Archive of Our Own

On a city street in Montreal, there is a pawn shop.

Open late. Cash or credit. We Buy Gold. No returns, no refunds, all sales final.

In the pawn shop window, there rests a full bag of golf clubs. A dingy light shines down on them, as well as the handwritten tag that advertises the entire set for fifty dollars. The bag is old and sun-faded and stained. The drivers are chipped and scuffed and probably off-kilter in a hundred different ways.

Even if the bag were genuine hand-tooled leather and the clubs were all diamond-encrusted and signed by Tiger Woods himself, it would still be January in Montreal, which is the furthest thing from golfing weather anyone can imagine. It's not a tempting deal when there's two feet of snow on the ground in most places and the sun is only out for a few hours a day.

Unless, of course, you're drunk and you're stumbling down the street in a wool coat and a silk Jean Paul Gautier shirt and you're completely, blindingly heartbroken.

Ilya Rozanov happens to be all of those things at the same time.

For him, the old bag full of clubs is the deal of a lifetime.

The shop owner doesn't recognize him, which is a blessing. He doesn't make small talk or ask where he's planning on breaking these drivers in. He accepts Ilya's Black Card, has him sign a receipt, and hands over the bag. It smells weird and feels sticky and Ilya doesn't fucking care. He slings it over his shoulder and walks out.

He tells himself he isn't going to actually do anything with them. He just wanted a good, solid weight to lug around while he took a walk. Something to defend himself with if anyone wanted to start trouble. The weight of the bag rocking against his back is definitely grounding, but it's not doing anything to make him feel better.

He leans against a building and shoves his hands into his pockets. His options are these: cigarettes and a lighter in the left, his phone in the right. The cigarettes won't help, because he's already smoked three since he left the club and he still feels like a broken-down V8 engine has been transplanted where his heart used to be.

He knows the phone won't make him feel better, either, but maybe he doesn't want to feel better. Maybe he just wants to follow this horrible, snarling, all-encompassing morass as far down as he can.

He swipes through his contacts. He stabs the one labeled Jane. He calls and presses the phone to his ear.

Ringing. Ringing. Ringing. Voicemail. He hangs up and calls again.

Ringing. Ringing. Ringing. Voicemail. He calls again.

Ringing.

I can't do this. I'm sorry.

Ringing.

Have you seen this? How the hell did Hollander pull Rose Landry? She's, like, a huge fuckin' movie star!

Ringing.

This is not enough.

Voicemail.

Ilya's hand tightens on the phone so hard he's impressed that it doesn't crack. His lip turns up in a snarl. This time, when the tone sounds, he doesn't hang up. He unloads. In English, because it's important that his message is understood by the recipient. The alcohol in his blood feels superheated. He feels like he's going to catch fire from the inside out.

"You fucking whore," he hisses into the phone. "You beg for my cock, beg for it like you need it to breathe, you beg and get on your knees for me without even being asked, take it like you were built for it and come back year after fucking year because you know, you know that you need it that bad, and now you have the goddamn nerve to leave me? Me?! For what?? For her??"

He has to make himself stop. He's spraying spittle like a rabid dog; he's talking so fast and he's so fucking angry. But the pause only lasts as long as it takes to get oxygen into his lungs again.

"Can she make you come hands free? Can she make you weep from how fucking good it feels? Does she know how you like to be spanked until you sob? Will she hold you after and tell you how fucking good you were while you took it and took it? Does she know how much you love to be on your knees? To be held down and made to fucking take it? Does she know that you need it like that? Does she know what a fucking slut you are for me? Does she know a single fucking thing about you? Fucking cunt."

He's not entirely sure he's still speaking English at this point. His head is swimming. His entire body vibrates from the righteous, incandescent fury that boils in his blood and washes over him in molten waves. The engine that has replaced his heart roars and belches black smoke and flame. He's going to explode. He's going to burn up right there on the sidewalk, self immolation, internal combustion.

