Archive of Our Own

When Ilya wakes, the first thing he feels is light.

Not light as in sunlight — which doesn’t make it through the black-out blinds of their bedroom, though he can picture it so clearly, scattered shining and white across the lake outside. But light as in his body, which he brings his attention over steadily, is not as heavy as he feared. There’s exhaustion, yes, but it’s the kind that sits in aching muscles, not the kind that buries down into his bones. His right knee aches — twinged just before playoffs started, not been right since, and it’s the kind of thing five years ago he’d be over in a week and now might take a whole summer of rehab. But by some miracle, the thought of all the resistance band work, the stretches, the balance balls, doesn’t make him want to weep. Doesn’t make him want to burrow under the covers and never emerge.

He feels good.

Well, let’s not push it. He feels like he just lost in game seven of the conference finals for the second fucking year in a row. He feels like a professional athlete the wrong side of thirty in a gruelling, full contact sport, just starting to wonder how much of his everyday strength and mobility will remain intact in the decades ahead.

But other than that. Good.

He doesn’t need to open his eyes to know Shane isn’t in bed. The weight of him is missing, the slight dip in the mattress. The smell of him is too faint. He must have been up at least an hour, if not more.

Ilya finds him on the sofa, flushed from some kind of workout, protein smoothie (an alarming shade of green) in hand, frowning at his iPad. Ilya loves the way that, when Shane really concentrates on something, his nose scrunches and his glasses push just a millimetre more up his face.

He watches. Luxuriating for a moment in this. The cottage. The quiet. The love of his life. The fact that this year, maybe — he brushes his fingers against a wooden wall, so as not to jinx it — he won’t find that the whole season has been the racking up of a debt he has to spend the summer paying with a brain so broken he’s not sure he’ll ever feel truly happy again.

“Good morning.”

Shane doesn’t look up. Whatever he’s watching has no sound, but seems to be something on a loop, based on the way he stares, then drags his finger across the screen, taps, then stares again.

The first needleprick of worry in an otherwise beautiful morning. Not like the bursting of a balloon. More like the tiniest hole poked in an bicycle tire, that starts a slow, hissing release of air. Ilya pads over to plant a kiss on the top of Shane’s head, wraps his arms around Shane’s shoulders.

He knows the video by a single frame. Watches anyway.

Third period. Two minutes to go. The Centaur’s second line on the ice. Pass from Haas to Dillon. Back to Haas. Across to Shane who feints, then shoots — top right corner. Misses. Sails over the bar, too high.

Shane pauses while the puck is still mid-air, spinning, like it is filled with endless possibility. Like the outcome of the game is not fixed.

He winds back about thirty seconds. Presses play.

“Breakfast?” Ilya asks.

Shane waves his smoothie vaguely.

“I’m good.”

His eyes don’t leave the screen.

Ilya comes to the proverbial road that diverges in the yellow wood.

Chooses his path with care.

“Ok.”

One more kiss, this time to the side of Shane’s neck. Then he heads quietly for the kitchen.

*

The other warning signs start piling up.

Over lunch, Ilya mentions their guests — the Pikes first, for a long weekend, then Rose for a week, maybe even two if her schedule allows. Barrett and Harris, even if their dates aren’t firmed up yet. Maybe Svetlana, depending on if she’ll be in Moscow or Paris or Boston for the summer. He’s wondering aloud if he should call someone out to look at that motor boat they bought a couple of years ago, see if they can sort the dodgy engine. The Pike kids would love it, he’s sure of it.

Shane is cutting his food — a chicken salad, no dressing — up very small, and taking even smaller bites.

“Oh,” he says. “They’re not coming.”

“Who?” Ilya asks. “The kids?”

He’s reaching for his phone already to text Hayden some chirp about how the only reason he’s tolerated in the cottage is because he brings his offspring along too, but Shane says —

“No. Everyone. I mean, I asked them not to. Sorry. I should have said.”

He doesn’t sound that sorry. He sounds tired and distracted and he keeps putting his fork down and picking it up again without actually using it.

Ilya is slow to understand, and even slower to think of what to say.

Shane pushes up from his chair.

“I’m going to use the gym.”

“Ok,” Ilya says uselessly for the second time that day.

And then there’s the fact that Shane — who on good days now, after a lot of gentle conversations with Ilya and a couple of sessions with the team doctor, can allow some small give in his diet, eyeballing quantities of ingredients and going off hunger cues rather than a rigid schedule — goes back to weighing absolutely everything he eats. Keeping notes religiously on what workouts he does, what his meals are and when.

There’s the fact that sex, when they have it, is perfunctory. Satisfying, but a little like the Centaurs in their final round against Minnesota — lacking their usual shine.

So when, on the morning of their third day, Ilya wakes to an empty bed yet again, and this time finds Shane in the TV room watching a Montreal-Toronto playoff game from 2016, he knows it’s time for a different tack.

He leans against the doorframe — the sofa at a right angle to it, so he has a perfect view of Shane’s profile, his intense focus on the screen.

“Right,” Ilya says. “We are going to talk about this now.”

Shane doesn’t respond. Ilya almost lets himself get distracted by sight of a younger Shane gliding onscreen, sweat-drenched and serious. Ilya lacks Shane’s encyclopaedic recall of hockey games, but he’s pretty sure he knows this one. Two of Shane’s shots blocked in one period. A missed shot in the next. The Voyageurs lose this game, but win the next two, advance to the next round.

Ilya steps into the room, takes the remote, and turns the TV off. This might be a miscalculation. He sees immediately how Shane tenses. Shoots him a challenging look.

“Don’t, ok?” he says. “Just don’t.”

“Shane.”

Ilya holds up his hands, like I’m not the enemy here. Shane softens, but only a fraction. He lets Ilya come and sit beside him, but everything about the way he holds himself seems so brittle. On edge.

“It’s not a big deal,” Shane says. “I just need to understand.”

“Understand what? Toronto’s offensive strategy from six years ago?”

The joke is another miscalculation. Shane’s mouth turns slightly downwards. Ilya feels like he does skating through an injury — a little off, a little slow. Usually, he knows exactly what Shane needs.

“Understand what I did wrong,” he grits out.

Ilya rests a hand on Shane’s thigh — trying for a reassuring touch, thumb circling bare skin.

“You did nothing wrong.”

 Shane looks at him, finally.

 “Don’t patronise me.”

Ilya withdraws his hand.

“You missed, Hollander. People miss all the time.”

“People,” Shane shoots back. A bit of colour rising in his cheeks. “I’m not meant to be people Ilya I am meant to be the best in the fucking league.”

