hair dryer.

It was impossible to actually listen to anything Hayden was talking about when Ilya was picking up a sizable purple dildo and disappearing behind Shane. He could hear the toy screwing onto the arm, his cock twitching against his stomach.

The next part was really Shane’s fault.

That morning, when they’d fucked slow and syrupy sweet with all the blinds open yet again, Ilya had been whispering dirty talk in Shane’s ear. He’d explained in excruciating detail the concept of free use, a temporary state where the dom could take what he wanted from the sub at any time, without warning. Without asking. Shane had almost come on the spot. They’d talked about it more afterwards, decided they needed more planning and practice before something like that, but Shane had requested Ilya put a plug in him, just to try out the feeling of being ready whenever.

So, it was Shane’s fault when all Ilya had to do in the dungeon was pull on the silicone base, twisting it ever so slightly as he pushed it in and out a few times, drawing a gasp from Shane.

“You okay, buddy?” Hayden asked.

“Yeah,” Shane said, fighting to keep his voice neutral as Ilya pulled the plug fully out. “Just thought I saw… a wolf outside.”

Ilya snorted.

“A wolf? Really? Are there wolves up there?”

Shane shook his head before remembering he was on the phone. “No. No wolves in this area. Stupid of me to even think it.”

He anticipated it. But that didn’t change the way Shane nearly bit through his lip as the dildo pressed slowly inside him. He hadn’t even noticed Ilya lubing it up, but it slid in easily. It wasn’t that much thicker than the plug, but it was longer, pressing deep inside him, and it was a challenge to stay silent as the toy filled him entirely.

Hayden didn’t seem to have noticed, going on about how he was dealing with rabbits in his backyard, but he definitely heard the way Shane shouted “Oh fuck!” as the machine started up, pulling the toy slowly out before pushing in again.

“Shane? Everything okay?” Bless him, Hayden actually sounded worried.

“Y-yeah,” Shane stammered. “Just… remembered something.”

“Do you need to go?”

At that moment, Ilya stepped back into Shane’s field of vision, looking unbearably smug as he waggled a remote control next to his face. The thing was, Shane hadn’t actually tested out the machine that much yet. He didn't know how fast it could go, or how it would feel at top speed. And there stood Ilya Rozanov, perusing the settings like when Shane’s dad accidentally changed the input on his TV, except he looked more entertained than frustrated.

“I… just one second,” Shane said, hitting mute again before glowering up at Ilya. “What are you doing?”

Ilya didn’t even look at him, still studying the remote. “Do you know your safeword, Shane?”

“Excuse me?”

“Are you safewording?”

Something hot and volatile bubbled in Shane’s gut. “I didn’t say that.”

“Then go back to your phone call. You were the one who said you needed to talk to him. If you need to safeword, you can say yellow or red. Or you can mention me or Boston and I will know.” When his eyes finally did turn on Shane, they had an icy intensity that shouldn’t have been as sexy as it was. “Do you want me to stop?”

…God fucking damn it.

Shane hit unmute. “Sorry. Crazy day, I’m running all over the place.”

Hayden sighed on the other end of the line. “Buddy, you don’t have to lie to me.”

At the same moment as Shane’s blood ran cold, Ilya turned the machine up a notch. “Ah! What do you mean?”

“You can just say it. It’s not that embarrassing.”

Shane’s jaw flapped uselessly for a few seconds before the machine went up what felt like two more settings, punching a grunt out of him.

“You thought you saw the wolf again, didn’t you?” Hayden said, surprisingly gentle.

“Oh. Uh. Yeah. Yeah, I did. You got me.”

“It’s okay, man. I just think you’re too lonely up there. We need to get you a girl to spend the summers with, at least. Jackie’s got some really nice friends, I swear. There’s this one girl, Diane-”

It was honestly a mercy when Hayden went off on a ramble again. The conversation could keep going with only minimal input from Shane, which was about all he could manage as the machine ramped up yet again.

“You know what I mean?” Hayden asked.

“Mmmhmm!” Shane grunted, his eyes watering a little as he looked up at Ilya who seemed borderline bored. He was picking dirt out from beneath his fingernails. Though it would have been a more convincing facade if Ilya didn’t also have a visible tent in his sweatpants. “Yeah, I get it,” Shane gritted out. He had no idea what he was agreeing to.

“What’s that sound, by the way?” 

“Hmm?”

“In the background,” Hayden said. “It’s like an engine or something.”

“Oh. Uh…” Shane’s mind spun as he tried to come up with a believable lie. “Dishwasher.”

“It sounds like it’s going to vibrate off the wall.”

“Yeah, need to get it fixed,” Shane bit out.

Whatever Hayden’s response was, riveting thought it might have been, Shane didn’t hear it. Because at that moment, Ilya grabbed a fistful of Shane’s hair and bent down to suck a fresh bruise onto his neck. As his teeth were sinking into Shane’s skin, the machine turned up again, this time to what had to be the top speed. The mechanical arm fucked into Shane at a brutal pace, and his trapped cock was pulsing with need.

Shane made a vague, garbled noise that was probably an attempt at words by some part of his brain, but an abject failure in all regards. Ilya pulled back, looking directly into Shane’s eyes with a devilish smirk as he palmed his own cock through his sweatpants.

It was too much.

“Holdonjustasec!” Shane practically shouted into the phone before muting himself again and promptly coming with a feral keen.

Ilya pet his hair gently through the aftershocks, kissing his sweat-damp brow before undoing the cuffs and working the toy out of Shane while he caught his breath. When he could sit up again, Shane unmuted himself even though he was still panting.

“Sorry about that,” he gasped.

“Dude, what’s wrong with you?” Hayden said. Are you okay?”

“Never been better.” Shane couldn’t help but grin as Ilya used wet wipes to clean up the bench and Shane’s stomach.

“Okay, weirdo. Have fun hunting wolves in rural Ontario.”

“Can I call you back next week?” Shane asked. “I promise I’ll be more normal then.” He ignored the challenging gleam in Ilya’s eyes.

Once they’d hung up, Shane turned on Ilya, tackling him to the ground and pinning him with his bare body.

“Fuck you,” he panted, kissing along along Ilya’s collarbones, “Why was that so hot?”

“Because you like to be bad,” Ilya said on a half-laugh, his hands wandering.

Something about the words struck Shane. They’d been a joke, of course, but there was an odd quality to them, a half-truth, at least in Ilya’s mind.

“Hey,” Shane said, pulling back and resting his hand on Ilya’s cheek. “That’s not what this is. You and me.” He wasn’t just in this for the danger and the risk and the deviance. Not anymore. “Maybe it was at first, but… not now and not for a long time.”

It was important to him that Ilya knew that. That he understood how important their relationship was to Shane. Judging by the soft expression on his face, Shane’s words had had their intended effect.

“So,” Ilya said slowly, drawing a fingertip from Shane’s sacrum to the base of his neck. “There is a wolf in your cottage, yes? Very scary. Big teeth.”

An obvious deflection. But if Ilya wasn’t ready to talk about it, so be it. Shane could be patient. He could wait.

The rest of the day was a lazy haze, with gutterball in the yard while Ilya brought up the idea of playing for a Canadian team as a particular highlight. They also spent a memorable hour or two back in the dungeon, Ilya swearing at knot tying videos on his phone as they tried to puzzle out how to begin working towards suspension. It wasn’t particularly sexy, as Shane held random limbs out while Ilya practiced wrapping them in rope, but it was fun. They laughed and kissed and afterwards Shane made them whole wheat pasta that Ilya only complained about a little bit.

They didn’t talk about hard things again until they were both sprawled out on the couch, toes touching as they scrolled idly on their phones. Shane was so relaxed, he wasn’t expecting it when Ilya said, “I could marry Svetlana.”

