Work Text:
Spring 2020
Rose [1:53 PM]
Do you know who Princess Diana is
Shane [1:54 PM]
Yes?
Why wouldn’t I?
Rose [1:56 PM]
Shane
Be so fr
You didn’t know who Anne Hathaway was last week
Shane [1:57 PM]
I know who she is! I forgot her name!
Rose [1:58 PM]
It’s ok that hockey’s your whole personality just own up to it
Shane [1:59 PM]
I know who people are!
Rose [2:01 PM]
Shane for a dollar name a woman
Shane [2:02 PM]
Why would I want a dollar for that?
I can name a woman
Rose [2:02 PM]
Someone who isn’t me or your mom
Shane [2:07 PM]
Marguerite Moreau
Rose [2:08 PM]
Now I KNOW you didn’t just google the cast of the Mighty Ducks to name a woman
Shane [2:10 PM]
Shut up
Why are you asking about Princess Diana?
Rose [2:12 PM]
[Replying to: Now I KNOW…] I’m telling Ilya about this later
[Replying to: Why are you asking…]
Walk with me but I think you’d look hot in something like this
Shane [2:13 PM]
Rose we broke up you don’t have to flirt with me anymore
Rose [2:15 PM]
HA
I’ve actually never been more serious
Maybe not the biker shorts
But some short shorts??
You have good legs!
Objectively! Platonically!
Shane [2:16 PM]
This definitely feels very platonic
Rose [2:17 PM]
I think a vintage ‘80s or ‘90s look could be so good on you
Shane [2:18 PM]
I feel like you’re trying to play dress up with me right now
Rose [2:19 PM]
Wait
Would you want to 👉👈
Next time I’m in town can I take you shopping?
Please?
Shane [2:20 PM]
If I say yes can we do other things in addition to that?
Rose [2:21 PM]
[Rose emphasized: Rose we broke up you don’t have to flirt with me anymore]
Shane [2:22 PM]
Not what I meant
Can we get dinner or something?
Rose [2:23 PM]
We can absolutely get dinner, we can debrief after our afternoon out
Shane [2:24 PM]
An entire afternoon?
Rose [2:25 PM]
You don’t want to spend the day with me? Am I not a joy to be around?
Shane [2:27 PM]
No you are
Ok sounds good, let’s do it
Rose [2:28 PM]
!!!!
_/~\_
“Can I pass you one more?”
“You said that three times ago,” Shane complained from inside the dressing room, still accepting whatever piece of clothing Rose was handing him over the door. It wasn’t his first time shopping with Rose, but those earlier outings had been casual. They hadn’t lasted more than a few hours at most, wandering in and out of stores before Rose got recognized one too many times and they’d had to call it quits.
This time though, Rose was on a crusade. She’d shown up to his Montreal apartment with a game plan, taking out her phone and walking him through pinned locations on the map like she was planning a heist. He’d seen people on Twitter talk about things that were not the Navy being run like the Navy, but he didn’t think he fully understood what that meant until Rose had detailed her itinerary to him.
She’d had her assistant call stores in advance to make sure they’d have the place to themselves, with a certain amount of time allotted for each stop before they had to move on. She’d booked a driver for the day to take them around despite how many times he offered to just drive them himself. She’d even gotten them a dinner reservation at a small vegan place they’d been to before that they both knew fit within Shane’s diet. Her planning was, he thought admiringly, meticulous. She’d make a good captain.
Which brought him to the fitting room of location four of five, a small upscale boutique in Outremont mainly specializing in what Rose called “athleisure.” To Shane, this seemed to mean exercise clothes you really weren’t meant to sweat in, which he couldn’t say made any sense, but he stopped himself from mentioning it. It felt like just another thing Rose would text Ilya about separately to make fun of him for, and then he’d have to hear about it from both of them.
His phone buzzed on the small bench where he’d started stacking his vetoes from the options Rose had been feeding him.
Lily [4:46 PM]
did you pick out a sports bra yet
send picture when you do
Shane huffed a laugh under his breath.
Shane [4:47 PM]
Fuck you
Lily [4:48 PM]
you wish ;)
Something in chest clenched briefly, tight and sharp. He really did wish, was the problem. Ottawa was closer than Boston, but after nearly two full seasons the tantalizing nearness had made him selfish bordering on petulant. If Ilya could be in Ottawa, why couldn’t he be in Montreal? In Shane’s apartment? Or, closer still, in his bed?
Ilya had made himself a permanent part of Shane’s home after all these years, somehow managing to leave a vague impression of himself even when he wasn’t there. Maybe it was because their time together always felt so vivid for Shane; it was like emerging from water after holding his breath for too long. The light was brighter, the air crisper, his breath deeper. It felt like that every time Ilya walked through his front door, every time Ilya pressed him against that same door for long stretches to kiss the breath from him.
It didn’t make up for the times he wasn’t there. When he was alone, after they’d peeled themselves off each other and he’d regrettably but necessarily all but shoved Ilya out the door, Shane sometimes stood in his entryway with his eyes squeezed shut. He’d stand there, concentrating with everything he had in him, to remember the warmth of Ilya’s hands on him, the low timbre of his voice. When he opened his eyes, his slow blinks conjured vague ghostly shapes dancing in his vision, and he could convince himself he’d managed to solidify Ilya’s presence there, even if only in small, imperceptible increments.
He felt him more viscerally in the days that would follow, whispering, skittering sensations on the back of his neck that had Shane turning towards phantom noises in his empty apartment. It’d make him swear he could hear Ilya fucking with a drawer in his kitchen or coming down the hallway from his bedroom, things he’d heard before and could make real again with enough focus.
He knew it was stupid and nonsensical, but in the back of his mind he foolishly thought that, if he stood there enough times in the wake of Ilya’s cologne and sweet eyes having just left him, and concentrated hard enough, one day Ilya would materialize there completely, borne from the power of Shane’s wanting.
Maybe there was something real and true to be said about hockey and superstitions.
He considered overthinking it for approximately ten seconds before sending his reply.
Shane [4:50 PM]
Miss you
It was stupid and probably clingy–
Lily [4:50 PM]
miss you too моя любовь <3
He knew he looked like an idiot, half dressed in clothes that weren’t his yet, grinning widely down at his phone as it buzzed again.
