Archive of Our Own

It’s been long enough now that Shane has come to realise that, for better or for worse, being woken up in the middle of the night is an essential component of having a good night’s sleep.

Ilya snores. Shane found out Ilya snores very early on, perhaps the third or fourth time they slept together on the same bed – it is functionally impossible to remember if this ever bothered him, though he can imagine that he might have not been too thrilled trudging along to practice with muscles sore from Ilya’s rough hands and eyelids droopy from lack of sleep, and he imagines that Ilya might have known, if not from Shane telling him outright then from the way he would lazily smile at him when he roused, how he would pinch his lips between two knuckles and tell him that he looked cute all grumpy like this. It only took a little bit of research to figure out that this was very much connected to the nature of his work, and only a few more instances for Shane to understand that Ilya needed his sleep, and that Shane (to an extent) needed the deep vibrations against his cheek, because it simply meant that Ilya was in bed with him. It had been, and still is, as simple as that.

So, Shane is used to Ilya’s snoring, so much so that it doesn’t even disrupt him, now – if anything, it might be harder to nod off without it, though Ilya can never know that. Which is why it’s, at the very least, bizarre that he’s awake now, with Ilya loudly wheezing, mouth open and cheek mashed against Shane’s chest, arm thrown around his middle.

It takes a few groggy blinks in the darkness of his room to realise that there’s something else, and he’s got to fit his palm over Ilya’s mouth to muffle his snoring to be able to make out what it is – some sort of banging, coming down the corridor, loud enough to carry through the closed door. Shane frowns, and tries to lift his head, though that is difficult to do with the solid weight against his chest.

“Ilya,” he murmurs, voice thick and groggy, and lets his head connect with the pillow with a soft thump when all Ilya does is give another loud snore, as if on purpose. “Ilya,” he tries again, and decides it might be helpful to start wading his fingers through his hair, it might stir him. It’s also something Shane just wants to do, so why wouldn’t he?

It makes Ilya smack his lips in his sleep, and stop his snoring, which is something. But he doesn’t rouse, and Shane would be concerned that the banging has not seemed to bother him in the slightest, though he knows that Ilya sleeps like the dead. He makes a mental note to have a conversation about this, because what would happen if there’s ever an intruder and Svetlana’s left fending for herself because Ilya’s still sleeping soundly in the next room? These are things they need to think about.

“Baby,” he tries again, a little louder, fingertips digging in, pressing into Ilya’s skull. This is what makes Ilya stir, and Shane clicks his tongue, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Is that the only thing you answer to?”

Ilya grunts in his sleep, burrowing his cheek a little deeper into Shane’s chest, and Shane can see his eyelashes start to flutter. He can also feel Ilya drooling into his skin, but that is okay. The banging ceases for a moment, and Shane is sort of relieved, because waking Ilya when he’s got to be up so early is the last thing he wants – but then it starts back up, and Shane sighs deeply before tapping his palm against Ilya’s cheek, twice, as soft as he can muster.

That does it. Ilya hums, and his eyes crack open, staring out into the middle distance for a few moments before they dart over to the closed door, then to Shane. It’s dim, but Shane can tell his eyes are red-rimmed, unfocused, exhaustion clinging to the corners and his lips swollen with sleep. He wades his fingers through his hair again, and hopes it’s enough of an apology.

But maybe this feels too relaxing, and soon enough, he’s pretty sure Ilya’s fallen back asleep. Shane stares at the ceiling, and waits, and finally decides he’s been a loving enough boyfriend so far, and that he cannot be blamed for putting his hand on Ilya’s shoulder and shaking – gentle, of course – and fitting his palm against his cheek when he opens his eyes again, tilting his face up so he can look into it. “Ilya,” he says again, and watches him blink through the haze, “wake up.”

“Что… (What…)” Ilya murmurs, the corner of his mouth glistening where the drool clings, and Shane hums, wiping it gently with a thumb. “What time…”

“I don’t know,” Shane whispers, because his phone is on the nightstand, and Ilya is covering his entire front, so there’s no chance of him reaching over and checking. “Roll over for a minute.”

Ilya grunts again, and lets his cheek fall back onto Shane’s chest, prompting him to tip his head back into the pillow and exhale with his eyes on the ceiling. “Tired, baby, fucked you before bed. Sleep now.”

“I’m not trying to get you to fuck me, I’m trying to get up,” Shane is still whispering, because he’s always been kind, and it doesn’t matter that Ilya is really stretching out the last thread of his patience, because Shane knows that he would never be able to bring himself to yell, anyway. Not to Ilya. “Ilya.”

Ilya whines, low and drawn-out, and maybe it should be a little embarrassing that Shane’s first instinct is to thread soft fingers through the back of his hair, to press his mouth on the crown of his head and leave one, two kisses there. But nobody else is in here, and Ilya is in distress. “Mm, тебе нужно в туалет? (do you need the toilet?)” he mumbles, barely audible.

Shane wracks his brain. “Toilet?”

“Mm.”

“No, I don’t need the toilet, I heard–” another round of banging gives Shane pause, or maybe it’s thumping, though he can’t tell through the closed door. Whatever it is, it’s loud, and he decides that Ilya not being able to hear it is a definite cause for concern. “Jesus, Ilya, can’t you hear that?”

He thinks Ilya may have yet again fallen back asleep for a moment, but then his eyes are open again, and he’s lifting his head and facing the doorway, listening in. It’s a little more muffled now, quieter, but Ilya faces him nonetheless, a little more alert. “What is this?”

“I’m here with you, how would I know what it is?” Shane’s whispering is louder now, and Ilya’s still on top of him, blinking in confusion. “Can you get off so I can go check?”

“Mm, I will go,” Ilya’s saying, or slurring, but nothing he does points to him doing anything of the sort – he burrows further into Shane’s chest, and he hooks his leg around Shane’s thigh, and his eyes are still closed, and Shane has never been this conflicted in his entire life. It can’t be that bad, if this is truly an intruder, to die with Ilya clinging to him like this.

But he’s awake now, and he’s never been one to let things go. “You’re not going, though,” he reasons, and it feels useless.

“I am,” Ilya says, drawled, and then he sort of coughs, or clears his throat, gets rid of the phlegm, and Shane has to confiscate those cigarettes.

He doesn’t really want Ilya to be the one to go check. He always hates waking him up, even when he needs to, even though he knows that Ilya only sleeps in on Sundays when he’s off work and that his internal body clock should have long adjusted to his schedule. But he looks so calm when he sleeps. He drools, and he snores, and he wakes up with red indents on his cheek – from the pillow or Shane’s chest, which he sometimes uses as a pillow – and it just feels wrong to disrupt him, it’s the last thing he’d ever want to do. But Ilya’s heavy, and Shane does not think he can bring himself to push him away – not now, or ever – and somebody needs to go see what’s going on.

“I can go get Hayd,” he whispers, and braces.

Ilya groans, too loud in the quiet room, and Shane squints one eye shut until it’s over. Only then does Ilya rouse, his movements slow, and when he starts to tear himself away from Shane’s body he does so with a grunt, and another groan, and Shane has really got to look into a professional massage for him because his hands are clearly no help. He feels cold now that Ilya’s off him, missing his body heat, his front damp with sweat and his chest moist with Ilya’s spit. “Ah, fuck,” Ilya hisses, touching his spine, and Shane is sitting up before he knows it.

“Is it your back?” he says, trying to smooth his fingers over the dip of Ilya’s spine, but his hand is being swatted away before he can do so, and Ilya is scooting towards the edge of the bed now, his head slumping, movements groggy. “Really, go back to sleep. You have to be up early.”

“You, too,” Ilya murmurs, lingering on the edge the bed, feet on the floor – Shane can only see his back, broad and mapped with moles, the back of his hair matted on one side, and he’s about to gently pull him back down onto the mattress by his shoulder before the banging starts back up, and Ilya apparently remembers why he’s getting out of bed in the first place.

“I don’t have to be up early,” Shane reasons, to no avail.

“But you will,” Ilya says, and he’s finally up now, feet dragging against the hardwood floor.

Shane makes a frustrated noise, and he lets his back connect with the mattress again, head lolling to the side for just a moment, arms coming up to cross over his eyes. When he hears the slow creak of the door, he lets them drop. “Ilya.”

“Mm.”

“Put on your underwear.”

The creaking ceases. He thinks Ilya’s slowly padding over to the side of the bed again, but Shane does not look away from the ceiling even when he hears shuffling, even when the bed dips, though he does let his eyes dart over to the side when he feels a kiss being dropped on the corner of his mouth, blinking up at Ilya’s face. “Forgot,” he whispers, tapping the side of his head with his middle and ring fingers, and then he slips away again, makes his way out.

Shane has no intention of falling back asleep, or not following Ilya out there, but he does let his eyes slip shut for just a moment, promptly opening them back up when he hears a thump and a hiss of блядь (fuck). He sighs, and reaches for his briefs and his shorts on the floor.

Ilya’s hunched over when Shane steps out of his bedroom, and he peeks over his shoulder to look at him, face scrunched in pain and his hand cradling his foot. “Did you stub your toe?” Shane says, though he’s not really expecting an answer.

“Yes,” Ilya tells him, and he gives his foot one last rub before he’s standing up straight again, letting Shane smooth a hand over his hair and put a kiss on his cheek. Down the corridor, the banging intensifies, and then ceases once more. “Is Pike practising his backhand with the apples from the fruit bowl?”

“Hayd went to bed before us,” Shane answers, and the rest of the sentence catches up to him after he’s done so, making his scoff, and the tiny little smile he tries to suppress, come belated. “Shut up.”

Ilya doesn’t get a chance to respond, because there’s another creak behind them, and when Shane turns J.J.’s emerging from his room, the heel of his palm rubbing over one eye, lips curling in confusion. “What the fuck is that?” he says, with no ceremony.

“No idea,” Shane tells him, adjusting the waistband of his shorts. “Maybe Hayd?”

“Nah, he’s sleeping,” J.J. rips his hand away from his eye to gesture over his shoulder, and then he’s yawning, slowly turning on his heel. “I’ll go get him.”

“Yes, please, we need Pike to fight the intruder.”

“There’s no intruder,” Shane tuts, having no choice but to follow Ilya down the corridor, because he’s walking again. “Where are you even going?”

Ilya makes a face over his shoulder, and Shane has to tear his eyes away from his ass in his briefs before Ilya catches him, because they don’t have time for any of that right now. “It is coming from the door,” he says, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, and Shane tilts his head to the side, eyes incredulous.

“So, if it was an intruder you’d just answer the door?” he says.

Ilya stops. He blinks at Shane, twice, and his eyes look really beautiful like this, swollen with sleep, the blue popping against the tired red of his sclerae. “Now it is an intruder?” he checks, eyebrows raised.

Shane catches his hand before he can start walking again, though they’ve made it into the living room, and it would only take a lunge for him to be able to reach the front door. “I’m not saying it’s an intruder, you said it’s an intruder. And then you went to answer the door.”

“Shane, we are going to play your word games now when there is someone trying to break into your–” he stops, then, and his eyes zero in over Shane’s shoulder, lips parted in something akin to horror. “Боже мой. (Oh, my God)”

Upon turning, Shane finds that J.J. has joined them in the living room, and that Hayden’s right behind him, in his pair of blue, striped boxer shorts that he cannot seem to part with, pulled up a little over halfway on his hips – decidedly too high. Shane squeezes Ilya’s hand, a warning.

“What’s going on?” Hayden’s saying, smoothing down his hair, rumpled with sleep, squinting at each one of them quizzically. His eyes land on J.J., “What banging are you talking about, I don’t hear anything.”

“Yeah, it stopped,” J.J. tells him, head still as he tries to listen in. “Was fucking loud though. How did you not hear it?”

Hayden scratches behind his ear, and shrugs one shoulder. “Was wearing earplugs.”

“Why the fuck were you wearing earplugs?”

Hayden’s eyes catch Shane’s, then, and J.J. looks over, too, and understanding crosses his features. “What?” Shane says, having half a mind to drop Ilya’s hand.

Hayden’s making some sort of gesture, and Shane tries to decipher it for all of five seconds before he’s got to give up, and focus back on Hayden’s face, as if it holds the answer. “You know,” is all Hayden says, and Shane starts to feel the blood rushing to his face.

But Ilya saves him, as he always seems to do. “We are all going to ignore Pike’s boxers?” he says, and Shane presses his lips together, arms crossing over his chest.

Hayden scowls at him. “What about them?”

Ilya’s sort of looking around for support, as it seems, first at J.J., then at Shane, face growing more incredulous by the minute. “Nobody else is seeing this?”

Hayden looks down at himself, shaking his head, and then his fingers are grabbing onto his waistband, adjusting. “What the fuck are you talking about, what’s wrong with them?” he says, self-consciously pulling them up a little further over his hips.

“Ah, no, now it is okay,” Ilya says, nodding in feign reassurance. “Now it is fine, you fixed it.”

“Okay, whatever,” J.J. chimes in, palm coming up to hover over Hayden’s chest, because he’s opening his mouth again. “Whatever, it was probably the guys next door or something. I’m gonna go back to bed.”

But then there’s a thump, and J.J.’s head snaps towards the doorway, palm cradling his bare chest. “I heard that,” Hayden supplies, helpfully.

“It is the door,” Ilya huffs, and he’s slipping away from Shane’s side before he can stop him, rubbing the back of his hand over his eyes, shaking his head. “Fuck, you are scared of the door? You are little babies?”

Shane puts a hand out, “Ilya, hold on.”

“Not you, любимый. (my love)”

“Is he answering our door?” Hayden mutters, to J.J. if Shane were to guess, but he’s not quiet enough, because Ilya turns to him once more, pausing with his hand wrapped around the doorhandle.

“You want to open?” Ilya tells him, beckoning him over with his free hand. Hayden rolls his eyes. “That means yes?”

“It means shut your fucking mouth.”

“You shut your fucking mouth,” Shane says, before Ilya can respond, which would probably prove catastrophic. He groans when Hayden slaps his palms over his chest, eyes wide. “Everyone shut their fucking mouths. Unless it’s to give any ideas as to who is banging on our door at fuck o’clock in the morning.”

“Two,” J.J. provides.

“Only guy I know who would do something like that is already in here,” Hayden pipes up again, and he’s moving, slippers dragging against the floor as he shoulders past J.J., glaring at Ilya the whole time. “Getting ready to answer our fucking door.”

“I fixed this door,” Ilya knocks on it to punctuate his point, and the thumping on the other side stops, for a moment. “If I was not here you would not have a fucking door.”

“You fixed– You tightened a couple screws, dude, anyone can tighten two fucking screws.”

“Even you, Burger Boy?”

“That insult doesn’t work when you’re at Hayden’s work every lunch break, Ilya,” Shane says, and there’s something prodding at the back of his eyes, the start of a headache. He squints one eye shut, and beckons Ilya closer, “Let him open it since he wants to so fucking bad.”

Ilya huffs out a breath, but ultimately obeys, feet starting to drag away from the door and towards Shane. “Yes, better if it is him,” he throws out, along with a glance over his shoulder. “You will scare the intruder more than me, I think.”

Hayden scoffs. “Yeah, why?”

“Because you look a little like,” Ilya gestures towards Hayden’s striped boxers, his other hand coming up to rest on the small of Shane’s back, “zebra with slippers.”

“Are you sure you don’t wanna go back to bed?” Shane puts his palm flush on Ilya’s stomach, gets his attention before he notices Hayden’s rapidly reddening face, rubbing over his abdomen and fitting himself into his side. “You’re gonna be tired tomorrow.”

Ilya makes a low noise, and his face is inching closer – Shane only has a second to check that J.J. and Hayden are both busy bickering about which one of them should answer the door before he lets himself be kissed, a little more solid than a peck, his bottom lip caught in Ilya’s mouth and let go with a sound that makes him feel a little dizzy. “I want to see,” Ilya tells him, his hand coming up to smooth over the back of Shane’s hair. “I do not want you to be scared.”

“Scared of the intruder?” Shane laughs, low, digging the tips of his fingers in Ilya’s stomach.

“Yes. I want to, ah, to watch you.”

“Keep an eye on me.”

“Yes,” Ilya says, glancing down at the hand Shane has on his stomach, nose scrunching ever so slightly, his palm coming up to cover it. “You are always very cold, любимый. (my love)”

Shane’s brow furrows. “Really?”

“Mm.”

“I’m not feeling cold or anything.”

“You are sure?”

“Yeah, I’m not–”

“Is your feet, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Shane,” Hayden’s voice cuts through, and Shane’s head snaps up, gaze torn away from his hand on Ilya’s abdomen. It’s like he’d forgotten they’re not alone, and that Hayden and J.J. are only a few feet away – and not just them, because the door is open now, and behind Hayden’s frame he can see somebody else, sat on their welcome mat, a head of brown hair slumped upon Hayden’s shin, a voice that he has to wrack his brain to recognise.

“That Drapeau?” Shane frowns, dropping his hand from Ilya’s stomach.

His suspicions are confirmed when he sees the head peer over Hayden’s shin, and Drapeau’s brown eyes are looking up at him, wet and pathetic, lips parted and face flushed. He lolls his head back when he sees him, arm shooting out: “Hollander’s here!”

“Hollander lives here, bro,” Hayden tells him, and Shane can tell his lips are curled in confusion, though only the side of his face is visible. Drapeau tips his head up, and looks at him upside down. “Hollander was sleeping, actually. And so was I.”

“So was I,” J.J. chimes in, head resting on the wall by the doorframe, shoulders slumped. “You know what time it is?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Drapeau rests his head back on Hayden’s shin, undeterred by the way he jerks his leg once, twice, in an attempt to shake him off. “Nothing matters.”

Ilya’s scratching his head, he thinks. He’s entirely focused on the way Drapeau is attempting to wipe his face with the hem of his shirt. “You know him?” he asks Shane.

“Yeah, that’s, uh. Drapeau,” Shane says, and scratches at an eyebrow. “Goalie,” he tacks on, because maybe it matters.

“Anyone wanna help me with this?” J.J. throws over his shoulder, giving up on attempting to haul Drapeau off the floor – who, Shane thinks, is not really crying, or not anymore, and has taken to going limp against the doorframe, muttering things Shane can’t really hear from where he’s standing. Either way, Ilya’s walking over to J.J. now, readjusting the waistband of his briefs before he crouches down and takes one of Drapeau’s arms.

“Uh-oh, you’re big,” Drapeau is saying, blinking up at him, and then he turns to J.J., who takes his other arm. “Big guy grabbing me, Boiziau, who’s your big friend?”

“Calisse, it’s Hollzy’s boyfriend, man, shut up,” J.J. grumbles, face scrunching as he turns it away. “Fuck, dude, you stink, what have you been drinking?” he mutters, and it seems like he’s not expecting an answer, because then he glances somewhere beyond Shane’s shoulder, and nods towards Ilya. “You wanna put him on the couch?”

“You’re Hollander’s boyfriend,” Drapeau gasps, mouth open as he stares up at Ilya’s face, somewhat awed, and though Shane cannot blame him it still makes him cross his arms over his chest, nervous for reasons he cannot understand. But Ilya does not seem to think anything of it, and he keeps trying to manoeuvre Drapeau off the floor, balancing his right arm over his shoulders and hauling him up as J.J. does the same on the other side. “Aw, man, this is Hollander’s boyfriend,” Drapeau keeps saying, wide eyes set on Hayden now, like it’s imperative he knows.

“Yeah, lucky Hollander,” Hayden grumbles, letting the door fall shut once Ilya and J.J. build enough momentum to start dragging Drapeau across the living room.

Shane moves, in the end, when it looks like J.J. and Ilya are dangerously close to dropping Drapeau on his head, and the three of them manage to get him on the couch with no major accidents, though Drapeau’s foot does find Ilya’s shin, at some point. Shane drops a kiss on his shoulder for his troubles, even though Ilya takes it like a champ.

“Pike, coffee,” Ilya throws out, fixing the waistband of his briefs where they’ve ridden down, Shane’s smile hidden in his shoulder.

Hayden sputters. “Fuck you, you go fucking–”

“I don’t want coffee,” Drapeau groans, head connecting with the cushion, cheek mashed against it.

“What do you want,” J.J. sighs, and plops down next to him, the heels of his palms digging into his eyes.

“I want beer.”

“You smell like you’ve had four kegs already.”

Drapeau grunts. “I want a gun.”

“Jesus Christ,” Shane murmurs, and he leads Ilya to the other side of the couch with a palm fitting on the small of his back, and Ilya lets him sit down first, crossing his legs on the cushion, getting comfortable, because he’s predicting this is going to be a long night. The cushion bounces with Ilya’s weight when he plops down next to him, nestled into his side, head drooping onto his shoulder.

“Drapeau,” Hayden barks, and that makes the grunts and the groans stop, at least, Drapeau lifting his head to peer up at him curiously. “I gotta be up at six in the fucking morning. What the fuck is going on?”

It sobers him up a little, Hayden’s harsh tone, and Drapeau sniffs, and he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and he rolls over onto his back to stare at the ceiling, J.J.’s leg jerking away when his thigh touches the top of his head. “It’s over,” Drapeau says, and closes his eyes.

Ilya grunts against his shoulder, and all Shane can do is nod, and blindly push his matted curls away from his forehead.

“Oh, calvaire, chus pas du tout d’humeur a des devinettes, (Oh, my God, I’m not in the mood for riddles)” J.J. groans, head tipped back, throat exposed. When he speaks again, it’s slow, and addressed to the ceiling: “What is over.”

“It. It’s over,” Drapeau provides, eyes still closed, his lips barely moving, and Shane has to sort of squint and lean his head forward to make out what he says, though he stops when he feels Ilya rouse. “She’s done with me.”

Hayden blinks, and his hands relax where they’re still gripping his hips. “Who? Liv?”

“Yes, fucking Liv,” Drapeau spits.

Hayden throws a cursory glance over at J.J., who just shrugs, a little more awake after Drapeau’s outburst. His teeth start itching his bottom lip, and then Hayden’s walking, careful, fitting into the space between Drapeau’s bent legs and the armrest. “Okay,” he starts, slow, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his palm.

