Work Text:
September 2017
“I’m fine.” Shane pulls his keycard out the door and pushes it open. “Seriously, the delay was only a few hours. It wasn’t that bad.”
“Have you picked your suit up?”
“Yeah, I got it on the way here.”
“Did you sleep on the plane?”
Shane’s mouth quirks ruefully. He shuts the door behind him with his heel.
“You know I never sleep on the plane.”
“Well, no, that’s not true. You slept on a plane in 1991.”
“When I was nine months old, Mom.”
“Six,” Yuna corrects. “And you were the calmest baby on that flight. There were three of you—”
Shane groans. He drops his duffel on the dresser.
“Mom—”
“—And you were the only one who slept straight through! Nobody could believe it. Even the stewardesses. Oh my god, I was so proud.”
“I won the MLH Cup,” Shane says, smiling. “Twice.”
“Well, I can be proud of you for more than one thing.”
A door slams in the hallway outside. Shane sits on the edge of the bed and turns his phone volume up, shutting his eyes, so he can listen to the familiar creak of his parents’ front door opening and closing.
“Are you hiking today?”
“Oh, just to the park and back,” Yuna says. “Nothing extravagant.”
Shane wishes so badly he was with her, walking to the park and back, that it makes his chest hurt.
“Cool,” he says.
“Are you sure you feel okay?”
Shane nods, before remembering she can’t see him. He clears his throat.
“I should go. I need to find the gym.”
His mom’s voice softens.
“I think you can take the day off, honey.”
“It’s Friday,” Shane points out, as though this explains everything. In his mind, it sort of does. He always rows on a Friday. He likes it, especially now, in the final month or so before the season ramps up. It keeps his body and mind in tune with each other.
“Do not overwork your shoulder.” His mom says this so firmly, like it’s a spell that can be cast over Shane from any distance. “I love you.”
“Love you, too. Say hi to Dad.”
And then Shane is alone in his cavernous hotel suite, sweaty and behind schedule, with nothing but the dull hiss of the AC for company. He drops his phone on the bed, glancing at it. The time blinks back at him. 4:17pm. There are three hours left before he is contractually obligated to show his face downstairs.
“Fuck,” Shane mutters.
Two of the hotel’s elevators are closed for maintenance. The third never appears when he presses the call button. He jogs down four flights of echoey metal fire escape stairs to the basement gym, tugging his hoodie off as he approaches the bottom.
“Are you Shane Hollander?”
This is one of Shane’s least favorite questions, along with, How often do you floss? And, What do you think the Metros could’ve done differently tonight?
“Uh…” Briefly, wildly, Shane considers saying no. “Yeah, I guess.”
The guy in front of him slings his bag over his shoulder and peers at Shane, wide-eyed, like he’s something interesting on a microscope slide.
“Can I get a—?”
“I have, um.” Shane blinks. “A meeting, actually, that I should… Sorry, man.”
He pivots on his heel and walks back upstairs, gripping the hoodie with enough force to make the tendons in his hands stand out. Just as he locks the door to his room, his phone buzzes.
“Hey,” Shane says, eyes closed. He flops backwards on the bed.
“Hi. Your flight was okay?”
“Yeah, fine.” He picks a loose thread on the comforter, trapping it under his thumbnail. “How was practice?”
“Mm. Not so bad.” Distantly, there is the click of a can being opened. “New boys are fucking nervous, though. Makes them sloppy.”
Shane’s mouth twitches to a smile, despite himself.
“Did you beat it out of them?”
Ilya sips his drink and hums in agreement.
“Angry is better than nervous, yes?”
”I think that’s debatable,” Shane mutters. He rubs the thread with his thumb, watching it fray.
They’ve seen each other exactly once since the cottage—twelve hours in a New York hotel room last month, when Shane was filming a commercial there. This weekend is the last time their schedules will align before the season starts. Shane had drafted a text about it, back when the fundraiser was announced in June. After the invitation email, before anything had been booked. Rising Star Awards are in Boston this year. Can I stay with you?
But it was humiliating, he’d decided, to want something so much. It was a liability. Ilya would be able to smell the desperation on him. And it was Ilya’s house, anyway; his real house, in a populous city where people knew both their faces. It would be stupid to take a risk like that. It would be rude to invite himself. Staying away was the smarter choice. In the end, he’d never mentioned it, and Ilya had never asked; and then his mom had forwarded him a hotel reservation, and now here they were. Ten miles apart in the same place. They’ll see each other tonight, probably. Maybe. Who knows.
“Shane,” Ilya says.
“What?”
“You are…” Ilya pauses, as though searching for the word. “Pissy.”
Shane laughs a little in disbelief.
“Oh, fuck you.”
“Why are you upset?”
I want to be where you are, Shane thinks, before he can stop himself. He feels selfish and irrational, needy to the point of pain.
“My Friday is completely fucked. I’m two hours late. The gym…” Shane swallows. “Was busy, I couldn’t find a space, and I can’t—”
“Come over.”
Shane’s mouth snaps shut. His cheeks are burning.
“What?”
“Come over,” Ilya repeats, impatient. “Bring your bag.”
“The show starts in three hours,” Shane says.
“If you don’t come here, I will come to you.”
“Rozanov.”
“I will drive,” Ilya tells him without sympathy. “Park illegally in my big muscle car. Everyone will notice. Lots of photos, probably.”
Shane rubs his forehead. He gets to his feet and glances at his bag, still packed, on the hotel dresser.
“I hate your car,” he says, at last.
“Yes, I know,” Ilya says. It sounds like he’s smiling.
*
Ilya is wearing ugly black slides, gray sweats, and nothing else when he opens the door.
“Leave that,” he orders, taking Shane’s bags from him and dropping them by the shoe bench. “Come here.”
“Come… where?” Shane says, bewildered. He’s stunned enough that the lack of a kiss barely stings. Ilya glances back over his shoulder as he walks down the hallway.
“Living room,” he says.
