Work Text:
land leopard
— — —
The thing about hockey teams was that they had absolutely no concept of minding their own business.
Shane had learned this early. He had accepted it. He had built a life around it. And yet somehow, standing in the middle of the locker room with every pair of eyes glued to Haas's phone screen, Shane felt like he was learning it all over again for the very first time.
"Wait, wait, wait —" Luca Haas wheezed, rewinding the clip for what had to be the fifth time. "He does the LEG THING again —"
The locker room erupted.
Shane stared at his skates. His neck was so hot he was genuinely concerned about his own circulation.
"Hollander." Troy Barrett was crying. Actual tears running down his face. He was not even attempting to stop them. "Hollander, what is that outfit."
"A costume," Shane said flatly. "It was a costume. For a role."
"A role," Haas repeated, like the word had personally wronged him. "A ROLE. Shane, you are literally shoving your —"
"I know what I'm doing in the clip, Haas, I was there —"
"— directly into her FACE —"
"It was CHOREOGRAPHED —"
Another wave of laughter crashed through the room. Shane pressed his fingers into his eye sockets. He had done a lot of things in his life he was not proud of. The Super Support short was not one of them — he had genuinely loved that shoot, the cast had been incredible, and Land Leopard was a comedic masterpiece and he stood by that — but explaining any of this to his teammates would only make things considerably worse.
"Can we please," Shane said, very calmly, "move on."
Boyle, who had not said a single word this entire time, simply held up his phone. He had already found three different gifsets. He showed them to Shane one by one with the solemn energy of a man presenting evidence in court.
"Boyle," Shane said.
Boyle put his phone away. He was still shaking with suppressed laughter.
"I'm sending this to my wife," Wyatt Hayes announced from the corner.
"Please don't —"
"Already sent." He looked up. "She says, and I quote, 'oh he's got it.'" He tilted his phone toward Shane. "Her words. Not mine."
"What does that even —"
"She's sent three follow up texts," Hayes reported cheerfully. "She wants to know if you do birthday parties."
The locker room lost it completely. Shane looked at the ceiling. He looked at the floor. He looked at the middle distance and considered early retirement.
The locker room doors swung open.
Ilya came in from the showers, towel around his waist, hair damp, looking like he always did — loose and unbothered, like the concept of stress had never once applied to him personally. His eyes swept the room, found the crowd around Haas's phone, and he drifted over with the easy certainty of someone who owned every space he walked into.
He slung an arm around Shane's shoulders and looked down at the screen.
The clip was playing again. Land Leopard, leopard print bralet, tiny shorts, baby-faced Shane Hollander spreading his legs with absolutely zero shame.
Ilya went very still.
Not the normal kind of still. The specific loaded kind of still Shane had learned over years of sharing a life with this man. His jaw tightened. His arm around Shane's shoulders tightened too — almost imperceptibly, if Shane hadn't known every single frequency of how Ilya Rozanov held him.
"Hm," Ilya said.
"It's old," Shane said immediately. "Years ago. Comedy sketch. Meant nothing."
"Hm," Ilya said again.
"You know," Hayes announced, because Hayes had never once read a room correctly in his entire career, "he kind of looks like your cat in that. All soft and —"
"Hayes," Shane said.
"— weirdly confident —"
"Hayes."
"— like Pork when he sits on the heating vent and just stares at you."
Barrett absolutely lost it. Haas had to sit down. Boyle made one single sound that was technically not a laugh but functioned exactly like one.
Shane looked at the ceiling. He looked at the floor. He looked anywhere that wasn't Ilya's face, which had shifted from the jaw thing into something significantly more dangerous — cataloguing the way half the team was looking at that clip and not liking it even slightly.
"Okay," Shane said loudly. "Practice is over. Everyone go home."
"We were already —" Haas started.
"Go. Home. Haas."
"My legs hurt anyway," Barrett said agreeably, already getting up. "Good sketch though, Hollander. Very committed."
"Thank you, Troy."
"The shorts were a choice."
"Goodbye, Troy."
___
Ilya didn't say anything about it that night.
He made dinner. He watched film. He responded to everything Shane said with complete sentences and appropriate eye contact. He was, by every measurable metric, totally fine.
He just wasn't touching him.
Wasn't sliding a hand to the small of Shane's back when they passed in the kitchen. Wasn't pulling him in by the back of the neck when Shane stood next to him at the counter. Wasn't doing any of the approximately ten thousand small constant things Ilya Rozanov did to Shane Hollander on a normal day without apparently even noticing he was doing them.
