Archive of Our Own

It’s surprisingly easy, natural even, to crawl into Rozanov’s lap. To cradle his blonde head between his palms and weave his fingers through Rozanov’s thick curls; to rub his thumb over Rozanov’s earlobe and gently rock them back and forth at the edge of the mattress. 

The shape of Rozanov--Ilya, he reminds himself, Ilya--is solid beneath him. He’s warm and sniffly, his face pressed into Shane’s pec right by his armpit, his tears soaking through the fabric of Shane’s nice, new shirt but he finds he doesn’t mind. Doesn’t mind even a little bit when Ilya breathes shakily and rubs his nose over the sleeve of Shane’s shirt, probably leaving behind a trail of snot. In fact, something in him warms and unfurls and spreads all throughout his body at the action. At the vulnerability in it. He wants to tuck Ilya into his chest and keep him there. Maybe forever. 

That particular thought makes Shane’s stomach twist itself into an uncomfortable knot. 

I would never be able to go back home again. Do you get that?

Shane pulls back, just a fraction, his palm still cupping the back of Ilya’s head as he slides his thumb along Ilya’s temple, catching stray tears on the pad then smudging them into Ilya’s hairline. Not burying the evidence of Ilya’s vulnerability but carefully, tenderly, tucking it somewhere safe. Between the press of their bodies. 

You don’t like me.

Rozanov--Ilya--shudders through a snotty inhale then blinks up at Shane, his eyes wet and dark in the low lamplight. Involuntarily, like he just can’t help himself--he can’t, he really can’t--Shane’s forehead drops and then their noses are bumping together. Their breaths mingle in the space between them. The tip of his nose catches on the bump of Ilya’s bridge--the bone broken and healed and broken again--before sliding down further, dragging over the curve of Ilya’s cupid’s bow.

He closes his eyes. Ilya shifts and presses his lips to the corner of Shane’s mouth and then just lingers there. Lingers, and lingers, and lingers. His nose tucked against Shane’s cheek, his fingers grasping at Shane’s shirt. Somehow it’s the closest they’ve ever been.

“Do you feel better?” Shane asks, and it’s muffled where his mouth is smeared against Ilya’s damp cheek, but he knows Ilya hears it because he tenses and sucks in a ragged breath. His shoulders roll back like he’s preparing to push away and Shane holds him tighter, clamps his thighs around Ilya’s hips. He doesn’t want him to pull away. “Don’t,” Shane says and Ilya pauses, fingers flexing against Shane’s hip. A nervous twitch perhaps.

“I’m not--” he starts and Shane shakes his head, dipping down and brushing their mouths together. He tastes tears on Rozanov’s lips and he licks away the salt.

“You are,” Shane insists and finally settles when he feels Ilya relent, spine slumping as Shane slides his fingers through his hair. “Stay,” he murmurs and Ilya shivers, tilting his head, mouth smudging against Shane’s chin. Shane soothes his thumb in circles over Ilya’s earlobe, something he’s seen Rozanov do to himself a dozen times before. The effect is immediate. Ilya’s head sags into the touch and his lashes flutter. “Stay,” Shane repeats.

“Is my room,” Ilya retorts, tone bordering on bitchy. Shane huffs a laugh and pulls back to look down at Ilya again. Ilya stares back at him warily, eyes darting around Shane’s face like he doesn’t quite trust anything he’s seeing. Like he’s the one that’s asking stay and Shane is the one pulling away.

Shane thinks of Ilya asking him to stay in Boston. Lips pressed to the pinched corner of his mouth as Ilya whispered stay into the quiet afternoon. In the months since then he has wondered what would have happened if he had stayed. 

Is simple for me.

Nothing about any of this has ever been simple. They both knew that. Any attempt at pretending otherwise was, as Shane had said, bullshit.

"You are staring at me,” Ilya mumbles then. It sounds self-conscious in a way that Shane is unfamiliar with coming from Rozanov’s mouth. And he wants to say something witty or flirty or teasing in retort but he comes up short. He's too busy fixating on the shifting colours in Ilya’s eyes. Blue and green and hazel flickering behind the curtain of Ilya’s thick lashes as Shane presses his thumbs to the apples of his cheeks, leaning closer. Shane is most certainly staring. Trying to figure Ilya out. “Hollander.”

Shane. He thinks. Call me Shane.

Instead of replying to Ilya, he ducks his head and presses their brows together. Between them their breaths shudder and disperse in damp puffs. Ilya’s breath smells like mint and cigarettes and Shane wants to want to reprimand him but instead he finds he’s missed the smell. 

When he’d been with Rose a few of her Hollywood friends would chain smoke after dinner. One in particular had smoked Ilya’s brand of cigarettes--Newports--and Shane had shivered when the smoke had wafted over him outside the restaurant in the freezing, Montreal air. Something within him had churned hot and nauseating at the sense memory. Almost like he could taste Rozanov’s lips on his; taste his tongue licking into his mouth, hear himself complaining about Rozanov’s smoking, see Rozanov rolling his eyes in response. An attack on all his senses. His whole body overcome by Rozanov.

Shane could remember tucking his nose into his jacket sleeve later that night; inhaling the bitter scent clinging to the fabric before shoving the offending garment into the washing machine when he’d caught himself--when he’d realised what he’d been doing. He’d put it through three cycles just to make sure the smell was gone.

There had been something not quite right about the smell that night, though, something he’d been unable to place his finger on. But now, as he presses tight to Rozanov, he realises what had been missing.

It wasn’t that he’d missed the smell in general but that he’d missed it on Ilya. The way the menthol mixed with Ilya’s cologne. Bergamot and vetiver. Rich and masculine and warm. Beneath that the smell of Ilya’s skin, his hair, the salt of his sweat. The sharp scent of peppermint on Ilya’s breath, attempting to cover up the cigarettes.

Shane presses his mouth to Ilya’s now and sighs as Ilya’s tongue slips between his teeth. His fingers grasp, on instinct, tugging at Ilya’s hair, trying to bring them closer together. Not that they possibly could be closer. Shane sits heavy in Ilya’s lap, pinning him at the edge of the mattress with his thighs. Ilya is beneath him and gripping back, his fingers digging into Shane’s flesh through the soft material of his shirt.

They kiss for a while like that. Gripping and grasping at each other. Mouths dragging, lingering. Each kiss getting deeper, hotter, wetter until Shane’s jaw is aching and his head is spinning and his chest is shivering, desperate for a full gulp of air.

When they drag apart Shane is breathing heavily. Ilya’s pupils are wide and black, almost entirely encompassing the blue of his irises. His breathing is unsteady too. Puffing over Shane’s cheeks in damp gasps as he licks his bottom lip and nudges their noses together.

“Hollander,” Ilya calls and Shane shakes his head.

“Don’t,” he answers.

“Don’t?” Ilya asks, head tilting, mouth smudging against the corner of Shane’s lips.

“Ilya,” Shane murmurs. And in those two short syllables he feels so hopelessly exposed.

I don’t think I can keep pretending I don’t like you anymore.

Ilya is quiet for a beat. Then two. Shane doesn’t dare look at him. 

Then, he says, “Shane.”

And Shane shivers. The sound of his name on Rozanov’s--Ilya’s--tongue rolls right through him. From the hairs on his scalp to the tips of his toes. He feels warmed by it. He feels overwhelmed by it. He wants to hear Ilya say it again. And again. And again.

So, he repeats, “Ilya.”

“Shane,” Ilya responds but the sound gets muffled by Shane’s mouth, already pressing firm to Ilya’s. 

A sound worms its way through Shane’s chest, up his throat, then spills from his lips; a desperate sort of whining sound that starts low then turns breathy and pitchy as Ilya’s mouth grows more demanding against his. He thinks he should feel embarrassed by it, knows in the back of his mind that a few months ago he would have been, but Ilya hums in response and kisses him harder, digs his fingers into his flesh and nips at Shane’s bottom lip. The embarrassment fizzles in the face of Rozanov’s returned enthusiasm.