Fading gray light filters through the tall windows. Ilya turns a lamp on before dragging the coffee table away from his obnoxiously huge couch, pushing it up against the wall. Shane hovers on the sidelines, restless, watching the muscles in his back shift and flex.
“What are you doing?”
Ilya turns to face him again, flicking his hair out his eyes. Shane’s stomach swoops traitorously.
“You will like. I promise.”
“Like what?”
Ilya grins at him, all teeth.
“Boxing.”
Uncertainty pangs in Shane’s chest. It feels hot and sour, like bile. He shuffles on his feet and looks away. Some of his guys—J.J, Andropov, Koch—he knows they box each other in the off-season. They all go to the same gym. Shane has yet to accept their invitation.
“I’ve never,” he says, then stops. Ilya shrugs.
“Okay. So what?”
“I won’t be good at it.”
Ilya closes the distance between them, cupping his face in both hands and kissing him soundly. The tension in Shane’s gut unwinds by a fraction.
“Is just us here,” Ilya points out. “Maybe you suck, who cares. I won’t tell.”
“My hero,” Shane says to him, voice dry. He knocks their noses together, tilting his head. Ilya kisses him again and kicks his slides off.
“Shoes off,” he directs. “Stay still.”
He moves to stand behind Shane, hooking his chin over his shoulder, and fits their bodies together in a single line of motion. The relief is immediate. It feels like a joint popping back into place. Briefly, Shane shuts his eyes. He’s grateful Ilya can’t see him.
“Feet apart. Yes, like that.” Ilya’s breath puffs sidelong across his face. “Put your weight on your back foot.”
Shane leans back into him. He puts his weight on his back foot. Ilya pats his side approvingly, his hand sliding under Shane’s shirt.
“Have you thrown a punch before?”
Shane shakes his head. From behind him, Ilya reaches out to grip his fingers and arrange them into a fist.
“Thumb across your knuckles. Like this.”
He guides Shane’s wrist forward in slow motion. This is the kind of language that Shane has always found easy to understand—physical, gravitational, kinetic. It’s like skating, or sex. He turns his hips slightly, adjusting for momentum.
“Yes,” Ilya says. He sounds pleased. “That’s good.”
The praise feels like sinking into warm water. When Ilya moves to stand in front of him, Shane misses the weight of him behind.
“Hit this,” Ilya says simply. He holds up a cushion from the couch.
Shane does.
“Harder.”
A mischievous expression crosses Ilya’s face. His lip curls. Shane’s cheeks go hot.
“Fuck you,” he mutters, and hits harder. First with his left hand, then with his right. Ilya makes another approving sound. Warmth floods Shane’s chest in a dizzy rush.
“When did you learn this?” he says, fighting to keep his voice steady. He keeps his eyes fixed on the window behind Ilya’s head.
“My father taught us, my brother and I. Was how we settled arguments. And we argued a lot, so…”
“Did you win?”
Ilya grins roguishly and flexes his shoulders.
“Oh my god, I hate you,” Shane mutters. The cushion wheezes in protest from the force of his next hit. Ilya’s grin widens.
“You move well,” he comments. “Good footwork.”
“You sound like every shitty talent scout ever.”
“You could go pro, Hollander,” Ilya tells him solemnly. “Big career for you.”
Shane tries tackling him then, scuffing Ilya’s ankle with his socked foot like a schoolkid on a playing field. Ilya tosses the cushion aside and trips him in a way that sends Shane slamming to the floor, crouching to straddle him, pinning his arms above his head. His knee is wedged between Shane’s legs.
“Fuck you,” Shane says, laughing breathlessly. “Fucking—move, asshole, get off, you weigh a ton.”
“Get off?”
Ilya’s hand drops to cup Shane’s crotch, rubbing the outline of his dick with his palm. Shane shudders. He flexes his thighs, trying valiantly to gain enough traction to sit up, only for Ilya to press his other hand flat to his sternum and push him back down. Shane laughs, squirming underneath him. He feels dazed and dizzy and so happy, for some reason, that he can barely stand it.
“Let me go,” he insists. Ilya looks down at him in pensive silence. When he slides two fingers over the swell of Shane’s lower lip, Shane licks them, sucking gently. They taste like sweat and skin.
“No,” Ilya murmurs. He pushes down on Shane’s tongue. His bent knee is pressed deliberately into the crease of Shane’s thigh, rubbing against his tented pants in a maddening line of pressure.
“We’re on the carpet,” Shane mumbles with his mouth full. Ilya leans down to kiss his throat.
“So?”
“S’gonna…” With monumental effort, Shane forces himself to finish this sentence. He tips his head back until Ilya’s fingers slip out, leaving a cool trail of spit on his chin. “Stain.”
Ilya’s face breaks into a smile. It makes his dimples show. He says something under his breath and hauls Shane upright, shoving him backwards onto the couch and crawling on top of him.
Shane exhales, eyes closed. He feels warm and contented, limp and lax. He lets Ilya arrange their bodies to his liking. At fifteen or so, filling out like a weed in every direction, Shane had been struck by a realization that led to an aborted panic attack in an Ottawa Junior League fitting room: somehow, without noticing, he had become stronger than most people. His mom felt small when he hugged her. His shoulders were broader than his dad’s. It was a relief, after the draft, to realize he was at least on an equal footing with the rest of his team; it’s a relief, with Ilya, to know that he isn’t. Ilya will take the upper hand if he wants it. He can take Shane’s weight. He can hold him down.
Ilya’s hand fumbles between them, unlacing Shane’s sweats and tugging his briefs to his thighs. He lets Shane rut into his fist a few times, then digs under the couch cushions for something.
“You are so gross,” Shane mutters. He drapes an arm across his face, covering his eyes.
“Shitty Canadian hockey player keeps coming to my house,” Ilya tells him, popping the cap off the lube. “Very needy.”
