Archive of Our Own ^beta

In 2008, at the Prospects Cup in Saskatchewan, Canada, North America, Ilya Rozanov’s life comes into focus.

It is as if a mist of many years has cleared. Every color is brighter. Every sound is clearer. Sorrow is suddenly distant, a hazy spectre in the horizon.

The focus travels on the white surface of the ice, side to side, speedy. The epicenter of the Universe now wears red and black, is almost the same height as himself, has black hair, and freckled skin, and brown eyes that brim with pointless sincerity, and smells like something sweet, soft, velvety.

The epicenter of the Universe is fast, but Ilya’s fingers are faster. Pushing only the lens out of his pocket, he presses the button again, and again, and again.

He’s had some practice. As a kid, he loved birds, boring birds like pigeons and sparrows. As soon as his mother had gifted him a camera, he’d take pictures of birds until he couldn’t anymore, crying himself sick every time he’d run out of a reel. He was scolded. Film costs money, developing photos costs money, you see. He started combing the streets for coins, and doing small favors in school, and around the neighborhood.

Once his mother became very sick, and it became clear that she would die, he took many pictures of her, each and every cent of his turned to film. He had enough of them to cover the four walls, ceiling, and floor of his room.

His father had burned them all after the funeral. He’d taken his camera.

But Ilya earns his keep now, has been doing so since last year, and a shiny new camera, silver-colored and digital, travels in his pocket like an additional vital organ. It is stuffed full of pictures of the one named Shane Hollander.

In one of them, he has his back turned, and only the back of his hair is visible under the helmet. In the next, his face is turned, and his side profile comes into view. In the next, you can see his collarbones. In the next, his chin is up, and his eyes – his eyes are almost level with the lens, almost looking directly into the digital sensor.

It makes Ilya tremble, head to toe, something hot and electric invading his chest and the pit of his stomach. His teeth gnaw on the fabric of his hoodie, and his eyes follow his life as it glides on ice.

Shane Hollander. Shane Hollander. Shane Hollander.

He doesn’t print all of them at the same place. Not even in the same city. Five at a time, maximum. Another five, another five, and the stack takes space in his bag, wrapped in plastic and a rigid leather-bound file, for protection, under the shoes.

Shane Hollander is there, at the draft. Shane Hollander stands by his side. Shane Hollander looks unhappy, but the colors are bright and the sounds are clear, because he’s there.

For every step of distance between them, Ilya digs another thin line on the nail bed of his thumb, his index fingernail breaking the skin with ease. He doesn’t have his camera, because his father is here, and his father hates the camera. If he knew about the pictures, he’d kill Ilya.

He bites back a smile, and looks for Shane Hollander, digging another line.

Their eyes meet.

The world spins out of axis like a car without brakes. Heaven and Hell switch places, twice over, thrice over. Ilya feels the fury of God emerge from within his skin, punishing him for daring to look, and daring to want. It’s torture. It’s delicious. It feels like love.

Shane Hollander must be his. He must hold him in the palm of his hand, at any cost.

Once he’s back from the gym, sweaty, spent, echoes of Shane Hollander’s voice in his ears, images of Shane Hollander’s red and sweaty face behind his eyeballs, multiplying around itself like film exposed twice to the light, the sensation of Shane Hollander’s fingers on his, Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander, Shane—

Ilya falls to his knees, gasping for air. His heart beats out of his chest. He’s going to die.

His water bottle tries to roll away from him, and he grabs it desperately, falling to the carpet, as if it were his guts pouring out of his abdomen. His finger ghosts over the lid, threatening to touch the spot where—he’d tried, Ilya saw, he’d tried so valiantly not to touch the plastic, but his bottom lip had grazed a spot no bigger than an ant, and Ilya’s treacherous and sinful fingers threaten to rob those precious epithelial cells and traces of saliva for themselves.

No. No. His fingernail digs, and it draws blood. His mouth, voracious, takes its rightful place over the spot, around the surface graced by Shane Hollander’s breath, and his greedy lips and tongue savor each and every molecule of him. His blood runs so hot it sears his flesh, attempts to incinerate him from within, furious, merciless. He can’t stop. He shoves his bloody hand into his pants.

The camera in his pocket digs against his thigh as he burns to ashes on the hotel room floor.

Shane Hollander. Ilya will die by this man’s hands.

Life is as usual when he’s not around. Grey and blurry, both dull and sharp enough to cut. His father wants to kill him. His brother wants him dead. But he’s tied to life, braided into it, by the camera. When he finishes every dutifully tortuous phone call, he pulls out the camera, pulls out the prints.

Shane Hollander will be his. Shane Hollander will be his demise. Shane Hollander will bring upon the divine punishment to Ilya’s hubris, to his unyielding desire to possess life for himself.

Important adults make a deal with him, and he raises a condition – Shane Hollander must be there. There’s no point if he isn’t

He’s perfect. He’s beautiful. He’s warm. He’s unsure. He’s always looking down at his own shoes, and hides in corners when he’s not being called by the important people. He looks terrified. He looks mortally afraid that Ilya will pull him into his mouth and lock him within his teeth.

Their eyes meet, and Ilya burns. The pain is so much that he laughs. And Shane Hollander – he laughs too. It burns him to ashes again, and again, and again, and again, so, of course, Ilya can’t stop laughing, and neither can stop laughing, and they laugh and laugh.

Ilya thinks he has him. He thinks he’s lured him. He’s pulled him into his palm, and all that’s left is to close his fingers, and hold.

But he goes to the showers, and Hollander isn’t there.

He searches the bleachers. Hollander isn’t there.

He searches outside. Hollander isn’t there.

Furious, empty, and cold, Ilya storms the whole way back to his hotel room, smokes a cigarette after another after another, until he runs out, and looks at pictures until his battery dies.

Hockey is fucking dull.

The pain is fun, interesting. Inflicting it, receiving it. The speed is exciting. The game is dull, the numbers are dull. Having to sit down and wait is dull and grey and pointless. Winning feels nice. Hammering the puck past a goalie, as if stabbing him with a knife or driving a stake through his heart, feels good. His opponents are the dullest thing in the world.

But hockey has Shane Hollander.

When playing hockey, sometimes, Ilya has a chance to touch—to touch—Hollander. To bump into him, feel his heat and let it consume him to the bone. Look into his eyes and let them pry his soul off his body, little by little, tugging gently at the edges. He teases him, words as harsh as the ones he’d sometimes hurl at God for the audacity of stealing away his mother. He touches himself so carelessly and violently at the memory of Hollander’s eyes on him that his skin breaks and bleeds.

Hockey is his entire life.

In Montreal, Ilya forgets his lucky undershirt in the locker room. His team, a superstitious lot, threatens bodily harm on him if he doesn’t go get it. Right around the corner from the arena’s back exit, Ilya pulls the hood of his black hoodie up, tightens the strings, lights up a cigarette, and waits.

Pigeons are naïve, trusting animals, but sparrows are not. Sparrows can feel people approaching from kilometres away. Getting a clear photo of a sparrow is a victory. Following a sparrow to its nest is pure triumph.

A small group of Montreal players emerge from the building; being in their hometown, they aren’t in as much of a hurry as the visiting team to leave. Hollander trails one step and a half behind the back of the group, fiddling with something, probably his phone, and storing it back into his bag. He’s friendly to the others. He accepts a ride home from one of his seniors. Ilya wants to kill that man.

He can’t follow a car by foot, and there are no taxis around. He’s forced to leave, defeated, fingers bloody, camera hot against his palm.

Ilya buys a place in Boston. An apartment.

Two bedrooms. One of them, the realtor explains, can be turned into an office. Ilya buys a computer. Three screens, two hard disks, many flash drives. A printer.

Four walls, ceiling, floor. No, not on the floor. Ilya would kill any life form that dared step on Shane Hollander’s face, even a paper facsimile of it. He would tear their chest open with his bare hands. He buys a large metal cabinet with many drawers. He sleeps in the office as often as in the bedroom.

The next time he’s in Montreal, he rents a motorcycle. Black, quiet engine. Not his personal taste. This time, it’s his lucky socks he forgets in the lockers. He waits.

The team has a driver, a van. Ilya follows it all around town. Never too close. Sometimes he stops, watches it go. Gives it space.

It drops Hollander off. Ilya watches from a street corner down, behind a dumpster, where a street lamp is out of order. Hollander says goodbye to his teammates, enters the building, two windows facing Ilya’s waiting spot. The one on the left comes alight. The one on the right doesn’t.

