Chapter Text
Ilya learns how to lie young.
Not the harmless kind of lie either, like the kind that belongs in interviews or some post-game bullshit, but the kind that makes every day into a performance. The kind where your survival depends on how well you can convince everyone—yourself included—that you are something you are not.
He is twelve the first time his father looks at him like a stranger.
Ilya is still growing into his limbs then, all knees and elbows, a kid who would rather be on skates than in school, a kid who hasn’t yet learned to be afraid of his own scent, let alone the world around him. How cruel it can be.
He’s come home from practice with sweat slicking his hair to his forehead, cheeks flushed from cold air and exertion. His mother has soup on the stove.
His father walks in, pauses in the doorway, and inhales.
Then his gaze snaps to Ilya.
“You,” his father says, voice low.
Ilya freezes, spoon halfway to his mouth.
“What—” his mother starts.
His father crosses the kitchen in three strides, grips Ilya’s chin hard enough to tilt his head back, and sniffs along his jaw like he owns him.
Ilya’s stomach drops.
His mother makes a sound that’s half protest, half fear, but she does not stop him. They both know she can’t.
His father lets go, disgust flickering across his face like a stain.
“No,” he says.
Ilya doesn’t understand. Not yet.
His father’s hand comes down on the table. The bowl rattles. Soup sloshes.
“No son of mine,” his father says, and there is something final in it. “No son of mine is going to be—”
He doesn’t say omega. Not in front of Ilya. Not in front of his wife. Like the word itself is shameful enough to poison the air.
But Ilya knows anyway, because he’s not stupid, and because his father’s eyes have already said it.
From that day forward, everything becomes conditional.
His place in his own home. His worth. His future.
And hockey—hockey most of all.
Because hockey is the only thing his father has ever loved in a way that looks like pride, and Ilya learns fast that pride is something you can earn, like ice time. Like medals. Like points on a scoreboard.
Like masculinity.
Like “alpha.”
—--------
By thirteen, he has a doctor.
And his mother is gone. The only person who saw him.
A private doctor.
A doctor who doesn’t look Ilya in the eye when he explains suppressants and scent patches and blockers, who signs paperwork his father pushes across the desk, who nods when his father says, He is an alpha.
Ilya sits on the exam table with paper crinkling under his thighs and learns, all at once, that the world will always believe the loudest man in the room.
He learns that a label can be enforced by money, anger, and reputation, and that the body—his body—can be bullied into silence.
Everything comes down to control.
He can be in control.
The first suppressant makes him nauseous for three days. The second makes his hands shake. The third dulls everything, as if someone has wrapped his senses in cotton. His father watches him take them, watches him swallow, watches his throat move like proof.
“Good,” his father says. “This is good.”
And then, like a reward: “You will be great. You will be captain. You will be respected.”
Ilya learns to chase those words like oxygen.
He will be. He’ll die trying if it comes to it. Knows this on instinct.
—-------
By the time he reaches the NHL, the lie has calcified.
He has practiced it through juniors, through the KHL, through every locker room thick with sweat and adrenaline and scent, through every medical check where he holds his breath and prays the numbers don’t tilt wrong. He has learned how to angle his chin when someone talks to him, how to stand in a way that reads confident instead of careful, how to bite back instinct when his body wants to soften and lean.
Never let them see emotion. Hard and cold and calculated.
People see what he gives them: sharp edges, loud mouth, swagger.
They see an alpha.
And if they look closer, if they notice the faint chemical antiseptic under his cologne, if they clock the way he always has fresh patches on his ribs, if they wonder why his scent stays stubbornly muted even after a hard game—
They don’t say anything.
Because he is Ilya Rozanov, and Ilya Rozanov is terrifying on skates, and the world loves a story about a man who never shows weakness.
Ilya gives them that story because it is easier than telling the truth.
Because telling the truth would mean admitting his father could be right.
That omega could mean less.
He was not born for less.
Then Shane Hollander happens.