Ilya’s head is still a little sleep-fuzzy, a little slow, or maybe he’d be able to rise to this. Maybe he’d be able to offer with an eloquence that would actually make Shane listen a full explanation of the fickleness of the game they play. Sure, you put in the work. Sure, you are blessed with talent or you are not. But you are also only ever one fall at an awkward angle away from oblivion. You are one goalie’s flailing arms away from the lucky save that loses you the cup. You skate as fast as you can to keep ahead of this, the roll of the dice, the coin toss, but it will always, always be on the ice with you.

Instead he just waves his hands vaguely.

“I mean that not everything you can control, Shane. That is sometimes how it goes.”

Shane’s eyes narrow instantly.

“Yes, thank you, Ilya,” he says, “I happen to be a professional athlete who has dedicated most of my life to this sport —”

“Shane —”

“I know you can’t control everything but I can control if my shooting accuracy is getting sloppy after that fucking rib injury in March and what I need to do to —”

“Shane.” Said loud enough this time to shut him up. “You are scaring me a little.”

“Well, now I guess you know how it feels,” Shane snaps.

It’s a cheap shot. A reference to last summer. Ilya sees that Shane wishes he could take it back; how he slackens, the fight going out of him.

Ilya exhales slowly.

“I’m sorry,” Shane mumbles. Nudges his leg against Ilya’s — a fleeting touch, soon withdrawn.

“Come to the lake?” Ilya tries. “We can swim, maybe.”

Shane’s eyes drift back to the TV.

“I... Sorry, I just...”

He looks physically pained.

“Ok,” Ilya says. “Ok.”

“Sorry,” Shane says again. “I just need to finish this. Then I’ll come. I’m sorry.”

Ilya pulls him close, bites the tip of his nose softly.

“Say sorry again,” he says. “And they might come and give you an award for being the most Canadian.”

Shane doesn’t laugh but he smiles weakly. Ilya realises, as he withdraws to the sound of a commentator discussing Dallas fucking Kent’s season stats, that he’s not sure Shane’s laughed even once since they got here.

*

Last summer was bad.

Like whole days not able to get out of bed bad. Like turning off the screen time report function on his phone because he couldn’t stand seeing it in double digits every day. Like getting onto the international high score board for Temple Run, a thing that would have been depressing even ten years ago when people actually played fucking Temple Run.

At first it didn’t make sense, because all season Ilya had been happy. He had won. Meaning won at life, the husband, the house together, the playing on the same team. But also won at hockey, too — and they were joyful wins with career-highlight goals off assists from Shane on the power play. Only later — much later, emergency Skype sessions with Galina later — did he start to maybe recontextualise the slight mania with which he had moved through his and Shane’s first year on the Centaurs together, the way everything took on that giddy, too-bright feeling he associates with driving way over the speed limit, a little drunk, on dark and deserted roads.

But Shane — Shane whose entire professional life had blown up in front of his eyes, who had had a fan in a Montreal jersey throw a beer on him in a bar in Nashville on the last night of the All-Star Game, practically spitting in his face, who had endured every hockey commentator under the sun weighing carefully all season whether he or the Voyageurs had made the bigger mistake, who must surely, under his eerily calm and always-professional demeanour in the locker room, have been banking on a dream run to the Stanley Cup and a huge fuck you to anyone who had ever doubted him, only to see it unravel against Pittsburgh in the playoffs — Shane was there for Ilya. That summer, the first few weeks, Shane cooked every single meal, and not just weird macrobiotic stuff. He made things Ilya liked — pasta bakes, beautifully grilled steaks, chicken smothered in breadcrumbs and fried until golden and crisp. Shane pushed gently each day — eat, shower, walk — and when it worked he was gently pleased, and when it didn’t he sat with Ilya a while, tucked under the covers too. And each time, Ilya braced himself for Shane’s obvious distress, the thrumming energy of him, the silent way he had of broadcasting so clearly that he disapproved, that Ilya should get the fuck up and do something. But it never came.

Towards the end, when Ilya was emerging from the dark, blinking like some kind of coal miner trapped down a collapsed shaft for so long that it should have spelt death, Shane shyly showed Ilya something on his phone. A cartoon, the kind of almost-too-saccharine thing perfectly calibrated for social media virality, missing only a live, laugh, love font. A stick figure sits at the bottom of a deep hole. Many come and offer advice, offer a hand up, offer ladders and harnesses and ropes. Until someone comes who says nothing at all, just sits in the hole with the other figure, side by side.

Yeah, Ilya had cried at that.

The point being that he cannot even slightly resent Shane his own collapse — a thing deferred, perhaps, by Ilya’s prior unravelling. Can only thank God or whatever other power that they have always been so balanced, so able to push and pull each other with all the fine precision of their dance on the ice, such that they did not both come apart at the same time. Now it is Ilya’s turn to hold Shane up, to do the equivalent of sitting beside him in the gloom, whatever he needs to give him strength for the climb back into the light.

*

The next few days are worse, because Shane tries to pretend. And he’s always been so bad at pretending. It's as if Ilya expressing concern has just added another weight, another burden for Shane to shoulder. A growing to-do list — take blame for loss, single-handedly redesign entire play style and team strategy, and make sure Ilya doesn’t see you’re struggling. He gamely pretends he will let Ilya make lunch, then suddenly announces he’s found a new recipe he wants to try and maybe Ilya can cook tomorrow. He takes to waking up even earlier — Ilya thinks sometimes he might even be waking up in the middle of the night, sneaking off to watch an hour of video, then returning to bed.

This whole sad charade sharpens Ilya’s focus to a lethal blade. As a matter of urgency, he has to figure out what Shane needs.

Ilya has always found Shane the perfect balance of complicated and easy. Shane is like a puzzle with no edges; whenever he thinks he has completed it, he realises there is yet another piece he must slot into place. And yet at the same time he feels like he can see Shane overall, the things that drive him — the ambition, the hockey, the masochistic streak, the craving for and yet ultimate longing for relief from control — with perfect clarity.

Ilya could meet Shane now with kindness and gentle care. Warm cups of tea, nights by the fireplace, Shane’s head in his lap, running fingers gently through his hair. But instinct tells him when Shane gets like this, a hermit crab, sharp-clawed, retreating into its shell, this might risk shutting him down even further. Shane wouldn’t accept it. Would chafe hard at the idea he needs or deserves it. That’s a thing he probably should have some therapy to unpick — one day, maybe, Ilya will wear him down on that score — but for now, a different approach is required.

