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Ilya watches, fascinated, as Shane lies down, flat on his back on the mat.
“Can you set a timer?” Shane asks, rolling his neck a little before he settles. “Ten minutes.”
“Another show?” Ilya says, obliging. He’d liked watching Shane work through his sequence of yoga moves, sprawled lazy against the couch cushions as Shane arched and stretched and blushed under his gaze.
“Nope,” says Shane, and closes his eyes. Well. Agree to disagree.
Light streams through the cottage windows. The whole place is windows; Ilya feels a deep need to press Shane up against all of them while he has the chance. Shane is dappled in it, the light; eyes closed, breathing even, palms tipped up. Ignoring Ilya now, so rude.
It happens on an exhale: the determined set of Shane’s face finally softening as he goes lax, sinking deeper into the mat, something in him releasing the way Ilya’s only seen after he’s come. Ilya watches it move through his body like a wave; ankles and knees and hips and shoulders, every hinge and joint of him. A very good trick.
Ilya levers himself up off the couch. He picks up his phone, looks at the timer. Six minutes left.
He crouches next to Shane, considering. Shane’s mouth twitches at the corner.
Ilya stretches himself out on the floor along the length of Shane’s body, close enough to feel the warmth of him, close enough to touch. He doesn’t touch. Shane’s head tips back in answer, pressing more firmly against the mat and baring his throat, the pulse jumping there so beautifully, but he still doesn’t look at Ilya, doesn’t even open his eyes.
It’s like the mat’s holding him up; Shane needs holding up sometimes, the way he melts when Ilya gets his mouth on his neck or his weight on him in bed, when he breathes against his ear. Ilya hadn’t known he could take himself there, melt himself like this. He imagines Shane floating on his back in the lake, cradled by the water, supported. The two of them floating side by side, hands outspread and touching.
He lets his hand hover over Shane’s shin – not touching, touching would be cheating – and as he ghosts it upwards a gratifying shiver of goosebumps follows in its wake. God, the hair on Shane’s legs.
Shane’s mouth is parted now, his breath a little less steady. Ilya sees Shane’s dick stirring and he wants to put his hand up the leg of his shorts, put his whole head up there, fuck. Press his mouth to the fabric, lakewater blue and straining now. He wants to lie on top of him, pressing his weight down until Shane has no choice but to look at him, until he can’t think of anything but Ilya, until Ilya’s sent him all the way out of his head again.
Shane’s legs fall a little further open, rolling out from the hip.
The timer is still running. Ilya turns his attention to the dropped armholes of Shane’s delightfully slutty yoga tank. He leans in and blows softly where the side of his pec’s exposed, watches Shane’s nipple tighten through his shirt in response.
“Stoppit,” Shane says through his teeth, and every crack in his composure lights Ilya up like clouds parting, like a lightning strike on the lake.
“Shh,” Ilya says. “One minute left.”
He matches his breath to Shane’s as the seconds count down.
The alarm rings; Ilya silences it. He leans over Shane, bringing their faces closer, not touching, not yet, noses almost brushing. Shane’s eyes are still closed.
“Did you put yourself to sleep?” Ilya asks, watching Shane fight a smile, lines creasing by his eyes even as he says, “Asshole.”
Ilya touches him, finally. Presses his hand to Shane’s belly, feels his breath move there, his own heart jumping at the pleased little hitch of it.
“Yoga, I understand, is very useful to be flexible, I am not complaining, but this lying here after… So lazy.”
“Oh my god, shut up,” Shane says, and reaches into a full body stretch, toes pointed, arms long over his head so that his shirt rides up under Ilya’s hand. When he finally opens his eyes Ilya has no choice but to roll right on top of him, press his face into his throat, his armpit, his belly. What else can he do, with Shane laughing at him bright and hungry, pulling his legs up around him, pulling Ilya’s face into his chest now, his hand tight in Ilya’s hair?
He feels wild, mouthing at Shane’s nipple through his tank top, latching on and sucking as he reaches down, fingertips rucking the hem of his shorts, the heel of his hand rolling pressure over his balls. All that melting ease is gone, everything sweat and desperation. Salt on his tongue, springing up fresh. Saltwater, lakewater. Shane’s head is rolling now against the mat, his body arching, and Ilya is drowning.
