Archive of Our Own

Lily: 

You didn’t tell me you were in Boston early. 

Come over. 

Jane:

Can’t tonight. Sorry!

Lily:

Game is days away, you are not busy.

Stifling a sigh, Shane thinks, I am, unfortunately.

He taps the side of his phone in a meandering rhythm as he considers how to respond. 

The Montreal Metros are in Boston two days early ahead of their weekend game against the Raiders, and they’re taking advantage of their relatively empty schedule to celebrate Hayden’s birthday at a tiny dive bar in the middle of downtown.

Any other time or city, and Shane would have no problem spending a night with his teammates, even if he refuses to join them in on their pursuit to drink themselves blind. 

Though shepherding a bunch of  increasingly disorderly NHL players isn’t his idea of a great night out, the novelty of spending time together outside of the rink is enough to make up for that.

Mostly, at least.

But sitting in a dingy little bar on a Friday night in Boston, all Shane can think is, I could be with Ilya right now.

A friendly nudge to his arm almost startles him out of his skin, and he turns to find the birthday boy himself casting an arch look at Shane’s thigh, right at the phone balanced precariously atop of it. 

“No, no.” Hayden wags a finger in playful reproach. “It’s my birthday tonight, not Lily’s.” 

He rolls his eyes despite the reluctant smile pulling at his mouth. “Yes, sir,” he says drolly, and promptly slides his phone back into his pocket. 

“First round on me,” Hayden calls to the group at large, before he directs his attention to Shane with a slap to his back. “Ginger ale?” He asks him by rote, an ironic half smile on his lips.

Like you even have to ask. “Sure, I’ll –“

He makes the mistake of looking beyond Hayden at the worst possible moment. 

Through the throng of strangers, Shane’s eyes catch on a figure with a golden brown halo of curls from all the way across the other side of the room, tucked in close to a beautiful woman in a circular booth against the rust-coloured brick wall.

As though sensing his gaze, Ilya Rozanov’s eyes lift from his companion just long enough for Shane to meet his across the neon-coloured haze. 

Shane’s wide eyes trail between Ilya and the mystery woman, and he wonders at the creeping cold sinking deep into his bones.  

It’s not like they’re exclusive, it’s not like they’re anything at all, really, but Shane would never have thought Ilya was actively screwing around with other people and trying to still invite him over on the same night. 

“Uh, no, on second thought.” Shane says through numb lips, “I’ll, uh, have whatever you’re having.”He punctuates that with a pasted on smile that feels brittle on his face.

Hayden’s brows shoot up high on his skull, and he looks like he’s going to question Shane before the raucous jeers from the team drown him out.

“'Atta boy. Knew you had it in you. ” 

“Get out of here, Pike, before he changes his mind.” 

Swallowing hard, Shane chances another glance across the bar, only to find Ilya’s unreadable stare still fixed on him. 

To make matters worse, his stunning companion follows Ilya’s gaze. Much to Shane’s surprise, her face lights up in recognition the moment she spots him, and she gives a cheery little wave that has him ducking his head. 

Stop fucking staring.

Even with his head dropped low on his shoulders, Shane is sure he can still feel the weight of Ilya’s sharp gaze roaming over him, and he bites back a miserable sigh.

This is going to be a long night.

+

Shane spends the rest of the night decidedly not staring at Ilya – not because he doesn’t want to, but knee deep in his cups as he is, with a truly ungodly amount of alcohol sloshing around in his stomach, at this point he’s not even sure he can actually see much beyond a few feat in front of him.

He glances at his phone mulishly, but there’s no missed texts to be found, and his resolve slips a little further. 

So much so, that by the time the others start agitating to move on to another bar, Shane begs off with a vague mumble about going home.

Hayden hovers like a mother hen by the table as the rest stagger for the exit. “You’re staying? I can call you a cab.”

Leaning his cheek on his fist, Shane squints blearily up at him. “You’re not my dad, Pike,” he says, then perks up with a thoughtful noise. “Although... if I’m your wife’s other husband, does that make you my husband, too?”

Hayden only snorts in response. “You wish.” He peers at him with a slow growing grin. “You’re a bratty drunk, Hollander.” 

Well, that’s probably one of the many reasons why he doesn’t usually drink, but pleasantly buzzed and melting in his seat, he’s not quite sure why he denies himself this.  

Shane blinks owlishly at Hayden’s retreating back and calls, “Happy birthday.”

Hayden throws a wave over his shoulder, and then it’s just Shane, alone and sauced out of his mind in a crowded bar.

He grimaces down at his fifth – or is it his sixth? - drink of the night, some concoction of spirits and juice that Carmichael had foisted onto him. 

I should go home. 

But getting up strikes him as a terrible idea, so he remains precariously seated. You just want to see Ilya.

He’s got no idea if Ilya is even still there, because he hasn’t looked. Obviously. 

He’s still glaring down into his swirling, sunset-hued drink when a shadow spills across the table, but it’s only a polite, feminine cough that finally has Shane lifting his heavy head upright.

Oh. 

Ilya’s companion stands before him, the cyan lights flashing above glowing bright on her dark skin, the tight coils of her hair pulled up high on her skull, with only a few soft curls escaping to frame her flawless features. Her slinky, silver dress glints like a mirror ball down her frame, stopping mid thigh to reveal long legs that continue well below Shane’s table. 

Women might not do anything for Shane in that way, but he’s not blind, and he regards her with a dazed blink before he remembers himself. 

“Er, hello,” he says, eyes flitting surreptitiously around her in search for a noticeably absent Ilya. 

Where’d he go?

As though summoned by his thoughts, between one blink and the next, Ilya materialises by her side, seemingly unimpressed by her decision to approach Shane, if his curled lip is anything to go by. 

He wrinkles his nose at him and thinks, Hello to you too, asshole. 

When the full weight of Ilya’s flinty stare falls on him, Shane freezes like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming trailer – if said trailer was somehow made up of two models taken straight off a runway somewhere in Milan. 

“Hello, Shane Hollander,” she says, with a curiously Russian lilt lifting her voice. She trails a glittering nail across the table, glossy lips pulling up into a feline smile. “May I sit?”

His thoughts shriek an instant denial. No.

But Shane can’t conjure up a polite reason to deny them, so he studiously ignores Ilya’s gaze and nods despite his better judgement. She slinks into the stool opposite him, looking like a cat who’s got the cream as she takes a delicate sip of her cosmopolitan. 

Ilya doesn’t immediately follow; he looms above them for an excruciating beat, the muscle in his jaw visibly twitching before he finally settles down beside her.

To think. Shane idly thumbs the condensation along his glass. You were crying in my arms a few months ago.

The memory briefly flashes across his mind’s eye like a rocket, but he quickly blinks it away with a silent curse.

Across the table, Shane watches her exchange a wide-eyed, pointed look with Ilya, who in turn sighs in that long suffering way that only makes his chest thrum with a deep ache. There’s an ease there, a familiarity between the two that hurts to witness, and he’s still floundering for an excuse to escape this misery of his own making when Ilya speaks. 

“Hollander – Svetlana.” Ilya twirls a lazy hand between them in greeting. “Svetlana – Hollander.”

Svetlana. Shane straightens in alarm, because he knows that name. 

The other friend he fucks on a casual basis, his brain supplies with unnecessary bluntness. At least they’re friends, Shane thinks morosely. Despite everything, he can’t really say the same is true for Ilya and him.

Shane nods at her, eyes averted as his lip twitches in a weak facsimile of acknowledgement. 

Seemingly undeterred, Svetlana’s wide smile gleams in his periphery. “I’m a big fan,” she says.

His thoughts run bitter. Can’t say the same. 

Which isn’t exactly fair. As much as he wants to hate her, he reminds himself that it’s hardly her fault that she’s so… close to Ilya. It’s not like Shane’s done a very good job of resisting him, either. 

She’s probably not stupid enough to fall in love with him, though. 

It takes him a moment to realise he’s probably supposed to respond. “Oh?” He mutters, finger tapping frantically against his glass.  

In the back of his mind, he can’t help but notice how uncharacteristically subdued Ilya is, because that’s strange, isn’t it? 

“You are best player in the league,” she says, leaning forward on her forearms. Licking her lips, she adds in a low aside, “The hottest one, too.”

On a long list of things he expects her to say, that’d be right at the bottom of it.  

Stunned, Shane’s head snaps up, lashes fluttering as his cheeks warm beneath her scrutiny. With Ilya sitting right there, it lands more like a joke than a sincere sentiment, but there’s nothing in Svetlana’s countenance that hints at duplicity.

Ilya finally breaks his silence with a beleaguered noise. “Did you come here to flirt with the competition?” He adds something in Russian that makes her cover her smile with her hand.

She doesn’t miss a beat, sly eyes raking across Shane’s gormless, slack features. “How can I resist? Are you blind, Ilya? He is so pretty.” 