There is a thing Shane wants. Forgiveness, absolution, a way out of his imagined sin. But at the same time, he cannot accept the desire, can’t look at it head on. Will stall forever in the hair-shirt stage, causing himself pain, because he stubbornly refuses to create for himself any path towards atonement.

This is fine. Repressed desire, unconscious craving for release. Ilya can work with this. Might even call it his area of expertise.

A plan starts to form.

*

Mid-morning, after Shane has run and showered, he lets Ilya take him to bed. Not relaxed, exactly, but Ilya knows that post-workout and before the weighing scales come out for lunch is the high point of his husband’s mood, which then only tends to plummet through the afternoon and into the night.

And, luckily, the day getting Shane on his knees and putting his beautiful mouth to use doesn’t take at least a little of the edge off whatever Shane is feeling is the day Ilya will be frantically researching demonic possession, alien abductions and personality transplants. So by the time Ilya has come down Shane’s throat, catching a little of the spill from Shane’s chin with his thumb, feeding it to him so he gets every last drop, Shane is docile enough to let Ilya arrange him on the bed. Ilya takes a moment to feel under the mattress, to where they still have tucked away from their last visit, a weekend snatched here before the playoffs began...

He pulls out the under-bed restraints. Taps Shane’s wrists. A question — can I?

Shane lets his head fall against the pillow. His nod is tiny, almost imperceptible.

Ilya busies himself with putting Shane in the cuffs, tries not to think about how bad things are if this is the only reaction he’s rewarded with. The last time they used the restraints Shane was already crying and begging and shivering as Ilya bound him.

They don’t talk much as Ilya gets to work. Shane huffs the occasional sigh, squirms a little as Ilya works him open — tongue first and then fingers. He kisses and touches him reverently, even like this, even when Shane is so subdued. Because even now, Shane’s skin flushes so beautifully, little tremors pass through him, his breath starts to come in little gasps.

“Beautiful,” Ilya murmurs, crooking his fingers — he barely needs to think about it, the way he has to move, the things he has to do to Shane’s body to chase the reaction he needs. He mouths a little at the tip of Shane’s cock, then takes it deep, right to the back of his throat. Shane groans and turns his head to the side, lips parting slightly, his hands grasping at the sheets. All the telltale signs...

Ilya pulls off Shane’s dick to say —

“Don’t come.”

Shane’s gaze snaps back to Ilya. He makes a little noise, surprise or alarm.

“What?”

“Don’t come,” Ilya says. His tone is so reasonable, so calm. But the way he moves his fingers in and out, the way he twists them, is relentless. And so is the way he puts his mouth to work again, the way he presses his tongue to the underside of Shane’s cock, the precise suction he applies by hollowing out his cheeks.

Shane brings his knees up, tries to get enough leverage with his heels pressed to the mattress to twist away, to win a little respite, but only succeeds in pushing his dick further into Ilya’s mouth and gasps.

Ilya raises his head again, expression hardening, stern.

“Shane. I am telling you not to come.”

Shane pulls on the restraints hard enough that the wood of the bedframe groans.

“Ilya.” Rising panic in his voice. “Ilya, please. Stop.”

“Hm. No.”

Shane’s whole body is shuddering now, he’s clenching desperately around Ilya’s fingers. Ilya won’t slow, won’t change the angle.

“Please,” Shane says. “I can’t.”

“It’s a simple instruction, Hollander. Do. Not. Come.”

With each word he thrusts his fingers, three of them, hard. Shane arches off the bed with a sound like a sob.

"No,” he says. “N-no, no, no —”

But Ilya shows no mercy. He puts his mouth on Shane again, he pumps his fingers, and so, with tears forming glistening tracks over his beautiful freckles, Shane comes.

Ilya doesn’t swallow. He spits onto Shane’s stomach and pulls his fingers out immediately the way he knows Shane hates, preferring an more gradual transition from slow to empty.

“Hollander,” he says.

Shane’s gone limp, hands dangling uselessly from the cuffs, his head tucked almost into his shoulder.

“Hollander,” Ilya repeats. “Look at me.”

Shane won’t look. Ilya has to grasp his chin, force his head round. He’s not gentle.

“What did I tell you?” he asks.

Even though he’s crying, Shane’s wet eyes manage to look a little challenging, a little resentful. Good. Ilya feels a little spark of pleasure at that. Not that he wouldn’t love Shane repentant, immediately begging for forgiveness. But it will be more fun like this.

“Fuck you,” Shane says. A little shaky, but with feeling.

Ilya releases Shane’s jaw, and uses his hand instead to slap Shane’s cheek. Not hard, not nearly as hard as Shane can really take. But Shane’s not expecting it — it knocks the breath from him.

“Hollander,” Ilya says. “What did I tell you?”

Shane’s neck stays twisted; he glares at the wall.

“You told me not to come,” he grits out.

“That’s right. I did.”

Ilya’s pets at Shane’s hair — because nothing makes him happier, in a moment like this, than bringing a touch of sweetness to the cruelty.

“But look at this.”

Grips Shane’s hair, forces him around again. They both look down at the mess on Shane’s stomach, already cooling and drying.

Ilya makes a mocking, chiding sound.

“You did not listen, did you?”

Ilya can practically see the flutter of Shane’s pulse at his throat. He’s pouting, he’s worked up, he’s wound tight enough to snap. But he says nothing. Just raises his gaze to Ilya and waits.

“What should I do with you, hm?”

Ilya’s grip in Shane’s hair lets him move him around like a puppet, side to side. He brings his free hand up to tap at Shane’s cheek like an echo of the slap from before. Shane flinches.

Shane mumbles something under his breath.

“What was that?”

Shane’s eyebrows scrunch together. So cute when he’s angry.

“Do whatever you want,” he says. “I don’t care.”

Ilya laughs — which is not the reaction Shane wants, and works him up even further. Ilya pretends to ponder a little longer — pretends like he’s not had a plan brewing, these past few days, to rival the great move-to-Ottawa plan of summer 2017.

“You know the rules, Shane,” he says. “You come when I say, or you don’t come at all.”

Shane’s breath hitches. Barely audible, but Ilya hears. Shane fights to school his expression into something neutral.        

“How long?” he asks, as if it doesn’t bother him.

Ilya taps two fingers against his lips, thoughtful.

“A week, I think.”

Shane’s mouth falls open.

“A week?”