"Who the fuck do you think you are? Who the fuck do you think I am? I was your first and we both know it. You think you can do better than me? Fuck you. I won the fucking Cup before you. Which of us was first pick overall? Me. No one else can even come fucking close. She's nothing, you hear me? Nothing. I'm it for you. You're fucking kidding yourself if you don't think so. You're a fucking coward and it's pathetic."

The line pings again. "Message recorded. You may now hang up or try again." Click.

He does not feel better.

He swipes away to his ride share app. He calls a car. He pointedly does not open any of the texts from his teammates asking where he went and when he's coming back. He's sweating in his coat despite the cold. His breath fogs out before him like exhaust. It amuses him, briefly, to imagine how Svetlana would market him to a potential buyer if he were a vehicle. The all-new Ilya Mark III, V8, great in icy conditions, powered by booze, cigarettes, sex, and for an extra boost that's sure to get you a ticket or ten, add a healthy dose of heartbreak.

Ilya knows, far, far in the back of his head, that there's a very good and important reason for why he feels the way he does. For why he's so upset about having seen Shane in that club with Rose Landry. For why he's been pissed off for the past month. The sound of his front door slamming shut after Shane ran through it because it got too real for him has echoed in his nightmares for weeks now.

He knows why. He knows it's pointless. But knowing the reason why something hurts doesn't change the fact that the pain is there. He just wants to take the hurt and despair that's stewing in his chest like a bomb about to blow and give it to someone else. A cartoon character handing a lit stick of dynamite to another and running in the other direction before the explosion.

The car arrives. He slings the golf bag off his back and props it up in the floorboard between his splayed knees. He gives the address and leans back in the seat, watching dark, snow-covered Montreal pass by. His leg bounces hard enough that the car rocks when they stop a light. He doesn't bother to make it stop. He's sweating in the too-warm car. He wonders, idly, how much his rating as a passenger will suffer if he spontaneously combusts in the driver's backseat.

On a city street in Montreal, there lives a very famous and very successful hockey player.

This very famous and very successful hockey player could have anything he wanted at this point in his career. He could, like Ilya, have a fleet of muscle cars in every color of the rainbow. He could have a fucking military tank, probably, if that was something he wanted. Athletes of his caliber and pay grade have bought dumber shit for dumber reasons.

But since this very famous and very successful hockey player is also the most boring man in the entire league, he does not have any of these things sitting in his driveway. Instead, all he has is a fucking Range Rover. Black. Not even this year's latest model. No custom paint job, no special edition package, not even a personalized license plate. The only thing that sets this car apart from any other black Range Rover on the road is a small parking decal in the front windshield for the Bell Centre. Two inches wide, top left corner, right next to the sticker that has the exact date and/or mileage at which the vehicle will need its next oil change.

The fact that the owner of this bland, completely unremarkable car is the reason that Ilya feels like he wants to die just makes him even angrier.

He stands in the driveway with his bag of golf clubs as the car that brought him here drives away. His eyes linger on the car before dragging up to the silent house before it. There's a light on in one of the windows. Bedroom window, Ilya knows.

Did you leave with her? Are you fucking her right now? Is she in your bed? In your shower? Are you inside her and wishing I were inside you instead? Do you even like her? Does she make you hard? Or are you thinking of me the entire time?

Ilya lets the bag drop to the driveway with a thud. He selects one of the old, chipped drivers at random and slowly draws it out. Lets the streetlight glint off the scratched face of the club. Studies it like it's a sword forged and honed in the furnace that has since replaced his beating heart.

His eyes slide from the club to the car.

Has she ridden in it with you? Did she hold your hand on the console? Grope you across the seats? Why does she get to see you? Why do you let her in and you shut me out? I know you better than she ever will. Why has she ridden in your stupid fucking car and I never have? Why is that fair? It's not fucking fair. It's not fair. It's not fair. It's not fair.

It should be me.

It should only ever be me.

CRASH.

The sound the rear windshield makes as it shatters into a thousand flecks of obsidian is like an angel climaxing. Ilya's hands are tingling where they clutch the handle of the club in a white-knuckled grip. The car's alarm starts blaring, lights flashing, a helpless, repetitive bleat of help, help, help.