As soon as those words were out in the air, his whole body went stiff as a board, his gaze lifting to Ilya’s face with what he knew was likely a slightly deranged focus.

“She’s American,” Ilya went on. “Would be easy citizenship. She’ll do it. Her father is Sergei Vitrov.”

He wasn’t even looking at Shane. He was typing on his fucking phone.

“Yeah,” Shane bit out. “You’ve told me.”

“She would help me.” It was that fucking cajoling tone that annoyed Shane the most. Like Ilya thought he was making a really good point.

“But is she… I don’t know, someone you’d want to marry?” Is this what you want? Is she what you want? That was what he really needed to know.

Ilya just shrugged. “We’re friends. We would be friends.” Finally, he looked up. “And it would be for the passport.”

This couldn’t actually be happening. They weren’t really having this conversation, were they? “Okay, but…”

Ilya blinked. “But what?”

“But you like women, right? You could find someone you’d wanna marry for real, someone who could…” The word came out of him like an arrow being pulled from a wound. “Submit. And you could still get the passport.”

“Maybe, but…” Ilya trailed off, his gaze drifting.

“But what?”

“I have this problem.”

That makes fucking two of us, Shane thought. “What’s the problem?”

“I like women, yes?” Ilya said, leaning in like this was an amicable discussion and not torture.

“Yeah,” Shane bit out. “I know."

“And everywhere I go I am surrounded by beautiful women. Some of them begging to submit to me.”

“Sounds rough.” Shane couldn’t even look at him anymore. It was too much like looking over the edge of a cliff and knowing you shouldn’t jump but you probably will anyways.

“Yes, it is,” Ilya said. “Listen. These women, they’re so sexy and fun. They look gorgeous tied up.” He paused, looking at Shane sadly. “But I am always thinking about this… slow fucking hockey player with beautiful freckles.” Finally, Shane could manage to look at him, something hot and sharp prickling at the corners of his eyes. “And a weak backhand.”

“A weak backhand?” Shane huffed out, unable to hide his smile.

“Yes, very weak,” Ilya said, sitting back again with a sigh. “He’s so boring and he drives this terrible car.”

“It’s a normal car!”

Ilya pressed on, undeterred. “I am always wishing that these women were him. It’s a terrible problem.”

That was the first time it really hit Shane that they were in this together. Sinking in the same pit of quicksand at the same time, with only each other to cling to. Of course, that just made them sink faster. Maybe Ilya wanted out. Any reasonable person would want two feet on dry land again.

“Do you want that problem to go away?” Shane asked. He wouldn’t blame Ilya regardless of how he answered.

But he shook his head. “I don’t ever want that problem to ever go away.”

It took a lot of concentrated effort for Shane not to cry. Not that he thought Ilya would judge him for his tears, but he just wanted to hold them in so he could finish this conversation, so he could say the things that mattered to him. They so rarely talked like this, honest and open and raw, and Shane wanted to honor the moment while it was there, to meet Ilya’s vulnerability inch for inch. He took a few slow breaths in and out through his nose before he opened his mouth.

“Don’t marry Svetlana. Just don’t. I know it wouldn’t be for love or whatever. Just don’t. We can figure something else out, okay?”

From the way Ilya looked at him, Shane knew he understood. They were in this together. In way over their heads, hand in hand.

“Okay.” Ilya said.

Shane Hollander was his mother’s son. He thrived with a plan, and if there wasn’t one, he would create one of his own design. He spent the next several hours turning their problem over and over in his mind, rotating it to see from all angles. At three in the morning, he figured it out. He gently shook Ilya awake, explaining his idea about Ottawa in hushed tones as Ilya rubbed sleep from his eyes.

It was a little crazy, but it just might work.

“And maybe,” Shane explained, “One day when we both retire, we could be together. For real.”

Ilya looked up at him, bleary eyed and adorable and adoring. “You really think that far ahead, Hollander?”

“I do. About this.” Shane had been able to think of nothing else for hours. Maybe he’d really been thinking about it for weeks. Months. Years.

The moment was heavy. A physical weight on Shane’s chest, and the only thing keeping him afloat was the few centimeters of skin where his hand was touching Ilya’s cheek.

“And is that what you want?” Ilya asked, his eyes searing into Shane’s. “To be together?”

“So much,” Shane murmured. “So much it scares me.” When Ilya looked away, Shane’s heart sank, just for a moment, but then he heard the shuddering exhale coming from Ilya’s lungs and he melted in an instant. “Hey.” he murmured, guiding Ilya to turn his head back, revealing tears welling in bright blue eyes. It was devastating. It was everything.

With only a little bit of awkward maneuvering, Ilya clambered on top of Shane, their bodies aligned head to toe as Ilya pressed feverish kisses all over Shane’s face, murmuring something in Russian. When he pulled back, there were tears in his eyes, and he looked like he was about to burst from the effort of holding in all the feeling in his heart.

And then he let it go.

“I love you,” Ilya murmured.

“Holy shit.” It was a horrible thing to say, but it was the only words that came immediately to Shane’s mind when struck with the realization that this man, Ilya Rozanov, actually loved him. Loved him this much, eyes shining and heart racing.

“I mean…” Ilya’s gaze flicked away, like he was going to take it all back, and that would not do.

“I love you too,” Shane said.

Now that the words were out there, it felt stupid that they hadn’t said it already. They’d said basically everything else. They’d committed to altering their life paths for one another. Ilya had collared him formally. They were stitched together in every possible way, starting from when they were seventeen, but they’d only knotted the red thread now. Foolish. But that was them too.

The tears flowed freely down Ilya’s cheeks now. “Fuck, Hollander,” he grunted as he tucked his face into Shane’s shoulder, pressing their bodies together like if they tried hard enough they could become one person. Then no one would be able to tear them apart ever again.

“Oh my god, I love you so much,” Shane muttered into golden curls, feeling absolutely wrecked with affection. “Does it… does it fucking kill you too?” It had been destroying him, he realized. The hiding. The loving. The yearning. The sex. All of it.

But Ilya shook his head. “Not anymore.”

In the morning, they sat by the water and watched the sunrise together, hope alive in Shane’s chest like a creature entirely separate from himself. The light danced across the water, landing at their feet in resplendent beams. They could do this, maybe. They could figure it out. Whatever happened next, they would do it together.

When they went back inside, Ilya led Shane by the hand to the dungeon, where he was stripped and bound to the St. Andrew’s cross with his wrists above his head and his back against the padded wood. It left him exposed to Ilya’s every whim. Shane watched as Ilya trailed delicate touches over his skin, skirting just on the edge of all his most sensitive areas.

“How did we let this happen?” Shane whispered, still reeling from it all, trying to process the events of the past few days and past ten years without his head spinning.

“We were both very stupid and irresponsible,” Ilya explained before biting down sharply on Shane’s left nipple, dragging a groan out of him.

Shane threw his head back and closed his eyes. He felt more than saw as Ilya moved on, leaving more nips and hickeys across his chest. “This is real though, right?” Sometimes he felt certain he was dreaming.

“Yes,” Ilya said softly as he scraped his teeth over the jut of Shane’s hipbone. “It’s real.”

He tried to be patient, to let Ilya do whatever he had planned, but Shane was begging before long. “Please ruin me.”

Ilya obliged.

By the end of it, Shane was covered in possessive little marks from head to tone, straining against his bonds as he tried to fuck into Ilya’s mouth. But Ilya continued to set a leisurely pace, breaking Shane Hollander down into his most basic parts before putting him back together in a bed that was theirs, with kisses and praise and so much love.

They made plans afterwards. More stumbling, halting ideas that they would flesh out later. A hockey school. A non-profit. A namesake. But the part Shane would never forget was learning how to say ‘I love you’ in Ilya’s mother tongue. He would memorize those words, get the pronunciation perfect, then learn the rest of the language too. But always first ya tebya lyublyu. He wanted to be so thoroughly understood that Ilya never had any doubt in his meaning.