Ilya shuffles backwards and Shane follows like there’s a magnet pulling them together--a magnet that’s caught in the soft, slick press of their tongues--and kicks his shoes off as Ilya guides them to the middle of the bed. Shane gasps as Ilya pulls him down on top of him, sprawling them across the palm frond patterned comforter all the while still kissing.

There’s heat stirring low in his belly and he can feel his dick beginning to fatten and throb, straining within the confines of his shorts, but he pulls back anyway. Stops himself.

This isn’t what he came here for.

A string of saliva glistens then breaks between their spit slick mouths. Shane’s gaze catches on the way the lamplight reflects off of the saliva on Ilya’s top lip and he bites his own lip against a moan. Beneath him Ilya looks as heated as Shane feels. The blue-green-grey of his irises swallowed by the black of his pupils. His dark blonde curls thoroughly wrecked from Shane’s grabbing hands. The dip of his cupid’s bow red and puffy from the force of Shane’s hungry kisses.

He's so handsome it hurts.

Involuntarily, Shane’s hips press down, grinding just a little into Ilya’s lap. The motion makes Ilya grunt and grab at his waist.

“I didn’t come here to--”

“You didn’t?” The quirk of Ilya's mouth turns mean. He rolls his hips upwards and Shane’s eyes flutter shut.

“I didn’t,” Shane insists. He meets the press of Ilya’s hips without faltering. This too, is as easy, as natural, as breathing.

“Do you want to?” Ilya asks and he stops. Suddenly, meanly. Shane bites off the end of a whine, dropping his head to press his forehead against Ilya’s temple.

He breathes for a moment and listens as Ilya does the same. There is no sound in the room apart from the electrical hum of the minifridge and the ticking of the bedside clock. They could almost be anywhere in the world--anywhere but a hotel room in Tampa surrounded by their peers.

“I always want to,” Shane admits. And it seems like a bigger confession than his earlier declaration. The enormity of his wanting laid bare between them. “With you.”

I think I like you maybe a little too much.

Ilya is quiet for a beat too long and Shane opens his mouth to say something else. Undo some of the damage. Too late. Ilya grabs his face and crushes their mouths together. Hard. 

And it’s the kind of kiss that makes Shane’s teeth ache. The kind of kiss he feels deep in his bone marrow, at the core of him. The kind of kiss that haunts him late at night alone in his bed in Montreal, thumb pressed into the bruised flesh of his bottom lip, hoping to taste Rozanov’s mouth again if he just presses hard enough.

The kind of kiss that only Ilya Rozanov can give.

“Do you want to?” Shane gasps between one bruising kiss and the next. Ilya huffs a laugh against his mouth. Stupid question.

“Always,” he says. Shane makes a displeased sound in the back of his throat. Ilya seems to understand and adds, “with you.”

A warm thrill pulses through his chest at that. At the proof that he is not alone in his wanting.

(Though, he had already known that he wasn’t. Before Ilya had found him on the beach. Before he’d asked Ilya what room he was in. He’d known. All he had to do to find proof of it was look honestly at the years that stretched out between them; at the memory of Ilya’s crestfallen expression in Boston as Shane had scrambled away like he was outrunning something horrible, enormous, insurmountable. (At that moment it had felt horrible, enormous, insurmountable.) The pulse of his wanting thunderous in his ears and painful beneath his skin. He feels it keenly now, too, that pulse, though somehow it feels more bearable.)

Ilya’s mouth seeks out its well-worn path, dragging down the slope of Shane’s neck, over the thin skin where Shane’s pulse flutters with each hot press of Ilya’s lips. Shane bends towards the touch like the palm trees outside the hotel bend in the breeze. Helpless but to go where the wind--where Ilya--takes him.

Fingers find the pearl buttons of his shirt and fumble gracelessly with the small fastenings. A frustrated breath blows over his neck, Shane laughs, and Ilya nips his skin, as if in retaliation for Shane daring to wear such a fiddly garment. 

Shane thinks it shouldn’t be so hard for Ilya to undo his shirt, not with all the women he’s slept with over the years. But there’s something about Ilya tonight that’s thin and maybe a little desperate. His energy is squirming and rabid like a dog that’s been caged and released after far too long spent nipping at its enclosure.

“These buttons are stupid. Your stylist is an idiot,” Ilya grumbles, voice muffled where his lips are latched to Shane’s skin.

Shane huffs a laugh and pulls back, sitting on his haunches as he slides his fingers over the sleek buttons, carefully undoing his shirt. He doesn’t want Ilya to tear it. It was expensive.

“I would think you’d be good at this,” Shane says and then Ilya is grabbing at his wrists, tugging his hands away before determinedly yanking the remaining buttons loose, a frown creasing the skin between his brows as he works.

The shirt gets undone to his navel before Ilya is growling, “that’s enough. Take it off.”

Shane pulls the silky garment over his head and carefully folds it before setting it at the edge of the mattress. When he looks back towards Ilya the man is watching him with a look Shane can only describe as--it’s not teasing, not mean, but utterly, and completely, fond.

Shane’s heart skips several beats and he makes a soft sound, something between a hum and a grunt, as he sinks back down over Ilya, elbows digging into the comforter at either side of Ilya’s head. Ilya tilts his chin, lips pouted just slightly, and Shane obliges easily, slipping his tongue between Ilya’s teeth. He tastes like mint and smoke and Shane never wants to stop kissing him, tasting him, being this close to him. 

Fuck, he’s missed him.

When he’d been alone in Montreal he’d missed him. When he’d been on the road and sharing a room with Hayden he’d missed him. When he’d been at the table across from his parents talking about Wimbledon he’d missed him. When he’d been staring at the puck with Ilya right there in front of him he’d missed him. When he’d been inside Rose he’d missed him. 

And there is a white hot shame in his gut about that last one…

Suddenly he feels compelled to apologise, to who and for what he doesn’t know, but he needs to say something to alleviate the heavy feeling in his stomach. But then Ilya’s fingers are threading through the short strands of hair at the nape of his neck and his palm is cupping the back of his head and Shane just… melts. Shame burning away in an instant after flaring bright and hot for an awful, ugly moment.

Ilya grasps at Shane’s hair and tugs, harsh, making Shane wince. The sting of it feels good, grounds him, so Shane presses his head into Ilya’s palm. Silently asking for more. Ilya tugs again and this time Shane moans shakily against his mouth.

There’s a collection of decorative pillows just above where Ilya’s head rests on the mattress and Ilya reaches for them blindly with his free hand, chucking them off the bed. Shane can’t help but laugh at that; Ilya’s disdain for embellished cushions is an enduring quirk that’s followed them through years of hookups from hotels to secret sex condos to Ilya’s Boston home. 

Shane reaches out for the last cushion and shoves it off the side of the bed and Ilya grins a little manically against his mouth, nipping at his bottom lip, and then he’s pushing himself further up the mattress so his legs no longer dangle off the end. Ilya’s foot catches on the comforter as he wriggles upwards and it gets shoved down to the bottom of the bed before it slips smoothly off the end.

“My shirt is on the floor now,” Shane complains, mouthing along Ilya’s strong jaw, smearing kisses and saliva over stubbled skin.

“Shut up,” Ilya bites back and then he is rolling them over and trapping Shane beneath him. 

And in a competition of strength they are pretty evenly matched but Shane, at that moment, feels like prey caught in the claws of a predator. Helpless but to submit to the tight, gripping fingers wrapped around his biceps and the fierce kisses being smeared over his jaw and throat. Though, he finds that the feeling isn’t uncomfortable. Instead of shying away he presses his hips up, arching into the cage of Ilya’s body, and moans at being held in place. 