Shane noticed. Shane always noticed. Shane was, by day three, absolutely losing his mind about it.
Anya noticed too, in her way. She kept trotting between them with her ball in her mouth, looking from Shane to Ilya and back again, deeply confused about why nobody was touching anybody. On day two she dropped the ball at Ilya's feet, then picked it up and dropped it at Shane's feet, then looked at both of them like she was trying to facilitate a peace negotiation. Pork watched all of this from the top of the couch with the flat expression of a creature who had already accepted the situation and moved on.
The team noticed by day two.
"You two good?" Barrett asked, eyes moving between them during a line change.
"Fine," Shane said.
"Perfect," said Ilya, from three feet away, not looking up from his tape job.
Barrett looked at Shane. Shane looked at the middle distance. Barrett slowly turned and skated away.
Haas lasted until day four before he cornered Shane by the water station.
"Is this the clip thing," Haas said.
"Drop it."
"It is one hundred percent the clip thing." He leaned in. "Rozanov is mad because —"
"Haas. I am begging you with my whole chest."
"— we all saw your little —"
"I will end your career."
Haas leaned back, deeply delighted. Across the ice, Ilya was running a drill with Hayes and looking completely unbothered by the universe, and Shane hated him a completely normal amount.
Boyle, at lunch on day five, slid his phone across the table without comment. He had found a behind-the-scenes video from the Super Support shoot. Shane was in full Land Leopard costume doing an interview about the character with complete sincerity.
"Where did you even find that," Shane said.
Boyle shrugged. He had the energy of a man who found everything eventually.
"Delete it," Shane said.
Boyle put his phone back in his pocket. He did not delete it. Shane could tell by his face.
At home, Pork had decided this was the week to become exclusively Ilya's problem. Shane would come home to find Pork installed on Ilya's chest while Ilya watched film, both of them ignoring Shane with identical flat energy. Anya, to her credit, remained loyal — trotting over to Shane every time he walked in, tail going, pressing her nose into his hand. But then she would look back at Ilya. Then at Shane. Then back at Ilya. And eventually she would go and sit next to Ilya too, because she was a dog and dogs did not understand team dynamics.
"Traitor," Shane told her, on day five.
Anya wagged her tail. She did not understand the accusation but she appreciated the attention.
"You don't even like him," Shane told Pork, who was on Ilya's sternum again.
"He is fine," Ilya said. The most words he'd volunteered unprompted in two days. Pork blinked at Shane. Anya put her chin on the couch cushion next to Ilya's arm and looked up at Shane with enormous apologetic eyes.
Shane went to bed alone and stared at the ceiling for a very long time.
By day six he had a plan.
___
It took twenty minutes to find the box. It was buried in the back of the closet under two gear bags and what appeared to be a forgotten Christmas jumper.
He shook it out. Held it up.
Leopard print bralet. Leopard print shorts. Small. Extremely small. They fit exactly the same as they had years ago, which Shane chose to take as a personal win.
He checked himself in the mirror. Land Leopard looked back.
"Okay," Shane said to his reflection. "Let's go."
Ilya was on the couch watching film. Pork was beside him, a fat hairless lump of pure judgment. Anya was on the floor at his feet, chin on her paws, and she lifted her head when Shane walked in — tail thumping once against the floor — before looking back at Ilya with the expectant energy of a dog waiting to see what happened next.
Ilya had his reading glasses on and his laptop balanced on his knees and he didn't look up when Shane walked in.
Shane stood in the middle of the room.
Ilya looked up.
A long silence.
Ilya looked at the outfit. Then at Shane's face. Then back at the outfit.
"Okay," Ilya said.
And looked back at his laptop.
Shane stared at him. "Okay?"
"Mm." He scrolled something. Made a note. Completely unbothered.
"That's — I'm wearing the —" Shane gestured at himself. "Ilya."
"I see." He clicked something. "You want something to eat? I was going to make tea."
Anya looked at Shane. Then at Ilya. Then at Shane again. Her tail gave one uncertain wag, like she could feel the tension and didn't know whose side she was on.
Shane stood in the leopard print bralet in the middle of their living room and genuinely could not believe his life.
"No," Shane said. "I don't want tea."
"Okay." Ilya turned a page. Pork adjusted himself and went back to sleep. Anya put her chin back on her paws.
Shane went to bed.
___
Shane woke up and his hands didn't move.
That was the first thing. The specific wrongness of reaching and finding resistance — something cool and smooth looped twice around his wrists, tied to the headboard with a knot that held when he pulled it.
