Chapter Text
Sometimes, when Shane Hollander hears a sound, it gets stuck in his brain.
For example, in fifth grade, he heard the word ‘hue’ and it just got stuck. He remembers repeating the word to himself for hours – under his breath during class, at recess with his friends, while walking home from school at the end of the day, while concentrating on his math homework in the evening – feeling how his tongue curves in his mouth and the breath flows over his tongue as he enunciates the single syllable. There is something soothing about the repetitive movement, the way the sound rings in his ears.
(Later in life, he learns the sound is a voiceless palatal fricative, and it is the movement of air across his hard palate that is interesting to him.)
That evening, Shane plays road hockey with some of the neighbourhood kids. His team is leading 5-3. Shane has scored four of the goals.
Suddenly, a boy on the other team stops, throws his stick down, and yells at Shane, “Stop making that sound!”
“What?” As Shane speaks, he feels the placement of his own tongue and realizes that he has been repeating ‘hue’ under his breath for a while now.
The other boys approach, attracted by the commotion.
“What’s the hold up? C’mon, lets keep playing!”
“Shane’s hissing like a cat,” the angry boy announces.
“What? Really?”
“It’s a breathing exercise my coach taught me,” Shane lies.
“Well cut it out! It’s annoying!” The angry boy says.
“Are you a cat or something? What’re you hissing for?”
“Yeah, Shane, c’mon. It’s ‘chirping,’ not hissing. You’re the hockey nerd; you should know that!”
“Maybe he wants to be the first cat hockey player?”
“Nah! No one would let a pussy into the league! Haha! Get it?”
Laughter.
“Guys. Guys! Can we get back to the game? The sun’s setting and my mom’ll kill me if I come home late again.”
“Nah, I’m done,” the angry boy frowns. “I don’t wanna play with weirdos.” He retrieves his stick and leaves.
A pit has opened in Shane’s stomach. If he is not careful, the vacuum it creates will turn him inside out. So, he is quiet as the other boys discuss what to do now that the teams are uneven. Shane says nothing when they decide they are all done for the day and disperse, moving the nets off the road for use the next day.
Shane trudges home, clutching his hockey stick in a white knuckled hand.
The next day, on the way to school, his brain offers up the word ‘hue’ again. Shane tells his brain to fuck off.
Later in life, words do not stick in Shane’s brain as often but, when they do, he has gotten better at keeping them silent.
Or he thought he had.
The cottage is everything Shane hoped it would be. Falling asleep and waking up to the heat of Ilya’s body against his is a sensual delight he is quickly becoming addicted to. Being able to look, to touch, without censorship, knowing that such casual intimacy is welcomed by Ilya, yes, but also that no one is around to judge them for it? It is a heady freedom that lightens every part of Shane’s body. Making his morning smoothie, relaxed and zoning out as the blender whirls loudly, Shane feels like his chest is helium balloon, and could easily lift him into the sky if he so much as jumps with joy.
The noise from the blender covers Ilya’s approach. The warm hands that smooth under Shane’s shirt are Shane’s only warning before Ilya presses a kiss to his neck and murmurs, “Good morning, kotyonek.”
“Kotyonek,” Shane parrots, and then freezes.
His brain had not even warned him. The Russian word slipped easily from Shane’s ears to his mouth, without setting off any internal alarms.
Ilya’s hum signals interest. His arms settle firmly around Shane, the fingers of one hand dipping just below the hem of Shane’s work out shorts while the other hand turns off the blender. “Is good try. Say again. Kotyonek.”
“What does it mean?” Shane asks, evading.
“What do you think it means?” Ilya returns.
“Knowing you it could be anything from cockwarmer to sweetheart.”
“Cockwarmer!” Ilya says the word with such delight Shane is instantly worried about their next sexual encounter. “Where did you learn this? How does Canada’s Golden Boy know such dirty word, hm?”
“You’ve heard the locker-talk, same as me.”
“I have heard many words there, but cockwarmer is not one of them. Remember when you said we should try to be honest with each other while we are here? Perhaps, do you have something to ask me? Hm?”
“You are such an asshole,” Shane says with a breathy chuckle, the sound equal parts amusement and relief at having successfully dodged a bullet.
They continue ribbing each other over breakfast, and Shane is very careful to keep any stuck-words locked behind his lips.
“Kotyonek. Fuck.”
They are swimming, enjoying the cool waters of the lake and the warm sun of the day. Shane is hiding on a rock to avoid being slimed again by a grinning Ilya with a hand full of silt and lake sand. Ilya, having been eluded by his prey, instead dives for shells.