Does she know that he’s…? Shane wipes the sweat beading at his nape. But she’s his friend, of course she knows about Ilya’s proclivities. 

Does she know about me? Shane thinks, shoulders stiffening as his panicked stare darts to Ilya, who only blinks placidly back. About us?

Not that there is an ’us’, Ilya’s made that perfectly clear.

Svetlana nudges Ilya with a snicker. “Don’t you think?” 

If Shane were sober, he’d endure this moment with awkward resignation, but the sickly sweet booze coursing through his blood has long since eroded the normally tightly held reigns on his tongue.

“I’m right here,” Shane says, exasperated, resisting the urge to shrink when their eyes dart his way.

Her grin only sharpens. “Oh, I know.” 

But Ilya’s not looking at him, his narrowed eyes are locked suspiciously on the glass in Shane’s hands.

“You are drinking?” Ilya could not sound more astonished if he tried. At Svetlana’s bemused noise, he explains, “Shane does not drink. This is very unusual.”

Why is everyone so caught up on this? Most people drink, this is the default behaviour for most of the population, yet it doesn’t matter if Shane abstains or partakes, he always gets the third degree for his choices.

She turns her thoughtful gaze onto Shane.“You were here with the Metros, no? Special occasion?” 

“Toasting my proxy wife’s, husband’s birthday,” Shane explains without thinking, then baulks at the twin looks of astonishment flashing across their faces. “Er, that’s an in-joke. Just - never mind.” Shaking his head, he barrels on with an awkward shrug, “It’s Hayden’s birthday, we were just getting some drinks to celebrate.”

Svetlana’s head tilts sideways. “You have not followed them,” she says slowly. 

“Nope.” He’s about to explain that he fully intends to leave, right now in fact, when –

In a cheery tone that brooks no argument, she declares, “You must drink with us, then.” 

Oh, no. “I don’t know…”

At a loss, he looks to Ilya for help. 

“Is past your bedtime, isn’t it, Hollander?” Ilya drawls, slinging his arm onto the backrest of Svetlana’s stool, and Shane follows the casual motion with a hollow twinge in his gut.  

If he leaves now, no doubt Ilya and Svetlana will carry on together, until they inevitably end up back at his place and tumble into bed together.

Fuck. 

With that image burnt into his eyelids, Shane knows he’s not going to get a wink of sleep. Might as well stay, then.

The vestiges of his sanity offer up a meagre protest, If you stay, you’d only be delaying the inevitable –

Shane lifts his drink, pausing to glare at Ilya over the rim as he says through gritted teeth, “Don’t think you know anything about my bedtime, Rozanov.”

Ilya’s brows knit into a deep frown, but by his side, a clearly delighted Svetlana beams at him in approval.

“Ah, I knew he was wrong about you,” she laughs. At Shane’s sharp look, she titters. “He says you are boring, I knew he was lying.”

Shane bites his cheek, shoulders lifting higher as a muted sort of hurt crashes over him. You talk about me? He flicks his gaze to Ilya once, then away. With her?

Maybe that’s the sort of things they talk about in the afterglow, gossiping about the long list of Ilya’s semi-regular conquests. 

Shane abruptly tosses two-thirds of his drink back, wincing as the sickly sweet concoction mingles with the bile rising in his throat. 

“What are you having?” She asks, amused by his display. 

“No idea.” He purses his lips and resists the urge to shudder as he downs the dregs. “Was letting them pick.”

“Then it’s my turn,” she says. Rising to her feet, she plucks his empty glass and saunters away before Shane can think to argue. 

Leaving him alone, with –

Suppressing a sigh, Shane reluctantly turns his attention to Ilya. 

With him.

+

The hours blur by in a wash of sound and colour, Shane’s awareness narrowing and warping under the weight of alcohol in his system, mind curiously adrift the longer he lingers in their presence. 

The sour envy remains when he looks them together, but it’s softened by his inebriated state.

Unfortunately, he’s enjoying both of their company too much to leave.

After what feels like five minutes of conversation, Svetlana pouts at her phone before announcing one last trip to the ladies room before the bar closes. 

Shane glances at his watch, then blanches. Hours, he thinks weakly. Distantly, he thinks he should be concerned about being seen in public with Ilya like this, but then again…

Svetlana is clearly with him. He almost chokes on his final drink – a ginger ale, this time, because he’s not a complete idiot. No one’s mistaking me as his.

When he looks up, Svetlana’s already sauntering away, and Ilya’s openly staring at him in turn, undaunted even when Shane kicks his ankles beneath the table.

“Ye-es?” Shane slurs. 

Ilya’s lashes flutter once, and he shakes his head as though he’d been lost in deep thought. “I have question.” 

Shane nods, even as he mentally braces himself for the nightmarish onslaught that’s sure to come. “Okay,” he says.

“What do you think of marriage, Hollander?”

Shane squints when Ilya sways in triplicate before him, but one last clench of his eyes merges him back to one. 

He tries not to look over his shoulders in search of any eavesdroppers, not just because that’s only likely to draw more attention, but he fears the simple swivel motion might agitate his already overworked vestibular system enough to send him crashing down to the ground.

It takes him a moment to realise that the pounding drumbeat is coming from his own skull, and not the dingy speakers overhead. 

Frown deepening, Shane asks, “Why…?”

“Svetlana suggests it.” Ilya’s right shoulder lifts in a lazy approximation of a shrug.

Right. Of course. It’s Svetlana suggesting it, and now Ilya is apparently considering it.  

This is a waking nightmare.

Shane takes a large gulp of his sweating beverage, grimacing when it burns all the way down his throat. “Is she offering?” It’s meant to be a joke, but it slips out far more strained than intended. 

“Yes,” Ilya says.  

Something crawls inside his heart and promptly keels over and dies. “Ah.”

Shane’s gaze drop to the sticky table, eyeballs stuck spinning in slow circles as he follows the repeating loop of tracing the wet ring marring Svetlana’s empty drink coaster. 

But then Ilya eventually adds,“…For green card,” and the dying thing in his chest gives a hopeful spasm. 

“Oh.” Shane bobs his head. “Right, yeah. Makes sense.” Except no it doesn’t, because isn’t she also Russian?

He must say as much aloud, or Ilya plucks the question right from his brain, because he soon enough adds, “She has American passport.” 

Unbidden, his thoughts snarl in protest, Why marry her and become an American citizen, when you could be Canadian instead? But that’s far too dangerous a path for his mind to go down.

He and Ilya are fuck buddies, nothing more, nothing less – hell, maybe not even that. Fuck rivals? But that’s not right either. Fuck-acquaintances, he thinks gloomily. 

Though he hopes that eight or so years of fucking must account for something more than acquaintances. Surely.

After the All-Stars game, it’d certainly felt that way, but Shane really should’ve known better than to believe that. It’s always one step forward, ten steps back with them. Maybe we’ll finally be friends, when we’re old and grey, he thinks wearily.  

“Why are you telling me this?” He sighs. Shane had been almost enjoying his rare bout of spontaneity, but the regret was quickly drowning out any fleeting pleasure he’d experienced before.

Beneath the table, Ilya gently brushes the sides of his foot against Shane’s. “Answer the question,” Ilya says.

“I think it’s stupid,” he grumbles, redirecting his nervous fingers to pluck at the watery label on his ginger ale. “Marrying for a green card is the oldest trick in the book – it won’t work.”

He’s not sure if he’s trying to convince Ilya, or himself. Maybe both.

Ilya makes a curious noise, and the shift of his head has his curls falling in a charming pile over his brow. “You think it wouldn’t be believable?” 

The shadow of a smile at his mouth screams like a klaxon in the back of his brain, and he can’t shake the sense that he’s waltzing headfirst into an ambush. 

Denying the obvious chemistry between Ilya and Svetlana would only expose the green-eyed monster lurking within himself, so Shane simply  stares balefully at the half-peeled drink label and says nothing. 

A low whisper drifts over the din, as tantalising as it is dangerous. “It is not only option.”

Shane reluctantly meets his eyes, breath catching at the strange severity lurking behind his luminous stare.

“Is that why you were here?” Shane asks, voice wavering with obvious desperation. “Making… plans?” He braces a hand against his queasy, roiling stomach in a feeble attempt to ward off his rising gorge. 

Ilya offers a tiny smile. “Yes.”

Ilya splays his hand against the table, sliding it across until it rests just shy of Shane’s glass, and it takes everything in him not to reach out and tangle their fingers together.

Not allowed. He heaves a sigh. Look, but don’t touch.

An amused huff from Ilya shocks him out of his morose stupor. 

“What is that face?” Ilya’s eyes crease a little at his expense. “You are pouting.”

Shane touches his mouth, unconvinced. “Am not,” he mumbles. He hasn’t lost his facilities so much that he can’t tell a normal frown from a pout, no matter what Ilya claims. 

