Chapter Text
Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov wave to Yuna and David Hollander from inside Shane’s Jeep. They’re boyfriends now. It’s official.
Shane Hollander was on a roll with honesty. He had proposed a plan of sharing true feelings and being open about desires to Ilya when they first arrived at the cottage, and boy was Shane glad he did that. In the past two weeks, both Ilya and Shane said “I love you” for the first time, Ilya shared his family history with Shane, Shane came out to his parents, and Ilya debuted the boyfriend label, making their ten year situationship official.
Sharing his desire to be with Ilya forever had been terrifying. It took Shane years to work up the courage to be vulnerable, but all the fear melted away when Ilya reciprocated his feelings and revealed love to a degree Shane hadn’t dared to dream of.
Could a little more honestly hurt?
Shane drives the route back to his cottage that he knows by heart. Golden sunlight beams into the car, illuminating the spot on Shane’s thigh where Ilya’s hand rests. It’s idyllic.
“So Shane, I was thinking for dinner we could do steak and roasted cauliflower? We have to defrost the sirloin from the chest freezer when we get home. And since your parents are coming now I will make the Vatrushka I brought ingredients for. I do not want to have to eat it alone, and you certainly won't help.”
“Sounds good, Ilya, boyfriend.”
“Looking forward to it, boyfriend,” Ilya replies before leaning across the center console and planting a light kiss on Shane’s cheek. Shane spares some glances away from the road to look at his boyfriend, glowing in the afternoon light. His golden curls form a halo around his head.
Ilya says gently, “someday I will figure out a Russian dish that fits your boring caveman protein diet.”
Shane smiles pensively. Ilya is so caring, so perfect, so accepting of me, Shane thinks. There will never be a better time for this.
Shane and Ilya pull into the cottage driveway. Ilya eagerly gets out of the car and all but carries Shane through the front door of the cottage. Shane lets himself be dragged, lost in thought rehearsing a conversation.
They share a deep kiss. Wet. With tongue. A kiss that would not have been appropriate in front of Shane’s parents and would have been too distracting while operating a vehicle.
Ilya puts his hands firmly on Shane’s waist and begins to direct him to the bedroom. To Ilya’s surprise, Shane stops him. Shane’s hands settle on Ilya’s shoulders.
“If you’re going to be my boyfriend, there’s something I have to tell you.”
Ilya stares at Shane’s face, his smile wavering a little bit in worry. The smile holds for now.
“I’m not fully human,” Shane states, deadpan and well-rehearsed.
Ilya’s mouth is stuck in his half-open smile for a few seconds while he processes. He understands these words individually, but this order is not computing in his brain.
“Hollander, what does this mean, ‘not fully human’? Is this a stupid English phrase? Like red hands and bitten bullets?” Ilya asks with his hands still on Hollander’s hips.
“No, it’s not some phrase. I’m a werewolf, Ilya. I got turned when I was ten years old while camping in Newfoundland with my parents. It was a full moon, and we got lost. We didn’t realize we wandered into the territory of a werewolf pack,” Shane explains as if he is narrating some hockey play after a game.
“You are serious,” Ilya says after a few seconds of silence, to confirm.
Shane nods. His hands are firm on Ilya’s shoulders, but his eyes contain a hidden story of worry.
The cogs in Ilya’s brain start to turn and questions begin spawning in his mind. His eyes dart side to side over Shane’s face as if there are answers written on his skin. There are no answers, only freckles and big, brown, searching eyes. “How… how does nobody know this?”
“I’m not registered. Because of hockey, mainly. They would never have let me play. My parents didn’t want some piece of paper to be the reason for doors slamming in my face my whole life.”
Ilya nods, understanding. This world has enough barriers in place without adding the complexity of society’s prejudice and fear of werewolves.
Ilya is pleased to see that Shane is slowly relaxing under his hands as Ilya attempts to handle this strange conversation as calmly as possible. Shane silently waits for more questions. He watches every muscle of Ilya’s face that would be capable of tension or twitching, as if wary that Ilya might panic and flee.
“Do you still…” Shane starts but can’t finish; he can’t meet Ilya’s eyes either.
Ilya gently removes one hand from Shane’s hip and places it on his chin, lifting Hollander’s face to look straight ahead at Ilya. “Shane. Do I still what?”
“Doyoustillwannabemyboyfriend?” Shane says in one swift exhale.
“Yes, Shane,” Ilya says with zero hesitation. “I love you. I still love you.”
Shane smiles, a weight clearly lifting.
Later That Day
After Yuna and David have come and gone for dinner, the boys lounge outside, watching the sunset.
All evening, Ilya has been reorganizing his internal thoughts of Shane Hollander, recontextualizing some of his quirks and habits with the new information he has learned. Some quirks --like Shane’s diet-- have been werewolf traits this whole time, while others are just Shane being Shane.
A question pops into Ilya’s mind. “Shane?”
“Hm?” Shane hums from his position sprawled on top of Ilya, who lounges on a reclining deck chair.
“Is this why you never bite me when we have sex? You don’t want me to turn into wolf?”
“Oh, no. I mean, yeah, I don’t want to hurt you; I have like, canine fangs and the bite force of an unusually large wolf. But no, adults can’t be turned by just a bite, only kids.”
“Can I see them?”
“You … want to see my fangs?”
“Yes Shane, I want to see your cute little wolf fangs that you have been hiding all these years,” Ilya requests, playfully. Ilya loves evey inch of Shane’s body, and it’s been years since he’s been able to discover a new part he hasn’t seen.
