Work Text:
Boston, November 2017
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"I missed you," Ilya said, tightening his hand in Shane's hair. When they'd gotten inside, Shane had shoved him down onto the couch and immediately dropped to his knees, tugging Ilya's sweats down just enough to get Ilya's dick out and into his mouth where it belonged.
Ilya narrowed the sprawl of his legs, holding his boyfriend - this stupid juvenile English word that he was now ravenous for - between his thighs. The leather of the couch creaked as he shifted his weight, rocking his hips gently.
Shane had been quiet, eyes closed, a look of beatific calm on his face as he sucked cock like it was his calling in life. He looked up at Ilya's words, letting his mouth fall open and the tip of Ilya's cock slide slowly down his tongue, then free.
"Is that why you checked me three times tonight?"
He wrapped a hand around Ilya's cock and stroked him slowly, smearing wet open-mouthed kisses to it between his fingers, up and down. Rubbing his cheek against it, softly, his stubble catching just a little on the head and making Ilya hiss. Shane's thumb rubbed circles on his thigh. He had goosebumps.
"Well?" Shane asked, smirking a little. Staring up at Ilya with those big sweet eyes and flicking his tongue out to taste the little bead of precome. Was there a question? It didn't matter. Ilya held his hair and hooked a thumb just inside Shane's bottom teeth, drawing his mouth open, watching. He felt drunk. Maybe high.
"Fuck. You are gorgeous. Perfect," he said, two more fingers in Shane's mouth, petting his tongue. He couldn't blink. He wanted to eat Shane. Climb inside his skin and live there. Be carried around in his pocket. "I love you."
Shane bit his fingers, not enough to bruise but enough to feel it, and shook them free.
"Wanna make you come now."
Ilya nodded, helpless. He stared down at Shane, at the little divot of focus between his eyebrows and the stretch of his lovely wet mouth around Ilya's cock. He had never met anyone so dedicated to the art of it. Like hockey, Shane Hollander fucked both for the love of the game and as though he was playing to be a champion. It was intoxicating, even a little frightening to be at the centre of that kind of focus. Ilya would happily die there.
Then Shane looked up at Ilya, his eyes wet and dark and demanding, and Ilya gave it to him. Came so hard he got a cramp in his calf and couldn't breathe.
"Fuck," he said once he could speak again, slumping over, face pressed to Shane's hair. He forced himself up when Shane tapped his knee, and then nearly went limp again at the sight: Shane with his mouth open, waiting to show him the pool of come on his tongue.
"I will die here. You will kill me," he breathed, and leaned in. Spat in Shane's mouth, as tenderly as one could do such a thing. He put a finger on Shane's chin and tipped his mouth closed, then kissed his lower lip, his jaw, his throat. Felt the movement of him swallow.
"I love you," Shane said, so so softly, and Ilya felt like he was levitating; free from the prison of a body that was too small to hold everything he felt, all the sunlight that was in him now.
Later, after he'd laid Shane out on the bed and kissed every beautiful inch of him and eaten his ass till he was gasping for air and made him come long and loud, clenching down on three of Ilya's fingers like he'd break them, after Ilya had gotten his fill for at least the next hour, he tugged Shane half on top of him and held him close. He felt Shane's eyelashes brush his neck with every blink. That was nearly close enough.
"I missed you, too," Shane said.
"When do you have to go?"
"Early. Nine AM flight to Philly."
Ilya stuck his tongue out and blew a dismissive raspberry. He closed his eyes to focus on the feeling of Shane laughing, shaking a little on top of him.
"I will be back in Montreal in two weeks."
"I know. It's in my calendar. Every time we're in the same place, I already marked it." Shane said this as he managed to get himself closer, so he barely had to move to kiss Ilya's collarbone.
Each of these moments astounded Ilya, one by one: each time Shane opened his hands and showed him another piece of concrete proof that this was real, that he loved Ilya, that he would make space in his life for the two of them. That he would come closer, and closer still.
"So I'll be traveling, and then we have a game. You're off tomorrow, right? What are you doing?"
He had paid attention to Shane's schedule for years, keeping track idly of where the Voyageurs were at any given time. He'd wondered, sometimes, if Shane thought about him that way, then always dismissed the thought. It was nice not to shut down those stupid, romantic little things. Let them be.
"I will see Sveta. She wants to go out, but probably not until after your game."
"Oh, cool."
Shane had tensed, just slightly, his breathing a little shallower. Ilya held the back of his neck, petting the hair at his nape.
"She wants to meet you, you know."
That made Shane tense further. Of course - it was the reminder that someone outside his close inner circle knew. Sveta was trustworthy, but Shane didn't actually know her or love her, not yet.
"You do not have to, solnyshko. There is no rush."
"No, that's not - " Shane started. He stopped, and took a breath. "Um, it's just, maybe it's none of my business but I've been meaning to ask you."
The voice coming out of him now was no longer Ilya's hot, fucked-out boyfriend Shane, but instead awkward Hollander who tried very, very hard to be casual and mostly came across as uncomfortable.
"Do you two, you know. Use condoms?"
Whatever Ilya had thought might possibly be behind Shane's feigned casualness…it was not that.
"What?"
"You and Svetlana. When you - I mean, you don't have to tell me any details, obviously. But do you use condoms, with her?"
This must be a translation issue, Ilya thought wildly. He'd missed something crucial.
"I do not understand." He looked down at Shane, who was shifting, propping himself up on one elbow. His face was pink, which Ilya usually loved.