“I’m not—”
The rest of this sentence gets stuck in his throat when Ilya shoves his arm away to kiss him, fisting Shane’s cock slowly, fondling his balls. His fingers are shockingly cool and slick. Shane arches, inhaling.
“You’re not what?” Ilya murmurs. “Hm?”
He bows his head, kissing open-mouthed across Shane’s chest, and fits his lips around a nipple, dragging his palm across it afterwards, smearing the wetness there. The hand on Shane’s cock picks up speed.
“Please,” Shane rasps.
Ilya rubs his pec again, watching his face intently. Shane’s hips rock up. His mouth falls open, his eyelids fluttering. Ilya laughs at him, low but not unkind.
“So quick,” he mutters. He presses his face into Shane’s abs and stomach, shifting to straddle his knees. Shane feels his mouth, wet-hot, close over the tip of his dick, as the hand on his chest slides up to his throat and squeezes there, the barest suggestion of pressure—and Shane is done, gone, his hips stuttering upwards, his fists clenched tight in Ilya’s hair. He stays on his back for a moment, chest heaving, riding the adrenaline as it leaves his body. Then he slides off the couch, onto his knees.
Ilya seems to know what he wants. He works in tandem with Shane’s trembling hands to drag his sweats down, exposing his hard cock to the air. The hair on his stomach is dark and fine. Shane rubs his cheek into it, kissing him there.
“Shane,” Ilya says hoarsely.
“Did you shower?” Shane says, muffled by skin.
“What?”
“At the rink. After practice.”
Ilya’s laugh trails to a groan.
“What the fuck,” he mutters, tipping his head back against the couch. His bare chest is flushed. His pulse jumps visibly in the hollow of his throat. “Yes. Why?”
Shane kisses him again, tasting salt and cheap soap.
“Thanks,” he says honestly, and bows his head.
Ilya grunts. He holds Shane in place with a hand on the nape of his neck, thrusting up into his mouth. Shane feels so perfectly, wonderfully blank when he’s down here: all his instincts attuned to one purpose, one person. He likes the rhythm of it, the way it makes his jaw ache. He likes having Ilya inside. At the cottage, he hadn’t brought condoms and Ilya hadn’t mentioned them; they’d used the spares in Shane's wallet, and then they hadn’t. Shane keeps remembering the look on Ilya’s face, the first time, how his cheeks had flushed red from panting, and his eyes had turned dazed and dark, like he was drunk. He wants it like that again. He doesn’t know how to ask. Above him, Ilya’s fingers dig hard into his scalp as he groans, breathy, bitten-out. Shane bobs his head down, feeling tears prick, spit on his chin. He rests his head on Ilya’s thigh after he swallows to catch his breath. His damp hair is falling in his eyes. His lips feel bee-stung and sticky.
“Was that good?” he mumbles. He feels Ilya laugh a little.
“Yes.”
Shane sighs. He turns to press his mouth to the soft underside of Ilya’s knee.
“Can I…”
The words slip out without him realizing. After he does, he cuts himself off—but it’s no use. Ilya makes a curious sound. He cups Shane’s chin in his hand, tipping it up so they’re facing each other.
“Can I stay here tonight?”
Ilya nods immediately, like it’s not even a question. He rubs his thumb across Shane’s swollen mouth, back and forth. Shane shuts his eyes again. He turns his head back towards Ilya’s leg and stays there for a moment, overcome by a rush of combined shame and relief so potent that it makes him dizzy.
“Did you, um.” His voice is rough. He clears his throat. “Did you want to ask me? Before?”
“Yes,” Ilya says quietly. “All the time.”
Shane wraps both arms around Ilya’s calf, pressing his face into it. It feels like a taut thread in his chest has snapped.
“I was gonna ask you,” he mumbles. “In June.”
“We are both idiots,” Ilya agrees. His free hand drops to Shane’s hair, stroking slowly. Shane allows himself a split-second of contentment. Then reality hits him, and he groans.
“Fuck, this is a stupid idea.”
“They put us on different tables, yes?” Ilya’s fingers slide to the nape of Shane’s neck, toying with the soft fine hair there. “We won’t see each other. Separate cars, there and back. Everyone will be drunk, Hollander. No-one will notice anything.”
He sounds so certain of this. It puts Shane at ease. He smiles and sits back on his heels, glancing up at him.
“You just wanna get laid again, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Ilya agrees easily. “And also I miss you. Sleeping with you. Same bed.”
Shane’s gut lurches like a ship at sea.
“…Wait, really?”
Ilya nods.
“Oh.”
Shane feels a little stupid, a little dazed. There are a hundred responses fighting for space in his head, ranging from blandly inoffensive—I miss you, too—to utterly damning—I sleep better when you hold me down. His phone buzzes. He digs it out his pocket. It’s the first of four consecutive alarms, one every fifteen minutes, entitled RSA 1HR WARNING.
”Shit,” he says.
“We could shower together,” Ilya suggests. “Save time.”
Shane looks up at him with a frown. Ilya just shrugs, the kind of shifty gesture Shane would usually attempt to dissect for deeper meaning; but he’s tired, tonight. He feels in dire need of a hot shower with Ilya in it.
“No distractions,” he says, at last. “Please.”
Ilya nods in agreement.
“Race you?”
“Your bathroom floor is tiled,” Shane says slowly. “We’ll both die.”
Ilya shrugs again, patting Shane’s shoulder as he gets up off the couch. Good game. The en suite, if Shane was forced to guess, is ten, fifteen meters away. Ilya has a headstart, but he’s off-guard and off-balance, favoring his right side. Shane could cut him off at the corner—
“Fuck,” Shane mutters, and scrambles to his feet.
Ilya kisses him against the glass shower door for a long minute before turning the water on, and complains briefly that Shane had checked him into the wall (“Dirty play,” he announces, giving a press conference to nobody in particular. “Suspension. Fine.”). Other than this, he is true to his word. Shane steals glances at him until, eventually, he spies what he was looking for: a split-second of hesitation before Ilya lifts his arms to rinse his hair.
