Chapter Text
Two weeks after his 31st birthday, Ilya woke up tired.
That was okay. He had been handling that since he was—he wasn't sure, if he was being honest, which he tried to be now, unfortunately. And sure, he had the therapy and the meds and Shane, but still. He had days where all that kept him from the real dark, but he still had to use someone else's light.
So he curled closer to his husband, found his hand, laced their fingers together. Waking up before Shane was rarely a... good sign. But it was okay.
It had been nice, last night. Playoffs had delayed his birthday, and Shane’s, so they’d combined the party and done it last night. They’d had most of the team over, and Shane’s parents, and Sveta had come up from Boston. Rose had come too, and the Pikes. It had been barbecue, and the smell of warm grass, and laughter. One of—maybe the—best birthdays he’d ever had.
Shane shifted in his arms. “It’s early,” he mumbled, turning to face Ilya, to nuzzle into his chest. “My alarm didn’t even go off yet.”
“Mine did,” Ilya murmured, because he was awake, and he wasn’t going to get back to sleep. Having Shane in his bed got Ilya to sleep a thousand times better than when he was alone, that was true, but still. Sometimes it wasn’t enough.
Ilya tried to delete that sentence from his brain.
“I didn’t hear it,” Shane mumbled.
Ilya tilted his hips forward. “It was not alarm you hear.”
There was a moment, and then Shane said, “ohh,” in something like a moan, as Ilya slid his thigh between Shane’s, ground their hips slowly together. Ilya fumbled behind him, had to reach far enough his shoulder twinged, and then found the pack he wanted. He popped out one piece of gum, and then popped it into his mouth before he came back to smile at Shane.
“Yes,” Ilya said, preemptive. “I will still brush my teeth later. But for now, no morning breath.”
“For you,” Shane said. “Give me a piece.”
“Mm,” Ilya said, grinning, chewing his piece slowly. He ran it around his mouth with his tongue, trying to get as minty fresh as fast as possible. “You want a piece of gum.”
“Yeah, I just said—”
Ilya leaned in, pressed his lips to Shane’s. “Open up.”
Ilya felt the shape of Shane’s frown, and then glanced up to see Shane’s eyes widen. There was a moment’s pause, and then Shane’s lips parted slightly. Ilya made sure Shane’s face was sideways, toward him, so that he wouldn’t choke on the second half of this kiss. Then he licked Shane’s mouth open further, and kissed him, and slid the gum neatly under Shane’s tongue. “There,” Ilya said, pulling back. “Your gum.”
“That’s so gross,” Shane said breathlessly.
Ilya raised his eyebrows at Shane. “Your tongue was just in my mouth. With the same spit.”
“Yeah, but that’s—this is different, I—”
“You don’t want it?” Ilya asked. He gave Shane a grin. “Give it back.”
Shane balked at that. Then realized he’d balked. “I—it’s already in my mouth.”
“Mm. Exactly.”
Shane chewed slowly. Ilya danced a hand down his body, ignoring how heavy his arm felt, and how the mint felt like too much in his mouth, the biting inhale of it. He circled Shane’s tip with his finger, over Shane’s boxer-briefs. Already wet, just from his gum trick. Oh, his Shane.
“You liked that,” Ilya murmured.
“I don’t know why,” Shane complained. His hips twitched as Ilya continued to circle, tracing delicately over the head.
“Because you love me,” Ilya said. He said it blasé, like he normally did, like it was just a fact he’d accepted and not a wonder every time he looked at the truth of it. He wouldn’t do Shane the disservice of doubting it, it was just—well, it was just that Ilya was full of shadows. He couldn’t be sure he’d shown them all to Shane, because they shifted, changed shape. Ilya couldn’t even name them all. So yes, Shane loved him now, but what if he had a breaking point? Ilya wouldn’t blame him.
Ilya tried to shove that thought away.
“Yeah,” Shane sighed, his body going pliant. “I do.”
“I do,” Ilya murmured back. It was still a thrill. To be married. Married! Settled down, in love, and tied to Shane Hollander. Fuck, Ilya preened over it.
“How are you so good at this?” Shane mumbled. “You make spitting gum into my mouth hot.”