In a move his bleary eyes can barely fathom, Ilya snatches up Shane’s bottle to drink the last of his ginger beer. 

“Hey!” 

Ilya only smirks around the neck of it, throat rippling with a visible swallow that sends an instant frisson of heat to Shane’s core. 

He sets the bottle down onto Shane’s coaster with a pointed thud.“You don’t want to know other option?” Ilya says. 

Not really. “What other option is there?” Shane bites out through gritted teeth. “Some other girl?”

One I don’t know about? 

Half the women in Boston alone would volunteer for the dubious honour being Ilya’s green card bride, but aside from himself and Svetlana, he doesn’t know of anyone else he sleeps with on a regular basis. 

Though he keeps Shane so well hidden, there could be countless others just like him that he keeps around. Maybe someone better, someone he keeps close to his chest.

And I’d never know.

“Yes,” Ilya says.

The splayed hand on the table inches closer to Shane’s limp one. 

“Don’t you want to marry for –” Shane claws the ‘L’ word from his mouth before it can escape, and quickly scrambles for something marginally less dangerous to speak into existence. “Someone you want to spend your life with? Not just a regular hook up.”

Ilya levels him with a slow blink. “It won’t be a problem,” is all he says.

Shane fights off a scowl. “How do you know?” 

“Because, they are…” he whispers, and the fond hush of his voice is almost enough to confuse the indignant, green-eyed monster rising in the back of Shane’s brain. “She is – my favourite.”

His favourite? He should’ve stopped this conversation five minutes ago – no, even before that, Shane should’ve walked out the moment he spotted Ilya in the back of the club hours ago. 

Because Shane is a glutton for punishment, he can’t help himself. “Oh, yeah?” He laughs hollowly. 

“Hm, yes, I love fucking her.” Ilya says with a blunt candidness that shocks Shane silent. “She is always so desperate, so eager to please me.” He licks his lips, breath shuddering out in the barest rasp as his eyes glaze over, as though he’s imagining this perfect, mystery woman at that very moment. “You worry that I will be stuck, if I do this, no? But it’s not a problem. I have been fucking her for years, and I’m still not bored of it.”  

The implication of those words, in that order, hits him square in the solar plexus. 

She’s not boring, Shane thinks, mind curiously adrift. Not like me.

“Sounds like a keeper,” Shane says woodenly. 

“Yes. She will make a very pretty wife.” Resting his chin in his palm, Ilya’s eyes gleam when he adds, “My Jane.” 

…

…

Your.

…Jane?

Some ungodly, wounded sound is punched clear out of Shane’s lungs, the dangerous implication of his words pinging the sides of his cranium, until he spots the roguish half-smile lifting the corners of Ilya’s lips, and remembers exactly who it is he’s talking to. 

“Very fucking funny,” Shane croaks out. 

“Is not a joke.” Ilya taps his knuckle once, smiling when his hand spasms beneath his touch. “I can show you.”

Shane straightens to attention, his awareness of the bar around them fading to a muffled murmur in the background. “Show me?” He breathes. 

Ilya makes a show of letting his eyes stray across their immediate surroundings, before he leans in closer across the table. 

He knows he shouldn’t, but Shane finds himself subconsciously mirroring him, so close that he’s sure he can feel Ilya’s soft breaths ghosting his cheeks. 

“I can be convincing,” Ilya says in a low murmur, unblinking eyes sweeping the flushed planes of Shane’s face. “With the right person.”

The implication radiates like hot molasses through his insides. 

Licking his lips, Shane mumbles, “Convincing?”  

Ilya’s lidded gaze flits between his moving mouth and his wide-eyed stare. “Yes. As Jane’s husband.”

Jesus. In the back of his mind, he knows they’ve strayed well into dangerously uncharted territory, and he knows they should stop before they do something they’ll both regret. 

But he can’t help but ask, “…How, exactly?”

“I was thinking of taking her home tonight, for practise.” Ilya affects a careless shrug. “Dress rehearsal for our wedding night.” 

Ilya affects a thoughtful expression, and adds with a slinky smile, “Maybe not dressed.” Beneath the table, Ilya’s shoe grazes his own, sending Shane’s already racing heart into overdrive. “So...?” 

Shane drums his fingers against the sticky table. “’So,’ what?”

Ilya doesn’t miss a beat. “Do you think that Jane would accept my proposal?”

Don’t answer that, he tells himself.

Not just because he’s not sure how he’s supposed to answer it, he’s also not convinced there’s anything he can say that won’t reveal just how pathetically appealing Shane finds the idea. 

At Ilya’s expectant look, Shane almost trips over his tongue to speak, “This is all hypothetical, right?”

“High-pathetic.” Ilya’s brows knit. “You just made that up, didn’t you?” From the smug curl of his voice, Shane’s not convinced he’s not just pretending to misunderstand on purpose. 

Rather than answer outright, Shane averts his gaze and mutters, “What about Svetlana?”

He regrets saying it almost immediately, because he’s not just asking about tonight, and Ilya likely knows it.

“I was not planning on taking her home tonight.” 

When Ilya doesn’t elaborate further, Shane’s helpless to stop his impatient huff. Judging from Ilya’s widening smirk, he seems fully content to make him squirm, until he relents with a fond crease of the eyes. “It’s as I said – I would not marry her if Jane was an option.”

Shane’s sure his ears are playing tricks on him, because this can’t be happening. 

“You’re joking,” Shane insists, almost pleading now. “I – Jane’s Canadian, it doesn’t work the same way – “

“You say so,” he parries lazily. “But I didn’t say anything about marrying her for that, did I.”

What the hell is he talking about?

“Right, so it’s just because you –” He almost trips over the word, “Like fucking her,” Shane says flatly.

Ilya’s lashes fluttered. “Love,” he says, and Shane tries very hard not to fixate on that particular word coming out of his mouth, especially not in relation to himself – or a girlish dual identity, at least.

Is fucking the only part you love? Thankfully, Shane’s not nearly drunk enough to let that question slip loose.

“Let me take Jane home, and I will show her if it’s a joke or not.”

What does that even mean? Going home to fuck Rozanov is one thing, but roleplaying as newly weds on their wedding night is just –

A newly wed bride, a depraved little voice pipes up in his brain. 

Shane shifts in his seat, uncomfortably aware of the way his jeans are tightening between his thighs. There’s a million reasons why he shouldn’t say yes, none of which are forthcoming. 

Svetlana’s shimmering dress catches his eye behind Ilya as she makes her way back, and Shane quickly leans away, feeling oddly sheepish. The hand Ilya had kept precariously close to him on the table slinks away, and Shane pretends not to notice the dark look rolling over his face like an oncoming storm. 

Look, but don’t touch, he reminds himself. 

Not just because Ilya isn’t his, but anyone could be watching. My career, he thinks, then stops himself. To hell with that, what would Russia do to him?

He doesn’t want to think about it.

“What have you done to him?” Svetlana’s playfully chiding rebuke has them both straightening to attention. Her winsome smile drops the longer she looks at Shane, and she sounds summarily unimpressed when she says, “Ilya…” 

Ilya clicks his tongue defensively. “I did nothing.”

Shane looks between the two, heart sinking deep into his churning gut. Bickering like a married couple already. 

Beneath the table, Ilya’s foot nudges his again, sending a bolt of heat so acute down his spine that renders Shane mute. 

Not a married couple, he reminds himself. 

He blinks when she loops a surprisingly strong arm around his arm and lifts him out of seat, and he grips the table edge to adjust to the sudden movement. 

“Think it’s time to go home.” She quirks a brow at Shane. “You don’t hold your liquor well, do you?”

Shane grunts vaguely in response, ignoring Ilya’s amused glance at their linked arms as he allows himself to be dragged towards the exit.

It’s not fair, Shane thinks. He knows they both also drank more than their own fair share, he witnessed as much with his own eyes, yet they’re both annoyingly well put together. 

He slips free of Svetlana’s grasp with a polite grimace he aims in the general vicinity of her forehead, before he ducks his head, breathing slow as he focuses on walking in something approximating a straight line.

He thinks maybe he should run in some belated attempt to save face, but with Ilya shadowing his flank, he knows the likelihood of that is slim to none. 

The chilly city air stings his warm cheeks as they step outside, and he swivels his head each way as he tries to reorient himself. 

The hotel is this way. He takes a confident step to the right, then falters. …I think.

When something hooks his belt loops and halts him like a leash being yanked, he glares down at the offending finger before following the line of Ilya’s arm upward to meet his impassive stare. 

“Let go, Roz-a-nov,” he annunciates it with deliberate slowness, mentally patting himself on the back for not eliding a single syllable despite his leaden tongue’s best efforts to sabotage him.

“No. Is cold,” Ilya says blandly, as if that explains anything at all. His grip tightens infinitesimally for emphasis when he adds, “And you’re drunk.”

Shane puffs up at that. “Am not.”

