Chapter Text
Tuesday: Six days before Shane Hollander turns twenty-one
His mother told him the story every so often; a ten-year-old Shane in Loblaws staring up at the endless supply of colorful cereals, stuck between one with white marshmallows and another with honey-granola oats; a too-tall shadow with a deep Russian voice asking which was better; he handed Shane the one with granola then turned to Yuna; “You give, or I take.
You give or I take.
Shane could recall the phrase at any given moment like it had been digitally transferred into his psyche, a mantra that smelled like cigarettes and smiled with slightly crooked teeth.
Back then, when Ilya was twenty-six and Shane was barely on the cusp of presenting, he’d mentally snapshotted Ilya’s smirk, even if his parents only saw his alpha as an older man with full legal immunity to pick up their son and go back to Russia, no questions asked.
The law favored mateship and bondings, legal claims done by an alpha. At Loblaws, instantly, Shane’s ownership was transferred from one alpha pair to Ilya. An alpha like Ilya didn’t have to go through the proper channels and lay an official, registered claim on Shane Hollander, but he sat through the endless meetings and signed all the paperwork.
Yes, Ilya played by the rules. For Shane (and Yuna and David’s) happiness.
“Shane, are you even listening to me right now?”
Rough hands knocked Shane against his locker, jerking him out of his thoughts about Ilya, Ilya, Ilya.
Thankfully, Shane didn’t think about his alpha out on the ice.
He’d be a shit player if he did.
Hayden Pike, his best friend, looked at him with mock curiosity.
“For what?”
Hayden groaned. “The party I’m throwing Friday. Jackie’s not back ‘till Monday so I want to make the most of my time alone.” He nudged Shane again, gentler this time. “Do you think you’ll wanna stop by and hang around?”
Ilya’s tight, unnegotiable, no breaking under any circumstances rules were simple; no parties, no drugs, no drinking unless supervised, no dates, no boyfriends, no girlfriends, no scenting, no fucking, no birth control, no suppressants, no bonding, no biting, no kissing, no unnecessary touching. Be a good boy. For me.
“Not sure my mom will let me. I’ll ask, but you know how she gets about stuff like this.” Shane undid his locker and changed out of his sweaty clothes, tugging on an oversized hoodie and fuzzy sweats.
“Jackie really doesn’t mind when you throw parties? That seems like something she’d hate.”
On the opposite side of the bench, Hayden changed too, trading his musty compression shirt for a faded pink hoodie.
“She likes to see me enjoy myself, and trusts me not to blow up the front yard every time she leaves for work. She likes when I live a little,” Hayden’s voice softened, his honey lemon scent blooming across the locker room. “Someday you’ll know what it’s like, if someone ever manages to tie you down.”
Straight out of high school, Jackie married Hayden Pike. Alpha and Omega. There was a deep bite on Hayden’s nape. The marriage certificate was displayed in their dining room. When Jackie went into rut, Hayden missed practice for a week and came back complaining that his dick was going to fall off.
Ilya’s ruts were a mystery.
Not that Shane was ever around Ilya during his time of the month because all bets were off, Ilya dropping his fangs at anything he perceived as a threat to Shane—he growled at the mailman for requesting Shane’s signature on a package of new mouth guards, saliva dripping down his sharp fangs, nails clacking against the keyboard as he grabbed the pad and wrote Shane Hollander-Rozanov in shoddy cursive.
Ruts were spent alone, Ilya hidden away in his home. Shane had yet to step foot on the property because you would not leave, Shane, you come, and you stay, is final.
Someday he’d tell Hayd about Ilya. Not now, but soon.
Shouldering his bag, Shane stepped to loom over Hayden, leaning down to rub his cheek against the crown of his friend’s head, scenting him as friend and pack. “I’ll text you before Friday. See you later.”
The answer was always no from both his parents and especially Ilya, but Shane preferred having the illusion of choice.
Outside, a large SUV was parked near the entrance, blacked out windows, inconspicuously lingering in the shadows.