Across the street, at Ilya’s side, there’s a new building. Three windows instead of two. No lights.

He buys an apartment. He also buys a new camera.

Grigori Rozanov is dying.

It’ll take a long time, Ilya realizes, sitting on the sofa, listening as he lectures him on discipline and steadfastness. He’s furious with Ilya for not bringing anything of value home. He wants to kill Ilya. But he’ll likely die before he can.

There are no trophies in his suitcase, but there’s a large camera, with an even larger zoom lens. Far too big for his pocket, so he still carries his old one around. When his father sends him to the kitchen for water, Ilya lingers at the doorway, and snaps a picture of the old man. He doesn’t even notice. Ilya smiles cruelly; it serves him right.

When he’s not working out, he’s with Svetlana. She also likes taking pictures. She takes pictures of people at the bars they visit, because the aperture in her camera goes insanely low. She also likes to take pictures through windows, of shops, cafés, of people’s houses and hotel suites.

Ilya doesn’t take pictures of strangers. He takes pictures of birds. He also gets into taking pictures of cats. There’s so many stray cats around Moscow, of every kind imaginable. Big cats, small cats, thin cats, fat cats. Cats with long fur that puffs out like a cloud, cats with balding spots. Cats missing an ear, missing their tail, missing an eye. Cats sleeping on trash cans, or on benches, cats sitting on windowsills, cats watching holes in the asphalt. One time, he photographs a cat walking atop a brick wall, black as night and slender, a spotted brown feather stuck to its jaw.

“Before we give our next award, can I get a selfie with you?”

The whole world is his to take. Shane Hollander is on the palm of his hand.

It had been his idea. He’d suggested it to someone, who passed the suggestion forward, and up. He’d convinced them to give him the opportunity to cage Hollander. Trap him within his lens.

Only, the stupid fucking phone is too small and useless. The camera doesn’t even capture the lines under his eyes. It doesn’t capture each individual black lash on his eyelids. It doesn’t capture even half of the beautiful constellation of freckles across his nose bridge.

The hand he presses to Hollander’s back aches so much and so sweetly that it feels like it’ll fall off. In the screen of his phone, Hollander looks absolutely terrified.

Once they’re off the stage, the professional veneer on Hollander’s face crumbles like sand. He dashes, stiff and on the edge of control, clumsily dodging people as he flees as fast as his legs can take him. Ilya gives him a headstart. He tries not to run, as he chases.

In his pocket, besides his phone and the camera, there’s a new device. An audio recorder. Digital, state-of-the-art. He’d bought it as soon as he’d gotten the gig, and, by now, it has one file in its memory — What? Alright, but hurry up. No chance. As he presses a finger to the bathroom door, opening it only slightly, he starts recording a second one.

Hollander is breathing hard enough to be a concern. He pants, coughs, every breath dragging a little bit of his voice out, thin like a breeze, high-pitched and shaky. In and out, in and out, inappropriately fast. Beyond the small opening, Ilya sees him bent over the sink, head almost touching the stone, knuckles white. The shutter in his pocket clicks, his canines snag at his lip. Hollander sounds about to collapse.

He walks into the bathroom. Hollander’s head snaps around like a whip. He’s pale as a sheet of paper, and utterly, completely terrified.

Ilya schools his expression into the haughty façade taught to him from childhood. He adds a dash of condescendence. “You okay?”

Hollander’s next breath is the shakiest. A pool of unshed tears glimmers in his eyes. He’s so pale he’s almost blue. He’s beautiful, so beautiful.

“I, uh,” he tries to speak. His voice shakes with each of his rabbit-quick heartbeats. “No, I. I’m. Fine.”

Ilya cocks his head to the side. So easy. “Is it no, or are you fine?”

“I’m,” and his voice stops, and he doesn’t answer. The hand in Ilya’s pocket taps the silver shell of the camera impatiently. He wants Hollander to talk. He doesn’t want to keep talking to make him talk. This audio recording shouldn’t have so much of him, it should be just Hollander’s voice, Hollander’s breathing.

But Ilya doesn’t want to see him so frail, so grey. He looks about to disappear.

“Breathe in,” he instructs, voice as quiet as possible. “Slow, through your nose. Until your lungs hurt.”

For a second, Hollander just stares at him, perfectly still. Completely still. Ilya thinks he might pass out, roll his eyes to the back of his skull and fall to the floor.

But no, he obeys. With some difficulty, he closes his mouth. His eyes dart to the ground as he pulls in a steady flow of oxygen, eyes fluttering closed halfway through. Ilya wants a picture so bad he could fucking die.

“Hold it in,” he says, quick, when he notices Hollander struggling. He obeys without question. He holds it in. Color comes back to his cheeks. He is so beautiful.

“Let it out through your mouth. Slow.” Saliva pools around Ilya’s gums as Hollander, once again, heeds to his words without question. Without as much as a look. With his eyes closed, tears pour from between his lashes, two streaks of brilliant light that drip to the line of his jaw. Water trickles down his nose. Ilya can no longer resist; he takes a picture. The shutter button makes a minute noise. “Do it again. You will calm down.”

Again, Hollander obeys. He breathes in, slow, holds it in, lets it go. Once, twice, more. Ilya breathes in, too, in an achingly slow pace so to be completely silent. He’s breathing the same air as Shane Hollander. Carbon dioxide is passing from Hollander’s lungs to his. You should be mine, he thinks of commanding, on the off chance Hollander will obey. You’re the center of my world and you should be all mine.

Hollander opens his eyes, and his knees buckle. Ilya rushes to catch him before he falls. His hands touch Hollander by the elbows. Mine.

“I’m fine,” he says in a musical whisper. “Thank you.”

He sniffles. He’s still crying copiously, completely silently. His eyes and lips glisten wet; his muscular body looks shrivelled and small. Ilya can’t begin to imagine how deep his fear for him must run.

“Why are you crying, Hollander?” He teases, cruel and terrible. His teeth sharp against his tongue. This is his chance. “Do you need hug?” He punctuates it with an exaggerated pout.

“Fuck you,” Hollander hisses, but he doesn’t pull away. Ilya holds him by the elbows, and his fingers grip at Ilya’s forearms, without a shadow of his real strength, which Ilya has memorized in every cell of his body. They still burn red, pulsating welts right under the surface of Ilya’s skin.

“Just for a while,” Ilya insists, the illusion of his nonchalance in perilous balance. His fingers pull at his elbows, ever-so-slight. “Count to five. It will help.”

Hollander shakes his head. In the following second, he looks up, and his eyes meet Ilya’s. Gravity rolls around them in cascades, loosening Ilya’s feet from the ground and his organs from within his bones. If he somehow persuades Hollander to…

Arms come to the back of Ilya’s neck. A head traces a path of moisture as it buries in black fabric, the chest of his rented tuxedo. Electricity shoots up from the ground, and Ilya’s brain goes haywire. He can’t close his eyes, he doesn’t want to close his eyes, but the room spins and spins and the weight of Shane Hollander against his chest pull him to the vortex, so his eyes roll back beyond his control as his consciousness starts to slip his grasp. His scalp prickles, a sharp, thin sting, like a mosquito bite, and he truly feels like he will die. He will die right there, in that moment. He’s held the whole world against his chest and now he will die.

But he falls back to Earth from the great heights of Heaven with a shove. His body stumbles, and his back, and the back of his head, hit the tile wall with a solid and freezing cold thump. His eyes fly open at the sensation of falling, only to catch the tails of Shane Hollander as he bolts out of the room, noisily fleeing down the hallway.

Outwardly, nothing changes between them.

Inwardly, Ilya’s whole world has burned to the ground, and bloomed to life once again. Shane Hollander has been in his arms. He is now Shane. My Shane. Mine.

In the rink, every slam of their bodies feels like their hug. Every turn of Shane’s eye looks like his tear-stained face, his moist lips and shallow breaths. On the ice, he is so steely, so sharp, a fearsome lightning bolt that razes his opponents to the ground, but he’d been a small creature, once, breathing because Ilya told him to, seeking refuge in his arms because he was told he could. He’d once been caught in Ilya’s trap.

When Montreal and Boston play each other, Ilya keeps losing things in the locker room – gloves, pads, socks, shirts, shorts, a pair of underwear. One time, he forgets his phone, and is really forced to retrieve it before rushing to the back exit to do his dance. If they’re in Boston, Ilya follows Shane to his hotel on a newly acquired black, quiet motorcycle of his own, used only for this purpose. He’s become an expert in finding vacant hotel rooms, or suspiciously underguarded rooftops, right across Shane’s window, wherever he stays.