Ilya finally, finally starts to feel better.

The taillights are his next victim. Red and orange plastic goes flying as bulbs burst in little sparks. Then the rear windows. The sideview mirrors. The passenger window, where he imagines her pretty fucking face looking out as they drive hand in hand. Driver's side, where he knows Shane looks out only to check his now-destroyed mirrors, hands at ten and two unless they're not, unless one is in hers and it's not fucking fair fuck her fuck you fuck you fuck you.

Lights are coming on inside the house. Ilya doesn't care. He jumps up onto the hood and slams the club down into the center of the windshield, howling in rage or delight or both as cracks go splintering to every corner of the glass. Again. Again. He smashes the driver down until the fucking handle breaks. Then he jumps down, ignoring the shocks that go screaming up his shins, and gets another club out of the bag.

Faces appear in the windows overhead, but Ilya doesn't see them. He's too busy smashing the headlights with reckless abandon. He's starting laughing at some point. He's lightheaded and his heart is pounding and he feels so much better. He beats at the black metal sides of the car until the next club snaps in half. He grabs another one and keeps hammering away, denting every square inch of steel he can.

The front door of the house slams open.

"What the fuck?!"

Ilya pauses at last, dripping sweat, his silk shirt soaked through under his coat, his hair wild and sticking to his neck. The club is held over his head like a scepter, mid-swing.

And there, framed in the open door of his home, stands the architect of his innermost turmoil: Shane Hollander himself.

He's barefoot, in a pair of sweats and the same plain fucking white t-shirt from the club, a sweater pulled hastily over to keep him from freezing. His eyes are huge as he surveys the damage from his front step. His jaw has literally dropped open, his full, pouty lip wobbling as he tries and fails to make sense of the carnage before him.

Ilya grins lazily at him. The club falls from his hands with a clang. At some point, the Range Rover stopped its pitiful honks for help, and now sits battered and silent as cold air sinks into the interior through the smashed-in windows. Ilya gives the pummeled hood an affectionate pat.

"Your boring car needed some personality," he laughs, his voice ragged and deep, his words still slurring. "Looks better this way."

"You're insane," Shane retorts. "You're actually fucking insane, Rozanov."

Ilya sees red all over again.

Rozanov.

The grin slides off his face like water. "Is she here?" he snarls, staggering toward Shane a few steps.

Shane retreats in response. He looks, possibly, the most scared Ilya has ever seen him. "No," he says immediately, and Ilya can smell the lie on him like her perfume.

"She is," Ilya growls. "You fucking slut. Does she know about you? About me? Does she know how you —"

"Stop. Seriously. Stop." Shane makes himself stop moving away once he's safely back inside his house. He stands to his full height and draws his shoulders back. It's enough to make Ilya stumble to a halt to consider his next move and whether it's going to result in a broken nose or not.

"You're such a fucking pussy, Hollander," Ilya spits. "Just fucking admit it. You l-"

A siren splits the frigid night air. Brilliant flashes of cobalt light are thrown on the house like paint. Ilya blinks and whirls around, which does nothing for his precarious balance. He leans against the Range Rover, eyes stinging as a police officer gets out of the cruiser, weapon drawn.

"Hands up! Turn and face the car!" The voice is male, too high for Ilya to take seriously, but the gun in his hands makes him reconsider. He does as he's told, fighting the urge to vomit as the ground sways under him.

Then he's being pinned down on the hood, broken glass scraping his face as the cop shoves him forward and wrestles his arms behind his back, cuffing them at the base of his spine. He doesn't feel better now. He feels like he's about to be arrested and booked in a Montreal jail and possibly deported by the end of the work week.

This is, of course, still Shane's fault.

"Shit. Shit. Officer! Wait, wait, hang on, please wait," Shane's saying. He's found some shoes to jam his feet into and comes running, hands up, eyes enormous and glistening in the violent flashes of blue light.

"Sir, please stand back — wait, are you Shane Hollander? Is this your car?" The cop asks as he does a double take, taking in the absolutely trashed Range Rover and the look on Shane's face.