In the headiness of their little bubble, with happiness and affection oozing through his body like melting ice, Shane had stopped being careful. The stuck-word slipped out. But the panic recedes when Shane realizes Ilya did not hear it this time. He is underwater, having recently surfaced for a deep breath before diving again.
The word feels good to say. He remembers the fond tone Ilya spoke it with, remembers the sensation in his own mouth when he said it. No one dangerous is around to hear him, and Ilya is busy.
So, Shane lets the word out again - whisper-soft and careful - into the nature-filled peace around him. “Kotyonek. Ko-tyo-nek.”
There it is again - the soft glide of air over his hard palate. Softer than in ‘hue,’ yes, but still. He slows the word down even more, lingering over the second syllable, feeling out the different sounds with his tongue. “Ko-tyooo-nek. Ko-tttyyyo-nek.”
It is obviously a term of endearment, regardless of what Shane had joked with Ilya at breakfast. And it would be a lie to say Shane was not curious as to the word’s meaning. But he does not need his brain to get anymore stuck then it has already been.
“Ko-tttyyyo-nek. Ko-”
Ilya surfaces in an eruption of water. “Shane! Look! Look, look – I found a shell! It’s pretty.”
Shane keeps his mouth tightly closed as Ilya approaches. Ilya shoves his find into Shane’s hand with a deep kiss that tastes like lake water. But, against such a joyous onslaught, how can Shane do anything but soften? He smiles through the press of lips, the sheer giddiness at being so open impossible to contain. The imperfect slide of their lips just makes Ilya more insistent, coaxing Shane with wet lips and slick tongue until Shane is slipping away from joy into aroused focus.
Only then does Ilya pull away. He has a smug grin, as he says, “Hold onto this. Pretty thing for my pretty boy.”
Pretty, Shane’s mind repeats and Shane shuts that down quickly because he does not need another stuck-word, thank you very much!
“Screw you.” Shane splashes Ilya, which does nothing because Ilya is already soaked.
“What, you don’t believe me?” Ilya catches Shane’s face with his hands, planting kisses over cheeks and nose and eyelids as he coos, “Prettiest boy in Ottawa. Canada. Whole world.”
Pretty. Shane feels the word forming in his mouth: his tongue moving further back along the bumpy alveolar ridge as it goes through the motions of mimicking Ilya’s pronunciation – the trill of the ‘r’ and the palatalization of the ‘t’ – and feels the breath rising in his lungs to say it, to taste Ilya’s word in his own mouth.
Instead, he pushes Ilya back into the water. “Save that charm for the fish, water-boy. Go find me more shells.”
Ilya sputters in the water, wiping his eyes and throwing back his wet hair to fix Shane with a playful glare. “Ah, so I am work horse for you. Slave. You use me for my material gain, then throw me to sharks!”
“No sharks in this lake, but the bass do get pr-really big,” Shane remarks.
“I’ll show you what else gets really big,” Ilya teases, paddling closer.
“You’re such an asshole,” Shane laughs. He wards Ilya away with another splash.
Ilya dodges it by ducking under the water and resurfacing a couple feet way. “Fine, I find more shells,” he yells as he treads water. “Then you appreciate me better. You will say, ‘Sorry, Ilya, for not appreciate your compliments,’ and then you will get on your knees and suck my cock to show how sorry you are.”
Ilya dives again before Shane can chirp back. It is fine, though. The sense memory of holding Ilya’s cock in his mouth caused Shane to salivate – he would not have been able to clap back effectively anyway.
Shane swallows and looks down at Ilya’s find. It is a clam half-shell, perfectly intact with a beautiful opalescent shimmer on the inside. It fits perfectly in Shane’s palm, the edges sanded soft with time.
“Pretty,” Shane says, with Ilya’s intonation. Then, “Fuck.”
One way Shane found to keep the stuck-words from escaping is to keep his mouth busy.
An easy way to keep his mouth busy with Ilya is to kiss him. But Shane’s favourite way is to suck Ilya’s cock.
They have finished swimming, and are sunning themselves on the dock. Three perfect half-shells sit on the side table between their chairs, along with two sparkling rocks. The water is peaceful, the sky is a cloudless blue, and there are no boats on the water. So, Shane gets on his knees, smooths the swimming trunks down Ilya’s legs, and envelops Ilya’s soft dick in his mouth.
