Archive of Our Own

“We can,” Shane is saying, on repeat, like a chant — like an enchantment — into Ilya’s mouth. It’s the only explanation for why Ilya is kissing him back into the wall of the closet rather than extracting himself and going back to the party so they can maintain a sensible distance, some plausible deniability, and their sanity.

“Shane, we can’t,” he tries to counter, but the words are swallowed by Shane’s satisfied purr, the little thump of his head back against the wall, Ilya getting hold of him just too late to cradle his skull in the cushion of his hands. The hold just pulls Shane closer, and then they’re kissing again, Ilya’s tongue in Shane’s mouth, Shane’s determined grip at Ilya’s waist. He’s probably wrinkling Ilya’s jacket with his greedy clever hands, which are already halfway up inside Ilya’s shirt, buttons popping in a way that has Ilya’s mouth watering, fuck. Shane licks at him, along the corner of his mouth, down to his neck, nose pressing into the spot he likes at the base of Ilya’s throat.

“Still can’t believe you’re wearing this,” Shane murmurs, laughs, starts moving his mouth lower into the v of Ilya’s open collar. “So many colours.” He has to hunch a bit. Ilya smooths a hand over the straining ridge of one shoulder, back up again. He’s so hard he feels a bit drunk off it, in a way the eight vodkas and Abba tribute band of earlier couldn’t have hoped to replicate.

“Shane,” he tries again, and Shane bites down on the swell of his shoulder, through his shirt. There will be a mouth print on the silk, no question. Ilya rocks against him, gets a hand down the back of his suit pants, wriggling his wrist to pop past the snug strain of the waistband.

“Fuck, yeah, come on,” Shane agrees, and goes for his zipper. They’re not being quiet enough, not when they’re in Scott Hunter’s hotel suite, in a closet in his fucking bedroom, with about twenty hockey players and a whole bevy of models and influencers enjoying the afterparty next door. It’s a well deserved celebration: half the MLH was there at Scott’s fundraiser tonight, all decked out in various shades of the rainbow. Allies.

“We really shouldn’t,” Ilya says, presses a finger along Shane’s crease until he can feel the eager twitch of furled skin through the warmed cotton of his underwear. He presses again, a rich dragging demand. Shane moans, mouth open against Ilya’s shirt, which is sticking to his shoulder now. Shane’s so easy for it — and maybe he’s right, maybe Ilya could have him here fast, and maybe they’d get away with it. He didn’t bring any lube, and Shane won’t have prepped, but he could flatten Shane against the wall and take his thighs — spit and pre will be enough if he’s fast about it, which he will be. Or there’s always Shane’s mouth, the nuclear option tonight, already too reddened, already too swollen with use, just from kissing. His hair is a mess.

Ilya already knows he’s going to risk it. He’d risk any of it to get inside Shane in some capacity. His suit feels too tight, skin itching; he misses being touched even before they’ve stopped. He’s full to overpouring with everything he wants to give Shane right here in this dark little closet.

“I love you,” Shane says, heartstopping, simple; Ilya groans, gets both hands on Shane’s ass so they can rub up off each other more firmly. “I’m close, Ilya, fuck.”

“I want it, my Shane.” It’s madness; it’s like a cold shot, sliding down the throat; it’s like being boarded so hard Ilya feels it in his lungs. “Okay, come on, then. You can come like this?”

Shane makes the breathy sound that means yes; it’s good, this slip into nonsense. Ilya searches for the English to cajole him along. He probably doesn’t even need it — the Russian will do at this stage. Shane gets it, even when he doesn’t.

There’s a knock. It’s small but insistent, unignorable.

“Shit.” Shane freezes. In the half-light through the cracked door his eyes are wet, the whites gleaming wide with panic. “Fuck, Ilya, fuck.”

Ilya puts a hand over his mouth, starts fumbling Shane’s buttons back up. It’s useless — no one could possibly see Shane like this and not know, but he’s trying anyway, when the voice comes quietly around the door.

“It’s okay, it’s just me. Heads up — I’m coming in, okay?”

Hunter? Ilya mouths at Shane, who does nothing but nod frantically and stare from Ilya to the door. He’s trembling in Ilya’s hands. Ilya clears his throat.

“No need to come in, Hunter. I, uhhh— There was slippage—” Shane’s eyes flicker “No, I mean… Spillage, small spillage. Just looking for paper towels. Coming out now, okay?”

“Looking for paper towels? In the closet? In my bedroom. Right.” Hunter’s voice is unimpressed.

The overhead light clicks on. Ilya blinks. Shane looks even worse than expected in the unforgiving blueish glow. His mouth is still wet, fuck. Everything that should be buttoned is very much not.

“Please don’t be naked,” Hunter says, and then he’s slipping in the door, looming over them. His suit jacket has been discarded somewhere, and there’s a gentle mist of sweat across his upper lip, shining at his throat. He had been dancing when Shane and Ilya slipped away.

“Hunter, do you struggle with deafness? Need hearing aid, maybe? I told you to go away.” Ilya can’t stop checking on Shane, who’s pressed against the wall. His eyes flick between Shane and Hunter, heartbeat fast.

“Sorry, Hollzy,” Hunter says, then glares at Ilya. “Roz. I’m not trying to freak you out, but you’re fucking stupid if you think it’s okay to do whatever you’re doing here.”

“I’m sorry,” Shane replies, faintly. “What?”

He looks at Ilya, fingers twitching helplessly as though to touch. Ilya feels sick; his throat feels like a closed fist.

“Look, I’m not blind.” Hunter sounds irritated. “And people out there are looking for you. You’re gonna get caught by someone who isn’t me if you keep doing dumb shit like this.”

Shane drops his head, chin low to his chest. His breathing is noisy.

“Shane, it’s okay,” Ilya tries. It comes out mostly clear, and he coughs before he goes on. He can do this. “Hunter is a dickhead, but he can keep secrets, yes? And just this one time, I will admit that he is not completely wrong about something. We need to go back to party now, okay? Before people come looking for us.”

He steps closer, tugs Shane’s shirt to neaten it, then slips his hands carefully lower and does up the button of his pants, businesslike. He can’t do much about the hair, or the mouth, but the lights are dim out there in the hotel suite and everyone’s been drinking all night. They probably won’t notice.

“Ilya,” Shane falters. His hands rise and flutter, formless, then land on Ilya’s chest, pressing, begging.

“Hey.” Ilya boxes him in, gets a hand to the back of his neck, firm, a quick squeeze and release. “We’re good here. You go find Hayden, mock him about his rainbow tie. I will explain things to Hunter, and then I will come back to party too.”

Shane breathes in hard through his nose.

“Explain things—? Okay, yeah… I guess that’s a good idea.”

Ilya takes him by the chin, waits for the moment that his head drops back trustingly. Every time. “Listen to me. You do what I say now. Go, be boring with Hayden, have nice big glass of water. You will be calm, all will be fine. And later…” He wills Shane to trust him, keeps his eyes on him. “Later, I will take care of you.”

Shane’s fingers flex against Ilya’s chest, which is mostly still bare, his shirt off one shoulder. He looks beyond Ilya to Hunter; Ilya doesn’t have to look back to sense that Hunter is doing that earnest smouldery thing he does. Inexplicably, Shane seems comforted by it.

“Okay,” Shane says, and takes his hands away, one final press of fingers over Ilya’s heart. He looks at Ilya for a moment, eyes on his mouth, then smiles — not his real smile — at Hunter over Ilya’s shoulder. “Okay, I can do this.”

“You’re welcome,” Hunter says, sounding bored. It’s the right tone to take; Shane shifts a little, back to his social self.

“Thanks, Hunter. And, uhhh. Great party. Congrats on the fundraising.”

“No problem, Hollzy. And yeah, great to have you on board.”

Shane takes a deep shuddery breath and slips out the door of the closet. Hunter and Ilya listen, alert; there’s the sound of the outer door opening, the joyful swell of noise, someone shouting “Cap! Get over here!” and then the door shuts again and quiet descends.

“You know if you tell anyone about this,” Ilya says, “I will have to murder you horribly.” Hunter snorts. “I’m serious, Hunter, I am Russian, I am perfectly equipped to do these things.”

“I’m not going to out you, Roz, fuck. What do you think I am?” Hunter shoves him ungently between the shoulder blades, turning him to nudge him out the door of the closet. “And is that meant to be a threat? Because I’d love to see you try, you ungrateful fuck.”

The bedroom beyond is quiet — low lighting, expensive. Hunter grabs a bottle of whiskey, and the vodka Ilya had been looking for before Shane distracted him, ten minutes and half a heart attack ago.

“You go.” Ilya shoos him. “I join after.” He finds his box of cigarettes, shakes it at Hunter, who makes a disgusted face. He may not be Canadian, but he is still very boring.

“On the balcony at least, please.”