“Have you been to PT for your ribs?”
Ilya rolls his shoulders without looking at him, cracking his neck.
“Yes.”
“What’d they say?”
“That it would be healed by now if not for playoffs.”
That moment had been replayed a lot, almost gratuitously, in the post-game highlights: Hunter knocking Ilya into the boards. Ilya had been too slow to dodge the hit, slower to walk it off. Shane licks his lips, tasting water and soap.
“Tip your head back,” he says.
It feels a little like watching a hunting dog lie down in front of him. As he reaches for the shampoo on the shelf, watching Ilya close his eyes, Shane wonders with idle curiosity who he got his curly hair from. Maybe he looks like his father, the one he so rarely speaks about; or maybe there were photos somewhere of a curly-haired woman and a curly-haired boy, smiling together. He’d like to see them, if so.
“You should stretch more,” he says, sweeping his thumbs above Ilya’s ears in slow circles. Ilya grunts.
“Probably, yes. How is your shoulder?”
“Fine,” Shane says. “Better.” He combs his fingers through Ilya’s hair. “I can show you my routine, if you want.”
“I’m not doing your stretches,” Ilya mutters, slouching into his grip. “I’ve seen you stretch on the ice, it is…”
He trails off and finishes this sentence in Russian. His tone is unmistakable.
“Everyone stretches on the ice,” Shane says, scandalized.
“You stretch like you want to get fucked,” Ilya says plainly. “Very distracting for me.”
Shane reaches up to tilt the showerhead down. His face feels hot.
“Fuck you.”
“Ah, you like it,” Ilya coos, cracking an eye open to grin at him. His sodden hair is dripping in front of his forehead. It reminds Shane of the way he’d looked at seventeen.
“I hate you,” Shane tells him, turning around to duck his head under the spray, and gets kissed on the shoulder for his trouble.
He sits on the edge of the bed afterwards, damp and naked, hugging his towel and watching Ilya dress. Shane should be getting dressed, too. His second alarm has gone off. His suit bag is still abandoned in the front hallway. If his mom saw how crumpled it was she would hunt him for sport. Ilya shrugs on a crisp white shirt, buttoning it—and as he does warm light from the bedside table lamp cuts him on the chin, setting his cross and the ends of his hair aglow. Shane gets up without conscious effort, drawn to him, a comet moving in planetary orbit. Ilya’s hands settle on his bare waist like he was expecting him.
“Shane,” he murmurs.
“I know,” Shane says. They stand there for a moment, swaying in place. “Fuck, I don’t wanna do this.”
He’s surprised to hear himself say it—he didn’t know, until now, that he felt this way at all. It feels like pulling a splinter out. The nebulous dread that’s been following him all day finally takes shape.
“You could say your head is bad,” Ilya suggests. “Stay here.”
“I can’t. I already ducked out in June, I don’t want everyone to think I’m…”
Ilya’s knuckles brush his cheek, lingering there. Shane turns his head to bite the tip of his thumb.
“I just hate the way people talk to me,” he mutters.
Ilya makes a soft sound, low in his throat. He rubs Shane’s back in slow circles. Shane can suddenly tell, with concrete certainty, that looking at Ilya right now will make him cry. He pitches forward, swallowing the lump in his throat, and presses his face hard into Ilya’s shoulder, eyes squeezed shut.
“Can you,” he mumbles, without opening them. “Tell me to do it, or something. Just tell me to go.”
Ilya cuffs his jaw, tilting it up. It’s unbearable, looking directly at him. It makes Shane desperate to get away. It makes him worry that someone will notice the look on his face and deduce what it means, and who put it there.
“You are going to get dressed.” Ilya lets go of his chin to swipe the pad of his thumb under Shane’s damp eyelashes. “You will talk to reporters, make good impression… whatever. And then, after, you come home to me.”
Shane shuts his eyes again.
“Okay?” Ilya prompts.
“Okay,” Shane says quietly.
His suit is salvageable. He dresses at speed and on autopilot: white shirt, navy pants and jacket, and the same pair of dress shoes he’s owned since his rookie season. Ilya rummages through multiple drawers until he emerges with a crumpled black tie that he slings around his neck, undone, while finger-combing his curls into place. Shane watches him for a minute or so, trying and failing to find restraint, before crossing the room to do it for him. His mind drifts as he coaxes the wrinkled silk into a knot. Ilya rests one hand on the back of his neck as he works, fingers curling gently, blunt nails scraping the short dark hair there. Shane likes that, the weight of it. He likes that Ilya is watching.
“Would you like a reward?”
Shane looks up at him, blinking. It feels like breaking the surface of a dark sea.
“Tonight,” Ilya clarifies, squeezing the nape of his neck. “After.”
Shane’s tongue feels useless in his mouth. He knows the answer to this question. He is embarrassed by it to the point where part of him wants to hide, or run, so Ilya can’t figure it out.
“Ilya,” he says.
“What?”
“I…” Shane swallows, looking at the floor. His throat clicks. “You can’t—”
“—I can’t what?” Ilya kneads his neck again, rubbing circles there until Shane looks up at him. “I can’t give you things?”
Jerkily, Shane shakes his head.
“Maybe I like to give you things.” Ilya’s voice is mild but his eyes are blue-black, pupils blown. “Maybe it gets me hard, and you are doing me a favor.”
“Maybe,” Shane says, voice wry. Ilya sways closer and kisses him, indulgent and open-mouthed, like they have time. Shane’s car will be here any minute. Ilya’s will be here in ten. Staggered exits, staggered arrivals. Plausible deniability.
“I don’t,” Shane says afterwards, with effort. “Know if I can—” He tips his head down. “God. Fuck.”
Ilya watches him, waiting in silence.
“Can you just ask me again?” Shane says hoarsely. “Please?”
“Do you want a reward?”