They’ve done this before, of course. When they lived apart, in Ottawa and Montreal, it was a regular game. Shane would text or call Ilya when he wanted to get off, and sometimes Ilya would let him and sometimes he wouldn’t. Sometimes, feeling especially mean, he’d keep Shane from coming the whole two or three weeks they were apart, savouring how desperate it made Shane when they finally reunited. But whenever they are physically together, he’s never made Shane go more than a day or two — has usually succumbed mid-fuck to his beautiful begging, his tears, and decided to show mercy.

“Oh,” Ilya says casually. “You don’t think you can?”

His beautiful, ridiculous, predictable husband. There is no quicker way to get Shane to do something that to imply he can’t do it. Ilya watches Shane’s jaw set.

“I can do it,” he says.

Ilya smiles.

“Good.”

He undoes the cuffs, presses a kiss to the underside of each wrist, to the reddening welts left there. Then climbs on top of Shane — smearing the come even more over him in the process, ignoring his huff of protest. Settles like a blanket. Kisses Shane, then withdraws, leaving only the smallest of gaps between their faces. Takes a moment — assesses. If he senses anything wrong, he can adapt. He’s used to playing a sport that’s all adaptation, after all, that’s plans and plays that need enough give in them for the heat of battle, when you must live moment to moment as your opponents swirl around you like atoms in a state of entropy, spiralling ever further from order.

Shane isn’t exactly happy. But however tightly-wound in this moment, however deep his frown, it’s already a fractional improvement on this morning, when he first threw on his clothes and took off around the lake before the sun had even risen. Because it’s an unhappiness radiating out rather than in. It’s something Ilya can absorb.

Ilya loves when he can hurt Shane in just the right way, such that it stops his husband from hurting himself.

*

After lunch, they settle beside each other on the sofa — apart, at first, not quite touching. And it’s Shane who moves closer, who will never ask with words but asks with little glances, up through his lashes, until Ilya relents and tucks him under one arm. Shane leans against Ilya, eyes falling closed. Ilya hears the sound of his husband’s breathing, feels the tickle of it against his skin. Soon, Shane turns to press light kisses across Ilya’s chest. Left unattended, Ilya knows how soon he would be moving down, how easily he would slide onto the floor, or maybe swing himself onto Ilya’s lap, grinding eagerly against him.

But Ilya pulls away. He looks pointedly down to where Shane is hard in his shorts, then back up again, to Shane’s blushing face.

“It is a nice try,” Ilya says. Giving Shane a condescending pat on the cheek. “But it won’t get you what you want.”

“I could just...”

Ilya’s next pat is firmer, warning.

“Not now.”

He stands.

“Come. We can take the kayaks out, yes?”

Later, as they make dinner together — a good sign, Shane has hardly wanted Ilya in the kitchen at all since they arrived — Shane keeps brushing against Ilya whenever he has to move past him to fetch a knife or a pan, thinking he is being subtle but so endearingly not. It might not even be conscious, Ilya thinks — it might simply be a guileless need to touch him, however he can. But Ilya will not bend. They cook, they eat, they curl up in front of a film downstairs, and however much Shane nuzzles into Ilya’s neck, however tempting the little noises he makes whenever Ilya does play gently with his hair or run a hand along his thigh, Ilya keeps his focus on the TV.

Eventually, Shane sighs, a little petulant.

“You’re not going to fuck me?”

Ilya chuckles. “No. I am not sure you can be trusted to follow the rules. Too eager.”

Shane squirms a little at that. Ilya can see how much Shane wants to argue, but the implication is clear — the command, be good.

It’s the command that hangs over everything Shane does, and has done his whole life. Be good at hockey, be a good teammate, good captain, good son, good role model, good brand ambassador. But Ilya knows — and treasures — that when he asks it of Shane, that goodness and obedience, it means something else. Something more. Everything else is a demand for endless effort. This is a call for surrender, release.

“Watch the film,” Ilya says. “Then we will sleep.”

Whatever tension Shane has been holding in his body relaxes. He does as he’s told. And how it relaxes Ilya, too, always, to see Shane obey.

*

Ilya slides from sleeping to waking with a warm, pleasant spread of arousal through his limbs. In place of the tail end of a pleasant dream (something involving hockey and locker rooms and fast-paced passes and laughter), he is presented with the vision of Shane, already between his legs, naked, mouthing at his inner thigh.

It couldn’t be more perfect. Outside, he can hear faint birdsong. Inside, Shane takes a breath, glances up, meets Ilya’s eye, gets ready to tease his tongue along the head of Ilya’s morning erection. Such a familiar scene.

Such a shame Ilya has to ruin it.

Ilya grips Shane’s hair hard. Tugs. Shane lets out a little cry as Ilya jerks him upwards.

Ilya smiles, slow and predatory.

“Floor. On your knees,” he says.

Shane goes down next to the bed, onto the sheepskin rug. Ilya moves to the edge of the mattress, plants his feet wide.

“Hands behind you back.”

Shane does this, too, without resistance. Ilya doesn’t do anything more just yet, lets the pause stretch long enough that Shane begins to flush, a delicate pink that sets off the constellation of freckles across his nose. It’s something Ilya will never take for granted — that his very attention can act on Shane this way, without even the need for touch.

Shane shifts slightly. His eyes dart between Ilya’s face and his cock, which Ilya now holds in his hand. Shane lets his mouth fall open, sticks out his tongue, just how Ilya likes — has taught him to, over the years, the command, open, followed by the praise, good boy.

So malleable, his husband. Difficult sometimes, inflexible and stubborn. But here, now, on his knees, the easiest thing in the world.

Anticipation and arousal chase each other through Ilya’s body, leaving a faint tingle on his skin. He reaches out, hooks a finger under Shane’s chin.

“No,” he says. “Closed.”

Shane’s brow furrows. Ilya can see the way the cogs of his mind turn — a little slow, distracted by the leisurely way Ilya has started to jerk himself off. Sees the moment Shane decides he understands what is happening here. Patience. Ilya making him wait. Shane straightens, pushes his shoulders back like he is reassuring himself. Patience he can do.

“I was thinking,” Ilya says. Slow slide of his own hand, a pleasant heat spreading through his still sleep-lax limbs. “Maybe it is a little too easy for you. To not come for a week.”

Shane looks at Ilya cautiously, like he is weighing whether this is a joke, whether he should laugh.

“... Easy?”

Ilya tilts his hips up a fraction, lets out a satisfied breath. Enjoys how Shane’s gaze flits down, how, likely without even thinking about it, his tongue darts out to wet his lips.

“You like it a bit too much, I think,” Ilya says. “You like the challenge.”

“No,” Shane says quickly.

“Yes.”