Lily [4:51 PM]
send me pictures so I miss you less
maybe not possible but worth a try
and I get to see you be sexy
Shane [4:52 PM]
You don’t want to be surprised next time you see me?
Lily [4:53 PM]
rose told me her plan
you will have plenty to surprise me with since it sounds like you are buying all of montreal
so I get to see other things
Shane [4:54 PM]
You’re being pretty entitled right now
Lily [4:54 PM]
well yes
i like to see what is mine
A column of heat sparked and leapt up Shane’s spine, and it was only Rose’s voice on the other side of the door, making him jump out of his skin, that reminded him just how in public he was.
“How’re you doing in there?” she called. “Any winners yet?”
“A few,” Shane called back, sending a hasty reply before setting his phone back down.
Shane [4:56 PM]
You’re a menace. Later.
Lily [4:56 PM]
😘
“Okay,” Rose said, and suddenly she sounded cautious.
“What?” he asked. When she didn’t respond right away, he opened the door enough to poke his head out and see her. She was fiddling with another option, chewing her lip in consideration before looking up at him.
“If I give you these to try, can you promise to keep an open mind?” she asked. Shane started to sigh as she barreled over him. “Please just. Try them, okay? I don’t want you to just make up your mind that you don’t like them.”
“I’m feeling more and more like a Barbie, you know,” he said, only half-joking. She handed over what he realized were a few different tops, one each in white, black and heather gray. He also realized as he took them that half of their fabric seemed to be missing.
“Rose,” he said, and she must have heard the question in his voice, because the next thing he knew he’d had the door shut on him, forcing him back into the dressing room.
“I’m not letting you out until you try at least one of them on!” she called. “And show me! You’re definitely not leaving until you show me!”
“They’re too small!” he protested, a slight horror rising in him as he examined the shirts properly. Each of them was unmarked save for a small logo in the upper right corner, the fabric soft and pliant. The white one had the sleeves missing.
“That’s the point!” she insisted. “They’re crop tops, they’re meant to be small!”
“Aren’t crop tops for women?” he sputtered out. “I’m going to look stupid.”
He held the black one up to his chest as he looked in the mirror, his own beet-red face looking back at him. It covered the top half of his chest, but just barely, and the shape was boxy enough that a strong enough breeze would show off a lot more than he’d want.
“Shane. You have abs and back dimples, there’s no physical way you could look stupid in a shirt like that.”
I’ll feel stupid, he thought. That’s more than enough.
A realization occurred to him. “Is this about the princess thing?”
“The what?”
“The princess thing,” he said, their text conversation from a month prior coming back to him. “When you invited me out. You know, Princess…” He stopped short and hoped to God Rose didn’t hear him hesitate. Unfortunately for him, they were very good friends.
“Shane,” she said, clearly trying to withhold her laugh. “What’s her name?”
“You know who I mean,” he said, unable to keep from sounding childish.
She wasn’t even bothering to hide her laughter now. “For a dollar–”
“We’re not friends anymore.”
“–name a woman! In this case a specific woman!”
“I’m leaving.”
“You’re absolutely not! I want to see your Princess Diana outfit.”
Diana, his mind chimed in a beat too late to be useful. He continued examining the black top, turning it over skeptically.
“Is this what she wore?” he asked, highly doubting the lightweight cotton was something a royal would’ve chosen for herself.
“I don’t think she ever wore crop tops specifically,” Rose said thoughtfully. “She was too classy for that. Spiritually this is the same as that photo I sent you though.”
Shane wondered briefly if he should be offended. “I’m not classy?”
“You’re very classy! But you can also like, not be, sometimes. If you want. This is why I was stressing the open mind!”
Shane could tell he sounded confused, but he felt like he had the right to be. “I don’t think I get it, Rose.”
There was a pause, and then she asked, “Can I come in for a sec?”
Wordlessly he opened the door to let her edge in, tossing the shirt onto the bench as she closed the door. Rose fixed him with a considering look.
“Shane,” she said seriously. “This might come as a shock, but I think I need to ask: do you know you’re hot?”
It surprised a laugh out of him despite himself. “What?”
“Like I’m sure you’ve had people tell you that, or Ilya at least has,” she continued, ignoring his blush. “But do you know it?”
Shane knew he still looked confused, and not for the first time he sent silent thanks to the universe for sending him a friend who was this patient with him.
“There’s a difference between having people tell you you’re hot and taking it as a compliment, and then knowing it like a fact about yourself. Like, you’re Shane, you have brown eyes, you’re very good at hockey, and you’re hot. All unchangeable things about you. Does that make sense?”
“I guess?” he said, understanding her a bit more, but not feeling any more comfortable about it. “And I guess in that way, sure?”
“Sure?” Rose said skeptically. “You know how convincing I find your ‘sures.’”
Shane scoffed. “I just mean, it’s not the first thing I think about when I think about myself, but I guess it’s part of me, sure.”
Fuck. He hadn’t actually meant to say “sure” again. He felt like he was blowing this somehow.
The thing was that Shane did know, on a certain level, that he was attractive, or attractive to certain people at the very least. Ilya wouldn’t have stuck around all this time if there wasn’t something he liked about Shane physically, and he’d told Shane enough what he thought of his body (often in incredible detail, while inside him). But he could see what Rose meant; there was a difference between hearing Ilya say it to him and Shane actually believing it, or believing it for longer than they were in bed together.
It wasn’t something he’d honestly thought much about, especially not when he was younger. He’d had tunnel vision for hockey for so long that if his body was able to play, it didn’t really matter what it looked like. He hadn’t really given much thought to his appearance at all until he and Ilya had started their whatever you call it all those years ago.
In those days of anxious hotel meet ups, he’d found himself unconsciously checking himself in the mirror while waiting for Ilya to show up at his room, fixing the same part of his hair over and over again as he braced for a knock that would come at any second. He’d even embarrassingly done a few push ups once, telling himself it was to keep from pacing and not because he was trying to give his arms some last-minute definition before his clothes came off. It hadn’t mattered ultimately; Ilya’s knock had startled him mid-way through his tenth push up and he’d fallen flat on his back. He’d still been out of breath when he answered the door, and didn’t breathe normally again until Ilya left an hour later.
Shane thought it was maybe another part of wanting to be good for Ilya, that if he could be lots of things (a good hockey player, good at sucking cock, good at following directions, even good looking), Ilya might want to leave a little less every time. It still sometimes felt that way, even committed to each other as they were now. Ilya had given up so much to be with him, the least he could do was be something Ilya could enjoy.