Drapeau sort of settles, eyes slipping shut once more. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that,” he mumbles, and his head lolls to the side. “The fucking part.”

J.J. clears his throat. “That’s okay, dude. You’re, like. Upset.” He looks at Hayden, both of their faces conflicted, and Shane can feel Ilya breathing into his neck, slow, and he tries his hardest not to move just in case he’s nodded off. “Do you wanna, like… tell us what happened?”

Drapeau’s quiet for a long moment, to the point where Shane is not sure if he’s heard anything at all. But then he grunts, and he sits up, swatting Hayden’s hands away when they reach out to steady him. He settles, then, back against the cushion, legs crossed, arms limp in his lap – staring out into the distance, which is very disturbing, and makes somewhat of a pit grow in Shane’s stomach, though Ilya’s weight on his side does a very good job of grounding him. “It’s bullshit, man,” Drapeau starts, and then he focuses on a frayed thread on the couch cushion, his nail starting to toy with it, and Shane lets his eyes focus on the movement. Drapeau scoffs. “She said she feels like… I’m embarrassed to be with her, or whatever.”

J.J. lifts his head, brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Like,” Drapeau huffs out a breath, and Shane can feel Ilya’s eyelashes, fluttering into the skin of his shoulder. “Like, fucking – she made a big fucking deal about me not posting her or whatever, fucking bullshit–”

“Oh, man, bullshit,” Hayden groans.

“–but whatever. Whatever – then she starts going on about how I’m fucking hiding her or some shit, I won’t let her meet my friends, I won’t do this or that, I’m like – why the fuck would you want to meet any of those guys?”

Shane breathes out a laugh. “Why would you introduce your girlfriend to, like, Comeau?”

“Exactly,” Drapeau tips his head back, arms shooting out in gratitude. “Fucking exactly, but she just was not getting it, like – oh, my God, dude, I was like, what the fuck could you and any of those guys have in common, like, what would you even talk about if you came out with us? And she was all like, you don’t know, you don’t know, I was – fuck,” Drapeau covers his mouth with his palm, and then he drags it down, until it slaps down against his leg. “Fuck, I’m getting, like…”

“Okay,” Hayden sits up, slapping Drapeau’s arm with the back of his hand. “Okay, so. That’s it? That can’t be it.”

“I swear to fucking – what do you want me to swear on?”

“The Metros.”

“Swear on the fucking Metros, that was it,” Drapeau makes a show of kissing his index and middle fingers, and pointing them towards the ceiling. “That was it. Fucking, every time – why don’t you post me, why don’t you tell me you love me, like – you need me to bring you into the fucking locker room to know I love you?”

J.J. grins, “Imagine.”

“That’s what she made it sound like, bro, it’s like– There’s no fucking point,” Drapeau looks at him, then, and Shane shrugs, only the shoulder that Ilya is not leaning his head on. “No fucking point. What, that’s how you know it’s real? If fucking – Mitty knows about you, if you come hang out with fucking Hollander and Boiziau, that’s what makes it real? Fuck.”

Hayden makes a noise, and J.J.’s nodding down at his legs. Shane is pretty sure Ilya’s fallen asleep, and so he doesn’t nod, or anything, barely blinks, knuckles carefully grazing the side of his thigh. “I mean, it’s stupid, but,” Hayden starts, blinking a few times, fingers finding the corner of his eye and scratching. He shrugs, “I don’t know. I mean, we know it doesn’t make sense,” he says, and J.J. laughs. “But, yeah, man, just. Let her stew for a little, I guess. They all kind of let it go after a while. It’s one of those things, you know?”

This seems to calm Drapeau down a little, and he sighs, irritation still clinging on the side of his mouth, the clench of his jaw. Then, it relaxes, and he looks like he’s about to say something else.

“I think that is bullshit.”

Shane’s head turns a little faster than he means it to, because he’d been sure that Ilya had dozed off, and the rumble of his voice into his skin startles him. But sure enough, Ilya’s eyes are open – albeit droopy – and he looks around when he realises he’s got everyone’s attention, until he finally peers up at Shane. His eyes are still kind of red, and Shane feels something tugging at his chest, an urge to caress the puffy skin around them. “What is?” he says instead, keeping his hands to himself for now.

Ilya breathes out through his nose, and when he lifts his head he does so lazily, one eye squinted almost shut. The urge gets stronger. “Do you like this girl?” Ilya says, and it takes Shane a moment to realise he’s speaking directly to Drapeau, his face expectant.

Drapeau blinks, and then he’s nodding, brow furrowed. “Well, yeah,” he says, his finger digging into the skin of his calf. “Yeah, like. A lot.”

Ilya shrugs both shoulders, and then his hand comes up to cup the back of his neck, and he rubs, and Shane wishes it were his hand instead but there’s something stopping him, there’s something telling him that this is not the time, though he knows that all he wants to do is take Ilya back to his room and rub his back until he falls asleep, because it’s truly, very late. “Then what is the problem?” Ilya says, and blinks twice.

When Shane looks back at Drapeau, he finds him sort of floundering, looking between the four of them wordlessly, eyes squinting. “You– What’s your name, dude?”

“Ilya,” he says, without missing a beat, and the hint of arousal Shane feels in his stomach cannot be warranted nor normal.

“The problem, Ilya, is that she won’t fucking talk to me. That’s what I’ve been saying,” Drapeau tells him, but then his eyes dart over to Shane, as if something has just occurred to him. “Is this a language barrier thing?” he checks.

Shane scowls. “He’s speaking English, isn’t he?”

“No, I understand this, ah…” Ilya extends a palm, possibly looking for a name, but Shane’s too busy frowning to provide him with one. Ilya drops his hand, “Yes, I understand this. I am saying what is the problem with, like…” he shakes his head, bottom lip jutting out as he thinks, and Shane faces him again, “posting her, or her meeting your friends, or… whatever.”

Shane doesn’t stop watching Ilya’s face, not even after he’s finished. He finds that Hayden, J.J., and Drapeau are all similarly dumbfounded, and he remembers to close the gap between his lips when Ilya looks over at him, the side of his mouth tugging up in confusion.

Truth be told, Shane is not exactly sure what the problem is – he just knows there is one. It has never been something that has applied to him, not something he’s ever had to think about, but like many other things – inside or outside the locker room – it’s not difficult to understand that, sometimes, certain things work a certain way. There is a sort of weird, unspoken line they all just know to tiptoe around. Shane might be a passive observer, but he sees it: inside the locker room, Hayden will talk about Jackie like she’s a concept more than she is a person, and Vaughn might mention Gloria in passing, usually when he wants to get out of something, a team outing.

He supposes that it’s easier, this way. Talk about a girl too much and you’re a moving target, bound to get chirped – is she hot, does she put out, would she like to fuck somebody who can actually hit the net? It’s kind of a ripple effect, because once you get chirped you’re expected to fire back, to escalate, to prove something about your relationship or your masculinity, or your game. Maybe it’s easier, then, to keep the girls at arm’s length, to just keep the peace. Make them elusive, almost nonexistent – a preemptive strike of sorts.

And that’s the straight guys, he thinks, as he catches Ilya’s questioning eyes once more. Shane looks down at his lap, because he doesn’t really want to go down this line of thinking.

It’s J.J. that finally breaks the silence. “You ever been inside a locker room, Rozanov?”

It makes Ilya laugh, and that makes Shane kind of settle, though not entirely. The laugh dies in his throat when he realises that everybody is expecting an answer, though, and he regards J.J. with an incredulous expression. “You are serious?” he says, and scoffs when J.J. simply nods. “I need to go to a locker room to know that hiding your girl is bad?”

“What he means is that there’s just certain things that you don’t talk about in there,” Hayden pipes up, and he and Drapeau sort of nod in understanding. “Like, you don’t talk about your girl if you’re actually serious about her. It’s just how it is.”

Ilya’s lips are parted, and he’s looking at Hayden the way he always looks at him. Shane is sucking on his bottom lip when Ilya turns to him, beyond perplexed: “What is he saying to me?”

“He’s saying that girlfriends have no place around the team, dude,” Drapeau says, shaking his head like he’s explaining something commonsensical – like Ilya isn’t looking at him like he’s grown two heads. “Like, what if I post Liv and then fucking, I don’t know, Kent starts talking about oh, you seen the tits on Drapeau’s girl? Fuck am I supposed to do then?”

“Uh, beat his ass?”

A small huff of a laugh escapes Shane’s nose. But Drapeau’s glaring at him now, so he sucks his lips into his mouth to conceal it.

“Beat his ass? That’s your great advice?” Hayden is sitting up, leaning forward, his face hard. “Yeah, that’d go over real well with Wiebe, man. Two weeks of bag skates because you tried to fight Kent for having a big fucking mouth. What the fuck are you talking about?”

Ilya doesn’t respond for a beat, and upon inspection Shane finds that his eyes are locked on Hayden’s boxers, face crumpled in confusion. “Pike, you are staying like this?” he says, gesturing towards them.

“Ilya.”

“Shut up about the boxers.”

“It’s just not that simple,” J.J. intervenes, ever the pacifist, and Ilya lets it go. “I mean, yeah, it’s a nice thought. It’s what you should do, probably. But, it’s just– You can’t go beating on every guy who looks at your girl sideways. You’d be fighting constantly. It’s just easier.”

“Easier,” Ilya muses, letting his knees fall open, getting comfortable. The hems of his briefs ride up where the meat of his thighs splays out, and Shane looks at the table instead. “Easier for you, yes. For her, maybe embarrassing.”

Drapeau tries to absorb this, seemingly, eyes lingering on Ilya’s legs, because he’s putting them up on the table now, leaning his back against the cushion. But he gives up soon enough, and just clicks his tongue. “Okay, dude, next time I’ll put her on the fucking jumbotron and put out a media release and we’ll see how that fucking goes. That’s ten times less embarrassing.”

“Just – you just don’t get it, I mean… It’s just how it is,” J.J. says.

“And get your feet off the table,” Hayden chimes in.

And then Shane meets J.J.’s eyes, and his heart sort of thuds against his ribcage, once, though he does not know exactly what for. He’s given a nod, and a nudge on the knee. “Dis-y, (Tell him)” J.J. says, eyes darting between the two of them.

Shane blinks, and it’s like everyone’s suddenly remembered that he is also in the room, and he’s not sure he likes it. When he looks at Ilya, he finds him already watching, teeth itching his bottom lip, and he raises his eyebrows in question, in encouragement, head tilting to the side further and further the longer Shane goes without answering. But eventually, he has to clear his throat, and shrug a shoulder. “It’s just how it is,” he says, and it tastes sour in his mouth.

Ilya releases his lip from between his teeth. He says nothing, completely silent as he studies Shane’s face, and Shane doesn’t know exactly why he feels the way he does, almost ashamed, a little embarrassed, like maybe he shouldn’t have spoken at all. It’s not anything Ilya is doing, anyhow. His face is as gentle as it always is, eyes as soft and receptive as they’ve ever been, and Shane might be catastrophising when he thinks he sees something akin to disappointment weighing down his eyebrows, that he looks a bit dismayed. But then Ilya is exhaling through his nose, and tearing his eyes away to look at the three of them over on the other side of the couch, and Shane can no longer dissect his expression for clues.

“You want to know what I think?” he says, arms crossed over his chest.

“Please,” Hayden grumbles.

Maybe Ilya doesn’t hear this, or he has simply chosen to ignore it, which is all Shane can ask for. He sighs, ankle rolling where it’s propped up on the coffee table. “I think,” he starts, lips pursing as he thinks, “that you are being, ah,” he thinks some more, looks at the ceiling for a moment. Then back down, “Pussies.”

Shane’s suddenly met with three pairs of disbelieving eyes, as if he’d been the one to say it.

Ilya’s palm is on his leg, now. “Not you, любимый. (my love)”

“Pussies,” Hayden spits, and then he gives a dry laugh, his head twitching. Ilya nods, simple. “We’re pussies because we’re protecting our girlfriends from being talked about like they’re pieces of meat.”

“Pike, shut up, please, you especially are not protecting anyone,” Ilya says, and the eyeroll is audible – this is how Shane knows it’s occurred, because he’s looking at his hands in his lap. “You are making it easier for yourself, maybe. Because you do not want to argue. That is okay, but I do not think you like her very much.” Ilya shrugs then, and recrosses his arms over his chest. “If you like someone, you will want to show them off. I am saying that it is not, ah– It is normal that she is asking for this. That is it.”

Shane chances a glance up, but only after a moment or so of silence, and is glad to find nobody is looking at him, for a change. They’re all staring at Ilya, and Ilya is staring right back, waiting, and still so sleepy, and all Shane wants to do is shut this conversation down and pull him back into bed.

It’s Hayden that starts back up. “Wait, wait– Hold on, Rozanov,” he says, pointing towards Ilya with two fingers, and his mouth is open, as if he’s ready to talk but he’s still finding the words. Ilya sighs. “So… You’re trying to tell us that you talk about,” his eyes dart over as he pauses, for only a millisecond, “you know… Shane, at work?”

Shane’s head shoots up on its own accord, and his eyes drag from Hayden over to Ilya, whose bottom lip is sucked into his mouth, and his brow is furrowed, as if the question does not compute, blinking slow. Somebody, Shane doesn’t know who, clears their throat.

He suddenly finds himself interested in this conversation, more so than he had been before. There’s a small, selfish part of him that thinks that he would like for Ilya’s answer to be yes, though there is no way to know what he’s thinking by looking at his face – he thinks he’d like to hear Ilya say that, yes, he talks to everybody about him, that he’s proud of him, a thrill shooting up his spine at the mere thought of Ilya wanting to show him off, of talking about him the same way other guys talk about their girlfriends and women about their boyfriends, telling people that there’s somebody he loves, and that this person is Shane. The thought is almost intoxicating, beyond attractive, and Shane feels a little dizzy at the prospect of there being people out there who he has never met that know of Shane as an indelible part of Ilya’s life, and all he wants to do is indulge in the fantasy while keeping as straight of a face as he can muster, because he’s still watching Ilya’s face closely, and he does not know if he’s being watched himself.

Regardless, Shane is a realist, and he knows better. He doesn’t need to be told how the real world works, because he knows how it goes in the places he and Ilya inhabit. That this is just a fantasy, a very nice one that he can entertain when he’s got Ilya’s head in his lap and his fingers between soft curls and sleepy kisses being dropped on his thighs, but beyond that? It just makes sense to keep their heads down, to make things easier and keep each other close to their chests, where they belong. The much more possible prospect of Ilya keeping Shane to himself, perhaps avoiding the topic of relationships altogether when he’s at work – this does not send a pang of anything in his chest, and it does not make him feel any sort of way, because it’s what he expects, and he wants Ilya to be safe, first and foremost.

Shane does the same, after all. He supposes it’s not a secret that he’s gay, and that he’s been seeing somebody for a very long time, but with the exception of J.J. and Hayden – and whoever Hayden complains to about Ilya – there’s a kind of expectation that it goes unspoken, that whatever happens in Shane’s bedroom and in his private life and in his – and Hayden’s, and J.J.’s – home is his business and it’s fine as long as it stays there, as long as it doesn’t affect the game. Shane can understand that, and he can’t say that it bothers him, necessarily, and even though there are times he wishes he could bring himself to wave at Ilya over at the stands with a smile on his face the way he wants to, and maybe put his arm around him when he picks him up after practice sometimes without feeling like he’s being watched, he knows that it’s easier this way, and that the alternative might be worse, in the end. He and Ilya know what they have, anyhow. What Ilya is saying doesn’t really apply to the two of them – it’s just a different world, for them, and Shane rips his eyes away from the side of Ilya’s face and looks back down at his hands, because he knows the answer.

He’s not expecting to feel a hand smooth down the back of his neck, for Ilya to be watching him with a little smile on his face. “Yes,” he says, eyes shining.

It sounds so simple, the way he says it, that Shane is not entirely sure if he maybe zoned out for a little too long and they have moved on from this conversation. But one look towards the other side of the couch tells him that they are still very much on this, because he meets three other pairs of raised eyebrows, similar to his own, and when he looks back at Ilya’s face for confirmation he feels his ears start to burn. “What do you mean yes?” Shane says, at the same time Hayden does.

Ilya closes his mouth, looking between the two of them, perplexed. “I mean… yes,” he says, ankles crossing on the coffee table, hand still massaging the back of Shane’s neck, making the skin feel warm under his touch. “I talk about my Shane.”

It’s a dilemma, choosing between shrugging Ilya’s hand off to get rid of the unbearable heat, or putting his own palm over it and pressing down and forcing Ilya to ground him, to silence his head. He opts for neither, and just sits there, dumbfounded, hands limp in his lap and a gap between his lips as he keeps staring at Ilya’s face, blinking, as if it’s going to help him understand. “What do you mean?” Shane says, before anybody else can speak up again. Ilya tilts his head. “Like, what– What do you say, for example?”

Ilya gets rid of a tickle in his throat, shaking his head before he speaks, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “Like. If the guys ask me to go out I will say I can’t, because I am going to watch my Shane play. Or, ah, if they ask what I did on the weekend, I will say I was with my Shane. If they ask who I am texting, I will say my Shane. Maybe I will show them picture, so they understand.” He laughs a little, then shrugs, and Shane’s throat feels very, very dry. “Stuff like this. I have a boyfriend. I love him. Is not a secret.”

“Well. Sure,” Drapeau says, slow, and Shane is not sure what his face looks like because he can’t really look away from the side of Ilya’s. “Sure. But, you’re not… You know. Uh.”

“I am not?”

“He’s trying to say, like – what if someone, you know,” Hayden starts, and Shane can see him sort of gesturing in his periphery. “Like. Says something.”

Ilya blinks. “About what?”

“About Shane,” J.J. provides.

Ilya’s already shaking his head, the corner of his mouth tugging upward: “They will not.”

“Okay, dude, but what if,” Drapeau chimes in, recrossing his legs. “Like, what if they do.”

Ilya sighs, like this conversation’s exhausting, and then he’s dropping his hand from Shane’s neck and scratching the back of his own, shrugging a shoulder, eyes darting up to the ceiling for a moment. “Then, I don’t know. Maybe a black eye, broken nose,” he laughs as he says this, glancing over at Shane to see if he’s laughing, too, but Shane just feels breathless, like the whole room’s been turned upside down and then right side up again. Ilya clicks his tongue, and looks back at Drapeau, “Ah, look, this is not – I am telling you what I would do, you do not have to go around, like, punching people. I am saying that your, uh, Liv – I do not think it’s crazy that she maybe wants to meet your friends, come out with you sometimes, or. That she wants people to know that she is there. Maybe you are making her feel like, I don’t know, maybe she is not important. I am just saying that from, um, outsider, you are wrong.”

Shane feels something taking root inside him, the way things like this usually do, a thought gnawing at him that hadn’t been there before, one that prevents him from looking over to the other side of the couch to see how any of Ilya’s speech went over, if it registered at all. He’s not sure what to think himself. Shane had been operating under the assumption that he and Ilya had an understanding about this, an unspoken agreement about how it is, and how they have to navigate their worlds separately. Shane knows how it is in the locker room, and he knows that scouts think about this stuff, and that being the best may offset the gay thing on its own, but not necessarily being loud and proud about it – but that’s all he knows, and he could only ever assume that it was a similar experience for Ilya, because guys are guys everywhere. It’s not like it’s ever come up, and it’s not like Ilya would ever bring it up. But now, he just feels sick, and he realises that maybe he doesn’t know, that he’s never bothered to think about this at length. The idea that he might have ever made Ilya feel like he’s something to be hidden, like something he’s embarrassed of, albeit inadvertently – it’s just abhorrent, it’s unthinkable, and his shame is exacerbated by the sheer warmth spreading through his body when he thinks about Ilya telling the whole world about him, about his Shane, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He has never done anything like this, not really, not outside of nights where he indulged a team outing and he had a little too much to drink and he’d been missing Ilya, and even then it had only been to Hayden, or to J.J., because Shane is nothing if not careful.

But this changes everything, because he looks at Ilya now, really looks at him, and the yawning pit in his stomach grows wider at the realisation that he’s still holding back, he’s holding back right now. He focuses on what’s happening under his skin, and he realises that there’s something thrumming, that there lies a well-contained impulse to reach over and take Ilya’s hand in his and start playing with his fingers – but when he tries to satisfy the urge, to prove to himself that what Ilya is saying does not apply to them, that he can be normal about this, he finds that his hand just will not move, no matter how much he wills it to, that he simply can’t bring himself to do it, not here, not with people watching.

Ilya clears his throat, and the sound brings Shane back to the room. “This is what I think,” he concludes, hands fanning out, and then he’s taking his feet off the table and planting them on the floor, scooting forward on the edge of the couch with his fists digging into the cushion and a little grunt leaving his throat. “But maybe I am wrong. I will leave, ah,” he gestures, “hockey boys and Pike to discuss this.”

Someone clicks their tongue – Hayden, if he were to guess – but Shane’s still watching, eyes on Ilya’s back as he heaves himself up, then suddenly pivots, as if he’s forgotten something. He smiles at Shane, and puts his hand on his thigh for balance as he leans down.

“Going to bed,” he mumbles, and Shane swallows, eyes trying to focus as Ilya leans closer.

“Okay. Be there in a minute,” he mumbles back, and then his head gives a little twitch, completely involuntary, so Ilya’s kiss lands on his cheek rather than the corner of his mouth. Shane does not understand this, and more than that he does not understand why Ilya does not react, and why he just keeps smiling, bumping his nose into his cheekbone as a final goodbye. “Sorry,” Shane whispers, trying to smile back.

Ilya stands, and he waves, and he mumbles out a goodnight through a yawn, getting a string of half-hearted, perplexed nights in return. Once he disappears down the corridor, Shane allows himself to breathe out, and his back to connect with the couch cushion.

Someone blows a raspberry, long and drawn-out, and upon inspection Shane realises it’s J.J., cheeks puffing out with his arms crossed over his chest. “Fuck,” he says, once he’s done, nudging Drapeau with his elbow. “You got told, Drapeau.”

“Shut up,” Drapeau grumbles, and then he’s sort of scowling at Shane, prompting him to tilt his head to the side. “Where’d you go boyfriend shopping, Hollander, the Psych Department?”

