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Las Vegas, June, 2014
He’s certain that Shane likely made time for a cursory, tight-lipped smile as he passed by the stagehands, but Ilya doesn’t. He tugs at his cufflinks as the heels of his dress shoes click against black tile, the inner workings of the curtains and useless pageantry a blur in his peripherals on his way to the staff bathroom Shane had disappeared into moments before.
Ilya’s never seen him move so fast when he’s not wearing skates.
And never as the result of Ilya touching him. He feels…what is it called? Nauseous.
He pushes the bathroom door open more harshly than he means to, a rush of cold air from the corridor sweeping him inside with a whisper. He sees Shane’s back and shoulders first, bent and curved inward on himself as he grips the edges of the sink with white knuckles. Something in Ilya’s chest feels tangled and tugged, legs moving to carry him closer before he can think better of it even if every bone in Shane’s body screams don’t touch.
Ilya doesn’t think it’s the forbidden nature of things that’s making the opposite so appealing right now.
With a heavy breath in lieu of a greeting, he steps up to the opposite side of the sinks and leans against the wall, staring straight forward at Hollander’s side profile. Some time as he’d been walking closer Shane’s chin had lifted to watch in the reflection; Ilya’s eyes on him, Shane’s on the glass, like an added layer of separation had felt necessary.
“What the hell was that,” Shane says through his teeth, and this much closer, Ilya can see sweat dotting his temples. His brow dips a little. The stage lights had been bright, sure—but not that warm.
“Did you not like it?”
“I don’t like you not fucking answering my texts for the last six months and then acting like we—like—” his head drops down to hang between his shoulders again, gaze slipping off Ilya’s face in the reflection. His next breath is shaky. “Fuck. I don’t know.”
Ilya stalls for a minute, weighing his options. He’s not very good at saying he’s sorry—he knows this. Perhaps he is even worse at showing that he cares. But he does, and so he stops thinking and follows his instincts, closing the small distance to grip the back of Shane’s neck with gentle fingers.
In all honesty, he’d thought Hollander would be glad to be rid of him for a while. Shane is confusing in that way; never doing what Ilya expects, being vulnerable where Ilya anticipates humor or anger or other familiar things he doesn’t have names for.
He suspects, of course. But.
Even now, it’s unsettling to see him this way. They’re almost the same size but Hollander makes himself so small sometimes, curls in on himself somewhere that Ilya cannot follow. His quiet fists, tightly closed eyes, heavy breathing—it makes Ilya’s stomach hurt. He hates it, if only for the fact of his own body’s reaction. Instincts that he’s long since put to sleep, forcibly having made peace with casualty so that he wouldn’t lose his mind at what little control he’s given over his own life.
He has control over Shane, he realizes probably too late. It’s terrifying. It’s like stepping into something he’d thought would be gone forever.
Beneath his grip, the muscles in Hollander’s neck and jaw work as he swallows. When Ilya’s head tilts and dips to the side, he can see his lip trembling. Ilya’s forehead wrinkles further.
Fuck it, he thinks.
“Hollander,” he says, again when Shane’s eyes stay closed. His hand slips down, around to his chin to take it between his fingers. “Hollander. Look at me. Listen.”
Glassy brown eyes, pupils too large, blink over at him, too much of his weight in Ilya’s hand. “What?”
“When was last time you went down?”
“What?” Shane says again, marginally less calm this time. He wrestles in Ilya’s grip, but only makes it back a few inches. “Fuck you. Off, I mean, fuck—fuck off, Rozanov.”
The feeling in Ilya’s stomach doubles. Shane’s cheeks have darkened with blood, his words slurred, the slow blink of his eyes confused. Surely Ilya’s touch alone hadn’t done this?
And if that’s the case, surely Ilya can’t be the first to have noticed?
Ilya steps closer again, slowly, watching the pout of Hollander’s lower lip, the way he presses a hand to the wall to steady himself when he sways on his feet.
“Shane,” he says. “I am serious.”
He shakes his head as if the motion will make Ilya, or maybe the conversation as a whole, disappear. “I don’t—I don’t…”
Even still he sways forward again, shaking head coming to a stop when his warm, damp temple comes into contact with Ilya’s suit at his shoulder. Frowning, Ilya reaches up to steady him at the back of his neck again, peering down at his face.
“You don’t what? You know what I am saying, yes? When was last time someone took care of you?”
Shane mumbles against his shoulder. “I don’t rank high enough to need—that.”
“You are submissive, yes?”
“Fuck, Rozanov,” he hisses, muscles tensing. “You already fucking know it, don’t you?”
Ilya had guessed the first time they had sex. He does not tell Hollander this.
“Then you need.”
“I don’t,” he insists, nose shoved up against Ilya’s collar. He’s rubbing his cheek against the material. Ilya doesn’t think he’s aware of it. “An’ how would you know what I need, anyway?”
He can’t say because I care about you, so he lifts the shoulder Shane is not on, careful not to jostle him too much, and says instead, “I watch. I pay attention. You are very captivating when you are not being a brat.”
Hollander goes taut in his hold, body rigid against Ilya’s.
And then he panics.
“Let me go.”
Ilya watches him push and fumble with little success, torn between respecting his request and trying to keep him upright and off the dirty bathroom floor.
“Hollander. Hold on. What—?” he asks.
“I’m not a fucking brat,” Shane spits, voice splitting halfway through. He yanks his arm again, his shoulder jamming hard into the wall behind him. “Let go, Ilya.”
“I did not mean like that, Hollander, fuck.” Ilya runs a hand through his hair. “Was—wrong phrase. I didn’t think. You make my brain—messy.” He dips his head again, tries to catch Shane’s glistening, stubborn eyes. “You are not a brat. I am sorry.”