His voice is soft and low. Shane shuts his eyes and focuses on it, sinking back to the place he was before—where the answer was simple, and obvious, and easy, and the world was no bigger than the two of them, and the boundaries of Ilya’s room.
“Yes,” he mutters. “Yeah, I do.”
The hand on his nape tightens again, just hard enough to hurt. Shane loves it, privately, when Ilya touches him here; he worries, and occasionally hopes, that Ilya has figured it out. His phone buzzes in his pocket. Shane knows what the notification will say without looking at it.
“You should tie your shoes now,” Ilya tells him. “Unless you enjoyed concussion.”
“Fuck you,” Shane says on reflex, and squirms away, laughing, when Ilya smacks him on the cheek.
*
An awards show, as it turns out, is not the best place for someone recovering from a moderate head injury. The music is loud and the conversation is louder, English and French melding and combining into strange sounds that Shane can’t parse. He resorts to smiling tightly through the speeches and ceremony, following the cues of the people around him, and retreating to a corner by the open bar when the party starts in earnest. He hasn’t attended many events like this since his rookie season—but his mom had been insistent about it, this year.
(“This looks good for you, Shane,” she’d pointed out. “For both of you. If want to start a charity, these are the circles you need to be moving in.”)
Shane’s starched shirt collar is chafing the back of his neck. The last thing he ate was a grain bowl from an airport café back in Montreal, but he doesn’t like carbs after five or anything at all after eight, or, crucially, anything with olives—so he politely refuses the canapes and cocktail glasses that are continually offered to him, hovering by the open bar with a sad, sweaty glass of soda water and lemon instead. He hates lemon. He also hates soda water.
There are players he knows here, at least. Shane knows more about the way they skate than who they are as people, but still. He spots several guys from the Admirals roaming the ballroom as a pack. He has a vague plan to track down Scott Hunter and say—something, maybe, but can’t seem to find him anywhere.
“Hollzy!” someone booms approvingly, slapping him on the back.
“Hi,” Shane says, blinking in surprise. By the time he looks over his shoulder, the voice’s owner has already disappeared into the crowd.
“Shane Hollander?”
He can tell from the way she says his name that the rest of this conversation will be on the record. Shane turns back in the other direction, bracing himself, and shakes the hand being offered to him on autopilot.
“Anna Kavan, I’m with the Boston Globe. It’s great to see you here tonight. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”
Shane sticks to the canned responses the Metros communications team had prepped him with. Yes, it was a hard hit. No, there were no hard feelings. Yes, he’s excited to get back on the ice in October. He has five minutes or so of peace before getting trapped in conversation with a man that he assumes, based on the tailoring of his suit and preternatural evenness of his tan, is rich enough to own either a hockey team, or a yacht, or both. He looks just familiar enough for this mystery to be irritating.
It’s hard to focus on anything he says. Shane’s head hurts. He has spotted Ilya across the room. For a long minute, Ilya doesn’t even look in his direction—then the crowd shifts, and their eyes lock. Ilya’s expression doesn’t change at all. Someone taps him on the shoulder, and he turns away. Shane stares at the back of his head until it’s obscured from view.
“—Brilliant kid at the Prospect Cup this year, Andrew Chen, we’re all keeping an eye on him… Do you two know each other?”
Shane blinks, returning to himself.
“Uh, no.”
“Brilliant kid,” the stranger repeats. “Disciplined, like you.”
“Oh. Okay.” Shane can feel resentment pricking him, subcutaneous and sore, like a thorn. He scrambles for a subject change. “Hey, do you know if Scott Hunter’s here?”
“Hunter?”
“Yeah,” Shane says. “I still owe him a congratulations, I haven’t seen him since the final.”
The stranger’s smile changes shape. It feels like a joke that’s gone over Shane’s head.
“Ah, no. The man of the hour couldn’t make it tonight, I’m afraid. Scheduling conflict. We did try.”
Deveraux, Shane realizes belatedly. Claude Deveraux, MLH Deputy Commissioner. He owned the Metros before his promotion last year.
“Anyway. Enough about all that, hm?” Deveraux claps him on the shoulder, smiling his white-toothed smile. “I can’t tell you how glad we all are to see you back in action, Shane. Always knew you were a fighter.”
“Thank you,” Shane says. The words fall flat in his mouth.
“Best of luck next month,” Deveraux tells him. And then he’s gone, raising his hand to wave at somebody in the crowd, and Shane is alone again with his sweaty untouched glass of water and lemon.
“Shane Hollander?”
Shane turns around.
*
Shane unlaces his shoes and lines them up by the wall. He paces tightly up and down the dark hallway, back and forth, with his hands shoved in his pockets. His head throbs. His ears are ringing. Just as he reaches the hallway’s end, turning on his heel to complete another circuit, the front door opens and the overhead light flicks on.
They stare at each other.
“You’re here,” Ilya says. He sounds surprised.
Shane is abruptly exhausted. He thinks, with a brief swell of nauseous terror, about his empty hotel room and complete lack of alibi.
“You said I could be, so…”
This makes Ilya smile, which makes Shane smile. Feedback loop, Shane thinks dazedly. He walks closer, picking up speed, as though pulled by invisible strings. By the time he’s within kissing distance Ilya is already reaching for him, meeting him halfway to haul him closer by the lapels of his suit jacket. He smells like sweat and night air. He kisses Shane like he’s missed him, too.
“That was fucking terrible,” Ilya mutters into his mouth. Shane laughs.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Shitty fake people.” Ilya makes a disgusted sound. “Shitty tiny food.”
“The food wasn’t that bad.”
“You didn’t eat any,” Ilya dismisses. Shane follows him down the hallway, watching Ilya shed most of his clothes along the way: first his shoes and tie, then his jacket and cufflinks, and finally his pants, which he tosses onto one of the stools by the kitchen island. Eventually he’s left in boxer briefs and his white shirt, unbuttoned halfway. The open cuffs drape loosely around his wrists.
