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It's almost Valentine's Day.
Shane knows this because there are outdoors everywhere, it’s been all over the tv shows – specially sports related –, and Harris, who had just texted Shane, might have an idea for the Ottawa’s instagram page that includes a video of Shane and Ilya telling people to celebrate love on Valentine’s.
Harris: I think it would be really nice to have you both sending a message for Valentine’s Day on social media.
Harris: Of course, if you feel comfortable about it :)
Shane: I’ll talk to Ilya about it.
He'd silenced his phone before rolling over and tucking himself back against the warm solid presence behind him, because he has exactly zero need for commercial reminders when he wakes up every single morning with Ilya Rozanov's arm slung over his waist and Ilya Rozanov's face buried in the back of his neck.
This is their first Valentine's Day as a married couple, but Shane doesn't think much about it. Not because he doesn't care. God, he cares so much it sometimes feels like his chest might crack open with it. But because every day with Ilya already feels like a celebration. He doesn't need a big holiday to tell him he's the luckiest person alive. He knows it when he wakes up in the middle of the night with Ilya’s arms and legs still tangled with his. He knows it at Saturday noon when Ilya asks what new recipe will they be doing for dinner this time. He knows it at night when they're tangled together on the couch, Ilya's cold feet tucked between Shane's socks, neither of them talking, neither of them needing to.
So Valentine's Day is just Thursday. Just another day of being married to Ilya, which is to say: another day of being unbearably, quietly, impossibly happy.
Ilya, meanwhile, is losing his goddamn mind.
It starts three days ago, which is when he makes the mistake of opening Twitter before practice. He’s waiting for Shane to get ready with his gear, scrolling mindlessly, when he sees it:
Sarah @sarahsinlove
only 3 days until valentine's day!! what is everyone doing for their partners?? 🥰❤️
Three days. He has three days.
He scrolls further, and the panic sets in.
Tom loves Lana @hockeytom26
I booked a romantic dinner at that French place my babe loves!We're doing a couples massage and then a fancy hotel night 😏
Louise @l0uise_twt
Homemade card and breakfast in bed!!! He's going to cry I just know it
Carlos @player69_carlos
Going all out this year—flowers, chocolates, candles, the whole thing 💘
Ilya stares at his phone. Then he stares at the ice. Then he stares at his phone again.
He and Shane have never... done any of this. They've never needed to. Valentine's Day in Canada had always been a thing that happened to other people, the ones with something to prove or something to make up for. But Ilya and Shane—they just were. Every day. No performance required.
But now they're married. And married people do Valentine's Day, apparently. Married people do romantic dinners and breakfast in bed and the whole thing. Married people don't let February 14th pass like it's nothing when there are expectations and traditions.
Ilya takes a deep breath.
He can do this. He is Ilya Rozanov. He has faced down NHL defensemen, Olympic shootouts, Shane's parents – and they pretty much loved their second son. He could plan one romantic day for his husband.
How hard could it be?
Extremely hard, it turns out. Extremely, comically, humiliatingly hard.
That night, after Shane falls asleep with his head on Ilya's chest, Ilya pulls out his phone and begins his research.
His first mistake is typing "romantic Valentine's Day ideas" into the search bar.
He is immediately assaulted by approximately seventeen million listicles, each one more aggressively heterosexual than the last. There are suggestions involving rose petals shaped like hearts, which is not a bad idea. There are suggestions involving "sexy coupon books" that Ilya may have found interesting. There is an entire article dedicated to the perfect Valentine's Day playlist, which apparently consists entirely of Ed Sheeran songs, and Ilya briefly considers throwing his phone across the room.
He tries again. "Unique Valentine's Day ideas" This leads him to a Pinterest board that makes him start to doubt himself about what he actually thinks valentines should be about. The ideas are a mixture of macaroni necklaces and handprint art and something called a "love jar" that looks suspiciously like a craft project for children. Ilya is thirty-one years old. He is not making Shane a love jar.
Unless Shane likes the idea.
But it suppose to be a surprise, so Ilya can’t ask directly to Shane what he would like. Ilya has to know what Shane likes already.
"Romantic gestures for husbands" is somehow worse. It's all watches and whiskey and "date night subscription boxes” which sounds like something that would arrive in the mail every month and gather dust on their counter. Shane doesn't wear watches. Shane drinks whiskey exactly twice a year, mostly to make Ilya happy when he buys the Russian stuff, and makes faces the whole time. None of this is right.