“He didn’t even say anything wrong,” Shane huffs, knee bouncing, foot digging into the floor. “And he’s not a fucking Psych major.”

“No, asshole’s just sticking his nose in shit that has nothing to do with him,” Hayden says, and his palm is facing Shane before he can respond to that. “Don’t listen to him,” he says to Drapeau, “just, like… Let her stew in it for a few days. She’ll come around.”

“That’s your advice, Hayd, let her stew?” Shane chimes in, and maybe it’s got a little more bite than it needs to, but he feels charged all of a sudden, and Hayden’s right there. And he called Ilya an asshole, which is important.

Drapeau’s arm shoots out, nearly hitting J.J. in the process, who has seemingly checked out entirely, head resting on the back of the couch. “What do you fucking suggest, Hollander? Call us pussies again, maybe that’ll help.”

Shane’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head, “I didn’t say anything!”

“Yeah, I know,” Hayden grumbles. “I know, you just let him run his fuckin’ mouth like this has anything to do with him. That’s fine, too.”

Shane’s already scooting off the couch, hand waving in the air dismissively. “Do what you want,” he says, maybe to Drapeau, maybe to Hayden, not looking back once until he’s standing, and taken a few steps away. “I’m not letting him do anything, he’s a grown man. And you’re twenty-two years old, Hayd, you can speak up if something bothers you.”

“Your boyfriend bothers me!” Hayden responds, immediately, and maybe a little too loud.

Shane’s frantic shushing is louder, he hopes. “Shut up. I mean when something bothers you – the moment something bothers you. Don’t fucking involve me.”

“Yeah, don’t be a pussy, Pike,” Drapeau says.

Shane grunts, already moving, and not even sparing a glance over his shoulder: “‘m going to bed.”

“Bonne nuit, (Goodnight) Hollzy.”

“Night, J,” he mumbles back, waiting until he’s out of sight rub a palm over both eyes, making his way down the corridor.

There’s no way he can sleep now. He feels charged, and he feels anxious, and he doesn’t know if this has anything to do with Hayden and Drapeau’s low voices carrying through the silence, or the fact that he’s just lost at least an hour of sleep including the time it will take him to go back under, or maybe the fact that he’s been a horrible boyfriend and Ilya has probably just realised and is most likely devising the best course of action to slip out into the night and cut off all contact.

Ilya hasn’t shut the door completely, and Shane squints so he can see through the crack – he’s on the bed, under the covers, on his back with his arms up and covering his eyes, and there’s just enough space for Shane to lie down next to him. He swallows, and winces at the loud creak when he carefully pushes the door open.

Ilya lifts his head up, just a little, and lets it fall back down as Shane shushes him and closes the door behind himself. He shuffles closer, slowly, unable to see much in the dark, but then his shins hit the edge of the bed and he lowers himself down onto the mattress, carefully laying down on his back, eyes on the ceiling.

Ilya makes a pleased sound, and then Shane is being pinned down again – Ilya twists so he’s got his head on Shane’s chest, hair tickling his chin, his chest flush against his stomach, one of his long legs brought up and bent around both of Shane’s thighs, arm thrown around him. It’s grounding, and relaxing. Shane starts carding his fingers through Ilya’s hair before he knows he’s doing it.

“So, your boyfriend is bothering Pike,” Ilya mumbles against his chest, the side of his mouth mashed against his skin, tickling him softly as he speaks.

Shane breathes out through his nose. “You heard that?”

Ilya hums, low, and it vibrates through Shane’s chest. “I think I was… meant to,” he says, and he sounds so sleepy that Shane smiles up at the ceiling, despite himself. Ilya pauses, hesitant. “Should I apologise?”

“You have nothing to apologise for,” Shane tells him, and sighs again, fingers still untangling Ilya’s curls. With his other hand, he’s softly raking his nails down the top of Ilya’s back, tracing the line of his spine, softly feeling out his moles with a fingertip, and absentmindedly cataloguing any changes in size, or texture. “You know,” he says then, and Ilya hums, “sleeping on your stomach is bad for your back.”

Ilya clicks his tongue, and his arm feels tighter around his middle now. “Is the best for my heart,” he mumbles back, on the verge of sleep.

Shane groans a little, but it dissolves into a laugh, Ilya’s head jostling with it, but he’s smiling, too, and Shane loves him. He tears his eyes away from the ceiling and looks down at the top of Ilya’s hair, barely able to make out the shape of his curls in the darkness, the tip of his nose touching his pec, and he loves him, and he wishes he was brave enough to be loud about it, to make sure everybody whos’s ever met him knows just how in love he is, because it’s what Ilya deserves. He wants Ilya to have this, would like for them both to have this.

Shane does have this, apparently, though he’s never let himself wish for it before. Turns out he never had to. Maybe Ilya makes sure Shane never wants for anything, and Shane’s been merely reaping the benefits, never felt the need to interrogate the source of the contentment, of the happiness.

He swallows, now, and he can hear his own throat click with it. “Ilya,” he murmurs, and for a long moment, he thinks Ilya may have fallen asleep, breaths coming slow and deep against his skin. But Ilya hums, after a beat. Shane’s mouth twists, and he tucks his chin down to bury it into Ilya’s hair, soft on his lips, tickling the bottom of his nose. “I love you,” he tells him, very quiet.

Ilya’s voice sounds faraway, and he seems to answer without thinking: “I love you, too, baby.”

It’s always been as simple as this. Still, Shane doesn’t sleep, not until he’s memorised the shape of Ilya’s eyebrows under the tip of his index finger.

It’s really difficult not to let it become a thing, though he supposes there are worse things to fixate upon. Like, Shane could, in theory, start thinking a little too much about how thin the walls of his apartment are again, and exactly how much Hayden and J.J. can hear in the middle of the night, and he could force himself to keep from touching Ilya until he went insane. Or he could go back to worrying about being too clingy, like he did when they first started dating, forcing himself to wait at least an hour before he texted back and feeling embarrassed about how much he needed to be held and touched and kissed after sex, and during sex, and, well, before sex, though this would not really be a sensible preoccupation at this stage, because Ilya is the same, if not worse.

Making sure Ilya sees how much he loves him, how much he thinks about him, how important he is to him – this is a good fixation in the grand scheme of things.

“Is this really necessary?”

They’ve been stuck behind a blue Corolla hatchback for the past five miles, and while Shane is usually very serious about adhering to the speed limit, the combination of driving at what feels like all of fifteen miles per hour and Hayden’s consistent nagging from the back of the car does nothing to calm his nerves – nerves that had not been a problem for him before they left the apartment. Both hands are on the steering wheel, and he’s tapping his fingers in an attempt to self-soothe, radio off and eyes shooting daggers under his sunglasses and through the windshield.

“Hello?”

“I heard you,” Shane glances at Hayden through the rearview mirror, and he doesn’t like what he sees. “If you take your seatbelt off again I’m gonna stop this car.”

“We’re practically parked,” J.J. says, or more so mumbles, head leaning on two knuckles against the window, elbow propped up on the car door in the passenger seat. “You know they’re not gonna revoke your license if you use your horn, Hollzy.”

“He’s not going slow enough for me to honk.”

“Don’t blame that guy,” Hayden chimes in again – Shane sees his arm reach out between himself and J.J., briefly gesturing towards the Corolla. “He’s not the reason we’re gonna be late.”

“Please, tell us, Hayd,” Shane says, glancing up again, “why are we gonna be late?”

“Were the last sixteen times not enough?” J.J. mutters.

“Gladly,” Hayden scoots up further, his head now close enough that if Shane were to brake just so, he’d fly right through that windshield and they’d finally have some peace and quiet. “The reason we’re gonna be late is that you are extremely codependent, for reasons I do not understand.”

J.J. hums, nods towards the Corolla, “Y vire a gauche. (He’s going left.)”

“On vire a gauche aussi, (We’re also going left)” Shane mumbles.

“Genial. (Great)”

Hayden’s quiet for a moment, but Shane can hear him breathing. Sighing, perhaps – not that it matters. “Did you hear me call you codependent?”

“I heard you, Hayd, because your head is right next to mine. Because you’re not wearing your seatbelt. What do you want me to say?”

“So you think it’s healthy that you can’t go…” there’s a pause, and Shane sees him check his phone in his periphery, “three hours without seeing your boyfriend?”

“Aye, you called him Shane’s boyfriend without gagging!” J.J. is beaming, turning around in his seat to ruffle Hayden’s hair, undeterred by the way he smacks his hands away. He nudges Shane’s shoulder next, “Next thing you know he might even say good morning to him when he stays over.”

“I said good morning to him today.”

“Yeah?” J.J. glances at the rearview mirror, playful. Shane doesn’t hear anything from the backseat for a moment. “So if I ask him later, he’s gonna say: da, da, Hayden Pike say good morning to me, Hayden Pike is friend.”

“He’s not fucking Borat,” Shane tuts, too busy trying to make out what the driver of the Corolla looks like, so he can accurately calculate the ethical implications of slamming down on the horn. He wouldn’t want to give a sweet old lady a heart attack. “And that’s a terrible Russian accent.”

“C’etait pas! (It’s not!)”

“Not sexy enough,” Shane says, groaning at the sight of the Corolla taking a right. “Oh, my– Who is this guy?!”

He hears J.J. mutter something under his breath, and then he’s reaching out before Shane can stop him, slamming his hand down on the horn, barely letting go as Shane frantically pushes him out of the way.

“Dude!”

“Almost half past,” Hayden taps each of his hands on both of their headrests, tipping his head back obnoxiously. “Coach might be in love with you, Shane, but he’s gonna have mine and J’s ass.”

“Will you shut up?” Shane finally turns to look at him once they’re at a red light, taking his sunglasses off to show he means business. “Fuck, this is gonna take two minutes tops. Relax.” Hayden just buries his head in his hands and gives him a childish groan, so Shane turns back around, sunglasses tucked into his shirt. He starts tapping at the steering wheel again. “And you’re in my fucking car, we’re going wherever the hell I take us.”

“First of all, it’s not gonna take two minutes. It’s just not,” Hayden starts. Shane stares at the Corolla. “Second of all, whatever, it’s the principle of the thing.”

“I think,” J.J. raises a finger in the air, “you’re scared he’s gonna insinuate you’re gay if you don’t help him lift concrete again.”

Shane makes a pitiful sound, pouting at Hayden through the mirror. “Is that it, Hayd?”

“I, unlike your boyfriend, don’t think being gay is an insult, so that does not phase me in the slightest.”

J.J. hums. “That why you tried to lift twice as much as he did last time and had to sit out of practice for a week?”

“And my boyfriend has a boyfriend, don’t know if you heard.”

J.J. turns just to raise an eyebrow at Hayden, as if impressed at Shane’s admission. “What have you done for the gay community, Hayd?”

Shane smiles as he steps on the gas, itching an eyelid. Hayden’s quiet again, but not for long. “Nothing your little outfit isn’t already doing, I’ll admit that.”

It takes Shane a while to realise he’s being referred to, and he glances back at Hayden with a groove between his eyebrows, though he has to look back at the road soon after. “Who?”

“You.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Shane glances down at himself when he has the chance, the hems of his running shorts straining high up the meat of his thighs, splayed against the seat, black compression shirt tight against his stomach, and his chest. “Does it look bad?”

J.J.’s laughing under his breath, though Hayden doesn’t pay him any mind. “Shut up,” he says, and it startles Shane into silence. “You know it doesn’t. That’s why you’re showing up at this guy’s work in, like… gay guy lingerie.”

“This is not gay guy lingerie,” Shane and J.J. say, at the same time.

It makes Hayden pause, and it makes Shane glance over at J.J., sideways. But Hayden is not deterred for long, and he soon turns towards J.J.: “And since when are you and Rozanov cool?”

“Since I found out his roommate is a fucking babe.”

“Hands off Svetlana,” Shane says, groaning in relief when the Corolla signals right. “Yes.”

“So nobody else thinks it’s weird that Shane is bringing this guy a packed lunch at work like some housewife.”

“It’s not a packed lunch.”

J.J. reaches over, and Shane only has a few milliseconds to flinch before he’s grabbed the tupperware that’s carefully perched on Shane’s lap, lifting it high in front of all their faces as if to prove a point.

Like it means anything. “I’m technically dropping off some food for him to eat at his lunch break, yes,” Shane says after a few beats of silence have passed, readjusting his legs. “What’s the big deal? I made too big a portion last night.”

“Okay, you made too big a portion.”

“It happens,” Shane mumbles, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. “And he brought me those protein truffles I like the other day at the library.” He glances at Hayden through the rearview mirror meaningfully. “Remember those protein truffles, Hayd?”

“Dude, I had one of this guy’s protein truffles and I’ll never hear the end of it,” he says, and he’s rubbing his hands over his face again.

“Okay. You had four.”

“Tell him to send me an invoice,” Hayden grunts. “And a box of truffles from the bakery is not the same as a homemade meal. It’s the optics.”

“It’s barely a meal.”

“Ha,” J.J. chimes in, and Shane tries to take the tupperware back before he can fully open the lid, but he eventually has to put his hand back on the steering wheel and let J.J. win. “We have: brown rice, broccoli, carrots, kale, lentils, and…” there’s some shuffling, and then J.J. is holding up the fork and spoon Shane had carefully wrapped in a couple of napkins, swaying them in the air, “silverware.”

“Will you put it back?” Shane is laughing a little, willing himself to keep his eyes on the road. Then, nervously sucking on his bottom lip, and much quieter: “I’m just trying something new.”

“This isn’t trying something new, Shane, this is setting a precedent,” Hayden says, and clicks his tongue at J.J.’s whistle, at his musing of big word. “I’m serious. Next thing you know he’s gonna be expecting you to bring him lunch every day and then what are you gonna do?”

“Probably bring him lunch every day,” Shane says, without missing a beat. His eyelid is itching again, and he wipes at it with the back of his hand, a little harsher than he needs to. “It’s not a big deal. Maybe he should be expecting certain things from me.”

“Yeah, like what?”

“Fuck, I don’t know, like,” Shane pauses, lips parted. It’s difficult to verbalise, because he might know what he needs to do in theory, but it all becomes a little muddy when he tries to put it to practice. He knows that he needs to show Ilya that he’s loved, and that he’s thought of, all the time, even when it’s probably not warranted, like when Shane’s brushing his teeth or standing in front of the kitchen counter itching his calf with his foot or working through his sets at the gym. That he’s an ineffaceable fixture of Shane’s life even when he’s not there, so much so that other people can always feel his presence, even without knowing him, because he’s right there in Shane’s core, present for every interaction and every conversation and every breath he takes. But it’s easy to think all this, maybe say all this, but doing it – this is what he needs to work on. “Bringing him lunch,” is what he settles on, shifting in his seat.

Hayden’s blinking at him through the mirror, though Shane’s not looking. He’s not really in the mood for any of it.

“You don’t need to understand everything,” he tacks on, because he can’t help it.

But then it’s J.J.’s turn to speak, and whatever Hayden was about to say dies in his throat: “Dude, you did not write him a note on the napkin.”

Shane can feel his ears tinting pink, and road safety be damned, he reaches an arm out and tries to wrestle the now unwrapped napkin from J.J.’s hands, “Fucking– J, put it back.”

“Dear Ilya…” J.J. starts, grin wide enough to split his face in half, lifting the note out of Shane’s reach.

“Fuck off, it does not say that!”

“Thought of you. Heart. Please go easy on your back today. Wearing you out is my job. Smiley face. Hope you enjoy. Two hearts. Your Shane,” J.J. finally lets Shane grab the napkin out of his hand, his face too hot to look at him fully – though he can see him pouting at him in his periphery. “Aw, Hollzy!”

“Fuck you,” Shane grumbles, tossing the napkin back into his lap irritably. “Put it back.”

“Okay, his Shane,” J.J. laughs, even as he obliges.

“I feel schizophrenic,” Hayden is saying, as if Shane’s not on the brink of slamming on the brakes and kicking them both out in the middle of traffic. “There’s no way Rozanov’s got anyone bringing him a packed lunch with a little love note.”

“He has me bringing him a packed lunch with a little love note,” Shane snaps, glaring through the mirror. His hands flex on the steering wheel. “You guys just have never loved anyone.”

Hayden scoffs, “Yeah, that’s what Jackie needs to know I love her. A note saying I miss you, my little snuggle buggle. I think I’ll be normal instead.”

“It does not say snuggle buggle.” But J.J. looks like he’s going to start rifling through the tupperware again, so Shane snatches it off his lap before he can do so, stuffing it between his thigh and the driver’s door. He shifts in his seat again, huffs out a breath. “This is normal. I’m bringing my boyfriend some lunch and then we’re gonna go to practice. It’s gonna take two minutes. Stop making it into something it isn’t.”

It might be the right thing to say, because Hayden falls quiet, mercifully. “Just drive,” he grumbles then, finally, blessedly settling back in his seat. Shane’s not even sure he wants him to put his seatbelt on anymore, because the prospect of sending him flying through the windshield is starting to become more appealing by the minute. “And stop talking about Rozanov. Bad enough I gotta see him twice before 10AM.”

Hayden gets his wish, because the car falls silent until Shane finally pulls up on the site a few minutes later, tupperware clutched in one hand, scanning his eyes for a familiar mop of sweaty blond curls, kicking the car door shut behind him. He pauses as J.J. stretches out next to the passenger side of the car, rolling his eyes at the realisation that Hayden’s stayed put, arms crossed on the backseat. He pulls the door open again, popping his head in. “Are you serious?”

Hayden doesn’t so much as glance up. “What do you need me to get out the car for? Sweaty construction workers are not my scene.”

“Your loss,” J.J. wiggles his eyebrows, eyes scouring the construction site.

Shane pays him no mind, just taps his fingers on the headrest of the driver’s seat, raising his eyebrows meaningfully. “This is rude.”

“Can you just get it over with?” Hayden unlocks his phone again, turning the screen around so Shane can see. “Nine thirty-five.”

Shane just groans, slams the door shut again. He holds the tupperware with both hands and rolls his shoulders, sighing as he takes on looking again. “You see him anywhere?”

“Maybe he’s having a smoke,” J.J. pops his back, squinting his eyes like it’s gonna help him see any better. “Or lying to you about going to work. Like in Breaking Bad.”

“He does like that show,” Shane says, a little smile taking over his features when he spots Marleau, shouting something over his shoulder. He waits, fingers tapping on the plastic container in anticipation, until Marleau miraculously notices him and blinks a few times, before recognition takes over his features. Shane raises an arm when Marleau does, and laughs when he motions as if telling him to stay put, jogging somewhere beyond Shane’s vision.

There’s a tap on the car window behind him. The smile drops off Shane’s face, and he turns his head around, where Hayden is pressing his phone against the window. “Nine thirty-six,” he says, muffled through the shut door.

He decides it’s not worth denting the backdoor of his car, so he turns back, just in time to see Ilya emerging from God knows where, jogging over to him with a big smile on his face. He looks filthy, dust and all kinds of shit smeared on his clothes and arms, face glistening with sweat and hair not as shiny as it usually is. He looks gorgeous.

“I thought Marley was pranking me,” is the first thing he says when he’s close enough to be heard, wiping his hands on the backs of his thighs. He bumps his knuckles on Shane’s cheekbone in greeting, and Shane feels the skin tinting pink where he’s just been touched. “He does it sometimes to see me get excited. Boiziau.”

“Rozanov.”

“You brought whole entourage?” Ilya continues, eyes catching on the car, where Hayden’s form is visible through the window, gaze lowered with his arms still crossed over his chest. “What is wrong with him, he is shy? Hey!” he knocks on the front window, laughing as Hayden presses his lips together, gives a half-assed wave. “Don’t be scared, there is no cement to lift today.”

“We’re on our way to practice, I just, um. I wanted to drop this off for you,” Shane is thrumming under his skin, lifting the tupperware as punctuation, and he’s aware he’s watching Ilya like a hawk, but he just cannot help it. He loves him, and he loves his face, and he’s addicted to the way Ilya’s eyes soften, how his mouth forms a wide grin, glancing up at Shane with his index finger digging into his own chest. “Yes, for you, who else would it be for?”

“Really?” Ilya’s squinting under the sun, every single tooth on display. Shane wants to be bit, suddenly. “О, мой малыш, (Aw, my baby), thank you.”

But Shane’s feeling brave, and he’s buzzing with something, and he pulls the tupperware away when Ilya reaches for it, leaving his hand hovering in the air. “Kiss?” he says, face burning.

Ilya hesitates, though his eyes dart all over Shane’s face, lip caught between his teeth. “I do not want to get you dirty,” he says then, putting his palms out, caked with dust.

Shane makes a noise, and he blinks at Ilya before he can think twice about it, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth, because he knows Ilya likes it. And Ilya likes his eyes, too, so Shane really works for it, looking up at him through his eyelashes, grabbing onto one of his hands and pulling it so it settles on his hip, and Ilya finally, finally breathes out a laugh through his nose, and he obliges.

It’s meant to be a little more than a peck, Shane supposes, Ilya leaning in and latching onto his mouth, a little thank you, short enough for Shane to only get a mere taste of the sweat and the cigarette smoke and the something fresh, maybe gum. It’s chaste, what Ilya grants him, nothing to get him worked up, but Shane is peering over Ilya’s shoulder now, and he can see his coworkers milling about, some glancing over, and he supposes this is a good place to start. He doesn’t know these people, and Ilya clearly has no qualms doing this out here, so what’s the damage?

So, Shane surges right back in when Ilya tries to pull away, arm reaching up and hooking over the back of his neck to bring him closer, other hand holding an iron-grip around the tupperware. He pries Ilya’s mouth open with his lips and he licks into it, swallowing a surprised noise, feels Ilya tentatively kiss back, both hands finding Shane’s waist and holding. There’s something else there, sunflower seeds, and Shane sighs as he feels Ilya’s tongue against his own, a little more relaxed now, a little more eager, bolder, hand pushing him flush against his front by the small of his back and the other sneaking down, the top of his fingertips grazing the swell of his ass, Ilya’s nose mashing into his own in a way that should be painful, but it’s not. It’s good, and it’s hot, and Shane feels heat flaring in his stomach, a tingle in his spine, even more so when he realises there’s some commotion behind Ilya – whistles, and catcalls, some clapping, and he’s smiling too wide to kiss properly now, so he pulls away with a wet sound and presses his forehead into Ilya’s cheek, pressing a fist into his closed eyelid.