He was awake immediately. Completely, adrenaline-sharp.
He took stock. Wrists tied above his head — silk, not rope. Ankles free. Room dark. The hum of the fridge. Anya's quiet breathing somewhere near the foot of the bed. Pork's characteristic silence, which meant he was present and had already made his peace with the situation.
Shane pulled at the knot. It held.
He twisted his wrists, testing the angle. If he could get his left hand — he shifted, leveraged, felt the silk give just slightly — almost —
Something crinkled against his fingers.
He stilled. Paper, tucked into the loop near his left wrist, folded once. He worked it free, angled it toward the strip of light under the door.
Neat. Printed. Formal.
LAND LEOPARD. YOU HAVE BEEN CAPTURED. — ZIMNY VOLK
Shane stared at it in the dark.
He read it again.
Then he set it on the pillow, looked at the ceiling, and made a decision.
Footsteps in the hallway. Measured. Unhurried.
The door opened.
His eyes adjusted and he clocked the turtleneck immediately. The crossed arms. The expression of cold imperiousness that had no business being as convincing as it was.
"You used the good printer," Shane said.
Something moved in Ilya's expression. Recalibrating. "You are awake."
"I have been awake for several minutes."
"And yet." He stepped into the room. "Still here."
"I was reading your note." Shane tilted his head as much as the silk allowed. "The em dash before the name was a nice touch. Very dramatic."
"Threats should be taken seriously."
"Is that what that was." Shane looked at the calling card, then back at him. "Twelve point Georgia. You formatted a kidnapping notice like a legal document."
The jaw did the thing. "Zimny Volk does not discuss his equipment."
"Focus," Shane said.
"I am very focused." He crossed the room slowly and stood over Shane with the detached assessment of a man reviewing an acquisition. Shane looked back up at him, completely unbothered. "I have been focused on you for a long time."
"How long."
"Long enough," Ilya said, "to know exactly what breaks you."
Shane held his gaze. "I don't break."
"Everyone breaks."
He reached for the hem of the turtleneck and Shane's composure developed its first crack.
He pulled it off slowly. Dropped it. Then the belt, one-handed and unhurried, and Shane watched all of it with the focused calm of someone who was absolutely not affected and was simply gathering intelligence. When he was done he stood there completely bare and looked at Shane with the patience of a man who had already decided how this ended.
Shane looked at him. At all of him. At the very clear evidence that this plan had been thought about for considerably longer than tonight.
"Reserving judgement," Shane said, before he could be asked.
"His face is pink."
"It's warm in here."
"It is not warm in here." He planted one hand on the headboard and leaned in, and the shift in proximity did something immediate to the air between them. "Tell me. What does he think I want."
"To feel like you've won something," Shane said. "Classic. Transparent."
"Hm." His free hand spread flat on Shane's sternum — warm and heavy — and dragged down slowly. "And does he think I will?"
"He thinks," Shane said, "that you have no idea what you're dealing with."
The hand kept moving.
"Tell me what I'm dealing with," Ilya said, and wrapped his hand around Shane's cock.
Shane's whole sentence evaporated.
"Someone who's been out of worse than this —" his voice came out less steady than intended.
"Name one."
"The Budapest incident —"
Ilya stroked him once. Slow. Deliberate.
"The Budapest —" Shane tried.
"Forget Budapest." His thumb dragged over the tip and spread the wetness there and Shane's thighs tightened. "We're here now. And you —" he looked down, dark-eyed, "— are already making a mess."
"That is a tactical —"
"It is very pretty," Ilya said simply, and his grip loosened to almost nothing.
Shane pulled at the silk.
"This knot," Shane said, through his teeth, "is not going to hold forever."
"It only needs to hold long enough." Still moving, infuriatingly slow. "I'm patient. I can wait."
"For what."
"For you to admit I've won."
"That," Shane said, with everything he had left, "is never going to happen."
"Let's see," Ilya said, and his mouth replaced his hand.
Shane was loud immediately — couldn't help it, six days of nothing and the silk at his wrists had stripped him of everything — but he kept talking, kept fighting, Land Leopard still present under all of it.
"This is a standard technique —" he breathed, "— I've trained for exactly —" Ilya did something and the sentence dissolved completely.
Ilya pulled off. "Trained for that?"
"Cheap shot —"
"Very effective though." He pressed his mouth to Shane's inner thigh, his hip, working back up with the aggravating patience of someone who genuinely loved his work. "Tell me what you want. Out loud."