Shane hiked up his duffle bag and approached the car, careful to not slip on the icy ground.
“You’re not supposed to smoke here,” Shane said to the man leaning against the driver’s side of the car, gesturing to the No Smoking sign plastered at every corner of the parking lot. “It’s not good for you, either.”
The alpha turned to Shane and grinned with full teeth. “Is my first one of the day, Shane. And since you are so late, I needed to keep myself occupied. Not my fault.”
Ilya never failed to take Shane’s breath away.
His alpha was slighter taller, thicker arms and thighs, broader, more toned and rugged, bulkier from years of running, lifting weights and biological advantages that made it easier to him to put on muscle, as opposed to Shane whose omegan nature made him want to not stick to his diet and indulge in a platter of cheese and ham.
Even if he’d never seen it, he was certain Ilya's chest would take his breath away.
“Sorry, I was talking with Hayden.”
“What about?” Ilya took another hit, then blew out a stream of smoke. “Something boring? Giving most terrible player in junior hockey pointers on how to score goal for once, maybe.”
Even while poking fun, as he often did at Shane’s only friend, his alphas eye scanned him from sneakers to unkempt hair, looking for a new bruise, anything different to add to his weirdly obsessive catalogue about what was different about Shane each day.
“Just regular practice stuff.” Shane shifted closer, indiscreetly taking a whiff of cigarette smoke. “We always talk after.”
“Yes, but you are not always late fifteen minutes. Ten, maybe, but not fifteen.”
Dropping the cigarette to crush it beneath his feet and blatantly ignoring Shane’s annoyed grunt and murmured litterer, Ilya held out a hand. “Come, Shane.”
It was standard Ilya, worrisome alpha scaled up to a hundred.
His mom bought him books on Getting To Know Your Alpha: The Right Way, and So, Now You’re Mated, What Comes Next? It wasn’t Ilya’s fault that his alpha, caveman brain constantly reconstructed theories that Shane was in danger and needed to be coddled and protected.
Everyone else was a potential threat, those books said. There were graphs too, and evolutionary charts of alpha canine environmental adaptation, government reports on how many tons an alpha could crush or withstand, a terrifying display of how much power the man a few feet away from him had in a single hand.
A nose pressed against Shane’s cheek, and hot breath fanned across his lips. “He touched you.”
“No, I touched him.” Hands settled on Shane’s hips like weights. “And it didn’t mean anything. We’re friends, Ilya, he’s basically pack to me.”
Ilya stayed quiet. He didn’t look convinced either, eyebrows drawn tight across his forehead. He wasn’t dressed for the cold weather—we run hot, Shane, to keep sweet little omega boy warm in winter—and Shane felt heat pouring off the alpha, more than normal. Beads of sweat were scattered around the bottom of Ilya’s golden curls, dripping down his freckled cheeks.
“Can we go home now? I’m cold,” whined Shane, willing to lie if it meant Ilya would pull back from whatever alpha claiming bullshit was cooking up in his mind.
Like rushing back inside to throttle Hayden.
Ilya took the bait and lifted Shane up like he weighed nothing, walking around to plop him into the passenger seat, quickly swiping his tongue across the part of Shane’s cheek that touched Hayden’s hair, smirking with glee all the way to the driver's seat. Shane playfully rubbed the spit away.
Ilya asked more about practice and Shane gave him the effective breakdown: they were quick and efficient, but wouldn’t stand a chance against a team of alphas, not that they’d ever play against one.
Before Ilya, Shane might’ve had the chance to cover himself in blockers and patches, scrubbed up and down until he smelled null, popping suppressants like candy to keep those pesky hormones at bay.
Rose might’ve stood her ground if things were different.
Had he been born a beta, hockey would’ve been different: endless training, all-star games, running circles around older alphas like Scott Hunter.
One time, Shane asked Ilya why he couldn’t take suppressants, to which the older alpha quietly said is not safe, Shane, no more questions.