Shane has leant forward, another thoughtless movement. Ilya presses his free hand to Shane’s shoulder.

“Stay.”

The sterner tone earns him a little shiver.

Ilya slowly licks his right palm then resumes stroking his dick. Lets his eyes fall closed a moment, a concession to how good it feels, the slick glide.

“Too easy,” he continues. “So I have come up with a new rule.”

He opens his eyes to catch Shane’s reaction, the way he goes utterly still. And God, Ilya loves this feeling so much — the moment before the check or the punch or the slapshot they never saw coming.  

“The new rule,” he says, “is you do not get me inside you for the week either.”

It takes a moment for these words to land. Then Shane reels back like Ilya has hit him.

“No,” he says. Soft at first, almost to himself. Then his eyes widen and he repeats with more force, “No.”

Ilya grins.

“Yes.”

Shane has, to this point, kept his hands clasped obediently behind his back. Now he makes a desperate grab for Ilya’s thighs.

“No,” he says again. “No, you can’t —”

Ilya stops moving. Shane lets out a small, wounded noise, realises his mistake. He tries to speak, but Ilya cuts him off.

“I can’t?”

“N-no, I didn’t mean –”

“Oh? You did not mean? Perhaps there is some other way you use this word in English that I do not know?”

There is a special, sick pleasure Ilya takes in the way Shane looks when he knows he’s fucked up but Ilya hasn’t given him any instructions to follow, any way to make it right. His eyes are wet already — he cries so easily and comes so easily during sex, and Ilya will never know how it is he go so lucky — wild and searching Ilya’s face. He suddenly lets go of Ilya’s legs, scrambles back to where he was before, hands behind him, clinging to the last orders Ilya gave.

“I think I can, Shane,” Ilya says. “I think I can do what I like. I can use you to get off and you will not come and maybe then you will learn your lesson.”

“Please, Ilya,” Shane says, as the first tears spill over his lash line. “Please don’t make me.”

Ilya stands. The head of his cock bobs inches away from Shane’s face. Shane starts to cry in earnest, face crumpling so beautifully Ilya could come just from looking. He starts to jerk himself off again, hard and fast. There was a time, years ago, when it scared him, what it did to him to see Shane like this. Shane broken, Shane crying, Shane in pain Ilya caused and only Ilya could soothe. In darker moments, he thought it signified something awful and damaged in him, an inherited cruelty passed like a propensity for Alzheimer’s down the paternal line. But more often in those days — fleeing as fast as he could from any introspection and any chance of self-knowledge — he told himself it was simply what Shane needed. The emotional catharsis, the control wrestled from his exhausted and weakening grip, and Ilya was merely happy to oblige.

He has long since settled into the fact that when it comes to what he needs and what Shane needs, you cannot draw a hard boundary between them. The territory cannot be marked so neatly, that place of swirling hunger and desire. The two of them have been entangled for far too long.

Shane looks up at Ilya, pathetic and shivering with hurt. Ilya looks down — can imagine how he must look to Shane, the cruel curve of his mouth, the smug satisfaction of having reduced Shane to what he is now, of being the only one who gets to stand over him like this and feel the absolute power usually reserved for vengeful gods or despotic kings.

Ilya is right on the brink. Shane can tell, and whines at what he is being denied, Ilya using his mouth to finish, bruising the back of his throat — and that sweet sound is all it takes for Ilya to come all over Shane’s tear-stained face.

When Ilya feels steady enough — he’d had to grab Shane’s shoulder a moment for balance — he walks to the bathroom to fetch a cloth. He returns to find Shane just where he left him, head bowed, trembling. Ilya crouches in front of him and begins to gently wipe his face clean.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Shane mumbles.

“You know why, Shane,” Ilya says. “Actions have consequences, yes?”

He gets Shane’s jaw in a tight grip, tilts his head up to make their eyes meet — Ilya’s dancing with humour, no doubt, Shane’s still shimmering with tears.

“Don’t sulk, sweetheart,” he says, cheerfully. “You need this. Be good and take it.”

*

Ilya has an hour or two to himself over breakfast — Shane off somewhere, maybe swimming, maybe running, maybe stewing silently. Ilya lets him be. Has learnt, over the years, the delicate balance to be struck. Sometimes, Shane needs relentless chasing; other times, he must be made to confront fully the extent of his desire and come crawling for it, ending at Ilya’s feet.

Eventually, Shane comes into the living room, where Ilya is sprawled sideways over a chair, flicking idly through a glossy Porsche brochure (he said he’d treat himself to one if they won the Stanley Cup, and now he’s wondering if he shouldn’t just get one anyway). Ilya glances up and then makes himself look quickly back down. Denying himself the luxury of letting his gaze linger over Shane — who is a little pink, either freshly showered or blushing or both, and, more interestingly still, is wearing what Ilya has often affectionately called his slutty shorts, a pair so short as to be indecent that Shane likes to wear for yoga sometimes when it’s especially hot. A pair that Shane knows Ilya has a particular weakness for, seeing as he, Shane, has never been able to make it through a full yoga practice in them if Ilya is anywhere in the vicinity.

Rather than feasting his eyes on the image directly, Ilya is able to use his memory to supply a picture of the way the shorts circle so tightly around the thickest part of Shane’s thighs — the hint of strain, like there is altogether too much muscle for the fabric to contain.

Shane stays standing a moment as if waiting for further acknowledgement from Ilya. When he gets none, he settles on the opposite couch and reaches for his iPad on the coffee table.

Ilya gives him a few minutes, knowing without needing to look that it will rile Shane up that little bit further, then closes his brochure with a snap. Now, finally, Ilya looks at Shane with the steady attention of a predator — an animal recently sated, not lean and desperate, but still with sight of its prey and able to lazily judge whether or not it will eat again.

Shane fights very hard to not look up. The tips of his ears go red. He’s put his glasses on, and pushes them up his nose with hands Ilya can tell are slightly shaking.

Ilya pushes himself to his feet. As he approaches the couch, Shane catches his lower lip between his teeth, something that could maybe be played off as concentration on the screen in front of him. Ilya comes to a stop between Shane’s legs. Drags his gaze over the expanse of soft, pale, biteable skin left on display by those scandalous shorts.

“I’m trying to focus,” Shane says. It would be more convincing if it didn’t come out a little breathless — if he hadn’t shifted his legs inwards so they bump against Ilya’s own.

“Ok,” Ilya says. “That is why you are wearing your fuck-me shorts? To focus?”

Shane’s face scrunches as he looks up.

