Work Text:
Shane doesn’t like pain. Not exactly. But he really likes how much Ilya likes it. He likes being able to give Ilya something he wants, whatever it is—and the harder it is for Shane to give it to him, the more he likes it.
Ilya always reminds Shane that he can stop it if he wants to. He doesn’t have to take anything he doesn’t like. “I don’t want you suffering for my sake, okay? Even if it’s supposed to be a punishment, it’s just a game. Use the safeword if I go too far.”
Shane nods. He understands. Ilya doesn’t want to have to make that decision for him. It’s too much for Shane to ask.
That’s okay. It really is. Even though it means that he stays stuck in his head in spite of the fact that Ilya has him tied spread eagle and face down on their bed and is bringing the belt down on his ass with firm precision. Shane can’t do what he used to do and just feel it.
He’s supposed to be paying attention to what he wants. Ilya asked Shane to stop him when it was more than Shane liked. He has a job to do that isn’t simply floating through the sensations that Ilya chooses for him.
The problem is that Shane doesn’t know how to decide, when it comes down to it. He doesn’t know what he wants.
He doesn’t like the actual feeling of it. It hurts, and he doesn’t really like pain, not more pain than he feels from Ilya pulling his hair or biting at his neck. Ilya’s belt on his ass is a lot more than that. It’s red-hot agony that goes on and on, building rather than teasing and then retreating. Shane knows he wants the pain to stop.
But he likes being helpless. He likes knowing that it’s Ilya hurting him, and that Ilya wants him to hurt, and that Shane is giving him what he wants every time he takes a blow. He likes the part of it that he isn’t supposed to like, the part of it that Ilya told him not to like. Shane knows he wants Ilya to do whatever he wants with Shane.
Shane is so tangled up in his own mind that he’s twitching and can’t settle into it. He can’t stop thinking about whether or not he’s doing it right, whether he’s taking too much or too little, whether he wants the things he thinks he wants.
I don’t want you suffering for my sake, Ilya had said, and that is what Shane is doing. What Shane wants to do. What he’s not supposed to want.
So he uses the safe word, and Ilya drops the belt, and it should be good, right? He should be relieved. He has a wonderful boyfriend, a responsible dom, who cares so much more about Shane’s safety than he does about his own pleasure.
It would be bad if Ilya had ignored Shane. If he was still laying vicious blows on his ass instead of gently rubbing cream into the sore skin. Telling him he’d better shut up and take it instead of murmuring in his ear what a good boy he is. Shane shouldn’t want that. He can’t let himself want that.
Ilya wants him to be safe. Ilya wants him to be able to say no.
It’s just that, in Shane’s fucked-up mind, no matter how much he knows he shouldn’t, those things feel like opposites.
Sometimes Shane wishes they’d never learns the words for any of this, this thing that they do together. Sometimes he misses the old forbidden days, where Ilya did what he wanted and Shane followed because he thought it was normal, because he wasn’t experienced, and then later because it felt so natural. He misses the days when he could say no and squirm under Ilya’s hands around his wrists and Ilya would ignore him and tell him he wanted it and kiss Shane until he went pliant and wanting in Ilya’s arms.
Not that he can’t, still. But now he isn't allowed to forget that Ilya is only playing at making him, only pretending to take his choices away. It isn’t really real, because he and Ilya aren’t kids anymore. They were very responsible and they sat down together and picked a safeword and Ilya very conscientiously reminds Shane that he should use it if he needs it.
Shane knows that it was the right thing to do, the thing that they’re supposed to do. It was one thing when they were teenagers, barely knowing their own bodies, stumbling into each other, fumbling around in hotel rooms. Now they’re in their 30s and married and into proper kink. They’re getting harder and more serious all the time, and Shane loves it. But it needs to come with guardrails. Shane understands that.
When Ilya is no longer just pinning Shane down but tying him up so he can’t get away, when a playful pat on the face becomes a slap hard enough to really hurt, when ‘you have a good mouth’ becomes ‘you’re worthless unless you’re sucking my cock,’ it’s important to be safe. Responsible.
So they pick a safeword, and Shane uses it when he’s supposed to. When he knows things are going too far. Farther than he should let them go.