Ilya salutes him lazily and makes for the balcony — the cold night air will be a welcome distraction, at least.

“Hey, Rozanov!” Ilya would normally ignore Hunter when he speaks to him like that, but it is his closet Ilya was practically fucking Shane Hollander in, so he turns.

“What, you want a thank you kiss?”

“I don’t know why I fucking bother with you, Roz, I swear. Just shut up for a second, okay? I just wanted to say—” He looks pained “—Hollander’s a good kid. Annoying as shit, but a good kid. And he hasn’t been around the block like you have. Just… be careful with him, alright?”

Ilya wants to laugh, so he does, full body, relief rolling through him. Hunter’s expression is moving from pissed off to actively hostile, and still Ilya laughs.

“Hunter,” he manages, when he gets enough breath back. He puts his hand to his mouth, sense memory of Shane’s thumb nudging over his teeth and onto his tongue, not five minutes ago. “Hunter, you are senile, or stupid. Probably both.”

Hunter scowls. “Just quit jerking him around, Rozanov. Okay?”

“Listen carefully.” Ilya can be patient. Ilya has been patient for so long. “Hunter, you do not understand. I will not hurt Shane. We have done that before, for many years, and it was not very nice for us. Much better, what we are to each other now. Lovers, you see?”

Hunter is staring, mouth open. Finally, Ilya has shut him up, though not for long.

“Lovers. Like…?”

“Yes,” Ilya says happily. “Just like. You understand now?”

He tips a cigarette from the pack, slides it over his lower lip where it sticks slightly in the damp seam of his mouth. His lighter is smooth and cool in his hand. He looks up at Hunter, shaking his hair from his eyes. Hunter’s expression is unreadable, or maybe Ilya just doesn’t care to tease it out.

“Yeah,” Hunter says finally. “I think I do.”

“Okay,” Ilya says, the balcony door already swinging wide. “It’s good.”

Ilya’s slumped halfway to the floor, one hand over the mess he’s made of his stomach, the other still gripping the back of the couch. He reaches for the phone he’s got propped up on the table, but his limbs are too heavy, and he knocks it to the floor.

“Hold on, hold on,” he says, groaning, his softening cock smearing damp across his thigh as he goes down on hands and knees to fumble under the table. “Just one… second.”

When he gets hold of it, gets the screen back the right way up, Shane’s laughing at him. “Good hands you got there, Cap.”

“Shut up, Hollander.”

Shane grins, triumphant. “You liked that?”

Ilya’s foggy from it, his mind still caught on the sight of Shane shuffling back against the headboard, propping his wrapped ankle so neatly on a throw pillow, then looking up at Ilya through his eyelashes as he reached beneath his thighs to spread himself wide open. Ilya would like to close his own eyes again, to hold on to the moment. To indulge in it.

Instead, he shrugs. “Was okay,” he tells Shane.

“Sure, it was,” Shane returns, knowingly. He gets up, the screen bobbing unevenly: clearly, he’s still limping. “Pervert.”

“Who is pervert?” returns Ilya. “Was not my asshole. Was not my fingers.”

He wishes it had been his fingers.

In the bathroom, Shane sets the phone against something, angles it so Ilya can still see him in the mirror, then throws back a handful of pills and brings a glass to his lips. Wordlessly, Ilya watches him swallow: once, then with a grimace, a second time. Shane takes a flannel, folds it into a neat square and gets it wet, then, with a sly glance at Ilya, runs it slowly over his chest. Ilya’s hand goes to his dick again, and it’s almost a comfort thing, a distraction from the sharpness of wanting. He watches, squeezing his prick slowly, still hunched over his coffee table, as Shane moves lower, washing come off the dark curls at his groin.

“Shane—” Ilya says, and he’s almost fully hard again now, skin prickling with oversensitivity, sweat gathering at his temples. But two hundred miles away, the flannel’s back in the sink. Shane turns his toothbrush on, shoves it in his mouth. Ilya shivers, watching.

“I’d better get some sleep,” Shane says, through a mouthful of foam. “I’ve got the doctor first thing, and he’ll probably want to give me a shot, so.”

Shane hates needles. “Poor baby,” says Ilya, distantly, as Shane spits, then rinses, then walks him slowly back to the bedroom.

“I know. Miss you,” Shane says, reaching for the discarded duvet, shaking it out one-handed.

“I miss you too.”

“Yeah. So hopefully I’ll be good for the game on Saturday,” he says, holding the phone up above him as he settles down on his pillow, “and after that I’m all yours for two whole days, okay?”

“All mine,” Ilya repeats. Shane smiles at him, sleepy-eyed and content, and ends the call, and then it’s just Ilya, naked in his living room, left staring at his own reflection in the screen.

He’s on edge, still horny, and he pulls up some porn, but it’s not the same. He’s come once already, of course, and what he really needs right now couldn’t be further away from the performative grunts of the guy on screen or the breathy moans of the girl he’s folding in half. Ilya can’t get Shane out of his head: his big wide fuck-me eyes, his fringe falling in his face, his forearms shaking from the effort of holding himself open for Ilya to see.

It’s one in the morning, but Ilya won’t sleep now, he knows that. He feels off-balance, rash, and on impulse he tosses on some clothes, dumps a few bits in an overnight bag, grabs his keys off the kitchen island, and heads out into the night.

Highway 417’s a boring road, even in the daytime, and even in the Porsche. Tonight, though, he finds he doesn’t mind it: time stretches out, the sky huge above him, tail-lights streaking red in his periphery. When he arrives, it’s by the back entrance as usual — a joke Shane never appreciates — and he cuts the engine quickly. Alight with anticipation, he redials Shane’s number.

It rings out, unanswered.

Ilya tries again: again, the same result. He gets out, bangs on the door, even checks under the mat. Ten minutes, and he’s almost resigned himself to a stiff-necked night on the Porsche’s awful seats, but then the door finally opens, and Shane’s there, really there, in the flesh. He looks less than impressed, but Ilya smiles at him, holds his hands out — what?

“Are you crazy?” Shane demands, though it’s less of a demand than a slow, weary question. “You’re gonna—” He pauses, stifling a yawn. “You’re gonna wake the whole neighbourhood.”

“Hello to you too,” Ilya says, sulky and deflated, and he kicks the door shut hard behind him. Shane hardly seems to notice, sighing into Ilya’s arms, and Ilya scoops him up like a baby, sprained ankle and all, and carries him back up the stairs.

“‘S nice to see you,” Shane mumbles, face buried in Ilya’s hair.

“I hope so,” Ilya says, setting him down on the bed. He kicks off his sneakers, tugs his shirt over his head, then gets up and over Shane, leaning in for the kiss that’s all he’s been thinking about those long two hours of driving.

“Ilya,” Shane breathes, mouth moving slow against Ilya’s. “Ilya, I—”

Something’s not quite right, Ilya can tell. His hands are on Ilya’s ass, but there’s little grip to his fingers. Those doe eyes are shadowed, the lids drooping heavy. Concerned, Ilya pulls back. Fuck, his pupils are enormous. “Shane?”

“Yeah? I’m okay,” says Shane, blinking, and now can Ilya hear the slurring. “Pain meds.”

In Ilya’s defence he had been rather preoccupied, but he recalls it clearly now: Shane, standing at the mirror, swallowing down all those pills. “Ah,” Ilya says, swinging his leg back over and rolling off with a sigh. He kisses Shane on the shoulder, rubs his stubble against the skin. “You have pain still?”

“No,” murmurs Shane, smiling beatifically over at him. “Sleepy. ’M sorry.” He turns onto his side. “You drove all this way.”

“Don’t be sorry,” says Ilya, curling up behind him. “I’ll be here tomorrow. You sleep now.”

Shane wriggles backwards, which puts his ass in direct contact with Ilya’s groin. Somehow, though, strangely, Ilya finds that desperate urgency has just… dissipated. He closes his eyes.

“Glad you’re—” Shane mumbles, and then he’s asleep.

Ilya tests his hands; they have to be careful, obviously, in season like this. Also, Shane was worried rope might leave marks, so they’ve used one of Shane’s old practice jerseys, the arms softened out with multiple washes, wide and tight around Ilya’s wrists and knotted into the wood of the headboard. There’s some give there when Ilya engages his shoulder muscles, but he can’t quite get free, which makes Shane look grimly satisfied as he straddles Ilya, thighs spread and flattened when he gets Ilya’s legs trapped between them.

“There,” Shane says with one last tug at the knot, lower lip between teeth, a whitening tension gathering amidst all the pink. His eyes are narrowed, lashes catching the shadow in the dim room. Ilya shivers, cold from the cracked open window, and from the touch to his wrist, Shane’s cool fingers, the concentration in his tired eyes. “That’s tight enough, I think.”