“Fuck off!” Ilya shouts over his shoulder, but when he faces Shane again, he looks a little dazed, like he’s seeing him for the first time. It makes Shane feel a little dizzy, too. “You are trying to distract me?” he says, quiet, so nobody else hears.

Shane grins. “Is it working?” he says, and watches as Ilya’s eyes trail down his side, humming to himself, fingers catching on the hem of Shane’s running shorts, fixing them, trying to pull them down. The bottom of his compression shirt is next, being tugged down where it’s ridden up on his hip. “You don’t like it?”

“No, I like it,” Ilya scoffs, like the thought is ridiculous. “But maybe everyone else likes it, too.”

“Oh, the–” Shane looks down, too, and he helps Ilya fix his shirt, cheeks burning. “No, I meant, um. I hope it’s okay that I, like. Kissed you, out here.”

Ilya looks up, and there’s a little groove between his eyebrows now. “You hope it’s okay?”

“Yeah, like,” Shane gestures over Ilya’s shoulder, though everybody seems to have gone back to their business now. Ilya doesn’t even look back. “Like, you know, in front of– everyone. I don’t know if – I don’t want you to get teased or anything.”

Ilya’s already laughing, but it’s silent, a bob of his shoulders and a shake of his head, and Shane relaxes, like he always seems to do. “Shane,” he says, almost exasperated.

“What? I’m serious.”

“It is very embarrassing to have pretty boyfriend who brings me lunch at work in very small shorts, yes, is true. I have a very difficult life,” Ilya’s saying, and Shane groans, forehead pressed into his cheek again. “I do not know what is more difficult, to work in this heat or to have my Shane kiss me. What do you think?”

Shane nips at the skin of his cheek, teeth dragging. “Shut up,” he says, and then he pulls back, and the smile is inevitable when he sees Ilya’s face, amused, eyes glinting. Shane thinks for a moment, and then he lets his finger graze the mole on Ilya’s cheek: “Are you wearing sunscreen?”

Ilya scoffs, nodding down to the forgotten tupperware in Shane’s hand, “What, there is none in here?”

“You said you’d start wearing it,” Shane continues, but ultimately, he has to let it go, because Ilya’s actively reaching for it now, unclasping the lid eagerly. Shane itches his bottom lip as he watches. “Um, it’s okay if you don’t like it, I know it’s…” he trails off, scratches behind his ear self-consciously. “What do you call it, rabbit food?”

Ilya’s looking into the tupperware now, eyes scanning the display, and although there was a moment he faltered at first, he’s back to that sweet smile, bright and almost proud. “Yes, rabbit food,” he says, grabbing at a piece of broccoli with his fingers. “You made this?”

“Yeah, last night,” Shane says, watching Ilya pop the steamed broccoli into his mouth, taste it. “Before you came over. Made too much, thought it would be a nice gesture.”

“It is a very nice gesture,” Ilya’s still beaming, clicking the lid back into place, and he doesn’t even seem to think twice about pulling Shane in with a hand at the nape of his neck, placing a nice kiss on his lips. Shane never knew broccoli and tobacco could taste this sweet. “Thank you. You are so cute when you want.”

“Shut up,” Shane grumbles, though he guesses it doesn’t sound as grumpy as he intended it to, because he’s smiling and his face feels suspiciously hot. He can’t help but glance over Ilya’s shoulder, but he just tilts his head to the side, smiles knowingly. “What?”

“I don’t care,” Ilya says in response, kissing him again – a loud mmmmwah, almost entirely for show. “You can take them all.”

Shane exhales a laugh through his nose. “I’m not gonna box your coworkers.”

“Even to defend my honour?”

An obnoxious, steady knocking from behind him pulls Shane out of Ilya’s eyes, and he looks back to be met with, once again, Hayden’s phone pressed against the back window. “Nine forty.”

“J, can you keep Hayd some company, please?” Shane says.

“Sure – wait, Rozanov, tell me what you think about this accent.”

“Like, now, J.”

J.J. hesitates, but he eventually complies, pulling open the passenger door and ducking inside, shutting it before Shane can hear Hayden start complaining.

Ilya pushes Shane’s bangs out of his face, prompting him to face him once more. “You are so sexy when you are angry.”

“Fuck off, ‘m not angry,” Shane grumbles, and he’s sure his nose is pink.

Ilya must notice, because he smiles, squinting against the sun. “Maybe I wanted to hear his accent,” he says, and his eyes are really bright, Shane thinks. Really beautiful.

“You didn’t,” he says.

“So, you are worried I will think his is sexier than yours.”

“Uh huh.”

“And I will leave you for Boiziau.”

“When have I ever even done a Russian accent?” Shane says, opting to ignore the rest.

“Sometimes,” Ilya shrugs, smiles. And he’s definitely smearing whatever shit is on his hands on Shane’s face as he strokes his cheekbone. “I do not think you realise you are doing it. You are doing it right now, actually.”

Shane’s laughing, “No, I’m not.”

“Maybe you do it when you are nervous. You are nervous?”

“A little,” Shane grins, eyes darting down to Ilya’s chin, for reasons he does not understand. Ilya ducks his head so their eyes can meet again. “Stop.”

“I make you nervous?” all of Ilya’s teeth are showing, white and spit-slick, and Shane’s face is only warm because the sun is beating down on them, and not because Ilya is pinching his chin between two knuckles. “Aw, look at you.”

“Shut up,” Shane huffs, moving his chin out of Ilya’s grasp. Then, because he is a little nervous, and because he feels a sweet flutter in his stomach: “You look really good.”

Ilya’s eyes seem to glint, and this time Shane knows it’s not the sun. “Yes?” he prods, cupping the side of Shane’s neck, his thumb rubbing into the skin, a soothing motion.

“Mm-hm,” Shane says, and he lets Ilya get a little closer, lets him bump their noses together before he pulls back again, making him breathe out a laugh. “Stop.”

“Say stop one more time and maybe I will take you seriously.”

“Roz!” Marleau’s voice rings through, and Ilya’s eyes slip shut, his sigh fanning out over Shane’s face, though Shane can barely tear his eyes away from Ilya’s face to watch him walk up to them, arms spread out by his sides. “Come on, man,” he whines, and his voice sounds even closer.

Ilya exhales again, gives a little grunt, and then his face is gone, turned to address Marleau, who Shane finds much closer than he’d been expecting upon finally ripping his eyes away from the dip of Ilya’s cupid’s bow. “You cannot see I am busy?” he tells him, and there’s a wrinkle on the side of his mouth.

“You’re not fuckin’ busy, you’re playing grab-ass,” Marleau tells him, and then he throws a wink over at Shane, wiping his hands on the sides of his pants.

Ilya blinks. “Stop it,” he says, and he sounds genuinely put off. “Stop that. What was that?”

“I winked.”

“This is wink?” Ilya blinks his eyes hard as a demonstration. “You think this is wink?”

“Aye, stop showing off ‘cause your man is here,” Marleau says. His eyes fall on the tupperware in Ilya’s hand, and his eyebrows rise up in his forehead, reaching over to lift the lid and peer inside. “What’s this? Shane brought us lunch?”

“Shane brought me lunch.”

Marleau’s wrinkling his nose up at the contents in a way that has Shane toying with his bottom lip, looking between the two of them carefully. He clears his throat, “It’s macrobiotic.”

Marleau pokes the rice, “It’s… brown.”

“It is delicious,” Ilya slams the lid back down, and Marleau pulls his hand away like it’s been burnt. “Fuck off, Marley. Where is your lunch?”

“Down the street. Subway,” he squeezes the nape of Ilya’s neck, slaps the back of his thigh. “Come on, you’ll see each other later.”

“Yeah, we gotta go, anyway, before Hayd pops a vessel,” Shane says, reaches out to click the lid of the tupperware into place properly, rolling his eyes when Ilya obstructs him, covers his hands with his own. “You still coming to the game tomorrow?”

“I took the day off, no?” Ilya hums, and then he leans in again, managing to leave half a kiss on Shane’s lips before he dodges the rest. Ilya pouts, “What?”

“It’s…” Shane clears his throat, glances at Marleau before he can help it.

Ilya looks at him too, slowly over his shoulder. When he looks back at Shane, the face he’s making is beyond ridiculous. “You just gave a show to all these men you do not know and now you are shy from Marley?”

Shane’s mouth drops open. “Shut up, I didn’t give a show.”

“Yeah, you fucking did,” Marleau’s voice is laced with a laugh, and Shane already feels the back of his neck burn. “Vinny was asking if he could have a go, too, by the way.”

Ilya’s head snaps to the side. “Who said this?”

“Vinny.”

“Okay, relax,” Shane tuts, and he has to manually grab onto Ilya’s chin and twist his face around again to get him to stop boring his eyes into Marleau in the way he is. There’s another disturbance, and Shane pinches his eyes shut at the insistent knocking coming from behind him. He doesn’t even look. “I gotta go.”

Ilya scoffs, “I do not understand why he is so anxious to go sit at the bench for two hours.”

“Ilya.”

“Okay,” Ilya concedes, and pinches the tip of Shane’s nose with two knuckles. “I will miss you.”

“You’ll see me tomorrow.”

“Yes, me and a million other people.”

“A million,” Shane hums, and pushes Ilya’s hair out of his forehead, because he wants to touch him. “I really gotta go. Take it easy today.”

“Yes, sir,” Ilya says, squeezing his side before he has to let him go, let him walk back to the car.

“And you don’t have to eat it if you don’t like it,” Shane calls out, pulling the car door open.

Ilya makes a face that looks positively ridiculous. “Shane, I will eat shit if you put it in nice box for me and bring it to my work looking so beautiful.”

“You’re gross,” is all Shane says, rolls his eyes as Ilya blows him a kiss, and then he’s in the car, ears pink as he pulls the door shut. He watches Ilya jog up to Marleau again, the two of them talking about something, bumping their shoulders against one another.

“Got it out of your system?” Hayden’s voice brings him back down to Earth, and he exhales, hands flexing on the steering wheel. A pause as he checks his phone again. “Nine forty-five.”

“Will you relax?” Shane tuts, turning the ignition, arm resting behind J.J.’s head as he pulls out of the site. “You’re the one giving me shit for always being early. Duck your fat head.”

“At least let J drive,” Hayden continues, even as he ducks his fat head. “Now is not the time to adhere to the Highway Code.”

“See if I drive you anywhere ever again after today,” Shane replies, throwing one final look over J.J.’s head to see if he can spot Ilya one last time. He’s nowhere to be seen, so he just tuts and finally drives off.

There’s a hum from the passenger’s side, and then Shane feels J.J.’s thumb against his cheekbone, glances to his side to see him inspect the black smudge that comes off. “Romantique,” he announces as he presents his thumb to Hayden, who smacks his hand away. “He’s marking his territory.”

“You guys are insufferable,” Shane grumbles, but his lips turn downward into a little smile as he rubs the heel of his palm against his cheek.

Shane thinks he could recognise Ilya’s sounds anywhere.

There are the involuntary ones, the ones he feels like a total pervert for loving so much because they are so routine. Like the different ways he snores: a deep, nearly deafening rumble when his neck is bent just so, his head on Shane’s chest, until Shane (with a heavy heart) has to gently lower him onto the adjacent pillow for the sake of any of their roommates, or Shane’s favourite, the little squeaks that escape his nose as of late, because he won’t listen to Shane when he says that all the smoking is causing his congestion. His yawning, way too wide and obnoxiously loud, always followed by a groan that Shane pretends he finds unnecessarily disruptive, but has come to associate with a head nuzzling into his stomach or hair tickling his neck. His laughter, wheezy at first and high-pitched in a way that makes Shane’s stomach tingle for reasons inexplicable to him.

There’s other Ilya-isms, like whistling in the shower, but only when he’s alone, or the children’s songs he sings as a joke when Shane complains that he can’t sleep, which Shane always tells him are not helping – only because Shane ends up smiling too wide to really relax, but he’s happy to let Ilya believe it’s because he’s annoyed. The incredibly unsexy and borderline ridiculous, exaggerated, and loud pornographic moans he lets out when Shane complains about something or the other, which Shane is trying really, very hard to become immune to, for the sake of his own pride. The loud mwahs he lets out whenever he smacks kisses over Shane’s face, closed-mouthed on his lips. He loves all of them.

And he usually loves his loud whooping during practice, mostly during games, which he still cannot understand for the life of him how he can detect so distinctly over a sea of other people at the rink. It usually pushes him to play harder, makes his teeth buzz deliciously. He’s not sure how he’s supposed to handle it deep into a frog stretch, with Hayden shooting daggers on the side of his face.

“Can I help you?” Shane grumbles, readjusting his pose. This is not relaxing at all.

“Yeah,” Hayden says after a while, after what Shane guesses was a cold stare over his shoulder, where Ilya is standing at the lower bowl, hands cupped around his mouth and Svetlana insistently tugging at the bottom of his shirt. “Let me shoot the puck into his mouth. Just once.”

“Do you think it feels good to hear the shit you say sometimes?” Shane pulls his knees together again, spreading his legs out in front of him. “He’s not the only one making noise, it’s a fucking hockey game.”

“It’s not a fucking hockey game, the fucking hockey game hasn’t even started! It’s pre-game!” Hayden says, tipping his head back at another particularly loud holler from Ilya, because Shane’s on his knees again. “This is obscene.”

“Why don’t you focus on Jackie and I’ll focus on Ilya? Relax,” Shane says, and he hopes that’s that, although he does look back at Ilya over his shoulder. Maybe the wrong thing to do, because it only seems to spur him on. He smiles nonetheless, although a wince does seep into his features, and he focuses on stretching his quads.

It’s a good game, and they do win, but only marginally – 3-2 for McGill. Maybe Shane’s not as happy as he should be, and he realises this when he doesn’t respond as enthusiastically as he normally would when J.J. sneaks up behind him and shakes him by the shoulders, when Roy splashes him a little with his water bottle. But it’s getting harder to settle. It was a good game, and yet he cannot help but fixate on the almost fuck-ups, on what can be improved, on how he can make it perfect, next time. It seems significant in the grand scheme of things, and it almost doesn’t matter that they won, and he supposes it’s a little more difficult to let the excitement buzzing around the locker room sway him, because Roy makes a sad noise, and he ruffles his hair with his sweaty palm.

“Aw, c’mon, Hollzy, we got it!” he exclaims, causing the rest of the locker room to let out a few whoops and hollers. “Close game, but…”

Shane’s smile is genuine, and when he pushes Roy’s hand away he does so gently, and he even smacks the back of his palm against his shoulder. “Yeah, good work out there today, guys,” he starts, lifting his duffel onto the bench with a thump, “just a little too close for comfort. Think there’s a few things we can work on.”

J.J. groans beside him, and Shane feels his head be engulfed in two big palms, shaken about, and he can’t stop himself from laughing through his sounds of protest, trying to pry the hands away. “Come on, Capitaine, y a pas moyen d’etre malheureux apres ca! (there’s no way you’re not happy after that)”

“I’m happy!” Shane manages to push J.J. off, and there’s a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, because J.J.’s excitement is always infectious. “I am, I’m just saying there’s always things to improve. Was a good game but,” he shrugs, starts tugging off his jersey, “there’s still a couple more to prepare for. Think we should cover our bases, that’s all.”

“Here he goes, man,” somebody says, and Shane’s not sure who it is, because the collar of his jersey is obstructing his vision.

“I’m just saying,” he throws out, to nobody in particular, once his head and arms are free. “We’re good. We were good out there. But we can be even better.”

There’s a groan, somewhere, and the slam of a locker. J.J.’s shaking his head, sitting down to unlace his skates.

“Dude,” Shane hears, and upon lifting his head he realises it’s Comeau, forearm deep into his locker, watching Shane over his shoulder with an expression he cannot exactly pinpoint. “We just won. Who cares?”

He falters. Shane blinks at Comeau, and he starts folding up his jersey, a little furrow between his eyebrows. “I care,” he says, stuffing it into his duffel. “You should, too. Scouts pay attention to this stuff, at a certain point just winning is not enough.”

He doesn’t expect Drapeau to snort at this, for him share a look with Comeau. “If you’re worried about scouts getting the wrong impression, Hollander, maybe it’s time to reel in your boy on the stands.”

His hands falter on his girdle, eyes unblinking as he tries to decipher Drapeau’s tone. He thinks he may be justified in raising his head in attention, in the end, because J.J. also looks up from unlacing his skates, stares down Drapeau like he’s grown two heads. “Fuck’s that supposed to mean?” he says, and the sentiment is sincere.

“’M just saying,” is all Drapeau says, and he goes back to shrugging on his undershirt like nothing’s happened at all.

“No, that’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Shane continues, hands dropping off his girdle. “What are you saying?”

“He’s saying that the whole arena doesn’t need to know exactly how hot your boy gets seeing you slam dudes into the boards,” Comeau helps, or maybe thinks he helps, because this only has Shane’s ears growing hotter. “Scouts pay attention to this stuff, Hollander. Not a good look.”

It’s eerily quiet, or maybe that’s what it feels like, so naturally, J.J.’s voice booms through the silence, although he’s keeping it relatively reasonable. “’ey, you got a fuckin’ problem, Comeau?” he stands from the bench, skates off and shoulders squared.

Another snort. “Maybe I got a fuckin’ problem with the whole rink knowing our captain takes it – is that crazy?”

“What the fuck did you just say?” Shane feels a hand on his shoulder before he’s even finished scowling at Comeau, and then Hayden’s stepping up in his eyeline, his back rigid.

“He’s saying you should keep that shit in your fuckin’ bedroom, Hollander.”

“I’m saying you should both shut the fuck up and try fucking scoring next time,” Hayden tells them.

Drapeau blinks at Comeau. “Pike’s talking to me about scoring.”

“All I’m doing is giving your boy some friendly advice, since he cares about getting scouted so much,” Comeau shoots back, then looks back at Shane over Hayden’s shoulder. “How many NHL players you know that suck dick, Hollander?”

“Guys, come on,” Shane hears from somewhere to his left – he thinks it might be Morin, but he can’t be certain. There’s ringing in his ears.

“Guy’s probably only got his dick going for him, anyway, dude, don’t blame Hollander,” Drapeau’s saying, slapping Comeau’s arm with the back of his hand, something glinting in his eye. “Not the smartest, I think. What is it, Hollander – Ilya? Guy can barely string a fuckin’ sentence together. Shit’s painful.”

He’s not sure who acts first – whether it’s him or J.J., or maybe Comeau or Drapeau – but soon enough there’s a decent indent of his fist on Drapeau’s cheekbone, and there’s blood spurting out of Comeau’s nose and Shane can taste copper in his mouth, and though Hayden manages to get J.J. off Drapeau he does end up pushing Cardin, who had gotten involved at some point, back down onto the floor when he tries to get up. It’s ugly, and Shane’s ears are ringing too much to be able to feel the blooming shiner on his cheekbone, and it only takes a few moments for Wiebe to come barging into the locker room.

It all happens very fast, and Shane’s head is throbbing, and his knuckles are bleeding, and he’s still seething even as the five of them stand in a line in Wiebe’s office, silent, barely listening to Wiebe’s lecture as he tries to glare at Drapeau over Hayden’s head, molars digging into the cut on the inside of his cheek. There’s talk of suspensions, and bag skates, and something about how Shane especially should know that the best way to lead is by example and how lucky he is to keep the C, but none of it really registers, not really, and though Wiebe asks repeatedly nobody is willing to tell him what prompted the fight, and Shane can barely feel a hint of gratitude below the vicious anger. In the end, Coach lets Comeau and Drapeau go first, and the three of them are released a few moments later.

“You need this more than I do,” Hayden’s saying, and Shane is barely paying attention, so the shock of the ice-pack on his cheek makes him flinch, and he has half a mind to press his hand against it and keep it in place before Hayden lets go, a wince in his features – which also makes the cut on his lip sting. “Fuck, he got you good.” J.J. says something, though it comes out muffled around the cloth he’s holding up to his nose, and Hayden squints at him. “What?”

“I said Hollzy got him better,” J.J. repeats, and holds it back to his nose, though the bleeding’s stopped now. Shane grunts. “That was a mean fuckin’ punch, man, I felt it in my nose.”

“Should’ve knocked his fucking teeth out,” Shane grumbles, and it takes effort to do so, because it feels like the inside of his cheek is ripped open. He prods his tongue against it, because he wants to feel the sting, and focuses on walking in a straight line.

“Nearly did, man. Don’t think I’ve ever seen you fight like that.”

“Neither,” J.J. says, and Shane feels his elbow nudge into his arm. “About fuckin’ time, though. Comeau needed his ass whipped in line at some point.”

“Fuck,” Shane squints one eye shut, though he doesn’t need much help to do so, because he can already feel it swell. They’re closer to the exit now, and he’s not exactly sure where Ilya and Svetlana are waiting, but he thinks now is as good a time as any to slow down, and to stop walking, and to have Hayden and J.J. sort of look at each other before they stop, too, and huddle around him. “Hey, uh… Do you think you can, like… not tell Ilya what happened?”

Hayden blinks, and he and J.J. glance at each other again. “You don’t think he’ll notice half your face is punched in?”

Shane huffs out a breath, “No, I mean, like – why it happened.” He readjusts the ice-pack on his cheek, and winces when it pushes in right in the middle of the bruise. “Fuck, might have to… I don’t know. Avoid him for a few days.”

J.J.’s mouth all but drops open, and Shane feels the blood rush into his face, though he’s not sure what for. “You. Will avoid Rozanov.”

It does sound a little crazy, having it repeated back to him. “It’s not that crazy.”

“It’s insane,” Hayden pipes up, and he’s shaking his head now. “You two are crazy fucking codependent, when was the last time you went a day without seeing each other?”

“Was, like…” Shane pauses, lips parted and eyes glazing over as he tries to remember, though he knows he’s got nothing to say and that it’s all for appearances’ sake. “Whatever, we– First time for everything, right? I’ll just, I’ll tell him I came down with something and… We’ll go from there. Few days, tops – until the bruising goes down a little.”