"You're always careful. I know, I mean I'm sure you always do with, like, one night stands. But she's different, right? I just figured I should ask. For, you know. Health. Because we don't. Um." Shane trailed off, looking stiff and profoundly uncomfortable, which was made even worse by how much Ilya had no idea what the fuck was happening.
"You are asking me about this as though I am going out fucking lots of people."
Shane narrowed his eyes, as though he was the one confused.
"Well…don't you?"
Ilya felt like he had been slapped.
"Hollander, what the fuck are you talking about."
The implications of what Shane was asking buzzed through his mind, disjointed and afraid. He knew this thing they had could not remain as good as it had been, not forever. Something would fall apart. Something he had fucked up without knowing it.
"Wait, are you fucking other people?"
Shane gave him a look as though he was being ridiculous, which was insane.
"No, of course not."
"Of course not," Ilya echoed, flat. What?
Shane had rolled onto his back and wasn't even looking at Ilya anymore, just lying there, tense, staring up at the ceiling.
"The last time I was here," he started, and Ilya bit the inside of his cheek so hard he tasted blood.
This year they'd had Tampa, Montreal, the cottage, Montreal again. The last time they were in Ilya's house, it was almost a year ago, and Shane had run away. That same familiar sensation of something crashing and burning before his eyes sank deep into Ilya, hot and nauseating.
Shane continued. "It was…confusing. You spent, like, the whole time talking about how much you love women and sleeping with women in every city and how great Svetlana is and how you love fucking her."
"Yes, and I was trying to get you to talk to me. See what you liked, what you wanted."
Shane looked at him then, his eyes wide and a little angry. "What? Ilya, how the fuck was I supposed to get that from 'I like going to LA, so many beautiful women there, I will find another one, oh, Hollander do you like girls?'"
Ilya pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. "I don't know! I don't know, okay? Was before all of…this." He gestured between them. "Was harder to talk then."
"No shit."
Ilya dropped his hands and looked at Shane again. "Do you also remember at cottage, when I told you there are so many sexy, fun women in world, but I am always wishing they were you?"
"Well, yeah, but…"
"But? What?"
Shane closed his eyes, looking pained.
"But, okay, now you have me. But there's probably still other things you want. Other people. Women. The cottage was one thing but we're back in the real world now, and…I don't know."
The cottage was one thing, but. Ilya could swear he felt his heart ripping, piece by piece, the ache multiplying as Shane spoke.
"And you thought once we came back to real world, I have you and still want to go hook up with women."
Shane shrugged. His chin moved the way it did when he was worrying at his lip, chewing nervously on the inside of it.
"I guess. Yeah. I didn't want to assume you'd just, like, give all that up."
Ilya stared at him.
"So past few months you just think I am still doing this."
Shane shrugged again, small and uncomfortable, his eyes still closed. It was disastrous.
Slowly, carefully, Ilya moved so he was lying right next to Shane, pressed against him shoulder to knee to ankle, and tucked the bedspread over them both.
"Shane. Solnyshko. Look at me, please."
It took a minute. Shane never really seemed to know how much he showed of how he felt, and it was obvious now, the sadness and wariness shining through under the thinnest layer of bravado.
Ilya put his arm around Shane's waist, pulling him closer.
"Do you know when was last time I fucked someone else?"
"No." Shane's voice was flat.
"January. Before All-Stars. Was while you were still dating Rose Landry."
Something changed in Shane's face: a little surprise, and a little softening.
"I used to sleep with this woman Hayley," Ilya went on. "Very pretty. Dark hair, freckles. She came over, we fucked, she left. It was fine. Not great."
"Oh," Shane said, almost a whisper.
"Is not hardship for me to stop fucking Sveta or Hayley or any of these women. Sveta will always be my friend, and I love her. Other people do not matter. Is not giving up anything to change this. I do not want to have anyone else. Just you. Okay?"
Shane's eyes were glassy and wet, and he was pink again, flushed all the way down his neck.
"Okay."
Ilya kissed him once. Then again. Then kissed the tip of his nose.
He hated to put any discomfort back on Shane's face, but some part of him felt he needed to say it now, or he wouldn't ever. He couldn't risk another misunderstanding. Not like this.
"I have always liked women." There it was, the furrowed brow. Ilya tightened the arm around Shane's waist. "And I have also always liked men. This will not change. Is part of me. But this is not very important. What is important is you. I want you. Not other people, not men, women, anyone. You are my choice."
Shane nodded. He looked a little sad, mostly relieved, and Ilya knew there was always some envy there too when he said these things about women and men, a strange undercurrent he could never fully understand.
"Okay. Um, I'm sorry I misunderstood."
"No, no," Ilya whispered, tucking his arm under Shane's neck to gather him in, cradling him against his body. "Is okay. I am sorry this was something you could think for so long."
"I love you."
Ilya told him in Russian, the way Shane liked to hear. They kissed, not heated anymore, but soft. Comfortable. Something unknotted in Ilya's chest, now that the danger had passed. Shane's breathing got slower, deeper, and they were quiet for a while.
"Does Svetlana actually want to meet me?"
"Oh, yes. She likes you. I think you will be friends."
Shane sighed, moving his foot against Ilya's under the covers. "I think so, too. I hope so."
The night ticked on, closer to when Shane had to leave again. They dozed tucked against one another, and Ilya was thankful, thankful, thankful.