Chapter Text
The honeymoon period was officially over.
They were a real couple now, and being in an established relationship came with benefits and drawbacks. Some days were decidedly better than others. The worst days always seemed to coincide with Shane having to leave in the middle of the night to get on a flight somewhere far away. Shane hated having to leave so often to go on the road, and Ilya hated being left behind.
Although he figured that the feeling would have gone away after being together in an exclusive relationship for over six months, Shane’s jealousy had remained constant. Every time Shane left for the airport, he questioned whether Ilya was sleeping with someone else, and it drove him crazy.
He knew he was being paranoid and that he had no reason to disbelieve Ilya when he said that he was faithful. But he couldn’t stop replaying what Svetlana said to him in their apartment that day. How Ilya could never be faithful to anyone. If he couldn’t be monogamous with his wife, who he chose to marry, what made Shane think that he could change him?
“Faster,” Shane commanded, pressing his nails into the skin of Ilya’s chest to motivate him to fucking move. He moved his hips as fast as they could go, thrusting himself down onto Ilya's cock over and over trying to make him finish.
“You want it faster,” Ilya asked in a low register.
“I want you to come faster,” Shane clarified. “I have to go soon. My flight leaves in three hours.”
“Then you should not have woken me up by sucking my dick.”
In retrospect that probably wasn’t one of Shane’s brighter ideas.
“You don’t need to be at the airport that early,” Ilya said unhelpfully.
His tone is so flippant and his message so inconsiderate that Shane almost decided to end their encounter right then. But instead, he gave him a deadline. “You have thirty seconds or I’m finishing without you.”
Ilya grabbed Shane’s hips to stop him from bouncing momentarily. Then Shane flipped himself over on his back and Ilya got on top.
After forty-five seconds, Ilya pulled out and spilled his release onto the clean sheets that Shane had just laundered less than a day earlier.
“I’ll wash them later,” Ilya promised while catching his breath.
Shane rolled over onto his side and slowly lifted himself upright. Ilya reached out to touch his back. Shane lurched forward.
“Call me when you get to the hotel,” Ilya requested.
Ilya could be so overbearing sometimes, and Shane hated feeling micromanaged. It made him feel like Ilya saw him as a child that needed to be told what to do.
“Get some work done,” Shane said back. “I haven’t seen you write the entire time I’ve been home.”
Without looking behind him, Shane could tell that Ilya was hurt by his callousness.
“I wanted to spend time with you.”
Shane’s stomach twisted. He felt like such an asshole. He was being so hard on Ilya. It couldn’t be easy for him to be alone when Shane was gone. Lately, Shane had been wondering if Ilya was lonely staying inside all day by himself writing his book. He needed something else to occupy his time when Shane wasn’t around. He needed to hang out with his friends. As much as it would play on Shane’s worst fears, he knew exactly what his boyfriend needed.
Ilya needed to see Svetlana again.
Shane could tell that he longed for their old friendship, and that he had been neglecting trying to repair it because of how he knew Shane would feel about it. But it was time for Shane to put his feelings aside.
He stood up and walked around to the other side of the bed. He leaned down and gave Ilya a kiss. A real one, deep and passionate. The kind that was so good he didn’t ever want it to end.
Ilya took Shane’s hand. “Stay,” Ilya begged.
“You know I can’t,” Shane said.
“Just this once,” Ilya said, pushing his luck.
“Don’t do that,” Shane told him sternly. “Don’t try to make me feel bad about having a career. You signed up for this.”
“I didn’t sign up to have a boyfriend who is never home,” Ilya returned his jab.
“Actually, that’s exactly what you signed up for,” Shane reminded him.
Sometimes Shane felt so guilty about having to leave that it made him start a fight just so he could feel anger instead.
“Have you seen Svetlana lately,” Shane asked out of the blue. Except for him, it wasn’t out of the blue.
“What is that supposed to mean," he asked defensively.
Shane hadn’t meant to accuse him of anything, but he could see how Ilya’s mind went there. Normally, when Shane used to bring up Svetlana it was because he was feeling insecure. But enough time had passed, that seeing each other again could be healthy. And Shane cared more about Ilya’s happiness than he did about his own jealousy. If getting in touch with Svetlana would help get Ilya out of his slump, then Shane would just have to deal with it.
“I think you might miss her,” Shane said observantly. “You haven’t really talked since everything happened.”
Ilya shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve talked to her lawyer.”
Shane sat down on the bed next to Ilya and started petting his hair.
“Talk to her,” Shane gently nudged him in the right direction. “If you miss her this much, then I’m sure she misses you too.”
Ilya’s eyes drifted to Shane’s chest and then back up again.