Ilya’s corrects himself. “Romantic gestures for gay husbands”.
Preparing favorite meals together, leaving handwritten notes, offering massages, holding hands in public. They already do all of that, it’s normal stuff. Ilya gets actually sad that normal stuff are a big deal for gay couples.
Ilya scrolls deeper. And deeper. And deeper.
He falls down a rabbit hole of Reddit threads, Quora answers, and eventually –he's not proud of this – a Tumblr blog called "spicy valentine secrets" that he finds at 2 AM and immediately knows he should not click on.
He clicks on it.
And there, buried in a post about "edible arrangements but make it ✨adult✨", he sees it.
Pro tip: tie a ribbon around it and let them unwrap their present 😏
Ilya blinks.
He reads it again.
He looks down at his own body, then back at the screen, then down at his body again.
A ribbon.
Around his…
Oh.
Oh, that's... that's actually kind of...
He scrolls further, because he is a researcher, and researchers research. There are variations on this theme. Bows. Wrapping paper, somehow, which seems logistically challenging. A suggestion involving edible glitter that Ilya immediately rejects because Shane would not like the mess.
But the ribbon. The ribbon has potential.
It's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. Shane is going to laugh at him, but Ilya loves his laugh. Shane is going to take one look at Ilya standing there with a ribbon tied around his dick and lose his entire mind with laughter.
But also.
Shane might not just laugh. Because Shane likes kinky stuff sometimes.
Ilya feels heat crawl up the back of his neck. He shoves his phone under his pillow and stares at the ceiling.
Okay. Okay, so. He has an idea. A stupid, chaotic, possibly genius, definitely unhinged idea.
Now he just needs to execute it.
The next two days are a masterclass in subtle preparation. Ilya researches a few ideas on Valentine’s breakfast, pancakes with strawberry jelly on top but in the Shane of a heart. He goes out to buy a few things while Shane is at his parents’ house, ingredients, some balloons, the ribbon. He watches six tutorials on YouTube about "how to tie the perfect bow" and it’s much harder than tying a normal bow tie, which is fine because the bow is not going to be the main event anyway.
He does not tell anyone what he's planning. Not Svetlana, who would absolutely never let him live it down. Not the team group chat, which has already been blowing up with Valentine's Day jokes, and obviously Shane is in it too. He only says it to Anya, their dog, and sometimes she seems to understand what he’s saying.
By the night of February 13th, everything is ready.
Ilya lies awake in the dark, Shane warm and trusting beside him, and runs through the plan in his head one more time. Breakfast in bed. A bouquet of 16 roses to celebrate 16 years they have known each other – since Ilya fell in love with Shane’s freckles. Heart shaped balloons in the corridor and living room and a trail of rose petals – cause the internet said it was extremely romantic. Their coffee table filled with electric candles, that will simbolize one of the happiest days of Ilya’s life: Shane’s proposal.
And then the ribbon at some point of the day.
It was all perfectly set, maybe a little unhinged and simple at the same time, but Ilya thinks Shane is going to like it.
He presses a kiss to the back of Shane's head and closes his eyes.
Tomorrow, he's going to give his husband a Valentine's Day to remember.
Shane wakes up to the smell of pancakes.
This is not, in itself, unusual. Ilya cooks breakfast most mornings since they moved in together. Although he is not an early riser, he likes cooking for Shane. But the smell is different today; sweeter, somehow, with an undertone of something that might be strawberry and might be Shane's imagination.
He blinks his eyes open slowly, expecting to find Ilya's side of the bed empty, which it is. But there's also something else.
Balloons.
There are balloons in their bedroom.
Heart-shaped, floating gently against the ceiling, in shades of red and pink that would be obnoxious anywhere else but here, in the soft morning light filtering through the curtains, look almost magical. Shane blinks again, certain he must still be dreaming, but the balloons remain. A cluster of them near the window. A few drifting by the closet. One that has somehow gotten tangled in the ceiling fan, which Shane makes a mental note to deal with later.
"What?”
"Happy Valentine's Day!" Ilya appears in the doorway, and Shane's brain short-circuits completely.
Because Ilya is holding a tray. A tray loaded with pancakes and fresh berries and strawberry jelly shaped like hearts on top. Well, mostly shaped like hearts, some of them look more like abstract art, but the effort is unmistakable. And there are two mugs of coffee that smell perfect.
"Did you make pancakes?" Shane asks, because his brain has seized on the most obvious detail and refuses to let go.