Halfway through the drive home, Ilya changed the subject. “Your birthday is this weekend. Sunday, yes?”
Shane blinked. “Yeah, I guess it is, I almost forgot, honestly. ”
Every year, Ilya showed up bright and early with flowers, chocolates, vanilla cake from the bakery that only sold artificial sweetener free desserts—my Shane gets whatever he wants on his special day, especially terrible cakes from bad bakery—that his mother said tasted like gravel, but Shane liked because they were denser than regular store-bought cakes.
He brought Shane new clothes too, seasonal ones from the omegas only catalogue, ranging from cozy sweaters to silk sleep shirts, always followed by a dinner of Shane’s choosing that usually looked like baked sea bass and broccolini, alongside an ice-cold ginger ale.
My boring mate, Shane, he’d coo.
Ilya pulled up to a red light and turned towards Shane, turning the heat dial as he spoke. “You turn twenty-one. We can do something, just us together. Before… you know, we fuck and mate and all that good stuff.”
Shane gulped.
The last part of their bonding contract.
Ilya was thirty-seven now. Shane rarely thought about how much older his alpha was than him.
Sixteen years.
So much more lived experiences not only in Ottawa but back in Russia, opportunities to flesh out his likes and dislikes, build goals and dreams, yet he’d signed it away in cursive on their registration form, stamped and dated, right next to the date when the grace period ended and their addresses would merge to one.
Most alphas despised the grace period, citing that it stripped them of their biological right to a mate.
In some countries, alphas took children.
Thankfully, Ilya wanted a husband, not a child bride.
“Is up to you, honestly. Whatever you want. If you like things we do every year, we do that. Something different, we do that instead.” The light changed, and Ilya drove on. “No pressure from me. Whatever you want,” he repeated.
“And what if I don’t know what I want?”
When Shane turned eighteen, they fought for the first time. Loud, ugly, mean from both sides. After graduating high school, Ilya had put his foot down about university—no, Shane, you stay, you do hockey, no going away like that, not this time.
Chairs were thrown, framed pictures destroyed, all over a simple but painful no. No, Shane.
Shane was very aware that stealing his mom’s car and driving across the city to the liquor store and buying from the clerk who thought he was hot and sold him a bottle of cheap Russian vodka without a license was stupid.
And getting caught because Ilya called in the car as stolen was even dumber. Getting bailed out—no, officer, no charges, Shane Hollander is good boy—and losing hockey privileges for a month was entirely justified.
“Can I think about it?” Shane played with his hoodie strings.
Outside, a drizzle of rain started. “There are still a couple more days, maybe I’ll think of something by then.”
At the next red light, Ilya reached over to lay a hand on Shane’s thigh, squeezing once. “I can give suggestion on what we do, if you’d like.”
Shane shrugged, nodding, even if his eyes were trained on the veins in Ilya’s hands, his manicured fingernails, the strength in his grip.
In enclosed spaces like this, it gave Shane reason to take deep breaths of Ilya’s sharp musk and leather smell, tainted with the burn of cigarette smoke that irritated Shane’s nose in a deliciously aggravating way.
“I have a cottage in the hills. Isolated, secret, but nice. There is lots of space, we can cook, play outside, you run, I hunt.” You give or I take. “You would have your own space to build nest. I know how you like big, fluffy pillows. Lots there. We would be alone. Together.”
“However, my house is also option,” Ilya continued. “You have never spent the night, but it would be good time to see new home. New pillows and blankets. Lots of scenting from you. We would be closer to your parents, and getting food would be easy, nice and cozy for us. We wouldn’t go out or anything. I’d bite right here,” his hand reached up to press a thumb against the thin patch of skin at Shane’s nape, “and the rest will be easy. Okay?”
He said okay like oh-key.
