Chapter Text
Shane stands in front of the bedroom mirror staring at it for a long time, running his fingers over the clear material now covering it. He’s in New York, and can hear the loud city and intermittent wailing siren even now as he’s staring and his pink left thigh, panting like he’d just finished a run. It’s simple, but perfect, on the inside of his leg and high enough to be both very suggestive and completely covered by the slight drape of boxers in the locker room. Of course, it was definitely a bad idea, they aren’t even committed for fuck’s sake, but he can’t bring himself to regret it.
-
“Oh my G-d Rozanov, oh my G-d,” Shane whined as he was shoved up the bed. How he always went so quickly from walking in the door to completely undressed with his thighs against his shoulders was a mystery even to him. Ilya was deliciously shirtless, sweat causing curls to stick to his temples and frame his crooked smile; he still had his sweatpants on, regrettably, but his searing look and the three fingers he had inside Shane were reassuring signs that any remaining clothes wouldn’t be on for long.
“So hot inside, lyubimyy (beloved),” he murmured, punctuating the words with slow curls of his fingers. “So tight, so needy, my malysh (baby)."
“Yes, yours, yes,” Shane babbled with little rocking motions of his hips, ready to agree to anything if it would make Ilya’s hand move faster.
“You missed me,” Ilya panted with a wolfish grin. As always, it wasn’t a question. It didn’t need to be. His free hand ran up the side of Shane’s chest, gripping and proprietary. “This is good.”
Ilya bent to nuzzle him, interrupting sloppy kisses down his chest with a sharp bite to his pec, pulling a moan from Shane, before Ilya removed his fingers from him, leaving him briefly but heartbreakingly empty in favor of shucking off his pants.
-
He’d like to say it had been an impulsive decision, that he hadn’t found a specific date, booked the appointment when he knew he’d be in a largely anonymous city and have at least three days before the next game for it to heal …
-
“Busy tonight?”
Shane was toweling his hair in the locker room, absently checking his phone and taking an extra beat to process before clicking back into the present, with Hayden. “Uh, yeah, kind of. Why?”
“Oh, nothing, I was just thinking I might catch a show or something, but if you have plans …” Hayden waggled his eyebrows suggestively, “don’t let me keep you.”
Shane scoffed, pulling his shirt over his head. “It’s not like that.” It was exactly like that, maybe.
“Sure. You know, New York and Boston, not that far apart …” Hayden trailed off, the words ‘Boston Lily’ hanging unsaid in his tone.
And, as Shane always said when he didn’t know what to say: “Fuck off.” He hit ‘Y’ to confirm the appointment before grabbing his bag and leaving the locker room, ignoring Hayden shouting after him to ‘have fun!’
-
… that he hadn’t taken pictures of his inner thigh, outlined what he wanted in sharpie with the obsessive need for it to be perfect …
-
“Thigh, huh? Hell of a spot for a first tattoo,” the woman had told him, using her forearm to brush blue hair out of her face while keeping her gloved hands clean. Shane only hummed in agreement, trying to fight his nervousness about this appointment by thinking about something, anything else.
The only problem was his mind kept circling and landing on imagining what Ilya would say, would look like, when he discovered this. That path would lead to an embarrassing hard-on that he wouldn’t be able to cover up in the tiny shorts he was wearing at the moment.
The buzzing and the stinging began; he slammed a hand down on his quad to keep it from jumping.
“Somebody special?” she asked unhelpfully.
“Oh yeah. Definitely.”
-
… that he hadn’t held Rozanov’s face there and begged for it after they played in Montreal two weeks ago, tears slipping from the corner of his eyes as Ilya moaned and sunk his teeth in.
-
“It is shame you don’t let me leave marks,” Ilya complained, sweat cooling from their first round of the evening, hands stroking Shane’s ass and flanks. “You are so perfect for them. So stripey and bitable.”
Shane flushed and squirmed at the praise, his dick valiantly twitching. As with all things Shane, Ilya noticed this immediately, flashing him a cheeky grin and raised eyebrows, grabbing his ass and squeezing. “Shut up,” Shane said, apropos of nothing. And yet, his half-functioning brain realized this was the perfect opening. Breathily, he continued “You could, if you like. A little.” And then, because it was Ilya, “Don’t go crazy or anything.”
The Russian’s gaze turned equal parts hungry and assessing, raking over him. “Hm. ‘A little’ he says. I must consider my options carefully then …”
Which began an hour-long game of alternately biting and edging, resulting in many, many more marks than Shane had intended, but exactly as many as he spent the night begging for.
-
And now, there it is. The perfect ovoid shape made by little dashes, some crooked, an exact replica in black of his rival’s bitemark left on him. He thinks about telling Rose, who’d giggle and shriek and love the salaciousness of it, and maybe he will, but not tonight. The crazy thought that Ilya’s the only person he wants to ever see it flashes through Shane’s mind, and he tries to ignore that. Instead, he presses the heel of his hand to swollen site and groans at the sting, deciding the only way to celebrate with his rival in another city is to take himself in hand.
-
It’s three weeks later that the penny drops.
They’re in Rozanov’s home in Boston for the first time since the Tuna MeltdownTM, as Shane privately considers it, and making excellent use of his couch. Shane secretly wonders if Ilya had planned deliberately to have him here, where everything fell apart, overwriting the pain of months ago with what is sure to be a truly excellent fuck. The more he considers it, the more sure he is that this is Ilya’s intention, kissing him and peeling his shirt off, but also backing him up and herding him like a determined Australian shepherd to this exact spot, when nine times out of ten they move directly to a bedroom.
He doesn’t blame him, finds it sweet, even, as he loses himself in blissful, wet, thorough kissing, his nails scratching Ilya’s scalp and threading through his curls with gentle encouragement to keep the kiss going.