“You wouldn’t be jealous?”
Shane smiled through gritted teeth. “Why would I be,” he asked, pretending like it was of no concern to him. “It’s not like you guys are going to have sex. You can just meet for a drink or something very low stakes.”
Ilya considered it. “Please, for me,” Shane said while he stared at Ilya with his best pleading look. And Ilya had never been able to resist giving Shane what he wanted – which ultimately, was whatever was best for Ilya.
“I’ll call her,” he reluctantly agreed.
“That’s all I’m asking,” Shane promised and rewarded him with a parting kiss. “I’ll see you on Tuesday night.”
“What time does your flight land in Montreal?”
“Around midnight,” Shane estimated. “I’ll try to be quiet getting in. I don’t want to wake you like last time”
“Don’t you dare be quiet,” Ilya said with a smile. He grabbed Shane’s hips and gave them a tug towards him. “I’m going to ravish you the second you get home.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Shane said, exercising his unique skill to turn literally everything into a competition. “If you stay awake until I get home, then I’ll let you fuck me. If not, then you’ll just have to wait until the next morning.”
“I’ll be awake,” Ilya said, determined to win their bet.
“I hope so,” Shane said, giving Ilya one last look at his body before disappearing into the bathroom and turning on the shower.
***
Getting through security was a fucking nightmare. It took almost two hours and Shane barely made it to the gate on time.
“Nice of you to show up,” Lees said sarcastically, taking a sip of his coffee. Lees was one of the younger players on the team, in his mid-twenties with light brown hair.
“Sorry,” Shane apologized.
“Man, I’m just fucking with you,” Lees promised. “Did you oversleep your alarm or something?”
Or something.
“Yeah, something like that,” Shane said mysteriously.
Donovan looked up from his phone. “Lay off the rookie,” he said in Shane’s defence. He tilted his head up to acknowledge Shane’s presence.
Shane half-smiled in his general direction.
The discussion was thankfully interrupted by an announcement that the plane was now boarding.
By a stroke of luck or fate, he happened to be spending the flight in the seat next to Donovan.
Donovan was, for a lack of a better term, Shane’s self-appointed mentor. Shane knew that he must have had a first name, but he never used it in conversation. Donovan never used Shane’s name first name either. Shane was always either “Hollander” or “kid” depending on Donovan’s mood.
As they stood up and began walking, Shane heard Donovan’s voice saying, “2-B.” He looked over and saw Donovan holding his ticket in the air.
Shane looked down at his own ticket: Seat 2-A.
The woman checking Shane’s passport seemed to recognize him, but was polite enough to let him through without making a scene. It wasn’t unusual for Shane to be recognized, particularly when he was with the rest of his team, but it’s not like he was a household name. Nor would he ever want to be that well known. He enjoyed having a life that could be kept reasonably private, and not having every part of his life exist for public consumption.
They don’t have to store their luggage since neither of them brought any. Shane only has a carry-on bag with the essentials that he takes with him everywhere. They sit down and settle in for the duration of their hour-and-a-half-long flight to Pearson International.
As Shane began dozing off, he witnessed Donovan typing away furiously on his phone. Shane tried to distract himself from focusing on who his seatmate was communicating with, but his idle curiosity got the better of him.
“Who are you texting,” he asked, unable to prevent his lips from moving.
Donovan was so focused on the content of his message that he took a few seconds to respond.
“Uhmmm,” he said, buying himself a couple more seconds to complete – what must have been an extremely important – text, before putting his phone on airplane mode and shoving it into his pocket. “My stepdaughter,” he said eventually.
That should have been the end of the discussion. Shane asked a question and he received an answer. But he kept going.
“I didn’t know you were married,” Shane said observantly.
It was none of his business. It was none of his goddamn business. Why the fuck did he just ask a man he barely knew about his personal life?
“I’m not,” Donovan said clearly. “She’s my ex-wife’s daughter.”
Stop talking now.
“And she still texts you,” Shane asked.
Shut the fuck up. Just shut your mouth.
He sighed and Shane got the impression that it wasn’t the most positive situation between Donovan and his ex-wife.
“She reaches out whenever she’s having issues with her mother,” he explained, giving Shane far more information than he was entitled to by virtue of playing on the same hockey team.
He looked directly at Shane.
“Which happens a lot,” he said.
Shane’s mouth felt drier than usual. “That sounds hard,” he managed to say.
Donovan shrugged indifferently. “It’s fine. She’s a really good kid,” he said like he was trying to convince Shane he was telling the truth. “She just has some problems. Like most kids probably do.”