Ilya continues as though Shane hadn’t spoken, “You will wander into traffic.” 

Mouth agape, a disbelieving laugh escapes him. “Yeah, only to escape you–”

The smug smile cracking the rigid planes of Ilya’s face lends him a boyish charm that stops Shane mid-rant, rendering him momentarily mute.

Ilya nods once in approval. “Then you agree,” he says.

Er, what?

God, this conversation might be too much for him to follow in his current state. “Agree to what?”

The finger still hooked into his jeans abruptly tugs, and Shane yelps as he almost collides with Ilya, brain seizing in alarm at their sudden proximity. His startled breaths escape him in visible clouds through the wintry air, close enough to mingle with Ilya’s slower exhalations.

Face illuminated by the glow of her phone, Svetlana interjects with a wry,  “I’m calling a cab.” 

Ilya finally untangles himself from his belt loop, something like annoyance betraying his steady composure, and Shane takes a wobbling step back before he does something monumentally stupid.

“I should…” Shane jabs a thumb in the direction behind him, but Ilya silences him with an arch look.

“If that’s what you want,” he says, far too casually for the tension thrumming like a live wire between them. 

“It’s on its way,” Svetlana interrupts, pocketing her phone with a smile. “Are you coming, Hollander?”

Ilya’s teeth flash in the gloom as he snickers, voice ringing with poorly concealed meaning, “Hm, yes, are you coming tonight?” 

He knows exactly what he’s doing to him, the unrepentant asshole, and Shane bites his cheek to stop himself from cursing him outright. 

Say no. 

Through numb, barely moving lips Shane mumbles a quiet, “Alright,” and promptly seals his fate. 

He’s rewarded with the briefest flash of a smile from Ilya, before it smooths over into a facade of unflappable boredom that Shane’s used to. 

+

Ilya waits on the pavement, his hands shoved deep in his pockets to keep himself from straying towards an increasingly unsteady Shane, who slowly sways on his feet to a rhythm no one but him can hear.

Cheeks flushed and eyes droopy and lidded, Shane looks like he only ever does after Ilya gets his hands on him. It makes him want to shield him from view, to hide this artless, unguarded side of him away for only him to enjoy. 

Lowering his voice, he speaks to Svetlana in quiet Russian, “We should share a cab, I think. I will make sure he gets home.” At Svetlana’s long, blank stare, he rolls his eyes and adds, “And you, obviously.”

She bats her lashes as a slow, impish smile forms. “Oh, so we’re all going back to Hollander’s hotel?” She asks with faux sweetness.

It’d been too much to hope that he’d somehow managed to keep this a secret from her, but it’s clear there’s no use wasting his breath denying it.  

And it’s also clear she’s fully aware that Ilya has no intention of leaving Shane in Pike’s irresponsible hands. 

The mention of his name has Shane blinking at them both like a particularly adorable, bemused puppy.

“No,” Ilya says, in English this time. “We will drop you first.”

“How long were you going to hide him from me?” She whispers back, thankfully not in English. “You sly dog.”

Ilya won’t dignify that a response even in the relative safety of his Mother tongue – Shane’s far too adept at language to risk it. 

His rambling, grief-stricken call months prior did not count.

“Is this why you won’t let me crash at your place,” Svetlana continues, the deplorable menace. “I take it that this is Jane?”

Shit.

“No,” he lies – rather pointlessly, if the acerbic slant of her eyes is any indication. “His name is Shane,” he adds drily.

At some point Shane hooks an arm around a street light post to rest against it, cheek squashed against the pole as he watches them both with a suspicious squint.

Ilya bites his tongue against the instinct urging him to take his sweet face in hand and sink his teeth into his pink, frost-bitten cheeks.   

“Tu m'niaises-tu?” Shane bites out, narrowed eyes flitting between slowly between them both, and it takes Ilya a moment to recognise the strange words as some form of French. 

Perfect little show off, Ilya thinks, inexorably fond. 

“Not fair,” Shane grumbles in English. “It’s rude to talk about people when they’re right in front of you.” 

Ilya swivels his head away, making a show of studying the incoming the incoming traffic to hide the grin threatening his mouth. 

He’d been in a foul mood the moment he’d learned about their upcoming game against Montreal, which was odd, given it meant a rare but precious opportunity to steal whatever time alone that he could with Shane. 

That Shane was in town even earlier than anticipated should’ve buoyed his mood, and yet.

The giddy thrill of fucking his greatest rival had turned sour without him fully realising. It’s not enough to have him a handful of times a year anymore,  and every little encounter with Shane only makes his ugly greed for more fester.

He steals a glance at Shane’s dazed face. It’s very distracting.

Svetlana clears her throat. “Should I ride shotgun, and give you two some privacy?” Despite the sarcasm dripping from every word, there’s no real heat to it. 

Though Ilya’s not sure he likes the pleased looks she casts between him and Shane. He can practically see the cogs in her brain moving, no doubt linking their earlier, hypothetical discussion about citizenship and marriage with Ilya’s obvious fixation with Shane. 

Ilya’s not sure when it happened, but somehow keeping their arrangement secret had become less about safety, and more about keeping Shane all to himself. 

If Ilya were sober, he would stop the tantalising idea brewing in his brain the moment it first spawned. But while he’s not as legless as Shane is, he’s imbibed just enough to let his mind wander into uncharted territory.

When the cab pulls up to the kerb, he opens the door for Shane first, eyes widening when he stumbles, forcing Ilya to throw out a hand between the car and Shane’s skull to prevent him from cracking it open on the roof.

Half collapsed across the back seat, Shane peers up at him and Svetlana with a gormless blink. “You coming?” 

Unbelievable. 

Ilya can only shake his head as he climbs in after him, a pained warmth blooming bright behind his ribcage. 

+

Cheek squashed against the passenger window, Shane drifts off at some point after Ilya and Svetlana squeeze in alongside him, well before the cab crawls away from the kerb.

It feels like only a matter of seconds pass before the car’s slowing again, and a murmuration of soft Russian drifts past the veil of unconsciousness blanketing him.

“Okay, bye-bye,” Ilya says, and the back door thuds closed, startling Shane awake with a jolt. 

Shane’s lashes flutter open, head snapping up as he looks with bleary eyes towards the window, because did he really leave without so much as a –

Draped against the middle seat, Ilya himself stares back at Shane with an arched brow. “Did you have a nightmare?” Ilya sounds tickled by the thought. 

The shock of discovering him still in the middle seat is enough to leave Shane smacking his lips open and shut like a fish out of water. 

Shane gawps at the empty spot next to Ilya, who answers the silent question forming before he can think to ask it. “She was dropped at her hotel,” Ilya drones. “She didn’t want to wake you.”

Oh. 

Melting back against the seat in relief, his lids grow heavy again.

Ilya shifts until his right thigh presses a warm line against his own. “Sleep,” he says. “I will wake you.”

That doesn’t make sense to Shane, but he’s not quite sure why. Frowning, he mutters, “You will?” 

A pot hole jostles him sideways into Ilya, and he lets his head rest against the warmth of his shoulder before he remembers where they are, and he quickly rights himself.

Ilya grabs his arm before Shane can tuck himself against the passenger door. 

The cab driver. Shane’s too paralysed to risk looking ahead, for fear he’ll find the driver already looking back. What if he recognises us?

Thankfully, Shane doesn’t even need to voice his concern aloud for Ilya to understand. His bright eyes flick once to the driver, then back. “He does not care,” he murmurs, giving Shane’s knee a gentle knock. When Shane doesn’t immediately move closer, he releases Shane’s arm with a shrug. “Or give yourself concussion against the window. Be my guest.”

With his temple hovering inches from the window, Shane frowns at the glass for a beat, then tips himself back into Ilya’s side with an eagerness that he should probably feel embarrassed about. 

But with his head lolling onto Ilya’s shoulder, Shane melts back into his sleepy daze before he can remember why that is.

+

When Shane wakes again, he finds himself inexplicably upside down, and he lets out a yelp as the ground shifts steadily beneath him.

Not the ground. Through cracked eyes he sees the long line of Ilya’s back, and the lush curve of his ass shifting as he walks.

It takes him a moment to fully register what he’s seeing. Is he carrying me?

“Ilya?” He ventures cautiously, because what if those aren’t Ilya’s legs, and Shane’s draped like a sack of potatoes over someone else’s shoulder?

 Was I kidnapped by that cab driver? Oh, god. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep –

“Yes, Shane?” Ilya’s poorly concealed amusement is a balm on Shane’s raw nerves, and he sags fully across his shoulder with a loud sigh.

“Oh, good,” Shane says, then falters, because the air is too quiet, the neat slabs of concrete stepping stones beneath look like something out of Architectural Digest than downtown Boston. “This isn’t my hotel.”