But being attractive outside of that, thinking of himself as that beyond Ilya—Shane started to realize he’d never actually thought about it.
Rose was still looking very unconvinced at him, and Shane couldn’t blame her. He tried again. “Does it matter if I think I am?” he asked.
“Not necessarily,” she said, something going soft in her expression that Shane really hoped wasn’t pity. “I don’t know though, I feel like I spent so much time in theater school with people who were super insecure and or felt like they needed to be a certain way, and it was all about how other people thought of them. It made me feel like it’s important to just be happy with yourself.”
“I don’t feel bad about myself.”
“I’m not saying you do,” she reassured him. “I’m just saying, I think it’s good to like your body, and I think you do like it for hockey reasons, but you can also like it just because it’s nice to look at.”
Shane nodded slowly. It was odd to think of his body as something at rest, something that just was, that could be appreciated aesthetically. It still didn’t make him any surer of the crop tops.
“Does it have to be these?” he asked, picking up the discarded shirt again. “It feels like they’d show…a lot.”
“You’re acting like you’re showing ankle in a period piece,” Rose said, and Shane wasn’t quite sure he knew what she meant, but figured now was not the time to ask. “You can wear revealing clothes Shane, if that’s what makes you feel hot. I think you should try it, even if it’s just playing pretend until you feel comfortable.”
“Playing pretend?”
“Yeah, it’s like,” she cast around for the right word. “Improv, fake-it-till-you-make-it. Decide for an hour or something that being hot is a completely true fact about yourself and see how it makes you feel.”
She took the shirt from him to hold it against his chest, smiling indulgently at the skepticism he was sure was written all over his face. “Plus, whenever I’m on set, I don’t think I truly feel like my character until I have my costume.”
She patted the shirt into his chest and turned to slip out the door, talking over her shoulder as she went. “I’ll be out here to hype you up whenever you’re ready.”
Alone again, Shane considered the shirt in his hands, running his thumb over the sleeves. The fabric felt nice against his skin, not rough or stiff like new shirts off the rack sometimes felt.
Before he could think about it too much longer, he pulled it over his head and slipped his arms through the sleeves, his stomach dropping slightly as he looked down and saw just how much of his abdomen was on display. He turned slowly on the spot to finally brave himself in the mirror.
And stared.
_/~\_
Ilya readjusted the strap of his bag on his shoulder, shifting the weight of it restlessly as the floor numbers on the elevator ticked up. He rolled his head slightly, leaning into the burning twinge of his neck muscles from where they were tense and tired. The ride from Ottawa to Shane’s place in Montreal was familiar by now, but nearly three hours in the car still wasn’t nothing.
He’d gotten up early this morning off a game against St. Louis the previous night. They’d wiped the floor with the Centaurs, and Ilya still felt the humiliation of it, muted but reverberating, ringing in his teeth. He tried not to feel numb to it, but there were only so many times he could see his team through a brutal loss before feeling like it was a kind of ritual, like the long arc of every game always pointed towards their defeat.
It made it harder to get out of bed in the days after, even on days like this where he knew he was only hours away from seeing Shane. Sometimes that fact made it worse; it made him not want to show his face, like he’d see his own shame mirrored back in Shane’s expression. It hadn’t happened yet, but he held the fear inside himself all the same, waiting for the day that pitying, disappointed expression would finally appear.
The reward outweighed the risk though, and it was the irresistible need to see him that had Ilya levering himself out of bed at six that morning, muscles aching and head foggy, but with an endless want warming him from the inside out and the prospect of two uninterrupted days together before the Centaurs took off for Los Angeles.
Maybe he could convince Shane to have a nap with him. The thought made him groan internally with how badly he wanted it, Shane loose-limbed and freshly showered after his early morning workout, enticed back to bed with a few well-placed kisses and murmured words.
Maybe he’d even make Shane feel a little bad for him, play up his soreness with the bravado that would make Shane roll his eyes but smile at him indulgently. Shane had been to a new PT recently who he said gave excellent massages; maybe he’d picked up some ideas from her and would rub the tension out of Ilya’s neck and shoulders before kissing the bruises that were developing on his ribs.
The thought made him smile as he stepped out of the elevator, his phone buzzing simultaneously like Shane could read his mind.
Jane 🥰❤️🥵 [8:47 AM]
Door is open whenever you get here!
Ilya frowned, a petty part of him slightly disappointed. Secretly, one of his favorite parts of visiting Shane’s Montreal place was that he got to use his own key to get in. Shane had given it to him during the fall of their 2017–2018 season, the last Ilya would play with the Raiders and in the wake of their first trip to the cottage, their first real year together. They’d been laying close in Shane’s bed, skin not yet cooled from their last round, and Shane had been flushed and shy as Ilya opened the box, because of course Shane had fucking giftwrapped it.
“I want you to be able to come and go whenever you want, even if I’m not here,” he’d said as Ilya had wordlessly examined the key. It was standard, plain, the new metal glinting and unused. He imagined Shane going to a Home Depot or something to get it cut.
“Oh, because I’m always just passing through Montreal for no reason, yes?” he’d said sarcastically, trying to hide the fact that the untarnished edges of the unremarkable key had turned him on so quickly it had given him a headrush.
Shane had shoved at him for being an asshole, and he’d rolled Shane over in response to kiss him. They’d gone again, Ilya sliding easily back into where Shane was still open and wet for him, his pace more frantic than he’d intended it to be. They’d had to hunt through the rumpled folds of the sheets later, both of them laughing at the ridiculousness of it, to find the key again.
He supposes it’s a small price to pay this time to see Shane faster.
He slid through Shane’s front door, closing and locking it behind him. Shane was nowhere to be found, and Ilya knew his frown now likely resembled more of a pout. “Hollander?” he called out, and was gratified to hear Shane’s footsteps upstairs.
“Coming!” he called down, and Ilya huffed, the urge to be a little annoying too easy to resist.
“Is not fair, I drive all the way from Ottawa and get no hello kiss when I walk in the door? Very–”
The words died in his throat, stopped dead and punctuated by the sound of his bag slipping off his shoulder and landing heavily on the ground next to him.
Shane was halfway down the stairs, stopped and smiling at him as he took in the expression on Ilya’s face.