Ilya grins, and it's that grin, the one that's half confident and half nervous, the one that makes Shane's heart do stupid things in his chest. "Da. Heart-shaped. To simbolize my heart eyes when I look at you."
"The balloons," Shane manages, gesturing vaguely at the ceiling.
"Also me."
"I… I guessed, but…" Shane looks around again, finally noticing the trail of rose petals leading from the doorway to the bed, which he somehow missed entirely because he was too busy staring at Ilya. "Ilya. What is all this?" And he notices there are actually petals on top of the bed.
Ilya sets the tray down on the nightstand – carefully, so carefully, because of course he made Shane's coffee exactly right and sugar free – and sits on the edge of the bed. He's shirtless, which Shane already considers a gift, his hair is still sleep-mussed, and he looks so impossibly soft that Shane feels something crack open in his chest.
"Valentine's Day," Ilya says, like it's obvious. "Is our first one. As married. So I..." He gestures vaguely, encompassing the balloons, the pancakes, the rose petals, everything. "I make it special."
Shane stares at him.
"You did all this," he says slowly, "because it's Valentine's Day."
"Da."
"The Valentine's Day that you have never cared about before. That we have never cared about before."
Ilya's confidence wavers, just slightly. "Is different now. We are married. Married people…” he gestures vaguely again.
"Married people what?"
Ilya hesitates. "Married people... do Valentine's Day. Is tradition. I read online."
Shane feels laughter bubbling up in his chest, but it's the good kind, the overwhelmed kind, the I love you so much it's actually ridiculous kind. He reaches out and grabs Ilya's hand, pulling it into his lap.
"Ilya," he says and laughs, but not because it’s funny. He is actually blow away.
"We don't have to do anything because we're married," Shane tells him, voice soft. "We're married because we love each other. That's the only tradition that matters. You don't have to prove anything to me. You know that, right?"
Something flickers in Ilya's eyes. Relief, maybe. Or just the recognition that Shane sees him, all of him, even the parts that are currently tied up in internet research and heart-shaped jelly on top of pancake failures.
"I know," Ilya says quietly. "But I want to. Not because I have to. Because I want to." He squeezes Shane's hand. "Is our first Valentine's Day as husbands. I want it to be... special. For you."
Shane's throat goes tight.
"It's already special," he manages. "You're here. That's all I need."
Ilya makes a face. "Is not all you need. You need pancakes. And coffee. And—" He glances toward the doorway, suddenly looking nervous again. "There is more. But later. First, breakfast."
"More?" Shane raises an eyebrow. "What more could there possibly—"
"Eat your pancakes," Ilya interrupts, pushing the tray toward him. "Before they get cold. The modern art ones are still warm, I think. The others I had to reheat."
Shane laughs, actually laughs, and pulls Ilya in for a kiss. It's soft and sweet and tastes like Ilya's morning breath and Shane doesn't care at all.
"I love you," he says against Ilya's mouth.
"You love my pancakes," Ilya corrects, but he's smiling when he says it.
They eat breakfast together, tangled up in bed with the balloons floating overhead and the rose petals slowly getting crushed beneath them. Ilya watches Shane try the pancakes with exaggerated concentration, declaring it "actually perfect".
Shane steals strawberries off Ilya's plate. Ilya steals sips of Shane's coffee even though his own is right there.
It's perfect. It's them.
And Shane hasn't forgotten about the "more" that Ilya mentioned, the mysterious something waiting for later. He can see it in the way Ilya's eyes keep darting toward the doorway, the way his fingers tap nervously against the blanket when he thinks Shane isn't looking.
Whatever it is, Shane already knows he's going to love it.
Because it's Ilya. Because everything Ilya does is love, even when it's chaotic, even when it's unhinged, even when it involves balloons tangled in ceiling fans and pancakes that look like modern art.
Later, Shane thinks. Whatever it is, they'll get to it later.
For now, he's exactly where he wants to be: in bed with his husband, on a Thursday that somehow became extraordinary, eating pancakes and feeling like the luckiest person alive.
Shane finishes the last bite of pancake and decides to take a shower. After, already in his sweatpants and a simple black shirt, Shane hears it: faint music drifting from somewhere in the house. Something soft and instrumental, the kind of thing Ilya puts on when he's trying to set a mood. He says it’s sexy.
Shane's heart does something complicated in his chest.
