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The sun is just beginning to rise when something pulls Ilya from the depths of sleep.
The hand is strong, and firm, and warm as it curves over Ilya’s waist and comes to rest on his stomach. Steady fingers scratch at the trail of hair beneath his belly button before he is tugged backwards, the length of his back pressing against the chest behind him. Ilya hums contentedly as soft, plump lips pepper kisses onto the side of his throat and along the top of his shoulder.
“My husband won’t like you touching me like this.”
“Husband, eh? You’re married?”
Ilya can feel the sleepy rumble of the man’s voice against his back. He presses further into it, folding his own hand over the one that’s splayed against his stomach, and slotting their fingers together.
“Yes. He will be very sad when he finds out I am in bed with second best hockey player in NHL.”
Shane snorts, somewhere between humour and indignation. He tightens his hold on Ilya as he sinks his teeth into the juncture of Ilya’s shoulder, right where it meets his neck. Ilya gasps, jerking in Shane’s arms but not pulling away. He likes this - being marked by Shane. After a decade of being absolutely meticulous about not leaving any evidence behind on each other’s bodies, it feels a little bit like bliss that they’re finally allowed to claim each other.
As of yesterday, Shane is Ilya’s husband. Ilya is Shane’s.
The matching wedding bands adorning their ring fingers are proof of it. Proof that this is the start of the rest of their life - that Shane is something Ilya finally gets to keep.
“Fuck you, Rozanov,” Shane says, his lips brushing over the mark he’d just sucked into Ilya’s skin.
“Excuse me, I think you’ll find it’s Hollander-Rozanov now,” Ilya teasingly corrects his husband.
Shane groans. “Fuck. Why is that so hot?”
“Because it is you and me. Together. Us.”
It’s maybe too earnest, but it’s the truth. Ilya can’t seem to hold it back anymore; he has no filter now that the world knows about them. It’s hot, it’s good, it’s right, because it’s them. Because they belong together like two halves of one soul - like the universe created them just so they could find each other. Ilya has known it since the moment an awkward, doe-eyed seventeen year old with beautiful freckles shook his hand twice in the space of thirty seconds.
And it’s taken them a hell of a long time to get here - years, and loss, and heartache, and scandal - but Ilya wouldn’t change those years for anything. Because, interspersed with all the pain, there has been joy, too. There has been tenderness, and trust, and sacrifice, and so much love that the entire world doesn’t seem big enough to hold it all.
It hurts a little, sometimes, when Ilya looks back on all of those years that they spent hiding from themselves and each other, when they could have spent them together. They could have spent them happier. It kind of feels like Ilya spent a decade missing Shane. But now he gets this. Now he never has to miss him again.
So no, Ilya wouldn’t change a single second of those years as long as it always led him to this: waking up with the sunlight filtering through the blinds - his husband’s naked body draped around him - on the morning after their wedding.
Shane groans again, and then he’s tugging Ilya’s hip backwards.
“Turn around,” he insists, and that’s not a request Ilya would deny his husband.
He rolls until he’s facing Shane, his arm still hooked over Ilya’s waist as they breathe the same, hot air between them. He’s so fucking beautiful that it makes Ilya’s chest feel like it’s cracking open, sometimes. All big brown eyes, and angel kisses on his nose and cheeks, and a softness to him that only Ilya has ever truly been allowed to see.
Home, that’s what Ilya sees when he looks at Shane - the place where he belongs.
And he still can’t believe it, even after all this time. Even with a house, and a dog, and a wedding with vows and rings and a certificate with both of their names scrawled across the signature line. Ilya can’t believe he gets to love this man, and somehow - impossibly, miraculously - Shane loves him in return.
“Hello,” Shane whispers.
“Hello.”
“I think I need a good morning kiss from my husband.”
“Oh, is he here?” Ilya teases, pretending to look over his shoulder.
Shane’s hand comes up between them, shoving at Ilya’s chest briefly, before working its way up over his shoulder until Shane is curling it around the back of Ilya’s neck. The grip is firm, but not controlling. He doesn’t pull Ilya towards him; he doesn’t have to. Ilya surges forward, capturing Shane’s mouth in an unhurried, sleep-soft kiss. All sugar, and sweetness, and sunshine.
It’s slow and lazy, and they’re both half-hard but neither of them move to do anything about it. There’s no rush, after all. Not anymore. This isn’t a stolen moment between games and road trips - it isn’t a secret, twelve-hour rendezvous before the real world drags them back under. They get to have this for the rest of their lives, now.
Ilya never has to wake up without Shane in his arms again.
Shane hums quietly against Ilya’s mouth. “Morning breath.”
“Don’t care,” Ilya grumbles.
“Me either,” Shane says, laughing quietly as Ilya burrows his face in Shane’s neck and lavishes him with a flurry of kisses.
He stays there for a while, breathing in the sex-and-sweat scent of Shane’s skin. Shane’s hand trails up and down Ilya’s back while the other is burrowed into his curls. Ilya’s hand squeezes Shane’s hip tightly.