“You left marks in this,” Ilya says after, running his thumb over the little gouges in the mat. He wants his own set of marks: in his shoulders, in his back, wants the scratch of Shane's nails on his scalp.
“It’s cork,” Shane says. He unfolds his arm, letting it flop down from his face so he can look at Ilya. His head tips to rest on the mat, eyes warm, and Ilya makes a noise with his mouth like champagne popping.
☆
Shane is pacing on the other side of the glass, on the phone with Yuna, and he’s left Ilya alone with the unlikely animal friends. The cat is very sweet, and the baby ducks, and Ilya lets them play on the TV for a few minutes longer before he backs out of the video.
He starts scrolling down the homepage, wanting to get a sense of what Shane likes before he starts searching for things to fuck up his algorithm, recommendations to make him huff and send Ilya pissy texts when he finds them later. It’s mostly hockey, no surprise, and then some golf (ugh), and then –
“What is ASMR?” Ilya asks when Shane steps back through the sliding doors, watching for the moment when he freezes.
Shane’s eyes dart between Ilya and the screen, back and forth. Deer in the headlights. “What?”
“These videos,” Ilya says, scrolling back down to the thumbnails. ASMR and more, says the heading over a row of people, mostly women, looking directly into the camera. A preview starts playing, a lady in a fake-looking white coat pointing a penlight at the viewer like she’s running a concussion protocol.
“Don’t – come on,” Shane says.
Ilya pulls him down onto the couch. “Tell the truth,” he says, and Shane groans even as he fits himself against Ilya’s side, lets Ilya squeeze around his shoulders.
Ilya’s been getting good mileage out of that one. Now they’ve said the unsaid thing, heavy stone lifted off his chest, it’s all, You came on my shirt so I would wear yours again, didn’t you, tackling Shane in the kitchen and whining No, Hollander, be honest with me, until Shane rolls his eyes and gives it up. Lighter every time.
He keeps prodding. “This does it for you, hmm? These women and their” – he taps across to the next video – “slimes?”
“It’s not all women,” Shane says, his cheeks reddening. “I’m not into – slimy women, obviously, it just. It helps me sleep sometimes. It’s –”
It drives Ilya crazy, watching Shane try to articulate why he likes something, why he wants it, the way he looks up and away like he’ll find the magic words in some corner of the ceiling. It makes him want to press his forehead hard against Shane’s, to listen to the strange and lovely clockwork of his brain.
Ilya scrolls to another video, a young woman with long, shiny hair clicking her fingers and moving her hands like she’s trying to pull something through the screen.
“It’s not weird,” Shane says, defensive. “It’s not a sex thing.”
“Okay.” Ilya kneads his thumb into Shane’s neck, waits him out.
“It’s, like, a biological response.”
“Very scientific.” He takes Shane’s hand, stroking the dark hair at his wrist – still matted, he realises with a thrill, with Ilya’s spit.
“It feels like – tingles, I don’t know. Sort of staticky.” Shane waves his free hand to demonstrate, fingers dancing in the air above his head, and Ilya feels an oddly sharp and jealous pang, imagining him alone with these videos, trying to soothe himself, shivering and self-sufficient.
“Oh,” he says. “Tingles. You mean like warming lube.”
“Fuck off.” Shane kicks at Ilya’s ankle, then winds their feet together.
“Like warming lube for your brain to help sleep, I understand.”
“Alright,” says Shane, grabbing the remote and throwing it, coming right back to hide his hot face in Ilya’s neck.
☆
On New Year’s Day, Montreal hosts Toronto for the Winter Classic. Ilya watches from his couch in Boston.
Shane had called him five minutes after midnight, to wish him a Happy New Year. Ilya slipped out of Connors’ party to take the call in an alleyway, pressing his forehead to the bricks and his phone to his ear as Shane said, “Ya tebya lyublyu, Ilya.”
“I love you, too,” Ilya had said, “but is past your bedtime? Big game tomorrow.”
“I actually set an alarm,” Shane said, and Ilya had choked out a laugh, wishing so hard he felt sick that Shane was beside him, that Ilya could sling an arm around him, cradle Shane’s head in the crook of his elbow and kiss him and kiss him.