"Yes sir, it's mine. Please let him go. He didn't —"

"Fuck! You're Ilya Rozanov!" The cop jostles Ilya's arms as he tightens the cuffs painfully tight around Ilya's wrists. "Mister Hollander, let us handle this. This is way out of line. This your new tactic, Rozanov? Terrorizing your opponents and destroying their personal property? That shit might fly in Russia, but we're not having it in Canada, bud."

"Officer, please, just listen to me. I don't want to press charges. Please let him go." Shane's voice is high and reedy, bordering on panic.

The cop went still. "Mister Hollander, this car had to be worth at least a hundred-thousand dollars."

"I know. I don't care. It's fine, really, it's okay. Please don't arrest him. It was — it's a prank. It's a hockey thing. Captains do this kind of thing all the time."

"All the time," the cop repeats, tone utterly flat. "You destroy each other's quarter-million dollar cars with golf clubs in the middle of the night all the time. As a prank."

"Yes. No! I mean — I knew he was going to do it." The lies are horribly weak as Shane spits them out, one on top of the other, but he's not going to be able to stop until he gets his way. "We talked about it already. It's a publicity thing. Someone must have called you guys because they thought it was a vandal, but it's okay. Really. I'll sign whatever you need me to. But I'm not pressing charges. Please don't arrest him. Please."

Ilya has to fight the urge to grin like a maniac, because it's so fucking obvious. Shane can run and hide and fight it all he wants, but the fervor with which he's rushing to protect Ilya right now gives him away worse than a polygraph test.

You feel it too, you fucking liar. You know you do. You want more too. Just let yourself fucking have it already.

The cop is still standing there, debating what to do, when the radio on his shoulder begins to crackle to life. The dispatcher has a thick accent and static makes it even harder to make out, but Ilya is sure he hears the words high speed chase and all units requested somewhere in there. A bigger emergency than this one is going down elsewhere in the city.

"Shit. Okay. But you mess around with another thing, Rozanov, we know where you live, got it?" the officer finally says.

The cuffs loosen and then vanish completely. The cop steps back and lets Ilya straighten up, bits of broken fiberglass trickling off his coat. He thanks every criminal in Montreal at that moment as the cop collects a hasty signature from Shane before getting in his cruiser and just… driving off.

Ilya looks at Shane. Shane stares back.

"Inside," Shane spits. "Now."

Ilya steps inside. The door slams and locks behind him. He hears Shane drag in a sharp breath, preparing to lay into him and demand he explain himself, but Ilya doesn't give him the chance. He keeps walking through the living room, up the winding staircase, his pace increasing the further he climbs. Shane sputters and fumbles to race after him as he makes a beeline for the bedroom.

He smells it before he even opens the door: perfume. Her perfume. The smell of it in the air twists his gut and sends the flames in his heart back into a roaring inferno. He rips open the bedroom door and has to brace himself against the doorframe at what awaits him.

Shane's bed, his ridiculous, expensive bed that's always covered in too many fucking throw pillows and made up like it's a model on a showroom floor, is unmade. Covers tossed around, sheets twisted up, a pair of pillows both lopsided and cratered in the middle. The one on the other side of the bed (his side of the bed, it's Ilya's, he's never slept over but that's where he lays) holds a single strand of strawberry blonde hair.

Ilya stalks over and plucks it up like it's a dead rat. He's holding it up to the light as Shane rounds the corner, breathing heavy, face a torrent of different emotions and thoughts that all play out openly across his features.

"She was here," Ilya hisses, as if he has any right to be upset, as if he has any right to anything about this night whatsoever.

"She's my g—"

"Don't," Ilya snaps. He flicks his hand, letting the offending hair flutter to the floor where it belongs. "You brought her here. Does she know I fucked you here? That your first time with me was so good you came hands-free?"

Red is rising in Shane's face almost comically fast. "That's not —"

"Did you fuck her here? Were you even able to get off? Were you thinking of me?"

"Enough, Rozanov. Stop."