Shane knows he’s asking for too much. He knows he is too much. He doesn’t know how Ilya ever puts up with him, with the endless pit of need that is Shane.
Ilya has been with so many people. People who knew what they were doing, where to put their hands and how to use their mouths without being told. People who didn’t make Ilya do all the work or order them around or put them into place every time they had sex.
Shane doesn’t know why he would choose this. Choose Shane and all his needs, in bed and everywhere else. Especially when there’s no way that Shane can really pay him back with anything, except for access to himself. And that doesn’t seem like enough for everything Ilya gives, and gives, and gives him.
It just feels so good, being under Ilya like this. Having his hands tied to the headboard so he can’t touch, bent in half so he can’t thrust or move, Ilya looming over him, pinning him to the bed while he fucks Shane hard.
Ilya is so perfect. He always knows just how to touch Shane, how to wring pleasure or pain out of him like playing an instrument. And Shane has nothing to give him back. No confidence and no skill and no desire, even, to try, just to be this passive, absorbing thing, and he shouldn’t. He can’t. He shouldn’t let himself have this, no matter how much he wants it and how much he likes it.
It used to be that Ilya just decided what Shane deserved, what he could have, and Shane didn't have to worry about these things. But a few months ago they’d had this conversation about responsible kink, and limits, and safewords, and they’d decided that Shane would say red if he needed to stop them.
He needs to stop them now, he knows. He needs to not indulge his selfishness, no matter how good it feels. How much he wants to lie still and let the pleasure that Ilya forces into him with every thrust build and build until Shane can finally, for once, let go.
“Red,” Shane says, and carefully does not cry as everything he needs is stripped away by Ilya’s cautious hands. The ropes around his wrists, the hands pinning him down, the cock splitting him open.
“You are okay?” So concerned, so tender. It’s what Shane should want, not the crude desire that Ilya had for him just a few moments ago.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good, it’s just a lot. Maybe we could finish up more, you know, vanilla?”
Shane can do what a good boyfriend would do. He can be responsive and present. He can show Ilya how much he wants him too instead of just lying there and taking it. He doesn’t have to be selfish.
Ilya is still looking at him, a little concerned, a little confused. But what he says is, “Okay.”
And they finish fucking, and it’s good, because it’s always good between the two of them. Shane puts his hands on Ilya’s gorgeous ass and guides his thrusts and kisses him back and it’s good. It’s good.
He doesn’t let himself wish he were being held down and taken instead. Ilya deserves better.
It’s starting to get to Ilya, too. Shane can feel it whenever they fuck, even when it isn’t particularly rough and Ilya isn’t particularly mean. His hands on Shane are tentative in a way they never have been, not even at the beginning. His kisses are more tender than hungry.
This is supposed to be nice. It’s supposed to be where relationships go, once you’ve known each other for a while. You settle into it. It stops being as hectic and passionate, and becomes comfortable and sweet. It’s what he wanted when he asked Ilya if they could be anything, and now he has it. He wouldn’t trade that for all the wildness of the sex they used to have.
And it’s not like the sex is bad now. Shane can’t get enough of being able to be so close to Ilya’s perfect body whenever he wants, to touch the warmth of his skin, to watch Ilya’s face contort in pleasure. It doesn’t have to be about pain or power. If there’s a part of Shane that longs for that, that misses it like a limb, it’s not important. It shouldn’t be that important. Like Ilya said, it’s only a game.
They have each other and that’s all that matters. Shane is happy.
He just misses that one thing. That feeling he got, when he knew that Ilya was completely in charge, and there was nothing Shane could say or do that would make the responsibility fall back on Shane’s shoulders until Ilya guided him back up to normal. He knows he shouldn’t miss it, he remembers all the reasons that they decided it was dangerous, but he does miss it. He does.
He misses it so much that he starts to think, maybe, that he should ask Ilya if sometimes they should play without a safeword. If maybe just once in a while Ilya would be willing to gag him and tie his hands down so he couldn’t signal with words or gestures. Or even just take it away, just for a day tell Shane that he’s not allowed to say no and ignore him if he tries to.
The voice in his head that tells him he’s not supposed to want this is loud. But there’s a buzzing in his head, a roaring in his ears that is getting louder and louder with every day that he doesn’t have what they used to. And it’s starting to drown out the voice that tells Shane what he’s supposed to want.