And that is… not part of the plan.
—------------
The first time Ilya really registers Shane isn’t even during a game.
It’s in a hallway outside a media room—bright lights, stale air, people moving like they’re late to something important. Ilya has just finished an interview, posture still locked in performance mode, mouth still tasting like lies and adrenaline. He’s checking his phone, thumb hovering over a message he won’t send.
Shane steps out of a doorway with a water bottle in his hand. He’s taller than Ilya expects, broader through the shoulders, hair damp like he’s just showered.
He should smell like soap and sweat.
He doesn’t.
He smells… like winter.
Not in the poetic sense either. In the literal sense: cold air, clean, sharp enough to wake you up. Underneath it there’s something grounded, steady, like woodsmoke. Something that makes Ilya’s tongue go dry.
For half a second, Ilya’s body does something it hasn’t done in years:
It reaches.
Instinct, half-starved, lifts its head and looks around like it’s smelling the world for the first time.
Ilya’s hand tightens around his phone so hard the edge bites his palm.
Shane’s gaze flicks to him—quick, casual.
Then it holds.
Not in a challenge or a threat.
Just… attention.
It makes Ilya bristle immediately.
Because Ilya is used to being looked at like a spectacle. Like danger. Like headline. Like a villain.
Shane looks at him like a person.
Ilya hates it.
And worse: something in him wants it. Which makes Ilya hate it even more.
Weakness.
Shane nods once, politely, and starts to move past.
Ilya’s mouth runs on its own, like it always does when he feels cornered. “You lost tonight,” he says, sharp.
Shane stops, turns his head. There’s no flare of anger. No alpha posturing. Just a calm, assessing look that makes Ilya feel suddenly too loud in his own skin.
“Yeah,” Shane says. “We did.”
It’s not defensive. It’s not embarrassed. It’s just a fact.
Ilya doesn’t know what to do with that.
So he does what he always does when he doesn’t know what to do: he pushes.
“You play like beta,” he says, cruel without thinking. A reflex. A weapon. Something his father would approve of.
Shane’s eyebrows lift.
And then, to Ilya’s shock, Shane smiles—small, like he’s amused by something Ilya can’t see.
“Okay,” Shane says.
Just that. Okay.
He turns and walks away.
Ilya stands there, pulse thudding, and feels something tilt.
Because that should have worked.
That should have landed.
That should have made Shane angry.
Instead, Ilya is left with the unsettling sensation that he has thrown a punch and hit air.
—-------
Over the next seasons, the rivalry grows teeth.
On the ice, they learn each other: patterns, habits, tells. Shane doesn’t chirp much, but his game is stubborn, relentless. He’s always in the right place at the wrong time. He’s always cutting off the lane Ilya wants, making him reroute, forcing him to improvise.
Ilya hates him for it.
He loves him for it.
He refuses to name that second part, but it sits in his chest like a stone anyway.
It becomes a thing—this rivalry. The commentators love it. Fans love it. They build a narrative around it the way people always do: two men, both talented, both competitive, both hungry.
What they don’t see is the undercurrent.
The way Ilya’s attention always snags on Shane even when he isn’t trying. The way his body reacts to him in ways that make no sense. The way Shane—calm, collected Shane—never looks away first.
Sometimes, in the middle of a scrum against the boards, Ilya catches a breath of Shane’s scent and it punches straight through suppressant fog, clean and cold and so real it makes his head spin.
He tells himself it’s adrenaline.
He tells himself it’s hatred.
He tells himself it’s a rivalry.
He tells himself a lot of things.
None of them stop him from wanting Shane. The one thing he can never have.
—-----
Off the ice, it’s worse.
Because off the ice, Shane exists without the narrative armor people have built around him.
He is quiet in hallways. He talks to reporters with an easy steadiness that makes it clear he doesn’t crave their approval. He treats teammates with a kind of low-key respect that doesn’t look like “leadership” in the loud, alpha-coded way everyone expects, but it still makes people listen.