He pads toward the bedroom door. The rose petals are still scattered across the floor, leading the way like a path. He follows them.
The corridor is transformed.
More balloons float near the ceiling. More petals. And a trail of memories hang in the walls. Their first commercial together when they were young and stupid and already circling each other without knowing it. Their first Christmas with Shane’s parents. A photo they took together back in 2017 and Shane has deleted, but Ilya kept it somehow. Shane and Ilya at some team dinner, laughing at something off-camera. Shane and Ilya at their wedding, caught mid-kiss, photographer clearly having the time of her life. All leading to the living room.
Shane's eyes burn.
He keeps walking.
The living room opens up before him, and he forgets how to breathe.
The coffee table is covered in electric candles. Dozens of them, flickering gently, casting light across the whole space. They're arranged haphazardly, like Ilya just kept adding more until it felt right, and it's like the proposal.
Shane had walked into this same room a year ago, and got on one knee surrounded by candles, shaking, asking the most important question of his life
And now Ilya was on the other side. Standing in front of the couch, holding the most beautiful bouquet of rose Shane has ever seen, deep red and perfectly arranged, and looking at Shane like he's the answer to every question Ilya has ever asked.
He doesn't look nervous anymore. He looks... lost. Lost in thought, lost in feeling, lost in Shane.
Shane realizes he's stopped in the doorway. He can't move. He doesn't want to move. He wants to stay here forever, frozen in this moment, with the candlelight flickering and Ilya looking at him like that.
"Sixteen roses," Ilya says, glancing down at the bouquet like he's seeing it for the first time. "For sixteen years. Since we meet." A pause. "Sixteen years I have been knowing you. Sixteen years I have been—" He laughs softly “in love with your freckles."
Shane makes a sound. He's not sure what kind of sound. It might be a laugh. It might be a sob. It's definitely something broken and full and too big for his chest.
"The first time I saw you," Ilya says, stepping closer, "You had these freckles all over your nose and cheeks and I could not look away." He gestured toward his own face and gave another step. "I did not know you would become everything."
Shane's hand are tight at his sides. Maybe to hold everything in.
"I did not know your boring would be my everything"
"Ilya…"
"I did not know," Ilya says, and now he's close, close enough to touch, close enough that Shane can see the shine in his eyes, "that I would get to wake up next to you every day. That I would get to marry you. That I would get to have you, forever, in every way that matters." He holds out the bouquet. "And I would do all of it again, every single moment, just to end up here. With you. In this room. On some stupid American holiday that I did not understand until you."
Shane takes the roses. His hands are shaking.
"Ilya…" he whispers, and his voice breaks.
Ilya cups his face, thumbs brushing over Shane's cheekbones, and Shane realizes there are tears on his face. He hadn't noticed them falling.
"I love you." Ilya says simply. "I love you, Shane. On Valentine's Day and every day. On Thursdays and Saturdays and days when we have practice and days when we do nothing. I love you. You are my home."
Shane kisses him. Roses now touching Ilya’s back.
It's not a gentle kiss. It's desperate and overwhelmed and full of everything Shane can't say, everything he's feeling, everything that's been building since he woke up to balloons on the ceiling. He kisses Ilya like he's trying to pour sixteen years of love into one moment, and Ilya kisses him back the same way.
When they finally break apart, foreheads pressed together, breathing ragged, Shane laughs wetly.
"You're going to kill me." he manages.
“No, Hollander, you can not die. We have to get really old together, like 120 years-old, like Scott Hunter” Ilya grins, wiping Shane's tears with his thumbs while Shane laughs.
“Talking about Scott Hunter makes it so romantic”.
“Right? He is hot.”
“You’re hotter.”
“Shane Hollander? You’re telling me for the second time in sixteen years that I’m hot?”
“I don’t think that’s something I should tell you for you to know.”
“Oh, I know I’m hot.”
Anya, which Ilya had fed before Shane woke up and was resting since then, walks in and starts to jump on Ilya’s legs.
“Anya loves you more than me."
"Da. This is true." Ilya kisses the tip of his nose. "She is very smart."
Shane laughs again, and it feels lighter this time, the overwhelming love settling into something warm and steady in his chest. He looks down at the roses in his hands, then around at the candles, the photos in the hallway, the balloons still floating above them.
"You did all this…" he says quietly. "For me."
"For us." Ilya corrects. "I did it for us."