When Ilya did this in the past, he knew would be able to get himself untied pretty easily; this time he’s not sure he could, and he likes it. His dick is interested in Shane’s weight on him, in the small fluid motion as Shane leans back onto his heels, grinds down a bit, thigh muscles jumping. Shane is naked, the soft hang of his cock barely brushing Ilya’s hip, his nipples dark and tight, goosebumps on his arms. He looks exhausted. He is exhausted.

The bruise is very dark, still, its edges softening over the rungs of Shane’s left ribcage, feathering to gold at the outskirts. If Ilya had his hands free he’d be touching it right now, notching fingers into the spaces between the bones where everything is blood-dark and spongey, so Shane would hiss and startle and then settle, anchored. But Ilya has no hands, can only beg with the twitch of his hips for more contact, which Shane gives him, two hands to his chest, the whole heft of him leaning forward so they can kiss.

“Watch your ribs,” Ilya tells him, drowsily, after he sits back up. Shane looks insulted; he is of course already being careful, like he always is with injuries.

“I am,” he says mulishly. “It’s fine.”

“Okay,” Ilya says. “I am at your mercy, Hollander. What are you going to do with me now?”

Shane’s lashes flicker.

“I’m going to. Ummm. Touch myself. Get myself ready while you watch, make myself wet for you.”

Ilya wriggles encouragingly under him. The bed creaks; he forces himself to relax his arms again. From outside in the corridor, a door slamming, voices — drunk, probably, some women laughing. No one they need to worry about here, tucked into this last-minute hotel room, the beautiful serendipity of a cancelled flight giving them an unexpected extra night in the same city. Outside the window, the sky has that wide-open snow-swollen quality that reminds Ilya of Moscow nights, lying alone, a cold bed. He looks back at Shane instead.

“Mmm, good,” he says. “And then? You’ll take my cock, I think. Ride me ‘til you come all over me? Still won’t let me touch?” He bucks a little, which unsteadies Shane, who obviously wasn’t expecting it. It’s not enough to dislodge him; Ilya just wants to feel the muscular clench of Shane’s thighs settling him, wants to make him do the stern eyes.

Shane does start touching himself, though he’s a bit hesitant about it, fingers slow as he scoops and tugs at his balls. His other hand strays up his chest, too gently. If Ilya was touching him, he’d be breathing fast for it, pressing his tits into Ilya’s palm. He’d be hard. Instead, he’s working unenthusiastically at his foreskin, thumbing it into a wrinkle then smoothing it back so Ilya can see the peep of the head of his soft cock.

“That’s what you want, I guess,” Shane says, and he’s jerking himself off, cock snug in his curled hand, maybe chubbing up a bit but not really there yet. “So that’s what I’ll give you.”

Obviously, Ilya is into this. The thought of it, at least, or the memory of how it will feel, sliding bare into Shane, the hot cling, being in him while he moves, the way Ilya will only be able to watch, not touch. But Shane is staring down at his own hand, the relentless pull of his wrist, fixedly, and he's not getting hard.

“Shane,” Ilya says, and when he doesn’t look up, again. “Shane. You need some lube? Or you give me your hand and I will get it nice and wet with my mouth.”

Shane is still pulling at his cock, his thigh muscles jerking, rhythmic. It’s starting to look painful. He still doesn’t look up.

“Stop fucking patronising me,” he says bitterly. “I can do it myself.”

“Alright,” Ilya says. “Untie me now, fun is over.” The muscles of his shoulders are screaming; the headboard makes a small groaning sound as he strains at the bindings.

Shane’s hands are steady, wrists and elbows flexing elegantly above Ilya’s face as he unknots the sweater sleeves, unwinds them from the bed and then from Ilya’s wrists. His fingers linger delicately on the thin skin over Ilya’s left wristbone, pressing down for a second, and then he’s gone over to his own side of the bed, all his weight off Ilya, letting the icy breeze from the open window travel unbroken over Ilya’s bare skin.

“Sorry.” It’s barely an apology, so quiet as to almost get lost in the room, so sulky that it might as well be an insult.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Shane?” Ilya feels unaccountably pissed off. His heart rate is up; he can feel where the cotton of the sweater has rubbed around his wrists. He’ll still feel it tomorrow. “This whole thing was your idea.”

“I’m not the one who’s into this shit,” Shane says bitterly. “You’re the one who brought it up, asshole.” Shane turns; oh, so now he’s decided to look at Ilya, now he’s all pink and fretful, lashes heavy over wet resentful eyes. “You said you liked it, when I asked you— After she said— Svetlana, that time.”

“Sveta?” Ilya can barely remember the conversation; the drunken night Ilya had finally introduced them both; the way Sveta had smiled at Shane as though she was determined to be very, very nice to him; the way Shane had not smiled back at all. The polite hockey talk shifting as the night went on, Shane’s blunted rudeness, Sveta’s assuredness, both of them vying for Ilya’s attention, neither of them quite landing on where they sat in this new dynamic. Shane hadn’t liked her much; she had thought he was helplessly dull. It had been hot, watching them spar; Ilya had fucked every ounce of jealousy out of Shane the second they got back to their room that night. Or so he had thought.

“She talked about it, remember? When you said you were tied up on the weekend of her birthday so you couldn’t get back to Boston?”

Ilya did, vaguely; her insinuating smile, the way she had nodded as though unsurprised. Being tied up suits you, she had said; it was hardly anything. Shane had asked him about it later, casually, like it was no big deal. Ilya had laughed when he told him.

“This was all because of her? Hollander, have you gone completely crazy?”

“Yes.” Shane’s words are muffled, his hands are over his face, creamy inner thigh turned up trustingly to the ceiling, soft dick cradled in the crease of his hip. “I actually think I might have gone a bit crazy. Fuck, I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

He peers from behind his fingers. His eyes are red; he looks over Ilya wistfully, tracking over his chest, up to his mouth, down to his dick, which is still getting used to the idea that this whole event hasn’t actually been very hot at all.

“You wanted to do to me what she did to me?” He had only done this once with Sveta. She had used the scrap of lace she called a bra. He had liked it; she had thought it was funny; it had turned her on; they had laughed about it afterwards. It had been good.

“I just wanted... I don’t know? The way she said it, I knew that she was trying to let me know something, only I couldn’t really work out what it was. And why would she do that, unless it was to make me feel like shit over what you and her had? Which actually makes her kind of a bitch. Sorry.” His hand uncurls on the bed, twitchy; Ilya lets his little finger drift closer across the tangled sheets. Waits. Shane’s hand twists to touch; he winds his fingers through Ilya’s, palm moist and solid. Ilya exhales, hazy; he can see his breath now, they need to close the window.

“She can be a bitch. She knows this. It’s just how she is. I think maybe she is jealous of you. No excuse of course, but I am not her keeper. She will come round, she will love you soon.”

Shane blanches.

“I don’t think I want— I mean, I don’t need to be friends with her. I don’t like seeing her, really. She’s so pretty, and you love her so much. It makes me feel— It makes me remember—”

He wrinkles his nose like he does after a mistake on the ice. He despises his own weakness, always — dismisses it. Ilya knows the feeling, remembers the urge to cut himself off from even thinking about Shane’s beautiful movie star girl Rose Landry, remembers, remembers.

“Shane.” He tightens his fingers, waits for Shane’s answering clasp. “You cannot hate Sveta.”

“I don’t hate her! I just… don’t like her very much.”

“You cannot hate her,” Ilya goes on. “Because she is all I have left. From before.”

Shane is silent for a long time; he needs time to think things through even when it comes to something simple, like buying a new throw for his obnoxiously Canadian couch, let alone for something like this.

“Yeah, but come on, Rozanov.” His eyes flicker — the name change is deliberate, then, and it makes Ilya want to laugh at his pettiness. “You loved her. You would have married her, you told me that.”

In another life, Ilya could have — would have. He could have loved her properly. They would have been happy, probably.

“Yes,” he says. “I love her, she is good woman and good friend. I would have done it. But then, there is a lot that I would do if I had to, to be close to you. To stay here, to play hockey against you and to drive my beautiful fucking cars and to never, ever have to go back there again. And she, I think, would have been happy to do that for me. She is generous in that way. You cannot take her away from me, Shane. But I do not think you really want to.”

“I don’t want you to love anyone else.” Shane can never be small, with all the density of a lifetime of optimised sports nutrition behind him. And yet. “I know it’s selfish. I know it’s fucking crazy. I know.”

“You hear about Sveta tying me up, you think immediately that you must also give me this? But Shane, you must see that it is very stupid to think this way. Sveta ties me to bed, I make her come, more than once, probably, she makes me come, we laugh, she unties me, I drink three more drinks on the balcony and then I fall asleep. I do not lie awake wishing she had freed my hands to let me touch her body.” When Ilya puts a finger to Shane’s collarbone, he quivers, wakeful. Ilya lets his finger sketch a path as it may, shoulder to nipple to the humid heat under his arm; hip and thigh and the stupid Band-Aid on his knee and the arching curve of his foot and his plump cock. “I like Sveta tying my hands because we have fun, it’s not important. But with you? I spend enough time not touching you, Shane. It is a waste, such a terrible waste, to be here with you and not to get to do this.”