He used to the think the ice was his favourite place in the world. Once Ilya’s blades touch the ice, the rest of the world just falls away for him. There are no worries or stresses or concerns as long as he’s skating. But now…now Ilya knows that there’s nowhere on this earth better than right here: wrapped up in his husband’s arms, knowing that he never has to leave them again.
“It’s real.”
Shane doesn’t have to ask what Ilya is talking about, he simply tightens his hold and repeats, “It’s real.”
“We’re married.”
“Yep,” Shane agrees. “Even got the rings to prove it.”
At the mention of their wedding rings, Ilya slowly withdraws from his hiding spot in Shane’s neck. He looks into his husband’s eyes for a moment - sees his entire future looming back at him - and then looks down to where his left hand is resting on Shane’s hip.
There’s a ring on his finger; it’s black, with a gold interior and thin gold band running through the centre of it. Sleek, and classy, and perfect. He’d worn it on his chain with his crucifix for months, close to his heart when it couldn’t be on his finger. But now it’s finally where it belongs, and Ilya isn’t sure if he’ll ever be able to take it off. They might need to get silicone ones to wear during their games, because he never wants to look at his hand and see it without a wedding ring again. Hell, maybe Ilya will even get it tattooed.
Shane’s own left hand is tangled in his hair, and as much as the touch makes Ilya boneless, he needs it for other things right now. Needs to see the proof that Shane is his.
Ilya lifts his neck just a little, so he can slip Shane’s hand out from beneath it. Shane smirks, allowing himself to be manhandled once he realises what he’s doing. Ilya pulls Shane’s hand into the space between them so he can get a good look at the matching band circling Shane’s ring finger - the one Ilya had slipped onto him yesterday. I do, they had both said, their voices thick with restrained emotion and disbelieving laughter.
Ilya ducks his head to press a kiss to his husband’s wedding band. He sighs when he feels Shane’s index finger brush back and forth over Ilya’s cheek, and he leans into the touch as he kisses the ring again.
“Mine,” Ilya breathes. “Mine, mine, mine.”
“Yours,” Shane sighs.
And then there’s a kiss being pressed to the top of Ilya’s head, and a hand reaching for his chin to tilt his head upwards. When his eyes lock on Shane’s he notices the way they’re glistening - the way the unshed tears build along his waterline, making his eyes shine in the early morning sunlight. Mesmerising.
“I’ve always been yours, Ilya,” Shane promises.
And Ilya knows that it’s true.
From the very moment they first met, they have belonged to each other. His soul recognised Shane’s in an instant, and it’s been reaching out for him ever since.
Ilya has loved every single version of Shane, since they were nothing more than kids pretending to be men. He has watched Shane change, and grow, and evolve into the man he was always supposed to be. Not for anyone else, but for himself. Ilya has watched him fail, and flourish, and succeed, and he’s adored him in every one of those stages of his life.
It’s been the greatest honour of Ilya’s life, getting to know and love every Shane that has ever existed - getting to fall in love with him over and over again.
“And I’ve always been yours,” Ilya tells him.
Shane grins. “Oh, I know.”
“Shut up. You’re pretty. Is not my fault,” Ilya huffs dismissively, making Shane cackle with glee.
“Ohhhh, you have a crush on me,” Shane sings, teasing Ilya. “That’s so embarrassing, dude.”
He pokes Ilya’s chest, and his eyes are shining with mirth, and he looks so beautiful that Ilya wants to rip out his heart and hand it over to Shane while it’s still beating. It’s always been his, anyway.
Ilya surges forward, catches Shane’s bottom lip between his teeth and bites down on it until Shane whines. Then he sucks it into his mouth to soothe some of the sting, before releasing it and pulling back.
“I married you,” Ilya says, deadpan. “And don’t call me dude when your cock is pressing against my leg.”
Shane snorts out a laugh, grinding his hips into Ilya’s so the semi he’s sporting rubs against Ilya’s own in a way that makes both of them a little breathless.
“It’s okay,” Shane says. “Everyone gets crushes from time to time.”
“Oh, yeah? Even Mr Golden Boy?”
“Yeah,” Shane acknowledges, nodding his head. “I always thought Scott Hunter-“
Ilya growls, low and rumbling and animalistic, as he twists them both and rolls on top of Shane. He pins his arms down onto the bed and straddles him, squeezing Shane’s waist between his thighs in a warning. Shane laughs so loud the sound echoes around their bedroom. His eyes are scrunched closed, and his smile is wide, and his head is thrown back in laughter.
Ilya seizes the opportunity that presents itself, dipping down to kiss, and suck, and bite at the exposed length of Shane’s neck.
The laughter dies in Shane’s throat, quickly turning to whimpers and moans and whines instead. He tries to buck his hips up into Ilya, but Ilya just shifts his body so he’s pressing more of his weight down on him, keeping him completely pinned and at Ilya’s mercy. Exactly where Shane loves to be; exactly where Ilya loves to keep him.