Shane’s hands push under Ilya’s tank, palms gliding over thick abdominal muscles, nails scratching through the hairs curling over Ilya’s broad chest. His palms cup the swell of Ilya’s pecs, thumbs dragging back and forth over the man’s pebbled nipples, and Ilya responds to the touch with a low rumble, his fingernails biting deeper into skin. There will probably be little crescents indented into his inner bicep when Ilya eventually lets him go. 

Shane wishes, stupidly, for Ilya to leave something more permanent in his wake. Some kind of proof that the shape of Ilya Rozanov has permanently, irreversibly, altered the shape of Shane Hollander. 

Why are you telling me this?

The taste of cigarettes on Ilya’s tongue makes Shane think about smouldering ashes and burnt flesh. Behind his eyelids he sees an amber glow and long fingers caressing the cylinder of a cigarette; he sees a perfect circle burnt into the delicate skin of his wrist; he sees a heart-shaped mouth dragging and a tongue lapping at the wound. He squirms at the thought and bites at Ilya’s tongue, desperate to keep himself from begging for his depraved imaginings outloud. 

Who else am I going to tell?

When Ilya pulls back, to remove his shirt, Shane bites his own tongue against a whine that’s threatening to spill over. He traps the sound in his throat just in time and breathes heavily through his nose. Reorientating. He doesn’t want Ilya to stop kissing him but he also wants to feel Ilya’s skin against his own. Those wants war within him until he’s reaching out, fingers clenching and unclenching around the empty air between them, beckoning Ilya back between his bent knees once his head reemerges from the rumpled heap of his tanktop.

“Needy,” Ilya murmurs, though it doesn’t sound teasing. 

“‘m not,” Shane lies, though it doesn’t sound convincing. 

Something like affection flits over Ilya’s features, his lips quirking softly, his eyes crinkling at the corners, but he smoothly replaces it with a familiar, safer, heated smoulder. Then Ilya is leaning down to kiss him again and Shane finds himself chasing the remnants of affection lingering on his lips.

Ilya’s fingers tangle through Shane’s hair, pulling his head back, barring his throat. Teeth scrape over the knob of his Adam’s apple and then across the wing of his clavicle, the sting quickly followed by the soothing, wet drag of Ilya’s tongue. Each touch raises goosebumps across his flesh and Shane shivers as Ilya travels lower, mouth mapping a path over his chest and nipples and ribs and stomach. Down to his navel where Ilya presses his tongue into Shane’s bellybutton before he kisses messily above the waistband of his shorts.

Shane’s heels push into the mattress as his hips press upwards. He wants Ilya to hurry the fuck up. He wants Ilya to slow the fuck down. He wants to skip to the part where Ilya is pushing inside of him already. He wants to stay in this exact moment forever. He wants; he wants; he wants.

It felt like we were something.

It’s terrible. All this wanting. 

Shane would do almost anything to stop this wanting.

We can’t be something, Hollander.

Except walk away, apparently.

Would you want to be? If we could?

He turns away from where Ilya kneels between his thighs. If he were smart he would stop this before it went any further. If he were smart he wouldn’t have asked Ilya for his room number and ended up here beneath Ilya again in the first place. If he were really, truly smart he would have left it how it ended in Boston; he would have walked away and stayed away.

But Shane doesn’t know how to be fucking smart about this. About Ilya. Maybe he doesn’t want to be.

We can't.

Between one racing thought and the next his pants are discarded. Shane wriggles against the cream bedsheets and writhes when Ilya’s mouth closes around the head of his cock through the cotton of his briefs. Ilya sucks and drools on the fabric until it’s soaking, damp with saliva and Shane’s own arousal, and sticking to Shane’s cock uncomfortably.

“Please,” he begs, barely above a whisper. His voice is suddenly scratchy and feathery, hardly heard above the blood rushing in his ears.

Shane’s hands find Ilya’s curls, fingers burying in the soft tangle of Ilya’s golden hair and pulling at the strands greedily. Ilya removes his mouth from Shane’s cock and the whine Shane had buried earlier resurfaces and rips through his throat, high and needy, as Shane chases Ilya’s mouth with his hips. Ilya hums, low and rumbly, nosing into the crease where Shane’s thigh meets his groin.

Shane drops his hips and breathes shakily in through his nose then out his mouth. He feels like he’s played a full period on the ice; his lungs burn with each inhale.

“Please,” he repeats, and it sounds pathetic.

Ilya doesn’t let him dwell on his own desperate pleading for long, already moving to remove Shane’s underwear before he has even finished asking. Maybe he’s just as desperate. When Ilya’s tongue flattens against the dribbling, twitching head of his cock Shane bites his lip and swallows a mortifying ‘thank you’ before it can leave his mouth.

The sound Ilya makes when he wraps his lips properly around Shane is obscene. A deep, unmistakably masculine moan that vibrates up the column of his throat then shatters in the hush of the room. Shane feels the depth of it in the pit of his stomach; the sound twisting in the core of him and driving him to the edge too fast, too soon. He has to count his breathing just to keep from slipping away. He doesn't want to fade out of the moment like he's done so many times before. He wants to be here; he wants to be fucking present.

Staying present becomes increasingly difficult as Ilya takes Shane deeper into his throat, pretty pink lips stretching wide as he sucks Shane down to the root, nose pressing into the soft skin of Shane’s belly. Ilya's fingers grope Shane’s balls, squeezing and tugging as he draws his mouth back up, before sinking down again, building a relentless rhythm with each bob of his head. 

Shane’s teeth cut into the soft flesh of his lip as he rolls his hips, chasing Ilya’s mouth, chasing Ilya’s fingers. When Ilya’s hands slip away, Shane grumbles in protest, an incoherent string of sounds, only to sigh contentedly when Ilya’s fingers return to wrap around the backs of his thighs, gripping firm. 

Ilya’s strong thumbs press into muscle and his calloused palms drag over sensitive skin; and there’s no denying that the hands stroking, rubbing, groping at his body belong to a man. There’s no denying that Shane likes it. No, fucking loves it.

Unbidden, he recalls the smooth, soft skin of Rose’s manicured, slender hands. The silky texture of her auburn hair. The subtle, floral scent of her perfume. The gentle, feminine curves of her hips, her breasts, her throat. 

Shane rolls his neck and looks down at the man kneeling between his thighs. Ilya is all broad, muscular shoulders and big, thick-knuckled hands and strong, sharp edges. The line of his jaw, the cut of his waist, the swell of his pecs, the bulk of his thighs. All of him big, manly, a fucking Adonis.

His head drops back into the mattress and he squeezes his eyes shut tight.

I think I’m gay.

He laughs. Well, laughs is a generous word for it. It’s more like a hysterical, aborted giggle; Shane quickly clamping a hand over his mouth to bury the sound before Ilya notices it. Ilya, of course, notices anyway and he pulls off Shane's cock with a slick popping sound and pinches Shane’s thigh to get his attention. 

Oh yeah. What makes you think that?

When Shane tilts his head down Ilya is already looking back, cocking an eyebrow in question. Shane shakes his head and says, “nothing. Sorry.”

Ilya gives a short, sharp snort, rolling his eyes, but he doesn’t press for more. Instead, he turns his head, smears sloppy kisses along Shane’s inner thighs, mouthing lazily downwards until his nose is buried in Shane’s pubic hair. And then he just stays there, breathing, nuzzling deeper into Shane’s groin when Shane tries to wriggle away. 

“Il--”

“Stop,” Ilya commands. Shane stops; his stomach flips.

The hands wrapped around his thighs slide up to grasp at his hips; clawing at him, keeping him firmly in place. It almost hurts; Ilya’s grip is tight and possessive, biting into Shane’s flesh hard enough to bruise. 