His finger is at Shane’s lip, pressing the dug-in line of Shane’s teeth until he gives, opens up. He sucks, automatic, tongue curling around Ilya’s knuckle. Ilya presses against the back of his teeth, strokes the spongey inner wall of his cheek, pushes down on his tongue until his swallow reflex rebels. Shane chokes, spit pooling and retreating, sucks again.

“God,” he says, gasping, when Ilya pulls his finger back out. “I’m sorry, fuck. I love you. I’m glad you love her. I’m glad you have her in your life. Or I’ll learn to be, anyway. Okay?” He slumps, face in Ilya’s neck. It’s not defeat, it’s relief; they’re sinking, an easy slide down onto one shared pillow, Shane’s leg caught and held between Ilya’s two, Shane’s arm pinned to the bed under Ilya’s neck. Ilya has a mouthful of hair, he blows it out, kisses Shane’s skull, gets more hair in his mouth, blows it out again.

“I wanted to fuck you,” Ilya tells him, muffled. “It would have been so good for me. You were hot, on top of me, and touching your soft little cock.”

“Fuck off.” Shane cuts himself off with a yawn. “It’s not little.”

“I will have to check to make sure. Perhaps I will ring down to reception in the morning, ask them to send up a measuring tape?”

“Sure.” Shane yawns, kisses him through it. “I can help you double check your measurements if you like. I mean, you obviously don’t know what nine inches looks like, so I’m not sure I trust your judgement—”

“My spatial awareness is superb,” Ilya tells him, digging fingers in along the ticklish part of Shane’s side. “You must sleep now Shane, clearly exhaustion has made you confused.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re delusional. Goodnight.” Shane’s eyes are already closed, though he keeps his face tilted up, already anticipating a kiss, and Ilya gives it to him, helplessly.

When Shane first tells him, Ilya laughs. He’s got to be joking, right?

Shane’s not laughing, though. “Playoffs,” he says, by way of explanation.

“Playoffs,” Ilya returns, unimpressed.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

Ilya takes a deep breath. It’s hard to know what the apology’s for, whether it’s the no-sex thing or the hockey. Ilya doesn’t have to worry about playoffs this season, obviously, though they haven’t really talked about it. Ilya’s been busy enough, even with the hockey done, so the little sting in his chest at the thought of Shane still skating this season comes as a surprise.

He’s trying to look for the positives — and there are positives. They’ll have more time together, finally, more time properly together, more than just a couple of days stolen here and there between games. Nine months in and they’re still learning each other’s routines, still weaving themselves slowly into the fabric of each other’s lives. Shane’s razor sits beside Ilya’s in the bathroom, and his NutriBullet’s always out on Ilya’s kitchen countertop, and his yoga mat’s rolled up neatly in Ilya’s living room corner, ready and waiting when he gets back. When Ilya leaves Montreal, his clothes go in Shane’s laundry basket; he knows they’ll be washed and folded in his drawer the next time he arrives. It’s exciting, yes, but still so tentative. And Ilya’s ready now, ready to take the next step. Ready to stay for more than one night at a time.

What he’s absolutely not ready for is to be hit with this bizarre no-sex superstition.

And Shane’s pre-game rituals are already insane. There’s the lucky socks, the lucky puck in his pocket, the series of lucky photographs he always has to touch in the perfect order. Ilya rather enjoys the living room stretches, that much is true, but he could do without the strange affirmations, or the endless squeak of the foam roller, or the way Shane snaps if Ilya walks too close to the game day clothes he’s laid out. They’d sat together in the afternoon to watch reruns of old Guardians’ games, Shane muttering and rewinding and underlining words in his notebook. He was chewing his pen, shoulders tensed by his ears, and so Ilya — bored, looking for something else to do — had gotten in behind him to rub his back. It had worked for a time, the bunched-up muscles softening beneath Ilya’s fingers, Shane throwing his head back and sighing, then gasping into Ilya’s touch.

Of course, then Yuna had called, and Shane had jumped up to take the call, her voice ringing shrill and tinny through the apartment, and Ilya had suffered through forty minutes of that. He’d half drifted off there on the sofa, watching that beautiful mouth forming words that slipped back into foreign in Ilya’s drowsy state, waking only to nod every time Shane turned to him, animated, with a question — right Ilya? I mean, Brooksy’s been shaky all month. Right Ilya? Yeah, yeah, Mom, I know, they play too deep. Right Ilya?

God, Ilya loves him.

And now they’re in bed, finally, finally, and now this little revelation. Not before the game, Shane had said, and Ilya had laughed, and Shane hadn’t, and now there’s silence.

“I don’t mind if you — you know, do yourself,” Shane offers. Do yourself, Ilya thinks. He can’t even say the words, it’s embarrassing. “I can take my shirt off, if you like.”

Ilya sleeps naked. Shane doesn’t. False advertising, Ilya had said, the first time he’d seen Shane in his boring navy t-shirt, and his ugly grey shorts, and his weird little nighttime socks. “You can take your shirt off,” Ilya repeats.

“Yeah, so you can, like, touch my nipples. Or whatever.”

“Wow,” says Ilya. “Thanks.”

“Ilya.”

“Shane.” Ilya stares back at him, unimpressed, then puts a hand on his thigh. Slides it up over the curve of muscle, fingers dipping beneath the baggy leg of his shorts. Shane’s breathing quickens, and a pleasing flush creeps over those freckles, but then Shane grabs his wrist, ever so gently, and pushes it away. There’s a look on his face that Ilya knows all too well; he’s been facing off against Shane for a decade now, after all. And Shane might still be skating playoff games, but it’s Ilya who has the edge at puck drop. Well, 53% of the time, anyway.

Ilya sighs heavily and rolls away. “Alright,” he says, long-suffering, addressing the ceiling. “Shirt off, then.”

Shane smirks a little as he does, which makes it even better. The buzz of a challenge has lent Ilya new energy, and — more to the point — reinvigorated his flagging dick. He lets his legs spread wide beneath the duvet as it starts to stiffen, cupping his balls in one hand, then parts his lips, wetting them with the tip of his tongue. Shane’s still got his eyes mostly shut, still feigning disinterest, but he’s facing Ilya now, and Ilya makes sure to give Shane a nice long, lingering look as he gets his hand around his cock and starts stroking.

It doesn’t take long for him to work himself up to full hardness, not with Shane’s body so close, not playing this game of exaggerated thrusts and moans. It’s only when he hears the catch in Shane’s breath that he rolls onto his side, slides his free hand onto Shane’s chest, fingers snagging and pulling at the coarse hair over his breastbone. His nipples are already peaked when Ilya gets them between his fingers, but they tighten further as soon as he starts playing with them: pinching, gentle at first, then testing, a little harder. A sharp twist has Shane gasping, his hips thrusting up involuntarily into the covers, and when Ilya takes hold of Shane’s hand and brings it to Ilya’s own chest, Shane lets out a little whine.

Victory in reach, Ilya takes his hand off Shane’s chest to shove the duvet down further, panting loudly, glorying in the way Shane cranes his neck to watch, in the little clench of his fingers around Ilya’s tits. Shane’s own dick is still beneath the covers, but there’s no way he’s not hard now, no way he’s not leaking through those stupid shorts. Ilya moans and shuffles forwards, pressing tight against Shane’s side. He slows his strokes again, drawing his foreskin back carefully, letting the head pop through again and again to smear precome against Shane’s side.

“Ilya,” Shane says, voice gone taut and shivery with arousal.

“Do not worry,” Ilya says lightly. “Nearly there.”

Shane lets out a pained noise in response.

No sex during playoffs? Good fucking luck Hollander, Ilya thinks. It’s not all for show though, obviously, and Ilya can hardly remember being so stupidly turned on, his balls drawing up tight already. He scrapes his the nails of his free hand lightly over Shane’s abs, the muscles contracting beneath his touch, and has to squeeze the base of his cock urgently when Shane’s head falls back with a gasp.

The denouement, then: Shane’s shirt is folded loosely, hanging over the headboard. “You don’t mind?” asks Ilya innocently, reaching overhead and giving it a tug.

“What?”

“Great, thank you,” says Ilya, pulling it free, then rolling back onto his back and draping the tee loosely over his stomach.

“Ilya.”

“No no, is alright,” says Ilya, pushing the covers down even further, flattening his feet on the bed. “You — ah — you go back to sleep.”

Shane’s eyes are wide open now, and he’s watching Ilya so intently, his own hands over his chest, fingers twisted together tightly like he’s saying a prayer.