There is a certain pleasure that comes from sucking Ilya when he’s soft. All their other encounters had been adrenaline packed, blood-pumping, and cock-throbbing. An hour here and there in a hotel room, minutes to touch, kiss, rub, and come. Ilya was always hard, always ready.
But here, at the cottage, arousal ebbs and flows more spontaneously, and Shane is quickly becoming addicted to the delicate feeling of a soft dick in his mouth. The way it sits on his tongue is different. Less rigid, the soft flesh curves when he swallows, pressing against the roof of his mouth.
Shane shivers.
Ilya hums a pleased sound, and runs his fingers through Shane’s damp hair. He croons out a string of Russian that sounds appreciative, and Shane catches ‘kotyonek’ among the syllables.
Kotyonek. With a mouth full of warm, smooth cock, the stuck-word, thankfully, does not escape. But he can not stop the blade of his tongue from pressing and bouncing against Ilya’s shaft in the motions of pronouncing it, as if Ilya’s cock was his own hard palate to articulate against. It would be embarrassing to Shane if the reward for his tongue movements had not made the soft dick in his mouth start to harden.
“Hmm, yes. My pretty boy does appreciate me,” Ilya purrs, his voice deepening into that lustful register that makes Shane feel soft and floaty. “Look at those pretty lips. You stretch so nicely around my cock. Very nice. Hmm, your mouth feels so good, kotyonek.”
On his knees for Ilya, pinned by his intense and aroused stare, targeted by that lustful timbre of Ilya’s voice, Shane’s brain is only partially functional. So, even though Shane knows it is coming, he can not stop it this time. “Kotyonek.” The word escapes as garbled sounds as Shane’s tongue presses and taps against Ilya’s shaft in its articulation. Shame flushes his cheeks red.
Ilya mistakes his sudden blush for pleasure, and says, “Does my pretty boy like his compliments? Do you like when I tell you how pretty your mouth looks? How soft your dancing tongue is?” He slips into a stream of Russian again, his eyes molten, and finishes with, “Such a good boy, kotyonek.”
Shane knows better. He knows he does. But his body does not listen. The stuck-word gets out again anyway. “Kotyonek,” Shane garbles, the word almost recognizable even with his mouth stuffed full. Shame flushes his body again, warring against the pleasant thrum of arousal and the haze of whatever happens to his brain when Ilya speaks like this.
Ilya opens his mouth in a silent gasp, his hips rising just a bit before retreating. The movement brushes the head of Ilya’s cock against the roof of Shane’s mouth. The sensation is sharp and almost too much – a tickle, a caress, an itch all at once – and it sends a throb of arousal through his body so strong he shakes with it.
Ilya hums again, smiling down at Shane with fondness that slowly turns into a mischievous gleam in his eye. “I was going to wait, but if you are ready now, I will accept your apology. Say, ‘I am sorry Ilya for not appreciating your compliments earlier.’ Go on. Say it.”
These little power games of theirs are nothing new, and Shane would be lying if he said Ilya’s teasing control did not make his body throb and his mind go floaty. But he still rolls his eyes and fixes Ilya with an unimpressed look all the same.
Ilya just smiles at him. He shifts a leg, and suddenly there’s pressure between Shane’s legs, the balls of Ilya’s foot pressing through the thin fabric of his swim trunk to the hot length of Shane’s hard dick and nudging it against his stomach. Shane gasps around Ilya’s dick at the sensation, the throb of arousal pushing him forward just enough that Ilya’s cock grazes the start of his soft palate. Not for the first time, Shane wonders how it would feel to have Ilya down his throat, to feel the complete throb and pulse of him from base to tip as he comes.
That foot caresses Shane’s length two more times before it pulls away, and this time, Shane’s glare is more sincere.
Ilya just smiles and thumbs gently at the corner of Shane’s stuffed mouth. “Say it,” Ilya murmurs. “Say it, and I’ll give you my foot again, and you can come against it like pretty boy that you are, hm?”
Shane goes to pull off, but Ilya stops him. The hand in his hair is not controlling, just the slight pressure of a request. Shane could easily pull away if he wanted to. Instead, he settles and asks Ilya a question with his eyes.
“A polite Canadian boy like you, you have never spoken with your mouth full?” Ilya asks.
Shane blinks. Looks at the trimmed curl of pubes before him, then back up at Ilya’s face.
Ilya’s still smiling. He has that lazy look to his eyes that he gets sometimes when he is very satisfied with what he sees, and his pupils are blown wide.