Hayden scoffs, “What, you’re afraid he’ll think you’re ugly?”

That hadn’t even occurred to Shane, but it does now. He frowns as he readjusts the ice-pack on his cheek, “No, it’s– He’ll just freak out, and… it’s done now, it’s dealt with. It doesn’t matter.”

J.J. grins. “Aw, you don’t want your boyfriend to go after the big bad bullies?”

“J, come on, I’m serious,” Shane lowers the ice-pack, and he holds it with both hands, because the cold feels grounding, and he can’t really worry his bottom lip between his teeth because the wound has just now stopped bleeding. He nods, pleadingly, “Please.”

J.J.’s already lifting his hands up, and Shane gets a good view of the dried blood on his cloth, “Hey, man, it’s not my business to tell. It’s done.”

Shane glances over at Hayden then, and waits for a moment. “Hayd?”

He looks a little torn. Eventually, he sighs through his nose, and shrugs in what seems to be defeat. “I won’t,” he says, and runs his tongue over his swollen bottom lip, eyes wary. “But can you tell him it wasn’t me? I feel like he’s gonna think it was me.”

This makes Shane laugh, just a little, but he feels it in his cheek regardless. “He’s not gonna think it was you,” he shakes his head, nudging his shoulder into Hayden’s as they start walking again.

“I don’t know, remember that time you pulled your groin?”

Shane does. They couldn’t fuck for a week. “Yeah?”

J.J. guffaws, even though it leads to him groaning in pain and holding onto the cloth with both hands. “Oh, fuck.”

“He was all, Pike push you, Pike not protect you, where was Pike.”

“Dude,” J.J. says, hushed.

Hayden has the decency to flush, at least, panicked eyes regarding Shane at once. “Sorry, dude, I didn’t mean– That’s not funny, I didn’t mean it, like – how Drapeau–”

“It’s fine,” Shane snaps, and he gently tries working the hinge of his jaw, just to see if he can. So far, so good. “Fine. I’ll tell him all about how brave you were.”

“He was, though,” J.J. leans his head forward, so he can face both of them. “You saw him tripping Cardin before Coach came in? I didn’t know you had it in you, Hayd.”

“Shut up.”

“You do look the best out of all of us, though,” Shane reasons, gesturing between him and J.J. “They only got your lip.”

J.J. snorts. “Yeah, ‘cause he kept kicking.”

“What–! I literally–”

“And pulling hair and shit.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Shane says, and they both stop talking over the other, J.J. smiling down at his shoes and Hayden grumbling something under his breath. “Just. Thanks. You guys didn’t have to get involved.”

Nothing’s said for a moment, but then Shane feels a hand kneading at the nape of his neck – J.J.’s, the corner of his lips tugging upward, nose swollen to hell when he pulls the cloth away to speak. “Three musketeers, man,” he says, and Hayden’s groan echoes in the hallway, Shane’s knuckles stinging when he slaps J.J.’s arm off his shoulder. “Oh, it’s like that?”

“You’re serious,” Hayden says, and it takes Shane a moment to realise he’s the one being addressed, J.J. going unanswered. Hayden studies his face when Shane glances at him, sideways. “Really. You’re really gonna avoid Rozanov.”

“No, not– avoid was the wrong word to use, I’m not gonna avoid him, I’m just, like… not gonna see him for a few days,” Shane shrugs, watching his step, because he only has one good eye now. “Gonna slip away now, text him I wasn’t feeling well, don’t wanna give him whatever I have, and just, um… Yeah, I’m gonna avoid him,” is what he settles on, his throat clicking when he swallows. He’s not sure how long it’s been since he’s had a sip of water. Ilya always has a cold bottle of it waiting for him after a game. “Only a few days, ‘til I come up with a story. How hard can it be?”

Ilya is going to fucking kill himself.

This is something he can joke about now, or think of joking about in the solitude of his apartment, because jokes of that nature are usually forbidden, though this is not strictly enforced. It’s just that, on both occasions Ilya had made that joke, way back when, Shane had paused, and his face had gone very still, and his eyes very big, and it had taken Ilya a moment to get over how devastatingly gorgeous he’d looked to realise that he’d been upset, and that Ilya should probably not say things like that. This is what Ilya calls a Marley joke, and a Marley joke does not exactly land the way he intends it to around Shane, just like certain Shane jokes – namely, how Ilya should cut off the legs of his work cargos and go shirtless under his vest and work for hours under the sun while Shane watches, perched on a deckchair, sipping on lemonade probably would not land very well with Marley, either. Though maybe that’s not the best example he could give.

But, be that as it may: Shane is not here, and Ilya is not there.

It’s not like they haven’t gone a few days without seeing each other before, that’s not it at all. Between Shane’s away games, llya’s sporadic trips back to Russia just to check on things, and Shane cramming during exam season (during which Ilya usually hangs around in his room with his feet pressed against Shane’s back as he hunches over his notes, though Shane does not pay enough attention to him as he would like, so this still counts as time spent apart), it’s not abnormal for them not to see the other for a few days – even though it feels like it, and Ilya always has to resist the urge to scratch tally marks on his bedroom wall until he can hold him again. The point being: Ilya can manage a few days without Shane, as long as he can reach him (multiple, multiple times), and as long as he knows he’s okay, and as long as he knows his approximate coordinates at all times.

This time is not one of those times. This time, Ilya was left floundering at the McConnell Arena lot, with Svetlana squinting at every single person exiting the rink (“Is that him? Is that him? Is that him?”), growing more jittery by the minute, the condensation dripping off the water bottle he’d been holding onto, and he remembers he’d been worrying over getting Shane’s cheek all wet and cold once he finally got to cradle it and kiss him hello. It all came to a head when he finally saw Pike and Boiziau emerge, no sign of Shane when he’d craned his neck to check behind them, and they told him that Shane had been pissing out of his ass and had to run home, whatever the fuck that meant. Shane had been much more demure about it, once Ilya finally managed to get a hold of him. He’d come down with something – during the half hour between the game and exiting the locker room, if Ilya were to guess – and his stomach was killing him, and upon getting back to his apartment he’d discovered he had a rising fever, but he was also breaking out in sweats at the same time, somehow, and the conclusion had been that, sorry, no Shane today, and no Shane tomorrow. In fact, no Shane for the past five days and counting, and consequently, no fingers separating Ilya’s damp curls after his shower, and no muscular thighs pillowing his heavy head, and no nails raking down his back – whether it be gently scratching, skating around the moles while Ilya drifts off, or desperately clawing because Ilya is deep enough to be felt in Shane’s throat.

Ilya grunts and readjusts the crotch of his shorts, recrossing his ankles on the coffee table.

It’s bad enough to have no idea what Shane is up to, and to have every single FaceTime request of his rejected, to sit here staring at their open text thread for long enough that the blue light is starting to bleed through his retinas and sizzle his brain, but it may be even worse to be alone in the apartment, no Svetlana to rub his back, or tell him he’s overreacting. This way, it’s easy to catastrophise. He suddenly worries about forgetting the exact slope of Shane’s little nose, and he starts tracing the shape of it on the couch cushion with the tip of his index finger, an attempt at self-soothing. Maybe it’s for the best, and maybe they really should avoid Ilya catching his bug by all means, because he is a nightmare when he’s sick – everyone says so. But he’d like to be there, and he’d like to feed Shane alphabet soup, maybe even press his lips to his forehead to check his temperature. He readjusts the crotch of his shorts again.

He’s contemplating letting his hand finally slip past his waistband, because he truly is bored, when a knock at the door startles him enough to have his hand flying away from his crotch like he’s been burned, like he’s fourteen again, locked in the bathroom with Alexei trying to kick the door down and telling him to hurry the fuck up in there. He shakes his head, because there’s no need to think about that, ever, and heaves himself off the couch, pressing his knuckles down on the small of his back as he does so – that’s another thing, no Shane to straddle his ass and work out the knots.

“Мало того, что ты бросаешь меня, чтобы пойти поразвлекаться со своей маленькой подружкой, так теперь ты ещё и заставляешь меня вставать, потому что забыл свою– (Not only do you abandon me to go play with your little girlfriend, but now you're making me get up because you forgot your–)” Ilya flinches once he’s got the door open, pressing his palm over his heart at the sight of Pike, arms crossed over his chest, foot repeatedly tapping on the floor. And what a sight that is. “Oh,” he says.

Pike blinks. “How did you know it was me?”

“Huh?”

He’s trying to look past Ilya’s head, eyes darting all over the place, and Ilya is kind of confused at just how irritating he finds this. “You were yelling,” Pike provides.

A click of the tongue. “No. You will know when I yell at you.”

Pike scoffs, and mutters something under his breath – fair enough, or something equally stupid – and then he looks like he’s about to slip through the sliver of space next to Ilya’s shoulder, so Ilya makes quick work of pressing his palm against the doorframe, his forearm blocking the way. Pike stops, and stares at him. “Come on.”

“What do you want?”

His eyes are very wide. “To come in?!”

It’s just not an acceptable answer, not good enough for Ilya’s liking, and the only reason he doesn’t tell him so and doesn’t let the door fall shut in his face is that there is this nagging thought in the back of his brain, something telling him that Shane would want Ilya to hear Pike out, that Mama would pull on his ear if he didn’t invite him in and offer him a glass of water. In the end, there is not much he can do other than grunt, and half-heartedly pull the door just the tiniest bit more open, so that Pike still has to struggle to fit between Ilya’s rigid shoulder and the doorframe.

Pike doesn’t really look thirsty, or hungry, or anything other than stiff and offputting when Ilya closes the door and turns around to regard him, so Mama will have to understand. Ilya fixes the crucifix on his bare chest, twists it in place where it’s tangled, and raises an expectant eyebrow, absently rubbing a hand over the bottom of his spine.

Pike looks like he’s expecting something, too. “Well, can I sit down?”

“You are tired?” Ilya replies, a gust of breath escaping his nose as his knuckles press in on the wrong spot. There’s only one pair of hands that will do. “From what?”

“Okay, Rozanov,” Pike pushes his hair up with one hand, wiping sweat off his hairline. “Whatever. I wanted to… to talk.”

“Talk,” Ilya says.

Pike nods, albeit reluctantly. “Yeah.”

Ilya takes his hand off his back, and presses it to his chest instead, “To me.”

“Yeah, to you. Me, talk, to you. You.”

Ilya laughs to himself, though it’s more out of disbelief than anything else. Then, he starts reaching for the door.

“Wait– Rozanov, hold on,” Pike says, and Ilya glances down at his palm, extended, maybe to convince him to stop, maybe an attempt at being friendly. Either way, Ilya cautiously turns back around, and fixes him with a tentative look. “Look. I know that… I don’t like you, and you don’t like me, and it’s, you know. It is what it is, and… I’m fine with that.” He pauses then, peeking at Ilya curiously. “You fine with that?”

Ilya’s mouth twists in contemplation. He tilts his head from side to side. “Yes. I think so.”

“Yeah. Cool,” Hayden says, still hesitant, maybe a little weirded out that they’ve agreed on something, for once. Ilya can’t say he doesn’t share the sentiment – and that’s yet another thing they’re agreeing on, and his hand reaches to the nape of his neck and scratches before he can help it. Hayden is shaking his head, “Fuck, what I’m– I’m trying to say that I wouldn’t have come here if, like. If I didn’t need to. But I don’t know if I need to, it’s just that – I’m not sure what, or how to deal with this, and I just, uh… I had to, had to see you. Had to – I mean…”

Ilya blinks. He drops his hand, and then he crosses both arms over his chest, idly scratching at one of his biceps as he waits for Pike to figure out whatever has him looking so constipated. But time is of the essence, and he has to be up in six hours, and he hasn’t seen Shane in five days (and counting!). “Okay,” he says, and maybe it’s a little blunter than he intends, because Pike flinches. “Okay, what… Why did you have to see me?”

Hayden shifts a little on his feet, crossing his own arms over his chest, deliberating over something, as it seems. Eventually, he makes a low noise, and disgust flares up in Ilya’s gut, but he supposes that’s not important right now. “I can’t tell you,” Hayden settles on.

Ilya blinks again. “You can’t tell me,” he checks, eyes darting from Pike’s face to the couch, to Pike’s tense forearms. He tilts his head, using every last bit of his thinning patience to say: “What– Why not? Did something… happen to you?”

“No,” Pike says, and he sort of drags the word out, eyes flitting between Ilya and his nails still scratching at his bicep. “No, something happened to you.”

Ilya stops scratching. “To me,” he says, and licks at the side of his mouth when Hayden nods, curtly. “What happened to me?”

Pike’s fingers flex against his own bicep. “I can’t tell you.”

Ilya’s not sure how long he stands there, motionless apart from his twitching eyelid, but it’s definitely long enough for Pike to start squirming, though he does maintain the eye contact. Ilya can respect that. “Pike,” he starts, lips pouting as he tries to find the words to use. “You are a serious person?”

“I can’t tell– Wh– Yes, I’m a serious person,” Pike huffs, and now his palms are covering both of his eyes, and rubbing so hard that Ilya’s lip curls. “Just– Fuck. I want to tell you. I even – I think I should tell you, but J and I promised Shane we wouldn’t, so – You know, it’s, I can’t tell you but I’m going fucking crazy, man, and I think I’m breaking out in hives, like, on my back, but nobody will–”

“Pike, Pike, Pike, Pike,” Ilya’s saying, and he has been for quite some time, only stopping when Pike stops trying to lift his hoodie and show him whatever rash he’s got, lifting his head up in alarm. “Stop. You– What did you say?”

“It’s like right there, in the middle of my back, I can feel where the skin is–”

“Shane,” Ilya is firmer now, and Pike finally, blessedly drops the hem of his hoodie, letting his arms drop limp by his sides. “I do not care about– You said Shane, what about Shane?”

Pike looks torn. He’s worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, and he’s studying the floor, then Ilya’s socked feet, then nothing, because he’s digging his knuckles into both eyes and groaning, and Ilya is being very patient, all things considered, until Pike finally drops his hands and fixes him with a look. “Okay. You did not hear this from me.”

Ilya blinks. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Pike repeats. Then, he sighs, and tugs on the hem of his hoodie. “Shane’s not sick.”

For a moment, all Ilya can feel is immense relief, and joy, and the terrifying urge to hug Pike for bringing him the only piece of good news he’s received in the past few days. But he settles for grinning, and blindly reaching for his phone in his pocket. “Yes? He is better?” Ilya pulls his phone out, already occupied, still grinning as he unlocks it and starts swiping. “Mm, he did not tell me, глупыш. (silly boy)”

“No, dude,” Pike’s hand is reaching out, and Ilya stops typing, looking up curiously. “He wasn’t sick. Like. At all.”

Ilya’s thumbs hover over the keyboard, eyes set on Pike’s lip, still caught between his teeth. Slowly, he locks his phone, and tries to pick just one of the questions currently swirling around his head – is he okay? Is something wrong? Is he lying to me? “What do you mean?” is what he settles on, slowly sliding his phone back into the pocket of his shorts.

Pike clicks his tongue. “What else could I mean?”

“He was not, ah…” Ilya shakes his head, just a little, just to gather his thoughts, to remember. “Not, ah, pissing out of his ass?”

He thinks the gust of breath that escapes Pike’s nose is supposed to be a laugh, but he drops it as soon as Ilya starts glaring. “Uh. No,” he says.

The urge to take this out on Pike is decently strong, to set his mouth in a hard line and confront him for lying to him, blame him for being the reason that Ilya hasn’t been able to see his Shane, just because he’s right here. But he would just be coping, and he knows this, and in the end all he can do is furrow his brow and slump his shoulders, feel the confusion seep into his features, voice diffident as he tries to make sense of it all. “He did not want to see me?” he asks, and it leaves a bitter aftertaste in his mouth.

It’s not quiet for long, and the sound of Pike’s laughter soon fills the otherwise calm space of the living room. He laughs, and laughs, and he keeps laughing until Ilya cannot hide the growing irritation any longer, until he barks out a Pike that seems to cut through, and Pike finally settles, though there’s still a sort of deranged smile on his face. It’s very unsettling, and Ilya can’t look at it head on. “Are you fucking serious?” Pike finally says, and his eye seems to be twitching, though, again, Ilya can’t look at it head on. He finally gives up on waiting for an answer, and he scoffs, rolling his eyes up at the ceiling, “No, Rozanov. He wants to see you. Like, trust me, he wants to fucking see you, that’s why I’m here, it’s– I can’t fucking–”

He stops, and takes a deep breath. Ilya’s hand is itching for his phone.

“He wants to see you,” Pike repeats, and Ilya can tell that he’s feigning that calmness in his voice, and that he’s hanging on by a thread. “He wants to, but he’s got it in his head that he can’t yet, and you know how it is when he’s got something in his head, and he’s cranky as shit, like, you can’t fucking tell him anything or he’ll snap, and he must’ve rearranged everything in the fucking kitchen about a million times and I don’t know where my fucking protein shaker is and I feel like if I ask he’s gonna bang it over my fuckin’ head and I don’t know if it’s– If it’s blue balls, I don’t know what the fuck kind of spell you put on him or whtaever, whatever, just go–”

“Pike–”

“–just go see him,” it looks like it takes gargantuan effort for Pike to say this, his shoulders dropping with it, burdened with some invisible weight, the humiliating revelation that he needs something from Ilya. He’s got to remember to feel smug about this later. “Not tonight, he’s– I made sure he was asleep before I snuck out, and J’s there in case he wakes up and he seriously, seriously cannot know I was here, dude, like, seriously–”

“Pike.”

“Tomorrow,” Pike barrels on. “J and I will be out tomorrow, however long you need, whatever you need to do, just– In the living room, in the kitchen, in my fucking bed, I don’t care, it’s just, it’s too much now, dude, it’s just too much.”

“Okay, hey,” Ilya’s here now, having hesitantly stepped closer during Pike’s long spiel, and he hesitates even further before reaching a hand up, and awkwardly patting it over his shoulder – just twice. Pike looks at it, almost confused, so Ilya drops it. “Okay, I will… I will go to see him. I want to go to see him, for days now, but I did not… I did not know. Relax.”

Pike does, albeit marginally. He wishes this weren’t the case, but Ilya thinks there’s something else – he can tell by the way Pike’s licking at his top lip, pensive, how he’s looking at Ilya like he’s gauging his features, taking stock of his mental readiness, or his emotional bandwidth, or whatever else. For once in his life, Ilya cares enough to find out. “There’s something else,” Pike starts, reluctant. “Before you see him.”

Ilya’s heart gives a panicked thud against his sternum, gut stirring, and all of it must show on his face, judging from the way Pike’s shaking his head, as if to soothe a spooked animal.

“He’s fine,” he continues, going for comforting, but this only makes the panic claw up further in Ilya’s throat. “He’s okay, he just– He got them better than they got him, trust me.”

“Who, got who– Pike,” Ilya rubs a hand over his mouth, because he can feel himself lose control of his facial muscles, can feel his jaw spasm and his eyes twitch, and he doesn’t like it, and what he likes even less is that feeling of incoming dread that is settling deep in his gut, turning his nervous system into knots. “Fucking– Stop beating the fucking bush, just say it, say what you want to say.”

“Beating around the bush.”

“Pike!”

“Shane got in a fight,” Pike blurts out. It gives Ilya pause, because he’d been ready to say something else, maybe grab Pike by both shoulders and start shaking, but now he sort of falters, unsure if he’s heard correctly. For better or for worse, Pike keeps talking: “Well, we– Us three got in a fight, but, it was Shane, and then J and I, you know, we got involved. You, uh, you remember Drapeau, from… the other week?”

Ilya does not remember anything of the sort. “Shane got in a fight,” he says, and he can’t really control the tiny curve at the edge of his mouth, not even when Pike frowns, and nods. Ilya’s smiling now, full-blown. “Okay. I am relaxed. You can tell me.”

Pike is perplexed, by the looks of it. “Tell you what?”

Ilya scoffs, gesturing with his hand, as if asking Pike to hurry, “What really happened. Come on.”

“Uh, you come on,” Pike says, and Ilya raises his eyebrows, hands coming up in defence. “I’m serious. Shane got in a fight. That’s what happened – J and I stepped in, of course, but he still got… Got a bit of a busted face– It’s better now, much better, but…” Pike shrugs, and he’s back to itching at his bottom lip with his teeth, eyes wary. “Yeah. That’s it.”

Unfortunately, Ilya is familiar with Pike’s lying face. He does this thing with his horrifyingly big eyes – he sort of squints, but only his lower eyelids, and his jaw is always very tight, and he’ll keep his eyes set on your collarbones and will not look up no matter how many times you address him. This is not that face. “My Shane got in a fight,” Ilya repeats, a little blunter now, and the smile drops completely. Pike nods again. “Who– Those Concordia fucks got him after the game? During the game? I did not see anything, Pike, you are not fucking with me, yes?”

“It wasn’t them, I’m telling you– You remember Drapeau?”

Ilya’s forehead hurts, staying creased like this, and his lip curls as he wracks his brain, tries to remember, think about anything other than anybody putting their hands on Shane. Something clicks. “Crybaby crying on your floor?”

“Uh– Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”

Ilya waits. “He fought Shane?”

“Well, there’s another guy, um– It doesn’t matter, but. Yeah, they– They were talking shit, and, uh, technically… Shane fought them, but it’s fine now, he’s keeping the C and everything, it’s not– You– Dude, I’m talking to you, where are you going?!”

“Where do you think?” Ilya’s moving, barely paying Pike any mind as he hurriedly looks for his discarded shirt, under the cushions, behind the couch, swearing under his breath. “Fuck, can you see my shirt?”

“Rozanov,” Pike sounds closer than he was a moment ago, and when Ilya turns abruptly with the intention speeding over to his room and pulling on the first shirt he can find, he almost barges right into him, and has to stop when Pike holds him with his hands on both arms. “Don’t– Just listen, there’s no need to go over there now. I’m trying to explain it to you.”

“You are not– Shane was in a fight and you are talking to me about a C,” Ilya rambles, but he, unfortunately, can’t do anything other than stand there, and try to relax, because Pike’s grip is surprisingly strong. He takes a deep breath, and lets it out: “What– He is okay?”