If they’re in Montreal, Ilya will let Shane go, and take a shortcut to the apartment.

The apartment in Montreal is bare. A small fridge, a lamp on the ceiling, a sofa, pictures on the walls. A pair of blackout curtains, a tripod. Ilya only ever lights the lamp right when he arrives, to take a bite of some takeout or a sip from a canned drink from the fridge, to have a smoke, then fix the camera in place, lens fit snug in a gap between the two flaps of the curtain, and then turns it off before Shane is home. He has the duration of his wait memorized. Two minutes before the van arrives, he sets the camera up, with the ease of a second nature.

Shane has a lot of habits. He wears a lot of sponsored clothing – sponsored shoes, sponsored jackets, a fancy sponsored watch, all of which, of course, Ilya has bought two matching units of, one for display, since they don’t suit him enough to wear, and one for safekeeping – but he also has his favorite articles of clothing. A beige puffy jacket. A navy blue polo shirt. A pair of red shorts. A white baseball cap. Ilya catalogues them all. He puts pictures with similar clothing side to side on the walls.

And whether it’s in his apartment or in a hotel room, Shane has the same nighttime routine, which Ilya has, of course, memorized down to the second. He walks from the bedroom to the bathroom a certain amount of times, and takes a certain amount of minutes in each space. He spends a certain amount of hours reading in bed, and sometimes, after that, he watches TV. He does face masks, Ilya has noticed, and only keeps them on for the exact time recommended on the label. At the same hour every night, he closes the curtains.

When he doesn’t, Ilya notices, of course, with a rush of fire in his throat. With the weight of the sky pressing down on him.

Shane is moving at too fast of a pace, has been doing so since exiting the van, barely greeting his teammates, eyes glued to his phone. He seemed worried. He runs back and forth across the narrow window, many more times than he would usually do, pacing. Head low. He doesn’t do a face mask, and doesn’t turn the TV on. At intervals, he stays still, disappears from Ilya’s sight, as if trying to slip back into routine. Then, he’s pacing again. It’s hard to take good pictures.

When it’s time to close the curtains, he approaches the window with his phone in hands. That’s Ilya’s favorite part of his routine, because he gets to face Shane. He gets one second of a frontal view of Shane, as if standing right in front of him. It makes him drool in his mouth as his finger works the shutter.

Today, though, Shane is off-kilter. He comes to the window still looking at his phone, hands gripping on the windowsill with too much force, eyes shooting up, panicked, then side to side. Instead of closing the curtains, he opens the windows, and leans forward.

Ilya’s blood runs cold.

How fast can he run, in case Shane falls? Should he start now? He won’t allow the streets below to touch a single hairstrand, a single inch of his skin. Shane belongs to him.

But Shane doesn’t fall, doesn’t jump, doesn’t lean over too far – just enough to look. His head turns side to side. Ilya zooms in. His eyebrows are furrowed. He has his reading glasses on, and his mouth is scrunched up, as if in pain, in fear. His face is wet. Is it sweat, or is it tears? He looks beautiful. He looks breathtakingly mortal. He’s searching for something in the streets below him.

His eyes lift. They trace the windows in the building Ilya’s in. All lights are off; nobody ever moved into that building but Ilya. Good. He wouldn’t allow it. He zooms in a little more.

Shane’s lips are shiny with spit. He’s definitely crying. Ilya takes a picture, teartracks visible under the indirect light. He’s breathing hard, chest heaving. His knuckles are white on the windowsill. Whatever happened at that award show is happening again. Ilya takes a picture. Another. Another. Another. His fingernail punches into the flesh of his thumb with the same rhythm as the shutter. He can see Shane swallow, thick and dry, how his throat visibly bobs with the effort. Another, another, another. Ilya digs his nail in.

Shane’s eyes are on his phone again. He studies it, lips parted. He angles his body. He looks up.

His eyes look straight into Ilya’s through the camera lens. And stay.

The shutter goes as fast as it physically can, click, click, click, click, click, his index finger bruising in the shape of the button, a trickle of blood seeping into his black sweatpants, lip breaking under the weight of his teeth. Shane is still looking. Shane is looking straight ahead, right at him, at the very eye of the lens. His eyes are wide and puffy, lashes thickened with moisture. He is so beautiful. He is so beautiful. He is unimaginably, unimaginably beautiful.

Something in his expression changes. The panic dissolves. The fear fades out. He swallows again, fixing his posture. Ilya takes more pictures. More.

That night, when Shane pulls the curtains closed, he does it gently, carefully, as if scared. He pulls them closed, and turns off the light. The flaps of white, flimsy fabric sit half a centimeter apart, not quite meeting in the middle.

The important people at his team’s administrative sector advise him to move. They call him in for a serious talk about security, about the woes of fame, about the dangers of being desirable, about the importance of gates and electronic locks and whatnot. About how some people, some fans, might not have enough self-control to love him safely. About how easy it is to cross a line.

Ilya pities those people. Self-control is strength, and this world is cruel to the weak. He agrees to move into a fancy house, with high-tech electronic locks and security cameras, and alarms, which he disarms with ease as soon as he moves in.

He doesn’t allow the moving company into the office, so Svetlana comes over to help. She doesn’t touch a single photo of Shane until it’s stored away and protected by cardboard and lining paper. She understands. That’s why Ilya loves her.

“These are beautiful,” she comments once they’re up on the wall of Ilya’s new office, a spacious, windowless room, probably built to be a luxurious pantry. She’s looking, of course, at the ones taken in Montreal, of Shane at the window, looking at the camera as if posing for a portrait.

Ilya feels an itch to tell her to stop looking. Shane’s eyes belong to him. But he notices she’s not quite looking at the one where he’s staring at the camera, and is, instead, admiring the ones he’s walking behind the glass, his side profile blurry. That’s more Sveta’s style.

“Does he know?” She asks, signaling the ‘portrait’ when Ilya looks at her inquisitively. It’s printed a little larger than the others.

“Why would he know?” Ilya asks back.

Svetlana shrugs. “He looks scared,” she says sweetily, sympathetic. “And he’s looking right at you.”

It’s true. Shane Hollander is unmistakably looking at him in that picture. His brown eyes are on Ilya. Unmistakably.

“He’s always scared,” he comments dismissively, but there’s a storm of fire in the pit of his belly. His fingernail digs.

“Are you fine with just taking pictures?” She asks, arms crossed, hip cocked to the side as she looks around, at the file cabinet, at the disassembled computer at the desk.

Ilya touches her shoulder softly to guide her outside. That’s enough of her looking; he can do the rest later. He doesn’t answer her question. “What will you eat for dinner?” He asks, but he could’ve asked, instead, Who would be?

Shane Hollander is in his team for All Stars.

Everyone is happy about it. Everyone is celebrating. The whole wide world is festive about it, in Ilya’s eyes. There should be festivals, there should be holidays. He will miss the pain of standing in Shane Hollander’s path of destruction for every second of the event, but it is worth it. It is a worthy sacrifice to have him within reach.

There are press conferences. Shane looks livid in each and every one of them, a white-hot light within his pupils. Ilya takes as many pictures as he possibly can. They don’t turn out so good. Ilya records his answers in the pressers, in the team meetings. Those turn out fantastic.

However, Shane eludes him at the hotel. He’s not in his room, which had been a hassle to find and an even bigger hassle to figure out a vantage point for. He’s not at the pool, which is a tragedy. He’s not at the bar. Ilya looks for him everywhere, under the guise of touring this beautiful, idyllic resort, unlit cigarette behind his ear, his hands in his pockets, one clutching the camera, the other slashing angrily at his own fingers.

But he has sharp eyes. Pigeons are large, ostentatious birds, but sparrows are small. Sparrows can be hard to spot before they flee. Ilya would know, and he has practice.

From around the bend of a marble pillar, coming back from the restroom area, Ilya watches Shane walk into the bar. His clothes are, at first glance, mismatched, but Ilya recognizes each piece: the navy blue polo shirt, a pair of light wash jeans, a thin black belt with a black steel buckle. The sponsored watch, the sponsored shoes. Only the socks are unfamiliar.