“Ilya—” he says again, and then, with a sigh, an outstretched hand, “yeah, alright, you win, just let me—”

That does it: Ilya comes in a sudden victorious rush, cock jerking so hard he cries out, lifting Shane’s pyjama shirt to catch the mess he makes. He balls it up when he’s done, then tosses it casually towards the laundry basket. It hits the wall beside it, then falls in a pile on the floor. Shane instantly — wordlessly — gets up to collect it. He’s sporting a strained expression and an erection that would take someone’s eye out.

“Goodnight, Shane,” Ilya says, flipping the lightswitch off. “I keep fingers crossed for game tomorrow, okay?”

Tonight’s the night, Ilya’s almost certain. The Metros are going in 3-2 up, playing like the Cup is already theirs, and Yuna’s wearing her best jacket so Ilya knows she’s ready for the photos. Watching’s much harder than playing, he finds, and watching on his own is almost unbearable. David had known that; had even offered to stay home with Ilya so they could be there together. It was a kind idea, too kind for Ilya to dwell on, really, and he’d dismissed the idea before it had a chance to properly form.

He can’t go to the arena, obviously, but he’s flown over anyway. Being in the same city helps, somehow. He’d left his room just before the opening whistle, had thought of watching it in the hotel bar, but the screens there were tiny, ESPN wedged between CNBC and the Golf Channel, and the volume was right down, and of course no one in Houston who actually cared about hockey would be sitting in the Four Seasons on a Finals night.

He even considers going out to a sports bar: letting the fans recognise him, maybe, letting the adulation take his mind off the whole thing, but he knows he can’t. Shane’s so anxious about things, still, so worried they’ll get caught. So Ilya ends up back in his room, yelling so loudly when Shane scores that there’s angry knocking on the wall from both sides.

They win, obviously. Ilya’s already deep into the minibar as all the families stream onto the ice, as Shane picks up one of Hayden’s kids, as he hugs his parents near the boards, as he answers the stupid interview questions, distracted, pushing his sweaty hair back off his face. I should fucking be there, Ilya thinks, and even half a bottle of Moet, some terrible American craft vodka, two nips of Venezuelan rum, a single-malt and a guilty cigarette don’t do much to soothe his frustration, but they do relax his body enough to make him sleepy, which is the next best thing.

The bed’s enormous, so big that even starfished on his back, he can’t reach the sides. It’s a groggy, unpleasant kind of drowsiness, his head heavy from mixing drinks, and something in his chest twinges every time he thinks of Shane out celebrating. It’s three o’clock, and then it’s four o’clock; Ilya’s phone still lighting up with messages from people he doesn’t care about while beside him the other pillow stays plumped up, untouched. He’s not waiting for Shane, obviously. He’s not worrying about him, obviously.

It’s morning proper by the time Shane gets back. Three beeps of the keycard and a muffled swear-word tells Ilya something about the state he’s in, though of course that’s not a surprise. Shane sways a little as the door slams shut behind him, his eyes struggling for focus in the cool silvery light of dawn.

“Shane,” Ilya says, already on his feet, already moving.

A big goofy grin pulls crooked across Shane’s lovely face. “Ilya,” he says, all relief. “My Ilya. You’re here.”

“I booked the room,” Ilya replies without thinking, already on his feet, already moving.

Shane blinks a few times. “You booked the room,” he says, tilting his head to focus. His shirt’s darkened at the collar, clinging lightly to his stomach, and beneath the brim of a Champions cap his fringe is plastered to his forehead. He gives a tiny shrug. “Hello,” he says, still smiling, soppy, spilling over with it.

“Hello,” Ilya says, and launches himself at Shane without pause, their bodies colliding so hard that Shane stumbles backwards a step, laughing. When Shane steadies himself, he leans back just far enough to take his cap off, to put it on Ilya’s head instead. He closes his eyes, face flushed and mouth reddened, skin sticky with champagne where Ilya kisses him on the neck.

“Yes,” he sighs, “yes, Ilya,” and with a grunt of effort Ilya lifts him up, the entire slack weight of him, lifts him off the floor like they’re back there in the arena, like Ilya had shoved through the gate and dashed across the ice after all. “I know, I know,” Shane’s saying now, and he’s there too, Ilya thinks, covered in confetti, the crowd noise vibrating through their chests. “God, Ilya,” he says, voice thick, “I wanted you there, you’re all I wanted—”

“And now? What do you want now?” Ilya asks, putting him down only long enough to press him back against the wall. He takes Shane by the hand, kisses his fingers, the inside of his forearm, nosing up under the sleeve of Shane’s shirt, making him squirm. “What do you want,” he says again, pressing kisses to his face now, the tired crease of his brow, the corner of his plush mouth, one smiling cheek and then the other. “Cup winner’s choice today, yes?” Shane nods in uncertain response, breath hot and uneven, letting Ilya hold him there against the wall. “You want my hands?” Ilya asks. “My mouth? My cock, Shane—”

Shane doesn’t answer, only grips Ilya by the back of his arms and pulls him in tighter, holding him there, faces pressed together, that sad excuse for a playoff beard prickly against Ilya’s cheek. Sometimes Shane doesn’t know what he wants — sometimes what he wants the most is to be told — so Ilya takes it back to basics and sinks down to the floor, bare knees on the velvety carpet, cap knocked askew as he works on Shane’s jeans.

The jeans are new, stiff, the buttons stubborn. “Fuck, Shane,” Ilya says, frustrated, tugging at the denim from either side until they give way, popping open. “It’s been so long, I can’t wait—”

Shane’s fingers clench in his hair. “No,” he says, urgently. “No, Ilya, I’m sorry, I— move—”

With pants halfway down his thighs, he dives into the bathroom. Kneeling on the carpet, still, Ilya listens to him retching, then gasping for breath, then retching some more. The sudden, unmistakable splash of vomit hitting the bowl.

It’s the drinks, mostly, but the adrenaline too, the comedown. Ilya’s been there before, remembers it well, and he hovers over Shane, stroking up and down between his shaking shoulderblades until it’s all done. His face is pale and sheened with sweat when he finally lifts his head. “Alright,” Ilya says gently. “Shane. Time to get cleaned up, now.”

He bends to help Shane strip, peeling the damp, stained shirt off his body, then getting his jeans down properly, Shane clinging to the toilet lid as Ilya tugs them first over one foot and then the other. End of playoffs and he’s such a state, his skin a patchwork of bruises, fresh purple to yellowing. His legs are still taped up too, both kneecaps framed in white, the fabric edges fraying now, dark with sweat and grime. Ilya helps Shane to stand, an arm around his waist for support as he retches a bit more over the sink, then passes him a cloth so he can wipe his mouth, can scrub fiercely at the skin of his hands. Ilya goes to fetch a glass of water, comes back to find Shane slumped down at the bottom of the towel rack, eyes shadowed purple, still wet from the force of vomiting. Ilya joins him, sliding into the corner, turning just enough to rest his leg over Shane’s legs, his fingers slipped between Shane's own

Shane swallows, looking down at their hands. “You smoked in here?” he says, voice hoarse.

Ilya rolls his eyes. “Obviously.”

“There’s probably a fine.”

“Good thing you’re getting bonus, then,” Ilya replies. He squeezes Shane’s fingers. “Is your fault, anyway. Was too much stress. Watching you.”

“Sorry,” Shane says. “I mean, I’m sorry you were stuck in here, you know.”

“I know.”

“And also, I’m really sorry about — that.” He gestures vaguely down at his crotch, the lucky underwear that looks exactly like the rest of his underwear, its fly gaping ever so slightly. “The puking, I mean. God, I really did want to. It has been way too long.”

Ilya stretches, back pressing against the glass of the shower door, then peeling away with a sharp, wet slurp. “No sex for playoffs is stupid idea. Like I tell you, Hollander, all these rituals are sign of a weak mind.”

Shane’s lips twitch in amusement. He’s picking at one edge of the tape, working it loose, wincing as the hairs pull. “Ilya,” he says, tiredly, “remember that time you lost your cross? You chartered a flight back to fucking Tampa because you thought the chain had snapped on the ice.”

“Yes.”

“And then your cleaner found it in the laundry basket.”

“Well,” says Ilya, and he knows he sounds sulky, “how should I know it came off with my shirt? Is not the same, anyway.” He gives the skin on the back of Shane’s knuckles a pinch, twisting so that Shane’s smug smile wavers for the barest fraction of a second, before relenting and soothing it with his thumb. “Is not,” he insists. “When I fly to Tampa, it did not hurt you.”

“This hurt you?”

“Not getting to touch you for seven weeks?” snaps Ilya, feeling his lip curl. “Of course it hurt me, Shane.”

Shane says nothing, just hums, thoughtful, slipping his little finger around Ilya’s. He stops fiddling with the tape long enough to take a drink of water, a slow careful sip, then sets the glass back down and sighs.