Around Shane’s thirteen birthday—before that, Ilya sent letters and called Yuna twice a day asking about Shane— there was a system set up giving Ilya a sparkly key ring with two front and back door keys, days and times he would show up and sit in the living room watching hockey with the family, never on the same sofa as Shane, always sat diagonally as to give the alpha sight of both his omega and the front door.
At sixteen, Ilya took Yuna’s spot next to Shane.
There was never a reason for Ilya to stay around too long, sniffing the air like a hunting dog, asking David if anyone had stopped by, if they’d stayed long, if they’d talked to Shane.
When Yuna hosted a book club with a few other women, a mix of alpha and omega, Ilya voiced his displeasure with strangers around Shane, pissing a line across the front door that every person stepped over on their way out.
Book club quickly moved to someone else’s house.
“I will pick you up tomorrow, same time.” Ilya stopped at the front door and looked Shane up and down. “Go inside, get warm. Call me if you need warm soup or anything else. Be a good boy, Shane.”
Once inside, listening to the gentle engine of Ilya’s nice car drive away, Shane went directly to his room and shut the door, not locked—no locks, Shane, not if I need inside, what then?—and collapsed in the middle of the bed.
Shane groaned lowly, one hand slipping beneath his waistband to palm his half-hard cock, pre-cum smearing across his knuckles. Practice always got his blood pumping.
Being around Ilya was like playing with fire.
If he asked, would Ilya suck his dick? Would Ilya, a big strong alpha, get on his knees and pleasure Shane? He turned over, gently rutting against the sheet, eyes shut, picturing honey curls and a stupid smirk. And the moles on Ilya’s chin.
He wanted to bite them. He wished the spot on his cheek that Ilya had licked was still wet so he could taste him on his tongue. Hell, he even wanted Ilya to threaten Hayden in that possessive tone that sent shivers down his spine.
He wanted Ilya to recreate Shane’s favorite online video—an alpha dragging their tongue across their omegas body, between each toe, up calves and across pubes, all the way up to collarbones and stopping at the tips of their ears. An outdated form of scent marking.
Shane’s skin buzzed.
He’d probably taste like cigarettes.
On paper, Shane belonged to Ilya, but holy fuck they’ve never even kissed. Shane writhed against the sheets, fucking his fist, imagining Ilya beside him, naked, smiling with those sultry eyes, calling him a good boy.
A solid hand pressing against his back keeping Shane pinned to the sheets, leaving his nape exposed, vulnerable, only for Ilya to lean down and sweep his tongue across it and bite—
“Fuck, fuck, oh fuck—shit.” He came fast when thinking about Ilya tasting him in where no one else had, imaging the drag of his hot tongue across Shane’s exposed flesh, imagining the white-hot heat following Ilya’s bite, how it’d feel when their bond snapped into place.
Everything would settle nicely, he thought.
Shane cringed as he moved out of the puddle of dried cum, torn between running to the shower and basking in the afterglow, clinging to wonders about what touching Ilya would feel like, what his skin beneath his clothes looked like—was he covered in moles there too?
Wednesday: Five days before Shane Hollander's twenty-first birthday
“Have you thought about your birthday at all?”
Shane glanced up at his mother from his spot on the opposite end of the couch. He had a page between two fingers, about to flip to chapter seven of Hockey and Hickeys: A Love Story for the Ice!
“Not really.”
“Maybe you should. It’s only a few days away.” She pursed her lips. “Has Ilya brought it up to you yet?”
“Yeah, in the car yesterday. We talked a little.”
“Oh, and how was that?” At Shane’s incredulous look, Yuna threw up her hands. “What, can’t your mother be curious about what you two get up to?”
Shane rolled his eyes. “We don’t ‘get up’ to anything, Mom. We just talked.”
“About what?”
“About where…” He didn’t want to say fucked or mated around his mom. “It will happen. Apparently, he has a cottage up in the hills. We might go up there for the weekend.”
His mother’s face tightened.
She did that thing where she twisted her fingers around the edges of her sweater, looking both at Shane and the corner of the room, like Ilya was sitting there, invisible but present, tugging the strings holding Shane up.