Shane told him. Every single thing — explicit and direct — and felt Ilya go very still and then make a sound that had nothing to do with any character.
"Yes," Ilya said, rough. "Okay."
After that the talking thinned out.
Ilya opened him up slow and thorough — fingers first, unhurried, finding every right spot while Shane's hands twisted in the silk and he kept fighting in fragments. You have no idea what you're dealing with. I've been out of worse. Right up until Ilya found the exact right angle and Shane made a sound that was completely honest and had nothing to do with Land Leopard at all.
The silence between them changed after that. Less sparring. More breathing. The silk at his wrists. Ilya's weight. The specific overwhelming reality of being taken apart by someone who knew exactly how to do it and was in absolutely no hurry.
"Still think you've won?" Shane managed.
"I already have," Ilya said, very quietly, and lined up.
When he pushed in Shane exhaled like something had been resolved — long and slow, his whole body going loose around the thick stretch of it. He felt every inch — the burn and the fullness and the specific overwhelming reality of Ilya bare and heavy and completely everywhere.
"Fuck —" Shane's voice came out wrecked. "You're so — god, you're so big —"
"I know." Not smug. Just certain. He pressed his forehead to Shane's shoulder, buried deep, let him adjust. One hand moved slow and warm down his side. "Okay?"
"More than." Shane swallowed hard. "Move. Please —"
Ilya moved.
He set a pace that was deep and deliberate — pulling back slow and snapping forward hard — and Shane's whole body jolted with every thrust. The headboard hit the wall. His hands twisted in the silk. He wanted to grab Ilya, pull him deeper, dig his fingers in — couldn't, so he just took it, took everything, and said so.
"Harder —" Shane gritted out, "— please, harder, I can take it —"
"I know you can." Ilya gave him harder. "You take everything so well. Look at you." Another thrust, deep, and Shane made a sound that was completely involuntary. "That sound —" low and rough, "— do it again —"
Shane did it again because he had no choice.
"Good," Ilya said, and did it again, and again — relentless and focused, talking low and continuous against his skin. Mine. Good. You feel so perfect around me. So perfect. Made for me. And Shane said yes and please and harder and don't stop and Ilya gave him harder and the pace got rougher and Shane stopped being coherent entirely.
"Look at me," Ilya said.
Shane looked at him.
Ilya above him, completely bare and wrecked and dark-eyed, with everything written plainly across his face. The week of silence and the calling card and all of it — every embarrassing sincere thing — making no attempt to hide any of it.
Shane loved him so much it was genuinely embarrassing.
"Tell me," Ilya said, low and certain, still moving. "That I've won."
Shane held out for four seconds. He counted.
"You've won," Shane said, wrecked and honest. "You win. I concede. Now please —"
"Good," Ilya said, and wrapped his hand around Shane's cock.
Shane came apart completely — clenching down and shaking through it while Ilya fucked him through every second and then followed him over with a low broken groan pressed hard into his throat, hips snapping deep one last time and staying there.
Neither of them moved for a long time.
Anya lifted her head from the foot of the bed, assessed the situation, and put it back down. Crisis resolved.
Shane stared at the ceiling.
"The concession," Shane said eventually, voice destroyed, "was strategic."
"Of course."
"I could have escaped at any point."
"Naturally."
A beat.
"The knot was very effective," Shane said.
He felt Ilya's chest move under him. The real laugh, quiet and genuine.
___
Shane reached over and found the papers on the nightstand — face down, edges perfectly aligned, that he'd noticed earlier and been saving — and picked them up.
He turned on the lamp.
He read the header.
ZIMNY VOLK AND LAND LEOPARD: A COMPLETE HISTORY
Shane stared at it.
"Ilya," Shane said.
"Hm."
Shane turned the page.
There was a character sheet. Zimny Volk, born Alexei Volkov, former Russian intelligence operative turned criminal mastermind, driven to villainy after the government burned his cover and left him for dead in 2009. Brilliant. Ruthless. Operating out of an undisclosed Eastern European location. Known weakness: none documented.
Shane turned the page again.
Land Leopard's file. Real name classified. Former military, gone rogue. Known for operating alone. Last confirmed location: Ottawa. Special abilities listed included enhanced agility, combat training, and — Shane read this three times — irresistible to enemies due to unknown pheromonal anomaly.
"Pheromonal anomaly," Shane said.
Ilya said nothing.
Shane turned the page.