“I’m not —”

Ilya doesn’t let him finish. He takes the iPad — Shane puts up only the most token of resistance before he lets it go — and sets it firmly down on the table.

“Up,” Ilya says.

Shane swallows; his throat bobs. He rises slowly — he seems to want to hold Ilya’s gaze as he does it, but isn’t quite able to manage it. His eyes dart to the side. His chest rises and falls, a series of uneven breaths.

Ilya steps even closer, as if they might kiss. But as soon as Shane leans in for it, he pulls away. Moves to the side, a slow quarter-circle, intense in his examination of Shane’s body. The thin white top that clings to his pecs, the outline of each nipple visible. The curve of his ass in the black shorts that end almost above the top of his thigh, the shift of muscle there as Shane transfers his weight from one foot to the other.

“Glasses too,” Ilya says. Leaning close, breath ghosting across Shane’s neck. “Like you hope I will not be able to help myself, will forget your punishment. That was your plan, yes? ”

Ilya takes Shane’s glasses gently and rests them on top of the iPad. Far too precious to be damaged if he wants to get rough. Then he wraps his fingers around Shane’s wrist, pulls his husband's hand to where Ilya's cock is filling out steadily.

“Well done, Shane,” he says, with dangerous sweetness. “You got me hard. Now, what should we do about that?”

Shane’s breath catches. His eyes are closed, his body taut, the way it is when he’s trying hard to keep from shuddering, to keep his legs from buckling.

Ilya is quick and decisive with how he manhandles Shane to the edge of the couch, pushing him face first over the arm of it, hard. Shane goes down without a fight. Ilya traces a finger along the waistband of the shorts. Hooks it under, tugs. The band snaps back into place; Shane takes the sting quietly, but along the back of his thighs his hamstrings tighten then release.

“You know,” Ilya says thoughtfully, “when I take your clothes off when we fuck, it is a little bit for me. To get to see all of you. How pretty you are.”

Shane makes a noise, a whimper quickly caught and swallowed, reduced to a smaller thing.

“But,” Ilya continues, “It is mostly for you. So you can feel me touch you properly, yes?”

He runs a hand over the soft material of Shane’s t-shirt, from between his shoulder blades down — stopping before he reaches bare skin, the gap between shirt and shorts, the tantalising dimples of Shane’s lower back on full display.

“Dressed like this,” Ilya says, “I can already see plenty. You need more. I don’t.”

Lube behind the couch, resting on a handy hidden ledge. Ilya pops the cap and Shane reacts to the sound, pushing back, seeking Ilya, wanting their bodies pressed flush together.

“I think I will come just like this,” Ilya says. Hand on Shane’s hip, over the shorts, held steady even as Shane twists underneath him.

“No,” Shane says.

Ilya tuts.

“So much no today, Shane.”

“Ilya, please, I need —”

“I know what you need. Now lie still. Let me look at you.”

It’s not even been long since his last orgasm, but Ilya, hand slick with lube, chases the next one quickly, greedily, helped along by the frustrated noise Shane makes even as he does as he’s told.

“Because that is what you need yes?” Ilya says, panting a little. “To make me feel good.”

Shane whimpers fully this time — head turned to the side, the angle awkward but his gaze fixed firmly on Ilya’s cock in his fist.

“Answer me, Shane.”

“Yes,” Shane manages. Even just the one syllable sounds hard to form, like his tongue is swollen in his mouth.

Ilya groans. Close now.

“Fuck,” he says. “Good. Such a perfect toy.”

Shane gasps. Ilya comes — stripes of it across Shane’s thighs, across the fabric of his shorts. It takes him a moment, in his post-orgasm haze, to realise Shane is moving, tiny little twitches of his hips against the arm of the couch.

Ilya slaps Shane’s bare thigh — hard enough to leave a mark, hard enough that Shane cries out in shock.

“Careful,” Ilya says. “Or you will come again without permission. And maybe then I will not be so nice. Because I am being nice, yes? Making such good use of you.”

Shane blinks a few times, cheek resting on the couch — mouth open, breath coming in gasps.

Ilya steps back to admire his work. Feels an impulse and indulges it.

“Say thank you, Shane,” he says.

He thinks Shane might not do it. He goes stiff, as if he will refuse. But then, barely loud enough for Ilya to hear —

“Thank you.”

Ilya pats Shane where he just hit him, feels the heat of the reddening skin.

“There. Now go clean up, sweetheart,” he says. “You’re such a mess.”

*

It’s about halfway through the second day that Shane breaks and starts pleading. He has exuded, up until that point, a strained compliance as Ilya puts him on his knees, on his back, on his stomach — on the bed, on the docks by the lake, in the shower, wherever he pleases. Coming on his chest, ass, face. Shane takes it and takes it, trembling to accept the punishment Ilya has ordered, until he can’t any more.

Afternoon light slants through the windows of the gym. Ilya has Shane naked on his back on a yoga mat, has made him hold his own legs up in a cruel imitation of a position he might be fucked in, while Ilya, dick in hand but otherwise clothed, warm and flushed from a good workout, is in no hurry to finish jerking off.

Shane’s eyes have been wet and leaking almost since they began — his cock, hard and flushed against his stomach, is wet and leaking, too. Suddenly, a sob rises from deep in his chest; it almost seems to catch him by surprise. Ilya watches as he wavers, as if deciding to unleash it or keep it in check. The former wins out. His eyes screw shut and he drops his legs, which land heavily on the floor.

“Ilya,” he says, voice breaking. “Ilya, I can’t.”

“You can’t what, Shane?” Ilya asks, as pleasantly as if they were discussing the weather.

“I can’t,” Shane whines. “It’s too hard.”

“It’s too hard,” Ilya repeats, mocking. “You are a very serious hockey player Shane. Second best in the league, probably. You like doing things that are hard.”

Shane must be thoroughly wrecked, because he doesn’t even take the second best in the league bait. Shakes his head, eyes still closed, lower lip pushed out and quivering.

“Please, Ilya,” he says. “Please, I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Ah,” Ilya says solemnly. “I think all these years I have been too soft with you, yes? Let you think if you just pout and say please you can have whatever you want. Not good to spoil you like this.”

He taps the side of Shane’s thigh.

“No more whining,” he says, firm and sure. “Come on. Up.”

“Ilya.”

“Now, Shane.”

And even through muscles that must be shaking with strain, even through frustrated tears, Shane does what Ilya tells him, and Ilya gets to jerk off to the lovely sound of his husband’s whimpers, his little almost unintentional cries of Ilya and please repeated over and over until Ilya comes.