“You’re going to drown!” Shane called around noon as he sat on a rock by the lake’s shore and watched Ilya try to perfect his underwater handstand yet again. He knew Rozanov couldn’t hear him, but that didn’t really matter.

Moments later, Ilya came up, gasping for air and grinning like an idiot.

“I had no idea you were so into breathplay,” Shane teased.

Something flickered on Ilya’s face, just a moment of hesitation, but it was gone before Shane could fully process it, replaced once more by that giddy smile as Ilya laid back and floated in the water. “There are maybe lots of things you don’t know about me. Are you sure you know what you are signing up for?”

“Yeah,” Shane said, unable to hide the stupidly fond expression on his own face. “Yeah, I’m aware.”

“So you know you are doomed to amazing, kinky sex for the rest of your life.” Ilya nodded seriously. “That’s good. Just wanted to be sure.”

“Is it that amazing?”

“Oh, okay,” Ilya said, swimming closer and splashing Shane’s legs. “No more bondage blowjobs for you, Mr. Complainer.”

“Well I didn’t say that…” Shane trailed off, still beaming because apparently that was his baseline today.

“Okay.” Ilya leaned up, tapping his cheek with his finger. “Apology kiss. Right here.”

Shane saw the scheme written out in Ilya’s eyes, but he bent down anyway, even though Ilya turned at the last minute to press their lips together for a slow, steamy kiss. Shane certainly wasn’t going to complain.

A few minutes later they were wrapping each other up in clean towels and padding back up to the cottage with plans for lunch, though something still itched uncomfortably at the back of Shane’s mind. “Hey Ilya?” he murmured gently.

“Mmm?” Ilya pulled the towel off his head from where he’d been drying off his hair, looking at Shane quizzically.

“Do you… Is breathplay a hard limit for you?”

Again, that strange shadow passed over Ilya’s features, though this time it lingered as Rozanov sighed, throwing the damp towel over the back of the kitchen chair. “No. Maybe? I am… nervous about it.”

“Can I ask why?” Shane said, stepping in to rest a steady hand on Ilya’s hip.

Ilya rolled his eyes. “Do I need a reason? It is dangerous. You literally stop breathing. I could kill you.”

“But you won’t.” Shane had rarely been more certain about anything in his life.

“You have too much faith in me,” Ilya protested, even as he reeled Shane in by the waist, pressing their bodies together.

“I have the perfect amount of faith in you.” Shane pressed a soft kiss to Ilya’s bare shoulder. “But we don’t have to do it. I was just curious.”

Ilya pulled back a little, studying Shane with those keen, blue eyes. “You want to try it?”

Shane knew he probably got a bit pink as he pictured it, nodding jerkily. “I like your hand on my throat. It feels… good. It just kind of seems like the next logical step.”

“Ah, yes,” Ilya snorted, “Breathplay. So logical.” But he pressed a kiss to Shane’s temple all the same. “At my place… The first time I touched you like that, you ran.”

And just like that, understanding washed over Shane and he looped his arms around Ilya’s neck to pull the man in for a crushing hug. “I’m not running anymore. I promise. You couldn’t scare me off if you tried.”

He heard Ilya sniffle in his ear, felt him bury his face in Shane’s neck. “You are just trying to butter me up for sex,” Ilya mumbled against sun-warmed skin.

“Not a chance… But is it working?”

Ilya laughed, the sound ringing out through the entire cottage, filling it with his glow. “Okay. We try, just once. Because you are greedy slut.”

Shane’s heart immediately started beating at double time. “Yeah? Really?”

“Oh, yes.” Ilya guided Shane by the hips until he was pinned against a wood paneled wall in the kitchen. “Greediest slut I have ever met.” He lifted his hand, brushing his thumb across Shane’s Adam’s apple with a feather-light touch before settling his palm against it, wrapping his fingers around Shane’s throat. “Put your hand on my wrist,” he ordered.

Eyes as big as the moon, Shane obeyed, wrapping both his hands around the delicate bones of Ilya’s wrist.

“Good boy. If you want me to stop, you just let go. I will not let you pass out. We are just testing, yes? Something new. Does not have to be perfect.”

Shane nodded, giving a little squeeze of confirmation. “I understand. I want this. Please.”

He was already getting hard in his swimsuit, but the adoring smile on Ilya’s face was somehow the sexiest thing of all. The look of pure love in his eyes as he slowly started to add pressure, until Shane could feel his air supply starting to get cut off. It was a little bit euphoric, the slight haze it gave everything, even as his lungs screamed for air and a part of him started to panic just a little.

He didn’t give any signal to Ilya to stop, eager to see how far they could push this. But they were interrupted before either of them were ready to finish.

“You get the hell away from him!”

Shane didn’t even have time to look and see who was shouting before suddenly Ilya was gone, his steady presence vanished. It took Shane a half second to get his brain back online so he could look down and see his father, David Hollander, gentlest man in the world, pinning Ilya Rozanov to the ground. Ilya wasn’t even resisting, his eyes wide and his jaw flapping uselessly as he lay limp on the floor, his arms pinned by David’s hands.

“Dad! Dad, stop!” Shane knelt to try and pull the two men apart.

“He was trying to kill you, son!”

“I asked him to do it!” Shane cried, groaning in frustration.

That actually made David stop, made him take his hands off Ilya and sit up, looking blankly at Shane like he’d announced he was going to Mars. “You… you asked him to kill you?”

“No, I… It wasn’t like that.” Shane’s face was probably bright red by now, but he had to get the words out for everyone’s sake. “It’s like a… a thing. A kink thing. Sex.”

David Hollander looked between Shane and Ilya for a few moments, his eyes flicking rapidly back and forth. His gaze finally landed on the mouth-shaped bruises dotting Shane’s chest with what felt like a physical blow. “You… You? Oh. I see.”

“Dad-”

“I’ll just uh… get out of your hair then.”

“Dad!”

David waved his arms dismissively as he backed towards the front door. “No, no, you boys uh…” He never finished the sentence, instead slipping outside and into his car without another word.

“Oh fuck,” Shane sobbed.

Chapter Text

The front door of the cottage shut with a slam as the man- Shane’s father -practically sprinted out of the house. Ilya was still lying on the kitchen floor, a little bit frozen from fear, but he quickly defrosted when he saw how Shane was trembling, unsteady on his feet and tears streaming down his cheeks.

“Hey. Shane.” Awkwardly, Ilya got himself to standing. He approached Shane cautiously, a little afraid of sending him spiraling even faster at this point.

“Fuck,” Shane groaned, clutching at his hair. “Fuck. This is a fucking nightmare.”

“Shane,” Ilya repeated, as gentle as he could.

“Oh fuck, this is a fucking nightmare. Oh, what the fuck am I supposed to do?” Then, all at once, like he hadn’t even realized Ilya was standing there until that moment, Shane turned on a dime and rushed to his side, hands dancing over Ilya’s skin like he was checking for injuries. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” Ilya insisted, catching Shane by both wrists and pressing a kiss to each of his palms. “I promise.”

“No, but…” There was a physical weight to Shane’s gaze as he swept up and down Ilya’s body. “I mean are you… are you okay?”

Ilya knew what he meant. Is this your worst nightmare too? But the guilt wasn’t crushing Ilya like he might have expected it to. He was embarrassed, but the waves of shame that might have been washing over him if this had happened a month ago were nowhere to be found. “Yes. Yes, I think I’m okay. I’m worried about you.” Ilya glanced towards the front door. “We should go talk to him.”