It’s encouragement that Ilya doesn’t seem to need.
His back is sinking into the soft cushions, and he wonders what would have happened if he had said “I don’t like girls, I just like you” all those months ago, and he’s still not sure.
His mind is blurry at the edges when Ilya finally pulls back, gold glinting on Ilya’s crucifix. “Off,” he instructs in his warm Russian accent with a slap to Shane’s hip, and Shane obediently lifts his hips so Ilya can divest him of his hastily thrown on sweatpants and boxers. “Beautiful,” Ilya praises, kissing his chest and abs before stopping suddenly, frozen in place.
“Shane … what is this?”
Shane stares at the ceiling with a shit-eating grin, thrilled beyond measure to finally, finally be showing this to Ilya, but for once the Russian doesn’t notice, eyes glued to the little black marks.
Shane props himself up slightly on his elbows to enjoy Ilya’s slack-jawed expression to the fullest, and angles his knee out slightly to provide a better view. “Do you like it?”
His eyes jump to Shane’s, searching back and forth and back again as though some great mystery is hidden just above his freckles, but it’s only for the briefest moment before his gaze jerks back down, transfixed by the ink. He raises a finger to trace it. “This is … these are my …”
“Teeth, yes Ilya,” Ilya’s breathing quickly, but his eyes are still questioning. Shane takes mercy on him. “That’s … Ilya, it’s your bite mark on me.”
The noise Ilya makes is inhuman, high and keening, and his face dives between Shane’s thighs.
“Wait wait wait! Careful, it’s new, I-“ Shane stammers, worried Ilya is about to recreate the piece, life imitating art imitating life, but stops when all he feels is a gentle, near reverent kiss, slow and centered within the tattoo. Shane’s hands, previously reaching to stop a predicted onslaught of horny biting, go still, and simply rest gently in Ilya’s hair.
“мой (mine), my Shane,” he murmurs, moving to pepper his thighs and hips and the base of his cock with gentle, quick kisses that soon become wet and sucking. Shane moans at the sensation, unbearably turned on and probably leaking but willing to surrender to Ilya’s unhurried pace. “мой," he says again, as he kisses and sucks gently at the tip of Shane’s cock, ignoring the aborted thrusts and frustrated whine that follow. “мой,” he repeats, pushing Shane’s knees up, gently kissing his hole, then kissing it again, then licking, slowly and sloppily and thoroughly, Shane’s moans going from intermittent to continuous due to his enthusiastic tongue-fucking.
-
When Shane wakes up the next morning, Ilya is already awake and watching him, fingers tracing idle patterns on his chest. “Do you remember awards in 2015?”
It’s not early, per se, but Shane has just woken up, and his brain is only just now coming online. “What? I mean, yeah, vaguely. What about them?”
Ilya gives him a pointed look. “Not that night. Before. In the bathroom.”
True, they had never once followed through on their threats? Requests? To blow each other on a dirty Vegas bathroom floor. That didn’t mean they were above taking the edge off in inconvenient locations. It just so happened that that particular year, the time between Montreal-Boston games had lagged dramatically, and they had been a sure thing for each other, sending dirty texts for weeks and shooting heated gazes throughout the ceremonies. This had culminated in a locked bathroom with Rozanov grinding shamelessly against Hollander’s ass as he pressed his face to the door and jacked him off mercilessly, murmuring thick rolling encouragement like “good boy” and “you love it.” He remembers the white-hot pleasure of his release, and the vaguely ashamed way he wiped the evidence off the mahogany door with paper towels before leaving.
“We should, how you say? Do it again?”
“Recreate it?” Shane offered, confused.
“Ah yes, that,” he nodded, squeezing Shane’s pec.
Shane opened his mouth to object; why the fuck would he want to be jacked off against a door when he’s right here, in Egyptian cotton sheets, basking in sunlight? And then he remembers: his face hadn’t been exactly shoved against the door. No, Ilya had always been more considerate than that; the arm not used for furiously fisting Shane’s cock had been braced against the door in front of his mouth, convenient for muffling the obvious and loud noises Shane was prone to during their encounters. In lieu of screaming his release, he had sunk his teeth into Ilya’s meaty forearm.
At the time, he had felt embarrassed about the bright red mark left behind, mumbling a quick apology. Ilya had shoved his sleeve down with a quick “Is fine.”
He smiled, and changed his mind. “Sure, okay.” He wasn’t 100% sure he knew what Ilya was planning, but he had enough of an idea to want to go along with it.
-
The next time Shane sees Ilya, it’s a week later; Shane had received a text with a single image of a Ilya’s new forearm tattoo, leading Shane to immediately Facetime him so they could say filthy things to each other as they took themselves in hand. Once the initial tidal wave of lust had subsided, Shane had been left with a warm feeling of romantic realization: a tattoo like that in such a visible place was a claim, an unabashed statement of romantic entanglement. It wasn’t a label, by any means, but it was something.
Shane smiles dopily at the thought as commercials fade after the Boston game and lead into Ilya’s (inevitably sweaty and shirtless) post-game interview. The questions are almost always the same, but the view is excellent, particularly as Ilya preens following two goals and a win.
And then: “Rozanov! Is that a new tattoo? Does it have special significance?”
The Boston Captain runs a hand through his hair, a frequent gesture that just so happens, this time, to flash his new tattoo on camera. “My lover is vampire. Always biting.” He sighs theatrically, as though put upon.
“Bullshit,” Shane mutters at the screen, rolling his eyes. He has had dozens of Ilya’s bites on him over the years, and the times he’s bit Ilya can be counted on one hand. The hapless reporter doesn’t seem to know what to make of the vampire comment, and questions pivot quickly to the odds of a win for their next game.