*

The next morning, Shane lies on his back on sweat-damp sheets, writhing and sobbing as Ilya teases one nipple and then the other with tongue and teeth, Shane’s hips thrusting helplessly into thin air.

“Please,” he says. “Please, please, please.”

Ilya bites down harder; Shane practically wails.

“I need you,” Shane gasps. “Ilya, I need you.”

He seizes at Ilya’s wrist, tries to pull his hand towards his mouth. “Even just — fingers — please, Ilya, I feel so empty — I need it — I can’t —”

He can hardly get the words out. Ilya sits back a moment to watch.

“Very pretty,” he says. Tugs his wrist free, gives Shane’s chest a reassuring squeeze. “So lovely when you beg. But no.”

Because the thing is — the only thing that’s keeping Ilya from going mad at the thought of Shane’s warm, willing mouth or the way he would open so easily for Ilya to fuck him if he wanted — is that the plan is working. Keeping Shane on edge, almost out of his mind with desperation, at least half-hard practically from when he wakes up from when he goes to sleep, has meant that suddenly the iPad, the hockey books, the recordings of old games, have been forgotten. Shane has started to let Ilya cook practically every meal. He has trailed Ilya from room to room like a puppy. Sometimes, he has got down on his knees and crawled to him, presenting himself at Ilya’s feet like an offering. Other times, he has got frustrated, worked up, shooting Ilya little glares, an expression Ilya loves so much as to be Pavlovian, the way his dick almost immediately takes interest every time.

Now, Shane looks up at him with big, brown, wounded eyes.

“Please,” he says again, this time small and quiet. “Don’t you —” he draws a shaky breath. “Don’t you want it too? Don’t you even need to — to —”

His mouth twists unhappily, as Ilya’s own mouth curves up into a smile.

“Of course I want it, sweetheart,” he says. “You know how I love being inside you. But unlike you, I can control myself.”

He pinches one of Shane’s nipples, twisting and tugging just for the sheer delight of watching Shane thrash and weep.

“That’s it,” Ilya says. “Cry and beg all you want, Shane. You will not change my mind.”

He leans over Shane, bringing their faces close, his grin turning sharp, with teeth.

"Because you are mine,” Ilya says. “And I can do what I like with you. Yes?”

The sounds Shane makes are hardly even words, but if they were they’d most likely be — yours, yours, yours.

*

On the fourth day, Shane breaks in a different way. A kind of radical acceptance — no resistance at all as Ilya arranges him to his liking, placid and pliant. Staring glassy-eyed at Ilya’s dick as Ilya gets himself off, no more desperate begging, no noise other than the occasional soft breath or quiet whine.

Perhaps it’s a change of tactics. Rolling over to show Ilya his soft underbelly in the hope of mercy.

But Ilya does not feel merciful.

He feels giddy with power. He feels drunk with it, but at the same time soberly focused, in absolute control. He feels as if the world is more saturated, the sun’s morning heat over the lake stronger, the smell of water and algae and last night’s woodsmoke clearer, the colours — the riotous green of the trees, the sky’s blue, the flash of red from a darting swallow’s wing — vibrant and rich.

What they are doing starts to bleed from sex into other things. Inevitable, really, when Shane spends most of the day hard, dazed, shivering at Ilya’s slightest touch. When Ilya swims, he makes Shane stand on the shore, a towel draped over his arm like it’s a rail, ready for Ilya to dry himself when he finishes. He makes Shane hold his weights in the gym between sets — or makes him get on all fours, a bench for Ilya to rest on. Makes him kneel at his feet while he uses the PlayStation, a can of coke balanced on his upturned palm. Shane fights to keep still, breathing hard through his nose.

“So useful,” Ilya says, after taking a swig and placing the can back on Shane’s hand. “So many things I can do with you. So many things you’re good for.”

Shane’s eyes flutter closed. He doesn’t answer — can’t answer. The can wobbles ever so slightly, but does not fall.

*

The final morning, Ilya goes for a swim at dawn. The shock of cold, the plunge into and out of sound as his head is submerged and then breaks the surface with each breath. Clean pull through the water — the lake is still, without current, so he knows the movement, the surge forward, is all him.

He feels sharp. Purposeful. This week has brought him into his own body, even as he has exercised control over Shane’s. He’s done his knee rehab every day without fail, has enjoyed the feeling of slow-returning strength. When he reaches the dock, he pushes himself up, feels the transition from the weightlessness of water to the solidity of heavy limbs on land. Heartbeat a steady drum — fleeting image, in his mind, of blood, dark and hot and pumping. As he approaches the house, he thrums like a bowstring pulled tight, the moment before the arrow flies.

Shane is where Ilya left him. Lying in bed on his back, wrists above his head. Not tied down — there’s no need for it. His eyes are closed but the quick rise and fall of his chest shows he’s not sleeping. Hard, still, even after all the time Ilya has been gone. Ilya leans against the doorframe to admire how Shane looks like this — how helpless, how utterly Ilya’s for the taking. Shane hears the creaking wood, opens his eyes.

“Did not move at all,” Ilya says. “So well-behaved.”

He comes closer — bare feet satisfyingly silent on the floor, panther-like tread.

“You have been so good this week, Shane,” Ilya says. “Taking your punishment so well. You want a reward?”

He enjoys the play of emotions across Shane’s face, the shift from softly pleased at the praise to slightly wary.

“What reward?”

“That does not matter.” Ilya pats his cheek gently. “Yes or no?”

Shane blinks. Bites his lip.

“... No?”

Ilya smiles.

“Such a shame it is not your choice. So I will reward you, I think.”

He ducks under the bed and brings out what he’d hidden there the night before — fished out of the locked trunk they keep in the back of the closet. Shane’s eyes track the movement as Ilya rests it on the bed — then snap back to Ilya, widening, fearful.

“What’s wrong, Shane?” Ilya asks with mock concern as he climbs up. The mattress dips; the prostate massager slides towards Shane’s hip. “I thought you would be happy. What was it you said a few days ago?” He slips into a breathy imitation of Shane’s voice. “Please, Ilya, I feel so empty.”

He pushes Shane’s legs apart.

“You cannot have me. Not until tomorrow. So I will give you this instead.”

Shane’s mouth turns down at the corners.

“You said I’ve been good,” he whispers.

Ilya tilts his head, feigning confusion. “Yes.”

He picks up the toy, brandishes it. Shane flinches.

“But...” Shane says. “But what if I...” He takes a deep breath. “It’ll make me come.”

“No. You will not let it.”