This will be, he hopes, his last winter in Boston. It’s a strange feeling, planning his escape from a place that’s been very good to him. He’s clinging to the promise of Ottawa – two hours away from each other, all year round – but first, there’s this whole fucking season to get through, all the stretching days between the handful of times they can be together. On his couch, watching Shane on the ice, he wishes this were one of them.
“Did you see the game?” Shane asks when he calls later, even though they’ve been texting, even though he knows Ilya did.
“You looked very cute in your hat.” Yuna had sent pictures: her and David bundled up, drinking hot chocolate in the crowd. Shane leaning over the boards to get his arm around her, the three of them smiling. Everyone there except Ilya.
Shane makes an annoyed little noise, rolling his eyes like Ilya had known he would. He wants to touch him through the phone screen. “It’s a toque, Ilya. I know you know.”
“No, I never heard this. Did you have fun destroying Toronto?”
He’d looked like he was having fun, bright-cheeked, hair longer since the summer and sticking out from under his hat during warm-ups. He’d had a goal and an assist in the game, the goal a very sexy one-timer to the top corner; Ilya had sent Shane a string of panting emojis when he scored, and he’d been hard for the rest of the second period.
“Those guys,” Shane says, a little bitchy and dismissive, and Ilya grins. “The ice was sort of junky but it was nice to be out in the park like that, with the fans. Cold, though. The handwarmers didn’t really cut it.”
“And now? Are you warm?”
He leers a little, and Shane lets out a huff through his nose, stroking down his neck to rub at his chest. “Getting warmer.”
Ilya can see his nipple peaking through his shirt.
“What do I get,” Shane says. “For winning.” He lifts his chin for the camera.
Ilya misses him too much to draw it out. “Take off your clothes,” he says, and starts stripping himself.
When he looks back at the screen, Shane has his phone on the tripod by his bed, lying on his side, gazing back at Ilya. Hand resting on his belly, the other in the crease of his hip, fingertips grazing his thigh. Not touching his cock, not yet. Bruise blooming on his hip; if Ilya were there, he’d have sucked it darker.
He smiles. Shane is looking at his mouth.
“Where are my glasses?” Ilya says.
“Your glasses?”
He nods slowly, getting a hand on himself. A few light strokes, showing off for the camera. “If you wear them for me, they are mine, no?”
Shane reaches past the frame and comes back with the glasses, unfolds them slowly, slides them on. Gorgeous.
“Better?”
“Mmm. Put your headphones on – no, the big ones. I know you have them.” He wants everything else blocked out, all the noises cancelled. He wants, selfish as ever, to be the only thing inside Shane’s head.
He gives Shane a second for the bluetooth to connect. “You can hear me?”
Shane nods, and Ilya turns his camera off.
He watches Shane, the tender flinch of him. “Ilya?”
“I’m here.”
“Can you – I want to see you.”
“No,” Ilya says. “Eyes closed, moya lyubov. Listen.” He brings his phone closer to his face, wets his lips. Mouth sounds, that’s what they call it in the videos.
What is it about this for finicky Shane, who winces if someone chews too loudly, half his face scrunching up? Why does he want it? However: Shane does like to hear it, when Ilya’s sucking his cock. Likes the hungry, sloppy sounds he makes. Makes desperately similar sounds himself.
And he likes this already, Ilya can tell. His breath is coming quicker now, hand sliding down his belly to grip his other thigh, fingers digging into the muscle. Eyes closed behind his glasses.
Ilya kisses the back of his hand. It barely sounds like anything. When Shane kisses him, when they kiss, it sounds – it fills up his whole head.
He tries again with his mouth open wide, letting his lips smack, digging his teeth in a little. His hand, when he pulls it away from his face, is gleaming with spit.
He props the phone on the pillow beside him, leans in close so he’s breathing into the microphone. Shane would have bought a proper mic for this, probably a very fancy one. Ilya doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.
As if on cue, Shane asks, “What do you want me to do?” He’s frowning faintly, concentrating hard.