“So I don’t know if you remember my first playoffs.”

“Of course,” says Ilya immediately. “Good old days, yes? Metros out in second round. Shane Hollander gives sad little interview on the ice, all flushed: very cute.”

“Whatever.” Shane wrinkles his nose, not-so-secretly pleased. “Never mind that. We went out second round, you’re right, in Florida. So Donovan’s from Miami, right? And the whole way there he kept going on about this girl he knew, how he was going to hook me up with her.” He looks up at Ilya through his eyelashes. “I mean, I didn’t want to. Obviously. But he brought her along for dinner, and then when I went to the bathroom she followed me in, and—”

“And?” prompts Ilya, intrigued. Shane’s so shy about this normally, almost prudish, much to Ilya’s frustration.

“And it was…” His brow furrows slightly. “Not good.”

“Not good?”

“Yeah. I mean, I couldn’t. It wasn’t. You know.”

“Not really,” says Ilya, smirking. Shane gives him a glare.

“So I couldn’t get it up — well, I couldn’t keep it up — with her, and it was awful, and in the end we gave up and she just went back out to the guys and I saw her talking to them all, and Donovan kept on looking at me, and then we lost the round, so.”

It’s not funny, Ilya tells himself, even though honestly it is. “You are not serious,” he says sternly. “You have bad sex one time, Shane. You worry about it in the morning. Worry about it at the game, even. Maybe I am gay, you think. Maybe Donovan knows I am gay. Then maybe you remember about super hot sex with star Russian forward, become distracted—”

“Get over yourself,” Shane mumbles, cheeks pink.

Ilya uncurls their fingers, taps the back of Shane’s hand. “Or maybe none of these things are linked at all. But, of course, that’s not how mind of Shane Hollander works. In mind of Shane Hollander, he must never again have sex during playoffs.”

“Shut up.”

“So you have bad sex, you play very bad. And obviously with me, it is the opposite.”

“Shut up.”

Ilya lets his eyes widen in exaggerated surprise. “A-aand it’s another one for Captain Shane Hollander!” he says, letting his syllables stretch out, a ludicrous attempt at a Canadian accent. “4-0 shutout! Record breaking performance from Hollander, and all because of very good sex with his boyfriend—”

“Oh my god,” says Shane, laughing, shoving Ilya’s legs away, then rolling over to cover Ilya’s mouth with his hand. “Shut up, shut up.”

It’s nice to feel the press of his bare chest against Ilya’s, even like this, even with the faint, lingering sweetness of vomit still on his skin. Ilya sighs happily, kisses Shane on the head.

“Next year,” Shane says quietly. “Next year, I promise.”

“I hope so,” says Ilya, feigning indignance.

“Not that,” says Shane, nudging his head against Ilya’s shoulder. “I don’t want you having to do this again. Sitting up here, all alone—”

“Hey! Maybe Ottawa make Finals next year.”

Shane snorts. “Yeah, well, if not. I’m serious,” he adds, looking up at Ilya, blinking slow and heavy. “If we get there again next year, I want you with me.”

Something kicks in Ilya’s chest. Shane’s the one who never wants to talk about these things. “Shane—”

“Not hidden away somewhere, either, and not playing it off, like you’re just there for the hockey. When I look up at the friends and family seats I want to see you there, Ilya. For me.”

“I—” Ilya begins. His voice catches in his throat, raw; everything suddenly too big for words.

Shane yawns. “Next year,” he says, like the deal’s already done.

The car is so quiet that Ilya can hear Shane thinking. The GPS screen sits dark; Shane finds it distracting to have it on when he doesn’t need the map, and also he can’t think about driving when he’s listening to something, so Ilya had turned the radio right down as soon as they hit Highway 15 and Shane started to get that wrinkle between his eyebrows. Not that this could really be considered driving, a whole open road before them and Shane carefully two-handing the steering wheel as he cruises at a comfortable five kilometres under the limit.

Ilya gets a hand on Shane’s thigh, thumb up the leg of his shorts, which are the soft and stretchy ones he likes to wear to be comfortable for the drive, and which cling in ways that Ilya is not immune to and shouldn’t be hot considering how sensible they are. The skin is warm, the hairs sparse where his thighs rub, the muscle of his leg twitching as Ilya digs his fingers in, watching the dents blanch and then bloom red. Shane shifts slightly, closes his legs, all the colour in his face high up on his cheeks.

“Can you not?” he says tightly. “It’s not safe, I’m trying to fucking drive here.”

He’s been quiet all morning; another day, Ilya might try to keep feeling him up, maybe get him hard in the little shorts, but it probably is too distracting, maybe too much for Shane when he’s concentrating on the road. Instead, Ilya curls himself up in the seat, which is actually comfortable and quite roomy and is not made of leather so smooth Ilya wants to lick it, and has a nap.

When he wakes, his neck is tight from where his head is lolling against the window, and Shane is looking at him sideways, quick furtive glances from the driver’s seat. Ilya stretches; the seatbelt catches against his skin, tugs at the hair on his stomach.

“Going to fill up in Trenton so we don’t have to stop again.” Shane’s watching the road now, eyes flickering over the signage. He clicks his indicator about a mile before the exit, sensibly slowing down. “You might want to make yourself presentable if you’re going to get out of the car.” He sounds pissed off about it, but he still watches eagerly when Ilya leans back to grab his shirt off the back seat, pulls it over his head and down slowly over his stomach. He has a cap too, which he jams low over his eyes. Sunglasses are probably a step too far, he’ll just keep his head down.

“We shouldn’t be seen going in together.” Shane parks carefully and then switches the engine off, looking out at the gas station pumps across acres of empty parking spaces. “I’ll go first and you follow in a few. We’ll meet back here in ten minutes to get the gas.”

“Yes, Tovarishch Hollander.” Ilya salutes him. “Get me treats, I have to go take a leak.”

“Ugh.” Shane drops his head into his hands briefly. The skin under his eyes looks thin and pink, his lashes very dark. “How are you so cheerful after the night we had? I’m so fucking beat, Ilya.”

“Was not so bad.” It had been, tiny Pike baby screaming for two hours before bed, twin Pikes up so often that Ilya had seen every hour on the unrelenting red-eye blink of the digital clock from 3am onwards. Boy Pike is now Ilya’s favourite, because he was the only one who fucking slept. “And anyway, was your idea to have four children on sleepover. This is not Russian thing, Shane. I blame Canada for this.”

“I couldn’t say no to Hayd and Jacki. They’ve been so supportive since we told them, and they hardly ever get a break from the kids. But no one ever mentions how fucking exhausting children are.”

“I think plenty of people mention this, actually.” Ilya grins stupidly at him across the car; Shane can’t see it, because he’s got his eyes closed again, but Ilya thinks he knows. “It is one of those famous things about children. Go, get snacks. No coffee for you, and then I will drive this heap of shit the rest of the way so you can have restorative nap, okay? Maybe sleep will make you stop complaining.”

“Oh, go fuck yourself, I’m allowed to complain,” Shane says, and swings himself out of the car. “Restorative, my ass.” He slams the door behind him, doesn’t look back at Ilya at all, just makes for the convenience store, where Ilya can see a big Tim’s sign waiting.

Ilya waits a couple of minutes then heads for the restrooms, which are spacious and quiet this early on a weekday. Even so, he thinks someone clocks him as he’s washing his hands, so he pulls the hat down further over his hair and gets back to the car, only stopping briefly in the food court to get some proper snacks, because Shane is definitely not going to choose anything good. Even so, Shane is impatient, sitting at the gas pump where he’s already filled the tank. He looks at his insane person’s health tracker watch pointedly when Ilya throws himself back into the passenger seat.

“I thought I was going to drive.”

“And I thought you were going to try to not die of a heart attack before you turn thirty, but I guess we’re both making promises we can’t keep today.” Shane looks at Ilya’s snacks, the Cheezies, the Timbits, the sack of gummy bears. Ilya is fond of Canadian food, but right now he can’t enjoy the prospect, a little throb of temper running through him.

“This is holiday,” Ilya tells him. He tries to keep his voice mild, but he’s getting pissed off at Shane’s expression, which is the particularly annoying brand of disapproving he gets around Ilya’s food choices. “And we are supposed to be bulking during off-season.” He picks up the two sandwiches Shane had chosen for them, neither of which contains any actual meat. “Oh, thank you for this, Shane. I have always wanted to experience the taste of the complete absence of joy.”

“Fuck off,” Shane says tiredly. “I’ll eat them both, if you don’t want them.” Ilya wishes he would. He’s gotten thin this last season, a little hollow in the cheeks, his waist trimmer, arms a bit more defined. Ilya’s got a cooler full of protein and carbs in the trunk; they are going to eat like kings for two weeks, if he has anything to do with it.