“Yeah?” Shane’s face crumpled as he pulled away, his hands falling from Ilya’s grip. “What if he doesn’t want to talk to me? What if… fuck, my mom.”

“Hey.” Ilya tried to make his voice firm, to cut through the panic, but he was too out of sorts himself. “They will talk to you.”

“Yeah, but I fucking lied to them,” Shane was pacing now, back and forth across the expensive hardwood floors, still dripping lakewater a little bit. “For so many years, I fucking lied to them, and now my dad just walks in on me doing that. This… this is my fucking nightmare. This is my actual fucking nightmare, Ilya!”

“Okay, okay.” Ilya put a hand on each of Shane’s shoulders, trying to hold him in place in the hopes that it might stop his harried spiral. “Then maybe it’s time to wake up, yes?” This week had been a dream, but if it was a nightmare for Shane, then maybe they needed to head back to reality. Face the world, or at least a part of it.

The misery on Shane’s face was heartbreaking, but Ilya felt slightly better when Shane pulled him into a fierce hug. At least he was still some comfort. “Fuck, I’m scared,” Shane whispered.

“Yes, it’s scary,” Ilya soothed, rubbing circles on his bare back. “But you’re brave.”

“Shut up,” Shane grumbled, which only made Ilya smile.

“You are. You’re brave.” The bravest man Ilya had ever met, by miles and miles.

“I feel like I’m gonna die.” Not that surprising, since Shane was almost definitely having a panic attack. Though when he pulled back, he looked a little more calm, a bit more centered. “So much for easing them into it.”

Ilya felt the knife in his heart twist, just a little. “I’m sorry.” Your father walking in on you kissing your rival was one thing. Your father walking in on you and your rival practicing erotic asphyxiation was another thing entirely.

A calm certainty settled over Shane’s features that hadn’t been there a second ago. “No, this isn’t your fault, Ilya. I asked for it.”

The gut instinct inside Ilya was to resist, to berate himself about his foolishness, about how much he didn’t deserve this man. But he was trying to be better about working past his first, panicked instincts. Ilya took a breath and found Shane’s hand between them, squeezing it tightly. “It’s not your fault either. You didn’t know he was there.”

Shane seemed to swallow something back- maybe an emotion or a retort -before nodding. “Then it’s nobody’s fault, okay? Please don’t beat yourself up over this.” Ilya felt like cheering as a small, hesitant smile formed on Shane’s lips. “I liked it before it ended.” 

“I liked it too,” Ilya confessed. “Alright. Nobody’s fault.”

That settled Shane considerably, and he gave a few more thoughtful nods. “Okay. I’m gonna get changed. I’m gonna drive over. And then…” The panic came whirling back, “And then fuck, what am I gonna say?”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Ilya offered.

Shane’s eyes went wide, and there was a moment where they were both clearly doing the mental math on the optics of that. Finally, Shane murmured. “Could you?”

“Of course.” A part of Ilya wasn’t even sure he would be allowed inside the Hollanders’ house, but if Shane needed him, he would fight tooth and nail to be there for the man he loved.

“Okay.” Shane let out a shuddering exhale and pulled Ilya in for another crushing hug.

“Okay.” Ilya echoed.

They stood there for a while, just soaking up comfort in one another’s presence. But after maybe a minute, Shane slowly sank to his knees at Ilya’s feet. It wasn’t sexual, but it was submissive in its own way. A request to hand over the power and the worry and the control, just for a moment. Ilya happily took it, scratching his fingers through Shane’s hair until the greatest hockey player in the world was ready to come up for air.

Shane was ready first, and by the time Ilya got outside, he was already opening the door to the car. He stopped in his tracks though when he saw Ilya, glaring. “That’s not going to help!”

It took Ilya a moment to figure out what he was talking about. Finally, he looked down at his Boston Raiders t-shirt and rolled his eyes. “You think their biggest problem with me is that I play for Boston? Not the spanking or the choking or the bruises, but Boston?”

Shane’s head tilted back as he looked up to the heavens pleadingly, and Ilya immediately regretted what he’d said. “Hey. It will be fine. Let’s go, yes?”

After taking a moment to compose himself, Shane nodded, and they both got into the car. Once they started driving, it was obvious that Shane was still panicking, his fingers tapping rapidly on both the steering wheel and the gear shift. Silently, Ilya covered one of Shane’s hands with his own, lacing their fingers together. He could think of no words that would reassure the man he loved, but physical touch always seemed to calm Shane when nothing else could. Ilya lifted their hands, kissing each of Shane’s knuckles as they wound their way through the quiet wooded roads.

When they got to their destination, Ilya was already unbuckling his seatbelt when Shane stilled him with a hand on his chest.

“Maybe you should wait in the car,” Shane said, sounding deeply hesitant.

Ilya felt the whole world tilt on its side. “Oh.” It made sense. Shane’s father had just seen Ilya choking his son. Of course he would maybe need some space to process that feeling, to understand that Shane was alright. But on the other hand, Shane was still trembling a little, his whole body taut with anxiety. Ilya shook his head. “We should be…” He struggled to remember the phrase his coach had used. “United front, yes? A team.”

Something shined at the edges of Shane’s eyes as he took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah. Okay. A team. Sorry, I… Thank you for being here.”

“Of course.” Ilya had never seriously considered anything else.

As Shane opened the front door to his parent’s home, he loudly called out, “Hey, it’s me. Shane,” as if modeling for his father the appropriate way to enter someone else’s house. “Hi,” he finished lamely as they both stood in the entryway, looking in on David and Yuna Hollander standing in their living room, David looking ashamed and Yuna wearing an expression of pure confusion.

“Hayden called us,” David explained, words lurching out of him in fits and starts. “He was worried about you. Said you’d been on the phone talking about a wolf in your yard? And we…” He sighed. “We were confused because we thought you were on a silent retreat, so I thought I’d come check on you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to see…”

“It’s okay, Dad,” Shane cut his father off, taking mercy on the poor man. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have found out that way.”

Yuna looked between the three men in a rapid cycle, and it was clear she’d been told nothing. “Found out what, exactly?”

Ilya could feel the big breath Shane took in, bracing himself before the words came out. “I’m gay. Which I was gonna tell you soon. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.” Once that basic, fundamental fact was out there, Shane seemed to relax a hair, his shoulders lowering a few centimeters as he gestured to his side. “And this is Ilya… Rozanov. But you already know that.”

“Hi,” Ilya said, still not sure how much he should speak. Not entirely certain that the danger had passed. He stood at attention, somewhere between a guard and a soldier presenting himself for inspection. Maybe he was both.

Shane went on. “He’s visiting and we’re…” He trailed off, and it reminded Ilya of the times when he struggled to remember the right word in English, flicking through mental translations to try to find something that would convey his feelings properly.

“Lovers,” Ilya offered, placing a steady hand on Shane’s shoulder.

“No, Ilya, that’s gross,” Shane groaned, and Ilya removed his hand, trying not to feel chastened. Shane was stressed. Ilya couldn’t take any of this personally right now, even if his heart ached a little bit.

“But… you hate him,” Yuna said.

Shane’s answer was swift. “No. I mean I get that, but actually I…” Again, he seemed to flounder for the right phrase before giving up. “I love him.” That made Ilya stand up a little taller, fighting to rein in a grin. It was one thing for Shane to say it behind closed doors. It was another to hear him announce it to other people. “I did not want this to be how I told you. I’m sorry. Can we just sit down, please?”

Yuna started to move, but David hesitated. “Shane,” he said. “Are you… I mean, when I walked in, I…”

Shane shook his head. “I’m fine, Dad. I want Ilya here. It was all… consensual."

Another weight lifted off Ilya’s shoulders. They’d talked about it in depth at this point, multiple times, but still there was a part of Ilya that was soothed by hearing it out loud. Shane was prepared to admit to what he wanted.