It would be charitable to call what he was wearing a shirt. It was white and sleeveless and left almost all of his stomach exposed where it was shiny with sweat. Ilya faintly realized he’d been right in his thinking: Shane had already gotten a workout in, the evidence gleaming on his exposed arms and neck. His ab muscles kept contracting as Ilya watched him, because he could watch, because he could see everything.
He was also wearing what were possibly the shortest shorts Ilya had ever seen, or maybe they were just the shortest ones he’d ever seen Shane wear, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care either way. All that mattered was they were light blue, had a drawstring, and were set right underneath Shane’s navel, where his stomach slowly sloped down into them.
Ilya didn’t know how long he stood there tracing the line of Shane’s body with his eyes, both his languages abandoning him as he stared. The shirt clung slightly to Shane’s chest, but not enough that Ilya couldn’t get a brief, teasing view of the skin underneath.
He was seized with the wild, strange, but very true thought that he missed Shane’s nipples.
Shane was still smiling at him, the curve of his mouth turning coy where he would normally be shy. He descended the stairs a little slower, letting Ilya look his fill until he stood right in front of him.
“Hi,” Shane said quietly, nose-to-nose with Ilya. His perfect face was flushed, his freckles standing out in stark relief and making Ilya want to kiss each one.
“Hi yourself,” he said, his voice audibly croaking. He leaned in to kiss him, and very nearly whined as Shane pulled back slightly, his smile becoming more teasing.
“You don’t have anything to say?” Shane asked, looking down at himself before slowly dragging his eyes up to look at Ilya again.
Ilya arguably had too many things to say, the words building up like and threatening to overflow in fragmented, frantic pieces. His wish for a nap suddenly felt like a laughable dream from weeks ago, and where before he’d ached from the road and the miserable game he now felt lit up, desperate. The need to touch Shane, to feel him up under his little top and rip his shorts off with his teeth were the only things he could process wanting.
He reached out a tentative hand, dragging it down the front of Shane’s chest over the shirt and coming to a rest at the bottom edge, feeling the shaky breath Shane let out as he did so. He managed to swallow in an effort to get some moisture back in his mouth before he spoke again. “Where did you get this?”
“Out shopping with Rose a couple weeks ago,” he said, and Ilya was gratified to hear Shane get a little breathless. Ilya continued to trace a thumb along the edge of the shirt, feeling the fabric and the line of his stomach muscles at the same time. “She thought it’d look hot. On me.”
“She was right,” Ilya said, and a distant part of his brain that was no longer in the room or on the same planet realized this was a more pressing matter than any jealousy he might have felt.
“I’ve been,” Shane said, pausing suddenly. Ilya dragged his eyes away from where he’d been fixated on the curve of Shane’s pec through the shirt to see the indecisiveness on his face. It was a look Ilya had seen before, when Shane wanted to confess something he thought might embarrass him and needed Ilya to coax it out.
Ilya opened his mouth to prompt him, but Shane surprised him, beating him to it as the words tumbled out. “I’ve been wearing them around. Not like, out, or anything. But when I’m here, working out or just hanging around.”
Where his throat had previously gone dry he now felt it fill with moisture, because he could see it. Shane on his rowing machine, his stomach dripping, thighs thick and working to push himself through. Would he lift the edge of the shirt after he was done to mop his face, practically naked for a moment while he did it? Would it ride up his chest later when he was on the couch, lazing after a morning of exercise, his hand stealing under the drawstring–
“Oh yes?” Ilya tried to sound like he wasn’t rapidly inventing various scenarios of Shane’s activities all alone in his apartment in his slutty little outfit. He thought he was mostly successful.
“Yeah,” Shane continued. The side of his mouth quirked up, like he could see straight into Ilya’s brain and the white noise that was taking it over. “She told me I should practice feeling hot, when I’m alone. It sounds kinda stupid, but–”
He wrapped his arms around Ilya’s neck, bringing them flush together, and Jesus Christ Ilya could feel Shane’s stomach through his own shirt. “–I think I’ve gotten better at it. What do you think?”
A strangled moan escaped him without Ilya’s permission, feeling entirely overwhelmed at having Shane this close and able to smell the fresh sweat in the corner of his neck. Shane nudged their noses together, seeming to understand and clearly pleased.
“You should kiss me.” The tenor of his voice dipped and rumbled low against Ilya’s mouth, practically putting the words onto his tongue, and Ilya moved faster than he ever had in his life. In one motion he licked into Shane’s mouth, kissing him fiercely while one of his hands found its way under the hem of his shorts. He didn’t have to go far to grab a handful of his ass, only to realize that on top of everything else, Shane wasn’t wearing underwear.
Ilya fucking loved him.
Shane moaned against him, fingers threading through Ilya’s hair and tugging in a bone-deep, satisfying way that had Ilya hauling him closer, trying to merge them together if that’s what it took to feel more of him. Ilya could feel how hard he was through the thin material of his shorts, and suddenly all he could think about was getting Shane in his mouth.
He spoke in between wet, open-mouthed kisses to Shane’s neck. “What else should I do, моя любимый? Tell me what you want.”
He thought he might have to prompt him again; usually Shane went a little incoherent, practically limp, with Ilya’s attention. It was only direct instructions that could gently spur him into action, his body responding to the need to be good for Ilya.
There was none of that now. Shane tugged at Ilya’s hair still grasped between his fingers so Ilya would face him and his dark, endless eyes. He was breathy but decisive when he answered. “You should get on your knees for me.”
Ilya sank wordlessly down, trailing kisses down his exposed stomach and feeling the little hitches of Shane’s breath as he went. Impulsively, he took the end of the drawstring in his teeth and tugged apart the neat little bow that Shane had tied it in, receiving a shaky laugh from Shane in response.
He pressed his open mouth to the front of Shane’s shorts, inhaling and wetting his covered cock with his tongue.
“Fuck,” Shane bit out above him. One of his hands was back in Ilya’s hair, tangling in his curls and, Ilya realized gleefully, pushing his face closer. “That’s so good Ilya, you feel so good.”
Ilya opened his eyes enough to look up, intent on seeing Shane’s face as he trailed a hand back up Shane’s stomach until it crept under his shirt. He kneaded slowly at his pec, tracing a finger over his hardened nipple.
Shane tipped his head back, his eyes screwed shut as he grabbed at Ilya’s wrist, anchoring him in place. “Love when you play with my tits,” he gasped out.