He’s, at first, looking at his phone, then all around, antsy and agitated. His brows are furrowed. He looks around again. He takes a seat at the bar; the exact same spot where Ilya had been sitting earlier. Ilya’s heart jumps. Shane orders a beer, a beer! Which he only ever drinks on very special occasions. Ilya can count on one hand how many times he’s caught Shane drinking anything that is not water, ginger ale, or something sponsored. Moreover, the beer he orders is exactly the same brand as the one Ilya had been drinking. His bottle is still at the table, half-finished, out of Shane’s sight. Shane is so his. Shane belongs to him so much, so certainly, without even knowing.

Feeling cruel, Ilya moves from his hiding spot. With measured, silent steps, he approaches Shane from a blind spot. “Hello.”

Shane jumps in fright with such clatter that most people in the room turn to look at them. The air stands still.

Hockey players are the first to turn away – oh, Hollander and Rozanov. You know how they are… – and the other guests follow once it’s clear there’s no immediate threat. Shane is red like a tomato, like liquid glass against a flame. He is so deliciously beautiful.

The bartender brings Shane his beer, uncaps it and leaves it there for him to enjoy. Ilya points at it with a nod. “Didn’t know you drink.”

“Rozanov,” Shane says it like an accusation, in a single rush of air. “You scared me.”

“Was unintentional. Forgive me.” Sparks fly on the surface of his skin. He takes the seat right next to Shane, body facing him fully. “You shouldn’t be so scared of me. I’m nice.”

“Yeah, sure,” Shane snorts, bringing the beer bottle to his lips like someone is forcing him to. He drinks in tiny, reluctant sips, eyes shooting around in sharp lines as if looking for something to talk about. He finds it, and separates from the bottle to say, “Is that your phone?”

Ilya follows his gaze. Why, indeed, right next to his half-finished bottle… “Yes. I was using this seat, you see.”

“That one?” Shane points at him.

“That one,” Ilya corrects, pointing back. “Are you enjoying my, ah, body heat?”

Shane chokes and sputters, again, loudly, attracting attention. He puts the bottle down to cough. His face is so red. He’s so—

“I guess I should give you my number,” Ilya tries to keep cool, tries to put the icy front coded into his father’s genes, but he hears his own voice come out like syrup. He leans his face onto his palm, willing, at least, that his lips won’t smile too stupidly, that his teeth won’t show. “As an award for finding my phone.”

“A reward,” Shane corrects, voice still choked. Sweet enough to eat.

“Same thing, yeah.” He reaches out his hand. Come, he says. Step in. I won’t hurt you. Climb into my palm. “Phone, please?”

And maybe it is the please, the manners, that become his saving grace. Shane should punish him for his audacity, his hubris, should tell him to fuck off and send him to hell, but he doesn’t. He stares. His incredulous brown eyes, with the minute trembling of his parted lips as he sucks in a breath, set him ablaze, but it’s not hellish. It’s sweet, so sweet.

Shane yields, docile. He fishes his phone from his pocket and places it onto Ilya’s palms. Warm. His fingers brush against Ilya’s. His skin leaves traces on Ilya’s own.

Ilya easily unlocks the phone to find the dial screen. He thinks of telling Shane about security and the woes of fame. He dials his own number, and calls. His own phone vibrates against the bartop.

He picks it up. “Hello?” He says into the speaker, handing Shane’s phone back with a wink and a flash of his canines. “Mr. Hollander? Are you there?”

Shane Hollander looks about to be sick. Pale as the moon, shaking, sweat forming on his forehead. He takes the device as if it’s an active bomb. He doesn’t put it to his ear. He doesn’t answer. The phone slips from his shaky grip, and falls to the ground with horrible clatter.

“Shit,” Shane breathes out. “Shit. Fuck.” He dips to the ground. Ilya watches, his kneeling figure framed between Ilya’s thighs. Ilya’s whole body boils. “Oh, it’s broken.”

Ilya hangs up the call, setting his jaw. His throat is dry to the point of cracking. “That’s unlucky.”

“I’m gonna have to—I have to fix it, I better do it,” he sways when he gets up, as if about to faint. Pale enough to be translucent. “Sorry, I gotta fix this. Thank you. Uh, see you at the game. At practice. See you on the ice.”

And before Ilya can even say the ‘S’ in ‘See you later’, or the ‘S’ in ‘Shane’, he’s collecting his things, the phone, his bottle of beer, and dashing out of the bar, somehow managing to dodge every person and every piece of furniture in his way.

Only, in his rush, he grabs the wrong bottle. His own beer, icy cold and almost full, stays behind. Ilya’s bottle, half-finished and warm, by now, is gone.

Ilya could laugh. He wants to laugh out loud, every nerve of his body exploding in fireworks. He seizes the bottle immediately and takes a sip, wrapping his lips around the glass, tongue lapping every single trace of Shane Hollander right into his mouth.

Grigori Rozanov is dead.

Into his grave, as fragrant black dirt pours in, Ilya lets a piece of paper fall. It flutters down, and falls right side up, glossy, facing the dull grey sun behind clouds. It is a photo of the old man, shriveled and senile, sitting on his favorite chair, colorless eyes staring out of a window. A grey pigeon sits beyond the glass, facing inwards, as if watching over him.

Dirt covers the photograph. Ilya smiles. It serves him right.

Alexei, Ilya’s brother, has changed in recent times. He is quieter now, and he looks afraid. He looks at Ilya with almost as much fear as Shane Hollander does. Ilya has never told him no, but he has stopped asking for things, for money or repentance. Called less and less, until stopping altogether. He looks worn out.

In a private room, during lunch, right after the burial, Ilya puts a wad of cash on the edge of a table. Alexei looks at it as if it’ll blow the building to bits.

“I owe you this much,” Ilya says simply.

“Fuck you,” Alexei responds, voice trembling. “Fuck you and fuck off. Stay away. Stay away from my family and never come back.”

My family. There’s lines on the sand now.

“Take this, at least.” He doesn’t know why Alexei is so afraid. He had never liked Ilya, though he’d never given a reason. As a child, he avoided his younger brother like a disease, hid him from strangers like a patch of black mold on the wall. Now, he won’t even take his money. “Buy my niece a camera.”

Alexei’s eyes flash with fire.

Ilya leaves the cash behind as he walks out. He leaves the building without looking back.

With his father dead and his brother scared, Ilya doesn’t feel the need to keep coming back to Moscow. He’ll miss the birds and the cats, but there’s somewhere else he wants to go. There’s somewhere he has to visit, and the mere thought of preparing the visit fills his veins with electricity.

Somewhere in his computer, in a flash drive, and in his collection of DVDs, sits a video of Shane Hollander recorded from the TV. It sits side by side with all his commercials, his interviews, news segments about him, documentaries about his career. This video is all about Shane Hollander’s routine, but not the one he keeps at his apartment, in Montreal, or in hotel rooms; the one he keeps at his own home, his cottage in the woods, built to his preferences and around his needs, the sanctuary of his soul.

It’d taken Ilya extensive research, but he’d found it. He found the location of the cottage in a map, a modern, digital map, with satellite images, beyond reasonable doubt. He’d researched the way, how to get there, by car, by bus, by plane. He’d sworn himself that, as soon as he’d won the battle against his poor old father, he’d go there instead of Russia. He would peer into the last uncovered part of Shane Hollander in order to possess him entirely, and he’d carry it with him, in his hand, in his lens, caged in his ribs.

He bids goodbye to his hometown. A black cat crosses his path.

His return to America is dreadfully dull. He almost misses his flight. Almost loses his suitcase, camera and all inside. His phone keeps ringing, so insistent that he picks up, once or twice, to complete silence on the other end. The flight is long and dull. He can’t wait for it to be over, to be back, to have a home game against Montreal in all but a few hours after he touches down, to see Shane, to challenge the storm that is Shane on the ice to a battle for survival, and to watch him through the hotel window.

He is so exhausted when he arrives, and so ready for the game, that he barely registers the fact that the fancy high-tech lock to his house has been hijacked, and rather elegantly so. He only realizes something is wrong when the visor refuses to light up, and then notices the buttons are askew, the tiny metal screw is missing from its place. The casing is two or three degrees off to the left. The door is locked and the lock is dead to the world.

Without as much as a frown, Ilya walks to the small garden at the entrance, kicks a specific potted plant down, and retrieves his spare key from underneath it. It slides in, twists smoothly, and the door opens, like any other door would. Faintly, he wonders if the security cameras caught who did this. He realizes he doesn’t care. He’s not even sure the cameras still work.