“Do you know why Scott Hunter wasn’t there? Deveraux said it was a scheduling conflict, but…”
Shane trails off, watching Ilya grab one of his vile electrolyte drinks from the fridge and squirt it into his mouth like he’s on the bench at a game. His sweaty chest gleams in the pale light.
“But Deveraux is piece of shit,” Ilya agrees, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “No, I don’t know. I can ask, though.”
He tosses the bottle to Shane, who catches it automatically.
“…Ask who?”
“Hunter. I got his number in June.” Ilya nods towards the bottle in Shane’s hand. “Drink that.”
Shane sips it. It tastes like a salty chemical spill.
“Hollander,” Ilya says. He sounds deeply amused.
“Shut up, fuck off,” Shane mutters, and takes a longer swig out of spite. Ilya steps forward and backs him up against the kitchen counter as he swallows, moving swiftly enough that Shane stumbles a little, slipping on socked feet.
“Is okay if you’re jealous.” Ilya tries to slide his fingers into Shane’s belt loops. Shane slaps them away with his free hand. “You can be, if you like. He is hot.”
Shane bursts out laughing.
“I’m not jealous of Scott Hunter, you arrogant fucking asshole—”
“No?” Ilya asks idly, grabbing him by the thighs and pressing their foreheads together. Their noses brush.
Something rapid and alchemical occurs within Shane’s body whenever he has Ilya this close. When Ilya looks at him like that, with focused intent, like the bob of Shane’s throat as he swallows is the most interesting thing in the world. Shane licks his lips unsteadily, feeling his pulse pick up. They taste like artificial cherry flavor.
“Are you gonna fuck me?”
Ilya taps the terrible sports drink again until Shane takes another sip, then confiscates the bottle and leaves it on the counter. He fits his palm to the back of Shane's head, coaxing him forward until his nose is pressed into the warm hollow of Ilya's throat. His other hand gropes Shane's ass, pushing on his thighs until his legs lift up. Shane shudders, inhaling. He folds his arms around Ilya's neck.
“Say please,” Ilya murmurs. His breath grazes Shane’s ear.
Shane shuts his eyes. His body feels too hot, too tight.
“Please,” he mumbles. He barely recognizes his own voice, all slow and slurred, like he’s been fucked already. His hips roll forward. He is dimly aware that Ilya is carrying him somewhere.
When Ilya drops him on the bed, Shane sprawls where he is placed: one arm slung across his face, one leg flat and the other hitched up, his heel dragging in the top sheet. Ilya crawls on top of him. He drags Shane’s pants and shirt off impatiently, discarding them over the edge of the mattress, before burying his head in the crook of Shane’s armpit and inhaling, kissing his chest.
“You’re tense,” he notes. Shane laughs, breathless.
“I’m not.”
Ilya reaches down to grip his bent knee, fingers digging into the ropy tendons underneath. Shane fidgets on the sheets, exhaling.
“I…”
“You,” Ilya prompts, like an asshole. Shane swats his chest and turns his head into the pillow. It’s easier to speak, sometimes, when he can’t see Ilya’s face.
“Do you ever wish you could just skip all this bullshit and play hockey?” he mumbles.
Ilya huffs with laughter. It makes Shane’s heart lurch like a pulled muscle.
“Yes,” Ilya tells him. He sounds honest and inordinately fond. “All the time.”
“You can skate on the lake at the cottage,” Shane says, before he can chicken out. “When it freezes over.”
“You want to take vacation from hockey to play hockey?”
Shane feels his cheeks smart. He turns his head further into the pillow.
“Hollander.” Ilya straddles him again, grabbing his chin and forcing it up. “Shane.”
“What?” Shane mutters, eyes closed.
“I would love to play hockey with you,” Ilya says sincerely.
His left cheek dimples when he smiles. Shane can’t bear to look at it. He grabs Ilya by the back of the neck and hauls him down, sliding his tongue into Ilya’s mouth the way Ilya does to him. Ilya allows this for a moment, indulging him, his forearms braced on either side of Shane’s head, before sitting back on his haunches between the indolent spread of his legs.
“Would you like your reward?”
Hearing this question does something to Shane’s brain. His thoughts go blank, like static. His mouth parts, involuntary.
“Yes,” he rasps. “Yeah, I want it. Please.”
Ilya nods. He pushes gently on Shane’s bent knee, coaxing it outward and lying it flat to expose his inner thigh. Then he bows his head. His tongue darts out.
It hurts, feeling him bite down and latch onto soft skin—it hurts in an animal, atavistic way, the kind of raw pain that Shane’s body wants instinctively to escape from. Shock floods him in a liquid rush. His balls draw tight. His toes curl. He fights the overwhelming urge to kick his legs, clenching his fists in the sheets instead.
“Fuck,” he says, breathless. Ilya’s hands slide up to grip his ass as he bites harder, nails digging in. Shane tips his head back with a hurt sound. “Oh, fuck. Fuck you.”
His cock is hard already, the slick head bumping into Ilya’s cheek and chin, but Ilya ignores it: pinning Shane’s leg down with one hand and groping his chest with the other, nose pressed into the sweat-damp crease of his hip. He reaches for one of Shane’s hands, pushing it into his hair so Shane’s fingers have something to clench around. The sound of his mouth working is slick, obscene. When the pain finally crests, becoming unbearable, Ilya withdraws his teeth—licking him tenderly, soothing the sting with the flat of his tongue. Shane’s breath catches. He goes limp with relief. Ilya sits back, wiping his mouth. The blotchy imprint of his teeth shines with spit. Shane can tell, staring down at it, that the bruising will last for weeks.
“Puck bruise,” Ilya says hoarsely. His eyes are so dark they look black. “From practice.”
He takes Shane’s hand by the wrist again, pressing his shaking fingers gently into the bite. It feels hot and sore. Shane pushes the tender skin there, testing, and is rewarded with a fresh shudder of pleasure-pain. He twitches on his back, spasmodic. His eyelids flutter.