Ilya felt something nameless stutter through him, making him shake. This was the kind of thing he could get Shane to admit only after ages of teasing, after Shane had already been brought to the edge and no longer cared what was spilling out of his mouth so long as Ilya kept fucking him. To have him say it now so early on and all on his own made his pulse thrum.
“You have such pretty tits sweetheart,” Ilya breathed against his cock, making him moan in response. And, because he couldn’t resist, “Did you buy the sports bra like I ask?”
Shane laughed again, and at any other time he probably would’ve called Ilya an asshole. “No,” he said instead, and then walloped Ilya again with an honesty that lit him up from the inside out. “It wouldn’t have let you do this.”
There were too many implications there for Ilya to sort through, so he settled on the first one he arrived at. “You like this? Want to be ready for me to touch whenever I want?”
The grip Shane had on his wrist tightened ever so slightly. “Whenever I want.”
Ilya didn’t have time to recover from that before Shane continued with a slight whine threaded through his voice. “But yeah, want you playing with me all the time. Want your mouth on me, now.”
It had to be rewarded, this naked directness Shane was bestowing on him. Ilya loved Shane’s shyness and grumbling, loved their push and pull and Ilya’s prodding to get him to admit all the dirty things he had in his head. But this, Shane being shameless in saying exactly what he wanted from him, was such a treat. Ilya could’ve eaten him with a spoon, but satisfied himself with pulling Shane’s cock from his tiny shorts and swallowing him down.
“Fuck,” Shane groaned above him, and Ilya moved to take him in deeper just to see if he could make him say it again. He savored the weight of him against his tongue, breathing in deep and running a greedy hand up Shane’s thigh, feeling the muscle flex under his fingers. The smell of his sweat was sharpest here, clear and heady and making Ilya moan, his senses flooded with Shane.
Shane had tried to describe it before, why he enjoyed Ilya’s instructions so much when they had sex, why he wanted to be good for him. It had been hard for him to articulate, but he’d told Ilya it made him feel surrounded and warm when Ilya asked him to do simple things he knew Shane could do. And when he did them, and Ilya so clearly loved them, loved him, it was like no other feeling in the world. It was like being wrapped up in Ilya, he’d said, and he’d barely had to do anything to earn it.
“You always set me up for success,” he’d said, so serious and sweet and genuine, and Ilya had laughed in his face.
“I did not know we work in an office now,” he’d teased, shielding himself as Shane had tried to beat him to death with one of his million decorative pillows. “When we fuck it’s what, teambuilding?”
“You asked me, asshole,” Shane had grumbled, smile tugging at his mouth as he’d tossed the pillow aside.
He sometimes felt like this was the last real thing he could give to Shane, the final ace up his sleeve: this ability to share his pleasure, his love, and anything else Shane asked of him. He wouldn’t take back his move to Ottawa for the world, but Ilya would be a damn liar if he ignored the uneven footing it had placed them on. He wasn’t the winner Shane had fallen in love with, couldn’t match him or even keep up with him these days, and maybe for anyone else it wouldn’t have mattered, but Ilya knew it did to him, to them.
If he couldn’t be good at hockey, he could be good for Shane, could make Shane feel good enough that maybe he wouldn’t mind how far Ilya had fallen, at least for a little while.
It didn’t help that Ilya was also, at his core, selfish. He couldn’t get enough of Shane most days, would happily drown in the deep waters of his attention.
He bobbed his head slowly along Shane’s length, his eyes shut tight and concentrating harder on the sensation of every inch of him. The taste of him made spit pool in the well of his mouth, and he would’ve started drooling if Shane hadn’t chosen then to pull him off and drag him back to his feet.
He pressed a deep, eager kiss to his mouth, tasting himself on Ilya’s tongue. “Fuck me,” he bit out in between the scrape of Ilya’s teeth on his bottom lip. “Need you in me.”
“Here?” It was barely even a question. Ilya would’ve fucked him anywhere he asked in that moment.
“No,” Shane said, and grabbed Ilya’s hand to lead him up the stairs.
They scrambled through the door of the bedroom together, racing to get their clothes off as quickly as possible. Ilya watched as Shane paused in the process of lifting the hem of his shirt, unable to decide whether to take it off or–
“Keep it on,” Ilya said, the command coming to him instinctively. Selfish.
Shane’s smile at him was the first hint of shyness he’d seen since he walked through the door, grateful to have Ilya be the tiebreaker in whatever war had been going on in his head. This at least was what Ilya read on his face before he was practically checked into the mattress.
Shane was a blur of motion on top of him, trying to kiss every part of Ilya that he could while also grabbing lube from his bedside without looking. He finally managed it all, Ilya watching dizzily from underneath him as Shane straddled his hips. He tried to grab the lube out of his hand, but Shane raised his arm up, swift and out of reach.
“I’ll do it,” he said, lowering it to coat two of his fingers generously before tossing it to the side. He fixed his gaze on Ilya as he reached back, pinning Ilya flat on his back with just his eyes. “I already started before you got here, want your fingers in me after I finish opening myself up for you.”
“Fuck, малыш,” Ilya groaned, watching Shane’s fingers start to move slowly in and out of his hole. “It’s only nine in the morning, it’s too early for you to be this slutty.” He splayed his palm wide on Shane’s stomach, dipping underneath his shirt to grope roughly at his chest. He really had missed Shane’s nipples.
“It’s all I’ve thought about all week,” Shane panted. His cock was already leaking, smearing precum across his stomach.
“What?” He wanted to hear Shane say it, to see if he would.
“Getting to be slutty. For you.” Shane was going to kill him.
«Что я сделал, чтобы заслужить тебя?» he said helplessly. What did I do to deserve you?
Ilya couldn’t wait anymore. He grabbed at the lube to get his fingers slick and fit one of them alongside Shane’s inside the sweet stretch of his hole. They groaned in tandem at the feel of them together, the tightness of him almost overwhelming.
“Let me,” he said, grasping at Shane’s wrist a little desperately to replace Shane’s fingers entirely. He was unsuccessful at stifling his whine when Shane smacked him away. “Shane, come on малыш, let me, please.”
“Not yet,” Shane gritted out. His eyes were closed, his neck long and tipped back as he ground back slightly, the sound of it obscene and wet. “Want you like this a little bit longer.”
