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Jane: What time do you get in?
Lily: Late. After midnight.
Ilya watches the three dots appear and disappear for a few seconds and then stop. He slips his phone into his pocket, leans his head back and closes his eyes against the harsh airport lights. He can’t remember ever being this tired in his life. It’s like the exhaustion has seeped into his bones and just being upright is sapping out the little energy he has left. His flight number is called over the tinny PA system and he sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose and pushes himself out of the chair.
His phone vibrates again as he’s stuffing his bag into the overhead compartment. He drops heavily into his seat and checks his messages.
Jane: Do you have to go straight to the hotel?
Yes, he thinks. I do. I should. We need to stop doing this. None of it changes the fact that Shane is the only person in the world that he wants to see right now. His thumbs hover over the keypad.
Lily: No.
Jane: 1919 is the code for the front door.
A tiny thrill briefly pushes through Ilya’s exhaustion as he stares at the screen.
Lily: Front door? Brave.
Jane: Fuck you.
Jane: …
Jane: Text me when you land.
Ilya closes his eyes and smiles for the first time in days.
He sleeps uneasily on the plane, falling over and over again into murky dreams that he can’t remember, but leave him unsettled when he wakes. It’s snowing when the plane finally lands in Montreal and he moves through the airport in a haze. Over tired, over stressed, over everything. He feels both heavy and hollow, which doesn’t make sense, but he thinks maybe it doesn’t need to. Either way, he’s poor company for himself, let alone anyone else. He should text Shane and say he’s not coming. He should go to the hotel. Maybe they’ll see each other tomorrow or next time. It’s the smart thing to do. He gives the driver Shane’s address anyway.
The door swings open before Ilya can finish punching in the code. Shane waving him inside with a breathless “Hey,” and an aborted reach toward Ilya’s shoulder. “That was fast.”
“Yes.” Ilya nods slowly. “Is late. There is no traffic.” He slides his hat off, stuffing it into his coat pocket as he sets his bag down on the floor.
It’s awkward, standing there in Shane’s entryway, not talking, not touching. Something like doubt, or maybe regret, creeps its way across Shane’s face and Ilya thinks it’s not too late to go. He could call a car right now. Go to the hotel and maybe sleep for a few hours before practice. There’s still time to make the smart decision. But then Shane is crashing into him, one arm tight around his shoulders as the other hand curls into his hair. Ilya’s frozen for a second. Maybe two. Enough time for Shane to go tense in his arms and start to pull away. He forces himself to move before it’s too late, wrapping his arms around Shane’s back and sagging against him.
“M’glad you’re here,” Shane mutters against his neck.
“Yes,” Ilya sighs. “Me, too.”
“Do you want something to eat? Or drink?” Shane asks. “Or, shit, you just got off a plane, do you wanna shower or sleep or… something?”
Ilya huffs softly and presses his lips to Shane’s neck, his jaw. The spot in front of his ear. “Shower first,” he murmurs. “Then I will sleep. But probably the something in between.”
“Okay. Yeah.” Shane’s arms tighten around him briefly. “We can do that.”
The lights in Shane’s bathroom are soft and dim. It’s a feature Ilya’s always liked. He keeps forgetting to look into doing something similar at home. Maybe he’ll ask Shane to remind him. The look on his face would be worth it.
He steps into the shower, tilts his head down beneath the spray and closes his eyes. He expects Shane to join him, but after a few seconds without the door opening, he pushes his hair off his forehead and blinks his eyes open.
“Hollander, what are you doing?”
Shane stops picking Ilya’s clothes up off the floor and turns around. His brow wrinkles and he lifts a shoulder. “I thought maybe you needed…” he lets the sentence die with a shrug.
Ilya rolls his eyes and steps out of the shower. “Has anyone ever told you that you are boring?”
“You’re dripping all over the floor.”
“Then you should hurry up.” Ilya reaches for the hem of Shane’s hoodie and tugs it up and off.
Shane doesn’t need to be told twice. He strips quickly, folding his clothes into a neat pile on the floor and then he’s nudging Ilya backwards until they’re pressed together beneath the water. Ilya’s hands settle loosely at Shane’s hips as he tips their foreheads together. After a few minutes, Shane reaches for the shampoo and squeezes some directly onto Ilya’s head. A soft noise, undeniably like a whimper, escapes him when Shane’s fingers start to massage his scalp.
“Okay?” Shane asks, his voice quiet beneath the sound of the water.
Ilya can only nod. He lets Shane rinse his hair and smooth soapy hands over his body, turning or lifting his limbs when there’s a nudge or a tap. It feels like a week’s worth of tension is bleeding out of him, eased along by the gentle pressure of Shane’s fingers. He isn’t used to letting someone take care of him this way. To someone wanting to. Before moving from one area to the next, Shane presses his lips to Ilya’s skin. Barely there kisses to his temple, his neck, the ball of his left shoulder. An open mouth to his sternum, his right hip, the outside of his thigh. He’s hard by the time Shane wraps a fist around the base of his cock. Ilya gasps at the touch, his eyes blinking open to catch Shane gazing back at him.