“Just listen,” Ilya tells him. “Don’t touch.” His mouth waters as Shane nods gratefully, as his hips twitch and his hands tighten on his thighs. He blows gently into the mic and watches Shane shiver, huge headphones still firmly in place.
It’s stupid, but he misses Shane’s ears, the reliably red tips of them. He needs to fucking get it together.
He knows how to make Shane look at him, is the thing. He knows what to say when they fuck, what to call Shane, how to push him. This is different, trying to get inside his head without touch, without words. Embarrassing, to be on the back foot, to be unsure again.
But Shane is waiting for him so nicely.
Ilya brings his hand to his mouth, licks deliberately between two of his fingers like he’s eating someone out. He knows Shane hears it, can see the catch of his breath in his chest.
He keeps going, makes it louder and messier. And it is, it’s embarrassing, but it’s hot, too, he feels the curl of it deep in his belly.
“Come on,” Ilya says. “Come on, Shane, do what you need.”
Shane nods and gasps and starts to touch himself at last, biting back the sounds like he’s trying to be a good boy and listen.
Ilya’s going to lose it, looking at that mouth. “Do you feel me?”
He spits into his palm, and Shane moans in answer. He’s flushed all down his chest, one hand pinching his nipple at the sound of Ilya’s voice, the other reaching down between his legs to play with his hole.
“Uh-huh,” he says, and Ilya curls his body around the phone, as close as he can get and still see him.
He starts working his spit-slick hand over his cock, sliding two fingers into his mouth and sucking on them. Pulls them out with a pop and fucks back in with three, and Shane says, “Oh my god,” like he can feel it through the phone. “Ilya, fuck–”
Ilya closes his eyes, too, drooling around his fingers, and then it’s just the wet and frantic slide of his hand, mouth sounds, Shane’s moans breaking in the middle as they rise, waves rushing in his ears –
He pulls his fingers out of his mouth in time to blurt out Shane’s name as he comes across his phonescreen.
So many of these videos talk about tingles, that word Shane had used. Ilya thinks about his body waking up, blood rushing. Holding his breath for too long underwater. Shane falling asleep on his arm.
He finds his breath. Wipes his screen, turns his camera back on. Shane’s eyes are still closed, his glasses still on. His come, shining wet on his belly. “Baby,” Ilya says, the word ripped out of his chest.
“Is that a new blanket?”
Shane is showered and settled back against the pillows, everything squared away except Ilya’s thumping heart.
The blanket in question is thickly quilted, the soft golden colour a little at odds with the rest of Shane’s bedding.
“Mmm,” Shane says.
“Your designer picked this?”
“No, it’s from my mom.”
The next time Ilya’s in Montreal, he’s going to leave something behind, some piece of himself in Shane’s room. He’s going to take something of Shane’s, that smells like Shane. He’s going to carry it off in his mouth like an animal. “You should get underneath,” he says.
Shane blinks at him sleepily before he starts moving. “I didn’t want to get come on it before,” he explains, lifting a corner of the blanket and shuffling under. “It’s a pain in the ass to clean.”
“It’s so special?”
“I don’t know, it’s heavy. Full of glass beads or something. Good for the nervous system, I guess.”
A blanket full of glass beads, all of them touching a different part of Shane; all those points of contact, and Ilya hundreds of miles away from him. Ilya saw him a week ago. He can’t –
Shane had done this thing, where he’d tilted his head, hand coming up to press on his earphones like he was trying to get closer to the sound of Ilya’s voice. How is Ilya supposed to need him any less than all the time? How are Ilya’s feet supposed to touch the bottom of this want?
“I’m kinda wiped,” Shane admits.
Ilya touches the screen, strokes a finger across his tired brow. “You should sleep. Will you watch one of your brain lube videos?”
“Fuck off,” Shane says, ears red, and, “I love you,” and, “Could you stay on the line, please?”
☆
They dominate the skills competition at the All-Star weekend, naturally. Ilya wins the breakaway challenge (fun, cool), and Shane beats his own shot accuracy record for like the third time (boring).
After they escape the drinks reception, Shane comes to Ilya’s hotel room, where Ilya immediately herds him into the shower.