Yet again, Yuna looked around in befuddlement. “What am I missing here? What happened?”

All eyes went to Shane, even Ilya’s, waiting for him to explain. But Shane’s face had gone pink, either from embarrassment or from holding his breath. He stood stock still, mouth hanging open, not even his chest rising and falling anymore.

Because Shane Hollander had nice, caring parents, David tried to explain. “Rozanov- Ilya -he had his… he…”

God, they were never going to get anywhere like this.

“I was choking Shane,” Ilya interrupted. 

The look David Hollander gave him was almost… grateful? “That. And Shane’s covered in all these bruises-”

“I asked for it!” Shane said a hair too loudly, having finally found his voice again and apparently compensating for the time he’d been silent. He groaned, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Please, can we sit down and talk?”

Yuna made them all cups of hot, herbal tea. It smelled slightly minty, and Ilya tried to take that as a good sign, because you probably didn’t make mint tea for a man you were going to try to get deported for assault. Though he could never be totally sure, he sipped the drink anyways, letting the warmth settle in his stomach and the hot cup soothe his hands that itched to tremble.

David and Yuna sat across from him and Shane, glancing at each other before Yuna finally got the nerve to break the tense silence. “I think we thought… maybe you were gay,” she confessed.

Shane blinked in surprise, because he still thought he was so good at hiding his sexuality. “You did?”

“I think we thought it was certainly possible,” David said. Christ, maybe Ilya was the only one who had thought it was blindingly obvious.

“For how long?” Shane asked.

Yuna shrugged. “For a while, I guess.”

“We both know you pretty well, Shane,” David said. True in some ways, a massive overstatement in others. “I mean, what we did not suspect was… all this.” He waved his hand in the general direction of Ilya, who tried not to visibly shrink in his chair.

“I know,” Shane sighed. “It’s a long story. I mean, it’s kind of a few different stories.”

Yuna pursed her lips, reaching across the table to place a hand over her son’s. “We’re just… worried. We want to make sure you’re safe, Shane.”

Join the club, Ilya thought. If anyone was leading the Keep Shane Hollander Safe Committee, Ilya considered himself a prime candidate. But he also knew what it looked like, especially with the small, slightly violent snapshot David had gotten. He hadn’t gotten to see the hours of conversation, the soft touches and gentle kisses. Neither of them had any idea how much precare and aftercare went into safely hurting someone you loved. Ilya had wasted far too much time hating himself when he could have been taking better care of Shane.

Shane, who now shook his head and squeezed his mother’s hand. “We’ve been doing this for years. I know what I signed up for.” Ilya wanted to kiss him more than normal.

David’s eyebrows lifted dramatically. “Years?”

“Yeah,” Shane glanced at Ilya with that nervous pinch between his brows that Ilya wanted to smooth away with a kiss. “I mean… the first time was rookie season.”

“Since your rookie season?” Yuna asked, obviously shocked.

“No, is not true,” Ilya cut in with a frown. “Since before that.” It hurt a little, to have their timeline truncated even a tiny bit. Ilya remembered being too impatient, too desperate to wait a second longer. He remembered orchestrating an elaborate scenario so they could be alone together. Rookie season, fucking ridiculous.

“Not helpful,” Shane muttered, but he didn’t say that Ilya was wrong.

Yuna blinked, clearly doing the math. “Before?”

“Since summer before.” No one would take away Ilya’s pride in this, in the beginning of what they had. In how long they’d had it.

Yuna was still looking at them in puzzlement. “So you’ve been in love since…?”

At the exact same moment, Ilya and Shane burst into protests. “No! No, no, no…”

“Just…” Ilya trailed off. He didn’t know the English word. Or rather, he knew the English word, and he was fairly sure you weren’t supposed to admit to having been fuck-buddies with someone’s son.

“Just what?” Yuna asked.

“Just…” Ilya looked to Shane, desperate for help, but the man looked like he’d swallowed a hand grenade and was trying not to detonate it.

“Just…?” she repeated.

“Just.” Ilya took a big gulp of hot tea to give his mouth something to do other than dig holes for himself, apparently.

Shane gave his most ferocious glare. “Ilya.”

Realization seemed to hit Yuna Hollander all at once. “Oh, okay.”

But David was still a few beats behind. “Just what?”

Yuna leaned in close, whispering to her husband, “Bruises.”

Again, Shane and Ilya objected at the exact same time. “No!”

“No, we… we waited for that. It was not right away.” It was important to Ilya that the line was clear. Their relationship hadn’t started as nothing but clandestine kink. In fact, by the time they’d started doing proper scenes, they were both probably in over their heads in terms of real emotion attached to the relationship. But he couldn’t stand the misconception that he’d seen Shane Hollander and immediately thought, I need to beat that man. It was so much more complicated than that.

“Oh.” Yuna glanced between him and Shane. “So just… lovers.”

“Okay,” Shane announced. “No one is allowed to use that word again.”

Already, Yuna was on her feet, heading to the liquor cabinet. “Well, I would love a drink.”

Once Ilya had a glass of vodka in his hand, it took concentrated effort not to down it all at once. He suddenly craved that loose, tipsy place where he could worry a little less about everything that was going on. But Ilya also knew he needed to stay alert for Shane, to keep him steady.

“And there were no nice men in Montreal?” David asked, echoing the same question Ilya had asked himself a hundred times. Wouldn’t Shane be better off with some sweet Canadian man who didn’t do things like choke him or hit him or degrade him?

“I don’t know,” Shane shrugged. “Probably there were.” Ilya glowed with pride.

Yuna was already a few hearty sips into her glass. “And do your teammates know?

“No,” Shane said. “Nobody knows.”

The reminder of that secret, the good and the evil of it, burned at Ilya’s insides. He swallowed some liquor to try to wash it away, and hummed in surprise at the taste. “That’s good vodka.”

David smiled. “Thanks. I try to buy the Russian stuff.” Hollander men could be counted on for their taste for high quality Russian exports, apparently.

Not for the first time, an awkward silence dragged out in front of the group. Everyone sipped their drinks, except Shane who stared at his like he was considering drowning himself in it. Ilya wanted to reach out and comfort him, but he wasn’t sure how welcome physical touch would be right now, especially with Shane’s parents watching.

He got a good idea a moment later.

“So, the… bruises and everything…” Yuna said slowly. “You want that, Shane?”

It still ached, the idea that it was just bruises to them. Just pain, none of the rest of the rainbow of emotions Ilya felt when he was in a scene with Shane. Trust, joy, pleasure, relief. The highs and lows Shane rode like a rollercoaster. To an outsider, it literally looked more like attempted murder than a loving relationship.

But Shane was firm. Decisive in a soothing way. “Yes. I promise I actually want it.” He was so dramatically different from the man who had run away from Ilya’s house, unsure of everything.

Yuna frowned. “It’s not like a… power thing?

“I mean it kind of is.” Shane bumped his elbow gently against Ilya’s on the table top. “But in a good way.”

Something still seemed to bother Yuna though. “I’m just asking… Is this about the hockey? Does he make you let him win?”

It took immense self control for Ilya not to burst out into riotous laughter. As if Shane wouldn’t safeword at the first mention of such a thing. As if Ilya would ever ask for it. As if their competition on the ice weren’t half the heat of their relationship at times.

“Do you let Dad win at cards?” Shane asked.

Yuna gave him an incredulous look. “I’d rather die.”

Shane nodded. “Same here.”

“Alright.”

Ilya took another sip of vodka to hide his massive smirk, and the tense silence returned.

“So your plan is to… what?” David looked around the table. “Just keep doing this in secret until you both retire, or…?”

A question they really hadn’t had time to process. Ilya and Shane looked at each other, a silent conversation passing between them.

“Probably,” Shane said. “I don’t know.”