“You like it?” Ilya grips his chin, looking intently at Shane’s face. His lips are red, still wet. “Yes?”
Shane surges clumsily upright, gripping Ilya’s shoulders and knocking their foreheads together.
“Please,” he mumbles, kissing him blindly on his temple, then his hairline. His dick and thigh are throbbing. “Please, please.”
He’d never expected to want Ilya this much. If given a choice, at the beginning, he knows he would have said no. But he’d let Ilya get under his skin when they were both too young to know any better—before they’d realized how malleable they were, or how hungry they could get—and the end result is that Shane feels hardwired to want him. He can’t stop. The love is too deeply embedded, like shrapnel. His deepest fear has always been premature, career-ending injury; so it hurts to know that a piece of him is out in the world, running riot beyond the boundaries of his control, smoking and drinking and driving hideously fast cars, and getting his heart broken by grief, and playing violent contact sports, and occasionally, if Shane is very lucky, sleeping quietly in bed beside him, or kissing his shoulder from behind. It is an objectively terrible situation to be in. It would have been his worst nightmare at seventeen.
Ilya catches him by the waist, steadying him.
“On your side,” he demands. Shane nods, lying down, feeling Ilya stroke his flank before pulling away. He hears, dimly, the bedside drawer opening.
“No,” he says into the pillow. Ilya pauses. The bed creaks as he shifts his weight.
“Shane.”
This is not a question, although it has the tone of one. Shane licks his lips.
“I want,” he says, unsteadily. He feels Ilya lean down to drop a kiss on the sweat-slick skin at the base of his neck, between his shoulders. His necklace skims the back of Shane’s ear.
“You want what?” Ilya murmurs without lifting his head. He knows, Shane realizes. He fucking knows.
“Fuck you,” Shane says, muffled by the pillowcase. Ilya grabs him by the shoulder and rolls him roughly onto his back, so they’re face to face. Shane shuts his eyes.
“Say it.” Ilya’s voice is soft and calm. “Say, or you can’t have it.”
“I want it like it was before.” Shane’s voice cracks. “Okay? When you came in me. Please.”
Ilya grips his bruised thigh, squeezing hard. Shane’s mouth opens around a low sound, half-sob and half-groan. He cants his chin up. When Ilya kisses him he sinks back into the pillows, boneless.
“You are going to fucking kill me,” Ilya mutters. A bottle cap clicks.
“Can I have it?” Shane slurs. It feels important to clarify this, despite the haze he’s in. Ilya laughs, breathless, and hitches Shane’s leg over his hip, reaching behind. His fingers are wet.
Ilya likes it like this, face-to-face. He’d tried not to for a while, after the first time, but Shane could still tell. He likes sitting back and looking down at his cock, moving in and out of Shane’s body; he likes looming over him, watching Shane’s face when he comes. Shane rolls his hips in time with his thrusts, lips parted, panting—aware of Ilya’s weight above him, feeling him pin his wrists to the bed. Ilya rubs his rough cheek across Shane’s chest, stubble scraping, mouthing him. Shane would touch him back, if he could. Grab his shoulders or pull his hair. But Ilya is holding him down, and he wants to be good. He skims Ilya’s calf with his ankle, instead.
“Please,” he says thickly. He doesn’t know what he’s asking for. It just feels nice, pleading. Ilya will know what to give him. He usually does.
Ilya leans down and kisses him. Their mouths catch, separate, re-catch. He lifts one of Shane’s hands and brings it to his mouth. Shane touches his lips, his tongue, mesmerized, running shaky fingers over them.
“Please,” he whispers again. Ilya turns his head to mouth his palm. His hips rock faster. He pushes Shane onto his side, curling around him like a comma and crowding up behind him without pulling out; blindly kissing his shoulder blades, the shell of his ear, his mouth hot and clumsy, breathing hard. When he comes with a groan Shane can feel the vibration in his own chest. He reaches behind himself to grab Ilya’s thigh, keeping him in place, inside. He feels hazy and punch-drunk. His bitten leg throbs. It’s a warm, welcome ache.
“Shane,” Ilya murmurs. He touches Shane’s cock, thumbing the wet head of it.
Shane nods, arching back against him. He can hear himself panting. Ilya’s mouth is fixed on his neck, smeared open there. When he’s close, without conscious thought, Shane twists his head around, wanting him, needing it, and Ilya cranes forward to meet him halfway, locking their mouths together and swallowing the ragged gasp Shane makes as he comes into Ilya’s waiting fist. They lie together afterwards until the sweat on their bodies turns tacky and cool.
“Shower,” Shane says sleepily.
The combination of sex and hot water has a soporific effect on him. He goes through the motions of cleaning himself with dogged determination. Ilya watches him dab his bitten thigh half-heartedly with a washcloth, his expression unreadable, and takes it from his hand.
“Does it hurt?”
He moves the cloth in light circles, wiping between Shane’s legs. Shane shrugs, yawning.
“Yeah, I guess. It’s not the worst you’ve given me.”
“What’s the worst I’ve given you?”
“You slammed the shit out of my shoulder last October.”
When I was with someone else and we weren’t talking, Shane finishes silently. It had been a brutal game. 1-0 in Montreal’s favor, but only just. Ilya had caught him under the shoulder pads with his elbow. The bruise had been small but striking, a purple-black welt between his armpit and collarbone, unbearably tender. Shane had prodded it in the bathroom mirror every night until it healed.
“Your shoulder?” Ilya asks, glancing at him. Shane nods. He touches the clear skin where the bruise was.
“Here.”
Ilya bows his head to kiss him there.
“Sorry,” he murmurs. His mouth is soft and warm. Shane laughs, breathless, and slides his fingers into Ilya’s hair.
“It’s okay.”
They doze for a while afterwards, curled together with the lamp on. Shane has never been a good sleeper. He would change this about himself, if he could. Eventually he stirs, feeling cold, and blinks awake to see Ilya pacing the room with a grim expression, saying nothing. His phone is pressed to his ear.