Ilya gives a patronising hum. “It’s not,” he agrees. He can almost hear the wicked smirk in his voice when he adds, “I do not know where your hotel is.”

Shane squirms and paws at his back in protest. “Then why didn’t you ask me –

Ilya abruptly stumbles, body twisting ominously sideways as his arm tightens on Shane’s waist, and the lurch in his gut says they’re both going down, until Ilya manages to right himself at the last possible second. 

Ilya’s not usually so clumsy.

Shane erupts in a fit of delight. “You’re drunk, too!” 

“I am tipsy, maybe,” Ilya grunts, which is the closest thing to a concession Shane’s ever heard from him. “I am Russian, I am not a lightweight like you.” 

He slaps his ass for emphasis, drowning out Shane’s squawk of protest with a loud snicker. 

“Rozanov…” He starts, until he notices the clear night’s sky above them, noticeably absent of any skyscrapers.

Still trapped in his arms, Shane cranes his neck behind just enough to make out the familiar shape of Ilya’s sleek home, illuminated by a row of garden lights that dot the winding path to the door.

“Oh.”

He took me back here?

Shane peers around Ilya’s shoulder, but no, Svetlana isn’t here either. She really was dropped off.

He allows Ilya to guide him to the front door in a daze, too overwhelmed to make sense of the reality unspooling before his eyes. 

Before Shane can think to question him further, the grip on his back loosens, the world shifting upright as he’s slowly dragged down the full length of Ilya’s very warm, very long body.

God. 

Even when Shane’s feet touch the ground, it becomes quickly apparent that Ilya has no intentions of letting him ago. He only releases him long enough to enter the security code, before Shane’s world spins around him as Ilya slips his arms beneath his legs and back to cradle him against his chest.

It’s instinct that has Shane clutching at Ilya’s shoulders for dear life, but Ilya smirks down at him like he’s performed a particularly endearing trick for his benefit. 

“What is this,” Shane yelps.

“I am carrying you.” His arms tighten infinitesimally as he carries Shane inside. “Over the threshold.”

Like a fucking bride on her wedding night. 

When Shane makes the mistake of lifting his head to look around, Ilya swoops in to wrap his lips around the shell of his ear, trailing up the very edge of his lobe before letting go to whisper, “Welcome home, Jane.” 

Groaning loudly, Shane buries his face right into Ilya’s neck to conceal the furious blush he knows is stealing across his cheeks. 

“We’re not married,” Shane mutters. 

Hauling Shane through his dimly lit living room, Ilya only lets out a long-suffering sigh. “No,” he says. “Is a dress rehearsal.”

“Ridiculous.” 

Ilya stops abruptly at the foot of the stairs to stare at Shane, eyes crinkling down at him in a way that feels wholly unsettling, and he bristles beneath his scrutiny. “What?” 

“Nothing.” Ilya’s face swarms close to plant a long, lingering kiss to Shane’s flaming cheek. “You are acting shy.” 

And you’re being handsy, Shane’s mind bleats. And, and – just, weird. “Am not.”

“Remind me,” Ilya says dryly, hefting Shane to readjust his grip. “To put in something about honesty in our wedding vows.” 

Our wedding vows. Shane can’t help the shudder that wracks him at the thought, but Ilya wisely chooses not to comment on it. 

When Ilya begins to carry him upstairs, Shane’s protests fall on deaf ears.

“You’ll kill us both,” Shane moans. “Don’t think you’re supposed to carry people under the influence.“

Chest shaking with poorly restrained laughter, Ilya’s arms only tighten around his body as they ascend. “Are you scared of heights?” 

Shane only presses his glower into his neck as his stomach gives a nauseating whoosh. “Only when I’m being carried by drunken Russians.”

So busy complaining about his plight, he’s unprepared for the arms around him to slacken, until he finds himself being gently lowered down to sit –

Oh.  

Shane finds himself perched precariously on the edge of Ilya’s bed, a little dazed but otherwise safe and sound. 

When Ilya kneels at his feet, Shane parts his thighs before his brain registers what’s happening, and he flushes at the knowing glint behind his lidded eyes. 

By the time he unzips Shane’s jeans and manages to work them down his legs, the nausea in his belly is quickly replaced by a familiar coil of fire, stoked by the mere sight of Ilya’s face between his spread thighs.

When Ilya diverts his attention to undoing his laces and divesting him of his socks, Shane watches him in silent confusion. 

“I can do that,” he says, but Ilya only ignores him. “What are you doing?” Something in his tone makes Ilya finally look up. 

“Undressing you,” Ilya says with characteristic blandness. 

Obviously. Shane’s clearly entered the Twilight Zone, or Ilya is just fucking with him for sport. Probably both.

“Why are you…” Shane trails off, overwhelmed by a surge of mortification so potent it chokes his throat shut. 

Why are you touching me like this? After all these years, Shane’s used to the sporadic but predictable patterns of affection and caretaking from Ilya. Either right before, during, and after sex, though the latter isn’t always guaranteed. Anything outside of that is an outlier, for the most part. 

Shane looks at the neat pile of clothes and shoes on the floor with a troubled frown. I don’t understand what this is.

Ilya sighs. “I already told you what this is.” He cuts Shane off before he can argue, an exasperated smile flicking across his face. “I know you don’t need my help.” 

“…Why,” Shane says slowly.   

“I want to.” He gathers Shane’s limp hand in his own, bending over it to press a to his knuckles. Rubbing his fingers, he looks up at him beneath his lashes and says, “Is good practise.”

Don’t ask, he tells himself. But of course when Ilya chums the water with bait as tantalising as that, Shane’s hopeless to resist. 

Steeling himself, he asks, “Practise for what?”

“Our wedding night.” Ilya tilts his head to the side in clear disbelief. 

Ah. Shane blames the alcohol for his discombobulated sway backwards, just barely catching himself before he falls flat to the bed. 

Married to who? He wants to ask, but no, Ilya’s already made that perfectly clear, hasn’t he. 

“Don’t,” Shane blurts. “Please don’t marry Svetlana.” His toes curl so hard into the carpet they threaten to cramp. “I know you’re joking about this, but surely there’s other options.”

Ilya’s grip on his hand spasms once, before he presses them both to Shane’s now bouncing knee. 

“Other options,” Ilya repeats in a quiet hush. 

Shane nods, biting his tongue in hopes the moment will pass if he remains quiet, but Ilya’s apparently determined to dance right along his last nerve.

Brows lifting, he tilts his head to Shane in silent question.

“What?” Shane mutters, eyes dropping to their entwined hands for a pained beat. 

The fingers on his calve move upward to flit across Shane’s thigh. “I would like to hear about these options,” Ilya says with a seriousness that belies his bright eyed stare. “I am all ears.”

There aren’t any. But that’s not really fair, is it? 

In all the years Shane’s known Ilya, he’s not sure he’s ever seen him look like this before; the still planes of his face seem strangely animated, eyes darting over Shane like he’s trying to figure out a particular challenging equation.

“Sometimes, I think it’d be easier if I was a woman.” Shane isn’t sure what possesses him to say it, and he rushes to fill the terrifying silence that follows. “Not easier, easier,” he stammers. “Just, would give you more options, wouldn’t it?” 

“Are you offering?” Ilya says, unblinking eyes trained inexorably on him.

Shane laughs nervously. “What? No –”

“Hm, but I told you, if you don’t want it to be Svetlana…” 

Ilya’s saccharine endearment flits across his brain, My Jane. 

That was just a joke. 

It wasn’t a serious offer, but the idea worms its way inside his head and taken up permanent residence in his skull. 

“Is that what this is about, Hollander?” Ilya toys with their clasped fingers, running his thumb over the knuckle of his ring finger before looking at him beneath his lashes. “You want to be my wife for real, don’t you?” 

“No,” he says quickly – too quickly, if Ilya’s wolfish grin is anything to go by.

There’s a dreamy fondness to his low snicker. “You’re the worst liar.” Ilya leans in for a kiss that Shane turns his mortified, pink face away from, until a firm hand on his cheek tilts him back towards the plush curve of his smirking mouth. “Is okay, I won’t tell anyone,“ Ilya whispers, rucking the shirt up Shane’s stomach to expose his quivering stomach and chest. “My Jane, you liked that, didn’t you?”

I did, he thinks, faintly horrified at the surge of heat building in his gut. I do. 

His head dips in a short, jerky nod, and Ilya’s tense facade shatters before his very eyes, shoulders dropping as his familiar, cocky half smile returns, eyes gleaming like twin jewels in the gloom. 

What just happened?

He shifts, discomfited yet pleased by Ilya’s open appreciation, and wonders aloud, “Why’re you looking at me like that?”

Ilya blinks slowly. “Like what?” 

‘Like what,’ he says, like he’s not openly eating Shane alive with just his eyes – made all the more worse when Ilya keeps casting dark, lingering glances at the obvious erection still tenting Shane’s briefs. 