“Probably, yes,” Ilya corrected. His own career was a means to an end. A reason to not be in Russia. A job that was mostly enjoyable and kept him in a relatively safe place. But Shane was a once in a generation talent. He couldn’t be allowed to throw that away for a kinky Russian fuck-boy.

But Yuna Hollander frowned. Really, it was a borderline pout. “Oh, no. That’s sad.”

Ilya didn’t miss the way Shane tensed beside him. The way he ground his teeth before he spoke. “I know. We know. We can’t just come out and like… announce it.”

It was a little funny, the way Yuna turned red just like her son at times. “Well,” she said, “Certainly not the-”

“No,” Ilya cut her off. “We won’t tell them that.” 

He dreamed of a day when they could announce to the world that they loved each other, but what they did in the bedroom would always stay private. Sure, Ilya had an occasional wild fantasy about public sex, about domming Shane in a crowded room, but that was separate from the reality of the situation. Shane’s well-being and safety was always going to be the priority. And unfortunately they lived in a world where if people found out Shane was submissive and gay, they would look at him differently. They would judge him as lesser, because they were too stupid to see how brave and strong Shane Hollander was.

David cleared his throat pointedly. “Ilya, I’ve gotta say I’m surprised.”

Immediately, Ilya’s spine stiffened. “About which part?” Which sin did you think me incapable of?

“I just mean that you have such a reputation as a ladies’ man.”

Oh. Shame crept up Ilya’s spine for judging this man who had only bought into the public image Ilya had worked so hard to cultivate. “It’s not untrue.”

“Ilya likes both,” Shane explained, eliciting a soft noise of surprise from his mother.

“It’s true. I’ve been with many women.” Too many, honestly. There had been a point where a smarter version of Ilya would have admitted to himself that he was just having meaningless sex to fill the gap in his life every time he and Shane were apart. “But… I have only been in love with one person.” No one compared. No one could hope to. Not man, woman, or anyone else. Shane was it.

“Same here,” Shane murmured, meeting Ilya’s eyes with a soft smile. “Only one.”

Beneath the dining room table, their feet bumped softly against one another, and Ilya was reminded of the reason they were doing all of this. It was the first step of a hundred, a thousand, maybe a journey that would never end. Despite all Ilya’s experience, despite Shane’s extreme naïvete, they had chosen each other. Ilya had claimed so many of Shane’s first experiences, but he wanted to gift this man with all of his final ones. The last kiss to touch Ilya Rozanov’s lips would be one from Shane Hollander. He would accept no substitutes.

Ilya was so lost in Shane’s eyes that he didn’t notice the tension in the room until Yuna was already on her feet and headed for the front door. David frowned and Shane sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face.

“Let me go check on her,” he said, standing up.

In a flash, Ilya reached out to catch Shane’s hand before he left, either out of reassurance or panic, he couldn’t say. They were supposed to be a team. They were supposed to do this together. And they hadn’t been apart for longer than it took to go to the bathroom in a week. But of course, they would have to part sooner or later. Ilya would have to go back to Boston. Shane would have to go back to Montreal. Maybe this was practice. At least, that was what the reassuring squeeze Shane gave his hand seemed to indicate.

When Shane was gone, that meant Ilya was sitting across from David Hollander with absolutely no buffer. At least it wasn’t as if they had nothing to talk about. Ilya resolved to address the elephant in the room first, hoping to get ahead of the obvious.

“I am sorry you had to see… what you saw,” Ilya said, fiddling nervously with his glass. “I hope you know I would never hurt Shane. I would rather cut out my own heart.”

The look David gave him was not quite disbelief, but perhaps confusion was the best descriptor. Okay, valid.

“I mean… obviously I have hurt him.” Ilya felt like he was babbling now. Still, he pressed on. “But never in ways he did not want. I… I hated myself for a long time. I thought I was a bad person for doing these things. If Shane wanted to leave, I would let him go. But this is his choice, always.”

David frowned slightly and Ilya’s blood ran cold. “But you want it too?”

The befuddled noise that fell from Ilya’s mouth wasn’t quite a word, but it got his point across.

“I mean, it’s not just something Shane’s pressuring you to do?” David said. “You both want it.”

That was the last thing Ilya had expected. Why would anyone be worried about his consent after seeing him choke his partner? But if it would reassure David, the truth was an easy thing to give. “Yes. I think it is good for both of us. We need it, in a way.”

Shane needed a chance to let go of control, to allow someone else to make all the decisions and take care of him. He also needed to be reminded that he didn’t always have to be perfect. He could give into his base desires, allow himself to just feel, and he would still be worthy at the end of the day. And then, of course, there was the physical stimulation. Shane craved intense sensations, the kind of thing the beatings and bondage were perfect for. He needed the regulation that it brought.

And Ilya… Ilya had spent so much of his life with no control over anything. All power had been stripped from his hands until he was left with blind compliance. It felt good to know someone was not just listening to him, but hanging on his every word. It was a blessing to realize that he could make mistakes, even do things that were painful, and Shane would still be there, trusting and adoring.

David hummed, taking a sip of his vodka before speaking. “When I was a kid, I wanted to play hockey more than anything. My mom refused. She said it was too violent. She was worried I’d get hurt. But I begged and begged and eventually she gave in. She made me promise that I would always wear my safety gear every time. And I did. I still came home from every single practice covered in bruises. I got a few concussions and even broke my arm once. But I was having the time of my life. My mom saw how much I loved that game. I played at school-”

“McGill,” Ilya interrupted without thinking, followed by shrinking into his chair. “Sorry.”

But David didn’t seem upset. He didn’t lash out, he just smiled. “Yeah. McGill. And it’s how I met my wife. I owe hockey a lot. Obviously, Shane loves it too. I don’t know what my life would be without this dangerous, violent sport.”

Ilya nodded, turning the words over in his mind, but mostly considering how different fathers could be. How different families could be.

“Make sure you’re both wearing your helmets, Ilya.”

“Of course,” he said with a careful smile. “Always.”

When silence fell again, it was less awkward. Less stilted. The discomfort faded into the background and Ilya could actually process the fact that- maybe -things weren’t going as horribly as he’d worried they might.

Shane and Yuna returned a few moments later, both of them with red eyes like they’d been crying. Ilya wanted to reach out to comfort Shane, but before he even got the chance, he was stopped in his tracks by Yuna Hollander pulling him up and into a fierce, crushing hug.

Her arms wrapped around him and squeezed so tight he distantly wondered if he would have bruises of his own. And then, a second later, a lump formed in his throat as waves of memory and emotion washed over him. He squeezed her back as best he could with his arms pinned, and when she pulled away, both their smiles were watery.

“I’m going to make pasta,” Yuna announced. “Does anyone want pasta?”

David and Yuna headed into the kitchen, clattering and puttering around, and Shane sat back in his chair, lacing his fingers with Ilya’s like it was instinct, like that was where they both belonged. Blue eyes met brown, and they searched one another’s expressions, looking for signs of distress. But they were both okay. It would be okay.

Ilya realized, as he tucked into a plate full of steaming spaghetti and marinara, that this was the longest string of home cooked meals he’d eaten without having to make them for himself in probably a decade or more. Both Yuna and David seemed to have warmed up to him considerably, despite all his flaws, all the comparatively horrible things he’d done, despite the complications he represented for their son.

They were still feeding him. Hugging him. Reminding him to wear his helmet.

It left him with a homey warmth in his chest and a smile he couldn’t wipe off his face, no matter how much Yuna teased him about his “lack of loyalty” for leaving Boston. It was all in good fun. Families ribbing one another. Yuna was formulating a plan of attack for going public. They wanted the world to know.

“Have you talked to Scott Hunter?” David asked.

“No,” Shane said, shaking his head.