When Shane tries to move again, just to see what Ilya will do about it, Ilya growls, low and guttural, and digs his fingers in deeper. The possessive curl of Ilya’s fingers, the raspy tone of his voice, the press of his cheek to the side of Shane’s rigid cock, all of it stirs something molten hot in Shane’s gut. His heart pounds against the cage of his ribs and his chest flushes a brilliant ruby red. 

Can I ask if you’ve ever been with another guy?

There had been two others. Besides Ilya.

The first had been a shorter, red-headed man, in a club in LA. Shane had ventured out to West Hollywood after a game against the Los Angeles Kings, horny and desperate and under total cover of darkness, avoiding his teammates loitering in the hall near the elevators by taking the stairs down fifteen flights. He’d hailed a cab on a street corner a block away, found a club, found a man at the bar with no light of recognition in his hazel gaze, and then had hidden away with him in a bathroom stall for a fraught, unsatisfying ten minute exchange. 

(And maybe it had been his fault that the exchange had been so… tense. His heart had been pounding in his throat the whole time, adrenaline pumping through his body, making him shake until his knees buckled. But it hadn’t been the kind of thrilling, hot adrenaline that would sear through his veins every time Rozanov touched him. Or even the kind of exciting, bright adrenaline that came with being on the ice. It had been a kind of ugly, fear-tinged adrenaline that had sat thick and nauseating in his belly before clawing at his chest, his lungs, his throat. 

It had probably been the worst blowjob of his life.)

He’d gone back to sleeping with women--if he felt desperate enough to seek out a partner at all--after that failed experiment. Half convinced that the disaster of it had proven once and for all that he wasn’t fully gay; maybe he just had a weird, psycho-sexual obsession with Rozanov that he could chalk up to misplaced professional competitiveness. 

Was it different? With a guy?

The second had been a broad-shouldered, dark-skinned man in Mexico called Mateo. Shane had met him at a club--late one night after he’d snuck out of his hotel room like a fucking teenager, his parents already settled for the evening in the room next door--and had gone back to his apartment with him, terrified and a little thrilled all at once. And it had been… good. Certainly better than it had been with any woman he’d ever slept with, and less terrifying than it had been in LA but it still hadn’t been…

Mateo knew what he was doing. He’d been more than happy to top when Shane had made his preference known and had been patient in prepping Shane despite how long it had taken Shane to relax enough for Mateo to push inside. And when he’d fucked into Shane it had felt good, great even, but it just hadn’t been… 

Ilya shifts in his lap, tilts his head and sucks a sweet kiss into Shane’s dick. The featherlight sensation splinters apart Shane’s dazed reminiscing and he shudders, arching into Ilya’s hold. Ilya pushes him back down and makes a tutting sound, dragging wet kisses down the shaft and over Shane’s heavy balls.

It hadn’t been this. 

Pressed against the dirty, graffitied wall of that bathroom stall in West Hollywood, his cock in a stranger’s mouth, all he’d wanted was this. Beneath Mateo in that studio apartment in Mexico City, on his hands and knees with his forehead pressed into a lumpy mattress, all he’d wanted was this. On top of Rose in his own bed in Montreal, his eyes squeezed shut and his heart in his throat, all he’d wanted was this.

He’d spent so long wanting this--wanting Ilya. Always, always, wanting him.

Ilya’s tongue presses flat to the underside of Shane’s cock and Shane sucks in a sharp inhale and chokes on all his wanting. It scratches at his throat until his eyes sting with it and he scrambles his fingers over the bedsheets, searching for something to hold on to.

“I want--” Shane tries, throat constricting, choking off his begging.

“What do you want?” Ilya asks, still not looking at Shane, still buried in his lap.

It’s not just being gay -- it’s you. It’s this.

He swallows, gets ahold of himself then reaches out, fingers carding through Ilya’s wrecked curls, tugging at the dark blonde strands. And he assumes that Ilya will resist, strain against the pull of Shane’s greedy hands, but he doesn’t. Instead, he comes easily, lifting his face from Shane’s lap and slowly blinking up at him, lashes sweeping the hollows under his eyes, mouth parting around a sigh.

Was it better?

The soft pillow of Ilya’s bottom lip pouts and Shane tucks his fingers under Ilya’s jaw, digs his thumb into the corner of his mouth, tugs gently. Ilya keeps his eyes locked on Shane, his gaze dark and drowning in the low light.

He is as beautiful as he is terrifying.

Yeah, it was… it was better.

Shane hooks his thumb behind Ilya’s crooked bottom teeth then presses the pad into the velvety, slick flesh beneath his tongue. He almost looks vulnerable like this; knelt between Shane’s thighs with his mouth forced open, his jaw held firm between Shane’s fingers, evidence of his earlier tears now dried on his cheeks. Shane finds himself imagining having more of him; having all his vulnerabilities laid bare between them to poke his fingers into.

He pries Ilya’s mouth open further, the bend of his thumb pressing firm into the cut of Ilya’s bottom teeth, and shivers when Ilya makes a desperate, pitchy sound. Almost a whine. 

Saliva pools in Ilya’s mouth, spills over the soft edge of his plush bottom lip, then dribbles down his chin. The shine of it catches in the warm lamplight.

“Fuck,” Shane murmurs, reverent and airy. Ilya is fucking drooling onto his cock; saliva dribbling onto the swollen head of his dick then sliding down the shaft. The sight of it is obscene. “C’mere. Fucking--come here.”

Ilya comes. 

They meet in the middle; a collision of tongues and teeth. The force of it makes Shane’s head spin. Sometimes kissing Ilya feels like being slammed into the boards; it knocks the wind right out of him.

Ilya moans, though it comes out more like a sigh. A soft puff of air, a rumble diffused as it escapes from deep in his broad chest. The sound of it makes Shane’s skin buzz. He presses on Ilya’s throat, in hopes of hearing it again. When he does, Shane licks the sound off Ilya’s teeth.

Shane drags his palms down the slope of Ilya’s spine, fingers gripping, pressing into the muscles bunching beneath his skin. His thumbs trace the shape of Ilya’s shoulder blades, the bones buried beneath thick muscle, and not at all delicate. 

His hands slide further down Ilya’s back, beneath the waistband of his trackpants, and into his briefs. Ilya’s ass is firm and round and strong. Strong enough to propel him down the ice at breakneck speeds. Faster even--though not by much--than Shane. That thought makes Shane’s breath hitch. 

It just fucking does something for him--to be touching this body. This body that flies so effortlessly over the ice, that keeps up with Shane, that challenges Shane, that sometimes even outpaces him. This body, Ilya’s body, almost as familiar to him as his own. 

Shane digs his fingers into the meat of Ilya’s ass and squeezes, pushing their bodies tighter together, before he traces his middle finger carefully around the mole near Ilya’s crack. If Shane could just bite that mole, just once.

There's a grunt, maybe of displeasure, then Ilya is shifting away from the touch, away from Shane entirely, their mouths parting with a slick sound as Ilya steps off the end of the bed. It takes Shane a moment to adjust, to reorient without Ilya’s weight pressing down on him. It feels like a loss. Shane wants him back. He can't help but think he's done something wrong. The thought starts to churn, form into something heavy and unpleasant in his gut but--

At the foot of the bed Ilya is shoving his pants and briefs down his legs, moving with an urgency that betrays his enthusiasm, and then his cock is right there, thick and throbbing, the head peeking out from his foreskin and glistening with precome. All capacity for thought leaves Shane in an instant and his mind becomes a running loop of Ilya. Cock. Ilya. Cock. 

Before it registers in his brain, he is moving. Crawling along the rumpled bedsheets, stopping at the edge of the mattress on his hands and knees, looking up at Ilya through his lashes, begging without speaking.

There is a subtle change in Ilya’s expression, something wicked in the sharp corner of his grin. His big hand slides into Shane’s hair, pulls him in closer. Shane’s forehead nudges into Ilya’s hip bone, his nose pressing into the thatch of hair at the base of Ilya’s cock. The hair there is soft and curly and dark blonde. Shane wants to fucking bury himself in it.