Or when he begins slowly spreading Shane’s legs open like a book.

He reaches over to tangle his fingers into his curls, and is rewarded with an appreciative sigh from Ilya, before he sinks downward –

Oh, god.

Shane clutches Ilya’s hand on his knee as he presses hot, open-mouthed kisses up the quivering skin of his inner thigh, only stopping just shy of his femoral artery to plonk his chin atop his quadriceps instead.

“Since you are offering.” Ilya murmurs. “Can I marry you?” He says, not a shred of artifice behind his lidded stare. 

Shane’s too busy petting his mop of curls to register the question, at first. “What?” 

Nostrils flaring, Ilya digs his thumbs into his femoral pulse and rumbles, eyes flashing, “You heard me, Hollander.” 

“Uh, right, sure,” Shane breathes without thinking, then catches himself, because clearly this isn’t what he thinks it is. “For – for your citizenship?” He ventures, voice wavering. 

He feels Ilya’s mouth twitches where it’s pressed to his thigh. “Obviously,” he says

Right. Obviously. 

Shane watches the devilish smile creep up his face, and imagines an invisible trap snapping shut around him. 

The gentle pulse of lust sweeps any lingering questions from his brain, and it’s only a matter of seconds before Shane’s helping Ilya rip his underwear away, leaving his cock to arch in an aching line against his t-shirt.

“So?”

Shane licks the sweat from his upper lip, too pent up and agitated to stop himself from huffing, “So, what?” 

Ilya’s eyes dart away and back in that infinitesimal way they do when he’s in deep thought. Or scheming, Shane thinks.  

“My proposal,” he says, impatient in a way that suggests Shane’s the one holding up their night, and not the other way around. “Do you accept?”

“Don’t be such a tease.” Shane stutters, gripping Ilya’s locks in a fist. “Please.”

His parted lips pause just shy of his leaking crown, and Shane watches his devilish smile form against the ridge of his cock with a hysterical sort of disbelief.

Shane’s eyes flutter. “Yes,” he whispers. 

What Ilya would call his boring, pragmatic side squawks a warning, but it’s quieter than usual, drowned out by the molten throb of heat ravaging him from tip to toe.

“Strange way to propose,” Shane stutters.   

“I am on my knees, no?” Ilya’s eyes widen derisively. “What else is there.”

Several answers spring to mind, the most pertinent of which are – a ring, a declaration of love, getting down on one knee, not two, because getting down to blow someone hardly counts.

“A ring, I guess–” 

Ilya untangles their clasped hands long enough to take Shane’s ring finger between his lips, sucking it down to the second knuckle as he kneads the muscles in his thighs. He pulls off, not before nipping the pad of his finger between crooked teeth, and his cock gives a sympathetic twitch. 

“Anything else,” he growls, eyes dropping to Shane’s slick cockhead. 

But all Shane manages is a weak, “No, I suppose you’ve got most of it covered.” 

The bright sparkle of satisfaction lighting up Ilya’s eyes soothes over any doubt percolating in the back of his mind. Which is just as well, because soon enough Ilya’s opening his mouth, and the first sinuous swirl of his tongue across his shaft steals every last coherent thought from his skull entirely. 

Shane can only hold onto his curls as Ilya quickly swallows him down like a man starved, sinking right down to the root and back, until his cock’s all but glistening with his saliva, every bob of his head filling the air with an obscene symphony of groans and the wet squelches.    

“Holy shit,” Shane gasps. “What’s the rush!”

Ilya only hums low in his throat, sending a delicious vibration reverberating right across his length as he glides along his tongue. Shane’s not sure he’s blinked once since he started; he just watches Shane with quiet, unnerving interest as he sucks him down with an intensity that’s almost too overwhelming to comprehend. 

Between the hot, sloppy suction of his mouth, and Ilya’s terrible, permissive gaze, Shane’s peak rushes up to meet him at breakneck speed.

Tugging his hair once in warning, he stammers, “I’m, uh, fuck.” He wrangles his thoughts long enough to warn, “I’m close.” 

Ilya only maintains his same frantic pace, the only clue that he’s heard him in the way he now makes sure to flick his tongue in relentless strokes against his frenulum when he pulls back to his head. He strokes Shane’s clasped hand against his knee, and it takes him a moment to register the pressure of Ilya’s thumb painting a featherlight caress over his finger. 

My ring finger.

Shane tries hard not to fall over the edge, but between that and the hot suction of his mouth, it only takes several, lazy swirls of his tongue before the pressure within him breaks, and he floods Ilya’s mouth with a ragged cry. 

Ilya crushes his forearm across his arching hips, pinning him to the bed as he slowly bobs up and down his twitching shaft, not stopping even when he’s milked the last drop from Shane’s half-hard cock.

“Roz - Rozanov,” he pleads, petting blindly at his hair, not to push him away, but to sweep his curls from his luminous eyes. “Please.” 

He almost bowls over when Ilya finally releases him, licking his swollen lips like a particularly smug cat.  

You’ll be the death of me, Shane thinks. 

Ilya slaps an avuncular hand to his stomach as he rises to his feet. “Okay?” 

He’s too subsumed by hazy endorphins to muster anything but a mute nod, and he moans as Ilya ducks in to capture his lips in a scorching kiss, shuddering with a renewed shiver of lust as he tastes himself on Ilya’s tongue. 

“Wait here,” Ilya murmurs against his mouth, as though Shane has any hope of moving after that. 

Drawing away, Ilya circles the bed to approach his side table, letting out long sighs in between a string of aggravated Russian as he rummages inside the drawer. 

Falling back to his elbows, Shane cranes his neck to better stare at Ilya’s ass. “Something wrong?“ 

“No.” Ilya grunts, before his shoulders sag. “Well, yes.” He scratches his nape, the closest thing to bashful Shane’s ever witnessed in him. Lips twisting in a dissatisfied moue, Ilya glares down at his nightstand like it’s personally offended him for another beat, before he returns to Shane, brandishing a clear tube of lube. 

“Problem?” Shane prompts again. 

“Probably,” Ilya says vaguely. Lips quirking at the corners, Ilya bullies his way between Shane’s thighs and presses the flat of his palm against his sternum before he sweeps it downward across his quivering abdomen. 

“What –” Biting his lip, Shane eyes Ilya’s fully clothed form with a shiver of anticipation. “What is it?” 

“I was not expecting you tonight,” he says. 

Shane stares blankly. “…So?” 

“So,” Ilya repeats, idly caressing his stomach. “I don’t fuck girls without protection, usually. But I’ve run out...”

The blissful haze of his recent orgasm is swiftly overrun by cold dread. “Run out already?” He mutters. It’s a silly thing to fixate on, it’s not as though he’s not uncomfortably aware of just how active Ilya’s sex life is.

But the last time Shane had been here was half a year ago, and Ilya had used the last of his supply on him back then, too. 

Ilya must feel the way he tenses beneath him, because he levels him with a knowing look that has his toes curling against the carpet. 

“It’s our wedding night, and you are jealous,” Ilya huffs. 

Shane lets out a beleaguered groan. “Our fake wedding night.” He lifts his chin, only faltering when he notices the flash of amusement on Ilya’s face. “And I’m not jealous.” 

“There, there.” Ilya croons, “You’re my wife, there’s no need to be –”

Shane stiffens, eyes sliding up to the ceiling to avoid Ilya’s eviscerating gaze. “That’s not funny.”

“Good,” Ilya says, clambering over his body to catch Shane’s averted gaze. “Is not a joke.”

They stare at each other silently for several tense seconds, before Shane cracks first.

“Y’know.” Shane clears his throat. “I’m not actually a woman.” 

Ilya’s brows shoot up high on his skull. “Really? I had not noticed –”

Lips curling, Shane grumbles loudly, “But if you bring up one more woman on our fake wedding night…”

Ilya laughs at him in clear delight. “Listen.” He chases Shane’s sour face, raining kisses on every exposed scrap of skin he can find. “I was trying to tell you – it’s not that I’ve run out, I did not feel the need to replace them.”

God, that’s worse. 

“Since the last time, with you,” Ilya finishes pointedly. “I haven’t wanted to.” 

It takes a few seconds for the implication to hit Shane. “You haven’t been with anyone else?” He breathes out, incredulous.

Ilya lifts one shoulder up in a shrug, as though he doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. “No.” 

“For months?” Shane laughs in amazement. 

“No,” Ilya grunts, eyes narrowing, and it takes a Herculean effort to school his face into something marginally less gleeful. 

Ilya Rozanov, Shane muses in faint awe. With a six-month dry spell? 

It’s totally incongruous with the image Shane has of the other man, but then again, this entire night has just been one cascade of unlikely events after another. 

“Waiting for your wedding night, were you?” Shane jokes.

Rather than answer immediately, Ilya grips him by the waist and drags him bodily up across the mattress until his head rests against the pillows. 