Ilya rushed to swallow his mouthful of pasta. “I did.”

“You did?” Shane looked at him in surprise. They’d been so stuck in their paradise bubble, they hadn’t talked much about the incident that gave Ilya the courage to come in the first place.

“Yeah, briefly. After MLH Awards in June.” God, was this sauce homemade? It tasted so fresh.

“And?” Yuna prompted. “What did he say?”

Iyla shrugged. “Nothing. I didn’t tell him about Shane and me. But what he did, it was…

“Yes, it was very brave,” Yuna said, finishing his thought. Brave in a way Ilya wasn’t sure he would ever have the strength to be.

“It changed things for me, at least,” Ilya said. “Maybe for us.” Maybe bravery was something you could build up, like working a muscle to make it progressively stronger.

Afterwards, Ilya would feel awful for not noticing what was happening with Shane until it was too late. Until he was already tucking his face in his folded arms on the dining room table, his chest rising and falling with rapid, panted breaths.

“Shane?” Ilya murmured, resting his hand on the other man’s back and rubbing in soft circles. “Shane?”

“I’m okay,” Shane protested, his voice as tight as a bowstring. “I’m just freaking out. I’ll be okay in a second.” But if Shane Hollander thought he was going to have a meltdown by himself ever again, he was delusional.

“Hey, hey.” Ilya rested a hand loosely on the back of Shane’s neck, like a gentle reminder of the collar they’d left back on the coffee table. “We’re good here. Your family is here. Your boyfriend is here. You’re good here, okay? You are safe.” It was vital to him that Shane understood that no one here was upset, that there was no danger. But he also knew that sometimes panic- much like subdrop -wasn’t always entirely logical.

After a few seconds, Shane turned his head a little, peering up at Ilya from the shelter of his own body. “My boyfriend?” he whispered.

Oh. Ilya had entirely forgotten that they hadn’t used that word yet. They’d exchanged ‘I love you’s, Ilya had met Shane’s parents, they’d had a formal collaring, they were planning a future together. But ‘boyfriend’ wasn’t a word that had passed either of their lips. They’d defined their relationship in bed with far more detail than their romantic dynamic.

“I mean, yes,” Ilya said, mouth suddenly dry despite all the food and drink. “I think so. Probably.” Definitely. But that was a conversation for private moments. Something to be decided together. He guided Shane up with a firm hand on his jaw, pressing their lips together in a quick, chaste kiss.

When Shane had sat up again and they both looked back across the table, Yuna had tears in her eyes.

“Since rookie season,” she stage-whispered to her husband.

“Summer before,” David corrected.

And Ilya was certain then that their team had doubled in size that day.

When all the food had been eaten and the dishes had been done, the four of them made plans to meet up again for dinner the next day. Knowing Yuna, there would probably be more talk of trying to create a plan for the future, but Ilya would do his best to temper that if it seemed like it was stressing Shane out. For now, they both needed a little space to process everything that had happened in the last twelve hours.

They didn’t talk much as they drove back to Shane’s cottage, or even listen to music. Ilya just watched the sky morph from clear blue to warm oranges and blushing pinks. He also watched Shane’s face, trying to read his expression for signs of spiraling. But his boyfriend had a soft smile on his lips, his eyes focused on the road. The only sign of the day’s tension was that they couldn’t stop touching one another, their hands interlocked, pressing fervent kisses to knuckles whenever they hit a long stretch of straight asphalt.

When they got back home, they waited until the door was closed and locked before melting into one another’s arms. Ilya kissed Shane’s shoulder, his neck, the side of his face, his temple, anything he could reach, just grounding them both in the physical sensations of the moment.

“You’re okay,” he murmured when he felt Shane start to tremble, heard the shudder of his exhales. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

“Fuck, Ilya,” Shane sobbed, clutching the back of Ilya’s shirt, holding them together as closely as possible.

“I know. But it was a good day, yes?”

“A good day?” Shane asked, incredulous.

“Yes.” Ilya combed his fingers gently through Shane’s hair. “Everyone took it well, got good meal, fewer secrets to hide. Good day.”

The wet laugh that dragged itself from Shane’s lungs was a little bit beautiful and a little bit heartbreaking. “You’re ridiculous,” Shane blubbed.

“Mmm. And now your boyfriend has whole evening to make up for getting interrupted,” Ilya murmured, placing his hand back on the nape of Shane’s neck again. “If you want. No pressure.”

Shane’s eyes were still shining with unshed tears as he studied Ilya’s face for a few beats before hesitantly nodding. “Yeah. Please. Get me out of my head.”

“Ah, you are lucky,” Ilya crooned, pressing a kiss to Shane’s lips. “That is my signature move.”

He would never stop being grateful for this. For the trust and faith Shane placed in him, the way he just handed over control without question. Ilya could never be so brave, though he thought if anyone ever stood a chance of dominating him, it was Shane Hollander.

With the reverence of the most devoted zealot preparing a shrine for worship, Ilya stripped Shane bare there in the hallway. He slipped the soft linen shirt from golden shoulders and eased shorts and briefs over the curve of his ass to drop down around his ankles. In the end, Shane Hollander stood there in the middle of the cottage entryway looking like one of those ancient Greek statues of Olympian athletes. Or maybe more like a god.

“So pretty,” Ilya murmured, kissing a few of his favorite freckles before remembering that they were all his favorites and they would never get to the bedroom at this rate. “Come here,” he ordered, leading Shane by the hand to his own bedroom.

Once they arrived Ilya directed Shane to lie down on the bed, and Ilya sat on the edge of the mattress trailing light touches over his quickly pinkening chest. Already, Shane’s eyes were wide and dark with lust. “Listen to me,” Ilya said, grabbing Shane’s jaw and smiling when he whimpered. “I am going to go get some things from the basement. You will be good and stay here, yes?”

Shane whined but nodded.

“Listen to me,” Ilya emphasized, fingertips mashing into Shane’s cheeks. “I will be back. I am not abandoning you. I promise I will come back.” It was vital that Shane didn’t feel left in the lurch after everything that had happened today. It was painful for Ilya to leave him even for a moment, but he had intricate plans that required a few supplies. “Tell me you understand.”

“I understand, Sir,” Shane whispered. Ilya was nice, so he didn’t even make fun of the fact that Shane was already getting hard.

“Good boy.” Ilya released Shane’s jaw and gave his cheek a light slap as well as a kiss. “Be patient for me.”

He tried to move as quickly as possible without slipping on Hollander’s stupidly polished wooden floors, but it still took a couple minutes for Ilya to find everything he was looking for in Shane’s well-stocked toy cupboards downstairs. He returned with his arms full and dumped all his treasures on the duvet, grinning widely.

“There,” he declared. “Everything I need to ruin my favorite whore.” It was impossible to tell whether it was ‘favorite’ or ‘whore’ that had Shane’s cheeks flushing, but the odds seemed good that it was a combination of both.

First, some preparation. Ilya grabbed two bundles of soft, black rope and used them to lash Shane’s wrists to either corner of the headboard. He was still working towards the suspension fantasy Shane had mentioned, but this was a much simpler series of knots. Once everything was secure and Shane confirmed that nothing was uncomfortable, Ilya climbed onto the bed and shoved his boyfriend’s legs apart, settling between them.

Boyfriend. That still took some getting used to.

“Aww, look,” Ilya cooed, dragging a feather-light fingertip along the length of Shane’s cock. “You are very eager, yes?” He could only resist mocking the man he loved for so long. He was still just a human. Shane didn’t make a sound, instead biting his lip as he hid his face against his raised arm. “I asked you a question!” Ilya snapped, slapping sharply at Shane’s inner thigh.

“Oh god!” Shane gasped. “Yes, yes, I’m eager. I want it.”