Instead, he tilts his head, runs the tip of his tongue along the seam of Ilya’s balls. The taste of Ilya is salty, musky, familiar. It fills Shane’s senses, sends a rush of pleasure rolling through him, tingles at the base of his spine. He nuzzles closer, breathing in, reacquainting himself with the way Ilya smells here. Deep and masculine and a little like the soap from the locker room showers. That makes Shane shudder, saliva flooding his mouth.

Shane presses closer, licks a languid line from the base of Ilya’s cock to the head where he indulges in pressing his tongue into the folds of Ilya’s foreskin. He spends a while just like that, licking, prodding, exploring. Mapping the shape of Ilya’s swollen cockhead and thin foreskin with his tongue. 

When he gets his mouth around Ilya properly, finally, after months of waiting, he can’t help the sound that escapes his throat. It rips out of him, whorish and needy. Above him, Ilya hums, the sound half sympathy half mockery, and that just fucking wrecks him. It should make him feel belittled, self-conscious, but instead it just makes him melt. Turned to putty in Ilya’s hands.

“Such a cock slut, Hollander,” Ilya tuts, condescending, and Shane makes a noise of protest but it gets muffled by the cock pressing down on his tongue, the cock that’s currently nudging against his tonsils; which really just confirms Ilya’s statement. Shane can’t even bring himself to pull away long enough to make a proper objection. He shuts his eyes, breathes through his nose, and relaxes his throat to take Ilya deeper. “Ah--fuck, Shane.”

Ilya’s fingers card through his hair, cupping the back of his head, holding him tenderly as he snaps his hips forwards, forcing his cock deeper into Shane’s throat. The cradle of his palms is like a balm, soothing, seemingly incongruent with the guttural string of Russian words falling from Ilya’s lips, with the brutal thrust of his hips. But Shane, even as his eyes water and his throat aches, just feels safe. 

“Chert, ty prekrasna,” Ilya hisses. “Pochemu eto dolzhen byt' imenno ty? Ya ne mogu byt' s toboy. Bozhe. Ya skuchal po tebe.”

Shane has no idea what Ilya is saying but it sounds sharp; perhaps Ilya is calling him a slut again. It wouldn’t be surprising.

“Fuck, that mouth,” Ilya groans. Shane looks up, through the thick curtain of his lashes, and catches as Ilya tilts his head back, apparently overwhelmed. The cross at his throat glints gold in the light, sweat glistens in the dip of his collarbone. He’s fucking hot and Shane whimpers around the hard, thick length of him.

Ilya’s head snaps back at the sound, his gaze lowering to meet Shane’s, his light eyes eclipsed by the dark of his wide pupils. An indiscernible look crosses Ilya’s features as they stare at each other, and then he slides one of his hands down to cup the slope of Shane’s cheek. He brushes his thumb, back and forth, at the corner of Shane’s lips, smearing spit over flushed skin. Then, he presses his thumb into Shane’s mouth beside his cock, and Shane gargles, his lashes fluttering, his pulse thundering in his throat.

He feels so full. And fuck, it feels so good.

“You love it, don’t you?”

Ilya’s tone is smug, and Shane really should thrash against it, tell him to ‘fuck off’, but he just whines instead. There’s no use denying it. His cock is dribbling, untouched between his legs, his head feels heavy and light and dizzy all at once, and his jaw is aching in the best way. He does love it. 

I think I’m gay.

God, he’s an idiot.

“Okay, stop, stop,” Ilya growls and then he’s pulling Shane’s head back, holding him by the hair. Shane strains against it, tries to push forward and bury himself back in Ilya’s crotch, but the man holds him firm, keeps him in place. The sting at his scalp makes his vision blur a little, he’s almost sure that he’s drooling.

“Why’d you stop?” Shane mumbles, slurs really. His throat feels thick, his thoughts are sluggish like mud. Ilya snorts a laugh, his thumb smears across Shane’s bottom lip before he presses it into his own mouth, licking Shane’s saliva off his finger. Shane thinks, deliriously, that it’s not fair. That it should be him caught between Ilya’s teeth. Ilya drops his hand, tucks his fingers beneath Shane’s chin and tilts his face up.

“Because I’m going to fuck you now,” he says, matter-of-fact. Shane blinks, swallows the thickness in his throat. “Mm?” He knows Ilya is waiting for him to respond but he can’t. 

In lieu of a response, Shane twists out of Ilya’s grip and shuffles back, spreading his legs as he settles against the mattress and brushes a hand between his thighs, just shy of his hole. An offering. Himself, spread out on cheap hotel sheets. Ilya's for the taking.

“Yebat,” Ilya mutters. Shane watches his throat bob as he swallows and then Ilya is on him, crawling up his body, tongue dragging along the twitching muscles of his abdomen. All the way up his neck until their mouths are mashing together in a messy, violent kiss. 

Their teeth clack, their noses mash. The kiss turns into tugging and biting and licking. Uncoordinated and desperate as Ilya’s hands travel down Shane’s sides then tuck under his hips, dragging him up until they’re pressed together. Shane’s cock slides against the hot, hard line of Ilya’s dick as they rut together. It’s a little dry and a lot frantic and Shane wraps his leg around the back of Ilya’s thigh to keep him close. He doesn’t want it to stop.

“Ilya,” he says. The name still sits unfamiliar on his tongue but fuck it feels good to say it, to whisper it against Ilya’s mouth as the man presses tighter to him and kisses him harder, wetter, deeper. So, he says it again. “Ilya. Ilya.”

Ilya shivers. Shane feels the muscles in his back twitch. Maybe hearing it feels as good as saying it.

“We need--wait--” Ilya’s voice hitches, his breath hot and damp as it puffs over Shane’s face. Shane doesn’t wait. He keeps clawing at him, dragging him in and kissing him, and Ilya groans, returning each press of Shane’s hungry mouth even as he tries to pull away. With a grunt Ilya manages to pull himself away, pushing Shane down firmly. “Sweetheart, wait.”

Sweetheart. 

Ilya had called him sweetheart in Boston too, when Shane had been on top of him, fucking himself on Ilya’s dick. In Boston it had freaked him out. Now it is kind of freaking him out. But before he has time to spiral about it Ilya is pulling away, leaving him alone in the bed.

Shane props himself up on his elbows and he watches as Ilya picks his way across the room, avoiding the mess of clothes and cushions and blankets strewn about the floor. He watches as Ilya squats in front of his suitcase, gloriously naked and muscular and handsome in the minimal light. He watches as Ilya finds what he is looking for and comes back to the bed, kneeling at the edge of the mattress before slowly prowling towards Shane, settling over him and caging him in between his broad chest and the thin sheets.

Ilya kisses him, then murmurs against his mouth, “on your stomach.”

Shane rolls, pushes his hips back and up, why any of this is a bad idea long forgotten as Ilya’s palms glide over his skin, pulling his cheeks apart. He feels, rather than sees, when Ilya spits onto his hole. The wet slide of saliva down his crack makes him whimper; his fingers clench in the bedsheets, fisting handfuls of linen.

“You say you did not come here for this,” Ilya murmurs behind him, his tone teasing, “but you shaved here.” 

Shane feels Ilya’s thumb push into him, dry, just to the first knuckle. He presses his forehead into the mattress and breathes shakily.

“I hoped that maybe…” he trails off, trying to ignore the way his cheeks heat at being caught. Ilya chuckles then leans in and bites his asscheek.

The next thing he feels is Ilya’s tongue, slick and hot, dragging over his asshole. A low moan tumbles from his lips and Ilya hums, presses closer, licks into him, smears kisses over his hole with a kind of frenetic enthusiasm that makes Shane’s spine melt. He feels like a puddle, spread out over the mattress, all of him molten and aching and seeping need.