Ilya is going to kill Cliff Marleau.

If it weren’t for his instincts, and if he weren’t so quick on his skates – he doesn’t want to imagine what could’ve happened. Thinking about it makes him want to slice Marleau open and fill every gash with broken glass.

Something had been unusual about Shane from the very start. Instead of his usual hawk-sharp gaze, there was a mellow something about his eyes. They reminded Ilya of his tears at the award show, and at his window, in Montreal, even more than usual. He met Ilya’s gaze for a second too long. He didn’t look afraid.

In his mellowness, Shane is distracted. He doesn’t see Marleau coming. Even if he turned around, it would’ve been too late.

But Ilya sees it, so he isn’t too late.

He slams Shane out of the way, and takes the hit. His body splats against the barrier, back of his head hitting the acrylic with a zing!, and his knees buckle, but he stays on his feet. It feels good, but he’s too worried to enjoy it. He needs to know if Shane is alright.

“Rozanov! Fuck!” Marleau rushes back towards him. “You good?”

Ilya waves him off like a bug. Ungluing his aching body from the barrier, he skates over to where Shane is, one knee on the ice, breathing heavily.

“Hurt?” He asks Shane, lungs aching with each breath.

Shane looks at him for all but a second before biting a glove off and grabbing him by the collar with violence. Then, that same hand is on his jaw, gripping with enough force to make Ilya’s brain explode into stars.

“Are you?” He asks, voice rough, as an agitated mass of players from both teams close down on them, certain that there’s about to be a fight. His eyes flay Ilya alive, pupils constricted, shaking as if he’s possessed. One of his teammates forces his hand off Ilya’s face, and Ilya watches as it retracts, coated in red.

Ilya is bleeding. His nose is bleeding. And now Shane Hollander’s hand is covered in his blood.

“I’m fine!” From the eye of the storm, above the insults and threats being hurled from one side to the other, Ilya reassures everyone who may care, anyone who may hear, like he’s trying to tell the whole continent. Like he’s screaming from the top of a mountain, for the world to hear, that he’s fine, and he’s whole, and he’s never felt happiness like this before. He smiles so wide his face threatens to tear in half. “I’m fine! Let’s play the fucking game!”

It takes a while and a lot of work from the refs to disperse the mess and clear the air, with some innocent casualties involved, but Ilya doesn’t mind. He’s a being of pure joy. He laughs, he could even float to the ceiling. His face is covered in blood, and it feels amazing. When he looks across the ice, Shane Hollander doesn’t look scared – he looks furious. He looks like he wants the fight. He looks like he wants to put his hands on Ilya.

His hands. Ilya stares at them, and, after a moment, Shane follows his gaze, and looks down at his gloveless hand, still painted with blood. He looks at it as if seeing it for the first time. He studies it in silence and stillness, across the ice.

Then, he puts the glove back on without wiping it clean. And he plays the entire game like this.

It’s a tough game, but Boston wins. Ilya feels like a god. Like he’s finally been accepted into Heaven. Like nothing could ever touch him, like no degree of pain could ever kill him, like nothing could ever drain the color from his world, ever again.

Only, there is one problem.

He’s not allowed in the lockers after the game.

As soon as he’s off the ice, he’s rushed to a hospital by his team’s staff. He’s shoved into someone’s car, and driven away against his will, protesting, the entire time, explaining that he’s fine, how could he not be fine? He fucking won, and Shane Hollander was his, why wouldn’t he be fine? Did you not see the blood?

But he convinces no one, and he’s confined to white sterile room after white sterile room, examined in every way, gets his nose checked for a fracture, his head checked for a concussion, his torso checked for anything out of place. It’s a negative to all three. Of course. He’s untouchable. Didn’t he tell you he was fine?

The staff contigent that forced him through this torture doesn’t drive him back to the arena. They have all his things, so they drive him home, drop him off at his front gate. He doesn’t even fucking know what hotel Shane is in, and now he can’t find out.

Whatever happiness he’d experienced earlier crumbles to dust. The entire world crumbles to dust. Shane Hollander had just evaded his grasp for the night, this rare night, a night he waits months, the whole year, for his next fix of. He’d grabbed a piece of Ilya and vanished.

He is so profoundly unhappy when he gets home that, upon finding his spare key gone from the usual spot and his front door unlocked, he barely even pauses. He gives it a second thought only after swinging it open, finding the usual quiet of his home unsettling. Wrong, in a way that’s hard to define.

He stalls at the entrance, frowning, trying to think. What should he do? There’s probably someone inside his house, somewhere. That should probably cause some worry.

Suddenly, he thinks of the office. He thinks of someone, faceless and clad in shadows, desecrating that space. Seeing the pictures. Touching—

He slams the door shut, and barges his way in, cutting through space like a falling comet. If whoever’s inside does anything to that room, if they dare to even step foot within it, Ilya will kill them. He will maim their fucking body with his teeth.

He storms into the office – the door is closed, the key is outside, just as he left it – and locks himself inside, twisting the key viciously in the trustworthy lock. One of his computer screens glows pale white in the dark; it’s been running for days, since before him leaving for Russia, burning DVDs. The faint glow paints every corner of the room with light, the many, many, many silhouettes of Shane Hollander on his walls. His Shane. The room is empty.

He lets out a breath, cold and stale, and lets his body slide to the floor. His head aches. He’d never allow himself to smoke in that room, so he digs lines with his nail to calm down. There’s barely any space on his thumb anymore.

His phone rings.

He remembers the airport in Moscow; the constant ringing, the unknown number on the screen. He wonders if it’s the same number. He wonders if it’s the same person who disassembled his lock.

He picks up.

“Hello,” he says into the phone. “Rozanov speaking.” A pause. “Are you inside my house right now?”

Silence. Ilya closes his eyes. Faint, faint enough to be his imagination, he thinks he hears breathing on the other side.

“Maybe it’s not you?” He wonders, voice low. He shifts until he’s sitting with his back against the wall, comfortable, watching the gap between the door and the floor. “If it’s you, you shouldn’t worry. I’m not angry. Okay?”

It could be breathing. It could be just static, just an interference in the call.

“Is this your thing? You like to listen?” He teases, cocking his head to the side. “I wonder if there’s a thief in my house, or if it’s just you. Are you looking for me?” He pauses to listen for steps. Nothing. “Keep looking.” He watches the gap. Nothing. “You’re cold.”

The house is quiet, too, still, and there’s something in the silence. It is not the usual hollow quiet that comes with living alone. Sparrows can feel people approaching from kilometres away.

“Cold,” he repeats, lips curling around the sound, mocking. “Come on. It’s not a big house.”

Is it a hand on the wall that he hears? Is it the air shifting around a moving body? Is it steps, muted against the carpet and wood? The call, too, remains silent, but what’s there to doubt about there being someone listening? Who would’ve called, and to what end, if not to listen?

He watches the gap.

A shadow passes. Another follows. A pair of feet.

They come back, and stay. Stand at the door.

Ilya smiles. “A-ha,” he singsongs, barely above a whisper. “You found me.” His satisfaction is genuine. “And I found you.”

The shadows aren’t still. They shift slightly in place, alive. Through the phone, Ilya hears, unmistakably, a shuddering breath being sucked in.

“You’re so good at chasing,” he compliments, watching the movement at the door gap. “Very quiet. Good job.”

Instinctively, his eyes shoot up to the door handle. He watches as it tilts, soundless and slow, so slow that it could’ve been his imagination, until the handle finishes turning and the lock clicks with sturdy resistance.

“Hm, I wouldn’t do that if I was you.” Ilya gets to his feet, and walks away from the door, eyes busying himself with admiring the photos on the walls. Though it is dark, he knows them by memory. “You can go anywhere in the house, just not this room. Okay? Do you know about Bluebeard?”

The breathing is more obvious now, as if Ilya is finally attuned to its frequency. Rapid and shallow. Telling of excitement. Or fear. Or both.

“I’m probably not the man you think I am,” he warns, walking along the walls. Fingers tracing each picture. On this particular wall, the pictures of Shane lifting the Stanley Cup stand out – he’d been in the crowd both times, with his good camera, hair tucked under a beanie and face mask over his mouth and nose. The opponent’s jersey on his body, and two HOLLANDER – 24 jerseys, folded and wrapped, in his bag. One for display, one for safekeeping. “I have a person in my heart already, and I am not nice about it. I bite,” he adds in a whisper, and hears a gasp on the other side, poorly contained. “I care about him, and no one else. Unless you’re here to steal, you should leave.”