“He’s okay,” Pike says, immediately. “I mean, really, they got off much worse than any of us did, trust me. Think they got Shane in the cheek, got him in the eye a little bit, but…”

Suddenly, a horrifying thought dawns on Ilya. “His nose?”

“No, no, not his nose,” Pike says, and the exhale that ensues rattles Ilya’s body to the core. “His nose is fine. He’s fine, really, he just has, like, a bruise on his cheek, and the swelling’s gone down now. He looks kinda cool actually.”

Ilya doesn’t grace that with an answer. Instead, he sort of studies Pike’s face for the first time tonight, finally taking notice of the scab on his lip, the slight swell at the side of his mouth. “Is that what this is?” he says, gesturing towards his own lips.

Pike makes a face. “Uh, yeah. What did you think it was?”

Ilya makes a frustrated noise, because he truly never thinks about Pike longer than he absolutely needs to. “Herpes,” he throws out, because it’s the first thing he thinks of.

Pike lets go of his arms. It’s okay, because Ilya feels calmer now, though the beating of his heart is still somewhat staggered, and the rage is still making his fingers sort of tremble by his sides, but he’s calmer, knowing that Shane is okay. He doesn’t think Pike would lie about something like this. He’s kind of looking at him now, trying to gauge what he’s thinking, and Ilya’s not sure what his face must be doing, if he looks as warm and unpredictable as he feels.

“What happened?” Ilya says, then, after a few beats of silence. “Shane does not fight. What they said, it was… bad, yes?”

Again, Pike looks conflicted. “I don’t know, man – I’m not even supposed to be here,” he’s saying, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t think it’s my place to say.”

Ilya scoffs, the anger rising up once more: “Pike, you are already snitching, come on, I will not–”

“Stupid shit, just– Fucking bullshit, man, it doesn’t matter,” Pike is louder, firmer, and Ilya stops. “Comeau and Drapeau are fucking dipshits, anyway, nobody fucking listens to them. It’s done.”

Ilya’s not convinced. There is simply not a world, not a single alternate universe where he would be convinced, hearing this, not when all he can think about is somebody out there giving Shane any kind of shit, touching him, in any kind of way, aggressive or not. It doesn’t matter – there is nobody out there who should be laying a finger on Shane, nobody that isn’t Ilya, and the thought of it makes a fire ignite low in his gut, and it licks at the inside of his stomach and it spreads to his chest until he can feel the back of his neck grow unbearably, dangerously warm, fingers trembling at his sides. And while this isn’t irrational, because there is no metric in the world that would be able to accurately measure just how much he loves Shane, he understands why Shane would maybe want to keep it from him, because the thought of anybody daring to lay their hands on him makes Ilya want to kick in the teeth of every single guy on the fucking team, starting with Pike, only because he is conveniently right here. But he’s got to force it down, in the end, to try to click onto a semblance of his composure, because it’s getting harder to breathe, now.

“Look,” Pike says, and he’s sort of putting his hands up , and taking a step back, “if Shane wants to tell you, then, fine. But this is all I can tell you. I just don’t like seeing him like this.” Pike’s turning now, and sighing. “And I want my fucking shaker back.”

“Pike. Pike,” Ilya takes a step forward, too, and spreads his arms out by his sides when Pike stops, and throws him a look over his shoulder. “Where are you going?!”

“Home, man,” he says, like he’s exhausted, as if Ilya had been the one to invite him here in the first place. The thought is unsettling. “Just – relax. Go to sleep, go to work, come over tomorrow. It’s gonna be fine.”

“Sleep, you think I can sleep now,” Ilya checks, and he’s walking, hot on Pike’s heels. pressing his palm on the door before Pike can reach for it, prompting him to make a face. “Did they tell him something about the game? My Shane played perfect, it could not be about the game. So it was something else. Pike.”

“Dude, you’re too naked and too close to me,” Pike says, and Ilya hesitantly lets his palm drop off the door, lingering for a moment before he takes a step back. Pike looks like he can finally breathe. “I gotta go. Stop worrying,” he says, ever so blunt, and reaches for the doorhandle once more. He pulls the door open before Ilya can protest again, and turns towards him long enough to say: “Shane can hold his own, man. He’s not gonna keel over if you go another night without seeing him.”

Then, Pike slips out, making a swift exit before Ilya can say anything else, leaving him staring at the shut door, and wondering if any of this happened at all, or if alternating between staring at his text thread with Shane and the TV screen ever since he got home from work has finally caught up to him and caused him to hallucinate mediocre hockey players with eyes too big for their sockets in his apartment. But eventually, he decides that if he were to ever hallucinate anything it would probably be Shane, in various states of undress, or maybe in one of Ilya’s hoodies and a pair of his very small shorts and the elastic of his white socks digging into his muscular calves, and he sighs, and turns, and itches for his phone. “Но я могу умереть… (But I might…)” he grumbles, dragging his feet back over to the couch.

Shane gives himself all of three tries to successfully peel the lid off the yoghurt container, which is, as it turns out, easier said than done. One, and his fingers slip off the tab almost immediately; two, and his nail manages to catch on the rim, and he curses under his breath as he checks if it’s bent. Three, and he manages to pull it off – just the tab, though, the rest of the peelable lid still intact. Shane bites into the healed cut on the inside of his cheek for a moment, just to feel the sting, and throws the whole thing in the trash with much more force than necessary.

The trash bag is full. Shane’s foot lingers on the pedal of the bin, fingers twitching by his sides, and he snaps his head towards the living room, ready to voice his grievances – perhaps a little louder than necessary – because, truly, how fucking hard is it to pull out a full trashbag and put a fresh one in? Maybe it’s harder than making sure the fridge door is properly shut, or wiping the crumbs off the counter when you’re done making a sandwich, both things that are also not being done, and Shane is just riling himself up now, and suddenly remembers that he’s alone in the apartment, for whatever reason, and a frustrated noise escapes his throat.

Perhaps he’s been a little aggier than usual lately. Or a little aggier than he ever has been. He thinks he’s allowed to, all things considered, but maybe it’s time to reel it in a little – though this is hard to do when he keeps being provoked, and when both J.J. and Hayden seem to be walking on eggshells around him, like he’s being unreasonable, and when he doesn’t have hockey as an outlet, because he’s not allowed to attend practice as if he did anything wrong in the first place. Most importantly, when his face is still fucked up, and Ilya’s not here to kiss every bruise and scab.

He looks much better than before, at least. The swelling’s gone down now, and it’s like nothing happened to his eye at all, though his cheek is still covered in the now yellowish bruising. The scab on his lip is the most annoying of all, because Shane finds himself playing with it constantly, a nervous tic, although he knows peeling it would probably be the wrong thing to do, and he’d have to go even longer without seeing Ilya until the wound closed up again. The inside of his cheek is a non-issue. It gives him something to prod at with his tongue, and when he is finally, mercifully able to suck Ilya off again, he can just press the tip against the inside of the other cheek.

It’s not like he’s exactly starved for Ilya’s attention – not more than he perpetually is, anyway – but texting and calling is not the same as having him here, or Shane being there, and he finds himself lying in bed with his palm flush against his warm stomach and going over what he could say if he were to break and finally show up on Ilya’s doorstep, bruises and all, something that would not make him completely go insane with worry. Shane could’ve caught a puck with his cheek. He could’ve fallen, somewhere – he could’ve stacked it on campus, or he could have been entering a room at the same time Hayden was getting out, and gotten a door to the face for his troubles. There’s a lot of things that could have happened, but every time he thinks about lying to Ilya he feels bile rise in his throat, and then, naturally, he starts thinking about how he is technically lying to Ilya now, if not deliberately then by omission, and he has bite into the wound again and force himself not to think about anything at all.

He doesn’t have to do that now, because somebody’s knocking at the door, and thoughts of how horrible of a boyfriend he is are promptly buried below wondering, truly, how hard is it to remember to grab your keys before you leave the apartment? He’s ready to make his grievances known, because yelling would feel really good right now, but whatever he’s about to say dies in his throat as soon as he pulls the door open, faced with nothing short of an oasis in the desert.

“Hello, Rocky,” Ilya tells him, shoulder leaning against the doorframe.

Shane thinks he might be blushing, for whatever reason. There’s not really any point trying to cover his face, put his hand over his cheek to conceal the yellowish bruise spreading over his cheekbone and dipping into his eyebag, nor the deep red scab on his lip, and definitely not the pinkish hue starting to tint his skin under Ilya’s watchful eyes, trailing all over his face like he’s seeing him for the first time. There truly just isn’t any point – and it barely even occurs to him, not when he’s so happy to see him, and not when Ilya is wearing the blank tank top that Shane likes, and, upon taking a deep breath, the cologne he loves. So, in the end, he makes a noise low in his throat, and pulls the door open further.

Ilya brings the chilly air in with him when he steps in, and maybe that’s partly the reason why a shiver runs down Shane’s spine, though it could also be the mere fact that he’s here, and that they’re alone, and that upon shutting the door and slowly pressing his back against it Ilya crosses his arms over his chest and his biceps bulge obscenely, brow set in a hard line as he examines Shane’s face, and Shane is entirely too touch-starved not to let it all affect him down south.

But Ilya just blinks. “Did I interrupt your diarrhea time?”

“I’m fine,” Shane says quickly, nose wrinkling before he can help it. He’s got to remember to kill J and Hayden. “I never had… Which one of them told you?”

Ilya slowly uncrosses his arms (there’s no way he got even bigger in the five days Shane hasn’t seen him, there’s just no way possible) and he lets them hang by his sides as he takes a couple steps forward. Shane braces, stomach fluttering – but just when he thinks he’s about to be kissed, Ilya gently grabs his chin, fits it in the curve between his forefinger and thumb, eyes searching. “Does not matter,” Ilya mumbles, seemingly distracted, gingerly turning Shane’s face to the side to inspect the bruise, brow furrowed and lips parted. “Pike,” he says then, just as distracted, letting his thumb softly brush over the yellow mark.

Shane scoffs, eyes pointed towards the ceiling. “Fucking great.”

“Do not be mad at him,” Ilya starts, shaking his head a little. The pad of his thumb is rough, and it feels so good over Shane’s tender skin, sensitive in the best way, a sweet kind of ache that he can feel in the pit of his stomach. “He was just worried. And he knew I was worried, too.”

Shane’s eyes strain to be able to look at Ilya, what with the way his head is turned. “Who,” he deadpans.

Ilya’s eyes are unyielding. “Pike.”

“Jesus Christ,” Shane mutters, because this is deeply unsettling, and he can’t really focus on the euphoria of having Ilya’s undivided attention because of it. “Since when are you and Hayd friends?”

Ilya’s nose momentarily wrinkles, but he doesn’t do much else. He lets his thumb press against the scab on Shane’s lip, feeling the shape of it, its hardened edges. There’s a groove between his eyebrows as he does so, and Shane swallows, throat bobbing. “Since when do you have secrets from me?” he says then, finally peering into Shane’s eyes.

Shane’s mouth twists. He can guess this makes the scab sort of contort, stretch, because Ilya makes a face and a sad noise, his thumb stroking Shane’s bottom lip until he relaxes his mouth once more. “It’s not a big deal,” Shane starts, and exhales at the look Ilya gives him. “Fights happen. It’s part of the game.”

“Ah, you fight now,” Ilya tucks his chin down, eyes intense, like he’s trying to peer right into Shane’s soul. “This is a new thing, yes? To fight with your team in the locker room but not with opposing team during the game?”

A frustrated noise escapes Shane’s throat, fingers curling around Ilya’s wrist and gently pulling his hand away from his face, though he doesn’t really want to. “I’m fine,” he says again, but Ilya’s eyes are still lingering on his cheekbone. “I just didn’t want you to freak out, that’s all. It wasn’t even that bad.”

“Not that bad and you look like de Niro in Raging Bull.”

“‘s just a bruise. It’s not gonna scar.”

“That is Pacino in Scarface.”

“Ilya,” Shane is firmer now, because they’re getting off track, eyebrows raised high in his forehead. He’s glad the swelling in his eye has gone down entirely, because he supposes he looks stupid enough as it is, trying to soothe Ilya with a busted face. “It’s not a big deal, okay? It’s not my first fight. Probably won’t be the last. It’s fine,” he says, voice softer, lower, hands reaching down and playing with the hem of Ilya’s tank, pulling on it, trying to soothe. Ilya still looks unconvinced, brow ever so slightly furrowed, worried eyes tracing all over his face, and Shane peers up at him through his eyelashes, because that usually works, though only God knows how unnerving it must look now, with him looking the way he does. “Come on,” he tries, borderline purring, breath ghosting over Ilya’s still mouth. “Missed you…”

Ilya’s trying very hard to resist, from the looks of it, to keep interrogating him until he breaks. But Shane’s got him flush against his front now, and he’s letting the tips of their noses bump together, and he’s humming in the way Ilya likes, the way that communicates he wants a kiss, lips parted and wet with his own spit, eyes lidded. “You cannot keep doing this when you don’t want to talk about something,” Ilya murmurs, and if he means to sound annoyed then it simply doesn’t work, because he’s fitting his palm against Shane’s bad cheek, thumb grazing the tender skin. It doesn’t matter, though, because he leans in and presses a delicate kiss on the corner of Shane’s mouth, and then a little higher, on his philtrum.

Shane sighs with it. He tries to turn his head, to capture Ilya’s lips properly, but Ilya hesitates, pulling back a fraction. “It doesn’t hurt,” Shane says, glad that they’re alone in the apartment, because he’s not sure J.J. or Hayden would ever let him to live down how whiny he sounds right now. “See?” he says, and to prove his point, he smiles wide, letting his lip stretch, pulling the scab along with it.

Ilya laughs under his breath, and then he presses his thumb over the scab, still gentle, and Shane’s mouth relaxes again, breath evening out. “Я вижу это, моя любовь, (I see, my love)” he murmurs, and with his thumb still covering the scab, he leans in, putting his mouth on Shane’s, finding it already soft and open and pliant for him.

Shane’s breath is taken from him, and he just gives, melting as Ilya’s free hand comes up to cradle the back of his head, to stroke his skull, then tug at the hair on his nape like he’s checking he’s really there. It might be dramatic to be acting like this after a mere few days of not seeing each other, but right now it seems apt, because it’s like Shane can finally breathe easy with Ilya’s tongue carefully dipping into his mouth, and when he tries to meet it he accidentally licks the tip of Ilya’s thumb, still protecting the mostly-healed cut on his lip, and he moans, head tilting and face pushing in before he can help it, letting go of the hem of Ilya’s tank and reaching up to wrap his arms around his neck, wanting him closer, wanting him inside.

There’s no reason why he cannot get what he wants, not now that Ilya is here. Shane’s spine arches off the door, and the sounds he’s making – hums, and purrs, escaping his throat of their own volition – seem to be doing it for Ilya, because he forgets to be gentle, for a moment, his thumb slipping off the scab and pressing into the inside of his lip instead, then sliding up, grazing the edges of his top teeth, Shane’s mouth full enough for some spit to seep out and cling onto the corners of his lips, Ilya’s tongue swiping once, twice before he remembers, pulling away with a sound so wet that something zings up Shane’s spine – eyelids heavy, with no prospect of opening up any time soon. But Ilya pulls his thumb out of his mouth, then, wet with his spit, and he soothes it over the cut, and when Shane opens his eyes he finds him gazing at it worriedly, eyes darting up to meet his. “You will tell me what happened, okay?” he murmurs, and it takes Shane a moment to get over how gravelly his voice sounds, to absorb what he’s said.

He groans. “Can’t it wait?” he says, arms tightening around Ilya’s neck, trying to push their hips together, just to see if Ilya will budge. “Come on. I told you, it’s not–”

“Yes, it is not a big deal to you, Shane, because you cannot see your face right now,” Ilya intercepts, and he drops his hand off Shane’s face, because Shane is tipping his head back, groaning up at the ceiling. “Did somebody say something to you? Or Pike– Were you defending Pike or Boiziau? Shane.”

“Oh, my God, can you just let it go?” Shane grumbles, and it comes out muffled, because his hands are covering his face now, fingertips digging into his eyelids.

“Let it go?” Ilya’s saying, and when Shane peeks through his fingers he finds him staring, top lip curled over his teeth, forehead creased. Then, he starts shaking his head, “Why will you not tell me? I am– I am not freaking out, yes? Look. I am calm. I am normal.”

“You’re not being fucking normal, though, Ilya, you’re treating me like a fucking baby,” Shane clips, and he finds the opportunity to slip out from between Ilya’s rigid body and the door, because Ilya’s taken to just staring at him, sort of dumbfounded. “Fuck,” he grunts, his back turned as he drags his feet towards the couch, plopping down heavily, legs bending so he can put his feet on the edge of the table, arms crossed over his stomach. “Just fucking drop it.”

He’s not sure what Ilya’s face looks like right now, because he’s too embarrassed to look up, eyes trained on his own knees instead, pressed together, loose shorts bunching around his thighs. He doesn’t know what he expects, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Ilya were to yell right back, to call him ungrateful, maybe open the door and walk right out, until Shane is ready to apologise.

He doesn’t expect Ilya to laugh at him, not really. Shane looks up, brow furrowed, and finds that Ilya is watching him, an amused little smile on his face, hip cocked with his arms crossed over his – broad, fuck – chest. “Ah, you liked your first fight so much and now you want to fight me, too?”

Shane scowls at him. “‘s not my first fight,” he grumbles, watching Ilya aimlessly step closer, movements slow, and leisurely, like time is on his side. It always is, with Shane. “Been playing since I could fuckin’ walk, my God.”

“Sorry, Rocky.”

“Will you quit that?”

“And you are my baby,” Ilya’s right here, now, towering over Shane, and he scowls up at him with his arms still crossed, still curled in on himself, though something settles inside him at the sight of Ilya’s easy smile, the way he lowers himself down next to him, arm stretching behind his head on the back of the couch. “I will not fight my baby.”

Shane keeps staring at his knees. It’s difficult, because Ilya is not even hiding the fact that he’s watching him – eyes drilling into the side of his face, onto the bruise, no doubt, and he’s close, body heat radiating and enveloping Shane in his warmth, and he can’t be blamed for scooting closer, for letting Ilya readjust the arm he has stretched over the back of the couch so it’s touching the top of Shane’s spine instead, hand curling over his shoulder. Though Shane still does not look up, just because.

Ilya’s sighing, now. “Little chicken told me you threw the first punch,” he starts, nail grazing over the sleeve of Shane’s hoodie.

Shane scoots even closer. “It’s a little bird.”

“Mm, no, it was Pike.”

“Ilya,” Shane mumbles, though there’s no real heat behind it, and he lets Ilya keep stroking his fingers down his arm, because it is soothing, and it’s making his shoulders drop, his arms relaxing. He sighs, too. “I did, but… I don’t know. Kinda had to.”

Ilya leans in, hooking his chin on Shane’s shoulder, so he can better take in his face, and Shane lets him, turning slightly, though he doesn’t take his eyes away from his legs. “They said something to you,” he says, and it’s not exactly a question. Shane nods, regardless. “About the game?” he continues, undeterred by Shane rolling his eyes. “Because if it is about the game, they are just jealous. You were perfect.”

“It wasn’t about the game,” Shane says, trying not to preen under the praise, though the tiny curve of his mouth betrays him. Ilya nudges his chin against his shoulder. “Was just…” he tries, and ultimately fails, too embarrassed to finish that thought, shaking his head instead. “Just… fucking stupid. Stupid shit.”

“Oh, I know they are stupid,” Ilya says, and then the arm he doesn’t have curled around Shane’s shoulders reaches up, the knuckle of his forefinger tracing over the bruise on his cheek, and Shane finally faces him fully, the tension melting out of his features – one brush is all it takes. “Only stupid person sees this face and wants to hit it. Yes?”

He wonders if the bruise is starker, now that he’s flushing like this, the warmth spreading from the base of his neck to the tips of his ears, colouring his cheeks, the tip of his nose. Ilya grins, pinching Shane’s good cheek between two knuckles, but then he resumes, smoothing over the bruise like he can somehow wipe it away. “You a smart person?” Shane tries, because he sees an out, and he hums when Ilya pretends to think for a moment, and eventually nods. “What do you want to do to it?”

Ilya doesn’t think about it. “Kiss it,” he says, and Shane tries to be as inviting as possible, lets his lips part and his eyelids go heavy, head tipping forward until he can feel Ilya’s breath ghosting over his lips, chin still hooked over his shoulder. “Make it tell me what happened,” he adds, quietly.

Shane falters. It doesn’t look like Ilya’s gonna kiss him any time soon, or do anything other than peer up at him with his shiny eyes, pale, and patient, so Shane just scoffs, turning his gaze back onto his knees. “You’re real fucking stubborn, you know that?” he tacks on, for good measure.

“Me or you, Shane?” Ilya shoots back, but then he stops, because he can probably see that Shane’s body is locking right back up, that he’s sort of twitching the shoulder that Ilya’s chin is perched upon – not really, though, not hard enough to actually push him off. Just hard enough to drive his point across. With an exhale, Ilya pulls away a little, just his face, and Shane has to bite his tongue so as not to whine, because there’s been enough of that for today. “They called you a name?” he asks, and he sounds so serious that Shane can’t help but smile, and then laugh a little, though he’s annoyed at himself for doing so. “They did not call you a name?”

“This baby stuff is really getting to your head,” Shane picks at his knee, grazes the skin with a fingernail. Ilya doesn’t budge. “They didn’t call me a name,” Shane mocks, eyes downcast. “Or… Not really. I don’t know. I think Comeau almost did. Was at the tip of his tongue.”

Ilya is quiet. Shane can almost hear the gears turning in his head, and he can see his fingers twitching on his thigh in his periphery, like he’s actively fighting against touching Shane’s face again. He wants him to lose that fight, so badly. “It was something about you,” he says, grasping at straws.

There’s not really a way he’s getting out of this, not if he wants to get Ilya’s hands on him any time soon. Shane shifts in his seat, and that brings him even closer to Ilya, who tightens his arm around his shoulders and bends his elbow, fingers grazing Shane’s hair. “Kinda,” he says, and his shoulder brushes against Ilya’s chest when he shrugs it, having to suppress a shiver. “Just. Stupid shit.”