“Again?” Shane says, brow furrowed. “I already –”
Ilya kisses him pliant against the tiles and washes his hair for him, shielding his face from the suds as he tips his head under the spray to rinse.
He has the nice shampoo Shane uses, his face wash, his moisturiser. He’d gone through his bathroom cabinet at the cottage like a psychopath, looking at everything, smelling everything, Shane leaning in the doorway, watching. Everything in its right place, even Ilya.
Shane washes his face in the shower, so efficient. This is fine, gives Ilya more time for the important things, like finger-combing Shane’s wet hair back from his face before hitching him up onto the bathroom counter. He leans back for a moment to look at him: towel around his waist, face clean and blinking.
Ilya takes hold of his jaw, lifts his chin.
“Keep still for me,” he murmurs, Shane’s mouth parting as Ilya reaches past him for the moisturiser, dispensing probably too many pumps into his hand.
Personal attention, they call it in the videos.
He dots the moisturiser somewhat evenly over Shane’s face, Shane holding obediently still. Ilya begins to rub it in, starting in the middle of Shane’s face and working outwards. Gentle under his eyes, patting with his ring finger where the skin is thinnest.
He has the idea he’s supposed to be adding commentary. “Beautiful Shane,” he says, tracing the place on his forehead that creases like his linen shirts.
Shane’s cheeks are flushed from the hot water, which always does devastating things to his freckles. Ilya brushes his thumbs over them again and again. He goes back for more moisturiser, an excuse to stay here touching him like this.
When he can’t stand it any more he reaches for the towel at Shane’s waist, intending to jerk him off with the excess cream on his hand, but Shane stops him, hand on his wrist.
“You used way too much,” he says, looking up at Ilya through his lashes. “Don’t waste it.”
He lifts their hands to Ilya’s face, using Ilya’s own fingers to smooth the leftover moisturiser across his skin. Then he lets Ilya go and holds his palm out, waiting.
Ilya pumps again into his hand.
Shane’s touch moves over his face. He’s melting under Shane’s steady attention. Those eyes. Shane’s fingers tracing carefully over the mole on his cheek.
Ilya draws an unsteady breath. “Now my face will smell like your face.” His voice is hoarse. He sounds like a lunatic. He wants to press himself entirely against Shane.
“Good. That’s good.” Shane has him by the neck now, rubbing their faces together, the miraculous unbroken line of his nose digging into Ilya. They’ll be lunatics together. Ilya licks his mouth, licks his ear, loud and messy.
This time last year he was so scared, terrified to reach for Shane and no idea how to hold onto him. But here they are. Tomorrow they’ll play on the same line, and they’ll score and crash into each other and Shane will laugh so bright and happy and Ilya will throw his arms around him on the ice and kiss him and get away with it. He can taste it already.
Shane moans soft and melts against him, his head knocking back into the mirror.
☆
“No, no,” Ilya says, easing Shane back where he’s starting to nuzzle at his cock through his pants, earning himself a betrayed look. He flexes his hand to still the tremble there, brings it to rest on Shane’s jaw.
Shane, temporarily appeased by the press of Ilya’s thumb against his mouth, is kneeling quietly with his head on Ilya’s thigh. Ilya, as he often does on this couch, is trying not to remember other times on this couch, which will not be coming with him to Ottawa. He thinks, instead, of what he is planning, if Shane will like it.
He runs his hand against the grain of Shane’s hair, curving up over his skull, feeling the tingle, the brush of it against his palm.
The videos didn’t seem to work on him like they did on Shane; watching them, Ilya felt as if he was trying to trick his brain into thinking someone was touching him. But there was one he’d watched over and over, something about it stilling something in him.
Ilya had thought the girl was naked, at first, looking at the careful spill of her hair over bare shoulders. He hadn’t even minded that she wasn’t, getting lost in the pull of the comb through her hair, the repetition of it.
He curls over Shane to kiss the top of his head. The smell of his scalp makes Ilya crazy, like his pillow when he’s rolled away.
He reaches for the comb, stashed between the couch cushions like lube, heavy and cool in his hand. He presses it to Shane’s cheek, letting him feel the jade against his skin before he sets the teeth to his hairline. Slowly, he pulls the comb back through Shane’s hair, all the way down to the nape of his neck. Does it again, and again.