“Fuck--I need--” 

Ilya squeezes his ass, pulls his cheeks further apart, burrows deeper. His tongue pushes into Shane and Shane curses, bites his lip, suppresses a whine in the back of his throat as he claws at the sheets. 

It’s too much. It’s not enough. It’s breaking him apart.

“Please--fuck--please fuck me. Fuck. Fuck. Please.”

He knows he’s babbling, probably making a fool of himself, begging to be fucked with his ass in the air, Ilya’s tongue buried deep inside of him. There’s a part of him that wants to feel ashamed, that wants to recoil, from Ilya, from himself. From the enormity of his desire that lays exposed and writhing between them. He can feel it suffocating everything in the room, thick and cloying, growling for attention. 

It's an ugly creature. His desire. Shane has always been afraid of it. 

Ilya’s fingers press into him and the hunger grows. He feels dizzy with it. The gnashing thing in the pit of him aches.

Shane lets it. For once, he just lets it.

“Jesus Christ, just fuck me,” Shane says, the plea breaking in his throat and coming out strained. Ilya chuckles and says something in Russian; he’s probably calling him a slut, Shane feels like a slut.

Ilya pulls away briefly, tragically, and then Shane hears the crinkle of the condom wrapper. A shiver rolls through him, anticipating. Finally, finally, Ilya is going to fuck him. 

The initial press of Ilya’s cockhead to his rim unfurls a bloom of warmth at the base of his spine. It lingers there as Ilya teases him, nudging the swollen head of his cock between Shane’s cheeks, smearing lube down his crack before he slowly, carefully, pushes in. Then the feeling grows, crawls up the ridges of his spine and into his ribcage, tightening around his lungs as Ilya sinks into him inch by inch. When Ilya bottoms out the feeling bubbles over, spills from his mouth in a cry. Deep and broken.

“Holy shit,” he exhales.

There’s a grunt behind him, maybe in agreement, and then Ilya is leaning down, pressing the full weight of his chest onto Shane’s back, nosing into the juncture where his shoulder meets his neck. Ilya kisses him there. Wet and lingering, lips hot like a brand as they drag down Shane’s shoulder, over the scar that cuts across his skin. Shane feels a trail of goosebumps erupt in the wake of Ilya’s touch.

“How did you get this?” Ilya asks, talking into Shane’s shoulder, his breath damp and hot where it exhales against Shane’s skin.

“What?” Shane feels dizzy. His chest is crushed into the mattress. His lungs are pushing against the cage of his ribs. He can hardly breathe. 

“This scar here,” Ilya elaborates, traces the flat of his tongue over the mark in question. “I have always wondered.”

“Umm,” Shane blinks, twists his head so he can look over his shoulder. Ilya bites him and Shane wriggles, pushing up into the weight of him. Testing. He moans when he realises that he’s completely trapped between Ilya’s broad chest and the solid mattress with the stretch of Ilya’s cock inside of him, hot and throbbing, pinning him in place. He can’t remember the last time he felt so real. 

“Mm?”

Ilya circles his hips, the line of his cock nudging against Shane’s prostate, sending a bolt of pleasure ricocheting up his spine. Shane struggles to form a coherent thought. He cobbles together his words as best he can.

“Junior hockey. Some hazing thing. It was stupid,” he grits out, grinding his dick against the bed beneath him as Ilya hums in his ear. “Fucking--will you move?” His tone is biting, needy. He sounds like a bitch in heat.

Ilya nips his earlobe then unsticks himself from Shane’s back, shuffling onto his knees as he curls his strong fingers around the hinge of Shane’s hips. It’s what he wanted but Shane immediately misses the weight of him and bows his spine, chasing the heavy warmth of Ilya’s thick chest. Couldn’t Ilya crush him and fuck him?

“So demanding tonight, Hollander,” Ilya admonishes, his palm cracks across the skin of Shane’s ass. Shane gasps. “Did you miss me?”

“Fuck you,” Shane hisses but it sounds like yes.

A snort and then Ilya’s fingers tighten around his hips and he’s fucking Shane in short, sharp, shallow thrusts that barely skim the surface of his wanting, leaving him aching all the way down to his bone marrow. He’s a fucking trench, the depths of his wanting so deep, so dark, that even he can’t reach the bottom. Usually Ilya can. Right now he’s being mean, holding back when he could give Shane more. When he could give Shane everything.

Shane reaches back, blindly scrambling for the point where their bodies meet, fingers spreading over his own flushed skin. His fingers grope over his hole and then he presses his thumb into the edge of his rim, the pad sliding through sticky lube and nudging against the shaft of Ilya’s cock as Ilya keeps fucking into him. Shane pushes his thumb in beside Ilya’s cock; the stretch soothes some of his aching. But not by much. 

Ilya’s hips falter, stutter, on his next push in. His cock pressing deeper this time. So fucking deep.

“Ah.” 

The sound punches out of Shane, sharp and breathless. He can feel Ilya in his ribs, nudging against the lobes of his lungs. It leaves him winded. Useless. 

Ilya stops for a moment and Shane groans, fucks himself back onto Ilya’s cock. 

“Please.”

A grunt and then Ilya keeps going; fucking Shane in long, deep, brutal thrusts. Each time Ilya’s cock bullies into his hole he feels it in his throat, the swollen head of it stroking over his prostate with a ruthless precision that has Shane drooling, panting into the sheets beneath him.

But still… it’s not enough.

“I need…” he whines, growls, grinds his teeth, frustrated that he can’t grasp what it is he’s missing.

“What do you need?” 

Ilya slows again, grinding his hips. Shane digs his teeth into the meat of his own forearm.

“I don’t know,” he says, whimpers really, lips smearing against the impression of teeth left in his flesh. “I can’t--”

Ilya shushes him, his voice deep and tender, as he slides his palm over the nape of Shane’s neck, kneading the soft skin there. His thumb presses in, digs into the base of Shane’s skull, brushes through his hair, and Shane shivers, presses himself into it. 

“I don’ know,” Shane repeats, slurring. Ilya hums, bites the knob at the top of his spine, and then he pulls out. “No,” Shane gasps, reaching back again, trying to stop Ilya from moving away. The emptiness aches in his chest. “No.”

“Is okay,” Ilya murmurs, palms sliding around Shane’s stomach, gently rolling him over onto his back. “I know what you need. Is okay.”

Shane shakes his head. He doubts that. If he doesn’t even know then what the fuck will Rozanov know. He closes his eyes and exhales shakily.

A careful finger brushes over the slope of his cheek, traces the hollow under his eye. Shane squeezes his lids, tighter and tighter, until he sees stars. Tears build at his lash line.

“Malysh,” Ilya sighs and then he’s pulling Shane’s legs apart, hooking his fingers under Shane’s knees as he pushes his cock back into him, sliding in easily as he presses down, down, down until their lungs overlap, expanding and contracting in tandem.

Then, he moves. Rocks his cock into Shane slow and steady as he nuzzles closer, pulling sweet kisses from Shane’s slack, swollen lips, murmuring quiet Russian words into the inch of space between them. 

“Ty takoy krasivyy. Ideal'nyy mal'chik.”

“Oh,” Shane breathes and, yeah, this is what he had been needing.

He wraps his arms around Ilya’s neck and nudges their faces together, smearing kisses down Ilya’s chin and across his jaw as Ilya keeps fucking into him. 

And it’s almost perfect. The only thing that would make it better would be…

A sharp thrust pushes him up the bed, his shoulder blades dig into rough cotton, his heels scrabble over the sheets as his breath hitches, escaping his throat in a needy whine. It feels fucking incredible. He thinks he might say so out loud. He must because Ilya does it again and Shane’s head tilts back, a moan vibrating up the column of his throat, his muscles clenching and releasing as Ilya’s cock drags over his prostate again and again. Ilya takes advantage of Shane’s vulnerable position and buries his face into the crook of Shane’s neck, nibbles on his flesh, sucks on his earlobe, bites at the cartilage of his helix.