And people assume he’s a beta.
Ilya hears it in whispers, in casual conversation, in the way someone says, “Hollander’s so calm, he’s gotta be beta, right?” like it’s an explanation for decency.
Shane never corrects them.
Not once.
It makes Ilya furious.
It makes him… jealous, in a way he doesn’t have language for.
Because Shane can be misread and it doesn’t cost him anything. Shane can let people be wrong and still be respected.
If Ilya let people be wrong about him, he would lose everything.
He would lose the story. The mask. The only safety he has ever known.
His entire world would be gone in a second.
And yet—Shane seems to have built a life where he doesn’t need a mask at all.
That kind of freedom is intoxicating.
And Ilya, who has been thirsty for freedom his entire life, doesn’t know how to stop hating him for it.
—-----------
The first time they speak like… people, it happens by accident.
They end up in the same hotel gym late at night, both of them running off a game that went ugly.
Ilya is on a treadmill, pushing too hard, sweat slicking down his spine under the tight wrap of a patch. His muscles burn. His lungs burn. His stomach churns with suppressant nausea he pretends doesn’t exist.
He needs to feel in control again.
Shane is on a bike nearby, pedaling steady, towel over one shoulder. He’s not pushing. He’s not punishing himself.
The difference is infuriating.
Ilya cranks up the speed.
Shane’s gaze flicks over.
“You’re gonna throw up,” Shane says.
Ilya almost laughs. “You care?”
Shane’s mouth twitches, like he’s suppressing his own laugh. “Maybe.”
Ilya’s chest tightens.
He hates that Shane is funny. Hates that he doesn’t use it like a weapon.
“Then why,” Ilya snaps, “are you talking to me?”
Shane slows the bike, stops, takes a sip of water. He thinks before he answers.
Because that’s the other thing about him: he doesn’t rush.
“Because you look like you’re trying to outrun something. I know that feeling too.,” Shane says.
Ilya’s hands slip on the treadmill bar.
For a moment, he can’t breathe from the way that sentence finds him.
He forces a laugh, sharp. “Maybe I just like winning.”
Shane shrugs. “Sure.”
He says it like he believes Ilya could be telling the truth, and like it doesn’t matter if he isn’t.
It unsettles Ilya.
He stops the treadmill abruptly, jumps off, heart pounding. “Go to bed, Hollander.”
Shane watches him, calm. “Okay.”
Again, that easy okay. That refusal to be baited.
Ilya storms out.
And in his room, he peels the patch off too fast, skin raw underneath, and stares at himself in the mirror like he’s looking for where the lie ends and he begins.
It’s getting harder to find.
—-----
He starts paying more attention after that.
Small things.
The way Shane’s eyes track him in press scrums like he’s paying attention. Focused.
The way Shane sometimes steps between his teammates and more aggressive alphas in crowded spaces, subtle and unannounced, like he’s diffusing conflict without making a show of it.
The way he touches people—brief, grounding contact on a shoulder, a squeeze of a forearm—without it reading as dominance.
The way he smells the same every time: cold and clean and steady.
Ilya realizes, slowly, that Shane is the kind of alpha Ilya didn’t know was possible.
The kind that doesn’t give in to anger.
The kind that doesn’t take.
The kind that just… is.
The kind that isn’t like his father. His father's friends. His brother.
The kind he didn’t think was a possibility.
And that terrifies Ilya, because it makes him wonder what else his father lied about.
—-----
The first real fracture in the lie comes during a road trip.
It’s stupid. Simple.
A flight delay.
Ilya has his kit—always, always—except this time, the last of his suppressants got confiscated in a security check because the label is wrong, because the paperwork is forged, because everything about his life is balanced on fraud.
He argues in Russian under his breath while his handler makes calls. He sends a furious text to his doctor that he deletes immediately.
By the time they reach the hotel, it’s late, and the suppressant fog in his veins is thinning.
The world sharpens.
Scents get louder.
The hallway feels too warm. He already has a headache.