Dropping the lube to the bed, Ilya takes Shane’s hands and pins them above his head. “You would enjoy that.” He captures Shane’s mouth in a fierce, wet kiss before he draws away to breathe, “Is it okay?”

Shane blinks stars from his eyes. “What?”

He sighs as Ilya nuzzles down the side of his face to mouth at his thrumming pulse. “It’s risky, but it’s a special occasion, no?” Ilya murmurs against his ear.

Shane doesn’t realise his eyes have closed until they’re fluttering open again. “Risky?” 

Somehow, Shane doesn’t think he’s talking about the normal risks involved with fucking without protection. 

“Yes,” Ilya says, releasing one of his wrists to dip between Shane’s legs instead. Fingers trailing the gooseflesh of his inner thigh, he lets his digits skirt dangerously close to the renewed swell of his cock before he adds, “I would not fuck other girls like this, even if it was safe.” He meets Shane’s wide-eyed stare with a roguish half-smirk. “I would not want to get them pregnant.”

All the air in Shane’s lungs escapes in a strained wheeze. 

In a nimble move Shane’s too dazed to follow, Ilya retrieves the lube long enough to squirt a cool dollop of clear gel against his perineum, lidded eyes watching it slowly drip towards his exposed hole for several beats before he uses the flat of his palm to smear it right over his entrance.

Shane gasps, “Holy fuck, Rozanov.”

“But with you,” Ilya growls, lazily thumbing lube across his quivering rim. “If you gave me the chance…” 

Shane licks the sweat from his upper lip. “You want to…” He can’t believe he’s even saying this aloud. “Get me pregnant?”

“Yes.” Ilya visibly shudders, and he drags his mad, gleaming gaze away from Shane’s spread thighs long enough to meet his own. “I would not know when to stop, Jane,” he admits. Letting his circling, wet thumb breach his hole, he ignores Shane’s startled cry and murmurs, “I want – too much.”

God, what the fuck, Ilya, he thinks. But he’s already fully hard again in record time, so he can hardly judge. 

“Yeah?” Shane breathes, “How many?” He flushes a little at the intrigue writ large across Ilya’s face. “Hypothetically speaking, I mean.” 

Ilya pauses long enough to tear his own shirt off his chest, his restrained agitation evident in the tight muscles bunching in his arms and stomach. Still leisurely fucking Shane with one hand, Ilya sits back on his thighs and releases his own belt buckle with a minute clink of metal. 

“By the time I’m done,” Ilya pants. “We’ll have triple whatever that idiot Pike has –”

Shane slaps a hand over his mouth to stifle the hitched noise threatening to escape him. Are you out of your mind? He wants to ask, but he can’t, because judging by the volcanic surge of lust building within his own insides, he’s just as turned on by this as Ilya is. 

“You are blushing.” Ilya snickers, eyeing the rosy flush on Shane’s chest with open delight. “You like this,” he crows in a gentle sing song. 

“Jesus,” Shane whispers.

The thumb in his ass is gently removed, and Shane resists the urge to shut his legs against the vacant feeling. Ilya’s gaze is an inescapable weight, trailing every exposed inch of skin even as he makes quick work of his own jeans and tosses them aside. 

Even though Shane’s seen his cock more than enough times by now, he can’t help but feel faintly scandalised when it bobs free of its confines, rock hard and flushed pink with a fine sheen of arousal already.

Shane parts his thighs expectantly, only to blink when Ilya lifts his hips and slips a pillow beneath his tailbone, keeping his pelvis tilted slightly higher than his torso.

“Er…”

While they had done missionary a few times since that first time, over the years, it’d always seemed simpler to let Ilya bend him over the nearest surface and fuck them both to completion. Which was fine – more than fine, really, but he’s not sure what to make of this sudden change. 

We don’t do…this.

“Trust me,” Ilya says, a ghost of a smirk flashing across his lips as he gently presses Shane’s knees to his collarbone. Sitting between his bent legs, Ilya takes himself in hand and leisurely strokes his lubed hand up and down his cock, lips parting with a sigh as he rocks into his sliding fist.

Fuck. Shane bites his lip to stop the impatient whine bubbling up his throat. Hurry up.

Ilya somehow plucks the complaint direct from his thoughts anyway. “So needy.” 

Before Shane can react, Ilya dribbles another healthy amount of lube onto his fingers and wastes no time pressing two slick digits against his hole and sinking them inside.

“Fuck.” Shane doesn’t usually need quite this much lube, or preparation, for that matter, but he rocks up into his touch without much complaint. 

He’s not sure he likes the admiring glint in Ilya’s eyes when he scissors his fingers deeper, the force of his movements causing the lube to squelch obscenely with every thrust. 

“You’re dripping, Jane.” Ilya needles softly. 

God, if he compares my ass to a –

Shane’s cock twitches a line of pre-come up his abs before he can even complete the thought, and Ilya glances between the mess and his face with raised eyebrows.

“Don’t,” Shane stutters.“Don’t you dare say it.”

It’s not because he doesn’t like it –

I might like it too much.

Drawing his fingers out, Ilya is quick to slot the heavy weight of his cock against his entrance, teeth flashing when Shane’s hips jerk up in surprise. 

Throat visibly rippling with a swallow, Ilya lets out a soft, ”Fuck,” just as he begins to gently tease his tip against his fluttering hole. “Okay?“

More than okay, Shane thinks, but all he manages is a frantic nod.

It only takes the barest amount of pressure before his rim catches on Ilya’s crown, and Shane’s focus narrows to the foreign sensation of overwhelming heat, unused to the feeling of his cock without the thin barrier of a condom between them. 

The strange, new intimacy of the moment is only intensified by the novelty of Ilya’s watchful stare as he hovers above him, arms flexing as he carefully sinks his cock in with slow, shallow thrusts, until he abruptly buries himself inside in one smooth stroke.

“Oh my god.”

“Fuck,” Ilya whispers, lidded eyes lingering on their joining for a long beat before sliding up to Shane’s beet-red face. 

Head cocking sideways, he strokes his cheek with a questioning noise that Shane answers with an impatient squeeze of his insides. “I’m fine,” he says. 

Hurry up, already – 

Brow lifting in challenge, Ilya begins to slowly draw his cock out, and the delicious pressure of his thick girth dragging along his walls pulls a strained noise from Shane’s lips. 

“Okay,” Ilya says wryly. 

It’s the only warning he gets before Ilya tilts his hips back, then thrusts the full length of his cock back inside.

Oh, dear god. 

Dipping down, Ilya captures Shane’s startled gasp with his mouth as he begins to move, taking him in long, deep strokes that punch wounded moans of ecstasy deep from his throat with every thrust. 

Shane’s not sure how many minutes pass before he begins to sneak a hand down towards his cock, only to be thwarted by Ilya forcing his wrists back up to the pillows again.

“Hm, no, don’t touch.” Ilya hums, and Shane knows he’s about to do something catastrophically evil when he sees the mad little glint in his eyes.  

Releasing his wrists, Ilya waits the span of several particularly, punishing thrusts before he rewards him with a crooning, “Good girl.“ 

Shane gnashes his teeth as the unexpected praise hits rockets through him like a sucker punch. “For the love of God, Rozanov,” he all but sobs. 

“Knew you’d be so good.” Ilya curls an arm beneath his back and holds him close, grinding himself in tight, deep thrusts against his ass as he whispers liquid sin into Shane’s burning ears. “My pretty wife.”   

Fuck, fuck, through the fog of his lust, he’d almost forgotten about that part of this, and his already rapidly approaching orgasm races ever closer at the reminder. 

I’m gonna die, he thinks, blinking the salty brine of both his and Ilya’s sweat from his eyes.

“Want to see you squirt for me,” Ilya breathes, grinning mercilessly at Shane’s choked gasp. “I know you can.” 

It’s mortifying, just how much these ridiculous parallels Ilya draws only bring him closer and closer to the edge. 

“You’re insane,” Shane groans, but Ilya only chuckles under his breath. 

Warm lips glance over his cheekbones for the briefest moment. “You love it.” 

“I do,” it slips out almost instantly, and he watches Ilya’s eyes widen with a tiny frisson of dread. 

But when Ilya slows down, it’s not to pull out like he fears – he only buries himself in to the hilt as he gently grasp his flanks, tilting the cradle of Shane’s hips up just so, until his fat cockhead glances the swell of his prostate –

 “Ah –” 

A dull throb of pressure sings through his core, and he jolts impotently in Ilya’s tightening grasp – to escape the strange sensation, or fuck himself against it, he’s not entirely sure. 

“There.” Ilya’s wild eyes crinkle in wicked satisfaction as he begins to steadily rock against his sweet spot, sending relentless thrums of aching pleasure from somewhere deep behind his spine.