The sounds on the call go louder, impossible to hide. Hitched breaths. Shaky. Thin. Erratic. Tracing the silhouette of Shane entering an ice cream shop in Sochi, Russia, Ilya idly wonders if the person on the line is touching themselves. It wouldn’t be so odd. Hadn’t he done something similar so many times, finger on the shutter, fire revolving in his lower belly, torturing him until he seeks release? He feels kinship with this poor creature beyond the door. This world really isn’t kind to the weak.

“I’ll give you time,” he kindly concedes, voice drawling in a way he knows is attractive. A consolation prize. “I don’t mind being here until morning. But in the morning, I’ll go out and find you. What will happen then… hm, I’m not sure yet. But I will decide. This is our deal, okay?”

He walks over to the extra bed he keeps in the office, and makes himself comfortable. Some of his best shots are on the ceiling. The one from the award show, of Shane in a black tuxedo, eyes closed, tears falling, is right above the bed. He exhales, body finally relaxing.

“I will hang up now, and turn off my phone.” He’d like some time alone, after all. “Have fun. Goodnight.”

There’s no one in the house in the morning. Ilya checks, leisurely, every room and every corner. Even under the tables and couch. Under the bed, inside the closet.

The front door is unlocked, spare key in the key hole. Nothing seems to be missing. The only difference Ilya notices is that his ashtray, previously half full, is now empty and clean.

Also, there’s a piece of tape, wide and transparent, stuck to his fridge. On it, scribbled in black ink, letters bold and slanted, are the words, I’M SORRY.

Ilya considers it settled. He doesn’t bother to check the security footage. The key to the office now goes in the same chain as his mother’s crucifix, and the door stays locked.

He’s in Montreal again by next week, smoking by the window, waiting. Boston had won the game and eliminated the Metros from the playoffs. Shane had looked at him, from start to finish, like he wanted to cut his throat and hang him from the ceiling to bleed him dry. Like he wanted to skate right through his body and slice him in half. It felt amazing. It felt like love. Ilya wondered, over and over again, if any traces of his blood could still be found in the indents of Shane’s palm, in the valleys of his fingerprints, and that thought put him in a mighty good mood. He’d smile every time their eyes met.

Now, he’s by the window, camera set, and the van is pulling up to the entrance of Shane’s building. Today, Shane is wearing his favorite jacket, and the same jeans he’d worn to the All Stars event, when he broke his phone and accidentally stole Ilya’s beer. He’s glancing down at his phone when he bids goodbye to his teammates; Ilya zooms in, and notices that his new phone is the same model as the one he’d broken then. A man of habit.

He walks into the building. The van leaves. Ilya angles his camera, eye on the viewfinder, waiting for the light in Shane’s apartment to come on.

It doesn’t.

There’s movement in the street, and Ilya, instinctively, angles the camera back down. It’s Shane. He’s stormed out of the door, glancing side to side, urgency to his posture. It’s happening again. He’s looking for something, in a panic.

Ilya zooms in, trying to read his expression, but he shoots out of frame. Frowning, Ilya zooms out to look for him.

He’s gone.

He’s nowhere to be found in the street below. It’s empty, completely deserted. The light to his apartment remains off. Ilya counts to ten, each second marked on his skin, and it remains off.

Where the fuck did he go?

Something cold trickles down Ilya’s spine.

Sparrows can feel people approaching from kilometres away, and flee at the slightest movement. Pigeons, on the other hand, don’t take flight unless there’s immediate threat. Sometimes, they’ll only fly if stomped at, or if they feel a cat nearby. Sometimes, they approach people of their own volition, watching them behind closed windows.

There’s a knock on his door.

Ilya’s mouth waters.

He throws the spent cigarette stump in the ashtray, and gets up, steps slow and deliberate, not desperate. Hands in his pockets. For once, his silver-colored camera isn’t there. It lies on the sofa, lens down, charging.

Another knock. Ilya’s hand is on the key. His throat aches with thirst as he turns it, and turns the knob, and lets the door fall open, letting in the faint yellow light from the stairs’ motion-sensitive reflector.

There he is. Shane Hollander, at his doorstep.

He’s clutching his phone to his chest, and his cheeks are flushed red. His pink lips are parted, trembling around every exhale. His eyes are on Ilya’s own, wide – no longer plotting to kill him, but not afraid either. Wide and brown, vivid.

Ilya leans against the doorframe with a smile and an arrogant curve to his lip. Behind him, the apartment is still dark. “Hello.”

Shane takes one breath before replying. “Hey.” He says. “You’re here.” He sounds… surprised, but not enough. Like he’s meeting a long lost childhood friend at a grocery store. He signals the apartment with his head. “You… live here?”

Ilya shakes his head. “Not really.” Then, steps to the side. “Come in.”

Shane does as told. He comes in. Ilya shuts the door, silently turning the key in the lock. Then, he walks to the kitchen area, and opens the fridge. “You can turn on the lights,” he instructs.

As he kneels down into the pool of pale light from the fridge, retrieving two cans of a brand of sparkling water Shane had an ad with last year, the lights in the apartment come on. He smiles.

The place isn’t too big, surely much smaller than Shane’s own. Thicker walls, lower ceilings. The kitchen is separated from the living room by a modest black counter, and the living room itself is rather small. As sparsely decorated as ever. A lamp on the ceiling. A sofa. Blackout curtains, drawn shut. Pictures on the walls.

Shane Hollander now stands in the middle of that room. His back is turned to Ilya, clueless. His jacket is still on. He stares at the walls. Side to side, in silence.

At first, Ilya watches, studying him intensely, chest burning and rumbling with anticipation. He’d once thought Shane had fallen into his trap by hugging him, for a count of five, in a public bathroom. It can’t compare to this. The memory is a loose wire to a thunderstorm.

When Shane approaches the window, Ilya follows, drinks forgotten on the countertop. He keeps the distance, and his steps are quiet. His eyes don’t leave the back of Shane’s neck as he looks at the camera, then the curtains. With a single finger, he carefully parts the flaps, and peers through. Finds his own window right across the glass, no doubt.

Ilya reaches out a hand, and touches his shoulder.

He feels the jump of his flesh under the jacket. He sees the goosebumps bloom on the back of his neck – beautiful, delectable, he wants nothing else from the world but a taste of that milky, fragrant patch of skin – and hears his breath start to run ragged. Slowly, shaking, Shane turns around.

Ilya had expected fear. He’d expected Shane to look frightened, green in the face, tearful, like he’d been every time Ilya got too close. He’d expected him to look like he’d vanish into thin air if it meant getting away from Ilya’s grasp. He’d expected his moist brown eyes to accuse – you’re disgusting. You’re terrifying. Something is wrong with you. Fuck you. Fuck off. Get away. Get away.

No.

Shane’s eyes are half-lidded. Mellow. There’s color on his cheeks, so much of it, red, pink, galaxies of light brown. Even his lips are flushed, slick with saliva. Trembling with each breath, now even more ragged and louder.

The corners of those lips curl up in a smile. He must see something funny in Ilya’s eyes. He must see something he likes.

In fluid, silent motion, like a cat jumping from a wall to the ground, Shane Hollander takes both hands to Ilya’s face, pulls him in, and devours him.

Ilya dies.

Rather, he blacks out.

When he comes to, he’s, thankfully, not in a heap of limbs on the ground. He’s on top of Shane Hollander, pinning him against the sofa, one hand around his neck, pushing down, the other on the back of his thigh, pulling in. His lips are locked with Shane’s own, tongues entwined, wet, hungry sounds emerging with each motion, echoing loud. Shane is arching his spine in intervals, pushing his chest, then his hips, against Ilya’s own, as if trying to crawl into his skin. His hands are fisting Ilya’s hair with enough force to tear his scalp open.

Ilya had been born on this Earth, in this body, with the sole purpose of doing what he’s doing now. His hands have been crafted by God to touch Shane Hollander’s body. His mouth, to kiss Shane Hollander’s mouth, to taste Shane Hollander’s skin. His eyes, to behold Shane Hollander’s face as he parts for air, flushed, inconceivably beautiful, eyes begging for more and more and more.

He has no idea what in that room had enticed Shane so, but he has no urgency in finding out now. Shane’s desire is real, unmistakable, his dick pressing against Ilya’s hipbone, swollen and searingly hot behind its textile confines. It is Ilya’s divine duty to give him what he wants. To repay him for being his reason to live, by all means necessary.