“I need to ask you something,” Ilya says, his voice quiet and dull the way he gets when he’s afraid.
Shane reaches for his hand. “What’s wrong?”
“Promise you will be honest with me.”
“I promise,” Shane says easily.
Ilya looks at Shane’s face, as if studying his expression for a lie. Then he says, “How many times did I hurt you?”
Shane doesn’t know what he means. They've hurt each other plenty of times in plenty of ways over the years. There were all the years of stumbling against one another’s defenses, the sweet agony of that night in Vegas and the six months of silence after Ilya took his virginity. There have been hundreds of times Ilya has hurt him perfectly during sex.
Somehow Shane gets the sense Ilya doesn’t mean any of those things.
“I’m confused,” he says, because he trusts Ilya to help him understand.
“Before,” Ilya says, and it’s clear that every word hurts him. “When we didn’t have safeword. Sometimes you said no, or slow down, and I didn’t listen, because I thought I knew best. But now that we are using the safeword, I know you really want me to stop. And it’s… very often. A lot of those times are when we’re doing things we used to do before and you said no and I thought you were just playing so I kept going. So I want to know. How many times before did I get it wrong.”
Shane feels like he’s going to be sick. He knew he was going to use the word wrong. Either too much or too little. And he can’t figure out how to say to Ilya that it was better before. That Ilya never hurt him, because Ilya knows what Shane needs better than he does.
But he can’t say that. He can’t say that he wants Ilya to push him, force him, decide for him. That’s not fair to Ilya, to put all of that on him. And it’s wrong. It’s too dirty, too fucked up. They know that now. You’re supposed to have a safeword and the submissive is supposed to be the one with all the power. That’s what makes it safe, makes it a game.
Anything else would be disgusting. It would mean something so shameful and pathetic about Shane that he doesn’t have the words for it, if he wanted Ilya’s control over him to be real and complete and not a game at all.
He can’t tell Ilya that he doesn’t care if Ilya hurt him, that what really hurts is having to remember, the whole time, that it’s only a game and Shane is supposed to be in charge of it. But the thought of Ilya blaming himself, hating himself, for the best and freest moments of Shane’s life is even more unacceptable.
Shane doesn’t know what to say except, “You never did. I promise.”
The expression that comes over Ilya’s face is unreadable.
Ilya has two fingers in Shane’s mouth. He hooks them down behind his lower teeth, pushing Shane’s tongue back so that he gags on it. He forces Shane’s mouth open and looks down at him. And then he laughs.
“You look so stupid like this,” he tells Shane.
Shane lets out a moan around Ilya’s fingers. He wants to beg for it but his mouth is being stretched and contorted.
“You’re fucking pathetic,” Ilya tells him, and then feeds his cock between Shane’s forced-open lips.
Shane can’t really suck him in this position, but he can let Ilya fuck his mouth. It’s everything he wants.
“Is there anything you would not do to get my cock in your mouth?” Ilya says.
Shane makes a desperate little noise that he hopes Ilya will correctly interpret as a no. He would do anything for Ilya to use him like this.
“Let’s see,” Ilya says, as he starts to thrust, shallow and casual. He’s conversational about it, like he barely cares that his cock is filling Shane’s mouth and sometimes slipping into his throat. “Why don’t we brainstorm? You just tap out—“ Ilya demonstrates, tapping two fingers of the hand that isn’t holding Shane’s mouth open against Shane’s shoulder, “When I get to something you wouldn’t do to get my cock. Do you understand?”
Shane hums encouragingly.
“I already know that you would let me put you on your knees and call you names. I know you would beg for it. Would you do it in public? In a bathroom or a park, where we might get caught, where everyone might see what a whore you are for me?”
When Shane doesn’t move, Ilya rewards him by thrusting a little deeper into his mouth so that he chokes on the tip of Ilya’s cock. Just like that, with Shane stretched open and gagging, Ilya continues.
“Would you let me spit in your mouth? On your face? Let it dry there and walk around like that, not washing it off, remembering how you let me degrade you?” Shane loves when Ilya spits on him. He loves the humiliation. Would he still love it after an hour, when the sensory part became disgusting? He doesn’t know, but he knows he would let Ilya do it to him if he wanted.