“Sure,” Shane said reassuringly. This is exactly why Shane never wanted to have children. Who needs this kind of headache? You’re always on the clock and never get any breaks. Then one day you’re sending a rushed text to your kid while you’re about to take off on a flight without any Wi-Fi and you have to live with the uncertainty of their response until you land.
“You’ll understand eventually,” he said with a kind, commiserating smile.
Shane simply nodded and then pulled his hoodie over his head and pressed his head to the covered window, intending to sleep through the majority of the flight.
***
It only took five games into the season, but they finally won. It was by a close margin of 3-2. But a win was a win, and their team was ready to celebrate like they had just won the fucking Stanley Cup.
Throughout his time in college, Shane had never fully come out, but he had been open about his sexuality with enough people that it felt an open secret. Before he started practicing with the Metros, he hadn’t given much thought to how being in the NHL would push him back even further into the closet and shut the door behind him. He knew that his relationship with Ilya had to stay under complete lock and key. But it would be nice if his teammates could stop trying to convince him fucking random women that they encountered in different cities across North America.
Shane was nursing his second coke with lime of the night – having learned better than to get drunk in front of his co-workers – when the peer pressure began.
“Hollander come over here,” Devens motioned him over from the other side of the bar.
He waded through a couple of drunk women with sashes dancing near the bar. They were clearly part of a bachelor party, and the drunkest one was wearing a fake veil that had fallen halfway down the back of her head.
“I want you to meet someone,” Devens said, glancing at the woman next to him who was approximately Shane’s age. “Shane, meet Elissa.”
Elissa was almost his height. She must have been at least five-foot-nine. She had red hair and freckles, and her lips were like tiny pillows.
“Nice to meet you, Shane,” she said with a kind smile.
“Hi,” Shane said back. He wasn’t good at thinking on his feet.
“Elissa is a hockey fan,” Devens said and Shane’s heartrate began to skyrocket (and not in the fun way).
“Tell him your favourite player,” Devens insisted, and then started speaking again before the woman could answer, “It’s you, Hollander. Isn’t that a coincidence?”
“Yeah, coincidence,” Shane said awkwardly.
Shane tried to think of an excuse to get out of this situation without hurting her feelings or humiliating himself.
“I’m just here with my teamma–”
When Shane looked over to find Devens, he was already gone.
"So how do you like Montreal," she asked, making conversation.
In the moment, Shane probably took a second too long to respond to such an easy question.
"Montreal's great," he said simply. "I went to college there and I kind of fell in love with it."
Shane smiled to himself. He fell in love with one part of Montreal. One person.
"I knew that," she said, like they were on a game show and she was a second late to the buzzer. "But I heard that you got hurt or something. Because you sat out of the playoff game where you guys lost to Ottawa."
Wow, she really did know a lot about him. The sheer amount of information regarding his life that was housed in this woman's brain made Shane feel twitchy and nervous.
"I'm glad you're doing better," she said. "Was it your knee or something?"
Shane thought of a lie. The real reason why he refused to play that night was too long and personal to explain to a stranger.
"Ankle," he said.
"Oh," she said, her face contorting into a sympathetic expression. "Poor thing."
When she began casually rubbing his forearm while maintaining eye contact, that’s when Shane decided to say something.
“I have a girlfriend," he blurted out.
Her face dropped and Shane knew that he hurt her feelings. The most he could hope for was that she believed he was at least telling her the truth.
“It’s not you,” Shane assured.
For a moment, Shane questioned whether she was going to throw her drink in his face for rejecting her. But instead, she plastered a smile on her face and said, “No worries. Enjoy your night.” Then she walked away to rejoin her group of friends.
Devens reappeared in his line of sight once Elissa was gone. He seemed confused and irritated, like Shane had fumbled a perfectly good pass and missed an easy shot on the net.
“Dude,” Devens said, annoyed. “What was wrong with her? She was perfect.”
Shane hated going out with the team for this exact reason. It was difficult to continue to have to make excuses for why a healthy nineteen-year-old man who could have practically anyone he wanted, didn’t seem to be overly interested in getting laid.
“Who is she,” he asked curiously. “She must be something if you’re willing to give all this up.”
He was something. Shane wished he had the power to teleport himself back into his and Ilya’s bed at home. He was probably already sleeping. Alone. Without him there.
“They’re the best,” Shane replied, deciding that using a gender-neutral term to describe his boyfriend was slightly better than outright lying.
“Did you meet in high school or something?”
“No, we met in college,” Shane said truthfully.
“Ah,” Devens said, as if the answer Shane just gave had told him all he needed to know. “College sweethearts.”
“Sort of,” Shane half-agreed.
“Is it serious,” he asked.