Ilya presses his keycard to the door with a hand that is not quite steady.
Inside, he strips the moment the door shuts, peeling off his shirt, then his undershirt, then the patch on his ribs. The skin underneath is angry and raised. He presses his palm to it, hard, like pressure will fix it.
His body hums low and uneasy.
Not heat yet.
But the edge of it.
The warning.
Been suppressing it for so long his body is just waiting for the second it has the opportunity to send him into it. A dangerous game he’s been playing with himself for years.
He’s in control though. Always.
He digs through his bag for another patch and finds the pack empty.
For a second, his vision blurs.
He sits on the edge of the bed, elbows on knees, head in hands.
He can manage this, he tells himself. He has managed worse. He has managed everything.
He can get through one night.
He can get through one night without slipping.
Without smelling wrong.
Without—
A knock at the door.
Ilya tenses so hard it hurts.
Another knock, softer.
“Ilya?” Shane’s voice.
Ilya’s heart drops straight into his stomach.
He doesn’t answer.
The knock comes again. “You okay?”
Ilya swallows, throat dry. “Go away.”
Silence.
Then: “No.”
Ilya’s head snaps up.
Shane’s voice isn’t loud. It isn’t aggressive.
But it is firm.
“I’m not here to mess with you, or anything,” Shane says through the door. “Your teammate asked me to check. You didn’t answer your phone. You didn’t look so good.”
Ilya’s pulse is a drumbeat.
He shouldn’t open the door.
He shouldn’t let Shane see him like this—half-undone, scent starting to fray at the edges, instincts itching.
But something in him, something exhausted and lonely, wants—
He is weak. Full of weakness. Just like his father said.
He crosses the room before he can stop himself and yanks the door open.
Shane stands in the hallway in sweatpants and a hoodie, hair still damp, hands held loose at his sides like he’s making a point of not being threatening.
His gaze flicks over Ilya—bare chest, flushed skin, the red oval on his ribs.
And then Shane inhales.
Just… instinctively.
His pupils widen.
Something sharp changes in his scent—still clean and cold, but now edged with alertness.
Ilya feels his own body respond like a traitor: stomach swooping, mouth watering, limbs going too loose.
His hand tightens on the door.
Shane’s gaze lifts to his face.
“Oh,” Shane says.
Not disgusted. Not mocking him.
recognition.
Ilya’s chest locks up.
Shame slams into him so hard it’s almost physical.
“Don’t,” he snaps.
Shane doesn’t move. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t—” Ilya’s voice cracks. Fury rushes in to cover it. “Don’t look at me like that.”
Shane’s brows draw together slightly, confusion soft and genuine. “Like what?”
Like you see me.
Like you know.
Like you’re about to turn my entire life into a before-and-after.
Ilya’s hands shake. He curls them into fists.
Shane’s gaze drops again to the raw patch-mark. His voice changes—lower, careful. “Did you run out?”
Ilya laughs, sharp and broken. “Go to hell.”
Shane studies him for a beat longer, then does something that makes Ilya’s throat tighten even more:
He steps back.
Gives space.
“Okay,” Shane says quietly. “I’m going to ask one thing, and you can tell me to leave and I will.”
Ilya’s breath catches.
Shane keeps his eyes on Ilya’s face, not his body, not his scent, like he is deliberately not making this about biology.
“Are you safe?” Shane asks.
The question hits Ilya in the ribs.
Safe?
No one has asked him that in years.
Not really.
His father asked if he was obedient. Coaches asked if he was strong. Doctors asked if he was stable.
Safe was never part of the equation.
Ilya’s lips part.
No sound comes out.
Shane nods slowly, like he understands the silence as an answer.
“I can stay outside your door,” Shane says. “I can go. I can get you food, water. I can—” He hesitates. “I can help you get through the night. If you want.”
Ilya’s vision blurs again.
This is the moment, he thinks. This is where Shane turns into every alpha stereotype. Where he pushes. Where he takes advantage. Where he demands.