It’s a standoff for several too-long seconds, Ilya’s mind flicking between needless logistics like how someone could come into the bathroom at any moment and how long Shane has been like this and how quickly Ilya could sneak him away from here without anyone asking questions.
But Shane has not asked him for this. He does not offer.
He is not above begging, though.
“Come back, please. I want to touch you.”
Hollander manages one last glare before he pushes off the wall and straight into Ilya’s chest, Ilya catching him with an arm around his middle and another gravitating toward that spot at his neck again, irresistible.
“M’not,” he mumbles into Ilya’s jacket, clutching the sides of it with his fist.
“You are not,” Ilya agrees, stroking over the back of his head. “You are very good.”
Shane shivers, his entire body trembling for a second before he rights himself with a heavy, quick exhale, warm against Ilya’s chest through his shirt. His grip tightens.
“Fuck, Rozanov.”
“I mean it,” he insists, squeezing a little so Hollander knows he means it. “You are good.”
They sway like that for a minute or several, and Shane doesn’t cry, but his eyes are wet when he rubs his cheek against Ilya’s collar again. His mouth brushes Ilya’s pulse when he speaks.
“Say—“ he tries, voice rough and quiet and only just for Ilya. “Can you say it again, please?”
“You are good,” Ilya provides without hesitation, speaking against his temple as his fingers tighten slightly at the back of Shane’s neck. “You are good boy, Hollander.”
There’s a silent pause, a shaky inhale, an exhale that sounds suspiciously like a sob. The feeling from Ilya’s stomach rises up behind his ribs and into his chest, too big to be contained.
“Fuck,” Shane slurs. “Fuck.”
He’s shaking in Ilya’s arms, short little trembling bursts every few seconds as Ilya rocks them subtly back and forth. He wishes they were not in a bathroom. Wishes he were somewhere with soft things, somewhere with lights not so harsh that Shane flinches at them, wishes they could be alone for hours and days and fucking weeks until they’ve finally had enough of each other and they’re both on steady ground again.
But Ilya cannot promise even that would be enough, not for him, and right now it isn’t possible anyway. He will make the most of what he can.
He works a hand between them until he can pet at Hollander’s cheek, swiping the wetness from it with his thumb. He’s already dipping down when Shane’s chin tilts up, mouth split open and swollen, searching for warmth.
Ilya kisses him then, sucks gently at his lower lip and soothes the marks of Shane’s teeth with broad strokes of his tongue. Shane opens up so easily for him—always has, if Ilya thinks about it. It makes him want to take Hollander away somewhere very far and never share him with anyone else. He thinks about it, sometimes.
“I don’t remember,” Shane says after they part, his cheek back on Ilya’s shoulder, hands resting on Ilya’s hips instead of gripping so tightly anymore.
Ducking to look at him, Ilya swipes a thumb over his neck. “What?”
“You asked me the last time I went down,” he iterates tiredly; defeated. “I—I don’t remember.”
“Hollander…” Ilya sucks in a breath.
Nauseous. He remembers the word easily now.
“Spare me the lecture,” Shane mutters.
Wrestling his face from Ilya’s neck is somewhat difficult now that Hollander has managed to regain some of his faculties, but he still lets Ilya grip his chin, pull him up so he can look him in the eye.
“Let me take care of you.”
He shakes his head, eyes focused on Ilya’s mouth. “You don’t want that.”
“I do. I want you to feel good.”
“I’m different—like that. I’m needy, and annoying, and—it’s not like when we…” he gestures loosely between them, thought trailing off at the edges as his face colors.
“I am ranked same level as you,” Ilya admits more casually than he feels. He hasn’t told anyone this before.
“Bullshit,” Shane breathes like reflex, eyes widening when they lift to Ilya’s and find no trace of humor. His brow wrinkles. “You are?”
“Yes. On dominant scale.” Ilya swallows, stares at the delicate hollow his thumb makes in Hollander’s cheek. “So. Maybe I need too, yes?”
Being vulnerable is more difficult than Ilya had thought. He should give Shane more credit, he thinks as he watches the dark pink of Shane’s lower lip bloom white again under the cut of his teeth until Ilya bullies it free again with his thumb.
He does not think Shane had caught his accidental confirmation of his own ranking in acknowledging Ilya's.
“What if it’s a lot,” he whispers, but he sounds more hopeful than he has all night. “What if it’s—too much?”
Ilya shrugs. “We go slow. We will talk about this. Is safer that way.”
Shane stares for a long time, and then nods.
“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” He pauses. “So. When?”
“After awards tonight,” Ilya says, even if it pains him. He slides a hand down the back of Shane’s head, rubs at the tension in his neck. “My hotel room. I will text you. You think you can make it to then?”
“I can make it,” Shane swallows. “You—?”
“Me what?” Ilya presses when he cuts himself off.
There’s still lingering wetness in Hollander’s eyes when they flick up to Ilya’s face, a wrinkle between his brows that lets Ilya know he’s thinking hard about something.
“You promise you’ll text?”
Ilya swallows back bile. Nods. Only one of them can fall apart at a time, and Shane probably deserves it more. Ilya can keep it together until he’s not in front of cameras or cursing out family members or pinned underneath Shane’s endless, too trusting gaze.
“I promise, Hollander.”
Back out on stage, Ilya’s fingers shake only a little when he accepts his award. He’ll tease Shane about winning it later, probably. But if he’s honest, Shane probably deserves this too.
He deserves fucking everything. And Ilya’s going to give it to him in whatever ways he’s allowed.