Shane looks up at him. At this man, his husband, who spent days researching and planning and worrying, who made pancakes with heart-shaped jelly on top and tied balloons to ceilings and arranged candles exactly like the night Shane proposed, all because he wanted their first married Valentine's Day to be special.
"I have something for you too." Shane says suddenly.
Ilya raises an eyebrow. "You do?"
"Well…" Shane hesitates. "Not... wrapped.” Shane lowered his hands, touching Ilya’s crotch and Ilya left out a low moan.
Ilya's breath catches. A low moan escapes him before he can stop it, and Shane's lips curve into a smile against his mouth.
Fuck, Ilya thinks. The ribbon. He was supposed to wait, to build up to it, to make it a thing, but Shane is touching him, Shane is right here, and Ilya is suddenly very aware that his husband's hand is on his dick and his own dick currently has a satin ribbon tied around it and this is either going to be the best Valentine's Day of their lives or the funniest ever. Or both.
Screw it.
Ilya is already stepping back, pulling Shane gently by the wrist, leading him toward the corridor, to their bedroom, again. Midway there he notices Anya sprawled across the floor on the guest bedroom basking in a patch of sunlight and prays for her to stay there until they’re done.
She watches them approach. Watches Ilya tug Shane past the door. Watches them disappear into the bedroom.
In the bedroom, Shane is still holding the roses.
He hasn't let go of them once, Ilya realizes. Through the kissing, through the touching, through being pulled down the hallway. Shane has been clutching that bouquet like it's the most precious thing he's ever held.
"Shane” Ilya says softly. "The roses."
Shane looks down at them like he'd forgotten they existed. "Oh. Right. Sorry, I just–“ He laughs, a little breathless. "You don't just put down sixteen roses. This feels like a ceremony."
"Put them on the nightstand." Ilya suggests. "Gently. They will be safe there. They will be seeing the prettiest guy on earth whimpering in a few minutes.”
“I don’t whimper.”
“Oh, you do”
Shane carefully, reverently, sets the bouquet on the nightstand, arranging the stems so they won't bend, making sure none of the petals are crushed. It's so Shane, so tender, so thoughtful, even now, even with his pupils blown wide and his breathing uneven, that Ilya feels something crack open in his chest all over again.
Then Shane turns back to him, and the tenderness is still there, but so is something else. Something hungry.
"Now…" Ilya says. "Where were we?"
The kiss this time is different. Slower, deeper, more deliberate. Shane's hands find Ilya's waist, sliding under the hem of the his shirt, pushing it up. Ilya lifts his arms, lets Shane pull it over his head, hears it hit the floor somewhere behind them. Then Shane's hands are on his chest, warm and familiar, tracing the lines of muscle, the scars, the places where Ilya is most himself.
"Your turn." Ilya murmurs against Shane's mouth.
Shane's shirt joins the his on the floor.
For a moment, they just look at each other. Ilya has seen Shane a thousand times, a million times, in every possible context. Onthe ice, in the locker room, tangled in these same sheets. But it never gets old. It never stops feeling like the first time.
Shane's hands drop to Ilya's waistband. His fingers hook into the sweatpants, tugging them down just an inch, and Ilya's hips jerk forward instinctively.
"Easy." Shane teases, but his voice is wrecked.
Ilya responds by grabbing Shane's ass, both hands, full palms, pulling him close, flushing against him, so Shane can feel exactly what he's doing to him. Shane gasps, rocks into him, and for a glorious moment there's nothing but pressure and heat and the perfect slide of their bodies together.
Then Shane pulls back just enough to look down.
"I want…" Shane's voice catches. He swallows. "I want you in my mouth. That’s my gift."
Ilya is breathtaking, already massaging Shane’s head, who drops to his knees the next second.
Ilya's brain short-circuits.
Shane on his knees. Shane looking up at him through those lashes and yearning eyes. Shane's hands reaching for the waistband of Ilya's sweatpants and underwear, tugging them down, down, down.
And stopping.
Shane stares.
Ilya's sweatpants and underwear are around his thighs. And there is the red bow.
A ribbon.
Tied around his dick.
Shane hasn't moved. Hasn't spoken. His face is slowly, steadily turning the deepest shade of red Ilya has ever seen.
"Ilya…" Shane whispers. His voice sounds strangled.
"Yes?"
"Is that–" Shane gestures vaguely at Ilya's crotch. "Is there a bow on your…”
"Yes."
Shane's mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
"Ilya..."