Ilya feels every follicle of hair on his skin stand up and bristle at that fucking name. Heat pulses through him. His heart ratchets up like a revved engine gunning for the final gear. He stomps over to Shane, getting right up in his face.

"You're not fooling anyone, Hollander. Just give it up. This is fucking sad."

Shane slaps him hard enough that he staggers back a step.

The crack of Shane's palm against Ilya's face is deafening in the otherwise silent room. Ilya reaches up to touch his face, stunned by the heat in his skin. Shane blinks at him as if he, too, can't believe he just did that.

Ilya hits him back.

Shane gasps as his head snaps to the side. Ilya doesn't let him rock back, though. His stinging hand grabs his shirt and balls it up in his fist, yanking Shane forward and kissing the shock right off his face. It's rough and painful, all teeth and too much pressure. It's not a romantic gesture; it's a command. Submit, submit, submit. We both know you want to. You always do.

Shane pushes against Ilya's shoulders, mouth tight and unyielding. He struggles, genuinely, for about ten seconds, just enough for Ilya to start working up a sweat. But the moment Ilya grabs his hair and pulls hair enough to strip it from the roots, Shane gives in. His mouth falls open and he leans forward, giving up and all but throwing his weight against Ilya.

Every fucking time.

Ilya pivots and throws Shane down on the bed. He strips off his coat and shirt as Shane scrambles back on the unmade mattress, chest straining against his white shirt with his frantic breath. His mouth is bruised and flushed and wet and Ilya wants to bite it until it bleeds.

He could order Shane to strip. He knows he'd do it. Of course he would. But he doesn't want that right now. He needs to be the one to do it. He grabs the ankles of Shane's sweatpants and yanks hard, making them slip down and bunch up around his calves. Rolls him over and grabs his underwear, tugging them down just below his ass. He smacks his cheeks soundly, once, twice, three times, just to hear the sound his palm makes against the pale, soft skin and the shocked, pained gasps that burst from Shane's mouth.

"Fucking slut," he pants raggedly, leaning a hand between Shane's shoulders and pinning his chest to the bed. He leans heavily on him, too heavily, but he doesn't care. His other hand is yanking open his fly and tugging his half-hard cock out to rut between Shane's cheeks. "You don't get to hide from me. Run away and find the first girl who will have you like I'm nothing. Fuck you. I'm everything to you. You need me. Say it."

Shane whines, wriggling beneath Ilya, rocking back against him to feel the glide of his stiffening cock against his tight, fluttering hole. It's not an answer. Ilya spanks him until he sobs, nodding into the pillow. "Yes! Fuck — yes, I do, I need you, fuck, I need you, I'm sorry..."

It should make Ilya feel better. It doesn't. He's just saying it because of the space Ilya has him in, the space he always drops into when he needs Ilya to fuck his brains out and reset his stupid, overworked nervous system for him. Like it's a session with his masseuse. Like it's a fucking service.

What about what Ilya needs?

He needs more. He needs Shane to mean it.

"I should fuck you just like this," he murmurs, leaning over Shane's back and shoving his shirt up over his hot, muscled flesh. "Raw, dry, no prep. Make you feel me for days. Make sure you know who fucks you best even when it's horrible. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts."

He wouldn't, of course. Even at his angriest and least reasonable, Ilya can't even fathom hurting Shane like that.

Which just pisses him off, because fuck him. Ilya is far more considerate of Shane's care than Shane was of his. He had hurt Ilya and it seemed to cost him nothing. All the gain, none of the pain. He got to walk in the daylight with Rose Landry on his arm, laughing and smiling and gracing the covers of tabloids while Ilya huddled in the dark by himself, nursing his shattered heart as it bled out slowly into the snow.

He yanks open the bedside drawer hard enough to nearly tear it from the nightstand. Snatches out the bottle of lube that's always there waiting for him. Shane shivers as the cap snaps open. Ilya pops him on the ass once more for good measure.

"Hold fucking still," he growls as he slicks his fingers. He starts with two — too much, but not more than Shane can handle. They both know this. Shane whines and goes tense around him, painfully tight around his knuckles, but Ilya persists.