Shane puts the car into drive and eases into traffic. As Ilya watches, he yawns, hugely, scrunching all the freckles.

“Perfect weather for a swim,” Ilya tells him, and puts a hand over his on the console. Shane’s forearm is tense. He doesn’t quite shrug Ilya off, but it’s a near thing.

“I just don’t get how anyone is meant to survive on so little sleep.” Shane does that sometimes, skips forward through a conversation in his head so Ilya has to catch up to him where he picks up halfway. “It’s not natural.”

“You have had later nights.” Ilya waggles his eyebrows. It’s lost on Shane, who’s peering tiredly and fixedly at the road. “Many times I kicked you out of my hotel room with about three hours left before alarm.”

“It’s not just the lack of sleep.” It’s as though Ilya hasn’t spoken. “It’s the broken night. Fuck, I don’t think I got a full hour straight.”

“I did not either,” Ilya remarks. “And I am tired also, Shane. But I suck it up. It won’t kill me.”

“Well, sorry I’m not able to just suck it up.” The car roars a little, Shane must be hitting the gas. “I’m fucking bushed, and you’re not helping.”

“I helped last night.” Indignation makes him loud; Shane still won’t look at him. “Who carried Baby Pike around for two hours? Beautiful new shirt ruined with baby boogers, Shane. That was Tom Ford.”

“I don’t know who he is.” Shane, stupid Shane in his linen shirt. “And her name is Amber.”

Ilya waits out the impulse to retort, looks out the window until the urge passes.

“Look, it was a tough night, I know,” he says, finally. “But they are just babies, still, practically. They miss their mama. Not their papa, him I’m sure they were perfectly happy without. And they were overexcited too, to be staying with their favourite uncle.”

It’s meant as an olive branch.

“Yeah, you were the fun one, alright. Perfect Uncle Ilya.”

“You’re being a real asshole here, Shane.”

“Yeah,” Shane says. “Well.”

The silence on the rest of the drive is horrible. Shane is flushed all along his throat, wincing into the sun in the way that means a headache is coming, and he’s clearly forgotten that he even owns a pair of sunglasses. Ilya feels wretched, turns the radio on just for some noise, but even though it makes Shane flinch, he still doesn’t say a word.

By the time they pull up in front of the cottage, the sun is low, and heavy with rich colour, the lake sparking with reflected light.

Ilya lugs the cooler inside and starts organising the refrigerator, shifting the cans of Coke into the door so he can fit all the meat on the bottom shelf. Behind him, Shane is standing silently, pressing the button to raise the window shades. They rise slowly, humming, and light dances across the wooden floorboards.

Ilya yawns; he could sleep now, despite the nap in the car, despite the huge creamy coffee he drank on the journey.

“I am so tired,” he says; it will cheer Shane up, maybe, to know he is also feeling like shit.

“I get it,” Shane snaps. “You’re tired too. But I guess I’m the only one freaking out over lack of sleep, and being a shitty babysitter.”

“And a shitty boyfriend.” God, Ilya wishes he could shut up. The flare of anger from earlier is creeping back. He rubs at his mouth.

“Yeah,” Shane mutters. “I guess I must be. Because I don’t like you all that much right now. And I didn’t like the kids much last night either. And that makes me feel like a piece of shit. What kind of monster resents a baby for crying?”

“I don’t know, Shane, but what do you care about what I think? You don’t even like me.” They shouldn’t have travelled in the same car; if he had taken his Porsche, Ilya would be able to just get back into it and drive away right now.

“I know it’s not your fault.” Shane is still pressing the button for the blinds, which are already all the way up and making an anxious whirring noise. Another day, Ilya might go to him, take the remote control out of his hands. “But it made me feel worse, you being all cheerful. I know, I know I’m being an asshole. I just wish I had your patience.”

“Well, what option do I have, Shane? Tell me, please, what should I be, other than patient?”

“I just don’t know how you learned to be so good with them.”

“Because I don’t have a choice.” Now Ilya is snapping, voice stretched tight, a sharp recoil in the quiet room. “I did not learn to be good with them. I made myself be good with them, because the alternative is not—” He’s slowing, the English slipping away like it sometimes does when his feelings bleed into the words “—not an option.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Shane is finally, finally, looking at him, eyes shadowed.

“Do you know what happened to me when I woke my parents in the night? Shane, you must— I have told you about my father. What do you think I learned from him when I woke up crying?”

“I—” Shane stops. His throat is working, swallowing, fingers twitching uselessly around the remote control.

“Yes,” Ilya says. “Exactly. I am going outside now.”

Shane lets him go.

Ilya sheds his clothes as he walks, shorts kicked off, the shirt abandoned, sneakers upturned in the grass. He won’t pick them up either; he’s going to leave them there like a trail of vicious breadcrumbs. He throws himself into the lake with a fervour of rage and horrible, horrible shame that only cold water can shock him out of, does about ten minutes of furious swimming and then floats for as long as he can before he gets too chilly, eyes shut, face upturned towards the dying sun. He’s a terrible swimmer, never really got the knack beyond a sort of doggy paddle, but it tires him out enough that he feels a little better.

He does collect his clothes as he goes back towards the cottage, stands under the outdoor shower head for just long enough to sluice himself, lets his hair plaster itself over his eyes. He’s overdue a cut. His shorts stick to him when he wrestles them back on, a chafing discomfort.

The cottage is quiet, kitchen tidied properly, the empty cooler stashed in the pantry. Shane’s in the bedroom, sitting quietly on Ilya’s side of the bed. He’s in a towel, his whole torso flooded with heat-pink, hair dripping down his neck, leaving dark splatters on the bedspread.

“I showered,” he says.

“Yeah, no shit.”

“No, Ilya,” Shane repeats, slowly. “I showered.”

He clambers backwards up the bed, his lovely bare legs, his shapely feet, and Ilya has an unimpeded view of his damp towel clinging to the line of his hard dick before he spreads his legs and the towel gives up its attempt, flopping open onto the bed. He’s been touching himself, Ilya’s sure of it — he can see the sheen where he’s lubed himself up, along his cock, his balls, which are high and tight already. Ilya already knows what he’ll find if he gets on the bed with him, shoves his legs wider, thumbs into his crease. Hair, flattened and whorled, the slight softened swell of his rim, the flutter of him opening under Ilya’s finger.

“You’re so eager to be fucked now, Shane? Even by someone you don’t like all that much?”

“I know,” Shane says, “that it was a really shitty thing to say. And I will apologise properly for it later. But I have been waiting for months for you to fuck me in this bed again, Ilya.” He puts a hand out, slightly unsteady. His upper arm holds the last fading shadows of a bad bruise. Ilya meets him halfway, knees on the bed, rumpling the bedclothes, because he can’t not. He clutches at Shane’s grasping hand. “But if you’re not in the mood—”

“Shut up, Hollander,” Ilya says. “I’ll fuck you until you like me again, and after that I’ll see how your apologies sound around my dick in your mouth, okay?” He gets a hand to Shane’s throat, which is so warm from his shower, and feels smooth and slightly tacky, like he’s shaved and moisturised. He presses down gently, lets his fingers notch into the dip of Shane’s jaw. He could not be more in the mood for this if he tried; his dick is a straining friction against the sodden seam of his shorts.

“Fuck, Ilya,” Shane gasps out. “I was such an asshole, I’m sorry.”

“Turn around,” Ilya tells him, and he does, going face first into the pillow of his folded arms, obedient. His knees slide under him, the towel rucked up, as he tries to get purchase to kneel up a bit. It’s fine, Ilya can handle that: he just puts a hand on his back and shoves him down into the bed so he’s lying flat, the gorgeous sweeping dip of his spine flexing in surprise as he wriggles to get comfortable. Ilya’s on him, one knee shoved between his legs, nosing at the back of his neck, considering where to bite down on him. “Good, Shane, you are being very nice to me already.”

“God.” It’s more like a groan, muffled by bedlinen. “You’re so fucking cold, jesus, have you had an ice bath or something?”

“I went for swim.”

“You are such a dipshit,” Shane says, trying to sit up. “It can’t be more than 15 degrees in the water right now, you should have a hot shower and—”

His back muscles roll in protest when Ilya first shoves him down again, but then he goes easily, takes all of Ilya’s weight uncomplainingly. Ilya can only see the side of his face, turned to meet the dying evening sunlight; he looks blissful, eyes shut already, lids fluttering. The pillow’s getting wet from his hair; they should both really dry off properly, Ilya probably should have that hot shower, but instead he wriggles out of his shorts, managing to do it without moving off Shane, grinding against him as he works the clammy fabric down and off until it lands with a wet sound on the floor.