Shane didn’t have to think about that question before replying.
“Yes.”
“Damn,” Devens said, disappointedly. “Are you one of those guys that wants to get married super young and start a family before he’s twenty-one?”
That reminded Shane, he needed to text Hayden back.
Shane shook his head. “I don’t want to get married for a long time,” he told him. “And I don’t want kids ever.”
Devens raised an eyebrow. “Interesting.”
Shane questioned whether Devens was merely intrigued or if he was being judgmental. Probably the former.
“I’ll let you in on a secret,” Devens told him in a hushed tone that can barely be heard over the loud music being played from the speakers. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a rookie who had a girlfriend that lasted longer than his first season.”
“Then we’ll be the first,” Shane said confidently.
Devens laughed, but not in a mean-spirited way. It felt more like he was amused by Shane’s naivety.
“Remind me that we had this conversation in six months.”
***
After having to tell the same lie to two people in a single evening, Shane ventured back to his hotel alone, and by 1 a.m. he was under the covers in bed.
He was having trouble falling asleep, which hadn’t been an issue for him in months. Having a person lying next to him at night for the past six months had soothed him. Being on the road always gave him withdrawals. He wanted to be held and touched. He missed his safety net.
He missed Ilya.
He thought about calling Ilya to check in, but something stopped him. He was only gone for a day. He would see him again soon enough.
Instead of calling his boyfriend like a regular person, Shane did something that brought him a lot of shame. He pulled up a photo of Ilya on google images. It was his official faculty photo. It must’ve been taken years ago, because he looks younger. Still not as young as Shane, but young. In the picture, he’s wearing a blue suit jacket and a black tie, and he was staring into the camera with the tiniest smile.
Shane stared into Ilya’s striking blue eyes and dropped his hand beneath his waistband.
This was creepy, Shane realized. The man in the photo was his boyfriend who he could have easily asked for a photo to masturbate to. Or he could have just turned on some porn like a normal guy. But something about Ilya’s expression in that picture just did things to him. Deviant sexual things.
And admittedly, Shane was attracted to the man in the photo possibly more than the man he’d left at home. Was it so wrong for him to get hot and bothered for the version of his boyfriend that was gainfully employed and successful, rather than the version sitting in front of a computer screen all day at home in their apartment?
He trusted Ilya when he said that he needed to find inspiration before he could begin writing. But there was no justifiable reason that it should have taken him this long to even begin to put pen to paper. Ilya was supposed to go back to work in a couple months, and Shane was starting to lose hope that he would ever have a finished product to publish. It was months of time that he had wasted accomplishing nothing.
He was so close. He realized, too late, that he should’ve gotten a moist towel or at least some tissues to clean himself with.
It only took a couple more frantic strokes. A brief thought flashed in his mind: He finished faster than he did that morning. A stupid photo made him come faster than his boyfriend’s dick being inside him.
He came hard onto his flexing abdomen, fantasizing about when he met Ilya on the first day of class. Back then, he never would have pictured his life taking such a steep turn. He never would have imagined that his one-time hookup with his handsome history professor would turn into the most meaningful relationship of his life. That he would spend an inordinate amount of time mentally planning their future together.
He didn’t have the normal fantasies about getting married or having kids. Shane’s fantasies were much simpler. The idea of being able to go outside together without being afraid of someone catching them. Going on dates, eating ice cream on a pier, swimming in the ocean, going to a farmer’s market. Just casual, normal everyday moments that other couples didn’t have to think twice about.
Why had Shane, out of all the people in the world he could have chosen to be with, have to fall in love with Ilya? Maybe if he was younger and had a different profession, he wouldn’t have to be as careful about hiding. Shane understood that it was wrong to resent Ilya for things that were out of his control, but he couldn’t help but let it annoy him.
Shane fell back on the mattress feeling spent. His orgasm had taken more energy from him than the entire day’s activities combined. He forced himself to stand up and walk to the shower. By the time he came back to bed, he was almost too exhausted to keep his eyes open for longer than a few seconds.
When his head hit the pillow, he fell asleep almost instantly.
***
The next night, when he got back into town he was so tired he nearly dozed off outside the front door of their apartment.
Shane used his key to enter. When he walked inside, the lights were all on and Ilya was sitting on the couch watching hockey.
Not just watching any hockey game, he was watching Shane play hockey.
“What are you doing,” Shane asked, setting his bag down on the floor.
Ilya turned around. He was so engrossed in the game that he hadn’t even noticed that Shane was there.
“You’re home,” Ilya exclaimed. He jumped off the couch and came over to Shane, wrapping him in a hug.
“We won,” Shane said into Ilya’s neck.