“Still okay?” He asks.
Ilya nods again and turns them until he’s crowded Shane up against the wall. They kiss for what feels like hours. Until they’re gasping into each other’s mouths as Shane strokes them both in a warm, wet fist. Until Ilya’s got Shane’s thigh draped over his hip and two fingers in his ass. Until every slide of Shane’s hand on his dick makes Ilya tremble.
Ilya crooks his fingers and moans when Shane rolls hard against him.
“Fuck, I’m gonna come,” Shane whispers. “Fuck, Ilya, I’m—”
Is there a sight he enjoys more than watching Shane Hollander come? If there is, Ilya can’t imagine what it could be. Something to think about maybe, but probably some other time, because as soon as Shane’s head tips back, Ilya’s orgasm hits him like a freight train. He buries his face in Shane’s shoulder, pumping into his fist until he’s spent.
“Hey.”
He’s vaguely aware of Shane’s voice in his ear, of hands trailing up and down his back. The water turns off and he feels heavy again. Exhaustion creeping back into his veins so strongly that his knees might fold beneath him if he tries to move. He lets Shane guide him out of the shower and towel them both off.
There’s a fleeting thought that he shouldn’t stay here. That he needs to get to the hotel and show his face before the game. But then he’s climbing into Shane’s bed and he can’t think of anything worth leaving for. Shane is watching him with soft eyes and a creased brow. He wants to lie and say that he’s fine. That he just needs to sleep for an hour and then he’ll go, but English feels like cotton in his mouth and whatever words he’s reaching for keep slipping away. Shane is leaning in and pressing warm lips to his forehead, whispering quietly against his skin, but he’s too tired to understand. He hears stay. He hears sleep. So he does.
This time, Ilya dreams of home. Of his father’s icy blue eyes, vacant and dim with the fog of illness. Unknowing, unseeing, and still disappointed. Always disappointed. He dreams of opening doors to the lingering scent of his mother’s perfume, something sick and foreboding underneath. He dreams of chasing ghosts in a cold and empty house.
He wakes to a dim grey light and the warmth of Shane’s body curled toward his. Between them, beneath the pillow, Shane’s hand is wrapped loosely around his wrist and he wishes he could remember falling asleep this way. In sleep, Shane’s face is soft and peaceful. Ilya wonders who else has seen him like this, then pushes the thought away. It doesn’t really matter; he’s the one seeing it now.
He reaches out and traces his thumb over the freckles that have haunted him since the day they met. “Ya tebya lyublyu,” he whispers. Because he can. Because it feels like relief to say it outloud, to Shane’s face. Even if he’s asleep and couldn’t understand it either way. Beneath the pillow, Shane’s hand twitches. The familiar crease forms between his brows and his eyes blink open. His fingers tighten around Ilya’s wrist and he smiles and Ilya loves hims, loves him, loves him.
“Did you say something?”
Ilya shakes his head and swallows thickly, pushing the words back down his throat. “I should go,” he says. It’s the last thing he wants to do, but if he stays, he might say something he can’t take back. Maybe things are different now, but he’s still raw and the thought of Shane running away from him again is too much to bear.
“You don’t have to.” Shane’s thumb pushes into his palm and Ilya closes his fingers around it. “I mean… practice isn’t for another few hours. It’s still really early. At least I think it is. It can’t be later than—” He props himself up on his elbow and squints at the clock on the bedside table behind Ilya’s shoulder.
Ilya smiles at the nervous rambling he’s grown so fond of. He rolls onto his back and tugs Shane down against his chest. “At some point, I will need to go to hotel, but…”
Shane’s fingers trail slowly over his chest, his ribs. Down to his hip and back up again. Ilya closes his eyes, the soft touch lulling him back toward sleep.
“But what?” Shane murmurs.
“Marleau thinks I see a girl in Montreal,” Ilya admits. “He will think I went to see her first, so everyone else will think it, too.”
Shane snorts quietly.
“What is funny?”
“Nothing just…” Shane lifts his head from Ilya’s chest, smiles and rolls his eyes. “Hayden thinks I see a girl in Boston. Lily.”
Ilya huffs and pulls him back down. “What time will you leave for practice?”
“I usually get there pretty early.”
“Of course you do.”
“Fuck off.” Shane mutters with a pinch to Ilya’s side. “Today I’ll probably head out around 9?” He lifts his head again. “You don’t have to, though. If… if you want to sleep a bit longer or something.”
Ilya shakes his head. “I will leave when you do.”
Shane looks at him for a few seconds and Ilya’s learned to let him work up to the thing he wants to say. He watches and waits, lets his hand wander up to curl around the back of Shane’s neck. Pushes his fingers into the short hair at his nape.