The hand Ilya has around Shane’s neck loosens, and his fingers come up to caress his freckled cheeks. Shane lets go, too, of his hair, fingers going lax, and one of his hands comes down to meet Ilya’s own, guiding it towards his lips. He pulls Ilya’s thumb into his mouth, wraps his tongue around it, and sucks. The sting of saliva against the open wounds makes Ilya see stars, tears a groan off his throat by force.

Shane suckles on the finger contently, eyes fluttering closed, teeth grazing gently against the very tip. When he’s had his fill, he looks up at Ilya with his eyes of molten copper, and whispers, “Come over to mine?”

It takes Ilya a moment, the wires in his brain crossed. Sinfully, he makes Shane repeat himself.

“My apartment,” he says, voice a little louder now. “Across the street. Come over.”

They leave Ilya’s hideout as is, drinks untouched on the counter, and cross the street. Shane pulls Ilya by the arm as if dragging him by force.

The climb up the stairs, and walk from the front door to the bedroom, is a blur of movement and touches and kisses and moans. Ilya curses himself for only having one pair of hands, one pair of arms, when there’s so much of Shane to touch. He curses how small his human mouth is, and how dull his human teeth are, when there’s so much of Shane to savour.

Shane’s bedroom looks completely different from inside. Three dimensional and new in its familiar blue linens, the sleek and modern bedside lamp, the small shelves with discreet trinkets on the wall. He staggers in surprise when he spots something he’s never seen before; in a corner by the bed, a perfect blind spot from outside, there’s an L-shaped desk, flanked on each side by matching dressers, large shelves on the wall above it. Those, too, are adorned with memorabilia, but odd-looking ones. Large jars, wooden boxes, small porcelain chests…

With a shove to his chest, Ilya falls back onto the mattress, and his attention is back on Shane. Shane, however, doesn’t climb on the bed with him.

“Just a second,” he says, voice hurried, hands searching his pockets. “I’ll be right back. Wait here.”

He walks around the bed, right to the desk, which Ilya now has his back turned to. That doesn’t stop him from looking, of course; propping himself on his elbows and hanging his head back, he watches, upside down, as Shane retrieves a large glass jar from a shelf, one that seems to contain a tangled mass of finely spun gold, or brass. Shane takes off its lid, and opens his palm over the jar, shaking slightly. Then, he closes it, and puts it back in place.

Next, he retrieves another jar, this one wrapped in thick white cloth, towel-like. He unwraps it, releasing a pungent, acrid smell into the room – Ilya can see the telltale signs of him crinkling his nose, even from behind – and lets the fabric fall to undo the lid. This jar, as large as the other, is full of cigarette stumps, another of which Shane retrieves from his pocket and drops in. The brand is immediately familiar to Ilya.

Lid back on, the jar is re-wrapped with practised agility, and put back on the shelf. Next, Shane starts removing his shirt.

Ilya flips onto his stomach in one swift motion. That’s not a sight to take in while upside down.

Strangely, underneath the plain white shirt that Ilya has seen often enough to memorize its cut and grain, Shane is wearing a tanktop. Black, thin, deep-cut, slightly large for his frame. The sight makes Ilya’s eyes widen, his throat tighten, his jaw to drop. Shane removes the tanktop with reverence, folding it carefully into a neat square, pulling open one of the many drawers in the dressers, and carefully encasing the piece of clothing in a transparent—what is that? A bag? A flexible box? Before storing it inside, and closing the drawer.

Most puzzlingly, he puts the white shirt back on.

Ilya laughs heartily. Shane jolts.

“Giving me something to unwrap,” Ilya comments, biting his lips. “You’re so nice to me.”

“You weren’t supposed to see that,” Shane murmurs, surely intending to scold him, but there’s a faint shadow of a smile on his lips, and his eyes…

Ilya raises his hands in surrender, a playful grin on his lips, and flips on the mattress again, back on his back. Showing off for Shane. See? I know what you want. I know how you want me. I know everything about you.

He beckons Shane with his fingers. Watches how the gesture affects Shane, fists balled tight, eyes alight. Smiling with every tooth, Ilya lifts his own shirt, exposing his stomach, his guts, the soft skin of his belly, every vital organ, out in the open, on display for Shane’s eyes only.

“Come here,” he calls, voice like butter on a hot pan.

Shane climbs on the bed with hurry, without grace, a famished beast presented with a meal.

It’s the genesis of a whole new world. When sunlight kisses Ilya’s eyes awake, in the following morning, it does not pour from the same sky as yesterday. The birds that sing outside are not the same as yesterday. The world has changed, atom by atom, died and transformed, rebirthed into something new. It is no longer Ilya himself, alone, who has changed. It is everything. The very fabric of reality.

He’s not only held Shane Hollander in his arms – he’s not only had Shane’s lips on his own – not only touched Shane’s body, made him moan, made his body contort in pleasure, crying as if in pain – he’d been inside Shane Hollander, as close as two human beings could ever be. Holding him flush against his chest, locked together by the neck, as if trying to feed him to his flesh and bones.

He’ll never know pleasure like that again. Just thinking about it, mind hazy and tired and utterly sated, makes his pulse jump to action. He wishes he could capture the feeling in a photo, but it’s impossible. It wouldn’t even be close to being the same.

He feels a touch to his hand. A line of cold, sharp metal.

He cracks one eye open, frowning slightly, tilting his head. Shane meets his gaze, eyes limpid and aware, even a little wide, surprised. He lies naked, on his stomach, the pale expanse of his body tempting like dessert. One of his hands holds Ilya’s own, lifting his index finger slightly. The other holds a small object to the sharp fingernail – a pair of very small scissors, Ilya realizes.

He’s frozen in place like a paused frame. Ilya can almost see inside his head, the cogs turning, his search for words. Obtaining Shane Hollander has given him supernatural abilities. He smiles, fond.

“Go ahead,” he encourages.

Shane hesitates. He closes his mouth. “Sorry,” he says quietly. “I… I don’t have many of these, so…”

He doesn’t finish the phrase. Surely, he waits to see if Ilya understands. Naturally, evidently, Ilya does.

He brings his other hand to Shane’s cheek, and caresses it tenderly with his thumb. His unharmed thumb. His camera hand.

“Take them all,” he instructs. “They’re yours.”

Shane exhales, rushed and loud, like a sob. A wide, besotted smile blooms on his lips.

The scissors clip closed, grazing Ilya’s flesh on the way.

Summer has come.

He has an early flight, and arrives early at his destination. Rents a car. Takes the road. The phone on his hand shows a map, adorned with a large green dot. He watches the dot. Consults the map as he drives, glancing down at intervals. His fingers drum against the steering wheel.

The weather is nice, the road is easy to follow, and he’s reached his destination in no time. The woods are green and lush as they open up to give way to his vehicle, quiet and discreet, which he parks in a secluded area, in the shadows.

No one is there. The house before his eyes, sophisticated as it is, is not immense. It’s not small, either. Every other wall is a wide, tall expanse of perfectly transparent glass, held in place by thin black metal.

The front door is unlocked.

He keeps watching the map as he steps inside. Watching that green dot. It’s moving, but it’s still far away. He figures he has some hours to spare, and finds the main bedroom.

The linens there are white, perfectly neat, perfectly cozy. He rests his suitcase against a wall, lies down, and falls asleep.

His instincts wake him up hours later, without need for sound, sight, or any physical sign. Something tells him to wake up, so he does. He checks his phone.

The green dot has moved. It is now close, very close, to another dot on the map, blue – himself. Even when he zooms in, the dots practically overlap.

He’s here.

His heart hammers in his chest with violence, threatening to crack open his sternum. He swallows, thick and dry, getting to his feet to turn on the lights.

This house is all windows, no curtains. Everything outside is in plain sight. Everything inside is in plain sight.

But, as hard as he looks, he can’t find him. Where is he? He’s here, isn’t he?

Yes. He is. Even though he’s hiding, so well, he really is so good at it, the quiet of the woods still feels off. Heavy with something. Heavy with a presence.

Idle and agitated, he walks around the room. He reaches the large white dresser in the corner, fingers tracing the edge, reaching for a drawer in the top row, second-to-the-left. Inside, a row of transparent casings, filled with color.