“Not fair,” Shane gasps.
“Don’t say that man’s name in our bed then,” Ilya grumbles, mostly joking but not entirely.
“Ilya.”
“What am I, Shane?” Ilya asks, his lips brushing against Shane’s jawline. “Say it.”
“My husband.”
Ilya hums. “Better.”
“Now will you kiss me properly?” Shane huffs.
And that’s an offer Ilya simply cannot refuse.
He hovers his lips above Shane’s for less than second, just to torment him, then he’s capturing his husband’s mouth in a kiss that is searing. They’re all tongues and teeth as they lick into each other’s mouths, slow and sensual and absolutely ravenous.
God, Ilya will never get enough of this. From the moment they first kissed in that hotel room in Toronto, Ilya knew he was hooked - knew that no one would ever compare to Shane Hollander. And he was right. Because now, over ten years down the line, Shane Hollander-Rozanov’s mouth is still as addictive as it was back then.
When he pulls back, Ilya takes a moment to just look at Shane.
The crows feet by his eyes and the smile lines etched into his cheeks - signs that Shane has lived, and changed, and laughed. Signs that he has loved.
The constellations of freckles that bewitched Ilya from the very instant that they met, and have never once failed to make him feel weak in the knees. The depth of Shane’s eyes, and the way he looks at Ilya with so much love that he feels like he’s suffocating, but in a good way. The best way. His lips, that Ilya has kissed and sucked and bitten and teased, that still manage to thrill Ilya even after so many years.
This man - his husband - is Ilya’s soulmate.
He can’t wait to spend forever watching Shane change. Excited to watch his laugh lines grow deeper, and for wrinkles and gray hair, and all those beautiful signs of time passing: proof of a life well-lived and a life well-loved.
He leans back down to kiss Shane again, brief and chaste. “My Shane,” Ilya whispers. “My husband.”
“You gonna let me go?” Shane asks, pressing up against the hold Ilya still has on his wrists.
“No,” Ilya says. “Never.”
Shane rolls his eyes, but it’s fond and sweet and Ilya needs to touch him. So he does release his wrists, Ilya’s hands moving to cup Shane’s face between his palms as Shane’s hands wind around Ilya’s waist.
“I love you, baby,” Shane whispers. It makes Ilya shudder.
He presses his forehead against Shane’s, then nods so their noses rub together.
“I love you, too, sweetheart.”
His heart thunders in his chest, strong and steady, beating in time with Shane’s.
Nothing has really changed since yesterday. Ilya still loves Shane the same as he always has, and Shane still loves Ilya right back. They still have their home, and their dog, and the family they’ve found together. Aside from their new jewellery and the marriage certificate that’s already in the mail, today is absolutely no different from all the months - and years - that have come before it.
Except.
For Ilya - for someone who has never had anyone stay before - everything finally feels certain. Steady. Like he’s standing on solid ground for the very first time in his life. This doesn’t mean he and Shane suddenly love each other more now that they’re finally married, it just means that the lingering fear Ilya harboured that it was all going to be ripped away from him, has finally gone away.
This perfect man in his arms is his, now, for the rest of their lives.
So nothing has changed, and everything has changed, and this life is finally one that Ilya is excited to live because he knows he doesn’t have to do it alone now. He’s going to spend a lazy day with his husband, and tonight they’re going to fall asleep together, then wake up side by side tomorrow, and it’s going to look like that for the rest of his life. Their life.
“What do you want to do today?” Shane asks quietly, a little while later.
Shane’s head is resting on Ilya’s chest, and he leans down to press a kiss to the top of his hair as he thinks about his answer. Then he nudges Shane’s chin with his knuckle, until he tilts his head up and his eyes come to rest on Ilya’s.
“This,” Ilya says simply.
“This?”
“I want to lie here. Want to kiss you and fuck you and hold you all day. I never want to stop looking at you.”
Shane chuckles, but a sweet, rosy blush spreads beneath the freckles on his cheeks. He looks away for a second, but his eyes quickly find their way back to Ilya.
“I think just looking at me will get pretty boring,” Shane argues.
“No,” Ilya scoffs. “I will never get bored of this face. These eyes, and freckles, and nose, and smile.” He trails his finger around Shane’s face, tracing each of his features as he lists them.
“No?”
“No,” Ilya insists. “It’s my favourite thing in the whole world.”
Shane’s eyes soften, and he lets out a sweet little whine. Then he’s grabbing Ilya’s hand and bringing it to his mouth, kissing Ilya’s wedding ring over and over again.
“Mine,” Shane says, possessive and certain and adoring.
“Yours,” Ilya promises.
For the rest of their days, Ilya and Shane will belong to each other.
From freckles and cigarette smoke in snowy Saskatchewan, until they’re old and gray and Ilya’s memory starts to fail, he will never not love Shane Hollander.
Hollander-Rozanov.