The feeling of satisfaction and pride that washed over Ilya was immense. No one else got to see Shane Hollander like this. There was no one else in the world Shane would trust to do this. And if Ilya played his cards very carefully, he might get to keep this version of Shane for the rest of his life. And better yet, he might get to belong to Shane in that same way. Shane might actually keep him.

“So perfect, so beautiful,” Ilya said as he covered Shane’s thighs in kisses. “All mine.” He couldn’t help but switch back and forth between the taunting and the praise. Shane drew both out of him equally, with no effort at all on his part.

“Please,” Shane keened. “Touch me.”

“I am touching you,” Ilya pointed out, rubbing his thumb back and forth over Shane’s knee. “See?”

The grinding of Shane’s teeth was almost audible, but it was certainly visible. “Not what I fucking meant.”

Which of course earned him a quick nip to the meat of his thigh. “So rude. But alright, I will touch you.”

He wrapped a dry hand around Shane’s cock, giving it a few strokes to draw it to half mast, flushed and shining at the head. Shane let out blissful little sighs and moans at the contact, his hips thrusting lazily into Ilya’s grip. That was Ilya’s cue. He reached down into his pile of toys, which apparently Shane hadn’t inspected too closely, and pulled out a cock ring, which he lubed up and secured around the base of Shane’s cock. He got no verbal protest from Shane, just a small inhale and those big brown eyes looking at him with a truly pathetic amount of pleading. It almost worked.

“Do you trust me?” Ilya asked, grabbing the bottle of lube again and drizzling a little over his fingers. “Do you trust me to make it good?”

Shane didn’t hesitate for even a second. “Yes. Just… really impatient.”

“I disagree. I think you are very patient.” Ilya pressed one slick finger against Shane’s hole and slowly breached him. “Very good at waiting for your reward.”

Shane hitched his legs up to his chest as he moaned, because he was just like that, just naturally always desperate for more sensation, more contact, more feeling. He took it all so beautifully as Ilya slowly worked him open, going from one finger to three over the course of several torturously slow minutes. Shane was very good at waiting for what he wanted, but Ilya was terribly impatient. He always wanted to rush to the grand finale. The only thing that urged him to slow down was that ecstatic look on Shane’s face, the needy whines he made when he wanted more before his body was ready. It was like watching a figure skater dance across the ice in these elaborate poses to an expertly selected soundtrack. It was art.

And then there was the begging.

“Fuck me,” Shane pleaded, “I need you."

“I’m right here.” It was meant to come out as teasing, but it ended up more soothing, a reassurance. He pressed the tips of his fingers against Shane’s prostate just to hear him whimper.

“Oh fuck! Not that. Please, Ilya, please.”

“Please what? English is my second language. Need you to be specific or I will not understand.”

“You absolute shithead asshole, fucking merde.” Shane thrashed, tugging at the ropes binding him to the headboard. “Put your dick in me or I’m going to kill you.”

“Hmm,” Ilya pretended to consider as he tapped his chin. “I think I would like to see you try. Murder with both hands tied would be impressive.”

“Ilya!” Shane groaned.

He grinned, so unashamedly pleased. “Say it again. Beg one more time for me, maybe I change my mind.”

There was a wetness shining around the edges of Shane’s eyes then, and Ilya was having so much fun he thought he was going to burst. “Please, Ilya,” Shane whispered, desperate and wrecked. “Please fuck me.”

Slowly, Ilya kissed his way up Shane’s body, leaving little nips and bruises intermixed with the tender brush of lips. He reached his boyfriend’s mouth, kissing him unhurriedly, like a delicious dessert to be savored. Something worth licking the spoon clean.

“No,” Ilya whispered against Shane’s mouth, sliding his fingers free. “I have plans for you, Hollander.” He expected more insults and curses, but all he got from Shane was a high pitched whine.

“The noises you make,” Ilya chided as he slunk down Shane’s body again, leaving a few more kisses along the way, “They drive me insane.”

Shane huffed out a broken sounding laugh. “Everything you do drives me insane.”

This was what Ilya was born to do, probably. He was born to take apart Shane Hollander specifically. To drive him mad, to strip him down to his most essential parts, to fuck him like he deserved to be fucked. He was good at it. Maybe better than he was at hockey. Certainly better than he was at most other things in life. He felt at home there between Shane’s legs, picking up a hot pink silicone toy and pressing it slowly into his boyfriend’s hole.

Above him, Shane gasped and craned his neck, trying to peer down at what Ilya was doing. “Which one is that?”

“One you will like.” Ilya pressed the on button at the base of the prostate massager, turning it up to level three right away.

“Oh Jesus fucking-” Shane immediately set to thrashing again, moaning and panting heavily.

“Stay still, pet,” Ilya ordered, pinning Shane’s legs to the bed and tisking in disappointment. “Did you forget your manners because I didn’t put your collar on? Do you need a reminder of what happens to naughty boys?”

Shane’s chest was rising and falling rapidly at the same time as his cock started dribbling in the most pathetic way. “I remember.”

“Good boy.” The flush that spread across Shane’s face was worth everything. Worth the hiding, worth the stress, worth the months apart, worth the doubt and the self-loathing. For this moment, Ilya would have done anything in the world.

He kept going, working Shane up slowly through higher and higher levels on the massager until tears rolled down his cheeks and his cock was leaking a thin, clear fluid.

“Please,” Shane begged. “Please, Sir, Ilya, fuck.”

He’d been begging and swearing the entire time, an endless dialogue, but Ilya was feeling like a little shit, so he gasped theatrically and put on an expression of shock. “Oh, you want this off? You should have said so. I did not hear you say anything.”

He switched the toy off and immediately Shane went limp, sobbing with relief. Ilya tried to be as gentle as possible as he removed the prostate massager as well as taking off the cockring. He then kissed Shane’s soft stomach, running hands soothingly up and down his thighs. “So good, beautiful. You were perfect. Everything I wanted. Put on such a good show.”

All he got from Shane were little sniffling noises, but that was okay. He didn’t have to say anything.

“I’m going to fuck you now. Do you still want? Just yes or no is fine.”

“Yes,” Shane croaked, his eyes red-rimmed and gorgeous. “Please.”

A part of Ilya was tempted to spend some of his stupid pile of money on an art gallery, just so he could fill the walls with paintings and photos of Shane like this, wrecked and magnificent. But a greater part of him was greedy and wanted to keep this sight just for himself. No one else would understand or treasure it properly.

He slicked up his own cock, achingly hard but ignored until now, and pressed slowly into Shane’s pliant, yielding body. They groaned in unison. Though Ilya hadn’t been deliberately overstimulating himself like Shane, he was already close to the edge. It took almost no effort. Shane came first, completely untouched and looking like one of those gothic paintings of saints seeing God. But Ilya didn’t slow down. He lifted Shane’s hips off the bed and drilled into him harder, a half dozen more frantic thrusts until he was spilling himself inside this man he would burn the world for.

Shane made a pitiful sound as Ilya pulled out, his eyes heavy-lidded and limbs loose when the knots were undone. Ilya cleaned him up with a damp cloth from the bathroom before crawling into bed and tucking Shane against his chest. The panther that lived in his chest purred, pleased to have his mate close and safe.

A vague mumble fell from Shane’s lips, words completely unintelligible, and Ilya kissed his shoulder with a smile. “In language I can speak, maybe?”

“Shoulda been wearing my collar,” Shane rumbled.

“Mmm, silly pet,” Ilya teased, giving Shane’s waist a squeeze, “You think the collar is what makes you mine? What makes you mine is you. You keep coming back.”

The slightly drunken grin on Shane’s face was more beautiful than any sunrise. “Yeah? Then you must be mine too. You keep coming back too.”

Ilya snorted a half-laugh. “Back. Stupid. I am never leaving.”