"That is the gift.” Ilya says, and okay, yes, his cheeks are burning, although Russian do not blush… a lot… but Shane is still on his knees, Shane is still staring. "Do you like it?"
Shane makes a sound. It's not a word. It's somewhere between a laugh and a groan and something much, much needier.
"Ilya." he says again, and this time his voice has dropped an octave. "You put a ribbon on your dick. For me."
"For you.” Ilya confirms weakly.
Shane's eyes finally leave the bow and travel up Ilya's body, meeting his gaze. His cheeks are still flaming red, he's blushing so hard it's spread to his ears, his neck, his chest, but his pupils are blown so wide they're almost black.
And Ilya can see it. The exact moment Shane's brain catches up with the situation. The exact moment the embarrassment wars with something else. Something darker. Something that makes Shane's breath hitch and his tongue dart out to wet his lips.
"You're so–“ Shane shakes his head, laughing helplessly. "I can't believe you…"
"You can unwrap it." Ilya offers.
Shane looks at him. Looks at the bow. Looks back up at him.
And grins.
It's not a nice grin. It's the grin Shane gets when he's about to be very something else entirely. Ilya has seen that grin before. It usually ends with him flat on his back, gasping.
Shane's fingers find the ribbon. Not pulling it, not yet, just touching. Tracing the satin where it's tied, feeling the texture, following it around. His knuckles brush against Ilya's skin, against the hardness straining against the fabric of his underwear, and Ilya has to brace a hand on Shane's shoulder to stay upright. And then Shane's hands are on him, finally on him, and soon Ilya’s dick in inside Shane’s mouth.
Ilya forgets how to breathe. Every time he forgets how to breathe.
"Fuck, Shane.”
Shane looks up. His face is still red, still flushed with embarrassment, but there's something else there now. Something hungry and wanting and knowing.
"I knew you’d like this." Ilya hisses. “Yeah, deeper, Hollander" Shane's hands tighten on his hips while Ilya’s hands tighten on Shane’s hair. Ilya is glad it’s slightly longer than a few years ago.
When Ilya is about to make Shane stop, otherwise he’ll come, Shane gets Ilya out of his mouth and their lips touch in a matter of seconds.
"I want you to fuck me," Shane breathes, voice wrecked, "with the bow tied around your dick.”
Ilya's smile turns wolfish, dark with want. Without warning, he hooks his arms under Shane's thighs and lifts him. Shane gasps, legs locking instinctively around Ilya's waist, and then they're falling, tumbling onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and laughter and desperate, searching mouths. Their pants are off the next moment and they are finally only skin to skin.
Ilya kisses a trail down Shane's body. Mouth, chin, neck, chest, stomach, thighs. Slow and deliberate, like he's memorizing every inch. By the time Shane fumbles the drawer open and presses the lube into Ilya's hand, they're both breathing ragged.
"I need you.” Shane whispers, and Ilya doesn't need more than that.
What follows is slow at first, then desperate. Ilya takes his time opening Shane up, watching his face the whole time, learning every sound he makes. Shane's hands grip the sheets. His head falls back. His voice breaks on Ilya's name when he finally gets what he's been asking for.
"Please." Shane begs, and Ilya finally takes the condom, but Shane stops him. “I want you, no condom.”
Ilya feels crazy, desperate, he wants to devour Shane, every part of him.
When he is finally inside, both is them getting used to the feeling, Shane holds Ilya’s face:
“I love you so, so, so much”
“Fuck! I love you.” Ilya hisses and starts moving.
They go hard and fast, and still neither of them thinks it's enough. It couldn't be enough, not really, not when it comes to this, to them. Every kiss, every touch, every desperate press of skin against skin just makes Ilya want more. Need more. He wonders if he'll ever stop feeling this way, this overwhelming hunger for someone he already gets to have every single day.
Ilya fucks Shane like it's their last time together. Like the world is ending and this is all they get. His hands grip Shane's hips, holding him exactly where he wants him, hips up not touching the mattress, and he watches the way Shane's head falls back, the way his mouth falls open, the way he takes everything Ilya gives him and still pulls him deeper.
He's not religious. Never has been, not really. But in moments like this, with Shane beneath him, around him, his in every way that matters, Ilya prays. Not to any god he learned about as a boy, but to something. Anything. He prays for decades. For a lifetime. For more time than anyone should reasonably get, for more Valentine’s together, just so he can spend it with this man.
And beneath him, Shane moans his name like it’s the only prayer he's ever needed.