Shane rearranges himself to straddle Ilya’s lap. He bashfully turns his head to the side and opens his mouth, pulling his lips back into a grin. Ilya has memorized the pattern of tendons and muscles in Shane’s neck and jaw, so he can tell that Shane is moving in a subtly different way.
As Hollander’s lips retreat, Ilya catches sight of his canines, which have shifted to be more prominent than the rest of his teeth, making clear their unusually large size. There is an edge to Hollander’s appearance. His face takes on a sharpness that makes Ilya’s heart skip a beat. There is a danger that heats Ilya's gut with desire.
Shane turns his head to the other side and runs his tongue, now more pointed than usual, over his teeth. Ilya flushes. Ilya had thought Hollander couldn’t get any hotter. He had thought that his pristine, tightly-controlled role-model of a boyfriend couldn’t reveal yet another level of searing hot sexual fire than he already had to Ilya. Ilya was wrong.
Shane closes his mouth and appraises Ilya, furrowing his brow, still not fully convinced that his werewolf form will be met with unconditional acceptance.
“Do you still love me the same? You haven’t said if this changes anything for you,” Shane asks.
“Hollander. You have been werewolf since you were baby, you have been this for everything we have done. Everything you have done that I have loved was done by you as a werewolf.”
“Ten years old, but yes,” Hollander corrects, ever the stickler for clarity. Shane is not convinced, so Ilya continues.
“Knowing you better could never make me love you less. I want to see you. You've given me the gift of seeing more of you.”
Shane’s eyes widen at the words. The thought that Ilya not only tolerates, but wants his vulnerability fills his heart with warmth. The thought that Shane’s awful secrets --being a werewolf, and even being gay-- are gifts to Ilya is mind-shattering. Shane wants to give his boyfriend everything at this moment. If Ilya wants to see him, Shane wants to show him.
“Can I show you?” Shane tentatively asks as he stands up from his seat. He stuffs his thumbs in his pockets and rocks gently on his heels. His lips pull tightly awaiting Ilya’s response. He needed to transform at least once per lunar cycle, but he always did it alone. This would be his first time changing in front of someone other than his parents.
Ilya nods, seriously, and sits up in his seat. He plants both feet on the ground and watches Shane.
“I have to uh… take my clothes off.”
“Hollander.”
“Right.” Hollander strips and places his neatly folded clothes onto another chair. He stands before Ilya naked. “Could you look away for a second? It looks weird, when I do the thing.”
Ilya puts a hand over both eyes.
When he next looks, his eyes fall upon a large wolf, its shiny fur black as midnight. Ilya releases whispered Russian profanity in simultaneous awe and shock. Wolf Shane is gorgeous and strong, but elegant, as if his form were carved into sculpture by a master craftsman. Just like his human form.
Ilya’s smile grows into a wild grin. He’s always loved dogs, and what is a wolf if not just a sexy beast of a dog? Ilya rises from his seat and goes to kneel in front of Shane. Shane looks up at him with soulful, pleading eyes. The same pouting puppy look he gives me as a man, but somehow more adorable.
Ilya reaches to pet Shane, pausing just inches from the fur on his head to let Shane cross the final distance. Ilya assumes Shane can’t speak in this state, so he doesn’t want to push too fast without clear consent to be touched. Shane gleefully nuzzles into Ilya’s hand.
Ilya begins to stroke the top of his head, feeling the soft black fluff collapse into a silky smooth coat under the pressure of his hand. He experimentally scratches behind one pointed ear. Shane leans into it and opens his mouth, now a long wolf snout, to pant. Ilya refrains from calling Hollander a good boy in this form, though he notes it down as something to test out later.
Hollander is panting and wiggling with pent up energy at this point, wagging his long-furred tail and craning his neck around to look for somewhere to run off too. Ilya stands up, leaving Hollander free to bolt towards the lake.
Much to Ilya’s surprise, Hollander leaps off the dock and into the water, sending small waves back towards the shore. He’s an adept swimmer, clearly, as he quickly makes his way to a rock that juts out of the water and climbs onto it.
Shane’s form is silhouetted against the soft purple of the evening sky. An otherworldly creature Ilya would have assumed to be a spectre on any other night. Ilya feels a strange sense of pride, that this is his Shane, stoic and poised, yet wild and free. To Ilya, Shane has always been precious and divine. This scene simply lays it before him, reminding him of the beauty and mandating he savor it.
Ilya watches. Some day he hopes to join Shane in letting loose in the cold water as he could never convince Shane to join him as a man, but today he is content to watch.
Wolf Shane steps off the rock back into the water and confidently swims back to shore.
Shane shakes the water out of his thick fur, spraying droplets into the air that sparkle with pink and blue reflections of the almost set sun and soaking Ilya with frigid lake water. While Ilya laughs and wipes the water out of his eyes, Shane pads over to the chair where he left his clothes and returns to human form, quickly throwing his pants back on.
Ilya looks his boyfriend up and down. His hair drips water onto the damp white t-shirt hugging his muscular chest as it rises and falls after his exertion. His black sweatpants hang suggestively low on his hips, and his feet are bare on the deck. Shane is loose and unwounded in a way Ilya typically only sees after sex; it’s glorious. What a gift today has been, thinks Ilya.
“I know you said that you’re okay with this… thing, as it is. You said that you're okay with how I have it controlled now and how it’s always been… but I don’t want things to change if I… maybe… wanted to start doing this more? With you?”
“Shane, I would love you if you changed into a worm. I love every version of you that has been and will be. I love you forever and always.”
“I love you too,” Shane beams. “Forever and always.”