“I did not spit gum into your mouth. I put it there gently. We can spit later.”
Shane made a choked, wanting noise, and his cock twitched under Ilya’s fingers. Ilya smiled tiredly down at it.
It was slow, the fucking. Soft. Softer than normal. Maybe it was because Ilya was tired, but maybe it was because the sun was barely up. Maybe it was because Ilya loved his husband—his husband!—and wanted to take his time. It was summer. They had the time.
Maybe it was because Ilya wanted to feel it. To linger in it. To bury his thoughts with sensations. Shane, hot and heavy in his hand. The taste of Shane’s hip. The electricity that spidered through him when Shane moaned and rocked back onto him slowly. The way Shane’s big, strong hands looked as he gripped a pillow above his head, and the way his forearms flexed. He told Shane, in a purr, that he wanted Shane to need it. That that was why he refused to pick up the pace. And he did want Shane to need it. He needed Shane to need him. But he also knew that if he stripped Shane down to need, the longer it might be before Shane noticed that Ilya was awake at a weird hour and still tired and hadn’t simply gone back to sleep.
Shane came first, the way Ilya liked it. Ilya was needy at that point, too, so he came soon after, spilling into Shane as he gripped Shane’s thigh, maybe pressing small bruises into him. Normally, he liked that. He knew Shane liked it, had caught him twisting in a hotel mirror to look at bruises and hickeys, had seen the small, pleased smile float around Shane’s well-fucked mouth. And Ilya, for all that he’d never once felt possessive before Shane, had been flooded with possessive hunger, had stalked into the bathroom, startled Shane, said you want more proof to keep with you? And then he’d fucked Shane on the bathroom counter, and Shane had left a bite mark on Ilya’s shoulder that Ilya had not even a little bit covered in the locker room shower, which made Luca Haas stare at the two of them, open-mouthed, and Hayes hoot, Bood whistle, Troy snort, and Shane go a shocking, bright red.
So Ilya knew that Shane liked the little bruises Ilya left on him, just like he liked most of the bruises hockey left on him.
But didn’t that just mean Shane liked it when Ilya hurt him?
Shane trusted Ilya not to hurt him too badly. What happened when Ilya couldn’t help it? Shane hadn’t seen Ilya… bad, yet. Ilya had ghosted him at the worst of it, at Sochi, and after. He hadn’t seen Ilya when Shane dated Rose; by the time they’d seen each other in Tampa, Ilya had clawed his way tooth and nail out of the darkest parts. And yeah, Shane knew that Ilya hadn’t been okay last time he was in Russia, but Ilya had had the very real excuse of a funeral to blame things on. Ilya had downplayed it as much as he could, and Shane hadn’t been there, he’d heard the fatigue and he’d seen Ilya’s tired smile, but he hadn’t felt the way Ilya’s hands were cold the entire time he was there, hadn’t seen through the screen the way Ilya dropped eight pounds in three weeks, hadn’t kept time when there were twenty hours in Ilya’s day instead of something closer to sixteen. Or, on the flip side, for the week or two after, when there had been approximately ten conscious hours in a day. Ilya had blamed the missed calls on jet lag. To be fair, the flight back from Russia did fuck him up, timewise.
It was one thing to see something. It was another to feel it in your hands.
Ilya was getting ahead of himself.
He just so badly didn’t want to hurt Shane.
“Sticky,” Shane murmured.
“Ya poydu prinesu tebe mochalku, moy budil'nik,” Ilya murmured, and went to the bathroom to fetch the promised washcloth. And he did, found a soft one from the stack—the very neat, very tall stack—and ran it under warm water. Shane wouldn’t want a real shower until after his morning run anyway.
Ilya caught his own gaze in the reflection. He turned the water off.
He looked normal. A little tired, but they’d had a late night and it was early. No one would notice. Shane maybe would, but he’d assume it was the late party.
But it wasn’t his face. It wasn’t even his eyes yet, he still just seemed tired. It was his shoulders. The set of them, the balance. The way he could feel his body sinking, his weight pressing into his hands on the sink. Almost visible.
This is going to be bad, isn’t it? he thought at his reflection. This is going to be a bad one.