“Oh,” Shane stammers, tangling his fingers in the sheets as he gapes up at Ilya in dismay. “That’s…”

He’s never felt this before – this deep, gnawing sensation originating not from his cock, but further inside, the building pressure slowly setting every nerve ending in his body alight. 

Ilya remains merciless in his precision as he continues to bully his tip against his prostate, stuffing him so deep Shane can feel the mess of lube dripping down his crack, where it seeps and overflows around Ilya’s balls. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

The odd pressure is so familiar yet not, and for a moment he’s not sure if he’s about to come, or accidentally piss himself. 

Would serve him right, Shane thinks frantically, toes curling so hard he fears they might cramp. For doing this to me.

“Fuck, you’re so beautiful like this.” Ilya bends to press soft kisses to his sweating brow.  “My sweet Jane,” he rasps, curling his tongue along the edge of his jaw. “You want to have my babies –” 

Oh, god. “Ilya!” 

It slips free like a warning and a plea rolled into one.  

The intimacy of it crawls over his spine, and he knows he shouldn’t say that, they don’t do names, after all –

Then again, they weren’t pantomiming marriage or trying for children last time they were together, either. 

Fuck.

“Oh, are we doing our actual names now, Shane?” Ilya lets out a husky little laugh. “You really want this, don’t you?” Crooked teeth catch on his lip, as his aborted little thrusts begin to quicken. “Tell me.” 

The desperation in his voice, along with the terrible, intoxicating pressure building below, are the only things stopping his instinctive protests.

“Tell me you love this,” Ilya demands against his gasping mouth. “Tell me.”

His fucked up little brain reads between the imaginary lines in his voice, twisting Ilya’s words into something far sweeter. 

Tell me you love me.

“I –” 

Ilya, Ilya, Ilya. His own love sits perched beneath his tongue, just begging for release. 

Shane tries to answer, he really does, but the rapid bounce of Ilya’s cock against that tender spot inside finally sends him hurtling towards an unfamiliar peak.

“Ilya,” he cries, voice breaking. “Ilya.”

His vision blurs black as the tight coil within him abruptly unwinds, body seizing around Ilya as an unrelenting surge of bliss consumes him, sending hot waves of pressurised pleasure from the tip of his head all the way down to his toes. 

When his release comes, it’s not in hard pulses, but a seemingly endless flow that ripples up his shaft, sending thick ropes that land anywhere from his abdomen, all the way up to his collarbone.

When he feels a pulse catch him on the chin and lips, his fastidious side is nowhere to be found; instead, he only emits a broken groan and thinks, I don’t care. 

“God, Shane.” 

When he finally comes back to himself, he’s only distantly aware of the gentle hands stroking his sides, and Ilya’s soft murmurations against his lips, before his lashes finally flutter open. 

Ilya meets his dazed eyes with a tiny smirk. “I knew you could do it.”

It takes several, dopey blinks for Shane to parse his words, and he glances down at the milky sheen coating his chest and abs with a deep sigh, too blissed out to muster up any embarrassment. 

“Made a mess,” Ilya continues, touching his come-splattered jaw with a snicker. “Squirting all over yourself.” He scoops the mess onto his thumb and presses it against Shane’s lips, groaning softly when he only sucks it inside with an eager hum. “Fuck.“

When Shane feels his cock throb against his walls he stiffens, and Ilya’s voracious expression fractures as he stills. 

“Too much?” Ilya murmurs, giving his hip an apologetic squeeze.

I – don’t actually know.

Biting his lip, Shane tentatively flexes around the cock still buried in his ass, and he expects the usual, sharp sensitivity that immediately comes after orgasm, but this is…

“Oh,” Shane whimpers, toes curling as he nestles himself harder against Ilya’s shaft. “No.” He eyes his own cock, still flushed pink and aching against his stomach, as though he hadn’t just shot several days worth of come across his own body. “Not too much at all,” he groans, and he only has scant seconds to relish the disbelief in Ilya’s eyes before he’s moving again –

“So greedy,” Ilya says, hands caressing Shane’s inner thighs with a softness that borders on reverent, before his fingers dig into his flesh as he pushes them aside, just as his other hand reaches around to bring his hips up. 

Shane tries to clap a hand to his mouth, but Ilya snarls and pins his wayward limbs to the bed with a curse. 

“Fuck,” Ilya moans, cross gleaming as it bounces like a pendulum across his chest. “I want –” He adjusts the angle of his slow strokes, eliciting twin cries from them both as his cock somehow slides in even deeper. 

The new slant of his hips brings his abdomen in direct contact with Shane’s throbbing cock, and it’s only a few glancing slides of his sweat-sheened stomach against the underside of his shaft that has him crying out in surprise. 

I’m close? He thinks, almost panicked as he meets Ilya’s wild grin. 

Even when Ilya rakes his teeth against his ear, Shane can barely hear him over the wet slap of his cock driving inside. “I want to come in you,” Ilya rasps breathlessly. “Please –”

Some crazed instinct seizes Shane, and his legs snap like a vice around Ilya’s bucking hips. “Yes.” He loops his arms around Ilya’s neck, nails grazing his nape as he tries crushing him close, all the while chanting, “Yes, inside me, please, please – ”

He reads the victorious gleam in Ilya’s eyes before he even speaks, but he can’t find it within himself to care. 

“That’s good, Shane.” Ilya’s breathing hitches, one hand forcing Shane’s leg so wide it’s all but flat against the bed as his cock impales his spasming insides. “Gonna let me come in your pussy?” 

Shame is only a distant memory, now. All Shane can think about is the delicious power of Ilya’s body crushing his own, and the weight of his stomach kissing his own tip as his bright eyes dance with crazed affection.  

Shane nods, breathless and sick adoration when he cries out, “Please, Ilya, I want it.” 

For the third time that night, Shane falls apart beneath Ilya, but this time he’s not alone. 

“God, Shane –”

One arm slinking beneath his back, Ilya crushes him close to his chest as he finally comes, gripping his ass apart as he grinds himself against the seam of his clenching hole with several frantic, bruising thrusts, cock swelling hard as he paints his insides in warm, milky pulses. 

A familiar burst of ecstasy rocks Shane in turn, and he throws his head back against the pillows with a long, reedy moan, unable to do anything more but thrash in Ilya’s arms as he fucks him through the waves of his orgasm.

“Ilya,” he sighs, the name swallowed by Ilya’s hungry lips as they slant against his own. 

+

Even well after the haze of their release fades, Ilya continues to sink him with relentless kisses, only stopping when Shane chokes out a laugh between gasps of breath. 

“Can’t breathe.”

Ilya pauses, brows drawn pensively as though considering the merits of his complaint. “Hm.” 

“Ilya…” Shane screws up his lips, watching Ilya’s face warily for his reaction, because it’s one thing to practically scream his name in the throes of ecstasy, but another to say it in the awkward aftermath. 

Ilya only rolls his eyes, before he plants a sloppy kiss on his nose and responds with a mocking, “Shane.”

He blinks, nonplussed. Well, that answers that, at least. 

“Are you gonna…” Shane shifts, blushing a little at the hot warmth seeping from their joining. “Pull out, anytime soon?” 

Nose wrinkling, he thinks, We’ll have to sleep on towels, at this rate. 

Pressing his half-plumped cock in with a lazy thrust, Ilya only plants his hands on either side of Shane’s head, caging him in with his body as he stares down at him with an expression brimful of challenge. “Why would I do that?” Ilya says, voice shuddering with poorly stifled amusement. “Need to make sure it takes, Jane –”

Oh my fucking god.

“Not this again,” he complains, but there’s no real heat to it, and judging from his razor sharp smirk, Ilya damned well knows it. 

Ilya rewards him with a featherlight kiss to the corner of his mouth, before he draws back, glimmering eyes creasing with something close to fondness. “My sweet, pretty wife.”

A bolt of pleasure so acute rocks through his chest, settling warmly behind his breastbone, and that should be enough, yet Shane’s lips move almost without his conscious volition. 

“Just your wife?” He mutters, stiffening as his own words hit him almost bodily.

What the fuck are you saying, Hollander?

Ilya chucks him under the chin, forcing Shane to reluctantly meets his gaze. “Wife, husband,” he says, a light smile dancing about his lips. “It makes no difference me.” He drops a kiss to his shoulder. “Is all hypothetical, either way, isn’t it,” he adds, in crystal clear, perfect fucking English.

I knew you understood that word.

“Unbelievable,” Shane grumbles. 

He gives Shane’s cheek a friendly pinch. “But maybe I’ll get you a ring later anyway,” he snickers, stealing the breath clean out of Shane’s lungs.

Leaning up to cup the back of his neck, he draws Shane down to slant their mouths together with a throaty groan, sinking him with long, hungry kisses before he finally pulls away to whisper, “You will not regret this.” 

He can’t help but laugh as he collapses backwards into Ilya’s bed, hiding his prickling eyes behind his forearm as he tries and fails to bite back a smile. 

Yes I will.