Shane’s blinks are slow, almost confused. His eyes already a little glazed, that sweet expression Ilya associates with Shane’s slow descent into oblivion, a place where he has no thoughts, has nothing to do except accept what Ilya gives.

“You will not let it,” Ilya continues, “because you have learned your lesson, yes? Learned to behave.”

Ilya nods to the bottle of lube on the nightstand.

“Get yourself ready.”

Shane moves a little unsteadily to prop himself up on the pillows. Even at the barest intrusion of one of his own fingers, he gasps, hips twitching.

“Good?” Ilya asks. Gets only a whimper in response. “See? I told you. A reward.”

Watching Shane’s finger slide in and out has Ilya’s own fingers tingling — he has to curl his hands to fists. Want seizes him, something fierce, something made feral with waiting. He feels hot — shaky and excited, flooded with adrenaline — as Shane goes from one finger to two.

“That’s enough,” Ilya says, because the toy is thin and sleek, far smaller than what Shane is used to taking. Shane withdraws his fingers with shaking hands and Ilya tugs him down, flat on his back again, and places his wrists over his head.

“Relax,” he says as he lubes up the toy. “Enjoy it, hm?”

Shane arches up off the bed when Ilya slides the toy inside.

“Fuck,” he pants. “Oh fuck.”

Ilya pumps it in and out a few times, captivated by how quickly Shane unravels — unable to keep still, however much he might want to. He twists and whines and tries to get both away from and deeper onto the toy. Ilya places a settling hand on Shane’s chest.

“Shh, sweetheart,” he says. “It’s ok.”

Ilya fits the massager snugly inside Shane and sits back. Lets Shane have a moment of relief while he feels under the bed for the remote. When he lifts it into Shane’s line of sight, Shane’s eyes practically roll back into his head.

“No,” he whimpers. “N-no, Ilya, please —”

But his plea is cut off by a cry, half agony, half pleasure, as Ilya clicks the remote. A gentle buzz, the lowest setting.

“Remember, Shane,” Ilya says. “You are not allowed to come.”

Shane’s whole body jerks — his hands almost come flying down, perhaps to grasp the base of his dick for a more fighting chance of obeying. When he slams them back above his head, Ilya’s mouth goes dry.

“Fuck,” he says, low and serious. It doesn’t matter, Shane doesn’t hear.

“Please,” he cries. “Please, please, I can’t — I’m getting too close — Ilya.”

Ilya shuts off the toy. Shane falls back against the pillows, sobbing with relief.

“Thank you,” he says. “Thank you, thank you, thank you —”

Ilya slaps him. Hard. With shaky aim but he gets enough behind it to leave Shane’s cheek red, his head thrown to the side. A wet spot forms on the pillowcase, freely falling tears.

“We are not done,” Ilya says. He sounds strained. He can feel his pulse everywhere — the tips of his fingers, his throat, behind his eyes. Shane is breathing harder than Ilya has ever seen him breathe, including the final minutes of their last playoff game.            

“Thirty seconds,” Ilya says. His hand, holding the remote, is trembling. “Thirty seconds. Then we stop. All you need to do. Is not come.”

Shane opens his mouth — to say yes, to say no, Ilya doesn’t care.

He turns the toy on. Full strength.

The noise Shane makes is all pain now, no pleasure. He moves his hands and this time doesn’t stop himself. Ilya pounces, grabs his wrists, pins him roughly down. Shane fights back, and it’s not token resistance. Twisting and kicking with real strength, but Ilya’s hold won’t break. Ilya can’t decide what he wants to see more — Shane’s face, tear-streaked, mouth open, cheeks flushed, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, or his cock, each twitch of it threatening to herald orgasm no matter how hard Shane tries. Ilya looks from one to the other greedily, feeling slightly insane.

“Ten,” he says, taking a wild stab at how long has passed. “Nine.”

“I can’t,” Shane begs. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t —”

“Eight. Seven.”

“Ilya.”

Ilya keeps counting. Shane keeps thrashing beneath him, his sounds becoming ever more broken, more choked and desperate, only the roughest approximation of words. Ilya and can’t and please.

“Three,” Ilya says. His vision tunnelling at the edges, a focus on Shane on par with a narrowing of attention on the puck when there’s a chance to equalise in a close-fought game. “Two.”

“Fuck.”

“One.”

Ilya fumbles with the remote, clicks it. The quiet after the insistent buzz is ringing; for a moment, neither of them breathe. Then Ilya’s hands and mouth are everywhere. He can’t get enough of Shane, has to squeeze and suck and bite at him, a series of frantic claims — mine, mine, mine.

“Fuck,” he says. “Shane. Fuck, let me... Sweetheart, turn over I need — fuck, you were perfect — I need to fuck you, you’ve been so good, you deserve it, just let me —”

Ilya hardly even knows what he’s saying, some burst dam of need inside him, and fuck control, fuck punishment, fuck delayed gratification, if he can’t get his dick inside Shane in the next five seconds he might literally die —

“No.”

Ilya freezes. Shane’s voice is quiet, but somehow it cuts through Ilya’s babbling.

“No?” Ilya repeats.

Shane shakes his head — or tries to. Seems to have a hard time with muscle control, head lolling from side to side.

“Don’t want,” he slurs.

Ilya sits back on his heels, feeling lightheaded.

“You... what?”

“Tomorrow,” Shane says. “I can do it. I can wait. Please.”

It happens so rarely these days, but for a moment, English is wiped completely from Ilya’s head. It returns in fragments.

Impossible. Beautiful. Perfect.

Ilya brushes fingers reverently along the side of Shane’s jaw.

“Ok,” he says softly.

And Shane smiles. Honestly smiles, a shining thing, its own source of light. He smiles like he has passed through pain, through the agony of denial, into a place of perfect bliss.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

Ilya swallows. He tries to focus on something that will slow his heartbeat, calm his racing mind. The morning swim, the feel of sliding through the water. Master of himself and the world. Or, more precisely, master of this world, their precious, private place.

“Ok,” he says, when he feels back in control. “Not inside you. Not yet. What do you want me to do to you instead?”

“Whatever you want,” Shane replies. A little spaced, a little dreamy. “Just... Use me, Ilya. I can take it.”

And honestly, just for this moment, fuck the Stanley Cup — they’ll win it next year, Ilya knows it, Shane probably knows it too, it just took some coaxing to get him out of his head enough to see it. But for now, the only victory Ilya needs is this one, the sweet, shared glory of himself and Shane in bed in the golden morning light.

“Yes, sweetheart,” he says. “I know you can.”