Shane almost flinches when Ilya’s forehead connects with his shoulder. “Shane, if I hear the phrase stupid shit again, I think I will–”

“Fucking– Gay stuff,” Shane finally says, a little louder, and Ilya stops talking, his forehead still pressed against Shane’s hoodie. He feels his face heat up again as soon as it’s out, and he squirms a little when Ilya’s head slowly lifts up. “Okay? Just, talking shit. It’s stupid.”

He’s not sure why his face is so hot. It’s very hard to get embarrassed around Ilya – not unless Ilya really tries to make it happen, when Shane is in much more compromising situations than this, and when he’s sure he’ll like it – but he suddenly can’t bring himself to look him in the eye, to look up from the hems of his shorts, bunched up around his thighs. But he knows Ilya is studying him – he can feel it, he can always feel it. “So… They were giving you shit for being gay?” Ilya says, and hearing it repeated back to him just makes it worse, his ears burning unbearably. “This… Comeau? And crybaby crying on your floor?”

Shane swallows. “Kind of. Yeah,” he says, digging the arch of his foot into the edge of the table, and focusing on the pressure against the bone. It’s not the exact truth, it’s not everything, and Ilya’s still watching him, and if Shane could meet his eyes he knows he’d see that crease between his eyebrows, that line beside his mouth, and that he’d have no choice but to reach out and smooth over both of them with a fingertip. “It really doesn’t matter,” he says, shaking his head a little. “It’s fucking dumb – you know it’s fucking dumb. Didn’t even bother me that much. Not really.”

He can see that Ilya’s looking at his hands, at the way Shane is digging his thumbnail into the skin of his forefinger, and only then does Shane realise he’s doing it. “It is okay if it bothered you,” Ilya starts, and his hand covers Shane’s own, holding onto his thumb and stilling it, like it’s second nature. “It is stupid, yes, but… it is still not nice to hear, baby. I would also be upset.”

“I wasn’t upset,” Shane clips, but Ilya’s hand is unyielding – in fact, he holds on tighter, thumb stroking over Shane’s bruised knuckles, dropping a kiss to his shoulder, and then another, keeping his mouth pressed there. “I really could give a shit about what, fucking, Comeau and Drapeau have to say about me being gay. I don’t give a shit.”

Ilya hums against his shoulder. “Shane, you cannot say this when you went all Rambo on these people because they had something to say about you being gay,” he says, and he lifts his head up again when Shane groans, his hand slipping off when Shane brings both of his up to rub at his face. “It is okay to stand up for yourself. Do not be embarrassed.”

“I’m not fucking embarrassed,” Shane groans, his head tipping back, throat exposed.

“Yes, мой помидор, (my tomato)” Ilya murmurs, and Shane feels his lips latch onto his Adam’s apple, leaving a kiss there, and he closes his eyes as Ilya keeps mouthing along the column of his throat, moving onto the side of his neck, tiny little kisses that leave goosebumps in their wake. “Pike said you looked very sexy fighting the bullies,” Ilya’s voice is lost in his skin, a mere vibration, and he nestles his mouth underneath the lobe of Shane’s ear, the kiss he leaves there wetter, making Shane shiver.

“No, he fucking didn’t,” Shane mumbles, tilting his head to give him more access, hands still locked on his stomach. “Don’t say bullies.”

“You will punch me, too?” Ilya buries his lips behind Shane’s ear, now, and Shane can’t help but laugh, just a breath, raising his shoulder to push Ilya away, because his mouth tickles. “Sorry, the perpetrators.”

“Where do you learn these fucking words?” Shane laughs, eyes crinkling as Ilya pulls his face out of his neck, finally facing him head on. It’s very easy to do so, and he’s not sure why he thought otherwise, mere moments ago. Ilya’s smiling, too. “Fucking perpetrators.”

“What, you think I am stupid like the assholes in your team?” Ilya raises his eyebrows, and Shane knows he’s teasing, but he still sort of purses his mouth, tries to stop his eyes from crinkling so much – to no avail, because Ilya’s face softens, and he’s running his thumb over the tender underside of Shane’s eye, down to his cheekbone, then his eyebrow, reverent in his way. “You are lucky I was not there,” he says, so quiet that Shane is not sure it was meant for him to hear.

Shane furrows his brow. “You mean they’re lucky.”

“Yes, this for sure, but,” Ilya pauses, and he exhales a laugh through his nose, pressing his thumb into Shane’s bruise almost experimentally – and pulling a face when Shane’s eye squints, the tiniest bit. “Fuck. I am not sure what I would do. Maybe I would be in prison now, you would never see me again.”

Shane laughs, but it peters out when he realises that Ilya is barely smiling, still stroking his thumb over his cheek, that line still set near his mouth. Shane puts his palm over his hand, not firm enough to keep him from caressing his skin. “You seem pretty calm about it.”

Ilya scoffs. “I had a day to calm down, Shane.”

“Yeah?”

“Yesterday, I was – fuck,” Ilya is shaking his head, and he’s itching his bottom lip with his teeth, a nervous tic he doesn’t know he has – and all Shane wants to do is reach out and pull it free, maybe tug it between his own instead. “I was ready to… I do not even know,” he says, and Shane believes him, because his jaw is very tight, and his forehead is very creased, eyes hard as he studies Shane’s face, though they soften the longer he sits there, stroking over his bruised skin, and brushing the pad of his thumb over his healed eyelid. “I was thinking of somebody putting hands on you,” he says, and nothing else – his thumb pauses on the contusion, and he breathes out through his nose, leaning in, in, until his lips are barely brushing against the tender skin and Shane has to let his eyes flutter closed, and then again, his mouth more purposeful this time, leaving a kiss on it that raises goosebumps on the nape of Shane’s neck, where his palm is pressed. Ilya pulls back, then, and Shane opens his eyes once more, his lips parted, eyes hazy, and Ilya goes back to studying his whole face, his hand leaving his neck to push back his bangs instead, then running over the rest of his hair, over and over. “Гребаные ублюдки, (Fucking bastards)” he murmurs, and it’s still so gentle – just because he’s looking at Shane as he says it, and if he didn’t know any better he’d think he were being addressed with something devastatingly beautiful, as per.

Shane loves him. This is all he can really think about, now, with Ilya’s knuckles caressing his skin and his worried eyes raking all over his features; he loves him, and he knows Ilya loves him, too, and he cannot believe he ever doubted that either of them knows this about the other, cannot fathom needing any kind of arbitrary showcase of this love to know that it’s real. He loves Ilya, and if he wants to show him off or keep him locked in this apartment forever and only let him feed from the palm of his hand, then he can do as he sees fit, as long as he keeps loving Shane like this, as much as Shane loves him.

“It was you,” Shane whispers, and Ilya’s knuckles don’t stop – they trace the line of his jaw, and they dig underneath the swell of his bottom lip, and Shane is not sure when he reached up but he’s holding onto Ilya’s wrist with one hand, his fingers curling weakly around it, the other touching his forearm. “They were talking about you.”

Ilya’s knuckles pause, and Shane squeezes his wrist, a non-verbal whine. “Me,” he checks, voice still soft, and Shane nods before he can help it, because he feels pliant, and he thinks he would agree to anything right about now. “What about me?”

“Doesn’t matter what. Anything, anything about you,” Shane’s head is shaking a little, he thinks, and Ilya starts soothing again, burying his fingers into the side of his hair and keeping his palm there, covering his ear, and Shane keeps clinging onto his wrist. “Could’ve been fucking anything, but… They had something to say about you, and I couldn’t– I snapped.”

Ilya looks pensive. He looks like he’s thinking about things he never, ever should.

“It’s not your fault,” Shane scoots closer, impossibly, until he’s got to twist his body and bring his leg up onto the cushion, his knee flush against Ilya’s thigh, his hands hanging onto his arm, needing him right where he is, maybe even closer. “They had it coming, talking about you. I couldn’t– I love you. I just snapped, as soon as they– I love you.”

“I know,” Ilya sounds like he’s consoling him, leaning his face in a little, and Shane takes one of his hands off his forearm only to fit it against his cheek, to brush his thumb over his mole. “I know you do, baby.”

“But – you can’t, you– There’s no way you know how much, there’s no way you–”

“You love me,” Ilya’s voice is slow, and firm, and it drowns out Shane’s very easily, and all Shane can do is let his throat close up once more, and feel the weight of Ilya’s wrist under the crushing grip of his fingers, “like I love you. Yes?”

Shane’s nodding, almost wild. “But you show me,” he says then, and Ilya frowns a little, though he must be trying to conceal it, thumb stroking over Shane’s eyebrow. “You show me, you talk to people about me, you don’t– You show me, you make sure I know.”

“And I do not know?” Ilya looks incredulous, his hand a little gentler on the side of Shane’s face now, like the confusion is making his limbs heavier. “I was joking before, Shane, but do you really think I am stupid?”

“I’m being serious,” Shane tugs on Ilya’s wrist, until he’s lowering his hand and Shane can just hold it, put it between both of his and feel the warmth, and the solid bone and the textured skin, and let it tether him back down. “You were right, the other day, about… I’ve been a pussy, I haven’t been–”

“Pussy?”

“–I haven’t been showing you off, and, I love you, and I want to, I just, I don’t know why I couldn’t, but – I want to, I’m proud of you, you–”

“This is about…” Ilya starts, and he’s shaking his head, probably to be able to hear his own thoughts over Shane’s rambling – it gets him to close his mouth, at least, and take a breath. “It is about… crybaby from a week ago?” Shane sniffs, though he’s not really crying, and he nods, fingertips digging into the back of Ilya’s hand – Ilya does not even flinch. “It is about what I said?” Ilya checks again, and when he gets another nod, he sort of grins, almost exasperated, and his shoulders slump, and if he wants to laugh then he’s concealing it pretty well, but Shane sniffs again, nonetheless. “What, seriously?”

Shane scoffs, eyes averted. “Yeah, seriously.”

Ilya hasn’t really stopped grinning like that. Shane can’t even fully appreciate it, because his face feels really hot, and he’s kind of annoyed by it, and Ilya is now putting both palms flush on either side of Shane’s head and shaking it about, making a noise that sounds pained, or frustrated, or perhaps like he wants to sink his teeth into the curve of Shane’s cheek and take a big bite. His hands are very solid as they hold his head, and Shane can breathe a little bit better, especially when Ilya stops rattling his brain around. “My Shane,” he says, and then he’s right there, leaving a big, wet kiss on Shane’s cheek – multiple kisses, in fact, all over his face, trailing down the side of his face and over his philtrum and his chin and catching his lips a couple of times, and moving up to his nose before Shane can kiss back, though he does hold onto both of Ilya’s hands on his face, not wanting it to end. “My Shane, мой сумасшедший, (my crazy one)” he keeps mumbling, a breath of a laugh escaping him every so often, lost in Shane’s skin. Finally, he presses his nose into Shane’s good cheek, and he inhales, lips tickling his jaw. “You know you are crazy, yes?”

Shane almost agrees, because it’s such a relief to have Ilya’s face pressed up against his in this way, and he doesn’t want to do anything to spoil it. He doesn’t say anything, in the end.

Ilya breathes out another laugh. “What I said… it is not about us,” he starts, pulling away so Shane can see his face, still smiling, beyond amused. “It will never be about us.”

Shane swallows, eyes on the dip of Ilya’s cupid’s bow. “It applies, though,” he says, voice small, and Ilya smiles wider. “It applies, because – I should talk about you, to people. I don’t want you to think I’m hiding you, that I’m – that I’m not proud of you, that I don’t love you. I want you to feel like… how you make me feel.”

Ilya is watching him very carefully. Eventually, he sighs through his nose – long, and drawn-out – and he gently removes his hands from Shane’s face, and takes Shane’s hands with him, because he won’t let go. He holds them between his own, looks down at where they’re clasped, and he’s still laughing a little, breathy chuckles that make his shoulders jerk, like this is the funniest thing in the world.

“Shane,” he says, thumb stroking over Shane’s bruised knuckles, eyes crinkling at the corners – though he’s still looking at their hands. “What you and I have… It is…” he shakes his head, and shakes it some more, like words evade him, and when he looks up again it’s a shock to see his eyes, because Shane knows Ilya loves him, but it’s still almost astounding to see just how much – and he can now, because Ilya’s eyes look hazy, beautiful, like he’s drunk on something. “It is so different from… anything else. From what anybody else has. Things like this, it does not– They have nothing to do with us, baby. I am not thinking this about you. I am not missing anything.”

Shane’s throat bobs. He’s still digging his fingertips into the backs of Ilya’s palms, like he’s trying to make sure he’s there, and Ilya just takes it, face tranquil, eyes studying his own like he’s trying to peer into his brain.

“But… I want to do it for you,” Shane whispers, lips dry. “I want… people to know about you. I want to show them how important you are. I want to show you.”

Ilya grins again. “I would love this,” he slips one hand out of Shane’s grasp – with great difficulty – to smooth it over his cheek again, the bad one, not as gentle as before, a little more like he usually does it, firm as he pushes the skin back, like it’s his to mould however he pleases. It aches so sweet where the bruise is, and Shane feels a tingle at the base of his spine. “It makes me very happy. But… you have to understand that it is not, ah… priority, for me.” He raises his eyebrows, then, as if to drive his point home. “I know how it is.”

Shane blinks, and his eyes almost flutter shut for a moment, because Ilya’s still smoothing his cheek back.

“How I feel about you, it is, like… Nobody can understand it, anyway,” Ilya shrugs a shoulder, and Shane can’t help the smile that blooms on his face, even wider when Ilya smiles back, like Shane’s happiness is infectious, like he can feel it for himself. “I cannot even put it in words, sometimes. You know?”

“I know,” Shane says, very quickly – he’s probably the only person who knows what Ilya means, how he feels, and this makes him dizzy with bliss, makes him sniff for an entirely different reason now. He hopes Ilya knows that Shane knows. He wants Ilya to know everything about him that there is, things that even Shane doesn’t. “I love you. It’s hard, because… It’s the only thing I can say, and it’s not really enough, and I don’t know– I don’t know how to show you, and it’s so…” Shane takes a deep breath, and soothes over the red marks he left on Ilya’s hands. “It pisses me off,” he ends up saying, the side of his mouth tugging upward.

Ilya laughs. “You can just look at me. And I will know,” he tells him, tapping his thumb against his cheek so that Shane looks up, and God knows what his eyes must look like, how shiny they must look and how full of devotion, but it feels good, because Ilya’s face settles into something knowing, and it’s such a relief, him being aware. Then, a thought seems to be weighing down his eyebrows, and the pad of his thumb settles onto the outer corner of Shane’s eye. “This is why you fought those guys?” he says, and Shane presses his lips together. “Because of what I said?”

He focuses on the weight of Ilya’s thumb, on the way his eyelashes brush against the tip of it. “I don’t think so,” he says, barely thinking. “I was thinking about it, before… What I would do if something like that happened.”

Ilya smiles. “Like, ah… fantasy?”

“Shut up,” Shane grins, and he doesn’t stop, even as Ilya’s thumb slides down to the side of his mouth, settling on the stretched corner of his lips. Shane’s eyes settle on his crucifix, glittering in the middle of his chest. “But in the moment, I just – snapped,” he says, a little more far-away, smile slowly settling into something more neutral. “I didn’t even think about it. I couldn’t think about anything.”

“Oh,” Ilya drags it out, tapping his palm against Shane’s cheek a couple of times. “Мой рыцарь. My knight,” he provides, as he does with every new word that comes up, as per Shane’s request. Shane files it away for later, because Ilya’s gaze softens now, a groove settling between his eyebrows. “You did not have to do that.”

Ilya’s looking at his bruises again. He fits his thumb against the yellow mark on Shane’s cheek, and he presses down in a substantial way, and it’s remarkable that it doesn’t hurt, at least not the way it would if anybody else were to touch it, if Shane himself were to touch it. It feels good – it feels like Ilya’s here, it feels like he’s taking that bruise and he’s turning it into something else, turning it into his own, and when his eyes settle on the scab on Shane’s lip and he starts to smooth over it with the forefinger of his other hand, Shane lets his lips part, because he wants the finger in deeper, he wants Ilya to give him another cut on the inside of his mouth, on his tongue, and he wants Ilya to give him a thousand more bruises to make up for the fact that Shane carries the reminder of somebody else’s hands on his body, and it doesn’t matter that it will fade. It’s here, now, and that won’t do. “Does it look bad?” Shane murmurs, though it feels like he’s floating somewhere, with Ilya’s hands being the only thing keeping him anchored down.

Ilya looks like he’s just heard about the most ridiculous thing in the world. “No,” is all he says, so simple, and promptly presses his thumb square in the middle of Shane’s mouth, observing the way it digs into his lips, how the skin behaves under the pressure. He looks mesmerised, and Shane feels mesmerised, too, by the fact this look is directed at him, and only him. “I think I am jealous,” Ilya says, then, seemingly unthinking, because his eyes zone back in as soon as he says it.

A laugh bursts out of Shane’s mouth, short and sweet, and Ilya’s thumb slips onto his top teeth when he grins. “That sounds bad,” he says, but he’s only joking, because he knows what Ilya means. He always knows what Ilya means, what he’s thinking – he knows it makes him angry to think about anybody putting their hands on Shane, this much is clear, and he knows that he must be feeling sick at being confronted with the proof, right there on Shane’s face. That there’s a mark now, however temporary, that somebody else has been where only Ilya belongs, that they have sullied it. Shane doesn’t like that, of course, he doesn’t like the thought of his own face somehow taunting Ilya in this way – but he would be lying if he said that it also doesn’t make him dizzy with something else, that he doesn’t feel like he’s on fire at the prospect of Ilya feeling this. At the sight of Ilya feeling this, right now. “Only want your hands,” Shane says, and Ilya breathes out through his nose. “Only want your bruises.”

He seems to settle a little. Ilya hums, the pad of his thumb feeling out the sharp edges of Shane’s bottom teeth, moving back to press against his molars, and Shane keeps his lips parted, and wills himself not to bite down, as much as he wants to. “You want more?” he says, voice dipping, and he’d almost sound genuine if Shane didn’t know any better. Ilya watches his eyelids flutter, feels Shane’s tongue squirm with the effort of not wrapping around his thumb. “These are not enough for you?” he says, and pulls his thumb out.

There’s spit clinging on Shane’s bottom lip. “They’re not yours,” he says, immediately, and the noise that Ilya makes goes straight to his stomach, low and barely audible, Shane’s fingers desperately grasping at any part of him that’s the closest – his thighs. “They’re not yours. I want yours.”

“Fuck,” Ilya breathes, spit-slick thumb pushing into Shane’s cheek, right under where Shane wants it, like he’s still holding back somehow. “Where, baby?” he says, barely a purr, and the noise that gets caught in Shane’s throat is completely involuntary, trying to push Ilya’s thumb right on the centre of the bruise, wanting the press, the ache. “Where do you want them?”

Shane is panting, now. “Anywhere,” he says, or begs, and he’s managed to get Ilya to press down on his bad cheek in the way he craves, hissing at the ache, the tenderness spreading beneath his skin, the rough pad of Ilya’s thumb unrelenting, until Shane can feel the sweet throb travelling down his spine, making his thighs fall open, just slightly, reaching his socked toes. “Wherever you want them,” he says, even as Ilya’s head is leaning in, tilting to the side, lips wet. “Anywhere.”

“Mm, here?” Ilya is saying, or murmuring, the words lost in Shane’s skin as he presses his lips on the side of his throat, and Shane tilts his chin up, eyes fluttering closed, his smile dazed as Ilya presses a kiss there, leaving spit in his wake.

Shane’s breath is shuddered, and he wraps an arm around Ilya’s neck, having half a mind to rearrange his legs, both on the couch now, letting Ilya settle between them, so he can be closer. “Yeah,” he whispers, and Ilya hums.

“Yeah,” he mimics, and Shane smiles even wider, and wider again when Ilya’s lips trail further up, nestling right under Shane’s jaw. “Or here?” he prods, and this time he lets his teeth nip at the skin, and it tickles, and Shane can’t help but laugh and try to pull away, turning his face to the side – though maybe that’s the wrong thing to do, because Ilya seems to take it as a challenge. He latches onto Shane’s neck, mouth soft and open, teeth scraping, ignoring Shane’s bubbling laughter, how he falls back in an attempt to get away, though it’s no use, because Ilya’s right there, kneeling between his legs and grabbing onto the arm Shane has thrown around his neck, pressing it flush onto the cushion, and then the other one, too, when Shane tries to sneak it down between their bodies. “You are playing hard to get now?” he says, and Shane stifles another bout of laughter.

“Wanna touch you,” he says instead, half-heartedly struggling against Ilya’s grip on his arms – though he could get away, easily, but this is always part of it. Ilya squeezes his forearms, as if mocking him. “Want you to mark me up.”

“Mm, but which do you want more?”

“Ilya.”

“I have, ah, a theory,” Ilya says then, nosing under Shane’s jaw, and Shane shudders, exposing his throat for the taking. “Tell me if I am right, okay?”

Shane grunts, wiggling his hips, because it might make Ilya get his act together.

“Very nice, мой зайчик, (my bunny)” is all Ilya says, pushing their hips together once, and Shane scoffs in return. “I think,” he starts, pausing as he lets his breath ghost over Shane’s throat once more, lips brushing, and it’s so cruel how he ignores Shane’s squirming, and his attempts to touch, but he knows he won’t stop until Shane is teetering on the edge, “you are still trying to show me off. Hm?”

Shane is still panting, embarrassingly so. “Didn’t we just have this conversation?”

“Yes, I know all about you fighting a group of men to defend my honour.”

“It was two guys.”

“But I do not think you are satisfied,” Ilya hums, and his nose presses in, inhaling the scent concentrated on Shane’s pulse point, feeling the thump of it picking up beneath his face. Shane shivers. “Want me to leave marks all over you? Want them to see, in the locker room?”

Shane’s too dizzy to respond, only partially aware of Ilya’s hand letting go of one of his arms to grab onto his thigh instead, kneading it in his palm, fingertips rough where they dig in, and he wishes he could be bit already, wishes Ilya would stop talking, and that he’d never stop talking, that he’d just dig his teeth into his neck and that he’d keep taunting him, he wishes he could be eaten alive and live in the warmth of Ilya’s gut.