A timeline. Detailed. Bullet-pointed. Every encounter between their two characters across four years, starting with their first meeting at a classified weapons auction in Vienna — Land Leopard attempted to steal intelligence files. Zimny Volk caught him. Let him go. Has been thinking about it since — and ending with a section titled THE CAPTURE, which was apparently where they were now.
Shane flipped back. Twelve encounters. Twelve. Monaco, the Swiss Alps, and one that appeared to have taken place on a yacht.
"There's a yacht chapter," Shane said.
"It is not —" Ilya started, choosing his words carefully, "— it is background. Context."
"There are twelve prior encounters."
"Zimny Volk has been watching for a long time. This is established."
"This is —" Shane found the motive section. Read it. Read it again. "It says here that the reason he wants Land Leopard specifically is because he is the only one who has ever outsmarted him and Zimny Volk has been —" Shane had to stop, "— 'consumed by the need to possess what he cannot defeat.'"
Silence.
"That is," Ilya said carefully, "a very classic villain motivation."
"You wrote villain lore." Shane looked at him. "You printed it. You used the good printer."
"The other printer has low ink."
"ILYA."
"I wanted it to make sense," Ilya said, with great dignity. "Zimny Volk has reasons. He is not just — doing things. He is complex."
Shane looked at him for a very long time.
Then at the papers.
Then at Ilya again.
"You wrote fanfiction," Shane said.
"It is not —"
"About yourself. And me. As made up characters. And then you printed it."
"It is worldbuilding," Ilya said.
"You wrote the yacht chapter."
A long silence.
"The yacht chapter," Ilya said finally, "is actually very good."
Shane looked at the ceiling. He was horrified. He was also — and this was the part he was going to be thinking about for a long time — not entirely unaffected by the fact that Ilya had sat down at some point during the past week and written out twelve encounters between a villain who had been obsessed with one specific person for four years and couldn't stay away no matter how many times he should have.
That was a lot of information about how Ilya Rozanov's brain worked.
Shane was horrified about how much he liked that information.
"The yacht chapter," Shane said, after a moment.
"Hm."
"Is it long."
A pause. "...yes."
Shane looked at the papers. He looked at Ilya.
"Walk me through the complete timeline," Shane said. "From the beginning."
Something shifted in Ilya's expression — the real smile, underneath everything else. "From Vienna?"
"From Vienna," Shane said.
Ilya reached over and turned the lamp off.
___
"In Vienna," Ilya said, low and close, both of them in the dark, "Zimny Volk saw Land Leopard for the first time."
Shane was boneless against his chest, Ilya's hand moving slow and absent up and down his spine. He should have been asleep. He was not asleep. Anya was a warm weight at the foot of the bed. Somewhere in the dark, Pork existed — unverifiable but certain.
"Tell me," Shane said, into his shoulder.
Ilya was quiet for a moment, settling into it. When he spoke the voice had shifted — not fully the character, something softer. Like a story being told rather than performed.
"There was an auction," Ilya said. "Weapons. Intelligence files. The kind of things that change the shape of governments. Very boring people in very expensive rooms pretending they are not buying terrible things." A pause. "Zimny Volk was there for the files. He had been tracking them for six months. He was not there to be distracted."
"But," Shane said.
"But." Ilya's hand stilled briefly on his back. "Across the room. This person. In some terrible outfit — not the leopard print, something else — but the way he moved. Like he knew exactly where every exit was and had already decided which one he would use."
Shane said nothing. He was listening.
"Zimny Volk watched him for eleven minutes," Ilya said. "He knows because he checked his watch. He does not normally check his watch. The files — the reason he was there — he did not look at them once."
"Eleven minutes," Shane said.
"It felt shorter," Ilya said, with dignity. "Time is strange in these situations."
Shane's mouth curved against his shoulder.
"Land Leopard was there for the same files," Ilya continued. "Same files, same room, same evening — it could not be coincidence. Zimny Volk decided it was not coincidence. He decided —" a pause, "— that this was someone the universe had placed in his path specifically. Which sounds —"
"Dramatic," Shane said.
"It sounds dramatic," Ilya agreed. "But Zimny Volk is a dramatic person. This is established."
"Very established."
"He followed him. Through three rooms, down one corridor, out onto the terrace. Land Leopard knew he was being followed — Zimny Volk could tell because of how he moved, very casual, very relaxed, the way people move when they are working very hard to seem relaxed."
"And then?" Shane said.
"And then Zimny Volk had him." Low. Simple. "Corner of the terrace, dark, very cold — it was November — and he had Land Leopard's back against the wall and his wrist in his hand, and he looked at him properly for the first time."