“And was this his idea or yours?”
“Both,” answered Shane, rereading the same passage about Luke taking off his hockey gear and offering it to the opposing team's captain, Daniel. “It was a mutual decision.”
“Good, that’s good.”
“It’s great.” Shane looked up at her over the rim of his reading glasses. “Ilya was asking me to think about what I wanted, and I’m still not sure. It might be nice to get out for a while and be by ourselves.”
“You two don’t spend a lot of time together alone. Are you, you know,” she rolled her head around, smiling meekly, “ready for all that?”
“Yeah, I think so. Why?”
The farthest Ilya went was pressing their skin together, occasionally swiping a tongue across Shane’s cheek but no kissing or playful scenting.
There were videos online labeled first time matings, so he knew what to expect.
Ilya would probably kiss him for a few minutes, touches here and there, some well-placed nuzzling against his chest and neck, and then he’d probably twist Shane around like a pretzel, thrusting until his knot popped, trapping a bucket of cum in Shane’s guts.
He wasn’t ten years old anymore, staring up at a big Russian alpha. You give or I take.
“Your father and I just want to make sure you know that we’re here for you, honey, and if anything goes wrong, you can always come home.”
If Shane ran, Ilya had full legal immunity to hunt Shane down and break his legs. “We’re on your side,” she said, rounding the couch to press her cheek against the crown of Shane’s head.
“Love you too, mom.”
Around eleven thirty, Shane googled ‘Will my alpha leave me for being too boring?’, then changed it to ‘Will my alpha leave me if i am too inexperienced?’.
Thursday: Three days before Shane Hollander’s twenty-first birthday
In the car after practice, Ilya laid a hand on Shane’s thigh, again, and asked, “Did you think about your birthday, where you would like to go, or what you would like to do?”
His grip was tight but comforting amidst the storm brewing in Shane’s gut. Since last night, his mind hadn't stopped twisting in on itself, trying to reason out the right thing to do but...
Ilya said boring like people talked about the weather. The sky is clear. The weather is good. Shane is boring.
Shane has never slicked up before.
A knot wouldn’t even fit.
Shane did his best not to squirm beneath Ilya’s grip, simultaneously putting on a meek smile while keeping his scent calm. “Mom thinks the house is the safer option. She thinks I, or I guess—we should stay close, just in case.”
“In case what?” Ilya's thumb dug into Shane’s thigh. “Why would you need to run crying to your mother, Shane? You think I will scare you that badly.”
“Don’t be an asshole. She’s being helpful.”
Ilya growled playfully.
“She thinks…” Shane fiddled with the edge of his sweater, trying to fit the right words into his mouth. “She thinks I won’t be ready, or comfortable this weekend.”
“And do you agree?”
“Sort of.”
Ilya snorted. “You are wrong, Hollander, like always. I take care of you. No more worries, yes?”
At the next red light, Ilya reached across to press his thumb to the base of Shane’s neck, blooming the car in orange zest and bittersweet chocolate. It matched well with Ilya’s scent.
“Besides, I like your inexperience and your boring. My very boring Hollander. You will be happy in your nest,” crooned Ilya. “With my fun pillows that you will turn boring, and your bad birthday cake.”
That night, Shane rolled around in bed, tossing out his lumpy body pillow and dismantling the nest of pillows that elevated him enough to stop any acid reflux from messing with his sleep schedule.
Ilya would laugh Shane out of the bed if he tried to set up his sorry excuse of a nest. He was probably used to better ones, architecturally sound ones that didn’t collapse inward everytime the mattress sank.
Ilya said he liked his inexperience. His boring. But what alpha didn’t want a mate that was a little exciting?
On the bedside table, next to the photo of Ilya holding up Shane on his shoulders at the Chili Fest ‘17, his phone buzzed.
Hayden: Are you coming tomorrow?
Shane looked at the framed photo, then gently laid it face down.
What time?