Shane’s legs are open wide, and he’s moving fluidly against the mattress. He probably doesn’t even know he’s doing it, how every small movement has Ilya’s pulse bounding in his throat, teeth itching. He kisses the back of Shane’s neck, sucks at his ear lobe, moves down to a shoulder where he can finally sink his teeth in. Shane moans, tilts his head up to give Ilya better access, the density of all that muscle stretching and elongating against Ilya’s mouth.

“I need you to ask for it, Shane.” He says it into Shane’s skin, waits for the words to permeate, for Shane to come back to himself.

“Ilya,” Shane says, a plea. “Don’t tease. I just need you to fuck me.”

“I should leave you waiting for me,” Ilya tells him, reaching for the lube on the nightstand. “I should go eat something, take that shower, nice and long. Maybe even jerk off under the hot water. And all the while you would stay here just like this, your cock wet for me, your hole too, I think? It would serve you right.”

“I know,” Shane whispers. He’s shaking slightly, lips parted, hips working against the bed. “I’ll wait for you if you want me to. But Ilya—” he pauses at the liquid sound of lube, the slap of Ilya’s hand as he works himself “—I don’t want to have to wait.”

Ilya was right — Shane has been fingering himself. His rim is slightly shiny, the skin red and tender-looking. Ilya rubs the head of his cock up and down Shane’s crease, letting it catch and nudge, feeling the sweetness of the give where he’s still a little open.

“Two fingers?” he murmurs, and Shane nods, almost frantic.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I just wanted to be ready for you.”

“You’re always ready for me,” Ilya tells him, and then he pushes in. He’s lying half over Shane, almost flat to the bed, and the position doesn’t give him much leverage. It’s why he picked it. Shane mutters something Ilya can’t quite hear, a longing catch in his voice, and tries to push back against him. Ilya’s weight keeps him pinned. It’s true — Shane will take whatever Ilya decides to give him, always. Ilya gets to decide what Shane wants.

They move so slowly that Ilya can actually track the setting of the sun in the way the quality of the light changes, his eyes sliding shut and then opening to a longer shadow, a new dimness. He’s grinding into Shane, barely pulling out before he goes deep again. Shane’s whole back is gleaming with sweat, the hair at the base of his skull stuck to his skin.

“I can’t—” Shane says, sounding desperate. “I’m going to come, Ilya, it feels too—”

“No.” Ilya shushes him; he can just about reach his mouth. The kiss is all tongue, Shane too far gone for subtlety. “Not yet. You have to think about your apology first.”

“I’m sorry,” Shane tells him eagerly, instantly. “I really am, god, please. Look, I was a fucking asshole, I know it.” He’s breathing so heavily the words feel like they’re being shoved out of him with every thrust. “I wanted to tell you that none of it was your fault. I love that you’re good with the kids, it makes me— It makes me feel like—” He buries his face in his arms again. “I just fucking love it, okay?”

“So you were wrong? Fuck, stay still so I can fuck you harder, Shane.”

“I was jealous.” It’s a correction, the meaning sharp even as the words come out slurred. “I kept thinking, like, if I can’t even babysit our friends’ kids, how will I manage when we have our own?” He squirms, clenches; the cling of him is too much, all of a sudden, Ilya’s hips stuttering forwards, out of rhythm.

“Holy shit,” Ilya says, and Shane rears back up off the pillow, casually shouldering his way out of the grip Ilya has on his body so he can look back at him, searching.

“Ummm.” Shane is reddening, the colour whooshing through him, up this throat, under the damp sticking tendrils of his hairline. “Fuck, sorry. I didn’t mean, like… I know we haven’t talked about it, maybe you don’t even want— I’m not saying we have to—”

Ilya collapses onto him, fucking into him without any finesse. He’s talking into Shane’s ear, pouring words into him, not even sure what he’s saying, and Shane is fucking back onto his cock and laughing or gasping or both saying, “Ilya, Ilya, I don’t understand.” He realises he’s switched to Russian without knowing it just as he realises he’s coming — coming before he’s even ready for it so he misses the moment he should breathe and ends up choking through it, chest wheezing as he fucks harder and harder into Shane, trembling, knees wobbly and useless on the rumpled bed.

“Fuck,” Shane says. “Did you just—? Oh fuck, you did, I can feel it, I’m leaking.” He’s moving erratically, trying to bring himself off, still obediently not touching his cock. Ilya reaches around his hip and cups him, curling his fingers so Shane can thrust into the warm clutch of his palm. “Ilya, please. Please. Can I? I need—”

Before Ilya can answer, he’s coming anyway, splattering hot over Ilya’s hand, swearing into the pillow. Ilya strokes him through it, trying to match the rhythm of his movements so he doesn't slip out of him, whispering yes, Shane, yes, you can come, you waited for me so well until Shane is all done shivering and making noise and is lying lax and quiet under him.

“You have made such a mess,” Ilya tells him, and manoeuvres himself up. Shane makes a regretful little sound as Ilya slides out of him. Shane already has a pile of clean bedding waiting on the dresser, the blue set that’s his favourite, so Ilya doesn’t feel too bad wiping his hand off on the bedspread. He doesn’t want to leave the sprawl of the bed, the dense warmth of Shane under him and the clean evening light through the windows.

“Hey.” Shane hardly ever gets drunk, but he sounds it when he’s like this, rolling over heavy-limbed in the bed with what looks like effort, grimacing. He’s got come drying all over his stomach, flakes caught in the hair at his groin. He grabs Ilya’s hand. “Hey, listen.”

“Must eat,” Ilya says, as Shane laces their fingers together. “Remember, I had no lunch, too traumatised from your terrible choice in sandwiches to work up an appetite.”

“Fuck you, it was a nutritionally balanced protein wrap,” Shane says, almost playful, almost like normal. He sits up, leans in so their foreheads knock together gently. “Slow release carbs. Think of the macros. Hey, but seriously, Ilya, I—”

“Is okay,” Ilya tells him. He closes his eyes briefly; it’s a lot, having Shane’s freckles and lashes in such close quarters. “I know you were tired. You didn’t mean to act like asshole on such a scale.”

“It’s no excuse,” Shane says regretfully. “I love you. And I like you so, so much. I shouldn’t have said I didn’t. I didn’t mean it.”

“You were hurtful,” Ilya says. It throbs a little through him even now, the memory of Shane’s face as he said the words. “But I am pretty forgiving guy. And you did a very good job of making it up to me.”

It’s funny that he can still make Shane blush.

“I’m glad,” Shane says, all sincerity, taking Ilya headlong into fondness and out of the last remnants of his resentment along with the words. “I’ve been looking forward to this trip for so long. I was worried I had ruined it.”

“Never,” Ilya says, and kisses the tops of his cheeks, his warm mouth. “But I really am so very hungry, Shane. I will waste away.”

“Jeez, enough already with the food talk, I’ll get something on the grill.” Shane’s fingers are tender and lingering even as he bats Ilya away so he can get out of the bed, wincing a little. He’s probably sore; Ilya’s going to shower with him so he can be the one to wash him clean, so gently. “Shower first.”

“Shane.” He’s already halfway to the en suite, but he must hear something in Ilya’s voice, because he stops. “Shane, what you said when we were fucking…”

Shane rubs the heel of his hand over his eyes.

“I was kind of hoping you’d have forgotten that.” He’s looking at the floor. “Not because… But I guess it probably wasn’t the time to bring it up.”

“It was… a surprise.”

“I mean, I know you love kids. But obviously that doesn’t mean you’re ready to think about having your own right now. And like, it’s not simple for us — there are so many things we’d need to think about, with citizenship and then the adoption process.” He’s pacing, lovely and naked and overthinking. “And obviously we can’t even think about it at the moment, our hockey needs to be the focus for a few years… And maybe you don’t want— I was just thinking—”

“Shane,” Ilya says firmly, before he can keep talking and ruin it all. “Yes, my Shane, yes. Yes to whatever it is you were thinking about our kids. We have not talked about it, no, but that does not mean that I do not want. I want. Very much.”

“You want.” Shane meets his eyes, a smile starting between them; Ilya feels like he could catch the light of it in his hands. “Okay. Well, umm, me too. I want, too.”

There’s an art to wanting things, and getting them — Ilya’s very familiar with it. Some of the things he’s wanted and got, he’s had to work harder for than others. Some things haven’t turned out to be worth the wanting. And there has always been something else to want, especially when it comes to Shane. Sometimes Ilya feels drowned by all the ways he wants him, and he’s not used to admitting he wants something he isn’t sure he’ll get. It doesn’t seem like it can be this simple — to want something, and to ask for it, and then to get it — but maybe ease is what happens when wants align.

“Okay,” Ilya says, an echo of his own expression in Shane’s mouth. “Okay, good.” They’re smiling at each other across the room like a pair of fucking idiots.

Outside, full night. There will be a hot shower, and a cold drink; Shane cooking the meat Ilya bought; firelight so bright Ilya won’t be able to see the stars. Easy, all of it; all of it enough.