Shane’s head bows as Ilya draws the comb through his hair. He looks perfect. It sounds perfect, the whispering scrape of it; something about it like blades on the ice, Ilya had thought, watching that video and picturing Shane on his knees.
“Don’t cut your hair,” he murmurs. “So pretty like this.”
Shane looks up at him, holding Ilya’s gaze as he tips his head and leans slowly into the pressure of the comb, eyes dark and liquid. It’s hard for Ilya to breathe through, the unravelling feeling that starts at the top of his ribcage, under his armpits almost.
He gives Shane what he’s asking for, pressing the comb harder against his scalp, and Shane’s eyes flutter closed.
After that he can’t stop himself, extending his strokes, dragging the blunt points of the teeth down Shane’s neck, across the tops of his shoulders. The comb feels warm in his hand, now, like it’s him, his teeth scraping over Shane’s skin, raking down his back.
Ilya thinks, I didn’t know it would be like this, a thought he’s had over and over, since the first time he pushed his thumb into Shane’s mouth, since the first time he watched Shane fold his clothes, since the first press of Shane’s lips against his forehead.
He squeezes Shane’s neck and Shane rises up on his knees, desperate, moaning into Ilya’s mouth, and it’s too much, having Shane here again, on this fucking couch, both of them shoving their clothes off. He gropes blindly for the lube and Shane kneels up on the cushions, clinging to the back of the couch as Ilya opens him, pushing back for it. Ilya’s brain feels like it’s on fire.
The comb falls to the floor and Shane scrambles to reach for it, shoving it back into Ilya’s hand, kneeling up again as Ilya presses against him, licking over the fading red lines on his shoulders.
“Condom,” he pants, and Shane says, “Leave it,” almost sobbing.
So he pushes inside, the same noise punched out of both of them, the same breath.
He rakes the comb over Shane’s hip, the silvery marks there, and they fuck like that, desperate, until he’s coming bare inside Shane, until Shane’s coming all over the couch.
Later, he lies spooned behind Shane in bed, holding him tightly.
“How do you even think of these things,” Shane says, his voice warm and blurry. “A fucking comb?”
Ilya bares his teeth against his shoulder, digging in for a moment before he answers. “I have to do something so you keep me around. Don’t want you thinking I’m boring.”
Shane huffs in his arms. “Not funny.”
“Little bit funny.”
Shane wriggles around to face him, eyes big and serious. “Not funny, Ilya. I fucking love you so much. So much.” He presses their foreheads together. “I need you. Okay?”
Ilya swallows. “Okay.” His voice is thick.
“I want you all the time.” Shane sounds bewildered by it, all at sea. The two of them, way out in the ocean, in the rolling waves.
Ilya kisses his brow, his freckled cheek, gathers him close and clutching. “Okay, sweetheart.”
☆
Ilya flops back onto Shane’s bed, arms flung out.
Shane is still puttering around the room, folding clothes, doing Shane things. They’d made it halfway up the stairs before Ilya had blown him; he can see the marks on his back from here, the sweet little scrapes.
He runs his hands over the blanket, texture unfamiliar under his palms, fingers catching in the stitches of the quilting, curling when he realises. This fucking thing.
He kicks it down to the end of the bed, shoving with his feet until its weight carries it sliding over the edge of the mattress and onto the floor.
Shane actually puts his hands on his hips, looking down at him. “What are you doing?”
“Too hot,” Ilya says. “Don’t need it. Come here.” He pouts, exaggerated, grabbing at the air until Shane comes to bed, dropping down right on top of Ilya.
“Oof,” Ilya says, “heavy,” but Shane doesn’t move off, stays steady on top of him, bearing him down into the bed. Neither of them say anything, the rhythm of their breaths slowly syncing, and Ilya feels a laxness come over him, a loosening, his hips somehow opening under Shane’s weight.
He screws his eyes closed. He’s fucking clinging, he knows, his arms tight around Shane’s waist. The warm skin of Shane’s back under his hand. Shane’s hand in his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp.
“Better?” Shane mumbles.
Ilya can’t speak. He nods, everywhere tingling, stars prickling behind his eyes.
☆