“I saw,” Ilya told him. “You did so good, my love. I’m so proud of you.”
Hearing Ilya say that he was proud of him never failed to make him smile. It was the greatest compliment he could give him.
Ilya pulled away and surveyed Shane’s face. Shane looked away, feeling himself get upset.
“Are you okay,” he asked.
“Yeah,” Shane said unconvincingly. “Just missed you.”
“Sweetheart,” Ilya said softly, noticing the way Shane couldn’t meet his gaze. “Come sit down.”
He put his hand on Shane’s back and guided him over to the couch. When they sat down, the corners of their knees were touching.
“Talk to me,” Ilya demanded.
“They think I’m weird,” Shane told him.
Ilya disagreed. “I’m sure they don’t think you’re weird.”
“They do,” Shane argued. Then he paused before choosing to tell Ilya about the lie he told his teammate about their relationship. “They also think I have a girlfriend.”
Ilya’s ears perked up. “You?” He smirked. “A girlfriend? Really?”
Shane choked out a small laugh. “Fuck you,” he said mildly. “They’re always wondering why I don’t go home with anyone. Obviously, I couldn’t tell them about us.”
“Obviously,” Ilya repeated. “Does that bother you?”
“Of course it bothers me,” Shane said defensively. “You think I like having to lie to everyone?”
“So don’t,” Ilya reasoned. “Just don’t say anything. It’s nobody’s business anyway.”
He was right. Shane’s personal life was no one’s business. But that didn’t mean that people wouldn’t try to make it their business.
“It’s fine,” Shane brushed off his feelings and changed topics. “What did you do while I was gone,” he asked, hoping that Ilya had managed to get a decent amount of work done on his book without Shane around to distract him.
Ilya’s face lit up. “I saw Svetlana.”
Shane’s brain buffered. He wasn’t expecting that response.
“You saw Svetlana,” Shane asked, surprised that Ilya followed through on his request so quickly. “How is she?”
“She’s doing great,” Ilya said. “Much better than she was. She seems like she’s finally happy. I think getting divorced was the best thing that’s ever happened to her.”
“So it went well,” Shane surmised.
“It went amazing,” Ilya said smiling. “It was exactly what I needed. I feel a million times better.” He rubbed Shane’s arm gently.
Shane was still a bit too shocked to show the proper level of enthusiasm.
“Okay then good, I’m happy for you,” he said. “Are you going to see her again?”
“Next weekend,” Ilya answered quickly. They had already made plans this soon? Shane thought that maybe there would be more of a cooling off period after they met again. That the emotions might be too big to deal with this soon after their breakup.
Ilya scanned Shane’s face for a reaction.
“You’re out of town,” Ilya justified.
Shane couldn’t argue with that logic, but he also didn’t know how to feel about this latest development in Ilya and Svetlana’s relationship. He thought it would be more of a casual friendship. He wasn’t expecting that they would go out together every time he was gone. Even though he had been the one to suggest it, he never dreamed that it would go over this well.
When Shane didn’t reply, Ilya’s face shifted into confusion.
“You’re not mad are you,” he asked. “I thought you wanted me to see her.”
“I did,” Shane agreed. “I do. Sorry. I’m just…”
“Hungry? Tired?”
Ilya kept trying to anticipate Shane’s needs like Shane was an infant that couldn’t tell him himself.
“Both,” Shane said finally.
Ilya threaded his right hand through Shane’s hair.
“Which one do you need more?”
Shane hadn’t slept in almost twenty-four consecutive hours, but he also hadn’t eaten since noon and it was now 8:30 p.m.
“Food, probably.”
Ilya nodded sympathetically.
“What about fucking your boyfriend who you haven’t seen in two days,” he asked, eliciting a small laugh from Shane. “Where does that fall on your list of priorities?”
It had only a couple days and Shane was already horny out of his mind. But he wasn't about to readily admit that.
“Hmmm,” Shane said, pretending to think about it. “In the middle?”
“Food, sex, then sleep,” Ilya laid out the order.
“That sounds right,” Shane agreed.
Ilya kissed Shane’s shoulder and Shane nearly shuddered at the feeling of Ilya’s lips on his skin.
“I’m happy you’re home.”
He poured his words Shane’s ear, before kissing the side of his face. “I hate when you’re not here.”
“Me too,” Shane said, holding tightly onto Ilya’s arms. “I hate leaving you.”
“One day you won’t have to,” Ilya promised.
Shane melted into Ilya’s embrace. At that moment, he didn’t need food or sex or sleep. All he craved was the firmness of Ilya’s hands, the warmness of Ilya’s breath and the sound of Ilya’s heart beating in his chest.