They're so close. So fucking close. But, somehow, not close enough.

Shane whimpers, claws at Ilya's back. Fuck, all he wants is for Ilya to come inside of him. He wants to fucking feel it. To watch afterwards as Ilya's cum drips out of him, thick and hot, dribbling down the crease of his thigh.

The thought gets dislodged, though not forgotten, his whole body rattling as Ilya fucks into him, demanding and harsh, with a dirty roll of his strong hips. Ilya slips out when he pulls his hips back, hisses, then adjusts until his swollen cockhead catches on Shane's lubed rim, slides back in. Shane squeezes his thighs around Ilya's hips, keeping him close.

“Fuck,” Shane hisses and Ilya makes a low sound, a crawling, deep growl that makes Shane's skin tingle.

He nudges his nose into Ilya’s curls, pants against the sweaty skin of Ilya’s temple, drags wet kisses along Ilya’s hairline and then pulls Ilya’s head back, out from his hiding place in the crook of his neck. Then he holds Ilya there, in the cradle of his palms, and stares.

Ilya looks a wreck. His curls are fluffy, hanging over his forehead, brushing against his brows as they pinch and relax with each snap of his hips. His eyes are wide and dark, glittering in the lamplight, focused entirely on Shane. His lips are puffy, red from kissing, mouth pouted as he moans softly, as he sighs on every push back in.

He’s so fucking beautiful.

Shane smudges his thumbs along Ilya’s cheekbones, admiring him, holding him there as he rolls his hips up to meet every push of Ilya’s thick cock. If only the latex weren’t between them.

He thinks, stupidly, I like him so much.

“Stop,” Ilya murmurs, drops his gaze, knocks their foreheads together.

“What?” Shane asks, voice hitching at the end when Ilya fucks his hips particularly deep.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

Shane doesn’t know how he’s looking at Ilya. It must be incriminating. He squirms, presses his nose to Ilya’s, breathing in Ilya’s every exhale. Surely whatever is in his eyes cannot be worse than anything he’d said earlier.

“Like what?”

“Like…” Ilya trails off, shakes his head then wraps his arms underneath and around Shane’s back, hauling Shane up, crushing them tight together, chest to chest. He ducks down to press his face into the curve of Shane’s throat again. Shane cradles the back of his head, fingers sinking into dark blonde curls. 

“Like we are something.”

The words are quiet, muttered into Shane's skin, muffled where Ilya's mouth smears against Shane's throat. Shane hears them anyway.

It felt like we were something.

Shane feels that something tighten in his throat, twist in his gut. Ilya's we can't be something, Hollander sits in his chest like a stone. 

He doesn't want to think about it. He can’t. Not right now. He grabs Ilya's face and kisses him, frantic and messy, all tongue and teeth and greedy fingers tangled in wrecked curls. Ilya kisses him back, like he's starving, mouth clumsy and sloppy, smearing saliva over Shane's chin.

“Fuck me,” Shane gasps, breaking the kiss.

“Yeah,” Ilya answers, diving back in.

They stop talking after that. The room is quiet apart from the hum of the minifridge, the slick sounds of their bodies meeting, the sighing moans that tumble from both their lips. Time seems to suspend itself as they fuck, tangled close, limbs so intertwined they are basically one solid mass of flesh. Still, not close enough.

When Shane comes it’s with a hitching gasp. The sensation rolls right through him, starting between his thighs then crawling up his spine, spreading down his legs, diffusing in his toes and fingers. It leaves him shivering, clinging to Ilya’s flexing back, squeezing his knees tight around Ilya’s hips. Wanting, more than anything, to keep him close.

Ilya comes moments later, groaning into the crook of Shane’s neck, gasping Shane, Shane, over and over, as he ruts his hips forward. Then he’s slumping down, crushing Shane with his weight, apparently spent. Not that Shane minds. He simply hums, drags his fingers down Ilya’s spine.

There's an effervescent glow under his skin. The core of him is warm, warm, warm. A laugh bubbles in his chest, tickles his throat, and Shane bites his lip against it. He just feels so fucking good. He nuzzles his nose into Ilya's curls, buries his smile in his soft, thick hair.

In all the years they'd done this he'd rarely, if ever, let himself bask in the afterglow. Always afraid of wanting too much, revealing too much, or somehow pushing Ilya away. Not wanting a repeat of Sochi. Right now, he's too delirious with it to care.

Besides, what does he have to lose? He’s already told Ilya how he feels…

I think I like you maybe a little too much.

Ilya is warm and heavy on top of him; the broad expanse of his mole-dotted back tacky with sweat. Between them, Shane’s cum is drying, gluing their damp chests together and making his skin itch. But Shane doesn’t move. He just lets himself touch, fingers skimming over twitching muscles, mapping the constellation of moles sprawled across Ilya’s skin, the shape of them forming a tiny universe.

“You have so many moles,” he hears himself murmur as his free hand slides into Ilya’s hair, fingers twining through the thick blonde curls at the crown of Ilya's head, gently massaging Ilya’s scalp. Ilya lets out a low sound, a rumble almost like a purr. Shane smiles, his fingers press into the dimpled flesh of Ilya’s lower back.

“My babushka told me moles are like… mm… tea leaves?” Ilya mumbles, his voice soft as he tries to find his words. “Like when you drink tea then read the shape of the leaves left behind. You can tell someone’s future by their pattern.”

“Did she ever tell you your future?”

“Mhm, she told me I would be the best player in the NHL; definitely better than any boring Canadians.”

Shane snorts; he feels as Ilya’s mouth stretches into a grin against his skin. Such an asshole.

“Clearly she read them wrong. You’re fifth at best, maybe fourth next year when Michaels retires.”

Ilya pinches his hip and Shane laughs, flicking his ear, before they settle into silence again, Shane still holding Ilya carefully in the circle of his arms.

In the quiet he waits for the moment Ilya will tense, pull away, raise his metaphorical hackles and nip at Shane's fingers where they stroke at Ilya tenderly, but instead he remains pliant, open and willing, sprawled over Shane’s chest. His cheek squishes against Shane’s skin, his mouth nudging into Shane’s pec in a lazy imitation of a kiss. And, for just a moment, Shane convinces himself that maybe Ilya wants for them to be something too.

We can’t be something, Hollander.

“What do we do now?” he whispers. He feels Ilya tense in his arms.

His question lingers in the room, heavy and loaded, impossible to answer. Regret grips his chest when Ilya grunts and pulls away, propping himself up on his elbows as he squints down at Shane. 

“I pull out, throw out the condom, we clean up.” Ilya shrugs, nonchalant. Intentionally obtuse. Shane feels his heart sink, right to the pit of his stomach.

“Yeah, right,” he says and shivers as Ilya shifts, pulling out.

A soft sound escapes from Shane’s lips; he clenches around nothing. Goosebumps erupt over his skin as the cool air rushes over his heated flesh. He wants Ilya back on top of him, inside of him, but he cannot have him. His eyes squeeze shut.

There’s a gentle touch at his rim, fingers dragging over swollen flesh, and Shane shudders, tilting his head to meet the warm, attentive weight of Ilya’s blue-green gaze. Ilya ducks his head, eyes still on Shane, and presses a kiss to the bend of his knee.

“Okay?” he asks.

“Okay,” Shane nods.

“Stay. I will clean you,” Ilya commands, softly, smearing his mouth over Shane’s kneecap before pulling away, retreating to the bathroom.

Shane stays; he sinks into the lumpy mattress, he listens as Ilya turns the taps at the bathroom sink. When Ilya returns he has a damp washcloth in his hand; Shane reaches for it but Ilya just tuts and bats his hand away, pressing the rag to Shane’s skin. It’s warm. The muscles in Shane’s stomach twitch, his eyes flutter shut.