Shane just stands there, waiting.
Like the choice is Ilya’s.
Like Ilya is allowed to have one.
Ilya’s throat works. “Why,” he manages, voice raw, “do you care?”
Shane’s jaw tightens. “I don’t know,” Shane admits. “I just… do.”
Ilya hates that honesty. Hates how it makes him want to fall apart.
He steps back, jerky. “Come in.”
Shane’s eyes widen slightly in surprise.
“Are you sure?” Shane asks immediately.
Ilya clenches his teeth. “Yes. Before I change my mind.”
Shane nods once and steps inside, careful, like he’s entering a room full of fragile glass.
He doesn’t close the door behind him. He leaves it cracked, a visible exit.
It’s such a small thing, and it almost ruins Ilya.
Ilya shuts it anyway.
—-------
Shane sits on the edge of the chair by the small hotel desk, not on the bed, giving Ilya space. He asks where the water is. He asks where Ilya wants him.
Ilya stands near the window, arms crossed tight over his bare chest like he can physically hold his scent in.
For a while, neither of them speaks.
The silence is thick.
Ilya’s body hums with the early edge of heat—itchy, restless, needy in a way he’s trained himself to despise.
Shane’s scent is steady in the room, calm winter air, grounding.
It makes Ilya’s instincts lean toward him like a starving thing.
He hates that.
He wants it.
He doesn’t know how to reconcile those two truths.
Finally, Ilya forces the words out like a confession he’s been avoiding for his entire life.
“My father,” he says, voice tight. “He would kill me if he knew.”
Shane’s gaze lifts, soft but intent. “If he knew you were—”
“Don’t say it,” Ilya snaps immediately, panic rising. “Don’t say word.”
Shane nods. “Okay.”
The way he says it—simple acceptance—makes something in Ilya tremble.
Ilya’s laugh is bitter. “He said I cannot be great if I am omega.”
Shane goes very still.
There’s no dramatic reaction. No loud anger. Just a quiet shift, like the temperature drops.
“That’s bullshit,” Shane says.
Ilya stares at him. “Easy for you.”
Shane’s mouth tightens. “No.”
The firmness in his voice makes Ilya’s breath catch.
Shane leans forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped, posture open.
“Ilya,” Shane says, careful, “this isn’t about hockey. Not really. This is about someone else deciding for you what you’re allowed to be.”
Ilya’s throat burns.
He wants to say yes, because it’s true.
He wants to say no, because admitting it means admitting he’s been hurt.
He doesn’t know which feels more dangerous.
Shane watches him with that steady attention again.
“Can I tell you something?” Shane asks.
Ilya’s shoulders tense. “What?”
“I’m an alpha,” Shane says.
The words land heavily.
Ilya’s mind scrambles for a response, for an insult, for a deflection.
“You don’t—” he starts. Act like one. Behave aggressively. You don’t resemble my asshole father.
“I know,” Shane says, and there’s a faint, tired humor in it. “Sometimes people assume I’m a beta. There's public speculation. I don’t correct them.”
“Why,” Ilya demands, sharper than he means to.
Shane shrugs, small. “Because I don’t think my label is a matter of my performance. And, honestly? I don’t think it’s anyone’s fucking business.”
Ilya’s chest tightens painfully.
Shane continues, voice low. “And because I’ve watched the way people treat alphas and omegas, and I hate it. I hate the assumptions. I hate the expectations. I hate all of it. It’s bullshit.”
He looks at Ilya then. Really looks.
“I also hate that someone convinced you you had to hide.”
Ilya’s hands shake.
He turns away sharply, staring out the window at nothing.
“You don’t understand,” Ilya says, voice breaking at the edges. “If people know, I lose everything.”
Shane doesn’t argue.
He just says, softly: “Maybe.”
Ilya whirls, furious. “Yes.”
Shane’s eyes are steady. “I believe you. I’m not saying it isn’t real.”
That stops Ilya.