"You missed me, didn't you? Missed feeling me inside you, working you open like the whore you are. Say it, Hollander. Say you missed me."

"Hnngh — yes, fuck, I missed you, God I missed you," Shane gasps. He's doing a commendable job of being still and trying to relax to let Ilya finger him deeper. Ilya would be proud of him if he weren't so pissed off.

"I know you did. You're pitiful. Touching yourself when you're alone and thinking of me. Never her. It'll never be her, will it? Only me." Ilya isn't usually this talkative during sex, but he can't make himself shut up. It's a vicious cycle, a furious feedback loop. He says something, it makes him angry, he takes it out on Shane and says some more shit that pisses him off even more.

Shane turns his head against the pillow, his wet, shining eyes locking with Ilya's gaze over his shoulder. He's right in the space Ilya wants him in, but he can tell there's something else there, too. Concern, maybe. Fear, possibly. It makes Ilya want to gag. He adds a third finger just to watch Shane's eyes roll back as a keening groan is punched out of him from the increasing stretch.

"God, look how fast you open for me. My pretty, eager little slut. Whose slut are you, Hollander? Not hers. You're mine. Say it for me." Ilya's fingers fuck in and out of Shane's hole faster and faster, friction burning and rubbing his rim raw.

"Yours," Shane heaves between broken, sobbing gasps. "I'm yours, your slut, fuck!"

He's close. Ilya can already tell. He hasn't even touched his cock yet, hasn't even let it pull free of his underwear. If he was feeling generous, he would have done something about that by now. But Ilya is not feeling generous.

"If you come, I'll tell everyone," he says, voice low and dark as he leans over Shane's back to hiss in his ear. "I'll film you and send it to every player I know. I'll post it online. Everyone will know what a fucking liar you are. You want that, Hollander? You want the world to know who your hole belongs to?"

Shane shakes his head against the pillow, a pained sound tearing out of him as he clenches hard around Ilya's fingers. "No, please, I'll be good, I won't come, don't — God, don't do that, please…"

His voice is high and tense, bordering on real fear, the same way Ilya's words border on real cruelty. That's what this is, after all. So, so close to being real, but never quite getting there. Neither of them brave enough to let it become real. Both turning tail and running whenever it gets too close to tipping over the line in the sand.

Ilya is so fucking sick of running. So sick of holding back.

He withdraws his fingers without warning. A groan works loose from Shane's throat and he rocks his hips back on impulse, chasing after the sensation, the need to be filled driving him subconsciously to lean back toward Ilya's body. It's like a magnet is installed deep in his body, pulled forever in Ilya's direction, and yet he still insists on running. On resisting.

All this, and he still calls Ilya Rozanov.

Ilya's hands shake with rage.

He slicks his cock with lube, heedless of how much he drizzles out. The result leaves him dripping, hands sliding over Shane's hips as he grabs them and lines himself up. He pushes forward, overshoots, grinds the slippery shaft of his cock up between Shane's cheeks. Shane trembles beneath his hands, ribs pressing out against his gorgeous, smooth skin.

"Beg," Ilya commands. "Beg for it."

"Please," Shane sobs, voice cracking in the middle of the word. The desperation is real. The uncontrollable shaking of his limbs and the heaving, catching cadence of his breath is real. He can deny this part of him as much as he wants, but he can't deny that this is all real, and it only ever comes out of him for Ilya, and both of them know it. "Please fuck me, I need it, I need you, please, please."

Ilya pushes inside of him. Shane screams into the pillow, his walls unbelievably tight around Ilya's cock as he drives steadily forward until he's sunk to the root. He needed more prep, really, but neither of them are complaining. Ilya's head spins with the blistering heat and pressure within Shane. He pauses to get his bearings as Shane whimpers and whines and spreads his knees further apart. Making more room for him without even needing to be told. Commanding his body to accept the intrusion of Ilya's cock.

"So well trained for me," Ilya sneers. "You'd do anything for this, wouldn't you? You'd crawl naked across center ice in front of twenty thousand people just to sink yourself on my cock. Pathetic."