This was getting ridiculous. Patience stretched thin, Ilya wrapped an arm around Shane’s waist to flip him. He wasn’t above putting Shane on his back and fucking him properly, not if it meant getting in him now—
He was stopped by Shane’s firm hand on his shoulder.
“Ilya,” he said, the warning in his tone clear. “What’d I say?”
He could’ve vibrated out of his skin from the frustration. “Shane, I’m dying. You are killing me, slowly, painfully.”
“You’re fine, you drama queen,” he huffed out. Ilya twisted the finger he had inside him to give him a punishing little jolt, just in case he’d forgotten where he was. He watched Shane’s stomach jerk and flex as he swore under his breath, and finally, blessedly removed both his and Ilya’s fingers from the clinging warmth of his hole.
He had every intention of revisiting his plan to pin Shane to the mattress when he leaned forward above Ilya, his broad palms planted on either side of his head as he hovered over Ilya’s face. It made the bottom of his stupid little shirt gape down off his torso, the white fabric almost translucent from sweat and riding up ever so slightly to give the suggestion of Shane’s pecs. Shane had his knees spread wide on either side of Ilya’s waist, his back unthinkingly arched. Ilya felt his breath catch just from the sight of him.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Shane said quietly, the gravel in his voice and his unusually unflinching eye contact capturing Ilya’s attention. “I’m going to ride you, and you’re going to come inside me.”
“Am I?” Ilya couldn’t resist pushing back a little bit, trying to play it cool like his breaths didn’t sound like desperate pants. “You’re making the rules now?”
“You’re the one who wants it so bad.”
Ilya felt his eyes narrow. “Don’t turn this into a competition Hollander, you won’t win.”
“It’s true though. You want me.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” Ilya answered anyways.
“You always do, I know you do,” Shane said, like Ilya hadn’t even spoken. “Tell me how much, and then I’ll let you fuck me.”
“Let me?”
“Yeah,” Shane was smug, and fuck if that wasn’t one of Ilya’s favorite expressions on him. It was a close relation to his captain face, puffed up and proud with the fact that he knew he was a fucking winner. He didn’t qualify it with anything, didn’t feel the need to justify it, because they both knew he didn’t need to.
Ilya traced the flush of his face where it hung inches above him, Shane’s cheeks bright pink and sweaty. He felt like he could see himself reflected back in Shane’s eyes, the sheen of them bright and trained steadily on him.
Ilya was entirely at his mercy.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, and watched surprise register on Shane’s face. It wasn’t what he had expected to say either, but nothing else had felt more right in that moment, pinned as he was and utterly captivated.
“Yeah?” It was the first time he’d seen any sign of insecurity in Shane since coming through the door, a flicker of uncertainty like this wasn’t something he’d known before, wasn’t something Ilya had said to him many times over.
“Of course, always.” He added, “Makes me a little crazy, like my brain is eggs.”
Shane tilted his head to the side ever so slightly in confusion. “Eggs?” A moment later his eyes widened the smallest increment, and Ilya watched with delight as he tried and failed to bite back a smile. “Oh my god, do you mean ‘scrambled’?”
“No, I mean sunny side up,” Ilya deadpanned, giving a little dismissive flick of his hand. “Shush, it’s not your turn to talk Hollander. I’m being sexy.”
If Shane wanted him to talk, Ilya was happy to oblige him; Shane had joked before that Ilya was physically incapable of shutting up, like it was more natural for him to run his mouth than to be silent. It had been an affectionate complaint rather than a serious one, an easy distinction for Ilya to discern. He’d picked up many indicators like this after devoting the past decade to the study of Shane Hollander and the modulations of his voice, especially in response to Ilya’s varying attempts at irritating him on purpose.
He slowly slid two fingers back to Shane’s hole, petting around the rim before sinking back inside. It made Shane groan and grind back against him. “I want you all the time, it’s true. I miss when I’m not inside you, think about how good you take me. How much you love my cock, always so desperate for me. Yes?”
He wanted Shane to give him a response, and wasn’t disappointed by the immediate, jerky nod he got. His head had dipped lower when Ilya had pushed back inside, and their noses brushed with the movement. His words carried in the close space between them, low and intimate and just for Shane’s ears.
“Only I know how to make you feel good, right sweetheart?” Shane gave him another nod, and this time it wasn’t enough. “Tell me, use your words.”
Shane didn’t even try to fight him, and Ilya loved him like this, truths spilling out of him like a rushing river. “Only you, Ilya, only ever you, I swear–”
“I know so,” Ilya said soothingly, his free hand running up and down Shane’s upper thigh, squeezing at him occasionally just to feel the give of his muscle. “I’ve had so many years to practice, to learn how to fuck you so perfect you cry. You know how hot it is to have someone want you so bad they whine?”
Shane gifted him with one of those whines, working low in his throat until it came out high and thready like he was in distress. He pushed his forehead against Ilya’s, his eyes screwed shut, and Ilya preened at the sound.
“That’s my good boy,” he crooned, pressing his fingers in deeper despite the awkward angle to nudge against Shane’s prostate. He was rewarded with the same noise, higher and more urgent as Ilya added a third finger. “You want to come like this, or are you going to let me fuck you like I know you want?”
“Ilya–” Shane was trembling above him, fine little tremors wracking him body as he fucked himself back on Ilya’s fingers. He was so warm and wet inside, and Ilya had to focus on driving back into him so he didn’t slip out entirely.
It was like his desperation was contagious, and Ilya found himself begging almost despite himself. “Please let me, baby. I know you need it, I can give it to you, I promise.”
This time his nod came before Ilya had finished speaking, Shane’s plush lower lip hanging open like he’d lost control of it. “Need you, now. Please fuck me, wanna feel full of you.”
Shane’s mouth met his as he surged upwards, both of them forgoing anything like a proper kiss in favor of fervent bites and licks. The scant distance between them was suddenly too much for Ilya to bear, and he sat up fully as he slowly pulled his fingers from Shane. They scrabbled for the lube at the same time, Ilya just barely beating Shane to it before slicking himself up.
“Slow,” he murmured to Shane, watching with rapt attention as Shane did as he was told and painstakingly took him inside until he was fully seated in Ilya’s lap.
They didn’t fuck like this often; their sex life was varied enough that there wasn’t necessarily one “usual” way they did anything. Straddling Ilya like this for too long would likely be murder on Shane’s left knee, which had been giving him some trouble ever since he’d landed it on it funny after he’d been tripped by a Minnesota d-man a month ago. Ilya also knew that Shane liked being held down, liked Ilya pounding into him and making him feel something, even if the “something” was soreness that lasted through the next day.