Shane exhales slowly. “I’m saying it shouldn’t be.”
The silence that follows feels like standing on a cliff.
Ilya’s body hums, heat inching closer, the suppressant's absence making everything sharper. His skin feels too tight. His stomach feels hollow. He wants to pace. He wants to claw his own scent out of his body.
He wants Shane to leave.
He wants Shane to stay.
He hates wanting anything.
Shane’s voice is gentle when he asks, “What do you need right now?”
Ilya laughs, shaky. “Suppressants.”
Shane nods. “Okay. Can you get more in the morning?”
“Yes,” Ilya says. “Maybe. If doctor answers.”
Shane’s jaw tightens again.
He doesn’t ask for details.
He doesn’t demand to know why, or how long, or what Ilya’s father did.
He just nods, like he’s storing the information as something important.
“What do you need right now?” Shane asks again, slower.
Ilya swallows hard.
He doesn’t know how to answer.
Because he has never been allowed to need.
He has only been allowed to perform.
Ilya’s voice comes out quiet, almost unbearable. “I don’t want to be alone.” It’s pathetic even to his own ears, but something about him just..opens when Shane is around.
Shane’s breath catches, just barely.
He doesn’t move fast. Doesn’t pounce on the vulnerability.
He nods once, steady. “Okay.”
He shifts—just a little—off the chair, lowering himself to sit on the floor instead, back against the wall a few feet away from the bed. Hands still visible. Space still given.
Like he’s saying: I’m here. I’m not taking anything you didn’t offer.
It’s such a simple choice. It feels like mercy.
Ilya’s eyes sting.
He hates himself for it.
—----
They talk in fragments at first.
Not big confessions. Not dramatic speeches.
Just…the basics.
Ilya tells him about the first time he learned to apply a scent patch. About how it burned. About how his father watched to make sure he did it correctly.
Shane listens like it really matters.
Ilya tells him about hockey scouts, about the way people looked at him when he was young, the way they asked questions that weren’t about his skating. The way his father smiled too brightly and answered for him.
Shane’s hands curl into fists once, tight with contained anger, then loosen again.
Ilya tells him—quiet, careful—about the fear.
How every time he goes into a locker room, some part of him is counting exits.
How every medical check feels like Russian roulette.
How he never sleeps well during playoff season because stress makes suppressant control slip.
Ilya doesn’t think hes ever talked this much in his entire life. To anyone. He’ll blame the flood of hormones and the fever making his brain and his control weak.
Shane’s voice is low. “That’s… a lot.”
Ilya laughs bitterly. “Yes.”
Shane looks up at him. “How long have you been doing it alone?”
Ilya’s throat tightens.
He can’t say always.
So he says, “Long.”
Shane nods, like he understands the weight in that word.
“Ilya,” he says softly, “you shouldn’t have had to do that.”
The words are gentle.
They still hit like a punch.
Because for a second, Ilya believes him.
And believing him makes everything hurt more.
—----
At some point, the silence shifts.
Not awkward anymore, but it is a comforting quiet.
Ilya sits on the bed with his back against the headboard, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them, watching Shane on the floor like he’s watching a wild animal he doesn’t know how to approach.
He’s shivering even though he’s sweating. Nausea nearly constant. Head throbbing.
Shane looks calm, but Ilya can tell he’s paying attention—watching Ilya’s breathing, the tension in his shoulders, the way his scent spikes when he gets anxious.
Shane is managing himself too.
Ilya doesn’t miss the way Shane’s gaze drops, once, to Ilya’s throat, to the pulse there, like some part of him wants to press his mouth to it.
Shane looks away immediately.
Control.
Restraint.
It makes Ilya’s stomach swoop.
Because that’s what he’s been terrified of: the alpha instinct.
But Shane’s instinct isn’t predatory.
It’s more like protective.
And Ilya doesn’t know what to do with that.
His voice comes out small, almost involuntary. “Do you… want?”
Shane’s head lifts.