"Go on,” Ilya prompts, his voice deep and unwavering. “Say, ‘I am sorry Ilya for not appreciating your compliments,’ and then I will let you come.”
If the visual clues were not enough, the throb of the cock in Shane’s mouth gives away how excited Ilya is about this game of theirs. The throb of his own cock tells Shane how interested he is in this game. But sucking Ilya off quietly is one thing; making excessive noise on a dock where anyone could pass by and hear them is something else.
“I am keeping watch, Shane,” Ilya says. His voice has lost its playfulness and is now serious and sincere. “I promise. We are safe. It is up to you, kotyonek.”
Shane looks up. He sees Ilya’s stupidly handsome face, flushed from pleasure and the danger he so likes. He sees the open affection there, loud as the horn of a scored goal in the playoffs, and the waiting openness, like Ilya has signaled for a pass and is waiting for Shane to send the puck his way. Shane is reminded this is just a game between them, a source of fun in their little sheltered bubble from the intolerant world. But - more importantly - that his partner in it is Ilya.
“Kotyonek,” Shane says, the word barely recognizable as his tongue bounces against Ilya’s shaft to pronounce it. Then, long glides of his tongue as he garbles, “Pretty.” Then, an exaggerated and drawn out: “Ilya.”
Ilya gasps and arches slightly as the syllables of his own name glide and press against his cock with teasing taps. When he finally centers himself, he looks back down at Shane. His eyes are wide; his smile is tinged with amazement as he runs his knuckles against Shane’s cheek and waits.
Shane knows to be careful of his teeth. It helps that he only has about half of Ilya’s cock in his mouth, giving him room to maneuver without choking or accidentally biting. Instead, he focuses on exaggerating his tongue movements as he speaks, using the articulation points of each syllable as inspiration for how to pleasure Ilya.
“I am sorry,” Shane garbles.
Ilya licks his lips. He wipes away some saliva dribbling from the corner of Shane’s mouth. The gesture, despite their filthy game, is incredibly tender.
“Ilya,” Shane enunciates, drawing out the name so his tongue glides down the length of Ilya’s cock before releasing at the final syllable.
Ilya is softly panting. His gaze is locked on Shane’s as if he was the puck in the final game of the championship match.
“For not–”
Ilya groans.
“–appreciating–”
The cock in his mouth twitches. Shane tastes the bitter slick of precum.
“–your–”
“Shane,” Ilya warns, breathless.
“–compliments.” As the last syllable finishes, Shane closes his lips around Ilya properly and sucks.
A choked gasp alerts Shane just in time to pull back, and then he has one hand rubbing over the head, the other thumbing the shaft as Ilya spills hot and wet over Shane’s fingers. Shane does not like the taste of cum, but he loves watching each splurt drip and ooze from the tip of Ilya’s heavy length, loves to feel each twitch and spasm of that perfect dick against his face as Ilya shudders through the pleasure.
They bask in the peace of the moment. Head back against the Adirondack chair he is sitting in, Ilya breathes and resettles himself. Meanwhile, Shane spits the remaining taste of cum from his mouth, then sits between Ilya’s legs to keep a lookout over the still lake. He breathes through each insistent throb of his own erection, his body wanting. His mind vacillates between giddiness from taking Ilya apart and dread that he revealed too much.
That's not any weirder than some of the other things we've done, Shane tells himself, trying to get his heart rate to calm down. Ilya's told me things to say before. This is nothing different. It's fine. Completely fine.
“I love you.” Ilya’s voice is smoothed with satisfaction and affection. When Shane looks up at him, Ilya leans in for a gentle, lingering kiss that feels surprisingly chaste.
“I love you.” The words come from Shane’s mouth so effortlessly, he is briefly worried the phrase has become a stuck-word. But then he feels how light his chest is, how eager his hands are to touch Ilya’s skin again just for the comfort of it and realizes that, for now, those three important words are safe.
“Come,” Ilya says softly, tucking himself back into his trunks. “I’ll take care of you inside.”
Nope, not fine. The spike of anxiety begins to rinse the arousal from his body. His legs feel like lead weights. His body screams danger!, warning that things will change if he leaves the dock.
Ilya reaches out a hand. His expression is sad. "It's okay, Shane. I have you."
Shane has two options: retreat or push forward. Because he had already made his choice, hadn't he? Now Shane just has to deal with the consequences.
Shane takes Ilya’s offered hand, and they walk together back into the cottage.