(Ilya actually had it on great authority that this was one of his favorite “somethings” to feel).
But Ilya had decided that they both needed this, the closeness between them in every sense. Ilya wanted to feel every flex in Shane’s back, wanted to feel the breath of his moans in his own open, gasping mouth, wanted to feel the close clench of him around his cock.
Shane wanted it too, Ilya could tell as surely as he knew it was snowing in Moscow. Shane needed a little bit more control than usual this time, and seemed to want an undefinable kind of validation that Ilya was determined to investigate once his brain came fully back online. But like this, he could let Shane take what he needed, let him be greedy and set his own pace. Ilya was the supporting role, his shallow thrusts up into where Shane was blissed out and riding a steady, background thrum like a bassline.
“Always so good, Shane,” Ilya’s breath hitched, his hand finding the curve of Shane’s ass so he could grip it tightly and feel it move over him. “So good for me, my pretty boy.”
Shane had wrapped his arms around Ilya’s shoulders, and his hands squeezed there as he forced his eyes open to meet Ilya’s. The dazed look in them paired with the faster pace of his hips were enough for Ilya to know he was close.
“Ilya,” he panted, his name when Shane sounded like this his favorite thing he’d ever heard, “keep talking, don’t stop, I–fuck you’re so deep like this–”
He groped at Shane’s nipple through his shirt with the hand that wasn’t doing its best to leave fingerprints on Shane’s ass.
“Did you get this so I’d touch your tits like this? Hm?” He rubbed a rough finger over the nipple, looking for and receiving a choked off sob from Shane at the sensation. “You like how I play with you?”
Shane’s nod was syrupy slow, coming almost trancelike as he focused on the ceaseless motion of his hips. “Yeah.”
“I wouldn’t stop touching you even if you wanted me to. But I know you like that, you like whatever I do to you, don’t you baby?”
He felt Shane shiver against him, and for the first time in a long while Ilya registered just how wet Shane’s cock was where it was trapped between their stomachs.
He hummed appreciatively, licking up Shane’s jaw so he could nudge his words right into his ear. “I’m lucky to have a slut who dresses up so pretty for me.”
There was an urgent, needy edge to Shane’s voice when he spoke again, and Ilya could tell he was nearly there, standing on the cliffside with the gravel crumbling under his feet. “Do I–am I–?”
“What?” Ilya pretended like he didn’t know what Shane was asking. He had been happy to follow Shane’s lead for the most part, but he deserved to get fucked with a little bit for making him wait so long. “Are you pretty? Sexy?”
“Yeah,” he said, just short of a whine.
For the life of him, Ilya couldn’t understand why this was the sticking point for Shane. As if he didn’t know how gorgeous he was, how Ilya’s obsession with his freckles alone could fill a book. Still, as confusing as it was, he could tell that whatever he decided to say would matter to Shane, and it was beyond his control when his sincerity bled through. “You’re the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen, Shane.”
Ilya couldn’t begin to process the complicated series of emotions that he saw flicker across Shane’s face before he was kissed, Shane’s mouth lush and open against his. It was just as Shane began to suck on his tongue that a bolt of inspiration hit, the wetness of their mouths audible as he pulled away.
Without hesitation, Ilya grabbed the hem of Shane’s shirt, pulling it up to expose his chest, and watched Shane’s eyes go wide as he stuffed it roughly into Shane’s mouth.
“Go on,” he said, his voice faux-pitying and a little mean as he finally stroked a firm hand up Shane’s cock, “be a good boy for me and come all over your pretty tits, sweetheart.”
Watching Shane come was a beautiful thing on any given day. But the way he looked, eyes rolling back, moans muffled from the press of dampened cotton against his teeth, cum covering his chest as he clenched tightly and suddenly enough to draw Ilya over the edge with him, was nothing short of revelatory.
_/~\_
It wasn’t until after they’d cleaned, showered and returned to bed, Shane’s head pillowed on his chest, that Ilya thought to ask him about it.
“You said that Rose told you you needed practice being hot? This was real thing she said?”
He didn’t need to peer down at Shane to know he was blushing. He did it anyway just to look at him.
“It sounds bad when you say it like that,” Shane said, his embarrassment evident. “She meant it more, like, practicing acknowledging that I’m hot and seeing what I feel like.”
Ilya frowned. “Do I not tell you this enough?”
He was fairly confident this couldn’t be the case, but maybe he hadn’t been as attentive to Shane recently as he should have been. Maybe their time together felt repetitive to him, staying in and working out and having sex, rinse and repeat. The limits on how open they could be were out of their control, but Ilya did his best each time to ensure that the sex was hot and that Shane felt cared for. They spent their stolen days together practically attached at the hip so it could tide them over until the next time, but something must have been lost somewhere in those days, something Ilya had utterly failed to notice.
Shane squirmed against him, shifting until he was level beside Ilya on the pillow. He reached out to comb gentle fingers through Ilya’s hair, which helped to quell the fluttering panic he’d begun to feel.
“You always do. It’s not that, I promise.” The rest of the fluttering ceased, and Ilya marveled at how just the pitch of Shane’s voice was enough to put him at ease.
Shane continued, “I always feel, like, wanted by you, that’s not the problem. She just made the point that maybe it would be good to know how it feels just for myself?”
He phrased it like a question, which made Ilya’s heart break a little. It was like Shane was asking permission for his feelings to make sense, like he had to justify it to Ilya for it to be real, for him to be allowed. It wasn’t the first time Ilya had noticed him doing this, but he’d never mentioned it, wasn’t sure how to organize the words clearly enough in English.
He nodded slowly at Shane across the pillow, the fingers still curling endlessly through his hair following the motion. “It’s important, I think. To know, if you didn’t before.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I did,” Shane said thoughtfully, biting at his lip before giving a rueful little laugh. “It’s hard to find the middle when you go from nothing to everything.”
Ilya had to take a moment to make sure his English wasn’t failing him before he replied, a note of teasing creeping through. “Shane, you’re doing the thing where you have half a conversation with the me in your head and then you tell real me the other half.”
He tapped lightly against Shane’s temple, feeling a grin grow to match the one stretching across Shane’s mouth. “Real me doesn’t live in your brain, малыш. As much as I wish I could, would make conversation much easier.”