“You could come back,” Shane finally says. “After the game.”
Ilya tries to fight back his smile, but he can’t help it. He rolls them over, pinning Shane’s wrists to the mattress and settling between his thighs. “You think you will be in the mood to see me after?”
Shane grins up at him, eyes bright with laughter. “Sometimes I like to celebrate after a big win.”
Whatever comeback was forming in Ilya’s head is lost in the roll of Shane’s body against his. He’s pushing back before his brain can catch up, his cock dragging in the cradle of Shane’s hip. A delicious friction that makes him groan and do it again and again. Shane’s fist curls into his hair, tugging him down so they’re panting into each other’s mouths.
“Fuck me,” Shane breathes into him. “Please, I need you to fuck me.”
Ilya can’t do more than nod. He leans over to fumble his hand into Shane’s nightstand drawer. Grabs the lube and condoms and slaps them down on the mattress. Shane’s hips haven’t stopped rolling against him, his cock leaving a wet smear across Ilya’s stomach.
They fuck slow and then frantic. Shane’s hands are hot, desperate on Ilya’s skin. It’s both too much and not enough all at once, and when it’s over, Ilya still has something thrumming beneath his skin. He presses his face to the sweaty curve of Shane’s neck. His throat is tight and his eyes are burning. It feels like he’s coming apart at the seams. He fleetingly wonders if he’s dying and thinks, somewhat hysterically, that being balls deep in Shane Hollander wouldn’t be a bad way to go. He starts to laugh and abruptly realizes that he’s about to cry. The bubble in his chest is expanding, rising even as he tries to force it back down. A sob rips its way out of his throat and he’s mortified. He scrambles to push himself up and away from Shane, but he’s clumsy and tired and broken and can’t make his limbs do what he needs them to.
If Shane is alarmed, he doesn’t show it. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask what’s wrong. His hands are gentle. Stroking Ilya’s back and carding through his hair until his breathing finally evens out.
It occurs to him that he’s cried more in the past month with Shane than he has in all the years since losing his mother. He touches his lips to Shane’s tear-soaked shoulder and whispers a muffled and wet “Sorry.”
“No, no. It’s—” Shane’s mouth is hot against Ilya’s cheek. “Do you feel better?”
He likes that this is Shane’s question. He liked it on the phone in Moscow, too. Not ‘Are you okay?’ (Probably not.) or ‘Do you want to talk about it.’ (Definitely not.) This is easier to answer. Ilya closes his eyes and takes stock of himself. Does he feel better? He’s still tired and wrung out, but less so than before. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “Ask me again later.”
They shower quickly and separately. Ilya’s lacing up his sneakers by the door when Shane emerges in sweatpants and a hoodie. He grabs Ilya’s coat from the back of a chair and folds it over his arm as he approaches. It makes Ilya think of the first time he left this apartment. Of how many years they’ve been doing this.
“So... I guess I’ll see you later?” Shane hesitates before adding, “After the game, I mean.”
Ilya cups his cheek. It’s on the tip of his tongue again. I love you. I am in love with you. I think we should… try. Try? And what if the answer is no? Would they stop? Or keep going as they are. He doesn’t actually know which would be worse. Either way, he’s left with a gaping wound, gnawing away at him until there’s nothing left. Still, he can’t help himself.
“Ya tebya lyublyu,” he murmurs, feeling that tiny, heartbreaking elation in his chest.
“What’s that mean?”
Ilya shakes his head as he drags his thumb back and forth over Shane’s freckles. “I will see you later.”
He watches Shane silently move the words around in his mouth and realizes his mistake. For one wild second, he wants to let it happen. Even if it’s not real. Even if Shane has no idea what he’s saying. But as the first syllable tumbles from his mouth, Ilya reaches out and pulls him into a kiss.
“Pronunciation was already that bad? Huh?” Shane mutters against his lips.
“Yes, terrible.” Ilya kisses him again and pulls away. He takes his coat from Shane’s arms and swings his bag onto his shoulder just as his phone starts to buzz. “My ride is here.”
Shane nods and reaches out to pluck Ilya’s hat from his coat pocket. “Your hair is wet,” he says, pulling the hat down over Ilya’s head. He tugs gently at the curls peeking out from the brim.
Ilya ducks to kiss him once more. “I won’t catch cold, I promise.”
“You can’t catch a cold from cold weather,” Shane murmurs against his mouth. “That’s actually a common misconception, it’s really—”
“Hollander,” Ilya huffs quietly. “Shut up.”
“Okay.” Shane grins and kisses him again.
It’s bitterly cold outside, but the snow has stopped. Ilya’s phone starts buzzing as he slides into the back seat of the waiting car.
Jane: Do you feel better?
Ilya smiles, fingers hovering over the screen for a few seconds before replying: Yes.