He chooses a number of them, and pulls them out, one by one. Takes them back to the bed. Sits down, starts unzipping them, pouring out their contents, like opening gifts on Christmas morning.

One of them contains a pair of shoulder pads.

Another contains a pair of dark grey socks.

Another, a pair of light grey shorts.

Then, a pair of black boxers.

Those, he picks up with reverence, hands shaking, fingers just barely touching the fabric, so not to taint it with the wrong cells, the wrong scent. He should wear gloves, really, in order to manipulate something so precious with the respect it deserves. He should, but he’s no better than an animal. He’s no better than a filthy, drooling animal, governed by hunger and instinct instead of manners and reason.

Which is why he ends up bunching up the fabric in his grip, his attempts at care falling apart, and pushing his face into the garment, to breathe in, inhale the scent, rub those precious traces of him all over his disgusting, unworthy face.

So lost he is in the action, in the trance of having his beloved in the palm of his hand and overwhelming each of his senses, that he doesn’t hear the front door. He doesn’t see any movement outside the impossibly large, impossibly clear windows, and he doesn’t hear the front door. He doesn’t hear the steps. He only hears the thunder of his own blood pulsating in his ears, the crackling fire within his chest, the lava-like heat of his own slobber threatening to drip from the corner of his mouth.

A pair of large, strong hands grab his waist from behind. He screams. He screams, but the scream withers in the back of his throat, loses volume, and comes out as a sharp, desperate moan.

Ilya Rozanov’s voice whispers into his ear, “So that’s where you went after every game.” His scent is intoxicating. The touch of his skin, the faint roughness of his stubble, the marks his fingers dig into his waist, are enough to tear him apart, set him ablaze from inside like a dying star. “In my locker room, stealing my things.”

Rozanov digs his canines on the soft curve of his neck, and he keens. The black fabric is plastered against his nostrils, going into his mouth, cutting off his oxygen supply.

“You left them behind,” the words pour out on their own, delirious.

Ilya chuckles, low and rumbling. “Breadcrumbs,” he says, tracing his collarbones with the tip of his tongue. “I was trying to catch a pretty little bird.”

You’re good at it, Shane wants to tell him. He wants to share those words, his favorite words in the whole world. You’re so good at it, Rozanov. Ilya. My Ilya. You caught me so good.

“How were they, воробушек?” His hands start to wander. One of them travels up to palm at Shane’s pectorals, kneading the muscle, slow and obscene. The other, down, making Shane’s breath hitch and spine arch as it cups his erection, gentle, of all things. “Were they tasty?” The hands move in tandem, massaging Shane’s flesh until every tight muscle is pulled loose, until he’s nothing but a limp, useless bag of flesh and blood for Ilya to play with. “Did they fill your belly?”

The fingers on his chest let go, travel further up, up his neck, around his jaw. Gentle and persuasive, they massage Shane’s jaw open. Then, even slower, they push the thin black fabric inside, against Shane’s hot, soaked tongue.

Shane screams, bucking up like a wounded beast in his hold. The sound, muffled, rings like a plea for his life against the glass walls, and his mindless thrashing pushes more of the boxers into his mouth, and more of Ilya’s hands against his cock. He cries and whimpers and sobs, every bone in his body shaking, every inch of his skin alive with electricity.

Ilya pushes him down, face first, on the mattress, with nothing but his body weight. The solid weight of his muscles suffocates Shane. His cock, still clothed, presses down right between his buttocks, already where it belongs. Such a perfect fit. Such a perfect match.

Shane will cry and lament about the ruined boxers later. He will stare forlornly at its wet and crumpled form, at the drying patches of the wrong saliva, as if it’s the corpse of something precious, and he will be caught in the act, later. Ilya will kiss the bridge of his nose, and tell him he’s sorry, a little half-heartedly, later. Then, he will add that there’s more of that where it came from, and he can get all of it, anytime he wants, and everything will be fine. That’s all for later.

For now, the balled-up boxers get fully shoved into his mouth, gagging him as Ilya fucks him with haste, holding him so close it bruises, so hot it makes him nauseous, dizzy, feverish. Shane’s body leaks with every thrust of Ilya’s gorgeous cock into him, spit and tears and snot and precum pouring out in steady rivulets, making space to welcome his beloved into the place that is his by right.

Later, even later than the reassurance about the ruined boxers, they unpack their bags, and Shane shows Ilya his collection.

“Hair,” he says, unpacking the large jar of spun metal that Ilya had seen at his apartment. “I comb the ice for it after every game. The lockers, too.”

With his permission, Ilya takes hold of it. He admires it, mouth agape with wonder. “How long does it take?”

“I’ve gotten good with the years,” Shane admits, smiling sheepishly. “It used… back when we shot that commercial together, it took me over an hour.”

Ilya makes a long, breathless ‘oh’ sound, as if just presented with the solution to an enigma.

“I take this one with me everywhere I go,” Shane admits, retrieving the jar from Ilya to safely store it atop the white dresser. Then, he goes back to the suitcase, and picks up a small vial, sealed with a cork. “Melted ice, from the rink in Boston…”

“Have you been to my house?”

The question cuts through the air like a knife. Shane, at first, halts still. Then, blood starts flowing upwards, painting his face, chin to forehead, in carmine warmth.

“I, uh.”

Words fail him. His search for something coherent to say comes empty. Instead, he retrieves, from the suitcase, a smaller glass jar, firmly closed with an airtight lid and apparently empty. He holds it against his chest, and says nothing, at first, until Ilya tilts his head to the side, eyes inquisitive.

“Air,” Shane answers the silent question. His flush deepens. “From your house. I wanted some.”

Ilya’s jaw drops once more, and Shane screws his eyes shut. So humiliating. He sounds so stupid.

“You fucked up my lock,” Ilya accuses, but with mirth rather than anything else.

“I—I tried to open it in a way you wouldn’t notice,” the admission tumbles out of his mouth as if extracted. “It didn’t work. I thought I knew what I was doing. I learned about electronics after—after I—studied for a while.”

Ilya nods, again, as if solving a puzzle. Not a hint of disgust. Not a hint of anger. Just his legs tangled with Shane’s own, his limpid eyes taking Shane’s collection in with nothing but admiration.

Shane retrieves a small jewelry box from his bag. His pulse quickens.

“Teeth,” he says quietly.

Ilya’s eyes go wide.

“From who?” He asks, tone the sharpest it’s been the entire day.

“Yours,” Shane clarifies immediately, because the mere notion of them being someone else’s is insulting. “Your milk teeth.”

Ilya’s jaw drops even further. Shane offers the box to him, and he takes it, with care, and peers inside.

A shocked huff escapes his lips. Then, another. Then, he is laughing, mouth open in disbelief, eyes twinkling with delight.

“I followed you,” Shane explains before he asks. “To Russia. I did something awful.” He chews his tongue. If anything will make Ilya tear him into pieces for his insolence, kind as he is, this might be it. “I broke into your family home.”

“Oh, Shane,” Ilya sighs, smiling.

“I’m sorry—during such an awful time for you,” he shakes his head, repentant. Shane had been desperate, yes, a desperate and mindless creature that would hoard every bit of Ilya he could possibly get his hands on, but even that had been too much. What he did to Ilya’s phone when he forgot it at the lockers didn’t weigh on his mind nearly as much as this. “I wanted more of you. So much more. I wanted everything. I couldn’t help myself.”

Ilya leans over to kiss him. He kisses his lips, sweet like honey, then his cheeks, the base of his ears, the tip of his nose, the center of his forehead.

“I’m happy,” Ilya tells him into the kiss, lips brushing against his brows. “I’m happy you went to get me.”

And it’s unfortunate, really, that they have to pause their exploration of Shane’s inventory later, because Shane feels an urgent need to show Ilya the other things he brought from Russia; the dried flowers, old notebooks, the piggy bank. The photo, the one he’d gotten from a velvet-lined box hidden in the back of a tall shelf, a small portrait of a beautiful woman, frail and ethereal, with a familiar smile. The small film camera. He needs to ask Ilya about those things, because he’d like permission to have them, for once. He’s done enough stealing. Now, he wants Ilya to allow him to have him.

But that will have to wait, too. Under Ilya’s ministrations, blessed with Ilya’s attention, all he can do is surrender to his touch, trickle back into his arms to be consumed.

“I’m happier,” he answers, melting into Ilya’s lap, parting a kiss to suck oxygen directly from Ilya’s mouth. To steal even his breath, all for himself. “I’m yours.”