Ilya regrets it instantly.
Shane’s eyes are dark now, not with aggression but with something deep. Something hungry and gentle at the same time.
He doesn’t lie.
“Yes,” Shane says.
Ilya’s breath catches.
Shane continues before Ilya can panic. “But I don’t want to push. And I don’t want you to think you owe me anything just because I found out. No matter what this is between us. I promise.”
Ilya swallows hard. “I don’t owe you.”
“I know,” Shane says quietly. “I want you because it’s you.”
That’s the most dangerous thing Shane could possibly say.
Because it makes the lie—omegas are less—wobble.
Because it makes Ilya want to lean into something he has been taught to fear.
Ilya’s fingers twist in the sheet.
His body hums, heat edging closer. He can feel the pull in his skin, in his throat, in the low ache between his legs that he wants to pretend doesn’t exist.
He hates his body for betraying him.
He hates his father for making him hate it.
He looks at Shane and hears himself say, rough: “What if I am… wrong?”
Shane’s brows draw together. “Wrong?”
“What if I am weak?” Ilya whispers.
Shane’s voice is immediate, firm. “No.”
Ilya’s throat burns. “You don’t know.”
Shane’s gaze holds his like a hand around the back of his neck, steadying.
“I know you,” Shane says. “I know the way you play. I know the way you fight. I know the way you take hits and get up anyway. I know the way you refuse to let anyone see you bleed. The way you manage a team? The dedication and the work you do?”
Ilya flinches like he’s been struck.
Shane’s voice softens. “That isn’t weakness. You’re strong.”
He pauses, then adds, quieter: “But you don’t have to be strong like that… with me.”
Ilya’s eyes sting again.
He looks away fast, angry at himself.
“Why,” Ilya whispers, voice breaking, “are you like this?”
Shane’s mouth twitches, just a little. “Stubborn.”
Ilya lets out a shaky laugh. “Yes.”
Shane’s gaze warms. “Maybe I just—” He stops, like he doesn’t want to say something too big too soon.
Ilya’s chest aches.
“Say,” Ilya demands, soft and desperate.
Shane exhales. “Maybe I just don’t like the idea of you hurting alone. Maybe I’ve noticed you for a…long time. Maybe I like you for you. Have even before all of this.”
The words settle over Ilya like a blanket.
He hates how much he wants to melt into them.
—--
The heat hits officially around three a.m.
Like a tide coming in: slowly at first, then all at once when you aren’t paying attention.
Ilya wakes with his skin too hot, mouth dry, throat aching like he wants to bite down on something. His scent is loud now—sweet, raw, clinging—no patch to contain it, no suppressant to blunt it.
Panic slams into him.
He scrambles upright, breath coming fast, heart pounding. Didn’t even realize he had fallen asleep at all. Felt safe enough to.
Shane is already awake on the floor, like he never fully slept, like he’s been keeping watch.
His gaze lifts, sharp.
“Ilya,” he says, quiet.
Ilya’s hands shake. “No.”
Shane doesn’t move. “Okay.”
Ilya drags in a breath. The scent in the room is overwhelming. His own is a broadcast. Shane’s is colder now, edged with instinct, but still controlled.
Ilya’s throat works. “I—” He swallows. “I can’t—”
Shane’s voice is steady. “Tell me what you need.”
Ilya’s mind blanks.
Because what he needs is biological and humiliating and everything his father taught him to despise.
He squeezes his eyes shut.
Shane doesn’t speak for a moment.
Then, softly: “Can I come closer?”
Ilya’s eyes snap open.
Shane stays still, waiting, giving Ilya the choice.
Ilya hates him for making him decide.
He hates himself for wanting it.
He nods once, jerky.
Shane moves slowly, crossing the room like he’s approaching a skittish animal. He stops a few feet away.
“What do you want?” Shane asks. “Not what you think you’re supposed to want. What you actually want.”
Ilya’s breath shudders.
His voice comes out small and wrecked. “You.”