“Show me where you want them,” Ilya says, when it’s become obvious that Shane is far too gone to reply. He manages to look at Ilya’s face, although everything’s a little hazy, but he can see everything that matters – Ilya’s eyes, bright and full of love, and his bitten-red mouth, and the mole, Shane’s mole, right there on his flushed cheek. “Show me, baby. Hm?” Ilya encourages, thumb stroking over the inside of Shane’s thigh.

Shane’s throat clicks when he swallows, and his arm feels heavy when he tries to move it, to do what’s asked of him. A noise escapes his throat when he exhales, and he barely feels in control of his own body as he weakly touches the side of his own neck, eyes moist.

“There?” Ilya says, and smiles when Shane nods, barely a twitch of his head. “Yes, sir,” he mumbles, and then he’s lowering his head, and Shane misses his face for all of two seconds before he feels his lips latch onto his neck once more, replacing Shane’s fingers. Ilya’s teeth pull at the skin, and then he sucks, tongue working, and it hurts and Shane wants more, so much more, managing to slip his other arm out of Ilya’s grasp and grab onto the curls at the nape of his neck, fingers tangling in his hair and tugging, though Ilya doesn’t budge in the slightest.

“Fuck,” Shane whimpers, because that’s all he can do, mouth open and willing, desperate to let Ilya have his way with him, to let him keep sucking and biting and licking, and he’s imagining his skin blooming red in Ilya’s mouth, turning into something purple and beautiful with time, proof that Ilya was here, and that he will continue to be here. When Ilya pulls away, it’s with a wet pop and with another sharp exhale from Shane, eyes barely open as Ilya’s face comes back into view. Waiting. Shane’s fingers tremble as he brings them up once more, and he has to swallow a few times, finally able to bring himself to press his fingers a little lower, nearly down to the base of his neck. “Here,” he croaks, and the sound of his own voice sends a jolt of something down his spine, wet and pathetic.

Ilya doesn’t say anything, this time. He just hums, and he dives in tongue first, laving it over Shane’s skin, like he’s tasting him, and Shane can’t help but tip his head back further, spread his legs and wrap them around Ilya’s hips, pull him in with his heels pushing against the backs of his thighs. Then, he feels the bite; Ilya’s teeth are sharp, and the sting is delicious, and heady, and Shane faintly realises that his forehead is starting to hurt because his eyebrows are furrowed so close together, and he tries to relax his face as Ilya sucks, trying to keep his head from lolling to the side. Ilya’s still got an iron-grip on his thigh, and Shane tries to flex it under his palm, tries to be good, make it feel as good as it feels for him, and as Ilya keeps sucking on his skin he can’t help but smile up at the ceiling, dazed, almost stupefied.

Ilya pulls off with another sound. He rubs his lips together, and his eyes are not on Shane’s face, because he seems to be admiring his handiwork – he soothes over the tender spot with a thumb, lids heavy as he examines Shane’s neck, and it only takes a moment for the corner of his mouth to start curving, like he can’t help it. Shane loves him. “Better now?” Ilya says, and Shane’s still smiling, pushing his heels into his ass. “More? Where?”

Shane tucks his chin down again, and now that he and Ilya are on eye-level, he feels his smile soften, his cheeks flushing, matching the red of Ilya’s mouth. He’s doing it again, rubbing a knuckle over his bruised cheek, and it just doesn’t matter anymore, not when Shane has two infinitely more beautiful marks on his neck, and many more to come, maybe lower, if Ilya were so kind. But for now, Shane smiles at him, eyes wet with unshed tears, and he raises a sluggish hand up to his face again, touching his bottom lip with two fingertips, a suggestion.

Ilya grins. “There?”

A nod is all it takes, and Ilya is still grinning as he lowers himself onto his forearms, almost giddy, because he loves kissing Shane, and he tells him so all the time. The first touch is sweet, Shane’s bottom lip kissed and sucked, and then Shane can’t help leaning his head up, fitting their mouths together, Ilya’s tongue soon swiping into his mouth and leaving him breathless, and Shane wishes he would press it against the healed cut on the inside of his cheek and open it back up and pull away with Shane’s blood staining his teeth. Shane wants it bad enough that his thighs tighten around Ilya’s hips, and Ilya’s huff gets lost in his mouth when Shane pulls him in, flush against his front, mouth going slack when his crotch presses against Ilya’s as a result, spine going numb, then atingle.

There’s a finger pressing square in the middle of the tender bruise on the side of his throat. Ilya traces the shape of his own mouth on Shane’s skin, feels the blood rush beneath it, and Shane is just breathing into his mouth, jaw too loose to be able to kiss back. “I think you can come from this,” Ilya is saying, and it gets Shane to open his eyes. Ilya’s pulled away, now. “Me marking you.”

Shane’s conscious enough to huff out a breath. “Yeah?” he says, and pretends he doesn’t shiver at the sound of Ilya’s mhm. “You’re that good.”

“I am good enough for you to fight a team of hockey players, so, yes. I think so.”

“It was two guys,” Shane is groaning, but it’s laced with a laugh, and a big smile, tipping his face up into the ceiling again as Ilya finds the opportunity to latch onto the hinge of his jaw. He closes his eyes as Ilya suckles, hand stroking the back of his hair, feeling the curls spring beneath his fingers. Then, he opens his eyes: “Does that turn you on?”

Ilya is smiling against his skin, he can feel it. “What are you talking about?”

“You know,” Shane purrs, though he doesn’t mean to, but he doesn’t have the wherewithal to be embarrassed about it, not when Ilya pulls his face out of his neck to look at him with glittering eyes. “Like… me fighting for you.”

Ilya’s teeth are very shiny. “Say it again,” he murmurs, thumb catching onto the crease between Shane’s inner thigh and his crotch.

Shane breathes out a laugh. “Me fighting for y–”

Ilya’s head tips back as he lets out a guttural moan, pornographic and exaggerated, and Shane’s cheeks strain as he grins, barely able to see Ilya peer down at him once more through his crinkling eyes, fingers burying into his curls to keep him from looking away. “Fuck, I almost blew,” Ilya’s saying, and Shane laughs, tugging at his hair.

“Shut up,” he says, though he would be lying if he said he’s not throbbing in his briefs, seeing how affected Ilya is, how cloudy his eyes are and how he’s sneaking his hand up the hem of Shane’s loose shorts, palming him, until the smile drops off Shane’s face and he can do little else but pant, trying to push his hips up. “Fuck, don’t shut up,” he says, feeling Ilya’s breath on his face when he exhales a laugh.

“Who is luckier than me?” Ilya says, and he finally, finally grabs Shane’s dick, albeit through his briefs, and he’s feeling entirely too hot with his hoodie still on, with Ilya’s body heat rolling off in waves, but he can’t really think about anything other than the shape of Ilya’s mouth, how it wraps around the words. “Big, strong boyfriend to defend me. Fighting two teams of hockey players for me.”

Shane’s floating too high to be able to joke about the ever-increasing number of the guys he supposedly fought, and Ilya’s pulling his hand out of his shorts now, only to push the waistband down, tucking it under his balls, until Shane slaps up against his fabric-clad stomach. It surely won’t take much for him to come – it could be the ghost of Ilya’s breath, or a single swipe of his thumb, or even another look of his, hooded and hazy, maybe another Ilya-shaped bruise decorating his hipbone. Not much at all, barely anything, and Shane’s spine arches when Ilya pushes the hem of his hoodie up, the cool air hitting his tense stomach, dribbling pre on his navel.

“This is from two hickeys and a kiss?” Ilya muses, knuckles brushing along Shane’s shaft, lips stretching into a smile. “Aw, you love me.”

“Let’s see you,” Shane huffs, nodding his chin, eyes locked where Ilya’s straining in his pants, letting his head fall back against the cushion when Ilya makes a noise. “That’s what I thought.”

He flinches when he feels a palm slap against the back of his thigh, but when he looks down Ilya is just shrugging off his tank top, letting it fall onto the floor with an amused glint in his eye, and Shane cannot find it in him to complain, not when he wants to be slapped again, and not when Ilya’s chest looks so broad, when his stomach is heaving, and especially not when he can see now, without the barrier of the fabric, that his skin is peeling a little on his shoulder, right beside the crook of his neck.

“I’m gonna fucking kill you if you don’t start wearing sunscreen,” Shane says, and Ilya’s moan does not sound like a joke, this time, so Shane slides a hand out of his hair in favour of slapping it against his cheek, once, and getting Ilya to look at him again. “I’m serious.”

“I am going to fucking kill you if you do not touch my dick, right now,” Ilya says through gritted teeth, and Shane grunts, lifting his hips up once more, and it’s not long before Ilya is shoving his tongue back into Shane’s mouth, taking matters into his own hands, scrambling to push his own waistband down his hips, the elastic digging into the meat of his thighs. Shane tries to reach down, tries to help him, but then Ilya is pulling away from his mouth and Shane is left chasing his lips, eyes half-open, barely able to register the sound of Ilya spitting before he feels his rough palm wrap around the both of them, hips digging into the backs of his thighs, making his legs fold up in the air.

There’s not much he can think about, other than how good this feels, and how good Ilya smells, and how beautiful his eyes are, peering down at him like this, and how much he wants to press his open mouth against his cheek and lick wherever he can find, let the tip of his tongue lave over his mole, and the tip of his nose, dip into the obscene curve of his cupid’s bow. But, “Fuck,” is all that ends up coming out, and he realises that he cannot possibly last very long, not when this has been building for days, and not when Ilya is doing everything exactly as he likes it, wrist twisting and thumb lingering on his slit, mouth open as he studies every twitch of Shane’s face. “Fuck, Ilya, I won’t… Fuck.”

“Ты такой красивый, (You are so beautiful,) my Shane, is okay, has been so long, yes?” Ilya’s saying, babbling, hand speeding up, and it should prickle a little because his hand is not wet enough, the glide barely eased by his spit and Shane dripping down on them both, but Shane loves it regardless, and he loves Ilya’s sounds, and he loves the twitch of his nose as he concentrates, but the most important of all is that he loves him, obscenely, so badly that he doesn’t really know what to do with it, doesn’t know how to do anything other than dig his nails onto the meat of his shoulders and try to pull him closer, though there’s nowhere else he could possibly go.

His neck throbs where Ilya’s mouth has been, aching sweetly, and the thought is sudden, and unbidden, and it has him panting wetly, because he wants this for Ilya, too, he wants him to feel it, to carry the shape of Shane’s mouth and his teeth on the soft skin of his neck. “Come here,” he breathes, desperate, and he can tell Ilya’s not sure what he means but he does it anyway, because Shane asked, and this has Shane moaning as he presses his lips against the side of his throat and starts sucking onto the skin, hollowing his cheeks, wanting to taste blood.

Ilya’s groan is guttural, and Shane feels it in his mouth, feels it vibrate against his teeth, and he sucks harder, tongue pressing in. “Oh, fuck, Shane,” he grunts, hand stuttering, though he resumes when Shane whines into his neck, bucking his hips up into his hand. He’s so close he can taste it, along with the salt of Ilya’s skin, every muscle in his body feeling ready to unwind, and it’s all he can do to keep his mouth on Ilya’s neck and not toss his head back, not let it overtake him before he leaves a mark, before Ilya can go home, go to work, go exist in the vicinity of other people without everybody knowing that Shane has been here, that he’s never leaving. But it’s difficult, and his thighs are starting to shake with the effort of holding back, and then Ilya – cruel, always so cruel – lets out a wet breath and says, low in his throat: “I am yours, yes? Show me, show me how much you love me.”

The first splash of Shane’s come shoots onto the exposed skin of his belly, and his mouth goes slack against Ilya’s skin, nose mashing into his neck, forehead pressing into Ilya’s tight jaw. He’s vaguely aware of his nails leaving half-moon crescents on Ilya’s shoulders, but he knows that Ilya likes it, and he can’t seem to worry about anything else because he sees stars behind his eyelids, Ilya stroking him through it, and cooing, using his come to make the glide smoother, still gripping the both of them in one rigid fist, though he soon lets himself slip out, focusing instead on squeezing every last drop out of Shane’s tip, like he wants to see it, like he wants the physical manifestation of Shane’s love right there, spilling over his fist.

Shane’s head falls back onto the cushion with a soft thud, chest heaving, pulse hammering in his ears. He can see it, through half-lidded eyes – the red shape of his own mouth on Ilya’s neck, beside his throat, still blooming and tender, and a shiver wracks through his body, though he does not have much more to give. But Ilya does, and Shane is selfish for wanting it all, all that and more, and he can’t help but press his palm against Ilya’s twitching pec and squeeze, watching the tips of his fingers leave little white marks where they dig in. “Want you to come on my face,” he says, barely audible.

Ilya quickly grips the base of his own cock and squeezes, his groan shaking Shane’s entire core, but he’s nodding – which is good, because Shane doesn’t think he can find his voice again, entirely transfixed on the sight of Ilya’s pec filling out his palm, and his wild eyes. He has to let his hand slip off his chest as Ilya rearranges them, gently lowers Shane’s aching legs down onto the cushions before he swings his own over his hips, scooting up, knees digging onto the couch on either side of Shane’s ribs, hand finding purchase onto the armrest, the muscles of his arm bulging. He looks so big like this, towering over Shane, and all he can do is peer up at him through his eyelashes, because he wants it so bad, wants Ilya’s come drying right over his bruised cheek, the scab on his lip.

There’s not really anything in the world that could get Shane as high as this. Ilya’s musk, his scent, right under his nose, hand pumping his cock as he stares at Shane’s face, because he loves it, because it does something to him. His undivided attention, his soft, open mouth, his fluttering eyelids, like he’s fighting to keep his eyes open lest he miss the slightest twitch of Shane’s face. So, so gorgeous, watching him like he needs him, like he could do this forever, and Shane needs to make him come so hard he cries, wants him to lose his voice and make him fall apart so he can put him back together again.

Shane opens his mouth, and Ilya only has a second to grip the base of his cock before his tongue pokes out, licking at the glistening head, peeking out through the peeled-back foreskin. He laps at the slit, neck straining as he leans his head up, eyes on Ilya’s face and his hands resting on his thighs, stroking along the expanse of them, feeling them tremble with effort. Then, Shane is kissing it, lips brushing against the tip, and Ilya’s sounds are strangled, knuckles going white around his cock, tongue licking over the sweat gathering on his top lip.

Shane shudders when Ilya bumps the tip against his lips, once, then twice, trying to push inside. “Yeah, fuck,” he whispers, and Ilya takes advantage of his open mouth to slip the head in with a push of his thumb, letting Shane suckle, eyes wet and trying so, so hard to keep them open, because Ilya loves them, and he tells him so often. Shane hollows his cheeks, spit clinging onto the corners of his mouth, Ilya fucking in shallowly, thumb pressed against Shane’s pouting bottom lip, and the way he’s staring looks worshipful, entirely devoted, like he can’t quite believe his eyes, like not coming in Shane’s mouth is akin to resisting an integral bodily function.

Shane can’t help it; one of his hands reaches back, grabbing onto Ilya’s ass with the intention of pushing him forward, because he wants more, but it feels so good filling out his palm. He’s not sure what spurs him on more, whether it’s Ilya’s choked-off moans or how good he tastes on Shane’s tongue, maybe how soft and full he feels in his hand, and he suddenly wants to mark him there, too, bite in and feel the flesh give out beneath his teeth – but he can’t, not when he’s so busy suckling and kissing all over his tip, so he settles for letting his index finger blindly slide down Ilya’s crack and settle against his rim, pressing against it. The touch is barely there, but Ilya seems affected all the same: his head tips back, and he swears under his breath, something about fuck and shit and there’s a Shane thrown in there, too, his cock slipping out of Shane’s mouth, and Shane feels the first spurt hit the side of his nose, and the next one his top lip, and he opens his mouth to catch whatever Ilya is giving him, all drawn-out moans and staggered breaths and trembling thighs, ass clenching in Shane’s hand. Then, Ilya focuses on his cheek, pointing his cock towards it and painting the yellowish bruise, and Shane has to close his eyes, though he doesn’t want to, listening to Ilya’s deep, sharp inhales, the groans escaping him on the exhales, the way he presses the tip against Shane’s cheekbone and rubs it all in, dipping it into the bag under his eye.

He only opens his eyes again when he hears Ilya’s hand slapping against the armrest, once, mouth tight as he squeezes out the last of it, moaning in the back of his throat, wiping his cock against Shanes’s face one last time before he lets go of himself, slowly flagging. “Fuck,” he breathes, eyes unfocused, and then his thumb is gently wiping the come off Shane’s top lip and pressing against his mouth, slipping in, breathing out deeply when Shane starts suckling again, eyes locked on his face. “Fuck,” he says again, eyes darting all over his features, suddenly desperate. “Shane, I want a picture.”

Shane pauses, and he lets Ilya’s thumb slip out of his mouth, slowly gathering his bearings. It presses on his bottom lip, instead. “No faces,” Shane says, like he has a million times before, and Ilya makes a noise, pulling his bottom lip down gently, letting it spring back into place. “You have, like, a million others to look at. Enough.”

“But what if there is a face that looks so beautiful covered in my come? What can I do then?”

“Cope,” Shane says, though he can’t help but smile as Ilya groans again, scooting down until he’s hovering over Shane’s hips, lifting his leg and settling between Shane and the couch cushions instead, barely able to lie down before Shane’s body is twisting, arm hooking over his neck, trying to nestle into his side, clinging on with no desire to let go.

“Hold on, baby,” Ilya is saying, grunting as he shifts, and Shane wants to ask him about his back, and he wants to get up so Ilya can lay down properly, but Ilya is grabbing onto the hem of his hoodie, now. “Too hot, take this off.”

Shane grunts, too, and Ilya takes matters into his own hands, lifting his hoodie up and pulling it over his head, and Shane feels it sort of stick to his face, nose wrinkling when his head is released once more. Ilya laughs at him, draping over his body as he reaches for something on the floor, settling back down with his discarded tank top in his hand.

“Gross,” Shane murmurs, though he can only guess how giddy he must look as Ilya gingerly wipes the come off his face, gentler over his bruise, because he can feel the way his smile pushes into his cheeks and makes the apples of them strain, eyelashes fluttering as Ilya starts working over his eyelid. “You can borrow one of mine if you want.”

Ilya breathes out a laugh, still working, distracted. “You want me to wear a shirt?”

A pause. “No,” he says, soft, eyelashes fluttering as Ilya keeps running the soft material of his tank over his face, gathering the come. “I want you to wear my shirt.”

“Mm,” Ilya says, seemingly satisfied with his work, because he settles half onto his back with another grunt, and Shane is quick to lay his head on his shoulder, trap his arm under his weight, tuck his body flush into Ilya’s side. Ilya is studying the fabric in his hand. “I will wear this tomorrow.”

Shane scoffs into his chest, reaching out to bat the shirt out of Ilya’s hand, and failing, “Stop that.”

“Mm, you are right. Wait,” Ilya shifts, then, and Shane’s eyes are half-closed, so he only feels the fabric of Ilya’s tank rub against his come-covered stomach, and he sputters out an incredulous laugh into his skin. “This is my lucky shirt.”

“Can we be quiet?” Shane says, though he’s smiling, stomach tensing with silent laughter, cracking an eye open at Ilya’s heavy sigh. He tosses the shirt towards the other side of the couch, and Shane clicks his tongue. “Oh, my God.”

“I turned it inside out,” Ilya soothes, and Shane doesn’t truly care, because it’s not the first time they’ve gotten come on this couch, or lube, or spit or whatever, so he settles for bending his leg and draping it over Ilya’s own, arm stretching over his stomach, leaving a lazy, wet kiss wherever he can reach – his pec. It makes Ilya bury his fingers into his hair and scratch, and Shane makes a happy noise, and leaves another kiss, and another.

They settle, and Shane thinks he could fall asleep in seconds, and only wake up to piss, or eat, or make Ilya come again. “Will you scratch my back?” he mumbles, and hums happily as Ilya’s hand immediately slides out of his hair, nails starting to rake down Shane’s sweaty back, down the expanse of his spine. He’s tempted to ask for the moon, all of a sudden, just to see how long it would take for him to have it, how exactly Ilya would manage to pluck it out of the sky for him. He’s sure that he would find a way. But Shane loves him, and there is nothing else he could possibly want.

He’s not sure how much time has passed when Ilya’s fingers still against his back. “Oh, fuck.”

“Wha’?” Shane slurs, frowning, lifting his head so he can dig his chin in Ilya’s chest and peer up at him – though it’s with great difficulty, movements sluggish.

Ilya’s staring at the ceiling. “I forgot I had Pike’s permission to fuck you in his bed.”

Shane stares for a little while longer, blinking, assessing. In the end, he presses his cheek back onto Ilya’s chest. “Oh, shut up.”

“Is true!” Ilya exclaims, and Shane squints one eye shut, because they’re supposed to be quiet, and Ilya’s supposed to be scratching his skull, and Shane is supposed to be falling asleep listening to his heartbeat. “You think you have one more in you? Please.”

“You’re so fucking weird,” Shane murmurs, though there’s something flaring in his gut, and he tries to push it down in favour of snuggling into Ilya’s side and feeling his arm tighten around his back, feel him press his mouth on the crown of his head. He can’t help but think, though. “Ask me later.”

Laughter buried in his hair, and then there’s kisses, too, and fingers pushing his sweaty bangs off his face, and it’s so easy to close his eyes now, and to let Ilya’s other hand cross over their bodies and rest on his ass, rubbing and kneading and squeezing, and this must be what heaven is, Ilya breathing in the scent of his hair as Shane plays with his crucifix. “Мой извращенчик (My little pervert)” Ilya mutters into his hair, and Shane’s teeth nip at his pec, because he knows what this means, Ilya’s made sure of that. Then, with the leverage he has on his ass, he pulls Shane half on top of him, until he’s laying flush on his front, his leg between Ilya’s own, laughing into Ilya’s chest. Knuckles brushing over his bruised cheek, now. “My Shane.”