Shane has been reading Russian phrase books before bed when he can’t sleep. It doesn’t matter. The rapidfire pace of Ilya’s speech is indecipherable—his voice is lowered to a whisper, like he doesn’t want to wake Shane, and curt, like he’s furious or hurting. There are only two sounds Shane can pick out that make any sense to him: ‘No’, and maybe, ‘niece’. Eventually Ilya snarls something that is, unquestionably, an expletive, and throws his phone on the dresser. He paces in front of it, dragging a hand through his hair.
“Is she alright?”
Ilya freezes, glancing at him.
“Your… uh.” Shane’s fingers grip the comforter’s edge. His knuckles are white. “Your niece. Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Plemyashka,” Ilya says quietly. Shane zeroes in on his mouth, tracking the shape of his lips and the way his tongue meets his teeth.
“Plemyashka,” he echoes.
Ilya’s answering smile is dim and thin.
“She’s sick. Or my brother says she is.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I don’t know.”
“…Would he do that to you? Lie like that?”
Ilya starts to nod, but stops halfway. He shakes his head and keeps pacing. Slowly, Shane pushes the blankets aside, leaving his lap open.
“Hey,” he says.
Ilya pauses, mid-step. He looks at Shane for a long moment, then moves to sit stiffly on the edge of the bed. When Shane touches his bare shoulder he crumples on contact, tipping sideways to lie on his side, burying his head in Shane’s thigh.
“I told him not to call me.” Ilya’s voice is muffled, thick with something. “I told him I’d ruin his fucking life.”
Shane rubs his thumb over the curved shell of his ear.
“Are you going to?”
“No.”
“Has he always treated you like this?” Shane asks softly.
Ilya is quiet, saying nothing.
“When we were young, it was…” He exhales. His warm breath tickles Shane’s stomach. “Different, I guess. But he hated my friends. He hated that I was good at hockey. And I look like her, so. Worse, after that.”
With careful slowness, Shane tucks a curl of hair behind his ear.
“I’m sorry.”
“Tell me a secret,” Ilya says quietly. “Tell me your dad is supervillain, or something.”
“He’s a risk analyst.”
“Okay, tell me your mom is a supervillain.”
“She’s boring, too,” Shane says, laughing a little. “I think they’re boring on purpose, honestly, I think they wanted that for me. Stability.”
“Ah,” Ilya says, rolling over to look up at him. His mouth quirks. “So is that your big secret? You have asshole grandparents?”
Shane shakes his head.
“My dad’s side are still alive. We don’t see them much. He doesn’t talk to them, really. And my mom’s parents died when I was eight.”
Ilya shifts in his lap. Shane winds a stray curl around his fingers.
“Do you remember them?”
“I remember they were upset with my mom for not teaching me Japanese,” Shane says dryly. “Even though she doesn’t speak Japanese, she hasn’t since she was a kid. But they were nice to me. Their house was by a rink, so we used to skate there a lot. I think hockey is the only thing my mom and her dad ever actually agreed on.”
“House was in Montreal?”
“Yeah.”
“Are there pictures?”
“…Of what?”
“Of you,” Ilya clarifies. “Little you, in skates.”
“Shut up.”
Ilya grins up at him crookedly.
“I have your mother’s phone number.”
“I will fucking kill you.”
Ilya just laughs. Shane swats his cheek, or tries to. Ilya grabs his palm out of the air and meets his eyes.
“I should set an alarm,” Shane says quietly, looking down at him. “For tomorrow.”
Ilya nods. He doesn’t let go of Shane’s hand.
“Let me drive you.”
This is a categorically stupid idea.
“Okay,” Shane says. Ilya releases him. Shane reaches for his phone on the bedside table and sets an alarm for 6, so he can be back at the hotel for checkout by 7. It occurs to him that this will, barring any miracles, be the last time they see each other before the season starts. His breath catches in his throat. Ilya sits up and slings his arms around him from behind, kissing between his shoulders as he does so.
“Don’t,” he murmurs. “Don’t think about it. Your mother sent me apartment listings yesterday. Think about that.”
Shane leans back into him, into the warm firm line of his body. His laugh is wet and breathy.
“God, it is so weird that you text each other.”
“She emails,” Ilya corrects. “She is looking over my contract, too.”
Because he’s transferring, Shane reminds himself. The sickly tightness gripping his body eases somewhat. His lungs remember what they’re for.
“Did I bring my glasses?” Shane asks sleepily. He feels Ilya nod against his neck.
“On dresser, by your bag.”
Shane stumbles out of bed, too tired to be graceful, too restless for sleep, to retrieve his glasses and the book they’re resting on. Ilya watches this with evident amusement.
“You know we are hockey players, yes?”
“Are we not allowed to read?” Shane smiles slightly at the expression on Ilya’s face, climbing back into bed beside him. “Because I didn’t see that clause when I signed—”
Ilya yanks the book from his hands and flips it over to read the blurb, lips moving soundlessly. He starts to laugh, bewildered.
“You—” Shane snatches the book back. His cheeks are burning. “Shut up. It’s autobiographical, it’s not, like… sensationalized.” Ilya’s grin widens. “Shut up.”
“This is what you do for fun?” Ilya sounds delighted by this, like Shane has given him a present. “What the fuck, Hollander? You read about people eating each other?”
“It’s a normal book,” Shane protests. “It’s popular, lots of people read it.”
“Okay,” Ilya agrees.
“It was a New York Times bestseller,” Shane mutters, feeling piqued. He sits up against the headboard, sinking his free hand into Ilya’s hair, and starts to run the numbers in his head. They both get the 24th to the 26th off, guaranteed. Possibly they could travel up on the 23rd. Boston to Montreal in the holiday season is a two hour flight.
Ilya flicks his chin.
“Put your glasses on.”
”Leave me alone,” Shane tells him goodnaturedly, and does.