A long, low moan tumbles from Shane's mouth. He's slipping past the point of comprehension, hips rolling back in tiny rocking motions, his body begging for motion even when his brain is shutting itself off.

Ilya's not ready to let him check out just yet, though. He pulls back slowly, shivering as he feels every inch of Shane's body flex and contract around this one point of pleasure, before slamming sharply back inside. Shane moans, hands clawing at the tangled sheets. The muscles of his back and shoulders roll and bunch beneath his skin, a sight that always drives Ilya insane. He digs his fingernails into the soft skin of Shane's hips and fucks him faster.

God, he feels so good. Ilya hates that he's just as ruined for Shane as Shane is for him. He pounds into him and works his rage out with every snap of his hips. How dare he come into Ilya's life and completely upend it? How dare he make Ilya's every thought be about him? How dare he make him care about him, make him like him and crave his presence, just to tear it away the moment it got too real for him?

Ilya's in tune enough with Shane's body to know that he's on the very edge of climax. He reaches forward and grabs both of his arms, digging his fingers into the ditches of Shane's elbows and hauling his chest up off the bed, forcing his upper body parallel with the bed. Shane wails as Ilya fucks deeper and deeper into him, barely able to pull back enough to thrust back in, all rhythm vanishing as he ruts furiously into him.

"Fuck you," Ilya hisses. His throat is suddenly tight. "Running out on me. Bringing some bitch into your life that doesn't even matter to you. How dare you. Stop fucking lying, Hollander. You love me. You fucking love me. Say it. Fucking say it you goddamn coward. You love me. You love me. You love me."

This is not just bordering on too real. This is driving a tank across the border and opening fire in enemy territory and Ilya doesn't care anymore. He squeezes Shane's arms hard enough to bruise, makes him cry out and fight for air as he buries his cock within him.

"Fuck — yes, fuck, I do, I love you, I love you, oh God, fuck, fuck —" He cuts himself off with a choked sound as he comes on Ilya's cock, untouched, cock still smothered beneath the waistband of his underwear.

His moan turns into a jagged sob as Ilya fucks into him three, four more times before he's following Shane right over the edge, his orgasm wracking his body as he drops Shane's arms and lets him flop facedown onto the bed before him, both of them sucking in air like drowning men.

Ilya's ears are ringing. His body feels weightless in the wake of his climax. Shane is still writhing and whimpering beneath him. He's going lax and boneless beneath Ilya, awash with bliss. And why shouldn't he be? He's in his own home, in his own bed, in his favorite position with Ilya going soft inside him.

Even when Shane's tried to kill Ilya and throw him away like garbage, he still gets exactly what he wants.

And it's not fair. It's never fucking fair.

Ilya's vision blurs. Something deep within him just... cracks in half. All his anger and frustration and resentment fizzles away and leaves him cold and hollow and sad. He blinks and Shane twitches, going still beneath him. When his vision clears, he sees damp spots on Shane's back.

Tears.

"Rozanov?" Shane asks, voice small and quiet.

It's the straw that breaks the camel's back, so to speak. The thousandth papercut that finally bleeds Ilya dry. He pulls out and recoils from Shane, kneeling on the bed and curling in on himself, grinding the heels of his palms into his eyes as if he can force the tears back into his ducts by sheer force.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, sniffling miserably.

The weight of the night finally crashes down on top of him. God, what has he done? He's destroyed Shane's car in his driveway. He's nearly been arrested in the middle of the night in a foreign city. And now he's here, his broken, bloody heart on full display, his true feelings wrapped in barbed wire and flung at Shane's face without a care for what the implications of them even mean.

He's fucked everything up, and he can't take it back. If Shane wasn't done with him before tonight, he certainly will be now. The only thing Ilya wanted, really wanted, was for Shane to keep him, and there's no possible way he'll want to do that now.