Ilya is so gentle with him. It makes his throat burn.

“I mean it,” Ilya says, his hand stills, resting on Shane's stomach where it rises and falls with Shane's every inhale. Shane opens his eyes, raises his brows. 

“What?”

“Stay. Everyone is out drinking anyway. No one will even notice.”

He should say no. He should say I can't. Instead he says, “okay. I can stay for a little while.”

Ilya's brow pinches, then he nods, his mouth pursing. Shane wants to kiss him.

“C’mere,” he whispers and Ilya dumps the cloth on the bedside table, sprawling himself out beside Shane on his back with one arm tucked beneath his head. Shane rolls and slings a leg over Ilya's hip, an arm across his stomach. Ilya's free hand wraps around Shane's shoulder, pulling him in tighter. 

The salty smell of Ilya’s skin is stronger now, post-sex, sweat glistens on his pecs, the hair there damp and dark, sticking to his skin. At his clavicle his cross reflects lamplight, bright and golden in the otherwise dull room. Shane reaches for it, fingers gliding over cool metal, lifting it from its resting place at the notch of Ilya’s throat.

Beneath his cheek he feels as Ilya’s chest hitches, a soft gasp spilling from his lips. Shane half expects Ilya to yank the pendant from his grasp, maybe snap at him, but he settles. The hand wrapped around Shane’s shoulder slides up; Ilya’s thumb brushes back and forth, rhythmically, at the nape of Shane’s neck.

The cross feels heavy in Shane’s palm--it’s clearly made from solid gold--and the shine of it is even more radiant up close. Ilya definitely polishes it, takes great care to keep it clean. It’s precious, that much Shane can tell just by looking at it. He handles it carefully, pressing curious fingers into the arms of the cross. It’s unlike any cross Shane has ever seen before--well, maybe he’s seen it once or twice, tattooed on one of the other Russian guys in the league. But those guys usually talked about God. Shane doesn’t recall ever hearing Ilya saying anything about his faith.

“Do you believe in God?” 

Ilya sputters, clearly taken by surprise. The fingers brushing through Shane’s hair still, but he doesn’t pull away.

“I don’t go to church anymore,” Ilya says, eventually. “But yes, I think so.”

“Oh.” 

“You are judging me?” 

“No,” Shane shakes his head, “I’m just surprised.”

“Why? I am very… spiritual…” Ilya waves his free hand, apparently in a gesture of spirituality, and Shane snorts a laugh. “What? You think I am not? I have made you see God many times, Hollander, don’t even pretend.”

“Fuck off,” Shane laughs, shoves at Ilya’s chest. He feels the rumble of Ilya’s answering laughter vibrate through his body and decides he likes it. Decides he wants to always feel Ilya’s laughter in his bones. “I don’t think that’s what being spiritual means.”

“Eh, what would you know?”

Shane slaps him. Ilya just laughs. 

They settle back into silence, Shane’s fingers still gently tracing the shape of the cross, dirtying it with his fingerprints. He’s a little hypnotised by it. Always has been. He’s spent nearly eight years watching it dangle in the air between them, feeling it scrape over his chest, noticing it shine against Ilya’s fair skin. It’s a beautiful piece. It’s--

“It was my mother’s.”

Shane looks up, catches the twitch of Ilya’s jaw, the way his throat bobs as he swallows thickly.

“Oh.” 

He lets the cross go, places it back where it belongs against the hollow of Ilya’s throat. And god, it does look right there, like it’s a part of him. Ilya’s fingers trace the shell of Shane’s ear gently, almost like a thank you, for handling the pendant with care, and Shane presses into the touch, letting out a long sigh.

For a moment, he lets himself bask in it. In being held by Ilya Rozanov.

Fuck, he wishes he could stay.

“I should go,” he says and Ilya shakes his head.

“This weekend is madness, no one will notice.”

“Too risky,” Shane argues and feels as Ilya’s chest deflates beneath him.

Shane shifts, tries to sit up, yelps as he’s yanked back down, and suddenly finds himself beneath Ilya, trapped between his broad chest and the rumpled bedsheets, his wrists pinned to the mattress at his sides. He gasps, wriggles against Ilya’s hold. It’s not tight, he could break it if he wanted to. He doesn’t want to.

“Stay,” Ilya whispers, drops his head, presses his mouth to Shane’s swollen lips. 

Something helpless and hopeful tumbles around in Shane’s chest, bumps against the cage of his ribs. It feels enormous. Like it might just burst out of him.

“I can’t,” Shane sighs, even as he kisses Ilya back. His mouth is too sore to feel it but he can’t help himself. Ilya’s tongue drags along the swell of his bottom lip. Somehow, Shane manages to say, “I have to go.”

Ilya pulls back, brows pinching, eyes searching Shane’s face. For what, Shane can’t tell.

“When will I have you for as long as I want?”

Shane’s heart leaps into his throat. He almost chokes on his response, “I don’t know. As soon as possible?”

Ilya releases one of Shane’s wrists and strokes his palm over Shane’s forehead, threads his fingers through Shane’s hair. The gesture, gentle and tender, causes pressure to build at Shane’s lash line.

“As soon as I win the cup, we’ll go somewhere,” Ilya says and Shane’s mouth twitches, a sad smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“Like where? The moon?”

“Hawaii,” Ilya counters.

Shane shakes his head. “All it takes is one Canadian tourist with an iPhone and…”

Ilya swallows, nods, turns his face away. They both know they aren’t going anywhere together.

“Aren’t you going back to Russia anyway?” Shane murmurs.

“Yes.”

“Well…”

Ilya slides off him, sits beside him on the bed. It takes every ounce of self-control in Shane’s body to roll away, to not crawl back into his lap. He swings his legs over the edge of the bed and... hesitates.

A shiver rolls through him as Ilya crowds his space from behind, pressing his chest into his back, mouthing at the curve of Shane’s throat. He reaches up and back, tangles his fingers through Ilya’s curls, and holds him there a moment. When he turns his head Ilya is already there, leaning in to seal their lips together in a searing kiss. A kiss Shane feels deep in the core of him. It fucking hurts.

When they part, Shane nudges their noses together, drags the tip of his nose down the bridge of Ilya’s. Ilya nuzzles closer. They share several shuddering breaths, passed back and forth, between parted lips.

Shane kisses him one last time. Chaste and brief. Then he stands.

He feels Ilya’s eyes on him as he picks through the mess they’ve made, searching for his briefs and his shirt, finding them tangled in the displaced bedspread. When he straightens, buttoning his shirt with quick fingers, he finds Ilya reclining on his side, his black briefs back around his hips.

Ilya looks unfairly handsome like that. All long lines and smooth skin, his curls glinting gold as he settles his temple against his palm, still watching Shane.

All Shane wants, in that moment, is to crawl back to him. Fuck everything else.

Instead, he turns, finds his shorts and his shoes, shoves his legs into his pants and his feet into his sneakers, keeping his gaze firmly averted. If he looks at Ilya he will cave, he will crawl on his hands and knees, right back into Ilya’s embrace.

At the door he pauses, fingers wrapped around the handle. He can still feel Ilya’s eyes on him, his gaze heavy and penetrating. Shane bites his lip and looks over.

There’s something soft and adoring in the way Ilya is staring at him. His gaze makes that same, bubbly feeling from earlier return to Shane’s chest. The feeling of it is like trapped laughter, squirming to be let out.

“What?” he asks, his tone soft. So fucking soft.

“Nothing,” Ilya murmurs and, somehow, his tone is even softer. Then, he says, “goodnight, Shane.”

In Ilya’s words he hears a test. Will you run? 

Shane smiles, shakes his head.

“Goodnight, Ilya.”

No, I will not run.