Ilya stopped.
Shane waited.
"And?" Shane said.
"And Land Leopard looked back," Ilya said, quietly. "Not afraid. Not even surprised. Just — looked back. Like he had been waiting to see what Zimny Volk would do next." A pause. "Zimny Volk did not know what he was going to do next. This was unusual."
Shane was very still.
"What happened," Shane said.
"A person intervened," Ilya said, and something in his voice changed — flattened slightly. "Another so-called hero. Came around the corner at entirely the wrong moment."
"What was his name," Shane said, because he could hear it in Ilya's voice.
"In the story," Ilya said carefully, "he is called The Mild Accountant."
Shane lifted his head. "The Mild Accountant."
"He is a supporting character."
"Is The Mild Accountant —"
"He is very boring," Ilya said, with the energy of a man being extremely fair and objective. "Very average power set. Nothing interesting. He just — appears at inconvenient moments and is very —" a pause, "— dependable. In a dull way."
"Ilya," Shane said. "Is The Mild Accountant Hayden."
A silence.
"The Mild Accountant," Ilya said, "is a fictional character."
"Ilya."
"He has no real world —"
"You gave Hayden Pike a hero name and it's The Mild Accountant."
"It is a very accurate name for someone who —"
"Ilya, he's my best friend —"
"He appeared," Ilya said, with great feeling, "at the worst possible moment. In Vienna. On the terrace. When Zimny Volk had finally —" he stopped. Jaw tight. "The Mild Accountant has very bad timing. This is his defining character trait. It is consistent across all twelve encounters."
Shane stared at him in the dark.
"He appears in all twelve encounters," Shane said.
"He is a recurring character."
"Always with bad timing."
"It is his defining feature. He does not even get a character arc."
Shane pressed his face into Ilya's shoulder and laughed so hard he shook. Anya lifted her head at the foot of the bed, alarmed, then settled again when it became clear nobody was in distress.
Ilya waited, his hand resuming its path up and down Shane's spine with the dignified patience of a man who had said what he said and stood by it.
"You're jealous of Hayden," Shane managed, when he could speak.
"Zimny Volk finds The Mild Accountant —"
"You are jealous of my best friend."
"— an irritating and unnecessary presence —"
"Ilya."
A long pause.
"He texts you very much," Ilya said, quietly, dropping the character entirely.
Shane went still.
"He is my best friend," Shane said. "That's what best friends do."
"I know." Ilya's hand had stopped moving. "I know this. It is still —" he stopped. Started again. "In Vienna, when I had you — and he appeared. And you looked at him instead of me." A pause. "That is where the story starts. That is the moment."
Shane looked up at him in the dark.
Ilya was looking at the ceiling. His jaw was set. He had the expression of a man who had said more than he'd planned to and was not going to take any of it back.
"Ilya," Shane said. "I always look at you."
A pause.
"In the end," Ilya said. "Yes." Something in his face shifted. "This is also in the story."
"Is it."
"Across twelve encounters," Ilya said, "Land Leopard always — eventually — looks back. No matter what The Mild Accountant does. This is the point of the story. This is what Zimny Volk knows, even in Vienna, even when he watches you walk away. You will look back."
Shane stared at him for a long moment.
"You," Shane said, "are so much more romantic than you let anyone know."
"Zimny Volk is not romantic. He is strategic."
"You wrote twelve encounters."
"Strategy requires —"
"You gave my best friend a sad little hero name because he interrupted your fictional terrace moment —"
"The timing was genuinely terrible —"
"Ilya." Shane pressed a kiss to his jaw. "I always look back. You've always known that."
Ilya was quiet for a moment.
"Yes," he said, finally. "I know."
His hand resumed moving on Shane's back. Slow. Steady. At the foot of the bed, Anya shifted and sighed and went still again. Somewhere in the dark, Pork existed, unimpressed and eternal.
"The Monaco chapter," Shane said, after a while.
"Hm."
"What happened on the roof."
Ilya reached over and turned the lamp off.
"In Monaco," Ilya said, low and close, slipping back into the voice like putting on a coat, "there was a rooftop —"
"And The Mild Accountant wasn't there," Shane said.
"And The Mild Accountant," Ilya said, with feeling, "was not there."
Shane closed his eyes.
"Tell me," Shane said.
Ilya told him, quiet and low in the dark.
Shane was asleep before Monaco ended. He didn't mind. There were eleven more encounters. And then Budapest.
They had time.