“You’re so annoying,” Shane said, fond and with no heat. He paused in thought, considering his words, before continuing. “I guess sex was–weird, before? I mean, obviously, since it was all girls. But I guess that’s what I mean, because, when it was girls, it was basically nothing, or it felt like nothing. Hockey got all my energy, and sometimes I was with girls and they got whatever of me was left. When it would feel weird, and since I never thought I could actually be with a guy, I think I just accepted that sex was never really going to be ‘for me.’”
He even did the little air quotes with his fingers, Ilya noticed, temporarily distracted by the sweetness of the gesture before being overtaken by a wave of desperate sadness.
There were so many joys in life, and sex was one of them for Shane. Ilya had had the privilege of watching him realize this over the course of so many years and getting to be so many of his firsts. It was one of the first things Ilya remembered truly loving about Shane even before he could properly name it, how he had been unable to hide just how sincerely he loved it. It had frightened him, in those early days, how much Shane was willing to show him every time, not aware that he should demure and obfuscate and build up his walls so that Ilya couldn’t see his desire shining blindingly through.
The idea that at one point Shane had accepted anything less than that for his life was devastating.
“All of that gave me an excuse to ignore it and focus more on hockey instead,” Shane said. “But being…together, being with you. I don’t know, I just realized I was wrong. About what sex was supposed to feel like. What I could feel like during it. It’s because of you, Ilya. Why I get it, now.”
It’s hard to find the middle when you go from nothing to everything.
Ilya knew he sometimes had a slight tendency for the dramatic, but Shane stating this like it was a simple fact made him feel like his chest had been shot full of holes. It was enough to send him airborne, a balloon fizzing helium and skittering chaotically across the sky. Thankfully, Shane was still talking, and his fingers were still moving with hypnotizing weight against his scalp, keeping him safely on the ground.
“But yeah, that’s why Rose wanted me to see how it felt for myself. Separate from us, from hockey, just to see if it was something I could know on my own. And I did mean it when I said I’d gotten better. She said to try it for an hour at a time and see how I felt, and that’s gotten easier.”
He mustered up every scrap of sarcasm he could to fight against the godforsaken lump forming in his throat. “She’s a doctor now? Diagnosing you with hotness deficiency? Recommending a dose of an hour of hotness per day?”
The spread of the blush across Shane’s freckles was like watching the bleed of watercolor paint. “Shut up.”
“No this is good, you have to take medical advice seriously,” Ilya said. “And you do, right? You do it an hour a day, just to practice?”
The deepening of his blush was all the answer Ilya needed. He wondered why technology hadn’t yet advanced to the point where he could eat Shane from sheer affection without losing him permanently. He settled for smacking loud, obnoxious kisses against his cheek instead, which also worked to cover the more insistent sniffles that he couldn’t hold back.
“Okay, so,” Ilya said, once he’d satisfied his inner бабушка by pinching and kissing at Shane’s face to his heart’s content and gotten his face under control. “You sit around your house in sexy little tops, practicing solo hotness, all going very well. If it’s meant to be just for you, why show me?”
“It was good for me on my own sure, but I want to share it with you too. I like that I get to share it with you.”
Ilya should have known by now to be wary of Shane’s shy little smiles; they usually indicated he was about to get his emotional shit rocked by the sheer power of Shane’s earnest sincerity. The smile he had as he tucked his face into Ilya’s neck and murmured was only further proof. “I want to share everything with you.”
He wasn’t prone to panic attacks, not like Shane was. He didn’t often struggle for breath, or feel as if pieces of himself were going to fly apart at any moment. He didn’t even know if that was how Shane felt when a surge of fear hit him, but it was sometimes how he felt when he stumbled against the edges of Shane’s love for him.
He’d watched a Nat Geo documentary once, when he still lived in Boston during a night he’d been waiting for Sveta to finish getting ready so they could go out. He’d been watching a post-game analysis of a Montreal game, and he’d hurriedly changed the channel once they started breaking down Shane’s performance, not convinced he could get Sveta off his back if she caught him watching something Shane-related for a second time.
He’d landed on the doc by accident, all about the deep sea and the fucked-up fish that lived there, creatures that could’ve belonged to another planet and lived in perpetual darkness. He’d only watched it for a few minutes before they’d finally been ready to go, but it had been on long enough for him to learn that there are parts of the ocean that go so deep, scientists still haven’t made it to the bottom, and don’t quite know what lives there.
The memory came to him suddenly as he considered this small indication of how deep Shane’s love for him ran. Kind of like the fucked-up alien fish, it was just as frightening as it was miraculous. He didn’t know how he’d convinced Shane to feel this for him, or how he could possibly sustain it. Love, he’d found, was a lot to live up to.
Through an immense act of strength, he managed to reveal none of this. “Thank you for sharing it with me,” he said instead, his voice only a little watery as he pressed a kiss to Shane’s forehead. “To think that all I wanted when I walked in was a nap.”
Shane snorted. “Oh yeah, because we’re so good at ‘just napping,’ especially after being apart for three weeks.”
“I’m serious!” Ilya protested. “Last night was fucking terrible, I had whole plan to seduce you and make you rub my neck before I passed out.”
He blamed the fact that he’d been teetering on the verge of tears for the past fifteen minutes for why he couldn’t adequately hide his bitterness.
If the soft look on Shane’s face was any indication, it hadn’t gone unnoticed. “I watched, it was a tough one.”
He opened his mouth to keep talking, and Ilya thought he really would finally explode into a million pieces or turn into a very large puddle if he had to listen to Shane’s pity on top of the other devastating things he’d said.
He rapidly shifted gears back into safer territory, smirking at Shane as he said, “At least in LA we’ll have good weather. And so many hot women.”
Shane took the bait and narrowed his eyes. “Okay–”
“Of course though,” and Ilya knew Shane already knew what he was going to say, he’d teased him about it enough, “there are hot women everywhere. Who was it that told me this? It was definitely a guy that likes women, can’t get enough of them.”
“I’ll kick you out.”
“You would know though,” Ilya said, gleeful at the realization. “You’re practicing to be just like them. I get to have my own hot woman at home.”
“Not a woman,” Shane said automatically, but then chuckled as something seemed to occur to him. “Although–this is random, but do you know who Princess Diana is?”