"Hey," Shane murmurs. He's gotten up on his knees and kicked his ruined briefs off, kneeling right in front of Ilya on the mattress. He gently reaches for Ilya's wrists, gasping a little as he carefully pulls his hands toward him. Purple bruises circle both his wrists from the handcuffs the cop had slapped on them.

Shane lifts Ilya's wrists up to his mouth, brushing the softest kisses over the bruised skin, and Ilya bows his head and sobs.

It's so much more than he deserves. Ilya is a monster, a ravenous, jealous, violent monster, and Shane is kissing his wrists and fussing over him and handling him like he's made of glass. It would be funny if it weren't so goddamn pathetic.

Shane cups the side of Ilya's face in one hand, coaxing him to look up at him. "Ilya," he says, and the name just makes him cry harder. "Hey. Talk to me. I'm… I'm lost. What…"

"I don't want there to be anyone else," Ilya hiccups between sobs, lips wobbling around the words. "I don't want to see you with her. I don't want to see you with anyone else."

He has no right to make that demand. Not when he's been anything but exclusive ever since this thing of their began. Everyone knows the story, the reputation. Rozanov's a player. Rozanov's a ladies' man. Rozanov's a perpetual bachelor who will never settle down. It hasn't mattered until now. Shane hasn't asked him to stop seeing other people, and so he hasn't.

But he just can't stand it when Shane does the same thing. He doesn't think he'll survive it. All night, he's been spitting insults at Shane, calling him a liar and a coward and a pathetic excuse of a man, but really, Ilya's not any better. He saw Shane across the room in a club with a girl on his arm and he smashed up his car with a golf club over it.

What was that, if not the definition of pathetic?

Shane opens his mouth to say something else, but the raw, animal part of Ilya's soul can't stand it any longer. He pulls Shane toward him and buries his face in the crook of his shoulder, tears soaking into the collar of his shirt. Shane just holds him there, stroking his hair, rubbing his bare back.

Ilya doesn't deserve any of it.

"Keep me," he begs against Shane's skin. "Please keep me. Don't throw me away. Keep me. Let me stay. Please. Please don't shut me out, Shane."

"Okay," Shane replies. He presses a kiss to Ilya's temple, cards his fingers through his tangled curls and carefully works them loose. "Okay. I'm… I'm sorry. I got scared the last time. I shouldn't have left like that. I'm sorry, Ilya."

Ilya clings tighter to him, the howling, wounded animal in his chest finally beginning to relax. The bleeding is finally being stemmed. The pain he feels in every breath is easing. It's embarrassing, the effect those few words have on him. He sags against Shane's chest, letting him support his weight fully, and Shane is happy to do it. He doesn't shove him away or throw him out or call the police back to collect him.

Shane keeps him, for now, at least.

"I'm so sorry about your stupid car," Ilya sniffles, leaning back enough to rest his forehead against Shane's. "I buy you another. Three of them. Same year as last one. Same basic package. All identical. All boring."

Shane snorts. "I don't care about the car," he says, brushing a thumb beneath Ilya's eye and swiping away his tears. "Though you did scare the shit out of Rose."

Ilya's too worn out from his emotional explosion to even care about that. "Sorry," he says weakly. "Where is she?"

"She left out the back after she called the cops," Shane replies. "She didn't recognize you, though. She just doesn't want to be kidnapped for real, y'know?"

"Mm. Would be pretty stupid to announce myself like that if I wanted to steal her. Though maybe it's not a bad idea if it gets her out of the way."

Shane pokes him in the ribs, but he's smiling as he does it. "Don't," he snickers, voice warm and light. His expression flickers for just a moment as he leans back some, pushing Ilya's hair away from his face again. "I didn't know you could get jealous like that, though. It was kind of hot."

Ilya scrubs his hands over his face and makes a valiant attempt to look unbothered. "Not jealous," he lies blatantly. "I just know you can do better."

Shane shakes his head and kisses him. Ilya sighs into his mouth and pulls him closer, holding him against his body with a grip that feels eternal.

Keep me, he prays, knowing it's impossible, knowing it's irrational, knowing it will kill him when they can't make it work and wanting it anyways.

Keep me, keep me, keep me.