Ilya leans down, presses his forehead to Shane's, breathes the same air. He thinks he will never get enough of Shane. He thinks also that Shane will always, always be enough for him.
And when they both reach their climax, it hits them like a wave crashing against the shore: unstoppable, inevitable, beautiful. Their breaths come in sharp, uneven gasps, filling the quiet room with sounds that are half moan, half prayer. Their hearts pound wildly against their ribs, knocking like they're trying to break free, like they want to leap across the tiny space between their bodies and finally become one thing instead of two.
Ilya collapses forward, catching himself on his elbows, and for a long moment neither of them moves. They just breathe together, chests heaving, skin slick with sweat, the world slowly coming back into focus around them.
Shane's hair is a disaster, sticking up in every direction, dark strands plastered to his forehead. Ilya reaches up without thinking, pushing it back, letting his fingers linger. Shane does the same, his hands finding Ilya's shoulders, tracing down his arms, over his back, like he's relearning every inch of him. Like he's memorizing.
Their hands are everywhere. Touching, tracing, holding. Too wired to stop, too spent to do anything else. Ilya's palm flattens against Shane's chest, feeling that heartbeat, still racing, still alive, still his. Shane's fingers card through the damp hair at the nape of Ilya's neck, tugging gently, pulling him down until their foreheads rest together.
Neither of them speaks. They don't need to.
In the silence, with their hearts slowly steadying and their hands still wandering, they breathe each other in. And it's enough. It's always enough. It will always be enough.
They lie there for a long time, tangled together in the light that comes through the bedroom’s big windows. Shane's head rests on Ilya's chest, rising and falling with each breath, and Ilya's fingers trace lazy patterns through his hair. Anya has somehow made her way onto the bedroom too, curled up at her own little bed, like she belongs there which, of course, she does.
"Ilya.” Shane murmurs against his skin.
"Hm?"
"Harris texted."
Ilya groans. "About what?"
Shane laughs softly, the vibration humming through Ilya's chest. "He wants us to record something for Ottawa's social media. A Valentine's Day message."
Ilya is quiet for a moment. Shane tilts his head up, searching his face.
"We don't have to if you're not comfortable.”
"Yes."
Shane blinks. "Yes?"
Ilya looks down at him, and his eyes are so warm, so full of everything he never quite has words for. "Yes, let’s do it. I want to do it."
"Really?"
"I want everyone to see how my husband is so in love with me” Ilya's hand cups Shane's jaw, thumb brushing over his cheekbone. "I want everyone to know that I am yours. That you are mine. That we get to have this."
Shane's eyes go shiny. "I am so proud to be your husband, Shane Hollander" Ilya continues, voice low and fierce. "I want to shout it from every rooftop. I want to put it on every social media. I want the whole world to see that somehow I got lucky enough to marry the best person he has ever known."
Shane laughs wetly. "You're going to make me cry again."
"Good. You look pretty when you cry."
"Ilya."
"And when you whimper" Ilya kisses his forehead, soft and lingering.
“Fuck you! I don’t!”
"So needy and greedy."
“I’m not!”
Shane pushes himself up, hovering over Ilya, looking down at him with so much love it's almost unbearable. "You know what I'm proud of?"
Ilya raises an eyebrow.
"I'm proud that you're mine. That after all those years of circling each other, we finally let each other in." Shane's voice drops to a whisper.
“Well…” Ilya’s face is a proof he is about to dirty talk, but Shane stops him.
“I'm proud that you trust me with all of you. The grumpy parts and the soft parts and the parts that research Valentine's Day for days because you want to make me happy."
"The research was very thorough."
"I'm sure it was."
They smile at each other, soft and silly and so completely in love it's ridiculous.
"So we'll make the video," Shane says.
"We'll make the video," Ilya agrees. "And everyone will see how disgustingly in love we are."
Shane laughs, bright and real, and Ilya pulls him down into a kiss. It's not urgent like before, it's slow, sweet, unhurried. A kiss that says they have forever.
When they finally break apart, Anya huffs at their feet, offended at being jostled.
Ilya looks at Shane. Shane looks at Ilya.
And somewhere in Ottawa, Harris is probably still waiting for a response to his text. But that can wait. Right now, on their first Valentine's Day as a married couple, surrounded by dying candles and balloons and wilting roses, Shane and Ilya have everything they need.
They have each other.
They always will.
They still have the rest of Valentine’s Day.
And they have much more Valentine’s to go yet.