“Would you give up your own orgasms? Let me put you in a cage for a week, a month, maybe a whole year?”
Shane can imagine that. How desperate he would be, how much he would hate the constant thrum of unfulfilled need. He also knows he’d do it if Ilya asked.
“Would you lick my boots?”
Oh. Shane has never imagined that, but the image sends a shudder of desire through him. He wants that so badly, to be allowed to bend all the way to the floor and lick the filth off of Ilya’s shoes. Taste dirt and leather, degrade himself completely.
“Would you let me piss in your mouth? Let me use you as a toilet?”
That’s filthy. Shane should say no. He should tap out. He should.
But Ilya isn’t actually doing anything that pushes Shane’s boundaries. Just talking about it. Surely that’s okay.
So he nods as much as he can with Ilya’s fingers still holding his mouth open, and moans a little, and Ilya says “Fuck, Shane,” and starts fucking his mouth in earnest, and then all Shane can think of is the taste of Ilya filling his throat and the feeling of Ilya stretching him out and the want, want, want that consumes every thought in his mind.
All the questions of what he’s supposed to do fly away, and he can sink into how good it feels to be here. To hear Ilya say, “That’s right, you’re my fucking whore, I can use you however I want.” To know Ilya is getting close. Finally, to be marked as Ilya pulls out and comes on his face.
When Ilya pushes his fingers hard into Shane and orders him to come untouched, it’s the best orgasm in months, ever since they had that conversation about the safeword. It feels so good, he’s so lost in Ilya taking care of him. Owning him.
In the aftermath, as Ilya pulls Shane into his arms and begins murmuring praise, checking in, Shane thinks, I want this back.
Shane is very afraid to ask. If he sometimes feels like he should say no to things he wants during sex because they’re too dirty or too needy or put too much on Ilya, this is a thousand times worse.
But Ilya can always say no, right? If he doesn’t want the responsibility?
They’ve been together for long enough that even Shane’s anxious brain can’t really convince him that Ilya will be so disgusted that he walks away.
“I want,” Shane says. He pauses because his mouth is so dry he can’t make words come out. Ilya waits, patient as ever when words don’t work for Shane. “I want to give you something. And I don’t know if you want it.”
“Okay?”
“The safeword.”
“Yes?”
“I want to give it back to you.”
“Oh.” Shane can’t judge the expression on Ilya’s face.
“I don’t want it anymore,” Shane says, and his voice is shaking a little. “I don’t… I don’t like it.”
Ilya just looks at him, waiting for Shane to speak.
“I can’t get out of my head. I feel like I shouldn’t want the things I want. I feel like I’m supposed to say no, and I don’t want to. And.” Shane swallows, hard. “I don’t want to be able to say no to you. Not in any way.”
Ilya looks at him, studies every familiar curve of his face, every freckle that sprinkles his cheeks, every tear welling in his huge brown eyes. “What if I go too far?”
“You won’t,” Shane says, and now his voice is steady and sure. “You know what I need. You know what I need so much better than I do.”
Ilya’s lips on Shane’s are hot and claiming, devouring him. Shane leans into him, opens to him, the way he always, always wants to. “Yes,” Ilya says against his lips. And then, his voice falling low, “It was silly anyway, to think you could be trusted with it.”
Shane shudders in his arms. Ilya presses gentle kisses from Shane’s mouth up to his ear. He catches Shane’s earlobe in his teeth, tugs at it just a little. His breath is hot in Shane’s ear.
“Poor little kitten. Too stupid to know what you want. Too weak to take what you need.”
Shane is humiliated by the sound that comes out of his mouth as much as he is by Ilya’s words. It’s almost a whimper.
“You can say no as much as you want,” Ilya tells him. “You can push me away, you can say red, you can tell me you don’t want it. That’s okay. I don’t care what you want. I’m going to give you what you need.”
“Thank you,” Shane says, and his voice is thick with tears. “Fuck, Ilya, thank you.”
Ilya grins at him, tender and predatory at once. “I should be thanking you. You are the one who gave me back your safeword. It is a very nice gift. I will keep it forever.”